Key Arguments

• Rousseau draws an explicit analogy: 'Most peoples, like most men, are docile only in youth; as they grow old they become incorrigible,' grounding political plasticity in a quasi-psychological life-cycle.
• He claims that 'When once customs have become established and prejudices inveterate, it is dangerous and useless to attempt their reformation,' indicating that hardened habits make reform both risky and ineffective.
• The simile of sick patients emphasizes resistance: 'the people, like the foolish and cowardly patients who rave at sight of the doctor, can no longer bear that any one should lay hands on its faults to remedy them,' suggesting that advanced corruption leads to hostility against reformers.
• He nonetheless identifies exceptional moments when radical change is possible: 'There are indeed times in the history of States when, just as some kinds of illness turn men’s heads and make them forget the past, periods of violence and revolutions do to peoples what these crises do to individuals: horror of the past takes the place of forgetfulness, and the State, set on fire by civil wars, is born again, so to speak, from its ashes, and takes on anew, fresh from the jaws of death, the vigour of youth.'
• Historical examples—'Such were Sparta at the time of Lycurgus, Rome after the Tarquins, and, in modern times, Holland and Switzerland after the expulsion of the tyrants'—are offered to show how civil wars and expulsions of tyrants can reset a polity and restore a kind of youthful receptivity.
• He stresses the rarity and specificity of these cases: 'But such events are rare; they are exceptions, the cause of which is always to be found in the particular constitution of the State concerned,' implying they cannot be engineered at will.
• Rousseau insists 'They cannot even happen twice to the same people, for it can make itself free as long as it remains barbarous, but not when the civic impulse has lost its vigour,' arguing that founding revolutions are a one-time opportunity tied to an early, 'barbarous' stage.
• In mature, over-civilized states 'disturbances may destroy it, but revolutions cannot mend it: it needs a master, and not a liberator,' concluding that later upheavals are destructive rather than regenerative.

Source Quotes

A thousand nations have achieved earthly greatness, that could never have endured good laws; even such as could have endured them could have done so only for a very brief period of their long history. Most peoples, like most men, are docile only in youth; as they grow old they become incorrigible. When once customs have become established and prejudices inveterate, it is dangerous and useless to attempt their reformation; the people, like the foolish and cowardly patients who rave at sight of the doctor, can no longer bear that any one should lay hands on its faults to remedy them.

Most peoples, like most men, are docile only in youth; as they grow old they become incorrigible. When once customs have become established and prejudices inveterate, it is dangerous and useless to attempt their reformation; the people, like the foolish and cowardly patients who rave at sight of the doctor, can no longer bear that any one should lay hands on its faults to remedy them. There are indeed times in the history of States when, just as some kinds of illness turn men’s heads and make them forget the past, periods of violence and revolutions do to peoples what these crises do to individuals: horror of the past takes the place of forgetfulness, and the State, set on fire by civil wars, is born again, so to speak, from its ashes, and takes on anew, fresh from the jaws of death, the vigour of youth.

When once customs have become established and prejudices inveterate, it is dangerous and useless to attempt their reformation; the people, like the foolish and cowardly patients who rave at sight of the doctor, can no longer bear that any one should lay hands on its faults to remedy them. There are indeed times in the history of States when, just as some kinds of illness turn men’s heads and make them forget the past, periods of violence and revolutions do to peoples what these crises do to individuals: horror of the past takes the place of forgetfulness, and the State, set on fire by civil wars, is born again, so to speak, from its ashes, and takes on anew, fresh from the jaws of death, the vigour of youth. Such were Sparta at the time of Lycurgus, Rome after the Tarquins, and, in modern times, Holland and Switzerland after the expulsion of the tyrants.

But such events are rare; they are exceptions, the cause of which is always to be found in the particular constitution of the State concerned. They cannot even happen twice to the same people, for it can make itself free as long as it remains barbarous, but not when the civic impulse has lost its vigour. Then disturbances may destroy it, but revolutions cannot mend it: it needs a master, and not a liberator.

They cannot even happen twice to the same people, for it can make itself free as long as it remains barbarous, but not when the civic impulse has lost its vigour. Then disturbances may destroy it, but revolutions cannot mend it: it needs a master, and not a liberator. Free peoples, be mindful of this maxim: “Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered.”

Key Concepts

• Most peoples, like most men, are docile only in youth; as they grow old they become incorrigible.
• When once customs have become established and prejudices inveterate, it is dangerous and useless to attempt their reformation;
• the people, like the foolish and cowardly patients who rave at sight of the doctor, can no longer bear that any one should lay hands on its faults to remedy them.
• periods of violence and revolutions do to peoples what these crises do to individuals: horror of the past takes the place of forgetfulness, and the State, set on fire by civil wars, is born again, so to speak, from its ashes, and takes on anew, fresh from the jaws of death, the vigour of youth.
• They cannot even happen twice to the same people, for it can make itself free as long as it remains barbarous, but not when the civic impulse has lost its vigour.
• Then disturbances may destroy it, but revolutions cannot mend it: it needs a master, and not a liberator.

Context

First half of Book II, Chapter VIII, where Rousseau analyzes the temporal conditions under which peoples can receive and sustain new laws, emphasizing the limited 'window' of malleability and the exceptional, non-repeatable character of founding revolutions.