equally by rationalist thinkers of the Cartesian school, and was indeed begotten of the time. Backwards, Hobbes’s relations are rather with Galileo and the other inquirers who, from the beginning of the 17th century, occupied themselves with the physical world in the manner that has come later to be distinguished by the name of science in opposition to philosophy. But even more than in external nature, Hobbes was interested in the phenomena of social life, presenting themselves so impressively in an age of political revolution. So it came to pass that, while he was unable, by reason of imperfect training and too tardy development, with all his pains, to make any contribution to physical science or to mathematics as instrumental in physical research, he attempted a task which no other adherent of the new “mechanical philosophy” conceived—nothing less than such a universal construction of human knowledge as would bring Society and Man (at once the matter and maker of Society) within the same principles of scientific explanation as were found applicable to the world of Nature. The construction was, of course, utterly premature, even supposing it were inherently possible; but it is Hobbes’s distinction, in his century, to have conceived it, and he is thereby lifted from among the scientific workers with whom he associated to the rank of those philosophical thinkers who have sought to order the whole domain of human knowledge. The effects of his philosophical endeavour may be traced on a variety of lines. Upon every subject that came within the sweep of his system, except mathematics and physics, his thoughts have been productive of thought. When the first storm of opposition from smaller men had begun to die down, thinkers of real weight, beginning with Cumberland and Cudworth, were moved by their aversion to his analysis of the moral nature of man to probe anew the question of the natural springs and the rational grounds of human action; and thus it may be said that Hobbes gave the first impulse to the whole of that movement of ethical speculation that, in modern times, has been carried on with such remarkable continuity in England. In politics the revulsion from his particular conclusions did not prevent the more clear-sighted of his opponents from recognizing the force of his supreme demonstration of the practical irresponsibility of the sovereign power, wherever seated, in the state; and, when in a later age the foundations of a positive theory of legislation were laid in England, the school of Bentham—James Mill, Grote, Molesworth—brought again into general notice the writings of the great publicist of the 17th century, who, however he might, by the force of temperament, himself prefer the rule of one, based his whole political system upon a rational regard to the common weal. Finally, the psychology of Hobbes, though too undeveloped to guide the thoughts or even perhaps arrest the attention of Locke, when essaying the scientific analysis of knowledge, came in course of time (chiefly through James Mill) to be connected with the theory of associationism developed from within the school of Locke, in different ways, by Hartley and Hume; nor is it surprising that the later associationists, finding their principle more distinctly formulated in the earlier thinker, should sometimes have been betrayed into affiliating themselves to Hobbes rather than to Locke. For his ethical theories see Ethics.
Sufficient information is given in the Vitae Hobbianae auctarium (L.W. i. p. lxv. ff.) concerning the frequent early editions of Hobbes’s separate works, and also concerning the works of those who wrote against him, to the end of the 17th century. In the 18th century, after Clarke’s Boyle Lectures of 1704–1705, the opposition was less express. In 1750 The Moral and Political Works were collected, with life, &c., by Dr Campbell, in a folio edition, including in order, Human Nature, De corpore politico, Leviathan, Answer to Bramhall’s Catching of the Leviathan, Narration concerning Heresy, Of Liberty and Necessity, Behemoth, Dialogue of the Common Laws, the Introduction to the Thucydides, Letter to Davenant and two others, the Preface to the Homer, De mirabilibus Pecci (with English translation), Considerations on the Reputation, &., of T. H. In 1812 the Human Nature and the Liberty and Necessity (with supplementary extracts from the Questions of 1656) were reprinted in a small edition of 250 copies, with a meritorious memoir (based on Campbell) and dedication to Horne Tooke, by Philip Mallet. Molesworth’s edition (1839–1845), dedicated to Grote, has been referred to in a former note. Of translations may be mentioned Les Élémens philosophiques du citoyen (1649) and Le Corps politique (1652), both by S. de Sorbière, conjoined with Le Traité de la nature humaine, by d’Holbach, in 1787, under the general title Les Œuvres philosophiques et politiques de Thomas Hobbes; a translation of the first section, “Computatio sive logica,” of the De corpore, included by Destutt de Tracy with his Élémens d’idéologie (1804); a translation of Leviathan into Dutch in 1678, and another (anonymous) into German—Des Engländers Thomas Hobbes Leviathan oder der kirchliche und bürgerliche Staat (Halle, 1794, 2 vols.); a translation of the De cive by J. H. v. Kirchmann—T. Hobbes: Abhandlung über den Bürger, &c. (Leipzig, 1873). Important later editions are those of Ferdinand Tönnies, Behemoth (1889), on which see Croom Robertson’s Philosophical Remains (1894), p. 451; Elements of Law (1889).
Biographical and Critical Works.—There are three accounts of Hobbes’s life, first published together in 1681, two years after his death, by R. B. (Richard Blackbourne, a friend of Hobbes’s admirer, John Aubrey), and reprinted, with complimentary verses by Cowley and others, at the beginning of Sir W. Molesworth’s collection of the Latin Works: (1) T. H. Malmesb. vita (pp. xiii.-xxi.), written by Hobbes himself, or (as also reported) by T. Rymer, at his dictation; (2) Vitae Hobbianae auctarium (pp. xxii.-lxxx.), turned into Latin from Aubrey’s English; (3) T. H. Malmesb. vita carmine expressa (pp. lxxxi.-xcix.), written by Hobbes at the age of eighty-four (first published by itself in 1680). The Life of Mr T. H. of Malmesburie, printed among the Lives of Eminent Men, in 1813, from Aubrey’s papers in the Bodleian, &c. (vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 593–637), contains some interesting particulars not found in the Auctarium. All that is of any importance for Hobbes’s life is contained in G. Croom Robertson’s Hobbes (1886) in Blackwood’s Philosophical Classics, and Sir Leslie Stephen’s Hobbes (1904) in the “English Men of Letters” series, both of which deal fully with his philosophy also. See also F. Tönnies, Hobbes Leben und Lehre (1896), Hobbes-Analekten (1904 foll.); G. Zart, Einfluss der englischen Philosophie seit Bacon auf die deutsche Philosophie des 18ten Jahrh. (Berlin, 1881); G. Brandt, Thomas Hobbes: Grundlinien seiner Philosophie (1895); G. Lyon, La Philos. de Hobbes (1893); J. M. Robertson, Pioneer Humanists (1907); J. Rickaby, Free Will and Four English Philosophers (1906), pp. 1-72; J. Watson, Hedonistic Theories (1895); W. Graham, English Political Philosophy from Hobbes to Maine (1899); W. J. H. Campion, Outlines of Lectures on Political Science (1895). (G. C. R.; X.)
HOBBY, a small horse, probably from early quotations, of
Irish breed, trained to an easy gait so that riding was not fatiguing.
The common use of the word is for a favourite pursuit or
occupation, with the idea either of excessive devotion or of
absence of ulterior motive or of profit, &c., outside the occupation
itself. This use is probably not derived from the easy ambling
gait of the Irish “hobby,” but from the “hobby-horse,” the
mock horse of the old morris-dances, made of a painted wooden
horse’s head and tail, with a framework casing for an actor’s
body, his legs being covered by a cloth made to represent the
“housings” of the medieval tilting-horse. A hobby or hobby-horse
is thus a toy, a diversion. The O. Fr. hobin, or hobi, Mod.
aubin, and Ital. ubina are probably adaptations of the English,
according to the New English Dictionary. The O. Fr. hober, to
move, which is often taken to be the origin of all these words, is
the source of a use of “hobby” for a small kind of falcon, falco
subbuteo, used in hawking.
HOBHOUSE, ARTHUR HOBHOUSE, 1st Baron (1819–1904),
English judge, fourth son of Henry Hobhouse, permanent
under-secretary of state in the Home Office, was born at Hadspen,
Somerset, on the 10th of November 1819. Educated at Eton
and Balliol, he was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1845,
and rapidly acquired a large practice as a conveyancer and
equity draftsman; he became Q.C. in 1862, and practised in the
Rolls Court, retiring in 1866. He was an active member of the
charity commission and urged the appropriation of pious bequests
to educational and other purposes. In 1872 he began a five
years’ term of service as legal member of the council of the
governor-general of India, his services being acknowledged by
a K.C.S.I.; and in 1881 he was appointed a member of the
judicial committee of the privy council, on which he served for
twenty years. He was made a peer in 1885, and consistently
supported the Liberal party in the House of Lords. He died on
the 6th of December 1904, leaving no heir to the barony.
His papers read before the Social Science Association on the subject of property were collected in 1880 under the title of The Dead Hand.
HOBOKEN, a small town of Belgium on the right bank of the
Scheldt about 4 m. above Antwerp. It is only important on
account of the shipbuilding yard which the Cockerill firm of
Seraing has established at Hoboken. Many wealthy Antwerp
