best. Calculators, it is therefore your
affair; count, measure, compare.

As particular wills strive unceasingly against the general will, so the
government makes a continual attack upon the sovereign. If the
government is able, by its efforts, to usurp the sovereignty, then the
social contract is broken; the citizens, who have by right been thereby
restored to their natural liberty, may be forced to obey the usurper,
but are under no other obligation to do so.

Since the sovereign has no power except its legislative authority, it
only acts by laws; and since the laws are simply the authentic acts of
the general will, the sovereign cannot act save when the people are
assembled. It is essential that there should be definitely fixed
periodic assemblies of the people that cannot be abolished or delayed,
so that on the appointed day the people would be legitimately convoked
by the law, without need of any formal summons.

I may be asked, how are the citizens of a large state, composed of many
communities, to hold frequent meetings? I reply that it is useless to
quote the disadvantages of large states to one who considers that all
states ought to be small. But how are small states to defend themselves
against large ones? By confederation, after the manner of the Greek and
ancient times, and the Dutch and Swiss in times more modern.

But between the sovereign authority and arbitrary government there is
sometimes introduced a middle power of which I ought to speak. As soon
as the public service ceases to be the main interest of the citizens, as
soon as they prefer to serve their purses rather than themselves, the
state is nearing its ruin. The weakening of patriotism, the activity of
private interests, the immensity of states, conquests, and the abuse of
government, have led to the device of deputies or representatives of the
people in the national assemblies. But sovereignty cannot be
represented, even as it cannot be alienated; it consists essentially in
the general will, and the will is not ascertainable by representation;
it is either itself, or something else; there is no middle course. A law
not ratified by the people in person is no law at all. The English
people believes itself free, but it greatly deceives itself; it is not
so, except during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they
are elected, it is enslaved, it is nothing.

How are we to conceive the act by which the government is instituted?
The