Leviathan, or, The matter, forme and power of a commonwealth ecclesiasticall and civil

Description

Written amid the English Civil War, Leviathan asks how people can escape the insecurity produced when no common power governs them. Thomas Hobbes imagines a state of nature in which roughly equal and vulnerable individuals compete, distrust one another, and remain exposed to violence. To secure peace, they covenant to authorize a sovereign whose undivided power can enforce law and restrain private conflict. Hobbes develops this argument through an account of human sensation, appetite, language, and reason, then extends it to political institutions, religion, and the relation between church and state. The immense artificial person of the title embodies his central claim: durable social order requires subjects to create and obey a commanding public authority.

Themes