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Few historians know of the heartwarming friendship between French Reformation theologian John Calvin and English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, the latter of whom may or may not have been real, considering he was not even born yet.
— John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes by Nina Matsumoto (spacecoyote)
The nature of Hobbes’s reality doesn’t interest me. Calvin sees Hobbes one way, and everyone else sees Hobbes another way.
—Bill Watterson, The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book
John Calvin tripped across a fallen tree that bridged a rushing stream, throwing his arms out to keep his balance, and Thomas Hobbes followed after him. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Calvin felt like a boy again, belying his gray beard and the many uncertainties of life which left him nearly constantly anxious and disturbed. On this warm summer day, he found Geneva nearly as pleasant as his native France, which he still missed with all the keenness of an exile, and of course the whole universe was a beautiful representation of its creator, so it was no wonder that it should be delightful to him.
“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice,” he informed his companion happily.
“Ha!” Hobbes said, in that superior way that he had. “You think that there’s color in the world?”
“Sure,” Calvin said. “The sky is blue. Your coat is red. This frog is green.”
He tried to thrust the slimy creature that he’d discovered in the grass into Hobbes’s face to demonstrate his point, but Hobbes was too tall and was able to hold him off easily with one hand.
“Nope.”
“Where else would the color be, then?” Calvin demanded. He tucked the frog into his capacious sleeve in case he wanted it later. You never knew when you might want a frog.
“In your mind, here.”
Hobbes tapped Calvin on the head, a little harder than he thought was necessary. He felt it, even though he was wearing a very large hat.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Calvin said, rubbing his head resentfully. “Sight produces certain knowledge. Everyone knows that. There’s a reason that Isaiah put sight first when he listed the senses.”
“Sure, when you look at something, the image consisting of color and shape is the knowledge you have of the qualities of the object of that sensation,” Hobbes lectured. “That makes it very easy to fall into the opinion that color and shape are the actual qualities themselves. But of course that’s completely wrong.”
“Oh yeah?” Calvin said. “Explain how it’s wrong, then.”
“Okay, say I punched you in the eye—”
“Nuh uh! No way! You’re not punching me in the eye!”
“—you’d see a flash of light—”
“If anyone’s getting punched in the eye, it’s you! Come over here so I can punch you!”
“—but there is no actual flash of light, it’s all in your brain—oof!”
Calvin launched himself off a low tree branch, aiming for Hobbes’s head but hitting him in the midsection instead. They tussled with each other until they landed in a heap at the bottom of a hill, dirty and panting.
“Truce?” Calvin gasped.
“Truce,” Hobbes agreed.
They both lay on the ground, staring up into the heavens, so high and so profound and so secret.
Calvin had known Hobbes for a long time, and he accepted his friend’s peculiarities. One was that it seemed that no one save Calvin himself was aware of him; when he had been younger, Calvin had spoken of the things that Hobbes said or did continually, but he had grown self-conscious when he realized that nobody else had ever seen or heard of him.
“Hobbes?” he’d said. “You know, Thomas Hobbes? On the quiet side? Somewhat peculiar? A good companion, in a weird sort of way?” He’d raised his hand as high above his head as it would go upon being asked for a more physical description of this ‘Hobbes.’ “Very tall, bald on top, wears red?”
After that, he kept his conversations with Hobbes to himself, which he thought was just as well. Hobbes was brilliant, of course, but sometimes his ideas seemed utterly bizarre. Other times, he wouldn’t explain himself at all; he just looked smug and said that Calvin would find out what he meant later, which was infuriating, but Calvin could never stay mad at him, anymore than he could manage to worry for long about why Hobbes was so unlike every other person that he knew. It was perhaps the only anxiety that did not threaten at times to consume him.
“Anyway, the way I see it, it doesn’t really matter which one of us is right about how sight works,” Calvin began.
“You’re only saying that because I’m right,” Hobbes said, sticking his tongue out.
“All our knowledge is fragile and contingent, you know. Our eyes are naturally endowed with gifts, but God keeps their use in his hands, and unless he quickened our sense at each moment all their power would soon vanish. But insofar as we can grasp the wondrous order of the heavens, it should ravish us with astonishment. Why do you think I like it out here so much?”
“I thought it was because this is where all the mud is,” said Hobbes.
“Well, that too,” Calvin said. “Obviously.”
There was a nice big mud puddle not too far away from them, and Calvin found a nice big stick to poke it with.
“Ewwww,” he said appreciatively. “I hate when things totally different are mixed together. Like when water and fire are mixed together, both perish. Things are better when they’re separate.”
“Then why are you stirring up the mud even more?”
“To see how gross it is!”
“Ah,” Hobbes said. “Of course.” He found his own stick so they could poke the mud together.
“You can find religious instruction in every aspect of nature,” said Calvin. “The little singing birds, grasses and flowers, rivers and mountains, even this mud here. I always say that sin is like filth that makes us loathsome in the eyes of God and it is certain there is no one who is not covered in infinite filth.”
“Ah,” Hobbes said, stroking his chin. “Like this?”
Calvin’s eyes widened, but before he could do anything, Hobbes had picked him up and dumped him into the mud. Calvin howled with rage.
“No, not like this!” he said, flailing in the loathsome filth, which was inescapable. “It was a metaphor, you bald beanpole!”
“Whoops,” Hobbes said, whistling innocently, and Calvin lunged at him.
“I’ll cover you in infinite filth!”
“You’ll have to catch me first, you short, nasty brute!”
Hobbes bounded away on his long legs and Calvin charged after him, all mud and fury. He caught up at last, because Hobbes kept turning around to see where he was and taunt him, which slowed him down.
“Now I’m all muddy!” Hobbes complained, brushing futilely at his coat, which was more brown than red now.
“Serves you right,” Calvin said. “If I have to take a bath, so do you.”
“Ugh,” Hobbes said, making a face. “This is why I always say that anything is preferable to living in a state of nature. The consequences of civil war are too terrible. Just look at my coat!”
“I think it was inevitable, though.”
“That’s true,” said Hobbes. “The mud was there. You were there. Given those preconditions, it couldn’t have happened any other way.”
“It’s a predestined world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy,” Calvin said. It was a difficult doctrine to grapple with, but he also found a strange reassurance in it. “Let’s go exploring!”