ption of political authority as a property
of land-ownership, noble birth, and the like, and it associates this
authority widely and simply with the bare fact of participation in any
form of citizenship in the social union. The later and higher idea of
every share of political power as a function to be discharged for the
good of the whole body, and not merely as a right to be enjoyed for
the advantage of its possessor, was a form of thought to which
Rousseau did not rise. That does not lessen the effectiveness of the
blow which his doctrine dealt to French feudalism, and which is its
main title to commemoration in connection with his name.

The social compact thus made is essentially different from the social
compact which Hobbes described as the origin of what he calls
commonwealths by institution, to distinguish them from commonwealths
by acquisition, that is to say, states formed by conquest or resting
on hereditary rule. "A commonwealth," Hobbes says, "is said to be
instituted when a multitude of men do agree and covenant, every one
with every one, that to whatsoever man or assembly of men shall be
given by the major part the right to present the person of them all,
that is to say, to be their representative; every one ... shall
authorise all the actions and judgments of that man or assembly of
men, in the same manner as if they were his own, to the end to live
peaceably among themselves, and be protected against other men."[231]
But Rousseau's compact was an act of association among equals, who
also remained equals. Hobbes's compact was an act of surrender on the
part of the many to one or a number. The first was the constitution of
civil society, the second was the erection of a government. As nobody
now believes in the existence of any such compact in either one form
or the other, it would be superfluous to inquire which of the two is
the less inaccurate. All we need do is to point out that there was
this difference. Rousseau distinctly denied the existence of any
element of contract in the erection of a government; there is only one
contract in the state, he said, and it is that of association.[232]
Locke's notion of the compact which was the beginning of every
political society is indefinite on this point; he speaks of it
indifferently as an agreement of a body of free men to unite and
incorporate into a society, and an agreement to set up a
government.[233] Most of us would suppose the two processes to be as