(en) Robert McCrum, « The 100 best nonfiction books », The Guardian, (lire en ligne, consulté le ).
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Les contemporains de Hobbes croyaient en effet avoir trouvé en Amérique un état aussi près que possible de la nature humaine, telle que la décrivait déjà Lucrèce dans De la nature des choses, Livre V, 925.
Au chapitre VI, Hobbes identifie sept passions simples — appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief — dont dérivent les autres. La religion dérive de la peur, qui elle-même provient de l'appétence (appetite) : « Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, religion; not allowed, superstition. And when the power imagined is truly such as we imagine, true religion. » (chap. VI).
Le , la Chambre des communes vote un projet de loi permettant de prendre des mesures contre les athées et les sacrilèges. Le projet de loi est référé à un comité chargé d'examiner les livres qui propagent l'athéisme, notamment le Léviathan. (Britannica, p. 551).
« He was more lauded and decried than any other thinker of his time » Voir Britannica, p. 548.
« La philosophie de M. Rousseau de Genève, est presque l’inverse de celle de Hobbes. L’un croit l’homme de la nature bon, & l’autre le croit méchant. Selon le philosophe de Genève, l’état de nature est un état de paix ; selon le philosophe de Malmesbury, c’est un état de guerre. Ce sont les lois & la formation de la société qui ont rendu l’homme meilleur, si l’on en croit Hobbes ; & qui l’ont dépravé, si l’on en croit M. Rousseau. L’un étoit né au milieu du tumulte & des factions ; l’autre vivoit dans le monde, & parmi les savans. Autres tems, autres circonstances, autre philosophie. » (Encyclopédie, article « Hobbisme », p. 241.).
« Alors voyant les lois foulées aux piés, le trône chancelant, les hommes entraînés comme par un vertige général aux actions les plus atroces, il pensa que la nature humaine étoit mauvaise, & de-là toute sa fable ou son histoire de l’état de nature. Les circonstances firent sa philosophie : il prit quelques accidens momentanés pour les regles invariables de la nature, & il devint l’agresseur de l’humanité & l’apologiste de la tyrannie. » (Encyclopédie, article « Hobbisme », p. 233.).
Marx s'appuie sur cette formule dans le chapitre « Achat et vente de la force de travail » de son ouvrage Le Capital (Le Capital, p. 73).
I know that Aristotle in the first book of his Politics, for a foundation of his doctrine, maketh men by nature, some more worthy to command, meaning the wiser sort, such as he thought himself to be for his philosophy; others to serve, meaning those that had strong bodies, but were not philosophers as he; as master and servant were not introduced by consent of men, but by difference of wit: which is not only against reason, but also against experience. (chap. XV).
« there is no conception in a man's mind which hath not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense » (Chap. I).
« truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations » chap. IV.
« And words whereby we conceive nothing but the sound are those we call absurd, insignificant, and nonsense. And therefore if a man should talk to me of a round quadrangle; or accidents of bread in cheese; or immaterial substances. » (chap. V).
« All other names are but insignificant sounds; and those of two sorts. One, when they are new, and yet their meaning not explained by definition; whereof there have been abundance coined by Schoolmen and puzzled philosophers. » (chap. IV).
« But though there had never been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against another, yet in all times kings and persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators, having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms, and continual spies upon their neighbours, which is a posture of war. » (Chap. XIII).
« To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. » (Chap. XIII).
« A law of nature, lex naturalis, is a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved. » (chap. XIV).
« Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself. » (chap. XIII).
« So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. » (chap. XI).
« The only way to erect such a common power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort as that by their own industry and by the fruits of the earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly, is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will. » (chap. XVII).
« From this equality of ability ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends » (chap. XIII).
« And if the representative consist of many men, the voice of the greater number must be considered as the voice of them all. » (chap. XVI).
« From whence we may collect that the propriety which a subject hath in his lands consisteth in a right to exclude all other subjects from the use of them; and not to exclude their sovereign. » (chap. XXIV).
« It is true that a sovereign monarch, or the greater part of a sovereign assembly, may ordain the doing of many things in pursuit of their passions, contrary to their own consciences, which is a breach of trust and of the law of nature; but this is not enough to authorize any subject, either to make war upon, or so much as to accuse of injustice, or any way to speak evil of their sovereign; because they have authorized all his actions, and, in bestowing the sovereign power, made them their own. » (chap. XXIV).
« And whereas many men, by accident inevitable, become unable to maintain themselves by their labour, they ought not to be left to the charity of private persons, but to be provided for, as far forth as the necessities of nature require, by the laws of the Commonwealth. For as it is uncharitableness in any man to neglect the impotent; so it is in the sovereign of a Commonwealth, to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain charity. » (chap. XXX).
« But for such as have strong bodies the case is otherwise; they are to be forced to work; and to avoid the excuse of not finding employment, there ought to be such laws as may encourage all manner of arts; as navigation, agriculture, fishing, and all manner of manufacture that requires labour. The multitude of poor and yet strong people still increasing, they are to be transplanted into countries not sufficiently inhabited; where nevertheless they are not to exterminate those they find there; but constrain them to inhabit closer together, and not range a great deal of ground to snatch what they find, but to court each little plot with art and labour, to give them their sustenance in due season. And when all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death. » (chap. XXX).
Seaman 1990, p. 112-113. « So is it necessary for man's life to retain some : as right to govern their own bodies; enjoy air, water, motion, ways to go from place to place; and all things else without which a man cannot live, or not live well. (chap. XV) ».
« When a man is destitute of food or other thing necessary for his life, and cannot preserve himself any other way but by some fact against the law; as if in a great famine he take the food by force, or stealth, which he cannot obtain for money, nor charity; or in defence of his life, snatch away another man's sword; he is totally excused for the reason next before alleged. » (chap. XXVII).
« It is impossible a Commonwealth should stand where any other than the sovereign hath a power of giving greater rewards than life, and of inflicting greater punishments than death » (chap. XXXVIII).
« men that by their own meditation arrive to the acknowledgement of one infinite, omnipotent, and eternal God choose rather to confess He is incomprehensible and above their understanding than to define His nature by spirit incorporeal, and then confess their definition to be unintelligible. » (chap. XII).
« nothing the Soveraign Representative can doe to a Subject, on what pretence soever, can properly be called Injustice, or Injury [...] And therefore it may, and doth often happen in Common-wealths, that a Subject may be put to death, by the command of the Soveraign Power; and yet neither doe the other wrong. » (Chap. XXI).
« The Value, or Worth of a man, is as of all other things, his Price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his Power. » (Chap. X).
