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.”
Language Register
High formal — consistent with seventeenth-century philosophical treatise tradition. Legal-technical vocabulary predominates ('covenant,' 'authority,' 'right,' 'justice') with frequent Latin terminology in parentheses anchoring English translations to Scholastic tradition.
Syntax Profile
Hobbes's sentences are long, architecturally complex, and deploy Latin-influenced subordination to track logical dependencies. He opens arguments with definitions, proceeds through consequences, and concludes with applications. Paragraphs are topical units. The geometric method produces prose in which the validity of each step depends on the preceding definition.
Figurative Language
Moderate but deployed for maximum effect. Hobbes is sparing with metaphor but uses it at strategic moments: commonwealth as body, sovereign as Mortall God, Papacy as ghost of Roman Empire, Scholasticism as Kingdome of Darknesse. His imagery is political and architectural rather than natural or lyrical.
Era-Specific Language
State, polity, civil society — capitalized and hyphenated in 1651 text
Holder / condition of supreme political authority; spelling reflects seventeenth-century English
Archaic verb forms standard in 1651 philosophical prose
Pass over, omit, leave untouched (Latin praetermittere); 'things the Soveraign hath praetermitted' = areas the law has not addressed
In the internal forum (conscience) / external forum (action); distinguishes when laws of nature bind
Hobbes's satirical coinage for the Scholastic adaptation of Aristotelian philosophy
Spiritual, ecclesiastical — with layered irony
War of all against all — Hobbes's Latin phrase for the state of nature
Natural freedom to do whatever preserves life; distinct from Law of Nature
Hobbes's term for the sovereign — god-like in power, mortal in being human
How Characters Speak — Class & Identity
Hobbes as authorial narrator
Learned, assured, definitional; writes as a philosopher to educated statesmen
Leviathan was written for the ruling class and scholarly community; the implicit reader is someone trained in Latin and Scholastic terminology
Ecclesiastical and Scholastic opponents
Satirized through neologism and extended metaphor; presented as producing 'insignificant speech'
Hobbes's satirical treatment reflects confidence that educated readers would recognize the abuses; he was addressing insiders to the Scholastic tradition
Subjects in the commonwealth
Theoretical individuals, methodologically abstracted from social station, considered as bearers of natural rights and contract partners
The methodological individualism has been read by Macpherson as presupposing a class-differentiated market society; others have read it as class-neutral
Narrator's Voice
First-person authoritative, confident, argumentative. Hobbes writes as a philosopher who has discovered the correct method. The voice is not modest — Hobbes believed he had solved foundational problems — but the confidence is deductive: he claims to have followed his definitions carefully.
Tone Progression
Introduction and Part I (Of Man)
Methodical, definitional, laying foundations
Hobbes establishes his terms with geometric precision
Part II (Of Common-Wealth)
Argumentative, political, constructive
The covenant and its consequences are derived
Part III (Of a Christian Common-Wealth)
Exegetical, polemical, cautious
Scripture engagement with clear polemical targets
Part IV (Of the Kingdome of Darknesse)
Polemical, satirical, energetic
The polemic against Catholic Scholasticism at maximum intensity
Review and Conclusion
Pragmatic, settling accounts
Addresses the political question of allegiance directly
Stylistic Comparisons
- Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince (1532) — predecessor in realist political analysis
- John Locke's Two Treatises (1689) — implicit response preserving property and resistance rights
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract (1762) — successor contract theory with general will replacing sovereign
- Immanuel Kant's political writings — accepts contract framework, grounds in moral autonomy rather than fear
- John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) — contemporary descendant
- René Descartes's Meditations (1641) — contemporaneous; Hobbes wrote published objections
- Francis Bacon's philosophical writings — shared commitment to natural-philosophical rigor
- Carl Schmitt's political theology — modern heir to Hobbesian decisionism