The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan.
§ 7. Thomas Hobbes; His life and character
Thomas Hobbes was born at Westport, adjoining Malmesbury in Wiltshire, on 5 April, 1588. His father, the vicar of the parish, says Aubrey,
Three times in his life, Hobbes travelled on the continent with a pupil. His first journey was begun in 1610, and in it he visited France, Germany and Italy, learning the French and Italian languages, and gaining experience, but not yet conscious of his life’s work. On his return (the date is uncertain), he settled down with his young lord at Hardwick and in London. His secretarial duties were light, and he set himself to become a scholar; with the society and books at his command, he did not “need the university” (he said); he read the historians and piets both Greek and Latin, and taught himself a clear and accurate Latin style. To these studies, his first published work bears witness—an English translation of Thucydides, sent to press in 1628, but completed some years earlier. To this period, also, belongs his acquaintance with Bacon, Herbert of Cherbury, Ben Jonson and other leading men of the time. Of his association with Bacon (probably sometime in the years between 1621 and 1626), we know little beyond what Aubrey tells us—that he translated some of Bacon’s essays into Latin, that, on occasion, he would attend with ink and paper and set down Bacon’s thoughts when he contemplated and dictated “in his delicious walks at Gorhambury” and that “his lordship would often say that he better liked Mr. Hobbes’s taking his thoughts, than any of the others, because he understood what he wrote.” There is no evidence, however, that their discourse turned on strictly philosophical questions; nor does it appear that philosophical interest had, as yet, become dominant in Hobbes’s mind; certainly, he was never a pupil of Bacon; and it is an error to attempt, as has sometimes been done, to affiliate his philosophy to the Baconian. They agreed in their opposition to medievalism, and both attempted to elaborate a comprehensive scheme; the vague term “empirical” may, also, be applied to both; but Hobbes set small store by experiment, and his system differed fundamentally from Bacon’s in method, temper and scope. One important point only was common to both—their acceptance of the mechanical theory; and, for this theory, there is ample evidence, external as well as internal, that Hobbes was directly indebted not to Bacon but to Galileo.
Hobbes’s master and friend died in 1628, two years after the death of the first earl; his son and successor was a boy of eleven; his widow did not need the services of a secretary; and, for a time, there was no place in the household for Hobbes. In 1629, he left for the continent again with a new pupil, returning from this second journey in 1631 to take charge of the young earl’s education. Little is known of his travels, but this period of his life is remarkable for two things—his introduction to the study of geometry, and his first effort towards a philosophy. As regards the former, there is no reason for doubting Aubrey’s story, which throws light both on his early education and on the controversies of his later years.