Volume 2 — CHAPTER III.
Reading edition
CHAPTER III.
The Social Contract.
Rousseau's reaction against perfectibility 119
Abandonment of the position of the Discourses 121
Doubtful idea of equality 121
The Social Contract, a repudiation of the historic method 124
Yet it has glimpses of relativity 127
Influence of Greek examples 129
And of Geneva 131
Impression upon Robespierre and Saint Just 132
Rousseau's scheme implied a small territory 135
Why the Social Contract made fanatics 137
Verbal quality of its propositions 138
The doctrine of public safety 143
The doctrine of the sovereignty of peoples 144
Its early phases 144
Its history in the sixteenth century 146
Hooker and Grotius 148
Locke 149
Hobbes 151
Central propositions of the Social Contract— 1. Origin of society in compact 154 Different conception held by the Physiocrats 156 2. Sovereignty of the body thus constituted 158 Difference from Hobbes and Locke 159 The root of socialism 160 Republican phraseology 161 3. Attributes of sovereignty 162 4. The law-making power 163 A contemporary illustration 164 Hints of confederation 166 5. Forms of government 168 Criticism on the common division 169 Rousseau's preference for elective aristocracy 172 6. Attitude of the state to religion 173 Rousseau's view, the climax of a reaction 176 Its effect at the French Revolution 179 Its futility 180 Another method of approaching the philosophy of government— Origin of society not a compact 183 The true reason of the submission of a minority to a majority 184 Rousseau fails to touch actual problems 186 The doctrine of resistance, for instance 188 Historical illustrations 190 Historical effect of the Social Contract in France and Germany 193 Socialist deductions from it 194