bellum omnium
contra omnes, the war
of all against all
From the Praefatio of De Cive or The Philosophicall Rudiments Concerning Government and Society. Or, A Dissertation Concerning Man in his severall habitudes and respects, as the Member of a Society, first Secular, and then Sacred. Containing The Elements of Civill Politie in the Agreement which it hath both with Naturall and Divine Lawes. In which is demonstrated, Both what the Origine of Justice is, and wherein the Essence of Christian Religion doth consist. Together with The Nature, Limits and Qualifications both of Regiment and Subjection By Thomas Hobbes (1642).
… ostendo primo conditionem hominum extra societatem civilem, quam conditionem appellare liceat statum naturae, aliam non esse quam bellum omnium contra omnes; atque in eo bello jus esse omnibus in omnia.
Or in english* …
… I demonstrate, in the first place, that the state of men without civil society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing else but a mere war of all against all; and in that war all men have equal right unto all things.
The state of men without civil society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing else but a mere war of all against all.
And in that war all men have equal right unto all things.
A state of nature were all have equal rights to all.
A mere war against all against all.
Mr. Hobbs wrote that in 1642.
Today we all got a gun.
Someone better say a prayer for our democracy.
*BTW it is recorded in History that Judge Augustus Woodward wrote the Territorial Constitution of the Territory of Michigan in Latin and when folks complained he reissued it with two columns. Latin on the left and English on the right with the sub heading, ‘For the lesser Educated.’ Judge Woodward (as in Woodward Avenue in Detroit) went on to found what became the University of Michigan.
No Haiku For You 