IX GOVERNMENT 



natural equality of men, and of a primary " state 

 of nature " in which every man strove for the full 

 exercise of his " natural rights," and which was, 

 therefore, a state of war of each against all ; 

 Hobbes further assumed that, in order to obtain 

 the blessings of peace, men entered into a contract 

 with one another, by which each surrendered the 

 whole of his natural rights to the person or per- 

 sons appointed, by common consent, to exercise 

 supreme dominion, or sovereignty, over each and 

 all of the members of the commonwealth consti- 

 tuted by the contract. The authority of the 

 sovereign (whether one man or many, monarch or 

 people x ) to whom . this complete surrender of 

 natural rights was made, was thus absolute and 

 unquestionable. From the time of the surrender, 

 the individual member of the Commonwealth 

 the citizen possessed no natural rights at all; 

 but, in exchange for them he acquired such civil 

 rights as the sovereign despot thought fit to grant 

 and to guarantee by the exercise of the whole 

 power of the State, if necessary. Civil law, sanc- 

 tioned by the force of the community, took the 

 place of " natural right," backed only by the force 

 of the individual. It follows that no limit is, or 

 can be, theoretically sefto StateJnteiference. The 

 citizen of the " Leviathan " is simply a member 

 of a composite organism controlled by the State 

 will ; he has no more freedom in religious matters 

 1 See Philosophical Rudiments, chapters vi: and vii. 



