From Lipsius to Hobbes

This chapter forges a connection between Lipsius and Thomas Hobbes. There are a number of ways in which Hobbes's theoretical project, culminating in the Leviathan of 1651, can be read as continuing to work with central themes from Lipsius's political thought. Both writers agreed with Augustine that the goal of political life was to secure an earthly peace, but they disagreed with the Augustinian tradition through their ‘politique’ defence of the subordination of religious concerns to those of politics. Both Hobbes and Lipsius were more or less sceptical with respect to traditional arguments about the value of republican freedom, and both defended an account of determinism in human affairs, whether Lipsius's ‘fate’ or Hobbes's materialist physics. More recently, a number of scholars have fleshed out some historical connections between Lipsius and Hobbes.