And the second being that of the "civil history" and man-kinds voluntary actions, and the causality of such actions within a common-wealth.
Through such hypothesis Hobbes is able to define man, and build a an argument of man and the common-wealth based upon his natural animal instincts.
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State of Nature .
Within Hobbes's state of nature he believes each human being acts only for his own good, thus human beings are not naturally fit for society, for they will inevitably fight for the resources, that Hobbes views as scarce (a concept that is still adhered to, to-day) and so by installing the idea of scarce resources, Hobbes can justify the argument that self-interest will lead to competition.
With man-kind acting with self-interest, Hobbes goes on to justify what he perceives is the "state of nature" and through the behaviour of self interest man acts in ways that are both destructive to him-self and to those around him, he uses the example of the three farmers on the hill; each man has an equal amount of land, and on each piece of land stand a hand full of trees, each farmer decides that he needs some wood for construction and fire wood, so acting independently of each other they cut down the trees, shortly after heavy rains come and without the trees their soil is washed away. And so through the individuals acting independently of each other they have, through their actions destroyed each others chance of producing crops, or land to graze on.
Self-interest creates an environment of competition each man striving to obtain what he has not, with self-interest and competition creating only winners as competition will inevitably do so, those who have lost will need to wage war, to be aggressive, and to steal in-order to survive, and so any chance of co-operation is undermined. And from such competition will come traits of egotism. Such ingredients of egotism and competition bring individuals together in a state of conflict, for once a man has gained his trophy through competition he is bound to draw the attention of those who have lost, and are forced to go without.
