But Locke and Rousseau were born before our limited knowledge of the history of man and his institutions had been learnt; before science, with patient research, had revealed a few incidents in the long story of man's ascent.

Even the history of Greece and Rome, as Rousseau read it, was hopelessly inaccurate and incomplete.

Therefore, while we can see the fallacy in all the eighteenth century teaching concerning the natural happiness of uncivilised man, we must at the same time remember it as a doctrine belonging to a pre-scientific era.

The excuse in France, too, for its popularity was great.

Civilisation weighed heavily on the nation.