It is unnecessary, as well as impossible here, to enter into detailed proof of this interpretation of Hobbes' doctrine on these points, or to reconcile all the inconsistencies in his form of statement. Not only does his fearful nature keep him from a too free expression of his views, but his own thought is by no means clear. Yet his position in regard to the charge brought against him by the Intellectualists of his day, and repeated by many at the present time, is perfectly clear. Hobbes does not make morality a thing of convention, but grounds it on the necessities of human nature. In spite of his language, his position shows a truer confidence in man than does that of his opponents. Out of his own needs and struggles, man has come to the knowlege of the moral law. It does not rest on a far off or external authority, but is rooted in his own being, from which it is impossible to escape. To change it, human nature itself would have to be changed. Its arbitrariness is only in externals, since the power of the arbiter rests in turn on the laws of human nature.
The question of authority, moreover, is clearly settled. Hobbes' theory, whatever be our interpretation of it, belongs to the psychological systems. The laws of nature are binding, either as those which preserve the organism, or as those which produce pleasure. If Hobbes had developed the implications of the former view, one which is really more consonant with his system, he would necessarily have been led out of his narrow individualism, but either from his observation of men, or from the prevailing scientific tendency of his time, he is more apt to express himself hedonistically. Both the laws of nature and those of society are obeyed as conducive to pleasure. The contents of those laws are determined for the subject, but he has a voluntary interest in their observance.
The most questionable element in Hobbes' system, then, is not its supposed conventionalism as attacked by Cudworth, but
so far as the evils of society admit. Positive law is the sole standard of external conduct. We learn what is just and true from the powers that be, but what in turn guides these? Not pure chance, but, theoretically at least, those principles of social self-preservation in accordance with which they themselves were first constituted authorities. Hobbes' ethical system ceases where his political begins.
