is not an act of the sovereign people, but an exercise of prerogative on the part of the executive, in the way of redistributing representation, which would be justified by 'salus populi suprema lex.' E. _ROUSSEAU._ 64. That 'sovereignty of the people,' which Locke looks upon as held in reserve after its original exercise in the establishment of government, only to be asserted in the event of a legislature proving false to its trust, Rousseau supposes to be in constant exercise. Previous writers had thought of the political society or commonwealth, upon its formation by compact, as instituting a sovereign. They differed chiefly on the point whether the society afterwards had or had not a right of displacing an established sovereign. Rousseau does not think of the society, _civitas_ or commonwealth, as thus instituting a sovereign, but as itself in the act of its formation becoming a sovereign and ever after continuing so. 65. In his conception of a state of nature, Rousseau does not differ from Locke. He conceives the motive for passing out of it, however, somewhat differently and more after the manner of Spinoza. With Locke the motive is chiefly a sense of the desirability of having an impartial judge, and efficient enforcement of the law of nature. According to Rousseau, some pact takes place when men find the hindrances to their preservation in a state of nature too strong for the forces which each individual can bring to bear against them. This recalls Spinoza's view of the 'jus in naturam' as acquired by a combination of the forces of individuals in civil society.