Thomas Hobbes on melancholy

MAURO SIMONAZZI

1. Melancholy and philosophy

The opinions of the world, both in ancient and later ages, concerning the cause of madness, have been two. Some, deriving them from the passions; some, from demons, or spirits, either good or bad, which they thought might enter into a man, possess him, and move his organs in such strange, and uncouth manner, as madmen use to do. The former sort therefore, called such men, madmen: but the latter, called them sometimes demoniacs, (that is, possessed with spirits;) sometimes energumeni, (that is, agitated, or moved with spirits;) and now in Italy they are called, not only pazzi, madmen; but also spiritati, men possessed1.

This is how Thomas Hobbes, in the eighth chapter of the Leviathan, summarizes the opinions of the Ancient and of the Modern about the origin of madness, distinguishing a medical tradition, which blamed natural causes for the condition, and a theological tradition, blaming demons and spiritual forces instead. The debate about melancholy2 was revived throughout the 16th century when, in the witchcraft trials, the problem arose of telling the cases of melancholy from those of demoniac possession. In one of these trials, which took place in London in 1602 and became famous because for the first time a judge considered consulting physicians3, a confrontation of two schools of thought was seen: on one side Catholics, radical Puritans and some physicians, who sustained the conditions supernatural origin; on the other the Bishop of London, the Anglicans
T. Hobbes, Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civill, London, Printed for Andrew Crooke, 1651; Id. Leviathan, edited by J.C.A. Gaskin, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 50-51. From now Leviathan. 2 I use the word melancholy in the acception it had in the XVI and XVII centuries, when it was generically used to define any form of mental and nervous disorder, including epilepsy. Hobbes, instead, defines madness mental disorders and with the word melancholy indicates the depressive forms of madness, while the maniacal forms are called fury or vain glory. 3 See D.P. Walker, Unclean Spirits. Possessions and Exorcism in France and England in the late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries, London, Scolar Press, 1981.
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and other physicians, who believed that the origin of histerical symptoms was to be found in natural causes. The two sides, as can be seen, were distributed across the board: amongst those who supported a spiritual origin for melancholic phoenomena were also members of the Royal College of Physicians; in the same way members of the clergy could be found amongst those who defined a secular and scientific conception4. Dr. Edward Jorden, after the trial in which he supported the innocence of Elizabeth Jackson (who was accused of having cast a spell on young Mary Glover), wrote one of the most famous pamphlets in defence of the independence of medicine from religion5. The conclusion of the trial, which ended with a guilty verdict, shows how in the early XVII century the spiritualist and religious interpretation of mental illness was still prevailing on the medical-scientific one, even among the English doctors6 themselves.
For a brief resum of the trial see M. Simonazzi, La melanconia nellInghilterra moderna: Edward Jorden, Timothie Bright e Thomas Adams, in C. Franceschini, S. Tutino e S. Villani (edited by), Questioni di storia inglese tra Cinque e Seicento: politica e cultura in Inghilterra. In ricordo di Onofrio Nicastro (1939-1994), Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 2003, pp. 127-151. Also appeared in Cromohs-Cyber review of Modern Historiography, VIII, 2003, pp. 1-13. 5 See E. Jorden, A Briefe Discourse of a Disease called the Suffocation of the Mother, Printed by John Windet, dwelling at the Signe of the Crosse Keyes at Powles Wharfe, 1603; reprinted in M. MacDonald, Witchcraft and Hysteria in Elizabethan London: Edward Jorden and the Mary Glover Case, London, Routledge, 1990. This book also contains, as well as the transcription of the manuscript by Stephen Bradwell, the reprint of another work on this subject: J. Swan, A True and Briefe Report of Mary Glovers Vexation, and of Her Deliverance by Fastings and Prayer, London, 1603. 6 On witchcraft and magic in England and on the Continent see: A. Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuard England, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970; K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971; C. Hole, Witchcraft in Britain, London, Granada Publishing, 1977; B. Easlea, Witch Hunting, Magic and the New Philosophy: an Introduction to Debates of the Scientific Revolution, 1450-1750, Brighton, Harvester Press, 1980; B. Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England: A Study of the Relationships between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law, and Literature, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1983; G. Scarre, Witchcraft and Magic in 16th and 17th Century Europe, London, MacMillan, 1987; B.P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, London, Longman, 1987; J. Swain, Witchcraft in 17th Century England, Bristol, Stuart Press, 1994; D. Willis, Malevolent Nurture. Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern England, Ithaca-London, Cornell University Press, 1995; J. Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England 1550-1750, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1996; J. Barry, M. Hester e G. Roberts (edited by), Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Culture and Belief, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996; I. Bostridge, Witchcraft and Its Transformations c.1650-c.1750, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1997; S. Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in early Modern Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997; G. Geis e I. Bunn, A Trial of Witches: A Seventeenth-century Witchcraft Prosecution, London-New York, Routledge,
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The reaction against witchcraft accusations and a spiritualist conception of melancholy had begun a few decades earlier, with the publication of two works that would have become famous very shortly after: De praestigiis daemonum by Johann Weyer and The Discoverie of Witchcraft by Reginald Scot7. However, it was only during the 17th century that the debate was definitely put into a secular and scientific frame8. It had been mainly doctors like Edward Jorden, Andr du Laurens and Thomas Sydenham who crucially contributed to the secularisation of knowledge about melancholy. Beside these two traditions there also was a moral reflection on melancholy, which developed mainly after the publication of the translation of Montaignes Essais9. The moral approach is characterised
1997; M. Gijswijt-Hofstra, B.P. Levack e R. Porter, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, London, The Athlone Press, 1999, in part. pp. 191-254; A. Macfarlane, Civility and the Decline of Magic, in P. Burke, B. Harrison, P. Slack (edited by), Civil Histories Essays Presented to Sir Keith Thomas, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 145-160; J. Sharpe, Witchcraft in Early Modern England, London, Longman, 2001. About legislation on witchcraft in England see K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, cit., pp. 517-558. For a reconstruction of this trial see S. Bradwell, Mary Glovers Late Woeful Case, Together with Her Joyfull Deliverance (1603), British Library, Sloane MS 831, now published in M. MacDonald, Witchcraft and Hysteria in Elizabethan London: Edward Jorden and the Mary Glover Case, London, Routledge, 1990. I signal only briefly that Michael MacDonald in his introduction sustained that previuous historiography, which made of Jorden a hero of medical rationalism against religious superstition and belief in witchcraft, would not have understood the real motives behind the publications of the study. Jordens book would in the first place have been a work of religious propaganda, born in a context of conflict between the Anglican Church and its Catholic and Puritan adversaries. Nonetheless, even though it is true that only by paying attention to the religious context it is possible to understand the reasons at the origin of the birth of the scientific spirit, it is also true that some works contributed to the process of emancipation of science from religion. Jordens brief pamphlet, from this point of view, unequivocally constitutes one of the works in which the reasons of the supremacy and autonomy of medicine from theology are explicitly sustained. 7 We recall two important works against witchcraft: that of the Dutch physician Johann Weyer, De praestigiis daemonum, et incantationibus ac veneficijs, libri V, recogniti, & valdi aucti, Basileae, Per Ioannem Oporinum, 1564; and that of Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, London, W. Brome, 1584; anastatic reprint Amsterdam-New York, Capo PressTheatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1971. 8 On this subject permit me to suggest the reading of M. Simonazzi, La malattia inglese. La melanconia nella tradizione filosofica e medica dellInghilterra moderna, Introduction by T. Gregory, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2004. 9 In particular, on melancholy in Montaigne see: M.A. Screech, Montaigne and Melancholy. The Wisdom of the Essays, London, Duckworth, 1983. Screech underlines that the first two chapters of the first book of the Essais are dedicated, respectively, to vanity and to sadness, two passions that, as we will see, are strictly intertwoven with the history of melancholy in modern ages; F. Charpentier, Pour une lecture psychanalytique des Essais, in J. Lemaire (edited by), Montaigne et la rvolution philosophique du XVIe sicle, Bruxelles, Editions de lUniversit de Bruxelles, 1992, pp. 9-28; H. Vincent, Vrit du scepticisme chez Montaigne, Paris, LHarmattan, 1998.

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by a holistic conception of man, according to which the physical part cannot be separated from the moral one, meaning his values, his beliefs and his relationship with the outside world. Melancholy and more generally nervous disorders were therefore depicted as existential problems, strictly related to language, to the representation of the world and to imagination. Thus they were responsible for the good use of passions, especially self-esteem and the relation of self-love with vanity and sadness10. In this perspective, the reflection on melancholy was substantially twisted, becoming the subject of studies not just specifically medical, but moral and political too. Thomas Hobbes, for instance, dedicated a few pages to this subject in the Elements, and delved into it in further detail in the Leviathan. The philosopher from Malmesbury is not a prime figure in the history of melancholy and the subject of melancholy doesnt occupy a substantial space in his works only few pages within his more general work about passions. Nonetheless it is worth remembering that Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine inserted him into their anthology on the history of psychiatry between 1535 and 186011 and it is worth mentioning that even though he never wrote a systematic treatise on mental illness, the subject is however present in all of Hobbes main political works. The interest of these pages about melancholy is of a double nature. On one side we see a theory of the passions that make Hobbes anthropology more complex, bringing further argoments in favour of those studies that stress the difference between moderate and vainglorious man this identifies a tension in
See P. Bnichou, Morales du Grand Sicle, Paris, Gallimard, 1948; A. Levi, French Moralists: The Theory of Passions 1585 to 1649, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1964; E. Pulcini, Lindividuo senza passioni. Individualismo moderno e perdita del legame sociale, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2001. 11 R. Hunter and I. Macalpine (edited by), Three Hundred Years of Psychiatry 1535-1860. A History Presented in Selected English Texts, London-New York-Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1963, pp. 135-136. Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine included Hobbes amongst the forerunners of modern psychiatrists because of a passage already present in the Elements and then also reported in the opening of the Leviathan, in which the English philosopher distinguishes two types of mental discourse, the one regulated by a principle or a project, and the one apparently unguided, without design. But Hobbes underlines that free associations, that is those associations not regulated by conscious thought, can be explained too. Hobbes intuitions will then be developed by Locke towards the end of the XVII century and by Hume in the XVIII century, while it will then be Freud in the XX century who will put subconscious and conscious thought in mutual relation exactly through free associations. Cfr. T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. This work circulated as a manuscript and was published in 1650 in two separate parts: Human Nature, London, E. Bownam, 1650 e De corpore politico, London, Roy Croft, 1650 (this work was published under its original title and in just one tome in 1889 in London by Ferdinand Tnnies); Id., Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, edited by J.C.A. Gaskin, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994, I, IV, pp. 31-34 (from now Elements); T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., pp. 15-17.
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his works due to the presence of an anthropology of the eminence next to one of the self-preservation, with all the complications that this carries regarding the consistency between anthropology and politics12. On the other side, instead, these pages on melancholy present a certain interest for those who would like to reconstruct a history of madness, as we find expounded in them a psychological, or moral theory13. This is a conception of melancholy influenced by the reading of Robert Burtons Anatomy of Melancholy and that we will find again, in more elaborated forms, in doctors like Bernard Mandeville in England, John Gregory in Scotland, Philip Pinel and Jean Etienne Dominique Esquirol in France. In the following pages I dont intend to analyse the questions connected to the relationship between anthropology and politics. My aim is to show that in Hobbes works we find a moral conception of melancholy, the cause of which is identified in an excess or defect of the passion of Glory14 in the Elements and in a lack of balance of the Desire of Power in the Leviathan. The philosopher from Malmesbury does not consider mental illness as a proper disease caused by the lesion of some organ causing an imbalance of humours with an excess of black bile but more simply as a problem regarding self-esteem. Hobbes attention is dedicated exclusively to the passion of Glory, intended as internal gloriation or triumph of the mind [] which proceedeth from the imagination or conception of our own power, above the power of him that contendeth with us15, and so as a disorder linked to the faculty of imagination. Therapy therefore will have to be configured as an intervention on the symbolical dimension, on the perception of ones value in relation to others, and not on the biological one. In this perspective, the distinction between pathology and normality is a quantitative difference and not a qualitative one. 2. Nosce te ipsum In the same year of the publication of the Leviathan, 1651, also appeared the posthumous, sixth and last edition of the Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton,

See M. Reale, La difficile eguaglianza. Hobbes e gli animali politici: passioni, morale, socialit, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 1991. 13 See M. Galzigna, La malattia morale. Alle origini della psichiatria moderna, Venezia, Marsilio, 1988. In this perspective madness is an excess of passion, the lesion of the organ is not relevant, the alteration of the functions is. The madman, as Esquirol will write, does not lack the reason; his intellectual faculties are mostly intact, but folly; every passion contains in itself a degree of folly. 14 On the concept of glory in Hobbes works see G. Slomp, Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory, London, Routledge, 2000. 15 T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., p. 50.
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the most famous essay on melancholy written in the English language16. In this work, which aimed at reconciling medical studies with the moral and political reflections on melancholy17, passions were considered in a double perspective: the naturalistic-scientific one and the philosophical-relational one. Burton, besides, stressed the importance of the introspective method in the analysis of the emotional dimension, a dimension which escaped the objectivity of science, and introduced the principle of comprehension through observation and sympathy18. Burton insisted on the importance of sympathizing in the treatment of those illnesses that didnt just involve lesions of the organs, but had to do with the moral and symbolic dimensions of existence, that is illnesses that did not only concern the movement of the animal spirits, but involved moral and existential problems: That which others heare or read of, I felt and practised my selfe,
As it appeared in the long subtitle, Burton intended to develop his analysis both on the medical and on the philosophical level. The complete title is the following: R. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, what it is. With all the Kindes, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and severall Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, historically, opened and cut up. By Democritus Junior. With a Satiricall Preface, conducing to the following Discourse. Macrob. Omne meum, At Oxford, Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps. Anno Dom. 1621. The same title appeared in the later editions of 1624, 1628, 1632, 1638 and 1651 (which can be considered the definitive edition, after the work grew from the 353.369 words of the 1621 edition to the 516.384 of that of 1651, see The Anatomy of Melancholy, edited by T. C. Faulkner, N. K. Kiessling, R.L. Blair, 3 voll, Oxford, Clarendon Press, respectively published in 1989, 1990 and 1994, vol. 1, pp. xxxvii-li. To these three volumes have recently been added a Commentary, edited by J.B. Bamborough e M. Dodsworth, Oxford, Clarendon Press, in three tomes, of which the first was published in 1998 and the other two in 2000. For a list of Robert Burtons works and sources see P. Jordan-Smith, Bibliographia Burtoniana. A Study of Robert Burtons The Anatomy of Melancholy. With a Bibliography of Burtons Writings, Stanford University California-Oxford, Stanford University Press-Oxford University Press, 1931; Burtons Anatomy of Melancholy and Burtoniana: a checklist of a part of the collection in memory of Sarah Bixby Smith (1871-1935), compiled by P. Jordan-Smith, and assisted by M. Mulhauser, Claremont California, Printed for the Honnold Library of the Associated Colleges by Vivian Ridler at the University Press, Oxford, 1959 e N.K. Kiessling, The Library of Robert Burton, Oxford, Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1988. 17 R. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, cit., vol. 1, pp. 109-110: Yet I have a more serious intent at this time, and to omit all impertinent digressions, to say no more of such as are improperly melancholy, or metaphorically mad, lightly mad, or in disposition, as stupid, angry, drunken, silly, sottish, sullen, proud, vainglorious, ridiculous, beastly, peevish, obstinate, impudent, extravagant, dry, doting, dull, desperate, harebraine, &c. mad, phrantike, foolish, heteroclites, which no new Hospitall can holde, no physicke helpe: my purpose and endeavour is, in the following Discourse to anatomize this humour of Melancholy, through all his parts and species, as it is an habite or an ordinary disease, and that philosophically, medicinally, to shew the causes, symptomes, and severall cures of it, that it may be the better avoided. Moved thereunto for the generality of it, and to doe good, it being a disease so frequent. 18 A few centuries later, this principle will be one of the elements at the origin of the Windelbands distinction between idiographic and nomothetic sciences.
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they get their knowledge by Bookes, I mine by melancholizing, Experto crede ROBERTO. Something I can speake out of experience aerumnabilis experientia me docuit, and with her in the Poet, Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco, I would helpe others out of a fellow-feeling19. Thomas Hobbes was highly likely to know very well Burtons work20, as well as the vast medical literature on melancholy21. Besides he had lived for several years in contact with the libertine and French moralists culture when he was a refugee in Paris, and he therefore had the chance to delve into the psychological approach to the problems of man, a feature that would have characterised his works from then on22.
R. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, cit., vol. 1, p. 8. Cfr. G. Borrelli, Prudence, Folly and Melancholy in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes, Hobbes Studies, IX, 1996, pp. 88-97. 21 For example in the Elements, Hobbes mentions the case of the man who did not get out of bed for fear of shattering, convinced as he was of being made of glass. This was a typical case of hypochondria reported in all the main English works on melancholy. See T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I.X.11, p. 64. 22 Cfr. A.M. Battista, Psicologia e politica nella cultura eterodossa francese del Seicento, in Id., Politica e morale nella Francia dellet moderna, Genova, Name, 1998, pp. 221-247 (the article appeared for the first time in Ricerche sulla letteratura libertina e sulla letteratura clandestina nel Seicento, Atti del Convegno di studio di Genova 30 ottobre-1 novembre 1980, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1981, pp. 321-351; reprinted with the title Nascita della psicologia politica, Prefazione di A.M. Lazzarino Del Grosso, Genova, Ecig, 1982 and in G. Sorgi (edited by), Politica e diritto in Hobbes, Milano, Giuffr, 1995, pp. 193-224). On French libertinism and moralists see R. Pintard, Le libertinage rudit dans la premire moiti du XVII sicle, 2 voll., Paris, Boivin, 1943 (reprinted in Geneva in 1983); G. Spini, Ricerca dei libertini: la teoria dellimpostura delle religioni nel Seicento italiano, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1950; J.S. Spink, French Free-Thought from Gassendi to Voltaire, London, The Athlone Press, 1960; P. Hazard, La crise de la conscience europenne, Paris, Fayard, 1961; A. Adam, Les libertins au XVII sicle, Paris, Buchet-Chastel, 1964; A.M. Battista, Alle origini del pensiero politico libertino: Montaigne e Charron, Milano, Giuffr, 1966; G. Schneider, Der Libertin. Zur Geistesund Sozialgeschichte der Brgertums im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, Metzler, 1970; V.I. Comparato, Il pensiero politico dei libertini, in L. Firpo (edited by), Storia delle idee politiche, economiche, sociali, Torino, UTET, 1974, vol. VII; O. Pompeo Faracovi, Il pensiero libertino, Torino, Loescher, 1977; S. Bertelli (edited by), Libertinismo europeo, Milano-Napoli, Riccardo Ricciardi Editore, 1980; AA.VV., Ricerche su letteratura libertina e letteratura clandestina nel Seicento, cit.; T. Gregory, Etica e religione nella critica libertina, Napoli, Guida Editori, 1986; F. Reichler, Lge libertine, Paris, Editions de minuit, 1987; L. Bianchi, Tradizione libertina e critica storica, Milano, Angeli, 1988; S. Zoli, Europa libertina tra controriforma e illuminismo. LOriente dei libertini e le origini dellilluminismo, Bologna, Cappelli, 1988; L. Godard de Donville, Le libertin des origines 1665: un produit des apologtes, Paris-Seattle-Tbingen, Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, 1989; F. Semerari, La fine della virt. Gracin, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyre, Bari, Dedalo, 1993; D. Taranto, Pirronismo ed assolutismo nella Francia del 600. Studi sul pensiero politico dello scetticismo da Montaigne a Bayle (1580-1697), Milano, Franco Angeli, 1994; S. Zoli, DallEuropa libertina allEuropa illuminista. Alle origini del laicismo e dellIlluminismo, Firenze, Nardini, 1997.
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In that environment Hobbes assimilated Montaignes lesson as well as that of those authors who held the study of themselves and of their inner nature as a starting point for their analysis. The famous Delphic precept, nosce te ipsum, constituted a real philosophical programme. The Hobbesian project, to tell the truth, was even more ambitious as it intended to start a political science based on the study of natural philosophy that would pass through the knowledge of man23. So in the De corpore, which he published in 1655 after his three important political works, Hobbes wrote: propterea quod principia Politicae constant ex cognitione motuum animorum, cognitio autem motuum animorum ex scientia sensuum et cogitationum24. The scientia sensuum et cogitationum therefore constitutes the preliminary moment to the foundation of political science, of which Hobbes

We can recall that the philosopher from Malmesbury is commonly recognised as an important psychologist at least for two reasons: the first is about his choice of method, Hobbes studied man resorting to self-analysis and introspection; the second instead is related to the fact that at centre of Hobbes political reflection we find the search for the motivations that induce men to act. One of the most important problematic knots in the Hobbesian historiography regards how Hobbes project is systematically organised, that is the relationship that links mechanical metaphysics, psychology and political philosophy. As we know, the same Hobbes made a resolution of constructing a science of politics starting from the study of physics, but throughout the XX century many Hobbesian interpreters highlighted the shortcomings of this project. According to Leo Strauss, for instance, the Hobbesian psychology would have a foundation independent of the philosophy of nature, while the political philosophy could be deduced from the axioms on human nature posed by psychological analysis. Even more radical is the criticism that we find in the famous Taylor-Warrender Thesis, according to which political philosophy has a moral or theological foundation, but is totally independent of Hobbes philosophy of nature and psychology. See L. Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes. Its Basis and its Genesis, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1936; A.E. Taylor, Hobbes, London, Constable, 1908; Id. The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes, Philosophy, XIII, 1938, pp. 406424; H. Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes. His Theory of Obligation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1957. Bibliographic reviews on the Hobbesian historiography: G. Sorgi, Hobbes: difficolt di uninterpretazione, Nuovi studi politici, XI, 1981; the monographic issue of the Revue europenne des sciences sociales, XX, 1982; A.L. Schino, Tendenze della letteratura hobbesiana di lingua inglese degli ultimi venticinque anni, Materiali per una storia della cultura giuridica, XVII, 1987, pp. 159-198; F. Viola, Hobbes tra moderno e postmoderno. Cinquantanni di studi hobbesiani, in B. Willms e altri, Hobbes oggi, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1990, pp.39-98; E. Vitale, Appendice: vecchi e nuovi studi hobbesiani, in Id. dal disordine al consenso. Filosofia e politica in Thomas Hobbes, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1994, pp. 199-244; M. Mancini (edited by), Interpretazioni novecentesche di Thomas Hobbes, Torino, Giappichelli, 1999. 24 T. Hobbes, Elementorum philosophiae sectio prima de corpore, Londini, A. Crook, 1655 (English trans. Elements of Philosophy, The First Section concerning Body, London, Printed by R. a. W. Leybourn, for A. Crooke, at the Green Dragon in Pauls Church-yard, 1656); Id., De corpore elementorum philosophiae sectio prima, par K. Schuhmann, Paris, Vrin, 1999, VI, 7, pp. 62-63. From now De corpore.
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himself claims the paternity in the dedicatory epistle of the De corpore25. If the scientia sensuum has an objective foundation drawn from the mechanical conception of the human body and of nature, the scientia cogitationum instead has an essentially peculiar constitution, as it already shows in the method. In the Introduction to the Leviathan, Hobbes defines his method and seems to take after what was stated by Robert Burton in the Anatomy: Wisdom is acquired, not by reading of books, but of men26. And as thoughts are not an object of observation and experience, apart from ones own, the best way to know others, Hobbes writes, is to know ourselves. Introspection is therefore the method which allows to know the invisible part of human nature27: for the similitude of the thoughts, and passions of one man, to the thoughts, and passions of another whosoever looketh into himself, and considereth what he doth, when he does think, opine, reason, hope, fear, etc., and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts, and passions of all other men, upon the like occasions28. This is a method that does not present the rigour of Euclidean geometry, but it is the only one that Hobbesian psychology can use. It therefore constitutes the starting point of every political investigation:
But let one man read another by his actions never so perfectly, it serves him only with his acquaintance, which are but few. He that is to govern a whole nation must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but mankind: which though it be hard to
T. Hobbes, De corpore, cit., pp. 3-4: Itaque Astronomiae initium (praeter observata) non ultra referendum esse puto quam ad \ Nicolaum Copernicum placita Pythagorae, Aristarchi, Philolai proxime superiore saeculo referentem. Post hunc, agnito jam Telluris motu ortaque inde difficili quaestione de descensu gravium, cum difficultate illa certans nostris temporibus Galilaeus primus aperuit nobis Physicae universae portam primam, naturam mots. Adeo ut neque ultra hunc computanda videatur esse aetas Physicae. Postremo scientiam humani corporis, Physicae partem utilissimam, in libris suis De Motu Sanguinis et De Generatione Animalium mirabili sagacitate detexit et demonstravit Guilelmus Harvaeus, Regum Jacobi Carolique Medicus primarius; solus (quod sciam), qui doctrinam novam superat invidi vivens stabilivit. Ante hos nihil certi in Physic erat praeter experimenta unicuique sua et historias naturales, si tamen et hae dicendae certae sint, quae civilibus historiis certiores non sunt. At post hos Astronomiam et Physicam quidem Universalem Joannes Keplerus, Petrus Gassendus, Marinus Mersennus, Physicam vero humani corporis specialem ingenia et industria Medicorum (id est, vere Physicorum), praesertim vero nostrorum e Collegio Londinensi doctissimorum hominum, pro tam exiguo tempore egregie promoverunt. Physica ergo res dovitia est. Sed Philosophia Civilis multo adhuc magis; ut quae antiquior non sit (dico lacessitus, utque sciant se parum profecisse obtrectatores \ mei) libro, quem De Cive ipse scripsi. 26 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 7. 27 On this subject see M. Bertman, Equality in Hobbes, with Reference to Aristotle, The Review of Politics, XXXVIII, 1976, pp. 534-544. 28 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 8.
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do, harder than to learn any language, or science; yet, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuosly, the pains left another, will be only to consider, if he also find not the same in himself. For this kind of doctrine admitteth no other demonstration29.

This introspective method is theorised in the Leviathan, but it was not present in the Elements nor in the De cive30. In the analysis of the Hobbesian theory of passions I am going to follow the exposition that is found in the Leviathan, pointing out along the way the main differences with his other works, and I would like to focus in particular on three aspects: the description of passions and their psychological and symbolical dimensions; the distinction between man and animal and between man and man; melancholy as an illness specific and exclusive to man, caused by dominant passion: glory (or desire of power).

T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 8. In the decade between 1640 and 1651 Hobbes interest shifts from the physiological dimension of passions (which will remain present anyway), to the psychological and relational one. Nonetheless, in spite of some variations of accent, the Hobbesian conception of the emotional structure remains substantially unchanged in time. On the analysis of passions in the Hobbesian works I shall confine myself to signalling the following studies: L. Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes. Its Basis and Genesis, cit.; M. Oakeshott, Introduction to Leviathan, in Id., Hobbes on Civil Association, Oxford, Blackwell, 1975, pp. 1-74 (the introduction appeared for the first time in 1946); C.A. Viano, Analisi della vita emotiva e tecnica politica nella filosofia di Hobbes, Rivista critica di Storia della Filosofia, XVII, 1962, pp. 355-392; B. Gert, Hobbes, Mechanism and Egoism, Philosophical Quarterly, XV, 1965, pp. 341-349; Id., Hobbes and Psychological Egoism, Journal of the History of Ideas, XXVIII, 1967, pp. 503-520; I. Zaffagnini, Fancy, Judgement, Wit in Thomas Hobbes, Studi di estetica, IV, 1977, pp. 5-41; A.M. Battista, Psicologia e politica nella cultura eterodossa francese del Seicento, cit.; W. Sacksteder, Man the Artificer: Notes on Animals, Humans and Machines in Hobbes, Southern Journal of Philosophy, XXII, 1984, pp. 105-122; A. Pacchi, Hobbes and the Passions, Topoi, VI, 1987, pp. 111-119; A. Napoli, La valutazione morale dellemotivit in Hobbes, Rivista di storia della filosofia, XLII, 1987, pp. 629-647; A. Napoli, Metafisica e fisiologia dellemotivit and G. Paganini, Hobbes, Gassendi e la psicologia del meccanicismo, in B. Willms and altri, Hobbes oggi, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1990, pp. 279-327 e pp. 351-445; M. Reale, La difficile eguaglianza, cit.; E. Vitale, La natura umana: dallordine fisico al conflitto interindividuale, in Id., Dal disordine al consenso. Filosofia e politica in Thomas Hobbes, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1994, pp. 57-106; D. DAndrea, Prometeo e Ulisse. Natura umana e ordine politico in Thomas Hobbes, Roma, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1997; Q. Skinner, The Rhetoric of Leviathan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998; A. Ferrarin, Artificio, desiderio, considerazione di s. Hobbes e i fondamenti antropologici della politica, Pisa, ETS, 2001.
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3. Physiology of the passions and psychology of motivation In the Leviathan, Hobbes faces the problem of the origin of passions in chapter VI, called Of the interior beginnings of voluntary motions; commonly called the passions. And the speeches by which they are expressed. Hobbes distinguishes two types of movement: the vital one, which requires no imagination, and the animal one, or voluntary one, from which also the passions derive. As every voluntary movement is preceded by a thought of whither, which way and what; it is evident, that the imagination is the first internal beginning of all voluntary motion31:
And althought unstudied men, do not conceive any motion at all to be there, where the thing moved is invisible; or the space it is moved in, is (for the shortness of it) insensible; yet that doth not hinder, but that such motions are. For let a space be never so little, that which is moved over a greater space, whereof that little one is part, must first be moved over that. These small beginnings of motion, within the body of man, before they appear in walking, speaking, striking, and other visible actions, are commonly called ENDEAVOUR32.

The passions are born within imagination from a small movement called endeavour (conatus)33. When the endeavour is directed towards the object that caused it, it is called appetite or desire; when instead it is directed away from it, it is called aversion. Both the passions are a movement, either of approaching or distancing, and when their object is present we call them love and hatred. Contempt is not properly a passion, as it is absence of movement. The objects of the endeavour, cause of the movement, vary depending on the age and on the individual: And because the constitution of a mans body is in continual mutation; it is impossible that all the same things should always cause in him the same appetites, and aversions: much less can all men consent, in the desire of almost
T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 33. T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., pp. 33-34. 33 On the notion of conatus see W. Sacksteder, Speaking about Mind: Endeavour in Hobbes, The Philosophical Forum, XI, 1979, pp. 65-79; J. Barnouw, Hobbess Causal Account of Sensation, Journal of the History of Philosophy, XVII, 1980, pp. 115-130; W. von Leyden, Hobbes and Locke. The Politics of Freedom and Obligation, London, Macmillan, 1982; B. Stoffel, Hobbess Conatus and the Roots of Character, in C. Walton e P.J. Johnson (edited by), Dordrecht, Nijhoff, 1987, pp. 123-138; A. Robinet, Hobbes: structure et nature du conatus, in Y.C. Zarka e J. Bernhardt (edited by), Thomas Hobbes: philosophie premire, thorie de la science et politique, Paris, PUF, 1990, pp. 139-151; J. Barnouw, Le vocabulaire du conatus, in Y.C. Zarka (edited by), Hobbes et son vocabulaire, Paris, Vrin, 1992, pp. 103-124; M. Bertman, Conatus in Hobbes De corpore, in Hobbes Studies, XIV, 2001, pp. 25-39.
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any one and the same object34. The passions are born of the endeavour (conatus) and according to Hobbes the basic ones are four: if the object is present they are called love (or desire) and hatred (or aversion); if it is projected in the future joy and grief. The passions are named differently according to: 1) the opinion that men have to obtain what they desire; 2) the object that is loved or hated; 3) the consideration of many of them together; 4) their alteration or succession itself. The conatus from which passions originate and develop has therefore two natures: a biological nature, described in the chapter VI of the Leviathan, that follows the mechanical model, and a psychological and social nature, that has to do with the origin of the movement, or we can say with the meaning that we give to actions, a meaning which is related to social recognition35: In the pleasure men have, or displeasure from the signs of honour or dishonour done unto them, consisteth the nature of the passions in particular36. The proximate and immediate causes of the passions are therefore physiological, and are different on this regard from the sensations because the conatus is not directed towards the outside but towards the inside, as we read in the De corpore:
Est autem aliud sensionis genus, de quo dicturi aliqua nunc sumus, nimirum sensio voluptatis et doloris, eaque orta non a reactione cordis versus exteriora, sed ab organi parte extima per continuam actionem versus cor. Cum enim vitae principium in corde sit, necesse est, ut motus in sentiente ad cor propagatus motum vitalem aliquo modo mutet sive divertat, nimirum faciliorem reddens vel difficiliorem, juvans vel impediens. Si juvet, voluptas, si impediat, dolor, molestia, aegritudo nascitur. Et sicut phantasmata a conatu ad externa extra esistere, ita voluptas et dolor in sensione propter conatum organi ad interiora videntur intus esse, ibi nempe, ubi est prima voluptatis sive doloris causa, ut in dolore a vulnere ubi est vulnus ipsum, ibi videtur esse dolor.
T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 35. See B. Carnevali, Romanticismo e riconoscimento. Figure della coscienza in Rousseau, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2004, in particular the first chapter, pp. 15-64; id., Potere e riconoscimento: il modello hobbesiano, in Iride, XLVI, 2005, pp. 515-540. T. Hobbes, Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, cit., I, VIII.3-5-6, pp. 48-49: The passions whereof I am to speak next, consist in conception of the future, that is to say, in conception of power past, and the act to come []. The signs by which we know our own power are those actions which proceed from the same; and the signs by which other men know it, are such actions, gesture, countenance and speech, as usually such powers produce: and the acknowledgment of power is called HONOUR; and to honour a man (inwardly in the mind) is to conceive or acknowledge, that that man hath the odds or excess of power above him that contendeth or compareth himself. And HONOURABLE are those signs for which one man acknowledgeth power or excess above his concurrent in another. [] The signs of honour are those by which we perceive that one man acknowledgeth the power and worth of another. 36 T. Hobbes, Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, cit., I, VIII.8, p. 50.
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Motus autem vitalis sanguinis motus est per venas arteriasque (ut a primo ejus rei observatore nostrate Harvaeo multis certissimisque signis ostensum est)37.

But how do the movements of animal spirits movements, that are at the origin of passions, get activated? In the case of sensations their origin is clear: external objects. In the case of passions instead Hobbes affirms that the origin is to be found in phantasmata, which are defined as the images that act upon the faculties of imagination and judgement38:
Consistunt autem Affectus in diversis motibus sanguinis & spirituum animalium prout se varie modo expandunt, modo ad fontem se recipiunt; quorum motuum causae sunt Phantasmata circa Bonum & Malum ab objectis in Animo excitata39.

Nonetheless, not all objects elicit the same passions in all men. Where does this difference come from, for which the same objects induce pleasure in some men and pain in others? If the physiological correlate of passions is similar in all men, the same is not true of the phantasmata that elicit the animal spirits movements. Sensations dont lie, while phantasmata can deceive. And the reason why they can be deceitful is that they are not a natural product, but they are cultural, human, symbolic. In this respect men can be very different from one another, because the same images can have very different effects. The cause for these differences is found in language, which can have opposite effects:
Sed sunt quoque Orationi sua incommoda; nimirum, quod Homo, cum solus Animalium, propter vocabulorum significationem universalem, regulas sibi, cum in aliis artibus, tum in arte vivendi, excogitare possit generales, solus etiam falsis uti potest, easdemque aliis utendas tradere. [] Denique propter loquendi facilitatem Homo quae ne cogitar quidem loquitur, & quae loquitur credit versa esse, & seipsum decipere potest; Bestia seipsam fallere non potest. Itaque Oratione Homo non melior fit sed potentior40.
T. Hobbes, De corpore, cit., XXV, 12, p. 278. Imagination (or fancy) determines the speed of the images, judgement is instead the faculty from which the ability of maintaining ones attention focused towards a goal depends. 39 T. Hobbes, Elementorum philosophiae sectio secunda. De homine, Londini, Crook, 1658 (English trans. Elements of Philosophy, The Second Section concerning Man, London, Printed by R. a. W. Leybourn, for A. Crooke, at the Green Dragon in Pauls Church-yard, 1658); Id., Elementorum philosophiae sectio secunda De homine, in Thomae Hobbes Malmesburiensis Opera philosophica, Quae Latine scripsit, Omnia, Amstelodami, Apud Iannem Blaev, 1668, XII, 1, p. 68. From now De homine. 40 T. Hobbes, De homine, cit., X, 3, pp. 60-61.
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Language and the phantasmata that it can evoke represent the specifically human dimension. Therefore, the pathologies that originate from language and from its phantasmata are to be considered specifically human. In this category fall all those forms of madness that cant be related to a problem with a specific organ, but derive instead from a bad use of language, which elicits a natural passion: pride. Pride is at the origin of mans power, but it also unveils the most fragile aspect of humanity. 4. A curious animal projected into the future Already in the Elements, Hobbes distinguished two kinds of pleasures and pains: those of the body, called sensual, mainly represented by sexual instinct and nutrition, and those of the mind: The other sort of delight is not particular to any part of the body, and is called the delight of the mind, and is that which we call joy. Likewise of pains, some affect the body, and are therefore called the pains of the body; and some not, and those are called GRIEF41. This distinction gets then mentioned again in chapter VI of the Leviathan, where Hobbes stresses the difference between sensual passions, linked to the actual presence of the object and therefore bringing immediate pains or pleasures, and the passions of the mind, that are instead projected into the future:
Of pleasures, or delights, some arise from the sense of an object present; and those may be called pleasures of sense; (the word sensual, as it is used by those only that condemn them, having no place till there be laws). Of this kind are all onerations and exonerations of the body; as also all that is pleasant, in the sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch; others arise from the expectation, that proceeds from foresight of the end, or consequence of things; whether those things in the sense please or displease: and these are pleasures of the mind of him that draweth in those consequences; and are generally called JOY. In the like manner, displeasures, are some in the sense, and called PAIN; others, in the expectation of consequences, and are called GRIEF42.

Hobbes specifies that the pleasures of the mind are exclusive to man, while the pleasures of the sense are common to all animals. The pleasures of the sense, besides, are immediate, present, while the pleasures of the mind are characterised by expectation, which is a projection into the future. The pleasures of the mind seem to be the most suitable to guarantee a condition of happiness, exactly be-

41 42

T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I, VII.9, p. 45. T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 36.

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cause they satisfy this need for a future perspective. Happiness, in fact, is defined as a Continual success in obtaining those things which a man from time to time desireth, that is to say, continual prospering43. If happiness is a dynamic condition, a continual research, a restlessness that leads to movement with no pause For there is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind, while we live here, because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense44, if that is the case then the more our aim is remote, projected into the future, hard to achieve, the more the pleasure will be renewable and will last in time. But only the pleasures of the mind have these characteristics and only they can get anywhere near that condition of happiness described by Hobbes. It is understandable then why curiosity, a passion in itself so charged with future and with restlessness, is the specific passion of man. Curiosity projects 45 man in the future and is one with desire, which in turn is seeking for pleasure . Curiosity provides the content of sense to that desiring machine that is the human body. Therefore, regarding the difference between animals and men, Hobbes can affirm that men rank above animals thanks to reason and to a specific passion, curiosity:
Desire, to know why, and how, CURIOSITY; such as is in no living creature but man: so that man is distinguished, not only by his reason; but also by this singular passion from other animals; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures of senses, by predominance, take away the care of knowing causes; which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in he continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure46.

Even religion figures as an element of differentiation between men and animals (the seed of religion, is also only in man; and consisteth in some peculiar quality, or at least in some eminent degree thereof, not to be found in other liveng creatures47), but not thanks to its supernatural origin; on the contrary, exactly because it is a human product, being an effect of curiosity and of the fear of invisible things. In chapter XII of the Leviathan, dedicated to religion, Hobbes identifies three characteristics of man at the root of the birth of religion:

T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 41 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 41. 45 Cfr. J. Barnouw, Hobbess Psychology of Thought: Endeavours, Purpose and Curiosity, in History of European Ideas, X, 1989, pp. 519-545. 46 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 37.
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And first, it is peculiar to the nature of man, to be inquisitive into the causes of the events they see, some more, some less; but all men so much, as to be curious in the search of the causes of their own good and evil fortune. Secondly, upon the sight of anything that hath a beginning, to think also it had a cause, which determined the same to begin, then when it did, rather than soon or later. Thirdly, whereas there is no other felicity of beasts, but the enjoying of their quotidian food, ease, and lusts; as having little, or no forsight of the time to come, for want of observation, and memory of the order, consequence, and dependence of the things they see; man observeth how one event hath been produced by another; and remembereth in them antecedence and consequence; and when he cannot assure himself of the true causes of things, (for the casues of good and evil fortune for the most part are invisible,) he supposes causes of them, either such as his own fancy suggesteth; or trusteth to the authority of other men, such as he thinks to be his friends, and wiser than himself48.

Man, as opposed to animal, has therefore got a dilated timescale, he doesnt just live in the present and for the immediate, but he knows the dimensions of past and future. While movement is the dimension of nature and of the body, the dimension of the mind is time49. If happiness for animals consists in the satisfaction of sensual, therefore immediate, pleasures, happiness for man is instead a process, as comes out clearly in the famous metaphor of the run in the Elements50, and as such requires time, therefore future51. Specifically human pleasures, characterised by the dimension of future, are those of the mind. But future has got in itself a dark side. In fact, if on one side the dimension of future is essential for the satisfaction of the pleasures of the mind, on the other it is a source of uncertainty, of fear and anxiety. And it is anxiety most of all which is the other side of happiness. This is the same as saying that in the measure in which man is a project, projection into the future, expectation of happiness and search for causes and for sense, his life is exposed to anxiety and fear of failure.

T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 71. T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., pp. 71-72. 49 Cfr. G. Slomp, Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory, cit., pp. 11-21. 50 Cfr. T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I, IX.21, pp. 59-60. See also T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 41: Continual success in obtaining those things which a man from time to time desireth, that is to say, continual prospering, is that men call FELICITY. 51 C.A. Viano, Analisi della vita emotiva e tecnica politica nella filosofia di Hobbes, cit., pp. 373-375.
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Religion therefore configures as a human creation, comprehensible in psychological terms as an answer to anxiety about the future, a kind of anxiety that according to Hobbes is not without reason and is simply born of an excess of insight, the insight which looks too far before him, in the care of future time52. Religion is a possible answer to the fragility of human nature, prone to research the causes for events and to give a sense to life. But the same research for sense, when excessive, can be cause of anxiety. Hobbes resorts to the image of Prometheus, the same image which Burton used in the Anatomy of Melancholy regarding the melancholic man, to describe a man constantly projected in the future:
The two first, make anxiety. For being assured that there be causes of all things that have arrived hitherto, or shall arrive hereafter; it is impossible for a man, who continually endeavoureth to secure himself against the evil he fears, and procure the good he desireth, not to be in perpetual solicitude of the time to come; so that every man, especially those that are over provident, are in an estate like to that of Prometheus, (which, interpreted, is, the prudent man,) was bound to the hill Caucasus, a place of large prospect, where an eagle, feeding on his liver, devoured in the day, as much as was repaired in the night: so that man, which looks too far before him, in the care of future time, hath his heart all the day long, gnawed on by fear of death, poverty, or other calamity; and has no repose, nor pause of his anxiety, but in sleep53.

Therefore, if it is peculiar to the nature of man, to be inquisitive into the causes of the events they see, nonetheless this investigation does not get carried out in the same way by all, in fact some more, some less; but all men so much, as to be curious in the search of the causes of their own good and evil fortune54. So Hobbes does not just describe the difference between man and animal, but he delves into the difference among men too. This kind of analysis compels Hobbes to face a series of questions born around the problem of the origin of the differences among men: on what level are these differences, that of reason or that of passions? And, assuming the differences are there, are they to be considered natural or acquired in time, through education and culture? The answer to these questions needs an analysis of the Hobbesian anthropology, starting from two anthropological figures already introduced in the Elements:

T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 72. T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 72. 54 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 71.
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the men of sensual pleasure, characterised by a nature similar to that of the animal, and the men of delight of mind (or gloria), of a superior nature55. The men of sensual pleasure are those who seek pleasures of immediate satisfaction. These pleasures prevent the development of cognitive powers, which derive from curiosity about the future and from ambition and this is it which man call DULLNESS; and proceedeth from the appetite of sensual or bodily delight56. Dullness has a physiological correlate, a grossness and difficulty of the motion of the spirits about the heart57. The men of delight of mind, instead, are more sensitive to imaginations of honour and glory58 and are characterised by their faculty of imagination and judgement, which means by their ability to make comparisons and to introduce the symbolic dimension through those grateful similies, metaphors, and other tropes, by which both poets and orators have it in their power to make things please or displease, and shew well or illto others, as they like themselves; or else in discerning suddendly dissimilitude in things that otherwise appear the same59. Individual differences, Hobbes already specifies in the Elements, do not come from the brain but from vital constitution, which means the passions:

In T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I, XIV.3, p. 78, the philosopher from Malmesbury distinguishes two passional anthropologies, that of vainly glorious, which hope for precedency and superiority above their fellows and that of moderates, which instead look for no more but equality of nature. In the De cive this distinction gets radicalised with the introduction of the voluntas laedendi, which belongs to all men, but has a different genesis. In the moderates it derives from the necessity of defence from the vainglorious, in the vainglorious instead it derives from a false faith in their own strenghts. In the XIII chapter of the Leviathan, even tually, the voluntas laedendi disappears and equality gets stressed. The latter becomes cause of conflictuality, because the passion of glory, that is the desire of esteem, gets radicalised. From the Elements to the Leviathan, the difference among men changes from qualitative (moderates and vainglorious) to quantitative (greater or lesser desire of power). See T. Hobbes, Elementorum philosophiae sectio tertia. De cive, Parisiis, [n.i.], 1642; Id., De cive: the Latin version entitled in the first edition Elementorum philosophiae sectio tertia de cive, and in later editions Elementa philosophica de cive, edited by H. Warrender, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981, I.4, p. 93: Voluntas laedendi omnibus quidem inest in statu naturae, sed non ab eadem causa, neque aeque culpanda. Alius enim secundum aequalitatem naturalem permittit caeteris eadem omnia, quae sibi (quod modesti hominis est, & vires sua recte aestimantis.) Alius superiorem se aliis existimans omnia licere sibi soli vult, & prae caeteris honorem sibi arrogat (quod ingenij ferocis est.) Huic igitur voluntas laedendi est ab inani gloria & falsa virium aestimatione; Illi ex necessitate res suas & libertatem contra hunc defendi. On this subject see most of all M. Reale, La difficile eguaglianza, cit., pp. 51-85 e pp. 187-203. 56 T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I, X.3, p. 61. 57 T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I, X.3, p. 61. 58 T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I, X.3, p. 61. 59 T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I, X.4, p. 61
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But we see by experience, that joy and grief proceed not in all men from the same causes, and that men differ much in constitution of body, whereby, that which helpeth and furthereth vital constitution in one, and is therefore delightful, hindereth and crosseth it in another, and causeth grief. The difference therefore of wits hath its original from the different passions, and from the ends to which their appetite leadeth them60.

The difference in wits is therefore to ascribe to two components: a biological one, physical constitution, and a symbolic one, the aims that satisfy the passions. In the Leviathan Hobbes goes back to the differences among men, but differently from his dissertation on the same subject found in the Elements and the De cive he doesnt differentiate between passions of the delight of mind and passions of the sensual pleasure anymore. Instead, he calls them both with the general term of desire of power. Nonetheless in chapter VIII, called Of the virtues commonly called intellectual; and their contrary defects, Hobbes distinguishes men on the grounds of their wit, which can be natural or acquired. The natural wit is not the one that a man hath from his birth61, but the one that is acquired by use only, and experience; without method, culture, or instruction62 and it consists in the speed at which imagination can think. The acquired wit instead derives from reason and from the passions. As far as reason is concerned, Hobbes had already stated that it was a mere calculation and it was the same in all men. Different and more complex is the matter regarding passions, from which the difference in acquired wits derives. In this case it is education that is at the base of the differences:
The causes of this difference of wits, are in the passions: and the difference of passions, proceedeth partly from the different constitution of the body, and partly from different education. For if the difference proceeded from the temper of the brain, and the organs of sense, either exterior or interior, there would be no less difference of men in their sight, hearing, or other senses, than in their fancies, and discretions. It proceeds therefore from the passions; which are different, not only from the difference of mens complexions; but also from their difference of customs, and education63.

The passions causing differences between wits can be related to a greater or lesser desire of power. The development of intelligence, in its two components of judgement and fancy, is therefore due to the emotional-passional dimension, or at least
T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I, X.2, pp. 60-61. T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 45. 62 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 45. 63 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 48.
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strictly related to it: The passions that most of all cause the differences of wit, are principally, the more or less desire of power, of riches, of knowledge, and of honour. All which may be reduced to the first, that is, desire of power. For riches, knowledge and honour are but several sorts of power64. It is thus the desire of power that constitutes the spring of intellectual development, as it is expressed so well by the image of thoughts as scouts or spies seeking for solutions to the problems of life: For the thoughts, are to the desires, as scouts, and spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things desired: all steadiness of the minds motion, and all quickness of the same, proceeding from thence65. The cause of the differences between man and man are both biological (due to physical constitution) and cultural (due to customs and education). In the De homine, Hobbes lists six sources on which the individual differences depend66: physical constitution (in particular cold or hot temper and speed of imagination); habit (which, after having overcome the resistence that nature always offers to change, then becomes itself a second nature); experience of external things (which corrects the natural attitudes through adverse events); ones fortunes (like wealth or nobility of birth, that render men more prone to offense); ones opinion of himself (which has an influence on behaviour); authority (important expecially during adolescence, because it constitutes a behavioural model that will stay throughout life). Note that Hobbes attributes to nature only one of the causes of difference among men, while the other five are of a social origin. 5. Fragility and strenght of the desire of power The Hobbesian psychology consists basically in the individuation of an inclination in human nature that cannot be modified67. Around this psychological dynamics Hobbes builds an interpretative grid of human actions. Following the transformations and disguises of the dominant passion it is possible to explain human behaviours and to intervene in the motivation that is behind action. The passions, already reduced to pleasures of sense and delight of mind in Elements, gloria and sensibilia in De cive, are unified in a more general and
T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 48. T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 48. Regarding the importance of passions, Hobbes writes that men are different from animals thanks to reason and to one specific passion, curiosity, which induces men to look for the causes of things, a variant of the desire of power. 66 T. Hobbes, De homine, cit., XIII.1, p. 73: Ingenia, id est, hominum ad certas res propensiones, sextuplici fere fonte oriuntur; nimirum, Temperie, ab Experientia, Consuetudine, Bonis fortunae, ab Opinione quam quisque habet de seipso, ab Authoribus. Quibus mutatis mutantur etiam Ingenia. 67 A.M. Battista, Psicologia e politica nella cultura eterodossa francese del Seicento, in Id., Politica e morale nella Francia dellet moderna, cit., p. 228.
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comprehensive desire of power in the Leviathan. As we have already seen, the differences among men can be explained in terms of differences in intensity of the desire of power, therefore a well tempered desire of power is at the origin of intellectual development, while a weak desire of power is the cause of dullness and giddiness. Intelligence and dullness are the two extremes within which individual differences are modulated, considered irrelevant for political aims, but beyond these two boundaries the desire of power turns into pathology:
And therefore, a man who has no great passion for any of these things; but is as men term it indifferent; though he may be so far a good man, as to be free from giving offence; yet he cannot possibly have either a great fancy, or much judgement. For the thoughts, are to the desires as scouts, and spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things desired: all steadiness of the minds motion, and all quickness of the same, proceeding from thence. For as to have no desire, is to be dead: so to have weak passions, is dullness; and to have passions indifferently for every thing, GIDDINESS, and distraction; and to have stronger and more vehement passions for any thing, than is ordinarily seen in others, is that which men call MADNESS68.

It is the intensity of the desire of power that causes madness, in its two variants of fury and melancholy69. An excess of confidence in ones power produces fury (or vain glory), while the feeling of being unable to satisfy ones desire is at the origin of melancholy. We should maybe mention that Hobbes defines with the term madness opposite behaviours that physicians would classify as melancholy and mania (or frenzy). Melancholy and mania were two manifestations of the same disorder, showing opposite symptoms: depressive in the melancholics and euphoric in the maniacs. It is interesting to go back to the relationship between physiology and psychology, because in these pages dedicated to madness Hobbes investigated the possibility that the cause for this disease may not be the lesion of an organ, but a passion:

T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 48. On melancholy in Hobbes see: R. Peters, Hobbes, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1956, pp. 80159; D. Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 102-106; M. Reale, La difficile eguaglianza, cit., pp. 69-70; G. Borrelli, Prudence, Folly and Melancholy in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes, cit.; P. Schiera, Hobbes e la melancolia. Con qualche considerazione sullorigine del moderno, in AA.VV., Filosofia e storia della cultura. Studi in onore di Fulvio Tessitore, 2 voll., Napoli, Morano, 1998, vol. II, pp. 613-631; reprinted with the title Il moderno e la melancolia. Con quache riferimento a Thomas Hobbes, in Id., Specchi della politica. Disciplina, melancolia, socialit nellOccidente moderno, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1999, pp. 361-386.
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Whereof there be almost as many kinds, as of the passions themselves. Sometimes  the extraordinary and extravagant passion, procedeth from the evil constitution of the organs of the body, or harm done them; and sometimes the hurt, and indisposition of the organs, is caused by the vehemence, or long continuance of the passion. But in both cases the madness is of one and the same nature70.

Hobbes affirms that almost every type of passion can degenerate into madness, but the passions, as it has already been said, can be related to the desire of power. The English philosopher writes that the passion, whose violence, or continuance, maketh madness, is either great vain-glory; which is commonly called pride, and self-conceit; or great dejection of mind71. Vain glory and dejection of mind are two effects of the desire of power, which when well tempered produces joy, and it is called glory and self-esteem, when instead has no real grounding but is only the product of flattery is called vain glory, in the third instance in which it brings the feeling of lack of power and anxiety is called dejection of mind72. Vain glory is brought on by social pretences, like gallantry and storytelling, is present especially in youths and becomes pathological only when age and work dont correct it73. Vain glory and dejection of mind are expressed through laughter and weeping. The Hobbesian analysis in these pages doesnt present, unlike it did in the Elements, a description of the physiological dynamics that are beneath the manifestation of psychological phoenomena; on the contrary, the analysis is

T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 49. T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 49. In the Elements madness was defined as some imagination of such predominance above all the rest, that we have no passion but from it and its cause had been identified in vain glory: And this conception is nothing else but excessive vain glory, or vain dejection; as is most probable by these examples following, which proceed in appearance, every one of them, from some pride, or some dejection of mind (T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I, X.9, p. 63). 72 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 38: Joy, arising from imagination of a mans own power and ability, is that exultation of the mind which is called GLORYING: which if grounded upon the experience of his own former actions, is the same with confidence: but if grounded on the flattery of others; or only supposed by himself, for delight in the consequeces of it, is called VAIN-GLORY: which name is properly given, because a well grounded confidence begetteth attempt; whereas the supposing of power does not, and is therefore rightly called vain. 73 Hobbes in the Elements distinguished true glory, vain glory and false glory, but already starting from the De cive, vain glory and false glory were used as synonims. In the Elements false glory was a false esteem of ones power caused by flattery, which could bring about a conflict that would then cause a decrease of power, while vain glory was also a false esteem of ones power, but caused by self-conviction, by day-dreaming of powers that were never there in reality. Vain glory is mostly harmless because it usually doesnt produce any action. See G. Slomp, Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory, cit., pp. 34-36.
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all conducted on the psychological level, as is put in good evidence by the description of the symptoms represented by laughter:
Sudden glory, is the passion which maketh those grimaces called LAUGHTER; and is caused either by some sudden act of their own, that pleaseth them; or by the apprehension of some deformed thing in another, by comparison whereof they suddendly applaud themselves. And it is incident most to them, that are conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves; who are forced to keep themselves in their own favour, by observing the imperfections of other men. And therefore much laughter at the defects of others, is a sign of pusillanimity. For of great minds, one of the proper works is, to help and free others from scorn, and compare themselves only with the most able74.

And of the symptoms of weeping:

On the contrary, sudden dejection, is the passion that causeth WEEPING; and is caused by such accidents, as suddendly take away some vehement hope, or some prop of their power: and they are most subject to it, that rely principally on helps external, such as are women, and children. Therefore some weep for the loss of friends; others for the sudden stop made to their thought of revenge, by reconciliation. But in all cases, both laughter, and weeping, are sudden motions; custom taking them both away. For no man laughs at old jests; or weeps for an old calamity75.

The chapter dedicated to madness closes with the analysis of a particular kind of folly which manifests itself as demoniac possession (demoniacs) or agitation with spirits (energumeni), but this subject is beyond the aim of this study. In conclusion, Hobbes did not consider melancholy an illness like any other but a psychological disorder, the origin of which had to be found in the complex dynamics that govern the functioning of the passions and, more specifically, of that passion that in the Hobbesian anthropology is the dominant one and that in the Elements is called glory and in the Leviathan becomes desire of power. It is precisely on this point that we face an interesting problem of interpretation: in the Hobbesian anthropology, do we have to consider that the dominant passion is self-preservation, intended as preservation of biological life, or that it is instead glory or desire of power which determines mans behaviour? Michael Oakeshott76 amongst others tried to answer this question by stressing the importance of the symbolic dimension of passion. The symbolic dimension
T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 38. T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 38. 76 M. Oakeshott, The Moral Life in the Writings of Thomas Hobbes, in Id., Hobbes on Civil Association, cit., pp. 75-131.
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represents the most important aspect in order to understand those pathologies that are not related to lesions of organs, like the cases of melancholy. Oakeshott points out a contradiction between the description of man in the state of nature and that of man in civilised society. In the state of nature we would have two anthropological types: the moderate man and the vanaglorious one; the former would pursue the middle class values of caution and safety, the latter the aristocratic ones of glory and honour beyond self-preservation. If in the state of nature we have a moderate man and a man of glory, in a civilised society there doesnt seem to space for the man of glory, but only for the man of self-preservation. The birth of society requires the sacrifice of glory, the passion of expenditure, in favour of self-preservation, the passion of calculation. In the first pages of the De cive, Hobbes affirms that it is not for glory that man unite in society, on the contrary, glory is sacrified in favour of reciprocal fear, that is to say, of the prediction of future woes that may derive from the full realisation of glory.
Cum enim societas voluntario contrahatur, in omni societate quaeritur voluntatis Obiectum, hoc est, id quod videtur unicuique congredientium Bonum sibi. Quicquid autem videtur Bonum, iucundum est, pertinetque ad organa, vel ad animum. Animi autem voluptas omnis, vel gloria est (sive bene opinari de seipso) vel ad gloriam ultimo refertur; caetera sensualia sunt, vel ad sensuale conducentia, quae omnia commodorum nomine comprehendi possunt. Omnis igitur societas vel commodi causa, vel gloriae, hoc est, sui, non sociorum amore, contrahitur. Gloriae autem studio nulla iniri neque multorum hominum neque multis temporis, societas potest; proptera quod gloriatio, sicut & honor, si omnibus adsit, nulli adest; quippe quae comparatione & praecellentia constant77.

Glory is therefore a conflictual passion that in the state of nature leaves no space for sociability, neither in the form of recognition nor in the solipsistic form of self-recognition (neque ut quis causam gloriandi in se habeat, adiumentum ullum accedit ex aliorum societate, tanti enim quisque est, quantum sine aliorum ope ipse potest)78. The social man is instead a man without will, a man who has abdicated his research of glory and usefulness: Quamquam autem voluntas non sit ipsa voluntaria, sed tantum actionum voluntariarum principium, (non enim volumus velle, sed facere) ideoque minime cadat sub deliberationem, & pacta; tamen qui subiicit voluntatem suam alterius voluntati, transfert in illum alterum Ius virium & facul-

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T. Hobbes, De cive, cit., I.2, p. 91. T. Hobbes, De cive, cit., I.2, p. 92.

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tatum suarum, ut cum caeteri idem fecerint, habeat is cui submittitur, tantas vires, ut terrore earum, singulorum voluntates ad unitatem & concordiam possit conformare79. Having made these preliminary statements, Oakeshott observes that, thanks to the birth of the State, man overcomes the problem of fear, but at the cost of giving up happiness: The resolution suggested is one-sided: fear is allayed but at the cost of Felicity. And this is a situation to be desired only by a creature who fears to be dishonoured more than he desires to be honoured, a creature content to survive in a world from which both honour and dishonour have been removed and this is not exactly the creature Hobbes had been describing to us. In the end, it appears, all that reason can teach us is the manner in which we may escape fear, but a man compact of pride will not be disposed to accept this low-grade80. Here we are then, in the presence of a contradiction: can the fear of death silence the pride of the vanaglorious man? That pride that demands to be satisfied in order to give back some happiness? Oakeshott suggests interpreting the Hobbesian fear in symbolic terms, as a synonim of failure. We dread violent death because it is dishonourable, because it represents wounded pride. The worst thing that can happen to a man is not to die, but to die at the hand of another man: And whereas with animals the ultimate dread is death in any manner, the ultimate fear in man is the dread of violent (or untimely) death at the hand of another man; for this is dishonour, the emblem of all human failure81. In support of Oakeshotts theory, we can quote a passage, drawn from A Dialogue between a Philosopher & a Student of the Common Laws of England, where an explanation of suicide is given by saying that there exists an inner torment that is worse than death. A torment that is born of unhappiness, that is to say of not being able to satisfy the passion of desire of power:
For naturally, and necessarily the Intention of every Man aimeth at somewhat, which is good to himself, and tendeth to his preservation; And therefore, methinks, if he kill himself, it is to be presumed that he is not compos mentis, but by some inward Torment or Apprehension of somewhat worse than Death, Distracted82.
T. Hobbes, De cive, cit., V.8, p. 134. M. Oakeshott, The Moral Life in the Writings of Thomas Hobbes, cit., p. 87. 81 M. Oakeshott, The Moral Life in the Writings of Thomas Hobbes, cit., p. 82. 82 T. Hobbes, A Dialogue between a Philosopher & a Student of the Common Laws of England, edited and with an Introduction by J. Cropsey, Chicago-London, The University of Chicago Press, 1971, pp. 116-117. On suicide see H. Warrender, Il pensiero politico di Hobbes, cit., pp. 221-223; D. Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan: The Moral and Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1960, pp. 22-24; B. Stoffell, Hobbes on Self-Preservation and Suicide, in Hobbes Studies, IV, 1990, pp. 26-33.
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Suicide is the symptom of the existence of a passion that beats in intensity the passion of self-preservation. And suicide is the extreme outcome of melancholy, which is not properly a passion, but is the name that is given to a misfunctioning of the passional mechanism that regulates life, that is to say that attributes life its meaning. Madness is therefore outlined as either an excess of self-opinion or as too much vain fear and dejection83 in the Elements, and similarly in the Leviathan as a great vain-glory; which is commonly called pride, and self-conceit; or great dejection of mind84. The analysis of melancholy appears in the more general study of the passions as a pathology linked to the dominant passion. Hobbes doesnt explain what the specificity of this illness is, but he underlines that even though it may have in some cases an organic origin, it can also be just strictly passional. Hobbes doesnt suggest any possible therapies for melancholy either. It is nonetheless possible to read between the lines of the Hobbesian text, and wonder whether we can find, in the chapter where the theory of passions is expounded, an answer regarding the causes for vain glory and how to relieve it. Vain glory results from social pretence, from a false recognition of ones value that misleads. The awareness of ones abilities seems therefore to pass through the reflection in other peoples eyes. And Hobbes refers to only one cure, time and experience:
The vain-glory which consisteth in the feigning or supposing of abilities in ourselves, which we know are not, is most incident to young men, and nourished by the histories, of fictions of gallant persons; and is corrected oftentimes by age, and employment85.

Vain glory is so at the origin of melancholy, and is a passion that has a strict relation with society. Melancholy is outlined as a relational disorder, to do with social relations and with the image of self that others send back to us. The kind of melancholy analised by Hobbes is an uneasiness of which every man has had experience, it is the psychopathology of everyday life, the existential anguish that may take us after a bereavement, an abandonment, a failure. The symptoms of melancholy turn up every time the glory (or desire of power) gets frustrated. At the beginning of the XIX century, as was recently pointed out by Roy Porter86, the physician from London William Black drew up a list of diagnoses
T. Hobbes, Elements, cit., I, X, 11, pp. 63-64. T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 49. 85 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, cit., p. 38. 86 R. Porter, Mind-Forgd Manacles. A History of Madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency, London, The Athlone Press, 1987, pp. 33-34.
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of the causes of madness at the time of admission for about one third of the patients of the Bethlem asylum. In this catalogue, which regarded exclusively cases of serious madness, appeared as possible causes for illness, together with organic, hereditary and affective causes, also causes of a moral nature like for instance pride87. Blacks table shows that English medicine only at the beginning of the XIX century had codified what was already familiar to Robert Burton and Richard Napier two centuries before and to the man in the street88. Hobbes, unlike Burton, Napier and the man in the street, managed to position what was evident to everyone by direct experience into a general interpretative grid of human nature. In his system, beside the placement of morals (reduced to a movement of animal spirits), we catch a glimpse of the possibility of moral treatment for mental disorders, which consisted in the gratification of ones desire of power and therefore ones self-esteem. It will then be a Dutch doctor, Bernard Mandeville, emigrated to London in 1693, just little older than twenty, who would take up Hobbes reflections on melancholy in order to elaborate a therapy based on the word and on the recovery of the lost self-esteem89.

W. Black, A Dissertation on Insanity: Illustrated with Tables, and Extracted from between two and three thousand cases in Bedlam, London, Ridgway, 1810, p. 6: Troubles, Misfortunes, Grief 206; Religion 90; Love 74; Jealousy 9, Pride 8; Study 15; Fright 51; Drink 58; Fevers 110; Childbed 79; Obstruction 10; Family and Heredity 115; Fractures of the Skull 12; Venereal 14; Smallpox 7; Ulcers 5. 88 R. Porter, Mind-Forgd Manacles, cit., p. 33. 89 On this subject allow me to suggest the reading of M. Simonazzi, Bernard Mandeville e la cura psicologica, in Id., La malattia inglese, cit., pp. 293-411 and Id., Bernard Mandeville: le parole della melanconia, in E. Mazza - E. Ronchetti (edited by), Instruction and Amusement. Le ragioni dellIlluminismo britannico, Padova, Il Poligrafo, 2005, pp. 165-198. I wish to thank Manuela Ceretta, Marco Geuna, Gianfranco Mormino and Laura Re.
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