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The Epistle Dedicatory
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
Hobbes claims that human life is nothing but the movement of arms and legs, and any other automated machine is no different. An engine has “artificial life”—the heart is but a “Spring,” the nerves are “Strings,” and the whole body is given motion by “Wheeles.” So is the case in art and in any other work created by humankind, such as in the “great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE, (in latine CIVITAS) which is but an Artificiall Man.” The sovereign is “an Artificiall Soul,” and the magistrates and members of the judiciary and executive government are the “artificiall Joynts.” A sovereign nation’s abilities to punish and reward citizens are the “Nerves,” and the peoples’ safety is its “Businesse.” Laws are like “artificiall Reason” and civil war is “Death.”
Hobbes opens with an analogy of a common-wealth as a living human being, which is a comparison he returns to throughout the book. Hobbes has a theory concerning the ideal common-wealth that he calls “Leviathan,” a reference to a powerful sea monster in the biblical Book of Job. In Christianity, the image of Leviathan is often employed to represent the power of people united, which is exactly how Hobbes sees his ideal common-wealth: many people united under a single power. As Hobbes claims civil war is “Death” to a common-wealth, it can be inferred that he believes the common-wealth of England has died secondary to the English Civil War.
Themes
Literary Devices
The purpose of Hobbes’s book is to “describe the Nature of this Artificiall man,” and he will do so in four ways. First, Hobbes will describe “Man,” who is the “Artificer” of the Leviathan. Then, Hobbes will describe how a Leviathan is made and under what rights and power it is maintained or destroyed. Hobbes will also discuss the “Christian Common-wealth” and the “Kingdome of Darkness.”
England changed drastically during the Civil War (the monarchy was overthrown and King Charles I was executed), and Hobbes is offering a theory for the creation of the ideal society—one he hopes England will adopt as it rebuilds. Religion and Holy Scripture were a major part of life in 17th-century England, and Hobbes can’t offer a model for a utopian society without addressing how religion and God fits into that society. Hobbes’s reference to the “Kingdome of Darkness” suggests he will also address evil and immorality.
Themes
Literary Devices
Hobbes cites two common sayings: “Wisedome is acquired, not by reading of Books, but of Men,” and “Nosce teipsum, Read thy self.” Adages such as these teach others that passions and thoughts are common to all of humankind and that everyone thinks, reasons, hopes, and fears. What each person thinks about, hopes, and fears is different and individual, but these basic passions at least are shared. In governing a nation—a Leviathan—one must read not only their self, but all of humankind, and doing so is more difficult than learning any science or language.
This passage speaks to the importance of knowledge and reason, which are important components of philosophy. Hobbes implies that politics and the building of a Leviathan (the ideal common-wealth) involves complex philosophy because it must account for all different kinds of people. One major similarity people share is fear (everyone fears something), and Hobbes argues fear is a major motivating force in everything humans do.
Themes
