Thomas Hobbes

“ In a multitude of speakers therefore, where always, either one is eminent alone, or a few being equal amongst themselves, are eminent above the rest, that one or few must of necessity sway the whole; insomuch, that a democracy, in effect, is no more than an aristocracy of orators, interrupted sometimes with the temporary monarchy of one orator. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ For while the democracy is a making, there is no sovereign with whom to contract. For it cannot be imagined, that the multitude should contract with itself, or with any one man, or number of men, parcel of itself, to make itself sovereign; nor that a multitude, considered as one aggregate, can give itself anything which before it had not. Seeing then that sovereignty democratical is not conferred by the covenant of any multitude (which supposeth union and sovereignty already made) , it resteth, that the same be conferred by the particular covenants of every several man ”

“ The first in order of time of these three sorts is democracy, and it must be so of necessity, because an aristocracy and a monarchy, require nomination of persons agreed upon; which agreement in a great multitude of men must consist in the consent of the major part; and where the votes of the major part involve the votes of the rest, there is actually a democracy.
2. In the making of a democracy, there passeth no covenant, between the sovereign and any subject. ”

“ And seeing a democracy is by institution the beginning both of aristocracy and monarchy, we are to consider next how aristocracy is derived from it. When the particular members of the commonwealth growing weary of attendance at public courts, as dwelling far off, or being attentive to their private businesses, and withal displeased with the government of the people, assemble themselves to make an aristocracy ”

“ And when it happeneth, that the people by plurality of voices shall decree or command any thing contrary to the law of God or nature, though the decree and command be the act of every man, not only present in the assembly, but also absent from it; yet is not the injustice of the decree, the injustice of every particular man, but only of those men by whose express suffrages, the decree or command was passed. For a body politic, as it is a fictitious body, so are the faculties and will thereof fictitious also. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 man so exempted is discharged. For he or they to whom any man is obliged, hath the power to release him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Also exile perpetual, is a release of subjection, forasmuch as being out of the protection of the sovereignty that expelled him, he hath no means of subsisting but from himself. Now every man may lawfully defend himself, that hath no other defence; else there had been no necessity that any man should enter into voluntary subjection, as they do in commonwealths. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Likewise a man is released of his subjection by conquest; for when it cometh to pass, that the power of a commonwealth is overthrown, and any particular man, thereby lying under the sword of his enemy yieldeth himself captive, he is thereby bound to serve him that taketh him, and consequently discharged of his obligation to the former. For no man can serve two masters. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Out of this that hath been already said, may readily be drawn: that whatsoever the people doth to any one particular member or subject of the commonwealth, the same by him ought not to be styled injury. ”