Nature to Society

Hobbes has laid out a general case for how humans come to live in society, namely, that they are driven to it by fear. In order to have a more thorough picture of how society comes about, Hobbes directs his attention tohuman nature, so that we can precisely understand how humans go from this state of nature to society. As has already been noted, people are constantly moved by appetites and aversions, and as such, have certain ends in mind which they strive to attain. Since one or more men may desire the same end (for example, food or shelter), they are in a constant state of conflict and competition with one another. If man's appetites were finite this would not be so problematic, but as Hobbes argued in the above chapters, we are never satisfied with any amount of power (the means to attain certain ends), and are thus always in a constant power struggle with others.

While it may seem that in such a state of nature the strong would naturally triumph over the weak and some sort of natural equilibrium would be reached, due to the peculiar nature of power this can never be so. Men are by nature equal in their powers, as even "the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger as himself." From this equality in the state of nature where even the weak can kill the strong, combined with a finite amount of resources and distrust of other men, arises a perpetual state of conflict. Without a common power to mediate amongst men and distribute resources, the state of nature is nothing but a state of constant war, where "the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.