,,rousseau ,,by ,,john ,,morley ,,volumes ,i4 and ,,ii4 ,london ,,macmillan ,,and ,,co41 ,,limited ,,new ,,york3 ,,the ,,macmillan ,,company #aije ,all rights reserved ,first printed in this form #ahhf ,reprinted #ahhh1 #ahia1 #ahif1 #aijj1 #aije ,,vol4 ,i4 ,,note ,,to ,,the ,,first ,,edition4 ,this work differs from its companion volume in offering something more like a continuous personal history than was necessary in the case of such a man as ,voltaire1 the story of whose life may be found in more than one ,english book of repute4 ,of ,rousseau there is1 ,i believe1 no full biographical account in our literature1 and even ,france has nothing more complete under this head than ,musset-,pathay's ,histoire de la ,vie et des ,ouvrages de ,j4,j4 ,rousseau 7#ahba74 ,this1 though a meritorious piece of labour1 is extremely crude and formless in composition and arrangement1 and the interpreting portions are devoid of interest4 ,the edition of ,rousseau's works to which the references have been made is that by ,m4 ,auguis1 in twenty-seven volumes1 published in #ahbe by ,dalibon4 ,in #ahfe ,m4 ,streckeisen-,moultou published from the originals1 which had been deposited in the library of ,neuchtel by ,du ,peyrou1 the letters addressed to ,rousseau by various correspondents4 ,these two interesting volumes1 which are entitled ,rousseau1 ses ,amis et ses ,ennemis1 are mostly referred to under the name of their editor4 ,february1 #ahgc4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the second edition in #ahgh was revised2 some portions were considerably shortened1 and a few additional footnotes inserted4 ,no further changes have been made in the present edition4 ,january1 #ahhf4 ,,contents ,,of ,,vol4 ,i4 ,,chapter ,i4 ,,preliminary4 ,,page ,the ,revolution #a ,rousseau its most direct speculative precursor #b ,his distinction among revolutionists #d ,his personality #e ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,youth4 ,birth and descent #h ,predispositions #aj ,first lessons #aa ,at ,m4 ,lambercier's #ae ,early disclosure of sensitive temperament #ai ,return to ,geneva #bj ,two apprenticeships #bf ,flight from ,geneva #cj ,savoyard proselytisers #ca ,rousseau sent to ,anncey1 and thence to ,turin #cd ,conversion to ,catholicism #ce ,takes service with ,madame de ,vercellis #ci ,then with the ,count de ,gouvon #db ,returns to vagabondage #dc ,and to ,madame de ,warens #de ,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,savoy4 ,influence of women upon ,rousseau #df ,account of ,madame de ,warens #dh ,rousseau takes up his abode with her #ed ,his delight in life with her #ed ,the seminarists #eg ,to ,lyons #eh ,wanderings to ,freiburg1 ,neuchtel1 and elsewhere #fj ,through the east of ,france #fb ,influence of these wanderings upon him #fg ,chambri #fi ,household of ,madame de ,warens #gj ,les ,charmettes #gc ,account of his feeling for nature #gi ,his intellectual incapacity at this time #hc ,temperament #hd ,literary interests1 and method #he ,joyful days with his benefactress #ij ,to ,montpellier3 end of an episode #ib ,dates #id ,,chapter ,,iv4 ,,theresa ,,le ,,vasseur4 ,tutorship at ,lyons #ie ,goes to ,paris in search of fortune #ig ,his appearance at this time #ih ,made secretary to the ambassador at ,venice #ajj ,his journey thither and life there #ajc ,return to ,paris #ajf ,theresa ,le ,vasseur #ajg ,character of their union #aaj ,rousseau's conduct towards her #aac ,their later estrangements #aae ,rousseau's scanty means #aai ,puts away his five children #abj ,his apologies for the crime #abb ,their futility #abf ,attempts to recover the children #abh ,rousseau never married to ,theresa #abi ,contrast between outer and inner life #acj ,,chapter ,v4 ,,the ,,discourses4 ,local academies in ,france #acb ,circumstances of the composition of the first ,discourse #acc ,how far the paradox was original #ace ,his visions for thirteen years #acf ,summary of the first ,discourse #ach-ade ,obligations to ,montaigne #ade ,and to the ,greeks #ade ,semi-,socratic manner #adg ,objections to the ,discourse #adh ,ways of stating its positive side #adi ,dangers of exaggerating this positive side #aea ,its excess #aeb ,second ,discourse #aed ,ideas of the time upon the state of nature #aee ,their influence upon ,rousseau #aef ,morelly1 as his predecessor #aef ,summary of the second ,discourse #aei-agj ,criticism of its method #aga ,objection from its want of evidence #agb ,other objections to its account of primitive nature #agc ,takes uniformity of process for granted #agf ,in what the importance of the second ,discourse consisted #agg ,its protest against the mockery of civilisation #agi ,the equality of man1 how true1 and how false #ahj ,this doctrine in ,france1 and in ,america #ahb ,rousseau's ,discourses1 a reaction against the historic method #ahc ,mably1 and socialism #ahd ,,chapter ,,vi4 ,,paris4 ,influence of ,geneva upon ,rousseau #ahg ,two sides of his temperament #aia ,uncongenial characteristics of ,parisian society #aia ,his associates #aie ,circumstances of a sudden moral reform #aif ,arising from his violent repugnance for the manners of the time #bjb ,his assumption of a seeming cynicism #bjg ,protests against atheism #bji ,the ,village ,soothsayer at ,fontainebleau #bab ,two anedotes of his moral singularity #bad ,revisits ,geneva #baf ,end of ,madame de ,warens #bag ,rousseau's re-conversion to ,protestantism #bbj ,the religious opinions then current in ,geneva #bbc ,turretini and other rationalisers #bbf ,effect upon ,rousseau #bbg ,thinks of taking up his abode in ,geneva #bbg ,madame d',epinay offers him the ,hermitage #bbi ,retires thither against the protests of his friends #bca ,,chapter ,,vii4 ,,the ,,hermitage4 ,distinction between the old and the new anchorite #bcd ,rousseau's first days at the ,hermitage #bce ,rural delirium #bcg ,dislike of society #bdb ,meditates work on ,sensitive ,morality #bdc ,arranges the papers of the ,abb de ,saint ,pierre #bdd ,his remarks on them #bdf ,violent mental crisis #bdg ,first conception of the ,new ,helosa #bej ,a scene of high morals #bed ,madame d',houdetot #bee ,erotic mania becomes intensified #bef ,interviews with ,madame d',houdetot #beh ,saint ,lambert interposes #bfb ,rousseau's letter to ,saint ,lambert #bfd ,its profound falsity #bfe ,saint ,lambert's reply #bfg ,final relations with him and with ,madame d',houdetot #bfh ,sources of ,rousseau's irritability #bgj ,relations with ,diderot #bgc ,with ,madame d',epinay #bgf ,with ,grimm #bgi ,grimm's natural want of sympathy with ,rousseau #bhb ,madame d',epinay's journey to ,geneva #bhd ,occasion of ,rousseau's breach with ,grimm #bhe ,and with ,madame d',epinay #bhh ,leaves the ,hermitage #bhi ,,chapter ,,viii4 ,,music4 ,general character of ,rousseau's aim in music #bia ,as composer #bib ,contest on the comparative merits of ,french and ,italian music #bic ,rousseau's ,letter on ,french ,music #bic ,his scheme of musical notation #bif ,its chief element #bih ,its practical value #bii ,his mistake #cjj ,two minor objections #cjj ,,chapter ,,ix4 ,,voltaire ,,and ,d',,alembert4 ,position of ,voltaire #cjb ,general differences between him and ,rousseau #cjc ,rousseau not the profounder of the two #cje ,but he had a spiritual element #cje ,their early relations #cjh ,voltaire's poem on the ,earthquake of ,lisbon #cji ,rousseau's wonder that he should have written it #caj ,his letter to ,voltaire upon it #caa ,points to the advantages of the savage state #cab ,reproduces ,pope's general position #cac ,not an answer to the position taken by ,voltaire #cad ,confesses the question insoluble1 but still argues #caf ,curious close of the letter #cah ,their subsequent relations #cai ,d',alembert's article on ,geneva #cba ,the church and the theatre #cbb ,jeremy ,collier3 ,bossuet #cbc ,rousseau's contention on stage plays #cbd ,rude handling of commonplace #cbe ,the true answer to ,rousseau as to theory of dramatic morality #cbf ,his arguments relatively to ,geneva #cbg ,their meaning #cbh ,criticism on the ,misanthrope #cbh ,rousseau's contrast between ,paris and an imaginary ,geneva #cbi ,attack on love as a poetic theme #ccb ,this letter1 the mark of his schism from the party of the philosophers #ccf ,,jean ,,jacques ,,rousseau ,born #agab ,fled from ,geneva ,march1 #agbh ,changes religion at ,turin ,april1 ,with ,madame de ,warens1 including various intervals1 until ,april1 #agdj ,goes to ,paris with musical schemes #agda ,secretary at ,venice ,spring1 #agdc ,paris1 first as secretary to ,m4 ,francueil1 then #agdd as composer1 and copyist to #agef ,the ,hermitage ,april #i1 #agef ,montmorency ,dec4 #ae1 #ageg ,yverdun ,june #ad1 #agfb ,motiers-,travers ,july #aj1 #agfb ,isle of ,st4 ,peter ,sept41 #agfe ,strasburg ,nov41 ,paris ,december1 ,arrives in ,england ,jan4 #ac1 #agff ,leaves ,dover ,may #bb1 #agfg ,fleury ,june1 ,trye ,july1 ,dauphiny ,aug41 #agfh ,paris ,june1 #aggj ,death ,july #b1 #aggh ,,principal ,,writings4 ,discourse on the ,influence of ,learning and ,art ,,published #agej ,discourse on ,inequality #aged ,letter to ,d',alembert #ageh ,new ,helosa 7began #ageg1 finished in winter of #agei-fj7 #agfa ,social ,contract #agfb ,emilius #agfb ,letters from the ,mountain #agfd ,confessions 7written #agff-gj7 ,pt4 ,i #agha ,pt4 ,,ii #aghh ,rveries 7written #aggg-gh74 ,comme dans les tangs assoupis sous les bois1 ,dans plus d'une me on voit deux choses la fois3 ,le ciel1 qui teint les eaux peine remues ,avec tous ses rayons et toutes ses nues2 ,et la vase1 fond morne1 affreux1 sombre et dormant1 ,o des reptiles noirs fourmillent vaguement4 ,,hugo4 ,,rousseau4 ,,chapter ,i4 ,,preliminary4 ,christianity is the name for a great variety of changes which took place during the first centuries of our era1 in men's ways of thinking and feeling about their spiritual relations to unseen powers1 about their moral relations to one another1 about the basis and type of social union4 ,so the ,revolution is now the accepted name for a set of changes which began faintly to take a definite practical shape first in ,america1 and then in ,france1 towards the end of the eighteenth century2 they had been directly prepared by a small number of energetic thinkers1 whose speculations represented1 as always1 the prolongation of some old lines of thought in obedience to the impulse of new social and intellectual conditions4 ,while one movement supplied the energy and the principles which extricated civilisation from the ruins of the ,roman empire1 the other supplies the energy and the principles which already once1 between the ,seven ,years' ,war and the assembly of the ,states ,general1 saved human progress in face of the political fatuity of ,england and the political nullity of ,france2 and they are now1 amid the distraction of the various representatives of an obsolete ordering1 the only forces to be trusted at once for multiplying the achievements of human intelligence stimulated by human sympathy1 and for diffusing their beneficent results with an ampler hand and more far-scattering arm4 ,faith in a divine power1 devout obedience to its supposed will1 hope of ecstatic1 unspeakable reward1 these were the springs of the old movement4 ,undivided love of our fellows1 steadfast faith in human nature1 steadfast search after justice1 firm aspiration towards improvement1 and generous contentment in the hope that others may reap whatever reward may be1 these are the springs of the new4 ,there is no given set of practical maxims agreed to by all members of the revolutionary schools for achieving the work of release from the pressure of an antiquated social condition1 any more than there is one set of doctrines and one kind of discipline accepted by all ,protestants4 ,voltaire was a revolutionist in one sense1 ,diderot in another1 and ,rousseau in a third1 just as in the practical order1 ,lafayette1 ,danton1 ,robespierre1 represented three different aspirations and as many methods4 ,rousseau was the most directly revolutionary of all the speculative precursors1 and he was the first to apply his mind boldly to those of the social conditions which the revolution is concerned by one solution or another to modify4 ,how far his direct influence was disastrous in consequence of a mischievous method1 we shall have to examine4 ,it was so various that no single answer can comprehend an exhaustive judgment4 ,his writings produced that glow of enthusiastic feeling in ,france1 which led to the all-important assistance rendered by that country to the ,american colonists in a struggle so momentous for mankind4 ,it was from his writings that the ,americans took the ideas and the phrases of their great charter1 thus uniting the native principles of their own direct ,protestantism with principles that were strictly derivative from the ,protestantism of ,geneva4 ,again1 it was his work more than that of any other one man1 that ,france arose from the deadly decay which had laid hold of her whole social and political system1 and found that irresistible energy which warded off dissolution within and partition from without4 ,we shall see1 further1 that besides being the first immediately revolutionary thinker in politics1 he was the most stirring of reactionists in religion4 ,his influence formed not only ,robespierre and ,paine1 but ,chateaubriand1 not only ,jacobinism1 but the ,catholicism of the ,restoration4 ,thus he did more than any one else at once to give direction to the first episodes of revolution1 and force to the first episode of reaction4 ,there are some teachers whose distinction is neither correct thought1 nor an eye for the exigencies of practical organisation1 but simply depth and fervour of the moral sentiment1 bringing with it the indefinable gift of touching many hearts with love of virtue and the things of the spirit4 ,the ,christian organisations which saved western society from dissolution owe all to ,st4 ,paul1 ,hildebrand1 ,luther1 ,calvin2 but the spiritual life of the west during all these generations has burnt with the pure flame first lighted by the sublime mystic of the ,galilean hills4 ,aristotle acquired for men much knowledge and many instruments for gaining more2 but it is ,plato1 his master1 who moves the soul with love of truth and enthusiasm for excellence4 ,there is peril in all such leaders of souls1 inasmuch as they incline men to substitute warmth for light1 and to be content with aspiration where they need direction4 ,yet no movement goes far which does not count one of them in the number of its chiefs4 ,rousseau took this place among those who prepared the first act of that revolutionary drama1 whose fifth act is still dark to us4 ,at the heart of the ,revolution1 like a torrid stream flowing undiscernible amid the waters of a tumbling sea1 is a new way of understanding life4 ,the social changes desired by the various assailants of the old order are only the expression of a deeper change in moral idea1 and the drift of the new moral idea is to make life simpler4 ,this in a sense is at the bottom of all great religious and moral movements1 and the ,revolution emphatically belongs to the latter class4 ,like such movements in the breast of the individual1 those which stir an epoch have their principle in the same craving for disentanglement of life4 ,this impulse to shake off intricacies is the mark of revolutionary generations1 and it was the starting-point of all ,rousseau's mental habits1 and of the work in which they expressed themselves4 ,his mind moved outwards from this centre1 and hence the fact that he dealt principally with government and education1 the two great agencies which1 in an old civilisation with a thousand roots and feelers1 surround external life and internal character with complexity4 ,simplification of religion by clearing away the overgrowth of errors1 simplification of social relations by equality1 of literature and art by constant return to nature1 of manners by industrious homeliness and thrift1--this is the revolutionary process and ideal1 and this is the secret of ,rousseau's hold over a generation that was lost amid the broken maze of fallen systems4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the personality of ,rousseau has most equivocal and repulsive sides4 ,it has deservedly fared ill in the esteem of the saner and more rational of those who have judged him1 and there is none in the history of famous men and our spiritual fathers that begat us1 who make more constant demands on the patience or pity of those who study his life4 ,yet in no other instance is the common eagerness to condense all predication about a character into a single unqualified proposition so fatally inadequate4 ,if it is indispensable that we should be for ever describing1 naming1 classifying1 at least it is well1 in speaking of such a nature as his1 to enlarge the vocabulary beyond the pedantic formulas of unreal ethics1 and to be as sure as we know how to make ourselves1 that each of the sympathies and faculties which together compose our power of spiritual observation1 is in a condition of free and patient energy4 ,any less open and liberal method1 which limits our sentiments to absolute approval or disapproval1 and fixes the standard either at the balance of common qualities which constitutes mediocrity1 or at the balance of uncommon qualities which is divinity as in a ,shakespeare1 must leave in a cloud of blank incomprehensibleness those singular spirits who come from time to time to quicken the germs of strange thought and shake the quietness of the earth4 ,we may forget much in our story that is grievous or hateful1 in reflecting that if any man now deems a day basely passed in which he has given no thought to the hard life of garret and hovel1 to the forlorn children and trampled women of wide squalid wildernesses in cities1 it was ,rousseau who first in our modern time sounded a new trumpet note for one more of the great battles of humanity4 ,he makes the poor very proud1 it was truly said4 ,some of his contemporaries followed the same vein of thought1 as we shall see1 and he was only continuing work which others had prepared4 ,but he alone had the gift of the golden mouth4 ,it was in ,rousseau that polite ,europe first hearkened to strange voices and faint reverberation from out of the vague and cavernous shadow in which the common people move4 ,science has to feel the way towards light and solution1 to prepare1 to organise4 ,but the race owes something to one who helped to state the problem1 writing up in letters of flame at the brutal feast of kings and the rich that civilisation is as yet only a mockery1 and did furthermore inspire a generation of men and women with the stern resolve that they would rather perish than live on in a world where such things can be4 ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,youth4 ,jean ,jacques ,rousseau was born at ,geneva1 ,june #bh1 #agab4 ,he was of old ,french stock4 ,his ancestors had removed from ,paris to the famous city of refuge as far back as #aebi1 a little while before ,farel came thither to establish the principles of the ,reformation1 and seven years before the first visit of the more extraordinary man who made ,geneva the mother city of a new interpretation of ,christianity1 as ,rome was the mother city of the old4 ,three generations in a direct line separated ,jean ,jacques from ,didier ,rousseau1 the son of a ,paris bookseller1 and the first emigrant4#a ,thus ,protestant tradition in the ,rousseau family dates from the appearance of ,protestantism in ,europe1 and seems to have exerted the same kind of influence upon them as it did1 in conjunction with the rest of the surrounding circumstances1 upon the other citizens of the ideal state of the ,reformation4 ,it is computed by the historians that out of three thousand families who composed the population of ,geneva towards the end of the seventeenth century1 there were hardly fifty who before the ,reformation had acquired the position of burgess-ship4 ,the curious set of conditions which thus planted a colony of foreigners in the midst of a free polity1 with a new doctrine and newer discipline1 introduced into ,europe a fresh type of character and manners4 ,people declared they could recognise in the men of ,geneva neither ,french vivacity1 nor ,italian subtlety and clearness1 nor ,swiss gravity4 ,they had a zeal for religion1 a vigorous energy in government1 a passion for freedom1 a devotion to ingenious industries1 which marked them with a stamp unlike that of any other community4#b ,towards the close of the seventeenth century some of the old austerity and rudeness was sensibly modified under the influence of the great neighbouring monarchy4 ,one striking illustration of this tendency was the rapid decline of the ,savoyard patois in popular use4 ,the movement had not gone far enough when ,rousseau was born1 to take away from the manners and spirit of his country their special quality and individual note4 ,the mother of ,jean ,jacques1 who seems to have been a simple1 cheerful1 and tender woman1 was the daughter of a ,genevan minister2 her maiden name1 ,bernard4 ,the birth of her son was fatal to her1 and the most touching and pathetic of all the many shapes of death was the fit beginning of a life preappointed to nearly unlifting cloud4 ,i cost my mother her life1 he wrote1 and my birth was the first of my woes4#c ,destiny thus touches us with magical finger1 long before consciousness awakens to the forces that have been set to work in our personality1 launching us into the universe with country1 forefathers1 and physical predispositions1 all fixed without choice of ours4 ,rousseau was born dying1 and though he survived this first crisis by the affectionate care of one of his father's sisters1 yet his constitution remained infirm and disordered4 ,inborn tendencies1 as we perceive on every side1 are far from having unlimited irresistible mastery1 if they meet early encounter from some wise and patient external will4 ,the father of ,rousseau was unfortunately cast in the same mould as his mother1 and the child's own morbid sensibility was stimulated and deepened by the excessive sensibility of his first companion4 ,isaac ,rousseau1 in many of his traits1 was a reversion to an old ,french type4 ,in all the ,genevese there was an underlying tendency of this kind4 ,under a phlegmatic and cool air1 wrote ,rousseau1 when warning his countrymen against the inflammatory effects of the drama1 the ,genevese hide an ardent and sensitive character1 that is more easily moved than controlled4#d ,and some of the episodes in their history during the eighteenth century might be taken for scenes from the turbulent dramas of ,paris4 ,but ,isaac ,rousseau's restlessness1 his eager emotion1 his quick and punctilious sense of personal dignity1 his heedlessness of ordered affairs1 were not common in ,geneva1 fortunately for the stability of her society and the prosperity of her citizens4 ,this disorder of spirit descended in modified form to the son2 it was inevitable that he should be indirectly affected by it4 ,before he was seven years old he had learnt from his father to indulge a passion for the reading of romances4 ,the child and the man passed whole nights in a fictitious world1 reading to one another in turn1 absorbed by vivid interest in imaginary situations1 until the morning note of the birds recalled them to a sense of the conditions of more actual life1 and made the elder cry out in confusion that he was the more childish of the two4 ,the effect of this was to raise passion to a premature exaltation in the young brain4 ,i had no idea of real things1 he said1 though all the sentiments were already familiar to me4 ,nothing had come to me by conception1 everything by sensation4 ,these confused emotions1 striking me one after another1 did not warp a reason that ,i did not yet possess1 but they gradually shaped in me a reason of another cast and temper1 and gave me bizarre and romantic ideas of human life1 of which neither reflection nor experience has ever been able wholly to cure me4#e ,thus these first lessons1 which have such tremendous influence over all that follow1 had the direct and fatal effect in ,rousseau's case of deadening that sense of the actual relations of things to one another in the objective world1 which is the master-key and prime law of sanity4 ,in time the library of romances came to an end 7#agai71 and ,jean ,jacques and his father fell back on the more solid and moderated fiction of history and biography4 ,the romances had been the possession of the mother2 the more serious books were inherited from the old minister1 her father4 ,such books as ,nani's ,history of ,venice1 and ,le ,sueur's ,history of the ,church and the ,empire1 made less impression on the young ,rousseau than the admirable ,plutarch2 and he used to read to his father during the hours of work1 and read over again to himself during all hours1 those stories of free and indomitable souls which are so proper to kindle the glow of generous fire4 ,plutarch was dear to him to the end of his life2 he read him in the late days when he had almost ceased to read1 and he always declared ,plutarch to be nearly the only author to whom he had never gone without profit4#f ,i think ,i see my father now1 he wrote when he had begun to make his mark in ,paris1 living by the work of his hands1 and nourishing his soul on the sublimest truths4 ,i see ,tacitus1 ,plutarch1 and ,grotius1 lying before him along with the tools of his craft4 ,i see at his side a cherished son receiving instruction from the best of fathers1 alas1 with but too little fruit4#g ,this did little to implant the needed impressions of the actual world4 ,rousseau's first training continued to be in an excessive degree the exact reverse of our common method2 this stirs the imagination too little1 and shuts the young too narrowly within the strait pen of present and visible reality4 ,the reader of ,plutarch at the age of ten actually conceived himself a ,greek or a ,roman1 and became the personage whose strokes of constancy and intrepidity transported him with sympathetic ecstasy1 made his eyes sparkle1 and raised his voice to heroic pitch4 ,listeners were even alarmed one day as he told the tale of ,scaevola at table1 to see him imitatively thrust forth his arm over a hot chafing-dish4#h ,rousseau had one brother1 on whom the spirit of the father came down in ample measure1 just as the sensibility of the mother descended upon ,jean ,jacques4 ,he passed through a boyhood of revolt1 and finally ran away into ,germany1 where he was lost from sight and knowledge of his kinsmen for ever4 ,jean ,jacques was thus left virtually an only child1#i and he commemorates the homely tenderness and care with which his early years were surrounded4 ,except in the hours which he passed in reading by the side of his father1 he was always with his aunt1 in the self-satisfying curiosity of childhood watching her at work with the needle and busy about affairs of the house1 or else listening to her with contented interest1 as she sang the simple airs of the common people4 ,the impression of this kind and cheerful figure was stamped on his memory to the end2 her tone of voice1 her dress1 the quaint fashion of her hair4 ,the constant recollection of her shows1 among many other signs1 how he cherished that conception of the true unity of a man's life1 which places it in a closely-linked chain of active memories1 and which most of us lose in wasteful dispersion of sentiment and poor fragmentariness of days4 ,when the years came in which he might well say1 ,i have no pleasure in them1 and after a manhood of distress and suspicion and diseased sorrows had come to dim those blameless times1 he could still often surprise himself unconsciously humming the tune of one of his aunt's old songs1 with many tears in his eyes4#aj ,this affectionate schooling came suddenly to an end4 ,isaac ,rousseau in the course of a quarrel in which he had involved himself1 believed that he saw unfairness in the operation of the law1 for the offender had kinsfolk in the ,great ,council4 ,he resolved to leave his country rather than give way1 in circumstances which compromised his personal honour and the free justice of the republic4 ,so his house was broken up1 and his son was sent to school at the neighbouring village of ,bossey 7#agbb71 under the care of a minister1 there to learn along with ,latin all the medley of sorry stuff with which1 under the name of education1 they accompany ,latin4#aa ,rousseau tells us nothing of the course of his intellectual instruction here1 but he marks his two years' sojourn under the roof of ,m4 ,lambercier by two forward steps in that fateful acquaintance with good and evil1 which is so much more important than literary knowledge4 ,upon one of these fruits of the tree of nascent experience1 men usually keep strict silence4 ,rousseau is the only person that ever lived who proclaimed to the whole world as a part of his own biography the ignoble circumstances of the birth of sensuality in boyhood4 ,nobody else ever asked us to listen while he told of the playmate with which unwarned youth takes its heedless pleasure1 which waxes and strengthens with years1 until the man suddenly awakens to find the playmate grown into a master1 grotesque and foul1 whose unclean grip is not to be shaken off1 and who poisons the air with the goatish fume of the satyr4 ,it is on this side that the unspoken plays so decisive a part1 that most of the spoken seems but as dust in the balance2 it is here that the flesh spreads gross clouds over the firmament of the spirit4 ,thinking of it1 we flee from talk about the high matters of will and conscience1 of purity of heart and the diviner mind1 and hurry to the physician4 ,manhood commonly saves itself by its own innate healthiness1 though the decent apron bequeathed to us in the old legend of the fall1 the thick veil of a more than legendary reserve1 prevents us from really measuring the actual waste of delicacy and the finer forces4 ,rousseau1 most unhappily for himself1 lacked this innate healthiness2 he never shook off the demon which would be so ridiculous1 if it did not hide such terrible power4 ,with a moral courage1 that it needs hardly less moral courage in the critic firmly to refrain from calling cynical or shameless1 he has told the whole story of this lifelong depravation4 ,in the present state of knowledge1 which in the region of the human character the false shamefacedness of science1 aided and abetted by the mutilating hand of religious asceticism1 has kept crude and imperfect1 there is nothing very profitable to be said on all this4 ,when the great art of life has been more systematically conceived in the long processes of time and endeavour1 and when more bold1 ffective1 and far-reaching advance has been made in defining those pathological manifestations which deserve to be seriously studied1 as distinguished from those of a minor sort which are barely worth registering1 then we should know better how to speak1 or how to be silent1 in the present most unwelcome instance4 ,as it is1 we perhaps do best in chronicling the fact and passing on4 ,the harmless young are allowed to play without monition or watching among the deep open graves of temperament2 and ,rousseau1 telling the tale of his inmost experience1 unlike the physician and the moralist who love decorous surfaces of things1 did not spare himself nor others a glimpse of the ignominies to which the body condemns its high tenant1 the soul4#ab ,the second piece of experience which he acquired at ,bossey was the knowledge of injustice and wrongful suffering as things actual and existent4 ,circumstances brought him under suspicion of having broken the teeth of a comb which did not belong to him4 ,he was innocent1 and not even the most terrible punishment could wring from him an untrue confession of guilt4 ,the root of his constancy was not in an abhorrence of falsehood1 which is exceptional in youth1 and for which he takes no credit1 but in a furious and invincible resentment against the violent pressure that was unjustly put upon him4 ,picture a character1 timid and docile in ordinary life1 but ardent1 impetuous1 indomitable in its passions2 a child always governed by the voice of reason1 always treated with equity1 gentleness1 and consideration1 who had not even the idea of injustice1 and who for the first time experiences an injustice so terrible1 from the very people whom he most cherishes and respects6 ,what a confusion of ideas1 what disorder of sentiments1 what revolution in heart1 in brain1 in every part of his moral and intellectual being6 ,he had not learnt1 any more than other children1 either to put himself in the place of his elders1 or to consider the strength of the apparent case against him4 ,all that he felt was the rigour of a frightful chastisement for an offence of which he was innocent4 ,and the association of ideas was permanent4 ,this first sentiment of violence and injustice has remained so deeply engraved in my soul1 that all the ideas relating to it bring my first emotion back to me2 and this sentiment1 though only relative to myself in its origin1 has taken such consistency1 and become so disengaged from all personal interest1 that my heart is inflamed at the sight or story of any wrongful action1 just as much as if its effect fell on my own person4 ,when ,i read of the cruelties of some ferocious tyrant1 or the subtle atrocities of some villain of a priest1 ,i would fain start on the instant to poniard such wretches1 though ,i were to perish a hundred times for the deed4444 ,this movement may be natural to me1 and ,i believe it is so2 but the profound recollection of the first injustice ,i suffered was too long and too fast bound up with it1 not to have strengthened it enormously4#ac ,to men who belong to the silent and phlegmatic races like our own1 all this may possibly strike on the ear like a false or strained note4 ,yet a tranquil appeal to the real history of one's own strongest impressions may disclose their roots in facts of childish experience1 which remoteness of time has gradually emptied of the burning colour they once had4 ,this childish discovery of the existence in his own world of that injustice which he had only seen through a glass very darkly in the imaginary world of his reading1 was for ,rousseau the angry dismissal from the primitive ,eden1 which in one shape and at one time or another overtakes all men4 ,here1 he says1 was the term of the serenity of my childish days4 ,from this moment ,i ceased to enjoy a pure happiness1 and ,i feel even at this day that the reminiscence of the delights of my infancy here comes to an end4444 ,even the country lost in our eyes that charm of sweetness and simplicity which goes to the heart2 it seemed sombre and deserted1 and was as if covered by a veil1 hiding its beauties from our sight4 ,we no longer tended our little gardens1 our plants1 our flowers4 ,we went no more lightly to scratch the earth1 shouting for joy as we discovered the germ of the seed we had sown4 ,whatever may be the degree of literal truth in the ,confessions1 the whole course of ,rousseau's life forbids us to pass this passionate description by as overcharged or exaggerated4 ,we are conscious in it of a constitutional infirmity4 ,we perceive an absence of healthy power of reaction against moral shock4 ,such shocks are experienced in many unavoidable forms by all save the dullest natures1 when they first come into contact with the sharp tooth of outer circumstance4 ,indeed1 a man must be either miraculously happy in his experiences1 or exceptionally obtuse in observing and feeling1 or else be the creature of base and cynical ideals1 if life does not to the end continue to bring many a repetition of that first day of incredulous bewilderment4 ,but the urgent demands for material activity quickly recall the mass of men to normal relations with their fellows and the outer world4 ,a vehement objective temperament1 like ,voltaire's1 is instantly roused by one of these penetrative stimuli into angry and tenacious resistance4 ,a proud and collected soul1 like ,goethe's1 loftily follows its own inner aims1 without taking any heed of the perturbations that arise from want of self-collection in a world still spelling its rudiments4 ,a sensitive and depressed spirit1 like ,rousseau's or ,cowper's1 finds itself without any of these reacting kinds of force1 and the first stroke of cruelty or oppression is the going out of a divine light4 ,leaving ,bossey1 ,rousseau returned to ,geneva1 and passed two or three years with his uncle1 losing his time for the most part1 but learning something of drawing and something of ,euclid1 for the former of which he showed special inclination4#ad ,it was a question whether he was to be made a watchmaker1 a lawyer1 or a minister4 ,his own preference1 as his after-life might have led us to suppose1 was in favour of the last of the three2 for ,i thought it a fine thing1 he says1 to preach4 ,the uncle was a man of pleasure1 and as often happens in such circumstances1 his love of pleasure had the effect of turning his wife into a pietist4 ,their son was ,rousseau's constant comrade4 ,our friendship filled our hearts so amply1 that if we were only together1 the simplest amusements were a delight4 ,they made kites1 cages1 bows and arrows1 drums1 houses2 they spoiled the tools of their grandfather1 in trying to make watches like him4 ,in the same cheerful imitative spirit1 which is the main feature in childhood when it is not disturbed by excess of literary teaching1 after ,geneva had been visited by an ,italian showman with a troop of marionettes1 they made puppets and composed comedies for them2 and when one day the uncle read aloud an elegant sermon1 they abandoned their comedies1 and turned with blithe energy to exhortation4 ,they had glimpses of the rougher side of life in the biting mockeries of some schoolboys of the neighbourhood4 ,these ended in appeal to the god of youthful war1 who pronounced so plainly for the bigger battalions1 that the release of their enemies from school was the signal for the quick retreat of our pair within doors4 ,all this is an old story in every biography written or unwritten4 ,it seldom fails to touch us1 either in the way of sympathetic reminiscence1 or if life should have gone somewhat too hardly with a man1 then in the way of irony1 which is not less real and poetic than the eironeia of a ,greek dramatist1 for being concerned with more unheroic creatures4 ,and this rough play of the streets always seemed to ,rousseau a manlier schooling than the effeminate tendencies which he thought he noticed in ,genevese youth in after years4 ,in my time1 he says admiringly1 children were brought up in rustic fashion and had no complexion to keep4444 ,timid and modest before the old1 they were bold1 haughty1 combative among themselves2 they had no curled locks to be careful of2 they defied one another at wrestling1 running1 boxing4 ,they returned home sweating1 out of breath1 torn2 they were true blackguards1 if you will1 but they made men who have zeal in their heart to serve their country and blood to shed for her4 ,may we be able to say as much one day of our fine little gentlemen1 and may these men at fifteen not turn out children at thirty4#ae ,two incidents of this period remain to us1 described in ,rousseau's own words1 and as they reveal a certain sweetness in which his life unhappily did not afterwards greatly abound1 it may help our equitable balance of impressions about him to reproduce them4 ,every ,sunday he used to spend the day at ,pquis at ,mr4 ,fazy's1 who had married one of his aunts1 and who carried on the production of printed calicoes4 ,one day ,i was in the drying-room1 watching the rollers of the hot press2 their brightness pleased my eye2 ,i was tempted to lay my fingers on them1 and ,i was moving them up and down with much satisfaction along the smooth cylinder1 when young ,fazy placed himself in the wheel and gave it a half-quarter turn so adroitly1 that ,i had just the ends of my two longest fingers caught1 but this was enough to crush the tips and tear the nails4 ,i raised a piercing cry2 ,fazy instantly turned back the wheel1 and the blood gushed from my fingers4 ,in the extremity of consternation he hastened to me1 embraced me1 and besought me to cease my cries1 or he would be undone4 ,in the height of my own pain1 ,i was touched by his2 ,i instantly fell silent1 we ran to the pond1 where he helped me to wash my fingers and to staunch the blood with moss4 ,he entreated me with tears not to accuse him2 ,i promised him that ,i would not1 and kept my word so well that twenty years after no one knew the origin of the scar4 ,i was kept in bed for more than three weeks1 and for more than two months was unable to use my hand4 ,but ,i persisted that a large stone had fallen and crushed my fingers4#af ,the other story is of the same tenour1 though there is a new touch of sensibility in its concluding words4 ,i was playing at ball at ,plain ,palais1 with one of my comrades named ,plince4 ,we began to quarrel over the game2 we fought1 and in the fight he dealt me on my bare head a stroke so well directed1 that with a stronger arm it would have dashed my brains out4 ,i fell to the ground1 and there never was agitation like that of this poor lad1 as he saw the blood in my hair4 ,he thought he had killed me4 ,he threw himself upon me1 and clasped me eagerly in his arms1 while his tears poured down his cheeks1 and he uttered shrill cries4 ,i returned his embrace with all my force1 weeping like him1 in a state of confused emotion which was not without a kind of sweetness4 ,then he tried to stop the blood which kept flowing1 and seeing that our two handkerchiefs were not enough1 he dragged me off to his mother's2 she had a small garden hard by4 ,the good woman nearly fell sick at sight of me in this condition2 she kept strength enough to dress my wound1 and after bathing it well1 she applied flower-de-luce macerated in brandy1 an excellent remedy much used in our country4 ,her tears and those of her son1 went to my very heart1 so that ,i looked upon them for a long while as my mother and my brother4#ag ,if it were enough that our early instincts should be thus amiable and easy1 then doubtless the dismal sloughs in which men and women lie floundering would occupy a very much more insignificant space in the field of human experience4 ,the problem1 as we know1 lies in the discipline of this primitive goodness4 ,for character in a state of society is not a tree that grows into uprightness by the law of its own strength1 though an adorable instance here and there of rectitude and moral loveliness that seem intuitive may sometimes tempt us into a moment's belief in a contrary doctrine4 ,in ,rousseau's case this serious problem was never solved2 there was no deliberate preparation of his impulses1 prepossessions1 notions2 no foresight on the part of elders1 and no gradual acclimatisation of a sensitive and ardent nature in the fixed principles which are essential to right conduct in the frigid zone of our relations with other people4 ,it was one of the most elementary of ,rousseau's many perverse and mischievous contentions1 that it is their education by the older which ruins or wastes the abundant capacity for virtue that subsists naturally in the young4 ,his mind seems never to have sought much more deeply for proof of this1 than the fact that he himself was innocent and happy so long as he was allowed to follow without disturbance the easy simple proclivities of his own temperament4 ,circumstances were not indulgent enough to leave the experiment to complete itself within these very rudimentary conditions4 ,rousseau had been surrounded1 as he is always careful to protest1 with a religious atmosphere4 ,his father1 though a man of pleasure1 was possessed also not only of probity but of religion as well4 ,his three aunts were all in their degrees gracious and devout4 ,m4 ,lambercier at ,bossey1 although ,churchman and preacher1 was still a sincere believer and nearly as good in act as in word4 ,his inculcation of religion was so hearty1 so discreet1 so reasonable1 that his pupils1 far from being wearied by the sermon1 never came away without being touched inwardly and stirred to make virtuous resolutions4 ,with his ,aunt ,bernard devotion was rather more tiresome1 because she made a business of it4#ah ,it would be a distinct error to suppose that all this counted for nothing1 for let us remember that we are now engaged with the youth of the one great religious writer of ,france in the eighteenth century4 ,when after many years ,rousseau's character hardened1 the influences which had surrounded his boyhood came out in their full force and the historian of opinion soon notices in his spirit and work a something which had no counterpart in the spirit and work of men who had been trained in ,jesuit colleges4 ,at the first outset1 however1 every trace of religious sentiment was obliterated from sight1 and he was left unprotected against the shocks of the world and the flesh4 ,at the age of eleven ,jean ,jacques was sent into a notary's office1 but that respectable calling struck him in the same repulsive and insufferable way in which it has struck many other boys of genius in all countries4 ,contrary to the usual rule1 he did not rebel1 but was ignominiously dismissed by his master#ai for dulness and inaptitude2 his fellow-clerks pronounced him stupid and incompetent past hope4 ,he was next apprenticed to an engraver1#bj a rough and violent man1 who seems to have instantly plunged the boy into a demoralised stupefaction4 ,the reality of contact with this coarse nature benumbed as by touch of torpedo the whole being of a youth who had hitherto lived on pure sensations and among those ideas which are nearest to sensations4 ,there were no longer heroic ,romans in ,rousseau's universe4 ,the vilest tastes1 the meanest bits of rascality1 succeeded to my simple amusements1 without even leaving the least idea behind4 ,i must1 in spite of the worthiest education1 have had a strong tendency to degenerate4 ,the truth was that he had never had any education in its veritable sense1 as the process1 on its negative side1 of counteracting the inborn4 ,there are two kinds1 or perhaps we should more correctly say two degrees1 of the constitution in which the reflective part is weak4 ,there are the men who live on sensation1 but who do so lustily1 with a certain fulness of blood and active energy of muscle4 ,there are others who do so passively1 not searching for excitement1 but acquiescing4 ,the former by their sheer force and plenitude of vitality may1 even in a world where reflection is a first condition1 still go far4 ,the latter succumb1 and as reflection does nothing for them1 and as their sensations in such a world bring them few blandishments1 they are tolerably early surrounded with a self-diffusing atmosphere of misery4 ,rousseau had none of this energy which makes oppression bracing4 ,for a time he sank4 ,it would be a mistake to let the story of the ,confessions carry us into exaggerations4 ,the brutality of his master and the harshness of his life led him to nothing very criminal1 but only to wrong acts which are despicable by their meanness1 rather than in any sense atrocious4 ,he told lies as readily as the truth4 ,he pilfered things to eat4 ,he cunningly found a means of opening his master's private cabinet1 and of using his master's best instruments by stealth4 ,he wasted his time in idle and capricious tasks4 ,when the man1 with all the ravity of an adult moralist1 describes these misdeeds of the boy1 they assume a certain ugliness of mien1 and excites a strong disgust which1 when the misdeeds themselves are before us in actual life1 we experience in a far more considerate form4 ,the effect of calm1 retrospective avowal is to create a kind of feeling which is essentially unlike our feeling at what is actually avowed4 ,still it is clear that his unlucky career as apprentice brought out in ,rousseau slyness1 greediness1 slovenliness1 untruthfulness1 and the whole ragged regiment of the squalider vices4 ,the evil of his temperament now and always was of the dull smouldering kind1 seldom breaking out into active flame4 ,there is a certain sordidness in the scene4 ,you may complain that the details which ,rousseau gives of his youthful days are insipid4 ,yet such things are the web and stuff of life1 and these days of transition from childhood to full manhood in every case mark a crisis4 ,these insipidities test the education of home and family1 and they presage definitely what is to come4 ,the roots of character1 good or bad1 are shown for this short space1 and they remain unchanged1 though most people learn from their fellows the decent and useful art of covering them over with a little dust1 in the shape of accepted phrases and routine customs and a silence which is not oblivion4 ,after a time the character of ,jean ,jacques was absolutely broken down4 ,he says little of the blows with which his offences were punished by his master1 but he says enough to enable us to discern that they were terrible to him4 ,this cowardice1 if we choose to give the name to an overmastering physical horror1 at length brought his apprentice days to an end4 ,he was now in his sixteenth year4 ,he was dragged by his comrades into sports for which he had little inclination1 though he admits that once engaged in them he displayed an impetuosity that carried him beyond the others4 ,such pastimes naturally led them beyond the city walls1 and on two occasions ,rousseau found the gates closed on his return4 ,his master when he presented himself in the morning gave him such greeting as we may imagine1 and held out things beyond imagining as penalty for a second sin in this kind4 ,the occasion came1 as1 alas1 it nearly always does4 ,half a league from the town1 says ,rousseau1 ,i hear the retreat sounded1 and redouble my pace2 ,i hear the drum beat1 and run at the top of my speed3 ,i arrive out of breath1 bathed in sweat2 my heart beats violently1 ,i see from a distance the soldiers at their post1 and call out with choking voice4 ,it was too late4 ,twenty paces from the outpost sentinel1 ,i saw the first bridge rising4 ,i shuddered1 as ,i watched those terrible horns1 sinister and fatal augury of the inevitable lot which that moment was opening for me4#ba ,in manhood when we have the resource of our own will to fall back upon1 we underestimate the unsurpassed horror and anguish of such moments as this in youth1 when we know only the will of others1 and that this will is inexorable against us4 ,rousseau dared not expose himself to the fulfilment of his master's menace1 and he ran away 7#agbh74 ,but for this1 wrote the unhappy man long years after1 ,i should have passed1 in the bosom of my religion1 of my native land1 of my family1 and my friends1 a mild and peaceful life1 such as my character required1 in the uniformity of work which suited my taste1 and of a society after my heart4 ,i should have been a good ,christian1 good citizen1 good father of a family1 good friend1 good craftsman1 good man in all4 ,i should have been happy in my condition1 perhaps ,i might have honoured it2 and after living a life obscure and simple1 but even and gentle1 ,i should have died peacefully in the midst of my own people4 ,soon forgotten1 ,i should at any rate have been regretted as long as any memory of me was left4#bb ,as a man knows nothing about the secrets of his own individual organisation1 this illusory mapping out of a supposed ,possible need seldom be suspected of the smallest insincerity4 ,the poor madman who declares that he is a king kept out of his rights only moves our pity1 and we perhaps owe pity no less to those in all the various stages of aberration uncertificated by surgeons1 down to the very edge of most respectable sanity1 who accuse the injustice of men of keeping them out of this or that kingdom1 of which in truth their own composition finally disinherited them at the moment when they were conceived in a mother's womb4 ,the first of the famous ,five ,propositions of ,jansen1 which were a stumbling-block to popes and to the philosophy of the eighteenth-century foolishness1 put this clear and permanent truth into a mystic and perishable formula1 to the effect that there are some commandments of ,god which righteous and good men are absolutely unable to obey1 though ever so disposed to do them1 and ,god does not give them so much grace that they are able to observe them4 ,if ,rousseau's sensations in the evening were those of terror1 the day and its prospect of boundless adventures soon turned them into entire delight4 ,the whole world was before him1 and all the old conceptions of romance were instantly revived by the supposed nearness of their realisation4 ,he roamed for two or three days among the villages in the neighbourhood of ,geneva1 finding such hospitality as he needed in the cottages of friendly peasants4 ,before long his wanderings brought him to the end of the territory of the little republic4 ,here he found himself in the domain of ,savoy1 where dukes and lords had for ages been the traditional foes of the freedom and the faith of ,geneva1 ,rousseau came to the village of ,confignon1 and the name of the priest of ,confignon recalled one of the most embittered incidents of the old feud4 ,this feud had come to take new forms2 instead of midnight expeditions to scale the city walls1 the descendants of the ,savoyard marauders of the sixteenth century were now intent with equivocal good will on rescuing the souls of the descendants of their old enemies from deadly heresy4 ,at this time a systematic struggle was going on between the priests of ,savoy and the ministers of ,geneva1 the former using every effort to procure the conversion of any ,protestant on whom they could lay hands4#bc ,as it happened1 the priest of ,confignon was one of the most active in this good work4#bd ,he made the young ,rousseau welcome1 spoke to him of the heresies of ,geneva and of the authority of the holy ,church1 and gave him some dinner4 ,he could hardly have had a more easy convert1 for the nature with which he had to deal was now swept and garnished1 ready for the entrance of all devils or gods4 ,the dinner went for much4 ,i was too good a guest1 writes ,rousseau in one of his few passages of humour1 to be a good theologian1 and his ,frangi wine1 which struck me as excellent1 was such a triumphant argument on his side1 that ,i should have blushed to oppose so capital a host4#be ,so it was agreed that he should be put in a way to be further instructed of these matters4 ,we may accept ,rousseau's assurance that he was not exactly a hypocrite in this rapid complaisance4 ,he admits that any one who should have seen the artifices to which he resorted1 might have thought him very false4 ,but1 he argues1 flattery1 or rather concession1 is not always a vice2 it is oftener a virtue1 especially in the young4 ,the kindness with which a man receives us1 attaches us to him2 it is not to make a fool of him that we give way1 but to avoid displeasing him1 and not to return him evil for good4 ,he never really meant to change his religion2 his fault was like the coquetting of decent women1 who sometimes1 to gain their ends1 without permitting anything or promising anything1 lead men to hope more than they mean to hold good4#bf ,thereupon follow some austere reflections on the priest1 who ought to have sent him back to his friends2 and there are strictures even upon the ministers of all dogmatic religions1 in which the essential thing is not to do but to believe2 their priests therefore1 provided that they can convert a man to their faith1 are wholly indifferent alike as to his worth and his worldly interests4 ,all this is most just2 the occasion for such a strain of remark1 though so apposite on one side1 is hardly well chosen to impress us4 ,we wonder1 as we watch the boy complacently hoodwinking his entertainer1 what has become of the ,roman severity of a few months back4 ,this nervous eagerness to please1 however1 was the complementary element of a character of vague ambition1 and it was backed by a stealthy consciousness of intellectual superiority1 which perhaps did something1 though poorly enough1 to make such ignominy less deeply degrading4 ,the die was cast4 ,m4 ,pontverre despatched his brand plucked from the burning to a certain ,madame de ,warens1 a lady living at ,annecy1 and counted zealous for the cause of the ,church4 ,in an interview whose minutest circumstances remained for ever stamped in his mind 7,march #ba1 #agbh71 ,rousseau exchanged his first words with this singular personage1 whose name and character he has covered with doubtful renown4 ,he expected to find some gray and wrinkled woman1 saving a little remnant of days in good works4 ,instead of this1 there turned round upon him a person not more than eight-and-twenty years old1 with gentle caressing air1 a fascinating smile1 a tender eye4 ,madame de ,warens read the letters he brought1 and entertained their bearer cheerfully4 ,it was decided after consultation that the heretic should be sent to a monastery at ,turin1 where he might be brought over in form to the true ,church4 ,at the monastery not only would the spiritual question of faith and the soul be dealt with1 but at the same time the material problem of shelter and subsistence for the body would be solved likewise4 ,elated with vanity at the thought of seeing before any of his comrades the great land of promise beyond the mountains1 heedless of those whom he had left1 and heedless of the future before him and the object which he was about1 the young outcast made his journey over the ,alps in all possible lightness of heart4 ,seeing country is an allurement which hardly any ,genevese can ever resist4 ,everything that met my eye seemed the guarantee of my approaching happiness4 ,in the houses ,i imagined rustic festivals2 in the fields1 joyful sports2 along the streams1 bathing and fishing2 on the trees1 delicious fruits2 under their shade1 voluptuous interviews2 on the mountains1 pails of milk and cream1 a charming idleness1 peace1 simplicity1 the delight of going forward without knowing whither4#bg ,he might justly choose out this interval as more perfectly free from care or anxiety than any other of his life4 ,it was the first of the too rare occasions when his usually passive sensuousness was stung by novelty and hope into an active energy4 ,the seven or eight days of the journey came to an end1 and the youth found himself at ,turin without money or clothes1 an inmate of a dreary monastery1 among some of the very basest and foulest of mankind1 who pass their time in going from one monastery to another through ,spain and ,italy1 professing themselves ,jews or ,moors for the sake of being supported while the process of their conversion was going slowly forward4 ,at the ,hospice of the ,catechumens the work of his conversion was begun in such earnest as the insincerity of at least one of the parties to it might allow4 ,it is needless to enter into the circumstances of ,rousseau's conversion to ,catholicism4 ,the mischievous zeal for theological proselytising has led to thousands of such hollow and degrading performances1 but it may safely be said that none of them was ever hollower than this4 ,rousseau avows that he had been brought up in the heartiest abhorrence of the older church1 and that he never lost this abhorrence4 ,he fully explains that he accepted the arguments with which he was not very energetically plied1 simply because he could not bear the idea of returning to ,geneva1 and he saw no other way out of his present destitute condition4 ,i could not dissemble from myself that the holy deed ,i was about to do1 was at the bottom the action of a bandit4 ,the sophism which destroyed me1 he says in one of those eloquent pieces of moralising1 which bring ignoble action into a relief that exaggerates our condemnation1 is that of most men1 who complain of lack of strength when it is already too late for them to use it4 ,it is only through our own fault that virtue costs us anything2 if we could be always sage1 we should rarely feel the need of being virtuous4 ,but inclinations that might be easily overcome1 drag us on without resistance2 we yield to light temptations of which we despise the hazard4 ,insensibly we fall into perilous situations1 against which we could easily have shielded ourselves1 but from which we can afterwards only make a way out by heroic efforts that stupefy us1 and so we sink into the abyss1 crying aloud to ,god1 ,why hast thou made me so weak8 ,but in spite of ourselves1 ,god gives answer to our conscience1 ',i made thee too weak to come out from the pit1 because ,i made thee strong enough to avoid falling into it4'#bh ,so the hopeful convert did fall in1 not as happens to the pious soul too hot for certainties in this our life1 to find rest in liberty of private judgment and an open ,bible1 but simply as a means of getting food1 clothing1 and shelter4#bi ,the boy was clever enough to make some show of resistance1 and he turned to good use for this purpose the knowledge of ,church history and the great ,reformation controversy which he had picked up at ,m4 ,lambercier's4 ,he was careful not to carry things too far1 and exactly nine days after his admission into the ,hospice1 he abjured the errors of the sect4#cj ,two days after that he was publicly received into the kindly bosom of the true ,church with all solemnity1 to the high edification of the devout of ,turin1 who marked their interest in the regenerate soul by contributions to the extent of twenty francs in small money4 ,with that sum and formal good wishes the fathers of the ,hospice of the ,catechumens thrust him out of their doors into the broad world4 ,the youth who had begun the day with dreams of palaces1 found himself at night sleeping in a den where he paid a halfpenny for the privilege of resting in the same room with the rude woman who kept the house1 her husband1 her five or six children1 and various other lodgers4 ,this rough awakening produced no consciousness of hardship in a nature which1 beneath all fantastic dreams1 always remained true to its first sympathy with the homely lives of the poor4 ,the woman of the house swore like a carter1 and was always dishevelled and disorderly3 this did not prevent ,rousseau from recognising her kindness of heart and her staunch readiness to befriend4 ,he passed his days in wandering about the streets of ,turin1 seeing the wonders of a capital1 and expecting some adventure that should raise him to unknown heights4 ,he went regularly to mass1 watched the pomp of the court1 and counted upon stirring a passion in the breast of a princess4 more important circumstance was the effect of the mass in awakening in his own breast his latent passion for music2 a passion so strong that the poorest instrument1 if it were only in tune1 never failed to give him the liveliest pleasure4 ,the king of ,sardinia was believed to have the best performers in ,europe2 less than that was enough to quicken the musical susceptibility which is perhaps an invariable element in the most completely sensuous natures4 ,when the end of the twenty francs began to seem a thing possible1 he tried to get work as an engraver4 ,a young woman in a shop took pity on him1 gave him work and food1 and perhaps permitted him to make dumb and grovelling love to her1 until her husband returned home and drove her client away from the door with threats and the waving of a wand not magical4#ca ,rousseau's self-love sought an explanation in the natural fury of an ,italian husband's jealousy2 but we need hardly ask for any other cause than a shopkeeper's reasonable objection to vagabonds4 ,the next step of this youth1 who was always dreaming of the love of princesses1 was to accept with just thankfulness the position of lackey or footboy in the household of a widow4 ,with ,madame de ,vercellis he passed three months1 and at the end of that time she died4 ,his stay here was marked by an incident that has filled many pages with stormful discussion4 ,when ,madame de ,vercellis died1 a piece of old rose-coloured ribbon was missing2 ,rousseau had stolen it1 and it was found in his possession4 ,they asked him whence he had taken it4 ,he replied that it had been given to him by ,marion1 a young and comely maid in the house4 ,in her presence and before the whole household he repeated his false story1 and clung to it with a bitter effrontery that we may well call diabolic1 remembering how the nervous terror of punishment and exposure sinks the angel in man4 ,our phrase1 want of moral courage1 really denotes in the young an excruciating physical struggle1 often so keen that the victim clutches after liberation with the spontaneous tenacity and cruelty of a creature wrecked in mastering waters4 ,undisciplined sensations constitute egoism in the most ruthless of its shapes1 and at this epoch1 owing either to the brutalities which surrounded his apprentice life at ,geneva1 or to that rapid tendency towards degeneration which he suspected in his own character1 ,rousseau was the slave of sensations which stained his days with baseness4 ,never1 he says1 in his account of this hateful action1 was wickedness further from me than at this cruel moment2 and when ,i accused the poor girl1 it is contradictory and yet it is true that my affection for her was the cause of what ,i did4 ,she was present to my mind1 and ,i threw the blame from myself on to the first object that presented itself4 ,when ,i saw her appear my heart was torn1 but the presence of so many people was too strong for my remorse4 ,i feared punishment very little2 ,i only feared disgrace1 but ,i feared that more than death1 more than crime1 more than anything in the world4 ,i would fain have buried myself in the depths of the earth2 invincible shame prevailed over all1 shame alone caused my effrontery1 and the more criminal ,i became1 the more intrepid was ,i made by the fright of confessing it4 ,i could see nothing but the horror of being recognised and declared publicly to my face a thief1 liar1 and traducer4#cb ,when he says that he feared punishment little1 his analysis of his mind is most likely wrong1 for nothing is clearer than that a dread of punishment in any physical form was a peculiarly strong feeling with him at this time4 ,however that may have been1 the same over-excited imagination which put every sense on the alarm and led him into so abominable a misdemeanour1 brought its own penalties4 ,it led him to conceive a long train of ruin as having befallen ,marion in consequence of his calumny against her1 and this dreadful thought haunted him to the end of his life4 ,in the long sleepless nights he thought he saw the unhappy girl coming to reproach him with a crime that seemed as fresh to him as if it had been perpetrated the day before4#cc ,thus the same brooding memory which brought back to him the sweet pain of his gentle kinswoman's household melody1 preserved the darker side of his history with equal fidelity and no less perfect continuousness4 ,rousseau expresses a hope and belief that this burning remorse would serve as expiation for his fault2 as if expiation for the destruction of another soul could be anything but a fine name for self-absolution4 ,we may1 however1 charitably and reasonably think that the possible consequences of his fault to the unfortunate ,marion were not actual1 but were as much a hallucination as the midnight visits of her reproachful spirit4 ,indeed1 we are hardly condoning evil1 in suggesting that the whole story from its beginning is marked with exaggeration1 and that we who have our own lives to lead shall find little help in criticising at further length the exact heinousness of the ignoble falsehood of a boy who happened to grow up into a man of genius4#cd ,after an interval of six weeks1 which were passed in the garret or cellar of his rough patroness with kind heart and ungentle tongue1 ,rousseau again found himself a lackey in the house of a ,piedmontese person of quality4 ,this new master1 the ,count of ,gouvon1 treated him with a certain unusual considerateness1 which may perhaps make us doubt the narrative4 ,his son condescended to teach the youth ,latin1 and ,rousseau presumed to entertain a passion for one of the daughters of the house1 to whom he paid silent homage in the odd shape of attending to her wants at table with special solicitude4 ,in this situation he had1 or at least he supposed that he had1 an excellent chance of ultimate advancement4 ,but advancement here or elsewhere means a measure of stability1 and ,rousseau's temperament in his youth was the archtype of the mutable4 ,an old comrade from ,geneva visited him1#ce and as almost any incident is stimulating enough to fire the restlessness of imaginative youth1 the gratitude which he professed to the ,count of ,gouvon and his family1 the prudence with which he marked his prospects1 the industry with which he profited by opportunity1 all faded quickly into mere dead and disembodied names of virtues4 ,his imagination again went over the journey across the mountains2 the fields1 the woods1 the streams1 began to absorb his whole life4 ,he recalled with delicious satisfaction how charming the journey had seemed to him1 and thought how far more charming it would be in the society of a comrade of his own age and taste1 without duty1 or constraint1 or obligation to go or stay other than as it might please them4 ,it would be madness to sacrifice such a piece of good fortune to projects of ambition1 which were slow1 difficult1 doubtful of execution1 and which1 even if they should one day be realised1 were not with all their glory worth a quarter of an hour of true pleasure and freedom in youth4#cf ,on these high principles he neglected his duties so recklessly that he was dismissed from his situation1 and he and his comrade began their homeward wanderings with more than apostolic heedlessness as to what they should eat or wherewithal they should be clothed4 ,they had a toy fountain2 they hoped that in return for the amusement to be conferred by this wonder they should receive all that they might need4 ,their hopes were not fulfilled4 ,the exhibition of the toy fountain did not excuse them from their reckoning4 ,before long it was accidentally broken1 and to their secret satisfaction1 for it had lost its novelty4 ,their naked1 vagrancy was thus undisguised4 ,they made their way by some means or other across the mountains1 and their enjoyment of vagabondage was undisturbed by any thought of a future4 ,to understand my delirium at this moment1 ,rousseau says1 in words which shed much light on darker parts of his history than fits of vagrancy1 it is necessary to know to what a degree my heart is subject to get aflame with the smallest things1 and with what force it plunges into the imagination of the object that attracts it1 vain as that object may be4 ,the most grotesque1 the most childish1 the maddest schemes come to caress my favourite idea1 and to show me the reasonableness of surrendering myself to it4#cg ,it was this deep internal vehemence which distinguished ,rousseau all through his life from the commonplace type of social revolter4 ,a vagrant sensuous temperament1 strangely compounded with ,genevese austerity2 an ardent and fantastic imagination1 incongruously shot with threads of firm reason2 too little conscience and too much2 a monstrous and diseased love of self1 intertwined with a sincere compassion and keen interest for the great fellowship of his brothers2 a wild dreaming of dreams that were made to look like sanity by the close and specious connection between conclusions and premisses1 though the premisses happened to have the fault of being profoundly unreal3--this was the type of character that lay unfolded in the youth who1 towards the autumn of #agbi1 reached ,annecy1 penniless and ragged1 throwing himself once more on the charity of the patroness who had given him shelter eighteen months before4 ,few figures in the world at that time were less likely to conciliate the favour or excite the interest of an observer1 who had not studied the hidden convolutions of human character deeply enough to know that a boy of eighteen may be sly1 sensual1 restless1 dreamy1 and yet have it in him to say things one day which may help to plunge a world into conflagration4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,here is the line3-- ,didier ,rousseau4 ,jean ----------------------- ,david4 ,noah4 ,isaac 7b4 #afhj-e1 d4 #agde-g74 ,jean ,franois4 -------------- ,,jean ,,jacques4 ,jean4 ,theodore4 7,musset-,pathay1 ii4 #bhc47 #b ,picot's ,hist4 de ,genve1 iii4 #aad4 #c ,conf41 i4 #g4 #d ,lettre ,d',alembert1 p4 #ahg4 ,also ,nouv4 ,hl41 ,,vi4 v4 #bci4 #e ,conf41 i4 #i4 ,also ,second ,letter to ,m4 de ,malesherbes1 p4 #cef4 #f ,rveries1 iv4 p4 #ahi4 ,my master and counsellor1 ,plutarch1 he says1 when he lends a volume to ,madame d',epinay in #agef4 ,corr41 i4 #bfe4 #g ,dedication of the ,discours sur l',origine de l',ingalit1 p4 #bja4 7,june1 #aged47 #h ,conf41 i4 #a4 #i ,ib1 i4 #ab4 #aj ,the tenacity of this grateful recollection is shown in letters to her 7,madame ,gonceru7--one in #aged 7,corr41 i4 #bjd71 another as late as #aggj 7vi4 #abi71 and a third in #agfb 7,oeuvr4 et ,corr4 ,ind41 #cib74 #aa ,conf41 i4 #ag-cb4 #ab ,see also ,conf41 i4 #dc2 iii4 #ahe2 vii4 #gc2 xii4 #ahh1 n4 #b4 #ac ,conf41 i4 #bg-ca4 #ad ,conf41 i4 #ch-dg4 #ae ,lettre ,d',alembert7#ageh71 #agh1 #agi4 #af ,rveries1 iv4 #baa1 #bab4 #ag ,conf4 #bab1 #bac4 #ah ,conf41 ii4 #ajb1 #ajc4 #ai ,m4 ,masseron4 #bj ,m4 ,ducommun4 #ba ,conf41 i4 #fi4 #bb ,conf41 i4 #gb4 #bc ,j4 ,gaberel's ,histoire de l'glise de ,genve 7,geneva1 #ahec-fb71 vol4 iii4 p4 #bhe4 #bd ,there is a minute in the register of the company of ministers1 to the effect that the ,sieur de ,pontverre is attracting many young men from this town1 and changing their religion1 and that the public ought to be warned4 7,gaberel1 iii4 #bbd47 #be ,conf41 ii4 #gf4 #bf ,conf41 ii4 #gg4 #bg ,conf41 ii4 #ij-ig4 #bh ,conf41 ii4 #ajg #bi ,see mile1 iv4 #abd1 #abe1 where the youth who was born a ,calvinist1 finding himself a stranger in a strange land1 without resource1 changed his religion to get bread4 #cj ,in the ,confessions 7ii4 #aae7 he has grace enough to make the period a month2 but the extract from the register of his baptism 7,gaberel's ,hist4 de l'glise de ,genve1 iii4 #bbd71 which has been recently published1 shows that this is untrue3 ,jean ,jacques ,rousseau1 de ,genve 7,calviniste71 entr l'hospice l'ge de #af ans1 le #ab avril1 #agbh4 ,abjura les erreurs de la secte le #ba2 et le #bc du mme mois lui fut administr le saint baptme1 ayant pour parrain le sieur ,andr ,ferrero et pour marraine ,franoise ,christine ,rora 7ou ,rovea74 ,a little further on 7p4 #aai7 he speaks of having been shut up for two months1 but this is not true even on his own showing4 #ca ,madame ,basile4 ,conf41 ii4 #aba-ace4 #cb ,conf4 ii4 ad finem4 #cc ,conf41 ii4 #add4 #cd ,another version of the story mentioned by ,musset-,pathay 7i4 #g7 makes the object of the theft a diamond1 but there is really no evidence in the matter beyond that given by ,rousseau himself4 #ce ,bacle1 by name4 #cf ,conf41 iii4 #afh4 #cg ,conf41 iii4 #agj4 ,a slightly idealised account of the situation is given in mile1 ,bk4 iv4 #abe4 ,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,savoy4 ,the commonplace theory which the world takes for granted as to the relations of the sexes1 makes the woman ever crave the power and guidance of her physically stronger mate4 ,even if this be a true account of the normal state1 there is at any rate a kind of temperament among the many types of men1 in which it seems as if the elements of character remain mere futile and dispersive particles1 until compelled into unity and organisation by the creative shock of feminine influence4 ,there are men1 famous or obscure1 whose lives might be divided into a number of epochs1 each defined and presided over by the influence of a woman4 ,for the inconstant such a calendar contains many divisions1 for the constant it is brief and simple2 for both alike it marks the great decisive phases through which character has moved4 ,rousseau's temperament was deeply marked by this special sort of susceptibility in one of its least agreeable forms4 ,his sentiment was neither robustly and courageously animal1 nor was it an intellectual demand for the bright and vivacious sympathies in which women sometimes excel4 ,it had neither bold virility1 nor that sociable energy which makes close emotional companionship an essential condition of freedom of faculty and completeness of work4 ,there is a certain close and sickly air round all his dealings with women and all his feeling for them4 ,we seem to move not in the star-like radiance of love1 nor even in the fiery flames of lust1 but among the humid heats of some unknown abode of things not wholesome or manly4 ,i know a sentiment1 he writes1 which is perhaps less impetuous than love1 but a thousand times more delicious1 which sometimes is joined to love1 and which is very often apart from it4 ,nor is this sentiment friendship only2 it is more voluptuous1 more tender2 ,i do not believe that any one of the same sex could be its object2 at least ,i have been a friend1 if ever man was1 and ,i never felt this about any of my friends4#ch ,he admits that he can only describe this sentiment by its effects2 but our lives are mostly ruled by elements that defy definition1 and in ,rousseau's case the sentiment which he could not describe was a paramount trait of his mental constitution4 ,it was as a voluptuous garment2 in it his imagination was cherished into activity1 and protected against that outer air of reality which braces ordinary men1 but benumbs and disintegrates the whole vital apparatus of such an organisation as ,rousseau's4 ,if he had been devoid of this feeling about women1 his character might very possibly have remained sterile4 ,that feeling was the complementary contribution1 without which could be no fecundity4 ,when he returned from his squalid ,italian expedition in search of bread and a new religion1 his mind was clouded with the vague desire1 the sensual moodiness1 which in such natures stains the threshold of manhood4 ,this unrest1 with its mysterious torments and black delights1 was banished1 or at least soothed into a happier humour1 by the influence of a person who is one of the most striking types to be found in the gallery of fair women4 ,i4 ,a ,french writer in the eighteenth century1 in a story which deals with a rather repulsive theme of action in a tone that is graceful1 simple1 and pathetic1 painted the portrait of a creature for whom no moralist with a reputation to lose can say a word2 and we may1 if we choose1 fool ourselves by supposing her to be without a counterpart in the better-regulated world of real life1 but1 in spite of both these objections1 she is an interesting and not untouching figure to those who like to know all the many-webbed stuff out of which their brothers and sisters are made4 ,the ,manon ,lescaut of the unfortunate ,abb ,prevost1 kindly1 bright1 playful1 tender1 but devoid of the very germ of the idea of that virtue which is counted the sovereign recommendation of woman1 helps us to understand ,madame de ,warens4 ,there are differences enough between them1 and we need not mistake them for one and the same type4 ,manon ,lescaut is a prettier figure1 because romance has fewer limitations than real life2 but if we think of her in reading of ,rousseau's benefactress1 the vision of the imaginary woman tends to soften our judgment of the actual one1 as well as to enlighten our conception of a character that eludes the instruments of a commonplace analysis4#ci ,she was born at ,vevai in #agjj2 she married early1 and early disagreed with her husband1 from whom she eventually went away1 abandoning family1 religion1 country1 and means of subsistence1 with all gaiety of heart4 ,the ,king of ,sardinia happened to be keeping his court at a small town on the southern shores of the lake of ,geneva1 and the conversion of ,madame de ,warens to ,catholicism by the preaching of the ,bishop of ,annecy1#dj gave a zest to the royal visit1 as being a successful piece of sport in that great spiritual hunt which ,savoy loved to pursue at the expense of the reformed church in ,switzerland4 ,the king1 to mark his zeal for the faith of his house1 conferred on the new convert a small pension for life2 but as the tongues of the scandalous imputed a less pure motive for such generosity in a parsimonious prince1 ,madame de ,warens removed from the court and settled at ,annecy4 ,her conversion was hardly more serious than ,rousseau's own1 because seriousness was no condition of her intelligence on any of its sides or in any of its relations4 ,she was extremely charitable to the poor1 full of pity for all in misfortune1 easily moved to forgiveness of wrong or ingratitude2 careless1 gay1 open-hearted2 having1 in a word1 all the good qualities which spring in certain generous soils from human impulse1 and hardly any of those which spring from reflection1 or are implanted by the ordering of society4 ,her reason had been warped in her youth by an instructor of the devil's stamp2#da finding her attached to her husband and to her duties1 always cold1 argumentative1 and impregnable on the side of the senses1 he attacked her by sophisms1 and at last persuaded her that the union of the sexes is in itself a matter of the most perfect indifference1 provided only that decorum of appearance be preserved1 and the peace of mind of persons concerned be not disturbed4#db ,this execrable lesson1 which greater and more unselfish men held and propagated in grave books before the end of the century1 took root in her mind4 ,if we accept ,rousseau's explanation1 it did so the more easily as her temperament was cold1 and thus corroborated the idea of the indifference of what public opinion and private passion usually concur in investing with such enormous weightiness4 ,i will even dare to say1 ,rousseau declares1 that she only knew one true pleasure in the world1 and that was to give pleasure to those whom she loved4#dc ,he is at great pains to protest how compatible this coolness of temperament is with excessive sensibility of character2 and neither ethological theory nor practical observation of men and women is at all hostile to what he is so anxious to prove4 ,the cardinal element of character is the speed at which its energies move2 its rapidity or its steadiness1 concentration or volatility2 whether the thought and feeling travel as quickly as light or as slowly as sound4 ,a rapid and volatile constitution like that of ,madame de ,warens is inconsistent with ardent and glowing warmth1 which belongs to the other sort1 but it is essentially bound up with sensibility1 or readiness of sympathetic answer to every cry from another soul4 ,it is the slow1 brooding1 smouldering nature1 like ,rousseau's own1 in which we may expect to find the tropics4 ,to bring the heavy artillery of moral reprobation to bear upon a poor soul like ,madame de ,warens is as if one should denounce flagrant want of moral purpose in the busy movements of ephemera4 ,her activity was incessant1 but it ended in nothing better than debt1 embarrassment1 and confusion4 ,she inherited from her father a taste for alchemy1 and spent much time in search after secret elixirs and the like4 ,quacks1 taking advantage of her weakness1 made themselves her master1 constantly infested her1 ruined her1 and wasted1 in the midst of furnaces and chemicals1 intelligence1 talents1 and charms which would have made her the delight of the best societies4#dd ,perhaps1 however1 the too notorious vagrancy of her amours had at least as much to do with her failure to delight the best societies as her indiscreet passion for alchemy4 ,her person was attractive enough4 ,she had those points of beauty1 says ,rousseau1 which are desirable1 because they reside rather in expression than in feature4 ,she had a tender and caressing air1 a soft eye1 a divine smile1 light hair of uncommon beauty4 ,you could not see a finer head or bosom1 finer arms or hands4#de ,she was full of tricks and whimsies4 ,she could not endure the first smell of the soup and meats at dinner2 when they were placed on the table she nearly swooned1 and her disgust lasted some time1 until at the end of half an hour or so she took her first morsel4#df ,on the whole1 if we accept the current standard of sanity1 ,madame de ,warens must be pronounced ever so little flighty2 but a monotonous world can afford to be lenient to people with a slight craziness1 if it only has hearty benevolence and cheerfulness in its company1 and is free from egoism or rapacious vanity4 ,this was the person within the sphere of whose attraction ,rousseau was decisively brought in the autumn of #agbi1 and he remained1 with certain breaks of vagabondage1 linked by a close attachment to her until #agch4 ,it was in many respects the truly formative portion of his life4 ,he acquired during this time much of his knowledge of books1 such as it was1 and his principles of judging them4 ,he saw much of the lives of the poor and of the world's ways with them4 ,above all his ideal was revolutionised1 and the recent dreams of ,plutarchian heroism1 of grandeur1 of palaces1 princesses1 and a glorious career full in the world's eye1 were replaced by a new conception of blessedness of life1 which never afterwards faded from his vision1 and which has held a front place in the imagination of literary ,europe ever since4 ,the notions or aspirations which he had picked up from a few books gave way to notions and aspirations which were shaped and fostered by the scenes of actual life into which he was thrown1 and which found his character soft for their impression4 ,in one way the new pictures of a future were as dissociated from the conditions of reality as the old had been1 and the sensuous life of the happy valley in ,savoy as little fitted a man to compose ideals for our gnarled and knotted world as the mental life among the heroics of sentimental fiction had done4 ,rousseau's delight in the spot where ,madame de ,warens lived at ,annecy was the mark of the new ideal which circumstances were to engender in him1 and after him to spread in many hearts4 ,his room looked over gardens and a stream1 and beyond them stretched a far landscape4 ,it was the first time since leaving ,bossey that ,i had green before my windows4 ,always shut in by walls1 ,i had nothing under my eye but house-tops and the dull gray of the streets4 ,how moving and delicious this novelty was to me6 ,it brightened all the tenderness of my disposition4 ,i counted the landscape among the kindnesses of my dear benefactress2 it seemed as if she had brought it there expressly for me4 ,i placed myself there in all peacefulness with her2 she was present to me everywhere among the flowers and the verdure2 her charms and those of spring were all mingled together in my eyes4 ,my heart1 which had hitherto been stifled1 found itself more free in this ample space1 and my sighs had more liberal vent among these orchard gardens4#dg ,madame de ,warens was the semi-divine figure who made the scene live1 and gave it perfect and harmonious accent4 ,he had neither transports nor desires by her side1 but existed in a state of ravishing calm1 enjoying without knowing what4 ,i could have passed my whole life and eternity itself in this way1 without an instant of weariness4 ,she is the only person with whom ,i never felt that dryness in conversation1 which turns the duty of keeping it up into a torment4 ,our intercourse was not so much conversation as an inexhaustible stream of chatter1 which never came to an end until it was interrupted from without4 ,i only felt all the force of my attachment for her when she was out of my sight4 ,so long as ,i could see her ,i was merely happy and satisfied1 but my disquiet in her absence went so far as to be painful4 ,i shall never forget how one holiday1 while she was at vespers1 ,i went for a walk outside the town1 my heart full of her image and of an eager desire to pass all my days by her side4 ,i had sense enough to see that for the present this was impossible1 and that the bliss which ,i relished so keenly must be brief4 ,this gave to my musing a sadness which was free from everything sombre1 and which was moderated by pleasing hope4 ,the sound of the bells1 which has always moved me to a singular degree1 the singing of the birds1 the glory of the weather1 the sweetness of the landscape1 the scattered rustic dwellings in which my imagination placed our common home2--all this so struck me with a vivid1 tender1 sad1 and touching impression that ,i saw myself as in an ecstasy transported into the happy time and the happy place where my heart1 possessed of all the felicity that could bring it delight1 without even dreaming of the pleasures of sense1 should share joys inexpressible4#dh ,there was still1 however1 a space to be bridged between the doubtful now and this delicious future4 ,the harshness of circumstance is ever interposing with a money question1 and for a vagrant of eighteen the first of all problems is a problem of economics4 ,rousseau was submitted to the observation of a kinsman of ,madame de ,warens1#di and his verdict corresponded with that of the notary of ,geneva1 with whom years before ,rousseau had first tried the critical art of making a living4 ,he pronounced that in spite of an animated expression1 the lad was1 if not thoroughly inept1 at least of very slender intelligence1 without ideas1 almost without attainments1 very narrow indeed in all respects1 and that the honour of one day becoming a village priest was the highest piece of fortune to which he had any right to aspire4#ej ,so he was sent to the seminary1 to learn ,latin enough for the priestly offices4 ,he began by conceiving a deadly antipathy to his instructor1 whose appearance happened to be displeasing to him4 ,a second was found1#ea and the patient and obliging temper1 the affectionate and sympathetic manner of his new teacher made a great impression on the pupil1 though the progress in intellectual acquirement was as unsatisfactory in one case as in the other4 ,it is characteristic of that subtle impressionableness to physical comeliness1 which in ordinary natures is rapidly effaced by press of more urgent considerations1 but which ,rousseau's strongly sensuous quality retained1 that he should have remembered1 and thought worth mentioning years afterwards1 that the first of his two teachers at the seminary of ,annecy had greasy black hair1 a complexion as of gingerbread1 and bristles in place of beard1 while the second had the most touching expression he ever saw in his life1 with fair hair and large blue eyes1 and a glance and a tone which made you feel that he was one of the band predestined from their birth to unhappy days4 ,while at ,turin1 ,rousseau had made the acquaintance of another sage and benevolent priest1#eb and uniting the two good men thirty years after he conceived and drew the character of the ,savoyard ,vicar4#ec ,shortly the seminarists reported that1 though not vicious1 their pupil was not even good enough for a priest1 so deficient was he in intellectual faculty4 ,it was next decided to try music1 and ,rousseau ascended for a brief space into the seventh heaven of the arts4 ,this was one of the intervals of his life of which he says that he recalls not only the times1 places1 persons1 but all the surrounding objects1 the temperature of the air1 its odour1 its colour1 a certain local impression only felt there1 and the memory of which stirs the old transports anew4 ,he never forgot a certain tune1 because one ,advent ,sunday he heard it from his bed being sung before daybreak on the steps of the cathedral2 nor an old lame carpenter who played the counter-bass1 nor a fair little abb who played the violin in the choir4#ed ,yet he was in so dreamy1 absent1 and distracted a state1 that neither his good-will nor his assiduity availed1 and he could learn nothing1 not even music4 ,his teacher1 one ,le ,mitre1 belonged to that great class of irregular and disorderly natures with which ,rousseau's destiny1 in the shape of an irregular and disorderly temperament of his own1 so constantly brought him into contact4 ,le ,mitre could not work without the inspiration of the wine cup1 and thus his passion for his art landed him a sot4 ,he took offence at a slight put upon him by the precentor of the cathedral of which he was choir-master1 and left ,annecy in a furtive manner along with ,rousseau1 whom the too comprehensive solicitude of ,madame de ,warens despatched to bear him company4 ,they went together as far as ,lyons2 here the unfortunate musician happened to fall into an epileptic fit in the street4 ,rousseau called for help1 informed the crowd of the poor man's hotel1 and then seizing a moment when no one was thinking about him1 turned the street corner and finally disappeared1 the musician being thus abandoned by the only friend on whom he had a right to count4#ee ,it thus appears that a man maybe exquisitely moved by the sound of bells1 the song of birds1 the fairness of smiling gardens1 and yet be capable all the time without a qualm of misgiving of leaving a friend senseless in the road in a strange place4 ,it has ceased to be wonderful how many ugly and cruel actions are done by people with an extraordinary sense of the beauty and beneficence of nature4 ,at the moment ,rousseau only thought of getting back to ,annecy and ,madame de ,warens4 ,it is not1 he says in words of profound warning1 which many men have verified in those two or three hours before the tardy dawn that swell into huge purgatorial ons1--it is not when we have just done a bad action1 that it torments us2 it is when we recall it long after1 for the memory of it can never be thrust out4#ef ,,ii4 ,when he made his way homewards again1 he found to his surprise and dismay that his benefactress had left ,annecy1 and had gone for an indefinite time to ,paris4 ,he never knew the secret of this sudden departure1 for no man1 he says1 was ever so little curious as to the private affairs of his friends4 ,his heart1 completely occupied with the present1 filled its whole capacity and entire space with that1 and except for past pleasures no empty corner was ever left for what was done with4#eg ,he says he was too young to take the desertion deeply to heart4 ,where he found subsistence we do not know4 ,he was fascinated by a flashy ,french adventurer1#eh in whose company he wasted many hours1 and the precious stuff of youthful opportunity4 ,he passed a summer day in joyful rustic fashion with two damsels whom he hardly ever saw again1 but the memory of whom and of the holiday that they had made with him remained stamped in his brain1 to be reproduced many a year hence in some of the traits of the new ,helosa and her friend ,claire4#ei ,then he accepted an invitation from a former waiting-woman of ,madame de ,warens to attend her home to ,freiburg4 ,on this expedition he paid an hour's visit to his father1 who had settled and remarried at ,nyon4 ,returning from ,freiburg1 he came to ,lausanne1 where1 with an audacity that might be taken for the first presage of mental disturbance1 he undertook to teach music4 ,i have already1 he says1 noted some moments of inconceivable delirium1 in which ,i ceased to be myself4 ,behold me now a teacher of singing1 without knowing how to decipher an air4 ,without the least knowledge of composition1 ,i boasted of my skill in it before all the world2 and without ability to score the slenderest vaudeville1 ,i gave myself out for a composer4 ,having been presented to ,m4 de ,treytorens1 a professor of law1 who loved music and gave concerts at his house1 ,i insisted on giving him a specimen of my talent1 and ,i set to work to compose a piece for his concert with as much effrontery as if ,i knew all about it4 ,the performance came off duly1 and the strange impostor conducted it with as much gravity as the profoundest master4 ,never since the beginning of opera has the like charivari greeted the ears of men4#fj ,such an opening was fatal to all chance of scholars1 but the friendly tavern-keeper who had first taken him in did not lack either hope or charity4 ,how is it1 ,rousseau cried1 many years after this1 that having found so many good people in my youth1 ,i find so few in my advanced life8 ,is their stock exhausted8 ,no2 but the class in which ,i have to seek them now is not the same as that in which ,i found them then4 ,among the common people1 where great passions only speak at intervals1 the sentiments of nature make themselves heard oftener4 ,in the higher ranks they are absolutely stifled1 and under the mask of sentiment it is only interest or vanity that speaks4#fa ,from ,lausanne he went to ,neuchtel1 where he had more success1 for1 teaching others1 he began himself to learn4 ,but no success was marked enough to make him resist a vagrant chance4 ,one day in his rambles falling in with an archimandrite of the ,greek church1 who was traversing ,europe in search of subscriptions for the restoration of the ,holy ,sepulchre1 he at once attached himself to him in the capacity of interpreter4 ,in this position he remained for a few weeks1 until the ,french minister at ,soleure took him away from the ,greek monk1 and despatched him to ,paris to be the attendant of a young officer4#fb ,a few days in the famous city1 which he now saw for the first time1 and which disappointed his expectations just as the sea and all other wonders disappointed them1#fc convinced him that here was not what he sought1 and he again turned his face southwards in search of ,madame de ,warens and more familiar lands4 ,the interval thus passed in roaming over the eastern face of ,france1 and which we may date in the summer of #agcb1fd was always counted by ,rousseau among the happy epochs of his life1 though the weeks may seem grievously wasted to a generation which is apt to limit its ideas of redeeming the time to the two pursuits of reading books or making money4 ,he travelled alone and on foot from ,soleure to ,paris and from ,paris back again to ,lyons1 and this was part of the training which served him in the stead of books4 ,scarcely any great writer since the revival of letters has been so little literary as ,rousseau1 so little indebted to literature for the most characteristic part of his work4 ,he was formed by life2 not by life in the sense of contact with a great number of active and important persons1 or with a great number of persons of any kind1 but in the rarer sense of free surrender to the plenitude of his own impressions4 ,a world composed of such people1 all dispensing with the inherited portion of human experience1 and living independently on their own stock1 would rapidly fall backwards into dissolution4 ,but there is no more rash idea of the right composition of a society than one which leads us to denounce a type of character for no better reason than that1 if it were universal1 society would go to pieces4 ,there is very little danger of ,rousseau's type becoming common1 unless lunar or other great physical influences arise to work a vast change in the cerebral constitution of the species4 ,we may safely trust the prodigious vis inertioe of human nature to ward off the peril of an eccentricity beyond bounds spreading too far4 ,at present1 however1 it is enough1 without going into the general question1 to notice the particular fact that while the other great exponents of the eighteenth century movement1 ,hume1 ,voltaire1 ,diderot1 were nourishing their natural strength of understanding by the study and practice of literature1 ,rousseau1 the leader of the reaction against that movement1 was wandering a beggar and an outcast1 craving the rude fare of the peasant's hut1 knocking at roadside inns1 and passing nights in caves and holes in the fields1 or in the great desolate streets of towns4 ,if such a life had been disagreeable to him1 it would have lost all the significance that it now has for us4 ,but where others would have found affliction1 he had consolation1 and where they would have lain desperate and squalid1 he marched elate and ready to strike the stars4 ,never1 he says1 did ,i think so much1 exist so much1 be myself so much1 as in the journeys that ,i have made alone and on foot4 ,walking has something about it which animates and enlivens my ideas4 ,i can hardly think while ,i am still2 my body must be in motion1 to move my mind4 ,the sight of the country1 the succession of agreeable views1 open air1 good appetite1 the freedom of the alehouse1 the absence of everything that could make me feel dependence1 or recall me to my situation--all this sets my soul free1 gives me a greater boldness of thought4 ,i dispose of all nature as its sovereign lord2 my heart1 wandering from object to object1 mingles and is one with the things that soothe it1 wraps itself up in charming images1 and is intoxicated by delicious sentiment4 ,ideas come as they please1 not as ,i please3 they do not come at all1 or they come in a crowd1 overwhelming me with their number and their force4 ,when ,i came to a place ,i only thought of eating1 and when ,i left it ,i only thought of walking4 ,i felt that a new paradise awaited me at the door1 and ,i thought of nothing but of hastening in search of it4#fe ,here again is a picture of one whom vagrancy assuredly did not degrade3--,i had not the least care for the future1 and ,i awaited the answer as to the return of ,madame de ,warens to ,savoy1 lying out in the open air1 sleeping stretched out on the ground or on some wooden bench1 as tranquilly as on a bed of roses4 ,i remember passing one delicious night outside the town ,lyons1 in a road which ran by the side of either the ,rhone or the ,sane1 ,i forget which of the two4 ,gardens raised on a terrace bordered the other side of the road4 ,it had been very hot all day1 and the evening was delightful2 the dew moistened the parched grass1 the night was profoundly still1 the air fresh without being cold2 the sun in going down had left red vapours in the heaven1 and they turned the water to rose colour2 the trees on the terrace sheltered nightingales1 answering song for song4 ,i went on in a sort of ecstasy1 surrendering my heart and every sense to the enjoyment of it all1 and only sighing for regret that ,i was enjoying it alone4 ,absorbed in the sweetness of my musing1 ,i prolonged my ramble far into the night1 without ever perceiving that ,i was tired4 ,at last ,i found it out4 ,i lay down luxuriously on the shelf of a niche or false doorway made in the wall of the terrace2 the canopy of my bed was formed by overarching tree-tops2 a nightingale was perched exactly over my head1 and ,i fell asleep to his singing4 ,my slumber was delicious1 my awaking more delicious still4 ,it was broad day1 and my opening eyes looked on sun and water and green things1 and an adorable landscape4 ,i rose up and gave myself a shake2 ,i felt hungry and started gaily for the town1 resolved to spend on a good breakfast the two pieces of money which ,i still had left4 ,i was in such joyful spirits that ,i went along the road singing lustily4#ff ,there is in this the free expansion of inner sympathy2 the natural sentiment spontaneously responding to all the delicious movement of the external world on its peaceful and harmonious side1 just as if the world of many-hued social circumstance which man has made for himself had no existence4 ,we are conscious of a full nervous elation which is not the product of literature1 such as we have seen so many a time since1 and which only found its expression in literature in ,rousseau's case by accident4 ,he did not feel in order to write1 but felt without any thought of writing4 ,he dreamed at this time of many lofty destinies1 among them that of marshal of ,france1 but the fame of authorship never entered into his dreams4 ,when the time for authorship actually came1 his work had all the benefit of the absence of self-consciousness1 it had all the disinterestedness1 so to say1 with which the first fresh impressions were suffered to rise in his mind4 ,one other picture of this time is worth remembering1 as showing that ,rousseau was not wholly blind to social circumstances1 and as illustrating1 too1 how it was that his way of dealing with them was so much more real and passionate1 though so much less sagacious in some of its aspects1 than the way of the other revolutionists of the century4 ,one day1 when he had lost himself in wandering in search of some site which he expected to find beautiful1 he entered the house of a peasant1 half dead with hunger and thirst4 ,his entertainer offered him nothing more restoring than coarse barley bread and skimmed milk4 ,presently1 after seeing what manner of guest he had1 the worthy man descended by a small trap into his cellar1 and brought up some good brown bread1 some meat1 and a bottle of wine1 and an omelette was added afterwards4 ,then he explained to the wondering ,rousseau1 who was a ,swiss1 and knew none of the mysteries of the ,french fisc1 that he hid away his wine on account of the duties1 and his bread on account of the taille1 and declared that he would be a ruined man if they suspected that he was not dying of hunger4 ,all this made an impression on ,rousseau which he never forgot4 ,here1 he says1 was the germ of the inextinguishable hatred which afterwards grew up in my heart against the vexations that harass the common people1 and against all their oppressors4 ,this man actually did not dare to eat the bread which he had won by the sweat of his brow1 and only avoided ruin by showing the same misery as reigned around him4#fg ,it was because he had thus seen the wrongs of the poor1 not from without but from within1 not as a pitying spectator but as of their own company1 that ,rousseau by and by brought such fire to the attack upon the old order1 and changed the blank practice of the elder philosophers into a deadly affair of ball and shell4 ,the man who had been a servant1 who had wanted bread1 who knew the horrors of the midnight street1 who had slept in dens1 who had been befriended by rough men and rougher women1 who saw the goodness of humanity under its coarsest outside1 and who above all never tried to shut these things out from his memory1 but accepted them as the most interesting1 the most touching1 the most real of all his experiences1 might well be expected to penetrate to the root of the matter1 and to protest to the few who usurp literature and policy with their ideas1 aspirations1 interests1 that it is not they but the many1 whose existence stirs the heart and fills the eye with the great prime elements of the human lot4 ,,iii4 ,it was1 then1 some time towards the middle of #agcb that ,rousseau arrived at ,chambri1 and finally took up his residence with ,madame de ,warens1 in the dullest and most sombre room of a dull and sombre house4 ,she had procured him employment in connection with a land survey which the government of ,charles ,emmanuel ,,iii4 was then executing4 ,it was only temporary1 and ,rousseau's function was no loftier than that of clerk1 who had to copy and reduce arithmetical calculations4 ,we may imagine how little a youth fresh from nights under the summer sky would relish eight hours a day of surly toil in a gloomy office1 with a crowd of dirty and ill-smelling fellow-workers4#fh ,if ,rousseau was ever oppressed by any set of circumstances1 his method was invariable3 he ran away from them4 ,so now he threw up his post1 and again tried to earn a little money by that musical instruction in which he had made so many singular and grotesque endeavours4 ,even here the virtues which make ordinary life a possible thing were not his4 ,he was pleased at his lessons while there1 but he could not bear the idea of being bound to be there1 nor the fixing of an hour4 ,in time this experiment for a subsistence came to the same end as all the others4 ,he next rushed to ,besanon in search of the musical instruction which he wished to give to others1 but his baggage was confiscated at the frontier1 and he had to return4#fi ,finally he abandoned the attempt1 and threw himself loyally upon the narrow resources of ,madame de ,warens1 whom he assisted in some singularly indefinite way in the transaction of her very indefinite and miscellaneous affairs1--if we are here1 as so often1 to give the name of affairs to a very rapid and heedless passage along a shabby road to ruin4 ,the household at this time was on a very remarkable footing4 ,madame de ,warens was at its head1 and ,claude ,anet1 gardener1 butler1 steward1 was her factotum4 ,he was a discreet person1 of severe probity and few words1 firm1 thrifty1 and sage4 ,the too comprehensive principles of his mistress admitted him to the closest intimacy1 and in due time1 when ,madame de ,warens thought of the seductions which ensnare the feet of youth1 ,rousseau was delivered from them in an equivocal way by solicitous application of the same maxims of comprehension4 ,although ,claude ,anet was as young as she was1 he was so mature and so grave1 that he looked upon us as two children worthy of indulgence1 and we both looked upon him as a respectable man1 whose esteem it was our business to conciliate4 ,thus there grew up between us three a companionship1 perhaps without another example like it upon earth4 ,all our wishes1 our cares1 our hearts were in common2 nothing seemed to pass outside our little circle4 ,the habit of living together1 and of living together exclusively1 became so strong that if at our meals one of the three was absent1 or there came a fourth1 all was thrown out2 and in spite of our peculiar relations1 a tte--tte was less sweet than a meeting of all three4#gj ,fate interfered to spoil this striking attempt after a new type of the family1 developed on a duandric base4 ,claude ,anet was seized with illness1 a consequence of excessive fatigue in an ,alpine expedition in search of plants1 and he came to his end4#ga ,in him ,rousseau always believed that he lost the most solid friend he ever possessed1 a rare and estimable man1 in whom nature served instead of education1 and who nourished in obscure servitude all the virtues of great men4#gb ,the day after his death1 ,rousseau was speaking of their lost friend to ,madame de ,warens with the liveliest and most sincere affliction1 when suddenly in the midst of the conversation he remembered that he should inherit the poor man's clothes1 and particularly a handsome black coat4 ,a reproachful tear from his ,maman1 as he always somewhat nauseously called ,madame de ,warens1 extinguished the vile thought and washed away its last traces4#gc ,after all1 those men and women are exceptionally happy1 who have no such involuntary meanness of thought standing against themselves in that unwritten chapter of their lives which even the most candid persons keep privately locked up in shamefast recollection4 ,shortly after his return to ,chambri1 a wave from the great tide of ,european affairs surged into the quiet valleys of ,savoy4 ,in the ,february of #agcc1 ,augustus the ,strong died1 and the usual disorder followed in the choice of a successor to him in the kingship of ,poland4 ,france was for ,stanislaus1 the father-in-law of ,lewis ,,xv41 while the ,emperor ,charles ,,vi4 and ,anne of ,russia were for ,august ,,iii41 elector of ,saxony4 ,stanislaus was compelled to flee1 and the ,french ,government1 taking up his quarrel1 declared war against the ,emperor 7,october #ad1 #agcc74 ,the first act of this war1 which was to end in the acquisition of ,naples and the two ,sicilies by ,spanish ,bourbons1 and of ,lorraine by ,france1 was the despatch of a ,french expedition to the ,milanese under ,marshall ,villars1 the husband of one of ,voltaire's first idols4 ,this took place in the autumn of #agcc1 and a ,french column passed through ,chambri1 exciting lively interest in all minds1 including ,rousseau's4 ,he now read the newspapers for the first time1 with the most eager sympathy for the country with whose history his own name was destined to be so permanently associated4 ,if this mad passion1 he says1 had only been momentary1 ,i should not speak of it2 but for no visible reason it took such root in my heart1 that when ,i afterwards at ,paris played the stern republican1 ,i could not help feeling in spite of myself a secret predilection for the very nation that ,i found so servile1 and the government ,i made bold to assail4#gd ,this fondness for ,france was strong1 constant1 and invincible1 and found what was in the eighteenth century a natural complement in a corresponding dislike of ,england4#ge ,rousseau's health began to show signs of weakness4 ,his breath became asthmatic1 he had palpitations1 he spat blood1 and suffered from a slow feverishness from which he never afterwards became entirely free4#gf ,his mind was as feverish as his body1 and the morbid broodings which active life reduces to their lowest degree in most young men1 were left to make full havoc along with the seven devils of idleness and vacuity4 ,an instinct which may flow from the unrecognised animal lying deep down in us all1 suggested the way of return to wholesomeness4 ,rousseau prevailed upon ,madame de ,warens to leave the stifling streets for the fresh fields1 and to deliver herself by retreat to rural solitude from the adventurers who made her their prey4 ,les ,charmettes1 the modest farm-house to which they retired1 still stands4 ,the modern traveller1 with a taste for relieving an imagination strained by great historic monuments and secular landmarks1 with the sight of spots associated with the passion and meditation of some far-shining teacher of men1 may walk a short league from where the gray slate roofs of dull ,chambri bake in the sun1 and ascending a gently mounting road1 with high leafy bank on the right throwing cool shadows over his head1 and a stream on the left making music at his feet1 he sees an old red housetop lifted lonely above the trees4 ,the homes in which men have lived now and again lend themselves to the beholder's subjective impression2 they seemed to be brooding in forlorn isolation like some life-wearied gray-beard over ancient and sorrow-stricken memories4 ,at ,les ,charmettes a pitiful melancholy penetrates you4 ,the supreme loveliness of the scene1 the sweet-smelling meadows1 the orchard1 the water-ways1 the little vineyard with here and there a rose glowing crimson among the yellow stunted vines1 the rust-red crag of the ,nivolet rising against the sky far across the broad valley2 the contrast between all this peace1 beauty1 silence1 and the diseased miserable life of the famous man who found a scanty span of paradise in the midst of it1 touches the soul with a pathetic spell4 ,we are for the moment lifted out of squalor1 vagrancy1 and disorder1 and seem to hear some of the harmonies which sounded to this perturbed spirit1 soothing it1 exalting it1 and stirring those inmost vibrations which in truth make up all the short divine part of a man's life4#gg ,no day passes1 he wrote in the very year in which he died1 in which ,i do not recall with joy and tender effusion this single and brief time in my life1 when ,i was fully myself1 without mixture or hindrance1 and when ,i may say in a true sense that ,i lived4 ,i may almost say1 like the prefect when disgraced and proceeding to end his days tranquilly in the country1 ',i have passed seventy years on the earth1 and ,i have lived but seven of them4' ,but for this brief and precious space1 ,i should perhaps have remained uncertain about myself2 for during all the rest of my life ,i have been so agitated1 tossed1 plucked hither and thither by the passions of others1 that1 being nearly passive in a life so stormy1 ,i should find it hard to distinguish what belonged to me in my own conduct1--to such a degree has harsh necessity weighed upon me4 ,but during these few years ,i did what ,i wished to do1 ,i was what ,i wished to be4#gh ,the secret of such rare felicity is hardly to be described in words4 ,it was the ease of a profoundly sensuous nature with every sense gratified and fascinated4 ,caressing and undivided affection within doors1 all the sweetness and movement of nature without1 solitude1 freedom1 and the busy idleness of life in gardens1--these were the conditions of ,rousseau's ideal state4 ,if my happiness1 he says1 in language of strange felicity1 consisted in facts1 actions1 or words1 ,i might then describe and represent it in some way2 but how say what was neither said nor done nor even thought1 but only enjoyed and felt without my being able to point to any other object of my happiness than the very feeling itself8 ,i arose with the sun and ,i was happy2 ,i went out of doors and ,i was happy2 ,i saw ,maman and ,i was happy2 ,i left her and ,i was happy2 ,i went among the woods and hills1 ,i wandered about in the dells1 ,i read1 ,i was idle1 ,i dug in the garden1 ,i gathered fruit1 ,i helped them indoors1 and everywhere happiness followed me4 ,it was not in any given thing1 it was all in myself1 and could never leave me for a single instant4#gi ,this was a true garden of ,eden1 with the serpent in temporary quiescence1 and we may count the man rare since the fall who has found such happiness in such conditions1 and not less blessed than he is rare4 ,the fact that he was one of this chosen company was among the foremost of the circumstances which made ,rousseau seem to so many men in the eighteenth century as a spring of water in a thirsty land4 ,all innocent and amiable things moved him4 ,he used to spend hours together in taming pigeons2 he inspired them with such confidence that they would follow him about1 and allow him to take them wherever he would1 and the moment that he appeared in the garden two or three of them would instantly settle on his arms or his head4 ,the bees1 too1 gradually came to put the same trust in him1 and his whole life was surrounded with gentle companionship4 ,he always began the day with the sun1 walking on the high ridge above the slope on which the house lay1 and going through his form of worship4 ,it did not consist in a vain moving of the lips1 but in a sincere elevation of heart to the author of the tender nature whose beauties lay spread out before my eyes4 ,this act passed rather in wonder and contemplation than in requests2 and ,i always knew that with the dispenser of true blessings1 the best means of obtaining those which are needful for us1 is less to ask than to deserve them4#hj ,these effusions may be taken for the beginning of the deistical reaction in the eighteenth century4 ,while the truly scientific and progressive spirits were occupied in laborious preparation for adding to human knowledge and systematising it1 ,rousseau walked with his head in the clouds among gods1 beneficent authors of nature1 wise dispensers of blessings1 and the like4 ,ah1 madam1 he once said1 sometimes in the privacy of my study1 with my hands pressed tight over my eyes or in the darkness of the night1 ,i am of his opinion that there is no ,god4 ,but look yonder 7pointing with his hand to the sky1 with head erect1 and an inspired glance73 the rising of the sun1 as it scatters the mists that cover the earth and lays bare the wondrous glittering scene of nature1 disperses at the same moment all cloud from my soul4 ,i find my faith again1 and my ,god1 and my belief in him4 ,i admire and adore him1 and ,i prostrate myself in his presence4#ha ,as if that settled the question affirmatively1 any more than the absence of such theistic emotion in many noble spirits settles it negatively4 ,god became the highest known formula for sensuous expansion1 the synthesis of all complacent emotions1 and ,rousseau filled up the measure of his delight by creating and invoking a ,supreme ,being to match with fine scenery and sunny gardens4 ,we shall have a better occasion to mark the attributes of this important conception when we come to ,emilius1 where it was launched in a panoply of resounding phrases upon a ,europe which was grown too strong for ,christian dogma1 and was not yet grown strong enough to rest in a provisional ordering of the results of its own positive knowledge4 ,walking on the terrace at ,les ,charmettes1 you are at the very birth-place of that particular tre ,suprme to whom ,robespierre offered the incense of an official festival4 ,sometimes the reading of a ,jansenist book would make him unhappy by the prominence into which it brought the displeasing idea of hell1 and he used now and then to pass a miserable day in wondering whether this cruel destiny should be his4 ,madame de ,warens1 whose softness of heart inspired her with a theology that ought to have satisfied a seraphic doctor1 had abolished hell1 but she could not dispense with purgatory because she did not know what to do with the souls of the wicked1 being unable either to damn them1 or to instal them among the good until they had been purified into goodness4 ,in truth it must be confessed1 says ,rousseau1 that alike in this world and the other the wicked are extremely embarrassing4#hb ,his own search after knowledge of his fate is well known4 ,one day1 amusing himself in a characteristic manner by throwing stones at trees1 he began to be tormented by fear of the eternal pit4 ,he resolved to test his doom by throwing a stone at a particular tree2 if he hit1 then salvation2 if he missed1 then perdition4 ,with a trembling hand and beating heart he threw2 as he had chosen a large tree and was careful not to place himself too far away1 all was well4#hc ,as a rule1 however1 in spite of the ugly phantoms of theology1 he passed his days in a state of calm4 ,even when illness brought it into his head that he should soon know the future lot by more assured experiment1 he still preserved a tranquillity which he justly qualifies as sensual4 ,in thinking of ,rousseau's peculiar feeling for nature1 which acquired such a decisive place in his character during his life at ,les ,charmettes1 it is to be remembered that it was entirely devoid of that stormy and boisterous quality which has grown up in more modern literature1 out of the violent attempt to press nature in her most awful moods into the service of the great revolt against a social and religious tradition that can no longer be endured4 ,of this revolt ,rousseau was a chief1 and his passion for natural aspects was connected with this attitude1 but he did not seize those of them which the poet of ,manfred1 for example1 forced into an imputed sympathy with his own rebellion4 ,rousseau always loved nature best in her moods of quiescence and serenity1 and in proportion as she lent herself to such moods in men4 ,he liked rivulets better than rivers4 ,he could not bear the sight of the sea2 its infertile bosom and blind restless tumblings filled him with melancholy4 ,the ruins of a park affected him more than the ruins of castles4#hd ,it is true that no plain1 however beautiful1 ever seemed so in his eyes2 he required torrents1 rocks1 dark forests1 mountains1 and precipices4#he ,this does not affect the fact that he never moralised appalling landscape1 as post-revolutionary writers have done1 and that the ,alpine wastes which throw your puniest modern into a rapture1 had no attraction for him4 ,he could steep himself in nature without climbing fifteen thousand feet to find her4 ,in landscape1 as has been said by one with a right to speak1 ,rousseau was truly a great artist1 and you can1 if you are artistic too1 follow him with confidence in his wanderings2 he understood that beauty does not require a great stage1 and that the effect of things lies in harmony4#hf ,the humble heights of the ,jura1 and the lovely points of the valley of ,chambri1 sufficed to give him all the pleasure of which he was capable4 ,in truth a man cannot escape from his time1 and ,rousseau at least belonged to the eighteenth century in being devoid of the capacity for feeling awe1 and the taste for objects inspiring it4 ,nature was a tender friend with softest bosom1 and no sphinx with cruel enigma4 ,he felt neither terror1 nor any sense of the littleness of man1 nor of the mysteriousness of life1 nor of the unseen forces which make us their sport1 as he peered over the precipice and heard the water roaring at the bottom of it2 he only remained for hours enjoying the physical sensation of dizziness with which it turned his brain1 with a break now and again for hurling large stones1 and watching them roll and leap down into the torrent1 with as little reflection and as little articulate emotion as if he had been a child4#hg ,just as it is convenient for purposes of classification to divide a man into body and soul1 even when we believe the soul to be only a function of the body1 so people talk of his intellectual side and his emotional side1 his thinking quality and his feeling quality1 though in fact and at the roots these qualities are not two but one1 with temperament for the common substratum4 ,during this period of his life the whole of ,rousseau's true force went into his feelings1 and at all times feeling predominated over reflection1 with many drawbacks and some advantages of a very critical kind for subsequent generations of men4 ,nearly every one who came into contact with him in the way of testing his capacity for being instructed pronounced him hopeless4 ,he had several excellent opportunities of learning ,latin1 especially at ,turin in the house of ,count ,gouvon1 and in the seminary at ,annecy1 and at ,les ,charmettes he did his best to teach himself1 but without any better result than a very limited power of reading4 ,in learning one rule he forgot the last2 he could never master the most elementary laws of versification2 he learnt and re-learnt twenty times the ,eclogues of ,virgil1 but not a single word remained with him4#hh ,he was absolutely without verbal memory1 and he pronounces himself wholly incapable of learning anything from masters4 ,madame de ,warens tried to have him taught both dancing and fencing2 he could never achieve a minuet1 and after three months of instruction he was as clumsy and helpless with his foil as he had been on the first day4 ,he resolved to become a master at the chessboard2 he shut himself up in his room1 and worked night and day over the books with indescribable efforts which covered many weeks4 ,on proceeding to the caf to manifest his powers1 he found that all the moves and combinations had got mixed up in his head1 he saw nothing but clouds on the board1 and as often as he repeated the experiment he only found himself weaker than before4 ,even in music1 for which he had a genuine passion and at which he worked hard1 he never could acquire any facility at sight1 and he was an inaccurate scorer1 even when only copying the score of others4#hi ,two things nearly incompatible1 he writes in an important passage1 are united in me without my being able to think how2 an extremely ardent temperament1 lively and impetuous passions1 along with ideas that are very slow in coming to birth1 very embarrassed1 and which never arise until after the event4 ,one would say that my heart and my intelligence do not belong to the same individual4444 ,i feel all1 and see nothing2 ,i am carried away1 but ,i am stupid4444 ,this slowness of thinking1 united with such vivacity of feeling1 possesses me not only in conversation1 but when ,i am alone and working4 ,my ideas arrange themselves in my head with incredible difficulty2 they circulate there in a dull way and ferment until they agitate me1 fill me with heat1 and give me palpitations2 in the midst of this stir ,i see nothing clearly1 ,i could not write a single word4 ,insensibly the violent emotion grows still1 the chaos is disentangled1 everything falls into its place1 but very slowly and after long and confused agitation4#ij ,so far from saying that his heart and intelligence belonged to two persons1 we might have been quite sure1 knowing his heart1 that his intelligence must be exactly what he describes its process to have been4 ,the slow-burning ecstasy in which he knew himself at his height and was most conscious of fulness of life1 was incompatible with the rapid and deliberate generation of ideas4 ,the same soft passivity1 the same receptiveness1 which made his emotions like the surface of a lake under sky and breeze1 entered also into the working of his intellectual faculties4 ,but it happens that in this region1 in the attainment of knowledge1 truth1 and definite thoughts1 even receptiveness implies a distinct and active energy1 and hence the very quality of temperament which left him free and eager for sensuous impressions1 seemed to muffle his intelligence in a certain opaque and resisting medium1 of the indefinable kind that interposes between will and action in a dream4 ,his rational part was fatally protected by a non-conducting envelope of sentiment2 this intercepted clear ideas on their passage1 and even cut off the direct and true impress of those objects and their relations1 which are the material of clear ideas4 ,he was no doubt right in his avowal that objects generally made less impression on him than the recollection of them2 that he could see nothing of what was before his eyes1 and had only his intelligence in cases where memories were concerned2 and that of what was said or done in his presence1 he felt and penetrated nothing4#ia ,in other words1 this is to say that his material of thought was not fact but image4 ,when he plunged into reflection1 he did not deal with the objects of reflection at first hand and in themselves1 but only with the reminiscences of objects1 which he had never approached in a spirit of deliberate and systematic observation1 and with those reminiscences1 moreover1 suffused and saturated by the impalpable but most potent essences of a fermenting imagination4 ,instead of urgently seeking truth with the patient energy1 the wariness1 and the conscience1 with the sharpened instruments1 the systematic apparatus1 and the minute feelers and tentacles of the genuine thinker and solid reasoner1 he only floated languidly on a summer tide of sensation1 and captured premiss and conclusion in a succession of swoons4 ,it would be a mistake to contend that no work can be done for the world by this method1 or that truth only comes to those who chase her with logical forceps4 ,but one should always try to discover how a teacher of men came by his ideas1 whether by careful toil1 or by the easy bequest of generous phantasy4 ,to give a zest to rural delight1 and partly perhaps to satisfy the intellectual interest which must have been an instinct in one who became so consummate a master in the great and noble art of composition1 ,rousseau1 during the time when he lived with ,madame de ,warens1 tried as well as he knew how to acquire a little knowledge of what fruit the cultivation of the mind of man had hitherto brought forth4 ,according to his own account1 it was ,voltaire's ,letters on the ,english which first drew him seriously to study1 and nothing which that illustrious man wrote at this time escaped him4 ,his taste for ,voltaire inspired him with the desire of writing with elegance1 and of imitating the fine and enchanting colour of ,voltaire's style#ib--;an object in which he cannot be held to have in the least succeeded1 though he achieved a superb style of his own4 ,on his return from ,turin ,madame de ,warens had begun in some small way to cultivate a taste for letters in him1 though he had lost the enthusiasm of his childhood for reading4 ,saint ,evremond1 ,puffendorff1 the ,henriade1 and the ,spectator happened to be in his room1 and he turned over their pages4 ,the ,spectator1 he says1 pleased him greatly and did him much good4#ic ,madame de ,warens was what he calls protestant in literary taste1 and would talk for ever of the great ,bayle1 while she thought more of ,saint ,evremond than she could ever persuade ,rousseau to think4 ,two or three years later than this he began to use his own mind more freely1 and opened his eyes for the first time to the greatest question that ever dawns upon any human intelligence that has the privilege of discerning it1 the problem of a philosophy and a body of doctrine4 ,his way of answering it did not promise the best results4 ,he read an introduction to the ,sciences1 then he took an ,encyclopdia and tried to learn all things together1 until he repented and resolved to study subjects apart4 ,this he found a better plan for one to whom long application was so fatiguing1 that he could not with any effect occupy himself for half an hour on any one matter1 especially if following the ideas of another person4#id ,he began his morning's work1 after an hour or two of dispersive chat1 with the ,port-,royal ,logic1 ,locke's ,essay on the ,human ,understanding1 ,malebranche1 ,leibnitz1 ,descartes4#ie ,he found these authors in a condition of such perpetual contradiction among themselves1 that he formed the chimerical design of reconciling them with one another4 ,this was tedious1 so he took up another method1 on which he congratulated himself to the end of his life4 ,it consisted in simply adopting and following the ideas of each author1 without comparing them either with one another or with those of other writers1 and above all without any criticism of his own4 ,let me begin1 he said1 by collecting a store of ideas1 true or false1 but at any rate clear1 until my head is well enough stocked to enable me to compare and choose4 ,at the end of some years passed in never thinking exactly1 except after other people1 without reflecting so to speak1 and almost without reasoning1 he found himself in a state to think for himself4 ,in spite of beginning late to exercise my judicial faculty1 ,i never found that it had lost its vigour1 and when ,i came to publish my own ideas1 ,i was hardly accused of being a servile disciple4#if ,to that fairly credible account of the matter1 one can only say that this mutually exclusive way of learning the thoughts of others1 and developing thoughts of your own1 is for an adult probably the most mischievous1 where it is not the most impotent1 fashion in which intellectual exercise can well be taken4 ,it is exactly the use of the judicial faculty1 criticising1 comparing1 and defining1 which is indispensable in order that a student should not only effectually assimilate the ideas of a writer1 but even know what those ideas come to and how much they are worth4 ,and so when he works at ideas of his own1 a judicial faculty which has been kept studiously slumbering for some years1 is not likely to revive in full strength without any preliminary training4 ,rousseau was a man of singular genius1 and he set an extraordinary mark on ,europe1 but this mark would have been very different if he had ever mastered any one system of thought1 or if he had ever fully grasped what systematic thinking means4 ,instead of this1 his debt to the men whom he read was a debt of piecemeal1 and his obligation an obligation for fragments2 and this is perhaps the worst way of acquiring an intellectual lineage1 for it leaves out the vital continuity of temper and method4 ,it is a small thing to accept this or that of ,locke's notions upon education or the origin of ideas1 if you do not see the merit of his way of coming by his notions4 ,in short1 ,rousseau has distinctions in abundance1 but the distinction of knowing how to think1 in the exact sense of that term1 was hardly among them1 and neither now nor at any other time did he go through any of that toilsome and vigorous intellectual preparation to which the ablest of his contemporaries1 ,diderot1 ,voltaire1 ,d',alembert1 ,turgot1 ,condorcet1 ,hume1 all submitted themselves4 ,his comfortable view was that the sensible and interesting conversations of a woman of merit are more proper to form a young man than all the pedantical philosophy of books4#ig ,style1 however1 in which he ultimately became such a proficient1 and which wrought such marvels as only style backed by passion can work1 already engaged his serious attention4 ,we have already seen how ,voltaire implanted in him the first root idea1 which so many of us never perceive at all1 that there is such a quality of writing as style4 ,he evidently took pains with the form of expression and thought about it1 in obedience to some inborn harmonious predisposition which is the source of all veritable eloquence1 though there is no strong trace now nor for many years to come of any irresistible inclination for literary composition4 ,we find him1 indeed1 in #agcf showing consciousness of a slight skill in writing1#ih but he only thought of it as a possible recommendation for a secretaryship to some great person4 ,he also appears to have practised verses1 not for their own sake1 for he always most justly thought his own verses mediocre1 and they are even worse2 but on the ground that verse-making is a rather good exercise for breaking one's self to elegant inversions1 and learning a greater ease in prose4#ii ,at the age of one and twenty he composed a comedy1 long afterwards damned as ,narcisse4 ,such prelusions1 however1 were of small importance compared with the fact of his being surrounded by a moral atmosphere in which his whole mind was steeped4 ,it is not in the study of ,voltaire or another1 but in the deep soft soil of constant mood and old habit that such a style as ,rousseau's has its growth4 ,it was the custom to return to ,chambri for the winter1 and the day of their departure from ,les ,charmettes was always a day blurred and tearful for ,rousseau2 he never left it without kissing the ground1 the trees1 the flowers2 he had to be torn away from it as from a loved companion4 ,at the first melting of the winter snows they left their dungeon in ,chambri1 and they never missed the earliest song of the nightingale4 ,many a joyful day of summer peace remained vivid in ,rousseau's memory1 and made a mixed heaven and hell for him long years after in the stifling dingy ,paris street1 and the raw and cheerless air of a ,derbyshire winter4#ajj ,we started early in the morning1 he says1 describing one of these simple excursions on the day of ,st4 ,lewis1 who was the very unconscious patron saint of ,madame de ,warens1 together and alone2 ,i proposed that we should go and ramble about the side of the valley opposite to our own1 which we had not yet visited4 ,we sent our provisions on before us1 for we were to be out all day4 ,we went from hill to hill and wood to wood1 sometimes in the sun and often in the shade1 resting from time to time and forgetting ourselves for whole hours2 chatting about ourselves1 our union1 our dear lot1 and offering unheard prayers that it might last4 ,all seemed to conspire for the bliss of this day4 ,rain had fallen a short time before2 there was no dust1 and the little streams were full2 a light fresh breeze stirred the leaves1 the air was pure1 the horizon without a cloud1 and the same serenity reigned in our own hearts4 ,our dinner was cooked in a peasant's cottage1 and we shared it with his family4 ,these ,savoyards are such good souls6 ,after dinner we sought shade under some tall trees1 where1 while ,i collected dry sticks for making our coffee1 ,maman amused herself by botanising among the bushes1 and the expedition ended in transports of tenderness and effusion4#aja ,this is one of such days as the soul turns back to when the misery that stalks after us all has seized it1 and a man is left to the sting and smart of the memory of irrecoverable things4 ,he was resolved to bind himself to ,madame de ,warens with an inalterable fidelity for all the rest of his days2 he would watch over her with all the dutiful and tender vigilance of a son1 and she should be to him something dearer than mother or wife or sister4 ,what actually befell was this4 ,he was attacked by vapours1 which he characterises as the disorder of the happy4 ,one symptom of his disease was the conviction derived from the rash perusal of surgeon's treatises1 that he was suffering from a polypus in the heart4 ,on the not very chivalrous principle that if he did not spend ,madame de ,warens' money1 he was only leaving it for adventurers and knaves1 he proceeded to ,montpellier to consult the physicians1 and took the money for his expenses out of his benefactress's store1 which was always slender because it was always open to any hand4 ,while on the road1 he fell into an intrigue with a travelling companion1 whom critics have compared to the fair ,philina of ,wilhelm ,meister4 ,in due time1 the ,montpellier doctor being unable to discover a disease1 declared that the patient had none4 ,the scenery was dull and unattractive1 and this would have counterbalanced the weightiest prudential reasons with him at any time4 ,rousseau debated whether he should keep tryst with his gay fellow-traveller1 or return to ,chambri4 ,remorse and that intractable emptiness of pocket which is the iron key to many a deed of ingenuous-looking self-denial and ,spartan virtue1 directed him homewards4 ,here he had a surprise1 and perhaps learnt a lesson4 ,he found installed in the house a personage whom he describes as tall1 fair1 noisy1 coxcombical1 flat-faced1 flat-souled4 ,another triple alliance seemed a thing odious in the eyes of a man whom his travelling diversions had made a ,pharisee for the hour4 ,he protested1 but ,madame de ,warens was a woman of principle1 and declined to let ,rousseau1 who had profited by the doctrine of indifference1 now set up in his own favour the contrary doctrine of a narrow and churlish partiality4 ,so a short1 delicious1 and never-forgotten episode came to an end3 this pair who had known so much happiness together were happy together no more1 and the air became peopled for ,rousseau with wan spectres of dead joys and fast gathering cares4 ,the dates of the various events described in the fifth and sixth books of the ,confessions are inextricable1 and the order is evidently inverted more than once4 ,the inversion of order is less serious than the contradictions between the dates of the ,confessions and the more authentic and unmistakable dates of his letters4 ,for instance1 he describes a visit to ,geneva as having been made shortly before ,lautrec's temporary pacification of the civic troubles of that town2 and that event took place in the spring of #agch4 ,this would throw the ,montpellier journey1 which he says came after the visit to ,geneva1 into #agch1 but the letters to ,madame de ,warens from ,grenoble and ,montpellier are dated in the autumn and winter of #agcg4ajb ,minor verifications attest the exactitude of the dates of the letters1#ajc and we may therefore conclude that he returned from ,montpellier1 found his place taken and lost his old delight in ,les ,charmettes1 in the early part of #agch4 ,in the tenth of the ,rveries he speaks of having passed a space of four or five years in the bliss of ,les ,charmettes1 and it is true that his connection with it in one way and another lasted from the middle of #agcf until about the middle of #agda4 ,but as he left for ,montpellier in the autumn of #agcg1 and found the obnoxious ,vinzenried installed in #agch1 the pure and characteristic felicity of ,les ,charmettes perhaps only lasted about a year or a year and a half4 ,but a year may set a deep mark on a man1 and give him imperishable taste of many things bitter and sweet4 ,,footnotes3 #ch ,conf41 iii4 #agg4 #ci ,lamartine in ,raphael defies a reasonable man to recompose with any reality the character that ,rousseau gives to his mistress1 out of the contradictory elements which he associates in her nature4 ,one of these elements excludes the other4 ,it is worth while for any who care for this kind of study to compare ,madame de ,warens with the ,marquise de ,courcelles1 whom ,sainte-,beuve has well called the ,manon ,lescaut of the seventeenth century4 #dj ,described by ,rousseau in a memorandum for the biographer of ,m4 de ,bernex1 printed in ,mlanges1 pp4 #aci-add4 #da ,de ,tavel1 by name4 ,disorderly ideas as to the relations of the sexes began to appear in ,switzerland along with the reformation of religion4 ,in the sixteenth century a woman appeared at ,geneva with the doctrine that it is as inhuman and as unjustifiable to refuse the gratification of this appetite in a man as to decline to give food and drink to the starving4 ,picot's ,hist4 de ,genve1 vol4 ii4 #db ,conf41 v4 #cda4 ,also ii4 #hc2 and vi4 #dja4 #dc ,conf41 v4 #cde4 #dd ,conf41 ii4 #hc4 #de ,ib4 ii4 #hb4 #df ,ib4 iii4 #agi4 ,see also #bjj4 #dg ,conf41 iii4 #agg1 #agh4 #dh ,conf41 iii4 #ahc4 #di ,m4 d',aubonne4 #ej ,conf41 iii #aib4 #ea ,m4 ,gatier4 #eb ,m4 ,gaime4 #ec ,conf41 iii4 #bjd4 #ed ,ib4 iii4 #bji1 #baj4 #ee ,conf41 iii4 #bag-bbb4 #ef ,conf41 iv4 #bbg4 #eg ,ib4 iii4 #bbd4 #eh ,one ,venture de ,villeneuve1 who visited him years afterwards 7#agee7 in ,paris1 when ,rousseau found that the idol of old days was a crapulent debauchee4 ,ib4 viii4 #bba4 #ei ,mdlles4 de ,graffenried and ,galley4 ,conf41 iv4 #bca4 #fj ,ib4 iv4 #bed-bef4 #fa ,conf41 iv4 #bec4 #fb ,while in the ambassador's house at ,soleure1 he was lodged in a room which had once belonged to his namesake1 ,jean ,baptiste ,rousseau 7b4 #afgj--;d4 #agda71 whom the older critics astonishingly insist on counting the first of ,french lyric poets4 ,there was a third ,rousseau1 ,pierre b4 #agbe--;d4 #aghe1 who wrote plays and did other work now well forgotten4 ,there are some lines imperfectly commemorative of the trio-- ,trois auteurs que ,rousseau l'on nomme1 ,connus de ,paris jusqu' ,rome1 ,sont diffrens2 voici par o2 ,rousseau de ,paris fut grand homme2 ,rousseau de ,genve est un fou2 ,rousseau de ,toulouse un atome4 ,jean ,jacques refers to both his namesakes in his letter to ,voltaire1 ,jan4 #cj1 #agej4 ,corr41 i4 #ade4 #fc ,the only object which ever surpassed his expectation was the great ,roman structure near ,nismes1 the ,pont du ,gard4 ,conf41 vi4 #ddf4 #fd ,rousseau gives #agcb as the probable date of his return to ,chambri1 after his first visit to ,paris ,conf41 v4 #cje1 and the only objection to this is his mention of the incident of the march of the ,french troops1 which could not have happened until the winter of #agcc1 as having taken place some months after his arrival4 ,musset-,pathay accepts this as decisive1 and fixes the return in the spring of #agcc i4 #ab4 ,my own conjectural chronology is this3 ,returns from ,turin towards the autumn of #agbi2 stays at ,annecy until the spring of #agca2 passes the winter of #agca-b at ,neuchtel2 first visits ,paris in spring of #agcb2 returns to ,savoy in the early summer of #agcb4 ,but a precise harmonising of the dates in the ,confessions is impossible2 ,rousseau wrote them three and thirty years after our present point in #agff at ,wootton1 and never claimed to be exact in minuteness of date4 ,fortunately such matters in the present case are absolutely devoid of importance4 #fe ,conf41 iv4 #bgi1 #bhj4 #ff ,conf41 iv4 #bij1 #bia1 #fg ,conf41 iv4 #bha-bhc4 #fh ,conf41 v4 #cbe4 #fi ,conf41 v4 #cfj-cfd4 ,corr41 i4 #ba-bd4 #gj ,conf41 v4 #cdi1 #cej4 #ga ,apparently in the summer of #agcf1 though1 the reference to the return of the ,french troops at the peace ,ib4 v4 #cfe would place it in #agce4 #gb ,ib4 v4 #cef #gc ,ib4 #gd ,conf41 v4 #cae1 #caf4 #ge ,ib4 iv4 #bgf4 ,nouv4 ,hl41 ,,ii4 xiv4 #cha1 etc4 #gf ,he refers to the ill-health of his youth1 ,conf41 vii4 #cb1 and describes an ominous head seizure while at ,chambri1 ,ib4 vi4 #cif4 #gg ,rousseau's description of ,les ,charmettes is at the end of the fifth book4 ,the present proprietor keeps the house arranged as it used to be1 and has gathered one or two memorials of its famous tenant1 including his poor clavecin and his watch4 ,in an outside wall1 ,hrault de ,sechelles1 when ,commissioner from the ,convention in the department of ,mont ,blanc1 inserted a little white stone with two most lapidary stanzas inscribed upon it1 about gnie1 solitude1 fiert1 gloire1 vrit1 envie1 and the like4 #gh ,rveries1 x4 #ccf 7#aggh74 #gi ,conf41 vi4 #cic4 #hj ,conf41 vi4 #dab4 #ha ,mm4 de ,mdme4 d',epinay1 i4 #cid4 7,m4 ,boiteau's edition3 ,charpentier4 #ahfe47 #hb ,conf41 vi4 #cii4 #hc ,ib4 vi4 #dbd4 ,goethe made a similar experiment2 see ,mr4 ,lewes's ,life1 p4 #abf4 #hd ,bernardin de ,saint ,pierre tells us this4 ,oeuvres 7,ed4 #ahah71 xii4 #gj1 etc4 #he ,conf41 iv4 #big4 ,see also the description of the scenery of the ,valais1 in the ,nouv4 ,hl41 ,pt4 ,i4 ,let4 xxiii4 #hf ,george ,sand in ,mademoiselle la ,quintinie 7p4 #bg71 a book containing some peculiarly subtle appreciations of the ,savoy landscape4 #hg ,conf41 iv4 #bih4 #hh ,conf41 vi4 #daf1 #dbb1 etc42 iii4 #afd2 iii4 #bjc2 v4 #cdg2 v4 #chc1 #chd4 ,also vii4 #ec4 #hi ,conf41 v4 #cac1 #cfg2 iv4 #bic2 ix4 #cec4 ,also ,mm4 de ,mdme4 d',epinay1 ii4 #aea4 #ij ,ib4 iii4 #aib1 #aic4 #ia ,conf41 iv4 #cja2 iii4 #aie4 #ib ,conf41 v4 #cgb1 #cgc4 ,the mistaken date assigned to the correspondence between ,voltaire and ,frederick is one of many instances how little we can trust the ,confessions for minute accuracy1 though their substantial veracity is confirmed by all the collateral evidence that we have4 #ic ,ib4 iii4 #ahh4 ,for his debt in the way of education to ,madame de ,warens1 see also ,ib4 vii4 #df4 #id ,conf41 vi4 #dji4 #ie ,ib4 vi4 #dac4 ,he adds a suspicious-looking et cetera4 #if ,conf41 vi4 #dad #ig ,conf41 iv4 #bie4 ,see also v4 #cdf4 #ih ,corr41 #agcf1 pp4 #bf1 #bg4 #ii ,conf41 iv4 #bga1 where he says further that he never found enough attraction in ,french poetry to make him think of pursuing it4 #ajj ,the first part of the ,confessions was written in ,wootton in ,derbyshire1 in the winter of #agff-agfg4 #aja ,conf41 vi4 #dbb4 #ajb ,corr41 i4 #dc1 #df1 #fb1 etc4 #ajc ,musset-,pathay1 i4 #bc1 n4 ,,chapter ,,iv4 ,,theresa ,,le ,,vasseur4 ,men like ,rousseau1 who are most heedless in letting their delight perish1 are as often as not most loth to bury what they have slain1 or even to perceive that life has gone out of it4 ,the sight of simple hearts trying to coax back a little warm breath of former days into a present that is stiff and cold with indifference1 is touching enough4 ,but there is a certain grossness around the circumstances in which ,rousseau now and too often found himself1 that makes us watch his embarrassment with some composure4 ,one cannot easily think of him as a simple heart1 and we feel perhaps as much relief as he1 when he resolves after making all due efforts to thrust out the intruder and bring ,madame de ,warens over from theories which had become too practical to be interesting1 to leave ,les ,charmettes and accept a tutorship at ,lyons4 ,his new patron was a ,de ,mably1 elder brother of the philosophic abb of the same name 7#agji-he71 and of the still more notable ,condillac 7#agad-hj74 ,the future author of the most influential treatise on education that has ever been written1 was not successful in the practical and far more arduous side of that master art4#ajd ,we have seen how little training he had ever given himself in the cardinal virtues of collectedness and self-control1 and we know this to be the indispensable quality in all who have to shape young minds for a humane life4 ,so long as all went well1 he was an angel1 but when things went wrong1 he is willing to confess that he was a devil4 ,when his two pupils could not understand him1 he became frantic2 when they showed wilfulness or any other part of the disagreeable materials out of which1 along with the rest1 human excellence has to be ingeniously and painfully manufactured1 he was ready to kill them4 ,this1 as he justly admits1 was not the way to render them either well learned or sage4 ,the moral education of the teacher himself was hardly complete1 for he describes how he used to steal his employer's wine1 and the exquisite draughts which he enjoyed in the secrecy of his own room1 with a piece of cake in one hand and some dear romance in the other4 ,we should forgive greedy pilferings of this kind more easily if ,rousseau had forgotten them more speedily4 ,these are surely offences for which the best expiation is oblivion in a throng of worthier memories4 ,it is easy to understand how often ,rousseau's mind turned from the deadly drudgery of his present employment to the beatitude of former days4 ,what rendered my present condition insupportable was the recollection of my beloved ,charmettes1 of my garden1 my trees1 my fountain1 my orchard1 and above all of her for whom ,i felt myself born and who gave life to it all4 ,as ,i thought of her1 of our pleasures1 our guileless days1 ,i was seized by a tightness in my heart1 a stopping of my breath1 which robbed me of all spirit4#aje ,for years to come this was a kind of far-off accompaniment1 thrumming melodiously in his ears under all the discords of a miserable life4 ,he made another effort to quicken the dead4 ,throwing up his office with his usual promptitude in escaping from the irksome1 after a residence of something like a year at ,lyons 7,april1 #agdj--spring of #agda71 he made his way back to his old haunts4 ,the first half-hour with ,madame de ,warens persuaded him that happiness here was really at an end4 ,after a stay of a few months1 his desolation again overcame him4 ,it was agreed that he should go to ,paris to make his fortune by a new method of musical notation which he had invented1 and after a short stay at ,lyons1 he found himself for the second time in the famous city which in the eighteenth century had become for the moment the centre of the universe4#ajf ,it was not yet1 however1 destined to be a centre for him4 ,his plan of musical notation was examined by a learned committee of the ,academy1 no member of whom was instructed in the musical art4 ,rousseau1 dumb1 inarticulate1 and unready as usual1 was amazed at the ease with which his critics by the free use of sounding phrases demolished arguments and objections which he perceived that they did not at all understand4 ,his experience on this occasion suggested to him the most just reflection1 how even without breadth of intelligence1 the profound knowledge of any one thing is preferable in forming a judgment about it1 to all possible enlightenment conferred by the cultivation of the sciences1 without study of the special matter in question4 ,it astonished him that all these learned men1 who knew so many things1 could yet be so ignorant that a man should only pretend to be a judge in his own craft4#ajg ,his musical path to glory and riches thus blocked up1 he surrendered himself not to despair but to complete idleness and peace of mind4 ,he had a few coins left1 and these prevented him from thinking of a future4 ,he was presented to one or two great ladies1 and with the blundering gallantry habitual to him he wrote a letter to one of the greatest of them1 declaring his passion for her4 ,madame ,dupin was the daughter of one1 and the wife of another1 of the richest men in ,france1 and the attentions of a man whose acquaintance ,madame ,beuzenval had begun by inviting him to dine in the servants' hall1 were not pleasing to her4#ajh ,she forgave the impertinence eventually1 and her stepson1 ,m4 ,francueil1 was ,rousseau's patron for some years4#aji ,on the whole1 however1 in spite of his own account of his social ineptitude1 there cannot have been anything so repulsive in his manners as this account would lead us to think4 ,there is no grave anachronism in introducing here the impression which he made on two fine ladies not many years after this4 ,he pays compliments1 yet he is not polite1 or at least he is without the air of politeness4 ,he seems to be ignorant of the usages of society1 but it is easily seen that he is infinitely intelligent4 ,he has a brown complexion1 while eyes that overflow with fire give animation to his expression4 ,when he has spoken and you look at him1 he appears comely2 but when you try to recall him1 his image is always extremely plain4 ,they say that he has bad health1 and endures agony which from some motive of vanity he most carefully conceals4 ,it is this1 ,i fancy1 which gives him from time to time an air of sullenness4#aaj ,the other lady1 who saw him at the same time1 speaks of the poor devil of an author1 who's as poor as ,job for you1 but with wit and vanity enough for four4444 ,they say his history is as queer as his person1 and that is saying a good deal4444 ,madame ,maupeou and ,i tried to guess what it was4 ',in spite of his face1' said she 7for it is certain he is uncommonly plain71 'his eyes tell that love plays a great part in his romance4' ',no1' said ,i1 'his nose tells me that it is vanity4' ',well then1 'tis both one and the other4'#aaa ,one of his patronesses took some trouble to procure him the post of secretary to the ,french ambassador at ,venice1 and in the spring of #agdc our much-wandering man started once more in quest of meat and raiment in the famous city of the ,adriatic4 ,this was one of those steps of which there are not a few in a man's life1 that seem at the moment to rank foremost in the short line of decisive acts1 and then are presently seen not to have been decisive at all1 but mere interruptions conducting nowhither4 ,in truth the critical moments with us are mostly as points in slumber4 ,even if the ancient oracles of the gods were to regain their speech once more on the earth1 men would usually go to consult them on days when the answer would have least significance1 and could guide them least far4 ,that one of the most heedless vagrants in ,europe1 and as it happened one of the men of most extraordinary genius also1 should have got a footing in the train of the ambassador of a great government1 would naturally seem to him and others as chance's one critical stroke in his life4 ,in reality it was nothing4 ,the ,count of ,montaigu1 his master1 was one of the worst characters with whom ,rousseau could for his own profit have been brought into contact4 ,in his professional quality he was not far from imbecile4 ,the folly and weakness of the government at ,versailles during the reign of ,lewis ,,xv41 and its indifference to competence in every department except perhaps partially in the fisc1 was fairly illustrated in its absurd representative at ,venice4 ,the secretary1 whose renown has preserved his master's name1 has recorded more amply than enough the grounds of quarrel between them4 ,rousseau is for once eager to assert his own efficiency1 and declares that he rendered many important services for which he was repaid with ingratitude and persecution4#aab ,one would be glad to know what the ,count of ,montaigu's version of matters was1 for in truth ,rousseau's conduct in previous posts makes us wonder how it was that he who had hitherto always been unfaithful over few things1 suddenly touched perfection when he became lord over many4 ,there is other testimony1 however1 to the ambassador's morbid quality1 of which1 after that general imbecility which was too common a thing among men in office to be remarkable1 avarice was the most striking trait4 ,for instance1 careful observation had persuaded him that three shoes are equivalent to two pairs1 because there is always one of a pair which is more worn than its fellow2 and hence he habitually ordered his shoes in threes4#aac ,it was natural enough that such a master and such a secretary should quarrel over perquisites4 ,that slightly cringing quality which we have noticed on one or two occasions in ,rousseau's hungry youthful time1 had been hardened out of him by circumstance or the strengthening of inborn fibre4 ,he would now neither dine in a servants' hall because a fine lady forgot what was due to a musician1 nor share his fees with a great ambassador who forgot what was due to himself4 ,these sordid disputes are of no interest now to anybody1 and we need only say that after a period of eighteen months passed in uncongenial company1 ,rousseau parted from his count in extreme dudgeon1 and the diplomatic career which he had promised to himself came to the same close as various other careers had already done4 ,he returned to ,paris towards the end of #agdd1 burning with indignation at the unjust treatment which he believed himself to have suffered1 and laying memorial after memorial before the minister at home4 ,he assures us that it was the justice and the futility of his complaints1 that left in his soul the germ of exasperation against preposterous civil institutions1 in which the true common weal and real justice are always sacrificed to some seeming order or other1 which is in fact destructive of all order1 and only adds the sanction of public authority to the oppression of the weak and the iniquity of the strong4#aad ,one or two pictures connected with the ,venetian episode remain in the memory of the reader of the ,confessions1 and among them perhaps with most people is that of the quarantine at ,genoa in ,rousseau's voyage to his new post4 ,the travellers had the choice of remaining on board the felucca1 or passing the time in an unfurnished lazaretto4 ,this1 we may notice in passing1 was his first view of the sea2 he makes no mention of the fact1 nor does the sight or thought of the sea appear to have left the least mark in any line of his writings4 ,he always disliked it1 and thought of it with melancholy4 ,rousseau1 as we may suppose1 found the want of space and air in the boat the most intolerable of evils1 and preferred to go alone to the lazaretto1 though it had neither window-sashes nor tables nor chairs nor bed1 nor even a truss of straw to lie down upon4 ,he was locked up and had the whole barrack to himself4 ,i manufactured1 he says1 a good bed out of my coats and shirts1 sheets out of towels which ,i stitched together1 a pillow out of my old cloak rolled up4 ,i made myself a seat of one trunk placed flat1 and a table of the other4 ,i got out some paper and my writing-desk1 and arranged some dozen books that ,i had by way of library4 ,in short ,i made myself so comfortable1 that1 with the exception of curtains and windows1 ,i was nearly as well off in this absolutely naked lazaretto as in my lodgings in ,paris4 ,my meals were served with much pomp2 two grenadiers1 with bayonets at their musket-ends1 escorted them2 the staircase was my dining-room1 the landing did for table and the lower step for a seat1 and when my dinner was served1 they rang a little bell as they withdrew1 to warn me to seat myself at table4 ,between my meals1 when ,i was neither writing nor reading1 nor busy with my furnishing1 ,i went for a walk in the ,protestant graveyard1 or mounted into a lantern which looked out on to the port1 and whence ,i could see the ships sailing in and out4 ,i passed a fortnight in this way1 and ,i could have spent the whole three weeks of the quarantine without feeling an instant's weariness4#aae ,these are the occasions when we catch glimpses of the true ,rousseau2 but his residence in ,venice was on the whole one of his few really sociable periods4 ,he made friends and kept them1 and there was even a certain gaiety in his life4 ,he used to tell people their fortunes in a way that an earlier century would have counted unholy4#aaf ,he rarely sought pleasure in those of her haunts for which the ,queen of the ,adriatic had a guilty renown1 but he has left one singular anecdote1 showing the degree to which profound sensibility is capable of doing the moralist's work in a man1 and how a stroke of sympathetic imagination may keep one from sin more effectually than an ethical precept4#aag ,it is pleasanter to think of him as working at the formation of that musical taste which ten years afterwards led him to amaze the ,parisians by proving that ,french melody was a hollow idea born of national self-delusion4 ,a ,venetian experiment1 whose evidence in the special controversy is less weighty perhaps than ,rousseau supposed1 was among the facts which persuaded him that ,italian is the language of music4 ,an ,armenian who had never heard any music was invited to listen first of all to a ,french monologue1 and then to an air of ,galuppi's4 ,rousseau observed in the ,armenian more surprise than pleasure during the performance of the ,french piece4 ,the first notes of the ,italian were no sooner struck1 than his eyes and whole expression softened2 he was enchanted1 surrendered his whole soul to the ravishing impressions of the music1 and could never again be induced to listen to the performance of any ,french air4#aah ,more important than this was the circumstance that the sight of the defects of the government of the ,venetian ,republic first drew his mind to political speculation1 and suggested to him the composition of a book that was to be called ,institutions ,politiques4#aai ,the work1 as thus designed and named1 was never written1 but the idea of it1 after many years of meditation1 ripened first in the ,discourse on ,inequality1 and then in the ,social ,contract4 ,if ,rousseau's departure for ,venice was a wholly insignificant element in his life1 his return from it was almost immediately followed by an event which counted for nothing at the moment1 which his friends by and by came to regard as the fatal and irretrievable disaster of his life1 but which he persistently described as the only real consolation that heaven permitted him to taste in his misery1 and the only one that enabled him to bear his many sore burdens4#abj ,he took up his quarters at a small and dirty hotel not far from the ,sorbonne1 where he had alighted on the occasion of his second arrival in ,paris4#aba ,here was a kitchen-maid1 some two-and-twenty years old1 who used to sit at table with her mistress and the guests of the house4 ,the company was rough1 being mainly composed of ,irish and ,gascon abbs1 and other people to whom graces of mien and refinement of speech had come neither by nature nor cultivation4 ,the hostess herself pitched the conversation in merry ,rabelaisian key1 and the apparent modesty of her serving-woman gave a zest to her own licence4 ,rousseau was moved with pity for a maid defenceless against a ribald storm1 and from pity he advanced to some warmer sentiment1 and he and ,theresa ,le ,vasseur took each other for better for worse1 in a way informal but sufficiently effective4 ,this was the beginning of a union which lasted for the length of a generation and more1 down to the day of ,rousseau's most tragical ending4#abb ,she thought she saw in him a worthy soul2 and he was convinced that he saw in her a woman of sensibility1 simple and free from trick1 and neither of the two1 he says1 was deceived in respect of the other4 ,her intellectual quality was unique4 ,she could never be taught to read with any approach to success4 ,she could never follow the order of the twelve months of the year1 nor master a single arithmetical figure1 nor count a sum of money1 nor reckon the price of a thing4 ,a month's instruction was not enough to give knowledge of the hours of the day on the dial-plate4 ,the words she used were often the direct opposites of the words that she meant to use4#abc ,the marriage choice of others is the inscrutable puzzle of those who have no eye for the fact that such choice is the great match of cajolery between purpose and invisible hazard2 the blessedness of many lives is the stake1 as intention happens to cheat accident or to be cheated by it4 ,when the match is once over1 deep criticism of a game of pure chance is time wasted4 ,the crude talk in which the unwise deliver their judgments upon the conditions of success in the relations between men and women1 has flowed with unprofitable copiousness as to this not very inviting case4 ,people construct an imaginary ,rousseau out of his writings1 and then fetter their elevated1 susceptible1 sensitive1 and humane creation1 to the unfortunate woman who could never be taught that ,april is the month after ,march1 or that twice four and a half are nine4 ,now we have already seen enough of ,rousseau to know for how infinitely little he counted the gift of a quick wit1 and what small store he set either on literary varnish or on capacity for receiving it4 ,he was touched in people with whom he had to do1 not by attainment1 but by moral fibre or his imaginary impression of their moral fibre4 ,instead of analysing a character1 bringing its several elements into the balance1 computing the more or less of this faculty or that1 he loved to feel its influence as a whole1 indivisible1 impalpable1 playing without sound or agitation around him like soft light and warmth and the fostering air4 ,the deepest ignorance1 the dullest incapacity1 the cloudiest faculties of apprehension1 were nothing to him in man or woman1 provided he could only be sensible of that indescribable emanation from voice and eye and movement1 that silent effusion of serenity around spoken words1 which nature has given to some tranquillising spirits1 and which would have left him free in an even life of indolent meditation and unfretted sense4 ,a woman of high1 eager1 stimulating kind would have been a more fatal mate for him than the most stupid woman that ever rivalled the stupidity of man4 ,stimulation in any form always meant distress to ,rousseau4 ,the moist warmth of the ,savoy valleys was not dearer to him than the subtle inhalations of softened and close enveloping companionship1 in which the one needful thing is not intellectual equality1 but easy1 smooth1 constant contact of feeling about the thousand small matters that make up the existence of a day4 ,this is not the highest ideal of union that one's mind can conceive from the point of view of intense productive energy1 but ,rousseau was not concerned with the conditions of productive energy4 ,he only sought to live1 to be himself1 and he knew better than any critics can know for him1 what kind of nature was the best supplement for his own4 ,as he said in an apophthegm with a deep melancholy lying at the bottom of it1--you never can cite the example of a thoroughly happy man1 for no one but the man himself knows anything about it4#abd ,by the side of people we love1 he says very truly1 sentiment nourishes the intelligence as well as the heart1 and we have little occasion to seek ideas elsewhere4 ,i lived with my ,theresa as pleasantly as with the finest genius in the universe4#abe ,theresa ,le ,vasseur would probably have been happier if she had married a stout stable-boy1 as indeed she did some thirty years hence by way of gathering up the fragments that were left2 but there is little reason to think that ,rousseau would have been much happier with any other mate than he was with ,theresa4 ,there was no social disparity between the two4 ,she was a person accustomed to hardship and coarseness1 and so was he4 ,and he always systematically preferred the honest coarseness of the plain people from whom he was sprung and among whom he had lived1 to the more hateful coarseness of heart which so often lurks under fine manners and a complete knowledge of the order of the months in the year and the arithmetical table4 ,rousseau had been a serving-man1 and there was no deterioration in going with a serving-woman4#abf ,however this may be1 it is certain that for the first dozen years or so of his partnership--and many others as well as he are said to have found in this term a limit to the conditions of the original contract1--,rousseau had perfect and entire contentment in the ,theresa whom all his friends pronounced as mean1 greedy1 jealous1 degrading1 as she was avowedly brutish in understanding4 ,granting that she was all these things1 how much of the responsibility for his acts has been thus shifted from the shoulders of ,rousseau himself1 whose connection with her was from beginning to end entirely voluntary8 ,if he attached himself deliberately to an unworthy object by a bond which he was indisputably free to break on any day that he chose1 were not the effects of such a union as much due to his own character which sought1 formed1 and perpetuated it1 as to the character of ,theresa ,le ,vasseur8 ,nothing1 as he himself said in a passage to which he appends a vindication of ,theresa1 shows the true leanings and inclinations of a man better than the sort of attachments which he forms4#abg ,it is a natural blunder in a literate and well-mannered society to charge a mistake against a man who infringes its conventions in this particular way4 ,rousseau knew what he was about1 as well as politer persons4 ,he was at least as happy with his kitchen wench as ,addison was with his countess1 or ,voltaire with his marchioness1 and he would not have been what he was1 nor have played the part that he did play in the eighteenth century1 if he had felt anything derogatory or unseemly in a kitchen wench4 ,the selection was probably not very deliberate2 as it happened1 ,theresa served as a standing illustration of two of his most marked traits1 a contempt for mere literary culture1 and a yet deeper contempt for social accomplishments and social position4 ,in time he found out the grievous disadvantages of living in solitude with a companion who did not know how to think1 and whose stock of ideas was so slight that the only common ground of talk between them was gossip and quodlibets4 ,but her lack of sprightliness1 beauty1 grace1 refinement1 and that gentle initiative by which women may make even a sombre life so various1 went for nothing with him4 ,what his friends missed in her1 he did not seek and would not have valued2 and what he found in her1 they were naturally unable to appreciate1 for they never were in the mood for detecting it4 ,i have not seen much of happy men1 he wrote when near his end1 perhaps nothing2 but ,i have many a time seen contented hearts1 and of all the objects that have struck me1 ,i believe it is this which has always given most contentment to myself4#abh ,this moderate conception of felicity1 which was always so characteristic with him1 as an even1 durable1 and rather low-toned state of the feelings1 accounts for his prolonged acquiescence in a companion whom men with more elation in their ideal would assuredly have found hostile even to the most modest contentment4 ,the heart of my ,theresa1 he wrote long after the first tenderness had changed into riper emotion on his side1 and1 alas1 into indifference on hers1 was that of an angel2 our attachment waxed stronger with our intimacy1 and we felt more and more each day that we were made for one another4 ,if our pleasures could be described1 their simplicity would make you laugh2 our excursions together out of town1 in which ,i would munificently expend eight or ten halfpence in some rural tavern2 our modest suppers at my window1 seated in front of one another on two small chairs placed on a trunk that filled up the breadth of the embrasure4 ,here the window did duty for a table1 we breathed the fresh air1 we could see the neighbourhood and the people passing by1 and though on the fourth story1 could look down into the street as we ate4 ,who shall describe1 who shall feel the charms of those meals1 consisting of a coarse quartern loaf1 some cherries1 a tiny morsel of cheese1 and a pint of wine which we drank between us8 ,ah1 what delicious seasoning there is in friendship1 confidence1 intimacy1 gentleness of soul6 ,we used sometimes to remain thus until midnight1 without once thinking of the time4#abi ,men and women are often more fairly judged by the way in which they bear the burden of what they have done1 than by the prime act which laid the burden on their lives4#acj ,the deeper part of us shows in the manner of accepting consequences4 ,on the whole1 ,rousseau's relations with this woman present him in a better light than those with any other person whatever4 ,if he became with all the rest of the world suspicious1 angry1 jealous1 profoundly diseased in a word1 with her he was habitually trustful1 affectionate1 careful1 most long-suffering4 ,it sometimes even occurs to us that his constancy to ,theresa was only another side of the morbid perversity of his relations with the rest of the world4 ,people of a certain kind not seldom make the most serious and vital sacrifices for bare love of singularity1 and a man like ,rousseau was not unlikely to feel an eccentric pleasure in proving that he could find merit in a woman who to everybody else was desperate4 ,one who is on bad terms with the bulk of his fellows may contrive to save his self-respect and confirm his conviction that they are all in the wrong1 by preserving attachment to some one to whom general opinion is hostile2 the private argument being that if he is capable of this degree of virtue and friendship in an unfavourable case1 how much more could he have practised it with others1 if they would only have allowed him4 ,whether this kind of apology was present to his mind or not1 ,rousseau could always refer those who charged him with black caprice1 to his steady kindness towards ,theresa ,le ,vasseur4 ,her family were among the most odious of human beings1 greedy1 idle1 and ill-humoured1 while her mother had every fault that a woman could have in ,rousseau's eyes1 including that worst fault of setting herself up for a fine wit4 ,yet he bore with them all for years1 and did not break with ,madame ,le ,vasseur until she had poisoned the mind of her daughter1 and done her best by rapacity and lying to render him contemptible to all his friends4 ,in the course of years ,theresa herself gave him unmistakable signs of a change in her affections4 ,i began to feel1 he says1 at a date of sixteen or seventeen years from our present point1 that she was no longer for me what she had been in our happy years1 and ,i felt it all the more clearly as ,i was still the same towards her4#aca ,this was in #agfb1 and her estrangement grew deeper and her indifference more open1 until at length1 seven years afterwards1 we find that she had proposed a separation from him4 ,what the exact reasons for this gradual change may have been we do not know1 nor have we any right in ignorance of the whole facts to say that they were not adequate and just4 ,there are two good traits recorded of the woman's character4 ,she could never console herself for having let her father be taken away to end his days miserably in a house of charity4#acb ,and the repudiation of her children1 against which the glowing egoism of maternity always rebelled1 remained a cruel dart in her bosom as long as she lived4 ,we may suppose that there was that about household life with ,rousseau which might have bred disgusts even in one as little fastidious as ,theresa was4 ,among other things which must have been hard to endure1 we know that in composing his works he was often weeks together without speaking a word to her4#acc ,perhaps again it would not be difficult to produce some passages in ,rousseau's letters and in the ,confessions1 which show traces of that subtle contempt for women that lurks undetected in many who would blush to avow it4 ,whatever the causes may have been1 from indifference she passed to something like aversion1 and in the one place where a word of complaint is wrung from him1 he describes her as rending and piercing his heart at a moment when his other miseries were at their height4 ,his patience at any rate was inexhaustible2 now old1 worn by painful bodily infirmities1 racked by diseased suspicion and the most dreadful and tormenting of the minor forms of madness1 nearly friendless1 and altogether hopeless1 he yet kept unabated the old tenderness of a quarter of a century before1 and expressed it in words of such gentleness1 gravity1 and self-respecting strength1 as may touch even those whom his books leave unmoved1 and who view his character with deepest distrust4 ,for the six-and-twenty years1 dearest1 that our union has lasted1 ,i have never sought my happiness except in yours1 and have never ceased to try to make you happy2 and you saw by what ,i did lately1#acd that your honour and happiness were one as dear to me as the other4 ,i see with pain that success does not answer my solicitude1 and that my kindness is not as sweet to you to receive1 as it is sweet to me to show4 ,i know that the sentiments of honour and uprightness with which you were born will never change in you2 but as for those of tenderness and attachment which were once reciprocal between us1 ,i feel that they now only exist on my side4 ,not only1 dearest of all friends1 have you ceased to find pleasure in my company1 but you have to tax yourself severely even to remain a few minutes with me out of complaisance4 ,you are at your ease with all the world but me4 ,i do not speak to you of many other things4 ,we must take our friends with their faults1 and ,i ought to pass over yours1 as you pass over mine4 ,if you were happy with me ,i could be content1 but ,i see clearly that you are not1 and this is what makes my heart sore4 ,if ,i could do better for your happiness1 ,i would do it and hold my peace2 but that is not possible4 ,i have left nothing undone that ,i thought would contribute to your felicity4 ,at this moment1 while ,i am writing to you1 overwhelmed with distress and misery1 ,i have no more true or lively desire than to finish my days in closest union with you4 ,you know my lot1--it is such as one could not even dare to describe1 for no one could believe it4 ,i never had1 my dearest1 other than one single solace1 but that the sweetest2 it was to pour out all my heart in yours2 when ,i talked of my miseries to you1 they were soothed2 and when you had pitied me1 ,i needed pity no more4 ,my every resource1 my whole confidence1 is in you and in you only2 my soul cannot exist without sympathy1 and cannot find sympathy except with you4 ,it is certain that if you fail me and ,i am forced to live alone1 ,i am as a dead man4 ,but ,i should die a thousand times more cruelly still1 if we continued to live together in misunderstanding1 and if confidence and friendship were to go out between us4 ,it would be a hundred times better to cease to see each other2 still to live1 and sometimes to regret one another4 ,whatever sacrifice may be necessary on my part to make you happy1 be so at any cost1 and ,i shall be content4 ,we have faults to weep over and to expiate1 but no crimes2 let us not blot out by the imprudence of our closing days the sweetness and purity of those we have passed together4#ace ,think ill as we may of ,rousseau's theories1 and meanly as we may of some parts of his conduct1 yet to those who can feel the pulsing of a human life apart from a man's formul1 and can be content to leave to sure circumstance the tragic retaliation for evil behaviour1 this letter is like one of the great master's symphonies1 whose theme falls in soft strokes of melting pity on the heart4 ,in truth1 alas1 the union of this now diverse pair had been stained by crimes shortly after its beginning4 ,in the estrangement of father and mother in their late years we may perhaps hear the rustle and spy the pale forms of the avenging spectres of their lost children4 ,at the time when the connection with ,theresa ,le ,vasseur was formed1 ,rousseau did not know how to gain bread4 ,he composed the musical diversion of the ,muses ,galantes1 which ,rameau rightly or wrongly pronounced a plagiarism1 and at the request of ,richelieu he made some minor re-adaptations in ,voltaire's ,princesse de ,navarre1 which ,rameau had set to music--that farce of the fair to which the author of ,zare owed his seat in the ,academy4#acf ,but neither task brought him money1 and he fell back on a sort of secretaryship1 with perhaps a little of the valet in it1 to ,madame ,dupin and her son-in-law1 ,m4 de ,francueil1 for which he received the too moderate income of nine hundred francs4 ,on one occasion he returned to his room expecting with eager impatience the arrival of a remittance1 the proceeds of some small property which came to him by the death of his father4#acg ,he found the letter1 and was opening it with trembling hands1 when he was suddenly smitten with shame at his want of self-control2 he placed it unopened on the chimney-piece1 undressed1 slept better than usual1 and when he awoke the next morning1 he had forgotten all about the letter until it caught his eye4 ,he was delighted to find that it contained his money1 but ,i can swear1 he adds1 that my liveliest delight was in having conquered myself4 ,an occasion for self-conquest on a more considerable scale was at hand4 ,in these tight straits1 he received grievous news from the unfortunate ,theresa4 ,he made up his mind cheerfully what to do2 the mother acquiesced after sore persuasion and with bitter tears2 and the new-born child was dropped into oblivion in the box of the asylum for foundlings4 ,next year the same easy expedient was again resorted to1 with the same heedlessness on the part of the father1 the same pain and reluctance on the part of the mother4 ,five children in all were thus put away1 and with such entire absence of any precaution with a view to their identification in happier times1 that not even a note was kept of the day of their birth4#ach ,people have made a great variety of remarks upon this transaction1 from the economist who turns it into an illustration of the evil results of hospitals for foundlings in encouraging improvident unions1 down to the theologian who sees in it new proof of the inborn depravity of the human heart and the fall of man4 ,others have vindicated it in various ways1 one of them courageously taking up the ground that ,rousseau had good reason to believe that the children were not his own1 and therefore was fully warranted in sending the poor creatures kinless into the universe4#aci ,perhaps it is not too transcendental a thing to hope that civilisation may one day reach a point when a plea like this shall count for an aggravation rather than a palliative2 when a higher conception of the duties of humanity1 familiarised by the practice of adoption as well as by the spread of both rational and compassionate considerations as to the blameless little ones1 shall have expelled what is surely as some red and naked beast's emotion of fatherhood4 ,what may be an excellent reason for repudiating a woman1 can never be a reason for abandoning a child1 except with those whom reckless egoism has made willing to think it a light thing to fling away from us the moulding of new lives and the ensuring of salutary nurture for growing souls4 ,we are1 however1 dispensed from entering into these questions of the greater morals by the very plain account which the chief actor has given us1 almost in spite of himself4 ,his crime like most others was the result of heedlessness1 of the overriding of duty by the short dim-eyed selfishness of the moment4 ,he had been accustomed to frequent a tavern1 where the talk turned mostly upon topics which men with much self-respect put as far from them1 as men with little self-respect will allow them to do4 ,i formed my fashion of thinking from what ,i perceived to reign among people who were at bottom extremely worthy folk1 and ,i said to myself1 ,since it is the usage of the country1 as one lives here1 one may as well follow it4 ,so ,i made up my mind to it cheerfully1 and without the least scruple4#adj ,by and by he proceeded to cover this nude and intelligible explanation with finer phrases1 about preferring that his children should be trained up as workmen and peasants rather than as adventurers and fortune-hunters1 and about his supposing that in sending them to the hospital for foundlings he was enrolling himself a citizen in ,plato's ,republic4#ada ,this is hardly more than the talk of one become famous1 who is defending the acts of his obscurity on the high principles which fame requires4 ,people do not turn citizens of ,plato's ,republic cheerfully and without the least scruple1 and if a man frequents company where the despatch of inconvenient children to the hospital was an accepted point of common practice1 it is superfluous to drag ,plato and his ,republic into the matter4 ,another turn again was given to his motives when his mind had become clouded by suspicious mania4 ,writing a year or two before his death he had assured himself that his determining reason was the fear of a destiny for his children a thousand times worse than the hard life of foundlings1 namely1 being spoiled by their mother1 being turned into monsters by her family1 and finally being taught to hate and betray their father by his plotting enemies4#adb ,this is obviously a mixture in his mind of the motives which led to the abandonment of the children and justified the act to himself at the time1 with the circumstances that afterwards reconciled him to what he had done2 for now he neither had any enemies plotting against him1 nor did he suppose that he had4 ,as for his wife's family1 he showed himself quite capable1 when the time came1 of dealing resolutely and shortly with their importunities in his own case1 and he might therefore well have trusted his power to deal with them in the case of his children4 ,he was more right when in #aggj1 in his important letter to ,m4 de ,st4 ,germain1 he admitted that example1 necessity1 the honour of her who was dear to him1 all united to make him entrust his children to the establishment provided for that purpose1 and kept him from fulfilling the first and holiest of natural duties4 ,in this1 far from excusing1 ,i accuse myself2 and when my reason tells me that ,i did what ,i ought to have done in my situation1 ,i believe that less than my heart1 which bitterly belies it4#adc ,this coincides with the first undisguised account given in the ,confessions1 which has been already quoted1 and it has not that flawed ring of cant and fine words which sounds through nearly all his other references to this great stain upon his life1 excepting one1 and this is the only further document with which we need concern ourselves4 ,in that1#add which was written while the unholy work was actually being done1 he states very distinctly that the motives were those which are more or less closely connected with most unholy works1 motives of money--the great instrument and measure of our personal convenience1 the quantitative test of our self-control in placing personal convenience behind duty to other people4 ,if my misery and my misfortunes rob me of the power of fulfilling a duty so dear1 that is a calamity to pity me for1 rather than a crime to reproach me with4 ,i owe them subsistence1 and ,i procured a better or at least a surer subsistence for them than ,i could myself have provided2 this condition is above all others4 ,next comes the consideration of their mother1 whose honour must be kept4 ,you know my situation2 ,i gained my bread from day to day painfully enough2 how then should ,i feed a family as well8 ,and if ,i were compelled to fall back on the profession of author1 how would domestic cares and the confusion of children leave me peace of mind enough in my garret to earn a living8 ,writings which hunger dictates are hardly of any use1 and such a resource is speedily exhausted4 ,then ,i should have to resort to patronage1 to intrigue1 to tricks 444 in short to surrender myself to all those infamies1 for which ,i am penetrated with such just horror4 ,support myself1 my children1 and their mother on the blood of wretches8 ,no1 madame1 it were better for them to be orphans than to have a scoundrel for their father4444 ,why have ,i not married1 you will ask8 ,madame1 ask it of your unjust laws4 ,it was not fitting for me to contract an eternal engagement2 and it will never be proved to me that my duty binds me to it4 ,what is certain is that ,i have never done it1 and that ,i never meant to do it4 ,but we ought not to have children when we cannot support them4 ,pardon me1 madame2 nature means us to have offspring1 since the earth produces sustenance enough for all2 but it is the rich1 it is your class1 which robs mine of the bread of my children4444 ,i know that foundlings are not delicately nurtured2 so much the better for them1 they become more robust4 ,they have nothing superfluous given to them1 but they have everything that is necessary4 ,they do not make gentlemen of them1 but peasants or artisans4444 ,they would not know how to dance1 or ride on horseback1 but they would have strong unwearied legs4 ,i would neither make authors of them1 nor clerks2 ,i would not practise them in handling the pen1 but the plough1 the file1 and the plane1 instruments for leading a healthy1 laborious1 innocent life4444 ,i deprived myself of the delight of seeing them1 and ,i have never tasted the sweetness of a father's embrace4 ,alas1 as ,i have already told you1 ,i see in this only a claim on your pity1 and ,i deliver them from misery at my own expense4#ade ,we may see here that ,rousseau's sophistical eloquence1 if it misled others1 was at least as powerful in misleading himself1 and it may be noted that this letter1 with its talk of the children of the rich taking bread out of the mouths of the children of the poor1 contains the first of those socialistic sentences by which the writer in after times gained so famous a name4 ,it is at any rate clear from this that the real motive of the abandonment of the children was wholly material4 ,he could not afford to maintain them1 and he did not wish to have his comfort disturbed by their presence4 ,there is assuredly no word to be said by any one with firm reason and unsophisticated conscience in extenuation of this crime4 ,we have only to remember that a great many other persons in that lax time1 when the structure of the family was undermined alike in practice and speculation1 were guilty of the same crime2 that ,rousseau1 better than they1 did not erect his own criminality into a social theory1 but was tolerably soon overtaken by a remorse which drove him both to confess his misdeed1 and to admit that it was inexpiable2 and that the atrocity of the offence owes half the blackness with which it has always been invested by wholesome opinion1 to the fact that the offender was by and by the author of the most powerful book by which parental duty has been commended in its full loveliness and nobility4 ,and at any rate1 let ,rousseau be a little free from excessive reproach from all clergymen1 sentimentalists1 and others1 who do their worst to uphold the common and rather bestial opinion in favour of reckless propagation1 and who1 if they do not advocate the despatch of children to public institutions1 still encourage a selfish incontinence which ultimately falls in burdens on others than the offenders1 and which turns the family into a scene of squalor and brutishness1 producing a kind of parental influence that is far more disastrous and demoralising than the absence of it in public institutions can possibly be4 ,if the propagation of children without regard to their maintenance be either a virtue or a necessity1 and if afterwards the only alternatives are their maintenance in an asylum on the one hand1 and their maintenance in the degradation of a poverty-stricken home on the other1 we should not hesitate to give people who act as ,rousseau acted1 all that credit for self-denial and high moral courage which he so audaciously claimed for himself4 ,it really seems to be no more criminal to produce children with the deliberate intention of abandoning them to public charity1 as ,rousseau did1 than it is to produce them in deliberate reliance on the besotted maxim that he who sends mouths will send meat1 or any other of the spurious saws which make ,providence do duty for self-control1 and add to the gratification of physical appetite the grotesque luxury of religious unction4 ,in #agfa the ,marchale de ,luxembourg made efforts to discover ,rousseau's children1 but without success4 ,they were gone beyond hope of identification1 and the author of ,emitius and his sons and daughters lived together in this world1 not knowing one another4 ,rousseau with singular honesty did not conceal his satisfaction at the fruitlessness of the charitable endeavours to restore them to him4 ,the success of your search1 he wrote1 could not give me pure and undisturbed pleasure2 it is too late1 too late4444 ,in my present condition this search interested me more for another person ,theresa than myself2 and considering the too easily yielding character of the person in question1 it is possible that what she had found already formed for good or for evil1 might turn out a sorry boon to her4#adf ,we may doubt1 in spite of one or two charming and graceful passages1 whether ,rousseau was of a nature to have any feeling for the pathos of infancy1 the bright blank eye1 the eager unpurposed straining of the hand1 the many turns and changes in murmurings that yet can tell us nothing4 ,he was both too self-centred and too passionate for warm ease and fulness of life in all things1 to be truly sympathetic with a condition whose feebleness and immaturity touch us with half-painful hope4 ,rousseau speaks in the ,confessions of having married ,theresa five-and-twenty years after the beginning of their acquaintance1#adg but we hardly have to understand that any ceremony took place which anybody but himself would recognise as constituting a marriage4 ,what happened appears to have been this4 ,seated at table with ,theresa and two guests1 one of them the mayor of the place1 he declared that she was his wife4 ,this good and seemly engagement was contracted1 he says1 in all the simplicity but also in all the truth of nature1 in the presence of two men of worth and honour4444 ,during the short and simple act1 ,i saw the honest pair melted in tears4#adh ,he had at this time whimsically assumed the name of ,renou1 and he wrote to a friend that of course he had married in this name1 for he adds1 with the characteristic insertion of an irrelevant bit of magniloquence1 it is not names that are married2 no1 it is persons4 ,even if in this simple and holy ceremony names entered as a constituent part1 the one ,i bear would have sufficed1 since ,i recognise no other4 ,if it were a question of property to be assured1 then it would be another thing1 but you know very well that is not our case4#adi ,of course1 this may have been a marriage according to the truth of nature1 and ,rousseau was as free to choose his own rites as more sacramental performers1 but it is clear from his own words about property that there was no pretence of a marriage in law4 ,he and ,theresa were on profoundly uncomfortable terms about this time1#aej and ,rousseau is not the only person by many thousands who has deceived himself into thinking that some form of words between man and woman must magically transform the substance of their characters and lives1 and conjure up new relations of peace and steadfastness4 99 99 99 99 99 ,we have1 however1 been outstripping slow-footed destiny1 and have now to return to the time when ,theresa did not drink brandy1 nor run after stable-boys1 nor fill ,rousseau's soul with bitterness and suspicion1 but sat contentedly with him in an evening taking a stoic's meal in the window of their garret on the fourth floor1 seasoning it with confidence1 intimacy1 gentleness of soul1 and that general comfort of sensation which1 as we know to our cost1 is by no means an invariable condition either of duty done externally or of spiritual growth within4 ,it is perhaps hard for us to feel that we are in the presence of a great religious reactionist2 there is so little sign of the higher graces of the soul1 there are so many signs of the lowering clogs of the flesh4 ,but the spirit of a man moves in mysterious ways1 and expands like the plants of the field with strange and silent stirrings4 ,it is one of the chief tests of worthiness and freedom from vulgarity of soul in us1 to be able to have faith that this expansion is a reality1 and the most important of all realities4 ,we do not rightly seize the type of ,socrates if we can never forget that he was the husband of ,xanthippe1 nor ,david's if we can only think of him as the murderer of ,uriah1 nor ,peter's if we can simply remember that he denied his master4 ,our vision is only blindness1 if we can never bring ourselves to see the possibilities of deep mystic aspiration behind the vile outer life of a man1 or to believe that this coarse ,rousseau1 scantily supping with his coarse mate1 might yet have many glimpses of the great wide horizons that are haunted by figures rather divine than human4 ,,footnotes3 #ajd ,in theory he was even now curiously prudent and almost sagacious2 witness the ,projet pour l',education1 etc41 submitted to ,m4 de ,mably1 and printed in the volume of his ,works entitled ,mlanges1 pp4 #ajf-acf4 ,in the matter of ,latin1 it may be worth noting that ,rousseau rashly or otherwise condemns the practice of writing it1 as a vexatious superfluity 7p4 #acb74 #aje ,conf41 vi4 #dga4 #ajf ,ib41 vi4 #dgb-dge2 vii4 #h4 #ajg ,conf41 vii4 #ah1 #ai4 #ajh ,musset-,pathay 7ii4 #gb7 quotes the passage from ,lord ,chesterfield's ,letters1 where the writer suggests ,madame ,dupin as a proper person with whom his son might in a regular and business-like manner open the elevating game of gallant intrigue4 #aji ,m4 ,dupin deserves honourable mention as having helped the editors of the ,encyclopdia by procuring information for them as to salt-works 7,d',alembert's ,discours ,prliminaire74 ,his son ,m4 ,dupin de ,francueil1 it may be worth noting1 is a link in the genealogical chain between two famous personages4 ,in #aggg1 the year before ,rousseau's death1 he married 7in the chapel of the ,french embassy in ,london7 ,aurora de ,saxe1 a natural daughter of the marshal1 himself the natural son of ,august the ,strong1 ,king of ,poland4 ,from this union was born ,maurice ,dupin1 and ,maurice ,dupin was the father of ,madame ,george ,sand4 ,m4 ,francueil died in #aghg4 #aaj ,mm4 de ,mdme4 d',epinay1 vol4 i4 ch4 iv4 p4 #agf4 #aaa ,ib4 vol4 i4 ch4 iv4 pp4 #agh1 #agi4 #aab ,conf41 vii4 #df1 #ea1 #eb1 etc4 ,a diplomatic piece in ,rousseau's handwriting has been found in the archives of the ,french consulate at ,constantinople1 as ,m4 ,girardin informs us4 ,voltaire unworthily spread the report that ,rousseau had been the ambassador's private attendant4 ,for ,rousseau's reply to the calumny1 see ,corr41 v4 #ge 7,jan4 #e1 #agfg72 also iv4 #aej4 #aac ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre1 ,oeuv41 xii4 #ee seq4 #aad ,conf41 vii4 #ib4 #aae ,conf41 vii4 #ch1 #ci4 #aaf ,lettres de la ,montagne1 iii4 #bff4 #aag ,conf41 vii4 #ge-hd4 ,also a second example1 #hd-hf4 ,for ,byron's opinion of one of these stories1 see ,lockhart's ,life of ,scott1 vi4 #acb4 7,ed4 #ahcg47 #aah ,lettre sur la ,musique ,franaise 7#agec71 p4 #ahf4 #aai ,conf41 ix4 #bcb4 #abj ,ib4 vii4 #ig4 #aba ,htel ,st4 ,quentin1 rue des ,cordiers1 a narrow street running between the rue ,st4 ,jacques and the rue ,victor ,cousin4 ,the still squalid hostelry is now visible as ,htel ,j4,j4 ,rousseau4 ,there is some doubt whether he first saw ,theresa in #agdc or #agde4 ,the account in ,bk4 vii4 of the ,confessions is for the latter date 7see also ,corr41 ii4 #bjg71 but in the well-known letter to her in #agfi 7,ib4 vi4 #gi71 he speaks of the twenty-six years of their union4 ,their so-called marriage took place in #agfh1 and writing in that year he speaks of the five-and-twenty years of their attachment 7,ib4 v4 #cbc71 and in the ,confessions 7ix4 #bdi7 he fixes their marriage at the same date2 also in the letter to ,saint-,germain 7vi4 #aeb74 ,musset-,pathay1 though giving #agde in one place 7i4 #de71 and #agdc in another 7ii4 #aih71 has with less than his usual care paid no attention to the discrepancy4 #abb ,conf41 vii4 #ig-ajj4 #abc ,conf41 vii4 #aja4 ,a short specimen of her composition may be interesting1 at any rate to hieroglyphic students3 ,mesiceuras ancor mien re mies quan geu ceures o pres deu vous1 e deu vous temoes tous la goies e latandres deu mon querque vous cones ces que getou gour e rus pour vous1 e qui neu finiraes quotobocs ces mon quere qui vous paleu ces paes mes le vre 444 ge sui avestous lamities e la reu conec caceu posible e la tacheman mon cher bonnamies votreau enble e bon amiess theress le vasseur4 ,of which dark words this is the interpretation3--,mais il sera encore mieux remis quand je sera auprs de vous1 et de vous tmoigner toute la joie et la tendresse de mon coeur que vous connaissez que j'ai toujours eue pour vous1 et qui ne finira qu'au tombeau2 c'est mon coeur qui vous parle1 c'est pas mes lvres4444 ,je suis avec toute l'amiti et la reconnaissance possibles1 et l'attachement1 mon cher bon ami1 votre humble et bonne amie1 ,thrse ,le ,vasseur4 7,rousseau1 ses ,amis et ses ,ennemis1 ii4 #dej47 ,certainly it was not learning and arts which hindered ,theresa's manners from being pure4 #abd ,oeuv4 et ,corr4 ,ind41 #cfe4 #abe ,conf41 vii4 #ajb4 ,see also ,corr41 v4 #cgc 7,oct4 #aj1 #agfh74 ,on the other hand1 ,conf41 ix4 #bdi4 #abf ,m4 ,st4 ,marc ,girardin1 in one of his admirable papers on ,rousseau1 speaks of him as a bourgeois unclassed by an alliance with a tavern servant 7,rev4 des ,deux ,mondes1 ,nov4 #aheb1 p4 #gei72 but surely ,rousseau had unclassed himself long before1 in the houses of ,madame ,vercellis1 ,count ,gouvon1 and even ,madame de ,warens1 and by his repudiation1 from the time when he ran away from ,geneva1 of nearly every bourgeois virtue and bourgeois prejudice4 #abg ,conf41 vii4 #aa4 ,also footnote4 #abh ,rveries1 ix4 #cji4 #abi ,conf41 viii4 #adb1 #adc4 #acj ,the other day ,i came for the first time upon the following in the sayings of ,madame de ,lambert3--,ce ne sont pas toujours les fautes qui nous perdent2 c'est la manire de se conduire aprs les avoir faites4 #ahgg4 #aca ,conf41 xii4 #ahg1 #ahh4 #acb ,ib41 viii4 #bba4 #acc ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre1 ,oeuv41 xii4 #ajc4 ,see ,conf41 xii #ahh1 and ,corr41 v4 #cbd4 #acd ,referring1 no doubt1 to the ceremony which he called their marriage1 and which had taken place in #agfh4 #ace ,corr41 vi4 #gi-hf4 ,august #ab1 #agfi4 #acf ,composed in #agde4 ,the ,ftes de ,ramire was represented at ,versailles at the very end of this year4 #acg ,some time in #agdf-g4 ,conf41 vii4 #aac1 #aad4 #ach ,probably in the winter of #agdf-g4 ,corr41 ii4 #bjg4 ,conf41 vii4 #abj-abd4 ,ib41 viii4 #adh4 ,corr41 ii4 #bjh4 ,june #ab1 #agfa1 to the ,marchale de ,luxembourg4 #aci ,george ,sand1--in an eloquent piece entitled ,propos des ,charmettes 7,revue des ,deux ,mondes1 ,november #ae1 #ahfc71 in which she expresses her own obligations to ,jean ,jacques4 ,in #agfa ,rousseau declares that he had never hitherto had the least reason to suspect ,theresa's fidelity4 ,corr41 ii4 #bji #adj ,conf41 vii4 #abc4 #ada ,ib41 viii4 #ade-aea4 #adb ,rveries1 ix4 #cac4 ,the same reason is given1 ,conf41 ix4 #beb2 also in ,letter to ,madame ,b41 ,january #ag1 #aggj 7,corr41 vi4 #aag74 #adc ,corr41 vi4 #aeb1 #aec4 ,feb4 #bg1 #aggj4 #add ,letter to ,madame de ,francueil1 ,april #bj1 #agea4 ,corr41 i4 #aea4 #ade ,corr41 i4 #aea-aee #adf ,august #aj1 #agfa4 ,corr41 ii4 #bbj4 ,the ,marchale de ,luxembourg's note on the subject1 to which this is a reply1 is given in ,rousseau1 ses ,amis et ses ,ennemis1 i4 #ddd4 #adg ,conf41 x4 #bdi4 ,see above1 p4 #ajf1 n4 #adh ,to ,lalliaud1 ,aug #ca1 #agfh4 ,corr41 v4 #cbd4 ,see also ,d',escherny1 quoted in ,musset-,pathay1 i4 #afi1 #agj4 #adi ,to ,du ,peyrou1 ,sept4 #bf1 #agfh4 ,corr41 v4 #cfj4 #aej ,to ,mdlle4 ,le ,vasseur1 ,july #be1 #agfh4 ,corr41 v4 #aaf-aai4 ,,chapter ,v4 ,,the ,,discourses4 ,the busy establishment of local academies in the provincial centres of ,france only preceded the outbreak of the revolution by ten or a dozen years2 but one or two of the provincial cities1 such as ,bordeaux1 ,rouen1 ,dijon1 had possessed academies in imitation of the greater body of ,paris for a much longer time4 ,their activity covered a very varied ground1 from the mere commonplaces of literature to the most practical details of material production4 ,if they now and then relapsed into inquiries about the laws of ,crete1 they more often discussed positive and scientific theses1 and rather resembled our chambers of agriculture than bodies of more learned pretension4 ,the academy of ,dijon was one of the earliest of these excellent institutions1 and on the whole the list of its theses shows it to have been among the most sensible in respect of the subjects which it found worth thinking about4 ,its members1 however1 could not entirely resist the intellectual atmosphere of the time4 ,in #agdb they invited discussion of the point1 whether the natural law can conduct society to perfection without the aid of political laws4#aea ,in #agdi they proposed this question as a theme for their prize essay3 ,has the restoration of the sciences contributed to purify or to corrupt manners8 ,rousseau was one of fourteen competitors1 and in #agej his discussion of the academic theme received the prize4#aeb ,this was his first entry on the field of literature and speculation4 ,three years afterwards the same academy propounded another question3 ,what is the origin of inequality among men1 and is it authorised by the natural law8 ,rousseau again competed1 and though his essay neither gained the prize1 nor created as lively an agitation as its predecessor had done1 yet we may justly regard the second as a more powerful supplement to the first4 ,it is always interesting to know the circumstances under which pieces that have moved a world were originally composed1 and ,rousseau's account of the generation of his thoughts as to the influence of enlightenment on morality1 is remarkable enough to be worth transcribing4 ,he was walking along the road from ,paris to ,vincennes one hot summer afternoon on a visit to ,diderot1 then in prison for his ,letter on the ,blind 7#agdi71 when he came across in a newspaper the announcement of the theme propounded by the ,dijon academy4 ,if ever anything resembled a sudden inspiration1 it was the movement which began in me as ,i read this4 ,all at once ,i felt myself dazzled by a thousand sparkling lights2 crowds of vivid ideas thronged into my mind with a force and confusion that threw me into unspeakable agitation2 ,i felt my head whirling in a giddiness like that of intoxication4 ,a violent palpitation oppressed me2 unable to walk for difficulty of breathing1 ,i sank under one of the trees of the avenue1 and passed half an hour there in such a condition of excitement1 that when ,i arose ,i saw that the front of my waistcoat was all wet with my tears1 though ,i was wholly unconscious of shedding them4 ,ah1 if ,i could ever have written the quarter of what ,i saw and felt under that tree1 with what clearness should ,i have brought out all the contradictions of our social system2 with what simplicity ,i should have demonstrated that man is good naturally1 and that by institutions only is he made bad4#aec ,diderot encouraged him to compete for the prize1 and to give full flight to the ideas which had come to him in this singular way4#aed ,people have held up their hands at the amazing originality of the idea that perhaps sciences and arts have not purified manners4 ,this sentiment is surely exaggerated1 if we reflect first that it occurred to the academicians of ,dijon as a question for discussion1 and second that1 if you are asked whether a given result has or has not followed from certain circumstances1 the mere form of the question suggests ,no quite as readily as ,yes4 ,the originality lay not in the central contention1 but in the fervour1 sincerity1 and conviction of a most unacademic sort with which it was presented and enforced4 ,there is less originality in denouncing your generation as wicked and adulterous than there is in believing it to be so1 and in persuading the generation itself both that you believe it and that you have good reasons to give4 ,we have not to suppose that there was any miracle wrought by agency celestial or infernal in the sudden disclosure of his idea to ,rousseau4 ,rousseau had been thinking of politics ever since the working of the government of ,venice had first drawn his mind to the subject4 ,what is the government1 he had kept asking himself1 which is most proper to form a sage and virtuous nation8 ,what government by its nature keeps closest to the law8 ,what is this law8 ,and whence8#aee ,this chain of problems had led him to what he calls the historic study of morality1 though we may doubt whether history was so much his teacher as the rather meagrely nourished handmaid of his imagination4 ,here was the irregular preparation1 the hidden process1 which suddenly burst into light and manifested itself with an exuberance of energy1 that passed to the man himself for an inward revolution with no precursive sign4 ,rousseau's ecstatic vision on the road to ,vincennes was the opening of a life of thought and production which only lasted a dozen years1 but which in that brief space gave to ,europe a new gospel4 ,emilius and the ,social ,contract were completed in #agfa1 and they crowned a work which if you consider its origin1 influence1 and meaning with due and proper breadth1 is marked by signal unity of purpose and conception4 ,the key to it is given to us in the astonishing transport at the foot of the wide-spreading oak4 ,such a transport does not come to us of cool and rational western temperament1 but more often to the oriental after lonely sojourning in the wilderness1 or in violent reactions on the road to ,damascus and elsewhere4 ,jean ,jacques detected oriental quality in his own nature1#aef and so far as the union of ardour with mysticism1 of intense passion with vague dream1 is to be defined as oriental1 he assuredly deserves the name4 ,the ideas stirred in his mind by the ,dijon problem suddenly opened his eyes1 brought order into the chaos in his head1 revealed to him another universe4 ,from the active effervescence which thus began in his soul1 came sparks of genius which people saw glittering in his writings through ten years of fever and delirium1 but of which no trace had been seen in him previously1 and which would probably have ceased to shine henceforth1 if he should have chanced to wish to continue writing after the access was over4 ,inflamed by the contemplation of these lofty objects1 he had them incessantly present to his mind4 ,his heart1 made hot within him by the idea of the future happiness of the human race1 and by the honour of contributing to it1 dictated to him a language worthy of so high an enterprise 444 and for a moment1 he astonished ,europe by productions in which vulgar souls saw only eloquence and brightness of understanding1 but in which those who dwell in the ethereal regions recognised with joy one of their own4#aeg ,this was his own account of the matter quite at the end of his life1 and this is the only point of view from which we are secure against the vulgarity of counting him a deliberate hypocrite and conscious charlatan4 ,he was possessed1 as holier natures than his have been1 by an enthusiastic vision1 an intoxicated confidence1 a mixture of sacred rage and prodigious love1 an insensate but absolutely disinterested revolt against the stone and iron of a reality which he was bent on melting in a heavenly blaze of splendid aspiration and irresistibly persuasive expression4 ,the last word of this great expansion was ,emilius1 its first and more imperfectly articulated was the earlier of the two ,discourses4 ,rousseau's often-repeated assertion that here was the instant of the ruin of his life1 and that all his misfortunes flowed from that unhappy moment1 has been constantly treated as the word of affectation and disguised pride4 ,yet1 vain as he was1 it may well have represented his sincere feeling in those better moods when mental suffering was strong enough to silence vanity4 ,his visions mastered him for these thirteen years1 grande mortalis oevi spatium4 ,they threw him on to that turbid sea of literature for which he had so keen an aversion1 and from which1 let it be remarked1 he fled finally away1 when his confidence in the ease of making men good and happy by words of monition had left him4 ,it was the torment of his own enthusiasm which rent that veil of placid living1 that in his normal moments he would fain have interposed between his existence and the tumult of a generation with which he was profoundly out of sympathy4 ,in this way the first ,discourse was the letting in of much evil upon him1 as that and the next and the ,social ,contract were the letting in of much evil upon all ,europe4 ,of this essay the writer has recorded his own impression that1 though full of heat and force1 it is absolutely wanting in logic and order1 and that of all the products of his pen1 it is the feeblest in reasoning and the poorest in numbers and harmony4 ,for1 as he justly adds1 the art of writing is not learnt all at once4#aeh ,the modern critic must be content to accept the same verdict2 only a generation so in love as this was with anything that could tickle its intellectual curiousness1 would have found in the first of the two ,discourses that combination of speculative and literary merit which was imputed to ,rousseau on the strength of it1 and which at once brought him into a place among the notables of an age that was full of them4#aei ,we ought to take in connection with it two at any rate of the vindications of the ,discourse1 which the course of controversy provoked from its author1 and which serve to complete its significance4 ,it is difficult to analyse1 because in truth it is neither closely argumentative1 nor is it vertebrate1 even as a piece of rhetoric4 ,the gist of the piece1 however1 runs somewhat in this wise3-- ,before art had fashioned our manners1 and taught our passions to use a too elaborate speech1 men were rude but natural1 and difference of conduct announced at a glance difference of character4 ,to-day a vile and most deceptive uniformity reigns over our manners1 and all minds seem as if they had been cast in a single mould4 ,hence we never know with what sort of person we are dealing1 hence the hateful troop of suspicions1 fears1 reserves1 and treacheries1 and the concealment of impiety1 arrogance1 calumny1 and scepticism1 under a dangerous varnish of refinement4 ,so terrible a set of effects must have a cause4 ,history shows that the cause here is to be found in the progress of sciences and arts4 ,egypt1 once so mighty1 becomes the mother of philosophy and the fine arts2 straightway behold its conquest by ,cambyses1 by ,greeks1 by ,romans1 by ,arabs1 finally by ,turks4 ,greece twice conquered ,asia1 once before ,troy1 once in its own homes2 then came in fatal sequence the progress of the arts1 the dissolution of manners1 and the yoke of the ,macedonian4 ,rome1 founded by a shepherd and raised to glory by husbandmen1 began to degenerate with ,ennius1 and the eve of her ruin was the day when she gave a citizen the deadly title of arbiter of good taste4 ,china1 where letters carry men to the highest dignities of the state1 could not be preserved by all her literature from the conquering power of the ruder ,tartar4 ,on the other hand1 the ,persians1 ,scythians1 ,germans1 remain in history as types of simplicity1 innocence1 and virtue4 ,was not he admittedly the wisest of the ,greeks1 who made of his own apology a plea for ignorance1 and a denunciation of poets1 orators1 and artists8 ,the chosen people of ,god never cultivated the sciences1 and when the new law was established1 it was not the learned1 but the simple and lowly1 fishers and workmen1 to whom ,christ entrusted his teaching and its ministry4#afj ,this1 then1 is the way in which chastisement has always overtaken our presumptuous efforts to emerge from that happy ignorance in which eternal wisdom placed us2 though the thick veil with which that wisdom has covered all its operations seemed to warn us that we were not destined to fatuous research4 ,all the secrets that ,nature hides from us are so many evils against which she would fain shelter us4 ,is probity the child of ignorance1 and can science and virtue be really inconsistent with one another8 ,these sounding contrasts are mere deceits1 because if you look nearly into the results of this science of which we talk so proudly1 you will perceive that they confirm the results of induction from history4 ,astronomy1 for instance1 is born of superstition2 geometry from the desire of gain2 physics from a futile curiosity2 all of them1 even morals1 from human pride4 ,are we for ever to be the dupes of words1 and to believe that these pompous names of science1 philosophy1 and the rest1 stand for worthy and profitable realities8#afa ,be sure that they do not4 ,how many errors do we pass through on our road to truth1 errors a thousandfold more dangerous than truth is useful8 ,and by what marks are we to know truth1 when we think that we have found it8 ,and above all1 if we do find it1 who of us can be sure that he will make good use of it8 ,if celestial intelligences cultivated science1 only good could result2 and we may say as much of great men of the stamp of ,socrates1 who are born to be the guides of others4#afb ,but the intelligences of common men are neither celestial nor ,socratic4 ,again1 every useless citizen may be fairly regarded as a pernicious man2 and let us ask those illustrious philosophers who have taught us what insects reproduce themselves curiously1 in what ratio bodies attract one another in space1 what curves have conjugate points1 points of inflection or reflection1 what in the planetary revolutions are the relations of areas traversed in equal times--let us ask those who have attained all this sublime knowledge1 by how much the worse governed1 less flourishing1 or less perverse we should have been if they had attained none of it8 ,now if the works of our most scientific men and best citizens lead to such small utility1 tell us what we are to think of the crowd of obscure writers and idle men of letters who devour the public substance in pure loss4 ,then it is in the nature of things that devotion to art leads to luxury1 and luxury1 as we all know from our own experience1 no less than from the teaching of history1 saps not only the military virtues by which nations preserve their independence1 but also those moral virtues which make the independence of a nation worth preserving4 ,your children go to costly establishments where they learn everything except their duties4 ,they remain ignorant of their own tongue1 though they will speak others not in use anywhere in the world2 they gain the faculty of composing verses which they can barely understand2 without capacity to distinguish truth from error1 they possess the art of rendering them indistinguishable to others by specious arguments4 ,magnanimity1 equity1 temperance1 courage1 humanity1 have no real meaning to them2 and if they hear speak of ,god1 it breeds more terror than awful fear4 ,whence spring all these abuses1 if not from the disastrous inequality introduced among men by the distinction of talents and the cheapening of virtue8#afc ,people no longer ask of a man whether he has probity1 but whether he is clever2 nor of a book whether it is useful1 but whether it is well written4 ,and after all1 what is this philosophy1 what are these lessons of wisdom1 to which we give the prize of enduring fame8 ,to listen to these sages1 would you not take them for a troop of charlatans1 all bawling out in the market-place1 ,come to me1 it is only ,i who never cheat you1 and always give good measure8 ,one maintains that there is no body1 and that everything is mere representation2 the other that there is no entity but matter1 and no ,god but the universe3 one that moral good and evil are chimeras2 the other that men are wolves and may devour one another with the easiest conscience in the world4 ,these are the marvellous personages on whom the esteem of contemporaries is lavished so long as they live1 and to whom immortality is reserved after their death4 ,and we have now invented the art of making their extravagances eternal1 and thanks to the use of typographic characters the dangerous speculations of ,hobbes and ,spinoza will endure for ever4 ,surely when they perceive the terrible disorders which printing has already caused in ,europe1 sovereigns will take as much trouble to banish this deadly art from their states as they once took to introduce it4 ,if there is perhaps no harm in allowing one or two men to give themselves up to the study of sciences and arts1 it is only those who feel conscious of the strength required for advancing their subjects1 who have any right to attempt to raise monuments to the glory of the human mind4 ,we ought to have no tolerance for those compilers who rashly break open the gate of the sciences1 and introduce into their sanctuary a populace that is unworthy even to draw near to it4 ,it may be well that there should be philosophers1 provided only and always that the people do not meddle with philosophising4#afd ,in short1 there are two kinds of ignorance3 one brutal and ferocious1 springing from a bad heart1 multiplying vices1 degrading the reason1 and debasing the soul3 the other a reasonable ignorance1 which consists in limiting our curiosity to the extent of the faculties we have received2 a modest ignorance1 born of a lively love for virtue1 and inspiring indifference only for what is not worthy of filling a man's heart1 or fails to contribute to its improvement2 a sweet and precious ignorance1 the treasure of a pure soul at peace with itself1 which finds all its blessedness in inward retreat1 in testifying to itself its own innocence1 and which feels no need of seeking a warped and hollow happiness in the opinion of other people as to its enlightenment4#afe 99 99 99 99 99 ,some of the most pointed assaults in this ,discourse1 such for instance as that on the pedantic parade of wit1 or that on the excessive preponderance of literary instruction in the art of education1 are due to ,montaigne2 and in one way1 the ,discourse might be described as binding together a number of that shrewd man's detached hints by means of a paradoxical generalisation4 ,but the ,rousseau is more important than the ,montaigne in it4 ,another remark to be made is that its vigorous disparagement of science1 of the emptiness of much that is called science1 of the deadly pride of intellect1 is an anticipation in a very precise way of the attitude taken by the various ,christian churches and their representatives now and for long1 beginning with ,de ,maistre1 the greatest of the religious reactionaries after ,rousseau4 ,the vilification of the ,greeks is strikingly like some vehement passages in ,de ,maistre's estimate of their share in sophisticating ,european intellect4 ,at last ,rousseau even began to doubt whether so chattering a people could ever have had any solid virtues1 even in primitive times4#aff ,yet ,rousseau's own thinking about society is deeply marked with opinions borrowed exactly from these very chatterers4 ,his imagination was fascinated from the first by the freedom and boldness of ,plato's social speculations1 to which his debt in a hundred details of his political and educational schemes is well known4 ,what was more important than any obligation of detail was the fatal conception1 borrowed partly from the ,greeks and partly from ,geneva1 of the omnipotence of the ,lawgiver in moulding a social state after his own purpose and ideal4 ,we shall presently quote the passage in which he holds up for our envy and imitation the policy of ,lycurgus at ,sparta1 who swept away all that he found existing and constructed the social edifice afresh from foundation to roof4#afg ,it is true that there was an unmistakable decay of ,greek literary studies in ,france from the beginning of the eighteenth century1 and ,rousseau seems to have read ,plato only through ,ficinus's translation4 ,but his example and its influence1 along with that of ,mably and others1 warrant the historian in saying that at no time did ,greek ideas more keenly preoccupy opinion than during this century4#afh ,perhaps we may say that ,rousseau would never have proved how little learning and art do for the good of manners1 if ,plato had not insisted on poets being driven out of the ,republic4 ,the article on ,political ,economy1 written by him for the ,encyclopdia 7#agee71 rings with the names of ancient rulers and lawgivers2 the project of public education is recommended by the example of ,cretans1 ,lacedmonians1 and ,persians1 while the propriety of the reservation of a state domain is suggested by ,romulus4 ,it may be added that one of the not too many merits of the essay is the way in which the writer1 more or less in the ,socratic manner1 insists on dragging people out of the refuge of sonorous general terms1 with a great public reputation of much too well-established a kind to be subjected to the affront of analysis4 ,it is true that ,rousseau himself contributed nothing directly to that analytic operation which ,socrates likened to midwifery1 and he set up graven images of his own in place of the idols which he destroyed4 ,this1 however1 did not wholly efface the distinction1 which he shares with all who have ever tried to lead the minds of men into new tracks1 of refusing to accept the current coins of philosophical speech without test or measurement4 ,such a treatment of the great trite words which come so easily to the tongue and seem to weigh for so much1 must always be the first step towards bringing thought back into the region of real matter1 and confronting phrases1 terms1 and all the common form of the discussion of an age1 with the actualities which it is the object of sincere discussion to penetrate4 ,the refutation of many parts of ,rousseau's main contention on the principles which are universally accepted among enlightened men in modern society is so extremely obvious that to undertake it would merely be to draw up a list of the gratulatory commonplaces of which we hear quite enough in the literature and talk of our day4 ,in this direction1 perhaps it suffices to say that the ,discourse is wholly one-sided1 admitting none of the conveniences1 none of the alleviations of suffering of all kinds1 nothing of the increase of mental stature1 which the pursuit of knowledge has brought to the race4 ,they may or may not counterbalance the evils that it has brought1 but they are certainly to be put in the balance in any attempt at philosophic examination of the subject4 ,it contains no serious attempt to tell us what those alleged evils really are1 or definitely to trace them one by one1 to abuse of the thirst for knowledge and defects in the method of satisfying it4 ,it omits to take into account the various other circumstances1 such as climate1 government1 race1 and the disposition of neighbours1 which must enter equally with intellectual progress into whatever demoralisation has marked the destinies of a nation4 ,finally it has for the base of its argument the entirely unsupported assumption of there having once been in the early history of each society a stage of mild1 credulous1 and innocent virtue1 from which appetite for the fruit of the forbidden tree caused an inevitable degeneration4 ,all evidence and all scientific analogy are now well known to lead to the contrary doctrine1 that the history of civilisation is a history of progress and not of decline from a primary state4 ,after all1 as ,voltaire said to ,rousseau in a letter which only showed a superficial appreciation of the real drift of the argument1 we must confess that these thorns attached to literature are only as flowers in comparison with the other evils that have deluged the earth4 ,it was not ,cicero nor ,lucretius nor ,virgil nor ,horace1 who contrived the proscriptions of ,marius1 of ,sulla1 of the debauched ,antony1 of the imbecile ,lepidus1 of that craven tyrant basely surnamed ,augustus4 ,it was not ,marot who produced the ,st4 ,bartholomew massacre1 nor the tragedy of the ,cid that led to the wars of the ,fronde4 ,what really makes1 and always will make1 this world into a valley of tears1 is the insatiable cupidity and indomitable insolence of men1 from ,kouli ,khan1 who did not know how to read1 down to the custom-house clerk1 who knows nothing but how to cast up figures4 ,letters nourish the soul1 they strengthen its integrity1 they furnish a solace to it1--and so on in the sense1 though without the eloquence1 of the famous passage in ,cicero's defence of ,archias the poet4#afi ,all this1 however1 in our time is in no danger of being forgotten1 and will be present to the mind of every reader4 ,the only danger is that pointed out by ,rousseau himself3 ,people always think they have described what the sciences do1 when they have in reality only described what the sciences ought to do4#agj ,what we are more likely to forget is that ,rousseau's piece has a positive as well as a negative side1 and presents1 in however vehement and overstated a way1 a truth which the literary and speculative enthusiasm of ,france in the eighteenth century1 as is always the case with such enthusiasm whenever it penetrates either a generation or an individual1 was sure to make men dangerously ready to forget4#aga ,this truth may be put in different terms4 ,we may describe it as the possibility of eminent civic virtue existing in people1 without either literary taste or science or speculative curiosity4 ,or we may express it as the compatibility of a great amount of contentment and order in a given social state1 with a very low degree of knowledge4 ,or finally1 we may give the truth its most general expression1 as the subordination of all activity to the promotion of social aims4 ,rousseau's is an elaborate and roundabout manner of saying that virtue without science is better than science without virtue2 or that the well-being of a country depends more on the standard of social duty and the willingness of citizens to conform to it1 than on the standard of intellectual culture and the extent of its diffusion4 ,in other words1 we ought to be less concerned about the speculative or scientific curiousness of our people than about the height of their notion of civic virtue and their firmness and persistency in realising it4 ,it is a moralist's way of putting the ancient preacher's monition1 that they are but empty in whom is not the wisdom of ,god4 ,the importance of stating this is in our modern era always pressing1 because there is a constant tendency on the part of energetic intellectual workers1 first1 to concentrate their energies on a minute specialty1 leaving public affairs and interests to their own course4 ,second1 they are apt to overestimate their contributions to the stock of means by which men are made happier1 and what is more serious1 to underestimate in comparison those orderly1 modest1 self-denying1 moral qualities1 by which only men are made worthier1 and the continuity of society is made surer4 ,third1 in consequence of their greater command of specious expression and their control of the organs of public opinion1 they both assume a kind of supreme place in the social hierarchy1 and persuade the majority of plain men unsuspectingly to take so very egregious an assumption for granted4 ,so far as ,rousseau's ,discourse recalled the truth as against this sort of error it was full of wholesomeness4 ,unfortunately his indignation against the overweening pretensions of the verse-writer1 the gazetteer1 and the great band of socialists at large1 led him into a general position with reference to scientific and speculative energy1 which seems to involve a perilous misconception of the conditions of this energy producing its proper results4 ,it is easy now1 as it was easy for ,rousseau in the last century1 to ask in an epigrammatical manner by how much men are better or happier for having found out this or that novelty in transcendental mathematics1 biology1 or astronomy2 and this is very well as against the discoverer of small marvels who shall give himself out for the benefactor of the human race4 ,but both historical experience and observation of the terms on which the human intelligence works1 show us that we can only make sure of intellectual activity on condition of leaving it free to work all round1 in every department and in every remotest nook of each department1 and that its most fruitful epochs are exactly those when this freedom is greatest1 this curiosity most keen and minute1 and this waste1 if you choose to call the indispensable superfluity of force in a natural process waste1 most copious and unsparing4 ,you will not find your highest capacity in statesmanship1 nor in practical science1 nor in art1 nor in any other field where that capacity is most urgently needed for the right service of life1 unless there is a general and vehement spirit of search in the air4 ,if it incidentally leads to many industrious futilities and much learned refuse1 this is still the sign and the generative element of industry which is not futile1 and of learning which is something more than mere water spilled upon the ground4 ,we may say in fine that this first ,discourse and its vindications were a dim1 shallow1 and ineffective feeling after the great truth1 that the only normal state of society is that in which neither the love of virtue has been thrust far back into a secondary place by the love of knowledge1 nor the active curiosity of the understanding dulled1 blunted1 and made ashamed by soft1 lazy ideals of life as a life only of the affections4 ,rousseau now and always fell into the opposite extreme from that against which his whole work was a protest4 ,we need not complain very loudly that while remonstrating against the restless intrepidity of the rationalists of his generation1 he passed over the central truth1 namely that the full and ever festal life is found in active freedom of curiosity and search taking significance1 motive1 force1 from a warm inner pulse of human love and sympathy4 ,it was not given to ,rousseau to see all this1 but it was given to him to see the side of it for which the most powerful of the men living with him had no eyes1 and the first ,discourse was only a moderately successful attempt to bring his vision before ,europe4 ,it was said at the time that he did not believe a word of what he had written4#agb ,it is a natural characteristic of an age passionately occupied with its own set of ideas1 to question either the sincerity or the sanity of anybody who declares its sovereign conceptions to be no better than foolishness4 ,we cannot entertain such a suspicion4 ,perhaps the vehemence of controversy carries him rather further than he quite meant to go1 when he declares that if he were a chief of an ,african tribe1 he would erect on his frontier a gallows1 on which he would hang without mercy the first ,european who should venture to pass into his territory1 and the first native who should dare to pass out of it4#agc ,and there are many other extravagances of illustration1 but the main position is serious enough1 as represented in the emblematic vignette with which the essay was printed--the torch of science brought to men by ,prometheus1 who warns a satyr that it burns2 the satyr1 seeing fire for the first time and being fain to embrace it1 is the symbol of the vulgar men who1 seduced by the glitter of literature1 insist on delivering themselves up to its study4#agd ,rousseau's whole doctrine hangs compactly together1 and we may see the signs of its growth after leaving his hands in the crude formula of the first ,discourse1 if we proceed to the more audacious paradox of the second4 ,,ii4 ,the ,discourse on the ,origin of ,inequality among men opens with a description of the natural state of man1 which occupies considerably more than half of the entire performance4 ,it is composed in a vein which is only too familiar to the student of the literature of the time1 picturing each habit and thought1 and each step to new habits and thoughts1 with the minuteness1 the fulness1 the precision1 of one who narrates circumstances of which he has all his life been the close eye-witness4 ,the natural man reveals to us every motive1 every process internal and external1 every slightest circumstance of his daily life1 and each element that gradually transformed him into the non-natural man4 ,one who had watched bees or beetles for years could not give us a more full or confident account of their doings1 their hourly goings in and out1 than it was the fashion in the eighteenth century to give of the walk and conversation of the primeval ancestor4 ,the conditions of primitive man were discussed by very incompetent ladies and gentlemen at convivial supper parties1 and settled with complete assurance4#age ,rousseau thought and talked about the state of nature because all his world was thinking and talking about it4 ,he used phrases and formulas with reference to it which other people used4 ,he required no more evidence than they did1 as to the reality of the existence of the supposed set of conditions to which they gave the almost sacramental name of state of nature4 ,he never thought of asking1 any more than anybody else did in the middle of the eighteenth century1 what sort of proof1 how strong1 how direct1 was to be had1 that primeval man had such and such habits1 and changed them in such a way and direction1 and for such reasons4 ,physical science had reached a stage by this time when its followers were careful to ask questions about evidence1 correct description1 verification4 ,but the idea of accurate method had to be made very familiar to men by the successes of physical science in the search after truths of one kind1 before the indispensableness of applying it in the search after truths of all kinds had extended to the science of the constitution and succession of social states4 ,in this respect ,rousseau was not guiltier than the bulk of his contemporaries4 ,voltaire's piercing common sense1 ,hume's deep-set sagacity1 ,montesquieu's caution1 prevented them from launching very far on to this metaphysical sea of nature and natural laws and states1 but none of them asked those critical questions in relation to such matters which occur so promptly in the present day to persons far inferior to them in intellectual strength4 ,rousseau took the notion of the state of nature because he found it to his hand2 he fitted to it his own characteristic aspirations1 expanding and vivifying a philosophic conception with all the heat of humane passion2 and thus1 although1 at the end of the process when he had done with it1 the state of nature came out blooming as the rose1 it was fundamentally only the dry1 current abstraction of his time1 artificially decorated to seduce men into embracing a strange ideal under a familiar name4 ,before analysing the ,discourse on ,inequality1 we ought to make some mention of a remarkable man whose influence probably reached ,rousseau in an indirect manner through ,diderot2 ,i mean ,morelly4#agf ,in #agec ,morelly published a prose poem called the ,basiliade1 describing the corruption of manners introduced by the errors of the lawgiver1 and pointing out how this corruption is to be amended by return to the empire of nature and truth4 ,he was no doubt stimulated by what was supposed to be the central doctrine of ,montesquieu1 then freshly given to the world1 that it is government and institutions which make men what they are4 ,but he was stimulated into a reaction1 and in #aged he propounded his whole theory1 in a piece which in closeness1 consistency1 and thoroughness is admirably different from ,rousseau's rhetoric4#agg ,it lacked the sovereign quality of persuasiveness1 and so fell on deaf ears4 ,morelly accepts the doctrine that men are formed by the laws1 but insists that moralists and statesmen have always led us wrong by legislating and prescribing conduct on the false theory that man is bad1 whereas he is in truth a creature endowed with natural probity4 ,then he strikes to the root of society with a directness that ,rousseau could not imitate1 by the position that these laws by establishing a monstrous division of the products of nature1 and even of their very elements--by dividing what ought to have remained entire1 or ought to have been restored to entireness if any accident had divided them1 aided and favoured the break-up of all sociability4 ,all political and all moral evils are the effects of this pernicious cause--private property4 ,he says of ,rousseau's first ,discourse that the writer ought to have seen that the corruption of manners which he set down to literature and art really came from this venomous principle of property1 which infects all that it touches4#agh ,christianity1 it is true1 assailed this principle and restored equality or community of possessions1 but ,christianity had the radical fault of involving such a detachment from earthly affections1 in order to deliver ourselves to heavenly meditation1 as brought about a necessary degeneration in social activity4 ,the form of government is a matter of indifference1 provided you can only assure community of goods4 ,political revolutions are at bottom the clash of material interests1 and until you have equalised the one you will never prevent the other4#agi ,let us turn from this very definite position to one of the least definite productions to be found in all literature4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it will seem a little odd that more than half of a discussion on the origin of inequality among men should be devoted to a glowing imaginary description1 from which no reader could conjecture what thesis it was designed to support4 ,but we have only to remember that ,rousseau's object was to persuade people that the happier state is that in which inequality does not subsist1 that there had once been such a state1 and that this was first the state of nature1 and then the state only one degree removed from it1 in which we now find the majority of savage tribes4 ,at the outset he defines inequality as a word meaning two different things2 one1 natural or physical inequality1 such as difference of age1 of health1 of physical strength1 of attributes of intelligence and character2 the other1 moral or political inequality1 consisting in difference of privileges which some enjoy to the detriment of the rest1 such as being richer1 more honoured1 more powerful4 ,the former differences are established by nature1 the latter are authorised1 if they were not established1 by the consent of men4#ahj ,in the state of nature no inequalities flow from the differences among men in point of physical advantage and disadvantage1 and which remain without derivative differences so long as the state of nature endures undisturbed4 ,nature deals with men as the law of ,sparta dealt with the children of its citizens2 she makes those who are well constituted strong and robust1 and she destroys all the rest4 ,the surface of the earth is originally covered by dense forest1 and inhabited by animals of every species4 ,men1 scattered among them1 imitate their industry1 and so rise to the instinct of the brutes1 with this advantage that while each species has only its own1 man1 without anything special1 appropriates the instincts of all4 ,this admirable creature1 with foes on every side1 is forced to be constantly on the alert1 and hence to be always in full possession of all his faculties1 unlike civilised man1 whose native force is enfeebled by the mechanical protections with which he has surrounded himself4 ,he is not afraid of the wild beasts around him1 for experience has taught him that he is their master4 ,his health is better than ours1 for we live in a time when excess of idleness in some1 excess of toil in others1 the heating and over-abundant diet of the rich1 the bad food of the poor1 the orgies and excesses of every kind1 the immoderate transport of every passion1 the fatigue and strain of spirit1--when all these things have inflicted more disorders upon us than the vaunted art of medicine has been able to keep pace with4 ,even if the sick savage has only nature to hope from1 on the other hand he has only his own malady to be afraid of4 ,he has no fear of death1 for no animal can know what death is1 and the knowledge of death and its terrors is one of the first of man's terrible acquisitions after abandoning his animal condition4#aha ,in other respects1 such as protection against weather1 such as habitation1 such as food1 the savage's natural power of adaptation1 and the fact that his demands are moderate in proportion to his means of satisfying them1 forbid us to consider him physically unhappy4 ,let us turn to the intellectual and moral side4 ,if you contend that men were miserable1 degraded1 and outcast during these primitive centuries because the intelligence was dormant1 then do not forget1 first1 that you are drawing an indictment against nature1--no trifling blasphemy in those days--and second1 that you are attributing misery to a free creature with tranquil spirit and healthy body1 and that must surely be a singular abuse of the term4 ,we see around us scarcely any but people who complain of the burden of their lives2 but who ever heard of a savage in full enjoyment of his liberty ever dreaming of complaint about his life or of self-destruction8 ,with reference to virtues and vices in a state of nature1 ,hobbes is wrong in declaring that man in this state is vicious1 as not knowing virtue4 ,he is not vicious1 for the reason that he does not know what being good is4 ,it is not development of enlightenment nor the restrictions of law1 but the calm of the passions and ignorance of vice1 which keep them from doing ill4 ,tanto plus in illis profitcit vitiorum ignoratio1 quam in his cognitio virtutis4 ,besides man has one great natural virtue1 that of pity1 which precedes in him the use of reflection1 and which indeed he shares with some of the brutes4 ,mandeville1 who was forced to admit the existence of this admirable quality in man1 was absurd in not perceiving that from it flow all the social virtues which he would fain deny4 ,pity is more energetic in the primitive condition than it is among ourselves4 ,it is reflection which isolates one4 ,it is philosophy which teaches the philosopher to say secretly at sight of a suffering wretch1 ,perish if it please thee2 ,i am safe and sound4 ,they may be butchering a fellow-creature under your window2 all you have to do is to clap your hands to your ears1 and argue a little with yourself to hinder nature in revolt from making you feel as if you were in the case of the victim4#ahb ,the savage man has not got this odious gift4 ,in the state of nature it is pity that takes the place of laws1 manners1 and virtue4 ,it is in this natural sentiment rather than in subtle arguments that we have to seek the reluctance that every man would feel to do ill1 even without the precepts of education4#ahc ,finally1 the passion of love1 which produces such disasters in a state of society1 where the jealousy of lovers and the vengeance of husbands lead each day to duels and murders1 where the duty of eternal fidelity only serves to occasion adulteries1 and where the law of continence necessarily extends the debauching of women and the practice of procuring abortion#ahd--this passion in a state of nature1 where it is purely physical1 momentary1 and without any association of durable sentiment with the object of it1 simply leads to the necessary reproduction of the species and nothing more4 ,let us conclude1 then1 that wandering in the forests1 without industry1 without speech1 without habitation1 without war1 without connection of any kind1 without any need of his fellows or without any desire to harm them1 perhaps even without ever recognising one of them individually1 savage man1 subject to few passions and sufficing to himself1 had only the sentiments and the enlightenment proper to his condition4 ,he was only sensible of his real wants1 and only looked because he thought he had an interest in seeing2 and his intelligence made no more progress than his vanity4 ,if by chance he hit on some discovery1 he was all the less able to communicate it2 as he did not know even his own children4 ,an art perished with its inventor4 ,there was neither education nor progress2 generations multiplied uselessly2 and as each generation always started from the same point1 centuries glided away in all the rudeness of the first ages1 the race was already old1 the individual remained always a child4 ,this brings us to the point of the matter4 ,for if you compare the prodigious diversities in education and manner of life which reign in the different orders of the civil condition1 with the simplicity and uniformity of the savage and animal life1 where all find nourishment in the same articles of food1 live in the same way1 and do exactly the same things1 you will easily understand to what degree the difference between man and man must be less in the state of nature than in that of society4#ahe ,physical inequality is hardly perceived in the state of nature1 and its indirect influences there are almost non-existent4 ,now as all the social virtues and other faculties possessed by man potentially were not bound by anything inherent in him to develop into actuality1 he might have remained to all eternity in his admirable and most fitting primitive condition1 but for the fortuitous concurrence of a variety of external changes4 ,what are these different changes1 which may perhaps have perfected human reason1 while they certainly have deteriorated the race1 and made men bad in making them sociable8 ,what1 then1 are the intermediary facts between the state of nature and the state of civil society1 the nursery of inequality8 ,what broke up the happy uniformity of the first times8 ,first1 difference in soil1 in climate1 in seasons1 led to corresponding differences in men's manner of living4 ,along the banks of rivers and on the shores of the sea1 they invented hooks and lines1 and were eaters of fish4 ,in the forests they invented bows and arrows1 and became hunters4 ,in cold countries they covered themselves with the skins of beasts4 ,lightning1 volcanoes1 or some happy chance acquainted them with fire1 a new protection against the rigours of winter4 ,in company with these natural acquisitions1 grew up a sort of reflection or mechanical prudence1 which showed them the kind of precautions most necessary to their security4 ,from this rudimentary and wholly egoistic reflection there came a sense of the existence of a similar nature and similar interests in their fellow-creatures4 ,instructed by experience that the love of well-being and comfort is the only motive of human actions1 the savage united with his neighbours when union was for their joint convenience1 and did his best to blind and outwit his neighbours when their interests were adverse to his own1 and he felt himself the weaker4 ,hence the origin of certain rude ideas of mutual obligation4#ahf ,soon1 ceasing to fall asleep under the first tree1 or to withdraw into caves1 they found axes of hard stone1 which served them to cut wood1 to dig the ground1 and to construct hovels of branches and clay4 ,this was the epoch of a first revolution1 which formed the establishment and division of families1 and which introduced a rough and partial sort of property4 ,along with rudimentary ideas of property1 though not connected with them1 came the rudimentary forms of inequality4 ,when men were thrown more together1 then he who sang or danced the best1 the strongest1 the most adroit1 or the most eloquent1 acquired the most consideration--that is1 men ceased to take uniform and equal place4 ,and with the coming of this end of equality there passed away the happy primitive immunity from jealousy1 envy1 malice1 hate4 ,on the whole1 though men had lost some of their original endurance1 and their natural pity had already undergone a certain deterioration1 this period of the development of the human faculties1 occupying a just medium between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our modern self-love1 must have been at once the happiest and the most durable epoch4 ,the more we reflect1 the more evident we find it that this state was the least subject to revolutions and the best for man4 ,so long as men were content with their rustic hovels1 so long as they confined themselves to stitching their garments of skin with spines or fish bones1 to decking their bodies with feathers and shells and painting them in different colours1 to perfecting and beautifying their bows and arrows--in a word1 so long as they only applied themselves to works that one person could do1 and to arts that needed no more than a single hand1 then they lived free1 healthy1 good1 and happy1 so far as was compatible with their natural constitution1 and continued to enjoy among themselves the sweetness of independent intercourse4 ,but from the moment that one man had need of the help of another1 as soon as they perceived it to be useful for one person to have provisions for two1 then equality disappeared1 property was introduced1 labour became necessary1 and the vast forests changed into smiling fields1 which had to be watered by the sweat of men1 and in which they ever saw bondage and misery springing up and growing ripe with the harvests4#ahg ,the working of metals and agriculture have been the two great agents in this revolution4 ,for the poet it is gold and silver1 but for the philosopher it is iron and corn1 that have civilised men and undone the human race4 ,it is easy to see how the latter of the two arts was suggested to men by watching the reproducing processes of vegetation4 ,it is less easy to be sure how they discovered metal1 saw its uses1 and invented means of smelting it1 for nature had taken extreme precautions to hide the fatal secret4 ,it was probably the operation of some volcano which first suggested the idea of fusing ore4 ,from the fact of land being cultivated its division followed1 and therefore the institution of property in its full shape4 ,from property arose civil society4 ,the first man who1 having enclosed a piece of ground1 could think of saying1 ,this is mine1 and found people simple enough to believe him1 was the real founder of civil society4 ,how many crimes1 wars1 murders1 miseries1 and horrors would not have been spared to the human race by one who1 plucking up the stakes1 or filling in the trench1 should have called out to his fellows3 ,beware of listening to this impostor2 you are undone if you forget that the earth belongs to no one1 and that its fruits are for all4#ahh ,things might have remained equal even in this state1 if talents had only been equal1 and if for example the employment of iron and the consumption of agricultural produce had always exactly balanced one another4 ,but the stronger did more work2 the cleverer got more advantage from his work2 the more ingenious found means of shortening his labour2 the husbandman had more need of metal1 or the smith more need of grain2 and while working equally1 one got much gain1 and the other could scarcely live4 ,this distinction between ,have and ,have-not led to confusion and revolt1 to brigandage on the one side and constant insecurity on the other4 ,hence disorders of a violent and interminable kind1 which gave rise to the most deeply designed project that ever entered the human mind4 ,this was to employ in favour of property the strength of the very persons who attacked it1 to inspire them with other maxims1 and to give them other institutions which should be as favourable to property as natural law had been contrary to it4 ,the man who conceived this project1 after showing his neighbours the monstrous confusion which made their lives most burdensome1 spoke in this wise3 ,let us unite to shield the weak from oppression1 to restrain the proud1 and to assure to each the possession of what belongs to him2 let us set up rules of justice and peace1 to which all shall be obliged to conform1 without respect of persons1 and which may repair to some extent the caprices of fortune1 by subjecting the weak and the mighty alike to mutual duties4 ,in a word1 instead of turning our forces against one another1 let us collect them into one supreme power to govern us by sage laws1 to protect and defend all the members of the association1 repel their common foes1 and preserve us in never-ending concord4 ,this1 and not the right of conquest1 must have been the origin of society and laws1 which threw new chains round the poor and gave new might to the rich2 and for the profit of a few grasping and ambitious men1 subjected the whole human race henceforth and for ever to toil and bondage and wretchedness without hope4 ,the social constitution thus propounded and accepted was radically imperfect from the outset1 and in spite of the efforts of the sagest lawgivers1 it has always remained imperfect1 because it was the work of chance1 and because1 inasmuch as it was ill begun1 time1 while revealing defects and suggesting remedies1 could never repair its vices2 people went on incessantly repairing and patching1 instead of which it was indispensable to begin by making a clean surface and by throwing aside all the old materials1 just as ,lycurgus did in ,sparta4 ,put shortly1 the main positions are these4 ,in the state of nature each man lived in entire isolation1 and therefore physical inequality was as if it did not exist4 ,after many centuries1 accident1 in the shape of difference of climate and external natural conditions1 enforcing for the sake of subsistence some degree of joint labour1 led to an increase of communication among men1 to a slight development of the reasoning and reflective faculties1 and to a rude and simple sense of mutual obligation1 as a means of greater comfort in the long run4 ,the first state was good and pure1 but the second state was truly perfect4 ,it was destroyed by a fresh succession of chances1 such as the discovery of the arts of metal-working and tillage1 which led first to the institution of property1 and second to the prominence of the natural or physical inequalities1 which now began to tell with deadly effectiveness4 ,these inequalities gradually became summed up in the great distinction between rich and poor2 and this distinction was finally embodied in the constitution of a civil society1 expressly adapted to consecrate the usurpation of the rich1 and to make the inequality of condition between them and the poor eternal4 ,we thus see that the ,discourse1 unlike ,morelly's terse exposition1 contains no clear account of the kind of inequality with which it deals4 ,is it inequality of material possession or inequality of political right8 ,morelly tells you decisively that the latter is only an accident1 flowing from the first2 that the key to renovation lies in the abolition of the first4 ,rousseau mixes the two confusedly together under a single name1 bemoans each1 but shrinks from a conclusion or a recommendation as to either4 ,he declares property to be the key to civil society1 but falls back from any ideas leading to the modification of the institution lying at the root of all that he deplores4 ,the first general criticism1 which in itself contains and covers nearly all others1 turns on ,method4 ,conjectures become reasons when they are the most likely that you can draw from the nature of things1 and it is for philosophy in lack of history to determine the most likely facts4 ,in an inductive age this royal road is rigorously closed4 ,guesses drawn from the general nature of things can no longer give us light as to the particular nature of the things pertaining to primitive men1 any more than such guesses can teach us the law of the movement of the heavenly bodies1 or the foundations of jurisprudence4 ,nor can deduction from anything but propositions which have themselves been won by laborious induction1 ever lead us to the only kind of philosophy which has fair pretension to determine the most probable of the missing facts in the chain of human history4 ,that quantitative and differentiating knowledge which is science1 was not yet thought of in connection with the movements of our own race upon the earth4 ,it is to be said1 further1 that of the two possible ways of guessing about the early state1 the conditions of advance from it1 and the rest1 ,rousseau's guess that all movement away from it has been towards corruption1 is less supported by subsequent knowledge than the guess of his adversaries1 that it has been a movement progressive and upwards4 ,this much being said as to incurable vice of method1 and there are fervent disciples of ,rousseau now living who will regard one's craving for method in talking about men as a foible of pedantry1 we may briefly remark on one or two detached objections to ,rousseau's story4 ,to begin with1 there is no certainty as to there having ever been a state of nature of a normal and organic kind1 any more than there is any one normal and typical state of society now4 ,there are infinitely diverse states of society1 and there were probably as many diverse states of nature4 ,rousseau was sufficiently acquainted with the most recent metaphysics of his time to know that you cannot think of a tree in general1 nor of a triangle in general1 but only of some particular tree or triangle4#ahi ,in a similar way he might have known that there never was any such thing as a state of nature in the general and abstract1 fixed1 typical1 and single4 ,he speaks of the savage state also1 which comes next1 as one1 identical1 normal4 ,it is1 of course1 nothing of the kind4 ,the varieties of belief and habit and custom among the different tribes of savages1 in reference to every object that can engage their attention1 from death and the gods and immortality down to the uses of marriage and the art of counting and the ways of procuring subsistence1 are infinitely numerous2 and the more we know about this vast diversity1 the less easy is it to think of the savage state in general4 ,when ,rousseau extols the savage state as the veritable youth of the world1 we wonder whether we are to think of the negroes of the ,gold ,coast1 or the ,dyaks of ,borneo1 ,papuans or ,maoris1 ,cheyennes or ,tierra-del-,fuegians or the fabled ,troglodytes2 whether in the veritable youth of the world they counted up to five or only to two2 whether they used a fire-drill1 and if so what kind of drill2 whether they had the notion of personal identity in so weak a shape as to practise the couvade2 and a hundred other points1 which we should now require any writer to settle1 who should speak of the savage state as sovereign1 one1 and indivisible1 in the way in which ,rousseau speaks of it1 and holds it up to our vain admiration4 ,again1 if the savage state supervened upon the state of nature in consequence of certain climatic accidents of a permanent kind1 such as living on the banks of a river or in a dense forest1 how was it that the force of these accidents did not begin to operate at once8 ,how could the isolated state of nature endure for a year in face of them8 ,or what was the precipitating incident which suddenly set them to work1 and drew the primitive men from an isolation so profound that they barely recognised one another1 into that semi-social state in which the family was founded8 ,we cannot tell how the state of nature continued to subsist1 or1 if it ever subsisted1 how and why it ever came to an end1 because the agencies which are alleged to have brought it to an end must have been coeval with the appearance of man himself4 ,if gods had brought to men seed1 fire1 and the mechanical arts1 as in one of the ,platonic myths1#aij we could understand that there was a long stage preliminary to these heavenly gifts4 ,but if the gods had no part nor lot in it1 and if the accidents that slowly led the human creature into union were as old as that nature1 of which indeed they were actually the component elements1 then man must have quitted the state of nature the very day on which he was born into it4 ,and what can be a more monstrous anachronism than to turn a flat-headed savage into a clever1 self-conscious1 argumentative utilitarian of the eighteenth century2 working the social problem out in his flat head with a keenness1 a consistency1 a grasp of first principles1 that would have entitled him to a chair in the institute of moral sciences1 and entering the social union with the calm and reasonable deliberation of a great statesman taking a critical step in policy8 ,aristotle was wiser when he fixed upon sociability as an ultimate quality of human nature1 instead of making it1 as ,rousseau and so many others have done1 the conclusion of an unimpeachable train of syllogistic reasoning4#aia ,morelly even1 his own contemporary1 and much less of a sage than ,aristotle1 was still sage enough to perceive that this primitive human machine1 though composed of intelligent parts1 generally operates independently of its reason2 its deliberations are forestalled1 and only leave it to look on1 while sentiment does its work4#aib ,it is the more remarkable that ,rousseau should have fallen into this kind of error1 as it was one of his distinctions to have perceived and partially worked out the principle1 that men guide their conduct rather from passion and instinct than from reasoned enlightenment4#aic ,the ultimate quality which he named pity is1 after all1 the germ of sociability1 which is only extended sympathy4 ,but he did not firmly adhere to this ultimate quality1 nor make any effort consistently to trace out its various products4 ,we do not find1 however1 in ,rousseau any serious attempt to analyse the composition of human nature in its primitive stages4 ,though constantly warning his readers very impressively against confounding domesticated with primitive men1 he practically assumes that the main elements of character must always have been substantially identical with such elements and conceptions as are found after the addition of many ages of increasingly complex experience4 ,there is something worth considering in his notion that civilisation has had effects upon man analogous to those of domestication upon animals1 but he lacked logical persistency enough to enable him to adhere to his own idea1 and work out conclusions from it4 ,it might further be pointed out in another direction that he takes for granted that the mode of advance into a social state has always been one and the same1 a single and uniform process1 marked by precisely the same set of several stages1 following one another in precisely the same order4 ,there is no evidence of this2 on the contrary1 evidence goes to show that civilisation varies in origin and process with race and other things1 and that though in all cases starting from the prime factor of sociableness in man1 yet the course of its development has depended on the particular sets of circumstances with which that factor has had to combine4 ,these are full of variety1 according to climate and racial predisposition1 although1 as has been justly said1 the force of both these two elements diminishes as the influence of the past in giving consistency to our will becomes more definite1 and our means of modifying climate and race become better known4 ,there is no sign that ,rousseau1 any more than many other inquirers1 ever reflected whether the capacity for advance into the state of civil society in any highly developed form is universal throughout the species1 or whether there are not races eternally incapable of advance beyond the savage state4 ,progress would hardly be the exception which we know it to be in the history of communities if there were not fundamental diversities in the civilisable quality of races4 ,why do some bodies of men get on to the high roads of civilisation1 while others remain in the jungle and thicket of savagery2 and why do some races advance along one of these roads1 and others advance by different roads8 ,considerations of this sort disclose the pinched frame of trim theory with which ,rousseau advanced to set in order a huge mass of boundlessly varied1 intricate1 and unmanageable facts4 ,it is not1 however1 at all worth while to extend such criticism further than suffices to show how little his piece can stand the sort of questions which may be put to it from a scientific point of view4 ,nothing that ,rousseau had to say about the state of nature was seriously meant for scientific exposition1 any more than the ,sermon on the ,mount was meant for political economy4 ,the importance of the ,discourse on ,inequality lay in its vehement denunciation of the existing social state4 ,to the writer the question of the origin of inequality is evidently far less a matter at heart1 than the question of its results4 ,it is the natural inclination of one deeply moved by a spectacle of depravation in his own time and country1 to extol some other time or country1 of which he is happily ignorant enough not to know the drawbacks4 ,rousseau wrote about the savage state in something of the same spirit in which ,tacitus wrote the ,germania4 ,and here1 as in the ,discourse on the influence of science and art upon virtue1 there is a positive side4 ,to miss this in resentment of the unscientific paradox that lies about it1 is to miss the force of the piece1 and to render its enormous influence for a generation after it was written incomprehensible4 ,we may always be quite sure that no set of ideas ever produced this resounding effect on opinion1 unless they contained something which the social or spiritual condition of the men whom they inflamed made true for the time1 and true in an urgent sense4 ,is it not tenable that the state of certain savage tribes is more normal1 offers a better balance between desire and opportunity1 between faculty and performance1 than the permanent state of large classes in western countries1 the broken wreck of civilisation8#aid ,to admit this is not to conclude1 as ,rousseau so rashly concluded1 that the movement away from the primitive stages has been productive only of evil and misery even to the masses of men1 the hewers of wood and the drawers of water2 or that it was occasioned1 and has been carried on by the predominance of the lower parts and principles of human nature4 ,our provisional acquiescence in the straitness and blank absence of outlook or hope of the millions who come on to the earth that greets them with no smile1 and then stagger blindly under dull burdens for a season1 and at last are shovelled silently back under the ground1--our acquiescence can only be justified in the sight of humanity by the conviction that this is one of the temporary conditions of a vast process1 working forwards through the impulse and agency of the finer human spirits1 but needing much blood1 many tears1 uncounted myriads of lives1 and immeasurable geologic periods of time1 for its high and beneficent consummation4 ,there is nothing surprising1 perhaps nothing deeply condemnable1 in the burning anger for which this acquiescence is often changed in the more impatient natures4 ,as against the ignoble host who think that the present ordering of men1 with all its prodigious inequalities1 is in foundation and substance the perfection of social blessedness1 ,rousseau was almost in the right4 ,if the only alternative to the present social order remaining in perpetuity were a retrogression to some such condition as that of the islanders of the ,south ,sea1 a lover of his fellow-creatures might look upon the result1 so far as it affected the happiness of the bulk of them1 with tolerably complete indifference4 ,it is only the faith that we are moving slowly away from the existing order1 as our ancestors moved slowly away from the old want of order1 that makes the present endurable1 and makes any tenacious effort to raise the future possible4 99 99 99 99 99 ,an immense quantity of nonsense has been talked about the equality of man1 for which those who deny that doctrine and those who assert it may divide the responsibility4 ,it is in reality true or false1 according to the doctrines with which it is confronted4 ,as against the theory that the existing way of sharing the laboriously acquired fruits and delights of the earth is a just representation and fair counterpart of natural inequalities among men in merit and capacity1 the revolutionary theory is true1 and the passionate revolutionary cry for equality of external chance most righteous and unanswerable4 ,but the issues do not end here4 ,take such propositions as these3--there are differences in the capacity of men for serving the community2 the well-being of the community demands the allotment of high function in proportion to high faculty2 the rights of man in politics are confined to a right of the same protection for his own interests as is given to the interests of others4 ,as against these principles1 the revolutionary deductions from the equality of man are false4 ,and such pretensions as that every man could be made equally fit for every function1 or that not only each should have an equal chance1 but that he who uses his chance well and sociably should be kept on a level in common opinion and trust with him who uses it ill and unsociably1 or does not use it at all1--the whole of this is obviously most illusory and most disastrous1 and in whatever decree any set of men have ever taken it up1 to that degree they have paid the penalty4 ,what ,rousseau's ,discourse meant1 what he intended it to mean1 and what his first direct disciples understood it as meaning1 is not that all men are born equal4 ,he never says this1 and his recognition of natural inequality implies the contrary proposition4 ,his position is that the artificial differences1 springing from the conditions of the social union1 do not coincide with the differences in capacity springing from original constitution2 that the tendency of the social union as now organised is to deepen the artificial inequalities1 and make the gulf between those endowed with privileges and wealth and those not so endowed ever wider and wider4 ,it would have been very difficult a hundred years ago to deny the truth of this way of stating the case4 ,if it has to some extent already ceased to be entirely true1 and if violent popular forces are at work making it less and less true1 we owe the origin of the change1 among other causes and influences1 not least to the influence of ,rousseau himself1 and those whom he inspired4 ,it was that influence which1 though it certainly did not produce1 yet did as certainly give a deep and remarkable bias1 first to the ,american ,revolution1 and a dozen years afterwards to the ,french ,revolution4 ,it would be interesting to trace the different fortunes which awaited the idea of the equality of man in ,america and in ,france4 ,in ,america it has always remained strictly within the political order1 and perhaps with the considerable exception of the possibles share it may have had1 along with ,christian notions of the brotherhood of man1 and statesmanlike notions of national prosperity1 in leading to the abolition of slavery1 it has brought forth no strong moral sentiment against the ethical and economic bases of any part of the social order4 ,in ,france1 on the other hand1 it was the starting-point of movements that have had all the fervour and intensity of religions1 and have made men feel about social inequalities the burning shame and wrath with which a ,christian saw the flourishing temples of unclean gods4 ,this difference in the interpretation and development of the first doctrine may be explained in various ways1--by difference of material circumstance between ,america and ,france2 difference of the political and social level from which the principle of equality had to start2 and not least by difference of intellectual temperament4 ,this last was itself partly the product of difference in religion1 which makes the ,english dread the practical enforcement of logical conclusions1 while the ,french have hitherto been apt to dread and despise any tendency to stop short of that4 99 99 99 99 99 ,let us notice1 finally1 the important fact that the appearance of ,rousseau's ,discourses was the first sign of reaction against the historic mode of inquiry into society that had been initiated by ,montesquieu4 ,the ,spirit of ,laws was published in #agdh1 with a truly prodigious effect4 ,it coloured the whole of the social literature in ,france during the rest of the century4 ,a history of its influence would be a history of one of the most important sides of speculative activity4 ,in the social writings of ,rousseau himself there is hardly a chapter which does not contain tacit reference to ,montesquieu's book4 ,the ,discourses were the beginning of a movement in an exactly opposite direction2 that is1 away from patient collection of wide multitudes of facts relating to the conditions of society1 towards the promulgation of arbitrary systems of absolute social dogmas4 ,mably1 the chief dogmatic socialist of the century1 and one of the most dignified and austere characters1 is an important example of the detriment done by the influence of ,rousseau to that of ,montesquieu1 in the earlier stages of the conflict between the two schools4 ,mably 7#agji-aghe71 of whom the remark is to be made that he was for some years behind the scenes of government as ,de ,tencin's secretary and therefore was versed in affairs1 began his inquiries with ,greece and ,rome4 ,you will find everything in ancient history1 he said4#aie ,and he remained entirely in this groove of thought until ,rousseau appeared4 ,he then gradually left ,montesquieu4 ,to find the duties of a legislator1 he said1 ,i descend into the abysses of my heart1 ,i study my sentiments4 ,he opposed the ,economists1 the other school that was feeling its way imperfectly enough to a positive method4 ,as soon as ,i see landed property established1 he wrote1 then ,i see unequal fortunes2 and from these unequal fortunes must there not necessarily result different and opposed interests1 all the vices of riches1 all the vices of poverty1 the brutalisation of intelligence1 the corruption of civil manners8 and so forth4#aif ,in his most important work1 published in #aggf1 we see ,rousseau's notions developed1 with a logic from which their first author shrunk1 either from fear1 or more probably from want of firmness and consistency as a reasoner4 ,it is to equality that nature has attached the preservation of our social faculties and happiness3 and from this ,i conclude that legislation will only be taking useless trouble1 unless all its attention is first of all directed to the establishment of equality in the fortune and condition of citizens4#aig ,that is to say not only political equality1 but economic communism4 ,what miserable folly1 that persons who pass for philosophers should go on repeating after one another that without property there can be no society4 ,let us leave illusion4 ,it is property that divides us into two classes1 rich and poor2 the first will alway prefer their fortune to that of the state1 while the second will never love a government or laws that leave them in misery4#aih ,this was the kind of opinion for which ,rousseau's diffuse and rhetorical exposition of social necessity had prepared ,france some twenty years before4 ,after powerfully helping the process of general dissolution1 it produced the first fruits specifically after its own kind some twenty years later in the system of ,baboeuf4#aii ,the unflinching application of principles is seldom achieved by the men who first launch them4 ,the labour of the preliminary task seems to exhaust one man's stock of mental force4 ,rousseau never thought of the subversion of society or its reorganisation on a communistic basis4 ,within a few months of his profession of profound lament that the first man who made a claim to property had not been instantly unmasked as the arch foe of the race1 he speaks most respectfully of property as the pledge of the engagements of citizens and the foundation of the social pact1 while the first condition of that pact is that every one should be maintained in peaceful enjoyment of what belongs to him4#bjj ,we need not impute the apparent discrepancy to insincerity4 ,rousseau was always apt to think in a slipshod manner4 ,he sensibly though illogically accepted wholesome practical maxims1 as if they flowed from theoretical premisses that were in truth utterly incompatible with them4 ,,footnotes3 #aea ,delandine's ,couronnes ,acadmiques1 ou ,recueil de prix proposs par les ,socits ,savantes4 7,paris1 #b vols41 #aghg47 #aeb ,musset-,pathay has collected the details connected with the award of the prize1 ii4 #cfe-cfg4 #aec ,second ,letter to ,m4 de ,malesherbes1 p4 #ceh4 ,also ,conf41 viii4 #ace4 #aed ,diderot's account 7,vie de ,snque1 sect4 #ff1 ,oeuv41 iii4 #ih2 also ii4 #bhe7 is not inconsistent with ,rousseau's own1 so that we may dismiss as apocryphal ,marmontel's version of the story 7,mm4 ,,viii471 to the effect that ,rousseau was about to answer the question with a commonplace affirmative1 until ,diderot persuaded him that a paradox would attract more attention4 ,it has been said also that ,m4 de ,francueil1 and various others1 first urged the writer to take a negative line of argument4 ,to suppose this possible is to prove one's incapacity for understanding what manner of man ,rousseau was4 #aee ,conf41 ix4 #bcb1 #bcc4 #aef ,rousseau ,juge de ,jean ,jacques1 ,dialogues1 i4 #beb4 #aeg ,dialogues1 i4 #bge1 #bgf4 #aeh ,conf41 viii4 #ach4 #aei ,it made a kind of revolution in ,paris1 says ,grimm4 ,corr4 ,lit41 i4 #ajh4 #afj ,rp4 au ,roi de ,pologne1 p4 #aaa and p4 #aac4 #afa ,rp4 ,m4 ,bordes1 #ach4 #afb ,ib4 #acg4 #afc ,the first source of the evil is inequality2 from inequality come riches 444 from riches are born luxury and idleness2 from luxury come the fine arts1 and from idleness the sciences4 ,rp4 au ,roi de ,pologne1 #abj1 #aba4 #afd ,rp4 ,m4 ,bordes1 #adg4 ,in the same spirit he once wrote the more wholesome maxim1 ,we should argue with the wise1 and never with the public4 ,corr41 i4 #aia4 #afe ,rp4 au ,roi de ,pologne1 #abh1 #abi4 #aff ,rp4 ,m4 ,bordes1 #aej-afa4 #afg ,p4 #agd4 #afh ,egger's ,hellnisme en ,france1 #bh;ime leon1 p4 #bfe4 #afi ,voltaire to ,j4,j4,r4 ,aug4 #cj1 #agee4 #agj ,rp4 au ,roi de ,pologne1 #aje4 #aga ,in #agec the ,french ,academy1 by way no doubt of summoning a counter-blast to ,rousseau1 boldly offered as the subject of their essay the thesis that ,the love of letters inspires the love of virtue1 and the prize was won fitly enough by a ,jesuit professor of rhetoric4 ,see ,delandine1 i4 #db4 #agb ,preface to ,narcisse1 #bea4 #agc ,rp4 ,m4 ,bordes1 #afg4 #agd ,p4 #ahg4 #age ,see for instance a strange discussion about morale universelle and the like in ,mm4 de ,mdme4 d',epinay1 i4 #bag-bbf4 #agf ,often described as ,morelly the ,younger1 to distinguish him from his father1 who wrote an essay on the human heart1 and another on the human intelligence4 #agg ,code de la ,nature1 ou le vritable esprit de ses loix1 de tout tems nglig ou mconnu4 #agh ,p4 #afi4 ,rousseau did not see it then1 but he showed himself on the track4 #agi ,at the end of the ,code de la ,nature ,morelly places a complete set of rules for the organisation of a model community4 ,the base of it was the absence of private property--a condition that was to be preserved by vigilant education of the young in ways of thinking1 that should make the possession of private property odious or inconceivable4 ,there are to be sumptuary laws of a moderate kind4 ,the government is to be in the hands of the elders4 ,the children are to be taken away from their parents at the age of five2 reared and educated in public establishments2 and returned to their parents at the age of sixteen or so when they will marry4 ,marriage is to be dissoluble at the end of ten years1 but after divorce the woman is not to marry a man younger than herself1 nor is the man to marry a woman younger than the wife from whom he has parted4 ,the children of a divorced couple are to remain with the father1 and if he marries again1 they are to be held the children of the second wife4 ,mothers are to suckle their own children 7p4 #bbj74 ,the whole scheme is fuller of good ideas than such schemes usually are4 #ahj ,p4 #bah4 #aha ,this is obviously untrue4 ,animals do not know death in the sense of scientific definition1 and probably have no abstract idea of it as a general state2 but they know and are afraid of its concrete phenomena1 and so are most savages4 #ahb ,this is one of the passages in the ,discourse1 the harshness of which was afterwards attributed by ,rousseau to the influence of ,diderot4 ,conf41 viii4 #bje1 n4 #ahc ,p4 #bfa4 #ahd ,as if sin really came by the law in this sense2 as if a law defining and prohibiting a malpractice were the cause of the commission of the act which it constituted a malpractice4 ,as if giving a name and juristic classification to any kind of conduct were adding to men's motives for indulging in it4 #ahe ,p4 #bfi4 #ahf ,p4 #bgh4 #ahg ,pp4 #bhe-bhg4 #ahh ,p4 #bgc4 #ahi ,p4 #bej4 #aij ,politicus1 #bfh ,d-#bgd ,e4 #aia ,here for instance is ,d',alembert's story3--,the necessity of shielding our own body from pain and destruction leads us to examine among external objects those which are useful and those which are hurtful1 so that we may seek the one and flee the others4 ,but we hardly begin our search into such objects before we discover among them a great number of beings which strike us as exactly like ourselves2 that is1 whose form is just like our own1 and who1 so far as we can judge at the first glance1 appear to have the same perceptions4 ,everything therefore leads us to suppose that they have also the same wants1 and consequently the same interest in satisfying them1 whence it results that we must find great advantage in joining with them for the purpose of distinguishing in nature what has the power of preserving us from what has the power of hurting us4 ,the communication of ideas is the principle and the stay of this union1 and necessarily demands the invention of signs2 such is the origin of the formation of societies4 ,discours ,prliminaire de l',encyclopdie4 ,contrast this with ,aristotle's sensible statement 7,polit4 ,i4 ii4 #ae7 that there is in men by nature a strong impulse to enter into such union4 #aib ,code de la ,nature4 #aic ,see1 for example1 his criticism on the ,abb de ,st4 ,pierre4 ,conf41 viii4 #bfd4 ,and also in the analysis of this very ,discourse1 above1 vol4 i4 p4 #afc4 #aid ,i have lived with communities of savages in ,south ,america and in the ,east1 who have no laws or law courts but the public opinion of the visage freely expressed4 ,each man scrupulously respects the rights of his fellow1 and any infraction of those rights rarely or never takes place4 ,in such a community all are nearly equal4 ,there are none of those wide distinctions of education and ignorance1 wealth and poverty1 master and servant1 which are the products of our civilisation2 there is none of that widespread division of labour which1 while it increases wealth1 produces also conflicting interests2 there is not that severe competition and struggle for existence1 or for wealth1 which the dense population of civilised countries inevitably creates4 ,all incitements to great crimes are thus wanting1 and petty ones are repressed1 partly by the influence of public opinion1 but chiefly by that natural sense of justice and of his neighbour's right1 which seems to be in some degree inherent in every race of man4 ,now1 although we have progressed vastly beyond the savage state in intellectual achievements1 we have not advanced equally in morals4 ,it is true that among those classes who have no wants that cannot be easily supplied1 and among whom public opinion has great influence1 the rights of others are fully respected4 ,it is true1 also1 that we have vastly extended the sphere of those rights1 and include within them all the brotherhood of man4 ,but it is not too much to say1 that the mass of our populations have not at all advanced beyond the savage code of morals1 and have in many cases sunk below it4 ,wallace's ,malay ,archipelago1 vol4 ii4 pp4 #dfj-dfa4 #aie ,so too ,bougainville1 a brother of the navigator1 said in #agfj1 ,for an attentive observer who sees nothing in events of the utmost diversity of appearance but the natural effects of a certain number of causes differently combined1 ,greece is the universe in small1 and the history of ,greece an excellent epitome of universal history4 7,quoted in ,egger's ,hellnisme en ,france1 ii4 #bgb47 ,the revolutionists of the next generation1 who used to appeal so unseasonably to the ancients1 were only following a literary fashion set by their fathers4 #aif ,doutes sur l',ordre ,naturel2 ,oeuv41 xi4 #hj4 7,ed4 #agid1 #agie47 #aig ,la ,lgislation1 ,i4 i4 #aih ,ibid4 #aii ,it is not within our province to examine the vexed question whether the ,convention was fundamentally socialist1 and not merely political4 ,that socialist ideas were afloat in the minds of some members1 one can hardly doubt4 ,see ,von ,sybel's ,hist4 of the ,french ,revolution1 ,bk4 ,,ii4 ch4 iv41 on one side1 and ,quinet's ,la ,rvolution1 ii4 #ij-ajg1 on the other4 #bjj ,economie ,politique1 pp4 #da1 #ec1 etc4 ,,chapter ,,vi4 ,,paris4 ,i4 ,by what subtle process did ,rousseau1 whose ideal had been a summer life among all the softnesses of sweet gardens and dappled orchards1 turn into panegyrist of the harsh austerity of old ,cato and grim ,brutus's civic devotion8 ,the amiability of eighteenth century ,france--and ,france was amiable in spite of the atrocities of ,white ,penitents at ,toulouse1 and black ,jansenists at ,paris1 and the men and women who dealt in lettres-de-cachet at ,versailles--was revolted by the name of the cruel patriot who slew his son for the honour of discipline4#bja ,how came ,rousseau of all men1 the great humanitarian of his time1 to rise to the height of these unlovely rigours8 ,the answer is that he was a citizen of ,geneva transplanted4 ,he had been bred in puritan and republican tradition1 with love of ,god and love of law and freedom and love of country all penetrating it1 and then he had been accidentally removed to a strange city that was in active ferment with ideas that were the direct abnegation of all these4 ,in ,paris the idea of a ,god was either repudiated along with many other ancestral conceptions1 or else it was fatally entangled with the worst superstition and not seldom with the vilest cruelties4 ,the idea of freedom was unknown1 and the idea of law was benumbed by abuses and exceptions4 ,the idea of country was enfeebled in some and displaced in others by a growing passion for the captivating something styled citizenship of the world4 ,if ,rousseau could have ended his days among the tranquil lakes and hills of ,savoy1 ,geneva might possibly never have come back to him4 ,for it depends on circumstance1 which of the chances that slumber within us shall awake1 and which shall fall unroused with us into the darkness4 ,the fact of ,rousseau ranking among the greatest of the writers of the ,french language1 and the yet more important fact that his ideas found their most ardent disciples and exploded in their most violent form in ,france1 constantly make us forget that he was not a ,frenchman1 but a ,genevese deeply imbued with the spirit of his native city4 ,he was thirty years old before he began even temporarily to live in ,france3 he had only lived there some five or six years when he wrote his first famous piece1 so un-,french in all its spirit2 and the ideas of the ,social ,contract were in germ before he settled in ,france at all4 ,there have been two great religious reactions1 and the name of ,geneva has a fundamental association with each of them4 ,the first was that against the paganised ,catholicism of the renaissance1 and of this ,calvin was a prime leader2 the second was that against the materialism of the eighteenth century1 of which the prime leader was ,rousseau4 ,the diplomatist was right who called ,geneva the fifth part of the world4 ,at the congress of ,vienna1 some one1 wearied at the enormous place taken by the hardly visible ,geneva in the midst of negotiations involving momentous issues for the whole habitable globe1 called out that it was after all no more than a grain of sand4 ,but he was not wrong who made bold to reply1 ,geneva is no grain of sand2 'tis a grain of musk that perfumes all ,europe4#bjb ,we have to remember that it was at all events as a grain of musk ever pervading the character of ,rousseau4 ,it happened in later years that he repudiated his allegiance to her1 but however bitterly a man may quarrel with a parent1 he cannot change blood1 and ,rousseau ever remained a true son of the city of ,calvin4 ,we may perhaps conjecture without excessive fancifulness that the constant spectacle and memory of a community1 free1 energetic1 and prosperous1 whose institutions had been shaped and whose political temper had been inspired by one great lawgiver1 contributed even more powerfully than what he had picked up about ,lycurgus and ,lacedmon1 to give him a turn for ,utopian speculation1 and a conviction of the artificiality and easy modifiableness of the social structure4 ,this1 however1 is less certain than that he unconsciously received impressions in his youth from the circumstances of ,geneva1 both as to government and religion1 as to freedom1 order1 citizenship1 manners1 which formed the deepest part of him on the reflective side1 and which made themselves visible whenever he exchanged the life of beatified sense for moods of speculative energy1 ,never1 he says1 did ,i see the walls of that happy city1 ,i never went into it1 without feeling a certain faintness at my heart1 due to excess of tender emotion4 ,at the same time that the noble image of freedom elevated my soul1 those of equality1 of union1 of gentle manners1 touched me even to tears4#bjc ,his spirit never ceased to haunt city and lake to the end1 and he only paid the debt of an owed acknowledgment in the dedication of his ,discourse on ,inequality to the republic of ,geneva4#bjd ,it was there it had its root4 ,the honour in which industry was held in ,geneva1 the democratic phrases that constituted the dialect of its government1 the proud tradition of the long battle which had won and kept its independence1 the severity of its manners1 the simplicity of its pleasures1--all these things awoke in his memory as soon as ever occasion drew him to serious thought4 ,more than that1 he had in a peculiar manner drawn in with the breath of his earliest days in this theocratically constituted city1 the vital idea that there are sacred things and objects of reverence among men4 ,and hence there came to him1 though with many stains and much misdirection1 the most priceless excellence of a capacity for devout veneration4 ,there is certainly no real contradiction between the quality of reverence and the more equivocal quality of a sensuous temperament1 though a man may well seem on the surface1 as the first succeeds the second in rule over him1 to be the contradiction to his other self4 ,the objects of veneration and the objects of sensuous delight are externally so unlike and so incongruous1 that he who follows both in their turns is as one playing the part of an ironical chorus in the tragi-comic drama of his own life4 ,you may perceive these two to be mere imperfect or illusory opposites1 when you confront a man like ,rousseau with the true opposite of his own type2 with those who are from their birth analysts and critics1 keen1 restless1 urgent1 inexorably questioning4 ,that energetic type1 though not often dead or dull on the side of sense1 yet is incapable of steeping itself in the manifold delights of eye and ear1 of nostril and touch1 with the peculiar intensity of passive absorption that seeks nothing further nor deeper than unending continuance of this profound repose of all filled sensation1 just as it is incapable of the kindred mood of elevated humility and joyful unasking devoutness in the presence of emotions and dim thoughts that are beyond the compass of words4 ,the citizen of ,geneva with this unseen fibre of ,calvinistic veneration and austerity strong and vigorous within him1 found a world that had nothing sacred and took nothing for granted2 that held the past in contempt1 and ever like old ,athenians asked for some new thing2 that counted simplicity of life an antique barbarism1 and literary curiousness the master virtue4 ,there were giants in this world1 like the panurgic ,diderot4 ,there were industrious1 worthy1 disinterested men1 who used their minds honestly and actively with sincere care for truth1 like ,d',holbach4 ,there was poured around the whole1 like a high stimulating atmosphere to the stronger1 and like some evil mental aphrodisiac to the weaker1 the influence of ,voltaire1 the great indomitable chieftain of them all4 ,intellectual size half redeems want of perfect direction by its generous power and fulness4 ,it was not the strong men1 atheists and philosophisers as they were1 who first irritated ,rousseau into revolt against their whole system of thought in all its principles4 ,the dissent between him and them was fundamental and enormous1 and in time it flamed out into open war4 ,conflict of theory1 however1 was brought home to him first by slow-growing exasperation at the follies in practice of the minor disciples of the gospel of knowing and acting1 as distinguished from his own gospel of placid being4 ,he craved beliefs that should uphold men in living their lives1 substantial helps on which they might lean without examination and without mistrust3 his life in ,paris was thrown among people who lived in the midst of open questions1 and revelled in a reflective and didactic morality1 which had no root in the heart and so made things easy for the practical conscience4 ,he sought tranquillity and valued life for its own sake1 not as an arena and a theme for endless argument and debate3 he found friends who knew no higher pleasure than the futile polemics of mimic philosophy over dessert1 who were as full of quibble as the wrong-headed interlocutors in a ,platonic dialogue1 and who babbled about ,god and state of nature1 about virtue and the spirituality of the soul1 much as ,boswell may have done when ,johnson complained of him for asking questions that would make a man hang himself4 ,the highest things were thus brought down to the level of the cheapest discourse1 and subjects which the wise take care only to discuss with the wise1 were here everyday topics for all comers4 ,the association with such high themes of those light qualities of tact1 gaiety1 complaisance1 which are the life of the superficial commerce of men and women of the world1 probably gave quite as much offence to ,rousseau as the doctrines which some of his companions had the honest courage or the heedless fatuity to profess4 ,it was an outrage to all the serious side of him to find persons of quality introducing materialism as a new fashion1 and atheism as the liveliest of condiments4 ,the perfume of good manners only made what he took for bad principles the worse1 and heightened his impatience at the flippancy of pretensions to overthrow the beliefs of a world between two wines4 ,doctrine and temperament united to set him angrily against the world around him4 ,the one was austere and the other was sensuous1 and the sensuous temperament in its full strength is essentially solitary4 ,the play of social intercourse1 its quick transitions1 and incessant demands1 are fatal to free and uninterrupted abandonment to the flow of soft internal emotions4 ,rousseau1 dreaming1 moody1 indolently1 meditative1 profoundly enwrapped in the brooding egoism of his own sensations1 had to mix with men and women whose egoism took the contrary form of an eager desire to produce flashing effects on other people4 ,we may be sure that as the two sides of his character--his notions of serious principle1 and his notions of personal comfort--both went in the same direction1 the irritation and impatience with which they inspired him towards society did not lessen with increased communication1 but naturally deepened with a more profoundly settled antipathy4 ,rousseau lived in ,paris for twelve years1 from his return from ,venice in #agdd until his departure in #agef for the rustic lodge in a wood which the good-will of ,madame d',epinay provided for him4 ,we have already seen one very important side of his fortunes during these years1 in the relations he formed with ,theresa1 and the relations which he repudiated with his children4 ,we have heard too the new words with which during these years he first began to make the hearts of his contemporaries wax hot within them4 ,it remains to examine the current of daily circumstance on which his life was embarked1 and the shores to which it was bearing him4 ,his patrons were at present almost exclusively in the circle of finance4 ,richelieu1 indeed1 took him for a moment by the hand1 but even the introduction to him was through the too frail wife of one of the greatest of the farmers general4#bje ,madame ,dupin and ,madame d',epinay1 his two chief patronesses1 were also both of them the wives of magnates of the farm4 ,the society of the great people of this world was marked by all the glare1 artificiality1 and sentimentalism of the epoch1 but it had also one or two specially hollow characteristics of its own4 ,as is always the case when a new rich class rises in the midst of a community possessing an old caste1 the circle of ,parisian financiers made it their highest social aim to thrust and strain into the circle of the ,versailles people of quality4 ,they had no normal life of their own1 with independent traditions and self-respect2 and for the same reason that an essentially worn-out aristocracy may so long preserve a considerable degree of vigour and even of social utility under certain circumstances by means of tenacious pride in its own order1 a new plutocracy is demoralised from the very beginning of its existence by want of a similar kind of pride in itself1 and by the ignoble necessity of craving the countenance of an upper class that loves to despise and humiliate it4 ,besides the more obvious evils of a position resting entirely on material opulence1 and maintaining itself by coarse and glittering ostentation1 there is a fatal moral hollowness which infects both serious conduct and social diversion4 ,the result is seen in imitative manners1 affected culture1 and a mixture of timorous self-consciousness within and noisy self-assertion without1 which completes the most distasteful scene that any collected spirit can witness4 ,rousseau was1 as has been said1 the secretary of ,madame ,dupin and her stepson ,francueil4 ,he occasionally went with them to ,chenonceaux in ,touraine1 one of ,henry the ,second's castles built for ,diana of ,poitiers1 and here he fared sumptuously every day4 ,in ,paris his means1 as we know1 were too strait4 ,for the first two years he had a salary of nine hundred francs2 then his employers raised it to as much as fifty louis4 ,for the first of the ,discourses the publisher gave him nothing1 and for the second he had to extract his fee penny by penny1 and after long waiting4 ,his comic opera1 the ,village ,soothsayer1 was a greater success2 it brought him the round sum of two hundred louis from the court1 and some five and twenty more from the bookseller1 and so1 he says1 the interlude1 which cost me five or six weeks of work1 produced nearly as much money as ,emilius afterwards did1 which had cost me twenty years of meditation and three years of composition4#bjf ,before the arrival of this windfall1 ,m4 ,francueil1 who was receiver-general1 offered him the post of cashier in that important department1 and ,rousseau attended for some weeks to receive the necessary instructions4 ,his progress was tardy as usual1 and the complexities of accounts were as little congenial to him as notarial complexities had been three and twenty years previously4 ,it is1 however1 one of the characteristics of times of national break-up not to be peremptory in exacting competence1 and ,rousseau gravely sat at the receipt of custom1 doing the day's duty with as little skill as liking4 ,before he had been long at his post1 his official chief going on a short journey left him in charge of the chest1 which happened at the moment to contain no very portentous amount4 ,the disquiet with which the watchful custody of this moderate treasure harassed and afflicted ,rousseau1 not only persuaded him that nature had never designed him to be the guardian of money chests1 but also threw him into a fit of very painful illness4 ,the surgeons let him understand that within six months he would be in the pale kingdoms4 ,the effect of such a hint on a man of his temper1 and the train of reflections which it would be sure to set aflame1 are to be foreseen by us who know ,rousseau's fashion of dealing with the irksome4 ,why sacrifice the peace and charm of the little fragment of days left to him1 to the bondage of an office for which he felt nothing but disgust8 ,how reconcile the austere principles which he had just adopted in his denunciation of sciences and arts1 and his panegyric on the simplicity of the natural life1 with such duties as he had to perform8 ,and how preach disinterestedness and frugality from amid the cashboxes of a receiver-general8 ,plainly it was his duty to pass in independence and poverty the little time that was yet left to him1 to bring all the forces of his soul to bear in breaking the fetters of opinion1 and to carry out courageously whatever seemed best to himself1 without suffering the judgment of others to interpose the slightest embarrassment or hindrance4#bjg ,with ,rousseau1 to conceive a project of this kind for simplifying his life was to hasten urgently towards its realisation1 because such projects harmonised with all his strongest predispositions4 ,his design mastered and took whole possession of him4 ,he resolved to earn his living by copying music1 as that was conformable to his taste1 within his capacity1 and compatible with entire personal freedom4 ,his patron did as the world is so naturally ready to do with those who choose the stoic's way2 he declared that ,rousseau was gone mad4#bjh ,talk like this had no effect on a man whom self-indulgence led into a path that others would only have been forced into by self-denial4 ,let it be said1 however1 that this is a form of self-indulgence of which society is never likely to see an excess1 and meanwhile we may continue to pay it some respect as assuredly leaning to virtue's side4 ,rousseau's many lapses from grace perhaps deserve a certain gentleness of treatment1 after the time when with deliberation and collected effort he set himself to the hard task of fitting his private life to his public principles4 ,anything that heightens the self-respect of the race is good for us to behold1 and it is a permanent source of comfort to all who thirst after reality in teachers1 whether their teaching happens to be our own or not1 to find that the prophet of social equality was not a fine gentleman1 nor the teacher of democracy a hanger-on to the silly skirts of fashion4 ,rousseau did not merely throw up a post which would one day have made him rich4 ,stoicism on the heroic1 peremptory scale is not so difficult as the application of the same principle to trifles4 ,besides this greater sacrifice1 he gave up the pleasant things for which most men value the money that procures them1 and instituted an austere sumptuary reform in truly ,genevese spirit4 ,his sword was laid aside2 for flowing peruke was substituted the small round wig2 he left off gilt buttons and white stockings1 and he sold his watch with the joyful and singular thought that he would never again need to know the time4 ,one sacrifice remained to be made4 ,part of his equipment for the ,venetian embassy had been a large stock of fine linen1 and for this he retained a particular affection1 for both now and always ,rousseau had a passion for personal cleanliness1 as he had for corporeal wholesomeness4 ,he was seasonably delivered from bondage to his fine linen by aid from without4 ,one ,christmas ,eve it lay drying in a garret in the rather considerable quantity of forty-two shirts1 when a thief1 always suspected to be the brother of ,theresa1 broke open the door and carried off the treasure1 leaving ,rousseau henceforth to be the contented wearer of coarser stuffs4#bji ,we may place this reform towards the end of the year #agej1 or the beginning of #agea1 when his mind was agitated by the busy discussion which his first ,discourse excited1 and by the new ideas of literary power which its reception by the public naturally awakened in him4 ,it takes1 wrote ,diderot1 right above the clouds2 never was such a success4#baj ,we can hardly have a surer sign of a man's fundamental sincerity than that his first triumph1 the first revelation to him of his power1 instead of seducing him to frequent the mischievous and disturbing circle of his applauders1 should throw him inwards upon himself and his own principles with new earnestness and refreshed independence4 ,rousseau very soon made up his mind what the world was worth to him2 and this1 not as the ordinary sentimentalist or satirist does1 by way of set-off against the indulgence of personal foibles1 but from recognition of his own qualities1 of the bounds set to our capacity of life1 and of the limits of the world's power to satisfy us4 ,when my destiny threw me into the whirlpool of society1 he wrote in his last meditation on the course of his own life1 ,i found nothing there to give a moment's solace to my heart4 ,regret for my sweet leisure followed me everywhere2 it shed indifference or disgust over all that might have been within my reach1 leading to fortune and honours4 ,uncertain in the disquiet of my desires1 ,i hoped for little1 ,i obtained less1 and ,i felt even amid gleams of prosperity that if ,i obtained all that ,i supposed myself to be seeking1 ,i should still not have found the happiness for which my heart was greedily athirst1 though without distinctly knowing its object4 ,thus everything served to detach my affections from society1 even before the misfortunes which were to make me wholly a stranger to it4 ,i reached the age of forty1 floating between indigence and fortune1 between wisdom and disorder1 full of vices of habit without any evil tendency at heart1 living by hazard1 distracted as to my duties without despising them1 but often without much clear knowledge what they were4#baa ,a brooding nature gives to character a connectedness and unity that is in strong contrast with the dispersion and multiformity of the active type4 ,the attractions of fame never cheated ,rousseau into forgetfulness of the commanding principle that a man's life ought to be steadily composed to oneness with itself in all its parts1 as by mastery of an art of moral counterpoint1 and not crowded with a wild mixture of aim and emotion like distracted masks in high carnival4 ,he complains of the philosophers with whom he came into contact1 that their philosophy was something foreign to them and outside of their own lives4 ,they studied human nature for the sake of talking learnedly about it1 not for the sake of self-knowledge2 they laboured to instruct others1 not to enlighten themselves within4 ,when they published a book1 its contents only interested them to the extent of making the world accept it1 without seriously troubling themselves whether it were true or false1 provided only that it was not refuted4 ,for my own part1 when ,i desired to learn1 it was to know things myself1 and not at all to teach others4 ,i always believed that before instructing others it was proper to begin by knowing enough for one's self2 and of all the studies that ,i have tried to follow in my life in the midst of men1 there is hardly one that ,i should not have followed equally if ,i had been alone1 and shut up in a desert island for the rest of my days4#bab ,when we think of ,turgot1 whom ,rousseau occasionally met among the society which he denounces1 such a denunciation sounds a little outrageous4 ,but then ,turgot was perhaps the one sane ,frenchman of the first eminence in the eighteenth century4 ,voltaire chose to be an exile from the society of ,paris and ,versailles as pertinaciously as ,rousseau did1 and he spoke more bitterly of it in verse than ,rousseau ever spoke bitterly of it in prose4#bac ,it was1 as has been so often said1 a society dominated by women1 from the king's mistress who helped to ruin ,france1 down to the financier's wife who gave suppers to flashy men of letters4 ,the eighteenth century salon has been described as having three stages2 the salon of #agcj1 still retaining some of the stately domesticity1 elegance1 dignity of the age of ,lewis ,,xiv42 that of #aghj1 grave1 cold1 dry1 given to dissertation2 and between the two1 the salon of #agej1 full of intellectual stir1 brilliance1 frivolous originality1 glittering wastefulness4#bad ,though this division of time must not be pressed too closely1 it is certain that the era of ,rousseau's advent in literature with his ,discourses fell in with the climax of social unreality in the surface intercourse of ,france1 and that the same date marks the highest point of feminine activity and power4 ,the common mixture of much reflective morality in theory with much light-hearted immorality in practice1 never entered so largely into manners4 ,we have constantly to wonder how they analysed and defined the word ,virtue1 to which they so constantly appealed in letters1 conversation1 and books1 as the sovereign object for our deepest and warmest adoration4 ,a whole company of transgressors of the marriage law would melt into floods of tears over a hymn to virtue1 which they must surely have held of too sacred an essence to mix itself with any one virtue in particular1 except that very considerable one of charitably letting all do as they please4 ,it is much1 however1 that these tears1 if not very burning1 were really honest4 ,society1 though not believing very deeply in the supernatural1 was not cursed with an arid1 parching1 and hardened scepticism about the genuineness of good emotions in a man1 and so long as people keep this baleful poison out of their hearts1 their lives remain worth having4 ,it is true that cynicism in the case of some women of this time occasionally sounded in a diabolic key1 as when one said1 ,it is your lover to whom you should never say that you don't believe in ,god2 to one's husband that does not matter1 because in the case of a lover one must reserve for one's self some door of escape1 and devotional scruples cut everything short4#bae ,or here3 ,i do not distrust anybody1 for that is a deliberate act2 but ,i do not trust anybody1 and there is no trouble in this4#baf ,or again in the word thrown to a man vaunting the probity of some one3 ,what6 can a man of intelligence like you accept the prejudice of meum and tuum8#bag ,such speech1 however1 was probably most often a mere freak of the tongue1 a mode and fashion1 as who should go to a masked ball in guise of ,mephistopheles1 without anything more ,mephistophelian about him than red apparel and peaked toes4 ,she was absolutely charming1 said one of a new-comer2 she did not utter one single word that was not a paradox4#bah ,this was the passing taste4 ,human nature is able to keep itself wholesome in fundamentals even under very great difficulties1 and it is as wise as it is charitable in judging a sharp and cynical tone to make large allowances for mere costume and assumed character4 ,in respect of the light companionship of common usage1 however1 it is exactly the costume which comes closest to us1 and bad taste in that is most jarring and least easily forgiven4 ,there is a certain stage in an observant person's experience of the heedlessness1 indolence1 and native folly of men and women--and if his observation be conducted in a catholic spirit1 he will probably see something of this not merely in others--when the tolerable average sanity of human arrangements strikes him as the most marvellous of all the fortunate accidents in the universe4 ,rousseau could not even accept the fact of this miraculous result1 the provisional and temporary sanity of things1 and he confronted society with eyes of angry chagrin4 ,a great lady asked him how it was that she had not seen him for an age4 ,because when ,i wish to see you1 ,i wish to see no one but you4 ,what do you want me to do in the midst of your society8 ,i should cut a sorry figure in a circle of mincing tripping coxcombs2 they do not suit me4 ,we cannot wonder that on some occasion when her son's proficiency was to be tested before a company of friends1 ,madame d',epinay prayed ,rousseau to be of them1 on the ground that he would be sure to ask the child outrageously absurd questions1 which would give gaiety to the affair4#bai ,as it happened1 the father was unwise4 ,he was a man of whom it was said that he had devoured two million francs1 without either saying or doing a single good thing4 ,he rewarded the child's performance with the gift of a superb suit of cherry-coloured velvet1 extravagantly trimmed with costly lace2 the peasant from whose sweat and travail the money had been wrung1 went in heavy rags1 and his children lived as the beasts of the field4 ,the poor youth was ill dealt with4 ,that is very fine1 said rude ,duclos1 but remember that a fool in lace is still a fool4 ,rousseau1 in reply to the child's importunity1 was still blunter3 ,sir1 ,i am no judge of finery1 ,i am only a judge of man2 ,i wished to talk with you a little while ago1 but ,i wish so no longer4#bbj ,marmontel1 whose account may have been coloured by retrospection in later years1 says that before the success of the first ,discourse1 ,rousseau concealed his pride under the external forms of a politeness that was timid even to obsequiousness2 in his uneasy glance you perceived mistrust and observant jealousy2 there was no freedom in his manner1 and no one ever observed more cautiously the hateful precept to live with your friends as though they were one day to be your enemies4#bba ,grimm's description is different and more trustworthy4 ,until he began to affect singularity1 he says1 ,rousseau had been gallant and overflowing with artificial compliment1 with manners that were honeyed and even wearisome in their soft elaborateness4 ,all at once he put on the cynic's cloak1 and went to the other extreme4 ,still in spite of an abrupt and cynical tone he kept much of his old art of elaborate fine speeches1 and particularly in his relations with women4#bbb ,of his abruptness1 he tells a most displeasing tale4 ,one day ,rousseau told us with an air of triumph1 that as he was coming out of the opera where he had been seeing the first representation of the ,village ,soothsayer1 the ,duke of ,zweibrcken had approached him with much politeness1 saying1 ',will you allow me to pay you a compliment8' and that he replied1 ',yes1 if it be very short4' ,everybody was silent at this1 until ,i said to him laughingly1 ',illustrious citizen and co-sovereign of ,geneva1 since there resides in you a part of the sovereignty of the republic1 let me represent to you that1 for all the severity of your principles1 you should hardly refuse to a sovereign prince the respect due to a water-carrier1 and that if you had met a word of good-will from a water-carrier with an answer as rough and brutal as that1 you would have had to reproach yourself with a most unseasonable piece of impertinence4'#bbc ,there were still more serious circumstances when exasperation at the flippant tone about him carried him beyond the ordinary bounds of that polite time4 ,a guest at table asked contemptuously what was the use of a nation like the ,french having reason1 if they did not use it4 ,they mock the other nations of the earth1 and yet are the most credulous of all4 ,,rousseau3 ,i forgive them for their credulity1 but not for condemning those who are credulous in some other way4 ,some one said that in matters of religion everybody was right1 but that everybody should remain in that in which he had been born4 ,,rousseau1 with warmth3 ,not so1 by ,god1 if it is a bad one1 for then it can do nothing but harm4 ,then some one contended that religion always did some good1 as a kind of rein to the common people who had no other morality4 ,all the rest cried out at this in indignant remonstrance1 one shrewd person remarking that the common people had much livelier fear of being hanged than of being damned4 ,the conversation was broken off for a moment by the hostess calling out1 ,after all1 one must nourish the tattered affair we call our body1 so ring and let them bring us the joint4 ,this done1 the servants dismissed1 and the door shut1 the discussion was resumed with such vehemence by ,duclos and ,saint ,lambert1 that1 says the lady who tells us the story1 ,i feared they were bent on destroying all religion1 and ,i prayed for some mercy to be shown at any rate to natural religion4 ,there was not a whit more sympathy for that than for the rest4 ,rousseau declared himself paullo infirmior1 and clung to the morality of the gospel as the natural morality which in old times constituted the whole and only creed4 ,but what is a ,god1 cried one impetuous disputant1 who gets angry and is appeased again8 ,rousseau began to murmur between grinding teeth1 and a tide of pleasantries set in at his expense1 to which came this3 ,if it is a piece of cowardice to suffer ill to be spoken of one's friend behind his back1 'tis a crime to suffer ill to be spoken of one's ,god1 who is present2 and for my part1 sirs1 ,i believe in ,god4 ,i admit1 said the atheistic champion1 that it is a fine thing to see this ,god bending his brow to earth and watching with admiration the conduct of a ,cato4 ,but this notion is1 like many others1 very useful in some great heads1 such as ,trajan1 ,marcus ,aurelius1 ,socrates1 where it can only produce heroism1 but it is the germ of all madnesses4 ,,rousseau3 ,sirs1 ,i leave the room if you say another word more1 and he was rising to fulfil his threat1 when the entry of a new-comer stopped the discussion4#bbd ,his words on another occasion show how all that he saw helped to keep up a fretted condition of mind1 in one whose soft tenacious memory turned daily back to simple and unsophisticated days among the green valleys1 and refused to acquiesce in the conditions of changed climate4 ,so terrible a thing is it to be the bondsman of reminiscence4 ,madame d',epinay was suspected1 wrongfully as it afterwards proved1 of having destroyed some valuable papers belonging to a dead relative4 ,there was much idle and cruel gossip in an ill-natured world4 ,rousseau1 her friend1 kept steadfast silence3 she challenged his opinion4 ,what am ,i to say8 he answered2 ,i go and come1 and all that ,i hear outrages and revolts me4 ,i see the one so evidently malicious and so adroit in their injustice2 the other so awkward and so stupid in their good intentions1 that ,i am tempted 7and it is not the first time7 to look on ,paris as a cavern of brigands1 of whom every traveller in his turn is the victim4 ,what gives me the worst idea of society is to see how eager each person is to pardon himself1 by reason of the number of the people who are like him4#bbe ,notwithstanding his hatred of this cavern of brigands1 and the little pains he took to conceal his feelings from any individual brigand1 whether male or female1 with whom he had to deal1 he found out that it is not always so easy as people suppose to be poor and independent4 ,merciless invasion of his time in every shape made his life weariness4 ,sometimes he had the courage to turn and rend the invader1 as in the letter to a painter who sent him the same copy of verses three times1 requiring immediate acknowledgment4 ,it is not just1 at length wrote the exasperated ,rousseau1 that ,i should be tyrannised over for your pleasure2 not that my time is precious1 as you say2 it is either passed in suffering or it is lost in idleness2 but when ,i cannot employ it usefully for some one1 ,i do not wish to be hindered from wasting it in my own fashion4 ,a single minute thus usurped is what all the kings of the universe could not give me back1 and it is to be my own master that ,i flee from the idle folk of towns1--people as thoroughly wearied as they are thoroughly wearisome1--who1 because they do not know what to do with their own time1 think they have a right to waste that of others4#bbf ,the more abruptly he treated visitors1 persecuting dinner-givers1 and all the tribe of the importunate1 the more obstinate they were in possessing themselves of his time4 ,in seizing the hours they were keeping his purse empty1 as well as keeping up constant irritation in his soul4 ,he appears to have earned forty sous for a morning's work1 and to have counted this a fair fee1 remarking modestly that he could not well subsist on less4#bbg ,he had one chance of a pension1 which he threw from him in a truly characteristic manner4 ,when he came to ,paris he composed his musical diversion of the ,muses ,galantes1 which was performed 7#agde7 in the presence of ,rameau1 under the patronage of ,m4 de la ,popelinire4 ,rameau apostrophised the unlucky composer with much violence1 declaring that one-half of the piece was the work of a master1 while the other was that of a person entirely ignorant of the musical rudiments2 the bad work therefore was ,rousseau's own1 and the good was a plagiarism4#bbh ,this repulse did not daunt the hero4 ,five or six years afterwards on a visit to ,passy1 as he was lying awake in bed1 he conceived the idea of a pastoral interlude after the manner of the ,italian comic operas4 ,in six days the ,village ,soothsayer was sketched1 and in three weeks virtually completed4 ,duclos procured its rehearsal at the ,opera1 and after some debate it was performed before the court at ,fontainebleau4 ,the ,plutarchian stoic1 its author1 went from ,paris in a court coach1 but his ,roman tone deserted him1 and he felt shamefaced as a schoolboy before the great world1 such divinity doth hedge even a ,lewis ,,xv41 and even in a soul of ,genevan temper4 ,the piece was played with great success1 and the composer was informed that he would the next day have the honour of being presented to the king1 who would most probably mark his favour by the bestowal of a pension4#bbi ,rousseau was tossed with many doubts4 ,he would fain have greeted the king with some word that should show sensibility to the royal graciousness1 without compromising republican severity1 clothing some great and useful truth in a fine and deserved compliment4 ,this moral difficulty was heightened by a physical one1 for he was liable to an infirmity which1 if it should overtake him in presence of king and courtiers1 would land him in an embarrassment worse than death4 ,what would become of him if mind or body should fail1 if either he should be driven into precipitate retreat1 or else there should escape him1 instead of the great truth wrapped delicately round in veracious panegyric1 a heavy1 shapeless word of foolishness8 ,he fled in terror1 and flung up the chance of pension and patronage4 ,we perceive the born dreamer with a phantasmagoric imagination1 seizing nothing in just proportion and true relation1 and paralysing the spirit with terror of unrealities2 in short1 with the most fatal form of moral cowardice1 which perhaps it is a little dangerous to try to analyse into finer names4 ,when ,rousseau got back to ,paris he was amazed to find that ,diderot spoke to him of this abandonment of the pension with a fire that he could never have expected from a philosopher1 ,rousseau plainly sharing the opinion of more vulgar souls that philosopher is but fool writ large4 ,he said that if ,i was disinterested on my own account1 ,i had no right to be so on that of ,madame ,le ,vasseur and her daughter1 and that ,i owed it to them not to let pass any possible and honest means of giving them bread4444 ,this was the first real dispute ,i had with him1 and all our quarrels that followed were of the same kind2 he laying down for me what he insisted that ,i should do1 and ,i refusing because ,i thought that ,i ought not to do it4#bcj ,let us abstain1 at this and all other points1 from being too sure that we easily see to the bottom of our ,rousseau4 ,when we are most ready to fling up the book and to pronounce him all selfishness and sophistry1 some trait is at hand to revive moral interest in him1 and show him unlike common men1 reverent of truth and human dignity4 ,there is a slight anecdote of this kind connected with his visit to ,fontainebleau4 ,the day after the representation of his piece1 he happened to be taking his breakfast in some public place4 ,an officer entered1 and1 proceeding to describe the performance of the previous day1 told at great length all that had happened1 depicted the composer with much minuteness1 and gave a circumstantial account of his conversation4 ,in this story1 which was told with equal assurance and simplicity1 there was not a word of truth1 as was clear from the fact that the author of whom he spoke with such intimacy sat unknown and unrecognised before his eyes4 ,the effect on ,rousseau was singular enough4 ,the man was of a certain age2 he had no coxcombical or swaggering air2 his expression bespoke a man of merit1 and his cross of ,st4 ,lewis showed that he was an old officer4 ,while he was retailing his untruths1 ,i grew red in the face1 ,i lowered my eyes1 ,i sat on thorns2 ,i tried to think of some means of believing him to have made a mistake in good faith4 ,at length trembling lest some one should recognise me and confront him1 ,i hastened to finish my chocolate without saying a word2 and stooping down as ,i passed in front of him1 ,i went out as fast as possible1 while the people present discussed his tale4 ,i perceived in the street that ,i was bathed in sweat1 and ,i am sure that if any one had recognised me and called me by name before ,i got out1 they would have seen in me the shame and embarrassment of a culprit1 simply from a feeling of the pain the poor man would have had to suffer if his lie had been discovered4#bca ,one who can feel thus vividly humiliated by the meanness of another1 assuredly has in himself the wholesome salt of respect for the erectness of his fellows2 he has the rare sentiment that the compromise of integrity in one of them is as a stain on his own self-esteem1 and a lowering of his own moral stature4 ,there is more deep love of humanity in this than in giving many alms1 and it was not the less deep for being the product of impulse and sympathetic emotion1 and not of a logical sorites4 ,another scene in a caf is worth referring to1 because it shows in the same way that at this time ,rousseau's egoism fell short of the fatuousness to which disease or vicious habit eventually depraved it4 ,in #ageb he procured the representation of his comedy of ,narcisse1 which he had written at the age of eighteen1 and which is as well worth reading or playing as most comedies by youths of that amount of experience of the ways of the world and the heart of man4 ,rousseau was amazed and touched by the indulgence of the public1 in suffering without any sign of impatience even a second representation of his piece4 ,for himself1 he could not so much as sit out the first2 quitting the theatre before it was over1 he entered the famous caf de ,procope at the other side of the street1 where he found critics as wearied as himself4 ,here he called out1 ,the new piece has fallen flat1 and it deserved to fall flat2 it wearied me to death4 ,it is by ,rousseau of ,geneva1 and ,i am that very ,rousseau4#bcb ,the relentless student of mental pathology is very likely to insist that even this was egoism standing on its head and not on its feet1 choosing to be noticed for an absurdity1 rather than not be noticed at all4 ,it may be so1 but this inversion of the ordinary form of vanity is rare enough to be not unrefreshing1 and we are very loth to hand ,rousseau wholly over to the pathologist before his hour has come4 ,,ii4 ,in the summer of #aged ,rousseau1 in company with his ,theresa1 went to revisit the city of his birth1 partly because an exceptionally favourable occasion presented itself1 but in yet greater part because he was growing increasingly weary of the uncongenial world in which he moved4 ,on his road he turned aside to visit her who had been more than even his birth-place to him4 ,he felt the shock known to all who cherish a vision for a dozen years1 and then suddenly front the changed reality4 ,he had not prepared himself by recalling the commonplace which we only remember for others1 how time wears hard and ugly lines into the face that recollection at each new energy makes lovelier with an added sweetness4 ,i saw her1 he says1 but in what a state1 ,o ,god1 in what debasement6 ,was this the same ,madame de ,warens1 in those days so brilliant1 to whom the priest of ,pontverre had sent me6 ,how my heart was torn by the sight6 ,alas1 as has been said with a truth that daily experience proves to those whom pity and self-knowledge have made most indulgent1 as to those whom pinched maxims have made most rigorous1--morality is the nature of things4#bcc ,we may have a humane tenderness for our ,manon ,lescaut1 but we have a deep presentiment all the time that the poor soul must die in a penal settlement4 ,it is partly a question of time2 whether death comes fast enough to sweep you out of reach of the penalties which the nature of things may appoint1 but which in their fiercest shape are mostly of the loitering kind4 ,death was unkind to ,madame de ,warens1 and the unhappy creature lived long enough to find that morality does mean something after all2 that the old hoary world has not fixed on prudence in the outlay of money as a good thing1 out of avarice or pedantic dryness of heart2 nor on some continence and order in the relations of men and women as a good thing1 out of cheerless grudge to the body1 but because the breach of such virtues is ever in the long run deadly to mutual trust1 to strength1 to freedom1 to collectedness1 which are the reserve of humanity against days of ordeal4 ,rousseau says that he tried hard to prevail upon his fallen benefactress to leave ,savoy1 to come and take up her abode peacefully with him1 while he and ,theresa would devote their days to making her happy4 ,he had not forgotten her in the little glimpse of prosperity2 he had sent her money when he had it4#bcd ,she was sunk in indigence1 for her pension had long been forestalled1 but still she refused to change her home4 ,while ,rousseau was at ,geneva she came to see him4 ,she lacked money to complete her journey2 ,i had not enough about me2 ,i sent it to her an hour afterwards by ,theresa4 ,poor ,maman6 ,let me relate this trait of her heart4 ,the only trinket she had left was a small ring2 she took it from her finger to place it on ,theresa's1 who instantly put it back1 as she kissed the noble hand and bathed it with her tears4 ,in after years he poured bitter reproaches upon himself for not quitting all to attach his lot to hers until her last hour1 and he professes always to have been haunted by the liveliest and most enduring remorse4#bce ,here is the worst of measuring duty by sensation instead of principle2 if the sensations happen not to be in right order at the critical moment1 the chance goes by1 never to return1 and then1 as memory in the best of such temperaments is long though not without intermittence1 old sentiment revives and drags the man into a burning pit4 ,rousseau appears not to have seen her again1 but the thought of her remained with him to the end1 like a soft vesture fragrant with something of the sweet mysterious perfume of many-scented night in the silent garden at ,charmettes4 ,she died in a hovel eight years after this1 sunk in disease1 misery1 and neglect1 and was put away in the cemetery on the heights above ,chambri4#bcf ,rousseau consoled himself with thoughts of another world that should reunite him to her and be the dawn of new happiness2 like a man who should illusorily confound the last glistening of a wintry sunset seen through dark yew-branches1 with the broad-beaming strength of the summer morning4 ,if ,i thought1 he said1 that ,i should not see her in the other life1 my poor imagination would shrink from the idea of perfect bliss1 which ,i would fain promise myself in it4#bcg ,to pluck so gracious a flower of hope on the edge of the sombre unechoing gulf of nothingness into which our friend has slid silently down1 is a natural impulse of the sensitive soul1 numbing remorse and giving a moment's relief to the hunger and thirst of a tenderness that has been robbed of its object4 ,yet would not men be more likely to have a deeper love for those about them1 and a keener dread of filling a house with aching hearts1 if they courageously realised from the beginning of their days that we have none of this perfect companionable bliss to promise ourselves in other worlds1 that the black and horrible grave is indeed the end of our communion1 and that we know one another no more8 ,the first interview between ,rousseau and ,madame de ,warens was followed by his ludicrous conversion to ,catholicism 7#agbh72 the last was contemporary with his re-conversion to the faith in which he had been reared4 ,the sight of ,geneva gave new fire to his ,republican enthusiasm2 he surrendered himself to transports of patriotic zeal4 ,the thought of the ,parisian world that he had left behind1 its frivolity1 its petulance1 its disputation over all things in heaven and on the earth1 its profound deadness to all civic activity1 quickened his admiration for the simple1 industrious1 and independent community from which he never forgot that he was sprung4 ,but no ,catholic could enjoy the rights of citizenship4 ,so ,rousseau proceeded to reflect that the ,gospel is the same for all ,christians1 and the substance of dogma only differs1 because people interposed with explanations of what they could not understand2 that therefore it is in each country the business of the sovereign to fix both the worship and the amount and quality of unintelligible dogma2 that consequently it is the citizen's duty to admit the dogma1 and follow the worship by law appointed4 ,the society of the ,encyclopdists1 far from shaking my faith1 had confirmed it by my natural aversion for partisanship and controversy4 ,the reading of the ,bible1 especially of the ,gospel1 to which ,i had applied myself for several years1 had made me despise the low and childish interpretation put upon the words of ,christ by the people who were least worthy to understand him4 ,in a word1 philosophy by drawing me towards the essential in religion1 had drawn me away from that stupid mass of trivial formulas with which men had overlaid and darkened it4#bch ,we may be sure that if ,rousseau had a strong inclination towards a given course of action1 he would have no difficulty in putting his case in a blaze of the brightest light1 and surrounding it with endless emblems and devices of superlative conviction4 ,in short1 he submitted himself faithfully to the instruction of the pastor of his parish2 was closely catechised by a commission of members of the consistory2 received from them a certificate that he had satisfied the requirements of doctrine in all points2 was received to partake of the ,communion1 and finally restored to all his rights as a citizen4#bci ,this was no farce1 such as ,voltaire played now and again at the expense of an unhappy bishop or unhappier parish priest2 nor such as ,rousseau himself had played six-and-twenty years before1 at the expense of those honest ,catholics of ,turin whose helpful donation of twenty francs had marked their enthusiasm over a soul that had been lost and was found again4 ,he was never a ,catholic1 any more than he was ever an atheist1 and if it might be said in one sense that he was no more a ,protestant than he was either of these two1 yet he was emphatically the child of ,protestantism4 ,it is hardly too much to say that one bred in ,catholic tradition and observance1 accustomed to think of the whole life of men as only a manifestation of the unbroken life of the ,church1 and of all the several communities of men as members of that great organisation which binds one order to another1 and each generation to those that have gone before and those that come after1 would never have dreamed that monstrous dream of a state of nature as a state of perfection4 ,he would never have held up to ridicule and hate the idea of society as an organism with normal parts and conditions of growth1 and never have left the spirit of man standing in bald isolation from history1 from his fellows1 from a ,church1 from a mediator1 face to face with the great vague phantasm4 ,nor1 on the other hand1 is it likely that one born and reared in the religious school of authority with its elaborately disciplined hierarchy1 would have conceived that passion for political freedom1 that zeal for the rights of peoples against rulers1 that energetic enthusiasm for a free life1 which constituted the fire and essence of ,rousseau's writing4 ,as illustration of this1 let us remark how ,rousseau's teaching fared when it fell upon a ,catholic country like ,france3 so many of its principles were assimilated by the revolutionary schools as were wanted for violent dissolvents1 while the rest dropped away1 and in this rejected portion was precisely the most vital part of his system4 ,in other words1 in no country has the power of collective organisation been so pressed and exalted as in revolutionised ,france1 and in no country has the free life of the individual been made to count for so little4 ,with such force does the ancient system of temporal and spiritual organisation reign in the minds of those who think most confidently that they have cast it wholly out of them4 ,the use of reason may lead a man far1 but it is the past that has cut the groove4 ,in re-embracing the ,protestant confession1 therefore1 ,rousseau was not leaving ,catholicism1 to which he had never really passed over2 he was only undergoing in entire gravity of spirit a formality which reconciled him with his native city1 and reunited those strands of spiritual connection with it which had never been more than superficially parted4 ,there can be little doubt that the four months which he spent in ,geneva in #aged marked a very critical time in the formation of some of the most memorable of his opinions4 ,he came from ,paris full of inarticulate and smouldering resentment against the irreverence and denial of the materialistic circle which used to meet at the house of ,d',holbach4 ,what sort of opinions he found prevailing among the most enlightened of the ,genevese pastors we know from an abundance of sources4 ,d',alembert had three or four years later than this to suffer a bitter attack from them1 but the account of the creed of some of the ministers which he gave in his article on ,geneva in the ,encyclopedia1 was substantially correct4 ,many of them1 he wrote1 have ceased to believe in the divinity of ,jesus ,christ4 ,hell1 one of the principal points in our belief1 is no longer one with many of the ,genevese pastors1 who contend that it is an insult to the ,divinity to imagine that a being full of goodness and justice can be capable of punishing our faults by an eternity of torment4 ,in a word1 they have no other creed than pure ,socinianism1 rejecting everything that they call mysteries1 and supposing the first principle of a true religion to be that it shall propose nothing for belief which clashes with reason4 ,religion here is almost reduced to the adoration of one single ,god1 at least among nearly all who do not belong to the common people2 and a certain respect for ,jesus ,christ and the ,scriptures is nearly the only thing that distinguishes the ,christianity of ,geneva from pure ,deism4#bdj ,and it would be easy to trace the growth of these rationalising tendencies4 ,throughout the seventeenth century men sprang up who anticipated some of the rationalistic arguments of the eighteenth1 in denying the ,trinity1 and so forth1#bda but the time was not then ripe4 ,the general conditions grew more favourable4 ,burnet1 who was at ,geneva in #afhe-f1 says that though there were not many among the ,genevese of the first form of learning1 yet almost everybody here has a good tincture of a learned education4#bdb ,the pacification of civic troubles in #agch was followed by a quarter of a century of extreme prosperity and contentment1 and it is in such periods that the minds of men previously trained are wont to turn to the great matters of speculation4 ,there was at all times a constant communication1 both public and private1 going on between ,geneva and ,holland1 as was only natural between the two chief ,protestant centres of the ,continent4 ,the controversy of the seventeenth century between the two churches was as keenly followed in ,geneva as at ,leyden1 and there is more than one ,genevese writer who deserves a place in the history of the transition in the beginning of the eighteenth century from theology proper to that metaphysical theology1 which was the first marked dissolvent of dogma within the ,protestant bodies4 ,to this general movement of the epoch1 of course1 ,descartes supplied the first impulse4 ,the leader of the movement in ,geneva1 that is of an attempt to pacify the ,christian churches on the basis of some such ,deism as was shortly to find its passionate expression in the ,savoyard ,vicar's ,confession of ,faith1 was ,john ,alphonse ,turretini 7#affa-agcg74 ,he belonged to a family of ,italian refugees from ,lucca1 and his grandfather had been sent on a mission to ,holland for aid in defence of ,geneva against ,catholic ,savoy4 ,he went on his travels in #afib2 he visited ,holland1 where he saw ,bayle1 and ,england1 where he saw ,newton1 and ,france1 where he saw ,bossuet4 ,chouet initiated him into the mysteries of ,descartes4 ,all this bore fruit when he returned home1 and his eloquent exposition of rationalistic ideas aroused the usual cry of heresy from the people who justly insist that ,deism is not ,christianity4 ,there was much stir for many years1 but he succeeded in holding his own and in finding many considerable followers4#bdc ,for example1 some three years or so after his death1 a work appeared in ,geneva under the title of ,la ,religion ,essentielle a l',homme1 showing that faith in the existence of a ,god suffices1 and treating with contempt the belief in the inspiration of the ,gospels4#bdd ,thus we see what vein of thought was running through the graver and more active minds of ,geneva about the time of ,rousseau's visit4 ,whether it be true or not that the accepted belief of many of the preachers was a pure ,deism1 it is certain that the theory was fully launched among them1 and that those who could not accept it were still pressed to refute it1 and in refuting1 to discuss4 ,rousseau's friendships were according to his own account almost entirely among the ministers of religion and the professors of the academy1 precisely the sort of persons who would be most sure to familiarise him1 in the course of frequent conversations1 with the current religious ideas and the arguments by which they were opposed or upheld4 ,we may picture the effect on his mind of the difference in tone and temper in these grave1 candid1 and careful men1 and the tone of his ,parisian friends in discussing the same high themes2 how this difference would strengthen his repugnance1 and corroborate his own inborn spirit of veneration2 how he would here feel himself in his own world4 ,for as wise men have noticed1 it is not so much difference of opinion that stirs resentment in us1 at least in great subjects where the difference is not trivial but profound1 as difference in gravity of humour and manner of moral approach4 ,he returned to ,paris 7,oct4 #aged7 warm with the resolution to give up his concerns there1 and in the spring go back once and for all to the city of liberty and virtue1 where men revered wisdom and reason instead of wasting life in the frivolities of literary dialectic4#bde ,the project1 however1 grew cool4 ,the dedication of his ,discourse on ,inequality to the ,republic was received with indifference by some and indignation by others4#bdf ,nobody thought it a compliment1 and some thought it an impertinence4 ,this was one reason which turned his purpose aside4 ,another was the fact that the illustrious ,voltaire now also signed himself ,swiss1 and boasted that if he shook his wig the powder flew over the whole of the tiny ,republic4 ,rousseau felt certain that ,voltaire would make a revolution in ,geneva1 and that he should find in his native country the tone1 the air1 the manners which were driving him from ,paris4 ,from that moment he counted ,geneva lost4 ,perhaps he ought to make head against the disturber1 but what could he do alone1 timid and bad talker as he was1 against a man arrogant1 rich1 supported by the credit of the great1 of brilliant eloquence1 and already the very idol of women and young men8#bdg ,perhaps it would not be uncharitable to suspect that this was a reason after the event1 for no man was ever so fond as ,rousseau1 or so clever a master in the art1 of covering an accident in a fine envelope of principle1 and1 as we shall see1 he was at this time writing to ,voltaire in strains of effusive panegyric4 ,in this case he almost tells us that the one real reason why he did not return to ,geneva was that he found a shelter from ,paris close at hand4 ,even before then he had begun to conceive characteristic doubts whether his fellow-citizens at ,geneva would not be nearly as hostile to his love of living solitarily and after his own fashion as the good people of ,paris4 ,rousseau has told us a pretty story1 how one day he and ,madame d',epinay wandering about the park came upon a dilapidated lodge surrounded by fruit gardens1 in the skirts of the forest of ,montmorency2 how he exclaimed in delight at its solitary charm that here was the very place of refuge made for him2 and how on a second visit he found that his good friend had in the interval had the old lodge pulled down1 and replaced by a pretty cottage exactly arranged for his own household4 ,my poor bear1 she said1 here is your place of refuge2 it was you who chose it1 'tis friendship offers it2 ,i hope it will drive away your cruel notion of going from me4#bdh ,though moved to tears by such kindness1 ,rousseau did not decide on the spot1 but continued to waver for some time longer between this retreat and return to ,geneva4 ,in the interval ,madame d',epinay had experience of the character she was dealing with4 ,she wrote to ,rousseau pressing him to live at the cottage in the forest1 and begging him to allow her to assist him in assuring the moderate annual provision which he had once accidentally declared to mark the limit of his wants4#bdi ,he wrote to her bitterly in reply1 that her proposition struck ice into his soul1 and that she could have but sorry appreciation of her own interests in thus seeking to turn a friend into a valet4 ,he did not refuse to listen to what she proposed1 if only she would remember that neither he nor his sentiments were for sale4#bej ,madame d',epinay wrote to him patiently enough in return1 and then ,rousseau hastened to explain that his vocabulary needed special appreciation1 and that he meant by the word valet the degradation into which the repudiation of his principles would throw his soul4 ,the independence ,i seek is not immunity from work2 ,i am firm for winning my own bread1 ,i take pleasure in it2 but ,i mean not to subject myself to any other duty1 if ,i can help it4 ,i will never pledge any portion of my liberty1 either for my own subsistence or that of any one else4 ,i intend to work1 but at my own will and pleasure1 and even to do nothing1 if it happens to suit me1 without any one finding fault except my stomach4#bea ,we may call this unamiable1 if we please1 but in a frivolous world amiability can hardly go with firm resolve to live an independent life after your own fashion4 ,the many distasteful sides of ,rousseau's character ought not to hinder us from admiring his steadfastness in refusing to sacrifice his existence to the first person who spoke him civilly4 ,we may wish there had been more of rugged simplicity in his way of dealing with temptations to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage2 less of mere irritability4 ,but then this irritability is one side of soft temperament4 ,the soft temperament is easily agitated1 and this unpleasant disturbance does not stir up true anger nor lasting indignation1 but only sends quick currents of eager irritation along the sufferer's nerves4 ,rousseau1 quivering from head to foot with self-consciousness1 is sufficiently unlike our plain ,johnson1 the strong-armoured2 yet persistent withstanding of the patron is as worthy of our honour in one instance as in the other4 ,indeed1 resistance to humiliating pressure is harder for such a temper as ,rousseau's1 in which deliberate endeavour is needed1 than it is for the naturally stoical spirit which asserts itself spontaneously and rises without effort4 ,when our born solitary1 wearied of ,paris and half afraid of the too friendly importunity of ,geneva1 at length determined to accept ,madame d',epinay's offer of the ,hermitage on conditions which left him an entire sentiment of independence of movement and freedom from all sense of pecuniary obligation1 he was immediately exposed to a very copious torrent of pleasantry and remonstrance from the highly social circle who met round ,d',holbach's dinner-table4 ,they deemed it sheer midsummer madness1 or even a sign of secret depravity1 to quit their cheerful world for the dismal solitude of woods and fields4 ,only the bad man is alone1 wrote ,diderot in words which ,rousseau kept resentfully in his memory as long as he lived4 ,the men and women of the eighteenth century had no comprehension of solitude1 the strength which it may impart to the vigorous1 the poetic graces which it may shed about the life of those who are less than vigorous2 and what they did not comprehend1 they dreaded and abhorred1 and thought monstrous in the one man who did comprehend it4 ,they were all of the mind of ,socrates when he said to ,phdrus1 ,knowledge is what ,i love1 and the men who dwell in the town are my teachers1 not trees and landscape4#beb ,sarcasms fell on him like hail1 and the prophecies usual in cases where a stray soul does not share the common tastes of the herd4 ,he would never be able to live without the incense and the amusements of the town2 he would be back in a fortnight2 he would throw up the whole enterprise within three months4#bec ,amid a shower of such words1 springing from men's perverse blindness to the binding propriety of keeping all propositions as to what is the best way of living in respect of place1 hours1 companionship1 strictly relative to each individual case1 ,rousseau stubbornly shook the dust of the city from off his feet1 and sought new life away from the stridulous hum of men4 ,perhaps we are better pleased to think of the unwearied ,diderot spending laborious days in factories and quarries and workshops and forges1 while friendly toilers patiently explained to him the structure of stocking looms and velvet looms1 the processes of metal-casting and wire-drawing and slate-cutting1 and all the other countless arts and ingenuities of fabrication1 which he afterwards reproduced to a wondering age in his spacious and magnificent repertory of human thought1 knowledge1 and practical achievement4 ,and it is yet more elevating to us to think of the true stoic1 the great high-souled ,turgot1 setting forth a little later to discharge beneficent duty in the hard field of his distant ,limousin commissionership1 enduring many things and toiling late and early for long years1 that the burden of others might be lighter1 and the welfare of the land more assured4 ,but there are many paths for many men1 and if only magnanimous self-denial has the power of inspiration1 and can move us with the deep thrill of the heroic1 yet every truthful protest1 even of excessive personality1 against the gregarious trifling of life in the social groove1 has a side which it is not ill for us to consider1 and perhaps for some men and women in every generation to seek to imitate4 ,,footnotes3 #bja ,rp4 ,m4 ,bordes1 #afc4 #bjb ,pictet de ,sergy41 i4 #ah4 #bjc ,conf41 iv4 #bdh4 #bjd ,ib4 ix4 #bgi4 ,also ,economie ,politique4 #bje ,madame de la ,popelinire1 whose adventures and the misadventures of her husband are only too well known to the reader of ,marmontel's ,memoirs4 #bjf ,the passages relating to income during his first residence in ,paris 7#agdd-agef7 are at pp4 #aai1 #ade1 #aec1 #afe1 #bjj1 #bbg1 in ,books vii4-ix4 of the ,confessions4 ,rousseau told ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre 7,oeuv41 xii4 #gd7 that ,emile was sold for #gjjj livres4 ,in the ,confessions 7xi4 #abf71 he says #fjjj livres1 and one or two hundred copies4 ,it may be worth while to add that ,diderot and ,d',alembert received #abjj livres a year apiece for editing the ,encyclopdia4 ,sterne received #fej for two volumes of ,tristram ,shandy in #aghj4 ,walpole's ,letters1 in4 #bih4 #bjg ,conf41 viii4 #aed-aeg4 #bjh ,ib4 viii4 #afj4 #bji ,conf41 viii4 #afj1 #afa4 #baj ,ib4 viii4 #aei4 #baa ,rveries1 iii #afh4 #bab ,rveries1 iii4 #aff4 #bac ,see the ,eptre ,mdme4 la ,marquise du ,chtelet1 sur la ,calomnie4 #bad ,la ,femme au #ah;ime sicle1 par ,,mm4 de ,goncourt1 p4 #dj4 #bae ,madame d',epinay's ,mm41 i4 #bie4 #baf ,quoted in ,goncourt's ,femme au #ah;ime sicle1 p4 #cgh4 #bag ,ib41 p4 #ccg4 #bah ,mdlle4 ,l',espinasse's ,letters1 ii4 #hi4 #bai ,madame d',epinay's ,mm41 ii4 #dg1 #dh4 #bbj ,ib41 ii4 #ee4 #bba ,mm41 ,bk4 iv4 #cbg4 #bbb ,corr4 ,lit41 iii4 #eh4 #bbc ,ib41 #ed4 #bbd ,madame d',epinay's ,mm41 i4 #cgh-cha4 ,saint ,lambert formulated his atheism afterwards in the ,catchisme ,universel4 #bbe ,madame d',epinay's ,mm41 i4 #ddc4 #bbf ,corr41 i4 #cag4 ,sept4 #ad1 #agef4 #bbg ,letter to ,madame de ,crqui1 #ageb4 ,corr41 i4 #aga4 #bbh ,conf141 vii4 #ajd4 #bbi ,the ,devin du ,village was played at ,fontainebleau on ,october #ah1 #ageb1 and at the ,opera in ,paris in ,march #agec4 ,madame de ,pompadour took a part in it in a private performance4 ,see ,rousseau's note to her1 ,corr41 i4 #agh4 #bcj ,conf41 viii4 #aij4 #bca ,conf41 viii4 #ahc4 #bcb ,conf41 viii4 #bjb2 and ,musset-,pathay1 ii4 #dci4 ,when in ,strasburg1 in #agfe1 he could not bring himself to be present at its representation4 ,oeuv4 et ,corr4 ,ind41 p4 #dcd4 #bcc ,madame de ,stal insisted that her father said this1 and ,necker insisted that it was his daughter's4 #bcd ,corr41 i4 #agf4 ,feb4 #ac1 #agec4 #bce ,conf41 viii4 #bjh-baj4 #bcf ,she died on ,july #cj1 #agfb1 aged about sixty-three years4 ,arthur ,young1 visiting ,chambri in #aghi1 with some trouble procured the certificate of her death1 which may be found in his ,travels1 i4 #bgb4 ,see a letter of ,m4 de ,conzi to ,rousseau1 in ,m4 ,streckeisen-,moultou's collection1 ii4 #dde4 #bcg ,conf41 xii4 #bcc4 #bch ,conf41 viii4 #baj4 #bci ,gaberel's ,rousseau et les ,genevois1 p4 #fb4 ,conf41 viii4 #bab4 #bdj ,the venerable ,company of ,pastors and ,professors of the ,church and ,academy of ,geneva appointed a committee1 as in duty bound1 to examine these allegations1 and the committee1 equally in duty bound1 reported 7,feb4 #aj1 #ageh7 with mild indignation1 that they were unfounded1 and that the flock was untainted by unseasonable use of its mind4 ,see on this ,rousseau's ,lettres crites de la ,montagne1 ii4 #bca4 #bda ,see ,picot's ,hist4 de ,genve1 ii4 #dae4 #bdb ,letters containing an account of ,switzerland1 ,italy1 etc41 in #afhe-hf4 ,by ,g4 ,burnet1 p4 #i4 #bdc ,j4,a4 ,turretini's complete works were published as late as #aggf1 including among much besides that no longer interests men1 an ,oratio de ,scientiarum ,vanitate et ,proestantia 7vol4 iii4 #dcg71 not at all in the vein of ,rousseau's ,discourse1 and a treatise in four parts1 ,de ,legibus ,naturalibus1 in which1 among other matters1 he refutes ,hobbes and assails the doctrine of ,utility 7i4 #agc1 etc471 by limiting its definition to ,greek3 to pros heauton in its narrowest sense4 ,he appears to have been a student of ,spinoza 7i4 #cbf74 ,francis ,turretini1 his father1 took part in the discussion as to the nature of the treaty or contract between ,god and man1 in a piece entitled ,foedus ,natur a primo homine ruptum1 ejusque ,proevaricationem posteris imputatam 7#afge74 #bdd ,gaberel's ,eglise de ,genve1 iii4 #ahh4 #bde ,corr41 i4 #bbc 7to ,vernes1 ,april #e1 #agee74 #bdf ,conf41 viii4 #bae1 #baf4 ,corr41 i4 #bah 7to ,perdriau1 ,nov4 #bh1 #aged74 #bdg ,conf41 viii4 #bah4 #bdh ,conf41 viii4 #bag4 ,it is worth noticing as bearing on the accuracy of the ,confessions1 that ,madame d',epinay herself 7,mm41 ii4 #aae7 says that when she began to prepare the ,hermitage for ,rousseau he had never been there1 and that she was careful to lead him to believe that the expense had not been incurred for him4 ,moreover her letter to him describing it could only have been written to one who had not seen it1 and though her ,memoirs are full of sheer imagination and romance1 the documents in them are substantially authentic1 and this letter is shown to be so by ,rousseau's reply to it4 #bdi ,mm41 ii4 #aaf4 #bej ,corr4 7#agee71 i4 #bdb4 #bea ,corr41 i4 #bde4 #beb ,phdrus1 #bcj4 #bec ,conf41 viii4 #bba1 etc4 ,,chapter ,,vii4 ,,the ,,hermitage4 ,it would have been a strange anachronism if the decade of the ,encyclopdia and the ,seven ,years' ,war had reproduced one of those scenes which are as still resting-places amid the ceaseless forward tramp of humanity1 where some holy man turned away from the world1 and with adorable seriousness sought communion with the divine in mortification of flesh and solitude of spirit4 ,those were the retreats of firm hope and beatified faith4 ,the hope and faith of the eighteenth century were centred in action1 not in contemplation1 and the few solitaries of that epoch1 as well as of another nearer to our own1 fled away from the impotence of their own will1 rather than into the haven of satisfied conviction and clear-eyed acceptance4 ,only one of them--,wordsworth1 the poetic hermit of our lakes--impresses us in any degree like one of the great individualities of the ages when men not only craved for the unseen1 but felt the closeness of its presence over their heads and about their feet4 ,the modern anchorite goes forth in the spirit of the preacher who declared all the things that are under the sun to be vanity1 not in the transport of the saint who knew all the things that are under the sun to be no more than the shadow of a dream in the light of a celestial brightness to come4 ,rousseau's mood1 deeply tinged as it was by bitterness against society and circumstance1 still contained a strong positive element in his native exultation in all natural objects and processes1 which did not leave him vacantly brooding over the evil of the world he had quitted4 ,the sensuousness that penetrated him kept his sympathy with life extraordinarily buoyant1 and all the eager projects for the disclosure of a scheme of wisdom became for a time the more vividly desired1 as the general tide of desire flowed more fully within him4 ,to be surrounded with the simplicity of rural life was with him not only a stimulus1 but an essential condition to free intellectual energy4 ,many a time1 he says1 when making excursions into the country with great people1 ,i was so tired of fine rooms1 fountains1 artificial groves and flower beds1 and the still more tiresome people who displayed all these2 ,i was so worn out with pamphlets1 card-playing1 music1 silly jokes1 stupid airs1 great suppers1 that as ,i spied a poor hawthorn copse1 a hedge1 a farmstead1 a meadow1 as in passing through a hamlet ,i snuffed the odour of a good chervil omelette1 as ,i heard from a distance the rude refrain of the shepherd's songs1 ,i used to wish at the devil the whole tale of rouge and furbelows4#bed ,he was no anchorite proper1 one weary of the world and waiting for the end1 but a man with a strong dislike for one kind of life and a keen liking for another kind4 ,he thought he was now about to reproduce the old days of the ,charmettes1 true to his inveterate error that one may efface years and accurately replace a past4 ,he forgot that instead of the once vivacious and tender benefactress who was now waiting for slow death in her hovel1 his house-mates would be a poor dull drudge and her vile mother4 ,he forgot1 too1 that since those days the various processes of intellectual life had expanded within him1 and produced a busy fermentation which makes a man's surroundings very critical4 ,finally1 he forgot that in proportion as a man suffers the smooth course of his thought to depend on anything external1 whether on the greenness of the field or the gaiety of the street or the constancy of friends1 so comes he nearer to chance of making shipwreck4 ,hence his tragedy1 though the very root of the tragedy lay deeper1--in temperament4 ,i4 ,rousseau's impatience drove him into the country almost before the walls of his little house were dry 7,april #i1 #agef74 ,although it was cold1 and snow still lay upon the ground1 the earth began to show signs of life2 violets and primroses were to be seen2 the buds on the trees were beginning to shoot2 and the very night of my arrival was marked by the first song of the nightingale4 ,i heard it close to my window in a wood that touched the house4 ,after a light sleep ,i awoke1 forgetting that ,i was transplanted2 ,i thought myself still in the ,rue de ,grenelle1 when in an instant the warbling of the birds made me thrill with delight4 ,my very first care was to surrender myself to the impression of the rustic objects about me4 ,instead of beginning by arranging things inside my quarters1 ,i first set about planning my walks1 and there was not a path nor a copse nor a grove round my cottage which ,i had not found out before the end of the next day4 ,the place1 which was lonely rather than wild1 transported me in fancy to the end of the world1 and no one could ever have dreamed that we were only four leagues from ,paris4#bee ,this rural delirium1 as he justly calls it1 lasted for some days1 at the end of which he began seriously to apply himself to work4 ,but work was too soon broken off by a mood of vehement exaltation1 produced by the stimulus given to all his senses by the new world of delight in which he found himself4 ,this exaltation was in a different direction from that which had seized him half a dozen years before1 when he had discarded the usage and costume of politer society1 and had begun to conceive an angry contempt for the manners1 prejudices1 and maxims of his time4 ,restoration to a more purely sensuous atmosphere softened this austerity4 ,no longer having the vices of a great city before his eyes1 he no longer cherished the wrath which they had inspired in him4 ,when ,i did not see men1 ,i ceased to despise them2 and when ,i had not the bad before my eyes1 ,i ceased to hate them4 ,my heart1 little made as it is for hate1 now did no more than deplore their wretchedness1 and made no distinction between their wretchedness and their badness4 ,this state1 so much more mild1 if much less sublime1 soon dulled the glowing enthusiasm that had long transported me4#bef ,that is to say1 his nature remained for a moment not exalted but fairly balanced4 ,it was only for a moment4 ,and in studying the movements of impulse and reflection in him at this critical time of his life1 we are hurried rapidly from phase to phase4 ,once more we are watching a man who lived without either intellectual or spiritual direction1 swayed by a reminiscence1 a passing mood1 a personality accidentally encountered1 by anything except permanent aim and fixed objects1 and who would at any time have surrendered the most deliberately pondered scheme of persistent effort to the fascination of a cottage slumbering in a bounteous landscape4 ,hence there could be no normally composed state for him2 the first soothing effect of the rich life of forest and garden on a nature exasperated by the life of the town passed away1 and became transformed into an exaltation that swept the stoic into space1 leaving sensuousness to sovereign and uncontrolled triumph1 until the delight turned to its inevitable ashes and bitterness4 ,at first all was pure and delicious4 ,in after times when pain made him gloomily measure the length of the night1 and when fever prevented him from having a moment of sleep1 he used to try to still his suffering by recollection of the days that he had passed in the woods of ,montmorency1 with his dog1 the birds1 the deer1 for his companions4 ,as ,i got up with the sun to watch his rising from my garden1 if ,i saw the day was going to be fine1 my first wish was that neither letters nor visits might come to disturb its charm4 ,after having given the morning to divers tasks which ,i fulfilled with all the more pleasure that ,i could put them off to another time if ,i chose1 ,i hastened to eat my dinner1 so as to escape from the importunate and make myself a longer afternoon4 ,before one o'clock1 even on days of fiercest heat1 ,i used to start in the blaze of the sun1 along with my faithful ,achates1 hurrying my steps lest some one should lay hold of me before ,i could get away4 ,but when ,i had once passed a certain corner1 with what beating of the heart1 with what radiant joy1 did ,i begin to breathe freely1 as ,i felt myself safe and my own master for the rest of the day6 ,then with easier pace ,i went in search of some wild and desert spot in the forest1 where there was nothing to show the hand of man1 or to speak of servitude and domination2 some refuge where ,i could fancy myself its discoverer1 and where no inopportune third person came to interfere between nature and me4 ,she seemed to spread out before my eyes a magnificence that was always new4 ,the gold of the broom and the purple of the heather struck my eyes with a glorious splendour that went to my very heart2 the majesty of the trees that covered me with their shadow1 the delicacy of the shrubs that surrounded me1 the astonishing variety of grasses and flowers that ,i trod under foot1 kept my mind in a continual alternation of attention and delight4444 ,my imagination did not leave the earth thus superbly arrayed without inhabitants4 ,i formed a charming society1 of which ,i did not feel myself unworthy2 ,i made a golden age to please my own fancy1 and filling up these fair days with all those scenes of my life that had left sweet memories behind1 and all that my heart could yet desire or hope in scenes to come1 ,i waxed tender even to shedding tears over the true pleasures of humanity1 pleasures so delicious1 so pure1 and henceforth so far from the reach of men4 ,ah1 if in such moments any ideas of ,paris1 of the age1 of my little aureole as author1 came to trouble my dreams1 with what disdain did ,i drive them out1 to deliver myself without distraction to the exquisite sentiments of which ,i was so full4 ,yet in the midst of it all1 the nothingness of my chimeras sometimes broke sadly upon my mind4 ,even if every dream had suddenly been transformed into reality1 it would not have been enough2 ,i should have dreamed1 imagined1 yearned still4 ,alas1 this deep insatiableness of sense1 the dreary vacuity of soul that follows fulness of animal delight1 the restless exactingness of undirected imagination1 was never recognised by ,rousseau distinctly enough to modify either his conduct or his theory of life4 ,he filled up the void for a short space by that sovereign aspiration1 which changed the dead bones of old theology into the living figure of a new faith4 ,from the surface of the earth ,i raised my ideas to all the existences in nature1 to the universal system of things1 to the incomprehensible ,being who embraces all4 ,then with mind lost in that immensity1 ,i did not think1 ,i did not reason1 ,i did not philosophise2 with a sort of pleasure ,i felt overwhelmed by the weight of the universe1 ,i surrendered myself to the ravishing confusion of these vast ideas4 ,i loved to lose myself in imagination in immeasurable space2 within the limits of real existences my heart was too tightly compressed2 in the universe ,i was stifled2 ,i would fain have launched myself into the infinite4 ,i believe that if ,i had unveiled all the mysteries of nature1 ,i should have found myself in a less delicious situation than that bewildering ecstasy to which my mind so unreservedly delivered itself1 and which sometimes transported me until ,i cried out1 ',o mighty ,being6 ,o mighty ,being6' without power of any other word or thought4#beg ,it is not wholly insignificant that though he could thus expand his soul with ejaculatory delight in something supreme1 he could not endure the sight of one of his fellow-creatures4 ,if my gaiety lasted the whole night1 that showed that ,i had passed the day alone2 ,i was very different after ,i had seen people1 for ,i was rarely content with others and never with myself4 ,then in the evening ,i was sure to be in taciturn or scolding humour4 ,it is not in every condition that effervescent passion for ideal forms of the religious imagination assists sympathy with the real beings who surround us4 ,and to this let us add that there are natures in which all deep emotion is so entirely associated with the ideal1 that real and particular manifestations of it are repugnant to them as something alien2 and this without the least insincerity1 though with a vicious and disheartening inconsistency4 ,rousseau belonged to this class1 and loved man most when he saw men least4 ,bad as this was1 it does not justify us in denouncing his love of man as artificial2 it was one side of an ideal exaltation1 which stirred the depths of his spirit with a force as genuine as that which is kindled in natures of another type by sympathy with the real and concrete1 with the daily walk and conversation and actual doings and sufferings of the men and women whom we know4 ,the fermentation which followed his arrival at the ,hermitage1 in its first form produced a number of literary schemes4 ,the idea of the ,political ,institutions1 first conceived at ,venice1 pressed upon his meditations4 ,he had been earnestly requested to compose a treatise on education4 ,besides this1 his thoughts wandered confusedly round the notion of a treatise to be called ,sensitive ,morality1 or the ,materialism of the ,sage1 the object of which was to examine the influence of external agencies1 such as light1 darkness1 sound1 seasons1 food1 noise1 silence1 motion1 rest1 on our corporeal machine1 and thus indirectly upon the soul also4 ,by knowing these and acquiring the art of modifying them according to our individual needs1 we should become surer of ourselves and fix a deeper constancy in our lives4 ,an external system of treatment would thus be established1 which would place and keep the soul in the condition most favourable to virtue4#beh ,though the treatise was never completed1 and the sketch never saw the light1 we perceive at least that ,rousseau would have made the means of access to character wide enough1 and the material influences that impress it and produce its caprices1 multitudinous enough1 instead of limiting them with the medical specialist to one or two organs1 and one or two of the conditions that affect them4 ,nor1 on the other hand1 do the words in which he sketches his project in the least justify the attribution to him of the doctrine of the absolute power of the physical constitution over the moral habits1 whether that doctrine would be a credit or a discredit to his philosophical thoroughness of perception4 ,no one denies the influence of external conditions on the moral habits1 and ,rousseau says no more than that he proposed to consider the extent and the modifiableness of this influence4 ,it was not then deemed essential for a spiritualist thinker to ignore physical organisation4 ,a third undertaking of a more substantial sort was to arrange and edit the papers and printed works of the ,abb de ,saint ,pierre 7#afeh-agdc71 confided to him through the agency of ,saint ,lambert1 and partly also of ,madame ,dupin1 the warm friend of that singular and good man4#bei ,this task involved reading1 considering1 and picking extracts from twenty-three diffuse and chaotic volumes1 full of prolixity and repetition4 ,rousseau1 dreamer as he was1 yet had quite keenness of perception enough to discern the weakness of a dreamer of another sort2 and he soon found out that the ,abb de ,saint ,pierre's views were impracticable1 in consequence of the author's fixed idea that men are guided rather by their lights than by their passions4 ,in fact1 ,saint ,pierre was penetrated with the eighteenth-century faith to a peculiar degree4 ,as with ,condorcet afterwards1 he was led by his admiration for the extent of modern knowledge to adopt the principle that perfected reason is capable of being made the base of all institutions1 and would speedily terminate all the great abuses of the world4 ,he went wrong1 says ,rousseau1 not merely in having no other passion but that of reason1 but by insisting on making all men like himself1 instead of taking them as they are and as they will continue to be4 ,the critic's own error in later days was not very different from this1 save that it applied to the medium in which men live1 rather than to themselves1 by refusing to take complex societies as they are1 even as starting-points for higher attempts at organisation4 ,rousseau had occasionally seen the old man1 and he preserved the greatest veneration for his memory1 speaking of him as the honour of his age and race1 with a fulness of enthusiasm very unusual towards men1 though common enough towards inanimate nature4 ,the sincerity of this respect1 however1 could not make the twenty-three volumes which the good man had written1 either fewer in number or lighter in contents1 and after dealing as well as he could with two important parts of ,saint ,pierre's works1 he threw up the task4#bfj ,it must not be supposed that ,rousseau would allow that fatigue or tedium had anything to do with a resolve which really needed no better justification4 ,as we have seen before1 he had amazing skill in finding a certain ingeniously contrived largeness for his motives4 ,saint ,pierre's writings were full of observations on the government of ,france1 some of them remarkably bold in their criticism1 but he had not been punished for them because the ministers always looked upon him as a kind of preacher rather than a genuine politician1 and he was allowed to say what he pleased1 because it was observed that no one listened to what he said4 ,besides1 he was a ,frenchman1 and ,rousseau was not1 and hence the latter1 in publishing ,saint ,pierre's strictures on ,french affairs1 was exposing himself to a sharp question why he meddled with a country that did not concern him4 ,it surprised me1 says ,rousseau1 that the reflection had not occurred to me earlier1 but this coincidence of the discovery that the work was imprudent1 with the discovery that he was weary of it1 will surprise nobody versed in study of a man who lives in his sensations1 and yet has vanity enough to dislike to admit it4 ,the short remarks which ,rousseau appended to his abridgment of ,saint ,pierre's essays on ,perpetual ,peace1 and on a ,polysynodia1 or ,plurality of ,councils1 are extremely shrewd and pointed1 and would suffice to show us1 if there were nothing else to do so1 the right kind of answer to make to the more harmful dreams of the ,social ,contract4 ,saint ,pierre's fault is said1 with entire truth1 to be a failure to make his views relative to men1 to times1 to circumstances2 and there is something that startles us when we think whose words we are reading1 in the declaration that1 whether an existing government be still that of old times1 or whether it have insensibly undergone a change of nature1 it is equally imprudent to touch it3 if it is the same1 it must be respected1 and if it has degenerated1 that is due to the force of time and circumstance1 and human sagacity is powerless4 ,rousseau points to ,france1 asking his readers to judge the peril of once moving by an election the enormous masses comprising the ,french monarchy2 and in another place1 after a wise general remark on the futility of political machinery without men of a certain character1 he illustrates it by this scornful question3 ,when you see all ,paris in a ferment about the rank of a dancer or a wit1 and the affairs of the academy or the opera making everybody forget the interest of the ruler and the glory of the nation1 what can you hope from bringing political affairs close to such a people1 and removing them from the court to the town8#bfa ,indeed1 there is perhaps not one of these pages which ,burke might not well have owned4#bfb ,a violent and prolonged crisis followed this not entirely unsuccessful effort after sober and laborious meditation4 ,rousseau was now to find that if society has its perils1 so too has solitude1 and that if there is evil in frivolous complaisance for the puppet-work of a world that is only a little serious1 so there is evil in a passionate tenderness for phantoms of an imaginary world that is not serious at all4 ,to the pure or stoical soul the solitude of the forest is strength1 but then the imagination must know the yoke4 ,rousseau's imagination1 in no way of the strongest either as receptive or inventive1 was the free accomplice of his sensations4 ,the undisciplined force of animal sensibility gradually rose within him1 like a slowly welling flood4 ,the spectacle does not either brighten or fortify the student's mind1 yet if there are such states1 it is right that those who care to speak of human nature should have an opportunity of knowing its less glorious parts4 ,they may be presumed to exist1 though in less violent degree1 in many people whom we meet in the street and at the table1 and there can be nothing but danger in allowing ourselves to be so narrowed by our own virtuousness1 viciousness being conventionally banished to the remoter region of the third person1 as to forget the presence of the brute brain within the man's4 ,in ,rousseau's case1 at any rate1 it was no wicked broth nor magic potion that confused the chemic labour of the blood1 but the too potent wine of the joyful beauty of nature herself1 working misery in a mental structure that no educating care nor envelope of circumstance had ever hardened against her intoxication4 ,most of us are protected against this subtle debauch of sensuous egoism by a cool organisation1 while even those who are born with senses and appetites of great strength and keenness1 are guarded by accumulated discipline of all kinds from without1 especially by the necessity for active industry which brings the most exaggerated native sensibility into balance4 ,it is the constant and rigorous social parade which keeps the eager regiment of the senses from making furious rout4 ,rousseau had just repudiated all social obligation1 and he had never gone through external discipline4 ,he was at an age when passion that has never been broken in has the beak of the bald vulture1 tearing and gnawing a man2 but its first approach is in fair shapes4 ,wandering and dreaming in the sweetest season of the year1 in the month of ,june1 under the fresh groves1 with the song of the nightingale and the soft murmuring of the brooks in his ear1 he began to wonder restlessly why he had never tasted in their plenitude the vivid sentiments which he was conscious of possessing in reserve1 or any of that intoxicating delight which he felt potentially existent in his soul4 ,why had he been created with faculties so exquisite1 to be left thus unused and unfruitful8 ,the feeling of his own quality1 with this of a certain injustice and waste superadded1 brought warm tears which he loved to let flow4 ,visions of the past1 from girl playmates of his youth down to the ,venetian courtesan1 thronged in fluttering tumult into his brain4 ,he saw himself surrounded by a seraglio of houris whom he had known1 until his blood was all aflame and his head in a whirl4 ,his imagination was kindled into deadly activity4 ,the impossibility of reaching to the real beings plunged me into the land of chimera2 and seeing nothing actual that rose to the height of my delirium1 ,i nourished it in an ideal world1 which my creative imagination had soon peopled with beings after my heart's desire4 ,in my continual ecstasies1 ,i made myself drunk with torrents of the most delicious sentiments that ever entered the heart of man4 ,forgetting absolutely the whole human race1 ,i invented for myself societies of perfect creatures1 as heavenly for their virtues as their beauties2 sure1 tender1 faithful friends1 such as ,i never found in our nether world4 ,i had such a passion for haunting this empyrean with all its charming objects1 that ,i passed hours and days in it without counting them as they went by2 and losing recollection of everything else1 ,i had hardly swallowed a morsel in hot haste1 before ,i began to burn to run off in search of my beloved groves4 ,if1 when ,i was ready to start for the enchanted world1 ,i saw unhappy mortals coming to detain me on the dull earth1 ,i could neither moderate nor hide my spleen1 and1 no longer master over myself1 ,i used to give them greeting so rough that it might well be called brutal4#bfc ,this terrific malady was something of a very different kind from the tranquil sensuousness of the days in ,savoy1 when the blood was young1 and life was not complicated with memories1 and the sweet freshness of nature made existence enough4 ,then his supreme expansion had been attended with a kind of divine repose1 and had found edifying voice in devout acknowledgment in the exhilaration of the morning air of the goodness and bounty of a beneficent master4 ,in this later and more pitiable time the beneficent master hid himself1 and creation was only not a blank because it was veiled by troops of sirens not in the flesh4 ,nature without the association of some living human object1 like ,madame de ,warens1 was a poison to ,rousseau1 until the advancing years which slowly brought decay of sensual force thus brought the antidote4 ,at our present point we see one stricken with an ugly disease4 ,it was almost mercy when he was laid up with a sharp attack of the more painful1 but far less absorbing and frightful disorder1 to which ,rousseau was subject all his life long4 ,it gave pause to what he misnames his angelic loves4 ,besides that one can hardly think of love when suffering anguish1 my imagination1 which is animated by the country and under the trees1 languishes and dies in a room and under roof-beams4 ,this interval he employed with some magnanimity1 in vindicating the ways and economy of ,providence1 in the letter to ,voltaire which we shall presently examine4 ,the moment he could get out of doors again into the forest1 the transport returned1 but this time accompanied with an active effort in the creative faculties of his mind to bring the natural relief to these over-wrought paroxysms of sensual imagination4 ,he soothed his emotions by associating them with the life of personages whom he invented1 and by introducing into them that play and movement and changing relation which prevented them from bringing his days to an end in malodorous fever4 ,the egoism of persistent invention and composition was at least better than the egoism of mere unreflecting ecstasy in the charm of natural objects1 and took off something from the violent excess of sensuous force4 ,his thought became absorbed in two female figures1 one dark and the other fair1 one sage and the other yielding1 one gentle and the other quick1 analogous in character but different1 not handsome but animated by cheerfulness and feeling4 ,to one of these he gave a lover1 to whom the other was a tender friend4 ,he planted them all1 after much deliberation and some changes1 on the shores of his beloved lake at ,vevay1 the spot where his benefactress was born1 and which he always thought the richest and loveliest in all ,europe4 ,this vicarious or reflected egoism1 accompanied as it was by a certain amount of productive energy1 seemed to mark a return to a sort of moral convalescence4 ,he walked about the groves with pencil and tablets1 assigning this or that thought or expression to one or other of the three companions of his fancy4 ,when the bad weather set in1 and he was confined to the house 7the winter of #agef-g71 he tried to resume his ordinary indoor labour1 the copying of music and the compilation of his ,musical ,dictionary4 ,to his amazement he found that this was no longer possible4 ,the fever of that literary composition of which he had always such dread had strong possession of him4 ,he could see nothing on any side but the three figures and the objects about them made beautiful by his imagination4 ,though he tried hard to dismiss them1 his resistance was vain1 and he set himself to bringing some order into his thoughts so as to produce a kind of romance4 ,we have a glimpse of his mental state in the odd detail1 that he could not bear to write his romance on anything but the very finest paper with gilt edges2 that the powder with which he dried the ink was of azure and sparkling silver2 and that he tied up the quires with delicate blue riband4#bfd ,the distance from all this to the state of nature is obviously very great indeed4 ,it must not be supposed that he forgot his older part as ,cato1 ,brutus1 and the other ,plutarchians4 ,my great embarrassment1 he says honestly1 was that ,i should belie myself so clearly and thoroughly4 ,after the severe principles ,i had just been laying down with so much bustle1 after the austere maxims ,i had preached so energetically1 after so many biting invectives against the effeminate books that breathed love and soft delights1 could anything be imagined more shocking1 more unlooked-for1 than to see me inscribe myself with my own hand among the very authors on whose books ,i had heaped this harsh censure8 ,i felt this inconsequence in all its force1 ,i taxed myself with it1 ,i blushed over it1 and was overcome with mortification2 but nothing could restore me to reason4#bfe ,he adds that perhaps on the whole the composition of the ,new ,helosa was turning his madness to the best account4 ,that may be true1 but does not all this make the bitter denunciation1 in the ,letter to ,d',alembert1 of love and of all who make its representation a considerable element in literature or the drama1 at the very time when he was composing one of the most dangerously attractive romances of his century1 a rather indecent piece of invective8 ,we may forgive inconsistency when it is only between two of a man's theories1 or two self-concerning parts of his conduct1 but hardly when it takes the form of reviling in others what the reviler indulgently permits to himself4 ,we are more edified by the energy with which ,rousseau refused connivance with the public outrages on morality perpetrated by a patron4 ,m4 d',epinay went to pay him a visit at the ,hermitage1 taking with him two ladies with whom his relations were less than equivocal1 and for whom among other things he had given ,rousseau music to copy4 ,they were curious to see the eccentric man1 as ,m4 d',epinay afterwards told his scandalised wife1 for it was in the manners of the day on no account to parade even the most notorious of these unblessed connections4 ,he was walking in front of the door2 he saw me first2 he advanced cap in hand2 he saw the ladies2 he saluted us1 put on his cap1 turned his back1 and stalked off as fast as he could4 ,can anything be more mad8#bff ,in the miserable and intricate tangle of falsity1 weakness1 sensuality1 and quarrel1 which make up this chapter in ,rousseau's life1 we are glad of even one trait of masculine robustness4 ,we should perhaps be still more glad if the unwedded ,theresa were not visible in the background of this scene of high morals4 ,,ii4 ,the ,new ,helosa was not to be completed without a further extension of morbid experience of a still more burning kind than the sufferings of compressed passion4 ,the feverish torment of mere visions of the air swarming impalpable in all his veins1 was replaced when the earth again began to live and the sap to stir in plants1 by the more concentred fire of a consuming passion for one who was no dryad nor figure of a dream4 ,in the spring of #ageg he received a visit from ,madame d',houdetot1 the sister-in-law of ,madame d',epinay4#bfg ,her husband had gone to the war 7we are in the year of ,rossbach71 and so had her lover1 ,saint ,lambert1 whose passion had been so fatal to ,voltaire's ,marquise du ,chtelet eight years before4 ,she rode over in man's guise to the ,hermitage from a house not very far off1 where she was to pass her retreat during the absence of her two natural protectors4 ,rousseau had seen her before on various occasions2 she had been to the ,hermitage the previous year1 and had partaken of its host's homely fare4#bfh ,but the time was not ripe2 the force of a temptation is not from without but within4 ,much1 too1 depended with our hermit on the temperature2 one who would have been a very ordinary mortal to him in cold and rain1 might grow to ,aphrodite herself in days when the sun shone hot and the air was aromatic4 ,his fancy was suddenly struck with the romantic guise of the female cavalier1 and this was the first onset of a veritable intoxication1 which many men have felt1 but which no man before or since ever invited the world to hear the story of4 ,he may truly say that after the first interview with her in this disastrous spring1 he was as one who had thirstily drained a poisoned bowl4 ,a sort of palsy struck him4 ,he lay weeping in his bed at night1 and on days when he did not see the sorceress he wept in the woods4#bfi ,he talked to himself for hours1 and was of a black humour to his house-mates4 ,when approaching the object of this deadly fascination1 his whole organisation seemed to be dissolved4 ,he walked in a dream that filled him with a sense of sickly torture1 commixed with sicklier delight4 ,people speak with precisely marked division of mind and body1 of will1 emotion1 understanding2 the division is good in logic1 but its convenient lines are lost to us as we watch a being with soul all blurred1 body all shaken1 unstrung1 poisoned1 by erotic mania1 rising in slow clouds of mephitic steam from suddenly heated stagnancies of the blood1 and turning the reality of conduct and duty into distant unmeaning shadows4 ,if such a disease were the furious mood of the brute in spring-time1 it would be less dreadful1 but shame and remorse in the ever-struggling reason of man or woman in the grip of the foul thing1 produces an aggravation of frenzy that makes the mental healer tremble4 ,add to all this lurking elements of hollow rage that his passion was not returned2 of stealthy jealousy of the younger man whose place he could not take1 and who was his friend besides2 of suspicion that he was a little despised for his weakness by the very object of it1 who saw that his hairs were sprinkled with gray1--and the whole offers a scene of moral humiliation that half sickens1 half appals1 and we turn away with dismay as from a vision of the horrid loves of heavy-eyed and scaly shapes that haunted the warm primeval ooze4 ,madame d',houdetot1 the unwilling enchantress bearing in an unconscious hand the cup of defilement1 was not strikingly singular either in physical or mental attraction4 ,she was now seven-and-twenty4 ,small-pox1 the terrible plague of the country1 had pitted her face and given a yellowish tinge to her complexion2 her features were clumsy and her brow low2 she was short-sighted1 and in old age at any rate was afflicted by an excessive squint4 ,this homeliness was redeemed by a gentle and caressing expression1 and by a sincerity1 a gaiety of heart1 and free sprightliness of manner1 that no trouble could restrain4 ,her figure was very slight1 and there was in all her movements at once awkwardness and grace4 ,she was natural and simple1 and had a fairly good judgment of a modest kind1 in spite of the wild sallies in which her spirits sometimes found vent4 ,capable of chagrin1 she was never prevented by it from yielding to any impulse of mirth4 ,she weeps with the best faith in the world1 and breaks out laughing at the same moment2 never was anybody so happily born1 says her much less amiable sister-in-law4#bgj ,her husband was indifferent to her4 ,he preserved an attachment to a lady whom he knew before his marriage1 whose society he never ceased to frequent1 and who finally died in his arms in #agic4 ,madame d',houdetot found consolation in the friendship of ,saint ,lambert4 ,we both of us1 said her husband1 both ,madame d',houdetot and ,i1 had a vocation for fidelity1 only there was a mis-arrangement4 ,she occasionally composed verses of more than ordinary point1 but she had good sense enough not to write them down1 nor to set up on the strength of them for poetess and wit4#bga ,her talk in her later years1 and she lived down to the year of ,leipsic1 preserved the pointed sententiousness of earlier time4 ,one day1 for instance1 in the era of the ,directory1 a conversation was going on as to the various merits and defects of women2 she heard much1 and then with her accustomed suavity of voice contributed this light summary3--,without women1 the life of man would be without aid at the beginning1 without pleasure in the middle1 and without solace at the end4#bgb ,we may be sure that it was not her power of saying things of this sort that kindled ,rousseau's flame1 but rather the sprightly naturalness1 frankness1 and kindly softness of a character which in his opinion united every virtue except prudence and strength1 the two which ,rousseau would be least likely to miss4 ,the bond of union between them was subtle4 ,she found in ,rousseau a sympathetic listener while she told the story of her passion for ,saint ,lambert1 and a certain contagious force produced in him a thrill which he never felt with any one else before or after4 ,thus1 as he says1 there was equally love on both sides1 though it was not reciprocal4 ,we were both of us intoxicated with passion1 she for her lover1 ,i for her2 our sighs and sweet tears mingled4 ,tender confidants1 each of the other1 our sentiments were of such close kin that it was impossible for them not to mix2 and still she never forgot her duty for a moment1 while for myself1 ,i protest1 ,i swear1 that if sometimes drawn astray by my senses1 still--still he was a paragon of virtue1 subject to rather new definition4 ,we can appreciate the author of the ,new ,helosa2 we can appreciate the author of ,emilius2 but this strained attempt to confound those two very different persons by combining tearful erotics with high ethics1 is an exhibition of self-delusion that the most patient analyst of human nature might well find hard to suffer4 ,the duty of privation exalted my soul4 ,the glory of all the virtues adorned the idol of my heart in my sight2 to soil its divine image would have been to annihilate it1 and so forth4#bgc ,moon-lighted landscape gave a background for the sentimentalist's picture1 and dim groves1 murmuring cascades1 and the soft rustle of the night air1 made up a scene which became for its chief actor an immortal memory of innocence and delight4 ,it was in this grove1 seated with her on a grassy bank1 under an acacia heavy with flowers1 that ,i found expression for the emotions of my heart in words that were worthy of them4 ',twas the first and single time of my life2 but ,i was sublime1 if you can use the word of all the tender and seductive things that the most glowing love can bring into the heart of a man4 ,what intoxicating tears ,i shed at her knees1 what floods she shed in spite of herself6 ,at length in an involuntary transport1 she cried out1 ',never was man so tender1 never did man love as you do6 ,but your friend ,saint ,lambert hears us1 and my heart cannot love twice4'#bgd ,happily1 as we learn from another source1 a breath of wholesome life from without brought the transcendental to grotesque end4 ,in the climax of tears and protestations1 an honest waggoner at the other side of the park wall1 urging on a lagging beast launched a round and far-sounding oath out into the silent night4 ,madame d',houdetot answered with a lively continuous peal of young laughter1 while an angry chill brought back the discomfited lover from an ecstasy that was very full of peril4#bge ,rousseau wrote in the ,new ,helosa very sagely that you should grant to the senses nothing when you mean to refuse them anything4 ,he admits that the saying was falsified by his relations with ,madame d',houdetot4 ,clearly the credit of this happy falsification was due to her rather than to himself4 ,what her feelings were1 it is not very easy to see4 ,honest pity seems to have been the strongest of them4 ,she was idle and unoccupied1 and idleness leaves the soul open for much stray generosity of emotion1 even towards an importunate lover4 ,she thought him mad1 and she wrote to ,saint ,lambert to say so4 ,his madness must be very strong1 said ,saint ,lambert1 since she can perceive it4#bgf ,character is ceaselessly marching1 even when we seem to have sunk into a fixed and stagnant mood4 ,the man is awakened from his dream of passion by inexorable event2 he finds the house of the soul not swept and garnished for a new life1 but possessed by demons who have entered unseen4 ,in short1 such profound disorder of spirit1 though in its first stage marked by ravishing delirium1 never escapes a bitter sequel4 ,when a man lets his soul be swept away from the narrow track of conduct appointed by his relations with others1 still the reality of such relations survives4 ,he may retreat to rural lodges2 that will not save him either from his own passion1 or from some degree of that kinship with others which instantly creates right and wrong like a wall of brass around him4 ,let it be observed that the natures of finest stuff suffer most from these forced reactions1 and it was just because ,rousseau had innate moral sensitiveness1 and a man like ,diderot was without it1 that the first felt his fall so profoundly1 while the second was unconscious of having fallen at all4 ,one day in ,july ,rousseau went to pay his accustomed visit4 ,he found ,madame d',houdetot dejected1 and with the flush of recent weeping on her cheeks4 ,a bird of the air had carried the matter4 ,as usual1 the matter was carried wrongly1 and apparently all that ,saint ,lambert suspected was that ,rousseau's high principles had persuaded ,madame d',houdetot of the viciousness of her relations with her lover4#bgg ,they have played us an evil turn1 cried ,madame d',houdetot2 they have been unjust to me1 but that is no matter4 ,either let us break off at once1 or be what you ought to be4#bgh ,this was ,rousseau's first taste of the ashes of shame into which the lusciousness of such forbidden fruit1 plucked at the expense of others1 is ever apt to be transformed4 ,mortification of the considerable spiritual pride that was yet alive after this lapse1 was a strong element in the sum of his emotion1 and it was pointed by the reflection which stung him so incessantly1 that his monitress was younger than himself4 ,he could never master his own contempt for the gallantry of grizzled locks4#bgi ,his austerer self might at any rate have been consoled by knowing that this scene was the beginning of the end1 though the end came without any seeking on his part and without violence4 ,to his amazement1 one day ,saint ,lambert and ,madame d',houdetot came to the ,hermitage1 asking him to give them dinner1 and much to the credit of human nature's elasticity1 the three passed a delightful afternoon4 ,the wronged lover was friendly1 though a little stiff1 and he passed occasional slights which ,rousseau would surely not have forgiven1 if he had not been disarmed by consciousness of guilt4 ,he fell asleep1 as we can well imagine that he might do1 while ,rousseau read aloud his very inadequate justification of ,providence against ,voltaire4#bhj ,in time he returned to the army1 and ,rousseau began to cure himself of his mad passion4 ,his method1 however1 was not unsuspicious1 for it involved the perilous assistance of ,madame d',houdetot4 ,fortunately her loyalty and good sense forced a more resolute mode upon him4 ,he found1 or thought he found her distracted1 emharrassed1 indifferent4 ,in despair at not being allowed to heal his passionate malady in his own fashion1 he did the most singular thing that he could have done under the circumstances4 ,he wrote to ,saint ,lambert4#bha ,his letter is a prodigy of plausible duplicity1 though ,rousseau in some of his mental states had so little sense of the difference between the actual and the imaginary1 and was moreover so swiftly borne away on a flood of fine phrases1 that it is hard to decide how far this was voluntary1 and how far he was his own dupe4 ,voluntary or not1 it is detestable4 ,we pass the false whine about being abandoned by all that was dear to him1 as if he had not deliberately quitted ,paris against the remonstrance of every friend he had2 about his being solitary and sad1 as if he was not ready at this very time to curse any one who intruded on his solitude1 and hindered him of a single half-hour in the desert spots that he adored4 ,remembering the scenes in moon-lighted groves and elsewhere1 we read this3--,whence comes her coldness to me8 ,is it possible that you can have suspected me of wronging you with her1 and of turning perfidious in consequence of an unseasonably rigorous virtue8 ,a passage in one of your letters shows a glimpse of some such suspicion4 ,no1 no1 ,saint ,lambert1 the breast of ,j4,j4 ,rousseau never held the heart of a traitor1 and ,i should despise myself more than you suppose1 if ,i had ever tried to rob you of her heart4444 ,can you suspect that her friendship for me may hurt her love for you8 ,surely natures endowed with sensibility are open to all sorts of affections1 and no sentiment can spring up in them which does not turn to the advantage of the dominant passion4 ,where is the lover who does not wax the more tender as he talks to his friend of her whom he loves8 ,and is it not sweeter for you in your banishment that there should be some sympathetic creature to whom your mistress loves to talk of you1 and who loves to hear8 ,let us turn to another side of his correspondence4 ,the way in which the sympathetic creature in the present case loved to hear his friend's mistress talk of him1 is interestingly shown in one or two passages from a letter to her2 as when he cries1 ,ah1 how proud would even thy lover himself be of thy constancy1 if he only knew how much it has surmounted4444 ,i appeal to your sincerity4 ,you1 the witness and the cause of this delirium1 these tears1 these ravishing ecstasies1 these transports which were never made for mortal1 say1 have ,i ever tasted your favours in such a way that ,i deserve to lose them8444 ,never once did my ardent desires nor my tender supplications dare to solicit supreme happiness1 without my feeling stopped by the inner cries of a sorrow-stricken soul4444 ,o ,sophie1 after moments so sweet1 the idea of eternal privation is too frightful for one who groans that he cannot identify himself with thee4 ,what1 are thy tender eyes never again to be lowered with a delicious modesty1 intoxicating me with pleasure8 ,what1 are my burning lips never again to lay my very soul on thy heart along with my kisses8 ,what1 may ,i never more feel that heavenly shudder1 that rapid and devouring fire1 swifter than lightning8#bhb4444 ,we see a sympathetic creature assuredly1 and listen to the voice of a nature endowed with sensibility even more than enough1 but with decency1 loyalty1 above all with self-knowledge1 far less than enough4 ,one more touch completes the picture of the fallen desperate man4 ,he takes great trouble to persuade ,saint ,lambert that though the rigour of his principles constrains him to frown upon such breaches of social law as the relations between ,madame d',houdetot and her lover1 yet he is so attached to the sinful pair that he half forgives them4 ,do not suppose1 he says1 with superlative gravity1 that you have seduced me by your reasons2 ,i see in them the goodness of your heart1 not your justification4 ,i cannot help blaming your connection3 you can hardly approve it yourself2 and so long as you both of you continue dear to me1 ,i will never leave you in careless security as to the innocence of your state4 ,yet love such as yours deserves considerateness4444 ,i feel respect for a union so tender1 and cannot bring myself to attempt to lead it to virtue along the path of despair 7p4 #dja74 ,ignorance of the facts of the case hindered ,saint ,lambert from appreciating the strange irony of a man protesting about leading to virtue along the path of despair a poor woman whom he had done as much as he could to lead to vice along the path of highly stimulated sense4 ,saint ,lambert was as much a sentimentalist as ,rousseau was1 but he had a certain manliness1 acquired by long contact with men1 which his correspondent only felt in moods of severe exaltation4 ,saint ,lambert took all the blame on himself4 ,he had desired that his mistress and his friend should love one another2 then he thought he saw some coolness in his mistress1 and he set the change down to his friend1 though not on the true grounds4 ,do not suppose that ,i thought you perfidious or a traitor2 ,i knew the austerity of your principles2 people had spoken to me of it2 and she herself did so with a respect that love found hard to bear4 ,in short1 he had suspected ,rousseau of nothing worse than being over-virtuous1 and trying in the interest of virtue to break off a connection sanctioned by contemporary manners1 but not by law or religion4 ,if ,madame d',houdetot had changed1 it was not that she had ceased to honour her good friend1 but only that her lover might be spared a certain chagrin1 from suspecting the excess of scrupulosity and conscience in so austere an adviser4#bhc ,it is well known how effectively one with a germ of good principle in him is braced by being thought better than he is4 ,with this letter in his hands and its words in his mind1 ,rousseau strode off for his last interview with ,madame d',houdetot4 ,had ,saint ,lambert1 he says1 been less wise1 less generous1 less worthy1 ,i should have been a lost man4 ,as it was1 he passed four or five hours with her in a delicious calm1 infinitely more delightful than the accesses of burning fever which had seized him before4 ,they formed the project of a close companionship of three1 including the absent lover2 and they counted on the project coming more true than such designs usually do1 since all the feelings that can unite sensitive and upright hearts formed the foundation of it1 and we three united talents enough as well as knowledge enough to suffice to ourselves1 without need of aid or supplement from others4 ,what happened was this4 ,madame d',houdetot for the next three or four months1 which were among the most bitter in ,rousseau's life1 for then the bitterness which became chronic was new and therefore harder to be borne1 wrote him the wisest1 most affectionate1 and most considerate letters that a sincere and sensible woman ever wrote to the most petulant1 suspicious1 perverse1 and irrestrainable of men4 ,for patience and exquisite sweetness of friendship some of these letters are matchless1 and we can only conjecture the wearing querulousness of the letters to which they were replies4 ,if through no fault of her own she had been the occasion of the monstrous delirium of which he never shook off the consequences1 at least this good soul did all that wise counsel and grave tenderness could do1 to bring him out of the black slough of suspicion and despair into which he was plunged4#bhd ,in the beginning of #ageh there was a change4 ,rousseau's passion for her somehow became known to all the world2 it reached the ears of ,saint ,lambert1 and was the cause of a passing disturbance between him and his mistress4 ,saint ,lambert throughout acted like a man who is thoroughly master of himself4 ,at first1 we learn1 he ceased for a moment to see in ,rousseau the virtue which he sought in him1 and which he was persuaded that he found in him4 ,since then1 however1 wrote ,madame d',houdetot1 he pities you more for your weakness than he reproaches you1 and we are both of us far from joining the people who wish to blacken your character2 we have and always shall have the courage to speak of you with esteem4#bhe ,they saw one another a few times1 and on one occasion the ,count and ,countess d',houdetot1 ,saint ,lambert1 and ,rousseau all sat at table together1 happily without breach of the peace4#bhf ,one curious thing about this meeting was that it took place some three weeks after ,rousseau and ,saint ,lambert had interchanged letters on the subject of the quarrel with ,diderot1 in which each promised the other contemptuous oblivion4#bhg ,perpetuity of hate is as hard as perpetuity of love for our poor short-spanned characters1 and at length the three who were once to have lived together in self-sufficing union1 and then in their next mood to have forgotten one another instantly and for ever1 held to neither of the extremes1 but settled down into an easier middle path of indifferent good-will4 ,the conduct of all three1 said the most famous of them1 may serve for an example of the way in which sensible people separate1 when it no longer suits them to see one another4#bhh ,it is at least certain that in them ,rousseau lost two of the most unimpeachably good friends that he ever possessed4 ,,iii4 ,the egoistic character that loves to brood and hates to act1 is big with catastrophe4 ,we have now to see how the inevitable law accomplished itself in the case of ,rousseau4 ,in many this brooding egoism produces a silent and melancholy insanity2 with him it was developed into something of acridly corrosive quality4 ,one of the agents in this disastrous process was the wearing torture of one of the most painful of disorders4 ,this disorder1 arising from an internal malformation1 harassed him from his infancy to the day of his death4 ,our fatuous persistency in reducing man to the spiritual1 blinds the biographer to the circumstance that the history of a life is the history of a body no less than that of a soul4 ,many a piece of conduct that divides the world into two factions of moral assailants and moral vindicators1 provoking a thousand ingenuities of ethical or psychological analysis1 ought really to have been nothing more than an item in a page of a pathologist's case-book4 ,we are not to suspend our judgment on action2 right and wrong can depend on no man's malformations4 ,in trying to know the actor1 it is otherwise2 here it is folly to underestimate the physical antecedents of mental phenomena4 ,in firm and lofty character1 pain is mastered2 in a character so little endowed with cool tenacious strength as ,rousseau's1 pain such as he endured was enough to account1 not for his unsociality1 which flowed from temperament1 but for the bitter1 irritable1 and suspicious form which this unsociality now first assumed4 ,rousseau was never a saintly nature1 but far the reverse1 and in reading the tedious tale of his quarrels with ,grimm and ,madame d',epinay and ,diderot--a tale of labyrinthine nightmares--let us remember that we may even to this point explain what happened1 without recourse to the too facile theory of insanity1 unless one defines that misused term so widely as to make many sane people very uncomfortable4 ,his own account was this3 ,in my quality of solitary1 ,i am more sensitive than another2 if ,i am wrong with a friend who lives in the world1 he thinks of it for a moment1 and then a thousand distractions make him forget it for the rest of the day2 but there is nothing to distract me as to his wrong towards me2 deprived of my sleep1 ,i busy myself with him all night long2 solitary in my walks1 ,i busy myself with him from sunrise until sunset2 my heart has not an instant's relief1 and the harshness of a friend gives me in one day years of anguish4 ,in my quality of invalid1 ,i have a title to the considerateness that humanity owes to the weakness or irritation of a man in agony4 ,who is the friend1 who is the good man1 that ought not to dread to add affliction to an unfortunate wretch tormented with a painful and incurable malady8#bhi ,we need not accept this as an adequate extenuation of perversities1 but it explains them without recourse to the theory of uncontrollable insanity4 ,insanity came later1 the product of intellectual excitation1 public persecution1 and moral reaction after prolonged tension4 ,meanwhile he may well be judged by the standards of the sane2 knowing his temperament1 his previous history1 his circumstances1 we have no difficulty in accounting for his conduct4 ,least of all is there any need for laying all the blame upon his friends4 ,there are writers whom enthusiasm for the principles of ,jean ,jacques has driven into fanatical denigration of every one whom he called his enemy1 that is to say1 nearly every one whom he ever knew4#bij ,diderot said well1 ,too many honest people would be wrong1 if ,jean ,jacques were right4 ,the first downright breach was with ,grimm1 but there were angry passages during the year #ageg1 not only with him1 but with ,diderot and ,madame d',epinay as well4 ,diderot1 like many other men of energetic nature unchastened by worldly wisdom1 was too interested in everything that attracted his attention to keep silence over the indiscretion of a friend4 ,he threw as much tenacity and zeal into a trifle1 if it had once struck him1 as he did into the ,encyclopdia4 ,we have already seen how warmly he rated ,jean ,jacques for missing the court pension4 ,then he scolded and laughed at him for turning hermit4 ,with still more seriousness he remonstrated with him for remaining in the country through the winter1 thus endangering the life of ,theresa's aged mother4 ,this stirred up hot anger in the ,hermitage1 and two or three bitter letters were interchanged1#bia those of ,diderot being pronounced by a person who was no partisan of ,rousseau decidedly too harsh4#bib ,yet there is copious warmth of friendship in these very letters1 if only the man to whom they were written had not hated interference in his affairs as the worst of injuries4 ,i loved ,diderot tenderly1 ,i esteemed him sincerely1 says ,rousseau1 and ,i counted with entire confidence upon the same sentiments in him4 ,but worn out by his unwearied obstinacy in everlastingly thwarting my tastes1 my inclinations1 my ways of living1 everything that concerned myself only2 revolted at seeing a younger man than myself insist with all his might on governing me like a child2 chilled by his readiness in giving his promise and his negligence in keeping it2 tired of so many appointments which he made and broke1 and of his fancy for repairing them by new ones to be broken in their turn2 provoked at waiting for him to no purpose three or four times a month on days which he had fixed1 and of dining alone in the evening1 after going on as far as ,st4 ,denis to meet him and waiting for him all day1--,i had my heart already full of a multitude of grievances4#bic ,this irritation subsided in presence of the storms that now rose up against ,diderot4 ,he was in the thick of the dangerous and mortifying distractions stirred up by the foes of the ,encyclopdia4 ,rousseau in friendly sympathy went to see him2 they embraced1 and old wrongs were forgotten until new arose4#bid ,there is a less rose-coloured account than this4 ,madame d',epinay assigns two motives to ,rousseau3 a desire to find an excuse for going to ,paris1 in order to avoid seeing ,saint ,lambert2 secondly1 a wish to hear ,diderot's opinion of the two first parts of the ,new ,helosa4 ,she says that he wanted to borrow a portfolio in which to carry the manuscripts to ,paris2 ,rousseau says that they had already been in ,diderot's possession for six months4#bie ,as her letters containing this very circumstantial story were written at the moment1 it is difficult to uphold the ,confessions as valid authority against them4 ,thirdly1 ,rousseau told her that he had not taken his manuscripts to ,paris 7p4 #cjb71 whereas ,grimm writing a few days later 7p4 #cji7 mentions that he has received a letter from ,diderot1 to the effect that ,rousseau's visit had no other object than the revision of these manuscripts4 ,the scene is characteristic4 ,rousseau kept him pitilessly at work from ,saturday at ten o'clock in the morning till eleven at night on ,monday1 hardly giving him time to eat and drink4 ,the revision at an end1 ,diderot chats with him about a plan he has in his head1 and begs ,rousseau to help him in contriving some incident which he cannot yet arrange to his taste4 ',it is too difficult1' replies the hermit coldly1 'it is late1 and ,i am not used to sitting up4 ,good night2 ,i am off at six in the morning1 and 'tis time for bed4' ,he rises from his chair1 goes to bed1 and leaves ,diderot petrified at his behaviour4 ,the day of his departure1 ,diderot's wife saw that her husband was in bad spirits1 and asked the reason4 ',it is that man's want of delicacy1' he replied1 'which afflicts me2 he makes me work like a slave1 but ,i should never have found that out1 if he had not so drily refused to take an interest in me for a quarter of an hour4' ',you are surprised at that1' his wife answered2 'do you not know him8 ,he is devoured with envy2 he goes wild with rage when anything fine appears that is not his own4 ,you will see him one day commit some great crime rather than let himself be ignored4 ,i declare ,i would not swear that he will not join the ranks of the ,jesuits1 and undertake their vindication4' ,of course we cannot be sure that ,grimm did not manipulate these letters long after the event1 but there is nothing in ,rousseau's history to make us perfectly sure that he was incapable either of telling a falsehood to ,madame d',epinay1 or of being shamelessly selfish in respect of ,diderot4 ,i see no reason to refuse substantial credit to ,grimm's account1 and the points of coincidence between that and the ,confessions make its truth probable4#bif ,rousseau's relations with ,madame d',epinay were more complex1 and his sentiments towards her underwent many changes4 ,there was a prevalent opinion that he was her lover1 for which no real foundation seems to have existed4#big ,those who disbelieved that he had reached this distinction1 yet made sure that he had a passion for her1 which may or may not have been true4#bih ,madame d',epinay herself was vain enough to be willing that this should be generally accepted1 and it is certain that she showed a friendship for him which1 considering the manners of the time1 was invitingly open to misconception4 ,again1 she was jealous of her sister-in-law1 ,madame d',houdetot1 if for no other reason than that the latter1 being the wife of a ,norman noble1 had access to the court1 and this was unattainable by the wife of a farmer-general4 ,hence ,madame d',epinay's barely-concealed mortification when she heard of the meetings in the forest1 the private suppers1 the moonlight rambles in the park4 ,when ,saint ,lambert first became uneasy as to the relations between ,rousseau and his mistress1 and wrote to her to say that he was so1 ,rousseau instantly suspected that ,madame d',epinay had been his informant4 ,theresa confirmed the suspicion by tales of baskets and drawers ransacked by ,madame d',epinay in search of ,madame d',houdetot's letters to him4 ,whether these tales were true or not1 we can never know2 we can only say that ,madame d',epinay was probably not incapable of these meannesses1 and that there is no reason to suppose that she took the pains to write directly to ,saint ,lambert a piece of news which she was writing to ,grimm1 knowing that he was then in communication with ,saint ,lambert4 ,she herself suspected that ,theresa had written to ,saint ,lambert1#bii but it may be doubted whether ,theresa's imagination could have risen to such feat as writing to a marquis1 and a marquis in what would have seemed to her to be remote and inaccessible parts of the earth4 ,all this1 however1 has become ghostly for us2 a puzzle that can never be found out1 nor be worth finding out4 ,rousseau was persuaded that ,madame d',epinay was his betrayer1 and was seized by one of his blackest and most stormful moods4 ,in reply to an affectionate letter from her1 inquiring why she had not seen him for so long1 he wrote thus3 ,i can say nothing to you yet4 ,i wait until ,i am better informed1 and this ,i shall be sooner or later4 ,meanwhile1 be certain that accused innocence will find a champion ardent enough to make calumniators repent1 whoever they may be4 ,it is rather curious that so strange a missive as this1 instead of provoking ,madame d',epinay to anger1 was answered by a warmer and more affectionate letter than the first4 ,to this ,rousseau replied with increased vehemence1 charged with dark and mysteriously worded suspicion4 ,still ,madame d',epinay remained willing to receive him4 ,he began to repent of his imprudent haste1 because it would certainly end by compromising ,madame d',houdetot1 and because1 moreover1 he had no proof after all that his suspicions had any foundation4 ,he went instantly to the house of ,madame d',epinay2 at his approach she threw herself on his neck and melted into tears4 ,this unexpected reception from so old a friend moved him extremely2 he too wept abundantly4 ,she showed no curiosity as to the precise nature of his suspicions or their origin1 and the quarrel came to an end4#cjj ,grimm's turn followed4 ,though they had been friends for many years1 there had long been a certain stiffness in their friendship4 ,their characters were in fact profoundly antipathetic4 ,rousseau we know1--sensuous1 impulsive1 extravagant1 with little sense of the difference between reality and dreams4 ,grimm was exactly the opposite2 judicious1 collected1 self-seeking1 coldly upright4 ,he was a ,german 7born at ,ratisbon71 and in ,paris was first a reader to the ,duke of ,saxe ,gotha1 with very scanty salary4 ,he made his way1 partly through the friendship of ,rousseau1 into the society of the ,parisian men of letters1 rapidly acquired a perfect mastery of the ,french language1 and with the inspiring help of ,diderot1 became an excellent critic4 ,after being secretary to sundry high people1 he became the literary correspondent of various ,german sovereigns1 keeping them informed of what was happening in the world of art and letters1 just as an ambassador keeps his government informed of what happens in politics4 ,the sobriety1 impartiality1 and discrimination of his criticism make one think highly of his literary judgment2 he had the courage1 or shall we say he preserved enough of the ,german1 to defend both ,homer and ,shakespeare against the unhappy strictures of ,voltaire4#cja ,this is not all1 however2 his criticism is conceived in a tone which impresses us with the writer's integrity4 ,and to this internal evidence we have to add the external corroboration that in the latter part of his life he filled various official posts1 which implied a peculiar confidence in his probity on the part of those who appointed him4 ,at the present moment 7#agef-eg71 he was acting as secretary to ,marshal d',estres1 commander of the ,french army in ,westphalia at the outset of the ,seven ,years' ,war4 ,he was an able and helpful man1 in spite of his having a rough manner1 powdering his face1 and being so monstrously scented as to earn the name of the musk-bear4 ,he had that firmness and positivity which are not always beautiful1 but of which there is probably too little rather than too much in the world1 certainly in the ,france of his time1 and of which there was none at all in ,rousseau4 ,above all things he hated declamation4 ,apparently cold and reserved1 he had sensibility enough underneath the surface to go nearly out of his mind for love of a singer at the opera who had a thrilling voice4 ,as he did not believe in the metaphysical doctrine about the freedom of the will1 he accepted from temperament the necessity which logic confirmed1 of guiding the will by constant pressure from without4 ,i am surprised1 ,madame d',epinay said to him1 that men should be so little indulgent to one another4 ,nay1 the want of indulgence comes of our belief in freedom2 it is because the established morality is false and bad1 inasmuch as it starts from this false principle of liberty4 ,ah1 but the contrary principle1 by making one too indulgent1 disturbs order4 ,it does nothing of the kind4 ,though man does not wholly change1 he is susceptible of modification2 you can improve him2 hence it is not useless to punish him4 ,the gardener does not cut down a tree that grows crooked2 he binds up the branch and keeps it in shape2 that is the effect of public punishment4#cjb ,he applied the same doctrine1 as we shall see1 to private punishment for social crookedness4 ,it is easy to conceive how ,rousseau's way of ordering himself would gradually estrange so hard a head as this4 ,what the one thought a weighty moral reformation1 struck the other as a vain desire to attract attention4 ,rousseau on the other hand suspected ,grimm of intriguing to remove ,theresa from him1 as well as doing his best to alienate all his friends4 ,the attempted alienation of ,theresa consisted in the secret allowance to her mother and her by ,grimm and ,diderot of some sixteen pounds a year4#cjc ,rousseau was unaware of this1 but the whisperings and goings and comings to which it gave rise1 made him darkly uneasy4 ,that the suspicions in other respects were in a certain sense not wholly unfounded1 is shown by ,grimm's own letters to ,madame d',epinay4 ,he disapproved of her installing ,rousseau in the ,hermitage1 and warned her in a very remarkable prophecy that solitude would darken his imagination4#cjd ,he is a poor devil who torments himself1 and does not dare to confess the true subject of all his sufferings1 which is in his cursed head and his pride2 he raises up imaginary matters1 so as to have the pleasure of complaining of the whole human race4#cje ,more than once he assures her that ,rousseau will end by going mad1 it being impossible that so hot and ill-organised a head should endure solitude4#cjf ,rousseauite partisans usually explain all this by supposing that ,grimm was eager to set a woman for whom he had a passion1 against a man who was suspected of having a passion for her2 and it is possible that jealousy may have stimulated the exercise of his natural shrewdness4 ,but this shrewdness1 added to entire want of imagination and a very narrow range of sympathy1 was quite enough to account for ,grimm's harsh judgment1 without the addition of any sinister sentiment4 ,he was perfectly right in suspecting ,rousseau of want of loyalty to ,madame d',epinay1 for we find our hermit writing to her in strains of perfect intimacy1 while he was writing of her to ,madame d',houdetot as your unworthy sister4#cjg ,on the other hand1 while ,madame d',epinay was overwhelming him with caressing phrases1 she was at the same moment describing him to ,grimm as a master of impertinence and intractableness4 ,as usual where there is radical incompatibility of character1 an attempted reconciliation between ,grimm and ,rousseau 7some time in the early part of ,october #ageg7 had only made the thinly veiled antipathy more resolute4 ,rousseau excused himself for wrongs of which in his heart he never thought himself guilty4 ,grimm replied by a discourse on the virtues of friendship and his own special aptitude for practising them4 ,he then conceded to the impetuous penitent the kiss of peace1 in a slight embrace which was like the accolade given by a monarch to new knights4#cjh ,the whole scene is ignoble4 ,we seem to be watching an unclean cauldron1 with ,theresa's mother1 a cringing and babbling crone1 standing witch-like over it and infusing suspicion1 falsehood1 and malice4 ,when minds are thus surcharged1 any accident suffices to release the evil creatures that lurk in an irritated imagination4 ,one day towards the end of the autumn of #ageg1 ,rousseau learned to his unbounded surprise that ,madame d',epinay had been seized with some strange disorder1 which made it advisable that she should start without any delay for ,geneva1 there to place herself under the care of ,tronchin1 who was at that time the most famous doctor in ,europe4 ,his surprise was greatly increased by the expectation which he found among his friends that he would show his gratitude for her many kindnesses to him1 by offering to bear her company on her journey1 and during her stay in a town which was strange to her and thoroughly familiar to him4 ,it was to no purpose that he protested how unfit was one invalid to be the nurse of another2 and how great an incumbrance a man would be in a coach in the bad season1 when for many days he was absolutely unable to leave his chamber without danger4 ,diderot1 with his usual eagerness to guide a friend's course1 wrote him a letter urging that his many obligations1 and even his grievances in respect of ,madame d',epinay1 bound him to accompany her1 as he would thus repay the one and console himself for the other4 ,she is going into a country where she will be like one fallen from the clouds4 ,she is ill2 she will need amusement and distraction4 ,as for winter1 are you worse now than you were a month back1 or than you will be at the opening of the spring8 ,for me1 ,i confess that if ,i could not bear the coach1 ,i would take a staff and follow her on foot4#cji ,rousseau trembled with fury1 and as soon as the transport was over1 he wrote an indignant reply1 in which he more or less politely bade the panurgic one to attend to his own affairs1 and hinted that ,grimm was making a tool of him4 ,next he wrote to ,grimm himself a letter1 not unfriendly in form1 asking his advice and promising to follow it1 but hardly hiding his resentment4 ,by this time he had found out the secret of ,madame d',epinay's supposed illness and her anxiety to pass some months away from her family1 and the share which ,grimm had in it4 ,this1 however1 does not make many passages of his letter any the less ungracious or unseemly4 ,if ,madame d',epinay has shown friend' ship to me1 ,i have shown more to her4444 ,as for benefits1 first of all ,i do not like them1 ,i do not want them1 and ,i owe no thanks for any that people may burden me with by force4 ,madame d',epinay1 being so often left alone in the country1 wished me for company2 it was for that she had kept me4 ,after making one sacrifice to friendship1 ,i must now make another to gratitude4 ,a man must be poor1 must be without a servant1 must be a hater of constraint1 and he must have my character1 before he can know what it is for me to live in another person's house4 ,for all that1 ,i lived two years in hers1 constantly brought into bondage with the finest harangues about liberty1 served by twenty domestics1 and cleaning my own shoes every morning1 overloaded with gloomy indigestion1 and incessantly sighing for my homely porringer4444 ,consider how much money an hour of the life and the time of a man is worth2 compare the kindnesses of ,madame d',epinay with the sacrifice of my native country and two years of serfdom2 and then tell me whether the obligation is greater on her side or mine4 ,he then urges with a torrent of impetuous eloquence the thoroughly sound reasons why it was unfair and absurd for him1 a beggar and an invalid1 to make the journey with ,madame d',epinay1 rich and surrounded by attendants4 ,he is particularly splenetic that the philosopher ,diderot1 sitting in his own room before a good fire and wrapped in a well-lined dressing-gown1 should insist on his doing his five and twenty leagues a day on foot1 through the mud in winter4#caj ,the whole letter shows1 as so many incidents in his later life showed1 how difficult it was to do ,rousseau a kindness with impunity1 and how little such friends as ,madame d',epinay possessed the art of soothing this unfortunate nature4 ,they fretted him by not leaving him sufficiently free to follow his own changing moods1 while he in turn lost all self-control1 and yielded in hours of bodily torment to angry and resentful fancies4 ,but let us hasten to an end4 ,grimm replied to his eloquent manifesto somewhat drily1 to the effect that he would think the matter over1 and that meanwhile ,rousseau had best keep quiet in his hermitage4 ,rousseau burning with excitement at once conceived a thousand suspicions1 wholly unable to understand that a cold and reserved ,german might choose to deliberate at length1 and finally give an answer with brevity4 ,after centuries of expectation in the cruel uncertainty in which this barbarous man had plunged me--that is after eight or ten days1 the answer came1 apparently not without a second direct application for one4#caa ,it was short and extremely pointed1 not complaining that ,rousseau had refused to accompany ,madame d',epinay but protesting against the horrible tone of the apology which he had sent to him for not accompanying her4 ,it has made me quiver with indignation2 so odious are the principles it contains1 so full is it of blackness and duplicity4 ,you venture to talk to me of your slavery1 to me who for more than two years have been the daily witness of all the marks of the tenderest and most generous friendship that you have received at the hands of that woman4 ,if ,i could pardon you1 ,i should think myself unworthy of having a single friend4 ,i will never see you again while ,i live1 and ,i shall think myself happy if ,i can banish the recollection of your conduct from my mind4#cab ,a flash of manly anger like this is very welcome to us1 who have to thread a tedious way between morbid egoistic irritation on the one hand1 and sly pieces of equivocal complaisance on the other4 ,the effect on ,rousseau was terrific4 ,in a paroxysm he sent ,grimm's letter back to him1 with three or four lines in the same key4 ,he wrote note after note to ,madame d',houdetot1 in shrieks4 ,have ,i a single friend left1 man or woman8 ,one word1 only one word1 and ,i can live4 ,a day or two later3 ,think of the state ,i am in4 ,i can bear to be abandoned by all the world1 but you6 ,you who know me so well6 ,great ,god6 am ,i a scoundrel8 a scoundrel1 ,i6#cac ,and so on1 raving4 ,it was to no purpose that ,madame d',houdetot wrote him soothing letters1 praying him to calm himself1 to find something to busy himself with1 to remain at peace with ,madame d',epinay1 who had never appeared other than the most thoughtful and warm-hearted friend to him4#cad ,he was almost ready to quarrel with ,madame d',houdetot herself because she paid the postage of her letters1 which he counted an affront to his poverty4#cae ,to ,madame d',epinay he had written in the midst of his tormenting uncertainty as to the answer which ,grimm would make to his letter4 ,it was an ungainly assertion that she was playing a game of tyranny and intrigue at his cost4 ,for the first time she replied with spirit and warmth4 ,your letter is hardly that of a man who1 on the eve of my departure1 swore to me that he could never in his life repair the wrongs he had done me4 ,she then tersely remarks that it is not natural to pass one's life in suspecting and insulting one's friends1 and that he abuses her patience4 ,to this he answered with still greater terseness that friendship was extinct between them1 and that he meant to leave the ,hermitage1 but as his friends desired him to remain there until the spring he would with her permission follow their counsel4 ,then she1 with a final thrust of impatience1 in which we perhaps see the hand of ,grimm3 ,since you meant to leave the ,hermitage1 and felt you ought to do so1 ,i am astonished that your friends could detain you4 ,for me1 ,i don't consult mine as to my duties1 and ,i have nothing more to say to you as to yours4 ,this was the end4 ,rousseau returned for a moment from ignoble petulance to dignity and self-respect4 ,he wrote to her that if it is a misfortune to make a mistake in the choice of friends1 it is one not less cruel to awake from so sweet an error1 and two days before he wrote1 he left her house4 ,he found a cottage at ,montmorency1 and thither1 nerved with fury1 through snow and ice he carried his scanty household goods 7,dec4 #ae1 #ageg74caf ,we have a picture of him in this fatal month4 ,diderot went to pay him a visit 7,dec4 #e74 ,rousseau was alone at the bottom of his garden4 ,as soon as he saw ,diderot1 he cried in a voice of thunder and with his eyes all aflame3 ,what have you come here for8 ,i want to know whether you are mad or malicious4 ,you have known me for fifteen years2 you are well aware how little malicious ,i am1 and ,i will prove to you that ,i am not mad3 follow me4 ,he then drew ,diderot into a room1 and proceeded to clear himself1 by means of letters1 of the charge of trying to make a breach between ,saint ,lambert and ,madame d',houdetot4 ,they were in fact letters that convicted him1 as we know1 of trying to persuade ,madame d',houdetot of the criminality of her relations with her lover1 and at the same time to accept himself in the very same relation4 ,of all this we have heard more than enough already4 ,he was stubborn in the face of ,diderot's remonstrance1 and the latter left him in a state which he described in a letter to ,grimm the same night4 ,i throw myself into your arms1 like one who has had a shock of fright3 that man intrudes into my work2 he fills me with trouble1 and ,i am as if ,i had a damned soul at my side4 ,may ,i never see him again2 he would make me believe in devils and hell4#cag ,and thus the unhappy man who had began this episode in his life with confident ecstasy in the glories and clear music of spring1 ended it looking out from a narrow chamber upon the sullen crimson of the wintry twilight and over fields silent in snow1 with the haggard desperate gaze of a lost spirit4 ,,footnotes3 #bed ,conf41 ix4 #bdg4 #bee ,conf41 ix4 #bcj4 ,madame d',epinay 7,mm41 ii4 #acb7 has given an account of the installation1 with a slight discrepancy of date4 ,when ,madame d',epinay's son-in-law emigrated at the ,revolution1 the ,hermitage--of which nothing now stands--along with the rest of the estate became national property1 and was bought after other purchasers by ,robespierre1 and afterwards by ,grtry the composer1 who paid #aj1jjj livres for it4 #bef ,conf41 ix4 #bee4 #beg ,third letter to ,malesherbes1 #cfd-cfh4 #beh ,conf41 ix4 #bci4 #bei ,conf41 ix4 #bcg1 #bch1 and #bfc1 etc4 #bfj ,the extract from the ,project for ,perpetual ,peace and the ,polysynodia1 together with ,rousseau's judgments on them1 are found at the end of the volume containing the ,social ,contract4 ,the first1 but without the judgment1 was printed separately without ,rousseau's permission1 in #agfa1 by ,bastide1 to whom he had sold it for twelve louis for publication in his journal only4 ,conf41 xi4 #ajg4 ,corr41 ii4 #aaj1 #abh4 #bfa ,p4 #dhe4 #bfb ,for a sympathetic account of the ,abb de ,saint ,pierre's life and speculations1 see ,m4 ,lonce de ,lavergne's ,economistes franais du #ah;ime sicle 7,paris3 #ahgj74 ,also ,comte's ,lettres ,m4 ,valat1 p4 #gc4 #bfc ,conf41 ix4 #bgj-bgd4 #bfd ,conf41 ix4 #bhi4 #bfe ,ib4 ix4 #bhf4 #bff ,d',epinay1 ii4 #aec4 #bfg ,madame d',houdetot1 7b4 #agcj--;d4 #ahac7 was the daughter of ,m4 de ,bellegarde1 the father of ,madame d',epinay's husband4 ,her marriage with the ,count d',houdetot1 of high ,norman stock1 took place in #agdh4 ,the circumstances of the marriage1 which help to explain the lax view of the vows common among the great people of the time1 are given with perhaps a shade too much dramatic colouring in ,madame d',epinay's ,mm41 i #aja4 #bfh ,conf41 ix4 #bha4 #bfi ,d',epinay1 ii4 #bdf4 #bgj ,d',epinay1 ii4 #bfi4 #bga ,musset-,pathay has collected two or three trifles of her composition1 ii4 #acf-ach4 ,heal so quotes ,madame d',allard's account of her1 pp4 #adj1 #ada4 #bgb ,quoted by ,m4 ,girardin1 ,rev4 des ,deux ,mondes1 ,sept4 #ahec1 p4 #ajhj4 #bgc ,conf41 ix4 #cjd4 #bgd ,ib4 ix4 #cje4 ,slightly modified version in ,corr41 i4 #cgg4 #bge ,m4 ,boiteau's note to ,madame d',epinay1 ii4 #bgc4 #bgf ,grimm1 to ,madame d',epinay1 ii4 #cje4 #bgg ,this is shown partly by ,saint ,lambert's letter to ,rousseau1 to which we come presently1 and partly by a letter of ,madame d',houdetot to ,rousseau in ,may1 #ageh 7,streckeisen-,moultou1 i4 #daa-dac71 where she distinctly says that she concealed his mad passion for her from ,saint ,lambert1 who first heard of it in common conversation4 #bgh ,conf41 ix4 #caa4 #bgi ,besides the many hints of reference to this in the ,confessions1 see the phrenetic ,letters to ,sarah1 printed in the ,mlanges1 pp4 #cdg-cfj4 #bhj ,conf41 ix4 #ccg4 #bha ,corr41 i4 #cih4 ,sept4 #d1 #ageg4 #bhb ,to ,madame d',houdetot4 ,corr41 i4 #cgf-chg4 ,june #ageg4 #bhc ,saint ,lambert to ,rousseau1 from ,wolfenbuttel1 ,oct4 #aa1 #ageg4 ,streckeisen-,moultou1 i4 #dae4 #bhd ,these letters are given in ,m4 ,streckeisen-,moultou's first volume 7pp4 #ced-dad74 ,the thirty-second of them 7,jan4 #aj1 #ageh7 is perhaps the one best worth turning to4 #bhe ,streckeisen-,moultou1 i4 #dab4 ,may #f1 #agfh4 ,conf41 x4 #ae4 #bhf ,ib4 x4 #bb4 #bhg ,ib4 x4 #ah4 ,streckeisen1 i4 #dbb4 #bhh ,conf41 x4 #bd4 #bhi ,to ,madame d',epinay1 #ageg4 ,corr41 i4 #cfb1 #cec4 ,see also ,conf41 ix4 #cjg4 #bij ,one of the most unflinching in this kind is an ,essai sur la vie et le caractre de ,j4,j4 ,rousseau1 by ,g4,h4 ,morin 7,paris3 #ahea73 the laborious production of a bitter advocate1 who accepts the ,confessions1 ,dialogues1 ,letters1 etc41 with the reverence due to verbal inspiration1 and writes of everybody who offended his hero1 quite in the vein of ,marat towards aristocrats4 #bia ,corr41 i4 #cbg-cce4 ,d',epinay1 ii4 #afe-ahb #bib ,d',epinay1 ii4 #agc4 #bic ,conf41 ix4 #cbe4 #bid ,ib41 ix4 #ccd4 #bie ,mm41 ii4 #big4 ,she also places the date many mouths later than ,rousseau1 and detaches the reconciliation from the quarrel in the winter of #agef-ageg4 #bif ,the same story is referred to in ,madame de ,vandeul's ,mm4 de ,diderot1 p4 #fa4 #big ,conf41 ix4 #bde1 #bdf4 #bih ,grimm to ,madame d',epinay1 ii4 #bei1 #bfi1 #cac1 #cbf4 ,conf41 x4 #ag4 #bii ,mm41 ii4 #cah4 #cjj ,conf41 ix4 #cbb4 ,madame d',epinay 7,mm41 ii4 #cbf71 writing to ,grimm1 gives a much colder and stiffer colour to the scene of reconciliation1 but the nature of her relations with him would account for this4 ,the same circumstance1 as ,m4 ,girardin has pointed out 7,rev4 des ,deux ,mondes1 ,sept4 #ahec71 would explain the discrepancy between her letters as given in the ,confessions1 and the copies of them sent to ,grimm1 and printed in her ,memoirs4 ,m4 ,sainte ,beuve1 who is never perfectly master of himself in dealing with the chiefs of the revolutionary schools1 as might indeed have been expected in a writer with his predilections for the seventeenth century1 rashly hints 7,causeries1 vii4 #cja7 that ,rousseau was the falsifier4 ,the publication from the autograph originals sets this at rest4 #cja ,for ,shakespeare1 see ,corr4 ,lit41 iv4 #adc1 etc4 #cjb ,d',epinay1 ii4 #ahh4 #cjc ,d',epinay1 ii4 #aej4 ,also ,vandeul's ,mm4 de ,diderot1 p4 #fa4 #cjd ,mm4 ii4 #abh4 #cje ,p4 #beh4 ,see also p4 #adf4 #cjf ,pp4 #bhb1 #ccf1 etc4 #cjg ,corr41 i4 #chf4 ,june #ageg4 #cjh ,conf41 ix4 #cee4 ,for ,madame d',epinay's equally credible version1 assigning all the stiffness and arrogance to ,rousseau1 see ,mm41 ii4 #cee-ceh4 ,saint ,lambert refers to the momentary reconciliation in his letter to ,rousseau of ,nov4 #ba 7,streckeisen1 i4 #dah71 repeating what he had said before 7p4 #dag71 that ,grimm always spoke of ,mm in amicable terms1 though complaining of ,rousseau's injustice4 #cji ,conf41 ix4 #cgb4 #caj ,corr41 i4 #djd-daf4 ,oct #ai1 #ageg4 #caa ,grimm to ,diderot1 in ,madame d',epinay's ,mm4 ii4 #chf4 ,nov4 #c1 #ageg4 #cab ,d',epinay1 ii4 #chg4 ,nov4 #c4 #cac ,corr41 i4 #dbe4 ,nov4 #h4 ,ib4 #dbf4 #cad ,streckeisen-,moultou1 i4 #cha-chc4 #cae ,ib4 #chg4 ,many years after1 ,rousseau told ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre 7,oeuv41 xii4 #eg7 that one of the reasons which made him leave the ,hermitage was the indiscretion of friends who insisted on sending him letters by some conveyance that cost #d francs1 when it might equally well have been sent for as many sous4 #caf ,the sources of all this are in the following places4 ,corr41 i4 #daf4 ,oct4 #bi4 ,streckeisen1 i4 #cdi4 ,nov4 #ab4 ,conf41 ix4 #cgg4 ,corr41 i4 #dbg4 ,nov4 #bc4 ,conf41 ix4 #cha4 ,dec4 #a4 ,ib41 ix4 #chc4 ,dec4 #ag4 #cag ,diderot to ,grimm2 ,d',epinay1 ii4 #cig4 ,diderot's ,oeuv41 xix4 #ddf4 ,see also #ddi and #baj4 ,,chapter ,,viii4 ,,music4 ,simplification has already been used by us as the key-word to ,rousseau's aims and influence4 ,the scheme of musical notation with which he came to try his fortune in ,paris in #agda1 his published vindication of it1 and his musical compositions afterwards all fall under this term4 ,each of them was a plea for the extrication of the simple from the cumbrousness of elaborated pedantry1 and for a return to nature from the unmeaning devices of false art4 ,and all tended alike in the popular direction1 towards the extension of enjoyment among the common people1 and the glorification of their simple lives and moods1 in the art designed for the great4 ,the ,village ,soothsayer was one of the group of works which marked a revolution in the history of ,french music1 by putting an end to the tyrannical tradition of ,lulli and ,rameau1 and preparing the way through a middle stage of freshness1 simplicity1 naturalism1 up to the noble severity of ,gluck 7#agad-aghg74 ,this great composer1 though a ,bohemian by birth1 found his first appreciation in a public that had been trained by the ,italian pastoral operas1 of which ,rousseau's was one of the earliest produced in ,france4 ,grtri1 the ,fleming 7#agda-ahac71 who had a hearty admiration for ,jean ,jacques1 and out of a sentiment of piety lived for a time in his ,hermitage1 came in point of musical excellence between the group of ,rousseau1 ,philidor1 ,duni1 and the rest1 and ,gluck4 ,i have not produced exaltation in people's heads by tragical superlative1 ,grtri said1 but ,i have revealed the accent of truth1 which ,i have impressed deeper in men's hearts4#cah ,these words express sufficiently the kind of influence which ,rousseau also had4 ,crude as the music sounds to us who are accustomed to more sumptuous schools1 we can still hear in it the note which would strike a generation weary of ,rameau4 ,it was the expression in one way of the same mood which in another way revolted against paint1 false hair1 and preposterous costume as of savages grown opulent4 ,such music seems without passion or subtlety or depth or magnificence4 ,thus it had hardly any higher than a negative merit1 but it was the necessary preparation for the acceptance of a more positive style1 that should replace both the elaborate false art of the older ,french composers and the too colourless realism of the pastoral comic opera1 by the austere loveliness and elevation of ,orfeo and ,alceste4 ,in #ageb an ,italian company visited ,paris1 and performed at the ,opera a number of pieces by ,pergolese1 and other composers of their country4 ,a violent war arose1 which agitated ,paris far more intensely than the defeat of ,rossbach and the loss of ,canada did afterwards4 ,the quarrel between the ,parliament and the ,clergy was at its height4 ,the ,parliament had just been exiled1 and the gravest confusion threatened the ,state4 ,the operatic quarrel turned the excitement of the capital into another channel4 ,things went so far that the censor was entreated to prohibit the printing of any work containing the damnable doctrine and position that ,italian music is good4 ,rousseau took part enthusiastically with the ,italians4#cai ,his ,letter on ,french ,music 7#agec7 proved to the great fury of the people concerned1 that the ,french had no national music1 and that it would be so much the worse for them if they ever had any4 ,their language1 so proper to be the organ of truth and reason1 was radically unfit either for poetry or music4 ,all national music must derive its principal characteristics from the language4 ,now if there is a language in ,europe fit for music1 it is certainly the ,italian1 for it is sweet1 sonorous1 harmonious1 and more accentuated than any other1 and these are precisely the four qualities which adapt a language to singing4 ,it is sweet because the articulations are not composite1 because the meeting of consonants is both infrequent and soft1 and because a great number of the syllables being only formed of vowels1 frequent elisions make its pronunciation more flowing4 ,it is sonorous because most of the vowels are full1 because it is without composite diphthongs1 because it has few or no nasal vowels4 ,again1 the inversions of the ,italian are far more favourable to true melody than the didactic order of ,french4 ,and so onwards1 with much close grappling of the matter4 ,french melody does not exist2 it is only a sort of modulated plain-song which has nothing agreeable in itself1 which only pleases with the aid of a few capricious ornaments1 and then only pleases those who have agreed to find it beautiful4#cbj ,the letter contains a variety of acute remarks upon music1 and includes a vigorous protest against fugues1 imitations1 double designs1 and the like4 ,scarcely any one succeeds in them1 and success even when obtained hardly rewards the labour4 ,as for counterfugues1 double fugues1 and other difficult fooleries that the ear cannot endure nor the reason justify1 they are evidently relics of barbarism and bad taste which only remain1 like the porticoes of our gothic churches1 to the disgrace of those who had patience enough to construct them4#cba ,the last phrase-and both ,voltaire and ,turgot used gothic architecture as the symbol for the supreme of rudeness and barbarism--shows that even a man who seems to run counter to the whole current of his time yet does not escape its influence4 ,grimm1 after remarking on the singularity of a demonstration of the impossibility of setting melody to ,french words on the part of a writer who had just produced the ,village ,soothsayer1 informs us that the letter created a furious uproar1 and set all ,paris in a blaze4 ,he had himself taken the side of the ,italians in an amusing piece of pleasantry1 which became a sort of classic model for similar facetiousness in other controversies of the century4 ,the ,french1 as he said1 forgive everything in favour of what makes them laugh1 but ,rousseau talked reason and demolished the pretensions of ,french music with great sounding strokes as of an axe4#cbb ,rousseau expected to be assassinated1 and gravely assures us that there was a plot to that effect1 as well as a design to put him in the ,bastille4 ,this we may fairly surmise to have been a fiction of his own imagination1 and the only real punishment that overtook him was the loss of his right to free admission to the ,opera4 ,after what he had said of the intolerable horrors of ,french music1 the directors of the theatre can hardly be accused of vindictiveness in releasing him from them4#cbc ,some twenty years after 7#aggd71 when ,paris was torn asunder by the violence of the two great factions of the ,gluckists and ,piccinists1 ,rousseau retracted his opinion as to the impossibility of wedding melody to ,french words4#cbd ,he went as often as he could to hear the works both of ,grtri and ,gluck1 and ,orfeo delighted him1 while the ,fausse magie of the former moved him to say to the composer1 ,your music stirs sweet sensations to which ,i thought my heart had long been closed4#cbe ,this being so1 and life being as brief as art is long1 we need not further examine the controversy4 ,it may be worth adding that ,rousseau wrote some of the articles on music for the ,encyclopdia1 and that in #agfg he published a not inconsiderable ,musical ,dictionary of his own4 ,his scheme of a new musical notation and the principles on which he defended it are worth attention1 because some of the ideas are now accepted as the base of a well-known and growing system of musical instruction4 ,the aim of the scheme1 let us say to begin with1 was at once practical and popular2 to reduce the difficulty of learning music to the lowest possible point1 and so to bring the most delightful of the arts within the reach of the largest possible number of people4 ,hence1 although he maintains the fitness of his scheme for instrumental as well as vocal performances1 it is clearly the latter which he has most at heart1 evidently for the reason that this is the kind of music most accessible to the thousands1 and it was always the thousands of whom ,rousseau thought4 ,this is the true distinction of music1 it is for the people2 and the best musical notation is that which best enables persons to sing at sight4 ,the difficulty of the old notation had come practically before him as a teacher4 ,the quantity of details which the pupil was forced to commit to memory before being able to sing from the open book1 struck him then as the chief obstacle to anything like facility in performance1 and without some of this facility he rightly felt that music must remain a luxury for the few4 ,so genuine was his interest in the matter1 that he was not very careful to fight for the originality of his own scheme4 ,our present musical signs1 he said1 are so imperfect and so inconvenient that it is no wonder that several persons have tried to re-cast or amend them2 nor is it any wonder that some of them should have hit upon the same device in selecting the signs most natural and proper1 such as numerical figures4 ,as much1 however1 depends on the way of dealing with these figures1 as with their adoption1 and here he submitted that his own plan was as novel as it was advantageous4#cbf ,thus we have to bear in mind that ,rousseau's scheme was above all things a practical device1 contrived for making the teaching and the learning of musical elements an easier process4#cbg ,the chief element of the project consists in the substitution of a relative series of notes or symbols in place of an absolute series4 ,in the common notation any given note1 say the ,a of the treble clef1 is uniformly represented by the same symbol1 namely1 the position of second space in the clef1 whatever key it may belong to4 ,rousseau1 insisting on the varying quality impressed on any tone of a given pitch by the key-note of the scale to which it belongs1 protested against the same name being given to the tone1 however the quality of it might vary4 ,thus ,re or ,d1 which is the second tone in the key of ,c1 ought1 according to him1 to have a different name when found as the fifth in the key of ,g1 and in every case the name should at once indicate the interval of a tone from its key-note4 ,his mode of effecting this change is as follows4 ,the names ut1 re1 and the rest1 are kept for the fixed order of the tones1 ,c1 ,d1 ,e1 and the rest4 ,the key of a piece is shown by prefixing one of these symbols1 and this determines the absolute quality of the melody as to pitch4 ,that settled1 every tone is expressed by a number bearing a relation to the key-note4 ,this tonic note is represented by one1 the other six tones of the scale are expressed by the numbers from two to seven4 ,in the popular ,tonic ,sol-,fa notation1 which corresponds so closely to ,rousseau's in principle1 the key-note is always styled ,do1 and the other symbols1 mi1 la1 and the rest1 indicate at once the relative position of these tones in their particular key or scale4 ,here the old names were preserved as being easily sung2 ,rousseau selected numbers because he supposed that they best expressed the generation of the sounds4#cbh ,rousseau attempted to find a theoretic base for this symbolic establishment of the relational quality of tones1 and he dimly guessed that the order of the harmonics or upper tones of a given tonic would furnish a principle for forming the familiar major scale1#cbi but his knowledge of the order was faulty4 ,he was perhaps groping after the idea by which ,professor ,helmholtz has accounted for the various mental effects of the several intervals in a key--namely1 the degree of natural affinity1 measured by means of the upper tones1 existing between the given tone and its tonic4 ,apart from this1 however1 the practical value of his ideas in instruction in singing is clearly shown by the circumstance that at any given time many thousands of young children are now being taught to read melody in the ,sol-,fa notation in a few weeks4 ,this shows how right ,rousseau was in continually declaring the ease of hitting a particular tone1 when the relative position of the tone in respect to the key-note is clearly manifested4 ,a singer in trying to hit the tone is compelled to measure the interval between it and the preceding tone1 and the simplest and easiest mode of doing this is to associate every tone with the tonics1 thus constituting it a term of a relation with this fundamental tone4 ,rousseau made a mistake when he supposed that his ideas were just as applicable to instrumental as they were to vocal music4 ,the requirements of the singer are not those of the player4 ,to a performer on the piano1 who has to light rapidly and simultaneously on a number of tones1 or to a violinist who has to leap through several octaves with great rapidity1 the most urgent need is that of a definite and fixed mark1 by which the absolute pitch of each successive tone may be at once recognised4 ,neither of these has any time to think about the melodious relation of the tones2 it is quite as much as they can do to find their place on the key-board or the string4 ,rousseau's scheme1 or any similar one1 fails to supply the clear and obvious index to pitch supplied by the old system4 ,old ,rameau pointed this out to ,rousseau when the scheme was laid before him1 and ,rousseau admitted that the objection was decisive1#ccj though his admission was not practically deterrent4 ,his device for expressing change of octave by means of points would render the rapid seizing of a particular tone by the performer still more difficult1 and it is strange that he should have preferred this to the other plan suggested1 of indicating height of octave by visible place above or below a horizontal line4 ,again1 his attempt to simplify the many varieties of musical time by reducing them all to the two modes of double and triple time1 though laudable enough1 yet implies an imperfect recognition of the full meaning of time1 by omitting all reference to the distribution of accent and to the average time value of the tones in a particular movement4 ,,footnotes3 #cah ,quoted in ,martin's ,hist4 de ,france1 xvi4 #aeh4 #cai ,conf41 viii4 #aig4 ,grimm1 ,corr4 ,lit41 i4 #bg4 #cbj ,lettre sur la ,musique ,franaise1 #agh1 etc41 #ahg4 #cba ,p4 #aig4 #cbb ,corr4 ,lit41 i4 #ib4 ,his own piece was ,le petit prophte de ,boehmischbroda1 the style of which will be seen in a subsequent footnote4 #cbc ,he was burnt in effigy by the musicians of the ,opera4 ,grimm1 ,corr4 ,lit41 i4 #aac4 #cbd ,this is ,turgot's opinion on the controversy 7,letter to ,caillard1 ,oeuv41 ii4 #hbg73--,tous avez donc vu ,jean-,jacques2 la musique est un excellent passe-port auprs de lui4 ,quant l'impossibilit de faire de la musique franaise1 je ne puis y croire1 et votre raison ne me parat pas bonne2 car il n'est point vrai que l'essence de la langue franaise est d'tre sans accent4 ,point de conversation anime sans beaucoup d'accent2 mais l'accent est libre et dtermin seulement par l'affection de celui qui parle1 sans tre fix par des conventions sur certaines syllabes1 quoique nous ayons aussi dans plusieurs mots des syllabes dominantes qui seules peuvent tre accentues4 #cbe ,musset-,pathay1 i4 #bhi4 #cbf ,preface to ,dissertation sur la ,musique ,moderne1 pp4 #cb1 #cc4 #cbg ,i am indebted to ,mr4 ,james ,sully1 ,m4,a41 for furnishing me with notes on a technical subject with which ,i have too little acquaintance4 #cbh ,dissertation1 p4 #db4 #cbi ,p4 #eb4 #ccj ,conf41 vii4 #ah1 #ai4 ,also ,dissertation1 pp4 #gd1 #ge4 ,,chapter ,,ix4 ,,voltaire ,,and ,d',,alembert4 ,everybody in the full tide of the eighteenth century had something to do with ,voltaire1 from serious personages like ,frederick the ,great and ,turgot1 down to the sorriest poetaster who sent his verses to be corrected or bepraised4 ,rousseau's debt to him in the days of his unformed youth we have already seen1 as well as the courtesies with which they approached one another1 when ,richelieu employed the struggling musician to make some modifications in the great man's unconsidered court-piece4 ,neither of them then dreamed that their two names were destined to form the great literary antithesis of the century4 ,in the ten years that elapsed between their first interchange of letters and their first fit of coldness1 it must have been tolerably clear to either of them1 if either of them gave thought to the matter1 that their dissidence was increasing and likely to increase4 ,their methods were different1 their training different1 their points of view different1 and above all these things1 their temperaments were different by a whole heaven's breadth4 ,a great number of excellent and pointed half-truths have been uttered by various persons in illustration of all these contrasts4 ,the philosophy of ,voltaire1 for instance1 is declared to be that of the happy1 while ,rousseau is the philosopher of the unhappy4 ,voltaire steals away their faith from those who doubt1 while ,rousseau strikes doubt into the mind of the unbeliever4 ,the gaiety of the one saddens1 while the sadness of the other consoles4 ,if we pass from the marked divergence in tendencies1 which is imperfectly hinted at in such sayings as these1 to the divergence between them in all the fundamental conditions of intellectual and moral life1 then the variation which divided the revolutionary stream into two channels1 flowing broadly apart through unlike regions and climates down to the great sea1 is intelligible enough4 ,voltaire was the arch-representative of all those elements in contemporary thought1 its curiosity1 irreverence1 intrepidity1 vivaciousness1 rationality1 to which1 as we have so often had to say1 ,rousseau's temperament and his ,genevese spirit made him profoundly antipathetic4 ,voltaire was the great high priest1 robed in the dazzling vestments of poetry and philosophy and history1 of that very religion of knowledge and art which ,rousseau declared to be the destroyer of the felicity of men4 ,the glitter has faded away from ,voltaire's philosophic raiment since those days1 and his laurel bough lies a little leafless4 ,still this can never make us forget that he was in his day and generation one of the sovereign emancipators1 because he awoke one dormant set of energies1 just as ,rousseau presently came to awake another set4 ,each was a power1 not merely by virtue of some singular preeminence of understanding or mysterious unshared insight of his own1 but for a far deeper reason4 ,no partial and one-sided direction can permanently satisfy the manifold aspirations and faculties of the human mind in the great average of common men1 and it is the common average of men to whom exceptional thinkers speak1 whom they influence1 and by whom they are in turn influenced1 depressed1 or buoyed up1 just as a painter or a dramatist is affected4 ,voltaire's mental constitution made him eagerly objective1 a seeker of true things1 quivering for action1 admirably sympathetic with all life and movement1 a spirit restlessly traversing the whole world4 ,rousseau1 far different from this1 saw in himself a reflected microcosm of the outer world1 and was content to take that instead of the outer world1 and as its truest version4 ,he made his own moods the premisses from which he deduced a system of life for humanity1 and so far as humanity has shared his moods or some parts of them1 his system was true1 and has been accepted4 ,to him the bustle of the outer world was only a hindrance to that process of self-absorption which was his way of interpreting life4 ,accessible only to interests of emotion and sense1 he was saved from intellectual sterility1 and made eloquent1 by the vehemence of his emotion and the fire of his senses4 ,he was a master example of sensibility1 as ,voltaire was a master example of clear-eyed penetration4 ,this must not be taken for a rigid piece of mutually exclusive division1 for the edges of character are not cut exactly sharp1 as words are4 ,especially when any type is intense1 it seems to meet and touch its opposite4 ,just as ,voltaire's piercing activity and soundness of intelligence made him one of the humanest of men1 so ,rousseau's emotional susceptibility endowed him with the gift of a vision that carried far into the social depths4 ,it was a very early criticism on the pair1 that ,voltaire wrote on more subjects1 but that ,rousseau was the more profound4 ,in truth one was hardly much more profound than the other4 ,rousseau had the sonorousness of speech which popular confusion of thought is apt to identify with depth4 ,and he had seriousness4 ,if profundity means the quality of seeing to the heart of subjects1 ,rousseau had in a general way rather less of it than the shrewd-witted crusher of the ,infamous4 ,what the distinction really amounts to is that ,rousseau had a strong feeling for certain very important aspects of human life1 which ,voltaire thought very little about1 or never thought about at all1 and that while ,voltaire was concerned with poetry1 history1 literature1 and the more ridiculous parts of the religious superstition of his time1 ,rousseau thought about social justice and duty and ,god and the spiritual consciousness of men1 with a certain attempt at thoroughness and system4 ,as for the substance of his thinking1 as we have already seen in the ,discourses1 and shall soon have an opportunity of seeing still more clearly1 it was often as thin and hollow as if he had belonged to the company of the epigrammatical1 who1 after all1 have far less of a monopoly of shallow thinking than is often supposed4 ,the prime merit of ,rousseau1 in comparing him with the brilliant chief of the rationalistic school of the time1 is his reverence2 reverence for moral worth in however obscure intellectual company1 for the dignity of human character and the loftiness of duty1 for some of those cravings of the human mind after the divine and incommensurable1 which may indeed often be content with solutions proved by long time and slow experience to be inadequate1 but which are closely bound up with the highest elements of nobleness of soul4 ,it was this spiritual part of him which made ,rousseau a third great power in the century1 between the ,encyclopdic party and the ,church4 ,he recognised a something in men1 which the ,encyclopdists treated as a chimera imposed on the imagination by theologians and others for their own purposes4 ,and he recognised this in a way which did not offend the rational feeling of the times1 as the ,catholic dogmas offended it4 ,in a word he was religious4 ,in being so1 he separated himself from ,voltaire and his school1 who did passably well without religion4 ,again1 he was a puritan4 ,in being this1 he was cut off from the intellectually and morally unreformed church1 which was then the organ of religion in ,france4 ,nor is this all4 ,it was ,rousseau1 and not the feeble controversialists put up from time to time by the ,jesuits and other ecclesiastical bodies1 who proved the effective champion of religion1 and the only power who could make head against the triumphant onslaught of the ,voltaireans4 ,he gave up ,christian dogmas and mysteries1 and1 throwing himself with irresistible ardour upon the emotions in which all religions have their root and their power1 he breathed new life into them1 he quickened in men a strong desire to have them satisfied1 and he beat back the army of emancipators with the loud and incessantly repeated cry that they were not come to deliver the human mind1 but to root out all its most glorious and consolatory attributes4 ,this immense achievement accomplished1--the great framework of a faith in ,god and immortality and providential government of the world thus preserved1 it was an easy thing by and by for the churchmen to come back1 and once more unpack and restore to their old places the temporarily discredited paraphernalia of dogma and mystery4 ,how far all this was good or bad for the mental elevation of ,france and ,europe1 we shall have a better opportunity of considering presently4 ,we have now only to glance at the first skirmishes between the religious reactionist1 on the one side1 and1 on the other1 the leader of the school who believed that men are better employed in thinking as accurately1 and knowing as widely1 and living as humanely1 as all those difficult processes are possible1 than in wearying themselves in futile search after gods who dwell on inaccessible heights4 99 99 99 99 99 ,voltaire had acknowledged ,rousseau's gift of the second ,discourse with his usual shrewd pleasantry3 ,i have received your new book against the human race1 and thank you for it4 ,never was such cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid4 ,one longs in reading your book to walk on all fours4 ,but as ,i have lost that habit for more than sixty years1 ,i feel unhappily the impossibility of resuming it4 ,nor can ,i embark in search of the savages of ,canada1 because the maladies to which ,i am condemned render a ,european surgeon necessary to me2 because war is going on in those regions2 and because the example of our actions has made the savages nearly as bad as ourselves4 ,so ,i content myself with being a very peaceable savage in the solitude which ,i have chosen near your native place1 where you ought to be too4 ,after an extremely inadequate discussion of one or two points in the essay1#cca he concludes3--,i am informed that your health is bad2 you ought to come to set it up again in your native air1 to enjoy freedom1 to drink with me the milk of our cows and browse our grass4#ccb ,rousseau replied to all this in a friendly way1 recognising ,voltaire as his chief1 and actually at the very moment when he tells us that the corrupting presence of the arrogant and seductive man at ,geneva helped to make the idea of returning to ,geneva odious to him1 hailing him in such terms as these3--,sensible of the honour you do my country1 ,i share the gratitude of my fellow-citizens1 and hope that it will increase when they have profited by the lessons that you of all men are able to give them4 ,embellish the asylum you have chosen2 enlighten a people worthy of your instruction2 and do you who know so well how to paint virtue and freedom1 teach us to cherish them in our walls4#ccc ,within a year1 however1 the bright sky became a little clouded4 ,in #agef ,voltaire published one of the most sincere1 energetic1 and passionate pieces to be found in the whole literature of the eighteenth century1 his poem on the great earthquake of ,lisbon 7,november #agee74 ,no such word had been heard in ,europe since the terrible images in which ,pascal had figured the doom of man4 ,it was the reaction of one who had begun life by refuting ,pascal with doctrines of cheerfulness drawn from the optimism of ,pope and ,leibnitz1 who had done ,pope's ,essay on ,man 7#agcb-cd7 into ,french verse as late as #agea1ccd and whose imagination1 already sombred by the triumphant cruelty and superstition which raged around him1 was suddenly struck with horror by a catastrophe which1 in a world where whatever is is best1 destroyed hundreds of human creatures in the smoking ashes and engulfed wreck of their city4 ,how1 he cried1 can you persist in talking of the deliberate will of a free and benevolent ,god1 whose eternal laws necessitated such an appalling climax of misery and injustice as this8 ,was the disaster retributive8 ,if so1 why is ,lisbon in ashes1 while ,paris dances8 ,the enigma is desperate and inscrutable1 and the optimist lives in the paradise of the fool4 ,we ask in vain what we are1 where we are1 whither we go1 whence we came4 ,we are tormented atoms on a clod of earth1 whom death at last swallows up1 and with whom destiny meanwhile makes cruel sport4 ,the past is only a disheartening memory1 and if the tomb destroys the thinking creature1 how frightful is the present6 ,whatever else we may say of ,voltaire's poem1 it was at least the first sign of the coming reaction of sympathetic imagination against the polished common sense of the great ,queen ,anne school1 which had for more than a quarter of a century such influence in ,europe4#cce ,it is a little odd that ,voltaire1 the most brilliant and versatile branch of this stock1 should have broken so energetically away from it1 and that he should have done so1 shows how open and how strong was the feeling in him for reality and actual circumstance4 ,rousseau was amazed that a man overwhelmed as ,voltaire was with prosperity and glory1 should declaim against the miseries of this life and pronounce that all is evil and vanity4 ,voltaire in seeming always to believe in ,god1 never really believed in anybody but the devil1 since his pretended ,god is a maleficent being who according to him finds all his pleasure in working mischief4 ,the absurdity of this doctrine is especially revolting in a man crowned with good things of every sort1 and who from the midst of his own happiness tries to fill his fellow-creatures with despair1 by the cruel and terrible image of the serious calamities from which he is himself free4#ccf ,as if any doctrine could be more revolting than this which ,rousseau so quietly takes for granted1 that if it is well with me and ,i am free from calamities1 then there must needs be a beneficent ruler of the universe1 and the calamities of all the rest of the world1 if by chance they catch the fortunate man's eye1 count for nothing in our estimate of the method of the supposed divine government4 ,it is hard to imagine a more execrable emotion than the complacent religiosity of the prosperous4 ,voltaire is more admirable in nothing than in the ardent humanity and far-spreading lively sympathy with which he interested himself in all the world's fortunes1 and felt the catastrophe of ,lisbon as profoundly as if the ,geneva at his gates had been destroyed4 ,he relished his own prosperity keenly enough1 but his prosperity became ashes in his mouth when he heard of distress or wrong1 and he did not rest until he had moved heaven and earth to soothe the distress and repair the wrong4 ,it was his impatience in the face of the evils of the time which wrung from him this desperate cry1 and it is precisely because these evils did not touch him in his own person1 that he merits the greater honour for the surpassing energy and sincerity of his feeling for them4 ,rousseau1 however1 whose biographer has no such stories to tell as those of ,calas and ,la ,barre1 ,sirven and ,lally1 but only tales of a maiden wrongfully accused of theft1 and a friend left senseless on the pavement of a strange town1 and a benefactress abandoned to the cruelty of her fate1 still was moved in the midst of his erotic visions in the forest of ,montmorency to speak a jealous word in vindication of the divine government of our world4 ,for him at any rate life was then warm and the day bright and the earth very fair1 and he lauded his gods accordingly4 ,it was his very sensuousness1 as we are so often saying1 that made him religious4 ,the optimism which ,voltaire wished to destroy was to him a sovereign element of comfort4 ,pope's poem1 he says1 softens my misfortunes and inclines me to patience1 while yours sharpens all my pains1 excites me to murmuring1 and reduces me to despair4 ,pope and ,leibnitz exhort me to resignation by declaring calamities to be a necessary effect of the nature and constitution of the universe4 ,you cry1 ,suffer for ever1 unhappy wretch2 if there be a ,god who created thee1 he could have stayed thy pains if he would3 hope for no end to them1 for there is no reason to be discerned for thy existence1 except to suffer and to perish4#ccg ,rousseau then proceeds to argue the matter1 but he says nothing really to the point which ,pope had not said before1 and said far more effectively4 ,he begins1 however1 originally enough by a triumphant reference to his own great theme of the superiority of the natural over the civil state4 ,moral evil is our own work1 the result of our liberty2 so are most of our physical evils1 except death1 and that is mostly an evil only from the preparations that we make for it4 ,take the case of ,lisbon4 ,was it nature who collected the twenty thousand houses1 all seven stories high8 ,if the people of ,lisbon had been dispersed over the face of the country1 as wild tribes are1 they would have fled at the first shock1 and they would have been seen the next day twenty leagues away1 as gay as if nothing had happened4 ,and how many of them perished in the attempt to rescue clothes or papers or money8 ,is it not true that the person of a man is now1 thanks to civilisation1 the least part of himself1 and is hardly worth saving after loss of the rest8 ,again1 there are some events which lose much of their horror when we look at them closely4 ,a premature death is not always a real evil and may be a relative good2 of the people crushed to death under the ruins of ,lisbon1 many no doubt thus escaped still worse calamities4 ,and is it worse to be killed swiftly than to await death in prolonged anguish8#cch ,the good of the whole is to be sought before the good of the part4 ,although the whole material universe ought not to be dearer to its ,creator than a single thinking and feeling being1 yet the system of the universe which produces1 preserves1 and perpetuates all thinking and feeling beings1 ought to be dearer to him than any one of them1 and he may1 notwithstanding his goodness1 or rather by reason of his goodness1 sacrifice something of the happiness of individuals to the preservation of the whole4 ,that the dead body of a man should feed worms or wolves or plants is not1 ,i admit1 a compensation for the death of such a man2 but if in the system of this universe1 it is necessary for the preservation of the human race that there should be a circulation of substance between men1 animals1 vegetables1 then the particular mishap of an individual contributes to the general good4 ,i die1 ,i am eaten by worms2 but my children1 my brothers1 will live as ,i have lived2 my body enriches the earth of which they will consume the fruits2 and so ,i do1 by the order of nature and for all men1 what ,codrus1 ,curtius1 the ,decii1 and a thousand others1 did of their own free will for a small part of men4 7p4 #cje47 ,all this is no doubt very well said1 and we are bound to accept it as true doctrine4 ,although1 however1 it may make resignation easier by explaining the nature of evil1 it does not touch the point of ,voltaire's outburst1 which is that evil exists1 and exists in shapes which it is a mere mockery to associate with the omnipotence of a benevolent controller of the world's forces4 ,according to ,rousseau1 if we go to the root of what he means1 there is no such thing as evil1 though much that to our narrow and impatient sight has the look of it4 ,this may be true if we use that fatal word in an arbitrary and unreal sense1 for the avoidable1 the consequent without antecedent1 or antecedent without consequent4 ,if we consent to talk in this way1 and only are careful to define terms so that there is no doubt as to their meaning1 it is hardly deniable that evil is a mere word and not a reality1 and whatever is is indeed right and best1 because no better is within our reach4 ,voltaire1 however1 like the man of sense that he was1 exclaimed that at any rate relatively to us poor creatures the existence of pain1 suffering1 waste1 whether caused or uncaused1 whether in accordance with stern immutable law or mere divine caprice1 is a most indisputable reality3 from our point of view it is a cruel puerility to cry out at every calamity and every iniquity that all is well in the best of possible worlds1 and to sing hymns of praise and glory to the goodness and mercy of a being of supreme might1 who planted us in this evil state and keeps us in it4 ,voltaire's is no perfect philosophy2 indeed it is not a philosophy at all1 but a passionate ejaculation2 but it is perfect in comparison with a cut and dried system like this of ,rousseau's1 which rests on a mocking juggle with phrases1 and the substitution by dexterous sleight of hand of one definition for another4 ,rousseau really gives up the battle1 by confessing frankly that the matter is beyond the light of reason1 and that1 if the theist only founds his sentiment on probabilities1 the atheist with still less precision only founds his on the alternative possibilities4 ,the objections on both sides are insoluble1 because they turn on things of which men can have no veritable idea2 yet ,i believe in ,god as strongly as ,i believe any other truth1 because believing and not believing are the last things in the world that depend on me4 ,so be it4 ,but why take the trouble to argue in favour of one side of an avowedly insoluble question8 ,it was precisely because he felt that the objections on both sides cannot be answered1 that ,voltaire1 hastily or not1 cried out that he faced the horrors of such a catastrophe as the ,lisbon earthquake without a glimpse of consolation4 ,the upshot of ,rousseau's remonstrance only amounted to this1 that he could not furnish one with any consolation out of the armoury of reason1 that he himself found this consolation1 but in a way that did not at all depend upon his own effort or will1 and was therefore as incommunicable as the advantage of having a large appetite or being six feet high4 ,the reader of ,rousseau becomes accustomed to this way of dealing with subjects of discussion4 ,we see him using his reason as adroitly as he knows how for three-fourths of the debate1 and then he suddenly flings himself back with a triumphant kind of weariness into the buoyant waters of emotion and sentiment4 ,you sir1 who are a poet1 once said ,madame d',epinay to ,saint ,lambert1 will agree with me that the existence of a ,being1 eternal1 all powerful1 and of sovereign intelligence1 is at any rate the germ of the finest enthusiasm4#cci ,to take this position and cleave to it may be very well1 but why spoil its dignity and repose by an unmeaning and superfluous flourish of the weapons of the reasoner8 ,with the same hasty change of direction ,rousseau says the true question is not whether each of us suffers or not1 but whether it is good that the universe should be1 and whether our misfortunes were inevitable in its constitution4 ,then within a dozen lines he admits that there can be no direct proof either way2 we must content ourselves with settling it by means of inference from the perfections of ,god4 ,of course1 it is clear that in the first place what ,rousseau calls the true question consists of two quite distinct questions4 ,is the universe in its present ordering on the whole good relatively either to men1 or to all sentient creatures8 ,next was evil an inevitable element in that ordering8 ,second1 this way of putting it does not in the least advance the case against ,voltaire1 who insisted that no fine phrases ought to hide from us the dreadful power and crushing reality of evil and the desolate plight in which we are left4 ,this is no exhaustive thought1 but a deep cry of anguish at the dark lot of men1 and of just indignation against the philosophy which to creatures asking for bread gave the brightly polished stone of sentimental theism4 ,rousseau urged that ,voltaire robbed men of their only solace4 ,what ,voltaire really did urge was that the solace derived from the attribution of humanity and justice to the ,supreme ,being1 and from the metaphysical account of evil1 rests on too narrow a base either to cover the facts1 or to be a true solace to any man who thinks and observes4 ,he ought to have gone on1 if it had only been possible in those times1 to persuade his readers that there is no solace attainable1 except that of an energetic fortitude1 and that we do best to go into life not in a softly lined silken robe1 but with a sharp sword and armour thrice tempered4 ,as between himself and ,rousseau1 he saw much the more keenly of the two1 and this was because he approached the matter from the side of the facts1 while the latter approached it from the side of his own mental comfort and the preconceptions involved in it4 ,the most curious part of this curious letter is the conclusion1 where ,rousseau1 loosely wandering from his theme1 separates ,voltaire from the philosopher1 and beseeches him to draw up a moral code or profession of civil faith that should contain positively the social maxims that everybody should be bound to admit1 and negatively the intolerant maxims that everybody should be forced to reject as seditious4 ,every religion in accord with the code should be allowed1 and every religion out of accord with it proscribed1 or a man might be free to have no other religion but the code itself4 ,voltaire was much too clear-headed a person to take any notice of nonsense like this4 ,rousseau's letter remained unanswered1 nor is there any reason to suppose that ,voltaire ever got through it1 though ,rousseau chose to think that ,candide 7#agei7 was meant for a reply to him4#cdj ,he is careful to tell us that he never read that incomparable satire1 for which one would be disposed to pity any one except ,rousseau1 whose appreciation of wit1 if not of humour also1 was probably more deficient than in any man who ever lived1 either in ,geneva or any other country fashioned after ,genevan guise4 ,rousseau's next letter to ,voltaire was four years later1 and by that time the alienation which had no definitely avowed cause1 and can be marked by no special date1 had become complete4 ,i hate you1 in fact1 he concluded1 since you have so willed it2 but ,i hate you like a man still worthier to have loved you1 if you had willed it4 ,of all the sentiments with which my heart was full towards you1 there only remains the admiration that we cannot refuse to your fine genius1 and love for your writings4 ,if there is nothing in you which ,i can honour but your talents1 that is no fault of mine4#cda ,we know that ,voltaire did not take reproach with serenity1 and he behaved with bitter violence towards ,rousseau in circumstances when silence would have been both more magnanimous and more humane4 ,rousseau occasionally1 though not very often1 retaliated in the same vein4#cdb ,on the whole his judgment of ,voltaire1 when calmly given1 was not meant to be unkind4 ,voltaire's first impulse1 he said1 is to be good2 it is reflection that makes him bad4#cdc ,tronchin had said in the same way that ,voltaire's heart was the dupe of his understanding4 ,rousseau is always trying to like him1 he always recognises him as the first man of the time1 and he subscribed his mite for the erection of a statue to him4 ,it was the satire and mockery in ,voltaire which irritated ,rousseau more than the doctrines or denial of doctrine which they cloaked2 in his eyes sarcasm was always the veritable dialect of the evil power4 ,it says something for the sincerity of his efforts after equitable judgment1 that he should have had the patience to discern some of the fundamental merit of the most remorseless and effective mocker that ever made superstition look mean1 and its doctors ridiculous4 ,,ii4 ,voltaire was indirectly connected with ,rousseau's energetic attack upon another great ,encyclopdist leader1 the famous ,letter to ,d',alembert on ,stage ,plays4 ,there1 ,rousseau said afterwards1 is my favourite book1 my ,benjamin1 because ,i produced it without effort1 at the first inspiration1 and in the most lucid moments of my life4#cdd ,voltaire1 who to us figures so little as a poet and dramatist1 was to himself and to his contemporaries of this date a poet and dramatist before all else1 the author of ,zare and ,mahomet1 rather than of ,candide and the ,philosophical ,dictionary4 ,d',alembert was ,voltaire's staunchest henchman4 ,he only wrote his article on ,geneva for the ,encyclopdia to gratify the master4 ,fresh from a visit to him when he composed it1 he took occasion to regret that the austerity of the tradition of the city deprived it of the manifold advantages of a theatre4 ,this suggestion had its origin partly in a desire to promote something that would please the eager vanity of the dramatist whom ,geneva now had for so close a neighbour1 and who had just set her the example by setting up a theatre of his own2 and partly1 also1 because it gave the writer an opportunity of denouncing the intolerant rigour with which the church nearer home treated the stage and all who appeared on it4 ,geneva was to set an example that could not be resisted1 and ,france would no longer see actors on the one hand pensioned by the government1 and on the other an object of anathema1 excommunicated by priests and regarded with contempt by citizens4#cde ,the inveterate hostility of the church to the theatre was manifested by the ,french ecclesiastics in the full eighteenth century as bitterly as ever4 ,the circumstance that ,voltaire was the great play-writer of the time would not tend to soften their traditional prejudice1 and the persecution of players by priests was in some sense an episode of the war between the priest and the philosophers4 ,the latter took up the cause of the stage partly because they hoped to make the drama an effective rival to the teaching of pulpit and confessional1 partly from their natural sympathy with an elevated form of intellectual manifestation1 and partly from their abhorrence of the practical inhumanity with which the officers of the church treated stage performers4 ,while people of quality eagerly sought the society of those who furnished them as much diversion in private as in public1 the church refused to all players the marriage blessing2 when an actor or actress wished to marry1 they were obliged to renounce the stage1 and the ,archbishop of ,paris diligently resisted evasion or subterfuge4#cdf ,the atrocities connected with the refusal of burial1 as well in the case of players as of philosophers1 are known to all readers in a dozen illustrious instances1 from ,molire and ,adrienne ,lecouvreur downwards4 ,here1 as along the whole line of the battle between new light and old prejudice1 ,rousseau took part1 if not with the church1 at least against its adversaries4 ,his point of view was at bottom truly puritanical4 ,jeremy ,collier in his ,short ,view of the ,profaneness and ,immorality of the ,english ,stage 7#afih7 takes up quite a different position4 ,this once famous piece was not a treatment of the general question1 but an attack on certain specific qualities of the plays of his time--their indecency of phrase1 their oaths1 their abuse of the clergy1 the gross libertinism of the characters4 ,one can hardly deny that this was richly deserved by the ,english drama of the ,restoration1 and ,collier's strictures were not applicable1 nor meant to apply1 either to the ancients1 for he has a good word even for ,aristophanes1 or to the ,french drama4 ,bossuet's loftier denunciation1 like ,rousseau's1 was puritanical1 and it extended to the whole body of stage plays4 ,he objected to the drama as a school of concupiscence1 as a subtle or gross debaucher of the gravity and purity of the understanding1 as essentially a charmer of the senses1 and therefore the most equivocal and untrustworthy of teachers4 ,he appeals to the fathers1 to ,scripture1 to ,plato1 and even to ,christ1 who cried1 ,woe unto you that laugh4#cdg ,there is a fine austerity about ,bossuet's energetic criticism2 it is so free from breathless eagerness1 and so severe without being thinly bitter4 ,the churchmen of a generation or two later had fallen from this height into gloomy peevishness4 ,rousseau's letter on the theatre1 it need hardly be said1 is meant to be an appeal to the common sense and judgment of his readers1 and not conceived in the ecclesiastical tone of unctuous anathema and fulgurant menace4 ,it is no bishop's pastoral1 replete with solecisms of thought and idiom1 but a piece of firm dialectic in real matter4 ,his position is this3 that the moral effect of the stage can never be salutary in itself1 while it may easily be extremely pernicious1 and that the habit of frequenting the theatre1 the taste for imitating the style of the actors1 the cost in money1 the waste in time1 and all the other accessory conditions1 apart from the morality of the matter represented1 are bad things in themselves1 absolutely and in every circumstance4 ,secondly1 these effects in all kinds are specially bad in relation to the social condition and habits of ,geneva4#cdh ,the first part of the discussion is an ingenious answer to some of the now trite pleas for the morality of the drama1 such as that tragedy leads to pity through terror1 that comedy corrects men while amusing them1 that both make virtue attractive and vice hateful4#cdi ,rousseau insists with abundance of acutely chosen illustration that the pity that is awaked by tragedy is a fleeting emotion which subsides when the curtain falls2 that comedy as often as not amuses men at the expense of old age1 uncouth virtue1 paternal carefulness1 and other objects which we should be taught rather to revere than to ridicule2 and that both tragedy and comedy1 instead of making vice hateful1 constantly win our sympathy for it4 ,is not the ,french stage1 he asks1 as much the triumph of great villains1 like ,catilina1 ,mahomet1 ,atreus1 as of illustrious heroes8 ,this rude handling of accepted commonplace is always one of the most interesting features in ,rousseau's polemic4 ,it was of course a characteristic of the eighteenth century always to take up the ethical and high prudential view of whatever had to be justified1 and ,rousseau seems from this point to have been successful in demolishing arguments which might hold of ,greek tragedy at its best1 but which certainly do not hold of any other dramatic forms4 ,the childishness of the old criticism which attaches the label of some moral from the copybook to each piece1 as its lesson and point of moral aim1 is evident4 ,in repudiating this ,rousseau was certainly right4#cej ,both the assailants and the defenders of the stage1 however1 commit the double error1 first of supposing that the drama is always the same thing1 from the ,agamemnon down to the last triviality of a ,london theatre1 and next of pitching the discussion in too high a key1 as if the effect or object of a stage play in the modern era1 where grave sentiment clothes itself in other forms1 were substantially anything more serious than an evening's amusement4 ,apart from this1 and in so far as the discussion is confined to the highest dramatic expression1 the true answer to ,rousseau is now a very plain one4 ,the drama does not work in the sphere of direct morality1 though like everything else in the world it has a moral or immoral aspect4 ,it is an art of ideal presentation1 not concerned with the inculcation of immediate practical lessons1 but producing a stir in all our sympathetic emotions1 quickening the imagination1 and so communicating a wider life to the character of the spectator4 ,this is what the drama in the hands of a worthy master does2 it is just what noble composition in music does1 and there is no more directly moralising effect in the one than in the other4 ,you must trust to the sum of other agencies to guide the interest and sympathy thus quickened into channels of right action4 ,rousseau1 like most other controversialists1 makes an attack of which the force rests on the assumption that the special object of the attack is the single influencing element and the one decisive instrument in making men had or good4 ,what he says about the drama would only be true if the public went to the play all day long1 and were accessible to no other moral force whatever1 modifying and counteracting such lessons as they might learn at the theatre4 ,he failed here as in the wider controversy on the sciences and arts1 to consider the particular subject of discussion in relation to the whole of the general medium in which character moves1 and by whose manifold action and reaction it is incessantly affected and variously shaped4 ,so when he passed on from the theory of dramatic morality to the matter which he had more at heart1 namely1 the practical effects of introducing the drama into ,geneva1 he keeps out of sight all the qualities in the ,genevese citizen which would protect him against the evil influence of the stage1 though it is his anxiety for the preservation of these very qualities that gives all its fire to his eloquence4 ,if the citizen really was what ,rousseau insisted that he was1 then his virtues would surely neutralise the evil of the drama2 if not1 the drama would do him no harm4 ,we need not examine the considerations in which ,rousseau pointed out the special reasons against introducing a theatre into his native town4 ,it would draw the artisans away from their work1 cause wasteful expenditure of money in amusements1 break up the harmless and inexpensive little clubs of men and the social gatherings of women4 ,the town was not populous enough to support a theatre1 therefore the government would have to provide one1 and this would mean increased taxation4 ,all this was the secondary and merely colourable support by argumentation1 of a position that had been reached and was really held by sentiment4 ,rousseau hated the introduction of ,french plays in the same way that ,cato hated the introduction of fine talkers from ,greece4 ,it was an innovation1 and so habitual was it with ,rousseau to look on all movement in the direction of what the ,french writers called taste and cultivation as depraving1 that he cannot help taking for granted that any change in manners associated with taste must necessarily be a change for the worse4 ,thus the ,letter to ,d',alembert was essentially a supplement to the first ,discourse2 it was an application of its principles to a practical case4 ,it was part of his general reactionary protest against philosophers1 poets1 men of letters1 and all their works1 without particular apprehension on the side of the drama4 ,hence its reasoning is much less interesting than its panegyric on the simplicity1 robust courage1 and manliness of the ,genevese1 and its invective against the effeminacy and frivolity of the ,parisian4 ,one of the most significant episodes in the discussion is the lengthy criticism on the immortal ,misanthrope of ,molire4 ,rousseau admits it for the masterpiece of the comic muse1 though with characteristic perversity he insists that the hero is not misanthropic enough1 nor truly misanthropic at all1 because he flies into rage at small things affecting himself1 instead of at the large follies of the race4 ,again1 he says that ,molire makes ,alceste ridiculous1 virtuous as he is1 in order to win the applause of the pit4 ,it is for the character of ,philinte1 however1 that ,rousseau reserves all his spleen4 ,he takes care to describe him in terms which exactly hit ,rousseau's own conception of his philosophic enemies1 who find all going well because they have no interest in anything going better2 who are content with everybody1 because they do not care for anybody2 who round a full table maintain that it is not true that the people are hungry4 ,as criticism1 one cannot value this kind of analysis4 ,d',alembert replied with a much more rational interpretation of the great comedy1 but finding himself seized with the critic's besetting impertinence of improving masterpieces1 he suddenly stopped with the becoming reflection--,but ,i perceive1 sir1 that ,i am giving lessons to ,molire4#cea ,the constant thought of ,paris gave ,rousseau an admirable occasion of painting two pictures in violent contrast1 each as over-coloured as the other by his mixed conceptions of the ,plutarchian antique and imaginary pastoral4 ,we forget the depravation of the stage and the ill living of comedians in magnificent descriptions of the manly exercises and cheerful festivities of the free people on the shores of the ,lake of ,geneva1 and in scornful satire on the ,parisian seraglios1 where some woman assembles a number of men who are more like women than their entertainers4 ,we see on the one side the rude sons of the republic1 boxing1 wrestling1 running1 in generous emulation1 and on the other the coxcombs of cultivated ,paris imprisoned in a drawing-room1 rising up1 sitting down1 incessantly going and coming to the fire-place1 to the window1 taking up a screen and putting it down again a hundred times1 turning over books1 flitting from picture to picture1 turning and pirouetting about the room1 while the idol stretched motionless on a couch all the time is only alive in her tongue and eyes 7p4 #afa74 ,if the rough patriots of the ,lake are less polished in speech1 they are all the weightier in reason2 they do not escape by a pleasantry or a compliment2 each feeling himself attacked by all the forces of his adversary1 he is obliged to employ all his own to defend himself1 and this is how a mind acquires strength and precision4 ,there may be here and there a licentious phrase1 but there is no ground for alarm in that4 ,it is not the least rude who are always the most pure1 and even a rather clownish speech is better than that artificial style in which the two sexes seduce one another1 and familiarise themselves decently with vice4 ',tis true our ,swiss drinks too much1 but after all let us not calumniate even vice2 as a rule drinkers are cordial and frank1 good1 upright1 just1 loyal1 brave1 and worthy folk4 ,wherever people have most abhorrence of drunkenness1 be sure they have most reason to fear lest its indiscretion should betray intrigue and treachery4 ,in ,switzerland it is almost thought well of1 while at ,naples they hold it in horror2 but at bottom which is the more to be dreaded1 the intemperance of the ,swiss or the reserve of the ,italian8 ,it is hardly surprising to learn that the people of ,geneva were as little gratified by this well-meant panegyric on their jollity as they had been by another writer's friendly eulogy on their ,socinianism4#ceb ,the reader who was not moved to turn brute and walk on all fours by the pictures of the state of nature in the ,discourses1 may find it more difficult to resist the charm of the brotherly festivities and simple pastimes which in the ,letter to ,d',alembert the patriot holds up to the admiration of his countrymen and the envy of foreigners4 ,the writer is in ,sparta1 but he tempers his ,sparta with a something from ,charmettes4 ,never before was there so attractive a combination of martial austerity with the grace of the idyll4 ,and the interest of these pictures is much more than literary2 it is historic also4 ,they were the original version of those great gatherings in the ,champ de ,mars and strange suppers of fraternity during the progress of the ,revolution in ,paris1 which have amused the cynical ever since1 but which pointed to a not unworthy aspiration4 ,the fine gentlemen whom ,rousseau did so well to despise had then all fled1 and the common people under ,rousseauite leaders were doing the best they could to realise on the banks of the ,seine the imaginary joymaking and simple fellowship which had been first dreamed of for the banks of ,lake ,leman1 and commended with an eloquence that struck new chords in minds satiated or untouched by the brilliance of mere literature4 ,there was no real state of things in ,geneva corresponding to the gracious picture which ,rousseau so generously painted1 and some of the citizens complained that his account of their social joys was as little deserved as his ingenious vindication of their hearty feeling for barrel or bottle was little founded4#cec ,the glorification of love of country did little for the ,genevese for whom it was meant1 but it penetrated many a soul in the greater nation that lay sunk in helpless indifference to its own ruin4 ,nowhere else among the writers who are the glory of ,france at this time1 is any serious eulogy of patriotism4 ,rousseau glows with it1 and though he always speaks in connection with ,geneva1 yet there is in his words a generous breadth and fire which gave them an irresistible contagiousness4 ,there are many passages of this fine persuasive force in the ,letter to ,d',alembert2 perhaps this1 referring to the citizens of ,geneva who had gone elsewhere in search of fortune1 is as good as another4 ,do you think that the opening of a theatre1 he asks1 will bring them back to their mother city8 ,no2 each of them must feel that he can never find anywhere else what he has left behind in his own land2 an invincible charm must call him back to the spot that he ought never to have quitted2 the recollection of their first exercises1 their first pleasures1 their first sights1 must remain deeply graven in their hearts2 the soft impressions made in the days of their youth must abide and grow stronger with advancing years1 while a thousand others wax dim2 in the midst of the pomp of great cities and all their cheerless magnificence1 a secret voice must for ever cry in the depth of the wanderer's soul1 ,ah1 where are the games and holidays of my youth8 ,where is the concord of the townsmen1 where the public brotherhood8 ,where is pure joy and true mirth8 ,where are peace1 freedom1 equity8 ,let us hasten to seek all these4 ,with the heart of a ,genevese1 with a city as smiling1 a landscape as full of delight1 a government as just1 with pleasures so true and so pure1 and all that is needed to be able to relish them1 how is it that we do not all adore our birth-land8 ,it was thus in old times that by modest feasts and homely games her citizens were called back by that ,sparta which ,i can never quote often enough as an example for us2 thus in ,athens in the midst of fine art1 thus in ,susa in the very bosom of luxury and soft delights1 the wearied ,spartan sighed after his coarse pastimes and exhausting exercises 7p4 #baa74ced ,any reference to this powerfully written1 though most sophistical piece1 would be imperfect which should omit its slightly virulent onslaught upon women and the passion which women inspire4 ,the modern drama1 he said1 being too feeble to rise to high themes1 has fallen back on love2 and on this hint he proceeds to a censure of love as a poetic theme1 and a bitter estimate of women as companions for men1 which might have pleased ,calvin or ,knox in his sternest mood4 ,the same eloquence which showed men the superior delights of the state of nature1 now shows the superior fitness of the oriental seclusion of women2 it makes a sympathetic reader tremble at the want of modesty1 purity1 and decency1 in the part which women are allowed to take by the infatuated men of a modern community4 ,all this1 again1 is directed against that philosophy of a day1 which is born and dies in the corner of a city1 and would fain stifle the cry of nature and the unanimous voice of the human race 7p4 #aca74 ,the same intrepid spirits who had brought reason to bear upon the current notions of providence1 inspiration1 ecclesiastical tradition1 and other unlighted spots in the human mind1 had perceived that the subjection of women to a secondary place belonged to the same category1 and could not any more successfully be defended by reason4 ,instead of raging against women for their boldness1 their frivolousness1 and the rest1 as our passionate sentimentalist did1 the opposite school insisted that all these evils were due to the folly of treating women with gallantry instead of respect1 and to the blindness of refusing an equally vigorous and masculine education to those who must be the closest companions of educated man4 ,this was the view forced upon the most rational observers of a society where women were so powerful1 and so absolutely unfit by want of intellectual training for the right use of social power4 ,d',alembert expressed this view in a few pages of forcible pleading in his reply to ,rousseau1#cee and some thirty-two years later1 when all questions had become political 7#agij71 ,condorcet ably extended the same line of argument so as to make it cover the claims of women to all the rights of citizenship4#cef ,from the nature of the case1 however1 it is impossible to confute by reason a man who denies that the matter in dispute is within the decision and jurisdiction of reason1 and who supposes that his own opinion is placed out of the reach of attack when he declares it to be the unanimous voice of the human race4 ,we may remember that the author of this philippic against love was at the very moment brooding over the ,new ,helosa1 and was fresh from strange transports at the feet of the ,julie whom we know4 ,the ,letter on the ,stage was the definite mark of ,rousseau's schism from the philosophic congregation4 ,has ,jean ,jacques turned a father of the church8 asked ,voltaire4 ,deserters who fight against their country ought to be hung4 ,the little flock are falling to devouring one another4 ,this arch-madman1 who might have been something1 if he would only have been guided by his brethren of the ,encyclopdia1 takes it into his head to make a band of his own4 ,he writes against the stage1 after writing a bad play of his own4 ,he finds four or five rotten staves of ,diogenes' tub1 and instals himself therein to bark at his friends4#ceg ,d',alembert was more tolerant1 but less clear-sighted4 ,he insisted that the little flock should do its best to heal divisions instead of widening them4 ,jean ,jacques1 he said1 is a madman who is very clever1 and who is only clever when he is in a fever2 it is best therefore neither to cure nor to insult him4 ,rousseau made the preface to the ,letter on the ,stage an occasion for a proclamation of his final breach with ,diderot4 ,i once1 he said1 possessed a severe and judicious ,aristarchus2 ,i have him no longer1 and wish for him no longer4 ,to this he added in a footnote a passage from ,ecclesiasticus1 to the effect that if you have drawn a sword on a friend there still remains a way open1 and if you have spoken cheerless words to him concord is still possible1 but malicious reproach and the betrayal of a secret--these things banish friendship beyond return4 ,this was the end of his personal connection with the men whom he always contemptuously called the ,holbachians4 ,after #agfj the great stream divided into two2 the rationalist and the emotional schools became visibly antipathetic1 and the voice of the epoch was no longer single or undistracted4 ,,footnotes3 #cca ,see above p4 #adi4 #ccb ,voltaire to ,rousseau4 ,aug4 #cj1 #agee4 #ccc ,corr41 i4 #bcg4 ,sept4 #aj1 #agee4 #ccd ,la ,loi ,naturelle4 #cce ,in #aged the ,berlin ,academy proposed for a prize essay1 ,an ,examination of ,pope's ,system1 and ,lessing the next year wrote a pamphlet to show that ,pope had no system1 but only a patchwork4 ,see ,mr4 ,pattison's ,introduction to ,pope's ,essay on ,man1 p4 #ab4 ,sime's ,lessing1 i4 #abh4 #ccf ,conf4 ix4 #bgf4 #ccg ,corr41 i4 #bhi-caf4 ,aug4 #ah1 #agef4 #cch ,joseph ,de ,maistre put all this much more acutely2 ,soires1 iv4 #cci ,madame d',epinay1 ,mm41 i4 #chj4 #cdj ,conf41 ix4 #bgg4 ,also ,corr41 iii4 #cbf4 ,march #aa1 #agfd4 ,tronchin's long letter1 to which ,rousseau refers in this passage1 is given in ,m4 ,streckeisen-,moultou's collection1 i4 #cbc1 and is interesting to people who care to know how ,voltaire looked to a doctor who saw him closely4 #cda ,corr41 ii4 #acb4 ,june #ag1 #agfj4 ,also ,conf41 x4 #ia4 #cdb ,some other interesting references to ,voltaire in ,rousseau's letters are--ii4 #agj 7,nov4 #bi1 #agfj71 denouncing ,voltaire as that trumpet of impiety1 that fine genius1 and that low soul1 and so forth2 iii4 #bi 7,oct4 #cj1 #agfb71 accusing ,voltaire of malicious intrigues against him in ,switzerland2 iii4 #afh 7,mar4 #ba1 #agfc71 that if there is to be any reconciliation1 ,voltaire must make first advances2 iii4 #bhj 7,dec41 #agfc71 described a trick played by ,voltaire2 iv4 #dj 7,jan4 #ca1 #agfe7 #fd2 ,corr41 v4 #gd 7,jan4 #e1 #agfg71 replying to ,voltaire's calumnious account of his early life2 note on this subject giving ,voltaire the lie direct1 iv4 #aej 7,may #ca1 #agfe72 the ,lettre ,d',almbert1 p4 #aic1 etc4 #cdc ,bernardin ,st4 ,pierre1 xii4 #if4 ,in the same sense1 in ,dusaulx1 ,mes ,rapports avec ,j4,j4,r41 7,paris3 #agih71 p4 #aja4 ,see also ,corr41 iv4 #bed4 ,dec4 #cj1 #agfe4 ,and again1 iv4 #bgf1 ,feb4 #bh1 #agff1 and p4 #cef4 #cdd ,dusaulx1 p4 #ajb4 #cde ,this part of ,d',alembert's article is reproduced in ,rousseau's preface1 and the whole is given at the end of the volume in ,m4 ,auguis's edition1 p4 #dji4 #cdf ,goncourt1 ,femme au #ah;ime sicle1 p4 #bef4 ,grimm1 ,corr4 ,lit41 vi4 #bdh4 #cdg ,maximes sur la ,comdie1 #ae1 etc4 ,they were written in reply to a plea for ,comedy by ,caffaro1 a ,jesuit father4 #cdh ,the letter may be conveniently divided into three parts3 ,i4 pp4 #a-hi1 ,,ii4 pp4 #ij-ade1 ,,iii4 pp4 #adf to the end4 ,of course if ,rousseau in saying that tragedy leads to pity through terror1 was thinking of the famous passage in the sixth chapter of ,aristotle's ,poetics1 he was guilty of a shocking mistranslation4 #cdi ,some of the arguments seem drawn from ,plato2 see1 besides the well-known passages in the ,republic1 the ,laws1 iv4 #gai1 and still more directly1 ,gorgias1 #ejb4 #cej ,yet ,d',alembert in his very cool and sensible reply 7p4 #bde7 repeats the old saws1 as that in ,catilina we learn the lesson of the harm which may be done to the human race by the abuse of great talents1 and so forth4 #cea ,lettre ,m4 ,j4,j4 ,rousseau1 p4 #beh4 #ceb ,d',alembert's ,lettre ,j4,j4 ,rousseau1 p4 #bgg4 ,rousseau has a passage to the same effect1 that false people are always sober1 in the ,nouv4 ,hl41 ,pt4 ,i4 xxiii4 #abc4 #cec ,tronchin1 for instance1 in a letter to ,rousseau1 in ,m4 ,streckeisen-,moultou's collection1 i4 #cbe4 #ced ,a troop of comedians had been allowed to play for a short time in ,geneva1 with many protests1 during the mediation of #agch4 ,in #agff1 eight years after ,rousseau's letter1 the government gave permission for the establishment of a theatre in the town4 ,it was burnt down in #agfh1 and ,voltaire spitefully hinted that the catastrophe was the result of design1 instigated by ,rousseau 7,corr4 v4 #bii1 ,april #bf1 #agfh74 ,the theatre was not re-erected until #aghc1 when the oligarchic party regained the ascendancy and brought back with them the drama1 which the democrats in their reign would not permit4 #cee ,lettre ,j4,j4 ,rousseau1 pp4 #bfe-bga4 #cef ,oeuv41 x4 #aba4 #ceg ,to ,thieriot1 ,sept4 #ag1 #ageh4 ,to ,d',alembert1 ,oct4 #bj1 #agfa4 ,ib4 ,march #ai1 #agfa4 ,,end ,,of ,,vol4 ,i4 ,printed by ,r4 ,r4 ,,clark1 ,,limited1 ,edinburgh 99 99 99 99 99 ,,rousseau ,,by ,,john ,,morley ,,vol4 ,,ii4 ,london ,,macmillan ,,and ,,co41 ,,limited ,,new ,,york3 ,,the ,,macmillan ,,company #aije ,all rights reserved ,first printed in this form #ahhf ,reprinted #ahhh1 #ahia1 #ahif1 #aijj1 #aije ,,contents ,,of ,,vol4 ,,ii4 ,,chapter ,i4 ,,montmorency--,,the ,,new ,,helo,,sa4 ,conditions preceding the composition of the ,new ,helosa #a ,the ,duke and ,duchess of ,luxembourg #b ,rousseau and his patrician acquaintances #d ,peaceful life at ,montmorency #i ,equivocal prudence occasionally shown by ,rousseau #ab ,his want of gratitude for commonplace service #ac ,bad health1 and thoughts of suicide #af ,episode of ,madame ,latour de ,franqueville #ag ,relation of the ,new ,helosa to ,rousseau's general doctrine #bj ,action of the first part of the story #be ,contrasted with contemporary literature #be ,and with contemporary manners #bg ,criticism of the language and principal actors #bh1 #bi ,popularity of the ,new ,helosa #ca ,its reactionary intellectual direction #cc ,action of the second part #ce1 #cf ,its influence on ,goethe and others #ch ,distinction between ,rousseau and his school #dj ,singular pictures of domesticity #db ,sumptuary details #dd ,the slowness of movement in the work justified #df ,exaltation of marriage #dg ,equalitarian tendencies #di ,not inconsistent with social quietism #ea ,compensation in the political consequences of the triumph of sentiment #ed ,circumstances of the publication of the ,new ,helosa #ee ,nature of the trade in books #eg ,malesherbes and the printing of ,emilius #fa ,rousseau's suspicions #fb ,the great struggle of the moment #fd ,proscription of ,emilius #fg ,flight of the author #fg ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,persecution4 ,rousseau's journey from ,switzerland #fi ,absence of vindictiveness #gj ,arrival at ,yverdun #gb ,repairs to ,motiers #gc ,relations with ,frederick the ,great #gd ,life at ,motiers #gg ,lord ,marischal #gi ,voltaire #ha ,rousseau's letter to the ,archbishop of ,paris #hc ,its dialectic #hf ,the ministers of ,neuchtel #ij ,rousseau's singular costume #ib ,his throng of visitors #ic ,lewis1 prince of ,wrtemberg #ie ,gibbon #if ,boswell #ih ,corsican affairs #ii ,the feud at ,geneva #ajb ,rousseau renounces his citizenship #aje ,the ,letters from the ,mountain #ajf ,political side #ajg ,consequent persecution at ,motiers #ajg ,flight to the isle of ,st4 ,peter #ajh ,the fifth of the ,rveries #aji ,proscription by the government of ,berne #aaf ,rousseau's singular request #aaf ,his renewed flight #aag ,persuaded to seek shelter in ,england #aah ,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,the ,,social ,,contract4 ,rousseau's reaction against perfectibility #aai ,abandonment of the position of the ,discourses #aba ,doubtful idea of equality #aba ,the ,social ,contract1 a repudiation of the historic method #abd ,yet it has glimpses of relativity #abg ,influence of ,greek examples #abi ,and of ,geneva #aca ,impression upon ,robespierre and ,saint ,just #acb ,rousseau's scheme implied a small territory #ace ,why the ,social ,contract made fanatics #acg ,verbal quality of its propositions #ach ,the doctrine of public safety #adc ,the doctrine of the sovereignty of peoples #add ,its early phases #add ,its history in the sixteenth century #adf ,hooker and ,grotius #adh ,locke #adi ,hobbes #aea ,central propositions of the ,social ,contract-- #a4 ,origin of society in compact #aed ,different conception held by the ,physiocrats #aef #b4 ,sovereignty of the body thus constituted #aeh ,difference from ,hobbes and ,locke #aei ,the root of socialism #afj ,republican phraseology #afa #c4 ,attributes of sovereignty #afb #d4 ,the law-making power #afc ,a contemporary illustration #afd ,hints of confederation #aff #e4 ,forms of government #afh ,criticism on the common division #afi ,rousseau's preference for elective aristocracy #agb #f4 ,attitude of the state to religion #agc ,rousseau's view1 the climax of a reaction #agf ,its effect at the ,french ,revolution #agi ,its futility #ahj ,another method of approaching the philosophy of government-- ,origin of society not a compact #ahc ,the true reason of the submission of a minority to a majority #ahd ,rousseau fails to touch actual problems #ahf ,the doctrine of resistance1 for instance #ahh ,historical illustrations #aij ,historical effect of the ,social ,contract in ,france and ,germany #aic ,socialist deductions from it #aid ,,chapter ,,iv4 ,,emilius4 ,rousseau touched by the enthusiasm of his time #aig ,contemporary excitement as to education1 part of the revival of naturalism #aii ,i4--,locke1 on education #bjb ,difference between him and ,rousseau #bjd ,exhortations to mothers #bje ,importance of infantile habits #bjh ,rousseau's protest against reasoning with children #bji ,criticised #bji ,the opposite theory #baj ,the idea of property #bab ,artificially contrived incidents #bad ,rousseau's omission of the principle of authority #bae ,connected with his neglect of the faculty of sympathy #bai ,,ii4--,rousseau's ideal of living #bba ,the training that follows from it #bbb ,the duty of knowing a craft #bbc ,social conception involved in this moral conception #bbf ,,iii4--,three aims before the instructor #bbi ,rousseau's omission of training for the social conscience #bcj ,no contemplation of society as a whole #bcb ,personal interest1 the foundation of the morality of ,emilius #bcc ,the sphere and definition of the social conscience #bce ,,iv4--,the study of history #bcg ,rousseau's notions upon the subject #bci ,v4--,ideals of life for women #bda ,rousseau's repudiation of his own principles #bdb ,his oriental and obscurantist position #bdc ,arising from his want of faith in improvement #bdd ,his reactionary tendencies in this region eventually neutralised #bdh ,,vi4--,sum of the merits of ,emilius #bdi ,its influence in ,france and ,germany #bea ,in ,england #beb ,,chapter ,v4 ,,the ,,savoyard ,,vicar4 ,shallow hopes entertained by the dogmatic atheists #bef ,the good side of the religious reaction #beh ,its preservation of some parts of ,christian influence #bei ,earlier forms of deism #bfj ,the deism of the ,savoyard ,vicar #bfd ,the elevation of man1 as well as the restoration of a divinity #bfe ,a divinity for fair weather #bfh ,religious self-denial #bfi ,the ,savoyard ,vicar's vital omission #bgj ,his position towards ,christianity #bgb ,its effectiveness as a solvent #bgc ,weakness of the subjective test #bgf ,the ,savoyard ,vicar's deism not compatible with growing intellectual conviction #bgf ,the true satisfaction of the religious emotion #bgg ,,chapter ,,vi4 ,,england4 ,rousseau's ,english portrait #bha ,his reception in ,paris #bhb ,and in ,london #bhc ,hume's account of him #bhd ,settlement at ,wootton #bhf ,the quarrel with ,hume #bhg ,detail of the charges against ,hume #bhg-bia ,walpole's pretended letter from ,frederick #bia ,baselessness of the whole delusion #bib ,hume's conduct in the quarrel #bic ,the war of pamphlets #bie ,common theory of ,rousseau's madness #bif ,preparatory conditions #big ,extension of disorder from the affective life to the intelligence #bii ,the ,confessions #cja ,his life at ,wootton #cjf ,flight from ,derbyshire #cjf ,and from ,england #cjh ,,chapter ,,vii4 ,,the ,,end4 ,the elder ,mirabeau #cji ,shelters ,rousseau at ,fleury #caa ,rousseau at ,trye #cab ,in ,dauphiny #cad ,return to ,paris #cad ,the ,rveries #cae ,life in ,paris #caf ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre's account of him #cag ,an ,easter excursion #cbj ,rousseau's unsociality #cbb ,poland and ,spain #cbd ,withdrawal to ,ermenonville #cbf ,his death #cbf ,,rousseau4 ,,chapter ,i4 ,,montmorency--,,the ,,new ,,helo,,sa4 ,the many conditions of intellectual productiveness are still hidden in such profound obscurity that we are unable to explain why a period of stormy moral agitation seems to be in certain natures the indispensable antecedent of their highest creative effort4 ,byron is one instance1 and ,rousseau is another1 in which the current of stimulating force made this rapid way from the lower to the higher parts of character1 and only expended itself after having traversed the whole range of emotion and faculty1 from their meanest1 most realistic1 most personal forms of exercise1 up to the summit of what is lofty and ideal4 ,no man was ever involved in such an odious complication of moral maladies as beset ,rousseau in the winter of #ageh4 ,yet within three years of this miserable epoch he had completed not only the ,new ,helosa1 which is the monument of his fall1 but the ,social ,contract1 which was the most influential1 and ,emilius1 which was perhaps the most elevated and spiritual1 of all the productions of the prolific genius of ,france in the eighteenth century4 ,a poor light-hearted ,marmontel thought that the secret of ,rousseau's success lay in the circumstance that he began to write late1 and it is true that no other author1 so considerable as ,rousseau1 waited until the age of fifty for the full vigour of his inspiration4 ,no tale of years1 however1 could have ripened such fruit without native strength and incommunicable savour4 ,nor can the mechanical movement of those better ordered characters which keep the balance of the world even1 impart to literature that peculiar quality1 peculiar but not the finest1 that comes from experience of the black unlighted abysses of the soul4 ,the period of actual production was externally calm4 ,the ,new ,helosa was completed in #agei1 and published in #agfa4 ,the ,social ,contract was published in the spring of #agfb1 and ,emilius a few weeks later4 ,throughout this period ,rousseau was1 for the last time in his life1 at peace with most of his fellows4 ,though he never relented from his antipathy to the ,holbachians1 for the time it slumbered1 until a more real and serious persecution than any which he imputed to them1 transformed his antipathy into a gloomy frenzy4 ,the new friends whom he made at ,montmorency were among the greatest people in the kingdom4 ,the ,duke of ,luxembourg 7#agjb-fd7 was a marshal of ,france1 and as intimate a friend of the king as the king was capable of having4 ,the ,marchale de ,luxembourg 7#agjg-hg7 had been one of the most beautiful1 and continued to be one of the most brilliant leaders of the last aristocratic generation that was destined to sport on the slopes of the volcano4 ,the former seems to have been a loyal and homely soul2 the latter1 restless1 imperious1 penetrating1 unamiable4 ,their dealings with ,rousseau were marked by perfect sincerity and straightforward friendship4 ,they gave him a convenient apartment in a small summer lodge in the park1 to which he retreated when he cared for a change from his narrow cottage4 ,he was a constant guest at their table1 where he met the highest personages in ,france4 ,the marshal did not disdain to pay him visits1 or to walk with him1 or to discuss his private affairs4 ,unable as ever to shine in conversation1 yet eager to show his great friends that they had to do with no common mortal1 ,rousseau bethought him of reading the ,new ,helosa aloud to them4 ,at ten in the morning he used to wait upon the marchale1 and there by her bedside he read the story of the love1 the sin1 the repentance of ,julie1 the distraction of ,saint ,preux1 the wisdom of ,wolmar1 and the sage friendship of ,lord ,edward1 in tones which enchanted her both with his book and its author for all the rest of the day1 as all the women in ,france were so soon to be enchanted4#a ,this1 as he expected1 amply reconciled her to the uncouthness and clumsiness of his conversation1 which was at least as maladroit and as spiritless in the presence of a duchess as it was in presences less imposing4 ,one side of character is obviously tested by the way in which a man bears himself in his relations with those of greater social consideration4 ,rousseau was taxed by some of his plebeian enemies with a most unheroic deference to his patrician friends4 ,he had a dog whose name was ,duc4 ,when he came to sit at a duke's table1 he changed his dog's name to ,turc4#b ,again1 one day in a transport of tenderness he embraced the old marshal--the duchess embraced ,rousseau ten times a day1 for the age was effusive--,ah1 monsieur le marchal1 ,i used to hate the great before ,i knew you1 and ,i hate them still more1 since you make me feel so strongly how easy it would be for them to have themselves adored4#c ,on another occasion he happened to be playing at chess with the ,prince of ,conti1 who had come to visit him in his cottage4#d ,in spite of the signs and grimaces of the attendants1 he insisted on beating the prince in a couple of games4 ,then he said with respectful gravity1 ,monseigneur1 ,i honour your serene highness too much not to beat you at chess always4#e ,a few days after1 the vanquished prince sent him a present of game which ,rousseau duly accepted4 ,the present was repeated1 but this time ,rousseau wrote to ,madame de ,boufflers that he would receive no more1 and that he loved the prince's conversation better than his gifts4#f ,he admits that this was an ungracious proceeding1 and that to refuse game from a prince of the blood who throws such good feeling into the present1 is not so much the delicacy of a proud man bent on preserving his independence1 as the rusticity of an unmannerly person who does not know his place4#g ,considering the extreme virulence with which ,rousseau always resented gifts even of the most trifling kind from his friends1 one may perhaps find some inconsistency in this condemnation of a sort of conduct to which he tenaciously clung on all other occasions4 ,if the fact of the donor being a prince of the blood is allowed to modify the quality of the donation1 that is hardly a defensible position in the austere citizen of ,geneva4 ,madame de ,boufflers1#h the intimate friend of our sage ,hume1 and the yet more intimate friend of the ,prince of ,conti1 gave him a judicious warning when she bade him beware of laying himself open to a charge of affectation1 lest it should obscure the brightness of his virtue and so hinder its usefulness4 ,fabius and ,regulus would have accepted such marks of esteem1 without feeling in them any hurt to their disinterestedness and frugality4#i ,perhaps there is a flutter of self-consciousness that is not far removed from this affectation1 in the pains which ,rousseau takes to tell us that after dining at the castle1 he used to return home gleefully to sup with a mason who was his neighbour and his friend4#aj ,on the whole1 however1 and so far as we know1 ,rousseau conducted himself not unworthily with these high people4 ,his letters to them are for the most part marked by self-respect and a moderate graciousness1 though now and again he makes rather too much case of the difference of rank1 and asserts his independence with something too much of protestation4#aa ,their relations with him are a curious sign of the interest which the members of the great world took in the men who were quietly preparing the destruction both of them and their world4 ,the ,marchale de ,luxembourg places this squalid dweller in a hovel on her estate in the place of honour at her table1 and embraces his ,theresa4 ,the ,prince of ,conti pays visits of courtesy and sends game to a man whom he employs at a few sous an hour to copy manuscript for him4 ,the ,countess of ,boufflers1 in sending him the money1 insists that he is to count her his warmest friend4#ab ,when his dog dies1 the countess writes to sympathise with his chagrin1 and the prince begs to be allowed to replace it4#ac ,and when persecution and trouble and infinite confusion came upon him1 they all stood as fast by him as their own comfort would allow4 ,do we not feel that there must have been in the unhappy man1 besides all the recorded pettinesses and perversities which revolt us in him1 a vein of something which touched men1 and made women devoted to him1 until he splenetically drove both men and women away from him8 ,with ,madame d',epinay and ,madame d',houdetot1 as with the dearer and humbler patroness of his youth1 we have now parted company4 ,but they are instantly succeeded by new devotees4 ,and the lovers of ,rousseau1 in all degrees1 were not silly women led captive by idle fancy4 ,madame de ,boufflers was one of the most distinguished spirits of her time4 ,her friendship for him was such1 that his sensuous vanity made ,rousseau against all reason or probability confound it with a warmer form of emotion1 and he plumes himself in a manner most displeasing on the victory which he won over his own feelings on the occasion4#ad ,as a matter of fact he had no feelings to conquer1 any more than the supposed object of them ever bore him any ill-will for his indifference1 as in his mania of suspicion he afterwards believed4 ,there was a calm about the too few years he passed at ,montmorency1 which leaves us in doubt whether this mania would ever have afflicted him1 if his natural irritation had not been made intense and irresistible by the cruel distractions that followed the publication of ,emilius4 ,he was tolerably content with his present friends4 ,the simplicity of their way of dealing with him contrasted singularly1 as he thought1 with the never-ending solicitudes1 as importunate as they were officious1 of the patronising friends whom he had just cast off4#ae ,perhaps1 too1 he was soothed by the companionship of persons whose rank may have flattered his vanity1 while unlike ,diderot and his old literary friends in ,paris1 they entered into no competition with him in the peculiar sphere of his own genius4 ,madame de ,boufflers1 indeed1 wrote a tragedy1 but he told her gruffly enough that it was a plagiarism from ,southerne's ,oroonoko4#af ,that ,rousseau was thoroughly capable of this pitiful emotion of sensitive literary jealousy is proved1 if by nothing else1 by his readiness to suspect that other authors were jealous of him4 ,no one suspects others of a meanness of this kind unless he is capable of it himself4 ,the resounding success which followed the ,new ,helosa and ,emilius put an end to these apprehensions4 ,it raised him to a pedestal in popular esteem as high as that on which ,voltaire stood triumphant4 ,that very success unfortunately brought troubles which destroyed ,rousseau's last chance of ending his days in full reasonableness4 ,meanwhile he enjoyed his final interval of moderate wholesomeness and peace4 ,he felt his old healthy joy in the green earth4 ,one of the letters commemorates his delight in the great scudding south-west winds of ,february1 soft forerunners of the spring1 so sweet to all who live with nature4#ag ,at the end of his garden was a summer-house1 and here even on wintry days he sat composing or copying4 ,it was not music only that he copied4 ,he took a curious pleasure in making transcripts of his romance1 and he sold them to the ,duchess of ,luxembourg and other ladies for some moderate fee4#ah ,sometimes he moved from his own lodging to the quarters in the park which his great friends had induced him to accept4 ,they were charmingly neat2 the furniture was of white and blue4 ,it was in this perfumed and delicious solitude1 in the midst of woods and streams and choirs of birds of every kind1 with the fragrance of the orange-flower poured round me1 that ,i composed in a continual ecstasy the fifth book of ,emilius4 ,with what eagerness did ,i hasten every morning at sunrise to breathe the balmy air6 ,what good coffee ,i used to make under the porch in company with my ,theresa6 ,the cat and the dog made up the party4 ,that would have sufficed me for all the days of my life1 and ,i should never have known weariness4 ,and so to the assurance1 so often repeated under so many different circumstances1 that here was a true heaven upon earth1 where if fates had only allowed he would have known unbroken innocence and lasting happiness4#ai ,yet he had the wisdom to warn others against attempting a life such as he craved for himself4 ,as on a more memorable occasion1 there came to him a young man who would fain have been with him always1 and whom he sent away exceeding sorrowful4 ,the first lesson ,i should give you would be not to surrender yourself to the taste you say you have for the contemplative life4 ,it is only an indolence of the soul1 to be condemned at any age1 but especially so at yours4 ,man is not made to meditate1 but to act4 ,labour therefore in the condition of life in which you have been placed by your family and by providence3 that is the first precept of the virtue which you wish to follow4 ,if residence at ,paris1 joined to the business you have there1 seems to you irreconcilable with virtue1 do better still1 and return to your own province4 ,go live in the bosom of your family1 serve and solace your honest parents4 ,there you will be truly fulfilling the duties that virtue imposes on you4#bj ,this intermixture of sound sense with unutterable perversities almost suggests a doubt how far the perversities were sincere1 until we remember that ,rousseau even in the most exalted part of his writings was careful to separate immediate practical maxims from his theoretical principles of social philosophy4#ba ,occasionally his good sense takes so stiff and unsympathetic a form as to fill us with a warmer dislike for him than his worst paradoxes inspire4 ,a correspondent had written to him about the frightful persecutions which were being inflicted on the ,protestants in some district of ,france4 ,rousseau's letter is a masterpiece in the style of ,eliphaz the ,temanite4 ,our brethren must surely have given some pretext for the evil treatment to which they were subjected4 ,one who is a ,christian must learn to suffer1 and every man's conduct ought to conform to his doctrine4 ,our brethren1 moreover1 ought to remember that the word of ,god is express upon the duty of obeying the laws set up by the prince4 ,the writer cannot venture to run any risk by interceding in favour of our brethren with the government4 ,every one has his own calling upon the earth2 mine is to tell the public harsh but useful truths4 ,i have preached humanity1 gentleness1 tolerance1 so far as it depended upon me2 'tis no fault of mine if the world has not listened4 ,i have made it a rule to keep to general truths2 ,i produce no libels1 no satires2 ,i attack no man1 but men2 not an action1 but a vice4#bb ,the worst of the worthy sort of people1 wrote ,voltaire1 is that they are such cowards3 a man groans over a wrong1 he holds his tongue1 he takes his supper1 and he forgets all about it4#bc ,if ,voltaire could not write like ,fnelon1 at least he could never talk like ,tartufe2 he responded to no tale of wrong with words about his mission1 with strings of antitheses1 but always with royal anger and the spring of alert and puissant endeavour4 ,in an hour of oppression one would rather have been the friend of the saviour of the ,calas and of ,sirven1 than of the vindicator of theism4 ,rousseau1 however1 had good sense enough in less equivocal forms than this4 ,for example1 in another letter he remonstrates with a correspondent for judging the rich too harshly4 ,you do not bear in mind that having from their childhood contracted a thousand wants which we are without1 then to bring them down to the condition of the poor1 would be to make them more miserable than the poor4 ,we should be just towards all the world1 even to those who are not just to us4 ,ah1 if we had the virtues opposed to the vices which we reproach in them1 we should soon forget that such people were in the world4 ,one word more4 ,to have any right to despise the rich1 we ought ourselves to be prudent and thrifty1 so as to have no need of riches4#bd ,in the observance of this just precept ,rousseau was to the end of his life absolutely without fault4 ,no one was more rigorously careful to make his independence sure by the fewness of his wants and by minute financial probity4 ,this firm limitation of his material desires was one cause of his habitual and almost invariable refusal to accept presents1 though no doubt another cause was the stubborn and ungracious egoism which made him resent every obligation4 ,it is worth remembering in illustration of the peculiar susceptibility and softness of his character where women were concerned--it was not quite without exception--that he did not fly into a fit of rage over their gifts1 as he did over those of men4 ,he remonstrated1 but in gentler key4 ,what could ,i do with four pullets8 he wrote to a lady who had presented them to him4 ,i began by sending two of them to people to whom ,i am indifferent4 ,that made me think of the difference there is between a present and a testimony of friendship4 ,the first will never find in me anything but a thankless heart2 the second4444 ,ah1 if you had only given me news of yourself without sending me anything else1 how rich and how grateful you would have made me2 instead of that the pullets are eaten1 and the best thing ,i can do is to forget all about them2 let us say no more4#be ,rude and repellent as this may seem1 and as it is1 there is a rough kind of playfulness about it1 when compared with the truculence which he was not slow to exhibit to men4 ,if a friend presumed to thank him for any service1 he was peremptorily rebuked for his ignorance of the true qualities of friendship1 with which thankfulness has no connection4 ,he ostentatiously refused to offer thanks for services himself1 even to a woman whom he always treated with so much consideration as the ,marchale de ,luxembourg4 ,he once declared boldly that modesty is a false virtue1#bf and though he did not go so far as to make gratitude the subject of a corresponding formula of denunciation1 he always implied that this too is really one of the false virtues4 ,he confessed to ,malesherbes1 without the slightest contrition1 that he was ungrateful by nature4#bg ,to ,madame d',epinay he once went still further1 declaring that he found it hard not to hate those who had used him well4#bh ,undoubtedly he was right so far as this1 that gratitude answering to a spirit of exaction in a benefactor is no merit2 a service done in expectation of gratitude is from that fact stripped of the quality which makes gratitude due1 and is a mere piece of egoism in altruistic disguise4 ,kindness in its genuine forms is a testimony of good feeling1 and conventional speech is perhaps a little too hard1 as well as too shallow and unreal1 in calling the recipient evil names because he is unable to respond to the good feeling4 ,rousseau protested against a conception of friendship which makes of what ought to be disinterested helpfulness a title to everlasting tribute4 ,his way of expressing this was harsh and unamiable1 but it was not without an element of uprightness and veracity4 ,as in his greater themes1 so in his paradoxes upon private relations1 he hid wholesome ingredients of rebuke to the unquestioning acceptance of common form4 ,i am well pleased1 he said to a friend1 both with thee and thy letters1 except the end1 where thou say'st thou art more mine than thine own4 ,for there thou liest1 and it is not worth while to take the trouble to thee and thou a man as thine intimate1 only to tell him untruths4#bi ,chesterfield was for people with much self-love of the small sort1 probably a more agreeable person to meet than ,doctor ,johnson1 but ,johnson was the more wholesome companion for a man4 ,occasionally1 though not very often1 he seems to have let spleen take the place of honest surliness1 and so drifted into clumsy and ill-humoured banter1 of a sort that gives a dreary shudder to one fresh from ,voltaire4 ,so you have chosen for yourself a tender and virtuous mistress6 ,i am not surprised2 all mistresses are that4 ,you have chosen her in ,paris6 ,to find a tender and virtuous mistress in ,paris is to have not such bad luck4 ,you have made her a promise of marriage8 ,my friend1 you have made a blunder2 for if you continue to love1 the promise is superfluous1 and if you do not1 then it is no avail4 ,you have signed it with your blood8 ,that is all but tragic2 but ,i don't know that the choice of the ink in which he writes1 gives anything to the fidelity of the man who signs4#cj ,we can only add that the health in which a man writes may possibly excuse the dismal quality of what he writes1 and that ,rousseau was now as always the prey of bodily pain which1 as he was conscious1 made him distraught4 ,my sufferings are not very excruciating just now1 he wrote on a later occasion1 but they are incessant1 and ,i am not out of pain a single moment day or night1 and this quite drives me mad4 ,i feel bitterly my wrong conduct and the baseness of my suspicions2 but if anything can excuse me1 it is my mournful state1 my loneliness1 and so on4#ca ,this prolonged physical anguish1 which was made more intense towards the end of #agfa by the accidental breaking of a surgical instrument1#cb sometimes so nearly wore his fortitude away as to make him think of suicide4#cc ,in ,lord ,edward's famous letter on suicide in the ,new ,helosa1 while denying in forcible terms the right of ending one's days merely to escape from intolerable mental distress1 he admits that inasmuch as physical disorders only grow incessantly worse1 violent and incurable bodily pain may be an excuse for a man making away with himself2 he ceases to be a human being before dying1 and in putting an end to his life he only completes his release from a body that embarrasses him1 and contains his soul no longer4#cd ,the thought was often present to him in this form4 ,eighteen months later than our last date1 the purpose grew very deliberate under an aggravation of his malady1 and he seriously looked upon his own case as falling within the conditions of ,lord ,edward's exception4#ce ,it is difficult1 in the face of outspoken declarations like these1 to know what writers can be thinking of when1 with respect to the controversy on the manner of ,rousseau's death1 they pronounce him incapable of such a dereliction of his own most cherished principles as anything like self-destruction would have been4 ,as he sat gnawed by pain1 with surgical instruments on his table1 and sombre thoughts of suicide in his head1 the ray of a little episode of romance shone in incongruously upon the scene4 ,two ladies in ,paris1 absorbed in the ,new ,helosa1 like all the women of the time1 identified themselves with the ,julie and the ,claire of the novel that none could resist4 ,they wrote anonymously to the author1 claiming their identification with characters fondly supposed to be immortal4 ,you will know that ,julie is not dead1 and that she lives to love you2 ,i am not this ,julie1 you perceive it by my style2 ,i am only her cousin1 or rather her friend1 as ,claire was4 ,the unfortunate ,saint ,preux responded as gallantly as he could be expected to do in the intervals of surgery4 ,you do not know that the ,saint ,preux to whom you write is tormented with a cruel and incurable disorder1 and that the very letter he writes to you is often interrupted by distractions of a very different kind4#cf ,he figures rather uncouthly1 but the unknown fair were not at first disabused1 and one of them never was4 ,rousseau was deeply suspicious4 ,he feared to be made the victim of a masculine pleasantry4 ,from women he never feared anything4 ,his letters were found too short1 too cold4 ,he replied to the remonstrance by a reference of extreme coarseness4 ,his correspondents wrote from the neighbourhood of the ,palais ,royal1 then and for long after the haunt of mercenary women4 ,you belong to your quarter more than ,i thought1 he said brutally4#cg ,the vulgarity of the lackey was never quite obliterated in him1 even when the lackey had written ,emilius4 ,this was too much for the imaginary ,claire4 ,i have given myself three good blows on my breast for the correspondence that ,i was silly enough to open between you1 she wrote to ,julie1 and she remained implacable4 ,the ,julie1 on the contrary1 was faithful to the end of ,rousseau's life4 ,she took his part vehemently in the quarrel with ,hume1 and wrote in defence of his memory after he was dead4 ,she is the most remarkable of all the instances of that unreasoning passion which the ,new ,helosa inflamed in the breasts of the women of that age4 ,madame ,latour pursued ,jean ,jacques with a devotion that no coldness could repulse4 ,she only saw him three times in all1 the first time not until #agff1 when he was on his way through ,paris to ,england4 ,the second time1 in #aggb1 she visited him without mentioning her name1 and he did not recognise her2 she brought him some music to copy1 and went away unknown4 ,she made another attempt1 announcing herself3 he gave her a frosty welcome1 and then wrote to her that she was to come no more4 ,with a strange fidelity she bore him no grudge1 but cherished his memory and sorrowed over his misfortunes to the day of her death4 ,he was not an idol of very sublime quality1 but we may think kindly of the idolatress4#ch ,worshippers are ever dearer to us than their graven images4 ,let us turn to the romance which touched women in this way1 and helped to give a new spirit to an epoch4 ,,ii4 ,as has been already said1 it is the business of criticism to separate what is accidental in form1 transitory in manner1 and merely local in suggestion1 from the general ideas which live under a casual and particular literary robe4 ,and so we have to distinguish the external conditions under which a book like the ,new ,helosa is produced1 from the living qualities in the author which gave the external conditions their hold upon him1 and turned their development in one direction rather than another4 ,we are only encouraging poverty of spirit1 when we insist on fixing our eyes on a few of the minuti of construction1 instead of patiently seizing larger impressions and more durable meanings2 when we stop at the fortuitous incidents of composition1 instead of advancing to the central elements of the writer's character4 ,these incidents in the case of the ,new ,helosa we know2 the sensuous communion with nature in her summer mood in the woods of ,montmorency1 the long hours and days of solitary expansion1 the despairing passion for the too sage ,julie of actual experience4 ,but the power of these impressions from without depended on secrets of conformation within4 ,an adult with marked character is1 consciously or unconsciously1 his own character's victim or sport4 ,it is his whole system of impulses1 ideas1 pre-occupations1 that make those critical situations ready1 into which he too hastily supposes that an accident has drawn him4 ,and this inner system not only prepares the situation2 it forces his interpretation of the situation4 ,much of the interest of the ,new ,helosa springs from the fact that it was the outcome1 in a sense of which the author himself was probably unconscious1 of the general doctrine of life and conduct which he only professed to expound in writings of graver pretension4 ,rousseau generally spoke of his romance in phrases of depreciation1 as the monument of a passing weakness4 ,it was in truth as entirely a monument of the strength1 no less than the weakness1 of his whole scheme1 as his weightiest piece4 ,that it was not so deliberately1 only added to its effect4 ,the slow and musing air which underlies all the assumption of ardent passion1 made a way for the doctrine into sensitive natures1 that would have been untouched by the pretended ratiocination of the ,discourses1 and the didactic manner of the ,emilius4 ,rousseau's scheme1 which we must carefully remember was only present to his own mind in an informal and fragmentary way1 may be shortly described as an attempt to rehabilitate human nature in as much of the supposed freshness of primitive times1 as the hardened crust of civil institutions and social use might allow4 ,in this survey1 however incoherently carried out1 the mutual passion of the two sexes was the very last that was likely to escape ,rousseau's attention4 ,hence it was with this that he began4 ,the ,discourses had been an attack upon the general ordering of society1 and an exposition of the mischief that society has done to human nature at large4 ,the romance treated one set of emotions in human nature particularly1 though it also touches the whole emotional sphere indirectly4 ,and this limitation of the field was accompanied by a total revolution in the method4 ,polemic was abandoned2 the presence of hostility was forgotten in appearance1 if not in the heart of the writer2 instead of discussion1 presentation2 instead of abstract analysis of principles1 concrete drawing of persons and dramatic delineation of passion4 ,there is1 it is true1 a monstrous superfluity of ethical exposition of most doubtful value1 but then that1 as we have already said1 was in the manners of the time4 ,all people in those days with any pretensions to use their minds1 wrote and talked in a superfine ethical manner1 and violently translated the dictates of sensibility into formulas of morality4 ,the important thing to remark is not that this semi-didactic strain is present1 but that there is much less of it1 and that it takes a far more subordinate place1 than the subject and the reigning taste would have led us to expect4 ,it is true1 also1 that ,rousseau declared his intention in the two characters of ,julie and of ,wolmar1 who eventually became ,julie's husband1 of leading to a reconciliation between the two great opposing parties1 the devout and the rationalistic2 of teaching them the lesson of reciprocal esteem1 by showing the one that it is possible to believe in a ,god without being a hypocrite1 and the other that it is possible to be an unbeliever without being a scoundrel4#ci ,this intention1 if it was really present to ,rousseau's mind while he was writing1 and not an afterthought characteristically welcomed for the sake of giving loftiness and gravity to a composition of which he was always a little ashamed1 must at any rate have been of a very pale kind4 ,it would hardly have occurred to a critic1 unless ,rousseau had so emphatically pointed it out1 that such a design had presided over the composition1 and contemporary readers saw nothing of it4 ,in the first part of the story1 which is wholly passionate1 it is certainly not visible1 and in the second part neither of the two contending factions was likely to learn any lesson with respect to the other4 ,churchmen would have insisted that ,wolmar was really a ,christian dressed up as an atheist1 and philosophers would hardly have accepted ,julie as a type of the too believing people who broke ,calas on the wheel1 and cut off ,la ,barre's head4 ,french critics tell us that no one now reads the ,new ,helosa in ,france except deliberate students of the works of ,rousseau1 and certainly few in this generation read it in our own country4#dj ,the action is very slight1 and the play of motives very simple1 when contrasted with the ingenuity of invention1 the elaborate subtleties of psychological analysis1 the power of rapid change from one perturbing incident or excited humour to another1 which mark the modern writer of sentimental fiction4 ,as the title warns us1 it is a story of a youthful tutor and a too fair disciple1 straying away from the lessons of calm philosophy into the heated places of passion4 ,the high pride of ,julie's father forbade all hope of their union1 and in very desperation the unhappy pair lost the self-control of virtue1 and threw themselves into the pit that lies so ready to our feet4 ,remorse followed with quick step1 for ,julie had with her purity lost none of the other lovelinesses of a dutiful character4 ,her lover was hurried away from the country by the generous solicitude of an ,english nobleman1 one of the bravest1 tenderest1 and best of men4 ,julie1 left undisturbed by her lover's presence1 stricken with affliction at the death of a sweet and affectionate mother1 and pressed by the importunities of a father whom she dearly loved1 in spite of all the disasters which his will had brought upon her1 at length consented to marry a foreign baron from some northern court4 ,wolmar was much older than she was2 a devotee of calm reason1 without a system and without prejudices1 benevolent1 orderly1 above all things judicious4 ,the lover meditated suicide1 from which he was only diverted by the arguments of ,lord ,edward1 who did more than argue2 he hurried the forlorn man on board the ship of ,admiral ,anson1 then just starting for his famous voyage round the world4 ,and this marks the end of the first episode4 ,rousseau always urged that his story was dangerous for young girls1 and maintained that ,richardson was grievously mistaken in supposing that they could be instructed by romances4 ,it was like setting fire to the house1 he said1 for the sake of making the pumps play4#da ,as he admitted so much1 he is not open to attack on this side1 except from those who hold the theory that no books ought to be written which may not prudently be put into the hands of the young1--a puerile and contemptible doctrine that must emasculate all literature and all art1 by excluding the most interesting of human relations and the most powerful of human passions4 ,there is not a single composition of the first rank outside of science1 from the ,bible downwards1 that could undergo the test4 ,the most useful standard for measuring the significance of a book in this respect is found in the manners of the time1 and the prevailing tone of contemporary literature4 ,in trying to appreciate the meaning of the ,new ,helosa and its popularity1 it is well to think of it as a delineation of love1 in connection not only with such a book as the ,pucelle1 where there is at least wit1 but with a story like ,duclos's1 which all ladies both read and were not in the least ashamed to acknowledge that they had read2 or still worse1 such an abomination as ,diderot's first stories2 or a story like ,laclos's1 which came a generation later1 and with its infinite briskness and devilry carried the tradition of artistic impurity to as vigorous a manifestation as it is capable of reaching4#db ,to a generation whose literature is as pure as the best ,english1 ,american1 and ,german literature is in the present day1 the ,new ,helosa might without doubt be corrupting4 ,to the people who read ,crbillon and the ,pucelle1 it was without doubt elevating4 ,the case is just as strong if we turn from books to manners4 ,without looking beyond the circle of names that occur in ,rousseau's own history1 we see how deep the depravity had become4 ,madame d',epinay's gallant sat at table with the husband1 and the husband was perfectly aware of the relations between them4 ,m4 d',epinay had notorious relations with two public women1 and was not ashamed to refer to them in the presence of his wife1 and even to seek her sympathy on an occasion when one of them was in some trouble4 ,not only this1 but husband and lover used to pursue their debaucheries in the town together in jovial comradeship4 ,an opera dancer presided at the table of a patrician abb in his country house1 and he passed weeks in her house in the town4 ,as for shame1 says ,barbier on one occasion1 'tis true the king has a mistress1 but who has not8--except the ,duke of ,orleans2 he has withdrawn to ,ste4 ,genevive1 and is thoroughly despised in consequence1 and rightly4#dc ,reeking disorder such as all this illustrates1 made the passion of the two imaginary lovers of the fair lake seem like a breath from the garden of ,eden4 ,one virtue was lost in that simple paradise1 but even that loss was followed by circumstances of mental pain and far circling distress1 which banished the sin into a secondary place2 and what remained to strike the imagination of the time were delightful pictures of fast union between two enchanting women1 of the patience and compassionateness of a grave mother1 of the chivalrous warmth and helpfulness of a loyal friend4 ,any one anxious to pick out sensual strokes and turns of grossness could make a small collection of such defilements from the ,new ,helosa without any difficulty4 ,they were in ,rousseau's character1 and so they came out in his work4 ,saint ,preux afflicts us with touches of this kind1 just as we are afflicted with similar touches in the ,confessions4 ,they were not noticed at that day1 when people's ears did not affect to be any chaster than the rest of them4 ,a historian of opinion is concerned with the general effect that was actually produced by a remarkable book1 and with the causes that produced it4 ,it is not his easy task to produce a demonstration that if the readers had all been as wise and as virtuous as the moralist might desire them to be1 or if they had all been discriminating and scientific critics1 not this1 but a very different impression would have followed4 ,today we may wonder at the effect of the ,new ,helosa4 ,a long story told in letters has grown to be a form incomprehensible and intolerable to us4 ,we find ,richardson hard to be borne1 and he put far greater vivacity and wider variety into his letters than ,rousseau did1 though he was not any less diffuse1 and he abounds in repetitions as ,rousseau does not4 ,rousseau was absolutely without humour2 that belongs to the keenly observant natures1 and to those who love men in the concrete1 not only humanity in the abstract4 ,the pleasantries of ,julie's cousin1 for instance1 are heavy and misplaced4 ,thus the whole book is in one key1 without the dramatic changes of ,richardson1 too few even as those are4 ,and who now can endure that antique fashion of apostrophising men and women1 hot with passion and eager with all active impulses1 in oblique terms of abstract qualities1 as if their passion and their activity were only the inconsiderable embodiment of fine general ideas8 ,we have not a single thrill1 when ,saint ,preux being led into the chamber where his mistress is supposed to lie dying1 murmurs passionately1 ,what shall ,i now see in the same place of refuge where once all breathed the ecstasy that intoxicated my soul1 in this same object who both caused and shared my transports6 the image of death1 virtue unhappy1 beauty expiring6#dd ,this rhetorical artificiality of phrase1 so repulsive to the more realistic taste of a later age1 was as natural then as that facility of shedding tears1 which appears so deeply incredible a performance to a generation that has lost that particular fashion of sensibility1 without realising for the honour of its ancestors the physiological truth of the power of the will over the secretions4 ,the characters seem as stiff as some of the language1 to us who are accustomed to an ,asiatic luxuriousness of delineation4 ,yet the ,new ,helosa was nothing less than the beginning of that fresh1 full1 highly-coloured style which has now taught us to find so little charm in the source and original of it4 ,saint ,preux is a personage whom no widest charity1 literary1 philosophic1 or ,christian1 can make endurable4 ,egoism is made thrice disgusting by a ceaseless redundance of fine phrases4 ,the exaggerated conceits of love in our old poets turn graciously on the lover's eagerness to offer every sacrifice at the feet of his mistress4 ,even ,werther1 stricken creature as he was1 yet had the stoutness to blow his brains out1 rather than be the instrument of surrounding the life of his beloved with snares4 ,saint ,preux's egoism is unbrightened by a single ray of tender abnegation1 or a single touch of the sweet humility of devoted passion4 ,the slave of his sensations1 he has no care beyond their gratification4 ,with some rotund nothing on his lips about virtue being the only path to happiness1 his heart burns with sickly desire4 ,he writes first like a pedagogue infected by some cantharidean philter1 and then like a pedagogue without the philter1 and that is the worse of the two4 ,lovelace and the ,count of ,valmont are manly and hopeful characters in comparison4 ,werther1 again1 at least represents a principle of rebellion1 in the midst of all his self-centred despair1 and he retains strength enough to know that his weakness is shameful4 ,his despair1 moreover1 is deeply coloured with repulsed social ambition4#de ,he feels the world about him4 ,his ,french prototype1 on the contrary1 represents nothing but the unalloyed selfishness of a sensual love for which there is no universe outside of its own fevered pulsation4 ,julie is much less displeasing1 partly perhaps for the reason that she belongs to the less displeasing sex4 ,at least1 she preserves fortitude1 self-control1 and profound considerateness for others4 ,at a certain point her firmness even moves a measure of enthusiasm4 ,if the ,new ,helosa could be said to have any moral intention1 it is here where women learn from the example of ,julie's energetic return to duty1 the possibility and the satisfaction of bending character back to comeliness and honour4 ,excellent as this is from a moral point of view1 the reader may wish that ,julie had been less of a preacher1 as well as less of a sinner4 ,and even as sinner1 she would have been more readily forgiven if she had been less deliberate4 ,a maiden who sacrifices her virtue in order that the visible consequences may force her parents to consent to a marriage1 is too strategical to be perfectly touching4 ,as was said by the cleverest1 though not the greatest1 of all the women whose youth was fascinated by ,rousseau1 when one has renounced the charms of virtue1 it is at least well to have all the charms that entire surrender of heart can bestow4#df ,in spite of this1 however1 ,julie struck the imagination of the time1 and struck it in a way that was thoroughly wholesome4 ,the type taught men some respect for the dignity of women1 and it taught women a firmer respect for themselves4 ,it is useless1 even if it be possible1 to present an example too lofty for the comprehension of an age4 ,at this moment the most brilliant genius in the country was filling ,france with impish merriment at the expense of the greatest heroine that ,france had then to boast4 ,in such an atmosphere ,julie had almost the halo of saintliness4 ,we may say all we choose about the inconsistency1 the excess of preaching1 the excess of prudence1 in the character of ,julie4 ,it was said pungently enough by the wits of the time4#dg ,nothing that could be said on all this affected the fact1 that the women between #agfj and the ,revolution were intoxicated by ,rousseau's creation to such a pitch that they would pay any price for a glass out of which ,rousseau had drunk1 they would kiss a scrap of paper that contained a piece of his handwriting1 and vow that no woman of true sensibility could hesitate to consecrate her life to him1 if she were only certain to be rewarded by his attachment4#dh ,the booksellers were unable to meet the demand4 ,the book was let out at the rate of twelve sous a volume1 and the volume could not be detained beyond an hour4 ,all classes shared the excitement1 courtiers1 soldiers1 lawyers1 and bourgeois4#di ,stories were told of fine ladies1 dressed for the ball1 who took the book up for half an hour until the time should come for starting2 they read until midnight1 and when informed that the carriage waited1 answered not a word1 and when reminded by and by that it was two o'clock1 still read on1 and then at four1 having ordered the horses to be taken out of the carriage1 disrobed1 went to bed1 and passed the remainder of the night in reading4 ,in ,germany the effect was just as astonishing4 ,kant only once in his life failed to take his afternoon walk1 and this unexampled omission was due to the witchery of the ,new ,helosa4 ,gallantry was succeeded by passion1 expansion1 exaltation2 moods far more dangerous for society1 as all enthusiasm is dangerous1 but also far higher and pregnant with better hopes for character4 ,to move the sympathetic faculties is the first step towards kindling all the other energies which make life wiser and more fruitful4 ,it is especially worth noticing that nothing in the character of ,julie concentrates this outburst of sympathy in subjective broodings4 ,julie is the representative of one recalled to the straight path by practical1 wholesome1 objective sympathy for others1 not of one expiring in unsatisfied yearnings for the sympathy of others for herself1 and in moonstruck subjective aspirations4 ,the women who wept over her romance read in it the lesson of duty1 not of whimpering introspection4 ,the danger lay in the mischievous intellectual direction which ,rousseau imparted to this effusion4 ,the stir which the ,julie communicated to the affections in so many ways1 marked progress1 but in all the elements of reason she was the most perilous of reactionaries4 ,so hard it is with the human mind1 constituted as it is1 to march forward a space further to the light1 without making some fresh swerve obliquely towards old darkness4 ,the great effusion of natural sentiment was in the air before the ,new ,helosa appeared1 to condense and turn it into definite channels4 ,one beautiful character1 ,vauven argues 7#agae-agdg71 had begun to teach the culture of emotional instinct in some sayings of exquisite sweetness and moderation1 as that ,great thoughts come from the heart4 ,but he came too soon1 and1 alas for us all1 he died young1 and he made no mark4 ,moderation never can make a mark in the epochs when men are beginning to feel the urgent spirit of a new time4 ,diderot strove with more powerful efforts1 in the midst of all his herculean labours for the acquisition and ordering of knowledge1 in the same direction towards the great outer world of nature1 and towards the great inner world of nature in the human breast4 ,his criticisms on the paintings of each year1 mediocre as the paintings were1 are admirable even now for their richness and freshness4 ,if ,diderot had been endowed with emotional tenacity1 as he was with tenacity of understanding and of purpose1 the student of the eighteenth century would probably have been spared the not perfectly agreeable task of threading a way along the sinuosities of the character and work of ,rousseau4 ,but ,rousseau had what ,diderot lacked--sustained ecstatic moods1 and fervid trances2 his literary gesture was so commanding1 his apparel so glistening1 his voice so rich in long-drawn notes of plangent vibration4 ,his words are the words of a prophet2 a prophet1 it is understood1 who had lived in ,paris1 and belonged to the eighteenth century1 and wrote in ,french instead of ,hebrew4 ,the mischief of his work lay in this1 that he raised feeling1 now passionate1 now quietest1 into the supreme place which it was to occupy alone1 and not on an equal throne and in equal alliance with understanding4 ,instead of supplementing reason1 he placed emotion as its substitute4 ,and he made this evil doctrine come from the lips of a fictitious character1 who stimulated fancy and fascinated imagination4 ,voltaire laughed at the baisers cres of ,madame de ,wolmar1 and declared that a criticism of the ,marquis of ,ximns had crushed the wretched romance4#ej ,but ,madame de ,wolmar was so far from crushed1 that she turned the flood of feeling which her own charms1 passion1 remorse1 and conversion had raised1 in a direction that ,voltaire abhorred1 and abhorred in vain4 ,it is after the marriage of ,julie to ,wolmar that the action of the story takes the turn which sensible men like ,voltaire found laughable4 ,saint ,preux is absent with ,admiral ,anson for some years4 ,on his return to ,europe he is speedily invited by the sage ,wolmar1 who knows his past history perfectly well1 to pay them a visit4 ,they all meet with leapings on the neck and hearty kisses1 the unprejudiced ,wolmar preserving an open1 serene1 and smiling air4 ,he takes his young friend to a chamber1 which is to be reserved for him and for him only4 ,in a few days he takes an opportunity of visiting some distant property1 leaving his wife and ,saint ,preux together1 with the sublime of magnanimity4 ,at the same time he confides to ,claire his intention of entrusting to ,saint ,preux the education of his children4 ,all goes perfectly well1 and the household presents a picture of contentment1 prosperity1 moderation1 affection1 and evenly diffused happiness1 which in spite of the disagreeableness of the situation is even now extremely charming4 ,there is only one cloud4 ,julie is devoured by a source of hidden chagrin4 ,her husband1 so sage1 so reasonable1 so far from every kind of vice1 so little under the influence of human passions1 is without the only belief that makes virtue precious1 and in the innocence of an irreproachable life he carries at the bottom of his heart the frightful peace of the wicked4#ea ,he is an atheist4 ,julie is now a pietest1 locking herself for hours in her chambers1 spending days in self-examination and prayer1 constantly reading the pages of the good ,fnelon4#eb ,i fear1 she writes to ,saint ,preux1 that you do not gain all you might from religion in the conduct of your life1 and that philosophic pride disdains the simplicity of the ,christian4 ,you believe prayers to be of scanty service4 ,that is not1 you know1 the doctrine of ,saint ,paul1 nor what our ,church professes4 ,we are free1 it is true1 but we are ignorant1 feeble1 prone to ill4 ,and whence should light and force come1 if not from him who is their very well-spring8444 ,let us be humble1 to be sage2 let us see our weakness1 and we shall be strong4#ec ,this was the opening of the deistical reaction2 it was thus1 associated with everything that struck imagination and moved the sentiment of his readers1 that ,rousseau brought back those sophistical conclusions which ,pascal had drawn from premisses of dark profound truth1 and that enervating displacement of reason by celestial contemplation1 which ,fnelon had once made beautiful by the persuasion of virtuous example4 ,he was justified in saying1 as he afterwards did1 that there was nothing in the ,savoyard ,vicar's ,profession of ,faith which was not to be found in the letters of ,julie4 ,these were the effective preparations for that more famous manifesto2 they surrounded belief with all the attractions of an interesting and sympathetic preacher1 and set it to a harmony of circumstance that touched softer fibres4 ,for1 curiously enough1 while the first half of the romance is a scene of disorderly passion1 the second is the glorification of the family4 ,a modern writer of genius has inveighed with whimsical bitterness against the character of ,wolmar1--supposed1 we may notice in passing1 to be partially drawn from ,d',holbach1--a man performing so long an experiment on these two souls1 with the terrible curiosity of a surgeon engaged in vivisection4#ed ,it was1 however1 much less difficult for contemporaries than it is for us to accept so unwholesome and prurient a situation4 ,they forgot all the evil that was in it1 in the charm of the account of ,wolmar's active1 peaceful1 frugal1 sunny household4 ,the influence of this was immense4#ee ,it may be that the overstrained scene where ,saint ,preux waits for ,julie in her room1 suggested the far lovelier passage of ,faust in the chamber of the hapless ,margaret4 ,but we may1 at least1 be sure that ,werther 7#aggd7 would not have found ,charlotte cutting bread and butter1 if ,saint ,preux had not gone to see ,julie take cream and cakes with her children and her female servants4 ,and perhaps the other and nobler ,charlotte of the ,wahlverwandtschaften 7#ahji7 would not have detained us so long with her moss hut1 her terrace1 her park prospect1 if ,julie had not had her elysium1 where the sweet freshness of the air1 the cool shadows1 the shining verdure1 flowers diffusing fragrance and colour1 water running with soft whisper1 and the song of a thousand birds1 reminded the returned traveller of ,tinian and ,juan ,fernandez4 ,there is an animation1 a variety1 an accuracy1 a realistic brightness in this picture1 which will always make it enchanting1 even to those who cannot make their way through any other letter in the ,new ,helosa4#ef ,such qualities place it as an idyllic piece far above such pieces in ,goethe's two famous romances4 ,they have a clearness and spontaneous freshness which are not among the bountiful gifts of ,goethe4 ,there are other admirable landscapes in the ,new ,helosa1 though not too many of them1 and the minute and careful way in which ,rousseau made their features real to himself1 is accidentally shown in his urgent prayer for exactitude in the engraving of the striking scene where ,saint ,preux and ,julie visit the monuments of their old love for one another4#eg ,i have traversed all ,rousseau's ground with the ,helosa before me1 said ,byron1 and am struck to a degree ,i cannot express1 with the force and accuracy of his descriptions and the beauty of their reality4#eh ,they were memories made true by long dreaming1 by endless brooding4 ,the painter lived with these scenes ever present to the inner eye4 ,they were his real world1 of which the tamer world of meadow and woodland actually around him only gave suggestion4 ,he thought of the green steeps1 the rocks1 the mountain pines1 the waters of the lake1 the populous solitude of bees and birds1 as of some divine presence1 too sublime for personality4 ,and they were always benign1 standing in relief with the malignity or folly of the hurtful insect1 ,man4 ,he was never a manichan towards nature4 ,to him she was all good and bounteous4 ,the demon forces that so fascinated ,byron were to ,rousseau invisible4 ,these were the compositions that presently inspired the landscapes of ,paul and ,virginia 7#aghh71 of ,atala and ,ren 7#ahja71 and of ,obermann 7#ahjd71 as well as those punier imitators who resemble their masters as the hymns of a methodist negro resemble the psalms of ,david4 ,they were the outcome of eager and spontaneous feeling for nature1 and not the mere hackneyed common-form and inflated description of the literary pastoral4#ei ,this leads to another great and important distinction to be drawn between ,rousseau and the school whom in other respects he inspired4 ,the admirable ,sainte ,beuve perplexes one by his strange remark1 that the union of the poetry of the family and the hearth with the poetry of nature is essentially wanting to ,rousseau4#fj ,it only shows that the great critic had for the moment forgotten the whole of the second part of the ,new ,helosa1 and his failure to identify ,cowper's allusion to the matine l'anglaise certainly proves that he had at any rate forgotten one of the most striking and delicious scenes of the hearth in ,french literature4#fa ,the tendency to read ,rousseau only in the ,byronic sense is one of those foregone conclusions which are constantly tempting the critic to travel out of his record4 ,rousseau assuredly had a ,byronic side1 but he is just as often a ,cowper done into splendid prose4 ,his pictures are full of social animation and domestic order4 ,he had exalted the simplicity of the savage state in his ,discourses1 but when he came to constitute an ideal life1 he found it in a household that was more1 and not less1 systematically disciplined than those of the common society around him4 ,the paradise in which his ,julie moved with ,wolmar and ,saint ,preux1 was no more and no less than an establishment of the best kind of the rural middle-class1 frugal1 decorous1 wholesome1 tranquilly austere4 ,no most sentimental savage could have found it endurable1 or could himself without profound transformation of his manners have been endured in it4 ,the ,new ,helosa ends by exalting respectability1 and putting the spirit of insurrection to shame4 ,self-control1 not revolt1 is its last word4 ,this is what separates ,rousseau here and throughout from ,snancour1 ,byron1 and the rest4 ,he consummates the triumph of will1 while their reigning mood is grave or reckless protest against impotence of will1 the little worth of common aims1 the fretting triviality of common rules4 ,franklin or ,cobbett might have gloried in the regularity of ,madame de ,wolmar's establishment4 ,the employment of the day was marked out with precision4 ,by artful adjustment of pursuits1 it was contrived that the men-servants should be kept apart from the maid-servants1 except at their repasts4 ,the women1 namely1 a cook1 a housemaid1 and a nurse1 found their pastime in rambles with their mistress and her children1 and lived mainly with them4 ,the men were amused by games for which their master made regulated provision1 now for summer1 now for winter1 offering prizes of a useful kind for prowess and adroitness4 ,often on a ,sunday night all the household met in an ample chamber1 and passed the evening in dancing4 ,when ,saint ,preux inquired whether this was not a rather singular infraction of puritan rule1 ,julie wisely answered that pure morality is so loaded with severe duties1 that if you add to them the further burden of indifferent forms1 it must always be at the cost of the essential4#fb ,the servants were taken from the country1 never from the town4 ,they entered the household young1 were gradually trained1 and never went away except to establish themselves4 ,the vulgar and obvious criticism on all this is that it is utopian1 that such households do not generally exist1 because neither masters nor servants possess the qualities needed to maintain these relations of unbroken order and friendliness4 ,perhaps not2 and masters and servants will be more and more removed from the possession of such qualities1 and their relations further distant from such order and friendliness1 if writers cease to press the beauty and serviceableness of a domesticity that is at present only possible in a few rare cases1 or to insist on the ugliness1 the waste of peace1 the deterioration of character1 that are the results of our present system4 ,undoubtedly it is much easier for ,rousseau to draw his picture of semi-patriarchal felicity1 than for the rest of us to realise it4 ,it was his function to press ideals of sweeter life on his contemporaries1 and they may be counted fortunate in having a writer who could fulfil this function with ,rousseau's peculiar force of masterly persuasion4 ,his scornful diatribes against the domestic police of great houses1 and the essential inhumanity of the ordinary household relations1 are both excellent and of permanent interest4 ,there is the full breath of a new humaneness in them4 ,they were the right way of attacking the decrepitude of feudal luxury and insolence1 and its imitation among the great farmers-general4 ,this criticism of the conditions of domestic service marks a beginning of true democracy1 as distinguished from the mere pulverisation of aristocracy4 ,it rests on the claim of the common people to an equal consideration1 as equally useful and equally capable of virtue and vice2 and it implies the essential priority of social over political reform4 ,the story abounds in sumptuary detail4 ,the table partakes of the general plenty1 but this plenty is not ruinous4 ,the senses are gratified without daintiness4 ,the food is common1 but excellent of its kind4 ,the service is simple1 yet exquisite4 ,all that is mere show1 all that depends on vulgar opinion1 all fine and elaborate dishes whose value comes of their rarity1 and whose names you must know before finding any goodness in them1 are banished without recall4 ,even in such delicacies as they permit themselves1 our friends abstain every day from certain things which are reserved for feasts on special occasions1 and which are thus made more delightful without being more costly4 ,what do you suppose these delicacies are8 ,rare game1 or fish from the sea1 or dainties from abroad8 ,better than all that2 some delicious vegetable of the district1 one of the savoury things that grow in our garden1 some fish from the lake dressed in a peculiar way1 some cheese from our mountains4 ,the service is modest and rustic1 but clean and smiling4 ,neither gold-laced liveries in sight of which you die of hunger1 nor tall crystals laden with flowers for your only dessert1 here take the place of honest dishes4 ,here people have not the art of nourishing the stomach through the eyes1 but they know how to add grace to good cheer1 to eat heartily without inconvenience1 to drink merrily without losing reason1 to sit long at table without weariness1 and always to rise from it without disgust4#fc ,one singularity in this ideal household was the avoidance of those middle exchanges between production and consumption1 which enrich the shopkeeper but impoverish his customers4 ,not one of these exchanges is made without loss1 and the multiplication of these losses would weaken even a man of fortune4 ,wolmar seeks those real exchanges in which the convenience of each party to the bargain serves as profit for both4 ,thus the wool is sent to the factories1 from which they receive cloth in exchange2 wine1 oil1 and bread are produced in the house2 the butcher pays himself in live cattle2 the grocer receives grain in return for his goods2 the wages of the labourers and the house-servants are derived from the produce of the land which they render valuable4#fd ,it was reserved for ,fourier1 ,cabet1 and the rest1 to carry to its highest point this confusion of what is so fascinating in a book with what is practicable in society4 ,the expatiation on the loveliness of a well-ordered interior may strike the impatient modern as somewhat long1 and the movement as very slow1 just as people complain of the same things in ,goethe's ,wahlverwandtschaften4 ,such complaint only proves inability1 which is or is not justifiable1 to seize the spirit of the writer4 ,the expatiation was long and the movement slow1 because ,rousseau was full of his thoughts2 they were a deep and glowing part of himself1 and did not merely skim swiftly and lightly through his mind4 ,anybody who takes the trouble may find out the difference between this expression of long mental brooding1 and a merely elaborated diction4#fe ,the length is an essential part of the matter4 ,the whole work is the reflection of a series of slow inner processes1 the many careful weavings of a lonely and miserable man's dreams4 ,and ,julie expressed the spirit and the joy of these dreams when she wrote1 ,people are only happy before they are happy4 ,man1 so eager and so feeble1 made to desire all and obtain little1 has received from heaven a consoling force which brings all that he desires close to him1 which subjects it to his imagination1 which makes it sensible and present before him1 which delivers it over to him4 ,the land of chimera is the only one in this world that is worth dwelling in1 and such is the nothingness of the human lot1 that except the being who exists in and by himself1 there is nothing beautiful except that which does not exist4#ff ,closely connected with the vigorous attempt to fascinate his public with the charm of a serene1 joyful1 and ordered house1 is the restoration of marriage in the ,new ,helosa to a rank among high and honourable obligations1 and its representation as the best support of an equable life of right conduct and fruitful harmonious emotion4 ,rousseau even invested it with the mysterious dignity as of some natural sacrament4 ,this chaste knot of nature is subject neither to the sovereign power nor to paternal authority1 he cried1 but only to the authority of the common ,father4 ,and he pointed his remark by a bitter allusion to a celebrated case in which a great house had prevailed on the courts to annul the marriage of an elder son with a young actress1 though her character was excellent1 and though she had befriended him when he was abandoned by everybody else4#fg ,this was one of the countless democratic thrusts in the book4 ,in the case of its heroine1 however1 the author associated the sanctity of marriage not only with equality but with religion4 ,we may imagine the spleen with which the philosophers1 with both their hatred of the faith1 and their light esteem of marriage bonds1 read ,julie's eloquent account of her emotions at the moment of her union with ,wolmar4 ,i seemed to behold the organ of ,providence and to hear the voice of ,god1 as the minister gravely pronounced the words of the holy service4 ,the purity1 the dignity1 the sanctity of marriage1 so vividly set forth in the words of scripture2 its chaste and sublime duties1 so important to the happiness1 order1 and peace of the human race1 so sweet to fulfil even for their own sake--all this made such an impression on me that ,i seemed to feel within my breast a sudden revolution4 ,an unknown power seemed all at once to arrest the disorder of my affections1 and to restore them to accordance with the law of duty and of nature4 ,the eternal eye that sees everything1 ,i said to myself1 now reads to the depth of my heart4#fh ,she has all the well-known fervour of the proselyte1 and never wearies of extolling the peace of the wedded state4 ,love is no essential to its perfection4 ,worth1 virtue1 a certain accord not so much in condition and age as in character and temper1 are enough between husband and wife2 and this does not prevent the growth from such a union of a very tender attachment1 which is none the less sweet for not being exactly love1 and is all the more lasting4#fi ,years after1 when ,saint ,preux has returned and is settled in the household1 she even tries to persuade him to imitate her example1 and find contentment in marriage with her cousin4 ,the earnestness with which she presses the point1 the very sensible but not very delicate references to the hygienic drawbacks of celibacy1 and the fact that the cousin whom she would fain have him marry1 had complaisantly assisted them in their past loves1 naturally drew the fire of ,rousseau's critical enemies4 ,such matters did not affect the general enthusiasm4 ,when people are weary of a certain way of surveying life1 and have their faces eagerly set in some new direction1 they read in a book what it pleases them to read2 they assimilate as much as falls in with their dominant mood1 and the rest passes away unseen4 ,the ,french public were bewitched by ,julie1 and were no more capable of criticising her than ,julie was capable of criticising ,saint ,preux in the height of her passion for him4 ,when we say that ,rousseau was the author of this movement1 all we mean is that his book and its chief personage awoke emotion to self-consciousness1 gave it a dialect1 communicated an impulse in favour of social order1 and then very calamitously at the same moment divorced it from the fundamental conditions of progress1 by divorcing it from disciplined intelligence and scientific reason4 ,apart from the general tendency of the ,new ,helosa in numberless indirect ways to bring the manners of the great into contempt1 by the presentation of the happiness of a simple and worthy life1 thrifty1 self-sufficing1 and homely1 there is one direct protest of singular eloquence and gravity4 ,julie's father is deeply revolted at the bare notion of marrying his daughter to a teacher4 ,rousseau puts his vigorous remonstrance against pride of birth into the mouth of an ,english nobleman4 ,this is perhaps an infelicitous piece of prosopopoeia1 but it is interesting as illustrative of the idea of ,england in the eighteenth century as the home of stout-hearted freedom4 ,we may quote one piece from the numerous bits of very straightforward speaking in which our representative expressed his mind as to the significance of birth4 ,my friend has nobility1 cried ,lord ,edward1 not written in ink on mouldering parchments1 but graven in his heart in characters that can never be effaced4 ,for my own part1 by ,god1 ,i should be sorry to have no other proof of my merit but that of a man who has been in his grave these five hundred years4 ,if you know the ,english nobility1 you know that it is the most enlightened1 the best informed1 the wisest1 the bravest in ,europe4 ,that being so1 ,i don't care to ask whether it is the oldest or not4 ,we are not1 it is true1 the slaves of the prince1 but his friends2 nor the tyrants of the people1 but their leaders4 ,we hold the balance true between people1 and monarch4 ,our first duty is towards the nation1 our second towards him who governs2 it is not his will but his right that we consider4444 ,we suffer no one in the land to say ,god and my sword1 nor more than this1 ,god and my right4#gj ,all this was only putting ,montesquieu into heroics1 it is true1 but a great many people read the romance who were not likely to read the graver book4 ,and there was a wide difference between the calm statement of a number of political propositions about government1 and their transformation into dramatic invective against the arrogance of all social inequality that does not correspond with inequalities of worth4 ,there is no contradiction between this and the social quietism of other parts of the book4 ,moral considerations and the paramount place that they hold in ,rousseau's way of thinking1 explain at once his contempt for the artificial privileges and assumptions of high rank1 and his contempt for anything like discontent with the conditions of humble rank4 ,simplicity of life was his ideal4 ,he wishes us to despise both those who have departed from it1 and those who would depart from it if they could4 ,so ,julie does her best to make the lot of the peasants as happy as it is capable of being made1 without ever helping them to change it for another4 ,she teaches them to respect their natural condition in respecting themselves4 ,her prime maxim is to discourage change of station and calling1 but above all to dissuade the villager1 whose life is the happiest of all1 from leaving the true pleasures of his natural career for the fever and corruption of towns4#ga ,presently a recollection of the sombre things that he had seen in his rambles through ,france crossed ,rousseau's pastoral visions1 and he admitted that there were some lands in which the publican devours the fruits of the earth2 where the misery that covers the fields1 the bitter greed of some grasping farmer1 the inflexible rigour of an inhuman master1 take something from the charm of his rural scenes4 ,worn-out horses ready to expire under the blows they receive1 wretched peasants attenuated by hunger1 broken by weariness1 clad in rags1 hamlets all in ruins--these things offer a mournful spectacle to the eye3 one is almost sorry to be a man1 as we think of the unhappy creatures on whose blood we have to feed4#gb ,yet there is no hint in the ,new ,helosa of the socialism which ,morelly and ,mably flung themselves upon1 as the remedy for all these desperate horrors4 ,property1 in every page of the ,new ,helosa1 is held in full respect2 the master has the honourable burden of patriarchal duty2 the servant the not less honourable burden of industry and faithfulness2 disobedience or vice is promptly punished with paternal rigour and more than paternal inflexibility4 ,the insurrectionary quality and effect of ,rousseau's work lay in no direct preaching or vehement denunciation of the abuses that filled ,france with cruelty on the one hand and sodden misery on the other4 ,it lay in pictures of a social state in which abuses and cruelty cannot exist1 nor any miseries save those which are inseparable from humanity4 ,the contrast between the sober1 cheerful1 prosperous scenes of romance1 and the dreariness of the reality of the field life of ,france1--this was the element that filled generous souls with an intoxicating transport4 ,rousseau's way of dealing with the portentous questions that lay about that tragic scene of deserted fields1 ruined hamlets1 tottering brutes1 and hunger-stricken men1 may be gathered from one of the many traits in ,julie which endeared her to that generation1 and might endear her even to our own if it only knew her4 ,wolmar's house was near a great high-road1 and so was daily haunted by beggars4 ,not one of these was allowed to go empty away4 ,and ,julie had as many excellent reasons to give for her charity1 as if she had been one of the philosophers of whom she thought so surpassingly ill4 ,if you look at mendicancy merely as a trade1 what is the harm of a calling whose end is to nourish feelings of humanity and brotherly love8 ,from the point of view of talent1 why should ,i not pay the eloquence of a beggar who stirs my pity1 as highly as that of a player who makes me shed tears over imaginary sorrows8 ,if the great number of beggars is burdensome to the state1 of how many other professions that people encourage1 may you not say the same8 ,how can ,i be sure that the man to whom ,i give alms is not an honest soul1 whom ,i may save from perishing8 ,in short1 whatever we may think of the poor wretches1 if we owe nothing to the beggar1 at least we owe it to ourselves to pay honour to suffering humanity or to its image4#gc ,nothing could be more admirably illustrative of the author's confidence that the first thing for us to do is to satisfy our fine feelings1 and that then all the rest shall be added unto us4 ,the doctrine spread so far1 that ,necker1--a sort of ,julie in a frock-coat1 who had never fallen1 the incarnation of this doctrine on the great stage of affairs1--was hailed to power to ward off the bankruptcy of the state by means of a good heart and moral sentences1 while ,turgot with science and firmness for his resources was driven away as an economist and a philosopher4 ,at a first glance1 it may seem that there was compensation for the triumph of sentiment over reason1 and that if ,france was ruined by the dreams in which ,rousseau encouraged the nation to exult1 she was saved by the fervour and resoluteness of the aspirations with which he filled the most generous of her children4 ,no wide movement1 we may be sure1 is thoroughly understood until we have mastered both its material and its ideal sides4 ,materially1 ,rousseau's work was inevitably fraught with confusion because in this sphere not to be scientific1 not to be careful in tracing effects to their true causes1 is to be without any security that the causes with which we try to deal will lead to the effects that we desire4 ,a ,roman statesman who had gone to the ,sermon on the ,mount for a method of staying the economic ruin of the empire1 its thinning population1 its decreasing capital1 would obviously have found nothing of what he sought4 ,but the moral nature of man is redeemed by teaching that may have no bearing on economics1 or even a bearing purely mischievous1 and which has to be corrected by teaching that probably goes equally far in the contrary direction of moral mischief4 ,in the ideal sphere1 the processes are very complex4 ,in measuring a man's influence within it we have to balance4 ,rousseau's action was undoubtedly excellent in leading men and women to desire simple lives1 and a more harmonious social order4 ,was this eminent benefit more than counterbalanced by the eminent disadvantage of giving a reactionary intellectual direction8 ,by commending irrational retrogression from active use of the understanding back to dreamy contemplation8 ,to one teacher is usually only one task allotted4 ,we do not reproach want of science to the virtuous and benevolent ,channing2 his goodness and effusion stirred women and the young1 just as ,rousseau did1 to sentimental but humane aspiration4 ,it was this kind of influence that formed the opinion which at last destroyed ,american slavery4 ,we owe a place in the temple that commemorates human emancipation1 to every man who has kindled in his generation a brighter flame of moral enthusiasm1 and a more eager care for the realisation of good and virtuous ideals4 ,,iii4 ,the story of the circumstances of the publication of ,emilius and the persecution which befell its author in consequence1 recalls us to the distinctively evil side of ,french history in this critical epoch1 and carries us away from light into the thick darkness of political intrigue1 obscurantist faction1 and a misgovernment which was at once tyrannical and decrepit4 ,it is almost impossible for us to realise the existence in the same society of such boundless license of thought1 and such unscrupulous restraint upon its expression4 ,not one of ,rousseau's three chief works1 for instance1 was printed in ,france4 ,the whole trade in books was a sort of contraband1 and was carried on with the stealth1 subterfuge1 daring1 and knavery that are demanded in contraband dealings4 ,an author or a bookseller was forced to be as careful as a kidnapper of coolies or the captain of a slaver would be in our own time4 ,he had to steer clear of the court1 of the parliament1 of ,jansenists1 of ,jesuits1 of the mistresses of the king and the minister1 of the friends of the mistresses1 and above all of that organised hierarchy of ignorance and oppression in all times and places where they raise their masked heads1--the bishops and ecclesiastics of every sort and condition4 ,palissot produced his comedy to please the devout at the expense of the philosophers 7#agfj74 ,madame de ,robecq1 daughter of ,rousseau's marshal of ,luxembourg1 instigated and protected him1 for ,diderot had offended her4#gd ,morellet replied in a piece in which the keen vision of feminine spite detected a reference to ,madame de ,robecq4 ,though dying1 she still had relations with ,choiseul1 and so ,morellet was flung into the ,bastile4#ge ,diderot was thrown for three months into ,vincennes1 where we saw him on a memorable occasion1 for his ,letter on the ,blind 7#agdh71 nominally because it was held to contain irreligious doctrine1 really because he had given offence to ,d',argenson's mistress by hinting that she might be very handsome1 but that her judgment on scientific experiment was of no value4#gf ,the ,new ,helosa could not openly circulate in ,france so long as it contained the words1 ,i would rather be the wife of a charcoal-burner than the mistress of a king4 ,the last word was altered to prince1 and then ,rousseau was warned that he would offend the ,prince de ,conti and ,madame de ,boufflers4#gg ,no work of merit could appear without more or less of slavish mutilation1 and no amount of slavish mutilation could make the writer secure against the accidental grudge of people who had influence in high quarters4#gh ,if ,french booksellers in the stirring intellectual time of the eighteenth century needed all the craft of a smuggler1 their morality was reduced to an equally low level in dealing not only with the police1 but with their own accomplices1 the book-writers4 ,they excused themselves from paying proper sums to authors1 on the ground that they were robbed of the profits that would enable them to pay such sums1 by the piracy of their brethren in trade4 ,but then they all pirated the works of one another4 ,the whole commerce was a mass of fraud and chicane1 and every prominent author passed his life between two fires4 ,he was robbed1 his works were pirated1 and1 worse than robbery and piracy1 they were defaced and distorted by the booksellers4 ,on the other side he was tormented to death by the suspicion and timidity1 alternately with the hatred and active tyranny of the administration4 ,as we read the story of the lives of all these strenuous men1 their struggles1 their incessant mortifications1 their constantly reviving and ever irrepressible vigour and interest in the fight1 we may wish that the shabbiness and the pettiness of the daily lives of some of them had faded away from memory1 and left us nothing to think of in connection with their names but the alertness1 courage1 tenacity1 self-sacrifice1 and faith with which they defended the cause of human emancipation and progress4 ,happily the mutual hate of the ,christian factions1 to which liberty owes at least as much as charity owes to their mutual love1 prevented a common union for burning the philosophers as well as their books4 ,all torments short of this they endured1 and they had the great merit of enduring them without any hope of being rewarded after their death1 as truly good men must always be capable of doing4 ,rousseau had no taste for martyrdom1 nor any intention of courting it in even its slightest forms4 ,holland was now the great printing press of ,france1 and when we are counting up the contributions of ,protestantism to the enfranchisement of ,europe1 it is just to remember the indispensable services rendered by the freedom of the press in ,holland to the dissemination of ,french thought in the eighteenth century1 as well as the shelter that it gave to the ,french thinkers in the seventeenth1 including ,descartes1 the greatest of them all4 ,the monstrous tediousness of printing a book at ,amsterdam or the ,hague1 the delay1 loss1 and confusion in receiving and transmitting the proofs1 and the subterranean character of the entire process1 including the circulation of the book after it was once fairly printed1 were as grievous to ,rousseau as to authors of more impetuous temper4 ,he agreed with ,rey1 for instance1 the ,amsterdam printer1 to sell him the ,social ,contract for #ajjj francs4 ,the manuscript had then to be cunningly conveyed to ,amsterdam4 ,rousseau wrote it out in very small characters1 sealed it carefully up1 and entrusted it to the care of the chaplain of the ,dutch embassy1 who happened to be a native of ,vaud4 ,in passing the barrier1 the packet fell into the hands of the officials4 ,they tore it open and examined it1 happily unconscious that they were handling the most explosive kind of gunpowder that they had ever meddled with4 ,it was not until the chaplain claimed it in the name of ambassadorial privilege1 that the manuscript was allowed to go on its way to the press4#gi ,rousseau repeats a hundred times1 not only in the ,confessions1 but also in letters to his friends1 how resolutely and carefully he avoided any evasion of the laws of the country in which he lived4 ,the ,french government was anxious enough on all grounds to secure for ,france the production of the books of which ,france was the great consumer1 but the severity of its censorship prevented this4#hj ,the introduction of the books1 when printed1 was tolerated or connived at1 because the country would hardly have endured to be deprived of the enjoyment of its own literature4 ,by a greater inconsistency the reprinting of a book which had once found admission into the country1 was also connived at4 ,thus ,m4 de ,malesherbes1 out of friendship for ,rousseau1 wished to have an edition of the ,new ,helosa printed in ,france1 and sold for the benefit of the author4 ,that he should have done so is a curious illustration of the low morality engendered by a repressive system imperfectly carried out4 ,for ,rousseau had sold the book to ,rey4 ,rey had treated with a ,french bookseller in the usual way1 that is1 had sent him half the edition printed1 the bookseller paying either in cash or other books for all the copies he received4 ,therefore to print an independent edition in ,paris was to injure1 not ,rey the foreigner1 but the ,french bookseller who stood practically in ,rey's place4 ,it was setting two ,french booksellers to ruin one another4 ,rousseau emphatically declined to receive any profit from such a transaction4 ,but1 said ,malesherbes1 you sold to ,rey a right which you had not got1 the right of sole proprietorship1 excluding the competition of a pirated reprint4 ,then1 answered ,rousseau1 if the right which ,i sold happens to prove less than ,i thought1 it is clear that far from taking advantage of my mistake1 ,i owe to ,rey compensation for any loss that he may suffer4#ha ,the friendship of ,malesherbes for the party of reason was shown on numerous occasions4 ,as director of the book trade he was really the censor of the literature of the time4#hb ,the story of his service to ,diderot is well known--how he warned ,diderot that the police were about to visit his house and overhaul his papers1 and how when ,diderot despaired of being able to put them out of sight in his narrow quarters1 ,malesherbes said1 ,then send them all to me1 and took care of them until the storm was overpast4 ,the proofs of the ,new ,helosa came through his hands1 and now he made himself ,rousseau's agent in the affairs relative to the printing of ,emilius4 ,rousseau entrusted the whole matter to him and to ,madame de ,luxembourg1 being confident that1 in acting through persons of such authority and position1 he should be protected against any unwitting illegality4 ,instead of being sent to ,rey1 the manuscript was sold to a bookseller in ,paris for six thousand francs4#hc ,a long time elapsed before any proofs reached the author1 and he soon perceived that an edition was being printed in ,france as well as in ,holland4 ,still1 as ,malesherbes was in some sort the director of the enterprise1 the author felt no alarm4 ,duclos came to visit him one day1 and ,rousseau read aloud to him the ,savoyard ,vicar's ,profession of ,faith4 ,what1 citizen1 he cried1 and that is part of a book that they are printing at ,paris6 ,be kind enough not to tell any one that you read this to me4#hd ,still ,rousseau remained secure4 ,then the printing came to a standstill1 and he could not find out the reason1 because ,malesherbes was away1 and the printer did not take the trouble to answer his letters4 ,my natural tendency1 he says1 and as the rest of his life only too abundantly proved1 is to be afraid of darkness2 mystery always disturbs me1 it is utterly antipathetic to my character1 which is open even to the pitch of imprudence4 ,the aspect of the most hideous monster would alarm me little1 ,i verily believe2 but if ,i discern at night a figure in a white sheet1 ,i am sure to be terrified out of my life4#he ,so he at once fancied that by some means the ,jesuits had got possession of his book1 and knowing him to be at death's door1 designed to keep the ,emilius back until he was actually dead1 when they would publish a truncated version of it to suit their own purposes4#hf ,he wrote letter upon letter to the printer1 to ,malesherbes1 to ,madame de ,luxembourg1 and if answers did not come1 or did not come exactly when he expected them1 he grew delirious with anxiety4 ,if he dropped his conviction that the ,jesuits were plotting the ruin of his book and the defilement of his reputation1 he lost no time in fastening a similar design upon the ,jansenists1 and when the ,jansenists were acquitted1 then the turn of the philosophers came4 ,we have constantly to remember that all this time the unfortunate man was suffering incessant pain1 and passing his nights in sleeplessness and fever4 ,he sometimes threw off the black dreams of unfathomable suspicion1 and dreamed in their stead of some sunny spot in pleasant ,touraine1 where under a mild climate and among a gentle people he should peacefully end his days4#hg ,at other times he was fond of supposing ,m4 de ,luxembourg not a duke1 nor a marshal of ,france1 but a good country squire living in some old mansion1 and himself not an author1 not a maker of books1 but with moderate intelligence and slight attainment1 finding with the squire and his dame the happiness of his life1 and contributing to the happiness of theirs4#hh ,alas1 in spite of all his precautions1 he had unwittingly drifted into the stream of great affairs4 ,he and his book were sacrificed to the exigencies of faction2 and a persecution set in1 which destroyed his last chance of a composed life1 by giving his reason1 already disturbed1 a final blow from which it never recovered4 ,emilius appeared in the crisis of the movement against the ,jesuits4 ,that formidable order had offended ,madame de ,pompadour by a refusal to recognise her power and position1--a manly policy1 as creditable to their moral vigour as it was contrary to the maxims which had made them powerful4 ,they had also offended ,choiseul by the part they had taken in certain hostile intrigues at ,versailles4 ,the parliaments had always been their enemies4 ,this was due first to the jealousy with which corporations of lawyers always regard corporations of ecclesiastics1 and next to their hatred of the bull ,unigenitus1 which had been not only an infraction of ,french liberties1 but the occasion of special humiliation to the parliaments4 ,then the hostility of the parliaments to the ,jesuits was caused by the harshness with which the system of confessional tickets was at this time being carried out4 ,finally1 the once powerful house of ,austria1 the protector of all retrograde interests1 was now weakened by the ,seven ,years' ,war2 and was unable to bring effective influence to bear on ,lewis ,,xv4 ,at last he gave his consent to the destruction of the order4 ,the commercial bankruptcy of one of their missions was the immediate occasion of their fall1 and nothing could save them4 ,i only know one man1 said ,grimm1 in a position to have composed an apology for the ,jesuits in fine style1 if it had been in his way to take the side of that tribe1 and this man is ,m4 ,rousseau4 ,the parliaments went to work with alacrity1 but they were quite as hostile to the philosophers as they were to the ,jesuits1 and hence their anxiety to show that they were no allies of the one even when destroying the other4 ,contemporaries seldom criticise the shades and variations of innovating speculation with any marked nicety4 ,anything with the stamp of rationality on its phrases or arguments was roughly set down to the school of the philosophers1 and ,rousseau was counted one of their number1 like ,voltaire or ,helvtius4 ,the ,emilius appeared in ,may #agfb4 ,on the #aath of ,june the parliament of ,paris ordered the book to be burnt by the public executioner1 and the writer to be arrested4 ,for ,rousseau always scorned the devices of ,voltaire and others2 he courageously insisted on placing his name on the title-page of all his works1#hi and so there was none of the usual difficulty in identifying the author4 ,the grounds of the proceedings were alleged irreligious tendencies to be found in the book4#ij ,the indecency of the requisition in which the advocate-general demanded its proscription1 was admitted even by people who were least likely to defend ,rousseau4#ia ,the author was charged with saying not only that man may be saved without believing in ,god1 but even that the ,christian religion does not exist--paradox too flagrant even for the writer of the ,discourse on ,inequality4 ,no evidence was produced either that the alleged assertions were in the book1 or that the name of the author was really the name on its title-page4 ,rousseau fared no worse1 but better1 than his fellows1 for there was hardly a single man of letters of that time who escaped arbitrary imprisonment4 ,the unfortunate author had news of the ferment which his work was creating in ,paris1 and received notes of warning from every hand1 but he could not believe that the only man in ,france who believed in ,god was to be the victim of the defenders of ,christianity4#ib ,on the #hth of ,june he spent a merry day with two friends1 taking their dinner in the fields4 ,ever since my youth ,i had a habit of reading at night in my bed until my eyes grew heavy4 ,then ,i put out the candle1 and tried to fall asleep for a few minutes1 but they seldom lasted long4 ,my ordinary reading at night was the ,bible1 and ,i have read it continuously through at least five or six times in this way4 ,that night1 finding myself more wakeful than usual1 ,i prolonged my reading1 and read through the whole of the book which ends with the ,levite of ,ephraim1 and which if ,i mistake not is the book of ,judges4 ,the story affected me deeply1 and ,i was busy over it in a kind of dream1 when all at once ,i was roused by lights and noises4#ic ,it was two o'clock in the morning4 ,a messenger had come in hot haste to carry him to ,madame de ,luxembourg4 ,news had reached her of the proposed decree of the parliament4 ,she knew ,rousseau well enough to be sure that if he were seized and examined1 her own share and that of ,malesherbes in the production of the condemned book would be made public1 and their position uncomfortably compromised4 ,it was to their interest that he should avoid arrest by flight1 and they had no difficulty in persuading him to fall in with their plans4 ,after a tearful farewell with ,theresa1 who had hardly been out of his sight for seventeen years1 and many embraces from the greater ladies of the castle1 he was thrust into a chaise and despatched on the first stage of eight melancholy years of wandering and despair1 to be driven from place to place1 first by the fatuous tyranny of magistrates and religious doctors1 and then by the yet more cruel spectres of his own diseased imagination1 until at length his whole soul became the home of weariness and torment4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,conf41 x4 #fb4 #b ,conf41 x4 #c ,ib4 x4 #gj4 #d ,louis ,franois de ,bourbon1 ,prince de ,conti 7#agag-aggf71 was great-grandson of the brother of the ,great ,cond4 ,he performed creditable things in the war of the ,austrian ,succession 7in ,piedmont #agdd1 in ,belgium #agde72 had a scheme of foreign policy as director of the secret diplomacy of ,lewis ,,xv4 7#agde-agef71 which was to make ,turkey1 ,poland1 ,sweden1 ,prussia1 a barrier against ,russia primarily1 and ,austria secondarily2 lastly went into moderate opposition to the court1 protesting against the destruction of the parlements 7#agga71 and afterwards opposing the reforms of ,turgot 7#aggf74 ,finally he had the honour of refusing the sacraments of the church on his deathbed4 ,see ,martin's ,hist4 de ,france1 xv4 and xvi4 #e ,conf41 #ig4 ,corr41 v4 #bae4 #f ,corr41 ii4 #add4 ,oct4 #g1 #agfj4 #g ,conf41 x4 #ih4 #h ,the reader will distinguish this correspondent of ,rousseau's1 ,comtesse de ,boufflers-,rouveret 7#agbg-ah--71 from the ,duchesse de ,boufflers1 which was the title of ,rousseau's ,marchale de ,luxembourg before her second marriage4 ,and also from the ,marquise de ,boufflers1 said to be the mistress of the old king ,stanislaus at ,lunville1 and the mother of the ,chevalier de ,boufflers 7who was the intimate of ,voltaire1 sat in the ,states ,general1 emigrated1 did homage to ,napoleon1 and finally died peaceably under ,lewis ,,xviii474 ,see ,jal's ,dict4 ,critique1 #bei-bfb4 ,sainte ,beuve has an essay on our present ,comtesse de ,boufflers 7,nouveaux ,lundis1 iv4 #afc74 ,she is the ,madame de ,boufflers who was taken by ,beauclerk to visit ,johnson in his ,temple chambers1 and was conducted to her coach by him in a remarkable manner 7,boswell's ,life1 ch4 li4 p4 #dfg74 ,also much talked of in ,h4 ,walpole's ,letters4 ,see ,d',alembert to ,frederick1 ,april #ae1 #agfh4 #i ,streckeisen1 ii4 #cb4 #aj ,conf41 x4 #ga4 #aa ,for instance1 ,corr4 ii4 #he1 #ij1 #ib1 etc4 #agei4 #ab ,streckeisen1 ii4 #bh1 etc4 #ac ,ib41 #bi4 #ad ,conf41 x4 #ii4 #ae ,ib41 x4 #eg4 #af ,ib41 xi4 #aai4 #ag ,corr41 ii4 #aif4 ,feb4 #af1 #agfa4 #ah ,ib41 ii4 #ajb1 #agf1 etc4 #ai ,conf41 x4 #fj4 #bj ,corr41 ii4 #ab4 #ba ,as ,m4 ,st4 ,marc ,girardin has put it3 ,there are in all ,rousseau's discussions two things to be carefully distinguished from one another2 the maxims of the discourse1 and the conclusions of the controversy4 ,the maxims are ordinarily paradoxical2 the conclusions are full of good sense4 ,rev4 des ,deux ,mondes1 ,aug4 #aheb1 p4 #eja4 #bb ,corr41 ii4 #bdd-bdf4 ,oct4 #bd1 #agfa4 #bc ,ib41 #agff4 ,oeuv41 lxxv4 #cfd4 #bd ,corr41 ii4 #cb4 7#ageh47 #be ,corr41 ii4 #fc4 ,jan4 #ae1 #aggi4 #bf ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre1 xii4 #ajb4 #bg #dth ,letter1 p4 #cge4 #bh ,mm41 ii4 #bii4 #bi ,corr41 ii4 #ih4 ,july #aj1 #agei4 #cj ,corr41 ii4 #ajf4 ,nov4 #aj1 #agei4 #ca ,ib41 ii4 #agi4 ,jan4 #ah1 #agfa4 #cb ,ib41 ii4 #bfh4 ,dec4 #ab1 #agfa4 #cc ,ib41 ii4 #bh4 ,dec4 #bc1 #agfa4 #cd ,nouv4 ,hl41 ,,iii4 xxii4 #adg4 ,in #aghd ,hume's suppressed essays on ,suicide and the ,immortality of the ,soul were published in ,london3--,with ,remarks1 intended as an ,antidote to the ,poison contained in these ,performances1 by the ,editor2 to which is added1 ,two ,letters on ,suicide1 from ,rousseau's ,eloisa4 ,in the preface the reader is told that these two very masterly letters have been much celebrated4 ,see ,hume's ,essays1 by ,green and ,grose1 i4 #fi1 #gj4 #ce ,corr41 iii4 #bce4 ,aug4 #a1 #agfc4 #cf ,corr41 ii4 #bbf4 ,sept4 #bi1 #agfa4 #cg ,p4 #bid4 ,jan4 #aa1 #agfb4 #ch ,madame ,latour 7,nov4 #g1 #agcj-,sept4 #f1 #aghi7 was the wife of a man in the financial world1 who used her ill and dissipated as much of her fortune as he could1 and from whom she separated in #agge4 ,after that she resumed her maiden name and was known as ,madame de ,franqueville4 ,musset-,pathay1 ii4 #ahb1 and ,sainte ,beuve1 ,causeries1 ii4 #fc4 #ci ,corr41 ii4 #bad4 ,conf41 ix4 #bhi4 #dj ,english translations of ,rousseau's works appeared very speedily after the originals4 ,a second edition of the ,helosa was called for as early as ,may #agfa4 ,see ,corr4 ii4 #bbc4 ,a ,german translation of the ,helosa appeared at ,leipzig in #agfa1 in six duodecimos4 #da ,for instance1 ,corr41 ii4 #afh4 ,nov4 #ai1 #agfb4 #db ,choderlos de ,la ,clos3 #agda-ahjc4 #dc ,journal1 iv4 #dif4 7,ed4 ,charpentier1 #aheg47 #dd ,nouv4 ,hl41 ,,iii4 xiv4 #dh4 #de ,e4g4 ,letters1 #dj-df4 #df ,madame de ,stal 7#agfe-ahag71 in her ,lettres sur les crits et le caractre de ,j4,j4 ,rousseau1 written when she was twenty1 and her first work of any pretensions4 ,oeuv41 i4 #da4 ,ed4 #ahbj4 #dg ,nowhere more pungently than in a little piece of some half-dozen pages1 headed1 ,prdiction tire d'un vieux ,manuscrit1 the form of which is borrowed from ,grimm's squib in the dispute about ,french music1 ,le petit ,prophte de ,boehmischbroda1 though it seems to me to be superior to ,grimm in pointedness4 ,here are a few verses from the supposed prophecy of the man who should come--and of what he should do4 ,et la multitude courra sur ses pas et plusieurs croiront en lui4 ,et il leur dira3 ,vous tes des sclrats et des fripons1 vos femmes sont toutes des femmes perdues1 et je viens vivre parmi vous4 ,et il ajoutera tous les hommes sont vertueux dans le pays o je suis n1 et je n'habiterai jamais le pays o je suis n4444 ,et il dira aussi qu'il est impossible d'avoir des moeurs1 et de lire des ,romans1 et il fera un ,roman2 et dans son ,roman le vice sera en action et la vertu en paroles1 et ses personages seront forcens d'amour et de philosophie4 ,et dans son ,roman on apprendra l'art de suborner philosophiquement une jeune fille4 ,et l',ecolire perdra toute honte et toute pudeur1 et elle fera avec son matre des sottises et des maximes4444 ,et le bel ,ami tant dans un ,bateau seul avec sa ,matresse voudra le jetter dans l'eau et se prcipiter avec elle4 ,et ils appelleront tout cela de la ,philosophie et de la ,vertu1 and so on1 humorously enough in its way4 #dh ,see passages in ,goncourt's ,la ,femme au #ah;ime sicle1 p4 #chj4 #di ,musset-,pathay1 ,,ii4 #cfa4 ,see ,madame ,roland's ,mm41 i4 #bjg4 #ej ,corr41 ,march #c1 and ,march #ai1 #agfa4 ,the criticisms of ,ximns1 a thoroughly mediocre person in all respects1 were entirely literary1 and were directed against the too strained and highly coloured quality of the phrases--baisers cres--among them4 #ea ,nouv4 ,hl41 ,v4 v4 #aae4 #eb ,,vi4 vii4 #ec ,,vi4 vi4 #ed ,michelet's ,louis ,,xv4 et ,louis ,,xvi41 p4 #eh4 #ee ,see ,hettner's ,literaturgeschichte1 ,,ii4 #dhf4 #ef ,,iv4 xi4 #eg ,,iv4 xvii4 ,see vol4 iii4 #dbc4 #eh ,in #ahaf4 ,moore's ,life1 iii4 #bdg2 also #bhe4 ,and the note to the stanzas in the ,third ,canto1--a note curious for a slight admixture of transcendentalism1 so rare a thing with ,byron1 who1 sentimental though he was1 usually rejoiced in a truly ,voltairean common sense4 #ei ,the present fashion in ,france1 of passing some time in the country1 is new2 at this time of the year1 and for many weeks past1 ,paris is1 comparatively speaking1 empty4 ,everybody who has a country seat is at it1 and such as have none visit others who have4 ,this remarkable revolution in the ,french manners is certainly one of the best customs they have taken from ,england2 and its introduction was effected the easier1 being assisted by the magic of ,rousseau's writings4 ,mankind are much indebted to that splendid genius1 who1 when living1 was hunted from country to country1 to seek an asylum1 with as much venom as if he had been a mad dog2 thanks to the vile spirit of bigotry1 which has not received its death wound4 ,women of the first fashion in ,france are now ashamed of not nursing their own children2 and stays are universally proscribed from the bodies of the poor infants1 which were for so many ages torture to them1 as they are still in ,spain4 ,the country residence may not have effects equally obvious2 but they will be no less sure in the end1 and in all respects beneficial to every class in the state4 ,arthur ,young's ,travels1 i4 #gb4 #fj ,causeries1 xi4 #aie4 #fa ,nouv4 ,hl41 ,v4 iii4 ,you remember ,rousseau's description of an ,english morning3 such are the mornings ,i spend with these good people4--,cowper to ,joseph ,hill1 ,oct4 #be1 #agfe4 ,works1 iii4 #bfi4 ,in a letter to ,william ,unwin 7,sept4 #ba1 #aggi71 speaking of his being engaged in mending windows1 he says1 ,rousseau would have been charmed to have seen me so occupied1 and would have exclaimed with rapture that he had found the ,emilius who1 he supposed1 had subsisted only in his own idea4 ,for a description illustrative of the likeness between ,rousseau and ,cowper in their feeling for nature1 see letter to ,newton 7,sept4 #ah1 #aghd1 v4 #gh71 and compare it with the description of ,les ,charmettes1 making proper allowance for the colour of prose4 #fb ,,iv4 x4 #bfj4 #fc ,v4 ii4 #cg4 #fd ,v4 ii4 #dg-eb4 #fe ,rousseau considered that the ,fourth and ,sixth parts of the ,new ,helosa were masterpieces of diction4 ,conf4 ix4 #ccd4 #ff ,,vi4 viii44 #bih4 ,conf41 xi4 #ajf4 #fg ,the ,la ,bdoyre case1 which began in #agde4 ,see ,barbier1 iv4 #ed1 #ei1 etc4 #fh ,,iii4 xviii4 #hd4 #fi ,,iii4 xx4 #aaf4 ,in the letter to ,christopher de ,beaumont 7p4 #ajb71 he fires a double shot against the philosophers on the one hand1 and the church on the other2 exalting continence and purity1 of which the philosophers in their reaction against asceticism thought lightly1 and exalting marriage over the celibate state1 which the churchmen associated with mysterious sanctity4 #gj ,i4 lxii4 #ga ,v4 ii4 #gb ,v4 vii4 #ada4 #gc ,v4 ii4 #ca-cc4 #gd ,for the ,robecq family1 see ,saint ,simon1 xviii4 #eh4 #ge ,morellet's ,mm41 i4 #hi-ic4 ,rousseau1 ,conf41 x4 #he1 etc4 ,this ,vision is also in the style of ,grimm's ,ptit ,prophte1 like the piece referred to in a previous note1 vol4 ii4 p4 #ca4 #gf ,madame de ,vandeul's ,mm4 sur ,diderot1 p4 #bg4 ,rousseau1 ,conf41 vii4 #acj4 #gg ,nouv4 ,hl41 ,v4 xiii4 #aid4 ,conf41 x4 #dc4 #gh ,the reader will find a fuller mention of the ,french book trade in my ,diderot1 ch4 vi4 #gi ,conf41 xi4 #abg4 #hj ,see a letter from ,rousseau to ,malesherbes1 ,nov4 #e1 #agfj4 ,corr41 ii4 #aeg4 #ha ,corr41 ii4 #aeg4 #hb ,c4,g4 de ,lamoignon de ,malesherbes 7p4 #agba--;guillotined1 #agid71 son of the chancellor1 and one of the best instructed and most enlightened men of the century--a ,turgot of the second rank--was ,directeur de la ,librairie from #agej-agfc4 ,the process was this3 a book was submitted to him2 he named a censor for it2 on the censor's report the director gave or refused permission to print1 or required alterations4 ,even after these formalities were complied with1 the book was liable to a decree of the royal council1 a decree of the parliament1 or else a lettre-de-cachet might send the author to the ,bastile4 ,see ,barbier1 vii4 #abf4 ,after ,lord ,shelburne saw ,malesherbes1 he said1 ,i have seen for the first time in my life what ,i never thought could exist--a man whose soul is absolutely free from hope or fear1 and yet who is full of life and ardour4 ,mdlle4 ,lespinasse's ,lettres1 #ij4 #hc ,see note1 p4 #acb4 #hd ,conf41 xi4 #acd4 #he ,conf41 xi4 #aci4 #hf ,ib41 xi4 #aci4 ,corr41 ii4 #bgj1 etc4 ,dec4 #ab1 #agfa1 etc4 #hg ,conf41 xi4 #aej4 #hh ,fourth ,letter to ,malesherbes1 p4 #cgg4 #hi ,with one trifling exception1 the ,letter to ,grimm on the ,opera of ,omphale 7#ageb73 crits sur la ,musique1 p4 #ccg4 #ij ,see ,barbier's ,journal1 viii4 #de 7,ed4 ,charpentier1 #aheg74 ,a succinct contemporary account of the general situation is to be found in ,d',alembert's little book1 the ,destruction des ,jsuites4 #ia ,grimm1 for instance3 ,corr4 ,lit41 iii4 #aag4 #ib ,corr41 ii4 #ccg4 ,june #g1 #afgb4 ,conf41 xi4 #aeb1 #afb4 #ic ,conf41 xi4 #afb4 ,the ,levite's story is to be read in ,judges1 ch4 xix4 ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,persecution4#id ,those to whom life consists in the immediate consciousness of their own direct relations with the people and circumstances that are in close contact with them1 find it hard to follow the moods of a man to whom such consciousness is the least part of himself1 and such relations the least real part of his life4 ,rousseau was no sooner in the post-chaise which was bearing him away towards ,switzerland1 than the troubles of the previous day at once dropped into a pale and distant past1 and he returned to a world where was neither parliament1 nor decree for burning books1 nor any warrant for personal arrest4 ,he took up the thread where harassing circumstances had broken it1 and again fell musing over the tragic tale of the ,levite of ,ephraim4 ,his dream absorbed him so entirely as to take specific literary form1 and before the journey was at an end he had composed a long impassioned version of the ,bible story4 ,though it has ,rousseau's usual fine sonorousness in a high degree1 no man now reads it2 the author himself always preserved a certain tenderness for it4#ie ,the contrast between this singular quietism and the angry stir that marked ,voltaire's many flights in post-chaises1 points like all else to the profound difference between the pair4 ,contrast with ,voltaire's shrill cries under any personal vexation1 this calm utterance3--,though the consequences of this affair have plunged me into a gulf of woes from which ,i shall never come up again so long as ,i live1 ,i bear these gentlemen no grudge4 ,i am aware that their object was not to do me any harm1 but only to reach ends of their own4 ,i know that towards me they have neither liking nor hate4 ,i was found in their way1 like a pebble that you thrust aside with the foot without even looking at it4 ,they ought not to say they have performed their duty1 but that they have done their business4#if ,a new note from a persecuted writer4 ,rousseau1 in spite of the belief which henceforth possessed him that he was the victim of a dark unfathomable plot1 and in spite of passing outbreaks of gloomy rage1 was incapable of steady glowing and active resentments4 ,the world was not real enough to him for this4 ,a throng of phantoms pressed noiselessly before his sight1 and dulled all sense of more actual impression4 ,it is amazing1 he wrote1 with what ease ,i forget past ill1 however fresh it may be4 ,in proportion as the anticipation of it alarms and confuses me when ,i see it coming1 so the memory of it returns feebly to my mind and dies out the moment after it has arrived4 ,my cruel imagination1 which torments itself incessantly in anticipating woes that are still unborn1 makes a diversion for my memory1 and hinders me from recalling those which have gone4 ,i exhaust disaster beforehand4 ,the more ,i have suffered in foreseeing it1 the more easily do ,i forget it2 while on the contrary1 being incessantly busy with my past happiness1 ,i recall it and brood and ruminate over it1 so as to enjoy it over again whenever ,i wish4#ig ,the same turn of humour saved him from vindictiveness4 ,i concern myself too little with the offence1 to feel much concern about the offender4 ,i only think of the hurt that ,i have received from him1 on account of the hurt that he may still do me2 and if ,i were sure he would do me no more1 what he had already done would be forgotten straightway4 ,though he does not carry the analysis any further1 we may easily perceive that the same explanation covers what he called his natural ingratitude4 ,kindness was not much more vividly understood by him than malice4 ,it was only one form of the troublesome interposition of an outer world in his life2 he was fain to hurry back from it to the real world of his dreams4 ,if any man called practical is tempted to despise this dreaming creature1 as he fares in his chaise from stage to stage1 let him remember that one making that journey through ,france less than thirty years later might have seen the castles of the great flaring in the destruction of a most righteous vengeance1 the great themselves fleeing ignobly from the land to which their selfishness1 and heedlessness1 and hatred of improvement1 and inhuman pride had been a curse1 while the legion of toilers with eyes blinded by the oppression of ages were groping with passionate uncertain hand for that divine something which they thought of as justice and right4 ,and this was what ,rousseau both partially foresaw and helped to prepare1#ih while the common politicians1 like ,choiseul or ,d',aiguillon1 played their poor game--the elemental forces rising unseen into tempest around them4 ,he reached the territory of the canton of ,berne1 and alighted at the house of an old friend at ,yverdun1#ii where native air1 the beauty of the spot1 and the charms of the season1 immediately repaired all weariness and fatigue4#ajj ,friends at ,geneva wrote letters of sincere feeling1 joyful that he had not followed the precedent of ,socrates too closely by remaining in the power of a government eager to destroy him4#aja ,a post or two later brought worse news4 ,the ,council at ,geneva ordered not only ,emilius1 but the ,social ,contract also1 to be publicly burnt1 and issued a warrant of arrest against their author1 if he should set foot in the territory of the republic 7,june #ai74ajb ,rousseau could hardly believe it possible that the free ,government which he had held up to the reverence of ,europe1 could have condemned him unheard1 but he took occasion in a highly characteristic manner to chide severely a friend at ,geneva who had publicly taken his part4#ajc ,within a fortnight this blow was followed by another4 ,his two books were reported to the senate of ,berne1 and ,rousseau was informed by one of the authorities that a notification was on its way admonishing him to quit the canton within the space of fifteen days4#ajd ,this stroke he avoided by flight to ,motiers1 a village in the principality of ,neuchtel 7,july #aj71 then part of the dominions of the ,king of ,prussia4#aje ,rousseau had some antipathy to ,frederick1 both because he had beaten the ,french1 whom ,rousseau loved1 and because his maxims and his conduct alike seemed to trample under foot respect for the natural law and not a few human duties4 ,he had composed a verse to the effect that ,frederick thought like a philosopher and acted like a king1 philosopher and king notoriously being words of equally evil sense in his dialect4 ,there was also a passage in ,emilius about ,adrastus1 ,king of the ,daunians1 which was commonly understood to mean ,frederick1 ,king of the ,prussians4 ,still ,rousseau was acute enough to know that mean passions usually only rule the weak1 and have little hold over the strong4 ,he boldly wrote both to the king and to ,lord ,marischal1 the governor of the principality1 informing them that he was there1 and asking permission to remain in the only asylum left for him upon the earth4#ajf ,he compared himself loftily to ,coriolanus among the ,volscians1 and wrote to the king in a vein that must have amused the strong man4 ,i have said much ill of you1 perhaps ,i shall still say more2 yet1 driven from ,france1 from ,geneva1 from the canton of ,berne1 ,i am come to seek shelter in your states4 ,perhaps ,i was wrong in not beginning there2 this is eulogy of which you are worthy4 ,sire1 ,i have deserved no grace from you1 and ,i seek none1 but ,i thought it my duty to inform your majesty that ,i am in your power1 and that ,i am so of set design4 ,your majesty will dispose of me as shall seem good to you4#ajg ,frederick1 though no admirer of ,rousseau or his writings1#ajh readily granted the required permission4 ,he also1 says ,lord ,marischal1 gave me orders to furnish him his small necessaries if he would accept them2 and though that king's philosophy be very different from that of ,jean ,jacques1 yet he does not think that a man of an irreproachable life is to be persecuted because his sentiments are singular4 ,he designs to build him a hermitage with a little garden1 which ,i find he will not accept1 nor perhaps the rest1 which ,i have not yet offered him4#aji ,when the offer of the flour1 wine1 and firewood was at length made in as delicate terms as possible1 ,rousseau declined the gift on grounds which may raise a smile1 but which are not without a rather touching simplicity4#aaj ,i have enough to live on for two or three years1 he said1 but if ,i were dying of hunger1 ,i would rather in the present condition of your good prince1 and not being of any service to him1 go and eat grass and grub up roots1 than accept a morsel of bread from him4#aaa ,hume might well call this a phenomenon in the world of letters1 and one very honourable for the person concerned4#aab ,and we recognise its dignity the more when we contrast it with the baseness of ,voltaire1 who drew his pension from the ,king of ,prussia while ,frederick was in his most urgent straits1 and while the poet was sportively exulting to all his correspondents in the malicious expectation that he would one day have to allow the ,king of ,prussia himself a pension4#aac ,and ,rousseau was a poor man1 living among the poor and in their style4 ,his annual outlay at this time was covered by the modest sum of sixty louis4#aad ,what stamps his refusal of ,frederick's gifts as true dignity1 is the fact that he not only did not refuse money for any work done1 but expected and asked for it4 ,malesherbes at this very time begged him to collect plants for him4 ,joyfully1 replied ,rousseau1 but as ,i cannot subsist without the aid of my own labour1 ,i never meant1 in spite of the pleasure that it might otherwise have been to me1 to offer you the use of my time for nothing4#aae ,in the same year1 we may add1 when the tremendous struggle of the ,seven ,years' ,war was closing1 the philosopher wrote a second terse epistle to the king1 and with this their direct communication came to an end4 ,sire1 you are my protector and my benefactor2 ,i would fain repay you if ,i can4 ,you wish to give me bread2 is there none of your own subjects in want of it8 ,take that sword away from my sight1 it dazzles and pains me4 ,it has done its work only too well2 the sceptre is abandoned4 ,great is the career for kings of your stuff1 and you are still far from the term2 time presses1 you have not a moment to lose4 ,fathom well your heart1 ,o ,frederick6 ,can you dare to die without having been the greatest of men8 ,would that ,i could see ,frederick1 the just and the redoubtable1 covering his states with multitudes of men to whom he should be a father2 then will ,j4,j4 ,rousseau1 the foe of kings1 hasten to die at the foot of his throne4#aaf ,frederick1 strong as his interest was in all curious persons who could amuse him1 was too busy to answer this1 and ,rousseau was not yet recognised as ,voltaire's rival in power and popularity4 ,motiers is one of the half-dozen decent villages standing in the flat bottom of the ,val de ,travers1 a widish valley that lies between the gorges of the ,jura and the ,lake of ,neuchtel1 and is famous in our day for its production of absinthe and of asphalt4 ,the flat of the valley1 with the ,reuss making a bald and colourless way through the midst of it1 is nearly treeless1 and it is too uniform to be very pleasing4 ,in winter the climate is most rigorous1 for the level is high1 and the surrounding hills admit the sun's rays late and cut them off early4 ,rousseau's description1 accurate and recognisable as it is1#aag strikes an impartial tourist as too favourable4 ,but when a piece of scenery is a home to a man1 he has an eye for a thousand outlines1 changes of light1 soft variations of colour2 the landscape lives for him with an unspoken suggestion and intimate association1 to all of which the swift passing stranger is very cold4 ,his cottage1 which is still shown1 was in the midst of the other houses1 and his walks1 which were at least as important to him as the home in which he dwelt1 lay mostly among woody heights with streaming cascades4 ,the country abounded in natural curiosities of a humble sort1 and here that interest in plants which had always been strong in him1 began to grow into a passion4 ,rousseau had so curious a feeling about them1 that when in his botanical expeditions he came across a single flower of its kind1 he could never bring himself to pluck it4 ,his sight1 though not good for distant objects1 was of the very finest for things held close2 his sense of smell was so acute and subtle that1 according to a good witness1 he might have classified plants by odours1 if language furnished as many names as nature supplies varieties of fragrance4#aah ,he insisted in all botanising and other walking excursions on going bareheaded1 even in the heat of the dog-days2 he declared that the action of the sun did him good4 ,when the days began to turn1 the summer was straightway at an end for him3 ,my imagination1 he said1 in a phrase which went further through his life than he supposed1 at once brings winter4 ,he hated rain as much as he loved sun1 so he must once have lost all the mystic fascination of the green ,savoy lakes gleaming luminous through pale showers1 and now again must have lost the sombre majesty of the pines of his valley dripping in torn edges of cloud1 and all those other sights in landscape that touch subtler parts of us than comforted sense4 ,one of his favourite journeys was to ,colombier1 the summer retreat of ,lord ,marischal4 ,for him he rapidly conceived the same warm friendship which he felt for the ,duke of ,luxembourg1 whom he had just left4 ,and the sagacious1 moderate1 silent ,scot had as warm a liking for the strange refugee who had come to him for shelter1 or shall we call it a kind of shaggy compassion1 as of a faithful inarticulate creature4 ,his letters1 which are numerous enough1 abound in expressions of hearty good-will4 ,these1 if we reflect on the genuine worth1 veracity1 penetration1 and experience of the old man who wrote them1 may fairly be counted the best testimony that remains to the existence of something sterling at the bottom of ,rousseau's character4#aai ,it is here no insincere fine lady of the ,french court1 but a homely and weather-beaten ,scotchman1 who speaks so often of his refugee's rectitude of heart and true sensibility4#abj ,he insisted on being allowed to settle a small sum on ,theresa1 who had joined ,rousseau at ,motiers1 and in other ways he showed a true solicitude and considerateness both for her and for him4#aba ,it was his constant dream1 that on his return to ,scotland1 ,jean ,jacques should accompany him1 and that with ,david ,hume1 they would make a trio of philosophic hermits2 that this was no mere cheery pleasantry is shown by the pains he took in settling the route for the journey4#abb ,the plan only fell through in consequence of ,frederick's cordial urgency that his friend should end his days with him2 he returned to ,prussia and lived at ,sans ,souci until the close1 always retaining something of his good-will for his excellent savage1 as he called the author of the ,discourses4 ,they had some common antipathies1 including the fundamental one of dislike to society1 and especially to the society of the people of ,neuchtel1 the ,gascons of ,switzerland4 ,rousseau is gay in company1 ,lord ,marischal wrote to ,hume1 polite1 and what the ,french call aimable1 and gains ground daily in the opinion of even the clergy here4 ,his enemies elsewhere continue to persecute him1 and he is pestered with anonymous letters4#abc ,some of these were of a humour that disclosed the master hand4 ,voltaire had been universally suspected of stirring up the feeling of ,geneva against its too famous citizen1#abd though for a man of less energy the affair of the ,calas1 which he was now in the thick of1 might have sufficed4 ,voltaire's letters at this time show how hard he found it in the case of ,rousseau to exercise his usual pity for the unfortunate4 ,he could not forget that the man who was now tasting persecution had barked at philosophers and stage-plays2 that he was a false brother1 who had fatuously insulted the only men who could take his part2 that he was a ,judas who had betrayed the sacred cause4#abe ,on the whole1 however1 we ought probably to accept his word1 though not very categorically given1#abf that he had nothing to do with the action taken against ,rousseau4 ,that action is quite adequately explained1 first by the influence of the resident of ,france at ,geneva1 which we know to have been exerted against the two fatal books1#abg and second by the anxiety of the oligarchic party to keep out of their town a man whose democratic tendencies they now knew so well and so justly dreaded4#abh ,moultou1 a ,genevese minister1 in the full tide of devotion and enthusiasm for the author of ,emilius1 met ,voltaire at the house of a lady in ,geneva4 ,all will turn out well1 cried the patriarch2 the syndics will say ,m4 ,rousseau1 you have done ill to write what you have written2 promise for the future to respect the religion of your country4 ,jean ,jacques will promise1 and perhaps he will say that the printer took the liberty of adding a sheet or two to his book4 ,never1 cried the ardent ,moultou2 ,jean ,jacques never puts his name to works to disown them after4#abi ,voltaire disowned his own books with intrepid and sustained mendacity1 yet he bore no grudge to ,moultou for his vehemence4 ,he sent for him shortly afterwards1 professed an extreme desire to be reconciled with ,rousseau1 and would talk of nothing else4 ,i swear to you1 wrote ,moultou1 that ,i could not understand him the least in the world2 he is a marvellous actor2 ,i could have sworn that he loved you4#acj ,and there really was no acting in it4 ,the serious ,genevese did not see that he was dealing with one all fire and fickleness1 a child4 ,rousseau soon found out that he had excited not only the band of professed unbelievers1 but also the tormenting wasps of orthodoxy4 ,the doctors of the ,sorbonne1 not to be outdone in fervour for truth by the lawyers of the parliament1 had condemned ,emilius as a matter of course4 ,in the same spirit of generous emulation1 ,christopher de ,beaumont1 by the divine compassion archbishop of ,paris1 ,duke of ,saint ,cloud1 peer of ,france1 commander of the order of the ,holy ,ghost1 had issued 7,aug4 #bj1 #agfb7 one of those hateful documents in which bishops1 ,catholic and ,protestant1 have been wont for the last century and a half to hide with swollen bombastic phrase their dead and decomposing ideas4 ,the windy folly of these poor pieces is usually in proportion to the hierarchic rank of those who promulgate them1 and an archbishop owes it to himself to blaspheme against reason and freedom in superlatives of malignant unction4 ,rousseau's reply 7,nov4 #ah1 #agfb7 is a masterpiece of dignity and uprightness4 ,turning to it from the mandate which was its provocative1 we seem to grasp the hand of a man1 after being chased by a nightmare of masked figures4 ,rousseau never showed the substantial quality of his character more surely and unmistakably than in controversy4 ,he had such gravity1 such austere self-command1 such closeness of grip4 ,most of us feel pleasure in reading the matchless banter with which ,voltaire assailed his theological enemies4 ,reading ,rousseau's letter to ,de ,beaumont we realise the comparative lowness of the pleasure which ,voltaire had given us4 ,we understand how it was that ,rousseau made fanatics1 while ,voltaire only made sceptics4 ,at the very first words1 the mitre1 the crosier1 the ring1 fall into the dust2 the ,archbishop of ,paris1 the ,duke of ,saint ,cloud1 the peer of ,france1 the commander of the ,holy ,ghost1 is restored from the disguises of his enchantment1 and becomes a human being4 ,we hear the voice of a man hailing a man4 ,voltaire often sank to the level of ecclesiastics4 ,rousseau raised the archbishop to his own level1 and with magnanimous courtesy addressed him as an equal4 ,why1 my lord1 have ,i anything to say to you8 ,what common tongue can we use8 ,how are we to understand one another8 ,and what is there between me and you8 ,and he persevered in this distant lofty vein1 hardly permitting himself a single moment of acerbity4 ,we feel the ever-inspiring breath of seriousness and sincerity4 ,this was because1 as we repeat so often1 ,rousseau's ideas1 all engendered of dreams as they were1 yet lived in him and were truly rooted in his character4 ,he did not merely say1 as any of us can say so fluently1 that he craved reality in human relations1 that distinctions of rank and post count for nothing1 that our lives are in our own hands and ought not to be blown hither and thither by outside opinion and words heedlessly scattered2 that our faith1 whatever it may be1 is the most sacred of our possessions1 organic1 indissoluble1 self-sufficing2 that our passage across the world1 if very short1 is yet too serious to be wasted in frivolous disrespect for ourselves1 and angry disrespect for others4 ,all this was actually his mind4 ,and hence the little difficulty he had in keeping his retort to the archbishop1 as to his other antagonists1 on a worthy level4 ,only once or twice does his sense of the reckless injustice with which he had been condemned1 and of the persecution which was inflicted on him by one government after another1 stir in him a blaze of high remonstrance4 ,you accuse me of temerity1 he cried2 how have ,i earned such a name1 when ,i only propounded difficulties1 and even that with so much reserve2 when ,i only advanced reasons1 and even that with so much respect2 when ,i attacked no one1 nor even named one8 ,and you1 my lord1 how do you dare to reproach with temerity a man of whom you speak with such scanty justice and so little decency1 with so small respect and so much levity8 ,you call me impious1 and of what impiety can you accuse me--me who never spoke of the ,supreme ,being except to pay him the honour and glory that are his due1 nor of man except to persuade all men to love one another8 ,the impious are those who unworthily profane the cause of ,god by making it serve the passions of men4 ,the impious are those who1 daring to pass for the interpreters of divinity1 and judges between it and man1 exact for themselves the honours that are due to it only4 ,the impious are those who arrogate to themselves the right of exercising the power of ,god upon earth1 and insist on opening and shutting the gates of heaven at their own good will and pleasure4 ,the impious are those who have libels read in the church4 ,at this horrible idea my blood is enkindled1 and tears of indignation fall from my eyes4 ,priests of the ,god of peace1 you shall render an account one day1 be very sure1 of the use to which you have dared to put his house4444 ,my lord1 you have publicly insulted me3 you are now convicted of heaping calumny upon me4 ,if you were a private person like myself1 so that ,i could cite you before an equitable tribunal1 and we could both appear before it1 ,i with my book1 and you with your mandate1 assuredly you would be declared guilty2 you would be condemned to make reparation as public as the wrong was public4 ,but you belong to a rank that relieves you from the necessity of being just1 and ,i am nothing4 ,yet you who profess the gospel1 you1 a prelate appointed to teach others their duty1 you know what your own duty is in such a case4 ,mine ,i have done3 ,i have nothing more to say to you1 and ,i hold my peace4#aca ,the letter was as good in dialectic as it was in moral tone4 ,for this is a little curious1 that ,rousseau1 so diffuse in expounding his opinions1 and so unscientific in his method of coming to them1 should have been one of the keenest and most trenchant of the controversialists of a very controversial time4 ,some of his strokes in defence of his first famous assault on civilisation are as hard1 as direct1 and as effective as any in the records of polemical literature4 ,we will give one specimen from the letter to the ,archbishop of ,paris2 it has the recommendation of touching an argument that is not yet quite universally recognised for slain4 ,the ,savoyard ,vicar had dwelt on the difficulty of accepting revelation as the voice of ,god1 on account of the long distance of time between us1 and the questionableness of the supporting testimony4 ,to which the archbishop thus3--,but is there not then an infinity of facts1 even earlier than those of the ,christian revelation1 which it would be absurd to doubt8 ,by what way other than that of human testimony has our author himself known the ,sparta1 the ,athens1 the ,rome1 whose laws1 manners1 and heroes he extols with such assurance8 ,how many generations of men between him and the historians who have preserved the memory of these events8 ,first1 says ,rousseau in answer1 it is in the order of things that human circumstances should be attested by human evidence1 and they can be attested in no other way4 ,i can only know that ,rome and ,sparta existed1 because contemporaries assure me that they existed4 ,in such a case this intermediate communication is indispensable4 ,but why is it necessary between ,god and me8 ,is it simple or natural that ,god should have gone in search of ,moses to speak to ,jean ,jacques ,rousseau8 ,second1 nobody is obliged to believe that ,sparta once existed1 and nobody will be devoured by eternal flames for doubting it4 ,every fact of which we are not witnesses is only established by moral proofs1 and moral proofs have various degrees of strength4 ,will the divine justice hurl me into hell for missing the exact point at which a proof becomes irresistible8 ,if there is in the world an attested story1 it is that of vampires2 nothing is wanting for judicial proof1--reports and certificates from notables1 surgeons1 clergy1 magistrates4 ,but who believes in vampires1 and shall we all be damned for not believing8 ,third1 my constant experience and that of all men is stronger in reference to prodigies than the testimony of some men4 ,he then strikes home with a parable4 ,the ,abb ,pris had died in the odour of ,jansenist sanctity 7#agbg71 and extraordinary doings went on at his tomb2 the lame walked1 men and women sick of the palsy were made whole1 and so forth4 ,suppose1 says ,rousseau1 that an inhabitant of the ,rue ,st4 ,jacques speaks thus to the ,archbishop of ,paris1 ,my lord1 ,i know that you neither believe in the beatitude of ,st4 ,jean de ,pris1 nor in the miracles which ,god has been pleased publicly to work upon his tomb in the sight of the most enlightened and most populous city in the world2 but ,i feel bound to testify to you that ,i have just seen the saint in person raised from the dead in the spot where his bones were laid4 ,the man of the ,rue ,st4 ,jacques gives all the detail of such a circumstance that could strike a beholder4 ,i am persuaded that on hearing such strange news1 you will begin by interrogating him who testifies to its truth1 as to his position1 his feelings1 his confessor1 and other such points2 and when from his air1 as from his speech1 you have perceived that he is a poor workman1 and when having no confessional ticket to show you1 he has confirmed your notion that he is a ,jansenist1 ,ah1 ah1 you will say to him1 you are a convulsionary1 and have seen ,saint ,pris resuscitated4 ,there is nothing wonderful in that2 you have seen so many other wonders6 ,the man would insist that the miracle had been seen equally by a number of other people1 who though ,jansenists1 it is true1 were persons of sound sense1 good character1 and excellent reputation4 ,some would send the man to ,bedlam1 but you after a grave reprimand1 will be content with saying3 ,i know that two or three witnesses1 good people and of sound sense1 may attest the life or the death of a man1 but ,i do not know how many more are needed to establish the resurrection of a ,jansenist4 ,until ,i find that out1 go1 my son1 and try to strengthen your brain3 ,i give you a dispensation from fasting1 and here is something for you to make your broth with4 ,that is what you would say1 and what any other sensible man would say in your place4 ,whence ,i conclude that even according to you and to every other sensible man1 the moral proofs which are sufficient to establish facts that are in the order of moral possibilities1 are not sufficient to establish facts of another order and purely supernatural4#acb ,perhaps1 however1 the formal denunciation by the ,archbishop of ,paris was less vexatious than the swarming of the angrier hive of ministers at his gates4 ,if ,i had declared for atheism1 he says bitterly1 they would at first have shrieked1 but they would soon have left me in peace like the rest4 ,the people of the ,lord would not have kept watch over me2 everybody would not have thought he was doing me a high favour in not treating me as a person cut off from communion1 and ,i should have been quits with all the world4 ,the holy women in ,israel would not have written me anonymous letters1 and their charity would not have breathed devout insults4 ,they would not have taken the trouble to assure me in all humility of heart that ,i was a castaway1 an execrable monster1 and that the world would have been well off if some good soul had been at the pains to strangle me in my cradle4 ,worthy people on their side would not torment themselves and torment me to bring me back to the way of salvation2 they would not charge at me from right and left1 nor stifle me under the weight of their sermons1 nor force me to bless their zeal while ,i cursed their importunity1 nor to feel with gratitude that they are obeying a call to lay me in my very grave with weariness4#acc ,he had done his best to conciliate the good opinion of his vigilant neighbours4 ,their character for contentious orthodoxy was well known4 ,it was at ,neuchtel that the controversy as to the eternal punishment of the wicked raged with a fury that ended in a civil outbreak4 ,the peace of the town was violently disturbed1 ministers were suspended1 magistrates were interdicted1 life was lost1 until at last ,frederick promulgated his famous bull3--,let the parsons who make for themselves a cruel and barbarous ,god1 be eternally damned as they desire and deserve2 and let those parsons who conceive ,god gentle and merciful1 enjoy the plenitude of his mercy4#acd ,when ,rousseau came within the territory1 preparations were made to imitate the action of ,paris1 ,geneva1 and ,berne4 ,it was only the king's express permission that saved him from a fourth proscription4 ,the minister at ,motiers was of the less inhuman stamp1 and ,rousseau1 feeling that he could not1 without failing in his engagements and his duty as a citizen1 neglect the public profession of the faith to which he had been restored eight years before1 attended the religious services with regularity4 ,he even wrote to the pastor a letter in vindication of his book1 and protesting the sincerity of his union with the reformed congregation4#ace ,the result of this was that the pastor came to tell him how great an honour he held it to count such a member in his flock1 and how willing he was to admit him without further examination to partake of the communion4#acf ,rousseau went to the ceremony with eyes full of tears and a heart swelling with emotion4 ,we may respect his mood as little or as much as we please1 but it was certainly more edifying than the sight of ,voltaire going through the same rite1 merely to harass a priest and fill a bishop with fury4 ,in all other respects he lived a harmless life during the three years of his sojourn in the ,val de ,travers4 ,as he could never endure what he calls the inactive chattering of the parlour--people sitting in front of one another with folded hands and nothing in motion except the tongue--he learnt the art of making laces2 he used to carry his pillow about with him1 or sat at his own door working like the women of the village1 and chatting with the passers-by4 ,he made presents of his work to young women about to marry1 always on the condition that they should suckle their children when they came to have them4 ,if a little whimsical1 it was a harmless and respectable pastime4 ,it is pleasanter to think of a philosopher finding diversion in weaving laces1 than of noblemen making it the business of their lives to run after ribands4 ,a society clothed in breeches was incensed about the same time by ,rousseau's adoption of the ,armenian costume1 the vest1 the furred bonnet1 the caftan1 and the girdle4 ,there was nothing very wonderful in this departure from use4 ,an ,armenian tailor used often to visit some friends at ,montmorency4 ,rousseau knew him1 and reflected that such a dress would be of singular comfort to him in the circumstances of his bodily disorder4#acg ,here was a solid practical reason for what has usually been counted a demonstration of a turned brain4 ,rousseau had as good cause for going about in a caftan as ,chatham had for coming to the ,house of ,parliament wrapped in flannel4 ,vanity and a desire to attract notice may1 we admit1 have had something to do with ,rousseau's adoption of an uncommon way of dressing4 ,shrewd wits like the ,duke of ,luxembourg and his wife did not suppose that it was so4 ,we1 living a hundred years after1 cannot possibly know whether it was so or not1 and our estimate of ,rousseau's strange character would be very little worth forming1 if it only turned on petty singularities of this kind4 ,the foolish1 equivocally gifted with the quality of articulate speech1 may1 if they choose1 satisfy their own self-love by reducing all action out of the common course to a series of variations on the same motive in others4 ,men blessed by the benignity of experience will be thankful not to waste life in guessing evil about unknowable trifles4 ,during his stay at ,motiers ,rousseau's time was hardly ever his own4 ,visitors of all nations1 drawn either by respect for his work or by curiosity to see a man who had been prescribed by so many governments1 came to him in throngs4 ,his partisans at ,geneva insisted on sending people to convince themselves how good a man they were persecuting4 ,i had never been free from strangers for six weeks1 he writes4 ,two days after1 ,i had a ,westphalian gentleman and one from ,genoa2 six days later1 two persons from ,zurich1 who stayed a week2 then a ,genevese1 recovering from an illness1 and coming for change of air1 fell ill again1 and he has only just gone away4#ach ,one visitor1 writing home to his wife of the philosopher to whom he had come on a pilgrimage1 describes his manners in terms which perhaps touch us with surprise3--,thou hast no idea how charming his society is1 what true politeness there is in his manners1 what a depth of serenity and cheerfulness in his talk4 ,didst thou not expect quite a different picture1 and figure to thyself an eccentric creature1 always grave and sometimes even abrupt8 ,ah1 what a mistake6 ,to an expression of great mildness he unites a glance of fire1 and eyes of a vivacity the like of which never was seen4 ,when you handle any matter in which he takes an interest1 then his eyes1 his lips1 his hands1 everything about him speaks4 ,you would be quite wrong to picture in him an everlasting grumbler4 ,not at all2 he laughs with those who laugh1 he chats and jokes with children1 he rallies his housekeeper4#aci ,he was not so civil to all the world1 and occasionally turned upon his pursuers with a word of most sardonic roughness4#adj ,but he could also be very generous4 ,we find him pressing a loan from his scanty store on an outcast adventurer1 and warning him1 ,when ,i lend 7which happens rarely enough71 'tis my constant maxim never to count on repayment1 nor to exact it4#ada ,he received hundreds of letters1 some seeking an application of his views on education to a special case1 others craving further exposition of his religious doctrines4 ,before he had been at ,motiers nine months he had paid ten louis for the postage of letters1 which after all contained little more than reproaches1 insults1 menaces1 imbecilities4#adb ,not the least curious of his correspondence at this time is that with the ,prince of ,wrtemberg1 then living near ,lausanne4#adc ,the prince had a little daughter four months old1 and he was resolved that her upbringing should be carried on as the author of ,emilius might please to direct4 ,rousseau replied courteously that he did not pretend to direct the education of princes or princesses4#add ,his undaunted correspondent sent him full details of his babe's habits and faculties1 and continued to do so at short intervals1 with the fondness of a young mother or an old nurse4 ,rousseau was interested1 and took some trouble to draw up rules for the child's nurture and admonition4 ,one may smile now and then at the prince's ingenuous zeal1 but his fervid respect and devotion for the teacher in whom he thought he had found the wisest man that ever lived1 and who had at any rate spoken the word that kindled the love of virtue and truth in him1 his eagerness to know what ,rousseau thought right1 and his equal eagerness in trying to do it1 his care to arrange his household in a simple and methodical way to please his master1 his discipular patience when ,rousseau told him that his verses were poor1 or that he was too fond of his wife1--all this is a little uncommon in a prince1 and deserves a place among the ample mass of other evidence of the power which ,rousseau's pictures of domestic simplicity and wise and humane education had in the eighteenth century4 ,it gives us a glimpse1 close and direct1 of the naturalist revival reaching up into high places4 ,but the trade of philosopher in such times is perhaps an irksome one1 and ,rousseau was the private victim of his public action4 ,his prince sent multitudes of ,germans to visit the sage1 and his letters1 endless with their details of the nursery1 may well have become a little tedious to a worn-out creature who only wanted to be left alone4#ade ,the famous ,prince ,henry1 ,frederick's brother1 thought a man happy who could have the delight of seeing ,rousseau as often as he chose4#adf ,people forgot the other side of this delight1 and the unlucky philosopher found in a hundred ways alike from enemies and the friends whose curiosity makes them as bad as enemies1 that the pedestal of glory partakes of the nature of the pillory or the stocks4 ,it is interesting to find the famous ,english names of ,gibbon and ,boswell in the list of the multitudes with whom he had to do at this time4#adg ,the former was now at ,lausanne1 whither he had just returned from that memorable visit to ,england which persuaded him that his father would never endure his alliance with the daughter of an obscure ,swiss pastor4 ,he had just yielded to his fate1 sighed as a lover1 and obeyed as a son4 ,how sorry ,i am for our poor ,mademoiselle ,curchod1 writes ,moultou to ,rousseau2 ,gibbon whom she loves1 and to whom she has sacrificed1 as ,i know1 some excellent matches1 has come to ,lausanne1 but cold1 insensible1 and as entirely cured of his old passion as she is far from cure4 ,she has written me a letter that makes my heart ache4 ,he then entreats ,rousseau to use his influence with ,gibbon1 who is on the point of starting for ,motiers1 by extolling to him the lady's worth and understanding4#adh ,i hope ,mr4 ,gibbon will not come1 replied the sage2 his coldness makes me think ill of him4 ,i have been looking over his book again the ,essai sur l'tude de la littrature1 #agfa2 he runs after brilliance too much1 and is strained and stilted4 ,mr4 ,gibbon is not the man for me1 and ,i do not think he is the man for ,mademoiselle ,curchod either4#adi ,whether ,gibbon went or not1 we do not know4 ,he knew in after years what had been said of him by ,jean ,jacques1 and protested with mild pomp that this extraordinary man should have been less precipitate in condemning the moral character and the conduct of a stranger4#aej ,boswell1 as we know1 had left ,johnson rolling his majestic frame in his usual manner on ,harwich beach in #agfc1 and was now on his travels4 ,like many of his countrymen1 he found his way to ,lord ,marischal1 and here his indomitable passion for making the personal acquaintance of any one who was much talked about1 naturally led him to seek so singular a character as the man who was now at ,motiers4 ,what ,rousseau thought of one who was as singular a character as himself in another direction1 we do not know4#aea ,lord ,marischal warned ,rousseau that his visitor is of excellent disposition1 but full of visionary ideas1 even having seen spirits--a serious proof of unsoundness to a man who had lived in the very positive atmosphere of ,frederick's court at ,berlin4 ,i only hope1 says the sage ,scot1 of the ,scot who was not sage1 that he may not fall into the hands of people who will turn his head3 he was very pleased with the reception you gave him4#aeb ,as it happens1 he was the means of sending ,boswell to a place where his head was turned1 though not very mischievously4 ,rousseau was at that time full of ,corsican projects1 of which this is the proper place for us very briefly to speak4 ,the prolonged struggles of the natives of ,corsica to assert their independence of the oppressive administration of the ,genoese1 which had begun in #agbi1 came to end for a moment in #agee1 when ,paoli 7#agbf-ahjg7 defeated the ,genoese1 and proceeded to settle the government of the island4 ,in the ,social ,contract ,rousseau had said1 ,there is still in ,europe one country capable of legislation1 and that is the island of ,corsica4 ,the valour and constancy with which this brave people has succeeded in recovering and defending its liberty1 entitle it to the good fortune of having some wise man to teach them how to preserve it4 ,i have a presentiment that this little isle will one day astonish ,europe1#aec--;a presentiment that in a sense came true enough long after ,rousseau was gone1 in a man who was born on the little island seven years later than the publication of this passage4 ,some of the ,corsican leaders were highly flattered1 and in ,august #agfd1 ,buttafuoco entered into correspondence with ,rousseau for the purpose of inducing him to draw up a set of political institutions and a code of laws4 ,paoli himself was too shrewd to have much belief in the application of ideal systems1 and we are assured that he had no intention of making ,rousseau the ,solon of his island1 but only of inducing him to inflame the gallantry of its inhabitants by writing a history of their exploits4#aed ,rousseau1 however1 did not understand the invitation in this narrower sense4 ,he replied that the very idea of such a task as legislation transported his soul1 and he entered into it with the liveliest ardour4 ,he resolved to quarter himself with ,theresa in a cottage in some lonely district in the island2 in a year he would collect the necessary information as to the manners and opinions of the inhabitants1 and three years afterwards he would produce a set of institutions that should be fit for a free and valorous people4#aee ,in the midst of this enthusiasm 7,may #agfe7 he urged ,boswell to visit ,corsica1 and gave him a letter to ,paoli1 with results which we know in the shape of an ,account of ,corsica 7#agfh71 and in a feverishness of imagination upon the subject for many a long day afterwards4 ,mind your own affairs1 at length cried ,johnson sternly to him1 and leave the ,corsicans to theirs2 ,i wish you would empty your head of ,corsica4#aef ,at the end of #agfe1 the immortal hero-worshipper on his return expected to come upon his hero at ,motiers1 but finding that he was in ,paris wrote him a wonderful letter in wonderful ,french4 ,you will forget all your cares for many an evening1 while ,i tell you what ,i have seen4 ,i owe you the deepest obligation for sending me to ,corsica4 ,the voyage has done me marvellous good4 ,it has made me as if all the lives of ,plutarch had sunk into my soul4444 ,i am devoted to the ,corsicans heart and soul2 if you1 illustrious ,rousseau1 the philosopher whom they have chosen to help them by your lights to preserve and enjoy the liberty which they have acquired with so much heroism--if you have cooled towards these gallant islanders1 why then ,i am sorry for you1 that is all ,i can say4#aeg ,alas1 by this time the gallant islanders had been driven out of ,rousseau's mind by personal mishaps4 ,first1 ,voltaire or some other enemy had spread the rumour that the invitation to become the ,lycurgus of ,corsica was a practical joke1 and ,rousseau's suspicious temper found what he took for confirmation of this in some trifling incidents with which we certainly need not concern ourselves4#aeh ,next1 a very real storm had burst upon him which drove him once more to seek a new place of shelter1 other than an island occupied by ,french troops4 ,for ,france having begun by despatching auxiliaries to the assistance of the ,genoese 7#agfd71 ended by buying the island from the ,genoese senate1 with a sort of equity of redemption 7#agfh7--;an iniquitous transaction1 as ,rousseau justly called it1 equally shocking to justice1 humanity1 reason1 and policy4#aei ,civilisation would have been saved one of its sorest trials if ,genoa could have availed herself of her equity1 and so have delivered ,france from the acquisition of the most terrible citizen that ever scourged a state4#afj ,the condemnation of ,rousseau by the ,council in #agfb had divided ,geneva into two camps1 and was followed by a prolonged contention between his partisans and his enemies4 ,the root of the contention was political rather than theological4 ,to take ,rousseau's side was to protest against the oligarchic authority which had condemned him1 and the quarrel about ,emilius was only an episode in the long war between the popular and aristocratic parties4 ,this strife1 after coming to a height for the first time in #agcd1 had abated after the pacification of #agch1 but the pacification was only effective for a time1 and the roots of division were still full of vitality4 ,the lawfulness of the authority and the regularity of the procedure by which ,rousseau had been condemned1 offered convenient ground for carrying on the dispute1 and its warmth was made more intense by the suggestion on the popular side that perhaps the religion of the book which the oligarchs had condemned was more like ,christianity than the religion of the oligarchs who condemned it4 ,rousseau was too near the scene of the quarrel1 too directly involved in its issues1 too constantly in contact with the people who were engaged in it1 not to feel the angry buzzings very close about his ears4 ,if he had been as collected and as self-possessed as he loved to fancy1 they would have gone for very little in the life of the day4 ,but ,rousseau never stood on the heights whence a strong man surveys with clear eye and firm soul the unjust or mean or furious moods of the world4 ,such achievement is not hard for the creature who is wrapped up in himself2 who is careless of the passions of men about him1 because he thinks they cannot hurt him1 and not because he has measured them1 and deliberately assigned them a place among the elements in which a man's destiny is cast4 ,it is only hard for one who is penetrated by true interest in the opinion and action of his fellows1 thus to keep both sympathy warm and self-sufficience true4 ,the task was too hard for ,rousseau1 though his patience under long persecution far surpassed that of any of the other oppressed teachers of the time4 ,in the spring of #agfc he deliberately renounced in all due forms his rights of burgess-ship and citizenship in the city and republic of ,geneva4#afa ,and at length he broke forth against his ,genevese persecutors in the ,letters from the ,mountain 7#agfd71 a long but extremely vigorous and adroit rejoinder to the pleas which his enemies had put forth in ,tronchin's ,letters from the ,country4 ,if any one now cares to satisfy himself how really unjust and illegal the treatment was1 which ,rousseau received at the hands of the authorities of his native city1 he may do so by examining these most forcible letters4 ,the second part of them may interest the student of political history by its account of the working of the institutions of the little republic4 ,we seem to be reading over again the history of a ,greek city2 the growth of a wealthy class in face of an increasing number of poor burgesses1 the imposition of burdens in unfair proportions upon the metoikoi1 the gradual usurpation of legislative and administrative function 7including especially the judicial7 by the oligarchs1 and the twisting of democratic machinery to oligarchic ends2 then the growth of staseis or violent factions1 followed by metabol or overthrow of the established constitution1 ending in foreign intervention4 ,the ,four ,hundred at ,athens would have treated any ,social ,contract that should have appeared in their day1 just as sternly as the ,two ,hundred or the ,twenty-five treated the ,social ,contract that did appear1 and for just the same reasons4 ,rousseau proved his case with redundancy of demonstration4 ,a body of burgesses had previously availed themselves 7,nov4 #agfc7 of a legal right1 and made a technical representation to the ,lesser ,council that the laws had been broken in his case4 ,the ,council in return availed itself of an equally legal right1 its droit ngatif1 and declined to entertain the representation1 without giving any reasons4 ,unfortunately for ,rousseau's comfort1 the ferment which his new vindication of his cause stirred up1 did not end with the condemnation and burning of his manifesto4 ,for the parliament of ,paris ordered the ,letters from the ,mountain to be burned1 and the same decree and the same faggot served for that and for ,voltaire's ,philosophical ,dictionary 7,april #agfe74afb ,it was also burned at the ,hague 7,jan4 #bb74 ,an observer by no means friendly to the priests noticed that at ,paris it was not the fanatics of orthodoxy1 but the encyclopdists and their flock1 who on this occasion raised the storm and set the zeal of the magistrates in motion4#afc ,the vanity and egoism of rationalistic sects can be as fatal to candour1 justice1 and compassion as the intolerant pride of the great churches4 ,persecution came nearer to ,rousseau and took more inconvenient shapes than this4 ,a terrible libel appeared 7,feb4 #agfe71 full of the coarsest calumnies4 ,rousseau1 stung by their insolence and falseness1 sent it to ,paris to be published there with a prefatory note1 stating that it was by a ,genevese pastor whom he named4 ,this landed him in fresh mortification1 for the pastor disavowed the libel1 ,rousseau declined to accept the disavowal1 and sensible men were wearied by acrimonious declarations1 explanations1 protests4#afd ,then the clergy of ,neuchtel were not able any longer to resist the opportunity of inflicting such torments as they could1 upon a heretic whom they might more charitably have left to those ultimate and everlasting torments which were so precious to their religious imagination4 ,they began to press the pastor of the village where ,rousseau lived1 and with whom he had hitherto been on excellent terms4 ,the pastor1 though he had been liberal enough to admit his singular parishioner to the communion1 in spite of the ,savoyard ,vicar1 was not courageous enough to resist the bigotry of the professional body to which he belonged4 ,he warned ,rousseau not to present himself at the next communion4 ,the philosopher insisted that he had a right to do this1 until formally cast out by the consistory4 ,the consistory1 composed mainly of a body of peasants entirely bound to their minister in matters of religion1 cited him to appear1 and answer such questions as might test his loyalty to the faith4 ,rousseau prepared a most deliberate vindication of all that he had written1 which he intended to speak to his rustic judges4 ,the eve of the morning on which he had to appear1 he knew his discourse by heart2 when morning came he could not repeat two sentences4 ,so he fell back on the instrument over which he had more mastery than he had over tongue or memory1 and wrote what he wished to say4 ,the pastor1 in whom irritated egoism was probably by this time giving additional heat to professional zeal1 was for fulminating a decree of excommunication1 but there appears to have been some indirect interference with the proceedings of the consistory by the king's officials at ,neuchtel1 and the ecclesiastical bolt was held back4#afe ,other weapons were not wanting4 ,the pastor proceeded to spread rumours among his flock that ,rousseau was a heretic1 even an atheist1 and most prodigious of all1 that he had written a book containing the monstrous doctrine that women have no souls4 ,the pulpit resounded with sermons proving to the honest villagers that antichrist was quartered in their parish in very flesh4 ,the ,armenian apparel gave a high degree of plausibleness to such an opinion1 and as the wretched man went by the door of his neighbours1 he heard cursing and menace1 while a hostile pebble now and again whistled past his ear4 ,his botanising expeditions were believed to be devoted to search for noxious herbs1 and a man who died in the agonies of nephritic colic1 was supposed to have been poisoned by him4#aff ,if persons went to the post-office for letters for him1 they were treated with insult4#afg ,at length the ferment against him grew hot enough to be serious4 ,a huge block of stone was found placed so as to kill him when he opened his door2 and one night an attempt was made to stone him in his house4#afh ,popular hate shown with this degree of violence was too much for his fortitude1 and after a residence of rather more than three years 7,september #h-aj1 #agfe71 he fled from the inhospitable valley to seek refuge he knew not where4 ,in his rambles of a previous summer he had seen a little island in the lake of ,bienne1 which struck his imagination and lived in his memory4 ,thither he now1 after a moment of hesitation1 turned his steps1 with something of the same instinct as draws a child towards a beam of the sun4 ,he forgot or was heedless of the circumstance that the isle of ,st4 ,peter lay in the jurisdiction of the canton of ,berne1 whose government had forbidden him their territory4 ,strong craving for a little ease in the midst of his wretchedness extinguished thought of jurisdictions and proscriptive decrees4 ,the spot where he now found peace for a brief space usually disappoints the modern hunter for the picturesque1 who after wearying himself with the follies of a capital seeks the most violent tonic that he can find in the lonely terrors of glacier and peak1 and sees only tameness in a pygmy island1 that offers nothing sublimer than a high grassy terrace1 some cool over-branching avenues1 some mimic vales1 and meadows and vineyards sloping down to the sheet of blue water at their feet4 ,yet1 as one sits here on a summer day1 with tired mowers sleeping on their grass heaps in the sun1 in a stillness faintly broken by the timid lapping of the water in the sedge1 or the rustling of swift lizards across the heated sand1 while the ,bernese snow giants line a distant horizon with mysterious solitary shapes1 it is easy to know what solace life in such a scene might bring to a man distracted by pain of body and pain and weariness of soul4 ,rousseau has commemorated his too short sojourn here in the most perfect of all his compositions4#afi ,i found my existence so charming1 and led a life so agreeable to my humour1 that ,i resolved here to end my days4 ,my only source of disquiet was whether ,i should be allowed to carry my project out4 ,in the midst of the presentiments that disturbed me1 ,i would fain have had them make a perpetual prison of my refuge1 to confine me in it for all the rest of my life4 ,i longed for them to cut off all chance and all hope of leaving it2 to forbid me holding any communication with the mainland1 so that1 knowing nothing of what was going on in the world1 ,i might have forgotten the world's existence1 and people might have forgotten mine too4 ,they only suffered me to pass two months in the island1 but ,i could have passed two years1 two centuries1 and all eternity1 without a moment's weariness1 though ,i had not1 with my companion1 any other society than that of the steward1 his wife1 and their servants4 ,they were in truth honest souls and nothing more1 but that was just what ,i wanted4444 ,carried thither in a violent hurry1 alone and without a thing1 ,i afterwards sent for my housekeeper1 my books1 and my scanty possessions1 of which ,i had the delight of unpacking nothing1 leaving my boxes and chests just as they had come1 and dwelling in the house where ,i counted on ending my days1 exactly as if it were an inn whence ,i must needs set forth on the morrow4 ,all things went so well1 just as they were1 that to think of ordering them better were to spoil them4 ,one of my greatest joys was to leave my books safely fastened up in their boxes1 and to be without even a case for writing4 ,when any luckless letter forced me to take up a pen for an answer1 ,i grumblingly borrowed the steward's inkstand1 and hurried to give it back to him with all the haste ,i could1 in the vain hope that ,i should never have need of the loan any more4 ,instead of meddling with those weary quires and reams and piles of old books1 ,i filled my chamber with flowers and grasses1 for ,i was then in my first fervour for botany4 ,having given up employment that would be a task to me1 ,i needed one that would be an amusement1 nor cause me more pains than a sluggard might choose to take4 ,i undertook to make the ,flora petrinsularis1 and to describe every single plant on the island1 in detail enough to occupy me for the rest of my days4 ,in consequence of this fine scheme1 every morning after breakfast1 which we all took in company1 ,i used to go with a magnifying glass in my hand and my ,systema ,natur under my arm1 to visit some district of the island4 ,i had divided it for that purpose into small squares1 meaning to go through them one after another in each season of the year4 ,at the end of two or three hours ,i used to return laden with an ample harvest1 a provision for amusing myself after dinner indoors1 in case of rain4 ,i spent the rest of the morning in going with the steward1 his wife1 and ,theresa1 to see the labourers and the harvesting1 and ,i generally set to work along with them2 many a time when people from ,berne came to see me1 they found me perched on a high tree1 with a bag fastened round my waist2 ,i kept filling it with fruit and then let it down to the ground with a rope4 ,the exercise ,i had taken in the morning and the good humour that always comes from exercise1 made the repose of dinner vastly pleasant to me4 ,but if dinner was kept up too long1 and fine weather invited me forth1 ,i could not wait1 but was speedily off to throw myself all alone into a boat1 which1 when the water was smooth enough1 ,i used to pull out to the middle of the lake4 ,there1 stretched at full length in the boat's bottom1 with my eyes turned up to the sky1 ,i let myself float slowly hither and thither as the water listed1 sometimes for hours together1 plunged in a thousand confused delicious musings1 which1 though they had no fixed nor constant object1 were not the less on that account a hundred times dearer to me than all that ,i had found sweetest in what they call the pleasures of life4 ,often warned by the going down of the sun that it was time to return1 ,i found myself so far from the island that ,i was forced to row with all my might to get in before it was pitch dark4 ,at other times1 instead of losing myself in the midst of the waters1 ,i had a fancy to coast along the green shores of the island1 where the clear waters and cool shadows tempted me to bathe4 ,but one of my most frequent expeditions was from the larger island to the less2 there ,i disembarked and spent my afternoon1 sometimes in mimic rambles among wild elders1 persicaries1 willows1 and shrubs of every species1 sometimes settling myself on the top of a sandy knoll1 covered with turf1 wild thyme1 flowers1 even sainfoin and trefoil that had most likely been sown there in old days1 making excellent quarters for rabbits4 ,they might multiply in peace without either fearing anything or harming anything4 ,i spoke of this to the steward4 ,he at once had male and female rabbits brought from ,neuchtel1 and we went in high state1 his wife1 one of his sisters1 ,theresa1 and ,i1 to settle them in the little islet4 ,the foundation of our colony was a feast-day4 ,the pilot of the ,argonauts was not prouder than ,i1 as ,i bore my company and the rabbits in triumph from our island to the smaller one4444 ,when the lake was too rough for me to sail1 ,i spent my afternoon in going up and down the island1 gathering plants to right and left2 seating myself now in smiling lonely nooks to dream at my ease1 now on little terraces and knolls1 to follow with my eyes the superb and ravishing prospect of the lake and its shores1 crowned on one side by the neighbouring hills1 and on the other melting into rich and fertile plains up to the feet of the pale blue mountains on their far-off edge4 ,as evening drew on1 ,i used to come down from the high ground and sit on the beach at the water's brink in some hidden sheltering place4 ,there the murmur of the waves and their agitation1 charmed all my senses and drove every other movement away from my soul2 they plunged it into delicious dreamings1 in which ,i was often surprised by night4 ,the flux and reflux of the water1 its ceaseless stir-swelling and falling at intervals1 striking on ear and sight1 made up for the internal movements which my musings extinguished2 they were enough to give me delight in mere existence1 without taking any trouble of thinking4 ,from time to time arose some passing thought of the instability of the things of this world1 of which the face of the waters offered an image2 but such light impressions were swiftly effaced in the uniformity of the ceaseless motion1 which rocked me as in a cradle2 it held me with such fascination that even when called at the hour and by the signal appointed1 ,i could not tear myself away without summoning all my force4 ,after supper1 when the evening was fine1 we used to go all together for a saunter on the terrace1 to breathe the freshness of the air from the lake4 ,we sat down in the arbour1 laughing1 chatting1 or singing some old song1 and then we went home to bed1 well pleased with the day1 and only craving another that should be exactly like it on the morrow4444 ,all is in a continual flux upon the earth4 ,nothing in it keeps a form constant and determinate2 our affections1 fastening on external things1 necessarily change and pass just as they do4 ,ever in front of us or behind us1 they recall the past that is gone1 or anticipate a future that in many a case is destined never to be4 ,there is nothing solid to which the heart can fix itself4 ,here we have little more than a pleasure that comes and passes away2 as for the happiness that endures1 ,i cannot tell if it be so much as known among men4 ,there is hardly in the midst of our liveliest delights a single instant when the heart could tell us with real truth--,i would this instant might last for ever4 ,and how can we give the name of happiness to a fleeting state that all the time leaves the heart unquiet and void1 that makes us regret something gone1 or still long for something to come8 ,but if there is a state in which the soul finds a situation solid enough to comport with perfect repose1 and with the expansion of its whole faculty1 without need of calling back the past1 or pressing on towards the future2 where time is nothing for it1 and the present has no ending2 with no mark for its own duration and without a trace of succession2 without a single other sense of privation or delight1 of pleasure or pain1 of desire or apprehension1 than this single sense of existence--so long as such a state endures1 he who finds himself in it may talk of bliss1 not with a poor1 relative1 and imperfect happiness such as people find in the pleasures of life1 but with a happiness full1 perfect1 and sufficing1 that leaves in the soul no conscious unfilled void4 ,such a state was many a day mine in my solitary musings in the isle of ,st4 ,peter1 either lying in my boat as it floated on the water1 or seated on the banks of the broad lake1 or in other places than the little isle on the brink of some broad stream1 or a rivulet murmuring over a gravel bed4 ,what is it that one enjoys in a situation like this8 ,nothing outside of one's self1 nothing except one's self and one's own existence4444 ,but most men1 tossed as they are by unceasing passion1 have little knowledge of such a state2 they taste it imperfectly for a few moments1 and then retain no more than an obscure confused idea of it1 that is too weak to let them feel its charm4 ,it would not even be good in the present constitution of things1 that in their eagerness for these gentle ecstasies1 they should fall into a disgust for the active life in which their duty is prescribed to them by needs that are ever on the increase4 ,but a wretch cut off from human society1 who can do nothing here below that is useful and good either for himself or for other people1 may in such a state find for all lost human felicities many recompenses1 of which neither fortune nor men can ever rob him4 ',tis true that these recompenses cannot be felt by all souls1 nor in all situations4 ,the heart must be in peace1 nor any passion come to trouble its calm4 ,there must be in the surrounding objects neither absolute repose nor excess of agitation1 but a uniform and moderated movement without shock1 without interval4 ,with no movement1 life is only lethargy4 ,if the movement be unequal or too strong1 it awakes us2 by recalling us to the objects around1 it destroys the charm of our musing1 and plucks us from within ourselves1 instantly to throw us back under the yoke of fortune and man1 in a moment to restore us to all the consciousness of misery4 ,absolute stillness inclines one to gloom4 ,it offers an image of death3 then the help of a cheerful imagination is necessary1 and presents itself naturally enough to those whom heaven has endowed with such a gift4 ,the movement which does not come from without then stirs within us4 ,the repose is less complete1 it is true2 but it is also more agreeable when light and gentle ideas1 without agitating the depths of the soul1 only softly skim the surface4 ,this sort of musing we may taste whenever there is tranquillity about us1 and ,i have thought that in the ,bastile1 and even in a dungeon where no object struck my sight1 ,i could have dreamed away many a thrice pleasurable day4 ,but it must be said that all this came better and more happily in a fruitful and lonely island1 where nothing presented itself to me save smiling pictures1 where nothing recalled saddening memories1 where the fellowship of the few dwellers there was gentle and obliging1 without being exciting enough to busy me incessantly1 where1 in short1 ,i was free to surrender myself all day long to the promptings of my taste or to the most luxurious indolence4444 ,as ,i came out from a long and most sweet musing fit1 seeing myself surrounded by verdure and flowers and birds1 and letting my eyes wander far over romantic shores that fringed a wide expanse of water bright as crystal1 ,i fitted all these attractive objects into my dreams2 and when at last ,i slowly recovered myself and recognised what was about me1 ,i could not mark the point that cut off dream from reality1 so equally did all things unite to endear to me the lonely retired life ,i led in this happy spot6 ,why can that life not come back to me again8 ,why can ,i not go finish my days in the beloved island1 never to quit it1 never again to see in it one dweller from the mainland1 to bring back to me the memory of all the woes of every sort that they have delighted in heaping on my head for all these long years8444 ,freed from the earthly passions engendered by the tumult of social life1 my soul would many a time lift itself above this atmosphere1 and commune beforehand with the heavenly intelligences1 into whose number it trusts to be ere long taken4 ,the exquisite dream1 thus set to words of most soothing music1 came soon to its end4 ,the full and perfect sufficience of life was abruptly disturbed4 ,the government of ,berne gave him notice to quit the island and their territory within fifteen days4 ,he represented to the authorities that he was infirm and ill1 that he knew not whither to go1 and that travelling in wintry weather would be dangerous to his life4 ,he even made the most extraordinary request that any man in similar straits ever did make4 ,in this extremity1 he wrote to their representative1 ,i only see one resource for me1 and however frightful it may appear1 ,i will adopt it1 not only without repugnance1 but with eagerness1 if their excellencies will be good enough to give their consent4 ,it is that it should please them for me to pass the rest of my days in prison in one of their castles1 or such other place in their states as they may think fit to select4 ,i will there live at my own expense1 and ,i will give security never to put them to any cost4 ,i submit to be without paper or pen1 or any communication from without1 except so far as may be absolutely necessary1 and through the channel of those who shall have charge of me4 ,only let me have left1 with the use of a few books1 the liberty to walk occasionally in a garden1 and ,i am content4 ,do not suppose that an expedient1 so violent in appearance1 is the fruit of despair4 ,my mind is perfectly calm at this moment2 ,i have taken time to think about it1 and it is only after profound consideration that ,i have brought myself to this decision4 ,mark1 ,i pray you1 that if this seems an extraordinary resolution1 my situation is still more so4 ,the distracted life that ,i have been made to lead for several years without intermission would be terrible for a man in full health2 judge what it must be for a miserable invalid worn down with weariness and misfortune1 and who has now no wish save only to die in a little peace4#agj ,that the request was made in all sincerity we may well believe4 ,the difference between being in prison and being out of it was really not considerable to a man who had the previous winter been confined to his chamber for eight months without a break4#aga ,in other respects the world was as cheerless as any prison could be4 ,he was an exile from the only places he knew1 and to him a land unknown was terrible4 ,he had thought of ,vienna1 and the ,prince of ,wrtemburg had sought the requisite permission for him1 but the priests were too strong in the court of the house of ,austria4#agb ,madame d',houdetot offered him a resting-place in ,normandy1 and ,saint ,lambert in ,lorraine4#agc ,he thought of ,potsdam4 ,rey1 the printer1 pressed him to go to ,holland4 ,he wondered if he should have strength to cross the ,alps and make his way to ,corsica4 ,eventually he made up his mind to go to ,berlin1 and he went as far as ,strasburg on his road thither4#agd ,here he began to fear the rude climate of the northern capital2 he changed his plans1 and resolved to accept the warm invitations that he had received to cross over to ,england4 ,his friends used their interest to procure a passport for him1#age and the ,prince of ,conti offered him an apartment in the privileged quarter of the ,temple1 on his way through ,paris4 ,his own purpose seems to have been irresolute to the last1 but his friends acted with such energy and bustle on his behalf that the ,english scheme was adopted1 and he found himself in ,paris 7,dec4 #ag1 #agfe71 on his way to ,london1 almost before he had deliberately realised what he was doing4 ,it was a step that led him into many fatal vexations1 as we shall presently see4 ,meanwhile we may pause to examine the two considerable books which had involved his life in all this confusion and perplexity4 ,,footnotes3 #id ,june1 #agfb-;,december1 #agfe4 #ie ,conf41 xi4 #age4 ,it is generally printed in the volume of his works entitled ,mlanges4 #if ,corr41 iii4 #daf4 #ig ,conf41 xi4 #agb4 #ih ,for a remarkable anticipation of the ruin of ,france1 see ,conf41 xi4 #acf4 #ii ,m4 ,roguin4 ,june #ad1 #agfb4 #ajj ,corr41 ii4 #cdg4 #aja ,streckeisen1 i4 #ce4 #ajb ,his friend ,moultou wrote him the news1 ,streckeisen1 i4 #dc4 ,geneva was the only place at which the ,social ,contract was burnt4 ,here there were peculiar reasons1 as we shall see4 #ajc ,corr41 ii4 #cef4 #ajd ,ib41 ii4 #ceh1 #cfi1 etc4 #aje ,the principality of ,neuchtel had fallen by marriage 7#aejd7 to the ,french house of ,orleans-,longueville1 which with certain interruptions retained it until the extinction of the line by the death of ,marie1 ,duchess of ,nemours 7#agjg74 ,fifteen claimants arose with fifteen varieties of far-off title1 as well as a party for constituting ,neuchtel a ,republic and making it a fourteenth canton4 7,saint ,simon1 v4 #bgf47 ,the ,estates adjudged the sovereignty to the ,protestant house of ,prussia 7,nov4 #c1 #agjg74 ,lewis ,,xiv41 as heir of the pretensions of the extinct line1 protested4 ,finally1 at the peace of ,utrecht 7#agac71 ,lewis surrendered his claim in exchange for the cession by ,prussia of the ,principality of ,orange1 and ,prussia held it until #ahjf4 ,the disturbed history of the connection between ,prussia and ,neuchtel from #ahad1 when it became the twenty-first canton of the ,swiss ,confederation1 down to #aheg1 does not here concern us4 #ajf ,corr41 ii4 #cgj4 #ajg ,corr41 ii4 #cga4 ,july #agfb4 #ajh ,d',alembert1 who knew ,frederick better than any of the philosophers1 to ,voltaire1 ,nov4 #bb1 #agfe4 #aji ,letter to ,hume2 ,burton's ,life of ,hume1 ii4 #aje1 corroborating ,conf41 xii4 #aif4 #aaj ,marischal to ,j4,j4,r42 ,streckeisen1 ii4 #gj4 #aaa ,corr41 iii4 #dj4 ,nov4 #a1 #agfb4 #aab ,burton's ,life1 ii4 #aac4 #aac ,voltaire's ,corr4 7#ageh74 ,oeuv41 lxxv4 pp4 #ca and #hj4 #aad ,conf41 xii4 #bcg4 #aae ,corr41 iii4 #da4 ,nov4 #aa1 #agfb4 #aaf ,corr41 iii4 #ch4 ,oct4 #cj1 #agfb4 #aag ,ib41 iii4 #aaj-aae4 ,jan4 #bh1 #agfc4 #aah ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre1 xii4 #ajc1 #ei1 etc4 #aai ,george ,keith 7#afhe-aggh7 was elder brother of ,frederick's famous field-marshal1 ,james ,keith4 ,they had taken part in the ,jacobite rising of #agae1 and fled abroad on its failure4 ,james ,keith brought his brother into the service of the ,king of ,prussia1 who sent him as ambassador to ,paris 7#agea71 afterwards made him ,governor of ,neuchtel 7#aged71 and eventually prevailed on the ,english ,government to reinstate him in the rights which he had forfeited by his share in the rebellion 7#agfc74 #abj ,streckeisen1 ii4 #ih1 etc4 #aba ,one of ,rousseau's chief distresses hitherto arose from the indigence in which ,theresa would be placed in case of his death4 ,rey1 the bookseller1 gave her an annuity of about #af a year1 and ,lord ,marischal's gift seems to have been #cjj louis1 the only money that ,rousseau was ever induced to accept from any one in his life4 ,see ,streckeisen1 ii4 #ii2 ,corr41 iii4 #ccf4 ,the most delicate and sincere of the many offers to provide for ,theresa was made by ,madame de ,verdelin 7,streckeisen1 ii4 #ejf74 ,the language in which ,madame de ,verdelin speaks of ,theresa in all her letters is the best testimony to character that this much-abused creature has to produce4 #abb ,ib41 #ij1 #ib1 etc4 ,summer of #agfc4 #abc ,burton's ,life of ,hume1 ii4 #aje4 ,oct4 #b1 #agfb4 #abd ,the ,confessions are not our only authority for this4 ,see ,streckeisen1 ii4 #fd2 also ,d',alembert to ,voltaire1 ,sept4 #h1 #agfb4 #abe ,voltaire's ,corr4 ,oeuv41 lxvii4 #deh1 #dei1 #dhe1 etc4 #abf ,to ,d',alembert1 ,sept4 #ae1 #agfb4 #abg ,moultou to ,rousseau1 ,streckeisen1 i4 #he1 #hg4 #abh ,moultou to ,rousseau1 ,streckeisen1 i4 #he1 #hg4 #abi ,streckeisen1 i4 #ej4 #acj ,ib41 i4 #gf4 #aca ,lettre ,christophe de ,beaumont1 pp4 #afc-aff4 #acb ,lettre ,christophe de ,beaumont1 pp4 #acj-ace4 #acc ,lettre ,christophe de ,beaumont1 p4 #ic4 #acd ,carlyle's ,frederick1 ,bk4 xxi4 ch4 iv4 ,rousseau1 ,corr41 iii4 #ajb4 #ace ,corr41 iii4 #eg4 ,nov4 #agfb4 ,to ,m4 ,montmollin4 #acf ,conf41 xii4 #bjf4 #acg ,conf41 xii4 #aih4 #ach ,corr41 iii4 #bie4 ,dec4 #be1 #agfc4 #aci ,quoted in ,musset-,pathay1 ii4 #ejj4 #adj ,for instance1 ,corr41 iii4 #bdi4 #ada ,ib41 iii4 #cfd1 #cha4 #adb ,corr41 iii4 #aha-ahf1 etc4 #adc ,prince ,lewis ,eugene1 son of ,charles ,alexander 7reigning duke from #agcc to #agcg72 a younger brother of ,charles ,eugene1 known as ,schiller's ,duke of ,wrtemberg1 who reigned up to #agic4 ,frederick ,eugene1 known in the ,seven ,years' ,war1 was another brother4 ,rousseau's correspondent became reigning duke in #agic1 but only lived a year and a half afterwards4 #add ,corr41 iii4 #bej4 ,sept4 #bi1 #agfc4 #ade ,the prince's letters are given in the ,streckeisen collection1 vol4 ii4 #adf ,streckeisen1 ii4 #bjb4 #adg ,possibly ,wilkes also2 ,corr41 iv4 #bjj4 #adh ,streckeisen1 i4 #hi4 ,june #a1 #agfc4 #adi ,corr41 iii4 #bjb4 ,june #d1 #agfc4 #aej ,memoirs of my ,life1 p4 #ee1 n4 7,ed4 #ahfb74 ,necker 7#agcb-ahjd71 whom ,mdlle4 ,curchod ultimately married1 was an eager admirer of ,rousseau4 ,ah1 how close the tender1 humane1 and virtuous soul of ,julie1 he wrote to her author1 has brought me to you4 ,how the reading of those letters gratified me6 how many good emotions did they stir or fortify6 ,how many sublimities in a thousand places in these six volumes2 not the sublimity that perches itself in the clouds1 but that which pushes everyday virtues to their highest point1 and so on4 ,feb4 #af1 #agfa4 ,streckeisen1 i4 #ccc4 #aea ,boswell's name only occurs twice in ,rousseau's letters1 ,i believe2 once 7,corr41 iv4 #cid7 as the writer of a letter which ,hume was suspected of tampering with1 and previously 7iv4 #gj7 as the bearer of a letter4 ,see also ,streckeisen1 i4 #bfb4 #aeb ,streckeisen1 ii4 #aaa4 ,jan4 #ah1 #agfe4 #aec ,bk4 ii4 ch4 x4 #aed ,boswell's ,account of ,corsica1 p4 #cfg4 #aee ,the correspondence between ,rousseau and ,buttafuoco has been published in the ,oeuvres et ,corr4 ,indites de ,j4,j4,r41 #ahfa4 ,see pp4 #ce1 #dc1 etc4 #aef ,boswell's ,life1 #agi1 #aic1 etc4 7,ed4 #ahff74 #aeg ,je suis tout homme de pouvoir vous regarder avec piti6 ,letter dated ,jan4 #d1 #agff1 and given by ,musset-,pathay as from a ,scotch lord1 unnamed4 ,boswell had the honour of conducting ,theresa to ,england1 after ,hume had taken ,rousseau over4 ,this young gentleman1 writes ,hume1 very good-humoured1 very agreeable1 and very mad--has such a rage for literature that ,i dread some circumstance fatal to our friend's honour4 ,you remember the story of ,terentia1 who was first married to ,cicero1 then to ,sallust1 and at last in her old age married a young nobleman1 who imagined that she must possess some secret which would convey to him eloquence and genius4 ,burton's ,life1 ii4 #cjg1 #cjh4 ,boswell mentions that he met ,rousseau in ,england 7,account of ,corsica1 p4 #cdj71 and also gives ,rousseau's letter introducing him to ,paoli 7p4 #bff74 #aeh ,to ,buttafuoco1 p4 #dh1 etc4 #aei ,corr41 vi4 #agf4 ,feb4 #bf1 #aggj4 #afj ,it may be worth noticing1 as a link between historic personages1 that ,napoleon ,bonaparte's first piece was a ,lettre ,matteo ,buttafuoco 7#agia71 the same ,buttafuoco with whom ,rousseau corresponded1 who had been ,choiseul's agent in the union of the island to ,france1 was afterwards sent as deputy to the ,constituent1 and finally became the bitterest enemy of ,paoli and the patriotic party4 #afa ,corr41 iii4 #aij4 ,to the ,first ,syndic1 ,may #ab1 #agfc4 #afb ,grimm's ,corr4 ,lit41 iv4 #bce4 ,for ,rousseau's opinion of his book's companion at the stake1 see ,corr41 iii4 #ddb4 #afc ,streckeisen1 ii4 #ebf4 #afd ,there appears to be no doubt that ,rousseau was wrong in attributing to ,vernes the ,sentimens des ,citoyens4 #afe ,corr41 iv4 #aaf1 #abb 7,april #agfe71 #afe-aif 7,august72 also ,conf41 xii4 #bde4 #aff ,note to ,m4 ,auguis's edition1 ,corr41 v4 #cie4 #afg ,corr41 iv4 #bjd4 #afh ,conf41 xii4 #bei4 ,this lapidation has sometimes been doubted1 and treated as an invention of ,rousseau's morbid suspicion4 ,the official documents prove that his account was substantially true 7see ,musset-,pathay1 ii4 #eei47 #afi ,the fifth of the ,rveries4 ,see also ,conf41 #bfb-bgi1 and ,corr41 iv4 #bjf-bbd4 ,his stay in the island was from the second week in ,september down to the last in ,october1 #agfe4 #agj ,corr41 iv4 #bba4 ,oct4 #bj1 #agfe4 #aga ,ib41 iv4 #acf1 etc4 ,april #bg1 #agfe4 #agb ,streckeisen-,moultou1 ii4 #bji1 #bab4 #agc ,ib41 ii4 #eed4 #agd ,he arrived at ,strasburg on the #b;d or #c;d of ,november1 left it about the end of the first week in ,december1 and arrived in ,paris on the #afth of ,december #agfe4 ,a sort of apocryphal tradition is said to linger in the island about ,rousseau's last evening on the island1 how after supper he called for a lute1 and sang some passably bad verses4 ,see ,m4 ,bougy's ,j4,j4 ,rousseau1 p4 #agi 7,paris3 #ahec47 #age ,madame de ,verdelin to ,j4,j4,r4 ,streckeisen1 ii4 #ecb4 ,the minister even expressed his especial delight at being able to serve ,rousseau1 so little seriousness was there now in the formalities of absolution4 ,ib4 #edg4 ,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,the ,,social ,,contract4 ,the dominant belief of the best minds of the latter half of the eighteenth century was a passionate faith in the illimitable possibilities of human progress4 ,nothing short of a general overthrow of the planet could in their eyes stay the ever upward movement of human perfectibility4 ,they differed as to the details of the philosophy of government which they deduced from this philosophy of society1 but the conviction that a golden era of tolerance1 enlightenment1 and material prosperity was close at hand1 belonged to them all4 ,rousseau set his face the other way4 ,for him the golden era had passed away from our globe many centuries ago4 ,simplicity had fled from the earth4 ,wisdom and heroism had vanished from out of the minds of leaders4 ,the spirit of citizenship had gone from those who should have upheld the social union in brotherly accord4 ,the dream of human perfectibility which nerved men like ,condorcet1 was to ,rousseau a sour and fantastic mockery4 ,the utmost that men could do was to turn their eyes to the past1 to obliterate the interval1 to try to walk for a space in the track of the ancient societies4 ,they would hardly succeed1 but endeavour might at least do something to stay the plague of universal degeneracy4 ,hence the fatality of his system4 ,it placed the centre of social activity elsewhere than in careful and rational examination of social conditions1 and in careful and rational effort to modify them4 ,as we began by saying1 it substituted a retrograde aspiration for direction1 and emotion for the discovery of law4 ,we can hardly wonder1 when we think of the intense exaltation of spirit produced both by the perfectibilitarians and the followers of ,rousseau1 and at the same time of the political degradation and material disorder of ,france1 that so violent a contrast between the ideal and the actual led to a great volcanic outbreak4 ,alas1 the crucial difficulty of political change is to summon new force without destroying the sound parts of a structure which it has taken so many generations to erect4 ,the ,social ,contract is the formal denial of the possibility of successfully overcoming the difficulty4 ,although man deprives himself in the civil state of many advantages which he holds from nature1 yet he acquires in return others so great1 his faculties exercise and develop themselves1 his ideas extend1 his sentiments are ennobled1 his whole soul is raised to such a degree1 that if the abuses of this new condition did not so often degrade him below that from which he has emerged1 he would be bound to bless without ceasing the happy moment which rescued him from it for ever1 and out of a stupid and blind animal made an intelligent being and a man4#agf ,the little parenthesis as to the frequent degradation produced by the abuses of the social condition1 does not prevent us from recognising in the whole passage a tolerably complete surrender of the main position which was taken up in the two ,discourses4 ,the short treatise on the ,social ,contract is an inquiry into the just foundations and most proper form of that very political society1 which the ,discourses showed to have its foundation in injustice1 and to be incapable of receiving any form proper for the attainment of the full measure of human happiness4 ,inequality in the same way is no longer denounced1 but accepted and defined4 ,locke's influence has begun to tell4 ,the two principal objects of every system of legislation are declared to be liberty and equality4 ,by equality we are warned not to understand that the degrees of power and wealth should be absolutely the same1 but that in respect of power1 such power should be out of reach of any violence1 and be invariably exercised in virtue of the laws2 and in respect of riches1 that no citizen should be wealthy enough to buy another1 and none poor enough to sell himself4 ,do you say this equality is a mere chimera8 ,it is precisely because the force of things is constantly tending to destroy equality1 that the force of legislation ought as constantly to be directed towards upholding it4#agg ,this is much clearer than the indefinite way of speaking which we have already noticed in the second ,discourse4 ,it means neither more nor less than that equality before the law which is one of the elementary marks of a perfectly free community4 ,the idea of the law being constantly directed to counteract the tendencies to violent inequalities in material possessions among different members of a society1 is too vague to be criticised4 ,does it cover and warrant so sweeping a measure as the old seisachtheia of ,solon1 voiding all contracts in which the debtor had pledged his land or his person2 or such measures as the agrarian laws of ,licinius and the ,gracchi8 ,or is it to go no further than to condemn such a law as that which in ,england gives unwilled lands to the eldest son8 ,we can only criticise accurately a general idea of this sort in connection with specific projects in which it is applied4 ,as it stands1 it is no more than the expression of what the author thinks a wise principle of public policy4 ,it assumes the existence of property just as completely as the theory of the most rigorous capitalist could do2 it gives no encouragement1 as the ,discourse did1 to the notion of an equality in being without property4 ,there is no element of communism in a principle so stated1 but it suggests a social idea1 based on the moral claim of men to have equality of opportunity4 ,this ideal stamped itself on the minds of ,robespierre and the other revolutionary leaders1 and led to practical results in the sale of the ,church and other lands in small lots1 so as to give the peasant a market to buy in4 ,the effect of the economic change thus introduced happened to work in the direction in which ,rousseau pointed1 for it is now known that the most remarkable and most permanent of the consequences of the revolution in the ownership of land was the erection1 between the two extreme classes of proprietors1 of an immense body of middle-class freeholders4 ,this state is not equality1 but gradation1 and there is undoubtedly an immense difference between the two4 ,still its origin is an illustration on the largest scale in history of the force of legislation being exerted to counteract an irregularity that had become unbearable4#agh ,notwithstanding the disappearance of the more extravagant elements of the old thesis1 the new speculation was far from being purged of the fundamental errors that had given such popularity to its predecessors4 ,if the sea1 he says in one place1 bathes nothing but inaccessible rocks on your coasts1 remain barbarous ichthyophagi2 you will live all the more tranquilly for it1 better perhaps1 and assuredly more happily4#agi ,apart from an outburst like this1 the central idea remained the same1 though it was approached from another side and with different objects4 ,the picture of a state of nature had lost none of its perilous attraction1 though it was hung in a slightly changed light4 ,it remained the starting-point of the right and normal constitution of civil society1 just as it had been the starting-point of the denunciation of civil society as incapable of right constitution1 and as necessarily and for ever abnormal4 ,equally with the ,discourses1 the ,social ,contract is a repudiation of that historic method which traces the present along a line of ascertained circumstances1 and seeks an improved future in an unbroken continuation of that line4 ,the opening words1 which sent such a thrill through the generation to which they were uttered in two continents1 ,man is born free1 and everywhere he is in chains1 tell us at the outset that we are as far away as ever from the patient method of positive observation1 and as deeply buried as ever in deducing practical maxims from a set of conditions which never had any other than an abstract and phantasmatic existence4 ,how is a man born free8 ,if he is born into isolation1 he perishes instantly4 ,if he is born into a family1 he is at the moment of his birth committed to a state of social relation1 in however rudimentary a form2 and the more or less of freedom which this state may ultimately permit to him1 depends upon circumstances4 ,man was hardly born free among ,romans and ,athenians1 when both law and public opinion left a father at perfect liberty to expose his new-born infant4 ,and the more primitive the circumstances1 the later the period at which he gains freedom4 ,a child was not born free in the early days of the ,roman state1 when the patria potestas was a vigorous reality4 ,nor1 to go yet further back1 was he born free in the times of the ,hebrew patriarchs1 when ,abraham had full right of sacrificing his son1 and ,jephthah of sacrificing his daughter4 ,but to speak thus is to speak what we do know4 ,rousseau was not open to such testimony4 ,my principles1 he said in contempt of ,grotius1 are not founded on the authority of poets2 they come from the nature of things and are based on reason4#ahj ,he does indeed in one place express his reverence for the ,judaic law1 and administers a just rebuke to the philosophic arrogance which saw only successful impostors in the old legislators4#aha ,but he paid no attention to the processes and usages of which this law was the organic expression1 nor did he allow himself to learn from it the actual conditions of the social state which accepted it4 ,it was ,locke1 whose essay on civil government haunts us throughout the ,social ,contract1 who had taught him that men are born free1 equal1 and independent4 ,locke evaded the difficulty of the dependence of childhood by saying that when the son comes to the estate that made his father a free man1 he becomes a free man too4#ahb ,what of the old ,roman use permitting a father to sell his son three times8 ,in the same metaphysical spirit ,locke had laid down the absolute proposition that conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman4#ahc ,this is true of a small number of western societies in our own day1 but what of the primitive usages of communal marriages1 marriages by capture1 purchase1 and the rest8 ,we do not mean it as any discredit to writers upon government in the seventeenth century that they did not make good out of their own consciousness the necessary want of knowledge about primitive communities4 ,but it is necessary to point out1 first1 that they did not realise all the knowledge within their reach1 and next that1 as a consequence of this1 their propositions had a quality that vitiated all their speculative worth4 ,filmer's contention that man is not naturally free was truer than the position of ,locke and ,rousseau1 and it was so because ,filmer consulted and appealed to the most authentic of the historic records then accessible4#ahd ,it is the more singular that ,rousseau should have thus deliberately put aside all but the most arbitrary and empirical historical lessons1 and it shows the extraordinary force with which men may be mastered by abstract prepossessions1 even when they have a partial knowledge of the antidote2 because ,rousseau in several places not only admits1 but insists upon1 the necessity of making institutions relative to the state of the community1 in respect of size1 soil1 manners1 occupation1 morality1 character4 ,it is in view of such relations as these that we must assign to each people a particular system1 which shall be the best1 not perhaps in itself1 but for the state for which it is destined4#ahe ,in another place he calls attention to manners1 customs1 above all to opinion1 as the part of a social system on which the success of all the rest depends2 particular rules being only the arching of the vault1 of which manners1 though so much tardier in rising1 form a key-stone that can never be disturbed4#ahf ,this was excellent so far as it went1 but it was one of the many great truths1 which men may hold in their minds without appreciating their full value4 ,he did not see that these manners1 customs1 opinions1 have old roots which must be sought in a historic past2 that they are connected with the constitution of human nature1 and that then in turn they prepare modifications of that constitution4 ,his narrow1 symmetrical1 impatient humour unfitted him to deal with the complex tangle of the history of social growths4 ,it was essential to his mental comfort that he should be able to see a picture of perfect order and logical system at both ends of his speculation4 ,hence1 he invented1 to begin with1 his ideal state of nature1 and an ideal mode of passing from that to the social state4 ,he swept away in his imagination the whole series of actual incidents between present and past2 and he constructed a system which might be imposed upon all societies indifferently by a legislator summoned for that purpose1 to wipe out existing uses1 laws1 and institutions1 and make afresh a clear and undisturbed beginning of national life4 ,the force of habit was slowly and insensibly to be substituted for that of the legislator's authority1 but the existence of such habits previously as forces to be dealt with1 and the existence of certain limits of pliancy in the conditions of human nature and social possibility1 are facts of which the author of the ,social ,contract takes not the least account4 ,rousseau knew hardly any history1 and the few isolated pieces of old fact which he had picked up in his very slight reading were exactly the most unfortunate that a student in need of the historic method could possibly have fallen in with4 ,the illustrations which are scantily dispersed in his pages1--and we must remark that they are no more than illustrations for conclusions arrived at quite independently of them1 and not the historical proof and foundations of his conclusions1--are nearly all from the annals of the small states of ancient ,greece1 and from the earlier times of the ,roman republic4 ,we have already pointed out to what an extent his imagination was struck at the time of his first compositions by the tale of ,lycurgus4 ,the influence of the same notions is still paramount4 ,the hopelessness of giving good laws to a corrupt people is supposed to be demonstrated by the case of ,minos1 whose legislation failed in ,crete because the people for whom he made laws were sunk in vices2 and by the further example of ,plato1 who refused to give laws to the ,arcadians and ,cyrenians1 knowing that they were too rich and could never suffer equality4#ahg ,the writer is thinking of ,plato's ,laws1 when he says that just as nature has fixed limits to the stature of a well-formed man1 outside of which she produces giants and dwarfs1 so with reference to the best constitution for a state1 there are bounds to its extent1 so that it may be neither too large to be capable of good government1 nor too small to be independent and self-sufficing4 ,the further the social bond is extended1 the more relaxed it becomes1 and in general a small state is proportionally stronger than a large one4#ahh ,in the remarks with which he proceeds to corroborate this position1 we can plainly see that he is privately contrasting an independent ,greek community with the unwieldy oriental monarchy against which at one critical period ,greece had to contend4 ,he had never realised the possibility of such forms of polity as the ,roman ,empire1 or the half-federal dominion of ,england which took such enormous dimensions in his time1 or the great confederation of states which came to birth two years before he died4 ,he was the servant of his own metaphor1 as the ,greek writers so often were4 ,his argument that a state must be of a moderate size because the rightly shapen man is neither dwarf nor giant1 is exactly on a par with ,aristotle's argument to the same effect1 on the ground that beauty demands size1 and there must not be too great nor too small size1 because a ship sails badly if it be either too heavy or too light4#ahi ,and when ,rousseau supposes the state to have ten thousand inhabitants1 and talks about the right size of its territory1#aij who does not think of the five thousand and forty which the ,athenian ,stranger prescribed to ,cleinias the ,cretan as the exactly proper number for the perfectly formed state8#aia ,the prediction of the short career which awaits a state that is cursed with an extensive and accessible seaboard1 corresponds precisely with the ,athenian ,stranger's satisfaction that the new city is to be eighty stadia from the coast4#aib ,when ,rousseau himself began to think about the organisation of ,corsica1 he praised the selection of ,corte as the chief town of a patriotic administration1 because it was far from the sea1 and so its inhabitants would long preserve their simplicity and uprightness4#aic ,and in later years still1 when meditating upon a constitution for ,poland1 he propounded an economic system essentially ,spartan2 the people were enjoined to think little about foreigners1 to give themselves little concern about commerce1 to suppress stamped paper1 and to put a tithe upon the land4#aid ,the chapter on the ,legislator is in the same region4 ,we are again referred to ,lycurgus2 and to the circumstance that ,greek towns usually confided to a stranger the sacred task of drawing up their laws4 ,his experience in ,venice and the history of his native town supplemented the examples of ,greece4 ,geneva summoned a stranger to legislate for her1 and those who only look on ,calvin as a theologian have a scanty idea of the extent of his genius2 the preparation of our wise edicts1 in which he had so large a part1 do him as much honour as his ,institutes4#aie ,rousseau's vision was too narrow to let him see the growth of government and laws as a co-ordinate process1 flowing from the growth of all the other parts and organs of society1 and advancing in more or less equal step along with them4 ,he could begin with nothing short of an absolute legislator1 who should impose a system from without by a single act1 a structure hit upon once for all by his individual wisdom1 not slowly wrought out by many minds1 with popular assent and co-operation1 at the suggestion of changing social circumstances and need4#aif ,all this would be of very trifling importance in the history of political literature1 but for the extraordinary influence which circumstances ultimately bestowed upon it4 ,the ,social ,contract was the gospel of the ,jacobins1 and much of the action of the supreme party in ,france during the first months of the year #agid is only fully intelligible when we look upon it as the result and practical application of ,rousseau's teaching4 ,the conception of the situation entertained by ,robespierre and ,saint ,just was entirely moulded on all this talk about the legislators of ,greece and ,geneva4 ,the transition of an oppressed nation to democracy is like the effort by which nature rose from nothingness to existence4 ,you must entirely refashion a people whom you wish to make free--destroy its prejudices1 alter its habits1 limit its necessities1 root up its vices1 purify its desires4 ,the state therefore must lay hold on every human being at his birth1 and direct his education with powerful hand4 ,solon's weak confidence threw ,athens into fresh slavery1 while ,lycurgus's severity founded the republic of ,sparta on an immovable basis4#aig ,these words1 which come from a decree of the ,committee of ,public ,safety1 might well be taken for an excerpt from the ,social ,contract4 ,the fragments of the institutions by which ,saint ,just intended to regenerate his country1 reveal a man with the example of ,lycurgus before his eyes in every line he wrote4#aih ,when on the eve of the ,thermidorian revolution which overthrew him and his party1 he insisted on the necessity of a dictatorship1 he was only thinking of the means by which he should at length obtain the necessary power for forcing his regenerating projects on the country2 for he knew that ,robespierre1 whom he named as the man for the dictatorship1 accepted his projects1 and would lend the full force of the temporal arm to the propagation of ideas which they had acquired together from ,jean ,jacques1 and from the ,greeks to whom ,jean ,jacques had sent them for example and instruction4#aii ,no doubt the condition of ,france after #agib must naturally have struck any one too deeply imbued with the spirit of the ,social ,contract to look beneath the surface of the society with which the ,convention had to deal1 as urgently inviting a lawgiver of the ancient stamp4 ,the old order in church and state had been swept away1 no organs for the performance of the functions of national life were visible1 the moral ideas which had bound the social elements together in the extinct monarchy seemed to be permanently sapped4 ,a politician who had for years been dreaming about ,minos and ,lycurgus and ,calvin1 especially if he lived in a state with such a tradition of centralisation as ruled in ,france1 was sure to suppose that here was the scene and the moment for a splendid repetition on an immense scale of those immortal achievements4 ,the futility of the attempt was the practical and ever memorable illustration of the defect of ,rousseau's geometrical method4 ,it was one thing to make laws for the handful of people who lived in ,geneva in the sixteenth century1 united in religious faith1 and accepting the same form and conception of the common good4 ,it was a very different thing to try to play ,calvin over some twenty-five millions of a heterogeneously composed nation1 abounding in variations of temperament1 faith1 laws1 and habits and weltering in unfathomable distractions4 ,the ,french did indeed at length invite a heaven-sent stranger from ,corsica to make laws for them1 but not until he had set his foot upon their neck2 and even ,napoleon ,bonaparte1 who had begun life like the rest of his generation by writing ,rousseauite essays1 made a swift return to the historic method in the equivocal shape of the ,concordat4 ,not only were ,rousseau's schemes of polity conceived from the point of view of a small territory with a limited population4 ,you must not1 he says in one place1 make the abuses of great states an objection to a writer who would fain have none but small ones4#bjj ,again1 when he said that in a truly free state the citizens performed all their services to the community with their arms and none by money1 and that he looked upon the corve 7or compulsory labour on the public roads7 as less hostile to freedom than taxes1#bja he showed that he was thinking of a state not greatly passing the dimensions of a parish4 ,this was not the only defect of his schemes4 ,they assumed a sort of state of nature in the minds of the people with whom the lawgiver had to deal4 ,saint ,just made the same assumption afterwards1 and trusted to his military school to erect on these bare plots whatever superstructure he might think fit to appoint4 ,a society that had for so many centuries been organised and moulded by a powerful and energetic church1 armed with a definite doctrine1 fixing the same moral tendencies in a long series of successive generations1 was not in the naked mental state which the ,jacobins postulated4 ,it was not prepared to accept free divorce1 the substitution of friendship for marriage1 the displacement of the family by the military school1 and the other articles in ,saint ,just's programme of social renovation4 ,the twelve apostles went among people who were morally swept and garnished1 and they went armed with instruments proper to seize the imagination of their hearers4 ,all moral reformers seek the ignorant and simple1 poor fishermen in one scene1 labourers and women in another1 for the good reason that new ideas only make way on ground that is not already too heavily encumbered with prejudices4 ,but ,france in #agic was in no condition of this kind4 ,opinion in all its spheres was deepened by an old and powerful organisation1 to a degree which made any attempt to abolish the opinion1 as the organisation appeared to have been abolished1 quite hopeless until the lapse of three or four hundred years had allowed due time for dissolution4 ,after all it was not until the fourth century of our era that the work of even the twelve apostles began to tell decisively and quickly4 ,as for the ,lycurgus of whom the ,french chattered1 if such a personality ever existed out of the region of myth1 he came to his people armed with an oracle from the gods1 just as ,moses did1 and was himself regarded as having a nature touched with divinity4 ,no such pretensions could well be made by any ,french legislator within a dozen years or so of the death of ,voltaire4 ,let us here remark that it was exactly what strikes us as the desperate absurdity of the assumptions of the ,social ,contract1 which constituted the power of that work1 when it accidentally fell into the hands of men who surveyed a national system wrecked in all its parts4 ,the ,social ,contract is worked out precisely in that fashion which1 if it touches men at all1 makes them into fanatics4 ,long trains of reasoning1 careful allegation of proofs1 patient admission on every hand of qualifying propositions and multitudinous limitations1 are essential to science1 and produce treatises that guide the wise statesman in normal times4 ,but it is dogma that gives fervour to a sect4 ,there are always large classes of minds to whom anything in the shape of a vigorously compact system is irresistibly fascinating1 and to whom the qualification of a proposition1 or the limitation of a theoretic principle is distressing or intolerable4 ,such persons always come to the front for a season in times of distraction1 when the party that knows its own aims most definitely is sure to have the best chance of obtaining power4 ,and ,rousseau's method charmed their temperament4 ,a man who handles sets of complex facts is necessarily slow-footed1 but one who has only words to deal with1 may advance with a speed1 a precision1 a consistency1 a conclusiveness1 that has a magical potency over men who insist on having politics and theology drawn out in exact theorems like those of ,euclid4 ,rousseau traces his conclusions from words1 and develops his system from the interior germs of phrases4 ,like the typical schoolman1 he assumes that analysis of terms is the right way of acquiring new knowledge about things2 he mistakes the multiplication of propositions for the discovery of fresh truth4 ,many pages of the ,social ,contract are mere logical deductions from verbal definitions3 the slightest attempt to confront them with actual fact would have shown them to be not only valueless1 but wholly meaningless1 in connection with real human nature and the visible working of human affairs4 ,he looks into the word1 or into his own verbal notion1 and tells us what is to be found in that1 whereas we need to be told the marks and qualities that distinguish the object which the word is meant to recall4 ,hence arises his habit of setting himself questions1 with reference to which we cannot say that the answers are not true1 but only that the questions themselves were never worth asking4 ,here is an instance of his method of supposing that to draw something from a verbal notion is to find out something corresponding to fact4 ,we can distinguish in the magistrate three essentially different wills3 #ast1 the will peculiar to him as an individual1 which only tends to his own particular advantage2 #bnd1 the common will of the magistrates1 which refers only to the advantage of the prince i4e4 the government1 and this we may name corporate will1 which is general in relation to the government1 and particular in relation to the state of which the government is a part2 #crd1 the will of the people or sovereign will1 which is general1 as well in relation to the state considered as a whole1 as in relation to the government considered as part of the whole4#bjb ,it might be hard to prove that all this is not true1 but then it is unreal and comes to nothing1 as we see if we take the trouble to turn it into real matter4 ,thus a member of the ,british ,house of ,commons1 who is a magistrate in ,rousseau's sense1 has three essentially different wills3 first1 as a man1 ,mr4 ,so-and-so2 second1 his corporate will1 as member of the chamber1 and this will is general in relation to the legislature1 but particular in relation to the whole body of electors and peers2 third1 his will as a member of the great electoral body1 which is a general will alike in relation to the electoral body and to the legislature4 ,an ,english publicist is perfectly welcome to make assertions of this kind1 if he chooses to do so1 and nobody will take the trouble to deny them4 ,but they are nonsense4 ,they do not correspond to the real composition of a member of parliament1 nor do they shed the smallest light upon any part either of the theory of government in general1 or the working of our own government in particular4 ,almost the same kind of observation might be made of the famous dogmatic statements about sovereignty4 ,sovereignty1 being only the exercise of the general will1 can never be alienated1 and the sovereign1 who is only a collective being1 can only be represented by himself3 the power may be transmitted1 but not the will2#bjc sovereignty is indivisible1 not only in principle1 but in object2#bjd and so forth4 ,we shall have to consider these remarks from another point of view4 ,at present we refer to them as illustrating the character of the book1 as consisting of a number of expansions of definitions1 analysed as words1 not compared with the facts of which the words are representatives4 ,this way of treating political theory enabled the writer to assume an air of certitude and precision1 which led narrow deductive minds completely captive4 ,burke poured merited scorn on the application of geometry to politics and algebraic formulas to government1 but then it was just this seeming demonstration1 this measured accuracy1 that filled ,rousseau's disciples with a supreme and undoubting confidence which leaves the modern student of these schemes in amazement unspeakable4 ,the thinness of ,robespierre's ideas on government ceases to astonish us1 when we remember that he had not trained himself to look upon it as the art of dealing with huge groups of conflicting interests1 of hostile passions1 of hardly reconcilable aims1 of vehemently opposed forces4 ,he had disciplined his political intelligence on such meagre and unsubstantial argumentation as the following3--,let us suppose the state composed of ten thousand citizens4 ,the sovereign can only be considered collectively and as a body2 but each person1 in his quality as subject1 is considered as an individual unit2 thus the sovereign is to the subject as ten thousand is to one2 in other words1 each member of the state has for his share only the ten-thousandth part of the sovereign authority1 though he is submitted to it in all his own entirety4 ,if the people be composed of a hundred thousand men1 the condition of the subjects does not change1 and each of them bears equally the whole empire of the laws1 while his suffrage1 reduced to a hundred-thousandth1 has ten times less influence in drawing them up4 ,then1 the subject remaining still only one1 the relation of the sovereign augments in the ratio of the number of the citizens4 ,whence it follows that1 the larger the state becomes1 the more does liberty diminish4#bje ,apart from these arithmetical conceptions1 and the deep charm which their assurance of expression had for the narrow and fervid minds of which ,england and ,germany seem to have got finally rid in ,anabaptists and ,fifth ,monarchy men1 but which still haunted ,france1 there were maxims in the ,social ,contract of remarkable convenience for the members of a ,committee of ,public ,safety4 ,how can a blind multitude1 the writer asks in one place1 which so often does not know its own will1 because it seldom knows what is good for it1 execute of itself an undertaking so vast and so difficult as a system of legislation8#bjf ,again1 as nature gives to each man an absolute power over all his members1 so the social pact gives to the body politic an absolute power over all its members2 and it is this same power which1 when directed by the general will1 bears1 as ,i have said1 the name of sovereignty4#bjg ,above all1 the little chapter on a dictatorship is the very foundation of the position of the ,robespierrists in the few months immediately preceding their fall4 ,it is evidently the first intention of the people that the state should not perish1 and so on1 with much criticism of the system of occasional dictatorships1 as they were resorted to in old ,rome4#bjh ,yet this does not in itself go much beyond the old monarchic doctrine of ,prerogative1 as a corrective for the slowness and want of immediate applicability of mere legal processes in cases of state emergency2 and it is worth noticing again and again that in spite of the shriekings of reaction1 the few atrocities of the ,terror are an almost invisible speck compared with the atrocities of ,christian churchmen and lawful kings1 perpetrated in accordance with their notion of what constituted public safety4 ,so far as ,rousseau's intention goes1 we find in his writings one of the strongest denunciations of the doctrine of public safety that is to be found in any of the writings of the century4 ,is the safety of a citizen1 he cries1 less the common cause than the safety of the state8 ,they may tell us that it is well that one should perish on behalf of all4 ,i will admire such a sentence in the mouth of a virtuous patriot1 who voluntarily and for duty's sake devotes himself to death for the salvation of his country4 ,but if we are to understand that it is allowed to the government to sacrifice an innocent person for the safety of the multitude1 ,i hold this maxim for one of the most execrable that tyranny has ever invented1 and the most dangerous that can be admitted4#bji ,it may be said that the ,terrorists did not sacrifice innocent life1 but the plea is frivolous on the lips of men who proscribed whole classes4 ,you cannot justly draw a capital indictment against a class4 ,rousseau1 however1 cannot fairly be said to have had a share in the responsibility for the more criminal part of the policy of #agic1 any more than the founder of ,christianity is responsible for the atrocities that have been committed by the more ardent worshippers of his name1 and justified by stray texts caught up from the gospels4 ,helvtius had said1 ,all becomes legitimate and even virtuous on behalf of the public safety4 ,rousseau wrote in the margin1 ,the public safety is nothing unless individuals enjoy security4#baj ,the author of a theory is not answerable for the applications which may be read into it by the passions of men and the exigencies of a violent crisis4 ,such applications show this much and no more1 that the theory was constructed with an imperfect consideration of the qualities of human nature1 with too narrow a view of the conditions of society1 and therefore with an inadequate appreciation of the consequences which the theory might be drawn to support4 ,it is time to come to the central conception of the ,social ,contract1 the dogma which made of it for a time the gospel of a nation1 the memorable doctrine of the sovereignty of peoples4 ,of this doctrine ,rousseau was assuredly not the inventor1 though the exaggerated language of some popular writers in ,france leads us to suppose that they think of him as nothing less4 ,even in the thirteenth century the constitution of the ,orders1 and the contests of the friars with the clergy1 had engendered faintly democratic ways of thinking4#baa ,among others the great ,aquinas had protested against the juristic doctrine that the law is the pleasure of the prince4 ,the will of the prince1 he says1 to be a law1 must be directed by reason2 law is appointed for the common good1 and not for a special or private good3 it follows from this that only the reason of the multitude1 or of a prince representing the multitude1 can make a law4#bab ,a still more remarkable approach to later views was made by ,marsilio of ,padua1 physician to ,lewis of ,bavaria1 who wrote a strong book on his master's side1 in the great contest between him and the pope 7#acbd74 ,marsilio in the first part of his work not only lays down very elaborately the proposition that laws ought to be made by the universitas civium2 he places this sovereignty of the people on the true basis 7which ,rousseau only took for a secondary support to his original compact71 namely1 the greater likelihood of laws being obeyed in the first place1 and being good laws in the second1 when they are made by the body of the persons affected4 ,no one knowingly does hurt to himself1 or deliberately asks what is unjust1 and on that account all or a great majority must wish such law as best suits the common interest of the citizens4#bac ,turning from this to the ,social ,contract1 or to ,locke's essay on ,government1 the identity in doctrine and correspondence in dialect may teach us how little true originality there can he among thinkers who are in the same stage2 how a metaphysician of the thirteenth century and a metaphysician of the eighteenth hit on the same doctrine2 and how the true classification of thinkers does not follow intervals of time1 but is fixed by differences of method4 ,it is impossible that in the constant play of circumstances and ideas in the minds of different thinkers1 the same combinations of form and colour in a philosophic arrangement of such circumstances and ideas should not recur4 ,signal novelties in thought are as limited as signal inventions in architectural construction4 ,it is only one of the great changes in method1 that can remove the limits of the old combinations1 by bringing new material and fundamentally altering the point of view4 ,in the sixteenth century there were numerous writers who declared the right of subjects to depose a bad sovereign1 but this position is to be distinguished from ,rousseau's doctrine4 ,thus1 if we turn to the great historic event of #aeha1 the rejection of the yoke of ,spain by the ,dutch1 we find the ,declaration of ,independence running1 that if a prince is appointed by ,god over the land1 it is to protect them from harm1 even as a shepherd to the guardianship of his flock4 ,the subjects are not appointed by ,god for the behoof of the prince1 but the prince for his subjects1 without whom he is no prince4 ,this is obviously divine right1 fundamentally modified by a popular principle1 accepted to meet the exigencies of the occasion1 and to justify after the event a measure which was dictated by urgent need for practical relief4 ,such a notion of the social compact was still emphatically in the semi-patriarchal stage1 and is distinct as can be from the dogma of popular sovereignty as ,rousseau understood it4 ,but it plainly marked a step on the way4 ,it was the development of ,protestant principles which produced and necessarily involved the extreme democratic conclusion4 ,time was needed for their full expansion in this sense1 but the result could only have been avoided by a suppression of the ,reformation1 and we therefore count it inevitable4 ,bodin 7#aegg7 had defined sovereignty as residing in the supreme legislative authority1 without further inquiry as to the source or seat of that authority1 though he admits the vague position which even ,lewis ,,xiv4 did not deny1 that the object of political society is the greatest good of every citizen or the whole state4 ,in #afjc a ,protestant professor of law in ,germany1 ,althusen by name1 published a treatise of ,politics1 in which the doctrine of the sovereignty of peoples was clearly formulated1 to the profound indignation both of ,jesuits and of ,protestant jurists4#bad ,rousseau mentions his name2#bae it does not appear that he read ,althusen's rather uncommon treatise1 but its teaching would probably have a place in the traditions of political theorising current at ,geneva1 to the spirit of whose government it was so congenial4 ,hooker1 vindicating episcopacy against the democratic principles of the ,puritans1 had still been led1 apparently by way of the ever dominant idea of a law natural1 to base civil government on the assent of the governed1 and had laid down such propositions as these3 ,laws they are not1 which public approbation hath not made so4 ,laws therefore human1 of what kind soever1 are available by consent1 and so on4#baf ,the views of the ,ecclesiastical ,polity were adopted by ,locke1 and became the foundation of the famous essay on ,civil ,government1 from which popular leaders in our own country drew all their weapons down to the outbreak of the ,french ,revolution4 ,grotius 7#afbe7 starting from the principle that the law of nature enjoins that we should stand by our agreements1 then proceeded to assume either an express1 or at any rate a tacit and implied1 promise on the part of all who become members of a community1 to obey the majority of the body1 or a majority of those to whom authority has been delegated4#bag ,this is a unilateral view of the social contract1 and omits the element of reciprocity which in ,rousseau's idea was cardinal4 ,locke was ,rousseau's most immediate inspirer1 and the latter affirmed himself to have treated the same matters exactly on ,locke's principles4 ,rousseau1 however1 exaggerated ,locke's politics as greatly as ,condillac exaggerated his metaphysics4 ,there was the important difference that ,locke's essay on ,civil ,government was the justification in theory of a revolution which had already been accomplished in practice1 while the ,social ,contract1 tinged as it was by silent reference in the mind of the writer to ,geneva1 was yet a speculation in the air4 ,the circumstances under which it was written gave to the propositions of ,locke's piece a reserve and moderation which savour of a practical origin and a special case4 ,they have not the wide scope and dogmatic air and literary precision of the corresponding propositions in ,rousseau4 ,we find in ,locke none of those concise phrases which make fanatics4 ,but the essential doctrine is there4 ,the philosopher of the ,revolution of #afhh probably carried its principles further than most of those who helped in the ,revolution had any intention to carry them1 when he said that the legislature being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends1 there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative4#bah ,it may be questioned how many of the peers of that day would have assented to the proposition that the people--and did ,locke mean by the people the electors of the ,house of ,commons1 or all males over twenty-one1 or all householders paying rates8--could by any expression of their will abolish the legislative power of the upper chamber1 or put an end to the legislative and executive powers of the crown4 ,but ,locke's statements are direct enough1 though he does not use so terse a label for his doctrine as ,rousseau affixed to it4 ,again1 besides the principle of popular sovereignty1 ,locke most likely gave to ,rousseau the idea of the origin of this sovereignty in the civil state in a pact or contract1 which was represented as the foundation and first condition of the civil state4 ,from this naturally flowed the connected theory1 of a perpetual consent being implied as given by the people to each new law4 ,we need not quote passages from ,locke to demonstrate the substantial correspondence of assumption between him and the author of the ,social ,contract4 ,they are found in every chapter4#bai ,such principles were indispensable for the defence of a ,revolution like that of #afhh1 which was always carefully marked out by its promoters1 as well as by its eloquent apologist and expositor a hundred years later1 the great ,burke1 as above all things a revolution within the pale of the law or the constitution4 ,they represented the philosophic adjustment of popular ideas to the political changes wrought by shifting circumstances1 as distinguished from the biblical or ,hebraic method of adjusting such ideas1 which had prevailed in the contests of the previous generation4 ,yet there was in the midst of those contests one thinker of the first rank in intellectual power1 who had constructed a genuine philosophy of government4 ,hobbes's speculations did not fit in with the theory of either of the two bodies of combatants in the ,civil ,war4 ,they were each in the theological order of ideas1 and neither of them sought or was able to comprehend the application of philosophic principles to their own case or to that of their adversaries4#bbj ,hebrew precedents and bible texts1 on the one hand2 prerogative of use and high church doctrine1 on the other4 ,between these was no space for the acceptance of a secular and rationalistic theory1 covering the whole field of a social constitution4 ,now the influence of ,hobbes upon ,rousseau was very marked1 and very singular4 ,there were numerous differences between the philosopher of ,geneva and his predecessor of ,malmesbury4 ,the one looked on men as good1 the other looked on them as bad4 ,the one described the state of nature as a state of peace1 the other as a state of war4 ,the one believed that laws and institutions had depraved man1 the other that they had improved him4#bba ,but these differences did not prevent the action of ,hobbes on ,rousseau4 ,it resulted in a curious fusion between the premisses and the temper of ,hobbes and the conclusions of ,locke4 ,this fusion produced that popular absolutism of which the ,social ,contract was the theoretical expression1 and ,jacobin supremacy the practical manifestation4 ,rousseau borrowed from ,hobbes the true conception of sovereignty1 and from ,locke the true conception of the ultimate seat and original of authority1 and of the two together he made the great image of the sovereign people4 ,strike the crowned head from that monstrous figure which is the frontispiece of the ,leviathan1 and you have a frontispiece that will do excellently well for the ,social ,contract4 ,apart from a multitude of other obligations1 good and bad1 which ,rousseau owed to ,hobbes1 as we shall point out1 we may here mention that of the superior accuracy of the notion of law in the ,social ,contract over the notion of law in ,montesquieu's work4 ,the latter begins1 as everybody knows1 with a definition inextricably confused3 ,laws are necessary relations flowing from the nature of things1 and in this sense all beings have their laws1 divinity has its laws1 the material world has its laws1 the intelligences superior to men have their laws1 the beasts have their laws1 man has his laws4444 ,there is a primitive reason1 and laws are the relations to be found between that and the different beings1 and the relations of these different beings among one another4#bbb ,rousseau at once put aside these divergent meanings1 made the proper distinction between a law of nature and the imperative law of a state1 and justly asserted that the one could teach us nothing worth knowing about the other4#bbc ,hobbes's phraseology is much less definite than this1 and shows that he had not himself wholly shaken off the same confusion as reigned in ,montesquieu's account a century later4 ,but then ,hobbes's account of the true meaning of sovereignty was so clear1 firm1 and comprehensive1 as easily to lead any fairly perspicuous student who followed him1 to apply it to the true meaning of law4 ,and on this head of law not so much fault is to be found with ,rousseau1 as on the head of larger constitutional theory4 ,he did not look long enough at given laws1 and hence failed to seize all their distinctive qualities2 above all he only half saw1 if he saw at all1 that a law is a command and not a contract1 and his eyes were closed to this1 because the true view was incompatible with his fundamental assumption of contract as the base of the social union4#bbd ,but he did at all events grasp the quality of generality as belonging to laws proper1 and separated them justly from what he calls decrees1 which we are now taught to name occasional or particular commands4#bbe ,this is worth mentioning1 because it shows that1 in spite of his habits of intellectual laxity1 ,rousseau was capable1 where he had a clear-headed master before him1 of a very considerable degree of precision of thought1 however liable it was to fall into error or deficiency for want of abundant comparison with bodies of external fact4 ,let us now proceed to some of the central propositions of the ,social ,contract4 #a4 ,the origin of society dates from the moment when the obstacles which impede the preservation of men in a state of nature are too strong for such forces as each individual can employ in order to keep himself in that state4 ,at this point they can only save themselves by aggregation4 ,problem3 to find a form of association which defends and protects with the whole common force the person and property of each associate1 and by which1 each uniting himself to all1 still only obeys himself1 and remains as free as he was before4 ,solution3 a social compact reducible to these words1 ,each of us places in common his person and his whole power under the supreme direction of the general will2 and we further receive each member as indivisible part of the whole4 ,this act of association constitutes a moral and collective body1 a public person4 ,the practical importance and the mischief of thus suffering society to repose on conventions which the human will had made1 lay in the corollary that the human will is competent at any time to unmake them1 and also therefore to devise all possible changes that fell short of unmaking them4 ,this was the root of the fatal hypothesis of the dictator1 or divinely commissioned lawgiver4 ,external circumstance and human nature alike were passive and infinitely pliable2 they were the material out of which the legislator was to devise conventions at pleasure1 without apprehension as to their suitableness either to the conditions of society among which they were to work1 or to the passions and interests of those by whom they were to be carried out1 and who were supposed to have given assent to them4 ,it would be unjust to say that ,rousseau actually faced this position and took the consequences4 ,he expressly says in more places than one that the science of ,government is only a science of combinations1 applications1 and exceptions1 according to time1 place1 and circumstance4#bbf ,but to base society on conventions is to impute an element of arbitrariness to these combinations and applications1 and to make them independent1 as they can never be1 of the limits inexorably fixed by the nature of things4 ,the notion of compact is the main source of all the worst vagaries in ,rousseau's political speculation4 ,it is worth remarking in the history of opinion1 that there was at this time in ,france a little knot of thinkers who were nearly in full possession of the true view of the limits set by the natural ordering of societies to the power of convention and the function of the legislators4 ,five years after the publication of the ,social ,contract1 a remarkable book was written by one of the economic sect of the ,physiocrats1 the later of whom1 though specially concerned with the material interests of communities1 very properly felt the necessity of connecting the discussion of wealth with the assumption of certain fundamental political conditions4 ,they felt this1 because it is impossible to settle any question about wages or profits1 for instance1 until you have first settled whether you are assuming the principles of liberty and property4 ,this writer with great consistency found the first essential of all social order in conformity of positive law and institution to those qualities of human nature1 and their relations with those material instruments of life1 which1 and not convention1 were the true origin1 as they are the actual grounds1 of the perpetuation of our societies4#bbg ,this was wiser than ,rousseau's conception of the lawgiver as one who should change human nature1 and take away from man the forces that are naturally his own1 to replace them by others comparatively foreign to him4#bbh ,rousseau once wrote1 in a letter about ,rivire's book1 that the great problem in politics1 which might be compared with the quadrature of the circle in geometry1 is to find a form of government which shall place law above man4#bbi ,a more important problem1 and not any less difficult for the political theoriser1 is to mark the bounds at which the authority of the law is powerless or mischievous in attempting to control the egoistic or non-social parts of man4 ,this problem ,rousseau ignored1 and that he should do so was only natural in one who believed that man had bound himself by a convention1 strictly to suppress his egoistic and non-social parts1 and who based all his speculation on this pact as against the force1 or the paternal authority1 or the will of a ,supreme ,being1 in which other writers founded the social union4 #b4 ,the body thus constituted by convention is the sovereign4 ,each citizen is a member of the sovereign1 standing in a definite relation to individuals qua individuals2 he is also as an individual a member of the state and subject to the sovereign1 of which from the first point of view he is a component element4 ,the sovereign and the body politic are one and the same thing4#bcj ,of the antecedents and history of this doctrine enough has already been said4 ,its general truth as a description either of what is1 or what ought to be and will be1 demands an ampler discussion than there is any occasion to carry on here4 ,we need only point out its place as a kind of intermediate dissolvent for which the time was most ripe4 ,it breaks up the feudal conception of political authority as a property of land-ownership1 noble birth1 and the like1 and it associates this authority widely and simply with the bare fact of participation in any form of citizenship in the social union4 ,the later and higher idea of every share of political power as a function to be discharged for the good of the whole body1 and not merely as a right to be enjoyed for the advantage of its possessor1 was a form of thought to which ,rousseau did not rise4 ,that does not lessen the effectiveness of the blow which his doctrine dealt to ,french feudalism1 and which is its main title to commemoration in connection with his name4 ,the social compact thus made is essentially different from the social compact which ,hobbes described as the origin of what he calls commonwealths by institution1 to distinguish them from commonwealths by acquisition1 that is to say1 states formed by conquest or resting on hereditary rule4 ,a commonwealth1 ,hobbes says1 is said to be instituted when a multitude of men do agree and covenant1 every one with every one1 that to whatsoever man or assembly of men shall be given by the major part the right to present the person of them all1 that is to say1 to be their representative2 every one 444 shall authorise all the actions and judgments of that man or assembly of men1 in the same manner as if they were his own1 to the end to live peaceably among themselves1 and be protected against other men4#bca ,but ,rousseau's compact was an act of association among equals1 who also remained equals4 ,hobbes's compact was an act of surrender on the part of the many to one or a number4 ,the first was the constitution of civil society1 the second was the erection of a government4 ,as nobody now believes in the existence of any such compact in either one form or the other1 it would be superfluous to inquire which of the two is the less inaccurate4 ,all we need do is to point out that there was this difference4 ,rousseau distinctly denied the existence of any element of contract in the erection of a government2 there is only one contract in the state1 he said1 and it is that of association4#bcb ,locke's notion of the compact which was the beginning of every political society is indefinite on this point2 he speaks of it indifferently as an agreement of a body of free men to unite and incorporate into a society1 and an agreement to set up a government4#bcc ,most of us would suppose the two processes to be as nearly identical as may be2 ,rousseau drew a distinction1 and from this distinction he derived further differences4 ,here1 we may remark1 is the starting-point in the history of the ideas of the revolution1 of one of the most prominent of them all1 that of ,fraternity4 ,if the whole structure of society rests on an act of partnership entered into by equals on behalf of themselves and their descendants for ever1 the nature of the union is not what it would be1 if the members of the union had only entered it to place their liberties at the feet of some superior power4 ,society in the one case is a covenant of subjection1 in the other a covenant of social brotherhood4 ,this impressed itself deeply on the feelings of men like ,robespierre1 who were never so well pleased as when they could find for their sentimentalism a covering of neat political logic4 ,the same idea of association came presently to receive a still more remarkable and momentous extension1 when it was translated from the language of mere government into that of the economic organisation of communities4 ,rousseau's conception went no further than political association1 as distinct from subjection4 ,socialism1 which came by and by to the front place1 carried the idea to its fullest capacity1 and presented all the relations of men with one another as fixed by the same bond4 ,men had entered the social union as brethren1 equal1 and co-operators1 not merely for purposes of government1 but for purposes of mutual succour in all its aspects4 ,this naturally included the most important of all1 material production4 ,they were not associated merely as equal participants in political sovereignty2 they were equal participants in all the rest of the increase made to the means of human happiness by united action4 ,socialism is the transfer of the principle of fraternal association from politics1 where ,rousseau left it1 to the wider sphere of industrial force4 ,it is perhaps worth notice that another famous revolutionary term belongs to the same source4 ,all the associates of this act of union1 becoming members of the city1 are as such to be called ,citizens1 as participating in the sovereign authority4#bcd ,the term was in familiar use enough among the ,french in their worst days1 but it was ,rousseau's sanction which marked it in the new times with a sort of sacramental stamp4 ,it came naturally to him1 because it was the name of the first of the two classes which constituted the active portion of the republic of ,geneva1 and the only class whose members were eligible to the chief magistracies4 #c4 ,we next have a group of propositions setting forth the attributes of sovereignty4 ,it is inalienable4#bce ,it is indivisible4 ,these two propositions1 which play such a part in the history of some of the episodes of the ,french ,revolution1 contain no more than was contended for by ,hobbes1 and has been accepted in our own times by ,austin4 ,when ,hobbes says that to the laws which the sovereign maketh1 the sovereign is not subject1 for if he were subject to the civil laws he were subject to himself1 which were not subjection but freedom1 his notion of sovereignty is exactly that expressed by ,rousseau in his unexplained dogma of the inalienableness of sovereignty4 ,so ,rousseau means no more by the dogma that sovereignty is indivisible1 than ,austin meant when he declared of the doctrine that the legislative sovereign powers and the executive sovereign powers belong in any society to distinct parties1 that it is a supposition too palpably false to endure a moment's examination4#bcf ,the way in which this account of the indivisibleness of sovereignty was understood during the revolution1 twisted it into a condemnation of the dreaded idea of ,federalism4 ,it might just as well have been interpreted to condemn alliances between nations2 for the properties of sovereignty are clearly independent of the dimensions of the sovereign unit4 ,another effect of this doctrine was the rejection by the ,constituent ,assembly of the balanced parliamentary system1 which the followers of ,montesquieu would fain have introduced on the ,english model4 ,whether that was an evil or a good1 publicists will long continue to dispute4 #d4 ,the general will of the sovereign upon an object of common interest is expressed in a law4 ,only the sovereign can possess this law-making power1 because no one but the sovereign has the right of declaring the general will4 ,the legislative power cannot be exerted by delegation or representation4 ,the ,english fancy that they are a free nation1 but they are grievously mistaken4 ,they are only free during the election of members of parliament2 the members once chosen1 the people are slaves1 nay1 as people they have ceased to exist4#bcg ,it is impossible for the sovereign to act1 except when the people are assembled4 ,besides such extraordinary assemblies as unforeseen events may call for1 there must be fixed periodical meetings that nothing can interrupt or postpone4 ,do you call this chimerical8 ,then you have forgotten the ,roman comitia1 as well as such gatherings of the people as those of the ,macedonians and the ,franks and most other nations in their primitive times4 ,what has existed is certainly possible4#bch ,it is very curious that ,rousseau in this part of his subject should have contented himself with going back to ,macedonia and ,rome1 instead of pointing to the sovereign states that have since become confederate with his native republic4 ,a historian in our own time has described with an enthusiasm that equals that of the ,social ,contract1 how he saw the sovereign people of ,uri and the sovereign people of ,appenzell discharge the duties of legislation and choice of executive1 each in the majesty of its corporate person4#bci ,that ,rousseau was influenced by the free sovereignty of the states of the ,swiss confederation1 as well as by that of his own city1 we may well believe4 ,whether he was or not1 it must always be counted a serious misfortune that a writer who was destined to exercise such power in a crisis of the history of a great nation1 should have chosen his illustrations from a time and from societies so remote1 that the true conditions of their political system could not possibly be understood with any approach to reality1 while there were1 within a few leagues of his native place1 communities where the system of a sovereign public in his own sense was actually alive and flourishing and at work4 ,from them the full meaning of his theories might have been practically gathered1 and whatever useful lessons lay at the bottom of them might have been made plain4 ,as it was1 it came to pass singularly enough that the effect of the ,french ,revolution was the suppression1 happily only for a time1 of the only governments in ,europe where the doctrine of the favourite apostle of the ,revolution was a reality4 ,the constitution of the ,helvetic ,republic in #agih was as bad a blow to the sovereignty of peoples in a true sense1 as the old house of ,austria or ,charles of ,burgundy could ever have dealt4 ,that constitution1 moreover1 was directly opposed to the ,social ,contract in setting up what it called representative democracy1 for representative democracy was just what ,rousseau steadily maintained to be a nullity and a delusion4 ,the only lesson which the ,social ,contract contained for a statesman bold enough to take into his hands the reconstruction of ,france1 undoubtedly pointed in the direction of confederation4 ,at one place1 where he became sensible of the impotence which his assumption of a small state inflicted on his whole speculation1 ,rousseau said he would presently show how the good order of a small state might be united to the external power of a great people4 ,though he never did this1 he hints in a footnote that his plan belonged to the theory of confederations1 of which the principles were still to be established4#bdj ,when he gave advice for the renovation of the wretched constitution of ,poland1 he insisted above all things that they should apply themselves to extend and perfect the system of federate governments1 the only one that unites in itself all the advantages of great and small states4#bda ,a very few years after the appearance of his book1 the great ,american union of sovereign states arose to point the political moral4 ,the ,french revolutionists missed the force alike of the practical example abroad1 and of the theory of the book which they took for gospel at home4 ,how far they were driven to this by the urgent pressure of foreign war1 or whether they would have followed the same course without that interference1 merely in obedience to the catholic and monarchic absolutism which had sunk so much deeper into ,french character than people have been willing to admit1 we cannot tell4 ,the fact remains that the ,jacobins1 ,rousseau's immediate disciples1 at once took up the chain of centralised authority where it had been broken off by the ruin of the monarchy4 ,they caught at the letter of the dogma of a sovereign people1 and lost its spirit4 ,they missed the germ of truth in ,rousseau's scheme1 namely1 that for order and freedom and just administration the unit should not be too large to admit of the participation of the persons concerned in the management of their own public affairs4 ,if they had realised this and applied it1 either by transforming the old monarchy into a confederacy of sovereign provinces1 or by some less sweeping modification of the old centralised scheme of government1 they might have saved ,france4#bdb ,but1 once more1 men interpret a political treatise on principles which either come to them by tradition2 or else spring suddenly up from roots of passion4#bdc #e4 ,the government is the minister of the sovereign4 ,it is an intermediate body set up between sovereign and subjects for their mutual correspondence1 charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of civil and political freedom4 ,the members comprising it are called magistrates or kings1 and to the whole body so composed1 whether of one or of more than one1 is given the name of prince4 ,if the whole power is centred in the hands of a single magistrate1 from whom all the rest hold their authority1 the government is called a monarchy4 ,if there are more persons simply citizens than there are magistrates1 this is an aristocracy4#bdd ,if more citizen magistrates than simple private citizens1 that is a democracy4 ,the last government is as a general rule best fitted for small states1 and the first for large ones--on the principle that the number of the supreme magistrates ought to be in the inverse ratio of that of the citizens4 ,but there is a multitude of circumstances which may furnish reasons for exceptions to this general rule4 ,this common definition of the three forms of governments according to the mere number of the participants in the chief magistracy1 though adopted by ,hobbes and other writers1 is certainly inadequate and uninstructive1 without some further qualification4 ,aristotle1 for instance1 furnishes such a qualification1 when he refers to the interests in which the government is carried on1 whether the interest of a small body or of the whole of the citizens4#bde ,montesquieu's well-known division1 though logically faulty1 still has the merit of pointing to conditions of difference among forms of government1 outside of and apart from the one fact of the number of the sovereign4 ,to divide governments1 as ,montesquieu did1 into republics1 monarchies1 and despotisms1 was to use two principles of division1 first the number of the sovereign1 and next something else1 namely1 the difference between a constitutional and an absolute monarch4 ,then he returned to the first principle of division1 and separated a republic into a government of all1 which is a democracy1 and a government by a part1 which is aristocracy4#bdf ,still1 to have introduced the element of law-abidingness in the chief magistracy1 whether of one or more1 was to have called attention to the fact that no single distinction is enough to furnish us with a conception of the real and vital differences which may exist between one form of government and another4#bdg ,the important fact about a government lies quite as much in the qualifying epithet which is to be affixed to any one of the three names1 as in the name itself4 ,we know nothing about a monarchy1 until we have been told whether it is absolute or constitutional2 if absolute1 whether it is administered in the interests of the realm1 like that of ,prussia under ,frederick the ,great1 or in the interests of the ruler1 like that of an ,indian principality under a native prince2 if constitutional1 whether the real power is aristocratic1 as in ,great ,britain a hundred years ago1 or plutocratic1 as in ,great ,britain to-day1 or popular1 as it may be here fifty years hence4 ,and so with reference to each of the other two forms2 neither name gives us any instruction1 except of a merely negative kind1 until it has been made precise by one or more explanatory epithets4 ,what is the common quality of the old ,roman republic1 the republics of the ,swiss confederation1 the republic of ,venice1 the ,american republic1 the republic of ,mexico8 ,plainly the word republic has no further effect beyond that of excluding the idea of a recognised dynasty4 ,rousseau is perhaps less open to this kind of criticism than other writers on political theory1 for the reason that he distinguishes the constitution of the state from the constitution of the government4 ,the first he settles definitely4 ,the whole body of the people is to be sovereign1 and to be endowed alone with what he conceived as the only genuinely legislative power4 ,the only question which he considers open is as to the form in which the delegated executive authority shall be organised4 ,democracy1 the immediate government of all by all1 he rejects as too perfect for men2 it requires a state so small that each citizen knows all the others1 manners so simple that the business may be small and the mode of discussion easy1 equality of rank and fortune so general as not to allow of the overriding of political equality by material superiority1 and so forth4#bdh ,monarchy labours under a number of disadvantages which are tolerably obvious4 ,one essential and inevitable defect1 which must always place monarchic below republican government1 is that in the latter the public voice hardly ever promotes to the first places any but capable and enlightened men who fill them with honour2 whereas those who get on in monarchies1 are for the most part small busybodies1 small knaves1 small intriguers1 in whom the puny talents which are the secret of reaching substantial posts in courts1 only serve to show their stupidity to the public as soon as they have made their way to the front4 ,the people is far less likely to make a blunder in a choice of this sort1 than the prince1 and a man of true merit is nearly as rare in the ministry1 as a fool at the head of the government of a republic4#bdi ,there remains aristocracy4 ,of this there are three sorts3 natural1 elective1 and hereditary4 ,the first can only thrive among primitive folk1 while the third is the worst of all governments4 ,the second is the best1 for it is aristocracy properly so called4 ,if men only acquire rule in virtue of election1 then purity1 enlightenment1 experience1 and all the other grounds of public esteem and preference1 become so many new guarantees that the administration shall be wise and just4 ,it is the best and most natural order that the wisest should govern the multitude1 provided you are sure that they will govern the multitude for its advantage1 and not for their own4 ,if aristocracy of this kind requires one or two virtues less than a popular executive1 it also demands others which are peculiar to itself1 such as moderation in the rich and content in the poor4 ,for this form comports with a certain inequality of fortune1 for the reason that it is well that the administration of public affairs should be confided to those who are best able to give their whole time to it4 ,at the same time it is of importance that an opposite choice should occasionally teach the people that in the merit of men there are more momentous reasons of preference than wealth4#bej ,rousseau1 as we have seen1 had pronounced ,english liberty to be no liberty at all1 save during the few days once in seven years when the elections to parliament take place4 ,yet this scheme of an elective aristocracy was in truth a very near approach to the ,english form as it is theoretically presented in our own day1 with a suffrage gradually becoming universal4 ,if the suffrage were universal1 and if its exercise took place once a year1 our system1 in spite of the now obsolescent elements of hereditary aristocracy and nominal monarchy1 would be as close a realisation of the scheme of the ,social ,contract as any representative system permits4 ,if ,rousseau had further developed his notions of confederation1 the ,united ,states would most have resembled his type4 #f4 ,what is to be the attitude of the state in respect of religion8 ,certainly not that prescribed by the policy of the middle ages4 ,the separation of the spiritual from the temporal power1 indicated by ,jesus ,christ1 and developed by his followers in the course of many subsequent generations1 was in ,rousseau's eyes most mischievous1 because it ended in the subordination of the temporal power to the spiritual1 and that is incompatible with an efficient polity4 ,even the kings of ,england1 though they style themselves heads of the church1 are really its ministers and servants4#bea ,the last allegation evinces ,rousseau's usual ignorance of history1 and need not be discussed1 any more than his proposition on which he lays so much stress1 that ,christians cannot possibly be good soldiers1 nor truly good citizens1 because their hearts being fixed upon another world1 they must necessarily be indifferent to the success or failure of such enterprises as they may take up in this4#beb ,in reading the ,social ,contract1 and some other of the author's writings besides1 we have constantly to interpret the direct1 positive1 categorical form of assertion into something of this kind--,such and such consequences ought logically to follow from the meaning of the name1 or the definition of a principle1 or from such and such motives4 ,the change of this moderate form of provisional assertion into the unconditional statement that such and such consequences have actually followed1 constantly lands the author in propositions which any reader who tests them by an appeal to the experience of mankind1 written and unwritten1 at once discovers to be false and absurd4 ,rousseau himself took less trouble to verify his conclusions by such an appeal to experience than any writer that ever lived in a scientific age4 ,the other remark to be made on the above section is that the rejection of the ,christian or ecclesiastical division of the powers of the church and the powers of the state1 is the strongest illustration that could be found of the debt of ,rousseau's conception of a state to the old pagan conception4 ,it was the main characteristic of the polities which ,christian monotheism and feudalism together succeeded in replacing1 to recognise no such division as that between church and state1 pope and emperor4 ,rousseau resumed the old conception4 ,but he adjusted it in a certain degree to the spirit of his own time1 and imposed certain philosophical limitations upon it4 ,his scheme is as follows4 ,religion1 he says1 in its relation to the state1 may be considered as of three kinds4 ,first1 natural religion1 without temple1 altar1 or rite1 the true and pure theism of the natural conscience of man4 ,second1 local1 civil1 or positive religion1 with dogmas1 rites1 exercises2 a theology of a primitive people1 exactly co-extensive with all the rights and all the duties of men4 ,third1 a religion like the ,christianity of the ,roman church1 which gives men two sets of laws1 two chiefs1 two countries1 submits them to contradictory duties1 and prevents them from being able to be at once devout and patriotic4 ,the last of these is so evidently pestilent as to need no discussion4 ,the second has the merit of teaching men to identify duty to their gods with duty to their country2 under this to die for the land is martyrdom1 to break its laws impiety1 and to subject a culprit to public execration is to devote him to the anger of the gods4 ,but it is bad1 because it is at bottom a superstition1 and because it makes a people sanguinary and intolerant4 ,the first of all1 which is now styled a ,christian theism1 having no special relation with the body politic1 adds no force to the laws4 ,there are many particular objections to ,christianity flowing from the fact of its not being a kingdom of this world1 and this above all1 that ,christianity only preaches servitude and dependence4#bec ,what then is to be done8 ,the sovereign must establish a purely civil profession of faith4 ,it will consist of the following positive dogmas3--the existence of a divinity1 powerful1 intelligent1 beneficent and foreseeing2 the life to come2 the happiness of the just1 the chastisement of the wicked2 the sanctity of the social contract and the laws4 ,these articles of belief are imposed1 not as dogmas of religion exactly1 but as sentiments of sociability4 ,if any one declines to accept them1 he ought to be exiled1 not for being impious1 but for being unsociable1 incapable of sincere attachment to the laws1 or of sacrificing his life to his duty4 ,if any one1 after publicly recognising these dogmas1 carries himself as if he did not believe them1 let him be punished by death1 for he has committed the worst of crimes1 he has lied before the laws4#bed ,rousseau thus1 unconsciously enough1 brought to its climax that reaction against the absorption of the state in the church which had first taken a place in literature in the controversy between legists and canonists1 and had found its most famous illustration in the ,de ,monarchi of the great poet of catholicism4 ,the division of two co-equal realms1 one temporal1 the other spiritual1 was replaced in the ,genevese thinker by what he admitted to be pure ,hobbism4 ,this1 the rigorous subordination of the church to the state1 was the end1 so far as ,france went1 of the speculative controversy which had occupied ,europe for so many ages1 as to the respective powers of pope and emperor1 of positive law and law divine4 ,the famous civil constitution of the clergy 7#agij71 which was the expression of ,rousseau's principle as formulated by his disciples in the ,constituent ,assembly1 was the revolutionary conclusion to the world-wide dispute1 whose most melodramatic episode had been the scene in the courtyard of ,canossa4 ,rousseau's memorable prescription1 banishing all who should not believe in ,god1 or a future state1 or in rewards and punishments for the deeds done in the body1 and putting to death any who1 after subscribing to the required profession1 should seem no longer to hold it1 has naturally created a very lively horror in a tolerant generation like our own1 some of whose finest spirits have rejected deliberately and finally the articles of belief1 without which they could not have been suffered to exist in ,rousseau's state4 ,it seemed to contemporaries1 who were enthusiastic above all things for humanity and infinite tolerance1 these being the prizes of the long conflict which they hoped they were completing1 to be a return to the horrors of the ,holy ,office4 ,men were as shocked as the modern philosopher is1 when he finds the greatest of the followers of ,socrates imposing in his latest piece the penalty of imprisonment for five years1 to be followed in case of obduracy by death1 on one who should not believe in the gods set up for the state by the lawmaker4#bee ,and we can hardly comfort ourselves1 as ,milton did about ,plato1 who framed laws which no city ever yet received1 and fed his fancy with making many edicts to his airy burgomasters1 which they who otherwise admire him1 wish had been rather buried and excused in the genial cups of an academic night-sitting4#bef ,rousseau's ideas fell among men who were most potent and corporeal burgomasters4 ,in the winter of #agic two parties in ,paris stood face to face2 the rationalistic1 ,voltairean party of the ,commune1 named improperly after ,hbert1 but whose best member was ,chaumette1 and the sentimental1 ,rousseauite party1 led by ,robespierre4 ,the first had industriously desecrated the churches1 and consummated their revolt against the gods of the old time by the public worship of the ,goddess of ,reason1 who was prematurely set up for deity of the new time4 ,robespierre retaliated with the mummeries of the ,festival of the ,supreme ,being1 and protested against atheism as the crime of aristocrats4 ,presently the atheistic party succumbed4 ,chaumette was not directly implicated in the proceedings which led to their fall1 but he was by and by accused of conspiring with ,hbert1 ,clootz1 and the rest1 to destroy all notion of ,divinity and base the government of ,france on atheism4 ,they attack the immortality of the soul1 cried ,saint ,just1 the thought which consoled ,socrates in his dying moments1 and their dream is to raise atheism into a worship4 ,and this was the offence1 technically and officially described1 for which ,chaumette and ,clootz were sent to the guillotine 7,april #agid71 strictly on the principle which had been laid down in the ,social ,contract1 and accepted by ,robespierre4#beg ,it would have been odd in any writer less firmly possessed with the infallibility of his own dreams than ,rousseau was1 that he should not have seen the impossibility in anything like the existing conditions of human nature1 of limiting the profession of civil faith to the three or four articles which happened to constitute his own belief4 ,having once granted the general position that a citizen may be required to profess some religious faith1 there is no speculative principle1 and there is no force in the world1 which can fix any bound to the amount or kind of religious faith which the state has the right thus to exact4 ,rousseau said that a man was dangerous to the city who did not believe in ,god1 a future state1 and divine reward and retribution4 ,but then ,calvin thought a man dangerous who did not believe both that there is only one ,god1 and also that there are three ,gods4 ,and so ,chaumette went to the scaffold1 and ,servetus to the stake1 on the one common principle that the civil magistrate is concerned with heresy4 ,and ,hbert was only following out the same doctrine in a mild and equitable manner1 when he insisted on preventing the publication of a book in which the author professed his belief in a ,god4 ,a single step in the path of civil interference with opinion leads you the whole way4 ,the history of the ,protestant churches is enough to show the pitiable futility of the proviso for religious tolerance with which ,rousseau closed his exposition4 ,if there is no longer an exclusive national religion1 then every creed ought to be tolerated which tolerates other creeds1 so long as it contains nothing contrary to the duties of the citizen4 ,but whoever dares to say1 ,out of the church1 no salvation1 ought to be banished from the state4 ,the reason for which ,henry ,,iv4 embraced the ,roman religion--namely1 that in that he might be saved1 in the opinion alike of ,protestants and ,catholics1 whereas in the reformed faith1 though he was saved according to ,protestants1 yet according to ,catholics he was necessarily damned1--ought to have made every honest man1 and especially every prince1 reject it4 ,it was the more curious that ,rousseau did not see the futility of drawing the line of tolerance at any given set of dogmas1 however simple and slight and acceptable to himself they might be1 because he invited special admiration for ,d',argenson's excellent maxim that in the republic everybody is perfectly free in what does not hurt others4#beh ,surely this maxim has very little significance or value1 unless we interpret it as giving entire liberty of opinion1 because no opinion whatever can hurt others1 until it manifests itself in act1 including of course speech1 which is a kind of act4 ,rousseau admitted that over and above the profession of civil faith1 a citizen might hold what opinions he pleased1 in entire freedom from the sovereign's cognisance or jurisdiction2 for as the sovereign has no competence in the other world1 the fate of subjects in that other world is not his affair1 provided they are good citizens in this4 ,but good citizenship consists in doing or forbearing from certain actions1 and to punish men on the inference that forbidden action is likely to follow from the rejection of a set of opinions1 or to exact a test oath of adherence to such opinions on the same principle1 is to concede the whole theory of civil intolerance1 however little ,rousseau may have realised the perfectly legitimate applications of his doctrine4 ,it was an unconscious compromise4 ,he was thinking of ,calvin in practice and ,hobbes in theory1 and he was at the same time influenced by the moderate spirit of his time1 and the comparatively reasonable character of his personal belief4 ,he praised ,hobbes as the only author who had seen the right remedy for the conflict of the spiritual and temporal jurisdictions1 by proposing to unite the two heads of the eagle1 and reducing all to political unity1 without which never will either state or government be duly constituted4 ,but ,hobbes was consistent without flinching4 ,he refused to set limits to the religious prescriptions which a sovereign might impose1 for even when the civil sovereign is an infidel1 every one of his own subjects that resisteth him1 sinneth against the laws of ,god 7for such are the laws of nature71 and rejecteth the counsel of the apostles1 that admonisheth all ,christians to obey their princes4444 ,and for their faith1 it is internal and invisible3 they have the licence that ,naaman had1 and need not put themselves into danger for it2 but if they do1 they ought to expect their reward in heaven1 and not complain of their lawful sovereign4#bei ,all this flowed from the very idea and definition of sovereignty1 which ,rousseau accepted from ,hobbes1 as we have already seen4 ,such consequences1 however1 stated in these bold terms1 must have been highly revolting to ,rousseau2 he could not assent to an exercise of sovereignty which might be atheistic1 ,mahometan1 or anything else unqualifiedly monstrous4 ,he failed to see the folly of trying to unite the old notions of a ,christian commonwealth with what was fundamentally his own notion of a commonwealth after the ancient type4 ,he stripped the pagan republics1 which he took for his model1 of their national and official polytheism1 and he put on in its stead a scanty remnant of theism slightly tinged with ,christianity4 ,then he practically accepted ,hobbes's audacious bidding to the man who should not be able to accept the state creed1 to go courageously to martyrdom1 and leave the land in peace4 ,for the modern principle1 which was contained in ,d',argenson's saying previously quoted1 that the civil power does best absolutely and unreservedly to ignore spirituals1 he was not prepared either by his emancipation from the theological ideas of his youth1 or by his observation of the working and tendencies of systems1 which involved the state in some more or less close relations with the church1 either as superior1 equal1 or subordinate4 ,every test is sure to insist on mental independence ending exactly where the speculative curiosity of the time is most intent to begin4 ,let us now shortly confront ,rousseau's ideas with some of the propositions belonging to another method of approaching the philosophy of government1 that have for their key-note the conception of expediency or convenience1 and are tested by their conformity to the observed and recorded experience of mankind4 ,according to this method1 the ground and origin of society is not a compact2 that never existed in any known case1 and never was a condition of obligation either in primitive or developed societies1 either between subjects and sovereign1 or between the equal members of a sovereign body4 ,the true ground is an acceptance of conditions which came into existence by the sociability inherent in man1 and were developed by man's spontaneous search after convenience4 ,the statement that while the constitution of man is the work of nature1 that of the state is the work of art1#bfj is as misleading as the opposite statement that governments are not made but grow4#bfa ,the truth lies between them1 in such propositions as that institutions owe their existence and development to deliberate human effort1 working in accordance with circumstances naturally fixed both in human character and in the external field of its activity4 ,the obedience of the subject to the sovereign has its root not in contract but in force1--the force of the sovereign to punish disobedience4 ,a man does not consent to be put to death if he shall commit a murder1 for the reason alleged by ,rousseau1 namely1 as a means of protecting his own life against murder4#bfb ,there is no consent in the transaction4 ,some person or persons1 possessed of sovereign authority1 promulgated a command that the subject should not commit murder1 and appointed penalties for such commission and it was not a fictitious assent to these penalties1 but the fact that the sovereign was strong enough to enforce them1 which made the command valid4 ,supposing a law to be passed in an assembly of the sovereign people by a majority2 what binds a member of the minority to obedience8 ,rousseau's answer is this3--,when the law is proposed1 the question put is not whether they approve or reject the proposition1 but whether it is conformable to the general will3 the general will appears from the votes3 if the opinion contrary to my own wins the day1 that only proves that ,i was mistaken1 and that what ,i took for the general will was not really so4#bfc ,we can scarcely imagine more nonsensical sophistry than this4 ,the proper answer evidently is1 that either experience or calculation has taught the citizens in a popular government that in the long run it is most expedient for the majority of votes to decide the law4 ,in other words1 the inconvenience to the minority of submitting to a law which they dislike1 is less than the inconvenience of fighting to have their own way1 or retiring to form a separate community4 ,the minority submit to obey laws which were made against their will1 because they cannot avoid the necessity of undergoing worse inconveniences than are involved in this submission4 ,the same explanation partially covers what is unfortunately the more frequent case in the history of the race1 the submission of the majority to the laws imposed by a minority of one or more4 ,in both these cases1 however1 as in the general question of the source of our obedience to the laws1 deliberate and conscious sense of convenience is as slight in its effect upon conduct here1 as it is in the rest of the field of our moral motives4 ,it is covered too thickly over and constantly neutralised by the multitudinous growths of use1 by the many forms of fatalistic or ascetic religious sentiment1 by physical apathy of race1 and all other conditions that interpose to narrow or abrogate the authority of pure reason over human conduct4 ,rousseau1 expounding his conception of a normal political state1 was no doubt warranted in leaving these complicating conditions out of account1 though to do so is to rob any treatise on government of much of its possible value4 ,the same excuse cannot warrant him in basing his political institutions upon a figment1 instead of upon the substantial ground of propositions about human nature1 which the average of experience in given races and at given stages of advancement has shown to be true within those limits4 ,there are places in his writings where he reluctantly admits that men are only moved by their interests1 and he does not even take care to qualify this sufficiently4#bfd ,but throughout the ,social ,contract we seem to be contemplating the erection of a machine which is to work without reference to the only forces that can possibly impart movement to it4 ,the consequence of this is that ,rousseau gives us not the least help towards the solution of any of the problems of actual government1 because these are naturally both suggested and guided by considerations of expediency and improvement4 ,it is as if he had never really settled the ends for which government exists1 beyond the construction of the symmetrical machine of government itself4 ,he is a geometer1 not a mechanician2 or shall we say that he is a mechanician1 and not a biologist concerned with the conditions of a living organism4 ,the analogy of the body politic to the body natural was as present to him as it had been to all other writers on society1 but he failed to seize the only useful lessons which such an analogy might have taught him--diversity of structure1 difference of function1 development of strength by exercise1 growth by nutrition--all of which might have been serviceably translated into the dialect of political science1 and might have bestowed on his conception of political society more of the features of reality4 ,we see no room for the free play of divergent forces1 the active rivalry of hostile interests1 the regulated conflict of multifarious personal aims1 which can never be extinguished1 except in moments of driving crisis1 by the most sincere attachment to the common causes of the land4 ,thus the modern question which is of such vital interest for all the foremost human societies1 of the union of collective energy with the encouragement of individual freedom1 is1 if not wholly untouched1 at least wholly unillumined by anything that ,rousseau says4 ,to tell us that a man on entering a society exchanges his natural liberty for civil liberty which is limited by the general will1#bfe is to give us a phrase1 where we seek a solution4 ,to say that if it is the opposition of private interests which made the establishment of societies necessary1 it is the accord of those interests which makes them possible1#bff is to utter a truth which feeds no practical curiosity4 ,the opposition of private interests remains1 in spite of the yoke which their accord has imposed upon it1 but which only controls and does not suppress such an opposition4 ,what sort of control8 ,what degree8 ,what bounds8 ,so again let us consider the statement that the instant the government usurps the sovereignty1 then the social pact is broken1 and all the citizens1 restored by right to their natural liberty1 are forced but not morally obliged to obey4#bfg ,he began by telling his readers that man1 though born free1 is now everywhere in chains2 and therefore it would appear that in all existing cases the social pact has been broken1 and the citizens living under the reign of force1 are free to resume their natural liberty1 if they are only strong enough to do so4 ,this declaration of the general duty of rebellion no doubt had its share in generating that fervid eagerness that all other peoples should rise and throw off the yoke1 which was one of the most astonishing anxieties of the ,french during their revolution4 ,that was not the worst quality of such a doctrine4 ,it made government impossible1 by basing the right or duty of resistance on a question that could not be reached by positive evidence1 but must always be decided by an arbitrary interpretation of an arbitrarily imagined document4 ,the moderate proposition that resistance is lawful if a government is a bad one1 and if the people are strong enough to overthrow it1 and if their leaders have reason to suppose they can provide a less bad one in its place1 supplies tests that are capable of application4 ,our own writers in favour of the doctrine of resistance partly based their arguments upon the historic instances of the ,old ,testament1 and it is one of the most striking contributions of ,protestantism to the cause of freedom1 that it sent people in an admiring spirit to the history of the most rebellious nation that ever existed1 and so provided them in ,hebrew insurgency with a corrective for the too submissive political teaching of the ,gospel4 ,but these writers have throughout a tacit appeal to expediency1 as writers might always be expected to have1 who were really meditating on the possibility of their principles being brought to the test of practice4 ,there can be no evidence possible1 with a test so vague as the fact of the rupture of a compact whose terms are authentically known to nobody concerned4 ,speak of bad laws and good1 wise administration or unwise1 just government or unjust1 extravagant or economical1 civically elevating or demoralising2 all these are questions which men may apply themselves to settle with knowledge1 and with a more or less definite degree of assurance4 ,but who can tell how he is to find out whether sovereignty has been usurped1 and the social compact broken8 ,was there a usurpation of sovereignty in ,france not many years ago1 when the assumption of power by the prince was ratified by many millions of votes8 ,the same case1 we are told1 namely1 breach of the social compact and restoration of natural liberty1 occurs when the members of the government usurp separately the power which they ought only to exercise in a body4#bfh ,now this description applies very fairly to the famous episode in our constitutional history1 connected with ,george the ,third's first attack of madness in #aghh4 ,parliament cannot lawfully begin business without a declaration of the cause of summons from the crown4 ,on this occasion parliament both met and deliberated without communication from the crown4 ,what was still more important was a vote of the parliament itself1 authorising the passing of letters patent under the great seal for opening parliament by commission1 and for giving assent to a ,regency ,bill4 ,this was a distinct usurpation of regal authority4 ,two members of the government 7in ,rousseau's sense of the term71 namely the houses of parliament1 usurped the power which they ought only to have exercised along with the crown4#bfi ,the ,whigs denounced the proceeding as a fiction1 a forgery1 a phantom1 but if they had been readers of the ,social ,contract1 and if they had been bitten by its dogmatic temper1 they would have declared the compact of union violated1 and all ,british citizens free to resume their natural rights4 ,not even the bitter virulence of faction at that time could tempt any politician to take up such a line1 though within half a dozen years each of the democratic factions in ,france had worked at the overthrow of every other in turn1 on the very principle which ,rousseau had formulated and ,robespierre had made familiar1 that usurped authority is a valid reason for annihilating a government1 no matter under what circumstances1 nor how small the chance of replacing it by a better1 nor how enormous the peril to the national well-being in the process4 ,the true opposite to so anarchic a doctrine is assuredly not that of passive obedience either to chamber or monarch1 but the right and duty of throwing off any government which inflicts more disadvantages than it confers advantages4 ,rousseau's whole theory tends inevitably to substitute a long series of struggles after phrases and shadows in the new era1 for the equally futile and equally bloody wars of dynastic succession which have been the great curse of the old4 ,men die for a phrase as they used to die for a family4 ,the other theory1 which all ,english politicians accept in their hearts1 and so many commanding ,french politicians have seemed in their hearts to reject1 was first expounded in direct view of ,rousseau's teaching by ,paley4#bgj ,of course the greatest1 widest1 and loftiest exposition of the bearings of expediency on government and its conditions1 is to be found in the magnificent and immortal pieces of ,burke1 some of them suggested by absolutist violations of the doctrine in our own affairs1 and some of them by anarchic violation of it in the affairs of ,france1 after the seed sown by ,rousseau had brought forth fruit4 ,we should1 however1 be false to our critical principle1 if we did not recognise the historical effect of a speculation scientifically valueless4 ,there has been no attempt to palliate either the shallowness or the practical mischievousness of the ,social ,contract4 ,but there is another side to its influence4 ,it was the match which kindled revolutionary fire in generous breasts throughout ,europe4 ,not in ,france merely1 but in ,germany as well1 its phrases became the language of all who aspired after freedom4 ,schiller spoke of ,rousseau as one who converted ,christians into human beings1 and the ,robbers 7#aggh7 is as if it had been directly inspired by the doctrine that usurped sovereignty restores men to their natural rights4 ,smaller men in the violent movement which seized all the youth of ,germany at that time1 followed the same lead1 if they happened to have any feeling about the political condition of their enslaved countries4 ,there was alike in ,france and ,germany a craving for a return to nature among the whole of the young generation4#bga ,the ,social ,contract supplied a dialect for this longing on one side1 just as the ,emilius supplied it on another4 ,such parts in it as people did not understand or did not like1 they left out4 ,they did not perceive its direction towards that perfect ,hobbism1 which the author declared to be the only practical alternative to a democracy so austere as to be intolerable4 ,they grasped phrases about the sovereignty of the people1 the freedom for which nature had destined man1 the slavery to which tyrants and oppressors had brought him4 ,above all they were struck by the patriotism which shines so brightly in every page1 like the fire on the altar of one of those ancient cities which had inspired the writer's ideal4 ,yet there is a marked difference in the channels along which ,rousseau's influence moved in the two countries4 ,in ,france it was drawn eventually into the sphere of direct politics4 ,in ,germany it inspired not a great political movement1 but an immense literary revival4 ,in ,france1 as we have already said1 the patriotic flame seemed extinct4 ,the ruinous disorder of the whole social system made the old love of country resemble love for a phantom1 and so much of patriotic speech as survived was profoundly hollow4 ,even a man like ,turgot was not so much a patriot as a passionate lover of improvement1 and with the whole school of which this great spirit was the noblest and strongest1 a generous citizenship of the world had replaced the narrower sentiment which had inflamed antique heroism4 ,rousseau's exaltation of the ,greek and ,roman types in all their concentration and intensity1 touches mortals of commoner mould4 ,his theory made the native land what it had been to the citizens of earlier date1 a true centre of existence1 round which all the interests of the community1 all its pursuits1 all its hopes1 grouped themselves with entire singleness of convergence1 just as religious faith is the centre of existence to a church4 ,it was the virile and patriotic energy thus evoked which presently saved ,france from partition4 ,we complete the estimate of the positive worth and tendencies of the ,social ,contract by adding to this1 which was for the time the cardinal service1 of rekindling the fire of patriotism1 the rapid deduction from the doctrine of the sovereignty of peoples of the great truth1 that a nation with a civilised polity does not consist of an order or a caste1 but of the great body of its members1 the army of toilers who make the most painful of the sacrifices that are needed for the continuous nutrition of the social organisation4 ,as ,condorcet put it1 and he drew inspiration partly from the intellectual school of ,voltaire1 and partly from the social school of ,rousseau1 all institutions ought to have for their aim the physical1 intellectual1 and moral amelioration of the poorest and most numerous class4#bgb ,this is the ,people4 ,second1 there gradually followed from the important place given by ,rousseau to the idea of equal association1 as at once the foundation and the enduring bond of a community1 those schemes of ,mutualism1 and all the other shapes of collective action for a common social good1 which have possessed such commanding attraction for the imagination of large classes of good men in ,france ever since4 ,hitherto these forms have been sterile and deceptive1 and they must remain so1 until the idea of special function has been raised to an equal level of importance with that of united forces working together to a single end4 ,in these ways the author of the ,social ,contract did involuntarily and unconsciously contribute to the growth of those new and progressive ideas1 in which for his own part he lacked all faith4 ,pr-,newtonians knew not the wonders of which ,newton was to find the key2 and so we1 grown weary of waiting for the master intelligence who may effect the final combination of moral and scientific ideas needed for a new social era1 may be inclined to lend a half-complacent ear to the arid sophisters who assume that the last word of civilisation has been heard in existing arrangements4 ,but we may perhaps take courage from history to hope that generations will come1 to whom our system of distributing among a few the privileges and delights that are procured by the toil of the many1 will seem just as wasteful1 as morally hideous1 and as scientifically indefensible1 as that older system which impoverished and depopulated empires1 in order that a despot or a caste might have no least wish ungratified1 for which the lives or the hard-won treasure of others could suffice4 ,,footnotes3 #agf ,cont4 ,soc41 ,i4 viii4 #agg ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,ii4 xi4 ,he had written in much the same sense in his article on ,political ,economy in the ,encyclopdia1 p4 #cd4 #agh ,robespierre disclaimed the intention of attacking property1 and took up a position like that of ,rousseau--teaching the poor contempt for the rich1 not envy4 ,i do not want to touch your treasures1 he cried1 on one occasion1 however impure their source4 ,it is far more an object of concern to me to make poverty honourable1 than to proscribe wealth2 the thatched hut of ,fabricius never need envy the palace of ,crassus4 ,i should be at least as content1 for my own part1 to be one of the sons of ,aristides1 brought up in the ,prytaneium at the public expense1 as the heir presumptive of ,xerxes1 born in the mire of royal courts1 to sit on a throne decorated by the abasement of the people1 and glittering with the public misery4 ,quoted in ,malon's ,expos des ,ecoles ,socialistes franaises1 #ae4 ,baboeuf carried ,rousseau's sentiments further towards their natural conclusion by such propositions as these3 ,the goal of the revolution is to destroy inequality1 and to re-establish the happiness of all4 ,the revolution is not finished1 because the rich absorb all the property1 and hold exclusive power2 while the poor toil like born slaves1 languish in wretchedness1 and are nothing in the state4 ,expos des ,ecoles ,socialistes franaises1 p4 #bi4 #agi ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,ii4 xi4 #ahj ,cont4 ,soc41 ,i4 iv4 #aha ,ib41 ,,ii4 vii4 #ahb ,ch4 vi4 7vol4 v4 #cga2 edit4 #ahja74 #ahc ,ch4 vii4 7p4 #chc47 #ahd ,goguet1 in his ,origine des ,lois1 des ,arts1 et des ,sciences 7#ageh71 really attempted as laboriously as possible to carry out a notion of the historical method1 but the fact that history itself at that time had never been subjected to scientific examination made his effort valueless4 ,he accumulates testimony which would be excellent evidence1 if only it had been sifted1 and had come out of the process substantially undiminished4 ,yet even ,goguet1 who thus carefully followed the accounts of early societies given in the ,bible and other monuments1 intersperses abstract general statements about man being born free and independent 7i4 #be71 and entering society as the result of deliberate reflection4 #ahe ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,ii4 xi4 ,also ,,iii4 viii4 #ahf ,,ii4 xi4 ,also ch4 viii4 #ahg ,,ii4 viii4 #ahh ,,ii4 ix4 #ahi ,politics1 ,,vii4 iv4 #h1 #aj4 #aij ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,ii4 x4 #aia ,plato's ,laws1 v4 #gcg4 #aib ,ib41 iv4 #gje4 #aic ,projet de ,constitution pour la ,corse1 p4 #ge4 #aid ,gouvernement de ,pologne1 ch4 xi4 #aie ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,ii4 vii4 #aif ,goguet was much nearer to a true conception of this kind2 see1 for instance1 ,origine des ,lois1 i4 #df4 #aig ,decree of the ,committee1 ,april #bj1 #agid1 reported by ,billaud-,varennes4 ,compare ch4 iv4 of ,rousseau's ,considrations sur le ,gouvernement de ,pologne4 #aih ,here are some of ,saint ,just's regulations3--,no servants1 nor gold or silver vessels2 no child under #af to eat meat1 nor any adult to eat meat on three days of the decade2 boys at the age of #g to be handed over to the school of the nation1 where they were to be brought up to speak little1 to endure hardships1 and to train for war2 divorce to be free to all2 friendship ordained a public institution1 every citizen on coming to majority being bound to proclaim his friends1 and if he had none1 then to be banished2 if one committed a crime1 his friends were to be banished4 ,quoted in ,von ,sybel's ,hist4 ,french ,rev41 iv4 #di4 ,when ,morelly dreamed his dream of a model community in #aged 7see above1 vol4 i4 p4 #aeh7 he little supposed1 one would think1 that within forty years a man would be so near trying the experiment in ,france as ,saint ,just was4 ,baboeuf is pronounced by ,la ,harpe to have been inspired by the ,code de la ,nature1 which ,la ,harpe impudently set down to ,diderot1 on whom every great destructive piece was systematically fathered4 #aii ,i forget where ,i have read the story of some member of the ,convention being very angry because the library contained no copy of the laws which ,minos gave to the ,cretans4 #bjj ,,iii4 xiii4 #bja ,,iii4 xv4 ,he actually recommended the ,poles to pay all public functionaries in kind1 and to have the public works executed on the system of corve4 ,gouvernement de ,pologne1 ch4 xi4 #bjb ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,iii4 ii4 #bjc ,,ii4 i4 #bjd ,,ii4 ii4 #bje ,,iii4 i4 #bjf ,,ii4 vi4 #bjg ,,ii4 iv4 #bjh ,,iv4 vi4 #bji ,economie ,politique1 p4 #cj4 #baj ,mlanges1 p4 #caj4 #baa ,see for instance ,green's ,history of the ,english ,people1 i4 #bff4 #bab ,summa1 xc4-cviii4 7#abfe-abgc74 ,see ,maurice's ,moral and ,metaphysical ,philosophy1 i4 #fbg1 #fbh4 ,also ,franck's ,rformateurs et ,publicistes de l',europe1 p4 #dh1 etc4 #bac ,defensor ,pacis1 ,pt4 ,i41 ch4 xii4 ,this1 again1 is an example of ,marsilio's position3--,convenerunt enim homines ad civilem communicationem propter commodum et vit sufficientiam consequendam1 et opposita declinandum4 ,qu igitur omnium tangere possunt commodum et incommodum1 ab omnibus sciri debent et audiri1 ut commodum assequi et oppositum repellere possint4 ,the whole chapter is a most interesting anticipation1 partly due to the influence of ,aristotle1 of the notions of later centuries4 #bad ,see ,bayle's ,dict41 s4v4 ,althusius4 #bae ,lettres de la ,montagne1 ,i4 vi4 #chh4 #baf ,eccles4 ,polity1 ,bk4 i42 bks4 i4-iv41 #aeid2 bk4 v41 #aeig2 bks4 vi4-viii41 #afdg1--;being forty-seven years after the author's death4 #bag ,goguet 7,origine des ,lois1 i4 #bb7 dwells on tacit conventions as a kind of engagement to which men commit themselves with extreme facility4 ,he was thus rather near the true idea of the spontaneous origin and unconscious acceptance of early institutions4 #bah ,of ,civil ,government1 ch4 xiii4 ,see also ch4 xi4 ,this legislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth1 but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it2 nor can any edict of anybody else1 in what form soever conceived1 or by what power soever backed1 have the force and obligation of a law1 which has not its sanction from that legislative which the public has chosen and appointed2 for without this the law could not have that which is absolutely necessary to its being a law--the consent of the society2 over whom nobody can have a power to make laws1 but by their own consent1 and by authority received from them4 ,if ,rousseau had found no neater expression for his doctrine than this1 the ,social ,contract would assuredly have been no explosive4 #bai ,see especially ch4 viii4 #bbj ,hence the antipathy of the clergy1 catholic1 episcopalian1 and presbyterian1 to which1 as ,austin has pointed out 7,syst4 of ,jurisprudence1 i4 #bhh1 n471 ,hobbes mainly owes his bad repute4 #bba ,see ,diderot's article on ,hobbisme in the ,encyclopdia1 ,oeuv41 xv4 #abb4 #bbb ,esprit des ,lois1 ,i4 i4 #bbc ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,ii4 vi4 #ej4 #bbd ,goguet has the merit of seeing distinctly that command is the essence of law4 #bbe ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,ii4 vi4 #ea-ec4 ,see ,austin's ,jurisprudence1 i4 #ie1 etc42 also ,lettres crites de la ,montagne1 ,i4 vi4 #chj1 #cha4 #bbf ,see1 for instance1 letter to ,mirabeau 7l'ami des hommes71 ,july #bf1 #agfg4 ,corr41 v4 #agi4 ,the same letter contains his criticism on the good despot of the ,economists4 #bbg ,l',ordre ,naturel et ,essentiel des ,socits ,politiques 7#agfg74 ,by ,mercier de la ,rivire4 ,one episode in the life of ,mercier de la ,rivire is worth recounting1 as closely connected with the subject we are discussing4 ,just as ,corsicans and ,poles applied to ,rousseau1 ,catherine of ,russia1 in consequence of her admiration for ,rivire's book1 summoned him to ,russia to assist her in making laws4 ,sir1 said the ,czarina1 could you point out to me the best means for the good government of a state8 ,madame1 there is only one way1 and that is being just2 in other words1 in keeping order and exacting obedience to the laws4 ,but on what base is it best to make the laws of an empire repose8 ,there is only one base1 ,madame3 the nature of things and of men4 ,just so2 but when you wish to give laws to a people1 what are the rules which indicate most surely such laws as are most suitable8 ,to give or make laws1 ,madame1 is a task that ,god has left to none4 ,ah1 who is the man that should think himself capable of dictating laws for beings that he does not know1 or knows so ill8 ,and by what right can he impose laws on beings whom ,god has never placed in his hands8 ,to what1 then1 do you reduce the science of government8 ,to studying carefully2 recognising and setting forth the laws which ,god has graven so manifestly in the very organisation of men1 when he called them into existence4 ,to wish to go any further would be a great misfortune and a most destructive undertaking4 ,sir1 ,i am very pleased to have heard what you have to say2 ,i wish you good day4 ,quoted from ,thibault's ,souvenirs de ,berlin1 in ,m4 ,daire's edition of the ,physiocrates1 ii4 #dcb4 #bbh ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,ii4 vii4 #bbi ,corr41 v4 #aha4 #bcj ,cont4 ,soc41 ,i4 v41 vi41 vii4 #bca ,leviathan1 ,,ii41 ch4 xviii4 vol4 iii4 #aei 7,molesworth's edition74 #bcb ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,iii4 xvi4 #bcc ,civil ,government1 ch4 viii4 #ii4 #bcd ,i4 vi4 ,especially the footnote4 #bce ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,ii4 i4 #bcf ,syst4 of ,jurisprudence1 i4 #bef4 #bcg ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,iii4 xv4 #acg4 ,it was not long1 however1 before ,rousseau found reason to alter his opinion in this respect4 ,the champions of the ,council at ,geneva compared the droit ngatif1 in the exercise of which the ,council had refused to listen to the representations of ,rousseau's partisans 7see above1 vol4 ii4 p4 #aje7 to the right of veto possessed by the crown in ,great ,britain4 ,rousseau seized upon this egregious blunder1 which confused the power of refusing assent to a proposed law1 with the power of refusing justice under law already passed4 ,he at once found illustrations of the difference1 first in the case of the printers of ,no4 #de of the ,north ,briton1 who brought actions for false imprisonment 7#agfc71 and next in the proceedings against ,wilkes at the same time4 ,if ,wilkes1 said ,rousseau1 had written1 printed1 published1 or said1 one-fourth against the ,lesser ,council at ,geneva of what he said1 wrote1 printed1 and published openly in ,london against the court and the government1 he would have been heavily punished1 and most likely put to death4 ,and so forth1 until he has proved very pungently how different degrees of freedom are enjoyed in ,geneva and in ,england4 ,lettres crites de la ,montague1 ix4 #dia-ejj4 ,when he wrote this he was unaware that the ,triennial ,act had long been replaced by the ,septennial ,act of the #a ,geo4 ,i4 ,on finding out1 as he did afterwards1 that a parliament could sit for seven years1 he thought as meanly of our liberty as ever4 ,considrations sur les gouvernement de ,pologne1 ch4 vii4 #bec-bfj4 ,in his ,projet de ,constitution pour la ,corse1 p4 #aac1 he says that the ,english do not love liberty for itself1 but because it is most favourable to money-making4 #bch ,,iii41 xi41 xii41 and xiii4 #bci ,mr4 ,freeman's ,growth of the ,english ,constitution1 c4 i4 #bdj ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,iii4 xv4 #adj4 ,a small manuscript containing his ideas on confederation was given by ,rousseau to the ,count d',antraigues 7afterwards an migr71 who destroyed it in #aghi1 lest its arguments should be used to sap the royal authority4 ,see extract from his pamphlet1 prefixed to ,m4 ,auguis's edition of the ,social ,contract1 pp4 xxiii1 xxiv4 #bda ,gouvernement de ,pologne1 v4 #bdf4 #bdb ,of course no such modification as that proposed by ,comte 7,politique ,positive1 iv4 #dba7 would come within the scope of the doctrine of the ,social ,contract4 ,for each of the seventeen ,intendances into which ,comte divides ,france1 is to be ruled by a chief1 always appointed and removed by the central power4 ,there is no room for the sovereignty of the people here1 even in things parochial4 #bdc ,there was one extraordinary instance during the revolution of attempting to make popular government direct on ,rousseau's principle1 in the scheme 7#agij7 of which ,danton was a chief supporter1 for reorganising the municipal administration of ,paris4 ,the assemblies of sections were to sit permanently2 their vote was to be taken on current questions2 and action was to follow the aggregate of their degrees4 ,see ,von ,sybel's ,hist4 ,fr4 ,rev4 i4 #bge2 ,m4 ,louis ,blanc's ,history1 ,bk4 ,,iii4 ch4 ii4 #bdd ,this was also ,bodin's definition of an aristocratic state2 si minor pars civium cteris imperat4 #bde ,politics1 ,,iii4 vi4-vii4 #bdf ,esprit des ,lois1 ,,ii4 i4 ii4 #bdg ,rousseau gave the name of tyrant to a usurper of royal authority in a kingdom1 and despot to a usurper of the sovereign authority 7i4e4 ,greek3 tyrannos in the ,greek sense74 ,the former might govern according to the laws1 but the latter placed himself above the laws 7,cont4 ,soc41 ,,iii4 x47 ,this corresponded to ,locke's distinction3 ,as usurpation is the exercise of power which another hath a right to1 so tyranny is the exercise of a power beyond right1 which nobody can have a right to4 ,civil ,gov41 ch4 xviii4 #bdh ,,iii4 iv4 #bdi ,,iii4 vi4 #bej ,,iii4 v4 #bea ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,iv4 viii4 #beb ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,iv4 viii4 #aig-bja4 #bec ,this is not unlike what ,tocqueville says somewhere1 that ,christianity bids you render unto ,csar the things that are ,csar's1 but seems to discourage any inquiry whether ,csar is an usurper or a lawful ruler4 #bed ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,iv4 viii4 #bjc4 ,as we have already seen1 he had entreated ,voltaire1 of all men in the world1 to draw up a civil profession of faith4 ,see vol4 i4 #cbf4 ,in the ,new ,helosa 7,v4 v4 #aag1 n47 ,rousseau expresses his opinion that no true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor4 ,if ,i were a magistrate1 and if the law pronounced the penalty of death against atheists1 ,i would begin by burning as such whoever should come to inform against another4 #bee ,plato's ,laws1 ,bk4 x4 #iji1 etc4 #bef ,areopagitica1 p4 #dag4 7,edit4 #ahfg47 #beg ,see a speech of his1 which is ,rousseau's civil faith done into rhetoric1 given in ,m4 ,louis ,blanc's ,hist4 de la ,rv4 ,franaise1 ,bk4 x4 c4 xiv4 #beh ,considrations sur le gouvernement ancien et prsent de la ,france 7#agfd74 ,quoted by ,rousseau from a manuscript copy4 #bei ,leviathan1 ch4 xliii4 #fja4 ,also ch4 xlii4 #bfj ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,iii4 xi4 ,borrowed from ,hobbes1 who said1 ,magnus ille ,leviathan qu civitas appellatur1 opificium artis est4 #bfa ,mackintosh's4 #bfb ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,ii4 v4 #bfc ,,iv4 ii4 #bfd ,for instance1 ,gouvernement de la ,pologne1 ch4 xi4 p4 #cje4 ,and ,corr41 v4 #ahj4 #bfe ,cont4 ,soc41 ,i4 viii4 #bff ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,ii4 i4 #bfg ,ib41 ,,iii4 x4 ,let every individual who may usurp the sovereignty be instantly put to death by free men4 ,robespierre's ,dclaration des droits de l'homme1 #bg4 ,when the government violates the rights of the people1 insurrection becomes for the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties4 #ce4 #bfh ,cont4 ,soc41 ,,iii4 x4 #bfi ,see ,may's ,constitutional ,hist4 of ,england1 ch4 iii2 and ,lord ,stanhope's ,life of ,pitt1 vol4 ii4 ch4 xii4 #bgj ,in the #fth book of the ,moral ,philosophy 7#aghe71 ch4 iii41 and elsewhere4 ,in the preface he refers to the effect which ,rousseau's political theory was supposed to have had in the civil convulsions of ,geneva1 as one of the reasons which encouraged him to publish his own book4 #bga ,one side of this was the passion for geographical exploration which took possession of ,europe towards the middle of the eighteenth century4 ,see the ,life of ,humboldt1 i4 #bh1 #bi4 7,eng4 ,trans4 by ,lassell47 #bgb ,rousseau's influence on ,condorcet is seen in the latter's maxim1 which has found such favour in the eyes of socialist writers1 that not only equality of right1 but equality of fact1 is the goal of the social art4 ,,chapter ,,iv4 ,,emilius4 ,one whose most intense conviction was faith in the goodness of all things and creatures as they are first produced by nature1 and so long as they remain unsophisticated by the hand and purpose of man1 was in some degree bound to show a way by which this evil process of sophistication might be brought to the lowest possible point1 and the best of all natural creatures kept as near as possible to his high original4 ,rousseau1 it is true1 held in a sense of his own the doctrine of the fall of man4 ,that doctrine1 however1 has never made people any more remiss in the search after a virtue1 which if they ought to have regarded it as hopeless according to strict logic1 is still indispensable in actual life4 ,rousseau's way of believing that man had fallen was so coloured at once by that expansion of sanguine emotion which marked his century1 and by that necessity for repose in idyllic perfection of simplicity which marked his own temperament1 that enthusiasm for an imaginary human creature effectually shut out the dogma of his fatal depravation4 ,how difficult a thing it is1 ,madame d',epinay once said to him1 to bring up a child4 ,assuredly it is1 answered ,rousseau2 because the father and mother are not made by nature to bring it up1 nor the child to be brought up4#bgc ,this cynical speech can only have been an accidental outbreak of spleen4 ,it was a contradiction to his one constant opinion that nature is all good and bounteous1 and that the inborn capacity of man for reaching true happiness knows no stint4 ,in writing ,emilius1 he sat down to consider what man is1 and what can be made of him4 ,here1 as in all the rest of his work1 he only obeyed the tendencies of his time in choosing a theme4 ,an age touched by the spirit of hope inevitably turns to the young2 for with the young lies fulfilment4 ,such epochs are ever pressing with the question1 how is the future to be shaped8 ,our answer depends on the theory of human disposition1 and in these epochs the theory is always optimistic4 ,rousseau was saved1 as so many thousands of men have been alike in conduct and speculation1 by inconsistency1 and not shrinking from two mutually contradictory trains of thought4 ,society is corrupt1 and society is the work of man4 ,yet man1 who has engendered this corrupted birth1 is good and whole4 ,the strain in the argument may be pardoned for the hopefulness of the conclusion4 ,it brought ,rousseau into harmony with the eager effort of the time to pour young character into finer mould1 and made him the most powerful agent in giving to such efforts both fervour and elevation4 ,while others were content with the mere enunciation of maxims and precepts1 he breathed into them the spirit of life1 and enforced them with a vividness of faith that clothed education with the augustness and unction of religion4 ,the training of the young soul to virtue was surrounded with something of the awful holiness of a sacrament2 and those who laboured in this sanctified field were exhorted to a constancy of devotion1 and were promised a fulness of recompense1 that raised them from the rank of drudges to a place of highest honour among the ministers of nature4 ,everybody at this time was thinking about education1 partly perhaps on account of the suppression of the ,jesuits1 the chief instructors of the time1 and a great many people were writing about it4 ,the ,abb de ,saint ,pierre had had new ideas on education1 as on all the greater departments of human interest4 ,madame d',epinay wrote considerations upon the bringing up of the young4#bgd ,madame de ,grafigny did the same in a less grave shape4#bge ,she received letters from the precociously sage ,turgot1 abounding in the same natural and sensible precepts which ten years later were commended with more glowing eloquence in the pages of ,emilius4#bgf ,grimm had an elaborate scheme for a treatise on education4#bgg ,helvtius followed his exploration of the composition of the human mind1 by a treatise on the training proper for the intellectual and moral faculties4 ,education by these and other writers was being conceived in a wider sense than had been known to ages controlled by ecclesiastical collegians4 ,it slowly came to be thought of in connection with the family4 ,the improvement of ideas upon education was only one phase of that great general movement towards the restoration of the family1 which was so striking a spectacle in ,france after the middle of the century4 ,education now came to comprehend the whole system of the relations between parents and their children1 from earliest infancy to maturity4 ,the direction of this wider feeling about such relations tended strongly towards an increased closeness in them1 more intimacy1 and a more continuous suffusion of tenderness and long attachment4 ,all this was part of the general revival of naturalism4 ,people began to reflect that nature was not likely to have designed infants to be suckled by other women than their own mothers1 nor that they should be banished from the society of those who are most concerned in their well-being1 from the cheerful hearth and wise affectionate converse of home1 to the frigid discipline of colleges and convents and the unamiable monition of strangers4 ,then the rising rebellion against the church and its faith perhaps contributed something towards a movement which1 if it could not break the religious monopoly of instruction1 must at least introduce the parent as a competitor with the priestly instructor for influence over the ideas1 habits1 and affections of his children4 ,the rebellion was aimed against the spirit as well as the manner of the established system4 ,the church had not fundamentally modified the significance of the dogma of the fall and depravity of man2 education was still conceived as a process of eradication and suppression of the mystical old ,adam4 ,the new current flowed in channels far away from that black folly of superstition4 ,men at length ventured once more to look at one another with free and generous gaze4 ,the veil of the temple was rent1 and the false mockeries of the shrine of the ,hebrew divinity made plain to scornful eyes4 ,people ceased to see one another as guilty victims cowering under a divine curse4 ,they stood erect in consciousness of manhood4 ,the palsied conception of man1 with his large discourse of reason looking before and after1 his lofty and majestic patience in search for new forms of beauty and new secrets of truth1 his sense of the manifold sweetness and glory and awe of the universe1 above all1 his infinite capacity of loyal pity and love for his comrades in the great struggle1 and his high sorrow for his own wrong-doing1--the palsied and crushing conception of this excellent and helpful being as a poor worm1 writhing under the vindictive and meaningless anger of an omnipotent tyrant in the large heavens1 only to be appeased by sacerdotal intervention1 was fading back into those regions of night1 whence the depth of human misery and the obscuration of human intelligence had once permitted its escape1 to hang evilly over the western world for a season4 ,so vital a change in the point of view quickly touched the theory and art of the upbringing of the young4 ,education began to figure less as the suppression of the natural man1 than his strengthening and development2 less as a process of rooting out tares1 more as the grateful tending of shoots abounding in promise of richness4 ,what had been the most drearily mechanical of duties1 was transformed into a task that surpassed all others in interest and hope4 ,if man be born not bad but good1 under no curse1 but rather the bestower and receiver of many blessings1 then the entire atmosphere of young life1 in spite of the toil and the peril1 is made cheerful with the sunshine and warmth of the great folded possibilities of excellence1 happiness1 and well-doing4 ,i4 ,locke in education1 as in metaphysics and in politics1 was the pioneer of ,french thought4 ,in education there is less room for scientific originality4 ,the sage of a parish1 provided only she began her trade with an open and energetic mind1 may here pass philosophers4 ,locke was nearly as sage1 as homely1 as real1 as one of these strenuous women4 ,the honest plainness of certain of his prescriptions for the preservation of physical health perhaps keeps us somewhat too near the earth4 ,his manner throughout is marked by the stout wisdom of the practical teacher1 who is content to assume good sense in his hearers1 and feels no necessity for kindling a blaze or raising a tempest4 ,he gives us a practical manual for producing a healthy1 instructed1 upright1 well-mannered young ,english squire1 who shall be rightly fitted to take his own life sensibly in hand1 and procure from it a fair amount of wholesome satisfaction both for himself and the people with whom he is concerned4 ,locke's treatise is one of the most admirable protests in the world against effeminacy and pedantry1 and parents already moved by grave desire to do their duty prudently to their sons1 will hardly find another book better suited to their ends4 ,besides ,locke1 we must also count ,charron1 and the amazing educator of ,gargantua1 and ,montaigne before either1 among the writers whom ,rousseau had read1 with that profit and increase which attends the dropping of the good ideas of other men into fertile minds4 ,there is an immense class of natures1 and those not the lowest1 which the connection of duty with mere prudence does not carry far enough4 ,they only stir when something has moved their feeling for the ideal1 and raised the mechanical offices of the narrow day into association with the spaciousness and height of spiritual things4 ,to these ,rousseau came4 ,for both the tenour and the wording of the most striking precepts of the ,emilius1 he owes much to ,locke4 ,but what was so realistic in him becomes blended in ,rousseau with all the power and richness and beauty of an ideal that can move the most generous parts of human character4 ,the child is treated as the miniature of humanity2 it thus touches the whole sphere of our sympathies1 warms our curiosity as to the composition of man's nature1 and becomes the very eye and centre of moral and social aspirations4 ,accordingly ,rousseau almost at once begins by elaborating his conception of the kind of human creature which it is worth while to take the trouble to rear1 and the only kind which pure nature will help you in perfecting4 ,hence ,emilius1 besides being a manual for parents1 contains the lines of a moral type of life and character for all others4 ,the old thought of the ,discourses revives in full vigour4 ,the artifices of society1 the perverting traditions of use1 the feeble maxims of indolence1 convention1 helpless dependence on the aid or the approval of others1 are routed at the first stroke4 ,the old regimen of accumulated prejudice is replaced1 in dealing alike with body and soul1 by the new system of liberty and nature4 ,in saying this we have already said that the exaltation of ,spartan manners which runs through ,rousseau's other writings has vanished1 and that every trace of the much-vaunted military and public training has yielded before the attractive thought of tender parents and a wisely ruled home4 ,public instruction1 we learn1 can now no longer exist1 because there is no longer such a thing as country1 and therefore there can no longer be citizens4 ,only domestic education can now help us to rear the man according to nature1--the man who knows best among us how to bear the mingled good and ill of our life4 ,the artificial society of the time1 with its aspirations after a return to nature1 was moved to the most energetic enthusiasm by ,rousseau's famous exhortations to mothers to nourish their own little ones4 ,morelly1 as we have seen1 had already enjoined the adoption of this practice4 ,so too had ,buffon4 ,but ,morelly's voice had no resonance1 ,buffon's reasons were purely physical1 and children were still sent out to nurse1 until ,rousseau's more passionate moral entreaties awoke maternal conscience4 ,do these tender mothers1 he exclaimed1 who1 when they have got rid of their infants1 surrender themselves gaily to all the diversions of the town1 know what sort of usage the child in the village is receiving1 fastened in his swaddling band8 ,at the least interruption that comes1 they hang him up by a nail like a bundle of rags1 and there the poor creature remains thus crucified1 while the nurse goes about her affairs4 ,every child found in this position had a face of purple2 as the violent compression of the chest would not allow the blood to circulate1 it all went to the head1 and the victim was supposed to be very quiet1 just because it had not strength enough to cry out4#bgh ,but in ,rousseau1 as in ,beethoven1 a harsh and rugged passage is nearly always followed by some piece of exquisite and touching melody4 ,the force of these indignant pictures was heightened and relieved by moving appeal to all the tender joys of maternal solicitude1 and thoughts of all that this solicitude could do for the happiness of the home1 the father1 and the young4 ,the attraction of domestic life is pronounced the best antidote to the ill living of the time4 ,the bustle of children1 which you now think so importunate1 gradually becomes delightful2 it brings father and mother nearer to one another2 and the lively animation of a family added to domestic cares1 makes the dearest occupation of the wife1 and the sweetest of all his amusements to the husband4 ,if women will only once more become mothers again1 men will very soon become fathers and husbands4#bgi ,the physical effect of this was not altogether wholesome4 ,rousseau's eloquence excited women to an inordinate pitch of enthusiasm for the duty of suckling their infants1 but his contemptuous denunciation of the gaieties of ,paris could not extinguish the love of amusement4 ,quid quod libelli ,stoici inter sericos ,jacere pulvillos amant8 ,so young mothers tried as well as they could to satisfy both desires1 and their babes were brought to them at all unseasonable hours1 while they were full of food and wine1 or heated with dancing or play1 and there received the nurture which1 but for ,rousseau1 they would have drawn in more salutary sort from a healthy foster-mother in the country4 ,this1 however1 was only an incidental drawback to a movement which was in its main lines full of excellent significance4 ,the importance of giving freedom to the young limbs1 of accustoming the body to rudeness and vicissitude of climate1 of surrounding youth with light and cheerfulness and air1 and even a tiny detail such as the propriety of substituting for coral or ivory some soft substance against which the growing teeth might press a way without irritation1 all these matters are handled with a fervid reality of interest that gives to the tedium of the nursery a genuine touch of the poetic4 ,swathings1 bandages1 leading-strings1 are condemned with a warmth like that with which the author had denounced comedy4#bhj ,the city is held up to indignant reprobation as the gulf of infant life1 just as it had been in his earlier pieces as the gulf of all the loftiest energies of the adult life4 ,every child ought to be born and nursed in the country1 and it would be all the better if it remained in the country to the last day of its existence4 ,you must accustom it little by little to the sight of disagreeable objects1 such as toads and snakes2 also in the same gradual manner to the sound of alarming noises1 beginning with snapping a cap in a pistol4 ,if the infant cries from pain which you cannot remove1 make no attempt to soothe it2 your caresses will not lessen the anguish of its colic1 while the child will remember what it has to do in order to be coaxed and to get its own way4 ,the nurse may amuse it by songs and lively cries1 but she is not to din useless words into its ears2 the first articulations that come to it should be few1 easy1 distinct1 frequently repeated1 and only referring to objects which may be shown to the child4 ,our unlucky facility in cheating ourselves with words that we do not understand1 begins earlier than we suppose4 ,let there be no haste in inducing the child to speak articulately4 ,the evil of precipitation in this respect is not that children use and hear words without sense1 but that they use and hear them in a different sense from our own1 without our perceiving it4 ,mistakes of this sort1 committed thus early1 have an influence1 even after they are cured1 over the turn of the mind for the rest of the creature's life4 ,hence it is a good thing to keep a child's vocabulary as limited as possible1 lest it should have more words than ideas1 and should say more than it can possibly realise in thought4#bha ,in moral as in intellectual habits1 the most perilous interval in human life is that between birth and the age of twelve4 ,the great secret is to make the early education purely negative2 a process of keeping the heart1 naturally so good1 clear of vice1 and the intelligence1 naturally so true1 clear of error4 ,take for first1 second1 and third precept1 to follow nature and leave her free to the performance of her own tasks4 ,until the age of reason1 there can be no idea of moral beings or social relations4 ,therefore1 says ,rousseau1 no moral discussion4 ,locke's maxim in favour of constantly reasoning with children was a mistake4 ,of all the faculties of man1 reason1 which is only a compound of the rest1 is that which is latest in development1 and yet it is this which we are to use to develop those which come earliest of all4 ,such a course is to begin at the end1 and to turn the finished work into an instrument4 ,in speaking to children in these early years a language which they do not comprehend1 we accustom them to cheat themselves with words1 to criticise what is said to them1 to think themselves as wise as their masters1 to become disputatious and mutinous4 ,if you forget that nature meant children to be children before growing into men1 you only force a fruit that has neither ripeness nor savour1 and must soon go bad2 you will have youthful doctors and old infants4 ,to all this1 however1 there is certainly another side which ,rousseau was too impetuous to see4 ,perfected reason is truly the tardiest of human endowments1 but it can never be perfected at all unless the process be begun1 and1 within limits1 the sooner the beginning is made1 the earlier will be the ripening4 ,to know the grounds of right conduct is1 we admit1 a different thing from feeling a disposition to practise it4 ,but nobody will deny the expediency of an intelligent acquaintance with the reasons why one sort of conduct is bad1 and its opposite good1 even if such an acquaintance can never become a substitute for the spontaneous action of thoroughly formed habit4 ,for one thing1 cases are constantly arising in a man's life that demand the exercise of reason1 to settle the special application of principles which may have been acquired without knowledge of their rational foundation4 ,in such cases1 which are the critical and testing points of character1 all depends upon the possession of a more or less justly trained intelligence1 and the habit of using it4 ,now1 as we have said1 it is one of the great merits of the ,emilius that it calls such attention to the early age at which mental influences begin to operate4 ,why should the gradual formation of the master habit of using the mind be any exception8 ,belief in the efficacy of preaching is the bane of educational systems4 ,verbal lessons seem as if they ought to be so deeply effective1 if only the will and the throng of various motives which guide it1 instantly followed impression of a truth upon the intelligence4 ,and they are1 moreover1 so easily communicated1 saving the parent a lifetime of anxious painstaking in shaping his own character1 after such a pattern as shall silently draw all within its influence to pursuit of good and honourable things4 ,the most valuable of ,rousseau's notions about education1 though he by no means consistently adhered to them1 was his urgent contempt for this fatuous substitution of spoken injunctions and prohibitions1 for the deeper language of example1 and the more living instruction of visible circumstance4 ,the vast improvements that have since taken place in the theory and the art of education all over ,europe1 and of which he has the honour of being the first and most widely influential promoter1 may all be traced to the spread of this wise principle1 and its adoption in various forms4 ,the change in the up-bringing of the young exactly corresponds to the change in the treatment of the insane4 ,we may look back to the old system of endless catechisms1 apophthegms1 moral fables1 and the rest of the paraphernalia of moral didactics1 with the same horror with which we regard the gags1 strait-waistcoats1 chains1 and dark cells1 of poor mad people before the intervention of ,pinel4 ,it is clear now to everybody who has any opinion on this most important of all subjects1 that spontaneousness is the first quality in connection with right doing1 which you can develop in the young1 and this spontaneousness of habit is best secured by associating it with the approval of those to whom the child looks4 ,sympathy1 in a word1 is the true foundation from which to build up the structure of good habit4 ,the young should be led to practise the elementary parts of right conduct from the desire to please1 because that is a securer basis than the conclusions of an embryo reason1 applied to the most complex conditions of action1 while the grounds on which action is justified or condemned may be made plain in the fulness of time1 when the understanding is better able to deal with the ideas and terms essential to the matter4 ,you have two aims to secure1 each without sacrifice of the other4 ,these are1 first1 that the child shall grow up with firm and promptly acting habit2 second1 that it shall retain respect for reason and an open mind4 ,the latter may be acquired in the less immature years1 but if the former be not acquired in the earlier times1 a man grows up with a drifting unsettledness of will1 that makes his life either vicious by quibbling sophistries1 or helpless for want of ready conclusions4 ,the first idea which is to be given to a child1 little as we might expect such a doctrine from the author of the ,second ,discourse1 is declared to be that of property4 ,and he can only acquire this idea by having something of his own4 ,but how are we to teach him the significance of a thing being one's own8 ,it is a prime rule to attempt to teach nothing by a verbal lesson2 all instruction ought to be left to experience4#bhb ,therefore you must contrive some piece of experience which shall bring this notion of property vividly into a child's mind2 the following for instance4 ,emilius is taken to a piece of garden2 his instructor digs and dresses the ground for him1 and the boy takes possession by sowing some beans4 ,we come every day to water them1 and see them rise out of the ground with transports of joy4 ,i add to this joy by saying1 ,this belongs to you4 ,then explaining the term1 ,i let him feel that he has put into the ground this time1 labour1 trouble1 his person in short2 that there is in this bit of ground something of himself which he may maintain against every comer1 as he might withdraw his own arm from the hand of another man who would fain retain it in spite of him4 ,one day ,emilius comes to his beloved garden1 watering-pot in hand1 and finds to his anguish and despair that all the beans have been plucked up1 that the ground has been turned over1 and that the spot is hardly recognisable4 ,the gardener comes up1 and explains with much warmth that he had sown the seed of a precious ,maltese melon in that particular spot long before ,emilius had come with his trumpery beans1 and that therefore it was his land2 that nobody touches the garden of his neighbour1 in order that his own may remain untouched2 and that if ,emilius wants a piece of garden1 he must pay for it by surrendering to the owner half the produce4#bhc ,thus1 says ,rousseau1 the boy sees how the notion of property naturally goes back to the right of the first occupant as derived from labour4 ,we should have thought it less troublesome1 as it is certainly more important1 to teach a boy the facts of property positively and imperatively4 ,this rather elaborate ascent to origins seems an exaggerated form of that very vice of over-instructing the growing reason in abstractions1 which ,rousseau had condemned so short a time before4 ,again1 there is the very strong objection to conveying lessons by artificially contrived incidents1 that children are nearly always extremely acute in suspecting and discovering such contrivances4 ,yet ,rousseau recurs to them over and over again1 evidently taking delight in their ingenuity4 ,besides the illustration of the origin and significance of property1 there is the complex fancy in which a juggler is made to combine instruction as to the properties of the magnet with certain severe moral truths4#bhd ,the tutor interests ,emilius in astronomy and geography by a wonderful stratagem indeed4 ,the poor youth loses his way in a wood1 is overpowered by hunger and weariness1 and then is led on by his cunning tutor to a series of inferences from the position of the sun and so forth1 which convince him that his home is just over the hedge1 where it is duly found to be4#bhe ,here1 again1 is the way in which the instructor proposes to stir activity of limb in the young ,emilius4 ,in walking with him of an afternoon1 ,i used sometimes to put in my pocket two cakes of a sort he particularly liked2 we each of us ate one4 ,one day he perceived that ,i had three cakes2 he could easily have eaten six2 he promptly despatches his own1 to ask me for the third4 ,nay1 ,i said to him1 ,i could well eat it myself1 or we would divide it1 but ,i would rather see it made the prize of a running match between the two little boys there4 ,the little boys run their race1 and the winner devours the cake4 ,this and subsequent repetitions of the performance at first only amused ,emilius1 but he presently began to reflect1 and perceiving that he also had two legs1 he began privately to try how fast he could run4 ,when he thought he was strong enough1 he importuned his tutor for the third cake1 and on being refused1 insisted on being allowed to compete for it4 ,the habit of taking exercise was not the only advantage gained4 ,the tutor resorted to a variety of further stratagems in order to induce the boy to find out and practise visual compass1 and so forth4#bhf ,if we consider1 as we have said1 first the readiness of children to suspect a stratagem wherever instruction is concerned1 and next their resentment on discovering artifice of that kind1 all this seems as little likely to be successful as it is assuredly contrary to ,rousseau's general doctrine of leaving circumstances to lead4 ,in truth ,rousseau's appreciation of the real nature of spontaneousness in the processes of education was essentially inadequate1 and that it was so1 arose from a no less inadequate conception of the right influence upon the growing character1 of the great principle of authority4 ,his dread lest the child should ever be conscious of the pressure of a will external to its own1 constituted a fundamental weakness of his system4 ,the child1 we are told with endless repetition1 ought always to be led to suppose that it is following its own judgment or impulses1 and has only them and their consequences to consider4 ,but ,rousseau could not help seeing1 as he meditated on the actual development of his ,emilius1 that to leave him thus to the training of accident would necessarily end in many fatal gaps and chasms4 ,yet the hand and will of the parent or the master could not be allowed to appear4 ,the only alternative1 therefore1 was the secret preparation of artificial sets of circumstances1 alike in work and in amusement4 ,jean ,paul was wiser than ,jean ,jacques4 ,let not the teacher after the work also order and regulate the games4 ,it is decidedly better not to recognise or make any order in games1 than to keep it up with difficulty and send the zephyrets of pleasure through artistic bellows and air-pumps to the little flowers4#bhg ,the spontaneousness which we ought to seek1 does not consist in promptly willing this or that1 independently of an authority imposed from without1 but in a self-acting desire to do what is right under all its various conditions1 including what the child finds pleasant to itself on the one hand1 and what it has good reason to suppose will be pleasant to its parents on the other4 ,you must never1 ,rousseau gravely warns us1 inflict punishment upon children as punishment2 it should always fall upon them as a natural consequence of their ill-behaviour4#bhh ,but why should one of the most closely following of all these consequences be dissembled or carefully hidden from sight1 namely1 the effect of ill-behaviour upon the contentment of the child's nearest friend8 ,why are the effects of conduct upon the actor's own physical well-being to be the only effects honoured with the title of being natural8 ,surely1 while we leave to the young the widest freedom of choice1 and even habitually invite them to decide for themselves between two lines of conduct1 we are bound afterwards to state our approval or disapproval of their decision1 so that on the next occasion they may take this anger or pleasure in others into proper account in their rough and hasty forecast1 often less hasty than it seems1 of the consequences of what they are about to do4 ,one of the most important of educating influences is lost1 if the young are not taught to place the feelings of others in a front place1 when they think in their own simple way of what will happen to them from yielding to a given impulse4 ,rousseau was quite right in insisting on practical experience of consequences as the only secure foundation for self-acting habit2 he was fatally wrong in mutilating this experience by the exclusion from it of the effects of perceiving1 resisting1 accepting1 ignoring1 all will and authority from without4 ,the great1 and in many respects so admirable1 school of ,rousseauite philanthropists1 have always been feeble on this side1 alike in the treatment of the young by their instructors1 and the treatment of social offenders by a government4 ,again1 consider the large group of excellent qualities which are associated with affectionate respect for a more fully informed authority4 ,in a world where necessity stands for so much1 it is no inconsiderable gain to have learnt the lesson of docility on easy terms in our earliest days4 ,if in another sense the will of each individual is all-powerful over his own destinies1 it is best that this idea of firm purpose and a settled energy that will not be denied1 should grow up in the young soul in connection with a riper wisdom and an ampler experience than its own2 for then1 when the time for independent action comes1 the force of the association will continue4 ,finally1 although none can be vicariously wise1 none sage by proxy1 nor any pay for the probation of another1 yet is it not a puerile wastefulness to send forth the young all bare to the ordeal1 while the armour of old experience and tempered judgment hangs idle on the wall8 ,surely it is thus by accumulation of instruction from generation to generation1 that the area of right conduct in the world is extended4 ,such instruction must with youth be conveyed by military word of command as often as by philosophical persuasion of its worth4 ,nor is the atmosphere of command other than bracing1 even to those who are commanded4 ,if education is to be mainly conducted by force of example1 it is a dreadful thing that the child is ever to have before its eyes as living type and practical exemplar the pale figure of parents without passions1 and without a will as to the conduct of those who are dependent on them4 ,even a slight excess of anger1 impatience1 and the spirit of command1 would be less demoralising to the impressionable character than the constant sight of a man artificially impassive4 ,rousseau is perpetually calling upon men to try to lay aside their masks2 yet the model instructor whom he has created for us is to be the most artfully and elaborately masked of all men2 unless he happens to be naturally without blood and without physiognomy4 ,rousseau1 then1 while he put away the old methods which imprisoned the young spirit in injunctions and over-solicitous monitions1 yet did none the less in his own scheme imprison it in a kind of hothouse1 which with its regulated temperature and artificially contrived access of light and air1 was in many respects as little the method of nature1 that is to say it gave as little play for the spontaneous working and growth of the forces of nature in the youth's breast1 as that regimen of the cloister which he so profoundly abhorred4 ,partly this was the result of a ludicrously shallow psychology4 ,he repeats again and again that self-love is the one quality in the youthful embryo of character1 from which you have to work4 ,from this1 he says1 springs the desire of possessing pleasure and avoiding pain1 the great fulcrum on which the lever of experience rests4 ,not only so1 but from this same unslumbering quality of self-love you have to develop regard for others4 ,the child's first affection for his nurse is a result of the fact that she serves his comfort1 and so down to his passion in later years for his mistress4 ,now this is not the place for a discussion as to the ultimate atom of the complex moral sentiments of men and women1 nor for an examination of the question whether the faculty of sympathy has or has not an origin independent of self-love4 ,however that may be1 no one will deny that sympathy appears in good natures extremely early1 and is susceptible of rapid cultivation from the very first4 ,here is the only adequate key to that education of the affections1 from their rudimentary expansion in the nursery1 until they include the complete range of all the objects proper to them4 ,one secret of ,rousseau's omission of this1 the most important of all educating agencies1 from the earlier stages of the formation of character1 was the fact which is patent enough in every page1 that he was not animated by that singular tenderness and almost mystic affection for the young1 which breathes through the writings of some of his ,german followers1 of ,richter above all others1 and which reveals to those who are sensible of it1 the hold that may so easily be gained for all good purposes upon the eager sympathy of the youthful spirit4 ,the instructor of ,emilius speaks the words of a wise onlooker1 sagely meditating on the ideal man1 rather than of a parent who is living the life of his child through with him4 ,rousseau's interest in children1 though perfectly sincere1 was still sthetic1 moral1 reasonable1 rather than that pure flood of full-hearted feeling for them1 which is perhaps seldom stirred except in those who have actually brought up children of their own4 ,he composed a vindication of his love for the young in an exquisite piece2#bhi but it has none of the yearnings of the bowels of tenderness4 ,,ii4 ,education being the art of preparing the young to grow into instruments of happiness for themselves and others1 a writer who undertakes to speak about it must naturally have some conception of the kind of happiness at which his art aims4 ,we have seen enough of ,rousseau's own life to know what sort of ideal he would be likely to set up4 ,it is a healthier epicureanism1 with enough stoicism to make happiness safe in case that circumstances should frown4 ,the man who has lived most is not he who has counted most years1 but he who has most felt life4#bij ,it is mere false wisdom to throw ourselves incessantly out of ourselves1 to count the present for nothing1 ever to pursue without ceasing a future which flees in proportion as we advance1 to try to transport ourselves from whence we are not1 to some place where we shall never be4#bia ,he is happiest who suffers fewest pains1 and he is most miserable who feels fewest pleasures4 ,then we have a half stoical strain4 ,the felicity of man here below is only a negative state1 to be measured by the more or less of the ills he undergoes4 ,it is in the disproportion between desires and faculties that our misery consists4 ,happiness1 therefore1 lies not in diminishing our desires1 nor any more in extending our faculties1 but in diminishing the excess of desire over faculty1 and in bringing power and will into perfect balance4#bib ,excepting health1 strength1 respect for one's self1 all the goods of this life reside in opinion2 excepting bodily pain and remorse of conscience1 all our ills are in imagination4 ,death is no evil2 it is only made so by half-knowledge and false wisdom4 ,live according to nature1 be patient1 and drive away physicians2 you will not avoid death1 but you will only feel it once1 while they on the other hand would bring it daily before your troubled imagination1 and their false art1 instead of prolonging your days1 only hinders you from enjoying them4 ,suffer1 die1 or recover2 but above all things live1 live up to your last hour4 ,it is foresight1 constantly carrying us out of ourselves1 that is the true source of our miseries4#bic ,o man1 confine thy existence within thyself1 and thou wilt cease to be miserable4 ,thy liberty1 thy power1 reach exactly as far as thy natural forces1 and no further2 all the rest is slavery and illusion4 ,the only man who has his own will is he who does not need in order to have it the arms of another person at the end of his own4#bid ,the training that follows from this is obvious4 ,the instructor has carefully to distinguish true or natural need from the need which is only fancied1 or which only comes from superabundance of life4 ,emilius1 who is brought up in the country1 has nothing in his room to distinguish it from that of a peasant4#bie ,if he is taken to a luxurious banquet1 he is bidden1 instead of heedlessly enjoying it1 to reflect austerely how many hundreds or thousands of hands have been employed in preparing it4#bif ,his preference for gay colours in his clothes is to be consulted1 because this is natural and becoming to his age1 but the moment he prefers a stuff merely because it is rich1 behold a sophisticated creature4#big ,the curse of the world is inequality1 and inequality springs from the multitude of wants1 which cause us to be so much the more dependent4 ,what makes man essentially good is to have few wants1 and to abstain from comparing himself with others2 what makes him essentially bad1 is to have many wants1 and to cling much to opinion4#bih ,hence1 although ,emilius happened to have both wealth and good birth1 he is not brought up to be a gentleman1 with the prejudices and helplessness and selfishness too naturally associated with that abused name4 ,this cardinal doctrine of limitation of desire1 with its corollary of self-sufficience1 contains in itself the great maxim that ,emilius and every one else must learn some trade4 ,to work is an indispensable duty in the social man4 ,rich or poor1 powerful or weak1 every idle citizen is a knave4 ,and every boy must learn a real trade1 a trade with his hands4 ,it is not so much a matter of learning a craft for the sake of knowing one1 as for the sake of conquering the prejudices which despise it4 ,labour for glory1 if you have not to labour from necessity4 ,lower yourself to the condition of the artisan1 so as to be above your own4 ,in order to reign in opinion1 begin by reigning over it4 ,all things well considered1 the trade most to be preferred is that of carpenter2 it is clean1 useful1 and capable of being carried on in the house2 it demands address and diligence in the workman1 and though the form of the work is determined by utility1 still elegance and taste are not excluded4#bii ,there are few prettier pictures than that where ,sophie enters the workshop1 and sees in amazement her young lover at the other end1 in his white shirt-sleeves1 his hair loosely fastened back1 with a chisel in one hand and a mallet in the other1 too intent upon his work to perceive even the approach of his mistress4#cjj ,when the revolution came1 and princes and nobles wandered in indigent exile1 the disciples of ,rousseau pointed in unkind triumph to the advantage these unfortunate wretches would have had if they had not been too puffed up with the vanity of feudalism to follow the prudent example of ,emilius in learning a craft4 ,that ,rousseau should have laid so much stress on the vicissitudes of fortune1 which might cause even a king to be grateful one day that he had a trade at the end of his arms1 is sometimes quoted as a proof of his foresight of troublous times4 ,this1 however1 goes too far1 because1 apart from the instances of such vicissitudes among the ancients1 the ,king of ,syracuse keeping school at ,corinth1 or ,alexander1 son of ,perseus1 becoming a ,roman scrivener1 he actually saw ,charles ,edward1 the ,stuart pretender1 wandering from court to court in search of succour and receiving only rebuffs2 and he may well have known that after the troubles of #agch a considerable number of the oligarchs of his native ,geneva had gone into exile1 rather than endure the humiliation of their party4#cja ,besides all this1 the propriety of being able to earn one's bread by some kind of toil that would be useful in even the simplest societies1 flowed necessarily from every part of his doctrine of the aims of life and the worth of character4 ,he did1 however1 say1 ,we approach a state of crisis and an age of revolutions1 which proved true1 but he added too much when he pronounced it impossible that the great monarchies of ,europe could last long4#cjb ,and it is certain that the only one of the great monarchies which did actually fall would have had a far better chance of surviving if ,lewis ,,xvi4 had been as expert in the trade of king as he was in that of making locks and bolts4 ,from this semi-stoical ideal there followed certain social notions1 of which ,rousseau had the distinction of being the most powerful propagator4 ,as has so often been said1 his contemporaries were willing to leave social questions alone1 provided only the government would suffer the free expression of opinion in literature and science4 ,rousseau went deeper4 ,his moral conception of individual life and character contained in itself a social conception1 and he did not shrink from boldly developing it4 ,the rightly constituted man suffices for himself and is free from prejudices4 ,he has arms1 and knows how to use them2 he has few wants1 and knows how to satisfy them4 ,nurtured in the most absolute freedom1 he can think of no worse ill than servitude4 ,he attaches himself to the beauty which perishes not1 limiting his desires to his condition1 learning to lose whatever may be taken away from him1 to place himself above events1 and to detach his heart from loved objects without a pang4#cjc ,he pities miserable kings1 who are the bondsmen of all that seems to obey them2 he pities false sages1 who are fast bound in the chains of their empty renown2 he pities the silly rich1 martyrs to their own ostentation4#cjd ,all the sympathies of such a man therefore naturally flow away from these1 the great of the earth1 to those who lead the stoic's life perforce4 ,it is the common people who compose the human race2 what is not the people is hardly worth taking into account4 ,man is the same in all ranks2 that being so1 the ranks which are most numerous deserve most respect4 ,before one who reflects1 all civil distinctions vanish3 he marks the same passions and the same feelings in the clown as in the man covered with reputation2 he can only distinguish their speech1 and a varnish more or less elaborately laid on4 ,study people of this humble condition2 you will perceive that under another sort of language1 they have as much intelligence as you1 and more good sense4 ,respect your species3 reflect that it is essentially made up of the collection of peoples2 that if every king and every philosopher were cut off from among them1 they would scarcely be missed1 and the world would go none the worse4#cje ,as it is1 the universal spirit of the law in every country is invariably to favour the strong against the weak1 and him who has1 against him who has not4 ,the many are sacrificed to the few4 ,the specious names of justice and subordination serve only as instruments for violence and arms for iniquity4 ,the ostentatious orders who pretend to be useful to the others1 are in truth only useful to themselves at the expense of the others4#cjf ,this was carrying on the work which had already been begun in the ,new ,helosa1 as we have seen1 but in the ,emilius it is pushed with a gravity and a directness1 that could not be imparted to the picture of a fanciful and arbitrarily chosen situation4 ,the only writer who has approached ,rousseau1 so far as ,i know1 in fulness and depth of expression in proclaiming the sorrows and wrongs of the poor blind crowd1 who painfully drag along the car of triumphant civilisation with its handful of occupants1 is the author of the ,book of the ,people4 ,lamennais even surpasses ,rousseau in the profundity of his pathos2 his pictures of the life of hut and hovel are as sincere and as touching2 and there is in them1 instead of the anger and bitterness of the older author1 righteous as that was1 a certain heroism of pity and devoted sublimity of complaint1 which lift the soul up from resentment into divine moods of compassion and resolve1 and stir us like a tale of noble action4#cjg ,it was ,rousseau1 however1 who first sounded the note of which the religion that had once been the champion and consoler of the common people1 seemed long to have lost even the tradition4 ,yet the teaching was not constructive1 because the ideal man was not made truly social4 ,emilius is brought up in something of the isolation of the imaginary savage of the state of nature4 ,he marries1 and then he and his wife seem only fitted to lead a life of detachment from the interests of the world in which they are placed4 ,social or political education1 that is the training which character receives from the medium in which it grows1 is left out of account1 and so is the correlative process of preparation for the various conditions and exigencies which belong to that medium1 until it is too late to take its natural place in character4 ,nothing can be clumsier than the way in which ,rousseau proposes to teach ,emilius the existence and nature of his relations with his fellows4 ,and the reason of this was that he had never himself in the course of his ruminations1 willingly thought of ,emilius as being in a condition of active social relation1 the citizen of a state4 ,,iii4 ,there appear to be three dominant states of mind1 with groups of faculties associated with each of them1 which it is the business of the instructor firmly to establish in the character of the future man4 ,the first is a resolute and unflinching respect for ,truth2 for the conclusions1 that is to say1 of the scientific reason1 comprehending also a constant anxiety to take all possible pains that such conclusions shall be rightly drawn4 ,connected with this is the discipline of the whole range of intellectual faculties1 from the simple habit of correct observation1 down to the highly complex habit of weighing and testing the value of evidence4 ,this very important branch of early discipline1 ,rousseau for reasons of his own which we have already often referred to1 cared little about1 and he throws very little light upon it1 beyond one or two extremely sensible precepts of the negative kind1 warning us against beginning too soon and forcing an apparent progress too rapidly4 ,the second fundamental state in a rightly formed character is a deep feeling for things of the spirit which are unknown and incommensurable2 a sense of awe1 mystery1 sublimity1 and the fateful bounds of life at its beginning and its end4 ,here is the ,religious side1 and what ,rousseau has to say of this we shall presently see4 ,it is enough now to remark that ,emilius was never to hear the name of a ,god or supreme being until his reason was fairly ripened4 ,the third state1 which is at least as difficult to bring to healthy perfection as either of the other two1 is a passion for ,justice4 ,the little use which ,rousseau made of this momentous and much-embracing word1 which names the highest peak of social virtue1 is a very striking circumstance4 ,the reason would seem to be that his sense of the relations of men with one another was not virile enough to comprehend the deep austerer lines which mark the brow of the benignant divinity of ,justice4 ,in the one place in his writings where he speaks of justice freely1 he shows a narrowness of idea1 which was perhaps as much due to intellectual confusion as to lack of moral robustness4 ,he says excellently that love of the human race is nothing else in us but love of justice1 and that of all the virtues1 justice is that which contributes most to the common good of men4 ,while enjoining the discipline of pity as one of the noblest of sentiments1 he warns us against letting it degenerate into weakness1 and insists that we should only surrender ourselves to it when it accords with justice4#cjh ,but that is all4 ,what constitutes justice1 what is its standard1 what its source1 what its sanction1 whence the extraordinary holiness with which its name has come to be invested among the most highly civilised societies of men1 we are never told1 nor do we ever see that our teacher had seen the possibility of such questions being asked4 ,if they had been propounded to him1 he would1 it is most likely1 have fallen back upon the convenient mystery of the natural law4 ,this was the current phrase of that time1 and it was meant to embody a hypothetical experience of perfect human relations in an expression of the widest generality4 ,if so1 this would have to be impressed upon the mind of ,emilius in the same way as other mysteries4 ,as a matter of fact1 ,emilius was led through pity up to humanity1 or sociality in an imperfect signification1 and there he was left without a further guide to define the marks of truly social conduct4 ,this imperfection was a necessity1 inseparable from ,rousseau's tenacity in keeping society in the background of the picture of life which he opened to his pupil4 ,he said1 indeed1 ,we must study society by men1 and men by society2 those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand anything about either one or the other4#cji ,this is profoundly true1 but we hardly see in the morality which is designed for ,emilius the traces of political elements4 ,yet without some gradually unfolded presentation of society as a whole1 it is scarcely possible to implant the idea of justice with any hope of large fertility4 ,you may begin at a very early time to develop1 even from the primitive quality of self-love1 a notion of equity and a respect for it1 but the vast conception of social justice can only find room in a character that has been made spacious by habitual contemplation of the height and breadth and close compactedness of the fabric of the relations that bind man to man1 and of the share1 integral or infinitesimally fractional1 that each has in the happiness or woe of other souls4 ,and this contemplation should begin when we prepare the foundation of all the other maturer habits4 ,youth can hardly recognise too soon the enormous unresting machine which bears us ceaselessly along1 because we can hardly learn too soon that its force and direction depend on the play of human motives1 of which our own for good or evil form an inevitable part when the ripe years come4 ,to one reared with the narrow care devoted to ,emilius1 or with the capricious negligence in which the majority are left to grow to manhood1 the society into which they are thrown is a mere moral wilderness4 ,they are to make such way through it as they can1 with egotism for their only trusty instrument4 ,this egotism may either be a bludgeon1 as with the most part1 or it may be a delicately adjusted and fastidiously decorated compass1 as with an ,emilius4 ,in either case is no perception that the gross outer contact of men with another is transformed by worthiness of common aim and loyal faith in common excellences1 into a thing beautiful and generous4 ,it is our business to fix and root the habit of thinking of that moral union1 into which1 as ,kant has so admirably expressed it1 the pathological necessities of situation that first compelled social concert1 have been gradually transmuted4 ,instead of this1 it is exactly the primitive pathological conditions that a narrow theory of education brings first into prominence2 as if knowledge of origins were indispensable to a right attachment to the transformed conditions of a maturer system4 ,it has been said that ,rousseau founds all morality upon personal interest1 perhaps even more specially than ,helvtius himself4 ,the accusation is just4 ,emilius will enter adult life without the germs of that social conscience1 which animates a man with all the associations of duty and right1 of gratitude for the past and resolute hope for the future1 in face of the great body of which he finds himself a part4 ,i observe1 says ,rousseau1 that in the modern ages men have no hold upon one another save through force and interest1 while the ancients on the other hand acted much more by persuasion and the affections of the soul4#caj ,the reason was that with the ancients1 supposing him to mean the ,greeks and ,romans1 the social conscience was so much wider in its scope than the comparatively narrow fragment of duty which is supposed to come under the sacred power of conscience in the more complex and less closely contained organisation of a modern state4 ,the neighbours to whom a man owed duty in those times comprehended all the members of his state4 ,the neighbours of the modern preacher of duty are either the few persons with whom each of us is brought into actual and palpable contact1 or else the whole multitude of dwellers on the earth1--a conception that for many ages to come will remain with the majority of men and women too vague to exert an energetic and concentrating influence upon action1 and will lead them no further than an uncoloured and nerveless cosmopolitanism4 ,what the young need to have taught to them in this too little cultivated region1 is that they are born not mere atoms floating independent and apart for a season through a terraqueous medium1 and sucking up as much more than their share of nourishment as they can seize2 nor citizens of the world with no more definite duty than to keep their feelings towards all their fellows in a steady simmer of bland complacency2 but soldiers in a host1 citizens of a polity whose boundaries are not set down in maps1 members of a church the handwriting of whose ordinances is not in the hieroglyphs of idle mystery1 nor its hope and recompense in the lands beyond death4 ,they need to be taught that they owe a share of their energies to the great struggle which is in ceaseless progress in all societies in an endless variety of forms1 between new truth and old prejudice1 between love of self or class and solicitous passion for justice1 between the obstructive indolence and inertia of the many and the generous mental activity of the few4 ,this is the sphere and definition of the social conscience4 ,the good causes of enlightenment and justice in all lands1--here is the church militant in which we should early seek to enrol the young1 and the true state to which they should be taught that they owe the duties of active and arduous citizenship4 ,these are the struggles with which the modern instructor should associate those virtues of fortitude1 tenacity1 silent patience1 outspoken energy1 readiness to assert ourselves and readiness to efface ourselves1 willingness to suffer and resolution to inflict suffering1 which men of old knew how to show for their gods or their sovereign4 ,but the ideal of ,emilius was an ideal of quietism2 to possess his own soul in patience1 with a suppressed intelligence1 a suppressed sociality1 without a single spark of generous emulation in the courses of strong-fibred virtue1 or a single thrill of heroical pursuit after so much as one great forlorn cause4 ,if it once comes to him1 in reading these parallels of the famous ancients1 to desire to be another rather than himself1 were this other ,socrates1 were he ,cato1 you have missed the mark2 he who begins to make himself a stranger to himself1 is not long before he forgets himself altogether4#caa ,but if a man only nurses the conception of his own personality1 for the sake of keeping his own peace and self-contained comfort at a glow of easy warmth1 assuredly the best thing that can befall him is that he should perish1 lest his example should infect others with the same base contagion4 ,excessive personality when militant is often wholesome1 excessive personality that only hugs itself is under all circumstances chief among unclean things4 ,thus even ,rousseau's finest monument of moral enthusiasm is fatally tarnished by the cold damp breath of isolation1 and the very book which contained so many elements of new life for a state1 was at bottom the apotheosis of social despair4 ,,iv4 ,the great agent in fostering the rise to vigour and uprightness of a social conscience1 apart from the yet more powerful instrument of a strong and energetic public spirit at work around the growing character1 must be found in the study of history rightly directed with a view to this end4 ,it is here1 in observing the long processes of time and appreciating the slowly accumulating sum of endeavour1 that the mind gradually comes to read the great lessons how close is the bond that links men together4 ,it is here that he gradually begins to acquire the habit of considering what are the conditions of wise social activity1 its limits1 its objects1 its rewards1 what is the capacity of collective achievement1 and of what sort is the significance and purport of the little span of time that cuts off the yesterday of our society from its to-morrow4 ,rousseau had very rightly forbidden the teaching of history to young children1 on the ground that the essence of history lies in the moral relations between the bare facts which it recounts1 and that the terms and ideas of these relations are wholly beyond the intellectual grasp of the very young4#cab ,he might have based his objections equally well upon the impossibility of little children knowing the meaning of the multitude of descriptive terms which make up a historical manual1 or realising the relations between events in bare point of time1 although childhood may perhaps be a convenient period for some mechanical acquisition of dates4 ,according to ,rousseau1 history was to appear very late in the educational course1 when the youth was almost ready to enter the world4 ,it was to be the finishing study1 from which he should learn not sociality either in its scientific or its higher moral sense1 but the composition of the heart of man1 in a safer way than through actual intercourse with society4 ,society might make him either cynical or frivolous4 ,history would bring him the same information1 without subjecting him to the same perils4 ,in society you only hear the words of men2 to know man you must observe his actions1 and actions are only unveiled in history4#cac ,this view is hardly worth discussing4 ,the subject of history is not the heart of man1 but the movements of societies4 ,moreover1 the oracles of history are entirely dumb to one who seeks from them maxims for the shaping of daily conduct1 or living instruction as to the motives1 aims1 caprices1 capacities of self-restraint1 self-sacrifice1 of those with whom the occasions of life bring us into contact4 ,it is true that at the close of the other part of his education1 ,emilius was to travel and there find the comment upon the completed circle of his studies4#cad ,but excellent as travel is for some of the best of those who have the opportunity1 still for many it is valueless for lack of the faculty of curiosity4 ,for the great majority it is impossible for lack of opportunity4 ,to trust so much as ,rousseau did to the effect of travelling1 is to leave a large chasm in education unbridged4 ,it is interesting1 however1 to notice some of ,rousseau's notions about history as an instrument for conveying moral instruction1 a few of them are so good1 others are so characteristically narrow4 ,the worst historians for a young man1 he says1 are those who judge4 ,the facts1 the facts2 then let him judge for himself4 ,if the author's judgment is for ever guiding him1 he is only seeing with the eye of another1 and as soon as this eye fails him1 he sees nothing4 ,modern history is not fit for instruction1 not only because it has no physiognomy1 all our men being exactly like one another1 but because our historians1 intent on brilliance above all other things1 think of nothing so much as painting highly coloured portraits1 which for the most part represent nothing at all4#cae ,of course such a judgment as this implies an ignorance alike of the ends and meaning of history1 which1 considering that he was living in the midst of a singular revival of historical study1 is not easy to pardon4 ,if we are to look only to perfection of form and arrangement1 it may have been right for one living in the middle of the last century to place the ancients in the first rank without competitors4 ,but the author of the ,discourse upon literature and the arts might have been expected to look beyond composition1 and the contemporary of ,voltaire's ,essai sur les ,moeurs 7#aged-ageg7 might have been expected to know that the profitable experience of the human race did not close with the fall of the ,roman republic4 ,among the ancient historians1 he counted ,thucydides to be the true model1 because he reports facts without judging1 and omits none of the circumstances proper for enabling us to judge of them for ourselves--though how ,rousseau knew what facts ,thucydides has omitted1 ,i am unable to divine4 ,then come ,csar's ,commentaries and ,xenophon's ,retreat of the ,ten ,thousand4 ,the good ,herodotus1 without portraits and without maxims1 but abounding in details the most capable of interesting and pleasing1 would perhaps be the best of historians1 if only these details did not so often degenerate into puerilities4 ,livy is unsuited to youth1 because he is political and a rhetorician4 ,tacitus is the book of the old2 you must have learnt the art of reading facts1 before you can be trusted with maxims4 ,the drawback of histories such as those of ,thucydides and ,csar1 ,rousseau admits to be that they dwell almost entirely on war1 leaving out the true life of nations1 which belongs to the unwritten chronicles of peace4 ,this leads him to the equally just reflection that historians while recounting facts omit the gradual and progressive causes which led to them4 ,they often find in a battle lost or won the reason of a revolution1 which even before the battle was already inevitable4 ,war scarcely does more than bring into full light events determined by moral causes1 which historians can seldom penetrate4#caf ,a third complaint against the study which he began by recommending as a proper introduction to the knowledge of man1 is that it does not present men but actions1 or at least men only in their parade costume and in certain chosen moments1 and he justly reproaches writers alike of history and biography1 for omitting those trifling strokes and homely anecdotes1 which reveal the true physiognomy of character4 ,remain then for ever1 without bowels1 without nature2 harden your hearts of cast iron in your trumpery decency1 and make yourselves despicable by force of dignity4#cag ,and so after all1 by a common stroke of impetuous inconsistency1 he forsakes history1 and falls back upon the ancient biographies1 because1 all the low and familiar details being banished from modern style1 however true and characteristic1 men are as elaborately tricked out by our authors in their private lives as they were tricked out upon the stage of the world4 ,v4 ,as women are from the constitution of things the educators of us all at the most critical periods1 and mainly of their own sex from the beginning to the end of education1 the writer of the most imperfect treatise on this world-interesting subject can hardly avoid saying something on the upbringing of women4 ,such a writer may start from one of three points of view2 he may consider the woman as destined to be a wife1 or a mother1 or a human being2 as the companion of a man1 as the rearer of the young1 or as an independent personality1 endowed with gifts1 talents1 possibilities1 in less or greater number1 and capable1 as in the case of men1 of being trained to the worst or the best uses4 ,of course to every one who looks into life1 each of these three ideals melts into the other two1 and we can only think of them effectively when they are blended4 ,yet we test a writer's appreciation of the conditions of human progress by observing the function which he makes most prominent4 ,a man's whole thought of the worth and aim of womanhood depends upon the generosity and elevation of the ideal which is silently present in his mind1 while he is specially meditating the relations of woman as wife or as mother4 ,unless he is really capable of thinking of them as human beings1 independently of these two functions1 he is sure to have comparatively mean notions in connection with them in respect of the functions which he makes paramount4 ,rousseau breaks down here4 ,the unsparing fashion in which he developed the theory of individualism in the case of ,emilius1 and insisted on man being allowed to grow into the man of nature1 instead of the man of art and manufacture1 might have led us to expect that when he came to speak of women1 he would suffer equity and logic to have their way1 by giving equally free room in the two halves of the human race1 for the development of natural force and capacity4 ,if1 as he begins by saying1 he wishes to bring up ,emilius1 not to be a merchant nor a physician nor a soldier nor to the practice of any other special calling1 but to be first and above all a man1 why should not ,sophie too be brought up above all to be a human being1 in whom the special qualifications of wifehood and motherhood may be developed in their due order8 ,emilius is a man first1 a husband and a father afterwards and secondarily4 ,how can ,sophie be a companion for him1 and an instructor for their children1 unless she likewise has been left in the hands of nature1 and had the same chances permitted to her as were given to her predestined mate8 ,again1 the pictures of the ,new ,helosa would have led us to conceive the ideal of womanly station not so much in the wife1 as in the house-mother1 attached by esteem and sober affection to her husband1 but having for her chief functions to be the gentle guardian of her little ones1 and the mild1 firm1 and prudent administrator of a cheerful and well-ordered household4 ,in the last book of the ,emilius1 which treats of the education of girls1 education is reduced within the compass of an even narrower ideal than this4 ,we are confronted with the oriental conception of women4 ,every principle that has been followed in the education of ,emilius is reversed in the education of women4 ,opinion1 which is the tomb of virtue among men1 is among women its high throne4 ,the whole education of women ought to be relative to men2 to please them1 to be useful to them1 to make themselves loved and honoured by them1 to console them1 to render their lives agreeable and sweet to them1--these are the duties which ought to be taught to women from their childhood4 ,every girl ought to have the religion of her mother1 and every wife that of her husband4 ,not being in a condition to judge for themselves1 they ought to receive the decision of fathers and husbands as if it were that of the church4 ,and since authority is the rule of faith for women1 it is not so much a matter of explaining to them the reasons for belief1 as for expounding clearly to them what to believe4 ,although boys are not to hear of the idea of ,god until they are fifteen1 because they are not in a condition to apprehend it1 yet girls who are still less in a condition to apprehend it1 are therefore to have it imparted to them at an earlier age4 ,woman is created to give way to man1 and to suffer his injustice4 ,her empire is an empire of gentleness1 mildness1 and complaisance4 ,her orders are caresses1 and her threats are tears4 ,girls must not only be made laborious and vigilant2 they must also very early be accustomed to being thwarted and kept in restraint4 ,this misfortune1 if they feel it one1 is inseparable from their sex1 and if ever they attempt to escape from it1 they will only suffer misfortunes still more cruel in consequence4#cah ,after a series of oriental and obscurantist propositions of this kind1 it is of little purpose to tell us that women have more intelligence and men more genius2 that women observe1 while men reason2 that men will philosophise better upon the human heart1 while women will be more skilful in reading it4#cai ,and it is a mere mockery to end the matter by a fervid assurance1 that in spite of prejudices that have their origin in the manners of the time1 the enthusiasm for what is worthy and noble is no more foreign to women than it is to men1 and that there is nothing which under the guidance of nature may not be obtained from them as well as from ourselves4#cbj ,finally there is a complete surrender of the obscurantist position in such a sentence as this3 ,i only know for either sex two really distinct classes2 one the people who think1 the other the people who do not think1 and this difference comes almost entirely from education4 ,a man of the first of these classes ought not to marry into the other2 for the greatest charm of companionship is wanting1 when in spite of having a wife he is reduced to think by himself4 ,it is only a cultivated spirit that provides agreeable commerce1 and 'tis a cheerless thing for a father of a family who loves his home1 to be obliged to shut himself up within himself1 and to have no one about him who understands him4 ,besides1 how is a woman who has no habits of reflection to bring up her children8#cba ,nothing could be more excellently urged4 ,but how is a woman to have habits of reflection1 when she has been constantly brought up in habits of the closest mental bondage1 trained always to consider her first business to be the pleasing of some man1 and her instruments not reasonable persuasion but caressing and crying8 ,this pernicious nonsense was mainly due1 like nearly all his most serious errors1 to ,rousseau's want of a conception of improvement in human affairs4 ,if he had been filled with that conception as ,turgot1 ,condorcet1 and others were1 he would have been forced as they were1 to meditate upon changes in the education and the recognition accorded to women1 as one of the first conditions of improvement4 ,for lack of this1 he contributed nothing to the most important branch of the subject that he had undertaken to treat4 ,he was always taunting the champions of reigning systems of training for boys1 with the vicious or feeble men whom he thought he saw on every hand around him4 ,the same kind of answer obviously meets the current idea1 which he adopted with a few idyllic decorations of his own1 of the type of the relations between men and women4 ,that type practically reduces marriage in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred to a dolorous parody of a social partnership4 ,it does more than any one other cause to keep societies back1 because it prevents one half of the members of a society from cultivating all their natural energies4 ,thus it produces a waste of helpful quality as immeasurable as it is deplorable1 and besides rearing these creatures of mutilated faculty to be the intellectually demoralising companions of the remaining half of their own generation1 makes them the mothers and the earliest and most influential instructors of the whole of the generation that comes after4#cbb ,of course1 if any one believes that the existing arrangements of a western community are the most successful that we can ever hope to bring into operation1 we need not complain of ,rousseau4 ,if not1 then it is only reasonable to suppose that a considerable portion of the change will be effected in the hitherto neglected and subordinate half of the race4 ,that reconstitution of the family1 which ,rousseau and others among his contemporaries rightly sought after as one of the most pressing needs of the time1 was essentially impossible1 so long as the typical woman was the adornment of a semi-philosophic seraglio1 a sort of compromise between the frowzy ideal of an ,english bourgeois and the impertinent ideal of a ,parisian gallant4 ,condorcet and others made a grievous mistake in defending the free gratification of sensual passion1 as one of the conditions of happiness and making the most of our lives4#cbc ,but even this was not at bottom more fatal to the maintenance and order of the family1 than ,rousseau's enervating notion of keeping women in strict intellectual and moral subjection was fatal to the family as the true school of high and equal companionship1 and the fruitful seed-ground of wise activities and new hopes for each fresh generation4 ,this was one side of ,rousseau's reactionary tendencies4 ,fortunately for the revolution of thirty years later1 which illustrated the gallery of heroic women with some of its most splendid names1 his power was in this respect neutralised by other stronger tendencies in the general spirit of the age4 ,the aristocracy of sex was subjected to the same destructive criticism as the aristocracy of birth4 ,the same feeling for justice which inspired the demand for freedom and equality of opportunity among men1 led to the demand for the same freedom and equality of opportunity between men and women4 ,all this was part of the energy of the time1 which ,rousseau disliked with undisguised bitterness4 ,it broke inconveniently in upon his quietest visions4 ,he had no conception1 with his sensuous brooding imagination1 never wholly purged of grossness1 of that high and pure type of women whom ,french history so often produced in the seventeenth century1 and who were not wanting towards the close of the eighteenth1 a type in which devotion went with force1 and austerity with sweetness1 and divine candour and transparent innocence with energetic loyalty and intellectual uprightness and a firmly set will4 ,such thoughts were not for ,rousseau1 a dreamer led by his senses4 ,perhaps they are for none of us any more4 ,when we turn to modern literature from the pages in which ,fnelon speaks of the education of girls1 who does not feel that the world has lost a sacred accent1 as if some ineffable essence has passed out from our hearts8 ,the fifth book of ,emilius is not a chapter on the education of women1 but an idyll4 ,we have already seen the circumstances under which ,rousseau composed it1 in a profound and delicious solitude1 in the midst of woods and streams1 with the fragrance of the orange-flower poured around him1 and in continual ecstasy4 ,as an idyll it is delicious2 as a serious contribution to the hardest of problems it is naught4 ,the sequel1 by a stroke of matchless whimsicality1 unless it be meant1 as it perhaps may have been1 for a piece of deep tragic irony1 is the best refutation that ,rousseau's most energetic adversary could have desired4 ,the ,sophie who has been educated on the oriental principle1 has presently to confess a flagrant infidelity to the blameless ,emilius1 her lord4#cbd ,,vi4 ,yet the sum of the merits of ,emilius as a writing upon education is not to be lightly counted4 ,its value lies1 as has been said of the ,new ,helosa1 in the spirit which animates it and communicates itself with vivid force to the reader4 ,it is one of the seminal books in the history of literature1 and of such books the worth resides less in the parts than in the whole4 ,it touched the deeper things of character4 ,it filled parents with a sense of the dignity and moment of their task4 ,it cleared away the accumulation of clogging prejudices and obscure inveterate usage1 which made education one of the dark formalistic arts4 ,it admitted floods of light and air into the tightly closed nurseries and schoolrooms4 ,it effected the substitution of growth for mechanism4 ,a strong current of manliness1 wholesomeness1 simplicity1 self-reliance1 was sent by it through ,europe1 while its eloquence was the most powerful adjuration ever addressed to parental affection to cherish the young life in all love and considerate solicitude4 ,it was the charter of youthful deliverance4 ,the first immediate effect of ,emilius in ,france was mainly on the religious side4 ,it was the ,christian religion that needed to be avenged1 rather than education that needed to be amended1 and the press overflowed with replies to that profession of faith which we shall consider in the next chapter4 ,still there was also an immense quantity of educational books and pamphlets1 which is to be set down1 first to the suppression of the ,jesuits1 the great educating order1 and the vacancy which they left2 and next to the impulse given by the ,emilius to a movement from which the book itself had originally been an outcome4#cbe ,but why try to state the influence of ,emilius on ,france in this way8 ,to strike the account truly would be to write the history of the first ,french ,revolution4#cbf ,all mothers1 as ,michelet says1 were big with ,emilius4 ,it is not without good reason that people have noted the children born at this glorious moment1 as animated by a superior spirit1 by a gift of flame and genius4 ,it is the generation of revolutionary ,titans3 the other generation not less hardy in science4 ,it is ,danton1 ,vergniaud1 ,desmoulins2 it is ,ampre1 ,la ,place1 ,cuvier1 ,geoffroy ,saint ,hilaire4#cbg ,in ,germany ,emilius had great power4 ,there it fell in with the extraordinary movement towards naturalness and freedom of which we have already spoken4#cbh ,herder1 whom some have called the ,rousseau of the ,germans1 wrote with enthusiasm to his then beloved ,caroline of the divine ,emilius1 and he never ceased to speak of ,rousseau as his inspirer and his master4#cbi ,basedow 7#agbc71 that strange1 restless1 and most ill-regulated person1 was seized with an almost phrenetic enthusiasm for ,rousseau's educational theories1 translated them into ,german1 and repeated them in his works over and over again with an incessant iteration4 ,lavater 7#agda-ahja71 who differed from ,basedow in being a fervent ,christian of soft mystic faith1 was thrown into company with him in #aggd1 and grew equally eager with him in the cause of reforming education in the ,rousseauite sense4#ccj ,pestalozzi 7#agdf-ahbg71 the most systematic1 popular1 and permanently successful of all the educational reformers1 borrowed his spirit and his principles mainly from the ,emilius1 though he gave larger extension and more intelligent exactitude to their application4 ,jean ,paul the ,unique1 in the preface to his ,levana1 or ,doctrine of ,education 7#ahjf71 one of the most excellent of all books on the subject1 declares that among previous works to which he owes a debt1 first and last he names ,rousseau's ,emilius2 no preceding work can be compared to his2 in no previous work on education was the ideal so richly combined with the actual1 and so forth4#cca ,it was not merely a ,goethe1 a ,schiller1 a ,herder1 whom ,rousseau fired with new thoughts4 ,the smaller men1 such as ,fr4 ,jacobi1 ,heinse1 ,klinger1 shared the same inspiration4 ,the worship of ,rousseau penetrated all classes1 and touched every degree of intelligence4#ccb ,in our own country ,emilius was translated as soon as it appeared1 and must have been widely read1 for a second version of the translation was called for in a very short time4 ,so far as a cursory survey gives one a right to speak1 its influence here in the field of education is not very perceptible4 ,that subject did not yet1 nor for some time to come1 excite much active thought in ,england4 ,rousseau's speculations on society both in the ,emilius and elsewhere seem to have attracted more attention4 ,reference has already been made to ,paley4#ccc ,adam ,ferguson's celebrated ,essay on the ,history of ,civil ,society 7#agfg7 has many allusions1 direct and indirect1 to ,rousseau4#ccd ,kames's ,sketches of the ,history of ,man 7#aggd7 abounds still more copiously in references to ,emilius1 sometimes to controvert its author1 more often to cite him as an authority worthy of respect1 and ,rousseau's crude notions about women are cited with special acceptance4#cce ,cowper was probably thinking of the ,savoyard ,vicar when he wrote the energetic lines in the ,task1 beginning ,haste now1 philosopher1 and set him free1 scornfully defying the deist to rescue apostate man4#ccf ,nor should we omit what was counted so important a book in its day as ,godwin's ,enquiry concerning ,political ,justice 7#agic74 ,it is perhaps more ,french in its spirit than any other work of equal consequence in our literature of politics1 and in its composition the author was avowedly a student of ,rousseau1 as well as of the members of the materialistic school4 ,in fine we may add that ,emilius was the first expression of that democratic tendency in education1 which political and other circumstances gradually made general alike in ,england1 ,france1 and ,germany2 a tendency1 that is1 to look on education as a process concerning others besides the rich and the well-born4 ,as has often been remarked1 ,ascham1 ,milton1 ,locke1 ,fnelon1 busy themselves about the instruction of young gentlemen and gentlewomen4 ,the rest of the world are supposed to be sufficiently provided for by the education of circumstance4 ,since the middle of the eighteenth century this monopolising conception has vanished1 along with and through the same general agencies as the corresponding conception of social monopoly4 ,rousseau enforced the production of a natural and self-sufficing man as the object of education1 and showed1 or did his best to show1 the infinite capacity of the young for that simple and natural cultivation4 ,this easily and directly led people to reflect that such a capacity was not confined to the children of the rich1 nor the hope of producing a natural and sufficing man narrowed to those who had every external motive placed around them for being neither natural nor self-sufficing4 ,voltaire pronounced ,emilius a stupid romance1 but admitted that it contained fifty pages which he would have bound in morocco4 ,these1 we may be sure1 concerned religion2 in truth it was the ,savoyard ,vicar's profession of faith which stirred ,france far more than the upbringing of the natural man in things temporal4 ,let us pass to that eloquent document which is inserted in the middle of the ,emilius1 as the expression of the religious opinion that best befits the man of nature--a document most hyperbolically counted by some ,french enthusiasts for the spiritualist philosophy and the religion of sentiment1 as the noblest monument of the eighteenth century4 ,,footnotes3 #bgc ,mm4 de ,mdme4 d',epinay1 ii4 #bgf1 #bgh4 #bgd ,lettres mon ,fils 7#ageh71 and ,les ,conversations d',emilie 7#aghc74 #bge ,lettres ,pruviennes4 #bgf ,oeuv41 ii4 #ghe-gid4 #bgg ,corr4 ,lit41 iii4 #fe4 #bgh ,emile1 ,i4 #bg4 #bgi ,it is interesting to recall a similar movement in the ,roman society of the second century of our era4 ,see the advice of ,favorinus to mothers1 in ,aulus ,gellius1 xii4 #a4 ,m4 ,boissier1 contrasting the solicitude of ,tacitus and ,marcus ,aurelius for the infant young with the brutality of ,cicero1 remarks that in the time of ,seneca men discussed in the schools the educational theories of ,rousseau's ,emilius4 7,la ,relig4 ,romaine1 ii4 #bjb47 #bhj ,see also his diatribe against whalebone and tight-lacing for girls1 ,v4 #bg4 #bha ,emile1 ,i4 #ic1 etc4 #bhb ,emile1 ,,ii4 #ada4 #bhc ,emile1 ,,ii4 #aef-afj4 #bhd ,emile1 ,,iii4 #cch-cde4 #bhe ,,iii4 #ceh1 etc4 #bhf ,emile1 ,,ii4 #bfc-bfg4 #bhg ,levana1 ch4 iii4 #ed4 #bhh ,emile1 ,,ii4 #afc4 #bhi ,the ,ninth ,promenade 7,rveries1 #cji74 #bij ,emile1 ,i4 #bc4 #bia ,,ii4 #aji4 #bib ,,ii4 #aaa4 #bic ,emile1 ,,ii4 #aac-aag4 #bid ,,ii4 #aba4 #bie ,,ii4 #adc4 #bif ,emile1 ,,iii4 #chb4 #big ,,ii4 #bbg4 #bih ,,iv4 #aj4 #bii ,emile1 ,,iii4 #cid4 #cjj ,v4 #aii4 #cja ,the reader will not forget the famous supper-party of princes in ,candide4 #cjb ,emile1 ,,iii4 #cib1 and note4 ,a still more remarkable passage1 as far as it goes1 is that in the ,confessions 7xi4 #acf73--,the disasters of an unsuccessful war1 all of which came from the fault of the government1 the incredible disorder of the finances1 the continual dissensions of the administration1 divided as it was among two or three ministers at open war with one another1 and who for the sake of hurting one another dragged the kingdom into ruin2 the general discontent of the people1 and of all the orders of the state2 the obstinacy of a wrong-headed woman1 who1 always sacrificing her better judgment1 if indeed she had any1 to her tastes1 dismissed the most capable from office1 to make room for her favourites 444 all this prospect of a coming break-up made me think of seeking shelter elsewhere4 #cjc ,emile1 ,v4 #bbj4 #cjd ,,iv4 #he4 #cje ,emile1 ,,iv4 #ch1 #ci4 ,hence1 we suppose1 the famous reply to ,lavoisier's request that his life might be spared from the guillotine for a fortnight1 in order that he might complete some experiments1 that the ,republic has no need of chemists4 #cjf ,,iv4 #fe4 ,jefferson1 who was ,american minister in ,france from #aghd to #aghi1 and absorbed a great many of the ideas then afloat1 writes in words that seem as if they were borrowed from ,rousseau3--,i am convinced that those societies 7as the ,indians7 which live without government1 enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under ,european governments4 ,among the former public opinion is in the state of law1 and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere4 ,among the latter1 under pretence of governing1 they have divided their nation into two classes1 wolves and sheep4 ,i do not exaggerate2 this is a true picture of ,europe4 ,tucker's ,life of ,jefferson1 i4 #bee4 #cjg ,lamennais was influenced by ,rousseau throughout4 ,in the ,essay on ,indifference he often appeals to him as the vindicator of the religious sentiment 7e4g4 i4 #ba1 #eb1 iv4 #cge1 etc4 ,ed4 #ahcg74 ,the same influence is seen still more markedly in the ,words of a ,believer 7#ahce71 when dogma had departed1 and he was left with a kind of dual deism1 thus being less estranged from ,rousseau than in the first days 7e4g4 xix4 ,tous naissent gaux1 etc41 xxi41 etc47 ,the ,book of the ,people is thoroughly ,rousseauite4 #cjh ,emile1 ,,iv4 #aje4 #cji ,emile1 ,,iv4 #fc4 #caj ,emile1 ,,iv4 #bgc4 #caa ,emile1 ,,iv4 #hc4 #cab ,emile1 ,,ii4 #ahe4 ,see the previous page for some equally prudent observations on the folly of teaching geography to little children4 #cac ,emile1 ,,iv4 #fh4 #cad ,v4 #bca1 etc4 #cae ,emile1 ,,iv4 #ga4 #caf ,emile1 ,,iv4 #gc4 #cag ,,iv4 #gg4 #cah ,emile1 ,v4 #bb1 #ec1 #ed1 #aja1 #abh-acb4 #cai ,emile1 ,v4 #gh4 #cbj ,v4 #abb4 #cba ,v4 #abi1 #acj4 #cbb ,well did ,jean ,paul say1 ,if we regard all life as an educational institution1 a circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than by his nurse4--,levana4 #cbc ,tableau des ,progrs de l',esprit ,humain4 ,oeuv41 vi4 pp4 #bfd1 #ebc-ebf1 and elsewhere4 ,ed4 #ahdg-ahdi4 #cbd ,emile et ,sophie1 i4 #cbe ,for an account of some of these1 see ,grimm's ,corr4 ,lit41 iii4 #baa1 #beb1 #cdg1 etc4 ,also ,corr4 ,ind41 p4 #adc4 #cbf ,for the early date at which ,rousseau's power began to meet recognition1 see ,d',alembert to ,voltaire1 ,july #ca1 #agfb4 #cbg ,louis xv4 et xvi41 p4 #bbf4 #cbh ,see above1 vol4 ii4 p4 #aic4 #cbi ,hettner1 ,,iii4 iii41 #b1 p4 #bg1 s4v4 ,herder4 #ccj ,the suggestion of the speculation with which ,lavater's name is most commonly associated1 is to be found in the ,emilius4 ,it is supposed that physiognomy is only a development of features already marked by nature4 ,for my part1 ,i should think that besides this development1 the features of a man's countenance form themselves insensibly and take their expression from the frequent and habitual wearing into them of certain affections of the soul4 ,these affections mark themselves in the countenance1 nothing is more certain2 and when they grow into habits1 they must leave durable impressions upon it4 ,,iv4 #di1 #ej4 #cca ,author's ,preface1 x4 #ccb ,see an excellent page in ,m4 ,joret's ,herder1 #cbb4 #ccc ,see above1 vol4 ii4 p4 #aia4 #ccd ,e4g4 pp4 #h1 #aih1 #bjd1 #bje4 #cce ,e4g4 ,bk4 ,i4 #e1 p4 #bgi4 #f1 p4 #djf1 #dai1 etc4 7the portion concerning the female sex74 #ccf ,vv4 #fgj-gjc4 ,we have already seen 7above1 vol4 ii4 p4 #da1 n47 that ,cowper had read ,emilius1 and the mocking reference to the ,deist as an ,orpheus and omnipotent in song1 coincides with ,rousseau's comparison of the ,savoyard ,vicar to the divine ,orpheus singing the first hymn 7,emile1 ,,iv4 #bje74 ,,chapter ,v4 ,,the ,,savoyard ,,vicar4 ,the band of dogmatic atheists who met round ,d',holbach's dinner-table indulged a shallow and futile hope1 if it was not an ungenerous one1 when they expected the immediate advent of a generation with whom a humane and rational philosophy should displace1 not merely the superstitions which had grown around the ,christian dogma1 but every root and fragment of theistic conception4 ,a hope of this kind implied a singularly random idea1 alike of the hold which ,christianity had taken of the religious emotion in western ,europe1 and of the durableness of those conditions in human character1 to which some belief in a deity with a greater or fewer number of good attributes brings solace and nourishment4 ,a movement like that of ,christianity does not pass through a group of societies1 and then leave no trace behind4 ,it springs from many other sources besides that of adherence to the truth of its dogmas4 ,the stream of its influence must continue to flow long after adherence to the letter has been confined to the least informed portions of a community4 ,the ,encyclopdists knew that they had sapped religious dogma and shaken ecclesiastical organisation4 ,they forgot that religious sentiment on the one hand1 and habit of respect for authority on the other1 were both of them still left behind4 ,they had convinced themselves by a host of persuasive analogies that the universe is an automatic machine1 and man only an industrious particle in the stupendous whole2 that a final cause is not cognisable by our limited intelligence2 and that to make emotion in this or any other respect a test of objective truth and a ground of positive belief1 is to lower both truth and the reason which is its single arbiter4 ,they forgot that imagination is as active in man as his reason1 and that a craving for mental peace may become much stronger than passion for demonstrated truth4 ,christianity had given to this craving in western ,europe a definite mould1 which was not to be effaced in a day1 and one or two of its lines mark a permanent and noble acquisition to the highest forces of human nature4 ,there will have to be wrought a profounder and more far-spreading modification than any which the ,french atheists could effect1 before all debilitating influences in the old creed can be effaced1 its elevating influences finally separated from them1 and then permanently preserved in more beneficent form and in an association less questionable to the understanding4 ,neither a purely negative nor a direct attack can ever suffice4 ,there must be a coincidence of many silently oppugnant forces1 emotional1 scientific1 and material4 ,and1 above all1 there must be the slow steadfast growth of some replacing faith1 which shall retain all the elements of moral beauty that once gave light to the old belief that has disappeared1 and must still possess a living force in the new4 ,here we find the good side of a religious reaction such as that which ,rousseau led in the last century1 and of which the ,savoyard ,vicar's profession of faith was the famous symbol4 ,evil as this reaction was in many respects1 and especially in the check which it gave to the application of positive methods and conceptions to the most important group of our beliefs1 yet it had what was the very signal merit under the circumstances of the time1 of keeping the religious emotions alive in association with a tolerant1 pure1 lofty1 and living set of articles of faith1 instead of feeding them on the dead superstitions which were at that moment the only practical alternative4 ,the deism of ,rousseau could not in any case have acquired the force of the corresponding religious reaction in ,england1 because the former never acquired a compact and vigorous external organisation1 as the latter did1 especially in ,wesleyanism and ,evangelicalism1 the most remarkable of its developments4 ,in truth the vague1 fluid1 purely subjective character of deism disqualifies it from forming the doctrinal basis of any great objective and visible church1 for it is at bottom the sublimation of individualism4 ,but in itself it was a far less retrogressive1 as well as a far less powerful1 movement4 ,it kept fewer of those dogmas which gradual change of intellectual climate had reduced to the condition of rank superstitions4 ,it preserved some of its own1 which a still further extension of the same change is assuredly destined to reduce to the same condition2 but1 nevertheless1 along with them it cherished sentiments which the world will never willingly let die4 ,the one cardinal service of the ,christian doctrine1 which is of course to be distinguished from the services rendered to civilisation in early times by the ,christian church1 has been the contribution to the active intelligence of the west1 of those moods of holiness1 awe1 reverence1 and silent worship of an ,unseen not made with hands1 which the ,christianising ,jews first brought from the east4 ,of the fabric which four centuries ago looked so stupendous and so enduring1 with its magnificent whole and its minutely reticulated parts of belief and practice1 this gradual creation of a new temperament in the religious imagination of ,western ,europe and the countries that take their mental direction from her1 is perhaps the only portion that will remain distinctly visible1 after all the rest has sunk into the repose of histories of opinion4 ,whether this be the case or not1 the fact that these deeper moods are among the richest acquisitions of human nature1 will not be denied either by those who think that ,christianity associates them with objects destined permanently to awake them in their loftiest form1 or by others who believe that the deepest moods of which man is capable1 must ultimately ally themselves with something still more purely spiritual than the anthropomorphised deities of the falling church4 ,and if so1 then ,rousseau's deism1 while intercepting the steady advance of the rationalistic assault and diverting the current of renovating energy1 still did something to keep alive in a more or less worthy shape those parts of the slowly expiring system which men have the best reasons for cherishing4 ,let us endeavour to characterise ,rousseau's deism with as much precision as it allows4 ,it was a special and graceful form of a doctrine which1 though susceptible1 alike in theory and in the practical history of religious thought1 of numberless wide varieties of significance1 is commonly designated by the name of deism1 without qualification4 ,people constantly speak as if deism only came in with the eighteenth century4 ,it would be impossible to name any century since the twelfth1 in which distinct and abundant traces could not be found within the dominion of ,christianity of a belief in a supernatural power apart from the supposed disclosure of it in a special revelation4#ccg ,a prter-christian deism1 or the principle of natural religion1 was inevitably contained in the legal conception of a natural law1 for how can we dissociate the idea of law from the idea of a definite lawgiver8 ,the very scholastic disputations themselves1 by the sharpness and subtlety which they gave to the reasoning faculty1 set men in search of novelties1 and these novelties were not always of a kind which orthodox views of the ,christian mysteries could have sanctioned4 ,it has been said that religion is at the cradle of every nation1 and philosophy at its grave2 it is at least true that the cradle of philosophy is the open grave of religion4 ,wherever there is argumentation1 there is sure to be scepticism4 ,when people begin to reason1 a shadow has already fallen across faith1 though the reasoners might have shrunk with horror from knowledge of the goal of their work1 and though centuries may elapse before the shadow deepens into eclipse4 ,but the church was strong and alert in the times when free thought vainly tried to rear a dangerous head in ,italy4 ,with the ,protestant revolution came slowly a wider freedom1 while the prolonged and tempestuous discussion between the old church and the reformed bodies1 as well as the manifold variations among those bodies at strife with one another1 stimulated the growth of religious thought in many directions that tended away from the exclusive pretensions of ,christianity to be the oracle of the divine ,spirit4 ,the same feeling which thrust aside the sacerdotal interposition between the soul of man and its sovereign creator and inspirer1 gradually worked towards the dethronement of those mediators other than sacerdotal1 in whom the moral timidity of a dark and stricken age had once sought shade from the too dazzling brightness of the ,all-powerful and the ,everlasting4 ,the assertion of the rights and powers of the individual reason within the limits of the sacred documents1 began in less than a hundred years to grow into an assertion of the same rights and powers beyond those limits4 ,the rejection of tradition as a substitute for independent judgment1 in interpreting or supplementing the records of revelation1 gradually impaired the traditional authority both of the records themselves1 and of the central doctrines which all churches had in one shape or another agreed to accept4 ,the ,trinitarian controversy of the sixteenth century must have been a stealthy solvent4 ,the deism of ,england in the eighteenth century1 which ,voltaire was the prime agent in introducing in its negative1 colourless1 and essentially futile shape into his own country1 had its main effect as a process of dissolution4 ,all this1 however1 down to the deistical movement which ,rousseau found in progress at ,geneva in #aged1cch was distinctly the outcome in a more or less marked way of a rationalising and philosophic spirit1 and not of the religious spirit4 ,the sceptical side of it with reference to revealed religion1 predominated over the positive side of it with reference to natural religion4 ,the wild pantheism of which there were one or two extraordinary outbursts during the latter part of the middle ages1 to mark the mystical influence which ,platonic studies uncorrected by science always exert over certain temperaments1 had been full of religiosity1 such as it was4 ,these had all passed away with a swift flash4 ,there were1 indeed1 mystics like the author of the immortal ,de ,imitatione1 in whom the special qualities of ,christian doctrine seem to have grown pale in a brighter flood of devout aspiration towards the perfections of a single ,being4 ,but this was not the deism with which either ,christianity on the one side1 or atheism on the other1 had ever had to deal in ,france4 ,deism1 in its formal acceptation1 was either an idle piece of vaporous sentimentality1 or else it was the first intellectual halting-place for spirits who had travelled out of the pale of the old dogmatic ,christianity1 and lacked strength for the continuance of their onward journey4 ,in the latter case1 it was only another name either for the shrewd rough conviction of the man of the world1 that his universe could not well be imagined to go on without a sort of constitutional monarch1 reigning but not governing1 keeping evil-doers in order by fear of eternal punishment1 and lending a sacred countenance to the indispensable doctrines of property1 the gradation of rank and station1 and the other moral foundations of the social structure4 ,or else it was a name for a purely philosophic principle1 not embraced with fervour as the basis of a religion1 but accepted with decorous satisfaction as the alternative to a religion2 not seized upon as the mainspring of spiritual life1 but held up as a shield in a controversy4 ,the deism which the ,savoyard ,vicar explained to ,emilius in his profession of faith was pitched in a very different tone from this4 ,though the ,vicar's conception of the ,deity was lightly fenced round with rationalistic supports of the usual kind1 drawn from the evidences of will and intelligence in the vast machinery of the universe1 yet it was essentially the product not of reason1 but of emotional expansion1 as every fundamental article of a faith that touches the hearts of many men must always be4 ,the ,savoyard ,vicar did not believe that a ,god had made the great world1 and rules it with majestic power and supreme justice1 in the same way in which he believed that any two sides of a triangle are greater than the third side4 ,that there is a mysterious being penetrating all creation with force1 was not a proposition to be demonstrated1 but only the poor description in words of an habitual mood going far deeper into life than words can ever carry us4 ,without for a single moment falling off into the nullities of pantheism1 neither did he for a single moment suffer his thought to stiffen and grow hard in the formal lines of a theological definition or a systematic credo4 ,it remains firm enough to give the religious imagination consistency and a centre1 yet luminous enough to give the spiritual faculty a vivifying consciousness of freedom and space4 ,a creed is concerned with a number of affirmations1 and is constantly held with honest strenuousness by multitudes of men and women who are unfitted by natural temperament for knowing what the glow of religious emotion means to the human soul1--for not every one that saith1 ,lord1 ,lord1 enters the kingdom of heaven4 ,the ,savoyard ,vicar's profession of faith was not a creed1 and so has few affirmations2 it was a single doctrine1 melted in a glow of contemplative transport4 ,it is impossible to set about disproving it1 for its exponent repeatedly warns his disciple against the idleness of logomachy1 and insists that the existence of the ,divinity is traced upon every heart in letters that can never be effaced1 if we are only content to read them with lowliness and simplicity4 ,you cannot demonstrate an emotion1 nor prove an aspiration4 ,how reason1 asks the ,savoyard ,vicar1 about that which we cannot conceive8 ,conscience is the best of all casuists1 and conscience affirms the presence of a being who moves the universe and ordains all things1 and to him we give the name of ,god4 ,to this name ,i join the ideas of intelligence1 power1 will1 which ,i have united in one1 and that of goodness1 which is a necessary consequence flowing from them4 ,but ,i do not know any the better for this the being to whom ,i have given the name2 he escapes equally from my senses and my understanding2 the more ,i think of him1 the more ,i confound myself4 ,i have full assurance that he exists1 and that he exists by himself4 ,i recognise my own being as subordinate to his and all the things that are known to me as being absolutely in the same case4 ,i perceive ,god everywhere in his works2 ,i feel him in myself2 ,i see him universally around me4 ,but when ,i fain would seek where he is1 what he is1 of what substance1 he glides away from me1 and my troubled soul discerns nothing4#cci ,in fine1 the more earnestly ,i strive to contemplate his infinite essence1 the less do ,i conceive it4 ,but it is1 and that suffices me4 ,the less ,i conceive it1 the more ,i adore4 ,i bow myself down1 and say to him1 ,o being of beings1 ,i am because thou art2 to meditate ceaselessly on thee by day and night1 is to raise myself to my veritable source and fount4 ,the worthiest use of my reason is to make itself as naught before thee4 ,it is the ravishment of my soul1 it is the solace of my weakness1 to feel myself brought low before the awful majesty of thy greatness4#cdj ,souls weary of the fierce mockeries that had so long been flying like fiery shafts against the far ,jehovah of the ,hebrews1 and the silent ,christ of the later doctors and dignitaries1 and weary too of the orthodox demonstrations that did not demonstrate1 and leaden refutations that could not refute1 may well have turned with ardour to listen to this harmonious spiritual voice1 sounding clear from a region towards which their hearts yearned with untold aspiration1 but from which the spirit of their time had shut them off with brazen barriers4 ,it was the elevation and expansion of man1 as much as it was the restoration of a divinity4 ,to realise this1 one must turn to such a book as ,helvtius's1 which was supposed to reveal the whole inner machinery of the heart4 ,man was thought of as a singular piece of mechanism principally moved from without1 not as a conscious organism1 receiving nourishment and direction from the medium in which it is placed1 but reacting with a life of its own from within4 ,it was this free and energetic inner life of the individual which the ,savoyard ,vicar restored to lawful recognition1 and made once more the centre of that imaginative and spiritual existence1 without which we live in a universe that has no sun by day nor any stars by night4 ,a writer in whom learning has not extinguished enthusiasm1 compares this to the advance made by ,descartes1 who had given certitude to the soul by turning thought confidently upon itself2 and he declares that the ,savoyard ,vicar is for the emancipation of sentiment what the ,discourse upon ,method was for the emancipation of the understanding4#cda ,there is here a certain audacity of panegyric2 still the fact that ,rousseau chose to link the highest forms of man's ideal life with a fading projection of the lofty image which had been set up in older days1 ought not to blind us to the excellent energies which1 notwithstanding defect of association1 such a vindication of the ideal was certain to quicken4 ,and at least the lines of that high image were nobly traced4 ,yet who does not feel that it is a divinity for fair weather8 ,rousseau1 with his fine sense of a proper and artistic setting1 imagined the ,savoyard ,vicar as leading his youthful convert at break of a summer day to the top of a high hill1 at whose feet the ,po flowed between fertile banks2 in the distance the immense chain of the ,alps crowned the landscape2 the rays of the rising sun projected long level shadows from the trees1 the slopes1 the houses1 and accented with a thousand lines of light the most magnificent of panoramas4#cdb ,this was the fitting suggestion1 so serene1 warm1 pregnant with power and hope1 and half mysterious1 of the idea of godhead which the man of peace after an interval of silent contemplation proceeded to expound4 ,rousseau's sentimental idea at least did not revolt moral sense2 it did not afflict the firmness of intelligence2 nor did it silence the diviner melodies of the soul4 ,yet1 once more1 the heavens in which such a deity dwells are too high1 his power is too impalpable1 the mysterious air which he has poured around his being is too awful and impenetrable1 for the rays from the sun of such majesty to reach more than a few contemplative spirits1 and these only in their hours of tranquillity and expansion4 ,the thought is too vague1 too far1 to bring comfort and refreshment to the mass of travailing men1 or to invest duty with the stern ennobling quality of being done1 if ,i have grace to use it so as ever in the great ,taskmaster's eye4 ,the ,savoyard ,vicar was consistent with the sublimity of his own conception4 ,he meditated on the order of the universe with a reverence too profound to allow him to mingle with his thoughts meaner desires as to the special relations of that order to himself4 ,i penetrate all my faculties1 he said1 with the divine essence of the author of the world2 ,i melt at the thought of his goodness1 and bless all his gifts1 but ,i do not pray to him4 ,what should ,i ask of him8 ,that for me he should change the course of things1 and in my favour work miracles8 ,could ,i1 who must love above all else the order established by his wisdom and upheld by his providence1 presume to wish such order troubled for my sake8 ,nor do ,i ask of him the power of doing righteousness2 why ask for what he has given me8 ,has he not bestowed on me conscience to love what is good1 reason to ascertain it1 freedom to choose it8 ,if ,i do ill1 ,i have no excuse2 ,i do it because ,i will it4 ,to pray to him to change my will1 is to seek from him what he seeks from me2 it is to wish no longer to be human1 it is to wish something other than what is1 it is to wish disorder and evil4#cdc ,we may admire both the logical consistency of such self-denial and the manliness which it would engender in the character that were strong enough to practise it4 ,but a divinity who has conceded no right of petition is still further away from our lives than the divinities of more popular creeds4 ,even the fairest deism is of its essence a faith of egotism and complacency4 ,it does not incorporate in the very heart of the religious emotion the pitifulness and sorrow which ,christianity first clothed with associations of sanctity1 and which can never henceforth miss their place in any religious system to be accepted by men4 ,why is this8 ,because a religion that leaves them out1 or thrusts them into a hidden corner1 fails to comprehend at least one half1 and that the most touching and impressive half1 of the most conspicuous facts of human life4 ,rousseau was fuller of the capacity of pity than ordinary men1 and this pity was one of the deepest parts of himself4 ,yet it did not enter into the composition of his religious faith1 and this shows that his religious faith1 though entirely free from suspicion of insincerity or ostentatious assumption1 was like deism in so many cases1 whether rationalistic or emotional1 a kind of gratuitously adopted superfluity1 not the satisfaction of a profound inner craving and resistless spiritual necessity4 ,he speaks of the good and the wicked with the precision and assurance of the most pharisaic theologian1 and he begins by asking of what concern it is to him whether the wicked are punished with eternal torment or not1 though he concludes more graciously with the hope that in another state the wicked1 delivered from their malignity1 may enjoy a bliss no less than his own4#cdd ,but the divine pitifulness which we owe to ,christianity1 and which will not be the less eagerly cherished by those who repudiate ,christian tradition and doctrines1 enjoins upon us that we should ask1 ,who are the wicked1 and which is he that is without sin among us8 ,rousseau answered this glibly enough by some formula of metaphysics1 about the human will having been left and constituted free by the creator of the world2 and that man is the bad man who abuses his freedom4 ,grace1 fate1 destiny1 force of circumstances1 are all so many names for the protests which the frank sense of fact has forced from man against this miserably inadequate explanation of the foundations of moral responsibility4 ,whatever these foundations may be1 the theories of grace and fate had at any rate the quality of connecting human conduct with the will of the gods4 ,rousseau's deism1 severing the influence of the ,supreme ,being upon man1 at the very moment when it could have saved him from the guilt that brings misery1--that is at the moment when conduct begins to follow the preponderant motives or the will1--did thus effectually cut off the most admirable and fertile group of our sympathies from all direct connection with religious sentiment4 ,toiling as manfully as we may through the wilderness of our seventy years1 we are to reserve our deepest adoration for the being who has left us there1 with no other solace than that he is good and just and all-powerful1 and might have given us comfort and guidance if he would4 ,this was virtually the form which ,pelagius had tried to impose upon ,christianity in the fifth century1 and which the souls of men1 thirsting for consciousness of an active divine presence1 had then under the lead of ,augustine so energetically cast away from them4 ,the faith to which they clung while rejecting this great heresy1 though just as transcendental1 still had the quality of satisfying a spiritual want4 ,it was even more readily to be accepted by the human intelligence1 for it endowed the supreme power with the father's excellence of compassion1 and presented for our reverence and gratitude and devotion a figure who drew from men the highest love for the ,god whom they had not seen1 along with the warmest pity and love for their brethren whom they had seen4 ,the ,savoyard ,vicar's own position to ,christianity was one of reverential scepticism4 ,the holiness of the gospel1 he said1 is an argument that speaks to my heart and to which ,i should even be sorry to find a good answer4 ,look at the books of the philosophers with all their pomp2 how puny they are by the side of that6 ,is there here the tone of an enthusiast or an ambitious sectary8 ,what gentleness1 what purity1 in his manners1 what touching grace in his teaching1 what loftiness in his maxims6 ,assuredly there was something more than human in such teaching1 such a character1 such a life1 such a death4 ,if the life and death of ,socrates were those of a sage1 the life and death of ,jesus are those of a god4 ,shall we say that the history of the gospels is invented at pleasure8 ,my friend1 that is not the fashion of invention2 and the facts about ,socrates are less attested than the facts about ,christ4#cde ,yet with all that1 this same gospel abounds in things incredible1 which are repugnant to reason1 and which it is impossible for any sensible man to conceive or admit4 ,what are we to do in the midst of all these contradictions8 ,to be ever modest and circumspect1 my son2 to respect in silence what one can neither reject nor understand1 and to make one's self lowly before the great being who alone knows the truth4#cdf ,i regard all particular religions as so many salutary institutions1 which prescribe in every country a uniform manner of honouring ,god by public worship4 ,i believe them all good1 so long as men serve ,god fittingly in them4 ,the essential worship is the worship of the heart4 ,god never rejects this homage1 under whatever form it be offered to him4 ,in other days ,i used to say mass with the levity which in time infects even the gravest things1 when we do them too often4 ,since acquiring my new principles ,i celebrate it with more veneration2 ,i am overwhelmed by the majesty of the ,supreme ,being1 by his presence1 by the insufficiency of the human mind1 which conceives so little what pertains to its author4 ,when ,i approach the moment of consecration1 ,i collect myself for performing the act with all the feelings required by the church1 and the majesty of the sacrament2 ,i strive to annihilate my reason before the supreme intelligence1 saying1 ',who art thou1 that thou shouldest measure infinite power8'#cdg ,a creed like this1 whatever else it may be1 is plainly a powerful solvent of every system of exclusive dogma4 ,if the one essential to true worship1 the worship of the heart and the inner sentiment1 be mystic adoration of an indefinable ,supreme1 then creeds based upon books1 prophecies1 miracles1 revelations1 all fall alike into the second place among things that may be lawful and may be expedient1 but that can never be exacted from men by a just ,god as indispensable to virtue in this world or to bliss in the next4 ,no better answer has ever been given to the exclusive pretensions of sect1 ,christian1 ,jewish1 or ,mahometan1 than that propounded by the ,savoyard ,vicar with such energy1 closeness1 and most sarcastic fire4#cdh ,it was turning an unexpected front upon the presumptuousness of all varieties of theological infallibilists1 to prove to them that if you insist upon acceptance of this or that special revelation1 over and above the dictates of natural religion1 then you are bound not only to grant1 but imperatively to enjoin upon all men1 a searching inquiry and comparison1 that they may spare no pains in an affair of such momentous issue in proving to themselves that this1 and none of the competing revelations1 is the veritable message of eternal safety4 ,then no other study will be possible but that of religion3 hardly shall one who has enjoyed the most robust health1 employed his time and used his reason to best purpose1 and lived the greatest number of years1 hardly shall such an one in his extreme age be quite sure what to believe1 and it will be a marvel if he finds out before he dies1 in what faith he ought to have lived4 ,the superiority of the sceptical parts of the ,savoyard ,vicar's profession1 as well as those of the ,letters from the ,mountain to which we referred previously1 over the biting mockeries which ,voltaire had made the fashionable method of assault1 lay in this fact4 ,the latter only revolted and irritated all serious temperaments to whom religion is a matter of honest concern1 while the former actually appealed to their religious sense in support of his doubts2 and the more intelligent and sincere this sense happened to be1 the more surely would ,rousseau's gravely urged objections dissolve the hard particles of dogmatic belief4 ,his objections were on a moral level with the best side of the religion that they oppugned4 ,those of ,voltaire were only on a level with its lowest side1 and that was the side presented by the gross and repulsive obscurantism of the functionaries of the church4 ,unfortunately ,rousseau had placed in the hands of the partisans of every exclusive revelation an instrument which was quite enough to disperse all his objections to the winds1 and which was the very instrument that defended his own cherished religion4 ,if he was satisfied with replying to the atheist and the materialist1 that he knew there is a supreme ,god1 and that the soul must have here and hereafter an existence apart from the body1 because he found these truths ineffaceably written upon his own heart1 what could prevent the ,christian or the ,mahometan from replying to ,rousseau that the ,new ,testament or the ,koran is the special and final revelation from the ,supreme ,power to his creatures8 ,if you may appeal to the voice of the heart and the dictate of the inner sentiment in one case1 why not in the other also8 ,a subjective test necessarily proves anything that any man desires1 and the accident of the article proved appearing either reasonable or monstrous to other people1 cannot have the least bearing on its efficacy or conclusiveness4 ,deism like the ,savoyard ,vicar's opens no path for the future1 because it makes no allowance for the growth of intellectual conviction1 and binds up religion with mystery1 with an object whose attributes can neither be conceived nor defined1 with a ,being too all-embracing to be able to receive anything from us1 too august1 self-contained1 remote1 to be able to bestow on us the humble gifts of which we have need4 ,the temperature of thought is slowly but without an instant's recoil rising to a point when a mystery like this1 definite enough to be imposed as a faith1 but too indefinite to be grasped by understanding as a truth1 melts away from the emotions of religion4 ,then those instincts of holiness1 without which the world would be to so many of its highest spirits the most dreary of exiles1 will perhaps come to associate themselves less with unseen divinities1 than with the long brotherhood of humanity seen and unseen4 ,here we shall move with an assurance that no scepticism and no advance of science can ever shake1 because the benefactions which we have received from the strenuousness of human effort can never be doubted1 and each fresh acquisition in knowledge or goodness can only kindle new fervour4 ,those who have the religious imagination struck by the awful procession of man from the region of impenetrable night1 by his incessant struggle with the hardness of the material world1 and his sublimer struggle with the hard world of his own egotistic passions1 by the pain and sacrifice by which generation after generation has added some small piece to the temple of human freedom or some new fragment to the ever incomplete sum of human knowledge1 or some fresh line to the types of strong or beautiful character1--those who have an eye for all this may indeed have no ecstasy and no terror1 no heaven nor hell1 in their religion1 but they will have abundant moods of reverence1 deep-seated gratitude1 and sovereign pitifulness4 ,and such moods will not end in sterile exaltation1 or the deathly chills of spiritual reaction4 ,they will bring forth abundant fruit in new hope and invigorated endeavour4 ,this devout contemplation of the experience of the race1 instead of raising a man into the clouds1 brings him into the closest1 loftiest1 and most conscious relations with his kind1 to whom he owes all that is of value in his own life1 and to whom he can repay his debt by maintaining the beneficent tradition of service1 by cherishing honour for all the true and sage spirits that have shone upon the earth1 and sorrow and reprobation for all the unworthier souls whose light has gone out in baseness4 ,a man with this faith can have no foul spiritual pride1 for there is no mysteriously accorded divine grace in which one may be a larger participant than another4 ,he can have no incentives to that mutilation with which every branch of the church1 from the oldest to the youngest and crudest1 has in its degree afflicted and retarded mankind1 because the key-note of his religion is the joyful energy of every faculty1 practical1 reflective1 creative1 contemplative1 in pursuit of a visible common good4 ,and he can be plunged into no fatal and paralysing despair by any doctrine of mortal sin1 because active faith in humanity1 resting on recorded experience1 discloses the many possibilities of moral recovery1 and the work that may be done for men in the fragment of days1 redeeming the contrite from their burdens by manful hope4 ,if religion is our feeling about the highest forces that govern human destiny1 then as it becomes more and more evident how much our destiny is shaped by the generation of the dead who have prepared the present1 and by the purport of our hopes and the direction of our activity for the generations that are to fill the future1 the religious sentiment will more and more attach itself to the great unseen host of our fellows who have gone before us and who are to come after4 ,such a faith is no rag of metaphysic floating in the sunshine of sentimentalism1 like ,rousseau's faith4 ,it rests on a positive base1 which only becomes wider and firmer with the widening of experience and the augmentation of our skill in interpreting it4 ,nor is it too transcendent for practical acceptance4 ,one of the most scientific spirits of the eighteenth century1 while each moment expecting the knock of the executioner at his door1 found as religious a solace as any early martyr had ever found in his barbarous mysteries1 when he linked his own efforts for reason and freedom with the eternal chain of the destinies of man4 ,this contemplation1 he wrote and felt1 is for him a refuge into which the rancour of his persecutors can never follow him2 in which1 living in thought with man reinstated in the rights and the dignity of his nature1 he forgets man tormented and corrupted by greed1 by base fear1 by envy2 it is here that he truly abides with his fellows1 in an elysium that his reason has known how to create for itself1 and that his love for humanity adorns with all purest delights4#cdi ,this1 to the shame of those wavering souls who despair of progress at the first moment when it threatens to leave the path that they have marked out for it1 was written by a man at the very close of his days1 when every hope that he had ever cherished seemed to one without the eye of faith to be extinguished in bloodshed1 disorder1 and barbarism4 ,but there is a still happier season in the adolescence of generous natures that have been wisely fostered1 when the horizons of the dawning life are suddenly lighted up with a glow of aspiration towards good and holy things4 ,commonly1 alas1 this priceless opportunity is lost in a fit of theological exaltation1 which is gradually choked out by the dusty facts of life1 and slowly moulders away into dry indifference4 ,it would not be so1 but far different1 if the ,savoyard ,vicar1 instead of taking the youth to the mountain-top1 there to contemplate that infinite unseen which is in truth beyond contemplation by the limited faculties of man1 were to associate these fine impulses of the early prime with the visible1 intelligible1 and still sublime possibilities of the human destiny1--that imperial conception1 which alone can shape an existence of entire proportion in all its parts1 and leave no natural energy of life idle or athirst4 ,do you ask for sanctions6 ,one whose conscience has been strengthened from youth in this faith1 can know no greater bitterness than the stain cast by wrong act or unworthy thought on the high memories with which he has been used to walk1 and the discord wrought in hopes that have become the ruling harmony of his days4 ,,footnotes3 #ccg ,see ,hallam's ,literature of ,europe1 ,pt4 ,i4 ch4 ii4 #fd4 ,again 7for the #afth century71 ,pt4 ,,ii4 ch4 ii4 #ec4 ,see also for mention of a sect of deists at ,lyons about #aefj1 ,bayle's ,dictionary1 s4v4 ,viret4 #cch ,see above1 vol4 i4 pp4 #bbc-bbg4 #cci ,emile1 ,,iv4 #afc4 #cdj ,,iv4 #ahc-ahe4 #cda ,m4 ,henri ,martin's ,hist4 de ,france1 xvi4 #aja1 where there is an interesting1 but1 as it seems to the present writer1 hardly a successful attempt1 to bring the ,savoyard ,vicar's eloquence into scientific form4 #cdb ,emile1 ,,iv4 #ace4 #cdc ,emile1 ,,iv4 #bjd4 #cdd ,emile1 ,,iv4 #aha1 #ahb4 ,in a letter to ,vernes 7,feb4 #ah1 #ageh4 ,corr41 ii4 #i7 he expresses his suspicion that possibly the souls of the wicked may be annihilated at their death1 and that being and feeling may prove the first reward of a good life4 ,in this letter he asks also1 with the same magnanimous security as the ,savoyard ,vicar1 of what concern the destiny of the wicked can be to him4 #cde ,a similar disparagement of ,socrates1 in comparison with the ,christ of the ,gospels1 is to be found in the long letter of ,jan4 #ae1 #agfi 7,corr41 vi4 #ei1 #fj71 to ,m----1 accompanied by a violent denigration of the ,jews1 conformably to the philosophic prejudice of the time4 #cdf ,emile1 ,,iv4 #bda1 #bdb4 #cdg ,emile1 ,,iv4 #bdc4 #cdh ,,iv4 #baj-bcf4 #cdi ,condorcet's ,progrs de l',esprit ,humain 7#agid74 ,oeuv41 vi4 #bgf4 ,,chapter ,,vi4 ,,england4#cej ,there is in an ,english collection a portrait of ,jean ,jacques1 which was painted during his residence in this country by a provincial artist4 ,singular and displeasing as it is1 yet this picture lights up for us many a word and passage in ,rousseau's life here and elsewhere1 which the ordinary engravings1 and the trim self-complacency of the statue on the little island at ,geneva1 would leave very incomprehensible4 ,it is almost as appalling in its realism as some of the dark pits that open before the reader of the ,confessions4 ,hard struggles with objective difficulty and external obstacle wear deep furrows in the brow2 they throw into the glance a solicitude1 half penetrating and defiant1 half dejected4 ,when a man's hindrances have sprung up from within1 and the ill-fought battle of his days has been with his own passions and morbid broodings and unchastened dreams1 the eye and the facial lines tell the story of that profound moral defeat which is unlighted by the memories of resolute combat with evil and weakness1 and leaves only eternal desolation and the misery that is formless4 ,our ,english artist has produced a vision from that prose ,inferno which is made so populous in the modern epoch by impotence of will4 ,those who have seen the picture may easily understand how largely the character of the original must have been pregnant with harassing confusion and distress4 ,four years before this 7#agfb71 ,hume1 to whom ,lord ,marischal had told the story of ,rousseau's persecutions1 had proffered his services1 and declared his eagerness to help in finding a proper refuge for him in ,england4 ,there had been an exchange of cordial letters1#cea and then the matter had lain quiet1 until the impossibility of remaining longer in ,neuchtel had once more set his friends on procuring a safe establishment for their rather difficult refugee4 ,rousseau's appearance in ,paris had created the keenest excitement4 ,people may talk of ancient ,greece as they please1 wrote ,hume from ,paris1 but no nation was ever so proud of genius as this1 and no person ever so much engaged their attention as ,rousseau6 ,voltaire and everybody else are quite eclipsed by him4 ,even ,theresa ,le ,vasseur1 who was declared very homely and very awkward1 was more talked of than the ,princess of ,morocco or the ,countess of ,egmont1 on account of her fidelity towards him4 ,his very dog had a name and reputation in the world4#ceb ,rousseau is always said to have liked the stir which his presence created1 but whether this was so or not1 he was very impatient to be away from it as soon as possible4 ,in company with ,hume1 he left ,paris in the second week of ,january #agff4 ,they crossed from ,calais to ,dover by night in a passage that lasted twelve hours4 ,hume1 as the orthodox may be glad to know1 was extremely ill1 while ,rousseau cheerfully passed the whole night upon deck1 taking no harm1 though the seamen were almost frozen to death4#cec ,they reached ,london on the thirteenth of ,january1 and the people of ,london showed nearly as lively an interest in the strange personage whom ,hume had brought among them1 as the people of ,paris had done4 ,a prince of the blood at once went to pay his respects to the ,swiss philosopher4 ,the crowd at the playhouse showed more curiosity when the stranger came in than when the king and queen entered4 ,their majesties were as interested as their subjects1 and could scarcely keep their eyes off the author of ,emilius4 ,george ,,iii41 then in the heyday of his youth1 was so pleased to have a foreigner of genius seeking shelter in his kingdom1 that he readily acceded to ,conway's suggestion1 prompted by ,hume1 that ,rousseau should have a pension settled on him4 ,the ever illustrious ,burke1 then just made member of ,parliament1 saw him nearly every day1 and became persuaded that he entertained no principle either to influence his heart1 or guide his understanding1 but vanity4#ced ,hume1 on the contrary1 thought the best things of his client2 ,he has an excellent warm heart1 and in conversation kindles often to a degree of heat which looks like inspiration2 ,i love him much1 and hope that ,i have some share in his affections4444 ,he is a very modest1 mild1 well-bred1 gentle-spirited and warm-hearted man1 as ever ,i knew in my life4 ,he is also to appearance very sociable4 ,i never saw a man who seems better calculated for good company1 nor who seems to take more pleasure in it4 ,he is a very agreeable1 amiable man2 but a great humorist4 ,the philosophers of ,paris foretold to me that ,i could not conduct him to ,calais without a quarrel2 but ,i think ,i could live with him all my life in mutual friendship and esteem4 ,i believe one great source of our concord is that neither he nor ,i are disputatious1 which is not the case with any of them4 ,they are also displeased with him1 because they think he over-abounds in religion2 and it is indeed remarkable that the philosopher of this age who has been most persecuted1 is by far the most devout4#cee ,what the ,scotch philosopher meant by calling his pupil a humorist1 may perhaps be inferred from the story of the trouble he had in prevailing upon ,rousseau to go to the play1 though ,garrick had appointed a special occasion and set apart a special box for him4 ,when the hour came1 ,rousseau declared that he could not leave his dog behind him4 ,the first person1 he said1 who opens the door1 ,sultan will run into the streets in search of me and will be lost4 ,hume told him to lock ,sultan up in the room1 and carry away the key in his pocket4 ,this was done1 but as they proceeded downstairs1 the dog began to howl2 his master turned back and avowed he had not resolution to leave him in that condition4 ,hume1 however1 caught him in his arms1 told him that ,mr4 ,garrick had dismissed another company in order to make room for him1 that the king and queen were expecting to see him1 and that without a better reason than ,sultan's impatience it would be ridiculous to disappoint them4 ,thus1 a little by reason1 but more by force1 he was carried off4#cef ,such a story1 whatever else we may think of it1 shows at least a certain curious and not untouching simplicity4 ,and singularity which made ,rousseau like better to keep his dog company at home1 than to be stared at by a gaping pit1 was too private in its reward to be the result of that vanity and affectation with which he was taxed by men who lived in another sphere of motive4 ,there was considerable trouble in settling ,rousseau4 ,he was eager to leave ,london almost as soon as he arrived in it4 ,though pleased with the friendly reception which had been given him1 he pronounced ,london to be as much devoted to idle gossip and frivolity as other capitals4 ,he spent a few weeks in the house of a farmer at ,chiswick1 thought about fixing himself in the ,isle of ,wight1 then in ,wales1 then somewhere in our fair ,surrey1 whose scenery1 one is glad to know1 greatly attracted him4 ,finally arrangements were made by ,hume with ,mr4 ,davenport for installing him in a house belonging to the latter1 at ,wootton1 near ,ashbourne1 in the ,peak of ,derbyshire4#ceg ,hither ,rousseau proceeded with ,theresa1 at the end of ,march4 ,mr4 ,davenport was a gentleman of large property1 and as he seldom inhabited this solitary house1 was very willing that ,rousseau should take up his abode there without payment4 ,this1 however1 was what ,rousseau's independence could not brook1 and he insisted that his entertainer should receive thirty pounds a year for the board of himself and ,theresa4#ceh ,so here he settled1 in an extremely bitter climate1 knowing no word of the language of the people about him1 with no companionship but ,theresa's1 and with nothing to do but walk when the weather was fair1 play the harpsicord when it rained1 and brood over the incidents which had occurred to him since he had left ,switzerland six months before4 ,the first fruits of this unfortunate leisure were a bitter quarrel with ,hume1 one of the most famous and far-resounding of all the quarrels of illustrious men1 but one about which very little needs now be said4 ,the merits of it are plain1 and all significance that may ever have belonged to it is entirely dead4 ,the incubation of his grievances began immediately after his arrival at ,wootton1 but two months elapsed before they burst forth in full flame4#cei ,the general charge against ,hume was that he was a member of an accursed triumvirate2 ,voltaire and ,d',alembert were the other partners2 and their object was to blacken the character of ,rousseau and render his life miserable4 ,the particular acts on which this belief was established were the following3-- 7#a7 ,while ,rousseau was in ,paris1 there appeared a letter nominally addressed to him by the ,king of ,prussia1 and written in an ironical strain1 which persuaded ,jean ,jacques himself that it was the work of ,voltaire4#cfj ,then he suspected ,d',alembert4 ,it was really the composition of ,horace ,walpole1 who was then in ,paris4 ,now ,hume was the friend of ,walpole1 and had given ,rousseau a card of introduction to him for the purpose of entrusting ,walpole with the carriage of some papers4 ,although the false letter produced the liveliest amusement at ,rousseau's cost1 first in ,paris and then in ,london1 ,hume1 while feigning to be his warm friend and presenting him to the ,english public1 never took any pains to tell the world that the piece was a forgery1 nor did he break with its wicked author4#cfa 7#b7 ,when ,rousseau assured ,hume that ,d',alembert was a cunning and dishonourable man1 ,hume denied it with an amazing heat1 although he well knew the latter to be ,rousseau's enemy4#cfb 7#c7 ,hume lived in ,london with the son of ,tronchin1 the ,genevese surgeon1 and the most mortal of all the foes of ,jean ,jacques4#cfc 7#d7 ,when ,rousseau first came to ,london1 his reception was a distinguished triumph for the victim of persecution from so many governments4 ,england was proud of being his place of refuge1 and justly vaunted the freedom of her laws and administration4 ,suddenly and for no assignable cause the public tone changed1 the newspapers either fell silent or else spoke unfavourably1 and ,rousseau was thought of no more4 ,this must have been due to ,hume1 who had much influence among people of credit1 and who went about boasting of the protection which he had procured for ,jean ,jacques in ,paris4#cfd 7#e7 ,hume resorted to various small artifices for preventing ,rousseau from making friends1 for procuring opportunities of opening ,rousseau's letters1 and the like4#cfe 7#f7 ,a violent satirical letter against ,rousseau appeared in the ,english newspapers1 with allusions which could only have been supplied by ,hume4 7#g7 ,on the first night after their departure from ,paris1 ,rousseau1 who occupied the same room with ,hume1 heard him call out several times in the middle of the night in the course of his dreams1 ,je tiens ,jean ,jacques ,rousseau1 with extreme vehemence--which words1 in spite of the horribly sardonic tone of the dreamer1 he interpreted favourably at the time1 but which later event proved to have been full of malign significance4#cff 7#h7 ,rousseau constantly found ,hume eyeing him with a glance of sinister and diabolic import that filled him with an astonishing disquietude1 though he did his best to combat it4 ,on one of these occasions he was seized with remorse1 fell upon ,hume's neck1 embraced him warmly1 and1 suffocated with sobs and bathed in tears1 cried out in broken accents1 ,no1 no1 ,david ,hume is no traitor1 with many protests of affection4 ,the phlegmatic ,hume only returned his embrace with politeness1 stroked him gently on the back1 and repeated several times in a tranquil voice1 ,quoi1 mon cher monsieur6 ,eh6 mon cher monsieur6 ,quoi donc1 mon cher monsieur6#cfg 7#i7 ,although for many weeks ,rousseau had kept a firm silence to ,hume1 neglecting to answer letters that plainly called for answer1 and marking his displeasure in other unmistakable ways1 yet ,hume had never sought any explanation of what must necessarily have struck him as so singular1 but continued to write as if nothing had happened4 ,was not this positive proof of a consciousness of perfidy8 ,some years afterwards he substituted another shorter set of grievances1 namely1 that ,hume would not suffer ,theresa to sit at table with him2 that he made a show of him2 and that ,hume had an engraving executed of himself1 which made him as beautiful as a cherub1 while in another engraving1 which was a pendant to his own1 ,jean ,jacques was made as ugly as a bear4#cfh ,it would be ridiculous for us to waste any time in discussing these charges4 ,they are not open to serious examination1 though it is astonishing to find writers in our own day who fully believe that ,hume was a traitor1 and behaved extremely basely to the unfortunate man whom he had inveigled over to a barbarous island4 ,the only part of the indictment about which there could be the least doubt1 was the possibility of ,hume having been an accomplice in ,walpole's very small pleasantry4 ,some of his friends in ,paris suspected that he had had a hand in the supposed letter from the ,king of ,prussia4 ,although the letter constituted no very malignant jest1 and could not by a sensible man have been regarded as furnishing just complaint against one who1 like ,walpole1 was merely an impudent stranger1 yet if it could be shown that ,hume had taken an active part either in the composition or the circulation of a spiteful bit of satire upon one towards whom he was pretending a singular affection1 then we should admit that he showed such a want of sense of the delicacy of friendship as amounted to something like treachery4 ,but a letter from ,walpole to ,hume sets this doubt at rest4 ,i cannot be precise as to the time of my writing the ,king of ,prussia's letter1 but 444 ,i not only suppressed the letter while you stayed there1 out of delicacy to you1 but it was the reason why1 out of delicacy to myself1 ,i did not go to see him as you often proposed to me1 thinking it wrong to go and make a cordial visit to a man1 with a letter in my pocket to laugh at him4#cfi ,with this all else falls to the ground4 ,it would be as unwise in us1 as it was in ,rousseau himself1 to complicate the hypotheses4 ,men do not act without motives1 and ,hume could have no motive in entering into any plot against ,rousseau1 even if the rival philosophers in ,france might have motives4 ,we know the character of our ,david ,hume perfectly well1 and though it was not faultless1 its fault certainly lay rather in an excessive desire to make the world comfortable for everybody1 than in anything like purposeless malignity1 of which he never had a trace4 ,moreover1 all that befell ,rousseau through ,hume's agency was exceedingly to his advantage4 ,hume was not without vanity1 and his letters show that he was not displeased at the addition to his consequence which came of his patronage of a man who was much talked about and much stared at4 ,but1 however this was1 he did all for ,rousseau that generosity and thoughtfulness could do4 ,he was at great pains in establishing him2 he used his interest to procure for him the grant of a pension from the king2 when ,rousseau provisionally refused the pension rather than owe anything to ,hume1 the latter1 still ignorant of the suspicion that was blackening in ,rousseau's mind1 supposed that the refusal came from the fact of the pension being kept private1 and at once took measures with the minister to procure the removal of the condition of privacy4 ,besides undeniable acts like these1 the state of ,hume's mind towards his curious ward is abundantly shown in his letters to all his most intimate friends1 just as ,rousseau's gratitude to him is to be read in all his early letters both to ,hume and other persons4 ,in the presence of such facts on the one side1 and in the absence of any particle of intelligible evidence to neutralise them on the other1 to treat ,rousseau's charges with gravity is irrational4 ,if ,hume had written back in a mild and conciliatory strain1 there can be no doubt that the unfortunate victim of his own morbid imagination would1 for a time at any rate1 have been sobered and brought to a sense of his misconduct4 ,but ,hume was incensed beyond control at what he very pardonably took for a masterpiece of atrocious ingratitude4 ,he reproached ,rousseau in terms as harsh as those which ,grimm had used nine years before4 ,he wrote to all his friends1 withdrawing the kindly words he had once used of ,rousseau's character1 and substituting in their place the most unfavourable he could find4 ,he gave the philosophic circle in ,paris exquisite delight by the confirmation which his story furnished of their own foresight1 when they had warned him that he was taking a viper to his bosom4 ,finally1 in spite of the advice of ,adam ,smith1 of one of the greatest of men1 ,turgot1 and one of the smallest1 ,horace ,walpole1 he published a succinct account of the quarrel1 first in ,french1 and then in ,english4 ,this step was chiefly due to the advice of the clique of whom ,d',alembert was the spokesman1 though it is due to him to mention that he softened various expressions in ,hume's narrative1 which he pronounced too harsh4 ,it may be true that a council of war never fights2 a council of men of letters always does4 ,the governing committee of a literary1 philosophical1 or theological clique form the very worst advisers any man can have4 ,much must be forgiven to ,hume1 stung as he was by what appeared the most hateful ferocity in one on whom he had heaped acts of affection4 ,still1 one would have been glad on behalf of human dignity1 if he had suffered with firm silence petulant charges against which the consciousness of his own uprightness should have been the only answer4 ,that high pride1 of which there is too little rather than too much in the world1 and which saves men from waste of themselves and others in pitiful accusations1 vindications1 retaliations1 should have helped humane pity in preserving him from this poor quarrel4 ,long afterwards ,rousseau said1 ,england1 of which they paint such fine pictures in ,france1 has so cheerless a climate2 my soul1 wearied with many shocks1 was in a condition of such profound melancholy1 that in all that passed ,i believe ,i committed many faults4 ,but are they comparable to those of the enemies who persecuted me1 supposing them even to have done no more than published our private quarrels8#cgj ,an ampler contrition would have been more seemly in the first offender1 but there is a measure of justice in his complaint4 ,we need not1 however1 reproach the good ,hume4 ,before six months were over1 he admits that he is sometimes inclined to blame his publication1 and always to regret it4#cga ,and his regret was not verbal merely4 ,when ,rousseau had returned to ,france1 and was in danger of arrest1 ,hume was most urgent in entreating ,turgot to use his influence with the government to protect the wretched wanderer1 and ,turgot's answer shows both how sincere this humane interposition was1 and how practically serviceable4#cgb ,meanwhile there ensued a horrible fray in print4 ,pamphlets appeared in ,paris and ,london in a cloud4 ,the ,succinct ,exposure was followed by succinct rejoinders4 ,walpole officiously printed his own account of his own share in the matter4 ,boswell officiously wrote to the newspapers defending ,rousseau and attacking ,walpole4 ,king ,george followed the battle with intense curiosity4 ,hume with solemn formalities sent the documents to the ,british ,museum4 ,there was silence only in one place1 and that was at ,wootton4 ,the unfortunate person who had done all the mischief printed not a word4 ,the most prompt and quite the least instructive of the remarks invariably made upon any one who has acted in an unusual manner1 is that he must be mad4 ,this universal criticism upon the unwonted really tells us nothing1 because the term may cover any state of mind from a warranted dissent from established custom1 down to absolute dementia4 ,rousseau was called mad when he took to wearing convenient clothes and living frugally4 ,he was called mad when he quitted the town and went to live in the country4 ,the same facile explanation covered his quarrel with importunate friends at the ,hermitage4 ,voltaire called him mad for saying that if there were perfect harmony of taste and temperament between the king's daughter and the executioner's son1 the pair ought to be allowed to marry4 ,we who are not forced by conversational necessities to hurry to a judgment1 may hesitate to take either taste for the country1 or for frugal living1 or even for democratic extravagances1 as a mark of a disordered mind4#cgc ,that ,rousseau's conduct towards ,hume was inconsistent with perfect mental soundness is quite plain4 ,but to say this with crude trenchancy1 teaches us nothing4 ,instead of paying ourselves with phrases like monomania1 it is more useful shortly to trace the conditions which prepared the way for mental derangement1 because this is the only means of understanding either its nature1 or the degree to which it extended4 ,these conditions in ,rousseau's case are perfectly simple and obvious to any one who recognises the principle1 that the essential facts of such mental disorder as his must be sought not in the symptoms1 but from the whole range of moral and intellectual constitution1 acted on by physical states and acting on them in turn4 ,rousseau was born with an organisation of extreme sensibility4 ,this predisposition was further deepened by the application in early youth of mental influences specially calculated to heighten juvenile sensibility4 ,corrective discipline from circumstance and from formal instruction was wholly absent1 and thus the particular excess in his temperament became ever more and more exaggerated1 and encroached at a rate of geometrical progression upon all the rest of his impulses and faculties2 these1 if he had been happily placed under some of the many forms of wholesome social pressure1 would then on the contrary have gradually reduced his sensibility to more normal proportion4 ,when the vicious excess had decisively rooted itself in his character1 he came to ,paris1 where it was irritated into further activity by the uncongeniality of all that surrounded him4 ,hence the growth of a marked unsociality1 taking literary form in the ,discourses1 and practical form in his retirement from the town4 ,the slow depravation of the affective life was hastened by solitude1 by sensuous expansion1 by the long musings of literary composition4 ,well does ,goethe's ,princess warn the hapless ,tasso3-- ,dieser ,pfad ,verleitet uns1 durch einsames ,gebsch1 ,durch stille ,thler fortzuwandern2 mehr ,und mehr verwhnt sich das ,gemth und strebt ,die goldne ,zeit1 die ihm von aussen mangelt1 ,in seinem ,innern wieder herzustellen1 ,so wenig der ,versuch gelingen will4 ,then came harsh and unjust treatment prolonged for many months1 and this introduced a slight but genuinely misanthropic element of bitterness into what had hitherto been an excess of feeling about himself1 rather than any positive feeling of hostility or suspicion about others4 ,finally and perhaps above all else1 he was the victim of tormenting bodily pain1 and of sleeplessness which resulted from it4 ,the agitation and excitement of the journey to ,england1 completed the sum of the conditions of disturbance1 and as soon as ever he was settled at ,wootton1 and had leisure to brood over the incidents of the few weeks since his arrival in ,england1 the disorder which had long been spreading through his impulses and affections1 suddenly but by a most natural sequence extended to the faculties of his intelligence1 and he became the prey of delusion1 a delusion which was not yet fixed1 but which ultimately became so4 ,he has only felt during the whole course of his life1 wrote ,hume sympathetically2 and in this respect his sensibility rises to a pitch beyond what ,i have seen any example of2 but it still gives him a more acute feeling of pain than of pleasure4 ,he is like a man who was stripped not only of his clothes1 but of his skin1 and turned out in that situation to combat with the rude and boisterous elements4#cgd ,a morbid affective state of this kind and of such a degree of intensity1 was the sure antecedent of a morbid intellectual state1 general or partial1 depressed or exalted4 ,one who is the prey of unsound feelings1 if they are only marked enough and persistent enough1 naturally ends by a correspondingly unsound arrangement of all or some of his ideas to match4 ,the intelligence is seduced into finding supports in misconception of circumstances1 for a misconception of human relation which had its root in disordered emotion4 ,this completes the breach of correspondence between the man's nature and the external facts with which he has to deal1 though the breach may not1 and in ,rousseau's case certainly did not1 extend along the whole line of feeling and judgment4 ,rousseau's delusion about ,hume's sinister feeling and designs1 which was the first definite manifestation of positive unsoundness in the sphere of the intelligence1 was a last result of the gradual development of an inherited predisposition to affective unsoundness1 which unhappily for the man's history had never been counteracted either by a strenuous education1 or by the wholesome urgencies of life4 ,we have only to remember that with him1 as with the rest of us1 there was entire unity of nature1 without cataclysm or marvel or inexplicable rupture of mental continuity4 ,all the facts came in an order that might have been foretold2 they all lay together1 with their foundations down in physical temperament2 the facts which made ,rousseau's name renowned and his influence a great force1 along with those which made his life a scandal to others and a misery to himself4 ,the deepest root of moral disorder lies in an immoderate expectation of happiness1 and this immoderate unlawful expectation was the mark both of his character and his work4 ,the exaltation of emotion over intelligence was the secret of his most striking production2 the same exaltation1 by gaining increased mastery over his whole existence1 at length passed the limit of sanity and wrecked him4 ,the tendency of the dominant side of a character towards diseased exaggeration is a fact of daily observation4 ,the ruin which the excess of strong religious imagination works in natures without the quality of energetic objective reaction1 was shown in the case of ,rousseau's contemporary1 ,cowper4 ,this gentle poet's delusions about the wrath of ,god were equally pitiable and equally a source of torment to their victim1 with ,rousseau's delusions about the malignity of his mysterious plotters among men4 ,we must call such a condition unsound1 but the important thing is to remember that insanity was only a modification of certain specially marked tendencies of the sufferer's sanity4 ,the desire to protect himself against the defamation of his enemies led him at this time to compose that account of his own life1 which is probably the only one of his writings that continues to be generally read4 ,he composed the first part of the ,confessions at ,wootton1 during the autumn and winter of #agff4 ,the idea of giving his memoirs to the public was an old one1 originally suggested by one of his publishers4 ,to write memoirs of one's own life was one of the fancies of the time1 but like all else1 it became in ,rousseau's hand something more far-reaching and sincere than a passing fashion4 ,other people wrote polite histories of their outer lives1 amply coloured with romantic decorations4 ,rousseau with unquailing veracity plunged into the inmost depths1 hiding nothing that would be likely to make him either ridiculous or hateful in common opinion1 and inventing nothing that could attract much sympathy or much admiration4 ,though1 as has been pointed out already1 the ,confessions abound in small inaccuracies of date1 hardly to be avoided by an oldish man in reference to the facts of his boyhood1 whether a ,rousseau or a ,goethe1 and though one or two of the incidents are too deeply coloured with the hues of sentimental reminiscence1 and one or two of them are downright impossible1 yet when all these deductions have been made1 the substantial truthfulness of what remains is made more evident with every addition to our materials for testing them4 ,when all the circumstances of ,rousseau's life are weighed1 and when full account has been taken of his proved delinquencies1 we yet perceive that he was at bottom a character as essentially sincere1 truthful1 careful of fact and reality1 as is consistent with the general empire of sensation over untrained intelligence4#cge ,as for the egotism of the ,confessions1 it is hard to see how a man is to tell the story of his own life without egotism4 ,and it may be worth adding that the self-feeling which comes to the surface and asserts itself1 is in a great many cases far less vicious and debilitating than the same feeling nursed internally with a troglodytish shyness4 ,but ,rousseau's egotism manifested itself perversely4 ,this is true to a certain small extent1 and one or two of the disclosures in the ,confessions are in very nauseous matter1 and are made moreover in a very nauseous manner4 ,there are some vices whose grotesqueness stirs us more deeply than downright atrocities1 and we read of certain puerilities avowed by ,rousseau1 with a livelier impatience than old ,benvenuto ,cellini quickens in us1 when he confesses to a horrible assassination4 ,this morbid form of self-feeling is only less disgusting than the allied form which clothes itself in the phrases of religious exaltation4 ,and there is not much of it4 ,blot out half a dozen pages from the ,confessions1 and the egotism is no more perverted than in the confessions of ,augustine or of ,cardan4 ,these remarks are not made to extenuate ,rousseau's faults1 or to raise the popular estimate of his character1 but simply in the interests of a greater precision of criticism4 ,in ,england criticism has nearly always been of the most vulgar superficiality in respect to ,rousseau1 from the time of ,horace ,walpole downwards4 ,the ,confessions in their least agreeable parts1 or rather especially in those parts1 are the expression on a new side and in a peculiar way of the same notion of the essential goodness of nature and the importance of understanding nature and restoring its reign1 which inspired the ,discourses and ,emilius4 ,i would fain show to my fellows1 he began1 a man in all the truth of nature1 and he cannot be charged with any failure to keep his word4 ,he despised opinion1 and hence was careless to observe whether or no this revelation of human nakedness was likely to add to the popular respect for nature and the natural man4 ,after all1 considering that literature is for the most part a hollow and pretentious phantasmagoria of mimic figures posing in breeches and peruke1 we may try to forgive certain cruel blows to the dignified assumptions1 solemn words1 and high heels of convention1 in one who would not lie1 nor dissemble kinship with the four-footed4 ,intense subjective preoccupations in markedly emotional natures all tend to come to the same end4 ,the distance from ,rousseau's odious erotics to the glorified ecstasies of many a poor female saint is not far4 ,in any case1 let us know the facts about human nature1 and the pathological facts no less than the others4 ,these are the first thing1 and the second1 and the third also4 ,the exaltation of the opening page of the ,confessions is shocking4 ,no monk nor saint ever wrote anything more revolting in its blasphemous self-feeling4 ,but the exaltation almost instantly became calm1 when the course of the story necessarily drew the writer into dealings with objective facts1 even muffled as they were by memory and imagination4 ,the broodings over old reminiscence soothed him1 the labour of composition occupied him1 and he forgot1 as the modern reader would never know from internal evidence1 that he was preparing a vindication of his life and character against the infamies with which ,hume and others were supposed to be industriously blackening them4 ,while he was writing this famous composition1 severed by so vast a gulf from the modes of ,english provincial life1 he was on good terms with one or two of the great people in his neighbourhood1 and kept up a gracious and social correspondence with them4 ,he was greatly pleased by a compliment that was paid to him by the government1 apparently through the interest of ,general ,conway4 ,the duty that had been paid upon certain boxes forwarded to ,rousseau from ,switzerland was recouped by the treasury1#cgf and the arrangements for the annual pension of one hundred pounds were concluded and accepted by him1 after he had duly satisfied himself that ,hume was not the indirect author of the benefaction4#cgg ,the weather was the worst possible1 but whenever it allowed him to go out of doors1 he found delight in climbing the heights around him in search of curious mosses2 for he had now come to think the discovery of a single new plant a hundred times more useful than to have the whole human race listening to your sermons for half a century4#cgh ,this indolent and contemplative life that you do not approve1 he wrote to the elder ,mirabeau1 and for which ,i pretend to make no excuses1 becomes every day more delicious to me3 to wander alone among the trees and rocks that surround my dwelling2 to muse or rather to extravagate at my ease1 and as you say to stand gaping in the air2 when my brain gets too hot1 to calm it by dissecting some moss or fern2 in short1 to surrender myself without restraint to my phantasies1 which1 heaven be thanked1 are all under my own control1--all that is for me the height of enjoyment1 to which ,i can imagine nothing superior in this world for a man of my age and in my condition4#cgi ,this contentment did not last long4 ,the snow kept him indoors4 ,the excitement of composition abated4 ,theresa harassed him by ignoble quarrels with the women in the kitchen4 ,his delusions returned with greater force than before4 ,he believed that the whole ,english nation was in a plot against him1 that all his letters were opened before reaching ,london and before leaving it1 that all his movements were closely watched1 and that he was surrounded by unseen guards to prevent any attempt at escape4#chj ,at length these delusions got such complete mastery over him1 that in a paroxysm of terror he fled away from ,wootton1 leaving money1 papers1 and all else behind him4 ,nothing was heard of him for a fortnight1 when ,mr4 ,davenport received a letter from him dated at ,spalding in ,lincolnshire4 ,mr4 ,davenport's conduct throughout was marked by a humanity and patience that do him the highest honour4 ,he confesses himself quite moved to read poor ,rousseau's mournful epistle4 ,you shall see his letter1 he writes to ,hume1 the first opportunity2 but ,god help him1 ,i can't for pity give a copy2 and 'tis so much mixed with his own poor little private concerns1 that it would not be right in me to do it4#cha ,this is the generosity which makes ,hume's impatience and that of his mischievous advisers in ,paris appear petty4 ,rousseau had behaved quite as ill to ,mr4 ,davenport as he had done to ,hume1 and had received at least equal services from him4#chb ,the good man at once sent a servant to ,spalding in search of his unhappy guest1 but ,rousseau had again disappeared4 ,the parson of the parish had passed several hours of each day in his company1 and had found him cheerful and good-humoured4 ,he had had a blue coat made for himself1 and had written a long letter to the lord chancellor1 praying him to appoint a guard1 at ,rousseau's own expense1 to escort him in safety out of the kingdom where enemies were plotting against his life4#chc ,he was next heard of at ,dover 7,may #ah71 whence he wrote a letter to ,general ,conway1 setting forth his delusion in full form4#chd ,he is the victim of a plot2 the conspirators will not allow him to leave the island1 lest he should divulge in other countries the outrages to which he has been subjected here2 he perceives the sinister manoeuvres that will arrest him if he attempts to put his foot on board ship4 ,but he warns them that his tragical disappearance cannot take place without creating inquiry4 ,still if ,general ,conway will only let him go1 he gives his word of honour that he will not publish a line of the memoirs he has written1 nor ever divulge the wrongs which he has suffered in ,england4 ,i see my last hour approaching1 he concluded2 ,i am determined1 if necessary1 to advance to meet it1 and to perish or be free2 there is no longer any other alternative4 ,on the same evening on which he wrote this letter 7about ,may #bj-bb71 the forlorn creature took boat and landed at ,calais1 where he seems at once to have recovered his composure and a right mind4 ,,footnotes3 #cej ,jan4 #agff--,may #agfg4 #cea ,streckeisen1 ii4 #bge1 etc4 ,corr41 iii4 #ceb ,burton1 ii4 #bii4 #cec ,the materials for this chapter are taken from ,rousseau's ,correspondence 7vols4 iv4 and v471 and from ,hume's letters to various persons1 given in the second volume of ,mr4 ,burton's ,life of ,hume4 ,everybody who takes an interest in ,rousseau is indebted to ,mr4 ,burton for the ample documents which he has provided4 ,yet one cannot but regret the satire on ,rousseau with which he intersperses them1 and which is not always felicitous4 ,for one instance1 he implies 7p4 #bie7 that ,rousseau invented the story given in the ,confessions1 of ,hume's correcting the proofs of ,wallace's book against himself4 ,the story may be true or not1 but at any rate ,rousseau had it very circumstantially from ,lord ,marischal2 see letter from ,lord ,m4 to ,j4,j4,r41 in ,streckeisen1 ii4 #fg4 ,again1 such an expression as ,rousseau's occasional attention to small matters 7p4 #cba7 only shows that the writer has not read ,rousseau's letters1 which are indeed not worth reading1 except by those who wish to have a right to speak about ,rousseau's character4 ,the numerous pamphlets on the quarrel between ,hume and ,rousseau1 if ,i may judge from those of them which ,i have turned over1 really shed no light on the matter1 though they added much heat4 ,for the journey1 see ,corr41 iv4 #cjg2 ,burton1 ii4 #cjd4 #ced ,letter to a ,member of the ,national ,assembly4 ,the same passage contains some strong criticism on ,rousseau's style4 #cee ,burton1 #cjd1 #cji1 #caj4 #cef ,ib4 ii4 #cji1 n4 #ceg ,mr4 ,howitt has given an account of ,rousseau's quarters at ,wootton1 in his ,visits to ,remarkable ,places4 ,one or two aged peasants had some confused memory of old ,ross-hall4 ,for ,rousseau's own description1 see his letters to ,mdme4 de ,luze1 ,may #aj1 #agff4 ,corr41 iv4 #cbf4 #ceh ,burton1 #cac4 ,it has been stated that ,rousseau never paid this2 at any rate when he fled1 he left between thirty and forty pounds in ,mr4 ,davenport's hands4 ,see ,davenport to ,hume2 ,burton1 #cfg4 ,rousseau's accurate probity in affairs of money is absolutely unimpeachable4 #cei ,corr4 iv4 #cab4 ,april #i1 #agff4 #cfj ,here is a translation of this rather poor piece of sarcasm3--,my dear ,jean ,jacques--,you have renounced ,geneva1 your native place4 ,you have caused your expulsion from ,switzerland1 a country so extolled in your writings2 ,france has issued a warrant against you2 so do you come to me4 ,i admire your talents2 ,i am amused by your dreamings1 though let me tell you they absorb you too much and for too long4 ,you must at length be sober and happy2 you have caused enough talk about yourself by oddities which in truth are hardly becoming a really great man4 ,prove to your enemies that you can now and then have common sense4 ,that will annoy them and do you no harm4 ,my states offer you a peaceful retreat4 ,i wish you well1 and will treat you well1 if you will let me4 ,but if you persist in refusing my help1 do not reckon upon my telling any one that you did so4 ,if you are bent on tormenting your spirit to find new misfortunes1 choose whatever you like best4 ,i am a king1 and can procure them for you at your pleasure2 and what will certainly never happen to you in respect of your enemies1 ,i will cease to persecute you as soon as you cease to take a pride in being persecuted4 ,your good friend1 ,,frederick4 #cfa ,corr41 iv4 #cac1 #cdc1 #chh1 #cih4 #cfb ,ib4 #cie4 #cfc ,ib4 #chi1 etc4 #cfd ,ib4 #chd4 #cfe ,ib4 #cdc1 #cdd1 #chg1 etc4 #cff ,corr41 iv4 #cdf4 #cfg ,ib4 #cij4 ,a letter from ,hume to ,blair1 long before the rupture overt1 shows the former to have been by no means so phlegmatic on this occasion as he may have seemed4 ,i hope1 he writes1 you have not so bad an opinion of me as to think ,i was not melted on this occasion2 ,i assure you ,i kissed him and embraced him twenty times1 with a plentiful effusion of tears4 ,i think no scene of my life was ever more affecting4 ,burton1 ii4 #cae4 ,the great doubters of the eighteenth century could without fear have accepted the test of the ancient saying1 that men without tears are worth little4 #cfh ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre1 ,oeuv41 xii4 #gi4 #cfi ,walpole's ,letters1 v4 #g 7,cunningham's edition74 ,for other letters from the shrewd coxcomb on the same matter1 see pp4 #bc-bh4 ,a corroboration of the statement that ,hume knew nothing of the letter until he was in ,england1 may be inferred from what he wrote to ,madame de ,boufflers2 ,burton1 ii4 #cjf1 and n4 #b4 #cgj ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre1 ,oeuv41 xii4 #gi4 #cga ,to ,adam ,smith4 ,burton1 #chj4 #cgb ,burton1 #cha4 #cgc ,a very common but random opinion traces ,rousseau's insanity to certain disagreeable habits avowed in the ,confessions4 ,they may have contributed in some small degree to depression of vital energies1 though for that matter ,rousseau's strength and power of endurance were remarkable to the end4 ,but they certainly did not produce a mental state in the least corresponding to that particular variety of insanity1 which possesses definitely marked features4 #cgd ,burton1 ii4 #cad4 #cge ,for an instructive and1 as it appears to me1 a thoroughly trustworthy account of the temper in which the ,confessions were written1 see the #dth of the ,rveries4 #cgf ,letter to the ,duke of ,grafton1 ,feb4 #bg1 #agfg4 ,corr41 v4 #ih3 also #aah4 #cgg ,ib4 v4 #acc2 also to ,general ,conway 7,march #bf71 p4 #acg1 etc4 #cgh ,corr41 v4 #cg4 #cgi ,corr41 v4 #hh4 #chj ,see the letters to ,du ,peyrou1 of the #b;d and #dth of ,april #agfg4 ,corr41 v4 #adj-adg4 #cha ,davenport to ,hume2 ,burton1 #cfg-cga4 #chb ,j4,j4,r4 to ,davenport1 ,dec4 #bb1 #agff1 and ,april #cj1 #agfg4 ,corr41 v4 #ff1 #aeb4 #chc ,burton1 #cfi1 #cge4 #chd ,corr41 v4 #aec4 ,,chapter ,,vii4 ,,the ,,end4 ,before leaving ,england1 ,rousseau had received more than one long and rambling letter from a man who was as unlike the rest of mankind as he was unlike them himself4 ,this was the ,marquis of ,mirabeau 7#agae-hi71 the violent1 tyrannical1 pedantic1 humoristic sire of a more famous son4 ,perhaps we might say that ,mirabeau and ,rousseau were the two most singular originals then known to men1 and ,mirabeau's originality was in some respects the more salient of the two4 ,there is less of the conventional tone of the eighteenth century ,frenchman in him than in any other conspicuous man of the time1 though like many other headstrong and despotic souls he picked up the current notions of philanthropy and human brotherhood4 ,he really was by very force of temperament that rebel against the narrowness1 trimness1 and moral formalism of the time which ,rousseau only claimed and attempted to be1 with the secondary degree of success that follows vehemence without native strength4 ,mirabeau was a sort of ,swift1 who had strangely taken up the trade of friendship for man and adopted the phrases of perfectibility2 while ,rousseau on the other hand was meant for a ,fnelon1 save that he became possessed of unclean devils4 ,mirabeau1 like ,jean ,jacques himself1 was so impressed by the marked tenor of contemporary feeling1 its prudential didactics1 its formulistic sociality1 that his native insurgency only found vent in private life1 while in public he played pedagogue to the human race4 ,friend of ,quesnai and orthodox economist as he was1 he delighted in ,rousseau's books3 ,i know no morality that goes deeper than yours2 it strikes like a thunderbolt1 and advances with the steady assurance of truth1 for you are always true1 according to your notions for the moment4 ,he wrote to tell him so1 but he told him at the same time at great length1 and with a caustic humour and incoherency less academic than ,rabelaisian1 that he had behaved absurdly in his quarrel with ,hume4 ,there is nothing more quaint than the appearance of a few of the sacramental phrases of the sect of the economists1 floating in the midst of a copious stream of egoistic whimsicalities4 ,he concludes with a diverting enumeration of all his country seats and demesnes1 with their respective advantages and disadvantages1 and prays ,rousseau to take up his residence in whichever of them may please him best4#che ,immediately on landing at ,calais ,rousseau informed ,mirabeau1 and ,mirabeau lost no time in conveying him stealthily1 for the warrant of the parliament of ,paris was still in force1 to a house at ,fleury4 ,but the ,friend of ,men1 to use his own account of himself1 bore letters as a plum-tree bears plums1 and wrote to his guest with strange humoristic volubility and droll imperturbable temper1 as one who knew his ,jean ,jacques4 ,he exhorts him in many sheets to harden himself against excessive sensibility1 to be less pusillanimous1 to take society more lightly1 as his own light estimate of its worth should lead him to do4 ,no doubt its outside is a shifting surface-picture1 nay even ridiculous1 if you will2 but if the irregular and ceaseless flight of butterflies wearies you in your walk1 it is your own fault for looking continuously at what was only made to adorn and vary the scene4 ,but how many social virtues1 how much gentleness and considerateness1 how many benevolent actions1 remain at the bottom of it all4#chf ,enormous manifestoes of the doctrine of perfectibility were not in the least degree either soothing or interesting to ,rousseau1 and the thrusts of shrewd candour at his expense might touch his fancy on a single occasion1 but not oftener4 ,two humorists are seldom successful in amusing one another4 ,besides1 ,mirabeau insisted that ,jean ,jacques should read this or that of his books4 ,rousseau answered that he would try1 but warned him of the folly of it4 ,i do not engage always to follow what you say1 because it has always been painful to me to think1 and fatiguing to follow the thoughts of other people1 and at present ,i cannot do so at all4#chg ,though they continued to be good friends1 ,rousseau only remained three or four weeks at ,fleury4 ,his old acquaintance at ,montmorency1 the ,prince of ,conti1 partly perhaps from contrition at the rather unchivalrous fashion in which his great friends had hustled the philosopher away at the time of the decree of the parliament of ,paris1 offered him refuge at one of his country seats at ,trye near ,gisors4 ,here he installed ,rousseau under the name of ,renou1 either to silence the indiscreet curiosity of neighbours1 or to gratify a whim of ,rousseau himself4 ,rousseau remained for a year 7,june #agfg-;,june #agfh71 composing the second part of the ,confessions1 in a condition of extreme mental confusion4 ,dusky phantoms walked with him once more4 ,he knew the gardener1 the servants1 the neighbours1 all to be in the pay of ,hume1 and that he was watched day and night with a view to his destruction4#chh ,he entirely gave up either reading or writing1 save a very small number of letters1 and he declared that to take up the pen even for these was like lifting a load of iron4 ,the only interest he had was botany1 and for this his passion became daily more intense4 ,he appears to have been as contented as a child1 so long as he could employ himself in long expeditions in search of new plants1 in arranging a herbarium1 in watching the growth of the germ of some rare seed which needed careful tending4 ,but the story had once more the same conclusion4 ,he fled from ,trye1 as he had fled from ,wootton4 ,he meant apparently to go to ,chambri1 drawn by the deep magnetic force of old memories that seemed long extinct4 ,but at ,grenoble on his way thither he encountered a substantial grievance4 ,a man alleged that he had lent ,rousseau a few francs seven years previously4 ,he was undoubtedly mistaken1 and was fully convicted of his mistake by proper authorities1 but ,rousseau's correspondents suffered none the less for that4 ,we all know when monomania seizes a man1 how adroitly and how eagerly it colours every incident4 ,the mistaken claim was proof demonstrative of that frightful and tenebrous conspiracy1 which they might have thought a delusion hitherto1 but which1 alas1 this showed to be only too tragically real2 and so on1 through many pages of droning wretchedness4#chi ,then we find him at ,bourgoin1 where he spent some months in shabby taverns1 and then many months more at ,monquin on adjoining uplands4#cij ,the estrangement from ,theresa1 of which enough has been said already1#cia was added to his other torments4 ,he resolved1 as so many of the self-tortured have done since1 to go in search of happiness to the western lands beyond the ,atlantic1 where the elixir of bliss is thought by the wearied among us to be inexhaustible and assured4 ,almost in the same page he turns his face eastwards1 and dreams of ending his days peacefully among the islands of the ,grecian archipelago4 ,next he gravely1 not only designed1 but actually took measures1 to return to ,wootton4 ,all was no more than the momentary incoherent purpose of a sick man's dream1 the weary distraction of one who had deliberately devoted himself to isolation from his fellows1 without first sitting down carefully to count the cost1 or to measure the inner resources which he possessed to meet the deadly strain that isolation puts on every one of a man's mental fibres4 ,geographical loneliness is to some a condition of their fullest strength1 but most of the few who dare to make a moral solitude for themselves1 find that they have assuredly not made peace4 ,such solitude1 as ,south said of the study of the ,apocalypse1 either finds a man mad1 or leaves him so4 ,not all can play the stoic who will1 and it is still more certain that one who like ,rousseau has lain down with the doctrine that in all things imaginable it is impossible for him to do at all what he cannot do with pleasure1 will end in a condition of profound and hopeless impotence in respect to pleasure itself4 ,in ,july #aggj1 he made his way to ,paris1 and here he remained eight years longer1 not without the introduction of a certain degree of order into his outer life1 though the clouds of vague suspicion and distrust1 half bitter1 half mournful1 hung heavily as ever upon his mind4 ,the ,dialogues1 which he wrote at this period 7#agge-gf7 to vindicate his memory from the defamation that was to be launched in a dark torrent upon the world at the moment of his death1 could not possibly have been written by a man in his right mind4 ,yet the best of the ,musings1 which were written still nearer the end1 are masterpieces in the style of contemplative prose4 ,the third1 the fifth1 the seventh1 especially abound in that even1 full1 mellow gravity of tone which is so rare in literature1 because the deep absorption of spirit which is its source is so rare in life4 ,they reveal ,rousseau to us with a truth beyond that attained in any of his other pieces--a mournful sombre figure1 looming shadowily in the dark glow of sundown among sad and desolate places4 ,there is nothing like them in the ,french tongue1 which is the speech of the clear1 the cheerful1 or the august among men2 nothing like this sonorous plainsong1 the strangely melodious expression in the music of prose of a darkened spirit which yet had imaginative visions of beatitude4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is interesting to look on one or two pictures of the last waste and obscure years of the man1 whose words were at this time silently fermenting for good and for evil in many spirits--a ,schiller1 a ,herder1 a ,jeanne ,phlipon1 a ,robespierre1 a ,gabriel ,mirabeau1 and many hundreds of those whose destiny was not to lead1 but ingenuously to follow4 ,rousseau seems to have repulsed nearly all his ancient friends1 and to have settled down with dogged resolve to his old trade of copying music4 ,in summer he rose at five1 copied music until half-past seven2 munched his breakfast1 arranging on paper during the process such plants as he had gathered the previous afternoon2 then he returned to his work1 dined at half-past twelve1 and went forth to take coffee at some public place4 ,he would not return from his walk until nightfall1 and he retired at half-past ten4 ,the pavements of ,paris were hateful to him because they tore his feet1 and1 said he1 with deeply significant antithesis1 ,i am not afraid of death1 but ,i dread pain4 ,he always found his way as fast as possible to one of the suburbs1 and one of his greatest delights was to watch ,mont ,valrien in the sunset4 ,atheists1 he said calumniously1 do not love the country2 they like the environs of ,paris1 where you have all the pleasures of the city1 good cheer1 books1 pretty women2 but if you take these things away1 then they die of weariness4 ,the note of every bird held him attentive1 and filled his mind with delicious images4 ,a graceful story is told of two swallows who made a nest in ,rousseau's sleeping-room1 and hatched the eggs there4 ,i was no more than a doorkeeper for them1 he said1 for ,i kept opening the window for them every moment4 ,they used to fly with a great stir round my head1 until ,i had fulfilled the duties of the tacit convention between these swallows and me4 ,in ,january #agga1 ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre1 author of the immortal ,paul and ,virginia 7#aghh71 finding himself at the ,cape of ,good ,hope1 wrote to a friend in ,france just previously to his return to ,europe1 counting among other delights that of seeing two summers in one year4#cib ,rousseau happened to see the letter1 and expressed a desire to make the acquaintance of a man who in returning home should think of that as one of his chief pleasures4 ,to this we owe the following pictures of an interior from ,st4 ,pierre's hand3-- ,in the month of ,june in #aggb1 a friend having offered to take me to see ,jean ,jacques ,rousseau1 he brought me to a house in the ,rue ,pltrire1 nearly opposite to the ,htel de la ,poste4 ,we mounted to the fourth story4 ,we knocked1 and ,madame ,rousseau opened the door4 ,come in1 gentlemen1 she said1 you will find my husband4 ,we passed through a very small antechamber1 where the household utensils were neatly arranged1 and from that into a room where ,jean ,jacques was seated in an overcoat and a white cap1 busy copying music4 ,he rose with a smiling face1 offered us chairs1 and resumed his work1 at the same time taking a part in conversation4 ,he was thin and of middle height4 ,one shoulder struck me as rather higher than the other 444 otherwise he was very well proportioned4 ,he had a brown complexion1 some colour on his cheek-bones1 a good mouth1 a well-made nose1 a rounded and lofty brow1 and eyes full of fire4 ,the oblique lines falling from the nostrils to the extremity of the lips1 and marking a physiognomy1 in his case expressed great sensibility and something even painful4 ,one observed in his face three or four of the characteristics of melancholy--the deep receding eyes and the elevation of the eyebrows2 you saw profound sadness in the wrinkles of the brow2 a keen and even caustic gaiety in a thousand little creases at the corners of the eyes1 of which the orbits entirely disappeared when he laughed4444 ,near him was a spinette on which from time to time he tried an air4 ,two little beds of blue and white striped calico1 a table1 and a few chairs1 made the stock of his furniture4 ,on the walls hung a plan of the forest and park of ,montmorency1 where he had once lived1 and an engraving of the ,king of ,england1 his old benefactor4 ,his wife was sitting mending linen2 a canary sang in a cage hung from the ceiling2 sparrows came for crumbs on to the sills of the windows1 which on the side of the street were open2 while in the window of the antechamber we noticed boxes and pots filled with such plants as it pleases nature to sow4 ,there was in the whole effect of his little establishment an air of cleanness1 peace1 and simplicity1 which was delightful4 ,a few days after1 ,rousseau returned the visit4 ,he wore a round wig1 well powdered and curled1 carrying a hat under his arm1 and in a full suit of nankeen4 ,his whole exterior was modest1 but extremely neat4 ,he expressed his passion for good coffee1 saying that this and ice were the only two luxuries for which he cared4 ,st4 ,pierre happened to have brought some from the ,isle of ,bourbon1 so on the following day he rashly sent ,rousseau a small packet1 which at first produced a polite letter of thanks2 but the day after the letter of thanks came one of harsh protest against the ignominy of receiving presents which could not be returned1 and bidding the unfortunate donor to choose between taking his coffee back or never seeing his new friend again4 ,a fair bargain was ultimately arranged1 ,st4 ,pierre receiving in exchange for his coffee some curious root or other1 and a book on ichthyology4 ,immediately afterwards he went to dine with his sage4 ,he arrived at eleven in the forenoon1 and they conversed until half-past twelve4 ,then his wife laid the cloth4 ,he took a bottle of wine1 and as he put it on the table1 asked whether we should have enough1 or if ,i was fond of drinking4 ,how many are there of us1 said ,i4 ,three1 he said2 you1 my wife1 and myself4 ,well1 ,i went on1 when ,i drink wine and am alone1 ,i drink a good half-bottle1 and ,i drink a trifle more when ,i am with friends4 ,in that case1 he answered1 we shall not have enough2 ,i must go down into the cellar4 ,he brought up a second bottle4 ,his wife served two dishes1 one of small tarts1 and another which was covered4 ,he said1 showing me the first1 ,that is your dish and the other is mine4 ,i don't eat much pastry1 ,i said1 but ,i hope to be allowed to taste what you have got4 ,oh1 they are both common1 he replied2 but most people don't care for this4 ',tis a ,swiss dish2 a compound of lard1 mutton1 vegetables1 and chestnuts4 ,it was excellent4 ,after these two dishes1 we had slices of beef in salad2 then biscuits and cheese2 after which his wife served the coffee4 99 99 99 99 99 ,one morning when ,i was at his house1 ,i saw various domestics either coming for rolls of music1 or bringing them to him to copy4 ,he received them standing and uncovered4 ,he said to some1 ,the price is so much1 and received the money2 to others1 ,how soon must ,i return my copy8 ,my mistress would like to have it back in a fortnight4 ,oh1 that's out of the question3 ,i have work1 ,i can't do it in less than three weeks4 ,i inquired why he did not take his talents to better market4 ,ah1 he answered1 there are two ,rousseaus in the world2 one rich1 or who might have been if he had chosen2 a man capricious1 singular1 fantastic2 this is the ,rousseau of the public2 the other is obliged to work for his living1 the ,rousseau whom you see4#cic ,they often took long rambles together1 and all proceeded most harmoniously1 unless ,st4 ,pierre offered to pay for such refreshment as they might take1 when a furious explosion was sure to follow4 ,here is one more picture1 without explosion4 ,an ,easter ,monday ,excursion to ,mont ,valrien4 ,we made an appointment at a caf in the ,champs ,elyses4 ,in the morning we took some chocolate4 ,the wind was westerly1 and the air fresh4 ,the sun was surrounded by white clouds1 spread in masses over an azure sky4 ,reaching the ,bois de ,boulogne by eight o'clock1 ,jean ,jacques set to work botanising4 ,as he collected his little harvest1 we kept walking along4 ,we had gone through part of the wood1 when in the midst of the solitude we perceived two young girls1 one of whom was arranging the other's hair4--,reminded them of some verses of ,virgil44444 ,arrived on the edge of the river1 we crossed the ferry with a number of people whom devotion was taking to ,mont ,valrien4 ,we climbed an extremely stiff slope1 and were hardly on the top before hunger overtook us and we began to think of dining4 ,rousseau then led the way towards a hermitage1 where he knew we could make sure of hospitality4 ,the brother who opened to us1 conducted us to the chapel1 where they were reciting the litanies of providence1 which are extremely beautiful4444 ,when we had prayed1 ,jean ,jacques said to me with genuine feeling3 ,now ,i feel what is said in the gospel1 ',where several of you are gathered together in my name1 there will ,i be in the midst of them4' ,there is a sentiment of peace and comfort here that penetrates the soul4 ,i replied1 ,if ,fnelon were alive1 you would be a ,catholic4 ,ah1 said he1 the tears in his eyes1 if ,fnelon were alive1 ,i would seek to be his lackey4 ,presently we were introduced into the refectory2 we seated ourselves during the reading4 ,the subject was the injustice of the complainings of man3 ,god has brought him from nothing1 he oweth him nothing4 ,after the reading1 ,rousseau said to me in a voice of deep emotion3 ,ah1 how happy is the man who can believe4444 ,we walked about for some time in the cloister and the gardens4 ,they command an immense prospect4 ,paris in the distance reared her towers all covered with light1 and made a crown to the far-spreading landscape4 ,the brightness of the view contrasted with the great leaden clouds that rolled after one another from the west1 and seemed to fill the valley4444 ,in the afternoon rain came on1 as we approached the ,porte ,maillot4 ,we took shelter along with a crowd of other holiday folk under some chestnut-trees whose leaves were coming out4 ,one of the waiters of a tavern perceiving ,jean ,jacques1 rushed to him full of joy1 exclaiming1 ,what1 is it you1 mon bonhomme8 ,why1 it is a whole age since we have seen you4 ,rousseau replied cheerfully1 ',tis because my wife has been ill1 and ,i myself have been out of sorts4 ,mon pauvre bonhomme1 replied the lad1 you must not stop here2 come in1 come in1 and ,i will find room for you4 ,he hurried us along to a room upstairs1 where in spite of the crowd he procured for us chairs and a table1 and bread and wine4 ,i said to ,jean ,jacques1 ,he seems very familiar with you4 ,he answered1 ,yes1 we have known one another some years4 ,we used to come here in fine weather1 my wife and ,i1 to eat a cutlet of an evening4#cid ,things did not continue to go thus smoothly4 ,one day ,st4 ,pierre went to see him1 and was received without a word1 and with stiff and gloomy mien4 ,he tried to talk1 but only got monosyllables2 he took up a book1 and this drew a sarcasm which sent him forth from the room4 ,for more than two months they did not meet4 ,at length they had an accidental encounter at a street corner4 ,rousseau accosted ,st4 ,pierre1 and with a gradually warming sensibility proceeded thus3 ,there are days when ,i want to be alone and crave privacy4 ,i come back from my solitary expeditions so calm and contented4 ,there ,i have not been wanting to anybody1 nor has anybody been wanting to me1 and so on4#cie ,he expressed this humour more pointedly on some other occasion1 when he said that there were times in which he fled from the eyes of men as from ,parthian arrows4 ,as one said who knew from experience1 the fate of his most intimate friend depended on a word or a gesture4#cif ,another of them declared that he knew ,rousseau's style of discarding a friend by letter so thoroughly1 that he felt confident he could supply ,rousseau's place in case of illness or absence4#cig ,in much of this we suspect that the quarrel was perfectly justified4 ,sociality meant a futile display before unworthy and condescending curiosity4 ,it is not ,i whom they care for1 he very truly said1 but public opinion and talk about me1 without a thought of what real worth ,i may have4 ,hence his steadfast refusal to go out to dine or sup4 ,the mere impertinence of the desire to see him was illustrated by some coxcombs who insisted with a famous actress of his acquaintance1 that she should invite the strange philosopher to meet them4 ,she was aware that no known force would persuade ,rousseau to come1 so she dressed up her tailor as philosopher1 bade him keep a silent tongue1 and vanish suddenly without a word of farewell4 ,the tailor was long philosophically silent1 and by the time that wine had loosened his tongue1 the rest of the company were too far gone to perceive that the supposed ,rousseau was chattering vulgar nonsense4#cih ,we can believe that with admirers of this stamp ,rousseau was well pleased to let tailors or others stand in his place4 ,there were some1 however1 of a different sort1 who flitted across his sight and then either vanished of their own accord1 or were silently dismissed1 from ,madame de ,genlis up to ,grtry and ,gluck4 ,with ,gluck he seems to have quarrelled for setting his music to ,french words1 when he must have known that ,italian was the only tongue fit for music4#cii ,yet it was remarked that no one ever heard him speak ill of others4 ,his enemies1 the figures of his delusion1 were vaguely denounced in many dronings1 but they remained in dark shadow and were unnamed4 ,when ,voltaire paid his famous last visit to the capital 7#aggh71 some one thought of paying court to ,rousseau by making a mock of the triumphal reception of the old warrior1 but ,rousseau harshly checked the detractor4 ,it is true that in #aggj-ga he gave to some few of his acquaintances one or more readings of the ,confessions1 although they contained much painful matter for many people still living1 among the rest for ,madame d',epinay4 ,she wrote justifiably enough to the lieutenant of police1 praying that all such readings might be prohibited1 and it is believed that they were so prohibited4#djj ,in #agfi1 when ,polish anarchy was at its height1 as if to show at once how profound the anarchy was1 and how profound the faith among many minds in the power of the new ,french theories1 an application was made to ,mably to draw up a scheme for the renovation of distracted ,poland4 ,mably's notions won little esteem from the persons who had sought for them1 and in #agga a similar application was made to ,rousseau in his ,parisian garret4 ,he replied in the ,considerations on the ,government of ,poland1 which are written with a good deal of vigour of expression1 but contain nothing that needs further discussion4 ,he hinted to the ,poles with some shrewdness that a curtailment of their territory by their neighbours was not far off1#dja and the prediction was rapidly fulfilled by the first partition of ,poland in the following year4 ,he was asked one day of what nation he had the highest opinion4 ,he answered1 the ,spanish4 ,the ,spanish nation1 he said1 has a character2 if it is not rich1 it still preserves all its pride and self-respect in the midst of its poverty2 and it is animated by a single spirit1 for it has not been scourged by the conflicting opinions of philosophy4#djb ,he was extremely poor for these last eight years of his life4 ,he seems to have drawn the pension which ,george ,,iii4 had settled on him1 for not more than one year4 ,we do not know why he refused to receive it afterwards4 ,a well-meaning friend1 when the arrears amounted to between six and seven thousand francs1 applied for it on his behalf1 and a draft for the money was sent4 ,rousseau gave the offender a vigorous rebuke for meddling in affairs that did not concern him1 and the draft was destroyed4 ,other attempts to induce him to draw this money failed equally4#djc ,yet he had only about fifty pounds a year to live on1 together with the modest amount which he earned by copying music4#djd ,the sting of indigence began to make itself felt towards #aggg4 ,his health became worse and he could not work4 ,theresa was waxing old1 and could no longer attend to the small cares of the household4 ,more than one person offered them shelter and provision1 and the old distractions as to a home in which to end his days began once again4 ,at length ,m4 ,girardin prevailed upon him to come and live at ,ermenonville1 one of his estates some twenty miles from ,paris4 ,a dense cloud of obscure misery hangs over the last months of this forlorn existence4#dje ,no tragedy had ever a fifth act so squalid4 ,theresa's character seems to have developed into something truly bestial4 ,rousseau's terrors of the designs of his enemies returned with great violence4 ,he thought he was imprisoned1 and he knew that he had no means of escape4 ,one day 7,july #b1 #aggh71 suddenly and without a single warning symptom1 all drew to an end2 the sensations which had been the ruling part of his life were affected by pleasure and pain no more1 the dusky phantoms all vanished into space4 ,the surgeons reported that the cause of his death was apoplexy1 but a suspicion has haunted the world ever since1 that he destroyed himself by a pistol-shot4 ,we cannot tell4 ,there is no inherent improbability in the fact of his having committed suicide4 ,in the ,new ,helosa he had thrown the conditions which justified self-destruction into a distinct formula4 ,fifteen years before1 he declared that his own case fell within the conditions which he had prescribed1 and that he was meditating action4#djf ,only seven years before1 he had implied that a man had the right to deliver himself of the burden of his own life1 if its miseries were intolerable and irremediable4#djg ,this1 however1 counts for nothing in the absence of some kind of positive evidence1 and of that there is just enough to leave the manner of his end a little doubtful4#djh ,once more1 we cannot tell4 ,by the serene moonrise of a summer night1 his body was put under the ground on an island in the midst of a small lake1 where poplars throw shadows over the still water1 silently figuring the destiny of mortals4 ,here it remained for sixteen years4 ,then amid the roar of cannon1 the crash of trumpet and drum1 and the wild acclamations of a populace gone mad in exultation1 terror1 fury1 it was ordered that the poor dust should be transported to the national temple of great men4 ,,footnotes3 #che ,streckeisen1 ii4 #cae-cbh4 #chf ,streckeisen1 ii4 #ccg4 #chg ,june #ai1 #agfg4 ,corr41 v4 #agb4 #chh ,corr41 v4 #bfg1 #cge4 #chi ,corr41 v4 #ccj-cha1 #djh1 etc4 #cij ,bourgoin1 ,aug4 #agfh1 to ,march1 #agfi4 ,monquin1 to ,july #aggj4 #cia ,see above1 vol4 i4 chap4 iv4 #cib ,the life of ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre 7#agcg-ahad7 was nearly as irregular as that of his friend and master4 ,but his character was essentially crafty and selfish1 like that of many other sentimentalists of the first order4 #cic ,oeuv41 xii4 #fi1 #gc4 #cid ,oeuv41 xii4 #ajd1 etc42 and also the ,prambule de l',arcadie1 ,oeuv41 vii4 #fd1 #fe4 #cie ,st4 ,pierre1 xii4 #ha-hc4 #cif ,dusaulx1 p4 #ha4 ,for his quarrel with ,rousseau1 see pp4 #acj1 etc4 #cig ,rulhires in ,dusaulx1 p4 #agi4 ,for a strange interview between ,rulhires and ,rousseau1 see pp4 #ahe-ahf4 #cih ,musset-,pathay1 i4 #aha4 #cii ,ib4 #djj ,musset-,pathay1 i4 #bji4 ,rousseau gave a copy of the ,confessions to ,moultou1 but forbade the publication before the year #ahjj4 ,notwithstanding this1 printers procured copies surreptitiously1 perhaps through ,theresa1 ever in need of money2 the first part was published four years1 and the second part with many suppressions eleven years1 after his death1 in #aghb and #aghi respectively4 ,see ,musset-,pathay1 ii4 #dfd4 #dja ,ch4 v4 ,such a curtailment1 he says1 would no doubt be a great evil for the parts dismembered1 but it would be a great advantage for the body of the nation4 ,he urged federation as the condition of any solid improvement in their affairs4 #djb ,bernardin de ,st4 ,pierre1 xii4 #cg4 ,comte had a similar admiration for ,spain and for the same reason4 #djc ,corancez1 quoted in ,musset-,pathay1 i4 #bci4 ,also ,corr41 vi4 #bie4 #djd ,corr41 vi4 #cjc4 #dje ,robespierre1 then a youth1 is said to have invited him here4 ,see ,hamel's ,robespierre1 i4 #bb4 #djf ,see above1 vol4 i4 pp4 #af1 #ag4 #djg ,corr41 vi4 #bfd4 #djh ,the case stands thus3--7#a7 ,there was the certificate of five doctors1 attesting that ,rousseau had died of apoplexy4 7#b7 ,the assertion of ,m4 ,girardin1 in whose house he died1 that there was no hole in his head1 nor poison in the stomach or viscera1 nor other sign of self-destruction4 7#c7 ,the assertion of ,theresa to the same effect4 ,on the other hand1 we have the assertion of ,corancez1 that on his journey to ,ermenonville on the day of ,rousseau's burial a horse-master on the road had said1 ,who would have supposed that ,m4 ,rousseau would have destroyed himself6--and a variety of inferences from the wording of the certificate1 and of ,theresa's letter4 ,musset-,pathay believes in the suicide1 and argued very ingeniously against ,m4 ,girardin4 ,but his arguments do not go far beyond verbal ingenuity1 showing that suicide was possible1 and was consistent with the language of the documents1 rather than adducing positive testimony4 ,see vol4 i4 of his ,history1 pp4 #bfh1 etc4 ,the controversy was resumed as late as #ahfa1 between the ,figaro and the ,monde ,illustr4 ,see also ,m4 ,jal's ,dict4 ,crit4 de ,biog4 et d',hist41 p4 #ajia4 ,,index4 ,,academies 7,french7 local1 i4 #acb4 ,academy1 of ,dijon1 ,rousseau writes essays for1 i4 #acc2 ,french1 prize essay against ,rousseau's ,discourse1 i4 #aej1 n4 ,actors1 how regarded in ,france in ,rousseau's time1 i4 #cbb4 ,althusen1 teaches doctrine of sovereignty of the people1 ii4 #adg4 ,america 7,u4,s471 effects in1 of the doctrine of the equality of men1 i4 #ahb4 ,american colonists indebted in eighteenth century to ,rousseau's writings1 i4 #c4 ,anchorite1 distinction between the old and the new1 i4 #bcd4 ,annecy1 i4 #cd1 #ej2 ,rousseau's room at1 i4 #ed2 ,rousseau's teachers at1 i4 #ef2 seminary at1 i4 #hb4 ,aquinas1 protest against juristical doctrine of law being the pleasure of the prince1 ii4 #add1 #ade4 ,aristotle on ,origin of ,society1 i4 #agd4 ,atheism1 ,rousseau's protest against1 i4 #bjh2 ,st4 ,lambert on1 i4 #bji1 n42 ,robespierre's protest against1 ii4 #agh2 ,chaumette put to death for endeavouring to base the government of ,france on1 ii4 #ahj4 ,augustine 7of ,hippo71 ii4 #bgb1 #cjc4 ,austin1 ,john1 ii4 #aea1 n42 on ,sovereignty1 ii4 #afb4 ,authors1 difficulties of1 in ,france in the eighteenth century1 ii4 #ee-fa4 ,,baboeuf1 on the ,revolution1 ii4 #abc1 n4 ,barbier1 ii4 #bf4 ,basedow1 his enthusiasm for ,rousseau's educational theories1 ii4 #bea4 ,beaumont1 ,de1 ,archbishop of ,paris1 mandate against ,rousseau issued by1 ii4 #hc2 argument from1 ii4 #hf4 ,bernard1 maiden name of ,rousseau's mother1 i4 #aj4 ,bienne1 ,rousseau driven to take refuge in island in lake of1 ii4 #ajh2 his account of1 ii4 #aji-aae4 ,bodin1 on ,government1 ii4 #adg2 his definition of an aristocratic state1 ii4 #afh1 n4 ,bonaparte1 ,napoleon1 ii4 #ajb1 n4 ,bossuet1 on ,stage ,plays1 i4 #cba4 ,boswell1 ,james1 ii4 #ih2 visits ,rousseau1 ii4 #ih1 also ib4 n42 urged by ,rousseau to visit ,corsica1 ii4 #ajj2 his letter to ,rousseau1 ii4 #aja4 ,boufflers1 ,madame de1 ii4 #e1 ib4 n4 ,bougainville 7brother of the navigator71 i4 #ahd1 n4 ,brutus1 how ,rousseau came to be panegyrist of1 i4 #ahg4 ,buffon1 ii4 #bje4 ,burke1 ii4 #adj1 #aib4 ,burnet1 ,bishop1 on ,genevese1 i4 #bbe4 ,burton1 ,john ,hill1 his ,life of ,hume 7on ,rousseau71 ii4 #bhc1 n4 ,byron1 ,lord1 antecedents of highest creative efforts1 ii4 #a2 effect of nature upon1 ii4 #dj2 difference between and ,rousseau1 ii4 #da4 ,,calas1 i4 #cab4 ,calvin1 i4 #d1 #ahi2 ,rousseau on1 as a legislator1 ii4 #aca2 and ,servetus1 ii4 #ahj2 mentioned1 ii4 #aha4 ,candide1 thought by ,rousseau to be meant as a reply to him1 i4 #cai4 ,cardan1 ii4 #cjc4 ,cato1 how ,rousseau came to be his panegyrist1 i4 #ahg4 ,chambri1 probable date of ,rousseau's return to1 i4 #fb1 n42 takes up his residence there1 i4 #fi2 effect on his mind of a ,french column of troops passing through1 i4 #gb1 #gc2 his illness at1 i4 #gc1 n4 ,charmettes1 ,les1 ,madame de ,warens's residence1 i4 #gc2 present condition of1 i4 #gd1 #ge1 n42 time spent there by ,rousseau1 i4 #id4 ,charron1 ii4 #bjc4 ,chateaubriand1 influenced by ,rousseau1 i4 #c4 ,chatham1 ,lord1 ii4 #ib4 ,chaumette1 ii4 #agh2 guillotined on charge of endeavouring to establish atheism in ,france1 ii4 #agi4 ,chesterfield1 ,lord1 ii4 #ae4 ,choiseul1 ii4 #eg1 #fd1 #gb4 ,citizen1 revolutionary use of word1 derived from ,rousseau1 ii4 #afa4 ,civilisation1 variety of the origin and process of1 i4 #agf2 defects of1 i4 #agf2 one of the worst trials of1 ii4 #ajb4 ,cobbett1 ii4 #db4 ,collier1 ,jeremy1 on the ,english ,stage1 i4 #cbc4 ,condillac1 i4 #ie4 ,condorcet1 i4 #hi2 on ,social ,position of ,women1 i4 #cce2 human perfectibility1 ii4 #aai2 inspiration of1 drawn from the school of ,voltaire and ,rousseau1 ii4 #aid2 belief of1 in the improvement of humanity1 ii4 #bdf2 grievous mistake of1 ii4 #bdg4 ,confessions1 the1 not to be trusted for minute accuracy1 i4 #hf1 n42 or for dates1 i4 #ic2 first part written #agff1 ii4 #cja2 their character1 ii4 #cjc2 published surreptitiously1 ii4 #cbd1 n42 readings from1 prohibited by police1 ii4 #cbd4 ,conti1 ,prince of1 ii4 #d-g2 receives ,rousseau at ,trye1 ii4 #aah4 ,contract1 ,social1 i4 #acf4 ,corsica1 struggles for independence of1 ii4 #ii2 ,rousseau invited to legislate for1 ii4 #ii-ajb2 bought by ,france1 ii4 #ajb4 ,cowper1 i4 #bj2 ii4 #da2 on ,rousseau1 ii4 #da n42 lines in the ,task1 ii4 #bec2 his delusions1 ii4 #cja4 ,cynicism1 ,rousseau's assumption of1 i4 #bjf4 ,d',,aiguillon1 ii4 #gb4 ,d',alembert1 i4 #hi2 ,voltaire's staunchest henchman1 i4 #cba2 his article on ,geneva1 i4 #cba2 on ,stage ,plays1 i4 #cbf1 n42 on ,position of ,women in ,society1 i4 #cce2 on ,rousseau's letter on the ,theatre1 i4 #ccf2 suspected by ,rousseau of having written the pretended letter from ,frederick of ,prussia1 ii4 #bhh2 advises ,hume to publish account of ,rousseau's quarrel with him1 ii4 #bid4 ,d',argenson1 ii4 #ahj4 ,dates of ,rousseau's letters to be relied on1 not those of the ,confessions1 i4 #ic4 ,davenport1 ,mr41 provides ,rousseau with a home at ,wootton1 ii4 #bhf2 his kindness to ,rousseau1 ii4 #cjf4 ,deism1 ,rousseau's1 ii4 #bfj-bge2 that of others1 ii4 #bfb-bfe2 shortcomings of ,rousseau's1 ii4 #bgj4 ,democracy defined1 ii4 #afh2 rejected by ,rousseau1 as too perfect for men1 ii4 #aga4 ,d',epinay1 ,madame1 i4 #aid1 #aie1 #bje2 gives the ,hermitage to ,rousseau1 i4 #bbi1 n42 his quarrels with1 i4 #bga2 his relations with1 i4 #bgc1 #bgf2 journey to ,geneva of1 i4 #bhd2 squabbles arising out of1 between1 and ,rousseau1 ,diderot1 and ,grimm1 i4 #bhe-bij2 mentioned1 ii4 #g1 #bf1 #aig2 wrote on education1 ii4 #aii2 applies to secretary of police to prohibit ,rousseau's readings from his ,confessions1 ii4 #cbd4 ,d',epinay1 ,monsieur1 i4 #bed2 ii4 #bf4 ,descartes1 i4 #hg1 #bbe2 ii4 #bfg4 ,deux ,ponts1 ,duc de1 ,rousseau's rude reply to1 i4 #bjg4 ,d',holbach1 i4 #aib2 ,rousseau's dislike of his materialistic friends1 i4 #bbc2 ii4 #cg1 #bef4 ,d',houdetot1 ,madame1 i4 #bee-bgj2 ,madame d',epinay's jealousy of1 i4 #bgh2 mentioned1 ii4 #g2 offers ,rousseau a home in ,normandy1 ii4 #aag4 ,diderot1 i4 #fd1 #hi1 #acc2 tries to manage ,rousseau1 i4 #bac2 his domestic misconduct1 i4 #bae2 leader of the materialistic party1 i4 #bbc2 on ,solitary ,life1 i4 #bcb2 his active life1 i4 #bcc2 without moral sensitiveness1 i4 #bfb2 mentioned1 i4 #bfb1 #bfi1 #bga2 ii4 #h2 his relations with ,rousseau1 i4 #bga2 accused of pilfering ,goldoni's new play1 i4 #bge2 his relations and contentions with ,rousseau1 i4 #bge1 #bgf2 lectures ,rousseau about ,madame d',epinay1 i4 #bhd2 visits ,rousseau after his leaving the ,hermitage1 i4 #bhi2 ,rousseau's final breach with1 i4 #ccf2 his criticism1 and plays1 ii4 #cd2 his defects1 ii4 #cd2 thrown into prison1 ii4 #eg2 his difficulties with the ,encyclopdists1 ii4 #eg2 his papers saved from the police by ,malesherbes1 ii4 #fb4 ,dijon1 academy of1 i4 #acb4 ,discourses1 ,the1 ,circumstances of the composition of the first ,discourse1 i4 #acc-acf2 summary of it1 i4 #ach-ade disastrous effect of the progress of sciences and arts1 i4 #adj1 #ada2 error more dangerous than truth useful1 i4 #ada2 uselessness of learning and art1 i4 #ada1 #adb2 terrible disorders caused in ,europe by the art of printing1 i4 #adc2 two kinds of ignorance1 i4 #add2 the relation of this ,discourse to ,montaigne1 i4 #ade2 its one-sidedness and hollowness1 i4 #adh2 shown by ,voltaire1 i4 #adh2 its positive side1 i4 #adi1 #aej2 second ,discourse1 origin of the ,inequality of ,man1 i4 #aed2 summary of it1 i4 #aei1 #agj2 state of nature1 i4 #aej1 #afb2 ,hobbes's mistake1 i4 #afa2 what broke up the state of nature1 i4 #afd2 its preferableness1 i4 #aff1 #afg2 origin of society and laws1 i4 #afh2 new state of nature1 i4 #afi2 main position of the ,discourse1 i4 #afi2 its utter inclusiveness1 i4 #agj2 criticism on its method1 i4 #agj2 on its matter1 i4 #agb2 wanting in evidence1 i4 #agb2 further objections to it1 i4 #agc2 assumes uniformity of process1 i4 #agf2 its unscientific character1 i4 #agg2 its real importance1 i4 #agh2 its protest against the mockery of civilisation1 i4 #agh2 equality of man1 i4 #aha2 different effects of this doctrine in ,france and the ,united ,states explained1 i4 #ahb1 #ahc2 discovers a reaction against the historical method of ,montesquieu1 i4 #ahc1 #ahd2 pecuniary results of1 i4 #aif2 ,diderot's praise of first ,discourse1 i4 #bjj2 ,voltaire's acknowledgement of gift of second ,discourse1 i4 #cjh2 the1 an attack on the general ordering of society1 ii4 #bb2 referred to1 ii4 #da4 ,drama1 its proper effect1 i4 #cbf2 what would be that of its introduction into ,geneva1 i4 #cbg2 true answer to ,rousseau's contentions1 i4 #cbi4 ,dramatic morality1 i4 #cbf4 ,drinkers1 ,rousseau's estimate of1 i4 #ccj4 ,drunkenness1 how esteemed in ,switzerland and ,naples1 i4 #cca4 ,duclos1 i4 #bjf2 ii4 #fb4 ,duni1 i4 #bib4 ,dupin1 ,madame de1 ,rousseau secretary to1 i4 #abj2 her position in society1 i4 #aie2 ,rousseau's country life with1 i4 #aif2 friend of the ,abb de ,saint ,pierre1 i4 #bdd4 ,,education1 interest taken in1 in ,france in ,rousseau's time1 ii4 #aic1 #aid2 its new direction ii4 #aie2 ,locke1 the pioneer of1 ii4 #bjb1 #bjc2 ,rousseau's special merit in connection with1 ii4 #bjc2 his views on 7see ,emilius1 passim1 as well as for general consideration of7 what it is1 ii4 #bai2 plans of1 of ,locke and others1 designed for the higher class1 ii4 #bed2 ,rousseau's for all1 ii4 #bed4 ,emile1 i4 #acf1 #aif4 ,emilius1 character of1 ii4 #b1 #c2 particulars of the publication of1 ii4 #ei1 #fj2 effect of1 on ,rousseau's fortunes1 ii4 #fb-fd2 ordered to be burnt by public executioner at ,paris1 ii4 #fe2 at ,geneva1 ii4 #gb2 condemned by the ,sorbonne1 ii4 #hb2 supplied 7as also did the ,social ,contract7 dialect for the longing in ,france and ,germany to return to nature1 ii4 #aic2 substance of1 furnished by ,locke1 ii4 #bjb2 examination of1 ii4 #aig-bhj2 mischief produced by its good advice1 ii4 #bjf1 #bjg2 training of young children1 ii4 #bjg1 #bjh2 constantly reasoning with them a mistake of ,locke's1 ii4 #bji2 ,rousseau's central idea1 disparagement of the reasoning faculty1 ii4 #bji1 #baj2 theories of education1 practice better than precept1 ii4 #baa2 the idea of property1 the first that ,rousseau would have given to a child1 ii4 #bab2 modes of teaching1 ii4 #bad1 #bae2 futility of such methods1 ii4 #bae1 #baf2 where ,rousseau is right1 and where wrong1 ii4 #bai1 #bbj2 effect of his own want of parental love1 ii4 #bbj2 teaches that everybody should learn a trade1 ii4 #bbc2 no special foresight1 ii4 #bbd1 #bbe2 supremacy of the common people insisted upon1 ii4 #bbf1 #bbg2 three dominant states of mind to be established by the instructor1 ii4 #bbi1 #bcj2 ,rousseau's incomplete notion of justice1 ii4 #bca2 ideal of ,emilius1 ii4 #bcb1 #bcc2 forbids early teaching of history1 ii4 #bcg1 #bch2 disparages modern history1 ii4 #bci2 criticism on the old historians1 ii4 #bdj2 education of women1 ii4 #bda2 ,rousseau's failure here1 ii4 #bdb1 #bdc2 inconsistent with himself1 ii4 #bdd1 #bde2 worthlessness of his views1 ii4 #bdi2 real merits of the work1 ii4 #bdi2 its effect in ,germany1 ii4 #bea1 #beb2 not much effect on education in ,england1 ii4 #beb2 ,emilius the first expression of democratic teaching in education1 ii4 #bed2 ,rousseau's deism1 ii4 #beh1 #bfj1 #bfd-bfg1 #bfi1 #bgj1 #bgf2 its inadequacy for the wants of men1 ii4 #bfg-bgj2 his position towards ,christianity1 ii4 #bgj-bgf2 real satisfaction of the religious emotions1 ii4 #bge-bhj4 ,encyclopdia1 ,the1 ,d',alembert's article on ,geneva in1 i4 #cba4 ,encyclopdists1 the society of1 confirms ,rousseau's religious faith1 i4 #bba2 referred to1 ii4 #beg4 ,evil1 discussions on ,rousseau's1 ,voltaire's1 and ,de ,maistre's teachings concerning1 i4 #cac1 n41 #cah2 different effect of existence of1 on ,rousseau and ,voltaire1 i4 #cai4 ,f,,nelon1 ii4 #cg1 #bdh2 ,rousseau's veneration for1 ii4 #cba4 ,ferguson1 ,adam1 ii4 #bec4 ,filmer contends that a man is not naturally free1 ii4 #abf4 ,foundling ,hospital1 ,rousseau sends his children to the1 i4 #abj4 ,france1 debt of1 to ,rousseau1 i4 #c2 ,rousseau the one great religious writer of1 in the eighteenth century1 i4 #bf2 his wanderings in the east of1 i4 #fa2 his fondness for1 i4 #fb-gb2 establishment of local academies in1 i4 #acb2 decay in1 of ,greek literary studies1 i4 #adf2 effects in1 of doctrine of equality of man1 i4 #ahb2 effects in1 of ,montesquieu's ,spirit of ,laws1 i4 #ahc2 amiability of1 in the eighteenth century1 i4 #ahg2 effect of ,rousseau's writings in1 i4 #ahg2 collective organisation in1 i4 #bbb2 ,st4 ,pierre's strictures on government of1 i4 #bdd2 ,rousseau on government of1 i4 #bdf2 effect of ,rousseau's spiritual element on1 i4 #cjf2 patriotism wanting in1 i4 #ccb2 difficulties of authorship in1 ii4 #ee-fd2 buys ,corsica from the ,genoese1 ii4 #ajb2 state of1 after #agib1 apparently favourable to the carrying out of ,rousseau's political views1 ii4 #aca1 #acb2 in #agic1 ii4 #ace2 haunted by narrow and fervid minds1 ii4 #adb4 ,francueil1 ,rousseau's patron1 i4 #ii2 grandfather of ,madame ,george ,sand1 i4 #ii1 n42 ,rousseau's salary from1 i4 #abj2 country-house of1 i4 #aif4 ,franklin1 ,benjamin1 ii4 #db4 ,frederick of ,prussia1 relations between1 and ,rousseau1 ii4 #gc-gh2 famous bull of1 ii4 #ij4 ,freeman on ,growth of ,english ,constitution1 ii4 #afd4 ,french1 principles of1 revolution1 i4 #a1 #b1 #c2 process and ideas of1 i4 #d2 ,rousseau of old1 stock1 i4 #h2 poetry1 ,rousseau on1 i4 #ij1 ib4 n42 melody1 i4 #aje2 academy1 thesis for prize1 i4 #aej1 n42 philosophers1 i4 #bjb1 music1 i4 #bia2 music1 its pretensions demolished by ,rousseau1 i4 #bid2 ecclesiastics opposed to the theatre1 ii4 #cbb2 stage1 ,rousseau on1 i4 #cbe2 morals1 depravity of1 ii4 #bf1 #bg2 ,barbier on1 ii4 #bf2 thought1 benefit1 or otherwise of revolution on1 ii4 #ed2 history1 evil side of1 in ,rousseau's time1 ii4 #ef2 indebted to ,holland for freedom of the press1 ii4 #ei2 catholic and monarchic absolutism sunk deep into the character of the1 ii4 #afg4 ,french ,convention1 story of member of the1 ii4 #acd1 n4 ,,galuppi1 effect of his music1 i4 #aje4 ,geneva1 i4 #h2 characteristics of its people1 i4 #i2 ,rousseau's visit to1 i4 #ic2 influence of1 on ,rousseau1 i4 #id2 he revisits it in #aged1 i4 #ahf-aij1 #bah2 turns ,protestant again there1 i4 #bbj2 religious opinion in1 i4 #bbc 7also i4 #bbd1 n472 ,rousseau thinks of taking up his abode in1 i4 #bbh2 ,voltaire at1 i4 #cjh2 ,d',alembert's article on1 in ,encyclopdia1 i4 #cba2 ,rousseau's notions of effect of introducing the drama at1 i4 #cbg2 council of1 order public burning of ,emilius and the ,social ,contract1 and arrest of the author if he came there1 ii4 #gb2 the only place where the ,social ,contract was actually burnt1 ii4 #gc1 n42 ,voltaire suspected to have had a hand in the matter1 ii4 #ha2 council of1 divided into two camps by ,rousseau's condemnation1 in #agfb1 ii4 #ajb2 ,rousseau renounces his citizenship in1 ii4 #ajd2 working of the republic1 ii4 #ajd4 ,genevese1 ,bishop ,burnet on1 i4 #bbe2 ,rousseau's distrust of1 i4 #bbh2 his panegyric on1 i4 #cbh2 manners of1 according to ,rousseau1 i4 #ccj2 their complaint of it1 i4 #cca4 ,genlis1 ,madame de1 ii4 #cbc4 ,genoa1 ,rousseau in quarantine at1 i4 #ajc2 ,corsica sold to ,france by1 ii4 #ajb4 ,germany1 sentimental movements in1 ii4 #cc4 ,gibbon1 ,edward1 at ,lausanne1 ii4 #if4 ,girardin1 ,st4 ,marc1 on ,rousseau1 i4 #aaa1 n42 on ,rousseau's discussions1 ii4 #aa1 n42 offers ,rousseau a home1 ii4 #cbf4 ,gluck1 i4 #bia1 #bif2 ,rousseau quarrels with1 for setting his music to ,french words1 ii4 #cbc4 ,goethe1 i4 #bj4 ,goguet on ,society1 ii4 #abg1 n42 on tacit conventions1 ii4 #adh1 n42 on law1 ii4 #aec1 n4 ,goldoni1 ,diderot accused of pilfering his new play1 i4 #bge4 ,gothic architecture denounced by ,voltaire and ,turgot1 i4 #bid4 ,gouvon1 ,count1 ,rousseau servant to1 i4 #db4 ,government1 disquisitions on1 ii4 #aca-bjf2 remarks on1 ii4 #aca-ada2 early democratic ideas of1 ii4 #add-adh2 ,hobbes' philosophy of1 ii4 #aea2 ,rousseau's science of1 ii4 #aee1 #aef2 ,de la ,rivire's science of1 ii4 #aef1 n42 federation recommended by ,rousseau to the ,poles1 ii4 #aff2 three forms of government defined1 ii4 #afi2 definition inadequate1 ii4 #afi2 ,montesquieu's definition1 ii4 #afi2 ,rousseau's distinction between tyrant and despot1 ii4 #afi1 n42 his objection to democracy1 ii4 #agb2 to monarchy1 ii4 #agc2 consideration of aristocracy1 ii4 #agd2 his own scheme1 ii4 #age2 ,hobbes's ,passive ,obedience1 ii4 #aha1 #ahb2 social conscience theory1 ii4 #ahc-ahg2 government made impossible by ,rousseau's doctrine of social contract1 ii4 #ahh-aib2 ,burke on expediency in1 ii4 #aib2 what a civilised nation is1 ii4 #aid2 ,jefferson on1 ii4 #bbg1 #bbh1 n4 ,governments1 earliest1 how composed1 i4 #afi4 ,graffigny1 ,madame de1 ii4 #aii4 ,gratitude1 ,rousseau on1 ii4 #ad1 #ae2 explanation of his want of1 ii4 #gj4 ,greece1 importance of history of1 i4 #ahd1 and ib4 n4 ,greek ideas1 influence of1 in ,france in the eighteenth century1 i4 #adf4 ,grenoble1 i4 #ic4 ,grtry1 i4 #bib1 #bif2 ii4 #cbc4 ,grimm1 description of ,rousseau by1 i4 #bjf2 ,rousseau's quarrels with1 i4 #bgi2 letter of1 about ,rousseau and ,diderot1 i4 #bge2 relations of1 with ,rousseau1 i4 #bgi2 some account of his life1 i4 #bgi2 his conversation with ,madame d',epinay1 i4 #bha2 criticism on ,rousseau1 i4 #bha2 natural want of sympathy between the two1 i4 #bhb2 ,rousseau's quarrel with1 i4 #bhe-bij2 ii4 #fe1 #aii4 ,grotius1 on ,government1 ii4 #adh4 ,h,,bert1 ii4 #agh2 prevents publication of a book in which the author professed his belief in a god1 ii4 #agi4 ,helmholtz1 i4 #bii4 ,helvtius1 i4 #aia2 ii4 #fe1 #aii4 ,herder1 ii4 #bea2 ,rousseau's influence on1 ii4 #cae4 ,hermitage1 the1 given to ,rousseau by ,madame d',epinay1 i4 #bbi 7also ib4 n472 what his friends thought of it1 i4 #bca2 sale of1 after the ,revolution1 i4 #bcg1 n42 reasons for ,rousseau's leaving1 i4 #bhf4 ,hildebrand1 i4 #d4 ,hobbes1 i4 #adc1 #afa2 his ,philosophy of ,government1 ii4 #aea2 singular influence of1 upon ,rousseau1 ii4 #aea1 #ahc2 essential difference between his views and those of ,rousseau1 ii4 #aei2 on ,sovereignty1 ii4 #afb2 ,rousseau's definition of the three forms of government adopted by1 inadequate1 ii4 #afh2 would reduce spiritual and temporal jurisdiction to one political unity1 ii4 #ahc4 ,holbachians1 i4 #ccg2 ii4 #b4 ,hooker1 on ,civil ,government1 ii4 #adh4 ,htel ,st4 ,quentin1 ,rousseau at1 i4 #ajf4 ,hume1 ,david1 i4 #fd1 #hi2 his deep-set sagacity1 i4 #aef1 ii4 #f1 #ge2 suspected of tampering with ,boswell's letter1 ii4 #ih1 n42 on ,boswell1 ii4 #aja1 n42 his eagerness to find ,rousseau a refuge in ,england1 ii4 #bhb1 #bhc2 his account of ,rousseau1 ii4 #bhd2 finds him a home at ,wootton1 ii4 #bhf2 ,rousseau's quarrel with1 ii4 #bhf-bia 7also ii4 #bij1 n472 his innocence of ,walpole's letter1 ii4 #bib2 his conduct in the quarrel1 ii4 #bic2 saves ,rousseau from arrest of ,french ,government1 ii4 #bie2 on ,rousseau's sensitiveness1 ii4 #bii4 ,,imagination1 ,rousseau's1 i4 #bdg4 ,,jacobins1 the1 ,rousseau's ,social ,contract1 their gospel1 ii4 #acb1 #acc2 their mistake1 ii4 #acf2 convenience to them of some of the maxims of the ,social ,contract1 ii4 #adb2 ,jacobin supremacy and ,hobbism1 ii4 #aeb2 how they might have saved ,france1 ii4 #afg4 ,jansen1 his propositions1 i4 #ha4 ,jansenists1 ,rousseau's suspicions of1 ii4 #fc2 mentioned1 ii4 #hi4 ,jean ,paul1 ii4 #baf1 #beb4 ,jefferson1 ii4 #bbg1 n4 ,jesuits1 ,rousseau's suspicions of the1 ii4 #fd2 the1 and parliaments1 ii4 #fe2 movement against1 ii4 #fe2 suppression of the1 leads to increased thought about education1 ii4 #aii4 ,johnson1 ii4 #ae1 #ih4 ,,kames1 ,lord1 ii4 #bec4 ,,lamennais1 influenced by ,rousseau1 ii4 #bbh4 ,language1 origin of1 i4 #afa4 ,latour1 ,madame1 ii4 #ai1 ib4 n4 ,lavater favourable to education on ,rousseau's plan1 ii4 #bea 7also ib4 n47 ,lavoisier1 reply to his request for a fortnight's respite1 ii4 #bbg1 n4 ,law1 not a contract1 ii4 #aec4 ,lecouvreur1 ,adrienne1 refused ,christian burial on account of her being an actress1 i4 #cbc4 ,leibnitz1 i4 #hg2 his optimism1 i4 #cji2 on the constitution of the universe1 i4 #cab4 ,lessing1 on ,pope1 i4 #caj1 n4 ,letters from the ,mountain1 ii4 #ajd2 burned1 by command1 at ,paris and the ,hague1 ii4 #aje4 ,liberty1 ,english1 ,rousseau's notion of1 ii4 #afc1 n4 ,life1 ,rousseau's condemnation of the contemplative1 i4 #aj2 his idea of household1 i4 #da2 easier for him to preach than for others to practise1 i4 #dc4 ,lisbon1 earthquake of1 ,voltaire on1 i4 #caj2 ,rousseau's letter to ,voltaire on1 i4 #caj1 #caa4 ,locke1 his ,essay1 i4 #hg2 his notions1 i4 #hg2 his influence upon ,rousseau1 ii4 #aba-abf2 on ,marriage1 ii4 #abf2 on ,civil ,government1 ii4 #adi1 #aej1 n42 indefiniteness of his views1 ii4 #afj2 the pioneer of ,french thought on education1 ii4 #bjb1 #bjc2 ,rousseau's indebtedness to1 ii4 #bjc2 his mistake in education1 ii4 #bji2 subjects of his theories1 ii4 #bed4 ,lulli 7music71 i4 #bia4 ,luther1 i4 #d4 ,luxembourg1 the ,duke of1 gives ,rousseau a home1 ii4 #b-g1 #i4 ,luxembourg1 the ,marchale de1 in vain seeks ,rousseau's children1 i4 #abh2 helps to get ,emilius published1 ii4 #fc-fd1 #fg4 ,lycurgus1 ii4 #abi1 #aca2 influence of1 upon ,saint ,just1 ii4 #acc4 ,lyons1 ,rousseau a tutor at1 i4 #ie-ig4 ,,mably1 ,de1 i4 #ie2 his socialism1 i4 #ahd2 applied to for scheme for the government of ,poland1 ii4 #cbd4 ,maistre1 ,de1 i4 #ade2 on ,optimism1 i4 #cad4 ,maitre1 ,le1 teaches ,rousseau music1 i4 #eh4 ,malebranche1 i4 #hg4 ,malesherbes1 ,rousseau confesses his ungrateful nature to1 ii4 #ad2 his dishonest advice to ,rousseau1 ii4 #fj2 helps ,diderot1 ii4 #fb2 and ,rousseau in the publishing of ,emilius1 ii4 #fb1 #fc2 endangered by it1 ii4 #fg2 asks ,rousseau to collect plants for him1 ii4 #gf4 ,man1 his specific distinction from other animals1 i4 #afa2 his state of nature1 i4 #afa2 ,hobbes wrong concerning this1 i4 #afa2 equality of1 i4 #ahj2 effects of this doctrine in ,france and in the ,united ,states1 i4 #ahb2 not naturally free1 ii4 #abf4 ,mandeville1 i4 #afb4 ,manners1 ,rousseau's1 ,marmontel1 and ,grimm on1 i4 #bje1 #bjf2 ,rousseau on ,swiss1 i4 #cbi1 #ccj2 depravity of ,french1 in the eighteenth century1 ii4 #be1 #bf4 ,marischal1 ,lord1 friendship between1 and ,rousseau1 ii4 #gi-ha2 account of1 ii4 #hj2 on ,boswell1 ii4 #ih ,marmontel1 on ,rousseau's manners1 i4 #bjf2 on his success1 ii4 #b4 ,marriage1 design of the ,new ,helosa to exalt1 ii4 #df-dh1 ib4 n4 ,marsilio1 of ,padua1 on ,law1 ii4 #ade4 ,men1 inequality of1 ,rousseau's second ,discourse 7see ,discourses71 dedicated to the republic of ,geneva1 i4 #aij2 how received there1 i4 #bbh4 ,mirabeau the elder1 ,rousseau's letter to1 from ,wootton1 ii4 #cje1 #cjf2 his character1 ii4 #cji-cab2 receives ,rousseau at ,fleury1 ii4 #caa4 ,mirabeau1 ,gabriel1 ,rousseau's influence on1 ii4 #cae4 ,molire 7,misanthrope of71 ,rousseau's criticism on1 i4 #cbi2 ,d',alembert on1 i4 #cbi4 ,monarchy1 ,rousseau's objection to1 ii4 #aga4 ,montaigu1 ,count de1 avarice of1 i4 #aja1 #ajb4 ,montaigne1 ,rousseau's obligations to1 i4 #ade2 influence of1 on ,rousseau1 ii4 #bjc4 ,montesquieu1 incomplete positivity of1 i4 #aef2 on ,government1 i4 #aeg2 effect of his ,spirit of ,laws on ,rousseau1 i4 #ahc2 confused definition of laws1 ii4 #aec2 balanced parliamentary system of1 ii4 #afc2 his definition of forms of government1 ii4 #afi4 ,montmorency1 ,rousseau goes to live there1 i4 #bbi2 his life at1 ii4 #b-i4 ,montpellier1 i4 #ib4 ,morals1 state of1 in ,france in the eighteenth century1 ii4 #bf4 ,morellet1 thrown into the ,bastile1 ii4 #eg4 ,morelly1 his indirect influence on ,rousseau1 i4 #aef2 his socialistic theory1 i4 #aeg1 #aeh2 his rules for organising a model community1 i4 #aeh1 n42 his terse exposition of inequality contrasted with that of ,rousseau1 i4 #agj2 on primitive human nature1 i4 #age2 his socialism1 ii4 #eb2 influence of his model community upon ,st4 ,just1 ii4 #acc1 n42 advice to mothers1 ii4 #bje4 ,motiers1 ,rousseau's home there1 ii4 #gg2 attends divine service at1 ii4 #ia2 life at1 ii4 #ia1 #ic4 ,moultou 7pastor of ,motiers71 his enthusiasm for ,rousseau1 ii4 #hb4 ,music1 ,rousseau undertakes to teach1 i4 #fj2 ,rousseau's opinion concerning ,italian1 i4 #aje2 effect of ,galuppi's1 i4 #aje2 ,rousseau earns his living by copying1 i4 #aif2 ii4 #cae2 ,rameau's criticism on ,rousseau's ,muses ,galantes1 i4 #baa2 ,french1 i4 #bia2 ,rousseau's letter on1 i4 #bib2 ,italian1 denounced at ,paris1 i4 #bib2 ,rousseau utterly condemns ,french1 i4 #bid2 quarrels with ,gluck for setting his1 to ,french words1 ii4 #cbc4 ,musical notation1 ,rousseau's1 i4 #bia2 his ,musical ,dictionary1 i4 #bif2 his notation explained1 i4 #bif-cja2 his system inapplicable to instruments1 i4 #cja4 ,,naples1 drunkenness1 how regarded in1 i4 #cca4 ,narcisse1 ,rousseau's condemnation of his own comedy of1 i4 #bae4 ,nature1 ,rousseau's love of1 i4 #bcd-bda2 ii4 #ci2 state of1 ,rousseau1 ,montesquieu1 ,voltaire1 and ,hume on1 i4 #aef-aeh2 ,rousseau's1 in ,second ,discourse1 i4 #aga-ahj2 his starting-point of right1 and normal constitution of civil society1 ii4 #abd4 ,see ,state of ,nature4 ,necker1 ii4 #ed1 #ih1 n4 ,neuchtel1 flight to principality of1 by ,rousseau1 ii4 #gc2 history of1 ii4 #gc1 n42 outbreak at1 arising from religious controversy1 ii4 #ij2 preparations for driving ,rousseau out of1 defeated by ,frederick of ,prussia1 ii4 #ij2 clergy of1 against ,rousseau1 ii4 #ajf4 ,new ,helosa1 first conception of1 i4 #bej2 monument of ,rousseau's fall1 ii4 #a2 when completed and published1 ii4 #b2 read aloud to the ,duchess de ,luxembourg1 ii4 #c2 letter on suicide in1 ii4 #af2 effects upon ,parisian ladies of reading the1 ii4 #ah1 #ai2 criticism on1 ii4 #bj-ee2 his scheme proposed in it1 ii4 #ba2 its story1 ii4 #bd2 its purity1 contrasted with contemporary and later ,french romances1 ii4 #bd2 its general effect1 ii4 #bg2 ,rousseau absolutely without humour1 ii4 #bg2 utter selfishness of hero of1 ii4 #cj2 its heroine1 ii4 #cj2 its popularity1 ii4 #bca1 #bcb2 burlesque on it1 ii4 #ca1 n42 its vital defect1 ii4 #ce2 difference between ,rousseau1 ,byron1 and others1 ii4 #db2 sumptuary details of the story1 ii4 #dd1 #de2 its democratic tendency1 ii4 #di1 #ej2 the bearing of its teaching1 ii4 #ed2 hindrances to its circulation in ,france1 ii4 #eg2 ,malesherbes's low morality as to publishing1 ii4 #fa4 ,,optimism of ,pope and ,leibnitz1 i4 #cji-caj2 discussed1 ii4 #abh-acj4 ,origin of inequality among men1 i4 #aef4 ,see also ,discourses4 ,,paley1 ii4 #aia1 n4 ,palissot1 ii4 #ef4 ,paris1 ,rousseau's first visit to1 i4 #fa2 his second1 i4 #fc1 #ig1 #ajb2 third visit1 i4 #ajf2 effect in1 of his first ,discourse1 i4 #aci1 n42 opinions in1 on religion1 laws1 etc41 i4 #ahe2 mimic philosophy there1 i4 #aic2 society in1 in ,rousseau's time1 i4 #bjb-baa2 his view of it1 i4 #baj2 composes there his ,muses ,galantes1 i4 #baa2 returns to1 from ,geneva1 i4 #bbh2 his belief of the unfitness of its people for political affairs1 i4 #bdf2 goes to1 in #agda1 with his scheme of musical notation1 i4 #bia2 effect there of his letter on music1 i4 #bie2 ,rousseau's imaginary contrast between1 and ,geneva1 i4 #cbi2 ,emilius ordered to be publicly burnt in1 ii4 #fe2 parliament of1 orders ,letters from the ,mountain to be burnt1 ii4 #bie2 also ,voltaire's ,philosophical ,dictionary1 ii4 #bie2 ,danton's scheme for municipal administration of1 ii4 #afh1 n42 two parties 7those of ,voltaire and of ,rousseau7 in1 in #agic1 ii4 #agh2 excitement in1 at ,rousseau's appearance in #agfe1 ii4 #bhc2 he goes to live there in #aggj1 ii4 #cad2 ,voltaire's last visit to1 ii4 #cbc1 #cbd4 ,pris1 ,abb1 miracles at his tomb1 ii4 #hh4 ,parisian frivolity1 i4 #aic1 #bbj1 #cbi4 ,parliament and ,jesuits1 ii4 #fd4 ,pascal1 ii4 #cg4 ,passy1 ,rousseau composes the ,village ,soothsayer at1 i4 #bab4 ,paul1 ,st41 effect of1 on western society1 i4 #d4 ,peasantry1 ,french1 oppression of1 i4 #fg1 #fh4 ,pedigree of ,rousseau1 i4 #h1 n4 ,pelagius1 ii4 #bgb4 ,peoples1 sovereignty of1 ,rousseau not the inventor of doctrine of1 ii4 #add-adh2 taught by ,althusen1 i4 #adg2 constitution of ,helvetic ,republic in #agih1 a blow at1 ii4 #afe4 ,pergolese1 i4 #bib4 ,pestalozzi indebted to ,emilius1 ii4 #beb4 ,philidor1 i4 #bib4 ,philosophers1 of ,rousseau's time1 contradicting each other1 i4 #hg2 ,rousseau's complaint of the1 i4 #bjb2 war between the1 and the priests1 i4 #cbb2 ,rousseau's reactionary protest against1 i4 #cbh2 troubles of1 ii4 #ei2 parliaments hostile to1 ii4 #fd4 ,philosophy1 ,rousseau's disgust at mimic1 at ,paris1 i4 #aic2 drew him to the essential in religion1 i4 #bbj2 ,voltaire's no perfect1 i4 #cah4 ,phlipon1 ,jean ,marie1 ,rousseau's influence on1 ii4 #cae4 ,plato1 his republic1 i4 #abb2 his influence on ,rousseau1 i4 #adf1 #cbe1 n42 ,milton on his ,laws1 ii4 #agh4 ,plays 7stage71 ,rousseau's letter on1 to ,d',alembert1 i4 #cba2 his views of1 i4 #cbc2 ,jeremy ,collier and ,bossuet on1 i4 #cbc2 in ,geneva1 i4 #ccc1 #ccd1 n42 ,rousseau1 ,voltaire1 and ,d',alembert on1 i4 #ccb-ccg4 ,plutarch1 ,rousseau's love for1 i4 #ac4 ,plutocracy1 new1 faults of1 i4 #aie4 ,pompadour1 ,madame de1 and the ,jesuits1 ii4 #fd4 ,pontverre 7priest7 converts ,rousseau to ,romanism1 i4 #ca-ce4 ,pope1 his ,essay on ,man translated by ,voltaire1 i4 #cji2 ,berlin ,academy and ,lessing on it1 i4 #caj1 n42 criticism on it by ,rousseau1 i4 #cab2 its general position reproduced by ,rousseau1 i4 #cae4 ,popelinire1 ,m4 de1 i4 #baa4 ,positive knowledge1 i4 #gh4 ,press1 freedom of the1 ii4 #ei4 ,prvost1 ,abb1 i4 #dh4 ,projet pour l',education1 i4 #if1 n4 ,property1 private1 evils ascribed to i4 #aeg1 #ahe2 ,robespierre disclaimed the intention of attacking1 i4 #abc1 n4 ,protestant principles1 effect of development of1 ii4 #adf-adg4 ,protestantism1 his conversion to1 i4 #bbj2 its influence on ,rousseau1 i4 #bba4 ,,rameau on ,rousseau's ,muses ,galantes1 i4 #aai1 #baa2 mentioned1 i4 #bia4 ,rationalism1 i4 #bbd1 #bbe2 influence of ,descartes on1 i4 #bbe4 ,reason1 ,de ,saint ,pierre's views of1 i4 #bdd4 ,reform1 essential priority of social over political1 ii4 #dc4 ,religion1 simplification of1 i4 #c2 ideas of1 in ,paris1 i4 #ahf1 #ahg1 #bjg1 #bjh2 ,rousseau's view of1 i4 #bbj2 doctrines of1 in ,geneva1 i4 #bbc-bbg1 also n42 curious project concerning it1 by ,rousseau1 i4 #cag2 separation of spiritual and temporal powers deemed mischievous by ,rousseau1 ii4 #agc2 in its relation to the state may be considered as of three kinds1 ii4 #age2 duty of the sovereign to establish a civil confession of faith1 ii4 #agf1 #agg2 positive dogmas of this1 ii4 #agf2 ,rousseau's pure ,hobbism1 ii4 #agg4 ,see ,savoyard ,vicar 7,emilius71 ii4 #bef1 #bha4 ,renou1 ,rousseau assumes name of1 i4 #abi2 ii4 #cab4 ,revelation1 ,christian1 ,rousseau's controversy on1 with ,archbishop of ,paris1 ii4 #hf-ia4 ,rveries1 ,rousseau's relinquishing society1 i4 #aii2 description of his life in the isle of ,st4 ,peter1 in the1 ii4 #aji-aae2 their style ii4 #cad4 ,revolution1 ,french1 principles of1 i4 #a1 #b2 benefits of1 or otherwise1 ii4 #ed2 ,baboeuf on1 ii4 #abc1 #abd1 n42 the starting point in the history of its ideas1 ii4 #afj4 ,revolutionary process and ideal i4 #d1 #e4 ,revolutionists1 difference among1 i4 #b4 ,richardson 7the novelist71 ii4 #be1 #bh4 ,richelieu's brief patronage of ,rousseau1 i4 #aie1 #cjb4 ,rivire1 de la1 origin of society1 ii4 #aef1 #aeg2 anecdote of1 ii4 #aef1 #aeg1 n4 ,robecq1 ,madame de1 ii4 #ef4 ,robespierre1 ii4 #abc1 #acd1 #afj1 #agh1 #agi2 his sacred right of insurrection1 ii4 #ahh1 n42 ,rousseau's influence on1 ii4 #cae4 ,rousseau1 ,didier1 i4 #h4 ,rousseau1 ,jean ,baptiste1 i4 #fa1 n4 ,rousseau1 ,jean ,jacques1 influence of his writings on ,france and the ,american colonists1 i4 #a1 #b2 on ,robespierre1 ,paine1 and ,chateaubriand1 i4 #c2 his place as a leader1 i4 #c2 starting-point1 of his mental habits1 i4 #d2 personality of1 i4 #d2 influence on the common people1 i4 #e2 his birth and ancestry1 i4 #h2 pedigree1 i4 #h1 n42 parents1 i4 #aj1 #aa2 influence upon him of his father's character1 i4 #aa1 #ab2 his reading in childhood1 i4 #ab1 #ac2 love of ,plutarch1 i4 #ac2 early years1 i4 #ac1 #ad2 sent to school at ,bossey1 i4 #ae2 deterioration of his moral character there1 i4 #ag2 indignation at an unjust punishment1 i4 #ag1 #ah2 leaves school1 i4 #bj2 youthful life at ,geneva1 i4 #ba1 #bb2 his remarks on its character1 i4 #bd2 anecdotes of it1 i4 #bb1 #bd2 his leading error as to the education of the young1 i4 #be1 #bf2 religious training1 i4 #be2 apprenticeship1 i4 #bf2 boyish doings1 i4 #bg2 harshness of his master1 i4 #bg2 runs away1 i4 #bi2 received by the priest of ,confignon1 i4 #ca2 sent to ,madame de ,warens1 i4 #hd2 at ,turin1 i4 #ce2 hypocritical conversion to ,roman ,catholicism1 i4 #cg2 motive1 i4 #ch2 registry of his baptism1 i4 #ch1 n42 his forlorn condition1 i4 #ci2 love of music1 i4 #ci2 becomes servant to ,madame de ,vercellis1 i4 #ci2 his theft1 lying1 and excuses for it1 i4 #ci1 #dj2 becomes servant to ,count of ,gouvon1 i4 #db2 dismissed1 i4 #dc2 returns to ,madame de ,warens1 i4 #de2 his temperament1 i4 #df1 #dg2 in training for the priesthood1 but pronounced too stupid1 i4 #eg2 tries music1 i4 #eg2 shamelessly abandons his companion1 i4 #eh2 goes to ,freiburg1 ,neuchtel1 and ,paris1 i4 #fa1 #fb2 conjectural chronology of his movements about this time4 i4 #fb1 n42 love of vagabond life1 i4 #fb-fh2 effect upon him of his intercourse with the poor1 i4 #fh2 becomes clerk to a land surveyor at ,chambri1 i4 #fi2 life there1 i4 #fi-gb2 ill-health and retirement to ,les ,charmettes1 i4 #gc2 his latest recollection of this time1 i4 #ge-gg2 his form of worship1 i4 #gg2 love of nature1 i4 #gg1 #gh2 notion of deity1 i4 #gg2 peculiar intellectual feebleness1 i4 #ha2 criticism on himself1 i4 #hc2 want of logic in his mental constitution1 i4 #he2 effect on him of ,voltaire's ,letters on the ,english1 i4 #he2 self-training1 i4 #hf2 mistaken method of it1 i4 #hf1 #hg2 writes a comedy1 i4 #hi2 enjoyment of rural life at ,les ,charmettes1 i4 #ia1 #ib2 robs ,madame de ,warens1 i4 #ib2 leaves her1 i4 #ic2 discrepancy between dates of his letters and the ,confessions1 i4 #ic2 takes a tutorship at ,lyons1 i4 #ie2 condemns the practice of writing ,latin1 i4 #if1 n42 resigns his tutorship1 and goes to ,paris1 i4 #ig2 reception there1 i4 #ih-ajj2 appointed secretary to ,french ,ambassador at ,venice1 i4 #ajj-ajf2 in quarantine at ,genoa1 i4 #ajd2 his estimate of ,french melody1 i4 #aje2 returns to ,paris1 i4 #ajf2 becomes acquainted with ,theresa ,le ,vasseur1 i4 #ajf2 his conduct criticised1 i4 #ajg-aac2 simple life1 i4 #aac2 letter to her1 i4 #aae-aai2 his poverty1 i4 #aai2 becomes secretary to ,madame ,dupin and her son-in-law1 ,m4 de ,francueil1 i4 #aai2 sends his children to the foundling hospital1 i4 #abj1 #aba2 paltry excuses for the crime1 i4 #aba-abf2 his pretended marriage under the name of ,renou1 i4 #abi2 his ,discourses1 i4 #acb-ahf 7see ,discourses72 writes essays for academy of ,dijon1 i4 #acb2 origin of first essay1 i4 #acc-acg2 his visions for thirteen years1 i4 #ach2 evil effect upon himself of the first ,discourse1 i4 #ach2 of it1 the second ,discourse and the ,social ,contract upon ,europe1 i4 #ach2 his own opinion of it1 i4 #ach1 #aci2 influence of ,plato upon him1 i4 #adf2 second ,discourse1 i4 #aed2 his ,state of ,nature1 i4 #aei2 no evidence for it1 i4 #agb2 influence of ,montesquieu on him1 i4 #ahc2 inconsistency of his views1 i4 #abd2 influence of ,geneva upon him1 i4 #ahg1 #ahh2 his disgust at ,parisian philosophers1 i4 #aia1 #aib2 the two sides of his character1 i4 #aic2 associates in ,paris1 i4 #aic2 his income1 i4 #aif1 #aig1 n42 post of cashier1 i4 #aif2 throws it up1 i4 #aig1 #aih2 determines to earn his living by copying music1 i4 #aih1 #aii2 change of manners1 i4 #bja2 dislike of the manners of his time1 i4 #bjb1 #bjc2 assumption of a seeming cynicism1 i4 #bjf2 ,grimm's rebuke of it1 i4 #bjf2 ,rousseau's protest against atheism1 i4 #bjh1 #bji2 composes a musical interlude1 the ,village ,soothsayer1 i4 #bab2 his nervousness loses him the chance of a pension1 i4 #bac2 his moral simplicity1 i4 #bad1 #bae2 revisits ,geneva1 i4 #baf2 re-conversion to ,protestantism1 i4 #bbj2 his friends at ,geneva1 i4 #bbg2 their effect upon him1 i4 #bbg2 returns to ,paris1 i4 #bbg2 the ,hermitage offered him by ,madame d',epinay1 i4 #bbi1 #bcj 7and ib4 n472 retires to it against the protests of his friends1 i4 #bca2 his love of nature1 i4 #bcd1 #bce1 #bcf2 first days at the ,hermitage1 i4 #bcg2 rural delirium1 i4 #bcg2 dislike of society1 i4 #bdb2 literary scheme1 i4 #bdb1 #bdc2 remarks on ,saint ,pierre1 i4 #bdf2 violent mental crisis1 i4 #bdg2 employs his illness in writing to ,voltaire on ,providence1 i4 #bej1 #bea2 his intolerance of vice in others1 i4 #bed2 acquaintance with ,madame de ,houdetot1 i4 #bee-bfi2 source of his irritability1 i4 #bgj1 #bga2 blind enthusiasm of his admirers1 i4 #bgc1 also ib4 n42 quarrels with ,diderot1 i4 #bge2 ,grimm's account of them1 i4 #bgf2 quarrels with ,madame d',epinay1 i4 #bgf1 #bhh2 relations with ,grimm1 i4 #bgi2 want of sympathy between the two1 i4 #bgi2 declines to accompany ,madame d',epinay to ,geneva1 i4 #bhe2 quarrels with ,grimm1 i4 #bhe2 leaves the ,hermitage1 i4 #bhi1 #bij2 aims in music1 i4 #bia2 letter on ,french music1 i4 #bic1 #bid2 writes on music in the ,encyclopdia1 i4 #bif2 his ,musical ,dictionary1 i4 #bif2 scheme and principles of his new musical notation1 i4 #bfi2 explained1 i4 #bih1 #bii2 its practical value1 i4 #bii2 his mistake1 i4 #cjj2 minor objections1 i4 #cjj2 his temperament and ,genevan spirit1 i4 #cjc2 compared with ,voltaire1 i4 #cjd1 #cje2 had a more spiritual element than ,voltaire1 i4 #cjf2 its influence in ,france1 i4 #cjg2 early relations with ,voltaire1 i4 #cjh2 letter to him on his poem on the earthquake at ,lisbon1 i4 #cab1 #cac1 #cad2 reasons in a circle1 i4 #caf2 continuation of argument against ,voltaire1 i4 #caf1 #cag2 curious notion about religion1 i4 #cag2 quarrels with ,voltaire1 i4 #cah1 #cai2 denounces him as a trumpet of impiety1 i4 #cbj1 n42 letter to ,d',alembert on ,stage ,plays1 i4 #cba2 true answer to his theory1 i4 #cbc1 #cbd2 contrasts ,paris and ,geneva1 i4 #cbg1 #cbh2 his patriotism1 i4 #cbi1 #ccj1 #cca2 censure of love as a poetic theme1 i4 #ccd1 #cce2 on ,social ,position of ,women1 i4 #cce2 ,voltaire and ,d',alembert's criticism on his ,letter on ,stage ,plays1 i4 #ccf1 #ccg2 final break with ,diderot1 i4 #ccf2 antecedents of his highest creative efforts1 ii4 #a2 friends at ,montmorency1 ii4 #b2 reads the ,new ,helosa to the ,marchale de ,luxembourg1 ii4 #b2 unwillingness to receive gifts1 ii4 #e2 his relations with the ,duke and ,duchess de ,luxembourg1 ii4 #g2 misunderstands the friendliness of ,madame de ,boufflers1 ii4 #g2 calm life at ,montmorency1 ii4 #h2 literary jealousy1 ii4 #h2 last of his peaceful days1 ii4 #i2 advice to a young man against the contemplative life1 ii4 #aj2 offensive form of his good sense concerning persecution of ,protestants1 ii4 #aa1 #ab2 cause of his unwillingness to receive gifts1 ii4 #ac1 #ad2 owns his ungrateful nature1 ii4 #ae2 ill-humoured banter1 ii4 #ae2 his constant bodily suffering1 ii4 #af2 thinks of suicide1 ii4 #af2 correspondence with the readers of the ,new ,helosa1 ii4 #ai1 #bj2 the ,new ,helosa1 criticism on1 ii4 #bj-ee 7see ,new ,helosa72 his publishing difficulties1 ii4 #ef2 no taste for martyrdom1 ii4 #ei1 #fj2 curious discussion between1 ii4 #ei2 and ,malesherbes1 ii4 #fj2 indebted to ,malesherbes in the publication of ,emilius1 ii4 #fa1 #fb2 suspects ,jesuits1 ,jansenists1 and philosophers of plotting to crush the book1 ii4 #fc2 himself counted among the latter1 ii4 #fe2 ,emilius ordered to be burnt by public executioner1 on the charge of irreligious tendency1 and its author to be arrested1 ii4 #fe2 his flight1 ii4 #fg2 literary composition on the journey to ,switzerland1 ii4 #fi2 contrast between him and ,voltaire1 ii4 #gj2 explanation of his natural ingratitude1 ii4 #ga2 reaches the canton of ,berne1 and ordered to quit it1 ii4 #gb2 ,emilius and ,social ,contract condemned to be publicly burnt at ,geneva1 and author arrested if he came there1 ii4 #gb1 #gc2 takes refuge at ,motiers1 in dominions of ,frederick of ,prussia1 ii4 #gc2 characteristic letters to the king1 ii4 #gd1 #gg2 declines pecuniary help from him1 ii4 #ge2 his home and habits at ,motiers1 ii4 #gg1 #gh2 ,voltaire supposed to have stirred up animosity against him at ,geneva1 ii4 #ha2 ,archbishop of ,paris writes against him1 ii4 #hc2 his reply1 and character as a controversialist1 ii4 #hc-ij2 life at ,val de ,travers 7,motiers71 ii4 #ia-ie2 his generosity1 ii4 #ic2 corresponds with the ,prince of ,wrtemberg on the education of the prince's daughter1 ii4 #ie1 #if2 on ,gibbon1 ii4 #if2 visit from ,boswell1 ii4 #ih2 invited to legislate for ,corsica1 ii4 #ii1 n42 urges ,boswell to go there1 ii4 #ajj2 denounces its sale by the ,genoese1 ii4 #ajb2 renounces his citizenship of ,geneva1 ii4 #ajc2 his ,letters from the ,mountain1 ii4 #ajd2 the letters condemned to be burned at ,paris and the ,hague1 ii4 #aje2 libel upon1 ii4 #aje2 religious difficulties with his pastor1 ii4 #ajf2 ill-treatment of1 in parish1 ii4 #ajf2 obliged to leave it1 ii4 #ajh2 his next retreat1 ii4 #ajh2 account in the ,rveries of his short stay there1 ii4 #aji-aae2 expelled by government of ,berne1 ii4 #aaf2 makes an extraordinary request to it1 ii4 #aaf1 #aag2 difficulties in finding a home1 ii4 #aag2 short stay at ,strasburg1 ii4 #aag1 n42 decides on going to ,england1 ii4 #aah2 his ,social ,contract1 and criticism on1 ii4 #aai1 #aif 7see ,social ,contract72 scanty acquaintance with history1 ii4 #abi2 its effects on his political writings1 ii4 #abi1 #acf2 his object in writing ,emilius1 ii4 #aih2 his confession of faith1 under the character of the ,savoyard ,vicar 7see ,emilius71 ii4 #beg-bhj2 excitement caused by his appearance in ,paris in #agfe1 ii4 #bhb2 leaves for ,england in company with ,hume1 ii4 #bhc2 reception in ,london1 ii4 #bhc1 #bhd2 ,george ,,iii4 gives him a pension1 ii4 #bhd2 his love for his dog1 ii4 #bhf2 finds a home at ,wootton1 ii4 #bhf2 quarrels with ,hume1 ii4 #bhg2 particulars in connection with it1 ii4 #bhg-bif2 his approaching insanity at this period1 ii4 #bif2 the preparatory conditions of it1 ii4 #big-cja2 begins writing the ,confessions1 ii4 #cja2 their character1 ii4 #cja-cjd2 life at ,wootton1 ii4 #cje1 #cjf2 sudden flight thence1 ii4 #cjf2 kindness of ,mr4 ,davenport1 ii4 #cjf1 #cjg2 his delusion1 ii4 #cjg2 returns to ,france1 ii4 #cjh2 received at ,fleury by the elder ,mirabeau1 ii4 #caj1 #caa2 the prince of ,conti next receives him at ,trye1 ii4 #cab2 composes the second part of the ,confessions here1 ii4 #cab2 delusion returns1 ii4 #cab1 #cac2 leaves ,trye1 and wanders about the country1 ii4 #cab1 #cac2 estrangement from ,theresa1 ii4 #cac2 goes to ,paris1 ii4 #cad2 writes his ,dialogues there1 ii4 #cad2 again earns his living by copying music1 ii4 #cae2 daily life in1 ii4 #cae1 #caf2 ,bernardin ,st4 ,pierre's account of him1 ii4 #cag-cba2 his veneration for ,fnelon1 ii4 #cba2 his unsociality1 ii4 #cbb2 checks a detractor of ,voltaire1 ii4 #cbd2 draws up his ,considerations on the ,government of ,poland1 ii4 #cbd2 estimate of the ,spanish1 ii4 #cbd2 his poverty1 ii4 #cbe2 accepts a home at ,ermenonville from ,m4 ,girardin1 ii4 #cbf2 his painful condition1 ii4 #cbf2 sudden death1 ii4 #cbf2 cause of it unknown1 ii4 #cbf 7see also ib4 n472 his interment1 ii4 #cbf2 finally removed to ,paris1 ii4 #cbh4 ,,sainte ,,beuve on ,rousseau and ,madame d',epinay1 i4 #bgi1 n42 on ,rousseau1 ii4 #dj4 ,saint ,germain1 ,m4 de1 ,rousseau's letter to1 i4 #abc4 ,saint ,just1 ii4 #acb1 #acc2 his political regulations1 ii4 #acc1 n42 base of his system1 ii4 #acf2 against the atheists1 ii4 #agi4 ,saint ,lambert1 i4 #bdd2 offers ,rousseau a home in ,lorraine1 ii4 #aag4 ,saint ,pierre1 ,abb de1 ,rousseau arranges papers of1 i4 #bdd2 his views concerning reason1 ib42 boldness of his observations1 i4 #bde4 ,saint ,pierre1 ,bernardin de1 account of his visit to ,rousseau at ,paris1 ii4 #cag-cba4 ,sand1 ,madame ,g41 i4 #ha1 n42 ,savoy landscape1 i4 #ii1 n42 ancestry of1 i4 #aba1 n4 ,savages1 code of morals of1 i4 #agh-agi1 n4 ,savage state1 advantages of1 ,rousseau's letter to ,voltaire1 i4 #cab4 ,savoy1 priests of1 proselytisers1 i4 #cj1 #ca1 #cc 7also ib4 n47 ,savoyard ,vicar1 the1 origin of character of1 ii4 #beg-bhj 7see ,emilius74 ,schiller on ,rousseau1 ii4 #aib 7also ib4 n472 ,rousseau's influence on1 ii4 #cae4 ,servetus1 ii4 #ahj4 ,simplification1 the revolutionary process and ideal of1 i4 #d2 in reference to ,rousseau's music1 i4 #bia4 ,social conscience1 theory and definition of1 ii4 #bcd1 #bce2 the great agent in fostering1 ii4 #bcg4 ,social ,contract1 the1 ill effect of1 on ,europe1 i4 #ach2 beginning of its composition1 i4 #agg2 ideas of1 i4 #ahh2 its harmful dreams1 i4 #bdf2 influence of1 ii4 #a2 price of1 and difficulties in publishing1 ii4 #ei2 ordered to be burnt at ,geneva1 ii4 #gb1 #gc1 #ajd2 detailed criticism of1 ii4 #aai-aif2 ,rousseau diametrically opposed to the dominant belief of his day in human perfectibility1 ii4 #aai2 object of the work1 ii4 #abj2 main position of the two ,discourses given up in it1 ii4 #abj2 influenced by ,locke1 ii4 #abj2 its uncritical1 illogical principles1 ii4 #abc1 #abd2 its impracticableness1 ii4 #abh2 nature of his illustrations1 ii4 #abh-acc2 the gospel of the ,jacobins1 ii4 #acb1 #acc2 the desperate absurdity of its assumptions gave it power in the circumstances of the times1 ii4 #ace-ada2 some of its maxims very convenient for ruling ,jacobins1 ii4 #adb2 its central conception1 the sovereignty of peoples1 ii4 #add2 ,rousseau not its inventor1 ii4 #add1 #ade2 this to be distinguished from doctrine of right of subjects to depose princes1 ii4 #adf2 ,social ,contract idea of government1 probably derived from ,locke1 ii4 #aej2 falseness of it1 ii4 #aec1 #aed2 origin of society1 ii4 #aed2 ill effects on ,rousseau's political speculation1 ii4 #aee2 what constitutes the sovereignty1 ii4 #aeh2 ,rousseau's ,social ,contract different from that of ,hobbes1 ii4 #aei2 ,locke's indefiniteness on1 ii4 #afj2 attributes of sovereignty1 ii4 #afc2 confederation1 ii4 #afd1 #afe2 his distinction between tyrant and despot1 ii4 #afi1 n42 distinguishes constitution of the state from that of the government1 ii4 #agj2 scheme of an elective aristocracy1 ii4 #agb2 similarity to the ,english form of government1 ii4 #agc2 the state in respect to religion1 ii4 #agc2 habitually illogical form of his statements1 ii4 #agc1 #agd2 duty of sovereign to establish civil profession of faith1 ii4 #age1 #agf2 infringement of it to be punished1 even by death1 ii4 #agf2 ,rousseau's ,hobbism1 ii4 #agg2 denial of his social compact theory1 ii4 #ahc1 #ahd2 futility of his disquisitions on1 ii4 #ahe1 #ahf2 his declaration of general duty of rebellion 7arising out of the universal breach of social compact7 considered1 ii4 #ahh2 it makes government impossible1 ii4 #ahh2 he urges that usurped authority is another valid reason for rebellion1 ii4 #aij2 practical evils of this1 ii4 #aib2 historical effect of the ,social ,contract1 ii4 #aib-aie4 ,social quietism of some parts of ,new ,helosa1 ii4 #di4 ,socialism3 ,morelly1 and ,de ,mably1 ii4 #eb2 what it is1 ii4 #aei4 ,socialistic theory of ,morelly1 i4 #aeh1 #aei 7also i4 #aeh1 n47 ,society1 ,aristotle on1 i4 #agd2 ,d',alembert's statements on1 i4 #agd1 n42 ,parisian1 ,rousseau on1 i4 #bji2 dislike of1 i4 #bdb2 ,rousseau's origin of1 ii4 #aec2 true grounds of1 ii4 #aee1 #aef4 ,socrates1 i4 #aca1 #adj1 #bcb2 ii4 #gb1 #bgc4 ,solitude1 eighteenth century notions of1 i4 #bca1 #bcb4 ,solon1 ii4 #acc4 ,sorbonne1 the1 condemns ,emilius1 ii4 #hb4 ,spectator1 the1 ,rousseau's liking for1 i4 #hf4 ,spinoza1 dangerous speculations of1 i4 #adc4 ,stal1 ,madame de1 i4 #bag1 n4 ,stage players1 how treated in ,france1 i4 #cbb4 ,stage plays 7see ,plays74 ,state of ,nature1 ,rousseau's1 i4 #aei1 #afj2 ,hobbes on1 i4 #afa 7see ,nature74 ,suicide1 ,rousseau on1 ii4 #af2 a mistake to pronounce him incapable of1 ii4 #ai4 ,switzerland1 i4 #ccj4 ,,tacitus1 i4 #agg4 ,theatre1 ,rousseau's letter1 objecting to the1 i4 #acc2 his error in the matter1 i4 #acd4 ,theology1 metaphysical1 ,descartes' influence on1 i4 #bbf4 ,theresa 7see ,le ,vasseur74 ,thought1 school of1 division between rationalists and emotionalists1 i4 #ccg4 ,tonic ,sol-fa notation1 close correspondence of the1 to ,rousseau's system1 i4 #bii4 ,tronchin on ,voltaire1 i4 #cai1 n41 #cba4 ,turgot1 i4 #hi2 his discourses at the ,sorbonne in #agej1 i4 #aee2 the one sane eminent ,frenchman of eighteenth century1 i4 #bjb2 his unselfish toil1 i4 #bcc2 ii4 #aic2 mentioned1 ii4 #bdf1 #bid4 ,turin1 ,rousseau at1 i4 #cd-dc2 leaves it1 i4 #de2 tries to learn ,latin at1 i4 #ia4 ,turretini and other rationalisers1 i4 #bbf2 his works1 i4 #bbf1 n4 ,,universe1 constitution of1 discussion on1 i4 #caa-cag4 ,,vagabond life1 ,rousseau's love of1 i4 #fc1 #fh4 ,val de ,travers1 ii4 #gg2 ,rousseau's life in1 ii4 #ia-ie4 ,vasseur1 ,theresa ,le1 ,rousseau's first acquaintance with1 i4 #ajf1 #ajg1 also ib4 n42 their life together1 i4 #aaj-aac2 well befriended1 ii4 #hj1 n42 her evil character1 ii4 #cbf4 ,vauvenargues on emotional instinct1 ii4 #cd4 ,venice1 ,rousseau at1 i4 #ajj-ajf4 ,vercellis1 ,madame de1 ,rousseau servant to1 i4 #ci4 ,verdelin1 ,madame de1 her kindness to ,theresa1 ii4 #hj1 n42 to ,rousseau1 ii4 #aah1 n4 ,village ,soothsayer1 the 7,devin du ,village71 composed at ,passy1 performed at ,fontainebleau and ,paris1 i4 #bab2 marked a revolution in ,french ,music1 i4 #bia4 ,voltaire1 i4 #b1 #ba1 #fc2 effect on ,rousseau of his ,letters on the ,english1 i4 #hf2 spreads a derogatory report about ,rousseau1 i4 #aja1 n42 his ,princesse de ,navarre1 i4 #aai2 criticism on ,rousseau's first ,discourse1 i4 #adg2 effect on his work of his common sense1 i4 #aee2 avoids the society of ,paris1 i4 #bjb2 his conversion to ,romanism1 i4 #bbj1 #bba2 strictures on ,homer and ,shakespeare1 i4 #bhj2 his position in the eighteenth century1 i4 #cja2 general difference between1 and ,rousseau1 i4 #cja2 clung to the rationalistic school of his day1 i4 #cje2 on ,rousseau's second ,discourse1 i4 #cjh2 his poem on the earthquake of ,lisbon1 i4 #cji1 #caj2 his sympathy with suffering1 i4 #caa1 #cab2 entreated by ,rousseau to draw up a civil profession of religious faith1 i4 #cag2 denounced by ,rousseau as a trumpet of impiety1 i4 #cag1 #cbj1 n42 his satire and mockery irritated ,rousseau1 i4 #cai2 what he was to his contemporaries1 i4 #cba2 the great play-writer of the time1 i4 #cba2 his criticism of ,rousseau's ,letter on the ,theatre1 i4 #ccf2 his indignation at wrong1 ii4 #aa2 ridicule of the ,new ,helosa1 ii4 #cd2 less courageous than ,rousseau1 ii4 #fe2 contrast between the two1 i4 #ii1 ii4 #ge2 supposed to have stirred up animosity at ,geneva against ,rousseau1 ii4 #ha2 denies it1 ii4 #ha2 his notion of how the matter would end1 ii4 #ha2 his fickleness1 ii4 #hc2 on ,rousseau's connection with ,corsica1 ii4 #aja2 his ,philosophical ,dictionary burnt by order at ,paris1 ii4 #aje2 his opinion of ,emilius1 ii4 #beg2 prime agent in introducing ,english deism into ,france1 ii4 #bfb2 suspected by ,rousseau of having written the pretended letter from the ,king of ,prussia1 ii4 #bhh2 last visit to ,paris1 ii4 #cbd4 ,,walking1 ,rousseau's love of1 i4 #fc4 ,walpole1 ,horace1 writer of the pretended letter from the ,king of ,prussia1 ii4 #bhh1 n42 advises ,hume not to publish his account of ,rousseau's quarrel with him1 ii4 #bie4 ,war arising out of the succession to the crown of ,poland1 i4 #gb4 ,warens1 ,madame de1 ,rousseau's introduction to1 i4 #cd2 her personal appearance1 i4 #cd2 receives ,rousseau into her house1 i4 #dc2 her early life1 i4 #dh2 character of1 i4 #di-ea2 goes to ,paris1 i4 #ei2 receives ,rousseau at ,chambri1 and gets him employment1 i4 #fi2 her household1 i4 #gj2 removes to ,les ,charmettes1 i4 #gc2 cultivates ,rousseau's taste for letters1 i4 #he2 ,saint ,louis1 her patron saint1 i4 #ia2 revisited by ,rousseau in #aged1 i4 #baf2 her death in poverty and wretchedness1 i4 #bag1 #bah 7also i4 #bai1 n47 ,wesleyanism1 ii4 #beh4 ,women1 ,condorcet on social position of1 i4 #cce2 ,d',alembert and ,condorcet on1 i4 #cce4 ,wootton1 ,rousseau's home at1 ii4 #bhf4 ,world1 divine government of1 ,rousseau vindicates1 i4 #cab4 ,wrtemberg1 correspondence between ,prince of1 and ,rousseau1 on the education of the little princess1 ii4 #ie2 becomes reigning duke1 ii4 #ie1 n42 seeks permission for ,rousseau to live in ,vienna1 ii4 #aag4 ,,the ,,end4 ,printed by ,r4 ,r4 ,,clark1 ,,limited1 ,edinburgh4