Hobbes Leviathan Quotes

Hell is truth seen too late.

Scientia potentia est. Knowledge is power.

For such is the nature of man, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other mens at a distance.

Homo homini lupus

The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions. Defect in the understanding is ignorance; in reasoning, erroneous opinion.

Covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.

No arts; no 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.

For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it.

For to accuse requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice.

If men are naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors?

Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer – Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus – Tragedies 4. Sophocles – Tragedies 5. Herodotus – Histories 6. Euripides – Tragedies 7. Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates – Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes – Comedies 10. Plato – Dialogues 11. Aristotle – Works 12. Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid – Elements 14. Archimedes – Works 15. Apollonius of Perga – Conic Sections 16. Cicero – Works 17. Lucretius – On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil – Works 19. Horace – Works 20. Livy – History of Rome 21. Ovid – Works 22. Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus – Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy – Almagest 27. Lucian – Works 28. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations 29. Galen – On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus – The Enneads 32. St. Augustine – On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njál 36. St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More – Utopia 44. Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne – Essays 48. William Gilbert – On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon – Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler – Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan 57. René Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton – Works 59. Molière – Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza – Ethics 63. John Locke – Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine – Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67. Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve – The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley – Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope – Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire – Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets

He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himselfe, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind;

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel: First, Competition; Secondly, Dissidence; Thirdly, Glory. The first, maketh men invade for Gain; the second, for Safety; and the third, for Reputation. The first use Violence, to make themselves Masters of other men's persons, wives, children and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their Persons, or by reflexion in their Kindred, their Friends, their Nation, their Profession, or their Name.

I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdity of my waking thoughts.

Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which every one in himself calleth religion.

Francis Crozier believes in nothing. Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. It has no plan, no point, no hidden mysteries that make up for the oh-so-obvious miseries and banalities. Nothing he has learned in the past six months has persuaded him otherwise. Has it?

Moreover, it is difficult to reconcile Hobbes’s distrust for the individual with his confidence in the altruistic nature of the individual or individuals who will oversee and control the Leviathan. Are not the latter also of flesh and blood? Hobbes seems to be saying that man’s nature cannot be trusted but the nature of a ruler or a ruling assembly of men can be trusted. How so?

True’ and ‘false’ are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither ‘truth’ nor ‘falsehood.

The universe, the whole mass of things that are, is corporeal, that is to say, body, and hath the dimensions of magnitude, length, breadth and depth. Every part of the universe is ‘body’ and that which is not ‘body’ is no part of the universe, and because the universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing, and consequently nowhere.

Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, [is] religion; not allowed, superstition.

Words are wise men's counters; they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools.

Another doctrine repugnant to civil society, is that whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of good and evil. For a man's conscience and his judgement are the same thing, and as the judgement, so also the conscience may be erroneous.

As if it were Injustice to sell dearer than we buy; or to give more to a man than he merits. The value of all things contracted for, is measured by the Appetite of the Contractors: and therefore the just value, is that which they be contented to give.

Life itself is but Motion, and can never be without Desire, nor without Feare, no more than without Sense.

War consisteth not in battle only,or the act of fighting;but in a tract of time,wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known

For by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE, (in latine CIVITAS) which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which, the Soveraignty is an Artificiall Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body;

In such 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 commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no 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.

Concerning the first, there is a saying much usurped of late, That Wisedome is acquired, not by reading of Books, but of Men.

Respice finem; that is to say, in all your actions, look often upon what you would have, as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way to attain it.

Hurt inflicted, if lesse than the benefit of transgressing, is not punishment... and is rather the Price, or Redemption, than the Punishment of a Crime.

Imagination, therefore, is nothing but decaying sense...

That Wisedome 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 shew what they think they have read in men, by uncharitable censures of one another behind their backs.

The skill of making, and maintaining Common-wealths, consisteth in certain Rules, as doth Arithmetique and Geometry; not (as Tennis-play) on Practise onely: which Rules, neither poor men have the leisure, nor men that have had the leisure, have hitherto had the curiosity, or the method to find out.

Fact be virtuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth

Felicity is a continual progress of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter.

[Mixed] government is not government, but division of the commonwealth into three factions...

Desire, to know why, and how, curiosity; such as is in no living creature but man: so that man is distinguished, not only by his reason; but also by this singular passion from other animals; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures of sense, by predominance, take away the care of knowing causes; which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.

For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies; that is, to the old wives' fables in England concerning ghosts and spirits, and the feats they play in the night. And if a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: for so did the papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen power.

Ignorance of naturall causes disposeth a man to Credulity, so as to believe many times impossibilities: for such know nothing to the contrary, but that they may be true; being unable to detect the Impossibility. And Credulity, because men love to be hearkened unto in company, disposeth them to lying: so that Ignorance it selfe without Malice, is able to make a man bothe to believe lyes, and tell them; and sometimes also to invent them.

A colleague once described political theorists as people who were obsessed with two dozen books; after half a century of grappling with Mill's essay On Liberty, or Hobbes's Leviathan, I have sometimes thought two dozen might be a little on the high side.

These dictates of Reason, men use to call by the name of Lawes; but improperly: for they are but Conclusions, or Theoremes concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence of themselves; whereas Law, properly is the word of him, that by right hath command over others. But yet if we consider the same Theoremes, as delivered in the word of God, that by right commandeth all things; then are they properly called Lawes.

["Love is the love of one {singularly,} with desire to be singularly beloved."—Hobbes{Leviathan, (1651), Part I, Chapter VI}.]

The Conscience is a thousand witnesses.

[T]he value of all things contracted for, is measured by the Appetite of the Contractors: and therefore the just value, is that which they be contented to give.

The Power of a Man is his present means, to obtain some future apparent Good.

I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death.

The Papacy is not other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.

Hobbes’s Leviathan. Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

And if this be madness in the multitude, it is the same in every particular man. For as in the midst of the sea, though a man perceive no sound of that part of the water next him, yet he is well assured that part contributes as much to the roaring of the sea as any other part of the same quantity: so also, though we perceive no great unquietness in one or two men, yet we may be well assured that their singular passions are parts of the seditious roaring of a troubled nation.

And because the condition of man . . . is a condition of war of every one against every one, in which case every one is governed by his own reason, and there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth that in such a condition every man has a right to every thing, even to one another's body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man, how strong or wise soever he be, of living out the time which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live. And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason: that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule containeth the first and fundamental law of nature, which is: to seek peace and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature, which is: by all means we can to defend ourselves.

The attaining to this Soveraigne Power, is by two wayes. One, by Naturall force; as when a man maketh his children, to submit themselves, and their children to his government, as being able to destroy them if they refuse, or by Warre subdueth his enemies to his will, giving them their lives on that condition. The other, is when men agree amongst themselves, to submit to some Man, or Assembly of men, voluntarily, on confidence to be protected by him against all others. This later, may be called a Politicall Common-wealth, or Common-wealth by Institution; and the former, a Common-wealth by Acquisition. And first, I shall speak of a Common-wealth by Institution.

And from this followeth another law: that such things as cannot be divided be enjoyed in common, if it can be; and if the quantity of the thing permit, without stint; otherwise proportionably to the number of them that have right.

And because the condition of Man . . . is a condition of Warre of every one against every one; in which case every one is governed by his own Reason; and there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemyes; It followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a Right to every thing; even to one anothers body.

I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death. And the cause of this, is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight, than he has already attained to; or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.

Primitive man's life in Hobbes' famous words, was short, brutish, and nasty; and this very savagery and anxiety became the justification for an absolute order established, like Descartes' ideal world, by a single providential mind and will: that of the absolute ruler or monarch. Until men were incorporated into Leviathan, that is, the all-powerful state through which the king's will was carried out, they were dangerous to their fellows and a burden to themselves.

Scientia potentia est.

So liegen also in der menschlichen Natur drei hauptsächliche Konfliktursachen: Erstens Konkurrenz, zweitens Mißtrauen, drittens Ruhmsucht.

Thomas Hobbes in his 1651 masterwork Leviathan. I strongly recommend that you read part III, chapter 38, and part IV, chapter 44,

For between true science and erroneous doctrines, ignorance is in the middle. —HOBBES, Leviathan

the understanding is by the flame of the passions never enlightened, but dazzled

The Value, or Worth of a man, is as of all other things, his Price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his Power . . .

I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power, that ceases only in death

Nature indeed plants the seeds of religion--fear and ignorance; kingcraft and priestcraft water and tend it.

[...] los pactos que no descansan en la espada no son más que palabras [...]” (Hobbes, Leviatán. Cap XVII).

Δυσθυμία Η θλίψη που γεννιέται από την επίγνωση της έλλειψης δύναμης ονομάζεται ΔΥΣΘΥΜΙΑ του νου.

ό,τι ζητάς να κάνουν οι άλλοι σ' εσένα, αυτό να κάνεις κι εσύ σε αυτούς.

Διότι η άγνοια βρίσκεται στο μέσο της απόστασης ανάμεσα στην αληθινή επιστήμη και τις εσφαλμένες διδασκαλίες.

Ερωτικό πάθος, ζήλια Η αγάπη για ένα μόνο άτομο, συνοδευόμενη από τη επιθυμία της αποκλειστικής ανταπόδοσης, ΕΡΩΤΙΚΟ ΠΑΘΟΣ. Το ίδιο πράγμα, συνοδευόμενο από τον φόβο ότι η αγάπη δεν είναι μοιβαία, ΖΗΛΙΑ.

And therefore this is another error of Aristotle’s politics, that in a well-ordered commonwealth, not men should govern, but the laws. What man, that has his natural senses, though he can neither write nor read, does not find himself governed by them he fears, and believes can kill or hurt him when he obeyeth not? Or that believes the law can hurt him; that is, words and paper, without the hands and swords of men?

Η ίδια η φύση δεν μπορεί να σφάλλει και καθώς οι άνθρωποι εμπλουτίζουν τη γλώσσα τους γίνονται πιο σοφοί ή πιο τρελοί από το συνηθισμένο, και είναι απίθανο χωρίς τα γράμματα ένας άνθρωπος να γίνει είτε εξαιρετικά συνετός είτε εξαιρετικά ανόητος.

Αυτό συμβαίνει κυρίως σε όσους έχουν συνείδηση των ελάχιστων ικανοτήτων τους και είναι αναγκασμένοι να αυξάνουν την αυτοεκτίμηση τους παρατηρώντας τις ατέλειες των άλλων. Επομένως, το να γελά κανείς πολύ με τα ελαττώματα των άλλων είναι ένδειψη μικροψυχίας.

[W]hen a man hath . . . granted away his Right; then is he said to be Obliged or Bound, not to hinder those, to whom such Right is granted, or abandoned, from the benefit of it: and that he Ought and it is his Duty, not to make voyd that voluntary act of his own.

That a man be willing, when others are so too, as farre-forth, as for Peace, and defence of himselfe he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himselfe.

there is a saying much usurped of late, That Wisedome 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 shew what they think they have read in men, by uncharitable censures of one another behind their backs. But there is another saying not of late understood, by which they might learn truly to read one another, if they would take the pains; and that is, Nosce Teipsum, Read Thy Self: which was not meant, as it is now used, to countenance, either the barbarous state of men in power, towards their inferiors; or to encourage men of low degree, to a sawcie 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 himselfe, and considereth what he doth, when he does Think, Opine, Reason, Hope, Feare, &c, and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts, and Passions of all other men, upon the like occasions.

The opinion that any Monarch receiveth his Power by Covenant, that is to say on Condition, proceedeth from want of understanding this easie truth, that Covenants being but words, and breath, have no force to oblige, contain, constrain, or protect any man, but what it has from the publique Sword; that is, from the untyed hands of that Man, or Assembly of men that hath the Soveraignty, and whose actions are avouched by them all, and performed by the strength of them all, in him united. But when an Assembly of men is made Soveraigne; then no man imagineth any such Covenant to have past in the Institution; for no man is so dull as to say, for example, the People of Rome, made a Covenant with the Romans, to hold the Soveraignty on such or such conditions; which not performed, the Romans might lawfully depose the Roman People.

• “[...] los hombre que si bien reconocen que otros son más sagaces, más elocuentes o más cultos, difícilmente llegan a creer que haya muchos tan sabios como ellos mismos, ya que cada uno ve su propio talento a la mano, y el de los demás hombres a distancia. [...]” (Hobbes, Leviatán. Cap XIII.).

Διότι οι λέξεις είναι τα κέρματα των συνετών ανθρώπων, που τις χρησιμοποιούν μόνο για να υπολογίζουν, είναι όμως και το νόμισμα των ανοήτων, που τις αξιολογούν με βάση την αυθεντία ενός Αριστοτέλη, ενός Κικερώνα, ενός Θωμά Ακινάτη ή οποιουδήποτε άλλου δασκαλού, που δεν είναι τίποτα παραπάνω από ένας άνθρωπος.

Διότι για τα πράγματα που δεν γνωρίζουμε καθόλου ή που πιστεύουμε ότι δεν υπάρχουν, δεν μπορούμε να έχουμε καμία άλλη επιθυμία από το να τα γευθούμε και να τα δοκιμάσουμε, ενώ την αποστροφή τη νιώθουμε όχι μόνο για εκείνα τα πράγματα που γνωρίζουμε ότι μας έχουν βλάψει, αλλά και για εκείνα τα οποία δεν γνωρίζουμε αν θα μας βλάψουν

One reason might be that if I hadn't tripped, I'd have been hamburger. When this sort of thing occurs, people often say that there was some power greater than themselves at work. This sounds reasonable. I am just suggesting that it is not necessary to equate "greater than ourselves" with "stretched across the heavenly vault." It could mean "just slightly greater." A cocoon of energy that we carry with us, that is capable, under some conditions, of affecting physicality. Furthermore, I conjecture that the totality of all these souls is what constitutes the Godhead. I mean this in the same sense as the "Leviathan" of Thomas Hobbes, whereby man, that is everyone together, creates "that great Leviathan called a Commonwealth or State, which is but an artificial man, though of greater statute and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defense it was created." And that leads me to my Insight: God was not there at the beginning of evolution; God is what lies at the end of it.

Eloquence, with flattery, disposeth men to confide in them that have it; because the former is seeming wisdom, the latter seeming kindness. Add to them military reputation and it disposeth men to adhere and subject themselves to those men that have them. The two former, having given them caution against danger from him, the latter gives them caution against danger from others. Want of science, that is, ignorance of causes, disposeth or rather constraineth a man to rely on the advice and authority of others. For all men whom the truth concerns, if they rely not on their own, must rely on the opinion of some other whom they think wiser than themselves, and see not why he should deceive them.

380 BCE Plato discusses the nature of justice and the just society in The Republic. 1651 Thomas Hobbes sets out a theory of social contract in his book Leviathan. 1689 John Locke develops Hobbes’s theory in his Second Treatise of Government. 1762 Jean-Jacques Rousseau writes The Social Contract. His views are later adopted by French revolutionaries.

Άμιλλα, φθόνος Αν στη θλίψη για την επιτυχία ενός ανταγωνιστή στην απόκτηση πλούτου, τιμής ή κάποιου άλλου αγαθού προστίθεται η προσπάθεια να ενισχύσουμε τις ικανότητες μας για να τον φτάσουμε ή να τον ξεπεράσουμε, αυτό ονομάζεται ΑΜΙΛΛΑ όταν όμως προστίθεται η προσπάθεια να παραγκωνίσουμε ή να εμποδίσουμε τον ανταγωνιστή μας, τότε ονομάζεται ΦΘΟΝΟΣ.

Eloquence, with flattery, disposeth men to confide in them that have it; because the former is seeming wisdom, the latter seeming kindness. Add to them military reputation and it disposeth men to adhere and subject themselves to those men that have them. The two former, having given them caution against danger from him, the latter gives them caution against danger from others.

Τι είναι η ελευθερία; Με τον όρο ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΑ νοείται, σύμφωνα με την κυριολεκτική σημασία της λέξης, η απουσία εξωτερικών εμποδίων: τέτοια εμποδία μπορούν συχνά να αποσπάσουν από έναν άνθρωπο μέρος της δύναμης του να κάνει αυτό που θα ήθελε, αλλά δεν μπορούν να τον εμποδίσουν να χρησιμοποιήσει τη δύναμη που του έχει απομείνει για να κάνει αυτό που η κρίση και η λογική του θα του υπαγορεύσουν.

...it is incident most to them that are conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves who are forced to keep themselves in their own favor by observing the imperfections of other men. And therefore much laughter at the defects of others is a sign of pusillanimity. For of great minds, one of the proper works is to help and free others from scorn, and compare themselves only with the most able.

The greatest objection is, that of the Practise; when men ask, where, and when, such Power has by Subjects been acknowledged. But one may ask them again, when, or where has there been a Kingdome long free from Sedition and Civill Warre. In those Nations, whose Commonwealths have been long-lived, and not been destroyed, but by forraign warre, the Subjects never did dispute of the Soveraign Power.

Chiefs and kings and emperors have used their increasingly large carrots and sticks to enforce productive cooperation (and skim the proceeds off the top). According to the seventeenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, this is a good thing. He praised the king for being a peace-keeping Leviathan, the earthly god who lifts us out of our natural state, in which life is “nasty, brutish, and short.” Leviathans

The beliefs and behaviour of the Restoration reflect the theories of society put forward by Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan, which was written in exile in Paris and published in 1651. Like many texts of the time, The Leviathan is an allegory. It recalls mediaeval rather than Renaissance thinking. The leviathan is the Commonwealth, society as a total organism, in which the individual is the absolute subject of state control, represented by the monarch. Man - motivated by self-interest - is acquisitive and lacks codes of behaviour. Hence the necessity for a strong controlling state, 'an artificial man', to keep discord at bay. Self-interest and stability become the keynotes of British society after 1660, the voice of the new middle-class bourgeoisie making itself heard more and more in the expression of values, ideals, and ethics.

For as Prometheus, (which interpreted, is, The Prudent Man,) was bound to the hill Caucasus, a place of large prospect, where, an Eagle feeding on his liver, devoured in the day, as much as was repaired in the night: So that man, which looks too far before him, in the care of future time, hath his heart all the day long, gnawed on by Fear of death, poverty, or other calamity; and has no repose, nor pause of his anxiety, but in sleep.

Some 300 years earlier, in Leviathan, Hobbes had anticipated precisely such a notion16 with his concept of ‘force and fraud’: the idea that violence and cunning constitute the primary, indeed the sole, instigators of outcomes. And that the only analgesic for ‘continual fear, and the danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’ is to be found in the sanctuary of agreement. The formation of alliances with others.

Πανικός τρόμος Ο φόβος χωρίς να καταλαβαίνουμε γιατί ή τι φοβόμαστε, αποκαλείται ΠΑΝΙΚΟΣ ΤΡΟΜΟΣ, εξαιτίας των μύθων στους οποίους πρωταγωνιστεί ο Πάνας, ενώ στη πραγματικότητα αυτός που πρώτος βιώνει αυτόν τον φόβο έχει πάντα κάποια συνείδηση της αιτίας του, παρόλο που οι υπόλοιποι τρέπονται σε φυγή μιμούμενοι απλώς τους γύρω τους, καθώς ο καθένας υποθέτει ότι ο άλλος γνωρίζει την αιτία του φόβου. Ως εκ τούτου, αυτό το πάθος απαντά μόνο μέσα σε μια μεγάλη μάζα ή πλήθος ανθρώπων.

And because the constitution of a mans Body, is in continuall mutation; it is impossible that all the same things should alwayes cause in him the same Appetites, and aversions; much lesse can all men consent, in the Desire of almost any one and the same Object. Good Evill But whatsoever is the object of any mans Appetite or Desire; that is it, which he for his part calleth Good: And the object of his Hate, and Aversion, evill, And of his contempt, Vile, and Inconsiderable. For these words of Good, evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: There being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common Rule of Good and evill, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from the Person of the man (where there is no Common-wealth;) or, (in a Common-wealth,) From the Person that representeth it; or from an Arbitrator or Judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the Rule thereof.

(1) Men are moved by appetites and aversions. (2) The Power of a Man is his present means, to obtain some future apparent Good. (3) Every man must always seek to have some power, although not every man is self-impelled to seek as much power as others have, or to seek more than he now has. (4) Every man's power resists and hinders the effects of other men's power. (5) All acquired power consists in command over some of the powers of other man. (6) Some men's desires are without limits. (7) Everyone, those with moderate as well as those with immoderate desires, is necessarily pulled into a constant competitive struggle for power over others, or at least to resist his powers being commanded by others. He had only to add to it his postulate about men's innate aversion to death, and a further postulate about men's ability to behave with a clearer view of their own long-run interest than they commonly did, to get his prescription for obedience to an all-powerful sovereign.

But when I think of how many there are to whose designs it will be advantageous that these principles should be false, when I see that those who maintain contrary doctrines are not corrected, even though they have been punished by a civil war, when I see that the best minds are nourished by the seditious doctrines of the ancient Greeks and Romans, I fear that this writing of mine will be numbered with Plato's Republic, More's Utopia, Bacon's New Atlantis, and similar amusements of the mind.

And that which offendeth the people, is no other thing, but that they are governed, not as every one of them would himself, but as the public representant, be it one man, or an assembly of men, thinks fit; that is, by an arbitrary government: for which they give evil names to their superiors; never knowing, till perhaps a little after a civil war, that without such arbitrary government, such war must be perpetual; and that it is men, and arms, not words and promises, that make the force and power of the laws.

If a society characterized by universal competition for power over others is to remain, for even the shortest length of time, a going society--and that is what Hobbes's model is--it must be one in which there are legal, peaceful ways by which men can transfer some of the powers of others to themselves, and in which everyone is constantly peacefully engaged in seeking to get or resist this transfer. It has been demonstrated elsewhere that the capitalist market model is the only one that fits these requirements.

And hence it cometh to passe, that it is a hard matter, and by many thought impossible to distinguish exactly between Sense and Dreaming. For my part, when I consider, that in Dreames, I do not often, nor constantly think of the same Persons, Places, Objects, and Actions that I do waking; nor remember so long a trayne of coherent thoughts, Dreaming, as at other times; And because waking I often observe the absurdity of Dreames, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking Thoughts; I am well satisfied, that being awake, I know I dreame not; though when I dreame, I think my selfe awake.

For what is the Heart, but a Spring; and the Nerves, but so many Strings; and the Joynts, but so many Wheeles, giving motion to the whole Body, such as was intended by the Artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that Rationall and most excellent worke of Nature, Man. For by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE, (in latine CIVITAS) which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which, the Soveraignty is an Artificiall Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificiall Joynts; Reward and Punishment (by which fastned to the seat of the Soveraignty, every joynt and member is moved to performe his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Naturall; The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members, are the Strength; Salus Populi (the Peoples Safety) its Businesse; Counsellors, by whom all things needfull for it to know, are suggested unto it, are the Memory; Equity and Lawes, an artificiall Reason and Will; Concord, Health; Sedition, Sicknesse; and Civill War, Death.

Liberty and necessity are consistent: as in the water that hath not only liberty, but a necessity of descending by the channel; so, likewise in the actions which men voluntarily do, which, because they proceed their will, proceed from liberty, and yet because every act of man's will and every desire and inclination proceedeth from some cause, and that from another cause, in a continual chain (whose first link is in the hand of God, the first of all causes), proceed from necessity. So that to him that could see the connexion of those causes, the necessity of all men's voluntary actions would appear manifest.

The things that make a good Judge, or good Interpreter of the Lawes, are, first A right understanding of that principall Law of Nature called Equity; which depending not on the reading of other mens Writings, but on the goodnesse of a man’s own naturall Reason, and Meditation, is presumed to be in those most, that have had most leisure, and had the most inclination to meditate thereon. Secondly, Contempt Of Unnecessary Riches, and Preferments. Thirdly, To be able in judgment to devest himself of all feare, anger, hatred, love, and compassion. Fourthly, and lastly, Patience to heare; diligent attention in hearing; and memory to retain, digest and apply what he hath heard.