nearly identical as may be; Rousseau drew a distinction, and from this
distinction he derived further differences.

Here, we may remark, is the starting-point in the history of the ideas
of the revolution, of one of the most prominent of them all, that of
Fraternity. If the whole structure of society rests on an act of
partnership entered into by equals on behalf of themselves and their
descendants for ever, the nature of the union is not what it would be,
if the members of the union had only entered it to place their
liberties at the feet of some superior power. Society in the one case
is a covenant of subjection, in the other a covenant of social
brotherhood. This impressed itself deeply on the feelings of men like
Robespierre, who were never so well pleased as when they could find
for their sentimentalism a covering of neat political logic. The same
idea of association came presently to receive a still more remarkable
and momentous extension, when it was translated from the language of
mere government into that of the economic organisation of communities.
Rousseau's conception went no further than political association, as
distinct from subjection. Socialism, which came by and by to the front
place, carried the idea to its fullest capacity, and presented all the
relations of men with one another as fixed by the same bond. Men had
entered the social union as brethren, equal, and co-operators, not
merely for purposes of government, but for purposes of mutual succour
in all its aspects. This naturally included the most important of all,
material production. They were not associated merely as equal
participants in political sovereignty; they were equal participants in
all the rest of the increase made to the means of human happiness by
united action. Socialism is the transfer of the principle of fraternal
association from politics, where Rousseau left it, to the wider sphere
of industrial force.

It is perhaps worth notice that another famous revolutionary term
belongs to the same source. All the associates of this act of union,
becoming members of the city, are as such to be called Citizens, as
participating in the sovereign authority.[234] The term was in
familiar use enough among the French in their worst days, but it was
Rousseau's sanction which marked it in the new times with a sort of
sacramental stamp. It came naturally to him, because it was the name
of the first of the two classes which constituted the active