THE ENLIGHTENMENT THROUGH PRIMARY SOURCES

ORAL GROUPS REPORT

1. Give each student a different reading. Document A is the section on law from Montesquieu’´s The Spirit of the Laws. Document B is from Rousseau’´s The Social Contract.

2. The students have to find as many of the three basic tenets as they can in each of these documents on government, and come up with a list. They should use quotes from the documents to back up their points.

3. As well as, they have to write the opposite of each tenet. For example:The goverment should divide its power in three diferent branches versus The sovereignty belongs to the King. The target of this task is thinking about the changes which took place between Ancien Régime and Enlightenment.

TEXT A

SELECTIONS FROM THE SOCIAL CONTRACT (1762)
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
(Primary Source)

 Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Many a one believes himself the master of others, and yet he is a greater slave than they.
The social order is a sacred right which serves as a foundation for all others . . . now, as men cannot create any new forces, but only combine and direct those that exist, they have no other means of self-preservation than to form a sum of forces which may overcome [vencer] the resistance, to put them in action and to make them work in concert.
This sum of forces can be produced only by the combination of man; but the strength and freedom of each man being the chief instruments of his preservation. How can he pledge them without injuring himself, and without neglecting the cares which he owes to himself? This difficulty, applied to my subject, may be expressed in these terms:

To find a form of association which may defend and protect with the whole force of the community the person and property of all its members and by means of which each, coalescing [fusionándose] with all, may nevertheless obey only himself, and remain as free as before.

Such is the fundamental problem of which the social contract furnishes the solution.’ In short, each giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody.
We see from this formula that the act of association contains a reciprocal engagement between the public and individuals, and that every individual is engaged in a double relation. The social pact includes this engagement: whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the whole body; which means nothing else than that he shall be forced to be free.

Source: Rousseau, The Social Contract

TEXT B

SELECTIONS FROM THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS (1749)

Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

(Primary Source)

 Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power: but constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

To prevent this abuse, it is necessary, from the very nature of things, that power should be a check to power.

The political liberty of the subject is a tranquility of mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety. In order to have this liberty, it is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty.

Again, there is no liberty if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive.

In perusing [leyendo detenidamente] the admirable treatise of Tacitus on the manners of the ancient German tribes, we find it is from that nation the English have borrowed the idea of their political government. This beautiful system was invented first in the woods.

Neither do I pretend by this to undervalue other governments, nor to say that this extreme political liberty ought to give uneasiness [desasosiego] to those who have only a moderate share of it. How should I have any such design; I who think that even the highest refinement of reason is not always desirable, and that mankind generally find their account better in mediums than in extremes?

Source: Montesquieu, The spirit of Laws