would seem to be the end; sometimes (probably more often) self-preservation.
Starting, then, with the assumption of man's original and ineradicable egoism; and the further assumption that nature has made men essentially equal in the faculties both of body and of mind,[1] so that all may aspire to everything,—it is easy to see that the hypothetical 'state of nature' must be a 'state of war,' with all the attendant evils which Hobbes so tersely, yet vividly, describes.[2] How are men to escape the consequences of their own anti-social natures? The possibility of deliverance depends upon the fact that man is not merely a bundle of selfish appetites, but,—as Hobbes says,—"True Reason is ... no less a part of human nature than any other faculty or affection of the mind." Moreover, 'True Reason' is "a certain law."[3]
It is natural that one should ask just what is meant by 'True Reason,' and Hobbes has a note on the subject,[4] which, however, is not particularly illuminating. "By Right Reason in the natural state of man," he says, "I understand not, as many do, an infallible faculty, but the act of reasoning, that is, the peculiar and true ratiocination of every man concerning those actions of his which may either redound to the damage or benefit of his neighbors." He further explains that he calls reason "true, that is, concluding from true principles, rightly framed, because that the whole breach of the Laws of Nature consists in the false reasoning, or rather folly, of those men who do not see those duties they are necessarily to perform towards others, in order to their own conservation."[5] In a word, there is no infallible faculty of Right Reason that can be implicitly trusted. It can only be proven right by the event, and the test is the conservation of the individual.
- ↑ See Leviathan, vol. iii, p. 110.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 113. For passages which seem to show that, in his description of the 'state of nature,' Hobbes does not understand that he is giving an historical account of the origin of human society, see, e.g., Leviathan, vol. iii, p. 114, and particularly the last part of the interesting note in De cive, vol. ii, p. 10.
- ↑ De cive, vol. ii, p. 16.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ See, also, De corpore politico, vol. iv, p. 225, where the author says: "But this is certain, seeing Right Reason is not existent," etc.
