Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes (1651)
“Written in Paris exile during the English Civil War, Hobbes's 1651 masterwork argues that outside a sovereign power, life is 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short' — and that peace requires an absolute commonwealth in which fearful individuals covenant away their natural right to everything in exchange for protection.”
Leviathan— Historical Context & Author Background
Author: Thomas Hobbes · Published 1651· Era: 17th Century / English Civil War·700 pages
Themes explored: state-of-nature, social-contract, absolute-sovereignty, materialism, fear, security, natural-law, commonwealth, religion-and-politics, peace
About Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was born in Westport, Wiltshire, reportedly prematurely owing to his mother's fear of the Spanish Armada. He attended Magdalen Hall, Oxford, graduating in 1608 and entering the household of William Cavendish as tutor. The Cavendish patronage supported him for most of his life. He traveled Europe repeatedly, meeting Galileo in Florence in 1636 and connecting with Marin Mersenne's Parisian circle. Hobbes's intellectual turn from classical humanism to deductive political philosophy came in the late 1620s and 1630s, prompted by Euclid's Elements. The Elements of Law Natural and Politic (1640) was his first mature political work. Fearing political danger as an advocate of royal prerogative, he fled to Paris in late 1640 and remained for eleven years. In Paris he published De Cive (1642, revised 1647) and served as mathematics tutor to the future Charles II from 1646 to 1648. He engaged in correspondence with Mersenne's circle and began composing Leviathan in late 1649, publishing in London in April 1651. When its pragmatic 'de facto' theory alienated the exiled Stuart court, Hobbes returned to England in early 1652, submitting to the Council of State. Hobbes lived through the Restoration (1660) under Charles II's protection, receiving a £100 annual pension. Leviathan was investigated by a parliamentary committee in 1666. He was not formally charged but was effectively banned from publishing new philosophical work in English. Behemoth (completed 1668) was not printed during his lifetime; his English translations of Homer (ages 86-88) were allowed. He died at Hardwick Hall, December 4, 1679. His last reported words: 'I am about to take a great leap in the dark.'
Life → Text Connections
How Thomas Hobbes's real experiences shaped specific elements of Leviathan.
Born during Spanish Armada crisis; 'myself and fear' quip
Fear as the master political passion; state of nature's universal fear as the problem political authority solves
Hobbes places fear at the theoretical center — it is the founding emotion of civil society, the motivating force that makes covenant rational.
Cavendish patronage and European intellectual travel
Engagement with continental science (Galileo), mathematics (Mersenne), contemporary philosophy (Descartes)
The geometric method and mechanistic psychology depend on networks of conversation that extended across Europe — patronage made them possible.
Flees to Paris late 1640 before the Long Parliament
Writes from position of English political exile observing civil war from abroad
Leviathan's philosophical claim that life without common power is nasty, brutish, and short is generalization of what England was becoming in 1640-1651.
Mathematics tutor to future Charles II, 1646-1648
Leviathan's royalism is genuine but qualified; its pragmatic acceptance of Cromwell alienated the Stuart court
Hobbes's personal connection to the Stuart cause made his 'de facto' theory especially provocative — it cost him the connection but preserved his philosophical integrity.
1666 parliamentary investigation for atheism
No new Leviathan editions in England during Hobbes's lifetime; posthumous works published abroad
The effective censorship in England meant Leviathan's English reception was long shaped by the absence of the text — fertile soil for the 'Hobbist' reputation.
Historical Era
Early Stuart England — the English Civil Wars (1642-1651) and the Commonwealth (1649-1660)
How the Era Shapes the Book
Leviathan is not a book about the English Civil War, but every major philosophical claim bears the imprint of the war. The state of nature is a generalization of 1640s England: authority collapsed, multiple armed factions, economic disruption, religious splintering, no security. The insistence on undivided sovereignty answers the claim (commonplace in 1640s debates) that English sovereignty was shared among king, lords, and commons. The ecclesiastical polemics are historically specific: Presbyterian assertions of clerical authority, Independent localism, and Catholic transnational claims were all active in 1640s-1650s England. The pragmatic 'de facto' theory in the Review and Conclusion addresses the most urgent political question of 1651.
Why Leviathan Matters Historically
Leviathan is the founding text of modern political philosophy. No earlier work grounded political authority so thoroughly in rational contract rather than divine right, natural hierarchy, or custom. No earlier work analyzed political obligation with comparable methodological rigor, deriving conclusions from a mechanistic psychology through geometric deduction. The text established the conceptual vocabulary — state of nature, social contract, authorization, sovereignty — that subsequent political theory has continued to use even when rejecting Hobbes's conclusions. Leviathan also pioneered the methodological individualism that now dominates analytical political philosophy and economics.
- First major political philosophy to ground legitimate authority in rational contract rather than divine right or natural hierarchy
- First systematic application of the geometric-deductive method to political philosophy
- First sustained methodologically individualist political theory
- First articulation of the distinction between sovereign authority and subject liberty as complementary rather than opposed concepts
- First theorization of the state of nature as a philosophical thought-experiment rather than historical claim
Leviathan was investigated by Parliament's Committee on Religion in 1666 for atheism, during the Great Plague (1665) and Great Fire (1666), when Parliament sought divine judgments to explain the disasters. Hobbes, seventy-eight, destroyed compromising papers and was protected by Charles II; not formally charged. New editions in English were effectively banned in England during Hobbes's lifetime. Oxford University formally condemned passages in 1683, four years after Hobbes's death. Catholic Indexes of Prohibited Books included Hobbes's works. In Restoration England, 'Hobbist' was a theological and political slur. The effective ban led to Latin editions produced in Amsterdam (1668 Latin Leviathan) and manuscript circulation. Never legally re-suppressed after 1695, but controversial through the eighteenth century.