THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
1800, ii. 1-20. ib. 1887; J. H. Overton, The Church in England, ii. 203, 217-218, 227-229. ib. 1897; idem and F. Relton, The English Church 1714-1800, pp. 14-1S et passim, ib. 1906; DNB, xxvii. 16-21.
HOBART, ALV AH SABIN: Baptist; b. at Whitby, Ontario, Mar. 7, 1S47 He was graduated at Colgate (then Madison) University in 1873 and Hamilton Theological Seminary in 1S75. He has held pastorates at Morris, N. Y. (1874-78), Mount Auburn, Cincinnati (1878-85), First Baptist Church, Toledo, O. (1885-88), and Warburton Avenue Church, Yonkers, N. Y. (1888-1900). Since 1900 he has been professor of the English New Testament at Crozer Theological Seminary, Chester, Pa. He was chairman of the Board of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society in 1897-99, and has been the recording secretary since 1890. He has written Life of Alvah Sabin (Cincinnati, 1885); Those Old- Fashioned Christians (Philadelphia, 1895); Gifts of the Spirit (Chicago, 1898) ; and Our Silent Partner (New York, 1908). In theology he ranks as a semiconservative.
HOBART, JOHN HENRY: Protestant Episcopal bishop of New York; b. in Philadelphia Sept. 14, 1775; d. at Auburn, N. Y., Sept. 12, 1830. He studied at Princeton (B.A., 1793) and was tutor there 1795-98, when he was admitted to holy orders. After having served parishes in Philadelphia, New Brunswick, N. J., and Hempstead, L. I., he became an assistant at Trinity Church, New York, in 1800. He was elected assistant bishop of New York in 1811, and bishop of New York and rector of Trinity in 1816. In 1S21 he was appointed to the chair of pastoral theology and pulpit eloquence in the General Theological Seminary, New York, an institution that had been founded largely through his exertions. He also organized at Geneva, N. Y., an Episcopal college, which in 1860 changed its name to Hobart College. He was an eminently successful leader and organizer in his Church, a zealous advocate of episcopal ordination, and the author, or compiler, of a number of books that attained a wide circulation and contributed in a marked degree to the rapid growth of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America during the first half of the nineteenth century. His more important works are: A Companion for the Altar (New York, 1804); Festivals and Fasts (1804); Essays on Episcopacy (1806); The Clergyman's Companion (1806); An Apology for Apostolic Order (1807); The Christian's Manual (1814); and Sermons on Redemption (2 vols.,
New York and London, 1S24). His Posthumous Works were edited, with a Memoir, by W. Berrian (3 vols., New York, 1833).
Bibliography: J. F. Schroeder, Memoir of Bishop Hobart, New York, 1833; J. MacVickar, Early Years of the Late Bishop Hobart, ib. 1834; W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, v. 440-453, ib. 1859; Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, ed. J. G. Wilson and J. Fiske, iii. 221-222, ib. 1898; W. S. Perry, The Episcopate in America, pp. 25-27, ib. 1895.
HOBBES, hebz, THOMAS: English philosopher; b. at Malmesbury, Wiltshire, Apr. 5, 1588; d. at Hardwick Hall (17 m. n.n.e. of Derby), Derbyshire, Dec. 4, 1679. He was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford (B.A., 160S), and upon his graduation was recommended to William Cavendish, afterward first
earl of Devonshire, as tutor for his eldest son. This was the beginning of a lifelong intimacy with the Cavendishes. After the death of the second earl his pupil and patron, he became tutor to the third earl of Devonshire, who in turn became his friend and patron. In his capacity as tutor Hobbes traveled extensively in Europe, meeting many distinguished people and forming friendships with Galileo, Mersenne, Gassendi, and others. In London he met Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, John Selden, and William Harvev. At the beginning of the Long Parliament in 1640 Hobbes fled to Paris, where in 1646 he became mathematical tutor to the prince of Wales, afterward Charles II. His position in Paris having become difficult by reason of suspicions as to his orthodoxy, he returned to England in 1651, submitted to the new government, resumed his position in the household of his patron, and set about finishing his philosophical system. At the Restoration he received a pension of £100 from Charles II. He now engaged in several controversies, both religious and scientific. He attributed his exclusion from the founders of the Royal Society to the malignity of his opponents. In his later years he busied himself by translating Homer and writing in Latin verse his autobiography and an ecclesiastical history.
In epistemology and psychology Hobbes was a sensualist, in metaphysics almost a materialist, and in ethics a hedonist. The only source of knowledge, he maintains, is sensation, the only objects of knowledge are bodies, either natural or political, and the only end of action is self-interest. He regarded motion as the ultimate fact of existence, and self-love as the fundamental law of nature. His political philosophy, his greatest achievement, is based upon these general views. The State, as he argued in his best known work, Leviathan, is a contrivance for putting an end to the war of all against all, in the interest of the pursuit of happiness. That there may be no disturbing dissensions, the power of the sovereign must be absolute. This power is merely delegated to him, and is in no sense original or divine. Against Grotius, Hobbes maintained that the social compact is not between the sovereign and his subjects, but between the subjects to obey the sovereign. This absolutism gives rise to the distinctions of good and bad. Whatever the sovereign commands is good, whatever he forbids is bad. Hobbes proposed to remove the evils of sectarian animosity by completely subordinating the ecclesiastical to the secular authority, thus making religion dependent upon the whim of the absolute ruler. In 1666 his views were condemned by the House of Commons, and thereafter he was not permitted to publish anything relating to human conduct.
On account of his rationalistic treatment of religious doctrine Hobbes might well be called the second deist, just as Herbert of Cherbury has been called the first (see Deism). In his day he produced an intellectual ferment comparable only to that produced by Darwinism; and even till the middle of the eighteenth century Hobbism remained a term of reproach. Among his assailants were John Bramhall, Thomas Tenison, John Eachard, Ralph