49. It may be asked whether it is worth while to examine the internal consistency of a theory which turns upon what is admitted to be historically a fiction, the supposition of a contract of all with all. There are fictions and fictions however. The supposition that some event took place which as a matter of history did not take place may be a way of conveying an essentially true conception of some moral relation of man. The great objection to the representation of the right of a sovereign power over subjects, and the rights of individuals which are enforced by this 'imperium,' as having arisen out of a contract of all with all, is that it conveys a false notion of rights. It is not merely that the possibility of such a contract being made presupposes just that state of things--a _régime_ of recognised and enforced obligations--which it is assumed to account for. Since those who contract must already have rights, the representation of society with its obligations as formed by contract implies that individuals have certain rights, independently of society and of their functions as members of a society, which they bring with them to the transaction. But such rights abstracted from social function and recognition could only be powers, or (according to Hobbes' definition) liberties to use powers, which comes to the same; i.e. they would not be rights at all; and from no combination or devolution of them could any right in the proper sense, anything more than a combined power, arise.