Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers. Watts JohnЧитать онлайн книгу.
mystified than any other in theology.
A long controversy betwixt Bishop Bramhall, of Londonderry, followed the publication of Hobbes's views on Liberty and Necessity. Charles II. on his restoration, bestowed an annual pension of £100 on Hobbes, but this did not prevent the parliament, in 1666, censuring the "De Cive" and "Leviathan," besides his other works. Hobbes also translated the Greek historian, Thucydides, Homer's Odyssey, and the Illiad. The last years of his life were spent in composing "Behemoth; or, a History of the Civil Wars from 1640 to 1660," which was finished in the year he died, but not published until after his death. At the close of the year 1679, he was taken seriously ill. At the urgent request of some Christians, they were permitted to intrude their opinions upon his dying bed, telling him gravely that his illness would end in death, and unless he repented, he would go straight to hell. Hobbes calmly replied, "I shall be glad then to find a hole to creep out of the world." For seventy years he had been a persecuted man, but during that time his enemies had paid him that tribute of respect which genius always extorts from society. He was a man who was hated and dreaded. He had reached the age of ninety-two when he died. His words were pregnant with meaning; and he never used an unnecessary sentence. A collection of moral apothegms might be gathered from his table-talk. When asked why he did not read every new book which appeared, he said, "If I had read as much as other men, I should have been as ignorant." His habits were simple; he rose early in the morning, took a long walk through the grounds of Chatsworth, and cultivated healthful recreation. The after part of the day was devoted to study and composition. Like Sir Walter Raleigh, he was a devoted admirer of the "fragrant herb." Charles II.'s constant witticism, styled Hobbes as "a bear against whom the Church played their young dogs, in order to exercise them."
If there had been a few more similar "bears," the priestly "dogs" would long since have been exterminated, for none of them escaped unhurt from their encounters with the "grizzly" of Malmesbury, except it was in the mathematical disputes with Dr. Wallis.
He was naturally of a timid disposition: this was the result of the accident which caused his premature birth, and being besides of a reserved character, he was ill-fitted to meet the physical rebuffs of the world. It is said that he was so afraid of his personal safety, that he objected to be left alone in an empty house; this charge is to some extent true, but we must look to the mitigating circumstances of the case. He was a feeble man, turned the age of three-score and ten, with all the clergy of England hounding on their dupes to murder an old philosopher because he had exposed their dogmas. It was but a few years before, that Protestants and Papists had complimented each other's religion by burning those who were the weakest, and long after Hobbes's death, Protestants murdered, ruined, disgraced, and placed in the pillory Dissenters and Catholics alike, and Thomas Hobbes had positive proof that it was the intention of the Church of England to burn him alive, on the stake, a martyr for his opinions. This, then, is a sufficient justification for Hobbes feeling afraid, and instead of it being thrown as a taunt at this illustrious Freethinker, it is a standing stigma on those who would re-enact the tragedy of persecution, if public opinion would allow it.
Sir James Mackintosh says: * "The style of Hobbes is the very perfection of didactic language. Short, clear, precise, pithy, his language never has more than one meaning, which never requires a second thought to find. By the help of his exact method, it takes so firm a hold on the mind, that it will not allow attention to slacken. His little tract on human nature has scarcely an ambiguous or a needless word. He has so great a power of always choosing the most significant term, that he never is reduced to the poor expedient of using many in its stead. He had so thoroughly studied the genius of the language, and knew so well how to steer between pedantry and vulgarity, that two centuries have not superannuated probably more than a dozen of his words."
* Second Dissertation: Encyclopaedia Brit., p. 318.
Lord Clarendon describes the personal character of Hobbes as "one for whom he always had a great esteem as a man, who besides his eminent parts of learning and knowledge, hath been always looked upon as a man of probity, and a life free from scandal."
We now proceed to make a selection of quotations from the works of this writer, commencing with those on the "Necessity of the Will," in reply to Bishop Bramhall.
"The question is not whether a man be a free agent – that is to say, whether he can write, or forbear, speak, or be silent, according to his will; but whether the will to write, and the will to forbear, come upon him according to his will, or according to anything else in his own power. I acknowledge this liberty, that I can do, if I will, but to say, I can will if I will, I take to be an absurd speech." Further replying to Bramhall's argument, that we do not learn the "idea of the freedom of the will" from our tutors, but we know it intuitively, Hobbes says, "It is true very few have learned from tutors that a man is not free to will; nor do they find it much in books. That they and in books that which the poets chaunt in the theatres, and the shepherds on the mountains, that which the pastors teach in the churches, and the doctors in the universities; and that which the common people in the markets, and all the people do assent unto, is the same that I assent unto; namely, that a man hath freedom to do if he will; but whether he hath freedom to will, is a question which it seems neither the Bishop nor they ever thought of… A wooden top that is lashed by the boys, and runs about, sometimes to one wall, sometimes to another, sometimes spinning, sometimes hitting men on the shins, if it were sensible of its own motion, would think it proceeded from its own will, unless it felt what lashed it. And is a man any wiser when he runs to one place for a benifice, to another for a bargain, and troubles the world with writing errors, and requiring answers, because he thinks he does it without other cause than his own will, and seeth not what are the lashings which cause that will?"
Hobbes casually mentions the subject of "praise or dispraise," in reference to the will; those who are old enough will remember this was one of the most frequent subjects of discussion amongst the earlier Socialists. "These depend not at all in the necessity of the action praised or dispraised. For what is it else to praise, but to say a thing is good? Good, I say, for me, or for somebody else, or for the State and Commonwealth. And what is it to say an action is good, but to say it is as I would wish, or as another would have it, or according to the will of the State – that is to say, according to the law! Does my lord think that no action could please me, or the commonwealth, that should proceed from necessity! Things may be therefore necessary, and yet praiseworthy, as also necessary, and yet dispraised, and neither of them both in vain; because praise and dispraise, and likewise reward and punishment, do, by example, make and conform the will to good or evil. It was a very great praise, in my opinion, that Vellerius Paterculus gives Cato, where he says that he was good by nature, 'et quia aliter esse non potuit.'' – 'And because he could not do otherwise.'" This able treatise was reprinted, and extensively read about twenty years ago; but, like many other of our standard works, it is at present out of print.
The "Leviathan" is still readable, a bold masculine book. It treats everything in a cool, analytic style. The knife of the Socialist is sheathed in vain; no rhapsody can overturn its impassioned teachings. Rhetoric is not needed to embellish the truths he has to portray, for the wild flowers of genius but too frequently hide the yawning chasms in the garden of Logic. It is not to be expected that this book will be read now with the interest with which it was perused two centuries ago; then every statement was impugned, every argument denied, and the very tone of the book called forth an interference from parliament to stop the progress of its heresies. Now the case is widely different, and the general tenor of the treatise is the rule in which are illustrated alike the works of the philosophers and the dreams of the sophists (priests.) We give part of the introduction. "Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is, by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also, imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels, as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart but a spring; and the nerves but so many strings; and the joints but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the Artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of nature, man. For by art is created that great leviathan, called a Commonwealth, or State, which is but an artificial man though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for