Thomas Hobbes

Series Introduction

The Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers series aims to show that there
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Each volume in the series presents a thinker’s ideas in an accessible and
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The following twenty volumes that make up the entire Major Conservative
and Libertarian Thinkers series are written by international scholars and
experts.

The Salamanca School by Andre Azevedo Alves (LSE, UK) & Professor José
Manuel Moreira (Porto, Portugal)
Thomas Hobbes by Dr R. E. R. Bunce (Cambridge, UK)
John Locke by Professor Eric Mack (Tulane, US)
David Hume by Professor Christopher J. Berry (Glasgow, UK)
Adam Smith by Professor James Otteson (Yeshiva, US)
Edmund Burke by Professor Dennis O’Keeffe (Buckingham, UK)
Alexis de Tocqueville by Dr Alan S Kahan (Paris, France)
Herbert Spencer by Alberto Mingardi (Istituto Bruno Leoni, Italy)
Ludwig von Mises by Richard Ebeling (Trinity College)
Joseph A. Schumpeter by Professor John Medearis (Riverside, California, US)
F. A. Hayek by Dr Adam Tebble (UCL, UK)
Michael Oakeshott by Dr Edmund Neill (Oxford, UK)
Karl Popper by Dr Phil Parvin (Cambridge, UK)
Ayn Rand by Professor Mimi Gladstein (Texas, US)
Milton Friedman by Dr William Ruger (Texas State, US)
James M. Buchanan by Dr John Meadowcroft (King’s College London, UK)
The Modern Papacy by Dr Samuel Gregg (Acton Institute, US)
Robert Nozick by Ralf Bader (St Andrews, UK)
Russell Kirk by Jon Pafford
Murray Rothbard by Gerard Casey

Of course, in any series of this nature, choices have to be made as to

which thinkers to include and which to leave out. Two of the thinkers
in the series – F. A. Hayek and James M. Buchanan – have written
explicit statements rejecting the label ‘conservative’. Similarly, other
thinkers, such as David Hume and Karl Popper, may be more accu-
rately described as classical liberals than either conservatives or liber-
tarians. But these thinkers have been included because a full
appreciation of this particular tradition of thought would be impossi-
ble without their inclusion; conservative and libertarian thought can-
not be fully understood without some knowledge of the intellectual
contributions of Hume, Hayek, Popper and Buchanan, among others.
While no list of conservative and libertarian thinkers can be perfect,
then, it is hoped that the volumes in this series come as close as possi-
ble to providing a comprehensive account of the key contributors to
this particular tradition.

John Meadowcroft
King’s College London
This page intentionally left blank
 Thomas Hobbes
R. E. R. Bunce

Major Conservative and

Libertarian Thinkers
Series Editor: John Meadowcroft
Volume 1
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Copyright © R. E. R. Bunce, 2009

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Bunce, R. E. R.
Thomas Hobbes / R.E.R. Bunce.
p. cm. -- (Major conservative and libertarian thinkers ; v. 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-2979-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8264-2979-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.
2. Political science--Great Britain--History--17th century. 3. Philosophers--Great
Britain--Biography. 4. Political scientists--Great Britain--Biography.
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 Contents

Series Editor’s Preface ix

Acknowledgments xi

1 Hobbes’s Life 1
Early Life 1
Employment as a Humanist 2
Hobbes and the New Science 5
Philosopher in Exile 9
Return to England 12
Last Years 14
Conclusion: Life and Philosophy 16

2 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 17

Introduction 17
The Nature of Hobbes’s Political Thought 20
Hobbes’s Works 24
Human Nature: Reason, Knowledge, Imagination,
and Passion 24
Man, Born Unfit for Society 32
The Condition of Mere Nature 35
The Laws of Nature 37
Persons, Authors, Representation, and the State 41
The Creation of the State through Mutual Covenants 44
Types of Sovereignty 45
The Rights and Duties of the Sovereign 46
Liberty under the Sovereign 52
The Life of the Commonwealth 58
The Fool 61
The Death of the Commonwealth 62
Conclusion: The Science of Natural Justice 66
viii Contents

3 Reception and Interpretation 68

Introduction 68
Hobbism and Atheism 68
Hobbes’s Disciples 73
Human Nature and the State of Nature 74
Social Contract and the State 79
Obligation and Law 83
Hobbes as a Theorist of Bourgeois Society 86
Hobbes and the Prisoner’s Dilemma 88
Hobbes the Skeptic 91
Hobbes and Rhetoric 95
Conclusion: Understanding Hobbes 99

4 Hobbes Today 100

New Leviathan and Totalitarianism 101
Back to Nature 108
Hobbes and Contemporary Conservatism 113
Liberal before Liberalism 119
Conclusion 124

Notes 127
Suggested Further Reading 133
Hobbes’s Life 133
Hobbes’s Works 134
Natural Philosophy, Mathematics, and Language 136
Theology 137
Ethics and Political Thought 138
Reception 139

Bibliography 141
Index 157
 Series Editor’s Preface

Thomas Hobbes was one of the great philosophers. His name and the
title of his most famous work, Leviathan, have come to be synonymous
with the idea that the natural state of humankind is ‘nasty, brutish,
and short’ and only the intervention of a munificent overlord may
spare men and women from this unenviable fate by imposing order
where there would otherwise be chaos. For Hobbes, order cannot
arise spontaneously from the bottom-up because in the absence of an
over-arching power any individual stands to gain from plundering the
possessions of their neighbors; although most people want to live in
peace, they must nevertheless arm themselves against potential aggres-
sors and this dynamic causes civil society to degenerate into a ‘war of
every man against every man’.
In the terminology of contemporary political science, then, Hobbes
presents the state of nature as a collective action dilemma where the
optimal outcome is unattainable by individual actors without external
intercession. The problem that Hobbes formulated resonates through
the centuries as the enduring dilemma of political organization and
social cooperation. It can be seen today in fields as diverse as theoreti-
cal game theory and international relations.
In this outstanding work Dr R. E. R. Bunce of the University of
Cambridge places Hobbes in his historical context and sets out
Hobbes’ ambitious philosophical project to discover the principles
that govern the social world in the same way that Sir Isaac Newton had
discovered the principles that govern the physical world. While we
may dispute Hobbes’ immodest assessment that he successfully
attained this goal, Bunce nevertheless captures the extraordinary
enduring value of Hobbes’ work for the contemporary reader.
This volume makes a crucial contribution to the Major Conservative
and Libertarian Thinkers series by setting out the thought of one of
x Preface

the most important contributors to this tradition. Certainly no account

of conservative thought would be complete without a thorough treat-
ment of the contribution made by Hobbes. In presenting Hobbes’
ideas in such an accessible and cogent form the author has produced
an outstanding volume that will prove indispensable to those relatively
unfamiliar with Hobbes’ work as well as more advanced scholars.

John Meadowcroft
King’s College London
 Acknowledgments

I have been studying Hobbes longer than I care to remember.

This book arises primarily from my graduate work at Downing
College, Cambridge and subsequent undergraduate teaching. I have
received a great deal of help from friends, family and colleagues whilst
writing this book. I owe a very great debt to Scott Mandelbrote and
Alan Cromartie who supervised my MPhil and PhD and who helped
my greatly in my efforts to get to grips with early modern philosophy.
Both have been extremely generous with advice and help ever since.
I must also express my gratitude to Elena Dobson who encouraged my
interest in political philosophy for many years and who have been
more than hospitable in the course of numerous research trips to the
British Library. George Wright and Hannah Dawson very kindly read
through a great deal of this book at an early stage in its development
and provided great encouragement as well as some very learned
criticism, both of which were extremely welcome. Brandon High has
been an unfailing source of ideas and help, particularly in the context
of Hobbes’ influence in recent years. Bethan Bowett-Jones, Jeremy
Andrews have also given their time very generously in reading and
commenting on my drafts. Alex Jenner and Barry Hart have done
sterling work as indefatigable proof readers. I must also thank
Quentin Skinner. I was lucky enough to be part of his seminar series
on Hobbes’ Leviathan during my first year as a post graduate at
Cambridge. The seminar was inspiring to say the least and much of
the interpretation that I develop in Chapter 2 comes from those
evenings. I have also learned a great deal from his recent lectures
on the state and liberty, and I am extremely grateful for his advice on
various aspects of Hobbes’ work, particularly understanding Hobbes’
pictures. John Meadowcroft has been extremely helpful during the
preparation of this book. His encouragement and criticism have been
xii Acknowledgments

equally valuable. His comments on draft versions of the text have

undoubtedly improved the end result no end. I must also thank the
staff at Cambridge University Library, the British Library, the Royal
Society’s Library in London and the Bodleian Library in Oxford
for their help during my research. Sami Savonius-Wroth has been a
fantastic sounding board for many of the ideas that I have developed
in this book, particularly for help with understanding John Locke.
I must also thank Chris Mills, Nick Gracey, Daniel and Anna Good-
man, George Wilkes and Laura Williams for their encouragement and
many discussions of writing and the process of writing.
I owe my greatest debt to my family, my Mum and Dad whose love
and support I have always been able to count on; and to Lucy and
India for their love, kindness and patience and for the joy they have
always brought me.

Robin Bunce
University of Cambridge
 1

Hobbes’s Life

In life, as in death, Thomas Hobbes was a controversial figure.

A number of Hobbes’s nicknames indicate significantly different
perspectives on his character. Charles II reportedly referred to his one
time tutor affectionately as “a Bear” (Sorbière 1709, 40). Others dubbed
him, with considerably less warmth, “THE Monster of Malmesbury”
(Cowley 1680, title page). The intellectual merits of Hobbes’s work
occasioned similar disagreement. On the continent Hobbes enjoyed
a reputation as a leading figure in the new philosophy. Samuel
Sorbière, his friend and collaborator accorded Hobbes a place among
the leading spirits of the age, comparing him to Galileo Galilei, René
Descartes and Francis Bacon. (Sorbière 1660, 167–8) In England,
however, Hobbes’s work was certainly well known but not as highly
regarded. Thomas Sprat, Fellow of the Royal Society, argued that
Hobbes’s thought was barren and dogmatic; and likened him to
St George’s fabled foe “the Waggoner” (Sprat 1958, 223). More hostile
still was the view of some in Parliament who saw Hobbes’s ideas as so
dangerous that they demanded to have him burned as a heretic
(Aubrey 1898, I 339). Paradoxically, the man who championed civil
peace and recognized the divisive nature of dispute was one of the
most controversial thinkers of his age.

Early Life

The date and place of Hobbes’s birth are, at least, uncontroversial.

Hobbes was born in Westport outside Malmesbury in Wiltshire on
April 15, 1588. Hobbes dramatized the timing of his birth with the
claim that the event was precipitated by his mother’s fear of the
Spanish fleet which was preparing for an assault upon England. Little
is know of his mother. His father, also Thomas Hobbes, was by all
2 Thomas Hobbes

accounts a poorly educated and poorly paid clergyman. His derelic-

tion of duty, drunken, slanderous and violent behavior landed him in
trouble with the church authorities on several occasions. In 1604 he
was excommunicated for attacking the vicar of the local parish and
fled to London never to return. Two other significant figures are wor-
thy of note in Hobbes’s early life. The first, Robert Latimer taught
Hobbes Latin, Greek and other aspects of the humanist curriculum;
the second is his uncle Francis who paid for him to attend Oxford.
Latimer was undoubtedly a gifted teacher and Hobbes was to follow in
his footsteps first to Magdalen Hall and then as tutor in his own right.
Hobbes wrote disparagingly about Oxford. His later writings were
critical of the university curriculum, and of the culture of student life.
Leviathan complained that Oxford was still dominated by the works of
Aristotle, and Behemoth criticized the decadence of the young scholars
(Hobbes 1990, 146). It is difficult to judge how accurate these obser-
vations were. Certainly, John Locke who gained his MA some 50 years
later still complained about the importance of Aristotle within the
university curriculum (Feingold 1984–99, IV 359). Turning to the
accusation of decadence it is worth noting that Magdalen Hall had
been an outpost of Puritanism since the 1560s, but it is difficult to
gauge how far this impinged on Hobbes’s undergraduate life. Hobbes
does tell us that he preferred reading maps, watching the stars and
trapping jackdaws to attending lectures on scholastic logic1 (Aubrey
1898, I 329).

Employment as a Humanist

Hobbes entered the employment of the Cavendish family after gradu-

ating from Oxford. William Cavendish, Baron Hardwick (who was cre-
ated the first Earl of Devonshire in 1618), wanted his son to
be instructed by someone of a similar age, someone who would be
a companion as well as a tutor to his son. Hobbes certainly viewed the
relationship as a friendship (Skinner 1996, 218–9), and perhaps
because of this he seems to have become involved with his pupil’s pre-
occupations and pursuits, which included politics, travel and writing.
The young William Cavendish’s literary interests were undoubtedly
influenced by Bacon, whom he admired greatly. Bacon, who held a
number of important government posts under Elizabeth I and James
 Hobbes’s Life 3

I and also a well-known philosopher, became a friend of Cavendish. In

1611 Cavendish published, albeit anonymously, A Discourse on Flattery;
by 1615 he presented a copy of further ten Essayes to his father.
Both works show a considerable stylistic debt to Bacon. During 1617
Cavendish, with Hobbes’s assistance, translated Bacon’s Essays into
Italian. (Malcolm 1984, 50–1) It was through Cavendish that Hobbes
met Bacon. Apparently, Hobbes served as Bacon’s amanuensis, that
is to say, his secretary, assistant and confidant, following his fall in
1621; and there is evidence that they met as early as 1619. This early
association with Bacon seems to have led to a lifelong interest in his
works. Indeed, it seems that Hobbes read Bacon’s natural and civil
histories as well as his philosophical work from the 1610s through to
the end of his life (Bunce 2003, 41–83).
The translation of Bacon had come about during one of Caven-
dish’s European tours. Hobbes accompanied Cavendish on a Grand
European Tour between 1610 and 1614, when Cavendish returned to
England to stand, successfully, for parliament. However, it was on a
later tour that the translation of Bacon took place. This later tour
is also noteworthy as it marked the beginning of a correspondence
between Cavendish and Fulgenzio Micanzio, aide, confidant and
biographer of Paulo Sarpi a Venetian scholar who defended Venice’s
independence from the growing power of the Pope. The correspon-
dence began on Cavendish’s return and continued until 1625.
Hobbes’s translations of the 76 letters that Micanzio sent to Cavendish
after his return to England have been preserved. Sadly Cavendish’s
side of the correspondence is lost. It appears from the correspon-
dence that part of Hobbes’s role was to source the latest publications
on a variety of subjects for his master and on occasion for his corre-
spondent too. For example in 1617 Hobbes appears to have sent
Micanzio a copy of William Gilbert’s De Magnete (The Seventy-Six Letters,
25). Gilbert was a physician and a natural philosopher who was greatly
interested in the properties of magnetism. Hobbes would later
suggest that De Magnete was the first scientific study of the subject
(Hobbes 1839–1845h, VII 57). Hobbes also assisted Cavendish in his
commercial activities with the Virginia Company, which had been
established by James I in order to create settlements on the coast of
North America, and the Somer Islands Company, which oversaw the
settlement of the Bermudas. Hobbes’s involvement with the company
brought him into contact with some of the leading political figures of
4 Thomas Hobbes

the day such as statesman and founder of the Virginia Company

Sir Edwin Sandys, loyal Royalist and Governor of Bermuda Sir Edward
Sackville, and English jurist and scholar John Selden (Malcolm 2002,
53–79).
Setting aside speculation that Hobbes was the author of three
discourses published anonymously as part of the Horae subsecivae,
observations and discourses in 1620, Hobbes’s first published work was
a translation of Thucydides’s Eight Bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre that
appeared in 1629. Hobbes’s interest in history was reawakened during
his continental tours. The tours made him aware of the diminution of
his linguistic skills. Consequently, he turned to Caesar’s Commentaries
along with other classical histories in order to reverse this decline
(Aubrey 1898, I 361). Additionally, during the tours he became aware
that the traditional logic and philosophy that he had studied at Oxford
were scorned while histories were venerated. It is possible that
Hobbes’s attention was turned to Thucydides whilst he was in Italy
given the large number of Italian scholars who had discussed the
history as part of the debate on Venice’s status as an independent
republic.2 Thucydides’s history chronicles the war between Athens
and Sparta which took place in the fifth century BC. Hobbes certainly
seems to have shared an interest in classical histories and contempo-
rary humanist readings of Greek and Roman literature. Between 1616
and 1640 Hobbes read many histories ancient and modern, exploring
part of the humanist curriculum known as scientia civilis. His trans-
lation of Thucydides contains references to “Strabo, Pausanias,
Herodotus, and some other good authors . . .” (Thucydides (1989),
xxiv, ed. Green 1989,); Plutarch’s Lives and De glora Atheniensium (Ibid.
569, 577); and the maps that he produced to accompany the trans-
lation were indebted to Herodotus, Strabo, Polybus, Livy, Pliny,
Xenophon, and Ptolomie, among others. Of more recent works in the
genre it appears that Hobbes had read Jean Bodin’s Les six livres de la
république, Thomas More’s Utopia, Bacon’s Essays (Skinner 1996, 236)
and History of the Reign of Henry VII (Bunce 2003, 62–3). Clearly,
Hobbes’s interests and concerns prior to 1630 were those of a human-
ist, that is to say one who studied the languages, literature and histo-
ries of ancient Greece and Rome.3
The exact date of the translation of Thucydides is difficult to gage.
Certainly, Hobbes stated that it was completed some while before it
was published. Indeed, it has been suggested that the translation was
 Hobbes’s Life 5

conceived and at least partially complete while Hobbes was working

for Bacon (Rogow 1986, 66–7). The translation also contains three
original essays that defend Thucydides’s importance and set out
Hobbes’s reasons for making the translation. Essentially, Hobbes
argues that artfully written histories are the best source of “profitable
instruction for noblemen, and such as may come to have the manag-
ing of great and weighty actions” (Hobbes 1989, xx). History was
especially good at moral and civil instruction due to the fact that it
taught through example rather than through precept. There is
nothing novel about these positions. Indeed, the belief that history
taught moral and political wisdom better than philosophy can also be
found in many humanist works of the period such as Henry Savile’s
edition of Tacitus; Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives;
John Hayward’s The Life and Raigne of King Henrie IIII; and Bacon’s
History of the reign of Henry VII. Hobbes’s verse autobiography claims
that he chose Thucydides because “[h]e pointed out how
inadequate democracy is, and how much wiser one man is than the
multitude” (Hobbes 1981, 2); that is to say that Hobbes’s first publi-
cation was implicitly pro-Royalist. Nevertheless, more generally,
Hobbes’s reasons for reading and translating Thucydides indicate the
depth of Hobbes’s commitment to and interest in humanist culture
and learning. However, following the publication of Thucydides
Hobbes’s interests changed dramatically.

Hobbes and the New Science

Cavendish, who had become the second Earl of Devonshire in 1626,

died soon before the publication of Thucydides. Subsequently,
Hobbes found employment in the household of Sir Gervase Clifton,
the Royalist politician. Once again Hobbes acted as tutor and once
again he toured the continent. In 1630, while in Geneva, Hobbes
encountered a copy of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry. Aubrey later
described this event as an intellectual turning point:

Being in a gentleman’s library . . . Euclid’s Elements lay open, and

‘twas the 47 [proposition]. He read the proposition. “By G ---,” sayd
he, “this is impossible”. So he reads the demonstration of it, which
referred him back to such a proposition; which proposition he read.
6 Thomas Hobbes

. . . Et sic deinceps, that at last he was demonstratively convinced

of that truth. This made him in love with geometry. (Aubrey 1898,
I 332)

Hobbes biographer A. P. Martinich has gone so far as to describe the

event as a Hobbes’s “geometrical epiphany” (Martinich 1999, 84).
Certainly, there was a change of direction in Hobbes’s concerns.
Following 1630 he became increasingly interested in the new sciences
of nature and, for a time at least, critical of the kind of history and
rhetoric that he praised in his introduction to Thucydides. Nonethe-
less, the notion of an immediate conversion experience from human-
ism to the new sciences is to misunderstand Hobbes’s intellectual
trajectory. First, Hobbes clearly had some knowledge of and sympathy
with the new sciences prior to 1630. Hobbes’s translation of Thucy-
dides, for example, contains information that was taken from Bacon’s
natural history the Sylva sylvarum (Bunce 2006, 80–4). Moreover, there
were many in the early modern period who were learned humanists
as well as being exponents of the new sciences. Bacon, for example,
published works in both genres and saw no discontinuity between the
two; Micanzio too praised Bacon’s natural philosophy and civil histo-
ries with equal vigor. Consequently, there is no necessary contradic-
tion between Hobbes’s humanist orientation and his interest in the
emerging sciences of nature. Furthermore, Hobbes did not experi-
ence a conversion experience in another sense, that is to say, he did
not assimilate Euclid’s geometry uncritically. Hobbes reshaped geo-
metry; he attempted to make it compatible with materialism by rede-
fining many of its most fundamental terms. Consequently, while
Hobbes’s encounter with Euclid was important it would be wrong to
view it as a simple conversion experience.
Hobbes’s interest in the natural sciences, like his humanist studies
in the previous decade, was encouraged by his employers and by
further trips to the continent. Sir William Cavendish, the Earl of
Newcastle and Hobbes’s new patron and the Earl’s brother Sir Charles
Cavendish were interested in mathematics, optics, ballistics, and the
application of these disciplines to horsemanship, swordsmanship,
and other aspects of modern warfare. Gathered around them was
the so-called Welbeck academy, which included the natural philoso-
phers Robert Payne and Walter Warner both of whom experimented
with optics and corresponded with Hobbes. The phrase “Welbeck
 Hobbes’s Life 7

academy” should not be taken too literally. It is best understood as a

group with similar interests all of who were connected with the
Cavendishes (Malcolm 2002, 10). Aubrey records that Hobbes also
met Galileo during one of his continental trips. Apparently, Hobbes
was impressed by Galileo’s “prodigious witt” as well as “his sweetnes of
nature and manners” (Aubrey 1898, I 366). Hobbes also made contact
with those thinking and writing about geometry, optics, and episte-
mology in Paris. Perhaps the most significant was Minim Friar, writer
and natural philosopher Marin Mersenne. It was through Mersenne
that Hobbes’s De cive was first published and it was Mersenne who
established a correspondence between Hobbes and Descartes.
Hobbes’s and Descartes had similar philosophical concerns. Both
thinkers were keen to establish the correct philosophical method for
the new sciences and they were both preoccupied with mathematics
and optics.
It was during the 1630s that Hobbes made, what he considered to
be, one of his most profound discoveries. Put simply, Hobbes argued
that the qualities we perceive, such as red, green, blue, hard, soft, hot,
and cold, are not properties of the bodies themselves. Rather they
are the product of our sense organs. There is no red, or heat, for
example, outside of our perceptions; all that truly exists is matter in
motion. Hobbes later described his view in these terms: “Fancies are
the offspring of our brain: they are not outside us, and there is noth-
ing within us except motion” (Hobbes 1981, 3). The originality of this
discovery is contested. Descartes, for example, accused Hobbes of
stealing his idea and, prior to either Hobbes or Descartes, Galileo
had published very much the same conception in The Assayer (1623).
Nevertheless, this may well be an instance in the history of ideas where
several thinkers lighted upon the same idea independently (Tuck
1989, 16).
The 1630s was also the period in which the form of Hobbes’s
philosophy took shape. Hobbes believed that “body, man and citizen
comprise the whole class of philosophy,” and based on this concep-
tion he “resolved to write three books on these subjects” (Hobbes
1981, 3). Hobbes first outlined the scope of his philosophy in the
preface to the second edition of De cive, ‘I took up Philosophy for
intellectual enjoyment, and in every branch of it I was assembling the
first Elements. I arranged them into three Sections . . . the first
Section would discuss body and its general properties; the second,
8 Thomas Hobbes

Man and his particular faculties and passions; the third, the Common-
wealth and the duties of citizens” (Hobbes 1999, 13). This in short was
Hobbes’s plan for The Elements of Philosophy in three sections:
De corpore, De homine and De cive. The advent of the Civil War meant
that Hobbes was to publish the third section first in 1642. The final
sections, which were greatly delayed, did not appear until 1655 and
1658 respectively.
By 1640 Hobbes had made considerable progress toward his three
volume philosophy. The best-known evidence for this is his manu-
script The Elements of Law that was circulated in 1640. The first part
discussed sensation, imagination, the human passions, pleasure, and
pain–subjects that would later be discussed in De homine. The majority
of the manuscript, which would be reworked in De cive discussed the
natural estate of man; the laws of nature; and the formation of the
commonwealth. It is worth noting the debt to Euclid implied in The
Elements of Law. First the title is clearly reminiscent of Euclid’s Elements
of Geometry. Secondly, the book deploys a demonstrative method, that
is to say it proceeds logically from axioms to conclusions. In this sense
Hobbes was trying to create civil science using the method he had
found in Euclid. The composition and circulation of The Elements of
Law was one of a number of pro-Royalist activities in which Hobbes
was engaged during this period. In the late 1630s Hobbes was involved
with the collection of Ship Money, a tax to the production of naval
vessels. The tax had been traditionally levied on coastal towns in times
of emergency; however in 1634 Charles I extended the tax to inland
counties. Charles’s move was highly controversial. Radicals argued
that he was in affect creating a new tax without the approval of
Parliament. Additionally, on the Earl of Devonshire’s instructions
Hobbes stood, unsuccessfully as it turned out, as a candidate for Derby
in the 1640 parliamentary election. The 1640 election was a turning
point in the reign of Charles I. It led to the creation of the Short
Parliament, the first meeting of Parliament to be convened in 11
years. The Short Parliament effectively ended Charles’s personal rule.
Charles was forced to summon Parliament in order to obtain the
money necessary to pursue his military campaigns with the Scottish
Covenanters who demanded a new type of government of the
Church in Scotland. It also gave Charles’s opponents a formal plat-
form from which to challenge the King’s unpopular domestic poli-
cies. The Elements of Law was circulated following the dissolution of
 Hobbes’s Life 9

the Short Parliament and quickly became the focus of some contro-
versy. Later in the year Charles was forced to summon Parliament
again. The Long Parliament, as it became known, was keen to assert
its authority and to hold Charles and his supporters to account. Fear-
ing for his safety at home Hobbes fled to France where he stayed from
the beginning of the Civil War until the first years of the English
Commonwealth.

Philosopher in Exile

In Paris Hobbes was soon embroiled in another controversy.

Mersenne initiated a correspondence between Hobbes and Descartes,
initially concerning the nature of light. In a letter that is now lost
Hobbes set out his own mechanistic account of light along with
a critique of Descartes’s position. In a series of letters Descartes at first
dismissed Hobbes’s ideas and later accused Hobbes of plagiarism
(Hobbes 1994b, letters 29, 30, 32–4, 36). Whatever Descartes’s
feelings about Hobbes, Mersenne was certainly impressed. Indeed,
Mersenne asked Hobbes to write a critical essay in response to
Descartes’s Meditationes that would be published as part of a new
edition of the work in 1641. Mersenne also invited Hobbes to write
an essay on sensation to be included as a preface to a collection of
works on ballistics which appeared in 1642. Mersenne was also instru-
mental in the publication of Hobbes’s two most significant works
from the early 1640s, his Tractatus opticus and De cive. Hobbes also
wrote pieces for Mersenne that were never published. The most
significant of Hobbes’s manuscripts from the early 1640s is Hobbes’s
critique of Thomas White’s De mundo, Antiwhite as the work is often
called. White was a Roman Catholic priest and theologian who wrote
extensively on questions of natural philosophy. Hobbes was highly
critical of White’s attempt to make an alliance between the physics of
Aristotle and Galileo. Antiwhite also contains Hobbes’s comprehensive
discussion of theology, physics, and metaphysics that survives from
this period.
In addition to Mersenne Hobbes struck up a close friendship
with Pierre Gassendi. Gassendi’s interests included natural philoso-
phy, astronomy and mathematics; indeed, in 1645 he became chair of
mathematics at the Collège Royal in Paris. Hobbes and Gassendi had
10 Thomas Hobbes

a similar philosophical outlook. They both were highly critical of

Aristotelian physics while at the same time having reservations about
Descartes’s new philosophy. Hobbes’s English optical manuscript,
written in 1645–1646, is evidently indebted to Gassendi’s brand of
atomism and refers to Gassendi’s excellence as a philosopher and
virtues as an individual on numerous occasions, for example, in the
context of astronomical observations Hobbes wrote “. . . And this
Experiment hath beene made in divers stars at diverse times and
registered by the Observer himselfe Mons:r Gassendj, who is so exact
both in his skill and in his manners, as neither to bee deceived nor to
deceyve” (Harl. MS 3360, f. 165 r.). The English optical manuscript
also bears the mark of fellow exile and later member of the Royal
Society William Petty who drew the detailed illustrations that accom-
pany the text. Indeed, Hobbes and Petty collaborated on optical and
anatomic experiments during this period (Figure 1) (Aubrey 1898,
I 336). Petty also, it appears, introduced Hobbes to Versalius’s
celebrated Fabrica that informed the anatomical aspects of Hobbes’s
writings at the time (Bunce 2006, 98–9). No doubt, Hobbes’s study of
Versalius, like his study of optics and anatomy more generally, was
conceived to aid the composition of De homine which was supposed to
deal with the human body. Samuel Sorbière should also be mentioned
in this context. In 1646 he organized the publication of a revised and
extended second edition of De cive. He also translated and published
the first French translations of De cive and The Elements of Law in the
late 1640s and early 1650s.
Hobbes had planned to leave Paris in 1646 to complete the remain-
ing sections of his Elements of Philosophy. Indeed, those close to Hobbes,
such as Charles Cavendish and James Pell, had high hopes of the
imminent completion of De corpore. Nonetheless, Hobbes’s plans
changed following the arrival of Prince Charles, later Charles II.
Hobbes acted as Charles’s tutor in mathematics. This appointment
strengthened Hobbes’s ties to the Royalists in exile, such as Sir William
Davenant, whose epic poem Gondibert, published in 1650, included a
preface by Hobbes. However, this employment meant that Hobbes
was distracted from the preparation of De corpore and De homine.
Hobbes’s philosophical project was further delayed by serious illness
in the summer of 1647. By the winter it looked as if he would never
recover. Gassendi, apparently believing Hobbes was on his deathbed
 Hobbes’s Life 11

Figure 1 Picture of brain, optic nerve, and eye, from the first chapter of the
first part of *A minute of first draft of the optiques in two parts* (1646)
(B.L. MS. Harl. 3360) f. 6 r. (Reprinted with permission of the British Library.)
12 Thomas Hobbes

offered Hobbes the last rights. With Hobbes’s recovery there was
renewed speculation that he would soon publish his physics. In spite
of the high hopes of those around him Hobbes left optics and physics
to one side and began another project.

Return to England

At the end of the 1650s Hobbes made the decision to return to

England. On a personal level Hobbes had less to keep him in Paris
following Mersenne’s death in 1648 and Gassendi’s departure to
Toulon. Moreover, following the execution of Charles I and the Oath
of Engagement, which required all adult males to pledge their loyalty
to the new government, the Civil War in England was finally over.
Leviathan, published in 1651 for the princely sum of 8s, was directed
explicitly at the English. While deploring the destruction of the Civil
War Leviathan urged submission to the new Commonwealth on the
grounds that it had the power to protect its citizens. While Leviathan’s
advocacy of peace with the new regime made it easier to return home,
its attack on Roman Catholicism made his position in France more
precarious. Indeed, Hobbes claims that it was opposition from the
French clergy that finally forced him to leave for home (Hobbes
1994b, 249).
Once in England Hobbes went immediately to London to make his
peace with the new Council of State. He then rejoined the Earl of
Devonshire who had returned to England submitting to the new
regime in return for his old estates. In spite of this Hobbes stayed in
London in the company of the physician William Harvey, whose work
on the circulation of the blood Hobbes praised in De corpore; his old
adversary Catholic philosopher Thomas White; and lawyers John
Selden and John Vaughn. Hobbes returned to the long awaited
De Corpore and De Homine. The first published in Latin in 1655;
De homine followed in 1658. Controversy dogged Hobbes’s scientific
speculations. Hobbes’s attacks on the universities earned him the dis-
pleasure of Seth Ward, Oxford University’s professor of astronomy
who soon exposed the flaws in De corpore’s attempt to square the circle.
John Wallis, Oxford’s professor of geometry, joined the battle against
Hobbes showing the futility of Hobbes’s supposed proof. Hobbes
responded in a revised English edition of De corpore, but his new
 Hobbes’s Life 13

mathematical demonstrations also failed to persuade his critics. The

controversy was not restricted to mathematics, and Hobbes’s loyalty to
the King, his theology, and even his West Country accent were used as
ammunition against him.
Following the Restoration in 1660 Ward and Wallis became found-
ing members of the Royal Society, along with Robert Boyle and
Samuel Petty. Charles II seems to have put pressure on the Society
to accept Hobbes as a Fellow but personal, theological, and episte-
mological differences meant that Hobbes remained an outsider
(Malcolm 2002, 317–35; Skinner 2002, 324–45). Hobbes began a new
controversy against Robert Boyle, a leading member of the Royal
Society who gained a great international reputation due to his experi-
mental work on pneumatics. Boyle argued that his air pump had
created an artificial vacuum. To Hobbes’s mind evidence of the
existence of a vacuum was theologically dangerous. Hobbes’s system
denied the existence of anything that was not a body therefore under-
cutting priestly power that was based on the supposed existence of
a spiritual realm that they alone understood. Hobbes feared that a
vacuum in nature opened up the possibility of a space in which spirits
could be said to exist. This would give spiritual leaders a renewed
authority. Consequently, Hobbes rejected Boyle’s experimental
method; arguing that he misunderstood the phenomena that he
observed; and that the air pump leaked (Shapin and Schaffer 1985,
19). Leading members of the Royal society responded by branding
Hobbes a dogmatist; that is to say someone whose speculation
was based on abstract theorizing rather than on experimental
evidence. In the Problemata physica (1662) Hobbes broadened his
attack on the Royal Society’s research offering alternative explana-
tions for the cause of the tides, magnetism, heat as well as Boyle’s
experimental findings.
Hobbes’s manifold controversies and his heterodox reputation did
not stand in the way of his reconciliation with the newly restored
monarch. Charles II granted a pension of £100 a year to his former
tutor and allowed him to attend the Royal court whenever he wished.
Hobbes also had many admirers abroad. He continued to correspond
with his friends on the continent some of whom were busy producing
translations of his work. François Du Verdus, for example, published
a second French translation of De cive and corresponded with
Hobbes concerning a French edition of Bacon’s Wisdom of the Ancients.
14 Thomas Hobbes

More active still was Sorbière who arranged further continental

publications of Hobbes’s works and traveled to England to visit Hobbes
in 1663. On Sorbière’s account Hobbes was

much the same man as I had seen him 14 Years before, and ever
in the same Posture in his chamber as he was wont to be every
Afternoon . . . I found very little Alteration in his Face, and none
at all in the Vigour of his Mind, Strength of Memory, and
Cheerfulness of Spirit; all which he perfectly retain’d. (Sorbière
1709, 27)

Last Years

Hobbes continued his attacks on the Royal Society as well as his

theological controversies into the 1660s. A notable change occurred
in his work during this decade. First, Hobbes started to use dialogue
as a stylistic device in his writings. Secondly, he began to write histo-
ries. Behemoth, completed around 1666 but not published until 1679,
exemplifies both of these trends. Whereas The Elements of Law and
De cive had set out the Royalist case scientifically, demonstrating their
conclusions in a manner akin to geometry, Behemoth presents the
injustice of the parliamentary attack on the King through an exami-
nation of the history of the period which is presented in the course
of four dialogues. Similarly, Hobbes’s later works on natural philoso-
phy Problemata physica (1662) and the Decameron physiologicum (1678),
both dialogues, also include historical information from the natural
histories and the experimental findings of his contemporaries.
Accusations of atheism, and the threat of investigation and prosecu-
tion for heresy led to further historical work examining the history of
heresy. During the 1660s Hobbes completed manuscripts which were
later published as a Dialogue Between a Philosopher and Student of the
Common Laws of England, which contains Hobbes’s only analysis of the
English constitution (Cromartie 2005, xxiv); a Historical Narration
Concerning Heresy and the Punishment Thereof; and finally a series of
appendixes, also in dialogue form, to the Latin Leviathan. The Latin
Leviathan was published in Amsterdam, which had one of the most
liberal publishing cultures in Europe at the time (Collins 2007, 480).
 Hobbes’s Life 15

For this reason, it escaped the censorship which prevented further

editions of Leviathan or a first edition of Behemoth being published in
England at the time. The Latin Leviathan offered a systematic defense
of Hobbes’s controversial theology and attests to the fact that at the
age of 80 Hobbes was still willing to defend his position in spite of
intimidation and the threat of prosecution. (Wright 2006, 110). In
spite of this, the 1660s were an extremely fruitful period, but Hobbes’s
productivity was not without its consequences. In 1668 Hobbes
became seriously ill, and many around him anticipated his imminent
demise. Nonetheless, Hobbes returned to health and continued to
attack his old opponents; Rosetum geometricum and Lux mathematica
continued to take issue with Wallis’s mathematics, and the Decameron
physiologicum like the earlier Problemata physica offered a series of
explanations for natural phenomena that challenged the views of the
Royal Society.
At the same time as he explored the new philosophy he returned to
the humanist literature that he had first encounter under Robert
Latimer, producing translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey in English
verse. Aubrey records that even in later life Hobbes’s mind was never
at rest (Aubrey 1898, I 390–1). Hobbes believed that his unusual old
age and vigor were due to his regimen, which included a moderate
diet, copious sweating, occasional vomiting, regular massaging and
napping as well as daily walking and singing (Ibid. 350–1). Sorbière
records that at the age of 78 Hobbes played tennis once a week
(Sorbière 1709, 27). Whatever the secret of his extraordinary longev-
ity his health finally failed in October 1679. He died at the age of 91
on December 4, and was buried near Hardwick Hall, home of the
Devonshire family, at the parish church of Hault Hucknall. His tomb
stone bears the inscription, still visible to this day “He was a virtuous
man, and for his reputation for learning he was well known at home
and abroad.” Whatever his virtues and learning, Hobbes continued to
be associated with impiety in the popular mind. It was this perspective
that was captured in an alternative epitaph that appeared shortly after
Hobbes’s death:

Here lies Tom Hobbs, the Bug—bear of the Nation

Whose Death hath frightened Atheism out of Fashion (Mintz
1970, 21)
16 Thomas Hobbes

Conclusion: Life and Philosophy

Hobbes’s intellectual life was extraordinarily rich. He corresponded

and conversed with some of the greatest philosophers of the age, men
such as Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes. Personally, he enjoyed the
respect, loyalty, and great affection of many friends. His philosophy
was both admired and vilified. Indeed, on several occasions Hobbes
feared that his writings would cost him his life. Following the Restora-
tion, however, Hobbes enjoyed Royal favor and the continuing patron-
age of one of England’s most powerful families. Hobbes’s friends were
unable to shield him from the attacks of members of the Royal
Society, who were keen to distance themselves and their experimental
philosophy from Hobbes’s heretical physics. Nonetheless, Hobbes’s
enemies never succeeded in putting him on trial or burning him as a
heretic.
The concerns of Hobbes’s political philosophy were bound up with
his life. It is no surprise that Hobbes, who lived through an extraordi-
nary period of unrest, upheaval, and civil war should become the phi-
losopher of civil peace. It is also fitting that the philosopher who fled
Roman Catholic divines in Paris only to be harassed by Protestant
clergy in London should defend freedom of conscience and the
subordination of church to state.
 2

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

Introduction

A great deal about the general outlines of Hobbes’s political thought

can be gleaned from studying the frontispieces of De cive and Levia-
than. The frontispiece of the first edition of De cive (Figure 2) is divided
in two by a horizontal line. The bottom section contains two land-
scapes each with a figure in the foreground. On the right hand a fig-
ure, who stands on a plinth marked “LIBERTAS,” carries a spear and
a long bow. She is dressed in little more than a skirt and some simple
jewelery. In the background similar figures, some of which are entirely
naked, chase each other carrying clubs and bows. The landscape is
that of an uncultivated woodland, with some primitive huts in the dis-
tance. In contrast to these wild men of the woods, the left-hand side is
dominated by a figure carrying a sword, but also the scales of justice;
she wears a crown and stands on a plinth inscribed with the word
“IMPERIUM.” Below her, the countryside is cultivated, and a team of
figures carrying scythes reap a plentiful harvest. In the distance is a
town or city that is plainly much more sophisticated than that of the
rude huts on the opposite side. The contrast could not be plainer: on
the one side justice, civilization, and plenty; on the other warfare and
scarcity. This is the contrast between humanity in its natural condition
where there is a continual war of all against all, and consequently no
science, culture, or industry; and humanity in the state where cooper-
ation, security, and justice lead to increasing knowledge and therefore
increasing control of the material world for the benefit of humanity.
The contrast is reenforced by the top section of the picture which is
titled “RELIGIO.” The scene depicted is the last judgment where
Christ comes on the clouds and the dead rise from their graves.1 On
the left-hand side saints guided by angels ascend into heaven. On the
18 Thomas Hobbes

Figure 2 Frontispiece from the first edition of *De cive* (1642) (Reprinted
with permission of the Bodleian Library.)

right-hand side, above the natural condition of human liberty, figures

tormented by demons descend into a fiery pit. Clearly, while life under
the state is akin to heaven on earth, the state of nature is a place of
perpetual torment. Leviathan’s frontispiece (Figure 3) compliments
De cive’s picture of life under the state.2 The city in the foreground
with its statues, squares and spires, and the towns and harbor
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 19

Figure 3 Frontispiece from the first edition of *Leviathan* (1651) (Repro-

duced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.)
20 Thomas Hobbes

scattered throughout the landscape are clearly those of civilized

people. This picture is also useful as it illustrates Hobbes’s thoughts
on the state. The figure that towers over its surroundings holds a
sword and a crosier, symbolizing his temporal and spiritual authority.
Additionally, he presents the face of his otherwise faceless people,
undoubtedly a visual metaphor for the way in which the sovereign, lit-
erally the head of the people in this picture, represents the people.

The Nature of Hobbes’s Political Thought

In 1646 Hobbes, relatively early in his philosophical career, made

the astounding claim that he was “ye first to lay the ground of two
sciences.” The first was “Optiques, ye most curious, and ye other of
Natural Justice” (Hobbes 1839–1845f, VII 471). The claim to be the
first to write scientifically about politics may seem extraordinary in the
light of the work of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machia-
velli, Francisco Suárez, and Hugo Grotius, to name but a few.3 What is
more, he went so far as to say that his contribution to science was
more significant than that of any other thinker. To understand this
daring claim it is important to grasp Hobbes’s view of the history of
human learning, for this history underlined the novelty of his own
achievement and justified his rejection of earlier authorities. More-
over, Hobbes’s history of knowledge also contains valuable informa-
tion about the character of true philosophy.
Hobbes’s first treatment of the history of knowledge, outside his
writings on Thucydides, can be found in De cive. Here Hobbes argues
that the most ancient wisdom was all but lost except for what remained
in ‘in the pretty forms of poetry and in the shadowy outlines of
Allegory’ (Hobbes 1999, 7). There followed a period, prior to Socrates
where the ancient atomists considered ‘the motions and shapes of
things to mankind’s great benefit, others in contemplating the nature
and causes of things, which do man no harm’ (Ibid. 7–8). During this
period advances were made in mathematics. However, when the
Greeks and then the Romans turned to civil philosophy, the branch of
knowledge that deals with the state and the duties of the citizen, they
‘generated the ambivalent dogmas of the moral philosophers, partly
correct and attractive, partly brutal and irrational . . .’ (Ibid., 9). Plato,
Aristotle, Cicero, and those that followed them Hobbes claims, made
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 21

the terrible mistake of believing that political and moral knowledge

were easily accessible (Ibid., 7–8).
Hobbes wrote at greater length on the history of knowledge in the
1650s and 60s, and in so doing gave more detail about the nature of
true philosophy. The English edition of Leviathan began its history of
knowledge with the suggestion that the first philosophers were con-
temporaneous with the first cities. Cities, Hobbes argued, provided
the possibility of leisure, and leisure was the mother of philosophy
(Hobbes 1994a, 454). Prior to cities, “men lived upon gross experi-
ence; there was no method - that is to say, no sowing nor planting of
knowledge . . .” (Ibid.). Borrowing from the classical historian Diodorus
Siculus, Hobbes argues that the first philosophers came from Ethio-
pia, Egypt, India, Persia, and Chaldea. Once again Hobbes argued
that most ancient philosophers were gifted natural scientists. Indeed,
he argued that the pre-Socratic philosophers of ancient Greece made
such progress because they followed “the learning of the Chaldeans
and Egyptians, which was astronomy and geometry” (Ibid., 455). None-
theless, the later Greeks and Romans were diverted from the study
of natural philosophy by their love of ethics: “both Greeks and
Romans were more addicted to moral than to natural philosophy . . .”
(Hobbes 1839–45b, VII 75). The interest in ethical problems was
initiated by Socrates, who taught men “to subject public laws to their
own judgements.”4 Their ethical speculation was based on their own
passions and the examples of their own states rather than on reason
(Ibid.).
The moderns had done little better than the ancients. Hobbes was
highly critical of the philosophy of the scholastics. Scholastic philoso-
phy, according to Hobbes, was rooted in pious attempts to defend
Christianity. At first, Hobbes argued, Christians defended their faith
by appealing directly to natural reason, but as time went by they began
using texts of Greek philosophers. When the apologists mixed the-
ology with the philosophy of Aristotle, they corrupted true religion
with vain philosophy. This alliance between Christianity and Aristote-
lian philosophy laid the foundation for scholastic philosophy. How-
ever, the reliance on Aristotle proved unsuitable for the advancement
of the sciences. For example, Hobbes claimed that the predominance
of Aristotle left no room for the study of other arts or philosophies,
such as geometry (Hobbes 1994a, 458). Indeed, Hobbes argued
that Aristotle’s philosophy was itself unpromising as it tended to
22 Thomas Hobbes

disputation and to the study of words rather than things. Conse-

quently, the Schoolmen produced many books, but no truth. The end
result of the Schools was not a flourishing of science but a tradition
that endlessly repeated empty words, which deceived the ignorant
and the Schoolmen alike (Hobbes 1972, 42).
The achievements of geometry stood in stark contrast to the barren
philosophy that followed the ancient moralist Socrates. Geometers
started from clear definitions, used a rigorous method, and based
their work on reason rather than the passions. For these reasons the
study of geometry had flourished. But the success of geometry had
not simply furthered abstract mathematics. Indeed, Hobbes’s defense
of geometry was rooted in the benefits it had brought to human life:

. . . those men who have taken in hand to consider nothing else but
the comparison of magnitudes, numbers, times and motions, and
their proportions one to another, have thereby been the authors of
all those excellences, wherein we differ from such savage people as
are now inhabitants of divers places in America; and as have been
the inhabitants heretofore of those countries where at this day arts
and sciences do most flourish. For from the studies of these men
hath proceeded, whatsoever cometh to us for ornament by naviga-
tion; and whatsoever we have beneficial to human society by the
division, distinction, and portraying of the face of the earth; what-
soever also we have by the account of times, and foresight of the
course of heaven; whatsoever by measuring distances, planes, and
solids of all sorts; and whatsoever either elegant or defensible in
building: all which supposed away, what do we differ from the wildest
of the Indians? (Hobbes 1994c, 74)

Geometry, unlike the philosophy of Aristotle and his followers the

scholastics, was useful. Indeed, usefulness was the mark of true philos-
ophy, for, as Hobbes wrote in De corpore “The end of Knowledge is
Power” (Hobbes 1839–1845c, I 7).
In spite of the impoverished state of philosophy Hobbes argued
that there were signs of a revival in human knowledge. Modern natu-
ral philosophy had enjoyed much development in the hands of
Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei, from whence it was further
“advanced by Joannes Keplerus, Petrus Gassendus, and Marinus
Mersennus” (Ibid., ix).5 The science of the human body had been
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 23

similarly improved, first in the hands of William Harvey, who discov-

ered the circulation of the blood, and latterly under the “College of
Physicians in London” (Ibid.). William Gilbert had also written the
first rational work on the magnet (Hobbes 1839–1845b, VII 57).
Nonetheless, the revival of natural philosophy was still fragile (Hobbes
1839–1845c, I 1). Indeed, some of the most celebrated of Hobbes’s
contemporaries, such as René Descartes, had adopted the wrong
method. In optics, for example, Hobbes’s Tractatus opticus noted that,
despite the fact that “there is nothing more easy in all philosophy,
nothing more ready for demonstration and agreeing more with the
abilities of men,”6 the nature of light had eluded the ancients and had
“racked the ingenuity of the neoteric [modern] philosophers.”7
Hobbes’s history of philosophy is significant because it gives an
insight into Hobbes’s view of his own achievement. First, it is against
this background that Hobbes’s claim that he was the first to establish
a science of politics becomes intelligible. Plato and Aristotle had
certainly written about the state and justice, but their writings were
not scientific since they were not based on a clear method and since
they failed to create any benefit for mankind. Secondly, Hobbes’s his-
tory of knowledge indicates that he believed that his contribution to
the science of politics was analogous to that of Harvey and Galileo.
Harvey had been the first to demonstrate that the heart pumped
blood around the body and Galileo had established “the Doctrine of
the Motion of the Earth” (Hobbes 1839–1846c, I ix) based on his
study of motion in general. Galileo and Harvey had both revolution-
ized the sciences and Hobbes believed that his doctrine of natural jus-
tice was no less groundbreaking. Thirdly, Hobbes’s assessment of
classical and scholastic philosophy on the one hand and geometry on
the other provides a negative and a positive model for philosophy.
Ancient and Scholastic philosophy lacked method, dissolved the
meaning of words, produced disputation, appealed to the fickle pas-
sions of men, did nothing to improve human life, and tended to
undermine civil peace. Conversely, geometry had a clear method, was
based on unambiguous definitions, it settled disputes; it was based on
reason, and it produced technologies that benefited humanity.
Hobbes’s philosophy took its lead from geometry.
There is one sense, though, in which it is highly misleading to
suggest that Hobbes viewed his achievement as similar to that of other
philosophers. Indeed, Hobbes argued that his science, the science of
24 Thomas Hobbes

natural justice, was the most beneficial of the sciences. Geometry,

anatomy, and medicine and the sciences of motion all benefited
human life, but the advance of these sciences was dependent on civil
peace. Hobbes’s doctrine, for the first time, contained a scientific
description of how to create and sustain peace. In this sense Hobbes’s
doctrine was essential to the advance of all other sciences and conse-
quently, he could claim with conviction that his science was “ye most
profitable of all other” (Hobbes 1839–1845f, VII 471).

Hobbes’s Works

Hobbes’s science of natural justice went through considerably less

modification than his science of optics. Nonetheless, it would be
wrong to view it as unchanging. Indeed, Hobbes composed four
different versions of his doctrine over a period of more than 20 years.
The first, The Elements of Law was circulated in manuscript form in
1640. De cive, the second, was published in 1642, and again in an
extended edition in 1647. It was followed by the English edition of
Leviathan in 1651 and finally, a Latin edition, which contained three
new appendices, published in 1668. While the outlines of Hobbes’s
political thought remained consistent, there were important revisions
in his theory. For this reason I have used The Elements of Law, De cive
and Leviathan in the account that follows. Moreover, I have not
attempted to give a single definitive account of Hobbes’s doctrine, but
rather to point to areas in which Hobbes’s texts concur as well as
noting differences between the various accounts. I will also discuss
De homine (1658) and Behemoth, which was written around 1666, both
of which shed light on Hobbes’s political thought. The former deals
with the human passions but deliberately stops short of addressing
civil philosophy. The latter presents a history of the English Civil War
and is certainly informed by Hobbes’s political thought, but it does
not contain a systematic formulation of Hobbes’s ideas.

Human Nature: Reason, Knowledge,

Imagination, and Passion

Hobbes’s political thought is quite unlike that of his contemporaries

as each of its formulations followed an account of the physical and
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 25

psychological nature of man. The Elements of Law illustrates this point

as its opens with a consideration of human sensation, memory,
reason, pleasure, pain and the passions. In so doing it incorporates
information from scientific works by Bacon and Galileo (Hobbes
1994c, 47). Although there is no comparable discussion of these
topics in De cive it should be remembered that De cive was the third
section of Hobbes’s Elements of Philosophy and the second section,
De homine, considered the heart and the blood, in a discussion that is
obviously indebted to the natural philosophy of Harvey and Descartes,
human reproduction, the human eye and sensation, as well as the
passions. Indeed, the first edition of De cive acknowledged this by start-
ing with the assertion that ‘[i]n the previous section the whole of
human nature has been described, comprising the faculties of body
and mind; . . . Physical force, Experience Reason and Passion’(Hobbes
1999, 21 n. 1). The inclusion of this natural philosophical and natural
historical material in Hobbes’s writings on civil philosophy sets it apart
from other early modern works of civil philosophy, such as Bodin’s
Six livres de la République, Justus Lipsius’s De doctrina civili, and Grotius’s
De jure belli ac pacis, all of which Hobbes had encountered prior to
writing The Elements of Law 8 (Skinner 1996, 236).
Before turning to Hobbes’s civil philosophy, it is worth considering
some parts of Hobbes’s account of human nature that informed it.
The Elements of Law, for example, contains an account of sensation that
is foundational to Hobbes’s later description of pleasure, pain and the
passions. The account given in The Elements of Law is similar to many
contained in Hobbes’s works of the early 1640s. Antiwhite’s descrip-
tion, for example, is essentially the same:

. . . at the same instant where any part of the shining object is moved
towards the eye . . . the motion will impinge on the eye, i.e. the shin-
ing body will act on it. Similarly the action is also communicated to
the inner regions of the skull, where the brain and the animal spir-
its, the organs of sight are; so vision is affected at the same instant as
the shining object begins to dilate . . . (Hobbes 1976, 101)

Sensation, for Hobbes, was a motion communicated from an object

of sense, via a medium, to the spirits in the sense organs, and the
spirits in the brain; and a reciprocal motion of reaction from the
brain back, via the organ and the medium, to the object of sense. Put
26 Thomas Hobbes

simply, when we see the light of a fire, for example, the motion of the
object that is burning is communicated to through the air to the eye
and then to the brain. Hobbes called the microscopic parts of the eyes
and brain that carry this motion spirits. This term is somewhat
misleading as it could be taken to imply the presence of something
spiritual in the sense of something ghost-like and immaterial. Instead,
Hobbes conceived these spirits as material things that are imperce-
ptible due to their smallness.
Hobbes began his description of pleasure and pain, in chapter 7 of
The Elements of Law, by restating his description of sensation. The
motion of the spirits caused by sensation was not, however, restricted
to the brain. Indeed it continued to the heart. These motions of
spirits around the heart were either pleasures or pains. The distinc-
tion between pleasure and pain was simple. If the continued sensory
motion aided the vital motion of the heart, the result was “DELIGHT,
or pleasure, which is nothing really but motion about the heart”
(Hobbes 1994c, 43). Conversely, when the motion “weakened or
hindereth the vital motion, then it is called PAIN” (Ibid.).
The passions were a species of pleasure and pain, but they were
related to the opinions of men. Hobbes described them as “the plea-
sure men have, or displeasure from the signs of honour or dishonour
done unto them” (Ibid., 50). To understand this, it is important to
understand Hobbes’s conception of honor. Honor was a sign of “the
acknowledgment of power”(Ibid., 48). Power, according to Hobbes,
was the ability to procure some perceived good. Powers included
bodily strength, wit, and knowledge. They also included “riches, place
of authority, friendship or favour, and good fortune; which last is
really nothing else but the favour of God Almighty” (Ibid.). In short,
the passions were pleasures and pains that arose from signs of honor
and dishonor. So glory, for example, was an “imagination or concep-
tion of our own power, above the power of him that contendeth with
us” grounded either in our own estimation of our past actions, or on
the opinions of others (Ibid., 50). Nonetheless, Hobbes’s formal
definition of the passions does not seem to be wholly applicable to all
of the passions he discussed. Lust, for example, was not characterized
as a type of pleasure, or as a response to either honor or dishonor
(Ibid., 55). Indeed Hobbes’s description of the passions outside
The Elements of Law did not link the passions to honor. Hobbes’s
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 27

manuscript Of Passions, for example, equated the passions with

pleasure and pain with no further qualification. Hobbes wrote,

[t]hey are in generall the beginnings or endevours to animal

motion, for all most [allmost deleted] all objects that are presented
to the senses or remayne in the imagination, do so affect a man, as
either to be pleas’ed, or displeased. (Ibid., 55)

Equally, De homine simply described the passions in terms of motions

of spirits around the heart (Hobbes 1972, 55).
Turning to memory and imagination, which Hobbes took to be the
same process, he argued that they were essentially a continuation of the
motion caused by an object that had been perceived once the original
object was no longer present. Hobbes used the analogy of water that was
blown by the wind to illustrate his point. The surface of a pond, for
example, struck by a gust of wind will begin to ripple (Hobbes 1994c,
27). However, once the wind has stopped the pond continues, for a
time, to move in the same way. Similarly, when we see a light the spirits
in our eyes, optic nerves and brain begin to move in a particular way. If
we close our eyes this motion will continue, even though the initial stim-
ulus is gone. This residual motion of the spirits is memory. Imagination
is the same process, but it combines or compares numerous objects, for
example, the memory of gold and the memory of a mountain can be
combined to create an imaginary mountain of gold (Ibid., 28).
Hobbes’s view of reason was at odd with that of the scholastics. Tra-
ditionally, reason was seen as a faculty of the mind which was linked
with natural law and thus to morality. The ancient Athenian philo-
sophers the Stoics, for example, equated reason with the law of nature
(Schofield 1991, 66). Christian thinkers also believed that there was a
moral aspect to reason. Suárez, for instance, following Aquinas,
argued that God’s laws were, by divine providence, accessible to
humans through reason, and that if humans reasoned correctly they
could uncover divine wisdom (Suárez 1944, II 167). Hobbes, however,
denied that reason was a faculty and also that it had any special moral
quality. Hobbes tends to discuss “ratiocination” that is to say reasoning
as an activity rather than reason as a faculty of mind. Ratiocination,
for Hobbes, is simply the act of calculation with words, or “names” as
Hobbes described them. De corpore gives the example of adding together
28 Thomas Hobbes

a series of names to create a definition of man: “these three single

names, body, animated, rational, are in speech compounded into this
one name, body-animated-rational, or man” (Hobbes 1839–1845c, I 4).
Memory and reasoning are related to prudence or history and
philosophy or science. Hobbes contrasts the two in the English
Leviathan by distinguishing between “KNOWLEDGE of two kinds . . .
one is the knowledge of fact, the other knowledge of the consequences of one
affirmation to another” (Hobbes 1994a, 47). The former is either pru-
dence or history and is “nothing else but sense and memory” (Ibid.).
Prudence, Hobbes argues, “is nothing else but conjecture from expe-
rience” (Hobbes 1994c, p.33). Prudence is linked to memory as “expe-
rience is but remembrance” (Ibid.). Prudence is useful as, for example,
it teaches that heavy clouds are often followed by rain. Nonetheless,
the maxims of prudence can never be wholly certain as “[e]xperience
concludeth nothing universally” (Ibid.). Indeed, while heavy cloud is
often followed by rain it does not necessarily entail rain. History, like
prudence, is based on the remembrance of fact. Once these facts are
recorded they can be described as histories (Hobbes 1994a, 47).
While Hobbes’s view of prudence was consistent throughout his
writings he seems to have changed his mind over the exact nature of
science. Broadly speaking, Hobbes’s earliest works equate science
with logical deduction very much like geometry, whereas his later
writings identify it with the analytic-synthetic method. The Elements of
Law, to take an example, describes philosophy as sound reasoning
from true definitions in such a way that indubitable conclusions are
reached. This view was also evident in Hobbes’s other writings of the
early 1640s.9 Finally, Hobbes’s Praefatio to Mersenne’s Balistica gives
the same essential definition of philosophy. The significant novelty in
the Praefatio’s account was Hobbes’s treatment of the method of com-
position and resolution, or analysis and synthesis. The Praefatio explic-
itly stated that this method was just another form of memory and
consequently a form of prudence rather than philosophy.

If we proceed from imagined causes to imagined effects towards a

goal which is always the final effect, this is called συνθεσις or. compo-
sition; if [we work] from effects to causes and thus in a regular order
towards the previous causes this is αναλυσις or resolution. Each how-
ever is but memory.10
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 29

Hobbes illustrated the working of the analytic-synthetic method

with the example of a man building a house. In this example the man
works from the desired effect back to the material and structure
needed to create a house. Hobbes underlined the unscientific nature
of the method by comparing analysis and synthesis to the approach of
a bird (a nonrational animal): “[a]n example of this in a man is when
he imagines a building starting from the material in order to bring
about the form of the house; for then his imagination proceeds from
the materials to their bringing together, and from there to the
foundation, walls, roof, etc.: these resemble the building of a bird’s
nest.”11 Clearly then in Hobbes’s early work science could not be
equated with analysis or synthesis. Nonetheless, from 1645 Hobbes
described science in the very terms that his Praefatio so clearly dis-
missed. A manuscript version of Hobbes’s De corpore described philo-
sophical method thus:

Philosophy is the knowledge, acquired by right reasoning, of the

qualities of bodies known by means of a conception of their genera-
tion, and conversely of possible generations from correct reasoning
from their known properties.12

Hobbes’s analytic-synthetic method comprises two parts. Either it can

proceed from known effects to possible causes, or from known causes
to effects. The first part is analysis. Hobbes gives the example of trying
to understand the nature of gold. Gold is known by its effects by the
senses. Hobbes argues that gold is a composite idea and must be bro-
ken down, or analyzed. Therefore an analytical approach to gold
would be to break it down into more basic or universal ideas such as
‘solid, visible, heavy . . .’ (Hobbes 1839–1845c, I 69). These concepts
too should be analyzed until the most universal notions are reached,
and by studying the most universal concepts it is possible at last to
account for the causes of the effects that the senses detect, such as
color and weight. Analysis is the method suitable for natural philoso-
phy as humans know natural bodies through the effects they have on
their senses. Synthesis is the method appropriate to civil and moral
philosophy. Synthesis works from causes to effects. Crucially, humans
know the causes of civil bodies, such as the state, for these causes are
located in the human mind, consequently, it is possible to work from
30 Thomas Hobbes

these causes: ratiocination and the passions, to their effects the state
and justice (Ibid., 73–4).
Similar definitions occurred in both English and Latin editions
of De corpore and Leviathan as well as De homine (Ibid. 3 and 65–66;
Hobbes 1972, 41–2; Hobbes 1994a, 453–4 and 469). This change in
the mid-1640s was also reflected in the revised editions of De cive
published after 1647.13 While the general distinction between an
early definition of science in terms of a Euclidean deductive method
and a later definition of science in terms of analysis and synthesis is
generally true, it is worth noting that chapter nine of the English
Leviathan retains the earlier definition. Either way, science is the result
of the human passion of curiosity and the human ability to reason,
and because of this science is peculiar to humans. In spite of Hobbes’s
changing view of philosophy and philosophical method it is possible
to identify seven common and interrelated themes that characterize
his approach. Hobbes believed that science or philosophy was con-
cerned with cause and effect, with bodies in motion, that it was an
activity based on computation with names, that it was conjectural, that
it was modeled on geometry, that its goal was human utility, and that
it was distinct from history and prudence and theology.
Science is peculiar to man and so is religion. Hobbes discusses reli-
gion in various ways throughout his work. However, in the context of
human nature, Hobbes restricts his discussion to what can be described
as natural religion. Natural religion is a theological concept that is
distinct from revelation. Essentially, natural religion was believed to
be the knowledge of God that could be gleaned without revelation.
Broadly speaking, it was believed that people in regions of the world
that had not been exposed to Christianity could still reach theological
conclusions, such as the fact that there was only one God, based purely
on their reason and the study of nature. Hobbes’s most extended dis-
cussion of natural religion is found in the English Leviathan and there-
fore it is this discussion that I examine below.14
Religion, unlike the state, arises naturally. Similar to science, reli-
gion is distinctively human. Indeed, Hobbes argues that

there are no sign, nor fruits of religion, but in man only; [thus] there
is no doubt, but that the seed of religion, is also only in man, and
consisteth in some peculiar quality, or at least in some eminent
degree thereof, not found in other creatures. (Hobbes 1994a, 63)
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 31

The two major seeds of religion are anxiety and curiosity. Animals,
Hobbes claims, have “little or no foresight of the time to come” so
they are not anxious about their future well being (Ibid.). Addition-
ally, they lack “observation and memory of the order, consequence,
and dependence of the things they see” (Ibid.). Animals are endowed
with sense, memory, and prudence (Ibid., 454). Nonetheless, the cru-
cial distinction between man and other animals in this context is that
animals have no understanding of “order, consequence and depen-
dence” (Ibid., 63). The absence of this understanding means that
humans alone can perceive systematic cause and effect relationships
and therefore can access philosophy—the knowledge of causes.
The second seed of religion is curiosity. Hobbes describes curiosity as
a passion peculiar to human nature: “Desire to know why, and how,
Curiosity, such as in no living creature but man, so that man is distin-
guished, not by his reason, but also by his singular passion from
other animals . . .” (Ibid., 31). The peculiarity of curiosity to man
is also emphasized later in Leviathan, where curiosity is defined as
“the love of the knowledge of causes” which links curiosity to science
(Ibid., 62). Leviathan’s account of the relationship between anxiety
and curiosity is somewhat confused. Chapter XI indicates that curios-
ity is the result of anxiety: “Anxiety for the future time, disposeth men
to enquire into the causes of things . . .” (Ibid., 62) whereas, chapter
XII suggests that “The two first [curiosity and the association of cause
with the beginnings of things] make Anxiety” (Ibid., 63).
Either way, Hobbes links the impartial search for the cause of natu-
ral bodies with monotheism and anxiety about the future with poly-
theism. In the first case, curiosity leads to the selfless pursuit of the
knowledge of natural causes. In turn, studying natural causes leads to
a belief in one God, for if we “seek the cause and again, the cause . . .
till of necessity he must come to this thought at last, that there is some
cause, whereof there is no former cause . . . which men call God”
(Ibid., 62). Clearly, this chain of thought is disinterested and inspired
by curiosity: love of the knowledge of causes. Natural polytheism,
conversely, is the result of “perpetual fear,” which leads humanity to
postulate a different deity that controls each of the goods on which
life depends (Ibid., 64). This fear is rooted in man’s lack of under-
standing of causes, and anxiety about the future, for “they that make
little or no inquiry into natural causes of things, yet from the fear that
proceeds from the ignorance itself of what it is that hath the power to
32 Thomas Hobbes

do them much good or harm are inclined to suppose and feign unto
themselves several kinds of powers invisible . . .” (Ibid.). In spite of the
difference between natural polytheism and natural monotheism,
Hobbes is clear that neither the polytheist nor the monotheist has
certain knowledge of their belief. The significant difference, then, is
the motivation behind the belief. The polytheist is motivated by fear,
the monotheist by the search for the knowledge of causes.
The similarity between science and monotheism, both of which are
rooted in the study of natural causes, may strike the modern reader as
strange, given the view that science has tended toward secularization.
However, in the seventeenth century science was not necessarily
seen as irreligious (Tuck 1989, 50). Bacon is a case in point, for he
argued that science posed no threat to true religion, as “there is no
such enmity between God’s word and his works” (Briggs 1996, 175).
Similarly, Descartes’s Mediations on First Philosophy articulated a defense
of the new sciences that was rooted in a proof of the existence of God.
Finally, Robert Boyle, a leading member of the Royal Society,
cultivated the image of the “Christian virtuoso”; dedicating his work
to the glory of God and the charity of mankind (Mintz 1970, 82).
Hobbes’s understanding of the faculties of the human body and
mind, religion and science form the backdrop to Hobbes’s civil
philosophy, as they provide the sources of conflict and insecurity that
bedevil humanity in its natural condition.

Man, Born Unfit for Society

Aristotle famously claimed that man is a political animal. By this he

meant that men, like bees, naturally congregate and live together in a
community. Consequently, the state is a phenomenon that arises natu-
rally from human activity (Aristotle 1.2 1253a3). Hobbes vigorously
contested this view, “[t]his Axiom” he argued, “though very widely
accepted, is nevertheless false” and based on an inadequate view of
human nature(Hobbes 1999, 22). Rather, “man is not born fit for
society” (Ibid., 24). Indeed, Hobbes argues that humans seek each
other’s company to gain some advantage rather than out of natural
fellow feeling. De cive supports this with reference to empirical
evidence. People meet to do business, to form political alliances, to
establish their reputation, or to mock and condemn. In none of these
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 33

cases can the relationship that is established legitimately be described

as friendship, for

every voluntary encounter is a product either of mutual need or of

the pursuit of glory . . . All society, therefore exists for the sake
of advantage or glory, i.e. it is a product of love of self, not love of
friends. (Ibid., 23–4)

Nonetheless, the natural desire for advantage and glory are not suffi-
cient to sustain a society in the long term. Indeed, naturally, humans
live in a state of war due to natural equality; aspects of human nature,
specifically, the passions, imagination and reason; and competition
for the goods of life.
The Elements of Law begins its discussion of the natural state of man-
kind by stating that humans are naturally equal. By this Hobbes means
that differences in the physical strength and knowledge of individuals
are of marginal significance. Mature humans are all equal in the cru-
cial sense that anyone can kill anyone else “since there needeth but
little force to the taking away of a man’s life” (Hobbes 1994c, 78).
Leviathan qualifies this slightly by noting that men are not equally pro-
ficient in the sciences (Hobbes 1994a, 74).
At the same time humans have different passions. Passions, in
The Elements of Law at least, are the specific sorts of pleasure and pain
that humans feel when their power is either acknowledged or ignored.
For some the desire for honor leads to a desire for mastery over others
or at least the desire to be respected as a superior. Others desire
mutual respect and therefore refuse to submit to the vainglorious
desires of those who desire mastery. Consequently, this difference in
passions creates a situation in which there is conflict and “mutual fear
one of another” (Hobbes 1994c, 78). The ability to compare, which is
a property of human imagination, heightens the natural state of ten-
sion. Each person thinks well of themselves, but objects to others who
behave in the same way. De cive considers a further impetus to conflict,
which remains largely implicit in The Elements of Law. “Intellectual
dissention” causes strife for failure to agree with someone “on an
issue is tacitly to accuse him of error . . . just as dissent from him in a
large number of points is tantamount to calling him a fool” (Hobbes
1999, 26). Conflict emerges, initially through “words, and other signs
of contempt and hatred,” but as this proves indecisive it will escalate
34 Thomas Hobbes

“till at last they must determine the pre-eminence by strength and

force . . .” (Hobbes 1994c, 78). Scarcity of the goods that humans
naturally desire also leads to an escalation of human conflict. Thus,
the majority, due to vanity, envy, desire for scarce resources, antago-
nize those who would be happy with equal shares and equal honor
and everyone becomes embroiled in conflict. Leviathan offers a more
compressed account of the sources of conflict than the earlier
works. Here Hobbes specified three ‘principle causes of quarrel’:
competition, which inspires conflict in pursuit of material gain;
diffidence (which in early modern England signified distrust), where
conflict is the result of the pursuit of safety; and glory where conflict
follows from the desire to protect or advance reputation (Hobbes
1994a, 76).
The passions are not the only enemy of peace, reason too has its
part to play in creating conflict between men in “mere nature” (Ibid.).
Humans naturally desire what is good and avoid what is harmful.
The worst thing of all, Hobbes claims, is physical death. Accordingly,
it is not unreasonable for humans to use what power they have to
avoid pain and above all to avoid death. Indeed, De cive states that the
impetus to avoid death is “a real necessity of nature as powerful as that
by which a stone falls downwards” (Hobbes 1999, 27).
Hobbes describes this as the “right of nature: that every man may pre-
serve his own life and limbs, with all the power he hath” (Hobbes
1994c, 79). At first sight the right of nature seems to justify a rather
narrow range of actions. Nonetheless, this conclusion would be to
misunderstand Hobbes’s position. Indeed, for Hobbes the right of
nature justifies an almost limitless range of actions. First, Hobbes
argues that the right to self-defense necessitates the right to any means
necessary to achieve that end. What is more, the individual alone has
the right to judge what means are necessary to ensure that death and
pain are averted. Additionally, each individual has the right to any-
thing that they judge to be good, that is to say that might aid their
self-preservation. This includes the right to exercise power over the
bodies of other people. Indeed, Hobbes argues that reason suggests
mastering others as a method of circumventing the insecurity of the
natural state. Additionally, each individual will seek to conquer all
others: as to overlook even one person is to allow them the opportu-
nity to seek dominance themselves. Nonetheless, ruling by force can
only be a short-term solution as eventually an individual’s strength will
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 35

fail. Therefore, in this natural state of war there can be no ultimate

victory through physical force alone. Finally, the right of nature does
nothing to resolve the conflict between humans in their natural state,
for, as Hobbes notes, “that right of all men to all things, is in effect no
better than if no man had right to anything.” (Ibid.). Consequently,
“the estate of men in natural liberty is the estate of war” (Ibid.).

The Condition of Mere Nature

Before considering Hobbes’s escape route from this state of war, it is

worth considering what exactly Hobbes meant by the state of war;
what the condition of human life was in the natural state; and whether
he believed that such a state had ever really existed. First, Hobbes’s
conception of war encompasses much more than physical fighting.
The Elements of Law describes war as, “nothing else but that time
wherein the will and intention of contending forces is either by words
or actions sufficiently declared” (Ibid., 80). This definition certainly
includes times when “men kill one another” (Ibid.). Nevertheless, the
defining feature of war is a situation of mutual fear without a common
authority, whether they are actually fighting is immaterial.
Secondly, The Elements of Law and De cive say relatively little about life
without civil society. Clearly, it is a place of great conflict. It also lacks
any civil laws. This is clear from a marginal note added in the second
edition of De cive, which asserts that injustice is impossible in the state
of nature as “injustice against men presupposes Human Laws, and
there are none in the natural state”(Hobbes 1999, 28). In such a state
“we find the people few and short lived, and without the ornaments
and comforts of life” (Hobbes 1994c, 80). Indeed, “it must be regarded
as a miracle if even the strongest survives to die of years and old age”
(Hobbes 1999, 30). Finally, in the natural state power gives men right
over others, but even the strongest is continually insecure and is
unlikely to remain preeminent for long. Hobbes’s most extended
treatment of the state of nature occurs in Leviathan:

. . . every man is enemy to every man . . . In such a condition there

is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and
consequently, no culture of the earth no navigation, nor use of
the commodities that may be imported by sea, no navigation, nor
36 Thomas Hobbes

building, no instruments of moving and removing such things

as require much force, no knowledge of letters, no society, and
which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and
the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short. (Hobbes
1994a, 76)

Leviathan clearly makes much more of the absence of the ornaments

of life which are mentioned briefly in the earlier texts. Leviathan
emphasizes the extent to which the sciences are dependent on civil
peace. Moreover, Leviathan stresses the link between security and
industry, arguing that individuals will only sow when they are certain
to reap.
Finally, Hobbes points to historical instances of the state of nature.
The Elements of Law supports the description of the natural state with
reference to contemporary “savage nations” as well as histories of “the
old inhabitants of Germany and other now civilized countries”
(Hobbes 1994c, 80). De cive and Leviathan concur in noting the exam-
ple of the natural condition of men among the original inhabitants of
America (Hobbes 1994a, 77). The similarity of Leviathan’s description
of the natural condition of mankind and passages in Hobbes’s transla-
tion of Thucydides’s history of the Peloponnesian war also points to
the most ancient Greeks as another historical example of humans
living in mere nature. These earliest Greeks experienced no “mutuall
entercourse, but with feare” moreover, “every man so husbanded the
ground, as but barely to live upon it, without any Note stocke of
Riches; and planted nothing, (because it was uncertaine when another
should invade them, and carry all away . . .” (Thucydides 1629, 2).
Civil war, a further example of the state of nature, is also implied in
De cive. During his discussion of the conflict that is caused by intellec-
tual disagreements Hobbes notes that “the bitterest wars are those
between different sects of the same religion and different factions in
the same country, when they clash over doctrines or public policy”
(Hobbes 1999, 26). The final example of the state of nature that
Hobbes discusses is the relationship between “sovereign and sovereign”
(Hobbes 1994c, 182). There is no common international power to
enforce contracts or the law of nations; consequently, what is true of
relations between individuals in the state of nature is also true of “rela-
tions between commonwealths” (Hobbes 1999, 40). Leviathan makes
the same point with considerably more emphasis arguing that “in all
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 37

times kings and persons of sovereign authority, because of their inde-

pendency, are in continual jealousies and in the state and posture of
gladiators, having their weapons pointing and their eyes fixed on one
another . . .” (Hobbes 1994a, 78).

The Laws of Nature

While human nature leads to the turmoil of the natural state it also
provides a way out, for human reason and the fear of death lead to
natural law. Hobbes describes natural law variously: it is “a precept or
general rule, found out by reason” (Ibid., 79), “Divine law[,]” (Hobbes
1999, 58) and moral law (Hobbes 1994c, 99). Hobbes’s view of natural
law was no less iconoclastic than his view of human nature. Hobbes
stresses the novelty of his position at the beginning of his discussion
of natural law in De cive by dismissing two alternative views. First,
Hobbes rejects the notion that an act is contrary to natural law if it is
condemned by all of the “wisest and most civilized nations” for the
simple reason that there is no way of judging which nations meet this
criterion (Hobbes 1999, 32). Secondly, he dismisses the view that
something is against natural law if it is abhorrent to all people due to
the fact that people “condemn in others what they approve in them-
selves, [and] publically praise what they privately reject” (Ibid., 33).
Natural law should not be confused with natural right, and Hobbes
specified the distinction between the two explicitly in Leviathan. Law
entails obligation, right on the other hand, permits the possibility
of action, but does not necessarily require it (Hobbes 1994a, 79).
Hobbes’s own definition of natural law is linked to his belief that all
humans will their own preservation: “Natural law therefore (to define
it) is the Dictate of right reason about what should be done or
not done for the longest possible preservation of life and limb”
(Hobbes 1999, 33). Hobbes’s characterization of natural law as the
dictate of reason is a traditional formulation. Thinkers such as
Aquinas, the Elizabethan Anglican theologian Richard Hooker,
Suárez, and Grotius all argued that natural law was the result of the
action of reason.15
The first dictate of right reason is “to seek peace when it can be had;
when it cannot, to look for aid in war” (Ibid., 34). From this foundation
Hobbes deduces the following natural law, which The Elements of Law
38 Thomas Hobbes

and De cive describe thus: “the right of all men to all things must not be held
onto; certain rights must be transferred or abandoned” for if this right is
retained there can be no escape from the natural state of war (Ibid.).
Leviathan’s version of the first law is significantly different: “that a man
be willing, when others are so too, as far-forth as for peace and defence of him-
self he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things, and be con-
tented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men
against himself ” (Hobbes 1994a, 80). Leviathan’s version explicitly
states that men in the state of nature are only required to lay down
their right when all others are of the same mind; the earlier versions
concur, but this stipulation does not occur in their formulations of
the law. Hobbes also had a specific conception of what it meant to
transfer the right to everything. If an individual or a group transfer
their right to another they can no longer offer any opposition when
the recipient acts in a way that could have been legitimately resisted
prior to the transfer. Notably, the recipient does not gain any new
rights as he already had the right to all things. However, following the
transfer he can enjoy this right without interference. Transferring,
Hobbes claims, can only take place under certain conditions. First,
the people who make the transfer must declare who they are transfer-
ring their rights too. Secondly, the recipient or recipients must declare
that they accept the transfer. This excludes God or animals from
receiving a transfer of rights as they are unable to declare that they
accept the gift. The transfer has to be a free gift, and the gift implies
no obligation on the recipient, other than those stipulated in natural
law. The act of several people transferring their rights to another is
called a contract. Significantly, it is only those who give up their rights,
and not the recipient, who are party to the contract. Finally, in order
for the agreement to be considered a contract, all parties must fulfill
their obligations immediately. If one party promises to perform some
act at a later date this agreement is described as a “COVENANT”
(Hobbes 1994c, 84). Hobbes contends that covenants in the state of
nature can be legitimately broken if one party has cause to fear that
fulfilling his promise will lead to harm or death. Consequently, in the
state of nature, covenants are insecure. Nonetheless, there appears to
be some ambiguity over this point. Hobbes argues that it is legitimate
to break a covenant if one party had grounds to fear for his life
or safety. Hobbes clarified this point by arguing that breaking the
covenant is only legitimate on the grounds of some new information
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 39

as “a cause which was unable to impede the making of an agreement

out not to impede its performance” (Hobbes 1999, 37). This seems to
introduce some limit on an individual’s right to judge the means by
which self-preservation can best be achieved, or at the very least, it
seems to require that individuals act consistently, which again places a
limit on what an individual can do to protect themselves. Either way
Hobbes appears to be backing away from his assertion that in the state
of nature individuals have the right to judge how best to conduct
themselves to ensure their survival.
In sum, Hobbes argued that reason dictates that individuals in the
state of nature seek peace. In order to achieve this he states that it is
necessary to transfer the right to all things by means of an agreement.
This contract must encompass everyone in the state of nature with the
exception of the recipient who retains their right to all things but
gains the ability to enjoy this right without resistance. From this,
Hobbes goes on to argue that reason dictates that ‘men perform their
covenants” (Hobbes 1994a, 89, cf. Hobbes 1999 43 and Hobbes 1994c
88).16 With the establishment of a covenant and the acknowledgment
that covenants must be honored it is possible to talk, for the first time,
of justice and injustice. In the state of nature as everyone has the right
to everything nothing can be unjust. However, once a contract has
been agreed whereby everyone, excepting the recipient, agrees to
lay down their right to everything it becomes unjust to break this
agreement, for individuals no longer have the right to act in this way.
However, justice only comes about when the contract is valid, that is to
say when it can be enforced by a coercive authority which can meet
out punishment that is “greater than the benefit they expect by breach
of their covenant” (Hobbes 1994a, 89).
Leviathan describes the next law of nature as “GRATITUDE.”
Hobbes likens it to the previous law by arguing that as justice depends
on a prior contract, so gratitude depends on prior grace. The law
states “that a man which receiveth benefit from another of mere grace endeav-
our that he which giveth it have no reasonable cause to repent him of his good
will” (Hobbes 1994c, 89). By this Hobbes means that the recipient of
the transfer must, out of gratitude for the free-gift, ensure that those
who gave away their rights do not regret their action. Hobbes justifies
this by appealing again to his first law: to strive for peace. Gratitude
rather than ingratitude tends to peace. Moreover, ingratitude on the
part of the recipient will fail to foster “benevolence or trust; . . . mutual
40 Thomas Hobbes

help, . . . [or] reconciliation of one man with another; and therefore

they are to remain still in the condition of war” (Ibid.). This law of
nature is instructive because it sets up a sharp distinction between life
in the state of nature and life under a single power. The former, as
noted above, is a situation of suspicion, insecurity, and war. In the
latter, however, good will, confidence in the promises of others, and
even generosity is expected to flourish. Some commentators have
mistaken Hobbes, suggesting that he believed that order was only
possible due to fear (Rogow 1986). The law of gratitude, however,
indicates that Hobbes envisaged a society where peace was sustained
by virtue rather than by fear.
This picture of a benevolent society based on trust is further
strengthened by the remaining laws. Hobbes stipulates “that every man
strive to accommodate himself to the rest[;]” (Hobbes 1994c, 89) that those
who are sincerely sorry should be pardoned; that the desire for
revenge be replaced by the desire for future good; that citizens should
not show contempt for one another; that citizens acknowledge that
‘everyone be considered equal to everyone[;]’(Hobbes 1999, 50) that
no one demand a right which they would not allow others; and that
judges act fairly. In total chapters 14 and 15 of Leviathan enumerate 19
laws of nature, all of which, Hobbes claims, can be summarized by the
injunction “Do not that to one another, which thou would not have done to
thyself ” (Hobbes 1994c, 99).
Nonetheless, Leviathan’s final chapter introduces a twentieth law of
nature, which is not found in the De cive or The Elements of Law. Namely,
Hobbes states that it is a law of nature “that every man is bound by nature,
as much as in him lieth, to protect in war the authority by which he is himself
protected in time of peace” (Ibid., 40). This natural law is a useful correc-
tive to some readings of Hobbes’s position. It has been argued that
subjects only owe allegiance to their sovereign while he can guarantee
to protect them. Consequently, once a sovereign’s power is in ques-
tion due to a civil war or a war with another state the subject’s
obligation is at an end. This final law of nature however, indicates
that Hobbes believed that subjects are obligated to their sovereign
even if he appears to be loosing a war, and that this obligation is rooted
in the benefits they received from a sovereign’s rule in peacetime.
Once again, gratitude, as well as the desire for self-preservation ties
the subject to the sovereign.
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 41

Finally, the term natural law is, as Hobbes acknowledges, mislead-

ing. Hobbes argues that law properly defined is “an utterance by one
who by right commands others” (Hobbes 1999, 56). Therefore, inso-
far as natural law is merely the dictates of reason it cannot properly be
called law. Nonetheless, natural law has a double character being the
dictates of reason and also being divine law. It is in this second sense
that natural law can properly be considered law because God has the
supreme right to command (Ibid., 56–7).

Persons, Authors, Representation, and the State

Having discussed the state of nature and the laws of nature, The Ele-
ments of Law and De cive turn immediately to the social contract. Levia-
than, however, introduces a new element in Hobbes’s account: the
related notion of persons, authors and representation.17 These con-
cepts, which Hobbes was to return to with greater clarity in De homine
and the Latin Leviathan, are rooted in Roman law and early modern
theater and should not be confused with more recent concept of rep-
resentation or theories of persons (Skinner 2002, III 179–80).
Hobbes’s aim was to consider how the state, an artificial entity, could
be said to act, and who can justly be said to speak and act on the state’s
behalf. Hobbes begins his account with a series of definitions:

A person is he whose words or actions are considered either as his

own, or as representing the words or actions of another man or of
any other thing to whom they are attributed, whether truly or by
fiction. (Hobbes 1994c, 101)

Leviathan goes on to distinguish between two different types of

person: the “natural person” and the “artificial person” (Ibid.). A person
is said to be a natural person when their actions represent no one
other than themselves. That is to say, the natural person speaks and
acts for himself. Conversely, an artificial person acts on behalf of
another, of a group or of another entity; or is represented by another.
Consequently, a natural person becomes an artificial person by
agreeing to be represented or by representing others. Hobbes takes
his conception of a person from the theater (Ibid.). Indeed, Hobbes
42 Thomas Hobbes

argues that a person, as he uses the term, is the same as a mask,

a disguise or an actor. Consequently, it is possible to act as different
persons at different times (Ibid.). The analogy of the theater is instruc-
tive as it implies that the artificial person is acting out a public role.
The public nature of these roles is further supported by Hobbes’s use
of the phrase “public persons” to describe ministers who publicly
represent the state, and the “king of any country” who he describes as
“the public person or representative of his own subjects” (Ibid., 158).
Having introduced the concept of an actor, Hobbes contrasts it
with that of an author. An actor performs actions but the author is
their owner. Hobbes compares the actor to a deputy, a representative
or a lieutenant who acts on the authority of another (Ibid., 102). For
example, an actor can be authorized to make a contract on behalf of
an author, in which case the author is bound by the contract as if he
had made it himself. Nonetheless, Hobbes warns that it is possible for
an actor to exceed their authority, in which case, to use the same
example, the contract would be invalid. What then gives an actor or a
representative the right to act on behalf of another? The answer is
simple, in order to act legitimately on another’s behalf the actor must
be properly authorized by the author. Proper authorization is nothing
less than the transfer of a right. Consequently, once an author has
authorized an actor to act on his behalf not only is the author bound
to accept the actor’s actions, the author is also obliged not to interfere
in those actions.
Artificial persons fall into two categories: those who are also natural
persons and therefore can be described as authors; and those who are
not natural persons and therefore can be represented, but cannot be
authors of the actions done in their name. It is this second group,
which Skinner describes as ‘purely artificial persons’ which are of great
significance for Hobbes’s theory of the state (Skinner 2002, III 192).
Again this category can be subdivided into two: the first are those
whose actions can be truly attributed to them, the second whose
actions are attributed to them fictitiously—Hobbes says little about
this second category outside De homine, and as they are incidental to
Hobbes’s general theory I have omitted any discussion of them.18
Hobbes gives a number of examples of purely artificial persons who
can have actions and words attributed to them in a way that is more
than merely fictitious. For example Hobbes discusses “a church, an
hospital, [or] a bridge.” These may be represented or “personated by
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 43

a rector, a master, or an overseer” (Hobbes 1994c, 102). In each case

the representative has the legal right to act and speak on behalf of
the church, hospital, or bridge that they represent. Crucially, it seems
that Hobbes was willing, at least by the time he wrote De homine and
the Latin Leviathan to argue that a bridge or a hospital was a person
(Skinner 2002, III 195). This may seem strange, but nonetheless,
Hobbes justifies this position as “a temple, or a bridge” or any other
institution can own property, dispose of assets, make public statements
and act in law; moreover they are capable of being represented (Hobbes
1972, 85). In these cases the representative should be the owner of the
institution or at least should be appointed by the owner; notably, the
right to own property is at the discretion of the sovereign; conse-
quently, the sovereign retains the right to appoint representatives.
The state is undoubtedly the most significant artificial person that
Hobbes considers. Hobbes’s theory of persons, authors, and represen-
tatives explains how the state, which is not a natural person, can be
said to hold sovereign power; as well as the relationship between the
multitude, the state and the monarch, or ruling assembly. First, Levia-
than describes the process by which people in the condition of mere
nature establish a commonwealth in terms of the language of repre-
sentation. Essentially, the multitude of natural persons authorize one
natural person or a group of natural persons to represent them. The
multitude which is naturally many becomes one because they are now
represented by a single will. The representative then takes on or bears
the person of the people, and the people can act as one through their
representative. When the people come together by authorizing a rep-
resentative they create the artificial person that is known as the state,
or “COMMONWEALLTH, in Latin CIVITAS” (Hobbes 1994c, 109).
Furthermore, the state is represented, for being a purely artificial per-
son it cannot act or speak on its own account. This representative,
who bears the person of the state or “carrieth this person is called
SOVEREIGN, and said to have Sovereign Power” (Ibid.). While this is a
very useful way of understanding the process that occurs when a state
is created from a social contract, Skinner has pointed out that this
account is not explicitly linked to states that are created as a result of
conquest (Ibid., 197).
This theory of representation was clearly partisan in terms of the
debates on sovereignty that took place during the English Civil War.
First, if sovereignty is something that is created with the state it cannot
44 Thomas Hobbes

follow that “the people” held sovereign power prior to the creation of
the state. Consequently, Hobbes’s account denies the sovereignty of
the people both before and after the creation of the state. Secondly,
Hobbes argues that when a representative is authorized to act on
another’s behalf a right has been transferred. Consequently, it is
impossible for an author to choose to change his representative or
to choose a second representative. Clearly, if the King is viewed as
the representative of the people the people must necessarily acknow-
ledge his actions as their own and have no right to interfere in what
he does in their name, let alone dismiss him or choose another
representative.

The Creation of the State through Mutual Covenants

If reason dictates peace and even specifies those types of behavior that
are conducive to peace why then is a social contract, a sovereign and
civil laws necessary? Hobbes’s answer is that men will willingly break
the laws of nature, or any other laws, if breaking the laws seems the
most beneficial course of action (Hobbes 1999, 70). The crucial
problem is the fact that the good of the individual and the common
good do not naturally coincide, and when the two conflict the indi-
vidual will pursue the former in preference to the latter (Ibid., 71).
Natural law will only be obeyed in circumstances where there is
security from attack. Hobbes considers a number of ways in which to
generate this security and in so doing ensure that natural law is
observed. First, he suggests that individuals band together for mutual
defense. This strategy, however, is flawed. Should the need arise for
a common defense the effort is likely to be ineffective as it is impossi-
ble to guarantee agreement on how it is to be achieved. The only
solution is to create a single will.
The commonwealth comes into being when every man covenants
with every man in the following way:

I authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this

assembly of men, on the condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and
authorise all his actions in a like manner. (Hobbes 1994c, 109)

Crucially, there is not a single social contract to which everyone is a

party. Rather, there are multiple contracts between each individual
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 45

and all others. The new sovereign is not a party to the contract.
Giving up the right to self-government is nothing other than giving up
the right of nature. Notably, Leviathan’s formulation of the covenant
uses the term “authorize,” which indicates that those who have made
covenants have instructed another to act on their behalf. Conse-
quently, they now own the actions of the person or assembly they have
authorized and are bound by their decisions. The formulation is
different in the earlier versions of the theory, which were published
before Hobbes had systematized his definitions of persons, authors,
and representation. In De cive for example Hobbes writes:

This submission of all their wills to the will of one man or of one Assembly
comes about when each of them obligates himself, by an Agreement
with each of the rest, not to resist the will of the man or Assembly to
which he has submitted himself . . . (Hobbes 1999, 72)

In spite of the different vocabulary De cive concurs, the agreement is

between each individual and every other individual. Additionally,
De cive and Leviathan agree that the new sovereign makes no covenant.
Consequently, the sovereign alone remains in the state of nature.

Types of Sovereignty

Before enumerating the rights and duties of the sovereign it is worth

considering the types of sovereignty that Hobbes discusses. First,
Hobbes argues that the sovereign can either be a single person or an
assembly. In the latter case the sovereign’s will rests with the majority.
In both cases the sovereign has the same rights. Secondly, Hobbes
suggests that a sovereign can be created in two different ways. A sover-
eign can come into being as the result of mutual covenanting. De cive
described commonwealths that originate in this way as “natural”
(Hobbes 1999, 74) whereas Leviathan uses the phrase “commonwealth
by institution” (Hobbes 1994a, 110). Alternatively, an existing sover-
eign can be overthrown and replaced, or several existing states can be
united, in which case several sovereigns are supplanted by one. Hobbes
describes this second type of commonwealth as “a commonwealth by
acquisition” (Ibid.) or a “commonwealth by design” (Hobbes 1999, 74).
Both types are created due to fear. The former comes about due to
mutual fear, the latter due to fear of the conqueror.
46 Thomas Hobbes

The Rights and Duties of the Sovereign

Hobbes’s various texts all suggest that the rights of the sovereign are
rooted in the goals of the commonwealth. The Latin Leviathan, puts
this clearly, arguing that: “[f]rom the form of the institution are
derived all powers and rights of the one having supreme power . . .”
(Hobbes 1994a, 110). Security is the prime object of all of those who
come together to create the commonwealth (Hobbes 1994c, 111).
Broadly, Hobbes’s texts argue that sovereigns require the following
rights in order to guarantee the safety of their subjects: the right to
judge, punish, and reward; the right to muster an army, declare war,
and make peace; the right to make laws; the right to determine
official religious and scientific doctrines; the right to seize and distrib-
ute property; the right to appoint and dismiss ministers and other
officials; and the right to judge what is essential for the subject’s peace
and defense.
There is also a great deal of common ground between Hobbes’s
texts about the duties of the sovereign. The duties of the sovereign are
also rooted in the subjects’ need for security. Significantly, Hobbes
states that the security of the people encompasses much more than
mere preservation. Indeed, Hobbes goes so far as to say that the sover-
eign ought to ensure “liberty and wealth” (Ibid., 173) for the subjects
of the commonwealth. The Elements of Law and De cive both indicate
that the sovereign has a duty to ensure domestic peace and protect
against external threats; to allow the subjects as much liberty as possi-
ble, without endangering the commonwealth; and to provide for
those who are in dire need. Leviathan, however, places greater weight
on the duties of the sovereign to educate the people regarding the
benefits of the commonwealth and to eradicate seditious doctrines.
The security of the subjects necessitates the right of the subject to
act as judge and to meet out punishment. Punishment is essential as
security cannot be ensured by an agreement alone. Any agreement
that cannot be enforced by coercive power is essentially worthless,
or as De cive puts it “security is to be assured not by agreements but by
penalties” (Hobbes 1999, 78). Consequently, if subjects are to live in
peace and respect the laws of nature and civil laws the sovereign must
have the right to enforce these laws. The Elements of Law and De cive
describe this judicial right as “the Sword of justice” (Hobbes 1999, 78
cf. Hobbes, 1994c, 112). Leviathan indicates that the sovereign can
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 47

use any form of punishment legitimately, including “corporal or

pecuniary punishment” or punishment by dishonor (Ibid., 115). De
cive also states that while the right to punish belongs to the sovereign,
the sovereign can instruct others to carry out the punishment on his
or their behalf. The right of the Sword of justice also entails that sub-
jects refrain from helping those who are to be punished (Hobbes 1999,
78). If the sovereign can punish, the sovereign can also reward (Hobbes
1994c, 115). Judicial duties accompany the sovereign’s judicial rights.
Indeed, The Elements of Law and De cive argue that corrupt judges are a
great threat to civil peace. For this reason, the sovereign’s judicial
supremacy also implies the duty to ensure that subordinate judges act
justly. Hobbes recommends that the sovereign keeps lower judges
in awe of his power and removes magistrates that abuse their power. In
this way the sovereign will prevent the people taking the law into their
own hands and in so doing reverting to their natural state (Hobbes
1994c, 175). Both the English and the Latin Leviathan discuss the sov-
ereign’s legal duties. The English Leviathan, for example, argues that
the sovereign should ensure that laws are good in the sense that they
are “needful for the good of the people, and withal perspicuous” (Hobbes
1994a, 229). The Latin Leviathan, like De cive, also argues that crimi-
nals should be punished in accordance with published
standards (Hobbes 1999, 151 cf. Hobbes, 1994a, 277 n. 9).
The sovereign also holds “the Sword of war” (Hobbes 1999, 79
cf. Hobbes, 1994c, 112). This encompasses the right to maintain
an army; declare war; negotiate peace; to require subjects to serve;
and also entails the right to raise the money, by whatever means the
sovereign deems appropriate, and to support the army during peace
and war (Hobbes 1994a, 114). Hobbes presents the Sword of war as
essentially defensive. He argues that war can be rightfully declared
“on each occasion of danger or opportunity” indicating that the
sovereign can go to war pre-emptively, or in order to gain resources
necessary to the maintenance of peace (Hobbes 1999, 78). Nonethe-
less, The Elements of Law contains the warning that war, which is prose-
cuted “out of ambition, or of vain glory” (Hobbes 1994c, 177) is likely
to ruin the commonwealth. Therefore, it is the duty of the sovereign
not to start a war that does not tend to the public good.
The right to make laws is also a mark of sovereignty, civil law being,
as Hobbes describes it, “nothing other than commands about citizens’
future actions from the one who is endowed with sovereign authority ”
48 Thomas Hobbes

(Hobbes 1999, 79). The sovereign defines which acts are punishable
and in so doing establishes defensible property rights (Ibid.). The
absence of these standards prior to the commonwealth is a continual
source of conflict; consequently, establishing and publishing these
rules is essential to civil peace. Leviathan’s discussion of the sovereign’s
law making powers also accords the sovereign “the right of judicature”
that is, the right to interpret the law of nature and civil law, and in
cases of controversy the right to act as the final judge. This is essential
lest conflict over the interpretation of the laws cause strife within the
commonwealth (Hobbes 1994a, 114). The sovereign’s duty to make
good laws has already been noted, but Leviathan charges the sovereign
with a duty that is not mentioned in earlier accounts, namely that the
sovereign sets aside special days during which the subjects learn their
duties (Ibid., 223).
The sovereign is also the final authority on extrajudicial matters,
including scientific and religious doctrines. The Elements of Law gives
several examples of the kind of beliefs that the sovereign has a duty to
root out such as “that a man can do nothing lawfully against his
private conscience” and that it is lawful to resist a tyrant (Hobbes
1994c, 176). This right is essential as scientific and religious disputes
have the potential to destroy civil peace. Moreover, as human actions
are a result of their opinions it is vital that the sovereign has the power
to quash any doctrine that might lead to unjust actions. This right
includes the right to establish which doctrines should be taught in
universities and in public places, who has the right to speak and teach
publicly, and which books should not be published (Hobbes 1994a,
225). Leviathan puts the case with greater force by describing the
sovereign’s doctrinal authority in terms of a duty, and therefore some-
thing the sovereign is obliged to do, rather than a right which is
something the sovereign can either do or forbear from doing. None-
theless, the sovereign’s right or duty (for it is presented as both) to
establish the correct doctrines and root out the sources of dangerous
opinions is described primarily in terms of education rather than
coercion (Ibid.).
Leviathan, unlike Hobbes’s other texts states that privileges such as
“titles of honour” and the “place of dignity each man shall hold” are
also in the sovereign’s gift (Hobbes 1994a, 115). The public show of
respect and esteem is a potential source of unrest and jealousy, even
in the commonwealth. Thus, the sovereign has the right to distribute
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 49

these honors and to define how people of different rank should

address each other in order to defuse rivalry.
The sovereign’s rights are indivisible. Again, Hobbes appeals to civil
peace in order to justify this. A commonwealth, he argues, in which
one sovereign held the command of the army and another so-called
sovereign was the head of the judiciary would have no sovereign at all.
Indeed, in such a situation the commonwealth could divide into two
camps and war would ensue. The Elements of Law summarizes the rights
of the sovereign thus:

The sum of these rights of sovereignty, namely the absolute use of

the sword in peace and war, the making and abrogating of laws,
supreme judicature and decision in all debates judicial and deliber-
ative, the nomination of all magistrates and ministers, with other
rights contained in the same, make the sovereign power no less
absolute in the commonwealth, than before commonwealth every-
man was absolute in himself to do, or not do, what he thought
good . . . (Hobbes 1994c, 114)

This passage also points to the final source of the sovereign’s rights,
for while Hobbes tends to justify them in terms of their tendency to
promote the good of the subjects, their true origin is elsewhere. In
essence, the sovereign’s right is the right of nature. The sovereign is
not part of the initial process of covenanting and therefore never
transfers the right of nature. Consequently, the sovereign’s right to all
things remains intact and this is the foundation of the sovereign’s
right. However, the sovereign’s ability to exercise the right of nature
unimpeded by others comes from the process of mutual covenanting
and the transferral of rights that it allows.
The sovereign’s duties, the obligation to ensure internal peace,
justice and the people’s defense have already been touched upon.
However, the sovereign also has the duty to foster wealth and free-
dom. When considering the wealth of the people Hobbes notes, time
and again, that taxation is a source of great concern to all subjects. As
a result, Hobbes recommends that tax should be equitable and that
the sovereign should take steps to disguise the scale of the burden
placed on the people. Tax is equitable when it is in proportion to the
benefit each receives from the commonwealth, rather than in propor-
tion to the ability to pay (Hobbes 1994c, 174–5, cf. Hobbes 1999, 148
50 Thomas Hobbes

and Hobbes 1994a, 226). Secondly, Hobbes suggests taxes on con-

sumption rather than income, as it is far less visible and will therefore
cause less resentment. De cive’s discussion of the sovereign’s responsi-
bility to advance the wealth of the people goes far beyond the creation
of an equitable tax system. The sovereign, according to De cive, has the
duty to pass laws discouraging idleness, forbidding extravagant expen-
diture, promoting the sciences and the productivity of the earth
(Hobbes 1999, 149–50). These sciences include: “the mechanical arts . . .
and the mathematical sciences” (Ibid., 150). These were the very sciences
that Hobbes and other members of the Mersenne circle were investigat-
ing at the time that De cive was being written. The Elements of Law also
charges the sovereign with safeguarding the wealth of the people
through “the well ordering of trade, procuring of labour and forbidding
the superfluous consuming of food and apparel” (Hobbes 1994c, 174).
Finally, the sovereign has the duty to allow the subjects a certain
degree of liberty. Hobbes uses the simile of the banks of a river or
hedges by the side of the road to describe the relationship between the
civil laws and the liberty of the subjects. The Latin Leviathan, for exam-
ple, argues that “the end of laws is not to restrain people from a harm-
less liberty, but to prevent them from rushing into dangers or harm to
themselves or to the commonwealth, from impetuous passion, rash-
ness, or foolishness, as roads are hedged not as an obstacle to travel-
lers, but to prevent them from wandering off, with injury to their fellow
citizens” (Hobbes 1994a, 229 n. 11). Consequently, while the subjects
should not be exempt from necessary laws the sovereign should not
seek to obstruct “the liberty which is harmless to the commonwealth
and essential to happy lives for the citizens” (Hobbes 1999, 151).
Clearly, the sovereign’s duties are extensive. Nonetheless, Hobbes’s
conception of these duties should not be misunderstood. Crucially,
subjects have no legal right to compel their sovereign to fulfill his
duties. Hobbes’s texts all agree on this point. Nonetheless, there is a
significant difference in tone between The Elements of Law and Levia-
than when it comes to the question of the sovereign’s accountability.
The earlier text stresses the fact that the sovereign is answerable to
God and therefore bound by natural law. Leviathan, on the other
hand, focuses on the absence of any judicial or popular checks on the
sovereign’s action. While both themes occur in both texts there is
undoubtedly a difference of emphasis. The Elements of Law sums up
the sovereign’s duty in these words: “the duty of a sovereign consisteth
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 51

in the good government of the people. . .” (Hobbes 1994c, 173).

Hobbes also argues that when a sovereign’s actions “tend to hurt the
people in general” they are breaching natural law (Ibid.). Sovereigns
who neglect their duty in this way risk God’s wrath and “eternal death”
(Ibid.). Leviathan on the other hand opens its discussion of the sover-
eign’s rights by arguing that the subjects “authorize all the actions and
judgements of that man or assembly of men” that exercise sovereign
power (Hobbes 1994a, 110). From this starting point Hobbes argues
that no subject can legitimately object to the actions of the sovereign.
Hobbes’s argument is simple, as each subject has authorized the
sovereign to represent himself, every subject is “author of all the
actions and judgements of the sovereign” (Ibid., 112). Consequently,
a subject who accuses the sovereign of injustice is in fact accusing
himself. What is more, as it is impossible for a person to injure them-
selves it is impossible for the sovereign to injure his subjects (Ibid.).
Leviathan states that the subjects cannot punish the sovereign for the
same reason (Ibid., 113). Leviathan does note that the sovereign can
break natural law; the Latin Leviathan states that “he who has the
supreme power can act inequitably, I have not denied. For what is
done contrary to the law of nature is called inequitable . . .” but there
is no mention of divine punishment. Similarly, The Elements of Law
does mention that “the acts of sovereign power be no injuries to the
subjects” but here the stress is on the duty to conform to natural law
(Hobbes 1994c, 172). Consequently, while the tone of the two treat-
ments is different, and while Leviathan makes use of the terminology
of “authorization” where The Elements of Law does not, Hobbes’s
general stance on the rights of the sovereign is consistent. Finally,
Hobbes argues that it is in the sovereign’s own interest to observe
these duties as “governing to the profit of the subjects, is governing to
the profit of the sovereign” (Ibid.). The wise sovereign will therefore
fulfill his obligations in order to preserve his power even in the
absence of any legal obligation.
The source of these duties is more obscure than the source of the
sovereign’s rights. Hobbes acknowledges that they are based in natu-
ral law, but he never specifies which of his various laws obliges the sov-
ereign to act in the ways he describes. It is certainly clear that the
sovereign’s obligation does not arise from any covenant. The source
would seem to be the law of gratitude, which obliges the recipient of
a free gift to act in such a way that the giver never regrets the gift.
52 Thomas Hobbes

Moreover, gratitude like all of the laws of nature can be deduced from
the original natural law to seek peace. So fundamentally the sover-
eign’s duties are all conducive to continued civil peace and therefore
rooted in the original law of nature.
In general terms the rights and duties of the sovereign are the same
whether the commonwealth was formed by mutual covenant or
whether it is acquired by conquest (Hobbes 1994a, 128). There is
however, one exception to this. A sovereign who has taken a common-
wealth by force can choose to enter into a covenant with those he
once fought. On the one hand the vanquished promise to serve the
conqueror and on the other hand the victor agrees to spare the lives
of those who promise to submit. In this case the sovereign has the
duty not to kill his new subjects; however, once this duty is discharged
the relationship between sovereign and subject is the same as in the
commonwealth that is created by design. Crucially, the victor is under
no obligation to enter into a covenant with those who were once his
foe, nor does the offer to submit oblige him to spare their lives.
Equally, the victor does not become the sovereign over the vanquished
simply by military victory, a covenant is necessary; nonetheless, those
who have been beaten in war have no duty to submit and can choose
to die rather than acquiesce.
While the initial act of mutual covenanting creates the common-
wealth it is the rights and duties of the sovereign that sustain it. By act-
ing dutifully, that is to say by displaying gratitude for the gift he or
they have received and by persistently pursuing peace the sovereign
fosters an atmosphere of reconciliation, benevolence, trust, and
mutual good will between the subjects and the subjects and their sov-
ereign. So while it is the covenant that creates the state it is the dutiful
sovereign who makes it virtuous.

Liberty under the Sovereign

Given the sovereign’s continuing right to all things, even the bodies of
other people; the commitment on the part of the subjects not to resist;
and the fact that the sovereign’s duties cannot be legally enforced, it
may well be questioned whether subjects have any liberty at all. The
question is complicated by Hobbes’s understanding of liberty, for he
distinguishes between the liberty of nature and the liberty of subjects.
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 53

Consequently, it will be necessary to begin with a discussion of

Hobbes’s account of liberty and then go on to examine what natural
liberty subjects retain as well as the extent of their artificial liberty.
Hobbes’s famous statement that freedom depends on “the silence
of the laws” should not be taken as a summary of his position. As
Skinner has shown, Hobbes’s view of freedom is far more complex.
Notably, Hobbes makes no attempt to define freedom in The Elements
of Law. De cive contains Hobbes’s first attempt to define natural liberty
(Skinner 2002, III 209). De cive makes the striking claim that no one
has previously explained the nature of either freedom or servitude.
Clearly, Hobbes cannot mean that no such definition has been
attempted, for he immediately criticizes an understanding of liberty
that he describes as the common view. Traditionally, liberty was under-
stood as a legal status and it was opposed to the status of the slave. This
is the understanding of liberty that was embodied in both the Roman
Law and the English Common Law. However, Hobbes claims that this
view is unscientific due to the fact that it is incompatible with civil
peace. Hobbes believed that his definition was the first to make liberty
and civil peace compatible. It is in this sense that De cive offers, what
Hobbes believed to be, the first secure definition of liberty. De cive
defined liberty thus: “the absence of obstacles to motion; as water con-
tained in a vessel is not free, because the vessel is an obstacle to its
flowing away, and it is freed by breaking the vessel” (Hobbes 1999, 111,
cf. Hobbes 1994a, 136).
Before exploring the implications of Hobbes’s definition it is worth
considering the novelty of Hobbes’s position. First, by defining liberty
in such a way that it encompasses human beings and inanimate objects
Hobbes makes liberty compatible with necessity. Water, for example,
when freed by the breaking of a vessel, runs downwards due to gravity.
While Hobbes and his contemporaries had no agreed understanding
of what gravity was, they did agree that in these circumstances water
was compelled by nature to fall. Contained in a jar or flowing in
a river, the motion of water was the product of nature.
Human freedom was generally taken to reside in the will. Scholastics,
for example, argued that the human rational soul was unlike anything
else in nature as it was reflexive. Water had no will and nonhuman
animals were instinctive. Therefore, the motion of inanimate objects
and animals was unfree. Humans, of course, were subject to natural
forces, and had instincts; but the will allowed humans to choose to act
54 Thomas Hobbes

against their instincts. Therefore, for scholastic thinkers free will was
the essence of human freedom. Clearly, Hobbes’s view of liberty is
quite different from the scholastic view and for this reason it is no
surprise that the nature of liberty was one of the central points of
conflict between Hobbes and Brahmall.
Second, following classical authors, many of Hobbes’s contempo-
raries believed that freedom was far more than the lack of bodily
restriction. This is the view that Hobbes critiques, the view he describes
as the “common” understanding of liberty. Skinner has done much to
recover this perspective and describes it as the neo-Roman concept of
liberty, or more recently as “republican liberty.”19 For writers working
in the classical tradition, true liberty was only possible in a “free state”;
that is to say, a state in which the citizens governed themselves
(Skinner 1997, 23–6). In such a state the ruler’s power can go no
further than the citizens allow. Indeed, laws can only be passed with
the consent of the people (Ibid., 49–59). In this sense, citizens are
only free if rulers have no arbitrary prerogative powers. Indeed, free-
dom entails the absence of dependence on the good will of others.
This independence is the bedrock of the citizens’ freedom to speak
and act as they choose. Slaves and courtiers, on the other hand, are
compelled to flatter their masters for fear of falling from favor (Ibid.,
95–7). On this account slaves and courtiers are not free even when
they are out of prison and enjoying their master’s favor. They are
unfree because at any moment their masters can treat them in any way
they chose, and they have no power to defend themselves. Hobbes’s
view of liberty is novel in this context as well. His view of liberty is far
slighter than that of writers such as Milton or Harrington who appealed
to this classical neo-Roman view (Ibid., 1). What is more, Hobbes’s
concept of liberty is a deliberate attack on the classical republican
view.20
Returning to Hobbes’s view of liberty there are essentially two com-
ponents to natural freedom. The first, is having the power to act, the
second is that this power of action is unimpeded. These two aspects
can be seen clearly in Leviathan’s definition of a free-man, “a FREE-
MAN is he that in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do is
not hindered to do what he has a will to” (Hobbes 1994a, 136). To further
elucidate his meaning Hobbes considers two examples where motion
is impossible and yet the bodies in question are not unfree. First,
“when a stone lieth still” (Ibid.) the stone’s lack of motion is not an
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 55

example of the lack of freedom, for it lacks the power to move.

Similarly, Hobbes’s second example is of a man “fastened to his bed by
sickness” (Ibid.). Again, motion is impossible due to a lack of power
rather than a lack of freedom as the sickness is not an external con-
straint and therefore does not curtail his liberty. Hobbes’s example of
unfreedom is a living creature “imprisoned or restrained with walls or
chains” for here the obstacle to motion is external. In short, liberty
consists in the unimpeded exercise of one or more of our powers.
This view of liberty is, however, only part of the picture, for as Hobbes
asserts this is his account of “natural liberty” and he has more to say
concerning “the liberty of subjects” (Ibid., 137–8).
The English Leviathan is the first of Hobbes’s texts to devote a
chapter to the liberty of subjects (Skinner 2002, III 219). Hobbes’s
account of the liberty of subjects concerns the freedom that can be
rightly exercised by those living under a sovereign. The subject is, of
course, obliged to obey the civil laws and the law of nature by their
mutual covenants. However, the laws are “Artificial Bonds” or “artifi-
cial chains” (Hobbes 1994a, 138). Thus, they are not, in the proper
sense, restrictions to natural liberty. Indeed, Hobbes claims that obey-
ing the law is a free act. This can be true in three ways. First, rational
subjects will obey the law because they recognize that in so doing they
are protecting their own security. Therefore, in obeying the law ratio-
nal subjects are merely acting in accordance with their own reason,
and in so doing they are acting freely. Secondly, the majority of sub-
jects who are motivated more by passion than reason will obey the law
in order to avoid punishment. Nonetheless, they are still acting accord-
ing to their own will when choosing to obey the law. In both cases the
subject acts freely in the proper, natural, sense of the word.21 Finally,
Hobbes’s theory of representation indicates that the sovereign’s will is
identical with the will of the people. Consequently, when the subjects
obey the law they are merely following their own will. However,
Hobbes’s distinction between the natural and artificial state of man
allows him to argue that laws are artificial constraints, and it is in this
artificial sense that the liberty of subjects depends on the laws’ silence.
Having described Hobbes’s account of natural and artificial liberty it
is now possible to consider the extent to which subjects are free in a
commonwealth.
First, subjects retain some of their natural liberty as there are some
natural rights that the sovereign cannot justly require the subjects to
56 Thomas Hobbes

renounce. Hobbes’s most significant example is perhaps the right to

self-defense. Hobbes argues that subjects retain their right to resist
the immediate threat of death, whether at the hand of another sub-
ject, the sovereign, or one of the sovereign’s agents. Consequently,
Hobbes argues that it is not unjust for a subject to resist the death
penalty. De cive puts Hobbes’s case very strongly:

No one is obligated by any agreement he may have made not to resist

someone who is threatening him with death, wounds or other bodily
harm. For there is in every man a kind of supreme stage of fearful-
ness, by which he sees the harm threatening him as the worst possi-
ble, and by natural necessity does his best to avoid it . . . Since no
one is bound to do the impossible, no one is obliged to accept the
death with which he is threatened . . . (Hobbes 1999, 39)

Hobbes’s statement that the desire to avoid death is a kind of “natural

necessity” could lead to the view that Hobbes believes it is literally
impossible for an individual to surrender their life or to will their own
death. Certainly, this passage from De cive and would seem to support
this view. Nonetheless, in other passages Hobbes acknowledges that
there are other human motives that trump the fear of death.
For example, The Elements of Law describes the passion of courage as
“contempt of wounds and death, when they oppose a man in the way
to his end” (Hobbes 1994c, 52). Equally, Behemoth acknowledges that
“eternal torture is more terrible than death” a point which troubles
Hobbes greatly as it allowed the church to undermine the power of
kings (Hobbes 1990, 14–15). Behemoth also states that Charles I showed
‘courage, patience, wisdom, and goodness’ in the face of impending
death, again indicating that it is possible to face death without attempt-
ing to fight or escape (Ibid., 154). For this reason it would be wrong
to take Hobbes’s remarks about the “impossibility” of submitting to
death too literally. Indeed, given Hobbes’s knowledge of classical and
church history it would seem difficult to believe that Hobbes sincerely
thought that humans were unable to choose death over life.
Secondly, subjects are not obliged to testify against themselves. This
too is a natural freedom that cannot be transferred by covenant. This
point is closely related to his argument that subjects can resist death
without injustice. Hobbes claims that self-accusation is understood to
be followed by punishment and as no one is expected to submit to
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 57

punishment no one should be expected to bring punishment upon

themselves by incriminating themselves (Hobbes 1999, 39 cf. Hobbes
1994a, 87). De cive and Leviathan take this line of argument further
and argue that subjects are not obliged to testify against their spouses,
parents, or children (Hobbes 1999, 40 cf. Hobbes 1994a, 87).
However, this position is not without its problems. Hobbes appears to
justify this by stating that the individuals in question are dependant
on each other for their survival and therefore to testify against them
would be to endanger their own lives. Clearly, if this was true in every
case Hobbes would be correct within the terms of his own argument.
Nonetheless, it seems intuitively wrong to suggest that outside some
exceptional cases the dependence of one family member upon
another is a matter of life and death. Consequently, in this case Hobbes
seems to be allowing a degree of flexibility in his system he does not
explicitly acknowledge.
Conscience is a final area in which subjects retain their natural lib-
erty.22 This may seem surprising given the sovereign’s extensive rights
and duties to determine the content of religious doctrines, as well as
which doctrines are to be taught in churches and universities. None-
theless, while the sovereign has a right and a duty to police the sources
of opinion and people’s actions his role does not extend to policing
beliefs themselves. Hobbes puts this clearly in Behemoth where he
argues that “[a] state can constrain obedience, but convince no error,
nor alter the minds of them that believe they have the better reason”
(Hobbes 1990, 62).
This may well seem like a very limited form of freedom, but it is
significant nonetheless. First, it shows that the scope of the sovereign’s
action was limited to behavior. Religious enthusiasts of various theo-
logical persuasions had attempted, and would continue to advocate,
using the power of the state to compel belief. Hobbes’s view of state
action is far more limited, for he argued that it is impossible and
unnecessary to control opinion. Finally, Hobbes argued it was coun-
terproductive to try and enforce belief. Again, Behemoth, states that
“[s]uppression of doctrine does but unite and exasperate, that is,
increase both the malice and power of them that have already believed
them” (Ibid.). This, Hobbes argued, was Archbishop Laud’s mistake.
In trying to impose the Book of Common Prayer on the Scots he had
created powerful opposition to Charles I, provoked war with the
Scottish Covenanters, and in so doing endangered civil peace.
58 Thomas Hobbes

Turning to the liberty of subjects, Hobbes argues that they retain all
the natural liberty that is not explicitly taken away from them by the
terms of their covenant or by civil laws. A subject’s freedom is in this
sense is “the silence of the law” (Hobbes 1994a, 143). Hobbes gives
the example of polygamy, arguing that unless the law explicitly forbids
it a man may have as many wives as he pleases (Ibid.). Moreover, in
The Elements of Law at least, Hobbes envisages subjects with significant
residual liberty as there should be “no prohibition without necessity
of any thing to any man, which was lawful to him in the law of nature;
that is to say, that there be no restraint of natural liberty, but what is
necessary for the good of the commonwealth” (Hobbes 1994c, 173).
Subjects also gain legally defensible rights against one another. For
example, Hobbes charges the sovereign with the defense of property
rights. It also seems that there is scope for seeking to challenge the
rulings of corrupt judges, as the sovereign is supposed to ensure that
those who administer the law do so fairly. Nonetheless, these rights
are not absolute, in the sense that subjects have no property rights
against the sovereign, and there is no appeal against the sovereign’s
verdict. Again, Hobbes does not describe these rights in terms of posi-
tive freedom.

The Life of the Commonwealth

The metaphor of the body politic was common among classical, medi-
eval, and early modern writers on the state.23 Hobbes used it in a vari-
ety of contexts in his different works. In Leviathan Hobbes used the
metaphor most extensively, arguing that the state, like a human body,
has an artificial life and therefore could succumb to an artificial death
either by rebellion, which he likened to a disease eating away at the
body from within, or by foreign invasion, which he compared to vio-
lent death at the hands of another.
The artificial life of the commonwealth Hobbes argued should be
sustained by a wise sovereign who fulfilled the duties specified by nat-
ural law. Consequently, it would be wrong to suggest that order under
a Hobbesian sovereign would be sustained predominantly by contin-
ual fear. Hobbes makes this point at the outset of The Elements of Law:

. . . for the doctrine, it is not slightly proved; and the conclusions

thereof, are of such nature, as for the want of them, government
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 59

and peace have been nothing else, to this day, but mutual fear. And
it would be an incomparable benefit to commonwealth, that every
man held the opinions concerning law and policy, here delivered.
(Hobbes 1994c, 19–20)

This is a striking assertion. If we contrast this passage to Bacon’s more

conventional view Hobbes’s novelty will become more apparent.
Bacon wrote that God had given humanity “two exemplar states . . .
the states of Graece, and the state of Rome” (Bacon 1973, 74–5).
Hobbes on the other hand apparently dismisses all prior states and
looks forward to a new type of state. Indeed, the historian Richard
Tuck argues that Hobbes’s vision of life under a properly constituted
sovereign was nothing short of utopian. He argues:

. . . we have every reason to suppose that Hobbes did believe that a

proper understanding of these political principles would lead to
something very different from the government of a Louis XIV or a
Charles II; any recognizable modern state would be little better
than a state of nature unless it succeeded in effecting a much more
thoroughgoing transformation of its citizens than had been wit-
nessed by any recorded society. (Tuck 2004, 129)

So if Hobbes did not envisage a regime sustained by fear, or a state like

those in which he lived what was his vision of life under the sovereign?
Annabel Brett argues that “Hobbes insists that no commonwealth can
ever be fixed against the return to nature if force is the only thing
driving people to keep the laws” (Brett 1997, 233). Rather it is educa-
tion that will turn men in to subjects. Indeed, in the context of the
rights of the sovereign Hobbes wrote:

And the grounds of these rights have the rather need to be dili-
gently and truly taught, because they cannot be maintained by any
civil laws or terror of legal punishment. For civil law that shall forbid
rebellion (and such is all resistance to the essential rights of sover-
eignty) is not civil law (as a civil law) any obligation but by virtue
only of the law of nature that forbiddeth violation of faith; which
natural obligation, if men know not, they cannot know the right of
any law the sovereign maketh. And for the punishment, they take it
but for an act of hostility, which when they think they have strength
60 Thomas Hobbes

enough they will endeavour, by acts of hostility to avoid. (Hobbes

1994a, 220)

The essential difference between humans in nature and subjects is

their right to judge good and evil for themselves. In order to be a true
subject an individual must renounce this right where natural law or
the sovereign have already settled the matter (Brett 1997, 233). Finally,
then, a commonwealth is sustained by virtuous subjects rather than
the fear of death.
It is a commonwealth of virtuous subjects that Hobbes envisaged.
Tuck goes further to argue that Hobbes’s utopianism encompasses
the desire to transform the nature of man. Tuck argues that central to
Hobbes’s project was the desire to tame the human passions. The laws
of nature, he argues, are an attempt to undo the pride, revengeful-
ness, and the continual search for personal honor that characterizes
human nature.
Additionally, a commonwealth that endured would oversee a tre-
mendous advance in science and therefore the goods of life. Hobbes
likens the potential achievements of civil science to the actual achieve-
ments of natural sciences. Natural sciences had, even in what he sug-
gested was a relatively rudimentary state, produced enormous benefits
for human kind:

But what the utility of philosophy is, especially of natural philosophy

and geometry, will be best understood by reckoning up the chief
commodities of which mankind is capable, and by comparing the
manner of life of such as enjoy them, with that of others which want
the same. Now, the greatest Commodities of mankind are the arts;
namely, of measuring matter and motion; of moving Ponderous
bodies; of architecture; of navigation; of making instruments for all
uses; of calculating the celestial motions, the aspects of the stars,
and the parts of time; of geography, &c. By which sciences, how
great benefits men receive is more easily understood than expressed.
(Hobbes 1839–1845c, I 7)

Civil science, by ensuring peace would allow the sciences to flourish.

De cive, it should be remembered specified that the sovereign had a
duty to ensure the advancement of the sciences. While Hobbes never
speculated on what types of commodities a reformed science might
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 61

produce it is worth recalling Bacon’s utopian description of island of

Bensalem. Bensalem had enjoyed 1,900 years of peace, since its law
giver Salomana had set up its fundamental laws. Salomana, like a
Hobbesian sovereign “was wholly bent to make his kingdom and
people happy” (Bacon 1996, 469). Also, like the sovereign described
in De cive Salomana was concerned with safeguarding and extending
the fertility of his country’s soil; and as a patron of the sciences he
established “Saloman’s House, the noblest foundation, as we think,
that ever was upon the earth, and the lantern of this kingdom. It is
dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God” (Ibid., 471).
The mission of Saloman’s house was “the knowledge of causes, and
secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human
empire, to the effecting of all things possible” (Ibid., p. 480). This
sustained period of peace and sponsorship of science leads, in Bacon’s
account, to marvelous technologies such as

engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds to set also on divers

motions . . . certain chambers, which we call chambers of health,
where we qualify the air as we think good and proper for the cure of
divers diseases and preservation of health . . . [and] sound-houses,
where [they] practise and demonstrate all sounds and their genera-
tion. (Ibid., 481–5)

The scientists on Bensalem even “have all means to convey sounds in

trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances” (Ibid., 485). While the
description of these possible technologies is Bacon’s the vision of a just
society, governed by a wise sovereign where the arts and sciences flour-
ished for the benefit of the commonwealth was also Hobbes’s goal.

The Fool

Subjects have much to gain from the commonwealth. Yet, the com-
monwealth imposes duties that some subjects find burdensome.
Hobbes therefore anticipates that some will consider acting unjustly
in order to maximize the benefits and minimize the drawbacks of civil
society. Hobbes discusses these issues by invoking the figure of the
fool. “The fool” Hobbes writes “hath said in his heart: ‘there is no
such thing as justice’” (Hobbes 1994a, 90). The prime characteristic
62 Thomas Hobbes

of the fool is the fact that he considers it reasonable to break the law
when he stands to benefit.
Hobbes’s response to the fool has provoked much debate, which
I will discuss more fully in the next chapter. Nonetheless, in general
terms Hobbes is not prepared to suffer the fool or his argument. The
fool is still thinking in terms of the state of nature where it is legiti-
mate to break a promise in order to maximize personal benefit. How-
ever, the logic of the commonwealth is very different. Hobbes argues
that the fool’s reasoning endangers civil peace and threatens to throw
the fool back into the state of nature. In so doing the fool would lose
all of the benefits of civil society. Indeed, once the fool has revealed
his true colors why should the rest of society tolerate him? He is after
all a threat to the peace and security of all and therefore deserves to
be thrown out of the commonwealth (Ibid., 92).
Hobbes does not accept that the fool’s argument is reasonable.
Surely, Hobbes argues, there are few goods that are so valuable that it
is worth reentering the state of nature in order to posses. Hobbes does
admit that some men might consider destroying civil society in order
to gain sovereignty itself. However, he does not concede that this is a
reasonable course of action. Here Hobbes appeals to probability. First,
Hobbes argues that a rebellion is much more likely to fail than to suc-
ceed. Secondly, Hobbes suggests that even if a fool should succeed,
his success will inspire others to follow his example and take sover-
eignty from him by force (Ibid.). Consequently, the fool will only ever
gain a tenuous hold on power. Even in the best-case scenario then, the
fool can never gain the security that he once knew. Therefore it is
always better to obey the law and enjoy security than it is to break the
law, whatever the potential inducement.

The Death of the Commonwealth

The commonwealth, like any other body, can be subject to decay and
even destruction. Hobbes’s accounts of the causes for the decay of the
commonwealth differ from text to text, but broadly it is possible to
divide the cause Hobbes discusses into four categories: an unsustain-
able constitution, seditious opinions, organized opposition, and
finally the mistakes of the sovereign.
First, some states are unstable because they have constitutions that
cannot sustain peace. Essentially, Hobbes views any constitutional
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 63

check on the sovereign’s power as a danger to the commonwealth.

Leviathan, using the metaphor of the body politic, likens this to “the
diseases of a natural body which proceed from a defectuous procre-
ation” that is to say where sick parents pass their diseases on to their
children (Hobbes 1994a, 210). Rome and Greece, for example, were
unstable, Hobbes argues, because their states were not powerful
enough. In Rome, no part of the constitution “pretended to the whole
power” and consequently the state was beset by sedition (Ibid., 211).
Equally, Hobbes argued that Solon, the lawgiver or architect of the
Athenian constitution, had made a mistake when commanded that
there should be no war against the neighbouring state of Salamis. In
so doing he denied the Athenian state the power it needed to deter an
enemy “even at the gates of their city” (Ibid.). Other constitutional
problems include the so-called “mixed government’ In such a state,
the different functions of government are divided so one part has the
right to raise revenue, another has the executive power and yet
another has the right to make laws. Here Hobbes claims that there is
essentially no commonwealth; rather there are several factions. The
potential for civil strife under such a regime is obvious if the heads of
the various factions disagree. Again, Leviathan uses the language of
the body politic to describe the danger of this kind of government
although on this occasion the imagery seems to run away with itself:

To what disease in the natural body of man I may exactly compare

this irregularity of a commonwealth, I know not. But I have seen a
man that had another man growing out of his side, with an head,
arms breast, and stomach of his own; if he had another man grow-
ing out of his other side, the comparison might have been exact.
(Hobbes 1994a, 217)

Hobbes also discusses the opinions that undermine the security of the
commonwealth. First, people object to paying tax. People who feel as
if they are bearing the whole cost of the state, Hobbes observes, “are
prone to sedition . . . [and] glad for revolution” (Hobbes 1999, 138).
A government that has insufficient funds, Hobbes argues, cannot pro-
tect its people (Hobbes 1994a, 217). The reluctance to pay tax is
linked with the view that subjects have an absolute right to their own
property (Hobbes 1994c, 168). Hobbes, however, argues that while
subjects have defensible property rights in relation to other subjects
64 Thomas Hobbes

they cannot justly withhold their possessions from the sovereign who
retains the right of nature to everything (Ibid.).
Other seditious opinions mentioned in De cive include the follow-
ing: the view that subjects are bound to follow their conscience rather
than the law, the opinion that it is virtuous to resist and kill a tyrant,
that the sovereign is bound by civil laws, that an entity called “the
people” exist apart from the sovereign, and that preachers who claim
direct inspiration from God should be obeyed (Hobbes 1999, 131–6,
cf. Hobbes 1994a, 212–3 and Hobbes 1994c, 168–9). Hobbes also dis-
cusses the sources for many seditious opinions such as the universities
(Hobbes 1994c, 165), books by ancient authorities; the doctrines of
the scholastics; and the example of neighboring states (Hobbes 1994a,
214–6). Behemoth mentions many of these as causes of the English Civil
War. The fourth cause of Charles’s fall that Hobbes discusses is the
education of great men which was rooted in the “books written by
famous men of the ancient Grecian and Roman commonwealths”
(Hobbes 1990, 3). Equally, Hobbes’s dislike of the universities was
rooted in his understanding of history. Behemoth also extended
Hobbes’s critique of the universities, arguing that “[t]he Universities
have been to this nation, as the wooden horse was to the Trojans”
(Ibid., 40) for they undermined the prince’s power as they were estab-
lished and “armed” by the prince himself as an act of piety. Moreover,
they generated an artificial foolishness in their students (Hobbes
1994a, p.46). Thus, they occupied and stupefied brains that could
otherwise have defended their rightful sovereign.
Organized resistance is another threat to the life of a common-
wealth. The Elements of Law and De cive agree that eloquent orators can
provoke ignorant people to oppose their rightful sovereign. Gifted
orators schooled in rhetoric can persuade by appealing to the pas-
sions. Nonetheless, The Elements of Law and De cive state that they have
no wisdom and therefore undermine civil peace as they are unable to
distinguish between justice and injustice (Hobbes 1994c, 171–2;
cf. Hobbes 1999, 138–40). Popular and ambitious men are also a
threat to the sovereign. Hobbes claims they flatter and woo the people
in order to unseat the rightful sovereign (Hobbes 1994a, p.218).
Finally, these men are all the more dangerous when they have a realis-
tic hope of success (Hobbes 1999, 138–49).
Finally, a sovereign can also precipitate the downfall of the common-
wealth through poorly considered action or even inaction. A warlike
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 65

sovereign who embarks on ill-conceived military adventures may well

bring about the end of the commonwealth (Hobbes 1994a, p.218).
Equally, a sovereign who allows other groups or individuals to grow in
power and authority may well be forced to surrender power. These
dangers include powerful towns and cities, private individuals or guilds.
If any of these develop independent authority, or riches they may be
able to undermine or even challenge a sovereign (Ibid., 218–9). Again,
these are not merely conceptual musings based on the nature of
sovereignty. Rather, they are rooted in the history of the English Civil
War. Behemoth, Hobbes’s history of the troubles of 1640 to 1660, speci-
fies that one of the reasons that parliamentary forces were able to
prevail against their sovereign was because they could count on the
resources of “the city of London, and other corporation towns”
(Hobbes 1990, 110).
Clearly, the commonwealth is a fragile thing and, in the wrong
circumstances, the role of the sovereign is fraught with difficulties.
England’s experience in the period that Hobbes chronicles in
Behemoth, showed this all too well. Indeed, in a passage towards the
end of Behemoth’s final dialogue Hobbes outlined the history of sover-
eignty during the troubles:

First, from 1640 to 1648, when the King was murdered, the sover-
eignty was disputed between King Charles I. and the Presbyterian
Parliament. Secondly, from 1648 to 1653, the power was in that part
of the Parliament which voted the trial of the King, and declared
themselves, without King or House of Lords, to have the first and
supreme authority of England and Ireland. For there were in the
Long Parliament two factions, the Presbyterian and Independent;
the former whereof sought only subjection of the King, nor his
destruction directly; the latter sought directly his destruction: and
this part is it, which was called the Rump. Thirdly, from April the
20th to July the 4th, the supreme power was in the hands of a council
of state constituted by Cromwell. Fourthly, From July the 4th to
December the 12th of the same year it was in the hands of men
called unto it by Cromwell, whom he termed men of Fidelity and
Integrity, and made them a Parliament, which was called in
contempt one of the members, Barebone’s Parliament. Fifthly, from
December the 12th 1653 to September the 3rd 1658. it was in the hands
of Oliver Cromwell, with the title of Protector. Sixthly, from
66 Thomas Hobbes

September 3rd 1658 to April the 25th 1659, Richard Cromwell had
it as Successor to his Father. Seventhly, from April the 25th 1659 to
May the seventh of the same year it was no where. Eighthly, from May
the 7th 1659 the Rump, which was turned out of door in 1653, recov-
ered it again; and shall lose it again to the committee of safety, and
again recover it, and again lose it to the right Owner. (Ibid., 195–6)

This passage illustrates the vulnerability of state power. From 1640 to

1648 there was affectively no sovereign power. From 1648 until 1660
sovereign power found no stable form, with the exception of the five
year rule of Oliver Cromwell.
The fragility of sovereign power is, perhaps, the final check on an
unwise sovereign. While subjects have no legally defensible rights
before the sovereign there is always the possibility of rebellion. Rebel-
lion is undoubtedly unjust, but it remains a risk that the shrewd
sovereign must not overlook. Dereliction of duty on the part of the
sovereign may well be met with resistance. Moreover, given the poten-
tial fragility of sovereign power it is a foolish sovereign who would
ignore the well-being of the people which natural law has made his
duty (Ryan 1996, 237–41).

Conclusion: The Science of Natural Justice

Hobbes believed that his civil science was a watershed. No one before
him had established an indubitable science of politics and therefore
his works were the first to set out the general rules of civil peace.
Hobbes argued that man was not a political animal and therefore
there was nothing natural or inevitable about the creation of civil
peace. Naturally, men lived in a state of war. Fear and reason led them
to create a commonwealth through a social contract. Even in the arti-
ficial world of the state, civil peace could not be taken for granted.
Poorly thought through doctrines about the nature of God, freedom,
the state, and property could threaten civil peace and plunge men
back into the state of nature. For this reason, the sovereign, whether
an assembly or an individual, should enjoy all the power necessary to
ensure peace. Nonetheless, Hobbes’s sovereign does not rule primar-
ily through fear. Fear is certainly important in driving men to establish
a common power. But the commonwealth is created by one force and
 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 67

sustained by another. The sovereign rules primarily through law and

education. Evidently, those who break the law must learn to fear the
sovereign, but rational citizens act justly because they recognize that it
is for the best. Consequently, Leviathan still claimed subjects could
enjoy a considerable degree of freedom under the sovereign; if, that is,
freedom was understood correctly. Indeed, citizens should recognize
that the sovereign was their representative. In this sense in obeying the
sovereign, subjects are also acting in accordance with their own will.
Moreover, while sovereignty was extremely fragile in the wrong circum-
stances, a wise sovereign could ensure the protection of a virtuous land
where the advance of knowledge led to the increase of the good of life.
Hobbes offered no institutional checks on sovereign power, but he did
acknowledge that there was a limit to what the people would bear.
Consequently, while the people had no right to resistance the wise
sovereign would recognize that his position was not invulnerable.
 3

Reception and Interpretation

Introduction

None of Hobbes’s contemporaries criticized him for excessive piety.

With this one exception Hobbes was attacked for almost every
conceivable vice. Atheism, dogmatism, disloyalty, licentiousness, her-
esy, undermining the authority of princes, there was practically no
end to the list of Hobbes’s crimes; he was even held responsible of
causing the great fire of London (Harrison 2003, 49). Following the
publication of Leviathan it was Hobbes’s apparent religious hetero-
doxy that provoked his critics. Therefore, this chapter begins with a
discussion of contemporary reaction to Hobbes and focuses predomi-
nantly on Hobbes’s alleged irreligion. Following his death, Hobbes
was criticized for other reasons, often by writers no less heterodox.
These criticisms are discussed thematically, rather than chronolo-
gically in sections dealing with the reception of Hobbes’s account of
human nature, the state of nature, the social contract, and the state.
Finally, I turn to recent debates over the interpretation of Hobbes’s
work. Specifically, I will consider in what sense the laws of nature are
said to oblige; the use of insights from game theory and Marxism in
Hobbes scholarship; as well as considering the extent to which Hobbes
was concerned with the skeptical crisis and rhetorical culture of the
early modern period.

Hobbism and Atheism

In July 1669 Daniel Scargill publicly recanted his Hobbism and

atheism. Scargill had been a Fellow of Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge or Bene’t College as it was better known at the time, but
was expelled from the University and stripped of his fellowship for his
 Reception and Interpretation 69

impiety and Hobbism. Scargill’s offending doctrines may well have

owed more to Gassendi and ancient atomism than they did to Hobbes
(Parkin 1999, 89–90). Nonetheless, Scargill publicly acknowledged
his former Hobbism and repented for it before the congregation of
St Mary’s the Great, the University Church, hoping to be reinstated.
Scargill’s humiliating oration, which apparently expressed his sincere
contrition, failed to sway the University authorities. Scargill was never
readmitted to the university, his supporters deserted him, and he was
forced to live out the rest of his days in poverty.1
The case of Daniel Scargill illustrates the enormous opposition to
Hobbes’s doctrine and influence expressed by the churches and the
universities of the time. It is also illustrative of the kind of ideas and
practices that were associated with Hobbism during this period.
Scargill’s speech recants both heretical beliefs and impious actions:
he repents his “Blasphemous, and Atheistical positions” and his “great
licentiousness; swearing rashly; drinking intemperately; boasting
myself insolently” and in so doing corrupting others (Mintz 1970,
50–1). Both were considered to be aspects of Hobbism. Indeed,
Jon Parkin has argued that Scargill’s recantation became a “semi-offi-
cial definition” of Hobbism. Parkin sums up the central aspects of
Hobbism thus:

. . . first, that all right of dominion is founded only in power;

secondly, that all moral righteousness is founded only in the law of
the civil magistrate; thirdly, that the holy scriptures are “made law
onely by the civil authority”, and fourthly, “that whatsoever the mag-
istrate commands is to be obeyed notwithstanding contrary to divine
moral laws”. (Parkin 1999, 95)

More concerning still, Scargill’s oration also suggests that his

Hobbism was initially inspired by the Devil (Mintz 1970, 50). For all of
these reasons, copies of Leviathan and De cive were publicly burnt at
Oxford University in 1683, and in earlier decades voices in the House
of Commons called for Hobbes himself to be burnt (Robertson 1887,
193–4). Significantly, Hobbes did not gain this reputation for impiety
until the publication of Leviathan for the theology contained in his
earlier works was not as obviously controversial.2
This section focuses primarily on two critiques of Hobbes. The first
Alexander Ross’s Leviathan Drawn out with a Hook, or, Animadversions
70 Thomas Hobbes

upon Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan (1653) was the first attack on Leviathan to
be published and, as Samuel I. Mintz has pointed out, it set the tone
of much of what was to follow. Ross was an arch Royalist; he had been
Chaplain to Charles I during the Civil War and had been close to
Charles’s ill-fated Archbishop, William Laud. In spite of this he was
clearly an implacable opponent of Leviathan and everything it
contained. The second is rooted in discussions that took place between
Hobbes and another Anglican and defender of the crown, Bishop
John Brahmal prior to 1651. Their debate shows that to the astute
observer Hobbes’s heterodoxy was evident even before Leviathan.
Finally, I will consider the more recent debate over his personal faith.
Ross’s critique began by redeploying Hobbes’s famous imagery.
Ross claimed that Hobbes’s leviathan is none other than the “beast in
the Revelation, [which opened his mouth into blasphemy against
God, and his Tabernacle, and against them that dwell in heaven.]”
(Ross 1653, [xvi–xvii]). Hobbes, Ross asserted, was guilty of manifold
heresies:

. . . in holding life eternal to be onely on earth, he is a Cerinthian and

Mahumetan: in giving to God corporiety he is an Anthropomorphit,
Manichean, Tertullianist and Audaean: in holding the three Persons
to be distinct names and essences represented by Moses, Christ’s,
and the Apostles, he is a Sabellian, Montanist, Aetian, and Priscillian-
ist: in saying, that Christ personated God the Son, he is a Nestorian
giving him two personalities, for no person can personate himself:
id [sic] denying spirits he is a Saducean: in making the soul to rest
with the body till the resurrection, he is an Arabian: in making the
soul of man corporeal he is a Luciferian: by putting a period to hell
torments he is an Originist: by teaching dissimulation in religion he
is a Tacian or Encratit: in making God the cause of injustice or sin, he
is a Manichee: in slighting Christ’s miracles, he is a Jew: and in mak-
ing our natural reason the word of God, he is Socinian . . . (Ibid.,
[xxi–xxii])

Essentially, Hobbes’s work denied God and the church their rightful
place as well as offering heretical alternatives to many accepted doc-
trines. First, Ross attacked Hobbes’s materialism. To take an example,
Ross objected to Hobbes’s claim that sensation was a material process.
This denied the role of the human soul by elevating the importance
 Reception and Interpretation 71

of the body. Moreover, Hobbes’s physics, he claimed, left no room for

God. Hobbes asserted that motion was the case of motion. This, Ross
claimed was heresy, motion was not originally produced by moving
bodies “but by the mover: the motion of heaven was produced by God,
not by any antecedent motion” (Ross 1653, 5). The view that matter
was incapable of perception was a common theme in the work of
Hobbes’s critics. Henry More, Bishop William Lucy, and Joseph
Glanvill would all advance proofs that perception could not be a mate-
rial process and accuse Hobbes of atheism for suggesting otherwise.
Secondly, Ross argued that Hobbes’s understanding of scripture
was unorthodox. For example, Hobbes had equated the “Demoni-
acks” mentioned in the gospels with mad men (Ibid., 10). This appar-
ently innocuous interpretation was in fact highly dangerous for the
following reasons: first it was counter to the official teaching of the
church and therefore undermined ecclesiastical authority. Secondly,
and more heretical still, it showed lack of respect of Jesus. Ross argued
that curing mad men was less impressive than casting out demons,
and by suggesting that Christ did the former rather than the latter
Hobbes was refusing to give him the honor which he was due (Ibid.,
10–12). Ross viewed Hobbes’s accounts of the trinity, prophesy, angels,
heaven and hell, the kingdom of God, the status of Muslims living
outside Christian commonwealths, exorcism, and a variety of other
subjects as equally misleading. In theological terms, then, Ross argued
that Hobbes was guilty of rejecting the firm foundation that the
Church defended and attempting to rebuild Christianity on a founda-
tion of sand.
Not only was Hobbes’s doctrine unholy in theory it also tended
towards impiety in practice. Hobbes’s account of the human passions
made pity a vice and ambition a virtue, contrary to Christian teaching.
What is more, Hobbes’s account of sovereignty failed to distinguish
between power and right. In so doing Hobbes turned every King into
a tyrant (Ibid., 15). Hobbes went further down the road to tyranny by
arguing that a sovereign could never act unjustly towards his people.
In so doing Ross claimed that Hobbes was unable to see the “differ-
ence between the Father and Butcher of his Countrey, between the
Shepherd and the woolf, . . .” (Ibid, 22). Finally, in arguing that
a sovereign was not bound by civil law Hobbes was again supporting
tyranny as well as contradicting the established wisdom of classical
authors. Hobbes’s final error in the construction of the state was to
72 Thomas Hobbes

subordinate church power to civil power. In so doing, Hobbes denied

the reality of Christ’s Kingdom on earth (Ibid., 95).
John Bramhall launched an equally important attack on Hobbes’s
theology. Brahmall’s critique of Hobbes’s theological position is
unusual because it predated the publication of Leviathan. The debate
between Hobbes and John Bramhall began while both were exiles in
Paris. Central to the controversy was Hobbes’s position on free will.
Again, Hobbes’s materialism was at the heart of the problem. Material
processes could be explained in terms of laws of cause and effect.
Material bodies could not be free because their motion was deter-
mined by physical laws. If, as Hobbes claimed, human psychology was
simply the product of matter in motion it follows that the human will
is also determined by physical laws and human freedom is an illusion.
Hobbes was aware of the implications of his materialist psychology
and in his manuscript against John Bramhall he defended the thesis
that there can be no freedom of the will. John Bramhall, on the other
hand, asserted that human reason did not obey physical laws. Rather,
following the scholastics, John Bramhall argued that it was a self-mov-
ing part of an immaterial soul.
Ross and John Bramhall were not alone in accusing Hobbes of her-
esy. Hobbes’s opponents included Seth Ward, John Bramhall, Bishop
William Lucy, Richard Baxter and Ralph Cudworth. Notably, these
figures were very much part of the establishment. Cudworth was Mas-
ter of Christ’s College Cambridge; John Bramhall and Lucy Anglican
Bishops, and Ward a Fellow of the Royal Society, Master of Trinity
College Cambridge and Bishop of Exeter. For an apparently conserva-
tive thinker Hobbes was considered very dangerous by many within
the English establishment.
The debate over Hobbes’s religious faith continues to rage, and rightly
so for, as George Wright has argued, “Hobbes’ formulations of religious
themes . . . are intrinsic to his theoretical project” (Wright 2006, 15).
A. P. Martinich’s Two Gods of Leviathan argues that although Hobbes’s
theology was undoubtedly “nonstandard” (Martinich 1992, 3) little of
what Hobbes maintained in Leviathan was completely beyond the scope
of prior Christian teaching. Indeed, he argues that “most of his views
were standard sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformation views”
(Ibid.). For example, Martinich argues that Hobbes’s determinism,
which so enraged John Bramhall, was in fact very similar to the doctrine
of predestination advocated by contemporary Calvinists. Rather, than
 Reception and Interpretation 73

being an atheist, Martinich suggests that Hobbes’s project was to safe-

guard Christianity. Martinich claims that Hobbes recognized the
threat the new science posed to Christianity and in order to protect
religion Hobbes attempted to reconcile it with a materialistic and
mechanistic worldview. Martinich also argues that Hobbes attempted
to safeguard Christianity from those who would manipulate it by show-
ing that Christians did not have a Biblical warrant to resist their sover-
eigns (Ibid., 5). His critics’ accusations of atheism reflect the fact that
Hobbes’s project was doomed to failure, and Hobbes’s materialism
unwittingly undermined Christianity (Ibid., 6). Martinich’s thesis, as
Jeffrey R. Collins has argued, can only be sustained by ignoring some
of Hobbes’s writings, “including his all but explicitly anti-Trinitarian
Historia ecclesiastica” (Collins 2005, 27). Moreover, Martinich also
assumes the complete sincerity of Hobbes’s religious writing, in spite
of the body of scholarship that has demonstrated the highly rhetorical
nature of his theological remarks (Ibid.). Finally, Edwin Curley argues
that Hobbes’s view of determinism is significantly different from that
held by seventeenth-century Calvinists.3 Curley and Martinich do,
however, agree on one thing: that the content of Hobbes’s personal
beliefs is essentially unrecoverable (Martinich 1992, 339.). For this
reason alone the debate over Hobbes’s personal faith is unlikely to
die away.

Hobbes’s Disciples

Hobbes’s reputation as a heretic is undoubtedly one reason why few

early, modern English writers were prepared to acknowledge his influ-
ence. John Rogers has suggested that fear of being mistaken for a
Hobbist may explain John Locke’s reticence to engage with Hobbes
and his doctrines (Rogers 1988, 194). That said there were some who
were prepared to acknowledge their respect for Hobbes publicly.
Invariably these were people such as Sir William Petty, Peter Gassendi,
and Samuel Sorbière who had known Hobbes prior to the publica-
tions of Leviathan.
In France, for example, Hobbes enjoyed a reputation akin to that
of Galileo or Descartes. Former members of the Mersenne Circle who,
on Mersenne’s death, clustered around the scholar and advocate
of the new sciences Henri de Montmor, continued to correspond
74 Thomas Hobbes

with Hobbes and visit him in England. Hobbes’s correspondence with

Sorbière and François du Verdus reveals continuing warmth and
intellectual deference. Older members of the group who had know
Hobbes personally arranged introductions for younger members when
they traveled to England. Sorbière and du Verdus both produced French
translations of Hobbes’s De cive; Du Verdus even learned English in order
to make a French translation of Leviathan (Hobbes 1994b, Letter 93).
On several occasions Sorbière likened Hobbes to the other great think-
ers of his age “the Galileos, the Descarteses, the Hobbeses, the Bacons, and the
Gassendis.” (Sorbière 1660, 167–8). Indeed, as Skinner has observed,
“Hobbes” vaunted “demonstration” of the need for absolute sovereignty
so troubling to his English contemporaries, seems to have struck his
admirers in France as his finest achievement” (Skinner 2002, 317).
Admiration for Hobbes was not entirely restricted to France.
Sir William Petty, who like Hobbes’s opponents Ward and Robert
Boyle, was a member of the Royal Society was prepared to place Hobbes
alongside Bacon as one of the greatest natural philosophers of the
age (Petty 1928, 158–9). John Aubrey, Hobbes’s friend and biogra-
pher, Charles and William Cavendish, and Charles II remained loyal to
Hobbes following the controversies of the 1650s and 1660s. Finally,
there were other thinkers on the continent who had never met him
who professed admiration for Hobbes. Johann Christoph Beckmann’s
Meditationes politicæ, for example, included a lengthy quotation from
Sorbière’s Relation d’un voyage en Angleterre regarding Hobbes’s virtues
as part of his praise of De cive (Beckmann 1679, 419).

Human Nature and the State of Nature

In the century after the publication of Leviathan there were many

alternative descriptions of the natural condition of mankind. Perhaps
the best-known alternatives are contained in Samuel Pufendorf’s On
the Duty of Man and Citizen According to Natural Law (1673), Locke’s
Two Treatises of Government (1689) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s
Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality among Men (1755).
The extent to which Locke’s work was a response to Hobbes is
contested. Turning to Pufendorf and Rousseau, the case is quite
different. Both, in their own way, engage with Hobbes’s view of human
nature as well as the natural condition of mankind.
 Reception and Interpretation 75

Pufendorf’s description of the state of nature owes much to Hobbes.

Nonetheless, Pufendorf introduces a degree of sociability into human
nature that is absent from Hobbes’s account. Pufendorf emphasizes a
number of clearly Hobbesian aspects of the natural state. In man’s
natural state humans are equal; indeed Pufendorf supports this asser-
tion with an appeal to Hobbes’s argument that anyone could kill or be
killed by anyone else (Pufendorf 1991, 61). Men in their natural state
are free and have no obligation to submit to one another; they are
subject to the laws of nature and enjoy “natural liberty”; and they, like
all other living things, seek to preserve themselves. Nevertheless, there
are significant differences. First, there is a “simple common kinship”
which motivates men to come together in families and small societies.
This kinship also precedes the formation of the state and obligation
(Ibid., 115–17). This kinship is not enough, however, to produce
obligation. Consequently, these small societies have difficulty dealing
with disputes and therefore security from conflict cannot be assured.
This is a departure from Hobbes, especially from De cive, which argues
that men come together in pursuit of their own advantage rather than
out of fellow feeling. Regardless of this kinship, Pufendorf’s account
of life in the state of nature is recognizably Hobbesian. Following
Hobbes Pufendorf argues that this insecurity is the source of the
“multitude of disadvantages” (Ibid., 117) experienced in the natural
state. For example, insecurity means that “no one may be sure of the
fruit of his industry” and therefore life is impoverished compared
with life in civil society (Ibid.).
Before considering Locke’s thought on the state of nature it is
worth considering his interest in and knowledge of Hobbes. Some
writers have assumed that Locke’s work was a response to Hobbes
(Macpherson 1962, 270). However, as Peter Laslett has shown Locke
had no access to Leviathan from 1674 to 1691 (Laslett 1960, 71). More-
over, Locke had no first-hand knowledge of Hobbes’s other political
works and “his notes his diaries, his letters, his book lists and
purchases show no sign of such an interest” (Ibid.). For Laslett the
Two Treatises was primarily a response to Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha or
The Natural Power of Kings (1680). Laslett is undoubtedly correct, yet,
this does not rule out an interest in Hobbes, and it does not preclude
the possibility that some aspects of the Two Treatises were written in
response to Hobbes. This may well be true of Locke’s thought on the
state of nature.
76 Thomas Hobbes

Locke’s description of the state of nature is much more civilized

than Hobbes’s portrayal of the condition of nature in Leviathan.
This is due to Locke’s conception of the law of nature and his empha-
sis on human sociability. Hobbes and Locke both agreed that man in
the state of nature is governed by natural law. But Locke’s law of
nature is rooted in a much broader understanding of human socia-
bility. Indeed, he argues that God gave the law of nature to underpin
social life. Consequently, Locke argues that the state of nature is
“a State of Liberty, yet it is not a State of Licence” as reason teaches all
those who will learn that “‘being all equal and independent, no one
ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty or Possessions”
(Locke 1960, 288–9). Moreover, Locke’s state of nature is a political
condition. For Hobbes there is no property, government, law, or
justice in the state of nature. Locke, on the other hand, assumes
that men have political rights and duties prior to the emergence of
civil society. For example, all men have judicial rights in the state of
nature. In fact, Locke argues that prior to the formal legal processes
that characterize the state men have the right and duty to judge
and punish each other according to the strictures of natural law
(Ibid., 290). Property is also a feature of Locke’s state of nature.
Men create property by mixing their labor with the natural world.
Once this is done natural law gives men the right to defend their
property against the encroachment of others. Clearly, justice is not as
reliable as it is in civil society, nor is property as secure; but natural law
prevents the state of nature descending into a state of war. Man, on
Locke’s account is far more sociable than Hobbes is prepared to allow,
this is reflected in God’s law and in the natural order that emerges
among men prior to civil society.
Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes’s view of human nature and the
natural condition of mankind goes much further than that of Locke
or Pufendorf. Rousseau discussed Hobbes’s works time and again in
letters, published works, and unpublished manuscripts. Rousseau’s
most extended treatment of human nature and state of nature can be
found in his Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among
Men which is some times referred to as his Second Discourse (Rousseau
1997b, 151 ff). However, the critique of Hobbes is not the focus of
the text. The unpublished State of War, which was composed in 1758
and originally intended to be part of a treatise on peace and war, how-
ever, deals with Hobbes directly. Central to Rousseau’s critique in the
 Reception and Interpretation 77

State of war is the belief that Hobbes mistook seventeenth-century man

for natural man.
The state of nature, Rousseau argues, is not a state of war; indeed,
war is only possible once a civil state has been created. The State of
war’s first attempt to support this view is to show that Hobbes’s version
of human nature is unthinkable. Human nature cannot be as depraved
as Hobbes describes for the simple reason that such a destructive crea-
ture would be unable to survive “even two generations” (Rousseau
1997b, 164). Such a human would be unable to rejoice at the birth of
his own child but would take great pleasure at the destruction of a
brother. Indeed, if Hobbes’s description of human nature was correct
it would be impossible to construct a civilized society as this “mutual
and destructive enmity” (Ibid.) would be more powerful than human
laws. Secondly, the State of war offers an alternative description of
human nature, which, unlike that of Hobbes, emphasizes compassion
and fellow feeling. Rousseau argues that the laws of nature are not
merely rational, they are written on the heart. Consequently, they are
far more compelling and hold much greater sway within man’s nature
than Hobbes’s dictates of reason. Additionally, Rousseau describes
man as “naturally peaceable and timorous, at the slightest danger his
first movement is to flee; he becomes warlike only by dint of habit and
experience” (Ibid., 166). The fact that mankind becomes aggressive
due to habit is crucial to Rousseau’s argument as it allows him to
postulate an alternative source for human conflict. Thirdly then,
Rousseau argues that Hobbes has misunderstood the source of dis-
cord. Rousseau agrees with Hobbes that primarily humans strive for
their own protection and their own well-being. However, in nature
human wants are limited to the desire to be healthy and free from
pain. Consequently, these desires that characterized natural man do
not lead to widespread conflict. Moreover, Hobbes’s right of nature,
the right of everyman to everything, is in fact learned from society and
not natural at all. Similarly, greed and lust for power are artificial. The
desire to command, for example, comes from witnessing others do
the same, which is impossible in the state of nature. Rousseau’s fourth
line of attack is based on an analysis of greed. Here Rousseau argues
that even if Hobbes is correct and humans are naturally greedy this
greed would not lead to war. Greed cannot be satisfied by destruction
and therefore it provides no impetus for war. Rousseau’s final attempt
to undermine Hobbes concerns what is understood by the term war.
78 Thomas Hobbes

Rousseau agrees that there would be occasions of conflict and even

murder in the state of nature. Nonetheless, a war is a situation of con-
tinuous and generalized conflict. There is no cause for this in nature
as, given man’s limited natural desires, there are few instances where
the good of one man would require the destruction of another.
Clearly, occasional quarrels do not justify Hobbes’s description of a
war, let alone a war of all against all. Properly speaking, and paradoxi-
cally from Hobbes’s perspective, war is only possible once men have
left the state of nature. For Rousseau man is a citizen first; only then
can he become a warrior.
Despite the tone of assurance that he adopts Rousseau’s critique is
based on a misunderstanding. Hobbes did not claim that man was nat-
urally wicked, rather, he claimed that it is impossible for man to be
naturally secure. Clearly, Hobbes could not respond to Rousseau’s
criticisms, but he did address a similar objection. Leviathan defends
Hobbes’s characterization of man in the state of nature by appealing
to everyday experience. When we sleep, he argues, we lock our doors;
when we travel we arm ourselves; even when we are at home we lock
our valuables away. Clearly, in each case we demonstrate distrust of
strangers and, in the last case, even the other members of our own
household (Hobbes 1994, 77). Moreover, if these are our actions
under a civil sovereign, where injustice is deterred by punishment,
how much further would we go to protect ourselves in the state of
nature where there is no common power? Hobbes does not view man
as utterly wicked. He merely assumes that we cannot be naturally
secure and that in the absence of security it is necessary to take reason-
able precautions. In the state of nature radical insecurity leads to war.
Rousseau’s suggestion that Hobbes’s theory cannot account for
fellow feeling also seems to overstate the case. Leviathan, for example,
acknowledges that families in the state of nature are held together by
“natural lust” (Ibid., 77) by which Hobbes means “Love of Persons for
Pleasing the sense only” (Ibid., 30). Hobbes also recognizes the
passion of kindness, which he describes as “Love of Persons for
society” (Ibid.) Hobbes’s point is that kindness cannot be the basis for
society as expressions of emotion can be insincere and eloquence and
flattery can be mistaken for kindness (Ibid., 60).
At its heart, the disagreement between Hobbes and Rousseau
concerns what a good description of the state of nature should look
like. For Rousseau it would be anthropological in character. This is
 Reception and Interpretation 79

evident from Rousseau’s discussion of the state of nature in the

Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality among Men, which is
clearly informed by contemporary anthropologies and travel litera-
ture. For Hobbes, however, the state of nature is a description of man
abstracted from civil society. So while Hobbes’s account of the state of
nature, particularly in Leviathan, is informed by histories of the earli-
est times it is also an abstraction. This is particularly evident in De cive
where Hobbes considers men in their natural state “as if they had just
emerged from the earth like mushrooms” (Hobbes 1999, 102).

Social Contract and the State

Hobbes’s view of the social contract and particularly the state were
highly influential. In continental Europe, for example, Hobbes’s
conception that the state was an “artificial man” was taken up by
thinkers such as Benedict de Spinoza, and the brothers Johan and
Pieter de la Court (van Gelderen 2003, 91). Pufendorf is another
good example. In Of the Law of Nature and Nations (1672) Pufendorf
explicitly acknowledges Hobbes as the source of the central tenets
of his account of the state. Of the Law of Nature and Nations was soon
translated into English. Indeed, the three English editions published
by 1717 provided the Anglophone audience with another source of
Hobbes’s account of the state. Hobbes’s state was also taken as the
epitome of despotism, and it is this sense that Rousseau appealed to
when he wrote to Victor Riquetti, Marquis de Mirabeau of “the most
perfect Hobbism” (Rousseau 1997b, 270).
For Hobbes, the social contract was a one-stage process that estab-
lished an absolute sovereign. Locke presents a different account of
social contract, which allows men to have a greater say in the political
institutions that govern them. Hobbes and Locke both conceived of
the social contract as the consensual event that took men out of the
state of nature by establishing a political community. Locke, however,
presents this as a two-stage process. In the first stage men agree to leave
their natural state and enter an artificial community in which their
natural judicial and executive powers are ceded to the community
(Locke 1960, 341–2). Secondly, this new community, which can now
be considered “a people,” agree upon a specific form of government
(Ibid., 348–50). Moreover, according to Locke the social contract sets
80 Thomas Hobbes

up a limited rather than an absolute state. Locke’s argument is based

on the relationship between legitimate government, consent, and
natural law. First, while Locke viewed consent as a necessary condition
of legitimate government he did not regard it as sufficient grounds
for political legitimacy. Indeed, governments that break the laws of
nature act illegitimately irrespective of popular consent. Consequently,
for Locke natural law limits the scope of government action. Secondly,
Locke argued that there are some actions, such as suicide, that men
can never be obliged to perform even if they are foolish enough to
promise to do so. This is due to the fact that for Locke individuals can
only legitimately consent to actions that they already have the right
perform. Men have no right to take their own lives for their lives
belong to God. Therefore any such agreement has no force. For Locke
then consent is not merely a psychological state. Properly understood,
Locke argues that consent is a legal fact which describes the act of
taking on political obligations (Dunn 1967, 156). The limits of
consent, and the superiority of natural law establish the proper scope
of government for Locke in ways that Hobbes’s theory does not
allow.
Locke’s position is clearly more radical than Hobbes, but it still
relies on the notion that the state is created through a social contract
and through consent. These notions were heavily criticized following
the publication of The Two Treatises. William Godwin, the radical
novelist, philosopher, and intellectual, and forebear of modern anar-
chism developed one of the most thorough going critiques of the
social contract tradition. Godwin’s Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
(1793) offers an important critique of social contract theories. While
Godwin does not mention Hobbes in his text there is reason to believe
he was aware of and responding to Hobbes’s general theory. First,
as Mark Philp has argued, Godwin’s knew Hobbes’s social contract
theory through the work of Paul d’Holbach (Philp 1986, 110).
F. E. L. Priestly also suggests that Godwin encountered Hobbesian
arguments through the work of Claude Helvetius (Priestly 1946, 47).
Part of the scope of Political justice is to consider the way in which
government is to be constituted in a period where humans are still in
need of it. In this context Godwin discusses three views of the origins
of government: the first, “that government is based on superior
strength”; the second that it is based on divine right and finally, that it
is based on a “the social contract” (Godwin 1946, 183). The first and
 Reception and Interpretation 81

the last of these options have some bearing on Hobbes’s argument so

I will discuss each in turn.
Godwin’s first hypothesis, that power constitutes right, has been
linked to Hobbes’s concept of a commonwealth by acquisition (Priestly
1946, 30). This seems to be a misunderstanding of Hobbes’s position,
for Hobbes maintained that military victory created no right for the
victor and no obligation for the vanquished; both remained in the
state of nature until a contract was made. Nonetheless, Godwin’s
treatment of the third hypothesis is of greater relevance to Hobbes’s
argument. Godwin considers two forms of the social contract argu-
ment: first ‘the system according to which the individuals of any
society, as supposed to have entered into a contract with their gover-
nors;’ and secondly, where the people contract “with each other”
(Godwin 1946, 186). The second is clearly closer to Hobbes’s view.
Systems, to use Godwin’s word, that suppose a social contract face a
variety of problems:

Who are the parties to this contract? For whom did they consent,
for themselves only or for others? For how long a time is this
contract to be considered as binding? If the consent of every indi-
vidual be necessary, in what manner is that consent to be given?
(Ibid., 188)

By posing these questions Godwin shows that the social contract can-
not be considered a just foundation for government. To take the first
question, for example, Godwin argues that even if our ancestors con-
sented to a social contract it should not be considered binding on
future generations. Indeed, he argues that there can be no obligation
to obey a contract “into which my father entered before I was born”
(Ibid., 189). Furthermore, even if each individual was given the oppor-
tunity of assenting to the contract when they came of age why should
that assent bind them indefinitely, particularly if new information
becomes available? Secondly, Godwin considers consent. Here he
argues that tacit consent, that is living under a government without
rebelling, cannot be enough to establish a governor’s right to rule. If
it was he argues, “every government that is quietly submitted to, is a
lawful government, whether it be the usurpation of Cromwell, or the
tyranny of Caligula” (Ibid.). Godwin also considers what an individual
is required to consent to, “[w]hat can be more absurd,’ he asks, ‘than
82 Thomas Hobbes

to present to me the laws of England in fifty volumes folio, and call

upon me to give an honest and uninfluenced vote on its contents”
(Ibid.). While Godwin’s discussion of the social contract was primarily
concerned with the arguments of Locke and Rousseau his argument
poses serious problems for Hobbes’s account particularly in terms of
the longevity of the agreement and the nature of consent.
An alternative understanding of the social contract, which owed
much to Pufendorf’s work, and thus to Hobbes, can be found in
William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)
(Lucas 1963, 142–58). The Commentaries acknowledge that there may
have been no “original contract of society” (Blackstone 1765–1769,
47). In spite of this, Blackstone argues that the concept is a useful
rational and legal fiction, for without it there would be no reason for
submission to laws or for upholding the rights of the people (Ibid.).
In this sense whether or not a historical contract was ever actually
agreed is irrelevant as the argument’s value lies in the fact that it is a
useful fiction.
Jeremy Bentham, a pupil of William Blackstone, vigorously con-
tested Blackstone’s position. Essentially, Bentham acknowledged that
the whole account of an initial state of nature followed by a social
contract was fictitious (Bentham 1988, 39). What is more, he went on
to challenge the usefulness of the fiction. The fictitious nature of
the social contract is enormously problematic, Bentham claims, for
although real contracts entail real obligations fictitious contracts do
not. Consequently, fictitious contracts cannot be a firm basis for
a just human government. Crucially, Bentham claimed that even if
there was an original contract the only reason for abiding by its terms
would be to extend human happiness. For this reason, Bentham pro-
poses starting from the reality of human happiness (which he also
describes as felicity or utility) rather than from a fictitious social
contract. In sum, the greatest happiness principle, not social contract
theory, provides a firm foundation for government and a compelling
reason for just action.
A similar story unfolds regarding the reception of Hobbes’s view of
the state. The state, like the social contract, was one of the fictions on
which Blackstone based his account of English law. Again, Blackstone
emphasizes the way in which the state is a fictitious person that gener-
ates a unity of wills. In so doing he was following Pufendorf’s description
 Reception and Interpretation 83

of the state as “a composite moral person, whose will blended and com-
bined from the agreement of many is taken as the will of all” (Pufendorf
1991, 137). Once again, Bentham argues that this fiction is counterpro-
ductive. The state for Bentham is not a fictional person, it is the real
person who wields state power. A just society, Bentham claimed, could
only be brought about when these fallacious fictions were replaced by
rational argument that started from the real purpose of government:
the extension of human happiness. Part of Hobbes’s project was to pro-
vide a firm foundation for obedience. However, Bentham argues that
any attempt to persuade people of their obligations that is based on a
fiction is inherently less compelling than rational argument that appeals
to real human desires.
The story of the reception of Hobbes’s view of the state of nature
and the state does not end with Bentham. Nor would it be correct to
view it as a linear progression from a rationalist fiction to an empirical
and utilitarian doctrine. Indeed, within the tradition of utilitarianism
Henry Sidgwick’s Elements of Politics (1891) described the state in terms
familiar from Leviathan. Sidgwick claims that state denotes “the
community considered exclusively in its corporate capacity.” In this
sense the state has an existence independent of its members consid-
ered as individuals or groups and can own property, and incur debt
(Sidgwick 1969, 220). The state is formed when the people of an area
oblige themselves to obey the government. Here Sidgwick’s argument,
like that of Hobbes and Blackstone, assumes an original agreement.
From this perspective the state “represents the society in any transac-
tions that it may carry on as a body.” This language, particularly regard-
ing representation rehearses the conception Hobbes outlined in
Leviathan and underlines Hobbes’s continuing importance in terms of
state theory.

Obligation and Law

Hobbes’s writings on God and religion continue to provoke debate.

Hobbes scholars have disagreed not only on Hobbes personal reli-
gious commitments but also on God’s role in Hobbes’s political
thought. Writers such as F. T. Hood, A. E. Taylor and Howard Warrender
see God as essential to Hobbes’s politics, as without divine power the
84 Thomas Hobbes

laws of nature lack obligatory force. On the other hand writers follow-
ing Leo Strauss claim that fear of God fundamentally undermines the
commonwealth and therefore that Hobbes’s writings implicitly advo-
cate a society of atheists.
Hood’s The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes, quite unlike the writings
of Hobbes’s contemporaries, argues that God plays a crucial role in
Hobbes’s thought. Hood’s claim rests on the assumption that while
the English Leviathan was Hobbes’s definitive statement on politics it
is the Latin version of the text that represents his final word on the-
ology (Hood 1964, viii and 54–7). Hood argues that the source of
obligation in Hobbes’s system is God, as the laws of nature, which
oblige men to keep their covenants, are God’s laws (Ibid., 213). Thus,
while there are prudential reasons for obeying the sovereign, which
induce unjust men to follow the law, the just subject obeys out of fear
of God. Moreover, Hood also claims that it is the appeal to the divine
origin of natural law that is the central thrust of Hobbes’s argument.
Hood’s position is not dissimilar to the so-called Taylor-Warrender
thesis. In spite of this similarity while Hood takes Leviathan as Hobbes’s
definitive statement Taylor argues that the focus on Leviathan at the
expense of Hobbes’s earlier works has obscured the core of Hobbes’s
teaching (Taylor 1965, 35). Taylor argues that commentators on
Hobbes have been confused because Hobbes poses two questions.
The first is: why ought a subject be good; the second: how can a sub-
ject be induced to be good. Taylor argues that Hobbes’s answer to the
second question has hidden his answer to the first. Crucially, Taylor
suggests that Hobbes’s appeal to self-interest only pertains to induc-
ing good behavior. Indeed, Hobbes’s true theory of obligation is inde-
pendent of any appeal to self-interest:

Hobbes’ ethical doctrine proper, disengaged from an egoistic psychol-

ogy with which it has no logically necessary connection, is a very strict
deontology, curiously suggestive, though with interesting differences,
of some of the characteristic themes of Kant. (Taylor 1965, 37)

Obligation in Hobbes’s system comes from the fact that natural laws
are also God’s commandments. As Warrender puts it:

Thus, if the laws of nature in the State of Nature are considered as

the commands of God, they may properly be regarded as laws, and
 Reception and Interpretation 85

it is this factor which is responsible for constituting their obligatory

character. (Warrender 1957, 98)

Where Hobbes’s contemporaries believed that Hobbes was an atheist

Taylor and Warrender suggest without God Hobbes’s theory lacks
obligatory force.
Taylor’s thesis has served to highlight certain deontological aspects
of Hobbes’s thought (Brett 1997, 234). Nonetheless, there are signifi-
cant problems with this interpretation. First, as Collins has noted
there is little textual evidence to support their view (Collins 2005, 27).
Furthermore, as Skinner has show, particularly in relation to Hood,
textual analysis of the kind deployed by Warrender, Taylor, and Hood
is irredeemably problematic. Hood’s attempt to uncover Hobbes’s
meaning by reading Hobbes’s work as a whole allows him to produce
an account of Hobbes’s doctrine, which is independent of any of
Hobbes’s actual texts. Consequently, Hood can produce an “ideal”
description of Hobbes’s system which cannot be reconstructed by any
one of Hobbes’s works. Moreover, this technique allows Hood to dis-
miss inconsistencies in the texts as irrelevant to Hobbes’s “real
account” (Skinner 1964, 332).
Opposed to the Taylor-Warrender thesis is Strauss’s contention that
Hobbes’s philosophy “points to a thoroughly ‘enlightened’ i.e., a-reli-
gious or atheistic society” (Strauss 1965, 27). For Strauss, Hobbes’s
system is based on the fear of death. Subjects will only obey the laws,
natural or civil, if they are compelled to in this way. If the fear of death
can be trumped by fear of eternal damnation, then subjects no longer
have a good reason to obey the laws, and civil peace cannot be assured.
Consequently, Hobbes’s solution was to “enlighten” subjects, that is to
say to persuade them that there was no God to damn them.
If this was Hobbes’s solution it cannot be found explicitly in his
works. Certainly, Hobbes’s materialist theology does a great deal to
weaken the threat of hell. Nonetheless, Hobbes seems to have wanted
to reform theology rather than to destroy it. Rather than atheism
Richard Tuck has suggested that Hobbes envisaged a new civil reli-
gion, which fused elements of Christianity with the new philosophy
(Tuck 2004, 130). His aim was not, as Martinich has alleged, to safe-
guard Christianity but rather to safeguard civil peace. Hobbes’s civil
religion stripped the afterlife of its threat and stripped the church of
its seditious potential by subjugating it to the sovereign. In so doing
86 Thomas Hobbes

he turned religion to the service of the commonwealth, rather than

turning the commonwealth into a society of atheists.

Hobbes as a Theorist of Bourgeois Society

Hobbes has been portrayed as one of the central theorists of the

modern bourgeois world. This analysis can be found in the work of
writers such as Hannah Arendt, Strauss, C. B. Macpherson, and more
recent commentators such as Peter Hayes. Macpherson is perhaps the
most famous exponent of this view. Macpherson’s analysis of Hobbes
is set out in ‘Hobbes today’ (1945) and The Political Theory of Possessive
Individualism: From Hobbes to Locke (1962). Macpherson argues that
Hobbes’s political thought is rooted in “the supposed or observed
facts of man’s nature” (Macpherson 1962, 15). Once this is under-
stood, Macpherson argues, the true character of Hobbes’s thought
becomes clear for, “Hobbes’s analysis of human nature . . . is really an
analysis of bourgeois man . . .” (Macpherson 1945, 525). Macpherson
supports this view with reference to two of Hobbes’s arguments. First,
he quotes Hobbes’s remarks in De cive that people come together in
pursuit of their own benefit rather than for reasons of love or friend-
ship (Ibid.). Secondly, the pursuit of benefit is highly competitive as
Hobbes assumes that the goods of life are in relatively short supply
(Ibid., 527). Macpherson cites Hobbes’s identification of this funda-
mental competitive drive as a clear indication that Hobbes derived his
understanding of human nature from “the behaviour of man in bour-
geois society” for competitiveness “is the mark of bourgeois society, in
contrast to pre-capitalist societies” (Ibid., 527). Indeed, he argues that
Hobbes’s analysis of human interaction is in effect an analysis of “the
relations of the market” (Ibid.).
From this point of view Hobbes’s theory of the state is a theory of the
capitalist state. Indeed, Hobbes’s state enforces contracts and prop-
erty rights in such a way that guarantees the rights of the bourgeoisie
and therefore provides social stability in what would otherwise be the
anarchy of the market. Moreover, Hobbesian morality, Macpherson
argues, is bourgeois morality. For example, Hobbes expects the poor
to be thrifty and the rich to avoid extravagance; he argues that the sov-
ereign should guarantee the rights to buy and sell; that “The value, or
WORTH of a man, is as of all things, his price” (Hobbes 1994a, 51)
and that “Riches are honourable, for they are power” (Ibid. 53).
 Reception and Interpretation 87

Nonetheless, Macpherson argues that it would be wrong to see

Hobbes as a fully fledged laissez-faire thinker. Hobbes did not, for
example, have any conception that the market was self-regulating.
This, Macpherson acknowledges, was an innovation of eighteenth-
century philosophy (Macpherson 1945, 532). The difference between
Hobbes’s philosophy and the philosophy of later writers corres-
ponds to the difference between different stages of economic
development:
The concept of a natural order in society could not become domi-
nant until capitalism had so far broken the restrictions of feudal soci-
ety that the possibility of a self-regulating market became apparent, or
until the usefulness of science to capitalist development had been
manifested on such a scale that the philosophy of a scientific order
could be automatically accepted by the bourgeois mind. (Ibid., 532)
Macpherson supports this view with a reference to Karl Marx’s
Capital and to the work of Marxist Paul Sweezy on capitalist develop-
ment (Ibid., n. 38).

This, then, is Macpherson’s justification for Hobbes’s enduring

importance. Hobbes was the first thinker to understand the nature
of bourgeois man (Macpherson 1962, 88). Consequently, he grasped
the fact that market relations are unable to generate social solidar-
ity and therefore that a capitalist society necessitates a strong state.
(Macpherson 1945, 534)

Macpherson’s starting point seems to be Karl Marx and Friedrick

Engels’s famous adage that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every
epoch the ruling ideas” (Marx 1977, 176). His analysis is useful not
least for critiquing the work of Taylor and Warrender, but also other
late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century commentators such as
G. C. Robertson, John Laird, and Leo Strauss who, in their different
ways, sought to detach Hobbes’s politics from Macpherson’s meta-
physical materialism. However, there are important flaws in his work.
Fundamentally, his historicist analysis cannot be falsified. The stage
of economic development explains both the “capitalist” and the
“pre-capitalist” aspects of Hobbes’s work. Consequently, nothing in
Hobbes’s work can ever be evidence against Macpherson’s thesis.
Passages in Hobbes’s work that chime with the ideas of later capitalists
are clearly evidence in favor of Macpherson’s interpretation but so
too are aspects of Hobbes that are clearly at odds with later capitalist
88 Thomas Hobbes

writers because they are evidently due to the early stage of capitalism
with which Hobbes was familiar.
Macpherson’s interpretation of Hobbes’s specific doctrines are also
flawed. Hobbes’s remarks on friendship in De cive, for example, should
not be read as a commentary on bourgeois social relationships despite
Macpherson’s claims. Rather, Hobbes explicitly stated that he had
another agenda. Hobbes prefaced his remarks on friendship by argu-
ing that “[t]he majority of previous writers on public Affairs either
assume or seek to prove or simply assert that Man is an animal born fit
for Society” (Hobbes 1999, 22). Clearly, Hobbes was reflecting on
traditional accounts of human nature rather than anticipating the
emergence of capitalism. Hobbes’s intention seems to have been to
critique the classical view of friendship or, more specifically, Aristotle’s
view that a political society arises from and is sustained by mutual
affection (Konstan 1997, 70). Indeed, much of Hobbes’s description
of human nature, particularly in The Elements of Law came from classi-
cal sources, not least Aristotle’s Rhetoric, again indicating that Hobbes’s
view of human nature was rooted in the tradition of classical human-
ism rather than in some prophetic vision of eighteenth-century mar-
ket relations. Finally, De cive does not contain Hobbes’s only discussion
of friendship. In other texts and his correspondence Hobbes does
express the view that true friendship is possible. Many of Hobbes’s
dedicatory epistles, for example, are written in far more conventional
terms. While it would be wrong to claim that these passages are more
authentically Hobbesian or in some way trump chapter 1 of De cive
they do indicate that Hobbes’s view of friendship was more complex
and less obviously bourgeois than Macpherson alleges.
Macpherson’s mistake is methodological. In attempting to explain
Hobbes though in terms of the economic forces at work in the early
modern period, he ignores Hobbes’s intentions. At best, Macpher-
son’s argument reminds scholars that Hobbes was writing at a particu-
lar moment in economic history, but beyond this it does not uncover
the meaning of Hobbes’s texts.

Hobbes and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

A number of recent commentators have used game theory, particu-

larly the concept of the prisoner’s dilemma, to examine the behavior
 Reception and Interpretation 89

of rational agents in the state of nature; or to discuss Hobbes’s account

of “the fool.” The first writer to use game theory in this context was
David Gauthier in his The Logic of Leviathan (1970). This approach has
been extended in works such as Gregory S. Kavka’s Hobbesian Moral
and Political Theory (1986) and Jean Hampton’s Hobbes and the Social
Contract Tradition (1986).
In general terms, game theory is a branch of mathematics that was
developed in the mid-1940s by John von Neumann and Oskar Mor-
genstern. It was used during the Cold War by the RAND Corporation
in order to help devise strategies for nuclear conflict. Indeed, Gauthier
and Kavka, as well as publishing on Hobbes, have written on the sub-
ject of nuclear deterrence.4 Patrick Neal argues that game theory
makes it possible to investigate social and political situations and insti-
tutions as the products of “mutually disinterested and rationally self-
interested agents in the attempt to maximize the degree to which they
can successfully pursue their particular ends and satisfy their particu-
lar preferences” (Neal 1988, 637). The prisoner’s dilemma (which is
central to Gauthier, Kavka, and Hamilton’s discussion of Hobbes) was
one of the games created by Merrill M. Flood, Melvin Dresher, and
Albert W. Tucker for the RAND Corporation around 1950. Tucker
formulated the dilemma thus:
Two men, charged with a joint violation of law, are held separately
by the police. Each is told that:

(1) if one confesses and the other does not, the former will be given
a reward of one unit and the latter will be fined two units,
(2) if both confess, each will be fined one unit.
(3) At the same time each has good reason to believe that if neither
confesses, both will go clear. (Tucker 1983, 228)

Tucker demonstrated the “pay offs” of the various options in the

form of a table where the two men are denoted as I and II:

II

Confess Not confess

confess (–1, –1) (1, –2)
I
not confess (–2, 1) (0, 0)

Source : Tucker (1983, 228)

90 Thomas Hobbes

In this situation the rational course of action is to confess, as this is the

strategy that leads to the greatest potential reward. The fact that game
theory makes it possible to investigate decision making in conflict situ-
ations has led some scholars to apply it to Hobbes’s state of nature.
Gauthier’s reason for using the terminology of game theory springs
from his desire to formulate Hobbes’s ideas with greater consistently
and clarity than Hobbes’s original texts (Gauthier 1969, v). Hamilton
makes a similar claim stating that at one point in Hobbes’s argument
“it appears that Hobbes did not see his way clearly” and therefore
Hamilton uses “certain concepts and techniques of modern game
theory” in order to clarify Hobbes’s reasoning (Hampton 1986, 137).
Gauthier introduces the terminology of game theory during his dis-
cussion of Hobbes’s attempt to generate security within the common-
wealth. Here he argues that Hobbes faces the crucial problem of
ensuring “that men actually perform their covenants” (Gauthier 1969,
76). The problem, as Gauthier sees it, is that although there are good
reasons for entering into a contract there may not be good reasons for
adhering to it. Indeed, Gauthier suggests that there may be occasions
on which it is rational to violate the contract. Gauthier shows this by
considering a contract between person A and person B in a matrix
where the subjective reasonableness of their actions is ranked from
1 to 4 (1 being the most reasonable and 4 being the least):

II

Confess Not confess

confess (–1, –1) (1, –2)
I
not confess (–2, 1) (0, 0)

Source : Gauthier (1969, 79)

As this table indicates, the best outcome for either party is to violate
the contract while the other party acts in accordance with the original
agreement. The similarity with the prisoner’s dilemma is obvious.
Moreover, Gauthier claims that the table reconstructs the problem of
Hobbes’s “fool” who is prepared to break the contract whenever it is
in his interest to do so.
Hamilton and Kavka use similar matrixes to reconstruct behavior in
the state of nature (Hampton 1986, 62; Kavka 1986, 111). However,
Hamilton acknowledges that “[i]f instituting a sovereign were itself a
prisoner’s dilemma . . . then Hobbes’ argument would seem to be in
 Reception and Interpretation 91

trouble” (Hampton 1986, 134). This is clearly the case, because the
logic of the prisoner’s dilemma is that it is always rational to betray
others, whereas Hobbes’s system is founded on the notion that it is
never rational, unless a subject is facing imminent death, to violate his
contract.
Certainly, simple tables of the type reproduced above do demon-
strate quickly and fairly clearly the ways in which certain types of dan-
gerous action are rational in the state of nature, or in the case of the
fool under the sovereign. Nonetheless, this approach is highly prob-
lematic. First, Hampton’s more sophisticated three-dimensional tables
and Gauthier’s logical notation lack the immediacy of Hobbes’s prose.
Therefore, unless the reader is a skilled mathematician, the claim that
these treatments clarify Hobbes’s position is highly questionable. Sec-
ondly, as Hampton has shown, game theory cannot account for the
lasting agreement that Hobbes insists is necessary for civil peace. The
central problem, as Alan Ryan argues, is that game theory assumes
that humans are utility maximizes. Hobbes, on the other hand,
assumes that men are “disaster-avoiders” (Ryan 1996, 224). Accord-
ingly, Hobbesian man is willing to sacrifice the possibility of maximiz-
ing his utility in order to avoid death. In this light Hamilton and
Kavka’s use of game theory to reconstruct choices in the state of nature
seems misplaced. The final problem with this approach is method-
ological. Ingenious though these mathematical reconstructions are,
do they really tell us anything about Hobbes? Hamilton explicitly
states that he is presenting an account of Hobbes’s argument that can-
not be found in Hobbes’s work and that he is using mathematical
tools that were not available to early modern writers. Moreover, as his
work shows this approach creates new problems. Hamilton sets out to
solve these with the application of yet more modern mathematics,
recasting the problems of the state of nature as a coordination game
or a series of coordination games. Again, he solves a problem that
Hobbes did not address using a method that Hobbes could not have
used. These idealized accounts of Hobbes’s position tell us more about
the limits of game theory than they do about Hobbes’s argument.

Hobbes the Skeptic

Many of the problems with the interpretations considered in the pre-

vious sections of this chapter are methodological in nature. With this
92 Thomas Hobbes

in mind I now turn to two interpretations that are based on a contex-

tual methodology specifically formulated to overcome the shortcom-
ings discussed above and in so doing to recover the intensions of the
author. Contextualists assert that texts are not complete in and of
themselves and therefore that their meaning will not be immediately
available to the reader. Rather, a text must be situated in the intellec-
tual context in which it was written in order for its meaning to become
intelligible. Indeed, it is only through studying the context of texts
that it is possible to discover what “they were intended to mean, and
how this meaning was intended to be taken” (Skinner, 1969, 48).
Tuck sets out a contextual account of Hobbes’s writings in a number
of important works, such as “Optics and Sceptics” and Philosophy and
Government. According to Tuck Hobbes’s work is best understood as a
response to the skeptical crisis that characterized European thought
in the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth centuries. From this per-
spective Hobbes’s work is similar to that of Mersenne, Gassendi and
Descartes in the sense that it accepts the skeptical critique of classical
learning, particularly of Aristotle, but attempts to build a new science
that is impervious to skeptical attack.
The skeptical crisis to which Tuck refers was rooted in two ancient
schools of thought that are usually referred to as Academic and
Pyrrhonian skepticism. Simply put, the former school taught that
“nothing can be known, not even this” whereas the latter argued that
it was impossible to be sure of anything and therefore judgment
should be suspended perpetually. Pyrrhonism was chiefly known
through the writings of the ancient skeptic Sextus Empiricus which
became widely available toward the end of the sixteenth-century
thanks to the publisher Henri Estienne. The influence of skepticism
in the early modern period is best exemplified by the work of Pierre
Charron and Michel de Montaigne. Both thinkers deployed skeptical
arguments against contemporary learning, particularly Aristotelian
philosophy. Moral philosophy, they argued, was insecure because
there was no agreement on right and wrong among the nations.
Natural philosophy was flawed because human perception could not
be trusted as the senses were easily misled by illusions.
Countering Pyrrhonism, Tuck asserts, was central to Mersenne’s
project. It was this ambition that led to Mersenne’s collaboration with
Gassendi and Descartes, both of whom were trying to create a new
science that could not be defeated by the skeptics. Descartes’s work is
 Reception and Interpretation 93

an excellent example of the attempt to forge this type of science.

Descartes’s Meditations began by tearing down all certainty by subject-
ing sense and reason to a rigorous skeptical attack. Descartes cast
doubt on the veracity of his experience, his rational faculties, and
even the existence of his body using a mixture of ancient and novel
skeptical arguments. Having considered the possibility that everything
he remembers is just a dream he asserts that he is still certain of his
own existence. Cogito ergo sum—I think therefore I am, became his
new foundational certainty because no skeptic, however radical, could
ever doubt his own existence. From this basis and an ingenious proof
of God’s existence Descartes reasserts that certainty is possible.
Tuck argues that Hobbes, like Mersenne and Descartes, wanted to
build a post-skeptical science, that is to say a science that accepted the
skeptical critique of ancient wisdom and therefore began afresh on a
firm foundation that was impervious to skeptical attack. There is con-
siderable contextual evidence for this position. First, Hobbes, like
Mersenne, Gassendi, and Descartes, devoted a great deal of attention
to the study of optics. Optical illusions were crucial to skeptical argu-
ments about the varsity of human senses. Consequently, the study and
explanation of optics was essential to any refutation of this aspect of
skepticism. Secondly, Tuck claims that Hobbes’s philosophy took
shape in the late 1630s and early 1640s at the very time when he was
collaborating with Mersenne. Indeed, many of Hobbes’s works from
this period, such as the Tractatus optics, Hobbes’s critique of Descartes’s
Meditations, and Hobbes’s preface to Mersenne’s Balistica, were
written at Mersenne’s request. Finally, Hobbes’s writings also contain
passages which echo skeptical arguments. The Elements of Law, for
example, acknowledges that it is possible to believe that a dream is
real; and Hobbes repeatedly acknowledges every man defines good
and evil in his own way. Hobbes’s solution to the skeptical crisis, Tuck
argues, was a method modeled on geometry, which built a new
science on simple maxims that could not be doubted.
Tuck’s argument has not escaped criticism. There is significant
doubt concerning the extent to which Hobbes’s work can legitimately
be considered a response to skepticism. Importantly, Hobbes’s
works barely discuss skepticism. Richard H. Popkin has shown that
whereas Mersenne devotes over 200 pages of his Scientific Truth: Against
the Sceptics or Pyrrhonians (1625) to a refutation of the skeptics,
Hobbes refers to the skeptics only twice in his entire English works
94 Thomas Hobbes

(Popkin 1982, 134). Turning to Hobbes’s Latin works the picture is

similar. Hobbes’s reference to skepticism in his critique of Descartes’s
Meditations is fleeting and his attitude to the skeptics dismissive.
Of more concern still, for Tuck’s argument, is manuscript evidence
that Hobbes’s approach to optics, and methodology predates his
meeting with Mersenne. If this is true these important aspects of
Hobbes’s thought developed prior to his involvement with Mersenne
and there is no reason to suppose they were influenced by Mersenne’s
project. The manuscript in question is usually referred to as the
A Short Tract on First Principles and was preserved in the collections of
Charles Cavendish. The manuscript is untitled, undated, and does
not bear Hobbes’s signature. The manuscript was first discovered
and published by Hobbes scholar Ferdinand Tönnies. Tönnies attrib-
uted the text to Hobbes on the grounds that it was written in his hand
and because of the similarities to Hobbes’s later work. Tönnies argued
that the Short Tract marked a transitional stage in Hobbes’s work as it
advances a modern mechanistic account of light but retains some of
the terminology of Aristotelian physics. Consequently, Tönnies specu-
lated that it was written at a time when Hobbes had not yet fully aban-
doned Aristotelian philosophy. If this is true it would have to date
from the early 1630s. Tuck claims that the manuscript is not in
Hobbes’s hand and therefore that Tönnies attribution is incorrect.
Much recent scholarship has suggested that the manuscript
does contain an expression of Hobbes’s early optical ideas. Karl
Schuhmann, for example, argues that there are strong links between
the style and argument of the Short Tract and Hobbes’s later works on
optics (Schuhmann 1995, 3–36). Furthermore, while Timothy Raylor
accepts that the manuscript was penned by Hobbes’s friend Robert
Payne, he suggests that the manuscript embodies Hobbes’s early con-
ception of light and optics. Raylor argues that Payne’s role in the
Cavendish household was that of an assistant or a secretary. He would
have been expected to write up the conclusions of discussions between
his patrons and other members of their circle. Moreover, Hobbes is
known to have presented his conception of light to the Cavendish
brothers around 1630 (Raylor 2001, 42–51). Noel Malcolm, whose
work represents the final word on the subject, at least to date, tends to
the view that the manuscript represents Payne’s theory and not that of
Hobbes (Malcolm 2002, 104–39). Nonetheless, Raylor and Malcolm
both agree that the Short Tract is important for Hobbes scholars due to
 Reception and Interpretation 95

the fact that it is indicative of the intellectual environment that Hobbes

encountered in the mid–1630s. Consequently, it indicates that
Hobbes’s interest in light, vision, and perception had sources inde-
pendent of Mersenne and skepticism.
Given the lack of textual evidence that Hobbes was concerned with
skepticism and the existence of the Short Tract there are to be compel-
ling reasons to question Tuck’s interpretation. Nonetheless, Tuck’s
work is extremely useful in the sense that it uncovers one of the ways
in which Hobbes was read during his own lifetime. Hobbes may not
have been greatly concerned by the early modern skeptical crisis, but
his works appealed to Mersenne, Gassendi, and others who were
pursuing a post-skeptical science.

Hobbes and Rhetoric

Quentin Skinner has suggested an alternative contextual reading of

Hobbes’s thought. Skinner’s Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of
Hobbes argues that Hobbes’s primary concern was to turn the study of
morality and politics into a science (Skinner 1996, 1). Hobbes’s under-
standing of civil science, he argues, was rooted in ancient Greek and
Roman texts on rhetoric, particularly Cicero’s De inventione (Ibid., 2).
However, Skinner reveals that Hobbes’s attitude to the classical under-
standing of rhetoric underwent considerable change, from an early
position that clearly rejected eloquence to a later position that reaf-
firmed a more traditional conception of the relationship between rea-
son and rhetoric.
Skinner argues that Hobbes’s earliest works on civil science, The
Elements of Law and De cive, embody a wholesale rejection of the classi-
cal ideal of civil science. Classical authors had argued that reason was
not inherently compelling. Consequently, in order to be persuasive
rational arguments had to be allied with rhetoric. Eloquent speech
and artful writing could stir the passions and therefore motivate the
reader or listener to action. For this reason, humanists since antiquity
had argued for an alliance between science and rhetoric in order to
persuade men to act rationally. Hobbes explicitly rejects this approach
to civil science in both The Elements of Law and De cive. For example,
the opening of The Elements of Law asserts, “For the style, it is therefore
the worse, because whilst writing I consulted more with logic, than
96 Thomas Hobbes

with rhetoric” (Hobbes 1994c, 19). Hobbes also contrasts the useful-
ness of his own doctrine with the “false and rhetorical semblance” of
wisdom contained in earlier doctrines (Ibid.).
Skinner’s analysis of the style of these two works suggests that
Hobbes had adopted, what Skinner describes as, a “scientific style”
similar to that of Frances Bacon’s natural history the Sylva sylvarum or
William Gilbert’s De magnete (Skinner 1996, 303). Crucially, Skinner
shows that Hobbes took this style in a new direction. Bacon used a
style devoid of rhetorical techniques when dealing with natural
philosophy, but his writings on ethics and politics still employed the
traditional alliance of reason and eloquence. Hobbes’s radical move
was to extend the scientific style to ethical and political subjects.
Rhetorical writings on civil science deploy a series of techniques to
engage the reader and stir him to action. For example, arguments
would be supported by illustrations from classical history, or an appeal
to commonplace maxims. The Elements of Law and De cive, unlike other
works on civil science, are almost entirely devoid of such rhetorical
embellishment.
Moreover, Hobbes’s attack on the classical understanding of civil
science was not simply stylistic. Rather, Hobbes rejected the humanist
notion of citizenship that underpinned the classical conception of
eloquence’s role in the commonwealth. Traditionally, the good orator
was equated with the good citizen. Eloquence was one of the funda-
mental skills for the active citizen who would take part in the judicial
and political life of the commonwealth. This conception of the active
citizen had been revived in the rhetorical handbooks of early modern
England. Skinner argues that Hobbes felt the danger of this view of
citizenship keenly. Consequently, Hobbes emphasized the seditious
nature of rhetoric in his work of the early 1640s. Hobbes advanced the
notion that the citizen is in fact nothing more than a subject, who
should play an extremely limited role in the political life of the
commonwealth.
Nonetheless, Skinner argues that Hobbes’s approach in his later
works is very different. While Hobbes was still concerned about the
seditious potential of eloquence he was prepared to use rhetorical
techniques in order to add greater weight to his arguments. The
scientific style of the earlier works gave way to greater embellishment,
the use of examples from classical histories and the appeal to popular
 Reception and Interpretation 97

commonplaces. The use of rhetorical techniques is even more

pronounced in Hobbes’s later works, which often take the form of
dialogues and histories, forms that were recommended by classical
writers due to their persuasive power.
Skinner suggests that Hobbes changed his mind about the alliance
between science and rhetoric for a number of reasons. First,
Leviathan, which was written in English, addressed a less educated
audience than the Latin De cive. However, this can only be part of the
story as Hobbes’s later Latin works extend Hobbes’s use of rhetorical
techniques rather than reverting to the scientific style. Hobbes’s
continued use of these techniques, Skinner asserts, points to a funda-
mental shift in Hobbes’s approach to civil science. Skinner suggests
that interest is the key to Hobbes’s change of heart. Hobbes’s early
faith in the persuasiveness of demonstrative reasoning seems to have
diminished due to the reception of his scientific works. Hobbes’s
doctrines threatened the power and status of many important figures,
and where reason and interest were opposed Hobbes came to believe
that reason failed to compel. Consequently, Hobbes returned to rhet-
oric in an attempt to ally reason and passion against interest. This
analysis, Skinner argues, was common to a number of thinkers known
to Hobbes in Paris in the 1640s.
Skinner’s interpretation of the development of Hobbes’s civil
science is not without its critics. A common theme among his critiques
is that Skinner’s work, and the contextual method more generally, is
that the contextual history of ideas is essentially an exercise in obscu-
rantism. The real focus for Hobbes scholarship, according to this view,
should be examining and critiquing Hobbes’s ideas rather than
exhaustive historical investigation. Gabriela Slomp’s Thomas Hobbes
and the Political Philosophy of Glory puts forward this very view
arguing that “Hobbes wanted his theory to be analysed philosophi-
cally and logically, rather than historically” (Slomp 2000, 1). Slomp’s
critique extends beyond her concern about Skinner’s method.
She takes issue with Skinner’s argument that there was a significant
shift in Hobbes views between De cive and Leviathan. Finally, she argues
that the contextual method has done much to obscure Hobbes’s
originality:
Whereas Skinner belongs to the camp that is elated by the discovery
of traditional concepts in Hobbes’ work, I belong to the larger crowd
98 Thomas Hobbes

overwhelmed by Hobbes’ originality, by the subversive way in

which he uses customary concepts such as “natural right”, “natural
law”, “state of nature” and “social contract”, and “by the thoroughness
with which he scrutinises and re-thinks his cultural inheritance”
(Ibid., 3).
Slomp’s criticisms seem to be misplaced. First, Skinner never argues
that Hobbes disowned De cive. Secondly, Slomp’s distinction between
tradition and originality is somewhat confusing. On the one hand she
expressed enthusiasm for Hobbes’s originality, only to construe it in
terms of Hobbes’s dialogue with traditional concepts. Finally, and
perhaps most importantly, Slomp’s thoughts on methodology are
highly problematic. Slomp focuses on ideas rather than history.
Consequently, she assumes that Hobbes’s ideas are immediately intel-
ligible by simply reading his texts. But is methodological credulity of
this kind really tenable following Roland Barthes’s The Death of the
Author (1977) and the general post-structuralist assertion that any
literary text has multiple meanings? Secondly, the obsession with
ahistorical ideas leads her to consider issues that, to the historian,
seem incredibly anachronistic. For example, she discusses Winston
Smith’s dilemmas in Room 101 in order to cast light on Hobbes’s
argument in Leviathan (Ibid., 166–7). But, is it plausible that Leviathan
and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) share the same basic understanding of
government? Indeed, could Hobbes’s political imagination compre-
hend the kind of system that George Orwell satirized centuries later?
Clearly, Hobbes was not addressing Orwell, nor did he intend to
describe Orwell’s distopia. But these historical niceties are irrelevant
for Slomp for whom the discussion of ideas is primary. Nonetheless,
ignoring history does a disservice to the ideas of Hobbes and Orwell
alike. Moreover, if ideas are all that matter why discuss Hobbes
at all? Indeed, Slomp has no methodological warrant for believing
that the ideas she discusses ever belonged to Hobbes. But, perhaps
this is not a problem from Slomp’s point of view, for having divorced
Hobbes’s ideas from their context the next move would logically be to
divorce them from Hobbes himself. By contrast, the great advantage
of Skinner’s approach is that it offers the possibility of recovering
Hobbes’s intensions, while overcoming the problems apparently
raised by post-structuralism. Only then is it possible to understand the
meaning of Hobbes’s texts and engage with his ideas.
 Reception and Interpretation 99

Conclusion: Understanding Hobbes

Interpretations of Hobbes are legion. Initially, Hobbes was best known

for his alleged atheism and heresy. However, as the religious contro-
versies of the seventeenth century have faded from view critics focused
on Hobbes’s understanding of human nature, the state and the social
contract. More recently, even Hobbes’s class allegiance has come
under scrutiny. These changes in our understanding of Hobbes, how-
ever, often tell us more about Hobbes’s critics than they do about
Hobbes.
The best way to approach Hobbes is to allow him to speak to us,
rather than approaching him with a set preexisting conviction about
what he must be saying. As soon as we assume that Hobbes must be
part of a grand narrative, such as the fall of the aristocracy and the rise
of the bourgeoisie, Hobbes’s voice is drowned out by our own con-
cerns. Equally, when we try and solve Hobbesian problems with mod-
ern tools such as game theory rather than trying to understand Hobbes
in his own terms we learn more about the limits of our tools, the limits
of modern mathematics to use the same example, than we do about
what Hobbes was trying to do when he wrote his now famous passage
on the fool.
The most illuminating and subtle readings of Hobbes are those that
take us back to his culture, for they give a much better understanding
of what Hobbes was actually trying to achieve. Additionally, they pro-
vide a new and alien vantage point from which to critique our own
political and intellectual assumptions.
 4

Hobbes Today

Some thinkers have a relatively limited shelf life; others live on,
continuing to inspire the contemporary imagination. The same is
true of historical figures more generally. Jesus and Adolf Hitler still
top the charts in terms of the number of words devoted to them.
Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud, too, have left an indelible mark
on the modern consciousness. Others have fared less well. There has
not been a single biography of Joseph Pierre Proudhon, the father of
Anarchism, in over ten years—at least in English. Similarly, Nikolai
Chernyshevsky, creator of Russian populism, only really survives as a
footnote to V. I. Lenin and Soviet Communism. Hobbes is neither as
famous as Darwin nor as obscure as Chernyshevsky. Certainly, his hope
that he would be recognized as the father of optics and the science of
natural justice has yet to be realized. But Hobbes’s name is not forgot-
ten. Indeed, his ideas are still discussed in a number of niches within
contemporary culture. To borrow an analogy from the natural
sciences, Hobbes’s thought is like an organism that survives due to the
fact that it has adapted to a specific ecological niche.1 The most obvi-
ous niche in which Hobbes’s ideas live on is the academic world.
Rightly or wrongly, Hobbes has become part of a semiofficial canon of
important philosophers, political thinkers, theorists of international
relations, and historical figures that are kept alive by the university
curriculum.2 Secondly, Hobbes’s influence is still felt in the delibera-
tions and publications of institutions concerned with the formulation
of public policy. These include think tanks such as the British CIVITAS,
and Institute of Economic Affairs; India’s Centre for Civil Society and
the American Manhattan Institute for Policy Research; intergovern-
mental organizations like the United Nations, the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund; and, to a lesser extent, national
legislatures.3 Finally, Hobbes also survives in contemporary pop culture.
 Hobbes Today 101

His name features from time to time in current affairs journalism,

in online blogs and in discussions hosted by online communities.
Notably, “Thomas Hobbes” is a member of both Facebook and
Myspace. Hobbes also provides the inspiration for the toy tiger in Bill
Watterson’s famous comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Who knows, he may
yet join John Locke, Edmund Burke, Mikhail Bakunin, and other
philosophical luminaries as a character in ABC’s television series Lost.
Significantly, to return to the ecological analogy, Hobbes’s ideas
survive in these niches due to a process of adaptation. This chapter
considers three senses in which Hobbes’s thought survives today.
Essentially, Hobbes has provided two powerful political images that
continue to resonate with the anxieties of political theorists, policy
makers, and journalists. The first is Hobbes’s image of the state as
leviathan, particularly as it was adapted in the late 1930s, 1940s, and
early 1950s to describe the threat of totalitarianism. Secondly, Hobbes’s
image of the state of nature has become an accepted metaphor for
the horrors of civil war in the former Yugoslavia, the genocide in
Rwanda, and the disintegration of order in Iraq following Operation
Iraqi Freedom. Finally, Hobbes himself has become something of a
political symbol. I mean this in two ways. One, his work has an authori-
tative status for a number of contemporary conservatives. Two,
Hobbes’s name has become shorthand for the melancholy face of
liberalism, an alternative to the symbols of liberal optimism such as
Locke, Kant, and Hegel.

New Leviathan and Totalitarianism

Hobbes’s image of the state as an all-powerful biblical beast has

endured and has in many ways taken on a life of its own. The meta-
phor of the state as leviathan has had particular resonance in the
twentieth century, the century of total war and holocaust. Given the
monstrous extension of government power in the last century it is no
surprise that Hobbes’s metaphor should occur to writers grappling
with totalitarian regimes, or so-called modern Leviathans (Gurian
1978, 519). In the 1940s commentators invoked the image of the
“totalitarian Leviathan” (Cook 1943, 109; Gurian 1940, 127) and
particularly the terrifying Nazi species of the beast (Lengyel 1944,
187; Robinson 1945, 23; Loewenstein 1946, 444). Following World
102 Thomas Hobbes

War II attention turned to the specter of the Communist or “Soviet

Leviathan” and later still Mao’s “Chinese Leviathan” struck fear into
the hearts of political commentators (Possony 1954, 90; Spencer 1955,
156; Maritain 1947, 61; Vevier 1959, 316). Fritz Morstein Marx’
‘Totalitarian Politics’ (1940), R. M. MacIver’s Leviathan and the People
(1941), and R. G. Collingwood’s “New Leviathan” all used Hobbes’s
image to describe modern totalitarian despotisms. For Collingwood,
leviathan was the perfect metaphor for “the new absolutism of the
twentieth century” (Collingwood 1999, lix). This reinvention of
Hobbes’s imagery was accompanied by the investigation of the philo-
sophical origins of the so called total state. Melvin Rader’s No Compro-
mise. The Conflict Between Two Worlds (1939) listed Hobbes, along with
Hegel and Pareto, as one of the intellectual forefathers of totalitarian-
ism. William Montgomery McGovern went further identifying Hobbes
as “the prophet of a system which was to be carried out nearly three
centuries later by Mussolini and Hitler” (McGovern 1941, 69). These
diverse descriptions of totalitarianism and its origins do not present a
coherent or homogeneous argument, far less an agreed view of
Hobbes’s relationship to totalitarianism. But they are indicative of a
general perspective that claims some continuity between Hobbes and
contemporary totalitarianism. These claims, however, should be
treated with extreme caution. At the very least they represent the
rather free use of a powerful political image, and at worst they
demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of Hobbes’s political
thought and twentieth-century history.
Few attempts to link Hobbes with Nazism have been as thoroughgo-
ing as Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. For Arendt,
Hobbes is the true, if unacknowledged, philosopher of capitalism,
imperialism, and totalitarianism. Essentially, Arendt argues that the
continual acquisition of property, the foundation of capitalism, neces-
sitates a strong state which itself must invade other states in order to
sustain the process of accumulation. Hobbes’s work, according to
Arendt, described this very process and anticipated the kind of total
state necessary for imperialism. Hobbes also foresaw the type of
human being that would be required in a society dedicated to the
acquisition of ever-greater power:

For a commonwealth based on accumulated and monopolised power

of all individual members necessarily leaves each person powerless,
deprived of his natural and human capacities. It leaves him degraded
 Hobbes Today 103

into a cog in the power accumulation machine, free to console

himself with sublime thoughts about the ultimate destiny of this
machine, which itself is constructed in such a way that it can devour
the globe by following its own inherent law. (Arendt 1958, 146)

Hobbes’s philosophical crimes do not end here. Indeed, Arendt

argues that Hobbes also furnished humanity with a theoretical justifi-
cation for racism. Hobbes’s notion that the relationship between
states is analogous to the relationship between individuals in the state
of nature essentially breaks humanity into a series of nations or
tribes “separated from each other by nature, without any connection
whatever, unconscious of the solidarity of mankind” (Ibid., 157).
Consequently, Arendt claims that Hobbes’s doctrines are an essential
source of Nazi totalitarianism.
In a rather different way Hobbes’s imagery has also been linked to
Soviet Communism. Notably, in the case of Bolshevism Hobbes’s
monster was first invoked some years before the Russian Revolution.
Nikolai Bukharin, one time co-leader of the Soviet Union and
ultimately victim of Stalin’s Terror, raised the prospect of a “New
Leviathan” in his theoretical work on several occasions. His basic
insight came from an analysis of, in his terms, imperialism—the final
phase of capitalism. His works Imperialism and World Economy and
“Towards a theory of the imperialist state” of 1916 raise the specter of
a new form of postcapitalist society dominated by a monster state,
a conception that he would later link to totalitarianism. Essentially,
Bukharin argued that the Great War was the result of a new imperial-
ist stage of capitalism. Imperialism was distinct from the classic
form of capitalism in a number of ways. First, whereas capitalism had
initially been characterized by a dynamic free market with a minimal
state, imperialist societies had become dominated by the state appara-
tus. According to Bukharin, the state in imperialist societies becomes
increasingly interventionist particularly in the organization of the
economy. In 1916 Bukharin argued that the most extreme example of
this trend was the German war economy. In spite of this change
Bukharin asserted that the essential exploitative relationships that
characterize capitalism were retained. Indeed, the state became an
all-powerful instrument for exploiting the proletariat:

The state power thus sucks in almost all branches of production;

it not only maintains the general conditions of the exploitative
104 Thomas Hobbes

process, the state maintains the general conditions of the exploit-

ative process, the state more and more becomes a direct exploiter,
organizing and directing production as a collective capitalist.
(Cohen 1973, 29)

In these circumstances the pluralism of early capitalism gave way to an

ordered, mechanized, and militarized society in which the state
absorbed all areas of social life.

Thus arises the final type of contemporary imperialist robber state,

an iron organisation which envelops the living body of society in its
tenacious, grasping paws. It is a New Leviathan, before which the
fantasy of Thomas Hobbes seems a child’s play. (Ibid., 30)

The language that Bukharin uses to describe the ‘New Leviathan’

owes something to Jack London’s fictional dystopia The Iron Heel
(1908). London’s novel describes a futuristic military state in which
humanity is brutally repressed by a statist oligarchy. London too
describes his fictional state using that language of monsters, “. . . that
monster of the ages, the Oligarchy. With iron hand and iron heel it
mastered the surging millions, out of confusion brought order, out of
the very chaos wrought its own foundation and structure” (London
2006, 115). Significantly, Bukharin’s analysis of the modern state, like
Jack London’s fantasy, pointed to a possible future that Marx had not
anticipated. For Marx, capitalism would give way to socialism, that is
an era of true equality and liberty. London and Bukharin, however,
began to imagine that the overthrow of capitalism might lead to
a new form of despotism rather than the emancipation of humanity.
This insight served as the basis of Bukharin’s later critiques of Nazism
and Stalinism.
Bukharin’s speculations became increasingly relevant following
the October Revolution of 1917 as the new Bolshevik regime had to
acknowledge that while it had destroyed capitalism it had not, for
the time being at least, created socialism. However, it was the late
1920s and early 30s that led Bukharin to develop his theory further.
Following his fall from power Bukharin applied his insight to
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Both seemed to provide examples of
a society in which capitalism had been abolished but where exploita-
tion had been perpetuated. According to Bukharin, fascism led to the
dehumanization of the people, the abolition of private morality and
 Hobbes Today 105

total submission to the leader. What is more, Bukharin’s biographer

Stephen F. Cohen has suggested that his discussion of fascism was, in
part, a covert attack on Stalinism. This is entirely plausible given
Bukharin’s repeated concerns, under Lenin and Stalin, that Soviet
Communism was degenerating into a statist totalitarian regime
(Cohen 1973, 366–7).
The link between the leviathan image and totalitarianism is also
present in recent Hobbes scholarship. John Orbell and Brent Ruther-
ford, for example, discuss the quality of “Leviathanness” and classify
totalitarian states such as the USSR and China as “high Leviathan”
where as democracies such as the United States and Trinidad are
ranked as “low Leviathan” (Orbell and Rutherford 1973, 402).4 The
link between Hobbes and totalitarianism has also been explored in
relation to the fictional regime described in George Orwell’s Nineteen
Eighty-Four. Judith N. Shklar and Kenneth Minogue, for example,
argue that there are parallels between Orwell’s fictional Newspeak
and Hobbes’s view that language must be subject to the sovereign
(Shklar 1985, 11; Minogue 1989, 13–14). Indeed, it is only natural
that Hobbes and Orwell have become linked as Leviathan and Big
Brother two of the most powerful political images in the English
language.
Before presenting a critique of the association between Hobbes
and totalitarianism it is worth reiterating the point that the authors
who tend to this perspective do so in a variety of ways. In some cases
they are merely using a potent piece of political imagery, whereas in
others there is an attempt to present a philosophical lineage in which
Hobbes is identified as one of a number of “totalitarian and authori-
tarian precursors” (Sondrol 1991, 602). Finally, there are writers such
as Arendt who present a much more extreme claim that there is an
inescapable logic in Hobbes’s work that leads inexorably to the Nazi
death camps.
There are, however, good reasons to reject all shades of the associa-
tion between Hobbes’s image and twentieth-century totalitarianism.
Franz Neumann makes this point, at least in so far as it applies to
Nazism, in Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism
1933-44 (1944). For Neumann, Nazism is closer to Hobbes’s Behemoth
than his Leviathan:

His Leviathan is the analysis of a state, that is a political system of

coercion in which vestiges of the rule of law and of individual rights
106 Thomas Hobbes

are still preserved. His Behemoth, or the Long Parliament, however,

discussing the English civil war of the seventeenth century, depicts a
non-state, a chaos, a situation of lawlessness, disorder and anarchy.
Since we believe National Socialism is—or tending to become—a
non-state, a chaos, a rule of lawlessness and anarchy . . . we find it
apt to call the National Socialist system The Behemoth. (Neumann
1944, vii)

Neumann’s striking point highlights the central paradox at the heart

of totalitarianism: rather than making the state all-powerful the state
dissolves within the totalitarian regime. This tendency within Nazi
Germany has been well documented.5 Rather than a single authorita-
tive body Nazi rule was characterized by competing, yet apparently
all-powerful agencies such as the Nazi Party, the Schutzstaffel, the
Four-Year Plan Organization, and the remnants of the Weimar state.
Moreover, in this “system” there were no formal defined hierarchies.
Hitler deliberately gave different agencies very similar remits and
overlapping powers. A similar arrangement emerged under Stalin.
The Communist Party, the Party’s secretariat, the Soviet State, and the
NKVD were all, in different senses, sovereign bodies who interacted in
ways which bore no relation to the 1936 “Stalin Constitution”. Signifi-
cantly, Stalin’s power was independent from the Soviet state and
between 1929 and 1941 he was the most powerful figure in Russia
but not the Head of State. Leonard Schapiro has commented that a
state is in effect incompatible with a totalitarian regime. State action is
governed by rules and norms. However, if power is to be absolute it must
be arbitrary and unconstrained. Consequently, “to speak of ‘the totali-
tarian state’ is to use a contradiction in terms” (Schapiro 1972, 71).
Leaving institutions to one side, Hobbes’s thought is quite unlike
Nazism or Marxist-Leninism. Hobbes’s thought emphasizes the impor-
tance of a sovereign state for civil peace. This is wholly different to
Nazism and Stalinism. In terms of Nazi ideology the state is consid-
ered secondary to the race. It is the creative potential of the race that
guarantees the advance of the good life, not the state. Hitler spelled
this out in terms of an apocalyptic parable in his infamous autobiog-
raphy Mein Kampf (1925–1926):

If today, for example, the surface of the earth were upset by some
tectonic event and a new Himalaya rose from the ocean floods, by
 Hobbes Today 107

one single cruel catastrophe the culture of humanity would be

destroyed. No state would exist any longer, the bands of all order
would be dissolved, the documents of millennial development
would be shattered—a single great field of corpses covered by
water and mud. But if from this chaos of horror even a few men of
a certain race capable of culture had been preserved, the earth,
upon settling, if only after thousands of years, would again get
proofs of human creative power. . . . Conversely, we can see even by
examples from the present that state formations in their tribal
beginnings can, if their racial supporters lack sufficient genius, not
preserve them from destruction. (Hitler 2004, 356)

Hitler’s convoluted message, which studiously avoids the Judeo-

Christian image of the flood, boils down to this: if every state was
destroyed civilization would be reborn as long as elements of the
master race survived; whereas, if the state persists and yet the master
race died out then civilization is doomed. Evidently, Hitler believed
that civilization emerged naturally from the activities of the master
race. This position is diametrically opposed to Hobbes’s view that
civilization is an artifact of the state.
Similarly, the Marxist-Leninist view of the state is very different to
that of Hobbes. From the Revolution until Stalin’s death orthodox
Communists looked forward to the withering away and eventual
abolition of the state. In theory, the state was an instrument of class
rule, and therefore it was only necessary in a postrevolutionary society
during the period of transition during which the workers, led by the
Communist Party, would use the state to suppress class enemies.
Hobbes’s account is altogether different. For Hobbes the state would
always be necessary to ensure civil peace.
Moreover, whereas Hobbes advocated peace, Stalinism and Nazism
are ideologies of conflict; the former stresses class war, the latter a
fight to the death between opposing races. Consequently, it seems
legitimate to say that Hobbes’s thought is neither obviously like Nazism
or Marxism-Leninism. Nor did the Nazis and Communists look to
Hobbes for inspiration. Each of these movements had other guiding
philosophical lights. On an ideological level there is little common
ground between Hobbes and the twentieth-century totalitarians.6
As the threat of totalitarianism has receded the metaphor of the state
as leviathan has taken new forms. Robert Higgs’s Crisis and Leviathan
108 Thomas Hobbes

(1987) uses the image to describe the government of the United States.
Indeed, according to Republican Senator Tom Coburn the US “federal
leviathan” has apparently become a new species of the monster that
has evolved “tentacles” (Senate Bill 2179 (2007) amend. 3966). The US
legislature itself has met with similar criticism in Gary Cox and Mathew
McCubbins’s Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House (1993).
The term has even been applied to institutions that are not states such
as the IMF, the FBI, and ZANU PF. Perhaps the most interesting of the
post-totalitarian leviathans is Sayyed Vali Reza Nasr’s Islamic Leviathan
(2001). Nasr’s study analyses the way in which the states of Pakistan and
Malaysia adopted a policy of Islamicization to increase their support
and therefore to extend their power. The story of weak states seeking
to increase their power by appealing to the authority of religion is
recognizably Hobbesian unlike the totalitarian leviathans of the
mid-twentieth century. Consequently, Islamic Leviathan unlike the
earlier treatments of the new leviathan genuinely seems to owe
a genuine intellectual debt to Hobbes.

Back to Nature

Leviathan is not the only lasting image that we owe to Hobbes. His
vision of the state of nature in which life is solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish, and short has also endured. Indeed, this image has colored
the description of civil war, genocide, and lawlessness in the contem-
porary world. This perspective was aptly summed up by former
Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan:

. . . the people of Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, Afghanistan, Israel,
the occupied Palestinian territory, and many other war-stricken
places around the world has been and, in some cases still is, more
akin to the anarchic state of nature depicted by Thomas Hobbes
than to the noble aspirations embodied in the Charter and the
Millennium Declaration. (Annan 2002, 6)

Although Annan was discussing the condition of people in Africa,

Eastern Europe, and the Middle East the origins of this perspective
can be traced to New York, specifically The New York Review of Books,
 Hobbes Today 109

which is based less than three miles from the buildings of the UN in
which Annan made his speech. The article in question is Michael
Ignatieff’s “The Balkan Tragedy” which appeared in 1993 and attempts
to give a “comprehensible explanation” of the destruction precipi-
tated by the disintegration of Yugoslavia (Ignatieff 1993, 3). To this
end Ignatieff turns to Hobbes:

. . . Hobbes understood, no emotion is more likely to generate

ethnic and religious hatred than fear. By 1990, post-Titoist Yugosla-
via had become a Hobbesian world, a state of nature in which the
means of violence were too widely distributed to afford anyone
safety . . . Interethnic accommodation depended on the existence
of a multi-ethnic state. When this disintegrated, society rapidly
decomposed into its primary national elements, since these alone
appeared to promise the Hobbesian minimum of security. (Ibid)

On this account, the degeneration of Yugoslavia into bloodshed and

anarchy follows a Hobbesian pattern. Initially, the state guaranteed
peace. Under the sovereign different groups were able to live a civi-
lized life in apparent harmony. However, following the death of the
Josip Tito, Yugoslavia’s dictator, and the fall of Communism in East-
ern Europe, the collapse of state authority led to mutual fear and vio-
lence. Cohesive society ended and insecurity led to the formation of
warring factions. Hobbes is important to Ignatieff in a number of
ways. First, Ignatieff follows Hobbes’s view that the state alone can
guarantee civil peace. Secondly, he appeals to a Hobbesian psychol-
ogy that emphasizes the potency of fear in situations of insecurity.
Finally, Ignatieff follows Hobbes’s view that in the absence of state
power former citizens become enemies.
Ignatieff’s Hobbesian account of the breakup of Yugoslavia, which
was restated in Blood and Belonging (1993) and The Warrior’s Honor
(1998) has been highly influential. Damir Mirković, for example,
argued that in the “former Yugoslavia . . . society is reaching its lowest
possible stage—a complete chaos and lawlessness, a war of all against
all . . . and life truly is becoming ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and
short’” (Mirković 1996, 192). Other recent examples of social disloca-
tion, impoverishment, normlessness, and lawlessness have often
been explored in Hobbesian terms. Indeed, journalist Timothy
Garton Ash has invoked Hobbes’s metaphor to describe the plight of
110 Thomas Hobbes

post-Saddam Iraq, “[c]laiming to move Iraq forward towards Lockean

liberty, we hurled it back to a Hobbesian state of nature. Iraqis—those
who have not been killed—increasingly say things are worse than they
were before” (Ash 2006, 31). Deborah Avant’s “Conserving Nature in
the State of Nature: The Politics of INGO Policy Implementation”
(2004) applies Hobbes’s description more widely to situations in
Somalia, Bosnia, Burundi, Liberia, and Rwanda.
John Gray’s False Dawn, repeatedly appeals to Hobbes’s notion of
the state of nature and the role of the state as part of a stinging cri-
tique of Western policy in the developing and post-Soviet world. Gray’s
argument focuses on the effects of global laissez-faire capitalism. Essen-
tially, he claims that policies that have sought to extend the free mar-
ket have weakened state authority thus preventing economic and
social regeneration. Indeed, Gray claims that the scale of the problem
is such that “at the start of the twenty-first century, the modern state
has ceased to exist in much of the world” (Gray 2002, xiii). The rise of
globalization, and the accompanying demise of the nation state, has
affected politics on a domestic and a global level. Locally, the absence
of a state has meant that people in the postcolonial and postcommu-
nist world have reverted to “[t]he Hobbesian state of nature” and
therefore “the rudiments of security are unavailable” to the people in
many parts of the world (Ibid.). Globally, it has led to the rise of new
types of irregular warfare.
Contemporary Russia is a particularly good example of a situation
in which attempts at market reform has lead to social and economic
chaos. Gray spells this out with reference to “shock therapy,” the rapid
introduction of a free market into an economic system that had previ-
ously been characterized by high levels of state control. The “shock
therapy” of the early 1990s severely weakened the mechanisms of
political control creating an “enfeebled, corrupt and, in some regions
and contexts, virtually non-existent state” (Ibid., 152). Market reform
increased the economic chaos that had emerged in the final years of
Communist rule. Overnight price inflation rose 250 percent, while
wages stayed pitifully low (Ibid., 145). Additionally, privatization led
to the emergence of mafia style capitalism as former state assets fell
into the hands of corrupt Party bosses and criminal gangs. According
to Gray, “organised crime is ubiquitous” in modern Russia and in
the late 1990s the income of the mafia accounted for as much as
40 percent of Russian GDP (Ibid., 155). Finally, “shock therapy” has
 Hobbes Today 111

also destabilized global security. Slashing government spending, a

central part of the reform program, caused the partial disintegration
of the Russian military production. As the state’s ability to fund and
control Russia’s military industrial complex withered, military equip-
ment produced and stockpiled by the Soviet Union found its way onto
the global black market. Consequently, “the resources of the vast
Soviet war machine were sold to the highest bidder, becoming avail-
able to not only to states but to non-state forces waging unconven-
tional war throughout the world” (Ibid., xiii). In the face of poverty,
rising mortality and criminality, it is no surprise that Gray views
Russia’s problem as “a Hobbesian problem of order” (Ibid., 159).
The Global effects of the laissez-faire experiment have been equally
anarchic. Nonetheless, some types of organization have flourished
in the “semi-anarchic conditions fostered by global laissez-faire”
(Ibid., xiv.). Al Qaeda is Gray’s prime example. The communication
technologies that have made modern globalization possible have also
facilitated the growth of terrorist cells, the absence of effective eco-
nomic regulation has resulted in the expansion of the international
drugs trade from which Al Qaeda derives much of its revenue, and
weak states have proved unwilling or unable to stamp out terrorist bases
within their territories. For these reasons Gray argues that the 9/11
attacks are “a by-product of the weakness of the state that was actively
promoted by the West during the neo-liberal period” (Ibid., xv).
Gray also turns to Hobbes for a solution to these woes. The creation
of a powerful and effective state in Russia is the answer to organized
crime. What is more, the state is also the solution to economic insta-
bilities. The state, for Gray, is not the enemy of the market, rather
“[t]he free market is an artefact of state power” (Ibid., xiii). A strong
state can enforce contacts, regulate the production and distribution
of dangerous commodities, provide an economic safety net, and in so
doing contain the free market’s inherent tendency to self-destruct.
Hobbes’s thought is undoubtedly useful in the context of modern
war not least because it is an important corrective to the view that con-
temporary troubles are based on ancient tribal hatreds. Such an
account, which predominates in journalistic treatments of Kosovo
and Rwanda and seems to have originated in Robert Kaplan’s Balkan
Ghosts: A Journey Through History (1993), suggests that there are natu-
ral and irreconcilable differences between groups of people, which
will inevitably lead to conflict (Simons and Mueller 2001, 190 n. 1).
112 Thomas Hobbes

On this view there can be no long-term solution to racial conflict

because the causes are too deep-seated to be overcome. Hobbes, on
the other hand, suggests that all identities beyond our essential human-
ity are artificial. There are natural causes for conflict to be sure, but
these are based on insecurity, the absence of agreed standards, and
the lack of a common power not on racial or tribal identities. What is
more, such problems are eminently solvable. The establishment of a
modern state, the rule of law, and an education system that stresses the
benefits of civil peace can turn enemies into friends.
Hobbes’s insight about the importance of state guaranteed order
may go some way to explain the perplexing popularity of Vladimir
Putin and revival nostalgia for Communist despotism—in 1991
70 percent of Russians supported democratic reform, whereas in 2006
71 percent lamented the breakup of the Soviet Union (Shevtsova
2007, 13–16). According to Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s Kremlin
Rising, Putin is popular with ordinary Russians primarily because he
offers order; and people speak wistfully of the USSR because of its
apparent strength (Baker and Glasser 2005, 5–6). The unexpected
conclusion, for Western liberals, is that the majority of Russian people
preferred life under the stagnant despotism of Leonid Brezhnev to
pluralism under Boris Yeltsin. Under Brezhnev there was no rule of
law in the proper sense, but there was order and regularity. Citizens
understood how the system worked and how to avoid falling foul of
the authorities. Consequently, there was security. Under Gorbachev
this disappeared and Yeltsin proved unable to restore it. Putin’s popu-
larity, it seems, is based on his image of strength and even harshness.
His background in Brezhnev’s KGB, his ability to bring the media
under state control, and to clamp down on opposition are welcomed
by the majority of Russians because they see it as a return to order and
security. The Hobbesian need for security, it appears, trumps the
desire for liberty.
Hobbes’s solution to conflict and instability has informed the work
of researchers working for intergovernmental organizations con-
cerned with international development. Raghuram Rajan, the IMF’s
Economic Counsellor and Director of Research, argues that laissez-
faire economic models are not the best solution for international
development. Rather, he claims that international bodies must focus
on institution building. Moreover, researchers should recognize that
the “enforcement apparatus for every contract must be derived from
first principles—as in the world that Hobbes so vividly depicted”
 Hobbes Today 113

(Rajan 2004, 57). Similarly, Douglass North argues that the failure to
develop a successful state with the power to enforce contracts is
“the most important source of both historical stagnation and contem-
porary underdevelopment in the Third World” (North 1990, 54).
Oliver Williamson’s 1995 paper for the World Bank approaches the
issue of development from a different angle, focusing on the factors
that have made Western economies successful. In this context, he
argues that a powerful state that can enforce stable contractual rela-
tionships has been essential to economic success in the developed
world. Consequently, he recommends that this model should be repli-
cated in developing economies. This position is explicitly linked to
Hobbes in Richard E. Messick’s 1999 paper, again for the World Bank,
on Judicial Reform and Economic Development (Messick 1999, 120).
Hobbes’s understanding of social disintegration has undoubtedly
been influential. Nonetheless, the desire to find a conceptual frame-
work that explains modern conflict may blind commentators to the
specific historical causes of contemporary troubles. John Mueller makes
this very point in the context of the conflict in the Balkans and Rwanda,
arguing that neither situation degenerated into a war of all against all.
Rather, he argues, the war in the Balkans was prosecuted by small
groups of combatants. The same, he argues, was true in Rwanda:

There are doubtless instances . . . in which the Hobbesian vision

comes closer to being realized. In 1994 genocide inflicted by ethnic
Hutus against Tutsis in Rwanda may be a case in point. Closer exam-
ination, however, suggests a number of similarities with the wars in
Croatia and Bosnia. (Mueller 2000, 59)

Finally, modern researchers who advocate the creation of strong states

to combat social and economic anarchy are not prepared to accept the
final logic of Hobbes’s argument. No modern think tank or intergov-
ernmental organization is prepared to advocate the kind of absolute
sovereignty that Hobbes believed was essential for ongoing civil peace.

Hobbes and Contemporary Conservatism

Conservatism, like liberalism and socialism is ever-changing. This

reflects the fact that modern ideologies are living languages and
is a testament to the vigor and creativity of contemporary political
114 Thomas Hobbes

thought. However, it makes it extremely difficult to pin down conser-

vatism in terms of a conceptual definition. Nonetheless, it is relatively
easy to identify individual conservative thinkers. With this in mind,
I will focus on a number of leading contemporary right-wing thinkers,
specifically Leo Strauss, Michael Oakeshott, and James M. Buchanan.
Although all of these figures view Hobbes as important, there is
significant disagreement over the nature of his thought and his
relevance today. Strauss and Oakeshott have both developed ideas
and positions during their work on Hobbes that have become highly
influential—Buchanan’s work owes something to the works of both of
these thinkers. Interestingly, in spite of this debt, Buchanan refers to
neither Strauss nor Oakeshott. This is indicative of the fact that posi-
tions that originated in discussion of Hobbes’s work have now become
commonplaces among conservative thinkers.
Leo Strauss has been described as the “mentor” or “forefather” of
neo-conservatism (Boot 2006, 26). There is some justice in this
description as his influence is wide ranging (High 2009). Strauss’s
understanding of modern politics and political theory was rooted in a
specific view of intellectual history in which Hobbes played an impor-
tant part. Strauss wrote extensively on the topic of intellectual history
(Drury 1985). This ongoing study led him to the view that the seven-
teenth century marked a turning point in the history of Western polit-
ical thought. Crucially, Strauss argued that social contract theories,
which became dominant during this period, created enormous con-
ceptual and political problems. For Strauss, the legacy of social con-
tract theory was modern liberalism with its highly corrosive stress on
individualism and moral relativism (High forthcoming 2008-9).
Strauss’s antidote to the problems of liberalism was to focus on alter-
ative intellectual traditions, such as classical republicanism that
stressed civic duty rather than radical individualism. Strauss’s approach
to the problems of modern politics has been highly influential. In
general terms the desire to find alternative traditions of political
thought has led to the reawakening of interest in figures such as Adam
Smith and the tradition of classical economics. Strauss’s work on
Hobbes should be understood in this context. The Political Philosophy
of Hobbes: Its Basis and its Genesis (1963) and ‘On the Spirit of Hobbes’
Political Philosophy’ (1965) both attempt to situate Hobbes in the
tradition of classical republicanism and in so doing to break the link
between Hobbes and liberalism.
 Hobbes Today 115

Oakeshott’s understanding of Hobbes was altogether different.

Oakeshott looked to Hobbes as a model of how to write political
philosophy. Political philosophy, according to Oakeshott, belonged
to a higher realm than the murky world of day-to-day politics. As
Oakeshott put it early in his career,

every man, I suppose, has his political opinions. . . . But a political

philosopher has something more: he has an analysis of political
activity, a comprehensive view of the nature of political life, and it is
this, and not his political opinions, which it is profitable for a later
and different age to study. (Oakeshott 1935, 267)

Hobbes was such a thinker who was able to “mediate between poli-
tics and eternity” in a way that lesser figures, such as Jeremy Bentham,
could not (Ibid.). For Oakeshott Hobbes’s work had something of
universal value, and in this sense his ideas transcended the context in
which they were written and speak to all time.
Oakeshott argues that the context for Hobbes’s work is not his time
or ours, but the history of philosophy itself. Oakeshott provided two
outlines of the history of philosophy. In the first, which appears in his
‘Introduction’ to Hobbes’s Leviathan, he distinguished between three
historical phases (Tregenza 1997, 534). First, political philosophy
focused on reason and nature, Plato being the prime example of this
tradition. Then, in the work of Hobbes, it turned to will and artifice;
and finally with Hegel political philosophy focused on the rational
will. In later works Oakeshott introduced another metahistorical way
of categorizing political philosophers. Broadly, he distinguished
between individualists and anti-individualists. In terms of this distinc-
tion Oakeshott argued that Hobbes was the first philosopher to articu-
late a political and moral philosophy rooted in the individual and the
individual’s desires. “The Masses in Representative Democracy” claims
that the self-conscious individual had been a feature of European life
since the fourteenth century (Oakeshott 1961, 370). However, the
move toward individual self-determination had quite different conse-
quences in terms of individual psychology and political philosophy.
Some embraced autonomy and independence while others found
freedom burdensome. This second type of person, the “individual
manqué,” wished away their freedom and looked to the state to relieve
them of their independence (Ibid., 372). In philosophical terms two
116 Thomas Hobbes

schools of thought emerged. Hobbes pioneered the philosophy of the

individual, which deduced that state and civil society from the fact
that individuals are naturally free. Aquinas, Calvin, Rousseau,
and Marx, on the other hand, developed anti-individual philosophies
that liberated men from having to define their own ends (Riley 1992,
510). Oakeshott clearly embraced Hobbes’s radical epistemological
individualism. As early as 1935 Oakeshott argued that Hobbes’s
“solphism,” his stress on the fact that each individual is naturally cut
off from all others, was the bedrock of Hobbes’s epistemology and
politics.
Hobbes’s epistemology also led him to another conclusion that
Oakeshott endorsed. For Hobbes, humanity is without a common
purpose. From this Hobbes deduced that the state had no function
beyond guaranteeing security. Oakeshott built this insight into his
Rationalism in Politics, first published in 1962. Here Oakeshott set out
a critique of “rationalism” as an approach to politics. Rationalists,
he claims, discount tradition wisdom and practical knowledge in
favor of reason (Oakeshott 1991, 5–7). Consequently, rationalists
aim to redesign political institutions in the light of abstract truths
about human nature. Michael Rushton argues that Oakeshott’s
attack on rationalism was an attack on thinkers such as Plato who
wanted to redesign society in order to achieve an abstract idea
of justice; or Marx who aimed to remake society in pursuit of equality.
Rationalists, Oakeshott argued, seek to impose a single goal on society
and in so doing they ignore individual desires. On Oakeshott’s
reading then, Plato argues that justice trumps individual goals and
projects; and for Marx individual freedom must be subordinated to
the pursuit of equality. Conservatism is Oakeshott’s response to ratio-
nalism. Where the rationalist is quick to embrace abstraction the con-
servative thinks practically, where the rationalist is eager for change
the conservative is cautious; where the rationalist is prepared to
sanction unconstrained state action the conservative favors limited
government, and where the rationalist thinks in terms of the “public
good” the conservative supports individual freedom (Ibid., 431). Like
Hobbes, Oakeshott recognizes that humans have no transcendent
destiny, at least in this life. Rather, individual desires are paramount.
Consequently, “[i]n political activity . . . men sail a boundless and
bottomless sea; there is neither harbor for shelter nor floor for
anchorage, neither starting-place nor appointed destination. The
 Hobbes Today 117

enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel . . .’ (Ibid., 60) This posi-

tion is clearly reminiscent of Hobbes who believed there was no
summum bonum (or highest good) other than staying alive.
In spite of Oakeshott’s clear admiration for Hobbes there are
tensions between the two positions. Oakeshott stressed individual
freedom whereas Hobbes stressed individual security. Hobbes’s
philosophy clearly acknowledged that individuals must contract
away some of their freedom with the goal of self-preservation rather
than self-determination. Secondly, many writers have described
Hobbes much as Oakeshott described his philosophical enemies.
Hobbes’s faith in abstraction and his lack of willingness to engage
with the practical world of experience was a common theme among
Hobbes’s critics in the 1660s. Moreover these aspects of Hobbes are
all reminiscent of Oakeshott’s description of the rationalist.
Oakeshott’s methodology is also problematic. On the one hand he
deplores metanarratives which suggest that history has a direction,
but on the other he proposes his own grand narratives to explain the
development of political theory. His distinction between grubby poli-
tics and universal philosophy is also difficult to maintain. Hobbes’s
contemporaries certainly thought that Hobbes’s works were a
contribution to the politics of the time. What is more, Hobbes was
undoubtedly enmeshed with politics of a very dirty kind. It should be
remembered that in 1640 Hobbes stood for Parliament, that The
Elements of Law was so clearly pro-Royalist that he felt compelled to
flee from England to protect his life, and that Leviathan led some to
call for his execution as a heretic.
Oakeshott’s interpretation of Hobbes is clearly very different
from that set out by Strauss. Oakeshott, explicitly describes Hobbes as
social contract theorist. He also highlights the radical individualism
in Hobbes’s philosophy that Strauss abhors. Buchanan’s reading of
Hobbes is clearly closer to Oakeshott. Even so, he owes something to
Strauss as well. Buchanan, like Oakeshott, sees Hobbes as one of the
moderns, a social contract theorist, and an individualist. Indeed, in
his article “The Matrix of Contractarian Justice” (1984) he seems to
suggest that Hobbes and John Rawls are essentially engaged in the
same project. Buchanan’s starting point in both “The Matrix of
Contractarian Justice” and his far more extensive The Limits of Liberty:
Between Anarchy and Leviathan (1975) is the maxim that there are no
transcendent political or moral truths (Buchanan 1975, ix; Buchanan
118 Thomas Hobbes

and Lomasky 1984, 12). From this foundation, or perhaps absence

of a foundation, Buchanan sets out to try and impose political
order on social chaos by creating a contract that is acceptable to all
individuals irrespective of their desires. This is all recognizably
Hobbesian as is Buchanan’s description of the state of nature7
(Buchanan 1975, 24). However, while Buchanan owes much to
Hobbes he is also a critic. Notably, he considers liberty to be much
more important than Hobbes suggests. In this sense his understand-
ing of the difference between his project and that of Hobbes is much
sharper than Oakeshott was willing to admit. However, Buchanan’s
work also introduces some anachronisms into his reading of Hobbes.
For example, Buchanan’s suspicion of the leviathan state is bound up
with his antipathy towards twentieth-century Communism. “Social-
ism” he argues “is the throughway to Leviathan” (Ibid., 180). Clearly,
Buchanan is prepared to equate absolutism and Stalinism. Buchan-
an’s reasons for this equation are not set out in The Limits of Liberty.
Nonetheless, there is a clue to his reasoning in “The Matrix of Con-
tractarian Justice.” In this later work he points to a problem that he
believes to be at the heart of Hobbes’s account of the social contract.
In essence he argues that Leviathan contains two antithetical argu-
ments about equality under the sovereign. First, Leviathan seems to
justify a social contract that would allow the creation of a civil society
in which there would be a significant degree of inequality. Yet, Hobbes
complicates his position by a second argument: He demands that all
citizens acknowledge their natural equality. This suggests a link
between the absolutism of Leviathan and the socialist desire to use the
state to impose equality. Buchanan attempts clarify Hobbes’s position
by arguing that Hobbes’s egalitarianism is neither persuasive nor
essential to his general argument (Buchanan and Lomasky 1984, 16).
There is considerable common ground between Buchanan and
Oakeshott. Both accept that there are no foundational political truths;
both agree that humanity has no eternal destiny and therefore both
stress the need for civil society to interfere as little as possible with
individual desires and projects. Yet Buchanan’s The Limits of Liberty
never mention’s Oakeshott. This is not entirely surprising, as
Oakeshott’s themes have been taken up by a large number of liberal
and conservative writers such as Bernard Crick and Kenneth Minogue.
In this sense they have become commonplaces among conservative,
libertarians and even some liberals. Similarly, The Limits of Liberty
 Hobbes Today 119

contains no reference to Strauss. Buchanan’s debt to Strauss is more

subtle, but it should not be overlooked. Buchanan is one of many
contemporary conservatives who have returned to the work of Adam
Smith, David Ricardo, and the insights of classical economics. In a
sense this reflects Strauss’s project, for Strauss was keen to find alter-
native political traditions to modern liberalism. More generally, this
aspect of Strauss’s work, which is exemplified by his reading of Hobbes,
has clearly influenced recent conservatives who have sought to
distance the US Constitution from contemporary liberalism by recov-
ering the original ideological sources that contributed to its creation.8
Again, while Strauss was an important intellectual spur to recovering
forgotten intellectual traditions the interest in Smith and Ricardo has
taken on a life of its own.
Hobbes was significant to Strauss and Oakeshott for different rea-
sons. What is more, these two great modern conservatives had very
different projects and very different understandings of the problems
of the modern world. Nonetheless, Hobbes’s work, his philosophy,
and his place in the history of ideas were central to the renewal of
conservative thought that began early in the twentieth century. Evi-
dently, Hobbes still has an audience and still has an influence on
conservatism.

Liberal before Liberalism

The second-century Christian apologist Justin of Caesarea, finding

common ground between the philosophy of Plato and the teachings
of the Church, described Plato as a “Christian before Christ.” Today,
it seems appropriate to use a similar description for the relationship
between Hobbes and liberalism. Indeed, Hobbes who died before
the advent of liberalism seems to have had a profound affect on the
liberal tradition. Hobbes’s influence on liberalism is widely acknow-
ledged. For D. J. Manning Hobbes’s stress on individualism was highly
significant for later liberals (Manning 1976, 16); whereas, for Anthony
Arblaster it was Hobbes’s empiricism and his theory of freedom that
were important (Arblaster 1984, 137). Liberalism is, of course,
a complex and protean phenomenon that encompasses a number of
different philosophical positions. Nevertheless, Hobbes has become
a symbol for the skeptical, pessimistic, and conservative tendencies
120 Thomas Hobbes

within liberalism, in contrast to a variety of other thinkers who have

come to represent liberalism’s sunnier side.
This version of Hobbes can be found in the publications of various
think tanks and intergovernmental organizations as well as in the
deliberations of state legislatures. During a British parliamentary
debate Lord Holme of Cheltenham, for example, argued that Tony
Blair’s government was

torn between Locke and Hobbes’s on the issue of constitutional

reform. The voice of the government, he stated, was ‘the voice of
Locke, speaking noble words about reform, but the hands—and
they seem to be rather hairy hands—are the hands of Hobbes, sup-
porting sovereignty undiluted. (United Kingdom, House of Lords
2002, vol. 641, 665)

The contrast between Hobbes and Locke recurs in the publications

of groups sponsored by the European Commission. MICROCON,
A Micro Level Analysis of Violent Conflict, to take an example,
argue that

social contracts can be vertical if they are authoritarian in the sense

of Thomas Hobbes, or they may be horizontal if fashioned with
popular consent, as advocated by John Locke. The former may be
described as dictatorial, and the latter as democratic. (MICROCON
2007, 26)

Turning to human nature, again Hobbes is presented as the harbin-

ger of doom. For example, in a paper presented at the IMF’s Confer-
ence on Second Generation Reforms in 1999 Deepak Lal argued that
“human nature appears darker than Rousseau’s and brighter than
Hobbes’s characterizations” (Lal 1999, Section III). Similarly, the
Social Development Department, an office of the World Bank argue
that “[i]n stark contrast to Rousseau’s optimist view of human nature
stands the pessimist view of Hobbes” (Paldam and Svendsen 1999, 4).
Hobbes and Kant are contrasted in a working document prepared by
The Sustainable Project for Tomorrow’s Europe, a group formed on
the initiative of the President of the European Commission which
argues that following 9/11 “Europeans’ Kantian multilateralist vision”
has come up against “the Hobbesian reality of the international order”
 Hobbes Today 121

(Strauss-Kahn 2004, 16). This view of the European approach to inter-

national politics chimes with that of Robert Kagan who argues that
Europe “is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative
prosperity, the realisation of Immanuel Kant’s ‘perpetual peace.’
Meanwhile, the United States remains mired in history, exercising
power in an anarchic Hobbesian world . . .” (Kagan 2004, 3). In each
of these cases the reference to Hobbes is fleeting, his pessimism is
taken for granted and there is no attempt to develop a broader
account of Hobbes’s position within an intellectual tradition. None-
theless, there are accounts of liberalism that do just this, specifically in
the work of Francis Fukuyama and John Gray.
Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man (1992) contains a
clear account of Hobbes’s significance within the liberal tradition.
According to Fukuyama Hobbes’s philosophy “‘was the fountainhead
from which modern liberalism sprang” (Fukuyama 1992, 154). This is
no small accolade as The End of History presents a universal history of
mankind which culminates in the triumph of liberal democracy (Ibid.,
xi–xii). Hobbes’s claim to being the source of modern liberalism is
founded on two philosophical positions. First, Hobbes developed the
notion of individual rights; secondly, he argued that legitimate gov-
ernment must be based on consent (Ibid., xviii, 154). These ideas
found an institutional form in the British Constitution, just as the
ideas of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton
did in the Constitution of the United States (Ibid., 153). Fukuyama
admits that Hobbes was no democrat. Nonetheless, he asserts that the
“distance from Hobbes to the ‘sprit of 1776’ and to modern liberal
democracy is a very short one” (Ibid., 157). But Hobbes’s vision falls
short of Fukuyama’s liberal democratic ideal. Importantly, Hobbes’s
ideas overstate humanity’s fear of death and selfishness as well as
neglecting the human desire for recognition (Ibid., 144). Addition-
ally, Hobbes’s system contains no institutional checks on sovereign
power (Ibid., 157). For these reasons it was necessary for Locke to
“modify Hobbes’ doctrine” by introducing the notion of parliamen-
tary sovereignty (Ibid., 158). Finally, Hegel developed a form of liber-
alism, superior to the Anglo-Saxon model of Hobbes and Locke,
which finally gave liberal democracy a moral purpose (Ibid., 160, 199,
and 214). Hobbes is important for Fukuyama as he is part of a teleo-
logical story which begins with “primitive forms of rule” which are
dogged by “grave defects and irrationalities” and ends with liberal
122 Thomas Hobbes

democracy which is “arguably free from such fundamental internal

contradictions.” (Ibid, xi.)
The End of History’s account of Hobbes’s place within the liberal tra-
dition is not without its problems. Centrally, the notion that human
history has a direction and a single destination is highly questionable.
Moreover, human history cannot be read as a straight path from slav-
ery to freedom. The pursuit of liberty has ebbed and flowed, and con-
tinues to do so. Turning to Fukuyama’s specific claims about Hobbes’s
significance, his suggestion that Hobbes’s relationship to the British
constitution is analogous to Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton’s rela-
tionship to the American constitution is highly questionable. Madison
and Hamilton were the leading lights amongst the 55 delegates who
drafted the American Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention of
1787. That is to say, they were actually involved in writing the text of
the American Constitution. Jefferson, although absent from the
Philadelphia Convention, was the primary author of the Declaration of
Independence, the founding document of the United States of
America. Unlike America, the British Constitution is not based on a
single central text. Nonetheless, much of the British Constitution exists
in the form of statutes and European treaties. Hobbes was not the
author of any of the texts that make up the British Constitution, nor is
he the source of any of the unwritten constitutional conventions. Con-
sequently, the parallel between Hobbes, on the one hand, and Jefferson,
Madison, and Hamilton on the other is clearly erroneous.
Gray’s Black Mass (2007) presents a vision of human history that
differs significantly from The End of History. The book includes
a discussion of a variety of different forms of liberalism. On the one
hand, Gray argues that there is a contemporary form of utopian liber-
alism which aims at nothing less than a permanent transformation of
human life by creating universal democracy and removing the state as
far as possible from public life. This form of liberalism is part of the
same tradition as the French Jacobins, the Russian Communists, and
the German Nazis in the sense that it aims to create heaven on earth.
Moreover, it is reflected in George W. Bush’s historic mission to “rid
the world of evil” (quoted in Gray 2007, 34). On the other hand Gray
identifies a more skeptical form of liberalism that has its origins in the
work of Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza (Ibid., 186). Hobbes, accord-
ing to Gray, was suspicious of utopian projects and religious millenni-
alism of his day. Consequently, Hobbes was one of the first to recognize
 Hobbes Today 123

that fundamentalism, rather than the state, was the chief enemy of
human happiness.
In spite of Gray’s claims Hobbes’s work has its own utopian flavor.
Hobbes believed that any country that adopted his proposals would
live at peace with itself. Hobbes also believed that the laws of nature
were the laws of nations (Hobbes 1994c, 182). That is to say, the rela-
tionships between sovereigns should be characterized by the virtues
of trust, gratitude, and humility. In this sense Hobbes, not unlike
Fukuyama, holds out the possibility of a world in which every country
is governed according to one set of precepts and as a result peace
reigns. Moreover, Hobbes’s influence extends beyond conservatism
and liberalism and can even be found in the work of the most utopian
of thinkers. French utopians, socialists, and positivists Henri Saint-
Simon and Auguste Comte, for example, both looked to Hobbes for
inspiration. Saint-Simon developed a notably Hobbesian solution to
the problems created by the French Revolution. While Saint-Simon
argued that the French Revolution served an important historical
purpose he also believed that the period of revolutionary disorder
must be brought to an end (Baker 1989, 323). In place of democracy
Saint-Simon advocated an all powerful central authority which would
guarantee social order. Saint-Simon, who seems to have believed that
he was the reincarnation of Socrates, argued that he should lead the
new society along with a Council of Newton, a body made up of scien-
tists and industrialists. Society would be transformed: ethics and poli-
tics would be set on a scientific foundation; Christianity would be
replaced by a universal religion of Newton—or New Christianity; and
the government of people would be replaced by the administration of
things. Saint-Simon’s desire for a strong state as the answer to anarchy,
his belief that politics and ethics could be turned into sciences, his
vision of a new scientific version of Christianity, and his view that
science could lead to human progress can all be traced back to
Hobbes. Comte, Saint-Simon’s one-time collaborator, who espoused a
similar social vision, acknowledged that Hobbes was the only political
philosopher of importance since Aristotle (Gordon 1991, 293). Rather
than being the antidote to utopianism Hobbes’s thought contains
much that is optimistic and inspired Comte and Saint-Simon, two
writers who epitomize utopian optimism.
What is more, there are better examples of pessimism in the liberal
tradition. James Fitzjames Stephen’s Liberty, equality, fraternity (1873)
124 Thomas Hobbes

and Henry Maine’s Popular Government (1885) are excellent examples

of conservative liberalism that owe little to Hobbes. Stephen and
Maine are both pessimists in the sense that they are highly suspicious
of arguments that suggest that humans should be granted greater
freedom or more power in the form of an extended franchise. Clearly,
both thinkers were aware of Hobbes. Stephen refers to Hobbes once,
Maine mentions him on four occasions. What is more, Maine’s admi-
ration of Hobbes is based on a misunderstanding. For Maine, Hobbes’s
great insight was that “Freedom is ‘political power divided into small
fragments’ . . .” (Maine 1885, 70). This is not a phrase that occurs in
Hobbes’s works, although following Maine it is sometimes attributed
to him. In general terms the work of these conservative liberals is not
Hobbesian in character. Maine, for example, is impressed by the sepa-
ration of powers enshrined in the American Constitution. Needless to
say Hobbes believed that restricting or dividing sovereignty was highly
dangerous. Both thinkers are very concerned with the power that
enfranchisement would give to working people. This was not one of
Hobbes’s concerns. Therefore it is little surprise that neither of these
writers devoted much time to Hobbes.
Many contemporary writers take Hobbes’s pessimism for granted.
However, this is an artifact of thinking about the history of political
thought in terms of a canon of great thinkers. Once the history of
philosophy is pared down to Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and
Hegel, it is possible to construct a teleological story that starts with the
pessimism of Hobbes and ends with the optimism of Kant and Hegel.
However, if our understanding of political thought is extended beyond
these narrow and unhelpful boundaries it becomes apparent that
Hobbes’s influence is not confined to liberalism; that he was read
approvingly by utopians; that liberal optimism has ebbed and flowed
and that liberal thinkers who are suspicious of personal freedom and
democracy have found inspiration outside of the pages of Leviathan.

Conclusion

In many ways the Hobbes of the early twenty-first century is a pale

reflection of the original. Hobbes believed that he could explain the
science of bodies in motion, the nature of man and the citizen’s rela-
tionship to the state. Yet, in a great deal of contemporary discussion
 Hobbes Today 125

Hobbes has been reduced to few “sound bites” shorn of their original
philosophical significance. In the early part of the twentieth century
the apparent success of Nazism and Stalinism turned attention to
Hobbes’s image of the state as leviathan. Humanity seemed to be fac-
ing the prospect of becoming a drone species living a wholly regi-
mented existence under the perpetual gaze of a monster state—the
modern leviathan.9 More recently, Hobbes’s metaphor of the state of
nature has been invoked in discussion of the equal but opposite
threat, the fear that civilized people will revert to barbarism; that
neighbors will become enemies engulfed in a war of all against all.
Treating Hobbes’s though in this way does it a significant in justice; it
is like reducing the achievements of NASA’s Apollo program to the
words “The Eagle has landed.” To some extent Hobbes has been a vic-
tim of his own success. His canonical status has led to the simplifica-
tion of his message and the use of his name to add philosophical
weight to the work of journalists and policy makers. Hobbes claimed
that he was misrepresented and misunderstood in his own time—the
same is true today but in different ways.
Fortunately, this is not the whole story of Hobbes’s recent history.
Hobbes continues to inspire innovative political thinkers. Indeed, it is
interesting to note a continuity between Oakeshott and Gray. Both
regard Hobbes as the forefather of a skeptical and individualistic
approach to politics. Importantly, both thinkers use Hobbes against
an alternative tradition: the tradition that supposes that history is a
grand narrative, that humanity has a common destiny and that the
heaven can be created on Earth. Sadly, both thinkers situate Hobbes
in new grand narratives and in so doing lose sight of his subtleties.
Strauss uses Hobbes in the opposite way; he looks to Hobbes to sub-
vert current orthodoxies. In the final analysis neither approach will
do. In order to understand Hobbes we must let him speak for himself,
rather than enlisting him as an ally in the political battles of today or
trying to squeeze him into a grand story of the history of political
thought. Finally, although Hobbes has much that is of interest to say,
we must be prepared to think for ourselves. Leviathan is not a blue-
print for the politics of the twenty-first century.
This page intentionally left blank
 Notes

Chapter 1: Hobbes’s Life

1
During this book I make reference to a number of different intellectual
traditions with which Hobbes engaged, these include scholasticism, human-
ism, and the new sciences. All three traditions overlap, and a clear
distinction between them is impossible. Nonetheless, in general terms
scholasticism refers to the learning that predominated of the schools and
universities. Scholastic philosophy was self-consciously rooted in the works
of Aristotle as interpreted by Thomas Aquinas. Scholastic thinkers were
often described by their detractors as being preoccupied with artificial and
useless technical terms, lost in works of ancient authorities and therefore
divorce from the real world. Humanists were also devoted to classical litera-
ture; however, they were more interested in the histories, rhetoric and
poetry of the ancient world due to their interest in public life. Conse-
quently, humanists focused either on the virtues of the active citizen or the
policies of the wise prince. The new philosophies were many and various.
Nonetheless, in general terms thinkers such as Bacon, Galileo, Descartes,
Gassendi, and Mersenne all claimed to privilege nature over ancient
authorities. In this sense they were all attempting to forge a science that
was independent of and superior to that of Aristotle. Generally speaking,
philosophers who are associated with this endeavor attempted to describe
the world in mechanical and mathematical terms. Needless to say there was
less novelty in the new sciences than the name suggests and more innova-
tion within scholasticism than the caricature admits.
2
Skinner discusses the evidence for and the importance of Hobbes’s study
of the scientis civils in Skinner (2002, III 38–65).
3
Skinner discusses the evidence for and the importance of Hobbes’s study
of the scientis civils in Skinner (2002, III 38–65).

Chapter 2: Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

1
There are at least two figures in this picture that appear to be rising out of
the earth. One appears to be emerging from behind a rock and is between
128 Notes

the two angels on the left-hand side of the image. The other appears as a
skeletal figure immediately to his left. The fact that people are rising from
the grave is even more evident on the frontispiece of the 1647 Bonne
edition of De cive which features one skeleton appearing from a hole in
the ground in the center of the top section of the image (Hobbes 1984b,
Plate III – marked Title-page L2a). Quentin Skinner has recently estab-
lished the sources for the figure of Liberty in the frontispiece of De cive
(Skinner 2008, 102–3).
2
Leviathan’s frontispiece was created by the Parisian engraver Abraham
Bosse. It appears he collaborated with Hobbes on the design. For a
discussion of the visual strategies in Hobbes’s work see Bredekamp
(2007).
3
There are many well-known theorists of politics who predate Hobbes. Plato
and Aristotle are the best known of the ancient Greeks. Aristotle particu-
larly had a powerful influence on Hobbes’s contemporaries. Thomas
Aquinas is perhaps the best known medieval philosopher. Aquinas’s proj-
ect was to unite the truths of Christian revelation with the rational truths
that had been discovered by the ancients, particularly Aristotle. Aquinas’s
encyclopedic Summa Theologica, composed between 1265 and 1274, did just
this. Moreover, it set out distinctive and influential concepts of morals and
politics. Niccolò Machiavelli is best known as the author of The Prince
(1532) an advice book on how to maintain power and ensure the stability
of the state. Francisco Suárez is usually considered to be a follower of Aqui-
nas. Indeed, Suárez and Aquinas are probably the two best-known examples
of the scholastics or school-men as they were known. Suárez wrote exten-
sively on the law of nature and the rights of kings before God. Finally, Hugo
Grotius De jure belli ac pacis (1625) sets out an account of moral and political
obligation that has often been compared to that of Hobbes. Crucially, both
have a minimalist understanding of natural law and are critical of scholas-
tic accounts that assume that natural law can be known from principles
other than self-preservation.
4
“Namque ab eo multi didicerunt publica primo / Censuris, cives, subdere
jura suis,” (Hobbes 1839–1845d, V, 359).
5
Hobbes lists a number of eminent thinkers associated with the new sci-
ences. Mersenne, Galileo, and Gassendi have already been discussed above.
Nicolaus Copernicus is chiefly remembered for his book De revolutionibus
orbium coelestium (1543) which proposed that the Earth orbited the Sun.
Galileo and Johannes Kepler both built on Copernicus’s work by providing
mathematical and empirical data to support Copernicus’s general theory.
Kepler is best known for his work as an astronomer and his observations of
Saturn and Jupiter which helped to establish the fact that the Earth moved
relative to the Sun.
6
“. . . nil in tota philosophia facilius, nil ad demonstrationem accommoda-
tius, et hominum ingenio congruentius esse fatebitur” (Hobbes 1839–1845l,
V, 221).
7
“ . . . neotericorum philosophorum ingenia torsit . . .” (Ibid., 221).
 Notes 129

8
The French jurist and civil philosopher Jean Bodin is perhaps known for
the account of sovereignty that he developed in Les Six livres de la République
(1576). Importantly, unlike Hobbes, he believed that the sovereign ought
to be constrained by law.
9
See: Hobbes (1994c, 41). De cive argued that “. . . Philosophy opens the way
from observations of individual things to universal precepts” (Hobbes 1999, 4).
Similarly, Antiwhite contained this definition: “Now, philosophy is the
science of general theorems, or of all the universals (the truth of which can
be demonstrated by natural reason) to do with material of any kind”
(Hobbes 1976, 23). Similarly, although the Tractatus opticus, which was
included in Mersenne’s Universae geometriae mixtaeque mathematicae synopsis,
et bini refractionum demonstratarum tractatus, contains no general statement
about philosophical method, its form is clearly deductive.
10
“Si processus fiat ab imaginatione causae ad imaginationem effectus versus
finem, qui semper est effectus ultimus, dicitur συνθεσις seu compositio: si ab
effectu et ita deinceps versus priora, αναλυσις seu resolutio. Est autem
utraque reminiscentia” (Hobbes 1839–1845g, V, 312).
11
“Illius exemplum in homine, dum aedificationem imaginatur incipiens a
materia ad formam domus introducendam: tunc enim imaginatio procedit
a materia ad comportationem, inde ad fundamentum, muros, tectum etc.:
quibus similis est avidum nidificatio.” (Ibid., 312–3).
12
“Philosophia est corporum proprietatum ex conceptis eorum generationi-
bus, et rursus generationum, quae esse possunt, ex cognitis proprietatibus,
per rectam ratiocinationem acquisita cognitio” (Hobbes 1973c, 463).
13
Although De cive was the only section of The elements of philosophy that did
not define philosophy in terms of the analytic and synthetic method, the
1647 edition of De cive described Hobbes’s method in terms of analysis or
resolution (Hobbes 1999, 10).
14
I do not follow F. T Hood in taking the Latin Leviathan to be Hobbes’s
definitive statement on theology. (Hood 1964, viii, 54–7.) The Latin
Leviathan was published at a time when new editions of the English original
were prohibited in England on religious grounds. For this reason it has
been argued that the circumstances of the publication lead Hobbes to
moderate the tone of the religious sections of the Latin edition.
15
See for example: Grotius (1925, 38; Suarez 1944, II 184; Aquinas 1964-80,
1 a 2 q 90 a 1; Hooker 1989, 82.
16
Notably, De cive describes this as the second law of nature, whereas Levia-
than describes it as the third.
17
Hobbes had considered the question of how collective entity could be said
to perform actions The Elements of Law and De cive. These writings do not,
however, address the question systematically. (Skinner 2002, III 179–80).
18
The second class is discussed in De homine. See Hobbes (1972, 83). Skinner
discusses this second class of purely artificial person in some detail.
See Skinner (2002, III 193)
19
For Skinner’s discussion of the merits of the two descriptions see Skinner
(2008, ix).
130 Notes

20
This is evident from Hobbes’s comments on the city of Lucca. Tradition-
ally, Lucca was considered to be a free state and its citizens had the status
of free-men. It was a commonplace to contrast the freedom of citizens of
Lucca to the slavery of subjects of living under Turkish monarchs (Skinner
2008, 162). Hobbes is clearly aware of this tradition, but undermines it in
Leviathan in the following passage: “There is written on the turrets of the
city of Lucca in great characters at this day the word LIBERTAS; yet no man
can thence infer that a particular man has more liberty . . . there than in
Constantinople” (Hobbes 1994a, 140).
21
To the modern reader it may seem paradoxical that acting freely is consis-
tent with obedience to the law. However, the view that freedom and law are
compatible was not uncommon in the context in which Hobbes wrote. For
example, Scholastic thinkers, following Aquinas, believed that human
actions were only free when they were rational. That is to say actions that
were triggered by the passions were not free. Moreover, as laws were the
product of reason it was possible to be free and obey the laws as in obeying
the law we were acting rationally.
22
There has been a great deal written on Hobbes’s apparent defense of free-
dom of conscience and toleration. See, for example Ryan 1983 (197–218;
Ryan 1988, 37–59; Tuck 1990, 153–171; and Curley 2007, 309–336).
23
For discussion of the metaphor of the body politic see Hale (1971), Barkan
(1975) and O’Neill (1985).

Chapter 3: Reception and Interpretation

1
The case of Daniel Scargill is discussed in greater detail in Parkin (1999),
Linnel (1953), and Axtell (1965).
2
George Wright argues that Hobbes may well have harbored heterodox
beliefs at the time of his earlier publications but chose to conceal them for
fear of persecution (Wright 2006, 309).
3
For an overview of the debate between Martinich and Curely see Wright
(2006).
4
See for example, Kavka (1987) and Gauthier (1988).

Chapter 4: Hobbes Today

1
The notion of human culture as an eco-system or as a series of eco-systems
can be found in the work of Mark S. Miller and K. Eric Drexler and has
been popularized by Brian Eno, Visiting Professor at the Royal College of
Art. See Miller and Drexler (1988) Chapter 6. I use the notion more as an
analogy than as a description of the functioning of culture.
2
Hobbes is often cited as an intellectual source of the doctrine of “realism”
in terms of international relations. Hobbes’s impact on the study of
 Notes 131

international relations is clearly of relevance to the topic of Hobbes

today. However, as the subject has been dealt with excellently by Noel
Malcolm I have chosen not to discuss it in this chapter. See Malcolm (2002)
432–456.
3
In terms of publications by think tanks that refer to Hobbes CIVITAS has
recently published: Green, D. D., Grove, E. and Martin, N. A. (2005) Crime
and Civil Society: Can we become a more law-abiding people? London. The Insti-
tute for the Study of Civil Society also mention Hobbes in Clark, J., Dennis,
N., Hein, J. and Pryke, R. (2000) Welfare, Work and Poverty. D. Smith (ed.)
London. Other reference’s to Hobbes include Smith, D. B. (2006) Living
with Leviathan, Public Spending, Taxes and Economic Performance. London;
India’s Centre for Civil Society publish Das, K. (2004) The Seven Sins of
Highly Ineffective Government. (www.ccsindia.org/policy/philo/articles/
kdas_striketheroot_article.pdf); and The Manhattan Institute’s City
Journal have published: Kekes, J. (2001) Dangerous Egalitarian Dreams.
City Journal. Autumn Edition. I discuss examples of the use of Hobbes in
publications by the UN, the World Bank, and the IMF later in the chapter
along with examples of references to Hobbes and his imagery from mem-
bers of American and British national legislatures.
4
This idea has also been taken up by David Robertson who argues that
Hobbes’ concept of the leviathan state is more subtle than Orbell and
Rutherford imagine. For this reason he is critical of their assertion that
modern dictatorships qualify as “high Leviathan” (Rutherford 1973, 402).
5
Ian Kershaw discusses the literature concerning the structure of Nazi
government in: Kershaw (1993, 59–80.
6
For an excellent discussion of the intellectual tributaries that lead to
Nazism, Fascism, and Marxism-Leninism see Gregor (1968).
Carl Schmitt is one exception to the general rule that the Nazi elite were
not interested in Hobbes. Schmidt, who under the patronage of Hermann
Göring, became President of the Union of National-Socialist Jurists, was
called upon by the Nazi regime to give legal opinions justifying acts such as
the Nazi “blood purge” the “Night of the long knives.” He also attempted
to provide a theoretical foundation of the Nazi legal system in terms of
Hitler’s will. Schmidt is also a noted interpreter of Hobbes. Schmidt’s
The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes:Meaning and Failure of
a Political Symbol (1938) provides a defence of a strong state. However,
Schmidt’s Nazi credentials are disputed. Certainly, he joined the Nazi Party
in 1933 and in the first years of Nazi rule was a high-profile supporter of the
regime and advocate of anti-Semitism. Nonetheless, following 1936
Schmitt’s role in the regime was highly marginal. Members of Heinrich
Himmler’s SS were highly suspicious of Schmitt and accused him of oppor-
tunism rather than genuine commitment to the Nazi cause. Following
these attacks Schmidt resigned as President of the Union of National-
Socialist Jurists. George Schwab, translator of The Leviathan in the State
Theory of Thomas Hobbes takes the view that Schmidt was essentially a conser-
vative who collaborated with the regime and hoped for the resurrection of
132 Notes

a strong state following the failure of the Weimar Republic. Moreover he

claims that The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes was a veiled
critique of Nazism and a return to Schmidt’s intellectual position of the
late 1920s (Schwab 1996, xi). From a historical point of view there are good
reasons for seeing Schmidt as a conservative rather than a Nazi. Between
1933 and the mid 1930s the Nazis worked closely with many conservative
politicians, including Paul von Hindenburg, Franz von Papen, and
Hjalmar Schacht. As the Nazis consolidated their position these figures
were discarded, sometimes violently, and replaced with radical Nazis—the
last being Schacht, who finally left Nazi government in 1939. Schmidt fits
this pattern. Consequently, it would be wrong to suggest that Schmidt pro-
vides conclusive proof that Hobbes was an intellectual influence on
Nazism.
7
Buchanan’s understanding of the emergence of property is at odds with
the description given in Leviathan. For Hobbes, property is only possible
under a civil sovereign. Buchanan, on the other hand, argues that property
emerges in the state of nature and that the emergence of property is an
essential precondition of the social contract. In spite of this Buchanan,
attributes this position to Jean Bodin, Hugo Grotius and Hobbes (Buchanan
1975, 25, 183). Nonetheless, Locke would seem to be a closer match to
Buchanan’s understanding of the emergence of property.
8
For Straussian readings the American Constitution, see Bloom (1987),
Pangle (2006), and Zuckert and Zuckert (2006). I owe sincere thanks to
Brandon High for pointing me in the direction of this material.
9
For an extremely interesting discussion of the modern concern about
human regimentation see Sleigh (2003).
 Suggested Further Reading

Many of the articles discussed in this book can be found in a collection

by John Dunn and Ian Harris. Indeed, Dunn and Harris’s Great Political
Thinkers 8: Hobbes (1997) is an excellent place to start for some of the most
important recent essays on Hobbes’ life and thought. The internet archive
Early English books online is a superb source for facsimiles of the original
editions of Hobbes’ works as well as the works of his contemporary critics.
Dunn, J. and Harris, I. (eds.) (1997) Great Political Thinkers 8: Hobbes, 3 vols.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home

Hobbes’s Life
There are a number of extremely useful treatments of Hobbes’ life. The
classic contemporary biography is John Aubrey’s brief life of Hobbes. Hobbes
also wrote autobiographies in prose and verse. The Latin texts are available
in the first volume of William Molesworth’s Opera philosophica (1839–1845).
J. E. Parsons Jr. and Whitney Blair have made a translation of the verse autobi-
ography and the Oxford World Classics version of Hobbes’ Human Nature and
De Corpore Political (1994) contains a modern translation of Hobbes’ prose
autobiography.
Of recent account of Hobbes’ life the best short biographies are those by
Noel Malcolm, Quentin Skinner and Richard Tuck. The most extended mod-
ern biography is A. P. Martinich’s Hobbes: A Biography (1999). Martinich’s work
is also the first biography of Hobbes to make use of Noel Malcolm’s edition of
Hobbes’ correspondence. Indeed, The Correspondence (1994) is an excellent
source of biographical information in its own right.
Aubrey, J. (1898). “Brief Lives”, Chiefly of Contemporaries, Set Down by John
Aubrey, Between the Years 1669 & 1696,. Andrew Clark (ed.)., 2 vols,
Oxford: Clarendon.
Hobbes, T. (1839–45) T. Hobbes malmesburiensis vita, in W. Molesworth
(ed.) Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae latine scripsit
omni, 5 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. I, xii–xxi.
134 Suggested Further Reading

— (1839–45) Thomas Hobbes malmesburiensis vita carmine expressa, in W.

Molesworth (ed.) Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae
latine scripsit omnia, 5 vols. London: J. Bohn, vol. I, lxxxi–xcix.
— (1981) The Life of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. J. E. Parsons Jr. and W.
Blair (trs.) Interpretation. 10. 1–7.
Malcolm, N. (2002) A Summary Biography of Hobbes, in N. Malcolm, Aspects
of Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon, 1–27
Martinich, A. P. (1999) Hobbes: A Biography. Cambridge: CUP.
Skinner, Q. (2002) Introduction: Hobbes’s Life in Philosophy, in Q. Skinner,
Visions of politics. 3 vols., Cambridge: CUP, vol. III, 1–38.
Tuck, R. (1989) Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon.

Hobbes’s Works
Oxford University Press’ edition of Hobbes’ works is still incomplete. Thus
far, only De cive (1984), a volume of Writings on Common Law and Hereditary
Right (2005) and The Correspondence (1994) have been published. Notably,
there has been a shift in the consensus regarding the English version of De cive
since the publication of the Oxford edition. It is now believed that the text
that forms the basis of the Oxford edition was translated and printed without
Hobbes’ involvement. This has cast doubt on the accuracy of the translation.
In the absence of a complete modern edition of Hobbes’ works William
Molesworth’s editions of the English and Latin Works are still the most com-
plete collections of Hobbes’ writings that are currently available. They do not,
however, contain the many works that have been discovered since their
publication.
There are many modern editions of Hobbes’ most popular works. Edwin
Curley’s edition of Leviathan (1994) is extremely useful due to the fact that it
contains excerpts from the Latin Leviathan which are missing from other
modern editions of the work, as well as an index of Hobbes’ biblical refer-
ences. George Wright is the first scholar to have provided a facing page
translation of the Appendixes to the Latin Leviathan. This is available, along
with an excellent commentary as part of Wright’s Religion, Politics and Thomas
Hobbes (2006).
Cambridge University Press has published a much-needed modern transla-
tion of Hobbes’ De cive, edited by Richard Tuck and translated by Michael
Silverthorne. The most easily available edition of The Elements of Law appears
as part of the Oxford World Classics series. It is edited by J. C. A. Gaskin under
the title Human nature and De Corpore Politico (1994) and it contains excerpts
from the English De corpore and Aurbrey’s Brief Lives. Ferdinand Tönnies’ edi-
tion of Behemoth; or, The Long Parliament (1898) has recently been republished
in an edition by S. T. Holmes is widely available and has become the standard
student edition. There is still no complete English edition of De homine but a
translation of the second section edited by Charles T. Wood, T. S. K.
 Suggested Further Reading 135

Scott-Craig, and Bernard Gert is available under the title Man and Citizen
(1972).
For students of Hobbes’ natural philosophy Hobbes’ manuscript discussion
of Thomas White’s De mundo is available in an English translation by H. W.
Jones. A modern translation of Hobbes’ Dialogus physicus de natura aeris is also
available as an appendix to Stephen Shapin and Simon Schaffer’s Leviathan
and the Air-Pump (1985). Schaffer’s ‘Wallifaction: Thomas Hobbes on School
Divinity and Experimental Pneumatics’ (1988) is another extremely useful
article concerning Hobbes’ relationship with the Royal Society, not least due
to the fact it contains a transcription of a little studied but extremely impor-
tant manuscript in which Hobbes set out a series of ‘Maximes Necessary for
Those, yt From ye Sight of an Effect, Shall Endeavor to Assine its Natural
Cause’ and a related manuscript ‘Concerning the Compression of ye Aire.’
Finally, Peter Beal’s Index of English Literary Manuscripts: 1625-1700 (1987)
contains an extensive list of Hobbes’ manuscripts, many of which remain
unpublished.
Beal, P. (1987) Index of English Literary Manuscripts: 1625-1700. London:
Clarendon.
Hobbes, T. (1839–1845) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes. W. Moles-
worth (ed.) 11 vols. London: J. Bohn.
— (1839–1845) Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae
latine scripsit omni. W. Molesworth (ed.) 5 vols. London: J. Bohn.
— (1972) Man and citizen: De homine and De cive. C. T. Wood, B. Gert,
and T. S. K. Scott-Craig (eds.) C. T. Wood and T. S. K. Scott-Craig (trs.)
New York: Anchor Books.
— (1976) Thomas White’s “De mundo” examined. H. W. Jones (tr.) London:
Bradford University Press.
— (1984) De cive: The English Version. H. Warrender (ed.), Oxford:
Clarendon.
— (1985) Dialogus physicus de natura aeris S. Schaffer (tr.) in S. Shapin and
S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experi-
mental Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 345–91.
— (1988) Maximes Necessary for Those, yt from ye Sight of an Effect, Shall
Endeavor to Assine its Natural Cause and Concerning the Compression of
ye Aire, in S. Schaffer, Wallifaction: Thomas Hobbes on School Divinity
and Experimental Pneumatics. Studies in History and Philosophy of
Science. 19, 275–98.
— (1990) Behemoth or, The Long Parliament. S. T. Holmes (ed.), Chicago:
University of Chicago Press
— (1994) The Correspondence. N. Malcolm (ed.) 2 volumes. Oxford:
Clarendon.
— (1994) Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668.
E. M. Curley (ed.), Cambridge: CUP.
— (1994) Human Nature and De Corpore Politico. J. C. A. Gaskin (ed.),
Oxford: Clarendon.
136 Suggested Further Reading

— (1999) On the Citizen. R. Tuck (ed.) M. Silverthorne (tr.), Cambridge:

CUP.
— (2005) Writings on Common Law and Hereditary Right. A. Cromartie and
Q. Skinner (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon.
— (2006) Appendix to Leviathan. G. Wright (ed. and tr.), Religion, Politics
and Thomas Hobbes. Dordrecht: Springer.

Natural Philosophy, Mathematics, and Language

Frithiof Brandt’s Thomas Hobbes’ Mechanical Conception of Nature (1928) is still
the most complete account of the development of Hobbes’ natural philoso-
phy, although recent scholarship has improved on some aspects of Brandt’s
interpretation. Shapin and Schaffer’s discussion of Hobbes’ battles with the
Royal Society over pneumatics presents an engaging and groundbreaking
study of the social context of Hobbes’ natural philosophical polemics. My
own article on ‘Hobbes’ forgotten natural histories’ charts the development
of Hobbes’ attitude to natural histories, and challenges the common percep-
tion that Hobbes dismissed all natural historical information; while my article
on Hobbes’ relationship with Frances Bacon considers Hobbes’ attitude to
contemporary natural scientists such as René Descartes, William Harvey,
Galileo Galilei and Francis Bacon as well as discussing Hobbes’ account of the
circulation of the blood.
Hobbes’ optics remains an obscure subject, given the absence of an English
translation of Hobbes’ Latin writings on optics; a published edition of the
English Optical Manuscript and the ongoing debate over the The Short Tract.
Nonetheless, A.E. Shapiro’s ‘Kinematic Optics’ (1973) is an excellent intro-
duction to the subject. Richard Tuck’s ‘Optics and Sceptics’ (1988) also
provides a detailed account of the context of Hobbes’ optical speculations.
Douglas M. Jesseph’s Squaring the Circle (1999) is a superb treatment of
Hobbes’ public mathematical failures and his dispute with the mathematician
John Wallis. Jamie C. Kassler’s Inner Music, Hobbes, Hooke and North on Internal
Character (1995) discusses musical metaphors for matter in Hobbes’ work.
Finally, Hannah Dawson’s recent work on John Locke’s theory of language
examines the classical and early modern context within which Locke’s thought
is situated. Dawson’s work contains a clear statement of Hobbes’ understand-
ing of language as well as providing a wealth of invaluable information on the
contemporary intellectual context.
Brandt, F. (1928) Thomas Hobbes’ Mechanical Conception of Nature. Copenhagen,
Levin and Munksgaard.
Bunce, R. E. R. (2003) Thomas Hobbes’ Relationship with Frances Bacon –
an Introduction. Hobbes Studies. 16. 41–83.
— (2006) Hobbes’ Forgotten Natural Histories. Hobbes Studies. 19. 77–104.
Dawson, H. (2007) Locke, Language and Early-Modern Philosophy. Cambridge:
CUP.
 Suggested Further Reading 137

Jesseph, D. M. (1999) Squaring the Circle: The War between Hobbes and Wallis.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kassler. J. C. (1995) Inner Music: Hobbes, Hooke and North on Internal Character.
London: Athlone.
Shapin, S. and Schaffer, S. (1985) Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle,
and the Experimental Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Shapiro, A. E. (1973) Kinematic Optics: A Study of the Wave Theory of Light
in the Seventeenth Century. Archives of the History of Exact Sciences. 11.
134–266.
Tuck, R. (1988) Optics and Sceptics: The Philosophical Foundations of
Hobbes’ Political Thought, in E. Leites (ed.) Conscience and Casuistry in
Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: CUP.

Theology
The subject of Hobbes’ religious convictions continues to preoccupy Hobbes
scholars. Wright’s Religion, Politics and Thomas Hobbes (2006) present a cogent
and persuasive argument that Hobbes’ religious views are less heterodox than
is often assumed. Indeed, Wright claims that Hobbes’ theology should be
understood within the context of Protestantism. Martinch’s controversial Two
God’s of ‘Leviathan’ (1992) also asserts Hobbes’ commitment to Christianity,
but locates Hobbes within a broader theological tradition. Curley’s article
‘“I Durst Not Write so Boldly”: how to read Hobbes’s theological-political
treatise’ (1992), puts the alternative point of view. Noel Malcolm has discussed
Hobbes’ understanding of the Bible and biblical history in “Leviathan, the
Pentateuch, and the origins of modern Biblical criticism” (2004). Patricia
Springborg has written a series of articles on aspects of Hobbes’ theology
such as heresy, epicurean religion and civil religion. Paul Johnson’s discussion
of Hobbes’ view of salvation links his position to early modern Anglicanism.
Nicholas D. Jackson presents a detailed analysis of Hobbes’ ongoing dispute
with Brahmall in Hobbes, Bramhall and the Politics of Liberty and Necessity (2007).
Finally, students who are interested in Hobbes’ view of the world’s end
should read J. G. A. Pocock’s ‘Time, history and eschatology in the thought of
Thomas Hobbes’ (1972) and Paolo Pasqualucci’s “Hobbes and the myth of
‘final war’” (1990).

Curley, E. (1988) “I Durst Not Write so Boldly”: how to Read Hobbes’s

Theological-Political Treatise, in E. Giancotti, (ed.) Proceedings of the Confer-
ence on Hobbes and Spinoza. Urbino.
Jackson, N. D. (2007) Hobbes, Bramhall and the Politics of Liberty and Necessity :
A Quarrel of the Civil Wars and Interregnum. Cambridge: CUP.
Johnson, P. (1974) Hobbes’s Anglican Doctrine of Salvation, in R. Ross, H. W.
Schneider, and T. Waldman (eds.) Thomas Hobbes in His Time. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 102–25.
138 Suggested Further Reading

Malcolm, N. (2004) Leviathan, the Pentateuch, and the Origins of Modern

Biblical Criticism, in T. Sorell and L. Foisneau (eds.) Leviathan after 350
Years. Oxford: Clarendon, 241–64.
Martinch, A. P. (1992) The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and
Politics. Cambridge: CUP.
Pasqualucci, P. (1990) Hobbes and the Myth of “Final War.” Journal of the
History of Ideas. 51. 647–57.
Pocock, J. G. A. (1989) Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought
and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Springborg, P. (1975) Leviathan and the Problem of Ecclesiastical Authority.
Political Theory. 3. 289–303.
— (1976) Leviathan, the Christian Commonwealth Incorporated. Political
Studies. 24. 171–83.
— (1995a) Hobbes’ Biblical Beasts: Leviathan and Behemoth. Political Theory.
23. 353–75.
— (1995b) Hobbes, Heresy and the Historia ecclesiastica. Journal of the History of
Ideas. 55. 353–71
— (1996) Hobbes on Religion. in T. Sorell (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to
Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP, 346–80.
Wright, G. (2006) Religion, Politics and Thomas Hobbes. Dordrecht:
Springer.

Ethics and Political Thought

The third volume of Quentin Skinner’s Visions of Politics (2002) con-
tains a series of essays on Hobbes’ political thought. Skinner’s Reason
and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (1996) offers an explanation of
the changing nature and concerns of Hobbes’ political thought and
situates this in the context of early modern debates over science and
rhetoric. Skinner’s most recent book Hobbes and Republican Liberty
(2008) extends his consideration of Hobbes’ concept of liberty and
competing traditions of thought on individual freedom in the early
modern period. Tuck’s Philosophy and Government 1572-1651 locates
Hobbes’ political thought in terms of the changing traditions of
humanism and finally the early modern skeptical crisis. The relation-
ship between Hobbes’ conception of natural law and Scholastic politi-
cal thought is discussed in Annabel Brett’s excellent Liberty, Right and
Nature (1996). The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes (1996) contains
excellent summary discussions of Hobbes’ ethics and his political
thought by Tuck and Alan Ryan respectively. Hobbes’ theory of the
passions and early modern theories of the passions more generally are
considered in Susan James’ Passion and Action, the Emotions in Seventeenth-
 Suggested Further Reading 139

Century Philosophy (1997). Finally, students concerned with Hobbes’

theory of international relations would do well to read Malcolm’s
‘Hobbes’s theory of international relations’ in his admirable Aspects
of Hobbes (2002). Other important accounts of Hobbes’ political
thought include, F. S. McNeilly’s The Anatomy of Leviathan (1968) and
J. P. Sommerville’s Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context
(1992).
Brett, A. S. (1997) Liberty, Right and Nature: Individual Rights in Later Scholastic
Thought. Cambridge: CUP.
James, S. (1997) Passion and Action: The Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philoso-
phy. Oxford: Clarendon.
McNeilly, F. S. (1968) The Anatomy of Leviathan. London: Macmillan.
Malcolm, N. (2002) Aspects of Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon.
Ryan, A. (1996) Hobbes’ Political Philosophy, in T. Sorell (ed.) The Cambridge
Companion to Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP, 208–45.
Skinner, Q. (1996) Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes. Cambridge:
CUP.
— (2002) Visions of politics: Volume 3: Hobbes and Civil Science. Cambridge:
CUP.
— (2008) Hobbes and Republican Liberty. Cambridge: CUP.
Sommerville, J. P. (1992) Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context.
Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Tuck, R. (1993) Philosophy and Government, 1572-1651. Cambridge: CUP.
— (1996) Hobbes’ Moral Philosophy, in T. Sorell (ed.) The Cambridge
Companion to Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP, 175–207.

Reception
There is a great deal of interesting work available on the reception of Hobbes’
though. The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’ Leviathan (2007) contains four
essays on this topic by G. A. J. Rogers, Jon Parkin, Perez Zagorin, and Jeffrey
R. Collins. Mark Goldie’s essay on Hobbes’ reception in The Cambridge History
of Political Thought 1450-1700 (1991) helps clarify the theological commit-
ments that influenced Hobbes’ reception in the early modern period. Other
works that deal with the reception of Hobbes’ religious ideas include Samuel
I. Mintz’s The Hunting of Leviathan (1970) and Parkin’s Taming the Leviathan
(2007). Skinner’s ‘Hobbes and his disciples in France and England’ (2002)
also considers the opinions of Hobbes’ contemporaries regarding the virtues
of his work. Horst Dreitzel’s work on the reception of Hobbes among German
thinkers discusses the extent to which Johann Christoph Becmann and
Samuel Pufendorf learned from and modified Hobbes’ doctrines. Collin’s
The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes (2005) also contains a great deal of informa-
tion on this topic.
140 Suggested Further Reading

Collins, J. R. (2005) The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes. Oxford, Oxford

University Press.
— (2007) Silencing Thomas Hobbes: The Presbyterians and Leviathan, in
P. Springborg (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan.
Cambridge: CUP, 478–500.
Dreitzel, H. (2003) The Reception of Hobbes in the Political Philosophy of
the Early German Enlightenment. History of European Ideas. 29. 255–89.
Goldie, M (1991) The Reception of Hobbes, in J. H. Burns and M. Goldie
(eds.) The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700. Cambridge:
CUP, 589–615.
Mintz, S. I. (1970) The Hunting of Leviathan: Seventeenth-Century Reactions to
the Materialism and Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP.
Parkin, J. (2007a) Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and
Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640-1700. Cambridge: CUP.
(2007b) The Reception of Hobbes’s Leviathan, in P. Springborg (ed.) The
Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP, 441–59.
Rogers, G. A. J. (2007) Hobbes and His Contemporaries, in P. Springborg
(ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP,
413–40.
Skinner, Q. (2002) Hobbes and His Disciples in France and England, in
Q. Skinner (ed.) Visions of Politics, 3 vols. Cambridge: CUP, vol. III,
308–23.
Zagorin, P. (2007) Clarendon against Leviathan, in P. Springborg (ed.) The
Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP, 460–77.
 Bibliography

Manuscript Sources

The British Library

Add. 11390: The 76 letters
Add. 72892: The papers of William Petty
Harl. 3360: A minute or first draft of the optiques in two parts
Harl. 4235: The elements of law, with annotations in Hobbes’ hand
Harl. 6083: Charles Cavendish’s papers
Harl. 6796: Charles Cavendish’s papers
Harl. 6858: The elements of law
Sloane. 2903: The papers of William Petty

Chatsworth
Hobbes A. 5: Draft of De homine
Hobbes E.1.a: Booklist
Unclassified: The 76 letters
Unclassified: Uncatalogued booklist [19cm × 24.5cm, 124 pages]

St John’s College Oxford

MS 13: Behemoth or the Long Parliament. By Thomas Hobbes of
Malmesbury

The Royal Society, London

Classified Papers IV (1) 30: Concerning the compression of ye aire

Sheffield University Library

Hartlib 42/1: Benjamin Worsley to an unknown correspondent
142 Bibliography

Primary Sources

Works by Hobbes

(1839–1845a) Considerations on the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners and

Religion of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The
English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. 11 vols., London: J. Bohn,
vol. IV, 409–40.
— (1839–1845b) Decameron Physiologicum, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The
English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. 11 vols., London: J. Bohn,
vol. VII, 69–177.
(1839–1845c) Elements of Philosophy the First Section Concerning Body, in
W. Molesworth (ed.) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury,
11 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. I.
— (1839–1845d) Historia ecclesiastica, in W. Molesworth (ed.) Thomae Hobbes
malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omnia, 5 vols., London:
J. Bohn, vol. V, 341–408.
— (1839–1845e) An Historical Narration Concerning Heresy and the
Punishment Thereof, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The English Works of Thomas
Hobbes of Malmesbury, 11 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. IV, 385–408.
— (1839–1845f) Letters and Other Pieces, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The
English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. 11 vols., London: J. Bohn,
vol. VII, 449–72.
— (1839–1845g) Praefatio in Mersenni Balisticam, in W. Molesworth (ed.)
Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omnia.
5 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. V, 308–18.
— (1839–1845h) Seven Philosophical Problems and Two Propositions of
Geometry, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of
Malmesbury, 11 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. VII, 1–68.
— (1839–1845i) Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics, One of Geom-
etry the Other of Astronomy, in the Chairs Set Up by the Noble and
Learned Sir Henry Savile in the University of Oxford, in W. Molesworth
(ed.) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, 11 vols., London:
J. Bohn, vol. VII, 181–356.
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Parliamentary Debates and Bills

Senate Bill S. 2179 (2007) National Forests, Parks, Public Land, and
Reclamation Projects Authorization Act of 2007 amend. 3966.
United Kingdom, House of Lords (2002), Hansard, vol. 641, Column 665.
 Index

9/11 111, 120 Blackstone, William82–3

ABC Television101
Afghanistan108
Al Qaeda111
America3, 22, 36, 122, 124
American Constitution119, 122,
124, 132
Anglican Church2, 8
Annan, Kofi108–9
Apollo Programme125
Aquinas, Thomas20, 27, 37,
116, 127, 128, 129, 130
Arblaster, Anthony119
Arendt, Hannah86, 102–3, 105
Aristotle2, 9, 20–3, 32, 88, 92,
123, 127, 128
Aubrey, John1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10,
15, 74, 131, 132
Bacon, Francis1, 2–6, 13, 16, 25,
32, 59, 61, 74, 96, 127, 136
Bakunin, Mikhail101
Barthes, Roland98
Baxter, Richard72
Beckmann, Johann
Christoph74
Bene’t College, Cambridge,
see Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge
Bentham, Jeremy82–3, 115
Big Brother105
Blair, Tony120
Bodin, Jean4, 25, 129, 132
Book of common prayer57
Bosnia108, 110, 113
Boyle, Robert13, 32, 74, 135, 137
Bramhall, John54, 72, 137
Brandt, Frithiof136
Brett, Annabel59, 60, 85, 138,
139
Brezhnev, Leonid112
Buchanan, James M.114,
117–19, 132
Bukharin, Nikolai103–5
Bunce, Robin ii, ix, 3, 4, 6
Burke, Edmund101
Burundi110
Bush, George W.122
Calvin, John115
Calvin and Hobbes101
Calvinism72–3
capitalism87, 88, 102, 103, 104,
110
Centre for Civil Society100, 131
Charles I8–9, 12, 57, 65, 70
Charles II1, 10, 13, 74
Charron, Pierre92
Chernyshevsky, Nikolai100
China105
Christ’s College Cambridge72
church history56
158 Index

Church in Scotland8 Elizabeth I2

Church Power13, 56–7, 69, Empiricus, Sextus92
70–2, 85 Engels, Friedrick87
Cicero20, 95 English Civil War8, 9, 12, 16,
circulation of the blood12, 23, 43, 64, 65, 70, 106
136 Eno, Brian130
CIVITAS100 Estienne, Henri92
Clifton, Gervase5 Euclid5–6, 8, 30
Coburn, Tom108 experimental philosophy16
Collingwood, R.G.102
Collins, Jeffrey R.14, 73, 85, 139 Facebook101
Colombia108 FBI108
Communist Party, of the Filmer, Robert75
USSR106–7 Flood, Merrill M.89
Comte, Auguste123 Four-Year Plan Organization106
Constitution of the USSR (1936) French Revloution123
“the Stalin Freud, Sigmund100
Constitution”106 Fukuyama, Francis121–3
Copernicus, Nicolaus22, 128,
129 Galileo, Galilei1, 7, 9, 16, 22–3,
Corpus Christi College, 25, 73–4, 127, 128
Cambridge68 game theory68, 88–91, 99
Cox, Gary108 Garton Ash, Timothy109
Crick, Bernard118 Gassendi, Pierre9–10, 12, 22,
Croatia113 69, 73, 74, 92, 93, 95, 127,
Cromwell, Oliver65–6, 81 128
Cudworth, Ralph72 Gauthier, David89–91, 130
Curley, Edwin73, 130, 134 geometry5–8, 12, 14, 21, 22, 23,
24, 28, 30, 60, 92
Darwin, Charles100 Gilbert, William3, 23, 96
Davenant, William10 Glanvill, Joseph71
de la Court, Johan and Pieter79 Godwin, William80–2
de Montmor, Henri73 Gray, John110–11, 121, 122–3,
Democratic Republic of the 125
Congo108 Great Fire of London68
Descartes, René1, 7, 9–10, 16, Grotius, Hugo20, 25, 37, 128,
23, 25, 32, 73–4, 92–4, 129, 132
127, 136
devil69 Hamilton, Alexander121–2
d'Holbach, Paul80 Hampton, Jean89–91
Dresher, Melvin89 Harvey, William12, 23, 25, 136
Du Verdus, François13, 74 Hayes, Peter86
 Index
Hayward, John5
Helvetius, Claude80
Herodotus4
Higgs, Robert107
High, Brandon xi, 132
Hitler, Adolf100, 102, 106,
107, 131
Hobbes
life
early life1–2
grand tour3
exhile in France9–12
anatomic
experiments10–11
return to England12–14
last years14–15
death15
epitaph15
works
Antiwhite9, 25, 129
Behemoth2, 14, 15, 24, 56,
57, 64, 65, 105, 106, 134
De cive7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14,
17, 18, 20, 24, 25, 30,
32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37,
38, 40, 41, 45, 46, 47,
50, 53, 56, 57, 60, 61,
64, 69, 74, 75, 79, 86,
88, 95, 96, 97, 98, 128,
129, 134, 135
De cive, French
translations74
De corpore8, 10, 12, 22,
28, 29, 30, 133, 134
De homine8, 10, 12, 24,
25, 27, 30, 41, 42, 129
Decameron
physiologicum14, 15
Dialogue Between a
Philosopher and Student
of the Common Laws of
England14
159
Elements of Law8, 10, 14,
24, 25, 26, 28, 33, 35, 36,
37, 40, 41, 46, 47, 48, 49,
50, 51, 53, 56, 58, 64, 88,
93, 95, 96, 117, 129, 134
Elements of Philosophy.8,
10, 25, 129
English optical
manuscript10–11, 20, 136
Historia ecclesiastica73
Historical Narration
Concerning Heresy and
the Punishment
Thereof14
Leviathan, English Version
ix, 2, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19,
21, 24, 28, 30, 31, 33, 34,
35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41,
43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51,
55, 57, 58, 63, 67, 68, 69,
70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78,
79, 83, 84, 97, 98, 106,
115, 118, 124, 125, 128,
129, 130, 132, 134
Leviathan, Latin
Version14, 15, 30, 43, 46,
47, 50, 51, 84, 129, 134
Leviathan, proposed French
Translation74
Lux mathematica15
Praefatio to Mersenne’s
Balistica28–9
Preface to Gondibert10
Problemata physica13–15
Rosetum geometricum15
Short Tract94–5, 136
Theology70–2, 85
Tractatus opticus9, 23, 129
Translation of the Iliad and
the Odyssey15
Translation of
Thucydides4–5, 6, 20, 36
160 Index
Hobbes (Cont’d)
philosophy
analytic-synthetic
method28–9, 129 n.15
Christianity and
philosophy21
civil law36–7, 44, 46, 47,
48, 49, 50, 53, 59, 64, 67,
71, 76, 79, 85
civil war40, 108
commonwealth by
design45
commonwealth by
institution45
composition and resolution,
see Analytic and Synthetic
Method
covenant38–9, 44–5, 49,
51–2, 55, 56, 58, 84, 90
creation of the state44–5
death34, 36–8, 56, 60, 85,
103
Divine law37, 41
education49, 64, 67, 112
the fool61–2, 89–91, 99
freedom52–8
freedom of conscience57
God26, 27, 30–2, 38, 41,
50, 51, 59, 61, 64, 66,
70–2, 76, 80, 82–5, 93,
128, 137
gratitude39–40, 51–2
history of philosophy20–4
the law of nature27, 37–41,
44, 48, 50, 51, 52, 55, 58,
59, 60, 66, 74, 76, 79, 80,
84, 98, 128, 129, 138
memory and
imagination25
motion7, 23, 24, 25–6, 30
Native Americans22, 36
natural philosophy9, 14,
21, 22, 23, 25, 29, 60, 135,
136–7
the passion8, 21, 22, 23,
24, 25, 26–7, 30, 33, 34,
60, 64, 71, 138
persons41–4
pleasure and pain26
polygamy58
prudence28
reason27–8
religion30–2
representation41–5, 51, 55,
67, 82, 83, 84
the right of nature34–5,
45, 49, 64, 77
right reason29, 37
science in the state50
sovereign, rights of
46–52
sovereignty defined43
state defined43
the state of nature18, 35–7,
38, 39, 40, 41, 45, 62, 66,
68, 74–9, 81–4, 89–91, 98,
101, 103, 108–13, 118,
125, 132
taxation49–50, 63
types of sovereignty45
vision25–6
Hobbism68–9, 79
Hood, F.T83–5, 129
Hooker, Richard37
House of Commons69
House of Lords65, 120
Hussein, Saddam109
Ignatieff, Michael109
imperialism102–3
Institute of Economic
Affairs100
 Index
International Monetary Fund
100, 108, 112, 120, 131
Iraq101, 110
Israel108
James I2–3
Jefferson, Thomas121–2
Jesus Christ71, 100
Justin of Caesarea119
Kagan, Robert121
Kant, Immanuel84, 101, 120,
121, 124
Kaplan, Robert111
Kavka, Gregory S.89–91, 130
Kepler, Johannes22, 128
KGB112
Kosovo111
Laird, John87
Lal, Deepak120
Laslett, Peter75
Latimer, Robert2, 15
Laud, William57, 70
Lenin, V.I.100, 105
Leviathanness105
Liberia108, 110
Lipsius, Justus25
Livy4
Locke, John xii 2, 73–6, 79–80,
82, 86, 101, 110, 120, 121,
124, 132, 136
London2, 12, 16, 23, 65, 68
London, Jack104
Long Parliament9, 65, 106
Lord Holme of Cheltenham120
Lost, ABC Television101
Lucy, William71, 72
Machiavelli, Niccolò20, 128
McCubbins, Matthew108
161
McGovern, William
Montgomery102
MacIver, R.M.102
Madison, James121–2
Magdalen Hall, Oxford2
Maine, Henry124
Malaysia108
Malcolm, Noel3, 4, 7, 13, 94,
131, 133, 134
Manhattan Institute for Policy
Research100
Manning, D.J.119
Mao Zedong102
Martinich, A.P.6, 72–3, 85, 130,
133, 134
Marx, Fritz Morstein102
Marxism68
Marxism-Leninism106–7
mathematics6–7, 9, 10, 13, 15,
20, 22, 89, 91, 99, 136–7
Mersenne, Marin7, 9, 12, 22,
28, 50, 73, 92–5, 127, 128,
129
Mersenne Circle50, 73
Messick, Richard E.113
Micanzio, Fulgenzio3, 6
MICROCON120
Minogue, Kenneth105, 118
Mintz, Samuel I.15, 32, 69, 70,
139, 140
Mirkovic, Damir109
Montaigne, Michel de92
More, Henry71
More, Thomas4
Mueller, John111, 113
Mussolini, Benito102
Myspace101
NASA125
Nasr, Sayyed Vali Reza108
Nazi Party106
162
Nazism102, 104–7, 125, 131, 132
Neal, Patrick89
Neumann, Franz105–6
new science5–9, 32, 73, 92–3,
127, 128
New York Review of Books108
NKVD106
North, Douglass112
North, Thomas5
Oakeshott, Michael114–19, 125
Oath of Engagement12
optics6–7, 10, 12, 23–4, 92–4,
100, 136, 137
Orwell, George98, 105
Pakistan108
Palestinian territory108
Paris7, 9, 10, 12, 16, 72, 97
Parkin, Jon69, 130, 139
Payne, Robert6, 94
Petty, William10, 13, 73–4
Philadelphia Convention122
philosophical method7–8, 13,
21–3, 28–30, 129
Philp, Marc80
Plato20, 23, 115, 116, 119, 128
Pliny4
Plutarch4, 5
pneumatics13, 135, 136
Polybus4
Popkin, Richard H.93–4
Priestly, F.E.L.80–1
Prisoner’s Dilemma88–91
Proudhon, Joseph Pierre100
Ptolomie4
Pufendorf, Samuel74–6, 79,
82–3, 139
Puritanism2
Putin, Vladimir112
Pyrrhonism92
Index
Rader, Melvin102
Rajan, Raghuram112
RAND Corporation89
Rawls, John117
Raylor, Timothy94
rhetoric6, 64, 68, 73, 95–8, 127,
138
Ricardo, David119
Riquetti, Victor79
Robertson, G.C.69, 87
Rogers, G.A.J.73, 139, 140
Roman Catholic Church16
Ross, Alexander69–72
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques74, 76–9,
82, 116, 120, 124
Royal Society xii, 1, 10, 13–16,
32, 72, 74, 135, 136
Rushton, Michael116
Russia100, 103, 106, 110, 111,
112, 122
Rwanda108, 110, 111, 113
Sackville, Edward4
St Mary’s the Great,
Cambridge69
Saint-Simon, Henri123
Sandys, Edwin4
Sarpi, Paulo3
Savile, Henry5
Scargill, Daniel68–9, 130
Schapiro, Leonard106
scholasticism2, 21–3, 27, 53, 54,
64, 72, 127, 128, 130
Schuhmann, Karl94
Schutzstaffel (S.S.)106
Scottish Covenanters8, 57
Selden, John4, 12
Ship Money8
Shklar, Judith N.105
shock therapy110
Short Parliament8–9
 Index
Sidgwick, Henry83
Sierra Leone108
Skepticism68, 91–5, 138
Skinner, Quentin xi, 2, 4, 13, 25,
41, 42, 43, 53, 54, 55, 74,
85, 92, 95–8, 127, 128,
129, 130, 133, 134, 136,
138, 139, 140
Slomp, Gabriela97–8
Smith, Adam114, 119
Socrates20, 21, 22, 123
Somalia110
Sorbière, Samuel1, 10, 14, 15,
73–4
Soviet Communism100, 103,
105
Soviet Union, see USSR
Spinoza, Benedict de79, 122
Sprat, Thomas1
Stalin103, 105–7
Stalinsim104–7, 118, 125
Stephen, James Fitzjames123–4
Stoic Philosophy27
Strabo4
Strauss, Leo84–5, 87, 114, 117,
119, 125
Suárez, Francisco20, 27, 37,
128, 129
Sweezy, Paul87
Tacitus5
Taylor, A.E.83–5, 87
Taylor-Warrender thesis83–5, 87
Tito, Josip109
Tönnies, Ferdinand94
163
Totalitarianism101–8
Trinity College, Cambridge72
Tuck, Richard7, 32, 59–60, 85,
92–5, 130, 133, 134, 136,
137, 138, 139
Tucker, Albert W.89
United Nations100, 108, 109,
131
United Nations Millennium
Declaration108
USSR105, 103, 111, 112
vacuum13
Vaughn, John4
Versalius10
Virginia Company3–4
von Neumann, John89
Ward, Seth12, 72
Warner, Walter6
Warrender, Howard83–5, 87, 135
Watterson, Bill101
Weimar Republic106, 132
Welbeck academy6
White, Thomas9, 12, 135
Williamson, Oliver113
World Bank100, 113, 120, 131
Xenophon 4
Yeltsin, Boris112
Yugoslavia101, 109
ZANU PF108