Montesquieu stated that the Fourth Law
of nature is that man desires to live in
society with the advantage of acquired
knowledge.
Locke also presumed a natural affinity
whereby men are "induced to seek
communion and fellowship with
others," but he was speedy to add that
only unanimous consent could formalize
this relationship and lend authority to
the society to enforce the will of the
sovereign. In fact, according to Locke,
men enter society in order to establish
a jurisdiction on earth equal for all, to
replace the need to appeal to the deity
for justice, an appeal which may be
neither enforceable nor just because of
man's imperfect power of knowing the
law by reason. The state of nature, as
Locke saw it, is one in which men who
live singly are subject to their imper-
fections and, therefore, unable to pro-
vide for themselves well materially and
to live a life "fit for the dignity of men."
The highest motive, then, inspiring
men to join society, is the desire to
enjoy property in peace and safety. Men
sacrifice their Utopian liberty to take
anything which is tempting, for civil
liberties whereby men agree by compact
to the ownership of goods which are
adequate for an individual; thus sub-
stituting moral and legal equality for
"all those physical inequalities which
men suffer."
In like manner, Rousseau argued in
his Second Discourse, De I'lnegalite
parmi les Homines, that the growth of
population necessarily leads to the for-
mation of a community based upon the
development of commerce, a situation
ripe for instituting the original contract.
Rousseau asked: "Had there been no
original contract, why, unless the choice
was unanimous, should the minority
ever have agreed to accept the decision
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of the majority?"13 Hume might have
responded: "Accustomed to respect
overwhelming force, they have no alter-
native." To which Rousseau would un-
doubtedly have shook his head: "No
such thing as overwhelming force in the
hands of a tyrant! Men are plainly fools
to acquiesce in the arbitrary exercise of
personal will on the part of their govern-
ment." According to Rousseau, man is
clearly free in society, for liberty and
equality before the law is the greatest
good; through uniting with others for
the sake of protection man renders
obedience to his own will by agreeing to
abide by majority rule. It takes little
insight to see that Rousseau redefined
one's own will as what one ought to will
for the good of society. If one wills
contrary to the general will one must
be misguided or expressly in search of
evil.14
It becomes evident that such a belief
would tend to squelch individualism.
The seventeenth century form of con-
tractarianism (Locke and his precursors,
e.g., Hugo Grotius) is said to be a
compromise between two ideas : (1)
man is naturally social, and (2) all men
are naturally free and equal (the indi-
vidualist principle). New England
Puritans, in standing up for religious
liberty and in denouncing persecution,
were considerably more eager to preserve
the privileges of independence for their
own societies than the liberty of each
individual member. Groups of both
Galvinists and Huguenots clung firmly
to contract theory, asserting their non-
involvement in the original contract and
their consequent independence as reli-
13 id. at 179.
14 For a lengthier definition of the concept
of general will, see 2 J. rousseau, Du con-
trat social Ou principes Du droit
politique, chs. 1-6 (Gamier Frerer ed.
1962).
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