The illustration to Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan shows the theory of the book. See Lectures in Social Science History and Social Science History chapters two and six

This quote from Leviathan may help you understand the picture. Click on the quote to read it in context.

"men, for the attaining of peace and conservation of themselves thereby, have made an artificial man, which we call a Commonwealth; so also have they made artificial chains, called civil laws, which they themselves, by mutual covenants, have fastened at one end to the lips of that man, or assembly, to whom they have given the sovereign power, and at the other to their own ears. These bonds, in their own nature but weak, may nevertheless be made to hold, by the danger, though not by the difficulty of breaking them."

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