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Jon Awbrey
QUOTE

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

OR

PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL RIGHT


Fœderis æquas
Dicamus leges

— Virgil, Æneid XI

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.

— Jean Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract”, Great Books of The Western World, Vol. 38.

Jon Awbrey
QUOTE

BOOK I (cont.)

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.

— Jean Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract”, Great Books of The Western World, Vol. 38.

Jon Awbrey
QUOTE

BOOK I (cont.)

2. 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.

— Jean Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract”, Great Books of The Western World, Vol. 38.

Jon Awbrey
QUOTE

BOOK I (cont.)

6. THE SOCIAL COMPACT

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.”

— Jean Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract”, Great Books of The Western World, Vol. 38.


I saw the need to skip ahead a little, as some people appear to have social contracts confused with a species of club by-laws or cider house rules.

Now, back to the program of e-literacy already in e-gress …

Jon Awbrey
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