Nature 13

Life is but a motion of limbs. For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the Artificer?

Thomas Hobbes (1650): Leviathan. Introduction.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English philosopher who engaged primarily with political theory. He is considered one of the most important liberal thinkers in Europe.

One of the preconditions of capitalist development was the disciplining of bodies so that they could be made into pure labour power. According to this logic, a new kind of individual needed to be produced who would be useful to the rising middle class. As in this quote, the body was also understood as a useful machine. In the thinking of the time, attempts were made to rationally explain nature (including the human body) in order to render it controllable.

*Silvia Federici (2014): Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Automedia.

1650