Mr. Hobbes in the world." Why then place to the account of the
philosopher those gross immoralities which he never
sanctioned? The life of Hobbes is without a stain! He had
other friends besides these "Box, Pit, and Gallery"
gentry--the learned of Europe, and many of the great and good
men of his own country.

[351] Hobbes, in defending Thucydides, whom he has so admirably
translated, from the charge of some obscurity in his design,
observes that "Marcellinus saith he was obscure, on purpose
that the common people might not understand him; and not
unlikely, for a wise man should so write (though in words
understood by all men), that wise men only should be able to
commend him." Thus early in life Hobbes had determined on a
principle which produced all his studied ambiguity, involved
him in so much controversy, and, in some respects, preserved
him in an inglorious security.

[352] Hobbes explains the image in his Introduction. He does not
disguise his opinion that _Men_ may be converted into
_Automatons_; and if he were not very ingenious we might lose
our patience. He was so delighted with this whimsical fancy of
his "artificial man," that he carried it on to government
itself, and employed the engraver to impress the monstrous
personification on our minds, even clearer than by his
reasonings. The curious design forms the frontispiece of "The
Leviathan." He borrowed the name from that sea-monster, that
mightiest of powers, which Job has told is not to be compared
with any on earth. The sea-monster is here, however, changed
into a colossal man, entirely made up of little men from all
the classes of society, bearing in the right hand the sword,
and in the left the crosier. The compartments are full of
political allegories. An expression of Lord Clarendon's in the
preface to his "Survey of the Leviathan," shows our
philosopher's infatuation to this "idol of the Den," as Lord
Bacon might have called the intellectual illusion of the
philosopher. Hobbes, when at Paris, showed a proof-sheet or
two of his work to Clarendon, who, he soon discovered, could
not approve of the hardy tenets. "He frequently came to me,"
says his lordship, "and told