gious groups, but not as individuals.
Beyond a doubt, belief in Rousseau's
concept of the general will brought the
importance of individualism to its ebb
and gave rise to much of the criticism
heaved at contractarianism for mini-
mizing the role of the individual mind in
society.
Rousseau, on the other hand, placed
little confidence in separate interest
groups and would certainly have op-
posed the equivalent of modern political
parties. He might have viewed them as
a means toward expressing one's self-
interest, contributing only to the dis-
sipation of the state by obstructing the
exercise of indivisible sovereignty for
the good of all. Yet, Rousseau further
states that, if these factions do exist, the
more numerous, the better, where the
ideal is a society of one-man interest
groups whose forces interact to yield the
good for the society.15
It has been seen that a society, com-
posed of men whose affinity for one an-
other is either natural or the result of a
quality the members all hold in com-
mon, by compact lays claim to sover-
eignty or the exercise of legitimate force
to execute the will of the society through
the government as directed by the dic-
tates of the legislature. This is approxi-
mately the view of Locke, but one can-
not stop here. No government is viable,
nor can it claim to protect its adherents
unless it wields the power to preserve
itself from inner forces which would dis-
solve it. "May a prince be resisted,"
asked Locke, "as often as anyone shall
find himself aggrieved, and but imagine
he has not right done him? This will
unhinge and overturn all polities and
15 On this point of factions and their inter-
reaction, see the federalist No. 10
(Madison), whose work was no doubt in-
fluenced by J. J. Rousseau.
6
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instead of government and order, leave
nothing but anarchy and confusion."16
In declaring the origins of a state's
police power, Rousseau viewed every
man as a sovereign executive: "He who
refuses to obey the general will must be
constrained by the whole body of his
fellow citizens to do so: which is no
more than to say that it may be neces-
sary to compel a man to be free."17 On
at least one important point both Locke
and Rousseau agreed: the state's police
power originates solely in compact,
agreement, or mutual consent of those
who make up the community. Such an
idea is basic in explaining that a state is
just in exercising capital punishment
and lesser punitive measures against
offenders of civil law.
Hegel could not understand this be-
cause he denied that a state is formed in
compact. He denied also that society's
essence is in the protection of its mem-
bers. Hegel felt, like Hume, that men
are citizens by birth and that member-
ship in the state is not optional. Police
power, he concluded, cannot be said to
be derived from the mutual consent of
society's members. This conflict of
opinion takes on vital practical impor-
tance if one realizes that the very in-
tegrity of the state and the nature of its
executive depends upon one's under-
standing of the extent, if at all, to which
a society's members agree to subject
themselves to civil law by mutual con-
sent.
In the idea of a compact agreement
to legislate for all equally, and to punish
violators of law, is implicit the more
difficult question of majority rule. The
problem is best stated in the words of
Locke: "When any number of men have
16 social contract, supra note 12; at 118.
17 Id. at 184.
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