38 Causes of its Success 



according to Hobbes, the result must be a continu- 

 ous warfare in which every man's hand is raised 

 against his neighbour. Hobbes is a reaHst to the 

 core, and declares in his pitiless frankness that 

 the life of man, while he continues to live in a 

 state of nature, will doubtless always be "solitary, 

 poor, nasty, brutish, and short," but nevertheless, 

 he says, "this is his natural condition." In his 

 Leviathan he points to the facts as he sees them : 



In all places, where men have lived by small families, 

 to rob and spoil one another has been a trade, and so 

 far from being reputed against the Law of Nature, 

 the greater spoils they gained, the greater was their 

 honour. 



And he applies his realistic social theory to the 

 State with logical consistency: 



As small families did then, so now do cities and 

 kingdoms, which are greater families, for their own 

 security, enlarge their dominion upon all pretences of 

 danger and fear of invasion . . . endeavoiiring, as 

 much as they can, to subdue by open force or secret 

 arts, for want of other caution, justly; and are re- 

 membered for it in after years with honour. ^ 



Thus war, from being universal and perpetual in 

 a "state of nature," is suppressed within the State 

 for the benefit of its subjects, but will continue 

 its course naturally, and, as Hobbes does not 

 hesitate to say, quite "justly," between States, 



^Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), chapters xiii. and xvii. 



