Page:The ethics of Hobbes (IA ethicsofhobbes00hobb).pdf/24
giving life and motion to the whole body; the magistrates, and other officers of judicature and execution, artificial joints; reward and punishment, by which fastened to the seat of the sovereignty every joint and member is moved to perform his duty, are the nerves, that do the same in the body natural; the wealth and riches of all the particular members, are the strength; salus populi, the people's safety, its business; counsellors, by whom all things needful for it to know are suggested unto it, are the memory; equity, and laws, an artificial reason and will; concord, health; sedition, sickness; and civil war, death. Lastly, the pacts and covenants, by which the parts of this body politic were at first made, set together and united, resemble that fiat, or the let us make man, pronounced by God in the creation."[1] The description of this commonwealth or artificial man involves the consideration of the following: "First, the matter thereof, and the artificer; both which is man. Secondly, how, and by what covenants it is made; what are the rights and just power or authority of a sovereign; and what it is that preserveth or dissolveth it. Thirdly, what is a Christian commonwealth. Lastly, what is the kingdom of darkness."[2] A copy of the Leviathan, beautifully written on vellum, was presented to the young prince, later Charles II.[3] Robertson interestingly and accurately describes the effect produced by this famous work of Hobbes. He says: "The effect of the book at home will appear through all Hobbes's later years. Abroad, it soon brought about a great change in his own position. That he himself considered his personal loyalty impeached by anything he had penned could not be more completely disproved than it is. As he had made no secret beforehand of his wish to return