HOBBES, THOMAS, celebrated as a literary and philo sophical character, but chiefly for the peculiarities of his moral and political doctrines, was the son of a plain unlet tered clergyman of Maimesbury, Wiltshire. He was born on the 5th of April, 1588, at the crisis when this country was menaced by the formidable armada sent by Philip II. of Spain. His mother, powerfully affected by the conster nation then so general over the kingdom, was delivered before the full time, in consequence of which Hobbes was remarkably delicate in his childhood. But he evinced a singular aptitude for learning, and attracted much notice by his proficiency at B fore the age of 14, he trans lated the Medea of Euripedes into Latin iambics. At this age, he went to Magdalene Hall, Oxford, where he distin guished himself by his application and genius. The Earl of Devonshire, wishing to profit by his talents, employed him as a companion and instructor to his eldest son, who was nearly of the age of Hobbes, and that family continu ed to patronise him as long as he lived. At an early pe riod he was known to the celebrated Lord Bacon, with whom he was a great favourite, and to whom he acted as an amanuensis in translating some of his treatises into La tin. He travelled with his noble pupil in France and Italy, where he cultivated the society of Galileo and other cele brated characters, and studied the customs, institutions, manners, and learning of these two nations.
He now resolved to devote his life to the cultivation of polite literature, and his first publication was an English translation of Thucydides, which appeared in 1628. But his plans were disconcerted by the death of his pupil and friend. He soon after formed an engagement to travel with the of Sir Gervase Clifton, with whom he re mained for some time in France. In 1631, the Countess Do‘%ager of Devonshire renewed his connection with her family, by potting the young earl, then 13 years old, under his care. lie went with his pupil to Paris, where he stu died mechanics and tile laws of animal motion. On these subjects he had frequent conversations with Father Mer senne and with Gassendi, who was then engaged in an at tempt to revive the physical doctrines of the Epicurean school. It was at the age of 40 that his attention was first
turned to mathematical studies, in consequence of having accidentally looked into a copy of Euclid, where the enun ciation of the 47th proposition of the first book arrested his curiosity. " This," he exclaimed, " is impossible !" He then rapidly went over tire demonstration, and traced in a retrograde direction the preceding theorems on which the steps of the process were founded. The lovers of the mathematical sciences much regretted that he began these studies so late in life ; as he evinced a happy talent for them, yet laboured under the disadvantage of an obstinacy of opinion, which might have been corrected by the more varied views unfolded during the pliant period of youth.
The ardour of his mathematical studies was in a great measure repressed, in consequence of the profound inte rest which he took in political affairs, in which he did not intermeddle as a busy politician, intriguing with individu als far the establishment of one party on the ruins of ano ther, but conceived the design of producing a general im pression by an open exposition of his opinions, which, though new and peculiar, he hoped to render popular, by the force of thought which he could display, and the strong evidences by which they were supported. When the po litical differences of the age were so strongly marked, it was a fair general conclusion that both parties were as like ly to be wrong as any one was to be exclusively right, and that a man of vigorous thinking powers, who devoted much laborious meditation to his subject, might form a more ac curate system than any maintained by his contemporaries. Nor was it unnatural for a young author to presume too much on the readiness of mankind to lay themselves open to conviction. These ideas he had cherished for a consi derable time, and sonic represent him as having cultivated mathematics chiefly with a view to habituate himself to a close and steady mode of thinking.