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?
Jean Jacques Rousseau
1754
Translated by G. D. H. Cole, public
domain
THE SECOND
PART
[4]In proportion as the human race grew more numerous, men's cares increased. The difference of soils, climates and seasons, must have introduced some differences into their manner of living. Barren years, long and sharp winters, scorching summers which parched the fruits of the earth, must have demanded a new industry. On the seashore and the banks of rivers, they invented the hook and line, and became fishermen and eaters of fish. In the forests they made bows and arrows, and became huntsmen and warriors. In cold countries they clothed themselves with the skins of the beasts they had slain. The lightning, a volcano, or some lucky chance acquainted them with fire, a new resource against the rigours of winter: they next learned how to preserve this element, then how to reproduce it, and finally how to prepare with it the flesh of animals which before they had eaten raw.
[8]Taught by
experience that the love of well-being is the sole motive of human actions, he
found himself in a position to distinguish the few cases, in which mutual
interest might justify him in relying upon the assistance of his fellows; and
also the still fewer cases in which a conflict of interests might give cause to
suspect them. In the former case, he joined in the same herd with them, or at
most in some kind of loose association, that laid no restraint on its members,
and lasted no longer than the transitory occasion that formed it. In the latter
case, every one sought his own private advantage, either by open force, if he
thought himself strong enough, or by address and cunning, if he felt himself
the weaker.
[9]In this manner,
men may have insensibly acquired some gross ideas of mutual undertakings, and
of the advantages of fulfilling them: that is, just so far as their present and
apparent interest was concerned: for they were perfect strangers to foresight,
and were so far from troubling themselves about the distant future, that they
hardly thought of the morrow. If a deer was to be taken, every one saw that, in
order to succeed, he must abide faithfully by his post: but if a hare happened
to come within the reach of any one of them, it is not to be doubted that he
pursued it without scruple, and, having seized his prey, cared very little, if
by so doing he caused his companions to miss theirs.
[10]It is easy
to understand that such intercourse would not require a language much more
refined than that of rooks or monkeys, who associate together for much the same
purpose. Inarticulate cries, plenty of gestures and some imitative sounds, must
have been for a long time the universal language; and by the addition, in every
country, of some conventional articulate sounds (of which, as I have already
intimated, the first institution is not too easy to explain) particular
languages were produced; but these were rude and imperfect, and nearly such as
are now to be found among some savage nations.
[12]These first
advances enabled men to make others with greater rapidity. In proportion as
they grew enlightened, they grew industrious. They ceased to fall asleep under
the first tree, or in the first cave that afforded them shelter; they invented
several kinds of implements of hard and sharp stones, which they used to dig up
the earth, and to cut wood; they then made huts out of branches, and afterwards
learnt to plaster them over with mud and clay. This was the epoch of a first
revolution, which established and distinguished families, and introduced a kind
of property, in itself the source of a thousand
quarrels and conflicts. As, however, the strongest were probably the first to
build themselves huts which they felt themselves able to defend, it may be
concluded that the weak found it much easier and safer to imitate, than to
attempt to dislodge them: and of those who were once provided with huts, none
could have any inducement to appropriate that of his neighbour;
not indeed so much because it did not belong to him, as because it could be of
no use, and he could not make himself master of it without exposing himself to
a desperate battle with the family which occupied it.
[13]The first
expansions of the human heart were the effects of a novel situation, which
united husbands and wives, fathers and children, under one roof. The habit of
living together soon gave rise to the finest feelings known to humanity,
conjugal love and paternal affection. Every family became a little society, the
more united because liberty and reciprocal attachment were the only bonds of
its union. The sexes, whose manner of life had been hitherto the same, began
now to adopt different ways of living. The women became more sedentary, and
accustomed themselves to mind the hut and their children, while the men went
abroad in search of their common subsistence. From living a softer life, both
sexes also began to lose something of their strength and ferocity: but, if
individuals became to some extent less able to encounter wild beasts
separately, they found it, on the other hand, easier to assemble and resist in
common.
[20]But it must be
remarked that the society thus formed, and the relations thus established among
men, required of them qualities different from those which they possessed from
their primitive constitution. Morality began to appear in human actions, and
every one, before the institution of law, was the only judge and avenger of the
injuries done him, so that the goodness which was suitable in the pure state of
nature was no longer proper in the new-born state of society. Punishments had
to be made more severe, as opportunities of offending became more frequent, and
the dread of vengeance had to take the place of the rigour of
the law. Thus, though men had become less patient, and their natural compassion
had already suffered some diminution, this period of expansion of the human
faculties, keeping a just mean between the indolence of the primitive state and
the petulant activity of our egoism, must have been the happiest and most
stable of epochs. The more we reflect on it, the more we shall find that this
state was the least subject to revolutions, and altogether the very best man
could experience; so that he can have departed from it only through some fatal
accident, which, for the public good, should never have happened. The example
of savages, most of whom have been found in this state, seems to prove that men
were meant to remain in it, that it is the real youth of the world, and that
all subsequent advances have been apparently so many steps towards the
perfection of the individual, but in reality towards the decrepitude of the
species.
[30]Behold then all
human faculties developed, memory and imagination in full play, egoism
interested, reason active, and the mind almost at the highest point of its
perfection. Behold all the natural qualities in action, the rank and condition
of every man assigned him; not merely his share of property and his power to
serve or injure others, but also his wit, beauty, strength or skill, merit or
talents: and these being the only qualities capable of commanding respect, it
soon became necessary to possess or to affect them.
[31]It now became the
interest of men to appear what they really were not. To be and to seem became
two totally different things; and from this distinction sprang insolent pomp
and cheating trickery, with all the numerous vices that go in their train. On the
other hand, free and independent as men were before, they were now, in
consequence of a multiplicity of new wants, brought into subjection, as it
were, to all nature, and particularly to one another; and each became in some
degree a slave even in becoming the master of other men: if rich, they stood in
need of the services of others; if poor, of their assistance; and even a middle
condition did not enable them to do without one another. Man must now,
therefore, have been perpetually employed in getting others to interest
themselves in his lot, and in making them, apparently at least, if not really,
find their advantage in promoting his own. Thus he must have been sly and
artful in his behaviour to some, and imperious and
cruel to others; being under a kind of necessity to ill-use all the persons of
whom he stood in need, when he could not frighten them into compliance, and did
not judge it his interest to be useful to them. Insatiable ambition, the thirst
of raising their respective fortunes, not so much from real want as from the
desire to surpass others, inspired all men with a vile propensity to injure one
another, and with a secret jealousy, which is the more dangerous, as it puts on
the mask of benevolence, to carry its point with greater security. In a word,
there arose rivalry and competition on the one hand, and conflicting interests
on the other, together with a secret desire on both of profiting at the expense
of others. All these evils were the first effects of property, and the
inseparable attendants of growing inequality.
[32]Before the
invention of signs to represent riches, wealth could hardly consist in anything
but lands and cattle, the only real possessions men can have. But, when
inheritances so increased in number and extent as to occupy the whole of the
land, and to border on one another, one man could aggrandise
himself only at the expense of another; at the same time the supernumeraries,
who had been too weak or too indolent to make such acquisitions, and had grown
poor without sustaining any loss, because, while they saw everything change
around them, they remained still the same, were obliged to receive their
subsistence, or steal it, from the rich; and this soon bred, according to their
different characters, dominion and slavery, or violence and rapine. The
wealthy, on their part, had no sooner begun to taste the pleasure of command,
than they disdained all others, and, using their old slaves to acquire new,
thought of nothing but subduing and enslaving their neighbours;
like ravenous wolves, which, having once tasted human flesh, despise every
other food and thenceforth seek only men to devour.
[33]Thus, as the most powerful or the
most miserable considered their might or misery as a kind of right to the
possessions of others, equivalent, in their opinion, to that of property, the
destruction of equality was attended by the most terrible disorders.
Usurpations by the rich, robbery by the poor, and the unbridled passions of
both, suppressed the cries of natural compassion and the still feeble voice of
justice, and filled men with avarice, ambition and vice. Between the title of
the strongest and that of the first occupier, there arose perpetual conflicts,
which never ended but in battles and bloodshed. The new-born state of society thus
gave rise to a horrible state of war; men thus harassed and depraved were no
longer capable of retracing their steps or renouncing the fatal acquisitions
they had made, but, labouring by the abuse of the
faculties which do them honour, merely to their own
confusion, brought themselves to the brink of ruin.
Attonitus novitate mali, divesque miserque,
Effugere optat opes; et quæ modo
voverat odit.5
[34]It is impossible that men should
not at length have reflected on so wretched a situation, and on the calamities
that overwhelmed them. The rich, in particular, must have felt how much they
suffered by a constant state of war, of which they bore all the expense; and in
which, though all risked their lives, they alone risked their property.
Besides, however speciously they might disguise their usurpations, they knew
that they were founded on precarious and false titles; so that, if others took
from them by force what they themselves had gained by force, they would have no
reason to complain. Even those who had been enriched by their own industry,
could hardly base their proprietorship on better claims. It was in vain to
repeat, "I built this well; I gained this spot by my industry." Who
gave you your standing, it might be answered, and what right have you to demand
payment of us for doing what we never asked you to do? Do you not know that
numbers of your fellow-creatures are starving, for want of what you have too
much of? You ought to have had the express and universal consent of mankind,
before appropriating more of the common subsistence than you needed for your
own maintenance. Destitute of valid reasons to justify and sufficient strength
to defend himself, able to crush individuals with ease, but easily crushed
himself by a troop of bandits, one against all, and incapable, on account of
mutual jealousy, of joining with his equals against numerous enemies united by
the common hope of plunder, the rich man, thus urged by necessity, conceived at
length the profoundest plan that ever entered the mind of man: this was to
employ in his favour the forces of those who attacked
him, to make allies of his adversaries, to inspire them with different maxims,
and to give them other institutions as favourable to
himself as the law of nature was unfavourable.
5Ovid, Metamorphoses,
xi. 127:
Both
rich and poor, shocked at their new-found-ills,
Would
fly from wealth, and lose what they had sought.
THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
Trans. G. D. H. Cole
BOOK ONE
1. 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.
4. 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? . . .
6. 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,4 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.
4 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.