Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was an English philosopher whose Leviathan (1651) gave social contract theory its most influential form, making him a founder of modern political philosophy. Raised by a wealthy uncle and educated at Oxford and Cambridge, he tutored the Cavendish family.

In 1640, his Elements of Law circulating, he fled to Paris for eleven years. Among royalist exiles he wrote Leviathan, picturing the state as a giant made of men and arguing that only an undivided sovereign could end the war of all against all. Its secular spirit broke his royalist ties, and he fled to London in 1651.

After the Restoration Charles II gave him a £100 pension and shielded him from an atheism bill naming Leviathan in 1666, but he could publish nothing on human conduct afterwards. He translated Homer and died at Hardwick Hall aged 91, reportedly saying 'a great leap in the dark'.