The Elements of Law Natural and Politic: Part I- Human Nature Part II- De Corpore Politico with Three Lives

Hobbes, Thomas (by); Gaskin, J.C.A. (edited, Intro., Notes by)

ISBN 10: 019283682X / ISBN 13: 9780192836823

Published by Oxford University Press, London, 1999

About this Item

Former owner's ink notations on ffep, else textblock is clean and tight. Stamped bottom page edges. Light rubbing along the spine, minor creased corners, small round indentation on back cover. 284p., including explanatory notes. Size: 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall.

Seller Inventory # SB13106

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Elements of Law Natural and Politic: Part I- Human Nature Part II- De Corpore Politico with Three Lives
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, London
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019283682X
• ISBN 13: 9780192836823
• Binding: Wraps
• Illustrator: Charts
• Edition: 3rd Printing.
• Condition: Very Good
• Book Type: Paperback
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literary Collections & Poetry
  • Political Science

About this title

Synopsis

`the state of men without civil society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing else but a mere war of all against all.' Thomas Hobbes was the first great philosopher to write in English. His account of the human condition, first developed in The Elements of Law (1640), which comprises Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, is a direct product of the intellectural and political strife of the seventeenth century. It is also a remarkably penetrating look at human nature, and a permanently relevant analysis of the fears of self-seeking that result in the war of `each against every man'. In The Elements of Law Hobbes memorably sets out both the main lines of his general philosophy, later augmented in De Corpore (1655), and the moral and political philosophy later made famous in Leviathan (1651). Copies of Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, until 1889 printed as separate works, are rare antiques or scarcely less rare scholarly texts; this is the first complete popular edition. It is here supplemented by chapters from De Corpore and Three Lives, two from Hobbes's original Latin. These have never before been published together in English.

About the Author

J. C. A. Gaskin is a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. He lives in Dublin and near Morpeth, Northumberland.