The Subject of the First Book

The Subject of the First Book

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains, many a man believes himself to be the master of others who is, no less than they, a slave, how did this change take place? I do not know, what can make it legitimate? To this question I hope to be able to furnish an answer.

Were I considering only force and the effects of force, I should say' So long as a People is constrained to obey, and does, in fact, obey, it does well. As soon as it can shake off its obey, and succeeds in doing so, it does better. The fact that it has recovered its liberty by virtue of that same right by which it was stolen, means either that it is entitled to resume it or that its theft by others was, in the first place, without justification. "But the social order is a scared rich which serves as a foundation for all their rights. This right, however, since it comes not by nature, must have been built upon conventions. To discover what these conventions are is the matter of our inquiry. But, before proceeding further, I must establish the truth of what I have so far advanced.