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The Elements of Law: Manuscripts and the Short Parliament

In: Hobbes Studies
Author:
Johann Sommerville Emeritus Professor, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, jsommerv@wisc.edu

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Online Publication Date:
03 Mar 2022
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Abstract

There are eleven known manuscripts of Hobbes’s Elements of Law. As they divide on textual grounds into two groups, they are effectively two separate editions, employing two different texts. While two of the manuscripts apparently were Hobbes’s working copies, it also seems clear that he never definitively established the text of the Elements. There are reasons for thinking it unlikely that, as has been suggested, Hobbes intended the work to influence debate in the Short Parliament. More likely, he hoped his patron, Newcastle, would transmit his principles to the monarch and his chief advisors.

Title:
The Elements of Law: Manuscripts and the Short Parliament
Article Type:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/18750257-bja10045
Language:
English
Pages:
90–96
Keywords:
Thomas Hobbes; The Elements of Law; Short Parliament
In:
Hobbes Studies
In:
Volume 35: Issue 1
Publisher:
Brill
E-ISSN:
1875-0257
Print ISSN:
0921-5891
Subjects:
Intellectual History, History, Economics & Political Science, Social Sciences, Early Modern Philosophy, Philosophy, Early Modern History, Economic History

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