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 ROUSSEAU. a6l tic, all that is good, has disappeared with advancing culture; the only relief from the universal degeneracy is to be hoped for from a return to nature on the part of the indi- vidual and society alike — from education and a state conformed to nature. The novel Entile is devoted to the pedagogical, and the Social Contract, or the Principles of Political Law, to the political problem. Both appeared in 1762, followed two years later by the Letters from the Mountain, a defense against the attacks of the clergy. In these later writings Rousseau's naturalistic hatred of reason appears essentially softened. Social order is a sacred right, which forms the basis of all others. It does not proceed, however, from nature — no man has natural power over his fellows, and might con- fers no right — consequently it rests on a contract. Not, however, on a contract between ruler and people. The act by which the people chooses a king is preceded by the act in virtue of which it is a people. In the social contract each devotes himself with his powers and his goods to the community, in order to gain the protection of the latter. With this act the spiritual body politic comes into being, and attains its unity, its ego, its will. The sum of the members is called the people ; each member, as a participant in the sovereignty, citizen, and, as bound to obedience to the law, subject. The individual loses his natural free- dom, receiving in exchange the liberty of a citizen, which is limited by the general will, and, in addition, property rights in all that he possesses, equality before the law, and moral freedom, which first really makes him master of himself. The impulse of mere desire is slavery, obedience to self- imposed law, freedom. The sovereign is the people, law the general popular will directed to the common good, the supreme goods, "freedom and equality," the chief objects of legislation. The lawgiving power is the moral will of the body politic, the government (magistracy, prince) its execu- tive physical power; the former is its heart, the latter its brain. Rousseau calls the government the middle term between the head of the state and the individual, or between the citizen as lawgiver and as subject — the sovereign (the people) commands, the government executes, the subject