From geometry, which treats of abstract motion, he thus passes without a break to physics, and thence to moral philosophy; for the "motions of the mind" have physical causes. And, by this synthetical method, proceeding from principles, we come to the causes and necessity of constituting commonwealths." This method he always kept in view, and it gives unity to his theory. But he never carried out the impossible task of applying it in detail. He admits that there is another and an easier way: "For the causes of the motions of the mind are known, not only by ratiocination, but also by the experience of every man that takes the pains to observe those motions within himself." If he "will but examine his own mind," he will find “that the appetites of men and the passions of their minds are such that, unless they be restrained by some power, they will always be making war upon one another." By adopting this method Hobbes thinks he can. appeal to each man's experience to confirm the truth of his doctrine.

Leviathan is divided into four parts, which treat, respectively, of Man, of a Commonwealth, of a Christian Commonwealth, and of the Kingdom of Darkness. Man comes first, for he is both the matter and the artificer of the Leviathan; and, at the outset, he is considered alone, as an individual thing played upon by external forces; "for there is no conception in a man's mind which hath not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense." Diverse external motions produce diverse motions in us; and, in reality, there is nothing else; "but their appearance to us is fancy," though this name is commonly restricted to "decaying sense." The thoughts thus raised succeed one another in an order sometimes controlled by a "passionate thought," sometimes not. By "the most noble and profitable invention of speech, names have been given to thoughts, whereby society and science have been made possible, and also absurdity: for words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by

them; but they are the money of fools." Reason is but reckoning; addition and subtraction are its processes; logic is computation." So far, man is regarded as if he were a thinking being only. But he is also active. The internal motions set up by the action of objects upon the senses become reactions upon the external world; and these reactions are all of the nature of tendencies towards that which "helps the vital motion," that is, ministers to the preservation of the individual, or tendencies away from things of an opposite nature. Thus we have appetite or desire for certain things, and these we are said to love, and we call them good. In a similar way we have aversion from certain other things, which we hate and call evil. Pleasure is "the appearance or sense of good"; displeasure, "the appearance or sense of evil." Starting from these definitions, Hobbes proceeds to describe the whole emotional and active nature of man as a consistent scheme of selfishness. The following characteristic summary comes from The Elements of Law:

The comparison of the life of man to a race, though it holdeth not in every point, yet it holdeth so well for this our purpose, that we may thereby both see and remember almost all the passions before mentioned. But this race we must suppose to have no other goal, nor other garland, but being foremost; and in it:

To endeavour, is appetite.

To be remiss, is sensuality.

To consider them behind, is glory.

To consider them before, humility.

To lose ground with looking back, vain glory.

To be holden, hatred.

To turn back, repentance.

To be in breath, hope.

To be weary, despair.

To endeavour to overtake the next, emulation.

To supplant or overthrow, envy.

To resolve to break through a stop foreseen, courage.

To break through a sudden stop, anger.

To break through with ease, magnanimity.

To lose ground by little hindrances, pusillanimity.

To fall on the sudden, is disposition to weep.
To see another fall, disposition to laugh.

To see one out-gone whom we would not, is pity.
To see one out-go we would not, is indignation.
To hold fast by another, is to love.

To carry him on that so holdeth, is charity.
To hurt one's-self for haste, is shame.
Continually to be out-gone, is misery.

Continually to out-go the next before, is felicity.
And to forsake the course, is to die.

Out of this contention of selfish units Hobbes, in some way, has to derive morality and the social order. Yet in the state of nature there are no rules for the race of life— not even the rule of the strongest, for Hobbes thinks that there is little difference between men's faculties, and at any rate the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest." Thus for gain, for safety, and for reputation (which is a sign of power) each man desires whatever may preserve or enrich his own life, and indeed by nature 'every man has a right to everything, even to one another's body." Thus the natural state of man is a state of war, in which every man is enemy to every man.' In this condition, as he points out, there is no place for industry, or knowledge, or arts, or society, but only "continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Nor, in this state, is there any difference of right and wrong, mine and thine; "force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues."

Hobbes betrays some hesitation in speaking of the historical reality of this state of universal war. But the point, perhaps, is not fundamental. What is essential is the view of human nature as so constituted as to make every man his neighbour's enemy. The view was not entirely new; he was not the first satirist of the 'golden age.' His originality lies in the consistency of his picture of its anarchy, and in the amazing skill with which he makes the very misery of this state lead on to social order:

the freedom of anarchy yields at once and for ever to the fetters of power. The transition is effected by the social contract an instrument familiar to medieval philosophers and jurists. So long as the state of nature endures, life is insecure and wretched. Man cannot improve this state, but he can get out of it. The fundamental law of nature is to seek peace and follow it; and from this emerges the second law, that, for the sake of peace, a man should be willing to lay down his right to all things, when other men are also willing to do so. From these two are derived all the laws of nature of the moralists.

The laws of nature are immutable and eternal, says Hobbes, and in so saying conforms to the traditional view-but with one great difference. Hooker, who followed the older theory, had said that the laws of nature "bind men absolutely, even as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves." This is not Hobbes's view. He says indeed that "the laws of nature oblige in foro interno," but this means simply that "they bind to a desire they should take place"; on the other hand they do not always bind "in foro externo, that is, to the putting them in act." "For he that should be modest, and tractable, and perform all he promises, in such time and place where no man else should do so, should but make himself a prey to others, and procure his own certain ruin, contrary to the ground of all laws of nature, which tend to nature's preservation." As defined by Hobbes, the law of nature (lex naturalis) is as egoistic in its reference as the right of nature (jus naturale). The latter 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 the law of nature And the law of nature "is a precept or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved." The one

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asserts a liberty, the other imposes an obligation. But what is permitted and what is required are equally, for each man, his own preservation. Justice, gratitude, etc., are among Hobbes's laws of nature; but their authority is not absolute; it is strictly conditional on other men being willing to obey them; and this requires an agreement of wills-a contract. Contracts, again, require a power to enforce them: "covenants of mutual trust where there is a fear of not performance on either part are invalid"; and the only way to obtain such a common power is for all men to give up their rights to one man, or one assembly of men, and to acknowledge his acts as their own "in those things which concern the common peace and safety." This man, or assembly, will thus bear the person' of the whole multitude. They have contracted with one another to be his subjects. But the sovereign himself is under no contract: he has rights but no duties.

From this it follows logically that sovereignty cannot be limited, divided, or forfeited. The conduct of the commonwealth in peace and war, and the rights of subjects against one another, are decided by the sovereign. He is sole legislator, supreme ruler, and supreme judge. And this holds whether the sovereignty lie in one man or in an assembly. Hobbes always maintained the superiority of monarchy to other forms of government; but he never thought that this superiority was capable of the demonstrative proof that he claimed for his general theory. There is a story that, before leaving Paris, Hobbes told Edward Hyde (afterwards Earl of Clarendon) that he was publishing Leviathan because he "had a mind to go home." If he was serious in making the remark reported by Clarendon, he must have been referring to the 'Review and Conclusion,' with which the work closes, and in which he speaks of the time at which submission to a conqueror may lawfully be made. The book in no way modifies his earlier views on the merits of monarchy.