Man is a wolf to man Outside civil society, there is perpetual war of each against all. It is therefore clear that as long as men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in this condition is called war, and that is the war of everyone against everyone. War does not consist only in effect in battle or in the act of coming to blows, but it exists all the time that the will to fight is sufficiently proven. The time is therefore to be considered in the case of war, as it is in the case of beauty or the weather. The bad weather did not reside in one or two showers, but a tendency to rain for several consecutive days. Similarly, war is not just in the fact the current fight, but in an arrangement known to fight all the time there is no assurance to the contrary .[...]
It may seem strange to the reader who has not considered all that, and that nature has separated the men and has given this trend s'entr'attaquer and destroy each other . He may not want to rely on inference drawn from this examination of the passions. Perhaps he wishes to have confirmation of it by experience. While he considers himself when, starting on a journey, he arms himself and worries about being good company, when going to sleep, he locks his doors when, even in his house, he locks his chests, and that, knowing there are laws and public officers armed to revenge all the damage we can do it, what opinion he people of his suite, when he armed himself to travel on horseback from his countrymen, when he locks his doors, his children and his servants, when he locks his chests? Accuse Does it not just as humanity by his behavior that I do with my speech? Yet neither he nor I accusing human nature itself. Desires and other human passions are not in themselves sins, and actions that proceed from those passions are not more, as men know no law that defends these actions. Until laws were not made, man can not know them. Finally no law can be made, as long as men have not agreed on who should do it.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, I, XIII (1651), trad . R. Anthony, ed. Mr. Giardo.
Leviathan
monster bestiary from the biblical Leviathan is the ugly face that Hobbes wants to give the state to intimidate his subjects and deters disobedience . Design brutal power yet supported with intelligence and finesse. Why despotism is necessary? The men, in total freedom, a threat to each other. The best defense is attack, their reason leads them to s'agresser preventively. Only the existence of a dominant forcing everyone to which anyone can predict the obedience of others, may encourage them not to defend well. Mutual trust between reasonable individuals, can then in fact be established. The existence of a prince more powerful than his subjects is the best guarantee of peace. Thus the power of the state must be absolute: any limitation of its sovereignty can not that weaken and run the risk of a gradual return to the state where men are like wolves for each other.
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