Hobbes, payne, and a short tract on first principles

Historical Journal

Volumn 44, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 29-58

  Raylor, Timothy ^a  

^a CARLETON COLLEGE   (United States)

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EID: 84978031640     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X01001650     Document Type: Article

References (195)

1. Ferdinand Tönnies, ‘Anmerkungen über die Philosophie des Hobbes’, Vierteljahrsschrift für Wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 3 (1879), pp. 453–66 (463–4)
2. The elements of law: natural and political, ed. Ferdinand Tönnies (London, 1889), appendix I, pp. 193–210.
3. FrithiofBrandt, Thomas Hobbes' mechanical conception of nature (Copenhagen and London, 1928), p. 380
4. Thomas Hobbes, Court traité des premiers principes: le'short tract on first principles' de 1630–1631, ed. Jean Bernhardt (Paris, 1988), p. 197.
5. Elements, ed. Tönnies, p. xii. I follow Noel Malcolm in using the phrase ‘Latin Optical MS’ to refer to the manuscript dubbed by Tönnies ‘Tractatus opticus’ in order to distinguish it from Hobbes's published essay of that title.
6. George Croom Robertson, Hobbes (Edinburgh, 1886), p. 35 n. 1
7. Brandt, Hobbes' mechanical conception, p. 10.
8. Arrigo Pacchi, Introduzione a Hobbes (Bari, 1971), pp. 16–17.
9. Arrigo Pacchi, ‘Hobbes e l'epicureismo’, Rivista Critica di Storia della Filosofia, 33 (1978), pp. 54–71 (62–3 n. 36).
10. British Library (BL) Harl. MS 3360, fo. 3r. The major discussions of its date (building on Tönnies's insights) are Brandt, Hobbes' mechanical conception, pp. 47–50
11. Bernhardt, Court traité, pp. 90–92
12. Karl Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract, première œuvre philosophique de Hobbes’, Hobbes Studies, 8 (1995), pp. 3–36 (19–27).
13. Tuck, ‘Hobbes and Descartes’, in G. A. J. Rogers and Alan Ryan, eds., Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes (Oxford, 1988), pp. 11–41 (16–18)
14. idem, ‘Optics and sceptics: the philosophical foundations of Hobbes's political thought’, in Edmund Leites, ed., Conscience and casuistry in early modern Europe (Cambridge and Paris, 1988), pp. 235–63 (249).
15. Court traité; Jean Bernhardt, ‘Bulletin Hobbes II’, Archives de Philosophie, 53 (1990), pp. 23–24.
16. A review of discussions of the date and authorship of the tract up to Bernhardt's edition is provided by Andrea Napoli, ‘Hobbes e lo “short tract”’, Rivista di Storia della Filosofia, 3 (1990), pp. 539–569.
17. Perez Zagorin,‘Hobbes's early philosophical development’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 54 (1993), pp. 505–518.
18. Peter Beal, comp., Index of English literary manuscripts, II:1625–1700, I: Behn - King (London and New York, 1987), ∗HbT 43.
19. Tuck, ‘Hobbes and Descartes’, p. 18 n. 19.
20. Thomas Hobbes, The correspondence, ed. Noel Malcolm (2 vols., Oxford, 1994), II, p. 874 n. 22.
21. Hobbes, Correspondence, 11, pp. 874–875.
22. Franco Giudice, ‘Teoria della luce e struttura della materia nello Short Tract on First Principles di Thomas Hobbes’, Nuncius, 2 (1996), pp. 545–561
23. idem, Luce e visione: Thomas Hobbes e la scienza dell'ottica (Florence, 1999).
24. Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’.
25. Tuck, Philosophy and government, 1571–1651 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 294–295
26. Zagorin, ‘Two books on Thomas Hobbes’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 60 (1999), pp. 361–71 (367 n. 16, 370–1).
27. A. P. Martinich, Hobbes: a biography (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 101–102.
28. Clive Jones, ‘The Harley family and the Harley papers’, British Library Journal, 15 (1989), pp. 123–33 (124, 126)
29. C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: a study of the sources of the Harleian collection of manuscripts preserved in the British Museum (London, 1972).
30. See Robertson, Hobbes, p. 35 n. 1
31. and, for clarification, Jean Jacquot, ‘Sir Charles Cavendish and his learned friends’, Annals of Science, 8 (1952), pp. 13–27, 175–91 (17–18 n. 13, 25 n. 40, 26 n. 43). The present binding of the volume dates from January 1967 (information I owe to Mr Hilton Kelliher of the Department of Manuscripts).
32. The former is printed in Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, pp. 80–86.
33. Tönnies, ‘Anmerkungen’, p. 464 n. 1
34. Robertson, Hobbes, p. 35 n. 1.
35. Jacquot, ‘Sir Charles Cavendish’, p. 21 n. 30.
36. Court traité, p. 8.
37. Court traité, pp. 7, 8, 92.
38. Zagorin, ‘Hobbes's early philosophical development’, p. 507.
39. Court traité, p. 9 n. 2.
40. Court traité, p. 8: Bernhadt ignores an unpaginated blank between fos. 303 and 304.
41. B.L. Harl. MS 6796, fo. 302r: Court traité, pp. 32, 230 n. 75
42. Elements, ed. Tönnies, p. 201.
43. Pacchi, ‘Hobbes e l'epicureismo’, pp. 62–63 n. 36.
44. Jan Prins, ‘Walter Warner (ca. 1557–1643) and his notes on animal organisms’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Utrecht, 1992), p. 242 n. 27.
45. Hobbes, Correspondence, II, pp. 874–875.
46. The text of the document is printed, along with a facsimile of part of the first page, in S. Arthur Strong, comp., A catalogue of letters and other historical documents exhibited in the library at Welbeck (London, 1903), pp. 54–5 (III C 3), 237–40 (appendix II).
47. Chatsworth, Hobbes, MSS E. 1 and E. 2; Beal Index, II, I, pp. 573 nos. vii and viii. Arrigo Pacchi has printed these lists (as works by Hobbes) in ‘Ruggero Bacone e Roberto Grossetesta in un inedito Hobbesiano del 1634’, Rivista Critica di Storia della Filosofia, 20 (1965), pp. 499–502
48. ‘Una “biblioteca ideale” di Thomas Hobbes: il MS E2 dell'archivio di Chatsworth’, Acme, 21 (1968), pp. 5–42.
49. B.L. Harl. MS 6796, fo. 317r, line 3: ‘Tract’, line 16: ‘demonstration’; Strong, Catalogue, Plate III C 3, line 5: ‘posture’.
50. Strong, Catalogue, Plate III C 3, line 17: ‘limmes’
51. B.L. Harl. MS 6796, fo. 317r, line 14: ‘lawe’.
52. Each of the two book lists is endorsed ‘Per Walterum Warner.’, in the same manner as Payne's copy of Thomas Harriot's Artis analyticae praxis (London, 1631): Bodleian Library, Oxford, Savile O 9 (on which, see Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, p. 30).
53. There is a copy of‘ Ad architecturam nauticam’ in Warner's hand in BL Add. MS 4394, fo. 395r. This is surely the discussion on the problem of the mid-ship mould about which Payne complained to Warner in his letter of 21 June 1635
54. B.L. Add. MS 4279, fo. 182, printed in James Orchard Halliwell, ed., A collection of letters illustrative of the progress of science in England from the reign of queen Elizabeth to that of Charles the second (London, 1841), pp. 65–66.
55. Dr Malcolm seems to be mistaken in inferring the letter to be addressed to Pell; Hobbes, Correspondence, 11, p. 873.
56. B.L. Harl. MS 6796, fo. 306r, line 19.
57. See also, BL Harl. MS 6796, fo. 306r, line 19.
58. B.L. Harl. MS 6796, fo. 306r, line 1: ‘Act’.
59. B.L. Harl. MS 6796, fo. 306r, lines 6, 7, 9.
60. B.L. Harl. MS 6796, fos. 300v, 301v, 307v, 308r.
61. B.L. Harl. MS 6796, fo. 314r, line 5: ‘height’.
62. Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’, pp. 24–25.
63. As has been noticed by Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’, p. 25.
64. See, for instance, the word ‘starre’ on fo. 302r, written and then deleted currente calamo, evidently as a result of scribal eye-slip, the same word appearing almost exactly one line earlier in the manuscript.
65. The variant version is similar to Edward Heawood, Watermarks mainly of the 17th and 18th centuries (Hilversum, 1950), no. 3627.
66. Della misura dell'acque correnti (Rome, 1628)
67. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Savile Bb 2.
68. Court traité, p. 8
69. Zagorin, ‘Hobbes's early philosophical development’, p. 507
70. Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’, pp. 5–6
71. Zagorin, ‘Two books on Hobbes’, p. 371.
72. Professors Schuhmann and Zagorin take issue with Dr Malcolm's endorsement of Tuck's attribution (Hobbes, Correspondence, 11, p. 874) by implying, a little disingenuously, that in Malcolm's view the handwriting of the document alone determines its authorship.
73. Zagorin, ‘Two books on Hobbes’, p. 371.
74. Bernhardt, ‘Bulletin Hobbes II’, pp. 23–24
75. Court traité, pp. 61–87, 185.
76. Zagorin, ‘Hobbes's early philosophical development’, p. 511.
77. Court traité, pp. 92–6, 109, 122–4, 127–8, 134–5, 137, 140.
78. Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’, pp. 27–29
79. Robert Gray, Hobbes‘ system and his early philosophical views’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 29 (1978), pp. 199–215 (214 n. 62).
80. Dictionary of scientific biography (18 vols., New York, 1970–1990).
81. BL Harl. MS 6796, fos. 311 v, 312r, 313r, 301v, 303v, 306r.
82. BL Harl. MS 6796, fo. 319r.
83. Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, p. 38.
84. Most commentators argue for a date between 1630 and 1636: Elements, ed. Tönnies, p. xii
85. Brandt, Hobbes' mechanical conception, pp. 47–50
86. Court traité, p. 92
87. Zagorin, ‘Hobbes's early philosophical development’, pp. 508–510
88. Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’, pp. 19–27.
89. Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, pp. 22, 37–8.
90. Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, pp. 28–9, 33
91. Brandt, Hobbes' mechanical conception, pp. 196–201
92. cf BL Add. MS 4458, fo. 26r (Payne to Warner, 3 Oct. 1636).
93. Jan Prins, ‘Hobbes on light and vision’, in Tom Sorrell, ed., The Cambridge companion to Hobbes (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 129–56 (132).
94. Zagorin, ‘Hobbes's early philosophical development’, p. 511
95. Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’, p. 6.
96. Della misura dell'acque correnti (Rome, 1628), Bodleian Library, Savile Bb 2.
97. Mordechai Feingold, ‘A friend of Hobbes and an early translator of Galileo: Robert Payne of Oxford’, in J. D North and J.J. Roche, eds., The light of nature (Dordrecht, 1985), pp. 265–80 (269–76)
98. Hobbes, Correspondence, 11, pp. 873–874.
99. Timothy Raylor, ‘Newcastle's ghosts: Robert Payne, Ben Jonson, and “the Cavendish circle”’, in Ted-Larry Pebworth and Claude J. Summers, eds., Literary circles and cultural communities in Renaissance England (Columbia, MO, 2000).
100. The brothers' interest in mechanics may have been active as early as 1634, when Newcastle employed Hobbes to hunt for a copy of Galileo's Dialogo; Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, p. 19
101. Jacquot, ‘Sir Charles Cavendish’, pp. 21–22.
102. If an early eighteenth-century sale catalogue is a reliable guide to the seventeenth-century collection, the family library contained works on mechanics by Guidobaldo del Monte, Cavalieri, and Galileo; Bibliotheca nobilissimi principis Johannis ducis de novo-castro, & c. (London, 1718), pp. 22, 23, 26.
103. Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle, Philosophical and physical opinions (London, 1663), p. 463.
104. Brandt, Hobbes' mechanical conception, pp. 9–10, 32, 46
105. Court traité, pp. 92, 231 n. 78.
106. See BL Add. MS 4279, fo. 307 (Warner to Payne, 17 Oct. 1634)
107. Add. MS 4405, fo. 161 (Sir Charles Cavendish to Warner, 2 May 1636)
108. Add. MS 4458, fos. 26–7 (Payne to Warner, 3 Oct. 1636)
109. printed in Halliwell, Collection, pp. 65–69
110. Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, pp. 34, 37–8
111. Jacquot, ‘Sir Charles Cavendish’, pp. 19–21.
112. See A critical edition of Wit's triumvirate, or the philosopher’, ed. Cathryn Anne Nelson (2 vols., Salzburg, 1975), II, p. 272.
113. That Newcastle was the author of this play has been shown by Hilton Kelliher, ‘Donne, Jonson, Richard Andrews and the Newcastle manuscript’, English manuscript studies 1100–1700, 4 (1993), pp. 134–73 (150–2).
114. Its prologue is dated 1635, and it must have been written between Oct. 1634 and Mar. 1636; Wit's triumvirate, 1, pp. 47–48.
115. The discovery that Campanella's ideas were discussed at Welbeck at this time lends weight to Tönnies's suggestion that the Italian's influence may be detected in the Short tract; Thomas Hobbes: Leben und Lehre (3rd edn, Stuttgart, 1925), p. 288 n. 86.
116. It also provides a context for Hobbes's knowledge of Campanella's thought and for his courteous rejection of pansensism in De corpore xxv. 5
117. on which see Karl Schuhmann ‘Hobbes and Renaissance philosophy’, in Andrea Napoli, ed., Hobbes oggi (Milan, 1990), pp. 331–49 (348)
118. Cees Leijenhorst, ‘Motion, monks and golden mountains: Campanella and Hobbes on perception and cognition’, Bruniana & Campanelliana, 3 (1997), pp. 93–121.
119. Correspondence, 1, p. 29.
120. I am by no means the first to posit Newcastle's impetus behind the tract: see John Henry, ‘The origins of the mechanical philosophy in England: Thomas Hobbes's debt to Walter Warner’, unpublished paper, p. 6
121. quoted in Prins, Walter Warner, p. 257 n. 119
122. Court traité, p. 92
123. Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’, pp. 23, 25.
124. Wit's triumvirate, 11, pp. 280–281.
125. William Cavendish, The phanseys of William Cavendish marquis of Newcastle addressed to Margaret Lucas and her letters in reply, ed. Douglas Grant (London, 1956), p. 4
126. ‘Le short tract’, p. 26 n. 71.
127. Elements, ed. Tönnies, p. xii
128. Brandt, Hobbes' mechanical conception, pp. 122–123.
129. Brandt, Hobbes' mechanical conception, pp. 38–40, 388
130. Court traité, pp. 107–112.
131. B.L. Harl. MS 3360, fo. 3r.
132. MS 3360
133. Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, pp. 38, 102–3.
134. Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, pp. 37–38.
135. See Court traité, pp. 233–4 n. 83.
136. Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’, p. 26 n. 71.
137. On Hobbes's willingness to allow others to make use of doctrines, and his claim that Walter Warner learned of this doctrine from him, see Six Lessons, in The English works, ed. William Molesworth (11 vols., London, 1839–45), VII, p. 342.
138. Payne is identified in Raylor, ‘Newcastle's ghosts’, as the corrector dubbed Hand 3 by Nelson in her edition of Wit's triumvirate, 1, pp. 67–69.
139. Aldo G. Gargani, Hobbes e la scienza (Turin, 1971), pp. 97–123
140. Jean Bernhardt, ‘Hobbes et le mouvement de la lumière’, Revue d'Histoire des Sciences, 30 (1977), pp. 3–24 (11–13).
141. An alternative source for this theory, in the atomism of Gassendi, has been proposed, inter alia, by Tuck, ‘Optics and sceptics’, p. 249; but Gassendi's researches were not yet published; Tuck's suggestion thus raises more difficulties than it settles.
142. Short tract, 2 Conc. 4, 8, 10
143. David C. Lindberg, Roger Bacon's philosophy of nature: a critical edition, with English translation, introduction, and notes, of ‘De multiplicatione specierum’ and ‘De speculis comburentibus’ (Oxford, 1983), pp. 2–5, 178–97, 206–17, 220–7
144. Prins, ‘Hobbes on light and vision’, pp. 146–147.
145. Payne's transcript is in the Bodleian Library, University College MS 48, fos. 65–118
146. Lindberg, Bacon, p. lxxvii.
147. See Hobbes, Correspondence, 11, p. 872
148. Feingold, ‘Friend of Hobbes’, p. 266.
149. As Dr Malcolm pointed out in Hobbes, Correspondence, II, p. 874.
150. See, however, Pacchi, ‘Ruggero Bacone’
151. idem, ‘Una “biblioteca ideale”’
152. Prins, ‘Hobbes on light and vision’, pp. 147, 155 n. 93
153. Giudice, Luce e visione, pp. 18–20, 131–2, 142.
154. See, for example, Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, pp. 19, 32
155. Sir Charles Cavendish's lists of desiderata, BL Harl. MS 6083, fos. 18v, 78v
156. the latter's correspondence with John Pell, BL Add. MSS 4278–4280.
157. For Payne's departure, see Feingold, ‘Friend of Hobbes’, p. 276 n. 30
158. Hobbes, Correspondence, 11, p. 875. The question of when Hobbes came into possession of other documents by Payne is discussed in section IV, below.
159. Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’, p. 10
160. cf Galileo Galilei, ‘On motion’ and ‘on mechanics’, ed. and trans. I. E. Drabkin and Stillman Drake (Madison, 1960), p. 107: ‘experience again definitely confirms this’
161. Castelli, Demostrazioni geometriche, trans. Payne, BL Harl. MS 6796, fo. 311 r: ‘wch is manifestly false’
162. Payne to Warner, BL Add. MS 4458, fos. 26r-v: ‘agaynst all experience’.
163. Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’, pp. 10–11, 17.
164. ‘Le short tract’, pp. 17–18.
165. Cf. the parallel between Short tract, 3 Conc. 3 and Elements, ii. 8
166. Elements, p. 11.
167. Elements, pp. 13–15.
168. Elements, pp. 8–10, 12–13.
169. Elements, pp. 15–18.
170. Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, p. 29.
171. Elements, ed. Tönnies, p. xv.
172. Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, p. 33.
173. Correspondence, 11, p. 873.
174. Jean Jacquot, ‘Un document inédit: les notes de Charles Cavendish sur la première version du “De corpore” de Hobbes’, Thales, 8 (1952), pp. 33–86.
175. Pacchi, Introduzione a Hobbes, pp. 16–17.
176. ‘Le short tract’, p. 6
177. Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, p. 28
178. Halliwell, Collection, p. 67
179. For a general account of their activities, see Raylor, ‘Newcastle's ghosts’
180. Lisa T. Sarasohn, ‘Thomas Hobbes and the duke of Newcastle: a study in the mutuality of patronage before the establishment of the royal society’, Isis, 90 (1999), pp. 715–737.
181. Chatsworth, Hobbes, MS C. vii. 4.
182. Hobbes, Correspondence, 1, p. 174.
183. Chatsworth, Hobbes, MSS B. 5; C. i. 9; E. 1, 2.
184. Tuck,‘Hobbes and Descartes’, pp. 18–20.
185. BL Harl. MS 6796, fo. 193v
186. ‘Thomas Hobbes: Tractatus Opticus’, ed. Franco Alessio, Rivista Critica di Storia della Filosofia, 18 (1963),pp. 147–228 (148)
187. Short tract, 1 Prin. 10. Cf. Brandt, Hobbes' mechanical conception, pp. 102, 122
188. Schuhmann, ‘Le short tract’, p. 8.
189. BL Harl. MS 6796, fo. 193r
190. ‘Tractatus Opticus’, ed. Alessi, p. 147
191. Tuck, ‘Optics and sceptics’, p. 253
192. Brandt, Hobbes' mechanical conception, pp. 191–193.
193. Brandt, Hobbes' mechanical conception, p. 124.
194. This misreading originated with Tönnies's edition of the Short tract (Elements, p. 201).
195. The correct reading was conjectured by Brandt, despite the fact that he had not consulted the manuscript at the time of writing (Hobbes' mechanical conception, p. 28).