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PSIR Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

Comment in 150 words: “Covenants without swords are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.” (Hobbes)

  • UPSC 2013
  • 10 marks
  • Western Political Thought

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The sentence comes from chapter 17 of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651), where he explains why men erect a commonwealth. The laws of nature, he writes, of themselves, without the terror of some power to enforce them, run against our passions of partiality, pride, revenge; covenants, without the sword, are but words. The claim is sound…

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  • Where the Sentence Sits
  • The Case for Hobbes
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PSIR Optional PYQ Solutions

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