absolute government by Hobbes, of free government by Locke; it was
recognized by Grotius. It received its embodiment in the cabin of the
Mayflower, when the Pilgrims did solemnly and mutually, in the presence
of God and one another, covenant and combine themselves together into a
civil body politic. By the time of Rousseau the social compact had
become one of the commonplaces of political thought.[Footnote: See a
history of the social compact in A. Lawrence Lowell, _Essays on
Government_. Plato, ii. 229 (_The Republic_, Book ii.). Hooker,
i. 241. Hobbes, _Leviathan, passim._ Locke, v. 388 (_Of Civil
Government_, Section 87). Morion's _New England's Memorial_,
37.] Men recognized, more or less vaguely, that in the case of most
countries no definite solemn agreement could actually be shown to have
been made, but in their inability to find the record of such a contract
writers were willing to assume one, express or implied. What, then, were
the exact conditions of the compact? Rousseau put the question as
follows: "To find a form of association which shall protect with all the
common strength the person and property of each associate, and by which
each one, uniting himself to all, may yet obey only himself and remain
as free as before." And he undertook to solve the problem by proposing
"the total alienation of every associate, with all his rights, to the
whole community," which he supported by saying that, as every one gave
himself up entirely, the condition was equal for all; and that as the
condition was equal for all, no one was interested in making it onerous
for others.

It will be noticed that there is a variation between the thing sought
and the thing found. Rousseau, having promised that each man shall obey
only himself, presently puts us off with a condition equal for all. That
is to say, instead of liberty we are given equality. The difference is
one generally recognized by Anglo-Saxons and often invisible to