sensible, and loquacious. Physics contains not only optics and music, which are the sciences of vision and hearing in general, but also ethics, which is the science of the passions of people, poetry, rhetoric, logic, and equity. The four last are respectively the study of people’s use of speech in elevated expression, in persuading, in reasoning, and in contracting. Civil Philosophy deals with the rights and duties of the sovereign or of subjects.

Hobbes makes extensive use of the mechanical model in constructing his system. Life is motion; therefore, machines have artificial life. The heart is a spring, the nerves are strings, and the joints are wheels giving motion to the whole body. The commonwealth is an artificial man in which sovereignty is the soul, officers are the joints, rewards and punishments are the nerves, wealth is its strength, and safety is its business; counselors are its memory, equity and law are reason and will, peace is its health, sedition is its sickness, and civil war is its death. The covenants by which it comes into being are the counterpart of the fiat of creation.

It is apparent that the model is highly oversimplified. That simplicity is, nevertheless, the basis for much of the force the model carries. Hobbes does not hesitate to ignore the model if ill suited to his purpose, as it is in many cases where he has to deal with the details of psychology, religion, and social and political relations.

The simplest motion in human bodies is sensation, caused by the impact of some particle upon a sense organ. When sensations are slowed by the interference of others, they become imagination or memory. Imagination in sleep is dreaming. Imagination raised by words is understanding and is common to man and beast.

Ideas (“phantasms” for Hobbes) proceed in accordance with laws of association or of self-interest, as in calculating the means to a desired end. Anything we imagine or think is finite. Any apparent conception of something infinite is only an awareness of an inability to imagine a bound. The name of God, for example, is used that we may honor him, not that we may conceive of him.

Hobbes considered speech the noblest of all inventions. It distinguishes human beings from beasts. It consists in the motion of names and their connections. It is a necessary condition of society, contract, commonwealth, and peace. It is essential to acquiring art, to counseling and instructing, and to expressing purpose. It is correspondingly abused in ambiguity, metaphor, and deception.

When a person manipulates names in accordance with the laws of truth, definition, and thought, he or she is reasoning. Truth is the correct ordering of names—for example, connecting by affirmation two names that signify the same thing. Error in general statements is self-contradiction. Definition is stating what names signify. Inconsistent names, such as “incorporeal substance,” signify nothing and are mere sounds. The laws of thought are the laws of mathematics, exemplified best in geometry, generalized to apply to all names. Reasoning is carried on properly when we begin with definition and move from one consequence to the next. Reasoning is therefore a kind of calculating with names. According to Hobbes, everything named is particular but a general name can be imposed on a number of things that are similar. He anticipated fundamental distinctions of Scottish philosopher and skeptic David Hume and later empiricists in maintaining that conclusions reached by reasoning are always conditional.

Hobbes extended the mechanical model in his discussion of the passions by holding that endeavor begins in the motions of imagination. Desire, which is the same as love, is motion toward an object which is therefore called “good.” Aversion, which is the same as hate, is motion away from an object which is therefore called “bad.” Other passions are definable in terms of these two. Fear is aversion with the belief that the object will hurt; courage is aversion with the hope of avoiding hurt. Anger is sudden courage. Religion, a particularly important passion, is publicly allowed fear of invisible powers. When the fear is not publicly allowed, it is superstition. The whole sum of desires and aversions and their modifications carried on until the thing in question is either done or considered impossible is deliberation. In deliberation, the last appetite or aversion immediately preceding action is will. In searching for truth the last opinion is judgment.

Since desires are endless, happiness is not a static condition but a process of satisfying desires. All motivation is egoistic. Humanity’s basic desire is for power, which, like all other desires, ends only in death.

Hobbes completes the foundations for the development of his political theory with an analysis of religion. It is invented by human beings because of their belief in spirits, their ignorance of causes, and their devotion to what they fear. This explains why the first legislators among the Gentiles always claimed that their precepts came from God or some other spirit, and how priests have been able to use religion for selfish purposes. Religion dissolves when its founders or leaders are thought to lack wisdom, sincerity, or love.

Hobbes develops his political theory proper in terms of the time-honored concepts of equality, the state of nature, natural law, natural rights, contract, sovereignty, and justice. In his hands, however, they receive treatment that is very different from that of his predecessors, the Greeks, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Jean Bodin, and Hugo Grotius, as well as from that of his successors, English philosopher John Locke and his followers in the liberal tradition. Machiavelli’s views on egoism and the need for absolute power in the sovereign anticipated Hobbes but were not developed in detail as a general political philosophy.

In their natural state, according to Hobbes, men are approximately equal in strength, mental capacity, and experience, and everyone has an equal right to everything. If they were without government, the conflict arising from their desires, their distrust, and their ambition would lead to a state of war of every man against every man. In such a state there would be no property, no justice or injustice, and life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Fortunately, both passion (in the form of fear of death, desire for a long and reasonably pleasant life, and hope of achieving it) and reason (in the form of knowledge of the articles of peace in the form of the laws of nature) combine to provide a basis for the establishment of civil society and escape from universal strife.

The first law of nature is to seek the peace and follow it. The second, a necessary means to the first, isthat a man be willing, when others are so too, as farre-forth as for Peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this [natural] right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himselfe.

This is to be done by making contracts with others. A necessary condition for the operation of the second law of nature is that men perform their contracts, which is the third law of nature. For contracts to be valid, it is necessary, in turn, that a sovereign power be established who will make it more painful to commit injustice, which is the breaking of a contract, than to live justly, which is the keeping of contracts. Contracts without the sword, Hobbes reminds us, are only words that guarantee no security. The first three laws of nature, then, combined with the nature of man as a complex set of particles moving in accordance with various sets of laws—not only strictly mechanical laws but also what might be called egoistic and hedonistic laws—are the source of society, sovereignty, and justice.

Additional laws of nature, subordinate to the first three, or special cases, though not specified as such by Hobbes, require the practice of fidelity, gratitude, courtesy, forbearance, fairness, justice, equity, the recognition of natural equality, and the avoidance of contumely, pride, and arrogance. The whole doctrine of natural law, called by Hobbes a “deduction,” can be summarized in the general law: Do not do unto another what you would not want him to do to you. Hobbes considers these laws of nature “eternal and immutable,” because breaking them can never preserve the peace. The science of laws is true moral philosophy. He concludes this discussion of natural law with a remark whose significance has usually been ignored but must be appreciated if parts 3 and 4 of Leviathan are to be understood. These “laws,” so far, are not properly named; they are only theorems, binding to be sure, in foro interno (that is, to a desire they should be effective) but not in foro externo (that is, to putting them into practice). If, however, it can be shown that they are delivered in the word of God, who by right commands in all things, then they are properly called laws and are in fact binding.

In working out the details of the second and third laws of nature, Hobbes maintains that to achieve peace, contentment, and security it is necessary that men agree with one another to confer their power upon a man or group of men of whose acts each man, even a member of a dissenting minority, will regard himself the original author:This is the Generation of that great LEVIATHAN or rather (to speak more reverently) of that Mortal God, to which we owe under the Immortal God our peace and Defence.

One may consequently define a commonwealth asOne Person, of whose Acts a great multitude, by mutuall Covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the Author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their Peace and Common Defence.

This person is sovereign. All others are subjects.

The covenant generating the sovereign is not between the sovereign and the subjects but only among subjects that they will obey whatever ruling power the majority may establish. The covenant may be explicit (actually written) or it may be implicit (for example, in force by virtue of a conquering force remaining in the conquered country). The covenant is an agreement to refrain from interfering with the sovereign’s exercise of his right to everything. The concept of consent is not present, at least not in the sense it carried later with Locke. Making the covenant is the one political act of subjects. Their proper role is to obey as long as the sovereign is able to protect them, unless he should order them to kill, wound, or maim themselves or to answer questions about a crime they may have committed. Even these are not restrictions of the sovereignty of the ruler, but only liberties that subjects retain under the laws of nature. Politically and legally, in Hobbes’s system, there is and can be no legal limitation on sovereignty. There is no right of rebellion, for example, since the sovereign is not bound by any contract, not having made one. Subjects have only the legal rights granted them by the sovereign. The sovereign is the only legislator; he is not subject to civil law and his will—not long usage—gives authority to law.

More specifically, the sovereign must have the power to censor all expression of opinion, to allocate private property, to determine what is good or evil and what is lawful or unlawful, to judge all cases, to make war or peace, to choose the officers of the commonwealth, to administer rewards and punishments, to decide all moral or religious questions, and to prescribe how God is to be worshiped.

There are, says Hobbes, only three forms that sovereignty may take: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Other apparent forms merely reflect attitudes. For example, if someone dislikes monarchy, then he calls it tyranny. Although his arguments would support any absolutism, Hobbes shows a strong preference for monarchy in claiming that it is the best means of effecting peace. The interests of the monarch and his subjects are the same. What is good for the monarch is good for the people. He is rich, glorious, or secure if they are, and not if they are not. He will have fewer favorites than an assembly. He can receive better advice in private than any assembly. There will be no argument and disagreement in making decisions, and they will stand more firm. Divisive factionalism and the consequent danger of civil war will not arise. Hobbes admits that monarchy has some problems about succession but says they can be met by following the will of the sovereign, custom, or lineage.

Hobbes maintains that a commonwealth established by acquisition in acts of force or violence differs from one established by institution, peaceably and with something approaching explicit covenant, only in having its sovereignty based upon fear of the sovereign rather than upon mutual fear of the subjects.

No matter how established or what its form, however, there are certain causes of dissolution that Hobbes warns must be avoided: insufficient power in the sovereign to maintain peace, permitting subjects to judge what is good or evil, considering violation of individual conscience a sin, considering supernatural inspiration superior to reason, considering the sovereign subject to civil law, permitting subjects absolute property rights, dividing sovereign power, regarding tyrannicide as lawful, permitting the reading of democratic books, and believing there are two kingdoms, spiritual and civil.

The all-important task of showing that there are not two different kingdoms and at the same time showing that the theorems of the first two parts of Leviathan are in fact laws, and as such binding obligations, are Hobbes’s main points in discussing the nature of a Christian commonwealth. The essential mark of a Christian is obedience to God’s law. God’s authority as lawgiver derives from his power. His laws, which are the natural laws, are promulgated by natural reason, revelation, and prophecy. In the first two parts of Leviathan, knowledge of natural laws and their implications have been found out by reason. Laws are, therefore, only conditional theorems. To be shown to be unconditional laws, they must be shown to be the will of God. In fact, Hobbes argues—using extensive quotation and acute, though one-sided, analysis of terms in Scripture and in common speech—all theorems of reasoning about the conduct of human beings seeking happiness in peace are to be found in Scripture. Hobbes concludes that there is no difference between natural law known by reason and revealed or prophetic law. What is law, therefore, depends upon what is Scripture.

Scripture, Hobbes argues—again with extensive quotation, analysis, and interpretation—is what is accepted as Scripture in a commonwealth and is nothing apart from its interpretation. If it is interpreted by conscience, we have competition and a return to the state of nature with its war made fiercer by religious conviction and self-righteousness. All the same arguments for commonwealth apply in particular, therefore, more strongly to the generation of a Christian commonwealth. This is a civil society of Christian subjects under a Christian sovereign. There is no question of opposition between church and state because there is no distinction between them. There are not two laws, ecclesiastical and civil—only civil. There is no universal church, since there is no power on earth to which all commonwealths are subject. Consequently, obedience to civil law is necessary for a person’s admission into heaven. Even if a sovereign is not Christian, it is still an obligation and law for a Christian to obey him, since those who do not obey break the laws of God.

When these truths are obfuscated by misinterpretation of Scripture, demonology, or vain philosophy, then, says Hobbes, a kingdom of darkness arises. He applies, in some detail, the test of asking, “Who benefits?” to a number of doctrines in each category and concludes that the Presbyterian and Roman clergy, particularly the popes, are the authors of this darkness, for they gain temporal power from its existence. Hobbes adds that the errors from which the darkness arises are to be avoided, in general, by a careful reading of Leviathan. Some of the darkness arising from vain philosophy, for example, can be remedied by more careful attention to Hobbes’s doctrines of language. These will show that the function of the copula can be replaced by the juxtaposition and ordering of words, thus removing the darkness that arises from the reification of esse in its counterparts entity and essence. These words, says Hobbes, are not names of anything, only signs by which we make known what we consider to be consequences of a name. Infinitives and participles similarly are not names of anything. When people understand these and other facts about language, they can no longer be deluded by mistaken interpretations of Scripture, demonology, or vain philosophy. In this instance they will no longer be deluded by the doctrine of separated essence and consequently will not be frightened into disobeying their sovereign.

There are flaws in Hobbes’s philosophy. He is often crude in his vigor, achieving a logical solution of a problem by omitting recalcitrant details. His errors, however, are usually due to oversimplification, not to being muddleheaded, superstitious, or unclear. No matter how wrong, he is never unintelligible. Moreover, he could not in his own day, and cannot now, be ignored. The partisans of England’s civil war, the Puritans and Cavaliers, could both condemn him, but both Cromwell and Charles II could draw on his doctrines. U.S. president Abraham Lincoln appealed to Hobbes’s doctrines of covenant and unity of the sovereign power to justify the use of force in dealing with secession.

Hobbes’s philosophy, in its outline, development, method, and logic, very strongly affected later developments of political and ethical thought. It is doubtful that anyone has stated so strongly the case for political authority or more strongly supported the thesis that unity, not consent, is the basis of government, and conformity to the sovereign will is its strength. His influence is clearly apparent in the doctrines of sovereignty and civil law formulated by John Austin, an English writer on jurisprudence. His methods of argument about the nature of law prepared the way for Jeremy Bentham, English ethical and social philosopher, and the movement for scientific legislation based on pleasure, pain, and self-interest. In moral philosophy it is not too much to say that the subsequent history of ethics would not have been the same without Hobbes. Reactions by British moralist and quasi rationalist Richard Cumberland and the Cambridge Platonists, on one hand, and by English essayist Lord Shaftesbury and British moralist and empiricist Francis Hutcheson, on the other, developed into the eighteenth century opposition between reason and sentiment that is reflected in many of the problems that occupy moral philosophers today.