They briefly challenged the divine right of kings to rule before they were crushed by Oliver Cromwell, but their political theory lived on to influence later generations leading up to the American Revolution 140 years later.The lower image is the title page of a Leveller tract by John Lilburne, Regall Tyrannie Discovered (London, 1647). These views were vigorously challenged by groups within the parliamentary army most notably by the so-called 'Levellers' who were the first group to argue for the natural rights of individuals (especially property), religious toleration, and elected parliaments which were responsible to the people. He stands above the two pillars of his power: the army (the column on the left) and the established church (on the right). He is thus also literally the “head” of state. His body is literally the “body politic” as it is made up of millions of his subjects. Above is the famous frontispiece of his book The Leviathan (1651) which shows the Leviathan (or the absolute monarch) wearing a crown and holding a sword (a symbol of military power) and a crosier (of religious power). Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) argued for a powerful absolute monarch ('The Leviathan') who could keep order and provide essential government services. John Lilburne (1647)ĭuring the upheavals of the English Civil War when the divine right of the English monarchy was challenged by Parliament, the king executed, and a Commonwealth under Cromwell instituted, there was vigorous debate about the kind of government which should be instituted. In my view, however, few interpreters take seriously enough Hobbes's own fundamental dictum that 'truth consisteth in the right ordering of names' and that reason is nothing other than 'reckoning, that is adding and subtracting, of the consequences of general names.' I propose to show that citizens have both an absolute obligation to obey the sovereign in every respect and without any exception whatsoever and, at the same time, certain inalienable rights of self-defense further, that Hobbes can argue this without any contradiction whatsoever and finally, that the right to self-defense is, in Hobbes's thought, very broad indeed, and forms the basis for a fullscale theory of legitimate revolution, or at least its functional equivalent.The Divine Right of Kings or Regal Tyranny? Thomas Hobbes (1651) vs.

Numerous commentators have sought to show not so much how Hobbes can have it both ways-they generally agree that he can't-but, rather, what he must have meant. Hobbes appears to argue both that the sovereign of a commonwealth has complete authority over the commonwealth's subjects and that each and every subject has a right to resist the sovereign in order to save his or her own life.

Hobbes 1651