Book Two
Book 2, Chapter 1: 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.
Book 2, Chapter 5: 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.
Book Three
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 3
The Constituent Principle in the Various Forms of Government
(¶3.2.5)
In the person of the magistrate we can distinguish three essentially
different wills ["volontés"]: first, the private will of the
individual ["la volonté propre de l'individu"], tending only
to his
personal advantage; secondly, the common will of the magistrates
["volonté commune des magistrats"], which is relative solely
to the
advantage of the prince, and may be called corporate will
["volonté de corps"], 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
["volonté souveraine"], which is general both in relation to
the
State regarded as the whole, and to the government regarded as a part of
the whole