ABSTRACT
The traditional bonds of society, the relationships we generally speak of as social, are the ties which to Rousseau symbolize the chains of existence. Rousseau's emphasis upon the community has been too often interpreted in a sense that is foreign to his own aim. Commentators have occasionally written of his "community" as the revival of a concept which had disappeared with the Middle Ages. The same centralization of control which exists in the human body must dominate the structure of the community; unity is conferred by the brain which in Rousseau's analogy represents the sovereign power. The real will of the people is that will which lies latent in man and that requires as its condition man's liberation from these authorities and roles. This is the General Will and is alone "the voice of God." Rousseau's community, however, is a political community, one which is indistinguishable from the state and which shares all the uniformitarian qualities of the state.
