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Citations:
Bluebook 20th ed.
Thomas; Tonnies Hobbes, Ferdinand. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (1928).
ALWD 6th ed.
Thomas; Tonnies Hobbes, Ferdinand. Elements of L, Natural & Politic (1928).
APA 7th ed.
Hobbes, T. (1928). Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. Cambridge Eng., The
University press.
Chicago 7th ed.
Hobbes Thomas; Tonnies, Ferdinand. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. Cambridge
Eng., The University press.
McGill Guide 9th ed.
Thomas; Tonnies Hobbes, Ferdinand, Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (Cambridge
Eng.: The University press., 1928)
MLA 8th ed.
Hobbes, Thomas, and Ferdinand Tonnies. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic.
Cambridge Eng., The University press. HeinOnline.
OSCOLA 4th ed.
Hobbes, Thomas; Tonnies, Ferdinand. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. Cambridge
Eng., The University press.
Provided by:
The University of Edinburgh
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THOMAS HOBBES
THE
ELEMENTS OF LAW
NATURAL & POLITIC
EDITED
WITH A PREFACE AND
CRITICAL NOTES
BY
FERDINAND TONNIES, PH.D.
TO WHICH
ARE SUBJOINED
SELECTED EXTRACTS FROM
UNPRINTED MSS. OF
THOMAS HOBBES
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
MCMXXVIII
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH CLASSICS
THE
ELEMENTS OF LAW
Cambridge University Press
Fetter Lane, London
New York
'Bombay, Calcutta, Y/fadras
Toronto
Macmillan
Tokyo
Maruzen-Kabushiki-Kaisha
All rights reserved
DATE DOWNLOADED: Wed Jun 17 01:47:12 2020
SOURCE: Content Downloaded from HeinOnline
Citations:
Bluebook 20th ed.
Thomas; Tonnies Hobbes, Ferdinand. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (1928).
ALWD 6th ed.
Thomas; Tonnies Hobbes, Ferdinand. Elements of L, Natural & Politic (1928).
APA 7th ed.
Hobbes, T. (1928). Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. Cambridge Eng., The
University press.
Chicago 7th ed.
Hobbes Thomas; Tonnies, Ferdinand. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. Cambridge
Eng., The University press.
McGill Guide 9th ed.
Thomas; Tonnies Hobbes, Ferdinand, Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (Cambridge
Eng.: The University press., 1928)
MLA 8th ed.
Hobbes, Thomas, and Ferdinand Tonnies. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic.
Cambridge Eng., The University press. HeinOnline.
OSCOLA 4th ed.
Hobbes, Thomas; Tonnies, Ferdinand. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. Cambridge
Eng., The University press.
Provided by:
The University of Edinburgh
-- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance of HeinOnline's Terms and
Conditions of the license agreement available at
https://heinonline.org/HOL/License
-- The search text of this PDF is generated from uncorrected OCR text.
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE
T
wHEa sw foorrkm ewrhlyic hk nfoowrmn s inth et hseu bsshtaanpcee ooff twthois sveoplaurmatee
treatises, of which the former, containing the first thirteen
chapters of the first part of the Elements of Law, was
entitled Human Nature; or the Fundamental Elements of
Policy. Being a discovery of the faculties, acts, and passions
of the soul of man, from their original causes: according to
such philosophical principles as are not commonly known or
asserted. The second treatise contained the rest of the
first, together with the second, part, and was entitled
De Corpore Politico; or the Elements of Law, Moral and
Politic, with discourses upon moral heads, as: of the law of
nature; of oaths and covenants; of several kinds of govern-
ment, with the changes and revolutions of them.
Both these treatises appeared in print for the first
time in the year i 650, and a second edition of the former,
Human Nature, was issued in the following year.' This
treatise was furnished with a preface, signed with the
initials F. B., in which it is said that a friend of the
author's had obtained his leave to publish it, and that it
was to constitute the second portion of Hobbes's system
of philosophy, the third and last part of which was
known already as the Latin book, Elementa Philosophica
" But it is worth while to remark that the copies of Human Nature
which are to be found in that unique collection in the British Museum
called "the King's Pamphlets," have the year of the first edition
altered by an old hand to 1649, and the date February 2nd added ;
and the year of the second edition altered to 165o, with the date
Dtoe ctheem byeera r 31o6th50; , altshoe idna tteh eM caoyp y4 othf .De Corpore Politico there is added
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE
de Cive.' At the same time, the writer of the preface
states "that he could not suddenly obtain the author's
advice" with respect to any changes which he apparently
thought desirable in the Epistle Dedicatory, and it was
printed, accordingly, as we find it in the manuscripts,
with the date of May 9, 1640, "as if nothing had
happened since." Now, this Epistle Dedicatory became
almost meaningless, prefixed as it thus was to the frag-
mentary tract on Human Nature, and not to the entire
work for which it was designed. Nor is the second
treatise, the De Corpore Politico, which also has a prefatory
notice to the reader, in this case unsigned, introduced
by any allusion to the original unity of the work, except
that the "first part" is said to depend upon a former
treatise of Human Nature, written by Mr. Hobbes, but
the relation of either treatise to the De Cive is not again
adverted to. Now it is true that this English book, the
De Corpore Politico, corresponds in its argument to the
Latin De Cive, though the latter is much altered in
certain particulars, and is greatly enlarged by a fuller
consideration of religious questions, which occupy the
third section of the work, the first and second treating
of "Libertas" and "Imperium" respectively. But the
author himself cannot have intended, at any time, the
thirteen chapters on Human Nature to be taken as
representing the De Homine, and so constituting the
second section of his system: there is, indeed, some
evidence to show that before this time he had already
arranged that section upon a different ground, filling it
1 It had been published at Paris, x6+2, in 4to (being then entitled
Eementorum Philosophiae Sectio Tertia), and again at Amsterdam, 1647,
in 12mo, together with a Praefaioa d leclores, containing an announce-
ment of the whole plan on which the author was working. But the
Sectio Prima, De Corpore, did not follow earlier than 1655 (published
in London), and the Sectio Secunda, De Homine, some years later
(Lond., 658).
vi
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE
in great part with optical disquisitions. Nor would he
have himself prepared an English version of the De
Cive, which came out only a year afterwards (in i65I),
if he had considered that work to be already sufficiently
represented by the De Corpore Politico. The truth is, that
this entire work, the Elements of Law, has been drawn
up independently, from and without any regard to the
systematic plan, which probably did not yet occupy the
philosopher's mind at the time when he wrote it. Con-
sidering, further, that Hobbes has declared himself to
be without a certain knowledge as to the person who
"was pleased once to honour" the part of his doctrine
"concerning policy merely civil" (which evidently means
the De Corpore Politico), "with praises printed before it,"'
we may infer that the statement in the preface, quoted
above, to the Human Nature, that the work was published
"with leave from the author" was without authority,
and perhaps based on nothing more than a report, re-
ceived at second hand, that Hobbes, who was residing
in Paris at the time, had no particular objection to the
publication as a separate work of these thirteen chapters
on Human Nature, by way of introduction to the Latin
work, the De Cive, which covered to a large extent the
same ground with the remaining fragment of the Elements
of Law. I may add that the passage above quoted from
the pamphlet addressed to the two Oxford professors
points to Seth Ward, who at that time was his bitter
adversary, being the author of the "praises" ("whether
you did or did not," says Hobbes, addressing Ward,
"I am not certain, though it was told me for certain").
This supposition is confirmed by the learned antiquarian,
Anthony h Wood, himself a friend of Hobbes, who says
' From a pamphlet addressed in the year i656 by Hobbes to the
two Oxford Professors, Ward and Wallis: English Works, ed.
Molesworth, vol. vii. p. 336.
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE
in his Athene Oxonienses (vol. iii. col. 1209, ed. Bliss) that
Seth Ward wrote the Epistle to the Reader prefixed to
the Human Nature, in the name of Francis Bowman,
bookseller of Oxford. We may suppose, then, that Ward
was "the friend" by whose authority this, as well as
the latter, section of the Elements of Law was committed
to the press, though no communication about the
matter between him and the author can be supposed to
have taken place.
There is yet another reference in Hobbes's later
writings to this work, viz., in the Considerationsu pon the
Reputation, etc., of Thomas Hobbes (English Works, ed.
Molesworth, vol. iv. p. 414), where he states that in
I64o he wrote "a little treatise in English" upon the
power and rights of sovereignty, of which, "though not
printed, many gentlemen had copies, which occasioned
much talk of the author; and had not his Majesty
dissolved the Parliament, it had brought him into danger
of his life."
Of those manuscript copies, the best that have come
down to us were consulted and carefully collated (first
in 1878, and again more recently) by the present editor,
who was thereby led to discover that the text of the
printed editions of the work (of which several appeared
before Molesworth's edition, notably that contained in
the fine folio entitled The Moral and Political Works oJ
Thomas Hobbes, London, 175o) has a great many errors
and some omissions, especially in that portion of the
work known as Human Nature, the second portion, De
Corpore Politico, being evidently taken from a better copy,
and also more carefully printed. Under these circum-
stances, it appeared to me that a new edition of the
entire work, in its original form, and based upon manu-
script authority, was due to the philosopher himself, as
well as likely to prove useful to his readers. The MSS.
Viii
