Edward Synge and ‘Hobbian’ Discourse in Early Eighteenth-Century Ireland

Abstract The final chapter returns to where the book started: Edward Synge’s claim about the reliance of Irish Anglicans on ‘Hobbian’ arguments. By now, the reader should have a clearer idea of what Synge was talking about. Synge made his claim in The Case of Toleration, which, having rejected as ‘Hobbian’ the Anglican claim that the right of civil authority to enforce religious uniformity derived from natural law, made a proposal for Catholic toleration. This chapter disputes the popular interpretation of The Case as a confident expression of Enlightenment values. Along with his father—Edward Syge the elder—and his clerical coterie—his fellow chaplains of Lord John Carteret, the lord lieutenant—Synge had recently employed the very arguments that he characterized as ‘Hobbian’ in The Case. Synge thus focussed more on this characterization than on his proposal for toleration, which he ultimately diluted and modified in response to Hobbes.