were desirous of political arguments and instruments with which to curb the arbitrariness—Hobbes, of popular passions; Sidney, of royal authority. Consider the system of Hobbes. He takes his starting point in the state of nature, when men were free, but miserable, because of mutual strife. To escape the war of all against all, they concluded a social contract, a pact by which a civil society was formed. But are they now free men? Do they have the right to keep the Sovereign of their choice on the