He then passes to the question: What should have been done? and here he gives us the foundation of his system. Without naming Rousseau he has adopted the Social Compact as the basis of government. A nation is made up of individuals; these unite to form a community; for convenience they depute persons to represent them and to exercise the common power. [Footnote: It need hardly be pointed out that Sieyes falls short of the full measure of Rousseau's doctrine when he allows the law-making, or more correctly the constitution-making power, to be delegated at all.] The constitution of the state is the body of rules by which these representatives are governed when they legislate or administer the public affairs. The constitution is fundamental, not as binding the national will, but only as binding the bodies existing within the state. The nation itself is free from all such bonds. No constitution can control it. Its will cannot be limited. The nation assembling to consider its constitution is not controlled by ordinary forms. Its delegates meeting for that especial purpose are independent of the constitution. They represent the national will, and questions are settled by them not in accordance with constitutional laws, but as they might be in a meeting of the whole nation were it small enough to be brought together in one place; that is to say, by a vote of the majority.[Footnote: Sieyes and his master do not see that if unanimity cannot be secured, and if constitutional law be once done away, men are reduced under their system to a state of nature, and the will of a majority has no binding force but that of the strong arm.] But where find the nation? Where it is: in the forty thousand parishes which comprise all the territory and all the inhabitants of the country. They should have been arranged in groups of twenty or thirty parishes, and have thus formed representative districts, which should have united to make provinces, which should have sent true delegates, with special power to settle the constitution of the Estates General. This correct course has not been followed, but what now remains to be done? Let the Commons assemble apart from the other orders. Let them join with the Nobility and the Clergy neither by orders, as a part of a legislature of three chambers, nor by heads, in one common assembly. Two courses are open. Either let them appeal to the nation for increased powers, which would be the most frank and generous way; or let them only consider the enormous difference that exists between the assembly of the Third Estate and that of the other two orders. "The former represents twenty-five millions of men and deliberates on the interests of the nation. The other two, were they united, have received their powers from but about two hundred thousand individuals, and think only of their privileges. The Third Estate alone, you will say, cannot form the Estates General. So much the better! It will make a _National Assembly_."