ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that Hobbes' thought is systematic: if we trace certain consequences of his natural and critical philosophy, and then assemble these consequences together and add one empirical assumption, we achieve précis of the secular part of his political theory. Professor Leo Strauss has devoted a well-known book to the thesis that 'Hobbes's political philosophy is really, as its originator claims, based on a knowledge of men which is deepened and corroborated by the selfknowledge and self-examination of the individual, and not on a general scientific or metaphysical theory'. In a word, Hobbes' method required that his political theory should be anthropocentric from start to finish. But Hobbes' belief that introspection can provide data for political science is itself a consequence of a belief which, as we have just seen, is philosophically grounded, namely, his belief in the uniformity of himan nature.
