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Time Line 1651
Social Science History on Hobbes, Filmer and Locke |
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Leviathan
The Matter, Form and Power of a CommonwealthEcclesiastical and Civil
By Thomas Hobbes, Published April 1651
THE FIRST PART: OF MAN
Chapter one Of
Sense
Chapter two
Of
Imagination
Chapter three
Of the
Consequence or Train of Imaginations
Train of Thoughts unguided
Train of Thoughts regulated
Remembrance
Prudence
Conjecture of the time past
Chapter four Of Speech
Original of Speech
The use of speech
Abuses of Speech
Names proper and common
Universal
Necessity of Definitions
Subject to Names
Use of Names Positive
Negative Names with their Uses
Words insignificant
Understanding
Inconstant names
Chapter five Of Reason and Science
Reason what it is
Reason defined
Right reason where?
The use of Reason
Of Error and Absurdity
Causes of absurdity
Science
Prudence & Sapience, with their difference
Signs of Science
Chapter six Of the Interior Beginnings of Voluntary Motions, Commonly Called the Passions; And the Speeches by Which They are Expressed
Chapter seven Of the Ends or Resolutions of Discourse
Chapter eight
Chapter nine Of the Several Subjects of Knowledge
Chapter ten Of Power, Worth, Dignity, Honour and Worthiness
Chapter thirteen
Of the natural condition of mankind as
concerning their felicity and misery
Chapter fourteen
Of the first and second natural laws, and of
contracts
Right of Nature what
Liberty what
A Law of Nature what
Covenants extorted by fear are valid
Chapter seventeen
Of the Causes, Generation, and Definition of a Commonwealth
Chapter eighteen
Of the Rights of Sovereigns by Institution
Chapter twentyone
Of the Liberty of Subjects
(¶) Paragraph numbers added to assist referencing
NATURE (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the
art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can
make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the
beginning whereof is in some principal part within, why may we not say that
all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a
watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart, but a spring; and
the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving
motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the Artificer? Art goes
yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of Nature,
man. For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or
STATE (in Latin, CIVITAS), which is but an artificial man, though of
greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and
defence it was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial
soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; the magistrates and
other officers of judicature and execution, artificial joints; reward and
punishment (by which fastened to the seat of the sovereignty, every joint
and member is moved to perform his duty) are the nerves, that do the same
in the body natural; the wealth and riches of all the particular members
are the strength; salus populi (the people's safety) its business;
counsellors, by whom all things needful for it to know are suggested unto
it, are the memory; equity and laws, an artificial reason and will;
concord, health; sedition, sickness; and civil war, death. Lastly,
the
pacts and covenants, by which the parts of this body politic were at first
made, set together, and united, resemble that fiat, or the Let
us make man,
pronounced by God in the Creation.
To describe the nature of this artificial man, I will consider
Concerning the first, there is a saying much usurped of late, that
wisdom is acquired, not by reading of books, but of men. Consequently
whereunto, those persons, that for the most part can give no other proof of
being wise, take great delight to show what they think they have read in
men, by uncharitable censures of one another behind their backs. But there
is another saying not of late understood, by which they might learn truly
to read one another, if they would take the pains; and that is, Nosce
teipsum, Read thyself: which was not meant, as it is now used, to
countenance either the barbarous state of men in power towards their
inferiors, or to encourage men of low degree to a saucy behaviour towards
their betters; but to teach us that for the similitude of the thoughts and
passions of one man, to the thoughts and passions of another, whosoever
looketh into himself and considereth what he doth when he does think,
opine, reason, hope, fear, etc., and upon what grounds; he shall thereby
read and know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the
like occasions. I say the similitude of passions, which are the same in all
men,- desire, fear, hope, etc.; not the similitude of the objects of the
passions, which are the things desired, feared, hoped, etc.: for these the
constitution individual, and particular education, do so vary, and they are
so easy to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of man's heart,
blotted and confounded as they are with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting,
and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts. And
though by men's actions we do discover their design sometimes; yet to do it
without comparing them with our own, and distinguishing all circumstances
by which the case may come to be altered, is to decipher without a key, and
be for the most part deceived, by too much trust or by too much diffidence,
as he that reads is himself a good or evil man.
But let one man read another by his actions never so perfectly, it
serves him only with his acquaintance, which are but few. He that is to
govern a whole nation must read in himself, not this, or that particular
man; but mankind: which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any
language or science; yet, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly
and perspicuously, the pains left another will be only to consider if he
also find not the same in himself. For this kind of doctrine admitteth no
other demonstration.
THE SECOND PART: OF COMMONWEALTH
Liberty what
What it is to be free
Fear and Liberty consistent
Liberty and necessity consistent
Artificial bonds, or Covenants
Liberty of the Subject consistent with the unlimited
power of the Sovereign
The Liberty which writers praise, is the Libery of
Sovereigns; not of Private men
Liberty of subjects: how to be measured
Subjects have liberty to defend their own bodies even
against them that lawfully invade them
Are not bound to hurt themselves
Nor to warfare, unless they voluntarily undertake
it
The Greatest Liberty of Subjects, depends on the silence
of the Law
In what Cases Subjects are absolved of their obedience
to their Sovereign
In case of Captivity
In case the Sovereign cast off the government from
himself and his Heirs
In case of banishment
In case the Sovereign render himself Subject to
another
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Index
Covenants
Covenants extorted by fear
