This is the meeting-point of Rousseau's educational with his political theory. His view as a whole can be studied only by taking together the _Social Contract_ and the _Emile_ as explained by the _Letters on the Mount_ and other works. The fundamental dogma of the natural goodness of man finds no place directly in the _Social Contract_; but it lurks behind the whole of his political theory, and is indeed, throughout, his master-conception. His educational, his religious, his political and his ethical ideas are all inspired by a single consistent attitude. Here we have been attending only to his political theory; in the volume which is to follow, containing the _Letters on the Mount_ and other works, some attempt will be made to draw the various threads together and estimate his work as a whole. The political works, however, can be read separately, and the _Social Contract_ itself is still by far the best of all text-books of political philosophy. Rousseau's political influence, so far from being dead, is every day increasing; and as new generations and new classes of men come to the study of his work, his conceptions, often hazy and undeveloped, but nearly always of lasting value, will assuredly form the basis of a new political philosophy, in which they will be taken up and transformed. This new philosophy is the work of the future; but, rooted upon the conception of Rousseau, it will stretch far back into the past. Of our time, it will be for all time; its solutions will be at once relatively permanent and ceaselessly progressive. G. D. H. COLE. [1] The term "general" will means, in Rousseau, not so much "will held by several persons," as will having a general (universal) object. This is often misunderstood; but the mistake matters the less, because the General Will must, in fact, be both. A NOTE ON BOOKS There are few good books in English on Rousseau's politics. By far the best treatment is to be found in Mr. Bernard Bosanquet's _Philosophical Theory of the State_. Viscount Morley's _Rousseau_ is a good life, but is not of much use as a criticism of views; Mr. W. Boyd's _The Educational Theory of Rousseau_ contains some fairly good chapters on the political views. D. G. Ritchie's _Darwin and Hegel_ includes an admirable essay on _The Social Contract Theory_ and another on _Sovereignty._ The English translation of Professor Gran's _Rousseau_ is an interesting biography.