f mankind. According to this method,
the ground and origin of society is not a compact; that never existed
in any known case, and never was a condition of obligation either in
primitive or developed societies, either between subjects and
sovereign, or between the equal members of a sovereign body. The true
ground is an acceptance of conditions which came into existence by the
sociability inherent in man, and were developed by man's spontaneous
search after convenience. The statement that while the constitution
of man is the work of nature, that of the state is the work of
art,[260] is as misleading as the opposite statement that governments
are not made but grow.[261] The truth lies between them, in such
propositions as that institutions owe their existence and development
to deliberate human effort, working in accordance with circumstances
naturally fixed both in human character and in the external field of
its activity. The obedience of the subject to the sovereign has its
root not in contract but in force,--the force of the sovereign to
punish disobedience. A man does not consent to be put to death if he
shall commit a murder, for the reason alleged by Rousseau, namely, as
a means of protecting his own life against murder.[262] There is no
consent in the transaction. Some person or persons, possessed of
sovereign authority, promulgated a command that the subject should not
commit murder, and appointed penalties for such commission and it was
not a fictitious assent to these penalties, but the fact that the
sovereign was strong enough to enforce them, which made the command
valid.

Supposing a law to be passed in an assembly of the sovereign people by
a majority; what binds a member of the minority to obedience?
Rousseau's answer is this:--When the law is proposed, the question
put is not whether they approve or reject the proposition, but whether
it is conformable to the general will: the general will appears from
the votes: if the opinion contrary to my own wins the day, that only
proves that I was mistaken, and that what I took for the general will
was not really so.[263] We can scarcely imagine more nonsensical
sophistry than this. The proper answer evidently is, that either
experience or calculation has taught the citizens in a popular
government that in the long run it is most expedient for the majority
of votes to decide the law. In other words, the inconvenience to the
minority of submitting to a law which th