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ure to partiality, and the general will to equality. Even if this agreement did
remain constant, it would be the result not of skill but of chance, and it would
be even more impossible to guarantee that it would continue to do so. The sover
eign may well say: 'At the present moment I want what that particular individual
wants, or at least what he says he wants.' But it cannot say: 'What that indivi
dual wants tomorrow, I too shall want'; since it is absurd for the will to bind
itself for the fate, and impossible for any willing being to consent to anything
contrary to its own welfare. If, therefore, the people promises simply to obey,
it dissolves itself by that very act, and ceases to be a people. As soon as the
re is a master, there is no longer a sovereign; and from that moment the body po
litic is destroyed...
From the preceding it follows that the general will is always right, and always
tends to the public good; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the p
eople will always have the same rectitude. We always desire our own good, but we
do not always recognise it. You can not corrupt the people, but you can often d
eceive it; and it is then only that it seems to will something bad. There is oft
en a great difference between the will of all and the general will; the latter l
ooks only to the common interest, while the former looks to private interest, an
d is simply a sum of particular wills. But if you cancel out from these same wil
ls all the mutually destructive pluses and minuses', the general will remains as
the sum of the differences. If the people were sufficiently well-informed, and
if in their deliberations the citizens held no communication with one another, t
he general will would always result from the large number of small differences,
and the deliberations would always be good. But when cliques and partial associa
tions are formed at the expense of the whole, the will of each of these associat
ions becomes general with reference to its members, and particular with referenc
e to the state; then it can no longer be said that there are as many voters as t
here are individuals, but only as many as there are associations. The difference
s become less numerous, and give a less general result. Finally, when one of the
se associations becomes large enough to prevail over all the rest, the result is
no longer a sum of small differences, but one single difference. Then there is
no longer a general will, and the opinion which prevails is only a private opini
on.
In so far as several men conjoined consider themselves as a single body, they ha
ve but a single will, which refers to their common conservation and to the gener
al welfare. Then all the motive forces of the state are vigorous and simple, its
principles are clear and luminous; it has no quarrelling and contradictory inte
rests; the common good is everywhere clearly evident, and requires no more than
common sense to be perceived. Peace, unity and equality are the enemies of polit
ical subtlety. Upright and simple men are hard to deceive because of their simpl
icity; they are in no way imposed upon by wiles and subtle pleadings; they are n
ot even clever enough to be dupes. When, among the happiest people on earth, you
see crowds of peasants deciding affairs of state under an oak tree, and behavin
g with uniform wisdom, how can you help despising the subtleties of other nation
s, which devote so much skill and mystification i to making themselves famous an
d wretched?
A state thus governed has need of very few laws; and as soon as it becomes neces
sary to promulgate new ones, this necessity is universally recognised. The first
to propose them does no more than to say what all have already felt; and it req
uires neither intrigue nor eloquence to secure the enactment of that which each
has already decided to do, as soon as he is sure that the others will do likewis
e. What deceives the theorists is the fact that, seeing nothing but states badly
constituted from the beginning, they are impressed with the impossibility of ma
intaining such a polity among them. They laugh at the thought of all the stupidi
ties that an adroit rascal, an insinuating talker could persuade the people of P
aris or London to commit. They fail to realise that Cromwell would have been dru
mmed out of town by the people of Berne, and the Due de Beaufort given the cat-o