Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/48

38 H B B E S self in the third person addressed to Wallis in 1662, under the title of Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes (E. W., iv. pp. 409-440). la this piece, which is of great biographical value, he told his own and YVallis s &quot;little stories during the time of the late rebellion&quot; with such effect that Wallis, like a wise man, attempted no further reply. Thus ended the second bout. After a time Hobbes took heart again and began a third period of controversial activity, which did not end, on his side, till his ninetieth year. Little need be added to the simple catalogue of the untiring old man s labours in this last stage of his life. The first piece, published in 1666, DC Princi2)iis ct Ratiocinatione Gcomct- rarum (L. W., iv. pp. 385-484), was designed, as the sub-title declared, to lower the pride of geometrical professors by showing that there was no less uncertainty and error in their works than in those of physical or ethical writers. Wallis replied shortly in the Philosophical Transactions (August, 1666). Three years later he brought his three great achievements together in compendious form, Quadratura Circuit, Cuba io Sphccrce, Duplicatio Cubi, and as soon as they were once more refuted by Wallis, reprinted them with an answer to the objections, in compliment to the grand-duke of Tus cany, who paid him attentions on a visit to England in 1669 (L. W., iv. pp. 485-522). Wallis, who had promised to leave him alone henceforward, refuted him again before the year was out. In 1671 he worked up his propositions over again in Rosctum Gcomctricum (L. W., v. pp. 1-50), as a fragrant offering to the geometrical reader, appending a criticism (Ccnsura brcvis, pp. 50-88) on the first part of Wallis s treatise De Motu, published in 1669 ; also he sent Three Papers to the Royal Society on selected points treated very briefly, and when Wallis, still not weary of confuting, shortly replied, published them separately with triumphant Considerations on Dr Wallis s Answer to them (E. W., vii. pp. 429-448). Next year, 1672, having now, as he believed, established himself with the Royal Society, he proceeded to complete the discomfiture of AVallis by a public address to the Society on all the points at issue between them from the beginning, Lux Mathcmatica excussa col- lisimiibus Johannis Wallisii et Thomas Hobbesii (L. W., v. pp. 89-150), the light, as the author R. R. (Roseti Reporter) added, being here &quot;increased by many very brilliant rays.&quot; Wallis replied in the Transactions, and then finally held his hand. Hobbes s energy was not yet exhausted. In 1674, at the age of eighty-six, he published his Principia ct Problcmata aliquot Geo- nielrica, ante dcsperata mine brevitcr explicate et demonstrata (L. W., v. pp. 150-214), containing in the chapters dealing with questions of principle not a few striking observations, which ought not to be overlooked in the study of his philosophy. His last piece of all, Decameron Physinlogiciim (E. W., vii. pp. 69-180), in 1678, was a new set of dialogues on physical questions, most of which he had treated in a similar fashion before ; but now, in dealing with gravitation, he was able to fire a parting shot at Wallis ; and one more demonstration of the equality of a straight line to the arc of a circle, thrown in at the end, appropriately closed the strangest warfare in which perverse thinker ever engaged. 1 We must now turn back to trace the fortunes of Hobbes and his other doings in the last twenty years of his life. All these controversial writings on mathematics and physics represent but one half of his activity after the age of seventy ; though, as regards the other half, it is not pos sible, for a reason that will bs seen, to say as definitely in what order the works belonging to the period were pro duced. From the time of the Restoration he acquired a new prominence in the public eye. No year had passed since the appearance of Leviathan without some indignant protest against the influence which its trenchant doctrine was calculated to produce upon minds longing above every thing for civil repose ; but it was not until the old political order was set up again that &quot; Hobbism &quot; became a fashion able creed, which it was the duty of every lover of true morality and religion to denounce. Friends and foes alike were impressed by the king s behaviour to the aged philo sopher. Two or three days after Charles s arrival in London, Hobbes, who had come up to town from spending the previous winter in Derbyshire, drew in the street the notice of his former pupil, and was at once received into favour. The young king, if he had ever himself resented the apparent disloyalty of the &quot; Conclusion &quot; of Leviathan, had not retained the feeling long, and could well enough 1 Wallis s pieces were excluded from the collected edition of his works (1693-97), and have become extremely rare. appreciate the principles of the great book when the appli cation of them happened, as now, to be turned in his own favour. He had, besides, from of old a relish for Hobbes .s lively wit, and did not like the old man the less because his presence at court scandalized the bishops or the prim virtue of Chancellor Hyde. He even went the length of bestowing on Hobbes (but not always paying) a yearly pension of 100, and had his portrait hung up in the royal closet. These marks of favour, naturally, did not lessen Hobbes s self-esteem, and perhaps they explain, in his later writings, a certain slavishness of feeling toward the regal authority, which is wholly absent from his rational demon stration of absolutism in the earlier works. At all events Hobbes remained very well satisfied with the rule of a king who had the sense to appreciate the author of Leviathan. and to protect him, when after a time protection in a very real sense became necessary. His eagerness to defend himself against Wallis s imputation of disloyalty, and his apologetic dedication of the Problemata Physica to the king, are evidence of the hostility with which he was being pressed as early as 1662 ; but it was not till 1666 that he felt himself seriously in danger. Fn that year the Great Fire of London, following in ominous succession on theGreat Plague of the year before, roused the superstitious fears and intolerant passions of the people, and the House of Commons embodied the general feeling in a bill against atheism and profaneness. On the 17th October it was ordered that the committee to which the bill was referred &quot;should be empowered to receive information touching such books as tend to atheism, blasphemy, and profaneness, or against the essence and attributes of God, and in parti cular the book published in the name of one White, 2 and the book of Mr Hobbes called the Leviathan, and to report the matter with their opinion to the House.&quot; What steps were taken before the 31st of January following, when the bill was read a third time and passed, does not appear but Hobbes, then verging upon eighty, was greatly terrified at the prospect of being treated as a heretic, and proceeded to burn such of his papers as he thought might compromise him. At the same time he set himself, with a very char acteristic determination, to inquire into the actual state of the law of heresy. The results of his investigation were first announced in three short Dialogues added (in place of the old &quot; Review and Conclusion,&quot; for which the day had passed) as an Appendix to his Latin translation of Leviathan (L. W., iii.), included with the general collection of his works published at Amsterdam in 1668. In this appendix, as also in the posthumous tract, published in 1680, An Historical Narration concerning Heresy and the Punishment thereof (E. W., iv. pp. 385-408), he aimed at showing that, since the High Court of Commission had been put down, there remained in England no court of heresy at all to which he was amenable, and that even when it stood nothing was to be declared heresy but what was at variance with the Nicene Creed, as he maintained the doctrine of Leviathan was not. The only consequence that came of the parliamentary scare was that Hobbes could never afterwards get permis sion to print anything on subjects relating to human con duct. The collected edition of his Latin works (in two quarto volumes) appeared at Amsterdam in 1668, because he could not obtain the censor s licence for its publication at London, Oxford, or Cambridge. Other writings which he had finished, or on which he must have been engaged about this time, were not made public till after his death the king apparently having made it the price of his pro tection that no fresh provocation should be offered to the 2 The De Media Animarum Statu of Thomas White, a heterodox Catholic priest, who contested the natural immortality of the soul. White (who died 1676) and Hobbes were friends.