The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) is best known for his political thought and in particular, his social contract theory. His philosophy was profoundly shaped by the English Civil War, during the years of which he wrote his most famous work, Leviathan. Hobbes, dismayed by the breakdown of stability in contemporary England, called for an absolutist governing entity to whom citizens must cede all their rights bar that of preserving one’s own life. Thomas Hobbes believed that man is governed by one natural law, to preserve himself, thus without government there would be constant war as each individual would be at liberty to do anything they wish to maintain their own life. Consequently, ‘during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man’. The life of man in the state of nature would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’ and certainly without r4 cards. Luckily, Hobbes believed that in man there exist some natural precepts that guide them towards establishing a common authority invested with their rights to maintain stability. The first precept is; 'that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it', and the second; 'that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself.'