Page:The ethics of Hobbes (IA ethicsofhobbes00hobb).pdf/54
companions."[1] This fear, which held Hobbes in its vice-like grip, did not simply manifest itself in a detestation of his country's enemies and in a general inclination for peace, but in an almost constant concern with regard to his personal safety and in an almost morbid terror of death. This anxiety for his personal safety and horrible fear of death, intensified by the uncertain and troublous condition of the times, had a tendency to beget in him a general distrust of men, so that the unworthy conceptions of human nature which underlie his ethical and political philosophy must be studied in the light of this fact.
A second thing which must be taken into consideration in studying the ethical and political philosophy of Hobbes is the character of the times in which he lived. Hardly any fact is more familiar to the student of the history of speculative thought than the influence of an age upon the reflective thought of that age. Speculative thinkers do not escape the effects of environment. Hobbes is no exception to the rule. He lived in one of the most unsettled and stormy periods of English history. It was a period of confusion and strife. The State was torn with political and ecclesiastical contentions. Parliament contended with the Crown. The Church contended with the State. Politics had bred a number of hostile factions. The Church had split into a variety of warring sects. So that Hobbes lived almost constantly in an atmosphere of strife. Such a condition of things undoubtedly had its influence upon him, both in suggesting for consideration problems of an ethico-political character as well as affecting his thought in the solution of the same. Studying his ethical and political philosophy in the light of the conditions under which he reflected and wrote, one can, in a measure, at least, understand how he was led to form a conception of human nature so utterly selfish and unsocial.
- ↑ Quoted from Morris's British Thought and Thinkers, chap. VI.