37/73 Nor is his surrender here of consent sufficient to be inconsistent with his general outlook. For at the back of each governmental act, there is, in his own mind, an active citizen body occupied in judging it with single-minded reference to the law of nature and their own natural rights. There is thus a standard of right and wrong superior to all powers within the State. "A government," as he says, "is not free to do as it pleases ... the law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others." The social contract is secreted in the interstices of public statutes. |