Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/495

 482 NOTES. MSS., which he is here particular to mention in a foot-note, or given the least heed to the much more interesting and valuable copy prefaced and dated in Hobbes's own hand among the Hardwick MSS., on occasion of the " personal inspection". The statement, too, is immediately followed by another remarkable assertion that the Elements of 1640 was "expanded" into the De Give, when the De Give contains nothing in any way corresponding to the Human Nature part of the earlier treatise. The Reviewer is evidently all at sea over the business, and he goes finally to the bottom thus : P. 419: "In 1651 Hobbes translated the De Give into English. The year previous, while in Paris, he divided the treatise into two portions, which he published under the titles of Human Nature" &c., as before. The old blunder about " division " inconsistent with the other about "expansion" is here repeated with superb aggravation. Are we not told if words have meaning that Hobbes translated the (Latin) De Give into English one year after he had published, in English, its two halves 1 It would be difficult to surpass this. There is, otherwise, a false implication (or more than one) in what the Reviewer here says of the English translation of the De Give which did appear in 1651 ; but enough should have been said to prove that it is not this article in the Quarterly that should ever be consulted for the facts of Hobbes's life. Is the Reviewer, then, more trustworthy when he speaks of other people ? P. 418 again : " In 1648, during a short stay of Descartes in Paris, Hobbes, at the Duke of Newcastle's, met that philosopher whose Du Monde and Method had already startled Europe ". Here go two errors to one sentence. "Duke" should, of course, be " Marquis," as he is, in fact, rightly styled some pages later ; not " Duke " till after the Restoration. The other error is more serious and significant. The Reviewer, who appears to know nothing of the greater works that Descartes had time, after the Method (1637), to publish some years earlier than 1648, knows, however, of a Du Monde that "had startled Europe " before that date. Nobody else knows anything of the kind. To be sure, in the volume under review it is stated at "p. 40 that Descartes had written an exposition of his physical doctrine under that name as far back as 1633, which he then ' kept back ' on hearing of Galileo's fate. The piece did not see the light till it was published by Clerselier in 1664, long after Descartes' death. It was a slip of mine to call it Du Monde; its proper title was Le Monde. There are still more errors on the same page ; but let us now try another some way on. On p. 429 (middle of the article) we read as follows : " The freedom of the will is an abstract question. Hirsutius Pansa and Cicero in the pleasant woods of Puteoli, as Critias and Socrates on the banks of the Ilissus, discussed it with calm equanimity." " Hirsutius Pansa " is a curious designation for Cicero's neighbour Hirtius of the De Fato even though the poor man did soon after meet his death with his fellow-consul Pansa. And is it some other such jumble in the Reviewer's mind say of the Critias, Timceus and Phcedrus that has resulted for him in the vision of that other talk by the Ilissus 1 Much else might be remarked on p. 429, but pass we rather to p. 441 (last but three of the article), and so end as we began with Hobbes. Here, in a few sentences, it rains errors. Take these two at a venture : " But Wallis reserved his wrath till the Restoration, when he impeached Hobbes's loyalty, which opened the mathematical feud again. Hobbes attacked Wallis under the name of Henry Stubbe and other assumed patronymics."