It is a removal at every point conditioned by the interest of the people.

For Rousseau declared that the existing distribution of power in Europe was a monstrous thing, and he made the people sovereign that there might be no hindrance to their achievement in the shape of sinister interest.

The powers of the people thus became their rights and herein was an unlimited sanction for innovation.

It is easy enough then to understand why such a philosophy should have been anathema to Burke.

Rousseau's eager sympathy for humble men, his optimistic faith in the immediate prospect of popular power were to Burke the symptoms of insane delusion and their author "the great professor and founder of the philosophy of vanity in England." But Burke forgot that the real secret of Rousseau's influence was the success of the American Revolution; and no one had done more than Burke himself to promote its cause and justify its principles.