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.”