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Chapter 15
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Leviathan, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Nature, War, and Civil Society
Power, Common-wealths, and Monarchies
Religion
Fear
Reason, Fact, and Philosophy
Summary
Analysis
A person is someone, either real or imagined, who has words and actions that are either of their own will or through some contracted representative. In Greek, the word for “person” is the same for “actor,” and it is the job of a person to “personate,” both on stage and in real life. Whoever owns the actions of a person or actor is the author, but inanimate things cannot be authors, as they cannot assume any authority over actors. Nor can “Children, Fooles, or Mad-men” be authors, since they lack reason.
The word “author” is derived from the word “authority,” which implies power. Hobbes frequently discusses authors, especially those who author commands from a position of power that must be followed. Minors and those considered insane cannot be the authors of commands, nor can they be expected to always follow commands due to their inability to exercise sound reason.
Themes
Many people can become one when they are represented by a single author, but that unity is found in the author, not those who are represented. If there are multiple authors, the representative of the greatest number must be considered the only voice. There are two kinds of authors—those who own the action or actions of another and those who own the action or actions of another provisionally and vow to complete a certain action for another at a certain time or under certain circumstances. These authors are known as “sponsors,” and they are particularly useful when one must go before a judge.
An author that owns one’s actions provisionally is someone who works on behalf of another. A modern day example would be a lawyer or some authorized person who holds another’s power of attorney and makes said person’s decisions in the event they are unable to make them independently. A sovereign power, however, simply owns the actions of its subjects and is their subjects’ author at all times.
Themes
