TWO ideas gave purpose to the struggles in France during the Revolution, the rights of the individual and the sovereignty of the nation. Revolutionary philosophers saw no conflict between them. Through the sovereignty of the nation the individual made his rights effective, freeing himself from the old restraints of customary law, monarchy, class, church, guild and corporation, as well as from domination by foreign powers. Individual liberty depended on national sovereignty. The balance of the two produced the liberal and democratic states whose ascendancy lasted until our own time. But the
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