The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 · Thomas Hobbes
CHAPTER I.
1. Introduction. 2. A multitude before their union, &c. 3. Express consent of every particular, &c. 4. Democratical, aristocratical, and monarchical union may be instituted for ever, or, &c. 5. Without security no private right relinquished. 6. Covenants of government, without power of coercion, are no security. 7. Power coercive, &c. 8. The sword of war, &c. 9. Decision in all debates, &c. annexed to the sword. 10. Laws civil, &c. 11. Appointment of magistrates, &c. 12. Sovereign power includeth impunity. 13. A supposed commonwealth, where laws are made first, and the commonwealth after. 14. The same refelled. 15. Mixed forms of government supposed in sovereignty. 16. That refelled. 17. Mixed government, &c. 18. Reason and experience to prove absolute sovereignty somewhere in all commonwealths. 19. Some principal, &c. marks of sovereignty. [Sidenote: Introduction.]
1. That _Treatise of Human Nature_, which was formerly printed, hath been wholly spent in the consideration of the natural power, and the natural estate of man, namely, of his cognition and passions in the first eleven chapters, and how from thence proceed his actions; in the twelfth, how men know one another’s minds: in the last, in what estate men’s passions set them. In the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth chapters of the former Part of this Treatise is showed, what estate they are directed unto by the dictates of reason, that is to say, what be the principal articles of the law of nature. And lastly, how a multitude of persons natural, are united by covenants into one person civil, or body politic. In this part therefore shall be considered, the nature of a body politic, and the laws thereof, otherwise called civil laws. And whereas it hath been said in the last chapter, and last section of the former part, that there be two ways of erecting a body politic; one by arbitrary institution of many men assembled together, which is like a creation out of nothing by human wit; the other by compulsion, which is as it were a generation thereof out of natural force; I shall first speak of such erection of a body politic, as proceedeth from the assembly and consent of a multitude.
Again, supposing those limited forces and revenue, either by the necessary, or negligent use of them, to fail, and that for a supply, the same multitude be again to be assembled, who shall have power to assemble them, that is to compel them to come together? If he that demandeth the supply hath that right, to wit, the right to compel them all, then is his sovereignty absolute; if not, then is every particular man at liberty to come or not; to frame a new commonwealth, or not, and so the right of the private sword returneth. But suppose them willingly, and of their own accord, assembled to consider of this supply, if now it be still in their choice, whether they shall give it, or not, it is also in their choice, whether the commonwealth shall stand or not. And therefore there lieth not upon any of them any civil obligation that may hinder them from using force, in case they think it tend to their defence. This device therefore of them that will make civil laws first, and then a civil body afterwards, (as if policy made a body politic, and not a body politic made policy) is of no effect. [Sidenote: Mixed forms of government supposed in sovereignty.]
15. Others, to avoid the hard condition, as they take it, of absolute subjection, which, in hatred thereto, they also call slavery, have devised a government, as they think, mixed of the three sorts of sovereignty. As for example: they suppose the power of making laws, given to some great assembly democratical, the power of judicature to some other assembly, and the administration of the laws to a third, or to some one man; and this policy they call mixed monarchy, or mixed aristocracy, or mixed democracy, according as any of these three sorts do most visibly predominate. And in this estate of government, they think the use of the private sword excluded. [Sidenote: That refelled.] 16. And supposing it were so, how were this condition, which they call _slavery_, eased thereby. For in this estate they would have no man allowed, either to be his own judge, or own carver, or to make any laws unto himself; and as long as these three agree, they are as absolutely subject to them, as is a child to the father, or a slave to the master, in the state of nature. The ease therefore of this subjection, must consist in the disagreement of those amongst whom they have distributed the rights of sovereign power. But the same disagreement is war. The division therefore of the sovereignty, either worketh no effect to the taking away of simple subjection, or introduceth war, wherein the private sword hath place again. But the truth is, as hath been already showed in the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth precedent sections, the sovereignty is indivisible. And that seeming mixture of several kinds of government, is not mixture of the things themselves, but confusion in our understandings, that cannot find out readily to whom we have subjected ourselves.
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