161 



not commence authorship till past his fortieth year, and prided himself 

 pre-eminently upon being " homo unius libri," making a boast of 

 having read so little — for, as he arrogantly remarked, " Had he read as 

 much as other men, he should have been as ignorant."* 



Closely allied to this arrogant self-confidence was that other salient 

 point in his character, already noticed — his independence. Thougli 

 from his earliest years an inmate of noble houses, though the tutor 

 and friend of princes and peers,| he never hesitated to express his 

 opinions, however obnoxious they might be, even at the risk of losing, 

 nay with, as it proved, the actual loss of royal and courtly favour. All 

 these — his independence, his arrogance, his self-confidence, his cold and 

 passionless temperament, his want of human sympathies, and his calm 

 and regular moral habits, which enabled him to attain the wonderful 

 age of ninety-two — are so many traits and marks of the man's peculiar 

 idiosyncracy ; and in all these points he most curiously resembles that 

 other and more modern advocate of the philosophy of self-love, Jeremy 

 Bentham, who, as well as Hobbes, exemplified, as far as possible, his 

 system in his life. 



So much for the character of the man, and now let us proceed to 

 examine his philosophy. Here it will be necessary to confine ourselves 

 principally to a consideration of Hobbes's worth and influence as a 

 metaphysical philosopher; and yet, in taking this course, we shall 

 perhaps be hardly dealing fairly with Hobbes, as he professes to be 

 especially a writer on the science of government, and his Metaphysical 

 Theory is but the necessary foundation on which to build his Political 

 System. . Still, if we are to come to a clear understanding of the origin, 

 the basis, and the consequences of Hobbes's errors, we must view him 

 as a psychologist. There are, however, but two of his works which 

 bear directly on the subject of moral and metaphysical philosophy, 



stealthiness of the god ; and fuUowing immediately in the wake of these lines, as if to show 

 that his success was as accidental as it is nioinentaiy, we have — 

 " His bow and quiver both behind him hang, 

 The arrows chink as often as lie Jogs, 

 A nd as he shot, his bow was heard to twang, 

 And first his arrows flew at mules and dogs." 

 * Another of his arrogant boasts was, that " though Physics were a new science, yet 

 Civil Pliilosophy was still newer, since it could not be styled older than his book ' l)e 

 Cive.' " 



+ Hobbes was private tutor in the family of the Earl of Devonshire, to whose sou he 

 dedicated his " Thucydides:" and in 1017, he was appointed mathematical tutor to Charles 

 II. then I'riiice of VVales, whose esteem and regard he so won, that Charles always s))oke 

 of him with kiudness and afFection, kept his old tutor's portrait in his study, and after the 

 Restoration, presented him, unasked, with a pension of i'lOO. 



