says, "The philosopher of Malmesbury was the terror of the
last age, as Tin-dal and Collins are of this. The press sweats with
controversy; and every young churchman militant would try his arms in
thundering on Hobbes's steel cap." This is a modest acknowledgment of
the power of Hobbes, from the most turbulent divine of the eighteenth
century.

Victor Comyin gives the following as his view of the philosophy of
Hobbes:--"There is no other certain evidence than that of the senses.
The evidence of the senses attests only the existence of bodies; then
there is no existence save that of bodies, and philosophy is only the
science of bodies.

"There are two sorts of bodies: 1st, Natural bodies, which are the
theatre of a multitude of regular phenomena, because they take place
by virtue of fixed laws, as the bodies with which physics are occupied;
2nd, Moral and political bodies, societies which constantly change and
are subject to variable laws.

"Hobbes's system of physics is that of Democritus, the atomistic and
corpuscular of the Ionic school.

"His metaphysics are its corollary; all the phenomena which pass in
the consciousness have their source in the organization, of which the
consciousness in itself is simply a result. All the ideas come from the
senses. To think, is to calculate; and intelligence is nothing else than
an arithmetic. As we do not calculate with out signs, we do not think
without words; the truth of the thought is in the relation of the words
among themselves, and metaphysics are reduced to a perfect language.
Hobbes is completely a nominalist. With Hobbes there are no other than
contingent ideas; the finite alone can be conceived; the infinite is
only a negation of the finite; beyond that it is a mere word invented to
honor a being whom faith alone can reach. The idea of good and evil
has no other foundation than agreeable or disagreeable sensations; to
agreeable or disagreeable sensation it is impossible to apply any.
other law than escape from the one and search after the other; hence
the morality of Hobbes, which is the foundation of his politics. Man
is capable of enjoying and of suffering; his only law is to suffer as
little, and enjoy as much, as possible. Since such is his only law, he
has all the rights that this law confers upon him; he may do anything
for his preservation and his happiness; he has the right to sacrifice
everything to himself. Behold? then, men upon this earth, where the
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