# VI: Of the Interior Beginnings of Voluntary Motions; Commonly Called the Passions; and the Speeches by Which They Are Expressed explained — Leviathan

> Chapter companion for Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes.

## What happens

This chapter defines the internal origins of voluntary motion, distinguishing vital from animal motions. It introduces 'endeavour' as the small beginning of motion, leading to appetite/desire and aversion. Hobbes systematically catalogs the passions (hope, despair, fear, courage, anger, etc.) and their expressions, linking them to good and evil as relative to individual desire. He also discusses deliberation, will, and the nature of felicity as continual success, not perpetual tranquility.

## Themes in this chapter

### Human Nature and Passions

The chapter provides a detailed taxonomy of human passions (hope, fear, anger, etc.) as internal motions, grounding moral psychology in mechanistic philosophy.

### Liberty and Obligation

Discusses deliberation and the will as the last appetite in deliberation, linking voluntary action to the absence of external impediments.

## Key lines

> For 'appetite,' with an opinion of attaining, is called 'hope.' The same, without such opinion, 'despair.'

Hope is desire combined with the belief that we can achieve something; despair is desire without that belief.

_Hobbes defines hope and despair as variations of appetite based on perceived likelihood of attainment._

> Continual success in obtaining those things which a man from time to time desireth, that is to say, continual prospering, is that men call 'felicity'; I mean the felicity of this life.

Happiness in this life is not a static state but the ongoing achievement of what we desire.

_Hobbes rejects the idea of perpetual tranquility, defining felicity as a dynamic process of successful desire fulfillment._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leviathan_se/chapters/vi-of-the-interior-beginnings-of-voluntary-motions-commonly-called-the-passions-and-the-speeches-by-which-they-are-expressed
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leviathan_se
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