Book I, Chapter VIII: The Civil State
THE passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces in man a very remarkable change, by substituting in his conduct justice for instinct, and by giving his actions the moral quality that they previously lacked.8% It is only when the voice of duty succeeds physical impulse, and law succeeds appetite, that man, who till then had regarded only himself, sees that he is obliged to act on other principles, and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations. Although, in this state, he is deprived of many advantages that he derives from nature, he acquires equally great ones in return; his faculties are exercised and developed ; his ideas are expanded ; his feelings are ennobled ; his whole soul is exalted to such a degree that, if the abuses of this new condition did not often degrade him below that from which he has emerged, he ought to bless without ceasing the happy moment that released him from it for ever, and transformed him from a stupid and ignorant animal into an intelligent being and a man.
Let us reduce this whole balance to terms easy to compare. 'What- man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and An unlimited right to anything which tempts him and which he is able to attain; what he gains is civil liberty and property in all that he possesses. In order that we may not be mistaken about these compensations, we must clearly distinguish natural liberty, which is limited only by.the powers of the individual, from civil liberty, which is limited by the general will; and possession, which is nothing but the result of force or the right of first occupancy, from property, which can be based only on a positive title.
Besides the preceding, we might add to the acquisitions of the civil state moral freedom, which alone renders man truly master »f himself; for the impulse of mere appetite is slavery, while
bedience to a self-prescribed law is liberty. But I have already aid too much on this head, and the philosophical meaning of the term /iberty does not belong to my present subject.