Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme and Power of Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and CIVILL (Classic Reprint)

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LULU Press, Apr 21, 2018 - Philosophy - 324 pages
Excerpt from Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme and Power of Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and CIVILL

Hobbes published his Leviathan at that age of sixty-three, mystically composed of seven tirr. As nine, which was said to form in a man's life the grand climacteric. He published it for instruction of the people at large in the philosophic rudiments of government, which, as he reasoned them, established as the best safeguard of national prosperity the absolute rule of a King. The political philosopher who followed him, and laid down principles of govern ment that served as interpretation of the spirit of the English Revolution, was John Locke, whose Two Treatises on Civil Government, are in another volume of this Library.

Thomas Hobbes, son of a clergyman at Malmesbury, was from his earliest years an energetic student. He fastened so vigorously upon Greek and Latin, that as a school-boy he translated the whole Medea of Euripides into Latin verse.

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About the author (2018)

Thomas Hobbes was born in Malmesbury, the son of a wayward country vicar. He was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and was supported during his long life by the wealthy Cavendish family, the Earls of Devonshire. Traveling widely, he met many of the leading intellectuals of the day, including Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, and Rene Descartes. As a philosopher and political theorist, Hobbes established---along with, but independently of, Descartes---early modern modes of thought in reaction to the scholasticism that characterized the seventeenth century. Because of his ideas, he was constantly in dispute with scientists and theologians, and many of his works were banned. His writings on psychology raised the possibility (later realized) that psychology could become a natural science, but his theory of politics is his most enduring achievement. In brief, his theory states that the problem of establishing order in society requires a sovereign to whom people owe loyalty and who in turn has duties toward his or her subjects. His prose masterpiece Leviathan (1651) is regarded as a major contribution to the theory of the state.

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