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Western Political Thought

Notes Hobbes and Descartes accepted the argument of the Skeptics, and pointed out that it was not
possible to have a direct and honest experience of the external world; all that one could comprehend
was the internal activity within one’s brain. Though Descartes raised this question in his Discourse
on the Method (1637), it was Hobbes who suggested that for purposes of philosophical enquiry we
should presume the existence of a single brain, and then speculate whether such a brain could
perceive and experience. Unlike Descartes, he took it for granted that such a mind could be
satisfied, that the material world was the only world, and that the universe consisted of nothing
but matter in motion or at rest. Its experiences were caused by the motion of these objects, and not
because of the presence of God. For Hobbes, spirit was nothing but a movement in certain parts of
an organism. Motion was the cause of all things. Thought and physical processes were distinct
expressions of the universal category of “motion”. He concluded that since matter alone existed,
thought must itself be motion. Physical laws could be the basis of human psychology and behaviour.
Following the true spirit of the new science and philosophy, Hobbes adopted the science of geometry
to grasp political and moral knowledge. Geometry was useful because of its clear deductive
reasoning, for as long as one’s premises were correct, one could arrive at the right conclusions. He
was captivated by geometry at the age of 40, when he accidentally came across Euclid’s Elements
about which Aubrey wrote:
He was 40 years old before he looked on Geometry; which happened accidentally.
Being in a Gentleman’s Library, Euclid’s Elements lay open, and ’twas the 47. El. libri
I. He read the Proposition. “By G—said he ... this is impossible.” So he reads the
Demonstration of it, which referred him back to such a Proposition; which proposition
he read. That referred him back to another, which he also read. Et sic deinceps (and so
on) that at least he was demonstratively convinced of that truth. This made him live
with Geometry.
At the end of Chapter 31, he emphatically proclaimed that he had attempted what no previous
philosopher had done, namely to “put in order, and sufficiently, or probably proved all the
Theorems of moral doctrine, that men may learn thereby, both how to govern, and how to obey”
(Hobbes 1991: 254). For Hobbes, geometry provided the intellectual method to solve the problems
of political life. Therefore, he forwarded the Leviathan as an extended proof, proceeding from clear
definitions and axioms to conclusions that right-thinking Englishmen would simply have to accept.
It was a different matter whether he succeeded in his aim or not, but there was no denying the
sheer brilliance of his attempt and fascination it aroused. “For it is probable that what was foremost
in Hobbes’ mind was the vision, not of a new type of philosophy or science but of a universe that
is nothing but bodies and their aimless motions”.

Hobbes described geometry as the only science which pleased God and was hence
bestowed upon humankind. He was convinced that politics could be as precise as
geometry, and referred to the Leviathan as a demonstration.

Hobbes’ second intellectual model was physical science, especially the one practised by Galileo,
whom he greatly admired. Galileo’s technique of investigation was known as the resolutive
composite method. The resolutive part of the method consisted in abstracting all extraneous
considerations, and concentrating on the essential facts; for example, in analyzing motion, Galileo
focused on the essentials like mass, weight and acceleration. Having identified the basic factors,
he recomposed these into a simple and theoretical explanation. The same techniques—resolve,
idealize, recompose—were Hobbes’ method in political science. He resolved the diseased
commonwealth of his day into its constituent parts, individuals and their passions in a “state of

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