Leviathan (book)

Leviathan (book) is a 1651 work of political philosophy by Thomas Hobbes that argues for a social contract and an absolute sovereign to avoid the state of nature. Written during the English Civil War and published in the early restoration-era milieu of Stuart England, the book synthesizes Hobbes's responses to the crises of his time, drawing on classical, scholastic, and early modern sources. Leviathan presents a systematic account of human nature, civil association, and the justification for centralized authority, influencing subsequent thinkers in Europe and the emerging modern state system.

Background and Composition

Hobbes composed Leviathan amid the turmoil following the English Civil War and the execution of Charles I of England, events that destabilized the Stuart monarchy and animated debates in Oxford and London about sovereignty. Hobbes, who had previously tutored members of the Cavendish family and corresponded with figures at Montpellier and other continental centers, wrote drafts and circulated pamphlets before consolidating his arguments into Leviathan. The intellectual context included engagement with Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, René Descartes, and Niccolò Machiavelli, and Hobbes responded to contemporaries such as John Selden and Samuel Rutherford. Printing and censorship under the Commonwealth of England shaped publication choices; the book's frontispiece, engraved by William Marshall and designed by Wenceslaus Hollar, symbolically depicts a sovereign formed of multitudinous subjects, reflecting Hobbes's negotiations with publishers like Andrew Crooke.

Summary and Main Arguments

Leviathan opens with a methodological program that begins from materialist premises influenced by Democritus and Epicurus, treating bodies and motion as primary. Hobbes advances a psychological account of human appetites and aversions, arguing that in the absence of a common power individuals exist in a brutish condition akin to the philosophical state of nature described by Hobbes as "war of every man against every man." From this premise he constructs the social contract: rational agents consent, either expressly or tacitly, to institute an absolute sovereign to secure peace and preserve life. The work delineates natural laws as precepts of reason leading to peace, and it distinguishes between civil laws promulgated by the sovereign and the rights retained by subjects. Hobbes addresses theology in the chapter titled "Of a Christian Commonwealth," interpreting scripture and disputing positions held by figures associated with Puritanism, Roman Catholicism, and the Anglicanism of the Church of England. He also articulates views on property, obligation, punishment, and the structure of commonwealths, contrasting monarchies, aristocracies, and democracies.

Political Philosophy and Key Concepts

Central to Hobbesian theory in Leviathan is the concept of the sovereign as an absolute authority created by consent to prevent the return to the state of nature; the sovereign may take forms such as a monarch or an assembly. Hobbes advances the notion of the social contract as a voluntary transfer of individual rights to the sovereign, including the right to command and to adjudicate conflicts. Other pivotal concepts include the laws of nature as rational imperatives, the right of self-preservation, the doctrine of psychological egoism regarding human motives, and the distinction between natural liberty and civil liberty. Hobbes integrates these with analyses of covenant, obligation, and the justification for punishment, and he situates his account in dialogue with medieval legal doctrines from Roman law and early modern theorists like Hugo Grotius. The work's treatment of religion and ecclesiastical authority engages institutional claims by Papal States proponents and reactions to Calvinist and Arminian controversies.

Reception and Influence

Leviathan provoked immediate and long-term debate among readers across England, France, the Dutch Republic, and other centers of early modern thought. Contemporaries such as Henry Stubbe, John Bramhall, and Richard Overton offered critiques, while later figures including John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Baron de Montesquieu responded—adopting, adapting, or rejecting Hobbesian premises in their own political theories. The book influenced the development of social contract theory and contributed to debates that shaped the Glorious Revolution era constitutionalism and the emergence of modern international law doctrines. Scholarly reception has ranged from condemnation as atheistic and absolutist by Royalists and clerics to praise by proponents of secularism and strong centralized administrations, and Leviathan remains central in discussions in contemporary political science, philosophy of law, and intellectual history.

Editions and Translations

Leviathan was first printed in English in 1651 by Andrew Crooke and featured distinctive paratexts and plates. Hobbes issued a Latin translation, De Cive, earlier, and parts of his corpus—including Elements of Law and Behemoth—circulated in varying editions. Over the centuries Leviathan has been translated into languages including French, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch, appearing in critical editions edited by modern scholars and publishers in Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and other academic presses. Notable annotated and critical editions compile variant texts from the 1651 edition, the 1668 revision, and manuscript sources preserved in archives such as British Library and Bodleian Library, facilitating ongoing philological and interpretive scholarship.

Category:1651 books Category:Works by Thomas Hobbes