Locke, Hume, & Rousseau Revisited

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Two causes combine to produce every free action: the one moral, namely, the will, which determines the act: the other physical, namely, the strength which executes it. When I walk towards an objective, I must in the first place, have made up my mind to reach it: in the second, my feet must be capable of carrying me thither. A paralytic may wish to run, an active man may wish not to. In either case the result is the same, for both men remain where they are. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

But to whom is allegiance due? And who is our lawful Sovereign? This question is often the most difficult of any, and liable to infinite discussions. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

It is one thing to owe honor, respect, gratitude, and assistance; another to require an absolute obedience and submission. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Commonwealths themselves take notice of, and allow that there is a time when men are to begin to act like free men, and therefore, till that time, require not oaths of fealty or allegiance, or other public owning of, or submission to, the government of their countries. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The conqueror, ‘tis true, usually by the force he has over them [the people], compels them, with a sword at their breasts, to stoop to his conditions, and submit to such a government as he pleases to afford them; but the inquiry is, what right he has to do so? ....It remains only to be considered whether promises, extorted by force, without right, can be thought consent, and how far they bind. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

In the beginning, all the world was America. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

When a State dissolves, the abuse of government, of whatever kind it may be, goes by the general name of anarchy. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Exceeding the bounds of authority is no more a right in a great than a petty officer; no more justifiable in a king than a constable. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

A multiplicity of officers does not confer on the government any real increase in power, because the power is the power of the state and does not vary. Thus the relative power or activity of the government diminishes, while its absolute or real power cannot increase. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

[The] organs of government should never be multiplied unnecessarily, nor should twenty thousand men be employed to do what five hundred, carefully selected, can do better. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The commerce and intercourse of mankind, which are of such mighty advantage , can have no security where men pay no regard to their engagements. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

‘Twould be a strange catalogue of things that industry provided and made use of about every loaf of bread before it came to our use if we could trace them; iron, wood, leather, bark, timber, stone, bricks, coals, lime, cloth, dyeing-drugs, pitch, tar, masts ropes, and all the materials made use of in the ship that brought any of the commodities made use of by any of the workmen, to any part of the work, all which ‘twould be almost impossible, at least too long, to reckon up. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

By right of self-preservation, as every man has a power to punish the crime, to prevent its being committed again... thus it is, that every man, in the state of nature, has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like injury, which no reparation can compensate... and also to secure men from the attempts of a criminal, who, having renounced reason, the common rule and measure God hath given to mankind, hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or a tiger, one of those wild savage beasts, with whom men can have no society nor security: and upon this is grounded that great law of nature, whoso shedeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Censorship may be useful for the purpose of censoring manners, it can never re-establish them. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Whenever the clergy constitutes a corporate body they are the masters and the legislators within their sphere of influence. - - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

There are, and can be, no longer any exclusive national religions. We should tolerate all creeds which show tolerance to others, so long as their dogmas contain nothing at variance with the duties of the citizen. But anyone who dares to say ‘outside the Church there can be no salvation,’ should be banished from the State, unless the State be the Church and the Prince the Pontiff. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Political wars and theological wars were the same. The limits within which the god’s were sovereign, were, so to speak, coterminous with the country’s frontiers. The god of one nation had no rights over other nations. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Now, it is of considerable concern to the state whether a citizen profess a religion that leads him to love his duties. But the dogmas of that religion are of no interest to the State or to its members except as they have a bearing on the morals and duties which the citizen professing it should hold and perform in dealing with others. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Foreigners, by living all their lives under another government, and enjoying the privileges and protection of it, though they are bound, even in conscience, to submit to its administration as far as any denizen, yet do not thereby come to be subjects or members of that commonwealth. Nothing can make any man so but his actually entering into it by positive engagement and express promise and engagement. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Such services as the citizen owes to the State must be rendered by him whenever the sovereign demands. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

When the State is instituted, residence implies consent. To live in a country means to submit to its sovereignty. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

To the benefits conferred by the state of citizenship might be added that of Moral Freedom, which alone makes a man his own master. For to be subject to appetite is to be a slave, while to obey the laws laid down by society is to be free. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

All citizens, it is true, may, should the need arise, have to fight for their country. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The citizen consents to all laws, even to those which will visit punishment upon him should he dare to violate any of them. The constant will of all the members of a State is the general will, and by virtue of it they are citizens and free men. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

War itself, which admits not of the plurality of governors, naturally devolves the command into the king’s sole authority. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Law, in it's true notion, is not so much the limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no farther than is for the general good of those under the law. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The general will alone is capable of directing the forces of the state according to the end of its institution - which is the Common Good. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

There is no need that the legislative should be always in being, not having always business to do. And because it may be too great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons who have the power of making laws, to have also in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may be exempt themselves from obedience to the laws they make, and suite them, both in its making and execution, to their own private advantage, and thereby come to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community, contrary to the end of society and government. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The conqueror has a title to reparation for damages received, and the children have a title to their father’s estate for their subsistence. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Conquest is as far from setting up any government as demolishing a house is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame of a commonwealth by destroying the former; but, without the consent of the people, can never erect a new one. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Whenever the society is dissolved, ‘tis certain the government of that society cannot remain. Thus conquerors’ swords often cut up governments by the roots and mangle societies to pieces, separating the subdued or scattered multitudes from the protection of and dependence on that society which ought to have preserved them from violence. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

He that troubles his neighbor without a cause is punished for it by the justice of the court he appeals to. He that appeals to Heaven must be sure he has right on his side; and a right, too, that is worth the trouble and cost of the appeal, as he will answer to a tribunal that cannot be deceived, and will be sure to retribute to everyone according to the mischiefs he hath created to his fellow subjects--that is, any part of mankind. From whence ‘tis plain that he conquers in an unjust war can thereby have no title to the subjection and obedience of the conquered. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The right of Conquest finds its sole sanction in the law of the strongest. If war does not give to the victor the right to massacre his defeated enemies, he cannot base upon a non-existent right any claim to the further one of enslaving them. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

There have been states so constituted that conquest becomes a necessity of there being. If they are to continue they must be forever concerned with further extensions of their power. They may, perhaps, find matter for self-congratulations in this happy necessity, but one thing is certain: should they cease to grow, they will be faced with the prospect of inevitable collapse. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

When such a single person or prince sets up his own arbitrary will in place of the laws, which are the will of the society, declared by the legislative, then the legislative is changed. For that being in effect the legislative whose rules and laws are put in execution, and required to be obeyed, when other laws are set up, and other rules pretended and enforced than what the legislative constituted by the society have enacted, it is plain that the legislative is changed. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

For the essence and union of the society consisting in having one will, the legislative, when once established by the majority has the declaring and, as it were, keeping of that will. The constitution of the legislative is the first and fundamental act of society, whereby provision is made for the continuation of their union under the direction of persons and bonds of laws, made by persons authorized thereunto. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The constitution of men is the work of nature; that of the state the work of art. It is not in men's power to prolong their own lives; but it is for them to prolong as much as possible the life of the state, by giving it the best possible constitution. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Whoso would undertake to give institutions to a People must work with full consciousness that he has set himself to change, as it were, the very stuff of human nature; to transform each individual who, in isolation, is a complete but solitary whole, into a part of something greater than himself from which, in a sense, he derives his life and his being; to substitute a communal and moral existence for the purely physical and independent life with which we are all of us endowed by nature. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

When a body politic is too large for its constitution, it tends to collapse under the weight of its own superstructure. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Even the best Constitution will one day have an end, but will live longer than one less good, provided no unforeseen accident brings it to an untimely death. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The opinions of a nation are born of its constitution. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Nothing is more dangerous than the influence of private interests in public affairs, and the abuse of the laws by the government is a less evil than the corruption of the legislature.... - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Usurpers always choose times of domestic trouble to exploit public panic in the interests of destructive legislation which the People, in the calmer moments, would never approve. The work of the true legislator can be distinguished from that of the tyrant by noting the precise moment of history which he has chosen for the establishment of his power. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Each transgression may be punished to that degree, and with so much severity, as will suffice to make it an ill-bargain to the offender, give cause to repent, and terrify others from doing the like. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

And if any one in the state of nature may punish another for any evil he has done, every one may do so: for in that state of perfect equality where naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any man may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

It is the brutal force the aggressor has used that gives his adversary a right to take away his life and destroy him, if he pleases, as a noxious creature; but ‘tis damage sustained that alone gives him title to another man’s goods; for though I may kill a thief that sets on me in the highway, yet I may not (which seems less) take away his money and let him go; this would be a robbery on my side. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

When punishments are frequent it is always a sign that the government is weak or lazy. There is no man, be he ever so bad, who cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even to serve as an example, unless his continued existence is a source of danger. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

In a well governed state there are few punishments, not because pardons are frequent, but because criminals are few. The great number of crimes which occur when the state is in a condition of decadence confers immunity on the criminals. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

A declaration of war is a warning, not so much to Governments as to the subjects. The foreigner--whether king, private person, or nation as a whole--who steals, murders, or holds in durance the subjects of another country without first declaring war on that country’s Prince, acts not as an enemy but as a brigand. Even when war has been joined, the just Prince, though he may seize all public property in enemy territory, yet respects the property and possessions of individuals, and, in so doing, shows his concern for those rights on which his own laws are based. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The right of war involves killing the vanquished. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

A man enslaved or a People conquered in war is under no obligation to obey beyond the point where forces ceases to be operative. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

In the strict sense of the term, there never has been, and there never will be, a real democracy. It is against the order of nature for the majority to govern and the minority to be governed. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not suited to man. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It must be added that the democratic or popular system of government is, more than most, subject to civil strife and internal dissension, because no other is so violently and so continually exposed to the temptations of change, or demands so high a degree of vigilance and courage in maintaining itself. It is the one type of constitution above all others in which the citizen must arm himself with strength and constancy, and must forever be mindful of the truth. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Can anything be more unhappy than a despotic government. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

The tyrant gains authority in despite of the laws in order to govern in accordance with them. The despot sets himself above the laws. Thus, the tyrant cannot be a despot, but the despot is always a tyrant. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It will be said that the despot guarantees civil peace to his subject. So be it. But how are they the gainers if the wars to which his ambition may expose them, his insatiable greed, and the vexatious demands of his Ministers cause them more loss than would any outbreak of internal dissension? How do they benefit if that very condition of civil peace be one of the causes of their wretchedness? One can live peacefully enough in a dungeon, but such peace will hardly, of itself, ensure one’s happiness. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

All moral duties may be divided into two kinds. This first are those to which men are impelled by a natural instinct or immediate propensity which operates on them, independent of all ideas of obligation, and of all views either to public or private utility.... The second kind of moral duties are such as are not supported by any original instinct of nature, but are performed entirely from a sense of obligation, when we consider the necessities of human society, and the impossibility of supporting it, if these duties were neglected. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

Only when the voice of duty replaces physical impulse and when right replaces the cravings of appetite does the man who, till then, was concerned solely with himself, realize that he is under compulsion to obey quite different principles, and that he must now consult his reason and not merely respond to the promptings of desire. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

For ‘tis not barely the ploughman’s pains, the reaper’s and threshers toil, and the baker’s sweat [that] is to be counted into the bread we eat; the labour of those who broke the oxen, who... wrought the iron and stones, who felled and framed the timber employed about the plough, mill, oven, or any other utensils, which are a vast number, requisite to this corn, from its sowing to its being made bread, must all be charged on the account of labour, and received as an effect of that. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

It is men who make a State, but it is land that provides them with their food and sustenance. The ideal is achieved when the land can support its population, and when the population is of a size to absorb all the products of the land. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The nourishment and education of their children is a charge so incumbent on parents for their children’s good, that nothing can absolve them from taking care of it. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

But where no force interposes, and election takes place; What is this election so highly vaunted? It is either the combination of a few great men, who decide for the whole, and will allow of no opposition; or it is the fury of a multitude, that follow a seditious ringleader, who is not known, perhaps to a dozen among them, and who owes his advancement merely to his own impudence, or to the momentary caprice of his fellows. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

The English people think they are free, but they are strongly mistaken; they are so only during the election of members of parliament. Once the election is over they are again slaves - they are nothing. Considering the use they make of their freedom during the brief moments when they exercise it, they well deserve to lose it. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

As soon as a man, thinking of the affairs of the state, says: “They don’t concern me,” it is time to conclude that the state is lost. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is important that the occasional election of a poor man should serve as a reminder to the people that it is not wealth alone which marks a man out for preferment. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

When we consider how nearly equal all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, till cultivated by education, we must necessarily allow, that nothing but their own consent could, at first, associate them together, and subject them to any authority. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

All men are by nature equal. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Though I have said... that all men by nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality : age or virtue may give men a just precedency. Excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

By equality, we should understand, not that the degrees of power and riches are to be absolutely identical for everybody, but that power shall never be great enough for violence, and shall always be exercised by virtue of rank and law; and that, in respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself: which implies, on the part of the great, moderation in goods and position, and, on the side of the common sort, moderation in avarice and covetousness. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is well to consider what may be done by observing what was done once. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The face of the earth is continually changing by the increase of small kingdoms into great empires, by the dissolution of great empires into smaller kingdoms, by the planting of colonies, by the migration of tribes. Is there anything discoverable in all these events but force and violence. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

Force, or a declared design of force, upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

When men, by entering into society and civil government, have excluded force, and introduced laws for the preservation of property, peace, and unity amongst themselves; those who set up force again in opposition to the laws, do rebellare — that is, bring back the state of war, and are properly rebels. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

In all states and conditions, the true remedy of force without authority is to oppose force to it. The use of force without authority always puts him that uses it into a state of war as the aggressor, and renders him liable to be treated accordingly. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

‘Tis the unjust use of force that puts a man into the state of war with another, and thereby he that is guilty of it makes a forfeiture of his life. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Nothing is to be accounted hostile force but where it leaves not the remedy of... an appeal. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

In every body politic there is a maximum of force which it must not exceed, though, very often, by the mere process of becoming great it renders itself guilty of precisely that excess. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Were I considering only force and the effects of force, I would say: So long as a people is constrained to obey, and does, in fact, obey, it does well. So soon as it can shake off its yoke, and succeeds in doing so, it does better. The fact that it has recovered its liberty by virtue of that same right by which it was stolen, means either that it is entitled to resume it, or that its theft by others was, in the first place, without justification. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The pace at which affairs of state are handled becomes slower in proportion as the number of those engaged is increased. Where too much attention is paid to prudence, not enough account is taken of fortune, opportunities are missed, and, by excessive deliberation, the fruits of deliberation are lost. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Every country which, because of its situation, is forced to choose between trade and war, is essentially weak. It depends upon its neighbors, and it depends upon events. Its existence is bound to be precarious and short. Either it conquers, and thereby changes its situation, or it is conquered and ceases to exist. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It may be laid down as a general rule that international relations should take second place to considerations of internal stability. The former are but relatively valuable, the latter absolutely. A strong and healthy constitution is the prime necessity, and vitality born of good government more reliable than any resources ensured by a wide territorial expansion. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Freedom from absolute, arbitrary power is so necessary to and closely joined with a man's preservation that he cannot part with it but by what forfeits his preservation and life together. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

He that, in the state of society, would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth, must be supposed to design to take away from them every-thing else, and so be looked on as in a state of war. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The freedom then of man and liberty of acting according to his own will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct him in that law he is able to govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will. To turn him loose to an unrestrained liberty, before he has reason to guide him, is not the allowing him the privilege of his nature to be free, but to thrust him out amongst brutes, and abandon him to a state as wretched and as much beneath that of a man as theirs. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Every man being born free and his own master, no one, under any pretext whatsoever, can make any man subject without his consent. To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not a man. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Almost all the governments which exist at present, or of which there remains any record in story, have been founded originally, either on usurpation or conquest, or both, without any pretence of a fair consent or voluntary subjection of the people. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

The contract on which government is founded, is said to be the original contract ; and consequently may be supposed too old to fall under the knowledge of the present generation. If the agreement, by which savage men first associated and conjoined their force, be here meant, this is acknowledged to be real; but being so ancient, and being obliterated by a thousand changes of government and princes, it cannot now be supposed to retain any authority. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

As human society is in perpetual flux, one man every hour going out of the world, another coming into it, it is necessary, in order to preserve stability in government, that the new brood should conform themselves to the established constitution, and nearly follow the path which their fathers, treading in the footsteps of theirs, had marked out for them. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

Almost all the governments which exist at present, or of which there remains any record in story, have been founded originally either on usurpation or conquest or both, without any pretense of a fair consent or voluntary subjection of the people. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

To balance a large state or society, whether monarchical or republican, on general laws, is a work of so great difficulty, that no human genius, however comprehensive, is able by the mere dint of reason and reflection, to effect it. The judgements of many must unite in the work: EXPERIENCE must guide their labour: TIME must bring it to perfection: and the FEELING of inconveniences must correct the mistakes which they inevitably fall into, in their first trials and experiments. - Hume, Essays.

For it is not names that constitute governments, but the use and exercise of those powers that were intended to accompany them; so that he who takes away the freedom, or hinders the acting of the legislative in it’s due seasons, in effect takes away the legislative, and puts an end to the government. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

For all the power the government has, being only for the good of the society, as it ought not to be arbitrary and at pleasure, so it ought to be exercised by established and promulgated laws, that both the people may know their duty, and be safe and secure within the limits of the law, and the rulers too, kept within their due bounds, and not be tempted by the power they have in their hands to employ it to purposes, and by such measures as they would not have known, and own not willingly. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion, and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. - Locke, “A Letter Concerning Toleration.”

Besides this overturning from without, governments are dissolved from within.... - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

All peaceful beginnings of government have been laid on the consent of the people. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The government of a conqueror, imposed by force on the subdued, against whom he had no right of war, or who joined not in the war against him, where he had right, has no obligation upon them. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

It often comes to pass that in governments where part of the legislative consists of representatives chosen by the people, that in tract of time this representation becomes very unequal and disproportionate to the reasons it was at first established upon. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniences of the state of nature. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The great and chief end therefore, of men’s unity into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property; to which in the state of nature there are many things wanting. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is best for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be opposed when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, and employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation, of the properties of the people? - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

When a great multitude of men, all strangers to one another, are together by the concentration of central government in one place, talents lie buried, virtues are ignored, and vices tend to remain unpunished. The rulers, over-burdened with work, have first-hand knowledge of nothing. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is never easy to ensure good government in a large state, least of all when the government is conducted by a single individual. We all know what happens when a king acts through his representatives. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The larger the State, the less the liberty. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The pace at which affairs of the state are handled becomes slower in proportion as the numbers of those engaged is increased. Where too much attention is paid to prudence, not enough account is taken of fortune, opportunities are missed, and, by excessive deliberation, the fruits of deliberation are lost. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Indeed, I think it may be laid down as a general rule that where the functions of government are parcelled out among a number of different official bodies, the smaller must, sooner or later, acquire the greater authority, if only because it is but natural that they should find it easier to transact business more quickly. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The body politic, no less than the human body, begins to die from the very moment of its birth, and carries in itself the causes of it's own destruction. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

There has always, in all ages, been much argument about the best form of government. Those who engage in such disputation do not sufficiently bear in mind that each may be the best in certain circumstances, the worst in others. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

All legitimate government is, of its nature, republican. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The essence of the body politic resides in a just proportion between obedience and freedom. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Government is, on a small scale, what the body politic is on a large one. It is a moral person endowed with certain faculties, active when considered as sovereign, passive when considered as the State, and capable of subdivision into similar relations, giving rise to a totally different proportion. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before. -- Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

There are few states that may be considered to be well constituted. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Simple government is, in itself, the best form of government for the sole and sufficient reason that it is simple. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

A government never changes its form save when its springs, weakened from over-use, are incapable of keeping the old arrangements in being. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It follows that an arbitrary government can be legitimate only on condition that each successive generation of subjects is free either to accept or to reject it, and if this is so, then the government will no longer be arbitrary. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

All the governments in the world, once armed with public power, sooner or later usurp the sovereign authority. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The life-principle of the body politic lies in the sovereign authority. The legislative power is the heart of the state; the executive power is it's brain, which causes the movement of all the parts. The brain may become paralyzed and the individual still live. A man may remain an imbecile and live; but as soon as the heart ceases to perform it's functions, the animal is dead. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Though the government can regulate its internal policy as it likes, it can never speak to the People save in the name of the Sovereign, or, in other words, of the People themselves. This should never be forgotten. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The total power of the government being always that of the State does not vary. Whence it follows that the greater the power exerted by the government on its own members, the less does it have to exert on the people as a whole. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The more the social bond is stretched the weaker does it become. Generally speaking, a small states is relatively stronger than a large one. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Government is everywhere antecedent to records, and letters seldom come amongst a people till a long continuation of civil society has, by other more necessary arts, provided for their safety, ease, and plenty. And then they begin to look after the history of their founders, and search into their original when they have outlived the memory of it. For ‘tis with commonwealths as with particular persons, they are commonly ignorant of their own births and infancies; and if they know anything of their original, they are beholding for it to the accidental records that have kept of it. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Our primary instincts lead us either to indulge ourselves in unlimited freedom, or to seek dominion over others; and it is reflection only which engages us to sacrifice such strong passions to the interests of peace and public order. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

Were all men possessed of so inflexible a regard to justice, that, of themselves, they would totally abstain from the properties of others; they had for ever remained in a state of absolute liberty, without subjection to any magistrate or political society: but this is a state of perfection, of which human nature is justly deemed incapable. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

Nothing is more dangerous than the influence exerted by private interests on public affairs. The abuse of law by government is a lesser evil than the corruption of the legislator, which is the inevitable result where private interests are pursued. -- Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Those who draw a distinction between civil and theological intolerance are, in my opinion, guilty of error. The two things are inseparable. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

If he who judges, judges amiss in his own, or any other case, he is answerable for it to the rest of mankind. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

It is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases, that self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends: and on the other side, ill-nature, passion and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others; and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow follow. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The wise ruler will never base his judgement on what, at any given moment, he sees, but on what he foresees. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

They who by any injustice offend will seldom fail, where they are able, by force, to make good their injustice; such resistance many times makes the punishment dangerous and frequently destructive to those who attempt it. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

This question, (who shall be judge?) cannot mean that there is no judge at all. For where there is no judicature on earth to decide controversies amongst men, God in heaven is judge. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Where an appeal to the law and constituted judges lies open, but the remedy is denied by a manifest perverting of justice, and a barefaced wresting of the laws to protect or indemnify the violence or injuries of some or a party of men, there it is hard to imagine anything but a state of war; for wherever violence is used, and injury done, though by hands appointed to administer justice, it is still violence and injury, however coloured with the name, pretences, or forms of laws.... - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a truly remarkable change in the individual. It substitutes justice for instinct in his behavior, and gives to his actions a moral basis which formerly was lacking. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. nobody can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask, then, when did they begin to be his? When he digested? Or when he ate? Or when he boiled? Or when he brought them home? Or when he picked them up? And 'tis plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between them and common. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Wherever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another's harm. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Where the laws cannot be executed it is all one as if there were no laws, and a government without laws is, I suppose, a mystery in politics unconceivable to human capacity, and inconsistent with human society. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Though the law of nature be plain and intelligible to all rational creatures, yet men, being biased by their interest, as well as ignorant for want of study of it, are not apt to allow of it as a law binding to them in the application of it to their particular cases. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Law, in it's true notion, is not so much the limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no farther than is for the general good of those under that law. Could they be happier without it, the law, as a useless thing, would of itself vanish. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

But submitting to the laws of any country, living quietly, and enjoying privileges and protection under them makes not a man a member of that society; this is only a local protection and homage due to and from all those who, not being in a state of war, come within the territories belonging to any government, to all parts whereof the force of it's law extends. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

For laws not being made for themselves, but to be, by their execution, the bonds of the society to keep every part of the body politic in its due place and function, when that totally ceases, the government visibly ceases, and the people become a confused multitude without order or connexion. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain but to preserve and enlarge freedom; for in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom; for liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others, which cannot be where there is no law; and is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lists (for who could be free, when every other man's humor might domineer over him?). - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

If through defect that may happen out of the ordinary course of nature, anyone comes not to such a degree of reason wherein he might be supposed capable of knowing the law, and so living within the rules of it he is never capable of being a free man, he is never let loose to the disposal of his own will, because he knows no bounds to it, has not understanding, it's proper guide; but is continued under the tuition and government of others all the time his own understanding is incapable of that charge.- John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Laws also ought to be designed for no other end ultimately but the good of the people. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Only the gravest dangers can justify any fundamental change in public order, and the sacrosanct nature of the laws never should be interfered with save when the safety of the State is in question. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

There is no fundamental law of the State which cannot be revoked, not even the social pact. For should all the citizens assemble for the express purpose of breaking this pact by common accord, it would undoubtedly be broken by due form of law. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is always open to a People to change their laws, even when they are good. For if they like to injure themselves by what right can they be prevented from doing so? - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

To these three kinds of a law a fourth should be added, and it is the most important of them all. It is to be found not graven on pillars of marble or plates of bronze but in the hearts of the citizens. It is the true foundation on which the State is built, and grows daily in importance. When other laws become old and feeble it brings them new life or fills the gaps they leave untenanted. It maintains a People in the spirit of their founder, and, all unnoticed, substitutes for authority the force of habit. I refer to manners, customs, and, above all, opinion. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Laws, instead of growing weaker with the lapse of time, gain a constantly increasing strength in all well-constituted States, The feeling in their favor, bred of their antiquity, makes them each day more venerable. Where on the contrary, the hold of the laws grows weaker with age, it is a sure proof that there is no longer any Legislative Power, and that the breath of life has departed from the State. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is not good for him who makes the laws to execute them. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Just as an architect, before he sets about constructing a great building, surveys and tests the site to see whether the ground is capable of bearing its weight, so, too, the wise legislator will not at once proceed to the formulating of laws, however good in themselves, but will first inquire whether the People who are to be ruled by his institutions can observe and maintain them. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Though the law does not control manners, it is in legislation that they have their origin. When legislation grows weak, manners degenerate. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Good laws cause better laws to be made, while bad ones lead to worse. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

What makes the work of legislation so arduous is not so much that which must be established as that which must be destroyed, and it is the impossibility of finding the simplicity of nature joined to the needs of society that makes success in the enterprise so rare. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

When either the legislative is changed, or the legislators act contrary to the end for which they were constituted, those who are guilty are guilty of rebellion. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

This power in the people of providing for their safety anew by a new legislative when their legislators have acted contrary to their trust by invading their property, is the best fence against rebellion, and the probablest means to hinder it. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

In governments where the legislative is in one casting assembly, always in being, or in one man as in absolute monarchies, there is a danger still, that they will think themselves to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community, and so will be apt to increase their own riches and power by taking what they think fit from the people. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

It can never be supposed to be the will of the society that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure by entering into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislator's of their own making: whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

True political wisdom will ever admire in their institutions the great and powerful genius which watches over the birth of civilizations destined to endure. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The real miracle, and the one sufficient proof of the legislators mission, is his own greatness of soul. Anyone can incise words on stone, bribe an oracle, claim some secret understanding with a high divinity, train a bird to whisper in his ear, or invent other ways, no less crude, for imposing on the People. He whose powers go no farther than that, may, if he be fortunate, hold the attention of a superstitious mob: but he will never found an empire, and his extravagant production will, in no long time, perish with him. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

He who makes the law knows better than any man how it should be administered and interpreted. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Let his pretense be what it will, I have no reason to suppose that he who would take away my liberty would not, when he had me in his power, take away everything else. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

A liberty to follow my own will in all things where the rule prescribes not, not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man, as freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but the law of nature. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others.... - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Free Peoples of the world remember this maxim: "Liberty may be gained, but never recovered." - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The larger the State the less the liberty. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

When a man renounces his liberty he renounces his essential manhood, his rights, and even his duty as a human being. There is no compensation possible for such complete renunciation. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Liberty is a consequence of man's nature. It's first law is that of self-preservation: its first concern is for what it owes itself. As soon as a man attains the age of reason he becomes his own master, because he alone can judge of what will best assure his continued existence. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

What a man loses as a result of the Social Contract is his natural liberty and his unqualified right to lay hands on all that tempts him, provided only that he can compass its possession. What he gains is civil liberty and the ownership of what belongs to him. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Where right and liberty is everything, inconvenience matters little. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

If the consent of the majority shall not in reason be received as the act of the whole, and include every individual, nothing but the consent of every individual can make anything to be the act of the whole, which, considering the infirmities of health and avocations of business, which in a number though much less than that of a commonwealth, will necessarily keep many away from the public assembly; and the variety of opinions and contrarity of interests which unavoidably happen in all collections of men, 'tis next impossible ever to be had. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

What makes the will [of the people] general is not the number of citizens concerned, but the common interest by which they are united. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The more important and solemn the matters under discussion, the nearer to unanimity should the voting be: two that the more it is necessary to settle the matter speedily, the less should be the difference permitted in balancing the votes for and against. Where a verdict must be obtained at a single sitting, a majority of one should be held to be sufficient. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The limit of the possible in matters of morals are less constructed than we think. It is our own weaknesses, our own vices and prejudices that hedge us in, base minds do not believe in great men. Vile slaves smile with an air of mockery at the very mentions of the word liberty. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Obedience or subjugation becomes so familiar, that most men never make any inquiry about its origin or cause, more than about the principle of gravity, resistance, or the most universal laws of nature. Or if curiosity ever moves them; as soon as they learn that they themselves and their ancestors have, for several ages, or from time immemorial, been subject to such a form of government or such a family, they immediately acquiesce, and acknowledge their obligation to allegiance. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

When pardons wax plentiful it is a sure sign that crimes will soon have no need of them, and everyone can see what that means. But I can hear my heart murmuring and checking my pen. Let us leave such questions to the Just Man who has never been at fault: who has never, in his own person, stood in need of pardon. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

If the innocent honest man must quietly quit all he has for peace[s’] sake to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what a kind of peace there will be in the world which consists only in violence and rapine, and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of robbers and oppressors. Who would not think it an admirable peace betwixt the mighty and the mean, when the lamb, without resistance, yielded his throat to be torn by the imperious wolf? - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

When we assert, that all lawful government arises from the consent of the people, we certainly do them a great deal more honor than they deserve. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

The people, if we trace government to its first origin in the woods and deserts, are the source of all power and jurisdiction, and voluntarily for the sake of peace and order, abandoned their native liberty, and received laws from their equal and companion. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

To this, perhaps, it will be said, that the people being ignorant and always discontented, to lay the foundation of government in the unsteady opinion and uncertain humor of the people, is to expose it to certain ruin; and no government will be able long to subsist if the people may set up a new legislative whenever they take offense at the old one. To this I answer, quite the contrary. People are not so easily got out of their old forms as some are apt to suggest. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived.... - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The general will is always right, but the judgement guiding it is not always well informed. It must be made to see things as they are, sometimes as they ought to be. It must be shown how to attain the good it seek, must be protected against the temptations inherent in particular interests; must be made to understand places and seasons, and must learn to weigh present and obvious advantage against remote and hidden dangers. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is not good that... the People should have its attention diverted from general principles to particular instances. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

A People that was never guilty of abusing the power of government would certainly never abuse their own independence. A People that always governed well would stand in no need of being governed at all. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

So soon as the People is convened as a sovereign body, all government jurisdiction ceases, the Executive Power is suspended, and the person of the meanest citizen is as sacrosanct and inviolable as that of the chief magistrate, because where the person represented is himself present, there is no longer any representative. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The general will is always right and ever tends to the public advantage. But it does not follow that the deliberations of the people are always equally beyond question. It is ever the way of men to wish their own good, but they do not at all times see where that good lies. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Legislators and founders of states ought to be honored and respected among men, as much ought the founders of sects and factions to be detested and hated, because the influence of faction is directly contrary to that of laws. Factions subvert government, render laws impotent, and beget the fiercest animosities among men of the same nation, who ought to give mutual assistance and protection to each other. And what should render the founders of parties more odious is the difficulty of extirpating these weeds when once they have taken root in any state. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

Nothing is more usual than to see parties which have begun upon a real difference continue even after that difference is lost. When men are once enlisted on opposite sides, they contract an affection to the persons with whom they are united and an animosity against their antagonists, and these passions they often transmit to their posterity. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

If the People, engaged in deliberation, were adequately informed, and if no means existed by which the citizens could communicate one with another, from the great number of small differences the general will would result and the decisions reached will always be good. But when intriguing groups and partial associations are formed to the disadvantage of the whole, then the will of each of such groups is general only in respect of its own members, but partial in respect of the State. When such a situation arises it may be said that there are no longer as many votes as men, but only as many votes as there are groups.... Finally, when one of these groups becomes so large as to swamp all the others, the result is not the sum of small differences, but one single difference. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

But, whatever flatterers may talk to amuse people's understandings, it hinders not men from feeling; and when they perceive that any man, in what station soever, is out of the bounds of the civil society they are of, and that they have no appeal on earth, against any harm they may receive from him, they are apt to think themselves in the state of nature [conflict], in respect of him whom they find to be so. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

If great princes are rare, how much more so are great legislatures! - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

In all the governments of the world, the public person consumes but does not produce. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The manner in which public affairs are conducted can give a pretty good indication of the state of a society's morale and general health. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Peace, unity and equality are the foes of political subtlety. Upright and simple men are hard to deceive by the very reason of their simplicity. Lures and plausible sophistries have no effect upon them nor are they even sufficiently subtle to become dupes. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

He that thinks absolute power purifies men's bloods, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read but the history of this, or any age, to be convinced of the contrary. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

And hence it is, that he who attempts to get another man into absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Political power I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death and, consequently, all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Prerogative is nothing but the power of doing public good. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Political power is that power which every man having in the state of Nature has given up into the hands of the society, and therein to the governors whom the society hath set over itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed for their good and the preservation of their property. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

And hence it is that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being understood as a declaration of a design upon his life. For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

No power based on law can be strong when law itself has lost its strength. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Given the right kind of lever, a man might, with one finger, rock the world on its foundations, but only a Hercules can carry its weight upon his shoulders. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Sovereign power, albeit absolute, sacrosanct, and inviolable, does not, and cannot, trespass beyond the limits laid down by general agreement, and that every man has full title to enjoy whatever of property and freedom is left to him by that agreement. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

I have truly no property in that which another can by right take from me when he pleases against my consent. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, enclose it from the common. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience. The earth and all that is therein is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

It would be a direct contradiction for anyone to enter into society with others for the securing and regulating of property, and yet to suppose his land, whose property is to be regulated by the laws of society, should be exempt from the jurisdiction of that government to which he himself, the proprietor of the land, is a subject. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

For a man's property is not at all secure, though there be good and equitable laws to set the bounds of it between him and his fellow-subjects, if he who commands those subjects have power to take from any private man what part he pleases of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks good. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The great and chief end, therefore of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Those of our day are cleverer, for they style themselves kings of France, of Spain, of England, and so forth. Thus, by controlling the land, they can be very sure of controlling its inhabitants. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The Right of 'first occupancy,' though more real than the 'Right of the strongest,' becomes a genuine right only after the right of property has been established. All men have a right to what is necessary to them. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as the most free and most popular. The sultan of Egypt or the emperor of Rome might drive his harmless subjects like brute beasts against their sentiments and inclination. But he must, at least, have led his Mamelukes or Praetorian bands, like men, by their opinion. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

The opinions of a nation are born of its constitution. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Whoso judges of manners, judges of honor; and whoso judges of honor makes opinion his touchstone. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is useless to distinguish the moral standards of a country from the objects of its esteem, for both are based upon the same general principle, and must of necessity, be intermingled. In all the countries of the world, it is opinion, not nature, that decides men in the choice of their pleasures. Reform their opinions, and their morals will automatically be purified. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

I am speaking of morality, of custom, above all of public opinion; a power unknown to political thinkers, on which none the less success in everything else depends. With this the great legislator concerns himself in secret, though he seems to confine himself to particular regulations.... - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

As soon as public services ceases to be the chief business of the citizens and they would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the State is not far from its fall. When it is necessary to march out to war, they pay the troops and stay at home: when it is necessary to meet in council, they name deputies and stay at home. By reason of idleness and money, they end by having soldiers to enslave their country and representatives to sell it. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

As soon as the public service ceases to be main concern of the citizens, and they find it easier to serve the state with their purses than with their persons, ruin draws near. If they are called upon to march to war, they pay for troops to take their place while they remain at home. If they are summoned to Council Table, they nominate deputies in their stead, and, similarly, remain at home. As a result of laziness and money they end by having an army to enslave their country and representatives to sell it. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

All power comes from God. Certainly, but so do all ailments. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is bad, too, when, becoming exclusive and tyrannical, it [religion] makes a people bloody-minded and intolerant, so that they breath nothing but murder and massacre, and hold themselves to be performing a sacred act when they kill all who do not recognize their God. Such things put people in a natural state of war with their neighbors, and this spells danger to their own safety. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Religion, viewed in reference to society, (the relation being either general or particular) may also be divided into two kinds — the religion of man as man, and the religion of the citizen. The first, without temples, without alters, without rites, and strictly limited to the inner worship of the Supreme God, and to the eternal obligations of morality, is the pure and simple religion of the gospels.... The other, inscribed in a single country, gives to its God, its special and tutelary patron. Its dogmas, its rites, its forms of worship, are all prescribed by law. Everything outside the boundaries of the nation which professes it, is regarded as infidel, foreign, barbaric. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

In reality, there is not a more terrible event than a total dissolution of government, which gives liberty to the multitude, and makes the determination or choice of a new establishment depend upon a number, which nearly approaches to that of the body of the people: for it never comes entirely to the whole body of them. Every wise man then wishes to see, at the head of a powerful and obedient army, a general who may speedily seize the prize, and give to the people a master which they are so unfit to choose for themselves. So little correspondent is fact and reality to those philosophical notions. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

If they who say "it lays a foundation for rebellion" mean that it may occasion civil wars or intestine broils, to tell the people they are absolved from obedience when illegal attempts are made upon their liberties or properties... they may as well say, upon the same ground, that honest men may not oppose robbers or pirates, because this may occasion disorder or bloodshed. If any mischief come in such cases, it is not to be charged upon him who defends his own right, but on him that invades his neighbor's.... - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The people generally ill-treated, and contrary to right, will be ready upon any occasion to ease themselves of a burden that sits heavy upon them. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Revolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty will be borne by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going, 'tis not to be wondered that they should then rouse themselves, and endeavor to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Violent hands should not be laid upon established government save when it has become incompatible with the public good. But this attitude of caution is a maxim of politics only, and in no wise a rule of right. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

For, while it is always possible for a barbaric people to fight their way to freedom, it is no longer so when the springs of civil administration have become worn and have lost their resilience. Where that has happened a State may be destroyed by civil troubles: it will not be restored by revolution. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The People cannot bear that a man should lay a finger on the evils of their State, to destroy them, being, in that, like those foolish and cowardly sufferers who tremble at the mere sight of a doctor. Nevertheless, just as there are diseases which, by preying on the victim's mind, take from him all memory of the past, so, sometimes in the life of a people, there come periods of violence in which revolution works upon them as certain crisis work upon the health of individuals. At such times a horror of the past takes the place of forgetfulness, and the State, inflamed by civil strife, is, so to speak, reborn in its ashes, and breaks from the very arms of death with a new sense of youth revived. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Every man is born with a double right: first a right of freedom to his person, which no other man has power over, but the free disposal of it lies in himself; secondly, a right, before any other man, to inherit with brethren his father's goods. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

And that all men may be restrained from invading others rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and the law of nature be observed, which willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every man's hands, whereby everyone has a right to punish the transgressions of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

This I am sure, whoever, either king or subject, by force goes about to invade the rights of either prince or people, and lays the foundation for overturning the constitution and frame of any just government, he is guilty of the greatest crime I think a man is capable of, being to answer for all those mischiefs of blood, rapine, and desolation, which the breaking to pieces of governments bring on a country; and he who does it is justly to be esteemed the common enemy and pest of mankind, and is to be treated accordingly. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

What validity can there be in a Right which ceases to exist when Might changes hands? If a man be constrained by might to obey, what need has he to obey by duty? - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

However strong a man, he is never strong enough to remain master always, unless he transforms his Might into Right, and Obedience into Duty. Hence we have to come to speak of the Right of the Strongest, a right which, seemingly assumed in irony, has, in fact, become established in principle. But the meaning of the phrase has never been adequately explained. Strength is a physical attribute, and I fail to see how any moral sanction can attach to its effects. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Only the recognition by the individual of the rights of the community can give legal force to undertakings entered into between citizens, which, otherwise, would become absurd, tyrannical, and exposed to vast abuses. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Is it not obvious that once we begin basing the right of life and death on the right to enslave, and the right to enslave on the right of life and death, we are caught in a vicious circle. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

He that is master of himself, and his own life, has a right, too, to the means of preserving it. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Thus, a thief whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen all that I am worth, I may kill when he sets on me to rob me... because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our common judge, nor the decision of the law, for remedy in a case where the mischief may be irreparable. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

When all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred; and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion, because such men are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

By the law of nature, every man upon the score, by the right he hath to preserve mankind in general, may restrain, or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so many bring such evil on anyone, who hath transgressed that law, as may make him repent the doing of it, and thereby deter, by his example, others from doing the like mischief. And in this case, and upon this ground, every man hath a right to punish the offender, and be executioner of the law of nature. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The self-preservation of each single man derives primarily from his own strength and from his own freedom. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

If I am waylaid by a footpad at the corner of a wood, I am constrained by force to give him my purse. But if I can manage to keep it from him, is it my duty to hand it over? - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The face of the earth is continually changing, by the increase of small kingdoms into great empires, by the dissolution of great empires into smaller kingdoms, by the planting of colonies, by the migration of tribes. Is there anything discoverable in all these events but force and violence? Where is the mutual agreement or voluntary association so much talked about? - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

Since, then, those who liked one another so well as to join into society cannot but be supposed to have some acquaintance and friendship together, and some trust in one another, they could not but have greater apprehensions of others than of one another; and, therefor, their first care and thought cannot but be supposed to be, how to secure themselves against foreign force. ‘Twas natural for them to put themselves under a frame of government which might serve to that end, and choose the wisest and bravest man to conduct them out against their enemies, and in this chiefly be their ruler. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The social compact establishes between all the citizens of a State a degree of equality such that all undertake to observe the same obligations and to claim the same rights. Consequently, by the very nature of the pact, every act of sovereignty — that is to say, every authentic act of the general will — lays the same obligations and confers the same benefits on all. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

To say that the individual by entering into the social contract, makes an act of renunciation is utterly false. So far from that being the case, his situation within the contract is definitely preferable to what it was before. Instead of giving anything away, he makes a profitable bargain, exchanging peril and uncertainty for security, natural independence for true liberty, the power of injuring others for his own safety, the strength of his own right arm — which others might always overcome — for a right which corporate solidity renders invincible. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Men could not live at all in society, at least in a civilized society, without laws, and and magistrates, and judges, to prevent the encroachments of the strong upon the weak, of the violent upon the just and equitable. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

And thus that which begins and actually constitutes any political society, is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority, to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

To avoid this state of war (wherein there is no appeal but to heaven, and wherein every the least difference is apt to end, where there is no authority to decide between contenders) is one great reason of men’s putting themselves into society, and quitting the state of nature. For where there is an authority, a power on earth from which relief can be had by appeal, there the continuance of the state of war is excluded, and the controversy is decided by that power. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

In order to discover the rules of society best suited to nations, a superior intelligence beholding all the passions of men without experiencing any of them would be needed. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The undertakings which bind us to the social body are obligatory only because they are mutual; and their nature is such that in fulfilling them we cannot work for others without working for ourselves. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

In a state of nature, where everything is in common, I owe nothing where I have promised nothing. I recognize the claim of my neighbor only to what I do not need myself. Such is the case in the civil order of society where all rights are fixed by law. -- Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The bond of society is what there is in common between these different interests, and if there were not some point in which all interests were identical, no society could exist. the bond of society is that identity of interests which all feel who compose it. In the absence of such an identity no society would be possible. Now, it is solely on the basis of this common interest that society must be governed. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

We may... if we will, regard the family as the basic model of all political associations. The ruler is the father writ large: the people are, by analogy, his children, and all, ruler and people alike, alienate their freedom only so far as it is to their advantage to do so. The only difference is that, whereas in the family the father's love for his children is sufficient reward to him for the care he has lavished on them, in the state, the pleasure of commending others takes its place, since the ruler is not in a relation of love to his people. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Our politicians, finding it impossible to divide the principle of sovereignty, none the less divide its objects. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

As nature gives to each man complete power over his limbs, so, too, the social compact gives to the body politic complete power over its members: and it is this power, directed by the general will, which, as I have already pointed out, bears the name of sovereignty. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

For the same reason that sovereignty is inalienable, so, too, is it individual. For either the will is general or it is not. Either it is the will of the whole body of the People, or it is the will merely of one section. In the first case, this declared will is an act of sovereignty, and has the force of law. In the second, it is partial only, or, in other words, an act imposed by government; and then, the most that can be said of it is that it is a decree. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Those wise men who, in speaking to the vulgar herd, would use not its language but their own, will never be understood. Many thousands of ideas there are which cannot be translated into popular phraseology. Excessive generalizations and long-range views are equally beyond the comprehension of the average man, who, as a rule, approves only such schemes, in matters of government, as will rebound to his personal advantages. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

To yield to the strong is an act of necessity, not of will. At most it is the result of a dictate of prudence. How, then, can it become a duty? - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Tis true, governments cannot be supported without great charge, and 'tis fit everyone who enjoys his share of the protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent, i.e. the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves or their representatives chosen by them; for if anyone shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people by his own authority, and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government. For what property have I in that which another may by right take when he pleases himself. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

I hold enforced labour to be less opposed to liberty than taxes. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

No matter how small an amount the people be called upon to provide, if it does not return to them, and if they are called upon to be forever giving, the exhaustion is soon reached, in which case the State is never rich and the people always out-at-elbows [poor]. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Not all governments are of the same nature, some being greedier than others. The difference between them is based upon yet another principle, to wit that the further public taxes are removed from the source, the more burdensome they are. The extent of this burden is not to be reckoned in terms of the amount of the taxes, but with reference to the distance which they have to travel before they return to the hands from which they have come. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Suppose that an usurper, after having banished his lawful prince and royal family should establish his dominion for ten or a dozen years in any country, and should preserve so exact a discipline in his troops, and so regular a disposition in his garrisons that no insurrection had ever been raised, or even murmur heard against his administration: can it be asserted that the people, who in their hearts abhor his treason, have tacitly consented to his authority, and promised him allegiance, merely because, from necessity, they live under his dominion? - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

As usurpation is the exercise of power, which another has a right to; so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which no body can have a right to. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Wherever the power that is put in the hands of the government of the people and the preservation of their properties is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the arbitrary and irregular commands of those that have it, there it presently becomes tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown or some petty villain. The title of the offender and the number of his followers make no difference in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it. The only difference is, great robbers punish little ones to keep them in obedience, but the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their possession which should punish offenders. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Many have mistaken the force of arms for the consent of the people, and reckon conquest as one of the originals of government. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

In the vulgar sense a tyrant is a king who governs by violence, without regard for justice or the laws. In the precise sense, the tyrant is a private individual who arrogates to himself the royal authority without having any right to it. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The great advantage possessed by a tyrannical government is that it can act over great distances by providing itself with fixed bases, it can ensure a preponderance of strength at the periphery, just as, the longer a lever, the greater does its power become. The strength of the people, on the contrary, is effective only when they are concentrated. Where it is dissipated by dispersal it vanishes away and gets lost — like gunpowder which, when scattered over the ground, takes fire only by single grains. The most thinly populated countries, therefor, are the best suited to tyrannies. Wild beasts reign only in the desert. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

My influence on public affairs may be small, but because I have a right to exercise my vote, it is my duty to learn their nature. - David Hume, Of The Original Contract, 1748.

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the state "what does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is necessary that all the votes be counted. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The power a conqueror gets over those he overcomes in a just war is perfectly despotical; he has an absolute power over the lives of those who, by putting themselves in a state of war, have forfeited them; but he has not thereby a right and title to their possessions. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690.

Nothing in war can be claimed as a right save what may be necessary for the accomplishment of the victor's end. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is the link between things rather than between men that constitutes war, and since a state of war cannot originate in simple personal relations, but only in relation between things, private hostility between man and man cannot obtain either in a state of nature where there is no generally accepted system of private property, or in a state of society where law is the supreme authority. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Rousseau was a moron the Jacobin tyrants were inspired by him.

I agree. Read this from the man who was really the philosophical father of Marxism...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau in A Discourse on the Arts and Sciences:

An ancient tradition passed out of Egypt into Greece, that some god, who was an enemy to the repose of mankind, was the inventor of the sciences. What must the Egyptians, among whom the sciences first arose, have thought of them? And they beheld, near at hand, the sources from which they sprang. In fact, whether we turn to the annals of the world, or eke out with philosophical investigations the uncertain chronicles of history, we shall not find for human knowledge an origin answering to the idea we are pleased to entertain of it at present. Astronomy was born of superstition, eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; all, even moral philosophy, of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices; we should be less doubtful of their advantages, if they had sprung from our virtues. (Rousseau, p 15)

The philosophies of Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes are not generally considered analogous. Rousseau is actually very hostile to Hobbes, calling him ‘pernicious’ in A Discourse on the Arts and Sciences:

…Paganism, though given over to all the extravagances of human reason, has left nothing to compare with the shameful monuments which have been prepared by the art of printing, during the reign of the gospel. The impious writings of Leucippus and Diagoras perished with their authors. The world, in their days, was ignorant of the art of immortalizing the errors and extravagances of the human mind. But thanks to the art of printing* and the use we make of it, the pernicious reflections of Hobbes and Spinoza will last forever. Go, famous writings, of which the ignorance and rusticity of our forefathers would have been incapable. Go to our descendants, along with those still more pernicious works which reek of the corrupted manners the present age! Let them together convey to posterity a faithful history of the progress and advantages of our arts and sciences. If they are read, they will not leave a doubt about the question we are now discussing, and unless mankind should then be still more foolish than we, they will lift up their hands to Heaven and exclaim in bitterness of heart: ‘Almighty God! Thou who holdest in Thy hand the minds of men, deliver us from the fatal arts and sciences of our forefathers; give us back the ignorance, innocence, and poverty, which alone can make us happy and are precious in Thy sight.’ (Rousseau, p 26-27)
* If we consider the frightful disorder which printing has already caused in Europe, and judge of the future by the progress of its evils from day to day, it is easy to foresee that sovereigns will hereafter take as much pains to banish this dreadful art from their dominions, as they ever took to encourage it. The Sultan Achmet, yielding to the opportunities of certain pretenders to taste, consented to have a press erected at Constantinople; but it was hardly set to work before they were obliged to destroy it, and throw the plant into a well.
It is related that the Caliph Omar, being asked what should be done with the Library at Alexandria, answered in these words: ‘If the books in the library contain anything contrary to the Alcoran, they are evil and ought to be burnt; if they contain only what the Alcoran teaches, they are superflous.’ This reasoning has been cited by our men of letters as the height of absurdity; but if Gregory the Great had been in place of Omar and the Gospel in the place of the Alcoran, the library would still have been burnt, and it would have been perhaps the finest action of his life.

Rousseau, Jean-Jaques. The Social Contract and Discourses. Trans. G.D.H. Cole, Rev. J.H. Brumfitt and John C. Hall. London: Guernsey Press, 1973.

Thomas Hobbes, and later John Locke, are philosophers who established philosophical ideals that are the basis for Modern Western Civilization. Rousseau establishes a philosophical basis for Marxism.

The political Left often holds to the view of Rousseau, cited above. They eschew the advancement of science and of the arts. It is no wonder that in their pursuit to dominate academia, that the decline of education in the West has been a victim of the political Left.

Read this from the man who was really the philosophical father of Marxism...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau in A Discourse on the Arts and Sciences:

An ancient tradition passed out of Egypt into Greece, that some god, who was an enemy to the repose of mankind, was the inventor of the sciences. What must the Egyptians, among whom the sciences first arose, have thought of them? And they beheld, near at hand, the sources from which they sprang. In fact, whether we turn to the annals of the world, or eke out with philosophical investigations the uncertain chronicles of history, we shall not find for human knowledge an origin answering to the idea we are pleased to entertain of it at present. Astronomy was born of superstition, eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; all, even moral philosophy, of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices; we should be less doubtful of their advantages, if they had sprung from our virtues. (Rousseau, p 15)

…Paganism, though given over to all the extravagances of human reason, has left nothing to compare with the shameful monuments which have been prepared by the art of printing, during the reign of the gospel. The impious writings of Leucippus and Diagoras perished with their authors. The world, in their days, was ignorant of the art of immortalizing the errors and extravagances of the human mind. But thanks to the art of printing* and the use we make of it, the pernicious reflections of Hobbes and Spinoza will last forever. Go, famous writings, of which the ignorance and rusticity of our forefathers would have been incapable. Go to our descendants, along with those still more pernicious works which reek of the corrupted manners the present age! Let them together convey to posterity a faithful history of the progress and advantages of our arts and sciences. If they are read, they will not leave a doubt about the question we are now discussing, and unless mankind should then be still more foolish than we, they will lift up their hands to Heaven and exclaim in bitterness of heart: ‘Almighty God! Thou who holdest in Thy hand the minds of men, deliver us from the fatal arts and sciences of our forefathers; give us back the ignorance, innocence, and poverty, which alone can make us happy and are precious in Thy sight.’ (Rousseau, p 26-27)
* If we consider the frightful disorder which printing has already caused in Europe, and judge of the future by the progress of its evils from day to day, it is easy to foresee that sovereigns will hereafter take as much pains to banish this dreadful art from their dominions, as they ever took to encourage it. The Sultan Achmet, yielding to the opportunities of certain pretenders to taste, consented to have a press erected at Constantinople; but it was hardly set to work before they were obliged to destroy it, and throw the plant into a well.
It is related that the Caliph Omar, being asked what should be done with the Library at Alexandria, answered in these words: ‘If the books in the library contain anything contrary to the Alcoran, they are evil and ought to be burnt; if they contain only what the Alcoran teaches, they are superflous.’ This reasoning has been cited by our men of letters as the height of absurdity; but if Gregory the Great had been in place of Omar and the Gospel in the place of the Alcoran, the library would still have been burnt, and it would have been perhaps the finest action of his life.

Rousseau, Jean-Jaques. The Social Contract and Discourses. Trans. G.D.H. Cole, Rev. J.H. Brumfitt and John C. Hall. London: Guernsey Press, 1973.

I agree with you that Locke is more the true father of the American Revolution. But you are taking Rousseau a bit out of context. You make some good points, but remember that the Founders of our Revolution read all of these men as young men. Rousseau died in 1778 - He was among a list of several men read often by our Founders.

The 3 Locke, Hume, and Rouseau each had an impact on challenging totalitarian and momarchical rule.

Many mistake several of his works for being early foundations of Marxism and totalitarianism (maybe that is why liberals mistakenly revere him) but he is a much more complex thinker than that. ***Rousseau's primary contribution is reinforcing into the founders a radical belief in that historical era, giving them an eloquent and reasoned condemnation of absolute monarchy - and in that time perspective - a zinging critique of the European oppression by totalitarian monarchs. These radical beliefs along with his approach to spring liberty to all people with the elimination of totalitarianism is a huge contribution to European liberal democracy - and to our own Founding Fathers and thus, our American political system and liberty.

Nice set of quotes to look over.

Rousseau is recognized as an inspiration both of modern democracy and of modern totalitarianism. In general, he has been a pernicious influence. What we know of his biography gives us even less reason to trust him as a guide.

In his defense, though, he has attracted the attention of modern philosophers and thinkers because he really takes the difference between the modern and ancient worlds seriously. Straussians in particular, who despise modernity and the currents which grew out of Rousseau, still appreciate his engagement with ancient values and ideas.

What you see in Rousseau may be a desire to recreate the relations between man and the state that he presumed existed in antiquity. A dangerous project that should be rejected, but one that sheds much light on what we were and what we have become.

Locke is a valuable thinker. I've heard that much of what is valuable in him goes back to Aristotle and Aquinas. What is his own may be less valuable or more suspect. If Locke truly is the background of our thought it pays to understand his ideas, and also the criticisms made of them.

While much preferable to Rousseau, the criticism has been made that Locke underestimates important values like loyalty, and makes one type of person the measure of all individuals. Actually existing societies are held together by more complex ties and connections than Locke was willing to admit. Also, if we truly achieve freedom, we eventually come to appreciate it less or to apply the idea of liberation to areas where it doesn't apply. That's probably more a judgement against us than against Locke, but the Lockean moment may be hard to recapture once it passes.

Hume was a Tory and a good guide to politics, though his other philosophical ideas could be painful to those who are looking for certainty or purpose in the universe. While Hume was right about so much that he turned his hand to, one can hardly blame people for wanting more from the universe than the skeptical Hume provided.

In general, though, the level of these thinkers was much higher than what we have today. We are moderns, and certainly we can't deny or reject that now. But it would do us well to return to the early promise of modernity and study it to understand what may have gone wrong since then.

Anyway, thanks for a great set of quotes.

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