Thomas Hobbes on Melancholy

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Thomas Hobbes on melancholy

MAURO SIMONAZZI

1. Melancholy and philosophy

The opinions o the world, both in ancient and later ages, concerning the cause

o madness, have been two. Some, deriving them rom the passions; some, rom

demons, or spirits, either good or bad, which they thought might enter into a man,

possess him, and move his organs in such strange, and uncouth manner, as madmen

use to do. The ormer sort thereore, called such men, madmen: but the latter, called

them sometimes demoniacs, (that is, possessed with spirits;) sometimes energumeni,

(that is, agitated, or moved with spirits;) and now in Italy they are called, not only

pazzi, madmen; but also spiritati, men possessed1.

This is how Thomas Hobbes, in the eighth chapter o theLeviathan, summarizes

the opinions o the Ancient and o the Modern about the origin o madness, dis-

tinguishing a medical tradition, which blamed natural causes or the condition,and a theological tradition, blaming demons and spiritual orces instead.

The debate about melancholy2 was revived throughout the 16th century when,

in the witchcrat trials, the problem arose o telling the cases o melancholy rom

those o demoniac possession. In one o these trials, which took place in London

in 1602 and became amous because or the rst time a judge considered con-

sulting physicians3, a conrontation o two schools o thought was seen: on one

side Catholics, radical Puritans and some physicians, who sustained the con-

ditions supernatural origin; on the other the Bishop o London, the Anglicans

Hobbes Studies, Vol. XIX-2006: 31-57

1 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticalland Civill, London, Printed or Andrew Crooke, 1651; Id.Leviathan, edited by J.C.A. Gaskin,

Oxord, Oxord University Press, 1996, pp. 50-51. From now Leviathan.2 I use the word melancholy in the acception it had in the XVI and XVII centuries, when

it was generically used to deine any orm o mental and nervous disorder, including epi-

lepsy. Hobbes, instead, deines madness mental disorders and with the word melancholy

indicates the depressive orms o madness, while the maniacal orms are called ury or vain

glory.3 See D.P. Walker, Unclean Spirits. Possessions and Exorcism in France and England in the

late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries, London, Scolar Press, 1981.


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and other physicians, who believed that the origin o histerical symptoms was

to be ound in natural causes. The two sides, as can be seen, were distributed

across the board: amongst those who supported a spiritual origin or melancholic

phoenomena were also members o theRoyal College of Physicians; in the same

way members o the clergy could be ound amongst those who dened a secular

and scientic conception4.

Dr. Edward Jorden, ater the trial in which he supported the innocence o

Elizabeth Jackson (who was accused o having cast a spell on young Mary

Glover), wrote one o the most amous pamphlets in deence o the indepen-

dence o medicine rom religion5. The conclusion o the trial, which ended with a

guilty verdict, shows how in the early XVII century the spiritualist and religious

interpretation o mental illness was still prevailing on the medical-scientic one,

even among the English doctors6 themselves.

4 For a brie resum o the trial see M. Simonazzi, La melanconia nellInghilterra moderna:

Edward Jorden, Timothie Bright e Thomas Adams, in C. Franceschini, S. Tutino e S. Villani

(edited by), Questioni di storia inglese tra Cinque e Seicento: politica e cultura in Inghilterra.

In ricordo di Onofrio Nicastro (1939-1994), Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 2003,

pp. 127-151. Also appeared in Cromohs-Cyber review of Modern Historiography, VIII, 2003,

pp. 1-13.5 See E. Jorden,A Briefe Discourse of a Disease called the Suffocation of the Mother, Printed

by John Windet, dwelling at the Signe o the Crosse Keyes at Powles Whare, 1603; reprinted

in M. MacDonald, Witchcraft and Hysteria in Elizabethan London: Edward Jorden and

the Mary Glover Case, London, Routledge, 1990. This book also contains, as well as thetranscription o the manuscript by Stephen Bradwell, the reprint o another work on this sub-

ject: J. Swan,A True and Briefe Report of Mary Glovers Vexation, and of Her Deliverance by

Fastings and Prayer, London, 1603.6 On witchcrat and magic in England and on the Continent see: A. Macarlane, Witchcraft in

Tudor and Stuard England, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970; K. Thomas,Religion and

the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England,

London, Weideneld and Nicolson, 1971; C. Hole, Witchcraft in Britain, London, Granada

Publishing, 1977; B. Easlea, Witch Hunting, Magic and the New Philosophy: an Introduction to

Debates of the Scientific Revolution, 1450-1750, Brighton, Harvester Press, 1980; B. Shapiro,

Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England: A Study of the Relationships

between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law, and Literature, Princeton, PrincetonUniversity Press, 1983; G. Scarre, Witchcraft and Magic in 16th and 17th Century Europe,

London, MacMillan, 1987; B.P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, London,

Longman, 1987; J. Swain, Witchcraft in 17th Century England, Bristol, Stuart Press, 1994;

D. Willis,Malevolent Nurture. Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern England,

Ithaca-London, Cornell University Press, 1995; J. Sharpe,Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in

England 1550-1750, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1996; J. Barry, M. Hester e G. Roberts (edited

by), Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Culture and Belief, Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press, 1996; I. Bostridge, Witchcraft and Its Transformations c.1650-c.1750,

Oxord, Clarendon Press, 1997; S. Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in

early Modern Europe, Oxord, Oxord University Press, 1997; G. Geis e I. Bunn, A Trial

of Witches: A Seventeenth-century Witchcraft Prosecution, London-New York, Routledge,


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The reaction against witchcrat accusations and a spiritualist conception o

melancholy had begun a ew decades earlier, with the publication o two works

that would have become amous very shortly ater:De praestigiis daemonum by

Johann Weyer and The Discoverie of Witchcraftby Reginald Scot7. However, it

was only during the 17th century that the debate was denitely put into a secular

and scientic rame8. It had been mainly doctors like Edward Jorden, Andr du

Laurens and Thomas Sydenham who crucially contributed to the secularisation

o knowledge about melancholy. Beside these two traditions there also was a

moral refection on melancholy, which developed mainly ater the publication

o the translation o Montaignes Essais9. The moral approach is characterised

1997; M. Gijswijt-Hostra, B.P. Levack e R. Porter, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The

Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, London, The Athlone Press, 1999, in part. pp. 191-254;

A. Macarlane, Civility and the Decline of Magic, in P. Burke, B. Harrison, P. Slack (edited by),Civil Histories Essays Presented to Sir Keith Thomas, Oxord, Oxord University Press, 2000,

pp. 145-160; J. Sharpe, Witchcraft in Early Modern England, London, Longman, 2001. About

legislation on witchcrat in England see K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, cit.,

pp. 517-558. For a reconstruction o this trial see S. Bradwell, Mary Glovers Late Woeful Case,

Together with Her Joyfull Deliverance (1603), British Library, Sloane MS 831, now published in

M. MacDonald, Witchcraft and Hysteria in Elizabethan London: Edward Jorden and the Mary

Glover Case, London, Routledge, 1990. I signal only briely that Michael MacDonald in his

introduction sustained that previuous historiography, which made o Jorden a hero o medical

rationalism against religious superstition and belie in witchcrat, would not have understood the

real motives behind the publications o the study. Jordens book would in the irst place have

been a work o religious propaganda, born in a context o conlict between the Anglican Churchand its Catholic and Puritan adversaries. Nonetheless, even though it is true that only by paying

attention to the religious context it is possible to understand the reasons at the origin o the birth

o the scientiic spirit, it is also true that some works contributed to the process o emancipa-

tion o science rom religion. Jordens brie pamphlet, rom this point o view, unequivocally

constitutes one o the works in which the reasons o the supremacy and autonomy o medicine

rom theology are explicitly sustained.7 We recall two important works against witchcrat: that o the Dutch physician Johann

Weyer, De praestigiis daemonum, et incantationibus ac veneficijs, libri V, recogniti, & valdi

aucti, Basileae, Per Ioannem Oporinum, 1564; and that o Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of

Witchcraft, London, W. Brome, 1584; anastatic reprint Amsterdam-New York, Capo Press-

Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1971.8 On this subject permit me to suggest the reading o M. Simonazzi,La malattia inglese. La

melanconia nella tradizione filosofica e medica dellInghilterra moderna, Introduction by

T. Gregory, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2004.9 In particular, on melancholy in Montaigne see: M.A. Screech, Montaigne and Melancholy.

The Wisdom of the Essays, London, Duckworth, 1983. Screech underlines that the irst two

chapters o the irst book o the Essais are dedicated, respectively, to vanity and to sadness,

two passions that, as we will see, are strictly intertwoven with the history o melancholy in

modern ages; F. Charpentier, Pour une lecture psychanalytique des Essais, in J. Lemaire

(edited by),Montaigne et la rvolution philosophique du XVIe sicle, Bruxelles, Editions de

lUniversit de Bruxelles, 1992, pp. 9-28; H. Vincent, Vrit du scepticisme chez Montaigne,

Paris, LHarmattan, 1998.


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by a holistic conception o man, according to which the physical part cannot be

separated rom the moral one, meaning his values, his belies and his relation-

ship with the outside world. Melancholy and more generally nervous disorders

were thereore depicted as existential problems, strictly related to language, to

the representation o the world and to imagination. Thus they were responsible

or the good use o passions, especially sel-esteem and the relation o sel-love

with vanity and sadness10. In this perspective, the refection on melancholy was

substantially twisted, becoming the subject o studies not just specically medi-

cal, but moral and political too.

Thomas Hobbes, or instance, dedicated a ew pages to this subject in the

Elements, and delved into it in urther detail in the Leviathan. The philosopher

rom Malmesbury is not a prime gure in the history o melancholy and the

subject o melancholy doesnt occupy a substantial space in his works only

ew pages within his more general work about passions. Nonetheless it is worthremembering that Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine inserted him into their an-

thology on the history o psychiatry between 1535 and 186011 and it is worth

mentioning that even though he never wrote a systematic treatise on mental ill-

ness, the subject is however present in all o Hobbes main political works.

The interest o these pages about melancholy is o a double nature. On one

side we see a theory o the passions that make Hobbes anthropology more com-

plex, bringing urther argoments in avour o those studies that stress the di-

erence between moderate and vainglorious man this identies a tension in

10 See P. Bnichou, Morales du Grand Sicle, Paris, Gallimard, 1948; A. Levi, French

Moralists: The Theory of Passions 1585 to 1649, Oxord, Clarendon Press, 1964; E. Pulcini,

Lindividuo senza passioni. Individualismo moderno e perdita del legame sociale, Torino,

Bollati Boringhieri, 2001.11 R. Hunter and I. Macalpine (edited by), Three Hundred Years of Psychiatry 1535-1860. A

History Presented in Selected English Texts, London-New York-Toronto, Oxord University

Press, 1963, pp. 135-136. Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine included Hobbes amongst the

orerunners o modern psychiatrists because o a passage already present in the Elements and

then also reported in the opening o the Leviathan, in which the English philosopher distin-

guishes two types o mental discourse, the one regulated by a principle or a project, and theone apparently unguided, without design. But Hobbes underlines that ree associations, that

is those associations not regulated by conscious thought, can be explained too. Hobbes intui-

tions will then be developed by Locke towards the end o the XVII century and by Hume in

the XVIII century, while it will then be Freud in the XX century who will put subconscious

and conscious thought in mutual relation exactly through ree associations. Cr. T. Hobbes,

The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. This work circulated as a manuscript and was pub-

lished in 1650 in two separate parts:Human Nature, London, E. Bownam, 1650 eDe corpore

politico, London, Roy Crot, 1650 (this work was published under its original title and in just

one tome in 1889 in London by Ferdinand Tnnies); Id., Human Nature and De Corpore

Politico, edited by J.C.A. Gaskin, Oxord, Clarendon Press, 1994, I, IV, pp. 31-34 (rom now

Elements); T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., pp. 15-17.


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his works due to the presence o an anthropology o the eminence next to one

o the self-preservation, with all the complications that this carries regarding

the consistency between anthropology and politics12. On the other side, instead,

these pages on melancholy present a certain interest or those who would like to

reconstruct a history o madness, as we nd expounded in them a psychological,

or moral theory13. This is a conception o melancholy infuenced by the reading

o Robert BurtonsAnatomy of Melancholy and that we will nd again, in more

elaborated orms, in doctors like Bernard Mandeville in England, John Gregory

in Scotland, Philip Pinel and Jean Etienne Dominique Esquirol in France.

In the ollowing pages I dont intend to analyse the questions connected to

the relationship between anthropology and politics. My aim is to show that in

Hobbes works we nd a moral conception o melancholy, the cause o which

is identied in an excess or deect o the passion o Glory14 in theElements and in

a lack o balance o the Desire o Power in theLeviathan. The philosopher romMalmesbury does not consider mental illness as a proper disease caused by the

lesion o some organ causing an imbalance o humours with an excess o black

bile but more simply as a problem regarding sel-esteem. Hobbes attention is

dedicated exclusively to the passion o Glory, intended as internal gloriation or

triumph o the mind [] which proceedeth rom the imagination or conception

o our own power, above the power o him that contendeth with us 15, and so as

a disorder linked to the aculty o imagination. Therapy thereore will have to be

congured as an intervention on the symbolical dimension, on the perception o

ones value in relation to others, and not on the biological one. In this perspec-tive, the distinction between pathology and normality is a quantitative dierence

and not a qualitative one.

2. Nosce te ipsum

In the same year o the publication o theLeviathan, 1651, also appeared the post-

humous, sixth and last edition o theAnatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton,

12 See M. Reale, La difficile eguaglianza. Hobbes e gli animali politici: passioni, morale,

socialit, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 1991.13 See M. Galzigna, La malattia morale. Alle origini della psichiatria moderna, Venezia,

Marsilio, 1988. In this perspective madness is an excess o passion, the lesion o the organ is

not relevant, the alteration o the unctions is. The madman, as Esquirol will write, does not

lack the reason; his intellectual aculties are mostly intact, but olly; every passion contains in

itsel a degree o olly.14 On the concept o glory in Hobbes works see G. Slomp, Thomas Hobbes and the Political

Philosophy of Glory, London, Routledge, 2000.15

T. Hobbes,Elements, cit., p. 50.


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the most amous essay on melancholy written in the English language16. In this

work, which aimed at reconciling medical studies with the moral and political

refections on melancholy17, passions were considered in a double perspective:

the naturalistic-scientic one and the philosophical-relational one. Burton, be-

sides, stressed the importance o the introspective method in the analysis o the

emotional dimension, a dimension which escaped the objectivity o science, and

introduced the principle o comprehension through observation and sympathy18.

Burton insisted on the importance o sympathizing in the treatment o those

illnesses that didnt just involve lesions o the organs, but had to do with the

moral and symbolic dimensions o existence, that is illnesses that did not only

concern the movement o the animal spirits, but involved moral and existential

problems: That which others heare or read of, I felt and practised my selfe,

16 As it appeared in the long subtitle, Burton intended to develop his analysis both on the medi-

cal and on the philosophical level. The complete title is the ollowing: R. Burton, The Anatomy

of Melancholy, what it is. With all the Kindes, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and severall

Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, historically, opened and

cut up. By Democritus Junior. With a Satiricall Preface, conducing to the following Discourse.

Macrob. Omne meum, At Oxord, Printed by Iohn Lichield and Iames Short, or Henry Cripps.

Anno Dom. 1621. The same title appeared in the later editions o 1624, 1628, 1632, 1638 and

1651 (which can be considered the deinitive edition, ater the work grew rom the 353.369

words o the 1621 edition to the 516.384 o that o 1651, see The Anatomy of Melancholy,

edited by T. C. Faulkner, N. K. Kiessling, R.L. Blair, 3 voll, Oxord, Clarendon Press, respec-

tively published in 1989, 1990 and 1994, vol. 1, pp. xxxvii-li. To these three volumes haverecently been added a Commentary, edited by J.B. Bamborough e M. Dodsworth, Oxord,

Clarendon Press, in three tomes, o which the irst was published in 1998 and the other two

in 2000. For a list o Robert Burtons works and sources see P. Jordan-Smith, Bibliographia

Burtoniana. A Study of Robert Burtons The Anatomy of Melancholy. With a Bibliography of

Burtons Writings, Stanord University Caliornia-Oxord, Stanord University Press-Oxord

University Press, 1931;Burtons Anatomy of Melancholy and Burtoniana: a checklist of a part

of the collection in memory of Sarah Bixby Smith (1871-1935), compiled by P. Jordan-Smith,

and assisted by M. Mulhauser, Claremont Caliornia, Printed or the Honnold Library o the

Associated Colleges by Vivian Ridler at the University Press, Oxord, 1959 e N.K. Kiessling,

The Library of Robert Burton, Oxord, Oxord Bibliographical Society, 1988.17

R. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, cit., vol. 1, pp. 109-110: Yet I have a more seri-ous intent at this time, and to omit all impertinent digressions, to say no more o such as are

improperly melancholy, or metaphorically mad, lightly mad, or in disposition, as stupid, angry,

drunken, silly, sottish, sullen, proud, vainglorious, ridiculous, beastly, peevish, obstinate,

impudent, extravagant, dry, doting, dull, desperate, harebraine, &c. mad, phrantike, oolish,

heteroclites, which no newHospitall can holde, no physicke helpe: my purpose and endeavour

is, in the ollowing Discourse to anatomize this humour o Melancholy, through all his parts

and species, as it is an habite or an ordinary disease, and that philosophically, medicinally, to

shew the causes, symptomes, and severall cures o it, that it may be the better avoided. Moved

thereunto or the generality o it, and to doe good, it being a disease so requent.18 A ew centuries later, this principle will be one o the elements at the origin o the

Windelbands distinction between idiographic and nomothetic sciences.


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they get their knowledge by Bookes, I mine by melancholizing, Experto crede

ROBERTO. Something I can speake out o experience aerumnabilis experientia

me docuit, and with her in the Poet,Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco,

I would helpe others out o a ellow-eeling19.

Thomas Hobbes was highly likely to know very well Burtons work20, as well

as the vast medical literature on melancholy21. Besides he had lived or several

years in contact with the libertine and French moralists culture when he was a

reugee in Paris, and he thereore had the chance to delve into the psychological

approach to the problems o man, a eature that would have characterised his

works rom then on22.

19 R. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, cit., vol. 1, p. 8.20 Cr. G. Borrelli, Prudence, Folly and Melancholy in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes,

Hobbes Studies, IX, 1996, pp. 88-97.21 For example in theElements, Hobbes mentions the case o the man who did not get out o

bed or ear o shattering, convinced as he was o being made o glass. This was a typical

case o hypochondria reported in all the main English works on melancholy. See T. Hobbes,

Elements, cit., I.X.11, p. 64.22 Cr. A.M. Battista, Psicologia e politica nella cultura eterodossa francese del Seicento, in

Id., Politica e morale nella Francia dellet moderna, Genova, Name, 1998, pp. 221-247 (the

article appeared or the irst time in Ricerche sulla letteratura libertina e sulla letteratura

clandestina nel Seicento, Atti del Convegno di studio di Genova 30 ottobre-1 novembre 1980,

Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1981, pp. 321-351; reprinted with the titleNascita della psicologia

politica, Preazione di A.M. Lazzarino Del Grosso, Genova, Ecig, 1982 and in G. Sorgi (edited

by), Politica e diritto in Hobbes, Milano, Giur, 1995, pp. 193-224). On French libertinismand moralists see R. Pintard, Le libertinage rudit dans la premire moiti du XVII sicle,

2 voll., Paris, Boivin, 1943 (reprinted in Geneva in 1983); G. Spini, Ricerca dei libertini: la

teoria dellimpostura delle religioni nel Seicento italiano, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1950; J.S.

Spink, French Free-Thought from Gassendi to Voltaire, London, The Athlone Press, 1960; P.

Hazard,La crise de la conscience europenne, Paris, Fayard, 1961; A. Adam, Les libertins

au XVII sicle, Paris, Buchet-Chastel, 1964; A.M. Battista,Alle origini del pensiero politico

libertino: Montaigne e Charron, Milano, Giur,1966; G. Schneider,Der Libertin. Zur Geistes-

und Sozialgeschichte der Brgertums im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, Metzler, 1970; V.I.

Comparato,Il pensiero politico dei libertini, in L. Firpo (edited by), Storia delle idee politiche,

economiche, sociali, Torino, UTET, 1974, vol. VII; O. Pompeo Faracovi, Il pensiero libertino,

Torino, Loescher, 1977; S. Bertelli (edited by),Libertinismo europeo, Milano-Napoli, RiccardoRicciardi Editore, 1980; AA.VV.,Ricerche su letteratura libertina e letteratura clandestina nel

Seicento, cit.; T. Gregory,Etica e religione nella critica libertina, Napoli, Guida Editori, 1986;

F. Reichler,Lge libertine, Paris, Editions de minuit, 1987; L. Bianchi, Tradizione libertina e

critica storica, Milano, Angeli, 1988; S. Zoli,Europa libertina tra controriforma e illuminismo.

LOriente dei libertini e le origini dellilluminismo, Bologna, Cappelli, 1988; L. Godard de

Donville,Le libertin des origines 1665: un produit des apologtes, Paris-Seattle-Tbingen,

Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, 1989; F. Semerari, La fine della virt.

Gracin, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyre, Bari, Dedalo, 1993; D. Taranto, Pirronismo ed asso-

lutismo nella Francia del 600. Studi sul pensiero politico dello scetticismo da Montaigne a

Bayle (1580-1697), Milano, Franco Angeli, 1994; S. Zoli,DallEuropa libertina allEuropa

illuminista. Alle origini del laicismo e dellIlluminismo, Firenze, Nardini, 1997.


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In that environment Hobbes assimilated Montaignes lesson as well as that

o those authors who held the study o themselves and o their inner nature as a

starting point or their analysis. The amous Delphic precept, nosce te ipsum, con-

stituted a real philosophical programme. The Hobbesian project, to tell the truth,

was even more ambitious as it intended to start a political science based on the

study o natural philosophy that would pass through the knowledge o man23. So

in theDe corpore, which he published in 1655 ater his three important political

works, Hobbes wrote: propterea quod principia Politicae constant ex cognitione

motuum animorum, cognitio autem motuum animorum ex scientia sensuum et

cogitationum24. The scientia sensuum et cogitationum thereore constitutes

the preliminary moment to the oundation o political science, o which Hobbes

23 We can recall that the philosopher rom Malmesbury is commonly recognised as an impor-

tant psychologist at least or two reasons: the irst is about his choice o method, Hobbes

studied man resorting to sel-analysis and introspection; the second instead is related to the

act that at centre o Hobbes political relection we ind the search or the motivations that

induce men to act. One o the most important problematic knots in the Hobbesian historiogra-

phy regards how Hobbes project is systematically organised, that is the relationship that links

mechanical metaphysics, psychology and political philosophy. As we know, the same Hobbes

made a resolution o constructing a science o politics starting rom the study o physics, but

throughout the XX century many Hobbesian interpreters highlighted the shortcomings o

this project. According to Leo Strauss, or instance, the Hobbesian psychology would have a

oundation independent o the philosophy o nature, while the political philosophy could bededuced rom the axioms on human nature posed by psychological analysis. Even more radical

is the criticism that we ind in the amous Taylor-Warrender Thesis, according to which politi-

cal philosophy has a moral or theological oundation, but is totally independent o Hobbes

philosophy o nature and psychology. See L. Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes.

Its Basis and its Genesis, Oxord, Clarendon Press, 1936; A.E. Taylor, Hobbes, London,

Constable, 1908; Id. The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes, Philosophy, XIII, 1938, pp. 406-

424; H. Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes. His Theory of Obligation, Oxord,

Clarendon Press, 1957. Bibliographic reviews on the Hobbesian historiography: G. Sorgi,

Hobbes: difficolt di uninterpretazione, Nuovi studi politici, XI, 1981; the monographic

issue o the Revue europenne des sciences sociales, XX, 1982; A.L. Schino, Tendenze

della letteratura hobbesiana di lingua inglese degli ultimi venticinque anni , Materiali peruna storia della cultura giuridica, XVII, 1987, pp. 159-198; F. Viola, Hobbes tra moderno e

postmoderno. Cinquantanni di studi hobbesiani, in B. Willms e altri, Hobbes oggi, Milano,

Franco Angeli, 1990, pp.39-98; E. Vitale, Appendice: vecchi e nuovi studi hobbesiani, in Id.

dal disordine al consenso. Filosofia e politica in Thomas Hobbes, Milano, Franco Angeli,

1994, pp. 199-244; M. Mancini (edited by),Interpretazioni novecentesche di Thomas Hobbes,

Torino, Giappichelli, 1999.24 T. Hobbes, Elementorum philosophiae sectio prima de corpore, Londini, A. Crook, 1655

(English trans.Elements of Philosophy, The First Section concerning Body, London, Printed

by R. a. W. Leybourn, or A. Crooke, at the Green Dragon in Pauls Church-yard, 1656); Id.,

De corpore elementorum philosophiae sectio prima, par K. Schuhmann, Paris, Vrin, 1999, VI,

7, pp. 62-63. From nowDe corpore.


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himsel claims the paternity in the dedicatory epistle o the De corpore25. I the

scientia sensuum has an objective oundation drawn rom the mechanical con-

ception o the human body and o nature, the scientia cogitationum instead has

an essentially peculiar constitution, as it already shows in the method.

In theIntroduction to theLeviathan, Hobbes denes his method and seems

to take ater what was stated by Robert Burton in the Anatomy: Wisdom is ac-

quired, not by reading obooks, but omen26. And as thoughts are not an object

o observation and experience, apart rom ones own, the best way to know oth-

ers, Hobbes writes, is to know ourselves. Introspection is thereore the method

which allows to know the invisible part o human nature27: or the similitude o

the thoughts, and passions o one man, to the thoughts, and passions o another

whosoever looketh into himsel, and considereth what he doth, when he does

think, opine, reason, hope, fear, etc., and upon what grounds; he shall thereby

read and know, what are the thoughts, and passions o all other men, upon thelike occasions28.

This is a method that does not present the rigour o Euclidean geometry, but

it is the only one that Hobbesian psychology can use. It thereore constitutes the

starting point o every political investigation:

But let one man read another by his actions never so perectly, it serves him only with

his acquaintance, which are but ew. He that is to govern a whole nation must read

in himsel, not this, or that particular man; but mankind: which though it be hard to

25 T. Hobbes, De corpore, cit., pp. 3-4: Itaque Astronomiae initium (praeter observata) non

ultra reerendum esse puto quam ad \ Nicolaum Copernicum placita Pythagorae, Aristarchi,

Philolai proxime superiore saeculo reerentem. Post hunc, agnito jam Telluris motu ortaque

inde diicili quaestione de descensu gravium, cum diicultate illa certans nostris temporibus

Galilaeus primus aperuit nobis Physicae universae portam primam, naturam mots. Adeo

ut neque ultra hunc computanda videatur esse aetas Physicae. Postremo scientiam humani

corporis, Physicae partem utilissimam, in libris suis De Motu Sanguinis et De Generatione

Animalium mirabili sagacitate detexit et demonstravit Guilelmus Harvaeus, Regum Jacobi

Carolique Medicus primarius; solus (quod sciam), qui doctrinam novam superat invidi

vivens stabilivit. Ante hos nihil certi in Physic erat praeter experimenta unicuique sua ethistorias naturales, si tamen et hae dicendae certae sint, quae civilibus historiis certiores non

sunt. At post hos Astronomiam et Physicam quidem Universalem Joannes Keplerus, Petrus

Gassendus, Marinus Mersennus, Physicam vero humani corporis specialem ingenia et indus-

tria Medicorum (id est, vere Physicorum), praesertim vero nostrorum e Collegio Londinensi

doctissimorum hominum, pro tam exiguo tempore egregie promoverunt. Physica ergo res

dovitia est. Sed Philosophia Civilis multo adhuc magis; ut quae antiquior non sit (dico laces-

situs, utque sciant se parum proecisse obtrectatores \ mei) libro, quemDe Cive ipse scripsi.26 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 7.27 On this subject see M. Bertman, Equality in Hobbes, with Reference to Aristotle, The

Review o Politics, XXXVIII, 1976, pp. 534-544.28

T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 8.


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40

do, harder than to learn any language, or science; yet, when I shall have set down my

own reading orderly, and perspicuosly, the pains let another, will be only to consider,

i he also ind not the same in himsel. For this kind o doctrine admitteth no other

demonstration29.

This introspective method is theorised in theLeviathan, but it was not present in

theElements nor in theDe cive30. In the analysis o the Hobbesian theory o pas-

sions I am going to ollow the exposition that is ound in theLeviathan, pointing

out along the way the main dierences with his other works, and I would like to

ocus in particular on three aspects: the description o passions and their psycho-

logical and symbolical dimensions; the distinction between man and animal and

between man and man; melancholy as an illness specic and exclusive to man,

caused by dominant passion: glory (or desire o power).

29 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 8.30 In the decade between 1640 and 1651 Hobbes interest shits rom the physiological

dimension o passions (which will remain present anyway), to the psychological and relational

one. Nonetheless, in spite o some variations o accent, the Hobbesian conception o the

emotional structure remains substantially unchanged in time. On the analysis o passions inthe Hobbesian works I shall conine mysel to signalling the ollowing studies: L. Strauss,

The Political Philosophy of Hobbes. Its Basis and Genesis, cit.; M. Oakeshott,Introduction to

Leviathan, in Id.,Hobbes on Civil Association, Oxord, Blackwell, 1975, pp. 1-74 (the intro-

duction appeared or the irst time in 1946); C.A. Viano, Analisi della vita emotiva e tecnica

politica nella filosofia di Hobbes, Rivista critica di Storia della Filosoia, XVII, 1962, pp.

355-392; B. Gert,Hobbes, Mechanism and Egoism, Philosophical Quarterly, XV, 1965, pp.

341-349; Id.,Hobbes and Psychological Egoism, Journal o the History o Ideas, XXVIII,

1967, pp. 503-520; I. Zaagnini, Fancy, Judgement, Wit in Thomas Hobbes, Studi di estetica,

IV, 1977, pp. 5-41; A.M. Battista, Psicologia e politica nella cultura eterodossa francese del

Seicento, cit.; W. Sacksteder,Man the Artificer: Notes on Animals, Humans and Machines in

Hobbes, Southern Journal o Philosophy, XXII, 1984, pp. 105-122; A. Pacchi, Hobbes andthe Passions, Topoi, VI, 1987, pp. 111-119; A. Napoli,La valutazione morale dellemotivit

in Hobbes, Rivista di storia della ilosoia, XLII, 1987, pp. 629-647;A. Napoli,Metafisica

e fisiologia dellemotivit and G. Paganini, Hobbes, Gassendi e la psicologia del meccani-

cismo, in B. Willms and altri,Hobbes oggi, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1990, pp. 279-327 e pp.

351-445; M. Reale, La difficile eguaglianza, cit.; E. Vitale, La natura umana: dallordine

fisico al conflitto interindividuale, in Id., Dal disordine al consenso. Filosofia e politica in

Thomas Hobbes, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1994, pp. 57-106; D. DAndrea, Prometeo e Ulisse.

Natura umana e ordine politico in Thomas Hobbes, Roma, La Nuova Italia Scientiica, 1997;

Q. Skinner, The Rhetoric of Leviathan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998; A.

Ferrarin,Artificio, desiderio, considerazione di s. Hobbes e i fondamenti antropologici della

politica, Pisa, ETS, 2001.


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3. Physiology of the passions and psychology of motivation

In theLeviathan, Hobbes aces the problem o the origin o passions in chapter

VI, called Of the interior beginnings of voluntary motions; commonly called the

passions. And the speeches by which they are expressed. Hobbes distinguishes

two types o movement: the vital one, which requires no imagination, and the

animal one, or voluntary one, rom which also the passions derive. As every

voluntary movement is preceded by a thought o whither, which way and what;

it is evident, that the imagination is the rst internal beginning o all voluntary

motion31:

And althought unstudied men, do not conceive any motion at all to be there, where

the thing moved is invisible; or the space it is moved in, is (or the shortness o it)

insensible; yet that doth not hinder, but that such motions are. For let a space be never

so little, that which is moved over a greater space, whereo that little one is part, must

irst be moved over that. These small beginnings o motion, within the body o man,

beore they appear in walking, speaking, striking, and other visible actions, are com-

monly called ENDEAVOUR32.

The passions are born within imagination rom a small movement called endeav-

our (conatus)33. When the endeavour is directed towards the object that caused it,

it is called appetite or desire; when instead it is directed away rom it, it is called

aversion. Both the passions are a movement, either o approaching or distancing,and when their object is present we call them love and hatred.

Contempt is not properly a passion, as it is absence o movement. The objects

o the endeavour, cause o the movement, vary depending on the age and on the

individual: And because the constitution o a mans body is in continual muta-

tion; it is impossible that all the same things should always cause in him the same

appetites, and aversions: much less can all men consent, in the desire o almost

31

T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 33.32 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., pp. 33-34.33 On the notion oconatus see W. Sacksteder, Speaking about Mind: Endeavour in Hobbes, The

Philosophical Forum, XI, 1979, pp. 65-79; J. Barnouw,Hobbess Causal Account of Sensation,

Journal o the History o Philosophy, XVII, 1980, pp. 115-130; W. von Leyden,Hobbes and

Locke. The Politics of Freedom and Obligation, London, Macmillan, 1982; B. Stoel,Hobbess

Conatus and the Roots of Character, in C. Walton e P.J. Johnson (edited by), Dordrecht,

Nijho, 1987, pp. 123-138; A. Robinet, Hobbes: structure et nature du conatus, in Y.C.

Zarka e J. Bernhardt (edited by), Thomas Hobbes: philosophie premire, thorie de la

science et politique, Paris, PUF, 1990, pp. 139-151; J. Barnouw,Le vocabulaire du conatus, in

Y.C. Zarka (edited by),Hobbes et son vocabulaire, Paris, Vrin, 1992, pp. 103-124; M. Bertman,

Conatus in Hobbes De corpore, in Hobbes Studies, XIV, 2001, pp. 25-39.


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any one and the same object34. The passions are born o the endeavour (conatus)

and according to Hobbes the basic ones are our: i the object is present they are

called love (or desire) and hatred (or aversion); i it is projected in the uture joy

and grie. The passions are named dierently according to: 1) the opinion that

men have to obtain what they desire; 2) the object that is loved or hated; 3) the

consideration o many o them together; 4) their alteration or succession itsel.

The conatus rom which passions originate and develop has thereore two

natures: a biological nature, described in the chapter VI o the Leviathan, that

ollows the mechanical model, and a psychological and social nature, that has to

do with the origin o the movement, or we can say with the meaning that we give

to actions, a meaning which is related to social recognition35: In the pleasure

men have, or displeasure rom the signs o honour or dishonour done unto them,

consisteth the nature o the passions in particular36.

The proximate and immediate causes o the passions are thereore physi-ological, and are dierent on this regard rom the sensations because the conatus

is not directed towards the outside but towards the inside, as we read in the De

corpore:

Est autem aliud sensionis genus, de quo dicturi aliqua nunc sumus, nimirum sensio

voluptatis et doloris, eaque orta non a reactione cordis versus exteriora, sed ab organi

parte extima per continuam actionem versus cor. Cum enim vitae principium in corde

sit, necesse est, ut motus in sentiente ad cor propagatus motum vitalem aliquo modo

mutet sive divertat, nimirum aciliorem reddens vel diiciliorem, juvans vel impedi-ens. Si juvet, voluptas, si impediat, dolor, molestia, aegritudo nascitur. Et sicut phan-

tasmata a conatu ad externa extra esistere, ita voluptas et dolor in sensione propter

conatum organi ad interiora videntur intus esse, ibi nempe, ubi est prima voluptatis

sive doloris causa, ut in dolore a vulnere ubi est vulnus ipsum, ibi videtur esse dolor.

34 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 35.35 See B. Carnevali, Romanticismo e riconoscimento. Figure della coscienza in Rousseau,

Bologna, Il Mulino, 2004, in particular the irst chapter, pp. 15-64; id., Potere e riconosci-

mento: il modello hobbesiano, in Iride, XLVI, 2005, pp. 515-540. T. Hobbes,Human Nature

and De Corpore Politico, cit., I, VIII.3-5-6, pp. 48-49: The passions whereo I am to speak

next, consist in conception o the uture, that is to say, in conception o power past, and the act

to come []. The signs by which we know our own power are those actions which proceed

rom the same; and the signs by which other men know it, are such actions, gesture, counte-

nance and speech, as usually such powers produce: and the acknowledgment o power is called

HONOUR ; and to honour a man (inwardly in the mind) is to conceive or acknowledge, that

that man hath the odds or excess o power above him that contendeth or compareth himsel.

And HONOURABLE are those signs or which one man acknowledgeth power or excess

above his concurrent in another. [] The signs o honour are those by which we perceive that

one man acknowledgeth the power and worth o another.36 T. Hobbes,Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, cit., I, VIII.8, p. 50.


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Motus autem vitalis sanguinis motus est per venas arteriasque (ut a primo ejus rei

observatore nostrate Harvaeo multis certissimisque signis ostensum est)37.

But how do the movements o animal spirits movements, that are at the origin o

passions, get activated? In the case o sensations their origin is clear: external ob-

jects. In the case o passions instead Hobbes arms that the origin is to be ound

in phantasmata, which are dened as the images that act upon the aculties o

imagination and judgement38:

Consistunt autem Aectus in diversis motibus sanguinis & spirituum animalium

prout se varie modo expandunt, modo ad ontem se recipiunt; quorum motuum causae

sunt Phantasmata circa Bonum & Malum ab objectis in Animo excitata39.

Nonetheless, not all objects elicit the same passions in all men. Where does thisdierence come rom, or which the same objects induce pleasure in some men

and pain in others? I the physiological correlate o passions is similar in all men,

the same is not true o the phantasmata that elicit the animal spirits move-

ments. Sensations dont lie, while phantasmata can deceive. And the reason

why they can be deceitul is that they are not a natural product, but they are

cultural, human, symbolic.

In this respect men can be very dierent rom one another, because the same

images can have very dierent eects. The cause or these dierences is ound

in language, which can have opposite eects:

Sed sunt quoque Orationi sua incommoda; nimirum, quod Homo, cum solus

Animalium, propter vocabulorum signiicationem universalem, regulas sibi, cum in

aliis artibus, tum in arte vivendi, excogitare possit generales, solus etiam alsis uti

potest, easdemque aliis utendas tradere. [] Denique propter loquendi acilitatem

Homo quae ne cogitar quidem loquitur, & quae loquitur credit versa esse, & seipsum

decipere potest; Bestia seipsam allere non potest. Itaque Oratione Homo non melior

it sed potentior40.

37 T. Hobbes,De corpore, cit., XXV, 12, p. 278.38 Imagination (or ancy) determines the speed o the images, judgement is instead the aculty

rom which the ability o maintaining ones attention ocused towards a goal depends.39 T. Hobbes, Elementorum philosophiae sectio secunda. De homine, Londini, Crook, 1658

(English trans.Elements of Philosophy, The Second Section concerning Man, London, Printed

by R. a. W. Leybourn, or A. Crooke, at the Green Dragon in Pauls Church-yard, 1658); Id.,

Elementorum philosophiae sectio secunda De homine, in Thomae Hobbes Malmesburiensis

Opera philosophica, Quae Latine scripsit, Omnia, Amstelodami, Apud Iannem Blaev, 1668,

XII, 1, p. 68. From nowDe homine.40

T. Hobbes,De homine, cit., X, 3, pp. 60-61.


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45

cause they satisy this need or a uture perspective. Happiness, in act, is dened

as a Continual success in obtaining those things which a man rom time to time

desireth, that is to say, continual prospering43. I happiness is a dynamic condi-

tion, a continual research, a restlessness that leads to movement with no pause

For there is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity o mind, while we live here,

because lie itsel is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without

ear, no more than without sense44, i that is the case then the more our aim is

remote, projected into the uture, hard to achieve, the more the pleasure will be

renewable and will last in time. But only the pleasures o the mind have these

characteristics and only they can get anywhere near that condition o happiness

described by Hobbes.

It is understandable then why curiosity, a passion in itsel so charged with

uture and with restlessness, is the specic passion o man. Curiosity projects

man in the uture and is one with desire, which in turn is seeking or pleasure45

.Curiosity provides the content o sense to that desiring machine that is the hu-

man body.

Thereore, regarding the dierence between animals and men, Hobbes can

arm that men rank above animals thanks to reason and to a specic passion,

curiosity:

Desire, to know why, and how, CURIOSITY; such as is in no living creature but man:

so that man is distinguished, not only by his reason; but also by this singular passion

rom other animals; in whom the appetite o ood, and other pleasures o senses, bypredominance, take away the care o knowing causes; which is a lust o the mind, that

by a perseverance o delight in he continual and indeatigable generation o knowl-

edge, exceedeth the short vehemence o any carnal pleasure46.

Even religion gures as an element o dierentiation between men and animals

(the seed oreligion, is also only in man; and consisteth in some peculiar qual-

ity, or at least in some eminent degree thereo, not to be ound in other liveng

creatures47), but not thanks to its supernatural origin; on the contrary, exactly

because it is a human product, being an eect o curiosity and o the ear oinvisible things. In chapter XII o theLeviathan, dedicated to religion, Hobbes

identies three characteristics o man at the root o the birth o religion:

43 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 4144 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 41.45 Cr. J. Barnouw,Hobbess Psychology of Thought: Endeavours, Purpose and Curiosity, in

History o European Ideas, X, 1989, pp. 519-545.46



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And irst, it is peculiar to the nature o man, to be inquisitive into the causes o the

events they see, some more, some less; but all men so much, as to be curious in the

search o the causes o their own good and evil ortune.

Secondly, upon the sight o anything that hath a beginning, to think also it had a cause,

which determined the same to begin, then when it did, rather than soon or later.

Thirdly, whereas there is no other elicity o beasts, but the enjoying o their quotid-

ian ood, ease, and lusts; as having little, or no orsight o the time to come, or want

o observation, and memory o the order, consequence, and dependence o the things

they see; man observeth how one event hath been produced by another; and remem-

bereth in them antecedence and consequence; and when he cannot assure himsel o

the true causes o things, (or the casues o good and evil ortune or the most part

are invisible,) he supposes causes o them, either such as his own ancy suggesteth;

or trusteth to the authority o other men, such as he thinks to be his riends, and wiser

than himsel48.

Man, as opposed to animal, has thereore got a dilated timescale, he doesnt just

live in the present and or the immediate, but he knows the dimensions o past

and uture. While movement is the dimension o nature and o the body, the di-

mension o the mind is time49.

I happiness or animals consists in the satisaction o sensual, thereore im-

mediate, pleasures, happiness or man is instead a process, as comes out clearly

in the amous metaphor o the run in the Elements50, and as such requires time,

thereore uture51.Specically human pleasures, characterised by the dimension o uture, are

those o the mind. But uture has got in itsel a dark side. In act, i on one side

the dimension o uture is essential or the satisaction o the pleasures o the

mind, on the other it is a source o uncertainty, o ear and anxiety. And it is

anxiety most o all which is the other side o happiness. This is the same as

saying that in the measure in which man is a project, projection into the uture,

expectation o happiness and search or causes and or sense, his lie is exposed

to anxiety and ear o ailure.

47 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 71.48 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., pp. 71-72.49 Cr. G. Slomp, Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory, cit., pp. 11-21.50 Cr. T. Hobbes,Elements, cit., I, IX.21, pp. 59-60. See also T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 41:

Continual success in obtaining those things which a man rom time to time desireth, that is

to say, continual prospering, is that men call FELICITY.51 C.A. Viano,Analisi della vita emotiva e tecnica politica nella filosofia di Hobbes, cit., pp.

373-375.


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Religion thereore congures as a human creation, comprehensible in psy-

chological terms as an answer to anxiety about the uture, a kind o anxiety that

according to Hobbes is not without reason and is simply born o an excess o in-

sight, the insight which looks too ar beore him, in the care o uture time52.

Religion is a possible answer to the ragility o human nature, prone to re-

search the causes or events and to give a sense to lie. But the same research or

sense, when excessive, can be cause o anxiety. Hobbes resorts to the image o

Prometheus, the same image which Burton used in the Anatomy of Melancholy

regarding the melancholic man, to describe a man constantly projected in the

uture:

The two irst, make anxiety. For being assured that there be causes o all things that

have arrived hitherto, or shall arrive hereater; it is impossible or a man, who con-

tinually endeavoureth to secure himsel against the evil he ears, and procure the good

he desireth, not to be in perpetual solicitude o the time to come; so that every man,

especially those that are over provident, are in an estate like to that o Prometheus,

(which, interpreted, is, the prudent man,) was bound to the hill Caucasus, a place o

large prospect, where an eagle, eeding on his liver, devoured in the day, as much as

was repaired in the night: so that man, which looks too ar beore him, in the care o

uture time, hath his heart all the day long, gnawed on by ear o death, poverty, or

other calamity; and has no repose, nor pause o his anxiety, but in sleep 53.

Thereore, i it is peculiar to the nature o man, to be inquisitive into the causeso the events they see, nonetheless this investigation does not get carried out in

the same way by all, in act some more, some less; but all men so much, as to be

curious in the search o the causes o their own good and evil ortune54.

So Hobbes does not just describe the dierence between man and animal,

but he delves into the dierence among men too. This kind o analysis compels

Hobbes to ace a series o questions born around the problem o the origin o the

dierences among men: on what level are these dierences, that o reason or that

o passions? And, assuming the dierences are there, are they to be considered

natural or acquired in time, through education and culture?The answer to these questions needs an analysis o the Hobbesian anthropolo-

gy, starting rom two anthropological gures already introduced in theElements:

52 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 72.53 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 72.54



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the men o sensual pleasure, characterised by a nature similar to that o the

animal, and the men o delight o mind (or gloria), o a superior nature55.

The men o sensual pleasure are those who seek pleasures o immediate

satisaction. These pleasures prevent the development o cognitive powers, which

derive rom curiosity about the uture and rom ambition and this is it which

man call DULLNESS; and proceedeth rom the appetite o sensual or bodily

delight56. Dullness has a physiological correlate, a grossness and diculty o

the motion o the spirits about the heart57.

The men o delight o mind, instead, are more sensitive to imaginations

o honour and glory58 and are characterised by their aculty o imagination and

judgement, which means by their ability to make comparisons and to introduce

the symbolic dimension through those grateul similies, metaphors, and other

tropes, by which both poets and orators have it in their power to make things

please or displease, and shew well or illto others, as they like themselves; or elsein discerning suddendly dissimilitude in things that otherwise appear the same59.

Individual dierences, Hobbes already species in the Elements, do not come

rom the brain but rom vital constitution, which means the passions:

55 In T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I, XIV.3, p. 78, the philosopher rom Malmesbury distin-

guishes two passional anthropologies, that o vainly glorious, which hope or precedency

and superiority above their ellows and that o moderates, which instead look or no morebut equality o nature. In theDe cive this distinction gets radicalised with the introduction o

the voluntas laedendi, which belongs to all men, but has a dierent genesis. In the moderates

it derives rom the necessity o deence rom the vainglorious, in the vainglorious instead it

derives rom a alse aith in their own strenghts. In the XIII chapter o the Leviathan, even-

tually, the voluntas laedendi disappears and equality gets stressed. The latter becomes cause

o conlictuality, because the passion o glory, that is the desire o esteem, gets radicalised.

From the Elements to the Leviathan, the dierence among men changes rom qualitative

(moderates and vainglorious) to quantitative (greater or lesser desire o power). See T. Hobbes,

Elementorum philosophiae sectio tertia. De cive, Parisiis, [n.i.], 1642; Id.,De cive: the Latin

version entitled in the first edition Elementorum philosophiae sectio tertia de cive, and in later

editions Elementa philosophica de cive, edited by H. Warrender, Oxord, Clarendon Press,1981, I.4, p. 93: Voluntas laedendi omnibus quidem inest in statu naturae, sed non ab eadem

causa, neque aeque culpanda. Alius enim secundum aequalitatem naturalem permittit caeteris

eadem omnia, quae sibi (quod modesti hominis est, & vires sua recte aestimantis.) Alius

superiorem se aliis existimans omnia licere sibi soli vult, & prae caeteris honorem sibi arrogat

(quod ingenij erocis est.) Huic igitur voluntas laedendi est ab inani gloria & alsa virium aes-

timatione; Illi ex necessitate res suas & libertatem contra hunc deendi. On this subject see

most o all M. Reale,La difficile eguaglianza, cit., pp. 51-85 e pp. 187-203.56 T. Hobbes,Elements, cit., I, X.3, p. 61.57 T. Hobbes,Elements, cit., I, X.3, p. 61.58 T. Hobbes,Elements, cit., I, X.3, p. 61.59 T. Hobbes,Elements, cit., I, X.4, p. 61


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But we see by experience, that joy and grie proceed not in all men rom the same

causes, and that men dier much in constitution o body, whereby, that which hel-

peth and urthereth vital constitution in one, and is thereore delightul, hindereth

and crosseth it in another, and causeth grie. The dierence thereore o wits hath its

original rom the dierent passions, and rom the ends to which their appetite leadeth

them60.

The dierence in wits is thereore to ascribe to two components: a biological one,

physical constitution, and a symbolic one, the aims that satisy the passions.

In theLeviathan Hobbes goes back to the dierences among men, but dier-

ently rom his dissertation on the same subject ound in theElements and theDe

cive he doesnt dierentiate between passions o the delight o mind and passions

o the sensual pleasure anymore. Instead, he calls them both with the general

term o desire o power. Nonetheless in chapter VIII, called Of the virtuescommonly called intellectual; and their contrary defects, Hobbes distinguishes

men on the grounds o their wit, which can be natural or acquired. The natural

wit is not the one that a man hath rom his birth61, but the one that is acquired

by use only, and experience; without method, culture, or instruction62 and it

consists in the speed at which imagination can think. The acquired wit instead

derives rom reason and rom the passions. As ar as reason is concerned, Hobbes

had already stated that it was a mere calculation and it was the same in all men.

Dierent and more complex is the matter regarding passions, rom which the

dierence in acquired wits derives. In this case it is education that is at the baseo the dierences:

The causes o this dierence o wits, are in the passions: and the dierence o pas-

sions, proceedeth partly rom the dierent constitution o the body, and partly rom

dierent education. For i the dierence proceeded rom the temper o the brain, and

the organs o sense, either exterior or interior, there would be no less dierence o

men in their sight, hearing, or other senses, than in their ancies, and discretions. It

proceeds thereore rom the passions; which are dierent, not only rom the dierence

o mens complexions; but also rom their dierence o customs, and education63.

The passions causing dierences between wits can be related to a greater or lesser

desire o power. The development o intelligence, in its two components o judge-

ment and ancy, is thereore due to the emotional-passional dimension, or at least

60 T. Hobbes,Elements, cit., I, X.2, pp. 60-61.61 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 45.62 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 45.63



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strictly related to it: The passions that most o all cause the dierences o wit,

are principally, the more or less desire o power, o riches, o knowledge, and o

honour. All which may be reduced to the rst, that is, desire o power. For riches,

knowledge and honour are but several sorts o power64. It is thus the desire o

power that constitutes the spring o intellectual development, as it is expressed

so well by the image o thoughts as scouts or spies seeking or solutions to the

problems o lie: For the thoughts, are to the desires, as scouts, and spies, to range

abroad, and nd the way to the things desired: all steadiness o the minds motion,

and all quickness o the same, proceeding rom thence65.

The cause o the dierences between man and man are both biological (due

to physical constitution) and cultural (due to customs and education). In theDe

homine, Hobbes lists six sources on which the individual dierences depend 66:

physical constitution (in particular cold or hot temper and speed o imagination);

habit (which, ater having overcome the resistence that nature always oersto change, then becomes itsel a second nature); experience o external things

(which corrects the natural attitudes through adverse events); ones ortunes (like

wealth or nobility o birth, that render men more prone to oense); ones opinion

o himsel (which has an infuence on behaviour); authority (important expecial-

ly during adolescence, because it constitutes a behavioural model that will stay

throughout lie). Note that Hobbes attributes to nature only one o the causes o

dierence among men, while the other ve are o a social origin.

5. Fragility and strenght of the desire of power

The Hobbesian psychology consists basically in the individuation o an incli-

nation in human nature that cannot be modied67. Around this psychological

dynamics Hobbes builds an interpretative grid o human actions. Following

the transormations and disguises o the dominant passion it is possible to ex-

plain human behaviours and to intervene in the motivation that is behind action.

The passions, already reduced to pleasures o sense and delight o mind in

Elements, gloria and sensibilia inDe cive, are unied in a more general and

64 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 48.65 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 48. Regarding the importance o passions, Hobbes writes that

men are dierent rom animals thanks to reason and to one speciic passion, curiosity, which

induces men to look or the causes o things, a variant o the desire o power.66 T. Hobbes,De homine, cit., XIII.1, p. 73: Ingenia, id est, hominum ad certas res propen-

siones, sextuplici ere onte oriuntur; nimirum, Temperie, ab Experientia, Consuetudine,

Bonis ortunae, ab Opinione quam quisque habet de seipso, ab Authoribus. Quibus mutatis

mutantur etiam Ingenia.67 A.M. Battista, Psicologia e politica nella cultura eterodossa francese del Seicento, in Id.,

Politica e morale nella Francia dellet moderna, cit., p. 228.


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comprehensive desire o power in theLeviathan. As we have already seen, the

dierences among men can be explained in terms o dierences in intensity o

the desire o power, thereore a well tempered desire o power is at the origin o

intellectual development, while a weak desire o power is the cause o dullness

and giddiness. Intelligence and dullness are the two extremes within which in-

dividual dierences are modulated, considered irrelevant or political aims, but

beyond these two boundaries the desire o power turns into pathology:

And thereore, a man who has no great passion or any o these things; but is as men

term it indierent; though he may be so ar a good man, as to be ree rom giving

oence; yet he cannot possibly have either a great ancy, or much judgement. For the

thoughts, are to the desires as scouts, and spies, to range abroad, and ind the way to

the things desired: all steadiness o the minds motion, and all quickness o the same,

proceeding rom thence. For as to have no desire, is to be dead: so to have weak pas-

sions, is dullness; and to have passions indierently or every thing, GIDDINESS,

and distraction; and to have stronger and more vehement passions or any thing, than

is ordinarily seen in others, is that which men call MADNESS68.

It is the intensity o the desire o power that causes madness, in its two variants

o ury and melancholy69. An excess o condence in ones power produces ury

(or vain glory), while the eeling o being unable to satisy ones desire is at the

origin o melancholy. We should maybe mention that Hobbes denes with the

term madness opposite behaviours that physicians would classiy as melancholyand mania (or renzy). Melancholy and mania were two maniestations o the

same disorder, showing opposite symptoms: depressive in the melancholics and

euphoric in the maniacs.

It is interesting to go back to the relationship between physiology and psy-

chology, because in these pages dedicated to madness Hobbes investigated the

possibility that the cause or this disease may not be the lesion o an organ, but

a passion:

68 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 48.69 On melancholy in Hobbes see: R. Peters, Hobbes, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1956, pp. 80-

159; D. Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1986, pp.

102-106; M. Reale,La difficile eguaglianza, cit., pp. 69-70; G. Borrelli, Prudence, Folly and

Melancholy in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes, cit.; P. Schiera,Hobbes e la melancolia. Con

qualche considerazione sullorigine del moderno, in AA.VV., Filosofia e storia della cultura.

Studi in onore di Fulvio Tessitore, 2 voll., Napoli, Morano, 1998, vol. II, pp. 613-631; reprinted

with the titleIl moderno e la melancolia. Con quache riferimento a Thomas Hobbes, in Id.,

Specchi della politica. Disciplina, melancolia, socialit nellOccidente moderno, Bologna, Il

Mulino, 1999, pp. 361-386.


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Whereo there be almost as many kinds, as o the passions themselves. Sometimes

the extraordinary and extravagant passion, procedeth rom the evil constitution o the

organs o the body, or harm done them; and sometimes the hurt, and indisposition o

the organs, is caused by the vehemence, or long continuance o the passion. But in

both cases the madness is o one and the same nature70.

Hobbes arms that almost every type o passion can degenerate into madness,

but the passions, as it has already been said, can be related to the desire o power.

The English philosopher writes that the passion, whose violence, or continu-

ance, maketh madness, is either great vain-glory; which is commonly called

pride, and self-conceit; or great dejection o mind71.

Vain glory and dejection o mind are two eects o the desire o power, which

when well tempered produces joy, and it is called glory and sel-esteem, when in-

stead has no real grounding but is only the product o fattery is called vain glory,in the third instance in which it brings the eeling o lack o power and anxiety is

called dejection o mind72.

Vain glory is brought on by social pretences, like gallantry and storytelling, is

present especially in youths and becomes pathological only when age and work

dont correct it73. Vain glory and dejection o mind are expressed through laugh-

ter and weeping. The Hobbesian analysis in these pages doesnt present, unlike it

did in theElements, a description o the physiological dynamics that are beneath

the maniestation o psychological phoenomena; on the contrary, the analysis is

70 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 49.71 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 49. In theElements madness was deined as some imagination

o such predominance above all the rest, that we have no passion but rom it and its cause had

been identiied in vain glory: And this conception is nothing else but excessive vain glory,

or vain dejection; as is most probable by these examples ollowing, which proceed in appear-

ance, every one o them, rom some pride, or some dejection o mind (T. Hobbes, Elements,

cit., I, X.9, p. 63).72 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 38: Joy, arising rom imagination o a mans own power and

ability, is that exultation o the mind which is called GLORYING: which i grounded uponthe experience o his own ormer actions, is the same with confidence: but i grounded on the

lattery o others; or only supposed by himsel, or delight in the consequeces o it, is called

VAIN-GLORY: which name is properly given, because a well grounded confidence begetteth

attempt; whereas the supposing o power does not, and is thereore rightly called vain.73 Hobbes in theElements distinguished true glory, vain glory and alse glory, but already start-

ing rom theDe cive, vain glory and alse glory were used as synonims. In theElements alse

glory was a alse esteem o ones power caused by lattery, which could bring about a conlict

that would then cause a decrease o power, while vain glory was also a alse esteem o ones

power, but caused by sel-conviction, by day-dreaming o powers that were never there in real-

ity. Vain glory is mostly harmless because it usually doesnt produce any action. See G. Slomp,

Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory, cit., pp. 34-36.


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all conducted on the psychological level, as is put in good evidence by the de-

scription o the symptoms represented by laughter:

Sudden glory, is the passion which maketh those grimaces called LAUGHTER; and

is caused either by some sudden act o their own, that pleaseth them; or by the appre-

hension o some deormed thing in another, by comparison whereo they suddendly

applaud themselves. And it is incident most to them, that are conscious o the ewest

abilities in themselves; who are orced to keep themselves in their own avour, by

observing the imperections o other men. And thereore much laughter at the deects

o others, is a sign o pusillanimity. For o great minds, one o the proper works is, to

help and ree others rom scorn, and compare themselves only with the most able74.

And o the symptoms o weeping:

On the contrary, sudden dejection, is the passion that causeth WEEPING; and is

caused by such accidents, as suddendly take away some vehement hope, or some prop

o their power: and they are most subject to it, that rely principally on helps external,

such as are women, and children. Thereore some weep or the loss o riends; oth-

ers or the sudden stop made to their thought o revenge, by reconciliation. But in

all cases, both laughter, and weeping, are sudden motions; custom taking them both

away. For no man laughs at old jests; or weeps or an old calamity 75.

The chapter dedicated to madness closes with the analysis o a particular kindo olly which maniests itsel as demoniac possession (demoniacs) or agitation

with spirits (energumeni), but this subject is beyond the aim o this study.

In conclusion, Hobbes did not consider melancholy an illness like any other

but a psychological disorder, the origin o which had to be ound in the complex

dynamics that govern the unctioning o the passions and, more specically, o

that passion that in the Hobbesian anthropology is the dominant one and that in

theElements is called glory and in theLeviathan becomes desire o power. It

is precisely on this point that we ace an interesting problem o interpretation: in

the Hobbesian anthropology, do we have to consider that the dominant passion issel-preservation, intended as preservation o biological lie, or that it is instead

glory or desire o power which determines mans behaviour?

Michael Oakeshott76 amongst others tried to answer this question by stressing

the importance o the symbolic dimension o passion. The symbolic dimension

74 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 38.75 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 38.76 M. Oakeshott, The Moral Life in the Writings of Thomas Hobbes, in Id.,Hobbes on Civil

Association, cit., pp. 75-131.


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represents the most important aspect in order to understand those pathologies

that are not related to lesions o organs, like the cases o melancholy. Oakeshott

points out a contradiction between the description o man in the state o nature

and that o man in civilised society. In the state o nature we would have two

anthropological types: the moderate man and the vanaglorious one; the ormer

would pursue the middle class values o caution and saety, the latter the aristo-

cratic ones o glory and honour beyond sel-preservation.

I in the state o nature we have a moderate man and a man o glory, in a ci-

vilised society there doesnt seem to space or the man o glory, but only or the

man o sel-preservation. The birth o society requires the sacrice o glory, the

passion o expenditure, in avour o sel-preservation, the passion o calculation.

In the rst pages o the De cive, Hobbes arms that it is not or glory that

man unite in society, on the contrary, glory is sacried in avour o reciprocal

ear, that is to say, o the prediction o uture woes that may derive rom the ullrealisation o glory.

Cum enim societas voluntario contrahatur, in omni societate quaeritur voluntatis

Obiectum, hoc est, id quod videtur unicuique congredientium Bonum sibi. Quicquid

autem videtur Bonum, iucundum est, pertinetque ad organa, vel ad animum. Animi

autem voluptas omnis, vel gloria est (sive bene opinari de seipso) vel ad gloriam

ultimo reertur; caetera sensualia sunt, vel ad sensuale conducentia, quae omnia com-

modorum nomine comprehendi possunt. Omnis igitur societas vel commodi causa,

vel gloriae, hoc est, sui, non sociorum amore, contrahitur. Gloriae autem studio nullainiri neque multorum hominum neque multis temporis, societas potest; proptera quod

gloriatio, sicut & honor, si omnibus adsit, nulli adest; quippe quae comparatione &

praecellentia constant77.

Glory is thereore a confictual passion that in the state o nature leaves no space

or sociability, neither in the orm o recognition nor in the solipsistic orm o

sel-recognition (neque ut quis causam gloriandi in se habeat, adiumentum ul-

lum accedit ex aliorum societate, tanti enim quisque est, quantum sine aliorum

ope ipse potest)78.The social man is instead a man without will, a man who has abdicated his

research o glory and useulness: Quamquam autem voluntas non sit ipsa volun-

taria, sed tantum actionum voluntariarum principium, (non enim volumus velle,

sedfacere) ideoque minime cadat sub deliberationem, & pacta; tamen qui subiicit

voluntatem suam alterius voluntati, transert in illum alterumIus virium & facul-

77 T. Hobbes,De cive, cit., I.2, p. 91.78

T. Hobbes,De cive, cit., I.2, p. 92.


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tatum suarum, ut cum caeteri idem ecerint, habeat is cui submittitur, tantas vires,

ut terrore earum, singulorum voluntates ad unitatem & concordiam possit conor-

mare79.

Having made these preliminary statements, Oakeshott observes that, thanks

to the birth o the State, man overcomes the problem o ear, but at the cost o

giving up happiness: The resolution suggested is one-sided: ear is allayed but

at the cost o Felicity. And this is a situation to be desired only by a creature who

ears to be dishonoured more than he desires to be honoured, a creature content

to survive in a world rom which both honour and dishonour have been removed

and this is not exactly the creature Hobbes had been describing to us. In the end,

it appears, all that reason can teach us is the manner in which we may escape ear,

but a man compact o pride will not be disposed to accept this low-grade80.

Here we are then, in the presence o a contradiction: can the ear o death

silence the pride o the vanaglorious man? That pride that demands to be satisedin order to give back some happiness?

Oakeshott suggests interpreting the Hobbesian ear in symbolic terms, as a

synonim o ailure. We dread violent death because it is dishonourable, because it

represents wounded pride. The worst thing that can happen to a man is not to die,

but to die at the hand o another man: And whereas with animals the ultimate

dread is death in any manner, the ultimate ear in man is the dread o violent (or

untimely) death at the hand o another man; or this is dishonour, the emblem o

all human ailure81.

In support o Oakeshotts theory, we can quote a passage, drawn rom ADialogue between a Philosopher & a Student of the Common Laws of England,

where an explanation o suicide is given by saying that there exists an inner tor-

ment that is worse than death. A torment that is born o unhappiness, that is to say

o not being able to satisy the passion o desire o power:

For naturally, and necessarily the Intention o every Man aimeth at somewhat, which

is good to himsel, and tendeth to his preservation; And thereore, methinks, i he

kill himsel, it is to be presumed that he is not compos mentis, but by some inward

Torment or Apprehension o somewhat worse than Death, Distracted82.

79 T. Hobbes,De cive, cit., V.8, p. 134.80 M. Oakeshott, The Moral Life in the Writings of Thomas Hobbes, cit., p. 87.81 M. Oakeshott, The Moral Life in the Writings of Thomas Hobbes, cit., p. 82.82 T. Hobbes,A Dialogue between a Philosopher & a Student of the Common Laws of England,

edited and with an Introduction by J. Cropsey, Chicago-London, The University o Chicago

Press, 1971, pp. 116-117. On suicide see H. Warrender, Il pensiero politico di Hobbes, cit.,

pp. 221-223; D. Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan: The Moral and Political Theory of Thomas

Hobbes, Oxord, Clarendon Press, 1960, pp. 22-24; B. Stoell,Hobbes on Self-Preservation

and Suicide, in Hobbes Studies, IV, 1990, pp. 26-33.


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Suicide is the symptom o the existence o a passion that beats in intensity the

passion o sel-preservation. And suicide is the extreme outcome o melancholy,

which is not properly a passion, but is the name that is given to a misunctioning

o the passional mechanism that regulates lie, that is to say that attributes lie

its meaning.

Madness is thereore outlined as either an excess o sel-opinion or as too

much vain ear and dejection83 in theElements, and similarly in theLeviathan

as a great vain-glory; which is commonly calledpride, and self-conceit; or great

dejection o mind84.

The analysis o melancholy appears in the more general study o the passions

as a pathology linked to the dominant passion. Hobbes doesnt explain what

the specicity o this illness is, but he underlines that even though it may have

in some cases an organic origin, it can also be just strictly passional. Hobbes

doesnt suggest any possible therapies or melancholy either. It is nonethelesspossible to read between the lines o the Hobbesian text, and wonder whether

we can nd, in the chapter where the theory o passions is expounded, an answer

regarding the causes or vain glory and how to relieve it. Vain glory results rom

social pretence, rom a alse recognition o ones value that misleads. The aware-

ness o ones abilities seems thereore to pass through the refection in other

peoples eyes. And Hobbes reers to only one cure, time and experience:

The vain-glory which consisteth in the eigning or supposing o abilities in our-

selves, which we know are not, is most incident to young men, and nourished bythe histories, o ictions o gallant persons; and is corrected otentimes by age, and

employment85.

Vain glory is so at the origin o melancholy, and is a passion that has a strict

relation with society. Melancholy is outlined as a relational disorder, to do with

social relations and with the image o sel that others send back to us. The kind

o melancholy analised by Hobbes is an uneasiness o which every man has had

experience, it is the psychopathology o everyday lie, the existential anguish that

may take us ater a bereavement, an abandonment, a ailure. The symptoms omelancholy turn up every time the glory (or desire o power) gets rustrated.

At the beginning o the XIX century, as was recently pointed out by Roy

Porter86, the physician rom London William Black drew up a list o diagnoses

83 T. Hobbes,Elements, cit., I, X, 11, pp. 63-64.84 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 49.85 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, cit., p. 38.86 R. Porter,Mind-Forgd Manacles. A History of Madness in England from the Restoration to

the Regency, London, The Athlone Press, 1987, pp. 33-34.


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o the causes o madness at the time o admission or about one third o the

patients o the Bethlem asylum. In this catalogue, which regarded exclusively

cases o serious madness, appeared as possible causes or illness, together with

organic, hereditary and aective causes, also causes o a moral nature like or

instance pride87. Blacks table shows that English medicine only at the beginning

o the XIX century had codied what was already amiliar to Robert Burton

and Richard Napier two centuries beore and to the man in the street88. Hobbes,

unlike Burton, Napier and the man in the street, managed to position what was

evident to everyone by direct experience into a general interpretative grid o

human nature. In his system, beside the placement o morals (reduced to a move-

ment o animal spirits), we catch a glimpse o the possibility o moral treatment

or mental disorders, which consisted in the gratication o ones desire o power

and thereore ones sel-esteem.

It will then be a Dutch doctor, Bernard Mandeville, emigrated to Londonin 1693, just little older than twenty, who would take up Hobbes refections on

melancholy in order to elaborate a therapy based on the word and on the recovery

o the lost sel-esteem89.

87 W. Black, A Dissertation on Insanity: Illustrated with Tables, and Extracted from

between two and three thousand cases in Bedlam, London, Ridgway, 1810, p. 6: Troubles,

Misortunes, Grie 206; Religion 90; Love 74; Jealousy 9, Pride 8; Study 15; Fright 51; Drink

58; Fevers 110; Childbed 79; Obstruction 10; Family and Heredity 115; Fractures o the Skull

12; Venereal 14; Smallpox 7; Ulcers 5.88 R. Porter,Mind-Forgd Manacles, cit., p. 33.89 On this subject allow me to suggest the reading o M. Simonazzi, Bernard Mandeville e la

cura psicologica, in Id.,La malattia inglese, cit., pp. 293-411 and Id.,Bernard Mandeville: le

parole della melanconia, in E. Mazza - E. Ronchetti (edited by),Instruction and Amusement.

Le ragioni dellIlluminismo britannico, Padova, Il Poligrao, 2005, pp. 165-198. I wish to

thank Manuela Ceretta, Marco Geuna, Gianranco Mormino and Laura Re.

Documents

Thomas Hobbes on Melancholy