The argument of the "Social Contract" is that, in all and every form of government, the people enter into an agreement with the prince or ruler, agreeing to waive the mutual right of freedom in consideration of his seeing to it that laws shall be passed and enforced giving the greatest good to the greatest number. And this led to that shibboleth of the Revolution, "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality." Only when it was written by Jean Jacques twenty years before it ran thus, "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality--or Death." The final word was too strong for even his fiery followers to digest. But once understood it means that if either prince or pauper refuses to sign the Social Contract and live for all, death then must be his portion. For and in consideration of this interest in the peace and welfare of all, the prince is given honors and is allowed to call himself "a ruler." If, however, at any time the prince should so forget his sacred office as to work for private gain or for a favored few, then he is guilty of a breach of the contract, and the people owe to themselves the duty of deposition or revolution. Just as Nature, when a man's body is no more fit for service, kills the man, so must we kill the office and begin anew. And this was to cause Thomas Paine to say in the Chamber of Deputies, when the execution of Louis the Sixteenth was under discussion, "I vote to kill the kingly office, not the man." The following passages taken at random from Jean Jacques might safely be attributed to either Paine, Jefferson or "Junius": Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it is impossible that it should not have some civil effect; and so soon as it has, the sovereign is no longer sovereign even in secular matters: the priests become the real masters, and kings are only their officers. Whoever dares to say, Beyond the Church there is no salvation, ought to be driven from the State. I perceive God in all His works; I feel Him in myself; I see Him all around me; but as soon as I contemplate His nature, as soon as I try to find out where He is, what He is, what is His substance, He eludes my gaze; my imagination is overwhelmed. I do not therefore reason about Him, for it is more injurious to the Deity to think wrongly of Him than not to think of Him at all. By equality we do not mean that all individuals shall have the same degree of wealth and power, but only, with respect to the former, that no citizen shall be rich enough to buy another, and that none shall be so poor as to be obliged to sell himself.