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Title: The social contract & discourses

Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Translator: G. D. H. Cole

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THE SOCIAL CONTRACT &
DISCOURSES

BY

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

LONDON & TORONTO

PUBLISHED BY J. M. DENT & SONS

IN NEW YORK BY E. P. DUTTON & CO

1920

EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY

EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

ROUSSEAU'S

SOCIAL CONTRACT, ETC.

TRANSLATED WITH INTRODUCTION

BY G. D. H. COLE,

FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE,

OXFORD

Contents

INTRODUCTION

For the study of the great writers and thinkers of the past, historical
imagination is the first necessity. Without mentally referring to the
environment in which they lived, we cannot hope to penetrate below the
inessential and temporary to the absolute and permanent value of their
thought. Theory, no less than action, is subject to these necessities; the form
in which men cast their speculations, no less than the ways in which they
behave, are the result of the habits of thought and action which they find
around them. Great men make, indeed, individual contributions to the
knowledge of their times; but they can never transcend the age in which
they live. The questions they try to answer will always be those their
contemporaries are asking; their statement of fundamental problems will
always be relative to the traditional statements that have been handed down
to them. When they are stating what is most startlingly new, they will be
most likely to put it in an old-fashioned form, and to use the inadequate
ideas and formulae of tradition to express the deeper truths towards which
they are feeling their way. They will be most the children of their age, when
they are rising most above it.
Rousseau has suffered as much as any one from critics without a sense of
history. He has been cried up and cried down by democrats and oppressors
with an equal lack of understanding and imagination. His name, a hundred
and fifty years after the publication of the Social Contract, is still a
controversial watchword and a party cry. He is accepted as one of the
greatest writers France has produced; but even now men are inclined, as
political bias prompts them, to accept or reject his political doctrines as a
whole, without sifting them or attempting to understand and discriminate.
He is still revered or hated as the author who, above all others, inspired the
French Revolution.
At the present day, his works possess a double significance. They are
important historically, alike as giving us an insight into the mind of the

eighteenth century, and for the actual influence they have had on the course
of events in Europe. Certainly no other writer of the time has exercised such
an influence as his. He may fairly be called the parent of the romantic
movement in art, letters and life; he affected profoundly the German
romantics and Goethe himself; he set the fashion of a new introspection
which has permeated nineteenth century literature; he began modern
educational theory; and, above all, in political thought he represents the
passage from a traditional theory rooted in the Middle Ages to the modern
philosophy of the State. His influence on Kant's moral philosophy and on
Hegel's philosophy of Right are two sides of the same fundamental
contribution to modern thought. He is, in fact, the great forerunner of
German and English Idealism.
It would not be possible, in the course of a short introduction, to deal both
with the positive content of Rousseau's thought and with the actual
influence he has had on practical affairs. The statesmen of the French
Revolution, from Robespierre downwards, were throughout profoundly
affected by the study of his works. Though they seem often to have
misunderstood him, they had on the whole studied him with the attention he
demands. In the nineteenth century, men continued to appeal to Rousseau,
without, as a rule, knowing him well or penetrating deeply into his
meaning. "The Social Contract," says M. Dreyfus-Brisac, "is the book of all
books that is most talked of and least read." But with the great revival of
interest in political philosophy there has come a desire for the better
understanding of Rousseau's work. He is again being studied more as a
thinker and less as an ally or an opponent; there is more eagerness to sift the
true from the false, and to seek in the Social Contract the "principles of
political right," rather than the great revolutionary's ipse dixit in favour of
some view about circumstances which he could never have contemplated.
The Social Contract, then, may be regarded either as a document of the
French Revolution, or as one of the greatest books dealing with political
philosophy. It is in the second capacity, as a work of permanent value
containing truth, that it finds a place among the world's great books. It is in
that capacity also that it will be treated in this introduction. Taking it in this
aspect, we have no less need of historical insight than if we came to it as
historians pure and simple. To understand its value we must grasp its
limitations; when the questions it answers seem unnaturally put, we must

not conclude that they are meaningless; we must see if the answer still holds
when the question is put in a more up-to-date form.
First, then, we must always remember that Rousseau is writing in the
eighteenth century, and for the most part in France. Neither the French
monarchy nor the Genevese aristocracy loved outspoken criticism, and
Rousseau had always to be very careful what he said. This may seem a
curious statement to make about a man who suffered continual persecution
on account of his subversive doctrines; but, although Rousseau was one of
the most daring writers of his time, he was forced continually to moderate
his language and, as a rule, to confine himself to generalisation instead of
attacking particular abuses. Rousseau's theory has often been decried as too
abstract and metaphysical. This is in many ways its great strength; but
where it is excessively so, the accident of time is to blame. In the eighteenth
century it was, broadly speaking, safe to generalise and unsafe to
particularise. Scepticism and discontent were the prevailing temper of the
intellectual classes, and a short-sighted despotism held that, as long as they
were confined to these, they would do little harm. Subversive doctrines
were only regarded as dangerous when they were so put as to appeal to the
masses; philosophy was regarded as impotent. The intellectuals of the
eighteenth century therefore generalised to their hearts' content, and as a
rule suffered little for their lèse-majesté: Voltaire is the typical example of
such generalisation. The spirit of the age favoured such methods, and it was
therefore natural for Rousseau to pursue them. But his general remarks had
such a way of bearing very obvious particular applications, and were so
obviously inspired by a particular attitude towards the government of his
day, that even philosophy became in his hands unsafe, and he was attacked
for what men read between the lines of his works. It is owing to this faculty
of giving his generalisations content and actuality that Rousseau has
become the father of modern political philosophy. He uses the method of
his time only to transcend it; out of the abstract and general he creates the
concrete and universal.
Secondly, we must not forget that Rousseau's theories are to be studied in a
wider historical environment. If he is the first of modern political theorists,
he is also the last of a long line of Renaissance theorists, who in turn inherit
and transform the concepts of mediæval thought. So many critics have
spent so much wasted time in proving that Rousseau was not original only

because they began by identifying originality with isolation: they studied
first the Social Contract by itself, out of relation to earlier works, and then,
having discovered that these earlier works resembled it, decided that
everything it had to say was borrowed. Had they begun their study in a truly
historical spirit, they would have seen that Rousseau's importance lies just
in the new use he makes of old ideas, in the transition he makes from old to
new in the general conception of politics. No mere innovator could have
exercised such an influence or hit on so much truth. Theory makes no great
leaps; it proceeds to new concepts by the adjustment and renovation of old
ones. Just as theological writers on politics, from Hooker to Bossuet, make
use of Biblical terminology and ideas; just as more modern writers, from
Hegel to Herbert Spencer, make use of the concept of evolution, Rousseau
uses the ideas and terms of the Social Contract theory. We should feel,
throughout his work, his struggle to free himself from what is lifeless and
outworn in that theory, while he develops out of it fruitful conceptions that
go beyond its scope. A too rigid literalism in the interpretation of
Rousseau's thought may easily reduce it to the possession of a merely
"historical interest": if we approach it in a truly historical spirit, we shall be
able to appreciate at once its temporary and its lasting value, to see how it
served his contemporaries, and at the same time to disentangle from it what
may be serviceable to us and for all time.
Rousseau's Emile, the greatest of all works on education, has already been
issued in this series. In this volume are contained the most important of his
political works. Of these the Social Contract, by far the most significant, is
the latest in date. It represents the maturity of his thought, while the other
works only illustrate his development. Born in 1712, he issued no work of
importance till 1750; but he tells us, in the Confessions, that in 1743, when
he was attached to the Embassy at Venice, he had already conceived the
idea of a great work on Political Institutions, "which was to put the seal on
his reputation." He seems, however, to have made little progress with this
work, until in 1749 he happened to light on the announcement of a prize
offered by the Academy of Dijon for an answer to the question, "Has the
progress of the arts and sciences tended to the purification or to the
corruption of morality?" His old ideas came thronging back, and sick at
heart of the life he had been leading among the Paris lumières, he composed
a violent and rhetorical diatribe against civilisation generally. In the
following year, this work, having been awarded the prize by the Academy,

was published by its author. His success was instantaneous; he became at
once a famous man, the "lion" of Parisian literary circles. Refutations of his
work were issued by professors, scribblers, outraged theologians and even
by the King of Poland. Rousseau endeavoured to answer them all, and in
the course of argument his thought developed. From 1750 to the publication
of the Social Contract and Emile in 1762 he gradually evolved his views: in
those twelve years he made his unique contribution to political thought.
The Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, the earliest of the works
reproduced in this volume, is not in itself of very great importance.
Rousseau has given his opinion of it in the Confessions. "Full of warmth
and force, it is wholly without logic or order; of all my works it is the
weakest in argument and the least harmonious. But whatever gifts a man
may be born with, he cannot learn the art of writing in a moment." This
criticism is just. The first Discourse neither is, nor attempts to be, a
reasoned or a balanced production. It is the speech of an advocate, wholly
one-sided and arbitrary, but so obviously and naively one-sided, that it is
difficult for us to believe in its entire seriousness. At the most, it is only a
rather brilliant but flimsy rhetorical effort, a sophistical improvisation, but
not a serious contribution to thought. Yet it is certain that this declamation
made Rousseau's name, and established his position as a great writer in
Parisian circles. D'Alembert even devoted the preface of the Encyclopædia
to a refutation. The plan of the first Discourse is essentially simple: it sets
out from the badness, immorality and misery of modern nations, traces all
these ills to the departure from a "natural" state, and then credits the
progress of the arts and sciences with being the cause of that departure. In
it, Rousseau is already in possession of his idea of "nature" as an ideal; but
he has at present made no attempt to discriminate, in what is unnatural,
between good and bad. He is merely using a single idea, putting it as
strongly as he can, and neglecting all its limitations. The first Discourse is
important not for any positive doctrine it contains, but as a key to the
development of Rousseau's mind. Here we see him at the beginning of the
long journey which was to lead on at last to the theory of the Social
Contract.
In 1755 appeared the Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality
among Men, which is the second of the works given in this volume. With
this essay, Rousseau had unsuccessfully competed in 1753 for a second

prize offered by the Academy of Dijon, and he now issued it prefaced by a
long Dedication to the Republic of Geneva. In this work, which Voltaire, in
thanking him for a presentation copy, termed his "second book against the
human race," his style and his ideas have made a great advance; he is no
longer content merely to push a single idea to extremes: while preserving
the broad opposition between the state of nature and the state of society,
which runs through all his work, he is concerned to present a rational
justification of his views and to admit that a little at any rate may be said on
the other side. Moreover, the idea of "nature" has already undergone a great
development; it is no longer an empty opposition to the evils of society; it
possesses a positive content. Thus half the Discourse on Inequality is
occupied by an imaginary description of the state of nature, in which man is
shown with ideas limited within the narrowest range, with little need of his
fellows, and little care beyond provision for the necessities of the moment.
Rousseau declares explicitly that he does not suppose the "state of nature"
ever to have existed: it is a pure "idea of reason," a working concept
reached by abstraction from the "state of society." The "natural man," as
opposed to "man's man," is man stripped of all that society confers upon
him, a creature formed by a process of abstraction, and never intended for a
historical portrait. The conclusion of the Discourse favours not this purely
abstract being, but a state of savagery intermediate between the "natural"
and the "social" conditions, in which men may preserve the simplicity and
the advantages of nature and at the same time secure the rude comforts and
assurances of early society. In one of the long notes appended to the
Discourse, Rousseau further explains his position. He does not wish, he
says, that modern corrupt society should return to a state of nature:
corruption has gone too far for that; he only desires now that men should
palliate, by wiser use of the fatal arts, the mistake of their introduction. He
recognises society as inevitable and is already feeling his way towards a
justification of it. The second Discourse represents a second stage in his
political thought: the opposition between the state of nature and the state of
society is still presented in naked contrast; but the picture of the former has
already filled out, and it only remains for Rousseau to take a nearer view of
the fundamental implications of the state of society for his thought to reach
maturity.
Rousseau is often blamed, by modern critics, for pursuing in the Discourses
a method apparently that of history, but in reality wholly unhistorical. But it

must be remembered that he himself lays no stress on the historical aspect
of his work; he gives himself out as constructing a purely ideal picture, and
not as depicting any actual stages in human history. The use of false
historical concepts is characteristic of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, and Rousseau is more to be congratulated on having escaped
from giving them too much importance than criticised for employing them
at all.
It is doubtful whether the Discourse on Political Economy, first printed in
the great Encyclopædia in 1755, was composed before or after the
Discourse on Inequality. At first sight the former seems to be far more in
the manner of the Social Contract and to contain views belonging
essentially to Rousseau's constructive period. It would not, however, be safe
to conclude from this that its date is really later. The Discourse on
Inequality still has about it much of the rhetorical looseness of the prize
essay; it aims not so much at close reasoning as at effective and popular
presentation of a case. But, by reading between the lines, an attentive
student can detect in it a great deal of the positive doctrine afterwards
incorporated in the Social Contract. Especially in the closing section, which
lays down the plan of a general treatment of the fundamental questions of
politics, we are already to some extent in the atmosphere of the later works.
It is indeed almost certain that Rousseau never attempted to put into either
of the first two Discourses any of the positive content of his political theory.
They were intended, not as final expositions of his point of view, but as
partial and preliminary studies, in which his aim was far more destructive
than constructive. It is clear that in first conceiving the plan of a work on
Political Institutions, Rousseau cannot have meant to regard all society as
in essence bad. It is indeed evident that he meant, from the first, to study
human society and institutions in their rational aspect, and that he was
rather diverted from his main purpose by the Academy of Dijon's
competition than first induced by it to think about political questions. It
need, therefore, cause no surprise that a work probably written before the
Discourse on Inequality should contain the germs of the theory given in full
in the Social Contract. The Discourse on Political Economy is important as
giving the first sketch of the theory of the "General Will." It will readily be
seen that Rousseau does not mean by "political economy" exactly what we
mean nowadays. He begins with a discussion of the fundamental nature of
the State, and the possibility of reconciling its existence with human liberty,

and goes on with an admirable short study of the principles of taxation. He
is thinking throughout of "political" in the sense of "public" economy, of the
State as the public financier, and not of the conditions governing industry.
He conceives the State as a body aiming at the well-being of all its
members and subordinates all his views of taxation to that end. He who has
only necessaries should not be taxed at all; superfluities should be
supertaxed; there should be heavy imposts on every sort of luxury. The first
part of the article is still more interesting. Rousseau begins by demolishing
the exaggerated parallel so often drawn between the State and the family;
he shows that the State is not, and cannot be, patriarchal in nature, and goes
on to lay down his view that its real being consists in the General Will of its
members. The essential features of the Social Contract are present in this
Discourse almost as if they were commonplaces, certainly not as if they
were new discoveries on which the author had just hit by some happy
inspiration. There is every temptation, after reading the Political Economy,
to suppose that Rousseau's political ideas really reached maturity far earlier
than has generally been allowed.
The Social Contract finally appeared, along with Emile, in 1762. This year,
therefore, represents in every respect the culmination of Rousseau's career.
Henceforth, he was to write only controversial and confessional works; his
theories were now developed, and, simultaneously, he gave to the world his
views on the fundamental problems of politics and education. It is now time
to ask what Rousseau's system, in its maturity, finally amounted to. The
Social Contract contains practically the whole of his constructive political
theory; it requires to be read, for full understanding, in connection with his
other works, especially Emile and the Letters on the Mount (1764), but in
the main it is self-contained and complete. The title sufficiently defines its
scope. It is called The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right, and
the second title explains the first. Rousseau's object is not to deal, in a
general way, like Montesquieu, with the actual institutions of existing
States, but to lay down the essential principles which must form the basis of
every legitimate society. Rousseau himself, in the fifth book of the Emile,
has stated the difference clearly. "Montesquieu," he says, "did not intend to
treat of the principles of political right; he was content to treat of the
positive right (or law) of established governments; and no two studies could
be more different than these." Rousseau then conceives his object as being
something very different from that of the Spirit of the Laws, and it is a

wilful error to misconstrue his purpose. When he remarks that "the facts,"
the actual history of political societies, "do not concern him," he is not
contemptuous of facts; he is merely asserting the sure principle that a fact
can in no case give rise to a right. His desire is to establish society on a
basis of pure right, so as at once to disprove his attack on society generally
and to reinforce his criticism of existing societies.
Round this point centres the whole dispute about the methods proper to
political theory. There are, broadly speaking, two schools of political
theorists, if we set aside the psychologists. One school, by collecting facts,
aims at reaching broad generalisations about what actually happens in
human societies! the other tries to penetrate to the universal principles at the
root of all human combination. For the latter purpose facts may be useful,
but in themselves they can prove nothing. The question is not one of fact,
but one of right.
Rousseau belongs essentially to this philosophical school. He is not, as his
less philosophic critics seem to suppose, a purely abstract thinker
generalising from imaginary historical instances; he is a concrete thinker
trying to get beyond they inessential and changing to the permanent and
invariable basis of human society. Like Green, he is in search of the
principle of political obligation, and beside this quest all others fall into
their place as secondary and derivative. It is required to find a form of
association able to defend and protect with the whole common force the
person and goods of every associate, and of such a nature, that each, uniting
himself with all, may still obey only himself, and remain as free as before.
This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the
solution. The problem of political obligation is seen as including all other
political problems, which fall into place in a system based upon it. How,
Rousseau asks, can the will of the State help being for me a merely external
will, imposing itself upon my own? How can the existence of the State be
reconciled with human freedom? How can man, who is born free, rightly
come to be everywhere in chains?
No-one could help understanding the central problem of the Social Contract
immediately, were it not that its doctrines often seem to be strangely
formulated. We have seen that this strangeness is due to Rousseau's
historical position, to his use of the political concepts current in his own
age, and to his natural tendency to build on the foundations laid by his

predecessors. There are a great many people whose idea of Rousseau
consists solely of the first words of the opening chapter of the Social
Contract, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." But, they tell
you, man is not born free, even if he is everywhere in chains. Thus at the
very outset we are faced with the great difficulty in appreciating Rousseau.
When we should naturally say "man ought to be free," or perhaps "man is
born for freedom," he prefers to say "man is born free," by which he means
exactly the same thing. There is doubtless, in his way of putting it, an
appeal to a "golden age"; but this golden age is admittedly as imaginary as
the freedom to which men are born is bound, for most of them, to be.
Elsewhere Rousseau puts the point much as we might put it ourselves.
"Nothing is more certain than that every man born in slavery is born for
slavery.... But if there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been
slaves against nature" (Social Contract, Book I, chap. ii).
We have seen that the contrast between the "state of nature" and the "state
of society" runs through all Rousseau's work. The Emile is a plea for
"natural" education; the Discourses are a plea for a "naturalisation" of
society; the New Héloïse is the romantic's appeal for more "nature" in
human relationships. What then is the position of this contrast in Rousseau's
mature political thought? It is clear that the position is not merely that of the
Discourses. In them, he envisaged only the faults of actual societies; now,
he is concerned with the possibility of a rational society. His aim is to
justify the change from "nature" to "society," although it has left men in
chains. He is in search of the true society, which leaves men "as free as
before." Altogether, the space occupied by the idea of nature in the Social
Contract is very small. It is used of necessity in the controversial chapters,
in which Rousseau is refuting false theories of social obligation; but when
once he has brushed aside the false prophets, he lets the idea of nature go
with them, and concerns himself solely with giving society the rational
sanction he has promised. It becomes clear that, in political matters at any
rate, the "state of nature" is for him only a term of controversy. He has in
effect abandoned, in so far as he ever held it, the theory of a human golden
age; and where, as in the Emile, he makes use of the idea of nature, it is
broadened and deepened out of all recognition. Despite many passages in
which the old terminology cleaves to him, he means by "nature" in this
period not the original state of a thing, nor even its reduction to the simplest
terms: he is passing over to the conception of "nature" as identical with the

full development of capacity, with the higher! idea of human freedom. This
view may be seen in germ even in the Discourse on Inequality, where,
distinguishing self-respect (amour de soi) from egoism (amour-propre),
Rousseau makes the former, the property of the "natural" man, consist not
in the desire for self-aggrandisement, but in the seeking of satisfaction for
reasonable desire accompanied by benevolence; whereas egoism is the
preference of our own interests to those of others, self-respect merely puts
us on an equal footing with our fellows. It is true that in the Discourse
Rousseau is pleading against the development of many human faculties; but
he is equally advocating the fullest development of those he regards as
"natural," by which he means merely "good." The "state of society," as
envisaged in the Social Contract, is no longer in contradiction to the "state
of nature" upheld in the Emile, where indeed the social environment is of
the greatest importance, and, though the pupil is screened from it, he is
none the less being trained for it. Indeed the views given in the Social
Contract are summarised in the fifth book of the Emile, and by this
summary the essential unity of Rousseau's system is emphasised.
Rousseau's object, then, in the first words of the Social Contract, "is to
inquire if, in the civil order, there can be any sure and certain, rule of
administration, taking men as they are and laws as they might be."
Montesquieu took laws as they were, and saw what sort of men they made:
Rousseau, founding his whole system on human freedom, takes man as the
basis, and regards him as giving himself what laws he pleases. He takes his
stand on the nature of human freedom: on this he bases his whole system,
making the will of the members the sole basis of every society.
In working out his theory, Rousseau makes use throughout of three general
and, to some extent, alternative conceptions. These are the Social Contract,
Sovereignty and the General Will. We shall now have to examine each of
these in turn.
The Social Contract theory is as old as the sophists of Greece (see Plato,
Republic, Book II and the Gorgias), and as I elusive. It has been adapted to
the most opposite points of view, and used, in different forms, on both sides
of every question to which it could conceivably be applied. It is frequent in
mediæval writers, a commonplace with the theorists of the Renaissance,
and in the eighteenth century already nearing its fall before a wider
conception. It would be a long, as well as a thankless, task to trace its

history over again: it may be followed best in D. G. Ritchie's admirable
essay on it in Darwin and Hegel and Other Studies. For us, it is important
only to regard it in its most general aspect, before studying the special use
made of it by Rousseau. Obviously, in one form or another, it is a theory
very easily arrived at. Wherever any form of government apart from the
merest tyranny exists, reflection on the basis of the State cannot but lead to
the notion that, in one sense or another, it is based on the consent, tacit or
expressed, past or present, of its members. In this alone, the greater part of
the Social Contract theory is already latent. Add the desire to find actual
justification for a theory in facts, and, especially in an age possessed only of
the haziest historical sense, this doctrine of consent will inevitably be given
a historical setting. If in addition there is a tendency to regard society as
something unnatural to humanity, the tendency will become irresistible. By
writers of almost all schools, the State will be represented as having arisen,
in some remote age, out of a compact or, in more legal phrase, contract
between two or more parties. The only class that will be able to resist the
doctrine is that which maintains the divine right of kings, and holds that all
existing governments were were imposed on the people by the direct
interposition of God. All who are not prepared to maintain that will be
partisans of some form or other of the Social Contract theory.
It is, therefore, not surprising that we find among its advocates writers of
the most opposite points of view. Barely stated, it is a mere formula, which
may be filled in with any content from absolutism to pure republicanism.
And, in the hands of some at least of its supporters, it turns out to be a
weapon that cuts both ways. We shall be in a better position to judge of its
usefulness when we have seen its chief varieties at work.
All Social Contract theories that are at all definite fall under one or other of
two heads. They represent society as based on an original contract either
between the people and the government, or between all the individuals
composing the State. Historically, modern theory passes from the first to the
second of these forms.
The doctrine that society is founded on a contract between the people and
the government is of mediæval origin. It was often supported by references
to the Old Testament, which contains a similar view in an unreflective form.
It is found in most of the great political writers of the sixteenth century; in
Buchanan, and in the writings of James I: it persists into the seventeenth in

the works of Grotius and Puffendorf. Grotius is sometimes held to have
stated the theory so as to admit both forms of contract; but it is clear that he
is only thinking of the first form as admitting democratic as well as
monarchical government. We find it put very clearly by the Convention
Parliament of 1688, which accuses James II of having "endeavoured to
subvert the constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract
between king and people." While Hobbes, on the side of the royalists, is
maintaining the contract theory in its second form, the Parliamentarian
Algernon Sidney adheres to the idea of a contract between the people and
the government.
In this form, the theory clearly admits of opposite interpretations. It may be
held that the people, having given itself up once for all to its rulers, has
nothing more to ask of them, and is bound to submit to any usage they may
choose to inflict. This, however, is not the implication most usually drawn
from it. The theory, in this form, originated with theologians who were also
lawyers. Their view of a contract implied mutual obligations; they regarded
the ruler as bound, by its terms, to govern constitutionally. The old idea that
a king must not violate the sacred customs of the realm passes easily into
the doctrine that he must not violate the terms of the original contract
between himself and his people. Just as in the days of the Norman kings,
every appeal on the part of the people for more liberties was couched in the
form of a demand that the customs of the "good old times" of Edward the
Confessor should be respected, so in the seventeenth century every act of
popular assertion or resistance was stated as an appeal to the king not to
violate the contract. The demand was a good popular cry, and it seemed to
have the theorists behind it. Rousseau gives his refutation of this view,
which he had, in the Discourse on Inequality, maintained in passing, in the
sixteenth chapter of the third book of the Social Contract. (See also Book I,
chap, iv, init.) His attack is really concerned also with the theory of Hobbes,
which in some respects resembles, as we shall see, this first view; but, in
form at least, it is directed against this form of contract. It will be possible
to examine it more closely, when the second view has been considered.
The second view, which may be called the Social Contract theory proper,
regards society as originating in, or based on, an agreement between the
individuals composing it. It seems to be found first, rather vaguely, in
Richard Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, from which Locke largely

borrowed: and it reappears, in varying forms, in Milton's Tenure of Kings
and Magistrates, in Hobbes's Leviathan, in Locke's Treatises on Civil
Government, and in Rousseau. The best-known instance of its actual use is
by the Pilgrim Fathers on the Mayflower in 1620, in whose declaration
occurs the phrase, "We do solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God
and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil
body politic." The natural implication of this view would seem to be the
corollary of complete popular Sovereignty which Rousseau draws. But
before Rousseau's time it had been used to support views as diverse as those
which rested on the first form. We saw that, in Grotius's great work, De Jure
Belli et Pacis, it was already possible to doubt which of the two theories
was being advocated. The first theory was, historically, a means of popular
protest against royal aggression. As soon as popular government was taken
into account, the act of contract between people and government became in
effect merely a contract between the individuals composing the society, and
readily passed over into the second form.
The second theory, in its ordinary form, expresses only the view that the
people is everywhere Sovereign, and that, in the phrase of Milton's treatise,
"the power of kings and magistrates is only derivative." Before, however,
this view had been worked up into a philosophical theory, it had already
been used by Hobbes to support precisely opposite principles. Hobbes
agrees that the original contract is one between all the individuals
composing the State, and that the government is no party to it; but he
regards the people as agreeing, not merely to form a State, but to invest a
certain person or certain persons with the government of it. He agrees that
the people is naturally supreme, but regards it as alienating its Sovereignty
by the contract itself, and delegating its power, wholly and for ever, to the
government. As soon, therefore, as the State is set up, the government
becomes for Hobbes the Sovereign; there is no more question of popular
Sovereignty, but only of passive obedience: the people is bound, by the
contract, to obey its ruler, no matter whether he governs well or ill. It has
alienated all its rights to the Sovereign, who is, therefore, absolute master.
Hobbes, living in a time of civil wars, regards the worst government as
better than anarchy, and is, therefore, at pains to find arguments in support
of any form of absolutism. It is easy to pick holes in this system, and to see
into what difficulties a conscientious Hobbist might be led by a revolution.
For as soon as the revolutionaries get the upper hand, he will have to

sacrifice one of his principles: he will have to side against either the actual
or the legitimate Sovereign. It is easy also to see that alienation of liberty,
even if possible for an individual, which Rousseau denies, cannot bind his
posterity. But, with all its faults, the view of Hobbes is on the whole
admirably, if ruthlessly, logical, and to it Rousseau owes a great deal.
The special shape given to the second Social Contract theory by Hobbes
looks, at first sight, much like a combination, into a single act, of both the
contracts. This, however, is not the view he adopts. The theory of a contract
between government and people had, as we have seen, been used mainly as
a support for popular liberties, a means of assertion against the government.
Hobbes, whose whole aim is to make his government Sovereign, can only
do this by leaving the government outside the contract: he thus avoids the
necessity of submitting it to any obligation whatsoever, and leaves it
absolute and irresponsible. He secures, in fact, not merely a State which has
unbounded rights against the individual, but a determinate authority with
the right to enforce those rights. His theory is not merely Statism (étatisme);
it is pure despotism.
It is clear that, if such a theory is to be upheld, it can stand only by the view,
which Hobbes shares with Grotius, that a man can alienate not merely his
own liberty, but also that of his descendants, and that, consequently, a
people as a whole can do the same. This is the point at which both Locke
and Rousseau attack it. Locke, whose aim is largely to justify the
Revolution of 1688, makes government depend, not merely at its institution,
but always, on the consent of the governed, and regards all rulers as liable
to be displaced if they govern tyrannically. He omits, however, to provide
any machinery short of revolution for the expression of popular opinion,
and, on the whole, seems to regard the popular consent as something
essentially tacit and assumed. He regards the State as existing mainly to
protect life and property, and is, in all his assertions of popular rights, so
cautious as to reduce them almost to nothing. It is not till we come to
Rousseau that the second form of the contract theory is stated in its purest
and most logical form.
Rousseau sees clearly the necessity, if popular consent in government is to
be more than a name, of giving it some constitutional means of expression.
For Locke's theory of tacit consent, he substitutes an active agreement
periodically renewed. He looks back with admiration to the city-states of

ancient Greece and, in his own day, reserves his admiration for the Swiss
free cities, Berne and, above all, Geneva, his native place. Seeing in the
Europe of his day no case in which representative government was working
at all democratically, he was unable to conceive that means might be found
of giving effect to this active agreement in a nation-state; he therefore held
that self-government was impossible except for a city. He wished to break
up the nation-states of Europe, and create instead federative leagues of
independent city-states.
It matters, however, comparatively little, for the appreciation of Rousseau's
political theory in general, that he failed to become the theorist of the
modern State. By taking the State, which must have, in essentials,
everywhere the same basis, at its simplest, he was able, far better than his
predecessors, to bring out the real nature of the "social tie," an alternative
name which he often uses for the Social Contract. His doctrine I of the
underlying principle of political obligation is that of all great modern
writers, from Kant to Mr. Bosanquet. This fundamental unity has been
obscured only because critics have failed to put the Social Contract theory
in its proper place in Rousseau's system.
This theory was, we have seen, a commonplace. The amount of historical
authenticity assigned to the contract almost universally presupposed varied
enormously. Generally, the weaker a writer's rational basis, the more he
appealed to history—and invented it. It was, therefore, almost inevitable
that Rousseau should cast his theory into the contractual form. There were,
indeed, writers of his time who laughed at the contract, but they were not
writers who constructed a general system of political philosophy. From
Cromwell to Montesquieu and Bentham, it was the practically minded man,
impatient of unactual hypotheses, who refused to accept the idea of
contract. The theorists were as unanimous in its favour as the Victorians
were in favour of the "organic" theory. But we, criticising them in the light
of later events, are in a better position for estimating the position the Social
Contract really took in their political system. We see that Locke's doctrine
of tacit consent made popular control so unreal that he was forced, if the
State was to have any hold, to make his contract historical and actual,
binding posterity for all time, and that he was also led to admit a quasi-
contract between people and government, as a second vindication of
popular liberties. Rousseau, on the other hand, bases no vital argument on

the historical nature of the contract, in which, indeed, he clearly does not
believe. "How," he asks, "did this change [from nature to society] come
about?" And he answers that he does not know. Moreover, his aim is to find
"a sure and legitimate rule of administration, taking men as they are and
laws as they might be"; that is to say, his Social Contract is something
which will be found at work in every legitimate society, but which will be
in abeyance in all forms of despotism. He clearly means by it no more and
no less than the fundamental principle of political association, the basis of
the unity which enables us, in the State, to realise political liberty by giving
up lawlessness and license. The presentation of this doctrine in the quasi-
historical form of the Social Contract theory is due to the accident of the
time and place in which Rousseau wrote. At the same time, the importance
of the conception is best to be seen in the hard death it dies. Though no-one,
for a hundred years or so, has thought of regarding it as historical, it has
been found so hard to secure any other phrase explaining as well or better
the basis of political union that, to this day, the phraseology of the contract
theory largely persists. A conception so vital cannot have been barren.
It is indeed, in Rousseau's own thought, only one of the three different ways
in which the basis of political union is stated, according to the
preoccupation of his mind. When he is thinking quasi-historically, he
describes his doctrine as that of the Social Contract. Modern anthropology,
in its attempts to explain the complex by means of the simple, often strays
further from the straight paths of history and reason. In a semi-legal aspect,
using the terminology, if not the standpoint, of jurisprudence, he restates the
same doctrine in the form of popular Sovereignty. This use tends
continually to pass over into the more philosophical form which comes
third. "Sovereignty is the exercise of the general will." Philosophically,
Rousseau's doctrine finds its expression in the view that the State is based
not on any original convention, not on, any determinate power, but on the
living and sustaining rational will of its members. We have now to examine
first Sovereignty and then the General Will, which is ultimately Rousseau's
guiding conception.
Sovereignty is, first and foremost, a legal term, and it has often been held
that its use in political philosophy merely leads to confusion. In
jurisprudence, we are told, it has the perfectly plain meaning given to it in
Austin's famous definition. The Sovereign is "a determinate human

superior, not in a habit of obedience to a like superior, but receiving
habitual obedience from the bulk of a given society." Where Sovereignty is
placed is, on this view, a question purely of fact, and never of right. We
have only to seek out the determinate human superior in a given society,
and we shall have the Sovereign. In answer to this theory, it is not enough,
though it is a valuable point, to show that such a determinate superior is
rarely to be found. Where, for instance, is the Sovereign of England or of
the British Empire? Is it the King, who is called the Sovereign? Or is it the
Parliament, which is the legislature (for Austin's Sovereign is regarded as
the source of law)? Or is it the electorate, or the whole mass of the
population, with or without the right of voting? Clearly all these exercise a
certain influence in the making of laws. Or finally, is it now the Cabinet?
For Austin, one of these bodies would be ruled out as indeterminate (the
mass of the population) and another as responsible (the Cabinet). But are
we to regard the House of Commons or those who elect it as forming part of
the Sovereign? The search for a determinate Sovereign may be a valuable
legal conception; but it has evidently nothing to do with political theory.
It is, therefore, essential to distinguish between the legal Sovereign of
jurisprudence, and the political Sovereign of political science and
philosophy. Even so, it does not at once become clear what this political
Sovereign may be. Is it the body or bodies of persons in whom political
power in a State actually resides? Is it merely the complex of actual
institutions regarded as embodying the will of the society? This would leave
us still in the realm of mere fact, outside both right and philosophy. The
Sovereign, in the philosophical sense, is neither the nominal Sovereign, nor
the legal Sovereign, nor the political Sovereign of fact and common sense:
it is the consequence of the fundamental bond of union, the restatement of
the doctrine of Social Contract, the foreshadowing of that of General Will.
The Sovereign is that body in the State in which political power ought
always to reside, and in which the right to such power does always reside.
The idea at the back of the philosophical conception of Sovereignty is,
therefore, essentially the same as that we found to underlie the Social
Contract theory. It is the view that the people, whether it can alienate its
right or not, is the ultimate director of its own destinies, the final power
from which there is no appeal. In a sense, this is recognised even by
Hobbes, who makes the power of his absolute Sovereign, the predecessor of

Austin's "determinate human superior," issue first of all from the Social
Contract, which is essentially a popular act. The difference between Hobbes
and Rousseau on this point is solely that Rousseau regards as inalienable a
supreme power which Hobbes makes the people alienate in its first
corporate action. That is to say, Hobbes in fact accepts the theory of popular
supremacy in name only to destroy it in fact; Rousseau asserts the theory in
its only logical form, and is under no temptation to evade it by means of
false historical assumptions. In Locke, a distinction is already drawn
between the legal and the actual Sovereign, which Locke calls "supreme
power"; Rousseau unites the absolute Sovereignty of Hobbes and the
"popular consent" of Locke into the philosophic doctrine of popular
Sovereignty, which has since been the established form of the theory. His
final view represents a return from the perversions of Hobbes to a doctrine
already familiar to mediæval and Renaissance writers; but it is not merely a
return. In its passage the view has fallen into its place in a complete system
of political philosophy.
In a second important respect Rousseau differentiates himself from Hobbes.
For Hobbes, the Sovereign is identical with the government. He is so hot for
absolutism largely because he regards revolution, the overthrow of the
existing government, as at the same time the dissolution of the body politic,
and a return to complete anarchy or to the "state of nature." Rousseau and,
to some extent, Locke meet this view by sharp division between the
supreme power and the government. For Rousseau, they are so clearly
distinct that even a completely democratic government is not at the same
time the Sovereign; its members are sovereign only in a different capacity
and as a different corporate body, just as two different societies may exist
for different purposes with exactly the same members. Pure democracy,
however, the government of the State by all the people in every detail, is
not, as Rousseau says, a possible human institution. All governments are
really mixed in character; and what we call a democracy is only a more or
less democratic government. Government, therefore, will always be to some
extent in the hands of selected persons. Sovereignty, on the other hand, is in
his view absolute, inalienable, indivisible, and indestructible. It cannot be
limited, abandoned, shared or destroyed. It is an essential part of all social
life that the right to control the destinies of the State belongs in the last
resort to the whole people. There clearly must in the end be somewhere in
the society an ultimate court of appeal, whether determinate or not; but,

unless Sovereignty is distinguished from government, the government,
passing under the name of Sovereign, will inevitably be regarded as
absolute. The only way to avoid the conclusions of Hobbes is, therefore, to
establish a clear separation between them.
Rousseau tries to do this by an adaptation of the doctrine of the "three
powers." But instead of three independent powers sharing the supreme
authority, he gives only two, and makes one of these wholly dependent on
the other. He substitutes for the co-ordination of the legislative, the
executive, and the judicial authorities, a system in which the legislative
power, or Sovereign, is always supreme, the executive, or government,
always secondary and derivative, and the judicial power merely a function
of government. This division he makes, naturally, one of will and power.
The government is merely to carry out the decrees, or acts of will, of the
Sovereign people. Just as the human will transfers a command to its
members for execution, so the body politic may give its decisions force by
setting up authority which, like the brain, may command its members. In
delegating the power necessary for the execution of its will, it is abandoning
none of its supreme authority. It remains Sovereign, and can at any moment
recall the grants it has made. Government, therefore, exists only at the
Sovereign's pleasure, and is always revocable by the sovereign will.
It will be seen, when we come to discuss the nature of the General Will, that
this doctrine really contains the most valuable part of Rousseau's theory.
Here, we are concerned rather with its limitations. The distinction between
legislative and executive functions is in practice very hard to draw. In
Rousseau's case, it is further complicated by the presence of a second
distinction. The legislative power, the Sovereign, is concerned only with
what is general, the executive only with what is particular. This distinction,
the full force of which can only be seen in connection with the General
Will, means roughly that a matter is general when it concerns the whole
community equally, and makes no mention of any particular class; as soon
as it refers to any class or person, it becomes particular, and can no longer
form the subject matter of an act of Sovereignty. However just this
distinction may seem in the abstract, it is clear that its effect is to place all
the power in the hands of the executive: modern legislation is almost
always concerned with particular classes and interests. It is not, therefore, a
long step from the view of Rousseau to the modern theory of democratic

government, in which the people has little power beyond that of removing
its rulers if they displease it. As long, however, as we confine our view to
the city-state of which Rousseau is thinking, his distinction is capable of
preserving for the people a greater actual exercise of will. A city can often
generalise where a nation must particularise.
It is in the third book of the Social Contract, where Rousseau is discussing
the problem of government, that it is most essential to remember that his
discussion has in view mainly the city-state and not the nation. Broadly put,
his principle of government is that democracy is possible only in small
States, aristocracy in those of medium extent, and monarchy in great States
(Book III, chap. iii). In considering this view, we have to take into account
two things. First, he rejects representative government; will being, in his
theory, inalienable, representative Sovereignty is impossible. But, as he
regards all general acts as functions of Sovereignty, this means that no
general act can be within the competence of a representative assembly. In
judging this theory, we must take into account all the circumstances of
Rousseau's time. France, Geneva and England were the three States he took
most into account. In France, representative government was practically
non-existent; in Geneva, it was only partially necessary; in England, it was
a mockery, used to support a corrupt oligarchy against a debased monarchy.
Rousseau may well be pardoned for not taking the ordinary modern view of
it. Nor indeed is it, even in the modern world, so satisfactory an instrument
of the popular will that we can afford wholly to discard his criticism. It is
one of the problems of the day to find some means of securing effective
popular control over a weakened Parliament and a despotic Cabinet.
The second factor is the immense development of local government. It
seemed to Rousseau that, in the nation-state, all authority must necessarily
pass, as it had in France, to the central power. Devolution was hardly
dreamed of; and Rousseau saw the only means of securing effective popular
government in a federal system, starting from the small unit as Sovereign.
The nineteenth century has proved the falsehood of much of his theory of
government; but there are still many wise comments and fruitful
suggestions to be found in the third book of the Social Contract and in the
treatise on the Government of Poland, as well as in his adaptation and
criticism of the Polysynodie of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, a scheme of local
government for France, born out of its due time.

The point in Rousseau's theory of Sovereignty that offers most difficulty is
his view (Book II, chap, vii) that, for every State, a Legislator is necessary.
We shall understand the section only by realising that the legislator is, in
fact, in Rousseau's system, the spirit of institutions personified; his place, in
a developed society, is taken by the whole complex of social custom,
organisation and tradition that has grown up with the State. This is made
clearer by the fact that the legislator is not to exercise legislative power; he
is merely to submit his suggestions for popular approval. Thus Rousseau
recognises that, in the case of institutions and traditions as elsewhere, will,
and not force, is the basis of the State.
This may be seen in his treatment of law as a whole (Book II, chap, vi),
which deserves very careful attention. He defines laws as "acts of the
general will," and, agreeing with Montesquieu in making law the "condition
of civil association," goes beyond him only in tracing it more definitely to
its origin in an act of will. The Social Contract renders law necessary, and at
the same time makes it quite clear that laws can proceed only from the body
of citizens who have constituted the State. "Doubtless," says Rousseau,
"there is a universal justice emanating from reason alone; but this justice, to
be admitted among us, must be mutual. Humbly speaking, in default of
natural sanctions, the laws of justice are ineffective among men." Of the
law which set up among men this reign of mutual justice the General Will is
the source.
We thus come at last to the General Will, the most disputed, and certainly
the most fundamental, of all Rousseau's political concepts. No critic of the
Social Contract has found it easy to say either what precisely its author
meant by it, or what is its final value for political philosophy. The difficulty
is increased because Rousseau himself sometimes halts in the sense which
he assigns to it, and even seems to suggest by it two different ideas. Of its
broad meaning, however, there can be no doubt. The effect of the Social
Contract is the creation of a new individual. When it has taken place, "at
once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, the act
of association creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many
members as the assembly contains voters, and receiving from the act its
unity, its common identity (moi commun), its life and its will" (Book I,
chap. vi). The same doctrine had been stated earlier, in the Political
Economy, without the historical setting. "The body politic is also a moral

being, possessed of a will, and this general will, which tends always to the
preservation and welfare of the whole and of every part, and is the source of
the laws, constitutes for all the members of the State, in their relations to
one another and to it, the rule of what is just or unjust." It will be seen at
once that the second statement, which could easily be fortified by others
from the Social Contract, says more than the first. It is not apparent that the
common will, created by the institution of society, need "tend always to the
welfare of the whole." Is not the common will at least as fallible as the will
of a single individual? May it not equally be led away from its true interests
to the pursuit of pleasure or of something which is really harmful to it? And,
if the whole society may vote what conduces to the momentary pleasure of
all the members and at the same time to the lasting damage of the State as a
whole, is it not still more likely that some of the members will try to secure
their private interests in opposition to those of the whole and of others? All
these questions, and others like them, have been asked by critics of the
conception of the General Will.
Two main points are involved, to one of which Rousseau gives a clear and
definite answer. "There is often," he says, "a great deal of difference
between the will of all and the general will; the latter takes account only of
the common interest, while the former takes private interest into account,
and is no more than a sum of particular wills." "The agreement of all
interests is formed by opposition to that of each" (Book II, chap. iii). It is
indeed possible for a citizen, when an issue is presented to him, to vote not
for the good of the State, but for his own good; but, in such a case, his vote,
from the point of view of the General Will, is merely negligible. But "does
it follow that the general will is exterminated or corrupted? Not at all: it is
always constant, unalterable, and pure; but it is subordinated to other wills
which encroach upon its sphere.... The fault [each man] commits [in
detaching his interest from the common interest] is that of changing the
state of the question, and answering something different from what he is
asked. Instead of saying by his vote 'It is to the advantage of the State,' he
says, 'It is to the advantage of this or that man or party that this or that view
should prevail.' Thus the law of public order in assemblies is not so much to
maintain in them the general will as to secure that the question be always
put to it, and the answer always given by it" (Book IV, chap. i). These
passages, with many others that may be found in the text, make it quite
clear that by the General Will Rousseau means something quite distinct

from the Will of All, with which it should never have been confused. The
only excuse for such confusion lies in his view that when, in a city-state, all
particular associations are avoided, votes guided by individual self-interest
will always cancel one another, so that majority voting will always result in
the General Will. This is clearly not the case, and in this respect we may
charge him with pushing the democratic argument too far. The point,
however, can be better dealt with at a later stage. Rousseau makes no
pretence that the mere voice of a majority is infallible; he only says, at the
most, that, given his ideal conditions, it would be so.
The second main point raised by critics of the General Will is whether in
defining it as a will directed solely to the common interest, Rousseau means
to exclude acts of public immorality and short-sightedness. He answers the
questions in different ways. First, an act of public immorality would be
merely an unanimous instance of selfishness, different in no particular, from
similar acts less unanimous, and therefore forming no part of a General
Will. Secondly, a mere ignorance of our own and the State's good, entirely
unprompted by selfish desires, does not make our will anti-social or
individual. "The general will is always right and tends to the public
advantage; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the people are
always equally correct. Our will is always for our own good, but we do not
always see what that is: the people is never corrupted, but it is often
deceived, and on such occasions only does it seem to will what is bad"
(Book II, chap. iii). It is impossible to acquit Rousseau in some of the
passages in which he treats of the General Will, of something worse than
obscurity—positive contradiction. It is probable, indeed, that he never quite
succeeded in getting his view clear in his own mind; there is nearly always,
in his treatment of it, a certain amount of muddle and fluctuation. These
difficulties the student must be left to worry out for himself; it is only
possible to present, in outline, what Rousseau meant to convey.
The treatment of the General Will in the Political Economy is brief and
lucid, and furnishes the best guide to his meaning. The definition of it in
this work, which has already been quoted, is followed by a short account of
the nature of general wills as a whole. "Every political society is composed
of other smaller societies of various kinds, each of which has its interest and
rules of conduct; but those societies which everybody perceives, because
they have an external or authorised form, are not the only ones that actually

exist in the State: all individuals who are united by a common interest
compose as many others, either temporary or permanent, whose influence is
none the less real because it is less apparent.... The influence of all these
tacit or formal associations causes by the influence of their will as many
modifications of the public will. The will of these particular societies has
always two relations; for the members of the association, it is a general will;
for the great society, it is a particular will; and it is often right with regard to
the first object and wrong as to the second. The most general will is always
the most just, and the voice of the people is, in fact, the voice of God."
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.
G. D. H. COLE.

[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.

A NOTE ON BOOKS

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.
G. D. H. C.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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.
MISCELLANEOUS WORKS: 5 vols., 1767.

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.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

BOOK I
FOREWORD

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

BOOK II

Which treats of legislation.

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

BOOK III

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

BOOK IV

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

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
OR

PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL

RIGHT

Fœderis æquas

Dicamus leges. (Vergil, Æneid XI.)

FOREWORD

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.

BOOK I

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.

CHAPTER I

SUBJECT OF THE FIRST BOOK

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.

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST SOCIETIES

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."

CHAPTER III

THE RIGHT OF THE STRONGEST

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.

CHAPTER IV

SLAVERY

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.

CHAPTER V

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.

CHAPTER VI

THE SOCIAL COMPACT

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.

[1] The real meaning of this word has been almost wholly lost in modern times; most people mistake
a town for a city, and a townsman for a citizen. They do not know that houses make a town, but
citizens a city. The same mistake long ago cost the Carthaginians dear. I have never read of the title
of citizens being given to the subjects of any prince, not even the ancient Macedonians or the English
of to-day, though they are nearer liberty than any one else. The French alone everywhere familiarly
adopt the name of citizens, because, as can be seen from their dictionaries, they have no idea of its
meaning; otherwise they would be guilty in usurping it, of the crime of lèse-majesté: among them,
the name expresses a virtue, and not a right. When Bodin spoke of our citizens and townsmen, he fell
into a bad blunder in taking the one class for the other. M. d'Alembert has avoided the error, and, in
his article on Geneva, has clearly distinguished the four orders of men (or even five, counting mere
foreigners) who dwell in our town, of which two only compose the Republic. No other French writer,
to my knowledge, has understood the real meaning of the word citizen.

CHAPTER VII

THE SOVEREIGN

This formula shows us that the act of association comprises a mutual
undertaking between the public and the individuals, and that each
individual, in making a contract, as we may say, with himself, is bound in a
double capacity; as a member of the Sovereign he is bound to the
individuals, and as a member of the State to the Sovereign. But the maxim
of civil right, that no one is bound by undertakings made to himself, does
not apply in this case; for there is a great difference between incurring an
obligation to yourself and incurring one to a whole of which you form a
part.
Attention must further be called to the fact that public deliberation, while
competent to bind all the subjects to the Sovereign, because of the two
different capacities in which each of them may be regarded, cannot, for the
opposite reason, bind the Sovereign to itself; and that it is consequently
against the nature of the body politic for the Sovereign to impose on itself a
law which it cannot infringe. Being able to regard itself in only one
capacity, it is in the position of an individual who makes a contract with
himself; and this makes it clear that there neither is nor can be any kind of
fundamental law binding on the body of the people—not even the social
contract itself. This does not mean that the body politic cannot enter into

undertakings with others, provided the contract is not infringed by them; for
in relation to what is external to it, it becomes a simple being, an individual.
But the body politic or the Sovereign, drawing its being wholly from the
sanctity of the contract, can never bind itself, even to an outsider, to do
anything derogatory to the original act, for instance, to alienate any part of
itself, or to submit to another Sovereign. Violation of the act by which it
exists would be self-annihilation; and that which is itself nothing can create
nothing.
As soon as this multitude is so united in one body, it is impossible to offend
against one of the members without attacking the body, and still more to
offend against the body without the members resenting it. Duty and interest
therefore equally oblige the two contracting parties to give each other help;
and the same men should seek to combine, in their double capacity, all the
advantages dependent upon that capacity.
Again, the Sovereign, being formed wholly of the individuals who compose
it, neither has nor can have any interest contrary to theirs; and consequently
the sovereign power need give no guarantee to its subjects, because it is
impossible for the body to wish to hurt all its members. We shall also see
later on that It cannot hurt any in particular. The Sovereign, merely by
virtue of what it is, is is always what it should be.
This, however, is not the case with the relation of the subjects to the
Sovereign, which, despite the common interest, would have no security that
they would fulfil their undertakings, unless it found means to assure itself of
their fidelity.
In fact, each individual, as a man, may have a particular will contrary or
dissimilar to the general will which he has as a citizen. His particular
interest may speak to him quite differently from the common interest: his
absolute and naturally independent existence may make him look upon
what he owes to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution, the loss of
which will do less harm to others than the payment of it is burdensome to
himself; and, regarding the moral person which constitutes the State as a
persona ficta, because not a man, he may wish to enjoy the rights of
citizenship without being ready to fulfil the duties of a subject. The
continuance of such an injustice could not but prove the undoing of the
body politic.

In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly
includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that
whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the
whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free;
for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures
him against all personal dependence. In this lies the key to the working of
the political machine; this alone legitimizes civil undertakings, which,
without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful
abuses.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CIVIL STATE

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 formerly lacked. Then
only, when the voice of duty takes the place of physical impulses and right
of appetite, does man, who so far had considered only himself, find that he
is forced to act on different principles, and to consult his reason before
listening to his inclinations. Although, in this state, he deprives himself of
some advantages which he got from nature, he gains in return others so
great, his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas so extended,
his feelings so ennobled, and his whole soul so uplifted, that, did not the
abuses of this new condition often degrade him below that which he left, he
would be bound to bless continually the happy moment which took him
from it for ever, and, instead of a stupid and unimaginative animal, made
him an intelligent being and a man.
Let us draw up the whole account in terms easily commensurable. What
man loses by the social contract in his natural liberty and an unlimited right
to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil
liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses. If we are to avoid mistake
in weighing one against the other, we must clearly distinguish natural
liberty, which is bounded only by the strength of the individual, from civil

liberty, which is limited by the general will; and possession, which is
merely the effect of force or the right of the first occupier, from property,
which can be founded only on a positive title.
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. But I have already said too much on this
head, and the philosophical meaning of the word liberty does not now
concern us.

CHAPTER IX

REAL PROPERTY

Each member of the community gives himself to it, at the moment of its
foundation, just as he is, with all the resources at his command, including
the goods he possesses. This act does not make possession, in changing
hands, change its nature, and becomes property in the hands of the
Sovereign; but, as the forces of the city are incomparably greater than those
of an individual, public possession is also, in fact, stronger and more
irrevocable, without being any more legitimate, at any rate from the point of
view of foreigners. For the State, in relation to its members, is master of all
their goods by the social contract, which, within the State, is the basis of all
rights; but, in relation to other powers, it is so only by the right of the first
occupier, which it holds from its members.
The right of the first occupier, though more real than the right of the
strongest, becomes a real right only when the right of property has already
been established. Every man has naturally a right to everything he needs;
but the positive act which makes him proprietor of one thing excludes him
from everything else. Having his share, he ought to keep to it, and can have
no further right against the community. This is why the right of the first
occupier, which in the state of nature is so weak, claims the respect of every

man in civil society. In this right we are respecting not so much what
belongs to another as what does not belong to ourselves.
In general, to establish the right of the first occupier over a plot of ground,
the following conditions are necessary: first, the land must not yet be
inhabited; secondly, a man must occupy only the amount he needs for his
subsistence; and, in the third place, possession must be taken, not by an
empty ceremony, but by labour and cultivation, the only sign of
proprietorship that should be respected by others, in default of a legal title.
In granting the right of first occupancy to necessity and labour, are we not
really stretching it as far as it can go? Is it possible to leave such a right
unlimited? Is it to be enough to set foot on a plot of common ground, in
order to be able to call yourself at once the master of it? Is it to be enough
that a man has the strength to expel others for a moment, in order to
establish his right to prevent them from ever returning? How can a man or a
people seize an immense territory and keep it from the rest of the world
except by a punishable usurpation, since all others are being robbed, by
such an act, of the place of habitation and the means of subsistence which
nature gave them in common? When Nuñez Balbao, standing on the sea-
shore, took possession of the South Seas and the whole of South America in
the name of the crown of Castille, was that enough to dispossess all their
actual inhabitants, and to shut out from them all the princes of the world?
On such a showing, these ceremonies are idly multiplied, and the Catholic
King need only take possession all at once, from his apartment, of the
whole universe, merely making a subsequent reservation about what was
already in the possession of other princes.
We can imagine how the lands of individuals, where they were contiguous
and came to be united, became the public territory, and how the right of
Sovereignty, extending from the subjects over the lands they held, became
at once real and personal. The possessors were thus made more dependent,
and the forces at their command used to guarantee their fidelity. The
advantage of this does not seem to have been felt by ancient monarchs, who
called themselves King of the Persians, Scythians, or Macedonians, and
seemed to regard themselves more as rulers of men than as masters of a
country. Those of the present day more cleverly call themselves Kings of
France, Spain, England, etc.: thus holding the land, they are quite confident
of holding the inhabitants.

The peculiar fact about this alienation is that, in taking over the goods of
individuals, the community, so far from despoiling them, only assures them
legitimate possession, and changes usurpation into a true right and
enjoyment into proprietorship. Thus the possessors, being regarded as
depositaries of the public good, and having their rights, respected by all the
members of the State and maintained against foreign aggression by all its
forces, have, by a cession which benefits both the public and still more
themselves, acquired, so to speak, all that they gave up. This paradox may
easily be explained by the distinction between the rights which the
Sovereign and the proprietor have over the same estate, as we shall see later
on. It may also happen that men begin to unite one with another before they
possess anything, and that, subsequently occupying a tract of country which
is enough for all, they enjoy it in common, or share it out among
themselves, either equally or according to a scale fixed by they Sovereign.
However the acquisition be made, the right which each individual has to his
own estate is always subordinate to the right which the community has over
all: without this, there would be neither stability in the social tie, nor real
force in the exercise of Sovereignty.
I shall end this chapter and this book by remarking on a fact on which the
whole social system should rest: i.e. that, instead of destroying natural
inequality, the fundamental compact substitutes, for such physical
inequality as nature may have set up between men, an equality that is moral
and legitimate, and that men, who may be unequal in strength or
intelligence, become every one equal by convention and legal right.[1]

[1] Under bad governments, this equality is only apparent and illusory: it serves only to keep the
pauper in his poverty and the rich man in the position he has usurped. In fact, laws are always of use
to those who possess and harmful to those who have nothing: from which it follows that the social
state is advantageous to men only when all have something and none too much.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

THAT SOVEREIGNTY IS INALIENABLE

The first and most important deduction from the principles we have so far
laid down is that the general will alone can direct the State according to the
object for which it was instituted, i.e. the common good: for if the clashing
of particular interests made the establishment of societies necessary, the
agreement of these very interests made it possible. The common element in
these different interests is what forms the social tie; and, were there no point
of agreement between them all, no society could exist. It is solely on the
basis of this common interest that every society should be governed.
I hold then that Sovereignty, being nothing less than the exercise of the
general will, can never be alienated, and that the Sovereign, who is no less
than a collective being, cannot be represented except by himself: the power
indeed may be transmitted, but not the will.
In reality, if it is not impossible for a particular will to agree on some point
with the general will, it is at least impossible for the agreement to be lasting
and constant; for the particular will tends, by its very nature, to partiality,
while the general will tends to equality. It is even more impossible to have
any guarantee of this agreement; for even if it should always exist, it would
be the effect not of art, but of chance. The Sovereign may indeed say: "I
now will actually what this man wills, or at least what he says he wills"; but
it cannot say: "What he wills tomorrow, I too shall will" because it is absurd
for the will to bind itself for the future, nor is it incumbent on any will to
consent to anything that is not for the good of the being who wills. If then
the people promises simply to obey, by that very act it dissolves itself and
loses what makes it a people; the moment a master exists, there is no longer
a Sovereign, and from that moment the body politic has ceased to exist.
This does not mean that the commands of the rulers cannot pass for general
wills, so long as the Sovereign, being free to oppose them, offers no
opposition. In such a case, universal silence is taken to imply the consent of
the people. This will be explained later on.

CHAPTER II

THAT SOVEREIGNTY IS INDIVISIBLE

Sovereignty, for the same reason as makes it inalienable, is indivisible; for
will either is, or is not, general;[1] it is the will either of the body of the
people, or only of a part of it. In the first case, the will, when declared, is an
act of Sovereignty and constitutes law: in the second, it is merely a
particular will, or act of magistracy—at the most a decree.
But our political theorists, unable to divide Sovereignty in principle, divide
it according to its object: into force and will; into legislative power and
executive power; into rights of taxation, justice and war; into internal
administration and power of foreign treaty. Sometimes they confuse all
these sections, and sometimes they distinguish them; they turn the
Sovereign into a fantastic being composed of several connected pieces: it is
as if they were making man of several bodies, one with eyes, one with arms,
another with feet, and each with nothing besides. We are told that the
jugglers of Japan dismember a child before the eyes of the spectators; then
they throw all the members into the air one after another, and the child falls
down alive and whole. The conjuring tricks of our political theorists are
very like that; they first dismember the body politic by an illusion worthy of
a fair, and then join it together again we know not how.
This error is due to a lack of exact notions concerning the Sovereign
authority, and to taking for parts of it what are only emanations from it.
Thus, for example, the acts of declaring war and making peace have been
regarded as acts of Sovereignty; but this is not the case, as these acts do not
constitute law, but merely the application of a law, a particular act which
decides how the law applies, as we shall see clearly when the idea attached
to the word law has been defined.
If we examined the other divisions in the same manner, we should find that,
whenever Sovereignty seems to be divided, there is an illusion: the rights
which are taken as being part of Sovereignty are really all subordinate, and
always imply supreme wills of which they only sanction the execution.
It would be impossible to estimate the obscurity this lack of exactness has
thrown over the decisions of writers who have dealt with political right,
when they have used the principles laid down by them to pass judgment on
the respective rights of kings and peoples. Every one can see, in Chapters

III and IV of the First Book of Grotius, how the learned man and his
translator, Barbeyrac, entangle and tie themselves up in their own
sophistries, for fear of saying too little or too much of what they think, and
so offending the interests they have to conciliate. Grotius, a refugee in
France, ill-content with his own country, and desirous of paying his court to
Louis XIII, to whom his book is dedicated, spares no pains to rob the
peoples of all their rights and invest kings with them by every conceivable
artifice. This would also have been much to the taste of Barbeyrac, who
dedicated his translation to George I of England. But unfortunately the
expulsion of James II, which he called his "abdication," compelled him to
use all reserve, to shuffle and to tergiversate, in order to avoid making
William out a usurper. If these two writers had adopted the true principles,
all difficulties would have been removed, and they would have been always
consistent; but it would have been a sad truth for them to tell, and would
have paid court for them to no-one save the people. Moreover, truth is no
road to fortune, and the people dispenses neither ambassadorships, nor
professorships, nor pensions.

[1] To be general, a will need not always be unanimous; but every vote—must be counted: any
exclusion is a breach of generality.

CHAPTER III

WHETHER THE GENERAL WILL IS FALLIBLE

It follows from what has gone before that the general will is always right
and tends to the public advantage; but it does not follow that the
deliberations of the people are always equally correct. Our will is always
for our own good, but we do not always see what that is; the people is never
corrupted, but it is often deceived, and on such occasions only does it seem
to will what is bad.
There is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the
general will; the latter considers only the common interest, while the former
takes private interest into account, and is no more than a sum of particular

wills: but take away from these same wills the pluses and minuses that
cancel one another,[1] and the general will remains as the sum of the
differences.
If, when the people, being furnished with adequate information, held its
deliberations, the citizens had no communication one with another, the
grand total of the small differences would always give the general will, and
the decision would always be good. But when factions arise, and partial
associations are formed at the expense of the great association, the will of
each of these associations becomes general in relation to its members, while
it remains particular in relation to the State: it may then be said that there
are no longer as many votes as there are men, but only as many as there are
associations. The differences become less numerous and give a less general
result. Lastly, when one of these associations is so great as to prevail over
all the rest, the result is no longer a sum of small differences, but a single
difference; in this case there is no longer a general will, and the opinion
which prevails is purely particular.
It is therefore essential, if the general will is to be able to express itself, that
there should be no partial society within the State, and that each citizen
should think only his own thoughts:[2] which was indeed the sublime and
unique system established by the great Lycurgus. But if there are partial
societies, it is best to have as many as possible and to prevent them from
being unequal, as was done by Solon, Numa and Servius. These precautions
are the only ones that can guarantee that the general will shall be always
enlightened, and that the people shall in no way deceive itself.

[1] "Every interest," says the Marquis d'Argenson, "has different principles. The agreement of two
particular interests is formed by opposition to a third." He might have added that the agreement of all
interests is formed by opposition to that of each. If there were no different interests, the common
interest would be barely felt, as it would encounter no obstacle; all would go on of its own accord,
and politics would cease to be an art.
[2] "In fact," says Macchiavelli, "there are some divisions that are harmful to a Republic and some
that are advantageous. Those which stir up sects and parties are harmful; those attended by neither
are advantageous. Since, then, the founder of a Republic cannot help enmities arising, he ought at
least to prevent them from growing into sects" (History of Florence, Book vii). Rousseau quotes the
Italian.

CHAPTER IV

THE LIMITS OF THE SOVEREIGN POWER

If the State is a moral person whose life is in the union of its members, and
if the most important of its cares is the care for its own preservation, it must
have a universal and compelling force, in order to move and dispose each
part as may be most advantageous to the whole. As nature gives each man
absolute power over all his members, the social compact gives the body
politic absolute power over all its members also; and it is this power which,
under the direction of the general will, bears, as I have said, the name of
Sovereignty.
But, besides the public person, we have to consider the private persons
composing it, whose life and liberty are naturally independent of it. We are
bound then to distinguish clearly between the respective rights of the
citizens and the Sovereign,[1] and between the duties the former have to
fulfil as subjects, and the natural rights they should enjoy as men.
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.
Every service a citizen can render the State he ought to render as soon as
the Sovereign demands it; but the Sovereign, for its part, cannot impose
upon its subjects any fetters that are useless to the community, nor can it
even wish to do so; for no more by the law of reason than by the law of
nature can anything occur without a cause.
The undertakings 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 working for ourselves. Why is it that the
general will is always in the right, and that all continually will the happiness
of each one, unless it is because there is not a man who does not think of
"each" as meaning him, and consider himself in voting for all? This proves
that equality of rights and the idea of justice which such equality creates
originate in the preference each man gives to himself, and accordingly in
the very nature of man. It proves that the general will, to be really such,

must be general in its object as well as its essence; that it must both come
from all and apply to all; and that it loses its natural rectitude when it is
directed to some particular and determinate object, because in such a case
we are judging of something foreign to us, and have no true principle of
equity to guide us.
Indeed, as soon as a question of particular fact or right arises on a point not
previously regulated by a general convention, the matter becomes
contentious. It is a case in which the individuals concerned are one party,
and the public the other, but in which I can see neither the law that ought to
be followed nor the judge who ought to give the decision. In such a case, it
would be absurd to propose to refer the question to an express decision of
the general will, which can be only the conclusion reached by one of the
parties and in consequence will be, for the other party, merely an external
and particular will, inclined on this occasion to injustice and subject to
error. Thus, just as a particular will cannot stand for the general will, the
general will, in turn, changes its nature, when its object is particular, and, as
general, cannot pronounce on a man or a fact. When, for instance, the
people of Athens nominated or displaced its rulers, decreed honours to one,
and imposed penalties on another, and, by a multitude of particular decrees,
exercised all the functions of government indiscriminately, it had in such
cases no longer a general will in the strict sense; it was acting no longer as
Sovereign, but as magistrate. This will seem contrary to current views; but I
must be given time to expound my own.
It should be seen from the foregoing that what makes the will general is less
the number of voters than the common interest uniting them; for under this
system, each necessarily submits to the conditions he imposes on others;
and this admirable agreement between interest and justice gives to the
common deliberations an equitable character which at once vanishes when
any particular question is discussed, in the absence of a common interest to
unite and identify the ruling of the judge with that of the party.
From whatever side we approach our principle, we reach the same
conclusion, that the social compact sets up among the citizens an equality of
such a kind, that they all bind themselves to observe the same conditions
and should therefore all enjoy the same rights. Thus, from the very nature of
the compact, every "act of Sovereignty", i.e. every authentic act of the
general will, binds or favours all the citizens equally; so that the Sovereign

recognises only the body of the nation, and draws no distinctions between
those of whom it is made up. What, then, strictly speaking is an act of
Sovereignty? It is not a convention between a superior and an inferior, but a
convention between the body and each of its members. It is legitimate,
because based on the social contract, and, equitable, because common to
all; useful, because it can have no other object than the general good, and
stable, because guaranteed by the public force and the supreme power. So
long as the subjects have to submit only to conventions of this sort, they
obey no-one but their own will; and to ask how far the respective rights of
the Sovereign and the citizens extend, is to ask up to what point the latter
can enter into undertakings with themselves, each with all, and all with
each.
We can see from this that the sovereign power, absolute, sacred and
inviolable as it is, does not and cannot exceed the limits of general
conventions, and that every man may dispose at will of such goods and
liberty as these conventions leave him; so that the Sovereign never has a
right to lay more charges on one subject than on another, because, in that
case, the question becomes particular, and ceases to be within its
competency.
When these distinctions have once been admitted, it is seen to be so untrue
that there is, in the social contract, any real renunciation on the part of the
individuals, that the position in which they find themselves as a result of the
contract is really preferable to that in which they were before. Instead of a
renunciation, they have made an advantageous exchange: instead of an
uncertain and precarious way of living they have got one that is better and
more secure; instead of natural independence they have got liberty, instead
of the power to harm others security for themselves, and instead of their
strength, which others might overcome, a right which social union makes
invincible. Their very life, which they have devoted to the State, is by it
constantly protected; and when they risk it in the State's defence, what more
are they doing than giving back what they have received from it? What are
they doing that they would not do more often and with greater danger in the
state of nature, in which they would inevitably have to fight battles at the
peril of their lives in defence of that which is the means of their
preservation? All have indeed to fight when their country needs them; but
then no one has ever to fight for himself. Do we not gain something by

running, on behalf of what gives us our security, only some of the risks we
should have to run for ourselves, as soon as we lost it?

[1] Attentive readers, do not, I pray, be in a hurry to charge me with contradicting myself. The
terminology made it unavoidable, considering the poverty of the language; but wait and see.

CHAPTER V

THE RIGHT OF LIFE AND DEATH

The question is often asked how individuals, having no right to dispose of
their own lives, can transfer to the Sovereign a right which they do not
possess. The difficulty of answering this question seems to me to lie in its
being wrongly stated. Every man has a right to risk his own life in order to
preserve it. Has it ever, been said that a man who throws himself out of the
window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide? Has such a crime ever
been laid to the charge of him who perishes in a storm because, when he
went on board, he knew of the danger?
The social treaty has for its end the preservation of the contracting parties.
He who wills the end wills the means also, and the means must involve
some risks, and even some losses. He who wishes to preserve his life at
others expense should also, when it is necessary, be ready to give it up for
their sake. Furthermore, the citizen is no longer the judge of the dangers to
which the law desires him to expose himself; and when the prince says to
him: "It is expedient for the State that you should die," he ought to die,
because it is only on that condition that he has been living in security up to
the present, and because his life is no longer a mere bounty of nature, but a
gift made conditionally by the State.
The death-penalty inflicted upon criminals may be looked on in much the
same light: it is in order that we may not fall victims to an assassin that we
consent to die if we ourselves turn assassins. In this treaty, so far from
disposing of our own lives, we think only of securing them, and it is not to
be assumed that any of the parties then expects to get hanged.

Again, every malefactor, by attacking social rights, becomes on forfeit a
rebel and a traitor to his country; by violating its laws he ceases to be a
member of it; he even makes war upon it. In such a case the preservation of
the State is inconsistent with his own, and one or the other must perish; in
putting the guilty to death, we slay not so much the citizen as an enemy.
The trial and the judgment are the proofs that he has broken the social
treaty, and is in consequence no longer a member of the State. Since, then,
he has recognised himself to be such by living there, he must be removed
by exile as a violator of the compact, or by death as a public enemy; for
such an enemy is not a moral person, but merely a man; and in such a case
the right of war is to kill the vanquished.
But, it will be said, the condemnation of a criminal is a particular act. I
admit it: but such condemnation is not a function of the Sovereign; it is a
right the Sovereign can confer without being able itself to exert it. All my
ideas are consistent, but I cannot expound them all at once.
We may add that frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or
remissness on the part of the government. There is not a single ill-doer who
could not be turned to some good. The State has no right to put to death,
even for the sake of making an example, any one whom it can leave alive
without danger.
The right of pardoning or exempting the guilty from a penalty imposed by
the law and pronounced by the judge belongs only to the authority which is
superior to both judge and law, i.e. the Sovereign; even its right in this
matter is far from clear, and the cases for exercising it are extremely rare. In
a well-governed State, there are few punishments, not because there are
many pardons, but because criminals are rare; it is when a State is in decay
that the multitude of crimes is a guarantee of impunity. Under the Roman
Republic, neither the Senate nor the Consuls ever attempted to pardon; even
the people never did so, though it sometimes revoked its own decision.
Frequent pardons mean that crime will soon need them no longer, and no-
one can help seeing whither that leads. But I feel my heart protesting and
restraining my pen; let us leave these questions to the just man who has
never offended, and would himself stand in no need of pardon.

CHAPTER VI

LAW

By the social compact we have given the body politic existence and life: we
have now by legislation to give it movement and will. For the original act
by which the body is formed and united still in no respect determines what
it ought to do for its preservation.
What is well and in conformity with order is so by the nature of things and
independently of human conventions. All justice comes from God, who is
its sole source; but if we knew how to receive so high an inspiration, we
should need neither government nor laws. Doubtless, there is a universal
justice emanating from reason alone; but this justice, to be admitted among
us, must be mutual. Humanly speaking, in default of natural sanctions, the
laws of justice are ineffective among men: they merely make for the good
of the wicked and the undoing of the just, when the just man observes them
towards everybody and nobody observes them towards him. Conventions
and laws are therefore needed to join rights to duties and refer justice to its
object. In the state of nature, where everything is common, I owe nothing to
him whom I nave promised nothing; I recognise as belonging to others only
what is of no use to me. In the state of society all rights are fixed by law,
and the case becomes different.
But what, after all, is a law? As long as we remain satisfied with attaching
purely metaphysical ideas to the word, we shall go on arguing without
arriving at an understanding; and when we have defined a law of nature, we
shall be no nearer the definition of a law of the State.
I have already said that there can be no general will directed to a particular
object. Such an object must be either within or outside the State. If outside,
a will which is alien to it cannot be, in relation to it, general; if within, it is
part of the State, and in that case there arises a relation between whole and
part which makes them two separate beings, of which the part is one, and
the whole minus the part the other. But the whole minus a part cannot be the
whole; and while this relation persists, there can be no whole, but only two
unequal parts; and it follows that the will of one is no longer in any respect
general in relation to the other.

But when the whole people decrees for the whole people, it is considering
only itself; and if a relation is then formed, it is between two aspects of the
entire object, without there being any division of the whole. In that case the
matter about which the decree is made is, like the decreeing will general.
This act is what I call a law.
When I say that the object of laws is always general, I mean that law
considers subjects en masse and actions in the abstract, and never a
particular person or action. Thus the law may indeed decree that there shall
be privileges, but cannot confer them on anybody by name. It may set up
several classes of citizens, and even lay down the qualifications for
membership of these classes, but it cannot nominate such and such persons
as belonging to them; it may establish a monarchical government and
hereditary succession, but it cannot choose a king, or nominate a royal
family. In a word, no function which has a particular object belongs to the
legislative power.
On this view, we at once see that it can no longer be asked whose business
it is to make laws, since they are acts of the general will: nor whether the
prince is above the law, 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 can be both
free and subject to the laws since they are but registers of our wills.
We see further that, as the law unites universality of will with universality
of object, what a man, whoever he be, commands of his own motion cannot
be a law; and even what the Sovereign commands with regard to a
particular matter is no nearer being a law, but is a decree, an act, not of
sovereignty, but of magistracy.
I therefore give the name 'Republic' to every State that is governed by laws,
no matter what the form of its administration may be: for only in such a
case does the public interest govern, and the res publica rank as a reality.
Every legitimate government is republican;[1] what government is I will
explain later on.
Laws are, properly speaking, only the conditions of civil association. The
people, being subject to the laws, ought to be their author: the conditions of
the society ought to be regulated solely by those who come together to form
it. But how are they to regulate them? Is it to be by common agreement, by
a sudden inspiration? Has the body politic an organ to declare its will? Who

can give it the foresight to formulate and announce its acts in advance? Or
how is it to announce them in the hour of need? How can a blind multitude,
which often does not know what it wills, because it rarely knows what is
good for it, carry out for itself so great and difficult an enterprise as a
system of legislation? Of itself the people wills always the good, but of
itself it by no means always sees it. The general will is always in the right,
but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened. It must be got
to see objects as they are, and sometimes as they ought to appear to it; it
must be shown the good road it is in search of, secured from the seductive
influences of individual wills, taught to see times and spaces as a series, and
made to weigh the attractions of present and sensible advantages against the
danger of distant and hidden evils. The individuals see the good they reject;
the public wills the good it does not see. All stand equally in need of
guidance. The former must be compelled to bring their wills into
conformity with their reason; the latter must be taught to know what it
wills. If that is done, public enlightenment leads to the union of
understanding and will in the social body: the parts are made to work
exactly together, and the whole is raised to its highest power. This makes a
legislator necessary.

[1] I understand by this word, not merely an aristocracy or a democracy, but generally any
government directed by the general will, which is the law. To be legitimate, the government must be,
not one with the Sovereign, but its minister. In such a case even a monarchy is a Republic. This will
be made clearer in the following book.

CHAPTER VII

THE LEGISLATOR

In order to discover the rules of society best suited to nations, a superior
intelligence beholding all the passions of men without experiencing any of
them would be needed. This intelligence would have to be wholly unrelated
to our nature, while knowing it through and through; its happiness would
have to be independent of us, and yet ready to occupy itself with ours; and

lastly, it would have, in the march of time, to look forward to a distant
glory, and, working in one century, to be able to enjoy in the next.[1] It
would take gods to give men laws.
What Caligula argued from the facts, Plato, in the dialogue called the
Politicus, argued in defining the civil or kingly man, on the basis of right.
But if great princes are rare, how much more so are great legislators? The
former have only to follow the pattern which the latter have to lay down.
The legislator is the engineer who invents the machine, the prince merely
the mechanic who sets it up and makes it go. "At the birth of societies,"
says Montesquieu, "the rulers of Republics establish institutions, and
afterwards the institutions mould the rulers."[2]
He who dares to undertake the making of a people's institutions ought to
feel himself capable, so to speak, of changing human nature, of
transforming each individual, who is by himself a complete and solitary
whole, into part of a greater whole from which he in a manner receives his
life and being; of altering man's constitution for the purpose of
strengthening it; and of substituting a partial and moral existence for the
physical and independent existence nature has conferred on us all. He must,
in a word, take away from man his own resources and give him instead new
ones alien to him, and incapable of being made use of without the help of
other men. The more completely these natural resources are annihilated, the
greater and the more lasting are those which he acquires, and the more
stable and perfect the new institutions; so that if each citizen is nothing and
can do nothing without the rest, and the resources acquired by the whole are
equal or superior to the aggregate of the resources of all the individuals, it
may be said that legislation is at the highest possible point of perfection.
The legislator occupies in every respect an extraordinary position in the
State. If he should do so by reason of his genius, he does so no less by
reason of his office, which is neither magistracy, nor Sovereignty. This
office, which sets up the Republic, nowhere enters into its constitution; it is
an individual and superior function, which has nothing in common with
human empire; for if he who holds command over men ought not to have
command over the laws, he who has command over the laws ought not any
more to have it over men; or else his laws would be the ministers of his
passions and would often merely serve to perpetuate his injustices: his
private aims would inevitably mar the sanctity of his work.

When Lycurgus gave laws to his country, he began by resigning the throne.
It was the custom of most Greek towns to entrust the establishment of their
laws to foreigners. The Republics of modern Italy in many cases followed
this example; Geneva did the same and profited by it.[3] Rome, when it was
most prosperous, suffered a revival of all the crimes of tyranny, and was
brought to the verge of destruction, because it put the legislative authority
and the sovereign power into the same hands.
Nevertheless, the decemvirs themselves never claimed the right to pass any
law merely on their own authority. "Nothing we propose to you," they said
to the people, "can pass into law without your consent. Romans, be
yourselves the authors of the laws which are to make you happy."
He, therefore, who draws up the laws has, or should have, no right of
legislation, and the people cannot, even if it wishes, deprive itself of this
incommunicable right, because, according to the fundamental compact,
only the general will can bind the individuals, and there can be no assurance
that a particular will is in conformity with the general will, until it has been
put to the free vote of the people. This I have said already; but it is worth
while to repeat it.
Thus in the task of legislation we find together two things which appear to
be incompatible: an enterprise too difficult for human powers, and, for its
execution, an authority that is no authority.
There is a further difficulty that deserves attention. Wise men, if they try to
speak their language to the common herd instead of its own, cannot
possibly make themselves understood. There are a thousand kinds of ideas
which it is impossible to translate into popular language. Conceptions that
are too general and objects that are too remote are equally out of its range:
each individual, having no taste for any other plan of government than that
which suits his particular interest, finds it difficult to realise the advantages
he might hope to draw from the continual privations good laws impose. For
a young people to be able to relish sound principles of political theory and
follow the fundamental rules of statecraft, the effect would have to become
the cause; the social spirit, which should be created by these institutions,
would have to preside over their very foundation; and men would have to
be before law what they should become by means of law. The legislator
therefore, being unable to appeal to either force or reason, must have

recourse to an authority of a different order capable of constraining without
violence and persuading without convincing.
This is what has, in all ages, compelled the fathers of nations to have
recourse to divine intervention and credit the gods with their own wisdom,
in order that the peoples, submitting to the laws of the State as to those of
nature, and recognising the same power in the formation of the city as in
that of man, might obey freely, and bear with docility the yoke of the public
happiness.
This sublime reason, far above the range of the common herd, is that whose
decisions the legislator puts into the mouth of the immortals, in order to
constrain by divine authority those whom human prudence could not move.
[4]
But it is not anybody who can make the gods speak, or get himself
believed when he proclaims himself their interpreter. The great soul of the
legislator is the only miracle that can prove his mission. Any man may
grave tablets of stone, or buy an oracle; or feign secret intercourse with
some divinity, or train a bird to whisper in his ear, or find other vulgar ways
of imposing on the people. He whose knowledge goes no further may
perhaps gather round him a band of fools; but he will never found an
empire, and his extravagances will quickly perish with him. Idle tricks form
a passing tie; only wisdom can make it lasting. The Judaic law, which still
subsists, and that of the child of Ishmael, which, for ten centuries, has ruled
half the world, still proclaim the great men who laid them down; and, while
the pride of philosophy or the blind spirit of faction sees in them no more
than lucky impostures, the true political theorist admires, in the institutions
they set up, the great and powerful genius which presides over things made
to endure.
We should not, with Warburton, conclude from this that politics and religion
have among us a common object, but that, in the first periods of nations, the
one is used as an instrument for the other.

[1] A people becomes famous only when its legislation begins to decline. We do not know for how
many centuries the system of Lycurgus made the Spartans happy before the rest of Greece took any
notice of it.
[2] Montesquieu, The Greatness and Decadence of the Romans, ch. i.
[3] Those who know Calvin only as a theologian much underestimate the extent of his genius. The
codification of our wise edicts, in which he played a large part, does him no less honour than his

Institute. Whatever revolution time may bring in our religion, so long as the spirit of patriotism and
liberty still lives among us, the memory of this great man will be for ever blessed.
[4] "In truth," says Macchiavelli, "there has never been, in any country, an extraordinary legislator
who has not had recourse to God; for otherwise his laws would not have been accepted: there are, in
fact, many useful truths of which a wise man may have knowledge without their having in
themselves such clear reasons for their being so as to be able to convince others" (Discourses on
Livy, Bk. v, ch. xi). (Rousseau quotes the Italian.)

CHAPTER VIII

THE PEOPLE

As, before putting up a large building, the architect surveys and sounds the
site to see if it will bear the weight, the wise legislator does not begin by
laying down laws good in themselves, but by investigating the fitness of the
people, for which they are destined, to receive them. Plato refused to
legislate for the Arcadians and the Cyrenæans, because he knew that both
peoples were rich and could not put up with equality; and good laws and
bad men were found together in Crete, because Minos had inflicted
discipline on a people already burdened with vice.
A thousand nations have achieved earthly greatness, that could never have
endured good laws; even such as could have endured them could have done
so only for a very brief period of their long history. Most peoples, like most
men, are docile only in youth; as they grow old they become incorrigible.
When once customs have become established and prejudices inveterate, it is
dangerous and useless to attempt their reformation; the people, like the
foolish and cowardly patients who rave at sight of the doctor, can no longer
bear that any one should lay hands on its faults to remedy them.
There are indeed times in the history of States when, just as some kinds of
illness turn men's heads and make them forget the past, periods of violence
and revolutions do to peoples what these crises do to individuals: horror of
the past takes the place of forgetfulness, and the State, set on fire by civil
wars, is born again, so to speak, from its ashes, and takes on anew, fresh
from the jaws of death, the vigour of youth. Such were Sparta at the time of

Lycurgus, Rome after the Tarquins, and, in modern times, Holland and
Switzerland after the expulsion of the tyrants.
But such events are rare; they are exceptions, the cause of which is always
to be found in the particular constitution of the State concerned. They
cannot even happen twice to the same people, for it can make itself free as
long as it remains barbarous, but not when the civic impulse has lost its
vigour. Then disturbances may destroy it, but revolutions cannot mend it: it
needs a master, and not a liberator. Free peoples, be mindful of maxim;
"Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered."
Youth is not infancy. There is for nations, as for men, a period of youth, or,
shall we say, maturity, before which they should not be made subject to
laws; but the maturity of a people is not always easily recognisable, and, if
it is anticipated, the work is spoilt. One people is amenable to discipline
from the beginning; another, not after ten centuries. Russia will never be
really civilised, because it was civilised too soon. Peter had a genius for
imitation; but he lacked true genius, which is creative and makes all from
nothing. He did some good things, but most of what he did was out of
place. He saw that his people was barbarous, but did not see that it was not
ripe for civilisation: he wanted to civilise it when it needed only hardening.
His first wish was to make Germans or Englishmen, when he ought to have
been making Russians; and he prevented his subjects from ever becoming
what they might have been by persuading them that they were what they are
not. In this fashion too a French teacher turns out his pupil to be an infant
prodigy, and for the rest of his life to be nothing whatsoever. The empire of
Russia will aspire to conquer Europe, and will itself be conquered. The
Tartars, its subjects or neighbours, will become its masters and ours, by a
revolution which I regard as inevitable. Indeed, all the kings of Europe are
working in concert to hasten its coming.

CHAPTER IX

THE PEOPLE (continued)

As nature has set bounds to the stature of a well-made man, and, outside
those limits, makes nothing but giants or dwarfs, similarly, for the
constitution of a State to be at its best, it is possible to fix limits that will
make it neither too large for good government, nor too small for self-
maintenance. In every body politic there is a maximum strength which it
cannot exceed and which it only loses by increasing in size. Every
extension of the social tie means its relaxation; and, generally speaking, a
small State is stronger in proportion than a great one.
A thousand arguments could be advanced in favour of this principle. First,
long distances make administration more difficult, just as a weight becomes
heavier at the end of a longer lever. Administration therefore becomes more
and more burdensome as the distance grows greater; for, in the first place,
each city has its own, which is paid for by the people: each district its own,
still paid for by the people: then comes each province, and then the great
governments, satrapies, and vice-royalties, always costing more the higher
you go, and always at the expense of the unfortunate people. Last of all
comes the supreme administration, which eclipses all the rest. All these
overcharges are a continual drain upon the subjects; so far from being better
governed by all these different orders, they are worse governed than if there
were only a single authority over them. In the meantime, there scarce
remain resources enough to meet emergencies; and, when recourse must be
had to these, the State is always on the eve of destruction.
This is not all; not only has the government less vigour and promptitude for
securing the observance of the laws, preventing nuisances, correcting
abuses, and guarding against seditious undertakings begun in distant places;
the people has less affection for its rulers, whom it never sees, for its
country, which, to its eyes, seems like the world, and for its fellow-citizens,
most of whom are unknown to it. The same laws cannot suit so many
diverse provinces with different customs, situated in the most various
climates, and incapable of enduring a uniform government. Different laws
lead only to trouble and confusion among peoples which, living under the
same rulers and in constant communication one with another, intermingle
and intermarry, and, coming under the sway of new customs, never know if
they can call their very patrimony their own. Talent is buried, virtue
unknown and vice unpunished, among such a multitude of men who do not
know one another, gathered together in one place at the seat of the central

administration. The leaders, overwhelmed with business, see nothing for
themselves; the State is governed by clerks. Finally, the measures which
have to be taken to, maintain the general authority, which all these distant
officials wish to escape or to impose upon, absorb all the energy of the
public, so that there is none left for the happiness of the people. There is
hardly enough to defend it when need arises, and thus a body which is too
big for its constitution gives way and falls crushed under its own weight.
Again, the State must assure itself a safe foundation, if it is to have stability,
and to be able to resist the shocks it cannot help experiencing, as well as the
efforts it will be forced to make for its maintenance; for all peoples have a
kind of centrifugal force that makes them continually act one against
another, and tend to aggrandise themselves at their neighbours' expense,
like the vortices of Descartes. Thus the weak run the risk of being soon
swallowed up; and it is almost impossible for any one to preserve itself
except by putting itself in a state of equilibrium with all, so that the pressure
is on all sides practically equal.
It may therefore be seen that there are reasons for expansion and reasons for
contraction; and it is no small part of the statesman's skill to hit between
them the mean that is most favourable to the preservation of the State. It
may be said that the reason for expansion, being merely external and
relative, ought to be subordinate to the reasons for contraction, which are
internal and absolute. A strong and healthy constitution is the first thing to
look for; and it is better to count on the vigour which comes of good
government than on the resources a great territory furnishes.
It may be added that there have been known States so constituted that the
necessity of making conquests entered into their very constitution, and that,
in order to maintain themselves, they were forced to expand ceaselessly. It
may be that they congratulated themselves greatly on this fortunate
necessity, which none the less indicated to them, along with the limits of
their greatness, the inevitable moment of their fall.

CHAPTER X

THE PEOPLE (continued)

A body politic may be measured in two ways—either by the extent of its
territory, or by the number of its people; and there is, between these two
measurements, a right relation which makes the State really great. The men
make the State, and the territory sustains the men; the right relation
therefore is that the land should suffice for the maintenance of the
inhabitants, and that there should be as many inhabitants as the land can
maintain. In this proportion lies the maximum strength of a given number of
people; for if there is too much land, it is troublesome to guard and
inadequately cultivated, produces more than is needed, and soon gives rise
to wars of defence; if there is not enough, the State depends on its
neighbours for what it needs over and above, and this soon gives rise to
wars of offence. Every people, to which its situation gives no choice save
that between commerce and war, is weak in itself: it depends on its
neighbours, and on circumstances; its existence can never be more than
short and uncertain. It either conquers others, and changes its situation, or it
is conquered and becomes nothing. Only insignificance or greatness can
keep it free.
No fixed relation can be stated between the extent of the territory and the
population that are adequate one to the other, both because of the
differences in the quality of land, in its fertility, in the nature of its products,
and in the influence of climate, and because of the different tempers of
those who inhabit it; for some in a fertile country consume little, and others
on an ungrateful soil much. The greater or less fecundity of women, the
conditions that are more or less favourable in each country to the growth of
population, and the influence the legislator can hope to exercise by his
institutions, must also be taken into account. The legislator therefore should
not go by what he sees, but by what he foresees; he should stop not so much
at the state in which he actually finds the population, as at that to which it
ought naturally to attain. Lastly, there are countless cases in which the
particular local circumstances demand or allow the acquisition of a greater
territory than seems necessary. Thus, expansion will be great in a
mountainous country, where the natural products, i.e. woods and pastures,
need less labour, where we know from experience that women are more
fertile than in the plains, and where a great expanse of slope affords only a

small level tract that can be counted on for vegetation. On the other hand,
contraction is possible on the coast, even in lands of rocks and nearly barren
sands, because there fishing makes up to a great extent for the lack of land-
produce, because the inhabitants have to congregate together more in order
to repel pirates, and further because it is easier to unburden the country of
its superfluous inhabitants by means of colonies.
To these conditions of law-giving must be added one other which, though it
cannot take the place of the rest, renders them all useless when it is absent.
This is the enjoyment of peace and plenty; for the moment at which a State
sets its house in order is, like the moment when a battalion is forming up,
that when its body is least capable of offering resistance and easiest to
destroy. A better resistance could be made at a time of absolute
disorganisation than at a moment of fermentation, when each is occupied
with his own position and not with the danger. If war, famine, or sedition
arises at this time of crisis, the State will inevitably be overthrown.
Not that many governments have not been set up during such storms; but in
such cases these governments are themselves the State's destroyers.
Usurpers always bring about or select troublous times to get passed, under
cover of the public terror, destructive laws, which the people would never
adopt in cold blood. The moment chosen is one of the surest means of
distinguishing the work of the legislator from that of the tyrant.
What people, then, is a fit subject for legislation? One which, already bound
by some unity of origin, interest, or convention, has never yet felt the real
yoke of law; one that has neither customs nor superstitions deeply
ingrained, one which stands in no fear of being overwhelmed by sudden
invasion; one which, without entering into its neighbours' quarrels, can
resist each of them single-handed, or get the help of one to repel another;
one in which every member may be known by every other, and there is no
need to lay on any man burdens too heavy for a man to bear; one which can
do without other peoples, and without which all others can do;[1] one which
is neither rich nor poor, but self-sufficient; and, lastly, one which unites the
consistency of an ancient people with the docility of a new one. Legislation
is made difficult less by what it is necessary to build up than by what has to
be destroyed; and what makes success so rare is the impossibility of finding
natural simplicity together with social requirements. All these conditions

are indeed rarely found united, and therefore few States have good
constitutions.
There is still in Europe one country capable of being given laws—Corsica.
The valour and persistency with which that brave people has regained and
defended its liberty well deserves that some wise man should teach it how
to preserve what it has won. I have a feeling that some day that little island
will astonish Europe.

[1] If there were two neighbouring peoples, one of which could not do without the other, it would be
very hard on the former, and very dangerous for the latter. Every wise nation, in such a case, would
make haste to free the other from dependence. The Republic of Thlascala, enclosed by the Mexican
Empire, preferred doing without salt to buying from the Mexicans, or even getting it from them as a
gift The Thlascalans were wise enough to see the snare hidden under such liberality. They kept their
freedom, and that little State, shut up in that great Empire, was finally the instrument of its ruin.

CHAPTER XI

THE VARIOUS SYSTEMS OF LEGISLATION

If we ask in what precisely consists the greatest good of all, which should
be the end of every system of legislation, we shall find it reduce itself to
two main objects, liberty and equality—liberty, because all particular
dependence means so much force taken from the body of the State, and
equality, because liberty cannot exist without it.
I have already defined civil liberty; by equality, we should understand, not
that the degrees of power and riches are to be absolutely identical for
everybody; but that power shall never be great enough for violence, and
shall always be exercised by virtue of rank and law; and that, in respect of
riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none
poor enough to be forced to sell himself:[1] which implies, on the part of the
great, moderation in goods and position, and, on the side of the common
sort, moderation in avarice and covetousness.
Such equality, we are told, is an unpractical ideal that cannot actually exist.
But if its abuse is inevitable, does it follow that we should not at least make

regulations concerning it? It is precisely because the force of circumstances
tends continually to destroy equality that the force of legislation should
always tend to its maintenance.
But these general objects of every good legislative system need modifying
in every country in accordance with the local situation and the temper of the
inhabitants; and these circumstances should determine, in each case, the
particular system of institutions which is best, not perhaps in itself, but for
the State for which it is destined. If, for instance, the soil is barren and
unproductive, or the land too crowded for its inhabitants, the people should
turn to industry and the crafts, and exchange what they produce for the
commodities they lack. If, on the other hand, a people dwells in rich plains
and fertile slopes, or, in a good land, lacks inhabitants, it should give all its
attention to agriculture, which causes men to multiply, and should drive out
the crafts, which would only result in depopulation, by grouping in a few
localities the few inhabitants there are.[2] If a nation dwells on an extensive
and convenient coast-line, let it cover the sea with ships and foster
commerce and navigation. It will have a life that will be short and glorious.
If, on its coasts, the sea washes nothing but almost inaccessible rocks, let it
remain barbarous and ichthyophagous: it will have a quieter, perhaps a
better, and certainly a happier life. In a word, besides the principles that are
common to all, every nation has in itself something that gives them a
particular application, and makes its legislation peculiarly its own. Thus,
among the Jews long ago and more recently among the Arabs, the chief
object was religion, among the Athenians letters, at Carthage and Tyre
commerce, at Rhodes shipping, at Sparta war, at Rome virtue. The author of
The Spirit of the Laws has shown with many examples by what art the
legislator directs the constitution towards each of these objects.
What makes the constitution of a State really solid and lasting is the due
observance of what is proper, so that the natural relations are always in
agreement with the laws on every point, and law only serves, so to speak, to
assure, accompany and rectify them. But if the legislator mistakes his object
and adopts a principle other than circumstances naturally direct; if his
principle makes for servitude while they make for liberty, or if it makes for
riches, while they make for populousness, or if it makes for peace, while
they make for conquest—the laws will insensibly lose their influence, the

constitution will alter, and the State will have no rest from trouble till it is
either destroyed or changed, and nature has resumed her invincible sway.

[1] If the object is to give the State consistency, bring the two extremes as near to each other as
possible; allow neither rich men nor beggars. These two estates, which are naturally inseparable, are
equally fatal to the common good; from the one come the friends of tyranny, and from the other
tyrants. It is always between them that public liberty is put up to auction; the one buys, and the other
sells.
[2] "Any branch of foreign commerce," says M. d'Argenson, "creates on the whole only apparent
advantage for the kingdom in general; it may enrich some individuals, or even some towns; but the
nation as a whole gains nothing by it, and the people is no better off."

CHAPTER XII

THE DIVISION OF THE LAWS

If the whole is to be set in order, and the commonwealth put into the best
possible shape, there are various relations to be considered. First, there is
the action of the complete body upon itself, the relation of the whole to the
whole, of the Sovereign to the State; and this relation, as we shall see, is
made up of the relations of the intermediate terms.
The laws which regulate this relation bear the name of political laws, and
are also called fundamental laws, not without reason if they are wise. For, if
there is, in each State, only one good system, the people that is in
possession of it should hold fast to this; but if the established order is bad,
why should laws that prevent men from being good be regarded as
fundamental? Besides, in any case, a people is always in a position to
change its laws, however good; for, if it choose to do itself harm, who can
have a right to stop it?
The second relation is that of the members one to another, or to the body as
a whole; and this relation should be in the first respect as unimportant, and
in the second as important, as possible. Each citizen would then be perfectly
independent of all the rest, and at the same time very dependent on the city;
which is brought about always by the same means, as the strength of the

State can alone secure the liberty of its members. From this second relation
arise civil laws.
We may consider also a third kind of relation between the individual and
the law, a relation of disobedience to its penalty. This gives rise to the
setting up of criminal laws, which, at bottom, are less a particular class of
law than the sanction behind all the rest.
Along with these three kinds of law goes a fourth, most important of all,
which is not graven on tablets of marble or brass, but on the hearts of the
citizens. This forms the real constitution of the State, takes on every day
new powers, when other laws decay or die out, restores them or takes their
place, keeps a people in the ways in which it was meant to go, and
insensibly replaces authority by the force of habit. I am speaking of
morality, of custom, above all of public opinion; a power unknown to
political thinkers, on which none the less success in everything else
depends. With this the great legislator concerns himself in secret, though he
seems to confine himself to particular regulations; for these are only the arc
of the arch, while manners and morals, slower to arise, form in the end its
immovable keystone.
Among the different classes of laws, the political, which determine the form
of the government, are alone relevant to my subject.

BOOK III

Before speaking of the different forms of
government, let us try to fix the exact sense of
the word, which has not yet been very clearly
explained.

CHAPTER I

GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL

I warn the reader that this chapter requires careful reading, and that I am
unable to make myself clear to those who refuse to be attentive.
Every free action is produced by the concurrence of two causes; one moral,
i.e. the will which determines the act; the other physical, i.e. the power
which executes it. When I walk towards an object, it is necessary first that I
should will to go there, and, in the second place, that my feet should carry
me. If a paralytic wills to run and an active man wills not to, they will both
stay where they are. The body politic has the same motive powers; here too
force and will are distinguished, will under the name of legislative power
and force under that of executive power. Without their concurrence, nothing
is, or should be, done.
We have seen that the legislative power belongs to the people, and can
belong to it alone. It may, on the other hand, readily be seen, from the
principles laid down above, that the executive power cannot belong to the
generality as legislature or Sovereign, because it consists wholly of
particular acts which fall outside the competency of the law, and
consequently of the Sovereign, whose acts must always be laws.
The public force therefore needs an agent of its own to bind it together and
set it to work under the direction of the general will, to serve as a means of
communication between the State and the Sovereign, and to do for the
collective person more or less what the union of soul and body does for
man. Here we have what is, in the State, the basis of government, often
wrongly confused with the Sovereign, whose minister it is.
What then is government? An intermediate body set up between the
subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged
with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and
political.
The members of this body are called magistrates or kings, that is to say
governors, and the whole body bears the name prince.[1] Thus those who
hold that the act, by which a people puts itself under a prince, is not a
contract, are certainly right. It is simply and solely a commission, an
employment, in which the rulers, mere officials of the Sovereign, exercise
in their own name the power of which it makes them depositaries. This
power it can limit, modify or recover at pleasure; for the alienation of such

a right is incompatible with the nature of the social body, and contrary to
the end of association.
I call then government, or supreme administration, the legitimate exercise
of the executive power, and prince or magistrate the man or the body
entrusted with that administration.
In government reside the intermediate forces whose relations make up that
of the whole to the whole, or of the Sovereign to the State. This last relation
may be represented as that between the extreme terms of a continuous
proportion, which has government as its mean proportional. The
government gets from the Sovereign the orders it gives the people, and, for
the State to be properly balanced, there must, when everything is reckoned
in, be equality between the product or power of the government taken in
itself, and the product or power of the citizens, who are on the one hand
sovereign and on the other subject.
Furthermore, none of these three terms can be altered without the equality
being instantly destroyed. If the Sovereign desires to govern, or the
magistrate to give laws, or if the subjects refuse to obey, disorder takes the
place of regularity, force and will no longer act together, and the State is
dissolved and falls into despotism or anarchy. Lastly, as there is only one
mean proportional between each relation, there is also only one good
government possible for a State. But, as countless events may change the
relations of a people, not only may different governments be good for
different peoples, but also for the same people at different times.
In attempting to give some idea of the various relations that may hold
between these two extreme terms, I shall take as an example the number of
a people, which is the most easily expressible.
Suppose the State is composed of ten thousand citizens. The Sovereign can
only be considered collectively and as a body; but each member, as being a
subject, is regarded as an individual: thus the Sovereign is to the subject as
ten thousand to one, i.e. each member of the State has as his share only a
ten-thousandth part of the sovereign authority, although he is wholly under
its control. If the people numbers a hundred thousand, the condition of the
subject undergoes no change, and each equally is under the whole authority
of the laws, while his vote, being reduced to one hundred thousandth part,
has ten times less influence in drawing them up. The subject therefore

remaining always a unit, the relation between him and the Sovereign
increases with the number of the citizens. From this it follows that, the
larger the State, the less the liberty.
When I say the relation increases, I mean that it grows more unequal. Thus
the greater it is in the geometrical sense, the less relation there is in the
ordinary sense of the word. In the former sense, the relation, considered
according to quantity, is expressed by the quotient; in the latter, considered
according to identity, it is reckoned by similarity.
Now, the less relation the particular wills have to the general will, that is,
morals and manners to laws, the more should the repressive force be
increased. The government, then, to be good, should be proportionately
stronger as the people is more numerous.
On the other hand, as the growth of the State gives the depositaries of the
public authority more temptations and chances of abusing their power, the
greater the force with which the government ought to be endowed for
keeping the people in hand, the greater too should be the force at the
disposal of the Sovereign for keeping the government in hand. I am
speaking, not of absolute force, but of the relative force of the different
parts of the State.
It follows from this double relation that the continuous proportion between
the Sovereign, the prince and the people, is by no means an arbitrary idea,
but a necessary consequence of the nature of the body politic. It follows
further that, one of the extreme terms, viz. the people, as subject, being
fixed and represented by unity, whenever the duplicate ratio increases or
diminishes, the simple ratio does the same, and is changed accordingly.
From this we see that there is not a single unique and absolute form of
government, but as many governments differing in nature as there are States
differing in size.
If, ridiculing this system, any one were to say that, in order to find the mean
proportional and give form to the body of the government, it is only
necessary, according to me, to find the square root of the number of the
people, I should answer that I am here taking this number only as an
instance; that the relations of which I am speaking are not measured by the
number of men alone, but generally by the amount of action, which is a
combination of a multitude of causes; and that, further, if, to save words, I

borrow for a moment the terms of geometry, I am none the less well aware
that moral quantities do not allow of geometrical accuracy.
The government is on a small scale what the body politic which includes it
is on a great one. It is a moral person endowed with certain faculties, active
like the Sovereign and passive like the State, and capable of being resolved
into other similar relations. This accordingly gives rise to a new proportion,
within which there is yet another, according to the arrangement of the
magistracies, till an indivisible middle term is reached, i.e. a single ruler or
supreme magistrate, who may be represented, in the midst of this
progression, as the unity between the fractional and the ordinal series.
Without encumbering ourselves with this multiplication of terms, let us rest
content with regarding government as a new body within the State, distinct
from the people and the Sovereign, and intermediate between them.
There is between these two bodies this essential difference, that the State
exists by itself, and the government only through the Sovereign. Thus the
dominant will of the prince is, or should be, nothing but the general will or
the law; his force is only the public force concentrated in his hands, and, as
soon as he tries to base any absolute and independent act on his own
authority, the tie that binds the whole together begins to be loosened. If
finally the prince should come to have a particular will more active than the
will of the Sovereign, and should employ the public force in his hands in
obedience to this particular will, there would be, so to speak, two
Sovereigns, one rightful and the other actual, the social union would
evaporate instantly, and the body politic would be dissolved.
However, in order that the government may have a true existence and a real
life distinguishing it from the body of the State, and in order that all its
members may be able to act in concert and fulfil the end for which it was
set up, it must have a particular personality, a sensibility common to its
members, and a force and will of its own making for its preservation. This
particular existence implies assemblies, councils, power of deliberation and
decision, rights, titles, and privileges belonging exclusively to the prince
and making the office of magistrate more honourable in proportion as it is
more troublesome. The difficulties lie in the manner of so ordering this
subordinate whole within the whole, that it in no way alters the general
constitution by affirmation of its own, and always distinguishes the

particular force it possesses, which is destined to aid in its preservation,
from the public force, which is destined to the preservation of the State;
and, in a word, is always ready to sacrifice the government to the people,
and never to sacrifice the people to the government.
Furthermore, although the artificial body of the government is the work of
another artificial body, and has, we may say, only a borrowed and
subordinate life, this does not prevent it from being able to act with more or
less vigour or promptitude, or from being, so to speak, in more or less
robust health. Finally, without departing directly from the end for which it
was instituted, it may deviate more or less from it, according to the manner
of its constitution.
From all these differences arise the various relations which the government
ought to bear to the body of the State, according to the accidental and
particular relations by which the State itself is modified, for often the
government that is best in itself will become the most pernicious, if the
relations in which it stands have altered according to the defects of the body
politic to which it belongs.

[1] Thus at Venice the College, even in the absence of the Doge, is called "Most Serene Prince."

CHAPTER II

THE CONSTITUENT PRINCIPLE IN THE VARIOUS FORMS OF
GOVERNMENT

To set forth the general cause of the above differences, we must here
distinguish between government and its principle, as we did before between
the State and the Sovereign.
The body of the magistrate may be composed of a greater or a less number
of members. We said that the relation of the Sovereign to the subjects was
greater in proportion as the people was more numerous, and, by a clear

analogy, we may say the same of the relation of the government to the
magistrates.
But the total force of the government, being always that of the State, is
invariable; so that, the more of this force it expends on its own members,
the less it has left to employ on the whole people.
The more numerous the magistrates, therefore, the weaker the government.
This principle being fundamental, we must do our best to make it clear.
In the person of the magistrate we can distinguish three essentially different
wills: first, the private will of the individual, tending only to his personal
advantage; secondly, the common will of the magistrates, which is relative
solely to the advantage of the prince, and may be called corporate will,
being general in relation to the government, and particular in relation to the
State, of which the government forms part; and, in the third place, the will
of the people or the sovereign will, which is general both in relation to the
State regarded as the whole, and to the government regarded as a part of the
whole.
In a perfect act of legislation, the individual or particular will should be at
zero; the corporate will belonging to the government should occupy a very
subordinate position; and, consequently, the general or sovereign will
should always predominate and should be the sole guide of all the rest.
According to the natural order, on the other hand, these different wills
become more active in proportion as they are concentrated. Thus, the
general will is always the weakest, the corporate will second, and the
individual will strongest of all: so that, in the government, each member is
first of all himself, then a magistrate, and then a citizen —in an order
exactly the reverse of what the social system requires.
This granted, if the whole government is in the hands of one man, the
particular and the corporate will are wholly united, and consequently the
latter is at its highest possible degree of intensity. But, as the use to which
the force is put depends on the degree reached by the will, and as the
absolute force of the government is invariable, it follows that the most
active government is that of one man.
Suppose, on the other hand, we unite the government with the legislative
authority, and make the Sovereign prince also, and all the citizens so many

magistrates: then the corporate will, being confounded with the general
will, can possess no greater activity than that will, and must leave the
particular will as strong as it can possibly be. Thus, the government, having
always the same absolute force, will be at the lowest point of its relative
force or activity.
These relations are incontestable, and there are other considerations which
still further confirm them. We can see, for instance, that each magistrate is
more active in the body to which he belongs than each citizen in that to
which he belongs, and that consequently the particular will has much more
influence on the acts of the government than on those of the Sovereign; for
each magistrate is almost always charged with some governmental function,
while each citizen, taken singly, exercises no function of Sovereignty.
Furthermore, the bigger the State grows, the more its real force increases,
though not in direct proportion to its growth; but, the State remaining the
same, the number of magistrates may increase to any extent, without the
government gaining any greater real force; for its force is that of the State,
the dimension of which remains equal. Thus the relative force or activity of
the government decreases, while its absolute or real force cannot increase.
Moreover, it is a certainty that promptitude in execution diminishes as more
people are put in charge of it: where prudence is made too much of, not
enough is made of fortune; opportunity is let slip, and deliberation results in
the loss of its object.
I have just proved that the government grows remiss in proportion as the
number of the magistrates increases; and I previously proved that, the more
numerous the people, the greater should be the repressive force. From this it
follows that the relation of the magistrates to the government should vary
inversely to the relation of the subjects to the Sovereign; that is to say, the
larger the State, the more should the government be tightened, so that the
number of the rulers diminish in proportion to the increase of that of the
people.
It should be added that I am here speaking of the relative strength of the
government, and not of its rectitude: for, on the other hand, the more
numerous the magistracy, the nearer the corporate will comes to the general
will; while, under a single magistrate, the corporate will is, as I said, merely
a particular will. Thus, what may be gained on one side is lost on the other,

and the art of the legislator is to know how to fix the point at which the
force and the will of the government, which are always in inverse
proportion, meet in the relation that is most to the advantage of the State.

CHAPTER III

THE DIVISION OF GOVERNMENTS

We saw in the last chapter what causes the various kinds or forms of
government to be distinguished according to the number of the members
composing them: it remains in this to discover how the division is made.
In the first place, the Sovereign may commit the charge of the government
to the whole people or to the majority of the people, so that more citizens
are magistrates than are mere private individuals. This form of government
is called democracy.
Or it may restrict the government to a small number; so that there are more
private citizens than magistrates; and this is named aristocracy.
Lastly, it may concentrate the whole government in the hands of a single
magistrate from whom all others hold their power. This third form is the
most usual, and is called monarchy, or royal government.
It should be remarked that all these forms, or at least the first two, admit of
degree, and even of very wide differences; for democracy may include the
whole people, or may be restricted to half. Aristocracy, in its turn, may be
restricted indefinitely from half the people down to the smallest possible
number. Even royalty is susceptible of a measure of distribution. Sparta
always had two kings, as its constitution provided; and the Roman Empire
saw as many as eight emperors at once, without it being possible to say that
the Empire was split up. Thus there is a point at which each form of
government passes into the next, and it becomes clear that, under three
comprehensive denominations, government is really susceptible of as many
diverse forms as the State has citizens.

There are even more: for, as the government may also, in certain aspects, be
subdivided into other parts, one administered in one fashion and one in
another, the combination of the three forms may result in a multitude of
mixed forms, each of which admits of multiplication by all the simple
forms.
There has been at all times much dispute concerning the best form of
government, without consideration of the fact that each is in some cases the
best, and in others the worst.
If, in the different States, the number of supreme magistrates should be in
inverse ratio to the number of citizens, it follows that, generally, democratic
government suits small States, aristocratic government those of middle size,
and monarchy great ones. This rule is immediately deducible from the
principle laid down. But it is impossible to count the innumerable
circumstances which may furnish exceptions.

CHAPTER IV

DEMOCRACY

He who makes the law knows better than any one else how it should be
executed and interpreted. It seems then impossible to have a better
constitution than that in which the executive and legislative powers are
united; but this very fact renders the government in certain respects
inadequate, because things which should be distinguished are confounded,
and the prince and the Sovereign, being the same person, form, so to speak,
no more than a government without government.
It is not good for him who makes the laws to execute them, or for the body
of the people to turn its attention away from a general standpoint and devote
it to particular objects. Nothing is more dangerous than the influence of
private interests in public affairs, and the abuse of the laws by the
government is a less evil than the corruption of the legislator, which is the
inevitable sequel to a particular standpoint. In such a case, the State being
altered in substance, all reformation becomes impossible. A people that

would never misuse governmental powers would never misuse
independence; a people that would always govern well would not need to
be governed.
If we take the term in the strict sense, there never has been a real
democracy, and there never will be. It is against the natural order for the
many to govern and the few to be governed. It is unimaginable that the
people should remain continually assembled to devote their time to public
affairs, and it is clear that they cannot set up commissions for that purpose
without the form of administration being changed.
In fact, I can confidently lay down as a principle that, when the functions of
government are shared by several tribunals, the less numerous sooner or
later acquire the greatest authority, if only because they are in a position to
expedite affairs, and power thus naturally comes into their hands.
Besides, how many conditions that are difficult to unite does such a
government presuppose! First, a very small State, where the people can
readily be got together and where each citizen can with ease know all the
rest; secondly, great simplicity of manners, to prevent business from
multiplying and raising thorny problems; next, a large measure of equality
in rank and fortune, without which equality of rights and authority cannot
long subsist; lastly, little or no luxury—for luxury either comes of riches or
makes them necessary; it corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by
possession and the poor by covetousness; it sells the country to softness and
vanity, and takes away from the State all its citizens, to make them slaves
one to another, and one and all to public opinion.
This is why a famous writer has made virtue the fundamental principle of
Republics; for all these conditions could not exist without virtue. But, for
want of the necessary distinctions, that great thinker was often inexact, and
sometimes obscure, and did not see that, the sovereign authority being
everywhere the same, the same principle should be found in every well-
constituted State, in a greater or less degree, it is true, according to the form
of the government.
It may be added that there is no government so subject to civil wars and
intestine agitations as democratic or popular government, because there is
none which has so strong and continual a tendency to change to another
form, or which demands more vigilance and courage for its maintenance as

it is. Under such a constitution above all, the citizen should arm himself
with strength and constancy, and say, every day of his life, what a virtuous
Count Palatine[1] said in the Diet of Poland: Malo periculosam libertatem
quam quietum servitium.
Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So
perfect a government is not for men.

[1] The Palatine of Posen, father of the King of Poland, Duke of Lorraine. I prefer liberty with danger
to peace with slavery.

CHAPTER V

ARISTOCRACY

We have here two quite distinct moral persons, the government and the
Sovereign, and in consequence two general wills, one general in relation to
all the citizens, the other only for the members of the administration. Thus,
although the government may regulate its internal policy as it pleases, it can
never speak to the people save in the name of the Sovereign, that is, of the
people itself, a fact which must not be forgotten.
The first societies governed themselves aristocratically. The heads of
families took counsel together on public affairs. The young bowed without
question to the authority of experience. Hence such names as priests,
elders, senate, and gerontes. The savages of North America govern
themselves in this way even now, and their government is admirable.
But, in proportion as artificial inequality produced by institutions became
predominant over natural inequality, riches or power[1] were put before age,
and aristocracy became elective. Finally, the transmission of the father's
power along with his goods to his children, by creating patrician families,
made government hereditary, and there came to be senators of twenty.
There are then three sorts of aristocracy—natural, elective and hereditary.
The first is only for simple peoples; the third is the worst of all

governments; the second is the best, and is aristocracy properly so called.
Besides the advantage that lies in the distinction between the two powers, it
presents that of its members being chosen; for, in popular government, all
the citizens are born magistrates; but here magistracy is confined to a few,
who become such only by election.[2] By this means uprightness,
understanding, experience and all other claims to pre-eminence and public
esteem become so many further guarantees of wise government.
Moreover, assemblies are more easily held, affairs better discussed and
carried out with more order and diligence, and the credit of the State is
better sustained abroad by venerable senators than by a multitude that is
unknown or despised.
In a word, it is the best and most natural arrangement that the wisest should
govern the many, when it is assured that they will govern for its profit, and
not for their own. There is no need to multiply instruments, or get twenty
thousand men to do what a hundred picked men can do even better, but it
must not be forgotten that corporate interest here begins to direct the public
power less under the regulation of the general will, and that a further
inevitable propensity takes away from the laws part of the executive power.
If we are to speak of what is individually desirable, neither should the State
be so small, nor a people so simple and upright, that the execution of the
laws follows immediately from the public will, as it does in a good
democracy. Nor should the nation be so great that the rulers have to scatter
in order to govern it and are able to play the Sovereign each in his own
department, and, beginning by making themselves independent, end by
becoming masters.
But if aristocracy does not demand all the virtues needed by popular
government, it demands others which are peculiar to itself; for instance,
moderation on the side of the rich and contentment on that of the poor; for it
seems that thorough-going equality would be out of place, as it was not
found even at Sparta.
Furthermore, if this form of government carries with it a certain inequality
of fortune, this is justifiable in order that as a rule the administration of
public affairs may be entrusted to those who are most able to give them
their whole time, but not, as Aristotle maintains, in order that the rich may

always be put first. On the contrary, it is of importance that an opposite
choice should occasionally teach the people that the deserts of men offer
claims to pre-eminence more important than those of riches.

[1] It is clear that the word optimates meant, among the ancients, not the best, but the most powerful.
[2] It is of great importance that the form of the election of magistrates should be regulated by law;
for if it is left at the discretion of the prince, it is impossible to avoid falling into hereditary
aristocracy, as the Republics of Venice and Berne actually did. The first of these has therefore long
been a State dissolved; the second, however, is maintained by the extreme wisdom of the senate, and
forms an honourable and highly dangerous exception.

CHAPTER VI

MONARCHY

So far, we have considered the prince as a moral and collective person,
unified by the force of the laws, and the depositary in the State of the
executive power. We have now to consider this power when it is gathered
together into the hands of a natural person, a real man, who alone has the
right to dispose of it in accordance with the laws. Such a person is called a
monarch or king.
In contrast with other forms of administration, in which a collective being
stands for an individual, in this form an individual stands for a collective
being; so that the moral unity that constituted the prince is at the same time
a physical unity, and all the qualities, which in the other case are only with
difficulty brought together by the law, are found naturally united.
Thus the will of the people, the will of the prince, the public force of the
State, and the particular force of the government, all answer to a single
motive power; all the springs of the machine are in the same hands, the
whole moves towards the same end; there are no conflicting movements to
cancel one another, and no kind of constitution can be imagined in which a
less amount of effort produces a more considerable amount of action.
Archimedes, seated quietly on the bank and easily drawing a great vessel

afloat, stands to my mind for a skilful monarch, governing vast states from
his study, and moving everything while he seems himself unmoved.
But if no government is more vigorous than this, there is also none in which
the particular will holds more sway and rules the rest more easily.
Everything moves towards the same end indeed, but this end is by no means
that of the public happiness, and even the force of the administration
constantly shows itself prejudicial to the State.
Kings desire to be absolute, and men are always crying out to them from
afar that the best means of being so is to get themselves loved by their
people. This precept is all very well, and even in some respects very true.
Unfortunately, it will always be derided at court. The power which comes of
a people's love is no doubt the greatest; but it is precarious and conditional,
and princes will never rest content with it. The best kings desire to be in a
position to be wicked, if they please, without forfeiting their mastery:
political sermonisers may tell them to their hearts' content that, the people's
strength being their own, their first interest is that the people should be
prosperous, numerous and formidable; they are well aware that this is
Untrue. Their first personal interest is that the people should be weak,
wretched, and unable to resist them. I admit that, provided the subjects
remained always in submission, the prince's interest would indeed be that it
should be powerful, in order that its power, being his own, might make him
formidable to his neighbours; but, this interest being merely secondary and
subordinate, and strength being incompatible with submission, princes
naturally give the preference always to the principle that is more to their
immediate advantage. This is what Samuel put strongly before the Hebrews,
and what Macchiavelli has clearly shown. He professed to teach kings; but
it was the people he really taught. His Prince is the book of Republicans.[1]
We found, on general grounds, that monarchy is suitable only for great
States, and this is confirmed when we examine it in itself. The more
numerous the public administration, the smaller becomes the relation
between the prince and the subjects, and the nearer it comes to equality, so
that in democracy the ratio is unity, or absolute equality. Again, as the
government is restricted in numbers the ratio increases and reaches its
maximum when the government is in the hands of a single person. There is
then too great a distance between prince and people and the State lacks a
bond of union. To form such a bond, there must be intermediate orders, and

princes, personages and nobility to compose them. But no such things suit a
small State, to which all class differences mean ruin.
If, however, it is hard for a great State to be well governed, it is much
harder for it to be so by a single man; and every one knows what happens
when kings substitute others for themselves.
An essential and inevitable defect, which will always rank monarchical
below republican government, is that in a republic the public voice hardly
ever raises to the highest positions men who are not enlightened and
capable, and such as to fill them with honour; while in monarchies these
who rise to the top are most often merely petty blunderers petty swindlers,
and petty intriguers, whose petty talents cause them to get into the highest
positions at Court, but, as soon as they have got there, serve only to make
their ineptitude clear to the public. The people is far less often mistaken in
its choice than the prince; and a man of real worth among the king's
ministers is almost as rare as a fool at the head of a republican government.
Thus, when, by some fortunate chance, one of these born governors takes
the helm of State in some monarchy that has been nearly overwhelmed by
swarms of 'gentlemanly' administrators, there is nothing but amazement at
the resources he discovers, and his coming marks an era in his country's
history.
For a monarchical State to have a chance of being well governed, its
population and extent must be proportionate to the abilities of its governor.
If is easier to conquer than to rule. With a long enough lever, the world
could be moved with a single finger; to sustain it needs the shoulders of
Hercules. However small a State may be, the prince is hardly ever big
enough for it. When, on the other hand, it happens that the State is too small
for its ruler, in these rare cases too it is ill governed, because the ruler,
constantly pursuing his great designs, forgets the interests of the people, and
makes it no less wretched by misusing the talents he has, than a ruler of less
capacity would make it for want of those he had not. A kingdom should, so
to speak, expand or contract with each reign, according to the prince's
capabilities; but, the abilities of a senate being more constant in quantity,
the State can then have permanent frontiers without the administration
suffering.

The disadvantage that is most felt in monarchical government is the want of
the continuous succession which, in both the other forms, provides an
unbroken bond of union. When one king dies, another is needed; elections
leave dangerous intervals and are full of storms; and unless the citizens are
disinterested and upright to a degree which very seldom goes with this kind
of government, intrigue and corruption abound. He to whom the State has
sold itself can hardly help selling it in his turn and repaying himself, at the
expense of the weak, the money the powerful have wrung from him. Under
such an administration, venality sooner or later spreads through every part,
and peace so enjoyed under a king is worse than the disorders of an
interregnum.
What has been done to prevent these evils? Crowns have been made
hereditary in certain families, and an order of succession has been set up, to
prevent disputes from arising on the death of kings. That is to say, the
disadvantages of regency have been put in place of those of election,
apparent tranquillity has been preferred to wise administration, and men
have chosen rather to risk having children, monstrosities, or imbeciles as
rulers to having disputes over the choice of good kings. It has not been
taken into account that, in so exposing ourselves to the risks this possibility
entails, we are setting almost all the chances against us. There was sound
sense in what the younger Dionysius said to his father, who reproached him
for doing some shameful deed by asking, "Did I set you the example?"
"No," answered his son, "but your father was not king."
Everything conspires to take away from a man who is set in authority over
others the sense of justice and reason. Much trouble, we are told, is taken to
teach young princes the art of reigning; but their education seems to do
them no good. It would be better to begin by teaching them the art of
obeying. The greatest kings whose praises history tells were not brought up
to reign: reigning is a science we are never so far from possessing as when
we have learnt too much of it, and one we acquire better by obeying than by
commanding. "Nam utilissimus idem ac brevissimus bonarum malarumque
rerum delectus cogitare quid aut nolueris sub alio principe, aut volueris."[2]
One result of this lack of coherence is the inconstancy of royal government,
which, regulated now on one scheme and now on another, according to the
character of the reigning prince or those who reign for him, cannot for long
have a fixed object or a consistent policy—and this variability, not found in

the other forms of government, where the prince is always the same, causes
the State to be always shifting from principle to principle and from project
to project. Thus we may say that generally, if a court is more subtle in
intrigue, there is more wisdom in a senate, and Republics advance towards
their ends by more consistent and better considered policies; while every
revolution in a royal ministry creates a revolution in the State; for the
principle common to all ministers and nearly all kings is to do in every
respect the reverse of what was done by their predecessors.
This incoherence further clears up a sophism that is very familiar to royalist
political writers; not only is civil government likened to domestic
government, and the prince to the father of a family—this error has already
been refuted—but the prince is also freely credited with all the virtues he
ought to possess, and is supposed to be always what he should be. This
supposition once made, royal government is clearly preferable to all others,
because it is incontestably the strongest, and, to be the best also, wants only
a corporate will more in conformity with the general will.
But if, according to Plato,[3] the "king by nature" is such a rarity, how often
will nature and fortune conspire to give him a crown? And, if royal
education necessarily corrupts those who receive it, what is to be hoped
from a series of men brought up to reign? It is, then, wanton self-deception
to confuse royal government with government by a good king. To see such
government as it is in itself, we must consider it as it is under princes who
are incompetent or wicked: for either they will come to the throne wicked
or incompetent, or the throne will make them so.
These difficulties have not escaped our writers, who, all the same, are not
troubled by them. The remedy, they say, is to obey without a murmur: God
sends bad kings in His wrath, and they must be borne as the scourges of
Heaven. Such talk is doubtless edifying; but it would be more in place in a
pulpit than in a political book. What are we to think of a doctor who
promises miracles, and whose whole art is to exhort the sufferer to
patience? We know for ourselves that we must put up with a bad
government when it is there; the question is how to find a good one.

[1] Macchiavelli was a proper man and a good citizen; but, being attached to the court of the Medici,
he could not help veiling his love of liberty in the midst of his country's oppression. The choice of his

detestable hero, Cæsar Borgia, clearly enough shows his hidden aim; and the contradiction between
the teaching of the Prince and that of the Discourses on Livy and the History of Florence shows that
this profound political thinker has so far been studied only by superficial or corrupt readers. The
Court of Rome sternly prohibited his book. I can well believe it; for it is that Court it most clearly
portrays.
[2] Tacitus, Histories, i. 16. "For the best, and also the shortest way of finding out what is good and
what is bad is to consider what you would have wished to happen or not to happen, had another than
you been Emperor."
[3] In the Politicus.

CHAPTER VII

MIXED GOVERNMENTS

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a simple government. An
isolated ruler must have subordinate magistrates; a popular government
must have a head. There is therefore, in the distribution of the executive
power, always a gradation from the greater to the lesser number, with the
difference that sometimes the greater number is dependent on the smaller,
and sometimes the smaller on the greater.
Sometimes the distribution is equal, when either the constituent parts are in
mutual dependence, as in the government of England, or the authority of
each section is independent, but imperfect, as in Poland. This last form is
bad; for it secures no unity in the government, and the State is left without a
bond of union.
Is a simple or a mixed government the better? Political writers are always
debating the question, which must be answered as we have already
answered a question about all forms of government.
Simple government is better in itself, just because it is simple. But when the
executive power is not sufficiently dependent upon the legislative power,
i.e. when the prince is more closely related to the Sovereign than the people
to the prince, this lack of proportion must be cured by the division of the
government; for all the parts have then no less authority over the subjects,
while their division makes them all together less strong against the
Sovereign.

The same disadvantage is also prevented by the appointment of
intermediate magistrates, who leave the government entire, and have the
effect only of balancing the two powers and maintaining their respective
rights. Government is then not mixed, but moderated.
The opposite disadvantages may be similarly cured, and, when the
government is too lax, tribunals may be set up to concentrate it. This is done
in all democracies. In the first case, the government is divided to make it
weak; in the second, to make it strong: for the maxima of both strength and
weakness are found in simple governments, while the mixed forms result in
a mean strength.

CHAPTER VIII

THAT ALL FORMS OF GOVERNMENT DO NOT SUIT ALL
COUNTRIES

Liberty not being a fruit of all climates, is not within the reach of all
peoples. The more this principle, laid down by Montesquieu, is considered,
the more its truth is felt; the more it is combated, the more chance is given
to confirm it by new proofs.
In all the governments that there are, the public person consumes without
producing. Whence then does it get what it consumes? From the labour of
its members. The necessities of the public are supplied out of the
superfluities of individuals. It follows that the civil State can subsist only so
long as men's labour brings them a return greater than their needs.
The amount of this excess is not the same in all countries. In some it is
considerable, in others middling, in yet others nil, in some even negative.
The relation of product to subsistence depends on the fertility of the
climate, on the sort of labour the land demands, on the nature of its
products, on the strength of its inhabitants, on the greater or less
consumption they find necessary, and on several further considerations of
which the whole relation is made up.

On the other side, all governments are not of the same nature: some are less
voracious than others, and the differences between them are based on this
second principle, that the further from their source the public contributions
are removed, the more burdensome they become.
The charge should be measured not by the amount of the impositions, but
by the path they have to travel in order to get back to those from whom they
came. When the circulation is prompt and well-established, it does not
matter whether much or little is paid; the people is always rich and,
financially speaking, all is well. On the contrary, however little the people
gives, if that little does not return to it, it is soon exhausted by giving
continually: the State is then never rich, and the people is always a people
of beggars.
It follows that, the more the distance between people and government
increases, the more burdensome tribute becomes: thus, in a democracy, the
people bears the least charge; in an aristocracy, a greater charge; and, in
monarchy, the weight becomes heaviest. Monarchy therefore suits only
wealthy nations; aristocracy, States of middling size and wealth; and
democracy, States that are small and poor.
In fact, the more we reflect, the more we find the difference between free
and monarchical States to be this: in the former, everything is used for the
public advantage; in the latter, the public forces and those of individuals are
affected by each other, and either increases as the other grows weak; finally,
instead of governing subjects to make them happy, despotism makes them
wretched in order to govern them.
We find then, in every climate, natural causes according to which the form
of government which it requires can be assigned, and we can even say what
sort of inhabitants it should have.
Unfriendly and barren lands, where the product does; not repay the labour,
should remain desert and uncultivated, or peopled only by savages; lands
where men's labour brings in no more than the exact minimum necessary to
subsistence should be inhabited by barbarous peoples: in such places all
polity is impossible. Lands where the surplus of product over labour is only
middling are suitable for free peoples; those in which the soil is abundant
and fertile and gives a great product for a little labour call for monarchical
government, in order that the surplus of superfluities among the subjects

may be consumed by the luxury of the prince: for it is better for this excess
to be absorbed by the government than dissipated among the individuals. I
am aware that there are exceptions; but these exceptions themselves
confirm the rule, in that sooner or later they produce revolutions which
restore things to the natural order.
General laws should always be distinguished from individual causes that
may modify their effects. If all the South were covered with Republics and
all the North with despotic States, it would be none the less true that, in
point of climate, despotism is suitable to hot countries, barbarism to cold
countries, and good polity to temperate regions. I see also that, the principle
being granted, there may be disputes on its application; it may be said that
there are cold countries that are very fertile, and tropical countries that are
very unproductive. But this difficulty exists only for those who do not
consider the question in all its aspects. We must, as I have already said, take
labour, strength, consumption, etc., into account.
Take two tracts of equal extent, one of which brings in five and the other
ten. If the inhabitants of the first consume four and those of the second nine,
the surplus of the first product will be a fifth and that of the second a tenth.
The ratio of these two surpluses will then be inverse to that of the products,
and the tract which produces only five will give a surplus double that of the
tract which produces ten.
But there is no question of a double product, and I think no one would put
the fertility of cold countries, as a general rule, on an equality with that of
hot ones. Let us, however, suppose this equality to exist: let us, if you will,
regard England as on the same level as Sicily, and Poland as Egypt—further
south, we shall have Africa and the Indies; further north, nothing at all. To
get this equality of product, what a difference there must be in tillage: in
Sicily, there is only need to scratch the ground; in England, how men must
toil! But, where more hands are needed to get the same product, the
superfluity must necessarily be less.
Consider, besides, that the same number of men consume much less in hot
countries. The climate requires sobriety for the sake of health; and
Europeans who try to live there as they would at home all perish of
dysentery and indigestion. "We are," says Chardin, "carnivorous animals,
wolves, in comparison with the Asiatics. Some attribute the sobriety of the

Persians to the fact that their country is less cultivated; but it is my belief
that their country abounds less in commodities because the inhabitants need
less. If their frugality," he goes on, "were the effect of the nakedness of the
land, only the poor would eat little; but everybody does so. Again, less or
more would be eaten in various provinces, according to the land's fertility;
but the same sobriety is found throughout the kingdom. They are very
proud of their manner of life, saying that you have only to look at their hue
to recognise how far it excels that of the Christians. In fact, the Persians are
of an even hue; their skins are fair, fine and smooth; while the hue of their
subjects, the Armenians, who live after the European fashion, is rough and
blotchy, and their bodies are gross and unwieldy."
The nearer you get to the equator, the less people live on. Meat they hardly
touch; rice, maize, curcur, millet and cassava are their ordinary food. There
are in the Indies millions of men whose subsistence does not cost a
halfpenny a day. Even in Europe we find considerable differences of
appetite between Northern and Southern peoples. A Spaniard will live for a
week on a German's dinner. In the countries in which men are more
voracious, luxury therefore turns in the direction of consumption. In
England, luxury appears in a well-filled table; in Italy, you feast on sugar
and flowers.
Luxury in clothes shows similar differences. In climates in which the
changes of season are prompt and violent, men have better and simpler
clothes; where they clothe themselves only for adornment, what is striking
is more thought of than what is useful; clothes themselves are then a luxury.
At Naples, you may see daily walking in the Pausilippeum men in gold-
embroidered upper garments and nothing else. It is the same with buildings;
magnificence is the sole consideration where there is nothing to fear from
the air. In Paris and London, you desire to be lodged warmly and
comfortably; in Madrid, you have superb salons, but not a window that
closes, and you go to bed in a mere hole.
In hot countries foods are much more substantial and succulent; and the
third difference cannot but have an influence on the second. Why are so
many vegetables eaten in Italy? Because there they are good, nutritious and
excellent in taste. In France, where they are nourished only on water, they
are far from nutritious and are thought nothing of at table. They take up all
the same no less ground, and cost at least as much pains to cultivate. It is a

proved fact that the wheat of Barbary, in other respects inferior to that of
France, yields much more flour, and that the wheat of France in turn yields
more than that of northern countries; from which it may be inferred that a
like gradation in the same direction, from equator to pole, is found
generally. But is it not an obvious disadvantage for an equal product to
contain less nourishment?
To all these points may be added another, which at once depends on and
strengthens them. Hot countries need inhabitants less than cold countries,
and can support more of them. There is thus a double surplus, which is all
to the advantage of despotism. The greater the territory occupied by a fixed
number of inhabitants, the more difficult revolt becomes, because rapid or
secret concerted action is impossible, and the government can easily
unmask projects and cut communications; but the more a numerous people
is gathered together, the less can the government usurp the Sovereign's
place: the people's leaders can deliberate as safely in their houses as the
prince in council, and the crowd gathers as rapidly in the squares as the
prince's troops in their quarters. The advantage of tyrannical government
therefore lies in acting at great distances. With the help of the rallying-
points it establishes, its strength, like that of the lever,[1] grows with
distance. The strength of the people, on the other hand, acts only when
concentrated: when spread abroad, it evaporates and is lost, like powder
scattered on the ground, which catches fire only grain by grain. The least
populous countries are thus the fittest for tyranny: fierce animals reign only
in deserts.

[1] This does not contradict what I said before (Book ii, ch. ix) about the disadvantages of great
States; for we were then dealing with the authority of the government over the members, while here
we are dealing with its force against the subjects. Its scattered members serve it as rallying-points for
action against the people at a distance, but it has no rallying-point for direct action on its members
themselves. Thus the length of the lever is its weakness in the one case, and its strength in the other.

CHAPTER IX

THE MARKS OF A GOOD GOVERNMENT

The question "What absolutely is the best government?" is unanswerable as
well as indeterminate; or rather, there are as many good answers as there are
possible combinations in the absolute and relative situations of all nations.
But if it is asked by what sign we may know that a given people is well or
ill governed, that is another matter, and the question, being one of fact,
admits of an answer.
It is not, however, answered, because every-one wants to answer it in his
own way. Subjects extol public tranquillity, citizens individual liberty; the
one class prefers security of possessions, the other that of person; the one
regards as the best government that which is most severe, the other
maintains that the mildest is the best; the one wants crimes punished, the
other wants them prevented; the one wants the State to be feared by its
neighbours, the other prefers that it should be ignored; the one is content if
money circulates, the other demands that the people shall have bread. Even
if an agreement were come to on these and similar points, should we have
got any further? As moral qualities do not admit of exact measurement,
agreement about the mark does not mean agreement about the valuation.
For my part, I am continually astonished that a mark so simple is not
recognised, or that men are of so bad faith as not to admit it. What is the
end of political association? The preservation and prosperity of its
members. And what is the surest mark of their preservation and prosperity?
Their numbers and population. Seek then nowhere else this mark that is in
dispute. The rest being equal, the government under which, without external
aids, without naturalisation or colonies, the citizens increase and multiply

most, is beyond question the best. The government under which a people
wanes and diminishes is worst. Calculators, it is left for you to count, to
measure, to compare.[1]

[1] On the same principle it should be judged what centuries deserve the preference for human
prosperity. Those in which letters and arts have flourished have been too much admired, because the
hidden object of their culture has not been fathomed, and their fatal effects not taken into account.
"Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset." ["Fools called 'humanity'
what was a part of slavery," Tacitus, Agricola, 31.] Shall we never see in the maxims books lay down
the vulgar interest that makes their writers speak? No, whatever they may say, when, despite its
renown, a country is depopulated, it is not true that all is well, and it is not enough that a poet should
have an income of 100,000 francs to make his age the best of all. Less attention should be paid to the
apparent repose and tranquillity of the rulers than to the well-being of their nations as wholes, and
above all of the most numerous States. A hail-storm lays several cantons waste, but it rarely makes a
famine. Outbreaks and civil wars give rulers rude shocks, but they are not the real ills of peoples,
who may even get a respite, while there is a dispute as to who shall tyrannise over them. Their true
prosperity and calamities come from their permanent condition: it is when the whole remains crushed
beneath the yoke, that decay sets in, and that the rulers destroy them at will, and "ubi solitudinem
faciunt, pacem appellant" ["Where they create solitude, they call it peace," Tacitus, Agricola, 31.]
When the bickerings of the great disturbed the kingdom of France, and the Coadjutor of Paris took a
dagger in his pocket to the Parliament, these things did not prevent the people of France from
prospering and multiplying in dignity, ease and freedom. Long ago Greece flourished in the midst of
the most savage wars; blood ran in torrents, and yet the whole country was covered with inhabitants.
It appeared, says Macchiavelli, that in the midst of murder, proscription and civil war, our republic
only throve: the virtue, morality and independence of the citizens did more to strengthen it than all
their dissensions had done to enfeeble it A little disturbance gives the soul elasticity; what makes the
race truly prosperous is not so much peace as liberty.

CHAPTER X

THE ABUSE OF GOVERNMENT AND ITS TENDENCY TO
DEGENERATE

As the particular will acts constantly in opposition to the general will, the
government continually exerts itself against the Sovereignty. The greater
this exertion becomes, the more the constitution changes; and, as there is in
this case no other corporate will to create an equilibrium by resisting the
will of the prince, sooner or later the prince must inevitably suppress the
Sovereign and break the social treaty. This is the unavoidable and inherent

defect which, from the very birth of the body politic, tends ceaselessly to
destroy it, as age and death end by destroying the human body.
There are two general courses by which government degenerates: i.e. when
it undergoes contraction, or when the State is dissolved.
Government undergoes contraction when it passes from the many to the
few, that is, from democracy to aristocracy, and from aristocracy to royalty.
To do so is its natural propensity.[1] If it took the backward course from the
few to the many, it could be said that it was relaxed; by this inverse
sequence is impossible.
Indeed, governments never change their form except when their energy is
exhausted and leaves them too weak to keep what they have. If a
government at once extended its sphere and relaxed its stringency, its force
would become absolutely nil, and it would persist still less. It is therefore
necessary to wind up the spring and tighten the hold as it gives way: or else
the State it sustains will come to grief.
The dissolution of the State may come about in either of two ways.
First, when the prince ceases to administer the State in accordance with the
laws, and usurps the Sovereign power. A remarkable change then occurs:
not the government, but the State, undergoes contraction; I mean that the
great State is dissolved, and another is formed within it, composed solely of
the members of the government, which becomes for the rest of the people
merely master and tyrant. So that the moment the government usurps the
Sovereignty, the social compact is broken and all private citizens recover by
right their natural liberty, and are forced, but not bound, to obey.
The same thing happens when the members of the government severally
usurp the power they should exercise only as a body; this is as great an
infraction of the laws, and results in even greater disorders. There are then,
so to speak, as many princes as there are magistrates, and the State, no less
divided than the government, either perishes or changes its form.
When the State is dissolved, the abuse of government, whatever it is, bears
the common name of anarchy. To distinguish, democracy degenerates into
ochlocracy and aristocracy into oligarchy and I would add that royalty
degenerates into tyranny; but this last word is ambiguous and needs
explanation.

In vulgar usage, a tyrant is a king who governs violently and without regard
for justice and law. In the exact sense, a tyrant is an individual who
arrogates to himself the royal authority without having a right to it. This is
how the Greeks understood the word "tyrant": they applied it indifferently
to good and bad princes whose authority was not legitimate.[2] Tyrant and
usurper are thus perfectly synonymous terms.
In order that I may give different things different names, I call him who
usurps the royal authority tyrant, and him who usurps the sovereign power a
despot. The tyrant is he who thrusts himself in contrary to the laws to
govern in accordance with the laws; the despot is he who sets himself above
the laws themselves. Thus the tyrant cannot be a despot, but the despot is
always a tyrant.

[1] The slow formation and the progress of the Republic of Venice in its lagoons are a notable
instance of this sequence; and it is most astonishing that, after more than twelve hundred years'
existence, the Venetians seem to be still at the second stage, which they reached with the Serrar di
Consiglio in 1198. As for the ancient Dukes who are brought up against them, it is proved, whatever
the Squittinio della libertà veneta may say of them, that they were in no sense Sovereigns.
A case certain to be cited against my view is that of the Roman Republic, which, it will be said,
followed exactly the opposite course, and passed from monarchy to aristocracy and from aristocracy
to democracy. I by no means take this view of it.
What Romulus first set up was a mixed government, which soon deteriorated into despotism. From
special causes, the State died an untimely death, as new-born children sometimes perish without
reaching manhood. The expulsion of the Tarquins was the real period of the birth of the Republic.
But at first it took on no constant form, because, by not abolishing the patriciate, it left half its work
undone. For, by this means, hereditary aristocracy, the worst of all legitimate forms of administration,
remained in conflict with democracy, and the form of the government, as Macchiavelli has proved,
was only fixed on the establishment of the tribunate: only then was there a true government and a
veritable democracy. In fact, the people was then not only Sovereign, but also magistrate and judge;
the senate was only a subordinate tribunal, to temper and concentrate the government, and the
consuls themselves, though they were patricians, first magistrates, and absolute generals in war, were
in Rome itself no more than presidents of the people.
From that point, the government followed its natural tendency, and inclined strongly to aristocracy.
The patriciate, we may say, abolished itself, and the aristocracy was found no longer in the body of
patricians as at Venice and Genoa, but in the body of the senate, which was composed of patricians
and plebeians, and even in the body of tribunes when they began to usurp an active function: for
names do not affect facts, and, when the people has rulers who govern for it, whatever name they
bear, the government is an aristocracy.
The abuse of aristocracy led to the civil wars and the triumvirate. Sulla, Julius Cæsar and Augustus
became in fact real monarchs; and finally, under the despotism of Tiberius, the State was dissolved.
Roman history then confirms, instead of invalidating, the principle I have laid down.

[2] Omnes enim et habentur et dicuntur tyranni, qui potestate utuntur perpetua in ea civitate quæ
libertate usa est (Cornelius Nepos, Life of Miltiades). [For all those are called and considered tyrants,
who hold perpetual power in a State that has known liberty.] It is true that Aristotle (Nicomachean
Ethics, Book viii, chapter x) distinguishes the tyrant from the king by the fact that the former governs
in his own interest, and the latter only for the good of his subjects; but not only did all Greek authors
in general use the word tyrant in a different sense, as appears most clearly in Xenophon's Hiero, but
also it would follow from Aristotle's distinction that, from the very beginning of the world, there has
not yet been a single king.

CHAPTER XI

THE DEATH OF THE BODY POLITIC

Such is the natural and inevitable tendency of the best constituted
governments. If Sparta and Rome perished, what State can hope to endure
for ever? If we would set up a long-lived form of government, let us not
even dream of making it eternal. If we are to succeed, we must not attempt
the impossible, or flatter ourselves that we are endowing the work of man
with a stability of which human conditions do not permit.
The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is
born, and carries in itself the causes of its destruction. But both may have a
constitution that is more or less robust and suited to preserve them a longer
or a shorter time. The constitution of man is the work of nature; that of the
State the work of art. It is not in men's power to prolong their own lives; but
it is for them to prolong as much as possible the life of the State, by giving
it the best possible constitution. The best constituted State will have an end;
but it will end later than any other, unless some unforeseen accident brings
about its untimely destruction.
The life-principle of the body politic lies in the sovereign authority. The
legislative power is the heart of the State; the executive power is its brain,
which causes the movement of all the parts. The brain may become
paralysed and the individual still live. A man may remain an imbecile and
live; but as soon as the heart ceases to perform its functions, the animal is
dead.

The State subsists by means not of the laws, but of the legislative power.
Yesterday's law is not binding to-day; but silence is taken for tacit consent,
and the Sovereign is held to confirm incessantly the laws it does not
abrogate as it might. All that it has once declared itself to will it wills
always, unless it revokes its declaration.
Why then is so much respect paid to old laws? For this very reason. We
must believe that nothing but the excellence of old acts of will can have
preserved them so long: if the Sovereign had not recognised them as
throughout salutary, it would have revoked them a thousand times. This is
why, so far from growing weak, the laws continually gain new strength in
any well constituted State; the precedent of antiquity makes them daily
more venerable: while wherever the laws grow weak as they become old,
this proves that there is no longer a legislative power, and that the State is
dead.

CHAPTER XII

HOW THE SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY MAINTAINS ITSELF

The Sovereign, having no force other than the legislative power, acts only
by means of the laws; and the laws being solely the authentic acts of the
general will, the Sovereign cannot act save when the people is assembled.
The people in assembly, I shall be told, is a mere chimera. It is so to-day,
but two thousand years ago it was not so. Has man's nature changed?
The bounds of possibility, in moral matters, are less narrow than we
imagine: it is our weaknesses, our vices and our prejudices that confine
them. Base souls have no belief in great men; vile slaves smile in mockery
at the name of liberty.
Let us judge of what can be done by what has been done. I shall say nothing
of the Republics of ancient Greece; but the Roman Republic was, to my
mind, a great State, and the town of Rome a great town. The last census
showed that there were in Rome four hundred thousand citizens capable of
bearing arms, and the last computation of the population of the Empire

showed over four million citizens, excluding subjects, foreigners, women,
children and slaves.
What difficulties might not be supposed to stand in the way of the frequent
assemblage of the vast population of this capital and its neighbourhood. Yet
few weeks passed without the Roman people being in assembly, and even
being so several times. It exercised not only the rights of Sovereignty, but
also a part of those of government. It dealt with certain matters, and judged
certain cases, and this whole people was found in the public meeting-place
hardly less often as magistrates than as citizens.
If we went back to the earliest history of nations, we should find that most
ancient governments, even those of monarchical form, such as the
Macedonian and the Frankish, had similar councils. In any case, the one
incontestable fact I have given is an answer to all difficulties; it is good
logic to reason from the actual to the possible.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SAME (continued)

It is not enough for the assembled people to have once fixed the constitution
of the State by giving its sanction to a body of law; it is not enough for it to
have set up a perpetual government, or provided once for all for the election
of magistrates. Besides the extraordinary assemblies unforeseen
circumstances may demand, there must be fixed periodical assemblies
which cannot be abrogated or prorogued, so that on the proper day the
people is legitimately called together by law, without need of any formal
summoning.
But, apart from these assemblies authorised by their date alone, every
assembly of the people not summoned by the magistrates appointed for that
purpose, and in accordance with the prescribed forms, should be regarded
as unlawful, and all its acts as null and void, because the command to
assemble should itself proceed from the law.

The greater or less frequency with which lawful assemblies should occur
depends on so many considerations that no exact rules about them can be
given. It can only be said generally that the stronger the government the
more often should the Sovereign show itself.
This, I shall be told, may do for a single town; but what is to be done when
the State includes several? Is the sovereign authority to be divided? Or is it
to be concentrated in a single town to which all the rest are made subject?
Neither the one nor the other, I reply. First, the sovereign authority is one
and simple, and cannot be divided without being destroyed. In the second
place, one town cannot, any more than one nation, legitimately be made
subject to another, because the essence of the body politic lies in the
reconciliation of obedience and liberty, and the words subject and
Sovereign are identical correlatives the idea of which meets in the single
word "citizen."
I answer further that the union of several towns in a single city is always
bad, and that, if we wish to make such a union, we should not expect to
avoid its natural disadvantages. It is useless to bring up abuses that belong
to great States against one who desires to see only small ones; but how can
small States be given the strength to resist great ones, as formerly the Greek
towns resisted the Great King, and more recently Holland and Switzerland
have resisted the House of Austria?
Nevertheless, if the State cannot be reduced to the right limits, there
remains still one resource; this is, to allow no capital, to make the seat of
government move from town to town, and to assemble by turn in each the
Provincial Estates of the country.
People the territory evenly, extend everywhere the same rights, bear to
every place in it abundance and life: by these means will the State become
at once as strong and as well governed as possible. Remember that the walls
of towns are built of the ruins of the houses of the countryside. For every
palace I see raised in the capital, my mind's eye sees a whole country made
desolate.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SAME (continued)

The moment the people is legitimately assembled as a sovereign body, the
jurisdiction of the government wholly lapses, the executive power is
suspended, and the person of the meanest citizen is as sacred and inviolable
as that of the first magistrate; for in the presence of the person represented,
representatives no longer exist. Most of the tumults that arose in the comitia
at Rome were due to ignorance or neglect of this rule. The consuls were in
them merely the presidents of the people; the tribunes were mere speakers;
[1]
the senate was nothing at all.
These intervals of suspension, during which the prince recognises or ought
to recognise an actual superior, have always been viewed by him with
alarm; and these assemblies of the people, which are the aegis of the body
politic and the curb on the government, have at all times been the horror of
rulers: who therefore never spare pains, objections, difficulties, and
promises, to stop the citizens from having them. When the citizens are
greedy, cowardly, and pusillanimous, and love ease more than liberty, they
do not long hold out against the redoubled efforts of the government; and
thus, as the resisting force incessantly grows, the sovereign authority ends
by disappearing, and most cities fall and perish before their time.
But between the sovereign authority and arbitrary government there
sometimes intervenes a mean power of which something must be said.

[1] In nearly the same sense as this word has in the English Parliament. The similarity of these
functions would have brought the consuls and the tribunes into conflict, even had all jurisdiction been
suspended.

CHAPTER XV

DEPUTIES OR REPRESENTATIVES

As soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and
they would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the State
is not far from its fall. When it is necessary to march out to war, they pay
troops and stay at home: when it is necessary to meet in council, they name
deputies and stay at home. By reason of idleness and money, they end by
having soldiers to enslave their country and representatives to sell it.
It is through the hustle of commerce and the arts, through the greedy self-
interest of profit, and through softness and love of amenities that personal
services are replaced by money payments. Men surrender a part of their
profits in order to have time to increase them at leisure. Make gifts of
money, and you will not be long without chains. The word finance is a
slavish word, unknown in the city-state. In a country that is truly free, the
citizens do everything with their own arms and nothing by means of money;
so far from paying to be exempted from their duties, they would even pay
for the privilege of fulfilling them themselves. I am far from taking the
common view: I hold enforced labour to be less opposed to liberty than
taxes.
The better the constitution of a State is, the more do public affairs encroach
on private in the minds of the citizens. Private affairs are even of much less
importance, because the aggregate of the common happiness furnishes a
greater proportion of that of each individual, so that there is less for him to
seek in particular cares. In a well-ordered city every man flies to the
assemblies: under a bad government no one cares to stir a step to get to
them, because no one is interested in what happens there, because it is
foreseen that the general will will not prevail, and lastly because domestic
cares are all-absorbing. Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad
ones bring about worse. As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State
What does it matter to me? the State may be given up for lost.
The lukewarmness of patriotism, the activity of private interest, the vastness
of States, conquest and the abuse of government suggested the method of
having deputies or representatives of the people in the national assemblies.
These are what, in some countries, men have presumed to call the Third
Estate. Thus the individual interest of two orders is put first and second; the
public interest occupies only the third place.

Sovereignty, for the same reason as makes it inalienable, cannot be
represented; it lies essentially in the general will, and will does not admit of
representation: it is either the same, or other; there is no intermediate
possibility. The deputies of the people, therefore, are not and cannot be its
representatives: they are merely its stewards, and can carry through no
definitive acts. Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and
void—is, in fact, not a law. The people of England regards itself as free; but
it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of
parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is
nothing. The use it makes of the short moments of liberty it enjoys shows
indeed that it deserves to lose them.
The idea of representation is modern; it comes to us from feudal
government, from that iniquitous and absurd system which degrades
humanity and dishonours the name of man. In ancient republics and even in
monarchies, the people never had representatives; the word itself was
unknown. It is very singular that in Rome, where the tribunes were so
sacrosanct, it was never even imagined that they could usurp the functions
of the people, and that in the midst of so great a multitude they never
attempted to pass on their own authority a single plebiscitum. We can,
however, form an idea of the difficulties caused sometimes by the people
being so numerous, from what happened in the time of the Gracchi, when
some of the citizens had to cast their votes from the roofs of buildings.
Where right and liberty are everything, disadvantages count for nothing.
Among this wise people everything was given its just value, its lictors were
allowed to do what its tribunes would never have dared to attempt; for it
had no fear that its lictors would try to represent it.
To explain, however, in what way the tribunes did sometimes represent it, it
is enough to conceive how the government represents the Sovereign. Law
being purely the declaration of the general will, it is clear that, in the
exercise of the legislative power, the people cannot be represented; but in
that of the executive power, which is only the force that is applied to give
the law effect, it both can and should be represented. We thus see that if we
looked closely into the matter we should find that very few nations have
any laws. However that may be, it is certain that the tribunes, possessing no
executive power, could never represent the Roman people by right of the
powers entrusted to them, but only by usurping those of the senate.

In Greece, all that the people had to do, it did for itself; it was constantly
assembled in the public square. The Greeks lived in a mild climate; they
had no natural greed; slaves did their work for them; their great concern
was with liberty. Lacking the same advantages, how can you preserve the
same rights? Your severer climates add to your needs;[1] for half the year
your public squares are uninhabitable; the flatness of your languages unfits
them for being heard in the open air; you sacrifice more for profit than for
liberty, and fear slavery less than poverty.
What then? Is liberty maintained only by the help of slavery? It may be so.
Extremes meet. Everything that is not in the course of nature has its
disadvantages, civil society most of all. There are some unhappy
circumstances in which we can only keep our liberty at others' expense, and
where the citizen can be perfectly free only when the slave is most a slave.
Such was the case with Sparta. As for you, modern peoples, you have no
slaves, but you are slaves yourselves; you pay for their liberty with your
own. It is in vain that you boast of this preference; I find in it more
cowardice than humanity.
I do not mean by all this that it is necessary to have slaves, or that the right
of slavery is legitimate: I am merely giving the reasons why modern
peoples, believing themselves to be free, have representatives, while ancient
peoples had none. In any case, the moment a people allows itself to be
represented, it is no longer free: it no longer exists.
All things considered, I do not see that it is possible henceforth for the
Sovereign to preserve among us the exercise of its rights, unless the city is
very small. But if it is very small, it will be conquered? No. I will show
later on how the external strength of a great people[2] may be combined
with the convenient polity and good order of a small State.

[1] To adopt in cold countries the luxury and effeminacy of the East is to desire to submit to its
chains; it is indeed to bow to them far more inevitably in our case than in theirs.
[2] I had intended to do this in the sequel to this work, when in dealing with external relations I came
to the subject of confederations. The subject is quite new, and its principles have still to be laid down.

CHAPTER XVI

THAT THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT IS NOT A
CONTRACT

The legislative power once well established, the next thing is to establish
similarly the executive power; for this latter, which operates only by
particular acts, not being of the essence of the former, is naturally separate
from it. Were it possible for the Sovereign, as such, to possess the executive
power, right and fact would be so confounded that no one could tell what
was law and what was not; and the body politic, thus disfigured, would
soon fall a prey to the violence it was instituted to prevent.
As the citizens, by the social contract, are all equal, all can prescribe what
all should do, but no one has a right to demand that another shall do what he
does not do himself. It is strictly this right, which is indispensable for giving
the body politic life and movement, that the Sovereign, in instituting the
government, confers upon the prince.
It has been held that this act of establishment was a contract between the
people and the rulers it sets over itself.—a contract in which conditions
were laid down between the two parties binding the one to command and
the other to obey. It will be admitted, I am sure, that this is an odd kind of
contract to enter into. But let us see if this view can be upheld.
First, the supreme authority can no more be modified than it can be
alienated; to limit it is to destroy it. It is absurd and contradictory for the
Sovereign to set a superior over itself; to bind itself to obey a master would
be to return to absolute liberty.
Moreover, it is clear that this contract between the people and such and such
persons would be a particular act; and from this it follows that it can be
neither a law nor an act of Sovereignty, and that consequently it would be
illegitimate.
It is plain too that the contracting parties in relation to each other would be
under the law of nature alone and wholly without guarantees of their mutual
undertakings, a position wholly at variance with the civil state. He who has
force at his command being always in a position to control execution, it
would come to the same thing if the name "contract" were given to the act

of one man who said to another; "I give you all my goods, on condition that
you give me back as much of them as you please."
There is only one contract in the State, and that is the act of association,
which in itself excludes the existence of a second. It is impossible to
conceive of any public contract that would not be a violation of the first.

CHAPTER XVII

THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT

Under what general idea then should the act by which government is
instituted be conceived as falling? I will begin by stating that the act is
complex, as being composed of two others—the establishment' of the law
and its execution.
By the former, the Sovereign decrees that there shall be a governing body
established in this or that form; this act is clearly a law.
By the latter, the people nominates the rulers who are to be entrusted with
the government that has been established. This nomination, being a
particular act, is clearly not a second law, but merely a consequence of the
first and a function of government.
The difficulty is to understand how there can be a governmental act before
government exists, and how the people, which is only Sovereign or subject,
can, under certain circumstances, become a prince or magistrate.
It is at this point that there is revealed one of the astonishing properties of
the body politic, by means of which it reconciles apparently contradictory
operations; for this is accomplished by a sudden conversion of Sovereignty
into democracy, so that, without sensible change, and merely by virtue of a
new relation of all to all, the citizens become magistrates and pass from
general to particular acts, from legislation to the execution of the law.
This changed relation is no speculative subtlety without instances in
practice: it happens every day in the English Parliament, where, on certain
occasions, the Lower House resolves itself into Grand Committee, for the

better discussion of affairs, and thus, from being at one moment a sovereign
court, becomes at the next a mere commission; so that subsequently it
reports to itself, as House of Commons, the result of its proceedings in
Grand Committee, and debates over again under one name what it has
already settled under another.
It is, indeed, the peculiar advantage of democratic government that it can be
established in actuality by a simple act of the general will. Subsequently,
this provisional government remains in power, if this form is adopted, or
else establishes in the name of the Sovereign the government that is
prescribed by law; and thus the whole proceeding is regular. It is impossible
to set up government in any other manner legitimately and in accordance
with the principles so far laid down.

CHAPTER XVIII

HOW TO CHECK THE USURPATIONS OF GOVERNMENT

What we have just said confirms Chapter XVI, and makes it clear that the
institution of government is not a contract, but a law; that the depositaries
of the executive power are not the people's masters, but its officers; that it
can set them up and pull them down when it likes; that for them there is no
question of contract, but of obedience; and that in taking charge of the
functions the State imposes on them they are doing no more than fulfilling
their duty as citizens, without having the remotest right to argue about the
conditions.
When therefore the people sets up an hereditary government, whether it be
monarchical and confined to one family, or aristocratic and confined to a
class, what it enters into is not an undertaking; the administration is given a
provisional form, until the people chooses to order it otherwise.
It is true that such changes are always dangerous, and that the established
government should never be touched except when it comes to be
incompatible with the public good; but the circumspection this involves is a
maxim of policy and not a rule of right, and the State is no more bound to

leave civil authority in the hands of its rulers than military authority in the
hands of its generals.
It is also true that it is impossible to be too careful to observe, in such cases,
all the formalities necessary to distinguish a regular and legitimate act from
a seditious tumult, and the will of a whole people from the clamour of a
faction. Here above all no further concession should be made to the
untoward possibility than cannot, in the strictest logic, be refused it. From
this obligation the prince derives a great advantage in preserving his power
despite the people, without it being possible to say he has usurped it; for,
seeming to avail himself only of his rights, he finds it very easy to extend
them, and to prevent, under the pretext of keeping the peace, assemblies
that are destined to the re-establishment of order; with the result that he
takes advantage of a silence he does not allow to be broken, or of
irregularities he causes to be committed, to assume that he has the support
of those whom fear prevents from speaking, and to punish those who dare
to speak. Thus it was that the decemvirs, first elected for one year and then
kept on in office for a second, tried to perpetuate their power by forbidding
the comitia to assemble; and by this easy method every government in the
world, once clothed with the public power, sooner or later usurps the
sovereign authority.
The periodical assemblies of which I have already spoken are designed to
prevent or postpone this calamity, above all when they need no formal
summoning; for in that case, the prince cannot stop them without openly
declaring himself a law-breaker and an enemy of the State.
The opening of these assemblies, whose sole object is the maintenance of
the social treaty, should always take the form of putting two propositions
that may not be suppressed, which should be voted on separately.
The first is: "Does it please the Sovereign to preserve the present form of
government?"
The second is: "Does it please the people to leave its administration in the
hands of those who are actually in charge of it?"
I am here assuming what I think I have shown; that there is in the State no
fundamental law that cannot be revoked, not excluding the social compact
itself; for if all the citizens assembled of one accord to break the compact, it

is impossible to doubt that it would be very legitimately broken. Grotius
even thinks that each man can renounce his membership of his own State,
and recover his natural liberty and his goods on leaving the country.[1] It
would be indeed absurd if all the citizens in assembly could not do what
each can do by himself.

[1] Provided, of course, he does not leave to escape his obligations and avoid having to serve his
country in the hour of need. Flight in such a case would be criminal and punishable, and would be,
not withdrawal, but desertion.

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

THAT THE GENERAL WILL IS INDESTRUCTIBLE

As long as several men in assembly regard themselves as a single body,
they have only a single will which is concerned with their common
preservation and general well-being. In this case, all the springs of the State
are vigorous and simple and its rules clear and luminous; there are no
embroilments or conflicts of interests; the common good is everywhere
clearly apparent, and only good sense is needed to perceive it. Peace, unity
and equality are the enemies of political subtleties. Men who are upright
and simple are difficult to deceive because of their simplicity; lures and
ingenious pretexts fail to impose upon them, and they are not even subtle
enough to be dupes. When, among the happiest people in the world, bands
of peasants are seen regulating affairs of State under an oak, and always
acting wisely, can we help scorning the ingenious methods of other nations,
which make themselves illustrious and wretched with so much art and
mystery?
A State so governed needs very few laws; and, as it becomes necessary to
issue new ones, the necessity is universally seen. The first man to propose

them merely says what all have already felt, and there is no question of
factions or intrigues or eloquence in order to secure the passage into law of
what every one has already decided to do, as soon as he is sure that the rest
will act with him.
Theorists are led into error because, seeing only States that have been from
the beginning wrongly constituted, they are struck by the impossibility of
applying such a policy to them. They make great game of all the absurdities
a clever rascal or an insinuating speaker might get the people of Paris or
London to believe. They do not know that Cromwell would have been put
to "the bells" by the people of Berne, and the Due de Beaufort on the
treadmill by the Genevese.
But when the social bond begins to be relaxed and the State to grow weak,
when particular interests begin to make themselves felt and the smaller
societies to exercise an influence over the larger, the common interest
changes and finds opponents: opinion is no longer unanimous; the general
will ceases to be the will of all; contradictory views and debates arise; and
the best advice is not taken without question.
Finally, when the State, on the eve of ruin, maintains only a vain, illusory
and formal existence, when in every heart the social bond is broken, and the
meanest interest brazenly lays hold of the sacred name of "public good," the
general will becomes mute: all men, guided by secret motives, no more give
their views as citizens than if the State had never been; and iniquitous
decrees directed solely to private interest get passed under the name of
laws.
Does it follow from this that the general will is exterminated or corrupted?
Not at all: it is always constant, unalterable and pure; but it is subordinated
to other wills which encroach upon its sphere. Each man, in detaching, his
interest from the common interest, sees clearly that he cannot entirely
separate them; but his share in the public mishaps seems to him negligible
beside the exclusive good he aims at making his own. Apart from this
particular good, he wills the general good in his own interest, as strongly as
any one else. Even in selling his vote for money, he does not extinguish in
himself the general will, but only eludes it. The fault he commits is that of
changing the state of the question, and answering something different from
what he is asked. Instead of saying, by his vote, "It is to the advantage of

the State," he says, "It is of advantage to this or that man or party that this
or that view should prevail." Thus the law of public order in assemblies is
not so much to maintain in them the general will as to secure that the
question be always put to it, and the answer always given by it.
I could here set down many reflections on the simple right of voting in
every act of Sovereignty—a right which no-one can take from the citizens
—and also on the right of stating views, making proposals, dividing and
discussing, which the government is always most careful to leave solely to
its members; but this important subject would need a treatise to itself, and it
is impossible to say everything in a single work.

CHAPTER II

VOTING

It may be seen, from the last chapter, that the way in which general business
is managed may give a clear enough indication of the actual state of morals
and the health of the body politic. The more concert reigns in the
assemblies, that is, the nearer opinion approaches unanimity, the greater is
the dominance of the general will. On the other hand, long debates,
dissensions and tumult proclaim the ascendancy of particular interests and
the decline of the State.
This seems less clear when two or more orders enter into the constitution,
as patricians and plebeians did at Rome; for quarrels between these two
orders often disturbed the comitia, even in the best days of the Republic.
But the exception is rather apparent than real; for then, through the defect
that is inherent in the body politic, there were, so to speak, two States in
one, and what is not true of the two together is true of either separately.
Indeed, even in the most stormy times, the plebiscita of the people, when
the Senate did not interfere with them, always went through quietly and by
large majorities. The citizens having but one interest, the people had but a
single will.

At the other extremity of the circle, unanimity recurs; this is the case when
the citizens, having fallen into servitude, have lost both liberty and will.
Fear and flattery then change votes into acclamation; deliberation ceases,
and only worship or malediction is left. Such was the vile manner in which
the senate expressed its views under the Emperors. It did so sometimes with
absurd precautions. Tacitus observes that, under Otho, the senators, while
they heaped curses on Vitellius, contrived at the same time to make a
deafening noise, in order that, should he ever become their master, he might
not know what each of them had said.
On these various considerations depend the rules by which the methods of
counting votes and comparing opinions should be regulated, according as
the general will is more or less easy to discover, and the State more or less
in its decline.
There is but one law which, from its nature, needs unanimous consent. This
is the social compact; for civil association is the most voluntary of all acts.
Every man being born free and his own master, no-one, under any pretext
whatsoever, can make any man subject without his consent. To decide that
the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not born a man.
If then there are opponents when the social compact is made, their
opposition does not invalidate the contract, but merely prevents them from
being included in it. They are foreigners among citizens. When the State is
instituted, residence constitutes consent; to dwell within its territory is to
submit to the Sovereign.[1]
Apart from this primitive contract, the vote of the majority always binds all
the rest. This follows from the contract itself. But it is asked how a man can
be both free and forced to conform to wills that are not his own. How are
the opponents at once free and subject to laws they have not agreed to?
I retort that the question is wrongly put. The citizen gives his consent to all
the laws, including those which are passed in spite of his opposition, and
even those which punish him when he dares to break any of them. The
constant will of all the members of the State is the general will; by virtue of
it they are citizens and free.[2] When in the popular assembly a law is
proposed, what the people is asked is not exactly whether it approves or
rejects the proposal, but whether it is in conformity with the general will,
which is their will. Each man, in giving his vote, states his opinion on that

point; and the general will is found by counting votes. 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. If my particular opinion had carried the day I should have
achieved the opposite of what was my will and it is in that case that I should
not have been free.
This presupposes, indeed, that all the qualities of the general will still reside
in the majority: when they cease to do so, whatever side a man may take,
liberty is no longer possible.
In my earlier demonstration of how particular wills are substituted for the
general will in public deliberation, I have adequately pointed out the
practicable methods of avoiding this abuse; and I shall have more to say of
them later on. I have also given the principles for determining the
proportional number of votes for declaring that will. A difference of one
vote destroys equality; a single opponent destroys unanimity; but between
equality and unanimity, there are several grades of unequal division, at each
of which this proportion may be fixed in accordance with the condition and
the needs of the body politic.
There are two general rules that may serve to regulate this relation. First,
the more grave and important the questions discussed, the nearer should the
opinion that is to prevail approach unanimity. Secondly, the more the matter
in hand calls for speed, the smaller the prescribed difference in the numbers
of votes may be allowed to become: where an instant decision has to be
reached, a majority of one vote should be enough. The first of these two
rules seems more in harmony with the laws, and the second with practical
affairs. In any case, it is the combination of them that gives the best
proportions for determining the majority necessary.

[1] This should of course be understood as applying to a free State; for elsewhere family, goods, lack
of a refuge, necessity, or violence may detain a man in a country against his will; and then his
dwelling there no longer by itself implies his consent to the contract or to its violation.
[2] At Genoa, the word Liberty may be read over the front of the prisons and on the chains of the
galley-slaves. This application of the device is good and just. It is indeed only malefactors of all
estates who prevent the citizen from being free. In the country in which all such men were in the
galleys, the most perfect liberty would be enjoyed.

CHAPTER III

ELECTIONS

In the elections of the prince and the magistrates, which are, as I have said,
complex acts, there are two possible methods of procedure, choice and lot.
Both have been employed in various republics, and a highly complicated
mixture of the two still survives in the election of the Doge at Venice.
"Election by lot," says Montesquieu, "is democratic in nature." I agree that
it is so; but in what sense? "The lot," he goes on, "is a way of making
choice that is unfair to nobody; it leaves each citizen a reasonable hope of
serving his country." These are not reasons.
If we bear in mind that the election of rulers is a function of government,
and not of Sovereignty, we shall see why the lot is the method more natural
to democracy, in which the administration is better in proportion as the
number of its acts is small.
In every real democracy, magistracy is not an advantage, but a burdensome
charge which cannot justly be imposed on one individual rather than
another. The law alone can lay the charge on him on whom the lot falls. For,
the conditions being then the same for all, and the choice not depending on
any human will, there is no particular application to alter the universality of
the law.
In an aristocracy, the prince chooses the prince, the government is preserved
by itself, and voting is rightly ordered.
The instance of the election of the Doge of Venice confirms, instead of
destroying, this distinction; the mixed form suits a mixed government. For
it is an error to take the government of Venice for a real aristocracy. If the
people has no share in the government, the nobility is itself the people. A
host of poor Barnabotes never gets near any magistracy, and its nobility
consists merely in the empty title of Excellency, and in the right to sit in the
Great Council. As this Great Council is as numerous as our General Council
at Geneva, its illustrious members have no more privileges than our plain
citizens. It is indisputable that, apart from the extreme disparity between the

two republics, the bourgeoisie of Geneva is exactly equivalent to the
patriciate of Venice; our natives and inhabitants correspond to the
townsmen and the people of Venice; our peasants correspond to the subjects
on the mainland; and, however that republic be regarded, if its size be left
out of account, its government is no more aristocratic than our own. The
whole difference is that, having no life-ruler, we do not, like Venice, need to
use the lot.
Election by lot would have few disadvantages in a real democracy, in
which, as equality would everywhere exist in morals and talents as well as
in principles and fortunes, it would become almost a matter of indifference
who was chosen. But I have already said that a real democracy is only an
ideal.
When choice and lot are combined, positions that require special talents,
such as military posts, should be filled by the former; the latter does for
cases, such as judicial offices, in which good sense, justice, and integrity are
enough, because in a State that is well constituted, these qualities are
common to all the citizens.
Neither lot nor vote has any place in monarchical government. The monarch
being by right sole prince and only magistrate, the choice of his lieutenants
belongs to none but him. When the Abbé de Saint-Pierre proposed that the
Councils of the King of France should be multiplied, and their members
elected by ballot, he did not see that he was proposing to change the form of
government.
I should now speak of the methods of giving and counting opinions in the
assembly of the people; but perhaps an account of this aspect of the Roman
constitution will more forcibly illustrate all the rules I could lay down. It is
worth the while of a judicious reader to follow in some detail the working
of public and private affairs in a Council consisting of two hundred
thousand men.

CHAPTER IV

THE ROMAN COMITIA

We are without well-certified records of the first period of Rome's
existence; it even appears very probable that most of the stories told about it
are fables; indeed, generally speaking, the most instructive part of the
history of peoples, that which deals with their foundation, is what we have
least of. Experience teaches us every day what causes lead to the
revolutions of empires; but, as no new peoples are now formed, we have
almost nothing beyond conjecture to go upon in explaining how they were
created.
The customs we find established show at least that these customs had an
origin. The traditions that go back to those origins, that have the greatest
authorities behind them, and that are confirmed by the strongest proofs,
should pass for the most certain. These are the rules I have tried to follow in
inquiring how the freest and most powerful people on earth exercised its
supreme power.
After the foundation of Rome, the new-born republic, that is, the army of its
founder, composed of Albans, Sabines and foreigners, was divided into
three classes, which, from this division, took the name of tribes. Each of
these tribes was subdivided into ten curiæ, and each curia into decuriæ,
headed by leaders called curiones and decuriones.
Besides this, out of each tribe was taken a body of one hundred Equites or
Knights, called a century, which shows that these divisions, being
unnecessary in a town, were at first merely military. But an instinct for
greatness seems to have led the little township of Rome to provide itself in
advance with a political system suitable for the capital of the world.
Out of this original division an awkward situation soon arose. The tribes of
the Albans (Ramnenses) and the Sabines (Tatienses) remained always in the
same condition, while that of the foreigners (Luceres) continually grew as
more and more foreigners came to live at Rome, so that it soon surpassed
the others in strength. Servius remedied this dangerous fault by changing
the principle of cleavage, and substituting for the racial division, which he
abolished, a new one based on the quarter of the town inhabited by each
tribe. Instead of three tribes he created four, each occupying and named
after one of the hills of Rome. Thus, while redressing the inequality of the
moment, he also provided for the future; and in order that the division
might be one of persons as well as localities, he forbade the inhabitants of

one quarter to migrate to another, and so prevented the mingling of the
races.
He also doubled the three old centuries of Knights and added twelve more,
still keeping the old names, and by this simple and prudent method,
succeeded in making a distinction between the body of Knights and the
people, without a murmur from the latter.
To the four urban tribes Servius added fifteen others called rural tribes,
because they consisted of those who lived in the country, divided into
fifteen cantons. Subsequently, fifteen more were created, and the Roman
people finally found itself divided into thirty-five tribes, as it remained
down to the end of the Republic.
The distinction between urban and rural tribes had one effect which is worth
mention, both because it is without parallel elsewhere, and because to it
Rome owed the preservation of her morality and the enlargement of her
empire. We should have expected that the urban tribes would soon
monopolise power and honours, and lose no time in bringing the rural tribes
into disrepute; but what happened was exactly the reverse. The taste of the
early Romans for country life is well known. This taste they owed to their
wise founder, who made rural and military labours go along with liberty,
and, so to speak, relegated to the town arts, crafts, intrigue, fortune and
slavery.
Since therefore all Rome's most illustrious citizens lived in the fields and
tilled the earth, men grew used to seeking there alone the mainstays of the
republic. This condition, being that of the best patricians, was honoured by
all men; the simple and laborious life of the villager was preferred to the
slothful and idle life of the bourgeoisie of Rome; and he who, in the town,
would have been but a wretched proletarian, became, as a labourer in the
fields, a respected citizen. Not without reason, says Varro, did our great-
souled ancestors establish in the village the nursery of the sturdy and valiant
men who defended them in time of war and provided for their Sustenance in
time of peace. Pliny states positively that the country tribes were honoured
because of the men of whom they were composed; while cowards men
wished to dishonour were transferred, as a public disgrace, to the town
tribes. The Sabine Appius Claudius, when he had come to settle in Rome,
was loaded with honours and enrolled in a rural tribe, which subsequently

took his family name. Lastly, freedmen always entered the urban, and never
the rural, tribes: nor is there a single example, throughout the Republic, of a
freedman, though he had become a citizen, reaching any magistracy.
This was an excellent rule; but it was carried so far that in the end it led to a
change and certainly to an abuse in the political system.
First the censors, after having for a long time claimed the right of
transferring citizens arbitrarily from one tribe to another, allowed most
persons to enrol themselves in whatever tribe they pleased. This permission
certainly did no good, and further robbed the censorship of one of its
greatest resources. Moreover, as the great and powerful all got themselves
enrolled in the country tribes, while the freedmen who had become citizens
remained with the populace in the town tribes, both soon ceased to have any
local or territorial meaning, and all were so confused that the members of
one could not be told from those of another except by the registers; so that
the idea of the word tribe became personal instead of real, or rather came to
be little more than a chimera.
It happened in addition that the town tribes, being more on the spot, were
often the stronger in the comitia and sold the State to those who stooped to
buy the votes of the rabble composing them.
As the founder had set up ten curiæ in each tribe, the whole Roman people,
which was then contained within the walls, consisted of thirty curia, each
with its temples, its gods, its officers, its priests and its festivals, which
were called compitalia and corresponded to the paganalia, held in later
times by the rural tribes.
When Servius made his new division, as the thirty curiæ could not be
shared equally between his four tribes, and as he was unwilling to interfere
with them, they became a further division of the inhabitants of Rome, quite
independent of the tribes: but in the case of the rural tribes and their
members there was no question of curiæ as the tribes had then become a
purely civil institution, and, a new system of levying troops having been
introduced, the military divisions of Romulus were superfluous. Thus,
although every citizen was enrolled in a tribe, there were very many who
were not members of a curia.

Servius made yet a third division, quite distinct from the two we have
mentioned, which became, in its effects, the most important of all. He
distributed the whole Roman people into six classes, distinguished neither
by place nor by person, but by wealth; the first classes included the rich, the
last the poor, and those between persons of moderate means. These six
classes were subdivided into one hundred and ninety-three other bodies,
called centuries, which were so divided that the first class alone comprised
more than half of them, while the last comprised only one. Thus the class
that had the smallest number of members had the largest number of
centuries, and the whole of the last class only counted as a single
subdivision, although it alone included more than half the inhabitants of
Rome.
In order that the people might have the less insight into the results of this
arrangement, Servius tried to give it a military tone: in the second class he
inserted two centuries of armourers, and in the fourth two of makers of
instruments of war: in each class, except the last, he distinguished young
and old, that is, those who were under an obligation to bear arms and those
whose age gave them legal exemption. It was this distinction, rather than
that of wealth, which required frequent repetition of the census or counting.
Lastly, he ordered that the assembly should be held in the Campus Martius,
and that all who were of age to serve should come there armed.
The reason for his not making in the last class also the division of young
and old was that the populace, of whom it was composed, was not given the
right to bear arms for its country: a man had to possess a hearth to acquire
the right to defend it, and of all the troops of beggars who to-day lend lustre
to the armies of kings, there is perhaps not one who would not have been
driven with scorn out of a Roman cohort, at a time when soldiers were the
defenders of liberty.
In this last class, however, proletarians were distinguished from capite
censi. The former, not quite reduced to nothing, at least gave the State
citizens, and sometimes, when the need was pressing, even soldiers. Those
who had nothing at all, and could be numbered only by counting heads,
were regarded as of absolutely no account, and Marius was the first who
stooped to enrol them.

Without deciding now whether this third arrangement was good or bad in
itself, I think I may assert that it could have been made practicable only by
the simple morals, the disinterestedness, the liking for agriculture and the
scorn for commerce and for love of gain which characterised the early
Romans. Where is the modern people among whom consuming greed,
unrest, intrigue, continual removals, and perpetual changes of fortune, could
let such a system last for twenty years without turning the State upside
down? We must indeed observe that morality and the censorship, being
stronger than this institution, corrected its defects at Rome, and that the rich
man found himself degraded to the class of the poor for making too much
display of his riches.
From all this it is easy to understand why only five classes are almost
always mentioned, though there were really six. The sixth, as it furnished
neither soldiers to the army nor votes in the Campus Martius,[1] and was
almost without function in the State, was seldom regarded as of any
account.
These were the various ways in which the Roman people was divided. Let
us now see the effect on the assemblies. When lawfully summoned, these
were called comitia: they were usually held in the public square at Rome or
in the Campus Martius, and were distinguished as Comitia Curiata, Comitia
Centuriata, and Comitia Tributa, according to the form under which they
were convoked. The Comitia Curiata were founded by Romulus; the
Centuriata by Servius; and the Tributa by the tribunes of the people. No
law received its sanction and no magistrate was elected, save in the comitia;
and as every citizen was enrolled in a curia, a century, or a tribe, it follows
that no citizen was excluded from the right of voting, and that the Roman
people was truly sovereign both de jure and de facto.
For the comitia to be lawfully assembled, and for their acts to have the force
of law, three conditions were necessary. First, the body or magistrate
convoking them had to possess the necessary authority; secondly, the
assembly had to be held on a day allowed by law; and thirdly, the auguries
had to be favourable.
The reason for the first regulation needs no explanation; the second is a
matter of policy. Thus, the comitia might not be held on festivals or market-
days, when the country-folk, coming to Rome on business, had not time to

spend the day in the public square. By means of the third, the senate held in
check the proud and restive people, and meetly restrained the ardour of
seditious tribunes, who, however, found more than one way of escaping this
hindrance.
Laws and the election of rulers were not the only questions submitted to the
judgment of the comitia: as the Roman people had taken on itself the most
important functions of government, it may be said that the lot of Europe
was regulated in its assemblies. The variety of their objects gave rise to the
various forms these took, according to the matters on which they had to
pronounce.
In order to judge of these various forms, it is enough to compare them.
Romulus, when he set up curiæ, had in view the checking of the senate by
the people, and of the people by the senate, while maintaining his
ascendancy over both alike. He therefore gave the people, by means of this
assembly, all the authority of numbers to balance that of power and riches,
which he left to the patricians. But, after the spirit of monarchy, he left all
the same a greater advantage to the patricians in the influence of their
clients on the majority of votes. This excellent institution of patron and
client was a masterpiece of statesmanship and humanity without which the
patriciate, being flagrantly in contradiction to the republican spirit, could
not have survived. Rome alone has the honour of having given to the world
this great example, which never led to any abuse, and yet has never been
followed.
As the assemblies by curiæ persisted under the kings till the time of
Servius, and the reign of the later Tarquin was not regarded as legitimate,
royal laws were called generally leges curiatæ.
Under the Republic, the curiæ still confined to the four urban tribes, and
including only the populace of Rome, suited neither the senate, which led
the patricians, nor the tribunes, who, though plebeians, were at the head of
the well-to-do citizens. They therefore fell into disrepute, and their
degradation was such, that thirty lictors used to assemble and do what the
Comitia Curiata should have done.
The division by centuries was so favourable to the aristocracy that it is hard
to see at first how the senate ever failed to carry the day in the comitia
bearing their name, by which the consuls, the censors and the other curule

magistrates were elected. Indeed, of the hundred and ninety-three centuries
into which the six classes of the whole Roman people were divided, the first
class contained ninety-eight; and, as voting went solely by centuries, this
class alone had a majority over all the rest. When all these centuries were in
agreement, the rest of the votes were not even taken; the decision of the
smallest number passed for that of the multitude, and it may be said that, in
the Comitia Centuriata, decisions were regulated far more by depth of
purses than by the number of votes.
But this extreme authority was modified in two ways. First, the tribunes as a
rule, and always a great number of plebeians, belonged to the class of the
rich, and so counterbalanced the influence of the patricians in the first class.
The second way was this. Instead of causing the centuries to vote
throughout in order, which would have meant beginning always with the
first, the Romans always chose one by lot which proceeded alone to the
election; after this all the centuries were summoned another day according
to their rank, and the same election was repeated, and as a rule confirmed.
Thus the authority of example was taken away from rank, and given to the
lot on a democratic principle.
From this custom resulted a further advantage. The citizens from the
country had time, between the two elections, to inform themselves of the
merits of the candidate who had been provisionally nominated, and did not
have to vote without knowledge of the case. But, under the pretext of
hastening matters, the abolition of this custom was achieved, and both
elections were held on the same day.
The Comitia Tributa were properly the council of the Roman people. They
were convoked by the tribunes alone; at them the tribunes were elected and
passed their plebiscita. The senate not only had no standing in them, but
even no right to be present; and the senators, being forced to obey laws on
which they could not vote, were in this respect less free than the meanest
citizens. This injustice was altogether ill-conceived, and was alone enough
to invalidate the decrees of a body to which all its members were not
admitted. Had all the patricians attended the comitia by virtue of the right
they had as citizens, they would not, as mere private individuals, have had
any considerable influence on a vote reckoned by counting heads, where the
meanest proletarian was as good as the princeps senatus.

It may be seen, therefore, that besides the order which was achieved by
these various ways of distributing so great a people and taking its votes, the
various methods were not reducible to forms indifferent in themselves, but
the results of each were relative to the objects which caused it to be
preferred.
Without going here into further details, we may gather from what has been
said above that the Comitia Tributa were the most favourable to popular
government, and the Comitia Centuriata to aristocracy. The Comitia
Curiata, in which the populace of Rome formed the majority, being fitted
only to further tyranny and evil designs, naturally fell into disrepute, and
even seditious persons abstained from using a method which too clearly
revealed their projects. It is indisputable that the whole majesty of the
Roman people lay solely in the Comitia Centuriata, which alone included
all; for the Comitia Curiata excluded the rural tribes, and the Comitia
Tributa the senate and the patricians.
As for the method of taking the vote, it was among the ancient Romans as
simple as their morals, although not so simple as at Sparta. Each man
declared his vote aloud, and a clerk duly wrote it down; the majority in each
tribe determined the vote of the tribe, the majority of the tribes that of the
people, and so with curiæ and centuries. This custom was good as long as
honesty was triumphant among the citizens, and each man was ashamed to
vote publicly in favour of an unjust proposal or an unworthy subject; but,
when the people grew corrupt and votes were bought, it was fitting that
voting should be secret in order that purchasers might be restrained by
mistrust, and rogues be given the means of not being traitors.
I know that Cicero attacks this change, and attributes partly to it the ruin of
the Republic. But though I feel the weight Cicero's authority must carry on
such a point, I cannot agree with him; I hold, on the contrary, that, for want
of enough such changes, the destruction of the State must be hastened. Just
as the regimen of health does not suit the sick, we should not wish to
govern a people that has been corrupted by the laws that a good people
requires. There is no better proof of this rule than the long life of the
Republic of Venice, of which the shadow still exists, solely because its laws
are suitable only for men who are wicked.

The citizens were provided, therefore, with tablets by means of which each
man could vote without any one knowing how he voted: new methods were
also introduced for collecting the tablets, for counting voices, for comparing
numbers, etc.; but all these precautions did not prevent the good faith of the
officers charged with these functions[2] from being often suspect. Finally, to
prevent intrigues and trafficking in votes, edicts were issued; but their very
number proves how useless they were.
Towards the close of the Republic, it was often necessary to have recourse
to extraordinary expedients in order to supplement the inadequacy of the
laws. Sometimes miracles were supposed; but this method, while it might
impose on the people, could not impose on those who governed. Sometimes
an assembly was hastily called together, before the candidates had time to
form their factions: sometimes a whole sitting was occupied with talk, when
it was seen that the people had been won over and was on the point of
taking up a wrong position. But in the end ambition eluded all attempts to
check it; and the most incredible fact of all is that, in the midst of all these
abuses, the vast people, thanks to its ancient regulations, never ceased to
elect magistrates, to pass laws, to judge cases, and to carry through business
both public and private, almost as easily as the senate itself could have
done.

[1] I say "in the Campus Martius" because it was there that the comitia assembled by centuries; in its
two other forms the people assembled in the forum or elsewhere; and then the capite censi had as
much influence and authority as the foremost citizens.
[2] Custodes, diribitores, rogatores suffragiorum.

CHAPTER V

THE TRIBUNATE

When an exact proportion cannot be established between the constituent
parts of the State, or when causes that cannot be removed continually alter
the relation of one part to another, recourse is had to the institution of a
peculiar magistracy that enters into no corporate unity with the rest. This

restores to each term its right relation to the others, and provides a link or
middle term between either prince and people, or prince and Sovereign, or,
if necessary, both at once.
This body, which I shall call the tribunate, is the preserver of the laws and
of the legislative power. It serves sometimes to protect the Sovereign
against the government, as the tribunes of the people did at Rome;
sometimes to uphold the government against the people, as the Council of
Ten now does at Venice; and sometimes to maintain the balance between
the two, as the Ephors did at Sparta.
The tribunate is not a constituent part of the city, and should have no share
in either legislative or executive power; but this very fact makes its own
power the greater: for, while it can do nothing, it can prevent anything from
being done. It is more sacred and more revered, as the defender of the laws,
than the prince who executes them, or than the Sovereign which ordains
them. This was seen very clearly at Rome, when the proud patricians, for all
their scorn of the people, were forced to bow before one of its officers, who
had neither auspices nor jurisdiction.
The tribunate, wisely tempered, is the strongest support a good constitution
can have; but if its strength is ever so little excessive, it upsets the whole
State. Weakness, on the other hand, is not natural to it: provided it is
something, it is never less than it should be.
It degenerates into tyranny when it usurps the executive power, which it
should confine itself to restraining, and when it tries to dispense with the
laws, which it should confine itself to protecting. The immense power of the
Ephors, harmless as long as Sparta preserved its morality, hastened
corruption when once it had begun. The blood of Agis, slaughtered by these
tyrants, was avenged by his successor; the crime and the punishment of the
Ephors alike hastened the destruction of the republic, and after Cleomenes
Sparta ceased to be of any account. Rome perished in the same way: the
excessive power of the tribunes, which they had usurped by degrees, finally
served, with the help of laws made to secure liberty, as a safeguard for the
emperors who destroyed it. As for the Venetian Council of Ten, it is a
tribunal of blood, an object of horror to patricians and people alike; and, so
far from giving a lofty protection to the laws, it does nothing, now they

have become degraded, but strike in the darkness blows of which no one
dare take note.
The tribunate, like the government, grows weak as the number of its
members increases. When the tribunes of the Roman people, who first
numbered only two, and then five, wished to double that number, the senate
let them do so, in the confidence that it could use one to check another, as
indeed it afterwards freely did.
The best method of preventing usurpations by so formidable a body, though
no government has yet made use of it, would be not to make it permanent,
but to regulate the periods during which it should remain in abeyance.
These intervals, which should not be long enough to give abuses time to
grow strong, may be so fixed by law that they can easily be shortened at
need by extraordinary commissions.
This method seems to me to have no disadvantages, because, as I have said,
the tribunate, which forms no part of the constitution, can be removed
without the constitution being affected. It seems to be also efficacious,
because a newly restored magistrate starts not with the power his
predecessor exercised, but with that which the law allows him.

CHAPTER VI

THE DICTATORSHIP

The inflexibility of the laws, which prevents them from adapting
themselves to circumstances, may, in certain cases, render them disastrous,
and make them bring about, at a time of crisis, the ruin of the State. The
order and slowness of the forms they enjoin require a space of time which
circumstances sometimes withhold. A thousand cases against which the
legislator has made no provision may present themselves, and it is a highly
necessary part of foresight to be conscious that everything cannot be
foreseen.
It is wrong therefore to wish to make political institutions so strong as to
render it impossible to suspend their operation. Even Sparta allowed its

laws to lapse.
However, none but the greatest dangers can counter-balance that of
changing the public order, and the sacred power of the laws should never be
arrested save when the existence of the country is at stake. In these rare and
obvious cases, provision is made for the public security by a particular act
entrusting it to him who is most worthy. This commitment may be carried
out in either of two ways, according to the nature of the danger.
If increasing the activity of the government is a sufficient remedy, power is
concentrated in the hands of one or two of its members: in this case the
change is not in the authority of the laws, but only in the form of
administering them. If, on the other hand, the peril is of such a kind that the
paraphernalia of the laws are an obstacle to their preservation, the method is
to nominate a supreme ruler, who shall silence all the laws and suspend for
a moment the sovereign authority. In such a case, there is no doubt about
the general will, and it is clear that the people's first intention is that the
State shall not perish. Thus the suspension of the legislative authority is in
no sense its abolition; the magistrate who silences it cannot make it speak;
he dominates it, but cannot represent it. He can do anything, except make
laws.
The first method was used by the Roman senate when, in a consecrated
formula, it charged the consuls to provide for the safety of the Republic.
The second was employed when one of the two consuls nominated a
dictator:[1] a custom Rome borrowed from Alba.
During the first period of the Republic, recourse was very often had to the
dictatorship, because the State had not yet a firm enough basis to be able to
maintain itself by the strength of its constitution alone. As the state of
morality then made superfluous many of the precautions which would have
been necessary at other times, there was no fear that a dictator would abuse
his authority, or try to keep it beyond his term of office. On the contrary, so
much power appeared to be burdensome to him who was clothed with it,
and he made all speed to lay it down, as if taking the place of the laws had
been too troublesome and too perilous a position to retain.
It is therefore the danger not of its abuse, but of its cheapening, that makes
me attack the indiscreet use of this supreme magistracy in the earliest times.
For as long as it was freely employed at elections, dedications and purely

formal functions, there was danger of its becoming less formidable in time
of need, and of men growing accustomed to regarding as empty a title that
was used only on occasions of empty ceremonial.
Towards the end of the Republic, the Romans, having grown more
circumspect, were as unreasonably sparing in the use of the dictatorship as
they had formerly been lavish. It is easy to see that their fears were without
foundation, that the weakness of the capital secured it against the
magistrates who were in its midst; that a dictator might, in certain cases,
defend the public liberty, but could never endanger it; and that the chains of
Rome would be forged, not in Rome itself, but in her armies. The weak
resistance offered by Marius to Sulla, and by Pompey to Cæsar, clearly
showed what was to be expected from authority at home against force from
abroad.
This misconception led the Romans to make great mistakes; such, for
example, as the failure to nominate a dictator in the Catilinarian conspiracy.
For, as only the city itself, with at most some province in Italy, was
concerned, the unlimited authority the laws gave to the dictator would have
enabled him to make short work of the conspiracy, which was, in fact,
stifled only by a combination of lucky chances human prudence had no
right to expect.
Instead, the senate contented itself with entrusting its whole power to the
consuls, so that Cicero, in order to take effective action, was compelled on a
capital point to exceed his powers; and if, in the first transports of joy, his
conduct was approved, he was justly called, later on, to account for the
blood of citizens spilt in violation of the laws. Such a reproach could never
have been levelled at a dictator. But the consul's eloquence carried the day;
and he himself, Roman though he was, loved his own glory better than his
country, and sought, not so much the most lawful and secure means of
saving the State, as to get for himself the whole honour of having done so.
[2]
He was therefore justly honoured as the liberator of Rome, and also
justly punished as a law-breaker. However brilliant his recall may have
been, it was undoubtedly an act of pardon.
However this important trust be conferred, it is important that its duration
should be fixed at a very brief period, incapable of being ever prolonged. In
the crises which lead to its adoption, the State is either soon lost, or soon

saved; and, the present need passed, the dictatorship becomes either
tyrannical or idle. At Rome, where dictators held office for six months only,
most of them abdicated before their time was up. If their term had been
longer, they might well have tried to prolong it still further, as the
decemvirs did when chosen for a year. The dictator had only time to provide
against the need that had caused him to be chosen; he had none to think of
further projects.

[1] The nomination was made secretly by night, as if there were something shameful in setting a man
above the laws.
[2] That is what he could not be sure of, if he proposed a dictator; for he dared not nominate himself,
and could not be certain that his colleague would nominate him.

CHAPTER VII

THE CENSORSHIP

As the law is the declaration of the general will, the censorship is the
declaration of the public judgment: public opinion is the form of law which
the censor administers, and, like the prince, only applies to particular cases.
The censorial tribunal, so far from being the arbiter of the people's opinion,
only declares it, and, as soon as the two part company, its decisions are null
and void.
It is useless to distinguish the morality of a nation from the objects of its
esteem; both depend on the same principle and are necessarily
indistinguishable. There is no people on earth the choice of whose pleasures
is not decided by opinion rather than nature. Right men's opinions, and their
morality will purge itself. Men always love what is good or what they find
good; it is in judging what is good that they go wrong. This judgment,
therefore, is what must be regulated. He who judges of morality judges of
honour; and he who judges of honour finds his law in opinion.
The opinions of a people are derived from its constitution; although the law
does not regulate morality, it is legislation that gives it birth. When

legislation grows weak, morality degenerates; but in such cases the
judgment of the censors will not do what the force of the laws has failed to
effect.
From this it follows that the censorship may be useful for the preservation
of morality, but can never be so for its restoration. Set up censors while the
laws are vigorous; as soon as they have lost their vigour, all hope is gone;
no legitimate power can retain force when the laws have lost it.
The censorship upholds morality by preventing opinion from growing
corrupt, by preserving its rectitude by means of wise applications, and
sometimes even by fixing it when it is still uncertain. The employment of
seconds in duels, which had been carried to wild extremes in the kingdom
of France, was done away with merely by these words in a royal edict: "As
for those who are cowards enough to call upon seconds." This judgment, in
anticipating that of the public, suddenly decided it. But when edicts from
the same source tried to pronounce duelling itself an act of cowardice, as
indeed it is, then, since common opinion does not regard it as such, the
public took no notice of a decision on a point on which its mind was already
made up.
I have stated elsewhere[1] that as public opinion is not subject to any
constraint, there need be no trace of it in the tribunal set up to represent it. It
is impossible to admire too much the art with which this resource, which we
moderns have wholly lost, was employed by the Romans, and still more by
the Lacedæmonians.
A man of bad morals having made a good proposal in the Spartan Council,
the Ephors neglected it, and caused the same proposal to be made by a
virtuous citizen. What an honour for the one, and what a disgrace for the
other, without praise or blame of either! Certain drunkards from Samos[2]
polluted the tribunal of the Ephors: the next day, a public edict gave
Samians permission to be filthy. An actual punishment would not have been
so severe as such an impunity. When Sparta has pronounced on what is or is
not right, Greece makes no appeal from her judgments.

[1] I merely call attention in this chapter to a subject with which I have dealt at greater length in my
Letter to M. d'Alembert.

[2] They were from another island, which the delicacy of our language forbids me to name on this
occasion.

CHAPTER VIII

CIVIL RELIGION

At first men had no kings save the gods, and no government save theocracy.
They reasoned like Caligula, and, at that period, reasoned aright. It takes a
long time for feeling so to change that men can make up their minds to take
their equals as masters, in the hope that they will profit by doing so.
From the mere fact that God was set over every political society, it followed
that there were as many gods as peoples. Two peoples that were strangers
the one to the other, and almost always enemies, could not long recognise
the same master: two armies giving battle could not obey the same leader.
National divisions thus led to polytheism, and this in turn gave rise to
theological and civil intolerance, which, as we shall see hereafter, are by
nature the same.
The fancy the Greeks had for rediscovering their gods among the barbarians
arose from the way they had of regarding themselves as the natural
Sovereigns of such peoples. But there is nothing so absurd as the erudition
which in our days identifies and confuses gods of different nations. As if
Moloch, Saturn and Chronos could be the same god! As if the Phœnician
Baal, the Greek Zeus, and the Latin Jupiter could be the same! As if there
could still be anything common to imaginary beings with different names!
If it is asked how in pagan times, where each State had its cult and its gods,
there were no wars of religion, I answer that it was precisely because each
State, having its own cult as well as its own government, made no
distinction between its gods and its laws. Political war was also theological;
the provinces of the gods were, so to speak, fixed by the boundaries of
nations. The god of one people had no right over another. The gods of the
pagans were not jealous gods; they shared among themselves the empire of
the world: even Moses and the Hebrews sometimes lent themselves to this
view by speaking of the God of Israel. It is true, they regarded as powerless

the gods of the Canaanites, a proscribed people condemned to destruction,
whose place they were to take; but remember how they spoke of the
divisions of the neighbouring peoples they were forbidden to attack! "Is not
the possession of what belongs to your god Chamos lawfully your due?"
said Jephthah to the Ammonites. "We have the same title to the lands our
conquering God has made his own."[1] Here, I think, there is a recognition
that the rights of Chamos and those of the God of Israel are of the same
nature.
But when the Jews, being subject to the kings of Babylon, and,
subsequently, to those of Syria, still obstinately refused to recognise any
god save their own, their refusal was regarded as rebellion against their
conqueror, and drew down on them the persecutions we read of in their
history, which are without parallel till the coming of Christianity.[2]
Every religion, therefore, being attached solely to the laws of the State
which prescribed it, there was no way of converting a people except by
enslaving it, and there could be no missionaries save conquerors. The
obligation to change cults being the law to which the vanquished yielded, it
was necessary to be victorious before suggesting such a change. So far from
men fighting for the gods, the gods, as in Homer, fought for men; each
asked his god for victory, and repayed him with new altars. The Romans,
before taking a city, summoned its gods to quit it; and, in leaving the
Tarentines their outraged gods, they regarded them as subject to their own
and compelled to do them homage. They left the vanquished their gods as
they left them their laws. A wreath to the Jupiter of the Capitol was often
the only tribute they imposed.
Finally, when, along with their empire, the Romans had spread their cult
and their gods, and had themselves often adopted those of the vanquished,
by granting to both alike the rights of the city, the peoples of that vast
empire insensibly found themselves with multitudes of gods and cults,
everywhere almost the same; and thus paganism throughout the known
world finally came to be one and the same religion.
It was in these circumstances that Jesus came to set up on earth a spiritual
kingdom, which, by separating the theological from the political system,
made the State no longer one, and brought about the internal divisions
which have never ceased to trouble Christian peoples. As the new idea of a

kingdom of the other world could never have occurred to pagans, they
always looked on the Christians as really rebels, who, while feigning to
submit, were only waiting for the chance to make themselves independent
and their masters, and to usurp by guile the authority they pretended in their
weakness to respect. This was the cause of the persecutions.
What the pagans had feared took place. Then everything changed its aspect:
the humble Christians changed their language, and soon this so-called
kingdom of the other world turned, under a visible leader, into the most
violent of earthly despotisms.
However, as there have always been a prince and civil laws, this double
power and conflict of jurisdiction have made all good polity impossible in
Christian States; and men have never succeeded in finding out whether they
were bound to obey the master or the priest.
Several peoples, however, even in Europe and its neighbourhood, have
desired without success to preserve or restore the old system: but the spirit
of Christianity has everywhere prevailed. The sacred cult has always
remained or again become independent of the Sovereign, and there has been
no necessary link between it and the body of the State. Mahomet held very
sane views, and linked his political system well together; and, as long as the
form of his government continued under the caliphs who succeeded him,
that government was indeed one, and so far good. But the Arabs, having
grown prosperous, lettered, civilised, slack and cowardly, were conquered
by barbarians: the division between the two powers began again; and,
although it is less apparent among the Mahometans than among the
Christians, it none the less exists, especially in the sect of Ali, and there are
States, such as Persia, where it is continually making itself felt.
Among us, the Kings of England have made themselves heads of the
Church, and the Czars have done the same: but this title has made them less
its masters than its ministers; they have gained not so much the right to
change it, as the power to maintain it: they are not its legislators, but only
its princes. Wherever the clergy is a corporate body,[3] it is master and
legislator in its own country. There are thus two powers, two Sovereigns, in
England and in Russia, as well as elsewhere.
Of all Christian writers, the philosopher Hobbes alone has seen the evil and
how to remedy it, and has dared to propose the reunion of the two heads of

the eagle, and the restoration throughout of political unity, without which no
State or government will ever be rightly constituted. But he should have
seen that the masterful spirit of Christianity is incompatible with his system,
and that the priestly interest would always be stronger than that of the State.
It is not so much what is false and terrible in his political theory, as what is
just and true, that has drawn down hatred on it.[4]
I believe that if the study of history were developed from this point of view,
it would be easy to refute the contrary opinions of Bayle and Warburton,
one of whom holds that religion can be of no use to the body politic, while
the other, on the contrary, maintains that Christianity is its strongest
support. We should demonstrate to the former that no State has ever been
founded without a religious basis, and to the latter, that the law of
Christianity at bottom does more harm by weakening than good by
strengthening the constitution of the State. To make myself understood, I
have only to make a little more exact the too vague ideas of religion as
relating to this subject.
Religion, considered in relation to society, which is either general or
particular, may also be divided into two kinds: the religion of man, and that
of the citizen. The first, which has neither temples, nor altars, nor rites, and
is confined to the purely internal cult of the supreme God and the eternal
obligations of morality, is the religion of the Gospel pure and simple, the
true theism, what may be called natural divine right or law. The other,
which is codified in a single country, gives it its gods, its own tutelary
patrons; it has its dogmas, its rites, and its external cult prescribed by law;
outside the single nation that follows it, all the world is in its sight infidel,
foreign and barbarous; the duties and rights of man extend for it only as far
as its own altars. Of this kind were all the religions of early peoples, which
we may define as civil or positive divine right or law.
There is a third sort of religion of a more singular kind, which gives men
two codes of legislation, two rulers, and two countries, renders them subject
to contradictory duties, and makes it impossible for them to be faithful both
to religion and to citizenship. Such are the religions of the Lamas and of the
Japanese, and such is Roman Christianity, which may be called the religion
of the priest. It leads to a sort of mixed and anti-social code which has no
name.

In their political aspect, all these three kinds of religion have their defects.
The third is so clearly bad, that it is waste of time to stop to prove it such.
All that destroys social unity is worthless; all institutions that set man in
contradiction to himself are worthless.
The second is good in that it unites the divine cult with love of the laws,
and, making country the object of the citizens' adoration, teaches them that
service done to the State is service done to its tutelary god. It is a form of
theocracy, in which there can be no pontiff save the prince, and no priests
save the magistrates. To die for one's country then becomes martyrdom;
violation of its laws, impiety; and to subject one who is guilty to public
execration is to condemn him to the anger of the gods: Sacer estod.
On the other hand, it is bad in that, being founded on lies and error, it
deceives men, makes them credulous and superstitious, and drowns the true
cult of the Divinity in empty ceremonial. It is bad, again, when it becomes
tyrannous and exclusive, and makes a people bloodthirsty and intolerant, so
that it breathes fire and slaughter, and regards as a sacred act the killing of
every one who does not believe in its gods. The result is to place such a
people in a natural state of war with all others, so that its security is deeply
endangered.
There remains therefore the religion of man or Christianity—not the
Christianity of to-day, but that of the Gospel, which is entirely different. By
means of this holy, sublime, and real religion all men, being children of one
God, recognise one another as brothers, and the society that unites them is
not dissolved even at death.
But this religion, having no particular relation to the body politic, leaves the
laws in possession of the force they have in themselves without making any
addition to it; and thus one of the great bonds that unite society considered
in severalty fails to operate. Nay, more, so far from binding the hearts of the
citizens to the State, it has the effect of taking them away from all earthly
things. I know of nothing more contrary to the social spirit.
We are told that a people of true Christians would form the most perfect
society imaginable. I see in this supposition only one great difficulty: that a
society of true Christians would not be a society of men.

I say further that such a society, with all its perfection, would be neither the
strongest nor the most lasting: the very fact that it was perfect would rob it
of its bond of union; the flaw that would destroy it would lie in its very
perfection.
Every one would do his duty; the people would be law-abiding, the rulers
just and temperate; the magistrates upright and incorruptible; the soldiers
would scorn death; there would be neither vanity nor luxury. So far, so
good; but let us hear more.
Christianity as a religion is entirely spiritual, occupied solely with heavenly
things; the country of the Christian is not of this world. He does his duty,
indeed, but does it with profound indifference to the good or ill success of
his cares. Provided he has nothing to reproach himself with, it matters little
to him whether things go well or ill here on earth. If the State is prosperous,
he hardly dares to share in the public happiness, for fear he may grow proud
of his country's glory; if the State is languishing, he blesses the hand of God
that is hard upon His people.
For the State to be peaceable and for harmony to be maintained, all the
citizens without exception would have to be good Christians; if by ill hap
there should be a single self-seeker or hypocrite, a Catiline or a Cromwell,
for instance, he would certainly get the better of his pious compatriots.
Christian charity does not readily allow a man to think hardly of his
neighbours. As soon as, by some trick, he has discovered the art of
imposing on them and getting hold of a share in the public authority, you
have a man established in dignity; it is the will of God that he be respected:
very soon you have a power; it is God's will that it be obeyed: and if the
power is abused by him who wields it, it is the scourge wherewith God
punishes His children. There would be scruples about driving out the
usurper: public tranquillity would have to be disturbed, violence would
have to be employed, and blood spilt; all this accords ill with Christian
meekness; and after all, in this vale of sorrows, what does it matter whether
we are free men or serfs? The essential thing is to get to heaven, and
resignation is only an additional means of doing so.
If war breaks out with another State, the citizens march readily out to battle;
not one of them thinks of flight; they do their duty, but they have no passion
for victory; they know better how to die than how to conquer. What does it

matter whether they win or lose? Does not Providence know better than
they what is meet for them? Only think to what account a proud, impetuous
and passionate enemy could turn their stoicism! Set over against them those
generous peoples who were devoured by ardent love of glory and of their
country, imagine your Christian republic face to face with Sparta or Rome:
the pious Christians will be beaten, crushed and destroyed, before they
know where they are, or will owe their safety only to the contempt their
enemy will conceive for them. It was to my mind a fine oath that was taken
by the soldiers of Fabius, who swore, not to conquer or die, but to come
back victorious—and kept their oath. Christians, would never have taken
such an oath; they would have looked on it as tempting God.
But I am mistaken in speaking of a Christian republic; the terms are
mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence.
Its spirit is so favourable to tyranny that it always profits by such a régime.
True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not much
mind: this short life counts for too little in their eyes.
I shall be told that Christian troops are excellent. I deny it. Show me an
instance. For my part, I know of no Christian troops. I shall be told of the
Crusades. Without disputing the valour of the Crusaders, I answer that, so
far from being Christians, they were the priests' soldiery, citizens of the
Church. They fought for their spiritual country, which the Church had,
somehow or other, made temporal. Well understood, this goes back to
paganism: as the Gospel sets up no national religion, a holy war is
impossible among Christians.
Under the pagan emperors, the Christian soldiers were brave; every
Christian writer affirms it, and I believe it: it was a case of honourable
emulation of the pagan troops. As soon as the emperors were Christian, this
emulation no longer existed, and, when the Cross had driven out the eagle,
Roman valour wholly disappeared.
But, setting aside political considerations, let us come back to what is right,
and settle our principles on this important point. The right which the social
compact gives the Sovereign over the subjects does not, we have seen,
exceed the limits of public expediency.[5] The subjects then owe the
Sovereign an account of their opinions only to such an extent as they matter
to the community. Now, it matters very much to the community that each

citizen should have a religion. That will make him love his duty; but the
dogmas of that religion concern the State and its members only so far as
they have reference to morality and to the duties which he who professes
them is bound to do to others. Each man may have, over and above, what
opinions he pleases, without it being the Sovereign's business to take
cognisance of them; for, as the Sovereign has no authority in the other
world, whatever the lot of its subjects may be in the life to come, that is not
its business, provided they are good citizens in this life.
There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign
should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social
sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful
subject.[6] While it can compel no one to believe them, it can banish from
the State whoever does not believe them—it can banish him, not for
impiety, but as an anti-social being, incapable of truly loving the laws and
justice, and of sacrificing, at need, his life to his duty. If any one, after
publicly recognising these dogmas, behaves as if he does not believe them,
let him be punished by death: he has committed the worst of all crimes, that
of lying before the law.
The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded,
without explanation or commentary. The existence of a mighty, intelligent
and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life to
come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity
of the social contract and the laws: these are its positive dogmas. Its
negative dogmas I confine to one, intolerance, which is a part of the cults
we have rejected.
Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are, to my mind,
mistaken. The two forms are inseparable. It is impossible to live at peace
with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to hate God who
punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or torment them.
Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some
civil effect;[7] and as soon as it has such an effect, the Sovereign is no
longer Sovereign even in the temporal sphere: thenceforth priests are the
real masters, and kings only their ministers.
Now that there is and can be no longer an exclusive national religion,
tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate others, so long as

their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of citizenship. But
whoever dares to say: Outside the Church is no salvation, ought to be
driven from the State, unless the State is the Church, and the prince the
pontiff. Such a dogma is good only in a theocratic government; in any other,
it is fatal. The reason for which Henry IV is said to have embraced the
Roman religion ought to make every honest man leave it, and still more any
prince who knows how to reason.

[1] Nonne ea quæ possidet Chamos deus tuus, tibi jure debentur? (Judges xi. 24). Such is the text in
the Vulgate. Father de Carrières translates: "Do you not regard yourselves as having a right to what
your god possesses?" I do not know the force of the Hebrew text: but I perceive that, in the Vulgate,
Jephthah positively recognises the right of the god Chamos, and that the French translator weakened
this admission by inserting an "according to you," which is not in the Latin.
[2] It is quite clear that the Phocian war, which was called "the Sacred War," was not a war of
religion. Its object was the punishment of acts of sacrilege, and not the conquest of unbelievers.
[3] It should be noted that the clergy find their bond of union not so much in formal assemblies, as in
the communion of Churches. Communion and ex-communication are the social compact of the
clergy, a compact which will always make them masters of peoples and kings. All priests who
communicate together are fellow-citizens, even if they come from opposite ends of the earth. This
invention is a masterpiece of statesmanship: there is nothing like it among pagan priests; who have
therefore never formed a clerical corporate body.
[4] See, for instance, in a letter from Grotius to his brother (April 11, 1643), what that learned man
found to praise and to blame in the De Cive. It is true that, with a bent for indulgence, he seems to
pardon the writer the good for the sake of the bad; but all men are not so forgiving.
[5] "In the republic," says the Marquis d'Argenson, "each man is perfectly free in what does not harm
others." This is the invariable limitation, which it is impossible to define more exactly. I have not
been able to deny myself the pleasure of occasionally quoting from this manuscript, though it is
unknown to the public, in order to do honour to the memory of a good and illustrious man, who had
kept even in the Ministry the heart of a good citizen, and views on the government of his country that
were sane and right.
[6] Cæsar, pleading for Catiline, tried to establish the dogma that the soul is mortal: Cato and Cicero,
in refutation, did not waste time in philosophising. They were content to show that Cæsar spoke like
a bad citizen, and brought forward a doctrine that would have a bad effect on the State. This, in fact,
and not a problem of theology, was what the Roman senate had to judge.
[7] Marriage, for instance, being a civil contract, has civil effects without which society cannot even
subsist. Suppose a body of clergy should claim the sole right of permitting this act, a right which
every intolerant religion must of necessity claim, is it not clear that in establishing the authority of the
Church in this respect, it will be destroying that of the prince, who will have thenceforth only as
many subjects as the clergy choose to allow him? Being in a position to marry or not to marry people,
according to their acceptance of such and such a doctrine, their admission or rejection of such and
such a formula, their greater or less piety, the Church alone, by the exercise of prudence and
firmness, will dispose of all inheritances, offices and citizens, and even of the State itself, which
could not subsist if it were composed entirely of bastards? But, I shall be told, there will be appeals
on the ground of abuse, summonses and decrees; the temporalities will be seized. How sad! The

clergy, however little, I will not say courage, but sense it has, will take no notice and go its way: it
will quietly allow appeals, summonses, decrees and seizures, and, in the end, will remain the master.
It is not, I think, a great sacrifice to give up a part, when one is sure of securing all.

CHAPTER IX

CONCLUSION

Now that I have laid down the true principles of political right, and tried to
give the State a basis of its own to rest on, I ought next to strengthen it by
its external relations, which would include the law of nations, commerce,
the right of war and conquest, public right, leagues, negotiations, treaties,
etc. But all this forms a new subject that is far too vast for my narrow
scope. I ought throughout to have kept to a more limited sphere.

A DISCOURSE

WHICH WON THE PRIZE AT THE ACADEMY OF DIJON IN 1750,
ON THIS QUESTION PROPOSED BY THE ACADEMY:

HAS THE RESTORATION OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES
HAD A PURIFYING EFFECT UPON MORALS?

Barbaras his ego sum, qui non intelligor illis.—OVID.[1]

PREFACE

The following pages contain a discussion of one of the most sublime and
interesting of all moral questions. It is not concerned, however, with those
metaphysical subtleties, which of late have found their way into every
department of literature, and from which even our academic curricula are
not always free. We have now to do with one of those truths on which the
happiness of mankind depends.
I foresee that I shall not readily be forgiven for having taken up the position
I have adopted. Setting myself up against all that is nowadays most
admired, I can expect no less than a universal outcry against me: nor is the
approbation of a few sensible men enough to make me count on that of the
public. But I have taken my stand, and I shall be at no pains to please either
intellectuals or men of the world. There are in all ages men born to be in
bondage to the opinions of the society in which they live. There are not a
few, who to-day play the free-thinker and the philosopher, who would, if
they had lived in the time of the League, have been no more than fanatics.
No author, who has a mind to outlive his own age, should write for such
readers.
A word more and I have done. As I did not expect the honour conferred on
me, I had, since sending in my Discourse, so altered and enlarged it as
almost to make it a new work; but in the circumstances I have felt bound to
publish it just as it was when it received the prize. I have only added a few
notes, and left two alterations which are easily recognisable, of which the
Academy possibly might not have approved. The respect, gratitude and
even justice I owe to that body seemed to me to demand this
acknowledgment.

[1] Here I am, a barbarian, because men understand me not.

MORAL EFFECTS
OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES

Decipimur specie recti.—HORACE.

The question before me is, "Whether the Restoration of the arts and
sciences has had the effect of purifying or corrupting morals." Which side
am I to take? That, gentlemen, which becomes an honest man, who is
sensible of his own ignorance, and thinks himself none the worse for it.
I feel the difficulty of treating this subject fittingly, before the tribunal
which is to judge of what I advance. How can I presume to belittle the
sciences before one of the most learned assemblies in Europe, to commend
ignorance in a famous Academy, and reconcile my contempt for study with
the respect due to the truly learned?
I was aware of these inconsistencies, but not discouraged by them. It is not
science, I said to myself, that I am attacking; it is virtue that I am defending,
and that before virtuous men—and goodness is even dearer to the good than
learning to the learned.
What then have I to fear? The sagacity of the assembly before which I am
pleading? That, I acknowledge, is to be feared; but rather on account of
faults of construction than of the views I hold. Just sovereigns have never
hesitated to decide against themselves in doubtful cases; and indeed the
most advantageous situation in which a just claim can be, is that of being
laid before a just and enlightened arbitrator, who is judge in his own case.
To this motive, which encouraged me, I may add another which finally
decided me. And this is, that as I have upheld the cause of truth to the best
of my natural abilities, whatever my apparent success, there is one reward
which cannot fail me. That reward I shall find in the bottom of my heart.

THE FIRST PART

It is a noble and beautiful spectacle to see man raising himself, so to speak,
from nothing by his own exertions; dissipating, by the light of reason, all
the thick clouds in which he was by nature enveloped; mounting above
himself; soaring in thought even to the celestial regions; like the sun,
encompassing with giant strides the vast extent of the universe; and, what is
still grander and more wonderful, going back into himself, there to study

man and get to know his own nature, his duties and his end. All these
miracles we have seen renewed within the last few generations.
Europe had relapsed into the barbarism of the earliest ages; the inhabitants
of this part of the world, which is at present so highly enlightened, were
plunged, some centuries ago, in a state still-worse than ignorance. A
scientific jargon, more despicable than mere ignorance, had usurped the
name of knowledge, and opposed an almost invincible obstacle to its
restoration.
Things had come to such a pass, that it required a complete revolution to
bring men back to common sense. This came at last from the quarter from
which it was least to be expected. It was the stupid Mussulman, the eternal
scourge of letters, who was the immediate cause of their revival among us.
The fall of the throne of Constantine brought to Italy the relics of ancient
Greece; and with these precious spoils France in turn was enriched. The
sciences soon followed literature, and the art of thinking joined that of
writing: an order which may seem strange, but is perhaps only too natural.
The world now began to perceive the principal advantage of an intercourse
with the Muses, that of rendering mankind more sociable by inspiring them
with the desire to please one another with performances worthy of their
mutual approbation.
The mind, as well as the body, has its needs: those of the body are the basis
of society, those of the mind its ornaments.
So long as government and law provide for the security and well-being of
men in their common life, the arts, literature and the sciences, less despotic
though perhaps more powerful, fling garlands of flowers over the chains
which weigh them down. They stifle in men's breasts that sense of original
liberty, for which they seem to have been born; cause them to love their
own slavery, and so make of them what is called a civilised people.
Necessity raised up thrones; the arts and sciences have made them strong.
Powers of the earth, cherish all talents and protect those who cultivate them.
[1]
Civilised peoples, cultivate such pursuits: to them, happy slaves, you
owe that delicacy and exquisiteness of taste, which is so much your boast,
that sweetness of disposition and urbanity of manners which make
intercourse so easy and agreeable among you—in a word, the appearance of
all the virtues, without being in possession of one of them.

It was for this sort of accomplishment, which is by so much the more
captivating as it seems less affected, that Athens and Rome were so much
distinguished in the boasted times of their splendour and magnificence: and
it is doubtless in the same respect that our own age and nation will excel all
periods and peoples. An air of philosophy without pedantry; an address at
once natural and engaging, distant equally from Teutonic clumsiness and
Italian pantomime; these are the effects of a taste acquired by liberal studies
and improved by conversation with the world. What happiness would it be
for those who live among us, if our external appearance were always a true
mirror of our hearts; if decorum were but virtue; if the maxims we
professed were the rules of our conduct; and if real philosophy were
inseparable from the title of a philosopher! But so many good qualities too
seldom go together; virtue rarely appears in so much pomp and state.
Richness of apparel may proclaim the man of fortune, and elegance the man
of taste; but true health and manliness are known by different signs. It is
under the home-spun of the labourer, and not beneath the gilt and tinsel of
the courtier, that we should look for strength and vigour of body.
External ornaments are no less foreign to virtue, which is the strength and
activity of the mind. The honest man is an athlete, who loves to wrestle
stark naked; he scorns all those vile trappings, which prevent the exertion of
his strength, and were, for the most part, invented only to conceal some
deformity.
Before art had moulded our behaviour, and taught our passions to speak an
artificial language, our morals were rude but natural; and the different ways
in which we behaved proclaimed at the first glance the difference of our
dispositions. Human nature was not at bottom better then than now; but
men found their security in the ease with which they could see through one
another, and this advantage, of which we no longer feel the value, prevented
their having many vices.
In our day, now that more subtle study and a more refined taste have
reduced the art of pleasing to a system, there prevails in modern manners a
servile and deceptive conformity; so that one would think every mind had
been cast in the same mould. Politeness requires this thing; decorum that;
ceremony has its forms, and fashion its laws, and these we must always
follow, never the promptings of our own nature.

We no longer dare seem what we really are, but lie under a perpetual
restraint; in the meantime the herd of men, which we call society, all act
under the same circumstances exactly alike, unless very particular and
powerful motives prevent them. Thus we never know with whom we have
to deal; and even to know our friends we must wait for some critical and
pressing occasion; that is, till it is too late; for it is on those very occasions
that such knowledge is of use to us.
What a train of vices must attend this uncertainty! Sincere friendship, real
esteem, and perfect confidence are banished from among men. Jealousy,
suspicion, fear, coldness, reserve, hate and fraud lie constantly concealed
under that uniform and deceitful veil of politeness; that boasted candour and
urbanity, for which we are indebted to the light and leading of this age. We
shall no longer take in vain by our oaths the name of our Creator; but we
shall insult Him with our blasphemies, and our scrupulous ears will take no
offence. We have grown too modest to brag of our own deserts; but we do
not scruple to decry those of others. We do not grossly outrage even our
enemies, but artfully calumniate them. Our hatred of other nations
diminishes, but patriotism dies with it. Ignorance is held in contempt; but a
dangerous scepticism has succeeded it. Some vices indeed are condemned
and others grown dishonourable; but we have still many that are honoured
with the names of virtues, and it is become necessary that we should either
have, or at least pretend to have them. Let who will extol the moderation of
our modern sages, I see nothing in it but a refinement of intemperance as
unworthy of my commendation as their artificial simplicity.[2]
Such is the purity to which our morals have attained; this is the virtue we
have made our own. Let the arts and sciences claim the share they have had
in this salutary work. I shall add but one reflection more; suppose an
inhabitant of some distant country should endeavour to form an idea of
European morals from the state of the sciences, the perfection of the arts,
the propriety of our public entertainments, the politeness of our behaviour,
the affability of our conversation, our constant professions of benevolence,
and from those tumultuous assemblies of people of all ranks, who seem,
from morning till night, to have no other care than to oblige one another.
Such a stranger, I maintain, would arrive at a totally false view of our
morality.

Where there is no effect, it is idle to look for a cause: but here the effect is
certain and the depravity actual; our minds have been corrupted in
proportion as the arts and sciences have improved. Will it be said, that this
is a misfortune peculiar to the present age? No, gentlemen, the evils
resulting from our vain curiosity are as old as the world. The daily ebb and
flow of the tides are not more regularly influenced by the moon, than the
morals of a people by the progress of the arts and sciences. As their light
has risen above our horizon, virtue has taken flight, and the same
phenomenon has been constantly observed in all times and places.
Take Egypt, the first school of mankind, that ancient country, famous for its
fertility under a brazen sky; the spot from which Sesostris once set out to
conquer the world. Egypt became the mother of philosophy and the fine
arts; soon she was conquered by Cambyses, and then successively by the
Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, and finally the Turks.
Take Greece, once peopled by heroes, who twice vanquished Asia. Letters,
as yet in their infancy, had not corrupted the disposition of its inhabitants;
but the progress of the sciences soon produced a dissoluteness of manners,
and the imposition of the Macedonian yoke: from which time Greece,
always learned, always voluptuous and always a slave, has experienced
amid all its revolutions no more than a change of masters. Not all the
eloquence of Demosthenes could breathe life into a body which luxury and
the arts had once enervated.
It was not till the days of Ennius and Terence that Rome, founded by a
shepherd, and made illustrious by I peasants, began to degenerate. But after
the appearance of an Ovid, a Catullus, a Martial, and the rest of those
numerous obscene authors, whose very names are enough to put modesty to
the blush, Rome, once the shrine of virtue, became the theatre of vice, a
scorn among the nations, and an object of derision even to barbarians. Thus
the capital of the world at length submitted to the yoke of slavery it had
imposed on others, and the very day of its fall was the eve of that on which
it conferred on one of its citizens the title of Arbiter of Good Taste.
What shall I say of that metropolis of the Eastern Empire, which, by its
situation, seemed destined to be the capital of the world; that refuge of the
arts and sciences, when they were banished from the rest of Europe, more
perhaps by wisdom than barbarism? The most profligate debaucheries, the

most abandoned villainies, the most atrocious crimes, plots, murders and
assassinations form the warp and woof of the history of Constantinople.
Such is the pure source from which have flowed to us the floods of
knowledge on which the present age so prides itself.
But wherefore should we seek, in past ages, for proofs of a truth, of which
the present affords us ample evidence? There is in Asia a vast empire,
where learning is held in honour, and leads to the highest dignities in the
state. If the sciences improved our morals, if they inspired us with courage
and taught us to lay down our lives for the good of our country, the Chinese
should be wise, free and invincible. But, if there be no vice they do not
practise, no crime with which they are not familiar; if the sagacity of their
ministers, the supposed wisdom of their laws, and the multitude of
inhabitants who people that vast empire, have alike failed to preserve them
from the yoke of the rude and ignorant Tartars, of what use were their men
of science and literature? What advantage has that country reaped from the
honours bestowed on its learned men? Can it be that of being peopled by a
race of scoundrels and slaves?
Contrast with these instances the morals of those few nations which, being
preserved from the contagion of useless knowledge, have by their virtues
become happy in themselves and afforded an example to the rest of the
world. Such were the first inhabitants of Persia, a nation so singular that
virtue was taught among them in the same manner as the sciences are with
us. They very easily subdued Asia, and possess the exclusive glory of
having had the history of their political institutions regarded as a
philosophical romance. Such were the Scythians, of whom such wonderful
eulogies have come down to us. Such were the Germans, whose simplicity,
innocence and virtue, afforded a most delightful contrast to the pen of an
historian, weary of describing the baseness and villainies of an enlightened,
opulent and voluptuous nation. Such had been even Rome in the days of its
poverty and ignorance. And such has shown itself to be, even in our own
times, that rustic nation, whose justly renowned courage not even adversity
could conquer, and whose fidelity no example could corrupt.[3]
It is not through stupidity that the people have preferred other activities to
those of the mind. They were not ignorant that in other countries there were
men who spent their time in disputing idly about the sovereign good, and
about vice and virtue. They knew that these useless thinkers were lavish in

their own praises, and stigmatised other nations contemptuously as
barbarians. But they noted the morals of these people, and so learnt what to
think of their learning.[4]
Can it be forgotten that, in the very heart of Greece, there arose a city as
famous for the happy ignorance of its inhabitants, as for the wisdom of its
laws; a republic of demi-gods rather than of men, so greatly superior their
virtues seemed to those of mere humanity? Sparta, eternal proof of the
vanity of science, while the vices, under the conduct of the fine arts, were
being introduced into Athens, even while its tyrant was carefully collecting
together the works of the prince of poets, was driving from her walls artists
and the arts, the learned and their learning!
The difference was seen in the outcome. Athens became the seat of
politeness and taste, the country of orators and philosophers. The elegance
of its buildings equalled that of its language; on every side might be seen
marble and canvas, animated by the hands of the most skilful artists. From
Athens we derive those astonishing performances, which will serve as
models to every corrupt age. The picture of Lacedæmon is not so highly
coloured. There, the neighbouring nations used to say, "men were born
virtuous, their native air seeming to inspire them with virtue." But its
inhabitants have left us nothing but the memory of their heroic actions:
monuments that should not count for less in our eyes than the most curious
relics of Athenian marble.
It is true that, among the Athenians, there were some few wise men who
withstood the general torrent, and preserved their integrity even in the
company of the muses. But hear the judgment which the principal, and most
unhappy of them, passed on the artists and learned men of his day.
"I have considered the poets," says he, "and I look upon them as people
whose talents impose both on themselves and on others; they give
themselves out for wise men, and are taken for such; but in reality they are
anything sooner than that."
"From the poets," continues Socrates, "I turned to the artists. Nobody was
more ignorant of the arts than myself; nobody was more fully persuaded
that the artists were possessed of amazing knowledge. I soon discovered,
however, that they were in as bad a way as the poets, and that both had
fallen into the same misconception. Because the most skilful of them excel

others in their particular jobs, they think themselves wiser than all the rest
of mankind. This arrogance spoilt all their skill in my eyes, so that, putting
myself in the place of the oracle, and asking myself whether I would rather
be what I am or what they are, know what they know, or know that I know
nothing, I very readily answered, for myself and the god, that I had rather
remain as I am.
"None of us, neither the sophists, nor the poets, nor the orators, nor the
artists, nor I, know what is the nature of the true, the good, or the beautiful.
But there is this difference between us; that, though none of these people
know anything, they all think they know something; whereas for my part, if
I know nothing, I am at least in no doubt of my ignorance. So the
superiority of wisdom, imputed to me by the oracle, is reduced merely to
my being fully convinced that I am ignorant of what I do not know."
Thus we find Socrates, the wisest of men in the judgment of the god, and
the most learned of all the Athenians in the opinion of all Greece, speaking
in praise of ignorance. Were he alive now, there is little reason to think that
our modern scholars and artists would induce him to change his mind. No,
gentlemen, that honest man would still persist in despising our vain
sciences. He would lend no aid to swell the flood of books that flows from
every quarter: he would leave to us, as he did to his disciples, only the
example and memory of his virtues; that is the noblest method of
instructing mankind.
Socrates had begun at Athens, and the elder Cato proceeded at Rome, to
inveigh against those seductive and subtle Greeks, who corrupted the virtue
and destroyed the courage of their fellow-citizens: culture, however,
prevailed. Rome was filled with philosophers and orators, military
discipline was neglected, agriculture was held in contempt, men formed
sects, and forgot their country. To the sacred names of liberty,
disinterestedness and obedience to law, succeeded those of Epicurus, Zeno
and Arcesilaus. It was even a saying among their own philosophers that
since learned men appeared among them, honest men had been in eclipse.
Before that time the Romans were satisfied with the practice of virtue; they
were undone when they began to study it.
What would the great soul of Fabricius have felt, if it had been his
misfortune to be called back to life, when he saw the pomp and

magnificence of that Rome, which his arm had saved from ruin, and his
honourable name made more illustrious than all its conquests. "Ye gods!"
he would have said, "what has become of those thatched roofs and rustic
hearths, which were formerly the habitations of temperance and virtue?
What fatal splendour has succeeded the ancient Roman simplicity? What is
this foreign language, this effeminacy of manners? What is the meaning of
these statues, paintings and buildings? Fools, what have you done? You, the
lords of the earth, have made yourselves the slaves of the frivolous nations
you have subdued. You are governed by rhetoricians, and it has been only to
enrich architects, painters, sculptors and stage-players that you have
watered Greece and Asia with your blood. Even the spoils of Carthage are
the prize of a flute-player. Romans! Romans! make haste to demolish those
amphitheatres, break to pieces those statues, burn those paintings; drive
from among you those slaves who keep you in subjection, and whose fatal
arts are corrupting your morals. Let other hands make themselves illustrious
by such vain talents; the only talent worthy of Rome is that of conquering
the world and making virtue its ruler. When Cyneas took the Roman senate
for an assembly of kings, he was not struck by either useless pomp or
studied elegance. He heard there none of that futile eloquence, which is
now the study and the charm of frivolous orators. What then was the
majesty that Cyneas beheld? Fellow citizens, he saw the noblest sight that
ever existed under heaven, a sight which not all your riches or your arts can
show; an assembly of two hundred virtuous men, worthy to command in
Rome, and to govern the world."
But let pass the distance of time and place, and let us see what has
happened in our own time and country; or rather let us banish odious
descriptions that might offend our delicacy, and spare ourselves the pains of
repeating the same tilings under different names. It was not for nothing that
I invoked the Manes of Fabricius; for what have I put into his mouth, that
might not have come with as much propriety from Louis the Twelfth or
Henry the Fourth? It is true that in France Socrates would not have drunk
the hemlock, but he would have drunk of a potion infinitely more bitter, of
insult, mockery and contempt a hundred times worse than death.
Thus it is that luxury, profligacy and slavery, have been, in all ages, the
scourge of the efforts of our pride to emerge from that happy state of
ignorance, in which the wisdom of providence had placed us. That thick

veil with which it has covered all its operations seems to be a sufficient
proof that it never designed us for such fruitless researches. But is there,
indeed, one lesson it has taught us, by which we have rightly profited, or
which we have neglected with impunity? Let men learn for once that nature
would have preserved them from science, as a mother snatches a dangerous
weapon from the hands of her child. Let them know that all the secrets she
hides are so many evils from which she protects them, and that the very
difficulty they find in acquiring knowledge is not the least of her bounty
towards them. Men are perverse; but they would have been far worse, if
they had had the misfortune to be born learned.
How humiliating are these reflections to humanity, and how mortified by
them our pride should be! What! it will be asked, is uprightness the child of
ignorance? Is virtue inconsistent with learning? What consequences might
not be drawn from such suppositions? But to reconcile these apparent
contradictions, we need only examine closely the emptiness and vanity of
those pompous titles, which are so liberally bestowed on human knowledge,
and which so blind our judgment. Let us consider, therefore, the arts and
sciences in themselves. Let us see what must result from their advancement,
and let us not hesitate to admit the truth of all those points on which our
arguments coincide with the inductions we can make from history.

[1] Sovereigns always see with, pleasure a taste for the arts of amusement and superfluity, which do
not result in the exportation of bullion, increase among their subjects. They very well know that,
besides nourishing that littleness of mind which is proper to slavery, the increase of artificial wants
only binds so many more chains upon the people. Alexander, wishing to keep the Ichthyophages in a
state of dependence, compelled them to give up fishing, and subsist on the customary food of
civilised nations. The American savages, who go naked, and live entirely on the products of the
chase, have been always impossible to subdue. What yoke, indeed, can be imposed on men who
stand in need of nothing?
[2] "I love," said Montaigne, "to converse and hold an argument; but only with very few people, and
that for my own gratification. For to do so, by way of affording amusement for the great, or of
making a parade of one's talents, is, in my opinion, a trade very ill-becoming a man of honour." It is
the trade of all our intellectuals, save one.
[3] I dare not speak of those happy nations, who did not even know the name of many vices, which
we find it difficult to suppress; the savages of America, whose simple and natural mode of
government Montaigne preferred, without hesitation, not only to the laws of Plato, but to the most
perfect visions of government philosophy can ever suggest He cites many examples, striking for
those who are capable of appreciating them. But, what of all that, says he, they can't run to a pair of
breeches!
[4] What are we to think was the real opinion of the Athenians themselves about eloquence, when
they were so very careful to banish declamation from that upright tribunal, against whose decision
even their gods made no appeal? What did the Romans think of physicians, when they expelled
medicine from the republic? And when the relics of humanity left among the Spaniards induced them
to forbid their lawyers to set foot in America, what must they have thought of jurisprudence? May it
not be said that they thought, by this single expedient, to make reparation for all the outrages they
had committed against the unhappy Indians?

THE SECOND PART

An ancient tradition passed out of Egypt into Greece, that some god, who
was an enemy to the repose of mankind, was the inventor of the sciences.[1]
What must the Egyptians, among whom the sciences first arose, have
thought of them? And they beheld, near at hand, the sources from which
they sprang. In fact, whether we turn to the annals of the world, or eke out
with philosophical investigations the uncertain chronicles of history, we
shall not find for human knowledge an origin answering to the idea we are
pleased to entertain of it at present. Astronomy was born of superstition,
eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood and flattery; geometry of avarice;
physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride.

Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices; we should be less
doubtful of their advantages, if they had sprung from our virtues.
Their evil origin is, indeed, but too plainly reproduced in their objects.
What would become of the arts, were they not cherished by luxury? If men
were not unjust, of what use were jurisprudence? What would become of
history, if there were no tyrants, wars, or conspiracies? In a word, who
would pass his life in barren speculations, if everybody, attentive only to the
obligations of humanity and the necessities of nature, spent his whole life in
serving his country, obliging his friends, and relieving the unhappy? Are we
then made to live and die on the brink of that well at the bottom of which
Truth lies hid? This reflection alone is, in my opinion, enough to discourage
at first setting out every man who seriously endeavours to instruct himself
by the study of philosophy.
What a variety of dangers surrounds us! What a number of wrong paths
present themselves in the investigation of the sciences! Through how many
errors, more perilous than truth itself is useful, must we not pass to arrive at
it? The disadvantages we lie under are evident; for falsehood is capable of
an infinite variety of combinations; but the truth has only one manner of
being. Besides, where is the man who sincerely desires to find it? Or even
admitting his good will, by what characteristic marks is he sure of knowing
it? Amid the infinite diversity of opinions where is the criterion[2] by which
we may certainly judge of it? Again, what is still more difficult, should we
even be fortunate enough to discover it, who among us will know how to
make right use of it?
If our sciences are futile in the objects they propose, they are no less
dangerous in the effects they produce. Being the effect of idleness, they
generate idleness in their turn; and an irreparable loss of time is the first
prejudice which they must necessarily cause to society. To live without
doing some good is a great evil as well in the political as in the moral
world; and hence every useless citizen should be regarded as a pernicious
person. Tell me then, illustrious philosophers, of whom we learn the ratios
in which attraction acts in vacuo; and in the revolution of the planets, the
relations of spaces traversed in equal times; by whom we are taught what
curves have conjugate points, points of inflexion, and cusps; how the soul
and body correspond, like two clocks, without actual communication; what
planets may be inhabited; and what insects reproduce in an extraordinary

manner. Answer me, I say, you from whom we receive all this sublime
information, whether we should have been less numerous, worse governed,
less formidable, less flourishing, or more perverse, supposing you had
taught us none of all these fine things.
Reconsider therefore the importance of your productions; and, since the
labours of the most enlightened of our learned men and the best of our
citizens are of so little utility, tell us what we ought to think of that
numerous herd of obscure writers and useless litterateurs, who devour
without any return the substance of the State.
Useless, do I say? Would God they were! Society would be more peaceful,
and morals less corrupt. But these vain and futile declaimers go forth on all
sides, armed with their fatal paradoxes, to sap the foundations of our faith,
and nullify virtue. They smile contemptuously at such old names as
patriotism and religion, and consecrate their talents and philosophy to the
destruction; and defamation of all that men hold sacred. Not that they bear
any real hatred to virtue or dogma; they are the enemies of public opinion
alone; to bring them to the foot of the altar, it would be enough to banish
them to a land of atheists. What extravagancies will not the rage of
singularity induce men to commit!
The waste of time is certainly a great evil; but still greater evils attend upon
literature and the arts. One is luxury, produced like them by indolence and
vanity. Luxury is seldom unattended by the arts and sciences; and they are
always attended by luxury. I know that our philosophy, fertile in paradoxes,
pretends, in contradiction to the experience of all ages, that luxury
contributes to the splendour of States. But, without insisting on the
necessity of sumptuary laws, can it be denied that rectitude of morals is
essential to the duration of empires, and that luxury is diametrically
opposed to such rectitude? Let it be admitted that luxury is a certain
indication of wealth; that it even serves, if you will, to increase such wealth:
what conclusion is to be drawn from this paradox, so worthy of the times?
And what will become of virtue if riches are to be acquired at any cost? The
politicians of the ancient world were always talking of morals and virtue;
ours speak of nothing but commerce and money. One of them will tell you
that in such a country a man is worth just as much as he will sell for at
Algiers: another, pursuing the same mode of calculation, finds that in some
countries a man is worth nothing, and in others still less than nothing; they

value men as they do droves of oxen. According to them, a man is worth no
more to the State, than the amount he consumes; and thus a Sybarite would
be worth at least thirty Lacedæmonians. Let these writers tell me, however,
which of the two republics, Sybaris or Sparta, was subdued by a handful of
peasants, and which became the terror of Asia.
The monarchy of Cyrus was conquered by thirty thousand men, led by a
prince poorer than the meanest of Persian Satraps: in like manner the
Scythians, the poorest of all nations, were able to resist the most powerful
monarchs of the universe. When two famous republics contended for the
empire of the world, the one rich and the other poor, the former was
subdued by the latter. The Roman empire in its turn, after having engulfed
all the riches of the universe, fell a prey to peoples who knew not even what
riches were. The Franks conquered the Gauls, and the Saxons England,
without any other treasures than their bravery and their poverty. A band of
poor mountaineers, whose whole cupidity was confined to the possession of
a few sheep-skins, having first given a check to the arrogance of Austria,
went on to crush the opulent and formidable house of Burgundy, which at
that time made the potentates of Europe tremble. In short, all the power and
wisdom of the heir of Charles the Fifth, backed by all the treasures of the
Indies, broke before a few herring-fishers. Let our politicians condescend to
lay aside their calculations for a moment, to reflect on these examples; let
them learn for once that money, though it buys everything else, cannot buy
morals and citizens. What then is the precise point in dispute about luxury?
It is to know which is most advantageous to empires, that their existence
should be brilliant and momentary, or virtuous and lasting? I say brilliant,
but with what lustre! A taste for ostentation never prevails in the same
minds as a taste for honesty. No, it is impossible that understandings,
degraded by a multitude of futile cares, should ever rise to what is truly
great and noble; even if they had the strength, they would want the courage.
Every artist loves applause. The praise of his contemporaries is the most
valuable part of his recompense. What then will he do to obtain it, if he
have the misfortune to be born among a people, and at a time, when
learning is in vogue, and the superficiality of youth is in a position to lead
the fashion; when men have sacrificed their taste to those who tyrannise
over their liberty, and one sex dare not approve anything but what is
proportionate to the pusillanimity of the other;[3] when the greatest

masterpieces of dramatic poetry are condemned, and the noblest of musical
productions neglected? This is what he will do. He will lower his genius to
the level of the age, and will rather submit to compose mediocre works, that
will be admired during his life-time, than labour at sublime achievements
which will not be admired till long after he is dead. Let the famous Voltaire
tell us how many nervous and masculine beauties he has sacrificed to our
false delicacy, and how much that is great and noble, that spirit of gallantry,
which delights in what is frivolous and petty, has cost him.
It is thus that the dissolution of morals, the necessary consequence of
luxury, brings with it in its turn the corruption of taste. Further, if by chance
there be found among men of average ability, an individual with enough
strength of mind to refuse to comply with the spirit of the age, and to
debase himself by puerile productions, his lot will be hard. He will die in
indigence and oblivion. This is not so much a prediction, as a fact already
confirmed by experience! Yes, Carle and Pierre Vanloo, the time is already
come when your pencils, destined to increase the majesty of our temples by
sublime and holy images, must fall from your hands, or else be prostituted
to adorn the panels of a coach with lascivious paintings. And you,
inimitable Pigal, rival of Phidias and Praxiteles, whose chisel the ancients
would have employed to carve them gods, whose images almost excuse
their idolatry in our eyes; even your hand must condescend to fashion the
belly of an ape, or else remain idle.
We cannot reflect on the morality of mankind without contemplating with
pleasure the picture of the simplicity which prevailed in the earliest times.
This image may be justly compared to a beautiful coast, adorned only by
the hands of nature; towards which our eyes are constantly turned, and
which we see receding with regret. While men were innocent and virtuous
and loved to have the gods for witnesses of their actions, they dwelt
together in the same huts; but when they became vicious, they grew tired of
such inconvenient onlookers, and banished them to magnificent temples.
Finally, they expelled their deities even from these, in order to dwell there
themselves; or at least the temples of the gods were no longer more
magnificent than the palaces of the citizens. This was the height of
degeneracy; nor could vice ever be carried to greater lengths than when it
was seen, supported, as it were, at the doors of the great, on columns of
marble, and graven on Corinthian capitals.

As the conveniences of life increase, as the arts are brought to perfection,
and luxury spreads, true courage flags, the virtues disappear; and all this is
the effect of the sciences and of those arts which are exercised in the
privacy of men's dwellings. When the Goths ravaged Greece, the libraries
only escaped the flames owing to an opinion that was set on foot among
them, that it was best to leave the enemy with a possession so calculated to
divert their attention from military exercises, and keep them engaged in
indolent and sedentary occupations.
Charles the Eighth found himself master of Tuscany and the kingdom of
Naples, almost without drawing sword; and all his court attributed this
unexpected success to the fact that the princes and nobles of Italy applied
themselves with greater earnestness to the cultivation of their
understandings than to active and martial pursuits. In fact, says the sensible
person who records these characteristics, experience plainly tells us, that in
military matters and all that resemble them application to the sciences tends
rather to make men effeminate and cowardly than resolute and vigorous.
The Romans confessed that military virtue was extinguished among them,
in proportion as they became connoisseurs in the arts of the painter, the
engraver and the goldsmith, and began to cultivate the fine arts. Indeed, as
if this famous country was to be for ever an example to other nations, the
rise of the Medici and the revival of letters has once more destroyed, this
time perhaps for ever, the martial reputation which Italy seemed a few
centuries ago to have recovered.
The ancient republics of Greece, with that wisdom which was so
conspicuous in most of their institutions, forbade their citizens to pursue all
those inactive and sedentary occupations, which by enervating and
corrupting the body diminish also the vigour of the mind. With what
courage, in fact, can it be thought that hunger and thirst, fatigues, dangers
and death, can be faced by men whom the smallest want overwhelms and
the slightest difficulty repels? With what resolution can soldiers support the
excessive toils of war, when they are entirely unaccustomed to them? With
what spirits can they make forced marches under officers who have not
even the strength to travel on horseback? It is no answer to cite the reputed
valour of all the modern warriors who are so scientifically trained. I hear
much of their bravery in a day's battle; but I am told nothing of how they
support excessive fatigue, how they stand the severity of the seasons and

the inclemency of the weather. A little sunshine or snow, or the want of a
few superfluities, is enough to cripple and destroy one of our finest armies
in a few days. Intrepid warriors I permit me for once to tell you the truth,
which you seldom hear. Of your bravery I am fully satisfied. I have no
doubt that you would have triumphed with Hannibal at Cannæ, and at
Trasimene: that you would have passed the Rubicon with Cæsar, and
enabled him to enslave his country; but you never would have been able to
cross the Alps with the former, or with the latter to subdue your own
ancestors, the Gauls.
A war does not always depend on the events of battle: there is in
generalship an art superior to that of gaining victories. A man may behave
with great intrepidity under fire, and yet be a very had officer. Even in the
common soldier, a little more Strength and vigour would perhaps be more
useful than so much courage, which after all is no protection from death.
And what does it matter to the State whether its troops perish by cold and
fever, or by the sword of the enemy?
If the cultivation of the sciences is prejudicial to military qualities, it is still
more so to moral qualities. Even from our infancy an absurd system of
education serves to adorn our wit and corrupt our judgment. We see, on
every side, huge institutions, where our youth are educated at great expense,
and instructed in everything but their duty. Your children will be ignorant of
their own language, when they can talk others which are not spoken
anywhere. They will be able to compose verses which they can hardly
understand; and, without being capable of distinguishing truth from error,
they will possess the art of making them unrecognisable by specious
arguments. But magnanimity, equity, temperance, humanity and courage
will be words of which they know not the meaning. The dear name of
country will never strike on their ears; and if they ever hear speak of God,[4]
it will be less to fear, than to be frightened of Him. I would as soon, said a
wise man, that my pupil had spent his time in the tennis court as in this
manner; for there his body at least would have got exercise.
I well know that children ought to be kept employed, and that idleness is for
them the danger most to be feared. But what should they be taught? This is
undoubtedly an important question. Let them be taught what they are to
practise when they come to be men;[5] not what they ought to forget.

Our gardens are adorned with statues and our galleries with pictures. What
would you imagine these masterpieces of art, thus exhibited to public
admiration, represent? The great men, who have defended their country, or
the still greater men who have enriched it by their virtues? Far from it. They
are the images of every perversion of heart and mind, carefully selected
from ancient mythology, and presented to the early curiosity of our
children, doubtless that they may have before their eyes the representations
of vicious actions, even before they are able to read.
Whence arise all those abuses, unless it be from that fatal inequality
introduced among men by the difference of talents and the cheapening of
virtue? This is the most evident effect of all our studies, and the most
dangerous of all their consequences. The question is no longer whether a
man is honest, but whether he is clever. We do not ask whether a book is
useful, but whether it is well-written. Rewards are lavished on wit and
ingenuity, while virtue is left unhonoured. There are a thousand prizes for
fine discourses, and none for good actions. I should be glad, however, to
know whether the honour attaching to the best discourse that ever wins the
prize in this Academy is comparable with the merit of having founded the
prize.
A wise man does not go in chase of fortune; but he is by no means
insensible to glory, and when he sees it so ill distributed, his virtue, which
might have been animated by a little emulation, and turned to the advantage
of society, droops and dies away in obscurity and indigence. It is for this
reason that the agreeable arts must in time everywhere be preferred to the
useful; and this truth has been but too much confirmed since the revival of
the arts and sciences. We have physicists, geometricians, chemists,
astronomers, poets, musicians, and painters in plenty; but we have no
longer a citizen among us; or if there be found a few scattered over our
abandoned countryside, they are left to perish there unnoticed and
neglected. Such is the condition to which we are reduced, and such are our
feelings towards those who give us our daily bread, and our children milk.
I confess, however, that the evil is not so great as it might have become.
The eternal providence, in placing salutary simples beside noxious plants,
and making poisonous animals contain their own antidote, has taught the
sovereigns of the earth, who are its ministers, to imitate its wisdom. It is by
following this example that the truly great monarch, to whose glory every

age will add new lustre, drew from the very bosom of the arts and sciences,
the very fountains of a thousand lapses from rectitude, those famous
societies, which, while they are depositaries of the dangerous trust of
human knowledge, are yet the sacred guardians of morals, by the attention
they pay to their maintenance among themselves in all their purity, and by
the demands which they make on every member whom they admit.
These wise institutions, confirmed by his august successor and imitated by
all the kings of Europe, will serve at least to restrain men of letters, who, all
aspiring to the honour of being admitted into these Academies, will keep
watch over themselves, and endeavour to make themselves worthy of such
honour by useful performances and irreproachable morals. Those
Academies also, which, in proposing prizes for literary merit, make choice
of such subjects as are calculated to arouse the love of virtue in the hearts of
citizens, prove that it prevails in themselves, and must give men the rare
and real pleasure of finding learned societies devoting themselves to the
enlightenment of mankind, not only by agreeable exercises of the intellect,
but also by useful instructions.
An objection which may be made is, in fact, only an additional proof of my
argument. So much precaution proves but too evidently the need for it. We
never seek remedies for evils that do not exist. Why, indeed, must these
bear all the marks of ordinary remedies, on account of their inefficacy? The
numerous establishments in favour of the learned are only adapted to make
men mistake the objects of the sciences, and turn men's attention to the
cultivation of them. One would be inclined to think, from the precautions
everywhere taken, that we are overstocked with husbandmen, and are afraid
of a shortage of philosophers. I will not venture here to enter into a
comparison between agriculture and philosophy, as they would not bear it. I
shall only ask What is philosophy? What is contained in the writings of the
most celebrated philosophers? What are the lessons of these friends of
wisdom. To hear them, should we not take them for so many mountebanks,
exhibiting themselves in public, and crying out, Here, Here, come to me, I
am the only true doctor? One of them teaches that there is no such thing as
matter, but that everything exists only in representation. Another declares
that there is no other substance than matter, and no other God than the
world itself. A third tells you that there are no such things as virtue and vice,
and that moral good and evil are chimeras; while a fourth informs you that

men are only beasts of prey, and may conscientiously devour one another.
Why, my great philosophers, do you not reserve these wise and profitable
lessons for your friends and children? You would soon reap the benefit of
them, nor should we be under any apprehension of our own becoming your
disciples.
Such are the wonderful men, whom their contemporaries held in the highest
esteem during their lives, and to whom immortality has been attributed
since their decease. Such are the wise maxims we have received from them,
and which are transmitted, from age to age, to our descendants. Paganism,
though given over to all the extravagances of human reason, has left
nothing to compare with the shameful monuments which have been
prepared by the art of printing, during the reign of the gospel. The impious
writings of Leucippus and Diagoras perished with their authors. The world,
in their days, was ignorant of the art of immortalising the errors and
extravagancies of the human mind. But thanks to the art of printing[6] and
the use we make of it, the pernicious reflections of Hobbes and Spinoza will
last for ever. Go, famous writings, of which the ignorance and rusticity of
our forefathers would have been incapable. Go to our descendants, along
with those still more pernicious works which reek of the corrupted manners
of the present age! Let them together convey to posterity a faithful history
of the progress and advantages of our arts and sciences. If they are read,
they will leave not a doubt about the question we are now discussing, and
unless mankind should then be still more foolish than we, they will lift up
their hands to Heaven and exclaim in bitterness of heart: "Almighty God!
thou who holdest in Thy hand the minds of men, deliver us from the fatal
arts and sciences of our forefathers; give us back ignorance, innocence and
poverty, which alone can make us happy and are precious in Thy sight."
But if the progress of the arts and sciences has added nothing to our real
happiness; if it has corrupted our morals, and if that corruption has vitiated
our taste, what are we to think of the herd of text-book authors, who have
removed those impediments which nature purposely laid in the way to the
Temple of the Muses, in order to guard its approach and try the powers of
those who might be tempted to seek knowledge? What are we to think of
those compilers who have indiscreetly broken open the door of the sciences,
and introduced into their sanctuary a populace unworthy to approach it,
when it was greatly to be wished that all who should be found incapable of

making a considerable progress in the career of learning should have been
repulsed at the entrance, and thereby cast upon those arts which are useful
to society. A man who will be all his life a bad versifier, or a third-rate
geometrician, might have made nevertheless an excellent clothier. Those
whom nature intended for her disciples have not needed masters. Bacon,
Descartes and Newton, those teachers of mankind, had themselves no
teachers. What guide indeed could have taken them so far as their sublime
genius directed them? Ordinary masters would only have cramped their
intelligence, by confining it within the narrow limits of their own capacity.
It was from the obstacles they met with at first, that they learned to exert
themselves, and bestirred themselves to traverse the vast field which they
covered. If it be proper to allow some men to apply themselves to the study
of the arts and sciences, it is only those who feel themselves able to walk
alone in their footsteps and to outstrip them. It belongs only to these few to
raise monuments to the glory of the human understanding. But if we are
desirous that nothing should be above their genius, nothing should be
beyond their hopes. This is the only encouragement they require. The soul
insensibly adapts itself to the objects on which it is employed, and thus it is
that great occasions produce great men. The greatest orator in the world was
Consul of Rome, and perhaps the greatest of philosophers Lord Chancellor
of England. Can it be conceived that, if the former had only been a
professor at some University, and the latter a pensioner of some Academy,
their works would not have suffered from their situation. Let not princes
disdain to admit into their councils those who are most capable of giving
them good advice. Let them renounce the old prejudice, which was invented
by the pride of the great, that the art of governing mankind is more difficult
than that of instructing them; as if it was easier to induce men to do good
voluntarily, than to compel them to it by force. Let the learned of the first
rank find an honourable refuge in their courts; let them there enjoy the only
recompense worthy of them, that of promoting by their influence the
happiness of the peoples they have enlightened by their wisdom. It is by
this means only that we are likely to see what virtue, science and authority
can do, when animated by the noblest emulation, and working unanimously
for the happiness of mankind.
But so long as power alone is on one side, and knowledge and
Understanding alone on the other, the learned will seldom make great

objects their study, princes will still more rarely do great actions, and the
peoples will continue to be, as they are, mean, corrupt and miserable.
As for us, ordinary men, on whom Heaven has not been pleased to bestow
such great talents; as we are not destined to reap such glory, let us remain in
our obscurity. Let us not covet a reputation we should never attain, and
which, in the present state of things, would never make up to us for the
trouble it would have cost us, even if we were fully qualified to obtain it.
Why should we build our happiness on the opinions of others, when we can
find it in our own hearts? Let us leave to others the task of instructing
mankind in their duty, and confine ourselves to the discharge of our own.
We have no occasion for greater knowledge than this.
Virtue! sublime science of simple minds, are such industry and preparation
needed if we are to know you? Are not your principles graven on every
heart? Need we do more, to learn your laws, than examine ourselves, and
listen to the voice of conscience, when the passions are silent?
This is the true philosophy, with which we must learn to be content, without
envying the fame of those celebrated men, whose names are immortal in the
republic of letters. Let us, instead of envying them, endeavour to make,
between them and us, that honourable distinction which was formerly seen
to exist between two great peoples, that the one knew how to speak, and the
other how to act, aright.

[1] It is easy to see the allegory in the fable of Prometheus: and it does not appear that the Greeks,
who chained him to the Caucasus, had a better opinion of him than the Egyptians had of their god
Theutus. The Satyr, says an ancient fable, the first time he saw a fire, was going to kiss and embrace
it; but Prometheus cried out to him to forbear, or his beard would rue it. It burns, says he, everything
that touches it.
[2] The less we know, the more we think we know. The peripatetics doubted of nothing. Did not
Descartes construct the universe with cubes and vortices? And is there in all Europe one single
physicist who does not boldly explain the inexplicable mysteries of electricity, which will, perhaps,
be for ever the despair of real philosophers?
[3] I am far from thinking that the ascendancy which women have obtained over men is an evil in
itself. It is a present which nature has made them for the good of mankind. If better directed, it might
be productive of as much good, as it is now of evil. We are not sufficiently sensible of what
advantage it would be to society to give a better education to that half of our species which governs
the other. Men will always be what women choose to make them. If you wish then that they should
be noble and virtuous, let women be taught what greatness of soul and virtue are. The reflections
which this subject arouses, and which Plato formerly made, deserve to be more fully developed by a
pen worthy of following so great a master, and defending so great a cause.

[4] Pensées philosophiques (Diderot).
[5] Such was the education of the Spartans with regard to one of the greatest of their-kings. It is well
worthy of notice, says Montaigne, that the excellent institutions of Lycurgus, which were in truth
miraculously perfect, paid as much attention to the bringing up of youth as if this were their principal
object, and yet, at the very seat of the Muses, they make so little mention of learning that it seems as
if their generous-spirited youth disdained every other restraint, and required, instead of masters of the
sciences, instructors in valour, prudence and justice alone.
Let us hear next what the same writer says of the ancient Persians. Plato, says he, relates that the heir
to the throne was thus brought up. At his birth he was committed, not to the care of women, but to
eunuchs in the highest authority and near the person of the king, on account of their virtue. These
undertook to render his body beautiful and healthy. At seven years of age they taught him to ride and
go hunting. At fourteen he was placed in the hands of four, the wisest, the most just, the most
temperate and the bravest persons in the kingdom. The first instructed him in religion, the second
taught him to adhere inviolably to truth, the third to conquer his passions, and the fourth to be afraid
of nothing. All, I may add, taught him to be a good man; but not one taught him to be learned.
Astyages, in Xenophon, desires Cyrus to give him an account of his last lesson. It was this, answered
Cyrus, one of the big boys, of the school having a small coat, gave it to a little boy and took away
from him his coat, which was larger. Our master having appointed me arbiter in the dispute, I ordered
that matters should stand as they were, as each boy seemed to be better suited than before. The
master, however, remonstrated with me, saying that I considered only convenience, whereas justice
ought to have been the first concern, and justice teaches that no one should suffer forcible
interference with what belongs to him. He added that he was punished for his wrong decision, just as
boys are punished in our country schools when they forget the first aorist of τύπτω. My tutor must
make me a fine harangue, in genere demonstrative, before he will persuade me that his school is as
good as this.
[6] If we consider the frightful disorders which printing has already caused in Europe, and judge of
the future by the progress of its evils from day to day, it is easy to foresee that sovereigns will
hereafter take as much pains to banish this dreadful art from their dominions, as they ever took to
encourage it The Sultan Achmet, yielding to the importunities of certain pretenders to taste,
consented to have a press erected at Constantinople; but it was hardly set to work before they were
obliged to destroy it, and throw the plant into a well.
It is related that the Caliph Omar, being asked what should be done with the library at Alexandria,
answered in these words. "If the books in the library contain anything contrary to the Alcoran, they
are evil and ought to be burnt; if they contain only what the Alcoran teaches, they are superfluous."
This reasoning has been cited by oar men of letters as the height of absurdity; but if Gregory the
Great had been in the place of Omar, and the Gospel in the place of the Alcoran, the library would
still have been burnt, and it would have been perhaps the finest action of his life.

A DISCOURSE

ON A SUBJECT PROPOSED BY THE ACADEMY OF DIJON:

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF INEQUALITY AMONG MEN,
AND IS IT AUTHORISED BY NATURAL LAW?

Non in depravatis, sed in his qua bene secundum naturam
se habent, considerandum est quid sit naturale.
Aristotle, Politics, Bk. i, ch. 2.
[We should consider what is natural not in things which are depraved
but in those which are rightly ordered according to nature.]

DEDICATION

TO THE

REPUBLIC OF GENEVA

MOST HONOURABLE, MAGNIFICENT AND SOVEREIGN LORDS, convinced that only
a virtuous citizen can confer on his country honours which it can accept, I
have been for thirty years past working to make myself worthy to offer you
some public homage; and, this fortunate opportunity supplementing in some
degree the insufficiency of my efforts, I have thought myself entitled to
follow in embracing it the dictates of the zeal which inspires me, rather than
the right which should have been my authorisation. Having had the
happiness to be born among you, how could I reflect on the equality which
nature has ordained between men, and the inequality which they have
introduced, without reflecting on the profound wisdom by which both are in
this State happily combined and made to coincide, in the manner that is
most in conformity with natural law, and most favourable to society, to the
maintenance of public order and to the happiness of individuals? In my
researches after the best rules common sense can lay down for the
constitution of a government, I have been so struck at finding them all in
actuality in your own, that even had I not been born within your walls I
should have thought it indispensable for me to offer this picture of human
society to that people, which of all others seems to be possessed of its
greatest advantages, and to have best guarded against its abuses.

If I had had to make choice of the place of my birth, I should have preferred
a society which had an extent proportionate to the limits of the human
faculties; that is, to the possibility of being well governed: in which every
person being equal to his occupation, no one should be obliged to commit
to others the functions with which he was entrusted: a State, in which all the
individuals being well known to one another, neither the secret
machinations of vice, nor the modesty of virtue should be able to escape the
notice and judgment of the public; and in which the pleasant custom of
seeing and knowing one another should make the love of country rather a
love of the citizens than of its soil.
I should have wished to be born in a country in which the interest of the
Sovereign and that of the people must be single and identical; to the end
that all the movements of the machine might tend always to the general
happiness. And as this could not be the case, unless the Sovereign and the
people were one and the same person, it follows that I should have wished
to be born under a democratic government, wisely tempered.
I should have wished to live and die free: that is, so far subject to the laws
that neither I, nor anybody else, should be able to cast off their honourable
yoke: the easy and salutary yoke which the haughtiest necks bear with the
greater docility, as they are made to bear no other.
I should have wished then that no one within the State should be able to say
he was above the law; and that no one without should be able to dictate so
that the State should be obliged to recognise his authority. For, be the
constitution of a government what it may, if there be within its jurisdiction a
single man who is not subject to the law, all the rest are necessarily at his
discretion. And if there be a national ruler within, and a foreign ruler
without, however they may divide their authority, it is impossible that both
should be duly obeyed, or that the State should be well governed.
I should not have chosen to live in a republic of recent institution, however
excellent its laws; for fear the government, being perhaps otherwise framed
than the circumstances of the moment might require, might disagree with
the new citizens, or they with it, and the State run the risk of overthrow and
destruction almost as soon as it came into being. For it is with liberty as it is
with those solid and succulent foods, or with those generous wines which
are well adapted to nourish and fortify robust constitutions that are used to

them, but ruin and intoxicate weak and delicate constitutions to which they
are not suited. Peoples once accustomed to masters are not in a condition to
do without them. If they attempt to shake off the yoke, they still more
estrange themselves from freedom, as, by mistaking for it an unbridled
license to which it is diametrically opposed, they nearly always manage, by
their revolutions, to hand themselves over to seducers, who only make their
chains heavier than before. The Roman people itself, a model for all free
peoples, was wholly incapable of governing itself when it escaped from the
oppression of the Tarquins. Debased by slavery, and the ignominious tasks
which had been imposed upon it, it was at first no better than a stupid mob,
which it was necessary to control and govern with the greatest wisdom; in
order that, being accustomed by degrees to breathe the health-giving air of
liberty, minds which had been enervated or rather brutalised under tyranny,
might gradually acquire that severity of morals and spirit of fortitude which
made it at length the people of all most worthy of respect. I should, then,
have sought out for my country some peaceful and happy Republic, of an
antiquity that lost itself, as it were, in the night of time: which had
experienced only such shocks as served to manifest and strengthen the
courage and patriotism of its subjects; and whose citizens, long accustomed
to a wise independence, were not only free, but worthy to be so.
I should have wished to choose myself a country, diverted, by a fortunate
impotence, from the brutal love of conquest, and secured, by a still more
fortunate situation, from the fear of becoming itself the conquest of other
States: a free city situated between several nations, none of which should
have any interest in attacking it, while each had an interest in preventing it
from being attacked by the others; in short, a Republic which should have
nothing to tempt the ambition of its neighbours, but might reasonably
depend on their assistance in case of need. It follows that a republican State
so happily situated could have nothing to fear but from itself; and that, if its
members trained themselves to the use of arms, it would be rather to keep
alive that military ardour and courageous spirit which are so proper among
free-men, and tend to keep up their taste for liberty, than from the necessity
of providing for their defence.
I should have sought a country, in which the right of legislation was vested
in all the citizens; for who can judge better than they of the conditions
under which they had best dwell together in the same society? Not that I

should have approved of Plebiscita, like those among the Romans; in which
the rulers in the State, and those most interested in its preservation, were
excluded from the deliberations on which in many cases its security
depended; and in which, by the most absurd inconsistency, the magistrates
were deprived of rights which the meanest citizens enjoyed.
On the contrary, I should have desired that, in order to prevent self-
interested and ill-conceived projects, and all such dangerous innovations as
finally ruined the Athenians, each man should not be at liberty to propose
new laws at pleasure; but that this right should belong exclusively to the
magistrates; and that even they should use it with so much caution, the
people, on its side, be so reserved in giving its consent to such laws, and the
promulgation of them be attended with so much solemnity, that before the
constitution could be upset by them, there might be time enough for all to
be convinced, that it is above all the great antiquity of the laws which
makes them sacred and venerable, that men soon learn to despise laws
which they see daily altered, and that States, by accustoming themselves to
neglect their ancient customs under the pretext of improvement, often
introduce greater evils than those they endeavour to remove.
I should have particularly avoided, as necessarily ill-governed, a Republic
in which the people, imagining themselves in a position to do without
magistrates, or at least to leave them with only a precarious authority,
should imprudently have kept for themselves the administration of civil
affairs and the execution of their own laws. Such must have been the rude
constitution of primitive governments, directly emerging from a state of
nature; and this was another of the vices that contributed to the downfall of
the Republic of Athens.
But I should have chosen a community in which the individuals, content
with sanctioning their laws, and deciding the most important public affairs
in general assembly and on the motion of the rulers, had established
honoured tribunals, carefully distinguished the several departments, and
elected year by year some of the most capable and upright of their fellow-
citizens to administer justice and govern the State; a community, in short, in
which the virtue of the magistrates thus bearing witness to the wisdom of
the people, each class reciprocally did the other honour. If in such a case
any fatal misunderstandings arose to disturb the public peace, even these
intervals of blindness and error would bear the marks of moderation, mutual

esteem, and a common respect for the laws; which are sure signs and
pledges of a reconciliation as lasting as sincere. Such are the advantages,
most honourable, magnificent and sovereign lords, which I should have
sought in the country in which I should have chosen to be born. And if
providence had added to all these a delightful situation, a temperate climate,
a fertile soil, and the most beautiful countryside under Heaven, I should
have desired only, to complete my felicity, the peaceful enjoyment of all
these blessings, in the bosom of this happy country; to live at peace in the
sweet society of my fellow-citizens, and practising towards them, from their
own example, the duties of friendship, humanity, and every other virtue, to
leave behind me the honourable memory of a good man, and an upright and
virtuous patriot.
But, if less fortunate or too late grown wise, I had seen myself reduced to
end an infirm and languishing life in other climates, vainly regretting that
peaceful repose which I had forfeited in the imprudence of youth, I should
at least have entertained the same feelings in my heart, though denied the
opportunity of making use of them in my native country. Filled with a
tender and disinterested love for my distant fellow-citizens, I should have
addressed them from my heart, much in the following terms.
"My dear fellow-citizens, or rather my brothers, since the ties of blood, as
well as the laws, unite almost all of us, it gives me pleasure that I cannot
think of you, without thinking, at the same time, of all the blessings you
enjoy, and of which none of you, perhaps, more deeply feels the value than
I who have lost them. The more I reflect on your civil and political
condition, the less can I conceive that the nature of human affairs could
admit of a better. In all other governments, when there is a question of
ensuring the greatest good of the State, nothing gets beyond projects and
ideas, or at best bare possibilities. But as for you, your happiness is
complete, and you have nothing to do but enjoy it; you require nothing
more to be made perfectly happy, than to know how to be satisfied with
being so. Your sovereignty, acquired or recovered by the sword, and
maintained for two centuries past by your valour and wisdom, is at length
fully and universally acknowledged. Your boundaries are fixed, your rights
confirmed and your repose secured by honourable treaties. Your
constitution is excellent, being not only dictated by the profoundest
wisdom, but guaranteed by great and friendly powers. Your State enjoys

perfect tranquillity; you have neither wars nor conquerors to fear; you have
no other master than the wise laws you have yourselves made; and these are
administered by upright magistrates of your own choosing. You are neither
so wealthy as to be enervated by effeminacy, and thence to lose, in the
pursuit of frivolous pleasures, the taste for real happiness and solid virtue;
nor poor enough to require more assistance from abroad than your own
industry is sufficient to procure you. In the meantime the precious privilege
of liberty, which in great nations is maintained only by submission to the
most exorbitant impositions, costs you hardly anything for its preservation.
May a Republic, so wisely and happily constituted, last for ever, for an
example to other nations, and for the felicity of its own citizens! This is the
only prayer you have left to make, the only precaution that remains to be
taken. It depends, for the future, on yourselves alone (not to make you
happy, for your ancestors have saved you that trouble), but to render that
happiness lasting, by your wisdom in its enjoyment. It is on your constant
union, your obedience to the laws, and your respect for their ministers, that
your preservation depends. If there remains among you the smallest trace of
bitterness or distrust, hasten to destroy it, as an accursed leaven which
sooner or later must bring misfortune and ruin on the State. I conjure you all
to look into your hearts, and to hearken to the secret voice of conscience. Is
there any among you who can find, throughout the universe, a more upright,
more enlightened and more honourable body than your magistracy? Do not
all its members set you an example of moderation, of simplicity of manners,
of respect for the laws, and of the most sincere harmony? Place, therefore,
without reserve, in such wise superiors, that salutary confidence which
reason ever owes to virtue. Consider that they are your own choice, that
they justify that choice, and that the honours due to those whom you have
dignified are necessarily yours by reflexion. Not one of you is so ignorant
as not to know that, when the laws lose their, force and those who defend
them their authority, security and liberty are universally impossible. Why,
therefore, should you hesitate to do that cheerfully and with just confidence
which you would all along have been bound to do by your true interest,
your duty and reason itself?
Let not a culpable and pernicious indifference to the maintenance of the
constitution ever induce you to neglect, in case of need, the prudent advice
of the most enlightened and zealous of your fellow-citizens; but let equity,

moderation and firmness of resolution continue to regulate all your
proceedings, and to exhibit you to the whole universe as the example of a
valiant and modest people, jealous equally of their honour and of their
liberty. Beware particularly, as the last piece of advice I shall give you, of
sinister constructions and venomous rumours, the secret motives of which
are often more dangerous than the actions at which they are levelled. A
whole house will be awake and take the first alarm given by a good and
trusty watch-dog, who barks only at the approach of thieves; but we hate
the importunity of those noisy curs, which are perpetually disturbing the
public repose, and whose continual ill-timed warnings prevent our attending
to them, when they may perhaps be necessary."
And you, most honourable and magnificent lords, the worthy and revered
magistrates of a free people, permit me to offer you in particular my duty
and homage. If there is in the world a station capable of conferring honour
on those who fill it, it is undoubtedly that which virtue and talents combine
to bestow, that of which you have made yourselves worthy, and to which
you have been promoted by your fellow-citizens. Their worth adds a new
lustre to your own; while, as you have been chosen, by men capable of
governing others, to govern themselves, I cannot but hold you as much
superior to all other magistrates, as a free people, and particularly that over
which you have the honour to preside, is by its wisdom and its reason
superior to the populace of other States.
Be it permitted me to cite an example of which there ought to have existed
better records, and one which will be ever near to my heart. I cannot recall
to mind, without the sweetest emotions, the memory of that virtuous citizen,
to whom I owe my being, and by whom I was often instructed, in my
infancy, in the respect which is due to you. I see him still, living by the
work of his hands, and feeding his soul on the sublimest truths. I see the
works of Tacitus, Plutarch and Grotius, lying before him in the midst of the
tools of his trade. At his side stands his dear son, receiving, alas with too
little profit, the tender instructions of the best of fathers. But, if the follies of
youth made me for a while forget his wise lessons, I have at length the
happiness to be conscious that, whatever propensity one may have to vice,
it is not easy for an education, with which love has mingled, to be entirely
thrown away.

Such, my most honourable and magnificent lords, are the citizens, and even
the common inhabitants of the State which you govern; such are those
intelligent and sensible men, of whom, under the name of workmen and the
people, it is usual, in other nations, to have a low and false opinion. My
father, I own with pleasure, was in no way distinguished among his fellow-
citizens. He was only such as they all are; and yet, such as he was, there is
no country, in which his acquaintance would not have been coveted, and
cultivated even with advantage by men of the highest character. It would
not become me, nor is it, thank Heaven, at all necessary for me to remind
you of the regard which such men have a right to expect of their
magistrates, to whom they are equal both by education and by the rights of
nature and birth, and inferior only, by their own will, by that preference
which they owe to your merit, and, for giving you, can claim some sort of
acknowledgment on your side. It is with a lively satisfaction I understand
that the greatest candour and condescension attend, in all your behaviour
towards them, on that gravity which becomes the ministers of the law; and
that you so well repay them, by your esteem and attention, the respect and
obedience which they owe to you. This conduct is not only just but prudent;
as it happily tends to obliterate the memory of many unhappy events, which
ought to be buried in eternal oblivion. It is also so much the more judicious,
as it tends to make this generous and equitable people find a pleasure in
their duty; to make them naturally love to do you honour, and to cause those
who are the most zealous in the maintenance of their own rights to be at the
same time the most disposed to respect yours.
It ought not to be thought surprising that the rulers of a civil society should
have the welfare and glory of their communities at heart: but it is
uncommonly fortunate for the peace of men, when those persons who look
upon themselves as the magistrates, or rather the masters of a more holy
and sublime country, show some love for the earthly country which
maintains them. I am happy in having it in my power to make so singular an
exception in our favour, and to be able to rank, among its best citizens,
those zealous depositaries of the sacred articles of faith established by the
laws, those venerable shepherds of souls whose powerful and captivating
eloquence are so much the better calculated to bear to men's hearts the
maxims of the gospel, as they are themselves the first to put them into
practice. All the world knows of the great success with which the art of the
pulpit is cultivated at Geneva; but men are so used to hearing divines preach

one thing and practise another, that few have a chance of knowing how far
the spirit of Christianity, holiness of manners, severity towards themselves
and indulgence towards their neighbours, prevail throughout the whole
body of our ministers. It is, perhaps, given to the city of Geneva alone, to
produce the edifying example of so perfect a union between its clergy and
men of letters. It is in great measure on their wisdom, their known
moderation, and their zeal for the prosperity of the State that I build my
hopes of its perpetual tranquillity. At the same time, I notice, with a
pleasure mingled with surprise and veneration, how much they detest the
frightful maxims of those accursed and barbarous men, of whom history
furnishes us with more than one example; who, in order to support the
pretended rights of God, that is to say their own interests, have been so
much the less greedy of human blood, as they were more hopeful their own
in particular would be always respected.
I must not forget that precious half of the Republic, which makes the
happiness of the other; and whose sweetness and prudence preserve its
tranquillity and virtue. Amiable and virtuous daughters of Geneva, it will be
always the lot of your sex to govern ours. Happy are we, so long as your
chaste influence, solely exercised within the limits of conjugal union, is
exerted only for the glory of the State and the happiness of the public. It
was thus the female sex commanded at Sparta; and thus you deserve to
command at Geneva. What man can be such a barbarian as to resist the
voice of honour and reason, coming from the lips of an affectionate wife?
Who would not despise; the vanities of luxury, on beholding the simple and
modest attire which, from the lustre it derives from you, seems the most
favourable to beauty? It is your task to perpetuate, by your insinuating
influence and your innocent and amiable rule, a respect for the laws of the
State, and harmony among the citizens. It is yours to reunite divided
families by happy marriages; and, above all things, to correct, by the
persuasive sweetness of your lessons and the modest graces of your
conversation, those extravagancies which our young people pick up in other
countries, whence, instead of many useful things by which they might
profit, they bring home hardly anything, besides a puerile air and a
ridiculous manner, acquired among loose women, but an admiration for I
know not what so-called grandeur, and paltry recompenses for being slaves,
which can never come near the real greatness of liberty. Continue, therefore,
always to be what you are, the chaste guardians of our morals, and the

sweet security for our peace, exerting on every occasion the privileges of
the heart and of nature, in the interests of duty and virtue.
I flatter myself that I shall never be proved to have been mistaken, in
building on such a foundation my hopes of the general happiness of the
citizens and the glory of the Republic. It must be confessed, however, that
with all these advantages, it will not shine with that lustre, by which the
eyes of most men are dazzled; a puerile and fatal taste for which is the most
mortal enemy of happiness and liberty.
Let our dissolute youth seek elsewhere light pleasures and long repentances.
Let our pretenders to taste admire elsewhere the grandeur of palaces, the
beauty of equipages, sumptuous furniture, the pomp of public
entertainments, and all the refinements of luxury and effeminacy. Geneva
boasts nothing but men; such a sight has nevertheless a value of its own,
and those who have a taste for it are well worth the admirers of all the rest.
Deign, most honourable, magnificent and sovereign lords, to receive, and
with equal goodness, this respectful testimony of the interest I take in your
common prosperity. And, if I have been so unhappy as to be guilty of any
indiscreet transport in this glowing effusion of my heart, I beseech you to
pardon me, and to attribute it to the tender affection of a true patriot, and to
the ardent and legitimate zeal of a man, who can imagine for himself no
greater felicity than to see you happy.
Most honourable, magnificent and sovereign lords, I am, with the most
profound respect,
Your most humble and obedient servant and fellow-citizen.
J. J. ROUSSEAU.
Chambéry,
June 12, 1754.

PREFACE

Of all human sciences the most useful and most imperfect appears to me to
be that of mankind: and I will venture to say, the single inscription on the

Temple of Delphi contained a precept more difficult and more important
than is to be found in all the huge volumes that moralists have ever written.
I consider the subject of the following discourse as one of the most
interesting questions philosophy can propose, and unhappily for us, one of,
the most thorny that philosophers can have to solve. For how shall we know
the source of inequality between men, if we do not begin by knowing
mankind? And how shall man hope to see himself as nature made him,
across all the changes which the succession of place and time must have
produced in his original constitution? How can he distinguish what is
fundamental in his nature from the changes and additions which his
circumstances and the advances he has made have introduced to modify his
primitive condition? Like the statue of Glaucus, which was so disfigured by
time, seas and tempests, that it looked more like a wild beast than a god, the
human soul, altered in society by a thousand causes perpetually recurring,
by the acquisition of a multitude of truths and errors, by the changes
happening to the constitution of the body, and by the continual jarring of the
passions, has, so to speak, changed in appearance, so as to be hardly
recognisable. Instead of a being, acting constantly from fixed and invariable
principles, instead of that celestial and majestic simplicity, impressed on it
by its divine Author, we find in it only the frightful contrast of passion
mistaking itself for reason, and of understanding grown delirious.
It is still more cruel that, as every advance made by the human species
removes it still farther from its primitive state, the more discoveries we
make, the more we deprive ourselves of the means of making the most
important of all. Thus it is, in one sense, by our very study of man, that the
knowledge of him is put out of our power.
It is easy to perceive that it is in these successive changes in the constitution
of man that we must look for the origin of those differences which now
distinguish men, who, it is allowed, are as equal among themselves as were
the animals of every kind, before physical causes had introduced those
varieties which are now observable among some of them.
It is, in fact, not to be conceived that these primary changes, however they
may have arisen, could have altered, all at once and in the same manner,
every individual of the species. It is natural to think that, while the
condition of some of them grew better or worse, and they were acquiring
various good or bad qualities not inherent in their nature, there were others

who continued a longer time in their original condition. Such was doubtless
the first source of the inequality of mankind, which it is much easier to
point out thus in general terms, than to assign with precision to its actual
causes.
Let not my readers therefore imagine that I flatter myself with having seen
what it appears to me so difficult to discover. I have here entered upon
certain arguments, and risked some conjectures, less in the hope of solving
the difficulty, than with a view to throwing some light upon it, and reducing
the question to its proper form. Others may easily proceed farther on the
same road, and yet no one find it very easy to get to the end. For it is by no
means a light undertaking to distinguish properly between what is original
and what is artificial in the actual nature of man, or to form a true idea of a
state which no longer exists, perhaps never did exist, and probably never
will exist; and of which, it is, nevertheless, necessary to have true ideas, in
order to form a proper judgment of our present state. It requires, indeed,
more philosophy than can be imagined to enable any one to determine
exactly what precautions he ought to take, in order to make solid
observations on this subject; and it appears to me that a good solution of the
following problem would be not unworthy of the Aristotles and Plinys of
the present age. What experiments would have to be made, to discover the
natural man? And how are those experiments to be made in a state of
society?
So far am I from undertaking to solve this problem, that I think I have
sufficiently, considered the subject, to venture to declare beforehand that
our greatest philosophers would not be too good to direct such experiments,
and our most powerful sovereigns to make them. Such a combination we
have very little reason to expect, especially attended with the perseverance,
or rather succession of intelligence and good-will necessary on both sides to
success.
These investigations, which are so difficult to make, and have been hitherto
so little thought of, are, nevertheless, the only means that remain of
obviating a multitude of difficulties which deprive us of the knowledge of
the real foundations of human society. It is this ignorance of the nature of
man, which casts so much uncertainty and obscurity on the true definition
of natural right: for, the idea of right, says Burlamaqui, and more
particularly that of natural right, are ideas manifestly relative to the nature

of man. It is then from this very nature itself, he goes on, from the
constitution and state of man, that we must deduce the first principles of
this science.
We cannot see without surprise and disgust how little agreement there is
between the different authors who have treated this great subject. Among
the more important writers there are scarcely two of the same mind about it.
Not to speak of the ancient philosophers, who seem to have done their best
purposely to contradict one another on the most fundamental principles, the
Roman jurists subjected man and the other animals indiscriminately to the
same natural law, because they considered, under that name, rather the law
which nature imposes on herself than that which she prescribes to others; or
rather because of the particular acceptation of the term law among those
jurists; who seem on this occasion to have understood nothing more by it
than the general relations established by nature between all animated
beings, for their common preservation. The moderns, understanding, by the
term law, merely a rule prescribed to a moral being, that is to say intelligent,
free and considered in his relations to other beings, consequently confine
the jurisdiction of natural law to man, an the only animal endowed with
reason. But, defining this law, each after his own fashion, they have
established it on such metaphysical principles, that there are very few
persons among us capable of comprehending them, much less of
discovering them for themselves. So that the definitions of these learned
men, all differing in everything else, agree only in this, that it is impossible
to comprehend the law of nature, and consequently to obey it, without being
a very subtle casuist and a profound metaphysician. All which is as much as
to say that mankind must have employed, in the establishment of society, a
capacity which is acquired only with great difficulty, and by very few
persons, even in a state of society.
Knowing so little of nature, and agreeing so ill about the meaning of the
word law, it would be difficult for us to fix on a good definition of natural
law. Thus all the definitions we meet with in books, setting: aside their
defect in point of uniformity, have yet another fault, in that they are derived
from many kinds of knowledge, which men do not possess naturally, and
from advantages of which they can have no idea until they have already
departed from that state. Modern writers begin by inquiring what rules it
would be expedient for men to agree on for their common interest, and then

give the name of natural law to a collection of these rules, without any other
proof than the good that would result from their being universally practised.
This is undoubtedly a simple way of making definitions, and of explaining
the nature of things by almost arbitrary conveniences.
But as long as we are ignorant of the natural man, it is in vain for us to
attempt to determine either the law originally prescribed to him, or that
which is best adapted to his constitution. All we can know with any
certainty respecting this law is that, if it is to be a law, not only the wills of
those it obliges must be sensible of their submission to it; but also, to be
natural, it must come directly from the voice of nature.
Throwing aside, therefore, all those scientific books, which teach us only to
see men such as they have made themselves, and contemplating the first
and most simple operations of the human soul, I think I can perceive in it
two principles prior to reason, one of them deeply interesting us in our own
welfare and preservation, and the other exciting a natural repugnance at
seeing any other sensible being, and particularly any of our own species,
suffer pain or death. It is from the agreement and combination which the
understanding is in a position to establish between these two principles,
without its being necessary to introduce that of sociability, that all the rules
of natural right appear to me to be derived—rules which our reason is
afterwards obliged to establish on other foundations, when by its successive
developments it has been led to suppress nature itself.
In proceeding thus, we shall not be obliged to make man a philosopher
before he is a man. His duties toward others are not dictated to him only by
the later lessons of wisdom and, so long as he does not resist the internal
impulse of compassion, he will never hurt any other man, nor even any
sentient being; except on those lawful occasions on which his own
preservation is concerned and he is obliged to give himself the preference.
By this method also we put an end to the time-honoured disputes
concerning the participation of animals in natural law: for it is clear that,
being destitute of intelligence and liberty, they cannot recognise that law; as
they partake, however, in some measure of our nature, in consequence of
the sensibility with which they are endowed, they ought to partake of
natural rights so that mankind is subjected to a kind of obligation even
toward the brutes. It appears, in fact, that if I am bound to do no injury to
my fellow-creatures, this is less because they are rational than because they

are sentient beings: and this quality, being common both to men and beasts,
ought to entitle the latter at least to the privilege of not being wantonly ill-
treated by the former.
The very study of the original man, of his real wants, and the fundamental
principles of his duty, is besides the only proper method we can adopt to
obviate all the difficulties which the origin of moral inequality presents, on
the true foundations of the body politic, on the reciprocal rights of its
members, and on many other similar topics equally important and obscure.
If we look at human society with a calm and disinterested eye, it seems, at
first, to show us only the violence of the powerful and the oppression of the
weak. The mind is shocked at the cruelty of the one, or is induced to lament
the blindness of the other; and as nothing is less permanent in life than
those external relations, which are more frequently produced by accident
than wisdom, and which are called weakness or power, riches or poverty, all
human institutions seem at first glance to be founded merely on banks of
shifting sand. It is only by taking a closer look, and removing the dust and
sand that surround the edifice, that we perceive the immovable basis on
which it is raised, and learn to respect its foundations. Now, without a
serious study of man, his natural faculties and their successive
development, we shall never be able to make these necessary distinctions,
or to separate, in the actual constitution of things, that which is the effect of
the divine will, from the innovations attempted by human art. The political
and moral investigations, therefore, to which the important question before
us leads, are in every respect useful; while the hypothetical history of
governments affords a lesson equally instructive to mankind.
In considering what we should have become, had we been left to ourselves,
we should learn to bless Him, whose gracious hand, correcting our
institutions, and giving them an immovable basis, has prevented those
disorders which would otherwise have arisen from them, and caused our
happiness to come from those very sources which seemed likely to involve
us in misery.
Quem te deus esse
Jussit, et humanâ quâ parte locatus es in re,
Disce.
Persius, Satire iii, 71.

A DISSERTATION

ON THE ORIGIN AND FOUNDATION OF THE INEQUALITY OF
MANKIND

It is of man that I have to speak; and the question I am investigating shows
me that it is to men that I must address myself: for questions of this sort are
not asked by those who are afraid to honour truth. I shall then confidently
uphold the cause of humanity before the wise men who invite me to do so,
and shall not be dissatisfied if I acquit myself in a manner worthy of my
subject and of my judges.
I conceive that there are two kinds of inequality among the human species;
one, which I call natural or physical, because it is established by nature, and
consists in a difference of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of
the mind or of the soul: and another, which may be called moral or political
inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention, and is established,
or at least authorised by the consent of men. This latter consists of the
different privileges, which some men enjoy to the prejudice of others; such
as that of being more rich, more honoured, more powerful or even in a
position to exact obedience.
It is useless to ask what is the source of natural inequality, because that
question is answered by the simple definition of the word. Again, it is still
more useless to inquire whether there is any essential connection between
the two inequalities; for this would be only asking, in other words, whether
those who command are necessarily better than those who obey, and if
strength of body or of mind, wisdom or virtue are always found in
particular individuals, in proportion to their power or wealth: a question fit
perhaps to be discussed by slaves in the hearing of their masters, but highly
unbecoming to reasonable and free men in search of the truth.
The subject of the present discourse, therefore, is more precisely this. To
mark, in the progress of things, the moment at which right took the place of
violence and nature became subject to law, and to explain by what sequence
of miracles the strong came to submit to serve the weak, and the people to
purchase imaginary repose at the expense of real felicity.

The philosophers, who have inquired into the foundations of society, have
all felt the necessity of going back to a state of nature; but not one of them
has got there. Some of them have not hesitated to ascribe to man, in such a
state, the idea of just and unjust, without troubling themselves to show that
he must be possessed of such an idea, or that it could be of any use to him.
Others have spoken of the natural right of every man to keep what belongs
to him, without explaining what they meant by belongs. Others again,
beginning by giving the strong authority over the weak, proceeded directly
to the birth of government, without regard to the time that must have
elapsed before the meaning of the words authority and government could
have existed among men. Every one of them, in short, constantly dwelling
on wants, avidity, oppression, desires and pride, has transferred to the state
of nature ideas which were acquired in society; so that, in speaking of the
savage, they described the social man. It has not even entered into the heads
of most of our writers to doubt whether the state of nature ever existed; but
it is clear from the Holy Scriptures that the first man, having received his
understanding and commandments immediately from God, was not himself
in such a state; and that, if we give such credit to the writings of Moses as
every Christian philosopher ought to give, we must deny that, even before
the deluge, men were ever in the pure state of nature; unless, indeed, they
fell back into it from some very extraordinary circumstance; a paradox
which it would be very embarrassing to defend, and quite impossible to
prove.
Let us begin then by laying facts aside, as they do not affect the question.
The investigations we may enter into, in treating this subject, must not be
considered as historical truths, but only as mere conditional and
hypothetical reasonings, rather calculated to explain the nature of things,
than to ascertain their actual origin; just like the hypotheses which our
physicists daily form respecting the formation of the world. Religion
commands us to believe that, God Himself having taken men out of a state
of nature immediately after the creation, they are unequal only because it is
His will they should be so: but it does not forbid us to form conjectures
based solely on the nature of man, and the beings around him, concerning
what might have become of the human race, if it had been left to itself. This
then is the question asked me, and that which I propose to discuss in the
following discourse. As my subject interests mankind in general, I shall
endeavour to make use of a style adapted to all nations, or rather, forgetting

time and place, to attend only to men to whom I am speaking. I shall
suppose myself in the Lyceum of Athens, repeating the lessons of my
masters, with Plato and Xenocrates for judges, and the whole human race
for audience.
O man, of whatever country you are, and whatever your opinions may be,
behold your history, such as I have thought to read it, not in books written
by your fellow-creatures, who are liars, but in nature, which never lies. All
that comes from her will be true; nor will you meet with anything false,
unless I have involuntarily put in something of my own. The times of which
I am going to speak are very remote: how much are you changed from what
you once were! It is so to speak, the life of your species which I am going
to write, after the qualities which you have received, which your education
and habits may have depraved, but cannot have entirely destroyed. There is,
I feel, an age at which the individual man would wish to stop; you are about
to inquire about the age at which you would have liked your whole species
to stand still. Discontented with your present state, for reasons which
threaten your unfortunate descendants with still greater discontent, you will
perhaps wish it were in your power to go back; and this feeling should be a
panegyric on your first ancestors, a criticism of your contemporaries, and a
terror to the unfortunates who will come after you.

THE FIRST PART

Important as it may be, in order to judge rightly of the natural state of man,
to consider him from his origin, and to examine him, as it were, in the
embryo of his species; I shall not follow his organisation through its
successive developments, nor shall I stay to inquire what his animal system
must have been at the beginning, in order to become at length what it
actually is. I shall not ask whether his long nails were at first, as Aristotle
supposes, only crooked talons; whether his whole body, like that of a bear,
was not covered with hair; or whether the fact that he walked upon all fours,
with his looks directed toward the earth, confined to a horizon of a few
paces, did not at once point out the nature and limits of his ideas. On this
subject I could form none but vague and almost imaginary conjectures.

Comparative anatomy has as yet made too little progress, and the
observations of naturalists are too uncertain, to afford an adequate basis for
any solid reasoning. So that, without having recourse to the supernatural
information given us on this head, or paying any regard to the changes
which must have taken place in the internal, as well as the external,
conformation of man, as he applied his limbs to new uses, and fed himself
on new kinds of food, I shall suppose his conformation to have been at all
times what it appears to us at this day; that he always walked on two legs,
made use of his hands as we do, directed his looks over all nature, and
measured with his eyes the vast expanse of Heaven.
If we strip this being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he may
have received, and all the artificial faculties he can have acquired only by a
long process; if we consider him, in a word, just as he must have come from
the hands of nature, we behold in him an animal weaker than some, and less
agile than others; but, taking him all round, the most advantageously
organised of any. I see him satisfying his hunger at the first oak, and slaking
his thirst at the first brook; finding his bed at the foot of the tree which
afforded him a repast; and, with that, all his wants supplied.
While the earth was left to its natural fertility and covered with immense
forests, whose trees were never mutilated by the axe, it would present on
every side both sustenance and shelter for every species of animal. Men
dispersed up and down among the rest, would observe and imitate their
industry, and thus attain even to the instinct of the beasts, with the
advantage that, whereas every species of brutes was confined to one
particular instinct, man, who perhaps has not any one peculiar to himself,
would appropriate them all, and live upon most of those different foods,
which other animals shared among themselves; and thus would find his
subsistence much more easily than any of the rest.
Accustomed from their infancy to the inclemencies of the weather and the
rigour of the seasons, inured to fatigue, and forced, naked and unarmed, to
defend themselves and their prey from other ferocious animals, or to escape
them by flight, men would acquire a robust and almost unalterable
constitution. The children, bringing with them into the world the excellent
constitution of their parents, and fortifying it by the very exercises which
first produced it, would thus acquire all the vigour of which the human
frame is capable. Nature in this case treats them exactly as Sparta treated

the children of her citizens: those who come well formed into the world she
renders strong and robust, and all the rest she destroys; differing in this
respect from our modern communities, in which the State, by making
children a burden to their parents, kills them indiscriminately before they
are born.
The body of a savage man being the only instrument he understands, he
uses it for various purposes, of which ours, for want of practice, are
incapable: for our industry deprives us of that force and agility, which
necessity obliges him to acquire. If he had had an axe, would he have been
able with his naked arm to break so large a branch from a tree? If he had
had a sling, would he have been able to throw a stone with so great
velocity? If he had had a ladder, would he have been so nimble in climbing
a tree? If he had had a horse, would he have been himself so swift of foot?
Give civilised man time to gather all his machines about him, and he will no
doubt easily beat the savage; but if you would see a still more unequal
contest, set them together naked and unarmed, and you will soon see the
advantage of having all our forces constantly at our disposal, of being
always prepared for every event, and of carrying one's self, as it were,
perpetually whole and entire about one.
Hobbes contends that man is naturally intrepid, and is intent only upon
attacking and fighting. Another illustrious philosopher holds the opposite,
and Cumberland and Puffendorf also affirm that nothing is more timid and
fearful than man in the state of nature; that he is always in a tremble, and
ready to fly at the least noise or the slightest movement. This may be true of
things he does not know; and I do not doubt his being terrified by every
novelty that presents itself, when he neither knows the physical good or evil
he may expect from it, nor can make a comparison between his own
strength and the dangers he is about to encounter. Such circumstances,
however, rarely occur in a state of nature, in which all things proceed in a
uniform manner, and the face of the earth is not subject to those sudden and
continual changes which arise from the passions and caprices of bodies of
men living together. But savage man, living dispersed among other animals
and finding himself betimes in a situation to measure his strength with
theirs, soon comes to compare himself with them; and, perceiving that he
surpasses them more in adroitness than they surpass him in strength, learns
to be no longer afraid of them. Set a bear, or a wolf, against a robust, agile,

and resolute savage, as they all are, armed with stones and a good cudgel,
and you will see that the danger will be at least on both sides, and that, after
a few trials of this kind, wild beasts, which are not fond of attacking each
other, will not be at all ready to attack man, whom they will have found to
be as wild and ferocious as themselves. With regard to such animals as have
really more strength than man has adroitness, he is in the same situation as
all weaker animals, which notwithstanding are still able to subsist; except
indeed that he has the advantage that, being equally swift of foot, and
finding an almost certain place of refuge in every tree, he is at liberty to
take or leave it at every encounter, and thus to fight or fly, as he chooses.
Add to this that it does not appear that any animal naturally makes war on
man, except in case of self-defence or excessive hunger, or betrays any of
those violent antipathies, which seem to indicate that one species is
intended by nature for the food of another.
This is doubtless why negroes and savages are so little afraid of the wild
beasts they may meet in the woods. The Caraibs of Venezuela among others
live in this respect in absolute security and without the smallest
inconvenience. Though they are almost naked, Francis Correal tells us, they
expose themselves freely in the woods, armed only with bows and arrows;
but no one has ever heard of one of them being devoured by wild beasts.
But man has other enemies more formidable, against which he is not
provided with such means of defence: these are the natural infirmities of
infancy, old age, and illness of every kind, melancholy proofs of our
weakness, of which the two first are common to all animals, and the last
belongs chiefly to man in a state of society. With regard to infancy, it is
observable that the mother, carrying her child always with her, can nurse it
with much greater ease than the females of many other animals, which are
forced to be perpetually going and coming, with great fatigue, one way to
find subsistence, and another to suckle or feed their young. It is true that if
the woman happens to perish, the infant is in great danger of perishing with
her; but this risk is common to many other species of animals, whose young
take a long time before they are able to provide for themselves. And if our
infancy is longer than theirs, our lives are longer in proportion; so that all
things are in this respect fairly equal; though there are other rules to be
considered regarding the duration of the first period of life, and the number
of young, which do not affect the present subject. In old age, when men are

less active and perspire little, the need for food diminishes with the ability
to provide it. As the savage state also protects them from gout and
rheumatism, and old age is, of all ills, that which human aid can least
alleviate, they cease to be, without others perceiving that they are no more,
and almost without perceiving it themselves.
With respect to sickness, I shall not repeat the vain and false declamations
which most healthy people pronounce against medicine; but I shall ask if
any solid observations have been made from which it may be justly
concluded that, in the countries where the art of medicine is most neglected,
the mean duration of man's life is less than in those where it is most
cultivated. How indeed can this be the case, if we bring on ourselves more
diseases than medicine can furnish remedies? The great inequality in
manner of living, the extreme idleness of some, and the excessive labour of
others, the easiness of exciting and gratifying our sensual appetites, the too
exquisite foods of the wealthy which overheat and fill them with
indigestion, and, on the other hand, the unwholesome food of the poor,
often, bad as it is, insufficient for their needs, which induces them, when
opportunity offers, to eat voraciously and overcharge their stomachs; all
these, together with sitting up late, and excesses of every kind, immoderate
transports of every passion, fatigue, mental exhaustion, the innumerable
pains and anxieties inseparable from every condition of life, by which the
mind of man is incessantly tormented; these are too fatal proofs that the
greater part of our ills are of our own making, and that we might have
avoided them nearly all by adhering to that simple, uniform and solitary
manner of life which nature prescribed. If she destined man to be healthy, I
venture to declare that a state of reflection is a state contrary to, nature, and
that a thinking man is a depraved animal. When we think of the good
constitution of the savages, at least of those whom we have not ruined with
our spirituous liquors, and reflect that they are troubled with hardly any
disorders, save wounds and old age, we are tempted to believe that, in
following the history of civil society, we shall be telling also that of human
sickness. Such, at least, was the opinion of Plato, who inferred from certain
remedies prescribed, or approved, by Podalirius and Machaon at the siege
of Troy, that several sicknesses which these remedies gave rise to in his
time, were not then known to mankind: and Celsus tells us that diet, which
is now so necessary, was first invented by Hippocrates.

Being subject therefore to so few causes of sickness, man, in the state of
nature, can have no need of remedies, and still less of physicians: nor is the
human race in this respect worse off than other animals, and it is easy to
learn from hunters whether they meet with many infirm animals in the
course of the chase. It is certain they frequently meet with such as carry the
marks of having been considerably wounded, with many that have had
bones or even limbs broken, yet have been healed without any Other
surgical assistance than that of time, or any other regimen than that of their
ordinary life. At the same time their cures seem not to have been less
perfect, for their not having been tortured by incisions, poisoned with drugs,
or wasted by fasting. In short, however useful medicine, properly
administered, may be among us, it is certain that, if the savage, when he is
sick and left to himself, has nothing to hope but from nature, he has, on the
other hand, nothing to fear but from his disease; which renders his situation
often preferable to our own.
We should beware, therefore, of confounding the savage man with the men
we have daily before our eyes. Nature treats all the animals left to her care
with a predilection that seems to show how jealous she is of that right. The
horse, the cat, the bull, and even the ass are generally of greater stature, and
always more robust, and have more vigour, strength and courage, when they
run wild in the forests than when bred in the stall. By becoming
domesticated, they lose half these advantages; and it seems as if all our care
to feed and treat them well serves only to deprave them. It is thus with man
also: as he becomes sociable and a slave, he grows weak, timid and servile;
his effeminate way of life totally enervates his strength and courage. To this
it may be added that there is still a greater difference between savage and
civilised man, than between wild and tame beasts: for men and brutes
having been treated alike by nature, the several conveniences in which men
indulge themselves still more than they do their beasts, are so many
additional causes of their deeper degeneracy.
It is not therefore so great a misfortune to these primitive men, nor so great
an obstacle to their preservation, that they go naked, have no dwellings and
lack all the superfluities which we think so necessary. If their skins are not
covered with hair, they have no need of such covering in warm climates;
and, in cold countries, they soon learn to appropriate the skins of the beasts
they have overcome. If they have but two legs to run with, they have two

arms to defend themselves with, and provide for their wants. Their children
are slowly and with difficulty taught to walk; but their mothers are able to
carry them with ease; advantage which other animals lack, as the mother, if
pursued, is forced either to abandon her young, or to regulate her pace by
theirs. Unless, in short, we suppose a singular and fortuitous concurrence of
circumstances of which I shall speak later, and which would be unlikely to
exist, it is plain in every state of the case, that the man who first made
himself clothes or a dwelling was furnishing himself with things not at all
necessary; for he had till then done without them, and there is no reason
why he should not have been able to put up in manhood with the same kind
of life as had been his in infancy.
Solitary, indolent, and perpetually accompanied by danger, the savage
cannot but be fond of sleep; his sleep too must be light, like that of the
animals, which think but little and may be said to slumber all the time they
do not think. Self-preservation being his chief and almost sole concern, he
must exercise most those faculties which are most concerned with attack or
defence, either for overcoming his prey, or for preventing him from
becoming the prey of other animals. On the other hand, those organs which
are perfected only by softness and sensuality will remain in a gross and
imperfect state, incompatible with any sort of delicacy; so that, his senses
being divided on this head, his touch and taste will be extremely coarse, his
sight, hearing and smell exceedingly fine and subtle. Such in general is the
animal condition, and such, according to the narratives of travellers, is that
of most savage nations. It is therefore no matter for surprise that the
Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope distinguish ships at sea, with the
naked eye, at as great a distance as the Dutch can do with their telescopes;
or that the savages of America should trace the Spaniards, by their smell, as
well as the best dogs could have done; or that these barbarous peoples feel
no pain in going naked, or that they use large quantities of piemento with
their food, and drink the strongest European liquors like water.
Hitherto I have considered merely the physical man; let us now take a view
of him on his metaphysical and moral side.
I see nothing in any animal but an ingenious machine, to which nature hath
given senses to wind itself up, and to guard itself, to a certain degree,
against anything that might tend to disorder or destroy it. I perceive exactly
the same things in the human machine, with this difference, that in the

operations of the brute, nature is the sole agent, whereas man has some
share in his own operations, in his character as a free agent. The one
chooses and refuses by instinct, the other from an act of free-will: hence the
brute cannot deviate from the rule prescribed to it, even when it would be
advantageous for it to do so; and, on the contrary, man frequently deviates
from such rules to his own prejudice. Thus a pigeon would be starved to
death by the side of a dish of the choicest meats, and a cat on a heap of fruit
or grain; though it is certain that either might find nourishment in the foods
which it thus rejects with disdain, did it think of trying them. Hence it is
that dissolute men run into excesses which bring on fevers and death;
because the mind depraves the senses, and the will continues to speak when
nature is silent.
Every animal has ideas, since it has senses; it even combines those ideas in
a certain degree; and it is only in degree that man differs, in this respect,
from the brute. Some philosophers have even maintained that there is a
greater difference between one man and another than between some men
and some beasts. It is not, therefore, so much the understanding that
constitutes the specific difference between the man and the brute, as the
human quality of free-agency. Nature lays her commands on every animal,
and the brute obeys her voice. Man receives the same impulsion, but at the
same time knows himself at liberty to acquiesce or resist: and it is
particularly in his consciousness of this liberty that the spirituality of his
soul is displayed. For physics may explain, in some measure, the
mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power of
willing or rather of choosing, and in the feeling of this power, nothing is to
be found but acts which are purely spiritual and wholly inexplicable by the
laws of mechanism.
However, even if the difficulties attending all these questions should still
leave room for difference in this respect between men and brutes, there is
another very specific quality which distinguishes them, and which will
admit of no dispute. This is the faculty of self-improvement, which, by the
help of circumstances, gradually develops all the rest of our faculties, and is
inherent in the species as in the individual: whereas a brute is, at the end of
a few months, all he will ever be during his whole life, and his species, at
the end of a thousand years, exactly what it was the first year of that
thousand. Why is man alone liable to grow into a dotard? Is it not because

he returns, in this, to his primitive state; and that, while the brute, which has
acquired nothing and has therefore nothing to lose, still retains the force of
instinct, man, who loses, by age or accident, all that his perfectibility had
enabled him to gain, falls by this means lower than the brutes themselves?
It would be melancholy, were we forced to admit that this distinctive and
almost unlimited faculty is the source of all human misfortunes; that it is
this which, in time, draws man out of his original state, in which he would
have spent his days insensibly in peace and innocence; that it is this faculty,
which, successively producing in different ages his discoveries and his
errors, his vices and his virtues, makes him at length a tyrant both over
himself and over nature.[1] It would be shocking to be obliged to regard as a
benefactor the man who first suggested to the Oroonoko Indians the use of
the boards they apply to the temples of their children, which secure to them
some part at least of their imbecility and original happiness.
Savage man, left by nature solely to the direction of instinct, or rather
indemnified for what he may lack by faculties capable at first of supplying
its place, and afterwards of raising him much above it, must accordingly
begin with purely animal functions: thus seeing and feeling must be his first
condition, which would be common to him and all other animals. To will,
and not to will, to desire and to fear, must be the first, and almost the only
operations of his soul, till new circumstances occasion new developments
of his faculties.
Whatever moralists may hold, the human understanding is greatly indebted
to the passions, which, it is universally allowed, are also much indebted to
the understanding. It is by the activity of the passions that pur reason is
improved; for we desire knowledge only because we wish to enjoy; and it is
impossible to conceive any reason why a person who has neither fears nor
desires should give himself the trouble of reasoning. The passions, again,
originate in our wants, and their progress depends on that of our knowledge;
for we cannot desire or fear anything, except from the idea we have of it, or
from the simple impulse of nature. Now savage man, being destitute of
every species of intelligence, can have no passions save those of the latter
kind: his desires never go beyond his physical wants. The only goods he
recognises in the universe are food, a female, and sleep: the only evils he
fears are pain and hunger. I say pain, and not death: for no animal can know

what it is to die; the knowledge of death and its terrors being one of the first
acquisitions made by man in departing from an animal state.
It would be easy, were it necessary, to support this opinion by facts, and to
show that, in all the nations of the world, the progress of the understanding
has been exactly proportionate to the wants which the peoples had received
from nature, or been subjected to by circumstances, and in consequence to
the passions that induced them to provide for those necessities. I might
instance the arts, rising up in Egypt and expanding with the inundation of
the Nile. I might follow their progress into Greece, where they took root
afresh, grew up and towered to the skies, among the rocks and sands of
Attica, without being able to germinate on the fertile banks of the Eurotas: I
might observe that in general, the people of the North are more industrious
than those of the South, because they cannot get on so well without being
so: as if nature wanted to equalise matters by giving their understandings
the fertility she had refused to their soil.
But who does not see, without recurring to the uncertain testimony of
history, that everything seems to remove from savage man both the
temptation and the means of changing his condition? His imagination paints
no pictures; his heart makes no demands on him. His few wants are so
readily supplied, and he is so far from having the knowledge which is
needful to make him want more, that he can have neither foresight nor
curiosity. The face of nature becomes indifferent to him as it grows familiar.
He sees in it always the same order, the same successions: he has not
understanding enough to wonder at the greatest miracles; nor is it in his
mind that we can expect to find that philosophy man needs, if he is to know
how to notice for once what he sees every day. His soul, which nothing
disturbs, is wholly wrapped up in the feeling of its present existence,
without any idea of the future, however near at hand; while his projects, as
limited as his views, hardly extend to the close of day. Such, even at
present, is the extent of the native Caribean's foresight: he will
improvidently sell you his cotton-bed in the morning, and come crying in
the evening to buy it again, not having foreseen he would want it again the
next night.
The more we reflect on this subject, the greater appears the distance
between pure sensation and the most simple knowledge: it is impossible
indeed to conceive how a man, by his own powers alone, without the aid of

communication and the spur of necessity, could have bridged so great a gap.
How many ages may have elapsed before mankind were in a position to
behold any other Are than that of the heavens. What a multiplicity of
chances must have happened to teach them the commonest uses of that
element! How often must they have let it out before they acquired the art of
reproducing it? and how often may not such a secret have died with him
who had discovered it? What shall we say of agriculture, an art which
requires so much labour and foresight, which is so dependent on others that
it is plain it could only be practised in a society which had at least begun,
and which does not serve so much to draw the means of subsistence from
the earth —for these it would produce of itself—but to compel it to produce
what is most to our taste? But let us suppose that men had so multiplied that
the natural produce of the earth was no longer sufficient for their support; a
supposition, by the way, which would prove such a life to be very
advantageous for the human race; let us suppose that, without forges or
workshops, the instruments of husbandry had dropped from the sky into the
hands of savages; that they had overcome their natural aversion to continual
labour; that they had learnt so much foresight for their needs; that they had
divined how to cultivate the earth, to sow grain and plant trees; that they
had discovered the arts of grinding corn, and of setting the grape to ferment
—all being things that must have been taught them by the gods, since it is
not to be conceived how they could discover them for themselves—yet after
all this, what man among them would be so absurd as to take the trouble of
cultivating a field, which might be stripped of its crop by the first comer,
man or beast, that might take a liking to it; and how should each of them
resolve to pass his life in wearisome labour, when, the more necessary to
him the reward of his labour might be, the surer he would be of not getting
it? In a word, how could such a situation induce men to cultivate the earth,
till it was regularly parcelled out among them; that is to say, till the state of
nature had been abolished?
Were we to suppose savage man as trained in the art of thinking as
philosophers make him; were we, like them, to suppose him a very
philosopher capable of investigating the sublimest truths, and of forming,
by highly abstract chains of reasoning, maxims of reason and justice,
deduced from the love of order in general, or the known will of his Creator;
in a word, were we to suppose him as intelligent and enlightened, as he
must have been, and is in fact found to have been, dull and stupid, what

advantage Would accrue to the species, from all such metaphysics, which
could not be communicated by one to another, but must end with him who
made them? What progress could be made by mankind, while dispersed in
the woods among other animals? and how far could men improve or
mutually enlighten one another, when, having no fixed habitation, and no
need of one another's assistance, the same persons hardly met twice in their
lives, and perhaps then, without knowing one another or speaking together?
Let it be considered how many ideas we owe to the use of speech; how far
grammar exercises the understanding and facilitates its operations. Let us
reflect on the inconceivable pains and the infinite space of time that the first
invention of languages must have cost. To these reflections add what
preceded, and then judge how many thousand ages must have elapsed in the
successive development in the human mind of those operations of which it
is capable.
I shall here take the liberty for a moment, of considering the difficulties of
the origin of languages, on which subject I might content myself with a
simple repetition of the Abbé Condillac's investigations, as they fully
confirm my system, and perhaps even first suggested it. But it is plain, from
the manner in which this philosopher solves the difficulties he himself
raises, concerning the origin of arbitrary signs, that he assumes what I
question, viz. that a kind of society, must already have existed among the
first inventors of language. While I refer, therefore, to his observations on
this head, I think it right to give my own, in order to exhibit the same
difficulties in a light adapted to my subject. The first which presents itself is
to conceive how language can have become necessary; for as there was no
communication among men and no need for any, we can neither conceive
the necessity of this invention, nor the possibility of it, if it was not
somehow indispensable. I might affirm, with many others, that languages
arose in the domestic intercourse between parents and their children. But
this expedient would not obviate the difficulty, and would besides involve
the blunder made by those who, in reasoning on the state of nature, always
import into it ideas gathered in a state of society. Thus they constantly
consider families as living together under one roof, and the individuals of
each as observing among themselves a union as intimate and permanent as
that which exists among us, where so many common interests unite them:
whereas, in this primitive state, men had neither houses, nor huts, nor any

kind of property whatever; every one lived where he could, seldom for
more than a single night; the sexes united without design, as accident,
opportunity or inclination brought them together, nor had they any great
need of words to communicate their designs to each other; and they parted
with the same indifference. The mother gave suck to her children at first for
her own sake; and afterwards, when habit had made them dear, for theirs:
but as soon as they were strong enough to go in search of their own food,
they forsook her of their own accord; and, as they had hardly any other
method of not losing one another than that of remaining continually within
sight, they soon became quite incapable of recognising one another when
they happened to meet again. It is farther to be observed that the child,
having all his wants to explain, and of course more to say to his mother than
the mother could have to say to him, must have borne the brunt of the task
of invention, and the language he used would be of his own device, so that
the number of languages would be equal to that of the individuals speaking
them, and the variety would be increased by the vagabond and roving life
they led, which would not give time for any idiom to become constant. For
to say that the mother dictated to her child the words he was to use in
asking her for one thing or another, is an explanation of how languages
already formed are taught, but by no means explains how languages were
originally formed.
We will suppose, however, that this first difficulty is obviated. Let us for a
moment then take ourselves as being on this side of the vast space which
must lie between a pure state of nature and that in which languages had
become necessary, and, admitting their necessity, let us inquire how they
could first be established. Here we have a new and worse difficulty to
grapple with; for if men need speech to learn to think, they must have stood
in much greater need of the art of thinking, to be able to invent that of
speaking. And though we might conceive how the articulate sounds of the
voice came to be taken as the conventional interpreters of our ideas, it
would still remain for us to inquire what could have been the interpreters of
this convention for those ideas, which, answering to no sensible objects,
could not be indicated either by gesture or voice; so that we can hardly form
any tolerable conjectures about the origin of this art of communicating our
thoughts and establishing a correspondence between minds: an art so
sublime, that far distant as it is from its origin, philosophers still behold it at
such an immeasurable distance from perfection, that there is none rash

enough to affirm it will ever reach it, even though the revolutions time
necessarily produces were suspended in its favour, though prejudice should
be banished from our academies or condemned to silence, and those learned
societies should devote themselves uninterruptedly for whole ages to this
thorny question.
The first language of mankind, the most universal and vivid, in a word the
only language man needed, before he had occasion to exert his eloquence to
persuade assembled multitudes, was the simple cry of nature. But as this
was excited only by a sort of instinct on urgent occasions, to implore
assistance in case of danger, or relief in case of suffering, it could be of little
use in the ordinary course of life, in which more moderate feelings prevail.
When the ideas of men began to expand and multiply, and closer
communication took place among them, they strove to invent more
numerous signs and a more copious language. They multiplied the
inflections of the voice, and added gestures, which are in their own nature
more expressive, and depend less for their meaning on a prior
determination. Visible and movable objects were therefore expressed by
gestures, and audible ones by imitative sounds: but, as hardly anything can
be indicated by gestures, except objects actually present or easily described,
and visible actions; as they are not universally useful—for darkness or the
interposition of a material object destroys their efficacy—and as besides
they rather request than secure our attention; men at length bethought
themselves of substituting for them the articulate sounds of the voice,
which, without bearing the same relation to any particular ideas, are better
calculated to express them all, as conventional signs. Such an institution
could only be made by common consent, and must have been effected in a
manner not very easy for men whose gross organs had not been accustomed
to any such exercise. It is also in itself still more difficult to conceive, since
such a common agreement must have had motives, and speech seems to
have been highly necessary to establish the use of it.
It is reasonable to suppose that the words first made use of by mankind had
a much more extensive signification than those used in languages already
formed, and that ignorant as they were of the division of discourse into its
constituent parts, they at first gave every single word the sense of a whole
proposition. When they began to distinguish subject and attribute, and noun
and verb, which was itself no common effort of genius, substantives were at

first only so many proper names; the present infinitive was the only tense of
verbs; and the very idea of adjectives must have been developed with great
difficulty; for every adjective is an abstract idea, and abstractions are
painful and unnatural operations.
Every object at first received a particular name without regard to genus or
species, which these primitive originators were not in a position to
distinguish; every individual presented itself to their minds in isolation, as
they are in the picture of nature. If one oak was called A, another was called
B; for the primitive idea of two things is that they are not the same, and it
often takes a long time for what they have in common to be seen: so that,
the narrower the limits of their knowledge of things, the more copious their
dictionary must have been. The difficulty of using such a vocabulary could
not be easily removed; for, to arrange beings under common and generic
denominations, it became necessary to know their distinguishing properties:
the need arose for observation and definition, that is to say, for natural
history and metaphysics of a far more developed kind than men can at that
time have possessed.
Add to this, that general ideas cannot be introduced into the mind without
the assistance of words, nor can the understanding seize them except by
means of propositions. This is one of the reasons why animals cannot form
such ideas, or ever acquire that capacity for self-improvement which
depends on them. When a monkey goes from one nut to another, are we to
conceive that he entertains any general idea of that kind of fruit, and
compares its archetype with the two individual nuts? Assuredly he does not;
but the sight of one of these nuts recalls to his memory the sensations which
he received from the other, and his eyes, being modified after a certain
manner, give information to the palate of the modification it is about to
receive. Every general idea is purely intellectual; if the imagination meddles
with it ever so little, the idea immediately becomes particular. If you
endeavour to trace in your mind the image of a tree in general, you never
attain to your end. In spite of all you can do, you will have to see it as great
or little, bare or leafy, light or dark, and were you capable of seeing nothing
in it but what is common to all trees, it would no longer be like a tree at all.
Purely abstract beings are perceivable in the same manner, or are only
conceivable by the help of language. The definition of a triangle alone gives
you a true idea of it: the moment you imagine a triangle in your mind, it is

some particular triangle and not another, and you cannot avoid giving it
sensible lines and a coloured area. We must then make use of propositions
and of language in order to form general ideas. For no sooner does the
imagination cease to operate than the understanding proceeds only by the
help of words. If then the first inventors of speech could give names only to
ideas they already had, it follows that the first substantives could be nothing
more than proper names.
But when our new grammarians, by means of which I have no conception,
began to extend their ideas and generalise their terms, the ignorance of the
inventors must have confined this method within very narrow limits; and, as
they had at first gone too far in multiplying the names of individuals, from
ignorance of their genus and species, they made afterwards too few of
these, from not having considered beings in all their specific differences. It
would indeed have needed more knowledge and experience than they could
have, and more pains and inquiry than they would have bestowed, to carry
these distinctions to their proper length. If, even to-day, we are continually
discovering new species, which have hitherto escaped observation, let us
reflect how many of them must have escaped men who judged things
merely from their first appearance! It is superfluous to add that the
primitive classes and the most general notions must necessarily have
escaped their notice also. How, for instance, could they have understood or
thought of the words matter, spirit, substance, mode, figure, motion, when
even our philosophers, who have so long been making use of them, have
themselves the greatest difficulty in understanding them; and when, the
ideas attached to them being purely metaphysical, there are no models of
them to be found in nature?
But I stop at this point, and ask my judges to suspend their reading a while,
to consider, after the invention of physical substantives, which is the easiest
part of language to invent, that there is still a great way to go, before the
thoughts of men will have found perfect expression and constant form, such
as would answer the purposes of public speaking, and produce their effect
on society. I beg of them to consider how much time must have been spent,
and how much knowledge needed, to find out numbers, abstract terms,
aorists and all the tenses of verbs, particles, syntax, the method of
connecting propositions, the forms of reasoning, and all the logic of speech.
For myself, I am so aghast at the increasing difficulties which present

themselves, and so well convinced of the almost demonstrable impossibility
that languages should owe their original institution to merely human means,
that I leave, to any one who will undertake it, the discussion of the difficult
problem, which was most necessary, the existence of society to the
invention of language, or the invention of language to the establishment of
society. But be the origin of language and society what they may, it may be
at least inferred, from the little care which nature has taken to unite
mankind by mutual wants, and to facilitate the use of speech, that she has
contributed little to make them sociable, and has put little of her own into
all they have done to create such bonds of union. It is in fact impossible to
conceive why, in a state of nature, one man should stand more in need of
the assistance of another, than a monkey or a wolf of the assistance of
another of its kind: or, granting that he did, what motives could induce that
other to assist him; or, even then, by what means they could agree about the
conditions. I know it is incessantly repeated that man would in such a state
have been the most miserable of creatures; and indeed, if it be true, as I
think I have proved, that he must have lived many ages, before he could
have either desire or an opportunity of emerging from it, this would only be
an accusation against nature, and not against the being which she had thus
unhappily constituted. But as I understand the word miserable, it either has
no meaning at all, or else signifies only a painful privation of something, or
a state of suffering either in body or soul. I should be glad to have explained
to me, what kind of misery a free being, whose heart is at ease and whose
body is in health, can possibly suffer. I would ask also, whether a social or a
natural life is most likely to become insupportable to those who enjoy it. We
see around us hardly a creature in civil society, who does not lament his
existence: we even see many deprive themselves of as much of it as they
can, and laws human and divine together can hardly put a stop to the
disorder. I ask, if it was ever known that a savage took it into his head,
when at liberty, to complain of life or to make away with himself. Let us
therefore judge, with less vanity, on which side the real misery is found. On
the other hand, nothing could be more unhappy than savage man, dazzled
by science, tormented by his passions, and reasoning about a state different
from his own. It appears that Providence most wisely determined that the
faculties, which he potentially possessed, should develop themselves only
as occasion offered to exercise them, in order that they might not be
superfluous or perplexing to him, by appearing before their time, nor slow

and useless when the need for them arose. In instinct alone, he had all he
required for living in the state of nature; and with a developed
understanding he has only just enough to support life in society.
It appears, at first view, that men in a state of nature, having no moral
relations or determinate obligations one with another, could not be either
good nor bad, virtuous or vicious; unless we take these terms in a physical
sense, and call, in an individual, those qualities vices which may be
injurious to his preservation, and those virtues which contribute to it; in
which case, he would have to be accounted most virtuous, who put least
check on the pure impulses of nature. But without deviating from the
ordinary sense of the words, it will be proper to suspend the judgment we
might be led to form on such a state, and be on our guard against our
prejudices, till we have weighed the matter in the scales of impartiality, and
seen whether virtues or vices preponderate among civilised men; and
whether their virtues do them more good than their vices do harm; till we
have discovered, whether the progress of the sciences sufficiently
indemnifies them for the mischiefs they do one another, in proportion as
they are better informed of the good they ought to do; or whether they
would not be, on the whole, in a much happier condition if they had nothing
to fear or to hope from any one, than as they are, subjected to universal
dependence, and obliged to take everything from those who engage to give
them nothing in return.
Above all, let us not conclude, with Hobbes, that because man has no idea
of goodness, he must be naturally wicked; that he is vicious because he
does not know virtue; that he always refuses to do his fellow-creatures
services which he does not think they have a right to demand; or that by
virtue of the right he truly claims to everything he needs, he foolishly
imagines himself the sole proprietor of the whole universe. Hobbes had
seen clearly the defects of all the modern definitions of natural right: but the
consequences which he deduces from his own show that he understands it
in an equally false sense. In reasoning on the principles he lays down, he
ought to have said that the state of nature, being that in which the care for
our own preservation is the least prejudicial to that of others, was
consequently the best calculated to promote peace, and the most suitable for
mankind. He does say the exact opposite, in consequence of having
improperly admitted, as a part of savage man's care for self-preservation,

the gratification of a multitude of passions which are the work of society,
and have made laws necessary. A bad man, he says, is a robust child. But it
remains to be proved whether man in a state of nature is this robust child:
and, should we grant that he is, what would he infer? Why truly, that if this
man, when robust and strong, were dependent on others as he is when
feeble, there is no extravagance he would not be guilty of; that he would
beat his mother when she was too slow in giving him her breast; that he
would strangle one of his younger brothers, if he should be troublesome to
him, or bite the arm of another, if he put him to any inconvenience. But that
man in the state of nature is both strong and dependent involves two
contrary suppositions. Man is weak when he is dependent, and is his own
master before he comes to be strong. Hobbes did not reflect that the same
cause, which prevents a savage from making use of his reason, as our jurists
hold, prevents him also from abusing his faculties, as Hobbes himself
allows: so that it may be justly said that savages are not bad merely because
they do not know what it is to be good: for it is neither the development of
the understanding nor the restraint of law that hinders them from doing ill;
but the peacefulness of their passions, and their ignorance of vice: tanto
plus in illis proficit vitiorum ignoratio, quam in his cognitio virtutis.[2]
There is another principle which has escaped Hobbes; which, having been
bestowed on mankind, to moderate, on certain occasions, the impetuosity of
egoism, or, before its birth, the desire of self-preservation, tempers the
ardour with which he pursues his own welfare, by an innate repugnance at
seeing a fellow-creature suffer.[3] I think I need not fear contradiction in
holding man to be possessed of the only natural virtue, which could not be
denied him by the most violent detractor of human virtue. I am speaking of
compassion which is a disposition suitable to creatures so weak and subject
to so many evils as we certainly are: by so much the more universal and
useful to mankind, as it comes before any kind of reflection; and at the
same time so natural, that the very brutes themselves sometimes give
evident proofs of it. Not to mention the tenderness of mothers for their
offspring and the perils they encounter to save them from danger, it is well
known that horses show a reluctance to trample on living bodies. One
animal never passes by the dead body of another of its species: there are
even some which give their fellows a sort of burial; while the mournful
lowings of the cattle when they enter the slaughter-house show the
impressions made on them by the horrible spectacle which meets them. We

find, with pleasure, the author of the Fable of the Bees obliged to own that
man is a compassionate and sensible being, and laying aside his cold
subtlety of style, in the example he gives, to present us with the pathetic
description of a man who, from a place of confinement, is compelled to
behold a wild beast tear a child from the arms of its mother, grinding its
tender limbs with its murderous teeth, and tearing its palpitating entrails
with its claws. What horrid agitation must not the eye-witness of such a
scene experience, although he would not be personally concerned! What
anxiety would he not suffer at not being able to give any assistance to the
fainting mother and the dying infant!
Such is the pure emotion of nature, prior to all kinds of reflection! Such is
the force of natural compassion, which the greatest depravity of morals has
as yet hardly been able to destroy! for we daily find at our theatres men
affected, nay shedding tears at the sufferings of a wretch who, were he in
the tyrant's place, would probably even add to the torments of his enemies;
like the bloodthirsty Sulla, who was so sensitive to ills he had not caused, or
that Alexander of Pheros who did not dare to go and see any tragedy acted,
for fear of being seen weeping with Andromache and Priam, though he
could listen without emotion to the cries of all the citizens who were daily
strangled at his command.
Mollissima corda
Humano generi dare se natura fatetur,
Qua lacrimas dedit.
Juvenal, Satire xv, 151.[4]
Mandeville well knew that, in spite of all their morality, men would have
never been better than monsters, had not nature bestowed on them a sense
of compassion, to aid their reason: but he did not see that from this quality
alone flow all those social virtues, of which he denied man the possession.
But what is generosity, clemency or humanity but compassion applied to
the weak, to the guilty, or to mankind in general? Even benevolence and
friendship are, if we judge rightly, only the effects of compassion,
constantly set upon a particular object: for how is it different to wish that
another person may not suffer pain and uneasiness and to wish him happy?
Were it even true that pity is no more than a feeling, which puts us in the
place of the sufferer, a feeling, obscure yet lively in a savage, developed yet
feeble in civilised man; this truth would have no other consequence than to

confirm my argument. Compassion must, in fact, be the stronger, the more
the animal beholding any kind of distress identifies himself with the animal
that suffers. Now, it is plain that such identification must have been much
more perfect in a state of nature than it is in a state of reason. It is reason
that engenders self-respect, and reflection that confirms it: it is reason
which turns man's mind back upon itself, and divides him from everything
that could disturb or afflict him. It is philosophy that isolates him, and bids
him say, at sight of the misfortunes of others: "Perish if you will, I am
secure." Nothing but such general evils as threaten the whole community
can disturb the tranquil sleep of the philosopher, or tear him from his bed. A
murder may with impunity be committed under his window; he has only to
put his hands to his ears and argue a little with himself, to prevent nature,
which is shocked within him, from identifying itself with the unfortunate
sufferer. Uncivilised man has not this admirable talent; and for want of
reason and wisdom, is always foolishly ready to obey the first promptings
of humanity. It is the populace that flocks together at riots and street-brawls,
while the wise man prudently makes off. It is the mob and the market-
women, who part the combatants, and hinder gentle-folks from cutting one
another's throats.
It is then certain that compassion is a natural feeling which, by moderating
the violence of love of self in each individual, contributes to the
preservation of the whole species. It is this compassion that hurries us
without reflection to the relief of those who are in distress: it is this which
in a state of nature supplies the place of laws, morals and virtues, with the
advantage that none are tempted to disobey its gentle voice: it is this which
will always prevent a sturdy savage from robbing a weak child or a feeble
old man of the sustenance they may have with pain and difficulty acquired,
if he sees a possibility of providing for himself by other means: it is this
which, instead of inculcating that sublime maxim of rational justice, Do to
others as you would have them do unto you, inspires all men with that other
maxim of natural goodness, much less perfect indeed, but perhaps more
useful; Do good to yourself with as little evil as possible to others. In a
word, it is rather in this natural feeling than in any subtle arguments that we
must look for the cause of that repugnance, which every man would
experience in doing evil, even independently of the maxims of education.
Although it might belong to Socrates and other minds of the like craft to
acquire virtue by reason, the human race would long since have ceased to

be, had its preservation depended only on the reasonings of the individuals
composing it.
With passions so little active, and so good a curb, men, being rather wild
than wicked, and more intent to guard themselves against the mischief that
might be done them, than to do mischief to others, were by no means
subject to very perilous dissensions. They maintained no kind of intercourse
with one another, and were consequently strangers to vanity, deference,
esteem and contempt; they had not the least idea of meum and tuum, and no
true conception of justice; they looked upon every violence to which they
were subjected, rather as an injury that might easily be repaired than as a
crime that ought to be punished; and they never thought of taking revenge,
unless perhaps mechanically and on the spot, as a dog will sometimes bite
the stone which is thrown at him. Their quarrels therefore would seldom
have very bloody consequences; for the subject of them would be merely
the question of subsistence. But I am aware of one greater danger, which
remains to be noticed.
Of the passions that stir the heart of man, there is one which makes the
sexes necessary to each other, and is extremely ardent and impetuous; a
terrible passion that braves danger, surmounts all obstacles, and in its
transports seems calculated to bring destruction on the human race which it
is really destined to preserve. What must become of men who are left to this
brutal and boundless rage, without modesty, without shame, and daily
upholding their amours at the price of their blood?
It must, in the first place, be allowed that, the more violent the passions are,
the more are laws necessary to keep them under restraint. But, setting aside
the inadequacy of laws to effect this purpose, which is evident from the
crimes and disorders to which these passions daily give rise among us, we
should do well to inquire if these evils did not spring up with the laws
themselves; for in this case, even if the laws were capable of repressing
such evils, it is the least that could be expected from them, that they should
check a mischief which would not have arisen without them.
Let us begin by distinguishing between the physical and moral ingredients
in the feeling of love. The physical part of love is that general desire which
urges the sexes to union with each other. The moral part is that which
determines and fixes this desire exclusively upon one particular object; or at