The Social Contract

Du Contrat Social, ou Principes du droit politique, is the title of a work written by

J.J. Rousseau and published in 1762. From the time of his stay at Venice, about

1741, Rousseau had in mind a large treatise dealing with "Les institutions

politiques". The Contrat Social is but a fragment of this treatise.

CONTENTS OF THE BOOK

Book I

The Contrat Social is divided into four books. The first treats of the formation of

societies and the social contract. Social order is a sacred right which is at the

foundation of all other rights. It does not come from nature. The family is the

most ancient and the most natural of all societies; but this association of parents

and children, necessary as long as these cannot provide for themselves, is

maintained afterwards only by convention. Some philosophers have said that

among men some are born for slavery, others for domination; but they confound

cause and effect; if some are slaves by nature, it is because there have been

slaves against nature. Again, social order is not based on force, for the strongest

is not strong enough to retain at all times his supremacy unless he transforms

force into right, and obedience into duty. But in that case right would change

places with force. If it is necessary to obey because of force, there is no need of

obeying because of duty; and if one is not forced to obey there is no longer any

obligation.

All legitimate authority among men is based on an agreement. This argument,

according to Grotius, has its foundation in the right of a people to alienate its

freedom. But to alienate is to give or to sell. A man does not give himself; at

most he sells himself for a living; but for what should a people sell itself. To give

itself gratuitously would be an act of folly and therefore null and void. Moreover,

even if a man has the right to give himself, he has no right to give his children

who are born men and free. Grotius, again, in order to legitimize slavery, appeals

to the right of the conqueror to kill the conquered or to spare his life at the price

of his freedom. But war is a relation between State and State, and not between

man and man. It gives the right to kill soldiers so long as they are armed, but,

once they have laid down their arms, there remain only men and no one has the

right to kill them; besides, no one has the right to enslave men. The words

slavery and right are contradictory.

The social order originates in an altogether primitive and unanimous agreement.

When men in the state of nature have reached that stage where the individual is

unable to cope with adverse forces, they are compelled to change their way of

living. They cannot create new forces, but they can unite their individual energies

and thus overcome the obstacles to life. The fundamental problem is, then, "to

find a form of association which defends and protects with the whole common

energy, the person and property of each associate, and by which each individual

associate, uniting himself to all, still obeys only himself and remains as free as

before". The solution is a contract by which each one puts in common his person

and all his forces under the supreme direction of the "general will". Where results

a moral and collective body formed of as many members as there are persons in

the community. In this body the condition is equal for all, since each gives

himself wholly; the union is perfect, since each gives himself unreservedly; and

finally, each, giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody. This body is called the

"State or Sovereign"; the members, who, taken together, form "the people" are

the "citizens" as participating in the supreme authority, and "subjects" as

subjected to the laws. By this contract man passes from the natural to the civil

state, from instinct to morality and justice. He loses his natural freedom and his

unlimited right to all that he attempts or is able to do, but he gains civil liberty

and the ownership of all that he possesses by becoming the acknowledged

trustee of a part of the public property.

Book II

The second book deals with sovereignty and its rights. Sovereignty, or the

general will, is inalienable, for the will cannot be transmitted; it is indivisible,

since it is essentially general; it is infallible and always right. It is determined and

limited in its power by the common interest; it acts through laws. Law is the

decision of the general will in regard to some object of common interest. But

though the general will is always right and always desires what is good, its

judgment is not always enlightened, and consequently does not always see

wherein the common good lies; hence the necessity of the legislator. But the

legislator has, of himself, no authority; he is only a guide. He drafts and proposes

laws, but the people alone (that is, the sovereign or general will) has authority to

make and impose them.

Book III

The third book treats of government and its exercise. In the State it is not

sufficient to make laws, it is also necessary to enforce them. Although the

sovereign or general will has the legislative power, it cannot exercise by itself the

executive power. It needs a special agent, intermediary between the subjects

and the sovereign, which applies the laws under the direction of the general will.

This is precisely the part of the Government which is the minister of the sovereign

and not sovereign itself. The one or the several magistrates who form the

Government are only the trustees of the executive powers; they are the officers of

the sovereign, and their office is not the result of a contract, but a charge laid

upon them; they receive from the sovereign the orders which they transmit to the

people, and the sovereign can at will limit, modify, or revoke this power.

The three principal forms of government are: democracy, a government by the

whole, or the greater part, of the people; aristocracy, government by a few;

monarchy, government by one.

Democracy is in practice impossible. It demands conditions too numerous

and virtues too difficult for the whole people. "If there were a people of

gods, its government would be democratic, so perfect a government is not

for men."

Aristocracy may be natural, hereditary, or elective. The first is found only

among simple and primitive people; the second is the worst of all

governments; the third, where the power is given to the wisest, to those

who have more time for public affairs, is the best and the most natural of

all governments whenever it is certain that those who wield power will use

it for the public welfare and not for their own interest.

No government is more vigorous than monarchy; but it presents great

dangers; if the end is not the public welfare, the whole energy of the

administration is concentrated for the detriment of the State. Kings seek

to be absolute, and offices are given to intriguers.

Theoretically, a government simple and pure in form is the best; practically, it

must be combined with, and controlled by, elements borrowed from other forms.

Also, it is to be remarked that not every form of government is equally suitable to

every country; but the government of each country must be adapted to the

character of its people. "All things being equal, the best form of government for a

country is the one under which the citizens, without any outside means, without

naturalization or colonies, increase and multiply." In order to prevent any

usurpation on the part of the government, some fixed and periodical meetings of

the people must be determined by law, during which all executive power is

suspended, and all authority is in the hands of the people. In these meetings the

people will decide two questions: "Whether it pleases the sovereign to preserve

the present form of government, and whether it pleases the people to continue

the administration in the hands of those who are actually in charge." Intermediary

between the sovereign authority and the Government there is sometimes another

power, that of the deputies or representatives. The general will, however, cannot

be represented any more than it can be alienated; the deputies are not

representatives of the people, but its commissioners; they cannot decide

anything definitively; hence, any law which is not ratified by the people is null.

The institution of the Government, therefore, is not based on a contract between

the people and the magistrates; it is a law. Those who hold power are the

officers, not the masters, of the people; they have not to make a contract, but to

obey; by fulfilling their functions they simply discharge their duties as citizens.

Book IV

In the fourth book, Rousseau speaks of certain social institutions. The general

will is indestructible; it expresses itself through elections. As to different modes

of elections and institutions, such as tribunate, dictatorship, censure, etc., the

history of the ancient republics of Rome and Greece, of Sparta especially, can

teach us something about their value. Religion is at the very foundation of the

State. At all times it has occupied a large place in the life of the people. The

Christianity of the Gospel is a holy religion, but by teaching detachment from

earthly things it conflicts with the social spirit. It produces men who fulfil their

duties with indifference, and soldiers who know how to die rather than how to win.

It is important for the State that each citizen should have a religion that will help

him to love his duty; but the dogmas of this religion are of no concern to the

State except in so far as they are related to morality or duties towards others.

There must be, therefore, in the State a religion of which the sovereign shall

determine the articles, not as dogmas of religion, but as sentiments of

sociability. Whosoever does not accept them may be banished, not as impious,

but as unsociable; and whosoever, after having accepted them, will not act

according to them shall be punished by death. These articles shall be few and

precise; existence of the Divinity, powerful, intelligent, good, and provident; future

life, happiness of the just; chastisement of the wicked; sanctity of the social

contract and the laws; these are the positive dogmas. There is also one negative

dogma: Whosoever shall say, "Outside of the Church there is no salvation",

ought to be banished from the State.

CRITIQUE OF THE BOOK

The influence of this book was immense. Rousseau owes much indeed to

Hobbes and Locke, and to Montesquieu's Esprit des lois, published fourteen

years before; but, by the extreme prominence given to the ideas of popular

sovereignty, of liberty and equality, and especially by his highly coloured style,

his short and concise formula, he put within the common reach principles and

concepts which had hitherto been confined to scientific exposition. The book

gave expression to ideas and feelings which, at a time of political and social

unrest, were growing in the popular mind. It would be interesting to determine

how far Rousseau influenced the framing of various modern constitutions; at any

rate, he furnished the French Revolution with its philosophy, and his principles

direct the actual political life of France. His book, says Mallet du Pan, was "the

Koran of the Revolutionists", and Carlyle rightly calls Rousseau "the Evangelist of

the French Revolution". The orators of the Constituante quoted its sentences and

formulae, and if it may be believed that Rousseau would have condemned the

massacres and violences of 1793, the Jacobins, nevertheless, looked to his

principles for the justification of their acts.

It is quite intelligible that the Contrat Social should have come to be considered

by some as the gospel of freedom and democracy, by others as the code of

revolution and anarchy. That it contains serious contradictions is undeniable. For

instance, Rousseau assigns as the essential basis of the general will the

unanimous consent of the people, yet he assumes that this general will is

expressed in the plurality of suffrages; he affirms that parents have no right to

engage their children by a contract, and yet children from their birth will be

subject to the primitive contract; he affirms that a man has no right to alienate

himself, yet he bases the social contract essentially on the total alienation of

personal rights and personality in favour of the community. If there are some true

considerations and reflections in this book--as, for instance, on slavery and the

dignity of man, on the adaptation of the divers forms of government to the

character of the people, etc.--its fundamental principles--the origin of society,

absolute freedom and absolute equality of all--are false and unnatural.

He bases society on a convention, ignoring the fact and truth so clearly shown

both by psychology and history that man is a being essentially social, and that,

as Bonald says, the "law of sociability is as natural to man as the law of

gravitation to physical bodies". He affirms as a first principle that all men are born

free. He calls the natural state a state of instinct, and he defines natural freedom

as the unlimited right of each to do whatever he can. He opposes to this natural

state and freedom the civil state which he calls the state of justice and morality,

and civil liberty, which is freedom limited by the general will. This evidently

implies that man is born an animal with force as its power and instinct as its

guide, and not an intelligent and free being. Rousseau forgets that, if natural

freedom is power to act, it is at the same time an activity subjected to a rule and

discipline determined by the very object and conditions of human life; that if all

men are born with a right to freedom, they are also born with a duty to direct this

freedom; that, if all are born equally free--in the fundamental sense that all have

the same essential right to live a human life and to attain human perfection--still,

this very right is determined in its mode of exercise for each individual by special

laws and conditions; in a word, that the natural state of man is both freedom and

discipline in the individual as well as in the social life. Rousseau's conception of

freedom leads him directly to an individualism and a naturalism which have no

limits save those of brute force itself.

Again, he declares that all men are born naturally equal. Now this principle is

true if it is understood in the sense of a specific equality, the foundation of human

dignity. Every man has the right, equal in all, to be treated as a man, to be

respected in his personal dignity as a man, to be protected and helped by

authority in his effort towards perfection. But the principle is fundamentally false,

if, as interpreted by Rousseau, it means individual equality. The son is not

individually equal to his father, nor the infant to the adult, nor the dull to the

intelligent, nor the poor to the rich, in individual needs, rights, or special duties.

The natural relations between individual men, their reciprocal duties and rights,

involve both equality and hierarchy. The basis of social relations is not absolute

individual independence and arbitrary will, but freedom exercised with respect for

authority. By his interpretation of this principle, Rousseau leads to a false

individualism which ends in anarchy.

Rousseau maintains that society arises through the total alienation of the

personality and rights of each associate; hence, for the absolute individualism of

nature he substitutes an absolute socialism in the civil state. It is the general will

which is the ultimate source and supreme criterion of justice, morality, property,

and religion. Then we have, in spite of all the explanations advanced by

Rousseau, the suppression of personality, the reign of force and caprice, the

tyranny of the multitude, the despotism of the crowd, the destruction of true

freedom, morality, and society. The French Revolution was the realization of

these principles. Society has not its foundation in the free alienation of

personality and rights, but in the natural union of all personalities, or, rather,

families, with a view to reach their perfection. Society is not the source of duties

and rights of families or individuals, but the protector and helper of families and

individuals in the fulfilment of their duties and rights; its existence is commanded,

its authority is limited, by this very end. Society is not formed from elements all

individually equal, but is organized from graduated elements. These degrees of

authority, however, in the social organization are not by nature the exclusive

possession of anybody, but accessible to the capacities and the efforts of all.

Society is made up of authority and subjects; and this authority, while it may be

determined in its subject and manner of exercise by the people, has not its

foundation in their will, but in human nature itself as God created it.

G.M. Sauvage

Transcribed by Rick McCarty

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IV

Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org