The form into which he threw his questions gave them an eternal significance Locke can perhaps hardly claim.

He understood the organic character of the State, where Locke was still trammelled by the bonds of his narrow individualism.

It is yet difficult to see that the contribution upon which Rousseau's fame has mainly rested is at any point a real advance upon Locke.

The general will, in practical instead of semi-mystic terms, really means the welfare of the community as a whole; and when we enquire how that general will is to be known, we come, after much shuffling, upon the will of that majority in which Locke also put his trust.

Rousseau's general will, indeed, is at bottom no more than an assertion that right and truth should prevail; and for this also Locke was anxious.