ABSTRACT
It was not necessary to experience war to see that war was as contrary to the exercise of the right of nature as suicide. Anyone would see that war could be nobody's means of preserving life. Anyone would thereby be able to see that it was right to keep the peace if it was right to preserve one's life. Anyone would also see that it was right to obey and not resist one's sovereign if to disobey was to start a war. Having both reason and passion in common with agents in the state of nature, Hobbes's readers were able to accept, as people who had left a fictional state of nature could accept, the inconveniences of government. Without necessarily having helped to create a commonwealth out of chaos, Hobbes's readers were able to keep it from degenerating into anarchy. They had only to behave as if they were keeping to the sort of covenant made explicit in Hobbes's writings. In practice this would mean no more than abiding by civil laws.
