<P> His proposal was to unify morals according to a single standard (fa: 法) that can be used by anyone: calculating benefit of each act . In that way, the ruler of the state and his subjects will have the same morals; cooperation and joint efforts will be the rule . Later his proposal was strongly rejected by confucianism (especially Mencius) because of the preference of benefit over morals . </P> <P> The pure state of nature or "the natural condition of mankind" was deduced by the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan and in his earlier work On the Citizen . Hobbes argued that all humans are by nature equal in faculties of body and mind (i.e., no natural inequalities are so great as to give anyone a "claim" to an exclusive "benefit"). From this equality and other causes in human nature, everyone is naturally willing to fight one another: so that "during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called warre; and such a warre as is of every man against every man". In this state every person has a natural right or liberty to do anything one thinks necessary for preserving one's own life; and life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Leviathan, Chapters XIII--XIV). Hobbes described this natural condition with the Latin phrase bellum omnium contra omnes (meaning war of all against all), in his work De Cive . </P> <P> Within the state of nature there is neither personal property nor injustice since there is no law, except for certain natural precepts discovered by reason ("laws of nature"): the first of which is "that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it" (Leviathan, Ch . XIV); and the second is "that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself" (loc . cit .). From here Hobbes develops the way out of the state of nature into political society and government, by mutual contracts . </P> <P> According to Hobbes the state of nature exists at all times among independent countries, over whom there is no law except for those same precepts or laws of nature (Leviathan, Chapters XIII, XXX end). His view of the state of nature helped to serve as a basis for theories of international law and relations . </P>

Who said that state is prior to man