pilation of these by great lawgivers, like Lycurgus, Manu, Solon, finally, legislation by the sovereign body. And the like is true of the formation of States or civil societies which were not, any more than laws, born on a determinate day, but were for the most part the result of a slow evolution.

He is wrong as to the primitive state of man. Our remote ancestors appear to have been neither happy nor amiable so far as the somewhat doubtful light of historical research has fallen on them in early times, or the more doubtful light of scientific speculation, in prehistoric times. It is questionable if they ever lived solitary, even in prehistoric times. And it is certain that the savages of to-day are not happier than the masses of the people in civilized communities, though probably they are happier, or at least feel less pain and misery, than the members of our lowest social stratum. They do indeed enjoy freedom from all laws, and from every restraint except custom, and they have a certain sense of self-sufficingness, and perhaps a sense of completeness of life beyond what is possible to our labouring population, who, through excessive division of labour, must devote their efforts to doing the same thing continually. But these advantages of the savages are purchased at great cost. Their numbers are relatively few, and these few can with difficulty satisfy even the lowest and most elementary needs of life.

He is wrong in maintaining that metallurgy and agriculture destroyed the human race in any other sense than that they made possible the first great departure from the nomad or savage life, and led, as

Rousseau rightly shows they did lead, to private property in land.

Nevertheless he was largely right. There is a broad general truth in his historical stages, and a truth partial, but terrible, running through his denunciations of society and civilization, which is independent of the accuracy of his historical facts. We recognize the general soundness, strictness, and ingenuity of his reasoning, the clearness of his perceptions, the sincerity of his convictions, the fervour and earnestness of his eloquence. He remains the prophet and founder of modern Democracy, the forerunner of modern Socialism, and one of the most remarkable of the sons of men.

V.

As to the question how far Rousseau is to be regarded as a Socialist, the answer depends on the particular sense we attach to the word. He certainly was not a Socialist in the sense of Collectivist, nor can he be regarded as a Communist, though there are arguments that favour Communism in the "Discours sur l'Inégalité." It was undoubtedly his opinion that men should never have left the state of

3 In particular the well-known passage: "Le premier qui, ayant enclos un terrain, s'avisa de dire; Ceci est à moi, fut le vrai fondateur de la société civile. Que de crimes, de misères et d'horreurs n'eût pas épargnés au genre humain celui qui arrachant les pieux et comblant les fossés eût crié à ses semblables ; Gardez-vous d'écouter cet imposteur! vous êtes perdus si vous oubliez que les fruits sont à tous et que la terre n'est à personne."

Nature and the primitive Communism (their doing so being partly voluntary); that so far as voluntary it was a fatal and nearly irreparable mistake. But he is far from urging any attempt to return to it (other than by endeavouring after a more natural and less conventional life), because, on his principles a civilized society can no more return on its old steps than an old man can become young again; civilized society being in his view a society in old age, and subject to all the pains and infirmities of old age. The most that can now be done is to make the best of the case, to mitigate the infirmities and defer decay by good laws and institutions well administered, and by good manners and morals in harmony with the laws. In the "Contrat Social," he tells us that in a properly constituted government the General Will should prevail. In the "Economie Politique," he further tells us that virtue and morality consist in conforming to the general will as expressed in good laws. If there were generally such conformity, if such laws, wisely framed as expressions of the general will, were obeyed by the people and administered by the magistrates and elected rulers; above all, if the people were early trained to respect the laws, and to love their country, life even in our modern effete societies would not be at all a bad thing-in fact, he adds, regardless of consistency, "there would be little wanting to make the people happy." This is undoubtedly a contradiction of the doctrine in his former work; but the essential thing to note is that we have here his later ideas; that they bore memorable fruit thirty years later when the attempt was

made to realize them in France; and that the doctrine of the supremacy of the will of the people, underlies, nominally at least, all modern popular governments.

He repeats that a primary aim of such a government should be to prevent too great inequality of property; and the equalizing process should be effected, "not by taking riches from their possessors, but by giving to all the means of increasing wealth; not by building hospitals or almhouses for the poor, but by guaranteeing the citizens from becoming poor, by laws and institutions"; for, as he pointedly says, it is precisely because there is such a powerful tendency in things to inequality, that it must be met by the constant counteraction and pressure of laws and institutions. In various specified ways, some economically sound, some erroneous, governments can aid in the general diffusion of wealth. But above all things it is necessary to first form good citizens, and to have good citizens it will be necessary to take them early in hand; "it will be necessary to educate the children." Education should be a function of the state, not of the parent. Then follow his later views on private property; in which we find the statement that seems at first remarkable as coming from Rousseau, "that the rights of property are the most sacred of all the rights of citizens, more so in some respects than liberty itself." Strange too that we find good arguments against curtailing inheritance, which have been reproduced by Mill ("Pol. Economy," Book II., chap. ii.): one being the sensible and well-known one that the children are

frequently co-labourers with the parent; the other that there is nothing so unsettling in a state as great vicissitudes of fortune in its citizens which the abolition of inheritance would involve. It is chiefly by judicious taxation, on which he reasons ingeniously and acutely, that Rousseau, equally with Montesquieu, would prevent inequality. "It is by taxes like these," he says, "which ease the poor, and fall on the rich, that we must prevent the continual increase of inequality of fortune, the enslavement by the rich of a multitude of labourers and useless servants, the multiplication of idle men in the large cities, and the desertion of the country districts." In the first place, other things equal, the man who has ten times the wealth of another, should pay ten times his tax; secondly, one who has no more than necessaries, should not pay any tax. The man who has more, if the need should arise, might fairly be required to pay the whole surplus above necessaries. The rich draw more advantages from government and the social union; they get all the lucrative posts, sinecures, favours, exemptions. The law favours them, takes every pains to protect them, but hardly ever punishes them. "The rich man gets a hundred things, for which he pays not a sou." The poor man gets nothing, neither goods nor succour. With the greatest difficulty can he get even justice. Then the losses of the poor are less reparable, and the difficulty of acquisition is infinitely greater. Moreover, what the poor pay in taxes is for ever lost to them in the money form, while it is mostly into the hands of rich people-those who have a share in the govern