the spiritual power above the temporal. The rest of this part is an attack on "vain philosophy," by
which Aristotle is usually meant.
Let us now try to decide what we are to think of the Leviathan. The question is not easy, because
the good and the bad in it are so closely intermingled.
In politics, there are two different questions, one as to the best form of the State, the other as to its
powers. The best form of State, according to Hobbes, is monarchy, but this is not the important
part of his doctrine. The important part is his contention that the powers of the State should be
absolute. This doctrine, or something like it, had grown up in Western Europe during the
Renaissance and the Reformation. First, the feudal nobility were cowed by Louis XI, Edward IV,
Ferdinand and Isabella, and their successors. Then the Reformation, in Protestant countries,
enabled the lay government to get the better of the Church. Henry VIII wielded a power such as no
earlier English king had enjoyed. But in France the Reformation, at first, had an opposite effect;
between the Guises and the Huguenots, the kings were nearly powerless. Henry IV and Richelieu,
not long before Hobbes wrote, had laid the foundations of the absolute monarchy which lasted in
France till the Revolution. In Spain, Charles V had got the better of the Cortes, and Philip II was
absolute except in relation to the Church. In England, however, the Puritans had undone the work
of Henry VIII; their work suggested to Hobbes that anarchy must result from resistance to the
sovereign.
Every community is faced with two dangers, anarchy and despotism. The Puritans, especially the
Independents, were most impressed by the danger of despotism. Hobbes, on the contrary, was
obsessed by the fear of anarchy. The liberal philosophers who arose after the Restoration, and
acquired control after 1688, realized both dangers; they disliked both Strafford and the
Anabaptists. This led Locke to the doctrine of division of powers, and of checks and balances. In
England there was a real division of powers so long as the king had influence; then Parliament
became supreme, and ultimately the Cabinet. In America, there are still checks and balances in so
far as Congress and the Supreme Court can resist the Administration; but the tendency is towards
a constant increase in the powers of the Administration. In Germany, Italy, Russia, and Japan, the
government has even more power than Hobbes thought desirable. On the