POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Piero di Cosimo’s representation of a state of mankind when life was nasty, brutish, and short admits, but we can see instances of it in contemporary America; and even in civilized countries, men are always taking precautions against their fellows Let the reader consider that ‘when taking a journey, he arms himself, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house, he locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws and public oYcers’ (L, 84) Hobbes insists that in describing the primeval state of war, he is not accusing human beings in their natural state of any wickedness In the absence of laws there can be no sin, and in the absence of a sovereign there can be no law In the state of nature, the notions of right and wrong, or justice and injustice, have no place ‘Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice Force, and fraud, are in war the two 284