¹ Writers on Hobbes have not properly remarked on the distinction he makes between the passions and the desires, where the former to the latter ought to be considered as essence to accident. Though the passions are universal, the desires are not; they are influenced by education and circumstance. A difficulty involved in introspection is to relate our desires to the passions, equal in all men, which are foundational to them. Compare: “Nosce teipsum, Read theyself … to teach us, that for the similitude of the thoughts and passions of one man, to the thoughts and passions of another, whosoever looketh into himself, and considereth what he doth, when does think opine reason hope fear etc., and upon what grounds he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like occasions. I say the similitude of passions, which are the same in all men, desire fear, hope, etc., not the similitude of the objects of passions, which are the things desired feared hoped, etc.; for these the constitution individual, and particular education so do vary, and they are so easy to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of man's heart, blotted and confounded as they are with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts” (Leviathan, ed. , Oakeshott [Oxford, 1957], p. 6Google Scholar).

² Leviathan, p. 37.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid., p. 6.

⁵ Ibid., p. 80.

⁶ This language is of course modern and not Hobbes'. For a fuller view of science in Hobbes, compare my “Hobbes: Philosophy and Method,” Scientia 108 (1973), 769–780Google Scholar.

⁷ Leviathan, p. 30.

⁸ Ibid., p. 28. Compare the first paragraph of Descartes' Discours de la methode.

⁹ Ibid., p. 81.

¹⁰ Elements of Law: Natural and Politic, ed. Tonnies, (London, 1969) I. xix, 2Google Scholar.

¹¹ Leviathan, p. 120. Cf. Elements, I, xiv, 2: “… since there needs but little force in the taking away of a man's life; we may conclude that men considered in mere nature, ought to admit among themselves equality.” De cive I, ch. 1, 3: “… they are equals who can do equal things one against the other; but they who can do the greatest things, namely kill, can do equal things.”

¹² Leviathan, p. 83. Cf. my “Hobbes on ‘Good,’” Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 6, (1975), 58–74Google Scholar.

¹³ Cf. Leviathan, p. 83: “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.”

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 209. Cf. Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago, 1953), pp. 55–56Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Leviathan, p. 46. Cf. ibid., p. 48: “Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.” Notice that when pride gets the upper hand over fear of death Hobbes thinks a natural relationship has been reversed. De Cive, I, ch. 1, 7 reads: “Every man is desirous of what is good for him and shuns what is evil, but chiefly the chiefest of natural evils, which is death; and this he does by a certain impulsion of nature, no less than that whereby a stone moves downward.”

¹⁶ Cf. Nicomachean Ethics IV, 11, 3ff. See Author Adkins, W. H., Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values (Oxford, 1960), pp.352–353Google Scholar; also, Popper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton, 1950), pp.614–615Google Scholar.

Though the dissimilarity with Aristotle has been stressed, the similarities are often as striking. Two major tenets Hobbes shares with Aristotle are: hedonism (cf. Nicomachean Ethics, 1104a) and pleasure is an unimpeded activity (cf. Nicomachean Ethics, VII passim.) With Plato, whom he considered the greater and the greatest philosopher, he shares even more. Laws has not been noticed as being especially influential on Hobbes, but is likely the most influential, compare passages 626D and 628D; also for the nature and function of civil law, especially, 888Eff. Of course, Hobbes agrees with Socrates' defense of civil obedience in the Crito; see my “Socrates' Defence of Civil Obedience,” Studium Generate, 24, no. 5 (1971), 576–583Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Cf. Leviathan, p. 195: “Of all passions, that which inclineth men least to break the laws, is fear.”

¹⁸ De Corpore I, ch. 1, 8.

¹⁹ Cf. my “The Function of the Rational Principle in Aristotle,” The Thomist, 37, (1973), 686–701CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ Leviathan, p. 109.

²¹ Ibid., pp. 56–57.

²² Ibid., p. 107.