The rights of property are only valid as against other subjects, not as against the sovereign. The
sovereign has the right to regulate foreign trade. He is not subject to the civil law. His right to
punish comes to him, not from any concept of justice, but because he retains the liberty that all
men had in the state of nature, when no man could be blamed for inflicting injury on another.
There is an interesting list of the reasons (other than foreign conquest) for the dissolution of
commonwealths. These are: giving too little power to the sovereign; allowing private judgement
in subjects; the theory that everything that is against conscience is sin; the belief in inspiration; the
doctrine that the sovereign is subject to civil laws; the recognition of absolute private property;
division of the sovereign power; imitation of the Greeks and Romans; separation of temporal and
spiritual powers; refusing the power of taxation to the sovereign; the popularity of potent subjects;
and the liberty of disputing with the sovereign. Of all these, there were abundant instances in the
then recent history of England and France.
There should not, Hobbes thinks, be much difficulty in teaching people to believe in the rights of
the sovereign, for have they not been taught to believe in Christianity, and even in
transubstantiation, which is contrary to reason? There should be days set apart for learning the
duty of submission. The instruction of the people depends upon right teaching in the universities,
which must therefore be carefully supervised. There must be uniformity of worship, the religion
being that ordained by the sovereign.
Part II ends with the hope that some sovereign will read the book and make himself absolute--a
less chimerical hope than Plato's, that some king would turn philosopher. Monarchs are assured
that the book is easy reading and quite interesting.
Part III, "Of a Christian Common-wealth," explains that there is no universal Church, because the
Church must depend upon the civil government. In each country, the king must be head of the
Church; the Pope's overlordship and infallibility cannot be admitted. It argues, as might be
expected, that a Christian who is a subject of a non-Christian sovereign should yield outwardly,
for was not Naaman suffered to bow himself in the house of Rimmon?
Part IV, "Of the Kingdom of Darkness," is mainly concerned with criticism of the Church of
Rome, which Hobbes hates because it puts