The works
of Hobbes appeared at a much later stage in life. His first work a translation of
Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian Wars was published in 1629. Thucydides held that
knowledge of the past, was useful for determining correct action. Hobbes offered the
translation during a period of civil unrest as a reminder that the ancients believed that
democracy was the least effective form of government.
The most crucial event of
Hobbes’ life occurred when he was 40. While waiting for a friend he wandered into a
library and chanced upon a copy of Euclid’s geometry. He read a proposition and
exclaimed, "By God that is impossible !" Fascinated by the interconnections
between axioms, postulates and premises, he adopted the ideal of demonstrating certainty
by way of deductive reasoning.
His second work, A short
Treatise on First Principles, (1630), reflected his interest in mathematics. The work
represented a mechanical interpretation of sensation.
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After he returned from his last visit, he wrote a sketch of his new theory, entitled, Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. The treatise was published in 1650. The first 13 chapters were issued with the title, Human Nature and the remainder of the volume, as a separate work, named De Corpore Politico.
Hobbes went to France when England was threatened by Civil War in November 1640. He stayed there for 11 years. Hobbes had matured the plan for his own philosophical work. He decided to write three treatises, dealing respectively with matter or body, human nature and society. |
He intended to have dealt
with those subjects in order, but as his country "was boiling hot with questions
concerning human rights of dominion and the obedience due from subjects, the true
forerunners of an approaching war", that "ripened and plucked from me this third
part" of the system. De Cive was published in 1642, in Paris. When political
affairs took a normal course, he published an English version, translated by himself,
named Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society, in 1651, in
London. His most celebrated work Leviathan was published in the same year. The book
throws light on many a subjects, like epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, religion other
than political philosophy, the main theme.
Hobbes returned to England
in 1651, to remain there for 28 years till death. De Corpore appeared in 1655 and
its second part De Homine, in 1656. The latter work was not significant, as it said
all that was already preached in his earlier works. De Corpore dealt with logical,
mathematical and physical principles. The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity and
Chance, also published in 1656, as an elaborate defense to criticisms against his
earlier work, the tract of Liberty and Necessity.
The tract on Heresy,
answer to attack on Leviathan and Behemoth : the History of the Causes of the
Civil Wars of England, was published in 1668. Dialogue between a Philosopher and a
student of the Common Laws of England appeared around the same time. At the age of 80,
he composed Historia Ecclesiastica in elegiac verse. He wrote his autobiography in
Latin verse when he was 84. In 1673, he published a translation in rhymed quatrains of
four books of Homer's the Odyssey. In 1675, he completed both Iliad and Odyssey.
With widening knowledge and
an experienced life, the mature, philosophical works of Hobbes were published. His
understanding of human nature, society, and politics is relevant in all of them.
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