This transition can already be observed in the Preface to De cive, in the course of which he describes his project as that of explaining "what the quality of human nature is, in what matters it is, in what not, fit to make up a civil government, and how men must be agreed among themselves, that intend to grow up into a wel-grounded state'' (Hobbes 1983: 22). But it is in the Introduction to Leviathan that he proclaims most unequivocally that the subject matter of his entire investigation has been that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or State (in Latin Civitas)" (Hobbes 1968: 81) Hobbes's ambition as a political theorist had always been to demonstrate that, if there is to be any prospect of attaining civil peace, the fullest powers of sovereignty must be vested neither in the people nor la their rulers, but always in the figure ofan "artificial man." 01 Surveying this final redaction of his political philosophy, he at last felt able to add that, in speaking about the need for such an impersonal form of sovereignty, what he had been speaking about all along could best be described as the state.