If we now contemplate somewhat more narrowly the Constitutional theory of the illumination, we shall discern two characteristic and prominent features, which, on the one hand, show its descent from the innermost core of the Ancien Régime, and, on the other, very energetically determined the whole course of the Revolution. The ideal state deduced from the universal characteristics of mankind was as cosmopolitan as levelling. Just as on the stage of the period, Frenchman and savage, ancient Greek and modern Parisian, spoke the same language,--that of the salons of Versailles,--so political theories recognized neither Frenchman nor Englishman, Catholic nor Protestant, educated nor uneducated, only Man in general. They never considered what institutions would be adequate, in France, to the needs and capacities of the educated ranks and uneducated masses, or how far the habits and opinions of their nation would render the adoption of a foreign institution practicable or injurious; rather they formulated the rights of men, of abstract instead of actually existing men, and were convinced that a constitution based thereupon was for all men, and consequently for all peoples, the only good, and therefore the only lawful one. And just as clear as the equality of nations under the new political law, appeared the equality of all men in the new State, by which was meant not merely a claim to equal protection by law, or equal facility in obtaining one's rights, but a demand for the realization of an inborn and material equality of rights. This, as is well known, was the point on which Rousseau took his stand, and gave the last and decisive direction to the impending democratic revolution. Taine justly observes how frequently, in spite of their common principles, Rousseau's character and way of life led him to take different views from those of Voltaire and the Encyclopædists. The deepest and most unqualified indignation of these last was inspired by what they called superstition, stupidity, and priestcraft, the transformation of the old State being with them more an affair of the intellect than the feelings, a conclusion drawn from their universal theory and an ideal requirement of philanthropy. It was generosity that led them to appear as the advocates of the poor and their woes, while they themselves were high in the approval and favour of the best society. Rousseau, on the other hand, had himself led the life of the proletaire; in the nervous excitability and measureless vanity which made him almost prouder of his weaknesses and vices than of the greatness and strength of his talents he--poor, often hungry, not seldom degraded and reviled--had filled himself with burning wrath against the favoured of earthly fortune, the noble and the rich, the revellers in idleness and luxury. This growing hatred he transferred to the State and the laws which had produced so unrighteous a contrast between man and man. Men, he maintained, were in their original