ndrance to their
achievement in the shape of sinister interest. The powers of the people
thus became their rights and herein was an unlimited sanction for
innovation. It is easy enough then to understand why such a philosophy
should have been anathema to Burke. Rousseau's eager sympathy for humble
men, his optimistic faith in the immediate prospect of popular power
were to Burke the symptoms of insane delusion and their author "the
great professor and founder of the philosophy of vanity in England."
But Burke forgot that the real secret of Rousseau's influence was the
success of the American Revolution; and no one had done more than Burke
himself to promote its cause and justify its principles. That revolution
established what Europe might well consider a democracy; and its
statesmen were astonished not less at the vigilance with which America
guarded against the growth of autocratic government, than at the
soberness with which it checked the supposed weakness of the sovereign
people. America made herself independent while what was best in Europe
combined in enthusiastic applause; and it seemed as though the maxims of
Rousseau had been taken to heart and that a single, vigorous exertion of
power could remove what deliberation was impotent to secure. Here
Rousseau had a message for Great Britain which Burke at every stage
denied. Nor, at the moment, was it influential except in the general
impetus it gave to thought. But from the moment of its appearance it is
an undercurrent of decisive importance; and while in its metaphysical
form it failed to command acceptance, in the hands of Bentham its
results were victorious. Bentham differs from Rousseau not in the
conclusions he recommends so much as in the language in which he clothes
them. Either make a final end of the optimism of men like Hume and
Blackstone, or the veneration for the past which is at the root of
Burke's own teaching.

It is easy to see why thought such as this should have given the
stimulus it did. Montesquieu came to praise the British constitution at
a time when good men were aghast at its perversion. There was no room in
many years for revolution, but at least there was place for hearty
discontent and a seeking after new methods. Of that temper two men so
different as the elder Pitt and Wilkes are the political symbols. The
former's rise to power upon the floodtide of popular enthusiasm meant
nothing so much as a protest against the cynical corruption