Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiastical and Civill

Throughout his long life Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) associated with some of the most celebrated thinkers of the age and witnessed some of its most dramatic events; it is therefore no wonder that his philosophy is regarded as among the most original and influential in Western philosophy. Motivated as much by Hobbes’ horror of the violence unleashed by the English civil war as his materialistic belief in thought as a mechanical process, Leviathan (1651) states the case for complete obedience t...