The contract theory of the origin of the state is a theory whose falsity may easily be demonstrated both philosophically and historically. Nevertheless this theory has had great currency and influence. In form, it stated that some time in the past men voluntarily got together and made a compact with one another to observe certain laws and to submit to certain authority and in that way brought the state and the relation of ruler and subject into existence. Like many things in philosophy, the theory, though worthless as a record of fact, is of great worth as a symptom of the direction of human desire. It testified to a growing belief that the state existed to satisfy human needs and could be shaped by human intention and volition. Aristotle's theory that the state exists by nature failed to satisfy the thought of the seventeenth century because it seemed by making the state a product of nature to remove its constitution beyond human choice. Equally significant was the assumption of the contract theory that individuals by their personal decisions expressing their personal wishes bring the state into existence. The rapidity with which the theory gained a hold all over western Europe showed the extent to which the bonds of customary institutions had relaxed their grip. It proved that men had been so liberated from absorption in larger groups that they were conscious of themselves as individuals having rights and claims on their own account, not simply as members of a class, guild or social grade.