hat is, before the Bench of Bishops); that his opinions
were mere conjectures, proposed as exercises for the powers of
reasoning. He attempted (without meaning to be ludicrous) to make his
_opinions_ a distinct object from his _person_; and, for the good
order of the latter, he appealed to the family chaplain for his
attendance at divine service, from whence, however, he always departed
at the sermon, insisting that the chaplain could not teach him
anything. It was in one of these panics that he produced his
"Historical Narrative of Heresy, and the Punishment thereof," where,
losing the dignity of the philosophic character, he creeps into a
subterfuge with the subtilty of the lawyer; insisting that "The
Leviathan," being published at a time when there was no distinction of
creeds in England (the Court of High Commission having been abolished
in the troubles), that therefore none could be heretical.[366]

No man was more speculatively bold, and more practically timorous;[367]
and two very contrary principles enabled him, through an extraordinary
length of life, to deliver his opinions and still to save himself:
these were his excessive vanity and his excessive timidity. The one
inspired his hardy originality, and the other prompted him to protect
himself by any means. His love of glory roused his vigorous intellect,
while his fears shrunk him into his little self. Hobbes, engaged in
the cause of truth, betrayed her dignity by his ambiguous and abject
conduct: this was a consequence of his selfish philosophy; and this
conduct has yielded no dubious triumph to the noble school which
opposed his cynical principles.

A genius more luminous, sagacity more profound, and morals less
tainted, were never more eminently combined than in this very man, who
was so often reduced to the most abject state. But the anti-social
philosophy of Hobbes terminated in preserving a pitiful state of
existence. He who considered nothing more valuable than life, degraded
himself by the meanest artifices of self-love,[368] and exulted in the
most cynical truths.[369] The philosophy of Hobbes, founded on fear
and suspicion, and which, in human nature, could see nothing beyond
himself, might make him a wary politician, but always an imperfect
social being. We find, therefore, that the philosopher of Malmesbury
adroitly retained a friend at court, to protect him at an extremity;
but considering all men alike, as bargaining for themselves, his
friend