Thomas, the philosopher of Malmesbury, was born 5th April 1588. While merely at school, he translated the Medea into Latin verse. At the age of fourteen he went to Oxford, where, for five years, he studied logic and the Aristotelian philosophy. After this he superintended the education of the son of the Earl of Devonshire. The friendship formed between Hobbes and this noble family continued through life. Travelling with his charge in France and Italy, he became acquainted with the most eminent philosophers, and greatly enlarged the field of his observations. Returning to England, he formed a friendship with Bacon. In 1628 he published his translation of Thucydides. It had a political object in view, being intended to warn his countrymen against the vices of democratic government. By this time he had lost both patron and pupil by death, and his second visit to France and Italy was along with the son of Sir Gervase Clifton. He now applied his vigorous intellect to mathematics. Returning to England he was entrusted, in 1631, by the dowager Countess of Devonshire, with the charge of another son, with whom he made a third visit to the continent. It was during this visit that he formed an intimacy with Father Mersenne, Gassendi, and Galileo. In 1634 he republished his translation of Thucydides, with a dedication to the young Earl of Devonshire. In 1637, upon returning to England, the violent commotions which were agitating the country increased his dislike of democracy. In 1640 he thought it prudent to escape from the impending storm in his own country, and retired again to France. Through his friend Mersenne, he became acquainted with Descartes. These two philosophers, however, did not altogether agree. In 1642, impressions of his famous work De Cive, which he had been preparing for some time, were distributed amongst his friends. It was published in Holland six years afterwards, with a French translation. The principles promulgated in this work could not fail of gaining him many enemies. In 1645 he entered into a mathematical controversy about the quadrature of the circle, and such was his renown, that he was appointed, in 1647, mathematical tutor to the Prince of Wales, who was at that time in exile at Paris. In 1650 he published in London his able treatise on Human Nature, and De Corpore Politico. In 1651 he published his celebrated work Leviathan. Under the emblem of the great sea-monster, he represented the body politic. This work exhibits the combination of Hobbes' principles in politics, morals, and religion. He was attacked by all denominations of religionists. He had greatly offended the Popish party, by the exposure of priestcraft, which occurs in Leviathan; and, in consequence, thought it prudent to quit France and return to England. Spending the year 1652 in England, he became acquainted with Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood; with Selden, and with Cowley, who wrote a Pindaric ode in his praise. In 1655, his great mathematical war commenced with Wallis; and shortly after he answered Bishop Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity in Human Actions. Bramhall, however, had written ten years before, and was now dead. In 1660, upon the restoration of Charles II., Hobbes, who had been his mathematical preceptor in Paris, was received into favour, assured of protection, and had £1,100 a-year from the king. He applied himself now with increased vigour to the study of mathematics. The storm against his Leviathan and De Cive began again to rage. These books were censured by parliament in 1666; and upon the bringing in of a bill to punish atheism, he became apprehensive for his personal safety. However, the storm passed over, and he thought of publishing a new and magnificent edition of his works, which, however, he was obliged to do abroad. So great was his fame, that foreign ambassadors were anxious to see the man whose name was spread throughout Europe. Cosmo de' Medici, Prince of Tuscany, received from Hobbes a collection of his works, together with his portrait, to take to Florence. At the advanced age of eighty-six, Hobbes translated part of Homer's Odyssey. The translation was so successful, that he proceeded with the remainder, and in 1673 published a translation of both Odyssey and Iliad. He died in Derbyshire on the 4th December 1679, in the 92nd year of his age.

Hobbes was one of those remarkable men, who, in critical times, have their little as well as their great qualities brought out very prominently. His egotism appears in numerous passages of his metrical autobiography, written at the age of eighty-four. He mentions the circumstance of his being prematurely born, owing to the fright taken by his mother upon hearing of the Spanish Armada approaching the coast. However, his premature birth did not prevent him from living to the great age of ninety-two. The day of his birth happened to be Good Friday, and his admirers did not hesitate to compare him to Jesus Christ, who left the world on the same day that Hobbes came into it,—and both for the same purpose,—the salvation of mankind! He had no pleasant recollection of the drill to which he had to submit in learning the moods and figures of the logicians; he says he learned them slowly—did learn them however, and then cast them away. He mentions, quite complacently, that he was ranked amongst philosophers, and freely speaks about his work De Cive, "It pleased the learned, and was entirely new. I was translated into various languages and read with applause. I was known by name afar among the nations." He complains of being misrepresented to the king, whose presence he had been forbidden; and calling to mind the fate of Dorislaus and Ascham, he says he felt the terrors of proscription. His life was in a great measure spent in fear, which he himself admits: for speaking of his birth, he says his mother brought forth twins—himself and Fear,—

"Meque metamque simul."

Atterbury declares, that these terrors were terrors of conscience. Hobbes gives his own opinion of Leviathan. After saying that it had been attacked, he adds, "It stood all the firmer, and my hope is, that it will stand through every age, defended by its own strength."

Morose and impatient as Hobbes was of contradiction, he had not a little to endure which would have disturbed the equanimity of sweeter tempers than his. He saw his writings misunderstood, and then misrepresented by large masses of men, and the transition was easy from misrepresentation of his writings to gross aspersions of his personal character. Amongst his detractors, Bishop Fell was guilty of the most dishonourable procedure. Antony Wood, the friend of Hobbes, had published in English a work in 2 vols., containing an account of Oxford, as to its antiquities, and the eminent men who had been connected with it. In this work was a very favourable notice of Hobbes. Bishop Fell translated the work into Latin, but the complimentary epistles applied to Hobbes were struck out, and abusive ones placed in their stead. In several cases whole sentences of a eulogistic character were altogether expunged. Hobbes points out these alterations and erasures; and considering the injury done to Wood, to say nothing of himself ("fama enim mea, qualisunque est, jamdudum pennata evolavit (irrevocabilis"), he contemplates, for a moment, the propriety of raising an action against Fell: "Nulla ergo causa est ut publice cum eo litigem." But the little public sympathy to be expected in a matter where squabbling scholars are concerned, decided him against it.

Bold and original as Hobbes was in announcing his dogmas, yet when persecution on account of them came near him, he betook himself to unmanly subterfuges. He even defends himself for writing ambiguously in certain cases. His political system being one of expediency, enabled him to shift his ground, and in doing so, the subtlety of his metaphysical intellect was more than a match for the majority of those who endeavoured to detect and expose inconsistency. Yet it is remarkable, that with his clear and subtle intellect, it was from a misconception of some of the most elementary truths of mathematics, that he kept up his great war with Dr Wallis, professor of mathematics at Oxford. Numerous answers were written on both sides, and the virulence with which the fighting was carried on, extended even to the titles of the books. Thus, the Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics in Oxford, of Hobbes, was answered by the Due Correction for Mr Hobbes, or School Discipline for not saying his Lessons Right, of Wallis.

As to his deportment and manners, they are thus described by Dr White Kennet, in his Memoirs of the Cavendish family. "The Earl of Devonshire," says he, "for his whole life entertained Mr Hobbes in his family, as his old tutor rather than as his friend or confidant. He let him live under his roof in ease and plenty, and in his own way, without making use of him in any public, or so much as domestic affairs. He would frequently put off the mention of his name, and say, 'He was a humorist, and nobody could account for him.' There is a tradition in the family, of the manners and customs of Mr Hobbes, somewhat observable. His professed rule of health was to dedicate the morning to his exercise, and the afternoon to his studies. And therefore, at his first rising, he walked out, and climbed any hill within his reach; or, if the weather was not dry, he fatigued himself within doors by some exercise or other, to be in a sweat; recommending that practice upon this opinion, that an old man had more moisture than heat, and therefore by such motion heat was to be acquired and moisture expelled. After this, he took a comfortable breakfast; and then went round the lodgings to wait upon the earl, the countess, and the children, and any considerable strangers, paying some short addresses to all of them. He kept these rounds till about twelve o'clock, when he had a little dinner provided for him, which he ate always by himself without ceremony. Soon after dinner he retired to his study, and had his candle, with ten or twelve pipes of tobacco, laid by him; then shutting his door, he fell to smoking, thinking, and writing for several hours. He retained a friend or two at court, and especially the Lord Arlington, to protect him if occasion should require. He used to say, that it was lawful to make use of ill instruments to do ourselves good. 'If I were cast,' says he, 'into a deep pit, and the devil should put down his cloven foot, I would take hold of it to be drawn out by it.' After the Restoration, he watched all opportunities to ingratiate himself with the king and his prime ministers; and looked upon his pension to be more valuable as an earnest of favour and protection, than upon any other account. His future course of life was to be free from danger. He could not endure to be left in an empty house. Whenever the earl removed he would go along with him, even to his last stage, from Chatsworth to Hardwick. When he was in a very weak condition, he dared not to be left behind, but made his way upon a feather-bed in a coach, though he survived the journey but a few days. He could not bear any discourse of death, and seemed to cast off all thoughts of it. He delighted to reckon upon longer life. The winter before he died, he made a warm Hobgoblin coat, which he said must last him three years, and then he would have such another. In his last sickness his frequent questions were, Whether his disease was curable? and when intimations were given that he might have ease, but no remedy, he used this expression, 'I shall be glad to find a hole to creep out of the world at;' which are reported to have been his last sensible words; and his lying some days following in a silent stupefaction, did seem owing to his mind more than to his body."

For an analysis of Hobbes's philosophy and its influence on English thought and speculative science generally, see Sir James Mackintosh's Preliminary Dissertation prefixed to this work.