In many ways, John Milton’s Paradise Lost is a response to Hobbes’ Leviathan.  The texts are similar in that both examine man’s fall and its spiritual and practical ramifications.  In doing so, both Milton and Hobbes address the primary issues concerning the fallen human condition.  However, Hobbes and Milton differ greatly over the most appropriate course of action that humans should take in order to rectify this condition.  The issues that Milton initially explores in Paradise Lost are similar to those discussed in Leviathan.  Satan, Adam and Eve all fall because of the primary reasons of quarrel that Hobbes addresses.  Milton then uses this fallen human condition to argue that man can regain heaven through internal redemption.  This is in stark contrast to Hobbes, who believes that while redemption may be possible, it should not be the issue of focus.  He emphasizes the importance of externally controlling man in his ruthless fallen state.  In Paradise Lost, Milton builds on Hobbes’ view of the fallen human condition to ultimately reject Hobbes’ conclusions in Leviathan, instead arguing that man’s only hope for redemption will come through internal means.
       In Leviathan Hobbes’ main concern is the fallen state of man.  The text first focuses on the conditions of this fallen state, arguing that every man possesses the power to kill: “For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself” (Hobbes, 1590).  Because even the weakest man has the power to kill the strongest, and the strongest possesses the power to destroy the weakest, every man can kill every other man.  Furthermore every man not only has the ability to kill every other man but also will try to eliminate any given man that incites a quarrel.  In all humans, quarrels are incited primarily due to competition, diffidence or glory (Hobbes, 1591).  
       Because one man’s destruction is another man’s gain, such quarrels abound between men.       Without external control, man must continually view every other man as his enemy.  With man in this uncontrolled, natural state, nothing of practical use would ever be created, because if those things impeded on any other man’s territory then that man would feel threatened and would have to destroy the first.  Territory in it of itself is a very broad term, including anything from commodities, to self-confidence, to a wife.  For instance, in the simple act of building a house a man must have wood.  To obtain this wood, he might cut down a tree that another man believes is his tree.  This second man would then feel threatened by the first man and the two men would quarrel.  Thus, the simple and necessary act of building shelter would be sabotaged, or at the least, it would be made very difficult to accomplish.  Most other potentially productive events would end in this manner.  As a result we would have “No knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and, which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes, 1591).
       Hobbes concludes that the only way to save man from himself is to impose external control upon him.  Whether with or without external control, man can never have absolute freedom and independence.  Without external controls, one man’s liberty impedes on another’s, resulting in utter chaos.  However, if every man is willing to lay down the fruitless dream of absolute liberty in order to obtain relative liberty, then man can live in a productive and relatively peaceful state.  Hobbes calls this the “Second Law of Nature” and defines it as being, “That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far-forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things, and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself” (Hobbes, 1593).  The third law of nature derives from this secondary law, which is that “men perform their covenants made” (Hobbes, 1594).  Thus, Hobbes works off the premise that men are governed by selfish, internal forces that are a condition of the fallen state.  From this premise, he argues that external forces (primarily, covenants) will prevent man from self-destructing.
       In Paradise Lost, Milton utilizes aspects of Leviathan in order to ultimately refute its arguments.  Milton agrees with the fundamental claim that man is in a fallen state.  Furthermore, he believes that both man’s tempter (Satan) and man himself fell because of the primary reasons for quarrel that Hobbes presents in Leviathan.  Satan falls because he longs to obtain the glory of being God.  To obtain this glory, he sits in God’s throne.  In doing so, Satan commits two acts that fall within Hobbes’ principle reasons for quarrel- glory and competition.  In addition, at the base of Hobbes’ three principles are man’s selfish nature, which causes him to compete, to be diffident, and to search for glory.  Satan clearly displays this selfish nature, always wanting more than he possesses, stating that he has: “Neither joy nor love, but fierce desire,/ Among our other torments not the least,/ Still unfulfilled with pain of longing pines” (Milton, 1885).  Therefore, because of Hobbes’ principles for quarrel, Satan makes a “hell of heaven” and must fall.  
       Because Satan is man’s tempter, the causes of his fall have important implications for man.  If the tempter’s reasons for falling are already within the bounds of Hobbes’ principle reasons for quarrel, then man’s fall will be caused by the same reasons.  Satan can tempt man only with the temptations to which he himself fell prey.  Thus, Satan’s fall both foreshadows and causes man’s, with both Adam and Eve falling because of Hobbes’ principle reasons.  Satan tempts Eve into tasting the forbidden fruit so that she can revel in the glory of knowledge: “In the day/ Ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear,/ Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then/ Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as gods/ Knowing both good and evil as they know./ That ye should be as gods” (Milton, 1976).  Satan is both crafty and perceptive, ably discerning that Eve shares his thirst for glory, and  that by tempting her with this glory, he can cause her to fall.
       When Eve answers Satan, her interest is aroused because of this glory, surmising that the fruit has great virtues, is the “best of fruits”, and “though kept from man” is “worthy to be admired.”  As she continues on in her response, her temptations multiply.  Without Satan’s help, she adds Hobbes’ principles of competition and diffidence to his principle of glory, thus compounding her temptation.  She asks, “For us alone/ Was death invented?  Or to us denied/ This intellectual food, for beasts reserved?” (Milton, 1978). A sense of competition and diffidence pervade this statement.  Not only does Eve want glory, she wants the same glory that is bestowed upon the beasts.  In posing the preceding question Eve shows both a competitive edge and a sense of being wronged.  She essentially poses the question, “If God allows the beasts to eat the forbidden fruit, then he must love them more than he loves me.  What is so much better about the beasts to cause him to love them so much more?”  Therefore, Eve falls for all three of Hobbes’ primary reasons for quarrel.
       Once Eve is in a fallen state, she perpetuates the effects of these primary reasons by causing Adam to fall because of her own competitive and jealous nature.  Eve recognizes that in her new, mortal state she will eventually die, leaving Adam to marry another Eve.  Then, Eve surmises, Adam will live with this new Eve, while she is “extinct;/ A death to think.  Confirmed then I resolve,/ Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe” (Milton, 1979).  In this passage, Eve displays a jealousy of both Adam and the second Eve.  She is jealous that Adam will continue to live and enjoy life even while she is dead. Eve also expresses jealousy towards the second Eve for living in bliss with the man she loves.  Eve further displays Hobbes’ principle of competition by expressing disdain for the thought of her replacement and Adam enjoying life when she cannot.  This is her primary motivation for tempting Adam.
       Therefore, in issues surrounding the fall itself, Milton both agrees and builds off of Hobbes’ baseline arguments.  Hobbes’ principles of quarrel, which, in Leviathan, are the primary cause of man’s self-destruction, are the causes of man’s fall in Paradise Lost.  The similarities between Milton and Hobbes end here.  Once the baseline reasons for the fall are established, Milton moves away from Hobbes on two key points: redemption and man’s nature.  In order for man to fall due to Hobbes’ principle reasons, he had to have had these principles already within himself in a subdued and masked state while in paradise.  In tempting man to fall, Satan did not inject him with principles he did not already carry within him.  Unless Satan were God, he could never force man to act in a manner that was not in accordance with some aspect of his nature.  All Satan had the power to do was stir up Hobbes’ principles and man’s emotions surrounding these principles to such a degree that man was tempted into falling.  Because in doing so Satan did in fact cause man to fall, Hobbes’ principles must spring out of human nature.  
       In Leviathan, Hobbes argues that man’s adherence to these principles reflects his selfish nature.  Because man cannot change his nature, the only pragmatic step he can take is to enter into a covenant where the only injustice is the “not performance of a covenant” (Hobbes, 1594).  Hobbes’ primary concern is with the establishment of a covenant with other men that results in a pragmatic government.  Because man is internally selfish and corrupted, the only way to control him is through external pressure.  He essentially dismisses the need for redemption: “As for the instance of gaining the secure and perpetual felicity of heaven by any way, it is frivolous: there being but one way imaginable, and that is not breaking, but keeping of covenant” (Hobbes, 1595).  Hobbes argues that man’s primary concern is living in relative peace during his lifetime. Redemption is a secondary concern.  If it will occur, it can only be through the external control of mankind.
       Milton adamantly refutes such conclusions.  First, he counters Hobbes’ characterization of man’s condition.  Where Hobbes has little faith in man and believes him to be inherently selfish, Milton trusts that man is essentially good.  Because man possesses a good nature, God could trust him to fall and later attain redemption through a virtuous internal state.  According to Milton, the fall is part of God’s plan, and thus the fall is a “happy fall” because it allows man the chance to seek redemption.  Once man has fallen and experienced the miseries of earth, he will better be able to appreciate the wonders of Paradise by comparison.  God’s angel communicates this idea of a happy fall to Adam near the end of Paradise Lost, saying: “To leave this Paradise, but shall possess/ A paradise within thee, happier far” (Milton, 2043).  The angel clearly conveys Milton’s opinion that (contrary to Hobbes’ arguments) redemption can be obtained only internally.  Even though Adam and Eve will no longer be in paradise, they have the ability to carry it within themselves.  Within Milton’s insistence on an internal paradise is an implication that if all men carried paradise within them then there would be peace between men, with our without external covenants.
       While Hobbes concludes that the only way to invoke peace between men is through the external enforcement of laws, Milton repeatedly emphasizes his belief in internal redemption throughout Paradise Lost.  Adam, Eve and Satan all fell because of Hobbes’ principles, which stem out of a human nature that is within them.  While in paradise, they made a hell of their heaven.  However, the key difference between Satan and Adam and Eve is that the latter two can be internally redeemed, while Satan cannot.  Satan possesses only the ability to make a hell of heaven, while Adam and Eve can make a heaven of hell because they have the ability to redeem themselves internally.  
A large factor in Adam and Eve’s ability for internal redemption is their love of each other.  Love positively affects the human internal state, and thus results in their redemption.  This is reflected in the closing quote of the poem: “Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;/ The world was all before them, where to choose/ Their place of rest, and providence their guide: They hand in hand with wand’ring steps and slow,/ Through Eden took their solitary way” (Milton, 2044).  This passage is the sum of Milton’s arguments.  Adam and Eve cry, but they soon wipe their tears away, implying that in spite of the misery of their fallen state, they are hopeful.  Hope in it of itself is an internal human feeling that can contribute to man’s redemption.  Furthermore, Milton establishes a meaningful paradox by stating that Adam and Eve walked “hand in hand” and that they “took their solitary way.”  Through their love together, they are redeemed internally individually.  Together each one strengthens the other alone.  This image is especially resonant because of the slow and steady way that Adam and Eve walk together.  Man and woman walk with one another into hell, their internal strength both expressed and magnified through the joining of their hands.  This strength will remain whatever external forces may come.  
Thus, while Hobbes argues that it does not matter what kind of government controls man as long as there is a government, Milton argues that governments do not matter as long as man is internally virtuous.  In this way, Hobbes and Milton begin and end their arguments in similar ways, but build off those beginnings and reach those ends with polar opposite arguments.  Hobbes is a pragmatist, concerned solely with controlling an inherently selfish man through external covenants.  Milton is an idealist, concerned with attaining redemption internally, regardless of external forces.  In many ways, Paradise Lost is a response to Leviathan. Hobbes characterizes man as being selfish and brutal.  Milton recognizes that Hobbes’ principle reasons of quarrel are the underlying aspect of human nature that caused man to fall.  He then uses the fall itself to conclude that despite these grimmer aspects of human nature, man is essentially good and will attain redemption through this internal goodness.




Work Cited
“Leviathan.”  The Norton Anthology: English Literature.  Ed. M.H. Abrams.  New York: Norton & Company, 2000.  pp. 1589-1595.

“Paradise Lost.”  The Norton Anthology: English Literature.  Ed. M.H. Abrams.  New York: Norton & Company, 2000.  pp. 1815-2044.