Chapter XXII: Part 22

Why HOBBES disguised his sentiments--why his philosophy degraded
him--of the sect of the HOBBISTS--his LEVIATHAN; its principles
adapted to existing circumstances--the author's difficulties on
its first appearance--the system originated in his fears, and was
a contrivance to secure the peace of the nation--its duplicity and
studied ambiguity illustrated by many facts--the advocate of the
national religion--accused of atheism--HOBBE'S religion--his
temper too often tried--attacked by opposite parties--Bishop
FELL'S ungenerous conduct--makes HOBBES regret that juries do not
consider the quarrels of authors of any moment--the mysterious
panic which accompanied him through life--its probable cause--he
pretends to recant his opinions--he is speculatively bold, and
practically timorous--an extravagant specimen of the anti-social
philosophy--the SELFISM of HOBBES--his high sense of his works, in
regard to foreigners and posterity--his monstrous egotism--his
devotion to his literary pursuits--the despotic principle of the
LEVIATHAN of an innocent tendency--the fate of systems of
opinions.

The history of the philosopher of Malmesbury exhibits a large picture of literary controversy, where we may observe how a persecuting spirit in the times drives the greatest men to take refuge in the meanest arts of subterfuge. Compelled to disguise their sentiments, they will not, however, suppress them; and hence all their ambiguous proceedings, all that ridicule and irony, and even recantation, with which ingenious minds, when forced to their employ, have never failed to try the patience, or the sagacity, of intolerance.[348]

The character of Hobbes will, however, serve a higher moral design. The force of his intellect, the originality of his views, and the keenest sagacity of observation, place him in the first order of minds; but he has mortified, and then degraded man into a mere selfish animal. From a cause we shall discover, he never looked on human nature but in terror or in contempt. The inevitable consequence of that mode of thinking, or that system of philosophy, is to make the philosopher the abject creature he has himself imagined; and it is then he libels the species from his own individual experience.[349] More generous tempers, men endowed with warmer imaginations, awake to sympathies of a higher nature, will indignantly reject the system, which has reduced the unlucky system-maker himself to such a pitiable condition.

Hobbes was one of those original thinkers who create a new era in the philosophical history of their nation, and perpetuate their name by leaving it to a sect.[350]

The eloquent and thinking Madame de Stael has asserted that "Hobbes was an _Atheist_ and a _Slave_." Yet I still think that Hobbes believed, and proved, the necessary existence of a Deity, and that he loved freedom, as every sage desires it. It is now time to offer an apology for one of those great men who are the contemporaries of all ages, and, by fervent inquiry, to dissipate that traditional cloud which hangs over one of "those monuments of the mind" which Genius has built with imperishable materials.

The author of the far-famed "Leviathan" is considered as a vehement advocate for absolute monarchy. This singular production may, however, be equally adapted for a republic; and the monstrous principle may be so innocent in its nature, as even to enter into our own constitution, which presumes to be neither.[351]

As "The Leviathan" produced the numerous controversies of Hobbes, a history of this great moral curiosity enters into our subject.

Hobbes, living in times of anarchy, perceived the necessity of re-establishing authority with more than its usual force. But how were the divided opinions of men to melt together, and where in the State was to be placed _absolute power_? for a remedy of less force he could not discover for that disordered state of society which he witnessed. Was the sovereign or the people to be invested with that mighty power which was to keep every other quiescent?--a topic which had been discussed for ages, and still must be, as the humours of men incline--was, I believe, a matter perfectly indifferent to our philosopher, provided that whatever might be the government, absolute power could somewhere be lodged in it, to force men to act in strict conformity. He discovers his perplexity in the dedication of his work. "In a way beset with those that contend on one side for too great liberty, on the other side for too much authority, 'tis hard to pass between the points of both unwounded." It happened that our cynical Hobbes had no respect for his species; terrified at anarchy, he seems to have lost all fear when he flew to absolute power--a sovereign remedy unworthy of a great spirit, though convenient for a timid one like his own. Hobbes considered men merely as animals of prey, living in a state of perpetual hostility, and his solitary principle of action was self-preservation at any price.

He conjured up a political phantom, a favourite and fanciful notion, that haunted him through life. He imagined that the _many_ might be more easily managed by making them up into an artificial _One_, and calling this wonderful political unity the _Commonwealth_, or the _Civil Power_, or the _Sovereign_, or by whatever name was found most pleasing; he personified it by the image of "Leviathan."[352]

At first sight the ideal monster might pass for an innocent conceit; and there appears even consummate wisdom in erecting a colossal power for our common security; but Hobbes assumed that _Authority_ was to be supported to its extreme pitch. _Force_ with him appeared to constitute _right_, and _unconditional submission_ then became a _duty_: these were consequences quite natural to one who at his first step degraded man by comparing him to a watch, and who would not have him go but with the same nicety of motion, wound up by a great key.

To be secure, by the system of Hobbes, we must at least lose the glory of our existence as intellectual beings. He would persuade us into the dead quietness of a commonwealth of puppets, while he was consigning into the grasp of his "Leviathan," or sovereign power, the wire that was to communicate a mockery of vital motion--a principle of action without freedom. The system was equally desirable to the Protector Cromwell as to the regal Charles. A conspiracy against mankind could not alarm their governors: it is not therefore surprising that the usurper offered Hobbes the office of Secretary of State; and that he was afterwards pensioned by the monarch.

A philosophical system, moral or political, is often nothing more than a temporary expedient to turn aside the madness of the times by substituting what offers an appearance of relief; nor is it a little influenced by the immediate convenience of the philosopher himself; his personal character enters a good deal into the system. The object of Hobbes in his "Leviathan" was always ambiguous, because it was, in truth, one of these systems of expediency, conveniently adapted to what has been termed of late "existing circumstances." His sole aim was to keep all things in peace, by creating one mightiest power in the State, to suppress instantly all other powers that might rise in insurrection. In his times, the establishment of despotism was the only political restraint he could discover of sufficient force to chain man down, amid the turbulence of society; but this concealed end he is perpetually shifting and disguising; for the truth is, no man loved slavery less.[353]

The system of Hobbes could not be limited to politics: he knew that the safety of the people's morals required an _Established Religion_. The alliance between Church and State had been so violently shaken, that it was necessary to cement them once more. As our philosopher had been terrified in his politics by the view of its contending factions, so, in religion, he experienced the same terror at the hereditary rancours of its multiplied sects. He could devise no other means than to attack the mysteries and dogmas of theologians, those after-inventions and corruptions of Christianity, by which the artifices of their chiefs had so long split them into perpetual factions:[354] he therefore asserted that the religion of the people ought to exist, in strict conformity to the will of the State.[355]

When Hobbes wrote against mysteries, the mere polemics sent forth a cry of his impiety; the philosopher was branded with Atheism;--one of those artful calumnies, of which, after a man has washed himself clean, the stain will be found to have dyed the skin.[356]

To me it appears that Hobbes, to put an end to these religious wars, which his age and country had witnessed, perpetually kindled by crazy fanatics and intolerant dogmatists, insisted that the _crosier_ should be carried in the _left_ hand of his Leviathan, and the _sword_ in his right.[357] He testified, as strongly as man could, by his public actions, that he was a Christian of the Church of England, "as by law established," and no enemy to the episcopal order; but he dreaded the encroachments of the Churchmen in his political system; jealous of that _supremacy_ at which some of them aimed. Many enlightened bishops sided with the philosopher.[358] At a time when Milton sullenly withdrew from every public testimonial of divine worship, Hobbes, with more enlightened views, _attended Church service_, and strenuously supported _an established religion_; yet one is deemed a religious man, and the other an Atheist! Were the actions of men to be decisive of their characters, the reverse might be inferred.

The temper of our philosopher, so ill-adapted to contradiction, was too often tried; and if, as his adversary, Harrington, in the "Oceana," says, "Truth be a spark whereunto objections are like bellows," the mind of Hobbes, for half a century, was a very forge, where the hammer was always beating, and the flame was never allowed to be extinguished. Charles II. strikingly described his worrying assailants. "Hobbes," said the king, "was a bear against whom the Church played their young dogs, in order to exercise them."[359] A strange repartee has preserved the causticity of his wit. Dr. Eachard, perhaps one of the prototypes of Swift, wrote two admirable ludicrous dialogues, in ridicule of Hobbes's "State of Nature."[360] These were much extolled, and kept up the laugh against the philosophic misanthropist: once when he was told that the clergy said that "Eachard had crucified Hobbes," he bitterly retorted, "Why, then, don't they fall down and _worship_ me?"[361]

"The Leviathan" was ridiculed by the wits, declaimed against by the republicans, denounced by the monarchists, and menaced by the clergy. The commonwealth man, the dreamer of equality, Harrington, raged at the subtile advocate for despotic power; but the glittering bubble of his fanciful "Oceana" only broke on the mighty sides of the Leviathan, wasting its rainbow tints: the mitred Bramhall, at "The Catching of Leviathan, or the Great Whale," flung his harpoon, demonstrating consequences from the principles of Hobbes, which he as eagerly denied. But our ambiguous philosopher had the hard fate to be attacked even by those who were labouring to the same end.[362] The literary wars of Hobbes were fierce and long; heroes he encountered, but heroes too were fighting by his side. Our chief himself wore a kind of magical armour; for, either he denied the consequences his adversaries deduced from his principles, or he surprised by new conclusions, which many could not discover in them; but by such means he had not only the art of infusing confidence among the _Hobbists_, but the greater one of dividing his adversaries, who often retreated, rather fatigued than victorious. Hobbes owed this partly to the happiness of a genius which excelled in controversy, but more, perhaps, to the advantage of the ground he occupied as a metaphysician: the usual darkness of that spot is favourable to those shiftings and turnings which the equivocal possessor may practise with an unwary assailant. Far different was the fate of Hobbes in the open daylight of mathematics: there his hardy genius lost him, and his sophistry could spin no web; as we shall see in the memorable war of twenty years waged between Hobbes and Dr. Wallis. But the gall of controversy was sometimes tasted, and the flames of persecution flashed at times in the closet of our philosopher. The ungenerous attack of Bishop Fell, who, in the Latin translation of Wood's "History of the University of Oxford," had converted eulogium into the most virulent abuse,[363] without the participation of Wood, who resented it with his honest warmth, was only an arrow snatched from a quiver which was every day emptying itself on the devoted head of our ambiguous philosopher. Fell only vindicated himself by a fresh invective on "the most vain and waspish animal of Malmesbury," and Hobbes was too frightened to reply. This was the Fell whom it was so difficult to assign a reason for not liking:

I don't like thee, Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell,
But I don't like thee, Dr. Fell!

A curious incident in the history of the mind of this philosopher, was the mysterious panic which accompanied him to his latest day. It has not been denied that Hobbes was subject to occasional terrors: he dreaded to be left without company; and a particular instance is told, that on the Earl of Devonshire's removal from Chatsworth, the philosopher, then in a dying state, insisted on being carried away, though on a feather-bed. Various motives have been suggested to account for this extraordinary terror. Some declared he was afraid of spirits; but he was too stout a materialist![364]--another, that he dreaded assassination; an ideal poniard indeed might scare even a materialist. But Bishop Atterbury, in a sermon on _the Terrors of Conscience_, illustrates their nature by the character of our philosopher. Hobbes is there accused of attempting to destroy the principles of religion against his own inward conviction: this would only prove the insanity of Hobbes! The Bishop shows that "the disorders of _conscience_ are not a _continued_, but an _intermitting_ disease;" so that the patient may appear at intervals in seeming health and real ease, till the fits return: all this he applies to the case of our philosopher. In reasoning on human affairs, the shortest way will be to discover human motives. The spirit, or the assassin of Hobbes, arose from the bill brought into Parliament, when the nation was panic-struck on the fire of London, against Atheism and Profaneness; he had a notion that a writ _de heretico comburendo_ was intended for him by Bishop Seth Ward, his _quondam_ admirer.[365] His spirits would sink at those moments; for in the philosophy of Hobbes, the whole universe was concentrated in the small space of SELF. There was no length he refused to go for what he calls "the natural right of preservation, which we all receive from the uncontrollable dictates of NECESSITY." He exhausts his imagination in the forcible descriptions of his extinction: "the terrible enemy of nature, Death," is always before him. The "inward horror" he felt of his extinction, Lord Clarendon thus alludes to: "If Mr. Hobbes and some other man were both condemned to death (which is the most formidable thing Mr. Hobbes can conceive)"--and Dr. Eachard rallies him on the infinite anxiety he bestowed on his _body_, and thinks that "he had better compound to be kicked and beaten twice a day, than to be so dismally tortured about an old rotten carcase." Death was perhaps the only subject about which Hobbes would not dispute.

Such a materialist was then liable to terrors; and though, when his works were burnt, the author had not a hair singed, the convulsion of the panic often produced, as Bishop Atterbury expresses it, "an intermitting disease."

Persecution terrified Hobbes, and magnanimity and courage were no virtues in his philosophy. He went about hinting that he was not obstinate (that is, before the Bench of Bishops); that his opinions were mere conjectures, proposed as exercises for the powers of reasoning. He attempted (without meaning to be ludicrous) to make his _opinions_ a distinct object from his _person_; and, for the good order of the latter, he appealed to the family chaplain for his attendance at divine service, from whence, however, he always departed at the sermon, insisting that the chaplain could not teach him anything. It was in one of these panics that he produced his "Historical Narrative of Heresy, and the Punishment thereof," where, losing the dignity of the philosophic character, he creeps into a subterfuge with the subtilty of the lawyer; insisting that "The Leviathan," being published at a time when there was no distinction of creeds in England (the Court of High Commission having been abolished in the troubles), that therefore none could be heretical.[366]

No man was more speculatively bold, and more practically timorous;[367] and two very contrary principles enabled him, through an extraordinary length of life, to deliver his opinions and still to save himself: these were his excessive vanity and his excessive timidity. The one inspired his hardy originality, and the other prompted him to protect himself by any means. His love of glory roused his vigorous intellect, while his fears shrunk him into his little self. Hobbes, engaged in the cause of truth, betrayed her dignity by his ambiguous and abject conduct: this was a consequence of his selfish philosophy; and this conduct has yielded no dubious triumph to the noble school which opposed his cynical principles.

A genius more luminous, sagacity more profound, and morals less tainted, were never more eminently combined than in this very man, who was so often reduced to the most abject state. But the anti-social philosophy of Hobbes terminated in preserving a pitiful state of existence. He who considered nothing more valuable than life, degraded himself by the meanest artifices of self-love,[368] and exulted in the most cynical truths.[369] The philosophy of Hobbes, founded on fear and suspicion, and which, in human nature, could see nothing beyond himself, might make him a wary politician, but always an imperfect social being. We find, therefore, that the philosopher of Malmesbury adroitly retained a friend at court, to protect him at an extremity; but considering all men alike, as bargaining for themselves, his friends occasioned him as much uneasiness as his enemies. He lived in dread that the Earl of Devonshire, whose roof had ever been his protection, should at length give him up to the Parliament! There are no friendships among cynics!

To such a state of degradation had the selfish philosophy reduced one of the greatest geniuses; a philosophy true only for the wretched and the criminal.[370] But those who feel moving within themselves the benevolent principle, and who delight in acts of social sympathy, are conscious of passions and motives, which the others have omitted in their system. And the truth is, these "unnatural philosophers," as Lord Shaftesbury expressively terms them, are by no means the monsters they tell us they are: their practice is therefore usually in opposition to their principles. While Hobbes was for chaining down mankind as so many beasts of prey, he surely betrayed his social passion, in the benevolent warnings he was perpetually giving them; and while he affected to hold his brothers in contempt, he was sacrificing laborious days, and his peace of mind, to acquire celebrity. Who loved glory more than this sublime cynic?--"_Glory_," says our philosopher, "by those whom it displeaseth, is called _Pride_; by those whom it pleaseth, it is termed _a just valuation of himself_."[371] Had Hobbes defined, as critically, the passion of _self-love_, without resolving all our sympathies into a single monstrous one, we might have been disciplined without being degraded.

Hobbes, indeed, had a full feeling of the magnitude of his labours, both for foreigners and posterity, as he has expressed it in his life. He disperses, in all his works, some Montaigne-like notices of himself, and they are eulogistic. He has not omitted any one of his virtues, nor even an apology for his deficiency in others. He notices with complacency how Charles II. had his portrait placed in the royal cabinet; how it was frequently asked for by his friends, in England and in France.[372] He has written his life several times, in verse and in prose; and never fails to throw into the eyes of his adversaries the reputation he gained abroad and at home.[373] He delighted to show he was living, by annual publications; and exultingly exclaims, "That when he had silenced his adversaries, he published, in the eighty-seventh year of his life, the Odyssey of Homer, and the next year the Iliad, in English verse."

His greatest imperfection was a monstrous egotism--the fate of those who concentrate all their observations in their own individual feelings. There are minds which may think too much, by conversing too little with books and men. Hobbes exulted he had read little; he had not more than half-a-dozen books about him; hence he always saw things in his own way, and doubtless this was the cause of his mania for disputation.

He wrote against dogmas with a spirit perfectly dogmatic. He liked conversation on the terms of his own political system, provided absolute authority was established, peevishly referring to his own works whenever contradicted; and his friends stipulated with strangers, that "they should not dispute with the old man." But what are we to think of that pertinacity of opinion which he held even with one as great as himself? Selden has often quitted the room, or Hobbes been driven from it, in the fierceness of their battle.[374] Even to his latest day, the "war of words" delighted the man of confined reading. The literary duels between Hobbes and another hero celebrated in logomachy, the Catholic priest, Thomas White, have been recorded by Wood. They had both passed their eightieth year, and were fond of paying visits to one another: but the two literary Nestors never met to part in cool blood, "wrangling, squabbling, and scolding on philosophical matters," as our blunt and lively historian has described.[375]

His little qualities were the errors of his own selfish philosophy; his great ones were those of nature. He was a votary to his studies:[376] he avoided marriage, to which he was inclined; and refused place and wealth, which he might have enjoyed, for literary leisure. He treated with philosophic pleasantry his real contempt of money.[377] His health and his studies were the sole objects of his thoughts; and notwithstanding that panic which so often disturbed them, he wrote and published beyond his ninetieth year. He closes the metrical history of his life with more dignity than he did his life itself; for his mind seems always to have been greater than his actions. He appeals to his friends for the congruity of his life with his writings; for his devotion to justice; and for a generous work, which no miser could have planned; and closes thus:--

And now complete my four-and-eighty years,
Life's lengthen'd plot is o'er, and the last scene appears.[378]

Of the works of Hobbes we must not conclude, as Hume tells us, that "they have fallen into neglect;" nor, in the style with which they were condemned at Oxford, that "they are pernicious and damnable." The sanguine opinion of the author himself was, that the mighty "Leviathan" will stand for all ages, defended by its own strength; for the rule of justice, the reproof of the ambitious, the citadel of the Sovereign, and the peace of the people.[379] But the smaller treatises of Hobbes are not less precious. Locke is the pupil of Hobbes, and it may often be doubtful whether the scholar has rivalled the nervous simplicity and the energetic originality of his master.

The genius of Hobbes was of the first order; his works abound with the most impressive truths, in all the simplicity of thought and language, yet he never elevates nor delights. Too faithful an observer of the miserable human nature before him, he submits to expedients; he acts on the defensive; and because he is in terror, he would consider security to be the happiness of man. In _Religion_ he would stand by an established one; yet thus he deprives man of that moral freedom which God himself has surely allowed us. Locke has the glory of having first given distinct notions of the nature of toleration. In _Politics_ his great principle is the establishment of _Authority_, or, as he terms it, an "entireness of sovereign power:" here he seems to have built his arguments with such eternal truths and with such a contriving wisdom as to adapt his system to all the changes of government. Hobbes found it necessary in his day to place this despotism in the hands of his colossal monarch; and were Hobbes now living, he would not relinquish the principle, though perhaps he might vary the application; for if Authority, strong as man can create it, is not suffered to exist in our free constitution, what will become of our freedom? Hobbes would now maintain his system by depositing his "entireness of sovereign power" in the Laws of his Country. So easily shifted is the vast political machine of the much abused "Leviathan!" The _Citizen_ of Hobbes, like the _Prince_ of Machiavel, is alike innocent, when the end of their authors is once detected, amid those ambiguous means by which the hard necessity of their times constrained their mighty genius to disguise itself.

It is, however, remarkable of _Systems of Opinions_, that the founder's celebrity has usually outlived his sect's. Why are systems, when once brought into practice, so often discovered to be fallacies? It seems to me the natural progress of system-making. A genius of this order of invention long busied with profound observations and perpetual truths, would appropriate to himself this assemblage of his ideas, by stamping his individual mark on them; for this purpose he strikes out some mighty paradox, which gives an apparent connexion to them all: and to this paradox he forces all parts into subserviency. It is a minion of the fancy, which his secret pride supports, not always by the most scrupulous means. Hence the system itself, with all its novelty and singularity, turns out to be nothing more than an ingenious deception carried on for the glory of the inventor; and when his followers perceive they were the dupes of his ingenuity, they are apt, in quitting the system, to give up all; not aware that the parts are as true as the whole together is false; the sagacity of Genius collected the one, but its vanity formed the other!

FOOTNOTES:

[348] Shaftesbury has thrown out, on this head, some important
truths:--"If men are forbid to speak their minds _seriously_,
they will do it _ironically_. If they find it dangerous to
do so, they will then redouble their disguise, _invoke
themselves into mysteriousness_, and talk so as hardly to be
understood. The _persecuting_ spirit has raised the
_bantering_ one. The higher the slavery, the more exquisite
the buffoonery."--Vol. i. p. 71. The subject of our present
inquiry is a very remarkable instance of "involving himself
into mysteriousness." To this cause we owe the strong raillery
of Marvell; the cloudy "Oracles of Reason" of Blount; and
the formidable, though gross burlesque, of Hickeringill, the
rector of All-Saints, in Colchester. "Of him (says the
editor of his collected works, 1716), the greatest writers of
our times trembled at his pen; and as great a genius as
Sir Roger L'Estrange's was, it submitted to his _superior
way of reasoning_"--that is, to a most extraordinary
burlesque spirit in politics and religion. But even he who
made others tremble felt the terrors he inflicted; for he
complains that "some who have thought his pen too sharp and
smart, those who have been galled, sore men where the skin's
off, have long lain to catch for somewhat to accuse me--upon
such touchy subjects, a man had need have the _dexterity to
split a hair_, to handle them pertinently, usefully, and
yet _safely_ and _warily_."--Such men, however, cannot
avoid their fate: they will be persecuted, however they
succeed in "splitting a hair;" and it is then they have
recourse to the most absurd _subterfuges_, to which our
Hobbes was compelled. Thus also it happened to Woolston, who
wrote in a ludicrous way "Blasphemies" against the miracles of
Christ; calling them "tales and rodomontados." He rested his
defence on this subterfuge, that "it was meant to place the
Christian religion on a better footing," &c. But the Court
answered, that "if the author of a treasonable libel should
write at the conclusion, _God save the king!_ it would not
excuse him."

[349] The moral axiom of Solon "KNOW THYSELF" (_Nosce teipsum_),
applied by the ancient sage as a corrective for our own pride
and vanity, Hobbes contracts into a narrow principle, when, in
his introduction to "The Leviathan," he would infer that, by
this self-inspection, we are enabled to determine on the
thoughts and passions of other men; and thus he would make the
taste, the feelings, the experience of the individual decide
for all mankind. This simple error has produced all the dogmas
of cynicism; for the cynic is one whose insulated feelings,
being all of the selfish kind, can imagine no other stirrer of
even our best affections, and strains even our loftiest
virtues into pitiful motives. Two noble authors, men of the
most dignified feelings, have protested against this
principle. Lord Shaftesbury keenly touches the characters of
Hobbes and Rochester:--"Sudden courage, says our modern
philosopher (Hobbes), is anger. If so, courage, considered as
constant, and belonging to a character, must, in his account,
be defined constant anger, or anger constantly recurring. All
men, says a witty poet (Rochester), would be cowards, if they
durst: that the poet and the philosopher both were cowards,
may be yielded, perhaps, without dispute! they may have spoken
the best of their knowledge."--SHAFTESBURY, vol. i. p. 119.

With an heroic spirit, that virtuous statesman, Lord
Clarendon, rejects the degrading notion of Hobbes. When _he_
looked into his own breast, he found that courage was a real
virtue, which had induced him, had it been necessary, to have
shed his blood as a patriot. But death, in the judgment of
Hobbes, was the most terrible event, and to be avoided by any
means. Lord Clarendon draws a parallel between a "man of
courage" and one of the disciples of Hobbes, "brought to die
together, by a judgment they cannot avoid." "How comes it to
pass, that one of these undergoes death, with no other
concernment than as if he were going any other journey; and
the other with such confusion and trembling, that he is even
without life before he dies; if it were true that all men fear
alike upon the like occasion?"--_Survey of the Leviathan_, p.
14.

[350] They were distinguished as _Hobbists_, and the opinions as
_Hobbianism_. Their chief happened to be born on a Good
Friday; and in the metrical history of his own life he seems
to have considered it as a remarkable event. An atom had its
weight in the scales by which his mighty egotism weighed
itself. He thus marks the day of his birth, innocently
enough:--

"Natus erat noster Servator Homo-Deus annos
Mille et quingentos, octo quoque undecies."

But the _Hobbists_ declared more openly (as Wood tells us),
that "as our Saviour Christ went out of the world on that day
to save the men of the world, so another saviour came into the
world on that day to save them!"

That the sect spread abroad, as well as at home, is told us
by Lord Clarendon, in the preface to his "Survey of the
Leviathan." The qualities of the author, as well as the
book, were well adapted for proselytism; for Clarendon,
who was intimately acquainted with him, notices his
confidence in conversation--his never allowing himself to
be contradicted--his bold inferences--the novelty of his
expressions--and his probity, and a life free from scandal.
"The humour and inclination of the time to all kind of
paradoxes," was indulged by a pleasant clear style, an
appearance of order and method, hardy paradoxes, and
accommodating principles to existing circumstances.

Who were the sect composed of? The monstrous court of Charles
II.--the grossest materialists! The secret history of that
court could scarcely find a Suetonius among us. But our author
was frequently in the hands of those who could never have
comprehended what they pretended to admire; this appears by a
publication of the times, intituled, "Twelve Ingenious
Characters, &c." 1686, where, in that of a town-fop, who, "for
genteel breeding, posts to town, by his mother's indulgence,
three or four wild companions, half-a-dozen bottles of
Burgundy, _two leaves of Leviathan_," and some few other
obvious matters, shortly make this young philosopher nearly
lose his moral and physical existence. "He will not confess
himself an Atheist, yet he boasts aloud that he holds his
_gospel_ from _the Apostle of Malmesbury_, though it is more
than probable he never read, at least understood, ten leaves
of _that unlucky author_." If such were his wretched
disciples, Hobbes was indeed "an unlucky author," for their
morals and habits were quite opposite to those of their
master. EACHARD, in the preface to his Second Dialogue, 1673,
exhibits a very Lucianic arrangement of his disciples--Hobbes'
"Pit, Box, and Gallery Friends." The _Pit-friends_ were sturdy
practicants who, when they hear that "Ill-nature, Debauchery,
and Irreligion were Mathematics and Demonstration, clap and
shout, and swear by all that comes from Malmesbury." The
_Gallery_ are "a sort of small, soft, little, pretty, fine
gentlemen, who having some little wit, some little modesty,
some little remain of conscience and country religion, could
not hector it as the former, but quickly learnt to chirp and
giggle when t'other clapt and shouted." But "the Don-admirers,
and _Box-friends_ of Mr. Hobbes are men of gravity and
reputation, who will scarce simper in favour of the
philosopher, but can make shift to nod and nod again." Even
amid this wild satire we find a piece of truth in a dark
corner; for the satirist confesses that "his Gallery-friends,
who were such resolved practicants in _Hobbianism_ (by which
the satirist means all kinds of licentiousness) would most
certainly have been so, had there never been any such man as
Mr. Hobbes in the world." Why then place to the account of the
philosopher those gross immoralities which he never
sanctioned? The life of Hobbes is without a stain! He had
other friends besides these "Box, Pit, and Gallery"
gentry--the learned of Europe, and many of the great and good
men of his own country.

[351] Hobbes, in defending Thucydides, whom he has so admirably
translated, from the charge of some obscurity in his design,
observes that "Marcellinus saith he was obscure, on purpose
that the common people might not understand him; and not
unlikely, for a wise man should so write (though in words
understood by all men), that wise men only should be able to
commend him." Thus early in life Hobbes had determined on a
principle which produced all his studied ambiguity, involved
him in so much controversy, and, in some respects, preserved
him in an inglorious security.

[352] Hobbes explains the image in his Introduction. He does not
disguise his opinion that _Men_ may be converted into
_Automatons_; and if he were not very ingenious we might lose
our patience. He was so delighted with this whimsical fancy of
his "artificial man," that he carried it on to government
itself, and employed the engraver to impress the monstrous
personification on our minds, even clearer than by his
reasonings. The curious design forms the frontispiece of "The
Leviathan." He borrowed the name from that sea-monster, that
mightiest of powers, which Job has told is not to be compared
with any on earth. The sea-monster is here, however, changed
into a colossal man, entirely made up of little men from all
the classes of society, bearing in the right hand the sword,
and in the left the crosier. The compartments are full of
political allegories. An expression of Lord Clarendon's in the
preface to his "Survey of the Leviathan," shows our
philosopher's infatuation to this "idol of the Den," as Lord
Bacon might have called the intellectual illusion of the
philosopher. Hobbes, when at Paris, showed a proof-sheet or
two of his work to Clarendon, who, he soon discovered, could
not approve of the hardy tenets. "He frequently came to me,"
says his lordship, "and told me his book (_which he would call
LEVIATHAN_) was then printing in England. He said, that he
knew when I read his book I would not like it, and mentioned
some of his conclusions: upon which I asked him, why he would
publish such doctrine: to which, after a discourse, _between
jest and earnest_, he said, _The truth is, I have a mind to go
home!_" Some philosophical systems have, probably, been raised
"between jest and earnest;" yet here was a text-book for the
despot, as it is usually accepted, deliberately given to the
world, for no other purpose than that the philosopher was
desirous of changing his lodgings at Paris for his old
apartments in London!

[353] The duplicity of the system is strikingly revealed by Burnet,
who tells of Hobbes, that "he put all the law in the will of
the _prince_ or the _people_; for he writ his book _at first_
in favour of _absolute monarchy_, but turned it afterwards to
gratify the _republican party_. These were his true
principles, though he had disguised them for deceiving unwary
readers." It is certain Hobbes became a suspected person among
the royalists. They were startled at the open extravagance of
some of his political paradoxes; such as his notion of the
necessity of extirpating all the _Greek_ and _Latin_ authors,
"by reading of which men from their childhood have gotten a
habit of licentious controuling the actions of their
sovereigns."--p. 111. But the doctrines of liberty were not
found only among the Greeks and Romans; the _Hebrews_ were
stern republicans; and liberty seems to have had a nobler
birth in the North among our German ancestors, than perhaps in
any other part of the globe. It is certain that the Puritans,
who warmed over the Bible more than the classic historians,
had their heads full of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea;
the hanging of the five kings of Joshua; and the fat king of
the Moabites, who in his summer-room received a present, and
then a dagger, from the left-handed Jewish Jacobin. Hobbes
curiously compares "The _tyrannophobia_, or fear of being
strongly governed," to the _hydrophobia_. "When a monarchy is
once bitten to the quick by those democratical writers, and,
by their poison, men seem to be converted into dogs," his
remedy is, "a strong monarch," or "the exercise of entire
sovereignty," p. 171; and that the authority he would
establish should be immutable, he hardily asserts that "the
ruling power cannot be punished for mal-administration." Yet
in this elaborate system of despotism are interspersed some
strong republican axioms, as The safety of the people is the
supreme law,--The public good to be preferred to that of the
individual:--and that God made the one for the many, and not
the many for the one. The effect the LEVIATHAN produced on the
royal party was quite unexpected by the author. His hardy
principles were considered as a satire on arbitrary power, and
Hobbes himself as a concealed favourer of democracy. This has
happened more than once with such vehement advocates. Our
philosopher must have been thunderstruck at the insinuation,
for he had presented the royal exile, as Clarendon in his
"Survey" informs us, with a magnificent copy of "The
Leviathan," written on vellum; this beautiful specimen of
calligraphy may still be seen, as we learn from the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ for January, 1813, where the curiosity
is fully described. The suspicion of Hobbes's principles was
so strong, that it produced his sudden dismissal from the
presence of Charles II. when at Paris. The king, indeed, said
he believed Hobbes intended him no hurt; and Hobbes said of
the king, "that his majesty understood his writings better
than his accusers." However, happy was Hobbes to escape from
France, where the officers were in pursuit of him, amid snowy
roads and nipping blasts. The lines in his metrical life open
a dismal winter scene for an old man on a stumbling horse:--

"Frigus erat, nix alta, senex ego, ventus acerbus,
Vexat equus sternax, et salebrosa via--"

A curious spectacle! to observe, under a despotic government,
its vehement advocate in flight!

The ambiguity of "The Leviathan" seemed still more striking,
when Hobbes came, at length, to place the right of government
merely in what he terms "the Seat of Power,"--a wonderful
principle of expediency; for this was equally commodious to
the republicans and to the royalists. By this principle, the
republicans maintained the right of Cromwell, since his
authority was established, while it absolved the royalists
from their burdensome allegiance; for, according to "The
Leviathan," Charles was the English monarch only when in a
condition to force obedience; and, to calm tender consciences,
the philosopher further fixed on that precise point of time,
"when a subject may obey an unjust conqueror." After the
Restoration, it was subtilely urged by the Hobbists, that this
very principle had greatly served the royal cause; for it
afforded a plea for the emigrants to return, by compounding
for their estates, and joining with those royalists who had
remained at home in an open submission to the established
government; and thus they were enabled to concert their
measures in common, for reinstating the old monarchy. Had the
Restoration never taken place, Hobbes would have equally
insisted on the soundness of his doctrine; he would have
asserted the title of Richard Cromwell to the Protectorate, if
Richard had had the means to support it, as zealously as he
afterwards did that of Charles II. to the throne, when the
king had firmly re-established it. The philosophy of Hobbes,
therefore, is not dangerous in any government; its sole aim is
to preserve it from intestine divisions; but for this purpose,
he was for reducing men to mere machines. With such little
respect he treated the species, and with such tenderness the
individual!

I will give Hobbes's own justification, after the Restoration
of Charles II., when accused by the great mathematician,
Dr. Wallis, a republican under Cromwell, of having written
his work in defence of Oliver's government. Hobbes does not
deny that "he placed the right of government wheresoever
should be the strength." Most subtilely he argues, how this
very principle "was designed in behalf of the faithful
subjects of the king," after they had done their utmost to
defend his rights and person. The government of Cromwell
being established, these found themselves without the
protection of a government of their own, and therefore
might lawfully promise obedience to their victor for the
saving of their lives and fortunes; and more, they ought even
to protect that authority in war by which they were
themselves protected in peace. But this plea, which he so ably
urged in favour of the royalists, will not, however,
justify those who, like Wallis, voluntarily submitted to
Cromwell, because they were always the enemies of the king;
so that this submission to Oliver is allowed only to the
royalists--a most admirable political paradox! The whole of
the argument is managed with infinite dexterity, and is thus
unexpectedly turned against his accusers themselves. The
principle of "self-preservation" is carried on through the
entire system of Hobbes.--_Considerations upon the Reputation,
Loyalty, &c., of Mr. Hobbes._

[354] The passage in Hobbes to which I allude is in "The Leviathan,"
c. 32. He there says, sarcastically, "It is with the
_mysteries of religion_ as with wholesome pills for the sick,
which, swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but, chewed,
are for the most part cast up again without effect." Hobbes is
often a wit: he was much pleased with this thought, for he had
it in his _De Cive_; which, in the English translation, bears
the title of "Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government
and Society," 1651. There he calls "the wholesome pills,"
"bitter." He translated the _De Cive_ himself; a circumstance
which was not known till the recent appearance of Aubrey's
papers.

[355] Warburton has most acutely distinguished between the intention
of Hobbes and that of some of his successors. The bishop does
not consider Hobbes as an enemy to religion, not even to the
Christian; and even doubts whether he has attacked it in "The
Leviathan." At all events, he has "taken direct contrary
measures from those of Bayle, Collins, Tindal, Bolingbroke,
and all that school. They maliciously endeavoured to show the
Gospel was _unreasonable_; Hobbes, as reasonable as his
admirable wit could represent it: they contended for the most
unbounded _toleration_, Hobbes for the most rigorous
_conformity_." See the "Alliance between Church and State,"
book i. c. v. It is curious to observe the noble disciple of
Hobbes, Lord Bolingbroke, a strenuous advocate for his
political and moral opinions, enraged at what he calls his
"High Church notions." Trenchard and Gordon, in their
_Independent Whig_, No. 44, that libel on the clergy, accuse
them of _Atheism_ and _Hobbism_; while some divines as
earnestly reject Hobbes as an Atheist! Our temperate sage,
though angried at that spirit of contradiction which he had
raised, must, however, have sometimes smiled both on his
advocates and his adversaries!

[356] The odious term of _Atheist_ has been too often applied to many
great men of our nation by the hardy malignity of party. Were
I to present a catalogue, the very names would refute the
charge. Let us examine the religious sentiments of Hobbes. The
materials for its investigation are not common, but it will
prove a dissertation of facts. I warn some of my readers to
escape from the tediousness, if they cannot value the
curiosity.

Hobbes has himself thrown out an observation in his "Life of
Thucydides" respecting Anaxagoras, that "his opinions, being
of a strain above the apprehension of the vulgar, procured him
the estimation of an _Atheist_, which name they bestowed upon
all men that thought not as they did of their ridiculous
religion, and in the end cost him his life." This was a
parallel case with Hobbes himself, except its close, which,
however, seems always to have been in the mind of our
philosopher.

Bayle, who is for throwing all things into doubt, acknowledging
that the life of Hobbes was blameless, adds, One might,
however, have been tempted to ask him this question:

Heus age responde; minimum est quod scire laboro;
_De Jove quid sentis?_--PERSIUS, Sat. ii. v. 17.

Hark, now! resolve this one short question, friend!
_What are thy thoughts of Jove?_

But Bayle, who compared himself to the Jupiter of Homer,
powerful in gathering and then dispersing the clouds,
dissipates the one he had just raised, by showing how "Hobbes
might have answered the question with sincerity and belief,
_according to the writers of his life_."--But had Bayle known
that Hobbes was the author of all the lives of himself, so
partial an evidence might have raised another doubt with the
great sceptic. It appears, by Aubrey's papers, that Hobbes did
not wish his biography should appear when he was living, that
he might not seem the author of it.

Baxter, who knew Hobbes intimately, ranks him with Spinosa, by
a strong epithet for materialists--"The _Brutists_, Hobbes,
and Spinosa." He tells us that Selden would not have him in
his chamber while dying, calling out, "No Atheists!" But by
Aubrey's papers it appears that Hobbes stood by the side of
his dying friend. It is certain his enemies raised stories
against him, and told them as suited their purpose. In the
Lansdowne MSS. I find Dr. Grenville, in a letter, relates how
"Hobbes, when in France, and like to die, betrayed such
expressions of repentance to a great prelate, from whose mouth
I had this relation, that he admitted him to the sacrament.
But Hobbes afterwards made this a subject of ridicule in
companies."--_Lansdowne MSS._ 990--73.

Here is a strong accusation, and a fact too; yet, when fully
developed, the result will turn out greatly in favour of
Hobbes.

Hobbes had a severe illness at Paris, which lasted six months,
thus noticed in his metrical life:

Dein per sex menses morbo decumbo propinque
Accinctus morti; nec fugio, illa fugit.

It happened that the famous Guy Patin was his physician; and
in one of these amusing letters, where he puts down the events
of the day, like a newspaper of the times, in No. 61, has
given an account of his intercourse with the philosopher, in
which he says that Hobbes endured such pain, that he would
have destroyed himself--"_Qu'il avoit voulu se tuer._"--Patin
is a vivacious writer: we are not to take him _au pied de la
lettre_. Hobbes was systematically tenacious of life: and, so
far from attempting suicide, that he wanted even the courage
to allow Patin to bleed him! It was during this illness that
the Catholic party, who like to attack a Protestant in a state
of unresisting debility, got his learned and intimate friend,
Father Mersenne, to hold out all the benefits a philosopher
might derive from their Church. When Hobbes was acquainted
with this proposed interview (says a French contemporary,
whose work exists in MS., but is quoted in Joly's folio volume
of Remarks on Bayle), the sick man answered, "Don't let him
come for this; I shall laugh at him; and perhaps I may convert
him myself." Father Mersenne did come; and when this
missionary was opening on the powers of Rome to grant a
plenary pardon, he was interrupted by Hobbes--"Father, I have
examined, a long time ago, all these points; I should be sorry
to dispute now; you can entertain me in a more agreeable
manner. When did you see Mr. Gassendi?" The monk, who was a
philosopher, perfectly understood Hobbes, and this interview
never interrupted their friendship. A few days after, Dr.
Cosin (afterwards Bishop of Durham), the great prelate whom
Dr. Grenville alludes to, prayed with Hobbes, who first
_stipulated_ that the prayers should be those authorised by
the _Church of England_; and he also received the sacrament
with reverence. Hobbes says:--"Magnum hoc erga disciplinam
Episcopalem signum erat reverentiae."--It is evident that the
conversion of Father Mersenne, to which Hobbes facetiously
alluded, could never be to Atheism, but to Protestantism: and
had Hobbes been an Atheist, he would not have risked his
safety, when he arrived in England, by his strict attendance
to the _Church of England_, resolutely refusing to unite with
any of the sects. His views of the national religion were not
only enlightened, but in this respect he showed a boldness in
his actions very unusual with him.

But the religion of Hobbes was "of a strain beyond the
apprehension of the vulgar," and not very agreeable to some of
the Church. A man may have peculiar notions respecting the
Deity, and yet be far removed from Atheism; and in his
political system the Church may hold that subordinate place
which some Bishops will not like. When Dr. Grenville tells us
"Hobbes ridiculed in companies" certain matters which the
Doctor held sacred, this is not sufficient to accuse a man of
Atheism, though it may prove him not to have held orthodox
opinions. From the MS. collections of the French contemporary,
who well knew Hobbes at Paris, I transcribe a remarkable
observation:--"Hobbes said, that he was not surprised that the
Independents, who were enemies of monarchy, could not bear it
in heaven, and that therefore they placed there three Gods
instead of one; but he was astonished that the English
bishops, and those Presbyterians who were favourers of
monarchy, should persist in the same opinion concerning the
Trinity. He added, that the Episcopalians ridiculed the
Puritans, and the Puritans the Episcopalians; but that the
wise ridiculed both alike."--_Lantiniana MS._ quoted by Joly,
p. 434.

The _religion_ of Hobbes was in _conformity_ to _State and
Church_. He had, however, the most awful notions of the
Divinity. He confesses he is unacquainted with "the nature of
God, but not with the _necessity_ of the existence of the
Power of all powers, and First Cause of all causes; so that we
know that God is, though not what he is." See his "Human
Nature," chap. xi. But was the God of Hobbes the inactive
deity of Epicurus, who takes no interest in the happiness or
misery of his created beings; or, as Madame de Stael has
expressed it, with the point and felicity of French
antithesis, was this "an Atheism with a God?" This consequence
some of his adversaries would draw from his principles, which
Hobbes indignantly denies. He has done more; for in his _De
Corpore Politico_, he declares his belief of all the
fundamental points of Christianity, part i. c. 4, p. 116. Ed.
1652. But he was an open enemy to those "who presume, out of
Scripture, by their own interpretation, to raise any _doctrine
to the understanding_, concerning those things which are
incomprehensible;" and he refers to St. Paul, who gives a good
rule "_to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every
man_ the measure of faith."--Rom. xii. 3.