fallen into neglect;" nor, in the style with which they
were condemned at Oxford, that "they are pernicious and damnable." The
sanguine opinion of the author himself was, that the mighty
"Leviathan" will stand for all ages, defended by its own strength; for
the rule of justice, the reproof of the ambitious, the citadel of the
Sovereign, and the peace of the people.[379] But the smaller
treatises of Hobbes are not less precious. Locke is the pupil of
Hobbes, and it may often be doubtful whether the scholar has rivalled
the nervous simplicity and the energetic originality of his master.

The genius of Hobbes was of the first order; his works abound with the
most impressive truths, in all the simplicity of thought and language,
yet he never elevates nor delights. Too faithful an observer of the
miserable human nature before him, he submits to expedients; he acts
on the defensive; and because he is in terror, he would consider
security to be the happiness of man. In _Religion_ he would stand by
an established one; yet thus he deprives man of that moral freedom
which God himself has surely allowed us. Locke has the glory of having
first given distinct notions of the nature of toleration. In
_Politics_ his great principle is the establishment of _Authority_,
or, as he terms it, an "entireness of sovereign power:" here he seems
to have built his arguments with such eternal truths and with such a
contriving wisdom as to adapt his system to all the changes of
government. Hobbes found it necessary in his day to place this
despotism in the hands of his colossal monarch; and were Hobbes now
living, he would not relinquish the principle, though perhaps he might
vary the application; for if Authority, strong as man can create it,
is not suffered to exist in our free constitution, what will become of
our freedom? Hobbes would now maintain his system by depositing his
"entireness of sovereign power" in the Laws of his Country. So easily
shifted is the vast political machine of the much abused "Leviathan!"
The _Citizen_ of Hobbes, like the _Prince_ of Machiavel, is alike
innocent, when the end of their authors is once detected, amid those
ambiguous means by which the hard necessity of their times constrained
their mighty genius to disguise itself.

It is, however, remarkable of _Systems of Opinions_, that the
founder's celebrity has usually outlived his sect's. Why are systems,
when once brought into practice, so often discovered to b