IX GOVERNMENT 399 



definition. But to my mind it is somewhat hard 

 to reconcile with the obligation to submit to laws 

 laid down by other people who happen to be in a 

 majority. Unless, indeed, this "law which one 

 has laid down for oneself " simply inculcates obe- 

 dience to the majority. But, if that be liberty, 

 then liberty is no less possessed by the man who 

 makes it a law to himself to obey any master ; and 

 liberty is as fully possessed by the slave who 

 makes up his mind to be a slave, as by the freest 

 of free men. 



With respect to the other aim of government, 

 the maintenance of equality, Rousseau makes an 

 instructive statement in answering the objection 

 that the attempt is chimerical. 



It is precisely because the nature of things (force des chases) 

 continually tends to the destruction of equality, that the power 

 of legislation ought always to tend to maintain it l 



1 In spite of all his sentimentalism, Rousseau occasionally 

 sees straight into the realities of things. A prcndre le terme 

 dans la rigueur de I'acception, il n'a jamais existe de veritable 

 democratic, et il n'en existera jamais. II est contre Tordrt 

 naturel qiie le grand nombre gouveme, et que le petit soil gouvernt. 

 .... S'il y avait un peuple de dieux il se gouuerneraii democra- 

 tiquement. Un gouvernement si parfait ne convient pas a des 

 homines (liv. iii. chap. iv.). "A second Daniel come to judg- 

 ment ! " For it would not be far from the truth to say that the 

 only form of government which has ever permanently existed is 

 oligarchy. A very strong despot, or a furious multitude, may, 

 for a brief space, work their single or collective will ; but the 

 power of an absolute monarch is, as a rule, as much in the hands 

 of a ring of ministers, mistresses, and priests, as that of Demos 

 is, in reality, wielded by a ring of orators and wire-pullers. 

 As Hobbes has pithily put the case, "A democracy in effect is no 

 more than an aristocracy of orators, interrupted sometimes with 







