men, in the state of nature, enter into society to make one people, one
body politic, under one supreme government; or else when any one joins
himself to, and incorporates with any government already made: for hereby
he authorizes the society, or which is all one, the legislative thereof,
to make laws for him, as the public good of the society shall require; to
the execution whereof, his own assistance (as to his own decrees) is
due. And this puts men out of a state of nature into that of a
common-wealth, by setting up a judge on earth, with authority to
determine all the controversies, and redress the injuries that may happen
to any member of the commonwealth; which judge is the legislative, or
magistrates appointed by it. And where-ever there are any number of men,
however associated, that have no such decisive power to appeal to, there
they are still in the state of nature.
Sec. 90. Hence it is evident, that absolute monarchy, which by some
men is counted the only government in the world, is indeed inconsistent
with civil society, and so can be no form of civil-government at all: for
the end of civil society, being to avoid, and remedy those
inconveniencies of the state of nature, which necessarily follow from
every man's being judge in his own case, by setting up a known authority,
to which every one of that society may appeal upon any injury received,
or controversy that may arise, and which every one of the* society ought
to obey; where-ever any persons are, who have not such an authority to
appeal to, for the decision of any difference between them, there those
persons are still in the state of nature; and so is every absolute
prince, in respect of those who are under his dominion. (*The public
power of all society is above every soul contained in the same society;
and the principal use of that power is, to give laws unto all that are
under it, which laws in such cases we must obey, unless there be reason
shewed which may necessarily inforce, that the law of reason, or of God,
doth enjoin the contrary, Hook. Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. 16.)