Page:The ethics of Hobbes (IA ethicsofhobbes00hobb).pdf/42
hindrances and disturbances of the same," and to do whatsoever he may deem to be necessary for the preservation of peace and security, or "the recovery of the same" when lost.[1] Furthermore, it belongs to sovereignty to judge "of what opinions and doctrines are averse and what conducive to peace"; to determine the rules of propriety, "or meum and tuum, and of good, evil, lawful and unlawful in the actions of subjects." These rules of propriety "are the civil laws."[2] The right of judicature belongs also to sovereignty; i.e., sovereignty has the right to hear and to decide “all controversies which may arise concerning law, either civil or natural, or concerning fact."[3] The sovereign power possesses the right to make war and peace with foreign nations, and is generalissimo of the army of the commonwealth.[4] The sovereign power has the right to choose "all counsellors, ministers, magistrates, and officers" of the commonwealth, "both in peace and war."[5] In the sovereign is vested the power to reward and punish the subject; and also to "give titles of honor; and to appoint what order of place and dignity each man shall hold; and what signs of respect in public or private meetings they shall give to one another."[6] All of the foregoing rights belong to the sovereign power. They are of the very essence of sovereignty. They are "incommunicable and inseparable."[7] Thus we see that with reference to his subjects the sovereign is supreme. His will, in a sense, is the measure of all things to his subjects. "As, for example; of what is to be called right, what good, what virtue, what much, what little, what meum and tuum, what a pound, what a quart, &c."[8]