In his discussion of various basic questions and problems in physics, Hobbes satirizes common assumptions made by the uneducated and also, by extension, the Aristotelian philosophy that had long been influential in European thinking. Describing the assumption that the natural state for an object is rest rather than motion, Hobbes writes:
For men measure, not onely other men, but all other things, by themselves: and because they find themselves subject after motion to pain, and lassitude, think every thing els growes weary of motion, and seeks repose of its own accord [...] From hence it is, that the Schooles say, Heavy bodies fall downwards, out of an appetite to rest, and to conserve their nature in that place which is most proper for them; ascribing appetite, and Knowledge of what is good for their conservation, (which is more than man has) to things inanimate, absurdly.
Here, Hobbes attempts to find an explanation for what he believes to be a common misconception. Men, he argues, “measure” everything “by themselves,” or in other words, they tend to assume that their own experience is universal. Because humans grow tired after too much labor or movement, they falsely assume that “every thing els growes weary of motion” too, and they extend this assumption to the entire physical world. Further, he writes that the scholars teaching in universities have made this same mistake, arguing, for example, that objects “fall downwards” out of a desire for rest.
Though Hobbes writes prior to Isaac Newton’s description of gravity, he is clearly dissatisfied with this Aristotelian explanation for how the physical world works, and he satirizes those who accept it. To believe that an object falls because it wants to rest, he argues, is to suggest that physical objects have both “appetite” or desire, and also “Knowledge of what is good for them.” Hobbes suggests that it is an absurdity to attribute consciousness, understanding, and preference to “things inanimate,” and yet this assumption nevertheless underpins Aristotle’s scientific ideas.
At various points in Leviathan, Hobbes satirizes Catholic belief, especially the Catholic idea that during a mass the bread and wine used in communion physically become the flesh and blood of Christ—not as a metaphor, but literally. Offering a materialist critique of transubstantiation, Hobbes writes:
When men write whole volumes of such stuffe, are they not Mad, or intend to make others so? And particularly, in the question of Transubstantiation; where after certain words spoken, they that say, the Whitenesse, Roundnesse, Magnitude, Quality, Corruptibility, all which are incorporeall, &c. go out of the Wafer, into the Body of our blessed Saviour, do they not make those Nesses, Tudes and Ties, to be so many spirits possessing his body? For by Spirits, they mean alwayes things, that being incorporeall, are neverthelesse moveable from one place to another.
Hobbes’s tone is harsh and satirical in his critique of Catholic dogma, which he treats as nothing but superstition and deception. Transubstantiation, the process by which the bread and wine is transformed in communion according to Catholic belief, is for Hobbes a farce in which “after certain words are spoken” the various physical characteristics of the communion wafer—its “Whiteness, Roudnesse, Magnitude,” etc.—are transferred into the body of Christ.
For Hobbes, the major mistake here is a confusion of the physical and the non-physical: how, he asks, can an “incorporeal” quality that has no mass also be thought of as “moveable”? With satirical humor, he suggests that the communion wafer is like a ghost “possessing” the body of Christ. Such beliefs, he concludes, are the product either of madness or of deliberate deception.
Hobbes engages in pointed satire while critiquing those who read the words of the Bible in an overly literal fashion. Discussing a line in the Book of Genesis (“God inspired into man the breath of life,”) Hobbes writes:
On the signification of the word Spirit, dependeth that of the word INSPIRATION; which must either be taken properly; and then it is nothing but the blowing into a man some thin and subtile aire, or wind, in such manner as a man filleth a bladder with his breath; or if Spirits be not corporeall, but have their existence only in the fancy, it is nothing but the blowing in of a Phantasme; which is improper to say, and impossible; for Phantasmes are not, but only seem to be somewhat.
Hobbes insists that we must interpret much of the Bible as a metaphor, especially when the Bible describes things that do not seem to exist in the world, such as spirits. Using the line from the Book of Genesis (quoted above) as an example, he satirizes those who would read the phrase “breath of life” literally as “some thin and subtle aire or wind.” Here, Hobbes invokes a humorous simile: God blowing air into a man’s throat “as a man filleth a bladder with his breath.” This farcical image is hardly an appropriate way to conceive of God and the miracle of life, and Hobbes uses it to satirize what he understands as a common way of misreading the Bible.
Throughout Leviathan, Hobbes critiques the Catholic belief in transubstantiation, or the transformation during mass of bread and wine into the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ. He harshly satirizes Catholic priests for continuing to affirm and teach this doctrine, accusing them of idolatry and satirically suggesting that they could worship other foods:
And yet in this daily act of the Priest, they doe the very same, by turning the holy words into the manner of a Charme, which produceth nothing new to the Sense; but they face us down, that it hath turned the Bread into a Man; nay more, into a God; and require men to worship it, as if it were our Saviour himself present God and Man [...] For if it bee enough to excuse it of Idolatry, to say it is no more Bread, but God; why should not the same excuse serve the Egyptians, in case they had the faces to say, the Leeks, and Onyons they worshipped, were not very Leeks, and Onyons, but a Divinity under their species, or likenesse.
Every day, Hobbes writes, priests use “holy words” from the Bible in the manner of a magician, claiming to have turned bread not merely into a man, but “nay more, into a God.” He then accuses the priests of worshiping the bread as if it were God himself, which would be an example of idolatry. Hobbes then satirically imagines other foods, such as “Leeks, and Onyons,” as objects of worship, underscoring what he considers to be the absurdity of the doctrine of transubstantiation.
Hobbes satirizes philosophy as it was taught in the universities of 17th-century England, satirically suggesting that these institutions do not teach philosophy but rather “Aristotelity”:
And since the Authority of Aristotle is onely current there, that study is not properly Philosophy, (the nature whereof dependeth not on Authors,) but Aristotelity. And for Geometry, till of very late times it had no place at all; as being subservient to nothing but rigide Truth. And if any man by the ingenuity of his owne nature, had attained to any degree of perfection therein, hee was commonly thought a Magician, and his Art Diabolicall.
Throughout Leviathan, Hobbes has taken aim at classical philosophy, and in particular, the teachings of Aristotle, who remained immensely influential in Hobbes’s day. Here, he argues that the “Authority of Aristotle” is the only force animating university education, and so the universities cannot truly claim to teach philosophy due to this over-reliance on just one figure.
He further develops this critique of the universities, suggesting that scholars are so overly-reliant upon traditional learning that they cannot appreciate any student who has “ingenuity.” In this passage, Hobbes satirizes the universities for their dogmatic approach to education, and their relative lack of interest in more modern scientific topics such as geometry.
Throughout Leviathan, Hobbes offers a withering critique of classical education and the Catholic Church, both of which he accuses of being overly reliant upon erroneous traditions. He satirizes both as peddling “old Wives Fables”:
Lastly, for the Errors brought in from false, or uncertain History, what is all the Legend of fictitious Miracles, in the lives of the Saints; and all the Histories of Apparitions, and Ghosts, alledged by the Doctors of the Romane Church, to make good their Doctrines of Hell, and Purgatory, the power of Exorcisme, and other Doctrines which have no warrant, neither in Reason, nor Scripture; as also all those Traditions which they call the unwritten Word of God; but old Wives Fables?
Hobbes argues that history as taught in the universities is full of “fictitious” events and legends that have been inherited from long-standing traditions despite being—at least in his view—obviously false. He takes aim, for example, at stories of miracles common in “the lives of Saints” as well as other references in history to “Apparitions” and “Ghosts.” He concludes that these superstitions only serve one purpose: to help the Catholic Church maintain belief in “their Doctrines of Hell, and Purgatory,” as well as in the efficacy of exorcism. Here, Hobbes satirizes all of these various traditions as being nothing but “old Wives Fables” designed to trick the foolish.
