ament,
as Francis Godolphin resided in England. It must be confessed
this was a miserable motive for dedicating a system of
philosophy which was addressed to all mankind. It discovers
little dignity. This secret history we owe to Lord Clarendon,
in his "Survey of the Leviathan," who adds another. The
postscript to the "Leviathan," which is only in the English
edition, was designed as an easy summary of the principles:
and his lordship adds, as a sly address to Cromwell, that he
might be induced to be master of them at once, and "as a pawn
of his new subject's allegiance." It is possible that Hobbes
might have anticipated the sovereign power which the _general_
was on the point of assuming in the _protectorship_. It was
natural enough, that Hobbes should deny this suggestion.

[369] The story his antagonist (Dr. Wallis) relates is perfectly in
character. Hobbes, to show the Countess of Devonshire his
attachment to life, declared that "were he master of all the
world to dispose of, he would give it to live one day." "But
you have so many friends to oblige, had you the world to
dispose of!" "Shall I be the better for that when I am dead?"
"No," repeated the sublime cynic, "I would give the whole
world to live one day." He asserted that "it was lawful to
make use of ill instruments to do ourselves good," and
illustrated it thus:--"Were I cast into a deep pit, and the
devil should put down his cloven foot, I would take hold of it
to be drawn out by it." It must be allowed this is a
philosophy which has a chance of being long popular; but it is
not that of another order of human beings! Hobbes would not,
like Curtius, have leaped into a "deep pit" for his country;
or, to drop the fable, have died for it in the field or on the
scaffold, like the Falklands, the Sidneys, the Montroses--all
the heroic brotherhood of genius! One of his last expressions,
when informed of the approaches of death, was--"I shall be
glad to find a hole to creep out of the world at." Everything
was seen in a little way by this great man, who, having
reasoned himself into an abject being, "licked the dust"
through life.

[370] In our country, Mandeville, Swift, and Chesterf