Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract Year: 1762
Table of Contents
Jean-Jacques Rousseau:The Social Contract
Book I
1. Subject of the First Book
3. The Right of the Strongest
6. The Social Compact
7. The Sovereign
8. The Civil State
Book II
9. The Marks of a Good Government
10. The Abuse of Government and Its Tendency to Degenerate
Book III
16. That the Institution of Government Is Not a Contract
https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844230.book-part-010

  You don't have access to this content. Please try to log in with your institution. Sign In

Abstract

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.

Contents