IX GOVERNMENT I}'.) 7 



Outside this primitive contract, the vote of the majority 

 obliges the test ; that is a consequence of the contract itself. 



In the Rousseauite State, then, sovereignty 

 means neither more nor less than the omnipotence 

 of a bare majority of voices of all the members of 

 the State collected together in general meetings 

 (chaps, xii. xiv.). 



During the sittings of this sovereign multitude, 

 which are to take place at fixed intervals, 



the jurisdiction of the government ceases, the executive 

 power is suspended, and the person of the lowliest citizen is as 

 sacred and inviolable as that of the highest magistrate ; for 

 where the represented is present the representative ceases to 

 exist. 



In fact, in each of these periodical meetings, the 

 polity potentially returns to the state of nature, 

 and its members, if they please, may dissolve the 

 social contract altogether: if they do not so 

 please, they reappoint office-bearers to do the 

 work assigned to them, whatever that may be (iii. 

 chap, xvii.), until the next assembly. Society ia] 

 thus a sort of joint-stock company, whose officers 

 vacate their posts at every general meeting, and 

 whose shareholders can wind up the concern, or 

 go on, as the assembly may resolve, with such 

 articles of association as a bare majority of the 

 shareholders may determine shall be binding until 

 the next meeting. An industrial company organ- 

 ised in this way would probably soon resign sove- 





