The World's Greatest Books - Volume 14 Part 32

I maintain, then, that sovereignty, being the exercise of the general will, cannot be alienated, and that the sovereign, which is simply a collective being, cannot be represented save by itself; it may transfer its power, but not its will.

For the same reason that sovereignty is inalienable, it is indivisible.

For the will is either general or it is not. If it is general, it is, when declared, an act of the people, and becomes law; if it is not general, it is, when declared, merely an act of a particular person or persons, not of the sovereign.

The general will is infallible; but the deliberations of the people are not necessarily so. The people may be, and often are, deceived.

Particular interests may gain an advantage over general interests, and in that case the rival particular interests should be allowed to destroy each other, so that the true general interest may prevail. In order to secure the clear expression of the general will, there should be no parties or groups within the state; if such groups exist, they should be multiplied in number, so that no one party should get the upper hand.

While, under the contract, each person alienates his power, his goods, and his liberty, he only alienates so much of these as are of concern to the community; but it belongs to the sovereign to determine what is of concern to the community and what is not.

Whatsoever services a citizen owes to the state, he owes them directly the sovereign demands them; but the sovereign, on its part, must not charge its citizens with any obligations useless to the community; for, under the law of reason, nothing is done without cause, any more than under the law of nature. The general will, let it be repeated, tends always to public utility, and is intrinsically incapable of demanding services not useful to the public.

A law is an expression of a general will, and must be general in its terms and import. The sovereign cannot legislate for part of the individuals composing the state, for if it did so the general will would enter into a particular relation with particular people, and that is contrary to its nature. The law may thus confer privileges, but must not name the persons to whom the privileges are to belong. It may establish a royal government, but must not nominate a king. Any function relating to an individual object does not appertain to the legislative power. As a popular a.s.sembly is not always enlightened, though the general will when properly ascertained, must be right--the service of a wise legislator is necessary to draw up laws with the sovereign's approval.

The legislator, if he be truly wise, will not begin by writing down laws very good in the abstract, but will first look about to see whether the people for whom he intends them is capable of upholding them. He must bear in mind many considerations--the situation of the country--the nature of the soil--the density of the population--the national history, occupations, and apt.i.tudes.

Among these considerations one of the most important is the area of the state. As nature has given limits to the stature of a normal man, beyond she makes only giants or dwarfs, there are also limits beyond which a state is, in the one direction, too large to be well-governed, and, in the other, too small to maintain itself. There is in every body politic a maximum of force which cannot be exceeded, and from which the state often falls away by the process of enlarging itself. The further the social bond is extended, the slacker it becomes; and, in general, a small state is proportionately stronger than a large one.

It is true that a state must have a certain breadth of base for the sake of solidity, and in order to resist violent shocks from without. But, on the other hand, administration becomes more troublesome with distance.

It increases in burdensomeness, moreover, with the multiplication of degrees. Each town, district, and province, has its administration, for which the people must pay. Finally, overwhelming everything, is the remote central administration. Again the government in a large state has less vigour and swiftness than in a smaller one; the people have less affection for their chiefs, their country, and for each other--since they are, for the most part, strangers to each other. Uniform laws are not suitable for diverse provinces. Yet diverse laws among people belonging to the same state, breed weakness and confusion, for a healthy and well-knit const.i.tution, in brief, it is wiser to count upon the vigour that is born of good government than upon the resources supplied by greatness of territory.

The greatest good of all, which should be the aim of every system of legislation, may, on investigation, be reduced to two main objects, _liberty_ and _equality_: liberty, because all dependence of individuals on other individuals is so much force taken away from the body of the state; equality, because without it liberty cannot exist.

But these general objects of every good inst.i.tution should be regulated in every country in accord with its situation and the character of its inhabitants. Nations with rich territories, for example, should be led to devote themselves to agriculture; manufacturing industry should be left to sterile lands. That which renders the const.i.tution of the state genuinely solid and endurable is the judicious adaptation of laws to natural conditions. A conflict between the two tends to destruction; but when the laws are in sympathy with the natural conditions, when they keep in touch with them, and improve them, the state should prosper.

_The Government_

Every free action has two causes which concur to produce it: one of them the will that determines upon the act, the other the power that performs it. In the political body, one must distinguish between these two--the legislative power and the executive power. The executive power cannot belong to the sovereign, inasmuch as executive acts are particular acts, aimed at individuals, and therefore, as already explained, outside the sovereign's sphere. Public force, then, requires an agent to apply it, according to the direction of the general will. This is the government, erroneously confounded with the sovereign, of which it is only the minister. It is an intermediary body, established between subject and sovereign for their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of civil and political liberty.

The magistrates who form the government may be numerous, or may be few; and, generally speaking, the fewer the magistrates the stronger the government. A magistrate has three wills: his personal will, his will as one of the governors, and his will as a member of the sovereign. The last named is the weakest, the first named the most powerful. If there is only one governor, the two stronger wills are concentrated in one man; with a few governors, they are concentrated in few men; when the government is in the hands of all the citizens, the second will is obliterated, and the first widely distributed, and the government is consequently weak. On the other hand, where there are many governors, the government will be more readily kept in correspondence with the general will. The duty of the legislator is to hit the happy medium at which the government, while not failing in strength, is yet properly submissive to the sovereign.

The sovereign may, in the first place, entrust the government to the whole people, or the greater part of them; this form is called democracy. Or it may be placed in the hands of a minority, in which case it is called the aristocracy. Or it may be concentrated in the hands of a single magistrate, from whom all the others derive their power; this is called monarchy.

It may be urged, on behalf of democracy, that those who make the laws know better than anybody how they should be interpreted and administered. But it is not right that the makers of the laws should execute them, nor that the main body of the people should turn its attention from general views to particular objects. Nothing is more dangerous than the influence of private interests on public affairs. A true democracy, in the rigorous sense of the term, never has existed and never will. A people composed of G.o.ds would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is unsuited to men.

There are three forms of aristocracy: natural, elective, and hereditary.

The first is only adapted to simple people; the third is the worst of all governments; the second is the best of all. By the elective method, probity, sagacity, experience, and all other sources of preference and public esteem afford guarantees that the community will be wisely governed.

The first defect of monarchy is that it is to the interests of the monarch to keep the people in a state of misery and weakness, so that they may be unable to resist his power. Another is that under a monarchy the posts of honour are occupied by bunglers and rascals who win their promotion by petty court intrigue. Again, an elective monarchy is a cause of disorder whenever a king dies; and a hereditary monarchy leaves the character of the king to chance, which, as everything tends to deprive of justice and reason a man trained to supreme rule, generally goes astray.

The question as to whether there is any sign by which we can tell whether a people is well or ill governed readily admits of a solution.

What is the surest token of the preservation and prosperity of a political community? It is to be found in the population. Other things being equal, the government under which, without extrinsic devices, without naturalisation, without colonies, the citizens increase and multiply, is infallibly the best. Calculators, it is therefore your affair; count, measure, compare.

As particular wills strive unceasingly against the general will, so the government makes a continual attack upon the sovereign. If the government is able, by its efforts, to usurp the sovereignty, then the social contract is broken; the citizens, who have by right been thereby restored to their natural liberty, may be forced to obey the usurper, but are under no other obligation to do so.

Since the sovereign has no power except its legislative authority, it only acts by laws; and since the laws are simply the authentic acts of the general will, the sovereign cannot act save when the people are a.s.sembled. It is essential that there should be definitely fixed periodic a.s.semblies of the people that cannot be abolished or delayed, so that on the appointed day the people would be legitimately convoked by the law, without need of any formal summons.

I may be asked, how are the citizens of a large state, composed of many communities, to hold frequent meetings? I reply that it is useless to quote the disadvantages of large states to one who considers that all states ought to be small. But how are small states to defend themselves against large ones? By confederation, after the manner of the Greek and ancient times, and the Dutch and Swiss in times more modern.

But between the sovereign authority and arbitrary government there is sometimes introduced a middle power of which I ought to speak. As soon as the public service ceases to be the main interest of the citizens, as soon as they prefer to serve their purses rather than themselves, the state is nearing its ruin. The weakening of patriotism, the activity of private interests, the immensity of states, conquests, and the abuse of government, have led to the device of deputies or representatives of the people in the national a.s.semblies. But sovereignty cannot be represented, even as it cannot be alienated; it consists essentially in the general will, and the will is not ascertainable by representation; it is either itself, or something else; there is no middle course. A law not ratified by the people in person is no law at all. The English people believes itself free, but it greatly deceives itself; it is not so, except during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, it is enslaved, it is nothing.

How are we to conceive the act by which the government is inst.i.tuted?

The first process is the determination of the sovereign, that the government shall a.s.sume such and such a form; this is the establishment of a law. The second process is the nomination by the people of those to whom the government is to be entrusted; this is not a law, but a particular act, a function of government.

How, then, can we have an act of government before the government exists? How can the people, who are only sovereigns or subjects, become magistrates under certain circ.u.mstances? Here we discover one of those astonis.h.i.+ng properties of the body politic, by which it reconciles operations apparently contradictory; for the process is accomplished by a sudden conversion from sovereignty to democracy, so that, with no sensible change, and simply by a new relation of all to all, the citizens become magistrates, pa.s.s from general to partiacts, and from the law to its execution. In this manner the English House of Commons resolves itself into committee, and thus becomes a simple commission of the sovereign court which it was a moment before; afterwards reporting to itself, as House of Commons, as to its proceedings in the form of a committee.

It is a logical sequence of the Social Contract that in the a.s.semblies of the people the voice of the majority prevails. The only law requiring unanimity is the contract itself. But how can a man be free and at the same time compelled to submit to laws to which he has not consented? I reply that when a law is proposed in the popular a.s.sembly, the question put is not precisely whether the citizens approve or disapprove of it, but whether it conforms or not to the general will. The minority, then, simply have it proved to them that they estimated the general will wrongly. Once it is declared, they are as citizens partic.i.p.ants in it, and as subjects they must obey it.

_Civil Religion_

Religion, in its relation to society, can be divided into two kinds--the religion of the man, and that of the citizen. The first, without temples, without altars, without rites, limited to the inner and private wors.h.i.+p of the Supreme G.o.d, and to the eternal duties of morality, is the pure and simple religion of the Evangel, the true theism. The other, established in one country only, gives that country its own G.o.ds, its own tutelary patrons; it has its own dogmas and ritual, and all foreigners are deemed to be infidels. Such were all the religions of the primitive peoples.

There is a third and more eccentric kind of religion, which, giving men two legislations, two chiefs, two countries, imposes upon them contradictory duties, and forbids them from being at the same time devotees and patriots. Such is the religion of the Llamas; such is the religion of the j.a.panese; such is Roman Christianity.

Politically considered, all these kinds have their defects. The third is so manifestly bad that one need waste no time upon it. That which breaks social unity is worthless. The second is good, in that it inculcates patriotism, makes it a religious duty to serve the state. But it is founded on error and falsehood, and renders its adherents superst.i.tious, intolerant, and cruel. The first, the religion of man, or Christianity, is a sublime and true religion by which men, children of one G.o.d, acknowledge each other as brethren, and the society that unites them does not dissolve even with death. But Christianity of itself is not calculated to strengthen a nation; it teaches submissiveness, and discourages patriotic pride.

Now it is of prime importance to the state that each citizen should have a religion which teaches him to love his duty; but the state is only concerned with religion so far as it teaches morality and the duty of man towards his neighbour. Beyond that, the sovereign has nothing to do with a man's religious opinions.

There should, therefore, be a purely civil profession of faith, the articles of which are to be fixed by the sovereign, not precisely as religious dogmas, but as sentiments of sociability, without which it is impossible for a man to be a good citizen or a faithful subject. Without being able to compel anybody to believe the articles, the sovereign could banish from the state anybody who did not believe them; it can banish him, not as impious, but as unsociable, as incapable of sincerely loving laws and justice. If anyone, having publicly accepted these dogmas, should act as if he did not believe them, he should be punished with death; he would have committed the greatest of crimes, that of lying against the laws.

The dogmas of the civil religion should be simple, few, precise, without explanations or commentaries. The existence of a powerful, wise, benevolent, provident, and bountiful Deity, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanct.i.ty of the social contract, and the laws; these are the positive dogmas. As for negative dogmas, I limit them to one; I would have every good citizen forswear intolerance in religion.

After having laid down the true principles of political rights, and sought to place the state upon its proper basis, it should remain to support it by its external relations--international law, commerce, and so on. But this forms a new aim too vast for my limited view; I have had to fix my eyes on objects nearer at hand.

ADAM SMITH

Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith, greatest of discoverers in the science of Political Economy, was born at Kirkcaldy, Scotland, on June 5, 1723, after the death of his father, who had been Comptroller of Customs at that port. He was educated at Kirkcaldy Grammar School, then at Glasgow University, and finally at Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied for seven years. From 1748 he resided in Edinburgh, where he made a close friends.h.i.+p with David Hume, and gave a course of lectures on literature; in 1751 he became professor of Logic in Glasgow University, and in the following year professor of Moral Philosophy. A philosophical treatise ent.i.tled "A Theory of Moral Sentiments," published in 1759, has no longer any interest; but it was during his thirteen years' residence in Glasgow that Smith arrived at the principles formulated in his immortal "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." He left Glasgow in 1763 to become the tutor of the youthful Duke of Buccleuch, with whom he lived at Toulouse, Geneva and Paris, studying the politics and economics of France on the eve of the Revolution. In 1766 Adam Smith retired to Kirkcaldy, with an annuity from the Buccleuch family; devoted himself to his life's work; and in 1776 published the "Wealth of Nations," which at once achieved a permanent reputation. The author was appointed, in 1778, Commissioner of Customs for Scotland, and died on July 17, 1790. Adam Smith was a man of vast learning and of great simplicity and kindliness of character. His reasonings have had vast influence not only on the science of Economics but also on practical politics; his powerful defence of free trade, and his indictment of the East India Company have especially modified the history of his country.

_I.--Labour and Its Produce_

The division of labour has been the chief cause of improvement in the productiveness of labour. For instance, the making of a single pin involves eighteen separate operations, which are entrusted to eighteen separate workmen; and the result is, that whereas one man working alone could only make perhaps twenty pins in a day, several men working together, on the principle of division of labour, can make several thousands of pins per man in one day. Division of labour, in a highly developed state of society, is carried into almost every practical art; and its great benefits depend upon the increase of dexterity in each workman, upon the saving of time otherwise lost in pa.s.sing from one kind of work to another, and finally, upon the use of many labour-saving machines, which is made possible by the division of labour.

This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom which foresees and intends the opulence to which it gives rise; it is rather the gradual result of the propensity, in human nature, to barter and exchange one thing for another. The power of exchanging their respective produce makes it possible for one man to produce only bread, and for another to produce only clothing. The extent to which the division of labour can be carried is therefore limited by the extent of the market. There are some sorts of industry, even of the lowest kind, which can be carried on nowhere but in a great town; a porter, for example, cannot find employment and subsistence in a village. In the highlands of Scotland every farmer must be butcher, baker, and brewer for his own family.

As water-carriage opens a more extensive market to every kind of industry than is afforded by land-carriage, it is on the sea coast and on the banks of navigable rivers, that industry begins to subdivide and improve itself, and it is riot till long afterwards that these improvements extend to the inland parts. It was thus that the earliest civilised nations were grouped round the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea; and the extent and easiness of its inland navigation was probably the chief cause of the early improvement of Egypt.

As soon as the division of labour is well established, every man becomes in some measure a merchant, and the society becomes a commercial society; and the continual process of exchange leads inevitably to the origin of money. In the absence of money or a general medium of exchange, society would be restricted to the c.u.mbersome method of barter. Every man therefore would early endeavour to keep by him, besides the produce of his own industry, a certain quant.i.ty of some commodity such as other people will be likely to take in exchange for the produce of their particular industries. Cattle, for example, have been widely used for this purpose in primitive societies, and Homer speaks of a suit of armour costing a hundred oxen.

But the durability of metals, as well as the facility with which they can be subdivided, has led to their employment, in all countries, as the means of exchange; and in order to obviate the necessity of weighing portions of the metals at every purchase, as well as to prevent fraud, it has been found necessary to affix a public stamp upon certain quant.i.ties of the metals commonly used to purchase goods. The value of commodities thus comes to be expressed in terms of coinage.

But labour is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities; the value of any commodity to the person who possesses it is equal to the quant.i.ty of labour which it enables him to purchase or to command. What is bought with money or with goods is purchased by labour as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. "Labour alone, never varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and in all places be estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is their nominal price only. Equal quant.i.ties of labour will at distant times be purchased more nearly with equal quant.i.ties of corn, the subsistence of the labourer, than with equal quant.i.ties of gold, or of any other commodity."