Carl Schmitt, whose life's work can be understood as a dialogue with Thomas Hobbes, the early theorist of the modern state, framed his book on the crisis of the state in the 20th century as an analysis of Hobbes' main work, Leviathan. This encoding of his own statement can partly be attributed to the year of publication, 1938. Schmitt asserts emphatically that Hobbes was not a precursor of the totalitarian state, but rather the founder of the rule of law. Here, a death certificate is issued for this concept, as the relationship between protection for the citizen and the obedience demanded from them has been broken.