20 - Clarendon against Leviathan

Summary

The early reception and recognition given to Hobbes's philosophy in England and on the continent forms one of the important chapters in English and European intellectual history. A checklist published by Samuel Mintz in 1962 of anti-Hobbes writings and allusions in England during the period 1650-1700 contains nearly 100 titles and indicates not only the magnitude of Hobbes's impact upon the intellectual and cultural life of his time but the breadth of the reaction provoked by his unorthodox ideas. We can be pretty sure that Mintz's checklist is not exhaustive, however, as there must have been other works published in England during this period containing critical references to Hobbes that have not yet come to notice. One of the authors the checklist omits is Gilbert Burnet, who criticized 'the infernal Leviathan' in a sermon he preached in London in December 1674. Another is John Locke. While Locke does not mention Hobbes in his political or philosophical writings, he was much aware of and opposed to a number of Hobbes's basic ideas. In his Second Treatise of Government, for example, the statement in section 57 that 'the end of Law is not to abolish and restrain, but to preserve and enlarge Freedom. . . . Freedom is not, as we are told, A Liberty for every Man to do what he list', pointedly contradicts both Hobbes's conception of freedom in the state of nature and the opinion expressed in Leviathan, chapter xxi, that law is a restraint on freedom.