1. We have explained what Democracy, Aristocracy and Monarchy are. We must now compare them to see which of them is more suited to preserve the citizens' peace and secure advantages for them. But first let us compare the advantages and disadvantages [commoda & incommoda] of the commonwealth in general, so that no one will believe it would be better for everyone to live at his own discretion than to make a commonwealth at all. Outside the circumstances of a commonwealth [statum civitatis] each man does indeed have the most complete liberty, but it does him no good. And the reason is that he who does all things of his own free will because he has his liberty, also suffers all things at the will of others, because they have their liberty. But once a commonwealth is formed, every citizen retains as much liberty as he needs to live well in peace, and enough liberty is taken from others to remove the fear of them. Outside the commonwealth every man has a right to all things, but on the terms that he may enjoy nothing. In a commonwealth every man enjoys a limited right in security. Outside the commonwealth anyone may be killed and robbed by anyone; within a commonwealth by only one person. Outside the commonwealth, we are protected only by our own strength; within by the strength of all.

1. The first and crucial question is this: what actually is a Crowd (Multitudo] (*) of men (who unite by their own decision in a single commonwealth)? For they are not a single entity but a number of men, each of whom has his own will and his own judgement about every proposal. Although each man has his own right and property by particular contracts, so that one man may say of one thing and another of another thing that it is his own, there will be nothing about which the whole crowd, as a person distinct from every individual, can rightly say, this is mine more than another's. Nor is there any action which should be attributed to the crowd as their action; but (if all or several of them reach an agreement) it will not be one action but as many actions as there are men. For despite the fact that it is commonly said of some great rebellion that the people of the commonwealth has taken up arms, it is only true of those who have actually taken up arms or are in league with them. For a commonwealth which is one person cannot take up arms against itself. So whatever is done by a crowd must be understood as being done by each of those who make up that crowd.

1. At VI.2 we derived the origin of a commonwealth by design, or political commonwealth, from an agreement by a number of men, in such terms that it is apparent that all must consent or be regarded as enemies. Such was the origin of God's Kingdom over the Jews instituted by Moses. If you shall hear my voice, etc. you will be to me a Priestly kingdom, etc. Moses came, and calling together the elders of the people, etc. and all the people replied together: we will do all that the Lord has spoken (Exod. 19.5–8). Such too was the beginning of Moses' power under God, or his viceregal power. The whole people saw the voices and the lights, etc. saying to Moses: ‘speak to us and we will hear’ (Exod. 20.18–19). The beginning of the reign of Saul was similar. But, seeing that Naas, King of the sons of Ammon, had come against you, you said to me, ‘No way, but a king shall command us’, although your Lord was reigning over you. Now therefore your king is here whom you have chosen and asked for (1 Sam. 12.12). And when they did not all give their agreement, though the majority did, (for there were the sons of Belial, who said, Surely he won's be able to save us? and they despised him, 1 Sam. 10.27), those who did not agree were put to death as enemies.

1. Aware of their own weakness and in wonder at natural events, the human race has developed an almost universal belief that an invisible God is the Workman who has made all visible things; they also fear him, believing that they do not have adequate self-protection in themselves. But their imperfect use of reason and the vigour of their passions have prevented them from worshipping him rightly. The fear of the invisible, when separated from right reason, is superstition. Without special assistance from God, it proved almost impossible to avoid the twin rocks of Atheism and superstition; for the latter proceeds from fear without right reason, the former from an opinion of reason without fear. So the greater part of mankind has readily succumbed to Idolatry; and almost every Nation has worshipped God by way of images and in the shapes of finite things, and has worshipped spectres or Phantoms, and called them demons. But it pleased God's majesty (as we read it written in the sacred History) to call out of the human race one man, Abraham, in order to bring mankind through him to a true worship of himself; it pleased him to reveal himself to him supernaturally; and to enter into that famous agreement with him and his descendants which is called the Old Agreement, the Old Covenant and the Old Testament.

1. The faculties of human nature may be reduced to four kinds: Physical force, Experience, Reason, Passion. They are the starting point of the doctrine which follows. We shall first describe the attitude men have towards each other, being endowed with these faculties; and ask whether they are born fit [apti nati] for society and for preserving themselves from each other's violence, and which faculty makes them so. We shall go on from there to explain the policy which they had inevitably to adopt for that purpose, and to lay out the conditions of society and Peace among men, which are simply the fundamental laws of nature under another name.

2. The majority of previous writers on public Affairs either assume or seek to prove or simply assert that Man is an animal (*) born fit for Society, – in the Greek phrase, Ζῶον πολιτικὸν. On this foundation they erect a structure of civil doctrine, as if no more were necessary for the preservation of peace and the governance of the whole human race than for men to give their consent to certain agreements and conditions which, without further thought, these writers call laws. This Axiom, though very widely accepted, is nevertheless false; the error proceeds from a superficial view of human nature. Closer observation of the causes why men seek each other's company and enjoy associating with each other, will easily reach the conclusion that it does not happen because by nature it could not be otherwise, but by chance.

1. Those who do not scrupulously weigh the force of words at times confuse law [lex] with advice [consilium], at times with Agreement [Pactum] and sometimes with right [jus]. They confuse law with advice when they think that it is the monarch's duty not only to listen to advisors but also to obey them. As if there was no point in seeking advice unless one were to follow it. The distinction between advice and law is to be sought in the difference between advice and command [mandatum]. advice is an instruction or precept [praeceptum] in which the reason for following it is drawn from the matter itself. But a command is an instruction in which the reason for following it is drawn from the will of the instructor. For one can only properly say: This is what I want, this is my order, if will stands for reason. But since laws are obeyed not for their content, but because of the will of the instructor, law is not advice but command, and is defined thus: law is a command of that person (whether man or council) whose instruction is the reason for obedience. So that the following are to be called laws: God's precepts with respect to men, the commonwealth's to its citizens, and in general the instructions of all powerful people to those who are unable to offer resistance. Law and advice, then, differ from each other in many ways.

1. Socrates is a man, therefore also an animal, is a valid reasoning and utterly evident, since all that one needs, to recognize the truth of the conclusion, is to understand the word man, because animal is in the definition of man; and everyone supplies the missing proposition, man is an animal. Sophroniscus is the father of Socrates, therefore also his Master [Dominus] is also perhaps a valid inference, but not totally evident, because Master is not in the definition of father. To make it evident, one needs to explicate the relation between father and Master. Those who have attempted in the past to assert the Dominion of a father over his children have only come up with the argument of generation [parenthood] as if it were self-evident that what I have generated is mine. This is the same as supposing that if something is a triangle, it is immediately apparent, without any reasoning, that its angles are equal to two right angles. Besides, since Dominion, i.e. sovereign power, is indivisible, so that no one can serve two masters, but generation requires the cooperation of two persons, a Male and a female, it is impossible for Dominion to be wholly acquired by generation alone. At this point therefore we must take a more careful look at the origin of Paternal Dominion.

2. And so we must return to the natural state, in which because of the equality of nature, all adults are to be taken as equal to each other.

1. From what has been said so far, the duties of citizens and subjects in each kind of commonwealth and the powers of sovereigns over them are now clear. We have not yet spoken of the duties of sovereigns [imperantium] and of how they should behave towards citizens. We must distinguish between the right and the exercise of sovereign power; for they can be separated; for instance, he who has the right may be unwilling or unable to play a personal role in conducting trials or deliberating issues. For there are occasions when kings cannot manage affairs because of their age, or when even though they can, they judge it more correct to content themselves with choosing ministers and counsellors, and to exercise their power through them. When right and exercise are separated, the government of the commonwealth is like the ordinary government of the world, in which God the first mover of all things, produces natural effects through the order of secondary causes. But when he who has the right to reign wishes to participate himself in all judgements, consultations and public actions, it is a way of running things comparable to God's attending directly to every thing himself, contrary to the order of nature. So we shall speak briefly and summarily in this chapter of the duties of those who exercise sovereign power whether in their own right or by someone else's.

In May 1650 an old friend of Hobbes, Robert Payne, who had been purged from his Oxford fellowship by the victorious parliamentary army but continued to live near the town, heard that an English translation of De Cive was about to be published. He had kept in touch with Hobbes in Paris, and he apparently knew that Hobbes had not authorized any such translation:

1. So far we have been speaking of the commonwealth by design in general. Now we must speak of its kinds. The differences between commonwealths are derived from the difference in the persons to whom sovereign power is committed. Sovereign power is committed either to one man or to one Assembly or council of many men. Again, an Assembly of many men is either an assembly of all the citizens (so that each of them has the right to vote and can participate in debating issues if he so wishes) or of only a part of the citizens. This is the origin of three kinds of commonwealth: The first is where sovereign power lies with an Assembly in which any citizen has the right to vote; it is called democracy. The second is where sovereign power lies with an Assembly in which not all but only a certain part have a vote; it is called aristocracy. The third is where sovereign power lies with one man; it is called monarchy. In the first, the dominant power is called the people (Δῆμος [populus]; in the second, the nobility [optimates]; in the third, the monarch [monarcha].

2. The ancient writers on Politics have introduced three other kinds of commonwealth in opposition to these: in opposition to Democracy is Anarchy, or confusion; to Aristocracy, Oligarchy, i.e. government by a few; to Monarchy, Tyranny.

[1] I promise you, Readers, all that is usually thought to encourage attentive Reading: an important and useful Subject, a correct Method in the treatment of it, a good reason and an honest purpose in the writing and good sense in the writer; and in this Preface I offer you a brief view of it all. This book sets out men's duties, first as men, then as citizens and lastly as Christians. These duties constitute the elements of the law of nature and of nations, the origin and force of justice, and the essence of the Christian Religion (so far as the limits of my design allow).

[2] The wise men of remotest antiquity believed that this kind of teaching (with the exception of anything relating to the Christian Religion) should be given to posterity only in the pretty forms of poetry or in the shadowy outlines of Allegory, as if to prevent what one might call the high and holy mystery of government from being contaminated by the debates of private men. Philosophers meanwhile were active, some in observing the motions and shapes of things to mankind's great benefit, others in contemplating the natures and causes of things, which did man no harm. In the following period Socrates is said to have been the first to fall in love with this civil science; it had not yet been conceived as a whole at the time but was, so to speak, showing a bit of itself through the clouds in the matter of civil government.

1. To this point we have been speaking of the causes of the formation of commonwealths, of the agreements on which they rest, and of the rights of sovereigns over citizens. Now we must speak briefly of the causes of the dissolution of commonwealths, or the causes of sedition. In the motion of natural bodies we have three things to consider: the internal disposition by which bodies are capable of making motion; the external Agent, by which a certain, specific motion is actually produced; and the action itself. So likewise in a commonwealth, there are three things to look at when the citizens are in an uproar: first, the doctrines and passions inimical to peace, by which the minds of individuals are given a certain disposition; second, what sort of men take people who are already disposed to rebellion and violence, and incite, assemble and direct them; and third, the means by which it is done, or faction itself. Of doctrines that dispose men to sedition, the first, without question, is: that knowledge of good and evil is a matter for individuals. We allowed that this was true in the natural state; in fact we proved it (1.9); for in a natural state, individuals live by equal right, and have not submitted by their own agreement to other men's power. But in the civil state it is false.

1. In the previous pages we have proved from reason and from the testimony of holy scripture that a state of nature, a condition, that is, of absolute liberty like that of men who are neither Sovereigns nor Subjects, is Anarchy and a state of enmity; that the precepts for avoiding such a state are the laws of nature; that a commonwealth cannot exist without sovereign power; and that the holder of sovereign power is owed simple obedience, that is, obedience in all things consistent with God's commands. Only one thing more is needed to complete our knowledge of our civil duty: we must know what the laws or commands of God are. Otherwise we cannot know whether what we are ordered to do by the authority of the civil power is against God's laws or not. And as a result, inevitably, we would either defy God's majesty by obeying the commonwealth too strictly, or slip into confrontation with the commonwealth in our anxiety not to offend God. To avoid both these rocks, we need to know the Divine laws; but as knowledge of a Kingdom's laws depends on a knowledge of the Kingdom, we must speak in what follows of the Kingdom of God.

2. At Psalm 96.1 the Psalmist says: The Lord Reigns, let the earth rejoice. Again the Psalmist says (Psalm 98.1): the Lord Reigns, though the peoples rage; he sits upon the Cherubim, though the earth be moved.

1. It has always been an acknowledged truth that all authority in secular matters derives from the authority of the holder of sovereign power, whether that be a man or a group of men. It is clear from what has just been said that in spiritual matters it depends upon the authority of a Church; it will also be clear that every Christian commonwealth is a Church endowed with this kind of authority. From which even the dullest may conclude that in a Christian commonwealth (i.e. in a commonwealth where sovereignty is held by a Christian Prince or Christian group) all power, both secular and spiritual, is united under Christ; and therefore they must be obeyed in all things. On the other hand, because one must obey God rather than man, a difficulty has arisen as to how obedience can be safely offered if an order is given to do something which christ forbids. The reason for the difficulty is that God no longer speaks to us in a living voice through christ and the Prophets, but by the holy scriptures, which are understood differently by different people. Men know very well what kings and the congregated Church command, but they do not know whether what they command is against God's orders or not. Their obedience wavers between the penalties of temporal and spiritual death; they attempt to sail between Scylla and Charybdis; and often fall foul of both.