Don Paul Abbott

“Eloquence is Power:”
Hobbes on the Use and Abuse of Rhetoric

Abstract: Thomas Hobbes is a severe critic of rhetoric but he is

also a careful student and skillful practitioner of the art of per-
suasion. Many critics have therefore argued that Hobbes’s views of
rhetoric are both conflicted and inconsistent. In contrast, I argue that
Hobbes’s conception of rhetoric displays remarkable consistency.
While he rejects the abuses of rhetoric abundant in political oratory
he nevertheless embraces the power of eloquence. In Leviathan
Hobbes reconciles his appreciation of eloquence with his distrust
of oratory by refashioning rhetoric into a private, rather than public
art, which fulfills many of the traditional duties of rhetoric.

Keywords: Leviathan, Aristotle, Cicero, political oratory

erhaps no philosopher has a more complicated relation-

P ship with rhetoric than Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679).
Hobbes was intimately acquainted with rhetoric: his A
Briefe of the Art of Rhetorique (1637) was the first English translation
of Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Yet in later works, including De Cive (1642), El-
ements of the Law (1650), and Leviathan (1651), Hobbes proves a severe
critic of rhetoric. In De Cive Hobbes says that the nature of rhetoric is
“to make that seem just, which is unjust.” This is an inherent defect of
rhetoric “whose property is not to inform, but to allure” and whose
end is not truth but “victory.” Yet despite his recurrent criticism of
rhetoric Hobbes’s greatest work, Leviathan is a masterful example of
the art of rhetoric.

I thank Tina Skouen and Timothy Raylor for their very helpful comments on earlier
versions of this paper.

Rhetorica, Vol. XXXII, Issue 4, pp. 386–411, ISSN 0734-8584, electronic ISSN 1533-
8541. ©2014 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights re-
served. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article
content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website,
at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/RH.2014.32.4.386.
“Eloquence is Power” 387

The seeming contradictions in his statements on rhetoric have

led to a variety of interpretations to account for Hobbes’s stance
toward rhetoric. At least three largely incompatible explanations
have emerged. One assessment is that Hobbes, who indisputably
began his career as a humanist, later abandoned humanism, and
rhetoric, and instead embraced mathematical and scientific meth-
ods of knowledge. A second interpretation agrees that Hobbes
rejected rhetoric but then argues that he returned to it, and in-
deed embraced it, in his later writings. And yet another view con-
tends that while Hobbes certainly had reservations about rhetoric,
he rejected neither rhetoric nor humanism, and remained commit-
ted to both throughout his life. Thus scholars have conclusively
demonstrated that Hobbes was a rhetorician or an anti-rhetorician
—or both.1
The explanations of Hobbes’s position on rhetoric have been
inevitably varied because, as Victoria Kahn says, “in the age-old de-
bate between rhetoric and philosophy,” “Hobbes wants to have it
both ways. He wants to formulate a political science that will be
grounded on truth, but will also be persuasive.”2 Like other philoso-
phers before him, Hobbes can be both a severe critic and a skillful
practitioner of rhetoric. In performing both roles he is remarkably
constant; that constancy can perhaps best be expressed in his state-
ment early in Leviathan: “eloquence is power.” 3 Unfortunately, elo-
quence is not necessarily a power for good. The power of rhetoric can
be used to enliven the truth or to destroy the state. Because the conse-
quences of rhetoric’s misuse are so severe, Hobbes is most consistent
in condemning political oratory. But this unswerving condemnation
does not mean that Hobbes rejects all rhetoric; rather he believes
when removed from the realm of political debate rhetoric can be
quite useful. And so in Leviathan Hobbes reaches an accommodation
with the art he so often denounces by formulating a conception of
rhetoric that is compatible with his political philosophy. He accom-
plishes this by relocating deliberative discourse from the assembly

1
The literature on the subject of Hobbes and rhetoric is extensive. It is beyond
the scope of this essay to present a comprehensive literature review. Rather, I intend to
trace, in broad outline, an important and persistent debate among Hobbes scholars
regarding his debt and fidelity to the rhetorical tradition.
2
Rhetoric, Prudence, and Skepticism in the Renaissance (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1985),165.
3
Leviathan: Or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and
Civill. Ed. Ian Shapiro (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), X, 55. All subsequent
references to Leviathan are to this edition and will be cited parenthetically in the text.
388 RHETORICA

to the council chamber and reassigning the functions of the ora-

tor to the “councilor.” In so doing he preserves much of rhetoric’s
classical functions, while at the same time significantly altering the
performance of those functions. He was perhaps led to this accom-
modation because “rhetoric is power” and to have utterly forsaken
rhetoric would have prevented him from using that power for his
own purposes. For Hobbes, rhetoric may be never fully trustworthy,
but it is powerful and thus necessary for the advancement of the
commonwealth.
In order to better understand Hobbes’s binary view of rhetoric
I begin with a consideration of Hobbes’s evolving place in the rhetor-
ical tradition. I then examine key texts in which Hobbes develops
his interpretation of rhetoric. These texts include translations of clas-
sical works, political treatises, a history of the English civil wars,
and finally, Leviathan. I conclude with a reappraisal of the continu-
ity of Hobbes’s rhetorical program and its place in the humanistic
traditions of rhetoric.

Hobbes and the Rhetorical Tradition

Hobbes’s place in the history of rhetoric was initially secured by

the first translation of Aristotle’s Rhetoric into English.4 Yet the result,
A Briefe of the Arte of Rhetorique, is an abbreviated and idiosyncratic
translation of Aristotle’s treatise that sometimes seemed to deserve
little more than a footnote in the history of rhetoric.5 Thus in his
influential Logic and Rhetoric in England: 1500–1700 (1956) Wilbur S.
Howell can discover no “major theories” of rhetoric in seventeenth-
century England and so relegates Hobbes, together with Francis
Bacon, Barnard Lamy, and Joseph Glanvill, to the status of minor

4
The exact nature of Hobbes’s role in the preparation of this translation is a
matter of some uncertainty. It has long been thought that Hobbes’s student, William
Cavendish, the third Earl of Devonshire, may have translated the treatise under
Hobbes’s direction. Quentin Skinner, citing an unpublished work by Karl Schuh-
mann, declares that the Briefe is not the work of Hobbes. See Skinner, Hobbes and
Republican Liberty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 5, n.20. Whether
the translation was done by Hobbes or by his student under his direction, it is likely
that the Briefe reflects Hobbes’s view of Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Moreover, it is clear that
whatever the circumstances of the translation, Hobbs’s place in the history of rhetoric
was initially secured by his association with the Briefe.
5
Brief of the Arte of Rhetorique. The Rhetorics of Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Lamy,
ed. John T. Harwood (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986).
“Eloquence is Power” 389

contributors to rhetorical theory.6 In Hobbes’s translation Howell

finds corroboration for his thesis that “modern” rhetoricians (as well
as Aristotle) advocate a plain style in discourse and are, therefore,
hostile to figurative language. According to Howell, Hobbes’s trans-
lation shows “how far Aristotle opposes a fine or unnatural style for
oratory.”7 Howell quotes with approval Aristotle’s advice to orators
to use the resources of the poet with care “for else hee will be thought
to speake unnaturally, and not as he thinks; and thereby be the lesse
believed” (Briefe, 109). Thus Howell concludes that Hobbes “lent in-
fluence to the theory that the tropes and figures, as a great system
of violations of normal ways of speaking, were not an acceptable
imperative for learned discourse.”8 Howell arrives at this conclusion
by implying that Hobbes has Aristotle say little else about figura-
tive language despite the Briefe’s inclusion of much of Aristotle’s
discussion of metaphor.9 Thus in Howell’s estimation Hobbes’s sole
contribution to rhetoric is merely that of an interpreter of Aristotle.
Although Howell concludes that Hobbes’s translation of the
Briefe is a relatively minor contribution to seventeenth-century rhe-
toric, Leo Strauss, in The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (1936), recog-
nizes the Rhetoric as a major contributor to the thought of Hobbes.
Strauss identifies Hobbes as “a zealous reader, not to say a disciple of
the Rhetoric.”10 “It would be difficult to find another classical work,”
he says, “whose importance for Hobbes’s political philosophy can
be compared with that of the Rhetoric.”11 Strauss demonstrates that
Hobbes’s lengthy treatments of the passions in the Elements of the
Laws, Leviathan, and De homine are deeply indebted to the Rhetoric.12

6
Logic and Rhetoric in England: 1500–1700 (New York: Russell and Russell, 1961),
364.
7
Logic and Rhetoric, 388.
8
Logic and Rhetoric, 388.
9
Indeed, contrary to Howell’s suggestions, Hobbes’s Aristotle does recommend
the use of metaphor: “An Orator, if hee use Proper words and Received, and good
Metaphors; shall both make his Oration beautifull, and not seem to intend it; and shall
speak perspicuously. For in a Metaphor alone there is perspicuity, Novity, and sweet-
nesse” (Briefe, 109). While Hobbes would later express reservations about metaphoric
language, there is little in the Briefe to suggest that either Hobbes or Aristotle believe
that orators must eschew metaphoric language.
10
Strauss, Leo. The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1952), 35.
11
Political Philosophy, 35.
12
Strauss documents in detail Hobbes’s reliance on the Rhetoric and identifies
“the 8th and 9th chapters of the first part of the Elements, the 10th chapter of the
Leviathan, and the 11th , 12th , and 13th chapters of De homine” as showing the particular
390 RHETORICA

His concern is in the Rhetoric’s contribution to Hobbes’s political

theory rather than Hobbes’s contribution to rhetorical theory. Never-
theless, Strauss makes clear that Hobbes continued to be a disciple of
the Rhetoric long after the completion of the Briefe.13
After Strauss scholars increasingly recognized that not only Aris-
totle’s rhetoric but the entirety of the rhetorical tradition exerted a
pervasive influence on Hobbes’s philosophy.14 Miriam Reik makes
“the case for importance of the rhetorical tradition in Hobbes’s work”
arguing that early in Hobbes’s career rhetorical humanism “had the
significance of being practical. It was intimately tied up with that
fluency and ease in the learned languages and that copiousness of
expression which never failed him and which qualified him to be a
man of letters in a Latinate age.”15 She then quotes Foster Watson
on the influence of a rhetorical education on Englishmen: “if there
is one school subject which seems to have preeminently influenced
the writers, statesmen and gentlemen of the 16th and 17th century, in
their intellectual outfit in afterlife, probably the claim for this leading
position may justly be made for Rhetoric and the Oration.”16
While there is no dispute that Hobbes was well schooled in
rhetoric and oratory, there is considerable disagreement about how
long this “intellectual outfit” continued to exercise influence over
him. Thus some scholars argue that Hobbes “broke” with his hu-
manist inheritance at about forty years of age. This “break debate’”

influence of Aristotle. He then presents parallel passages from these works and
the Rhetoric which dramatically demonstrate the depth of Hobbes’s indebtedness
to Aristotle’s treatise (Political Philosophy, 36–41).
13
Despite his “zealous reading” of Aristotle Hobbes cannot be considered an
Aristotelian. On differences between Aristotle and Hobbes on rhetoric’s relation to
politics see Tom Sorell, “Hobbes’s UnAristotelian Political Rhetoric,” Philosophy and
Rhetoric (1990), 96–108: also useful is James Zappen, “Aristotelian and Ramist Rhetoric
in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan: Pathos versus Ethos versus Logos,” Rhetorica (1983),
65–91: Zappen concludes that “Hobbes’s rhetorical method defies strict classification
as Aristotelian, Ramist, anti-Ramist, or counterreformist. It is a composite of materials,
adapted to problems immediately at hand, both historical and theoretical (90).”
14
William Sacksteder’s Hobbes Studies (1879–1979): a Bibliography (Bowling Green,
OH: Philosophy Documentation Center, Bowling Green State University, 1982) in-
cludes only six entries about Hobbes and rhetoric. However, since about 1975 the
scholarship on the subject has increased enormously with rhetoricians, philosophers,
political scientists, literary historians, and other contributing to the understanding
of Hobbes as a theorist and practitioner of rhetoric.
15
The Golden Lands of Thomas Hobbes (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1977),
29–30.
16
The English Grammar School to 1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1908; reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1968), 440.
“Eloquence is Power” 391

as Gary Remer calls it, has had a significant influence on the scholarly
interpretation of Hobbesian rhetoric.17 The occasion of that break, if
it occurred at all, was Hobbes’s accidental discovery of Euclidean
geometry. John Aubrey, his biographer, recounts that Hobbes “being
in a gentleman’s library Euclid’s Elements lay open, and ‘twas the
forty-seventh proposition in the first book. He read the proposition.
‘By G,’ said he, ‘this is impossible!”’18 Upon further reading he be-
came convinced of the truth of the proposition and, says Aubrey, “this
made him in love with geometry.”19 The result, as Quentin Skinner
argues, was that “during the 1630s Hobbes not only turned away
from the studia humanitatis; he also turned against the humanistic
disciplines, and above all against the idea of an art of eloquence.”20
Although Hobbes turned away from rhetoric, Skinner believes he
returned to it in the Leviathan where “he undoubtedly exhibits a new
willingness in this final version of his civil philosophy to combine
the methods of science with the persuasive force of eloquence.”21 So
complete was this return to rhetoric, says Skinner, that in Leviathan
Hobbes provides readers “with a detailed reassessment of the art of
rhetoric and its constituent elements.”22
Not all observers accept Skinner’s conclusion that Hobbes ulti-
mately experienced reconciliation with rhetoric. Bryan Garsten de-
nies that Leviathan can be construed as part of the humanist tradition.
Garsten concedes that “Hobbes believed that eloquence would make
his arguments more attractive, but that fact alone is not enough to
make Leviathan a ‘contribution to’ or an ‘endorsement of’ the Renais-
sance rhetorical tradition.”23 Rather, “the new function of Hobbe-
sian rhetoric was to minimize uncertainty and controversy. The new
rhetoric moved men to act according to the dictates of science. It mo-
tivated and managed, but it did not invent arguments of its own.”24
In Garsten’s view, Hobbes turns rhetoric into merely “a servant of
science” and thus any reconciliation was illusory.

17
Humanism and the Rhetoric of Toleration (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1996), 177–79.
18
Aubrey, John. A Brief Life of Thomas Hobbes, 1588–1679. (http://oregonstate.edu
/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/hobbes life.html).
19
Brief Life.
20
Rhetoric and Reason in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1996), 256.
21
Rhetoric and Reason, 342.
22
Rhetoric and Reason, 356.
23
Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2006), 29.
24
Saving Persuasion, 28.
392 RHETORICA

Garsten and Skinner disagree about whether or not Hobbes re-

turned to the rhetorical fold after the presumed break, while other
scholars deny that the break ever occurred. Reik argues that “even
after Hobbes made politics a subject for science, there was no ‘break’
in its relation to rhetoric as he saw it in his early years.”25 David
Johnston, likewise, maintains that Hobbes’s “new fascination with
the axiomatic method and its explanatory potential did not in any
sense constitute a rejection of the rhetorical tradition that had shaped
Hobbes’s thinking during the first forty years of his life. The ideas
and interests he had inherited from that tradition continued to con-
tribute to the formation of his political thought throughout the rest
of his life.”26
In scholarly estimation Hobbes’s position in the rhetorical tradi-
tion has progressed from that of a minor contributor to a major figure
in seventeen-century rhetoric. Yet the persistence of the “break de-
bate” illustrates the difficulty in determining with precision whether
Hobbes’s role in that tradition is that of a rhetorician or an anti-
rhetorician. Indeed, Hobbes corpus has proven notoriously resistant
to interpretation on many subjects. Deborah Baumgold writes that
the “idiosyncrasies of Hobbes’s composition process, together with
a paucity of reliable autobiographical materials and the norms of
seventeenth-century manuscript production render the interpreta-
tion of his political theory particularly difficult and contentious.”27
Because Hobbes’s political and rhetorical theories are intertwined, it
is unavoidable that interpretations of his position on rhetoric would
be similarly contentious. Hobbes certainly contributes to the inter-
pretive challenge by seemingly suggesting he is at once both a friend
and an enemy of rhetoric, a man who eschews and embraces the art
of persuasion. It is, then, time to let Hobbes speak for himself about
eloquence.

25
Golden Lands, 52.
26
The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 23.
27
“The Difficulties of Hobbes Interpretation,” Political Theory (2008): 827.
“Eloquence is Power” 393

Truth and Elocution: Hobbes’s Thucydides

Hobbes’s earliest publication is his translation of Thucydides’

History of the Peloponnesian War (1629).28 Thucydides’ History, with
its attention to great orators and its reconstructions of their speeches
offers Hobbes the perfect text for an explication of rhetoric. And so
from the very beginning of Hobbes’s career his conception of rhetoric
begins to emerge. Like Cicero many centuries earlier, Hobbes recom-
mends Thucydides in part because of the rhetorical nature of the
History.29 “The principal and proper work of history,” says Hobbes,
is “to instruct and enable men, by the knowledge of actions past, to
bear themselves prudently in the present and providently toward the
future” (6). Thucydides’ History, in particular, contains “profitable in-
struction for noblemen, and such as may come to have the managing
of great and weighty actions” (4). Thus for Hobbes history performs
the traditional deliberative function of directing future actions. And
Thucydides is especially skilled at providing this “profitable instruc-
tion” because of his own study and practice of the art of rhetoric.
Hobbes observes that Thucydides was “the disciple of Antiphon” a
man whose “power of speech was almost a miracle” and who was
“feared by the people for his eloquence” (12). As a result of studying
with Antiphon

Thucydides was sufficiently qualified to have become a great dema-

gogue, and of great authority with the people. But it seemeth he had
no desire at all to meddle in the government: because in those days it
was impossible for any man to give good and profitable counsel for the
commonwealth, and not incur the displeasure of the people . . . such
men only swayed the assemblies, and were esteemed wise and good
commonwealth’s men, as did put them upon the most dangerous and
desperate enterprises.
12–13

28
Hobbes’s Thucydides, ed. Richard Schlatter (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1975). All subsequent references to Hobbes’s translation are to this edition and
will be cited parenthetically in the text.
29
See On the Ideal Orator, trans. James M. May and Jacob Wisse (Oxford: Ox-
ford University Press, 2001), II, 51–64a. Antonius says that “among the Greeks . . .
the most eloquent people, being far removed from such public activities [in the
forum], applied their energies not only to every other splendid subject, but espe-
cially to the writing of history” (138). He continues to say that Thucydides “eas-
ily surpassed everyone in his skillful use of language. His tightly packed content
makes him so dense that the number of his ideas almost equals the number of his
words” (138).
394 RHETORICA

Hobbes greatly admires Thucydides in large measure because,

while he possessed great rhetorical ability, he chose not to display
that skillfulness in the assembly but rather in the more dispassionate
pages of a history. In Hobbes’s estimation the deliberative process of
Greek democracy was flawed and Thucydides was therefore prudent
to avoid participation. Hobbes regards Thucydides’ refusal to partic-
ipate in political debate as symptomatic of the historian’s antipathy
toward Greek democracy:
“. . . it is manifest that he least of all liked the democracy. And upon divers
occasions he noteth the emulation and contention of the demagogues for
reputation and glory of wit . . . the inconstancy of resolutions, caused by
the diversity of ends and power of rhetoric in orators; and the desperate
actions undertaken upon the flattering advice of such as desired to
attain, or hold what they had attained, of authority and sway amongst
the common people.” 13

For Hobbes, democracy is a system in which ambitious leaders

gain and maintain power by slavishly praising those they pur-
port to lead. The Athenians, says Hobbes, were especially suscep-
tible to this demagoguery because they “thought they were able to
do anything,” and so “wicked men and flatters drave them head-
long into those actions that were to ruin them” (13). Foremost
among these “wicked men” was Cleon, “a most violent sycophant
in those times, and thereby a most acceptable speaker amongst the
people” (15).
In contrast to the sycophantic orators of Athens, Thucydides dis-
tinguished himself by offering wise counsel enhanced by a rhetori-
cian’s skill. Thucydides, says Hobbes is “the most politic historiog-
rapher that ever writ” because “he filleth his narrations with that
choice of matter, and ordereth them with that judgment, and with
such perspicuity and efficacy expresseth himself, that, as Plutarch
saith, he maketh his auditor a spectator. For he setteth his reader in
the assemblies of the people and in the senate, at their debating; in
the streets, at their seditions; in the field, at their battles” (7). As a
stylist Thucydides excels in what Hobbes calls (translating Aristo-
tle) “animation:” “that expression which makes us seeme to see the
thing before our eyes.”30 This ability to create visual imagery provides
the oration with the grace and delightfulness necessary to ensure that
the audience “apprehends and learnes easily.”31 Hobbes has no doubt

30
Briefe, 116.
31
Briefe, 115. “Animation” is Hobbes’s rendering of energeia and the English term
captures the dynamic quality of Aristotle’s concept: “energeia is motion.” Aristotle, On
“Eloquence is Power” 395

that Thucydides’ rhetorical skill was essential for him to provide wise
counsel to his readers. “Two things,” says Hobbes, are apparent in
Thucydides’ writings: “truth and elocution. For truth consisteth the
soul, and in elocution the body of history. The latter without the for-
mer, is but a picture of history; and the former without the latter,
unapt to instruct” (16).
The lessons to be learned from the History are obviously remi-
niscent of the familiar beginning of De Inventione where Cicero ob-
serves that “wisdom without eloquence does too little for the good
of states, but that eloquence without wisdom is generally highly
disadvantageous.”32 Cicero himself seems to have Thucydides’ ac-
count in mind a few lines later as he confesses that when reviewing
“the ancient misfortunes of mighty cities, I see that no little part of
the disasters was brought about by men of eloquence.” Translating
Thucydides must have helped convince Hobbes that political orators,
“men of eloquence,” were responsible for disastrous consequences in
both ancient Athens and early modern England. And an important
part of Hobbes’s political program, beginning with his translation of
Thucydides (though he would rarely invoke the authority of Cicero),
is to find a way to achieve a union of wisdom and eloquence in his
own time. Thucydides is instructive in this effort because, unlike the
reckless orators he chronicles, he achieves eloquence by combining
truth and elocution in a unified and edifying narrative. He is able to
do so, according to Hobbes, only because he avoids the impetuous-
ness of political oratory for the contemplative medium of history. For
Hobbes, then, rhetoric may not discover the truth, but in the proper
hands it can place truth before the eyes of those who need to see it.

Hobbes’s Aristotle

Hobbes’s translation of Thucydides was followed by the render-

ing of another ancient text, the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Hobbes him-
self provides ample testimony to the importance he attaches to the
Rhetoric. While he is often a severe critic of Aristotle, the Rhetoric
remained the exception to his distrust of the philosopher.33 Aubrey

Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, trans. George Kennedy (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1991), 1411b, 249.
32
Trans. H. M. Hubbell, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), I.i.1.
33
In Leviathan Hobbes says “scare any thing can be more absurdly said in
natural Philosophy, than that which is now called Aristotles Metaphysiques; nor more
repugnant to Government, than much of that hee hath said in his Politiques; nor more
ignorantly, than a great part of his Ethiques” (XVVI, 402–03).
396 RHETORICA

recalls having “heard him say that Aristotle was the worst teacher
that ever was, the worst politician and ethic - a country fellow that
could live in the world as good; but his rhetoric and discourse of ani-
mals was rare.”34 William Crooke, Hobbes’s publisher, reports that
“Mr. Hobbes chose to recommend by his Translation the Rhetoric of Aris-
totle, as being the most accomplish’d work on that Subject, which the World
has yet seen, having been admir’d in all Ages, and in particular highly
approv’d by the Father of Roman Eloquence, a very competent Judge.”35
A Briefe of the Art of Rhetorique is not only an English translation
of a “most accomplished work,” but it is also a particular kind of
translation.36 In the subtitle of the Briefe Hobbes tells us that this is
a work “containing in substance all that Aristotle hath written in his
Three Bookes on that subject.” In other words, this is work is what
early modern readers would recognize as an epitome, a translation
which captures the essence of a classical text. In The Scholemaster
Roger Ascham recommends the epitome as a method for teaching
Latin to English boys.37 And of course the Brief began as just such a
pedagogical exercise intended to perfect the Latin skills of Hobbes’s
student, William Cavendish.
John Harwood observes that the subtitle also indicates that
“while undeniably a translation, the work is also interesting as
a ‘reading’ and an interpretation of Aristotle.”38 Indeed, it is this
translation that provides Hobbes with his fundamental definition
of rhetoric—a definition that Hobbes returns to again and again
throughout his career. Hobbes renders Aristotle’s definition of rhe-

34
Aubrey, Brief Life.
35
“To the Reader,” the preface to The Art of Rhetoric, with a Discourse of the Laws
of England, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmsbury, vol. 6, ed. William
Molesworth (London: Bohn, 1839), 422. This preface is not included in Harwood’s
edition of the Briefe.
36
The presumed text for this translation is Hobbes’s earlier Latin translation
from the Greek text (Harwood, “Introduction,” 2). The first printed translation of the
Rhetoric in England is Theodore Goulston’s Latin translation, Aristotlis de Rhetorica seu
arte Dicendi Libre Tres (1619). Harwood notes that Hobbes’s Latin version is “perhaps
one-third the length of Theodore Goulston’s more scholarly Latin translation” (2).
37
Ascham, Rodger. The Scholemaster. Renascence Editions. http://www.luminarium
.org/renascence-editions/ascham1.htm. Ascham gives the epitome a qualified recommen-
dation: “Epitome, is good priuatelie for himself that doth worke it.” However, the
condensed nature of the epitome may mean that readers who have not themselves
translated the text may not fully appreciate the classical work.
38
Harwood, “Introduction,” 13. Harwood’s introduction is an invaluable guide
to the Briefe. Among other things Harwood meticulously details where Hobbes varies
from John Freese’s English translation, The “Art” of Rhetoric (13–23). Harwood also
contrasts differences between Goulston’s and Hobbes’s Latin texts (5).
“Eloquence is Power” 397

toric in this way: “Rhetorique is that Faculty, by which wee understand

what will serve our turne, concerning any subject, to winne belief in
the hearer.”39 A little later he adds that “the end of Rhetorique is
victory; which consists in gotten belief.”40 Harwood notes that “this
sentence is not in Aristotle and is an important interpretation of the
function of rhetoric.”41 Indeed, Hobbes, by consistently defining the
end of rhetoric as “victory” or “winning” appears to be parting com-
pany with Aristotle. For Hobbes rhetoric is not merely the discovery
of possible means of persuasion, but is the act of persuasion itself. Ab-
sent, too, from Hobbes’s translation is Aristotle’s assurance that “the
true and the just are by nature stronger than their opposites” and
thus if competently presented the truth should prevail.42 Hobbes,
however, offers no reassurance that truth possesses any inherent
advantage over falsehood.
Skinner views this interpretation of Aristotle’s definition the
inception of Hobbes’s “misgivings about humanist rhetorical cul-
ture.”43 Yet, of course, Hobbes had already expressed reservations
about the rhetorical culture of ancient Greece in his translation of
Thucydides. In particular, Skinner objects to what he sees as Hobbes’s
claim that “rhetoric is a purely self-serving art” because it is dedicated
to the success of the speaker.44 Yet Hobbes’s definition is certainly
consistent with the agonistic nature of classical rhetoric as a contest
between competing advocates in the courts and the assemblies each
seeking to win forensic and legislative victories. And the need to
“gain over the hearer” is implicit in Aristotle’s Rhetoric.45
Nevertheless, Hobbes’s emphasis on the speaker’s success is suf-
ficiently distinct from Aristotle’s conception of rhetoric that it proba-
bly cannot be attributed to the vagaries of translation. Definitions are
fundamental to Hobbes’ system and it is unlikely that he would not
have exercised care in defining rhetoric. Science itself is “the Knowl-
edge of the consequences of words,” and so knowledge must begin
with the definitions of words (Leviathan, VIII, 42). Therefore Hobbes
argues that “it is for any man that aspires to true knowledge to ex-
amine the Definitions of former Authors; and either to correct them,
where they are negligently set down, or to make them himself” (IV,

39
Briefe, 40.
40
Briefe, 41.
41
Briefe, 41. See note 5.
42
1355a, 34.
43
Rhetoric and Reason, 256.
44
Rhetoric and Reason, 257.
45
1354b, 32, for example.
398 RHETORICA

24). So in defining the end of rhetoric as victory rather than the finding
of possible persuasive means Hobbes may very well be attempting
to correct the definition of a “former author.” Hobbes may have felt
the need to offer a “corrected” definition to enlist Aristotle’s corrobo-
ration of Hobbes’s own conclusions about the unfortunate excesses
of political oratory. This definition is not the only point in the Briefe
where Hobbes’s adds a phrase to Aristotle that supports Hobbs’s po-
litical predilections. Harwood concludes that Hobbes engaged in “a
pattern of politically expedient additions.”46 Thus in discussing the
ends of the types of government Hobbes the Briefe says that the end
of monarchies “is the safety of the people” even though that phrase is
not found in Aristotle.47 By thus defining the end of oratory as victory
and the goal of monarchy as the people’s safety Hobbes has managed
to secure Aristotle’s endorsement of his own political preferences.
The definition of rhetoric found early in the Briefe becomes
Hobbes’s definition and he continues to employ it in his later
works. Thus in De Cive Hobbes says the end of eloquence “(as all
the Masters of Rhetorick teach us) is not truth (except by chance)
but victory.”48 Later, in The Elements of Law he says “eloquence is
nothing else but the power of winning belief of what we say.”49
This victory, or “winning belief of what we say,” results from the
speaker’s skillful use of opinion rather than a rigorous adherence
to truth. Here Hobbes agrees with Aristotle that the material of
rhetoric is “commonly held opinions [endoxa].”50 In Chapter 3 of
the Briefe the translation reads “the Principles of Rhetorique out of
which enthymemes are to be drawn; are the common opinions that
men have . . .” A few lines later this is reiterated: the “in Rhetorique
the Principles must be common opinions, such as the judge is al-
ready possessed with.”51 These common opinions, in turn, primar-
ily derive from “the passions of the Hearer,”52 “for the begetting
of opinion and passion is the same act.”53 Thus Hobbes’s con-

46
Briefe, “Introduction,” 21.
47
50. Italics original.
48
De Cive: The English Version entitled in the first edition Philosophical Rudiments
Concerning Government and Society, ed. Howard Warrender (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1983), X.xi, 137.
49
The Elements of Law, Natural & Politic, ed. Ferdinand Tönnies (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1928), II.8.14, 140.
50
Rhetoric, 1355a, 33.
51
41.
52
69.
53
Elements, I.13.7, 52.
“Eloquence is Power” 399

ception of rhetoric as the art of securing victory by manipulat-

ing opinions and passions is the result of his own “reading” of
Aristotle. And it is this view of the end of eloquence as victory
that serves to inform his subsequent writing on both rhetoric and
human nature.
The work of Strauss led to a recognition that Hobbes’s sig-
nificance as rhetorician extended well beyond his translation of
Aristotle’s text. Yet as the pervasiveness of rhetoric in Hobbes’s
works has been increasingly documented, the importance of Aris-
totle’s rhetoric on Hobbes’s thought has at times seemingly di-
minished. Despite Hobbes’s translation of the Rhetoric and his tes-
timony to the work’s exceptional value, the influence of Aristo-
tle’s Rhetoric on Hobbes’s understanding of that art continues to
be underestimated. Thus Anat Biletzki, after a brief account of
the Briefe, concludes that “in trying to ascertain Hobbes’s views
on rhetoric, and more important, their implications for his social
and political theory, it is questionable whether reading a techni-
cal manual on rhetoric and then trying to extrapolate from that
to Hobbes’s motivations and more general views is profitable or
even dependable.”54 On the contrary, I believe that it is both prof-
itable and dependable to carefully consider Hobbes’s rendering
of the Rhetoric for, as he makes it clear throughout his works
that rhetoric and politics are inseparable. It is the early trans-
lations of Thucydides and Aristotle, then, that lay the founda-
tion of Hobbesian rhetoric and its implications for government—a
foundation upon which his subsequent understanding of rhetoric
is constructed.

Rhetoric, Politics, and Civil War

Rhetoric deals in passions and opinions and therein lies its

power, but so too its potential for great evil. Nowhere is this malevo-
lent prospect more apparent than in politics and therefore much of
Hobbes’s condemnation of rhetoric is aimed, not at rhetoric gener-
ally, but at political oratory specifically. Hobbes identifies oratory as
a principal cause of the tensions between Parliament and Monarchy
which resulted in civil war, regicide, and interregnum. In varying
degrees all of Hobbes’s works are dedicated to restoring order in a

54
Talking Wolves: Thomas Hobbes on the Language of Politics and the Politics of Language
(Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997), 158.
400 RHETORICA

time of disorder and to ensuring the permanence of stability. Hobbes,

a monarchist and an absolutist, attributes much of the responsibil-
ity for the crises to the inherent weaknesses of democratic systems
which attempt to resolve complex controversies through public de-
bate. Hobbes notes that “some will say, That a Popular State is much
to be preferr’d before a Monarchicall; because that, where all men
have a hand in publique businesses, there all have an opportunity
to shew their wisedome, knowledge, and eloquence, in deliberating
matters of the greatest difficulty and moment.”55 But, in fact, public
debate is a fundamental weakness of popular assemblies because
every member of such body
holds it necessary to make a long continued Speech, and to gain the more
esteem from his Auditours, he polishes, and adornes it with the best,
and smoothest language. Now the nature of Eloquence is to make Good
and Evill, Profitable and Unprofitable, Honest and Dishonest, appear
to be more or lesse then indeed they are, and to make that seem just,
which is unjust, according as it shall best suit with his end that speaketh.
For this is to perswade; and though they reason, yet take they not their
rise from true Principles, but from vulgar received opinions, which, for
the most part, are erroneous.56

Given the inherent weaknesses of popular deliberation there

is always the potential that the process will lead to sedition and
revolution. “There can be no author of rebellion,” says Hobbes, “that
is not an eloquent and powerful speaker, and withal . . . a man of
little wisdom.”57 Hobbes’s favorite example of eloquence without
wisdom—an example he cites in both De Cive and The Elements of
Law–is the figure of Cataline, the foremost “artist in raising seditions,”
by virtue of his having “great eloquence, and little wisdom.”58 This
unfortunate combination, so apparent in Cataline, obviously applies
to the politicians of the seventeenth century for inevitably “folly
and eloquence concurre in the subversion of government.”59 Thus,
according to Hobbes, any powerful orator with an absence of wisdom
“can turn their Auditors out of fools into madmen.”60
Nothing so illustrates the ability of orators to turn “fools into
madman” so much as the experience of the English Civil War. Be-

55
De Cive, X.ix, 136.
56
De Cive, X.xi, 137.
57
Elements, II.9.14, 141.
58
De Cive XII.xii, 154, Hobbes’s italics. Compare Elements of Law, II.8.13, 139.
59
De Cive XII.xiii, 155, Hobbes’s italics.
60
De Cive XII.xii, 154.
“Eloquence is Power” 401

hemoth, written in 1668 and published in 1681, is Hobbes’s history

of the causes of the civil wars of England, and of the counsels and arti-
fices by which they were carried on from the year 1640 to the year 1660.61
Much like the Athenians long before them, the English were undone
by ambitious political orators. Unlike the Athenians, however, the
politicians of England were abetted by another group of ambitious
men: the preachers of radical Protestantism. Thus both sanity and the
monarchy were assaulted by the combined voices of “democratical
gentlemen” and Presbyterian ministers.
In Hobbes’s view the ministers were at least as culpable in the
provoking the civil war as were the politicians. Both groups had
been equally deluded by their common university education. “For
it is a hard matter for men,” says Hobbes, “who do all think highly
of their own wits, when they have also acquired the learning of the
university, to be persuaded that they want any ability requisite for
the government of commonwealth, especially having read the glo-
rious histories and the sententious politics of the ancient popular
governments of the Greeks and the Romans, amongst whom kings
were hated and branded with the name of tyrants, and popular gov-
ernment (though no tyrant was ever so cruel as a popular assembly)
passed by the name of liberty” (Behemoth, 192–93). These educated
individuals, “scholars, obscure men that could receive no clarity but
from the flame of the state” brought “their unnecessary disputes, and
together with them their quarrels, out of the universities and into the
commonwealth” (242).
Once these arcane controversies were released from the confines
of the universities and introduced into popular discourse they caused
consternation, confusion, and ultimately chaos. Preachers, in partic-
ular, used their learning and “the cloak of Godliness” to mislead
the people (196–97). The common people, says Hobbes, “are terrified
and amazed by preachers” (252) who use this “artifice” “to make the
people believe they were oppressed by the King, or perhaps by the
bishops, or both” (196). “And this,” Hobbes concludes “was the most
effectual calumny, to alienate the people’s affections from him [the
King], that could possibly be invented” (239).
In this calumny the Presbyterian ministers were assisted by
“democratical gentlemen” who advanced “the design of changing
the government from monarchical to popular, which they called lib-

61
The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmsbury, vol. 6, ed. William Molesworth
(London: Bohn, 1839). All subsequent references to Behemoth are to this edition and
will be cited parenthetically in the text.
402 RHETORICA

erty” (196). This design was advanced by Parliament where “impru-

dence in democratical assemblies does almost all that is done; it is
the goddess of rhetoric, and carries proof with it” (250). That proof
comes from the universities where gentlemen “are furnished with
arguments for liberty out of the works of Aristotle, Plato, Cicero,
Seneca, and out of the histories of Rome and Greece” (233). Cicero,
in particular, is singled out for blame because like English parlia-
mentarians Cicero’s actions were “vainglorious” and selfish. Hobbes
even suggests that Augustus may have been justified “in abandoning
Cicero to the fury of his enemy Antonius” because Cicero “had done
Augustus no service at all out of favour to him, but only out of enmity
to Antonius, and out of love to the senate, that is indeed out of love to
himself that swayed the senate” (253). For Hobbes, then, Cicero was
no martyr for the Republic but merely little more than a self-serving
egotist.
While Hobbes condemns the precedents provided by ancient
rhetoric, he is equally censorious of ancient philosophy, for it was
philosophers who provided orators with the “received opinions”
necessary to subvert the monarchy. And Aristotle, of whose philoso-
phy Hobbes had long been critical, receives special condemnation:
“for none of the ancient philosophers’ writings are comparable to
those of Aristotle, for their aptness to puzzle and entangle men with
words, and to breed disputation. . .” (215). But Medieval philoso-
phers rival the ancients in their useless disputations. Hobbes de-
scribes Peter Lombard and John Duns Scotus as “two of the most
egregious blockheads in the world, so obscure and senseless are
their writings. These two schoolmen offer “distinctions that sig-
nify nothing, but serve only to astonish the multitude of ignorant
men” (214).
The misguided fondness for the contentious and the incompre-
hensible derives directly from the universities, which Hobbes identi-
fies as “the core of the rebellion” (236). Yet despite their seditiousness
the universities are not to be “cast away, but to be better disciplined”
(236). Disciplined and reformed universities would teach “true pol-
itics” that makes men know “it is their duty to obey all laws whatso-
ever that by the authority of the King be enacted” (236). Those so
educated would be able to persuade others in turn of the necessity
of order for, says Hobbes “men may be brought to a love of obe-
dience by preachers and gentlemen that imbibe good principles in
their youth at the Universities” (237). That is, educational institutions
should assume a rhetorical function on behalf of political order. And
so while Hobbes blames “preachers and gentlemen” for the chaos
“Eloquence is Power” 403

of civil war, this same educated elite could employ their pulpits and
platforms to return England to a “lasting peace” (237).

Leviathan and the Uses of Rhetoric

In Behemoth Hobbes recounts failures of oratory in the English

state; in Leviathan he contemplates the possibilities of eloquence
contributing to the ideal commonwealth. Not surprisingly, then,
Leviathan is often seen as Hobbes’s most rhetorical work. Skinner
says this masterpiece is “a work of rhetoric” “in which the humanist
ideal of a union between reason and rhetoric is not merely defended
but systematically realized.”62 Hobbes rarely invokes Cicero when
discussing rhetoric nor is he sympathetic to “the old Philosopher,” so
it is perhaps unexpected that in Leviathan he “systematically realizes”
the union of wisdom and eloquence (XVVI, 402). But Hobbes’s anal-
ysis of the civil “commotions” in Behemoth is a clear testament to the
disastrous consequences of the separation of wisdom and eloquence.
And so in the best Ciceronian fashion he holds out the possibility
of reuniting the two for the benefit of the commonwealth:
in all deliberations, and in all pleadings, the faculty of solid reasoning
is necessary: for without it, the resolutions of men are rash, and their
sentences unjust: and yet if there be not powerful eloquence, which
procureth attention and consent, the effect of reason will be little.
“Review,” 38963

Reason and eloquence are, says Hobbes, “contrary faculties,” but

this does not mean that the two cannot both be employed by the same
individual: “Judgement and fancy may have place in the same man;
but by turns; as the end which he aimeth at requireth.” It is indeed
possible, then, that reason and eloquence “may stand very well
together. For wheresoever there is place for adorning and preferring
of error, there is much more place for adorning and preferring of truth,
if they have it to adorn” (“Review” 423). Hobbes confesses that “I
have known clearness of judgement, and largeness of fancy; strength
of reason, and graceful elocution; a courage for the war, and a fear for
the laws, and all eminently in one man.” That one man was Sidney

62
Rhetoric and Reason, 5.
63
This citation is to the final unnumbered section of Leviathan entitled “A Review,
and Conclusion.”
404 RHETORICA

Godolphin, brother of Francis, to whom Hobbes dedicated Leviathan

(“Review,” 423). Thus while uninformed eloquence undermines the
commonwealth, it need not be so, for informed eloquence, while rare,
is indeed possible.
In Leviathan Hobbes recognizes that rhetoric can be an instru-
mentality “to obtain some future apparent Good” (X, 53). Or, as
he says more succinctly: “eloquence is power” (X, 55). Eloquence
is power because “it is seeming Prudence” (X, 55). Prudence itself,
or at least the reputation of prudence, is also power “because to
prudent men, we commit the government of ourselves, more will-
ingly than to others” (X, 55). Hobbes, in equating the appearance
of prudence with the acquisition and exercise of power, appears to
be embracing the Aristotelian concept of ethos. Persuasion occurs,
says Aristotle, “through character whenever the speech is spoken
in such a way to make the speaker worthy of credence.”64 Indeed,
Aristotle goes so far as to say that character is very nearly “the con-
trolling factor in persuasion.”65 And prudence is one of the three
key elements of character identified by Aristotle and included in
Hobbes’s translation: “For a man is believ’d either for his Prudence or
for his Probity, which are Vertues; or for good will: of which among
the Passions.” 66 Hobbes by distinguishing between “reputed” pru-
dence and “seeming” prudence is also maintaining Aristotle’s re-
quirement that ethos “should result from the speech, not from a pre-
vious opinion” of the speaker.67 Thus those able to create an image
of prudence through discourse are more likely to realize the power
of eloquence.
Unfortunately, Hobbes’s histories of Greek and English wars
demonstrate that the prudential are not always persuasive and the
victorious are not always the virtuous. For Hobbes, then, rhetoric
is power, but not necessarily a power for good. On the contrary,
it is an instrumentality that has often contributed to the already
fractious nature of humankind. In particular, rhetoric in the po-
litical arena is given to excesses that can be detrimental, even

64
Rhetoric 1356a, 38.
65
1356a, 38.
66
Briefe, 69. Compare Kennedy’s translation: “a person having all these qualities
[practical wisdom, virtue, good will] is necessarily persuasive to the hearers . . . The
means by which one might appear prudent and good are to be grasped from an
analysis of the virtues; for a person would present himself as being of a certain sort
from the same sources that he would use to present another person; and good will
and friendliness need to be described in a discussion of the emotions” (1378a, 121).
67
1356a, 38.
“Eloquence is Power” 405

destructive, to the commonweal. Political orators, seeking imme-

diate action on contentious matters are irresistibly drawn to the
most powerful, and thus the most dangerous, resources of rhetoric.
Hobbes’s obvious revulsion at the excesses of political orators ap-
pears in his earliest works and remains a consistent theme through-
out his career. Yet his criticism of oratory is considerably tem-
pered in Leviathan where he recognizes that, when removed from
the context of political debate, rhetoric can be useful, even neces-
sary, to achieve “some future apparent good.” And Hobbes him-
self would certainly employ the resources of rhetoric when he be-
lieved it necessary. But in what situations is the use of eloquence
necessary?
Hobbes appears to desire a political system without political or-
atory, while yet recognizing the advisory function of deliberative
speeches remains necessary. Hobbes therefore proposes to remove
the functions of deliberation from the orator and reassign them to
the “counselor.” “Counsell,” says Hobbes, “is where a man saith,
Doe this, or Doe not this, and deduceth his reasons from the bene-
fit that arriveth by it to him to whom he saith it” (Leviathan, XXV,
154). Thus counsel is similar to “exhortation” and “dehortation”
(XXV, 154) which comprise Aristotle’s conception of “deliberative
advice.” Such advice, he says in the Rhetoric, “is either protrep-
tic [“exhortation”] or apotreptic [“dissuasion”]; for both those ad-
vising in private and those speaking in public always do one or
the other of these.”68 Hobbes recognizes Aristotle’s two functions
of deliberation, but restricts counsel’s realm to “advising in pri-
vate.” However, the private adviser, unlike the orator, must not en-
gage in exhortation or dehortation for these are “Counsell vehemently
pressed” (Leviathan, XXV, 154 [italics original]). A man who exhorts
does not

“tye himself therein to the rigour of true reasoning; but encourages him
he Counselleth, to Action: As he that dehorteth, deterreth him from
it. And therefore they have in their speeches, a regard to the common
Passions, and opinions of men, in deducing their reasons; and make
use of Similitudes, Metaphors, Examples, and other tooles of oratory, to
perswade their Hearers of the Utility, Honour, or Justice of following
their advise.”
Leviathan, XXV 154–55

68
1358b, 48.
406 RHETORICA

Thus the counselor must avoid the devices of rhetoric and should
instead

propound his advise, in such form of speech, as may make the truth
most evidently appear; that is to say, with as firme ratiocination, as
significant and proper language, and as briefly, as the evidence will
permit. And therefore rash, and unevident Inferences; . . . obscure, confused,
and ambiguous Expressions, also all metaphoricall Speeches, tending to the
stirring up of Passion . . . are repugnant to the Office of a Counsellour.”
Leviathan, XXV, 156 [italics original].

Counsel, therefore, must occur in private for public debate can

quickly become inflammatory. “In an Assembly of many” there will
be those

whose interests are contrary to that of the Publique; and these their In-
terests make passionate, and Passion eloquent, and Eloquence drawes
others into the same advice. For the passions of men, which asunder
are moderate, as the heat of one brand; in Assembly are like many
brands, that enflame one another, (especially when they blow one an-
other with Orations) to the setting of the Common-wealth on fire, under
the pretence of Counselling it.
Leviathan, XXV, 157–58

Private advising is also superior to public discourse because it

permits interchange between the counselor and the sovereign: “when
the Speech is addressed to one, he may interrupt him, and examine his
reasons more rigorously, than can be done in a Multitude; which are
too many to enter into Dispute, and Dialogue with him that speaketh
indifferently to them all at once” (Leviathan, XXV, 153). Thus advice
delivered in private invites discussion and reasoned discourse just
as it avoids the polarization of positions inherent in when speakers
contest in public.
The true counselor therefore, unlike the orator, must provide his
guidance far away from the emotional environment of assembled
politicians. Hobbes believes that orators are so consumed by van-
ity and obsessed with victory that they are incapable of providing
disinterested counsel. And the “Ends, and Interest” of a counselor,
says Hobbes, must “be not inconsistent with the Ends and Interest of
him he Counselleth (Leviathan, XXV, 156 [italics original]). With po-
litical orators incapable of providing prudent advice, someone else
must assume the role of counselor and Hobbes indicates who might
undertake this duty:
“Eloquence is Power” 407

“I recover some hope, that one time or other, this writing of mine, may
fall into the hands of a Soveraign, who will consider it himselfe, (for it
is short, and I think clear,) without the help of any interessed, or envious
Interpreter; and by the exercise of entire Soveraignty, in protecting the
Publique teaching of it, convert this Truth of Speculation, into the Utility
of Practice.”
Leviathan, XXXI, 221

Thus Hobbes the philosopher would become a counselor offering

the most private advice—that of a writer to a reader. In his capac-
ity as a would-be advisor Hobbes apparently does not believe he
is obligated to eschew the “tooles of oratory” he had so thoroughly
condemned. The image of the “Artificial Man,” “that great Leviathan
called a Commonwealth or State” demonstrates Hobbes’s unwilling-
ness or inability to discard the “toole” of metaphor (Leviathan, “The
Introduction,” 9). Yet of all the figures of rhetoric none is more dis-
trusted by Hobbes than metaphor. The use of metaphor and other
figures in reasoning can only lead to “absurdities.” Because, he de-
clares, “in reckoning, and seeking of truth, such speeches are not to be
admitted” (Leviathan, V, 31). Hobbes concludes that “metaphors, and
senseless and ambiguous words are like ignes fatui; and reasoning
upon them is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities; and their
end, contention and sedition, or contempt” (Leviathan, V, 32). Yet in
spite of his aversion to metaphor he also consistently recognizes, as
he says in Leviathan, that “powerful eloquence” is necessary to ensure
the effectiveness of reason. In his introduction to Thucydides’ History
Hobbes praises both the truth and the elocution of Thucydides’ nar-
rative. Hobbes particularly admires the historian’s ability to cause
his readers to visualize what his narrative describes. This ability is
Aristotle’s energeia, or “animation,” as Hobbes renders it in the Briefe:
“that expression which makes us seeme to see the thing before our
eyes.”69 In Hobbes’s estimation Thucydides excels in setting “before
men’s eyes the ways and events of good and evil counsels, that the
narration itself doth secretly instruct the reader, and more effectively
that can possibly be done by precept” (Hobbes’s Thucydides, 18).
But Aristotle makes clear that a principal method of achieving
energeia is to employ metaphors and similes. Thus an aspect of elocu-
tion of which Hobbes approves, visualization, is in part dependent
upon an aspect of which he distinctly disapproves, metaphor. Hobbes
seems to recognize this incongruity and concedes that similes, at

69
116.
408 RHETORICA

least, have a role in engaging the imagination. “In Demonstration, in

Councell, and in all rigourous search of Truth, Judgement does all” he
says, “except sometimes the understanding have need to be opened
by some apt similitude; and then there is so much use of Fancy. But
for Metaphors, they are in this case to be utterly excluded” (Leviathan,
VIII, 45). Hobbes follows his own advice and uses similes to provide
his arguments with greater force and clarity. Perhaps ironically, he
employs the simile of conflagration to caution his readers about the
dangers of emotional oratory. In Leviathan he says that “the Passions
of men, which asunder are moderate, as the heat of one brand; in the
Assembly are like many brands, that enflame one another” (Leviathan,
XXV, 157, [emphasis added]). Hobbes had used the image of inflam-
mation earlier in the Elements of Law: men “that are singly moderate,
are altogether vehement: even as a great many coals, though but
warm asunder, being put together inflame one another.”70 Hobbes
could have simply described the emotional effects of individuals
assembled together with geometrical neutrality but instead he ob-
viously finds it more compelling to invoke the “apt similitude” of
conflagration to ensure his readers will “see” the dangers of political
oratory.
The difficulty for Hobbes is that by employing similes he is
closely approaching the metaphorical language he so often con-
demns. Hobbes was certainly aware of the close correspondence
between simile and metaphor, a relationship so intimate that Aris-
totle declares that “a simile is also a metaphor; for there is little
difference.”71 In the Briefe Hobbes includes Aristotle’s discussion of
the distinction: “A Similitude Differs from a Metaphor only by such
particles of Comparison, as these, As; Even as; So; Even so, &c. A Simili-
tude therefore is a Metaphor dilated.”72
But Hobbes does more than merely approach metaphoric lan-
guage—he fully embraces it. His ideal commonwealth is not like “the
Great Artificial Man,” it is the Leviathan. His rejection of metaphor
and his own mastery of it are not readily reconcilable. But a partial
explanation may be found in his habitual association of political ora-
tors and the emotions those orators incite. Thus Hobbes warnings
against the “tooles of oratory” and “metaphoricall speeches” are di-
rected at both oratory and metaphor. Hobbes may have concluded

70
II.v., 111.
71
1406b, 229.
72
110.
“Eloquence is Power” 409

that metaphor, like simile, when expressed in private (or in print)

and without passion, was an acceptable device for the counselor to
employ in advancing the interests of the sovereign and the common-
wealth. Of course, Hobbes may have simply found it expedient, if not
irresistible, to exchange simile for metaphor in his desire to convert
philosophical speculation into political practice.

Conclusion

Hobbes was a persistent, if equivocal, critic of rhetoric from his

earliest writings to his final works. Thus in A Dialogue between a
Philosopher and a Student, of the Common Laws of England (1681), a work
that Alan Cromartie calls his “final word about political questions,”
Hobbes once again both dismisses and embraces rhetoric.73 Early
in this dialogue the philosopher maintains that all a lawyer “has
need of [is] a faculty to wrest the sense of words from their true
meaning; and the faculty of Rhetorick to seduce the jury . . ., and
many other Arts, which I neither have, nor intend to study.”74 But
later in the dialogue the philosopher asks the lawyer to tell him
which sorts of Christians were “most likely to afford the fittest men to
propagate the Faith by Preaching, and Writing, or Publick or private
Disputation?” The lawyer replies that it is obviously those who
“make the best use of Aristotle’s Rhetorick, and Logick.”75 Despite
his earlier dismissal of rhetoric the philosopher, much like Hobbes
himself, readily accepts the lawyer’s endorsement of eloquence. Thus
Hobbes’s attitude toward rhetoric late in his career remains consistent
with that presented decades earlier: the unscrupulous orator may
make the just appear unjust but the prudent counselor will “make
the truth most evidently appear.”
But it is not until Leviathan that Hobbes is finally able to find
a way to unite wisdom and eloquence in a manner that is com-
patible with his political system. The result is a curiously Cicero-
nian vision in which Cicero is not invoked and from which ora-
tory is absent. To be sure the removal of rhetoric from the politi-
cal assemblies is a fundamental departure from traditional rhetoric.

73
A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student, of the Common Laws Of England,
ed. Alan Cromartie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), “Introduction,” xiv.
74
Dialogue, 11.
75
Dialogue, 95.
410 RHETORICA

Yet in Hobbes’s political system, the orator, now refashioned as

the counselor, continues to perform the crucial deliberative func-
tions of deliberative oratory. In doing so, the counselor is empow-
ered to use virtually all the resources of rhetoric in the service of
political order. Indeed, in the monarchical “common-wealth” the
counselor becomes as important as was the orator in ancient re-
publics.
And much like Cicero’s orator-statesman, Hobbes’s counselor
represents an ideal agent equipped to safeguard “the safety of count-
less individuals and of the State at large.”76 For in Leviathan Hobbes
is confronting a problem that had also preoccupied many ancient
rhetoricians: how to prevent the power of rhetoric from being per-
verted by the skillful but unscrupulous orator. In a passage that
seems to anticipate Hobbes, Cicero says that “if we put the full re-
sources of speech at the disposal of those who lack” integrity and
good sense “we will certainly not make orators of them, but will put
weapons into the hands of madmen.”77 The ancient preventative to
“arming madmen” had been, in various ways, to craft an education
that would endow the orator with the wisdom and virtue necessary
to ensure that eloquence would be employed for the benefit of the
state. So Cicero had advocated that the orator acquire “all-embracing
knowledge” of such disciplines as history, politics, and above all,
philosophy. Unlike Cicero, Hobbes has no confidence that educa-
tion, especially a philosophical one, would be sufficient to create an
ideal orator. Indeed, as he demonstrates in Behemoth, university ed-
ucated men were some of the greatest abusers of political oratory.
The passionate nature of men cannot be ameliorated by education
alone. And human emotions are an “inconvenience” of democratic
debate because “the passions of many men be more violent when
they are assembled together.”78 And Hobbes distrusted eloquence
because in England he had seen men “assembled together” employ
it to “cut the commonwealth in pieces.”79 Thus rhetoric could only
be rehabilitated if it were removed from the assembly and relocated

76
De oratore I.34–35, 65.
77
De oratore II.55, 239.
78
Elements II.5.4, 111. In Elements II.5 Hobbes presents the “conveniences and
inconveniences,” that is, the advantages and disadvantages of the three forms of
government: democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. An important “convenience” of
monarchy is its relative imperviousness to the appeals of the passions, an advantage
that drives largely from the absence of political oratory in such a system. Elements
II.8.14, 140.
79
II.5.3, 110.
“Eloquence is Power” 411

behind the doors of the council chamber. But resituating rhetoric

allows it to function in its principal manner—to provide advice to
the state and to allow the continuation of the political order. By so
relocating it, Hobbes establishes an important role for rhetoric in the
monarchy.
That Hobbes found a place for deliberative rhetoric in his com-
monwealth does not mean that he changed his mind about the dan-
gers posed by political oratory. In Behemoth, composed after Leviathan,
Hobbes presents some of his most strident condemnation of rhetoric
in the assembly. In Leviathan, however, he finds a way to limit the in-
herent “inconveniences” of political oratory and thereby permitting
eloquence to function as it should and in a way he had long admired.
For the role of the counselor, much like the historian Thucydides is
“to instruct and enable men, by the knowledge of actions past, to
bear themselves prudently in the present and providently toward
the future” (6). And the counselor, also in the manner of the histo-
rian offers “profitable instruction for noblemen” while avoiding the
“inconveniences” of “democratical” assemblies.
In the Elements of Law Hobbes remarks, with apparent contempt,
that “democracy is but the government of a few orators.”80 And while,
throughout his career, he consistently scorns both democracy and
its orators, his disdain does not result in his complete rejection of
rhetoric. After all, in his ideal state he could do away with democ-
racy, but not so rhetoric for its deliberative functions proved too
valuable to discard. Ultimately, then, Hobbes neither fully rejects nor
fully accepts rhetoric but, like others of its critics, he is willing to ap-
propriate rhetoric when it serves his own designs. And in Leviathan
Hobbes discovers that neither he nor his ideal state can do without
rhetoric. And so he remains a reluctant rhetorician, famously con-
fessing in his masterpiece that “there is nothing I distrust more than
my Elocution” (“Review” 428). But employ elocutio he did for to do
otherwise would mean denying himself the power of eloquence. A
power Hobbes believed, or at least hoped, could be employed to
advance “a Common-Wealth Ecclesiaticall and Civill.”
80
II.5.3, 110.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further unauthorized reproduction is
prohibited without permission or in accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976
Copyright of Rhetorica is the property of University of California Press and its content may
not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's
express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.