III. The tendency of the last century was to individualism; that
of the present is to socialism. The theory of Hobbes, Locke,
Rousseau, and Jefferson, though not formally abandoned, and still
held by many, has latterly been much modified, if not wholly
transformed. Sovereignty, it is now maintained, is inherent in
the people; not individually, indeed, but collectively, or the
people as society. The constitution is held not to be simply a
compact or agreement entered into by the people as individuals
creating civil society and government, but a law ordained by the
sovereign people, prescribing the constitution of the state and
defining its rights and powers.

This transformation, which is rather going on than completed, is,
under one aspect at least, a progress, or rather a return to the
sounder principles of antiquity. Under it government ceases to
be a mere agency, which must obtain the assassin's consent to be
hung before it can rightfully hang him, and becomes authority,
which is one and imperative. The people taken collectively are
society, and society is a living organism, not a mere aggregation
of individuals. It does not, of course, exist without
individuals, but it is something more than individuals, and has
rights not derived from them, and which are paramount to theirs.
There is more truth, and truth of a higher order, in this than in
the theory of the social compact. Individuals, to a certain
extent, derive their life from God through society, and so far
they depend on her, and they are hers; she owns them, and has the
right to do as she will with them. On this theory the state
emanates from society, and is supreme. It coincides with the