Part 53 (2/2)
[362] Men of very opposite principles, but aiming at the same purpose, are reduced to a dilemma, by the spirit of party in controversy. Sir Robert Filmer, who wrote against ”The Anarchy of a Limited Monarchy,” and ”Patriarcha,” to re-establish _absolute power_, derived it from the scriptural accounts of the patriarchal state. But Sir Robert and Hobbes, though alike the advocates for supremacy of power, were as opposite as possible on theological points. Filmer had the same work to perform, but he did not like the instruments of his fellow-labourer. His manner of proceeding with Hobbes shows his dilemma: he refutes the doctrine of the ”Leviathan,”
while he confesses that Hobbes is right in the main. The philosopher's reasonings stand on quite another foundation than the scriptural authorities deduced by Filmer. The result therefore is, that Sir Robert had the trouble to confute the very thing he afterwards had to establis.h.!.+
[363] It may be curious to some of my readers to preserve that part of Hobbes's Letter to Anthony Wood, in the rare tract of his ”Latin Life,” in which, with great calmness, the philosopher has painfully collated the odious interpolations. All that was written in favour of the morals of Hobbes--of the esteem in which foreigners held him--of the royal patronage, &c., were maliciously erased. Hobbes thus notices the amendments of Bishop Fell:--
”Nimirum ubi mihi tu ingenium attribuis _Sobrium_, ille, deleto _Sobrio_, subst.i.tuit _Acri_.
”Ubi tu scripseras _Libellum scripsit de Cive_, interposuit ille inter _Libellum_ et _de Cive, rebus permiscendis natum_, de _Cive_, quod ita manifeste falsum est, &c.
”Quod, ubi tu de libro meo _Leviathan_ scripsisti, prim, quod esset, _Vicinis gentibus notissimus_ interposuit ille, _publico d.a.m.no_. Ubi tu scripseras, _scripsit librum_, interposuit ille _monstrosissimum_.”
A n.o.ble confidence in his own genius and celebrity breaks out in this Epistle to Wood. ”In leaving out all that you have said of my character and reputation, the dean has injured you, but cannot injure me; for long since has my fame winged its way to a station from which it can never descend.” One is surprised to find such a Miltonic spirit in the contracted soul of Hobbes, who in his own system might have cynically ridiculed the pa.s.sion for fame, which, however, no man felt more than himself. In his controversy with Bishop Bramhall (whose book he was cautious not to answer till ten years after it was published, and his adversary was no more, pretending he had never heard of it till then!) he breaks out with the same feeling:--”What my works are, he was no fit judge; but now he has provoked me, I will say thus much of them, that neither he, if he had lived, could--nor I, if I would, can--extinguish the light which is set up in the world by the greatest part of them.”
It is curious to observe that an idea occurred to Hobbes, which some authors have attempted lately to put into practice against their critics--to prosecute them in a court of law; but the knowledge of mankind was one of the liveliest faculties of Hobbes's mind; he knew well to what account common minds place the injured feelings of authors.h.i.+p; yet were _a jury of literary men_ to sit in judgment, we might have a good deal of business in the court for a long time; the critics and the authors would finally have a very useful body of reports and pleadings to appeal to; and the public would be highly entertained and greatly instructed. On this attack of Bishop Fell, Hobbes says--”I might perhaps have an action on the case against him, if it were worth my while; but juries seldom consider the Quarrels of Authors as of much moment.”
[364] Bayle has conjured up an amusing theory of apparitions, to show that Hobbes might fear that a certain combination of atoms agitating his brain might so disorder his mind that it would expose him to spectral visions; and being very timorous, and distrusting his imagination, he was averse to be left alone.
Apparitions happen frequently in dreams, and they may happen, even to an incredulous man, when awake, for reading and hearing of them would revive their images--these images, adds Bayle, might play him some unlucky trick! We are here astonished at the ingenuity of a disciple of Pyrrho, who in his inquiries, after having exhausted all human evidence, seems to have demonstrated what he hesitates to believe!
Perhaps the truth was, that the sceptical Bayle had not entirely freed himself from the traditions which were then still floating from the fireside to the philosopher's closet: he points his pen, as aeneas brandished his sword at the Gorgons and Chimeras that darkened the entrance of h.e.l.l; wanting the admonitions of the sibyl, he would have rushed in--
_Et frustra ferro diverberet umbras._
[365] The papers of Aubrey confirm my suggestion. I shall give the words--”There was a report, and surely true, that in parliament, not long after the king was settled, some of the bishops made a motion to have the good old gentleman burned for a heretique; which he hearing, feared that his papers might be searched by their order, and he told me he had burned part of them.”--p. 612. When Aubrey requested Waller to write verses on Hobbes, the poet said that he was afraid of the Churchmen. Aubrey tells us--”I have often heard him say that he was not afraid of _Sprights_, but afraid of being knocked on the head for five or ten pounds which rogues might think he had in his chamber.” This reason given by Hobbes for his frequent alarms was an evasive reply for too curious and talkative an inquirer. Hobbes has not concealed the cause of his terror in his metrical life--
”Tunc venit in mentem mihi Dorislaus et Ascham, Tanquam proscripto terror ubique aderat.”
Dr. Dorislaus and Ascham had fallen under the daggers of proscription. [The former was a.s.sa.s.sinated in Holland, whither he had fled for safety.]
[366] It is said that Hobbes completely recanted all his opinions; and proceeded so far as to declare that the opinions he had published in his ”Leviathan,” were not his real sentiments, and that he neither maintained them in public nor in private.
Wood gives this t.i.tle to a work of his--”An Apology for Himself and his Writings,” but without date. Some have suspected that this Apology, if it ever existed, was not his own composition. Yet why not? Hobbes, no doubt, thought that ”The Leviathan” would outlast any recantation; and, after all, that a recantation is by no means a refutation!--recantations usually prove the force of authority, rather than the force of conviction. I am much pleased with a Dr. Pocklington, who hit the etymology of the word _recantation_ with the spirit.
Accused and censured, for a penance he was to make a recantation, which he began thus:--”If _canto_ be to sing, _recanto_ is to sing again:” so that he _re-chanted_ his offensive principles by his _recantation_!
I suspect that the apology Wood alludes to was only a republication of Hobbes's Address to the King, prefixed to the ”Seven Philosophical Problems,” 1662, where he openly disavows his opinions, and makes an apology for the ”Leviathan.” It is curious enough to observe how he acts in this dilemma. It was necessary to give up his opinions to the clergy, but still to prove they were of an innocent nature. He therefore acknowledges that ”his theological notions are not his opinions, but propounded with submission to the power ecclesiastical, never afterwards having maintained them in writing or discourse.” Yet, to show the king that the regal power incurred no great risk in them, he laid down one principle, which could not have been unpleasing to Charles II.
He a.s.serts, truly, that he never wrote against episcopacy; ”yet he is called an Atheist, or man of no religion, because he has made the authority of the Church depend wholly upon the regal power, which, I hope, your majesty will think is neither Atheism nor Heresy.” Hobbes considered the _religion_ of his country as a subject of _law_, and not _philosophy_. He was not for _separating_ the Church from the State; but, on the contrary, for _joining them_ more closely. The bishops ought not to have been his enemies; and many were not.
[367] In the MS. collection of the French contemporary, who personally knew him, we find a remarkable confession of Hobbes. He said of himself that ”he sometimes made openings to let in light, but that he could not discover his thoughts but by half-views: like those who throw open the window for a short time, but soon closing it, from the dread of the storm.” _”Il disoit qu'il faisoit quelquefois des ouvertures, mais qu'il ne pouvoit decouvrir ses pensees qu'a-demi; qu'il imitoit ceux qui ouvrent la fenetre pendant quelques momens, mais qui la referment promptement de peur de l'orage.”_--Lantiniana MSS., quoted by Joly in his volume of ”Remarques sur Bayle.”
[368] Could one imagine that the very head and foot of the stupendous ”Leviathan” bear the marks of the little artifices practised for self by its author? This grave work is dedicated to Francis G.o.dolphin, a person whom its author had never seen, merely to remind him of a certain legacy which that person's brother had left to our philosopher. If read with this fact before us, we may detect the concealed claim to the legacy, which it seems was necessary to conceal from the Parliament, as Francis G.o.dolphin resided in England. It must be confessed this was a miserable motive for dedicating a system of philosophy which was addressed to all mankind. It discovers little dignity. This secret history we owe to Lord Clarendon, in his ”Survey of the Leviathan,” who adds another. The postscript to the ”Leviathan,” which is only in the English edition, was designed as an easy summary of the principles: and his lords.h.i.+p adds, as a sly address to Cromwell, that he might be induced to be master of them at once, and ”as a p.a.w.n of his new subject's allegiance.” It is possible that Hobbes might have antic.i.p.ated the sovereign power which the _general_ was on the point of a.s.suming in the _protectors.h.i.+p_. It was natural enough, that Hobbes should deny this suggestion.
[369] The story his antagonist (Dr. Wallis) relates is perfectly in character. Hobbes, to show the Countess of Devons.h.i.+re his attachment to life, declared that ”were he master of all the world to dispose of, he would give it to live one day.” ”But you have so many friends to oblige, had you the world to dispose of!” ”Shall I be the better for that when I am dead?”
”No,” repeated the sublime cynic, ”I would give the whole world to live one day.” He a.s.serted that ”it was lawful to make use of ill instruments to do ourselves good,” and ill.u.s.trated it thus:--”Were I cast into a deep pit, and the devil should put down his cloven foot, I would take hold of it to be drawn out by it.” It must be allowed this is a philosophy which has a chance of being long popular; but it is not that of another order of human beings! Hobbes would not, like Curtius, have leaped into a ”deep pit” for his country; or, to drop the fable, have died for it in the field or on the scaffold, like the Falklands, the Sidneys, the Montroses--all the heroic brotherhood of genius! One of his last expressions, when informed of the approaches of death, was--”I shall be glad to find a hole to creep out of the world at.” Everything was seen in a little way by this great man, who, having reasoned himself into an abject being, ”licked the dust”
through life.
[370] In our country, Mandeville, Swift, and Chesterfield have trod in the track of Hobbes; and in France, Helvetius, Rochefoucault in his ”Maxims,” and L'Esprit more openly in his ”Fausette des Vertus Humaines.” They only degrade us--they are polished cynics! But what are we to think of the tremendous cynicism of Machiavel? That great genius eyed human nature with the ferocity of an enraged savage. Machiavel is a vindictive a.s.sa.s.sin, who delights even to turn his dagger within the mortal wound he has struck; but our Hobbes, said his friend Sorbiere, ”is a gentle and skilful surgeon, who, with regret, cuts into the living flesh, to get rid of the corrupted.” It is equally to be regretted that the same system of degrading man has been adopted by some, under the mask of religion.
Yet Hobbes, perhaps, never suspected the arms he was placing in the hands of wretched men, when he furnished them with such fundamental positions as, that ”Man is naturally an evil being; that he does not love his equal; and only seeks the aid of society for his own particular purposes.” He would at least have disowned some of his diabolical disciples. One of them, so late as in 1774, vented his furious philosophy in ”An Essay on the Depravity and Corruption of Human Nature, wherein the Opinions of Hobbes, Mandeville, Helvetius, &c. are supported against Shaftesbury, Hume, Sterne, &c. by Thomas...o...b..ien M'Mahon.” This gentleman, once informed that he was _born wicked_, appears to have considered that wickedness was his paternal estate, to be turned to as profitable an account as he could. The t.i.tles of his chapters, serving as a string of the most extraordinary propositions, have been preserved in the ”Monthly Review,” vol. lii. 77. The demonstrations in the work itself must be still more curious. In these axioms we find that ”Man has an _enmity_ to all beings; that had he _power_, the first victims of his revenge would be his wife, children, &c.--a sovereign, if he could reign with the _unbounded authority_ every man _longs for_, free from apprehension of punishment for misrule, would slaughter all his subjects; perhaps he would not leave one of them alive at the end of his reign.” It was perfectly in character with this wretched being, after having quarrelled with human nature, that he should be still more inveterate against a small part of her family, with whom he was suffered to live on too intimate terms; for he afterwards published another extraordinary piece--”The Conduct and Good-Nature of Englishmen Exemplified in their charitable way of Characterising the Customs, Manners, &c.
of Neighbouring Nations; their Equitable and Humane Mode of Governing States, &c.; their Elevated and Courteous Deportment, &c. of which their own Authors are everywhere produced as Vouchers,” 1777. One is tempted to think that this...o...b..ien M'Mahon, after all, is only a wag, and has copied the horrid pictures of his masters, as Hogarth did the School of Rembrandt by his ”Paul before Felix, designed and _scratched_ in the true Dutch taste.” These works seem, however, to have their use. To have carried the conclusions of the Anti-social Philosophy to as great lengths as this writer has, is to display their absurdity. But, as every rational Englishman will appeal to his own heart, in declaring the one work to be nothing but a libel on the nation; so every man, not dest.i.tute of virtuous emotions, will feel the other to be a libel on human nature itself.
[371] ”Human Nature,” c. ix.
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