Rousseau_contrat-social

still reside in the majority: when they cease to do so, whatever side a
man may take, liberty is no longer possible.
In my earlier demonstration of how particular wills are substituted for
the general will in public deliberation, I have adequately pointed out
the practicable methods of avoiding this abuse; and I shall have more to
say of them later on. I have also given the principles for determining
the proportional number of votes for declaring that will. A difference
of one vote destroys equality; a single opponent destroys unanimity; but
between equality and unanimity, there are several grades of unequal
division, at each of which this proportion may be fixed in accordance
with the condition and the needs of the body politic.
There are two general rules that may serve to regulate this relation.
First, the more grave and important the questions discussed, the nearer
should the opinion that is to prevail approach unanimity. Secondly, the
more the matter in hand calls for speed, the smaller the prescribed
difference in the numbers of votes may be allowed to become: where an
instant decision has to be reached, a majority of one vote should be
enough. The first of these two rules seems more in harmony with the
laws, and the second with practical affairs. In any case, it is the
combination of them that gives the best proportions for determining the
majority necessary.
3. ELECTIONS
IN the elections of the prince and the magistrates, which are, as I have
said, complex acts, there are two possible methods of procedure, choice
and lot. Both have been employed in various republics, and a highly
complicated mixture of the two still survives in the election of the
Doge at Venice.
"Election by lot," says Montesquieu, "is democratic in nature."[E3] I
agree that it is so; but in what sense? "The lot," he goes on, "is a way
of making choice that is unfair to nobody; it leaves each citizen a
reasonable hope of serving his country." These are not reasons.
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