The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity

by Steven Pinker

Hobbes. In a remarkable passage in Leviathan (1651), he used fewer than a hundred words to lay out an analysis of the incentives for violence that is as good as any today: So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.