Leviathan

Character Guide

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Leviathan (The Commonwealth, the 'Mortall God')

The artificial man created when individuals covenant together and authorize a single sovereign will to represent them all, described in the opening chapters as a giant body politic built to end the chaos of the state of nature.

The Sovereign (The Soveraign Representative)

Whoever (a single man or an assembly) is authorized by the covenant of the people to hold absolute, indivisible power over legislation, judicature, war and peace, and the censorship of doctrines.

Natural Man (Man in the State of Nature)

Hobbes's picture of a human being before or without government, possessing an unlimited natural right to all things and living in constant fear amid a 'war of every man against every man.'

The Subject

Any person who has given up their natural right of self-governance to the sovereign in exchange for protection, owing simple obedience except where it would conflict with divine law.

The Fool

A rhetorical figure introduced early on who says in his heart there is no such thing as justice, used by Hobbes as a foil to argue why keeping covenants is rational.

God, King by Nature (The Kingdome of God)

In Hobbes's framework, the deity who reigns over all rational subjects through natural precepts, rewards, and punishments, distinct from any earthly kingdom of God established by covenant.

Cardinal Bellarmine

A real Catholic theologian whose arguments for papal supremacy over civil rulers are introduced as the strongest version of a rival position that Hobbes intends to examine and answer.

Glossary

Jus Naturale (Right of Nature)

The liberty each person has to use their own power as they judge best for self-preservation.

Lex Naturalis (Law of Nature)

A rational precept forbidding actions destructive to one's own life, distinguished by Hobbes from mere 'right' (liberty) as an actual binding rule.

Mortall God

Hobbes's term for the sovereign/commonwealth, an artificial, man-made power that keeps peace the way the eternal God rules the universe.

War of every man against every man

Hobbes's description of the state of nature, a condition of constant mutual threat, not necessarily open fighting but a standing readiness for it.

Reckoning

Hobbes's definition of reason itself, as a mental process of 'adding and subtracting' the logical consequences of general names or terms.

Nosce teipsum

Latin for 'know thyself,' Hobbes's methodological advice that readers can learn about human passions in general by examining their own minds.

Pleonexia

A Greek term Hobbes uses for the vice of arrogance—demanding for oneself rights or advantages one would not grant to others.

Prosopolepsia (Acception of Persons)

Partiality or favoritism in judgment, the violation of the natural law of equity between disputing parties.

Decaying sense

Hobbes's materialist definition of imagination, describing it as the fading residue of sensory impressions after the original stimulus is gone.

Jus vs. Lex (Right vs. Law)

Hobbes's careful distinction between 'right' as liberty to act or not act, and 'law' as an obligation binding one to a specific course, which he says are often wrongly conflated.

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