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THOMAS HOBBES (1588–1679)
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See also: Hobbes was his See also:companion rather than tutor (before becoming secretary); and, growing greatly attached to each other, they were sent abroad together on the See also:grand tour in 161o . During this See also:journey, the duration of which cannot be precisely stated, Hobbes acquired some knowledge of See also:French and See also:Italian, and also made the important See also:discovery that the scholastic See also:philosophy which he had learned in Oxford was almost universally neglected in favour of the scientific and See also:critical methods of Galileo, See also:Kepler and See also:Montaigne . Unable at first to See also:cope with their unfamiliar ideas, he determined to become a See also:scholar, and until 1628 was engaged in a careful study of Greek and Latin authors, the out-come of which was his great See also:translation of See also:Thucydides . But when he had finished his See also:work he kept it lying by him Transrafor years, being no longer so sure of finding appreciative trop of readers; and when he did send it forth, in 1628, he was Th"cy' See also:fain to be content with " the few and better sort."I did" . That he was finally determined to publication by the See also:political troubles of the year 1628 may be regarded as certain, not only from his own See also:express See also:declaration at a later time (Vit. carm. exp.), but also from unmistakable hints in the See also:account of the life and work of his author prefixed to the translation on its See also:appearance . This was the year of the See also:Petition of Right, extorted from the king in the third See also:parliament he had tried within three years of his See also:accession; and, in view of Hobbes's later activity, it is significant that he came forward just then, at the mature age of See also:forty, with his version of the See also:story of the Athenian See also:democracy as the first See also:production of his See also:pen . Nothing else is known 'of his doings I The translation, under the See also:title Eight Books of the Peloponnesian War, written by Thucydides the son of Olorus, interpreted with faith and See also:diligence immediately out of the Greek by Thomas Hobbes, secretary to the See also:late Earl of Devonshire, appeared in 1628 (or 1629), after the See also:death of the earl, to whom touching reference is made in the See also: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 See also:writing, but is by no means accurate . It fills vols. viii. and ix. in See also:Molesworth's collection (it vols., including See also:index vol.) of Hobbes's English See also:Works (See also:London, See also:Bohn, 18,39–18g5) . The volumes of this collection will here be cited as E.W . Molesworth's collection of the Latin See also:Opera philosophica (5 vols., 1839–1845) will be cited as L.W .
The five See also:hundred and See also:odd Latin hexameters under the title De mirabilibus Pecci L.W. v
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323-340), giving an account of a short excursion from See also:Chatsworth to view the seven wonders of the See also:Derbyshire See also:Peak, were written before 1628 (in 1626 or 1627), though not published till 1636
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It was a New Year's See also:present to his See also:patron, who gave him f5 in return
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A later edition, in 1678, included an English version by another See also:hand
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II
before 1628, except that through his connexion with young a See also:mechanical See also:hypothesis as far back as 1630, the See also:inspiration may Cavendish he had relations with See also:literary men of See also:note like See also:Ben
See also:Jonson, and also with See also: This, his second, sojourn abroad appears to have been spent chiefly in See also:Paris, and the one important fact recorded of it is that he then first began to look into See also:Euclid . The engagement came to an end in 1631, when he was recalled to See also:train the young earl of See also:Devon-See also:shire, now thirteen years old, son of his previous See also:pupil . In the course of the next seven years in Derbyshire and abroad, Hobbes took his pupil over See also:rhetoric,' logic, See also:astronomy, and the principles of See also:law, with other subjects . His mind was now full of the thought of See also:motion in nature, and on the See also:continent he sought out the philosophical speculators or scientific workers . In See also:Florence in 1636 he saw Galileo, for whom he ever retained the warmest admiration, and spent eight months in daily converse with the members of a scientific circle in Paris, held together by Marin See also:Mersenne (q.v.) . From that time (the See also:winter of 1636–1637) he too, as he tells us, was numbered among philosophers . His introduction to Euclid took See also:place accidentally in 1629 (Aubrey's Lives, p . 604) . Euclid's manner of See also:proof became the See also:model for his own way of thinking upon all subjects . It is less easy to determine when he awoke to an interest in the See also:physical doctrine of motion . The story told by himself (Vit. p. xx.) is that, See also:hearing the question asked " What is sense ? " he See also:fell to thinking often on the subject, till it suddenly occurred to him that if bodies and their See also:internal parts were at See also:rest, or were always in the same See also:state of motion, there could be no distinction of anything, and consequently no sense; the cause of all things must therefore be sought in diversity of movements . Starting from this principle he was driven to See also:geometry for insight into the ground and modes of motion . The See also:biographies we possess do not tell us where or when this great change of interest occurred . Nothing is said, however, which contradicts a statement that on his third journey in See also:Europe he began to study the doctrine of motion more seriously, being interested in it before; and as he claims more than once (LW . V . 303; E.W. vii . 468) to have explained See also:light and See also:sound by ' Hobbes, in See also: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, See also:Harvey, and others (De corpore, ep. ded.), among the See also:lights of the See also:century . The word " See also: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 See also:reminiscence of the import assigned to it by Bacon; and, as will be seen, he had nothing but scorn for experimental work in physics . '' The See also:free English abstract of See also:Aristotle's Rhetoric, published in 1681, after Hobbes's death, as The Whole See also: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-See also:book, interspersed with headings, examples, &c. in Hobbes's hand . be assigned to the time of the second journey . But it was not till the third journey that the new interest became an overpowering See also:passion, and the " philosopher " was on his way See also:home before he had advanced so far as to conceive the See also:scheme of a See also:system of thought to the elaboration of which his life should henceforth be devoted . Hobbes was able to carry out his See also:plan in some twenty years or more from the time of its conception, but the See also:execution was so broken in upon by political events, and so complicated with other labours, that its stages can hardly be followed without some previous understanding of the relations of the parts of the scheme, as there is reason to believe they were sketched out from the beginning . His scheme was first to work out, in a See also:separate See also:treatise De See also:cor See also:pore, a systematic doctrine of See also:Body, showing how physical phenomena were universally explicable in terms of motion, as motion or mechanical See also:action was then (through Galileo and others) understood—the theory of motion being applied in the light of mathematical See also:science, after quantity, the subject-matter of See also:mathematics, had been duly considered in its place among the fundamental conceptions of philosophy, and a clear indication had been given, at first starting, of the logical ground and method of all philosophical inquiry . He would then single out Man from the See also:realm of nature, and, in a treatise De homine, show what specific bodily motions were involved in the production of the See also:peculiar phenomena of sensation and knowledge, as also of the affections and passions thence resulting, whereby man came into relation with man . Finally he would consider, in a crowning treatise De cive, how men, being naturally rivals or foes, were moved to enter into the better relation of Society, and demonstrate how this grand product of human wit must be regulated if men were not to fall back into brutishness and misery . Thus he proposed to unite in one coherent whole the separate phenomena of Body, Man and the State . Hobbes came home, in 1637, to a See also:country seething with discontent . The reign of " Thorough " was collapsing, and the forces pent up since 1629 were soon to rend the fabric of the state . By these events Hobbes was distracted from the orderly execution of his philosophic plan . The Short Parliament, as he tells us at a later time (E.W. iv . 414), was not dissolved before he had ready " a little treatise in English," in which he sought to prove that the points of the royal See also:prerogative which the members were determined to dispute before granting supplies " were inseparably annexed to the See also:sovereignty which they did not then deny to be in the king." Now it can be proved that at this time he had written not only his Human Nature but also his De cor pore politico, the two See also:treatises (though published separately ten years later) having been composed as parts of one work;3 and there cannot be the least question that together they make " the little treatise " just mentioned .
We are there-fore to understand, first, that he wrote the earliest draft of his political theory some years before the outbreak of the Civil War, and, secondly, that this earliest draft was not written till, in accordance with his philosophical conception, he had established the grounds of polity in human nature
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The first point is to be noted, because it has often been supposed that Hobbes's political doctrine took its peculiar complexion from his revulsion against the state of anarchy before his eyes, as he wrote during the progress of the Civil War
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The second point must be maintained against his own implied, if not express, statement some years later, when See also:publishing his De cive (L.W. ii
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151), that he wrote this third part of his system before he had been able to set down any finished See also:representation of the fundamental doctrines which it presupposed
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In the beginning of 1640, therefore, he had written out his doctrine of Man at least, with almost as much elaboration as it ever received from him
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In See also:November 164o the See also:Long Parliament succeeded to the Short, and sent See also:Laud and See also:Strafford to the See also:Tower, and Hobbes, who had become, or thought he had become, a marked m parts.. man by the circulation of his treatise (of which,
" though not printed, many gentlemen had copies "), hastened to Paris, " the first of all that fled." He was now for the See also:fourth and last time abroad, and did not return for eleven years
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Apparently he remained the greater part of the time in or about
' 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 See also:Newcastle, written in Hobbes's own hand, and dated May 9, 1640
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This dedication was prefixed to the first thirteen chapters of the work when printed by themselves, under the title Human Nature in 1650
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Paris
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He was welcomed back into the scientific coterie about Mersenne, and forthwith had the task assigned him of criticizing the Meditations of See also:Descartes, which had been sent from See also: About the same time also Mersenne sent to Descartes, as if they came from a friend in See also:England, another set of objections which Hobbes had to offer on various points in the scientific treatises, especially the Dioptrics, appended by Descartes to his Discourse on Method in 1637; to which Descartes replied without suspecting the See also:common authorship of the two sets . The result was to keep the two thinkers apart rather than bring them together . Hobbes was more eager to bring forward his own philosophical and physical ideas than careful to enter into the full meaning of another's thought; and Descartes was too jealous, and too confident in his conclusions to See also:bear with this See also:kind of criticism . He was very curt in his replies to Hobbes's philosophical objections, and See also:broke off all See also:correspondence on the physical questions, writing privately to Mersenne that he had See also:grave doubts of the Englishman's good faith in See also:drawing him into controversy (L.W. v . 277-307) . Meanwhile Hobbes had his thoughts too full of the political theory which the events of the last years had ripened within him to See also:settle, even in Paris, to the orderly See also:composition of his works . Though connected in his own mind with his view of human nature and of nature generally, the political theory, as he always declared, could stand by itself . Also, while he may have hoped at this time to be able to add much (though he never did) to the See also:sketch of his doctrine of Man contained in the unpublished " little treatise," he might extend, but could hardly otherwise modify, the sketch he had there given of his carefully articulated theory of Body Politic . Possibly, indeed, before that sketch was written early in 164o, he may, under pressure of the political excitement, have advanced no small way in the actual composition of the treatise De Cive, the third See also:section of his projected system . In any See also:case, it was upon this section, before the others, that he set to work in Paris; and before the end of 1641 the book, as we know from the date of the dedication (November 1), was finished . Though it was forthwith printed in the course of the year 1642, he was content to circulate a limited number of copies privately 1; and when he found his work received with See also:applause (it was praised even by Descartes), he seems to have taken this recognition of his philosophical achievement as an additional reason for deferring publication till the earlier works of the system were completed . Accordingly, for the next three or four years, he remained steadily at work, and nothing appeared from him in public except a short treatise on See also:optics (Tractatus opticus, L.W. v .
217-248) included in the collection of scientific tracts published by Mersenne under the title Cogitata physico-mathematica in 1644, and a highly compressed statement of his psychological application of the doctrine of motion (L.W. v
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309-318), incorporated with Mersenne's Ballistica, published in the same year
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Thus or otherwise he had become sufficiently known by 1645 to be chosen as a See also:referee, with Descartes, See also:Roberval and others, in the famous controversy between John See also:Pell (q.v.) and the Dane See also:Longomontanus (q.v.) over that problem of the squaring of the circle which was seen later on to have such a fatal See also:charm for himself
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But though about this time he had got ready all or most of the materials for his fundamental work on Body, not even now was he able to make way with its composition,
1 The book, of which the copies are rare (one in Dr See also:Williams's library in London and one in the Bodleian), was printed in See also:quarto See also:size (Paris, 1642), with a pictorial title-See also:page (not afterwards reproduced) of scenes and figures illustrating its three divisions, " Libertas," Imperium," " Religio." The title Elementorum philosophise sectio tertia, De rive, expresses its relation to the unwritten sections, which also comes oift in one or rwo bacl references hi the See also:text.and when he returned to it after a number of years, he returned a different man
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The Civil War had broken out in 1642, and the royalist cause began to decline from the time of the defeat at See also:Marston See also:Moor, in the See also:middle of 1644
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Then commenced an See also:exodus of the king's See also:friends
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Newcastle himself, who was a See also:cousin of Hobbes's late patron and to whom he dedicated the " little treatise " of 164o, found his way to Paris, and was followed by a stream of fugitives, many of whom were known to Hobbes
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The sight of these exiles made the political interest once more predominant in Hobbes, and before long the revived feeling issued in the formation of a new and important See also:design
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It first showed itself in the publication of the De cive, of which the fame, but only the fame, had extended beyond the inner circle of friends and critics who had copies of the See also:original impression
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Hobbes now entrusted it, early in 1646, to his admirer, the Frenchman See also:Samuel de Sorbiere, by whom it was seen through the See also:Elzevir See also:press at See also:Amsterdam in 1647—having previously inserted a number of notes in reply to objections, and also a striking See also:preface, in the course of which he explained its relation to the other parts of the system not yet forthcoming, and the (political) occasion of its having been composed and being now published before them.2 So hopeless, meanwhile, was he growing of being able to return home that, later on in the year, he was on the point of leaving Paris to take up his See also:abode in the See also:south with a French friend,3 when he was engaged " by the See also:month " as mathematical instructor to the young See also:prince of See also:Wales, who had come over from See also:Jersey about the month of See also:July
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This engagement lasted nominally from 1646 to 1648 when
See also: The De cive, presently to be published, was written in Latin for the learned, and gave the political theory without its See also:foundation in human nature . The unpublished treatise of 164o contained all or nearly all that he had to tell concerning human nature, but was written before the terrible events of the last years had disclosed how men might still be urged by their See also:anti-social passions back into the See also:abyss of anarchy . There was need of an exposition at once comprehensive, incisive and popular . The State, it now seemed to Hobbes, might be regarded as a great artificial man or See also:monster (Leviathan), composed of men, with a life that might be traced from its See also:generation through human reason under pressure of human needs to its See also:dissolution through civil strife proceeding from human passions . This, we may suppose, was the presiding conception from the first, but the design may have been variously modified in the three or four years of its execution . Before the end, in 1650-165r, it is See also:plain that he wrote in See also:direct reference to the greatly changed aspect of affairs in England . The king being dead, and the royalist cause appearing to be hopelessly lost, he did not See also:scruple, in closing the work with a See also:general " See also:Review and Conclusion," to raise the question of the subject's right to change See also:allegiance when a former See also:sovereign's See also:power to protect was irrecoverably gone . Also he took See also:advantage of the See also:rule of the See also:Commonwealth to indulge much more freely than he might have otherwise dared in rationalistic criticism of religious doctrines; while, amid the turmoil of sects, he could the more, forcibly urge_that the preservation of social See also:order, when again firmly restored, must depend on the See also:assumption by the civil power of the right 1L.W. ii . 133-134 . In this first public edition (12m0), 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 1616 . Described as "nobilis Languedocianus " in Vit . ; doubtless the same with the " See also:Dominus Verdusius, nobilis Aquitanus," to whom was dedicated the Exam. et emend. math, had . (L.W. iv.) in 166o . Du Verdus was ene of Hobbes's profoundest admirers and most frequent correspondents in later years; there are many of his letters among Hobbes's papers at Hardwick . to wield all sanctions, supernatural as well as natural, against the pretensions of any See also:clergy, See also:Catholic, See also:Anglican or Presbyterian, to the exercise of an imperium in imperio . We know the Leviathan only as it finally emerged from Hobbes's pen . During the years of its composition he remained in or near Paris, at first in attendance on his royal pupil, with whom he became a great favourite . In 1647 Hobbes was overtaken by a serious illness which disabled him for six months . Mersenne begged him not to See also:die outside the See also:Roman Catholic Church, but Hobbes said that he had already considered the matter sufficiently and afterwards took the See also:sacrament according to the See also:rites of the Church of England . On recovering from this illness,which nearly proved fatal, he resumed his literary task, and carried it steadily forward to completion by the year 1650, having also within the same time translated into English, with characteristic force of expression, his Latin treatise . Otherwise the only thing known (from one or two letters) of his life in those years is that from the year 1648 he had begun to think of returning home; he was then sixty, and might well be weary of See also:exile . When 165o came, as if to prepare the way for the reception of his magnum See also:opus, he allowed the publication of his earliest treatise, divided into two separate small volumes (Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Policy, E.W. iv . 1-76, and De Corpore Politico, or the Elements of Law, Moral and Politic, pp . 77—228),1 In 16512 he published his translation of the De Cive under the title of Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society (E.W. ii.) . Meanwhile |