Editor's Preface xv 



booke concerning truth, which is a high point '. In a second, 

 he relates his unsuccessful attempts to obtain for Newcastle 

 a copy of Galileo's Dialogues : ' It is not possible to get it 

 for money. There w T ere but few brought over at first, and 

 they that buy such bookes, are not such men as to part with 

 them againe. I heare say it is called in, in Italy, as a booke 

 that will do more hurt to their religion than all the bookes 

 have done of Luther and Calvin, such opposition they thinke 

 is between their religion and naturall reason.' In a third 

 letter, after referring to Walter Warner, the mathematician 

 and philosopher, whom Newcastle also patronised, Hobbes 

 sets forth his own aims and hopes. Warner, he says, cannot 

 fulfil Newcastle's expectations. ' For the soule I know he 

 has nothing to give your Lordship any satisfaction. I would 

 he could give good reasons for the facultyes and passions of 

 the soule, such as may be expressed in playne English ; if he 

 can, he is the first that I ever heard of could speake sense in 

 that subject. If he cannot, I hope to be the first.' 



With the generosity which he habitually showed to wits 

 and men of learning Newcastle sent Hobbes a present of money, 

 which Hobbes received with dignity. The gift, he said, was 

 proportioned to Newcastle's goodness not to his service. 

 ' If the world saw my little desert, so plainely as they see your 

 great rewards, they might think me a mountebancke, and 

 that all I do or would do were in the hope of what I receave. 

 I hope your Lordship does not thinke so, at least let me tell 

 your Lordship once for all, that though I honour you as my 

 Lord, yet my love to you is just of the same nature that it is 

 to Mr. Payne, bred out of private talke, without respect to 

 your purse.' Then, referring to his friend Payne, Hobbes 

 laid down the principle that patrons who wished to encourage 

 the researches of learned men should reward the result rather 

 than contribute to the undertaking. f I hope your Lordship 

 will not bestow much upon the hopes, but suffer the liberall 

 sciences to be liberall, and after some worthy effort your 

 Lordship then may be liberall also.' 



What attracted Hobbes to Newcastle was Newcastle's 

 sympathy with his ideas and his curiosity about questions 

 for which most noblemen of the time cared nothing. In one 

 of his letters he expresses to the Earl the hope that ' I may 

 have the happiness which your Lordship partly promises me, 



