action
without freedom. The system was equally desirable to the Protector
Cromwell as to the regal Charles. A conspiracy against mankind could
not alarm their governors: it is not therefore surprising that the
usurper offered Hobbes the office of Secretary of State; and that he
was afterwards pensioned by the monarch.

A philosophical system, moral or political, is often nothing more than
a temporary expedient to turn aside the madness of the times by
substituting what offers an appearance of relief; nor is it a little
influenced by the immediate convenience of the philosopher himself;
his personal character enters a good deal into the system. The object
of Hobbes in his "Leviathan" was always ambiguous, because it was, in
truth, one of these systems of expediency, conveniently adapted to
what has been termed of late "existing circumstances." His sole aim
was to keep all things in peace, by creating one mightiest power in
the State, to suppress instantly all other powers that might rise in
insurrection. In his times, the establishment of despotism was the
only political restraint he could discover of sufficient force to
chain man down, amid the turbulence of society; but this concealed end
he is perpetually shifting and disguising; for the truth is, no man
loved slavery less.[353]

The system of Hobbes could not be limited to politics: he knew
that the safety of the people's morals required an _Established
Religion_. The alliance between Church and State had been so
violently shaken, that it was necessary to cement them once more.
As our philosopher had been terrified in his politics by the view of
its contending factions, so, in religion, he experienced the same
terror at the hereditary rancours of its multiplied sects. He could
devise no other means than to attack the mysteries and dogmas of
theologians, those after-inventions and corruptions of Christianity,
by which the artifices of their chiefs had so long split them into
perpetual factions:[354] he therefore asserted that the religion
of the people ought to exist, in strict conformity to the will of
the State.[355]

When Hobbes wrote against mysteries, the mere polemics sent forth a
cry of his impiety; the philosopher was branded with Atheism;--one of
those artful calumnies, of which, after a man has washed himself
clean, the stain will be found to have dyed the skin.[356]

To me it appears that Hobbes, to put an end to these religious wars,
which his age a