POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY of the wars of religion, and the frustration of his own eVorts in aid of Christian uniWcation, led him to conclude that particular religious beliefs were an unreliable foundation for a sound international order Hobbes on Chaos and Sovereignty Suarez and Grotius saw warfare as a sometimes necessary deviation from a natural order in which states would coexist harmoniously within a consensual moral framework The most famous political philosopher of the seventeenth century, Thomas Hobbes, had a directly contrary view of the nature of politics: the natural state of free human beings was one of perpetual warfare, and it was the prime task of the moral philosopher to justify the consent of individuals to live in peaceful subjection to a government To this he devoted his masterpiece Leviathan Hobbes draws a sombre picture of the natural condition of mankind Men are roughly equal in their natural powers of body and mind ‘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.’ Whether they are seeking pleasure, or aiming simply at self-preservation, men Wnd themselves in competition with each other Each man distrusts his competitors and fears attack, so he seeks by anticipation to overpower them Each man seeks praise from his companions, and resents any sign of dispraise ‘So that in the nature of man, we Wnd three principal causes of quarrel First, competition; secondly diYdence; thirdly glory’ (L, 82–3) Unless and until there is a common power to keep men in awe, there will be constant quarrelsome and unregulated competition for goods, power, and glory This can be described as a state of war: a war of every man against every man In such conditions, Hobbes says, there can be no industry, agriculture, or commerce: 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 (L, 84) Some readers may think this picture too gloomy; surely there was never such a time of universal war Perhaps not throughout the world, Hobbes 283