The Elements of Law was Hobbes’s first complete philosophical work. It was distributed in manuscript form in 1640, but Hobbes didn’t have it printed. Without Hobbes’s permission, it was printed (very inaccurately) in two volumes, in 1650 and 1651 (or 1649 and 1650), with the titles Human Nature (Part I, chapters 1–13), and De Corpore Politico (‘The Body Politic,’ consisting of the rest of Part I, and Part II.). Molesworth (EW IV) based his edition on the printed versions, and the correct version was first published by F. Tönnies in, The Elements of Law: Natural and Politic (London, 1889). It is this version which I use.

Part I was Hobbes’s first draft for Section 2 (On the Human Being) of his projected Elements of Philosophy. But as we shall see, although it is quite close to Part I of Leviathan, the eventual On the Human Being turned out very differently.

I have a sneaking sympathy with the original editor, who saw an obvious break at the end of chapter 13. This is the point at which Hobbes starts discussing how human beings interact in a state of nature, as a transition to his discussion of civil society in Part 2. The last six chapters of Part 1 are certainly not metaphysics or epistemology, and belong more to ethics or political philosophy. I have included everything up to the end of chapter 13, apart from two chapters and a few other passages which consist of nothing but detailed definitions of affections of the human mind.

I have translated Hobbes’s English into modern English, on exactly the same principles as I have used for translating from other languages. This is one of the few extended expositions of Hobbes’s philosophy which does not have a Latin version corresponding to it more or less accurately.

Go to the Index to the Elements of Law