Hobbes 1

The Ideological Context of Hobbes's Political Thought
Author(s): Quentin Skinner

Source: The Historical Journal , 1966, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1966), pp. 286-317
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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The Historical J7ournal, Ix, 3 (I966), pp. 286-3I7
Printed in Great Britain
III. THE IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF

HOBBES'S POLITICAL THOUGHT
By QUENTIN SKINNER
Christ's College, Cambridge
THE modern reputation of Hobbes's Leviathan as a work 'incredibly overtop-

ping all its successors in political theory'1 has concentrated so much attention
on Hobbes's own text that it has tended at the same time to divert attention
away from any attempt to study the relations between his thought and its age,
or to trace his affinities with the other political writers of his time. It has by
now become an axiom of the historiography2 that Hobbes's 'extraordinary
boldness'3 set him completely 'outside the main stream of English political
thought' in his time.4 The theme of the one study devoted to the reception of
Hobbes's political doctrines has been that Hobbes stood out alone 'against all
the powerful and still developing constitutionalist tradition',5 but that the
tradition ('fortunately ')6 proved too strong for him. Hobbes was 'the first to
attack its fundamental assumptions ',7 but no one followed his lead. Although
he 'tried to sweep away the whole structure of traditional sanctions ',8 he
succeeded only in provoking 'the widespread re-assertion of accepted prin-
ciples ',9 a re-assertion, in fact, of 'the main English political tradition '.10 And
the more Leviathan has become accepted as 'the greatest, perhaps the sole
masterpiece '" of English political theory, the less has Hobbes seemed to bear
any meaningful relation to the ephemeral political quarrels of his contem-
poraries. The doctrine of Leviathan has come to be regarded as 'an isolated
phenomenon in English thought, without ancestry or posterity '.12 Hobbes's
system, it is assumed, was related to its age only by the 'intense opposition'
which its 'boldness and originality' were to provoke.'3
The view, however, that Hobbes 'impressed English thought almost en-
tirely by rousing opposition ',4 and that consequently 'no man of his time
1 R. G. Collingwood, The New Leviathan (Oxford, 1942), p. iV.

2 For studies of Hobbes's reception, see J. Laird, Hobbes (London, I934), part III, pp.
243-3I7, esp. 247-57; H. R. Trevor-Roper, 'Thomas Hobbes' and 'The Anti-Hobbists', in
Historical Essays (London, I957), pp. 233-8, 239-43; J. Bowle, Hobbes and his Critics (London,
I951); S. I. Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan (Cambridge, I962), and incidental discussions
in other works cited below.
3 Trevor-Roper, 'Thomas Hobbes', p. 233.
4 Bowle, op. cit. p. I3. 6 Ibid. p. 42.
6 Ibid. p. 47. 7 Ibid. p. 42.
8 Ibid. p. 43. 9 Ibid. p. I3.
10 Ibid. p. I4.
1 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. M. Oakeshott (Oxford, I946), Introduction, p. x.
12 Trevor-Roper, 'Thomas Hobbes', p. 233. 13 Mintz, op. cit. p. I 5.
14 Leslie Stephen, Hobbes (London, I904), p. 67.

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IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF HOBBES S POLITICAL THOUGHT 287
occupied such a lonely position in the world of thoug

need of re-examination. For it can be shown that complex and ambiguous
relationships between Hobbes and the other political writers of his age have in
this way become misleadingly oversimplified. It has not been recognized that
to set against the hostility of his numerous critics there was also a popular
following for Hobbes's doctrines, particularly on the continent. It has not been
realized that Hobbes's theory of obligation was also critically studied at the
same time, and treated as authoritative, by a whole group of de facto theorists in
the English Revolution. The fact that these aspects of Hobbes's contemporary
reputation have been overlooked, moreover, can be shown to have given rise
to a misleading view about the intentions even of his critics.
These affinities between Hobbes's doctrine and its intellectual milieu have
never been investigated.16 The attempt to see Hobbes against this ideological
background, however, will not only produce an historically more complete
picture. It can also be shown to be relevant in itself to questions about the
nature of Hobbes's own contribution to political theory. For Hobbes's views
have tended to get evaluated in a misleadingly unhistorical way. He has been
treated as a figure in complete isolation, the inventor of 'an entirely new type
of political doctrine'."7 He has thus come to seem an inevitable influence, a
necessary point of departure, for other political writers of the time, including
Harrington and even Locke.'8 All such judgments, however, become
arbitrary or unhistorical when it is shown that Hobbes was in fact drawing on
and contributing to existing traditions in political ideology, as well as helping
to refine and modify them. The prevailing view, moreover, about the meaning
of Hobbes's own political doctrine depends in effect on discounting all such
evidence about his contemporary intellectual relations. It can be shown,
similarly, that this in itself must reduce considerably the plausibility of such
interpretations. It is the aim, in short, of the following study to show from an
investigation of Hobbes's contemporary reputation that it is not possible to
disconnect questions about the proper interpretation of Hobbes's views from
questions about the ideological context in which they were developed.
The accepted view of Hobbes as a complete outcast from the intellectual

society of his time, 'the bete noire of his age, '19 has arisen at least in part from
15 G. P. Gooch, Political Thought in England: Bacon to Halifax (London, 19I5), p. 23.

16 Bowle's book simply treats Hobbes's critics as 'representative' of a political tradition
which Hobbes is alleged 'singlehandedly' to have challenged. For a brilliant discussion, how-
ever, of the relations between Hobbes's intellectual assumptions and their appropriate social
context, see Keith Thomas, 'The Social Origins of Hobbes's Political Thought', in Hobbes
Studies, ed. K. C. Brown (Cambridge, Mass., I965), pp. I85-236.
17 Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago, I953), p. i82.
18 For this assumption, see esp. ibid. pp. 202-51; C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory
of Possessive Individualism (Oxford, I962), pp. 265-70; R. H. Cox, Locke on War and Peace
(Oxford, I960), esp. pp. 136-47 on the relations between Commonwealths, where it is claimed
that Locke's doctrine 'tacitly follows Hobbes', p. 146.
19 Mintz, op. cit. p. vii.
I9 HJ ix

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Z88 QUENTIN SKINNER
a misleading restriction of the investigation. Although there have been valu-

able studies of the numerous attacks made on Hobbes by his clerical enemies
in England, there has never been any study20 of Hobbes's reception in his own
time on the continent. It has in general been assumed that Hobbes's views
'proved equally noxious and combustible'21 abroad, and that he 'received the
same hard usage' as in England.22 It is clear, however, that there is in fact an
important distinction to be drawn between the many critics whom Hobbes
provoked at home and the many admirers he was to gain on the continent,
especially in France.
Hobbes himself remarked with some bitterness in his later years on the
contrast between his reputation abroad, which 'fades not yet ,23 and the oppo-
sition he continued to arouse in the English universities and in the Royal
Society. The Royal Society always contrived to ignore him. But the foreign
savants were to show no such hostility. When Pierre Bayle came to summarize
so much of their achievement at the end of the century, in his Dictionary,
he was to single Hobbes out as 'one of the greatest minds of the seven-
teenth century ' 24 And perhaps the greatest of the foreign savants, Leibniz
himself, cited 'the famous Hobbes' with his 'extreme subtlety' on many
points.25 Leibniz completely disagreed with Hobbes's ethical and political
theory, 'which, if we were to adopt it, would bring nothing but anarchy '.26
Yet he still placed Hobbes among the highest, for (as he remarked in one of the
Meditations) 'what could be more acute than Descartes in physics, or Hobbes
in ethics? '27
Hobbes had first gained this high reputation among the continental savants
a generation earlier, during his eleven years' exile from the civil wars in Eng-
land. He was then a frequent visitor at Mersenne's cell, which served during
the I64os as perhaps the most important salon for the learned. Many of the
scientists and philosophers Hobbes is known to have met there were to become
avowed followers and popularizers of his political theories. Several of them
corresponded with Hobbes and even visited him after his return to England
in i65I.28 Hobbes met there the physician Sorbiere, who was to publish the
first French translation of Hobbes's De Cive, as well as a translation of De
Corpore Politico, both with fulsome prefaces in praise of Hobbes's political
20 Except for the brief, though valuable, remarks in Laird, op. cit. part III.
21 Mintz, op. cit. p. 62.
22 Ibid. p. 57.
23 Thomas Hobbes, 'Considerations', The English Works, ed. Sir WV. Molesworth (Lo
II vols., I839-45), IV, 435.
24 Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (Rotterdam, 4 vols., i697), III, 99-I03.
Note: in this and all following quotations from seventeenth-century sources all translations are
mine, all spelling and punctuation are modernized.
25 G. W. Leibniz, Opera Omnia (Geneva, 6 vols., I768), I, 5, 256.
26 Ibid. IV, 360.
27 Ibid. VI, 303.
28 On visits, see Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society (London, 4 vols., I756)
I, 26-7; S. Sorbiere, A Voyage to England (London, trans. I709), pp. 26-7.

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system.29 He also met the mathematician Du Verdus, who was later to produce
a further translation of De Cive, with a preface recommending it to Louis
XIV as suitable for use in all French schools.30 He met Gassendi, whose re-
marks about the freedom and clarity of Hobbes's political thought were to be
inserted in the second edition of De Cive.3' Mersenne himself wrote similarly
of 'the incomparable Hobbes', whose De Cive had shown that politics could
be made a study as scientific as geometry.32 A large number of letters sent to
Hobbes at this time by other French admirers reveal the extent of his popu-
larity and ideological relevance in France, as well as the efforts which these
disciples made to ensure that the works of 'this great politician' became widely
known.33
This continental acceptance of the relevance of Hobbes's doctrine was to be
reflected in the political propaganda of the De Witt party in Holland34 as
well as among the apologists for absolutism in France. In Holland Velthuysen
welcomed the publication of De Cive with a dissertation in the form of a letter
to its 'most celebrated' author, pointing out 'how much you will see my own
views bear the closest affinity to the views of the great Hobbes '.35 'The
famous Hobbes' is cited throughout this Dissertatio as the authority on the
nature of man, on the relations between natural and human laws, and on the
power of the civil magistrate.36 In France Merlat similarly used the viewpoint
of 'that famous Englishman, Hobbes' as a basis for the argument of his
Traite du Pouvoir Absolu.37 Although he claimed to disagree strongly with
Hobbes on the question of man's natural unsociability, his own view of the
origins and the necessary form of political society both cited and closely
followed Hobbes's characteristic account. Hobbes was 'undoubtedly correct'
to see that 'the malice of most men would ruin a Society', and so was correct
to deduce not only that this 'established in general the need for political
power', but also that it required that such power should be absolute. And for
further elucidation Merlat simply referred 'the curious' to Hobbes's own
works.38
29 See, in Elements Philosophiques du Citoyen (Amsterdam, I649), Sorbi6re's translation

De Cive; Le Corps Politique ou les Elements de la Loi Morale et Civile (Amsterdam, I652), his
translation of De Corpore Politico.
30 See, in Les Elements de la Politique de Monsieur Hobbes (Paris, i66o), Du Verdus's trans-
lation of De Cive.
31 Gassendi to Sorbiere: printed in Thomas Hobbes, Elementa Philosophica De Cive
(Amsterdam, Ii647), sig. **, ioa-b.
32 Mersenne to Sorbibre; printed in ibid. sig. ii i a-b.
33 For a special study of this group and its correspondence with Hobbes, see my article,
'Thomas Hobbes and his Disciples in France and England', Comparative Studies in Society
and History, viii (I966), 153-67.
34 See Johan de la Court, Consideratien van Staat (n.p., i66i); A. Wolf, 'Annotations',
Correspondence of Spinoza (London, 1928), p. 446.
32 Lambertino Velthuysen, Epistolica Dissertatio (Amsterdam, i65I), p. 2.
36 Ibid. pp. 35 ff., I36 ff., I75 ff.
37 E. Merlat, Traite du Pouvoir Absolu des Souverains (Cologne, i685).
38 Ibid. pp. 2I9-22.
I9-2

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Hobbes's political theory was to be critically studied as well as merely

popularized among his contemporaries on the continent. His sympathetic
readers, moreover, included some of the greatest names. It is a commonplace
that Spinoza's Tractatus Politicus shows the effects of 'a critical reflection on
Hobbes's theory' in 'its content and terminology as well as its method .
The affinity was recognized at the time, particularly by critics, who often
bracketed Spinoza together with Hobbes in a general denunciation.40 It is
known from his correspondence that Spinoza himself recognized his affinities
with Hobbes.41 It is known from Aubrey's biography that Hobbes himself
(anticipating much modern commentary)42 recognized in Spinoza's political
theory an equally pessimistic but even more rigorous development of his
own assumptions.43 It was among the continental jurists, however, that
Hobbes's political doctrines were to set off the strongest echoes. Even the
hostile traditionalists were to acknowledge his immediate impact. Samuel
Rachel, professor of Law at Holstein in the i66os, remarked-very instruc-
tively-on the dangerous fact that while 'many learned and good men in
England have been roused' against 'this novel philosophy of Hobbes', yet it
'has been greedily swallowed by some in France and the Netherlands, and
even in Germany . The jurists were sometimes hostile to Hobbes's views,
but in their works he none the less joins the ranks of the great-a name to
cite with the Ancients, and to stand with Grotius and Pufendorf among
modern authorities. Gundling was to use Hobbes as a source throughout his
works, and in his De J7ure Oppignorati Territorii cited Hobbes as his authorit
both in discussing the problems of establishing political society and on the
need for a monopoly of power within it.45 Textor in his Synopsis J7uris
Gentium gave Hobbes, along with Pufendorf, as the authority to be cited in
discussing both the distinction between 'the Natural Law of Man and of
States' and 'the origins of Kingdoms and the ways in which they are acquired
under the Law of Nations '.46 Beckman in his Meditationes Politicae gave a list
of authorities on political theory in which he singled out, as 'the two incom-
parable men to be consulted in these matters', Hugo Grotius and Thomas
Hobbes.47 Grotius was conventionally the greatest name to cite in discussions
39 Benedict de Spinoza, The Political Works, trans. and ed. A. G. Wernham (Oxford, I958),
Introduction, pp. I, I 2.
40 E.g. Richard Baxter in The Second Part of the Non-Conformists Plea for Peace (London,
i68o); William Falkner in Christian Loyalty (London, I679); and Regnus 'a Mansvelt, as
cited in the Introduction to The Moral and Political Works of Thlomas Hobbes (London, I750),
p. xxvi n. 41 See Wolf, op. cit. Letter 50, p. 269.
42 E.g. S. Hampshire, Spinoza (London, I95I), pp. I33-6.
43 See John Aubrey, Brief Lives, ed. A. Clark (Oxford, 2 vols., I898), I, 357.
44 Samuel Rachel, Dissertation on the Law of Nature and of Nations (I676), trans. in J. B.
Scott (ed.), The Classics of International Law (Washington, 2 vols., I9I6), II, 75.
45 N. H. Gundling, De Jure Oppignorati Territorii (Magdeburg, I706), p. i6. Also men-
tioned Hobbes in De Praerogativa (n.d.) and in Dissertatio de Statu Naturali (I709).
46 J. W. Textor, Synopsis of the Law of Nations (i68o), trans. in L. von Bar (ed.), The
Classics of International Law (Washington, 2 vols., I9I6), ii, 9 and 82.
47 J. C. Beckman, Meditationes Politicae (Frankfort, I679), p. 7.

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IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF HOBBES S POLITICAL THOUGHT 29I
about ius gentium, but Beckman was later to decide that it was Hobbes's name
which 'deserved to be praised before all others'*48
The most careful student of Hobbes among the seventeenth-century jurists
was to be Pufendorf himself, in his effort to construct a systematic juris-
prudence out of a 'reconciliation between the principles of Grotius and
Hobbes '.49 His great treatise of I672, De Yure Naturae et Gentium, t
Hobbes throughout as an authority on many of the points at which (in
Pufendorf's favourite phrase) 'scholars are not yet agreed ',50 as well as provid-
ing perhaps the most intelligent analysis by a contemporary of Hobbes's politi-
cal theory. Pufendorf was frequently critical of Hobbes, whose basic political
axiom, he felt, was 'unworthy of human nature '.51 He was prepared, neverthe-
less, to defend even this part of Hobbes's system, since he felt (as did Leibniz)52
that Hobbes had been unfortunate in being 'interpreted with very great rigour,
and with very little reason, by some learned men . Pufendorf remained
close and sympathetic to Hobbes's views, moreover, at two important points,
corresponding to Book II of his Treatise, on man and society, and Book VII,
on the establishment of States. In Book ii, although Pufendorf remained
sceptical about 'that War of all men against all which Hobbes would intro-
duce', he conceded that Hobbes 'has been lucky enough in painting the in-
securities of such a state', and concluded that if the theory is treated 'only by
way of hypothesis' it may well have a distinct relevance and cautionary value.54
In Book VII Pufendorf is even closer to Hobbes-closer, perhaps, even than
his acknowledgments suggest. He begins by agreeing that 'what Mr Hobbes
observes concerning the genius of Mankind is not impertinent to our present
argument: that all have a restless desire after power'. And, though he remained
hostile to the theory of obligation which Hobbes deduced, he concluded (with
extensive quotation from Leviathan) that 'Mr Hobbes hath given us a very
ingenious draft of a civil State, conceived as an artificial man'.55
It becomes clear that the immediate reception of Hobbes's political theory
on the continent was much less hostile than in England. There was a clearer
sense of the relevance as well as the importance of his doctrine. The distinc-
tion has been largely ignored in modern commentary. It was recognized at the
time, however, not only by Hobbes himself, but by the first of his biographers,
his friend John Aubrey. When Aubrey came to draw up his list of Hobbes's
'learned familiar friends' for his biography, he treated it as a sad but un-
doubted fact that 'as a prophet is not esteemed in his own country, so he was
more esteemed by foreigners than by his countrymen '.56
48 J. C. Beckman, Politica Parallela (Frankfort, I679), p. 4I7.

49 Laird, Hobbes, p. 276.
50 Samuel Pufendorf, Of the Law of Nature and Nations (London, trans. I7IO). C
Hobbes as authority on Law of Nature (in Book ii, ch. iv, and in viii, I); on consensus (ii,
iii); on contracts (v, ii); on sovereignty (vii, vii). 51 Ibid. p. 87.
52 Leibniz, op. cit. v, 468. 53 Pufendorf, op. cit. p. II2.
54 Ibid. Book ii, pp. 84-8. 55 Ibid. Book vii, pp. 5i8-26. 56 Aubrey, op. cit. I, 373.

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The relations of Hobbes's political thought to the ideologies of the English

Revolution have been obscured as well as illuminated by the tendency of
scholars to concentrate exclusively on the fulminations of Hobbes's numerous
clerical opponents. It is true, of course, that among his contemporaries
Hobbes was particularly marked out for his originality, particularly denounced
for his heterodoxy. It is evident, none the less, that his impact has been viewed
in a misleading perspective. It can be shown (quite apart from the central issue
of Hobbes's following) that the treatment of Hobbes's critics as 'representa-
tive' of political theory at the time has been misleading in two important re-
spects. It is a view based, in the first place, on a misleading oversimplification
of the nuances and complexities of different political ideologies of the time.
For despite the many attacks Hobbes also gained a serious reputation as an
authority on political matters among many of the learned-even among the
learned orthodox who remained uncommitted to any of his views. The accepted
view of Hobbes's reputation has been based, in the second place, on a mis-
taken impression of the assumptions, and even the intentions, of Hobbes's
critics. It has not been recognized how much they feared not merely Hobbes's
dangerous doctrines, but their serious ideological purchase, not to mention
their popular following.
The serious reputation of Hobbes among 'the solemn, the judicious' was
conceded at the time even by his enemies.57 By the end of the century Ilobbes
had come to be accepted as an authority even among philosophers of avowedly
opposed temperament. 'Tom Hobbes', as Shaftesbury was to admit, 'I must
confess a genius, and even an original among these latter leaders in philo-
sophy.'58 By this time Hobbes had attained the recognition he had always
hoped for, in having his works placed (though amidst much controversy) in the
libraries of his own university.59 Within his own lifetime he was not without
a similar recognition. Selden and Osborne, who both revealed in their writings
a markedly 'Hobbesian' strain, were also (according to Aubrey) amongst the
earliest serious students of Hobbes's political works. Osborne wrote of Hobbes
as one of the men who had 'embellished the age ',60 while Selden is known to
have sought Hobbes's acquaintance oIn the strength of reading Leviathan.
In a similar spirit Hobbes's friend Abraham Cowley 'bestowed on him an
immortal Pindaric Ode ',62 the fulsome sentiments of which were to be echoed
by Blount's remarks on Hobbes as 'the great instructor of the most sensible
part of Mankind'.63
57 J. Eachard, Somne Opinions of Mr Hobbes Considered. Introduction distinguished Hobbes's

serious and popular following, anatomizing 'Hobbists' into pit, gallery and box 'friends'.
See sig. A, 4a-b.
68 A. A. Cooper, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, The Life, Unpublished Letters and Philosophical
Regimen, ed. B. Rand (London, I900), Letter to Stanhope, p. 414.
59 See Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections (Oxford, ii vols., I885-1921), X, 75 and
322. 60 Francis Osborne, A Miscellany (London, I659), sig. A.
61 Aubrey, op. cit. I, 369.
62 Ibid. p. 368. 63 Charles Blount, The Oracles of Reasonz (

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Although such tributes to Hobbes mainly came from his less conventional
friends, his recognition was not confined to them. Hobbes had a number of
clerical admirers,64 among whom must be counted that very type of a Restora-
tion bishop, Seth Ward. Ward was suspicious of Leviathan, disliking its
attack on the universities. Yet he acknowledged 'a very great respect and a
very high esteem' for its author,65 and possibly wrote the Epistle prefacing
De Corpore Politico, in which Hobbes's 'excellent notions' on 'the grounds and
principles of Policy' are 'commended as the best that ever were writ '.66
James Harrington wrote of Hobbes in a very similar way. Although suspicious
and critical of Leviathan he nevertheless agreed 'that Mr Hobbes is and will in
future ages be accounted the best writer at this day in the world '.67 And, while
Harrington looked to future ages, a reference by Webster to Hobbes and the
Ancients completes the eulogy. There was no need, Webster claimed, to
revere too much the views of the Ancients on statecraft. Although they had
produced works 'of singular use and commodity', yet 'even our own country-
man Master Hobbes hath pieces of more exquisiteness and profundity in that
subject than ever the Grecian wit was able to reach unto'.68
These anticipations of Hobbes's modern reputation were echoed at the
time even among his critics. These acknowledgments of Hobbes's stature
have been suppressed in modern commentary. Even the critics agreed, how-
ever, in seeing Hobbes not only as 'a man of excellent parts ',69 a man 'singu-
larly deserving in moral and socratical philosophy ',70 but even as a writer
'of as eminent learning and parts as any this last age hath produced '.71
Leviathan, as even its bitterest critics allowed, was the work of 'a universal
scholar '.72 The recognition of its author's 'mighty acumen ingenii ',7 moreover,
caused the critics to move with some circumspection in their attacks. Hobbes
was 'a man with so great a name for learning', as one critic admitted, that the
best he could hope to do was to 'fling my stone at this giant, and I hope hit
him '.7 Clarendon, too, prefaced his statesmanlike attack by conceding how
difficult it was to contest the 'great credit and authority' which Leviathan had
gained 'from the known name of the author, a man of excellent parts'. As
much as any follower, he joined the other critics in acknowledging Leviathan-
64 Aubrey's list of Hobbes's closest friends included four clergymen (see Aubrey, op. cit.
I, 370).
65 Seth Ward, A Philosophical Essay (Oxford, I652), sig. A, 3 a.

66 Thomas Hobbes, 'To the Reader', De Corpore Politico (London, 1650). Cf. Thomas
Hlobbes, The Elements of Law, ed. F. Tonnies (London, I889), Introduction, p. vii.
67 J. Harrington, 'The Prerogative of Popular Government', Works (London, I7
68 J. Webster, Academiarum Exainen (London, I654), p. 88.
69 Alexander Rosse, Leviathan Drawn out with an Hook (London, I653), sig. A, I2a.
70 Philip Scot, A Treatise of the Schism of England (London, i650), p. 223.
71 Roger Coke, A Survey of the Politics (London, i662), sig. A, 4a.
72 Johln Dowel, The Leviathan Heretical (Oxford, I683), sig. A, 2a.
73 Villiam Lucy, Observations, Censures and Confutations of Notorious Errors in Mr Hobbes
his Leviathan (London, I663), p. I I7.
74 William Lucy, Examinations, Cenisuires and Confutations of Divers Errors in the Two First
Chapters of Mr Hobbes his Leviathan (London, I656), sig. A, 5a.

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with whatever alarm-to be a work 'which contains in it good learning of all

kinds, politely extracted, and very wittily and cunningly digested, in a very
commendable method, and in a vigorous and pleasant style '.75
It is clear, moreover, that what disturbed the critics was not merely the
serious reputation or even the alarming content of Hobbes's doctrines, but
their ideological purchase, and their even more alarming popularity. This
point has been submerged under the weight given to the contemporary
attacks on Hobbes-though the number of attacks might in itself be thought
to offer some paradoxical guide to Hobbes's continuing popularity. The popu-
lar acceptance of Hobbes's views, however, was a point which weighed with
his critics from the start. As early as i657 Lawson was to note how much
Leviathan was 'judged to be a rational piece' both by 'many gentlemen' and
by 'young students in the Universities '.76 Within two years of its publication
Rosse had expected to be attacked himself for denouncing so fashionable a
work.77 By I670 Tenison felt obliged to admit that 'there is certainly no man
who hath any share of the curiosity of this present age' who could still remain
'unacquainted with his name and doctrine'.78 Clarendon noted at the same
time how much Hobbes's popularity continued to weather every attack, how
much his works 'continue still to be esteemed as well abroad as at home '.7 By
the time of his death Hobbes had grown 'so great in reputation', as Whitehall
angrily remarked, that even apparently 'wise and prudent' men had come to
accept his political views, which 'are daily undertaken to be defended '.80
Hobbes's enemies doubtless wished to emphasize the menace, but there is
independent evidence about the extent of Hobbes's contemporary popularity.
A catalogue of 'the most vendible books in England' which happens to sur-
vive for the year i658 included all of Hobbes's works on political theory,
and showed him one of the most popular of all the writers listed under
'humane learning', surpassed in the number of his entries only by Bacon and
Raleigh.81 Twenty years later Eachard was to make the figure of Hobbes in
his Dialogue reply to his detractors by pointing out that despite their strictures
on his works they 'have sold very well, and have been generally read and
admired .82 The printing history for all of Hobbes's political works certainly
bears this out.83 De Corpore Politico, originally published in i65o, reached a
7 Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, A Brief View and Survey of... Leviathan (Oxford,
I676), sig. A, i b.
76 George Lawson, An Examination of the Political Part of Mr Hobbes his Leviathan
(London, I657), sig. A, 2b. 77 Rosse, op. cit. sig. A, 4b.
78 Thomas Tenison, The Creed of Mr Hobbes Examined (London, I670), p. 2.
79 Clarendon, op. cit. sig. A, 3 a.
80 John Whitehall, The Leviathan Found Out (London, I679), p. 3.
"' W. London, A Catalogue of the Most Vendible Books in England (London, I658),
3 a, to sig. Z, i b.
82 John Eachard, Mr Hobbes's State of Nature Considered, ed. P. Ure (Liverpool, 1958), p.
I4.
83 For following details, cf. H. Macdonald and M. Hargreaves, Thomas Hobbes: a Biblio-
graphy (London, I952), pp. I0-I4, i6-22, 30-6, 76-7.

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third edition by I652, was immediately translated, and in its French version
went through two further editions within the year. De Cive was first published
in a very small edition in i642, but on being re-issued five years later it went
through three editions in one year. It was published again in I657, again in
I669, as well as appearing in the two-volume collection of Hobbes's Opera
Philosophica which went through two editions in i 668. Translated into French
in I649, it had attained a third edition by I65I and a new translation by i 66o.
Leviathan went through three editions in its first year of publication, and by
i668 the book (as Pepys noted) was so 'mightily called for' that he had to pay
three times the original price to get a copy,84 even though there had in fact
been two further editions of the work in the same year. It is a record of pub-
lication not even rivalled by Locke (to take the most famous case from the next
generation), within whose lifetime the Two Treatises reached only three Eng-
lish and two French editions.85
The failure to acknowledge this element of popularity has tended to give
a misleading impression of the intentions of Hobbes's contemporary critics.
They have been treated as attacking a single source of heterodox opinion. It
can be shown, however, that they concentrated on Hobbes not because he
was seen as the 'singlehanded' opponent of tradition, but rather because he
was seen to give the ablest and most influential presentation to a point of view
which was itself gaining increasingly in fashionable acceptance and in ideo-
logical importance. To the more hysterical critics it even seemed possible to
believe that 'most of the bad principles of this Age are of no earlier a date than
one very ill Book, are indeed but the spawn of the Leviathan '.86 By the time of
the i688 Revolution, when the question of allegiance to de facto power was
again (as when Leviathan was first published) the central issue of political
debate, it seemed to the last exponents of passive obedience that the 'authority
and the reasons' of Hobbes's political theory 'are of a sudden so generally
received, as if the doctrine were Apostolical '.87 By this time (according to
Anthony 'a Wood, Hobbes's old Oxford enemy) Leviathan had already
'corrupted half the gentry of the Nation '.88 The suspicion of Hobbes's leading
contribution to 'the debauching of this generation'89 was the moving spirit
even with some of Hobbes's most statesmanlike critics. Richard Cumberland
excused his long philosophical attack on Hobbes with the hope that he might
84 Samuel Pepys, The Diary, ed. H. B. Wheatley (London, 8 vols., I904-5), VIII, 9I.
The 'three editions' of Leviathan in i65 I may of course be slightly misleading, as the second
two are evidently false imprints-contemporary, but precise dates unknown.
85 See John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. P. Laslett (Cambridge, 1960),
Introduction, appendix A, pp. I2I-9.
86 Charles Wolseley, The Reasonableness of Scripture-Belief (London, i672), sig. A, 4a.
87 Abednego Seller, The History of Passive Obedience since the Refornation (Amsterdam,
i689), sig. A, 4a.
88 Anthony 'a Wood, 'Thomas Hobbes', Athenae Oxoniensis (London, 2 vols., i69I-2),
II, 278-483.
89 J. Lymeric, life of Bramhall in Works of. .'.John Bramhall (Dublin, i676), si

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limit the increasing acceptance of Hobbes's political views.90 Even Clarendon,

from the bitterness of his second exile, claimed to trace 'many odious opin-
ions' back to Leviathan, 'the seed whereof was first sowed in that book'.91
A more realistic-and more revealing-assumption was that the reason for
Hobbes's doctrines being so 'greedily sought and cried up'92 was rather 'the
prevalence of a scoffing humour' in 'this unhappy time '.9 When Francis
Atterbury came to reflect a generation later on the ease with which the 'false
and foolish opinions' of that age had 'gotten footing and thriven', he had no
doubt that there had been 'something in them which flattered either our
vanity our lust or our pride, and fell in with a daring inclination'. And he
particularly mentioned Hobbes as a man who had 'owed all his reputation
and his followers' to this 'skill he had in fitting his principles to men's
constitutions and tempers'.94 Earlier critics had nearly all made the same point.
According to Lucy the popularity of Leviathan merely indicated 'the genius
that governs this age, in which all learning, with religion, hath suffered a
change, and men are apt to entertain new opinions in any science, although
for the worse, of which sort are Mr Hobbes his writings '.95 And according to
Eachard-Hobbes's rudest, shrewdest critic-the age itself had thrown up so
many 'who were sturdy, resolved practicants in Hobbianism' that they
'would most certainly have been so, had there never been any such man as
Mr Hobbes in the world '.96
To some Hobbes was the leading symptom, to others the sole cause, of the
increasingly rationalist temper of political debate. But the point on which all
critics agreed was that Hobbes's popularity reflected a more widespread en-
dorsement of his outlook. It was not Hobbes himself whom they were even
mainly concerned to denounce, but rather Hobbes as the best example of the
alarming and increasing phenomenon of 'Hobbism'. Within Hobbes's own
lifetime the word 'Hobbism' was already in popular currency to denote 'a
wild, atheistically disposed' attitude to the powers that be,97 while the
'Hobbists' were recognized as wanting to 'subvert our laws and liberties and
set up arbitrary power '.98 The 'Hobbist' villain became a familiar parody on
the Restoration stage: in Farquhar's Constant Couple he reads what appears
to be The Practice of Piety, but is in fact Leviathan under plain cover.99 The
'Hobbist' was also recognized, more seriously, as the political rationalist
90 Richard Cumberland, A Treatise of the Laws of Nature (i672) (trans. London, I7

Introduction, sect. xxx.
91 Clarendon, op. cit. sig. *, 3a. 92 Baxter, op. cit. p. 8.
93 Anonymous, Inquiry, cited from Mintz, op. cit. p. I36.
"" Francis Atterbury, Maxims, Reflections and Observations (London, I723), p. 66.
95 Lucy, Examinations, sig. A, 3b. 96 Eachard, Some Opinions, sig. A, 3b.
97 R.F., A Sober Enquiry (London, i673), p. 5I-
98 John Crowne, City Politics (London, i683), p. 50.
99 T. Farquhar, The Constant Couple (London, I700), p. 2: Vizard, 'This Hobbes is an
excellent fellow'. On this point generally, see L. Teeter, 'The Dramatic Use of Hobbes's
Political Ideas', E.L.H. III (936), I40-69.

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IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF HOBBES' S POLITICAL THOUGHT 297
who assumed that God had left it 'arbitrary to men (as the Hobbeans vainly
fancy) '100 to establish their own political societies 'according to the principles
of equality and self-preservation agreed to by the Hobbists'.101 Locke in his
Essay contrasted the 'Hobbist' with the Christian, as a man who would justify
his keeping of 'compacts' not by saying 'because God, who has the power of
eternal life and death, requires it of us', but 'because the public requires it,
and the Leviathan will punish you if you do not'*102 Bramhall similarly
addressed his Catching of Leviathan not merely to Hobbes, but to the man
'who is thoroughly an Hobbist', with the aim of showing him that 'the Hob-
bian principles do destroy all relations between man and man, and the whole
frame of the Commonwealth '.103
The 'Hobbists' and the followers of Hobbes, so alarming to contemporaries,

have been almost totally discounted by modern commentators. The positive
ideological affinities between the political views of Hobbes and his contem-
poraries have in consequence received no attention. The one analysis of the
relations between 'Hobbes and Hobbism' has claimed, in fact, that in Hobbes's
own time there was to be only one 'favourable' as against fifty-one 'hostile'
published reactions to Hobbes's political views.104 It is evident, however, that
a great deal of information has been missed here. It has not always been
recognized, in the first place, that most of Hobbes's critics (apart from the
mathematicians) were concerned not so much with his political doctrines as
with the allegedly atheistic implications of his determinism.105 Only half of the
twelve tracts entirely aimed at Hobbes during his own lifetime were even
mainly concerned with his political thought.'06 This did not mean that
Hobbes's specifically political doctrines were to receive less notice in his own
time. It can be shown that Hobbes had important affinities and connexions
with other strands of contemporary political debate, and that these were
both recognized and sympathetically discussed. It can also be shown that
Hobbes came to be cited and accepted within his own lifetime-independently
of any close critical study-simply as an authority on matters of political
theory, even among writers who might never have read his works, or had read
only to confute them.
It was his famous attempt to explain political association in terms of man's
need to mediate his nasty and brutish nature which was to give Hobbes his
100 Anonymous, A Letter to a Friend (London, I679), p. 6.

101 Anonymous, The Great Law of Nature or Self-Preservation Examined (n.p., n.d.)
(B.M. Catalogue gives I673), p. 6.
102 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (London, I690), Book i,
ch. 3, para. 6.
103 John Bramhall, The Catching of Leviathan (London, I658), heading to ch. It, p. 503.
104 S. P. Lamprecht, 'Hobbes and Hobbism', American Political Science Review, xxxiv
(I940), 3 1-53, esp. p. 32.
105 A point excellently made in Mintz, op. cit. p. vii, but also passim.
106 See checklist in ibid. pp. 157-60.

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immediate place in the accepted canon of writers on political theory. He be-

came labelled as the writer who had thought of deducing the necessary form
of the state from the imagined chaos of a 'state of Nature'. Just as Aristotle
retained a reputation in the seventeenth century-even among his fashionable
denigrators-as the first writer who had emphasized man's natural sociability,
so Hobbes gained a reputation as the first writer to reverse this traditional
emphasis. The point was often made even by writers who wished to repudiate
it, or who wished to leave it an open question (as one writer put it) whether
'as it was said of old' man was 'naturally sociable', or whether 'as a learned
modern has said' he is 'compelled into Society merely for the advantages and
necessities of life '.107
The clearest evidence of the tendency to link Hobbes's authority with this
particular view is provided by the 'whig' writers on allegiance. The greatest
of them happened also to be the most cautious in citation, but it was un-
doubtedly on this point that John Locke came nearest to citing Hobbes in the
Two Treatises. The 'some men', it has already been pointed out, whom he
attacked in chapter III of the Second Treatise for 'confounding' the state of
Nature with a state of war 'can only be the Hobbesists'*108 Other populist
writers were more forthcoming. Locke's friend Tyrrell frequently cited Hobbes
as the man who believed that if subjects were released from their obligation
they would inevitably return to 'a state of Nature, that is (as he supposes) of
war'*109 Samuel Mead's defence of the change of allegiance at i688 made the
same point."10 Shaftesbury even hinted slyly at the valuable lesson which the
Hobbesian doctrine might contain. He wanted to 'agree heartily', he claimed,
with those writers who had represented human nature, apart from govern-
ment, 'under monstrous visages of dragons, Leviathans, and I know not what
devouring creatures'. If there was a state of Nature, 'let it be a state of war,
rapine and injustice', for 'to speak well of it is to render it inviting and tempt
men to turn hermits'."1' And Algernon Sydney, the hero among the populist
writers, not only cited Hobbes in his Discourses in the same way, but with
unequivocal approval. Twice he pointed out that, if the contract between
magistrate and people is ever 'extinguished', the inevitable result is a return
to 'the condition Hobbes rightly calls bellum omnium contra omnes, wherein
no man can promise to himself any other wife, children or goods than he can
procure by his own sword '.112
Hobbes's theory about political 'pacts ',113 the views of this 'eminent
107 Anonymous, Confusion Confounded (London, i654), p. 9.

108 See Locke, op. cit. p. 298 and note to para. I9.
109 James Tyrrell, 'Dialogue Three', Bibliotheca Politica (London, I694), p. I74. Also cites
Hobbes, pp. 153, 155-6, I69, i8i.
'I0 Samuel Mead, Oratio pro Populo Anglicano (n.p., I689), sig. B, 3b-4a.
"I A. A. Cooper, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics, ed. J. M. Robertson (London,
2 vols., I9OO), ii, 83.
112 Algernon Sydney, Discourses Concerning Government (London, 3rd ed., 175i), pp. 43,
342. 113 Anonymous, Vindiciae Juris Regii (London, I689), p. 27.

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philosopher' about man's natural 'state of war',114 his attempt to base 'a
scheme of human nature '115 on this supposition, were attitudes which became
known to the whole range of contemporary political writers, even though
many who cited this view showed no further concern with the deductions
Hobbes was concerned to make from these axioms. The dread of anarchy
which the view implied was to raise further sympathetic echoes at the time of
the Revolution in i688. The dangers pointed out in 'Mr Hobbes's notion of
power' were readily reinforced by the enemies of de facto theory. He had al-
ready shown the dangers of accepting power as a title to succession 'in making
his state of war-for when all is left to strength and power, there is a state of
war'*116 The de facto theorists, however, were able to make use of the same
warning themselves. Several of them justified the change of allegiance when
a prince 'can no longer govern' on the grounds that society would otherwise
'dissolve into a mob, or Mr Hobbes's state of Nature'*117 It is clear that
'Hobbes's state of Nature' was by then a phrase in recognized usage. In I673,
for example, Dryden had been attacked on the grounds that he had represented
men in one of his plays 'in a Hobbian state of war '.18 By i 694 Lownde
assumed that to write of man's natural sociability might be thought absurd,
as it differed so much from the views of 'learned persons', among whom he
particularly mentioned Hobbes.119
It was undoubtedly this uncritical tendency to associate Hobbes with a
particular view about the 'state of Nature' which gave him his widest con-
temporary reputation. It can also be shown, however, that his political theory
was the subject of more genuine critical appraisal. Hobbes can occasionally be
found cited as an authority by contemporaries even on details of his political
theory-on the nature of political reasoning ;120 on the extent of sovereign
power ;121 and especially on the rights of the civil power in ecclesiastical
affairs.'22 It was chiefly his view of political obligation, however, which caused
Hobbes to be treated among contemporary writers as an authority. He was
discussed (guardedly, but with some admiration) by some of the most tradi-
tionalist theorists of absolutism, with whose views on allegiance Hobbes
retained close affinities. He was also discussed (with the closest and most sym-
pathetic attention) by the most radical theorists of defacto rule, amongst whom
his treatment of political obligation became an important model.
114 Anonymous, The Parallel (London, i682), p. I2.
115 Anonymous, Animadversions on a Discourse (London, I69I), p. i6.
116 E.g. Anonymous, The Duty of Allegiance (London, I69I), p. 53.
"' William Sherlock, The Case of the Allegiance Due to Sovereign Powzers (London, I69I),
p. 38.
118 Anonymous, The Censure of the Rota (Oxford, I673), p. 3.
119 J. Lownde, A Discourse Concerning the Nature of Man (London, I694), sig. A, 5 a and
6b. 120 Harrington, 'Politicaster' in Works, p. 559.
121 Sir William Petty, The Petty Papers, ed. the marquis of Lansdowne (London, 2 vols.,
1927), I, 219.
122 E.g. Anonymous, A Treatise of Human Reason (London, I674), pp. 44-5; Scot, op. cit.
p. 140.

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This contemporary acceptance of Hobbes's authority on defacto power has

passed almost completely unnoticed. The first of these affinities, however-
with the traditional absolutists-was widely commented on at the time. One
critic even compared Hobbes to Sibthorpe and Manwaring, the two royal
chaplains arraigned in the i6zos for preaching that the will of the king was
above the law.123 Aubrey too mentioned Manwaring (and Wood added Sib-
thorpe) as a preacher of Hobbism before Hobbes.124 The 'whig' critics of
absolutism similarly exploited this affinity between Hobbes and monarchists
like De Moulin, Wren, and especially Filmer-a point which has been taken
up by several scholars.125 Tyrrell's attack on Filmer included the charge
(echoed in Sydney's Discourses)'26 that he had borrowed directly from
Hobbes.127 One of Locke's earliest notes about political theory copied out
Filmer's words of warm approbation for Hobbes's views on sovereignty. And
it was Locke (in one of his notebooks) who was to ask rhetorically, of Samuel
Parker's erastianism: 'how far is this short of Mr Hobbes's doctrine? '128 The
differences are great, but these critics were arguably correct to see a common
tradition between Hobbes and the Patriarchalists. Although the Patriarchal
discussion of man's nature was characteristically in scriptural terms, there
was a curious parallel even here between their invocation of fallen man and
Hobbes's assumption of innate wickedness as a political premiss. These
links have even prompted speculation about the influence of Calvinist indi-
vidualism on Hobbes129 as well as the influence of Hobbes on other theorists
of absolutism.130 There is a further parallel in the Patriarchal deduction of
absolutism from the needs of political society. It has been remarked, indeed,
by a great authority, that in a writer like Dudley Digges, with his discussion
of men's 'unavoidable occasions of quarrel' in a state of Nature, and their
'prime dictate of nature, the preservation of themselves '131 we 'might be
reading a popular abridgment of the Leviathan'.132
The parallels seemed sufficiently close to be uncomfortable to several of the
Patriarchalists themselves. Among their works published at the time of the
Exclusion Crisis there were several attempts-notably by Mackenzie and
Falkner-explicitly to dissociate their views on monarchy from the views of
123 Whitehall, op. cit. p. 7. 124 Aubrey, op. cit. I, 334.

125 On De Moulin and Hobbes, see P. Zagorin, A History of Political Thzought
Revolution (London, I954), p. 7i and note; on Wren and Hobbes, see Locke, op. cit. p. 75 n.;
on Filmer and Hobbes, see W. Haller, 'Introduction' to Tracts of Liberty in the Puritan Re-
volution (Columbia, 3 vols., I934), I, 3.
126 Sydney, Works, p. i88.
127 J. Tyrrell, Patriarcha Non Monarcha (i68i), cited in Locke, op. cit. p. 7i n.
128 For Locke on Filmer, see ibid. p. 33. For Locke on Parker, see Maurice Cranston,
John Locke, a biography (London, I957), p. I33.
129 Phyllis Doyle, 'The Contemporary Background of Hobbes's 'State of Nature', Eco-
nomica, vii (I927), 336-55.
130 E.g. G. Lanson, Bossuet (Paris, I89I), pp. I84-28I.
131 Dudley Digges, The Unlazfulness of Subjects Takinzg Up Arms (n.p., i643), p. 3.
132 J. N. Figgis, The Divine Right of Kings (London, 2nd ed., I9I4), p. 239.

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IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF HOBBES 'S POLITICAL THOUGHT 30I
Hobbes.133 Ten years before this, Tenison had taken care in his Examination
of Hobbes's doctrines to explain away the fact that he had been the subject of
'reproach myself, as a favourer of such opinions '.134 Hobbes's unyielding
support for the absolute power of kings, particularly in ecclesiastical matters,
was nevertheless a doctrine attractive to many of the most traditional mon-
archists, a few of whom even acknowledged Hobbes's authority. Bishop
Parker wrote of his own account of magistrates' powers that it 'savours not a
little of the Leviathan. But how can I avoid it? Are not these my own words?
Though that I might deny, yet I am content to confess that I have said some-
thing not much unlike them.'135 Even Clarendon wrote of Hobbes's discussion
about churches in a Christian Commonwealth that it was a 'faultless Chapter',
and provided a particularly 'proper' theme 'for his excellent way of reason-
ing'*136 And the most fulsome tribute to Hobbes's theory of Sovereignty was
to come from the most prominent of the Patriarchalists, Sir Robert Filmer
himself. He wrote a shrewd critique of Hobbes's account, but prefaced it with
the admission that 'with no small content I read Mr Hobbes's book De Cive,
and his Leviathan, about the rights of sovereignty; which no man, that I
know, hath so amply and judiciously handled '.137
It was amongst the theorists of de facto rule, however, that Hobbes in his
own time was to receive the closest and most sympathetic consideration. It
was essentially their rationalist and contractarian account of the rights both
of subject and sovereign which was on trial at both of the great crises over
political obligation in the English Revolution. It was on trial in I649, with the
establishment of the Commonwealth's de facto rule after the execution of the
king; it was on trial again in I689, with the replacement of James II's de iure
power by the rule of the 'Great Deliverers' William and Mary. It can be shown
that in both crises many theorists of defacto rule were to make specific use of
Hobbes's authority in coming to terms with their new governors. It is the
discussion of Hobbes's viewpoint by these writers which provides the most
unequivocal though least recognized evidence about both the contemporary
popularity and the serious ideological relevance of 'Hobbism' in the political
thought of the English Revolution.
By the time of the 'Glorious Revolution' most writers on political obliga-
tion had grown far too wary or sophisticated to think of trying to support any
de facto case by invoking the dangerous reputation of the Commonwealth
theorists. They preferred to argue that the new authority was based not on the
need to submit but on the citizens' free consent. It was one of their hopes,
133 George Mackenzie, lus Regium (Edinburgh, i684), sig. H, i a; Falkner, op. cit. esp.
PP. 407-I I .
134 Tenison, op. cit. sig. A, 2b.
135 Samuel Parker, A Defence and Continuation of the Ecclesiastical Polity (London, i6
p. 279.
136 Clarendon, op. cit., cited in B. H. G. Wormald, Clarendon (Cambridge, I951), p. 304.
137 Sir Robert Filmer, 'Observations Concerning the Original of Government', Patriarcha
and Other Political Works, ed. P. Laslett (Oxfoid, I949), p. 239.

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indeed, that they could demonstrate the need for submission 'without assert-
ing the principles of Mr Hobbes'*138 Their typical assertion was 'that our
Government is now thoroughly settled, and that we who submit to it cannot
be charged with Hobbism, since we do not say that any Prince who has quiet
possession of the throne can claim our obedience, but only such as are con-
firmed and settled in it by the determination of our representatives'. 139
One group of writers continued, however, to argue in terms of de facto
power. And it is clear that this side of the debate was never far from repeating
Hobbes's most characteristic views. The centre of this controversy, at the
time of the i688 Revolution, was the 'de facto Tory' dean of St Paul's, William
Sherlock, whose Case of Allegiance was written in I69I to justify his decision
to take the new oaths of allegiance 'after so long a refusal '.14 Sherlock felt
close enough to Hobbes's argument to want to distinguish their points of view
with some care. Critics have pointed out, he admitted, 'that it is Hobbism' to
argue the rights of defacto powers. 'But those who say this do not understand
Mr Hobbes or me. For he makes power and nothing else -to give right to
dominion, and therefore asserts that God himself is the natural lord and
governor of the World, not because He made it, but because He is omni-
potent. But I say that Government is founded in right, and that God is the
natural lord of the World because He made it. '141 Other writers on Sherlock's
side in the debate felt less scruple about invoking the similarity, and the
authority, of Hobbes's treatment of this point. 'It is agreed', as one of them
pointed out, 'by the best writers on the subject' that obligations are only
conditional where there has been some prior agreement. 'Mr Hobbes indeed
saith that those who submit upon compact are capable of no injury after-
wards, because they have given up their wills already, and there can be no
injury to a willing mind '.142 Another tract of the same year emphasized that
'Hobbes rightly observes' in a case of de facto rule that 'where an external
right and dominion is admitted' there is 'no cause why an external obligation
which does not touch the conscience may not also be admitted'. 143
Every critic of this group of defacto theorists claimed to see in their remarks
a sinister attempt to revive 'Hobbist' principles of political obligation. They
attacked not merely the reliance on Hobbes's authority, but also pointed out
the links with other de facto theorists from the dark days of the Common-
wealth. They might claim, it was said, to be endorsing the principles of the
Church of England, but they were in fact taking their arguments 'from the
rebels in the year '4z and from the advocates of Cromwell's usurpation '.144
They might claim to be corroborating the Convocation Book's doctrine of
138 Anonymous, Their Present Majesties' Government Proved to be Thoroughly Settled, and
that we may Submit to it, without Asserting the Principles of Mr Hobbes (London, I69I).
139 Ibid. p. I5. 140 Sherlock, op. cit. sig. A, i a.
141 Ibid. p. I5. 142 Anonymous, A Discourse (London, I689), p. 7.
143 Anonymous, A Full Anszwer (London, I689), p. 36.
144 Anonymous, An Answer to a Late Pamphlet (London, I69I), p. i.

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IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF HOBBES' S POLITICAL THOUGHT 303
allegiance, but that work in fact 'did but little service' to them, while 'there
were other writings that would have done the trick to an hair, such as Hobbes,
Baxter, Owen, Jenkins etc.' 45 Hobbes was still seen as the major influence.
Several of the attacks on Sherlock ('The Doctor' to his opponents) tried to
establish by close textual comparisons that long before the Doctor's time 'Mr
Hobbes had taught the same '.146 'The question', as it was put by one of these
writers, 'is whether Mr Hobbes and the Doctor teach not the same doctrine
about the legal right and possession of sovereignty, and the transferring of
allegiance to usurpers?' And the answer-given after lengthy textual com-
parisons-was that on the questions of political obligation Hobbes and Sher-
lock were 'fratres fratrerrimi, and it is not within the power of metaphysics
to distinguish them '.47 A similarly detailed textual comparison was provided
by another critic who claimed to show that 'Mr Hobbes makes power and
nothing else give right to dominion. And pray does not the doctor do the same?
I am much mistaken if this be not the design of his whole book . Another
less patient critic finally concluded that Hobbes's principles had been sur-
passed. For, while 'Mr Hobbes taught the absolute power of all Princes only
as a philosopher, upon principles of mere reason', these latter-day Hobbists
'by adding the authority of scripture' also make themselves 'sure of a profit-
able office in the state'.149
The point of major importance is that Hobbes's critics were undoubtedly

right in claiming a link between the de facto theorists of the I69os and an
earlier group of 'Hobbesian' theorists in the i65os. This earlier group has
been almost completely ignored, but it is of the greatest importance for esta-
blishing the contemporary reputation and the real ideological purchase of
Hobbes's political thought. It can be shown that Hobbes was both cited and
discussed in the works of these theorists as their authority on questions about
both the grounds and the proper extent of a citizen's obligation to the State.
It can also be shown that a reading of Hobbes's political theory among these
writers both crystallized and endorsed several of their own political views.
It is true that a list of Hobbes's authentic contemporary following would be
short and would contain no writer of the front rank. The evidence for
establishing such a list, however, can only be unequivocally provided from
specific citations and sympathetic discussions of Hobbes's political works.
And it must be recognized that such tests-although they provide the only
definite means of gauging the acceptance of one particular writer-are not
only especially rigorous when applied to the conventions of seventeenth-
145 Anonymous, Providence and Precept (London, i69i), pp. 4-5.

146 Anonymous, An Examination [of Sherlock's Case of Allegiance] (London, 169I), p. 14.
147 Ibid. p. I5.
148 Anonymous, Dr Sherlock's Case of Allegiance Considered (London, I691), p. 73. Para
with Leviathan cited pp. 80-2.
149 Anonymous, Dr Sherlock's Two Kings of Brainford (London, I69I), p. I 3.
20 HJ IX

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century political discussion, but will also tend of themselves substantially to

underestimate the evidence.
The evidence will tend to be underestimated partly by the fact that Hobbes's
political theory did contribute to the attitudes of a larger group. There was
thus no reason why such writers themselves should have focused exclusively
on the authority of Hobbes. Several of the writers who discussed Hobbes's
views were themselves to be treated as authorities on points which were in
fact common to them all. It is not uncommon to find writers like Anthony
Ascham, Marchamont Nedham, or Lewis de Aloulin cited as authorities on
points where an acknowledgment of Hobbes might have served equally well.150
The evidence will tend further to be underestimated by the fact that all the
conventions of political debate at the time were against the citation of authori-
ties. The whole trend was towards informality, even anonymity: the failure
to recognize the force of this convention has undoubtedly contributed some-
thing to the impression of Hobbes's lonely notoriety. Hobbes was not much
cited in his own time, but nor was any other political writer: every acknow-
ledgment had come to sound like a lack of originality, a slavish reversion to
the typically medieval quest for the endorsement of every view.151 With
Hobbes himself it was a famous boast that he had read few works by other
men and had cited even fewer.152 His friend Francis Osborne similarly pointed
out his own emancipation from the use of authorities, and even suggested a
habit of reading sparingly, lest a man become diffident about his own views.153
And to John Selden, another of Hobbes's friends, it was a maxim that 'in
quoting of books' one should cite only 'such authors as are usually read.
Others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them.'154
It seems very likely, moreover, that even among writers who might have
been expected to cite Hobbes's authority, the number may have been
diminished further by considerations about Hobbes's dangerous reputation.
A man who had been named in Parliament as the author of blasphemous and
profane works155 was not a writer to cite idly or without very necessary
reason as an authority on anything. This type of suppression is difficult to
prove. But it was regarded at the time as beyond dispute that among those
who would 'scarce simper in favour or allowance' for Hobbes there were many
who were none the less 'Hobbists' for that.156 It is certainly clear that in
150 E.g. of Ascham cited: Anonymous, A Combat Betzween Two Seconds (London,
p. 5; of Nedham: K. Goodwin, Peace Protected (London, I654), p. 75; of de Moulin:
M. Hawke, The Right of Dominion (London, I655), p. 136.
151 Cf. R. F. Jones, Ancients and Moderns (St Louis, 2nd ed., 1961), stressing their assump-
tion that 'if servility to the authority of the ancients precluded examination of traditional
beliefs, no hope could be held out for increased knowledge', p. i I9.
152 Aubrey, op. cit. I, 349.
153 Francis Osborne, 'Conjectural Paradoxes', Works (London, gth ed., I689), pp. 538 and
548.
154 John Selden, Table Talk, ed. Sir Frederick Pollock (London, 1927), p. 24.
155 The Yournals of the House of Commons (n.p., n.d.), vol. viii, I660-I667, p. 636.
156 Eachard, Somze Opinions, sig. A, 4b.

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seventeenth-century England there were political opinions which men might

believe, even discuss, but much prefer not to see printed. Hobbes himself was
thought to have acted too boldly in publishing views which 'though he be-
lieved them to be true' were none the less 'too dangerous to be spoken
aloud . And there are certainly signs that a man who sympathized with
Hobbes's views was better able to say so in private than in any published form.
'Hobbism' is anatomized without any sort of comment only in private com-
monplace books.158 And Sir William Petty provides at least one further ex-
ample of a contemporary writer on politics who commended Hobbes, in his
private memoranda, as the leading authority on political theory, yet never
once cited Hobbes in his own published works.159
When such considerations about the conditions as well as the conventions
of discussion are given some weight, it becomes by no means necessarily
tendentious to add that there may have been more silent reliance on Hobbes
than there was citation of his works among contemporaries. The typically
'Hobbesian' premiss, for example, that political society must be based on
man's mediation of a basically anti-social psychology, can also be found ex-
pressed in very similar language in many of the 'Engagement' tracts of i 650,160
in several discussions of the need for absolute power published under the
Commonwealth,16' as well as in 'Hobbist' writers like Francis Osborne,'62
Thomas White,'63 and Matthew Wren.164 The typically 'Hobbesian' deduc-
tion, similarly, that this establishes a reciprocal relation between obligations
to protest and to obey, can be found expressed in identical language in dozens
of the tracts on allegiance written in the i650s.165 The fact that only a small
group of writers acknowledged and avowedly followed the authority of Hobbes
does not exclude the possibility of a wider influence. The crucial point,
however, is that within these 'Hobbesian' groups there were several writers
who did not stop short of an acknowledgment of Hobbes, both in their
approach and in their theories of political obligation.
157 Thomas Pierce, 'ATTOKATAKPIXIE (London, i658), sig. *, 3b-4a.

158 E.g. commonplace book entries 'Mr Hobbes's Creed' and 'The Principles of Mr
Hobbes' in British Museum, Sloane MSS 904 and 1458.
1'9 See Petty Papers, II, 5. Cf. Sir William Petty, The Economic Writings, ed. C. H. Hull
(Cambridge, 2 vols., 1899).
160 E.g. in T.B., The Engagement Vindicated (London, I650), pp. 5-6; in John Dury,
Considerations Concerning the Present Engagement (London, 4th ed., 'enlarged', I650), pp.
13-14; and in Anonymous, A Disengaged Survey of the Engagement (London, I650), p. 20.
161 E.g. in Anonymous, Confusion Confounded, p. 9; in John Hall, Of Government and Obe-
dience (London, I654), pp. 13-14 and 98. (N.B. that this John Hall differs from the John Hall
of Durham (i627-56) cited in note 177, below.)
162 Francis Osborne, A Persuasive to a Mutual Compliance (London, I652), p. II.
163 Thomas White, The Grounds of Obedience and Government (London, i655), pp. 44-5.
164 Matthew Wren, Monarchy Asserted (London, I659), pp. 49-50.
165 E.g., Samuel Eaton, The Oath of Allegiance (London, i650), p. 8; Anonymous, Con-
science Puzzled (London, I650), p. 7; J. Drew, The Northern Subscribers' Plea Vindicated
(London, I653), p. 23; E. Elcock, Animadversions (London, i65I), p. 47; Anonymous, The
Bounds and Bonds of Public Obedience (London, I649), p. 26; N.W., A Discourse Concerning
the Engagement (London, i650), p. II.
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The best general statement of Hobbes's method and principles, against

which the views of these 'Hobbists' may be compared, is contained in the
preface 'To the Reader' of De Cive. Hobbes's essential concern, as he set it
out there, was to 'demonstrate' the necessary form of the state, and the citi-
zen's obligation to it, as a deduction from the known nature of human nature.
The revolutionary 'principle' of Hobbes's political theory was thus-in
direct opposition to the traditional picture of man as a political animal-the
famous doctrine 'that the dispositions are naturally such, that except they be
restrained through fear of some coercive power, every man will distrust and
dread each other, and as by natural right he may, so by necessity he will be
forced to make use of the strength he hath, toward the preservation of him-
self'.166 Hobbes's first 'demonstration' was thus 'that the state of men without
civil society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing
else but a mere war of all against all; and in that war all men have equal right
unto all things'*167 This was the view of man treated as axiomatic by Hobbes
and his followers, as much as it was denounced by their clerical enemies. It
was equally an axiom, for example, of the work published in I655 on The
Right of Dominion that 'Dominion was first procured by arms '.168 'Everyone
in a state of nature', the argument ran, 'hath a right to dominion, and con-
quest only puts him in possession.' And from this point, as the author added,
'I conceive Mr Hobbes might collect that the right of nature is a condition of
war of every one against every one, and right of every man to every thing,
even to another's body'. For, as he more picturesquely went on, every man
in the state of Nature gained just as much 'as by force and strength through
wounds and slaughters they could obtain or retain'.169 It was again an axiom
in Killing is Murder, published two years later, that 'the natural state of man,
before they were settled in a Society, as Master Hobbes truly saith, was a
mere war X 170
The second 'demonstration' which Hobbes set out was that, as the basic
law of man's nature made self-preservation his paramount aim, so 'all men as
soon as they arrive to understanding of this hateful condition of universal
war then desire (even nature itself compelling them) to be freed from this
misery'."7' The laws of men's nature are thus said to make it possible for man
to mediate his own natural condition. Each of these claims was to be similarly
taken up and developed by other de facto theorists. As 'Mr Hobbes, Philos.
Rudiments' has pointed out, 'it is the law of nature that men live peaceably,
that they may tend the preservation of their lives, which whilst they are in war
they cannot '.172 For this reason, as 'Mr Hobbes, Phil. Rud.' also pointed out,
166 Thomas Hobbes, De Cive, ed. S. P. Lamprecht (New York, I949), p. II.
167 Ibid. p. I3. 168 Hawke, The Right of Dominion, ch. VII, p. 4I.
169 Ibid. ch. IV, p. 32; ch. VII, p. 43.
170 Michael Hawke, Killing is Murder and No Murder (London, I657), p. 7. On H
also F. Raab, The English Face of Machiavelli (London, I694), p. 141.
171 Hobbes, De Cive, p. 13. 172 Hawke, Right of Dominion, P. 27.

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it is possible to regard 'human nature itself' as 'the mother of the natural

law .173 The way that 'Mr Hobbes doth thus describe the laws of nature' was
similarly treated as authoritative in The Idea of the Law, in which Hobbes's
own account was extensively quoted.174 And The Right of Dominion similarly
used Hobbes's account again to make the point that 'every one hath sufficient
power to rein and moderate his outward demeanour, that he commit no out-
ward or civil act repugnant to the law of nature. And in this sense is Mr
Hobbes's saying true, that the law of nature is easily kept. '175
Hobbes's central 'demonstration' was that, although men's absolute self-
seeking could be mediated 'by compact', it could only be adequately mediated
by a compact which set up an absolute, preferably monarchical, power. For
'except they do so' there will 'evidently appear to be no civil government, but
the rights which all men have to all things, that is the rights of war, will
remain *176 The only possible shortcoming of this account which Hobbes
conceded was the difficulty of 'demonstrating' that the form of this govern-
ment had to be monarchical. The point was to be taken up by John Hall, the
very 'Hobbesian' author of The Grounds and Reasons of Monarchy Considered.
Like Hobbes, he claimed that he would 'rather be sceptical in my opinion,
than maintain it upon grounds taken up and not demonstrated '.177 And, like
Hobbes, he admitted that any attempt to demonstrate the 'intrinsic value and
expediency' of monarchy 'is a business so ticklish, that even Mr Hobbes in his
De Cive, though he assured himself that the rest of his book (which is prin-
cipally erected to the assertion of Monarchy) is demonstrated, yet he doubts
whether the arguments which he brings to this business be so firm or no '.78
This whole discussion, moreover, was to be reprinted by John Toland as the
opening tract in his edition of Harrington's Works.179
Hobbes remained certain, however, that his basic contention about the
relation between self-preservation and political obligation was completely
demonstrated. The same confidence was again echoed by other theorists of
de facto rule. It was recognized, in the first place, to mean that the possession
of power itself established a title to be obeyed: as the aim of subscribing to
government was self-preservation, so this presupposed an obligation to obey
any power with the capacity to protect. It is a corollary, 'as Master Hobbes
saith', that 'a sure and irresistable power confers the right of dominion and
ruling over those who cannot resist '.180 It was thus demonstrated that 'by the
law of war, whatsoever the victor obtaineth is his right: ius est in armis, and-
as Mr Hobbes-a sure and irresistable power conferreth the right of domin-
173 Ibid. p. 29.

1'74 John Heydon, The Idea of the Law (London, i66o), pp. 124-5.
175 Hawke, Right of Dominion, p. 25. 176 Hobbes, De Cive, p. I3.
177 John Hall, The Grounds and Reasons of Monarchy Considered (Edinburgh, znd
I650), sig. A, 4a-b.
178 Ibid. p. 50.
179 James Harrington, Works, ed. J. Toland (London, I77I), p. 13.
180 Hawke, Killing is Murder, p. 12.

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ion' 181 Such power, moreover, had to be obeyed in all things, spiritual as well
as temporal. The view, as it was agreed, 'that Holy Scriptures are to be under-
stood according to each man's small use of reason' is one which 'Mr Hobbes
very well confutes'*182 It was recognized by these 'Hobbists', in the second
place, that the notion of a mutual relation between protection and obedience
circumscribed as well as defined the limits of a citizen's obligations. If obliga-
tion is due to power, such obligation must cease where the power itself fails.
Hobbes, it was said, rightly pointed out not only that 'power of coercion, of
the sword, and consequently of life, is transferred from the people to the
magistrate'; he also recognized-as do all 'rational men '-the sense in which
this means that 'the power of life is derived to the magistrate from the consent
and vote of the people'. And here the reader is referred to 'Hobbes, de Corp.
Polit.'183 It would be a mistake to suppose that political obligation is created
by natural laws of themselves, which cannot 'actually and formally oblige a
creature, till it be made known'. It might seem that obligations in society are
based on a 'natural law', in cases 'as Mr Hobbes describes' when people
'bind themselves by general compact to the observation of such laws as they
judge to be for the good of them all '.184 But this would be to mistake the role
of law. For 'before all this can rise to the height and perfection of a law, there
must come a command from superior powers, whence from will spring a
moral obligation also, and make up the formality of a law '.185
There was some contemporary endorsement of Hobbes's political doctrine
at each of its most characteristic points. There is also another and even more
revealing way, however, in which the contemporary ideological relevance of
Hobbes's political views can be proved. Hobbes was not only discussed by
other writers as a means of crystallizing their own political stance. He was also
cited as an authority by a group of contemporary writers whose political views
were extremely similar to Hobbes's most characteristic doctrines, but who
can be shown to have arrived at these conclusions independently of studying
Hobbes's own works. Hobbes was cited not as the source of their opinions,
but rather to corroborate views they already held. They provide the clearest
evidence that Hobbes's political theory was not a completely isolated pheno-
menon, but to some extent a contribution to a particular climate of
opinion.
The most important of these writers was undoubtedly Anthony Ascham,
who deserves to be much better known. In I648 he published A Discourse,
concerned (in the words of its own sub-title) with What is particularly lawful
during the confusions and revolutions of governments. Ascham's point of de-
parture, in his preface, was with the strong and Hobbesian fear that anarchy
was the sole alternative as well as the ever-present threat to any given political
181 Hawke, Right of Dominion, p. 50. 182 Scot, Op. cit. p. I40.
183 'Euitactus Philodemius', An Anszwer to the Vindication (London, I650), pp. 15-I
184 Heydon, op. cit. pp. I09, I50-I. 185 Ibid. p. I37.

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order. His equally Hobbesian conclusion was thus that the will of a power
'absolute without redress or appeal', and the virtues of passive obedience,
provided the sole means of escape from the mutability of all things.186 Part i
of the book argued for this conclusion from very Hobbesian claims about the
'natural' laws of men's conduct in their basic and original social situation.
The sole but essential right of men in such a condition was taken to be the
right of self-preservation. This led first to a history, in chapter III, of 'first
possessors', who could 'without scruple of doing other wrong, place their
bodies where they would'.187 This discussion was then modified, in chapter
IV, by positing a situation of extreme need, in which men would have to revert
to a more communal system. The two points together suggested the whole of
Ascham's thesis. On the one hand, there are no natural political rights, for
'possession therefore is the greatest title '.188 Appropriation has, ever since
primitive times, served as a sufficient basis for political society. On the other
hand, even rights of possession cannot be absolute. Any legal right auto-
matically loses priority, in time of emergency, to the basic Hobbesian right
to life. The presumption of the whole account was that necessity itself pro-
vided the only viable guide to political right. For, as in Leviathan, "tis neces-
sity itself which makes laws, and by consequence ought to be the interpreter
of them after they are made '.189
This strongly Hobbesian sense of the necessities laid on men by their own
nature and condition lies at the centre of Ascham's whole outlook. The argu-
ment recurs, most revealingly and in a totally different context, in the only
other work which it seems certain that Ascham wrote, the tract of I647 Of
Marriage. Marriage was treated by Ascham as an example of a contract which
there could never be a sufficient reason for voiding. A man in engaging mar-
riage is said to will a situation which seems strongly parallel to the acceptance
of an absolute political obligation. 'He is no longer himself, and makes use of
his liberty but once, to lose it for ever after all his life.'190 Ascham was thus
drawn again into characterizing the nature of rational behaviour in such
unalterable circumstances. The characteristic of wisdom is to recognize that
the situation itself dictates the appropriate behaviour: 'the wise man is called
the artificer of his own happiness, because he adjusts his desires to the
186 Anthony Ascham, A Discourse (London, I648), p. 37. To maintain uniformity of cita-
tion all pagination refers to the enlarged second edition (London, I649). See note 194, below.
For further references to Ascham and to discussions of his work, see my article 'History and
Ideology in the English Revolution', The Historical yournal, viii (I965), I5 5-78, esp. p
and note. 187 Ascham, op. cit. p. 6.
188 Ibid. p. 6. 189 Ibid. p. Io.
190 Anthony Ascham, MS Tract on Marri
and apparently unknown to Ascham's commentators. See Cambridge University Library
MSS., MS. Gg, I, 4, Tracts MS. fo. xxvi ff. separately paginated as fos. I-56, bound up with
MS. of P. Tomkinson, A Description of the City of Rome. Title-page gives five chapter-
headings, beginning 'Of marriage in general', date, and ascription 'By Mr Askham, that was
afterwards killed in Spain being agent for the parliament of England there'.

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necessity of events, and moves cheerfully through that way through which he
would otherwise be sullenly dragged'.191
Part I of Ascham's Discourse thus treated in a political context the same issue
that he had already discussed in a familial context in the tract Of Marriage.
Part II of the Discourse went on to develop from this point a totally Hobbesian
political conclusion about the 'mutual relations between protection and
obedience' as the grounds of obligation. The specific issue which Ascham went
on to engage was the extent to which a man might properly take oaths and pay
allegiance to a usurped power. Ascham showed complete and deliberate dis-
regard here for any questions about either the rightful origins or the best
forms of government. The only question, as with Hobbes, was whether the
possessors of governmental power can sustain the lives of their subjects in a
successful political order. If they fail in this, then the citizen's loyalties are at
an end, while he endeavours instead to protect himself. As 'nature commends
me to myself for my own protection and preservation', so 'he who hath sworn
allegiance and fidelity to his Prince, is absolved and set at liberty, if his
Prince abandon his kingdom'*192 But, if the government does manage to sus-
tain order, then the citizen's duty can only be to obey, regardless of any
judgments that could be made about the legality of the government's powers.
Throughout the argument the sole touchstone is necessity: as the last chapter
concluded, citizens are bound to obey governments 'so long as it pleases God
to give them the Power to command us'.193
The language as well as the assumptions throughout Ascham's work are of
a strongly Hobbesian character. Hobbes is never mentioned, however, his
authority is never invoked, and there is no evidence that Ascham had at this
time read De Cive, Hobbes's only published political work. In I649, however,
Ascham re-issued his book in a second edition, its length augmented by nine
chapters, its title changed to Of the Confusions and Revolutions of Govern-
ments.194 Ascham now reverted (at the end of part II) to his earlier discussion
about the 'natural' state and character of men. Here he not only expanded and
corroborated his earlier account; he now justified it further by invoking the
authority of Hobbes. Ascham first added a justification of his views about
political obligation by considering the origins of magistracy and civil govern-
ment in the state of Nature. He now deduced the obligation of the citizen to
obey any power capable of offering him protection from the typically Hobbes-
ian assumption that without such protection no society at all would be
possible. Liberty from all government would be 'a great prejudice to us; for
191 Ascham, On Marriage, ch. IV, fo. 36.

192 Ascham, Discourse, pp. 2i and 39.
193 Ascham, Discourse, p. 45. The affinities with Hobbes seemed unquestionable to con-
temporaries. Filmer, for example, discussed Hobbes's doctrines not in isolation but as the
views of 'Mr Hobbes, Mr Ascham; and others of that party'. See Filmer, op. cit. p. 231, and
cf. p. i88.
194 Anthony Ascham, Of the Confusions and Revolutions of Goverments (sic, in original,
London, I649), part II, additions at pp. 85-95, 104-8.

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IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF HOBBES S POLITICAL THOUGHT 3I1
hereby we were clearly left in a state of war, to make good this natural free
state of the world, which referred all to the trial of force and not of law, against
which no one could offend'. Complete subjection to power was the only solu-
tion, for (as Ascham now conceded) 'Mr Hobbes his supposition (if there be
two omnipotents, neither could be obliged to obey the other) is very pertinent
and conclusive to this subject '.195 Ascham finally added a further justification
of his views about the relative obligations of protection and obedience. He
repeated his view that change of allegiance is automatically permitted by failure
of government. But he now called in two greater authorities to corroborate
the point. The change is justified whenever '(as Grotius and Mr Hobbes
say) there be a dereliction of command in the person of whom we speak, or
if the country be so subdued that the conquerors can no longer be resisted '.196
A similar use of Hobbes's authority to corroborate an already completed
political argument can be found in the writings of Marchamont Nedham. So
close indeed was Hobbes's theory of obligation to the account which Nedham
and the other defacto theorists used to justify the rule of the Commonwealth
that in the pages of Mercurius Politicus, the official newspaper which Nedham
edited,197 Hobbes's doctrines were to attain the rather invidious status of
official propaganda for the Republic of England. Twice during I65I the
serious editorials which always prefaced Nedham's news-sheet consisted
simply of unsigned extracts from Hobbes's De Corpore Politico. The first was
a long quotation from Hobbes's characteristic discussion of the citizen's
obligation to obey any power with the capacity to protect him.198 The second
set out Hobbes's insistence on the congruence of the civil authority's com-
mands with God's purposes.199 And twice apart from this Hobbes was to be
advertised in Nedham's paper as an authority on political science.200
Nedham was to show in his own writing as well as in his journalism how
much his opinions could be sustained by the authority of Hobbes. This can
best be seen in The Case of the Commonwealth Stated, which Nedham pub-
lished in I650. Its aim was to prove in general (in part i) the 'necessity and
equity' of submission to powers that be; and to vindicate in particular (in
part II) the authority of the new Commonwealth government. The central
contention in Nedham's as in Ascham's work was the Hobbesian claim that
the basis of all government must lie in men's absolute need to protect them-
selves and their interests by a submission of will. Some kind of government
is at all times an absolute necessity as the only alternative to anarchy. In part
II of his book Nedham used this claim to denounce all changes proposed by
195 Ibid. ch. ix, p. io8. 196 Ibid. p. "i9.

197 On Nedham, particularly as editor, see J. Frank, The Beginnings of the English Newspaper
(Cambridge, Mass., I96I), p. 2o6.
198 Editorial to Mercurius Politicus, no. 31 (2-9 January i651).
199 Ibid. no. 34 (23-30 January I65I).
200 Mercurius Politicus, no. 29 (I9-26 December i650), p. 486, and no. 352 (5-I2 March
1657), p. 7641. See also Frank, op. cit. p. 257.

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Royalists, by Levellers, and by all other enemies of the English Republic. In

the central chapter of part I it is simply stated as axiomatic that, 'there being a
necessity of some government at all times, for the maintenance of civil con-
versation, and to avoid confusion, therefore such as will not submit, because
they cannot have such a government as themselves like, are in some sense
mere anarchists '.201
Nedham is thus led, like Ascham, to the bleak and typically Hobbesian
conclusion that, as government is an absolute necessity, so obedience must be
absolutely given to whatever government is in fact capable of sustaining suc-
cessful political order. Nedham has no doubts about the principle of allegiance
moving with events. The wheel of fortune, as the opening chapter is devoted
to showing, turns in an unpredictable but irrevocable manner. Once it has
turned against a particular state, its citizens are merely building 'castles in the
air against fatal necessity' if they then go on insisting on 'a fantasy of pre-
tended loyalty'.2O2 There is no question, moreover, of insisting on allegiance
to a rightful rather than a usurped power. Nedham endorsed his Hobbesian
conclusions by refusing to accept that there is any such distinction to be made.
He insisted, in chapter ii, that there never has been an ancient or a modern
state capable of surviving an examination of its original 'right' to rule. All
governments originally had 'no other dependence than upon the sword .203
The only possible rule of obligation is thus to recognize and submit to the
necessity of power itself.
As in the case of Ascham's work, this Hobbesian defence of defacto power
was completed without reference to Hobbes. But, as with Ascham, the auth-
ority of Hobbes was subsequently used to corroborate the view. When his
book reached a second edition in I650 Nedham added an appendix, explaining
that 'nothwithstanding that I have already.. . sufficiently proved' its claims,
yet 'I thought meet to fasten them more surely upon the reader' by 'inserting
some additions' from Salmasius and 'out of Mr Hobbes his late book De
Corpore Politico '.204 The last five pages of the appendix accordingly reprinted
extracts from Hobbes's discussion at both the points critical to Nedham's own
argument. 'It may plainly be inferred' from Hobbes's discussion that there
can be 'no security for life, limbs and liberty' except 'by relinquishing our
right of self-protection'.2O5 It may also be inferred from what 'Mr Hobbes
saith' that 'since there is no other possible way to preserve the well-being of
the Nation' except 'by a submission to the present power', it is entirely
justifiable-as he had already claimed-'to pay subjection to them in order
to our own security'.206
201 Marchamont Nedham, The Case of the Commonwealth Stated (London, I650), p. I7.
As with Ascham, to maintain uniformity of citation, all pagination refers to the enlarged
second edition (London, I650). See note 204 below. 202 Nedham, op. cit. p. 5.
203 Ibid. p. 9. 204 Ibid. 2nd ed., with appendix (London, i650), p. I03.
205 Ibid. p. 0og. 206 Ibid. pp. IO8-9.

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This attempt to suggest the appropriate ideological context for Hobbes's

political doctrines-to show his contemporary following, his recognition
abroad, and the fears of his opponents at his popularity-is an investigation
which can be shown to carry analytical as well as historical implications for the
student of political thought. To add this historical background is in effect
to add a new test of plausibility for any suggested interpretation of Hobbes's
political theory. It can no longer be assumed that the 'question of what his
theory is' can properly be regarded as 'prior' to and separate207 from the ques-
tion of its intellectual relations. Any interpretation must imply some links
between Hobbes's viewpoint and the views of his contemporaries. It can now
be made a condition for accepting any suggested interpretation that these
links must themselves be of an historically possible and credible kind. In this
way the historical study of Hobbes's intellectual milieu can be used to help
assess the philosophers' various interpretations of Hobbes's meaning.
The fashionable trend in the interpretation of Hobbes has been to increase
the emphasis on his links with a more traditional political outlook. Hobbes's
theory of obligation, on this interpretation of his intentions, is detached from
its apparently 'scientific' psychological premisses, and grounded instead on a
traditional doctrine of Natural Law. In the most persuasive of these expo-
sitions Hobbes's discussion is completely reformulated in the language of a
theory of duty. A subject is then said to be obliged, not by any considerations
of self-interest, but by his acknowledgment of a prior duty to obey the laws
of Nature, in virtue of recognizing them to be the commands of God. Hobbes
is thus regarded as 'essentially a natural law philosopher', believing that 'the
laws of nature are eternal and unchangeable and, as the commands of God,
they oblige all men who reason properly, and so arrive at a belief in an omnipo-
tent being whose subjects they are '.208 In the most extreme presentation of this
interpretation it has even been suggested that there is a dichotomy in Hobbes's
account between an 'artificial' and a 'real' system of obligation, not resolved
until Hobbes 'goes behind his philosophic fiction of command without a
commander to the reality from which the fiction was derived, when he says
that the second law of nature is the law of the Gospel '.209 The essential con-
tention which all such interpretations have in common can be summarized in
the words of the first writer who suggested this view of Hobbes's doctrine.
Hobbes, we have to assume, 'meant quite seriously what he so often says, that
the "natural law" is the command of God, and to be obeyed because it is
God's command '.210
It is not intended to ask directly whether this interpretation of Hobbes's
views on obligation offers the best account of his meaning. The relations,
however, between Hobbes's views and the age which produced them is an
207 H. Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Oxford, I957), p. ix.
208 Ibid. p. 322.
209 F. C. Hood, The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes (Oxford, I964), p. 97.
10 A. E. Taylor, 'The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes', Philosophzy, XIII (I938), p. 4I8.

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314 QUENTIN SKINNER
investigation which can now be shown to bear on this point far more closely
than has been supposed. For the view of Hobbes's intellectual relations im-
plied by any such deontological interpretation, it can now be shown, would
be historically incredible. The weight of this evidence is perhaps sufficient
in itself for any such interpretation to stand discredited.211
If Hobbes intended to ground political obligation on a prior obligation to
obey the commands of God, it follows, first, that every contemporary-every
follower, opponent, sympathizer-all equally missed the point of his political
doctrine. All of them, moreover (a remarkable chance) were mistaken in
exactly the same way. For it was Hobbes's theory of obligation which most
interested his critics as well as his followers, and all were agreed about the type
of theory he was thought to have put forward. All his followers, it has been
shown, were concerned to emphasize the obligation to obey any successfully
constituted political power. All of them cited Hobbes as the authority who had
demonstrated that the grounds and the necessity of this obligation lay in man's
pre-eminent desire for self-preservation. This was also the popularly received
impression of Hobbes's intentions. In one of the contemporary commonplace
books in which 'Mr Hobbes's Creed' is anatomized, he is summarized as
having taught 'That the prime law of nature in the soul of man is that of
temporal self-love', and 'That the law of the civil sovereign is the only oblig-
ing rule of just and unjust '.212 Another put it more tersely as the view that
'whatever the civil magistrate commands is to be obeyed notwithstanding
contrary to Divine Moral Law'.213 And when Daniel Scargill, the much-
discussed 'penitent Hobbist,' recanted his 'Hobbist' views before the Uni-
versity of Cambridge in I669, the views which both he and they regarded as
pre-eminently 'Hobbesian' were that 'all right of dominion is founded only
in power' and that 'all moral righteousness is founded only in the positive law
of the civil magistrate .214
These assumptions about Hobbes's doctrine were also shared by all Hobbes's
contemporary critics. These writers were themselves Christian moralists,
who might have been expected to be particularly attuned to seeing any similar
overtones in Hobbes's works. Most of them, however, went out of their way
to emphasize instead what Clarendon called Hobbes's 'thorough novelty'.215
They found in Hobbes no element of traditionalism: they saw him as a com-
plete iconoclast who (as Bramhall put it) 'taketh a pride in removing all ancient
land-marks, between Prince and subject, father and child, husband and wife,
master and servant, man and man'.216 All of them agreed, moreover, on the
211 The following section attempts to document a suggestion originally made at the end of
my article 'Hobbes's Leviathan', The HistoricalyJournal, vii (I964), 32I-33.
212 British Museum, Sloane MSS., no. I458, fo. 35.
213 Ibid. no. 904, fo. I4.
214 See James L. Axtell, 'The Mechanics of Opposition: Restoration Cambridge v. Daniel
Scargill', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XXXVIII (I965), I02-I i and refs. there.
215 Clarendon, op. cit. sig. A, i b. 216 Bramhall, op. cit. p. 542.

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form which Hobbes's iconoclasm took. They associated Hobbes with two
particular political doctrines, both of which (as Clarendon remarked) would
'overthrow or undermine all those principles of Government which have
preserved the peace of this Kingdom through so many ages '.217 They assumed,
first, that as Hobbes grounded political obligation on calculations of rational
self-interest, so he believed that a man became absolutely obliged to obey any
government that could protect him. Hobbes's point of departure, in the eyes
of all his critics, was not with the obligations of natural law but with the fears
of natural man. When the University of Oxford issued its famous condemna-
tion of heterodox books in I683, Hobbes was mentioned and denounced by
name as the writer who had invented the claim that 'self-preservation is the
fundamental law of nature and supersedes the obligation of all others '.218 It
was a view shared by all the rest of Hobbes's critics. Hobbes had taught that
there was a 'right of nature' in every man ;219 that society can only 'arise from
necessity and fear'220 upon 'the principles of equality and self-preservation '.221
The obligation which Hobbes describied was thus sustained not by congruence
with any natural law, but by power itself. 'With this author', as Lawson put
it, 'every Monarch is absolute.'222 Hobbes may have insisted on 'Covenant
and Oath' in the generation of his Leviathans, but 'the obligation is in vain,
because the people cannot force them to the observation thereof'.223 And
Clarendon agreed that 'Mr Hobbes hath erected such a sovereign and insti-
tuted such a people that the one may say and do whatever he finds convenient
for his purpose, and the other must neither say or do any thing that may dis-
please him .'224 The whole set of assumptions about Hobbes was best summed
up, however, by one of his followers. 'Mr Hobbes', he claimed, believed 'that
by nature all things are common, and the grounds of a distinct propriety, and
of a Meum and Tuum, is not from nature but from the pact and consent of
man, who is forced thereto by a kind of necessity for prevention of those evils,
which would necessarily be the consequents of having all things common '.225
All the critics assumed, in the second place, that as Hobbes had made obliga-
tion depend on protection, so he had intended to add that when a subject was
not adequately protected his obligation must cease. HIobbes intended no less,
as Clarendon put it, than to give subjects 'leave to withdraw their obedience'
from their ruler at the time 'when he hath most need of their assistance '.226
The critics agreed in seeing in this view the final proof that Hobbes had aban-
doned any belief in 'the obligation laid on us by fidelity (the law of God
217 Clarendon, op. cit. sig. A, 3b.
218 'Judgment ... of the University', given in D. Wilkins, Conciliae Magnae Britannicae et
Hiberniae (4 vols., London, I737), Iv, 6Io-I2.
219 Filmer, op. cit. p. 242.
220 Philip Warwick, A Discourse of Government (London, i694), p. 55.
221 Anonymous, Great Law of Nature, p. 8. 222 Lawson, op. cit. p. I7.
223 Ibid. p. 23. 224 Clarendon, op. cit. p. II5.
225 'Eutactus Philodemius', The Original and End of Civil Pow
226 Clarendon, op. cit. p. 90.

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316 QUENTIN SKINNER
Almighty in our nature) antecedent to all humane covenants '.227 He had instead
made 'Civil laws the rules of good and evil'*228 So far from seeing in Hobbes
any traditional elements of natural law doctrine, they regarded his utilitarian
account of political obligation as the most dangerous attack on it. 'Where
these principles prevail', as Bramhall almost despairingly concluded, 'adieu
honour and honesty and fidelity and loyalty: all must give place to self-
interest.'229
Some modern commentators have taken the heroic course of denying that
any of this contemporary evidence matters, on the grounds that 'any modern
reader can see the general irrelevance' of Hobbes's critics.230 But to concede
this point would only be to complete the paradox, and to make the entire
intellectual milieu impossible to understand. Hobbes himself is turned into
the most incredible figure of all. He must be represented as presenting a
traditional type of natural law theory of politics in a manner so convoluted
that it was everywhere taken for the work of a complete utilitarian, a political
calculator prepared (in Bramhall's memorable phrase) to 'take his sovereign
for better but not for worse '.231 And despite Hobbes's own predilection for the
quiet life, his terror at being arraigned for heterodoxy,232 he never once
attempted either to disown the alarmingly radical writers who cited his
authority, or to disarm his innumerable critics by pointing out their miscon-
ception of his intentions. In Hobbes's only known reply to a critic of his views
on obligation it is clear that the issue for both of them was still the pre-eminent
place that Hobbes had allowed to self-interest.233
The followers and the critics are turned into scarcely less incredible figures.
It becomes impossible to understand why Hobbes's opponents should have
felt so threatened. A more careful reading (we are assured) would have shown
them that there was 'nothing that is original in Hobbes's moral thought '.234
A reading of any of the authors who cited Hobbes, however, would have re-
vealed the same dangerous principles which they claimed to find in Hobbes.
And yet it was Hobbes, and not these seemingly much more radical followers,
on whom they continued to focus their attacks. In the same way it becomes
impossible to understand why any of Hobbes's avowed followers should have
taken such trouble to cite his authority. All of them had worked out a political
outlook more radical than any exponent of Natural Law doctrines could ever
attain or endorse. All of them (we are assured) had in any case completely
misunderstood the intentions of the writer whom they gave as their most
radical authority. It becomes clear, in short, that to accept a deontological
227 Tenison, op. cit. p. I47. 228 Anonymous, An Examination, p. I5.
229 Bramhall, op. cit. p. 5I9.
230 K. C. Brown, 'Hobbes's Grounds for Belief in a Deity', Philosophy, XXXVII (i962
337 n.
231 Bramhall, op. cit. p. 519. 232 On this see Aubrey, op. cit. I, 339.
233 I have published this reply and discussed it in my article 'Hobbes on Sovereignty:
An Unknown Discussion', Political Studies, xiii (I965), 2I3-I8.
234 H-lood, op. cit. p. I3.

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IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF HOBBES S POLITICAL THOUGHT 3I7
interpretation of Hobbes's views is to remove any meaningful points of con-

tact between Hobbes and his own intellectual milieu.
It has been intended in this study to emphasize a link, commonly ignored
or even denied, between the activities of philosophers and historians. An
attempt has been made to elucidate the ideological context of one classic set-
of texts, and to construct around them the framework of their appropriate
intellectual milieu. The implication has been that where such a framework is
lacking the classic text itseif may be 'understood' by philosophers in ways that
are historically absurd. The aim has been to show that the historian's task of
understanding climates of opinion is not disconnected from the philosopher's
attempts to interpret texts.235 It is still for the historian to point out that even
the philosopher's most plausible interpretation must still be tested, and might
even have to be abandoned, in the light of historical evidence.236
235 This essay is thus intended to supply a particular case-history for a more general theory
about methods of trying to understand the history of ideas. I have tried to set out the theory
itself in more abstract terms in my article ?The Limits of Historical Explanations', Philo
phy, XLI (I966), I99-2I5.
236 This essay owes a great deal to correspondence with Professor J. G. A. Pocock and
Professor J. M. Wallace, and to discussions with Mr Peter Laslett and Mr John Dunn, to
whom I am indebted not only for reading various drafts but also for correcting mistakes
and helping with several references.

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The Ideological Context of Hobbes's Political Thought

Author(s): Quentin Skinner

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637983

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III. THE IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF

THE modern reputation of Hobbes's Leviathan as a work 'incredibly overtop-

1 R. G. Collingwood, The New Leviathan (Oxford, 1942), p. iV.

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occupied such a lonely position in the world of thoug

The accepted view of Hobbes as a complete outcast from the intellectual

15 G. P. Gooch, Political Thought in England: Bacon to Halifax (London, 19I5), p. 23.

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a misleading restriction of the investigation. Although there have been valu-

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29 See, in Elements Philosophiques du Citoyen (Amsterdam, I649), Sorbi6re's translation

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Hobbes's political theory was to be critically studied as well as merely

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48 J. C. Beckman, Politica Parallela (Frankfort, I679), p. 4I7.

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The relations of Hobbes's political thought to the ideologies of the English

57 J. Eachard, Somne Opinions of Mr Hobbes Considered. Introduction distinguished Hobbes's

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65 Seth Ward, A Philosophical Essay (Oxford, I652), sig. A, 3 a.

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with whatever alarm-to be a work 'which contains in it good learning of all

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limit the increasing acceptance of Hobbes's political views.90 Even Clarendon,

90 Richard Cumberland, A Treatise of the Laws of Nature (i672) (trans. London, I7

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The 'Hobbists' and the followers of Hobbes, so alarming to contemporaries,

100 Anonymous, A Letter to a Friend (London, I679), p. 6.

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immediate place in the accepted canon of writers on political theory. He be-

107 Anonymous, Confusion Confounded (London, i654), p. 9.

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This contemporary acceptance of Hobbes's authority on defacto power has

123 Whitehall, op. cit. p. 7. 124 Aubrey, op. cit. I, 334.

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The point of major importance is that Hobbes's critics were undoubtedly

145 Anonymous, Providence and Precept (London, i69i), pp. 4-5.

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century political discussion, but will also tend of themselves substantially to

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seventeenth-century England there were political opinions which men might

157 Thomas Pierce, 'ATTOKATAKPIXIE (London, i658), sig. *, 3b-4a.

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The best general statement of Hobbes's method and principles, against

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it is possible to regard 'human nature itself' as 'the mother of the natural

173 Ibid. p. 29.

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191 Ascham, On Marriage, ch. IV, fo. 36.

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195 Ibid. ch. ix, p. io8. 196 Ibid. p. "i9.