State of nature?

CB MacPherson argues in his recently reprinted The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Wynford Project) that Hobbes’s view of natural man did not come from study of primitive behavior but from abstracting from the actions of his civilized contemporaries: “Hobbes has got at the ‘natural’ proclivities of men by looking just below the surface of contemporary society, and . . . the state of nature is a two-stage logical abstraction in which man’s natural proclivities are first disengaged from their civil setting and then carried to their logical conclusion in the state of war.” The “state of nature” is not really a state of nature but a state of modernity, minus civil authority.

As evidence, he quotes a long passage from Hobbes’s Rudiments that “opens with a brilliant dissection of men’s behaviour in contemporary society, which reveals their ‘natural’ proclivities, and moves directly to the deduction of the necessary outcome in a state of war if there were no sovereign.”

“How by what advice Men doe meet, will be best known by observing those things which they doe when they are met: For if they meet for Traffique, it’s plaine every man regards not his Fellow, but his Businesse; if to discharge some Office, a certain Market-friendship is begotten, which hath more of Jealousie in it than True love, and whence Factions sometimes may arise, but Good will never; if for Pleasure, and Recreation of mind, every man is wont to please himself most with those things which stirre up laughter, whence he may (according to the nature of that which is Ridiculous) by comparison of another mans Defects and Infirmities, passe the more currant in his owne opinion; and although this be sometimes innocent, and without offence; yet it is manifest they are not so much delighted with the Society, as their own Vain glory. But for the most part, in these kind of meetings, we wound the absent; their whole life, sayings, actions are examin’d, judg’d, condemn’d; nay, it is very rare, but some present receive a fling before they part, so as his reason was not ill, who was wont alwayes at parting to goe out last. And these are indeed the true delights of Society, unto which we are carryed by nature, (i.e.) by those passions which are incident to all Creatures, untill either by sad experience, or good precepts, it so fall out (which in many never happens) that the Appetite, of present matters, be dul’d with the memory of things past, without which, the discourse of most quick and nimble men, on this subject, is but cold and hungry.

“But if it so happen, that being met, they passe their time in relating some Stories, and one of them begins to tell one which concernes himselfe; instantly every one of the rest most greedily desires to speak of himself too; if one relate some wonder, the rest will tell you miracles, if they have them, if not, they’l fein them: Lastly, that I may say somewhat of them who pretend to be wiser than others; if they meet to talk of Philosophy, look how many men, so many would be esteem’d Masters, or else they not only love not their fellowes, but even persecute them with hatred: So clear is it by experience to all men who a little more narrowly consider Humane affaires, that all free congress ariseth either from mutual poverty, or from vain glory, whence the parties met, endeavour to carry with them either some benefit, or to leave behind them that same eudokimein , some esteem and honour with those, with whom they have been conversant: The same is also collected by reason out of the definitions themselves, of Will, Good, Honour, Profitable .”