SIX LESSONS TO THE PROFESSORS OF THE MATHEMATICS, (continued 4)

Your last and greatest accusation, or rather railing (for an accusation should contain, whether true or false, some particular fact, or certain words, out of which it might seem at least to be inferred), is, that I am an enemy to religion. Your words are: “It is said that Mr. Hobbes is no otherwise an enemy to the Roman religion, saving only as it hath the name of religion.” This is said by Vindex. You, the geometrician, in your epistle dedicatory, say thus: “With what pride and imperiousness he tramples on all things both human and divine, uttering fearful and horrible words of God, (peace), of sin, of the holy Scripture, of all incorporeal 353substances in general, of the immortal soul of man, and of the rest of the weighty points of religion (down), it is not so much to be doubted as lamented.” And at the end of your objections to the eighteenth chapter, “Perhaps you take the whole history of the fall of Adam for a fable, which is no wonder, when you say the rules of honouring and worshipping of God are to be taken from the laws.” Down, I say; you bark now at the supreme legislative power. Therefore it is not I, but the laws which must rate you off. But do not many other men, as well as you, read my Leviathan , and my other books? And yet they all find not such enmity in them against religion. Take heed of calling them all atheists that have read and approved my Leviathan . Do you think I can be an atheist and not know it? Or knowing it, durst have offered my atheism to the press? Or do you think him an atheist, or a contemner of the Holy Scripture, that sayeth nothing of the Deity but what he proveth by the Scripture? You that take so heinously that I would have the rules of God’s worship in a Christian commonwealth taken from the laws, tell me, from whom you would have them taken? From yourselves? Why so, more than from me? From the bishops? Right, if the supreme power of the commonwealth will have it so; if not, why from them rather than from me? From a consistory of presbyters by themselves, or joined with lay-elders, whom they may sway as they please? Good, if the supreme governor of the commonwealth will have it so; if not, why from them, rather than from me, or from any man else? They are wiser and learneder 354than I. It may be so; but it has not yet appeared. Howsoever, let that be granted. Is there any man so very a fool as to subject himself to the rules of other men in those things which so nearly concern himself, for the title they assume of being wise and learned, unless they also have the sword which must protect them. But it seems you understand the sword as comprehended. If so, do you not then receive the rules of God’s worship from the civil power? Yes, doubtless; and you would expect, if your consistory had that sword, that no man should dare to exercise or teach any rules concerning God’s worship which were not by you allowed. See therefore how much you have been transported by your malice towards me, to injure the civil power by which you live.live. If you were not despised, you would in some places and times, where and when the laws are more severely executed, be shipped away for this your madness to America, I would say, to Anticyra. What luck have I, when this, of the laws being the rules of God’s public worship, was by me said and applied to the vindication of the Church of England from the power of the Roman clergy, it should be followed with such a storm from the ministers, presbyterian and episcopal, of the Church of England? Again, for those other points, namely, that I approve not of incorporeal bodies, nor of other immortality of the soul, than that which the Scripture calleth eternal life, I do but as the Scripture leads me. To the texts whereof by me alleged, you should either have answered, or else forborne to revile me for the conclusions I derived from them. Lastly, what an absurd question is it to ask me 355whether it be in the power of the magistrate, whether the world be eternal or not? It were fit you knew it is in the power of the supreme magistrate to make a law for the punishment of them that shall pronounce publicly of that question anything contrary to that which the law hath once pronounced. The truth is, you are content that the papal power be cut off, and declaimed against as much as any man will; but the ecclesiastical power, which of late was aimed at by the clergy here, being a part thereof, every violence done to the papal power is sensible to them yet; like that which I have heard say of a man, whose leg being cut off for the prevention of a gangrene that began in his toe, would nevertheless complain of a pain in his toe, when his leg was cut off.

Thus much in my defence; which I believe if you had foreseen, this accusation of yours had been left out. I come now to examine (though it be done in part already) what manners those are which I find everywhere in your writings.

And first, how came it into your minds that a man can be an atheist, I mean an atheist in his conscience? I know that David confesseth of himself, upon sight of the prosperity of the wicked, that his feet had almost slipped, that is, that he had slipped into a short doubtfulness of the Divine Providence. And if anything else can cause a man to slip in the same kind, it is the seeing such as you (who though you write nothing but what is dictated to each of you by a doctor of divinity) do break the greatest of God’s commandments, which is charity, in every line before his face. And though such forgettings of God be somewhat 356more than short doubtings, and sudden transportations incident to human passion, yet I do not for that cause think you atheists and enemies of religion, but only ignorant and imprudent Christians. But how, I say, could you think me an atheist, unless it were because finding your doubts of the Deity more frequent than other men do, you are thereby the apter to fall upon that kind of reproach? Wherein you are like women of poor and evil education when they scold; amongst whom the readiest disgraceful word is whore: why not thief, or any other ill name, but because, when they remember themselves, they think that reproach the likeliest to be true?

Secondly, tell me what crime it was which the Latins called by the name of scelus? You think not, unless you be Stoics, that all crimes are equal. Scelus was never used but for a crime of greatest mischief, as the taking away of life and honour; and besides, basely acted, as by some clandestine way, or by such a way as might be covered with a lie. But when you insinuate in a writing published that I am an atheist, you make yourselves authors to the multitude, and do all you can to stir them up to attempt upon my life; and if it succeed, then to sneak out of it by leaving the fault on them that are but actors. This is to endeavour great mischief basely, and therefore scelus. Again, to deprive a man of the honour he hath merited, is no little wickedness; and this you endeavour to do by publishing falsely that I challenge as my own the inventions of other men. This is therefore scelus publicly to tell all the world that I will be angry with all men that do not presently submit to my dictates; to deprive me of the friendship 357of all the world; great damage, and a lie, and yours. For to publish any untruth of another man to his disgrace, on hearsay from his enemy, is the same fault as if he published it on his own credit. If I should say I have heard that Dr. Wallis was esteemed at Oxford for a simple fellow, and much inferior to his fellow-professor Dr. Ward (as indeed I have heard, but do not believe it), though this be no great disgrace to Dr. Wallis, yet he would think I did him injury. Therefore public accusation upon hearsay is scelus. And whosoever does any of these things does sceleratè. But you the professors of the mathematics at Oxford, by the advice of two doctors of divinity have dealt thus with me. Therefore you have done, I say not foolishly, though no wickedness be without folly, but sceleratè, ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι.

Thirdly, it is ill manners, in reprehending truth, to send a man in a boasting way to your own errors; as you the professor of geometry have often sent me to your two tractates of the Angle of Contact and Arithmetica Infinitorum.

Fourthly, it is ill manners, to diminish the just reputation of worthy men after they be dead, as you the professor of geometry have done in the case of Joseph Scaliger.

Fifthly, when I had in my Leviathan suffered the clergy of the Church of England to escape, you did imprudently in bringing any of them in again. An Ulysses upon so light an occasion would not have ventured to return again into the cave of Polyphemus.

Lastly, how ill does such levity and scurrility, which both of you have shown so often in your writings, become the gravity and sanctity requisite 358to the calling of the ministry? They are too many to be repeated. Do but consider, you the geometrician, how unhandsome it is to play upon my name, when both yours and mine are plebeian names; though from Willis by Wallis, you go from yours in Wallisius. The jest of using at every word mi Hobbi, is lost to them beyond sea. But this is not so ill as some of the rest. I will write out one of them, as it is in the fourth page of your Elenchus: “Whence it appears that your Empusa was of the number of those fairies which you call in English hob-goblins. The word is made of ἕν and πους; and thence comes the children’s play called the play of Empusa, Anglicè (hitherto in Latin all but hob-goblins, then follows in English) fox, fox, come out of your hole (then in Latin again), in which the boy that is called the fox, holds up one foot, and jumps with the other, which in English is to hop.” When a stranger shall read this, and hoping to find therein some witty conceit, shall with much ado have gotten it interpreted and explained to him, what will he think of our doctors of divinity at Oxford, that will take so much pains as to go out of the language they set forth in, for so ridiculous a purpose? You will say it is a pretty paranomasia. How you call it there I know not, but it is commonly called here a clinch; and such a one as is too insipid for a boy of twelve years old, and very unfit for the sanctity of a minister, and gravity of a doctor of divinity. But I pray you tell me where it was you read the word empusa for the boy’s play you speak of, or for any other play amongst the Greeks? In this (as you have done throughout all your other writings) you presume too much upon your first 359cogitations. There be a hundred other scoffing passages, and ill-favoured attributes given me in both your writings, which the reader will observe without my pointing to them, as easily as you would have him; and which perhaps some young students, finding them full of gall, will mistake for salt. Therefore to disabuse those young men, and to the end they may not admire such kind of wit, I have here and there been a little sharper with you than else I would have been. If you think I did not spare you, but that I had not wit enough to give you as scornful names as you give me, are you content I should try? Yes (you the geometrician will say) give me what names you please, so you call me not Arithmetica Infinitorum. I will not. Nor Angle of Contact ; nor Arch Spiral ; nor Quotient . I will not. But I here dismiss you both together. So go your ways, you Uncivil Ecclesiastics, Inhuman Divines, Dedoctors of morality, Unasinous Colleagues, Egregious pair of Issachars, most wretched Vindices and Indices Academiarum; and remember Vespasian’s law, that it is uncivil to give ill language first, but civil and lawful to return it. But much more remember the law of God, to obey your sovereigns in all things; and not only not to derogate from them, but also to pray for them, and as far as you can to maintain their authority, and therein your own protection. And, do you hear? take heed of speaking your mind so clearly in answering my Leviathan, as I have done in writing it. You should do best not to meddle with it at all, because it is undertaken, and in part published already, and will be better performed, from term to term, by one Christopher Pike.

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