I MEAN to inquire if, in the civil order, there can be any sure and legitimate rule of administration, men being taken as they are and laws as they might be. In this inquiry I shall endeavour always to unite what right sanctions with what is prescribed by interest, in order that justice and utility may in no case be divided.
       I enter upon my task without proving the importance of the subject. I shall be asked if I am a prince or a legislator, to write on politics. I answer that I am neither, and that is why I do so. If I were a prince or a legislator, I should not waste time in saying what wants doing; I should do it, or hold my peace.
       As I was born a citizen of a free State, and a member of the Sovereign, I feel that, however feeble the influence my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting on them makes it my duty to study them: and I am happy, when I reflect upon governments, to find my inquiries always furnish me with new reasons for loving that of my own country.
       1. Subject of the First Book
       MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer.
       If I took into account only force, and the effects derived from it, I should say: "As long as a people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away, either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those who took it away." But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions. Before coming to that, I have to prove what I have just asserted.

Foreward
book i
   1. Subject of the First Book
   2. The First Societies
   3. The Right of the Strongest
   4. Slavery
   5. That We Must Always Go Back to a First Convention
   6. The Social Compact
   7. The Sovereign
   8. The Civil State
   9. Real Property
   Notes
book ii
   1. That Sovereignty is Inalienable
   2. That Sovereignty is Indivisible
   3. Whether the General Will is Fallible
   4. The Limits of the Sovereign Power
   5. The Right of Life and Death
   6. Law
   7. The Legislator
   8. The People
   9. The People (continued)
   10. The People (continued)
   11. The Various Systems of Legislation
   12. The Division of the Laws
   Notes
book iii
   1. Government in General
   2. The Constituent Principle in the Various Forms of Government
   3. The Division of Governments
   4. Democracy
   5. Aristocracy
   6. Monarchy
   7. Mixed Governments
   8. That All Forms of Government Do Not Suit All Countries
   9. The Marks of a Good Government
   10. The Abuse of Government and Its Tendency to Degenerate
   11. The Death of the Body Politic
   12. How the Sovereign Authority Maintains Itself
   13. The Same (continued)
   14. The Same (continued)
   15. Deputies or Representatives
   16. That the Institution of Government is not a Contract
   17. The Institution of Government
   18. How to Check the Usurpations of Government
   Notes
book iv
   1. That the General Will is Indestructible
   2. Voting
   3. Elections
   4. The Roman Comitia
   5. The Tribunate
   6. The Dictatorship
   7. The Censorship
   8. Civil Religion
   9. Conclusion
   Notes