Thomas Hobbes published a famous work called <em>Leviathan</em> in 1651. The title "Leviathan" comes from a biblical word for a great and mighty beast. Hobbes believed government is formed by people for the sake of their personal security and stability in society. In Hobbes' view, once the people put a king (or other leader in power), then that leader needs to have supreme power (like a great and mighty beast). Hobbes' view of the natural state of human beings without a government held that people are too divided and too volatile as individuals -- everyone looking out for his own interests. So for security and stability, authority and the power of the law needs to be in the hands of a powerful ruler like a king or queen. And so people willingly enter a "social contract" in which they live under a government that provides stability and security for society.
Probably the most famous set of lines from Hobbes' <em>Leviathan</em> book describes what he saw as the natural state of human affairs without government -- one in which every individual had freedom, but that meant it was a situation of "war of all against all," or we might say, every man for himself. Hobbes wrote:
<em>In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; 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.</em>
The Roman philosophy of stoicism promoted "self-control," since it was thought that if a person allowed to many emotions to take control this would lead to bad decision-making.
