Thomas Hobbes

The life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

For by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE, (in Latin CIVITAS) which is but an Artificial Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which, the Soveraignty is an Artificial Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificial Joynts; Reward and Punishment (by which fastned to the seat of the Soveraignty, every joint and member is moved to performe his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Naturall; The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members, are the Strength; Salus Populi, (the Peoples Safety) its Businesse; Counsellors, by whom all things needfull for it to know, are suggested unto it, are the Memory; Equity and Laws, an artificial Reason and Will; Concord, Health; Sedition, Sicknesse; and Civill War, Death. Lastly, the Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation.

For whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. For these words of good, evil, and contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: there being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from the person of the man (where there is no Commonwealth;) or, (in a Commonwealth,) from the person that representeth it; or from an Arbitrator or Judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the rule thereof.

For there is no such Finis Ultimus, (utmost aim,) nor Summum Bonum, (greatest good,) as is spoken of in the books of the old moral philosophers. Nor can a man any more live, whose desires are at an end, than he whose senses and imaginations are at a stand. Felicity is a continual progress of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former, being still but the way to the latter.

And consequently, the knowledge of the consequences of words, is called SCIENCE. And though a man should now and then have the good fortune to get any thing by conjecture, without reasoning; yet because the event is uncertain, and may often happen to his disadvantage, it is not properly wisdom.

The Passions that most of all cause the difference of wit, are principally, the more or less constant adherence to their purpose; of which there is a degree more than that which in the former chapter I called tenacity. For in a man that is not volatile, and an inconstant wanderer of his imagination, but one that can fix his thoughts upon one certain point, and attend unto it without distraction, such are said to have a good Wit.

For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the artificer?

In the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

And therefore, if a man consider that argument, which is drawn from the common consent of all nations, to prove there is a God; he must not think it an argument of God's existence, but of the existence of a God, such as they imagine him to be.

A man's conscience and his judgement are the same thing, and as the judgement, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.

But the most frequent reason why men desire to hurt each other, proceedeth from this, that one man's will is contrary to another's will, or his action to another's action, or his words to another's words; and this is called CONTROVERSY.

For words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.

For every man, that is not an idiot, knoweth that there is a God; yet few there be that think there is but one, or that he is eternal, or incomprehensible, or that he governs the world; but they imagine him to be such a one, as they themselves are, or as they have heard say, or as they have read in books.

To believe in God, is to believe that there is a God; that is to say, to assent to this proposition, that God is. Not that I understand what God is, but that I believe that he is; and therefore, that he is to be worshipped, and obeyed, as that which is the first cause of all things, and whose power is irresistible.

The power of a man, (to take it universally,) is his present means, to obtain some future apparent good.

For every man is desirous of what is good for himself, and shuns what is evil for himself; but there is no man so good, but that he is ready to take what he can get, and to hold what he hath.

Ignorance of causes, makes men apt to attribute every event to some immediate invisible agent.

The only way to erect such a common power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their own industry, and by the fruits of the earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is, to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will.

Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, is religion; not allowed, superstition.

For every man by nature is supposed to be equal to every other man, and therefore, if there be no common power to keep them in awe, they will be in a state of war, of every man against every man.