The state is therein as mysterious as Nature, and its laws are no less imperious than the laws of Nature, calling as they do merely for passive obedience, and at least in Hobbes’ theory the state is no less eternal than Nature, for after the contract the less the citizens have to say in the matter the better. Yet Hobbes was an Englishman and the fact was to tell; even in this most abstract theory he cannot lose sight of the realm of experience. And if the ruler was a bad one? Like all his countrymen the father of the _Leviathan_ is ready to trip up his logic rather than to offer a scheme which after all might not work. If the ruler proved an inefficient or bad one the citizens could discard him. In his opposition to the kingdom by the grace of God the father of the _Leviathan_ is led by his methodical Naturalism—and not at all by a repugnance for any form of tyranny. The social contract is a purely human affair and nothing could be so ridiculous as the grounding of so human a reality as the authority of the state upon an act of the grace of God. But the more absolute is this authority the better; and his indifference as to the choice of the state-religion did not make for tolerance. Not to think of Cromwell when one studies Hobbes is impossible; for the philosopher in front of Nature, his almighty though mechanical Nature, is just a fanatic observer as intolerant as Cromwell and as energetic in the systematic application of his philosophical faith. Only men of faith can alter the historical world, for religion remains one of the greatest factors in men’s life, although it does not always appear under the cloak of a definite church. In such cases, however, it is often apt to be more intolerant and certainly more dangerous—as all abstract dogmas are bound to be—than those which have through their historical organisation received some kind of adaptation to the society in which they flourish. Cromwell was intolerant, was a fanatic, but no more and even perhaps less essentially so than Hobbes, and both are a perfect embodiment of the genius of England during the first half of the seventeenth century. Never has the life of a country expressed itself more fittingly in its theoretical and practical term. Hobbes like a bee had gathered after Bacon the best of Italy, and the echo of Campanella is to be detected in the most characteristic part of his theory of knowledge; he had, besides, imported the result of the most recent scientific works of the French and Dutch thinkers. England could prepare on his intellectual contribution to put forth the genius of Locke just as it could on the assumption to political life of new elements make ready for the organisation of the state that under William of Orange was to arouse the envy of the world.