46. The radical fiction in his theory is that there can be any 'right' after the institution of sovereignty, if (as he holds) there is none before it
47. To justify his doctrine of absolute submission he has to assume a 'law of nature' which binds men to keep covenant, while yet he holds the 'law of nature' to be mere 'power' and covenants to be only valid under an imperium,
48. His 'contract' can confer none but natural right, and that is either not a right at all, or (if it is) it belongs to all men, subject and sovereign alike
49. The real flaw in the theory of contract is not that it is unhistorical, but that it implies the possibility of rights and obligations independently of society
50. Though it has not been popularly accepted as regards the rights of sovereigns over subjects, the behaviour of individuals to society is to a groat extent practically determined by it.
D. Locke.
51. The development of this latter side of it is peculiarly due to Rousseau, but Locke, Hooker, and Grotius have essentially the same conception: Spinoza alone differs
52. Ambiguity of their phrase 'state of nature.' They agree in treating it as the negation of the 'political state.' But if so, contract would be impossible in it
53. Nor could it be a state of 'freedom and equality,' as most of them assume it to be
54. And if this state of nature implies consciousness of obligation, it must imply recognition of social claims, and must therefore be virtually a political state