Leviathan

1 Copyright © Jonathan Bennett Square [brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional Ÿbullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Each occurrence of . . . . four ellipses indicates the omission of a few words or lines of text that seem to give more trouble than they are worth. Hobbes wrote Leviathan in Latin and in English; it is not always clear which parts were done first in English and which in Latin. The present text is based on the English version, but sometimes the Latin seems better and is followed instead. Edwin Curley’s fine edition of the English work (Hackett, 1994) has provided all the information used here regarding the Latin version, the main lines of the translations from it, and other information included here between square brackets. Curley has also been generous in his personal help with difficult passages in the English version. First launched: July 2004 ********* LEVIATHAN by Thomas Hobbes THE FIRST PART.--OF MAN. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 2 1. Sense ............................................................................................................... 3 2. Imagination ...................................................................................................... 5 3. The consequence or train of imaginations ........................................................ 8. 4. Speech ........................................................................................................... 11 5. Reason and science ........................................................................................ 17 6. The interior beginnings of voluntary motions, commonly called the passions and the speeches by which they are expressed ...... 22 7. The ends or resolutions of discourse ............................................................... 28 8. The virtues, commonly called intellectual, and their contrary defects............... 30 9. The various subjects of knowledge ................................................................. 37 10. Power, worth, dignity, honour, and worthiness ............................................. 39 11. The difference of manners ............................................................................ 44 12. Religion ....................................................................................................... 48 13. The natural condition of mankind as concerning their happiness and misery................................................................................................... 56 14. The first and second natural laws, and contracts ........................................... 59 15. Other laws of nature ..................................................................................... 66 16. Persons, authors, and things personated........................................................ 75 2 Introduction [Hobbes uses ‘art’ to cover everything that involves thoughtful planning, contrivance, design, or the like. The word was often used in contrast to ‘nature’, referring to everything that happens not artificially but naturally, without anyone’s planning to make it happen. Hobbes opens this Introduction with a rejection of that contrast.] Nature is the art through which God made the world and still governs it. The art of man imitates in it many ways, one of which is its ability to make an artificial animal. Life is just a motion of limbs caused by some principal part inside the body; so why can’t we say that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as a watch does) have an artificial life? For what is the heart but a spring? What are th