it was not essential that this sovereign body be a single person - a monarch - but hobbes thought this was preferable, because a monarch's will would be constant,and not subject to internal divisions, unlike that of an assembly. But Hobbes's view on this point was challenged from the moment that he wrote by those who thought that to replace the insecurity of the state of nature by an all-powerful monarch able to dispose of his subjects lives and possessions however he wished was simply going from bad to worse. As John Locke memorably remarked, it assumes that