This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 edition. Excerpt: ...sagest lawgivers, it has always remained imperfect, because it was the work of chance, and because, inasmuch as it was ill begun, time, while revealing defects and suggesting remedies, could never repair its vicop; people went on incessantly repairing and patching, instead of which it was indispensable to ...
Read More
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 edition. Excerpt: ...sagest lawgivers, it has always remained imperfect, because it was the work of chance, and because, inasmuch as it was ill begun, time, while revealing defects and suggesting remedies, could never repair its vicop; people went on incessantly repairing and patching, instead of which it was indispensable to begin by making a clean surface, and throwing aside all the old materials, just as Lycurgus did in Sparta. The earliest governments were not forms of arbitrary power, which is only their corruption and extreme term, but were at first in all cases composed of elective magistrates, chosen perhaps with reference to wealth, perhaps with a view to age and experience. If we follow the progress of inequality through its different revolutions, we shall find that the establishment of law and the right of property was its first term; the institution of the magistracy the second; that the third and last was the change of legitimate into arbitrary power; in such fashion that the condition of rich aud poor was authorised by the first epoch, that of powerful and defenceless by the second, and by the third that of master and slave, which is the last degree of inequality, and the term at which all the others issue, until new revolutions dissolve the government entirely, or bring it nearer its legitimate constitution. In the last of the three stages, which closes the circle, we are once more at the point whence we started. Here all private individuals again become equal, and are all nothing; and the subjects having no other law but the will of the master, and the master no other rule but his own passions, the notions of good and the principles of justice vanish. Here all is again brought back to the single law of the strongest, and consequently to a new state of...
Read Less
Add this copy of Rousseau Volume 1 to cart. $25.52, new condition, Sold by Paperbackshop rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Bensenville, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Hardpress Publishing.
Add this copy of Rousseau Volume 1 to cart. $36.83, new condition, Sold by Booksplease rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Southport, MERSEYSIDE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2013 by Hardpress Publishing.
