Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)
English philosopher, whose famous 1651 book Leviathan established the agenda for nearly all subsequent Western political philosophy.
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.
Man gives indifferent names to one and the same thing from the difference of their own passions; as they that approve a private opinion call it opinion; but they that mislike it, heresy: and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion.
Now I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.
For the Lawes of Nature (as Justice, Equity, Modesty, Mercy, and (in summe) Doing To Others, As Wee Would Be Done To,) if themselves, without the terrour of some Power, to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our naturall Passions, that carry us to Partiality, Pride, Revenge, and the like. And Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.
For a mans Conscience, and his Judgement is the same thing; and as the Judgement, so also the Conscience may be erroneous.
Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice; with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter.
The "value" or "worth" of a man is, as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power.
Such truth as opposeth no man's profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome.
During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.
…Science is the knowledge of Consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another…
Do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have done to thyself.
As first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his life; because he cannot be understood to aim thereby, at any Good to himself.
To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad.
The thought has surely occurred to many people throughout the ages: what if there is an afterlife but no god? What if there is a god but no afterlife? As far as I know, the clearest writer to give expression to this problem was Thomas Hobbes in his 1651 masterwork Leviathan. I strongly recommend that you read part III, chapter 38, and part IV, chapter 44, for yourselves, because Hobbe's command of both holy scripture and the English language is quite breathtaking. He also reminds us of how perilous it was, and always has been, even to think about these things. ...Having planted the subversive thought—that forbidding Adam to eat from one tree lest he die and from another lest he live forever, is absurd and contradictory... he acknowledged the process by which people are always free to make up a religion that suits or gratifies or flatters them.
By Manners, I mean not here decency of behaviour; as how one man should salute another, or how a man should wash his mouth, or pick his teeth before company, and such other points of the small morals; but those qualities of mankind that concern their living together in peace and unity. To which end we are to consider that the felicity of this life consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. 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.
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 the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power, but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.
Give an inch, he'll take an ell.
…in the state of nature, Profit is the measure of Right.
The RIGHT OF NATURE, which Writers commonly call Jus Naturale, is the Liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own Judgement, and Reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame, or blame…