IT was well known to all students of philosophy and history in Oxford, and to many others, that
W. G. Pogson Smith had been for many years engaged in preparing for an exhaustive
treatment of the place of Hobbes in the history of European thought, and that he had
accumulated a great mass of materials towards this. These materials fill many notebooks, and
are so carefully arranged and indexed that it is clear that with a few more months he would
have been able to produce a work worthy of a very high place in philosophical literature.
Unhappily the work that he could have done himself cannot be done by any one else unless he
has given something like the same time and brings to the collection something like the same
extensive and intimate knowledge of the philosophy of the period as Pogson Smith possessed.
It is hoped indeed that, by the permission of his representatives, this great mass of material
will be deposited in the Bodleian Library and made available for scholars, and that thus the
task which he had undertaken may some time be carried out.
Among his papers has been found an essay which presents a very interesting and suggestive
treatment of the position of Hobbes. The essay is undated, and it is quite uncertain for what
audience it was prepared. It is this essay which is here published as an introduction to the
Leviathan. It is printed with only the necessary verification of references, and one or two
corrections of detail. It is always difficult to judge how far it is right to print work which the
author himself has not revised, but we feel that, while something must inevitably be lost, the
essay has so much real value that, even as it stands, it should be published. Something may
even be gained for the reader in the fresh and unconstrained character of the paper. The
pursuit of the ideal of a perfect and rounded criticism, which all serious scholars aim at, has
sometimes the unfortunate result of depriving a man's work of some spontaneity. In Oxford at
any rate, and it is probably the case everywhere, many a scholar says his best things and
expresses his most penetrating judgements in the least formal manner. Those who were Mr.
Pogson Smith's friends or pupils will find here much of the man himself—something of his
quick insight, of his unconventional directness, of his broad but solid learning; something also
of his profound feeling for truth, of his scorn of the pretentious, of his keen but kindly humour.
Errata.
PAGE 48. In the Margin, for love Praise, read love of Praise. p. 75. l. 5. for signied, r. signified.
p. 88. l. l. for performe, r. forme. l. 35. for Soveraign, r. the Soveraign. p. 94. l. 14. for lands, r. hands. p. 100. l. 28. for in, r. in his. p. 102. l. 46. for in, r. is, p. 105. in the margin, for ver.
10. r. ver. 19. &c. p. 116. l. 46. for are involved, r. are not involved. p. 120. l. 42. for Those Bodies, r. These Bodies. p. 137. l. 2. for in generall. r, in generall, p. 139. l. 36. for were, r.
where. p. 166. l. 18. for benefit, r. benefits. p. 200. l. 48. dele also. l. 49. for delivered, r.
deliver. p. 203. l. 35. for other, r. higher. p. 204. l. 15. for of the, r. over the. p. 234. l. 1. for but of, r. but by mediation of. l. 15. dele and. l. 38. for putting, r. pulling. p. 262. l. 19. for tisme, r. Baptisme. p. 268. l. 48. for that the, r. that. p. 271. l. 1. for observe, r. obey. l. 4. for contrary the, r. contrary to the. p. 272. l. 36. for our Saviours of life, r. of our Saviours life. p.
275. l. 18. for if shall, r. if he shall. l. 30. for haven, r. heaven. l. 45. for of Church, r. of the Church. p. 276. l. 38. dele inter. l. 46. dele are. p. 285. l. 11. for he had, r. he hath. p. 287. l.
10. dele of. p. 298. l. 36. for to ay, r. to Lay. p. 361. l. 36. for him, r. them.
[These errata have been corrected in the text of this reprint.]
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HOBBES
AN ESSAY
WHEREIN does the greatness of Hobbes consist? It is a question I often put to myself, as I lay
him down. It was a question which exercised his contemporaries—friends or foes—and drove
them to their wits' end to answer. If I were asked to name the highest and purest philosopher
of the seventeenth century I should single out Spinoza without a moment's hesitation. But
Spinoza was not of the world; and if a man will be perverse enough to bind the Spirit of Christ
in the fetters of Euclid, how shall he find readers? If I were asked to select the true founders of
modern science I should bracket Galileo, Descartes, and Newton, and resolutely oppose
Hobbes's claim to be of the company. If his studies in Vesalius prepared him to extend his
approbation to Harvey's demonstration of the circulation of the blood, his animosity to Oxford
and her professors would never allow him seriously to consider the claims of a science
advanced by Dr. Wallis; the sight of a page of algebraic symbols never elicited any feeling but
one of sturdy contempt, and the remark that it looked 'as if a hen had been scratching there'.
To the end of his days he dwelt among points of two dimensions, and superficies of three; he
squared the circle and he doubled the cube. "Twas pity,' said Sir Jonas Moore, and many more,
'that he had not began the study of mathematics sooner, for such a working head would have
made great advancement in it.'1
Of inductive science he is very incredulous. Bacon, contemplating 'in his delicious walkes at
Gorhambury', might indeed better like Mr. Hobbes taking down his thoughts than any other,
because he understood what he wrote; he probably learnt to understand my Lord, who dictated
his alphabet of simple natures, his receipts for the discovery of forms, his peddling
experiments and his laborious conceits. I mention this because most German critics, with
perhaps more than their usual careless audacity of assumption, find a niche for Hobbes as the
spiritual fosterling of the great empiricist Bacon. Now if there was one thing for which Hobbes
had neither sympathy nor even patience, it was experimental science. The possession of a
great telescope was no doubt a curious and useful delight; but 'not every one that brings from
beyond seas a new gin, or other jaunty device, is therefore a philosopher'.2 Let the gentlemen
of Gresham College, whose energy it must be granted shames the sloth of our ancient
universities,—let them apply themselves to Mr. Hobbes's doctrine of motion, and then he will
deign to cast an eye on their experiments. He did not think their gropings would carry them
very far. 'Experience concludeth nothing universally.'3 If he despaired of wringing her secret
from Nature, he never doubted that he held the key to every corner of the human heart. He
offers us a theory of man's nature which is at once consistent, fascinating, and outrageously
false. Only the greatest of realists could have revealed so much and blinded himself to so much
more. You cry angrily—It is false, false to the core; and yet the still small voice will suggest,
But how much of it is really true? It is poor, immoral stuff! so you might say in the pulpit, but
you know that it probes very deep. It is only the exploded Benthamite philosophy with its
hedonistic calculus tricked out in antique piquancy of phrase! If you really hold this, if you
think that Hobbes's man is nothing more than a utilitarian automaton led by the nose by
suburban pleasures and pains, you have no sense of power, of pathos, or of irony. It is only the
trick of the cheap cynic, you retort in fine. Yes, it is cynicism; but it is not cheap. Nature has
made man a passionate creature, desirous not of pleasure but of power; the passions
themselves are not simple emotions, but charged with and mastered by the appetite for
power; honour consisteth only in the opinion of power; the worth of a man is, as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power; the public
worth of a man, which is the value set on him by the commonwealth, is that which men
commonly call dignity. Leave men to themselves, they struggle for power; competition,
diffidence, vainglory driving them. Sober half-hours hush with their lucid intervals the tumult
of the passions; even so on earth they bring no beatitude. Care for the future is never
banished from thought; felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another.
'So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.'4
'For as Prometheus, which interpreted is, the prudent man, was bound to the hill Caucasus, a place of large prospect, where an eagle, feeding on his liver, devoured in the day as much as
was repaired in the night: so that man, which looks too far before him, in the care of future
time, hath his heart all the day long, gnawed on by fear of death, poverty, or other calamity;
and has no repose nor pause of his anxiety, but in sleep.'5
Such, then, is the lust and the burden of man. What is the deliverance? Spinoza found it in
philosophy; the truth shall make you free: but Hobbes was a philosopher who had no faith in
truth. Pascal found it in the following of Christ; but I doubt whether religion ever meant much
more than an engine of political order to Hobbes. Rousseau, whose survey of human nature
often strangely and suspiciously resembles that of Hobbes, advocated—in some moods at least
—a return to nature. Rousseau's 'nature' was a pig-sty, but Hobbes's state of nature was
something far worse than that.
Hobbes was never disloyal to intellect, grievously as he affronted its paramount claims; he was
not of those who see virtue in the renunciation of mathematics, logic, and clothes. Passion-
ridden intellect had mastered man in a state of nature; a passion-wearied intellect might
deliver man from it. If man cannot fulfil his desire, he can seek peace and ensue it by the
invention of fictions. It is not prudence, but curiosity, that distinguisheth man from beast. He
wonders; he is possessed; a passionate thought leaps to the utterance; the word is born; the
idea is fixed; from henceforth he will boldly conclude universally; science has come in the train
of language. This most noble and profitable invention of speech, 'without which there had been
amongst men neither commonwealth nor society, nor contract nor peace, no more than
amongst lions, bears, and wolves,'6 is man's proudest triumph over nature. By his own art he
fetters himself with his own fictions—the fictions of the tongue. You shall no longer hold that
men acquired speech because man was a reasoning animal; in truth man became capable of
science, i.e. reason, because he invented speech. It was not nature which in secular travail
brought reason to the birth; but man saw nature's poverty of invention, and boldly substituted
his own. He created reason in the interests of peace. Voltaire profanely said that if there were
no God it would be necessary to invent one; convictions of similar cogency drove the Hobbean
man to bow his neck to the dictatorship of the neologist. 'The Greeks have but one word,
, for both speech and reason; not that they thought there was no speech without
reason, but no reasoning without speech.'7 Truth is a necessity; but necessary truth is a will-
o'-the-wisp. Seekers after truth—how Hobbes despised them, all that deluded race who dreamt
of a law whose seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in
heaven and earth doing her homage! Rather, boldly conclude that truth is not to be sought,
but made. Let men agree what is to be truth, and truth it shall be. There is truth and truth abounding when once it is recognized that truth is only of universals, that there is nothing in
the world universal but names, and that names are imposed arbitrio hominum. Fiction is not,
as people hold, the image or the distortion of the real which it counterfeits; it is the very and
only foundation of that reality which is rational. Here is Hobbes's answer to that question
which, in its varied phrasing, has never ceased to trouble philosophy. Are there innate ideas?
What is the ultimate criterion of truth? Is there a transcendent reason? What is common
sense? Are there any undemonstrable and indubitable axioms fundamental to all thought? How
is a synthetic a priori judgement possible?
The same temper which leads him to stifle thought with language carries him on to substitute
definitions for first principles. Prima philosophia—metaphysics in Aristotle's sense—is first a body of definitions. These definitions are our points of departure: we must start by agreeing
upon them. For 'the light of human minds is perspicuous words, by exact definitions first
snuffed and purged from ambiguity'.8 A definition must be held to be satisfactory if it be clear.
The master claims a free and absolute right of arbitrary definition. The scholar queries: Is the
definition true? is it adequate? does it assort with reality? To whom the master testily replies:
You are irrelevant; your only right is to ask, Is it clear? Unless my definitions are accepted as
first principles, science, i.e. a deductive system of consequences, is impossible, and inference
foreclosed. Let me remind you again that agreement on definitions is the sine qua non of
intelligible reasoning; and then for the sake of peace and lucidity let me beg—nay insist—that
you accept my ruling on the use of names. Are they not arbitrary? Is not one man's imposition
as good as another's? Mine therefore—at least for purposes of argument—rather better than
yours? Hobbes knew what he was about; he was 'rare at definitions', said the admiring John
Aubrey.9 It was because he very clearly saw that in the prerogative of definition lay the
sovereignty in philosophy.
But, you say, he must recognize some real, unconventional, transcendent standard of truth
somewhere: for otherwise by what right does he distinguish between truth and error? And
what is the meaning of the charges 'absurd' and 'insignificant' so freely lavished on opinions
with which he disagrees? I can only reply that his distinctions between truth and falsehood,
sense and absurdity, are perfectly consistent with the doctrine I have been expounding. Man's
privilege of reason 'is allayed by another: and that is, by the privilege of absurdity; to which no
living creature is subject, but man only. …for it is most true that Cicero saith of them
somewhere: that there can be nothing so absurd but may be found in the books of
philosophers.'10 'As men abound in copiousness of language, so they become more wise, or
more mad than ordinary… For words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them; but
they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a
Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever.'11 The causes of this endowment of absurdity are but
want of definition, want of adherence to definitions, want of the power of syllogizing. A glance
at Hobbes's relentless application of this fundamental principle will be sufficient. Good and evil
are terms of individual imposition; by tacit agreement one may say they are left to a personal
interpretation; there is no common rule of good and evil to be taken from the nature of the
objects themselves. But the moral virtues and vices are universal names: they take their
definition ex arbitrio hominum, i.e. from the will of the State. 'The fool hath said in his heart, there is no such thing as justice; and sometimes also with his tongue.'12 The fool might arrive
at his conclusion by an easy deduction from the principles of Hobbes. For if he had studied
Hobbes's code of nature with ordinary care he would have discovered that the justice of which
Leviathan is begotten is carefully emptied of all ethical content. There is indeed a justice, an obligation arising out of contract, which naturally refuses to discuss its own title; and there is
another justice, the parody of equity, which explains itself with a humorous grin as the fiction
of equality playing the peace-maker. You, X, say you're as good as any one else: Y says he's
quite your match, and he'll take you on: permit me to assume then for purposes of codification
a hypothesis of universal equality, and to refer you to the golden rule for your future
behaviour!
At length man's pride and passions compel him to submit himself to government. Leviathan is
set on his feet; he is the king of the proud; but his feet are of clay; he too is a fiction. This
time Hobbes resorts to the lawyers, borrows from them their mystico-legal fiction of the
persona moralis, the corporation, and sends the mystical elements in it to the right about. 'It is the unity of the representer, not the unity of the represented, that maketh the person one: …
and unity cannot otherwise be understood in multitude.'13 The sovereign is the soul, the
person, the representative, the will, the conscience of the commonwealth; i.e. the sovereign is
the commonwealth in that fictional sense which alone is truth in science and in practice. Once
again there is no such thing as objective right: therefore we must invent a substitute for it by
establishing a sovereign who shall declare what shall be right for us. On this point Hobbes is
unmistakably emphatic.
'The law is all the right reason we have, and (though he, as often as it disagreeth with his own
reason, deny it) is the infallible rule of moral goodness. The reason whereof is this, that
because neither mine nor the Bishop's reason is right reason fit to be a rule of our moral
actions, we have therefore set up over ourselves a sovereign governor, and agreed that his
laws shall be unto us, whatsoever they be, in the place of right reason, to dictate to us what is
really good. In the same manner as men in playing turn up trump, and as in playing their
game their morality consisteth in not renouncing, so in our civil conversation our morality is all
contained in not disobeying of the laws.'14— Hobbes's debate with Dr. Bramhall, Bishop of
Derry.
'For, but give the authority of defining punishments to any man whatsoever, and let that man
define them, and right reason has defined them, suppose the definition be both made, and
made known before the offence committed. For such authority is to trump in card-playing,
save that in matter of government, when nothing else is turned up, clubs are trumps.'15— A
Dialogue of the Common Laws.
It is idle to qualify or defend such a political philosophy: it is rotten at the core. It is valueless save in so far as it stimulates to refutation. We may be content to leave it as a precious
privilege to the lawyers, who need definitions and have no concern with morality. And yet no
thinker on politics has ever probed its fundamental conceptions more thoroughly; and I say it
advisedly, if you would think clearly of rights and duties, sovereignty and law, you must begin
with the criticism of Hobbes. For any philosophy which is worth the name must spring out of
scepticism; and every system of philosophy which is worth serious attention must achieve the
conquest of scepticism. It is only a very botcher in philosophy or a very genial personage who
can really rest content with a merely sceptical attitude. Hobbes was no Carneades of riotous
dialectic, no Montaigne of cheerful and humorous resignation. His logic plunged him into the
abyss of scepticism; but the fierce dogmatism of his nature revolted against it. David Hume
imagined that it was left for him to send philosophy to its euthanasia; but in truth Hobbes had
seen it all, the whole sceptic's progress—seen it, and travelled it, and loathed it long ago.
Hobbes clutched at mathematics as the dogmatist's last straw. Spite of the wreck of objective
ideals, what might not be effected with matter and motion! Here, if anywhere, certainty might
be found; here reason, baffled and disillusioned, might find a punctum stans; a fulcrum to
explain the universe.
Hobbes and Descartes.
Hobbes thought in an atmosphere of dualism—yet Hobbes was a resolute opponent of dualism.
From 1637, the date of the Discours, the relation between matter and mind, body and soul,
was a cardinal— the cardinal problem. Descartes had awarded to each substance co-ordinate,
independent, absolute rights. The future business of Cartesianism was to find a trait d'union—
an explanation for a relation in fact which had been demonstrated in theory inconceivable.
At first blush one might be inclined to say Hobbes remained untouched by the new method.
Starting on a basis of empiricism he developed a materialistic philosophy in perfect
independence of the current of idealistic thought which was flowing so strongly on the
Continent. It would be a mistaken view. Hobbes is powerfully influenced by Descartes.
Descartes prescribes for him his method—not Gassendi or Bacon. But with Descartes' dualism
he will not away. He suspected Descartes of paltering with philosophy to appease the Jesuits—
his philosophy must find a corner for the mysteries of the Catholic faith, e.g.
transubstantiation, pro salute animae; and was a system to be received which fell hopelessly apart in the middle, and which demanded a miracle to restore a unity which a philosophy
worthy of the name was bound to demonstrate impossible?
A system—or philosophy—must be coherent at any price; a philosopher, whose business it was
to define, should see to that: words are wise men's counters, and the philosopher must play to
win; coherence, not comprehension, is with Hobbes the touchstone of philosophy, the test of
truth. To Hobbes, rationalism is the fundamental postulate; and a rational universe must be
deduced from a single and simple principle. Dualism was the consecration of the irrational.
But Hobbes deals in back blows—he does not meet the dualist face to face; he refuses to see
eye to eye with him; the problem shall be eluded, the position turned, in an emergency the
question at issue begged. Sensation need offer no difficulties: sensation is only motion; it can
only be caused by motion, it is only a form, a manifestation of motion. Fancy, memory,
comparison, judgement, are really carried with sense—'sense hath necessarily some memory
adhering to it.'16
And reason—pure intellection—the faculty of science—surely here we must appeal to another
source (cf. Descartes and Gassendi), surely we have passed into another realm. Hobbes
emphatically assures us that it is this reason, this capacity for general hypothetical reason, this
science or sapience, which marks man off from the brutes. The distinction between science and
experience, sapience and prudence, is fundamental in his philosophy. And yet if we look more
narrowly we shall find this marvellous endowment of man is really the child of language—that
most noble and profitable invention. This bald paradox is a masterpiece of tactics. Speech is
ushered in with the fanfaronade, and lo! reason is discovered clinging to her train. Instinct
says, reason begets speech; paradox inverts, speech begets reason. Man acquires speech
because he is reasonable )( man becomes capable of science because he has invented speech.
A wonderful hysteron proteron.
Hobbes derives some account from his audacity.
1. We easily understand how error is possible—no need of tedious discussion—error dogs the
heels of language.
2. Seeing that thought (science) depends on language, it is evident that to clarify thought we
must purge language—re-definition the true task of philosophy.
In my necessarily harsh review I may have seemed to have found no answer to my opening
question. Does it not involve a petitio principii? Is he great after all? I am content to rest the issue on one test alone—the test of style. I am adopting no superficial test, when I boldly
affirm that every great thinker reveals his greatness in his style. It is quite possible—unhappily
common—to cultivate style without thought; it is absolutely impossible to thin