Accord between men is based merely on agreement, i.e. is artificial. It is not, therefore, surprising that something more is needed if men are to live in peace. No accord or association based on agreement can give the security required for the practice of natural justice, without some common power to control individuals by instilling a fear of punishment.

It is required that there be a single will among all in matters essential to peace and defence. This can only happen if each man subjects his will to the will of a single other, to the will, that is, of one Man or of one Assembly, in such a way that whatever one wills on matters essential to the common peace may be taken as the will of all and each.

This submission of all their wills to the will of one Man or of one Assembly comes about when each of them obligates himself not to resist the will of the Man or Assembly to which he has submitted himself. This is called UNION.

A man who subjects his will to the will of another transfers to that other the Right to his strength and resources, so that when others have done the same, the recipient of their submissions may be able to use the fear they inspire to bring the wills of individuals to unity and concord.

A Union so made is called a commonwealth or civil society. Since there is one will of all of them, it is to be taken as one person, distinguished and differentiated, having its own rights and its own property. Consequently, no single citizen nor all together are regarded as the commonwealth. A Commonwealth, then, is one person whose will, by the agreement of several men, is to be taken as the will of them all. One Man who makes use of their strength and resources for the common peace and defence…

In every commonwealth the Man or Assembly to whose will individuals have subjected their will is said to hold SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY or SOVEREIGN POWER or DOMINION. Each citizen has transferred all his own force and power to that Man or Assembly. To have done this simply means that he has given up his right to resist. Each of the citizens is called a SUBJECT of him who holds the sovereign power.

This is an adequate demonstration how and by what stages, in the passion for self-preservation, a number of natural persons from fear of each other have coalesced into one civil person to which we have given the name of commonwealth. In the NATURAL COMMONWEALTH a Lord acquires citizens for himself by his own will; in a COMMONWEALTH BY DESIGN the citizens impose a Lord on themselves by their own decision….

Right of Sovereign Authority

If the move towards formation of a commonwealth is to get started, each member of a CROWD must agree with the others that on any issue anyone brings forward in the group, the wish of the majority shall be taken as the will of all. For otherwise, a crowd will never have any will at all, since their attitudes and aspirations differ so markedly from one another. If anyone refuses consent, the rest will form a commonwealth without him. That is why the commonwealth retains its original Right against the dissenter, i.e. the right of war, as against an enemy…

Security is the End for which men subject themselves to others… People are assumed not to have bound themselves to anything or to have given up their right to all things until arrangements have been made for their security…Security is to be assured not by agreements but by penalties. And the assurance is adequate only when the penalties for particular wrongs have been set so high that the consequences for doing them are manifestly worse than of not doing them. For by necessity of nature all men choose what is apparently good for themselves. The right of punishment I call THE SWORD OF JUSTICE.

Thus the security of individuals, and consequently the common peace, necessarily require that the right of using the sword to punish be transferred to some man or some assembly. That man of that assembly therefore is understood to hold sovereign power in the commonwealth by right. For whoever has the right to inflict penalties at his discretion has the right to compel. No greater power can be imagined….

The Sword of Justice and the Sword of War are inherent in sovereign power, essentially and from the very nature of a commonwealth.

Further, it is much more conducive to peace to prevent quarrels arising than to settle them afterwards. All disputes arise from the fact that men’s opinions differ about mine and yours, just and unjust, useful and useless, good and bad, honorable and dishonorable, and so on, and everyone decides by his own judgement. Consequently, it is the responsibility of the Sovereign Power to come up with rules or measures that will be common to all, and to publish them openly. These rules are commonly called CIVIL LAWS….

The one man or assembly to whom sovereign power has been committed by the commonwealth also has the right both to decide which opinions and doctrines are inimical to peace and to forbid their being taught….

No action on the part of the sovereign is liable to punishment….

The greatest power that men can transfer to a man we call ABSOLUTE POWER For anyone who has subjected his will to the will of the commonwealth on the terms that it may do with impunity whatever it chooses — make laws, judge disputes, inflict penalties, and make use of everyone’s strength and wealth at its own discretion — and may do all this by right, has surely given him the greatest power that he could give… And the efforts of seditious men who like to argue against absolute power are directed not so much to abolish it as to transfer it to others. For if this power is abolished, the commonwealth is abolished with it, and universal confusion returns….

Causes Dissolving a Commonwealth

Men do not make a clear enough distinction between a people and a crowd. A people is a single entity with a single will. You can attribute an act to it. None of this can be said of a crowd. In every commonwealth the People Reigns, for the people wills through the will of one man. But the citizens, i.e. the subjects, are a crowd.