hobbes studies 29 (2016) 66-85

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Hobbes on ‘Conatus’: A Study in the Foundations

of Hobbesian Philosophy

Douglas Jesseph
Professor of Philosophy, University of South Florida,
Dept. of Philosophy, Tampa, fl 33620
djesseph@usf.edu

Abstract

This paper will deal with the notion of conatus (endeavor) and the role it plays in
Hobbes’s program for natural philosophy. As defined by Hobbes, the conatus of a body
is essentially its instantaneous motion, and he sees this as the means to account for a
variety of phenomena in both natural philosophy and mathematics. Although I foucs
principally on Hobbesian physics, I will also consider the extent to which Hobbes’s
account of conatus does important explanatory work in his theory of human percep-
tion, psychology, and political philosophy. I argue that, in the end, there are important
limitations in Hobbes’s account of conatus, but that Leibniz adapted the concept in
important ways in developing his science of dynamics.

Keywords

conatus – endeavor – motion – force – impetus – Descartes – Leibniz – geometry –

perception – deliberation

Hobbes was nothing if not ambitious in his claims on behalf of his philosophi-
cal program. Among other things he boasted that his approach to mathemat-
ics had made him “the first that hath made the grounds of Geometry firm and
coherent” (1656b, 21; ew 7: 242).1 He also credited himself with having been

1 I give references in the text to Thomas Hobbes, De corpore Politico; Or the Elements of Law,
Moral & Politick (London, 1650), Thomas Hobbes, Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Prima De
Corpore (London: Andrew Crooke, 1655), Thomas Hobbes, Elements of Philosophy, the First

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/18750257-02901004

Hobbes on ‘Conatus’ 67

the first thinker to produce a proper science of politics, declaring that civil
philosophy is “no older … then my own Book De Cive (dco Epistle; ew 1: ix). His
tripartite Elements of Philosophy features the treatises De Corpore, De Homine,
and De Cive, which he presented to the learned public as an exposition of a
complete philosophical system. Indeed, it seems that Hobbes chose to entitle
his system Elements of Philosophy because he credited himself with doing for
philosophy what Euclid’s Elements had done for geometry. The structure of
the three works in Hobbes’s Elements reflects his conception of the structure
of knowledge: beginning with a treatise on the nature of body, Hobbes next
proceeded to examine the nature of humans (i.e., animated, rational bodies),
and thence to a discourse on the nature of the commonwealth (i.e., the arti-
ficial body bound together by human covenants). In consequence, Hobbes’s
De Corpore – a dissertation on the nature of body – occupies the foundational
place in his system, and its foundational status is due to the fact that Hobbes
held to a strict materialism in which only body is real, so that all else must be
accounted for in terms of the action of bodies.2
Scholars who embrace what I term the “unity thesis” in their interpretation
of Hobbes take seriously his pronouncements on the relationship of depen-
dence among the parts of his system, and they base their interpretations of
his philosophy on the idea that the entire theoretical edifice should be seen
as a coherent whole.3 The strongest version of the unity thesis would have it

Section, Concerning Body (London: Andrew Crooke 1656a), Thomas Hobbes, Six Lessons to the
Professors of the Mathematiques, (London: Andrew Crooke, 1656b), Thomas Hobbes, Censura
brevis Doctrinae Wallisianae de Motu, published as an appendix to Rosetum Geometricum (Lon-
don: W. Crooke, 1671), Thomas Hobbes, Principia et Problemata aliquot Geometrica (London:
W. Crook 1674), and Thomas Hobbes, De Cive: The English Version, ed. Howard Warrander (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1983). I use the abbreviation dco for both the Latin and English
versions of Hobbes’s De Corpore (1655, 1656b) with part, chapter, and section number separated
by periods. Where necessary, a reference to the Opera Latina [Thomas Hobbes, Thomae Hobbes
Malmesburiensis Opera Philosophica Quae Latine Scripsit Omnia. Ed. William Molesworth. 5
vols. (London: Bohn, 1839–45. Reprint, Aalen, Germany: Scientia Verlag 1966a)] as (Hobbes
[1839–45] 1966a) or to Thomas Hobbes, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury,
Ed. William Molesworth, 11 vols. (London: Bohn, 1839–45. Reprint. Aalen, Germany: Scientia
Verlag, 1966b) as English Works (Hobbes [1839–45] 1966b) follows, separated by a semicolon.
References to Leviathan include Part, Chapter, and original 1651 page number separated by
periods; a reference to volume and page number of Hobbes 2012 (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan.
Ed. Noel Malcolm. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) follows after a semicolon.
2 As it happens, these three parts of the Hobbesian system were published out of order: De Cive
first appeared in 1642, De Corpore in 1655, and De Homine in 1658.
3 Malcolm’s essay “Hobbes Science of Politics”, in Noel Malcolm, Aspects of Hobbes (Oxford:
Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press, 2002), Chapter 5, offers a useful overview of the

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that the principles of Hobbesian politics can, at least in principle, be logically

derived from the principles of human psychology, which themselves may be
deduced from Hobbes’s physics or natural philosophy, which, in turn, are de-
rivable from his first philosophy. A weaker version of the unity thesis would
have it that Hobbes saw a unity of method across first philosophy, natural phi-
losophy, psychology, and politics. On this reading, there may be no hope of a
derivation of politics from Hobbes’s materialist metaphysics, but the political
theory can be seen as paralleling the reasoning that underlies the natural phi-
losophy and first philosophy.
Opposed to the unity thesis is the so-called “autonomy thesis,” according to
which Hobbes did not seriously intend that the principles of politics are close-
ly connected to his metaphysics or natural philosophy. A key bit of evidence in
support of the autonomy thesis is the fact that Hobbes published De Cive well
before De Corpore appeared; indeed, in the preface to De Cive he remarked that
his political theory could be published before his first philosophy and natural
philosophy because “I saw that grounded on its owne principles sufficiently
knowne by experience it would not stand in need of the former sections”
(Hobbes 1983, 36). Noel Malcolm and Tom Sorell are the principal proponents
of the autonomy thesis. Malcolm argues that Hobbes’s natural philosophy and
civil philosophy differ because the latter requires “not just a different level of
description [than the former] but a different kind of description: description
in terms of intentions.”4 For his part, Sorell insists that “Hobbes is too emphatic
about the differences between the bodies studied by the two chief parts of
philosophy to assimilate the method of understanding the one to the method
of understanding the other.”5
My purpose here is to investigate the role of the concept of conatus in
Hobbes’s philosophy. In doing so, I think I can lend some support to the unity
thesis, at least to the extent that we can see that a quite specifically Hobbesian

unity thesis and its variants. He credits Ryan [Alan Ryan, The Philosophy of the Social Sci-
ences (New York: Pantheon, 1970)] with the strongest version of the unity thesis and reads
Goldsmith [Maurice Goldsmith, Hobbes’s Science of Politics. (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1966)] and Watkins [J. W. N. Watkins, Hobbes’s System of Ideas: A Study in the Politi-
cal Significance of Philosophical Theories, (London: Hutchinson, 1965)] as upholding a some-
what weaker version of the thesis. In addition to these two authors, Gary Herbert [Gary B.
Herbert, Thomas Hobbes: The Unity of Scientific and Moral Wisdom, (Vancouver, bc: Univer-
sity of British Columbia Press, 1989)] and Thomas Spragens [Thomas A. Spragens, The Politics
of Motion: The World of Thomas Hobbes (Lexington, ky: University Press of Kentucky, 1973)]
also endorse versions of the unity thesis.
4 Malcolm, Aspects of Hobbes, p. 150.
5 Tom Sorell, Hobbes (London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), p. 22.

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Hobbes on ‘Conatus’ 69

concept appears in his natural philosophy, mathematics, psychology, and (per-

haps derivatively) in his politics. In the end, however, we can also find grounds
to think that the conatus concept is not capable of doing the enormous ex-
planatory work that Hobbes demanded of it.

1 Conatus Defined

The Latin term conatus derives from the deponent verb conor, meaning “to
strive, attempt, or undertake,” and Hobbes standardly renders it into English
as “endeavour” (although I will generally use the Latin term for reasons that
should become apparent). The place to begin unraveling the Hobbesian doc-
trine of conatus is with his definition of the term in Part iii, Chapter 15 of De
Corpore. It is important to recognize that this is the first chapter in Part iii of
De Corpore, and the third part of that treatise is devoted to Hobbes’s contribu-
tions to the science of geometry, under the heading of “The Proportions of Mo-
tions and Magnitudes.” Hobbes was hardly modest about his supposed contri-
butions to learning and he opened Chapter 15 with an astonishing declaration:

I thought fit to admonish the Reader, that before he proceed, he take into
his hands the Works of Euclide, Archimedes, Apollonius and other as well
Ancient as Modern Writers. For to what end is it to do over again that
which is already done? The little therefore that I shall say concerning Ge-
ometry in some of the following Chapters, shall be such onely as is new,
and conducing to Naturall Philosophy.
dco 3.15.1; ew 1: 204

His promise to deliver important new results is based on Hobbes’s confidence

that he had founded geometry on a new set of definitions that would enable
the solution of previously outstanding problems (including, of course, the
quadrature of the circle). Further, his claim that his new results will be “con-
ducing to Naturall Philosophy” highlights his fundamental belief that the key
to understanding nature is to formulate the principles of natural philosophy in
mathematical terms that describe the motions of bodies.6
Two definitions are of greatest significance in this context, namely those
of “point” and “line”. In the first two definitions of the Elements, Euclid had

6 As Hobbes famously claimed “Galileus in our time, striving with that difficulty [of the de-
scent of heavy bodies] was the first that opened to us the gate of Natural Philosophy Univer-
sal, which is the knowledge of the Nature of Motion” (dco Epistle; ew 1: viii).

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defined the point as “that which has no part,” and the line as “length without
breadth” (Euclid [1925] 1956, 1: 153).7 Hobbes found both of these problemat-
ic. The Euclidean definition of “point” encourages the mistaken notion that
a point is simply nothing, while the definition of “line” is subject to a similar
objection.8 Hobbes offered an alternative:

If when any Body is moved, the Magnitude of it be not at all considered,

the way it makes is called a line, or one single Dimension; & the Space
through which it passeth is called length; and the Body itself a point;
in which sense the Earth is called a Point, and the Way of its yearly Revo-
lution, the Ecliptick Line.
dco 2.8.12

Points, thus conceived, are bodies. Like all bodies, they have magnitude and
are divisible. What is distinctive of the point is that its magnitude is sufficient-
ly small that it can be disregarded for purposes of demonstration. Further, a
Hobbesian line is simply the path traced by a point in motion; as such, it will
have both length and breadth, but the breadth is small enough that it can be
disregarded. Hobbes’s definition of point is, in fact, very much like a physicist’s
definition of the term “particle”: a body so small that its internal structure and
the distance between any two of its parts can be disregarded.
In Hobbes’s estimation, the superiority of these definitions is twofold: first,
they ground the science of geometry in the very nature of body, and second
they reveal the causes by which geometric magnitudes are generated. He held
that demonstrative knowledge requires reasoning from causes to effects, and
by defining geometric objects such as lines, figures, and angles in terms of the
motions of points that generate them, the way is open for a genuine science of
geometry. In Hobbes’s words:

[W]here there is place for Demonstration, if the first Principles, that is

to say, the Definitions contain not the Generation of the Subject; there
can be nothing demonstrated as it ought to be. And this in the first three
Definitions of Euclide sufficiently appeareth. For seeing he maketh not,

7 Citations to Euclid [Euclid, The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s “Elements” Translated from the Text
of Heiberg, ed. and trans. Thomas L. Heath. 3. Vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1925 ; Reprint, New York: Dover, 1956)] are made within the text and refer to volume and page.
8 As Hobbes complained in his Six Lessons: “That which is indivisible is no Quantity; and if a
point be not Quantity, seeing it is neither substance nor Quality, it is nothing. And if Euclide
had meant it so in his definition … he might have defined it more briefly (but ridiculously)
thus, a Point is nothing” (Hobbes, Six Lessons, 1656b, 5; ew 7: 201).

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Hobbes on ‘Conatus’ 71

nor could make any use of them in his Demonstrations, they ought not to
be numbered among the Principles of Geometry. And Sextus Empiricus
maketh use of them (misunderstood, yet so understood as the said Pro-
fessors understand them) to the overthrow of that so much renounded
Evidence of Geometry. In that part therefore of my Book where I treat
of Geometry, I thought it necessary in my Definitions to express those
Motions by which Lines, Superficies, Solids, and Figures were drawn and
described; little expecting that any Professor of Geometry should finde
fault therewith; but on the contrary supposing I might thereby not only
avoid the Cavils of the Scepticks, but also demonstrate divers Proposi-
tions which on other Principles are indemonstrable.
1656b, Epistle; ew 7: 184–5

This should suffice for an understanding of Hobbes’s approach to geometry.9

But we now need to consider the concept of conatus and the role it plays in his
natural philosophy and geometry.
Hobbes defined conatus in the second article of Chapter 15 of De Corpore.
He wrote:

I define endeavour to be Motion made in less Space and Time then can
be given; that is, less then can be determined or assigned by Exposition
or Number; that is, Motion made through the length of a Point, and in an
Instant or Point of Time.
dco 3.15.2; ew 1: 206

Hobbes connected this definition to his idiosyncratic conception of “point”

by reminding his readers “it must be remembered that by a Point is not to be
understood that which has no quantity, … but that whose quantity is not at all
considered” (dco 3.15.2; ew 1: 206).
Conatus is therefore a “point motion” or the instantaneous velocity of a
body at given time. Although the space and time through which a body moves
in a given conatus are not at all to be considered, they must nevertheless have
some positive magnitude; moreover, it is possible to compare the magnitude
of one conatus with that of another since “if two Motions begin and end both
together, their Endeavours will be equal or Unequal according to the propor-
tion of their Velocities” (dco 3.15.2; ew 1: 206). In other words, the conatus of
a body is a finite magnitude that will stand in a given ratio to the conatus of
another body.

9 See Douglas Jesseph, Squaring the Circle: The War between Hobbes and Wallis (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1999), chapters 1–3 for more on Hobbes’s geometry.

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72 Jesseph

The term conatus did not originate with Hobbes, but his definition surely
stands out, depending as it does upon his unique understanding of the geo-
metric point. It is instructive to contrast Hobbes’s understanding of conatus
with that put forward by Descartes.10 In Part iii, Article 55 of his Principles of
Philosophy, Descartes outlined his account of light as a “tendency to motion” in
material particles, which “strive to recede from their centers [of circulation]”
(Descartes 1964–76, 8:108).11 He explained that the striving (conatus) of par-
ticles toward motion does not imply that particles possess desires that direct
them to move or even that they are actually in motion. Rather, the conatus is
understood as a tendency to motion that can be hindered by other causes:

But since many different causes often act at once on the same body, and
others may hinder the effect of one, then so far as we consider the one or
the others, we can say that the body tends or strives to move in different
directions at the same time.
Descartes 1964–76, 8:108

Descartes illustrated his treatment of conatus with the famous example of a

stone in a sling
In Figure 1, the stone A, being rotated about the center E, has two conatus:
one along the tangent ac, the other along the circular arc ab. At any given

Figure 1 Descartes’ illustration of conatus

in Principles of Philosophy, Part iii,
Article 55.

10 Tuck provides an overview of the relationship between Hobbes and Descartes, arguing
that “Hobbes’s philosophy gives the impression of having been developed as the next
move in a game where Descartes was the previous player” [Richard Tuck, ‘Hobbes and
Descartes’ in Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes, ed. G. A. J. Rogers and Alan Ryan (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1988), pp11–42, p. 28].
11 Citations to Descartes [René Descartes, Oeuvres de Descartes, eds. Charles Adam and Paul
Tannery, 11 vols. Rev. ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1964–76)] are made within the text and refer to the
volume and page.

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Hobbes on ‘Conatus’ 73

instant, neither of the tendencies to move is actualized; were the sling released,
then the inertial conatus along ac would dominate; but if the sling remains
held, the conatus along the arc will be realized. In Descartes’ analysis, there is
no actual motion associated with conatus, but only a tendency toward motion.
Hobbes, in contrast, took conatus to be an actual motion – not simply a
“tendency to motion.” He held that a mere tendency to motion which was not
actually motion itself could never bring anything about and had no place in
the true natural philosophy. As he explained in his Decameron Physiologicum
of 1678: “Endeavour, how weak soever, is also Motion. For if it have no Effect
at all, neither will it do any thing though doubled, trebled, or by what number
soever multiplied: For Nothing, though multiplied, is still Nothing” (Hobbes
1678, 21; ew 7: 87).

2 Hobbes, Conatus, and the Foundations of Natural Philosophy

I claim that the concept of conatus appears nearly everywhere in Hobbes’s phi-
losophy, but it is especially prominent in his treatment of natural philosophy.
In particular, he used the notion of conatus to define the fundamental physical
terms “impetus”, “resistance”, and “force”. I wish to work through some of these
definitions and connect them to other principles that Hobbes held to be basic
to all of natural philosophy.
Hobbes defined “impetus” (or “Quickness of Motion”) as the velocity of co-
natus, and used it to derive a version of the mean-speed theorem familiar from
Galileo’s analysis of motion.12 He declared

I define impetus, or Quickness of Motion to be the Swiftness or Veloc-

ity of the Body Moved [in conatus], but considered in the several points
of that time in which it is moved; in which sense Impetus is nothing
else but the quantity or Velocity of Endeavour. But considered with the
whole time, it is the whole velocity of the Body moved, taken together
throughout all the times, and equal to the Product of a Line represent-
ing the time multiplied into a Line representing the arithmetically mean
Impetus or Quickness.
dco 3.15.1; ew 7: 207

12 Galileo’s famous account of uniformly accelerated motion in free fall can be found in the
“Third Day” dialogue of his Two New Sciences [Galileo Galilei, Two New Sciences, Including
Centers of Gravity and Force of Percussion, edited and translated by Stillman Drake (Madi-
son, wi: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974), pp. 147–216]. For the relationship between
Hobbes and Galileo on this point, see Douglas Jesseph, ‘Galileo, Hobbes, and the Book of
Nature’ Perspectives on Science 12 (2004): 191–211.

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74 Jesseph

Figure 2 The “mean speed theorem” in Hobbes’s De Corpore, Chapter 15, Article 2.

The idea here is that, having chosen some unit of measure, we can express the
magnitude of a conatus of a uniformly accelerated body as arising over the
time ab (in Figure 2) by successive additions of impetus that correspond to
the perpendicular lines. The total area abe will be equal to the product of the
line ab and the mean impetus fg; that is to say, the rectangle abdc is equal to
the triangle abe.
The concept of conatus finds further application in Hobbes’s definition of re-
sistance as “the endeavor of one moved Body, either wholly or in part contrary
to the endeavor of another moved Body which toucheth the same,” and the def-
inition of force as “the Impetus or Quickness of Motion multiplied either into it
self, or into the Magnitude of the Movent, by means whereof the said Movent
works more or less upon the body that resists it” (dco 3.15.2; ew 7: 211, 212). Al-
though the details are somewhat problematic, the basic picture is this: a body
in motion encounters resistance to its motion when it comes into contact with
another body having a contrary conatus. Further, the force exerted by a moving
body is the product of its impetus (i.e., the magnitude of its conatus) and the
body’s magnitude or as Hobbes somewhat confusingly puts it, the square of the
impetus. With these definitions in place, Hobbes undertook to demonstrate (at
least to his own satisfaction) that in collisions involving bodies of any sizes or
speeds whatever, the colliding body will impart some impetus to a resting body
(regardless of the difference in their sizes or the minuteness of the impetus).13
From these reflections, grounded in considerations of conatus as the origin
of motion, Hobbes derived two anti-Cartesian results:

Corollary It is therefore manifest, that Rest does nothing at all, nor is of

any efficacy; and that nothing but Motion gives Motion to such things as
be at Rest, and takes it from things moved.
Corollary. They are therefore deceived, that reckon the taking away of the
impediment or resistance, for one of the causes of Motion.
dco 3.15.3; ew 1: 213

13 These results appear in dco 3.15.2.

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Hobbes on ‘Conatus’ 75

The first of these corollaries is directed against Descartes’ claim in Part ii, Arti-
cle 37 of the Principles of Philosophy that “rest is contrary to motion, and noth-
ing can be led by its own nature to its own destruction,” (Descartes 1964–76, 8:
63). This opposition between rest and motion led to Descartes’ bizarre fourth
rule of collision, according to which a quiescent body cannot be set in motion
by impact with a smaller body, regardless of the relative sizes or velocities of
the two bodies (Descartes 19674–6, 8: 69).14 As Hobbes remarked, what had
confused Descartes on this point was “that the words Rest and Motion are but
contradictory Names; whereas Motion indeed is not resisted by Rest, but by
contrary Motion (dco 2.9.7; ew 1: 125). The second corollary is directed against
the analysis of the conatus of the stone in the sling, where Descartes had rea-
soned that the removal of an impediment (such as the sling holding the stone)
could cause the stone’s rectilinear motion. Hobbes’s point is that it makes no
sense to think of conatus as a mere unactualized tendency to motion because
such a tendency has no efficacy; only actual motion (in the Hobbesian under-
standing of contatus) can bring about motion in a body.
After having defined both impetus and resistance in terms of conatus,
Hobbes employed concept of conatus throughout his treatment of natural phi-
losophy. Indeed, there is scarcely a single phenomenon in nature that Hobbes
did not ultimately characterize as arising from the contatus of one or more
bodies.15

3 Conatus and the Geometry of Quadrature

Hobbes’s employment of the concept of conatus was not confined to exam-

ining laws of motion and impact or in the explicating the phenomena of
nature. Because he took geometric objects such as points, lines, and surfaces,
to be bodies and things generated by the motion of bodies, Hobbes also held
that by considering the conatus and impetus with which surfaces are gener-
ated, it is possible to devise a general method for determining the areas of
figures.

14 See Daniel Garber, Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1992), Chapter 8 for a detailed examination of the Cartesian laws of impact.
15 For instance, the weight of a body in a beam balance is defined as “the aggregate of all
the Endeavours, by which all the points of that body which presses the Beam tend down-
wards” (dco 3.23.1); the equality of the angle of incidence and angle of reflection is dem-
onstrated from the conatus of a moving body in impact (dco 3.24.9); light is defined as
the conatus of a lucid body (dco 4.27.2); and gravitation is defined as the accumulated
conatus downward imparted to a body (dco 4.30.4).

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76 Jesseph

Figure 3 The curve αβ traced by the motion of a point.

To begin, we should note that the conatus of a moving point gives us the means
to construct a tangent to the curve traced by that point. For instance, take the
curve α β to be traced by the motion of a point (as in Figure 3). Representing
the time by “t” and the space dispatched by “s”, we can take the conatus at point
p to represent the tendency of the point’s motion; expanding or continuing
this conatus in a right line gives us the tangent to the curve at p.
The computation of areas of curvilinear figures (which was known as
“quadrature” in the parlance of the 17th century) is also enabled by employing
the analysis of motion in terms of conatus and impetus. Hobbes undertook
this project most extensively in Chapter 17 of De Corpore, where he considered
the areas of what he termed “deficient figures.” In Hobbes’s terminology, the
deficient figure abefc (in Figure 4) is generated by the motion of the line ab
through the distance ac, as ab diminishes continuously to vanish in a point
at C. The “complete figure” is the rectangle abdc, which is generated by the
motion of ab as through ac without diminishing. The complement of the de-
ficient figure is bdcfe, that is, the difference between the complete figure and
the deficient figure.
Hobbes proposed to determine the ratio of the area of the deficient figure
to its complement, given a specified rate of decrease of the quantity ab. He
argued that the sought ratio must be the same as that of the ratio between cor-
responding lines in the deficient figure and their counterparts in the comple-
ment. At Chapter 17, Article 2 of De Corpore he states the main result:

A Deficient Figure, which is made by a Quantity continually decreasing

to nothing by proportions everywhere proportionall and commensura-
ble, is to its Complement, as the proportion of the whole altitude, to an

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Hobbes on ‘Conatus’ 77

Figure 4 Deficient figures in Hobbes’s

De Corpore, Chapter 17, Article 2.

altitude diminished in any time, is to the proportion of the whole Quan-

tity which describes the Figure, to the same Quantity diminished in the
same time.
dco 3.17.2; ew 1: 247

Thus, if the rate of diminution of ab is uniform, the line abefc will be a

straight line, namely the diagonal of the rectangle, and the deficient figure will
be to its complement in the ratio of 1:1. In the case where ab decreases as the
square of the diminished altitude, the area of the deficient figure will be twice
that of its complement. And, in the general case, if the line ab decreases as the
n-th power of the diminished altitude, the ratio of the deficient figure to its
complement will be n : 1.
Hobbes’s proof of this result refers back to the discussion of conatus and im-
petus in Article 2 of Chapter 15 of De Corpore. The details of the argument can
be left aside, but the essential point is that Hobbes took the conatus by which
the line ab is diminished as represented by the right lines such as ab, ge, hi,
etc., which correspond to the impetus with which the figure is generated. Sum-
ming over all the collection of such impetus gives a measure of the area of the
figure, in exact analogy with the proof of the mean-speed theorem and other
results in the theory of motion.16

16 For more on Hobbes’s quadrature of deficient figures see Jesseph, Squaring the Circle,
pp. 104–116.

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78 Jesseph

As it happens, the result Hobbes claimed at De Corpore 17.2 is the geometric

equivalent of the theorem that 0∫a xn dx = a(n+1)/(n+1). This is not exactly a
Hobbesian innovation, as it seems to have been liberally borrowed from the
earlier work of Bonaventura Cavalieri, whose “method of indivisibles” is a pre-
cursor to the integral calculus.17 What matters for my purposes here is that
Hobbes’s procedure is unique in its employment of a highly kinematic concep-
tion of geometric magnitudes as well as the employment of the concepts of
conatus to generate the proof. There are other results Hobbes claimed in geom-
etry (notably to problems of arc-length determination and angular section),
and these depend similarly upon the use of conatus. Indeed, when Hobbes
expressed enthusiasm for his geometric contributions that he took to be “new,
and conducing to Naturall Philosophy” (dco 3.15.1; ew 1: 204), he was praising
himself for having been the first to apply the concept of conatus to the solu-
tion of longstanding geometric problems. As interesting as these other parts
of Hobbesian geometry are, I shall leave them aside to consider other ways in
which the notion of conatus figures elsewhere in his philosophy.

4 The Psychological Scope of Conatus

If Hobbes’s account of conatus were confined to his natural philosophy and

geometry, it would surely be an important concept but would not count as
anything truly fundamental to his philosophy as a whole. It is, however, no
secret that Hobbes employed the notion of conatus throughout his account
of human perception, deliberation, and motivation.18 I propose briefly to out-
line these applications of the conatus concept, with the intent of showing that
there is reason to see it as something that gives a significant unity to the entire
Hobbesian enterprise.
Hobbes remarked that “Of All the Phaenomena, or Appearances which are
neer us, the most admirable is Apparition it self,” (dco 4.25.1; ew 1: 389) and he
undertook to explain the phenomenon of apparition or sensation in his own
strictly mechanistic terms. Relying upon the a priori principles that no body

17 On Hobbes’s debt to Cavalieri see Jesseph, Squaring the Circle, pp. 112–117.
18 See Lupoli [Agostino Lupoli, ‘Power (conatus-endeavour) in the “kinetic actualism” and
in the “inertial” psychology of Thomas Hobbes’, Hobbes Studies, 14 (2001): pp 83–103] for
an account of conatus and the role it plays in Hobbes’s “inertial” psychology. Barnouw
[Jeffrey Barnouw, ‘Le vocabulaire du conatus’ in Yves-Charles Zarka, ed. Hobbes et son
vocabulaire: Études de lexicographie philosophique ( Paris: Vrin, 1992)] also emphasizes the
link between the role of conatus in Hobbes’s natural philosophy and psychology.

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Hobbes on ‘Conatus’ 79

can initiate its own motion and that all change must arise from the motion
and impact of bodies, Hobbes concluded that sensation must arise within a
sentient body as a result of its interaction with other external bodies. Appeal-
ing immediately to his conception of conatus, Hobbes argued

I have shewn (in the 2d Article of the 15 Chapter) that all Resistance is
Endeavour opposite to another Endeavour, that is to say, Reaction. Seeing
therefore there is in the whole Organ by reason of its own internal natural
Motion; some Resistance or Reaction against the Motion which is propa-
gated from the Object to the innermost part of the Organ, there is also in
the same Organ an Endeavour opposite to the Endeavour which proceeds
from the Object; so that when that Endeavour inwards is the last action in
the act of Sense, then from the Reaction, how little soever the duration of
it be, A Phantasme or Idea hath its being; which by reason the Endeavour
is now outwards, doth always appear as something situated without the
Organ. So that now I shall give you the whole Definition of Sense, as it is
drawn from the explication of the causes thereof, and the order of its gen-
eration, thus; sense is a Phantasme, made by the Reaction and endeavor
outwards in the Organ of Sense, caused by an Endeavour inwards from the
Object, remaining for some time more or less.
dco 4.25.2; ew 1: 391

The same theory is stated more succinctly in the opening chapter of Leviathan,
with the declaration that “The cause of Sense is the Externall Body, or Object,
which presseth the organ proper to each Sense, … which pressure, by the medi-
ation of the Nerves, and other strings, and membranes of the body, continued
inwards to the Brain and Heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter-pressure,
or endeavor of the heart, to deliver it self: which endeavor because Outward,
seemeth to be some matter without” (Leviathan 1.1.3; 2: 22).
Hobbes rounded out this account of sensation with treatments of motiva-
tion and deliberation that follow essentially the same line of thought. Desire
for an object is a conatus directed toward it; aversion is conatus away from an
object: “This Endeavour, when it is toward something which causes it, is called
appetite, or desire; . . . And when the Endeavour is fromward something, it
is generally called aversion” (Leviathan 1.6.23; 2: 78). An agent who deliber-
ates is one who successively experiences a conatus toward and away from a
given object:

When in the mind of man, Appetites, and Aversions, Hopes and Feares,
concerning one and the same thing, arise alternately; and divers good

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80 Jesseph

and evill consequences of the doing, or omitting the thing propounded,

come successively into our thoughts; so that sometimes we have an Ap-
petite to it; sometimes an Aversion from it; sometimes Hope to be able
to do it; sometimes Despaire or Feare to attempt it; the whole summe of
Desires, Aversions, Hopes, and Fears, continued till the thing be either
done, or thought impossible, is what we call deliberation.
Leviathan 1.6.28; 2: 90

The will, in Hobbesian terms, is nothing more than “the last Appetite, or Aver-
sion, immediately adhaering to the action, or to the omission thereof” (Levia-
than1.6.28; 2: 92).
Two consequences follow from this account of motivational psychology
and deliberation. First, there is no separate faculty of deliberation or will that
weighs options, evaluates outcomes, and chooses a course of action. In other
words, there is no “homunculus” buried within the mind that considers pos-
sible courses of action and then elects one after considering likely outcomes.
Instead, Hobbes identified deliberation with the sequence of “pro” and “con”
conatus taking place within an agent, and he identified an agent’s will, not with
a mysterious faculty of choice, but with the last conatus in the sequence, i.e.,
the one that leads to action. A second consequence of this approach is that an
appetite or aversion can only be opposed by a contrary appetite or aversion.
Just as motion can only be opposed by motion, the conatus that Hobbes iden-
tified with an appetite can only be opposed by a contrary conatus or aversion.
This means, for instance, that there is no role for reason to regulate the appe-
tites: a Hobbesian agent does not overcome the conatus to smoke a cigarette
by the appeal to reason or intellect, but only by a contrary conatus arising from
the fear of disease and early death.

5 From Psychology to Politics

Hobbes’s conception of human motivation plays a central role in his political

philosophy, particularly in his famous reasoning that proceeds from the condi-
tion of humans in a “state of nature” to the necessity of instituting a sovereign
authority.19 Hobbes considered humans as primarily motivated by two affec-

19 For a succinct account of Hobbes’s conception of the state of nature and the massive liter-
ature it has spawned, see Kinch Hoekstra, ‘Hobbes on the Natural Condition of Mankind’,
in The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan, ed. Patricia Springborg (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp 109–127.

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Hobbes on ‘Conatus’ 81

tive states: greed and fear. With respect to greed, Hobbes claimed to “put for a
generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power
after power, that ceaseth onely in Death” (Leviathan 1.11.47; 2: 150). The primary
fear, to which all others are in some degree subordinated, is fear of death, since
all humans seek to “avoid that which is Hurtful; but most of all that terrible
Enemy of Nature, Death” (Hobbes 1650, 4; ew 4: 83). The result is that there are
two basic conatus at the basis of human action: one to acquire as much power
as possible, the other to preserve oneself for as long as possible.
In the state of nature there are no constraints on human action beyond self-
preservation. Assuming relative equality of strength among humans and rela-
tive scarcity of resources, conflict between individuals is inevitable. Hobbes
describes such conflict as the result of the conatus that different people will have
toward the same object, which in turn becomes a conatus toward the destruc-
tion or subjugation of whomever stands in the way of acquiring that object:

And therefore if two men desire the same thing, which neverthelesse
they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their
End (which is principally their owne conservation, and sometimes their
delectation only,) endeavor to destroy, or subdue one another.
Leviathan 1.13.61; 2: 190

It is no accident that Hobbes writes here of the “endeavor” (or conatus) that
individuals undertake to destroy or subdue one another in the state of na-
ture. This war of all against all makes death or injury a constant threat; thus,
the combination of fear of death and the desire for “commodious living” lead
humans to adopt certain “laws of nature” that reason suggests as convenient
means to achieve peace and escape the horrors of the state of nature.20
The role of conatus in this picture is unmistakable. Hobbes’s entire argu-
ment supposes that humans are naturally driven to seek self-preservation, and
reason enters the picture only to the extent that it can devise principles of
action that promise to facilitate self-preservation. Because fear of death, the
desire for gain, and the capacity to reason are all part of human nature, the
institution of sovereignty becomes inescapable. In the same way that unsup-
ported bodies are born downward by the conatus that is gravitation towards

20 “The Passions that encline men to Peace, are Feare of Death; Desire of such things as
are necessary to commodious living; and a Hope by their Industry to obtain them. And
Reason suggesteth convenient Articles of Peace, upon which men may be drawn to agree-
ment. These Articles, are they, which otherwise are called the Lawes of Nature” (Leviathan
1.13.63; 2: 196).

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82 Jesseph

the Earth, humans in the state of nature will first be impelled into mutual con-
flict by their competing desires for scarce goods. Later, they will be ineluctably
drawn to institute a sovereign by the combined conatus of fear and greed.
We can discern the significance of conatus in Hobbes’s political theory in a
slightly different way by considering a case where a commonwealth dissolves
into disorder. The case I have in mind is one where religious zealots, misled
by ambitious clergymen, rebel against their rightful sovereign. These fools
plunge their society into the chaos of civil war in order (so they imagine) to
reap the reward of eternal life among the blessed in heaven. Here, the conatus
that would normally deter such a course of action – namely fear of death –
has been overridden by two factors: a mistaken belief that conformity to the
dictates of the sovereign will result in eternal punishment in the fires of hell,
and the desire to enjoy eternal heavenly bliss. In other words, the original co-
natus that would ensure social stability has been overcome by two others. To
secure the self-preservation of the commonwealth, it is necessary to disabuse
subjects of the mistaken notions that encourage this sort of rebellion. And, not
surprisingly, this is precisely what parts 3 and 4 of Leviathan undertake to do.
The burden of Hobbes’s analysis of the “Christian Commonwealth” in part 3 is
to show the reader that nothing in Scripture could license rebellion: there is no
immaterial or immortal soul, the torments of hell are illusory, and God would
never reward a rebel. Likewise, the description of the “Kingdome of Darknesse”
in part 4 of Leviathan serves to remind the reader that the chief threat to civil
peace arises from the pride, ambition, and deceit of misguided humans (most
notably university professors and clergymen).

6 Conclusion

What does the omnipresence of conatus in Hobbes’s philosophy say about the
unity of his thought? I doubt that there is any hope of producing a chain of
derivations from Hobbes’s first philosophy, through his natural philosophy,
then by way of his psychological theory, to arrive at a science of politics. Thus,
the very strongest version of the unity thesis strikes me as implausible. Further,
the mere fact that Hobbes uses the term conatus (or the English “endeavor”)
across a wide variety of philosophical contexts does not, by itself, show that
the concept is necessarily foundational or that it imparts a significant unity to
Hobbes’s thought. Still, it is clear that conatus plays a very important explana-
tory role in the Hobbesian program. In particular, it is the appeal to conatus that
lies at the root of Hobbes’s causal explanations in natural philosophy, geom-
etry, psychology, and politics. The philosopher from Malmesbury claimed that

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“this saying of Aristotle is true: “to know is to know through causes” (Hobbes
1674, 3; ol 5: 156), and he intended this to apply to any field of knowledge. In
his scheme there are only mechanical causes, but it is the appeal to conatus
that ultimately grounds all of his causal explanations. To that extent, at least,
it makes sense to see the Hobbesian concept of conatus as giving a non-trivial
unity to his thought.
It is, of course, well known that the concept of conatus was developed and
applied by Hobbes’s two great philosophical successors, Spinoza and Leibniz.
Here, however, there is a noteworthy lack of unity in the application of the co-
natus concept. In part iii of his Ethics, Spinoza argued that the essence of any
finite mode – human minds included – is the conatus to persevere in being,
and the doctrine of conatus occupies a central place in his account of human
nature.21 But Spinoza had little or no interest in the applications of conatus to
mathematics or natural philosophy.
Leibniz, in contrast, took Hobbes’s doctrine of conatus and made it central
to his science of dynamics; moreover, his approach to the infinitesimal calcu-
lus bears a strong resemblance to Hobbes’s approach to quadrature and the
determination of tangents.22 However, the psychological and political appli-
cations of the concept are significantly less prominent in Leibniz’s thought.
Thus, where conatus appears throughout Hobbes’s first philosophy, geometry,
natural philosophy, psychology, and political theory, neither Spinoza nor Leib-

21 See Della Rocca [Michael Della Rocca, ‘Spinoza’s metaphysical psychology’ in The Cam-
bridge Companion to Spinoza, ed. Don Garrett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), pp. 192–266] and Garrett [Don Garrett, ‘Spinoza’s Conatus Argument’ in Spinoza:
Metaphysical Themes, ed. Olli Koistinen and John Biro (New York: Oxford, 2002), pp 127–
158] for important studies on Spinoza’s doctrine of conatus and its role in is account of
human motivation and action.
22 See Bernstein [Howard R. Bernstein, ‘Conatus, Hobbes, and the Young Leibniz’, Studies
in History and Philosophy of Science 3 (1980), pp 451–467] and Carlin [Laurence Carlin,
‘Leibniz on conatus, causation, and freedom’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85 (2004),
pp 365–379] for studies on Leibniz’s treatment of conatus and its Hobbesian background.
Garber [Daniel Garber, ‘Leibniz: physics and philosophy’ in The Cambridge Companion to
Leibniz, ed. Nicholas Jolley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp 270–352]
gives an overview of Leibniz’s approach to the philosophical foundations of physics,
where the concept of conatus has a fundamental role. Jesseph [Douglas Jesseph, ‘Truth
in Fiction: Origins and Consequences of Leibniz’s Doctrine of Infinitesimal Magnitudes’
in Infinitesimal Differences: Controversies between Leibniz and his Contemporaries, ed.
Ursula Goldenbaum and Douglas Jesseph (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), pp 215–234] studies
the origins of Leibniz’s account of infinitesimals and its relationship to Hobbes’s geom-
etry of quadrature.

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niz grant it such tremendous scope. This suggests that we should see Hobbes’s
treatment of conatus as something like the ultimate explanatory principle.
There is one significant point that arises when we contrast the Leibnizian
and Hobbesian notions conatus, and this is the question of whether Hobbes’s
account of conatus can really do the work that he requires of it. As we have
seen, conatus is defined simply as “directed point motion.” But Hobbes defines
motion, in turn, as nothing more than a body’s transition from one place to
another.23 How, one might well demand, can a simple, passive transition from
place to place ever bring anything about? And why should a very small transi-
tion from one place to another (i.e., conatus) have anything like causal power?
This was Leibniz’s question, when he insisted that there must be more to the
foundations of mechanics than the mere concept of extension and motion,
and that some notion of force or power must be introduced to give physics the
appropriate metaphysics.
The issue can be illustrated by considering two versions of the inertial prin-
ciple in De Corpore, which Hobbes derived from the definition of conatus. The
original Latin version reads:

Quod quiescit, semper quiescere intelligitur, nisi sit aliud aliquod corpus
praeter ipsum, quo supposito quiescere amplius non possit.
dco 2.8.19; ol 1: 102

In contrast, the 1656 English version declares:

Whatsoever is at Rest, will always be at Rest, unless there be some other

body besides it, which, by endeavouring to get into its Place by motion,
suffers it no longer to remain at Rest.
dco 2.8.19, ew 1: 115

You will notice that the second version attributes some kind of power to the
impinging body that “endeavors” to get into the place of the original body;
in the first version, however, there is nothing to account for the mechanism
whereby a second body might initiate motion in a resting body. To put the mat-
ter another way, the original Latin of the inertial principle states that a body
at rest will remain at rest unless a vague condition is satisfied (namely that
there is some other body, the supposition of which makes it impossible for the

23 At dco 2.8.18 Hobbes writes ‘”motion, is a continual relinquishing of one Place, and ac-
quiring of another” (ew 1: 109). Likewise, in the Decameron Physiologicum he declares
“Motion is nothing but change of place” [Thomas Hobbes, Decameron Physiologicum: Or,
Ten Dialogues of Natural Philosophy (London: W. Crook 1678), pp 16–17; ew 7: 85].

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Hobbes on ‘Conatus’ 85

original body to remain at rest); but English version surreptitiously introduces

some kind of power or force beyond mere motion. Alas, for Hobbes, there is
nothing in the foundations of his philosophy that can ground something like
an active principle of force or power.
This problem can be illustrated by examining some of Hobbes remarks on
the nature of gravitation. In his 1671 critique of John Wallis’s Mechanica, he
declared:

Both gravity as well as motive force are a certain conatus, that is the begin-
ning of a motion: but the one is in a body moving, and the other in a body
that has moved: and conatus is the same thing to motion that a point is
to a line.
Hobbes 1671, 5; ol 5:56

That is to say, gravitation is a certain conatus by which an unsupported body

is borne downwards. But the conatus is simply a tiny motion, so this amounts
to saying that gravity is nothing more than a tiny motion of a body toward the
earth. Thus, the explanation for why a heavy body descends turns out to be
the very fact that it is in motion. In this context, it is useful to recall Hobbes’s
dismissal of Scholastic accounts of gravity in Leviathan:

The Schools will tell you out of Aristotle, that the bodies that sink down-
wards, are Heavy; and that this Heavinesse is it that causes them to de-
scend: But if you ask what they mean by Heavinesse, they will define it to
bee an endeavour to goe to the center of the Earth: so that the cause why
things sink downward, is an Endeavour to be below; which is as much to
say, that bodies descend, or ascend, because they doe.
Leviathan, 4. 46. 375; 3: 1086

We therefore find Hobbes in something of a conceptual difficulty. In 1651 he

insisted that it was unintelligible and explanatorily useless to define heaviness
or gravity in terms of an endeavor toward the center of the Earth. And he later
defined gravity in precisely the terms he had once condemned.
The source of the difficulty here is that Hobbes intended conatus to be ac-
tive and causally efficacious while defining it strictly in terms of motion, with-
out reference to any force, power, or agency. The result is a concept that is of
enormous importance throughout Hobbes’s philosophy, but one that cannot
do the work Hobbes required of it. In the end, it seems that Leibniz was right:
no theory of the world that posits only extended bodies in motion can be com-
plete unless bodies are endowed with elementary active powers.

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