THE SCENE: Thomas Hobbes’ approach to drinking, according to those who knew him, was all or nothing. While he would normally avoid alcohol, when he did drink he believed in pushing it to the limit.
THE TEXT: When he [Thomas Hobbes] did drink, he would drink to excess to have the benefit of vomiting, which he did easily; by which benefit neither his wit was disturbed longer than he was spewing, not his stomach oppressed. But he could not endure to drink every day wine with company, which, though not to drunkenness, spoils the brain.
– Brief Lives, John Aubrey, 17th Century AD
