not, as Pope said it was, below criticism. On this sharp critique Sir W. Molesworth remarks that some may, however, possibly find that the unstudied and unpretending language of Hobbes conveys an idea of Homer less remote from the original, than the smooth and glittering lines of Pope and his coadjutors. In 1664 he began to study the law of England, "looking over the titles of the statutes from Magna Charta downwards, and leaving no one unread." He also "diligently read over Littleton's Book of Tenures, and Sir E. Coke's Commentary; in the latter, he says, he found much subtlety, not of the law, but of inference from the law." Some fruit of this study is seen in the "Dialogue between a philosopher and a student of the common law." This tractate is embued with high prerogative notions, but contains many just strictures on the abuses of the law. It was published in 1678, together with his "Decameron Physiologicum," or ten dialogues on natural philosophy; and his "Rhetoric," a free translation of that of Aristotle. "The Behemoth" (Monarch of the Land), containing an account of the civil wars, was published after his death. It told too much truth, and distributed blame too freely and impartially, to be acceptable to either of the great political parties of the day. Hobbes died at Hardwicke in Derbyshire, 4th December, 1679, aged ninety-one. His monumental tablet there records his service to the earls of Devonshire, and states that he was "Vir probus et famâ eruditionis domi forisque bene cognitus." Amidst all the obloquy heaped on Hobbes, we find little or nothing derogatory to his moral character. His circumstances were narrow, but his wants were few. He had inherited a small estate at Malmesbury. This, as he never ventured on marriage or housekeeping, he gave in his lifetime to his brother, whose wants were greater than his. His reputation abroad attracted many foreigners to visit him at home. In particular Cosmo, afterwards duke of Tuscany, honoured him with a visit, and gave him valuable presents in return for his picture and a copy of his works. His customary way of life was to dedicate the morning to exercise, the middle of the day to visits of ceremony and compliment, and the after or postmeridian portion of the day to study. He is said to have been in conversation testy and arrogant. His temper, however, had been sorely tried. In a position very favourable for observation Hobbes acquired his knowledge of men. He had leisure to study books also, to which however he attached less importance. "If I had read," said he, "as much as some others, I should be as ignorant as they are." An intimate dependent on the great, he yet never seems to have felt the yoke of dependence. He ascribes to himself a constitutional timidity arising from the circumstances of his birth, but this was amply compensated by the intrepidity of his mind. He was one of the boldest, as well as most original of thinkers, fearlessly tracing his principles to their remotest consequences—indeed not always sufficiently considering what compensations their excesses admitted, or to what limitations they were subject. And so, of his opinions on many important subjects, there was scarcely one which escaped animadversion. Every young churchman militant, says Warburton, would try the temper of his blade on Hobbes' steel cap, and essay to controvert his opinions on religion. In almost every new publication in ethics and jurisprudence, says D. Stewart, a refutation of Hobbism appeared. Properly to estimate the merit of Hobbes as a thinker and discoverer, his writings should be read by the light of his age, and not of subsequent times. The result would be creditable to Hobbes. The nature and limits of this work preclude our giving a detailed account of his opinions. We can only notice a few of the most prominent in metaphysics and politics. Hobbes' philosophy is a tripos. He says—"Philosophandi corpus, homo, civis, continet omne genus." According to his psychology all knowledge is based on observation and experience of the senses, and some operation of the mind. "A man can have no thought representing anything not subject to sense." The modus operandi is this:—External objects make some motion, agitation, or alteration of the brain, or spirits, or some internal sense. No further explanation of the thinking faculty is essayed, and from this it would appear to be a passive or merely receptive faculty. Yet he says that as in vision, so also in conceptions that arise from the other senses, the subject of the inherence is not the object, but the sentient; that is, he denies as much as Bishop Berkeley intrinsic qualities of matter or species, visible and audible, though they may be called faculties or powers of bodies. When an object is removed we retain a relic of the motions made thereby; an image, whence Imagination, which he considers a term proper to one sense as well as another. He admits an internal or sixth sense (he calls it Remembrance) which takes notice of the recurrence of our conceptions. This is one office of the Reflection of Locke, and could not be simply empirical. He also says the brain can compose an imagination of divers things which appeared single in sense, and so frame a train of thoughts. And this approaches to the "complex ideas." His limited view of the province of mind has long been exploded as mere materialism. His ethical and political principles are so closely inverwoven that he has been often charged with making no natural distinction between right and wrong, apart from the arbitrary will of the civil magistrate His system proceeds from the principle of the equality of mankind by nature, antecedent to all law, human or divine; and it recognizes a principle in human nature of hostility between man and man. From the consequences of this, government is a resort dictated by natural or right reason; for peace cannot subsist without authority, and authority cannot subsist without force, which to be effectual must be sovereign and unlimited. Hobbes, however, does not assert that the sovereign's opinion is the test of morality or religion. In his "Dialogue" he affirms that the king of England who neglects the advice of his parliament, sins against God, although there be no earthly power to punish him. He also says in the same "Dialogue," "If pardoning be sin, neither king, nor parliament, nor any earthly power can do it." His real opinions seem to have been that the obligation of the law of nature on a man's conscience is eternal. But in case of any transgression of this law, to which a man has been forced by the power of the sovereign, the guilt of the sin is transferred to the latter—an argument often used in regard to compulsory oaths, and the like, without being deemed atheistical. It is, however, too lax; nor is Hobbes always consistent in maintaining it. With regard to the experimentum crucis of a state-command to deny Christ, Hobbes, in the "Leviathan," gives us to understand that he would excuse conformity as a thing occasionally proper. But in the "Behemoth" he says, "If the obedience due to civil rulers conflict with faith, the remedy is not to resist the prince, but to go to Christ by martyrdom." Hobbes was charged with atheism, but by the late Mr. Austin's dispassionate judgment he stands acquitted of the charge. Hobbes' creed was simple—that "Jesus was the Christ," involving the doctrine of Christ's divinity and resurrection. This was the act of internal faith. The other essential to salvation was obedience to God's laws. Other religious questions turned upon temporal conditions. He attributed much political and social evil to "unpleasing priests," stigmatizing pretty freely and equally the pope's "army of lusty bachelors," and the seditious preachers of presbyterian and roundhead faith and faction. That he would counsel the prince to allow a considerable "liberty of prophesying" is evident from what he says in the "Behemoth:"—"A state can command obedience, but convince no error nor alter the mind of those that believe they have the better reason. Suppression of doctrines does but unite and exasperate, that is, increase both the malice and power of them that have already heard them." His worthy testimony concerning the duty of the state to provide for the education of the people, should not pass unnoticed:—"Covetousness and ignorance will hold together till doomsday if better rules be not taken for the instruction of the common people both from reason and religion."—(Dialogue.) He would have copies of the statutes read and taught. Hobbes' style of writing is highly praised by the best judges. Mr. Austin calls his books "the most lucid and easy of profound and elaborate compositions," and Sir J. Macintosh says that "a permanent foundation of Hobbes' fame consists in his admirable style, which seems to be the very perfection of didactic language." Most of his treatises are in English, and among authors he was one of the first, and perhaps, with the exception of Locke, the most successful, in demonstrating the vast powers of that language in the treatment of abstruse subjects. Hobbes' works were printed at different times. A complete collection has been published by Sir W. Molesworth.—S. H. G.
HOBHOUSE, Sir Benjamin, Baronet, was the son of a merchant of Bristol, and born in that city in 1757. Educated at Bristol grammar-school and at Brazennose college, Oxford, he went to the bar, and published one or two legal and theological disquisitions. He entered the house of commons as member for Bletchingley in 1797, and voted in favour of Mr. (afterwards Lord) Grey's motion for parliamentary reform. He was secre-
