7 68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In other words, our philosopher propounds "sure," that is 

 "absolute," principles which are, at once ethically and politically, 

 sufficient rules of conduct, and that I understand to be the precise 

 object of all who have followed in his track. It was said of the 

 Genevese theorist, " Le genre humain avait perdu ses titres ; Jean- 

 Jacques les a retrouve's " (the human race had lost its title-deeds ; 

 Jean-Jacques found them again) ; just as his intellectual progeny 

 declare that the nation ought to " resume " the landed property 

 of which it has, unfortunately, lost the title-deeds. 



We are now in a position to consider what the chief of these 

 principles of the gospel according to Jean-Jacques are : 



1. All men are born free, politically equal, and good, and in 

 the " state of nature " remain so ; consequently it is their natural 

 right to be free, equal, and (presumably, their duty to be) good.* 



2. All men being equal by natural right, none can have any 

 right to encroach on another's equal right. Hence no man can 

 appropriate any part of the common means of subsistence that 

 is to say, the land or anything which the land produces without 

 the unanimous consent of all other men. Under any other cir- 

 cumstances, property is usurpation, or, in plain terms, robbery, f 



3. Political rights, therefore, are based upon contract ; the so- 

 called right of conquest is no right, and property which has been 

 acquired by force may rightfully be taken away by force. J 



and themselves with contradictions. To reduce this doctrine to the rules and infallibility 

 of reason there is no way, but, first, put such principles down for a foundation, as passion, 

 not mistrusting, may not seek to displace ; and afterward to build thereon the truth of 

 cases in the law of nature (which hitherto have been built in the air) by degrees, till the 

 whole have been inexpugnable." However, it must be recollected that Hobbes does not 

 start from a priori principles of ethics, but from the practical necessities of men in society. 



* " Contrat Social," v, pp. 98, 99. The references here given are to the volumes and 

 pages of Mussay Pathay's edition (1S26). " Discours," passim ; see especially p. 268. 



| " Discours," pp. 257, 258-276. How many wild sermons have been preached on this 

 text : " Ignorez-vous qu'une multitud e de vos freres pe>it ou souff re du besoin de ce que 

 vous avez de trop, et qu'il vous fallait un consentement expres et unanime du genre humain 

 pour vous approprier sur la subsistance commune tout ce qui alloit au-dela de la votre ? " 

 (Don't you know that a multitude of your brothers are perishing or suffering for the need 

 of what you have too much of, and that you ought to have an express and unanimous con- 

 sent of the human race before you appropriate to yourself from the common subsistence 

 any more than you need for your own ?) 



\ "Discours," pp. 276, 280; "Contrat," chap. iii. : "Telle fut ou dut etre" (charming 

 alternative !) " Porigine de la societe et des lois, qui donnerent de nouvelles entraves au 

 foible et de nouvelles forces au riche, detruisirent sans retour la libert6 naturelle, fixerent 

 pour jamais la loi de la propriete et de Pinegalite\ d'une adroite usurpation firent un droit 

 irrevocable, et, pour le profit de quelques ambitieux, assujettirent desormais tout le genre 

 humain au travail, a la servitude et a la misere." (Such was or must have been the origin 

 of society and of the laws which imposed new shackles on the weak man and gave new 

 forces to the rich one, destroyed natural liberty without requital, established forever the 

 law of property and inequality, made an irrevocable law of an adroit usurpation, and 



