6. The law By the social compact we have given the body politic •existence and •life; now it is up to legislation to give it •movement and •will. The basic act that forms the body and pulls it together does nothing to settle what it must do in order to survive. It’s the nature of things that makes an item good and in conformity with order—human agreements don’t come into it. All justice comes from God, who is its sole source; but if we knew how to draw it from that high source we wouldn’t need government or laws! No doubt there is a universal justice emanating from reason alone, but this justice can be admitted among us only if it is mutual. In the absence of natural sanctions. . . .the laws of justice are ineffective among men. . . . Agreements and laws are needed to join rights to duties and relate justice to its object. In the state of nature where everything is common, I don’t owe anything to someone to whom I haven’t promised anything; I recognise as belonging to others only what is of no use to me. It’s not like that in the state of society, where all rights are fixed by law. But what, when we come down to it, is a law? As long as we settle for attaching only metaphysical ideas to the word, we’ll go on arguing without understanding one another. If someone tells us what a law of nature is, that won’t bring us any nearer to knowing what a law of the state is. I have already said [page 15] that there is no general will directed to a particular object. [Rousseau’s proof of that, which follows, is severely compressed. The present version eases it out in ways that the ·small dots· convention can’t easily signify.] We are to suppose that the general will of populace x dictates that (for example) individual person y is to be given a pension. Either y is a member of x or he isn’t. (i) If he isn’t, then x’s will doesn’t count as a general will in relation to him—it may have absolutely nothing to do with y’s own will. (ii) If y is a member of x, i.e. a part of x, then x’s will that y receive a pension is a relation between whole and part that makes them two separate beings, •x-without-y and •y. But x-without-y isn’t the whole; and while this relation persists it’s a relation between two unequal parts; and it follows that the will of one is no longer in any respect general in relation to the other. But when the whole people decrees for the whole people, it is ·not looking outside itself, but· considering only itself; and if a relation is then formed, it is ·not between two separate objects, but only· between two aspects of a single entire object, with no need to split it into two parts. In that case the matter about which the decree is made is, like the decreeing will, general. This act is what I call a law. When I say that the object of laws is always general, I mean that law considers subjects collectively and considers kinds or actions, never a particular person or action. Thus the law can decree that there shall be privileges, but it can’t name anyone who is to get them. It can set up different classes of citizens, and even stipulate the qualifications for belonging to each of these classes, but it can’t pick out any individuals as belonging to this or that class. It can establish a monarchy with hereditary succession, but it can’t choose 18 The Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau 26. The law a king or name a royal family. In short, any action that has an individual object falls outside the scope of the legislative power. We see at once that on this account of things certain questions can be laid aside. ‘Whose business it is to make laws?’ (They are acts of the general will.) ‘Is the prince is above the law? (·No·, because he is a member of the state.) ‘Can the law be unjust?’ (·No·, because nothing is unjust towards itself.) ‘How can we be both •free and •subject to the laws? (·There’s no problem about this·, because the laws are nothing but records of our volitions.) We see further that because the law unites universality of will with universality of object, nothing that a man—any man—commands on his own initiative can be a law. That holds even for the sovereign: what he or it commands with regard to a particular matter is not a law but a decree, an act not of sovereignty but of magistracy. So I give the name ‘republic’ to any state governed by laws, whatever form its administration takes; for only when the laws govern does the public interest govern, and the public thing is something real. [Rousseau expected his readers to recognize that chose publique (= ‘public thing’) is in Latin res publica, which is the origin of république (= ‘republic’).] Every legitimate government is republican;8 what government is I will explain later on. Laws are really only the conditions of civil association. Because the populace is subject to the laws, it ought to be their author: the conditions of •the society ought to be regulated solely by those who come together to form •it. But how will they do this? By a common agreement? By a sudden inspiration? Does the body politic have an organ—·like vocal cords and a tongue·—to declare its will? Who can give it the foresight to formulate and announce its acts in advance? or how is it to announce them in the hour of need? How can a blind multitude, which often doesn’t know what it wills because it rarely knows what is good for it, carry out for itself such a great and difficult enterprise as a system of legislation? The populace left to itself always wills the good, but left to itself it doesn’t always see what that is. The general will is always in the right, but the judgment that guides it isn’t always enlightened. It ought to be •made to see objects as they are, and sometimes as they ought to appear to it; •shown the good road it is in search of, •secured from the seductive influences of individual wills, •taught to look carefully at other places and times, and •made to weigh the attractions of present and sensible advantages against the danger of distant and hidden evils. Individuals see the good that they reject; the public wills the good that it doesn’t see. Both need guidance. Individuals must be made to bring their wills into line with their reason; the populace must be taught to know what it wills. If that is done, public enlightenment leads to the union of understanding and will in the social body: the parts are made to work exactly together, and the whole is raised to its highest power. For this there has to be a law-maker. 8 I apply this word not merely to aristocracies and democracies but quite generally to any government directed by the general will, which is the law. To be legitimate, the government must be not identical with the sovereign, but its minister; so even a monarchy can be a republic. I’ll clarify this in Book 3. 19 ________________ There is an individual who resists and his name is Herodian Agent Smith in your town but maybe he is arguing about the need for continued and free education in our blessed society that needs also continued and free basic income...but there is no law preventing his....bad things happen to bad people.

6. The law By the social compact we have given the body politic •existence and •life; now it is up to legislation to give it •movement and •will. The basic act that forms the body and pulls it together does nothing to settle what it must do in order to survive. It’s the nature of things that makes an item good and in conformity with order—human agreements don’t come into it. All justice comes from God, who is its sole source; but if we knew how to draw it from that high source we wouldn’t need government or laws! No doubt there is a universal justice emanating from reason alone, but this justice can be admitted among us only if it is mutual. In the absence of natural sanctions. . . .the laws of justice are ineffective among men. . . . Agreements and laws are needed to join rights to duties and relate justice to its object. In the state of nature where everything is common, I don’t owe anything to someone to whom I haven’t promised anything; I recognise as belonging to others only what is of no use to me. It’s not like that in the state of society, where all rights are fixed by law. But what, when we come down to it, is a law? As long as we settle for attaching only metaphysical ideas to the word, we’ll go on arguing without understanding one another. If someone tells us what a law of nature is, that won’t bring us any nearer to knowing what a law of the state is. I have already said [page 15] that there is no general will directed to a particular object. [Rousseau’s proof of that, which follows, is severely compressed. The present version eases it out in ways that the ·small dots· convention can’t easily signify.] We are to suppose that the general will of populace x dictates that (for example) individual person y is to be given a pension. Either y is a member of x or he isn’t. (i) If he isn’t, then x’s will doesn’t count as a general will in relation to him—it may have absolutely nothing to do with y’s own will. (ii) If y is a member of x, i.e. a part of x, then x’s will that y receive a pension is a relation between whole and part that makes them two separate beings, •x-without-y and •y. But x-without-y isn’t the whole; and while this relation persists it’s a relation between two unequal parts; and it follows that the will of one is no longer in any respect general in relation to the other. But when the whole people decrees for the whole people, it is ·not looking outside itself, but· considering only itself; and if a relation is then formed, it is ·not between two separate objects, but only· between two aspects of a single entire object, with no need to split it into two parts. In that case the matter about which the decree is made is, like the decreeing will, general. This act is what I call a law. When I say that the object of laws is always general, I mean that law considers subjects collectively and considers kinds or actions, never a particular person or action. Thus the law can decree that there shall be privileges, but it can’t name anyone who is to get them. It can set up different classes of citizens, and even stipulate the qualifications for belonging to each of these classes, but it can’t pick out any individuals as belonging to this or that class. It can establish a monarchy with hereditary succession, but it can’t choose 18 The Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau 26. The law a king or name a royal family. In short, any action that has an individual object falls outside the scope of the legislative power. We see at once that on this account of things certain questions can be laid aside. ‘Whose business it is to make laws?’ (They are acts of the general will.) ‘Is the prince is above the law? (·No·, because he is a member of the state.) ‘Can the law be unjust?’ (·No·, because nothing is unjust towards itself.) ‘How can we be both •free and •subject to the laws? (·There’s no problem about this·, because the laws are nothing but records of our volitions.) We see further that because the law unites universality of will with universality of object, nothing that a man—any man—commands on his own initiative can be a law. That holds even for the sovereign: what he or it commands with regard to a particular matter is not a law but a decree, an act not of sovereignty but of magistracy. So I give the name ‘republic’ to any state governed by laws, whatever form its administration takes; for only when the laws govern does the public interest govern, and the public thing is something real. [Rousseau expected his readers to recognize that chose publique (= ‘public thing’) is in Latin res publica, which is the origin of république (= ‘republic’).] Every legitimate government is republican;8 what government is I will explain later on. Laws are really only the conditions of civil association. Because the populace is subject to the laws, it ought to be their author: the conditions of •the society ought to be regulated solely by those who come together to form •it. But how will they do this? By a common agreement? By a sudden inspiration? Does the body politic have an organ—·like vocal cords and a tongue·—to declare its will? Who can give it the foresight to formulate and announce its acts in advance? or how is it to announce them in the hour of need? How can a blind multitude, which often doesn’t know what it wills because it rarely knows what is good for it, carry out for itself such a great and difficult enterprise as a system of legislation? The populace left to itself always wills the good, but left to itself it doesn’t always see what that is. The general will is always in the right, but the judgment that guides it isn’t always enlightened. It ought to be •made to see objects as they are, and sometimes as they ought to appear to it; •shown the good road it is in search of, •secured from the seductive influences of individual wills, •taught to look carefully at other places and times, and •made to weigh the attractions of present and sensible advantages against the danger of distant and hidden evils. Individuals see the good that they reject; the public wills the good that it doesn’t see. Both need guidance. Individuals must be made to bring their wills into line with their reason; the populace must be taught to know what it wills. If that is done, public enlightenment leads to the union of understanding and will in the social body: the parts are made to work exactly together, and the whole is raised to its highest power. For this there has to be a law-maker. 8 I apply this word not merely to aristocracies and democracies but quite generally to any government directed by the general will, which is the law. To be legitimate, the government must be not identical with the sovereign, but its minister; so even a monarchy can be a republic. I’ll clarify this in Book 3. 19
________________
There is an individual who resists and his name is Herodian Agent Smith in your town but maybe he is arguing about the need for continued and free education in our blessed society that needs also continued and free basic income...but there is no law preventing his....bad things happen to bad people.

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The man who was a pirate ship captain had children with a woman who was the daughter of Cabot; Cabot being an orphan like the pirate ship captain. The boy grew up and demanded that people listen to him when he spoke and he had a commanding voice except because of the Cabot dna, the only place he seems to have wanted to go was back to France to ask if he was accepted. Words like appreciation, honor, award, inheritance etc...greeting card words would drive him to jealousy and emotions that centred on competition. He bought a house quite young and should have planned to give it to his children as testator but seems to have worked it out that he would rather abandon the home and allow others to take it or squat in the home. When his children bought homes, he seems to have wanted to live in it with them only to have an authority game with them or power game as to ask if they would ever try to command him to come or go etc and to also place himself in a position to hope to inherit from them but not with any discussion. His wife was a court jester who sought attention and spent a lot of her energy in 'make believe' again in society like in the court with queen watching but not for work that honors but for rude, jester behaviours that mock and tempt authority. The man who chose to seek to inherit from his children vs. being the testator was unable to help himself it seems in seeking acceptance as if Cabot's dna took exploring North America's waste land regions as eternal damnation so far away from the pastry shops of Paris or Toulousse and while he was part ship captain, he was also that jester and that Cabot desperately seeking acceptance so that almost anyone could interrupt his boundaries of self respect and tell him what to do. It was quite unusual to see a man who raised 9 BLACK children and demanded that school teachers respect his wishes for their placement in the advanced class, some how turn around and help the people who were in the bottom of the school system and who were jealous of his Black children's work as graduate professionals since any band wagon or mob emotion for acceptance is what he would follow as part of Cabot's dna and the jester also was essentially indentured servant dna who believed they were owed something ancestrally as entitled to them biblically and they seem to have decided to hold officialdom ransom was the pirate's dna would understand how to do it until the debt is paid to the death. See Exodus 15 it seems. Yet the people demanding that he ignore his boundaries of self respect were younger than him and anxious about social authority and acceptance but in the end, so was he as a father as he also had no formal education or if he did, he considered his children's education as more than what he got, many years more than what he got simply because he refused to go after 9 years old and this education was a threat to his pea brain 9 year old emotions as contained in a 5'10 80 year old body and the people begging him to hurt his children were much younger and all they did is laugh at him when he made a deal to sell his son's stuff to people who are probably dead and only emoting this concept from a building where they were imprisoned for life for stealing the possessions of other graduates who athletes of the year and university graduates; imprisoned for life as it is the penalty for mischief involving property; any property that might be intellectual property or business property that some may say they reserve the right without law to hold indefinitely. The real issue is the Court Jester's dna mocks authority and is rewarded some how and what if the mayor's dna is also court jester dna? His wife was part court jester and also Cabot where it mocked authority, resented anything called society but also wanted to hurt people who had any formal education since Cabot's dna seems to have said it had a right to inherit once as officialdom never gave him anything. Her real issue in seeking to be accepted once with the same Cabot dna as his was a resentment for complexions lighter than hers and her resentment was murderous; like a kamikaze hoping to kill any children or families that were targets for their complexion primarily but she would use any weakness or resentment to work division among that family to see her darker children inherit from her husband's lighter children while her children had the same opportunities to go to school as her husband's arguably lighter children but they were not as...beautiful but they also did not have her children's under cultural expectation of entitlement; an under culture of some kind in the West Indies and in spite of this under culture no one has to die or be targeted. She read only one book entitled ''Games My Mother Never Taught Me' and her darker people from Goat Island on the periphery of our world civilization wanted to see if she could make him do anything as triumph for darker people who see the world as favoring lighter skin and they imagine that the degrees suggesting inheritance or systemic acceptance are handed out to these arguably lighter people but everybody can see her husband's children were black; not light or straight nosed yet the Goat island people( some looking Asian with patois accents and resenting the father's ability to intimidate) wanted to see if they could turn the father who extolled education into an idiot..make him move like an idiot, like a robot and do anything like abandon two condos in a 'you are MI6 now' game so she drugged him and the lighter children and tried to use any weakness of character or sin or question about propriety she had against him, accusing him like '..Is it appropriate for you to be in a condo alone with my daughter and sit on a couch with her?' although he was so handsome and certain that he should be; be the leader of any situation or at least get the acceptance and authority for any 2 for 1 condo deal his son might have suggested they invest in. that while the son found the tenants, the father wanted to have the honor...steal the honor of his essays and law firm file work also with idiots who wanted to steal honor much like the father. Jeroboam stole a scepter once in his own expectation that he should be the king as a taller competitor for the throne already in Rehoboam's possession under a united Israel as son of Solomon but Jeroboam was a son of Mephibosheth who was the grandson of Saul and the son of Michal who seems to have been Ramesses dna. The only issue with all of this is not only the presumption to be the holder of an honor in other people's work as in stolen honor in the work the Lord's son has finished in faith but a continued drive right back to naught to ask who is the king and what is ownership if I want to just rip your ass? Michal was a sex operation and maybe she ripped some asses to finally understand what she is but unfortunately, with education it would have been obvious if she did not bleed at 12 every month. So, Jeroboam built buildings in a stolen, divided kingdom. This father only wants to say there should be no law; no civilization for his happiness in his kingdom and would want a a war to see the world end where he can be the leader or the general in a world that he wants; without rules of any kind and he will have the honor since in Jeroboam's world, although under a stolen throne, his honor would be to pass his buildings to his son. He would not steal from his son but would work with him for many generations. That is his glory although singed with some shame in the divisiveness and the theft. This man's glory would have to be shame in every rendition of human civilization but might have glory no where else but in a cave where the power of one neanderthal resists the power of another. If he was pure Cabot dna, then he might see the honor of being a testator like Jeroboam but the Pirate's dna, possibly Blackbeard, was part Dutch or Scottish cave dwelling neanderthal and he would hide the stolen loot quite often in a cave near Frenchman's Cove. Google Frenchman's Cove and understand the Pirates (plural) of the Caribbean. The father's deeper orphan minded, French indentured servant emotions and pirate determination that only sees human life as a casualty or collateral damage with his neanderthal underpinning and theories of emotional success in his paradigm or out look determined his practice. His glory is his shame; stolen honor, stolen degree statements, plagiarised essays and the effort to be his own son's heir of his son's little pattie shop, mechanic's shop or law firm in the year 2011. The father's glory is the father's shame. The son is always honored because he honored the father that fed him, clothed him in a four bed house in Westchester or a similar neighborhood and demanded that he do his school work and go to school. It looks like your son won the Caribana motion to honor you since the father is watching and helped Fukyerselfwenuhurtuson(that is all Farquerson is asking you to do when he sees what beach comber you are...and if you do it, then he is your master but I thought you were the chief of postal officers?) and now you want to steal the honor, the work and read the files in the Cave at Frenchman's Cove like your most primordial ancestry is willing you to do but you should have had enough authority to ask to be a duty counsel or Crown disclosure officer where you would read the allegations and then see the trial result on that file you thought was impossible but it was just really an exam question. Why don't you audit some Law School courses for free since it is permitted. You are also certainly welcome as a pensioner with Crown pension. Now, you see!

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