Editing Thomas Hobbes (section)

===''Leviathan''===
{{Main|Leviathan (Hobbes book)}}
[[File:Leviathan frontispiece cropped British Library.jpg|thumb|Frontispiece of ''Leviathan'']]

In ''Leviathan'', Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of [[State (polity)|states]] and legitimate governments and creating an objective science of morality.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Malcolm |first1=Noel |title=Aspects of Hobbes |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford Scholarship Online |isbn=9780199247141 |pages=147–155 |edition=Online |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0199247145.001.0001/acprof-9780199247141-chapter-5 |access-date=21 March 2021 |chapter=Hobbes's Science of Politics and His Theory of Science |doi=10.1093/0199247145.001.0001 |archive-date=17 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417210931/https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0199247145.001.0001/acprof-9780199247141-chapter-5 |url-status=live }}</ref> Much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war.

Beginning from a [[Mechanism (philosophy)|mechanistic]] understanding of human beings and their passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the [[state of nature]]. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a "war of all against all" ({{Lang|la|[[bellum omnium contra omnes]]}}). The description contain one of the best-known passages in English philosophy, which describes the natural state humankind would be in, were it not for political community:<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gaskin|chapter=Introduction|title=Human Nature and De Corpore Politico|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=xxx}}</ref>

{{blockquote|In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Leviathan|chapter=Chapter XIII.: Of the Natural Condition of Mankind As Concerning Their Felicity, and Misery.|date=4 September 2022|chapter-url=http://www.bartleby.com/34/5/13.html|access-date=23 October 2014|archive-date=4 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201204090304/https://www.bartleby.com/34/5/13.html|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

[[File:The preface of Thomas Hobbe's Leviathan, read in Latin.webm|thumb|left|The preface of Thomas Hobbe's ''Leviathan'', read in his original Latin adaptation, with English subtitles]] In such states, people fear death and lack both the things necessary to comfortable living, and the hope of being able to obtain them. So, in order to avoid it, people accede to a [[social contract theory|social contract]] and establish a [[civil society]]. According to Hobbes, society is a population and a [[wikt:sovereign|sovereign]] [[authority]], to whom all individuals in that society cede some right<ref>Part I, ''Chapter XIV. Of the First and Second Naturall Lawes, and of Contracts. (Not All Rights are Alienable)'', ''Leviathan'': "And therefore there be some Rights, which no man can be understood by any words, or other signes, to have abandoned, or transferred. 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 ayme thereby, at any Good to himselfe. The same may be sayd of Wounds, and Chayns, and Imprisonment".</ref> for the sake of protection. Power exercised by this authority cannot be resisted, because the protector's sovereign power derives from individuals' surrendering their own sovereign power for protection. The individuals are thereby the authors of all decisions made by the sovereign:<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gaskin|chapter=Of the Rights of Sovereigns by Institution|title= Leviathan|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=117}}</ref> "he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign complaineth that whereof he himself is the author, and therefore ought not to accuse any man but himself, no nor himself of injury because to do injury to one's self is impossible". There is no doctrine of [[separation of powers]] in Hobbes's discussion. He argues that any division of authority would lead to internal strife, jeopardizing the stability provided by an absolute sovereign.<ref>"1000 Makers of the Millennium", p. 42. Dorling Kindersley, 1999</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Peter|first=Kanzler|title=The Leviathan (1651), The Two Treatises of Government (1689), The Social Contract (1762), The Constitution of Pennsylvania (1776)|date=31 May 2020|isbn=978-1-716-89340-7|pages=44|publisher=Peter Kanzler }}</ref> According to Hobbes, the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and [[Cuius regio, eius religio|ecclesiastical]] powers, even the words.<ref>Vélez, F., ''La palabra y la espada'' (2014)</ref>