Thomas Hobbes · Complete work
Dominion, Chapter VI, 2
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13 It is most manifest by what hath been said, that in every perfect city, that is, where no citizen hath right to use his faculties at his own discretion for the preservation of himself, or where the right of the private sword is excluded; there is a supreme power in some one, greater than which cannot by right be conferred by men, or greater than which no mortal man can have over himself. But that power, greater than which cannot by men be conveyed on a man, we call absolute.10 For whosoever hath so submitted his will to the will of the city, that he can, unpunished, do any thing, make laws, judge controversies, set penalties, make use at his own pleasure of the strength and wealth of men, and all this by right; truly he hath given him the greatest dominion that can be granted. This same may be confirmed by experience, in all the cities which are or ever have been. For though it be sometimes in doubt what man or council hath the chief command, yet ever there is such a command and always exercised, except in the time of sedition and civil war; and then there are two chief commands made out of one. Now, those seditious persons who dispute against absolute authority, do not so much care to destroy it, as to convey it on others: for removing this power, they together take away civil society, and a confusion of all things returns. There is so much obedience joined to this absolute right of the chief ruler, as is necessarily required for the government of the city, that is to say, so much as that right of his may not be granted in vain. Now this kind of obedience, although for some reasons it may sometimes by right be denied, yet because a greater cannot be performed, we will call it simple. But the obligation to perform this grows not immediately from that contract, by which we have conveyed all our right on the city; but immediately from hence, that without obedience the city’s right would be frustrate, and by consequence there would be no city constituted. For it is one thing if I say, I give you right to command what you will; another, if I say, I will do whatsoever you command. And the command may be such, as I would rather die than do it. Forasmuch, therefore, as no man can be bound to will being killed, much less is he tied to that which to him is worse than death. If therefore I be commanded to kill myself, I am not bound to do it. For though I deny to do it, yet the right of dominion is not frustrated; since others may be found, who being commanded will not refuse to do it; neither do I refuse to do that, which I have contracted to do. In like manner, if the chief ruler command any man to kill him, he is not tied to do it; because it cannot be conceived that he made any such covenant. Nor if he command to execute a parent, whether he be innocent or guilty and condemned by the law; since there are others who being commanded will do that, and a son will rather die than live infamous and hated of all the world. There are many other cases in which, since the commands are shameful to be done by some and not by others, obedience may by right be performed by these, and refused by those; and this without breach of that absolute right which was given to the chief ruler. For in no case is the right taken away from him, of slaying those who shall refuse to obey him. But they who thus kill men, although by right given them from him that hath it, yet if they use that right otherwise than right reason requires, they sin against the laws of nature, that is, against God.
That he is not tied to observe the laws of the city.
14 Neither can any man give somewhat to himself; for he is already supposed to have what he can give himself. Nor can he be obliged to himself; for the same party being both the obliged and the obliger, and the obliger having power to release the obliged, it were merely in vain for a man to be obliged to himself; because he can release himself at his own pleasure, and he that can do this is already actually free. Whence it is plain, that the city is not tied to the civil laws; for the civil laws are the laws of the city, by which, if she were engaged, she should be engaged to herself. Neither can the city be obliged to her citizen; because, if he will, he can free her from her obligation; and he will, as oft as she wills; for the will of every citizen is in all things comprehended in the will of the city; the city therefore is free when she pleaseth, that is, she is now actually free. But the will of a council, or one who hath supreme authority given him, is the will of the city: he therefore contains the wills of all particular citizens. Therefore neither is he bound to the civil laws; for this is to be bound to himself; nor to any of his citizens.
That no man can challenge a propriety in aught against him who hath the supreme power.
15 Now because, as hath been shown above, before the constitution of a city all things belonged to all men; nor is there that thing which any man can so call his, as any other may not, by the same right, claim as his own; for where all things are common, there can be nothing proper to any man; it follows, that propriety received its beginning11 when cities received their’s, and that that only is proper to each man, which he can keep by the laws and the power of the whole city, that is, of him on whom its chief command is conferred. Whence we understand, that each particular citizen hath a propriety to which none of his fellow-citizens hath right, because they are tied to the same laws; but he hath no propriety in which the chief ruler (whose commands are the laws, whose will contains the will of each man, and who by every single person is constituted the supreme judge) hath not a right. But although there be many things which the city permits to its citizens, and therefore they may sometimes go to law against their chief; yet is not that action belonging to civil right, but to natural equity. Neither is it concerning what12 by right he may do who hath the supreme power, but what he hath been willing should be done; and therefore he shall be judge himself, as though (the equity of the cause being well understood) he could not give wrong judgment.
It is known by the civil laws what theft, murder, adultery, and injury are.
16 Theft, murder, adultery, and all injuries, are forbid by the laws of nature; but what is to be called theft, what murder, what adultery, what injury in a citizen, this is not to be determined by the natural, but by the civil law. For not every taking away of the thing which another possesseth, but only another man’s goods, is theft; but what is our’s, and what another’s, is a question belonging to the civil law. In like manner, not every killing of a man is murder, but only that which the civil law forbids; neither is all encounter with women adultery, but only that which the civil law prohibits. Lastly, all breach of promise is an injury, where the promise itself is lawful; but where there is no right to make any compact, there can be no conveyance of it, and therefore there can no injury follow, as hath been said in the second chapter, Article 17. Now what we may contract for, and what not, depends wholly upon the civil laws. The city of Lacedæmon therefore rightly ordered, that those young men who could so take away certain goods from others as not to be caught, should go unpunished; for it was nothing else but to make a law, that what was so acquired should be their own, and not another’s. Rightly also is that man everywhere slain, whom we kill in war or by the necessity of self-defence. So also that copulation which in one city is matrimony, in another will be judged adultery. Also those contracts which make up marriage in one citizen, do not so in another, although of the same city; because that he who is forbidden by the city, that is, by that one man or council whose the supreme power is, to contract aught, hath no right to make any contract, and therefore having made any, it is not valid, and by consequence no marriage. But his contract which received no prohibition, was therefore of force, and so was matrimony. Neither adds it any force to any unlawful contracts, that they were made by an oath or sacrament;13 for those add nothing to the strengthening of the contract, as hath been said above, Chap. II. Art. 22. What therefore theft, what murder, what adultery, and in general what injury is, must be known by the civil laws; that is, the commands of him who hath the supreme authority.
The opinion of those who would constitute a city, where there should not be any one endued with absolute power.
17 This same supreme command and absolute power, seems so harsh to the greatest part of men, as they hate the very naming of them; which happens chiefly through want of knowledge, what human nature and the civil laws are; and partly also through their default, who, when they are invested with so great authority, abuse their power to their own lust. That they may therefore avoid this kind of supreme authority, some of them will have a city well enough constituted, if they who shall be the citizens’ convening, do agree concerning certain articles propounded, and in that convent agitated and approved, and do command them to be observed, and punishments prescribed to be inflicted on them who shall break them. To which purpose, and also to the repelling of a foreign enemy, they appoint a certain and limited return, with this condition, that if that suffice not, they may call a new convention of estates. Who sees not in a city thus constituted, that the assembly who prescribed those things had an absolute power? If therefore the assembly continue, or from time to time have a certain day and place of meeting, that power will be perpetual. But if they wholly dissolve, either the city dissolves with them, and so all is returned to the state of war: or else there is somewhere a power left to punish those who shall transgress the laws, whosoever or how many soever they be that have it; which cannot possibly be without an absolute power. For he that by right hath this might given, by punishments to restrain what citizens he pleaseth, hath such a power as a greater cannot possibly be given by any citizens.
The notes of supreme authority.
18 It is therefore manifest, that in every city there is some one man, or council, or court, who by right hath as great a power over each single citizen, as each man hath over himself considered out of that civil state; that is, supreme and absolute, to be limited only by the strength and forces of the city itself, and by nothing else in the world. For if his power were limited, that limitation must necessarily proceed from some greater power. For he that prescribes limits, must have a greater power than he who is confined by them. Now that confining power is either without limit, or is again restrained by some other greater than itself; and so we shall at length arrive to a power, which hath no other limit but that which is the terminus ultimus of the forces of all the citizens together. That same is called the supreme command; and if it be committed to a council, a supreme council, but if to one man, the supreme lord of the city. Now the notes of supreme command are these: to make and abrogate laws, to determine war and peace, to know and judge of all controversies, either by himself, or by judges appointed by him; to elect all magistrates, ministers, and counsellors. Lastly, if there be any man who by right can do some one action, which is not lawful for any citizen or citizens to do beside himself, that man hath obtained the supreme power. For those things which by right may not be done by any one or many citizens, the city itself can only do. He therefore that doth those things, useth the city’s right; which is the supreme power.
If the city be compared with a man, he who hath the supreme command is in order to the city, as the human soul is to the man.
19 They who compare a city and its citizens with a man and his members, almost all say, that he who hath the supreme power in the city is in relation to the whole city, such as the head is to the whole man. But it appears by what hath been already said, that he who is endued with such a power, whether it be a man or a court, hath a relation to the city, not as that of the head, but of the soul to the body. For it is the soul by which a man hath a will, that is, can either will or nill; so by him who hath the supreme power, and no otherwise, the city hath a will, and can either will or nill. A court of counsellors is rather to be compared with the head, or one counsellor, whose only counsel (if of any one alone) the chief ruler makes use of in matters of greatest moment: for the office of the head is to counsel, as the soul’s is to command.
CHAPTER VII OF THE THREE KINDS OF GOVERNMENT, DEMOCRACY, ARISTOCRACY, MONARCHY.
That the supreme power cannot by right be dissolved by their consents, by whose compacts it was constituted;
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from Hobbes’s own 1651 English version of De Cive, complete (epistle, preface, eighteen chapters with annotations; Molesworth’s 1841 text) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity. Molesworth’s index is omitted.
13 What has been said makes it abundantly clear that in every fully constituted city—that is, where no citizen has the right to use his own powers at his discretion for his preservation, and where the right of the private sword is excluded—there is supreme power in someone. No greater power can rightfully be conferred by men, nor can any mortal man have greater power over himself. The power beyond which men cannot convey any greater to a man we call absolute.10 Whoever has so submitted his will to that of the city that its ruler may, without punishment and by right, do anything, make laws, judge controversies, impose penalties, and use men's strength and wealth at his pleasure has indeed given him the greatest dominion that can be granted. Experience confirms the same thing in every city now existing or ever known. There may sometimes be doubt about which man or council holds supreme command, but such a command always exists and is exercised, except during sedition and civil war; then one supreme command has become two. Those who rebel against absolute authority seek not so much to destroy it as to transfer it to others: take that power away, and civil society vanishes with it, returning all things to confusion. This absolute right of the supreme ruler carries as much obedience as the government of the city necessarily requires—that is, enough that his right is not granted in vain. Though there are reasons why this obedience may sometimes rightfully be refused, since no greater obedience can be given, I will call it simple obedience. The duty to give it does not arise immediately from the contract by which we have conveyed all our right to the city; it arises immediately from the fact that without obedience the city's right would be futile, and consequently no city would have been established. For to say, “I give you the right to command whatever you wish,” is one thing; to say, “I will do whatever you command,” is another. The command may be one I would rather die than obey. Since no man can be bound to consent to being killed, still less can he be bound to what is worse than death to him. If I am commanded to kill myself, therefore, I am not bound to do it. My refusal does not render the right of dominion futile, since others may be found who will not refuse such a command; nor am I refusing to do what I contracted to do. Likewise, if the supreme ruler commands someone to kill him, that man is not bound to do it, since no one can suppose that he made such a covenant. Nor is he bound if commanded to execute a parent, whether innocent or guilty and condemned by law: others can carry out that order, and a son would rather die than live disgraced and hated by all the world. There are many other cases in which a command is shameful for some to perform but not for others, so that the latter may rightfully obey and the former refuse, without infringing the absolute right granted to the supreme ruler. For in no case is his right to put those who refuse him to death taken away. Yet those who put men to death by virtue of a right granted by its holder, if they exercise that right contrary to right reason, sin against the laws of nature—that is, against God.
That he is not bound to observe the laws of the city.
14 No man can give himself anything, for he is already supposed to possess whatever he could give himself. Nor can he bind himself: if the one bound and the one who binds are the same, and the latter has the power to release the former, binding oneself is entirely pointless. He can release himself at will, and anyone who can do so is already free. Hence it is clear that the city is not bound by the civil laws. They are the city's own laws, and if they bound her, she would be bound to herself. Nor can the city be bound to her citizen, because he can release her from her obligation if he wishes; and he wishes whatever she wishes, since every citizen's will is in all things contained in the city's will. Thus the city is free whenever she pleases—which means she is free already. But the will of a council or of one person entrusted with supreme authority is the will of the city: he therefore contains the wills of all individual citizens. Thus neither is he bound by the civil laws, which would be to bind himself, nor is he bound to any of his citizens.
No one can claim property in anything against the holder of supreme power.
15 As shown above, before a city was established all things belonged to all men, and nothing could be called one man's own without another being able to claim it as his by the same right; where everything is held in common, nothing can belong to one person alone. It follows that property began11 when cities began, and that what belongs to any individual is only what he can hold by the laws and power of the whole city—that is, of the person invested with its supreme command. Thus each citizen has property to which none of his fellow citizens has a right, because they are bound by the same laws; but he has no property to which the supreme ruler has no right, for the ruler's commands are the laws, his will contains the will of each man, and every individual has made him the supreme judge. Yet the city allows its citizens many things, and they may sometimes even bring suit against their ruler. Such an action belongs not to civil right but to natural equity. Its question is not what the holder of supreme power may do by right,12 but what he has willed to be done; and he himself will therefore be judge, as if, once the equity of the cause were understood, he could not judge wrongly.
The civil laws determine what theft, murder, adultery, and injury are.
16 Theft, murder, adultery, and all injuries are forbidden by the laws of nature; but what is to count as theft, murder, adultery, or injury in a citizen is determined not by natural law but by civil law. Not every taking of something in another's possession is theft, only the taking of another's goods; and the question of what is ours and what belongs to another is a matter of civil law. Likewise, not every killing of a man is murder, only a killing forbidden by civil law; nor is every sexual union adultery, but only what civil law prohibits. Finally, any breach of a promise is an injury when the promise itself is lawful. But where there is no right to make a compact, no right can be conveyed by it, and consequently no injury can follow, as stated in the second chapter, Article 17. What we may or may not contract for depends wholly on the civil laws. Thus the city of Lacedæmon rightly decreed that young men who could take certain goods from others without being caught should go unpunished. This was simply to make a law that what they acquired in this way belonged to them and not to someone else. So too a man killed in war, or from the necessity of self-defense, is everywhere rightfully killed. Likewise, a union that is marriage in one city will be judged adultery in another. Even within the same city, contracts that constitute marriage for one citizen may not constitute it for another. A person forbidden by the city—that is, by the one man or council holding supreme power—to make a particular contract has no right to make it; if he does, it is invalid, and consequently there is no marriage. But the contract of someone under no such prohibition is valid, and is therefore marriage. An oath or sacrament13 adds no force to unlawful contracts, for neither strengthens a contract, as stated above, Chap. II, Art. 22. Thus theft, murder, adultery, and injury in general must be known by the civil laws—that is, the commands of the holder of supreme authority.
The opinion of those who would establish a city without anyone endowed with absolute power.
17 Supreme command and absolute power seem so harsh to most men that they hate even their names. This is chiefly because they do not understand human nature or the civil laws, and partly because those invested with such great authority misuse their power to satisfy their desires. To avoid this form of supreme authority, some claim that a city will be adequately constituted if those assembling as citizens agree on certain proposed articles, debate and approve them in that convention, command their observance, and prescribe punishments for breaking them. To enforce these articles and repel a foreign enemy, they assign a fixed and limited contribution, on condition that if it proves insufficient they may call a new assembly of estates. Who does not see that in a city so constituted, the assembly that prescribed these things held absolute power? If the assembly continues, or meets again at an appointed time and place, that power will be perpetual. But if it dissolves completely, either the city dissolves with it and everything returns to a state of war, or somewhere a power remains to punish all who break the laws, whoever and however many its holders may be. Such power cannot exist without being absolute: anyone who rightfully has the power to restrain by punishment whichever citizens he pleases possesses a power beyond which citizens could grant no greater.
The marks of supreme authority.
18 It is therefore plain that in every city there is some one man, council, or court with as great a rightful power over each individual citizen as each man has over himself outside the civil state. This power is supreme and absolute, limited only by the city's own strength and forces, and by nothing else in the world. If the power were limited, the limit would necessarily come from a greater power, since whoever imposes limits must have greater power than the person limited. That limiting power either has no limit or is itself restrained by another greater power. Eventually, then, we must reach a power with no limit except the utmost extent of the united forces of all the citizens. This is called the supreme command; when vested in a council, it is called a supreme council, and when vested in one man, the supreme lord of the city. These are the marks of supreme command: making and repealing laws; deciding war and peace; hearing and judging every controversy, either personally or through appointed judges; and choosing all magistrates, ministers, and counselors. Finally, if anyone has a right to perform even a single act that no other citizen or citizens may lawfully perform, that person has obtained supreme power. For only the city itself can do what no citizen or citizens have the right to do. Whoever does such things exercises the city's right, which is supreme power.
If the city is compared with a man, the holder of supreme command stands to the city as the human soul stands to a man.
19 Almost everyone who compares a city and its citizens to a man and his members says that the holder of supreme power stands to the whole city as the head stands to the whole man. But what has already been said shows that the relation of the person or court invested with this power to the city is not that of head to body but of soul to body. The soul gives a man a will, the capacity to will or refuse; likewise the city has a will and can will or refuse only through the holder of supreme power. A council of advisers is more properly compared to the head, or a single adviser, if the supreme ruler relies on one alone in matters of greatest importance: the head's office is to advise, the soul's to command.
CHAPTER VII OF THE THREE KINDS OF GOVERNMENT: DEMOCRACY, ARISTOCRACY, MONARCHY.
The supreme power cannot rightfully be dissolved by the consent of those whose compacts established it;
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from Hobbes’s own 1651 English version of De Cive, complete (epistle, preface, eighteen chapters with annotations; Molesworth’s 1841 text). Molesworth’s index is omitted.
13 What we have said makes it clear that every complete city has a supreme authority. In such a city, no citizen has the right to use his powers at his own discretion to protect himself: the private right to use the sword has been removed. No human being can rightfully be given greater power by others, or have greater power over himself. We call a power absolute10 when people cannot transfer a greater one to anyone. Someone who has submitted his will to the city's will so completely that the city can rightfully do whatever it chooses without punishment—make laws, settle disputes, impose penalties, and use people's strength and wealth as it pleases—has given it the greatest dominion he can give. Experience confirms this in every city, past and present. People sometimes dispute which person or council has supreme command, but there is always a supreme command, and it is always exercised except during sedition and civil war. At those times, one supreme command becomes two. Those who rebel against absolute authority want less to abolish it than to give it to someone else. Abolish that power, and civil society disappears with it; general disorder returns. The absolute right of the supreme ruler carries with it as much obedience as governing the city requires. Otherwise that right would have been granted in vain. Sometimes one may rightfully refuse this degree of obedience for particular reasons. But since one cannot give more obedience, we shall call it simple obedience. The obligation to obey does not arise directly from the contract by which we transferred all our rights to the city. It arises directly from the fact that without obedience the city's right would be useless, and so no city would have been formed. Saying “I give you the right to command whatever you want” differs from saying “I will do whatever you command.” A command may require something I would rather die than do. Since nobody can be bound to consent to being killed, still less can he be bound to do something he considers worse than death. If I am ordered to kill myself, then, I need not do it. My refusal does not make the ruler's right useless: others can be found who will obey that order. Nor am I refusing anything I contracted to do. Likewise, if the supreme ruler orders a person to kill the ruler himself, that person need not comply, since no one can suppose he made such a covenant. Nor need a person execute his parent, whether the parent is innocent or guilty and legally condemned. Others will do it if ordered, while a son would rather die than live in disgrace and be hated by everybody. In many other cases an act may disgrace some people but not others. Some can therefore rightfully obey an order while others rightfully refuse, without violating the absolute right given to the supreme ruler. The ruler still has the right to kill anyone who refuses his commands. Those who kill people under a right granted by that ruler nevertheless sin against the laws of nature—that is, against God—if they exercise that right contrary to sound reason.
The city's laws do not bind the ruler.
14 Nobody can give himself something, since he already has whatever he could give himself. Nor can someone bind himself by an obligation to himself. He would be both the person obligated and the person entitled to release him. Such an obligation would be pointless: he could release himself whenever he wanted, and someone who can do that is already free. So the city is not bound by civil laws. Those laws are the city's own, and if they bound the city, it would be bound to itself. Nor can the city be bound to a citizen. The citizen can release it from any obligation if he wants, and he wants whatever the city wants, since the city's will contains each citizen's will in every matter. The city can be free whenever it pleases, and so is free already. The will of the council or person holding supreme authority is the city's will, and contains the wills of every individual citizen. So that ruler is bound neither by civil laws, which would mean being bound to himself, nor by obligations to individual citizens.
No one can claim property against the supreme ruler.
15 As shown above, before a city was established everything belonged to everyone. No person could call anything his without another person having an equal right to claim it. When everything is common, nothing is anyone's exclusive property. Property therefore began11 when cities began. A person owns only what he can keep under the laws and with the power of the whole city, meaning the power of its supreme ruler. So an individual citizen has property to which no fellow citizen has a right, because they all must obey the same laws. But he owns nothing to which the supreme ruler has no right. That ruler's commands are the laws, his will contains everyone's will, and every citizen has made him the highest judge. The city nevertheless permits citizens many things, and they may sometimes even bring legal actions against their ruler. Such an action, however, is based on natural fairness, not a civil right. The issue is not what12 the supreme ruler may rightfully do, but what he has chosen to allow. Thus he himself will be the judge, as though he could not decide wrongly when he fully understands the fairness of the case.
Civil laws tell us what counts as theft, murder, adultery, and injury.
16 The laws of nature forbid theft, murder, adultery, and all injuries. But civil law, not natural law, determines which acts by a citizen count as theft, murder, adultery, or injury. Taking something another person possesses is not always theft: only taking another person's property is. Civil law determines what belongs to us and what belongs to others. Likewise, not every killing is murder, only a killing civil law forbids. Not every sexual encounter with a woman is adultery, only one civil law prohibits. Finally, breaking a promise is an injury when the promise was lawful. If someone had no right to make the agreement, he could not transfer a right by it, so no injury can result, as stated in chapter 2, article 17. Civil law entirely determines which agreements we may make. Thus the city of Lacedæmon rightly ordered that young men who took certain things from others without being caught should go unpunished. This simply made a law saying that goods acquired in that way belonged to them, not to the others. Likewise, it is right to kill someone when we do so in war or out of necessity in self-defense. A sexual union that is marriage in one city may be judged adultery in another. Contracts that establish marriage for one citizen may fail to do so for another, even in the same city. If the city—that is, the person or council holding supreme power—forbids someone to enter a particular contract, that person has no right to make it. Any such contract he does make is invalid, so it cannot create a marriage. But a person's contract that has not been forbidden is valid and constitutes marriage. An oath or sacrament13 adds no force to an unlawful contract. Neither strengthens a contract, as stated above in chapter 2, article 22. Thus what counts as theft, murder, adultery, or any injury must be learned from civil laws: the commands of the supreme authority.
The view of people who want to establish a city without anyone holding absolute power.
17 Most people find supreme command and absolute power so harsh that they dislike even hearing the terms. This is mainly because they do not understand human nature or civil law, and partly because people entrusted with great authority sometimes abuse it to satisfy their desires. To avoid supreme authority, some propose a city constituted merely by its citizens meeting, agreeing to articles proposed and debated there, ordering compliance, and setting punishments for violations. To provide for this and for defense against foreign enemies, they set a fixed, limited amount of revenue and provide that, if it proves insufficient, they may call another meeting of the estates. But surely the assembly that made those rules held absolute power. If the assembly remains in session, or has a fixed time and place to meet regularly, that power will be permanent. If it disbands altogether, either the city disbands too and everything returns to the state of war, or someone retains the power to punish lawbreakers. Whoever holds that power, however many people it may involve, must have absolute power. Anyone who has the rightful power to restrain whichever citizens he chooses by punishment has all the power that citizens can possibly confer.
The signs of supreme authority.
18 It is clear, then, that every city has some person, council, or court with as much rightful power over each citizen as an individual has over himself outside civil society. That power is supreme and absolute, limited only by the city's own strength and resources, and by nothing else. Any other limit on it must come from a greater power: whoever sets a limit must be more powerful than whoever is limited. That limiting power is either itself unlimited or limited by a still greater power. Ultimately we must reach a power whose only limit is the combined strength of all the citizens. That is called supreme command. If a council holds it, it is a supreme council; if one person holds it, that person is the city's supreme lord. These are the signs of supreme command: making and repealing laws; deciding on war and peace; hearing and deciding every dispute, personally or through appointed judges; and selecting all magistrates, officials, and counselors. Finally, if someone alone has the right to perform an act no other citizen or group of citizens can lawfully perform, that person holds supreme power. Only the city itself can rightfully do things that no individual citizens or groups can do. Whoever performs those acts exercises the city's right, which is supreme power.
In comparing the city with a person, the supreme ruler is to the city what the soul is to the person.
19 Almost everyone who compares a city and its citizens with a person and his limbs says the supreme ruler is to the whole city what the head is to the whole person. But what has already been said shows that the person or court holding supreme power is to the city what the soul, not the head, is to the body. The soul gives a person a will and enables him to choose or reject things. Similarly, only the supreme ruler gives the city a will and enables it to choose or reject things. A council of advisers is more like the head, as is a single adviser whose advice alone the supreme ruler uses on important matters, if he takes advice from only one. The head advises; the soul commands.
CHAPTER VII: THE THREE KINDS OF GOVERNMENT: DEMOCRACY, ARISTOCRACY, MONARCHY.
Those whose covenants established supreme power cannot rightfully dissolve it by agreeing to do so.