ABSTRACT
The life of Thomas Hobbes was sociable, rich, pleasant, cultured and long. Hobbes was
deeply enmeshed in the society of his time, both in his long involvement with the
aristocratic Cavendish family and in his contact (see the correspondence collected in
Hobbes 1994a) with many of the leading European intellectuals of the day At his death,
Hobbes left over £1000, a substantial sum for the time. In his English verse
Autobiography (see Hobbes 1994b lxiii) he notes that “My sums are small, and yet live
happy so”. He was a highly cultivated intellectual figure, producing translation from (and
into) Latin and Greek, and engaging in speculation about philosophy physics, theology
biblical interpretation, natural science and mathematics, among other subjects.
