A Great Leap Behind

India, China, England, France, USA are all countries today. In India, we offer 15^th August 1947 or 26^th January 1950 as the two dates when India became a country. Many also say that India is more than a 3000 year-old country. How was a country formed? How did the world map look like before we had the names of the countries that cover it today? 

Earlier a civilized man lived alone and also lived together with others. Together they were called a tribe and later a society. How these societies transformed themselves into a country is a question often we ignore or do not consider important. A British philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) considered this question of great significance and wrote a book on it called ‘Leviathan” or a Sea-Monster. This book changed the way we understood the formation of a country. 

The first part of this book is about man as an individual and it says that his thoughts don’t occur at random but are governed by rules. His idea of good and bad are also very clear. If he desires the object, it is good, and if he hates it, it is bad. The fear of invisible power is religion, if allowed publicly and superstition otherwise. Hobbes maintained that all men are equal and they try to preserve their freedom. In a state of nature, there should be no property, no justice or injustice, and no war however men also have a desire to lord over others. These two desires make this world a nasty, unsafe and unpleasant place, perpetually at war against one another.

The second part of the book talks about how men want to escape from these evils. According to Hobbes, they do this by coming together and forming communities and choosing a central authority that governs and protects them. They give away a part of their freedom and in return expect the authority to protect them from perpetual war. This central authority came to be called state or country or government in due course. Once the government is chosen, the citizens lose all rights except that which governments find expedient to grant. The right to rebellion is also taken away because the government is not bound by any rule but the people are. And so the government is Leviathan, a monster, a mortal God.

Hobbes, when compared to his predecessors, stands out as starkly secular. He does not worry much about what happened to Adam and Eve at the hour of temptation nor does he work himself up at the prospect of facing the wrath of God. Hobbes was son of a vicar who was ill-tempered and uneducated and was brought up by his uncle as his father lost his job while quarrelling with a neighboring vicar. At the age of 15, Hobbes went to the Oxford University and spent almost 6 years there. In his writings, universities are constantly criticized and he maintained throughout his life that he profited little from his stay at the Oxford.

Hobbes had the good fortune of meeting and conferring with several great historic figures. He met the dramatist and competitor of Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, philosopher Francis Bacon and Lord Herbert. He was one of those who saw ‘Meditations’ of Descartes before they were published. He was greatly influenced by Galileo, Kepler and Euclid. He firmly believed that the only relationship that any two countries can have is that of animosity and therefore war is the only link possible between them.

Hobbes’ thoughts are vigorous; his solutions are logical and often reflect a hardliner’s stance. However his theories are crude as he does not consider facts that disprove his theory, he is impatient of subtle arguments. In the territory of philosophy, he is more like a tribal war lord rather than a suave prince. He suffered from error not because the basis of his thoughts were unreal or fantastic but because he over simplified issues. He uttered the words “A great leap in the dark” moments before he died.