INCLUDING
AN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS CHARACTER.
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!