Sufficient defensive numbers are set only by comparison with the feared enemy

Evidence

Nor is it the joining together of a finall number of men, that gives them this security; because in small numbers, small additions on the one side or the other, make the advantage of strength so great, as is sufficient to carry the Victory; and therefore gives encouragement to an Invasion. The Multitude sufficient to confide in for our Security, is not determined by any certain number, but by comparison with the Enemy we feare; and is then sufficient, when the odds of the Enemy is not of so visible and conspicuous moment, to determine the event ofWarre, as to move him to attempt. (ch. q, n8) As Hobbes goes on to make clear, nothing is less certain, less permanent, than such a victory. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 369

Categorization

• XREF: This is Hobbes’s own text, which Anidjar mobilizes as evidence; the selective pull of the quotation shows the neighbor-to-enemy genealogy running inside the canonical sovereign-theory source.