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THIRTEENTH MEETING. 



Royal Institution. — Ma_y 1, 1854. 

 JOSEPH DICKINSON, M.D., F.L.S., &c., Peesident, in the Chair. 



Mr. G. W. Bahr and Mr. John B. Aspinall were ballotted for, and 

 duly elected Ordinary Members. 



Mr. J. B. Yates communicated a Paper, entitled " The Attraction 

 of Ellipsoids considered Geometrically," by Matthew Collins, B.A. 



The Rev. J. B. Moss read a Paper on the Chemical Properties of the 

 Torbane Hill Mineral. 



The Rev. Arthur Ramsay, M.A., read a Paper on the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF HOBBES. 

 I AM about to occupy your time, and, I would fain hope, your attention 

 this evening, with a few remarks on the Life, Character, and Philosophy 

 of a man remarkable indeed in his generation, — a man whose views a 

 Warburton, a Clarendon, a Butler, a Cudworth, a Bramhall, and a 

 Tenison thought it worth their while to controvert, — a man whose 

 system and opinions not only exercised a wide-spread and deep-seated 

 influence on his own contemporaries, but have also extensively moulded 

 and coloured the tone of thought of subsequent generations ; I mean 

 the philosopher (if so we may "ball him) of Malmesbury — Thomas 

 Hobbes. 



Hobbes has besn the subject of many fulminatory denunciations, 

 and much moral horror, both in his own and in our times. We shall, 

 however, on the present occasion, be acting in a far wiser, a more 

 manly, and moi'e christian-like spirit, if, instead of loading him with 

 obloquy, or regarding him with a kind of superstitious dread, we strive 

 to understand him — to understand the influences under which he 

 acted — the mistakes into which he fell — the work which he did in 

 his own generation, — and the lesson wliich, even in his errors, he 

 may teach to ours. 



Before we proceed to consider Hobbes in his most prominent and 

 best known character, as the reproducer and reviver, in a very peculiar 

 and original form, — and, as far as England is concerned, the founder of 

 a most pernicious system of metaphysical pliilosophy, — let us first take 

 a glance at the man, ever bearing in mind that " errors in the head by 

 no means universally imply a corresponding want of rectitude in the 



