72. As to the institution of government, Rousseau maintains strenuously that it is not established by contract. 'There is only one contract in the state, viz. that of the original association; and this excludes every other. No other public contract can be imagined which would not be a violation of the first.' (III, xvi.) Even when government is vested in an hereditary body, monarchic or aristocratic, this is merely a provisional arrangement, made and liable to be reversed by the sovereign, whose officers the governors are. The act by which government is established is twofold, consisting firstly of the passing of a law by the sovereign, to the effect that there shall be a government; secondly, of an act in execution of this law, by which the governors--the 'magistrates'--are appointed. But it may be asked, How can the latter act, being one not of sovereignty but of magistracy (for it has a particular reference in the designation of the governors), be performed when as yet there is no government? The answer is that the people resolves itself from a sovereign body into a body of magistrates, as the English Parliament resolves itself constantly from a legislative body into a committee. In other words, by a simple act of the general will a democracy is for the time established, which then proceeds either to retain the government in its own hands, or to place it in those of an officer, according to the form in which the sovereign has decided to establish the government. (III, xvii.) Acts similar to that by which the government was originally constituted need to be periodically repeated in order to prevent the government from usurping the functions of the sovereign, i.e. the function of legislation. (Could this usurpation occur under a democracy?) In order that the sovereignty may not fall into abeyance, it must be exercised, and it can only be exercised in assemblies of the whole people. These must be held periodically, and at their opening two questions ought to be submitted; one, whether it pleases the sovereign to maintain the present form of government; the other, whether it pleases the people to leave the administration in the hands of those at present charged with it. (III, xviii.) Such assemblies are entitled to revise and repeal all previously enacted laws. A law not so repealed the sovereign must be taken tacitly to confirm, and it retains its authority. But as the true sovereign is not any law but the general will, no law, even the most fundamental, can be exempt from liability to repeal. Even the social pact itself might legitimately be dissolved, by agreement of all the citizens assembled. (_Ib_.) (Whether unanimity is necessary for the purpose is not specified.) Without such assemblies there can be no exercise of the general will (which, as before stated, cannot be represented), and consequently no freedom. The English people, e.g., is quite mistaken in thinking itself free. It is only free while the election of members of Parliament is going on. As soon as they are elected, it is in bondage, it is nothing. In the short moments of its freedom it makes such a bad use of it that it well deserves to lose it. (III, xv.)