“John Locke As a Reader of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan: A New Manuscript”, 2021-06 ():
The following article provides important new evidence of John Locke’s interest in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651373ya). The evidence derives from the collection of manuscripts amassed by the historian Thomas Birch (1705–66), the author of The History of the Royal Society of London (1756–57). Within this collection are several documents in the hand of Pierre Des Maizeaux (1672352ya/3–1745), the Huguenot journalist and biographer. In 1718–19, Des Maizeaux set about compiling A Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. John Locke, a posthumous edition of lesser-known works and manuscripts by Locke, edited with the guidance of Anthony Collins (1676–531729295ya).
In preparing the volume, Des Maizeaux interviewed one of Locke’s friends, whose recollections he recorded in an anonymized memoir, in French. The article reveals that the anonymous friend was James Tyrrell (1642–771719305ya), one of Locke’s closest acquaintances. Tyrrell’s claim that Locke “almost always” had Hobbes’s Leviathan on his table in Oxford, ca. 1658–67, is one of several in the memoir that revise our understanding of Locke’s intellectual formation and the history of one of his best-known friendships.
The article contextualizes and translates the memoir and revisits the debate surrounding Peter Laslett’s relegation of Hobbes’s influence to the development Locke’s political thought.
The pair met in Oxford in 1658 and corresponded for most of their lives. Locke stayed in Tyrrell’s home for several weeks, and Tyrrell took care of many of Locke’s possessions 1683–61689335ya when the philosopher was exiled to the Netherlands.
The memoir opens with a reminiscence about Locke’s time at Oxford where, according to Tyrrell, Locke “did not study at all; he was lazy and nonchalant, and he amused himself with trifling works of wit”. Locke is remembered as a man who “prided himself on being original, and he scorned that which he was unable to pass off as his own”.
“This inclination often made him reel off, with great ceremony, some very common claims, and recite, pompously, some very trivial maxims”, Tyrrell tells Des Maizeaux. “Being full of the good opinion that he had of himself, he esteemed only his own works, and the people who praised him.”
Waldmann believes Des Maizeaux did not publish Tyrrell’s reminiscences because his edition of Locke’s works set out to celebrate the philosopher. “I imagine he was rather shocked to hear these things about Locke’s personal character and understandably just left it all out”, he said.
Tyrrell also claims that one of Locke’s books was “a copy of another which he claimed never to have read”, even though Locke had been “incited” to buy the book years before. Waldmann described this accusation as “a bit strong”.
“But what’s interesting is the fact that Tyrrell, who we regarded as Locke’s closest friend, is prepared to call him a plagiarist; that he thinks Locke’s success is a product of intellectual laziness”, he said.
But the Cambridge academic says the most important revelation is Tyrrell’s revelation that Locke had read Hobbes’s Leviathan.
“It’s by far the most notorious work of philosophy published in the 17th century—[it was] absolutely heretical and Hobbes was looked upon with extraordinary suspicion”, said Waldmann. “Locke spends decades denying that he was familiar with Hobbes in any way, shape or form. He never cites Leviathan in any of his published works, never refers to him in his letters, thousands of which survive, so he’s gone out of his way to avoid any association.”
But Tyrrell claims to Des Maizeaux that Locke “almost always had the Leviathan by H on his table, and he recommended the reading of it to his friends”, even though he “later affected to deny, in the future, that he had ever read it”.
“The idea that Locke had no interest in his greatest predecessor has been greatly debated”, said Waldmann. “There are no mysteries comparable to Locke being placed in dialogue with Hobbes, and here is Locke’s closest friend saying he had Leviathan almost always on his table.”
Tyrrell goes on to damn Locke in many ways, both major—“he was avaricious, vain, envious, and reserved to excess”; “he took from others whatever he was able to take, and he profited from them”—and minor: Locke was reportedly so timid that “often, at night, the noise of a mouse made him get up and call out for his host.”