Quotation
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“During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.”
Thomas Hobbes · Political philosophy · Early modern · 1651
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a definition of war as a stretch of time without a common power, not as a battle happening today. He says war consists not in actual fighting but in the known disposition to fight while there is no assurance to the contrary, and he compares it to foul weather, which is not only the shower. A competing reading hears a claim that neighbours are always at war. He locates the condition in the time without a common power to keep them in awe. The sentence is in chapter 13, just before the famous list that ends in nasty, brutish, and short. The war of every man against every man is that condition. It is the premise for the sovereign, not a description of life under one.
Did Thomas Hobbes really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Hobbes's own English, with spelling modernised as in the other Leviathan sentences in this library. The 1651 text has 'Warre' and 'every man, against every man'. It is the sentence that introduces the misery he then lists, including the life that is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Where it comes from
Leviathan, chapter 13
Approximate date: 1651.
How to use it
A residents' association with no agreed way to settle a leak between two flats can slide into the disposition he describes: not a daily fight, but no assurance the next complaint will not become one. The sentence does not call the neighbours brutes. It says the absence of a common power is already the condition of war, in his extended sense. Setting up a boring rule for the leak is the Hobbesian remedy, scaled down. Romance about natural harmony is what he thinks will not hold.
A mindset reading
Do not wait for blows before you call a situation insecure. The habit is to ask whether there is an assurance against fighting, or only a pause. He defines war as a tract of time. People who quote only 'nasty, brutish, and short' miss this sentence, which tells you when that misery applies. It applies where no common power keeps everyone in awe.
Understand the philosophy
Chapter 13 is 'Of the Natural Condition of Mankind'. The key terms are common power and war of every man against every man. Three causes of quarrel come first: competition, diffidence, and glory. This sentence draws the conclusion. Where there is no common power, nothing can be unjust, he will say, because justice and injustice require a law, and law requires that power. The artificial man of the introduction is the remedy he has already named.
- power
- society
- justice
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a definition of war as a stretch of time without a common power, not as a battle happening today. He says war consists not in actual fighting but in the known disposition to fight while there is no assurance to the contrary, and he compares it to foul weather, which is not only the shower. A competing reading hears a claim that neighbours are always at war. He locates the condition in the time without a common power to keep them in awe. The sentence is in chapter 13, just before the famous list that ends in nasty, brutish, and short. The war of every man against every man is that condition. It is the premise for the sovereign, not a description of life under one.
Did Thomas Hobbes really say this?
Well attested. Hobbes's own English, with spelling modernised as in the other Leviathan sentences in this library. The 1651 text has 'Warre' and 'every man, against every man'. It is the sentence that introduces the misery he then lists, including the life that is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Which work is it in?
Leviathan, chapter 13 Approximate date: 1651.