University of Virginia Library

THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THE work which forms the substance of this volume was formerly known in the shape of two separate treatises, of which the former, containing the first thirteen chapters of the first part of the Elements of Law, was entitled Human Nature; or the Fundamental Elements of Policy. Being a discovery of the faculties, acts, and passions of the soul of man, from their original causes: according to such philosophical principles as are not commonly known or asserted. The second treatise contained the rest of the first, together with the second, part, and was entitled De Corpore Politico; or the Elements of Law, Moral and Politic, with discourses upon moral heads, as: of the law of nature; of oaths and covenants; of several kinds of government, with the changes and revolutions of them.

Both these treatises appeared in print for the first time in the year 1650, and a second edition of the former, Human Nature, was issued in the following year.[1] This treatise was furnished with a preface, signed with the initials F.B., in which it is said that a friend of the author's had obtained his leave to publish it, and that it was to constitute the second portion of Hobbes's system of philosophy, the

third and last part of which was known already as the Latin book, Elementa Philosophica de Cive.[2] At the same time, the writer of the preface states "that he could not suddenly obtain the author's advice" with respect to any changes which he apparently thought desirable in the Epistle Dedicatory, and it was printed, accordingly, as we find it in the manuscripts, with the date of May 9, 1640, "as if nothing has happened since." Now, this Epistle Dedicatory became almost meaningless, prefixed as it thus was to the fragmentary tract on Human Nature, and not to the entire work for which it was designed. Nor is the second treatise, the De Corpore Politico which also has a prefatory notice to the reader, in this case unsigned, introduced by any allusion to the original unity of the work, except that the "first part" is said to depend upon a former treatise of Human Nature, written by Mr. Hobbes, but the relation of either treatise to the De Cive is not again adverted to. Now it is true that this English book, the De Corpore Politico, corresponds in its argument to the Latin De Cive, though the latter is much altered in certain particulars, and is greatly enlarged by a fuller consideration of religious questions, which occupy the third section of the work, the first and second treating of "Libertas" and "Imperium" respectively. But the author himself cannot have intended, at any time, the thirteen chapters on Human Nature to be taken as representing the De Homine, and so constituting the second section of his system: there is, indeed, some evidence to show that before this time he had already arranged that section upon a different ground, filling it in great part with optical disquisitions. Nor would he have himself prepared an English version of the De Cive, which came out only a year afterwards (in 1651), if he had considered that work to be already sufficiently represented by the De Corpore Politico. The truth is, that this entire work, the Elements of Law, had been drawn up independently, from and without any regard to the systematic plan, which probably did not yet occupy the philosopher's mind at the time when he wrote it. Considering, further, that Hobbes has declared himself to be without a certain knowledge as to the person who "was pleased once to honour" the part of his doctrine "concerning policy merely civil" (which evidently means the De Corpore Politico, "with praises printed before it,"[3] we may infer that the statement in the preface, quoted above, to the Human Nature, that the work was published "with leave from the author" was without authority, and perhaps based on nothing more than a report, received at second hand, that Hobbes, who was residing in Paris at the time, had no particular objection to the publication as a separate work of these thirteen chapters on Human Nature, by way of introduction to the Latin work, the De Cive, which covered to a large extent the same ground with the remaining fragment of the Elements of Law. I may add that the passage above quoted from the pamphlet addressed to the two Oxford professors points to Seth Ward, who at that time was his bitter adversary, being the author of the "praises" ("whether you did or did not," says Hobbes, addressing Ward, "I am not certain, though it was told me for certain"). This supposition is confirmed by the learned antiquarian, Anthony à Wood, himself a friend of Hobbes, who says in his Athenæ Oxonienses (vol iii. col. 1209, ed. Bliss) that Seth Ward wrote the Epistle to the Reader prefixed to the Human Nature, in the name of Francis Bowman, bookseller of Oxford. We may suppose, then, that Ward was "the friend" by whose authority this, as well as the latter, section of the Elements of Law was committed to the press. though no communication about the matter between him and the author can be supposed to have taken place.

There is yet another reference in Hobbes's later writings to this work, viz., in the Considerations upon the Reputation, etc., of Thomas Hobbes (English Works, ed. Molesworth, vol. iv. p. 414), where he states that in 1640 he wrote "a little treatise in English" upon the power and rights of sovereignty, of which, "though not printed, many gentlemen had copies, which occasioned much talk of the author; and had not his Majesty dissolved the Parliament, it had brought him into danger of his life."

Of those manuscript copies, the best that have come down to us were consulted and carefully collated (first in 1878, and again more recently) by the present editor, who was thereby led to discover that the text of the printed editions of the work (of which several appeared before Molesworth's edition, notably that contained in the fine folio entitled The Moral and Political Works of Thomas Hobbes, London, 1750) has a great many errors and some omissions, especially in that portion of the work known as Human Nature, the second portion, De Corpore Politico, being evidently taken from a better copy, and also more carefully printed. Under these circumstances, it appeared to me that a new edition of the entire work, in its original form, and based upon manuscript authority, was due to the philosopher himself, as well as likely to prove useful to his readers. The MSS. which form the basis of the present edition are as follows: (A) Harl. 4235, (B) Harl. 4236, (C) Egert. 2005, (D) Harl. 6858, (E) Harl. 1325—all in the British Museum; and (H), a copy preserved amongst the Hardwick papers relating to Hobbes.[4] All these copies alike bear the one simple title, Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, and all are co-extensive, except that (D) consists

of the first thirteen chapters only, being, I suppose, a copy taken after the De Cive had appeared and become known. Among these MSS. there can be no doubt that (A) holds the first place in point of authority, containing as it does many traces of the author's own hand, including the signature of the Epistle Dedicatory, and many corrections as well as additions, some of which latter are not found in (B), though this latter is in other respects a faithful copy of (A), and varies only in smaller matters, some of its readings being of an improved type. (C) departs more widely from both the previously memtioned MSS., having been transcribed, I think, from an older and less correct copy. The last two of the British Museum MSS., (D) and (E), have evidently been copied from (A) as it now stands. The case is quite different with the Hardwick MS. (H), which is the copy kept by the author in his own possession, the others being rather intended to serve as copies of a published book, although written, and not printed—a mode of publication which, even in Hobbes's time, had not become universal. This Hardwick MS., then, is of peculiar value as showing traces of the actual growth and development of the work, as will be seen from various references to it in my critical notes. In these I have also given a full and exact account of the points in which the printed or vulgar text, as represented by Molesworth's edition, departs from the reading of the MSS., as well as of the more important places in which one MS. differs from another. It will be seen that there is much agreement between (C) and (H) and the vulgar text on the one hand, and between the rest of the MSS. and this edition on the other.

Here I should not omit to mention that it was by a previous examination of the Hardwick MS. that Professor G. Croom Robertson had been led independently to recognize the original unity of the present work, and to see the importance, for a right understanding of the development of the political doctrine of Hobbes, of the fact that the two parts of this work make up together the "little treatise in

English" referred to by the philosopher at a later date. (See Professor Robertson's article, Hobbes in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed.) Here also may I be allowed to express my gratitude for the encouragement and assistance so liberally given by Professor Robertson to this my undertaking, which I would desire to recommend by a reference to his authority on the subject.

Of the purport of the book itself little need be said here, except that it contains the earliest and shortest, yet at the same time a well-matured, conception of a doctrine which the author not only, as I have already pointed out, incorporated into his tripartite system of philosophy, but also discussed upon the same ground-plan in his famous Leviathan, where he is especially concerned, however, with the consideration of the ecclesiastical law in its relation with the omnipotent state. The fact that in this early treatise this polemical purpose is entirely undeveloped, and the idea of the commonwealth as a magnified human body scarcely so much as foreshadowed, makes a comparison of it with the Leviathan, which is more than three times its size, a highly instructive and interesting task. And it is worthy of remark that the part of this earlier work which treats of Human Nature has been declared by some critics to be the best of the author's compositions. This, as I learn from Dugald Stewart's first dissertation prefixed to the 8th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, was the opinion of Addison; and other very competent judges have spoken of the same treatise in terms of the highest praise. I may quote as an example the words of James Harrington, a contemporary of Hobbes, and himself an author of considerable merit in political philosophy (Prerogative of a Popular Government, book i. ch. 8): "I have opposed (he says) the politics of Mr. Hobbs, to show him what he taught me, with as much disdain as he opposed those of the greatest authors.... Nevertheless, in most other things, I firmly believe that Mr. Hobbs is, and will in future ages be accounted, the best writer at this day in the world. And for his treatises of human nature, and of

liberty and necessity, they are the greatest of new lights, and those which I have followed and shall follow." To this may be added the judgement of Diderot: "Que Locke me paraît diffus et lâche," he exclaims, "la Bruyère et la Rochefoucauld pauvres et petits, en comparaison de ce Thomas Hobbes! c'est un livre [the treatise of Human Nature] à lire et à commenter toute sa vie" (Diderot, Euvres, ed. Assérat, t. 15, p. 124); and in another passage he recommends the use of the treatise as a text-book: "C'est un chef d'œuvre de logique et de raison" (Œuvres, t. 3, p. 466).

With regard to the De Corpore Politico, it is perhaps worth mentioning that very shortly after its appearance long extracts from it were printed in one of the periodicals of the time, the Mercurius Politicus (Jan. 2 and 9, 1651, NOS. 31 to 34): a fact possessing a certain historical interest, inasmuch as the journal in question is said to have been much under the influence of Cromwell, and to have been published "by authority" (Wood, Athen. Oxon. iii. col. 1182, Bliss); and the writer, a certain Marchamont Needham, was a man who always lent his pen to the powerful, writing first for the Presbyterians, afterwards for King Charles I., next for the Commonwealth, and of course, after the Restoration, for the king again.[5]

A few words remain to be said respecting the pieces which are subjoined in the present edition to the Elements of Law. They have never yet been printed, and were not hitherto known to be from the pen of the great philosopher, but a short inspection is sufficient to make their authorship clear to one who is familiar with the other works of Hobbes. The former of the two pieces is a complete though brief treatise on certain fundamental notions in philosophy, as well as on the causes of sense-perception, especially visual, and connects the author's newly conceived idea of local motion from the object to the eye or other organ of sense with the then general doctrine of species emanating from it and received by the soul.

In this and other respects it marks an intermediate stage between the scholastic modes of thought which survived in him from his early Oxford training and the new stream of conceptions generated by his lately acquired knowledge of mathematics and mechanics. As regards the date of this composition, I venture to suggest that it was written as early as the year 1630, since we are repeatedly assured by our author that he had already at that time put forward the opinion "that light is a fancy in the mind, caused by the motion in the brain, which motion again is caused by the motion of the parts of such bodies as we call lucid" (E.W. vii. p. 468, and Opp. Lat. v. p. 303, quoted in a letter of Descartes).

The second piece consists solely of extracts from a large unprinted treatise on optics, written in Latin, and preserved, like the former, in a bulky MS. volume, Harl. 6796. This treatise is evidently the first draft of what was intended as the second section of his system of philosophy, viz. the De Homine, which latter work, however, ultimately came forth in a very much altered form, though even then more than half of it was occupied with optical discussions. From this treatise I have picked out whatever seemed to me to be of interest as bearing upon the history of philosophical speculation generally, and, in particular, such passages as relate to the controversy in which Hobbes engaged with Descartes, a controversy of which there are also traces in the correspondence of the former philosopher with Mersenne. (See Molesworth's edition of Hobbes's Latin Works, vol. V.) A special inquiry would be necessary to ascertain whether the letters, which were written in 1641, are previous or posterior in date to the present treatise, but I have some reasons for supposing that the latter was written immediately after the first appearance of Descartes' Dioptrique in 1637.

POSTSCRIPT.—As the publication of this volume (as well as of the simultaneous one containing Behemoth) has been delayed considerably beyond the date at which the above Preface was written, the Editor is now enabled to refer his readers to the comprehensive monograph on Hobbes recently contributed by Prof. Robertson to the collection of Philosophical Classics for English readers; and also begs to mention a review of this work, written by himself, which has appeared in the Philosophische Monatshefte, June, 1887.

F.T.
HUSUM (SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN),
March, 1889.