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Unit 6: Thomas Hobbes

to his estrangement with Charles II. He returned to England and submitted to the republican Notes
government under Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), and received a pension from Charles II (1630-
1685). In 1655, De Corpore was published. In 1657, the Leviathan was reported to the parliamentary
committee as “a most poisonous piece of atheism”.
But in spite of ill health, his famous work, the Leviathan, appeared in April 1651. It was an astonishing
method of publication, as Hobbes sent instalments each week from Paris to London for setting in
type, with proofs being sent back within a week. The experience of Hobbes to the reaction of his
work was terrifying, and in the last part of his life he attempted many books to vindicate himself.
In 1688, a revised Latin edition of the Leviathan was published. In 1670, the Behemoth was published.
In 1683, the Leviathan and the De Cive were condemned and burned at Oxford University.

In 1647, Hobbes fell seriously ill, and could never recover fully. From 1648, he started
developing symptoms which indicated Parkinson’s disease.

Hobbes served the Cavendish family faithfully for more than four generations, and in his old age
was treated by the family as more than a servant, but less than an honoured guest. In October
1679, he fell ill and finally died of paralysis on 3 December. “He seems in fact to have died much
as he had lived, a witty and skeptical humanist”. It was said of Hobbes that he worked hard for
his longevity. John Aubrey, his biographer and friend, tells of the exercises, walking up and down
hills very fast, playing tennis and having rub-downs as measures that Hobbes undertook for
keeping fit. Moreover, during the night after everyone had gone to sleep, Hobbes would sing a
“prick-song”. “Here then is a philosopher with a very unphilosophic aversion to death, an aversion
that Hobbes eventually posited as fundamental to human nature and a force for wisdom in human
affairs”. Hobbes spent his time mediating and philosophizing, writing down his “darting thoughts”
in a notebook that he always carried with him. He was a voracious reader, and read anything that
he came across. He was conscious of being a self-taught philosopher.

6.2 Developments in Science and their Influence on Hobbes
Philosophically and methodologically, Hobbes was influenced by new developments in the physical
sciences and by the works of Bacon, Kepler and Galileo. This was the period not only of religious
strife, but also of scientific temperament, for there was immense curiosity about nature and the
desire to eschew the supernatural. Both Bacon and Kepler visualized an order behind the diversity
in the universe. Galileo laid down the principles of mechanics, observing that the task of a scientist
was to discover primitive notions of complex objects in simple ones. He rejected Aristotle, and
looked to Plato’s Timaeus for an understanding of the universe.
Plato was the earliest among philosophers to understand the implications of the Pythagorean
formula of “One behind the Many”, by the use of mathematics to study Forms or Idea that were
behind the world of senses subject to motion and change. However, with Galileo and others, the
question was to construct a mathematical theory of motion, rather than of motionless Form. The
general tone of the new science tried to despiritualize nature, by abolishing the distinction between
animate and inanimate. It clearly identified and established the difference between the inner from
the outer worlds. The new science explained the natural world mechanically with reference to
simple motions. The inner world was subjective, and the outer world objective. The relationship
between the two was contingent. It assumed that thinking was an activity that took place within
one’s mind, which could be deciphered by none other than the thinking subject. A subject’s
thoughts could not be understood by his external actions and behaviour.

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