g the doctrine of equality. To mention only one of the early
writers,--[For copious references to authorities on the spread of
communistic and socialistic ideas and libertine community of goods and
women in four periods of the world's history--namely, at the time of the
decline of Greece, in the degeneration of the Roman republic, among the
moderns in the age of the Reformation, and again in our own day--see
Roscher's Political Economy, notes to Section LXXIX., et seq.]
--Marsilio, a physician of Padua, in 1324, said that the laws ought to be
made by all the citizens; and he based this sovereignty of the people
upon the greater likelihood of laws being better obeyed, and also being
good laws, when they were made by the whole body of the persons affected.

In 1750 and 1753, J. J. Rousseau published his two discourses on
questions proposed by the Academy of Dijon: "Has the Restoration of
Sciences Contributed to Purify or to Corrupt Manners?" and "What is the
Origin of Inequality among Men, and is it Authorized by Natural Law?"
These questions show the direction and the advance of thinking on social
topics in the middle of the eighteenth century. Rousseau's Contrat-Social
and the novel Emile were published in 1761.

But almost three-quarters of a century before, in 1690, John Locke
published his two treatises on government. Rousseau was familiar with
them. Mr. John Morley, in his admirable study of Rousseau, [Rousseau. By
John Morley. London: Chapman & Hall. 1873--I have used it freely in the
glance at this period.]--fully discusses the latter's obligation to
Locke; and the exposition leaves Rousseau little credit for originality,
but considerable for illogical misconception. He was, in fact, the most
illogical of great men, and the most inconsistent even of geniuses. The
Contrat-Social is a reaction in many things from the discourses, and
Emile is almost an entire reaction, especially in the theory of
education, from both.

His central doctrine of popular sovereignty was taken from Locke. The
English philosopher said, in his second treatise, "To understand
political power aright and derive it from its original, we must consider
what state all men are naturally in; and that is a state of perfect
freedom to order their actions and dispose of their persons and
possessions as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature,
without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man--a state
also of equality, wh