ABSTRACT
Sovereign authority lying, according to Rousseau, in ‘all the people’, legislating for ‘all the people’, it remains to be seen what place he allots to government. The will of the body politic or State is called the legislative power, and its physical strength the executive or governmental power. The Social Contract sets up the whole body of the people as the sole legislative power. The legislative power belongs to the whole people alone, and can neither be transferred in whole nor in part, to any other body. A State without executive power may be likened to a paralytic, whilst a State in which the executive power is exerted without the guidance or consent of the legislative power resembles an imbecile. Of the two, the legislative power is infinitely the more important, for it is the very will and life of the State.
