 Book 1, Chapter 1 of the Social Contract. Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Many a one believes himself the master of others, and yet he is a greater slave than they. How has this change come about? I do not know. What can render it legitimate? I believe that I can settle this question. If I considered only force and the results that proceed from it, I should say that so long as a people is compelled to obey and does obey, it does well. But that, so soon as it can shake off the oak, and does shake it off, it does better, for if men recover their freedom by virtue of the same right by which it was taken away, either they are justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for depriving them of it. But the social order is a sacred right which serves as a foundation for all others. This right, however, does not come from nature. It is therefore based on conventions. The question is to know what these conventions are. Before coming to that, I must establish what I have just laid down. End of Chapter 1, Book 1. One of all societies and the only natural one is the family. Yet children remain attached to their father only so long as they have need of him for their own preservation. As soon as disneying seizes, the natural bond is dissolved. The children being freed from the obedience which they owed to their father and the father from the cares which he owed to his children become equally independent. If they remain united, it is no longer, naturally, but voluntarily. And the family itself is kept together only by convention. This common liberty is a consequence of man's nature. His first law is to attend to his own preservation. His first cares are those which he owes to himself. And as soon as he comes to years of discretion, being sole judge of the means adapted for his own preservation, he becomes his own master. The family is, then, if you will, the primitive model of political societies. The chief is the analogue of the father while the people represent the children and all being born free and equal alienate the liberty only for their own advantage. The whole difference is that in the family, the father's love for his children repays him for the care that he bestows upon them. While in the state, the pleasure of ruling makes up for the chief's slack of love for his people. Grotius denies that all human authorities established for the benefit of the governed and he cites slavery as an instance. His invariable mode of reasoning is to establish right by fact. A juster method might be employed, but none more favorable to tyrants. It is doubtful, then, according to Grotius, whether the human race belongs to a hundred men or whether these hundred men belong to the human race. And he appears throughout his book to incline to the former opinion, which is also that of Hobbes. In this way we have mankind divided like herds of cattle, each of which has a master who looks after it in order to devour it. Just as a herdsman is superior in nature to his herd, so chiefs who are the herdsmen of men are superior in nature to their people. Thus, according to Fila's account, the emperor Caligula reasoned, inferring truly enough from this analogy that kings are gods or that men are brutes. The reasoning of Caligula is tantamount to that of Hobbes and Grotius. Aristotle, before them all, had likewise said that men are not naturally equal, but that some are born for slavery and others for dominion. Aristotle was right, but he mistook the effect for the cause. Every man born in slavery is born for slavery, nothing is more certain. Slaves lose everything in their bonds, even the desire to escape from them. They love their servitude, as the companions of Ulysses love their brutishness. If, then, there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves contrary to nature. The first slaves were made such by force, their cowardice kept them in bondage. I have said nothing about King Adam, nor about Emperor Noah, the father of three great monarchs who shared the universe like the children of Saturn with whom they are supposed to be identical. I hope that my moderation will give satisfaction, for, as I am a direct descendant of one of these princes and perhaps of the eldest branch, how do I know whether, by examination of titles, I might not find myself the lawful king of the human race? Be that, as it may, it cannot be denied that Adam was sovereign of the world, as Robinson was of his island, so long as he was its sole inhabitant. And it was an agreeable feature of that empire that the monarch, secure on his throne, had nothing to fear from rebellions or wars or conspirators. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rosa First Book Third Chapter The Right of the Strongest The strongest man is never strong enough to be always master, unless he transforms his power into right and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, a right apparently assumed in irony and really established in principle. But will this phrase never be explained to us? Forge is a physical power. I do not see what morality can result from its effects. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will. It is at most an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty? Let us assume for a moment this pretended right. I say that nothing results from it, but inexplicable nonsense. For if force constitutes right, the effect changes with the cause, and any force which overcomes the first succeeds towards rights. As soon as men can disobey with impunity, they may do so legitimately. And since the strongest is always in the right, the only thing is to act in such a way that one may be the strongest. But what sort of a right is it that perishes when force ceases? If it is necessary to obey by compulsion, there is no need to obey from duty. And if men are no longer forced to obey, obligation is at an end. We see then that this word right adds nothing to force. It here means nothing at all. Obey the powers that be, if that means yields to force, the percept is good but superfluous. I reply that it will never be violated. All power comes from God, I admit, but every disease comes from Him too. Does it follow that we are prohibited from calling in a physician? If a brigand should surprise me in the recesses of a wood, am I bound not only to give up my prism and forest, but am I also morally bound to do so when I might conceal it? For, in effect, the pistol which he holds is a superior force. Let us agree, then, that might does not make right and that we are bound to obey none but lawful authorities. Thus my original question ever recurs. End of Chapter 3 Book 1 Chapter 4 of the Social Contract This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Book 1 Chapter 4 Slavery Since no man has any natural authority over his fellow men. And since force is not the source of right, conventions remain as the basis of all lawful authority among men. If an individual, says grossus, can alienate his liberty and become the slave of a master, why should not a whole people be able to alienate theirs and become the subject to a king? In this there are many equivocal terms requiring explanation. But let us confine ourselves to the word alienate. To alienate is to give or sell. Now, a man who becomes another slave does not give himself. He sells himself, at the very least for his subsistence. But why does a nation sell itself? So far from a king supplying his subjects with their subsistence, he draws his from them. And according to Rabel, a king does not live on a little. Do subjects, then, give up their persons on condition that their property also be taken? I do not see what is left for them to keep. It will be said that the despot secures to his subjects civil peace. Be it so. But what do they gain by that, if the wars which his ambition brings upon them, together with his insatiable greed and the vexations of his administration, harass them more than their own dissentions would? What do they gain by it, if this tranquility is itself one of their miseries? Men live tranquilly also in dungeons. Is that enough to make them contented there? The Greeks confined in the cave of the Cyclops lived peacefully until their turn came to be devoured. To say that a man gives himself for nothing is to say what is absurd and inconceivable. Such an act is illegitimate and invalid, for the simple reason that he who performs it is not in his right mind. To say the same thing of a whole nation is to suppose a nation of fools, and madness does not confer rights. Even if each person could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children. They are born free men, their liberty belongs to them, and no one has a right to dispose of it except themselves. Before they have come to years of discretion the father can, in their name, stipulate conditions for their preservation and welfare, but not surrender them revocably and unconditionally, for such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature and exceeds the rights of paternity. In order then that an arbitrary government might be legitimate, it would be necessary that the people in each generation should have the option of accepting or rejecting it. But in that case such a government would no longer be arbitrary. To renounce one's liberty is to renounce one's quality as a man, the rights and also the duties of humanity. For him who renounces everything there is no possible compensation. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature, for to take away all freedom from his will is to take away all morality from his actions. In short, a convention which stipulates absolute authority on the one side and unlimited obedience on the other is vain and contradictory. Is it not clear that we are under no obligations whatsoever toward a man from whom we have a right to demand everything? And does not this single condition, without equivalent, without exchange, involve the nullity of the act? For what right would my slave have against me, since all that he has belongs to me? His rights being mine, this right of me against myself, is a meaningless phrase. Grosius and others derive from war another origin for the pretended right of slavery. The victor having, according to them, the right of slaying the vanquished, the latter may purchase his life at the cost of his freedom, an agreement so much the more legitimate that it turns to the advantage of both. But it is manifest that this pretended right of slaying the vanquished in no way results from the state of war. Men are not naturally enemies. If only for the reason that, living in their primitive independence, they have no mutual relations sufficiently durable to constitute a state of peace or a state of war. It is the relation of things and not of men which constitutes war. And since the state of war cannot arise from simple personal relations but only from real relations, private war, war between man and man cannot exist either in the state of nature where there is no settled ownership or in the social state where everything is under the authority of the laws. Private combats, duels, and encounters are acts which do not constitute a state of war. And with regard to the private wars authorized by the establishments of Louis IX, the King of France, and suspended by the peace of God, there were abuses of the feudal government, an absurd system if ever there was one, contrary both to the principles of natural right and to all sound government. War, then, is not a relation between man and man but a relation between state and state in which individuals are enemies only by accident, not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers, not as members of the Fatherland, but as its defenders. In short, each state can have as enemies only other states and not individual men in as much as it is impossible to fix any true relation between things of different kinds. This principle is also conformable to the established maxims of all ages and to the invariable practice of all civilized nations. The declarations of war are not so much warnings to the powers as to their subjects. The foreigner, whether king, or nation, or private person, that robs, slays, or detains subjects without declaring war against the government, is not an enemy but a brigand. Even in open war, a just prince, while he rightly takes possession of all that belongs to the state in an enemy's country, respects the person and property of individuals. He respects the rights on which his own are based. The aim of war being the destruction of the hostile state, we have a right to slay its defenders so long as they have arms in their hands, but as soon as they lay them down and surrender, ceasing to be enemies or instruments of the enemy, they become again simply men and no one has any further right over their lives. Sometimes it is possible to destroy the state without killing a single one of its members, but war confers no right except what is necessary to its end. These are not the principles of grosses. They are not based on the authority of poets but are derived from the nature of things and are founded on reason. With regard to the right of conquest, it has no other foundation than the law of the strongest. War does not confer on the victor the right of slaying the vanquished. This right, which he does not possess, cannot be the foundation of a right to enslave them. If we have a right to slay an enemy only when it is impossible to enslave him, the right to enslave him is not derived from the right to kill him. It is therefore an iniquitous bargain to make him purchase his life over which the victor has no right at the cost of his liberty. In establishing the right of life and death upon the right of slavery and the right of slavery upon the right of life and death is it not manifest that one falls into a vicious circle? Even if we grant this terrible right of killing everybody, I say that a slave made in war or a concord nation is under no obligation at all to a master except to obey him so far as compelled. In taking an equivalent for his life the victor is conferred no favor on the slave. Instead of killing him unprofitably, he has destroyed him for his own advantage. Far then from having acquired over him any authority in addition to that of force, the state of war subsists between them as before. Their relation even is the effect of it. And the exercise of the rights of war supposes that there is no treaty of peace. They have made a convention. Be it so, but this convention far from terminating the state of war supposes its continuance. Thus, in whatever way we regard things, the right of slavery is invalid, not only because it is illegitimate, but because it is absurd and meaningless. These terms, slavery and right, are contradictory and mutually exclusive, whether addressed by a man to a man or by a man to a nation. Such a speech as this will always be equally foolish. I make an agreement with you wholly at your expense and wholly for my benefit, and I shall observe it as long as I please, while you also shall observe it as long as I please. End of Chapter 4 Book 1, Chapter 5 of the Social Contract. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Justin Tobar. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Book 1, Chapter 5. That is always necessary to go back to a first convention. If I should concede all that I have so far refuted, those who favour despotism would be no farther advanced. There will always be a great difference between subduing a multitude and ruling a society. When isolated men, however numerous they may be, are subjected one after another to a single person, this seems to me only a case of master and slaves, not of a nation and its chief. They form, if you will, an aggregation, but not an association. For they have neither a public property nor a body politic. Such a man, having enslaved half the world, is never anything but an individual. His interest, separated from that of the rest, is never anything but a private interest. If he dies, his empire after him, is left disconnected and disunited as an oak dissolves and becomes a heap of ashes after the fire has consumed it. A nation, says Grotius, can give itself to a king. According to Grotius then, a nation is a nation before it gives itself to a king. This gift itself is a civil act and presupposes a public resolution. Consequently, before examining the act by which a nation elects a king, it would be proper to examine the act by which a nation becomes a nation. For this act, being necessarily anterior to the other, is the real foundation of the society. In fact, if there were no anterior convention where, unless the election were unanimous, would be the obligation upon the minority to submit to the decision of the majority, and whence do the hundred who desire a master derive the right to vote on behalf of ten who do not desire one? The law of the plurality of votes is itself established by convention and presupposes unanimity once at least. End of Chapter 5 Recording by Justin Tovar JustinTovar.voice123.com Book 1, Chapter 6 of the Social Contract This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Justin Tovar The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Book 1, Chapter 6 The Social Pact I assume that men have reached a point at which the obstacles that endanger their preservation in the state of nature overcome by their resistance, the forces with which each individual can exert with a view to maintaining himself in that state. Then this primitive condition cannot longer subsist and the human race would perish unless it changed its mode of existence. Now as men cannot create any new forces but only combine and direct those that exist, they have no other means of self-preservation than to form by aggregation a sum of forces which may overcome the resistance to put them in action by a single motive power and to make them work in concert. This sum of forces can be produced only by the combination of many but the strength and freedom of each man being the chief instruments of his preservation. How can he pledge them without injuring himself and without neglecting the cares which he owes to himself? This difficulty applied to my subject may be expressed in these terms. To find a form of association which may defend and protect with the whole force of the community, the person and property of every associate and by means of which coalescing with all may nevertheless obey only himself and remain as free as before. Such is the fundamental problem of which the social contract furnishes the solution. The clauses of this contract are so determined by the nature of the act that the slightest modification would render them vain and ineffectual. So that, although they have never perhaps been formally enunciated, they are everywhere the same, everywhere tacitly admitted and recognized until the social pact being violated each man regains his original rights and recovers his natural liberty while losing the conventional liberty for which he renounced it. These clauses rightly understood are reducible to one only. These, the total alienation to the whole community of each associate with all his rights, for, in the first place, since each gives himself up entirely, the conditions are equal for all and the conditions being equal for all, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others. Further, the alienation being made without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be and an individual associate can no longer claim anything, for, if any rights were left to individuals, there would be no common superior who could judge between them and the public, each being on some point his own judge would soon claim to be so on all. The state of nature would still subsist and the association would necessarily become tyrannical or useless. In short, each giving himself to all gives himself to nobody and as there is not one associate over whom we do not acquire the same rights, which we concede to him over ourselves, we gain the equivalent of all that we lose and more power to preserve what we have. If then we set aside what is not of the essence of the social contract, we shall find that it is reducible to the following terms. Each of us puts in common his person and his whole power under the supreme direction of the general will and in return we receive every member as an indivisible part of the whole, forthwith. Instead of the individual personalities of all the contracting parties, this act of association produces a moral and collective body which is composed of as many members as the assembly has voices and which he receives from this same act its unity, its common self, more, its life and its will. This public person, which is thus formed by the union of all the individual members, formally took the name city and now takes that of republic or body politic, which is called by its members state when it is passive, sovereign when it is active, power when it is compared to similar bodies. With regard to the associates, they take collectively the name of people and are called individually citizens as participating in the sovereign power projects as subjected to the laws of the state but these terms are often confused and mistaken one for another. It is sufficient to know how to distinguish them when they are used with complete precision. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau First Book, Chapter 7 The Sovereign We see from this formula that the act of association contains a reciprocal engagement between the public and individuals and that every individual contracting, so to speak, with himself is engaged in a double relation namely as a member of the sovereign toward individuals and as a member of the state toward the sovereign. But we cannot apply here the maxim of civil law that no one is bound by engagements made with himself for there is a great difference between being bound to oneself and to a whole of which one forms part. We must further observe that the public resolution which can bind all subjects to the sovereign in consequence of the two different relations under which each of them is regarded cannot, for a contrary reason, bind the sovereign to itself and that accordingly it is contrary to the nature of the body politic for the sovereign to impose on itself a law which it cannot transgress. As it can only be considered under one and the same relation it is in the position of an individual contracting with himself whence we see that there is not nor can be any kind of fundamental law binding upon the body of the people not even the social contract. This does not imply that such a body cannot perfectly well enter into engagements with others in what does not derogate from this contract for with regard to foreigners it becomes a simple being, an individual. But the body politic or sovereign deriving its existence only from the sanctity of the contract can never bind itself even to others in anything that derogates from the original act such as alienation of some portion of itself or submission to another sovereign. To violate the act by which it exists would be to annihilate itself and what is nothing produces nothing. So soon as the multitude is thus united in one body it is impossible to injure one of the members without attacking the body still less to injure the body without the members feeling the effects. Thus duty and interest alike oblige the two contracting parties to give mutual assistance and the men themselves should seek to combine in this twofold relationship all the advantages which are attendant on it. Now the sovereign being formed only of the individuals that compose it neither has nor can have any interest contrary to theirs. Consequently the sovereign power needs no guarantee toward its subjects because it is impossible that the body should wish to injure all its members and we shall see hereafter that it can injure no one as an individual. The sovereign for the simple reason that it is so is always everything that it ought to be. But this is not the case as regards the relation of subjects to the sovereign which notwithstanding the common interest would have no security for the performance of their engagements unless it found means to ensure their fidelity. Indeed every individual may as a man have a particular will contrary to or divergent from the general will which he has as a citizen. His private interest may prompt him quite differently from the common interest. His absolute and naturally independent existence may make him regard what he owes to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution the loss of which will be less harmful to others than the payment of it will be burdensome to him. And regarding the moral person that constitutes the state as an imaginary being because it is not a man he would be willing to enjoy the rights of a citizen without being willing to fulfill the duties of a subject. The progress of such injustice would bring about the ruin of the body politic. In order then that the social pact may not be a vain formulary it tacitly includes this engagement which can alone give force to the others that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the whole body which means nothing else than that he shall be forced to be free for such is the condition which uniting every citizen to his native land guarantees him from all personal dependence a condition that ensures the control and working of the political machine and alone renders legitimate civil engagements which without it would be absurd and tyrannical and subject to the most enormous abuses. End of chapter 7 First Book Chapter 8 of the Social Contract This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau First Book Chapter 8 The Civil State The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces in man a very remarkable change by substituting in his conduct just his for instinct and by giving his actions the moral quality that they previously lacked. It is only when the voice of duty succeeds physical impulse and law succeeds appetite that man who till then had regarded only himself sees that he is obliged to act on other principles and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations. Although in this state he is deprived of many advantages that he derives from nature he acquires equally great ones in return. His faculties are exercised and developed his ideas are expanded his feelings are ennobled his whole soul is exalted to such a degree that if the abuses of this new condition did not often degrade him below that from which he has emerged he ought to bless without seizing the happy moment that released him from it forever and transformed him from a stupid and ignorant animal into an intelligent being and a man. Let us reduce this whole balance to terms easy to compare. What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to anything which tempts him and which he is able to attain. What he gains is civil liberty and property in all that he possesses. In order that we may not be mistaken about these compensations we must clearly distinguish natural liberty which is limited only by the powers of the individual from civil liberty which is limited by the general will and possession which is nothing but the result of force or the right of first occupancy from property which can be based only on a positive title. Besides the preceding we might add to the acquisitions of the civil state moral freedom which alone renders man truly master of himself for the impulse of mere appetite is slavery while obedience to a self-prescribed law is liberty. But I have already said too much on this head and the philosophical meaning of the term liberty does not belong to my present subject. End of chapter 8 First book, chapter 9 of the social contract This is a LibriVox recording. LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org First book of the social contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Chapter 9 Real Property Every member of the community at the moment of its formation gives himself up to it just as he actually is himself and his powers of which the property that he possesses forms part. By this act, possession does not change its nature when it changes hands and become property in those of the sovereign but as the powers of the state are incomparably greater than those of an individual public possession is also in fact more secure and more irrevocable without being more legitimate at least in respect of foreigners. For the state, with regard to its members is owner of all their property by the social contract which in the state serves as the basis of all rights. But with regard to other powers it is owner only by the right of first occupancy which it derives from individuals. The right of first occupancy although more real than that of the strongest becomes a true right only after the establishment of that of property. Every man has by nature a right to all that is necessary to him but the positive act which makes him proprietor of certain property excludes him from all the residue. His portion having been allotted he ought to confine himself to it and he has no further right to the undivided property. That is why the right of first occupancy so weak in the state of nature is respected by every member of a state. In this right men regard not so much what belongs to others as what does not belong to themselves. In order to legalize the right of first occupancy over any domain whatsoever the following conditions are in general necessary. First the land must not yet be inhabited by anyone. Secondly a man must occupy only the area required for his subsistence. Thirdly he must take possession of it not by an empty ceremony but by labor and cultivation. The only mark of ownership which in default of legal title ought to be respected by others. Indeed if we accord the right of first occupancy to necessity and labor do we not extend it as far as it can go? Is it impossible to assign limits to this right? Will the mere setting foot on common ground be sufficient to give an immediate claim to the ownership of it? Will the power of driving away other men from it for a moment suffice to deprive them of the power of the right of returning to it? How can a man or a people take possession of an immense territory and rob the whole human race of it except by a punishable usurpation since other men are deprived of the place of residence and the sustenance which nature gives to them in common? When Nunez Balboa on the seashore took possession of the Pacific Ocean and of the whole of South America in the name of the crown of Castile was this sufficient to dispossess all the inhabitants and exclude from it all the princes in the world? On this supposition such ceremonies might have been multiplied vainly enough and the Catholic king in his cabinet might by a single stroke have taken possession of the whole world only cutting off afterward from his empire as previously occupied by other princes. We perceive how the lands of individuals united and contiguous become public territory and how the right of sovereignty extending itself from the subjects to the land which they occupy becomes at once real and personal which places the possessors in greater dependence and makes their own powers a guarantee for their fidelity. An advantage which ancient monarchs do not appear to have clearly perceived for calling themselves only kings of the Persians or Scythians or Macedonians they seem to have regarded themselves as chiefs of men rather than as owners of countries. Monarchs of today call themselves more cleverly kings of France, Spain, England, etc. In thus holding the land they are quite sure of holding its inhabitants. The peculiarity of this alienation is that the community in receiving the property of individuals so far from robbing them of it only assures them lawful possession and changes user-patient into true right enjoyment into ownership. Also the possessors being considered as depositaries of the public property and their rights being respected by all the members of the state as well as maintained by all its power against foreigners they have, as it were, by a transfer advantageous to the public and still more to themselves acquired all that they have given up. A paradox which is easily explained by distinguishing between the rights which the sovereign and the proprietor have over the same property as we shall see hereafter. It may also happen that men begin to unite before they possess anything and that afterward occupying territory sufficient for all, they enjoy it in common or share it among themselves either equally or in proportions fixed by the sovereign. In whatever way this acquisition is made the right which every individual has over his own property is always subordinate to the right which the community has overall. Otherwise there would be no stability in the social union and no real force in the exercise of sovereignty. I shall close this chapter and this book with a remark which ought to serve as a basis for the whole social system. It is that instead of destroying natural equality, the fundamental pact on the contrary substitutes a moral and lawful equality for the physical inequality which nature imposed upon men so that although unequal in strength or intellect they all become equal by convention and legal right. End of Book 1 Book 2, Chapter 1 of the Social Contract This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Book 2, Chapter 1 That sovereignty is inalienable. The first and most important consequence of the principles above established is that the general will alone can direct the forces of the state according to the object of its institution which is the common good. For if the opposition of private interests has rendered necessary the establishment of societies the agreement of these same interests has rendered it possible. That which is common to these different interests forms the social bond and unless there were some point in which all interests agree no society could exist. Now it is solely with regard to this common interest that the society should be governed. I say then that sovereignty being nothing but the exercise of the general will can never be alienated and that the sovereign power which is only a collective being presented by itself alone power indeed can be transmitted but not will. In fact, it is not impossible that a particular will should agree on some point with the general will. It is at least impossible that this agreement should be lasting and constant for the particular will naturally tends to preferences and the general will to equality. It is still more impossible to have a security for this agreement even though it should always exist it would not be a result of art but of chance. The sovereign may indeed say I will now what a certain man wills or at least what he says that he wills but he cannot say what that man wills tomorrow I shall also will. Since it is absurd that the will should bind itself as regards the future and since it is not incumbent on any will to consent to anything contrary to the welfare of the being that wills. If then the nation simply promises to obey it dissolves itself by that act and loses its character as a people. The moment there is a master there is no longer a sovereign and forthwith the body politic is destroyed. This does not imply that the orders of the chiefs cannot pass for decisions of the general will so long as the sovereign free to oppose them doing so. In such a case the consent of the people should be inferred from the universal silence this will be explained at greater length. End of Chapter 1 Recording by Shena Sear, Fresno, California Book 2, Chapter 2 of the Social Contract This is a LibreVox recording All LibreVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibreVox.org The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Book 2, Chapter 2 That sovereignty is indivisible For the same reason that sovereignty is inalienable it is indivisible for the will is either general or it is not it is either that of the body of the people or that of only one. In the first case this declared will is an act of sovereignty and constitutes law In the second case it is only a particular will or an act of magistercy it is at most a decree But our publicists being unable to divide sovereignty in its principle divided in its object they divide it into force and will into legislative power and executive power into rights of taxation of justice and of war into internal administration and power of treating with foreigners sometimes confounding all these departments and sometimes separating them they make the sovereign a fantastic being forms of connected parts it is as if they composed a man of several bodies one with eyes, another with arms another with feet and nothing else the Japanese conjurers it is said cut up a child before the eyes of the spectators then throwing all its limbs in the air they make the child come down again alive and whole such almost are the juggler's tricks of our publicists after dismembering the social body by deception worthy of the fair they recombine its parts nobody knows how this error arises from their not having formed exact notions about the sovereign authority as parts of this authority but are only emanations from it thus for example the acts of declaring war and making peace have been regarded as acts of sovereignty which is not the case since neither of them is a law but only an application of the law a particular act which determines the case of the law as will be clearly seen when the idea attached to the word law is fixed by following out the other divisions in the same way it would be found that whenever the sovereignty appears divided we are mistaken in our supposition and that the rights which are taken as parts of that sovereignty are also ordinate to it and always supposed supreme wills of which these rights are merely executive it would be impossible to describe the great obscurity in which this want of precision has involved the conclusions of writers on the subject of political right we have endeavored to decide upon the respective rights of kings and peoples on the principles that they had established everyone can see in chapters 3 and 4 of the first book of Grotus how that learned man and his translator Barbarac became entangled and embarrassed in their sophisms for fear of saying too much or not saying enough according to their views and so offending the interests that they had to conciliate Grotus having taken refuge in France through discontent with his own country and wishing to pay court to Louis XIII to whom his book is dedicated spares no pains to dispoil the people of all their rights and in the most artful manner bestow them on kings this also would clearly have been the inclination of Barbarac who dedicated his translation to the king of England but unfortunately the expulsion of James II which he calls an abdication forced him to be reserved and to equivocate and evade in order not to make William appear a usurper if these two writers had adopted true principles all difficulties would have been removed and they would have been always consistent but they would have spoken the truth with regret and would have paid court only to the people truth however does not lead to fortune and the people confer neither embassies nor professorships nor pensions End of Chapter 2 Recording by Shana Serre Fresno, California Book 2, Chapter 3 of the Social Contract This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Book 2, Chapter 3 Whether the General Will can err It follows from what precedes that the General Will is always right and always tends to the public advantage but it does not follow that the resolutions of the people have always the same rectitude Men always desire their own good but do not always discern it The people are never corrupted so often deceived and it is only then that they seem to will what is evil There is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the general will The latter regards only the common interest while the former has regard to private interests and is merely a sum of particular wills but take away from these same wills the pluses and minuses which cancel one another and the general will remains as the sum of the differences If the people come to a resolution when adequately informed and without any communication among the citizens the general will would always result from the great number of slight differences and the resolution would always be good but when factions, partial associations are formed to the detriment of the whole society the will of each of these association becomes general with reference to its members and particular with reference to the state it may then be said that there are no longer as many voters as there are men but only as many voters as there are associations The differences become less numerous and yield a less general result Lastly when one of these associations becomes so great that it predominates over all the rest you no longer have as the result a sum of small differences but a single difference There is then no longer a general will and the opinion which prevails is only a particular opinion It is important then in order to have a clear declaration of the general will that there should be no partial association in the state and that every citizen should express only his own opinion such was the unique and sublime institution of the great like Kyrgos but if there are partial associations it is necessary to multiply their number and prevent inequality that the general will, Numa and Servius did These are the only proper precautions for ensuring that the general will may always be enlightened and that the people may not be deceived End of Chapter 3 Recording by Shana Sear, Fresno, California Book 2, Chapter 4 of the Social Contract This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Book 2, Chapter 4 The Limits of the Sovereign Power If the state or city is nothing but a moral person the life of which consists in the union of its members and if the most important of its cares is that of self-preservation it needs a universal and compulsive force to move and dispose every part in the manner most expedient for the whole As nature gives every man an absolute power over all his limbs the social pact gives the body politic an absolute power over all its members and it is this same power which when directed by the general will bears, as I said the name of sovereignty But besides the public person we have to consider the private persons who compose it and whose life and liberty are naturally independent of it The question then is to distinguish clearly between the respective rights of the citizens and of the sovereign as well as between the duties which the former have to fulfill in their capacity as subjects and the natural rights which they ought to enjoy in their character as men It is admitted that whatever part of his power, property and liberty each one alienates by the social compact is only that part of the whole of which they use is important to the community but we must also admit that the sovereign alone is judge of what is important All the services that the citizen can render to the state he owes to it as soon as the sovereign demands them but the sovereign on its part cannot impose on its subjects any burden which is useless to the community It cannot even wish to do so for by the law of reason just as by the law of nature nothing is done without a cause The engagements which bind us to the social body are obligatory only because they are mutual and their nature is such that in fulfilling them we cannot work for others without also working for ourselves Why is the general will always right and why do all invariably are the prosperity of each unless it is because there is no one but appropriates to himself this word each and thinks of himself in voting on behalf of all This proves that the quality of rights and the notion of justice that it produces are derived from the preference which each gives to himself and consequently from man's nature that the general will to be truly such should be so in its object as well as in its essence that it ought to proceed from all in order to be applicable to all and that it loses its natural rectitude when it tends to some individual and the terminate object because in that case judging of what is unknown to us we have no true principle of equity to guide us Indeed so soon as a particular fact or right is in question with regard to a point which has not been regulated by the general convention the matter becomes contentious it is a process in which the private persons interested are one of the parties and the public the other but in which I perceive neither the law which must be followed nor the judge who should decide it would be ridiculous in such a case to wish to refer the matter for an express decision of the general will which can be nothing but the decision of one of the parties which consequently is for the other party only a will that is foreign, partial and inclined on such an occasion to injustice as well as liable to error therefore just as a particular will cannot represent the general will the general will in turn changes its nature when it has a particular end and cannot as general decide about either a person or a fact when the people of Athens for instance elected or deposed their chiefs decreed owners to one imposed penalties on another and by multitudes of particular decrees exercised indiscriminately all the functions of government the people no longer had any general will properly so-called they no longer acted as a sovereign power but as magistrates this will appear contrary to common ideas but I must be allowed time to expound my own from this we must understand what generalizes the will is not so much the number of voices as the common interest which unites them for under this system each necessarily submits to the conditions which he imposes on others an admirable union of interest and justice which gives to the deliberations of the community a spirit of equity that seems to disappear in the discussion of any private affair for want of a common interest to unite and identify the ruling principal of the judge with that of the party by whatever path we return to our principal we always arrive at the same conclusion namely that the social compact establishes among the citizens such an equality that they all pledge themselves under the same conditions and ought all to enjoy the same rights thus by the nature of the compact every act of sovereignty that is every authentic act of the general will binds or favors equally all the citizens so that the sovereign knows only the body of the nation and distinguishes none of those that compose it what then is an act of sovereignty properly so called it is not an agreement between a superior and an inferior but an agreement of the body with each of its members a lawful agreement because it has the social contract as its foundation equitable because it is common to all useful because it can have no other object than the general welfare and stable because it has the public force and the supreme power as a guarantee so long as the subjects submit only to such conventions they obey no one but simply their own will and to ask how far the respective rights of the sovereign and citizens extend is to ask up to what point the latter can make engagements among themselves each with all and all with each thus we see that the sovereign power wholly absolute, wholly sacred and wholly inviolable as it is does not and cannot pass the limits of general conventions and that every man can fully dispose of what is left to him of his property and liberty by these conventions so that the sovereign never has a right to burden one subject more than another because then the matter becomes particular and his power is no longer competent these distinctions once admitted so untrue is it that in the social contract there is on the part of individuals any real renunciation that their situation as a result of this contract is in reality preferable to what it was before and that instead of an alienation they have only made an advantageous exchange of an uncertain and precarious mode of existence for a better and more assured one of natural independence for liberty of the power to injure others for their own safety and of their strength which others might overcome for a right which the social union renders inviolable their lives also which they have devoted to the state are continually protected by it and in exposing their lives for its defense what do they do but restore what they have received from it what do they do but what they would do more frequently and with more risk in the state of nature when engaging in inevitable struggles they would defend at the peril of their lives their means of preservation all have to fight for their country in case of need it is true but then no one ever has to fight for himself do we not gain more over by incurring for what ensures our safety a part of the risks that we should have to incur for ourselves individually as soon as we were deprived of it end of chapter 4 recording by Shena Serre Fresno, California second book chapter 5 of the social contract this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Avae in March 2010 the social contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau second book 5th chapter the right of life and death it may be asked how individuals who have no right to dispose of their own lives can transmit to the sovereign this right which they do not possess the question appears hard to solve only because it is badly stated every man has a right to risk his own life in order to preserve it has it ever been said that one who throws himself out of a window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide has this crime indeed ever been imputed to a man who perishes in a storm although unembarking he was not ignorant of the danger the social treaty has as its end the preservation of the contracting parties desires the end desires also the means and some risks even some losses are inseparable from these means he who is willing to preserve his life at the expense of others ought also to give it up for them when necessary now the citizen is not a judge of the peril to which the law requires that he should expose himself and when the prince has said to him it is expedient for the state that you should die he ought to die since it is only on this condition that he has lived in security up to that time and since his life is no longer merely a gift of nature but a conditional gift of the state the penalty of death inflicted on criminals may be regarded almost from the same point of view it is in order not to be the victim of an assassin that a man consents to die if he becomes one with a treaty far from disposing of his own life he thinks only of securing it and it is not to be supposed that any of the contracting parties contemplates at a time being hanged moreover every evildoer who attacks social rights becomes by his crimes a rebel and a traitor to his country by violating its laws he seizes to be a member of it and even makes war upon it the declaration of the state is incompatible with his own one of the two must perish and when a guilty man is executed it is less as a citizen than as an enemy the proceedings and the judgment are the proofs and the declaration that he has broken the social treaty and consequently that he is no longer a member of the state now as he has acknowledged himself to be such at least by his residence he is cut off from it by exile as a violator of the compact or by death as a public enemy for such an enemy is not a moral person he is simply a man and this is a case in which the right of war is to slay the vanquished but it will be said the condemnation of a criminal is a particular act granted but this condemnation does not belong to the sovereign the power can confer though itself unable to exercise it all my ideas are connected but I could not expound them all at once again the frequency of capital punishments is always a sign of weakness or indolence in the government there is no man so worthless that he cannot be made good for something we have a right to kill even for example's sake only those who cannot be preserved danger as regards the right to pardon or to exempt a guilty man from the penalty imposed by the law and inflicted by the judge it belongs only to a power which is above both the judge and the law that is to say the sovereign still it's right in this is not very plain and the occasions for exercising it are very rare in a well governed state there are few punishments not because many pardons are granted but because there are few criminals the multitude of crimes ensures impunity when the state is decaying under the roman republic neither the senate nor the consuls attempted to grant pardons the people even did not grant any although they sometimes revoked their own judgments frequent pardons proclaim that crimes will soon need them no longer and everyone sees to what that leads but I feel my heart murmuring and restraining my pen let us leave these questions to be discussed by the just man who has not heard and who never needed pardon himself end of chapter 5 book 2 chapter 6 of the social contract this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the social contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau book 2 chapter 6 the law by the social compact we have given existence and life to the body politic the question now is to endow it with movement and will by legislation for the original act by which this body is formed and consolidated determines nothing in addition as to what it must do for its own preservation what is right and comfortable to order is such by the nature of things and independently of human conventions all justice comes from God he alone is the source of it but could we receive it directly from so lofty a source we should need neither government nor laws without doubt there is a universal justice emanating from reason alone but this justice in order to be admitted among us should be reciprocal regarding things from a human standpoint the laws of justice are an operative among men for want of a natural sanction they only bring good to the wicked and evil to the just when the latter observe them with everyone and no one observes them in return conventions and laws are necessary to couple rights with duties and apply justice to its object in the state of nature where everything is in common I owe nothing to those to whom I have promised nothing I recognize as belonging to others only what is useless to me this is not the case in the civil state in which all rights are determined by law but then finally what is law I intend to attach to this word only metaphysical ideas they will continue to argue without being understood and when they have stated what a law of nature is they will know no better what a law of the state is I have already said that there is no general will with reference to a particular object in fact this particular object is either in the state or outside of it if it is outside of the state the whole which is foreign to it is not general in relation to it and if it is within the state it forms part of it then there is form between the whole and its part a relation which makes of it two separate beings of which the part is one and the whole less this same part is the other but the whole less one part is not the whole but two unequal parts once it follows that the will of the one is no longer general in relation to the other but when the whole people decree concerning the whole people they consider themselves alone and if a relation is then constituted it is between the whole object under one point of view and the whole object under another point of view without any division at all then the matter respecting which the decree is general like the will that decrees it is this act that I call law when I say that the object of the laws is always general I mean that the law considers subjects collectively and actions as abstract never a man as an individual nor a particular action thus the law may indeed decree that there shall be privileges but cannot confer them on any person by name the law can create several classes of citizens and even assign the qualifications which shall entitle them to rank in these classes but it cannot nominate such and such persons to be admitted to them it can establish a royal government and a hereditary succession but cannot elect a king or appoint a royal family in a word no function which has reference to an individual object obtained through the legislative power from this standpoint we see immediately that it is no longer necessary to ask whose office it is to make laws since they are acts of the general will nor whether the prince is above the laws since he is a member of the state nor whether the law can be unjust since no one is unjust to himself nor how we are free and yet subject to the laws since the laws are only registers of our wills we see further that since law combines the universality of the will with the universality of the object whatever any man prescribes on his own authority is not a law and whatever the sovereign itself prescribes respecting a particular object is not a law but a decree not an act of sovereignty but of magistracy I therefore call any state a republic which is governed by laws under whatever form of administration it may be for then only does the public interest predominant and the common wealth count for something every legitimate government is republican I will explain here after what government is laws are properly only the condition of civil association the people being subject to the laws should be the authors of them it concerns only the associates to determine the condition of association but how will they be determined will it be by a common agreement by a sudden inspiration has the body politic an organ for expressing its will who will give it the foresight necessary to frame its acts and publish them at the outset or how shall it declare them in the hour of need how would a blind multitude which often knows not what it wishes because it rarely knows what is good for it execute of itself an enterprise so great so difficult as a system of legislation of themselves the people always desire what is good but do not always discern it the general will is not always right but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened it may be made to see objects as they are sometimes as they ought to appear it must be shown the good path that it is seeking and guarded from the seduction of private interests it must be made to observe closely times and places and to balance the attraction of immediate and palpable advantages against the danger of remote and concealed evils individuals see the good which they reject the public desires the good which they do not see the need for guides the former must be compelled to conform their wills to their reason the people must be taught to know what they require then from the public enlightenment results the union of the understanding and the will in the social body and from the close cooperation of the parts and lastly the maximum power of the whole hence arises the need of a legislator end of chapter 6 in order to discover the rules of association that are most suitable to nations a superior intelligence would be necessary who could see all the passions of men without experiencing any of them who would have no affinity with our nature and yet know it thoroughly whose happiness would not depend on us and who would nevertheless be quite willing to interest himself in ours and lastly one who storing up for himself with the progress of time a far-off glory in the future could labour in one age and in another gods would be necessary to give laws to man the same argument that Caligula adduced as to fact played to put forward with regard to right in order to give an idea of the civil or royal man whom he is inquest of in his work the statesman but if it is true that a great prince is a rare man what will the great legislator be the first is only to follow the model which the other has to frame the letter is the machination who invents the machine the former is only the workman who puts it in readiness and works it in the birth of societies says Montesquieu it is the chiefs of the republics who frame the institutions and afterward it is the institutions which mould the chiefs of the republics end quote he who dares undertake to give institutions to a nation ought to feel himself capable as it were in nature of transforming every individual who in himself is a complete independent whole into part of a greater whole from which he receives in some manner his life and his being of altering man's constitution in order to strengthen it of substituting a social and moral existence for the independent and physical existence which we have all received from nature in a word it is necessary to deprive man of his native powers and endow him with some which are alien to him and of which he cannot make use without the aid of other people the more thoroughly those natural powers are deadened and destroyed the greater and more durable are the acquired powers the more solid and perfect also are the institutions so that if every citizen is nothing and can be nothing except in combination with all the rest and if the force acquired by the whole be equal or superior to the sum of the natural forces of all the individuals we may say that legislation is at the highest point of perfection which it can attain the legislator is in all respects an extraordinary man in the state if you ought to be so by his genius he is not less so by his office it is not majesty nor sovereignty this office which constitutes the republic does not enter into its constitution it is a special and superior office having nothing in common with human government for if he who rules man ought not to control legislation he who controls legislation ought not to rule man otherwise his laws being ministers of his passions would often serve only to perpetrate his acts of injustice he would never be able to prevent private interests from corrupting the sacredness of his work when Lycurgus gave laws to his country he began by abdicating his royalty it was the practice of the majority of the greek towns to entrust the foreigners the framing of their laws the modern republics of italy often imitated this usage that of Geneva did the same and founded advantages Rome at her most glorious epoch saw all the crimes of tyranny spring up in her bosom and saw herself on the verge of destruction though uniting in the same hands legislative authority and sovereign power yet they converse themselves never arrogated the right to pass any law on their sole authority nothing that we propose to you they said to the people can pass into law without your consent Romans be yourself the authors of the laws which are to secure your happiness he who frames laws then has or ought to have no legislative right and the people themselves cannot even if they wished divest themselves of this incommunicable right because according to the fundamental compact it is only the general will that binds individuals and we can never be sure that a particular will is conformable to the general will until it has been submitted to the free votes of the people I have said this already but it is not useless to repeat it thus we find simultaneously in the work of legislation two things that seem incompatible enterprise surprising human powers and to execute it an authority that is a mere nothing another difficulty deserves attention wise man who want to speak to the vulgar in their own language instead of in a popular way will not be understood now there are a thousand kinds of ideas which it is impossible to translate into the language of the people views very general and objects very remote are alike beyond it to reach and each individual approving of no other plan of government than that which promotes his own interests does not readily perceive the benefits that he is to derive from the continual deprivations which good laws impose in order that a newly formed nation might approve sound maxims of politics and observe the fundamental rules of state policy it would be necessary that the effect should become the cause that the social spirit which should be the work of the institution should preside over the institution itself and that men should be prior to the laws what they ought to become by means of them since then the legislator cannot employ either force or reasoning he must needs have recourse to an authority of a different order which can compel without violence and persuade without convincing it is this which in all ages has constrained the founders of nations to resort to the intervention of heaven and to give the gods the credit for their own wisdom in order that the nations subjected to the laws of the state as to those of nature and recognizing the same power in the formation of man and in that of the state might obey willingly and bear submissively the yoke of the public welfare the legislator puts into the mouths of the immortals that sublime reason which soars beyond the reach of common man in order that he may win over by divine authority those whom human prudence could not move but it does not belong to every man to make the gods his oracles nor to be believed when he proclaims himself their interpreter the great soul of the legislator is the real miracle which must give proof of his mission any man can engrave tables of stone or bribe an oracle or pretend secret intercourse with some divinity or train a bird to speak in his ear or find some other to impose on the people he who is acquainted with such means only will perchance be able to assemble a crowd of foolish persons but he will never found an empire and his extravagant work will speedily perish with him empty deceptions form but a transient bond it is only wisdom that makes it lasting the jewish law which still endures and that of the child of ishmael which for ten centuries has ruled half the world still bear witness today to the great man who dictated them and while proud philosophy or blind party spirit season them nothing but fortunate imposters the true statesman admires in their systems the great and powerful genius which directs durable institutions it is not necessary from all this to infer with warburton that politics and religion have among us a common aim but only that in the origin of nations one serves as an instrument of the other end of chapter 7 book 2 second book chapter 8 of the social contract this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the social contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau second book chapter 8 the people as an architect before erecting a large edifice examines and tests the soil in order to see whether it can support the weight so a wise law giver does not begin by drawing applause that are good in themselves but considers first whether the people for whom he designs them are fit to endure them it is on this account that Plato refused to legislate for the archadians and sirenians knowing that these two peoples were rich could not tolerate equality and it is on this account that good laws and worthless men were to be found in Crete for minors had only disciplined a people steeped in vice a thousand nations that have flourished on the earth could never have borned good laws and even those that might have done so could have succeeded for only a very short period of their whole duration the majority of nations as well as of men are tractable only in their youth they become incorrigible as they grow old when once customs are established and prejudices have taken root it is a perilous and futile enterprise to try and reform them for the people cannot even endure that their evils should be touched with a view to their removal like those stupid and cowardly patients that shudder at the sight of a physician but just as some diseases unhinge men's minds and deprive them of all remembrance of the past so we sometimes find during the existence of states epochs of violence in which revolutions produce an influence upon nations such as certain crises produce upon individuals in which horror of the past forgetfulness and in which the state inflamed by civil wars springs forth so to speak from its ashes and regains the vigor of youth in issuing from the arms of death such was Sparta in the time of Lycurgus such was Rome after the Tarquins and such among us moderns were Holland and Switzerland after the expulsion of their tyrants but these events are rare they are exceptions the explanation of which is always found in the particular constitution of the accepted state they could not even happen twice with the same nation for it may render itself free so long as it is merely barbers but can no longer do so when the resources of the state are exhausted then commotions may destroy it without revolutions being able to restore it and as soon as its chains are broken it falls in pieces and seizes to exist hence forward it requires a master and not a deliverer free nations remember this maxim liberty may be acquired but never recovered youth is not infancy there is for nations as for men a period of youth or if you will of maturity which they must await before they are subjected to laws but it is not always easy to discern when a people is mature and if the time is anticipated the labor is abortive one nation is governable from its origin another is not so at the end of 10 centuries the Russians will never be really civilized because they have been civilized too early Peter had an sensitive genius he had not the true genius that creates and produces anything from nothing some of his measures were beneficial but the majority were ill timed he saw that his people were barbarous but he did not see that they were undripe for civilization he wished to civilize them when it was necessary only to discipline them he wished to produce once Germans or English men when he should have begun by making Russians he prevented his subjects from ever becoming what they might have been by persuading them that they were what they were not it is in this way that a French tutor trains his pupil to shine for a moment in childhood and then to be forever a non-entity the Russian Empire will desire to subjugate Europe and will itself be subjugated the Tartars its subjects or neighbors will become its masters and ours this revolution appears to me inevitable all the kings of Europe are working in concert to accelerate it end of chapter 8 recording by Ezoa in Belgium in April 2010 second book chapter 9 of the social contract this is a LibreVox recording all LibreVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibreVox.org the social contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau second book chapter 9 the people continued as nature has set limits to the stature of a properly formed man outside which it produces only giants and dwarves so likewise with regard to the best constitution of a state there are limits to its possible extent so that it may be neither too great to enable it to be well governed nor too small to enable it to maintain itself single-handed there is in everybody politic a maximum of force which it cannot exceed and which is often diminished as the state is aggrandized the more the social bond is extended the more it is weakened and in general a small state is proportionally stronger than a large one a thousand reasons demonstrate the truth of this maxim in the first place administration becomes more difficult at great distances as a weight becomes heavier at the end of a longer lever it also becomes more burdensome in proportion as its parts are multiplied for every town has first its own administration for which the people pay every district has its administration still paid for by the people next every province then the superior governments the satrapies the vice royalties which must be paid for more as we ascend and always at the cost of the unfortunate people lastly comes the supreme administration which overwhelms everything so many additional burdens perpetually exhaust the subjects and far from being better governed by all these different orders they are much worse governed than if they had but a single superior meanwhile hardly any resources remain for cases of emergency and when it is necessary to have recourse to them the state trembles on the brink of ruin nor is this all not only has the government an activity in enforcing observance of the laws in putting a stop to vexations in reforming abuses and in forestalling seditious enterprises which may be entered upon in distant places but the people have less affection for their chiefs whom they never see for their country which is in their eyes like the world and for their fellow citizens most of whom are strangers to them the same laws cannot be suitable to so many different provinces which have different customs and different climates and cannot tolerate the same form of government different laws beget only trouble and confusion among the nations which living under the same chiefs and in constant communication mingle or intermarry with one another and when subjected to other usages never know whether their patrimony is really theirs talents are hidden attitudes ignored vices unpunished in that multitude of men unknown to one another whom the seat of the supreme administration gathers together in one place the chiefs overwhelmed with business see nothing themselves clerks rule the state in a word the measures that must be taken to maintain the general authority which so many offices at a distance wish to evade or impose upon absorb all the public attention no regard for the welfare of the people remains and scarcely any for their defense in time of need and thus a body too huge for its constitution sinks and perishes crushed by its own weight on the other hand the state must secure a certain foundation that it may possess stability and resist the shocks which it will infallibly experience as well as sustain the efforts which it will be forced to make in order to maintain itself for all nations have a kind of centrifugal force by which they continually act one against another and tend to aggrandize themselves at the expense of their neighbors like the vortices of Descartes thus the weak are in danger of being quickly swallowed up and none can preserve itself long except by putting itself in a kind of equilibrium with all which renders the compression almost equal everywhere hence we see that there are reasons for expansion and reasons for contraction and it is not the least of a statesman's talents to find the proportion between the two which is most advantages for the preservation of the state we may say in general that the former being only external and relative ought to be subordinated to the others which are internal and absolute a healthy and strong constitution is the first thing to be sought and we should rely more on the vigor that springs from a good government than on the resources furnished by an extensive territory states have however been constituted in such a way that the necessity of making conquests entered into their very constitution and in order to maintain themselves they were forced to enlarge themselves continually perhaps they rejoiced greatly at this happy necessity which nevertheless revealed to them with the limit of their greatness the inevitable moment of their fall End of chapter 9 Recording by Eswa in Belgium in April 2010 Second book Chapter 10 of the Social Contract This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Second book, Chapter 10 The People Continued A body politic may be measured in two ways that is by the extent of its territory and by the number of its people and there is between these two modes of measurement a suitable relation according to which the state may be assigned its true dimensions It is the man that constitute the state and it is the soil that sustains the man The due relation then is that the land should suffice for the maintenance of its inhabitants and that there should be as many inhabitants as the land can sustain In this proportion is found the maximum power of a given number of people for if there is too much land the care of it is burdensome the cultivation inadequate and the produce superfluous and this is the proximate cause of defensive wars If there is not enough land the state is at the mercy of its neighbors for the additional quantity and this is the proximate cause of offensive wars What it has by its position only the alternative between commerce and war is weak in itself It is dependent on its neighbors and on events It has only a short and precarious existence It conquers and changes its situation or it is conquered and reduced to nothing It can preserve its freedom only by virtue of being small or great It is impossible to express particularly a fixed ratio between the extent of land and the number of men which are reciprocally sufficient on account of the differences that are found in the quality of the soil in its degrees of fertility in the nature of its products and in the influence of climate as well as on account of those which we observe in the constitutions of the inhabitants of whom some consume little in a fertile country while others consume much further attention must be paid to the greater or less fecundity of the women to the conditions of the country whether more or less favorable to the population and to the numbers which the legislator may hope to draw either by his institutions so that an opinion should be based not on what is seen but on what is foreseen while the actual state of the people should be less observed than that which it ought naturally to attain. In short, there are a thousand occasions on which the particular accidents of situation require or permit that more territory than appears necessary should be taken up. Thus men will spread out a good deal in a mountainous country where the natural productions that is woods and pastures require less labour where experienced teachers that women are more fecund than in the plains and where with an extensive inclined surface there is only a small horizontal base which alone should count for vegetation. On the other hand people may inhabit a smaller place on the seashore even among rocks and sands that are almost barren because fishing can, in great measure supply the deficiency in the productions of the earth because men ought to be more concentrated in order to repel pirates and because further it is easier to relieve the country by means of colonies, of the inhabitants with which it is overburdened. In order to establish a nation it is necessary to add to these conditions one which cannot supply the place of any other but without which they are all useless. It is that the people should enjoy abundance and peace. For the time of a state's formation like that of forming soldiers in a square the time when the body is least capable of resistance and most easy to destroy. Resistance would be greater in a state of absolute disorder than at a moment of fermentation when each is occupied with his own position and not with the common danger. Should a war, a famine, or a sedition supervene at this critical period the state is inevitably overthrown. Many governments, indeed may be established during such storms but then it is these very governments that destroy the state. Usurpers always bring about or select troublesome times for passing under cover of the public agitation destructive laws which the people would never adopt when so be minded. The choice of the moment for the establishment of government is one of the surest marks for distinguishing the work of the legislator from that of the tyrant. What nation then is adapted for legislation? That which is already united by some bond of interest, origin, or convention, but has not yet borne the real yoke of the laws. That which has neither customs nor superstitions firmly rooted. That which has no fear of being overwhelmed by a sudden invasion but which, without entering into the disputes of its neighbors can single-handed resist either of them or aid one in repelling the other. That in which every member can be known by all and in which there is no necessity to lay on a man a greater burden than a man can bear. That which can subsist without other nations and without which every other nation can subsist. That which is neither rich nor poor and is self-sufficing. Lastly, that which combines the stability of an old nation with the docility of a new one. The work of legislation is rendered arduous not so much by what must be established as by what must be destroyed. And that which makes success so rare is the impossibility of finding the simplicity of nature conjoined with the necessities of society. All these conditions it is true are with difficulty combined hence few well-constituted states are seen. There is still one country in Europe capable of legislation. It is the island of Corsica. The courage and firmness which that brave nation has exhibited in recovering and defending its freedom would well deserve that some wise man would teach it how to preserve it. I have some presentiment that this small island will one day astonish Europe. End of Chapter 10 Recording by Ezwa in Belgium in March 2010. Second Book Chapter 11 of the Social Contract This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Daniel Watkins The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Second Book Chapter 11 The Different Systems of Legislation If we ask precisely where in consists the greatest good of all which ought to be the aim of every system of legislation we shall find that it is summed up in two principal objects liberty and equality Liberty, because any individual dependence is so much force withdrawn from the body of the state. Equality, because liberty cannot subsist without it. I have already said what civil liberty is. With regard to equality we must not understand by this word that the degrees of power and wealth should be absolutely the same, but that as to power it should fall short of all violence and never be exercised except by virtue of station and of the laws. While as to wealth no citizen should be rich enough to be able to buy another to be forced to sell himself which supposes on the part of the great moderation in property and influence and on the part of ordinary citizens repression of avarice and covetousness. It is said that this equality is a chimera of speculation which cannot exist in practical affairs but if the abuse is inevitable does it follow that it is unnecessary even to regulate it? It is precisely because the force of circumstances is ever tending to destroy equality that the force of legislation should always tend to maintain it. But these general objects of every good institution ought to be modified in each country by the relations which arise both from the local situation and from the character of the inhabitants and it is with reference to these relations that we must assign to each nation a particular system of institutions which shall be the best not perhaps in itself but for the state for which it is designed. For instance, if the soil is unfruitful and confined for its inhabitants turn your attention to arts and manufacturers and exchange their products for the provisions that you require. On the other hand, if you occupy rich plains and fertile slopes, if in a productive region you are in need of inhabitants bestow all your cares on agriculture which multiplies men and drives out the arts which would only end in depopulating the country by gathering together in a few spots the few inhabitants that the land possesses. If you occupy extensive and convenient coasts and hover the sea with vessels and foster commerce and navigation you will have a short and brilliant existence If the sea on your coast spades only rocks that are almost inaccessible remain fish-eating barbarians you will lead more peaceful, perhaps better and certainly happier lives In a word, besides the maxims common to all each nation contains within itself some cause which influences it in a particular way and renders its legislation suitable for it alone. Thus the Hebrews in ancient times and the Arabs more recently had religion as their chief object The Athenians literature Carthage and Tyre commerce Rhodes navigation Sparta war Rome valor The author of The Spirit of Laws has shown in a multitude of instances by what arts the legislator directs his institutions towards each of these objects What renders the constitution of a state really solid and durable is the observance of expediency in such a way that natural relations and the laws always coincide the latter only serving, as it were to secure, support and rectify the former But if the legislator mistaken in his object takes a principle different from that which springs from the nature of things if the one tends to servitude the other to liberty the one to riches the other to population the one to peace the other to conquests we shall see the laws imperceptibly weakened and the constitution impaired and the state will be ceaselessly agitated until it is destroyed or changed an invincible nature has resumed her sway End of Chapter 11 Second Book Chapter 12 of the Social Contract This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Daniel Watkins The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Second Book Division of the Laws In order that everything may be duly regulated and the best possible form given to the Commonwealth there are various relations to be considered First the action of the whole body acting on itself that is the relation of the whole to the whole or of the sovereign to the state and this relation is composed of that of the intermediate terms as we shall see hereafter The laws governing this relation bear the name of political laws and are also called fundamental laws not without some reason if they are wise ones for if in every state there is only one good method of regulating it the people which has discovered it ought to adhere to it but if the established order is bad why should we regard as fundamental laws which prevent it from being good Besides, in any case a nation is always at liberty to change its laws, even the best for if it likes to injure itself who has a right to prevent it from doing so The second relation is that of the members with one another or with the body as a whole and this relation should in respect of the first be as small and in respect of the second as great as possible so that every citizen may be perfectly independent of all the rest and in absolute dependence on the state and this is always affected by the same means for it is owning the power of the state that secures the freedom of its members it is from this second relation that civil laws arise we may consider a third kind of relation between the individual man and the law, viz that of punishable disobedience and this gives rise to the establishment of criminal laws which at bottom are not so much a particular species of laws as the sanction of all the others to these three kinds of laws is added a fourth the most important of all which is graven neither on marble but in the hearts of the citizens a law which creates the real constitution of the state which acquires new strength daily which when other laws grow obsolete or pass away revives them or supplies their place preserves the people in the spirit of their institutions and imperceptibly substitutes the force of habit for that of authority I speak of manners, customs and above all of opinion a province unknown to our politicians but one on which the success of all the rest depends a province with which the great legislator was occupied in private while he appears to confine himself to particular regulations that are merely the arching of the vault of which manners slower to develop form at length via movable keystone of these different classes political laws which constitute the form of government alone relate to my