Fortunately for Hobbes, he
took refuge with his old protectors, the Devonshire family, who were too
powerful to be wantonly insulted. While residing at Chatsworth, he would
no doubt acutely feel the loss of Descartes, the Cardinal de Richelieu,
and Gassendi; in the place of those men he entered into a warm
friendship with Cowley, the poet, Selden, Harvey, the discoverer of
the circulation of the blood, Charles Blount, and the witty Sir Thomas
Brown.

In 1654, he published a "Letter upon Liberty and Necessity;" this
brief tractate is unsurpassed in Free-thought literature for its clear,
concise, subtle, and demonstrative proofs of the self-determining power
of the will, and the truth of philosophical necessity. All subsequent
writers on this question have largely availed themselves of Hobbes's
arguments, particularly the pamphleteers of Socialism. It is a fact no
less true than strange, that Communism is derived from the system of
Hobbes, which has always been classed along with that of Machiavelli, as
an apology for despotism. The grand peculiarity of Hobbes is his method.
Instead of taking speculation and reasoning upon theories, he carried
out the inductive system of Bacon in its entirety, reasoning from
separate generic facts, instead of analogically. By this means he
narrowed the compass of knowledge, and made everything demonstrative
that was capable of proof. Belief was consequently placed upon its
proper basis, and a rigid analysis separated the boundaries of Knowing
and Being. Hobbes looked at the great end of existence and embodied it
in a double axiom. 1st. The desire for self-preservation. 2nd. To render
ourselves happy. From those duplex principles which are inherent in
all animals, a modern politician has perpetrated a platitude which
represents in a sentence the end and aim of all legislation, "the
greatest happiness for the greatest number." This is the _ultimatum_
of Hobbes's philosophy. Its method of accomplishment was by treating
society as one large family, with the educated and skilled as governors,
having under their care the training of the nation. All acting from
one impulse (self-preservation,) and by the conjoint experience of all,
deriving the greatest amount of happiness from this activity. Hobbes
opposed the Revolution, because it degenerated into a faction; and
supported Charles Stuart because there were more elements of cohesion
within his own party, than amongst his enemies. It was here w