“As you like. I am merely stating our fundamental agreement with respect to the original, paradisial state of man, his freedom from law, and his unmediated relation with God, which state was lost to him by his fall. I believe we may go side by side for another few steps of the way: in that we both explain the State as a social contract, taking account of the Fall and entered into as a safeguard against evil, and that we both see in it the origin of sovereign power⁠—”

“ Benissimo! ” cried Settembrini. “Social contract⁠—why, that is Enlightenment, that is Rousseau. I had no idea⁠—”

“One moment, pray. We part company here. All power and all control was originally vested in the people, who made it over, together with the right to make laws, to their princes. But from this your school deduces in the first instance the right of the people to revolt from the monarchy. Whereas we, on the contrary⁠—”