Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
"From the Gospel to the Contrat Social," says De Bonald, "it is books that have made revolutions." Indeed, a great book is often a greater thing than a great battle. Even works of fiction have occasionally exercised immense power on society. Bear in mind that it is not all we eat that nourishes, but what we digest.
Our next business is to turn from theoretical considerations of the =contrat social= to the practice based upon this catchword; and to look for traces of Anarchist thought upon the blood-stained path of the great French Revolution that typical struggle of the modern spirit of freedom against ancient society.
The Contrat Social constantly carries the idea, that the government is the seat of all power and the source of all national action. No suggestion is made, that there are individual functions with which the state cannot interfere to advantage.
"The Contrat Social has received its whipping on the back of Emile," was the saying at Geneva. "At the instigation of M. de Voltaire they have avenged upon me the cause of God," Jean Jacques declared. Rousseau rashly put his name to his book; Voltaire was more prudent.
Morgan, the author of 'Ancient Society, inclines to trace the prohibition to a great early physiological discovery, acted on by primitive men by virtue of a contrat social. Early man discovered that children of unsound constitutions were born of nearly related parents. Mr. Morgan says: 'Primitive men very early discovered the evils of close interbreeding. Elsewhere Mr.
The real social forces of the time found there no channels of activity; and the difference between De Lolme and Bagehot is the latter's power to go behind the screen of statute to the inner sources of power. The basis of revolutionary doctrine was already present in England when, in 1762, Rousseau published his Contrat Social.
"Émile," the "Contrat Social," and the rest of the series succeeded each other in her studies; but she does not speak of the "Confessions," a book most cruel to those who love the merits of the author, and to whom the nauseating vulgarity of his personal character is a disgust scarcely to be recovered from.
Moreover they followed good leaders: they took the citizen of Geneva for their prophet, and the contrat social for their Koran. Bias and prejudice are apparent in all the phrases of the new legislators. MEN ARE EQUAL BY NATURE: does that mean that they are equal in size, beauty, talents, and virtue? No; they meant, then, political and civil equality. But what is equality before the law?
In the midst of the free publication of obscene books, there had also appeared, before the execution of Calas, the Marquis de Mirabeau's "Ami des Hommes," Rousseau's "Émile," the "Contrat Social," with other works, denying religion of all kinds, and pointing to the general downfall, which was now fast approaching. When the Calas family took refuge in Geneva, Voltaire soon heard of their story.
The aim of the Jacobin minority, inspired by the doctrines of the Contrat Social of Rousseau, was to found a democratic state based on the principle of the sovereignty of the people.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking