Theological Origins of Modernity

notes to pages 235–238 347
the circumstances are. In the preface to his translation of Th ucydides, Hobbes
wrote that the proper work of history was to instruct and enable men by knowledge
of the past to bear themselves prudently in the present and providentially
toward the future. EW 8:3. For a thoughtful discussion of Hobbes’ notion of history
see Robert Kraynak, History and Modernity in the Th ought of Th omas Hobbes
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990).
95. Hobbes knew there were some exceptions. Man and Citizen (De Homine and De
Cive), ed. Bernard Gert (Garden City, N.J.: Anchor Books, 1972), 52.
96. It may be hard to understand how something constantly in motion can have an
identity, but Hobbes suggests “that man will be always the same, whose actions
and thoughts proceed from the same beginning of motion, namely, that which
was in his generation.” EW 1:137. Th is solution, of course, has many problems of its
own.
97. Leviathan, 41.
98. Hobbes in this regard is oft en thought to be closer to the Epicureans. While
Hobbes certainly drew on Epicurean sources, his doctrine diff ers in important
ways from theirs. Th e Epicureans were convinced that happiness could only be
obtained by avoiding pain, limiting desires, and cultivating ataraxia, the absence
of passions. In the end this involves accommodating oneself to nature, not, as
Hobbes desired, mastering it.
99. It is impossible according to Hobbes to go beyond a syllogism or two without
memory. EW 1:38, 48, 79, 95.
100. Unlike ants and bees, “men aim at dominion, superiority, and private wealth,
which are distinct in every man, and breed contention.” Elements of Law, 105.
101. Th us, he apologized in De cive for the absence of the preceding sections. De cive,
103.
102. Spragens, Th e Politics of Motion, 48, 55.
103. On Man and Citizen, 42.
104. Without a physics that demonstrates that all motion is determined by external
causes, I might falsely imagine that I freely choose my own path. Spragens, Th e
Politics of Motion, 56.
105. Leviathan, 498. Scholars have long noted that De cive and the Leviathan do not
adequately explain the relation of the natural and the human and suggest this
is an indication of a contradiction or discontinuity in Hobbes’ thought. Hobbes
himself recognized that these accounts were insuffi cient, but he attributed this
insuffi ciency to the fact that he had not yet fi nished his foundational works. De
corpore was only fi nished in 1654 and De homine in 1658. In the dedicatory letter
to De homine he remarks that he has now fi nally fulfi lled the promise he made in
the Elements of Law of grounding his political science in an anthropology.
106. What is missing in the political thought of antiquity for Hobbes “is a true and certain
rule of our actions, by which we might know whether that we undertake be
just or unjust.” De corpore, EW 1: 9. Ancient visions of the city may be eloquent or
beautiful, but in Hobbes’ view they are not valid and therefore not useful. Escher’s
paintings are delightful and perhaps true of some world, but not of the one we