James Harrington and Thomas Hobbes

Author(s): James Cotton

Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1981), pp. 407-421
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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 JAMES HARRINGTON AND
THOMAS HOBBES

BY JAMES COTTON

As Felix Raab has pointed out, the relation between Hobbes and
Harrington,which is of the greatest significancefor an understanding
of the latter's thought, is not without the color of paradox. Whereas
Harringtonlauds Hobbes as a great innovator and inspiration, he
criticizes him as a destroyer of ancient prudence who foolishly
conflates many of the importantclassical political thinkers' distinc-
tions. Raabproposes to explainthis paradoxand to providethe key to
the interpretationof Harringtonby juxtaposing to Harrington'sargu-
ment the respective contributions of Machiavelli and Hobbes: the
first demonstratedthe importanceof historicalexperience and obser-
vation; the second, thoughrejectedfor his politics, gave the means to
"certainty."1 My argument here will be that Raab's view, whilst
incorrect, does identify some of the essential components for an
adequate understandingof Harrington. It will be necessary, there-
fore, to examine Raab's view in greater detail in order to identify
those components before an alternative assembly of them may be
offered.
Harrington'sobjectionsto Hobbes are objectionsto a supporterof
"absolute monarchy" who "sought to find the ultimateprinciplesof
politics outside the study of history."2 His praise of Hobbes's theory
is praise for those parts which Harringtonborrows. Here Raab iden-
tifies Hobbes's deterministor causal account of human conduct and
recognition that a worthwhile political doctrine must be demonstra-
tive, that is, it must begin from true principles and proceed logically
to certain results.3Raab seeks to show that the two latterborrowings
from Hobbes are related since Harringtonendeavoredto erect deduc-
tively a system of politics beginningfrom some simple propositions,
one of which was that "deliberation"and, consequently, the opera-
tions of man's will are necessitated. Hobbes's conclusion, by way of
deductive reasoning from other additional propositions concerning
human nature, was to show "the necessity for sovereignty"; Har-
rington, reasoning largely from comparativeand historical evidence,
came up with "the doctrineof the Balance of Property"which served
as a principle well suited to support his republicansentiments.
There are difficulties in Raab's argument. Aside from his in-
adequate characterizationof Hobbes's political doctrine,4 I cannot

1 F. Raab, The English Face of Machiavelli (London, 1964), 195-96.

2 Ibid., 192, 195. 3 Ibid., 197-98. 4 Ibid., 197.

407

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408 JAMES COTTON

agree with him that Harrington'stheory is "certain"by virtueof its in-

corporationof necessitarianor deterministviews of human conduct.
"Certainty" would be claimed for such a theory (if at all) only upon
the groundsthat it results from the application(to a coherent subject
matter) of a rigorous scientific method. However, "scientific
method" (or "scientific methods") is too precise a term to apply in
describing a theory that is not without its full quota of ambiguities.
But if we are to take Harrington'sreferences to his procedure seri-
ously as those of a practitionerof scientific "method," his method
actually was the "resolutive-compositive" method (some would call
it "analytic-synthetic") which Hobbes employed in his political
works and derived from his understandingof the method of geometry
and the revolution Galileo had wrought at Padua in the physical sci-
ences. As will be shown, the source for this method, however, was
not Hobbes but William Harvey, similarly a practitioner of the
Paduan method but upon the evidence he had discovered through
comparativeanatomy.
Hobbes looms largest in Harrington'spages as the destroyer of
"ancient prudence," as one who claims that politics is "no antienter
than his book de Cive" and thus would have his Leviathan "impos'd
upon the universitys" in place of the classical learning taught there
hitherto.5Although it is not true that the doctrine of Oceana is a
"point for point" refutation of Hobbes,6 Harrington's defense of
"ancient prudence" against Hobbes, if closely followed, reveals
many of the features he thought fundamentalto Hobbes's political
theory.
The political doctrine of Leviathan is destructive of ancient pru-
dence because it systematicallyconflates a numberof related distinc-
tions essential to classical political philosophy and to Harrington's
version of it. The first concerns the difference between the govern-
ment of "laws" and the governmentof "men"; the formeris, accord-
ing to Harrington,that "art whereby a civil society of men is insti-
tuted ... upon the foundationof common rightor interest," whereas
the latter is the "art whereby som man, or som few men, subject a
city or a nation, and rule it accordingto his or their privat interest."7
Hobbes's objection to this distinction, as understood and quoted by
Harrington,is that all rule proceeds from fear, that obligationis never
towards mere "Words, and Paper, without the Hands, and Swords of
men."8 Harringtonlikens this argumentto the proposition that an

5 The Oceana and other works

of James Harrington, ed. J. Toland (London,
1771), 35-36, 53.
6
Raab, 192. Here, Raab is referring to R. Koebner, "Oceana," Englische Stu-
dien, 68 (1933-34), 364. 7 Works, 35.
8
Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C. B. Macpherson (Harmondsworth, 1968), 699.

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 HARRINGTONAND HOBBES 409

army, if it is afraid of a cannon, fears not the "cold iron" but the
"gunner,"9 a not altogether convincing refutation but one which
leads to a somewhat more interesting argument. From Hobbes we
learn that covenants are "but words, and breath" having no power to
constrain a man without "the publique Sword."10Now, just as the
law is mere paper without the sword, so the sword is "cold iron"
without a hand to grasp it, and that hand according to Harringtonis
"the militiaof a nation," i.e., an army in the field or one that may be
made ready for war when the occasion demands:
But an army is a beast that has a great belly, and must be fed; wherforethis
will com to what pastures you have, and what pasturesyou have will com to
the balance of property, without which the public sword is but a name or
mere spitfrog.1l
In the case of the Turk, his power rests upon no agreement but
upon the existence of his "Timariots"as "tenants for life or at will."
When, however, the lands of the realm are held by an hereditary
nobility supportedby "tenants and retainers," Turkish monarchyis
impossible, for "the ox knows his master's crib; and it is impossible
for a king in such a constitutionto reign otherwise than by covenant;
or if he breaks it, it is words that com to blows."12 And Harrington
rejects Hobbes's claim that no government may be constituted and
limited, properly speaking, by a continuing agreement or covenant,
for he finds an example in the very case dismissed by Hobbes, that of
the Roman republic. Although Harrington tests the reader's
forbearance, he does seem to be saying that some governments rest
upon agreements(or perhapsfundamentallaws) and some do not, and
that there are examples of the former in history, so that it may be
argued that the grounds of government are not the same in every
case.l3 In addition, he is claiming that whether or not fundamental
laws or agreements may be kept depends upon the state of the "bal-
ance of property," so the grounds of government cannot be con-
sidered abstractly without regard to prevailing conditions and
understandings.
In defending the distinction between governments of "law" and
governments of "men" Harrington is engaging in a preliminary
skirmish intended to rescue an ancient understandingof political

9 Works, 36.
10Leviathan, 231 quoted in Works,38. Hobbes is here referredto in connection
with "his furious master CARNEADES," showing Harrington'sawareness of his
indebtednessto the Epicureantradition.
1 Works, 38-39. 12Ibid., 39-40.
13 Ibid., 39; cf. Leviathan, 231: "The reason ... be alike in a Monarchy [as]... in
a PopularGovernment."

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410 JAMES COTTON

regimes from what he would regard as Hobbesian terrorism. Ancient

typologies of government, in which governments dominated by "pas-
sion" (i.e., corrupt governments) are differentiated from govern-
ments conducted in the light of "reason," also receive some succor
from the argument,14but here too Harrington is merely following "the
antients," endeavoring to recover some of the subtlety of their politi-
cal teaching for his time. It is when we approach the distinction
between power and authority, the singular interpretation of which is
at the core of Harrington's theory, that it is possible to discern fully
the differences between Hobbes and Harrington.
Power (or "empire") rests upon "riches," and the principle of the
balance identifies the most important form of riches as holdings of
land. No political regime may be constituted without regard to such
considerations, for "men are hung upon these, not of choice ... but
of necessity and by the teeth-for as much as he who wants bread, is
his servant that will feed him." 15 Authority, by contrast, rests upon
"the goods of fortune," that is, such "natural or acquir'd virtues, as
wisdom, prudence and courage."16 Hobbes may correctly claim,
then, that "riches" are power, but he cannot similarly claim that
"prudence" or its reputation is power:
... for the learningor prudenceof a man is no more power than the learning
or prudence of a book or author, which is properly authority. A learned
writermay have authoritytho he has no power; and a foolish magistratmay
have power, tho he has otherwise no esteem or authority.17

Again, though with more originality, Harrington is seeking to dis-

tinguish the necessary features of government from the contingent.
"Riches" are of account in all governments, but few governments
can claim real authority because few are suffused, in their institutions
and practices, with virtue. Hobbes's claim that the greatness of an-
cient states rested upon "the emulation of particular men" is found to
be specious once this distinction has been understood:
as if so -greatan emulationcould have bin generatedwithout as great virtue;
so great virtue without the best education; and best education without the
best law; or the best laws any otherwise than by the excellency of their
polity. 18
A properly constituted commonwealth recognizes the demands of
the riches as well as the demands of virtue, and Harrington considers
his Oceana the only authentic representation of such a common-
wealth. Property is dispersed to guarantee the existence of an inde-

15
14 Ibid., 36. Ibid., 37. 16 Ibid., 36.
17 18
Ibid., 37; cf. Leviathan, 150. Ibid., 49; cf. Leviathan, 369.

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 HARRINGTON AND HOBBES 411

pendent citizenry (and militia), and aggregationsof property are lim-

ited to render impossible coalitions of great landowners against the
common interest. Greater weight is given to the opinions or judg-
ments of the best men who are also men of property, and frequent
"rotation" of political office counters any tendency to oligarchy. The
extent to which these features are found in existing or historicalstates
determines, for Harrington,the claims that can be made for them as
states where liberty or the common interest prevails. And no assess-
ment of states or politicalregimes may be attemptedwithoutregardto
these features, for assessment without consideration of them would
be merely in terms of characteristicscommon to all states.
It is to be emphasized that we have been following Harrington's
readingof Hobbes, a readingconsistent with Hobbes's contemporary
reputation and one which, on occasion, takes issue with the more
controversial and rhetorical of his claims. Having defended to his
own satisfactionhis understandingof "law," "reason," and "author-
ity," Harringtonproceeds to identify a number of confusions in the
Hobbesianposition. The mainthrustof his comments is that there are
fundamentaldifferences between governments, differences to be un-
derstood in terms of the internal constitution and characteristicsof
the state.19A "Commonwealth"is a particular form of government
or political regime, namely, one where "the hand of the magistratis
the executive power of the law" and, accordingly, "the head of the
magistrateis answerableto the people, that his execution be accord-
ing to the law."20 It is illegitimatethus for Hobbes to use the term
"commonwealth" to denote any civil association of men under any
form of political regime. And a monarchy,that form of governmentto
which "LEVIATHAN . . . gives the advantage;"21 can only be
understood as a political form which corresponds to two specific
property distributions, both of which may be impermanentand are
certainly unequal.
Hobbes's remarks on "liberty" and "liberty in the state" are
also criticallyreceived. Liberty in "the state of nature" is that condi-
tion of men-it is also the condition of war-in which each man has
"a full and absolute libertie"; "liberty" in the state, by contrast, is
that area of conduct concerningwhich the law is silent, since "every
common-wealth . . . has an absolute Libertie, to doe what it shall
judge ... most conducing to [the ] benefit" of every man. The much
vaunted liberty of the ancient Romans and Athenians was thus not
"the Libertie to resist their own Representative"but the "Libertie"
of their "Representative" to invade other nations. It is Harrington's

19Ibid., 36, 38-39. 20 Ibid., 46; cf. 54.

21
Ibid., 49.

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412 JAMES COTTON

judgmentthat such argumentpays no heed to the internalconstitution

of the state, for the liberty of the citizen or subject does indeed vary
from state to state, and this variancecan be explained in terms of that
internalconstitution.22
For Harrington,then, Hobbes's political science rests upon mere
abstraction,culminatingin the endeavor to "hang" a monarchy "by
geometry."23 And here Hobbes's criticism of the ancients can be
turned upon its head. Although Aristotle and Cicero claimed to be
writing about politics from "the Principles of Nature," in fact, ac-
cording to Hobbes, they were articulatingin theoretical form the
practice of their own popular states "as the Grammariansdescribe
the Rules of Languageout of the Practise of the time; or the Rules of
Poetry, out of the Poems of Homer and Virgil. 24 Harrington'sreply
is incisive:
which is as if a man should tell famous HERVY [Harvey], that he transcrib'd
his circulationof the blood not out of the principlesof nature, but out of the
anatomy of this or that body.25
Furthermore,Hobbes's sovereign, which may as well be an assembly
of men as an individualman, resembles nothing so much as "a par-
liament consisting of a single assembly elected by the people, and
invested with the whole power of the government, without any cov-
enants, conditions or orders whatsoever," that is, the government
of Oceana after the deposition of the king. Hobbes, then, can be said
to have "transcrib'dhis doctrin out of this assembly,"26and if this is
an extreme opinion, Harrington'scriticism would gain both temper-
ance and plausibilityif we understandhis suggestion to be that Hob-
bes's political doctrine, conflating as it seemed to Harringtondiffer-
ent forms of government, is a theoretical response to the emergence
of the modern European state. Harringtonmay be suggesting that a
work which masqueradesas a treatmentof governmentas such is, in
fact, concerned with a particularform or type of government, that
which prevails (be it republican or monarchical) in seventeenth-
century Europe.
Thus far, Hobbes and Harringtonhave been seen to hold diver-
gent views on many significant matters of politics. We now pass,
however, to the question of religion, a mattermuch discussed by both
writers and here, though they are in agreement to the extent that
Harringtonassumes the unlikely role of defender of Hobbes against
the criticismof learneddivines, their views diverge significantlywhen
seen in a wider theoretical context.

22 23 24
Ibid., 42-43; cf. Leviathan 266. Ibid., 65; cf. 553. Leviathan, 267.
25
Works, 36. 26Ibid., 70-71.

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 HARRINGTON AND HOBBES 413

In the second book of his Prerogative of Popular Government of

1657, Harringtondefends Hobbes's readingof Scripture(particularly
Acts 14.23)27against the criticism of Henry Hammond, an Anglican,
and the similaropinions of Lazarus Seaman, a Puritan,28for he is at
one with Hobbes in believing that church officers may only exercise
authorityby leave of their congregations,this being the originalprac-
tice of the early Church.29However, this identity of view is reachedin
the context of quite distinct conceptions of political authority,of the
connection between politics and religion, and of the role of God in
their respective systems.
The irony of Hobbes's apparentapprovalof congregationalismis
to be understoodin terms of its polemical intent. Puritanswere being
told that congregationalismwas consistent with a doctrine of political
and absolutist sovereignty, and purveyors of divine righttheory, who
were almost invariablyhigh Anglicans, were being instructed simul-
taneously that the original model of Church government was one
consistent with Hobbes's view of authority, and not with their own.
Authority, Hobbes maintains, may only be exercised by one duly
authorized, that is, by one whose subsequent acts are "owned" by
those thus represented.30But sovereign authorityin the civil associa-
tion may be exercised by only one office, not a multiplicityof offices,
and there can be no grounds,in particular,for distinguishingreligious
authority from the authority of the state. Not only would this be
inconsistent with any coherent view of sovereign authority,but most
rulers were then professing Christians, and no credence could be
placed in any claims to know God's special will directly by
revelation.31
Harrington'sview of authorityis complicatedby the fact that as a
political scientist he wants to affirmthat in differingregimes authority
takes differingforms. In the best regime, that described in Oceana,
sovereign authorityboth remains with "the people" and is vested in
the quasi-popularpolitical institutions and magistracies therein de-
scribed. In other words, all of Hobbes's argumentsupon the topic of
sovereignty had not influenced Harrington's doctrine at all. The
popularcharacterof primitiveChristianity(and of the republicsof the
classical world) was to Harringtona model and a guide in a twofold
sense. In matters of politics "ancient prudence" was the guide to
present action, not merely because this was the way to sound con-
stitutional engineering but because no ready distinction was to be

27
Ibid., 340; cf. Leviathan, 558-60.
28
H. Hammond, A Letter of Resolution to Six Quaeres (London, 1653); L. Sea-
man, The Diatribe Proved to be Paradiatribe (London, 1647).
29
J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton, 1975), 397-99.
30
Leviathan, 218 31
Ibid., 527, 410-11.

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414 JAMES COTTON

observed in that body of thought between spiritual and temporal con-

cerns. Whereas Hobbes's religion is the religion of the private man,
Harrington's is a civic, public religion with its officials and cere-
monies scarcely distinguishable from their political counterparts.32
This difference of view is even more manifest if we examine
briefly the place of God in their systems of thought. Human prudence
and divine prudence are equally part of a world which, in Har-
rington's view, is indubitably God-ordained. The second marks an
immediate intervention in the world by God; the first is no less the
product of God's hand for being derived more remotely from the
same source. Alterations in the state of the "balance of property"
which are fundamental to Harrington's political science may be
attributed ultimately to God's design. This is also manifest in the
work of the legislator who endeavors, by uniting "the principles of
authority" with "the goods of fortune," to emulate "the work of
God."33 Where the balance changes by "civil vicissitude" God's par-
ticipation is no less evident:
When a balance cors so thro civil vicissitude to be chang'd, .. . the change
... is more peculiarlyto be ascrib'd to the hand of God; and so when there
happens to be an irresistiblechange of the balance, not the old government
which God has repeal'd, but the new governmentwhich he dictates as pres-
ent legislator, is of divine right.34
In arguing for a popular, public, civic religion, Harrington is also
arguing against those who would support their monarchic politics by
appealing to the allegedly monarchic character of religion. Ordination
is a mere substitute for election, as it was anciently with the Jews, and
it came to be the dominant practice in Christianity only after the
decay of the primitive popular church. It is a principle in keeping with
"the Gothic model"35 but one which has little in common with the
popular features of "ancient prudence":
Laws ecclesiastical, or such as concern religion, accordingto the universal
course of antient prudence, are in the power of the magistrat;but according
to the common practice of moder prudence, since the papacy, torn out of
his hands.36
The contrast with Hobbes is profound. Whilst Laws of Nature
may well be God's will (though here Hobbes is equivocal), what
renders them obligatory norms of conduct is their embodiment in duly
enacted civil law. The certain basis of Hobbes's politics lies in human
activity: that this activity is sanctioned or even caused by God is a
32
Works, 55. 33
Ibid., 41.
34
Works, 270. Harrington's references to God manifest a consistent argument: cf.
Works, 41, 44, 46, 49, 248, 356-57.
35
Works, 354. 36 Ibid., 54.

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 HARRINGTONAND HOBBES 415

possibility entertained by Hobbes's system, though only in the sense

that God is a first mover or first cause of whom nothing more can be
positively known.37 Human action is central also to Harrington, but
as a product and manifestation of God's Providential design for the
world. This contrast is sufficiently apparent in the views of the two
authors on religion: it is directly encountered when we pass to a
consideration of the notion of "human nature" in Hobbes and Har-
rington where, as is the case with religion, Harrington borrows, but in
a decidedly selective fashion, from the author of Leviathan.
To consider Harrington's indebtedness to Hobbes in his discus-
sion of human nature is to return, in part, to our starting place, since
Felix Raab has identified the former's determinist or causal view of
human nature as a mark of Hobbes's influence upon our subject. It
will be the argument here that, despite Harrington's extravagant
praise of Hobbes's doctrine of human nature, in borrowing elements
of this doctrine he has altered its fundamental orientation.
According to Harrington, there is a "whole philosophy of the soul
which concerns policy . . . throout the commonwealth of Oceana
demonstrated . . . [and the] . . . main of this philosophy consists in
deposing passion, and advancing reason to the throne of empire." 38
This philosophy of the soul plays a most important role in Har-
rington's thought: on the one hand, it advances the claims of the
government of laws over the government of men39; on the other, it
legitimizes the preeminent position of the wise in God's order and the
constitutional reflection thereof, the notion of a popular government
tempered by a Senate of the wise.40 In Oceana the idea is expressed
as follows:
THE soul of man (whose life or motion is perpetual contemplationor
thought) is the mistress of two potent rivals, the one reason, the other
passion, that are in continualsuit; accordingas she gives up her will to these
or either of them, is the felicity or misery which man partakesin this mortal
life.
FOR as whatever was passion in the contemplation of a man, being
brought forth by his will into action is vice and the bondage of sin; so
whatever was reason in the contemplationof a man, being broughtforth by
his will into action, is virtue and the freedom of soul.41
Now it is important to understand the relation between reason and
passion in this sketch of the mental life. By adhering to the dictates of
reason not only are men virtuous but they come to glimpse that
"common interest" of mankind which is "common right."42 And

37Leviathan, 167, cf. 411 ff. 38

Works, 235.
39 Ibid., 42-43. 40 Ibid., 236-37.
41
Ibid., 42. 42
Ibid., 43.

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416 JAMES COTTON

here reason is seen literally to "dictate" since Harrington rejects any

notion of freedom of the will:
... as is admirably observ'd by Mr. HOBBS, the freedom of that which
naturally precedes will, namely, deliberation or debate, in which, as the
scale by the weight of reason or passion coms to be turn'done way or other,
the will is caus'd, and being caus'd is necessitated.43

Further, the combat of these "potent rivals," reason and passion, is

not a random business, not only because one represents the way of
virtue, the other, vice, but because God has created a natural aristoc-
racy amongst men to persuade them to the better way.44 Men have "a
positive obligation" to harken to the voice of reason, and when they
do they act in accordance with God's design.45 Harrington's fondness
for mechanical metaphor, noted by some commentators, should not
be considered apart from its philosophical basis.46
How does this compare with Hobbes? It is worth noting that
Harrington records his debt, not to Hobbes's scientific method but
specifically to those works which deal with human nature:
... in most other things [apartfrom "the politics"] I firmlybelieve that Mr.
HOBBS is and will in futureages be accountedthe best writer, at this day, in
the world. And for his treatises of humannature, and of liberty and neces-
sity, they are the greatestof new lights, and those which I have follow'd, and
shall follow.47
If we turn then to Of Liberty and Necessity, we find in Hobbes's view
that, with respect to any contemplated action, the mind is host to an
"alternate succession of contrary appetites, the last ... [being] that
which we call the WILL.. ..48 Deliberation is to be understood as this
succession of appetites, and that appetite which prevails is deter-

43Ibid., 241; cf. Hobbes, Of Liberty and Necessity, English Works, ed. R.
Molesworth (London, 1840), IV, 274.
44
Ibid., 241. Here, Harrington likens the role of the Senate in a popular Com-
monwealth to that of God for the Israelites; cf. also 236-37. 45Ibid., 44.
46 On the
reason-passion antinomy in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thought,
cf. Basil Willey, The English Moralists (London, 1965), Chaps. VII-XI: Anthony Levi,
French Moralists: The Theory of the Passions 1585 to 1649 (Oxford, 1964), esp. 7-39,
301. On the mechanical metaphor in Harrington, cf. J. A. Wettergreen, Chiron and
Leviathan: James Harrington's Political Teaching (Unpublished Ph.D.: Claremont
College, 1971).
47
Works, 241. Harrington refers on many occasions to Leviathan, but of this
work he is generally critical (with the exception of borrowings on the subject of
ordination). In addition, he quotes on one occasion (Works, 551) from De Corpore
Politico but reserves most of his praise for Hobbes's Human Nature (1650) and Of
Liberty and Necessity (1654).
48
Hobbes, English Works, IV, 273.

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 HARRINGTONAND HOBBES 417

mined from without by the nature of the object to which one is at-
tracted or from which one is repelled.49
Now Hobbes's necessitarian view of the will differs from that of
Harringtonin a number of most significant respects. Appetite, for
Hobbes, is one of the passions, and antecedentto action is the play in
the mind of the various appetites and such other passions as fear and
hope. Which passion will prevail is determinedby the nature of the
external object which is the cause of this play of the passions. With
Harrington,by contrast, the play or conflict is between reason and
passion, reason being an active combatantin Harrington'spicture of
the mental life, whereas in Hobbes it is a mere passive counsellor to
the passions, the source of those maxims, the Laws of Nature, which
are adhered to in conduct only if the passions so direct. Moreover,
the conflict between reason and passion is a moral conflict for Har-
rington,a contest between common rightand the voice of God, on the
one hand, and self or partiality, on the other. We are to approve,
then, a particularoutcome of this conflict, the triumph of reason,
whilst in Hobbes's doctrine which passion prevails, at least in the
state of nature, is a matter of moral indifference,50though a shrewd
judge of the humanconditions might predict that "the Passion to be
reckoned upon is Fear."51
These differences have profoundconsequences for the respective
political doctrines of our two authors. Harrington'sperfect common-
wealth is clearly founded upon reason in the twofold sense that the
citizens of Oceana must acknowledgethe claims of reason for it to be
realized, and that, Harrington's constitution having been erected,
men preeminent in their possession of the reasoning faculty shall
temper and direct populardebate.52The natureof Hobbes's doctrine
is, to say the least, ambiguous. The naturalistic interpretationof
Hobbes's theory of political obligation53would see that doctrine
foundedupon the passions and man's prudentialreactionto his condi-
tion; other interpretationswould detect more ambiguity,and perhaps
profundity, in his argument.54Without entering into the various de-

49Ibid., 274, cf. The Elements of Law, ed. F. Toennies, 2nd ed. (London, 1969),
61 ff.
50 Leviathan, 187. 51 Ibid., 200.
52 Here it should be noted that
Harrington endeavors to equate "reason" and
"interest" in his perfect commonwealth; cf. J. A. W. Gunn, Politics and the Public
Interest in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1969), 109-52.
53 On the "naturalistic"
interpretation of Hobbes: J. Kemp, Ethical Naturalism
(London, 1970), 3-28; cf. R. S. Peters, Hobbes (Harmondsworth, 1956), 150-77; J. W.
N. Watkins, Hobbes's System of Ideas, 2nd ed. (London, 1973).
54 M.
Oakeshott, Hobbes on Civil Association, (Oxford, 1975); H. Warrender,
The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Oxford, 1957). For Hobbes's ambiguities, see J.
P. Plamenatz, Man and Society, (London, 1963), I, 116-54.

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418 JAMES COTTON

bates on the interpretationof Hobbes, for present purposes the con-

trast to be drawnis between Harrington'spolitical science (avowedly
founded in reason and God's intentions for man) and the political
doctrine of Hobbes which places much greater emphasis upon the
passions and is, on the most sympathetic reading, equivocal on the
question of God's sanction for those passions. Harrington's di-
vergence from Hobbes, then, on the matter of humannature may be
pursued into his political teaching.
In the case of human nature it has been determined that Har-
rington's borrowingsfrom Hobbes are some distance from the spirit
of the original. Turningnow to a considerationof scientific method,
the second borrowingfrom Hobbes identifiedby Felix Raab as giving
Harringtonthe means to certaintyin his argumentation,I purpose to
examine afresh its sources and role in Harrington'sthought.
Harrington, in his Politicaster, quotes Hobbes's Elements of
Philosophy . . . concerning Body in the course of a defense (against
Matthew Wren)of his notion of "demonstration."Hobbes's claim is
that "all true ratiocination,which taketh its beginningfrom true prin-
ciples, produceth science, and is true demonstration."55This is the
only occasion upon which Harringtonquotes Hobbes concerning a
methodological issue, and several points need to be made about it.
Hobbes is the authorityused because Wren in his argumentsocca-
sionally employs Hobbesian formulations,thereby indicatingthat on
some if not all questions (notablyquestions concerningreligion)Wren
shares Hobbes's views. And the "true principles" which Harrington
proceeds to incorporate, for Wren's edification, into his demonstra-
tive syllogisms concern neither matter and motion nor humannature
but are most un-Hobbesiangeneralizationsdrawnfrom a study of the
history of constitutionalforms. Finally, the Politicaster is a late work,
publishedin March 1659in defense of principlesalreadylaid down in
many previous writings. Ratherthan being quarried,therefore, in the
search for "a demonstrablescience of politics,"56Hobbes is cited
here as an authoritywho shares Harrington'spreviously discovered
and articulatedviews. And this interpretationis supported by Har-
rington's remarks, hitherto noted, that his debt to Hobbes extended
specifically to Hobbes's Of Liberty and Necessity and Human
Nature.
In order to understandrightlyHarrington'smethod it is necessary
to take seriously his claim to be a practitionerof the art of "political

55 Works, 559. This

passage is in Hobbes, English Works, I, 86; cf. Elements of
Law, 22; Matthew Wren, Monarchy Asserted, (Oxford, 1659), 90, which follows on
from Wren's earlier Considerations on Mr. Harrington's Commonwealth of Oceana
(London, 1657).
56
Raab, 197.

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 HARRINGTON AND HOBBES 419

anatomy," and perhaps the originator of that art, and to note his
frequent use of the analogy between the body politic and natural
bodies.57 Such texts are to be interpreted in the context of Har-
rington's references to William Harvey's discoveries in human
anatomy and physiology.58 Harrington clearly believed that he had
revolutionized the study of political anatomy in the same way that
Harvey had transformed the study of human anatomy, as can be seen
from his response to Wren's criticism that the Oceana revealed no
new principles to the world but merely sought to impose upon politics
a novel lexicon of other men's discoveries:
... seeing the opinion that riches are power is (as antient as the first book of
THUCYDIDES, or the politics of ARISTOTLE, and) not omitted by Mr.
HOBBS, or any other politician. Which is as if he had told Dr. HARVEY,
that whereas the blood is the life was an opinion as antient as MOSES, and
no girl ever prick'dher finger, but knew it must have a course; he had given
the world cause to complainof greatdisappointmentin not shewinga manto
be made of gingerbread,and his veins to run malmsy.59
Now it is well established that Harvey, who studied at Padua between
1600 and 1602,60was deeply influenced by the Paduan Aristotelians, if
not directly by Galileo, and came in his practical investigations to
employ their method.61 This method was the resolutive-compositive,
the same method practiced by Harvey's close friend, Thomas Hob-
bes, who was directly under the spell of Galileo.62 It is for this reason
that Hobbes is quoted here on the subject of method63 as a supporting

57
Harrington describes his art as "political anatomy" in Works, 402-03; for the
body analogy, see 68, also 291, 298-99, 482.
58Ibid., 36; cf. 225-26, 232, 561. 59Ibid., 232.
60 Sir Geoffrey Keynes, The Life of William Harvey (Oxford, 1966), 22-34.
61 W. Pagel, William Harvey's Biological Ideas (Basel, 1967), 19-21, cf. 28-47; A.
C. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo (Harmondsworth, 1969), II, 227-43; W. P. D.
Wightman, Science in a Renaissance Society (London, 1972), 92. On Harvey's
method, Charles Blitzer is quite in error when he states that "there can be no doubt
that Harvey's method was much like that suggested by Bacon": An Immortal Com-
monwealth: The Political Thought of James Harrington (New Haven, 1960), 96, n.
42. On Paduan methodology, see J. H. Randall, Jr., The School of Padua and the
Emergence of Modern Science (Padua, 1961), 13-68; cf. W. P. D. Wightman, "Quid
sit Methodus? Method in Sixteenth Century Medical Teaching and Discovery,"
Journal of the History of Medicine, 19, (1964), 360-76.
62
Watkins,28-50.
63
Raab's suggestion (The English Face of Machiavelli, 200) that "Harvey . . .
seemed to Harrington a link between Machiavelli and Hobbes" is perhaps a little
astray. We have no evidence that Harrington encountered Harvey's ideas after those
of Hobbes; indeed, the reverse is more likely to be the case, given that Harvey's The
Movement of the Heart and Blood in Animals was originally published in Latin in
1628. In that work Harrington is almost certain to have read the following passage:
"Since it is probable that the connection of the heart with the lung in man

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420 JAMES COTTON

authority and as one who explicitly formulates a procedure already

employed by Harrington, though not named as such, in his most
important works, one which allows him to assert that the "doctrin of
the balance is ... the most demonstrable of any whatsoever." 64
Thus far, I have shown Harrington to be critical of Hobbes's
political science, though on specific matters, especially concerning
some particular aspects of religious interpretation and the under-
standing of human nature, he has clearly derived from Hobbes inspi-
ration or starting point. If comparison with Hobbes has allowed us
to follow the development of Harrington's argument, no more fitting
comparison could be made, by way of conclusion, than to examine
the role of "artifice" in their respective political theories.
The metaphor of artifice is consistently employed in Hobbes's
writing, nowhere more so than in Leviathan: the "COMMON-
WEALTH, or STATE . . . is but an Artificiall Man" of which "the
Matter ... and the Artificer ... both ... is Man."65 And the rules of
art consist in imitating nature, which is the work of God, such imita-
tion being manifest in the making of "Engines" which by virtue of
their "springs and wheeles . . . have an artificiall life." 66 Harrington
echoes these sentiments by referring to Hobbes when considering the
work of Olphaus Megaletor in his construction of the perfect com-
monwealth of Oceana:
when he [Megaletor] saw that his government had taken root, and was
in the very plantationstrongenough to stand by itself, he conceived such a
delightwithin him, as God is describ'dby PLATOto have don when he had
finish'd the creationof the world, and saw his own orbs move below him:for
in the art of man (beingthe imitationof nature,which is the art of GOD)there
is nothingso like the first call of beautifulorder out of chaos and confusion,
as the architectureof a well-order'dcommonwealth.7
But if we move further to consider the content of this notion of
"nature," differences between our authors emerge. To enter upon a
discussion of the meaning of "nature" in Hobbes is to participate,
however unwillingly, in the battles and campaigns of the interpreta-

provided ... the opportunity[in other anatomists]for going astray,those personsdo

wrong who while wishing, as all anatomistscommonlydo, to describe, demonstrate
and study the parts of animals, content themselves with looking inside one animal
only, namely,man-and thatone dead. In this way they merelyattempteda universal
syllogism on the basis of a particularproposition (like those who think they can
constructa science of politics afterexplorationof a singleformof government... )."
William Harvey, The Circulation of the Blood and Other Writings, trans. K. J.
Franklin(London, 1963),44.
64
Works,226.
65
Leviathan, 81, 82; cf. 363, and Oakeshott, 7.
66 Ibid., 81. 67 Works, 195.

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 HARRINGTONAND HOBBES 421

tion of Hobbes. It is possible, however, to assert, with the agreement

of most of Hobbes's commentators,that in the creation of Leviathan
(which as a work of artifice is an imitationof nature)nature is silent
on matters of "constitutionalshape," 68and she is unconcernedwith
the raw materialsof the Commonwealthas they are actually encoun-
tered historically. Moreover, nature cannot erect a commonwealth
without human assistance. For Harrington, "art" (which is human
"prudence") does have a natural counterpartin "time" (or natural
evolution), and the task that must be accomplished by that art is a
most specific one, being the business "of raisingsuch superstructures
of government, as are naturalto the known foundations."69Nor is
Harrington merely asserting, in the manner of Montesquieu, that
governments to be stable must reflect or take account of the most
salient "social" features of their respective situations (in Har-
rington'sview, the balance of property).70For it is Harrington'sfirm
belief that man's common right or interest will be recognized, and
men will come to be ruled by laws as opposed to caprice, violence, or
will, only when all men live "of themselves" and where a subtle
legislator has devised such constitutional contrivances ("Rotation"
and the "AgrarianLaw") as will renderthat arrangementimmortal.

Universityof Newcastle upon Tyne.

68 The notion of "constitutional

shape" is discussed in M. Oakeshott, "The
Vocabulary of a Modem European State," Political Studies, 23 (1975), 326 ff.
69 70
Works, 68. Ibid., 356.

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