394 



GOVERNMENT 



IX 



were the chiefs ; x and the famous conspiracy of 

 their would-be continuator, Babceuf, was an 

 attempt to bring about the millennium of 

 eighteenth century socialism by sanguinary 

 violence. 



According to Rousseau, the social contract is 

 " the foundation of all rights " (chap, ix.) ; though 

 the sovereign is not bound by it (chap, vii.), 

 inasmuch as he can enter into no contract with 

 himself. This sovereign is the totality of the 

 citizens. Each, in assenting to the social contract, 

 gives himself and all he possesses to the sovereign 

 (vi.), " lui et toutes ses forces dont les biens qu'il 

 possede font partie " (chap. ix.). He loses his 

 natural liberty, and the State becomes master of 

 him and of his goods (chap. ix.). As nature gives 

 a man absolute power over all his members, the 

 social compact gives the polity an absolute power 

 over its citizens. The State, however, does not 

 really despoil him. He gets back civil liberty 

 (that is, such amount of liberty as the State 



1 As Mr. Lecky justly says : "That which distinguishes the 

 French Revolution from other political movements is, that it was 

 directed by men who had adopted certain speculative a- priori 

 conceptions of political right, with the fanaticism and prosely- 

 tising fervour of a religious belief, and the Bible of their creed 

 was the Contrat Social of Rousseau " (History of England in the 

 Eighteenth Century, vol. v. p. 345). I have not undertaken a 

 criticism of Rousseau's various and not unfrequently incoi 

 political opinions, as a whole. It was not needful for my purpose 

 to do so ; and, if it had been, I could not have improved upon 

 the comprehensive and impartial judgment of our historian of 

 the eighteenth century. 



