INTRODUCTION 423
sovereign, as the sovereign is not a party to it. Hence there is no legal limitation
on the sovereign’s power. The sovereign is the essence of the commonwealth,
which can be defined as
one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another,
have made themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the strength and
means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their peace and common
defence.... And he that carries this person, is called SOVEREIGN, and said to
have sovereign power; and every one besides, his SUBJECT.Hobbes believes this sovereign did not have to be a single person—sovereignty
could reside in an individual (a monarchy), a small group (an aristocracy), or in the
entire population (a democracy)—though he shows a marked preference for monar-
chy because of its greater stability and efficiency. What matters to Hobbes above all
else is that the sovereign has absolute power in order to keep the peace and to guar-
antee security. To be sure, an absolute sovereign might abuse power, but the only
alternative to this possible abuse, Hobbes claims, is an unthinkable anarchy.
Hobbes wrote many books over the course of his long life—the standard Oxford
edition of his English works includes eleven volumes with another five volumes
of his Latin works—but Leviathan(1651) is the basis of his fame. The key sec-
tions of this work, from Chapters 1–3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 17–18, and 21, are reprinted
here. The spelling has been updated and standardized.
For a general introduction to Hobbes’s life and thought, see Richard Peters,
Hobbes(Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1956); Tom Sorell,Hobbes(London:
Routledge, 1986); A.P. Martinich,Hobbes: A Biography(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999); A.P. Martinich,Hobbes(London: Routledge, 2005); and
Stephen J. Finn,Hobbes: A Guide for the Perplexed(London: Continuum, 2007).
For discussions of Hobbes’s ethical and political thought as developed in Leviathan,
see Leo Strauss,The Political Philosophy of Hobbes(Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1952); Howard Warrender,The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: His
Theory of Obligation(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957); David P. Gauthier,The Logic
ofLeviathan:The Moral and Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes(Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1969); Michael Oakeshott,Hobbes on Civil Association(Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1975). More general guides to the Leviathaninclude
Glen Newey, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hobbes andLeviathan
(Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2002); and L.M.J. Bagby,Hobbes’s Leviathan:A
Reader’s Guide(London: Continuum, 2007). A.P. Martinich,A Hobbes Dictionary
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1995) provides a helpful reference work. For collections
of essays on Hobbes, see Keith Brown, ed.,Hobbes Studies(Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1965); G.A.J. Rogers and Alan Ryan, eds.,Perspectives
on Thomas Hobbes(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); Tom Sorell, ed.,The
Cambridge Companion to Hobbes(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996);
the multi-volume G.A.J. Rogers, ed.,Critical Responses to Hobbes(Oxford:
Routledge, 1997); Patricia Springborg, ed.,The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s
Leviathan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and Gabriella Slomp,
ed.,Thomas Hobbes(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008).