Thomas Hobbes · Deep Essay · Chapter 02
The Human Being as Clockwork: Emotion as Endeavour
What happens to the mind when liking and disliking are explained as minute bodily motions?
The short answer
Hobbes calls the first internal beginning of voluntary motion ‘endeavour.’ Directed toward an object it is appetite or desire; directed away it is aversion. Emotion becomes part of nature's causal order rather than a mysterious visitor to the body.
Read more deeply
The model strips emotion of supernatural exception while preserving its practical force. Perception sets bodily movement in train; language and memory organize more elaborate passions. What a person calls good is usually what they desire, and bad what they avoid, revealing how evaluation is anchored in perspective.
This does not make human life simple. Because we anticipate consequences, compare ourselves, and interpret signs from others, basic approach and avoidance develop into hope, jealousy, shame, confidence, and ambition. A material account can still describe a socially intricate emotional world.
Context and caution
Hobbes's mechanical vocabulary belongs to seventeenth-century science. It should not be passed off as a detailed account of contemporary neurobiology.
Primary-source guide
Primary guide: Leviathan, chapters 6, 11, 13, 14, and 17.
Pathos Editorial · Reviewed 2026-09-12