After some chapters devoted to clearing away inadequate solutions of the problem, he re-states it as follows, in terms of that form of the supposed social contract in which it was regarded as a compact of all with all for the constitution of a community:
“To find a form of association which shall defend and protect, with the entire common force, the person and the goods of each associate, and by which, each, uniting himself to all, may nevertheless obey only himself, and remain as free as before.” [1]
4. Before proceeding to examine the true meaning of this formula and its answer, we will briefly notice the conflict of ideas suggested by it. Man’s freedom, it is implied, remains at the same level. Even his power is not increased; it is only that individuals combine their forces, previously isolated. These implications suit neither the view he starts from, nor the view he arrives at. If man had a natural freedom, and then submitted to society, though merely to increase his force of action, some of his freedom must be lost, and he cannot remain as free as he was before. But if man in society { 90} has a nature, which he could not have out of society, such that his individuality is maximised by the organisation of a social whole, then it is plain that he is not merely as free “as he was before,” but very much more free; free, indeed, strictly speaking, under social conditions alone. The notion which Rousseau started from, that man has surrendered some part of a previous freedom in order to make the most of the remainder, appears, as here, in the language of compromise, frequently through the _Contrat Social_. But it is not effectively relied on, for Rousseau is too acute to attempt a demarcation theory, and while he assumes, for example, according to the literal notion of a compact, that man only surrenders as much of his liberty as is necessary to the community, he sees that the sovereign is sole judge of this proportion and consequently is absolute. [1] In the same way he first deduces the sovereign’s right of inflicting capital punishment from the individual’s pre-existing right to risk his life in order to save it, in virtue of which he has transferred to the sovereign a right to demand his life when necessary to the public safety, which includes his own. And then, feeling this to be a fiction, he ekes it out by the precisely contrary suggestion that a criminal has broken the social treaty, has ceased to be a member of the community, and is dealt with as an enemy on terms of war. [2] This supplementation shows that Rousseau is aware of the weakness of his other account of the matter, based on non-social individual right. His constant failure, entire or partial, to free himself from the language of “first appearance { 91} theories,” as we have ventured to call them, is just what makes him so instructive, in view of the similar inclination which besets us all.