The claim of this section is that chapter XVII builds the commonwealth as a restraint people place on themselves in order to replace an invisible danger with a visible power, and that the visibility it requires runs in one direction: the subject is to see the power, not its reasons. The section adds to the debate between protection and acceptance by showing that Hobbes's covenant, though it begins in consent, makes the sovereign's judgment the subject's own, so that the zone in which orders pass unquestioned is, in Hobbes's design, the whole field of peace and safety.
5.1A restraint upon themselves
The chapter opens with a sentence that uses the very word the study is about:
The finall Cause, End, or Designe of men, (who naturally love Liberty, and Dominion over others,) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves, (in which wee see them live in Common-wealths,) is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of Warre, which is necessarily consequent (as hath been shewn) to the naturall Passions of men, when there is no visible Power to keep them in awe, and tye them by feare of punishment to the performance of their Covenants, and observation of these Lawes of Nature set down in the fourteenth and fifteenth Chapters.
The commonwealth is "that restraint upon themselves". Its end is "foresight", the forward look of the passions of chapter XIII. And the condition it remedies is defined by the absence of a "visible Power". The adjective is not ornamental. What keeps people in awe, in Hobbes's account, is a power they can see. The danger of the natural condition lay in what could not be seen; the remedy is a power that is seen by everyone at once.
The next sentence gives the reason a merely agreed rule is not enough:
For the Lawes of Nature (as Justice, Equity, Modesty, Mercy, and (in summe) Doing To Others, As Wee Would Be Done To,) if themselves, without the terrour of some Power, to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our naturall Passions, that carry us to Partiality, Pride, Revenge, and the like. And Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.
"Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words". A promise that cannot be seen to be enforced gives no security, because no one can see that the other party will keep it.
5.2Security measured by what an enemy can see
Hobbes then explains why a small group cannot provide security, and his measure is again visual:
The Multitude sufficient to confide in for our Security, is not determined by any certain number, but by comparison with the Enemy we feare; and is then sufficient, when the odds of the Enemy is not of so visible and conspicuous moment, to determine the event of warre, as to move him to attempt.
Security is enough when the enemy's advantage is not "so visible and conspicuous" as to tempt an attack. The measure of protection, on this sentence, is what the other side can see. Protection works by being seen; it deters before it defends.
5.3Why people are not bees
The chapter then takes up a question from Aristotle: why bees and ants live together without a coercive power while human beings cannot. Of the six answers Hobbes gives, two bear directly on the question of judgment:
Thirdly, that these creatures, having not (as man) the use of reason, do not see, nor think they see any fault, in the administration of their common businesse: whereas amongst men, there are very many, that thinke themselves wiser, and abler to govern the Publique, better than the rest; and these strive to reforme and innovate, one this way, another that way; and thereby bring it into Distraction and Civill warre.
The danger Hobbes names is that people "see, nor think they see" faults in how the common business is run. Seeing faults is the beginning of the civil war he wants to prevent. The sixth gives the conclusion:
Lastly, the agreement of these creatures is Naturall; that of men, is by Covenant only, which is Artificiall: and therefore it is no wonder if there be somewhat else required (besides Covenant) to make their Agreement constant and lasting; which is a Common Power, to keep them in awe, and to direct their actions to the Common Benefit.
Here is the tension this article follows. In chapter XIII, the subject's inability to see is the source of danger. In chapter XVII, the subject's ability to see faults, or to think that it sees them, is a source of danger too. The visible power Hobbes wants is one the subject sees; the administration of the common business is something the subject is better off not judging.
5.4Authorising the sovereign's judgment
The generation of the commonwealth follows:
The only way to erect such a Common Power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of Forraigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their owne industrie, and by the fruites of the Earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is, to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will: which is as much as to say, to appoint one man, or Assembly of men, to beare their Person; and every one to owne, and acknowledge himselfe to be Author of whatsoever he that so beareth their Person, shall Act, or cause to be Acted, in those things which concerne the Common Peace and Safetie; and therein to submit their Wills, every one to his Will, and their Judgements, to his Judgment.
The last clause carries the argument. Subjects submit "their Judgements, to his Judgment" in "those things which concerne the Common Peace and Safetie". The covenant takes the form of a sentence each person says to every other: "I Authorise and give up my Right of Governing my selfe, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actions in like manner." Then comes the famous naming:
This done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a COMMON-WEALTH, in latine CIVITAS. This is the Generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently) of that Mortall God, to which wee owe under the Immortall God, our peace and defence. For by this Authoritie, given him by every particular man in the Common-Wealth, he hath the use of so much Power and Strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is inabled to forme the wills of them all, to Peace at home, and mutuall ayd against their enemies abroad.
"Mortall God" is worth noticing. The sovereign is mortal from the moment of its generation, which is what chapter XXI will draw out. And the means by which it forms wills is "terror", a passion that requires a visible object.
Set beside Barnard's and Simon's accounts, the covenant is a striking design. Barnard holds that authority lies in acceptance by those to whom an order is addressed and that, within a zone of indifference, orders pass without conscious question (Barnard 1938). Simon describes a zone of acceptance within which a subordinate accepts a decision without examining its merits (Simon 1947). Hobbes's covenant can be read as the act by which subjects place the entire field of "Common Peace and Safetie" inside such a zone, once, for good. The acceptance is given in advance and by everyone to everyone. That is not how Barnard or Simon describe the zone, which on their accounts is a feature of ordinary organisational life rather than a founding act; the comparison is made here, not by them.
5.5Confidence to be protected
The chapter closes by distinguishing commonwealth by acquisition, attained by natural force, from commonwealth by institution:
The other, is when men agree amongst themselves, to submit to some Man, or Assembly of men, voluntarily, on confidence to be protected by him against all others.
The voluntary commonwealth rests on an expectation, and the expectation is a judgment the subject makes. What happens when it fails is the subject of chapter XXI.
5.6A judge who is missing
One passage from chapter XVIII, which the source file prints after XVII, shows why Hobbes will not let subjects hold the sovereign to the terms of the covenant. If subjects claimed a breach and others denied it,
Besides, if any one, or more of them, pretend a breach of the Covenant made by the Soveraigne at his Institution; and others, or one other of his Subjects, or himselfe alone, pretend there was no such breach, there is in this case, no Judge to decide the controversie: it returns therefore to the Sword again; and every man recovereth the right of Protecting himselfe by his own strength, contrary to the designe they had in the Institution.
The argument is about judgment. There is "no Judge to decide the controversie", and so the question returns to force. Hobbes's refusal of a conditional covenant is therefore not a claim that the sovereign may do anything without limit; it is a claim that there is no one to judge the limit except the sword. The same chapter ends with an image that turns the problem into one of sight:
For all men are by nature provided of notable multiplying glasses, (that is their Passions and Self-love,) through which, every little payment appeareth a great grievance; but are destitute of those prospective glasses, (namely Morall and Civill Science,) to see a farre off the miseries that hang over them, and cannot without such payments be avoyded.
Subjects see their burdens through lenses that enlarge them and lack the lenses that would show them what the burdens protect against. The cost of the restraint is visible to the one who bears it; its benefit is not.
5.7What chapter XVII adds
Chapter XVII adds to the debate between protection and acceptance an asymmetry of sight. The commonwealth is a restraint that works by being seen: a visible power, a sword behind the words, a strength whose odds the enemy can see. But what the subject is to see is the power, not its reasons. Judgment on the means of peace is handed over in the covenant, and the subject's view of the costs is, on the image that ends chapter XVIII, distorted by the subject's own passions. If the end of obedience is to be judged by the subject, Hobbes must say what the subject may still see. Chapter XXI does.