INTRODUCTION I 1 THE Contrat social was published in the spring of 1762, a few weeks before Émile. It-or rather, the larger work, Institutions politiques, of which it is the only surviving fragment—was first conceived, as Rousseau himself tells us, nearly twenty years earlier, during his residence at Venice (1743-44). But we know that he did not begin to work at his design until 1750 or 1751- that is, we may fairly assume, until after the publication of his first Discourse (Jan. 1751); 2 that five years later (1756) he had made hardly any way with it';3 and that early in 1759 his progress was still so slow that, abandoning the larger design, he resolved to confine himself to the more abstract portions, Principes du droit politique, which could be 'detached' without much difficulty from the work as originally planned, and to 'burn the rest.' 4 The first draft of the more modest scheme, half of which still survives in a manuscript now in the Geneva Library, was completed by the end of the following year (1760).5 The whole thing was, however, recast, and in particular the chapter on 'Civil Religion' added, in the course of the next seven or eight months; and, owing to this and other delays, the manuscript was not finally sent to press until November 1761.7 Before 6 the book was published the rejected portions-or, at any rate, the greater part of them-seem to have been destroyed.1 II Of all speculative writings, the Contrat social is perhaps the most explosive. It had It had a deep influence upon the generation, which prepared the way for the Revolution. It had an influence deeper yet upon the men who carried the Revolution to triumph. In the latter case, the influence told in two different, indeed in two opposite, directions. During the opening phase of the Revolution, during what has been called the 'spontaneous anarchy' of the National and Legislative Assemblies (1789–92), it kindled and kept alive the worship of individual liberty, the hatred of oppression in all its forms, which was the leading passion of the time. 'Hitherto,' wrote Mercier of this period, the Contrat social was the least read of all Rousseau's works. Now every citizen broods over it and learns it by heart.' And another writer gives the companion picture of Marat expounding it to all and sundry at the corners of the streets. A year or two later, the wind was blowing from the opposite quarter. Under the stress of invasion and civil war, in the fury of suspicion and hatred they inevitably excited, individual liberty was thrown to the winds; everything was sacrificed to the need of warding off disruption from within, and the avenging sword of the Coalition from without. Here too, however, appeal was made to the authority of Rousseau; and the Contrat social was again invoked to authorise those restrictive measures without which France must have been broken in pieces, to justify those acts of cruelty which no man would have condemned more passionately than the author. That the principles of '93 were the direct contrary to those of '89 was obvious to all Europe. And to many the earlier principles were hardly less odious than the later. Let 2. Mercier, ii. p. 99. 1 C.S. Avertissement.. us turn to Burke, the bitterest, as he was also the most clearsighted, enemy of both alike. In the earlier phase of the movement, he accuses the revolutionists of 'disbanding France into her original moleculae '1: in other words, of an extravagant individualism. And some of the most striking passages of the Reflections are those devoted to an assault upon the 'rights of man,' as the recognised charter of disintegration. In his later writings, the charge launched against the French is of exactly the opposite description: 'Individuality is left out of their scheme of government. The State is all in all.'2 And for the one excess, as for the other, he was apparently ready to throw the chief blame upon Rousseau. 'Rousseau,' he writes, "is their canon of holy writ. Him they study; him they meditate; him they turn over in all the time they can spare from the debauches of the night, or the laborious mischief of the day.' 3 But, it may fairly be asked, how can a doctrine which worked in directions so different ever have formed a consistent whole? If the authority of Rousseau could be invoked at one moment in support of individualism, at another in aid of its direct contrary, is not this a sure proof that his system is made up of discordant elements ? Is it not as strong a ⚫ condemnation of the writer as his bitterest enemy could have desired? The question has been hotly debated; and this is not the place to discuss it in detail. Summarily, however, it may be said that the contradiction, if contradiction there be, is not to be found in the Contrat social, nor in any other of the writings for instance, the Économie politique-which are devoted to distinctly political subjects. In all these writings, Rousseau is the consistent enemy of individualism, the consistent champion of the absolute surrender of the individual, with all his rights and all his powers,' to the sovereignty of the 1 Burke, Works, i. p. 389 (Reflections, 1790). 3 lb. i. p. 482 (Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791). b State. Accordingly, if contradiction lies anywhere, it must be between his political writings, of which the Contrat social and the Économie politique are for these purposes by far the most important, and those devoted to moral and social subjects -in particular, the Discours sur l'inégalité, which was written within a year of the Économie politique, and Émile, which appeared at the same time as the Contrat social. Now it is not to be denied that the first impression left on our minds by the latter group of writings is strangely different from that left by the former. If in the political writings the State is all in all,' in the moral and social writings it seems at first sight to be either disparaged or wholly disregarded. On closer inspection, however, we shall see that this first impression needs to be corrected. We shall realise that the State which Rousseau disparages in the Discourse on Inequality is not the ideal State of the Contrat social, but the actual State, as known to us from experience and history. We shall have to admit that the individual, whose growth is traced in Émile, is avowedly a mere abstraction, and that, at the end of his pupilage, he is deliberately put back into the civil and social surroundings from which he had hitherto been carefully guarded.1 Above all, we shall be forced to the conclusion that what excites Rousseau's mislike and suspicion in these writings is not the State, but Society of any sort or kind, quite apart from the civic ties by which, in fact, it is held together. His ideal, alike in the Discourse and in Émile, is, no doubt, individual freedom: freedom, however, not in the sense of immunity from the control of the State, but in that of withdrawal from all the oppressions and all the corruptions of Society. In other words, so far as such a thing can be attained or even imagined, his ideal is absolute isolation. This ideal is avowed in the Discourse, where each step that removes the individual from the isolation which was his lot in the 'state of nature' is branded as a step on 1 Émile, v. (Œuvres, ii. especially pp. 427, 445-46). the road to ruin. It is implied throughout the greater part of Émile. In both treatises alike, it is therefore not the State, but Society, which is the enemy. The truth is that, with all his faith in the 'natural goodness' of man, Rousseau was for ever haunted by the conviction that, directly man is brought in contact with his fellows, the door is opened to selfishness and vanity. The first leads him. to domineer over his neighbours, to enslave them, so far as may be, to his greater riches or his greater power. The second makes his own life a burden to him in so far as he cannot come to be, or at least suppose himself, of more consequence than his neighbours; it drives him at every turn to sacrifice his own ends to those which are thrust upon him by others, the reality of happiness to its outward semblance.1 From the nature of the case, the latter evil is to be combated solely by himself. The former, on the other hand, is to be mastered only by a strong curb from without. Society once given, in fact, the State is bound to follow, as the only possible remedy for its abuses. And the only form of State which can hope to achieve this end is that which has absolute power over all its members-strong and weak, rich and poor-alike. It is of the essence of Society to breed a ceaseless war among its members; and the only way to combat this is to find a form of Government which shall set the Law above them all.'2 'It is our business,' is Rousseau's conclusion, 'to make every individual member absolutely independent of his fellow-members and absolutely dependent on the State. It is only by the force of the State that the liberty of its members can be secured.' 3 So far, then, what is the result of confronting these two groups of writings? It is that, however widely they may diverge in scope and purpose, however great their difference 1 Disc. sur l'inégalité (Œuvres, i. pp. 109–13); Émile, iv. (Œuvres, ii. pp. 182-85); Dialogue, i. (Œuvres, ix. pp. 107-9); Lettre à Chr. de Beaumont (Euvres, ii. pp. 64-5); Geneva MS. I. ii. (below, p. 172 sq.). 2 Letter to Mirabeau, of July 26, 1767. 3 C.S. II. xii. |