The Social Contract - 21
---Chapter xvi:That the Institution of a Government
Is Not a Contract---
---Chapter xvii : The Institution of a Government---
--Chapter xviii:A Means of Preventing Government from Usurping Power--
No alterations should be made in an established government,
except when its continuance is incompatible不协调/相配的
with the public good.
There is no fundamental law of the state which
cannot be revoked★★废除, not even the social pact;
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for if all the citizens assembled in order to break the
pact by common consent, there would be no doubt that it
had been broken quite legitimately.
(这将是完全合法的)
==========BOOK IV=============
--Chapter i : That the General Will Is Indestructible--
But when the social tie begins to loosen, and the state to
weaken, when particular interests begin to make themselves
felt, and smaller groupings influence the greater one, then the
common interest no longer remains unaltered, but is met with
opposition, the votes are no longer unanimous全体一致的, and
the general will no longer the will of all;
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contradiction and argument arise,
and the best opinion is not accepted without dispute.
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Finally, when the state is close to ruin and subsists only
through empty and deluding欺骗的 forms, when in each man's heart
the social bond is broken, when the crudest肮脏的(crud) self-interest
insolently自傲地 adorns装饰 itself with the sacred name of the public
good,then the general will falls silent;
-
the motives of all are kept secret, their votes are no more
the votes of citizens than if the state had never existed,
and the decrees that are falsely passed,under the name of
laws, have private interests as their only aim.
Each man,while detaching分离 his own interests from the
common interest, sees clearly that he cannot separate
them entirely; but his share of the wrong done to the
public seems nothing to him when compared to the exclusive
advantage that he intends to take for himself.
--Chapter ii:Voting--
long debates, dissension纠纷, and disorder are a sign
that particular interests are in the ascendant上升的
and the state in decline.
There is one sole law that by its nature demands unanimous
consent: it is the social pact.
-
For civil association is the most
completely voluntary of acts;
-
each man having been born free and master of
himself, no one, under any pretext at all, may
enslave him without his consent同意.
-
To conclude that the son of a slave is born into slavery
is to conclude that he is not born a man.
the question is how a man can be free and forced
to conform to★符合/遵照 the will of others than himself. How can those
who are in opposition be free and subject to laws to which they
have not consented?
-
My reply is that the question is wrongly put.
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The citizen consents to every law, even those that are
passed against his opposition, and even those which punish
him when he dares to violate one of them.
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The constant will of all the citizens of the state is the
general will: it is through the general will that they
are citizens and have freedom.
Two maxims can be used to determine these relationships:
-
one is that the more important and serious the issue, the closer
the deciding vote should be to unanimity全体一致; the other,
that the greater the urgency of the matter, the smaller the
majority required should be.
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When a debate has to be concluded immediately, it must
suffice to decide by a difference of one vote.
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Of these maxims, the first appears more appropriate for
law-making, and the second for the dispatch of business.
-
However that may be, it is by using them in combination that
the most suitable proportions for majority decisions are
established.
