and therefore property is created by government, which may control its creation as it pleases.
It is admitted that the sovereign may be despotic, but even the worst despotism is better than
anarchy. Moreover, in many points the interests of the sovereign are identical with those of his
subjects. He is richer if they are richer, safer if they are law-abiding, and so on. Rebellion is
wrong, both because it usually fails, and because, if it succeeds, it sets a bad example, and teaches
others to rebel. The Aristotelian distinction between tyranny and monarchy is rejected; a
"tyranny," according to Hobbes, is merely a monarchy that the speaker happens to dislike.
Various reasons are given for preferring government by a monarch to government by an assembly.
It is admitted that the monarch will usually follow his private interest when it conflicts with that of
the public, but so will an assembly. A monarch may have favourites, but so may every member of
an assembly; therefore the total number of favourites is likely to be fewer under a monarchy. A
monarch can hear advice from anybody secretly; an assembly can only hear advice from its own
members, and that publicly. In an assembly, the chance absence of some may cause a different
party to obtain the majority, and thus produce a change of policy. Moreover, if the assembly is
divided against itself, the result may be civil war. For all these reasons, Hobbes concludes, a
monarchy is best.
Throughout the Leviathan, Hobbes never considers the possible effect of periodical elections in
curbing the tendency of assemblies to sacrifice the public interest to the private interest of their
members. He seems, in fact, to be thinking, not of democratically elected Parliaments, but of
bodies like the Grand Council in Venice or the House of Lords in England. He conceives
democracy, in the manner of antiquity, as involving the direct participation of every citizen in
legislation and administration; at least, this seems to be his view.
The part of the people, in Hobbes's system, ends completely with the first choice of a sovereign.
The succession is to be determined by the sovereign, as was the practice in the Roman Empire
when mutinies did not interfere. It is admitted that the sovereign will usually choose one of his
own children, or a near relative if he has no children, but it is held that no law ought to prevent
him from choosing otherwise.
There is a chapter on the liberty of subjects, which begins with an