Hobbes’s Leviathan is organized around a central allegory: that the state or commonwealth can be understood as a gigantic, singular body, much like the Leviathan, a colossal beast described in the Bible. Hobbes outlines this allegory in the introduction of the book.
For by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE [...] which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which, the Soveraignty is an Artificiall Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificiall Joynts; Reward and Punishment (by which fastned to the seate of the Soveraignty, every joynt and member is moved to performe his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Naturall [...]
Hobbes imagines the state as a body that is “of greater statue and strength” than that of any individual. This gigantic body, Hobbes argues, has been created for the “protection and defence” of the smaller, weaker human bodies of the citizens of the state. Building upon this allegory, he imagines various different social classes as constituting different “parts” of the body. The sovereign, or King, is the “Soul” that animates the body, the magistrates and judges are “Joynts,” officers and prison-wardens are “Nerves,” etc. Throughout the course of Leviathan, he will continue to develop this central allegory, using the human body as a model for all civic organization.
Throughout Leviathan, Hobbes develops the allegory of the state or commonwealth as a colossal human figure. In Chapter 21, he discusses (among other topics) the various reasons why an individual might voluntarily limit their own freedoms in order to enjoy the benefits of membership in such a commonwealth. Expanding upon this allegorical “Artificiall Man,” Hobbes describes civil law as “Artificiall Chains.”
But as men, for the atteyning of peace, and conservation of themselves thereby, have made an Artificiall Man, which we call a Common-wealth; so also have they made Artificiall Chains, called Civill Lawes, which they themselves, by mutuall covenants, have fastned at one end, to the lips of that Man, or Assembly, to whom they have given the Soveraigne Power; and at the other end to their own Ears. These Bonds in their own nature but weak, may neverthelesse be made to hold, by the danger, though not by the difficulty of breaking them.
Here, Hobbes imagines civil law as a series of chains that are “fastned at one end” to the lips of the Leviathan, or body politic, and “at the other end” to their own individual ears. Men have deliberately created these chains “by mutuall covenants” in order to preserve peace and their own security, even at the cost of personal liberty. By imagining “chains” running from the lips of the collective body to the individual ears of subjects, Hobbes emphasizes the absolute importance, for him, of following laws established by the state or sovereign.
Hobbes develops the allegory of the “body politic”—or commonwealth of the state—in his discussion of “assemblies,” or large groups of citizens who mean, by force, to compel the state to act in a certain way. He describes a biblical episode in which an assembly of people demand that the government bring two men, Christian preachers, to justice. The magistrate declares the assembly illegal, and, as Hobbes notes:
[He] calleth an Assembly, whereof men can give no just account, a Sedition, and such as they could not answer for. And this is all I shall say concerning Systemes, and Assemblyes of People, which may be compared (as I said,) to the Similar parts of mans Body; such as be Lawfull, to the Muscles; such as are Unlawfull, to Wens, Biles, and Apostemes, engendred by the unnaturall conflux of evill humours.
Hobbes is deeply opposed to the idea that groups of citizens can compete with the state for control, as for him, the power of the Sovereign and his representatives must be absolute to ensure the security of the commonwealth. As he does throughout Leviathan, he analyzes this social question through the lens of the allegorical body politic.
A lawful assembly raised by the state in order to accomplish some goal is, for Hobbes, the “Muscles” of the collective body; however, “Unlawwful” assemblies that organize against the state are figured by Hobbes as “Wens, Biles, and Apostemes”—or, in other words, various physical ailments. An angry mob, then, is an “unatural conflux of evill humours,” detrimental to the health of the body politic.
Further expanding upon his central allegory of the “body politic” (the collective body of the state), Hobbes considers the question of colonies, concluding that they are the “Children of a Common-wealth”:
The Procreation, or Children of a Common-wealth, are those we call Plantations, or Colonies; which are numbers of men sent out from the Common-wealth, under a Conductor, or Governour, to inhabit a Forraign Country [...] And when a Colony is setled, they are either a Common-wealth of themselves, discharged of their subjection to their Soveraign that sent them, (as hath been done by many Common-wealths of antient time,) in which case the Common-wealth from which they went was called their Metropolis, or Mother, and requires no more of them, then Fathers require of the Children [...] or else they remain united to their Metropolis.
Much as an individual body can procreate and bear children, so too can the collective body politic reproduce by establishing “Plantations, or Colonies,” sending its own citizens abroad in order to claim possession of some territory, either uninhabited or defeated by the colonists. He then further divides colonies into two types: those that “remain united” to the original state, and those that became a “Common-wealth of themselves” by casting off their original sovereign.
A state, Hobbes suggests, has no right to make any demands of a colony that has decided to become its own state, in much the same way that a father must accept that a child has reached adulthood and gained independence. This is one of many instances in the book of Hobbes developing his central allegory, examining various civil questions through the lens of the body.
