Greg wrote yesterday on the most important topic of the day:

> But this is no mere suggestion or idle speculation on my part. At least this
>  once, I know whereof I write. From
>  <http://www.ucomics.com/calvinandhobbes/characters.htm>:
>
>  - Calvin is named for a sixteenth-century theologian who believed in
>  predestination.
>
>  - Named after a seventeenth-century philosopher with a dim view of human
>  nature, Hobbes has the patient dignity and common sense of most animals
I've
>  met.

Although you may be misplacing a bit of pride in the fact that Calvin was
named after John Calvin, after thinking about it just a bit, I now believe
that the names constitute a very clever joke.

Calvin is predestined to be who he is and must suffer the same fate of the
philosophy that's tatooed on every biker's arm:

     "Born to be Bad"
     "Born to be Wild"

...and thus he can't help himself. He must be who he is.

Hobbes, on the other hand -- when he's not being a stuffed tiger -- is by far
the more intelligent of the two, and because he is a tiger and thus an
outside observer of human nature, he just naturally takes a very dim view of
human nature.

These are obviously very substantial condensations of the philosophies of
Calvin and Hobbes (both the originals and the cartoon characters).
Nonetheless, I had never made the connection about the names before, but they
make the comic strip all the more funny, and I thank you for mentioning it.

Wirt Atmar

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