e how he acts in this dilemma. It was
necessary to give up his opinions to the clergy, but still to
prove they were of an innocent nature. He therefore
acknowledges that "his theological notions are not his
opinions, but propounded with submission to the power
ecclesiastical, never afterwards having maintained them in
writing or discourse." Yet, to show the king that the regal
power incurred no great risk in them, he laid down one
principle, which could not have been unpleasing to Charles II.
He asserts, truly, that he never wrote against episcopacy;
"yet he is called an Atheist, or man of no religion, because
he has made the authority of the Church depend wholly upon the
regal power, which, I hope, your majesty will think is neither
Atheism nor Heresy." Hobbes considered the _religion_ of his
country as a subject of _law_, and not _philosophy_. He was
not for _separating_ the Church from the State; but, on the
contrary, for _joining them_ more closely. The bishops ought
not to have been his enemies; and many were not.

[367] In the MS. collection of the French contemporary, who personally
knew him, we find a remarkable confession of Hobbes. He said
of himself that "he sometimes made openings to let in light,
but that he could not discover his thoughts but by half-views:
like those who throw open the window for a short time, but
soon closing it, from the dread of the storm." _"Il disoit
qu'il faisoit quelquefois des ouvertures, mais qu'il ne
pouvoit decouvrir ses pensees qu'a-demi; qu'il imitoit ceux
qui ouvrent la fenetre pendant quelques momens, mais qui la
referment promptement de peur de l'orage."_--Lantiniana MSS.,
quoted by Joly in his volume of "Remarques sur Bayle."

[368] Could one imagine that the very head and foot of the stupendous
"Leviathan" bear the marks of the little artifices practised
for self by its author? This grave work is dedicated to
Francis Godolphin, a person whom its author had never seen,
merely to remind him of a certain legacy which that person's
brother had left to our philosopher. If read with this fact
before us, we may detect the concealed claim to the legacy,
which it seems was necessary to conceal from the Parli