condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all his actions in like manner.” This done, the multitude so united in one person is called a “commonwealth,” in Latin civitas . This is the generation of that great “leviathan,” or rather, to speak more reverently, of that “mortal god,” to which we owe under the “immortal God,” our peace and defence. For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is enabled to perform the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consisteth the essence of the commonwealth; which, to define it, is “one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made themselves everyone the author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their peace and common defence.”
And he that carrieth this person is called “sovereign,” and said to have “sovereign power”; and everyone besides, his “subject.”
The attaining to this sovereign power is by two ways. One, by natural force; as when a man maketh his children to submit themselves, and their children, to his government, as being able to destroy them if they refuse; or by war subdueth his enemies to his will, giving them their lives on that condition. The other is, when men agree amongst themselves to submit to some man, or assembly of men, voluntarily, on confidence to be protected by him against all others. This latter may be called a political commonwealth, or commonwealth by “institution”; and the former, a commonwealth by “acquisition.” And first, I shall speak of a commonwealth by institution.