Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, Chapter 8 summary

What happens

1. The narrator defines intellectual virtues as valued mental abilities and distinguishes experience-based wit from reason acquired through instruction.
2. He separates fancy from judgment, explains their different uses, and makes discretion essential to effective speech.
3. He defines prudence through experience, distinguishes dishonest craft from it, and traces differences in wit to passions.
4. He describes excessive pride and dejection as sources of rage, groundless fears, and other forms of madness.
5. He uses historical examples and scriptural interpretation to challenge the claim that unusual behavior requires possession by spirits.
6. He concludes that meaningless combinations of words, especially in obscure philosophical disputes, also count among forms of madness.

In this chapter

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