SOCIAL CONTRACT.
Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere
occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure--but the state ought
not to be considered nothing better than a partnership agreement in a
trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low
concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be
dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other
reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to
the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a
partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in
every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership
cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not
only between those who are living, but between those who are living,
those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of each
particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of
eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting
the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned
by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures
each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of
those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are
bound to submit their will to that law.
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