Thomas Hobbes
was an English philosopher and political theorist, one of the first modern
Western thinkers to provide a secular justification for the political state. His
ideas represented a reaction against the decentralizing ideas of the Reformation
(1517-1648), which, Hobbes contended, brought anarchy. Hobbes also contributed
to modern psychology and laid the foundations of modern sociology by applying
mechanistic principles in an attempt to explain human motivation and social
organization.
From The
Leviathan:
From this equality
of ability ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore
if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy,
they become enemies; and in the way to their end (which is principally their own
conservation, and sometimes their delectation only) endeavour to destroy or
subdue one another. And from hence it comes to pass that where an invader hath
no more to fear than another man's single power, if one plant, sow, build, or
possess a convenient seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with
forces united to dispossess and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labour,
but also of his life or liberty. And the invader again is in the like danger of
another.
Again, men have no
pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where
there is no power able to overawe them all. For every man looketh that his
companion should value him at the same rate he sets upon himself, and upon all
signs of contempt or undervaluing naturally endeavours, as far as he dares
(which amongst them that have no common power to keep them in quiet is far
enough to make them destroy each other), to extort a greater value from his
contemners, by damage; and from others, by the example.
So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First,
competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory.
The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for
reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's
persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for
trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of
undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred,
their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.
Hereby it is
manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all
in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of
every man against every man. For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act
of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is
sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the
nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul
weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of
many days together: so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but
in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to
the contrary. All other time is peace.
Whatsoever
therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man,
the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than
what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In
such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is
uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of
the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no
instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no
knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no
society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death;
and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
It may seem strange
to some man that has not well weighed these things that Nature should thus
dissociate and render men apt to invade and destroy one another: and he may
therefore, not trusting to this inference, made from the passions, desire
perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider
with himself: when taking a journey, he arms himself and seeks to go well
accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house he
locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws and public officers,
armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what opinion he has of his
fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow citizens, when he locks his
doors; and of his children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not
there as much accuse mankind by his actions as I do by my words? But neither of
us accuse man's nature in it. The desires, and other passions of man, are in
themselves no sin.
From The
Elements of Law Natural and Politic (1640):
This union so made,
is that which men call now-a-days a BODY POLITIC or civil society; and the
Greeks call it polis, that is to say, a, city. Which may be defined to be a
multitude of men, united as one person by a common power, for their common
peace, defence, and benefit.
And as this union
into a city or body politic, is instituted with common power over all the
particular persons, or members thereof, to the common good of them all…The first
thing therefore they are to do, is expressly every man to consent to something
by which they may come nearer to their ends; which can be nothing else
imaginable but this: that they allow the wills of the major part of their whole
number, or the wills of the major part of some certain number of men by them
determined and named; or lastly the will of some one man, to involve and be
taken for the wills of every man. And this done they are united, and a body
politic.
John Locke was an
Oxford scholar, medical researcher and physician, political operative, economist
and ideologue for a revolutionary movement, as well as being one of the great
philosophers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century.
...he that will not give just occasion to think that all government in the world
is the product only of force and violence, and that men live together by no
other rules but that of beasts, where the strongest carries it...must of
necessity find another rise of government, another original of political
power...
-from
The
Second Treatise of Civil Government
Adam was created a perfect man, his body and mind in full
possession of their strength and reason, and so was capable from the first
instance of his being to provide for his own support and preservation, and
govern his actions according to the dictates of the law of reason God had
implanted in him.
The freedom then of man, and liberty of acting according to his own will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct him in that law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will.