But whatever may be one's opinion to-day upon the formulation of abstract principles, which only become vitalized through the process of detailed legislation, as affecting the legal position of the individual in the state, the fact that the recognition of such principles is historically bound up with that first declaration of rights makes it an important task of constitutional history to ascertain the origin of the French Declaration of Rights of 1789. The achievement of this task is of great importance both in explaining the development of the modern state and in understanding the position which this state assures to the individual. Thus far in the works on public law various precursors of the declaration of the Constituent Assembly, from Magna Charta to the American Declaration of Independence, have been enumerated and arranged in regular sequence, yet any thorough investigation of the sources from which the French drew is not to be found. It is the prevailing opinion that the teachings of the _Contrat Social_ gave the impulse to the Declaration, and that its prototype was the Declaration of Independence of the thirteen United States of North America. Let us first of all inquire into the correctness of these assumptions. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: First of all, as is well known, Burke and Bentham, and later Taine, _Les origines de la France contemporaine: La revolution_, I, pp. 273 _et seq._; Oncken, _Das Zeitalter der Revolution, des Kaiserreiches und der Befreiungskriege_, I, pp. 229 _et seq._; and Weiss, _Geschichte der franzoesischen Revolution_, 1888, I, p. 263.] [Footnote 2: Titre premier: "Dispositions fondamentales garanties par la constitution."] [Footnote 3: Helie, _Les constitutions de la France_, pp. 1103 _et seq._] [Footnote 4: _Cf._ Jellinek, _System der subjektiven oeffentlichen Rechte_, p. 3, n. 1.] [Footnote 5: Binding, _Der Versuch der Reichsgruendung durch die Paulskirche_, Leipzig, 1892, p. 23.] [Footnote 6: When considering the constitution, the Reichstag rejected all proposals which aimed to introduce fundamental rights. _Cf._ Bezold, _Materialen der deutschen Reichsverfassung_, III, pp. 896-1010.] CHAPTER II. ROUSSEAU'S _CONTRAT SOCIAL_ WAS NOT THE SOURCE OF THIS DECLARATION. In his _History of Political Science_--the most comprehensive work of that kind which France possesses--Paul Janet, after a thorough presentation of the _Contrat Social_, discusses the influence which this work of Rousseau's exercised upon the Revolution. The idea of the declaration of rights is to be traced back to Rousseau's teachings. What else is the declaration itself than the formulation of the state contract according to Rousseau's ideas? And what are the several rights but the stipulations and specifications of that contract?[7] It is hard to understand how an authority upon the _Contrat Social_ could make such a statement though in accord with popular opinion.