The Social Contract

The General Will, Rousseau continues in substance, is always for the common good; but it is sometimes divided into smaller general wills, which are wrong in relation to it. The supremacy of the great General Will is "the first principle of public economy and the fundamental rule of government." In this passage, which differs only in clearness and simplicity from others in the _Social Contract_ itself, it is easy to see how far Rousseau had in his mind a perfectly definite idea. Every association of several persons creates a new common will; every association of a permanent character has already a "personality" of its own, and in consequence a "general" will; the State, the highest known form of association, is a fully developed moral and collective being with a common will which is, in the highest sense yet known to us, general. All such wills are general only for the members of the associations Which exercise them; for outsiders, or rather for other associations, they are purely particular wills. This applies even to the State; "for, in relation to what is outside it, the State becomes a simple being, an individual" (_Social Contract_, Book I. chap. vii). In certain passages in the _Social Contract_, in his criticism of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre's _Project of Perpetual Peace_, and in the second chapter of the original draft of the _Social Contract_, Rousseau takes into account the possibility of a still higher individual, "the federation of the world." In the _Political Economy_, thinking of the nation-state, he affirms what in the _Social Contract_ (Book II, chap, iii) he denies of the city, and recognises that the life of a nation is made up of the whole complex of its institutions, and that the existence of lesser general wills is not necessarily a menace to the General Will of the State. In the _Social Contract_, he only treats of these lesser wills in relation to the government, which, he shows, has a will of its own, general for its members, but particular for the State as a whole (Book III, chap. ii). This governmental will he there prefers to call _corporate will_, and by this name it will be convenient to distinguish the lesser general wills from the General Will of the State that is over them all.

So far, there is no great difficulty; but in discussing the infallibility of the General Will we are on more dangerous ground. Rousseau's treatment here clearly oscillates between regarding it as a purely ideal conception, to which human institutions can only approximate, and holding it to be realised actually in every republican State, _i.e._ wherever the people is the Sovereign in fact as well as in right. Book IV, chap, ii is the most startling passage expressing the latter view. "When in the popular assembly a law is proposed, what the people is asked is not exactly whether it accepts or rejects the proposal, but whether it is in conformity with the general will, which is its will.... When, therefore, the opinion that is contrary to my own prevails, this proves neither more nor less than that I was mistaken, and that what I thought to be the general will was not so." On his own principles laid down elsewhere, Rousseau would have to admit that it proves nothing of the sort, except in so far as the other voters have been guided by the general interest. Though he sometimes affirms the opposite, there is no security on his principles that the will of the majority will be the General Will. At the most it can only be said that there is a greater chance of its being general than of the will of any selected class of persons not being led away by corporate interests. The justification of democracy is not that it is always right, even in intention, but that it is more general than any other kind of supreme power.

Fundamentally, however, the doctrine of the General Will is independent of these contradictions. Apart from Kant's narrow and rigid logic, it is essentially one with his doctrine of the autonomy of the will. Kant takes Rousseau's political theory, and applies it to ethics as a whole. The germ of mis application is already found in Rousseau's own work; for he protests more than once against attempts to treat moral and political philosophy apart, as distinct studies, and asserts their absolute unity. This is brought out clearly in the _Social Contract_ (Book I, chap, viii), where he is speaking of the change brought about by the establishment of society. "The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had hitherto lacked.... What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty ... which is limited by the general will.... We might, over and above all this, add to what man acquires in the civil state _moral liberty, which alone makes him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty._"

This one chapter contains the gist of the Kantian moral philosophy, and makes it quite clear that Rousseau perceived its application to ethics as well as to politics. The morality of our acts consists in their being directed in accordance with universal law; acts in which we are guided merely by our passions are not moral. Further, man can only possess freedom when his whole being is unified in the pursuit of a single end; and, as his whole being can be unified only in pursuit of a rational end, which alone excludes contradiction, only moral acts, only men directing their lives by universal law, are free. In Kantian language, the will is autonomous (_i.e._ prescribes to itself its own law) only when it is directed to a universal end; when it is guided by selfish passions, or particular considerations, it is heteronomous (_i.e._ receives its law from something external to itself), and in bondage. Rousseau, as he says (Book I, chap, viii), was not directly concerned with the ethical sense of the word "liberty," and Kant was, therefore, left to develop the doctrine into a system; but the phrases of this chapter prove false the view that the doctrine of a Real Will arises first in connection with politics, and is only transferred thence to moral philosophy. Rousseau bases his political doctrine throughout on his view of human freedom; it is because man is a free agent capable of being determined by a universal law prescribed by himself that the State is in like manner capable of realising the General Will, that is, of prescribing to itself and its members a similar universal law.

The General Will, then, is the application of human freedom to political institutions. Before the value of this conception can be determined, there is a criticism to be met. The freedom which is realised in the General Will, we are told, is the freedom of the State _as a whole_; but the State exists to secure _individual_ freedom for its members. A free State may be tyrannical; a despot may allow his subjects every freedom. What guarantee is there that the State, in freeing itself, will not enslave its members? This criticism has been made with such regularity that it has to be answered in some detail.

"The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before." "The clauses of the contract ... are everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and recognised.... These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one--the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community...; for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all, and the state of nature would continue" (Book I, chap. vi). Rousseau sees clearly that it is impossible to place any limits upon the power of the State; when the people combine into a State, they must in the end submit to be guided in all things by the will of the effective majority. Limited Sovereignty is a contradiction in terms; the Sovereign has a right to all that reason allows it, and as soon as reason demands that the State shall interfere, no appeal to individual rights can be made. What is best for the State must be suffered by the individual. This, however, is very far from meaning that the ruling power ought, or has the moral right, to interfere in every particular case. Rousseau has been subjected to much foolish criticism because, after upholding the State's absolute supremacy, he goes on (Book II, chap, iv) to speak of "the limits of the sovereign power." There is no contradiction whatsoever. Wherever State intervention is for the best, the State has a right to intervene; but it has no moral right, though it must have a legal right, to intervene where it is not for the best. The General Will, being always in the right, will intervene only when intervention is proper. "The Sovereign," therefore, "cannot impose upon its subjects any fetters that are useless to the community, nor can it even wish to do so." As, however, the infallibility of the General Will is not enough to make the State infallible, there still remains an objection. Since the General Will cannot always be arrived at, who is to judge whether an act of intervention is justified? Rousseau's answer fails to satisfy many of his critics. "Each man alienates, I admit, by the social compact, only such part of his powers, goods and liberty as it is important for the community to control; but it must also be granted that the Sovereign is sole judge of what is important." This, we are told, is mere State tyranny over again. But how is it possible to avoid such a conclusion? Rousseau has already given his reasons for objecting to a limited Sovereignty (Book I, chap, vi): it follows absolutely that we must take the best machinery we can find for the execution of the State's functions. No doubt the machinery will be imperfect; but we can only try to get as near the General Will as possible, without hoping to realise it fully.

The answer, therefore, to the critics who hold that, in securing civil liberty Rousseau has sacrificed the individual may be put after this fashion. Liberty is not a merely negative conception; it does not consist solely in the absence of restraint. The purest individualist, Herbert Spencer for example, would grant that a certain amount of State interference is necessary to _secure_ liberty; but as soon as this idea of securing liberty is admitted in the smallest degree, the whole idea has undergone profound modification. It can no longer be claimed that every interference on the part of the State lessens the liberty of the individual; the "liberty-fund" theory is as untenable as that of the "wages-fund": the members of a State may be more free when all are restrained from doing one another mutual damage than when any one is left "free" to enslave another or be himself enslaved. This principle once admitted, the precise amount of State interference that is necessary to secure freedom will be always a matter for particular discussion; every case must be decided on its own merits, and, in right, the Sovereign will be omnipotent, or subject only to the law of reason.

It has often been held that Rousseau cannot really have inspired the French Revolution because this view is totally inconsistent with the "rights of man," which the revolutionaries so fervently proclaimed. If every right is alienated in the Social Contract, what sense can there be in talking of "natural rights" afterwards? This, however, is to misrepresent Rousseau's position. The rights of man as they are preached by the modern individualist, are not the rights of which Rousseau and the revolutionaries were thinking. We have seen that the theory of the _Social Contract_ is founded on human freedom: this freedom carries with it, in Rousseau's view, the guarantee of its own permanence; it is inalienable and indestructible. When, therefore, government becomes despotic, it has no more right over its subjects than the master has over his slave (Book I, chap, iv); the question is then purely one of might. In such cases, appeal may be made either to the terms of the Social Contract, or, putting the same idea another way, to the "natural right" of human freedom. This natural right is in no sense inconsistent with the complete alienation supposed in the Contract; for the Contract itself reposes on it and guarantees its maintenance. The Sovereign must, therefore, treat all its members alike; but, so long as it does this, it remains omnipotent. If it leaves the general for the particular, and treats one man better than another, it ceases to be Sovereign; but equality is already presupposed in the terms of the Contract.

It is more profitable to attack Rousseau for his facile identification of the interests of each of the citizens with those of all; but here, too, most of the critics have abused their opportunity. He does not maintain that there can be no opposition between a man's particular interests and the General Will as present in him; on the contrary, he explicitly and consistently affirms the presence of such opposition (Book I, chap. vii). What he asserts is, first, that the Sovereign, as such, cannot have any interest contrary to the interest of the citizens as a whole--that is obvious; and, secondly, that it cannot have an interest contrary to that of any individual. The second point Rousseau proves by showing that the omnipotence of the Sovereign is essential to the preservation of society, which in turn is necessary for the individual. His argument, however, really rests on the fundamental character of the General Will. He would admit that, in any actual State, the apparent interest of the many might often conflict with that of the few; but he would contend that the _real_ interest of State and individual alike, being subject to universal law could not be such as to conflict with any other _real_ interest. The interest of the State, in so far as it is directed by the General Will, must be the interest of every individual, in so far as he is guided by his _real_ will, that is, in so far as he is acting universally, rationally and autonomously.

Thus the justification of Rousseau's theory of liberty returns to the point from which it set out--the omnipotence of the _real will_ in State and individual. It is in this sense that he speaks of man in the State as "forced to be free" by the General Will, much as Kant might speak of a man's lower nature as forced to be free by the universal mandate of his higher, more real and more rational will. It is in this recognition of the State as a moral being, with powers of determination similar to the powers of the individual mind, that the significance of the General Will ultimately lies. Even, however, among those who have recognised its meaning, there are some who deny its value as a conception of political philosophy. If, they say, the General Will is not the Will of All, if it cannot be arrived at by a majority vote or by any system of voting whatsoever, then it is nothing; it is a mere abstraction, neither general, nor a I will. This is, of course, precisely the criticism to which Kant's "real will" is often subjected. Clearly, it must be granted at once that the General Will does not form the whole actual content of the will of every citizen. Regarded as actual, it must always be qualified by "in so far as" or its equivalent. This, however, is so far from destroying the value of the conception that therein lies its whole value. In seeking the universal basis of society, we are not seeking anything that is wholly actualised in any State, though we must be seeking something which exists, more or less perfectly, in every State.

The point of the Social Contract theory, as Rousseau states it, is that legitimate society exists by the consent of the people, and acts by popular will. Active will, and not force or even mere consent, is the basis of the "republican" State, which can only possess this character because individual wills are not really self-sufficient and separate, but complementary and inter-dependent. The answer to the question "Why ought I to obey the General Will?" is that the General Will exists in me and not outside me. I am "obeying only myself," as Rousseau says. The State is not a mere accident of human history, a mere device for the protection of life and property; it responds to a fundamental need of human nature, and is rooted in the character of the individuals who compose it. The whole complex of human institutions is not a mere artificial structure; it is the expression of the mutual dependence and fellowship of men. If it means anything, the theory of the General Will means that the State is natural, and the "state of nature" an abstraction. Without this basis of will and natural need, no society could for a moment subsist; the State exists and claims our obedience because it is a natural extension of our personality.

The problem, however, still remains of making the General Will, in any particular State, active and conscious. It is clear that there are States in which visible and recognised institutions hardly answer in any respect to its requirements. Even in such States, however, there is a limit to tyranny; deep down, in immemorial customs with which the despot dare not interfere, the General Will is still active and important. It does not reside merely in the outward and visible organisation of social institutions, in that complex of formal associations which we may call the State; its roots go deeper and its branches spread further. It is realised, in greater or less degree, in the whole life of the community, in the entire complex of private and public relations which, in the widest sense, may be called Society. We may recognise it not only in a Parliament, a Church, a University or a Trade Union, but also in the most intimate human relationships, and the most trivial, as well as the most vital, social customs.

But, if all these things go to the making of the General Will in every community, the General Will has, for politics, primarily a narrower sense. The problem here is to secure its supremacy in the official institutions and public councils of the nation. This is the question to which Rousseau chiefly addressed himself. Here, too, we shall find the General Will the best possible conception for the guidance of political endeavour For the General Will is realised not when that is done which is best for the community, but when, in addition, the community as a whole has willed the doing of it. The General Will demands not only good government, but also self-government--not only rational conduct, but good-will. This is what some of Rousseau's admirers are apt to forget when they use his argument, as he himself was sometimes inclined to use it, in support of pure aristocracy. Rousseau said that aristocracy was the best of all governments, but he said also that it was the worst of all usurpers of Sovereignty. Nor must it be forgotten that he expressly specified elective aristocracy. _There is no General Will unless the people wills the good_. General Will may be embodied in one man willing universally; but it can only be embodied in the State when the mass of the citizens so wills. The will must be "general" in two senses: in the sense in which Rousseau used the word, it must be general in its object, _i.e._ universal; but it must also be generally held, _i.e._ common to all or to the majority.[1]

The General Will is, then, above all a universal and, in the Kantian sense, a "rational" will. It would be possible to find in Rousseau many more anticipations of the views of Kant; but it is better here to confine comment to an important difference between them. It is surprising to find in Kant, the originator of modern "intellectualism," and in Rousseau, the great apostle of "sentiment," an essentially similar view on the nature and function of the will. Their views, however, present a difference; for, whereas the moving force of Kant's moral imperative is purely "rational," Rousseau finds the sanction of his General Will in human feeling itself. As we can see from a passage in the original draft of the _Social Contract,_ the General Will remains purely rational. "No-one will dispute that the General Will is in each individual a pure act of the understanding, which reasons while the passions are silent on what a man may demand of his neighbour and on what his neighbour has a right to demand of him." The will remains purely rational, but Rousseau feels that it needs an external motive power. "If natural law," he writes, "were written only on the tablets of human reason it would be incapable of guiding the greater part of our actions; but it is also graven on the heart of man in characters that cannot be effaced, and it is there it speaks to him more strongly than all the precepts of the philosophers" (from an unfinished essay on _The State of War_). The nature of this guiding sentiment is explained in the _Discourse on Inequality_ (p. 197, note 2), where egoism (_amour-propre_) is contrasted with self-respect (_amour de soi_). Naturally, Rousseau holds, man does not want everything for himself, and nothing for others. "Egoism" and "altruism" are both one-sided qualities arising out of the perversion of man's, "natural goodness." "Man is born good," that is, man's nature really makes him desire only to be treated as one among others, to share equally. This natural love of equality (_amour de soi_) includes love of others as well as love of self, and egoism, loving one's self at the expense of others, is an unnatural and perverted condition. The "rational" precepts of the General Will, therefore, find an echo in the heart of the "natural" man, and, if we can only secure the human being against perversion by existing societies, the General Will can be made actual.

This is the meeting-point of Rousseau's educational with his political theory. His view as a whole can be studied only by taking together the _Social Contract_ and the _Emile_ as explained by the _Letters on the Mount_ and other works. The fundamental dogma of the natural goodness of man finds no place directly in the _Social Contract_; but it lurks behind the whole of his political theory, and is indeed, throughout, his master-conception. His educational, his religious, his political and his ethical ideas are all inspired by a single consistent attitude. Here we have been attending only to his political theory; in the volume which is to follow, containing the _Letters on the Mount_ and other works, some attempt will be made to draw the various threads together and estimate his work as a whole. The political works, however, can be read separately, and the _Social Contract_ itself is still by far the best of all text-books of political philosophy. Rousseau's political influence, so far from being dead, is every day increasing; and as new generations and new classes of men come to the study of his work, his conceptions, often hazy and undeveloped, but nearly always of lasting value, will assuredly form the basis of a new political philosophy, in which they will be taken up and transformed. This new philosophy is the work of the future; but, rooted upon the conception of Rousseau, it will stretch far back into the past. Of our time, it will be for all time; its solutions will be at once relatively permanent and ceaselessly progressive.

[1] The term "general" will means, in Rousseau, not so much "will held by several persons," as will having a general (universal) object. This is often misunderstood; but the mistake matters the less, because the General Will must, in fact, be both.

There are few good books in English on Rousseau's politics. By far the best treatment is to be found in Mr. Bernard Bosanquet's _Philosophical Theory of the State_. Viscount Morley's _Rousseau_ is a good life, but is not of much use as a criticism of views; Mr. W. Boyd's _The Educational Theory of Rousseau_ contains some fairly good chapters on the political views. D. G. Ritchie's _Darwin and Hegel_ includes an admirable essay on _The Social Contract Theory_ and another on _Sovereignty._ The English translation of Professor Gran's _Rousseau_ is an interesting biography.

In French, there is a good cheap edition of Rousseau's complete works published by Hachette in thirteen volumes. M. Dreyfus-Brisac's great edition of the _Contrat Social_ is indispensable, and there is a good small edition with notes by M. Georges Beaulavon. M. Faguet's study of Rousseau in his _Dix-huitième siècle--études littéraires_ and his _Politique comparée de Montesquieu, Voltaire et Rousseau_ are useful, though I am seldom in agreement with them. M. Henri Rodet's _Le Contrat Social et les idées politiques de J. J. Rousseau_ is useful, if not inspired, and there are interesting works by MM. Chuquet, Fabre and Lemaître. The French translation of Professor Höffding's little volume on _Rousseau: sa vie et sa philosophie_ is admirable.

Miss Foxley's translation of the _Emile_, especially of Book V, should be studied in connection with the _Social Contract_. A companion volume, containing the _Letters on the Mount_ and other works, will be issued shortly.

PRINCIPAL WORKS: Article in the _Mercure_ in answer to one entitled Si le monde que nous habitons est une sphère ou une sphéroïde, 1738; Le Verger de Mme. de Warens, 1739; Sur la musique moderne, 1743; Si le rétablissement des Sciences et des Arts a contribué à épurer les Mœurs, prize essay, 1750, translated by R. Wynne, 1752, by anonymous author, 1760, by H. Smithers, 1818; Devin du Village (opera), 1753, translated by C. Burney, 1766; Narcisse, ou Amant de lui-même, 1753; Lettre sur la musique Francaise, 1753; Sur l'origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes, 1755; Discours sur deux principes avancés par Rameau, 1755; Sur l'économie politique, 1758; Letter to d'Alembert on his article Genève in the Encyclopédie, 1758, translated 17595 Lettres à Voltaire, 1759; Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, first published under the title of Lettres de deux amants, habitants d'une petite ville au pied des Alpes, etc, 1761; Contrat Social, or Principes du droit politique, 1762; Emile, ou De l'Education, 1762; Lettre à Christophe de Beaumont, Archevêque de Paris, 1763; Allée de Silvie (poem), 1763; Lettres écrites de la Montagne, 1764; De l'imitation théâtrale, 1764; Dictionnaire de musique, 1767, translated by W. Waring, 1779; Lettres sur son exil du Canton de Berne, 1770.

POSTHUMOUS WORKS: Emile et Sophie, 1780; Les consolations des misères de ma vie, 1781; Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne, 1782; Les Confessions, and Rêveries du Promeneur Solitaire, 4 vols., 1782-9; Nouveau Dédale, 1801; La Botanique de J. J. Rousseau, 1805; translated, with additional letters, by T. Martyn, 1785, 7th edition, 1807; Testament de J. J. Rousseau, 1820.

TRANSLATIONS: Héloïse (Eloisa), 1761, with a sequel found after the author's death, 1784, 1795, 1810; Emile, by Nugent, 1763; anonymous translator the same year; abridged and annotated by W. H. Payne, 1893; Emile et Sophie, by Nugent, 1765 (?), by the translator of Eloisa, 1767; Contrat Social, 1764, 1791, in vol. iii. of Political Classics, 1795; 1840 (?), by R. M. Harrington, with Introduction by E. L. Walter, 1893; by H. J. Tozer 1895, 1902, 1905; Confessions, 2 vols., 1783; 1796-90, 1861, 1891 (Masterpieces of Foreign Authors), abridged from 1896 edition, with preface by G. J. Holyoake, 1857; complete translation (privately printed), 2 vols., 1896; with Introduction by Hesketh Milis (Sisley Books), 1907; the second part, with a new collection of letters, 3 vols., 1791.

WORKS: 1764 (6 vols.); 1769 (11 vols.); 1774 (London, 9 vols.); 1782, etc. (17 vols.); 1790 (33 vols.); 1790 (30 vols., or 35); 1788-93 (39 vols.); 1793-1800 (Didot, 18 vols.), and later editions from this same firm; Musset-Pathay, 1823-6.

POSTHUMOUS WORKS: 1782, 1783; Œuvres inédites (Musset-Pathay), 1825, 1833; Fragments inédits, etc., by A. de Bougy, 1853; Œuvres et Correspondence inédites (Streckeisen-Moultou), 1861; Fragments inédits; Recherches biographiques et littéraires, A. Jansen, 1882.

Works translated from the French, 10 vols., 1773-74.

LETTERS: Sur différents Sujets, 5 vols., 1740-53; Lettres nouvelles sur le motif de sa retraite à la Campagne, adressées à M. de Malesherbes, 1780; Nouvelles lettres, 1789; Lettres au citoyen Lenieps, etc, 1793 (?); Correspondance originate et incite avec Mme. Latour de Tranqueville et M. du Peyrou, 2 vols., 1803; Lettres inédites à Mme. d'Epinay (see Memoirs of Mme. d'Epinay), 1818; Lettres de Voltaire et de Rousseau à C. J. Panckoucke, 1828; Lettres inédites à M. M. Rey, 1858; Lettres à Mme. Dupin (in Le Portefeuille de Mme. Dupin), 1884; Lettres inédites (correspondence with Mme. Roy de Latour), published by H. de Rothschild, with preface by L. Claretie, 1892; Lettres (between Rousseau and "Henriette"), published by H. Buffenoir, 1902; Correspondance avec Léonard Usteri, 1910.

TRANSLATIONS: Original letters to M. de Malesherbes, d'Alembert, Mme. la M. de Luxembourg, etc., 1799, 1820; Eighteen letters to Mme. d'Houdetot, October 1757-March 1758, 1905.

LIFE, etc.: J. H. Fuessli, Remarks on the Writings and Conduct of Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1767; Staël-Holstein (Baroness de Rocco), Letters on the Work and Character of Jean Jacques Rousseau (translation), 1789, 1814; J. Morley, Rousseau, 1873, 1886; H. G. Graham, Rousseau (Foreign Classics for English Readers), 1882; T. Davidson, Rousseau and Education according to Nature (Great Educators), vol. ix., 1898; J. Texte, Jean Jacques Rousseau and the Cosmopolitan Spirit in Literature, etc. (translation), 1899; H. H. Hudson, Rousseau and Naturalism in Life and Thought (World's Epoch Makers), 1903; F. Macdonald, Jean Jacques Rousseau, a new criticism, 1906; J. C. Collins, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau in England, 1908.

_In which it is inquired why man passes from the state of nature to the state of society and what are the essential conditions of the compact._

I The Subject of the first Book II The first Societies III The Right of the Strongest IV Slavery V That we must always go back to a first Convention VI The Social Compact VII The Sovereign VIII The Civil State IX Real Property

I That Sovereignty is inalienable II That Sovereignty is indivisible III Whether the general Will is fallible IV The Limits of the Sovereign Power V The Right of Life and Death VI Law VII The Legislator VIII The People IX The People (_continued_) X The People (_continued_) XI The various Systems of Legislation XII The Division of the Laws

_Which treats of political laws, that is to say, of the form of government._

I Government in General II The constituent Principle in the various Forms of Government III The Division of Governments IV Democracy V Aristocracy VI Monarchy VII Mixed Governments VIII That all Forms of Government do not suit all Countries IX The Marks of a good Government X The Abuse of Government and its Tendency to Degenerate XI The Death of the Body Politic XII How the Sovereign Authority maintains itself XIII How the Sovereign Authority maintains itself _(continued_) XIV How the Sovereign Authority maintains itself _(continued_) XV Deputies or Representatives XVI That the Institution of Government is not a Contract XVII The Institution of Government XVIII How to check the Usurpations of Government

_Which treats further of political laws and sets forth the means of strengthening the Constitution of the State_.

I That the general Will is indestructible II Voting III Elections IV The Roman Comitia V The Tribunate VI The Dictatorship VII The Censorship VIII Civil Religion IX Conclusion

A DISCOURSE ON THE ARTS AND SCIENCES A DISCOURSE ON THE ORIGIN OF INEQUALITY -- Appendix A DISCOURSE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY

This little treatise is part of a longer work which I began years ago without realising my limitations, and long since abandoned. Of the various fragments that might have been extracted from what I wrote, this is the most considerable, and, I think, the least unworthy of being offered to the public. The rest no longer exists.

I mean to inquire if, in the civil order, there can be any sure and legitimate rule of administration, men being taken as they are and laws as they might be. In this inquiry I shall endeavour always to unite what right sanctions with what is prescribed by interest, in order that justice and utility may in no case be divided.

I enter upon my task without proving the importance of the subject. I shall be asked if I am a prince or a legislator, to write on politics. I answer that I am neither, and that is why I do so. If I were a prince or a legislator, I should not waste time in saying what wants doing; I should do it, or hold my peace.

As I was born a citizen of a free State, and a member of the Sovereign, I feel that, however feeble the influence my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting on them makes it my duty to study them: and I am happy, when I reflect upon governments, to find my inquiries always furnish me with new reasons for loving that of my own country.

Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer.

If I took into account only force, and the effects derived from it, I should say: "As long as a people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away, either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those who took it away." But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions. Before coming to that, I have to prove what I have just asserted.

The most ancient of all societies, and the only one that is natural is the family: and even so the children remain attached to the father only so long as they need him for their preservation. As soon as this need ceases, the natural bond is dissolved. The children, released from the obedience they owed to the father, and the father, released from the care he owed his children, return equally to independence. If they remain united, they continue so no longer naturally, but voluntarily; and the family itself is then maintained only by convention.

This common liberty results from the nature of man. His first law is to provide for his own preservation, his first cares are those which he owes to himself; and, as soon as he reaches years of discretion, he is the sole judge of the proper means of preserving himself, and consequently becomes his own master.

The family then may be called the first model of political societies: the ruler corresponds to the father, and the people to the children; and all, being born free and equal, alienate their liberty only for their own advantage. The whole difference is that, in the family, the love of the father for his children repays him for the care he takes of them, while, in the State, the pleasure of commanding takes the place of the love which the chief cannot have for the peoples under him.

Grotius denies that all human power is established in favour of the governed, and quotes slavery as an example. His usual method of reasoning is constantly to establish right by fact.[1] It would be possible to employ a more logical method, but none could be more favourable to tyrants.

It is then, according to Grotius, doubtful whether the human race belongs to a hundred men, or that hundred men to the human race: and, throughout his book, he seems to incline to the former alternative, which is also the view of Hobbes. On this showing, the human species is divided into so many herds of cattle, each with its ruler, who keeps guard over them for the purpose of devouring them.

As a shepherd is of a nature superior to that of his flock, the shepherds of men, _i.e._ their rulers, are of a nature superior to that of the peoples under them. Thus, Philo tells us, the Emperor Caligula reasoned, concluding equally well either that kings were gods, or that men were beasts.

The reasoning of Caligula agrees with that of Hobbes and Grotius. Aristotle, before any of them, had said that men are by no means equal naturally, but that some are born for slavery, and others for dominion.

Aristotle was right; but he took the effect for the cause. Nothing can be more certain than that every man born in slavery is born for slavery. Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish condition.[2] If then there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature. Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice perpetuated the condition.

I have said nothing of King Adam, or Emperor Noah, father of the three great monarchs who shared out the universe, like the children of Saturn, whom some scholars have recognised in them. I trust to getting due thanks for my moderation; for, being a direct descendant of one of these princes, perhaps of the eldest branch, how do I know that a verification of titles might not leave me the legitimate king of the human race? In any case, there can be no doubt that Adam was sovereign of the world, as Robinson Crusoe was of his island, as long as he was its only inhabitant; and this empire had the advantage that the monarch, safe on his throne, had no rebellions, wars, or conspirators to fear.

[1] "Learned inquiries into public right are often only the history of past abuses; and troubling to study them too deeply is a profitless infatuation" (_Essay on the Interests of France in Relation to its Neighbours_, by the Marquis d'Argenson). This is exactly what Grotius has done.

[2] See a short treatise of Plutarch's entitled "That Animals Reason."

The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, which, though to all seeming meant ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental principle. But are we never to have an explanation of this phrase? Force is a physical power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will--at the most, an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty?

Suppose for a moment that this so-called "right" exists. I maintain that the sole result is a mass of inexplicable nonsense. For, if force creates right, the effect changes with the cause: every force that is greater than the first succeeds to its right. As soon as it is possible to disobey with impunity, disobedience is legitimate; and, the strongest being always in the right, the only thing that matters is to act so as to become the strongest. But what kind of right is that which perishes when force fails? If we must obey perforce, there is no need to obey because we ought; and if we are not forced to obey, we are under no obligation to do so. Clearly, the word "right" adds nothing to force: in this connection, it means absolutely nothing.

Obey the powers that be. If this means yield to force, it is a good precept, but superfluous: I can answer for its never being violated. All power comes from God, I admit; but so does all sickness: does that mean that we are forbidden to call in the doctor? A brigand surprises me at the edge of a wood: must I not merely surrender my purse on compulsion; but, even if I could withhold it, am I in conscience bound to give it up? For certainly the pistol he holds is also a power.

Let us then admit that force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only legitimate powers. In that case, my original question recurs.

Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men.

If an individual, says Grotius, can alienate his liberty and make himself the slave of a master, why could not a whole people do the same and make itself subject to a king? There are in this passage plenty of ambiguous words which would need explaining; but let us confine ourselves to the word _alienate_. To alienate is to give or to sell. Now, a man who becomes the slave of another does not give himself; he sells himself, at the least for his subsistence: but for what does a people sell itself? A king is so far from furnishing his subjects with their subsistence that he gets his own only from them; and, according to Rabelais, kings do not live on nothing. Do subjects then give their persons on condition that the king takes their goods also? I fail to see what they have left to preserve.

It will be said that the despot assures his subjects civil tranquillity. Granted; but what do they gain, if the wars his ambition brings down upon them, his insatiable avidity, and the vexatious conduct of his ministers press harder on them than their own dissensions would have done? What do they gain, if the very tranquillity they enjoy is one of their miseries? Tranquillity is found also in dungeons; but is that enough to make them desirable places to live in? The Greeks imprisoned in the cave of the Cyclops lived there very tranquilly, while they were awaiting their turn to be devoured.

To say that a man gives himself gratuitously, is to say what is absurd and inconceivable; such an act is null and illegitimate, from the mere fact that he who does it is out of his mind. To say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness creates no right.

Even if each man could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children: they are born men and free; their liberty belongs to them, and no one but they has the right to dispose of it. Before they come to years of discretion, the father can, in their name, lay down conditions for their preservation and well-being, but he cannot give them, irrevocably and without conditions: such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature, and exceeds the rights of paternity. It would therefore be necessary, in order to legitimise an arbitrary government, that in every generation the people should be in a position to accept or reject it; but, were this so, the government would be no longer arbitrary.

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts. Finally, it is an empty and contradictory convention that sets up, on the one side, absolute authority, and, on the other, unlimited obedience. Is it not clear that we can be under no obligation to a person from whom we have the right to exact everything? Does not this condition alone, in the absence of equivalence or exchange, in itself involve the nullity of the act? For what right can my slave have against me, when all that he has belongs to me, and, his right being mine, this right of mine against myself is a phrase devoid of meaning?

Grotius and the rest find in war another origin for the so-called right of slavery. The victor having, as they hold, the right of killing the vanquished, the latter can buy back his life at the price of his liberty; and this convention is the more legitimate because it is to the advantage of both parties.

But it is clear that this supposed right to kill the conquered is by no means deducible from the state of war. Men, from the mere fact that, while they are living in their primitive independence, they have no mutual relations stable enough to constitute either the state of peace or the state of war, cannot be naturally enemies. War is constituted by a relation between things, and not between persons; and, as the state of war cannot arise out of simple personal relations, but only out of real relations, private war, or war of man with man, can exist neither in the state of nature, where there is no constant property, nor in the social state, where everything is under the authority of the laws.

Individual combats, duels and encounters, are acts which cannot constitute a state; while the private wars, authorised by the Establishments of Louis IX, King of France, and suspended by the Peace of God, are abuses of feudalism, in itself an absurd system if ever there was one, and contrary to the principles of natural right and to all good polity.

War then is a relation, not between man and man, but between State and State, and individuals are enemies only accidentally, not as men, nor even as citizens,[1] but as soldiers; not as members of their country, but as its defenders. Finally, each State can have for enemies only other States, and not men; for between things disparate in nature there can be no real relation.

Furthermore, this principle is in conformity with the established rules of all times and the constant practice of all civilised peoples. Declarations of war are intimations less to powers than to their subjects. The foreigner, whether king, individual, or people, who robs, kills or detains the subjects, without declaring war on the prince, is not an enemy, but a brigand. Even in real war, a just prince, while laying hands, in the enemy's country, on all that belongs to the public, respects the lives and goods of individuals: he respects rights on which his own are founded. The object of the war being the destruction of the hostile State, the other side has a right to kill its defenders, while they are bearing arms; but as soon as they lay them down and surrender, they cease to be enemies or instruments of the enemy, and become once more merely men, whose life no one has any right to take. Sometimes it is possible to kill the State without killing a single one of its members; and war gives no right which is not necessary to the gaining of its object. These principles are not those of Grotius: they are not based on the authority of poets, but derived from the nature of reality and based on reason.

The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest. If war does not give the conqueror the right to massacre the conquered peoples, the right to enslave them cannot be based upon a right which does not exist No one has a right to kill an enemy except when he cannot make him a slave, and the right to enslave him cannot therefore be derived from the right to kill him. It is accordingly an unfair exchange to make him buy at the price of his liberty his life, over which the victor holds no right. Is it not clear that there is a vicious circle in founding the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and the right of slavery on the right of life and death?

Even if we assume this terrible right to kill everybody, I maintain that a slave made in war, or a conquered people, is under no obligation to a master, except to obey him as far as he is compelled to do so. By taking an equivalent for his life, the victor has not done him a favour; instead of killing him without profit, he has killed him usefully. So far then is he from acquiring over him any authority in addition to that of force, that the state of war continues to subsist between them: their mutual relation is the effect of it, and the usage of the right of war does not imply a treaty of peace. A convention has indeed been made; but this convention, so far from destroying the state of war, presupposes its continuance.

So, from whatever aspect we regard the question, the right of slavery is null and void, not only as being illegitimate, but also because it is absurd and meaningless. The words _slave_ and _right_ contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive. It will always be equally foolish for a man to say to a man or to a people: "I make with you a convention wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I shall keep it as long as I like, and you will keep it as long as I like."

[1] The Romans, who understood and respected the right of war more than any other nation on earth, carried their scruples on this head so far that a citizen was not allowed to serve as a volunteer without engaging himself expressly against the enemy, and against such and such an enemy by name. A legion in which the younger Cato was seeing his first service under Popilius having been reconstructed, the elder Cato wrote to Popilius that, if he wished his son to continue serving under him, he must administer to him a new military oath, because, the first having been annulled, he was no longer able to bear arms against the enemy. The same Cato wrote to his son telling him to take great care not to go into battle before taking this new oath. I know that the siege of Clusium and other isolated events can be quoted against me; but I am citing laws and customs. The Romans are the people that least often transgressed its laws; and no other people has had such good ones.

THAT WE MUST ALWAYS GO BACK TO A FIRST CONVENTION

Even if I granted all that I have been refuting, the friends of despotism would be no better off. There will always be a great difference between subduing a multitude and ruling a society. Even if scattered individuals were successively enslaved by one man, however numerous they might be, I still see no more than a master and his slaves, and certainly not a people and its ruler; I see what may be termed an aggregation, but not an association; there is as yet neither public good nor body politic. The man in question, even if he has enslaved half the world, is still only an individual; his interest, apart from that of others, is still a purely private interest. If this same man comes to die, his empire, after him, remains scattered and without unity, as an oak falls and dissolves into a heap of ashes when the fire has consumed it.

A people, says Grotius, can give itself to a king. Then, according to Grotius, a people is a people before it gives itself. The gift is itself a civil act, and implies public deliberation. It would be better, before examining the act by which a people gives itself to a king, to examine that by which it has become a people; for this act, being necessarily prior to the other, is the true foundation of society.

Indeed, if there were no prior convention, where, unless the election were unanimous, would be the obligation on the minority to submit to the choice of the majority? How have a hundred men who wish for a master the right to vote on behalf of ten who do not? The law of majority voting is itself something established by convention, and presupposes unanimity, on one occasion at least.

I suppose men to have reached the point at which the obstacles in the way of their preservation in the state of nature show their power of resistance to be greater than the resources at the disposal of each individual for his maintenance in that state. That primitive condition can then subsist no longer; and the human race would perish unless it changed its manner of existence.

But, as men cannot engender new forces, but only unite and direct existing ones, they have no other means of preserving themselves than the formation, by aggregation, of a sum of forces great enough to overcome the resistance. These they have to bring into play by means of a single motive power, and cause to act in concert.

This sum of forces can arise only where several persons come together: but, as the force and liberty of each man are the chief instruments of his self-preservation, how can he pledge them without harming his own interests, and neglecting the care he owes to himself? This difficulty, in its bearing on my present subject, may be stated in the following terms--

"The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before." This is the fundamental problem of which the _Social Contract_ provides the solution.

The clauses of this contract are so determined by the nature of the act that the slightest modification would make them vain and ineffective; so that, although they have perhaps never been formally set forth, they are everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and recognised, until, on the violation of the social compact, each regains his original rights and resumes his natural liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour of which he renounced it.

These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one--the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others.

Moreover, the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand: for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical.

Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has.

If then we discard from the social compact what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms--

_"Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole._"

At once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as the assembly contains votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its life and its will. This public person, so formed by the union of all other persons, formerly took the name of _city_,[1] and now takes that of _Republic_ or _body politic_; it is called by its members _State_ when passive, _Sovereign_ when active, and _Power_ when compared with others like itself. Those who are associated in it take collectively the name of _people_, and severally are called _citizens_, as sharing in the sovereign power, and _subjects_, as being under the laws of the State. But these terms are often confused and taken one for another: it is enough to know how to distinguish them when they are being used with precision.