means of general decrees, which only can properly be called laws. "Now
the sovereign, being made up only of the individuals which compose it,
has and can have no interest opposed to theirs; therefore the sovereign
power need not provide its subject with any guarantee, because it is
impossible that the body should wish to injure its members," and as the
nature of its action is general and not particular, it cannot injure one
individual without doing harm to all the others at the same time. "The
sovereign, by the very fact of its existence, is always what it ought to
be."

The general will is always right and always tends to public utility,
says Rousseau, but it does not follow that the decisions of the people
are always equally correct. Man always wills his own good, but does not
always see it. The people is never corrupt, but often deceived, and in
the latter case only does it seem to will what is evil. If there were no
parties in the state, the people, if sufficiently informed, would always
vote rightly, for the little differences in private interests would
balance each other, and the resulting average would be the general will.
But through parties and associations this result is prevented. A nation
may change its laws when it pleases, even the best of them; for if it
likes to hurt itself, who has the right to say it nay?

Sovereignty is inalienable, for power is transmissible, but not will.
Sovereignty consists essentially in the general will, and the general
will cannot be represented. It is the same, or it is other; there is no
intermediate point. The deputies of the people cannot be its
representatives; they can only be its agents; they can conclude nothing
definitely. Any law that the people has not ratified in its assembly is
null; it is not a law. The English nation thinks itself free. It is much
mistaken. It is free only during the election of members of Parliament.