may be defined as a small beginning of motion; if towards something, it is desire, and if away
from something it is aversion. Love is the same as desire, and hate is the same as aversion. We
call a thing "good" when it is an object of desire, and "bad" when it is an object of aversion. (It
will be observed that these definitions give no objectivity to "good" and "bad"; if men differ in
their desires, there is no theoretical method of adjusting their differences.) There are definitions of
various passions, mostly based on a competitive view of life; for instance, laughter is sudden
glory. Fear of invisible power, if publicly allowed, is religion; if not allowed, superstition. Thus
the decision as to what is religion and what superstition rests with the legislator. Felicity involves
continual progress; it consists in prospering, not in having prospered; there is no such thing as a
static happiness--excepting, of course, the joys of heaven, which surpass our comprehension.
Will is nothing but the last appetite or aversion remaining in deliberation. That is to say, will is not
something different from desire and aversion, but merely the strongest in a case of conflict. This is
connected, obviously, with Hobbes's denial of free will.
Unlike most defenders of despotic government, Hobbes holds that all men are naturally equal. In a
state of nature, before there is any government, every man desires to preserve his own liberty, but
to acquire dominion over others; both these desires are dictated by the impulse to self-
preservation. From their conflict arises a war of all against all, which makes life "nasty, brutish,
and short." In a state of nature, there is no property, no justice or injustice; there is only war, and
"force and fraud are, in war, the two cardinal virtues."
The second part tells how men escape from these evils by combining into communities each
subject to a central authority. This is represented as happening by means of a social contract. It is
supposed that a number of people come together and agree to choose a sovereign, or a sovereign
body, which shall exercise authority over them and put an end to the universal war. I do not think
this "covenant" (as Hobbes usually calls it) is thought of as a definite historical event; it is
certainly irrelevant to the argument to think of it as such. It is an explanatory myth, used to
explain why men submit, and should submit, to the limitations on personal freedom entailed in
submission to authority. The purpose of the restraint men put upon themselves,