be remarked, to become, in the hands of Hodgskin and Thompson, the
parent of modern socialism.

The state of nature is thus, in contrast to the argument of Hobbes,
pre-eminently social in character. There may be war or violence; but
that is only when men have abandoned the rule of reason which is
integral to their character. But the state of nature is not a civil
State. There is no common superior to enforce the law of nature. Each
man, as best he may, works out his own interpretation of it. But
because the intelligences of men are different there is an inconvenient
variety in the conceptions of justice. The result is uncertainty and
chaos; and means of escape must be found from a condition which the
weakness of men must ultimately make intolerable. It is here that the
social contract emerges. But just as Locke's natural state implies a
natural man utterly distinct from Hobbes' gloomy picture, so does
Locke's social contract represent rather the triumph of reason than of
hard necessity. It is a contract of each with all, a surrender by the
individual of his personal right to fulfil the commands of the law of
nature in return for the guarantee that his rights as nature ordains
them--life and liberty and property--will be preserved. The contract is
thus not general as with Hobbes but limited and specific in character.
Nor is it, as Hobbes made it, the resignation of power into the hands of
some single man or group. On the contrary, it is a contract with the
community as a whole which thus becomes that common political
superior--the State--which is to enforce the law of nature and punish
infractions of it. Nor is Locke's state a sovereign State: the very
word "sovereignty" does not occur, significantly enough, throughout the
treatise. The State has power only for the protection of natural law.
Its province ends when it passes beyond those boundaries.