=Thomas Hobbes[18] and his Contemporaries.= During a certain period Bacon had under him a secretary by the name of Thomas Hobbes. Here was an obscure man turning to philosophy because of his interest in politics; whose point of attachment to philosophy was the mechanical theory of nature, so universally accepted by the scientists of that time. No contemporary of Hobbes――neither Bacon, Descartes, nor Galileo――had so systematic a philosophy. No other man succeeded better in expressing all that was in his mind. Hobbes was one of a large group of political theorists of the Renaissance. When the mediæval idea of the universal Christian state, such as was embodied in Augustine’s _City of God_, was no longer held, many of the Humanists tried to construct theoretical systems of political government that would meet the demands of the time. Macchiavelli, Thomas More, Bodin, Althusius, and Grotius[19] belong to this group. Hobbes is best known in modern times as a writer on this aspect of morals and politics; but politics is only a part of his general mechanical system of the universe. He is the forerunner of modern materialism, and his peculiar theory of society is only an exemplification of this theory. In passing from Bacon to Hobbes we come to a very different type of man. Bacon had risen to fame by his own genius, in spite of the hostility of his powerful relatives; Hobbes was a hard-headed man, with a narrow outlook, but with undoubted talents, which were fostered all his life under the patronage of the Devonshire family. Bacon was a practical politician; Hobbes was a doctrinaire and theoretical political writer. Of the voluminous literary remains of Bacon his philosophy forms but a small part; Hobbes had a general philosophical system, with which his classical and theological studies have connection.