632

Estimate of the Philosophical Character of Hobbes.

cannot be withdrawn from those to
whom it has been committed; nor
can they be punished for misgovern-
ment. The interpretation of the laws
is to be sought, not from the com-
ments of philosophers, but from the
authority of the ruler; otherwise
society would every moment be in
danger of resolving itself into the dis-
cordant elements of which it was at
first composed. The will of the magis-
trate, therefore, is to be regarded as
the ultimate standard of right and
wrong, and his voice to be listened to
by e
every citizen as the voice of con-
science.

Not many years afterwards, Hobbes pushed the argument for the absolute power of princes still further, in a work to which he gave the name of Leviathan. Under this appellation he means the body politic; insinuating, that man is an utitameable beast of prey, and that government is the strong chain by which he is kept from mischief. The fundamental principles here maintained are the same as in the book De Cive; but as it inveighs more particularly against ccclesiastical tyranny, with the view of subjecting the consciences of men to the civil authority, it lost the author the favour of some powerful protectors he had hitherto enjoyed among the English divines who attended Charles II. in France; and he even found it convenient to quit that king dom, and to return to England, where Crotawell (to whose government his political tenets were now as favourable as they were meant to be to the royal claims) suffered him to remain unmolested. The same circumstances operated to his disadvantage after the Restoration, and obliged the king, who always retained for him a very strong attachment, to confer his mark's of favour on him with the utmost reserve and circumspection.

The details which I have entered into, with respect to the history of Hobbes's political writings, will be found, by those who may peruse them, to throw much light on the author's reasonings. Indeed, it is only by thus considering them in their connexion with the circumstances of the times, and the fortunes of the writer, that a just notion can be formed of their spirit and tendency,

In 1651.

The ethical principles of Hobbes are so completely interwoven with his political system, that all which has been said of the one may be applied to the other. It is very remarkable, that Descartes should have thought so highly of the former, as to pronounce Hobbies to be " a much greater master of morality than of metaphysics;" a judgment which is of itself sufficient to mark the very low state of ethical science in France about the middle of the seventeenth century. Mr. Adɗison, on the other hand, gives a decided preference (among all the books written by Hobbes) to his Treatise on Human Nature; and to his opinion on this point I most implicitly subscribe; including, however, in the same com mendation, some of his other philosophical Essays on similar topics. They are the only part of his works which it is possible now to read with any interest; and they every where evince in their author, even when he thinks most unsoundly himself, that power of setting his reader a thinking, which is one of the most unequivocal marks of original genius. They have plainly been studied with the utmost care both by Locke and Hume. To the former they have suggested some of his most important observations on the Association of Ideas, as well as much of the sophistry displayed in the first book of his Essay on the Origin of our Knowledge, and on the factitious nature of our moral principles; to the latter (among a variety of hints of less consequence), his theory concerning the nature of those established connexions among physical events, which it is the business of the natural philosopher to ascertain, and the

The same doctrine, concerning the proper object of natural philosophy (commonly ascribed to Mr. Hume, both by his followers and by his opponents), is to be found in various writers contemporary with Hobbes. It is stated with uncom mon precision and clearness, in a book entitled Scepsis Scientifica, or Confessed Ignorance the way to Science; by Joseph Glanvill (printed in 1665). The whole work is strongly marked with the features of an acute, an original, and (in matters of science) a somewhat sceptical genius; and, when compared with the treatise on witchcraft, by the same author, adds another proof to those already mentioned, of the possible union of the highest intel•

1

Remarkable Providence in the Life of Crellius.

substance of his argument against the
scholastic doctrine of general concep-
tions. It is from the works of Hobbes,
too, that our later Necessitarians have
borrowed the most formidable of those
weapons with which they have com-
bated the doctrine of moral liberty;
and from the same source has been
derived the leading idea which runs
through the philological materialism
of Mr. Horne Tooke. It is probable,
indeed, that this last author borrowed
it, at second hand, from a hint in
Locke's Essay; but it is repeatedly
stated by Hobbes, in the most explicit
and confident terms. Of this idea,
(than which, in point of fact, nothing
can be imagined more puerile and
unsound,) Mr. Tooke's etymologies,
when he applies them to the solution
of metaphysical questions, are little
more than an ingenious expansion,
adapted and levelled to the
hension of the multitude.

compre

The speculations of Hobbes, how ever, concerning the theory of the understanding, do not seem to have been nearly so much attended to during his own life, as some of his other doctrines, which, having a immediate reference to human affairs, were better adapted to the unsettled and revolutionary spirit of the times. It is by these doctrines, chiefly, that

шоге

his name has since become so memorable in the annals of modern literature; and although they now derive their whole interest from the extraordinary combination they exhibit of acuteness and subtlety with a dead palsy in the powers of taste and of moral sensibility, yet they will be found, on an attentive examination, to have had a far more extensive influence on the subsequent history both of political and of ethical science, than any other publication of the same period.

lectual gifts with the most degrading intellectual weaknesses.

With respect to the Scepsis Scientifica, it deserves to be noticed, that the doctrine maintained in it concerning physical causes and effects does not occur in the form of a detached observation, of the value of which the author might not have been fully aware, but is the very basis of the general argument running through all his discussions.

G33

A remarkable Example of God's Provi
dence, visible during a Journey of
Christopher Crellius. Copied (Amster-
dam, 1774,) from MS. Papers of
Samuel Crellius, und now Translated
from a Dutch Copy. The Original
Letter was written in Latin.
[Communicated to the Editor by Mr. Van-
der Kemp, of the United States of
America.]

SAMUEL CRELLIUS wishes happiness

to H. V. O.

WILL, to gratify your desire, communicate to you in writing the remarkable event, which you listened to with pleasure. When my father, Christopher Crellius, with other Uni tarians was driven from Poland in the year 1666, he became acquainted in London with a pious woman, who was instructed by John Biddle and was called Stuckey, the mother of Nathaniel Stuckey, a youth of bright hope, and mentioned by Sandius, in his Biblioth. Antitrin. page 172, but who, very prematurely, and if I am not mistaken, died in the sixteenth year of his age. This woman spoke to my father in this manner—“ You, my dear Crellius! wander now as an exile, in poverty-a widower-burthened with four children; give me two of these, a son and a daughter, in England, and I will take care of their education." My father thanked her cordially, and promised to consider it : when returned to Silesia he consulted his friends on the subject, and departed with his eldest son and daughter in the year 1605 from Breslau, through Poland, towards Dantzic, to embark from there to Holland, and so to England. This voyage to Dantzic my father undertook with his own waggon and horses. His driver was the pious Paul Sagosky, from whom I heard an account of the event in Brandenburg, Prussia, in the year 1704, when he was far advanced in age.

It was afternoon, the sun declining to the west, when my father, only twelve Polish miles from Dantzic reached a tavern, in which he resolved to tarry that night, because he saw before him a large wood, which he could not pass through by day light, and he deemed it unadvisable to enter it towards night, uncertain if he should find another house, and, moreover, was not well acquainted with the road. They stopped then at the

634

Remarkable Providence in the Life of Crellius.

tavern, and brought the waggon into a large stable, and fastened the horses to the manger. The landlady, her husband being from home, received them with civility. She gave orders to take the baggage from the waggon and bring it into the inner room, where she invited my father with the children to the table. Meanwhile the driver, when he had fed the horses, explored the spacious stable, not forgetting to scrutinize with careful anxiety every corner, because the taverns in Poland, at such a distance from cities and villages as this was, are seldom a safe refuge for travellers, and there is always apprehension of robbers and murderers. In this search he discovered in one corner of the stable a large heap of straw, of which he moved a part with a stick, when he perceived that this straw covered a large hole which emitted an offensive smell, while the straw was tainted with blood. On this he directly returned to the inner room, mentioned to my father in secret what he had seen, and saying that he doubted not that the landlord was a robber and murderer. My father left the room directly, and, having yerified the fact, ordered directly to bring the baggage again on the waggon, and harness the horses.

When the landlady observed these preparations, she shewed her surprise, and dissuaded my father to proceed on his journey through such a large wood in a cold night, with two young children, and engaged that she would endeavour to render his stay as comfortable as it was in her power; but he replied, that something very interesting had struck his mind, which rendered it impossible for him to remain there, and compelled him to proceed on. He thanked her for her civilities, went with his children into the waggon, and departed.

When they were arrived in the wood, they met the landlord driving home a load of wood, who accosted my father, "Sir," said he, "I beg of you, what moves you to enter this wood, so large and extensive, and cut in two or three cross roads, in the fall of the evening, at the approach of night; I doubt not, that you will lose the right road, and remain in the wood during night: you endanger your health and place that of these

young children in jeopardy; return rather with me to my tavern, there you may refresh yourself and your horses, spend the night comfortably, and continue your journey early in the morning. My father answered, that he was obliged to proceed on his journey, however unpleasant it was. The landlord urged his entreaties with greater importunity, and approaching my father's waggon, and taking hold of it, he renewed to dissuade a further process with a lowered brow and a grim countenance, and insisted that they should, and must return; on which my father ordered the driver to lay his whip over the horses, to disengage himself from this dangerous man, in which he succeeded.

They then proceeded on. My father, sitting in the waggon, sent up his prayers in an audible voice to his God, as was his usual custom on his travels, and recommended himself and those dear to him in this perilous situation to his providential care, in which devotion he was accompanied by the driver and his two children. Meanwhile the sun was set, an increasing darkness prevailed, they lost the road, entered a deep swamp, in which soon the waggon stuck, the horses being too fatigued to draw it out again. My father and the driver jumped from the waggon in the mud, strengthened every nerve, and animated the horses with words, and the whip, but all in vain; the waggon could not be stirred one single inch. My father became apprehensiye that he must pass the night in that dreary spot, and that he or his driver should be compelled to leave the wood next morning, and search for assistance in the nearest village, without even a prospect of success; meanwhile nothing was left him but silent ejaculations to his God.

After having covered his children as well as he could, and secured them against a rigorous cold night, he walked to a little distance from his waggon, and employed himself in sending up his prayers to his God, when he saw a man of small stature, in a grey or whitish coat, with a stick in his hand, approaching him. After mutual salutations, this man asked my father what he did there, and why he travelled in the night, and especially through such a wood? My

Remarkable Providence in the Life of Crellius.

MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS.