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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Hobbes say a commonwealth is taken by acquisition?

2. Why does Hobbes insist that the commonwealth is born out of human politics?

3. Why does Hobbes say the multitude cannot protest against the sovereign?

4. In his comparison of the commonwealth to the body, what does Hobbes identify as the role of the sovereign?

5. What does Hobbes say people are either born with or develop?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Hobbes believe about judicial interpretation?

2. Briefly, what does Hobbes have to say about lawful and unlawful systems?

3. What are the two ways Hobbes says a commonwealth is created?

4. What does Hobbes say about rights in the natural world?

5. What is Hobbes idea of people being created equal?

6. Why does Hobbes say men will give up some of their freedoms?

7. How does Hobbes extol the idea of the commonwealth?

8. How does Hobbes describe a despotic dominion?

9. How does Hobbes illustrate what he calls compound imagination?

10. What are the three sovereignties Hobbes defines?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write a paper on imagination. Hobbes discredits most imagination as foolishness like coupling the concept of a man and a horse to come up with the idea of a centaur. Take the opposite position and write about how imagination is good and what it has given to the world.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay on how the political condition of the times may have influenced Hobbes' thinking. You may need to do a bit of research into the times and how Hobbes, once in great favor with the nobility, had fallen out of their favor.

Essay Topic 3

Write a paper on the effectiveness of punishments to control a commonwealth. How has that been carried to unreasonable extreme by such regimes as Saddam Hussein in Iraq? What, in your opinion, are the most effective punishments?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 815 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample