GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

SOCIETY. ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN 495
A number of important consequences follow from this
conception of the contract.
Consequences: Denial of Representative Government
and Assertion of Extreme Democracy. First, there is
a denial of representative government. It is only when the
whole body of citizens keep the legislative power in their
own hands that they will be guaranteed against op-
pression. Rousseau concedes that it will be necessary
to appoint individuals to carry out the people's will; there
must, tKat is to say, be an executive appointed by the
people. But the actual legislative powers must, he holds,
remain with the people. It follows that it is only in a small
City-State . on
the Greek model, where the number of
citizens is not too large to meet in common assembly and
decide questions affecting the community by show ofhands,
that Rousseau's conception of democracy is practical
politics. Rousseau accepts this conclusion.
Introduction of the Conception of the General Will.
It follows that an individual who revolts against the
decisions of society, since he is revolting against an authority
which his will has brought into being and of which he
himself is a component part, is in fact revolting against
himself. Now freedom consists in the determination of
one's own actions by one's own will. The will of the re-
volting individual is, therefore, divided against itself.
As Rousseau puts it: "Each individual may, as a man,
have a private will contrary to the general will he has
as a citizen. His private interest may conflict with the
common interest." Rousseau, however, lays it down that
in such a case true freedom is to be found in obeying
that aspect or part of one's will which is concerned, not
with one's immediate interest or satisfaction, but with
9 '
one's good on the whole and in the long run* This "will
must be "the general will he has as a citizen", and the
good on the whole and in the long run which it wills for
the individual will be such as conduces to the maintenance