Jendrysik, “Land or Sea Beast”
MPSA 2004
11
place of it, that have nothing in them that can be beneficial to the public, except
their silence?
72
Such ambitious men, trained in the universities, are seduced by “their own wits” into believing
“that they want any ability requisite for the government of a commonwealth.” As Hobbes also
noted in Leviathan such men have taken the “the sententious politics of the Greeks and Romans”
which preached hatred of kings, and made it their own.
73
As in Leviathan “the Universities have
been to this nation, as the wooden horse was to the Trojans.”
74
They smuggle (and the word is
not far from catching Hobbes’s meaning) false ideas about equality and democracy into the
minds of impressionable students. This leads directly to a mistaken belief that subjects have a
right of free speech. This false understanding leads to a demand for free speech and free
conscience in not only political but religious matters as well.
75
For Hobbes Englishmen have become lovers of democracy, in both church and state.
They have been lead to a sinful and mistaken pride in the ability of the average man to
understand the mysteries of religion and politics. The Reformation has freed men from the
domination of the Pope only to make them overly confident in their own abilities and rights.
Where has this mistaken understanding come from? Private and unauthorized (by proper
authority) religious views have been made possible by the translation of the Bible into English.
As noted above once the Bible was in English every man thought they spoke with God and
understood His demands. This undermined religious and political authority. “And so the
reverence and obedience due to the Reformed Church here, and to the bishops and pastors
therein, was cast off; and every man became a judge of religion, and an interpreter of the
Scriptures to himself.”
76
Or to put the matter more bluntly every man saw himself as a judge in
his own case, the very definition of anarchy. As in Leviathan private conscience is cause of civil
war.
77
As Hobbes notes, given the circumstances, “how we can have peace when this is our
religion, I cannot tell.”
Greed and no higher goals also motivated those opposed to the king. “Hobbes’s account
of the Hampden affair assumes that most people are relatively indifferent to the monetary cost of
taxation. The raucous to-do about ship-money arose… from ideologically induced hysteria –
from the assumption that extraparliamentary taxation was tyranny.”
78
Once more people were
lead astray from their allegiance by clever speakers and hypocritical and conspiratorial
politicians and their allies, the money grubbing merchants of the great cities.
72
Behemoth, 172.
73
Behemoth, 23. See also 158.
74
Behemoth, 40. Also see Behemoth 56. If in Leviathan they teach “the darkness of vain philosophy,” in
Behemoth they teach the “babblings of Aristotle.” In Behemoth they also corrupt the youth through vice, 147-8. Isn’t
it amazing how simultaneously useless and powerful universities have been throughout history?
75
Behemoth, 16.
76
Behemoth, 21-22. It is interesting to note that Hobbes, for all his hostility to the Catholic Church, clearly
admires its policy of keeping the Scriptures out of the hands of the laity. See Behemoth, 13-15 for Hobbes’s analysis
of the power of the Catholic Church. See Behemoth, 90 for Hobbes’s suggestion that now that the power of the Pope
has been broken in England the learning of Greek, Latin and Hebrew can be dispensed with.
77
Behemoth, 25.
78
Holmes, “Political Psychology,” 128. See Behemoth, 36-37. The “Hampden Affair” revolved around the
question of whether or not the King could levy taxes without the consent of Parliament. In this case the issue was
whether the King could levy so-called “ship money” or taxes ostensibly for the building of naval vessels. However,
Parliament did not trust the King (with good reason) to limit the expenditure of taxes collected to that narrow
purpose. Parliament also feared the establishment of a precedent in the King’s favor.
Convention