Theological Origins of Modernity

hobbes’ fearful wisdom 215
Italy, he may have heard or met Paolo Sarpi, the nominalist and materialist
whom David Woott0n has called the only admitted atheist of his age. 20
During this trip, Hobbes became more interested in Roman historical
writing. According to Aubrey, he bought Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars, and
he read Tacitus’s account of the Cataline conspiracy, which was the topic of
another early essay. He showed some admiration for Brutus and Cassius,
but he had little sympathy for democracy and republicanism and continued
to stress the importance of the sovereign’s monopoly of force and the
dangers of anarchy and civil war.
During this period he also became acquainted with the work of Bacon
and came into contact with the Lord Chancellor, perhaps as early as 1615
but no later than 1620, when he served briefl y as Bacon’s amanuensis and
translated some of his essays into Latin. 21 Th e extent of Bacon’s infl uence
on Hobbes is much debated. Most believe it was minimal since Hobbes
did not like Bacon personally and rejected his empiricism and inductive
method. 22 However, there are reasons to doubt this conclusion. First, Aubrey
tells us that Bacon liked Hobbes best of all his secretaries because
he understood what Bacon was talking about. Hobbes must have entered
deeply into Bacon’s thought to have so impressed the astute Lord Chancellor.
Also, like Bacon he was a nominalist, and he adopted Bacon’s notion
that science must be practical rather than theoretical. He also shared
Bacon’s core notion that knowledge is power. All this suggests that Bacon
was more important for Hobbes than is generally assumed. Moreover, a
recent discovery further supports this view. In their investigation of the
authorship of Bacon’s works, Noel Reynolds and John Hilton found that in
all likelihood a major portion of the New Atlantis was identifi ably Hobbesian.
23 Th ey do not suggest that Hobbes was the author of this work, which
was found among Bacon’s papers, but they do believe he played some substantial
role in its composition. Bacon oft en had his secretaries write up
his ideas. How great a role they played probably depended a great deal on
their ability. It is at least fair to say that this stylistic analysis demonstrates
that Hobbes was thoroughly familiar with this work and thus with Bacon’s
idea of the scientifi c transformation of society. Can we doubt that he was
infl uenced by this notion?
Bacon’s impact is oft en discounted because it does not seem to have
defl ected Hobbes from his humanistic concern with history and poetry.
Indeed, the fi rst work published in his own name, an edition of Th ucydides,
was a model of humanistic scholarship. However, Hobbes’ interest
in Th ucydides was unusual for a humanist. Th ucydides was perceived by
the humanists to be a critic of republicanism. Th e similarity of Hobbes’