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Thomas Hobbes" (1588-1679) one of the greatest of all political philosphores, and certainly the most brilliant and profound ever to have written in English. Hobbes's must influential writing in political philosophy span the period of English civil war, and are widely interpreted as an intelectual major work leviathan (1651) offered a justification for absolute political authority which purported to be a deduction from "human nature". Here Hobbes sets out first what he takes to be
axiomes of human behaviour analogous to the geometrial axioms that underpin Eculid's system. Hobbes axioms are that men are rational and desire above all their own preservation. Hence they are led by "a perpetuall and restless desire of power after power". But I humans are possessed of rationality and foresight. They are thus able to recognize that their security would be better guaranteed by a voluntary act of giving over their individual power to an individual or group who would ther by be established a soverign power over all of them.