5, LEON Y CASTILLO,
TELDE,
LAS PALMAS,
GRAN CANARIA.
_20 Jan. 1902._
I was glad of your letter. I had been in a poor way and it cheered me.
Now I am doing well and ride a bit on my cycle along one of the three
roads of the island. I thought that you would like _Joh. Althusius_ if
you could penetrate the shell[28]. I like all that man's books, and
his history of things in general as seen from the point of view of a
student of corporations is full of good stuff, besides being to all
appearance appallingly learned. I rather fancy that Hobbes's political
feat consisted in giving a new twist to some well worn theories of the
juristic order and then inventing a psychology which would justify that
twist. I shall be very much interested to hear what you have to say
about the old gentleman. A many years ago I saw in the Museum a copy of
the _Leviathan_ with a note telling how the wretched old atheist was
buried head downwards or face downwards or something of the sort in a
garden--a nice little legend in the making!
Have you read _De Mirabilibus Pecci_? Stevenson the Anglo-Saxon
scholar, who travelled outwards with me, told me that the first
recorded appearance of the name of the Peak (something like Pecesus)
shows that the great cavern was called after the Devil's hinder parts.
Did Hobbes know that? What a thing it is to be a philologer!