SOURCE: "The Motivation of Hobbes's Political Philosophy," in Thomas Hobbes in His Time, Ralph Ross, Herbert W. Schneider, Theodore Waldman, eds., University of Minnesota Press, 1974, pp. 8-30.

In the following excerpt, Dewey examines Hobbes's political philosophy in historical context. Because the editors were unable to determine the exact date of this essay, Dewey's death date has been used.

It is the object of this essay to place the political philosophy of Hobbes in its own historic context. The history of thought is peculiarly exposed to an illusion of perspective. Earlier doctrines are always getting shoved, as it were, nearer our own day. We are familiar with the intellectual struggles of our own time and are interested in them. It is accordingly natural to envisage earlier thought as part of the same movement or as its forerunner. We then forget that that earlier period had its own specific problems...