ABSTRACT

NoteveryonewasaspessimisticabouteitherhumannatureorthemidcenturypoliticalsituationaswasHobbes.Millenarians,ofwhomthere werenoshortageinthisturbulentperiod,sawthecollapseoftheexisting socialorderasapreludetothesecondcoming,wherefallenhumannature,

would finally be redeemed. For Levellers and Diggers, the same event held out the possibility of a

new social order with expanded powers for the individual vis-a-vis institutional authority. In the case of the Ranters, these powers were to be more or less unlimited and subject to no official curb. Abiezer Coppe's writings give us some notion of what to expect in this latter regard, with their threats to 'overturn, overturn, overturn' all established authority in a ruthless levelling exercise.4 Hobbes' ideas about human nature struck a chord nevertheless, and continued to influence thought well into the eighteenth century (in some respects right through to the present day), even if later seventeenth-century monarchists were more likely to draw on Sir Robert Filmer's theories for inspiration than those of Hobbes - a topic we shall explore in more detail in chapter 5. Henry Fielding's jaundiced vision of human nature, as well as his prescriptions as to what to do about it to make social life tolerable, owe at least something to Hobbes and the notion of the appetite-driven, essentially self-seeking individual (aversion being the other defining trait to note of this figure). It is also worth pointing out that some commentators see more of Hobbes' ideas in the practice of the Restoration regime than that regime is prepared to admit openly. This is despite the later popularity of Filmer in monarchical circles in the 1680s, and the fact that Charles II refused permission for Hobbes' late work Behemoth (a diatribe against the Long Parliament) to be published for fear it would stir up yet more unwelcome controversy. Catherine Gimelli Martin, for example, has argued that, under the Restoration regime, 'the Anglican clergy adopted an essentially Hobbesian position' when it came to the relation of church and state.5 Samuel I. Mintz has noted the impact of Hobbes' ideas on the 'libertines' of the Restoration period, although he also maintains that such figures generally misinterpreted what their supposed mentor was saying, in order, as Hobbes' contemporary critic John Eachard put it, to 'furnish themselves with some of your little slender Philosophical pretences to be wicked'. 6 Mintz may conclude that 'Hobbes' influence on his countrymen during his own lifetime and for almost a century after was negative', but that influence can be detected none the less.7