The Social Contract
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762)
“'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.' Rousseau's 1762 treatise converts this opening provocation into the most radical and most dangerous contract theory of the Enlightenment — a blueprint for popular sovereignty that the French Revolution would carry in its pocket, and that twentieth-century critics would blame for the Terror.”
Language Register
High formal with rhetorical interruption. Rousseau addresses the reader directly, uses first-person frequently, and allows himself rhetorical questions and imperatives that Montesquieu or Voltaire would have suppressed. The style is learned but not academic.
Syntax Profile
Balanced periodic sentences alternating with short declarative aphorisms. Rousseau favors chiasm and antithesis ('Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains'; 'the strongest is never strong enough to be always master, unless he transforms strength into right'). Questions and imperatives appear frequently, addressing the reader as interlocutor.
Figurative Language
Moderate. Rousseau's metaphors are mostly political-institutional (body politic, foundation, construction) with occasional classical allusions (Sparta, Rome, Lycurgus, Cato). Agricultural metaphors (sowing, harvesting) appear in the chapter on the Legislator. Natural-law metaphors (chains, freedom, nature) pervade Book I.
Era-Specific Language
General will; Rousseau's signature technical term for the will of the commonwealth directed at the common good
Will of all; the sum of individuals' particular wills, each pursuing private interest
Sovereign / sovereignty; Rousseau uses these terms strictly to refer to the people as collective legislator, distinct from government
Body politic; the commonwealth conceived as a unified artificial person
City or commonwealth; Rousseau prefers 'cité' (with republican-civic connotations) over 'ville' (neutral)
Citizen (as member of sovereign people) / subject (as member of government's domain); Rousseau distinguishes these precisely
Social contract or pact; Rousseau uses both 'contrat social' and 'pacte social' for the foundational agreement
Fatherland, country; carries republican-civic resonance more than 'pays'
Legislator; the exceptional founder who creates a commonwealth's basic laws (Lycurgus, Numa, Moses, Calvin)
Manners, customs, morals — the deep culture of a people
How Characters Speak — Class & Identity
Rousseau as authorial narrator
Writes as citoyen (citizen) addressing other citizens; rejects both academic neutrality and aristocratic remove; uses first-person frequently
Rousseau's stylistic democratic-republican ethos: the treatise is written for a literate public rather than for a specialist scholarly audience or a princely patron
The people (le peuple)
Positioned as ultimate political authority; addressed through Rousseau's voice rather than speaking directly; imagined as capable of virtuous self-governance under the right conditions
Rousseau's democratic-republican faith in popular self-governance, tempered by his recognition that the conditions for such governance are rare
Monarchs and absolutists
Attacked argumentatively; treated as historical figures who claim illegitimate authority; not directly addressed
The treatise's polemical target is absolutist theory, not absolutist rulers; Rousseau's critique is philosophical rather than personal
The Legislator
Described in quasi-mystical register; exceptional individual distinct from ordinary political actors; prophetic founder
Rousseau's acknowledgment that democratic self-governance requires extraordinary founding figures whose work cannot be reproduced by ordinary politics
Narrator's Voice
First-person, engaged, rhetorically energetic. Rousseau presents himself as a thinker addressing a literate public, occasionally as a citizen urging action, and occasionally as a philosopher acknowledging the limits of his own argument ('I do not know ... I think I can answer'). The voice is confident but not academic; polemical but not ranting.
Tone Progression
Book I
Provocative, foundational, aphoristic
Opens with the famous chains line; clears away rival theories; establishes the contract
Book II
Systematic, analytical, mystical (in the Legislator chapter)
Develops sovereignty and the general will; culminates in the quasi-prophetic Legislator figure
Book III
Comparative, pragmatic, polemical (in the representation chapter)
Analyzes forms of government with historical examples; launches direct attack on representative government
Book IV
Institutional, historical, theologically charged (in the civil religion chapter)
Roman comitia and institutions; climaxes in the civil religion controversy
Stylistic Comparisons
- Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) — predecessor contract theory; Rousseau's general will replaces Hobbes's sovereign as the repository of collective authority
- John Locke's Second Treatise of Government (1689) — intermediate contract theory; Locke preserves individual property rights against the sovereign where Rousseau's general will subsumes them
- Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws (1748) — contemporary rival; Montesquieu favors mixed government and representation where Rousseau rejects both
- Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality (1755) — the author's own earlier work, providing the historical-anthropological framework the Social Contract presupposes
- Rousseau's Émile, ou De l'éducation (1762) — companion volume published the same month and equally condemned; develops Rousseau's theory of human formation
- Immanuel Kant's Perpetual Peace (1795) and Metaphysics of Morals (1797) — successor contract theory grounded in moral autonomy rather than general will
- Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1820) — engages Rousseau critically, finding in him insufficient development from general will to objective reason
- John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) — contemporary descendant; locates itself in the Rousseau-Locke-Kant tradition rather than the Hobbesian