It is easy in these days to criticise the _Contrat Social_. The mistaken idea of compact as the basis of society; the rejection of representative legislatures, and the insistence on a principle which could only apply in a miniature State--the personal participation of every citizen in the making of the laws; the sanction given to the right of insurrection, when the imaginary compact was broken; the absence of any method of ascertaining whether the compact were broken or not;--these are flaws in its argument which will readily occur. It is easy also to point to certain characteristics which disfigure it throughout--to its disregard of facts, to its sophistry and inconsistencies, to the narrow intolerance of its sentimental theology, to its aloofness from the region of practice, to its reliance on dogma and on the logic of words. But it is not so easy to appreciate the extraordinary impression which in those days it produced, or the enthusiasm aroused in all who looked for liberty, by the fearless splendour of its phrases, by the fused argument and passion of its style, by its generous democratic temper, by the spiritual earnestness which inspired it, by its fine exaltation of patriotism and freedom. The _Contrat Social_ supplied the text and lit the fire of revolution. It became the gospel of the Jacobin party, and of that party Robespierre constituted himself high-priest. The seed sown by these remarkable writers fell upon fruitful soil. The years which immediately preceded the outbreak of the Revolution in France were years of vague but widespread agitation. An enthusiasm for the natural greatness of man, and a boundless contempt for the age and society in which he lived, pervaded the thought of the time. In almost every European country, observers noticed the same presentiment of impending change, and of a change which, on behalf of humanity, most people were prepared to welcome. Thinkers and talkers alike were full of illusions, full of curiosity, full of unselfishness, full of hope. Outside France, as within it, everyone plunged into philosophical debate. In the trading cities of Germany, merchants and manufacturers would gather, after the day's work, to discuss the condition of the human race. Sovereigns like Frederick, Catherine, and Joseph affected the secure radicalism of despots. In Spain, in Portugal, in Tuscany, as well as in England and France, statesmen echoed the new humanitarian maxims. Aranda, Pombal and Manfredini exhibited the spirit, and emulated the reforms, of Turgot and Necker, of Fox and Pitt. The outbreak of the American Revolution roused the deepest interest in Europe. Volunteers from France poured over to America, to fight for the political ideals, about which they had for so long been dreaming, and the realisation of which in the New World seemed to bring home conviction to the Old. The tidings of the triumph of the American colonists were received with acclamation in the roadsteads of Elsinore.