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Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668

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There are lots of editions of Leviathan around, so why buy this one? The things the editor, Ed Curley, has done to make this edition accessible yet scholarly, like:

1. Updated spelling and punctuation. Although I personally miss Hobbes' original spelling (see the Penguin edition for that), as a teacher I appreciate Ed's making it easier for beginners and ESL students to read Hobbes' words.

2. Index. Most editions do not have one.

3. Glossary. Hobbes used many terms that are now archaic, and Ed's brief but clear glossary helps clarify the text.

4. Ed's Introduction. Curley is one of the most careful and knowledgeable commentators on Hobbes, and he briefly but expertly introduces some of the major themes of the book.

5. Latin variants. Hobbes wrote Leviathan in English and in Latin, and there are some interesting differences between the two versions. Ed presents many of these in the footnotes, plus he includes English translations of the Appendices of the Latin version.

This is one of the few books in western thought that cannot recieve enough praise. It is all at the same time a compilation of classical and medieval thought, a biting commentary and critique of 17th century Europe (England in particular), an exploration of philosophy as science, and to top it all off the first truly modern work of political philosophy. This is one of those works that anyone who truly wants to call themselves educated must read, whether their focus of studies is philosophy, politics, literature, science or even mathematics.

The fundamental nature of this work is to construct a reasoned materialistic account of human behavior starting from basic definitions and postulates (very similar to geometry). From these basic principles Hobbes constructs an account of human physchology based on human desires which then culminates in man's need to leave the natural state of the world into the constructed society, which Hobbes calls the leviathan. I cannot even attempt to give a summation of the steps of Hobbes's argument here that would do him justice, but suffice it to say that Hobbes's conclusion is that in order to be happy and safe man must give up his rights to a strong soveriegn. This is a conclusion that may not look modern or attractive at all to most readers, but Hobbes's reasonong is so clear and detailed that it forces the reader to, if not agree with all of his principles, at least take them very seriously. This is one of those books that forces one to reaxamine all of their assumptions about the world. Hobbes is also one of those misunderstood authors who are portrayed as being cold and ruthless, but are simply trying to provide their readers with an accurate and analytic account of humanities problems and hopefully providing solutions.

If all of this hasn't scared you away yet I do have to say that Leviathan is not an easy book to read. Its thought is difficult and its language is archaic, but for those who are willing to accept the work this book can be very interesting and rewarding. Hobbes might be a dense writer, but unlike many philosophical writers, he is a very clear and concise and often surprisingly witty and wry.

There are two editons that I recommend. The first is the Hackett edition. Not only does it take the liberty of changing the veried spellings of Hobbes's 17th century english, but it also includes textual variances from the earlier Latin edition of the work. Some of these variants are significant and should be takin into consideration by the serious student. The other is the Cambridge Student Edition, which is the edition I used because I'm one of those students that enjoy reading the early english texts with their strange spellings. The disadvantage of this edition is that it does not include the latin variations. The introductions and suplementary material in both of these editions are fine, but my personal favorite is the introduction written by Michael Oakeshott which can be fond in a collection of his essays entitled, "Hobbes on Civil Association". Another work which greatly elucidates some of Hobbes's strong almost vehement reactions to anything democratic is Hobbes's "Behemoth" in which he provides his account of the English Civil War. If you are really interested in Hobbes I also highly recommend his work "De Cive". Hobbes is hard, but he is unavoidable for anyone interested in understanding our modern world and our world in general. You may even find that, like myself, you just can't get enough of Hobbes.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) wrote "Leviathan" in 1651, it was his most important philosophical work. I think you should know something of Hobbes to understand how his thinking was influenced by his experiences. He was born 2 months prematurely on the day the Spanish Armada approaches the English coast. His mother's fear of invasion caused the premature birth. Hobbes remarked late in life, "his mother brought forth twins-myself and fear." Fear seems to be Hobbes life long companion and the key passion in his political system, which uses human passions as its foundation. He was a child prodigy reading Latin and Greek at the age of six years old. At fifteen, he entered Oxford University and hated his educational experience there. He thought the curriculum was too immersed in the ancient Greek philosophers like Aristotle. He called them "erroneous doctrines," and throughout his life he railed against English universities for there stodgy curriculum.

At the age of 22, he graduates and takes a job to tutor the son of the Earl of Devonshire. It gives him the opportunity to travel throughout Europe where he meets with Galileo in Florence and Descartes in Paris. Descartes calls Hobbes the greatest political philosopher of his day. During the British civil war, Hobbes flees to Paris because he is a well-known monarchist sympathizer. In 1651, he publishes his monumental work "Leviathan." He returns to England, submits to Cromwell's government, and withdraws from politics. He is on friendly terms with Charles II when the Stuart's are restored to the throne.

Hobbes philosophy is "materialistic"; he is greatly influenced by Galileo's mechanistic approach to science, and Euclidian geometry. His ambition was to explain all phenomena, man, and government with mathematical precision. In "Leviathan," he explains human conduct is a product of human passions. The most dominant passions are fear of violent death and desire for power, both are manifestations of man's most basic impulse, "self preservation." Hobbes asserts that the basic impulse is the right of the individual; he calls it a "natural right." All men process this natural right equally. This theory leads Hobbes to believe man's natural state to be one of constant conflict with each other. This leads him to write the following quote he is most known for: "men's lives are solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." So as not to have to live in constant state of fear or conflict, men make a contract for protection with the state. Hobbes believes that the best state is one led by a single sovereign whose power must be unrestricted with all three branches of government devolving to him. A single sovereign who has absolute power and cannot be replaced by the people.

His political writing had immediate influence in the world and influences other philosophers like Spinoza, Hutcheson, Locke, and Hume. Hobbes is the first man to write about political philosophy in such methodical terms. He is an excellent writer and his theories are easy to understand by the laymen. As a graduate student of political philosophy, I recommend if you have an interest in politics, philosophy, or government then you must start with reading Hobbes "Leviathan."

It's clear that a lot of effort has gone into making this volume the spectacular piece of scholarship it now is. The original work is slightly edited for clarity, and the editor has placed something of an outline in the margin of the work, making the topic of each paragraph clear. There is an excellent, extensive introduction with primary biographical information and a timeline of Hobbes' life. Further, there are the Latin variants along the bottom of the work to supplement the classic work. There is a glossary in the back of the work for recalling Hobbes' definitions. This volume really has it all.

Many people when talking about philosophy pose the question, who is the most misunderstood philosopher in history? The most often heard candidate I hear is "Nietzsche." Though since Bertrand Russell's rather ill informed expose on him in A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY, I can say Nietzsche has had quite a good public relations campaign in the last half century or so since. There are a few philosophers who history still hasn't given an adequate reevaluation, Hobbes is one such philosopher.

Often overlooked or belittled because of his political philosophy which has taken precedent over everything else he has done. For that being his most remembered contribution to philosophy, you think people would get his views on it right. No such luck for Hobbes, he is even widely misunderstood in the one area he is most remembered for.

Hobbes became interested in philosophy much later in life than most. He disputed a well known aspect of Euclidean geometry to a friend and was quickly rebuked with a proof of what he disputed. Rather then being dismayed, Hobbes was amazed by the power of reason to change a persons mind so definitively. He quickly became immersed in the accumulated knowledge of his era.

Other than political philosophy, Hobbes was one of the first people to formulate the idea of psychological egoism. He was the first of his era to have a now commonly held view of humans as complex biological machines. The general philosophical idea wasn't new but he gave the best exposition of the problem of compositional identity in his "Ship of Theseus" metaphor. An undercurrent of his philosophy which was radical at the time and still radical to this day, is his emphasis on materialism something we wouldn't see again in philosophy until David Hume a century or so later. Although he firmly held to materialistic views, Hobbes was one of the few of this early era of Science, then called natural philosophy to have a critical eye towards the methodology, while still contributing and putting his own ideas forward. In the history of the philosophy of science, Hobbes was the first to put forward the problem of instruments. An idea that can be summed up as, "are we discovering things with our instruments or manufacturing them?" A problem we still cant get around to some degree and that has plagued science based on complex instruments ever since.

Hobbes has had many contributions outside of political philosophy that are still important today. In this book he does focus on political philosophy though and his position though commonly stated as being thus: Since life without government is nasty brutish in short, we should have an absolute ruler with no caveats or further justification. Hobbes didn't believe in absolute rulers and he didn't exclude himself from being a party to psychological egoism. He saw government as a necessary evil, but still saw that it had its drawbacks. That is why he didn't believe rulers were chosen by divine providence or through any other means then materialistic forces such as popular consensus and his formulation of the social contract. He was the first person to put forward the idea of a social contract, or a secular approach to how governments form. He thought unjust rulers were tyrants and that they should be resisted as such. He thought Aristocratic and church interests separate a nation and as such they and their interests should be separated from the sovereignty much more than they were in his time. Hobbes without saying put forward the earliest formulation I know of between positive and negative liberty.

He heavily criticized miracles and supernatural forces and believed god if existing was a naturalistic being within the same universe as us. More than half of this book is dedicated to refuting or extremely deflating super-natural ideas. His views were far from complacent or in the line of the status quo and as such he drew criticism and even talk of death threats and excommunications from virtually every corner of political power over his views in Leviathan. He was also barred from writing in the United Kingdom and excluded from lucrative academic posts and groups.

Berkeley is often touted as the extreme road taken on the mental half of Cartesian dualism. Although Hobbes came first I think he can be similarly seen as the extreme half of the materialist side of the coin. Seeing as idealism ultimately led to Hegel. It is Funny that Hegel and Hobbes philosophy though on two totally opposite sides of the philosophical dualistic road led to a lot of the same conclusions. A super entity that represents the people, an approach to knowledge that takes a historical account and an ambiguous redundant god that seems to take a novelty place in both philosophies and unwavering support of kings instead of the other governmental options.

Leviathan is an important, but hard read. Not for those new to philosophy or political science. I would recommend it to those who have done their homework and who can really appreciate and see that Hobbes is not as bad as history has made him out to be. His political philosophy has ultimately been proven to be historically inaccurate and to an extent irrelevant today. There are however aspects of it, that we use and owe to Hobbes to this day.

In the State of Nature that is. Hobbes was an educator for the elite his entire adult life and produced this masterpiece while he was into his sixties. It is nothing short of superior in terms of style, clarity, and depth. The other reviewers have already said much, but I would like to discuss the impact of the State of Nature conception. Through his experiences in enduring the reprehensible atrocities of the English Civil War between Cromwell and the Elites(Royalists), Hobbes asserts that without civilization as master, human beings are in constant competition (often violent) for "what is available". Thus life is nasty, brutish, and short. Contrast this with the romantic conceptions of Rousseau (I tend to think more in the favor of Hobbes here). This conclusion conceived in 1651 is obviously a tremendous leap forward for knowledge and a great influence on scholarly thinking continuing through this day. It is a concept that is continuously revisited by hard and social science alike.

Hobbes appears contradictory in today's views. On one hand he finds that human beings are virtually equal where no one man is so superior to the rest of the herd that he may be immortal. However, Hobbes is absolutely defiant in his reasoning that civilization must divest full power to one individual. This way, the competitive nature of humans will be quashed under the interest of serving the leader. Everyone must have full faith in the authority of the ruler.

It is worthwhile to seriously consider these arguments and to observe how they have evolved in the modern state which you occupy today.

Hobbes wrote in English, so when it comes to English editions, translation is not an issue. For that reason, there are several good English editions of Leviathan out there. But Edwin Curley's, put out by Hackett, is easily among the best. The main reason for this is that it is the only version I am aware of which includes the variants from the Latin edition. Curley's has other benefits too, such as his inclusion of paragraph numbers, which, though it may seem like a minor detail, greatly eases navigation of the text, especially when reading it with other people. He modernizes Hobbes' spellings, which some readers prefer, and some detest. I don't find that it makes a significant difference, IMHO, although sometimes archaic spellings can get distracting. His introduction is also the best for understanding the significance of the Latin edition, and why and how he makes use of it. Look here first for an excellent edition of Hobbes' Leviathan.

The two other editions to consider are done by Richard Tuck, for Cambridge (Hobbes: Leviathan: Revised student edition (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)) and J. C. A. Gaskin, for Oxford (Leviathan (Oxford World's Classics)). Of these three, only Tuck retains Hobbes' spelling, which, as mentioned above, is in some ways beneficial, and in some ways confusing--beneficial because it reduces (possibly unwarranted) editorial interpolations, and confusing because modern eyes are not used to it. Gaskin also numbers his paragraphs, and modernizes spelling. Neither incorporate the Latin edition, though both make passing (dismissive) mention of its existence in their introductions. All three can be had without much expense--financial or otherwise--and for serious study it may be worth it to have all three to read alongside each other. If you can only get one, however, get Curley's.

Hobbes is a misunderstood philosopher. He envisaged that executive power would be based on the will of the people who allow it to be exercised. In this way Hobbes saw the development of a social contract between members of society and those who govern, based on individual rights not to subsciptive service as vassals. He also warned that agreements (or covenants) without either armed or moral right to be enforced would remain simply that - words. Hobbes does indeed speak to all peoples who live in our society - white, black and any shade in between.

Why Absolute Sovereignty Can Not Offer Perpetual Peace
-On the Desires of Men

In the Leviathan, Hobbes brings forward the theory that Commonwealths arise because without governments, people live in a state of nature with the constant danger of death. Furthermore, he believes that the best form of Commonwealth is one ruled by a monarch with absolute power; just like a person with two brains will not function, if the power of the monarch is not absolute, the commonwealth will fall back into the warring state of nature. When the sovereign power becomes truly absolute, Hobbes believes the Commonwealth could "live as long as mankind" unless attacked by foreign powers (p210).

Indeed, Hobbes is right in that life under any government is better than life with no government, and also that multiple powers inside one commonwealth will cause an end to the commonwealth. Nevertheless, he is wrong in asserting that absolute monarchy is the panacea for perpetual internal peace. There are two intrinsic flaws in the his system which are bound to push the commonwealth into the state of nature: one flaw is the unchecked greed of the monarch, another is caused by the unfulfilled desire for power of the subjects. Although this paper can not offer a better formula for governments, it will show that absolute monarchy does not provide the perpetual security that Hobbes promises.

First of all, extraordinary greed of the absolute ruler can break the Commonwealth. A ruler's greed can impoverish his subjects so abjectly that they no longer have enough food to survive on. Since the purpose of the commonwealth is to guarantee the security of life, and without food there is no life, the greed of the ruler will force the absolute Commonwealth to fall back into the state of nature.

Hobbes believes that the interest of the ruler and the interest of his subjects are so interdependent that the actions of the ruler will always be in the interest of his people. He writes,

"Now in monarchy the private interest is the same with the public...the riches, power, and honor of a monarch arise only from the riches, strength and reputation of his subjects." (P120)

Hobbes is right; the sovereign is the incorporation of its subjects, and so any injuries to the people are collectively an injury to the sovereign. Nevertheless, arising out of the great complications of the businesses of state and the wide expanse of a Commonwealth, there will always be a lag between when acts of the sovereign takes effect with people and when the sovereign feels the reactions of his people himself. A ruler with perfect prudence might be able to see through the gap and act in ways that are only ultimately good for the people and himself, but as Hobbes rightly observes, no one has perfect prudence (P14). This imperfect prudence becomes especially short-sighted when the ruler's reason is clouded by his present desires. Hobbes acknowledges these desires, for he says:

"And hence it is that kings, whose power is greatest, turn their endeavors to the assuring it at home by laws or abroad by wars; and when that is done, there succeeded a new desire, in some of fame from new conquest, in others of ease and sensual pleasures, in others of admiration or being flattered for excellence in some art or other ability of the mind." (p58)

So clouded by the lack of prudence and by excessive desires, the monarch might take actions that seem good at the moment for himself, but which turn out harmful for himself later. To illustrate this, let us observe the following scenario:

The new ruler of a poor but secured country builds a modest palace, for he has learnt from history books that he should not splurge. A couple years later, however, a desire for great things tempts him, and he wants to build a winter palace. He seeks advices from ten advisors, who had all the qualities that Hobbes praises (Chapter XXV); nine out of ten advisors privately dissuade the king from this luxury for a flood is raging and their nation is poor. Saddened, the king turns to the last advisor, who, seeing an opportunity to gain favor with the ruler, loudly exclaims that the other counselors do not love their king who needs a winter palace to escape the cold. The king happily agrees with him as his reason becomes clouded by desires; and soon, the construction begins.

Having gained favor, the 10th advisor convinces the ruler to imprison the other advisors for their "bad mouthing" of the king, making him the sole voice by the ruler's ear. As time goes on, the king exerts ever greater taxes on his people to pay for ever grander palaces, and every time, the advisor not only finds more elaborate excuses for the king but praises him for his greatness and also funnels some of the money for construction into his own coffer. The affairs of the nation are in utter neglect.

One night, the king remembers his father's warnings against indulgence, and he shakes with fear; but when he sees his gardens filled with singing girls half naked, lacking the prudence to see the future awaiting him, he says to himself, "I have been endowed differently by God, the fate of others can not be my own."

The poor people of this nation become more desperate by the day, yet the ruler who lives deep inside his palaces can not know their suffering. Some years later, the harvest is so bad that people have barely enough to feed themselves, yet the king sends his money collectors for even higher tax quotas. Realizing that they could either die of starvation or die fighting against the dictator with at least a chance to live, the farmers revolt. Hobbes would support them, for he writes, "the obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect hem." (P144)

When the farmers' army charges into his bed chamber, the king finally feels the injuries that he has done to the people and to himself, yet reason and prudence are too late.

Absolute sovereignty means absolute power, and as the old saying goes, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." In fact, Hobbes acknowledges the greedy corruption of the monarchs, and even gives his justification. He writes,

"A man may here object that the condition of subjects is very miserable, as being obnoxious to the lusts and other irregular passions of him or them that have so unlimited a power in their hands...not considering that the estate of man can never be without some incommodity or other, and that the greatest that in any form of government can possibly happen to the people in general is scarce sensible, in respect of the miseries and horrible calamities that accompany a civil war." (P117)

Hobbes makes no mistakes here. Any government is better than no government, but as mentioned before, he makes the claim later that Commonwealths, "by the nature of their constitution they are designed to live as long as mankind" unless attacked by foreign powers (210). In the same chapter (XXIX), Hobbes attributes all the internal infirmities of the Commonwealth that shorten its "natural" life to variations of the lack of absolute power, but describes no infirmities when the Commonwealth is ruled by an absolute monarch. He thus makes it clear that if there is absolute power, then the commonwealth will "live as long as mankind" even if the monarch is corrupted. However, as shown in the illustration above, Hobbes' absolute monarchy does have tremendous infirmities.

Hobbes can, however, still argue that the previous illustration is an extreme example that barely happens in reality. Hobbes might say that if only the absolute sovereigns all studied the Leviathan carefully, they will always initiate policies for the interest of the people. Granted, Hobbes' excellent book can convert many, yet, even when the absolute sovereign is good and strong, the Commonwealth can still fall back into the state of chaos.

To Hobbes, the foremost law of nature is to find security ("a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive to his life" [P79]), but is survival the only thing that men search for? No. As Hobbes points out himself, survival is the means and not the ends of life. And while people all want to survive, they live for different ends of life as influenced by their education and upbringings. Hobbs indirectly talks about the fulfillment of some ends life when he writes,

"In such condition (of war) 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" (p76)

For certain people, the end of their life lies in gaining political power-to be the ruler instead of the ruled. Hobbes indirectly recognizes people's "unnecessary" desire for power, when he writes (OL) "there are those who, from pride and a desire for glory, would conquer the whole world, which they pursue farther than their security requires." (P75)

This kind of desire, nevertheless, can not be fully satisfied in a state of absolute sovereignty. For one, the greatest prize of all, the prize of becoming your own sovereign is off-limits. Additionally, although those borne with the heart of Napoleon might be few, lower offices and positions in a state of absolute power come merely at the mercy of the sovereign-for one eager for any honor and position, his dream may never fly high because the sovereign can give the honor he deserves to someone else. As Hobbes says himself, "a man may be worthy of riches, office, and employment, that nevertheless can plead no right to have it before another, and therefore cannot be said to merit or deserve it." (p57)

For some, the limitation on of the fulfillment of their political dreams results in nothing other than the acceptance of their fates, yet history never fails to produce some who have the eagerness and bravery to challenge the ultimate authority and break the bondage of power.

Hobbes would call the act of such eager men anti-nature, since dissenters will almost certainly face unnatural deaths by the sword of the king, or face the danger of death by returning to the state of nature. However, again, survival is the means, not ends of life. The following example illustrates why people might endanger their means for their ends.

Colonized people have throughout history fought for independence against their colonial sovereigns. To Hobbes, these wars for independence must be irrational: for one, the colonized people could be enjoying many benefits either from direct aid or commercial links with their colonizer; additionally, hundreds of thousands of colonized people might die in the immediate war or during the consequent internal power struggles caused by the revolt. Yet, despite the "practical benefits" and the peace that the colonial sovereigns bestows upon the colonized, this smooth highway of subjugation is not the one that the people want; they desire for a road, smaller and rougher maybe, but one that is built by themselves to a destination that they determined for themselves. Thus, in their search for the power that is forbidden to them, they set out for the "unreasonable".

To be sure, Hobbes' Law of Nature still holds: on the battle fields, those who fight against the sovereign will always do all they could to triumph over their enemy and avoid death, but again, the need for survival is only a part of the story.

Regarding this fight for independence, Hobbes might say, as he writes, "those men that are so remissly governed that they dare take up arms to defend or introduce an opinion are still in war." (P113) This means that since the any revolutionaries must never have been a part of the commonwealth, and hence the commonwealth was only attacked from the outside and did not fall internally. Nevertheless, Hobbes also says that a monarch's "subjects" are delivered from their former obligation, and become obliged" to the victor in a war against their original sovereign. (P145) The new subjects of the monarch might have a high tendency toward revolting against ruler for the same reasons mentioned before, and in this case, Hobbes must certainly recognize that the revolutionaries are a part of the Commonwealth.

In the Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes dedicates himself to finding the best form of government, that perfect house which can last forever and provide eternal peace for all. The book is quiet admirable with its precise arguments and high ideals. Nevertheless, Hobbes ignores the fact that people will always willingly take actions that might hurt their security because they are either short-sighted or desire for something other than mere survival. Still, the Leviathan is a work of Epic proportion, and this essay does not find a form of government better than absolute sovereignty.

The Leviatian is one of Thomas Hobbes' most famous political tracts. It is an important part of the (white) Western tradition of political science and political philosophy. It posits the idea that man in nature is a brute, a savage, wild and inherently violent and full of fear - and thus one in need of the protection through a social contract of a collectivity of civilized people referred to as the "commonwealth" (the "artificial person" that in Hobbes' schemata becomes the body politic, what we have come to recognize as the government.) His ideal commonwealth is one ruled by a sovereign power that he calls the Leviatian (a word derived from the Hebrew for sea monster). In exchange for protection, man gives up his freedom and sovereignty to the Leviatian who is responsible for the protection of the commonwealth.

The text of the book is mostly Hobbes' justification for, and his attempt to prove, that the Leviatian is indeed needed to preserve peace and to prevent constant outbreaks of war from dominating nature. Hobbes uses geometry as the methodological model for explaining his theory. Beginning with a minimum of unproven axioms, he develops each premise by bootstrapping it upon the logic of the ones that preceded it. It is a model of methodological soundness that is perhaps one of the best examples of Western political science analysis.

The book is divided into four parts. Part I deals with general questions of man's existence, wild within nature.Man's development is traced axiomatically up through his developmental evolution. There it is maintained that in nature it is a war of man-against man, in which men are constantly trying to destroy each other. The only way to achieve peace and civilization is by introducing the Leviatian into the equation through a social contract.

Part II tells us how this is done, how the Leviatian is constructed and introduced into the wilderness that is nature. Hobbes does this by outlining the nature of the rights and obligations of both the Leviatian and his subjects. It is also done by trying to imagine what the civic mechanisms for implementing the social contract through the commonwealth, would look like.

Parts III and IV deal with the religious aspects of the Leviatian, attempting to establish the idea that Christianity is the religion most compatible with Hobbes' philosophy. In fact the whole of part IV is devoted to debunking attempts to use other non-Christian (therofore false religious beliefs) as possible alternative ways of implementing the Leviantian state.

Altogether, the book represents the standard euro-centric and sexist summary of how the Western political tradition came about, what its primary underlying assumptions are, and the ideals that undergird its most cherished principles and beliefs. However, as is the case with Jean Jacques Rousseau's "The Social Contract," it too is about only less than one quarter of the world's peoples, adult white European males.

Given the context of the times in which the Leviatian was written, even though race was not yet an explicitly recognized concept, racism nevertheless lurked everywhere within the subtext and was an integral part (even though it was mostly opaque) of the White Western worldview. Terms like "wild" and "savage" and "uncivilized" used throughout both texts, clearly almost always implicitly referred to (the ever missing) nonwhite peoples.

For an interesting critique of this phenomenon, readers should see either Carole Pateman's "The Sexual Contract," or preferably, Charles W. Mills' "The Racial Contract," which deals with both issues straight up. Three Stars