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Jean-Jacques RousseauA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Rousseau begins this section by attempting to define the word “government” and to explain how it is administered through executive power.
Every action has a moral component and a physical component. The moral component determines what action should be taken, while the physical component carries it out. In a state, the moral component, or “will,” is represented by the legislature while the physical component, or “strength,” is represented by the executive, which Rousseau generally refers to as “the government.”
Because the government executes and applies laws to acts or individuals, it must be separate from the sovereign or “the law,” which represents the general will and is therefore expressed in general terms. From this, Rousseau reaches a definition for government: “An intermediate body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political” (43).
By Jean-Jacques Rousseau