76. But after the first generation of those who were parties to the supposed original compact, what is to settle whether anyone is a party to it or no? Rousseau faces the question, but his only answer is that when once the state is instituted, consent is implied in residence; 'to dwell on the territory is to submit to the sovereignty.' (IV, ii.) This answer, however, will scarcely stand examination. Rousseau himself does not consider that residence in the same region with the original parties to the pact renders those so resident also parties to it. Why should it do so, when the pact has descended to a later generation? It may be argued of course that everyone residing in a settled society, which secures him in his rights of person and property, has the benefit of the society from the mere fact of his residence in it, and is therefore morally bound to accept its laws. But this is to abandon the doctrine of obligation being founded on consent. Residence in a territory governed by a certain sovereign can only be taken to imply consent to the rule of that sovereign, if there is any real possibility of relinquishing it, and this there can scarcely ever be. 77. Rousseau certainly carried out the attempt to reconcile submission to government with the existence of natural rights antecedent to the institution of government, by the hypothesis of a foundation of government in consent, more consistently than any other writer; and his result shows the hopelessness of the attempt. To the consistency of his theory he sacrifices every claim to right on the part of any state except one in which the whole body of citizens directly legislates, i.e. on the part of nearly all states then or now existing; and finally he can only justify the control of the minority by the majority in any state whatever by a subterfuge. It does not follow, however, because the doctrine of natural rights and the consequent conception of government as founded on compact are untenable, that there is no truth in the conception of the state or sovereign as representing a general will, and as authorised or entitled to obedience on that account. It is this conception, as the permanently valuable thing in Rousseau, that we have now further to consider.