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Monarchy
A nation is the political and social community that a people creates through the social contract. For Rousseau, a nation is the same thing as a republic or body politic.
Nation Quotes in The Social Contract
The The Social Contract quotes below are all either spoken by Nation or refer to Nation. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 2, Chapter 7
Quotes
Whoever ventures on the enterprise of setting up a people must be ready, shall we say, to change human nature, to transform each individual, who by himself is entirely complete and solitary, into a part of a much greater whole, from which that same individual will then receive, in a sense, his life and his being. The founder of nations must weaken the structure of man in order to fortify it, to replace the physical and independent existence we have all received from nature with a moral and communal existence. In a word each man must be stripped of his own powers, and given powers which are external to him, and which he cannot use without the help of others. The nearer men’s natural powers are to extinction or annihilation, and the stronger and more lasting their acquired powers, the stronger and more perfect is the social institution.
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Book 3, Chapter 15
Quotes
The better the state is constituted, the more does public business take precedence over private in the minds of the citizens. There is indeed much less private business, because the sum of the public happiness furnishes a larger proportion of each individual’s happiness, so there remains less for him to seek on his own. In a well-regulated nation, every man hastens to the assemblies; under a bad government, no one wants to take a step to go to them, because no one feels the least interest in what is done there, since it is predictable that the general will will not be dominant, and, in short, because domestic concerns absorb all the individual’s attention. Good laws lead men to make better ones; bad laws lead to worse. As soon as someone says of the business of the state—“What does it matter to me?”—then the state must be reckoned lost.
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Book 4, Chapter 7
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It is useless to separate the morals of a nation from the objects of its esteem; for both spring from the same principle and both necessarily merge together. Among all the peoples of the world, it is not nature but opinion which governs the choice of their pleasures. Reform the opinions of men, and their morals will be purified of themselves. Men always love what is good or what they think is good, but it is in their judgement that they err; hence it is their judgement that has to be regulated. To judge morals is to judge what is honoured; to judge what is honoured, is to look to opinion as law.
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Nation Term Timeline in The Social Contract
The timeline below shows where the term Nation appears in The Social Contract. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 1, Chapter 4: Slavery
...attack a country are criminals, not soldiers, unless they have the support of their own nation in doing so.)
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Book 1, Chapter 5: That We Must Always Go Back To an Original Covenant
...and constitute “a body politic.” Someone who “enslave[s] half the world” does not create a nation by doing so. In fact, by recognizing that “a people” can “give itself to a...
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Book 1, Chapter 6: The Social Pact
...community and its members: depending on the context, it can be called a body politic, nation, or republic (which are synonyms); a state (as a “passive” institution that is governed by...
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Book 1, Chapter 9: Of Property
...them as private property, but it also incorporates it into the public territory of the nation as a whole. Alternatively, people can join together before possessing territory, and then work together...
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Book 2, Chapter 6: On Law
Rousseau explains that the social contract creates the body politic, but the nation must pass laws to preserve itself. While true justice and goodness come from God through...
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Book 2, Chapter 7: The Lawgiver
...“transform[ing] each individual […] into a part of a much greater whole.” These “founder[s] of nations” have to break down people’s independence in order to give them the “moral and communal...
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...“appeal[ed] to divine intervention” throughout history to justify why people should join and follow the nation. These difficulties require lawgivers to have a “great soul,” which is “the true miracle” that...
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Book 2, Chapter 8: The People
...to change, but it is still possible—through revolutions, for example. But Rousseau thinks that a nation only gets one try at organizing into society: if it fails, “the state falls apart”...
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Book 3, Chapter 13: The Same—Continued
...the people itself. While “it is always an evil to unite several towns in one nation,” it is also necessary so that small towns do not get absorbed by larger ones....
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Book 4, Chapter 6: Dictatorship
...the sovereign needs to suspend institutions—but only in the “rare and obvious cases” when the nation’s security is severely threatened. If a stronger government is the solution, national security can be...
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Book 4, Chapter 7: The Censorial Tribunal
...they are lost. They ensure that wise beliefs are not “corrupted” and help push the nation’s culture forward. The Romans and Greeks expertly used censors to stop undesirable behavior through shame...
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Book 4, Chapter 8: The Civil Religion
...the first states were religious (or theocratic) and every society had its own God, so “national divisions produced polytheism, [… and] religious and civil intolerance.” In these theocratic states, “political war...
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...globe and leading to “an endless conflict of jurisdiction” between states and churches in Christian nations. “The clergy” is simultaneously legislative and executive, meaning that Christian countries have “two powers, two...
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...“the religion of the man,” and religion as an institutionalized social practice tied to the nation and codified through laws, or “the religion of the citizen.” Some religions create a mixed...
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