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Chapter 2
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
What one person thinks at any given time is not as casual and arbitrary as it may seem. There is no imagination—that is to say no mental thought—that is not first perceived by the senses in some way. There are two kinds of mental discourse, or thoughts, and the first is “Unguided, without Designe, and inconstant.” For instance, if one thinks of civil war, they may also think of delivering a king onto his enemies, and therefore of delivering Christ as well. One may also think of 30 pence—the cost of such betrayal—and understand immediately that “Thought is quick.”
Hobbes’s explanation of mental thought is again grounded in the philosophy of materialism, as he argues that all human thoughts are in some way first perceived by the senses, which means the senses must first come into contact with an object before that object can become part of one’s imagination. Hobbes’s own unguided thoughts reflect the political unrest of his time. His mention of civil war harkens to the English Civil War, during which King Charles I was captured and executed by parliamentarians. Hobbes implies that those who captured Charles I did so for a payment of 30 pieces of silver—the amount of silver Judas got for betraying Jesus—but he also suggests that all thought, no matter how random, is connected and rooted in experience.
Themes
The second kind of mental thought is constant and “regulated by some desire.” In regulated mental thought, one’s actions are directed at obtaining said desire in some way. In other words, one may desire something they have lost, and their mind will run back again to a time or place in which they possessed the object of desire. This is called remembrance, and it can apply to any person, place, or object. At times, one “desires to know the event of an action,” which means that since a particular action caused a particular event in the past, it is reasonable to assume that “like events will follow like actions.” This assumption is called prudence or wisdom.
In Hobbes’s definition of regulated mental thought, philosophy itself is a form of such mental discourse, as philosophy endeavors to find the cause of any given action or event. In the search for the cause of any given action or event, new memories and experiences gather to build the prudence, or wisdom, that is the end result of philosophy. In this vein, philosophy as an area of study and interest is at the very foundation of human nature.
Themes
Prudence can be false; however, those people with the most experience are often the most prudent, and such expectations rarely fail. This is because those with the most experience have the “most Signes to guesse by.” A sign is a consequence of an action that was previously observed, and those signs that are less observed are less certain than signs that are observed all the time. In other words, prudence is the presumption of future events based on past experience. An example again is civil war: when one has watched civil war ruin a thriving state, one can presume that other states in civil war will suffer a similar fate.
Hobbes’s reference to civil war again reflects the politics of the time. The English Civil War greatly changed, and in many cases devastated, English society. The king was dead, and their government completely transformed from a monarchy to a democracy led by Parliament. Hobbes implies that the Civil War will ultimately be the end of the England. This did not prove to be the case, but the Civil War did cause considerable upheaval for several years in English society.
Themes
One’s thoughts will always be limited, and no idea or concept can ever be infinite. No human being can conceive an idea of “infinite magnitude” or claim “infinite power.” God, of course, has infinite power, but God’s power is inconceivable to humankind. Any thought, concept, or idea must first be perceived by some sense organ and therefore cannot be infinite. Claims to the contrary, Hobbes contends, are “absurd speeches” from “deceived Philosophers, and deceived, or deceiving Schoolmen.”
God and, in certain circumstances, Christ, are the only exceptions to most of Hobbes’s theories. God’s power is infinite, and since people are only able to grasp and understand what is finite, people cannot fully understand God’s power. Hobbes was often accused of atheism and blasphemy because of his religious views; however, he appears to at least believe in the existence of God.
Themes
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