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Allegory
Explanation and Analysis—Assemblies:
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.
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