ABSTRACT
Human beings cannot live well without science, according to Hobbes, and yet science does not come naturally to human beings. Science is the kind of knowledge that makes men achieve their goals without the help of good luck (cf. L, ch. 5, E III 36), but it is a kind of knowledge that has to be acquired, and acquired by hard work. People are not born with science; they are not even born with the capacities it presupposes (L, ch. 5, E III 35). In order to acquire science they have to be able to name things, affirm propositions, and, above all, reason or draw consequences (L, ch. 5, E III 35; cf. EL, Pt. 1, ch. 6, iv. 26; De Cive ch. 17, xii, E II 268). But people come into the world knowing how to do none of these things. At most they are born able to form sensory representations of things and born able to learn from sense-experience (cf. EL, Pt. 1, ch. 1, viii. 2; ch. 6, i. 24; L, chs. 1, 2, E III 1-6; ch. 5, E III 35). With these capacities alone, however, they can only hope to blunder along or cope ad hoc in nature and society.
