Jacoby on Hobbes

In his talk on "Thomas Hobbes and the Seventeenth Century," at a meeting of the Political Science Society on July 19, Dr. Jacoby stressed the close link between Hobbes' political theory and the intellectual interests of the age and the society to which he belonged. His times were dominated by two groups of movements: those under "the shadow of war"—the religious struggles, the sweeping nationalisms, and the beginnings of colonial empires; and those which made Hobbes' age the "century of genius." His political thought reflects the longing for peace and security, and is at the same time an attempt to construct a pure theory in politics. In the centre of the theory stands the covenant theorem, which the lecturer discussed in some detail. Its theoretical character can best be compared with the construction of a sphere by revolving a semi-circle around its diameter. This conceptual scheme is difficult to disentangle, because the "Leviathan" was at the same time a political pamphlet, by which Hobbes took part in the struggles between Churches and State. Of lasting interest, however, remains the political theory which can easily be understood as the outcome of the new scientific spirit of the seventeenth century.

While Dr. Jacoby sounded a note of warning against accepting uncritically the smoothed-out accounts of the usual run of text-books, he referred many of his statements to the work of A. N. Whitehead and G. N. Clark on the seventeenth century and of M. Oakeshot in his introduction to the Blackwell edition of the "Leviathan."