Leviathan (with an Introduction by Herbert W. Schneider)

By Thomas Hobbes

First published in 1651, “Leviathan” is Thomas Hobbes’ work of political philosophy in which he outlines his theories on an ideal state and its creation. Written in the middle of the 17th century during the English Civil War, Hobbes’ argues that a strong central government with an absolute sovereign was necessary to bring about an ordered society. Given the tumultuous events of English society at the time of the writing of “Leviathan” it is clear to see the motivations for Hobbes’ insistence on a strong central government in the face of the chaos caused by social and political upheaval. Hobbes believed that the prospect of peace that this type of system would provide was worth giving up some of the natural freedoms of man. “Leviathan”, whose title is a reference to a biblical monster, is divided into the following four parts: Part I: Of Man, Part II: Of Common-wealth, Part III: Of a Christian Common-wealth, and Part IV: Of the Kingdom of Darkness. In the first part Hobbes gives an account of human nature which forms the basis for his subsequent prescriptions regarding the establishment of an ordered commonwealth. Considered by some to be among the greatest works of political philosophy ever written, the influence of “Leviathan” on modern political theory cannot be overstated. This edition includes an introduction by Herbert W. Schneider and a biographical afterword.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Sep 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781420956085

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was one of the founding fathers of modern philosophy. An Englishman, Hobbes was heavily influenced by his country's civil war and wrote his preeminent work, Leviathan, about the relationship between the individual and the government during that period. Hobbes was a scholar, phauthoilosopher, and the author of several works on political and religious philosophy.

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LEVIATHAN

OR

THE MATTER, FORM, & POWER

OF A COMMONWEALTH

ECCLESIASTICAL and CIVIL

By THOMAS HOBBES

Introduction by HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER

Leviathan

By Thomas Hobbes

Introduction by Herbert W. Schneider

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5607-8

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5608-5

This edition copyright © 2017. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: a detail of a Portrait of Thomas Hobbes (Westport, 1588-Hardwick Hall, 1679), English philosopher, 1669-1670, by John Michael Wright (1617-1694), oil on canvas, 66 x 54 cm, Wright, John Michael (1617-94) / National Portrait Gallery, London, UK / De Agostini Picture Library / Bridgeman Images.

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

PART I. OF MAN

Chapter I. OF SENSE

Chapter II. OF IMAGINATION

Chapter III. OF THE CONSEQUENCE OR TRAIN OF IMAGINATIONS

Chapter IV. OF SPEECH

Chapter V. OF REASON AND SCIENCE

Chapter VI. OF THE INTERIOR BEGINNINGS OF VOLUNTARY MOTIONS; COMMONLY CALLED THE PASSIONS. AND THE SPEECHES BY WHICH THEY ARE EXPRESSED

Chapter VII. OF THE ENDS OR RESOLUTIONS OF DISCOURSE

Chapter VIII. OF THE VIRTUES COMMONLY CALLED INTELLECTUAL; AND THEIR CONTRARY DEFECTS.

Chapter IX. OF THE SEVERAL SUBJECTS OF KNOWLEDGE

Chapter X. OF POWER, WORTH, DIGNITY, HONOR AND WORTHINESS

Chapter XI. OF THE DIFFERENCE OF MANNERS

Chapter XII. OF RELIGION

Chapter XIII. OF THE NATURAL CONDITION OF MANKIND, AS CONCERNING THEIR FELICITY, AND MISERY

Chapter XIV. OF THE FIRST AND SECOND NATURAL LAWS, AND OF CONTRACTS

Chapter XV. OF OTHER LAWS OF NATURE

Chapter XVI. OF PERSONS, AUTHORS, AND THINGS PERSONATED

PART II. OF COMMONWEALTH

Chapter XVII. OF THE CAUSES, GENERATION, AND DEFINITION OF A COMMONWEALTH

Chapter XVIII. OF THE RIGHTS OF SOVEREIGNS BY INSTITUTION

Chapter XIX. OF THE SEVERAL KINDS OF COMMONWEALTH BY INSTITUTION, AND OF SUCCESSION TO THE SOVEREIGN POWER

Chapter XX. OF DOMINION PATERNALL AND DESPOTICAL

Chapter XXI. OF THE LIBERTY OF SUBJECTS

Chapter XXII. OF SYSTEMS SUBJECT, POLITICAL, AND PRIVATE

Chapter XXIII. OF THE PUBLIC MINISTERS OF SOVEREIGN POWER

Chapter XXIV. OF THE NUTRITION, AND PROCREATION OF A COMMONWEALTH

Chapter XXV. OF COUNSEL

Chapter XXVI. OF CIVIL LAWS

Chapter XXVII. OF CRIMES, EXCUSES, AND EXTENUATIONS

Chapter XXVIII. OF PUNISHMENTS, AND REWARDS

Chapter XXIX. OF THOSE THINGS THAT WEAKEN, OR TEND TO THE DISSOLUTION OF A COMMONWEALTH

Chapter XXX. OF THE OFFICE OF THE SOVEREIGN REPRESENTATIVE

Chapter XXXI. OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD BY NATURE

PART III. OF A CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH

Chapter XXXII. OF THE PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN POLITICS

Chapter XXXIII. OF THE NUMBER, ANTIQUITY, SCOPE, AUTHORITY, AND INTERPRETERS OF THE BOOKS OF HOLY SCRIPTURES

Chapter XXXIV. OF THE SIGNIFICATION OF SPIRIT, ANGEL, AND INSPIRATION IN THE BOOKS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

Chapter XXXV. OF THE SIGNIFICATION IN SCRIPTURE OF KINGDOM OF GOD, OF HOLY, SACRED, AND SACRAMENT

Chapter XXXVI. OF THE WORD OF GOD, AND OF PROPHETS

Chapter XXXVII. OF MIRACLES, AND THEIR USE

Chapter XXXVIII. OF THE SIGNIFICATION IN SCRIPTURE OF ETERNAL LIFE, HELL, SALVATION, THE WORLD TO COME, AND REDEMPTION

Chapter XXXIX. OF THE SIGNIFICATION IN SCRIPTURE OF THE WORD CHURCH

Chapter XL. OF THE RIGHTS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD, IN ABRAHAM, MOSES, THE HIGH PRIESTS, AND THE KINGS OF JUDAH

Chapter XLI. OF THE OFFICE OF OUR BLESSED SAVIOR

Chapter XLII. OF POWER ECCLESIASTICAL

Chapter XLIII. OF WHAT IS NECESSARY FOR A MAN’S RECEPTION INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

PART IV. OF THE KINGDOM OF DARKNESS

Chapter XLIV. OF SPIRITUAL DARKNESS FROM MISINTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE

Chapter XLV. OF DEMONOLOGY, AND OTHER RELICS OF THE RELIGION OF THE GENTILES

Chapter XLVI. OF DARKNESS FROM VAIN PHILOSOPHY, AND FABULOUS TRADITIONS

Chapter XLVII. OF THE BENEFIT THAT PROCEEDETH FROM SUCH DARKNESS, AND TO WHOM IT ACCRUETH

Chapter XLVIII. A REVIEW AND CONCLUSION

BIOGRAPHICAL AFTERWORD

Introduction

The Leviathan is a classic of English literature. Its author was an accomplished classicist at an early age and an assistant to Francis Bacon while he was writing his Essays. Hobbes’s style shows the influence of both the ancient classics and Bacon; it also reflects the light in the merry eyes of a wit and the dead earnest of a philosopher. The work begins with the technicalities of psychology and ends with a fierce religious invective against the kingdom of darkness. It was recognized at once as a powerful tract for the times and also as a permanent contribution to moral philosophy.

As a philosophical composition, the Leviathan is noteworthy for three major achievements: (1) it contains a rational construction of natural law as the basis of positive law, in preference to common law; (2) it provides a representative theory of absolute authority as a modern substitute for the divine right theory; (3) it is the first comprehensive exposition of bourgeois ethics. But in the plan of its author it was also the culmination of a systematic trilogy: (1) on physical bodies; (2) on human nature; and (3) on bodies politic. The sovereign body politic or commonwealth, according to the Leviathan, is an artificial animal and a mortal God constructed by the covenants of men in the interests of security, justice, and peace. To the generation of this mortal God or great Leviathan, says Hobbes in Chapter XVII, we owe under the Immortal God our peace and defense.

The first two parts of the Leviathan expound the secular doctrine of commonwealth in terms of reason; the other two parts expound the religious doctrine of a holy commonwealth in terms of revelation and divine law. In 1651, when the work was first published, the religious parts were for immediate application to the crisis in which Cromwell found himself. Since then, the secular system of the first two books has won increasing respect. To Hobbes himself, however, both parts, the general theory and the religious application, were taken with utmost seriousness and both express Hobbes’s intense devotion to his country and to his faith.

Thomas Hobbes, son of an incompetent vicar, was born near Malmesbury in Gloucestershire during the general alarm over the approaching Spanish Armada in 1588. He attended Magdalen Hall, Oxford, a college in which Puritanism was dominant and where he probably also came under Ockhamite influence. Here he learned to despise Aristotelian scholasticism and to search among the sciences for a better method. The Puritans were then the leaders in the new physical sciences and it was natural that Hobbes in his Oxford environment should, like his contemporary on the Continent, Rene Descartes, turn his back on Jesuit texts and on Aristotelianism and look in the direction of Galileo. He was fortunate to be appointed tutor to a young earl whom he accompanied in 1610 to the Continent. During his travels he devoted himself to translating Thucydides, learning geometry and optics, and working on a theory of sensation as a form of motion. In 1634, he was able to settle down in Paris, where he soon became a member of the circle around the Abbé Mersenne and made the acquaintance of Gassendi and Descartes and a group of other prominent scientists. He made a pilgrimage to Galileo in Italy. In 1637, he returned to England intending to expand his Little Treatise on sensation (inspired largely by Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood) into a more general work on bodily motions, to which he gave the title De Corpore. But the political crisis of 1640 forced him to turn his attention to politics. He circulated among friends his Elements of Law (1640) in which he worked out a theory of undivided sovereignty without divine right. Such a doctrine, though mediating theoretically, was popular with neither party in the civil war. Fearing imprisonment by one or the other party, especially by the growing enemies of absolutism, he left hurriedly for Paris, where he remained until 1651. During this time, in 1646, he became a tutor to the exiled Prince of Wales, the future Charles II. But after the publication of De Cive (1642) and of the expanded English version, the Leviathan, in 1651, Hobbes became known on the Continent as rabid Protestant and he lost favor among the royalist exiles. He was therefore greatly relieved when it became safe in 1651, under Cromwell, for him to return to England.

The Leviathan appeared in London at a critical juncture in Cromwell’s career when, after his victory over the royalists at Worcester, he was strong enough to defy the Rump Parliament and usher in the Protectorate. This trend of affairs was much to Hobbes’s liking. He had remained religiously an independent, taking communion with the Church of England privately but refusing to associate publicly with Anglicans because they were seditious. He was outspoken in his contempt for Presbyterians and Catholics. His De Cive, published on the Continent, had followed immediately on John Milton’s publication in England (1641) of his tract, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England, and Parts II and III of the Leviathan could readily be interpreted as an ideology for Cromwell. For the argument was based on Calvinist psychology, on the Puritan doctrine of covenant, and on Cromwell’s creation of a Christian Commonwealth—a covenanted absolutism under God. But hardly had Hobbes imagined himself to have found a sovereign in harmony with his doctrines when Cromwell’s authority began to crumble and civil war again threatened. In 1660, Charles II and Hobbes accepted each other somewhat grudgingly: Charles called Hobbes the Bear and Hobbes was disappointed in witnessing the temporary restoration of the divine right monarchy of the Stuarts. In the Latin edition of the Leviathan (1668) he made a few politic changes,{1} proclaimed himself a loyal subject of His Majesty, and settled down in retirement with a small pension.

He died in 1679 glad to find a hole to creep out of the world at.{2} During his retirement he engaged in several fruitless disputes on scientific questions; he imagined himself to be a better mathematician than he really was. He wrote an important Dialogue between a Philosopher and a student of the Common Laws of England. This dialogue, published posthumously, became the immediate inspiration for the revival of Hobbes’s philosophy by the Austinian school of analytic jurisprudence early in the nineteenth century in defense of the omnicompetence of Parliament and of statute law in the face of opposition by the courts which defended the constitution on the basis of common law. To this revival is also due Sir William Molesworth’s edition (1839-45) of the sixteen volumes of Hobbes’s complete works.

Despite his intellectual aggressiveness and his contentious style, Hobbes was a sober, pious person, who never broke with the Church of England though he had decided Puritan leanings. His opposition to Arminianism and to freewill doctrine indicates his Calvinist leanings and his departures from Anglican theology. Because of his independence he was accused by both Roman Catholics and Anglican High Churchmen of atheism, which was a stock charge brought against anti-clericals. But he was certainly neither an atheist nor a materialist. He believed in the essentials of the Christian revelation and in the doctrine of personal salvation. He wrote that he would never deny, even at a sovereign’s bidding if ever a sovereign were foolish enough to ask it, that Christ died for my sins. Believing that all beings are bodies, he conceived of the body politic as an organism, and he thought that God must have a body composed of some ethereal substance. Hence he believed in spiritual bodies and distinguished sharply between corporeality and materiality. The treatment of covenant theology in Part III of Leviathan is thoroughly Puritan, and in general Part II should be regarded as a secularized version of the English Puritans’ theory of a commonwealth.

Hobbes himself said that the Leviathan lays the foundations for the science of natural justice. He regarded the science of justice to be the culmination of the science of consequences. It is not a mechanical science, as has often been maintained erroneously, but it is thoroughly natural and rational. He never departed from the conception of philosophy which he formulated early in his career:

By philosophy is understood the knowledge acquired by reasoning from the manner of the generation of anything to the properties, or from the properties to some possible way of generation of the same; to the end to be able to produce, as far as matter and human force permit, such effects as human life requires.{3}

This natural science of justice has three major branches, as was suggested above; and these three branches it is necessary to explain briefly,

1) The rational construction of law. Hobbes is content to interpret a law as an authoritative command, whether human or divine. But each command must be justified, and the justification of statute law consists in showing that it is merely an application of natural law. The government, in other words, is responsible morally to the principles of natural justice, and any violation of these principles will sooner or later be punished by God in his exercise of power in his kingdom by nature. Hobbes formulates nineteen laws of nature with considerable care, endeavoring to prove in each case that it follows from the general maxims of right reason or prudence. These rules are discovered by analyzing the consequences of their absence in the state of nature, where they govern merely in foro interno, in conscience, but not externally, since they are not observed and enforced. In other words, Hobbes’s political rationalism is utilitarian. This is the first attempt to construct a systematic utilitarian rationalization of natural law. Thus, conceiving natural law to be the moral basis and norm for statute law, Hobbes does not need to appeal to custom, precedent, or common law as the source of justice. There need be no sense of justice in human nature, for the science of justice is the only reliable guide for law.

But in order to make this science possible there must be a science of the consequences of human passions. It is with this science that the Leviathan begins. This is a branch of the Galilean science of motion. Human motions or motives must be studied not as the scholastics studied them, as passions or affects, but rather as active forces or motions, in terms of their consequences. Thus, beginning with the traditional list of passions, Hobbes tries to prove that their general consequence is to create in each individual, as he pursues his natural rights or self-government in the freedom of the state of nature, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceases only in death (Ch. XI). The consequence of this lust for power is universal competition—the war of all against all—and the consequence of this competition is that human life in a state of nature would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short (Ch. XIII). From such a state man is rescued by three forces in human nature: fear, hope, and reason. It is reason that suggests convenient articles of peace or natural laws (Ch. XIII).

2) A representative theory of absolute authority. Hobbes’s myth of Leviathan, of the artificial creation of a social organism or collective person, is his way of escaping the traditional assumption that authority always comes from above. According to this theory, an authority is an agent or person authorized, the legal bearer of another’s person. The unity of a commonwealth is created when a group of men covenant to appoint a single body or will as the common bearer of the person of each. Thus a government becomes the representative or authoritative person of all the members of the body politic and in virtue of having such unity of authorized will or person the commonwealth establishes sovereignty. This theory had already been worked out as a theory of church government by the covenant theologians of the Puritans; it remained for Hobbes to give it rational form and apply it to states. As a theory of church government it was an attack on the theory of episcopal authority through apostolic succession; as a secular theory of authority it was a substitute for divine right. It was the entering wedge for the theory of representative government, though Hobbes himself had no intention to use it as a theory of self-government or democracy. On the contrary, it was his attempt to justify absolutism by natural justice.

3) Bourgeois ethics. The moral bonds on which Hobbes builds commonwealth are those of contractual obligation. The first law of nature, according to Hobbes, is: Seek peace or else security. The second is: Be willing to enter into a mutual transferring of right, which men call contract. And the majority of the other laws of nature define the conditions under which contractual ties can operate peacefully and successfully.

The commonwealth is clearly not a feudal order, but a civil society. The idea of sovereignty is dragged in from feudal times, but otherwise Hobbes constructs his political ethics for modern, urban, commercial communities. This becomes evident especially when one reads the details of civil law as Hobbes formulates them in Chapters XXVI to XXIX. He has a lawyer’s interest in establishing legal principles for regulating the economic life of a community. In his formulation of both foreign and domestic policies he reflects the concerns of the bourgeoisie and the politics of Cromwell. In short, Hobbes was not a speculative philosopher imagining a theoretical social contract. He constructed a vivid ideology for the spirit of contract in general. He was fully aware of the growing need for a peaceful, contractual, stable, equitable regulation of corporate enterprises and competitive commerce. He was looking ahead to the general moral reconstruction of society which was evidently needed if the commonwealth was ever to emerge from civil war into a state of nutrition and procreation, which state, he maintained, depends on the right distribution of the commodities of sea and land (Ch. XXIV).

The science of natural justice is the only science necessary for sovereigns. . . . No other philosopher hitherto has put into order and sufficiently or probably proved all the theorems of moral doctrine that men may learn thereby how to govern and how to obey (Ch. XXXI).

I cannot think it will be condemned at this time either by the public judge of doctrine, or by any that desire the continuance of public peace. And in this hope I return to my interrupted speculations of bodies natural, wherein, if God give me health to finish it, I hope the novelty will as much please, as in the doctrine of this artificial body it uses to offend. For such truth as opposes no man’s profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome. (Conclusion of the Leviathan.)

HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER

1958.

TO MY MOST HONOR’D FRIEND

MR. FRANCIS GODOLPHIN

OF GODOLPHIN

Honor’d Sir.

Your most worthy Brother Mr. Sidney Godolphin, when he lived, was pleased to think my studies something, and otherwise to oblige me, as you know, with real testimonies of his good opinion, great in themselves, and the greater for the worthiness of his person. For there is not any virtue that disposeth a man, either to the service of God, or to the service of his Country, to Civil Society, or private Friendship, that did not manifestly appear in his conversation, not as acquired by necessity, or affected upon occasion, but inherent, and shining in a generous constitution of his nature. Therefore in honor and gratitude to him, and with devotion to yourself, I humbly Dedicate unto you this my discourse of Commonwealth. I know not how the world will receive it, nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favour it. For in a way beset with those that contend on one side for too great Liberty, and on the other side for too much Authority, ’tis hard to pass between the points of both unwounded. But yet, me thinks, the Endeavor to advance the Civil Power, should not be by the Civil Power condemned; nor private men, by reprehending it, declare they think that Power too great. Besides, I speak not of the men, but (in the Abstract) of the Seat of Power, (like to those simple and unpartial creatures in the Roman Capitol, that with their noise defended those within it, not because they were they, but there) offending none, I think, but those without, or such within (if there be any such) as favour them. That which perhaps may most offend, are certain Texts of Holy Scripture, alleged by me to other purpose than ordinarily they use to be by others. But I have done it with due submission, and also (in order to my Subject) necessarily; for they are the Outworks of the Enemy, from whence they impugne the Civil Power. If notwithstanding this, you find my labour generally decried, you may be pleased to excuse yourself, and say that I am a man that love my own opinions, and think all true I say, that I honored your Brother, and honor you, and have presumed on that, to assume the Title (without your knowledge) of being, as I am,

Sir,

Your most humble, and

most obedient servant,

Thomas Hobbes.

Paris, April 15/25, 1651.

Author’s Introduction

Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governess the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an Artificial Animal. For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all Automata (Engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the Heart, but a Spring; and the Nerves, but so many Strings; and the Joints, but so many Wheels, giving motion to the whole Body, such as was intended by the Artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that Rational and most excellent work of Nature, Man. For by Art is created that great Leviathan called a Commonwealth, or State, (in Latin Civitas) which is but an Artificial Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which, the Sovereignty is an Artificial Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificial Joints; Reward and Punishment (by which fastened to the seat of the Sovereignty, every joint and member is moved to perform his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Natural; The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members, are the Strength; Salus Populi (the Peoples Safety) its Business; Counselors, by whom all things needful for it to know, are suggested unto it, are the Memory; Equity and Laws, an artificial Reason and Will; Concord, Health; Sedition, Sickness; and Civil War, Death. Lastly, the Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politic were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let Us Make Man, pronounced by God in the Creation.

To describe the Nature of this artificial man, I will consider—

First the Matter thereof, and the Artificer; both which is Man.

Secondly, How, and by what Covenants it is made; what are the Rights and just Power or Authority of a Sovereign; and what it is that Preserveth and Dissolveth it.

Thirdly, what is a Christian Commonwealth.

Lastly, what is the Kingdom of Darkness.

Concerning the first, there is a saying much usurped of late, That Wisdom is acquired, not by reading of Books, but of Men. Consequently whereunto, those persons, that for the most part can give no other proof of being wise, take great delight to show what they think they have read in men, by uncharitable censures of one another behind their backs. But there is another saying not of late understood, by which they might learn truly to read one another, if they would take the pains; and that is, nosce teipsum, Read Thy Self: which was not meant, as it is now used, to countenance, either the barbarous state of men in power, towards their inferiors; or to encourage men of low degree, to a saucy behavior towards their betters; But to teach us, that for the similitude of the thoughts, and Passions of one man, to the thoughts, and Passions of another, whosoever looketh into himself, and considereth what he doth, when he does Think, Opine, Reason, Hope, Fear, &c., and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts, and Passions of all other men, upon the like occasions. I say the similitude of Passions, which are the same in all men, Desire, Fear, Hope, &c.; not the similitude or The Objects of the Passions, which are the things Desired, Feared, Hoped, &c.: for these the constitution individual, and particular education do so vary, and they are so easy to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of man’s heart, blotted and confounded as they are, with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts. And though by men’s actions we do discover their designee sometimes; yet to do it without comparing them with our own, and distinguishing all circumstances, by which the case may come to be altered, is to decipher without a key, and be for the most part deceived, by too much trust, or by too much diffidence; as he that reads, is himself a good or evil man.

But let one man read another by his actions never so perfectly, it serves him only with his acquaintance, which are but few. He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind; which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language, or Science; yet, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuously, the pains left another, will be only to consider, if he also find not the same in himself. For this kind of Doctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration.

Part I.

OF MAN

Chapter I.

OF SENSE

Concerning the Thoughts of man, I will consider them first Singly, and afterwards in Train, or dependence upon one another. Singly, they are everyone a Representation or Appearance, of some quality, or other Accident of a body without us; which is commonly called an Object. Which Object worketh on the Eyes, Ears, and other parts of man’s body; and by diversity of working, produceth diversity of Appearances.

The Original of them all, is that which we call Sense; (For there is no conception in a man’s mind, which hath not at first, totally, or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of Sense.) The rest are derived from that original.

To know the Natural cause of Sense, is not very necessary to the business now in hand; and I have elsewhere written of the same at large. Nevertheless, to fill each part of my present method, I will briefly deliver the same in this place.

The cause of Sense, is the External Body, or Object, which presseth the organ proper to each Sense, either immediately, as in the Taste and Touch; or immediately, as in Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling: which pressure, by the mediation of Nerves, and other strings, and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain, and Heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter-pressure, or Endeavor of the heart, to deliver itself: which Endeavor because Outward, seemeth to be some matter without. And this Seeming, or Fancy, is that which men call sense; and consisteth, as to the Eye, in a Light, or Color Figured; To the Ear, in a Sound; To the Nostril, in an Odour; To the Tongue and Palate, in a Savour; and to the rest of the body, in Heat, Cold, Hardness, Softness, and such other qualities, as we discern by Feeling. All which qualities called Sensible, are in the object that causeth them, but so many several motions of the matter, by which it presseth our organs diversely. Neither in us that are pressed, are they anything else, but divers motions; (for motion, produceth nothing but motion.) But their appearance to us is Fancy, the same waking, that dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the Eye, makes us fancy a light; and pressing the Ear, produceth a ding; so do the bodies also we see, or hear, produce the same by their strong, though unobserved action, For if those Colors, and Sounds, were in the Bodies, or Objects that cause them, they could not be severed from them, as by glasses, and in Echoes by reflection, we see they are; where we know the thing we see, is in one place; the appearance, in another. And though at some certain distance, the real, and very object seem invested with the fancy it begets in us; Yet still the object is one thing, the image or fancy is another. So that Sense in all cases, is nothing else but original fancy, caused (as I have said) by the pressure, that is, by the motion, of External things upon our Eyes, Ears, and other organs thereunto ordained.

But the Philosophy-schools, through all the Universities of Christendom, grounded upon certain Texts of Aristotle, teach another doctrine; and say, For the cause of Vision, that the thing seen, sendeth forth on every side a Visible Species(in English) a Visible Show, Apparition, or Aspect, or a Being Seen; the receiving whereof into the Eye, is Seeing. And for the cause of Hearing, that the thing heard, sendeth forth an Audible Species, that is, an Audible Aspect, or Audible Being Seen; which entering at the Ear, maketh Hearing. Nay for the cause of Understanding also, they say the thing Understood sendeth forth Intelligible Species, that is, an Intelligible Being Seen; which coming into the Understanding, makes us Understand. I say not this, as disapproving the use of Universities: but because I am to speak hereafter of their office in a Commonwealth, I must let you see on all occasions by the way, what things would be amended in them; amongst which the frequency of insignificant Speech is one.

Chapter II.

OF IMAGINATION

That when a thing lies still, unless somewhat else stir it, it will lie still forever, is a truth that no man doubts of. But that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless somewhat else stay it, though the reason be the same, (namely, that nothing can change itself,) is not so easily assented to. For men measure, not only other men, but all other things, by themselves: and because they find themselves subject after motion to pain, and lassitude, think everything else grows weary of motion, and seeks repose of its own accord; little considering, whether it be not some other motion, wherein that desire of rest they find in themselves, consisteth. From hence it is, that the Schools say, Heavy bodies fall downwards, out of an appetite to rest, and to conserve their nature in that place which is most proper for them; ascribing appetite, and Knowledge of what is good for their conservation, (which is more than man has) to things inanimate absurdly.

When a Body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinder it) eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time, and by degrees quite extinguish it: And as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rowling for a long time after; so also it happeneth in that motion, which is made in the internal parts of a man, then, when he Sees, Dreams, &c. For after the object is removed, or the eye shut, we still retain an image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it. And this is it, that Latins call Imagination, from the image made in seeing; and apply the same, though improperly, to all the other senses. But the Greeks call it Fancy; which signifies Appearance, and is as proper to one sense, as to another. Imagination therefore is nothing but Decaying Sense; and is found in men, and many other living Creatures, as well sleeping, as waking.

The decay of Sense in men waking, is not the decay of the motion made in sense; but an obscuring of it, in such manner, as the light of the Sun obscureth the light of the Stars; which stars do no less exercise their virtue by which they are visible, in the day, than in the night. But because amongst many strokes, which our eyes, Ears, and other organs receive from External bodies, the predominant only is sensible; therefore the light of the Sun being predominant, we are not affected with the action of the stars. And any object being removed from our eyes, though the impression it made in us remain; yet other objects more present succeeding, and working on us, the Imagination of the past is obscured, and made weak; as the voice of a man is in the noise of the day. From whence it followeth, that the longer the time is, after the sight, or Sense of any object, the weaker is the Imagination. For the continual change of man’s body, destroys in time the parts which in sense were moved: So that the distance of time, and of place, hath one and the same effect in us. For as at a distance of place, that which we look at, appears dim, and without distinction of the smaller parts; and as Voices grow weak, and inarticulate: so also after great distance of time, our imagination of the Past is weak; and we lose( for example) of Cities we have seen, many particular Streets; and of Actions, many particular Circumstances. This Decaying Sense, when we would express the thing itself, (I mean Fancy itself,) we call Imagination, as I said before; But when we would express the Decay, and signify that the Sense is fading, old, and past, it is called Memory. So that Imagination and Memory, are but one thing, which for divers considerations hath divers names.

Much memory, or memory of many things, is called Experience. Again, Imagination being only of those things which have been formerly perceived by Sense, either all at once, or by parts at several times; The former, (which is the imagining the whole object, as it was presented to the sense) is Simple Imagination; as when one imagineth a man, or horse, which he hath seen before. The other is Compounded; as when from the sight of a man at one time, and of a horse at another, we conceive in our mind a Centaur. So when a man compoundeth the image of his own person, with the image of the actions of another man; as when a man imagines himself a Hercules, or an Alexander, (which happeneth often to them that are much taken with reading of Romans) it is a compound imagination, and properly but a Fiction of the mind. There be also other Imaginations that rise in men, (though waking) from the great impression made in sense; As from gazing upon the Sun, the impression leaves an image of the Sun before our eyes a long time after; and from being long and vehemently attend upon Geometrical Figures, a man shall in the dark, (though awake) have the Images of Lines, and Angles before his eyes: which kind of Fancy hath no particular name; as being a thing that doth not commonly fall into men’s discourse.

The imaginations of them that sleep, are those we call Dreams. And these also (as all other Imaginations) have been before, either totally, or by parcels in the Sense. And because in sense, the Brain, and Nerves, which are the necessary Organs of sense, are so benumbed in sleep, as not easily to be moved by the action of External Objects, there can happen in sleep, no Imagination; and therefore no Dream, but what proceeds from the agitation of the inward parts of man’s body; which inward parts, for the Connection they have with the Brain, and other Organs, when they be distempered, do keep the same in motion; whereby the Imaginations there formerly made, appear as if a man were waking; saving that the Organs of Sense being now benumbed, so as there is no new object, which can master and obscure them with a more vigorous impression, a Dream must needs be more clear, in this silence of sense, than are our waking thoughts. And hence it cometh to pass, that it is a hard matter, and by many thought impossible to distinguish exactly between Sense and Dreaming. For my part, when I consider, that in Dreams, I do not often, nor constantly think of the same Persons, Places, Objects, and Actions that I do waking; nor remember so long a train of coherent thoughts, Dreaming, as at other times; And because waking I often observe the absurdity of Dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking Thoughts; I am well satisfied, that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake.

And seeing dreams are caused by the distemper of some of the inward parts of the Body; divers distempers must needs cause different Dreams. And hence it is, that lying cold breedeth Dreams of Fear, and raiseth the thought and Image of some fearful object (the motion from the brain to the inner parts, and from the inner parts to the Brain being reciprocal:) and that as Anger causeth heat in some parts of the Body, when we are awake; so when we sleep, the overheating of the same parts causeth Anger, and raiseth up in the brain the Imagination of an Enemy. In the same manner; as Natural kindness, when we are awake causeth desire; and desire makes heat in certain other parts of the body; so also, too much heat in those parts, while we sleep, raiseth in the brain an imagination of some kindness shown. In sum, our Dreams are the reverse of our waking Imaginations; The motion when we are awake, beginning at one end; and when we Dream, at another.

The most difficult discerning of a man’s Dream, from his waking thoughts, is then, when by some accident we observe not that we have slept: which is easy to happen to a man full of fearful thoughts; and whose conscience is much troubled; and that sleepeth, without the circumstances, of going to bed, or putting off his clothes, as one that noddeth in a chair. For he that taketh pains, and industriously lays himself to sleep, in case any uncouth and exorbitant fancy come unto him, cannot easily think it other than a Dream. We read of Marcus Brutes, (one that had his life given him by Julius Caesar, and was also his favorite, and notwithstanding murdered him,) how at Philippi, the night before he gave battle to Augustus Caesar, he saw a fearful apparition, which is commonly related by Historians as a Vision: but considering the circumstances, one may easily judge to have been but a short Dream. For sitting in his tent, pensive and troubled with the horror of his rash act, it was not hard for him, slumbering in the cold, to dream of that which most affrighted him; which Fear, as by degrees it made him wake; so also it must needs make the Apparition by degrees to vanish: And having no assurance that he slept, he could have no cause to think it a Dream, or anything but a Vision. And this is no very rare Accident: for even they that be perfectly awake, if they be timorous, and superstitious, possessed with fearful tales, and alone in the dark, are subject to the like fancies, and believe they see spirits and dead men’s Ghosts walking in Churchyards; whereas it is either their Fancy only, or else the knavery of such persons, as make use of such superstitious Fear, to pass disguised in the night, to places they would not be known to haunt.

From this ignorance of how to distinguish Dreams, and other strong Fancies, from vision and Sense, did arise the greatest part of the Religion of the Gentiles in time past, that worshipped Satyrs, Fawns, nymphs, and the like; and now adages the opinion than rude people have of Fairies, Ghosts, and Goblins; and of the power of Witches. For as for Witches, I think not that their witch craft is any real power; but yet that they are justly punished, for the false belief they have, that they can do such mischief, joined with their purpose to do it if they can; their trade being nearer to a new Religion, than to a Craft or Science. And for Fairies, and walking Ghosts, the opinion of them has I think been on purpose, either taught, or not confuted, to keep in credit the use of Exorcism, of Crosses, of holy Water, and other such inventions of Ghostly men. Nevertheless, there is no doubt, but God can make unnatural Apparitions. But that he does it so often, as men need to Fear such things, more than they Fear the stay, or change, of the course of Nature, which he also can stay, and change, is no point of Christian faith. But evil men under pretext that God can do anything, are so bold as to say anything when it serves their turn, though they think it untrue; It is the part of a wise man, to believe them no further, than right reason makes that which they say, appear credible. If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away, and with it, Prognostics from Dreams, false Prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted than they are for Civil Obedience.

And this ought to be the work of the Schools; but they rather nourish such doctrine. For (not knowing what Imagination, or the Senses are), what they receive, they teach: some saying, that Imaginations rise of themselves, and have no cause: Others that they rise most commonly from the Will; and that Good thoughts are blown (inspired) into a man, by God; and evil thoughts by the Devil: or that Good thoughts are powered (infused) into a man, by God; and evil ones by the Devil. Some say the Senses receive the Species of things, and deliver them to the Common-sense; and the Common Sense delivers them over to the Fancy, and the Fancy to the Memory, and the Memory to the Judgment, like handing of things from one to another, with many words making nothing understood.

The Imagination that is raised in man (or any other creature endued with the faculty of imagining) by words, or other voluntary signs, is that we generally call Understanding; and is common to Man and Beast. For a dog by custom will understand the call, or the rating of his Master; and so will many other Beasts. That Understanding which is peculiar to man, is the Understanding not only his will; but his conceptions and thoughts, by the sequel and contexture of the names of things into Affirmations, Negations, and other forms of Speech: And of this kind of Understanding I shall speak hereafter.

Chapter III.

OF THE CONSEQUENCE OR TRAIN OF IMAGINATIONS

By Consequence, or Train of Thoughts, I understand that succession of one Thought to another, which is called (to distinguish it from Discourse in words) Mental Discourse.

When a man thinketh on anything whatsoever, His next Thought after, is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every Thought to every Thought succeeds indifferently. But as we have no Imagination, whereof we have not formerly had Sense, in whole, or in parts; so we have no Transition from one Imagination to another, whereof we never had the like before in our Senses. The reason whereof is this. All Fancies are Motions within us, Relics of those made in the Sense: And those motions that immediately succeeded one another in the sense, continue also together after Sense: In so much as the former coming again to take place, and be predominant, the later followeth, by coherence of the matter moved, is such manner, as water upon a plain Table is drawn which way any one part of it is guided by the finger. But because in sense, to one and the same thing perceived, sometimes one thing, sometimes another succeedeth, it comes to pass in time, that in the Imagining of anything, there is no certainty what we shall Imagine next; Only this is certain, it shall be something that succeeded the same before, at one time or another.

This Train of Thoughts, or Mental Discourse, is of two sorts. The first is Unguided, Without Designee, and inconstant; Wherein there is no Passionate Thought, to govern and direct those that follow, to itself, as the end and scope of some desire, or other passion: In which case the thoughts are said to wander, and seem impertinent one to another, as in a Dream. Such are Commonly the thoughts of men, that are not only without company, but also without care of anything; though even then their Thoughts are as busy as at other times, but without harmony; as the sound which a Lute out of tune would yield to any man; or in tune, to one that could not play. And yet in this wild ranging of the mind, a man may oft-times perceive the way of it, and the dependence of one thought upon another. For in a Discourse of our present Civil war, what could seem more impertinent, than to ask (as one did) what was the value of a Roman Penny? Yet the Coherence to me was manifest enough. For the Thought of the war, introduced the Thought of the delivering up the King to his Enemies; The Thought of that, brought in the Thought of the delivering up of Christ; and that again the Thought of the 30 pence, which was the price of that treason: and thence easily followed that malicious question; and all this in a moment of time; for Thought is quick.

The second is more constant; as being Regulated by some desire, and designee. For the impression made by such things as we desire, or Fear, is strong, and permanent, or, (if it cease for a time,) of quick return: so strong it is sometimes, as to hinder and break our sleep. From Desire, ariseth the Thought of some means we have seen produce the like of that which we aim at; and from the thought of that, the thought of means to that mean; and so continually, till we come to some beginning within our own power. And because the End, by the greatness of the impression, comes often to mind, in case our thoughts begin to wander, they are quickly again reduced into the way: which observed by one of the seven wise men, made him give men this precept, which is now worn out, Respice Finem; that is to say, in all your actions, look often upon what you would have, as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way to attain it.

The Train of regulated Thoughts is of two kinds; One, when of an effect imagined, we seek the causes, or means that produce it: and this is common to Man and Beast. The other is, when imagining anything whatsoever, we seek all the possible effects, that can by it be produced; that is to say, we imagine what we can do with it, when we have it. Of which I have not at any time seen any sign, but in man only; for this is a curiosity hardly incident to the nature of any living creature that has no other Passion but sensual, such as are hunger, thirst, lust, and anger. In sum, the Discourse of the Mind, when it is governed by designee, is nothing but Seeking, or the faculty of Invention, which the Latins call Sagacitas, and Solertia; a hunting out of the causes, of some effect, present or past; or of the effects, of some present or past cause. sometimes a man seeks what he hath lost; and from that place, and time, wherein he misses it, his mind runs back, from place to place, and time to time, to find where, and when he had it; that is to say, to find some certain, and limited time and place, in which to begin a method of seeking. Again, from thence, his thoughts run over the same places and times, to find what action, or other occasion might make him lose it. This we call Remembrance, or Calling to mind: the Latins call it Reminiscentia, as it were a Re-Conning of our former actions.

Sometimes a man knows a place determinate, within the compass whereof his is to seek; and then his thoughts run over all the parts thereof, in the same manner, as one would sweep a room, to find a jewel; or as a Spaniel ranges the field, till he find a sent; or as a man should run over the alphabet, to start a rhyme.

Prudence Sometime a man desires to know the event of an action; and then he thinketh of some like action past, and the events thereof one after another; supposing like events will follow like actions. As he that foresees what will become of a Criminal, re-cons what he has seen follow on the like Crime before; having this order of thoughts, The Crime, the Officer, the Prison, the Judge, and the Gallows. Which kind of thoughts, is called Foresight, and Prudence, or Providence; and sometimes Wisdom; though such conjecture, through the difficulty of observing all circumstances, be very fallacious. But this is certain; by how much one man has more experience of things past, than another; by so much also he is more Prudent, and his expectations the seldomer fail him. The Present only has a being in Nature; things Past have a being in the Memory only, but things To Come have no being at all; the Future being but a fiction of the mind, applying the sequels of actions Past, to the actions that are Present; which with most certainty is done by him that has most Experience; but not with certainty enough. And though it be called Prudence, when the Event answereth our Expectation; yet in its own nature, it is but Presumption. For the foresight of things to come, which is Providence, belongs only to him by whose will they are to come. From him only, and supernaturally, proceeds Prophecy. The best Prophet naturally is the best guesser; and the best guesser, he that is most versed and studied in the matters he guesses at: for he hath most Signs to guess by.

A Sign, is the Event Antecedent, of the Consequent; and contrarily, the Consequent of the Antecedent, when the like Consequences have been observed, before: And the oftener they have been observed, the less uncertain is the Sign. And therefore he that has most experience in any kind of Business, has most Signs, whereby to guess at the Future time, and consequently is the most prudent: And so much more prudent than he that is new in that kind of business, as not to be equaled by any advantage of Natural and extemporary wit: though perhaps many young men think the contrary.

Nevertheless it is not Prudence that distinguisheth man from beast. There be beasts, that at a year old observe more, and pursue that which is for their good, more prudently, than a child can do at ten.

As Prudence is a Presumption of the Future, contracted from the Experience of time Past; So there is a Presumption of things Past taken from other things (not future but) past also. For he that hath seen by what courses and degrees, a flourishing State hath first come into Civil war, and then to ruin; upon the sights of the ruins of any other State, will guess, the like war, and the like courses have been there also. But his conjecture, has the same uncertainty almost with the conjecture of the Future; both being grounded only upon Experience.

There is no other act of man’s mind, that I can remember, naturally planted in him, so, as to need no other thing, to the exercise of it, but to be born a man, and live with the use of his five Senses. Those other Faculties, of which I shall speak by and by, and which seem proper to man only, are acquired, and increased by study and industry; and of most men learned by instruction, and discipline; and proceed all from the invention of Words, and Speech. For besides Sense, and Thoughts, and the Train of thoughts, the mind of man has no other motion; though by the help of Speech, and Method, the same Faculties may be improved to such a height, as to distinguish men from all other living Creatures.

Whatsoever we imagine, is Finite. Therefore there is no Idea, or conception of anything we call Infinite. No man can have in his mind an Image of infinite magnitude; nor conceive the ends, and bounds of the thing named; having no Conception of the thing, but of our own inability. And therefore the Name of God is used, not to make us conceive him; (for he is Incomprehensible; and his greatness, and power are unconceivable;) but that we may honor him. Also because whatsoever (as I said before,) we conceive, has been perceived first by sense, either all at once, or by parts; a man can have no thought, representing anything, not subject to sense. No man therefore can conceive anything, but he must conceive it in some place; and endued with some determinate magnitude; and which may be divided into parts; nor that anything is all in this place, and all in another place at the same time; nor that two, or more things can be in one, and the same place at once: for none of these things ever have, or can be incident to Sense; but are absurd speeches, taken upon credit (without any signification at all,) from deceived Philosophers, and deceived, or deceiving Schoolmen.

Chapter IV.

OF SPEECH

The Invention of Printing, though ingenious, compared with the invention of Letters, is no great matter. But who was the first that found the use of Letters, is not known. He that first brought them into Greece, men say was Cadmus, the son of Agenor, King of Phoenicia. A profitable Invention for continuing the memory of time past, and the conjunction of mankind, dispersed into so many, and distant regions of the Earth; and with all difficult, as proceeding from a watchful observation of the divers motions of the Tongue, Palate, Lips, and other organs of Speech; whereby to make as many differences of characters, to remember them. But the most noble and profitable invention of all other, was that of Speech, consisting of Names or Appellations, and their Connection; whereby men register their Thoughts; recall them when they are past; and also declare them one to another for mutual utility and conversation; without which, there had been amongst men, neither Commonwealth, nor Society, nor Contract, nor Peace, no more than amongst Lyons, Bears, and Wolves. The first author of Speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as he presented to his sight; For the Scripture goeth no further in this matter. But this was sufficient to direct him to add more names, as the experience and use of the creatures should give him occasion; and to join them in such manner by degrees, as to make himself understood; and so by succession of time, so much language might be gotten, as he had found use for; though not so copious, as an Orator or Philosopher has need of. For I do not find anything in the Scripture, out of which, directly or by consequence can be gathered, that Adam was taught the names of all Figures, Numbers, Measures, Colors, Sounds, Fancies, Relations; much less the names of Words and Speech, as General, Special, Affirmative, Negative, Interrogative, Optative, Infinitive, all which are useful; and least of all, of Entity, Intentionality, Quiddity, and other significant words of the School.

But all this language gotten, and augmented by Adam and his posterity, was again lost at the tower of Babel, when by the hand of God, every man was stricken for his rebellion, with an oblivion of his former language. And being hereby forced to disperse themselves into several parts of the world, it must needs be, that the diversity of Tongues that now is, proceeded by degrees from them, in such manner, as need (the mother of all inventions) taught them; and in tract of time grew everywhere more copious.

The general use of Speech, is to transfer our Mental Discourse, into Verbal; or the Train of our Thoughts, into a Train of Words; and that for two commodities; whereof one is, the Registering of the Consequences of our Thoughts; which being apt to slip out of our memory, and put us to a new labour, may again be recalled, by such words as they were Marked by. So that the first use of names, is to serve for Marks, or Notes of remembrance. Another is, when many use the same words, to signify (by their Connection and order,) one to another, what they conceive, or think of each matter; and also what they desire, Fear, or have any other passion for. and for this use they are called Signs. Special uses of Speech are these; First, to Register, what by cogitation, we find to be the cause of anything, present or past; and what we find things present or past may produce, or effect: which in sum, is acquiring of Arts. Secondly, to show to others that knowledge which we have attained; which is, to Counsel, and Teach one another. Thirdly, to make known to others our wills, and purposes, that we may have the mutual help of one another. Fourthly, to please and delight our selves, and others, by playing with our words, for pleasure or ornament, innocently.

To these Uses, there are also four correspondent Abuses. First, when men register their thoughts wrong, by the inconstancy of the signification of their words; by which they register for their conceptions, that which they never conceived; and so deceive themselves. Secondly, when they use words metaphorically; that is, in other sense than that they are ordained for; and thereby deceive others. Thirdly, when by words they declare that to be their will, which is not. Fourthly, when they use them to grieve one another: for seeing nature hath armed living creatures, some with teeth, some with horns, and some with hands, to grieve an enemy, it is but an abuse of Speech, to grieve him with the tongue, unless it be one whom we are obliged to govern; and then it is not to grieve, but to correct and amend.

The manner how Speech serveth to the remembrance of the consequence of causes and effects, consisteth in the imposing of Names, and the Connection of them.

Of Names, some are Proper, and singular to one only thing; as Peter, John, This Man, This Tree: and

Reviews for Leviathan (with an Introduction by Herbert W. Schneider)

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Listened to this in audio form and found it a little hard to follow in places.

[jpsnow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hobbe's work is more completely titled "The Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil." There is a lot of depth in this work and my weak attempt here is meant more to reinforce the reading within my own mind than to actually convey the entire meaning of Hobbe's great work. Hobbes is among the first in a series of thinkers to contemplate the meaning of life, politics, religion, and humanity in order to put them into some logical context. He does a perfect job of building small parts of his argument and then combining them to make a completely powerful major point. The natural role of the sovereign, obedience to the sovereign, and the endorsement of all of this by God are principal points in Hobbes argument. Later thinkers such as Locke and Rouseau later allowed for the citizenry to break the contract with the sovereign but Hobbes does not allow for that in any way. Much of Hobbe's logic is also based on the scientific discoveries taking place during the time. As part of his debunking other philosophies, he mentions the assertion by Aristotle that all things emit a "visible species," which was then known to be untrue.

[heidilove_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A meaningful look into the thoughts and context of the man who gave us the phrase that life is hard brutish and short.

[donovan_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Actually, Hobbes' words were 'nasty, brutish, and short.' Leviathan is a great book, but what I find amazing about it is not Hobbes' insights into humans or politics-the continuation of our reliance upon Hobbes to explain state power seems much more the point. Hobbes was one of the first to understand fear as the basis for government, and this has remained, unfortunately, a prevalent view. Read this book, but critically and as a historically great work.

[vercingetorix_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not to sound too flippant, but I think this book is probably worth reading solely for exceprts such as these:"The Papacy, is no other, than the Ghost of the deceased Romane Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof...""The Ecclesiastiques are the Spirituall men, and Ghostly Fathers. The Fairies are Spirits, and Ghosts. Fairies and Ghosts inhabite Darknesse, Solitudes, and Graves. The Ecclesiastiques walke in Obscurity of Doctrine, in Monasteries, Churches, and Churchyards."Both from The Kingdome of Darknesse

[kade_11 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Most of the bulk of The Leviathan is spent slowly and methodically building and explaining Hobbes' cynical opinion of the state of nature. This is partially why the Leviathan is antiquated today, because we don't deal with states of nature, nobody except anarchists deny the need for government. However in terms of a political science treatise it's effective in establishing the roots and general purpose of government. Whereas The Prince reads as an advisory manual for would-be Kings and is therefore completely anachronistic, The Leviathan is still an effective justification for government. If you already buy that the state of nature is an unacceptable way to live, skip the first (and larger) part of the Leviathan and simply read Hobbes' solution to the problem. Must-have for political scientists.

[vegetarian_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I first read this as an undergraduate in political science, then we read it again in a second social philosophy course (where a chapter had been assigned for my first social philosophy course).

[chriszodrow · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A necessary but unpleasant read. The dilated statist mind has a tentative justification here.

[diwanna_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had a bit of trouble reading this book because of the archaic language. I did glean quite a bit of good info from it regarding Hobbes theories on religion, morality, and politics. It's a must read, but take your time.

[axelp_384971 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind: which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language, or Science; yet when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuously, the pains left another, will be onely to consider if he also find not the same in himself."

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best political treatises ever written. Very lucid arguments to justify an all-powerful state. I loved reading this book again.

[mbmackay · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is not an easy recreational read, but there is much to enjoy. Hobbes writing is wonderful - short and direct, he makes his arguments sing! Strong and opinionated - he must have been wonderful company in real life. But also an arch old conservative - we find him arguing in the end of Part 2 that the remedy for discontent with the political order is that the people should be taught to not want change!Parts of the book are just a joy to read - Chapter 13 on people living in a "state of nature", i.e. outside of a political commonwealth, is short, sharp and persuasive. This is also the source of the famous quote of life outside a commonwealth as "solitary, poor nasty, brutish and short". But in others he deploys his skills to argue for the indefensible: he suggests that the people have a covenant with their monarch, but not the other way round, and even, remarkably, that the people are authors of the actions of a monarch, and thus have no cause for complaint at any action taken by the monarch!I read an edition with current spelling, but I also referred to a text of the original. I found it amazing that the English in use in 1651 is so accessible today, whereas Shakespeare, from two generations earlier, is at times a struggle. Of course, one is written in academic terms while the other is vernacular, but it is striking how stable the language has become over 350 years.Read August 2014.

[cestovatela · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was revolutionary for its time but doesn't hold up well to modern-day philosophical scrutiny. Convinced that men were by nature evil, Hobbes argued that the best system of government was a benevolent dictator backed by a powerful army but he doesn't seem to recognize that power corrupts and benevolent dictators are hard to come by.

[jarlalex_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In the 1640s, Europe was littered with wars, most of them pertinent to who ought to be in charge. The continent saw the last decade of the Thirty Years? War, whose major impacts were reaffirming state sovereignty and killing an unprecedented number of people. Britain was itself embroiled in an on-and-off civil war, intending to settle a more philosophical debate over whether the king was answerable to parliament or vice versa; a substantial number of Britons died in the process. It was with this background that Thomas Hobbes, a royalist safely living in Paris, wrote his seminal work Leviathan.Named for a (presumably) mythical sea beast, the work considers the nature of man, the state, their interactions with faith, and knowledge. Human thought, he argues, comes in several flavours: Sense, Imagination (or, decaying sense), Reason, and Science. People combine these in order that they might ?obtain some future apparent good,? and he describes a variety of acts that build (or destroy) honour, and therefore reputation, and therefore power in people; and people seek power ad infinitum. There?s just one problem with that desire: the natural condition is one of perpetual war of all versus all; referencing Thucydides, he believes that life on its own is ?solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.? Therefore, sensing that to be unpleasant, peoples came together to create a ?commonwealth,? which can (through fear of punishment) compel good behaviour ? acquiescence to the laws of nature, adherence to contracts, etc. Considering three varieties of commonwealth ? Monarchy, Democracy, and Aristocracy ? he finds the former alone has the capacity to make conclusive, learned, reasoned, decisions; and therefore despite its ?inconveniences? is far superior.To a large extent, however, this ?finding? isn?t so much reasoned as empirical; nearly any observer, in the same context, would have come to the same conclusion. Not only was the entire known world governed by a monarch of one form or another, but historical attempts to create either democratic or aristocratic governments had all met failure. Famously, democratic Athens was conquered by monarchic Sparta; the Roman Republic dissolved into the Roman Empire. As Hobbes was writing, the Polish sejm (an aristocratic assembly) had become so ineffective that Poland was conquered by its neighbours. And, most immediately to Hobbes, the English Parliament, having won the civil war, was disintegrating in to factionalism.One would be remiss, however, to overlook one additional factor: His exile notwithstanding, Hobbes was on the king?s payroll in the 1640s, and worked directly with the future King Charles II. His salary beholden to a strong believer in the divine right of kings, any argument against monarchical supremacy ? especially in light of the parliamentary uprising ? could come with dire economic consequences. ?Taking of the sword out of the hand of the sovereign? is ?contrary to the peace and safety of the people.? Yet in the centuries since, it?s been shown that assemblies ? whether of the entire population or a subset of it ? can govern effectively and sustainably. Less than a decade after Hobbes? death, the Glorious Revolution made England a constitutional monarchy; a century after that, a collective of wayward colonies shucked even the pretense of the crown, and has persisted for centuries even in the face of war, civil strife, and disagreement. Meanwhile, ?monarchically? ruled countries have risen and fallen around the world.Hobbes believes that the human mind is incapable of understanding infinity; for this reason, he argues, we have anthropomorphized God as a vehicle with which to conceptualize that which we cannot? and in fact states that presuming the whereabouts of God is idolatrous (since idols are finite and God is not). He points out that God can speak to mankind either directly or indirectly (i.e. through prophets); but in the latter case, how does one distinguish a prophet from a liar? Or from misinterpreting the scriptures?It seems that his answer neglects to include a useful answer (and, to be fair, it?s no easy task) ? but the important point is to establish that laws temporal and spiritual must be enforced by the sovereign to ensure the success of the commonwealth. He delicately implies that the pope?s authority is derived from a misinterpretation of scripture ? Charles I was protestant, after all, and Hobbes (like the contemporaneous Treaty of Westphalia) obligingly grants the sovereign power over religious activity. At the same time, though, his views on religion were somewhat unorthodox, and later accusations of heresy would inhibit publication of his later works.Notwithstanding that his driving interest in Leviathan was relatively immediate, Hobbes? view of man and of government would come to influence the Continental Congress. Both the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1789) expressly enumerate the purpose of government and stress the importance of establishing and maintaining peace. The responsibilities accorded to governments are, with a few exceptions, not far removed from the rights of sovereigns enumerated; although his positions supporting governmental infallibility, and opposing free expression and separation of powers were rejected.It seems clear that Hobbes isn?t so much a philosopher or thinker, as he is an observer of history and current affairs. Any Englishman, writing a comprehensive book on government in the 1640s, could reasonably be expected to have emphasized the same points and arrived at the same conclusions. This does not, however, render the text meaningless. On the contrary, it provides a unique perspective on how government itself was viewed at a pivotal moment in British history ? perhaps the first moment that people much thought about it. (Most citizens, after all, will not much concern themselves over whether this or that nobleman is the king.)Hobbes? desire to affiliate with the ?winning side? in the English Civil War was ultimately successful; the Cromwell regime judged him to be of no threat (perhaps because he cleverly defined ?monarchy? in such a way to include the new Lord Protector), and the restored Charles II later granted him a pension. But his wish to shape politics failed. The crown answered to Parliament after 1688, and the American Declaration of Independence made demands on the king that would have been unthinkable a century before. By inspiring, even in a few, the idea that government ? a finite entity ? could be defined, Leviathan was paramount to the development of modern political existence.

[randystafford · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My reactions to reading this book in 1994. It took almost two months to plow through this book, but I?m not sorry I did. Like most ?great books?, the things I heard about it were rather simplistic and one-faceted. The actual book was more complex than I expected. I expected a detailed argument in favor of absolute rule, justified by divine right, by a king. Like some of the writings of Cicero, Hobbes, writing at the time of the political upheaval of the English Civil War (Cicero also wrote in a time of civil war), displays a strong desire for strong government to bring about tranquility. But Hobbes is up to much more than just an essay on why the Stuarts should have absolute power. As Oakeshott says in his introduction, Hobbes was fascinated by geometry and it shows in the first part ? ?Of Man? ? in which he develops a rather medieaval (in the sense of human consciousness being described as a series of internal ?motions? caused by external objects) theory of psychology. Hobbes, in a style reminescent of a geometrical proof, starts out by defining certain human traits and emotions then constructs, using these definitions, theorems of human psychology. Hobbes view of man is realistic. He sees him as neither purely a creature of emotion (though he dedicates much time to exploring this aspect of humanity) or reason. He sees wisdom and rationality arising from human attempts to predict the future based on experience. The book ends with some surly, sarcastic ? but convincing ? attacks on key elements of Catholic theology ? the immortal soul, eternal torment in hell, purgatory. There is a lot of emphasis on the importance of ghosts ? which Hobbes briefly deals with along with demon possession ? as pertaining to purgatory, and the arguments about both that were going on at this time, and the trinity. He also takes a shot at the idea of the temporal rule of the Catholic Church over sovereigns. (Some of this is covered under the last section called ?Of the Kingdom of Darkness?.) Still, much of the book is Hobbes? argument not only for an absolute sovereign (whether a king ? which he prefers ? or committee or assembly) but an absolute theocracy with religion and politics absolutely melded. Hobbes, according to the introduction, gets accussed of immorality. I don?t think Hobbes was amoral or immoral but his philosophy is extremely pragmatic. Hobbes, as the starting point of his philosophy (and this is extended, by contract, to the Leviathan of the state), sees a man as having the right to whatever he desires. The problem ? of course ? is that a man does not exist, mankind does and each man competes with the other for ?honor, riches, and authority?. Hobbes says that man?s life, in a state of nature without government, is, to use his most famous phrase ?solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short?. That in nature every man is at war with every other man, that no society, no art, no science, no letters exist, only continual fear. As Hobbes rightly notes, this state of anarchy is so intolerable that even the most primitive tribe has some form of government. However, I think there are a couple of minor flaws to his vision of man?s competition. First, each person has different notions of ?honor, riches, and authority?, each niche, each subtle variation in the term ?riches?, ?honor?, and ?authority? can be occuppied by a different person. Second, Hobbes seems to postulate a zero-sum society where one person?s gain is another?s loss. This flies in the face of economic history. Still, Hobbes? point, that commerce, trade, and economic security can?t exist in such conditions, is true. Hobbes? ultimate statement ? that all religious and political authority must be invested in the Leviathan (the artificial body of the state with the government as its head) to prevent this natural state of war and foster civilization ? is understandable given the civil and religious conflicts of English society at the time. However, Hobbes bluntly reaches several conclusions that would make a libertarian wince. Subjects have no right to attempt changing their government. The sovereign cannot forfeit his power. The laws of the commonwealth do not apply to the sovereign. Dissent is not allowed. The sovereign?s power is not limited. Hobbes hates separation of powers too. Hobbes acknowledges that this is a recipe for tyranny. Hobbes even denies the right of dissent based on religious conscience. He demands the outward form of obedience to whatever the sovereign mandates religiously. You can believe, according to him, whatever you want, and God will judge you accordingly, but even God expects absolute obedience. Hobbes says that government wanting power is always much worse than too much power. He blithely adds that the government is always concerned with its subjects' welfare because it is a component of their welfare. He is also quaintly na?ve when he says that the sovereign will grant his subjects much freedom because there are many areas he will not seek to regulate. Obviously, he didn?t forsee the regulatory zeal of the modern Leviathan. Still, Hobbes (at least in my very uneducated opinion) seems to straddle not only an authoritarian tradition but a libertarian one. He says that ?force and fraud? are the cardinal virtues of war. Presumably that includes the war of man with every other man that occurs in nature. Government is instituted to eliminate this warfare. Interestingly, libertarians view government?s sole legitimate function as preventing ?force and fraud?. In other words, like Hobbes, they wish to quell warfare in the state of nature. Libertarians base much of their philosophy on the use of contracts, and Hobbes bases his philosophy on that too. The subject, to avoid the unpleasant state of man in nature, voluntarily gives up his rights and will to a sovereign that promises security from violence. Much of the book is a detailed explication of this idea in its various political and religious implications. However, though Hobbes is about as an extreme advocate of governmental power as there is, he says a subject can ? with justice (which, in Hobbes? terms, means without violating the contract the subject forms with his sovereign) ? resist a sovereign?s attempt to kill him. The whole point of the contract, Hobbes argues, is for the subject to avoid death. A subject can also justly refuse to kill himself, testify against themselves, or defend their life (even if they are criminals who have committed an unjust act the state seeks to punish) against the sovereign. While Hobbes views every action of the sovereign authorized by the subject via contract to get security, he points out that logically the contract is void when the subject?s life is at stake.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Vooral stuk over de mens is interessant: voor het eerst systematische ontleding van het menselijk functioneren, aanzet tot kennisleerStaatsleer: duidelijk absolutistisch, niet toevallig in parijs geschreven ten tijde van Louis XIV, wel op het einde lichte relativering. Natuurtoestand is goed als concept, maar te theoretisch om er een hele staatsleer uit te kunnen afleiden. Athe?sme: duidelijk niet, wel materialistische formulering met ruimte voor wonderen en god.