The Political Works of Thomas Hobbes (4 Books in One Edition). Thomas Hobbes
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with the government of the people, assemble themselves to make an aristocracy; there is no more required to the making thereof but putting to the question one by one, the names of such men as it shall consist of, and assenting to their election; and by plurality of vote, to transfer that power which before the people had, to the number of men so named and chosen.
7. And from this manner of erecting an aristocracy it is manifest that the few or optimates, have entered into no covenant, with any of the particular members of the commonwealth whereof they are sovereign; and consequently cannot do any thing to any private man that can be called injury to him, howsoever their act be wicked before Almighty God, according to that which hath been said before, section 3. Farther it is impossible that the people, as one body politic should covenant with the aristocracy or optimates, on whom they intend to transfer their sovereignty; for no sooner is the aristocracy erected, but the democracy is annihilated, and the covenants made unto them void.
8. In all aristocracies, the admission of such as are from time to time to have vote in the sovereign assembly, dependeth on the will and decree of the present optimates; for they being the sovereign, have the nomination (by the eleventh section of the former chapter) of all magistrates, ministers, and counsellors of state whatsoever, and may therefore choose either to make them elective, or hereditary, at their pleasure.
9. Out of the same democracy, the institution of a political monarch proceedeth in the same manner, as did the institution of the aristocracy (viz.) by a decree of the sovereign people, to pass the sovereignty to one man named, and approved by plurality of suffrage. And if this sovereignty be truly and indeed transferred, the estate or commonwealth is an absolute monarchy, wherein the monarch is at liberty, to dispose as well of the succession, as of the possession; and not an elective kingdom. For suppose a decree be made, first in this manner: that such a one shall have the sovereignty for his life; and that afterward they will choose a new; in this case, the power of the people is dissolved, or not. If dissolved, then after the death of him that is chosen, there is no man bound to stand to the decrees of them that shall, as private men, run together to make a new election: and consequently, if there be any man, who by the advantage of the reign of him that is dead, hath strength enough to hold the multitude in peace and obedience, he may lawfully, or rather is by the law of nature obliged so to do. If this power of the people were not dissolved, at the choosing of their king for life; then is the people sovereign still, and the king a minister thereof only, but so, as to put the whole sovereignty in execution; a great minister, but no otherwise for his time, than a dictator was in Rome. In this case, at the death of him that was chosen, they that meet for a new election, have no new, but their old authority for the same. For they were the sovereign all the time, as appeareth by the acts of those elective kings, that have procured from the people, that their children might succeed them. For it is to be understood, when a man receiveth any thing from the authority of the people, he receiveth it not from the people his subjects, but from the people his sovereign. And farther, though in the election of a king for his life, the people grant him the exercise of their sovereignty for that time; yet if they see cause, they may recall the same before the time. As a prince that conferreth an office for life, may nevertheless, upon suspicion of abuse thereof, recall it at his pleasure; inasmuch as offices that require labour and care, are understood to pass from him that giveth them as onera, burthens to them that have them; the recalling whereof are therefore not injury, but favour. Nevertheless, if in making an elective king with intention to reserve the sovereignty, they reserve not a power at certain known and determined times and places to assemble themselves; the reservation of their sovereignty is of no effect, inasmuch as no man is bound to stand to the decrees and determinations of those that assemble themselves without the sovereign authority.
10. In the former section is showed that elective kings, that exercise their sovereignty for a time, which determines with their life, either are subjects and not sovereigns; and that is, when the people in election of them reserve unto themselves the right of assembling at certain times and places limited and made known; or else absolute sovereigns, to dispose of the succession at their pleasure; and that is, when the people in their election hath declared no time nor place of their meeting, or have left it to the power of the elected king to assemble and dissolve them at such times, as he himself shall think good. There is another kind of limitation of time, to him that shall be elected to use the sovereign power (which whether it hath been practised anywhere or not, I know not, but it may be imagined, and hath been objected against the rigour of sovereign power), and it is this: that the people transfer their sovereignty upon condition. As for example: for so long as he shall observe such and such laws, as they then prescribe him. And here as before in elected kings, the question is to be made, whether in the electing of such a sovereign, they reserved to themselves a right of assembling at times and places limited and known, or not; if not, then is the sovereignty of the people dissolved, and they have neither power to judge of the breach of the conditions given him, nor to command any forces for the deposing of him, whom on that condition they had set up; but are in the estate of war amongst themselves, as they were before they made themselves a democracy; and consequently: if he that is elected, by the advantage of the possession he hath of the public means, be able to compel them to unity and obedience, he hath not only the right of nature to warrant him, but also the law of nature to oblige him thereunto. But if in electing him, they reserved to themselves a right of assembling, and appointed certain times and places to that purpose, then are they sovereign still, and may call their conditional king to account, at their pleasure, and deprive him of his government, if they judge he deserve it, either by breach of the condition set him, or otherwise. For the sovereign power can by no covenant with a subject, be bound to continue him in the charge he undergoeth by their command, as a burden imposed not particularly for his good, but for the good of the sovereign people.
11. The controversies that arise concerning the right of the people, proceed from the equivocation of the word. For the word people hath a double signification. In one sense it signifieth only a number of men, distinguished by the place of their habitation; as the people of England, or the people of France; which is no more, but the multitude of those particular persons that inhabit those regions, without consideration of any contracts or covenants amongst them, by which any one of them is obliged to the rest. In another sense, it signifieth a person civil, that is to say, either one man, or one council, in the will whereof is included and involved the will of every one in particular; as for example: in this latter sense the lower house of parliament is all the commons, as long as they sit there with authority and right thereto; but after they be dissolved, though they remain, they be no more the people, nor the commons, but only the aggregate, or multitude of the particular men there sitting; how well soever they agree, or concur, in opinions amongst themselves; whereupon they that do not distinguish between these two significations, do usually attribute such rights to a dissolved multitude, as belong only to the people virtually contained in the body of the commonwealth or sovereignty. And when a great number of their own authority flock together in any nation, they usually give them the name of the whole nation. In which sense they say the people rebelleth, or the people demandeth, when it is no more than a dissolved multitude, of which though any one man may be said to demand or have right to something, yet the heap, or multitude, cannot he said to demand or have right to any thing. For where every man hath his right distinct, there is nothing left for the multitude to have right unto; and when the particulars say: this is mine, this is thine, and this is his, and have shared all amongst them, there can be nothing whereof the multitude can say: this is mine; nor are they one body, as behoveth them to be, that demand anything under the name of mine or his; and when they say ours, every man is understood to pretend in several, and not the multitude. On the other side, when the multitude is united into a body politic, and thereby are a people in the other signification, and their wills virtually in the sovereign, there the rights and demands of the particulars do cease; and he or they that have the sovereign power, doth for them all demand and vindicate under the name of his, that which before they called in the plural, theirs.
12. We have seen how particular men enter into subjection, by transferring their rights; it followeth to consider how such subjection may be discharged. And first, if he or they have the sovereign power, shall relinquish the same voluntarily, there is no doubt but every man is again at liberty, to obey or not; likewise if he or they retaining the sovereignty over the rest, do nevertheless exempt some one or more from. their subjection, every