By Land or by Sea?
Hobbes’s Leviathan and Behemoth as Histories of the English Revolution
Mark S. Jendrysik, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science and Public Administration
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, ND 58202-8379
“For the government of a commonwealth,
neither wit, nor prudence, nor diligence, is
enough, without infallible rules and the true
science of equity and justice.”
--Thomas Hobbes, Behemoth
1
“Ideology is the enemy of fact.”
--Jonathan Schell
What is Hobbes trying to do in Leviathan and Behemoth?
2
This may seem like a rather
odd question. However, the answer is not so clear. Hobbes obviously has many goals in these
works. Both put forward a similar theory explaining the causes of civil war. In Leviathan Hobbes
not only tries to explain the civil war, he also attempts to devise a new political theory. In
Behemoth Hobbes attempts to discredit all of the major opponents of the monarchy during the
Civil War and the Restoration. “Both Behemoth and Hobbes’s formal theory emphasize the
political damage done with citizens act on one particular opinion, namely that the full ‘natural
right’ of private judgment is legitimately exercised in civil relations.”
3
In my opinion Leviathan
also reflects Hobbes’s focus on the dangers of private judgment based upon reference to
conscience and individual reflection.
Leviathan and Behemoth are coherent parts of a single historical and political project.
“Leviathan and Behemoth, as perhaps God’s answer to Job was intended to imply, are mortal
Gods who have a role in the scheme of the immortal God. They have their own cycles of
generation and decay and their maintenance is also a work of art.”
4
Both beasts, if you will, have
1
Behemoth, 70. References to Behemoth are from Behemoth or the Long Parliament, ed. Stephen Holmes
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
2
References to Hobbes’s Leviathan are taken from Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991).
3
William R. Lund, “Hobbes on Opinion, Private Judgment and Civil War” History of Political Thought, Vol.
13, No. 1 (Spring 1992), 52. The use of the term “citizens” to refer to the individuals under subordination to a
government is, in my view, incorrect. “Subjects” better captures Hobbes’s meaning and goals.
4
Patricia Springborg, “Hobbes’s Biblical Beasts: Leviathan and Behemoth.” Political Theory, Vol 23, No. 2
(May 1995), 355. Springborg provides a fascinating discussion of the meaning of the word behemoth and its
relationship to the word leviathan, see pages 353-ff. For another discussion of their meanings see Royce
MacGillivray, “Thomas Hobbes’s History of the English Civil War: A Study of Behemoth.” Journal of the History
of Ideas, Vol 31, No. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 1970), 184-ff.
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