It is here that the social contract emerges.

But just as Locke's natural state implies a natural man utterly distinct from Hobbes' gloomy picture, so does Locke's social contract represent rather the triumph of reason than of hard necessity.

It is a contract of each with all, a surrender by the individual of his personal right to fulfil the commands of the law of nature in return for the guarantee that his rights as nature ordains them--life and liberty and property--will be preserved.

The contract is thus not general as with Hobbes but limited and specific in character.
Nor is it, as Hobbes made it, the resignation of power into the hands of some single man or group.

On the contrary, it is a contract with the community as a whole which thus becomes that common political superior--the State--which is to enforce the law of nature and punish infractions of it.