SOCIAL CONTRACT
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1762
Translated by G. D. H. Cole
FOREWARD This little treatise is part of a longer work which I began years ago without realising my limitations, and long since abandoned. Of the various fragments that might have been extracted from what I wrote, this is the most considerable, and, I think, the least unworthy of being offered to the public. The rest no longer exists.
Book I 1. Subject of the First Book
2. The First Societies
3. The Right of the Strongest
4. Slavery
5. That We Must Always Go Back to a First Convention
6. The Social Compact
7. The Sovereign
8. The Civil State
9. Real Property1. That Sovereignty is Inalienable
2. That Sovereignty is Indivisible
3. Whether the General Will is Fallible
4. The Limits of the Sovereign Power
5. The Right of Life and Death
6. Law
7. The Legislator
8. The People
9. The People (continued)
10. The People (continued)
11. The Various Systems of Legislation
12. The Division of the Laws1. Government in General
2. The Constituent Principle in the Various Forms of Government
3. The Division of Governments
4. Democracy
5. Aristocracy
6. Monarchy
7. Mixed Governments
8. That All Forms of Government Do Not Suit All Countries
9. The Marks of a Good Government
10. The Abuse of Government and Its Tendency to Degenerate
11. The Death of the Body Politic
12. How the Sovereign Authority Maintains Itself
13. The Same (continued)
14. The Same (continued)
15. Deputies or Representatives
16. That the Institution of Government is not a Contract
17. The Institution of Government
18. How to Check the Usurpations of Government1. That the General Will is Indestructible
2. Voting
3. Elections
4. The Roman Comitia
5. The Tribunate
6. The Dictatorship
7. The Censorship
8. Civil Religion
9. Conclusion
