 Through innumerable, separate, sequential decisions occurring over a protracted period of time, individuals gradually agreed to form institutions for governing society by imbuing them with some of power which they naturally possess. Eventually, these institutions gelled into a single coherent entity which is the state. The state’s power, then, is the product neither of God nor of sheer force but instead of the willful transference of individuals’ powers or rights to it. It may be a mistake to interpret this idea as a nascent contractualism (see Tuck 1993: 178–9) but likewise, it would be a mistake to deny the appeal it would have to later contractualists such as Hobbes.