The Social Contract and Discourses: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"I MEAN to inquire if, in the civil order, there can be any
sure and legitimate rule of administration, men being
taken as they are and laws as they might be. In this inÂÂ
quiry I shall endeavour always to unite what right sancÂÂ
tions with what is prescribed by interest, in order that
justice and utility may in no case be divided.
I enter upon my task without proving the importance
of the subject. I shall be asked if I am a prince or a legisÂÂ
lator, to write on politics. I answer that I am neither,
and that is why I do so. If I were a prince or a legislator,
I should not waste time in saying what wants doing;
I should do it, or hold my peace.
As I was born a citizen of a free State, and a member
of the Sovereign, I feel that, however feeble the influence
my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting
on them makes it my duty to study them: and I am happy,
when I reflect upon governments, to find my inquiries
always furnish me with new reasons for loving that of my
own country."
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