 |
| thomas hobbes |
Meaning
The life of mankind
when in a state of war.
Origin
Nasty, brutish and
short aren't a firm of particularly unpleasant lawyers but a quotation from
Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, or the matter, form, and power of a
commonwealth, ecclesiastical and civil, 1651. The fuller quotation of this
phrase is even less appealing - "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short". Hobbes described the natural state of mankind (the state
pertaining before a central government is formed) as a "war of every man
against every man". In the book he outlines the 'incommodites' of such a war:
"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of War, where
every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein
men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own
invention shall furnish them with all. In such condition, there is no place for
Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture
of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by
Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things
as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of
Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual
fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish, and short."
In 1998, the UK
comedienne Jo Brand used the phrase to describe the diminutive, right-wing
comedian Jim Davidson.
Copyright © Gary
Martin, 1996 - 2013
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