Internal vs External Factors

Hobbes discusses the difference between internal and external forces and their effect on the societies/civilizations of men. Hobbes realizes that nothing that mortals create is going to last forever but he seems to offer an explanation to increase the longevity of any sort of civilization we create. “Though nothing can be immortal, which mortals make; yet, if men had the use of reason they pretend to, their commonwealths might be secured, at least, from perishing from internal diseases” (Pg. 228). It seems that Hobbes believes that man lacks the amount of reason necessary to prevent their commonwealths from falling victim to internal diseases. Hobbes doesn’t seem to hold man accountable for their inevitability to fall victim to these internal diseases. “…Therefore when they come to be dissolved, not by external violence, but intestine disorder, the fault is not in men, as they are the matter; but as they are the makers, and orderers of them.” (Pg.228). To me it seems that he is saying that man is not the cause of the internal disorders but they are the effect of them or rather the effect uses man as a medium to its ends.

I don’t know if I agree with Hobbes on the lack of accountability of man to reduce the internal pressures in a country. I agree with him that all countries or any manmade thing will be temporary. External factors are pretty easy to identify as a threat to the commonwealth as they would be anything outside of the commonwealth that presents itself as a threat to its livelihood. This is similar to how it is easy for a person to identify something that physically presents a threat to it. The internal factors are much more difficult to identify in a commonwealth because it could a problem in the constitution/laws, the people in power themselves, or the general feel of the populace. This is similar to how it’s hard for a person to identify what is exactly making them sick since the symptoms of most diseases can be the symptoms for various types of ailments. I don’t believe that this means we are not accountable and that we cannot combat these internal forces, it is just more difficult to diagnose them than it would be with external factors. Do you believe that we face greater internal or external threats to our own country? Would internal threats or external threats be easier to identify?