Sensible that he was obnoxious to a powerful party, he was haunted with habitual apprehensions for his safety. The pension of the King was chiefly valued by hiM as a pledge of protection from persecution ; and he had Lord Arlington and some other friends engaged to protect him at court whenever there was occasion. He disliked to be left in a house alone, some said for fear of being assas sinated by his enemies, while others ascribed it to the workings of an involuntary superstition. When the Earl went from home, he always went along with him, even in his last illness, when he required to be conveyed on a fea ther-bed to the carriage, and survived the journey only a few days. He avoided all conversation on the subject of death. lf, as has been supposed, he scarcely believed in a future state, yet he seems not to have been capable of look ing forward to his dissolution with that placid indifference with which men generally look back to the period preced ing their birth. He reckoned on the continuance of life when his constitution was too much worn out to justify such expectations ; and when, in reply to some anxious inquiries, he was forbid to hope for a recovery, he lay in a state of si lence and apparent stupefaction, which was concluded to be in a great measure produced by the state of his mind. The last words which he uttered in the full possession of his senses were, I shall be glad to find any hole to creep out of the world by," which probably expressed a wish that his last moment should be exempt from pain and disturb ance. He conformed to the Episcopal Church of England, and declared that he preferred that religion to all others ; yet he had no confidence in the utility of religious services on his death-bed. On one occasion, during his residence in France, when his life was seriously in danger, he resent ed the solicitations of the Romish priests and the Protestant clergy to submit to some rite which would proclaim him a believer in their respective systems, and told them, that if they did not desist, lie would expose the impostures of their whole fraternity, from Aaron downwards.
It is with the writings of Hobbes, and the opinions which he circulated, that the public is chiefly concern ed. His writings were fitted to make a powerful im pression at the time at which they appeared ; but the character of society has subsequently so much changed, that they are now comparatively of little interest. His small treatise De Homine is regarded by the philosophical world as the best of his works. In this he, in some degree, advanced the science of optics, then in a rude state. His notions, though crude and inaccurate, are ingenious and in teresting. His moral observations sometimes breathe the sage spirit of Aristotle. At one time he, like that author, condenses his meaning in a few words ; at another he sud denly deviates into a style of extreme expansion. This chiefly happens when he applies his doctrines to the opi nions and transactions of his own times. A celebrated liv ing author (Professor Stewart) justly remarks, that Hobbes, whether right or wrong, never fails to set his reader a-think ing, which is the most indubitable proof of original genius.
To attempt to collect a system of moral, political, and re ligious doctrine from his works, would now appear ludi crous. In some parts his inquiries are shallow and defi cient, most especially in his investigations of our ideas of morality and justice. He considers a regard for personal advantage as the only law of man in a state of natural liber ty, and represents all the obligations of justice and good conduct to our fellows as the consequence of civil contracts formed under the influence of individual prudence. The laws, he says, are the foundation of justice ; before them justice and injustice are unmeaning words. If this view of things had been advanced only as a general description of the actual condition of man under a total want of laws, as well as the absence of generous or deliberate reflection, and if he had considered pactions and civil institutions as the means by which men agree to execute beneficial ends, he could not have been greatly blamed ; but he regards even civil compacts as the sole effect of the regard of each man for his own safety ; and such feelings of kindness and com passion, as most loudly proclaim the social virtues to be a part of our original nature, are represented as arising solely from a reflection on the possibility that exists of experienc ing in our own persons the evils which we deplore in others.
In forming this, and some other views, he appears to have been led astray by the desire of giving what appeared to him a palpable account of human affairs ; but it partakes too much of those gross maxims which sometimes inde cently obtrude on our notice, both in conversation and books, which foster our worst passions by boldly represent ing them as the necessary springs of human conduct. No doctrines can have a more destructive influence on those finer feelings which are connected with just reflection and the encouragement of exalting sympathies, but which require to be delicately cherished if they are to be preserved from pollution and degradation. The same love of palpability seems to have been the origin of that system of materialism, or rather that preference of the language of materialists, which appeared in the expla nations which Hobbes gave of the origin and laws of thought. By representing justice as founded on positive law, he overturns the principles of jurisprudence itself, which must precede law, and determine the propriety of institutions. If he acknowledged the preservation of the general welfare to he a valuable end, it was certainly para doxical to deny that a man, on his first interview with a stranger on an unknown shore, previously to the establish ment of any mutual understanding, is under obhg.aions to cultivate personal kindness, and to abstain from violence and domination. The boundaries of these early feelings, and the modes in which they may be best expressed, are not indeed easily defined, especially if we encounter dis traction from the circumstance of a numerous population. Therefore it appeared the easiest method to pronounce them arbitrary, and in no degree binding, compared to de clared promises, compacts, and promulgated laws. But men may differ both about the formation and the execution of laws, and how are their differences to be decided ? " They must," says Hobbes, " choose a sovereign power, and to this their whole interests are at once committed." Such is the origin of regal government ; and from this sim ple fact he draws the monstrous conclusion, that kings can do no wrong ; that they must never be resisted ; and that to their hands the lives, properties, and consciences of the members of a state must be perpetually and uncondition ally entrusted. That such will be the state of mankind, if they are barbarous in their character, jai ring in their views, or bereft of spirit ; that it will even be worse than this, if they are subjugated by the power of a brutal master, who feels no obligation to consult their welfare, farther than as it is subservient to his imagined interest or the gratification of his caprice, is a fact too often exemplified in the history of the world : but to erect it into a principle that this ought to be the case, and that no efforts of mankind should be directed to the formation of any better state of society, is an idea which, in a reflecting mind like that of Hobbes, could only be generated by the miserable dissensions by which he was surrounded. In the days of Cromwell and the Charles's, the spirit of intolerance was active, extrava gance contended with extravagance, and there seemed to be no possibility of terminating the scene of violence by a temperate discussion of principles, or a mutual adjustment of views; it was therefore necessary to still the passions by some powerful agent. The agent that occurred to Hobbes as the most suitable, was the exertion of absolute authority in the hands of the chief magistrate, and the perpetual es tablishment of this power seemed necessary for the pre vention of future troubles. As a temporary expedient, he might have been pardoned for advancing such a position, even by those who dissented from him ; but when he erects it into a universal principle, he must be regarded as an ag gressor of the rights and interest of society, and a deliberate apologist of tyranny.