The  most  celebrated  work  of  this  great  thinker  was  the  Leviathan  (pub-
lished in  1651),  an  argument  in  favor  of  monarchical  government :  the
reasonings,  however,  will  apply  with  equal  force  to  the  justification  of
despotism.  But  though  the  Leviathan  is  the  best  known  of  his  works,
the  Treatise  on  Human  Nature,  and  the  Letter  on  Liberty  and  Neces-
sity, are  incontestably  those  in  which  the  .closeness  of  his  logic  and  the
purity  and  clearness  of  his  style  are  most  visible,  and  the  correctness  -
of  his  deductions  least  mingled  with  error.  Two  purely  political  trea-
tises, the  Elementa  Philosophica  de  Cive,  and  De  Carfare  Politico,*
are  remarkable  for  the  cogency  of  the  arguments,  though  many  of  the
results'  at  which  the  author  struggles  to  arrive  are  now  no  longer  con-
sidered deducible  from  the  premises.  In  the  latter  portion  of  his  life,
Hobbes  entered  with  great  ardor  upon  the  study  of  pure  mathematics,
and  engaged  in  very  vehement  controversies  with  Wallis  and  others
respecting  the  quadrature  of  the  circle  and  other  questions  in  which
novices  in  those  sciences  are  apt  to  be  led  away  by  the  enthusiasm  of
imaginary  discoveries.  Hobbes  has  often  been  erroneously  confounded
.with  the  enemies  of  religion.  This  has  arisen  from  a  misconception
of  the  nature  of  his  doctrines,  which,  in  apparently  lowering  the  moral
faculties  of  man,  have  seemed  to  exhibit  a  tendency  to  materialism,
though  in  reality  nothing  can  be  more  opposed  to  tlie  character  of
Hobbes's  philosophical  views ;  for  the  selfish  theory  of  human  actions^
when  divested  of  tliose  limitations  which  confine  the  motive  of  self  to
those  low  and  short-sighted  views  of  interest  with  which  it  is  generally
associated,  no  more  necessitates  a  materialistic  line  of  argument  than
any  other  system  for  clearing  up  the  mysteries  of  our  moral  nature.f

*  These  two  treatises  were  puUished  before  the  Lmaihan,  and  were  incor-
porated in  the  latter  work.
