The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic

The Elements of Law presents a complete but succinct version of Hobbes's political theory, arguing that human nature—understood mechanistically as matter in motion—generates a state of natural liberty that is also a state of war. The central mechanism is the derivation of political obligation from the passional structure of the will. Deliberation ends in the last appetite or fear, and reason dictates that peace requires relinquishing the natural right to all things. Where Leviathan introduces the theory of juridical representation and the concept of the civil person, the Elements lacks this apparatus. As one scholarly analysis notes, the social pact in the Elements does not allow for the constitution of a civil person, so 'the political edifice, no sooner erected, collapses' . Leviathan reconstructs the theory on new foundations.

Hobbes wrote the Elements in 1640, and it circulated in manuscript rather than print. Eleven manuscripts survive, two containing substantial material in Hobbes's own handwriting . Hobbes then fled to France, where he wrote De Cive (1642) and later Leviathan (1651). The work first appeared in print in 1650, in two separate parts titled Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, published without Hobbes's authorization . The standard scholarly edition for over a century was Ferdinand Tönnies's 1889 edition, but Tönnies knew only six manuscripts. A newer edition establishes a more accurate text based on all eleven known manuscripts, including material Tönnies omitted .

In the Elements, Hobbes describes the state of nature as one in which humans have a 'blameless liberty' to use their natural power and ability, including a right to everything. This liberty is not a gift but a predicament: because everyone has a right to all things, the result is a state of war, insecurity, and fear. Quentin Skinner notes that in the Elements, Hobbes's account of the passional nature of the will leads to the conclusion that the state of nature is 'a state of liberty but one which is profoundly undesirable' . The remedy is to relinquish as much of this natural liberty as necessary for peace, establishing an absolute sovereign. Hobbes's later works refine this account, but the fundamental structure is already present in 1640.

Cromartie argues that reading Hobbes's moral thinking through Leviathan (or even De Cive) obscures the distinctive character of the Elements. In the Elements, Hobbes's argument is 'physicalist': it requires no premises beyond his physics of matter in motion, and concepts like reason, right, natural law, and obligation are understood in physicalist terms . Cromartie contends that Hobbes's decision to publish De Cive in isolation from the Elements led to serious misunderstandings of his moral philosophy. This reading treats the Elements not merely as an early draft of Leviathan but as a coherent philosophical statement in its own right, one whose physicalist foundations were later overlaid by the more juridical vocabulary of the later works.

Skinner traces a significant development. In the Elements (1640), Hobbes's account of liberty is embedded in his passional psychology: deliberation is the alternation of appetite and fear, and the will is the last appetite. Liberty is the power to act or not act before deliberation concludes. In De Cive (1642), Hobbes defines liberty as 'the absence of impediments to motion,' a definition Skinner calls 'an epoch-making moment' . In Leviathan (1651), Hobbes crucially amends this so that only external impediments count as limitations of freedom. Skinner argues this change was driven by Hobbes's desire to refute the republican claim that we are unfree when we fall under another's discretionary power, even if that power is never exercised.

The Elements has genuine independent value, though it is often read as a precursor. It is Hobbes's first systematic political work, and it presents his theory with an assurance that has been called 'extraordinary'—a nearly complete statement of his entire political philosophy . It lacks the theory of representation that makes Leviathan's sovereign a 'civil person,' and its account of liberty is less refined. But it is precisely these differences that make it valuable: the Elements shows Hobbes's mind at work before the juridical vocabulary of the later works took shape. Cromartie's argument that the physicalist foundations of the Elements were obscured by later readings suggests that the earlier work may be closer to Hobbes's original philosophical intuition .