Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)

Thomas Hobbes, philosopher, mathematician and scientist, was born in Malmesbury and studied at
Magdalen Hall, Oxford. In 1647 he was appointed tutor of mathematics to the Prince of Wales and also
worked with Francis Bacon for some years, translating his works into Latin. He traveled extensively on the
continent and met Galileo, Gassendi, Descartes and the mathematician French Mersenne. As a philosopher
he shared Bacon's curiosity for nature and man, but he regarded science as a deductive process and saw
the geometric method of proof as the true scientific method. The basis of all knowledge, according to
Hobbes, is sensation, and the causes of all sensations are the "different motions of matter." Movement was
therefore, for him, the only universal cause and our appetites are our reactions to external movements.
Man is essentially a selfish unit, seeking self-preservation. This theory is expounded in numerous works, the
most famous of which is Leviathan (English version 1651, definitive Latin text 1668). In 1666 Parliament
ordered Leviathan to be investigated for atheism: terrified of the threat of being classified as a heretic,
Hobbes burned his papers and asked for the intercession of Charles II. Hobbes died in 1679. Leviathan
(1651) Hobbes' Leviathan is a defense of the theory of absolutism. Hobbes states that to avoid social
conflicts and civil wars men, who are naturally selfish, should first appoint and then give obedience to an
absolute monarch, or Leviathan (a giant sea monster in the Old Testament), in exchange for peace and
order. Hobbes Leviathan can also be considered as one of the first examples of works exploring the theme
of the social contract. Leviathan brought Hobbes' unpopularity for both political and religious reasons. The
causes, generation, and definition of a commonwealth. In this passage Hobbes deals with the theme of the
state seen as the biblical monster, the Leviathan. The final cause, the end of men. Man must come out of
the miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent to the natural passions of men when there
is no visible power to keep them all in awe and bind them for fear of punishment to the fulfillment of their
covenants and the observance of these established laws of nature. [..] The only way to erect such a
common power that can be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners and from mutual wounds,
and thus to ensure that they can feed and live happily, is to confer all their power and strength on one man
or a group of men who can reduce all their wills. That is to say to appoint a man or an assembly of men to
bring their person, and each to possess and recognize himself to be the author of all this. That is, to submit
their will to his will and their judgments to his judgment. This is a true unity of all of them, in the same
person, made by the covenant of every man with every man. Once this is done, the multitude so united in
one person is called a "state"; in Latin, civitas. This is the generation of that great Leviathan, of that mortal
god to whom we owe our peace and defense. For by this authority he has the use of so much power and
strength conferred upon him that with the terror of it he can form the will of all of them to peace at home
and mutual help against their enemies abroad. In him consists the essence of the community, which is "a
person of whose acts a great multitude, through mutual alliances with another, have become authors to
the end of each one, he can use the strength and means of all of them as he deems appropriate for their
peace and common defense. The one who carries this person is called sovereign, and he said he has
sovereign power and everyone else is his subjects. The First Two Laws of Nature (Thomas Hobbes) Every
man should seek peace, no matter how much he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, let
him seek and use all the aids and advantages of war. (1) Let a man be voluntary, when others are also
voluntary, so far away. as for peace, and the defense of himself, he will consider it necessary to establish
this right to everything, and to be content with so much freedom against other men, as he would allow
other men against himself. (The) Of the state of nature (John Locke) To understand the right political
power, and derive it from its original, we must consider in what state all men naturally find themselves,
namely, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their goods and people within the
limits of the law of nature, without asking for leave, or depending on the will of any other man. A state also
of equality, in which all power and jurisdiction are mutual, no one has more than another; since there is
nothing more evident, than creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born of all the same
vanguards of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal to each other without
subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of all of them must, by any manifest declaration of
his will, place one on top of another, and confer on him, with an evident and clear appointment, an
undoubted right to domination andsovereigns.
Magna Carta and Bill of Rights
One of the first legal instruments in the United Kingdom covering human rights issues was the Magna Carta
(1215) As a result of the Magna Carta and the British Charter of Rights of 1689 men obtained certain rights
against the absolute rule of the king, such as the right to refuse taation and to be judged by a jury of their
peers. However, the balance between human rights and the divine night of kings was still in question at the
time of the English Civil War In Leviathen (1651) Thomas Hobbes) argued that civil wars were so damaging
that any ton of stable society, however totalitarian, had to be prevented. He described the "state of nature"
in which human beings coexisted before the first societies developed, contrasting this with a situation of
anarchy in which life was "ugly, brutal and short". If human beings wish to live in peace, he thought, they
must renounce most of their natural rights and create moral obligations in order to establish a political and
civil society The work of the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) represented a crucial intellectual
breakthrough against the idea of inalienable human rights. In contrast to Hobbes Locke argued that "no one
should harm another in his life. health, freedom or possessions. It can consider life, freedom and property
as immutable natural rights of people. The purpose of all states was the protection of these natural rights,
his two treaties on government (1690) enjoyed great influence in America and France. He assumed that
governments were given their authority by popular consent, regarded as a "contract," so that a
government could be justly removed if it acted against the common good. His political philosophy,
therefore, obliged the state to implement human rights.
Freedom of the press
It is of great concern in the Church and inthestate to have a watchful eye on how the Books belittle
themselves as well as men and subsequently confine, imprison and render the most acute justice on them
as evildoers: because the Books are not absolutely dead things, but contain in them a power of life to be
active; on the contrary, they retain the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that raised
them. I know they are lively, and vigorously productive, like those fabulous Dragon teeth.
Chi kills a Man kills a solitary creature, the Image of God; but he who destroys a good Book, kills self-reason,
kills the Image of God. Agood book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit. And perhaps this is the
destiny in which Adam fellto know the good, that is to say to know the good for eva. He who can
understand and consider vice with all apparent herbs and pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish,
and yet prefer what is truly best, is the true Christian wayfarer. I know this, that the mistakes in good
governance and bad are equally almost incisive; for what the Magistrate cannot be misinformed, and much
earlier, if the freedom of the press is not reducedto the power of a judge;but willingly and quickly remedy
what he has done wrong, and in the highest authority esteem a more than others have made a sumptuous
bribe