Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher in the 17th century, was best known for his book ‘Leviathan’ (1651) and his political views on society.

Throughout his life, Hobbes believed that the only true and correct form of government was the absolute monarchy. He argued this most forcefully in his landmark work, Leviathan. This belief stemmed from the central tenet of Hobbes’ natural philosophy that human beings are, at their core, selfish creatures.

In Hobbes’ memorable description, life outside society would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. But Hobbes’ theory did not end there: he wanted to find a way out of such an undesirable situation. ‘The solution, Hobbes argued, was to put some powerful individual or parliament in charge.

Hobbes believed in the divine right of kings. Hobbes uses the term Leviathan to refer to democratic government. Hobbes says that in a state of nature, life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Hobbes thought that only an absolute sovereign could establish or ensure peace and civil society.

Hobbes seems to have believed in ‘God’; he certainly disapproved of most ‘religion’, including virtually all forms of Christianity. This article disentangles the link between his ‘God’ and his ‘religion’; and in so doing illuminates what Stuart writers meant by ‘atheism’.

This iconoclastic position has led many to consider Hobbes to be among the first “liberal” political thinkers in Europe—despite the disdain for his ideas held by liberal philosophers, due to Hobbes’s authoritarian views.

Hobbes defines contract as “the mutual transferring of right.” In the state of nature, everyone has the right to everything – there are no limits to the right of natural liberty. The social contract is the agreement by which individuals mutually transfer their natural right.

These natural rights include perfect equality and freedom and the right to preserve life and property. Such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the social contract.