§. 89. Wherever, therefore, any number of men so unite into one society as to
quit every one his executive power of the law of Nature, and to resign it to
the public, there and there only is a political or civil society. 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.
