Elements of Law

Quick Facts

• Full title: The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic
• Author: Thomas Hobbes
• Written: 1640
• Published: 1650, without Hobbes's authorization, in two parts: Human Nature and De Corpore Politico
• Context: the conflict between Charles I and Parliament before the English Civil War
• Main topic: how human nature leads to law, contract, and sovereign power
• Main labels: Political Philosophy, Materialism, Social Contract

The Problem

The Elements of Law asks a blunt political question: if people are driven by desire, fear, pride, distrust, and self-preservation, how can they live together without tearing each other apart?

Hobbes does not start with noble citizens already ready for public life. He starts with bodies that sense, imagine, desire, hate, fear, compare, compete, and try to stay alive. Then he asks what kind of authority is needed so those people can have stable law instead of private judgment and revenge.

That is the basic Hobbes move. Politics begins with psychology. If you want to understand law, first understand the human material law has to govern.

In One Minute

The Elements of Law is Hobbes's early English version of the argument he later develops in De Cive and Leviathan. It begins with human nature and ends with political authority.

The first half explains people as natural beings. Sensation, imagination, appetite, aversion, pleasure, pain, fear, hope, deliberation, and will are treated as parts of a bodily process. Hobbes is not building politics on angels. He is building it on anxious, needy, clever animals who want safety and advantage.

The second half explains the body politic. Without a common power, each person judges danger and justice for himself. That produces insecurity. Reason tells people to seek peace, but peace needs covenants, and covenants need enforcement. So Hobbes argues for a sovereign power strong enough to make law, judge disputes, and keep civil order from collapsing.

The Main Argument

Hobbes begins by breaking human life into basic elements. Sense happens when outside bodies affect us. Imagination is the fading trace of sense. Desire is motion toward something that seems good. Aversion is motion away from something that seems bad. "Good" and "evil" are not floating labels stamped on things by the universe. For Hobbes, people call something good when they desire it and evil when they avoid it.

That sounds simple, but it matters. If people judge good and evil from their own desires, then disagreement is built in. One person wants land. Another wants the same land. One person wants honor. Another sees that demand for honor as an insult. One person thinks a religious command overrides the king. Another thinks that is sedition. Human conflict does not need everyone to be evil. It only needs desire, fear, pride, and no trusted judge.

Hobbes then turns to deliberation and will. Deliberation is the back-and-forth of appetite and aversion: should I do this, avoid it, wait, attack, trust, flee? The will is not a magical power outside nature. It is the final appetite or aversion that ends deliberation and produces action. In plain English: you weigh pulls and fears until one of them wins.

From this psychology, Hobbes builds his politics. People are roughly equal in the important political sense: they can threaten each other. A weaker person can kill a stronger one by surprise, by weapon, or with allies. Because nobody is completely safe, everybody has reason to worry.

In the natural condition, there is no common authority with power to settle disputes. Each person has a natural right to preserve himself by whatever means seem necessary. This right is not a sweet moral blessing. It is a liberty. If no civil law binds you and your life is at stake, you may use your own judgment.

The problem is that everyone else has the same liberty. If I think you may attack me tomorrow, I may attack today. If you think I am building alliances against you, you may do the same. Fear can make aggression look sensible. That is why Hobbes thinks the natural condition tends toward war, or at least toward a standing threat of war. War does not mean everyone is fighting every second. It means there is no stable security.

Reason still gives rules. Hobbes calls these rules the laws of nature. They are not police laws written in a statute book. They are rational directions for survival. Seek peace when peace is possible. Be willing to give up the unlimited right to everything if others will do the same. Keep covenants. Show gratitude. Do not make yourself hateful when peace requires cooperation.

But Hobbes thinks reason alone is too weak when fear is high. A covenant is only words if there is no power to punish betrayal. If I promise not to steal your grain, but later famine comes and no judge exists, my fear may beat my promise. So peace needs a common power.

That common power is the sovereign. A sovereign can be one person or an assembly, but it must have final public authority. It makes law, judges disputes, commands defense, and punishes violations. Hobbes's point is not that rulers are morally beautiful. His point is that divided final authority is dangerous. If the king, Parliament, courts, army, and church all claim the last word, people will pick the authority that favors their side. That is how a commonwealth breaks into factions.

This is also why The Elements of Law is more than a sketch of Leviathan. It already contains the deep Hobbes pattern: start with motion and passion, move to fear and insecurity, explain natural law as the rational path to peace, and defend strong sovereignty as the enforcement mechanism that makes peace real.

Key Ideas With Examples

• Human nature: Hobbes studies people by looking at sense, imagination, desire, fear, pride, and reasoning. Example: before asking what law should be, he asks what makes people obey, compete, panic, trust, or betray.
• Appetite: movement toward something wanted. Example: hunger makes food look good; ambition makes office and status look good.
• Aversion: movement away from something feared or hated. Example: fear of injury makes a person avoid danger, arm himself, or strike first.
• Good and evil: names people give to what they desire or reject. Example: the same political change may look "good" to someone gaining power and "bad" to someone losing protection.
• Deliberation: the inner back-and-forth between attractions and fears. Example: a person considers whether to trust a rival, then fear finally wins and he refuses.
• Will: the last appetite or aversion that ends deliberation. Example: after hesitating, you run because fear becomes the deciding impulse.
• Natural right: the liberty to use your own power for self-preservation when no civil authority binds the situation. Example: in a lawless disaster, a person grabs supplies because he thinks survival depends on it.
• Law of nature: a rule reason gives for preserving life and finding peace. Example: keeping promises is rational because no one can trade, cooperate, or sleep safely if promises mean nothing.
• Covenant: an agreement that transfers or limits rights. Example: people give up private revenge and agree that public courts will handle injuries.
• Sovereign: the final public authority that makes law count. Example: a court order matters because the commonwealth can enforce it.
• Body politic: the commonwealth understood as an artificial body made from many people under one public authority. Example: private persons become a political unit when they act through shared law and command.
• Civil law: the sovereign's public command. Example: property becomes stable not just because someone says "mine," but because law defines and protects ownership.

Why It Matters

The Elements of Law matters because it shows Hobbes building his system from the ground up. The book is not only "government should be strong." It is a chain of thought: bodies move, humans desire and fear, fear creates conflict, reason recommends peace, peace needs enforceable covenants, and enforceable covenants need sovereign power.

It also matters because it is an early modern attempt to make politics feel almost scientific. Hobbes wants to define the basic parts, then show how they combine. That is why the title uses "elements." He is trying to give politics its building blocks.

The book also sits at a tense historical moment. England was sliding toward civil war. For Hobbes, fights over who has final authority were not abstract classroom games. They were the road to bloodshed. His answer is severe because the problem he sees is severe.

Compared with De Cive, The Elements of Law is broader and more psychological. Compared with Leviathan, it is less polished and less famous, but the core machinery is already there. If Leviathan is the giant finished version, The Elements of Law is the workshop where you can see Hobbes assembling the parts.

Proponents, Critics, and Opponents

Hobbes's supporters and descendants are usually readers who think political order has to be explained through power, fear, law, and enforcement, not through hopeful talk about natural harmony. Political realists like Hobbes because he does not pretend people become harmless when they enter politics. Legal positivists can also find something useful in him because he sharply connects civil law to public authority.

De Cive develops the political argument into a tighter Latin treatise. Leviathan later expands the whole project into Hobbes's major book, adding the famous image of the state as an artificial person and giving much more space to religion and scripture.

John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau inherit Hobbes's contract problem but reject his answer. Locke argues that natural rights limit government and can justify resistance. Rousseau argues that legitimate authority must express the people as a collective will, not just secure frightened individuals under a powerful ruler.

Natural law critics object that Hobbes shrinks moral law too much toward survival and peace. Republican and liberal critics object that his sovereign is too strong. Religious critics object that Hobbes gives civil authority too much control over church authority. The recurring worry is simple: Hobbes explains why strong government is useful, but maybe he makes it too hard to stop strong government from becoming abusive.

Related Pages

• Thomas Hobbes
• De Cive
• Leviathan
• Natural Law Theory
• John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract