chapter seven

, under which is contained the love men bear to one another or pleasure they take in one another's company: and by which nature men are said to be sociable. But there is another kind of love which the Greeks call Erôs, and is that which we mean when we say that a man is in love: forasmuch as this passion cannot be without diversity of sex, it cannot be denied but that it participateth of that indefinite love mentioned in the former section. But there is a great difference betwixt the desire of a man indefinite and the same desire limited _ad hunc_: and this is that love which is the great theme of poets: but, notwithstanding their praises, it must be defined by the word need: for it is a conception a man hath of his need of that one person desired. The cause of this passion is not always nor for the most part beauty, or other quality in the beloved, unless there be withal hope in the person that loveth: which may be gathered from this, that in great difference of persons the greater have often fallen in love with the meaner, but not contrary. And from hence it is that for the most part they have much better fortune in love whose hopes are built on something in their person than those that trust to their expressions and service; and they that care less than they that care more: which not perceiving, many men cast away their services as one arrow after another, till, in the end, together with their hopes, they lose their wits."

* * * * *

"There are some who therefore imagine monarchy to be more grievous than democracy, because there is less liberty in that than in this. If by liberty they mean an exemption from that subjection which is due to the laws, that is, the commands of the people; neither in democracy nor in any other state of government whatsoever is there any such kind of liberty. If they suppose liberty to consist in this, that there be few laws, few prohibitions, and those too such that, except they were forbidden, there could be no peace; then I deny that there is more liberty in democracy than in monarchy; for the one as truly consisteth with such a liberty as the other. For although the word liberty may in large and ample letters be written over the gates of any city whatsoever, yet it is not meant the subjects' but the city's liberty; neither can that word with better right be inscribed on a city which is governed by the people than that which is ruled by a monarch. But when private men or subjects demand liberty under the name of liberty, they ask not for liberty but domination: which yet for want of understanding they little consider. For if every man would grant the same liberty to another which he desires for himself, as is commanded by the law of nature, that same natural state would return again in which all men may by right do all things; which if they knew they would abhor, as being worse than all kinds of civil subjection whatsoever. But if any man desire to have his single freedom, the rest being bound, what does he else demand but to have the dominion?"

It may be observed that Hobbes's sentences are by no means very short as far as actual length goes. He has some on a scale which in strictness is perhaps hardly justifiable. But what may generally be asserted of them is that the author for the most part is true to that great rule, of logic and of style alike, which ordains that a single sentence shall be, as far as possible, the verbal presentation of a single thought, and not the agglomeration and sweeping together of a whole string and tissue of thoughts. It is noticeable, too, that Hobbes is very sparing of the adjective--the great resource and delight of flowery and discursive writers. Sometimes, as in the famous comparison of human life to a race (where, by the way, a slight tendency to conceit manifests itself, and makes him rather force some of his metaphors), his conciseness assumes a distinctly epigrammatic form; and it is constantly visible also in his more consecutive writings.

In the well-known passage on Laughter as "a passion of sudden glory" the writer may be charged with allowing his fancy too free play; though I, for my part, am inclined to consider the explanation the most satisfactory yet given of a difficult phenomenon. But the point is the distinctness with which Hobbes puts this novel and, at first sight, improbable idea, the apt turns and illustrations (standing at the same time far from the excess of illustration and analogy, by which many writers of his time would have spun it out into a chapter if not into a treatise), the succinct, forcible, economical adjustment of the fewest words to the clearest exposition of thought. Perhaps these things strike the more as they are the more unlike the work in juxtaposition with which one finds them; nor can it be maintained that Hobbes's style is suitable for all purposes. Admirable for argument and exposition, it is apt to become bald in narration, and its abundance of clearness, when translated to less purely intellectual subjects, may even expose it to the charge of being thin. Such a note as that struck in the Love passage above given is rare, and sets one wondering whether the dry-as-dust philosopher of Malmesbury, the man who seems to have had hardly any human frailties except vanity and timidity, had himself felt the bitterness of counting on expressions and services, the madness of throwing away one effort after another to gain the favour of the beloved. But it is very seldom that any such suggestion is provoked by remarks of Hobbes's. His light is almost always dry; and in one sense, though not in another, a little malignant. Yet nowhere is there to be found a style more absolutely suited, not merely to the author's intentions but to his performances--a form more exactly married to matter. Nor anywhere is there to be found a writer who is more independent of others. He may have owed something to his friend Jonson, in whose _Timber_ there are resemblances to Hobbes; but he certainly owed nothing, and in all probability lent much, to the Drydens, and Tillotsons, and Temples, who in the last twenty years of his own life reformed English prose.

##