"Hobbes's Life and the Foundation of the English political system"
Thomas Hobbes lived as quietly as he could contrive to do in a
troubled age, and might never turned his mind to politics had
political events not forced themselves upon his notice. He was born in
April 1588, the son of the Vicar of Wesport near Malmesbury, in which
town he went to school until an uncle sent him, when he was fourteen
years old, to Magdalen Hall at Oxford. He stayed there five years till
he took his degree, and in 1608 left Oxford to become tutor to the son
of William Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire. With his pupil he visited
France and Italy, and on his return devoted himself to classical
scholarship. In the Cavendish circle he came to know Francis Bacon,
who confirmed him in his dislike for the scholastic and Aristotelian
philosophy taught at the two universities. In 1628 Hobbes pubblished
his translation of Thucydides, whom he described as most political of
historians and the most averse to democracy. That same year a
Parliament hostile to the king was elected, and the Petition of Rights
was passed. Thomas Hobbes paid his second visit to the Continent in
1629, as companion to the son of Sir Gervase Clinton, and it was then
that he dscovered and "fell in love" with geometry, and came to
believe that true knowledge in every sphere is to be gained by the
method of geometry. In 1634, again with a young Cavendish, he went
abroad for his third time and did not return to England till 1637. It
was on this visit that he was converted to "materialism", the
doctrine that all operations of the mind can be explained in terms of
bodily motions, and became to close friend of Gassendi, the most
prominent of French exponents of his doctrine. Hobbes, on this visit
abroad and the one before it, acquired his general philosophy, his
conceptions of knowledge and of nature. Sometimes before 1637 he
completed his first work of philosophy, the "Little Treatise", in
which he tried to explain sense-experience in terms of bodily motion.
His first political treatise, the Element of Law, was not completed
til 1640; it circulated in manuscript form and was not pubblished
until ten years later in two separate parts. But Hobbes believed that
Parliament, which had just met, might take offence at his treatise,
and so fled to France and remained there till the end of 1651. It was
while he was in France that his two most famous works, "De Cive" and
"Leviathan", apperead. In 1646 Hobbes had been appointed tutor in
mathematics to the future Charles II, but Leviathan, whch was
published in England, was badly received at the English court in
exile. For that reason, and for other, Hobbes decided to return home
after a stay abroad of more than ten years. From the time he went down
from Oxford in 1608 until his flight to France, Hobbes lived,as tutor
and fiend, mostly with the Cavendish family, but when he returned to
Englad in 1651 he settled in London. There he made friends with
Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood, with the poet
Cowley, and with Selden, the jurist. He was by now famous, and
Harrington, the author of Oceana, though he disliked his political
philosophy, acknowledged him as the greatest thinker of his age. In
1655 Hobbes published De Corpore, a treatise on body or matter which
he had been working on for years, in 1656 his Questions Concerning
Liberty, Necessity and Chance, in which he defended his determinism
against Bishop Bramhall, and in 1657 his De Homine, dealing with
optics and human nature. During this period Hobbes was more concerned
with the physical sciences and with psychology than with society and
government. At the Restoration he feared the resentment of the
Royalists, but the generous and tolerant Charles II, of all English
kings the most at home with men of intellect, dealt kindly with him.
He received a pension of 100 pounds a year and was well received at
Court. If he was never elected to the Royal Society, which he aspired
to join, it was not owing to any reluctance on the part of its Royal
Patron; it was because he had incurred the hostility of various
professors by his attacks on the universities and his failure to
respect competence greater than his own. He was a very clever man whotroubled age, and might never turned his mind to politics had
political events not forced themselves upon his notice. He was born in
April 1588, the son of the Vicar of Wesport near Malmesbury, in which
town he went to school until an uncle sent him, when he was fourteen
years old, to Magdalen Hall at Oxford. He stayed there five years till
he took his degree, and in 1608 left Oxford to become tutor to the son
of William Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire. With his pupil he visited
France and Italy, and on his return devoted himself to classical
scholarship. In the Cavendish circle he came to know Francis Bacon,
who confirmed him in his dislike for the scholastic and Aristotelian
philosophy taught at the two universities. In 1628 Hobbes pubblished
his translation of Thucydides, whom he described as most political of
historians and the most averse to democracy. That same year a
Parliament hostile to the king was elected, and the Petition of Rights
was passed. Thomas Hobbes paid his second visit to the Continent in
1629, as companion to the son of Sir Gervase Clinton, and it was then
that he dscovered and "fell in love" with geometry, and came to
believe that true knowledge in every sphere is to be gained by the
method of geometry. In 1634, again with a young Cavendish, he went
abroad for his third time and did not return to England till 1637. It
was on this visit that he was converted to "materialism", the
doctrine that all operations of the mind can be explained in terms of
bodily motions, and became to close friend of Gassendi, the most
prominent of French exponents of his doctrine. Hobbes, on this visit
abroad and the one before it, acquired his general philosophy, his
conceptions of knowledge and of nature. Sometimes before 1637 he
completed his first work of philosophy, the "Little Treatise", in
which he tried to explain sense-experience in terms of bodily motion.
His first political treatise, the Element of Law, was not completed
til 1640; it circulated in manuscript form and was not pubblished
until ten years later in two separate parts. But Hobbes believed that
Parliament, which had just met, might take offence at his treatise,
and so fled to France and remained there till the end of 1651. It was
while he was in France that his two most famous works, "De Cive" and
"Leviathan", apperead. In 1646 Hobbes had been appointed tutor in
mathematics to the future Charles II, but Leviathan, whch was
published in England, was badly received at the English court in
exile. For that reason, and for other, Hobbes decided to return home
after a stay abroad of more than ten years. From the time he went down
from Oxford in 1608 until his flight to France, Hobbes lived,as tutor
and fiend, mostly with the Cavendish family, but when he returned to
Englad in 1651 he settled in London. There he made friends with
Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood, with the poet
Cowley, and with Selden, the jurist. He was by now famous, and
Harrington, the author of Oceana, though he disliked his political
philosophy, acknowledged him as the greatest thinker of his age. In
1655 Hobbes published De Corpore, a treatise on body or matter which
he had been working on for years, in 1656 his Questions Concerning
Liberty, Necessity and Chance, in which he defended his determinism
against Bishop Bramhall, and in 1657 his De Homine, dealing with
optics and human nature. During this period Hobbes was more concerned
with the physical sciences and with psychology than with society and
government. At the Restoration he feared the resentment of the
Royalists, but the generous and tolerant Charles II, of all English
kings the most at home with men of intellect, dealt kindly with him.
He received a pension of 100 pounds a year and was well received at
Court. If he was never elected to the Royal Society, which he aspired
to join, it was not owing to any reluctance on the part of its Royal
Patron; it was because he had incurred the hostility of various
professors by his attacks on the universities and his failure to
thought he understood more than he in fact did, a fault which Oxford
seldom overlooks except in men who have grown old in Oxford. In 1666
Hobbes produced a Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the
Common Laws of England, and in 1668 completed Behemoth, an account of
events in England from 1640 to 1660; but these two works were not
published until after his death, the first in 1681 and the second the
year after. The first is an attack on those who refused to look upon
the lawas, as Hobbes did, as mere commands of the sovereign, and the
second is recent history served up to drive home the lessons expounded
in De Cive and Leviathan. Though both works are interesting to the
student of Hobbes' political philosophy, neither adds anything much to
what he had said before. At the age of eighty-four Hobbes wrote his
autobiography in Latin verse, and two years later produced
translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. He was indefatigable, and
was in better health and spirits in middle age and old age than he had
been in his youth. In 1675 he left London for the country, to live
once more with the Cavendishes. He died on 4th December 1679, in his
ninety-second year.
Casalino Pierluigi.