The extreme spirit of democratic liberty which is the characteristic of Rousseau’s political philosophy led to the advocacy of the wildest doctrines of equality.  He would prevent the accumulation of wealth, so that, to use his words, “no one citizen should be rich enough to buy another, and no one so poor as to be obliged to sell himself.”  He would have neither rich people nor beggars.  What could flow from such doctrines but discontent and unreasonable expectations among the poor, and a general fear and sense of insecurity among the rich?  This “state of nature,” moreover, in his view, could be reached only by going backward and destroying all civilization,—­and it was civilization which he ever decried,—­a very pleasant doctrine to vagabonds, but likely to be treated with derisive mockery by all those who have something to conserve.

Another and most dangerous principle which was advocated in the “Social Contract” was that religion has nothing to do with the affairs of civil and political life; that religious obligations do not bind a citizen; that Christianity, in fact, ignores all the great relations of man in society.  This is distinct from the Puritan doctrine of the separation of the Church from the State, by which is simply meant that priests ought not to interfere in matters purely political, nor the government meddle with religious affairs,—­a prime doctrine in a free State.  But no body of men were ever more ardent defenders of the doctrine that all religious ideas ought to bear on the social and political fabric than the Puritans, They would break up slavery, if it derogated from the doctrine of the common brotherhood of man as declared by Christ; they would use their influence as Christians to root out all evil institutions and laws, and bring the sublime truths of the Master to bear on all the relations of life,—­on citizens at the ballot-box, at the helm of power, and in legislative bodies.  Christianity was to them the supreme law, with which all human laws must harmonize.  But Rousseau would throw out Christianity altogether, as foreign to the duties and relations of both citizens and rulers, pretending that it ignored all connection with mundane affairs and had reference only to the salvation of the soul,—­as if all Christ’s teachings were not regulative of the springs of conduct between man and man, as indicative of the relations between man and God!  Like Voltaire, Rousseau had the excuse of a corrupt ecclesiasticism to be broken into; but the Church and Christianity are two different things.  This he did not see.  No one was more impatient of all restraints than Rousseau; yet he maintained that men, if calling themselves Christians, must submit to every wrong and injustice, looking for a remedy in the future world,—­thus pouring contempt on those who had no right, according to his view of their system, to complain of injustice or strive to rise above temporal evils.  Christianity, he said, inculcates servitude and dependence; its spirit is