SOURCE: "Theory and Transformation: The Politics of Enlightment," in The Rhetoric of "Leviathan": Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation, Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 114-33.

Apart from the vigor and vividness of its language, the feature of Leviathan that distinguishes it most clearly from Hobbes's earlier political works is the great extent and detail of the attention it devotes to Scriptural exegesis and theological argumentation. In The Elements of Law, a work of twenty-nine chapters, Hobbes had devoted two chapters to a discussion of potential conflicts between religious and political authority. In De Cive he expanded this discussion considerably, creating a new division of four chapters on religious subjects, which he placed at the end of his book. Even with this expansion of their role, however, Scriptural and religious questions remained a distinctly subordinate subject in Hobbes's work. Their status in Leviathan is very different from that which they had held in these earlier compositions. Leviathan includes a new chapter on religion in general, placed in a pivotal position at the end of Hobbes's account of human nature and immediately before the portrait of the state of nature with which his theory of the generation of a commonwealth begins. Of four parts into which he now divided his treatise, the third and longest is devoted almost entirely to Scriptural interpretation, while the fourth is concerned mainly with the diagnosis of spiritual errors. In short, Scriptural and religious questions occupy more space in Leviathan than any other topic discussed in the work, including Hobbes's theory of the commonwealth itself.

What is the significance of Hobbes's introduction of these new arguments into the body of his work? What bearing do they have upon the political argument detailed in parts I and II of his book? Until very recently these questions received scant attention in the critical literature. The traditional interpretation has been that the theological views developed in parts III and IV of Leviathan, however interesting they may be in themselves, are of no real significance for his political philosophy. The foundation of that philosophy, according to this interpretation, is entirely naturalistic. Hobbes develops his political argument out of an analysis of human nature, especially the passions, and its consequences for social interaction. He does not derive it from a set of theological presuppositions, as political philosophers had customarily done since early medieval times. From this viewpoint, then, the theological arguments adumbrated in Leviathan appear to be mere appendages to the true work. They are addressed to concerns that are local and transitory, by contrast with the more enduring concerns of Hobbes's political philosophy in the proper sense.¹ While many adherents to this interpretation regard these theological arguments as mere trappings, designed to make Hobbes's doctrines palatable to a nation of Christian believers, it has also been maintained by critics who have taken them to be an elaboration of his sincere religious beliefs. ² Raymond Polin has expressed the essence of this interpretation clearly and forcefully by arguing that Hobbes's theology is "superimposed" upon his political philosophy, and should in no sense be regarded as an integral part of that philosophy.³

This interpretation was strongly challenged some years ago, mainly as a result of Howard Warrender's thorough and carefully argued study of Hobbes's theory of obligation. Warrender argued that the pivotal concept in Hobbes's theory of obligation was that of natural law. The laws of nature are the basis upon which men acquire all their obligations, including those toward their civil sovereign. In this sense they provide the foundation for all commonwealths and all civil laws. But these laws of nature, he suggested, are intelligible only as expressions of divine will. Furthermore, the obligation to obey them, which must exist prior to and independently of all acquired obligations, cannot be understood without reference to divine sanctions. No obligation can be operative or valid unless those obliged by it have a sufficient motive to obey. The only motive sufficient to validate men's obligation to obey the laws of nature is provided by the divine sanction of salvation. Hence the theological concepts of divine will and divine sanctions are basic to Hobbes's entire political philosophy, the foundations of which are in this sense essentially theological rather than naturalistic.⁴

Warrender and others who have advocated this revisionist interpretation have provided many new insights into the structure of Hobbes's political argument, and some of these have proven themselves to be valuable correctives to the traditional view of Hobbes. But their thesis that the foundation of that argument is religious or theological rather than naturalistic is unconvincing. The general source of the confusion is not difficult to identify. Advocates of this revisionist interpretation have focused their attention sharply upon the juridical concepts and language of Hobbes's political philosophy. By so doing they have forced defenders of the traditional, naturalistic view to take this language much more seriously than they have sometimes done in the past. At the same time, however, the revisionists have tended to neglect the behavioral and causal language that is also an integral component of Hobbes's political argument, and have thus underestimated the importance of this entire dimension of his political philosophy, which is encapsulated, among many other places, in his characterization of the laws of nature as "dictates of Reason, … or Theoremes concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence of themselves." ⁵

The most curious thing about this revisionist interpretation, however, is that its advocates have made almost no effort to draw upon the voluminous evidence of Hobbes's own theological argumentation in parts III and IV of Leviathan. In spite of their claims about the importance of Hobbes's theological concepts or religious beliefs to his political philosophy, these revisionists seem to have accepted, either tacitly or expressly, the traditional view that those portions of Leviathan are of no very great or enduring interest.⁶ While postulating that his theological views are integral to, or indeed the very foundation of, his political philosophy as a whole, these revisionist critics have actually had little more to say about Hobbes's own theological argumentation than their traditionalist adversaries.

Only very recently has a new cohort of scholars, more interested in and sensitive to the historical context and concreteness of Hobbes's political philosophy than earlier generations of critics, begun to rectify this omission. The seminal work on this point was an essay on Hobbes's religious and historical views by J.G.A. Pocock. Analyzing Hobbes's argument in the latter half of Leviathan more closely than any previous critic in recent times, Pocock was led to conclude that this second half of the work is neither strictly subordinate to the political argument of its first half, as most defenders of the traditional interpretation have asserted, nor an elaboration of views that form the theoretical foundation of that political argument, as advocates of the revisionist view have claimed. Instead, he argues, Hobbes simply "embarks on a new course" at the midpoint of Leviathan. The first half of that work deals with the domain of nature and reason, while its second half deals with the historical domain of prophecy and faith; and this latter domain is not, in spite of the usual opinion to the contrary, "reabsorbed" into the former. For Pocock, then, Leviathan is in effect two separate works, composed in two distinct languages, which stand side by side, neither being subordinate to the other.⁷

Perhaps the greatest virtue of Pocock's work is that it demonstrates emphatically the importance of taking Hobbes's words in the latter half of Leviathan seriously. But taking his words seriously is not the same thing as taking him at his word, as Pocock also tends to do. Thus, for example, he argues that Hobbes would never have written "chapter after chapter of exegesis with the proclaimed intention of arriving at the truth about it" had he not believed that the Christian Scriptures constitute the true prophetic word of God.⁸ This argument from bulk is unconvincing, if only because it underestimates Hobbes's capacity for political wile. Pocock is absolutely right to chastise most previous scholars for ignoring what Hobbes actually wrote about the Scriptures and sacred history, ⁹ but his own methodological dictum that critics should concern themselves less with Hobbes's sincerity of conviction than with the effects his words seem designed to produce does not lead to the conclusions he reaches in his essay.

From a strictly logical point of view, the traditional interpretation, according to which parts III and IV of Leviathan are a mere appendage to the "real" political argument of that work, is substantially correct. The theological argumentation of Hobbes's work is neither the foundation nor in any other sense an integral part of his political philosophy, if we understand that philosophy to be an abstract, timeless scheme for the organization of political society. That scheme is constructed by interweaving a set of observations about human behavior and interaction, formulated as theoretical propositions, with a set of legalistic or juridical propositions about the grounds, origins, and distribution of rights and obligations. In no essential way does it involve or rest upon theological concepts or religious beliefs. From this point of view, then, the second half of the book is indeed a superimposition, which can be explained only by going outside the bounds of its central argument.

But this conclusion flows from the adoption of assumptions about the nature of Hobbes's work that are different from those held by Hobbes himself. For him, as I have sought to suggest, Leviathan was not simply and exclusively a work of "science" or abstract speculation about the causes and organization of political society. It was above all else a work of political persuasion and engagement, which sought to shape popular opinion in ways designed to benefit the cause of peace.

Considered as a political act, the metaphysical, theological, and historical argumentation of parts III and IV of Leviathan are integral to the design of Hobbes's book as a whole. Indeed, from this practical point of view it can be argued that they constitute the core of, and lay the foundation for, his project in Leviathan. If, in other words, we focus upon the effects Hobbes's words seem designed to produce, we find that (Pocock's investigations notwithstanding) there is a close, even intimate, relationship between the argumentation of the second half of the book and that of its first half. The second half of Leviathan is designed to shape the thoughts and opinions of its readers in ways that will make the argumentation of the first half persuasive and compelling. In this sense, parts III and IV lay the groundwork upon which the practical effects envisaged in parts I and II of the work are to arise.¹⁰ The balance of this chapter will sketch the reasoning behind my interpretation, while the chapters that follow will attempt to demonstrate its validity by examining the content and implications of Hobbes's metaphysical, theological, and historical argumentation.

THE STRUGGLE FOR ENLIGHTENMENT

The discrepancy between the theoretical model of man upon which Hobbes had drawn to build the initial version of his political theory and the descriptive portrait of man developed in Leviathan opened up a problem of fundamental importance for Hobbes's political philosophy. If men are ignorant, superstitious, and irrational, none of the basic mechanisms upon which his political argument relies will be likely to work. Men who do not fear death, or at least do not allow their fear of death to override all conflicting passions, cannot be relied upon to live together in peace under the authority of an acknowledged sovereign. Fear of death is the ultimate basis of sovereign power and the ultimate inducement for men to remain at peace with one another. If men allow their imaginations to subordinate their fear of death to any other passion or end, the whole basis of sovereign power and civil peace is destroyed.

One possible response to this discrepancy would have been for Hobbes to throw out the theoretical model of man that had underpinned his initial political philosophy. If man had shown himself to be a different creature from the one depicted in his model, Hobbes might have reacted by scrapping that model and making a new beginning. Yet he did not. Instead, as we have seen, he formulated a portrait of man characterized by a systematic opposition between two models. One of these was the model of man as an egoistic, rational being that had underlain his political philosophy from the beginning. The other was a descriptive model of man as an ignorant, superstitious, irrational being. The first model had been an integral component of Hobbes's political philosophy from the outset. The second, descriptive model was subversive of that philosophy in the sense that it depicted man as a creature who could not be tamed by the arguments, threats, and punishments Hobbes had originally envisaged. Perhaps as a consequence of the years of civil war and violent sectarianism, Hobbes was more acutely conscious than he had initially been of how far from his original model of man human behavior could stray. Yet he continued to cling to his initial model of man as an egoistic, rational actor. Why, in the face of all the evidence that had accumulated against it, did he do so? Why, in other words, did he think that the basis of his political philosophy could be saved?

The answer is that Hobbes believed actual human behavior might, in time, come to resemble the pattern described by his model. In the present, men were ignorant, superstitious, and irrational. Their behavior was poles apart from the pattern described by his model and required by his political theory. But Hobbes did not think that men were essentially and permanently irrational beings. They remained for him potentially rational actors of the kind described by his model of human nature. The discrepancy between that model and Hobbes's description of actual men as irrational beings might have led him to abandon both the model and the theory of political society that rested upon it. In fact his reaction was the reverse. Instead of treating observed reality as a given datum and adjusting his political theory accordingly, Hobbes held fast to his theory of human nature and politics. The inconsistency between that theory and observed behavior called for a change in the behavior, not an alteration of the theory. If actual men were ignorant and irrational, they remained rational beings in potential. The validity of Hobbes's theory rested upon the assumption that the irrationality which seemed to characterize human behavior in the present was neither an essential nor a permanent feature of human nature.

This response was, of course, entirely consistent with Hobbes's idea of science. Like that of a geometrical theorem, the truth of a scientific proposition about human nature was not dependent, for him, upon its accuracy as a representation of empirical reality. As long as there was a chance that reality could be reshaped in accordance with the dictates of theory, there was reason for Hobbes to hope that his science of politics could prove its validity through practical use.

Hobbes had strong reasons for supposing that such a chance existed. He believed himself to be living in the opening stages of a new age of discovery and science. He was extremely conscious of the impact that the discoveries and inventions of modern times had left upon the practical arts and the societies that supported them. Already in his manuscript of 1640 he had cited the achievements of these practical arts as the features that distinguish a civilized society from a savage one:

For from the studies of these men hath proceeded, whatsoever cometh to us for ornament by navigation; and whatsoever we have beneficial to human society by the division, distinction, and portraying of the face of the earth; whatsoever 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?¹¹

The shape of a society, for Hobbes, was dependent upon the state of its practical arts; and the achievements of these arts flowed from advances in learning. In the recent experience of European society these advances had been dramatic. The techniques of navigation that had led to the great voyages of discovery would not have been possible without a relatively modern European invention, the compass. Mapmaking had advanced in great strides during the age, and even during Hobbes's own lifetime, aided both by the discoveries of navigators and by the invention of new mathematical techniques for portraying the earth's geography on a flat surface.¹² The new, Gregorian calendar began to come into general use during the first half of the seventeenth century, and the science of astronomy was revolutionized by acceptance of the Copernican view of the universe during the same period.¹³ Hobbes's life was a time of discovery and rare excitement, and no one was more affected by the spirit of intellectual ferment than he.

This spirit is captured by the letter of dedication Hobbes affixed to De Corpore, the lengthy study of natural philosophy he began working on in the late 1630's or early 1640's and completed four years after finishing Leviathan. Geometry, logic, and astronomy, he argues, had all been developed to very advanced stages of learning by scientists in ancient times. Later on, however, many of these ancient achievements had been "strangled with the snares of words" by ignorant, meddling scholastic philosophers. The chain of learning they had broken had begun to mend only in recent times. Copernicus, Galileo, and William Harvey were the great heroes of its revival; indeed, Harvey was the only one of these who, "conquering envy, hath established a new doctrine in his life-time." Before these men, Hobbes argues, there was "nothing certain" in natural philosophy; but since their time "astronomy and natural philosophy in general have, for so little time, been extraordinarily advanced by Joannes Keplerus, Petrus Gassendus, and Marinus Mersennus," all of whom were contemporaries of Hobbes. "Natural philosophy is therefore but young; but Civil Philosophy yet much younger, as being no older … than my own book De Cive."¹⁴

Hobbes had some reason, then, to imagine that great things might flow from the recent revival of learning. That revival was new and fresh; who could say what achievements it might produce? Already it had led to numerous improvements in many specific practical arts. To have an impact upon the prospects of his political philosophy, however, the new wave of learning would have to achieve an even broader effect: the forging of a new and more rational cast of mind, not only within scientific and intellectual circles, but among ordinary people as well.

Formidable obstacles to the achievement of such a vast effect existed, as Hobbes very plainly understood. For in the first place, the seeds of superstition and irrationality, he suggests in Leviathan, lie deeply imbedded in human nature. Reason, after all, is an acquired skill, not a natural gift. It is far easier to remain ignorant than to become informed and enlightened. Superstitions arise naturally, without any conscious effort on the part of those who hold them. The imagination is naturally lively and uncontrolled. Magical pseudo-explanations appeal to it, since their falsity cannot be revealed without deliberate and careful scrutiny. The human mind is ripe ground for the "Weeds, and common Plants of Errour and Conjecture."¹⁵ It is not enough merely to implant the seed of reason into the minds of men and expect it to flourish without further cultivation. The weeds of error will crowd and eventually extinguish the life of that seed unless they are forcibly uprooted and destroyed.

Yet, in the second place, there are many men who inadvertently propagate these weeds, and some who deliberately cultivate them. The minds of ordinary people are like clean paper, but only if they have not been "tainted with dependance on the Potent, or scribbled over with the opinions of their Doctors."¹⁶ In practice few people enjoy the clarity of thought and openness of mind needed to make them receptive to the rational teachings of science. Most have been subjected to delusive, confusing doctrines propagated by people who have an interest in maintaining the ignorance of others. "The Enemy has been here in the Night of our naturall Ignorance," sowing and cultivating the weeds of superstition and darkness.¹⁷ That darkness cannot be dispelled unless its authors can be identified and routed.¹⁸

The magnitude of these obstacles to reason and enlightenment, and the strength with which he emphasizes them, have contributed to the view that in Leviathan, at least, Hobbes must have regarded supernatural beliefs—understood either in a Machiavellian way as myths and illusions or in a pious manner as truths of Christian faith—as an appropriate source for the ideological foundations that must underpin any political society.¹⁹ But this conclusion is neither stated by Hob bes himself nor implied necessarily by what he does say. Those seeds of superstition which cannot be "abolished out of humane nature" are only, when reduced to their most primitive core, "an opinion of a Deity, and Powers invisible."²⁰ The shape these opinions assume when they have matured into a fully grown plant is very much dependent upon the precise way in which they have been cultivated. Belief in God, in itself, is in no way inimical to science or truth, since reason, too, leads us to the conclusion that a deity must exist.²¹ And with sufficient cultivation and care even a belief in invisible powers could probably be refined into a form entirely consistent with the truths of science. After all, Hobbes himself habitually attempted to explain physical phenomena by invoking the idea that space is filled with an enormous number of tiny, invisible particles.²² Properly cultivated, even the seeds of supersti tion can be transformed into ideas consistent with reason and science.

The real obstacle to any such transformation lay in the entrenched positions of those who opposed it. Yet there was some reason for hope here, too. The forces of darkness had not always held such a tight stranglehold over the minds of ordinary people, and there were grounds for believing that their grip was beginning to loosen. Throughout Leviathan there are signs that Hobbes believed he was living in a time of virtually unprecedented ferment and cultural transition—a view that is hardly surprising, given the extraordinarily millenarian atmosphere that had enveloped the English imagination by the time of his writing.²³ Philosophy and the sciences had begun to break loose of their theological shackles, as the achievements of Copernicus, Galileo, Harvey, and others showed. Their revival was still a fragile one, as Hobbes suggests in the opening paragraph of De Corpore:

Philosophy seems to me to be amongst men now, in the same manner as corn and wine are said to have been in the world in ancient time. For from the beginning there were vines and ears of corn growing here and there in the fields; but no care was taken for the planting and sowing of them.

Yet a foothold had been gained, and it opened up a greater opportunity both for the advancement of scientific learning—or, as Francis Bacon had called it, the true "natural magic" ²⁴—and for the broader enlightenment of ordinary people than any that had occurred for centuries.

The benefits of such a general enlightenment, if it could be achieved, would be very great. By drawing men away from the superstitious habits of thinking to which they had long been accustomed, a movement toward enlightenment would be helping to lay the foundations for a new kind of common-wealth, stronger and more lasting than any that had ever existed before. Instead of resorting to myths and fables, as the founders of past commonwealths had done, the architects of a modern state could rest it upon the firmer, more permanent basis of enlightened, rational self-interest.

Hobbes did not imagine, therefore, that he would have to fall back upon myth to provide the ideological underpinnings of the commonwealth he envisaged. He was acutely aware of the power of myth, but he also believed that rational self-interest, once established as the principal motive of an enlightened people, would prove itself a more enduring foundation for political society than any fable or superstitious fabrication could ever be. He emphasized the magnitude of the obstacles to enlightenment because, unlike Bacon, he was convinced that it would never be achieved without an immense and bitter struggle. A victory would clear the way for philosophy and enlightenment to flourish together, and for commonwealths to be laid upon new, more rational foundations; a defeat would strangle these achievements before they had had a chance to establish strong roots. The struggle for enlightenment, Hobbes believed, was coming to a head in his own lifetime. Its outcome would be of historic importance; but at mid-century, when he was completing Leviathan, that outcome was not secure.

THE POLITICS OF CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION

By becoming linked with the historic struggle for "enlightenment," as he conceived it—a struggle he might easily have traced back to Erasmus and other representatives of earlier Renaissance humanism—Hobbes's political philosophy acquired a temporal dimension that had not been present in its initial formulation. In The Elements of Law, he had analyzed the commonwealth and the distribution of rights and obligations within it in essentially ahistorical and abstract terms. He had based a timeless theory of government and politics upon an equally timeless model of human nature. In Leviathan he clung to all the essential features of that theory. But the discrepancy between that model of human nature and his portrait of man as an irrational being gives Leviathan an historical dimension that had been lacking from Hobbes's earlier works. His theory of the commonwealth still had an abstract, timeless quality about it, but the model of man upon which it rested was now linked to a specific historical moment. Hobbes's theory would not achieve practical realization until men became the rational actors they had always had the potential to be. This would not occur until knowledge had triumphed over ignorance, reason had driven out superstition, and enlightenment had vanquished the forces of darkness. The practical realization of Hobbes's political philosophy had become linked to a possible event in future time: the transformation of human beings into the relatively enlightened, rational creatures that had always been the inhabitants of his vision of political society.

This possible future transformation of man became, for Hobbes, the crucial event in human history. The prospects for a commonwealth as he envisaged it were vitally dependent upon the outcome of the struggle between superstition and enlightenment. His theory of the state could not fully be put into practice before the movement toward enlightenment had triumphed. Yet there was no certainty that this triumph would take place. Hence Hobbes was led by what seemed to be inexorable necessity to a basic reformulation of the design of his political theory. His original aim had been to demonstrate the proper distribution of rights and obligations in a commonwealth. This demonstration, he hoped, would help convince men of the need for absolute sovereignty. Now, however, Hobbes saw that he would have to take on aims much broader than these original ones. To promote enlightenment itself, an entire outlook and approach to life, became an integral part of Hobbes's political purpose. His original theory was now encapsulated within a project of even grander design. The cultivation of rational modes of thought and action was an essential step toward the realization of his political aims. It became an aim in itself, distinct from, but inseparably wedded to, the original purposes of Hobbes's political theory.

This new aim generated a stratum of argument that was new in Leviathan. Hobbes had touched upon certain religious themes and used Scriptural arguments in both of the earlier versions of his political theory. But in each of these previous works the religious and Scriptural argumentation had been strictly subordinated to his central political aims. Its purpose had been to show that there could be little or no conflict between a man's duties to God and his obligations to his earthly sovereign, and thereby to remove one important potential obstacle to civil obedience. Though Hobbes reproduces many of the arguments of these earlier works in Leviathan, the theological argumentation in that work as a whole has a very different character from that which it had before. The doctrines of Christianity, as he portrays them, have been infiltrated over the centuries by many superstitious and magical traditions. As taught by some of the established churches, Christianity has become a carrier of superstition and spiritual darkness. The struggle for enlightenment is, in very large measure, a struggle against these tendencies within established Christian doctrine. The theological argumentation of Leviathan is essentially different from that of Hobbes's earlier works because the central aim of that argumentation is new. That new aim was to expose the superstitious and magical elements in Christianity so that these could be expelled from Christian doctrine. Ultimately, it was to lay the groundwork for a fundamental change in the habits of thought and action that had prevailed throughout most of the Christian era—amounting almost to a transformation of the human psyche that would prepare men and women to be assembled, for the first time in history, into a truly lasting political society.

The formulation of this new aim was the pivotal event in the development of Hobbes's political philosophy. It stands behind all the alterations that distinguish Leviathan from his earlier works. The new ambition to appeal to a large, public audience and thus shape popular opinion directly; the vividness of language, designed to leave a deep and lasting impression upon his readers; the new stratum of theological argumentation, so vastly more developed than it had been in his previous works—all these changes were linked to this one great shift in Hobbes's aims. The philosophical treatise that was designed to show the need for absolute sovereignty by means of logical demonstration, and that had constituted the main content of The Elements of Law, is contained in Leviathan as well. But in Leviathan that treatise is merely one part of a work of much larger extent and scope. The opposition between reason and rhetoric had been Hobbes's basic theme in The Elements of Law. In Leviathan, it was replaced by a new theme, that of the struggle between enlightenment and superstition, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And the form in which he presents this theme is less that of a philosophical argument in the ordinary sense than that of an epic, with all the grandeur of conception that term implies.²⁵

The fact that Hobbes presents this theme in a new form is intimately related to the reorientation of his aims. "The Sciences," he points out, "are small Power…. For Science is of that nature, as none can understand it to be, but such as in a good measure have attayned it." ²⁶ This observation is especially applicable when the aim is not so much to demonstrate the truth of a scientific conclusion from principles that are already accepted as to establish the validity of those principles themselves. For the principles of science, as Hobbes often remarks, cannot be demonstrated by scientific methods. They are self-evident truths, and must simply be presented to the reader in the hope that he or she will recognize them as such: "For this kind of Doctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration." ²⁷ Science cannot prove that the principles upon which it rests are true. But this limitation inherent in the nature of science need not prevent its advocates from using other means to persuade their readers to accept those principles as truths. The vigor and vividness of Hobbes's language in Leviathan, as well as the extremely polemical cast of his theological argumentation, are designed to accomplish just this aim. The language of Leviathan was necessarily rhetorical, in a deeper sense than the language of his earlier works of political philosophy had been, because the aim of that work was not merely to demonstrate the truth of Hobbes's political argument. That aim, rather, was to establish the authority of science, and through it to promote rational modes of thought and action, with a superstitious people. The form in which Hobbes presents his argument was a consequence of his adoption of this new and extra-scientific aim. In this sense Leviathan is at least as much a polemic for science and enlightenment as it is an instance of scientific or philosophical argument.

By recasting his argument into this new form, Hobbes effected a synthesis between some of the possibilities inherent in his own idea of science, on the one hand, and the rhetorical lessons he had imbibed during the years before he had conceived that idea, on the other. From the beginning, his idea of science had left open the question of what was to be done to reconcile discrepancies between scientific theory and empirical reality. In fact, the geometrical archetype implied that such discrepancies should be interpreted as signs of the imperfection of reality, not evidence of defective theory. The analogy with geometry did not immunize the theorems of science from empirical criticism entirely, of course, since for Hobbes any science should be capable of proving its mettle through its usefulness in changing and controlling reality. Until an opportunity to apply its theorems had been seized, however, empirical criticism of science would remain meaningless. Recasting the argument of Leviathan was a way of helping to create such an opportunity for his political theory. By drawing upon the lessons of the rhetorical tradition, which emphasized the power of the visual image or "speaking picture" in contrast to the weakness of merely conceptual discourse for creating mental impressions, Hobbes was attempting to create conditions under which the validity of his own theory of government and politics could be confirmed through its practical realization.

Hence the change in form and methods that distinguishes the argumentation of Leviathan from that of his earlier works of political philosophy represents neither an abandonment nor in any essential sense a modification of his original purposes. The truth is that this change is a sign and consequence of Hobbes's increased determination to achieve those purposes. The final aim—to bring into being a commonwealth based upon firmer, more rational foundations than any that had ever existed before—remained unchanged. But attainment of this aim now seemed to be contingent upon a prior cultural transformation. The polemical defense of science and enlightenment against magic and superstition was designed to help bring about this transformation, to implant those (in Hobbes's view, rational) habits of thought and action which were required if his scheme for the organization of political society was to work. This defense led Hobbes to offer interpretations of the metaphysical, prophetic, and historical dimensions of human existence as well as the assessment of man's political situation already expressed in earlier versions of his political philosophy. The next three chapters will explore these interpretations and their implications for his political philosophy.

Notes

¹ Polin, Politique et Philosophie chez Hobbes; Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes; Oakeshott, Hobbes on Civil Association, p. 48. Strauss adopts a somewhat different view in his later essay, "On the Basis of Hobbes's Political Philosophy," in What Is Political Philosophy? (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1959), pp. 170-196.

² Paul J. Johnson, "Hobbes's Anglican Doctrine of Salvation," in Ralph Ross, Herbert W. Schneider, and Theodore Waldman, eds., Thomas Hobbes in His Time (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974), pp. 102-125.

³Hobbes, Dieu, et les hommes (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1981), p. 61.

⁴The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: His Theory of Obligation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), esp. pp. 99-100, 272-277.

⁵Leviathan, ch. 15, pp. 216-217 [80], emphasis added.

⁶ In addition to Warrender, cf. on this point F. C. Hood, The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), esp. p. 252.

⁷ "Time, History, and Eschatology in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes," in J.G.A. Pocock, Politics, Language, and Time (New York: Atheneum, 1973), pp. 148-201, esp. pp. 159, 167, 191.

⁸ "Time, History, and Eschatology," pp. 167-168.

⁹ "Time, History, and Eschatology," pp. 160-162.

¹⁰ The nearest approach to this interpretation in the existing literature is that offered by Eisenach in Two Worlds of Liberalism. Like Pocock, however, Eisenach greatly exaggerates the disjunction between the two halves of Leviathan, going so far as to argue that the work "contains two separate languages, logics, psychologies, and politics" (p. 70). This clain arises out of his acceptance of Pocock's assumption that faith and prophecy constitute a form and realm of knowledge for Hobbes, whereas in fact Hobbes treats faith as a form of mere opinion, not as knowledge, and seeks to undermine the entire concept of prophecy, as the argument of Chapters 6 and 7, below, attempts to show. For another attempt to revise Pocock's interpretation in a similar direction, see Patricia Springborg, "Leviathan and the Problem of Ecclesiastical Authority," Political Theory 3 (1975), pp. 289-303.

¹¹Elements I.13.3.

¹² In his autobiography Hobbes reports that as a young student in Oxford he took great interest in maps and the voyages of discovery. See J. E. Parsons, Jr. and Whitney Blair, trans., "The Life of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury," Interpretation 10 (1982), pp. 1-7. Hobbes also drew up a map of his own to accompany his translation of Thucydides, and makes a special point of its accuracy and reliability in Thucydides, p. x.

¹³ For general account of many of these discoveries, see Marie Boas, The Scientific Renaissance, 1450–1630 (New York: Harper and Row, 1962).

¹⁴De Corpore, Epistle Dedicatory, pp. viii-ix. Hobbes cites De Cive rather than The Elements of Law presumably because the former work was published in 1642, eight years before the latter, even though The Elements of Law was written first.

¹⁵Leviathan, ch. 46, p. 683 [368].

¹⁶Leviathan, ch. 30, p. 379 [176].

¹⁷Leviathan, ch. 44, p. 628 [334].

¹⁸Leviathan, ch. 47, esp. pp. 704-706 [381-382].

¹⁹ Tarlton, "The Creation and Maintenance of Government"; Eisenach, Two Worlds of Liberalism and "Hobbes on Church, State, and Religion."

²⁰Leviathan, ch. 12, p. 179 [58].

²¹Leviathan, ch. 11, p. 167 [51].

²² Brandt, Thomas Hobbes' Mechanical Conception, passim.

²³ This view is elaborated in Chapter 8, below.

²⁴Advancement of Learning, p. 97.

²⁵ Cf. Sheldon Wolin, Hobbes and the Epic Tradition of Political Theory (Los Angeles: Clark Memorial Library, 1970), which argues a thesis similar to that of this and the following paragraph.

²⁶Leviathan, ch. 10, p. 151 [42].

²⁷Leviathan, Introduction, p. 83 [2]; cf. De Corpore I.6.5, 13, 15.