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A Treatise on the Social Compact, Or, the Principles of Political Law
A Treatise on the Social Compact Or the Principles of Political Law Author:Jean-Jacques Rousseau Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: phyfician ? If a robber fhould flop me oa the highway, am I not obliged, en compulfioo, to give him my purfe, but am I alfo obliged to it in point of confidence,... more » though I might poffibly conceal it from him ? This will hardly be averred ; and yet the piftol he holds to iny bread is in effefl a fuperior force. On the whole, we muft conclude, then, that mere power doth not conftitute right, and that men are obliged only to pay obedience to. lawful authority. Thus we arc conftantly recurring to ray firft quefiion. CHAP. IV. On Jlavery. AS no man hath any natural authority over the reft of his fpecies, and as power doth not confer right, the bafi of all lawful authority is laid in mutual convention. If an indUidual, fays Grotius, can alienate his liberty, and become the flave of a mafter, why may not a whole people collectively alienate theirs, and become fubject to a king? This propofition, however,contains fome equivocal terms, which require explanation ; but I fhall confine my- felf to that of alienate. Whatever is alienated muft b difpofed of, either by gift or fale. Now a man who becomes the flav of another, doth not give himfelf away; but fells himfelf, at leaft for his fubfiftence. But why feould a whoje people fell thcanfelvei ? So far is a king from furnifhing his fubjects fubfiftence, that they maintain him; and, as our friend Rabelais fays, a king doth not live on a little. Can fubjects be fuppofed to give away their liberty, on condition that the receiver fhall take the property along with it ? After this, I really cannot te any thing they have left. It may be faid, a monarch maintains amonghis fubjects the public tranquillity. Be it fo ; I would be glad to know of what they are gainers, if the wars in which hi ambition engages them, if his infatiable a...« less