1642, under the title of Elementa Philosophica de Cive; which when afterward translated into English was entitled Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society. This treatise is regarded as containing the most exact account of the author's political system. With many profound views, it is disfigured by fundamental and dangerous errors. The principles maintained in it were more fully discussed in his larger work, published in 1651, under the title of Leviathan: or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil. Man is here represented as a selfish and ferocious animal, requiring the strong hand of despotism to keep him in check; and all notions of right and wrong are made to depend upon views of self-interest alone. Of this latter doctrine, commonly known as the Selfish System of moral philosophy, Hobbes was, indeed, the great champion, both in the Leviathan' and more particularly in his small Treatise on Human Nature, published in 1650.

In the same year another work from his pen appeared, entitled De Corpore Politico; or Of the Body Politic. The freedom with which theological subjects were handled in the 'Leviathan,' as well as the offensive political views there maintained, occasioned great outcry against the author, particularly among the clergy. This led Charles to dissolve his connection with the philosopher, who, according to Lord Clarendon, was compelled secretly to fly out of Paris, the justice having endeavoured to apprehend him, and soon after escaped into England, where he never received any disturbance.' He again took up his abode with the Devonshire family, and became intimate with Seldon, Cowley, and Dr. Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. In 1654, he published a short but admirably clear and comprehensive Letter upon Liberty and Necessity; where the doctrine of the self-determining power of the will is opposed with a subtlety and profundity unsurpassed in any subsequent writer on that much agitated question. Indeed, he appears to have been the first who understood and expounded clearly the doctrine of philosophical necessity. On this subject, a long controversy between him and Bishop Bramhall of Londonderry took place. Here he fought with the skill of a master; but in a mathematical dispute with Dr. Wallis, professor of geometry at Oxford, which lasted twenty years, he fairly went beyond his depth, and obtained no increase of reputation. The fact is, that Hobbes did not begin to study mathematics until the age of forty, and, like most late learners, greatly overrated his knowledge. When Charles the Second came to the throne, he conferred upon Hobbes an annual pension of one hundred pounds; but, notwithstanding this and other marks of royal favor, much odium continued to rest both upon him and upon his doctrines. The 'Leviathan' and 'De Cive' were censured in Parliament in 1666, and also drew forth many printed replies.

In 1674, Hobbes entered a new field of literature, and published a metri cal version of four books of Homer's Odyssey, which was so well received, that in 1675, when he was eighty-seven years of age, he sent forth a translation of the remainder of that poem, and also the whole of the Iliad. These

translations, though very defective, became, nevertheless, so popular, that three large editions of them were required in less than ten years. As a translator in prose he was more successful than in poetry; and his version of the Greek historian Thucydides, one of his early literary performances, is still regarded as one of the best translations of that author ever produced in the English language. Hobbes passed the last five or six years of his life at Chatsworth, and continued to write till his death. His last performance was Behemoth, or a History of the Civil Wars from 1640 to 1660. His death occurred on the 4th of December, 1679, in the ninety-second year of

his age.

In his latter years, Hobbes's growing infirmities and habits of solitude rendered him morose and impatient of contradiction. He was never much inclined to read, and was, consequently, familiar with few books. Homer, Virgil, Thucydides and Euclid, were his favorite authors; and he used to say, that ‘if he had read as much as other men, he should have been as ignorant as they.' In consequence of the timidity of his disposition, he was continually apprehensive about his personal safety, insomuch that he could not endure to be left alone in a house. From the same motive, probably, it was that, notwithstanding his notorious heterodoxy, he maintained an external adherence to the established church. Though he has often been stigmatized as an atheist, yet the following passages, particularly the first, would seem to indicate that the charge is groundless :

GOD.

Forasmuch as God Almighty is incomprehensible, it followeth that we can have no conception or image of the Deity; and, consequently, all his attributes signify our inability and defect of power to conceive any thing concerning his nature, and not any conception of the same, except only this, That there is a God. For the effects, we acknowledge naturally, do include a power of their producing, before they were produced; and that power presupposeth something existent that hath such power: and the thing so existing with power to produce, if it were not eternal must needs have been produced by somewhat before it, and that, again, by something else before that, till we come to an eternal (that is to say, the first) Power of all Powers, and first Cause of all Causes: and this is it which all men conceive by the name of GOD, implying eternity, incomprehensibility, and omnipotency. And thus all that will consider may know that God is, though not what he is: even a man that is born blind, though it be not possible for him to have any imagination what kind of thing fire is, yet he can not but know that something there is that men call fire, because it warmeth him.

PITY AND INDIGNATION.

Pity is imagination or fiction of future calamity to ourselves, proceeding from the sense of another man's calamity. But when it lighteth on such as we think have not deserved the same, the compassion is greater, because then there appeareth more probability that the same may happen to us; for the evil that happeneth to an innocent man may happen to every man. But when we see a man suffer for great crimes, which we can not easily think will fall upon ourselves, the pity is the less. And, therefore, men are apt to pity those whom they love; for whom they Sove they think worthy of good, and therefore not worthy of calamity. Thence it is

also, that men pity the vices of some persons at the sight only, out of love to their aspect. The contrary of pity is hardness of heart, proceeding either from slowness of imagination, or some extreme great opinion of their own exemption from the like calamity, or from hatred of all or most men.

Indignation is that grief which consisteth in the conception of good success happening to them whom they think unworthy thereof. Seeing, therefore, men think all those unworthy whom they hate, they think them not only unworthy of the good fortune they have, but also of their own virtues. And of all the passions of the mind, these two, indignation and pity, are the most raised and increased by eloquence; for the aggravation of the calamity, and extenuation of the fault, augmenteth pity; and the extenuation of the worth of the person, together with the magnifying of his success, which are the parts of an orator, are able to turn these two passions into fury.

LOVE OF KNOWLEDGE.

Forasmuch as all knowledge beginneth from experience, therefore also new experience is the beginning of new knowledge, and the increase of experience the beginning of the increase of knowledge. Whatsoever, therefore, happeneth new to man, giveth him matter of hope of knowing somewhat that he knew not before. And this hope and expectation of future knowledge from any thing that happeneth new and strange is that passion which we commonly call admiration; and the same considered as appetite, is called curiosity, which is appetite of knowledge. As in the discerning of faculties, man leaveth all community with beasts at the faculty of imposing names, so also doth he surmount their nature at this passion of curiosity. For when a beast seeth any thing new and strange to him, he considereth it so far only as to discern whether it be likely to serve his turn or hurt him, and accordingly approacheth nearer to it, or fleeth from it: whereas man, who in most events remembereth in what manner they were caused and begun, looketh for the cause and beginning of every thing that ariseth new unto him. And from this passion of admiration and curiosity, have arisen not only the invention of names, but also suppositions of such causes of all things as they thought might produce them. And from this beginning is derived all philosophy, as astronomy from the admiration of the course of heaven; natural philosophy from the strange effects of the elements and other bodies. And from the degrees of curiosity proceed also the degrees of knowledge amongst men; for, to a man in the chase of riches or authority (which in respect of knowledge are but sensuality), it is a diversity of little pleasure, whether it be the motion of the sun or the earth that maketh the day; or to enter into other contemplations of any strange accident, otherwise than whether it conduce or not to the end he pursueth. Because curiosity is delight, therefore also novelty is so; but especially that novelty from which a man conceiveth an opinion, true or false, of bettering his own estate; for, in such case, they stand affected with the hope that all gamesters have while the cards are shuffling.

'The style of Hobbes,' says Sir James Mackintosh, 'is the very perfection of didactic writing. Short, clear, precise, pithy, his language never has more than one meaning, which never requires a second thought to find. By the help of his exact method, it takes so firm hold on the mind, that it will not allow attention to slacken. His little tract on 'Human Nature' has scarcely an ambiguous or needless word. He has so great a power of always choosing the most significant term, that he never is reduced to the poor expedient of using many in its stead. He had so thoroughly studied the genius of the language, and knew so well to steer between pedantry and

vulgarity, that two centuries have not superannuated probably more than a dozen of his words.'

LORD HERBERT of Cherbury was an intimate friend of Hobbes, and a brave and high-spirited man, at a time when honorable feeling was rare at the English Court. Like Hobbes he distinguished himself as a free-thinker; and, according to Leland, as he was one of the first, so he was confessedly one of the greatest writers that have appeared among us in the deistical cause.'

Edward Herbert was born at Montgomery Castle, in Wales, in 1581. At the age of fourteen he entered a gentleman commoner of University College, Oxford, where he laid the foundation of that admirable learning for which he was afterward so distinguished. From the university he travelled abroad, and applied himself to military exercises in foreign countries, by which he became a most accomplished gentleman. On his return to England, in 1603, he was knighted by King James, and soon after made one of the counsellors of that king for military affairs. In 1616 he was sent ambassador to Paris, and there published, in 1624, his celebrated deistical work, Of Truth, as it is distinguished from Probable, Possible, and False Revelation. In this work, the first in which deism was ever reduced to a system, the author maintains the sufficiency, universality, and absolute perfection of natural religion, and the consequent uselessness of supernatural revelation. In reprinting the work in London, in 1645, he added two tracts, the one, Of the Causes of Error, and the other, Of the Religion of a Layman; and soon afterward he published another book, entitled, The Ancient Religion of the Gentiles, and Cause of their Errors Considered.

Lord Herbert died in London on the twentieth of August, 1648; and the next year after his death, appeared his History of the Life and Reign of King Henry the Eighth. This work is termed by Lord Orford 'a masterpiece of historic biography;' and in Bishop Nicholson's opinion 'the author has acquitted himself with the like reputation as Lord Chancellor Bacon gained by the life of Henry the Seventh, having in the polite and martial part, been admirably exact, from the best records that remain.' In its style, the work is considered one of the best old specimens of historical composition in the language, being manly and vigorous, and unsullied by the quaintness and pedantry of the age. Lord Herbert is remarkable also as the earliest of English autobiographers. The memoirs which he kept of his own life were first printed in 1764, and have ever since been popular. As a specimen of his historical writing, we present the following passage from his 'Life of Henry the Eighth :'

SIR THOMAS MORE'S RESIGNATION OF THE GREAT SEAL.

Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, after divers suits to be discharged of his place, (which he had held two years and a-half,) did at length by the king's good leave resign it. The example whereof being rare, will give me occasion to speak more particularly of him. Sir Thomas More, a person of sharp wit, and en

dued besides with excellent parts of learning, (as his works may testify,) was yet (out of I know not what natural facetiousness) given so much to jesting, that it detracted no little from the gravity and importance of his place, which, though generally noted and disliked, I do not think was enough to make him give it over in that merriment we shall find anon, or retire to a private life. Neither can I believe him so much addicted to his private opinions as to detest all other governments but his own Utopia, so that it is probable some vehement desire to follow his book, or secret offence taken against some person or matter, (among which perchance the king's new intended marriage, or the like might be accounted,) occasioned this strange counsel; though, yet, I find no reason pretended for it, but infirmity and want of health. Our king hereupon taking the seal and giving it, together with the order of knighthood, to Thomas Audeley, speaker of the Lower House, Sir Thomas More, without acquainting any body with what he had done, repairs to his family at Chelsea, where, after a mass celebrated the next day in the church, he comes to his lady's pew, with his hat in his hand, (an office formerly done by one of his gentlemen,) and says, 'Madam, my lord is gone.' But she thinking this at first to be but one of his jests, was little moved, till he told her sadly, he had given up the great seal; whereupon she speaking some passionate words, he called his daughters then present to see if they could not spy some fault about their mother's dressing; but they after searching saying they could find none, he replied, 'Do he replied, 'Do you not perceive that your mother's nose standeth somewhat awry ?—of which jeer the provoked lady was so sensible, that she went from him in a rage. Shortly after, he acquainted his servants with what he had done, dismissing them also to the attendance of some other great personages, to whom he had recommended them. For his fool, he bestowed him on the lord mayor during his office, and afterward on his successors in that charge. And now coming to himself, he began to consider how much he had left, and finding that it was not above one hundred pounds yearly in lands, besides some money, he advised with his daughters how to live together. But the grieved gentlewomen, (who knew not what to reply, or indeed how to take these jests,) remaining astonished, he says, 'We will begin with the slender diet of the students of the law, and if that will not hold out, we will take such commons as they have at Oxford; which yet if our purse will not stretch to maintain, for our last refuge we will go a-begging, and at every man's door sing together a Salve Regina to get alms.' But these jests were thought to have in them more levity, than to be taken everywhere for current; he might have quitted his dignity without using such sarcasms, and betaken himself to a more retired and quiet life, without making them or himself contemptible. And certainly whatsoever he intended hereby, his family so little understood his meaning, that they needed some more serious instructions. So that I can not persuade myself for all this talk, that so excellent a person should omit at fit times to give his family that sober account of his relinquishing this place, which I find he did to the Archbishop Warham, Erasmus, and others.