ng men on the shins, if it were sensible of its
own motion, would think it proceeded from its own will, unless it felt
what lashed it. And is a man any wiser when he runs to one place for a
benifice, to another for a bargain, and troubles the world with writing
errors, and requiring answers, because he thinks he does it without
other cause than his own will, and seeth not what are the lashings which
cause that will?"

Hobbes casually mentions the subject of "praise or dispraise," in
reference to the will; those who are old enough will remember this was
one of the most frequent subjects of discussion amongst the earlier
Socialists. "These depend not at all in the necessity of the action
praised or dispraised. For what is it else to praise, but to say _a
thing is good?_ Good, I say, for me, or for somebody else, or for the
State and Commonwealth. And what is it to say an action is good, but to
say it is as I would wish, or as another would have it, or according
to the will of the State--that is to say, according to the law! Does
my lord think that no action could please me, or the commonwealth, that
should proceed from necessity! Things may be therefore necessary, and
yet praiseworthy, as also necessary, and yet dispraised, and neither of
them both in vain; because praise and dispraise, and likewise reward and
punishment, do, by example, make and conform the will to good or evil.
It was a very great praise, in my opinion, that Vellerius Paterculus
gives Cato, where he says that he was good by nature, '_et quia aliter
esse non potuit_.''--'And because he could not do otherwise.'" This able
treatise was reprinted, and extensively read about twenty years ago;
but, like many other of our standard works, it is at present out of
print.

The "Leviathan" is still readable, a bold masculine book. It treats
everything in a cool, analytic style. The knife of the Socialist is
sheathed in vain; no rhapsody can overturn its impassioned teachings.
Rhetoric is not needed to embellish the truths he has to portray, for
the wild flowers of genius but too frequently hide the yawning chasms
in the garden of Logic. It is not to be expected that this book will be
read now with the interest with which it was perused two centuries ago;
then every statement was impugned, every argument denied, and the very
tone of the book called forth an interference from parliament to stop
the progress of its heresies. Now the case is widely different, and the