here the
cry of despotism arose; the "Round-heads" seeing they could not detach
the ablest men from the King's party, denounced their literary opponents
as "lovers of Belial, and of tyranny." This was their most effective
answer to the "Leviathan." In after years, when the Episcopal party no
longer stood in need of the services of Hobbes, they heaped upon him the
stigma of heresy, until his _ci-devant_ friends and enemies were united
in the condemnation of the man they most feared. Mr. Owen, in his schema
of Socialism, took his leading idea on non-responsibility from Hobbes's
explanation of necessity, and the freedom of the will. The old divines
had inculcated a doctrine to the effect that the "will" was a separate
entity of the human mind, which swayed the whole disposition, and was of
itself essentially corrupt. Ample testimony from the Bible substantiated
this position. But in the method of Hobbes, he lays down the facts that
we can have no knowledge without experience, and no experience without
sensation. The mind therefore is composed of classified sensations,
united together by the law of an association of ideas. This law was
first discovered by Hobbes, who makes the human will to consist in
the strongest motive which sways the balance on any side. This is the
simplest explanation which can be given on a subject more mystified than
any other in theology.

A long controversy betwixt Bishop Bramhall, of Londonderry, followed the
publication of Hobbes's views on Liberty and Necessity. Charles II. on
his restoration, bestowed an annual pension of L100 on Hobbes, but this
did not prevent the parliament, in 1666, censuring the "De Cive" and
"Leviathan," besides his other works. Hobbes also translated the Greek
historian, Thucydides, Homer's Odyssey, and the Illiad. The last years
of his life were spent in composing "Behemoth; or, a History of the
Civil Wars from 1640 to 1660," which was finished in the year he died,
but not published until after his death. At the close of the year 1679,
he was taken seriously ill. At the urgent request of some Christians,
they were permitted to intrude their opinions upon his dying bed,
telling him gravely that his illness would end in death, and unless he
repented, he would go straight to hell. Hobbes calmly replied, "I shall
be glad then to find a hole to creep out of the world." For seventy
years he had been a persecuted man, but during that time his enemies
had paid him that tribute