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.
2. THAT SOVEREIGNTY IS INDIVISIBLE
Sovereignty,
for the same reason as makes it inalienable, is indivisible;
for will either is, or is not, general;6
it is the will either of the body of the people, or only
of a part of it. In the first case, the will, when declared,
is an act of Sovereignty and constitutes law: in the second,
it is merely a particular will, or act of magistracy
at the most a decree.
But
our political theorists, unable to divide Sovereignty
in principle, divide it according to its object: into
force and will; into legislative power and executive power;
into rights of taxation, justice and war; into internal
administration and power of foreign treaty. Sometimes
they confuse all these sections, and sometimes they distinguish
them; they turn the Sovereign into a fantastic being composed
of several connected pieces: it is as if they were making
man of several bodies, one with eyes, one with arms, another
with feet, and each with nothing besides. We are told
that the jugglers of Japan dismember a child before the
eyes of the spectators; then they throw all the members
into the air one after another, and the child falls down
alive and whole. The conjuring tricks of our political
theorists are very like that; they first dismember the
Body politic by an illusion worthy of a fair, and then
join it together again we know not how.
This
error is due to a lack of exact notions concerning the
Sovereign authority, and to taking for parts of it what
are only emanations from it. Thus, for example, the acts
of declaring war and making peace have been regarded as
acts of Sovereignty; but this is not the case, as these
acts do not constitute law, but merely the application
of a law, a particular act which decides how the law applies,
as we shall see clearly when the idea attached to the
word law has been defined.
If
we examined the other divisions in the same manner, we
should find that, whenever Sovereignty seems to be divided,
there is an illusion: the rights which are taken as being
part of Sovereignty are really all subordinate, and always
imply supreme wills of which they only sanction the execution.
It
would be impossible to estimate the obscurity this lack
of exactness has thrown over the decisions of writers
who have dealt with political right, when they have used
the principles laid down by them to pass judgment on the
respective rights of kings and peoples. Every one can
see, in Chapters III and IV of the First Book of Grotius,
how the learned man and his translator, Barbeyrac, entangle
and tie themselves up in their own sophistries, for fear
of saying too little or too much of what they think, and
so offending the interests they have to conciliate. Grotius,
a refugee in France, ill-content with his own country,
and desirous of paying his court to Louis XIII, to whom
his book is dedicated, spares no pains to rob the peoples
of all their rights and invest kings with them by every
conceivable artifice. This would also have been much to
the taste of Barbeyrac, who dedicated his translation
to George I of England. But unfortunately the expulsion
of James II, which he called his "abdication,"
compelled him to use all reserve, to shuffle and to tergiversate,
in order to avoid making William out a usurper. If these
two writers had adopted the true principles, all difficulties
would have been removed, and they would have been always
consistent; but it would have been a sad truth for them
to tell, and would have paid court for them to no one
save the people. Moreover, truth is no road to fortune,
and the people dispenses neither ambassadorships, nor
professorships, nor pensions.
3.
WHETHER THE GENERAL WILL IS FALLIBLE
It
follows from what has gone before that the general will
is always right and tends to the public advantage; but
it does not follow that the deliberations of the people
are always equally correct. Our will is always for our
own good, but we do not always see what that is; the people
is never corrupted, but it is often deceived, and on such
occasions only does it seem to will what is bad.
There
is often a great deal of difference between the will of
all and the general will; the latter considers only the
common interest, while the former takes private interest
into account, and is no more than a sum of particular
wills: but take away from these same wills the pluses
and minuses that cancel one another,7
and the general will remains as the sum of the differences.
If,
when the people, being furnished with adequate information,
held its deliberations, the citizens had no communication
one with another, the grand total of the small differences
would always give the general will, and the decision would
always be good. But when factions arise, and partial associations
are formed at the expense of the great association, the
will of each of these associations becomes general in
relation to its members, while it remains particular in
relation to the State: it may then be said that there
are no longer as many votes as there are men, but only
as many as there are associations. The differences become
less numerous and give a less general result. Lastly,
when one of these associations is so great as to prevail
over all the rest, the result is no longer a sum of small
differences, but a single difference; in this case there
is no longer a general will, and the opinion which prevails
is purely particular.
It
is therefore essential, if the general will is to be able
to express itself, that there should be no partial society
within the State, and that each citizen should think only
his own thoughts:8
which was indeed the sublime and unique system established
by the great Lycurgus. But if there are partial societies,
it is best to have as many as possible and to prevent
them from being unequal, as was done by Solon, Numa and
Servius. These precautions are the only ones that can
guarantee that the general will shall be always enlightened,
and that the people shall in no way deceive itself.
4.
THE LIMITS OF THE SOVEREIGN POWER
If
the State is a moral person whose life is in the union
of its members, and if the most important of its cares
is the care for its own preservation, it must have a universal
and compelling force, in order to move and dispose each
part as may be most advantageous to the whole. As nature
gives each man absolute power over all his members, the
social compact gives the body politic absolute power over
all its members also; and it is this power which, under
the direction of the general will, bears, as I have said,
the name of Sovereignty.
But,
besides the public person, we have to consider the private
persons composing it, whose life and liberty are naturally
independent of it. We are bound then to distinguish clearly
between the respective rights of the citizens and the
Sovereign,9 and between
the duties the former have to fulfil as subjects, and
the natural rights they should enjoy as men.
Each
man alienates, I admit, by the social compact, only such
part of his powers, goods and liberty as it is important
for the community to control; but it must also be granted
that the Sovereign is sole judge of what is important.
Every
service a citizen can render the State he ought to render
as soon as the Sovereign demands it; but the Sovereign,
for its part, cannot impose upon its subjects any fetters
that are useless to the community, nor can it even wish
to do so; for no more by the law of reason than by the
law of nature can anything occur without a cause.
The
undertakings which bind us to the social body are obligatory
only because they are mutual; and their nature is such
that in fulfilling them we cannot work for others without
working for ourselves. Why is it that the general will
is always in the right, and that all continually will
the happiness of each one, unless it is because there
is not a man who does not think of "each" as
meaning him, and consider himself in voting for all? This
proves that equality of rights and the idea of justice
which such equality creates originate in the preference
each man gives to himself, and accordingly in the very
nature of man. It proves that the general will, to be
really such, must be general in its object as well as
its essence; that it must both come from all and apply
to all; and that it loses its natural rectitude when it
is directed to some particular and determinate object,
because in such a case we are judging of something foreign
to us, and have no true principle of equity to guide us.
Indeed,
as soon as a question of particular fact or right arises
on a point not previously regulated by a general convention,
the matter becomes contentious. It is a case in which
the individuals concerned are one party, and the public
the other, but in which I can see neither the law that
ought to be followed nor the judge who ought to give the
decision. In such a case, it would be absurd to propose
to refer the question to an express decision of the general
will, which can be only the conclusion reached by one
of the parties and in consequence will be, for the other
party, merely an external and particular will, inclined
on this occasion to injustice and subject to error. Thus,
just as a particular will cannot stand for the general
will, the general will, in turn, changes its nature, when
its object is particular, and, as general, cannot pronounce
on a man or a fact. When, for instance, the people of
Athens nominated or displaced its rulers, decreed honours
to one, and imposed penalties on another, and, by a multitude
of particular decrees, exercised all the functions of
government indiscriminately, it had in such cases no longer
a general will in the strict sense; it was acting no longer
as Sovereign, but as magistrate. This will seem contrary
to current views; but I must be given time to expound
my own.
It
should be seen from the foregoing that what makes the
will general is less the number of voters than the common
interest uniting them; for, under this system, each necessarily
submits to the conditions he imposes on others: and this
admirable agreement between interest and justice gives
to the common deliberations an equitable character which
at once vanishes when any particular question is discussed,
in the absence of a common interest to unite and identify
the ruling of the judge with that of the party.
From
whatever side we approach our principle, we reach the
same conclusion, that the social compact sets up among
the citizens an equality of such a kind, that they all
bind themselves to observe the same conditions and should
therefore all enjoy the same rights. Thus, from the very
nature of the compact, every act of Sovereignty, i.e.,
every authentic act of the general will, binds or favours
all the citizens equally; so that the Sovereign recognises
only the body of the nation, and draws no distinctions
between those of whom it is made up. What, then, strictly
speaking, is an act of Sovereignty? It is not a convention
between a superior and an inferior, but a convention between
the body and each of its members. It is legitimate, because
based on the social contract, and equitable, because common
to all; useful, because it can have no other object than
the general good, and stable, because guaranteed by the
public force and the supreme power. So long as the subjects
have to submit only to conventions of this sort, they
obey no-one but their own will; and to ask how far the
respective rights of the Sovereign and the citizens extend,
is to ask up to what point the latter can enter into undertakings
with themselves, each with all, and all with each.
We
can see from this that the sovereign power, absolute,
sacred and inviolable as it is, does not and cannot exceed
the limits of general conventions, and that every man
may dispose at will of such goods and liberty as these
conventions leave him; so that the Sovereign never has
a right to lay more charges on one subject than on another,
because, in that case, the question becomes particular,
and ceases to be within its competency.
When
these distinctions have once been admitted, it is seen
to be so untrue that there is, in the social contract,
any real renunciation on the part of the individuals,
that the position in which they find themselves as a result
of the contract is really preferable to that in which
they were before. Instead of a renunciation, they have
made an advantageous exchange: instead of an uncertain
and precarious way of living they have got one that is
better and more secure; instead of natural independence
they have got liberty, instead of the power to harm others
security for themselves, and instead of their strength,
which others might overcome, a right which social union
makes invincible. Their very life, which they have devoted
to the State, is by it constantly protected; and when
they risk it in the State's defence, what more are they
doing than giving back what they have received from it?
What are they doing that they would not do more often
and with greater danger in the state of nature, in which
they would inevitably have to fight battles at the peril
of their lives in defence of that which is the means of
their preservation? All have indeed to fight when their
country needs them; but then no one has ever to fight
for himself. Do we not gain something by running, on behalf
of what gives us our security, only some of the risks
we should have to run for ourselves, as soon as we lost
it?
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.
The
death-penalty inflicted upon criminals may be looked on
in much the same light: it is in order that we may not
fall victims to an assassin that we consent to die if
we ourselves turn assassins. In this treaty, so far from
disposing of our own lives, we think only of securing
them, and it is not to be assumed that any of the parties
then expects to get hanged.
Again,
every malefactor, by attacking social rights, becomes
on forfeit a rebel and a traitor to his country; by violating
its laws be ceases to be a member of it; he even makes
war upon it. In such a case the preservation of the State
is inconsistent with his own, and one or the other must
perish; in putting the guilty to death, we slay not so
much the citizen as an enemy. The trial and the judgment
are the proofs that he has broken the social treaty, and
is in consequence no longer a member of the State. Since,
then, he has recognised himself to be such by living there,
he must be removed by exile as a violator of the compact,
or by death as a public enemy; for such an enemy is not
a moral person, but merely a man; and in such a case the
right of war is to kill the vanquished.
But,
it will be said, the condemnation of a criminal is a particular
act. I admit it: but such condemnation is not a function
of the Sovereign; it is a right the Sovereign can confer
without being able itself to exert it. All my ideas are
consistent, but I cannot expound them all at once.
We
may add that frequent punishments are always a sign of
weakness or remissness on the part of the government.
There is not a single ill-doer who could not be turned
to some good. The State has no right to put to death,
even for the sake of making an example, any one whom it
can leave alive without danger.
The
right of pardoning or exempting the guilty from a penalty
imposed by the law and pronounced by the judge belongs
only to the authority which is superior to both judge
and law, i.e., the Sovereign; each its right in this matter
is far from clear, and the cases for exercising it are
extremely rare. In a well-governed State, there are few
punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because
criminals are rare; it is when a State is in decay that
the multitude of crimes is a guarantee of impunity. Under
the Roman Republic, neither the Senate nor the Consuls
ever attempted to pardon; even the people never did so,
though it sometimes revoked its own decision. Frequent
pardons mean that crime will soon need them no longer,
and no one can help seeing whither that leads. But I feel
my heart protesting and restraining my pen; let us leave
these questions to the just man who has never offended,
and would himself stand in no need of pardon.
By
the social compact we have given the body politic existence
and life; we have now by legislation to give it movement
and will. For the original act by which the body is formed
and united still in no respect determines what it ought
to do for its preservation.
What
is well and in conformity with order is so by the nature
of things and independently of human conventions. All
justice comes from God, who is its sole source; but if
we knew how to receive so high an inspiration, we should
need neither government nor laws. Doubtless, there is
a universal justice emanating from reason alone; but this
justice, to be admitted among us, must be mutual. Humanly
speaking, in default of natural sanctions, the laws of
justice are ineffective among men: they merely make for
the good of the wicked and the undoing of the just, when
the just man observes them towards everybody and nobody
observes them towards him. Conventions and laws are therefore
needed to join rights to duties and refer justice to its
object. In the state of nature, where everything is common,
I owe nothing to him whom I have promised nothing; I recognise
as belonging to others only what is of no use to me. In
the state of society all rights are fixed by law, and
the case becomes different.
But
what, after all, is a law? As long as we remain satisfied
with attaching purely metaphysical ideas to the word,
we shall go on arguing without arriving at an understanding;
and when we have defined a law of nature, we shall be
no nearer the definition of a law of the State.
I
have already said that there can be no general will directed
to a particular object. Such an object must be either
within or outside the State. If outside, a will which
is alien to it cannot be, in relation to it, general;
if within, it is part of the State, and in that case there
arises a relation between whole and part which makes them
two separate beings, of which the part is one, and the
whole minus the part the other. But the whole minus a
part cannot be the whole; and while this relation persists,
there can be no whole, but only two unequal parts; and
it follows that the will of one is no longer in any respect
general in relation to the other.
But
when the whole people decrees for the whole people, it
is considering only itself; and if a relation is then
formed, it is between two aspects of the entire object,
without there being any division of the whole. In that
case the matter about which the decree is made is, like
the decreeing will, general. This act is what I call a
law.
When
I say that the object of laws is always general, I mean
that law considers subjects en masse and actions
in the abstract, and never a particular person or action.
Thus the law may indeed decree that there shall be privileges,
but cannot confer them on anybody by name. It may set
up several classes of citizens, and even lay down the
qualifications for membership of these classes, but it
cannot nominate such and such persons as belonging to
them; it may establish a monarchical government and hereditary
succession, but it cannot choose a king, or nominate a
royal family. In a word, no function which has a particular
object belongs to the legislative power.
On
this view, we at once see that it can no longer be asked
whose business it is to make laws, since they are acts
of the general will; nor whether the prince is above the
law, since he is a member of the State; nor whether the
law can be unjust, since no one is unjust to himself;
nor how we can be both free and subject to the laws, since
they are but registers of our wills.
We
see further that, as the law unites universality of will
with universality of object, what a man, whoever he be,
commands of his own motion cannot be a law; and even what
the Sovereign commands with regard to a particular matter
is no nearer being a law, but is a decree, an act, not
of sovereignty, but of magistracy.
I
therefore give the name "Republic" to every
State that is governed by laws, no matter what the form
of its administration may be: for only in such a case
does the public interest govern, and the res publica
rank as a reality. Every legitimate government
is republican;10 what
government is I will explain later on.
Laws
are, properly speaking, only the conditions of civil association.
The people, being subject to the laws, ought to be their
author: the conditions of the society ought to be regulated
solely by those who come together to form it. But how
are they to regulate them? Is it to be by common agreement,
by a sudden inspiration? Has the body politic an organ
to declare its will? Who can give it the foresight to
formulate and announce its acts in advance? Or how is
it to announce them in the hour of need? How can a blind
multitude, which often does not know what it wills, because
it rarely knows what is good for it, carry out for itself
so great and difficult an enterprise as a system of legislation?
Of itself the people wills always the good, but of itself
it by no means always sees it. The general will is always
in the right, but the judgment which guides it is not
always enlightened. It must be got to see objects as they
are, and sometimes as they ought to appear to it; it must
be shown the good road it is in search of, secured from
the seductive influences of individual wills, taught to
see times and spaces as a series, and made to weigh the
attractions of present and sensible advantages against
the danger of distant and hidden evils. The individuals
see the good they reject; the public wills the good it
does not see. All stand equally in need of guidance. The
former must be compelled to bring their wills into conformity
with their reason; the latter must be taught to know what
it wills. If that is done, public enlightenment leads
to the union of understanding and will in the social body:
the parts are made to work exactly together, and the whole
is raised to its highest power. This makes a legislator
necessary.
In
order to discover the rules of society best suited to
nations, a superior intelligence beholding all the passions
of men without experiencing any of them would be needed.
This intelligence would have to be wholly unrelated to
our nature, while knowing it through and through; its
happiness would have to be independent of us, and yet
ready to occupy itself with ours; and lastly, it would
have, in the march of time, to look forward to a distant
glory, and, working in one century, to be able to enjoy
in the next.11 It
would take gods to give men laws.
What
Caligula argued from the facts, Plato, in the dialogue
called the Politicus, argued in defining the civil
or kingly man, on the basis of right. But if great princes
are rare, how much more so are great legislators? The
former have only to follow the pattern which the latter
have to lay down. The legislator is the engineer who invents
the machine, the prince merely the mechanic who sets it
up and makes it go. "At the birth of societies,"
says Montesquieu, "the rulers of Republics establish
institutions, and afterwards the institutions mould the
rulers."12
He
who dares to undertake the making of a people's institutions
ought to feel himself capable, so to speak, of changing
human nature, of transforming each individual, who is
by himself a complete and solitary whole, into part of
a greater whole from which he in a manner receives his
life and being; of altering man's constitution for the
purpose of strengthening it; and of substituting a partial
and moral existence for the physical and independent existence
nature has conferred on us all. He must, in a word, take
away from man his own resources and give him instead new
ones alien to him, and incapable of being made use of
without the help of other men. The more completely these
natural resources are annihilated, the greater and the
more lasting are those which he acquires, and the more
stable and perfect the new institutions; so that if each
citizen is nothing and can do nothing without the rest,
and the resources acquired by the whole are equal or superior
to the aggregate of the resources of all the individuals,
it may be said that legislation is at the highest possible
point of perfection.
The
legislator occupies in every respect an extraordinary
position in the State. If he should do so by reason of
his genius, he does so no less by reason of his office,
which is neither magistracy, nor Sovereignty. This office,
which sets up the Republic, nowhere enters into its constitution;
it is an individual and superior function, which has nothing
in common with human empire; for if he who holds command
over men ought not to have command over the laws, he who
has command over the laws ought not any more to have it
over men; or else his laws would be the ministers of his
passions and would often merely serve to perpetuate his
injustices: his private aims would inevitably mar the
sanctity of his work.
When
Lycurgus gave laws to his country, he began by resigning
the throne. It was the custom of most Greek towns to entrust
the establishment of their laws to foreigners. The Republics
of modern Italy in many cases followed this example; Geneva
did the same and profited by it.13
Rome, when it was most prosperous, suffered a revival
of all the crimes of tyranny, and was brought to the verge
of destruction, because it put the legislative authority
and the sovereign power into the same hands.
Nevertheless,
the decemvirs themselves never claimed the right to pass
any law merely on their own authority. "Nothing we
propose to you," they said to the people, "can
pass into law without your consent. Romans, be yourselves
the authors of the laws which are to make you happy."
He,
therefore, who draws up the laws has, or should have,
no right of legislation, and the people cannot, even if
it wishes, deprive itself of this incommunicable right,
because, according to the fundamental compact, only the
general will can bind the individuals, and there can be
no assurance that a particular will is in conformity with
the general will, until it has been put to the free vote
of the people. This I have said already; but it is worth
while to repeat it.
Thus
in the task of legislation we find together two things
which appear to be incompatible: an enterprise too difficult
for human powers, and, for its execution, an authority
that is no authority.
There
is a further difficulty that deserves attention. Wise
men, if they try to speak their language to the common
herd instead of its own, cannot possibly make themselves
understood. There are a thousand kinds of ideas which
it is impossible to translate into popular language. Conceptions
that are too general and objects that are too remote are
equally out of its range: each individual, having no taste
for any other plan of government than that which suits
his particular interest, finds it difficult to realise
the advantages he might hope to draw from the continual
privations good laws impose. For a young people to be
able to relish sound principles of political theory and
follow the fundamental rules of statecraft, the effect
would have to become the cause; the social spirit, which
should be created by these institutions, would have to
preside over their very foundation; and men would have
to be before law what they should become by means of law.
The legislator therefore, being unable to appeal to either
force or reason, must have recourse to an authority of
a different order, capable of constraining without violence
and persuading without convincing.
This
is what has, in all ages, compelled the fathers of nations
to have recourse to divine intervention and credit the
gods with their own wisdom, in order that the peoples,
submitting to the laws of the State as to those of nature,
and recognising the same power in the formation of the
city as in that of man, might obey freely, and bear with
docility the yoke of the public happiness.
This
sublime reason, far above the range of the common herd,
is that whose decisions the legislator puts into the mouth
of the immortals, in order to constrain by divine authority
those whom human prudence could not move.14
But it is not anybody who can make the gods speak, or
get himself believed when he proclaims himself their interpreter.
The great soul of the legislator is the only miracle that
can prove his mission. Any man may grave tablets of stone,
or buy an oracle, or feign secret intercourse with some
divinity, or train a bird to whisper in his ear, or find
other vulgar ways of imposing on the people. He whose
knowledge goes no further may perhaps gather round him
a band of fools; but he will never found an empire, and
his extravagances will quickly perish with him. Idle tricks
form a passing tie; only wisdom can make it lasting. The
Judaic law, which still subsists, and that of the child
of Ishmael, which, for ten centuries, has ruled half the
world, still proclaim the great men who laid them down;
and, while the pride of philosophy or the blind spirit
of faction sees in them no more than lucky impostures,
the true political theorist admires, in the institutions
they set up, the great and powerful genius which presides
over things made to endure.
We
should not, with Warburton, conclude from this that politics
and religion have among us a common object, but that,
in the first periods of nations, the one is used as an
instrument for the other.
As,
before putting up a large building, the architect surveys
and sounds the site to see if it will bear the weight,
the wise legislator does not begin by laying down laws
good in themselves, but by investigating the fitness of
the people, for which they are destined, to receive them.
Plato refused to legislate for the Arcadians and the Cyrenæans,
because he knew that both peoples were rich and could
not put up with equality; and good laws and bad men were
found together in Crete, because Minos had inflicted discipline
on a people already burdened with vice.
A
thousand nations have achieved earthly greatness, that
could never have endured good laws; even such as could
have endured them could have done so only for a very brief
period of their long history. Most peoples, like most
men, are docile only in youth; as they grow old they become
incorrigible. When once customs have become established
and prejudices inveterate, it is dangerous and useless
to attempt their reformation; the people, like the foolish
and cowardly patients who rave at sight of the doctor,
can no longer bear that any one should lay hands on its
faults to remedy them.
There
are indeed times in the history of States when, just as
some kinds of illness turn men's heads and make them forget
the past, periods of violence and revolutions do to peoples
what these crises do to individuals: horror of the past
takes the place of forgetfulness, and the State, set on
fire by civil wars, is born again, so to speak, from its
ashes, and takes on anew, fresh from the jaws of death,
the vigour of youth. Such were Sparta at the time of Lycurgus,
Rome after the Tarquins, and, in modern times, Holland
and Switzerland after the expulsion of the tyrants.
But
such events are rare; they are exceptions, the cause of
which is always to be found in the particular constitution
of the State concerned. They cannot even happen twice
to the same people, for it can make itself free as long
as it remains barbarous, but not when the civic impulse
has lost its vigour. Then disturbances may destroy it,
but revolutions cannot mend it: it needs a master, and
not a liberator. Free peoples, be mindful of this maxim:
"Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered."
Youth
is not infancy. There is for nations, as for men, a period
of youth, or, shall we say, maturity, before which they
should not be made subject to laws; but the maturity of
a people is not always easily recognisable, and, if it
is anticipated, the work is spoilt. One people is amenable
to discipline from the beginning; another, not after ten
centuries. Russia will never be really civilised, because
it was civilised too soon. Peter had a genius for imitation;
but he lacked true genius, which is creative and makes
all from nothing. He did some good things, but most of
what he did was out of place. He saw that his people was
barbarous, but did not see that it was not ripe for civilisation:
he wanted to civilise it when it needed only hardening.
His first wish was to make Germans or Englishmen, when
he ought to have been making Russians; and he prevented
his subjects from ever becoming what they might have been
by persuading them that they were what they are not. In
this fashion too a French teacher turns out his pupil
to be an infant prodigy, and for the rest of his life
to be nothing whatsoever. The empire of Russia will aspire
to conquer Europe, and will itself be conquered. The Tartars,
its subjects or neighbours, will become its masters and
ours, by a revolution which I regard as inevitable. Indeed,
all the kings of Europe are working in concert to hasten
its coming.
9.
THE PEOPLE (continued)
As
nature has set bounds to the stature of a well-made man,
and, outside those limits, makes nothing but giants or
dwarfs, similarly, for the constitution of a State to
be at its best, it is possible to fix limits that will
make it neither too large for good government, nor too
small for self-maintenance. In every body politic there
is a maximum strength which it cannot exceed and
which it only loses by increasing in size. Every extension
of the social tie means its relaxation; and, generally
speaking, a small State is stronger in proportion than
a great one.
A
thousand arguments could be advanced in favour of this
principle. First, long distances make administration more
difficult, just as a weight becomes heavier at the end
of a longer lever. Administration therefore becomes more
and more burdensome as the distance grows greater; for,
in the first place, each city has its own, which is paid
for by the people: each district its own, still paid for
by the people: then comes each province, and then the
great governments, satrapies, and vice-royalties, always
costing more the higher you go, and always at the expense
of the unfortunate people. Last of all comes the supreme
administration, which eclipses all the rest. All these
over charges are a continual drain upon the subjects;
so far from being better governed by all these different
orders, they are worse governed than if there were only
a single authority over them. In the meantime, there scarce
remain resources enough to meet emergencies; and, when
recourse must be had to these, the State is always on
the eve of destruction.
This
is not all; not only has the government less vigour and
promptitude for securing the observance of the laws, preventing
nuisances, correcting abuses, and guarding against seditious
undertakings begun in distant places; the people has less
affection for its rulers, whom it never sees, for its
country, which, to its eyes, seems like the world, and
for its fellow-citizens, most of whom are unknown to it.
The same laws cannot suit so many diverse provinces with
different customs, situated in the most various climates,
and incapable of enduring a uniform government. Different
laws lead only to trouble and confusion among peoples
which, living under the same rulers and in constant communication
one with another, intermingle and intermarry, and, coming
under the sway of new customs, never know if they can
call their very patrimony their own. Talent is buried,
virtue unknown and vice unpunished, among such a multitude
of men who do not know one another, gathered together
in one place at the seat of the central administration.
The leaders, overwhelmed with business, see nothing for
themselves; the State is governed by clerks. Finally,
the measures which have to be taken to maintain the general
authority, which all these distant officials wish to escape
or to impose upon, absorb all the energy of the public,
so that there is none left for the happiness of the people.
There is hardly enough to defend it when need arises,
and thus a body which is too big for its constitution
gives way and falls crushed under its own weight.
Again,
the State must assure itself a safe foundation, if it
is to have stability, and to be able to resist the shocks
it cannot help experiencing, as well as the efforts it
will be forced to make for its maintenance; for all peoples
have a kind of centrifugal force that makes them continually
act one against another, and tend to aggrandise themselves
at their neighbours' expense, like the vortices of Descartes.
Thus the weak run the risk of being soon swallowed up;
and it is almost impossible for any one to preserve itself
except by putting itself in a state of equilibrium with
all, so that the pressure is on all sides practically
equal.
It
may therefore be seen that there are reasons for expansion
and reasons for contraction; and it is no small part of
the statesman's skill to hit between them the mean that
is most favourable to the preservation of the State. It
may be said that the reason for expansion, being merely
external and relative, ought to be subordinate to the
reasons for contraction, which are internal and absolute.
A strong and healthy constitution is the first thing to
look for; and it is better to count on the vigour which
comes of good government than on the resources a great
territory furnishes.
It
may be added that there have been known States so constituted
that the necessity of making conquests entered into their
very constitution, and that, in order to maintain themselves,
they were forced to expand ceaselessly. It may be that
they congratulated themselves greatly on this fortunate
necessity, which none the less indicated to them, along
with the limits of their greatness, the inevitable moment
of their fall.
10.
THE PEOPLE (continued)
A
body
politic may be measured in two ways either by the
extent of its territory, or by the number of its people;
and there is, between these two measurements, a right
relation which makes the State really great. The men make
the State, and the territory sustains the men; the right
relation therefore is that the land should suffice for
the maintenance of the inhabitants, and that there should
be as many inhabitants as the land can maintain. In this
proportion lies the maximum strength of a given
number of people; for, if there is too much land, it is
troublesome to guard and inadequately cultivated, produces
more than is needed, and soon gives rise to wars of defence;
if there is not enough, the State depends on its neighbours
for what it needs over and above, and this soon gives
rise to wars of offence. Every people, to which its situation
gives no choice save that between commerce and war, is
weak in itself: it depends on its neighbours, and on circumstances;
its existence can never be more than short and uncertain.
It either conquers others, and changes its situation,
or it is conquered and becomes nothing. Only insignificance
or greatness can keep it free.
No
fixed relation can be stated between the extent of territory
and the population that are adequate one to the other,
both because of the differences in the quality of land,
in its fertility, in the nature of its products, and in
the influence of climate, and because of the different
tempers of those who inhabit it; for some in a fertile
country consume little, and others on an ungrateful soil
much. The greater or less fecundity of women, the conditions
that are more or less favourable in each country to the
growth of population, and the influence the legislator
can hope to exercise by his institutions, must also be
taken into account. The legislator therefore should not
go by what he sees, but by what he foresees; he should
stop not so much at the state in which he actually finds
the population, as at that to which it ought naturally
to attain. Lastly, there are countless cases in which
the particular local circumstances demand or allow the
acquisition of a greater territory than seems necessary.
Thus, expansion will be great in a mountainous country,
where the natural products, i.e., woods and pastures,
need less labour, where we know from experience that women
are more fertile than in the plains, and where a great
expanse of slope affords only a small level tract that
can be counted on for vegetation. On the other hand, contraction
is possible on the coast, even in lands of rocks and nearly
barren sands, because there fishing makes up to a great
extent for the lack of land-produce, because the inhabitants
have to congregate together more in order to repel pirates,
and further because it is easier to unburden the country
of its superfluous inhabitants by means of colonies.
To
these conditions of law-giving must be added one other
which, though it cannot take the place of the rest, renders
them all useless when it is absent. This is the enjoyment
of peace and plenty; for the moment at which a State sets
its house in order is, like the moment when a battalion
is forming up, that when its body is least capable of
offering resistance and easiest to destroy. A better resistance
could be made at a time of absolute disorganisation than
at a moment of fermentation, when each is occupied with
his own position and not with the danger. If war, famine,
or sedition arises at this time of crisis, the State will
inevitably be overthrown.
Not
that many governments have not been set up during such
storms; but in such cases these governments are themselves
the State's destroyers. Usurpers always bring about or
select troublous times to get passed, under cover of the
public terror, destructive laws, which the people would
never adopt in cold blood. The moment chosen is one of
the surest means of distinguishing the work of the legislator
from that of the tyrant.
What
people, then, is a fit subject for legislation? One which,
already bound by some unity of origin, interest, or convention,
has never yet felt the real yoke of law; one that has
neither customs nor superstitions deeply ingrained, one
which stands in no fear of being overwhelmed by sudden
invasion; one which, without entering into its neighbours'
quarrels, can resist each of them single-handed, or get
the help of one to repel another; one in which every member
may be known by every other, and there is no need to lay
on any man burdens too heavy for a man to bear; one which
can do without other peoples, and without which all others
can do;15 one which
is neither rich nor poor, but self-sufficient; and, lastly,
one which unites the consistency of an ancient people
with the docility of a new one. Legislation is made difficult
less by what it is necessary to build up than by what
has to be destroyed; and what makes success so rare is
the impossibility of finding natural simplicity together
with social requirements. All these conditions are indeed
rarely found united, and therefore few States have good
constitutions.
There
is still in Europe one country capable of being given
laws Corsica. The valour and persistency with which
that brave people has regained and defended its liberty
well deserves that some wise man should teach it how to
preserve what it has won. I have a feeling that some day
that little island will astonish Europe.
11.
THE VARIOUS SYSTEMS OF LEGISLATION
If
we ask in what precisely consists the greatest good of
all, which should be the end of every system of legislation,
we shall find it reduce itself to two main objects, liberty
and equality liberty, because all particular dependence
means so much force taken from the body of the State and
equality, because liberty cannot exist without it.
I
have already defined civil liberty; by equality, we should
understand, not that the degrees of power and riches are
to be absolutely identical for everybody; but that power
shall never be great enough for violence, and shall always
be exercised by virtue of rank and law; and that, in respect
of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to
buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell
himself:16 which implies,
on the part of the great, moderation in goods and position,
and, on the side of the common sort, moderation in avarice
and covetousness.
Such
equality, we are told, is an unpractical ideal that cannot
actually exist. But if its abuse is inevitable, does it
follow that we should not at least make regulations concerning
it? It is precisely because the force of circumstances
tends continually to destroy equality that the force of
legislation should always tend to its maintenance.
But
these general objects of every good legislative system
need modifying in every country in accordance with the
local situation and the temper of the inhabitants; and
these circumstances should determine, in each case, the
particular system of institutions which is best, not perhaps
in itself, but for the State for which it is destined.
If, for instance, the soil is barren and unproductive,
or the land too crowded for its inhabitants, the people
should turn to industry and the crafts, and exchange what
they produce for the commodities they lack. If, on the
other hand, a people dwells in rich plains and fertile
slopes, or, in a good land, lacks inhabitants, it should
give all its attention to agriculture, which causes men
to multiply, and should drive out the crafts, which would
only result in depopulation, by grouping in a few localities
the few inhabitants there are.17
If a nation dwells on an extensive and convenient coast-line,
let it cover the sea with ships and foster commerce and
navigation. It will have a life that will be short and
glorious. If, on its coasts, the sea washes nothing but
almost inaccessible rocks, let it remain barbarous and
ichthyophagous: it will have a quieter, perhaps a better,
and certainly a happier life. In a word, besides the principles
that are common to all, every nation has in itself something
that gives them a particular application, and makes its
legislation peculiarly its own. Thus, among the Jews long
ago and more recently among the Arabs, the chief object
was religion, among the Athenians letters, at Carthage
and Tyre commerce, at Rhodes shipping, at Sparta war,
at Rome virtue. The author of The Spirit of the Laws
has shown with many examples by what art the legislator
directs the constitution towards each of these objects.
What makes the constitution of a State really solid and
lasting is the due observance of what is proper, so that
the natural relations are always in agreement with the
laws on every point, and law only serves, so to speak,
to assure, accompany and rectify them. But if the legislator
mistakes his object and adopts a principle other than
circumstances naturally direct; if his principle makes
for servitude while they make for liberty, or if it makes
for riches, while they make for populousness, or if it
makes for peace, while they make for conquest the
laws will insensibly lose their influence, the constitution
will alter, and the State will have no rest from trouble
till it is either destroyed or changed, and nature has
resumed her invincible sway.
12.
THE DIVISION OF THE LAWS
If
the whole is to be set in order, and the commonwealth
put into the best possible shape, there are various relations
to be considered. First, there is the action of the complete
body upon itself, the relation of the whole to the whole,
of the Sovereign to the State; and this relation, as we
shall see, is made up of the relations of the intermediate
terms.
The
laws which regulate this relation bear the name of political
laws, and are also called fundamental laws, not without
reason if they are wise. For, if there is, in each State,
only one good system, the people that is in possession
of it should hold fast to this; but if the established
order is bad, why should laws that prevent men from being
good be regarded as fundamental? Besides, in any case,
a people is always in a position to change its laws, however
good; for, if it choose to do itself harm, who can have
a right to stop it?
The
second relation is that of the members one to another,
or to the body as a whole; and this relation should be
in the first respect as unimportant, and in the second
as important, as possible. Each citizen would then be
perfectly independent of all the rest, and at the same
time very dependent on the city; which is brought about
always by the same means, as the strength of the State
can alone secure the liberty of its members. From this
second relation arise civil laws.
We
may consider also a third kind of relation between the
individual and the law, a relation of disobedience to
its penalty. This gives rise to the setting up of criminal
laws, which, at bottom, are less a particular class of
law than the sanction behind all the rest.
Along
with these three kinds of law goes a fourth, most important
of all, which is not graven on tablets of marble or brass,
but on the hearts of the citizens. This forms the real
constitution of the State, takes on every day new powers,
when other laws decay or die out, restores them or takes
their place, keeps a people in the ways in which it was
meant to go, and insensibly replaces authority by the
force of habit. I am speaking of morality, of custom,
above all of public opinion; a power unknown to political
thinkers, on which none the less success in everything
else depends. With this the great legislator concerns
himself in secret, though he seems to confine himself
to particular regulations; for these are only the arc
of the arch, while manners and morals, slower to arise,
form in the end its immovable keystone.
Among
the different classes of laws, the political, which determine
the forms of the government, are alone relevant to my
subject.
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