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Hobbes' position is not based on a scientific or historically-informed view of early history - it's a fabricated history developed for the polemic purpose of his argument in Leviathan. The same is true of Rousseau's.
GeneralStrike-
Thomas Paine gave him a good kicking, too. Hobbes wasn't even talking about human life in previous times, he was talking about what life would be like without a functioning society (best ruled by a king or dictator, in his view). Somehow it's been widely misquoted as a comment on previous history. Up there with myths like our medieval ancestors not washing and knights in armour not being able to get back up again if they fell over.
itsbruce
Nasty, brutish and short, I believe