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1. An Analysis of Thomas Hobbes’s
Leviathan
By
Jeremy Kleidosty
with
Ian Jackson

2. WAYS IN TO THE TEXT
Key Points
• Thomas Hobbes was an English scholar born in the late sixteenth
century.
• Leviathan argues that society requires a strong central figure in order to
be governed properly.
• Making his argument in support of the monarchy,* Hobbes turned to logic
rather than to religion.
Who Was Thomas Hobbes?
Thomas Hobbes, author of Leviathan, was born in England in 1588. His
father, the vicar of Charlton and Westport (two small towns in the southwest of
England), had to leave his church post when Hobbes was young. Although
most of Hobbes’s early life remains a mystery, some details about his
education survive.
We know that although Hobbes’s father was not wealthy, his uncle was a rich
merchant who made sure that his nephew received an excellent education,
which included languages and philosophy. He learned Greek and Latin under
a graduate of the University of Oxford called Robert Latimer* before going to
Oxford himself.
Hobbes worked as a teacher to the children of the rich and powerful
Cavendish family. He became friends with the head of the family, William
Cavendish,* an English nobleman and politician, and even traveled in Europe
with him.
This connection to an important family had a significant effect on his life. At
the outbreak of the English Civil War*—a conflict fought between the
royalists,* supporters of the monarchy headed by King Charles I,* and those
who believed that power should be in the hands of parliament*—Hobbes had
been living in Paris for two years. His early work was well known even then,
and since his ideas supported the role of a king in governing a state,
parliament, already in open conflict with Charles I, did not trust him.
Hobbes worked on Leviathan in Paris between early 1649 and 1651. This was
a time when many significant events happened in England. Most importantly,
parliament won the civil war and King Charles was executed.

3. What Does Leviathan Say?
Over the years of the civil war, life in England was very difficult. Hobbes
attempted to address the question at the heart of the conflict—“Should power
lie in the hands of the king, or parliament, or some combination of the two?”
To do this, he asked why people create states, and how states should decide
on a government.
He used many common arguments developed by earlier thinkers to explain
the shape in which England then found itself, writing in precise language to
make his ideas clear, and with attention to logic to show people that his
arguments were rational. By combining established thought with modern
writing techniques, Hobbes crafted persuasive ideas about English politics
and conflict.
The originality of his solution came from his theory as to how people behave
toward others. Hobbes believed that humans created society so that they
could live in peace; before this, people had no culture, and the strong preyed
on the weak.
Like many other thinkers, Hobbes agreed that people want to preserve their
own lives. Asserting that differences of opinion can lead to war, and that even
arguing about spiritual matters can be risky, Hobbes proposed a solution: that
people should voluntarily submit to a powerful person, who decides the rules
and beliefs of a society.
But this was a dangerous idea. First, people in the seventeenth century held
strong views on religion and did not want anyone telling them what to believe.
And second, not everyone agreed with Hobbes, since he seemed to suggest
that, to be happy and peaceful, society needed a king.
When Hobbes wrote Leviathan, the monarchy in England had been
dismantled; the military and political leader Oliver Cromwell* was in charge.
The future King Charles II* —a man Hobbes once taught—was living in exile,
and nobody knew whether he would ever come to the throne. Leviathan
supported the concept of a king, but many in England were afraid that if the
king came back, he would be too powerful. They thought that there should be
limits to a king’s power.
When Cromwell died, in 1658, his republic* collapsed and Charles II later
assumed the English throne. Three decades later (and 37 years after
Hobbes’s Leviathan), England went through another revolution. People had
again become angry about a monarchy that thought it could behave however
it pleased.

4. Leviathan was of good use to those who believed that a king should be in
charge. But it was of less use when it was decided that the king should not be
too powerful. Men such as the philosopher John Locke,* who disagreed with
Hobbes, set out to explain why a society did not always have to listen to its
king. That reflected a popular sentiment: it was no longer acceptable for a
king to decide what people should think. And England, a Protestant* country,
decided it wanted a Protestant king.
Why Does Leviathan Matter?
Leviathan made people think about political ideas, such as the rights of the
individual and the power of the state.
Any debate about, say, the laws a government should pass owes something
to Hobbes’s ideas. He made it possible to think of states as artificial, made by
people to serve a purpose. He provoked new ways of thinking about society,
too; for Hobbes, society was like a contract, signed between the people and
their leaders. Since both groups benefited from this arrangement, Hobbes
believed, a monarch had the right to rule.
Leviathan was an important text in its day and remains so today, contributing
to current ideas of governments and power. Political and legal processes
continue to draw on Hobbes’s concept of sovereignty,* for example. But just
as important as Hobbes’s ideas were the changes they inspired.
The text led writers such as John Locke to ask what kind of political contract
would benefit everyone. While Hobbes felt that the government should be
powerful, Locke believed in limits. After the American War of Independence*
(an armed conflict fought between Britain and 13 of its North American
colonies—the young United States—that had declared themselves
independent), Locke’s ideas directly influenced those attempting to forge a
new kind of nation and, in doing so, helped create a much fairer society
governed without a monarchy. Although the two men differed on many things,
Locke derived some of his thought from Hobbes’s work.
Importantly, Leviathan marks the starting point for a political idea called social
contract theory*—a theory founded on the idea that while some human
liberties should be sacrificed to the state, there remains a natural limit as to
how far this should go. What this effectively means is that no power is
absolute; freedom is the natural state of mankind, but this natural state—the
“state of nature”—is somewhat brutal. Man voluntarily abandoned his freedom
in order to receive protection from the state (or in Hobbes’s view, the
sovereign). This had two important implications. First, it challenged the idea of
divine right* and instead suggested that the justification for the rule of kings

5. was socially constructed. Second, it paved the way for another consideration:
if man gives up power to a government or sovereign, how much of that power
ought he to give up?
And so Leviathan remains at the center of debates about the nature of human
beings. Hobbes helped define humans as social creatures; he defined the role
and power of the state, as well as the relationship between religion and state.
Over time, these elements have become central to the wider debate about
human rights, which are universally understood but not applied equally
worldwide. For instance, American views on human rights differ significantly
from those of Saudi Arabia, and Saudis might see the imposition of American
values as interfering with their nation’s sovereignty—and vice versa.
Although Hobbes did not back democracy, his theories provoked questions
that led to it. If society was an invention of people, had it been made well?
Could we improve on it?
As we try to understand how democracy became a popular form of
government, we must first look to Leviathan; in it, Hobbes began a line of
thinking that influenced societies and nations around the world to an
extraordinary extent.
Key Questions
Synthesize: Why is Hobbes important to arguments about democracy?
Analyze: Who ruled England when Hobbes wrote Leviathan?
Apply: How did Locke alter Hobbes’s ideas?