ABSTRACT
But it was in the Preface to the Reader of De Cive (in the edition of 1647), that he first gave notice of a three-part exposition of the elements. The first 'section' was to have 'treated of body and its general properties; . . . the second of man and his special faculties and affections; . . . and the third, of civil government and the duties of subjects' (E II xx). Publication of the three sections did not go to plan. De Cive, or the 'Third Section,' was the first to appear. De Corpore, the 'First Section,' followed De Cive into print after an interval of thirteen years, in 1655, and the trilogy's second instalment, De Homine, came out three years after that. Parts of De Homine were ready for press before De Corpore was complete, and Hobbes took time off from work on the 'First Section' to compose Leviathan and translate De Cive from Latin into English. This disarray is not reflected in the body of the texts themselves, and read in the intended order they do seem to put over a unitary doctrine in keeping with Hobbes's original scheme.
