must be punished in the highest degree, and with the most severe penalties." The political doctrines of this work, indeed, (which may be summed in the expression I have used, that Might makes Right,) had perhaps a personal as well as a philosophical object. For when at Paris, Clarendon met Hobbes, then, like himself, an exile, in the time of Cromwell's usurpation, Hobbes mentioned to him some of the conclusions which his book, then printing, was to contain. Upon which I asked him," says Clarendon, "why he would publish such doctrine: to which, after a discourse between jest and earnest upon the subject, he said, The truth is, I have a mind to go home." Clarendon himself published a reply to the Leviathan. This work, A brief View and

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Survey of the Dangerous and Pernicious Errors to Church and State in Mr Hobbes's book, entitled, The Leviathan, did not appear till long after the work which it opposed. "It could not reasonably be expected," the author says, "that such a book would be answered in the time when it was published, which had been to have disputed with a man that commanded thirty legions, (for Cromwell had been obliged to support him who defended his Usurpation): and afterwards men thought it would be too much ill nature to call men in question for what they had said in ill times." Hence the reply was not published till many years after the Restoration, when Clarendon was again exiled by the base and profligate sovereign whom he had served too well. His dedication to the king begins in a manner which, under the circumstances, appears to me affecting. "It is," he says, 66 one of the false and evil doctrines which Mr Hobbes has published in his Leviathan, that a banished subject, during the banishment, is not a subject;-and that a banished man is a lawful enemy of the Commonwealth that banished him. I thank God, from the time that I found myself under the insupportable burthen of your majesty's displeasure, and

under the infamous brand of banishment, I have not thought myself one minute absolved in the least degree from the obligation of the strictest duty to your person, and of the highest gratitude that the most obliged servant can stand bound in; or from the affection that a true and faithful Englishman still owes, and must still pay to his country. And as I have every day since prayed for the safety of your person, and the prosperity of your affairs, with the same devotion and integrity as for the salvation of my own soul; so I have exercised my thoughts in nothing so much as how to spend my time in doing somewhat that may prove for your majesty's service and honour." And he signs himself"Your majesty's most faithful and obedient subject, and one of the oldest subjects that is now living to your father and yourself, CLARENDON." The work is dated Moulins, 1673, and was printed by the University of Oxford in 1676. Nor was this strong condemnation of Hobbes's doctrines confined to persons, like Clarendon, of high principles. In 1666 his Leviathan and treatise De Cive were condemned by the Parliament. And when a bill was brought into the House of Commons to punish atheism and profaneness, Hobbes considered it as likely to be employed against himself, and was much alarmed.

There were many other replies made to Hobbes from the first. Tenison, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, published a book called The Creed of Mr Hobbes examined, in 1670, and Bishop Bramhall, a little later, wrote The Catching of the Leviathan*. I shall not now dwell upon

* This was not the only allusion to Hobbes's title which his adversaries indulged in. Clarendon's Answer to him has a frontispiece which exhibits Andromeda chained to a rock, and a terrible sea-monster advancing through the water towards her, while Perseus, his destined destroyer, hovers above and prepares to execute his task of liberating the distressed maiden; who I suppose represents Truth, as her foe does the Leviathan.

these and other works on that side. It is plain, from all circumstances, that the whole tone and temper of Hobbes's philosophy offended and shocked those who had been accustomed to reverence the doctrines of morality as usually taught. Thus Bramhall says, that if it be necessary, “I will not grudge, upon his desire, (God willing) to demonstrate that his principles are pernicious both to Piety and Policy, and destructive to all relations of mankind between Prince and Subject, Father and Child, Master and Servant, Husband and Wife; and that they who maintain them obstinately, are fitter to live in hollow trees among wild beasts than in any Christian or Political Society, so God bless us!" (Preface to Defence of True Liberty). And it is stated that, in this University, a student was removed and punished for offering to defend in the schools a Thesis taken from Hobbes's doctrine.

And yet in truth these tenets, so startling, so alarming, so offensive, were very far from being new. These bold paradoxes had long previously been brought before the eyes of the speculative world. The whole of this controversy had agitated the schools of philosophy many ages earlier. The Greeks, who left few paths of speculation untrodden, and who, in almost every subject, seized the great antithesis between which opinion still oscillates, had taken hold of that opposition of systems which was here concerned, in the most vigorous manner: and the Romans, who pursued as rhetoricians what the Greeks had begun as philosophers, found in this dispute a congenial field for their eloquence and skill. The dialogues of Plato and of Cicero are full of discussions which are, in substance, the same as those which took place between the adversaries and the disciples of Hobbes ;-between those who assert that moral right and wrong are peculiar and independent qualities of actions, and those who say that these terms mean only that the actions lead to other

extraneous advantages and disadvantages. The Stoics and the Epicureans represented, very nearly, these opposite schools, which run through the history of morals. It is true, that Christian philosophy had for a long time driven into disgrace, and almost expelled, the tenet that pleasure alone is good, and that power alone is justice. Yet even in the Christian world such opinions had already reappeared after their season of obscurity. The old controversies were beginning to rouse themselves from their slumber, and to come forwards, modified and somewhat changed. Pomponatius and Machiavelli in Italy had attacked, though covertly, the metaphysical and moral principles which had reigned till their time uncontested; Gassendi in France had professed and adopted the doctrines of Epicurus, clothed in a Christian robe; Descartes was even then teaching that it was the philosopher's duty to doubt of every thing before he believed. Nor was the connexion of Hobbes's doctrines with those of such men difficult to discern.

Gassendi was one of the most ardent admirers of the philosopher of Malmesbury, as was Mersenne, who was termed by the Parisians "the resident minister of Descartes." And the opinions were so far consistent with the tendency of the times, and favoured by external circumstances, that they found many admirers. Many perhaps accepted some of the opinions without seeing the tendency of the system. According to what Clarendon says;-" Of those who have read his book, there are many who, being delighted with some new notions and the pleasant and clear style throughout the book, have not taken notice of those downright conclusions which undermine all those principles of government, which have preserved the peace of this kingdom through so many ages, or restored it to peace when it had at some time been interrupted; and much less of those odious insinuations, and perverting some texts of scripture, which do dishonour and

would destroy the very essence of the religion of Christ." It would seem that Charles the Second himself and his courtiers, who were, very naturally from what they felt and saw, disposed to take the lowest view of human nature, were inclined to admire many of Hobbes's maxims. Clarendon says, in the Dedication of his Reply to Charles the Second, that he had often tried and hoped to prevail upon his Majesty to give himself the leisure and the trouble to peruse and examine some parts of the Leviathan, "in confidence that they would be no sooner read than detested by you; whereas the frequent reciting of loose and disjointed sentences and bold inferences for the novelty and pleasantness of the expressions; the reputation of the gentleman for parts and learning, with his confidence in conversation; and especially the humour and inclination of the time to all kind of paradoxes, have too much prevailed with many of great wit and faculties, without reading the context, or observation of the consequences, to believe his propositions to be more innocent, than upon a more deliberate perusal they will find them to be."

Undoubtedly such causes had their effect in procuring currency and influence to Hobbes's opinions. He possessed in a great degree that quality of mind and will which has often characterized the founders of philosophical sects; and a comparison between him and more recent writers who have become the heads of more similar schools might be amusing and instructive. It will be found, at least in Hobbes's case, that the most extravagant arrogance, joined with great and indeed professed ignorance, does not destroy, if indeed it do not favour, the power of the master over his disciples. What is still more remarkable is, that this power, although it generally implies great acuteness on particular points, and the invention or adoption of some clear short trains of reasoning in special cases, by no means depends upon the faculty of following with certainty and clearness