That the supreme command cannot by right be dissolved through their consents, by whose compacts it was first constituted. [Sidenote: There can no right be attributed to a multitude, considered out of civil society; nor any action, to which they have not given their particular consents.] 1. We must consider, first of all, what a multitude[8] of men, gathering themselves of their own free wills into society, is; namely, that it is not any one body, but many men, whereof each one hath his own will and his peculiar judgment concerning all things that may be proposed. And though by particular contracts each single man may have his own right and propriety, so as one may say _this is mine_, the other, _that is his_; yet will there not be anything of which the whole multitude, as a person distinct from a single man, can rightly say, this is _mine_, more than another’s. Neither must we ascribe any action to the multitude, as its own; but if all or more of them do agree, it will not be an action, but as many actions as men. For although in some great sedition, it is commonly said, that the people of that city have taken up arms; yet is it true of those only who are in arms, or who consent to them. For the city, which is one person, cannot take up arms against itself. Whatsoever, therefore, is done by the multitude, must be understood to be done by every one of those by whom it is made up; and that he, who being in the multitude, and yet consented not, nor gave any helps to the things that were done by it, must be judged to have done nothing. Besides, in a multitude not yet reduced into one person, in that manner as hath been said, there remains that same state of nature in which all things belong to all men; and there is no place for _meum_ and _tuum_, which is called dominion and propriety, by reason that that security is not yet extant, which we have declared above to be necessarily requisite for the practice of the natural laws. Footnote 8: _Multitude, &c._] The doctrine of the power of a city over its citizens, almost wholly depends on the understanding of the difference which is between a multitude of men ruling, and a multitude ruled. For such is the nature of a city, that a multitude or company of citizens not only may have command, but may also be subject to command; but in diverse senses. Which difference I did believe was clearly enough explained in the first article; but by the objections of many against those things which follow, I discern otherwise. Wherefore it seemed good to me, to the end I might make a fuller explication, to add these few things.