Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

Major Written Work:  Leviathan: or the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, (1657)

    The "divine right of kings" meant in the 16th century that the secular state, represented by the prince or king, had a right to exist, whether the Church approved of it or not.  It was at first pre-eminently a Protestant idea.  But in the 17th century the phrase changed its meaning, as phrases often do, and meant that there was a special sanctity about the 'persons' of kings: that the will of God as revealed in scripture was in favor of the absolute authority of kinds and opposed to any interference with their rights and prerogatives; that kinds were in a special sense the successors of Adam and had of right dominion over the whole earth.  It was a doctrine known elsewhere, but nowhere so loudly proclaimed as in England.

    However, the sufferings of England during the confusion of the Civil Wars prompted Hobbes to write his "Leviathan; or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth".  He discovered what he thought to be the essential nature of man when not restrained by law.  Hobbes saw in the power of the state and its royal chief (king) the only safeguard against the recurrence of such evils.  It is one of the books that has influenced the political thought of the world.

    It was Hobbes's view that a strong government, especially an absolute monarchy, is needed to control clashing individual interests.  Politically speaking, therefore, he was a monarchist, and a defender of absolutism.  In his view there was no right of revolution, even against tyranny.

Nandy, Milon, Terms & Theories in Politics, Government International Relations and the Humanities, EurAsia-Pacific Books, 1993.