The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• A Dialogue Between a Philosopher & a Student of the Common Laws of England.
• A Dialogue of the Common Law.
• Behemoth: the History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England, and of the Counsels and Artifices By Which They Were Carried On From the Year 1640 to the Year 1660.
• The Bookseller to the Reader.
• Part I. Behemoth, Or the Epitome of the Civil Wars of England.
• Part II.
• Part III.
• Part IV.
• The Art of Rhetoric.
• To the Reader.
• The Whole Art of Rhetoric.
• Book I.
• Book II.
• Book III.
• The Art of Rhetoric Plainly Set Forth. With Pertinent Examples For the More Easy Understanding and Practice of the Same. By Thomas Hobbes of Malmsbury.
• The Art of Sophistry.

THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER.

My duty, as well to the public as to the memory of Mr. Hobbes, has obliged me to procure with my utmost diligence, that these tracts should come forth with the most correct exactness.*

I am compelled by the force of truth to declare, how much both the world and the memory of Mr. Hobbes have been abused by the several spurious editions of the History of the Civil Wars; wherein, by various and unskilful transcriptions, are committed above a thousand faults, and in above a hundred places whole lines left out, as I can make appear.

I must confess Mr. Hobbes, upon some considerations, was averse to the publishing thereof; but since it is impossible to suppress it, no book being more commonly sold by all booksellers, I hope I need not fear the offence of any man by doing right to the world and this work, which I now publish from the original manuscript, done by his own amanuensis, and given me by himself above twelve years since.

To this I have joined the treatise against Archbishop Bramhall, to prevent the like prejudice, which must certainly have fallen on it, there being so many false copies abroad, if not thus prevented; as also the Discourse of Heresy from a more correct copy; and have likewise annexed his Physical Problems, as they were translated by himself and presented to his Majesty, with the epistle prefixed, in the year 1662, at the same time they came forth in Latin.

These things premised, there remains nothing but to wish for myself good sale, to the buyer much pleasure and satisfaction.

Your humble servant,

William Crooke.

[* ]This preface is prefixed to the edition of 1682, in which the Behemoth is printed along with the Answer to Archbishop Bramhall, the Discourse of Heresy, and the Physical Problems.