Chapter 12 — The government, Paragraph 11.1 (§12.00.11.01)

A brief examination of the frontispiece in Hobbes’s Leviathan is revealing for the purposes of this argument. In it, a giant crowned figure is seen emerging from the landscape, towering high above the ground and clutching a sword and a crosier, beneath a quote from the Book of Job: ‘Non est potestas Super Terram quae Comparetur ei’ (‘There is no power on earth to be compared to him’). The torso and arms of the giant are composed of over 300 people all facing inwards, away from the viewer. The giant is intended to represent the state, composed of its citizens. It provides security to them under social contract theory. How is it able to do that? Tellingly, by staying above the landscape, by seeing (and knowing) all, by exercising control over it.

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