# Of Persons, Authors, and Things Personated explained — Leviathan

> Chapter companion for Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes.

## What happens

Hobbes defines a person as one whose words or actions are considered either as his own (natural person) or as representing another (artificial person). He distinguishes between the actor (who performs) and the author (who owns the action), establishing that authority comes from the author. He discusses how inanimate things, children, fools, and idols can be personated only under civil government, and how the true God was personated by Moses, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. He explains how a multitude becomes one person through a representative, and the role of majority and negative voices in assemblies.

## Themes in this chapter

### Sovereignty and Absolute Power

The chapter establishes that authority to act comes from the author, and that the sovereign representative's unity is essential for the commonwealth.

### Human Nature and Passions

Hobbes discusses how children, fools, and madmen lack reason and cannot be authors, highlighting the role of reason in human agency.

### Religion and Civil Authority

The personation of the true God by Moses, Christ, and the Holy Ghost is tied to civil governance and the state's role in authorizing representation.

## Character check-ins

### Moses

Personated the true God, governing the Israelites in God's name.

### Jesus Christ

Personated God as the Son of man, sent to reduce the Jews and induce all nations into the kingdom of His Father.

### Holy Ghost

Personated God, speaking and working in the Apostles as the Comforter sent from the Father and the Son.

### Cicero

Cited for his phrase 'Unus sustineo tres personas' to illustrate the concept of bearing multiple persons.

## Key lines

> A person is he, whose words or actions are considered, either as his own, or as representing the words or actions of another man, or of any other thing, to whom they are attributed, whether truly or by fiction.

A person is someone whose words or actions are seen either as his own or as standing for someone else's, whether accurately or imaginatively.

_Hobbes's foundational definition of personhood in terms of representation._

> For it is the unity of the representer, not the unity of the represented, that maketh the person one.

The oneness of a group comes from the single representative, not from the individuals being represented.

_Key to Hobbes's theory of the commonwealth as a unified person through the sovereign._

> And if the representative consist of many men, the voice of the greater number must be considered as the voice of them all.

When a representative body has multiple members, the majority's decision stands for the whole group.

_Hobbes's justification for majority rule in assemblies._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leviathan_se/chapters/xvi-of-persons-authors-and-things-personated
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leviathan_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leviathan_se/chapters