Chapter D: SOUTH CAPPADOCIA.--Karaburna; long, incised rock-inscription (3)

We may now follow out the more troublesome conflict, or rather series
of conflicts, in which Hobbes became entangled from the time of
publishing his _De corpore_ in 1655, and which checkered all his
remaining years. In _Leviathan_ he had vehemently assailed the system
of the universities, as originally founded for the support of the
papal against the civil authority, and as still working social
mischief by adherence to the old learning. The attack was duly noted
at Oxford, where under the Commonwealth a new spirit of scientific
activity had begun to stir. In 1654 Seth Ward (1617-1689), the
Savilian professor of astronomy, replying in his _Vindiciae
academiarum_ to some other assaults (especially against John Webster's
_Examen of Academies_) on the academic system, retorted upon Hobbes
that, so far from the universities being now what he had known them in
his youth, he would find his geometrical pieces, when they appeared,
better understood there than he should like. This was said in
reference to the boasts in which Hobbes seems to have been freely
indulging of having squared the circle and accomplished other such
feats; and, when a year later the _De corpore_ (_L.W._ i.) finally
appeared, it was seen how the thrust had gone home. In the chapter
(xx.) of that work where Hobbes dealt with the famous problem whose
solution he thought he had found, there were left expressions against
Vindex (Ward) at a time when the solutions still seemed to him good;
but the solutions themselves, as printed, were allowed to be all in
different ways halting, as he naively confessed he had discovered only
when he had been driven by the insults of malevolent men to examine
them more closely with the help of his friends. A strange conclusion
this, and reached by a path not less strange, as was now to be
disclosed by a relentless hand. Ward's colleague, the more famous John
Wallis (q.v.), Savilian professor of geometry from 1649, had been
privy to the challenge thrown out in 1654, and it was arranged that
they should critically dispose of the _De corpore_ between them. Ward
was to occupy himself with the philosophical and physical sections,
which he did in leisurely fashion, bringing out his criticism in the
course of next year (_In Th. Hobbii philosophiam exercitatio
epistolica_). Wallis was to confine himself to the mathematical
chapters, and set to work at once with characteristic energy.
Obtaining an unbound copy of the _De corpore_, he saw by the mutilated
appearance of the sheets that Hobbes had repeatedly altered his
demonstrations before he issued them at last in their actual form,
grotesque as it was, rather than delay the book longer. Obtaining also
a copy of the work as it had been printed before Hobbes had any doubt
of the validity of his solutions, Wallis was able to track his whole
course from the time of Ward's provocation--his passage from
exultation to doubt, from doubt to confessed impotence, yet still
without abandoning the old assumption of confident strength; and all
his turnings and windings were now laid bare in one of the most
trenchant pieces of controversial writing ever penned. Wallis's
_Elenchus geometriae Hobbianae_, published in 1655 about three months
after the _De corpore_, contained also an elaborate criticism of
Hobbes's whole attempt to relay the foundations of mathematical
science in its place within the general body of reasoned knowledge--a
criticism which, if it failed to allow for the merit of the
conception, exposed only too effectually the utter inadequacy of the
result. Taking up mathematics when not only his mind was already
formed but his thoughts were crystallizing into a philosophical
system, Hobbes had, in fact, never put himself to school and sought to
work up gradually to the best knowledge of the time, but had been more
anxious from the first to become himself an innovator with whatever
insufficient means. The consequence was that, when not spending
himself in vain attempts to solve the impossible problems that have
always waylaid the fancy of self-sufficient beginners, he took an
interest only in the elements of geometry, and never had any notion of
the full scope of mathematical science, undergoing as it then was (and
not least at the hands of Wallis) the extraordinary development which
made it before the end of the century the potent instrument of
physical discovery which it became in the hands of Newton. He was even
unable, in dealing with the elementary conceptions of geometry, to
work out with any consistency the few original thoughts he had, and
thus became the easy sport of Wallis. At his advanced age, however,
and with the sense he had of his powers, he was not likely to be
brought to a better mind by so insulting an opponent. He did indeed,
before allowing an English translation of the _De corpore_ (_E.W._
i.) to appear in 1656, take care to remove some of the worst mistakes
exposed by Wallis, and, while leaving out all the references to
Vindex, now profess to make, in altered form, a series of mere
"attempts" at quadrature; but he was far from yielding the ground to
the enemy. With the translation,[14] in the spring of 1656, he had
ready _Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics, one of Geometry,
the other of Astronomy, in the University of Oxford_ (_E.W._ vii.
181-356), in which, after reasserting his view of the principles of
geometry in opposition to Euclid's, he proceeded to repel Wallis's
objections with no lack of dialectical skill, and with an unreserve
equal to Wallis's own. He did not scruple, in the ardour of conflict,
even to maintain positions that he had resigned in the translation,
and he was not afraid to assume the offensive by a counter criticism
of three of Wallis's works then published. When he had thus disposed
of the "Paralogisms" of his more formidable antagonist in the first
five lessons, he ended with a lesson on "Manners" to the two
professors together, and set himself gravely at the close to show that
he too could be abusive. In this particular part of his task, it must
be allowed, he succeeded very well; his criticism of Wallis's works,
especially the great treatise _Arithmetica infinitorum_ (1655), only
showed how little able he was to enter into the meaning of the modern
analysis. Wallis, on his side, was not less ready to keep up the game
in English than he had been to begin it in Latin. Swift as before to
strike, in three months' time he had deftly turned his own word
against the would-be master by administering _Due Correction for Mr
Hobbes, or School Discipline for not saying his Lessons right_, in a
piece that differed from the _Elenchus_ only in being more biting and
unrestrained. Having an easy task in defending himself against
Hobbes's trivial criticism, he seized the opportunity given him by the
English translation of the _De corpore_ to track Hobbes again step by
step over the whole course, and now to confront him with his
incredible inconsistencies multiplied by every new utterance. But it
was no longer a fight over mathematical questions only. Wallis having
been betrayed originally by his fatal cleverness into the pettiest
carping at words, Hobbes had retorted in kind, and then it became a
high duty in the other to defend his Latin with great parade of
learning and give fresh provocation. One of Wallis's rough sallies in
this kind suggested to Hobbes the title of the next rejoinder with
which, in 1657, he sought to close the unseemly wrangle. Arguing in
the _Lessons_ that a mathematical point must have quantity, though
this were not reckoned, he had explained the Greek word [Greek:
stigme], used for a point, to mean a visible mark made with a hot
iron; whereupon he was charged by Wallis with gross ignorance for
confounding [Greek: stigme] and [Greek: stigma]. Hence the title of
his new piece: [Greek: Stigmai ageometrias, agroikias, antipoliteias,
amatheias], or _Marks of the Absurd Geometry, Rural Language, Scottish
Church Politics, and Barbarisms of John Wallis, Professor of Geometry
and Doctor of Divinity_ (_E.W._ vii. 357-400). He now attacked more in
detail but not more happily than before Wallis's great work, while
hardly attempting any further defence of his own positions; also he
repelled with some force and dignity the insults that had been heaped
upon him, and fought the verbal points, but could not leave the field
without making political insinuations against his adversary, quite
irrelevant in themselves and only noteworthy as evidence of his own
resignation to Cromwell's rule. The thrusts were easily and nimbly
parried by Wallis in a reply (_Hobbiani puncti dispunctio_, 1657)
occupied mainly with the verbal questions. Irritating as it was, it
did not avail to shake Hobbes's determination to remain silent; and
thus at last there was peace for a time.

Before the strife flamed up again, Hobbes had published, in 1658, the
outstanding section of his philosophical system, and thus completed,
after a fashion, the scheme he had planned more than twenty years
before. So far as the treatise _De homine_ (_L.W._ ii. 11-32) was
concerned, the completion was more in name than in fact. It consisted
for the most part of an elaborate theory of vision which, though very
creditable to Hobbes's scientific insight, was out of place, or at
least out of proportion, in a philosophical consideration of human
nature generally. The remainder of the treatise, dealing cursorily
with some of the topics more fully treated in the _Human Nature_ and
the _Leviathan_, has all the appearance of having been tagged in haste
to the optical chapters (composed years before)[15] as a makeshift
for the proper transition required in the system from questions of
Body Natural to questions of Body Politic. Hobbes had in fact spent
himself in his earlier constructive efforts, and at the age of
seventy, having nothing to add to his doctrine of Man as it was
already in one form or another before the world, was content with
anything that might stand for the fulfilment of his philosophical
purpose. But he had still in him more than twenty years of vigorous
vitality, and, not conscious to himself of any shortcoming, looked
forward, now his hands were free, to doing battle for his doctrines.
Rather than remain quiet, on finding no notice taken of his latest
production, he would himself force on a new conflict with the enemy.
Wallis having meanwhile published other works and especially a
comprehensive treatise on the general principles of calculus
(_Mathesis universalis_, 1657), he might take this occasion of
exposing afresh the new-fangled methods of mathematical analysis and
reasserting his own earlier positions. Accordingly, by the spring of
1660, he had managed to put his criticism and assertions into five
dialogues under the title _Examinatio et emendatio mathematicae
hodiernae qualis explicatur in libris Johannis Wallisii_, with a sixth
dialogue so called, consisting almost entirely of seventy or more
propositions on the circle and cycloid.[16] Wallis, however, would not
take the bait. Hobbes then tried another tack. Next year, having
solved, as he thought, another ancient _crux_, the duplication of the
cube, he had his solution brought out anonymously at Paris in French,
so as to put Wallis and other critics off the scent and extort a
judgment that might be withheld from a work of his. The artifice was
successful, and no sooner had Wallis publicly refuted the solution
than Hobbes claimed the credit of it, and went more wonderfully than
ever astray in its defence. He presently republished it (in modified
form), with his remarks, at the end of a new Latin dialogue which he
had meanwhile written in defence of another part of his philosophical
doctrine. This was the _Dialogus physicus, sive De natura aeris_
(_L.W._ iv. 233-296), fulminated in 1661 against Boyle and other
friends of Wallis who, as he fancied, under the influence of that
malevolent spirit, were now in London, after the Restoration, forming
themselves into a society (incorporated as the Royal Society in 1662)
for experimental research, to the exclusion of himself personally, and
in direct contravention of the method of physical inquiry enjoined in
the _De corpore_.[17] All the laborious manipulation recorded in
Boyle's _New Experiments touching the Spring of the Air_ (1660), which
Hobbes chose, without the least warrant, to take as the manifesto of
the new "academicians," seemed to him only to confirm the conclusions
he had reasoned out years before from speculative principles, and he
warned them that if they were not content to begin where he had left
off their work would come to nought. To as much of this diatribe as
concerned himself Boyle quickly replied with force and dignity, but it
was from Hobbes's old enemy that retribution came, in the scathing
satire _Hobbius heauton-timorumenos_ (1662). Wallis, who had deftly
steered his course amid all the political changes of the previous
years, managing ever to be on the side of the ruling power, was now
apparently stung to fury by a wanton allusion in Hobbes's latest
dialogue to a passage of his former life (his deciphering for the
parliament the king's papers taken at Naseby), whereof he had once
boasted but after the Restoration could not speak or hear too little.
The revenge he took was crushing. Professing to be roused by the
attack on his friend Boyle, when he had scorned to lift a finger in
defence of himself against the earlier dialogues, he tore them all to
shreds with an art of which no general description can give an idea.
He got, however, upon more dangerous ground when, passing wholly by
the political insinuation against himself, he roundly charged Hobbes
with having written _Leviathan_ in support of Oliver's title, and
deserted his royal master in distress. Hobbes seems to have been
fairly bewildered by the rush and whirl of sarcasm with which Wallis
drove him anew from every mathematical position he had ever taken up,
and did not venture forth into the field of scientific controversy
again for some years, when he had once followed up the physical
dialogue of 1661 by seven shorter ones, with the inevitable appendix,
entitled _Problemata physica, una cum magnitudine circuli_ (_L.W._ iv.
297-384), in 1662.[18] But all the more eagerly did he take advantage
of Wallis's loose calumny to strike where he felt himself safe. His
answer to the personal charges took the form of a letter about himself
in the third person addressed to Wallis in 1662, under the title of
_Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners and Religion of
Thomas Hobbes_ (_E.W._ iv. 409-440). In this piece, which is of great
biographical value, he told his own and Wallis's "little stories
during the time of the late rebellion" with such effect that Wallis,
like a wise man, attempted no further reply. Thus ended the second
bout.

After a time Hobbes took heart again and began a third period of
controversial activity, which did not end, on his side, till his
ninetieth year. Little need be added to the simple catalogue of the
untiring old man's labours in this last stage of his life. The first
piece, published in 1666, _De principiis et ratiocinatione
geometrarum_ (_L.W._ iv. 385-484), was designed, as the sub-title
declared, to lower the pride of geometrical professors by showing that
there was no less uncertainty and error in their works than in those
of physical or ethical writers. Wallis replied shortly in the
_Philosophical Transactions_ (August 1666). Three years later he
brought his three great achievements together in compendious form,
_Quadratura circuli, Cubatio sphaerae, Duplicatio cubi_, and as soon
as they were once more refuted by Wallis, reprinted them with an
answer to the objections, in compliment to the grand-duke of Tuscany,
who paid him attentions on a visit to England in 1669 (_L.W._ iv.
485-522). Wallis, who had promised to leave him alone henceforward,
refuted him again before the year was out. In 1671 he worked up his
propositions over again in _Rosetum geometricum_ (_L.W._ v. 1-50), as
a fragrant offering to the geometrical reader, appending a criticism
(_Censura brevis_, pp. 50-88) on the first part of Wallis's treatise
_De motu_, published in 1669; also he sent _Three Papers_ to the Royal
Society on selected points treated very briefly, and when Wallis,
still not weary of confuting, shortly replied, published them
separately with triumphant _Considerations on Dr Wallis's Answer to
them_ (_E.W._ vii. 429-448). Next year (1672), having now, as he
believed, established himself with the Royal Society, he proceeded to
complete the discomfiture of Wallis by a public address to the Society
on all the points at issue between them from the beginning, _Lux
Mathematica excussa collisionibus Johannis Wallisii et Thomae
Hobbesii_ (_L.W._ v. 89-150), the light, as the author R. R. (Roseti
Repertor) added, being here "increased by many very brilliant rays."
Wallis replied in the _Transactions_, and then finally held his hand.
Hobbes's energy was not yet exhausted. In 1674, at the age of
eighty-six, he published his _Principia et problemata aliquot
geometrica, ante desperata nunc breviter explicata et demonstrata_
(_L.W._ v. 150-214), containing in the chapters dealing with questions
of principle not a few striking observations, which ought not to be
overlooked in the study of his philosophy. His last piece of all,
_Decameron physiologicum_ (_E.W._ vii. 69-180), in 1678, was a new set
of dialogues on physical questions, most of which he had treated in a
similar fashion before; but now, in dealing with gravitation, he was
able to fire a parting shot at Wallis; and one more demonstration of
the equality of a straight line to the arc of a circle, thrown in at
the end, appropriately closed the strangest warfare in which perverse
thinker ever engaged.[19]

Later Years.

We must now turn back to trace the fortunes of Hobbes and his other doings in the last twenty years of his life. All these controversial writings on mathematics and physics represent but one half of his activity after the age of seventy; though, as regards the other half, it is not possible, for a reason that will be seen, to say as definitely in what order the works belonging to the period were produced. From the time of the Restoration he acquired a new prominence in the public eye. No year had passed since the appearance of _Leviathan_ without some indignant protest against the influence which its trenchant doctrine was calculated to produce upon minds longing above everything for civil repose; but after the Restoration "Hobbism" became a fashionable creed, which it was the duty of every lover of true morality and religion to denounce. Two or three days after Charles's arrival in London, Hobbes drew in the street the notice of his former pupil, and was at once received into favour. The young king, if he had ever himself resented the apparent disloyalty of the "Conclusion" of _Leviathan_, had not retained the feeling long, and could appreciate the principles of the great book when the application of them happened, as now, to be turned in his own favour. He had, besides, a relish for Hobbes's wit (as he used to say, "Here comes the bear to be baited"), and did not like the old man the less because his presence at court scandalized the bishops or the prim virtue of Chancellor Hyde. He even went the length of bestowing on Hobbes (but not always paying) a pension of L100, and had his portrait hung up in the royal closet. These marks of favour, naturally, did not lessen Hobbes's self-esteem, and perhaps they explain, in his later writings, a certain slavishness toward the regal authority, which is wholly absent from his rational demonstration of absolutism in the earlier works. At all events Hobbes was satisfied with the rule of a king who had appreciated the author of _Leviathan_, and protected him when, after a time, protection in a very real sense became necessary. His eagerness to defend himself against Wallis's imputation of disloyalty, and his apologetic dedication of the _Problemata physica_ to the king, are evidence of the hostility with which he was being pressed as early as 1662; but it was not till 1666 that he felt himself seriously in danger. In that year the Great Fire of London, following on the Great Plague, roused the superstitious fears of the people, and the House of Commons embodied the general feeling in a bill against atheism and profaneness. On the 17th of October it was ordered that the committee to which the bill was referred "should be empowered to receive information touching such books as tend to atheism, blasphemy and profaneness, or against the essence and attributes of God, and in particular the book published in the name of one White,[20] and the book of Mr Hobbes called the _Leviathan_, and to report the matter with their opinion to the House." Hobbes, then verging upon eighty, was terrified at the prospect of being treated as a heretic, and proceeded to burn such of his papers as he thought might compromise him. At the same time he set himself, with a very characteristic determination, to inquire into the actual state of the law of heresy. The results of his investigation were first announced in three short Dialogues added (in place of the old "Review and Conclusion," for which the day had passed) as an Appendix to his Latin translation of _Leviathan_ (_L.W._ iii.), included with the general collection of his works published at Amsterdam in 1668. In this appendix, as also in the posthumous tract, published in 1680, _An Historical Narration concerning Heresy and the Punishment thereof_ (_E.W._ iv. 385-408), he aimed at showing that, since the High Court of Commission had been put down, there remained no court of heresy at all to which he was amenable, and that even when it stood nothing was to be declared heresy but what was at variance with the Nicene Creed, as he maintained the doctrine of _Leviathan_ was not.

The only consequence that came of the parliamentary scare was that Hobbes could never afterwards get permission to print anything on subjects relating to human conduct. The collected edition of his Latin works (in two quarto volumes) appeared at Amsterdam in 1668, because he could not obtain the censor's licence for its publication at London, Oxford or Cambridge. Other writings which he had finished, or on which he must have been engaged about this time, were not made public till after his death--the king apparently having made it the price of his protection that no fresh provocation should be offered to the popular sentiment. The most important of the works composed towards 1670, and thus kept back, is the extremely spirited dialogue to which he gave the title _Behemoth: the History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England and of the Counsels and Artifices by which they were carried on from the year 1640 to the year 1660_.[21] To the same period probably belongs the unfinished _Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England_ (_E.W._ vi. 1-160), a trenchant criticism of the constitutional theory of English government as upheld by Coke. Aubrey takes credit for having tried to induce Hobbes to write upon the subject in 1664 by presenting him with a copy of Bacon's _Elements of the Laws of England_, and though the attempt was then unsuccessful, Hobbes later on took to studying the statute-book, with _Coke upon Littleton_. One other posthumous production also (besides the tract on Heresy before mentioned) may be referred to this, if not, as Aubrey suggests, an earlier time--the two thousand and odd elegiac verses in which he gave his view of ecclesiastical encroachment on the civil power; the quaint verses, disposed in his now favourite dialogue-form, were first published, nine years after his death, under the title _Historia ecclesiastica_ (_L.W._ v. 341-408), with a preface by Thomas Rymer.

For some time Hobbes was not even allowed to utter a word of protest, whatever might be the occasion that his enemies took to triumph over him. In 1669 an unworthy follower--Daniel Scargil by name, a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge--had to recant publicly and confess that his evil life had been the result of Hobbist doctrines. In 1674 John Fell, the dean of Christ Church, who bore the charges of the Latin translation of Anthony Wood's _History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford_ (1670), struck out all the complimentary epithets in the account of his life, and substituted very different ones; but this time the king did suffer him to defend himself by publishing a dignified letter (_Vit. Auct._ pp. xlvii.-l.), to which Fell replied by adding to the translation when it appeared a note full of the grossest insults. And, amid all his troubles, Hobbes was not without his consolations. No Englishman of that day stood in the same repute abroad, and foreigners, noble or learned, who came to England, never forgot to pay their respects to the old man, whose vigour and freshness of intellect no progress of the years seemed able to quench. Among these was the grand-duke of Tuscany (Ferdinand II.), who took away some works and a portrait to adorn the Medicean library.

His pastimes in the latest years were as singular as his labours. The autobiography in Latin verse, with its playful humour, occasional pathos and sublime self-complacency, was thrown off at the age of eighty-four. At eighty-five, in the year 1673, he sent forth a translation of four books of the _Odyssey_ (ix.-xii.) in rugged but not seldom happily turned English rhymes; and, when he found this _Voyage of Ulysses_ eagerly received, he had ready by 1675 a complete translation of both _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ (_E.W._ x.), prefaced by a lively dissertation "Concerning the Virtues of an Heroic Poem," showing his unabated interest in questions of literary style. After 1675, he passed his time at his patron's seats in Derbyshire, occupied to the last with intellectual work in the early morning and in the afternoon hours, which it had long been his habit to devote to thinking and to writing. Even as late as August 1679 he was promising his publisher "somewhat to print in English." The end came very soon afterwards. A suppression of urine in October, in spite of which he insisted upon being conveyed with the family from Chatsworth to Hardwick Hall towards the end of November, was followed by a paralytic stroke, under which he sank on the 4th of December, in his ninety-second year. He lies buried in the neighbouring church of Ault Hucknall.

Personal characteristics.

He was tall and erect in figure, and lived on the whole a temperate life, though he used to say that he had been drunk about a hundred times. His favourite exercise was tennis, which he played regularly even after the age of seventy. Socially he was genial and courteous, though in argument he occasionally lost his temper. As a friend he was generous and loyal. Intellectually bold in the extreme, he was curiously timid in ordinary life, and is said to have had a horror of ghosts. He read little, and often boasted that he would have known as little as other men if he had read as much. He appears to have had an illegitimate daughter for whom he made generous provision. In the National Portrait Gallery there is a portrait of him by J. M. Wright, and two others are in the possession of the Royal Society.

Place in English thought.

As already suggested, it cannot be allowed that Hobbes falls into any regular succession from Bacon; neither can it be said that he handed on the torch to Locke. He was the one English thinker of the first rank in the long period of two generations separating Locke from Bacon, but, save in the chronological sense, there is no true relation of succession among the three. It would be difficult even to prove any ground of affinity among them beyond a desposition to take sense as a prime factor in the account of subjective experience: their common interest in physical science was shared equally by rationalist thinkers of the Cartesian school, and was indeed begotten of the time. Backwards, Hobbes's relations are rather with Galileo and the other inquirers who, from the beginning of the 17th century, occupied themselves with the physical world in the manner that has come later to be distinguished by the name of science in opposition to philosophy. But even more than in external nature, Hobbes was interested in the phenomena of social life, presenting themselves so impressively in an age of political revolution. So it came to pass that, while he was unable, by reason of imperfect training and too tardy development, with all his pains, to make any contribution to physical science or to mathematics as instrumental in physical research, he attempted a task which no other adherent of the new "mechanical philosophy" conceived--nothing less than such a universal construction of human knowledge as would bring Society and Man (at once the matter and maker of Society) within the same principles of scientific explanation as were found applicable to the world of Nature. The construction was, of course, utterly premature, even supposing it were inherently possible; but it is Hobbes's distinction, in his century, to have conceived it, and he is thereby lifted from among the scientific workers with whom he associated to the rank of those philosophical thinkers who have sought to order the whole domain of human knowledge. The effects of his philosophical endeavour may be traced on a variety of lines. Upon every subject that came within the sweep of his system, except mathematics and physics, his thoughts have been productive of thought. When the first storm of opposition from smaller men had begun to die down, thinkers of real weight, beginning with Cumberland and Cudworth, were moved by their aversion to his analysis of the moral nature of man to probe anew the question of the natural springs and the rational grounds of human action; and thus it may be said that Hobbes gave the first impulse to the whole of that movement of ethical speculation that, in modern times, has been carried on with such remarkable continuity in England. In politics the revulsion from his particular conclusions did not prevent the more clear-sighted of his opponents from recognizing the force of his supreme demonstration of the practical irresponsibility of the sovereign power, wherever seated, in the state; and, when in a later age the foundations of a positive theory of legislation were laid in England, the school of Bentham--James Mill, Grote, Molesworth--brought again into general notice the writings of the great publicist of the 17th century, who, however he might, by the force of temperament, himself prefer the rule of one, based his whole political system upon a rational regard to the common weal. Finally, the psychology of Hobbes, though too undeveloped to guide the thoughts or even perhaps arrest the attention of Locke, when essaying the scientific analysis of knowledge, came in course of time (chiefly through James Mill) to be connected with the theory of associationism developed from within the school of Locke, in different ways, by Hartley and Hume; nor is it surprising that the later associationists, finding their principle more distinctly formulated in the earlier thinker, should sometimes have been betrayed into affiliating themselves to Hobbes rather than to Locke. For his ethical theories see Ethics.

Sufficient information is given in the _Vitae Hobbianae auctarium_
(_L.W._ i. p. lxv. ff.) concerning the frequent early editions of
Hobbes's separate works, and also concerning the works of those who
wrote against him, to the end of the 17th century. In the 18th
century, after Clarke's _Boyle Lectures_ of 1704-1705, the opposition
was less express. In 1750 _The Moral and Political Works_ were
collected, with life, &c., by Dr Campbell, in a folio edition,
including in order, _Human Nature_, _De corpore politico_,
_Leviathan_, _Answer to Bramhall's Catching of the Leviathan_,
_Narration concerning Heresy_, _Of Liberty and Necessity_, _Behemoth_,
_Dialogue of the Common Laws_, the Introduction to the _Thucydides_,
_Letter to Davenant and two others_, the Preface to the _Homer_, _De
mirabilibus Pecci_ (with English translation), _Considerations on the
Reputation, &., of T. H._ In 1812 the _Human Nature_ and the _Liberty
and Necessity_ (with supplementary extracts from the _Questions_ of
1656) were reprinted in a small edition of 250 copies, with a
meritorious memoir (based on Campbell) and dedication to Horne Tooke,
by Philip Mallet. Molesworth's edition (1839-1845), dedicated to
Grote, has been referred to in a former note. Of translations may be
mentioned _Les Elemens philosophiques du citoyen_ (1649) and _Le Corps
politique_ (1652), both by S. de Sorbiere, conjoined with _Le Traite
de la nature humaine_, by d'Holbach, in 1787, under the general title
_Les Oeuvres philosophiques et politiques de Thomas Hobbes_; a
translation of the first section, "Computatio sive logica," of the _De
corpore_, included by Destutt de Tracy with his _Elemens d'ideologie_
(1804); a translation of _Leviathan_ into Dutch in 1678, and another
(anonymous) into German--_Des Englanders Thomas Hobbes Leviathan oder
der kirchliche und burgerliche Staat_ (Halle, 1794, 2 vols.); a
translation of the _De cive_ by J. H. v. Kirchmann--_T. Hobbes:
Abhandlung uber den Burger, &c._ (Leipzig, 1873). Important later
editions are those of Ferdinand Tonnies, _Behemoth_ (1889), on which
see Croom Robertson's _Philosophical Remains_ (1894), p. 451;
_Elements of Law_ (1889).

_Biographical and Critical Works._--There are three accounts of
Hobbes's life, first published together in 1681, two years after his
death, by R. B. (Richard Blackbourne, a friend of Hobbes's admirer,
John Aubrey), and reprinted, with complimentary verses by Cowley and
others, at the beginning of Sir W. Molesworth's collection of the
_Latin Works_: (1) _T. H. Malmesb. vita_ (pp. xiii.-xxi.), written by
Hobbes himself, or (as also reported) by T. Rymer, at his dictation;
(2) _Vitae Hobbianae auctarium_ (pp. xxii.-lxxx.), turned into Latin
from Aubrey's English; (3) _T. H. Malmesb. vita carmine expressa_ (pp.
lxxxi.-xcix.), written by Hobbes at the age of eighty-four (first
published by itself in 1680). The _Life of Mr T. H. of Malmesburie_,
printed among the _Lives of Eminent Men_, in 1813, from Aubrey's
papers in the Bodleian, &c. (vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 593-637), contains
some interesting particulars not found in the _Auctarium_. All that is
of any importance for Hobbes's life is contained in G. Croom
Robertson's _Hobbes_ (1886) in Blackwood's Philosophical Classics, and
Sir Leslie Stephen's _Hobbes_ (1904) in the "English Men of Letters"
series, both of which deal fully with his philosophy also. See also F.
Tonnies, _Hobbes Leben und Lehre_ (1896), _Hobbes-Analekten_ (1904
foll.); G. Zart, _Einfluss der englischen Philosophie seit Bacon auf
die deutsche Philosophie des 18ten Jahrh._ (Berlin, 1881); G. Brandt,
_Thomas Hobbes: Grundlinien seiner Philosophie_ (1895); G. Lyon, _La
Philos. de Hobbes_ (1893); J. M. Robertson, _Pioneer Humanists_
(1907); J. Rickaby, _Free Will and Four English Philosophers_ (1906),
pp. 1-72; J. Watson, _Hedonistic Theories_ (1895); W. Graham, _English
Political Philosophy from Hobbes to Maine_ (1899); W. J. H. Campion,
_Outlines of Lectures on Political Science_ (1895). (G. C. R.; X.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The translation, under the title _Eight Books of the
Peloponnesian War, written by Thucydides the son of Olorus,
interpreted with faith and diligence immediately out of the Greek by
Thomas Hobbes, secretary to the late Earl of Devonshire_, appeared in
1628 (or 1629), after the death of the earl, to whom touching
reference is made in the dedication. It reappeared in 1634, with the
date of the dedication altered, as if then newly written. Though
Hobbes claims to have performed his work "with much more diligence
than elegance," his version is remarkable as a piece of English
writing, but is by no means accurate. It fills vols. viii. and ix. in
Molesworth's collection (11 vols., including index vol.) of Hobbes's
_English Works_ (London, Bohn, 1839-1845). The volumes of this
collection will here be cited as E. W. Molesworth's collection of the
Latin _Opera philosophica_ (5 vols., 1839-1845) will be cited as
_L.W._ The five hundred and odd Latin hexameters under the title _De
mirabilibus Pecci_ (_L.W._ v. 323-340), giving an account of a short
excursion from Chatsworth to view the seven wonders of the Derbyshire
Peak, were written before 1628 (in 1626 or 1627), though not
published till 1636. It was a New Year's present to his patron, who
gave him L5 in return. A later edition, in 1678, included an English
version by another hand.

[2] Hobbes, in minor works dealing with physical questions (L.W. iv.
316; _E.W._ vii. 112), makes two incidental references to Bacon's
writings, but never mentions Bacon as he mentions Galileo, Kepler,
Harvey, and others (_De corpore_, ep. ded.), among the lights of the
century. The word "Induction," which occurs in only three or four
passages throughout all his works (and these again minor ones), is
never used by him with the faintest reminiscence of the import
assigned to it by Bacon; and, as will be seen, he had nothing but
scorn for experimental work in physics.

[3] The free English abstract of Aristotle's _Rhetoric_, published in
1681, after Hobbes's death, as _The Whole Art of Rhetoric_ (_E.W._
vi. 423-510), corresponds with a Latin version dictated to his young
pupil. Among Hobbes's papers preserved at Hardwick, where he died,
there remains the boy's dictation-book, interspersed with headings,
examples, &c. in Hobbes's hand.

[4] Among the Hardwick papers there is preserved a MS. copy of the
work, under the title _Elementes of Law Naturall and Politique_, with
the dedication to the earl of Newcastle, written in Hobbes's own
hand, and dated May 9, 1640. This dedication was prefixed to the
first thirteen chapters of the work when printed by themselves, under
the title _Human Nature_ in 1650.

[5] The book, of which the copies are rare (one in Dr Williams's
library in London and one in the Bodleian), was printed in quarto
size (Paris, 1642), with a pictorial title-page (not afterwards
reproduced) of scenes and figures illustrating its three divisions,
"Libertas," "Imperium," "Religio." The title _Elementorum
philosophiae sectio tertia, De Cive_, expresses its relation to the
unwritten sections, which also comes out in one or two
back-references in the text.

[6] _L.W._ ii. 133-134. In this first public edition (12mo), the
title was changed to _Elementa philosophica de cive_, the references
in the text to the previous sections being omitted. The date of the
dedication to the young earl of Devonshire was altered from 1641 to
1646.

[7] Described as "nobilis Languedocianus" in _Vit._; doubtless the
same with the "Dominus Verdusius, nobilis Aquitanus," to whom was
dedicated the _Exam. et emend. math. hod._ (_L.W._ iv.) in 1660. Du
Verdus was one of Hobbes's profoundest admirers and most frequent
correspondents in later years; there are many of his letters among
Hobbes's papers at Hardwick.

[8] _The Human Nature_ corresponds with cc. i.-xiii. of the first
part of the original treatise. The remaining six chapters of the part
stand now as Part I. of the _De Corpore Politico_. Part II. of the
_D.C.P._ corresponds with the original second part of the whole work.

[9] At the beginning of this year he wrote and published in Paris a
letter on the nature and conditions of poetry, chiefly epic, in
answer to an appeal to his judgment made in the preface to Sir W.
Davenant's heroic poem, _Gondibert_ (_E.W._ iv. 441-458). The letter
is dated Jan. 10, 1650 (1650/1).

[10] This presentation copy, so described by Clarendon (_Survey of
the Leviathan_, 1676, p. 8), is doubtless the beautifully written and
finely bound MS. now to be found in the British Museum (Egerton MSS.
1910).

[11] During all the time he was abroad he had continued to receive
from his patron a yearly pension of L80, and they remained in steady,
correspondence. The earl, having sided with the king in 1642, was
declared unfit to sit in the House of Peers, and though, by
submission to Parliament, he recovered his estates when they were
sequestered later on, he did not sit again till 1660. Among Hobbes's
friends at this time are specially mentioned John Selden and William
Harvey, who left him a legacy of L10. According to Aubrey, Selden
left him an equal bequest, but this seems to be a mistake. Harvey
(not Bacon) is the only Englishman he mentions in the dedicatory
epistle prefixed to the _De corpore_, among the founders, before
himself, of the new natural philosophy.

[12] The treatise bore the date, "Rouen, Aug. 20, 1652," but it
should have been 1646, as afterwards explained by Hobbes himself
(_E.W._ v. 25).

[13] "The _Vit. auct._ refers to 1676, a 'Letter to William duke of
Newcastle on the Controversy about Liberty and Necessity, held with
Benjamin Laney, bishop of Ely.' In that year there did appear a
(confused) little tract written by Laney against Hobbes's concluding
statement of his own 'Opinion' in the 'Liberty and Necessity' of 1654
(1646), but I can find no trace of any further writing by Hobbes on
the subject" (G. Croom Robertson, _Hobbes_, p. 202).

[14] This translation, _Concerning Body_, though not made by Hobbes,
was revised by him; but it is far from accurate, and not seldom, at
critical places (e.g. c. vi. S 2), quite misleading. Philosophical
citations from the _De corpore_ should always be made in the original
Latin. Molesworth reprints the Latin, not from the first edition of
1655, but from the modified edition of 1668--modified, in the
mathematical chapters, in general (not exact) keeping with the
English edition of 1656. The Vindex episode, referred to in the _Six
Lessons_, becomes intelligible only by going beyond Molesworth to the
original Latin edition of 1655.

[15] They were composed originally, in a somewhat different and
rather more extended form, as the second part of an English treatise
on Optics, completed by the year 1646. Of this treatise, preserved in
Harleian MSS. 3360, Molesworth otherwise prints the dedication to the
marquis of Newcastle, and the concluding paragraphs (_E.W._ vii.
467-471).

[16] _L.W._ iv. 1-232. The propositions on the circle, forty-six in
number (shattered by Wallis in 1662), were omitted by Hobbes when he
republished the _Dialogues_ in 1668, in the collected edition of his
Latin works from which Molesworth reprints. In the part omitted, at
p. 154 of the original edition, Hobbes refers to his first
introduction to Euclid, in a way that confirms the story in Aubrey
quoted in an earlier paragraph.

[17] Remaining at Oxford, Wallis, in fact, took no active part in the
constitution of the new society, but he had been, from 1645, one of
the originators of an earlier association in London, thus continued
or revived. This earlier society had been continued also at Oxford
after the year 1649, when Wallis and others of its members received
appointments there.

[18] The _Problemata physica_ was at the same time put into English
(with some changes and omission of part of the mathematical
appendix), and presented to the king, to whom the work was dedicated
in a remarkable letter apologizing for _Leviathan_. In its English
form, as _Seven Philosophical Problems and Two Propositions of
Geometry_ (_E.W._ vii. 1-68), the work was first published in 1682,
after Hobbes's death.

[19] Wallis's pieces were excluded from the collected edition of his
works (1693-1697), and have become extremely rare.

[20] The De medio animarum statu of Thomas White, a heterodox
Catholic priest, who contested the natural immortality of the soul.
White (who died 1676) and Hobbes were friends.

[21] _E.W._ vi. 161-418. Though _Behemoth_ was kept back at the
king's express desire, it saw the light, without Hobbes's leave, in
1679, before his death.

HOBBY, a small horse, probably from early quotations, of Irish breed, trained to an easy gait so that riding was not fatiguing. The common use of the word is for a favourite pursuit or occupation, with the idea either of excessive devotion or of absence of ulterior motive or of profit, &c., outside the occupation itself. This use is probably not derived from the easy ambling gait of the Irish "hobby," but from the "hobby-horse," the mock horse of the old morris-dances, made of a painted wooden horse's head and tail, with a framework casing for an actor's body, his legs being covered by a cloth made to represent the "housings" of the medieval tilting-horse. A hobby or hobby-horse is thus a toy, a diversion. The O. Fr. _hobin_, or _hobi_, Mod. _aubin_, and Ital. _ubina_ are probably adaptations of the English, according to the _New English Dictionary_. The O. Fr. hober, to move, which is often taken to be the origin of all these words, is the source of a use of "hobby" for a small kind of falcon, _falco subbuteo_, used in hawking.

HOBHOUSE, ARTHUR HOBHOUSE, 1ST BARON (1819-1904), English judge, fourth son of Henry Hobhouse, permanent under-secretary of state in the Home Office, was born at Hadspen, Somerset, on the 10th of November 1819. Educated at Eton and Balliol, he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1845, and rapidly acquired a large practice as a conveyancer and equity draftsman; he became Q.C. in 1862, and practised in the Rolls Court, retiring in 1866. He was an active member of the charity commission and urged the appropriation of pious bequests to educational and other purposes. In 1872 he began a five years' term of service as legal member of the council of the governor-general of India, his services being acknowledged by a K.C.S.I.; and in 1881 he was appointed a member of the judicial committee of the privy council, on which he served for twenty years. He was made a peer in 1885, and consistently supported the Liberal party in the House of Lords. He died on the 6th of December 1904, leaving no heir to the barony.

His papers read before the Social Science Association on the subject
of property were collected in 1880 under the title of _The Dead Hand_.

HOBOKEN, a small town of Belgium on the right bank of the Scheldt about 4 m. above Antwerp. It is only important on account of the shipbuilding yard which the Cockerill firm of Seraing has established at Hoboken. Many wealthy Antwerp merchants have villas here, and it is the headquarters of several of the leading rowing clubs on the Scheldt. Pop. (1904) 12,816.

HOBOKEN, a city of Hudson county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on the Hudson river, adjoining Jersey City on the S. and W. and opposite New York city, with which it is connected by ferries and by two subway lines through tunnels under the river. Pop. (1890) 43,648; (1900) 59,364, of whom 21,380 were foreign-born, 10,843 being natives of Germany; (1910 census) 70,324. Of the total population in 1900, 48,349 had either one or both parents foreign-born, German being the principal racial element. The city is served by the West Shore, and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railways, being the eastern terminus of the latter, and is connected by electric railway with the neighbouring cities of north-eastern New Jersey. In Hoboken are the piers of the North German Lloyd, the Hamburg American, the Netherlands American, the Scandinavian and the Phoenix steamship lines. Hoboken occupies a little more than 1 sq. m. and lies near the foot of the New Jersey Palisades, which rise both on the W. and N. to a height of nearly 200 ft. Much of its surface has had to be filled in to raise it above high tide, but Castle Point, in the N.E., rises from the generally low level about 100 ft. On this Point are the residence and private estate of the founder of the city, John Stevens (1749-1838), Hudson Park, and facing it the Stevens Institute of Technology, an excellent school of mechanical engineering endowed by Edwin A. Stevens (1795-1868), son of John Stevens, opened in 1871, and having in 1909-1910 34 instructors and 390 students. The institute owes much to its first president, Henry Morton (1836-1902), a distinguished scientist, whose aim was "to offer a course of instruction in which theory and practice were carefully balanced and thoroughly combined," and who gave to the institute sums aggregating $175,000 (see _Morton Memorial, History of Stevens Institute_, ed. by Furman, 1905). In connexion with the institute there is a preparatory department, the Stevens School (1870). The city maintains a teachers' training school. Among the city's prominent buildings are the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western station, the Hoboken Academy (1860), founded by German Americans, and the public library. The city has an extensive coal trade and numerous manufactures, among which are lead pencils, leather goods, silk goods, wall-paper and caskets. The value of the manufactured product increased from $7,151,391 in 1890 to $12,092,872 in 1900, or 69.1%. The factory product in 1905 was valued at $14,077,305, an increase of 34.3% over that for 1900. The site of Hoboken (originally "Hobocanhackingh," the place of the tobacco pipe) was occupied about 1640 as a Dutch farm, but in 1643 the stock and all the buildings except a brew-house were destroyed by the Indians. In 1711 title to the place was acquired by Samuel Bayard, a New York merchant, who built on Castle Point his summer residence. During the War of Independence his descendant, William Bayard, was a loyalist, and his home was burned and his estate confiscated. In 1784 the property was purchased by John Stevens, the inventor, who in 1804 laid it out as a town. For the next thirty-five years its "Elysian Fields" were a famous pleasure resort of New York City. Hoboken was incorporated as a town in 1849 and as a city in 1855. On the 30th of June 1900 the wharves of the North German Lloyd Steamship Company and three of its ocean liners were almost completely destroyed by a fire, which caused a loss of more than 200 lives and over $5,000,000.

HOBSON'S CHOICE, i.e. "this or nothing," an expression that arose from the fact that the Cambridge-London carrier, Thomas Hobson (1544-1630), refused, when letting his horses on hire, to allow any animal to leave the stable out of its turn. Among other bequests made by Hobson, and commemorated by Milton, was a conduit for the Cambridge market-place, for which he provided the perpetual maintenance. See _Spectator_, No. 509 (14th of October 1712).

HOBY, SIR THOMAS (1530-1566), English diplomatist and translator, son of William Hoby of Leominster, was born in 1530. He entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1545, but in 1547 he went to Strassburg, where he was the guest of Martin Bucer, whose _Gratulation ... unto the Church of Englande for the restitution of Christes Religion_ he translated into English. He then proceeded to Italy, visiting Padua and Venice, Florence and Siena, and in May 1550 he had settled at Rome, when he was summoned by his half-brother, Sir Philip Hoby (1505-1558), then ambassador at the emperor's court, to Augsburg. The brothers returned to England at the end of the year, and Thomas attached himself to the service of the marquis of Northampton, whom he accompanied to France on an embassy to arrange a marriage between Edward VI. and the princess Elizabeth. Shortly after he returned to England he started once more for Paris, and in 1552 he was engaged on his translation of _The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio_. His work was probably completed in 1554, and the freedom of the allusions to the Roman church probably accounts for the fact that it was withheld from publication until 1561. The _Cortegiano_ of Baldassare Castiglione, which Dr Johnson called "the best book that ever was written upon good breeding," is a book as entirely typical of the Italian Renaissance as Machiavelli's _Prince_ in another direction. It exercised an immense influence on the standards of chivalry throughout Europe, and was long the recognized authority for the education of a nobleman. The accession of Mary made it desirable for the Hobys to remain abroad, and they were in Italy until the end of 1555. Thomas Hoby married in 1558 Elizabeth, the learned daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, who wrote a Latin epitaph on her husband. He was knighted in 1566 by Elizabeth, and was sent to France as English ambassador. He died on the 13th of July in the same year in Paris, and was buried in Bisham Church.

His son, SIR EDWARD HOBY (1560-1617), enjoyed Elizabeth's favour, and he was employed on various confidential missions. He was constable of Queenborough Castle, Kent, where he died on the 1st of March 1617. He took part in the religious controversies of the time, publishing many pamphlets against Theophilus Higgons and John Fludd or Floyd. He translated, from the French of Mathieu Coignet, _Politique Discourses on Trueth and Lying_ (1586).

The authority for Thomas Hoby's biography is a MS. "Booke of the
Travaile and lief of me Thomas Hoby, with diverse things worth the
noting." This was edited for the Royal Historical Society by Edgar
Powell in 1902. Hoby's translation of _The Courtyer_ was edited (1900)
by Professor Walter Raleigh for the "Tudor Translations" series.