And this is done wherever any number of men, in the
state of Nature, enter into society to make one people one body
politic under one supreme government: or else when any one joins
himself to, and incorporates with any government already made. For
hereby he authorises the society, or which is all one, the legislative
thereof, to make laws for him as the public good of the society
shall require, to the execution whereof his own assistance (as to
his own decrees) is due. And this puts men out of a state of Nature
into that of a commonwealth, by setting up a judge on earth with
authority to determine all the controversies and redress the
injuries that may happen to any member of the commonwealth, which
judge is the legislative or magistrates appointed by it. And
wherever there are any number of men, however associated, that have no
such decisive power to appeal to, there they are still in the state of
Nature.
90. And hence it is evident that absolute monarchy, which by some
men is counted for the only government in the world, is indeed
inconsistent with civil society, and so can be not form of civil
government at all. For the end of civil society being to avoid and
remedy those inconveniences of the state of Nature which necessarily
follow from every man's being judge in his own case, by setting up a
known authority to which every one of that society may appeal upon any
injury received, or controversy that may arise, and which every one of
the society ought to obey.
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