Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN REPRINTED FROM THE E^ITTON OF 1651 WITH AN ESSAY BY THE LATE VV. G. POGSON SMITH HoU.cC> , "I Ur-r.-i -..:. 7 fc OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMEN HOUSE, E.G. \ LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW LEIPZIG NEWYORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPETOWN BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS SHANGHAI HUMPHREY MILFORD PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY Impression of 7929 First edition, 1909 Printed in Great Britain PREFACE 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 him self 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 a 2 iv PREFACE 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 pene trating 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. 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 con temporaries — 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 viii THE PHILOSOPHY OF HOBBES 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.' * Of inductive science he is very incredulous. Bacon, contemplating ' in his delicious walkes at Gorham- bury ', 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 experi mental 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 1 Aubrey's Brief Lives, in 2 vols., edited by A. Clark, 1898 : i. 332. 2 Aubrey, i. 335-6. THE PHILOSOPHY OF HOBBES ix to cast an eye on their experiments. He did not think their gropings would carry them very far. •..-Experience concludeth nothing universally.'1 If he despaired of wringing her secret from Nature, he