were admitted to Composition some not They that Compounded though they help'd the Parliament less by their Composition than they should have done if they had stood out by their Confiscation yet they were ill spoken of especially by those that had no Estates to lose nor hope to Compound And it was for this that he added to what he had written before this caution That if they would compound they were to do it bonafide without intention of Treachery Wherein he justified their Submission by their former Obedience and present Necessity but condemned Treachery Whereas you that pretend to abhor Atheism condemn that which was done upon necessity and justifie the Treachery And you had reason for it that cannot otherwise justifie your selves Those struglings which happened afterwards lost His Majesty many a good and able Subject and strengthened Oliver with the Confiscation of their Estates which if they had attended the Discord of their Enemies might have been saved Perhaps you will take for a sign of Mr. Hobbes his ill meaning that His Majesty was displeased with him And truly I believe He was displeased for a while but not very long They that complained of and mis-construed his writings were His Majesties good Subjects and reputed Wise and Learned men and thereby obtained to have their mis-construction believed for some little time But the very next Summer after his coming away two Honourable Persons of the Court that came over into England assured him that His Majesty had a good opinion of him and others since have told me that His Majesty said openly That He thought Mr. Hobbes never meant him hurt Besides His Majesty hath used him more graciously than is ordinary to so humble a person as he is and so great a Delinquent as you would make him and testified His esteem of him in His bounty What Argument now can you draw from hence more than this That His Majesty understood his writings better than his Accusers did I admire in the next place upon what ground you accuse him and with him all those that have approved his Leviathan with Atheism I thought once that that slander had had some though not firm ground in that you call his new Divinity But for that point he will allege these words of his Leviathan pag. 238. By which it seemeth to me with submission nevertheless both in this and all other Questions whereof the determination dependeth on the Scriptures to the Interpretation of the Bible authorized by the Common-wealth whose Subject I am That c. What is there in these words but Modesty and Obedience But you were at this time in actual Rebellion Mr. Hobbes that holds Religion to be a Law did in order thereto condemn the maintenance of any of his Opinions against the Law and you that reproach him for them upon your own account should also have shewn by your own Learning wherein the Scripture which was his sole proof was mis-cited or mis-construed by him for he submitted to the Laws that is to say to the King's Doctrine not to yours and not have insulted for the Victory won by the power of the Law to which you were then an enemy Another Argument of Atheism you take from his denying immaterial or incorporeal Substances Let any man impartially now compare his Religion with yours by this very measure and judge which of the two savours most of Atheism It is by all Christians confess'd that God is incomprehensible that is to say that there is nothing can arise in our Fancy from the naming of him to resemble him either in shape colour stature or nature there is no Idea of him he is like nothing that we can think on What then ought we to say of him What Attributes are to be given him not speaking otherwise than we think nor otherwise than is fit by those who mean to honour him None but such as Mr. Hobbes hath set down namely Expressions of Reverence such as are in Use amongst men for signs of Honour and consequently signifie Goodness Greatness and Happiness and either absolutely put as Good Holy Mighty Blessed Just Wise Merciful c. or Superlative as most Good most Great most Mighty Almighty most Holy c. or Negative of whatsoever is not perfect as Infinite Eternal and the like And not such as neither Reason nor Scripture hath approved for honourable This is the Doctrine that Mr. Hobbes hath written both in his Leviathan and in his Book de Cive and when occasion serves maintains What kind of Attribute I pray you is immaterial or incorporeal substance Where do you find it in the Scripture Whence came it hither but from Plato and Aristotle Heathens who mistook those thin Inhabitants of the Brain they see in sleep for so many incorporeal men and yet allow them motion which is proper only to things corporeal Do you think it an honour to God to be one of these And would you learn Christianity from Plato and Aristotle But seeing there is no such word in the Scripture how will you warrant it from natural reason Neither Plato nor Aristotle did ever write of or mention an incorporeal Spirit for they could not conceive how a Spirit which in their Language was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in ours a Wind could be incorporeal Do you understand the connection of substance and incorporeal If you do explain it in English for the words are Latine It is something you 'l say that being without Body stands under Stands under what Will you say under Accidents Almost all the Fathers of the Church will be against you and then you are an Atheist Is not Mr. Hobbes his way of Attributing to God that only which the Scriptures Attribute to him or what is never any where taken but for honour much better than this bold Undertaking of yours to consider and decypher Gods nature to us For a third Argument of Atheism you put That he says Besides the Creation of the World there is no Argument to prove a Deity and That it cannot be evinced by any Argument that the World had a Beginning and That whether it had or no is to be decided not by Argument but by the Magistrates Authority That it may be decided by the Scriptures he never denied Therefore in that also you slander him And as for Arguments from natural Reason neither you nor any other have hitherto brought any except the Creation that has not made it more doubtful to many men than it was before That which he hath written concerning such Arguments is in his Book De Corpore Opinions saith he concerning the nature of Infinite and Eternal as the chiefest of the fruits of Wisdom God hath reserved to himself and made Judges of them those men whose Ministery he meant to use in the ordering of Religion and therefore I cannot praise those men that brag of Demonstration of the Beginning of the World from natural Reason And again pag. 238. Wherefore I pass by those Questions of
CONSIDERATIONS UPON The REPUTATION LOYALTY MANNERS RELIGION OF THOMAS HOBBES OF MALMSBVRY Written by Himself By way of LETTER to a Learned Person LONDON Printed for William Crooke at the Green Dragon without Temple-bar 1680. THE BOOKSELLER'S ADVERTISEMENT To the READERS I Do here present you with a Piece of Mr. Hobbes's Writing which is not published from an imperfect MS. as his Dialogue of the Civil Wars of England was by some that had got accidentally a Copy of it absolutely against his consent as you may see by some Passages out of some of his Letters to me which I have here inserted In his Letter of June 1679. he saith I would fain have published my Dialogue of the Civil Wars of England long ago and to that end I presented it to his Majesty and some days after when I thought he had read it I humbly besought him to let me print it but his Majesty though he heard me gratiously yet he flatly refused to have it published Therefore I brought away the Book and gave you leave to take a Copy of it which when you had done I gave the Original to an honourable and learned Friend who about a year after died The King knows better and is more concerned in publishing of Books than I am Therefore I dare not venture to appear in the business lest it should offend him Therefore I pray you not to meddle in the business Rather than to be thought any way to further or countenance the printing I would be content to lose twenty times the value of what you can expect to gain by it c. I pray do not take it ill it may be I may live to send you somewhat else as vendible as that And without offence I rest Chatsworth June 19. 1679. Your Very humble Servant Thomas Hobbes Part of his Letter in July 1679. If I leave any MSs. worth printing I will leave word you shall have them if you please I am Chatsworth July 21. 1679. Your humble Servant Thomas Hobbes Part of his Letter Aug. 1679. Sir I thank you for taking my advice in not stirring about the printing of my Book concerning the Civil Wars of England c. I am writing somewhat for you to print in English c. I am Chatsworth Aug. 18. 1679. Sir Your humble Servant Thomas Hobbes That no spurious Brats for the time to come be fathered upon the deceased Author I have printed verbatim these Passages out of his Letters written to me at several times Their Original I have by me I will be so just to his Memory that I will not print any thing but what is perfect and fitted for the Press And if any Book shall be printed with his Name to it that hath not before been printed you may be confident it is not his unless Printed for William Crooke Sir I Am one of them that admire your Writings and having read over your Hobbius Heauton-timorumenos I cannot hold from giving you some account of the causes why I admire it And first I considered how you handle him for his Disloyalty in these words pag. the 5 th His great Leviathan wherein he placed his main strength is now somewhat out of season which upon deserting his Royal Master in distress for he pretends to have been the King's Tutor though yet from those who have most reason to know it I can find but little ground for such a pretence was written in defence of Oliver's Title or whoever by whatsoever means can get to be upmost placing the whole Right of Government meerly in strength and Absolving all his Majesties Subjects from their Allegiance whenever He is not in a present capacity to force Obedience That which I observe and admire here first is That you left not this passage out for two reasons One because M r Hobbes could long for nothing more than such an occasion to tell the world his own and your little stories during the time of the late Rebellion When the Parliament sate that began in April 1640. and was dissolved in May following and in which many points of the Regal Power which were necessary for the Peace of the Kingdom and the safety of His Majesties Person were disputed and denied M r. Hobbes wrote a little Treatise in English wherein he did set forth and demonstrate That the said Power and Rights were inseparably annexed to the Sovereignty which Sovereignty they did not then deny to be in the King but it seems understood not or would not understand that Inseparability Of this Treatise though not Printed many Gentlemen had Copies which occasioned much talk of the Author and had not His Majesty dissolved the Parliament it had brought him into danger of his Life He was the first that had ventured to write in the King's defence and one amongst very few that upon no other ground but knowledge of his Duty and Principles of Equity without special Interest was in all points perfectly Loyal The 3 d of November following there began a new Parliament consisting for the greatest part of such men as the People had elected only for their adverseness to the Kings Interest These proceeded so fiercely in the very beginning against those that had written or preach'd in the defence of any part of that Power which they then intended to take away and in gracing those whom the King had disgrac'd for Sedition that Mr. Hobbes doubting how they would use him went over into France the first of all that fled and there continued eleven years to his dammage some thousands of pounds deep This Dr. was your time of harvest You were in their favour and that as you have made it since appear for no goodness Being at Paris he wrote and published his Book de Cive in Latine to the end that all Nations which should hear what you and your Concovenanters were doing in England might detest you which I believe they do for I know no Book more magnified than this is beyond the Seas When His Majesty that now is came to Paris Mr. Hobbes had the honour to initiate him in the Mathematicks but never was so impudent or ignorant as to call or think himself the King's Tutor as you that understand not what that word out of the University signifies do falsly charge him with or ever to say that he was one of His Majesties domestique Servants While upon this occasion he staid about Paris and had neither encouragement nor desire to return into England he wrote and published his Leviathan far from the intention either of disadvantage to His Majesty or to flatter Oliver who was not made Protector till three or four years after or purpose to make way for his return For there is scarce a page in it that does not upbraid both him and you and others such as you with your abominable hypocrisie and villany Nor did he desert His Majesty as you falsly accuse him as His Majesty Himself knows Nor was His Majesty as you unmannerly term
it in distress He had the Title Right and Reverence of a King and maintained His faithful Servants with Him It is true that Mr. Hobbes came home but it was because he would not trust his safety with the French Clergy Do you know that ever he sought any benefit either from Oliver or from any of his Party or was any way familiar with any of his Ministers before or after his Return or curried favour with any of them as you did by Dedicating a Book to his Vice-Chancellor Owen Did you ever hear that he took any thing done to him by His Majesty in evil part or spake of him otherwise than the best of His Servants would do or that he was sullen silent or sparing in praising His Majesty in any company upon any occasion He knew who were his enemies and upon what ground they misconstrued his writings But your indiscretion appears more manifestly in giving him occasion to repeat what you have done and to consider you as you professedly have considered him For with what equity can it be denied him to repeat your manifest and horrible Crimes for all you have been pardoned when you publish falsly pretended faults of his and comprehended in the same pardon If he should say and publish That you decyphered the Letters of the King and His Party and thereby delivered his Majesties secrets to the Enemy and His best Friends to the Scaffold and boasted of it in your Book of Arithmetick written in Latin to all the World as of a Monument of your Wit worthy to be preserved in the University Library How will you justifie your self if you be reproached for having been a Rebel and a Traytor It may be you or some for you will now say You decyphered those Letters to the King's advantage But then you were unfaithful to your Masters of the Parliament A very honest pretence and full of gallantry to excuse Treason with Treachery and to be a double Spy Besides Who will believe it Who enabled you to do the King that favour Why hearded you with His Enemies Who brought the King into a need of such a fellows favour but they that first deserted him and then made War upon him and which were your friends and Mr. Hobbes his enemies Nay more I know not one enemy Mr. Hobbes then had but such as were first the Kings enemies and because the King 's therefore his Your being of that Party without your decyphering amounts to more than a desertion Of the Bishops that then were and for whose sakes in part you raised the War there was not one that followed the King out of the Land though they loved him but lived quietly under the Protection first of the Parliament and then of Oliver whose Titles and Actions were equally unjust without treachery Is not this as bad as if they had gone over and which was Mr. Hobbes his case been driven back again I hope you will not call them all desertors or because by their stay here openly they accepted of the Parliament's and of Oliver's Protection defenders either of Oliver's or of the Parliament's Title to the Sovereign Power How many were there in that Parliament at first that did indeed and voluntarily desert the King in consenting to many of their unjust actions Many of these afterwards either upon better judgment or because they pleased not the Faction for it was a hard matter for such as were not of Pymms Cabal to please the Parliament or for some other private ends deserted the Parliament and did some of them more hurt to the King than if they had staid where they were for they had been so affrighted by such as you with a panick fear of Tyranny that seeking to help Him by way of Composition and sharing they abated the just and necessary indignation of His Armies by which only His Right was to be recovered That very entring into the Covenant with the Scottish Nation against the King is by it self a very great Crime and you guilty of it And so was the imposing of the Engagement and you guilty of that also as being done by the then Parliament whose Democratical Principles you approv'd of You were also assisting to the Resemblance of Divines that made the Directory and which were afterwards put down by Oliver for counterfeiting themselves Ambassadors And this was when the King was living and in the head of an Army which with your own endeavour might have protected you What crime it is the King being Head of the Church of England to make Directories to alter the Church-Government and to set up new Forms of Gods Service upon your own fancies without the Kings Authority the Lawyers could have told you and what punishment you were to expect from it you might have seen in the Statute printed before the Book of Common-Prayer Further he may say and truly That you were guilty of all the Treasons Murders and Spoil committed by Oliver or by any upon Oliver's or the Parliament's Authority For during the late trouble who made both Oliver and the People mad but the Preachers of your Principles But besides the wickedness see the folly of it You thought to make them mad but just to such a degree as should serve your own turn that is to say mad and yet just as wise as your selves Were you not very imprudent to think to govern madness Paul they knew but who were you Who were they that put the Army into Oliver's hands who before as mad as he was was too weak and too obscure to do any great mischief with which Army he executed upon such as you both here and in Scotland that which the Justice of God required Therefore of all the Crimes the Great Crime not excepted done in that Rebellion you were guilty You I say Dr. how little force or wit soever you contributed for your good will to their Cause The King was hunted as a Partridge in the Mountains and though the Hounds have been hang'd yet the Hunters were as guilty as they and deserved no less punishment And the Decypherers and all that blew the horn are to be reckoned amongst the Hunters Perhaps you would not have had the prey killed but rather have kept it tame And yet who can tell I have read of few Kings deprived of their Power by their own Subjects that have lived any long time after it for reasons that every man is able to conjecture All this is so manifest as it needs no witnesses In the mean time Mr. Hobbes his behaviour was such that of them who appeared in that Scene he was the only man I know except a few that had the same Principles with him that has not something more or less to blush for as having either assisted that rebellious Parliament without necessity when they might have had Protection from the King if they had resorted to him for it in the field by Covenanting or by Action or with Money or Plate or by Voting against His
all other Mechaniques Every man that hath spare money can get Furnaces and buy Coals Every man that hath spare money can be at the charge of making great Moulds and hiring Workmen to grind their Glasses and so may have the best and greatest Telescopes They can get Engines made and apply them to the Stars Recipients made and try Conclusions but they are never the more Philosophers for all this 'T is laudable I confess to bestow money upon curious or useful delights but that is none of the praises of a Philosopher And yet because the multitude cannot judge they will pass with the unskilful for skilful in all parts of natural Philosophy And I hear now that Hugenius and Eustachio Divini are to be tried by their Glasses who is the more skilful in Optiques of the two but for my part before Mr. Hobbes his Book De Homine came forth I never saw any thing written of that subject intelligibly Do not you tell me now according to your wonted ingenuity that I never saw Euclid's Vitellio's and many other mens Optiques as if I could not distinguish between Geometry and Optiques So also of all other Arts not every one that brings from beyond Seas a new Cin or other janty device is therefore a Philosopher For if you reckon that way not onely Apothecaries and Gardeners but many other sorts of Workmen will put in for and get the Prize Then when I see the Gentlemen of Gresham-Colledge apply themselves to the Doctrine of Motion as Mr. Hobbes has done and will be ready to help them in it if they please and so long as they use him civilly I will look to know some Causes of natural Events from them and their Register and not before For Nature does nothing but by Motion I hear that the reason given by Mr. Hobbes why the drop of Glass so much wondred at shivers into so many pieces by breaking onely one small part of it is approved for probable and registred in their Colledge But he has no reason to take it for a favour because hereafter the Invention may be taken by that means not for his but theirs To the rest of your Calumnies the Answers will be short and such as you might easily have foreseen And first for his boasting of his Learning it is well summ'd up by you in these words 'T was a motion made by one whom I will not name that some idle person should read over all his Books and collecting together his arrogant and supercilious Speeches applauding himself and despising all other men set them forth in one Synopsis with this Title Hobbius de se. What a pretty piece of Pageantry this would make I shall leave to your own thoughts Thus say you Now says Mr. Hobbes or I for him Let your idle Person do it and set down no more than he has written as high praises as they be I 'll promise you he shall acknowledge them under his hand and be commended for it and you scorned A certain Roman Senator having propounded something in the Assembly of the People which they misliking made a noise at boldly bad them hold their peace and told them he knew better what was good for the Common-wealth than all they And his words are transmitted to us as an Argument of his Virtue so much do Truth and Vanity alter the complection of self-praise Besides you can have very little skill in Morality that cannot see the Justice of commending a mans self as well as of any thing else in his own defence And it was want of prudence in you to constrain him to a thing that would so much displease you That part of his self-praise which most offends you is in the end of his Leviathan in these words Therefore I think it may be profitably printed and more profitably taught in the Universities in case they also think so to whom the judgment of the same belongeth Let any man consider the truth of it Where did those Ministers learn their seditious Doctrine and to preach it but there Where therefore should Preachers learn to teach Loyalty but there And if your Principles produced Civil War must not the contrary Principles which are his produce Peace And consequently his Book as far as it handles Civil Doctrine deserves to be taught there But when can this be done When you shall have no longer an Army ready to maintain the evil Doctrine wherewith you have infected the people By a ready Army I mean Arms and Money and men enough though not yet in pay and put under Officers yet gathered together in one place or City to be put under Officers armed and payed on any sudden occasion such as are the people of a great and populous Town Every great City is as a standing Army which if it be not under the Soveraigns command the people are miserable if they be they may be taught their duties in the Universities safely and easily and be happy I never read of any Christian King that was a Tyrant though the best of Kings have been call'd so Then for the Morosity and Peevishness you charge him with all that know him familiarly know 't is a false accusation But you mean it may be onely towards those that argue against his Opinion But neither is that true When vain and ignorant young Scholars unknown to him before come to him on purpose to argue with him and to extort applause for their foolish Opinions and missing of their end fall into undiscreet and uncivil expressions and he then appear not very well contented 't is not his Morosity but their Vanity that should be blamed But what humor if not Morosity and Peevishness was that of yours whom he never had injured or seen or heard of to use toward him such insolent injurious and clownish words as you did in your absurd Elenchus Was it not impatience of seeing any dissent from you in opinion Mr. Hobbes has been always far from provoking any man though when he is provok'd you finde his Pen as sharp as yours Again when you make his Age a reproach to him and shew no cause that might impair the faculties of his minde but onely Age I admire how you saw not that you reproached all old men in the world as much as him and warranted all young men at a certain time which they themselves shall define to call you fool Your dislike of old age you have also otherwise sufficiently signified in venturing so fairly as you have done to escape it But that is no great matter to one that hath so many marks upon him of much greater reproaches By Mr. Hobbes his Calculation that derives Prudence from Experience and Experience from Age you are a very young man but by your own reckoning you are older already than Methuselah Lastly Who told you that he writ against Mr. Boyle whom in his writing he never mentioned And that it was because Mr. Boyle was acquainted with you I know the contrary I
in a Latin Poem and now Translated into English Folio The same is in Latin in Quarto These six last are new Poetry and Plays The Elegant Poems of Dr. Corbet late Bishop of Norwich Melpomene or the Muses delight being new Poems and Songs written by the great Wits of our present Age. The Confinement a Poem with Annotations upon it Octavo White Devil or Vittoria Corombona a Tragedy Old Troop or Mounsieur Raggou a Comedy Catalines Conspiracy a Tragedy Amorous Gallant or Love in fashion a Comedy Mock-Duellist or French Valet a Comedy Wrangling Lovers or the Invincible Mistris a Comedy Tom. Essence or the Modish Wife a Comedy French Conjurer a Comedy Wits led by the Nose or the Poets Revenge a Comedy Rival Kings or the loves of Orondates a Tragedy Constant Nymph or rambling Shepherd a Pastoral Counterfeit Bridegroom or defeated Widdow a Comedy Tunbridge Wells or a days Courtship a Comedy The Man of New-Market a Comedy LAW The Jurisdictions of the Authority of Courts-Leet Courts-Baron Court of Marshalsea's Court of Pypowder and Antient Demesn together with the most necessary learning of Tenures Essoyns Imparlances View Pleadings Contract Actions Maintenance c. with the Forms of Judicial and Original Writs written by Jo. Kitchin of Grays-Inn Esq to which is added Brevia Selecta being a choice Collection of special Writs Octavo A View of the Customes and Franchisements of London by J Bridal Esq Praxis Curia Admiralitatis Angliae Author Fransc. Clark Twelves The Reports and Cases of Brownlow and Goldsborough in two parts Quarto The Laws of Charitable uses by Mr. Duke Folio March his Reports Quarto Clerks Manual a book of Presidents in Octavo Officium Brevium Select and approved forms of Judicial Writs and other Process with their returns and entries in the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster as also special Pleadings to Writs of Scire Facias collected out of many choice Manuscripts by several eminent Clerks and practisers in the said Court Folio This last is new Miscelanies being Books of several Subjects The Compleat Vineyard or a most excellent way for the planting of Vines and making Wine of their Grapes by W. Hughs Octavo The deaf and dumb mans discourse being a discourse of such as are born deaf and dumb shewing how they may express the sentiments of their minds together with an account of the Rationality of Beasts The Compleat Measurer or a new exact way of Mensuration by Tho. Hammond Rosetum Geometricum sive Propositiones aliquot frustra aute hac tentata c. Tho. Hobbes Quarto The Carpenters Rule made easie or the Art of measuring of superficies and solids c. third Edition to which is added the Art of Gaugeing The Flower-Garden inlarged c. with a Treatise of Roots Plants c. in his Majesties Plantations in America Twelves The Court of Curiosity wherein by the Lot the most intricate questions are resolved and nocturnal Dreams and Visions explained according to the Doctrine of the Antients to which is added a discourse of Physiognomy and Characters of most of the Countries in Europe Englished by J. G. Gentleman of the Inner-Temple Twelves Second Edition Lux Mathematica Excussa Collisionibus Jo. Wallisii Tho. Hobbes multis fulgentissimis aucta Radiis Authore R. R. Quarto Principia Problemata aliquot Geometria ante desperata Nunc breviter Explicata demonstrata Auth. Tho. Hobbes Quarto American Physitian treating of all the Roots Plants Shrubs Trees Herbs c in America by W. Hughes Twelves The Great Law of Nature about self-preservation vindicated against the abuses in Mr Hobbes his Leviathan Twelves Apothegms or witty sentences by Sir Fr. Bacon Twelves The Golden Rule of Arithmetick made more easie than the Common books of Arithmetick are by C. H. Octavo A Suppliment or third Volume of Mr. Hobbes his Works Quarto A Letter about Liberty and Necessity writ by Tho. Hobbes to the Duke of Newcastle with Observations upon it by the late Bishop of Ely Twelves A Treatise of Wooll and Cattle shewing how far they raise or abate the value of our Lands Quarto Reflections upon Antient and modern Philosophy and Philosophers Translated out of French into English Octavo Decameron Physiologicum or Ten Dialogues of Natural Philosophy by Tho. Hobbes of Malmsbury To which is added the proportions of a straight line to half the Arch of a Quadrant by the same Author Octavo FINIS