Locke and Hobbes
...cause he is continually in competition for honor and dignity”. What Hobbes means by that is that bees and ants, seemingly creatures with no intelligence but the instinct they are born with, can live together harmoniously because they are not in any competition. Humans, on the other hand, are constantly attempting to one up one another. Locke believed that humans were born free and equal. He once said “Men are equal, no one having more power then another”. The two men had very different ideas when it came to the salvation of mankind. Hobbes believed that man was generally an anti social being. He also once said “with people's natural instinct, there would be war“. He felt that in order for the people to behave in any sort of order they needed a strong government influence. Locke believed that people were born completely free and equal. With that concept in mind, his set of beliefs stated that government should play a minimal part in peoples lives. He said that the government of a country should only interfere with people's lives when property and liberty were at stake. In his natural state, with no outside influence, I feel that man kind would eventually form a working society with a government. At first there would be chaos, and as the people slowly began to realize that the system they were living in was not working out for the best they would begin to form a sort of organized power. I think it would happen much as it did at the beginning of man. I feel that Locke had the right idea; that people are generally good and it is outside presence that turns them into violent, corrupt beings. On the whole I agree with Locke’s philosophy of ma...