Excerpt from The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Law: Also, a Project for a Perpetual Peace John Morley in his critical and valuable work on Rousseau, says that he was the most directly revolu tionary of all the speculative precursors, and he was the first to apply his mirid boldly to those of the social condi tions which the revolution is concerned by one solution or another to modify. His writings produced that glow of enthusiastic feeling in France, which led to the all important assistance rendered by that country to the American colonists in a struggle so momentous for man kind. It was from his writings that the Americans took the ideas and the phrases of their great charter. Again, it was his work more than that of any other one man, that France arose from the deadly decay which laid hold of her whole social and political system, and found that irresistible energy which warded ofi' dissolution within, and partition from without)? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.