ABSTRACT
The revolutionary nature of French eighteenth-century thought was an accurate reflection of the social revolution then in progress. Enlightenment became the ideological justification of revolution. But it was also an instrument to further the cause of revolution. The French Enlightenment appealed to the social world, the sensuous world, turning its back on the political conservatism fostered by idealism and supernaturalism. The French Revolution instituted the rule of the middle classes. But the contradictions inherent in the new society initiated a fresh series of class antagonisms. The contribution of Rousseau to a theory of political society is as great as those made by the other philosophes as a group. A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality occupies a place of honor in the historical genesis of political sociology. The pure Rousseauian state is a state of pure and perfect self-possession.
