{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_14052/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_14052","id":"gutenberg_14052","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14052","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: French Literature","Category: History - European","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778"],"text":"ROUSSEAU\n\nBY\n\nJOHN MORLEY\n\n\nVOLUMES I. and II.\n\n\n\nLondon\nMACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED\nNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n1905\n\n_All rights reserved_\n\n_First printed in this form 1886_\n_Reprinted 1888, 1891, 1896, 1900, 1905_\n\n\n\n\n\nVOL. I.\n\n\n\nNOTE TO THE FIRST EDITION.\n\n\nThis work differs from its companion volume in offering something more\nlike a continuous personal history than was necessary in the case of\nsuch a man as Voltaire, the story of whose life may be found in more\nthan one English book of repute. Of Rousseau there is, I believe, no\nfull biographical account in our literature, and even France has nothing\nmore complete under this head than Musset-Pathay's _Histoire de la Vie\net des Ouvrages de J.J. Rousseau_ (1821). This, though a meritorious\npiece of labour, is extremely crude and formless in composition and\narrangement, and the interpreting portions are devoid of interest.\n\nThe edition of Rousseau's works to which the references have been made\nis that by M. Auguis, in twenty-seven volumes, published in 1825 by\nDalibon. In 1865 M. Streckeisen-Moultou published from the originals,\nwhich had been deposited in the library of Neuch\u00e2tel by Du Peyrou, the\nletters addressed to Rousseau by various correspondents. These two\ninteresting volumes, which are entitled _Rousseau, ses Amis et ses\nEnnemis_, are mostly referred to under the name of their editor.\n\n_February_, 1873.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe second edition in 1878 was revised; some portions were considerably\nshortened, and a few additional footnotes inserted. No further changes\nhave been made in the present edition.\n\n_January_, 1886.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. I.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nPRELIMINARY.\n PAGE\n\nThe Revolution 1\nRousseau its most direct speculative precursor 2\nHis distinction among revolutionists 4\nHis personality 5\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nYOUTH.\n\nBirth and descent 8\nPredispositions 10\nFirst lessons 11\nAt M. Lambercier's 15\nEarly disclosure of sensitive temperament 19\nReturn to Geneva 20\nTwo apprenticeships 26\nFlight from Geneva 30\nSavoyard proselytisers 31\nRousseau sent to Anncey, and thence to Turin 34\nConversion to Catholicism 35\nTakes service with Madame de Vercellis 39\nThen with the Count de Gouvon 42\nReturns to vagabondage 43\nAnd to Madame de Warens 45\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nSAVOY.\n\nInfluence of women upon Rousseau 46\nAccount of Madame de Warens 48\nRousseau takes up his abode with her 54\nHis delight in life with her 54\nThe seminarists 57\nTo Lyons 58\nWanderings to Freiburg, Neuch\u00e2tel, and elsewhere 60\nThrough the east of France 62\nInfluence of these wanderings upon him 67\nChamb\u00e9ri 69\nHousehold of Madame de Warens 70\nLes Charmettes 73\nAccount of his feeling for nature 79\nHis intellectual incapacity at this time 83\nTemperament 84\nLiterary interests, and method 85\nJoyful days with his benefactress 90\nTo Montpellier: end of an episode 92\nDates 94\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHERESA LE VASSEUR.\n\nTutorship at Lyons 95\nGoes to Paris in search of fortune 97\nHis appearance at this time 98\nMade secretary to the ambassador at Venice 100\nHis journey thither and life there 103\nReturn to Paris 106\nTheresa Le Vasseur 107\nCharacter of their union 110\nRousseau's conduct towards her 113\nTheir later estrangements 115\nRousseau's scanty means 119\nPuts away his five children 120\nHis apologies for the crime 122\nTheir futility 126\nAttempts to recover the children 128\nRousseau never married to Theresa 129\nContrast between outer and inner life 130\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE DISCOURSES.\n\nLocal academies in France 132\nCircumstances of the composition of the first Discourse 133\nHow far the paradox was original 135\nHis visions for thirteen years 136\nSummary of the first Discourse 138-145\nObligations to Montaigne 145\nAnd to the Greeks 145\nSemi-Socratic manner 147\nObjections to the Discourse 148\nWays of stating its positive side 149\nDangers of exaggerating this positive side 151\nIts excess 152\nSecond Discourse 154\nIdeas of the time upon the state of nature 155\nTheir influence upon Rousseau 156\nMorelly, as his predecessor 156\nSummary of the second Discourse 159-170\nCriticism of its method 171\nObjection from its want of evidence 172\nOther objections to its account of primitive nature 173\nTakes uniformity of process for granted 176\nIn what the importance of the second Discourse consisted 177\nIts protest against the mockery of civilisation 179\nThe equality of man, how true, and how false 180\nThis doctrine in France, and in America 182\nRousseau's Discourses, a reaction against the historic\n method 183\nMably, and socialism 184\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nPARIS.\n\nInfluence of Geneva upon Rousseau 187\nTwo sides of his temperament 191\nUncongenial characteristics of Parisian society 191\nHis associates 195\nCircumstances of a sudden moral reform 196\nArising from his violent repugnance for the manners of\n the time 202\nHis assumption of a seeming cynicism 207\nProtests against atheism 209\nThe Village Soothsayer at Fontainebleau 212\nTwo anedotes of his moral singularity 214\nRevisits Geneva 216\nEnd of Madame de Warens 217\nRousseau's re-conversion to Protestantism 220\nThe religious opinions then current in Geneva 223\nTurretini and other rationalisers 226\nEffect upon Rousseau 227\nThinks of taking up his abode in Geneva 227\nMadame d'Epinay offers him the Hermitage 229\nRetires thither against the protests of his friends 231\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE HERMITAGE.\n\nDistinction between the old and the new anchorite 234\nRousseau's first days at the Hermitage 235\nRural delirium 237\nDislike of society 242\nMeditates work on Sensitive Morality 243\nArranges the papers of the Abb\u00e9 de Saint Pierre 244\nHis remarks on them 246\nViolent mental crisis 247\nFirst conception of the New Helo\u00efsa 250\nA scene of high morals 254\nMadame d'Houdetot 255\nErotic mania becomes intensified 256\nInterviews with Madame d'Houdetot 258\nSaint Lambert interposes 262\nRousseau's letter to Saint Lambert 264\nIts profound falsity 265\nSaint Lambert's reply 267\nFinal relations with him and with Madame d'Houdetot 268\nSources of Rousseau's irritability 270\nRelations with Diderot 273\nWith Madame d'Epinay 276\nWith Grimm 279\nGrimm's natural want of sympathy with Rousseau 282\nMadame d'Epinay's journey to Geneva 284\nOccasion of Rousseau's breach with Grimm 285\nAnd with Madame d'Epinay 288\nLeaves the Hermitage 289\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nMUSIC.\n\nGeneral character of Rousseau's aim in music 291\nAs composer 292\nContest on the comparative merits of French and Italian\n music 293\nRousseau's Letter on French Music 293\nHis scheme of musical notation 296\nIts chief element 298\nIts practical value 299\nHis mistake 300\nTwo minor objections 300\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nVOLTAIRE AND D'ALEMBERT.\n\nPosition of Voltaire 302\nGeneral differences between him and Rousseau 303\nRousseau not the profounder of the two 305\nBut he had a spiritual element 305\nTheir early relations 308\nVoltaire's poem on the Earthquake of Lisbon 309\nRousseau's wonder that he should have written it 310\nHis letter to Voltaire upon it 311\nPoints to the advantages of the savage state 312\nReproduces Pope's general position 313\nNot an answer to the position taken by Voltaire 314\nConfesses the question insoluble, but still argues 316\nCurious close of the letter 318\nTheir subsequent relations 319\nD'Alembert's article on Geneva 321\nThe church and the theatre 322\nJeremy Collier: Bossuet 323\nRousseau's contention on stage plays 324\nRude handling of commonplace 325\nThe true answer to Rousseau as to theory of dramatic\n morality 326\nHis arguments relatively to Geneva 327\nTheir meaning 328\nCriticism on the Misanthrope 328\nRousseau's contrast between Paris and an imaginary Geneva 329\nAttack on love as a poetic theme 332\nThis letter, the mark of his schism from the party of the\n philosophers 336\n\n\n\n\nJEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU\n\nBorn 1712\nFled from Geneva _March_, 1728\nChanges religion at Turin _April_, \"\nWith Madame de Warens, including various\n intervals, until _April_, 1740\nGoes to Paris with musical schemes 1741\nSecretary at Venice _Spring_, 1743\n\nParis, first as secretary to M. Francueil, then { 1744\n as composer, and copyist { to\n { 1756\nThe Hermitage _April 9_, 1756\nMontmorency _Dec. 15_, 1757\nYverdun _June 14_, 1762\nMotiers-Travers _July 10_, 1762\nIsle of St. Peter _Sept._, 1765\nStrasburg _Nov._, \"\nParis _December_, \"\nArrives in England _Jan. 13_, 1766\nLeaves Dover _May 22_, 1767\nFleury _June_, \"\nTrye _July_, \"\nDauphiny _Aug._, 1768\nParis _June_, 1770\nDeath _July 2_, 1778\n\nPRINCIPAL WRITINGS.\n\nDiscourse on the Influence of Learning and\n Art PUBLISHED 1750\nDiscourse on Inequality \" 1754\nLetter to D'Alembert \" 1758\nNew Helo\u00efsa (began 1757, finished in winter\n of 1759-60) \" 1761\nSocial Contract \" 1762\nEmilius \" 1762\nLetters from the Mountain \" 1764\nConfessions (written 1766-70) { Pt. I 1781\n { Pt. II 1788\nR\u00eaveries (written 1777-78).\n\n _Comme dans les \u00e9tangs assoupis sous les bois,\n Dans plus d'une \u00e2me on voit deux choses \u00e0 la fois:\n Le ciel, qui teint les eaux \u00e0 peine remu\u00e9es\n Avec tous ses rayons et toutes ses nue\u00e9s;\n Et la vase, fond morne, affreux, sombre et dormant,\n O\u00f9 des reptiles noirs fourmillent vaguement._\n HUGO.\n\n\n\n\nROUSSEAU.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nPRELIMINARY.\n\n\nChristianity is the name for a great variety of changes which took place\nduring the first centuries of our era, in men's ways of thinking and\nfeeling about their spiritual relations to unseen powers, about their\nmoral relations to one another, about the basis and type of social\nunion. So the Revolution is now the accepted name for a set of changes\nwhich began faintly to take a definite practical shape first in America,\nand then in France, towards the end of the eighteenth century; they had\nbeen directly prepared by a small number of energetic thinkers, whose\nspeculations represented, as always, the prolongation of some old lines\nof thought in obedience to the impulse of new social and intellectual\nconditions. While one movement supplied the energy and the principles\nwhich extricated civilisation from the ruins of the Roman empire, the\nother supplies the energy and the principles which already once, between\nthe Seven Years' War and the assembly of the States General, saved\nhuman progress in face of the political fatuity of England and the\npolitical nullity of France; and they are now, amid the distraction of\nthe various representatives of an obsolete ordering, the only forces to\nbe trusted at once for multiplying the achievements of human\nintelligence stimulated by human sympathy, and for diffusing their\nbeneficent results with an ampler hand and more far-scattering arm.\nFaith in a divine power, devout obedience to its supposed will, hope of\necstatic, unspeakable reward, these were the springs of the old\nmovement. Undivided love of our fellows, steadfast faith in human\nnature, steadfast search after justice, firm aspiration towards\nimprovement, and generous contentment in the hope that others may reap\nwhatever reward may be, these are the springs of the new.\n\nThere is no given set of practical maxims agreed to by all members of\nthe revolutionary schools for achieving the work of release from the\npressure of an antiquated social condition, any more than there is one\nset of doctrines and one kind of discipline accepted by all Protestants.\nVoltaire was a revolutionist in one sense, Diderot in another, and\nRousseau in a third, just as in the practical order, Lafayette, Danton,\nRobespierre, represented three different aspirations and as many\nmethods. Rousseau was the most directly revolutionary of all the\nspeculative precursors, and he was the first to apply his mind boldly to\nthose of the social conditions which the revolution is concerned by one\nsolution or another to modify. How far his direct influence was\ndisastrous in consequence of a mischievous method, we shall have to\nexamine. It was so various that no single answer can comprehend an\nexhaustive judgment. His writings produced that glow of enthusiastic\nfeeling in France, which led to the all-important assistance rendered by\nthat country to the American colonists in a struggle so momentous for\nmankind. It was from his writings that the Americans took the ideas and\nthe phrases of their great charter, thus uniting the native principles\nof their own direct Protestantism with principles that were strictly\nderivative from the Protestantism of Geneva. Again, it was his work more\nthan that of any other one man, that France arose from the deadly decay\nwhich had laid hold of her whole social and political system, and found\nthat irresistible energy which warded off dissolution within and\npartition from without. We shall see, further, that besides being the\nfirst immediately revolutionary thinker in politics, he was the most\nstirring of reactionists in religion. His influence formed not only\nRobespierre and Paine, but Chateaubriand, not only Jacobinism, but the\nCatholicism of the Restoration. Thus he did more than any one else at\nonce to give direction to the first episodes of revolution, and force to\nthe first episode of reaction.\n\nThere are some teachers whose distinction is neither correct thought,\nnor an eye for the exigencies of practical organisation, but simply\ndepth and fervour of the moral sentiment, bringing with it the\nindefinable gift of touching many hearts with love of virtue and the\nthings of the spirit. The Christian organisations which saved western\nsociety from dissolution owe all to St. Paul, Hildebrand, Luther,\nCalvin; but the spiritual life of the west during all these generations\nhas burnt with the pure flame first lighted by the sublime mystic of the\nGalilean hills. Aristotle acquired for men much knowledge and many\ninstruments for gaining more; but it is Plato, his master, who moves the\nsoul with love of truth and enthusiasm for excellence. There is peril in\nall such leaders of souls, inasmuch as they incline men to substitute\nwarmth for light, and to be content with aspiration where they need\ndirection. Yet no movement goes far which does not count one of them in\nthe number of its chiefs. Rousseau took this place among those who\nprepared the first act of that revolutionary drama, whose fifth act is\nstill dark to us.\n\nAt the heart of the Revolution, like a torrid stream flowing\nundiscernible amid the waters of a tumbling sea, is a new way of\nunderstanding life. The social changes desired by the various assailants\nof the old order are only the expression of a deeper change in moral\nidea, and the drift of the new moral idea is to make life simpler. This\nin a sense is at the bottom of all great religious and moral movements,\nand the Revolution emphatically belongs to the latter class. Like such\nmovements in the breast of the individual, those which stir an epoch\nhave their principle in the same craving for disentanglement of life.\nThis impulse to shake off intricacies is the mark of revolutionary\ngenerations, and it was the starting-point of all Rousseau's mental\nhabits, and of the work in which they expressed themselves. His mind\nmoved outwards from this centre, and hence the fact that he dealt\nprincipally with government and education, the two great agencies which,\nin an old civilisation with a thousand roots and feelers, surround\nexternal life and internal character with complexity. Simplification of\nreligion by clearing away the overgrowth of errors, simplification of\nsocial relations by equality, of literature and art by constant return\nto nature, of manners by industrious homeliness and thrift,--this is the\nrevolutionary process and ideal, and this is the secret of Rousseau's\nhold over a generation that was lost amid the broken maze of\nfallen systems.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe personality of Rousseau has most equivocal and repulsive sides. It\nhas deservedly fared ill in the esteem of the saner and more rational of\nthose who have judged him, and there is none in the history of famous\nmen and our spiritual fathers that begat us, who make more constant\ndemands on the patience or pity of those who study his life. Yet in no\nother instance is the common eagerness to condense all predication about\na character into a single unqualified proposition so fatally inadequate.\nIf it is indispensable that we should be for ever describing, naming,\nclassifying, at least it is well, in speaking of such a nature as his,\nto enlarge the vocabulary beyond the pedantic formulas of unreal ethics,\nand to be as sure as we know how to make ourselves, that each of the\nsympathies and faculties which together compose our power of spiritual\nobservation, is in a condition of free and patient energy. Any less open\nand liberal method, which limits our sentiments to absolute approval or\ndisapproval, and fixes the standard either at the balance of common\nqualities which constitutes mediocrity, or at the balance of uncommon\nqualities which is divinity as in a Shakespeare, must leave in a cloud\nof blank incomprehensibleness those singular spirits who come from time\nto time to quicken the germs of strange thought and shake the quietness\nof the earth.\n\nWe may forget much in our story that is grievous or hateful, in\nreflecting that if any man now deems a day basely passed in which he has\ngiven no thought to the hard life of garret and hovel, to the forlorn\nchildren and trampled women of wide squalid wildernesses in cities, it\nwas Rousseau who first in our modern time sounded a new trumpet note for\none more of the great battles of humanity. He makes the poor very proud,\nit was truly said. Some of his contemporaries followed the same vein of\nthought, as we shall see, and he was only continuing work which others\nhad prepared. But he alone had the gift of the golden mouth. It was in\nRousseau that polite Europe first hearkened to strange voices and faint\nreverberation from out of the vague and cavernous shadow in which the\ncommon people move. Science has to feel the way towards light and\nsolution, to prepare, to organise. But the race owes something to one\nwho helped to state the problem, writing up in letters of flame at the\nbrutal feast of kings and the rich that civilisation is as yet only a\nmockery, and did furthermore inspire a generation of men and women with\nthe stern resolve that they would rather perish than live on in a world\nwhere such things can be.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nYOUTH.\n\n\nJean Jacques Rousseau was born at Geneva, June 28, 1712. He was of old\nFrench stock. His ancestors had removed from Paris to the famous city of\nrefuge as far back as 1529, a little while before Farel came thither to\nestablish the principles of the Reformation, and seven years before the\nfirst visit of the more extraordinary man who made Geneva the mother\ncity of a new interpretation of Christianity, as Rome was the mother\ncity of the old. Three generations in a direct line separated Jean\nJacques from Didier Rousseau, the son of a Paris bookseller, and the\nfirst emigrant.[1] Thus Protestant tradition in the Rousseau family\ndates from the appearance of Protestantism in Europe, and seems to have\nexerted the same kind of influence upon them as it did, in conjunction\nwith the rest of the surrounding circumstances, upon the other citizens\nof the ideal state of the Reformation. It is computed by the historians\nthat out of three thousand families who composed the population of\nGeneva towards the end of the seventeenth century, there were hardly\nfifty who before the Reformation had acquired the position of\nburgess-ship. The curious set of conditions which thus planted a colony\nof foreigners in the midst of a free polity, with a new doctrine and\nnewer discipline, introduced into Europe a fresh type of character and\nmanners. People declared they could recognise in the men of Geneva\nneither French vivacity, nor Italian subtlety and clearness, nor Swiss\ngravity. They had a zeal for religion, a vigorous energy in government,\na passion for freedom, a devotion to ingenious industries, which marked\nthem with a stamp unlike that of any other community.[2] Towards the\nclose of the seventeenth century some of the old austerity and rudeness\nwas sensibly modified under the influence of the great neighbouring\nmonarchy. One striking illustration of this tendency was the rapid\ndecline of the Savoyard patois in popular use. The movement had not gone\nfar enough when Rousseau was born, to take away from the manners and\nspirit of his country their special quality and individual note.\n\nThe mother of Jean Jacques, who seems to have been a simple, cheerful,\nand tender woman, was the daughter of a Genevan minister; her maiden\nname, Bernard. The birth of her son was fatal to her, and the most\ntouching and pathetic of all the many shapes of death was the fit\nbeginning of a life preappointed to nearly unlifting cloud. \"I cost my\nmother her life,\" he wrote, \"and my birth was the first of my woes.\"[3]\nDestiny thus touches us with magical finger, long before consciousness\nawakens to the forces that have been set to work in our personality,\nlaunching us into the universe with country, forefathers, and physical\npredispositions, all fixed without choice of ours. Rousseau was born\ndying, and though he survived this first crisis by the affectionate care\nof one of his father's sisters, yet his constitution remained infirm and\ndisordered.\n\nInborn tendencies, as we perceive on every side, are far from having\nunlimited irresistible mastery, if they meet early encounter from some\nwise and patient external will. The father of Rousseau was unfortunately\ncast in the same mould as his mother, and the child's own morbid\nsensibility was stimulated and deepened by the excessive sensibility of\nhis first companion. Isaac Rousseau, in many of his traits, was a\nreversion to an old French type. In all the Genevese there was an\nunderlying tendency of this kind. \"Under a phlegmatic and cool air,\"\nwrote Rousseau, when warning his countrymen against the inflammatory\neffects of the drama, \"the Genevese hide an ardent and sensitive\ncharacter, that is more easily moved than controlled.\"[4] And some of\nthe episodes in their history during the eighteenth century might be\ntaken for scenes from the turbulent dramas of Paris. But Isaac\nRousseau's restlessness, his eager emotion, his quick and punctilious\nsense of personal dignity, his heedlessness of ordered affairs, were not\ncommon in Geneva, fortunately for the stability of her society and the\nprosperity of her citizens. This disorder of spirit descended in\nmodified form to the son; it was inevitable that he should be indirectly\naffected by it. Before he was seven years old he had learnt from his\nfather to indulge a passion for the reading of romances. The child and\nthe man passed whole nights in a fictitious world, reading to one\nanother in turn, absorbed by vivid interest in imaginary situations,\nuntil the morning note of the birds recalled them to a sense of the\nconditions of more actual life, and made the elder cry out in confusion\nthat he was the more childish of the two.\n\nThe effect of this was to raise passion to a premature exaltation in the\nyoung brain. \"I had no idea of real things,\" he said, \"though all the\nsentiments were already familiar to me. Nothing had come to me by\nconception, everything by sensation. These confused emotions, striking\nme one after another, did not warp a reason that I did not yet possess,\nbut they gradually shaped in me a reason of another cast and temper,\nand gave me bizarre and romantic ideas of human life, of which neither\nreflection nor experience has ever been able wholly to cure me.\"[5] Thus\nthese first lessons, which have such tremendous influence over all that\nfollow, had the direct and fatal effect in Rousseau's case of deadening\nthat sense of the actual relations of things to one another in the\nobjective world, which is the master-key and prime law of sanity.\n\nIn time the library of romances came to an end (1719), and Jean Jacques\nand his father fell back on the more solid and moderated fiction of\nhistory and biography. The romances had been the possession of the\nmother; the more serious books were inherited from the old minister, her\nfather. Such books as Nani's History of Venice, and Le Sueur's History\nof the Church and the Empire, made less impression on the young Rousseau\nthan the admirable Plutarch; and he used to read to his father during\nthe hours of work, and read over again to himself during all hours,\nthose stories of free and indomitable souls which are so proper to\nkindle the glow of generous fire. Plutarch was dear to him to the end of\nhis life; he read him in the late days when he had almost ceased to\nread, and he always declared Plutarch to be nearly the only author to\nwhom he had never gone without profit.\"[6] \"I think I see my father now,\"\nhe wrote when he had begun to make his mark in Paris, \"living by the\nwork of his hands, and nourishing his soul on the sublimest truths. I\nsee Tacitus, Plutarch, and Grotius, lying before him along with the\ntools of his craft. I see at his side a cherished son receiving\ninstruction from the best of fathers, alas, with but too little\nfruit.\"[7] This did little to implant the needed impressions of the\nactual world. Rousseau's first training continued to be in an excessive\ndegree the exact reverse of our common method; this stirs the\nimagination too little, and shuts the young too narrowly within the\nstrait pen of present and visible reality. The reader of Plutarch at the\nage of ten actually conceived himself a Greek or a Roman, and became the\npersonage whose strokes of constancy and intrepidity transported him\nwith sympathetic ecstasy, made his eyes sparkle, and raised his voice to\nheroic pitch. Listeners were even alarmed one day as he told the tale of\nScaevola at table, to see him imitatively thrust forth his arm over a\nhot chafing-dish.[8]\n\nRousseau had one brother, on whom the spirit of the father came down in\nample measure, just as the sensibility of the mother descended upon Jean\nJacques. He passed through a boyhood of revolt, and finally ran away\ninto Germany, where he was lost from sight and knowledge of his kinsmen\nfor ever. Jean Jacques was thus left virtually an only child,[9] and he\ncommemorates the homely tenderness and care with which his early years\nwere surrounded. Except in the hours which he passed in reading by the\nside of his father, he was always with his aunt, in the self-satisfying\ncuriosity of childhood watching her at work with the needle and busy\nabout affairs of the house, or else listening to her with contented\ninterest, as she sang the simple airs of the common people. The\nimpression of this kind and cheerful figure was stamped on his memory to\nthe end; her tone of voice, her dress, the quaint fashion of her hair.\nThe constant recollection of her shows, among many other signs, how he\ncherished that conception of the true unity of a man's life, which\nplaces it in a closely-linked chain of active memories, and which most\nof us lose in wasteful dispersion of sentiment and poor fragmentariness\nof days. When the years came in which he might well say, I have no\npleasure in them, and after a manhood of distress and suspicion and\ndiseased sorrows had come to dim those blameless times, he could still\noften surprise himself unconsciously humming the tune of one of his\naunt's old songs, with many tears in his eyes.[10]\n\nThis affectionate schooling came suddenly to an end. Isaac Rousseau in\nthe course of a quarrel in which he had involved himself, believed that\nhe saw unfairness in the operation of the law, for the offender had\nkinsfolk in the Great Council. He resolved to leave his country rather\nthan give way, in circumstances which compromised his personal honour\nand the free justice of the republic. So his house was broken up, and\nhis son was sent to school at the neighbouring village of Bossey (1722),\nunder the care of a minister, \"there to learn along with Latin all the\nmedley of sorry stuff with which, under the name of education, they\naccompany Latin.\"[11] Rousseau tells us nothing of the course of his\nintellectual instruction here, but he marks his two years' sojourn under\nthe roof of M. Lambercier by two forward steps in that fateful\nacquaintance with good and evil, which is so much more important than\nliterary knowledge. Upon one of these fruits of the tree of nascent\nexperience, men usually keep strict silence. Rousseau is the only person\nthat ever lived who proclaimed to the whole world as a part of his own\nbiography the ignoble circumstances of the birth of sensuality in\nboyhood. Nobody else ever asked us to listen while he told of the\nplaymate with which unwarned youth takes its heedless pleasure, which\nwaxes and strengthens with years, until the man suddenly awakens to find\nthe playmate grown into a master, grotesque and foul, whose unclean grip\nis not to be shaken off, and who poisons the air with the goatish fume\nof the satyr. It is on this side that the unspoken plays so decisive a\npart, that most of the spoken seems but as dust in the balance; it is\nhere that the flesh spreads gross clouds over the firmament of the\nspirit. Thinking of it, we flee from talk about the high matters of will\nand conscience, of purity of heart and the diviner mind, and hurry to\nthe physician. Manhood commonly saves itself by its own innate\nhealthiness, though the decent apron bequeathed to us in the old legend\nof the fall, the thick veil of a more than legendary reserve, prevents\nus from really measuring the actual waste of delicacy and the finer\nforces. Rousseau, most unhappily for himself, lacked this innate\nhealthiness; he never shook off the demon which would be so ridiculous,\nif it did not hide such terrible power. With a moral courage, that it\nneeds hardly less moral courage in the critic firmly to refrain from\ncalling cynical or shameless, he has told the whole story of this\nlifelong depravation. In the present state of knowledge, which in the\nregion of the human character the false shamefacedness of science, aided\nand abetted by the mutilating hand of religious asceticism, has kept\ncrude and imperfect, there is nothing very profitable to be said on all\nthis. When the great art of life has been more systematically conceived\nin the long processes of time and endeavour, and when more bold,\nffective, and far-reaching advance has been made in defining those\npathological manifestations which deserve to be seriously studied, as\ndistinguished from those of a minor sort which are barely worth\nregistering, then we should know better how to speak, or how to be\nsilent, in the present most unwelcome instance. As it is, we perhaps do\nbest in chronicling the fact and passing on. The harmless young are\nallowed to play without monition or watching among the deep open graves\nof temperament; and Rousseau, telling the tale of his inmost experience,\nunlike the physician and the moralist who love decorous surfaces of\nthings, did not spare himself nor others a glimpse of the ignominies to\nwhich the body condemns its high tenant, the soul.[12]\n\nThe second piece of experience which he acquired at Bossey was the\nknowledge of injustice and wrongful suffering as things actual and\nexistent. Circumstances brought him under suspicion of having broken the\nteeth of a comb which did not belong to him. He was innocent, and not\neven the most terrible punishment could wring from him an untrue\nconfession of guilt. The root of his constancy was not in an abhorrence\nof falsehood, which is exceptional in youth, and for which he takes no\ncredit, but in a furious and invincible resentment against the violent\npressure that was unjustly put upon him. \"Picture a character, timid and\ndocile in ordinary life, but ardent, impetuous, indomitable in its\npassions; a child always governed by the voice of reason, always treated\nwith equity, gentleness, and consideration, who had not even the idea of\ninjustice, and who for the first time experiences an injustice so\nterrible, from the very people whom he most cherishes and respects! What\na confusion of ideas, what disorder of sentiments, what revolution in\nheart, in brain, in every part of his moral and intellectual being!\" He\nhad not learnt, any more than other children, either to put himself in\nthe place of his elders, or to consider the strength of the apparent\ncase against him. All that he felt was the rigour of a frightful\nchastisement for an offence of which he was innocent. And the\nassociation of ideas was permanent. \"This first sentiment of violence\nand injustice has remained so deeply engraved in my soul, that all the\nideas relating to it bring my first emotion back to me; and this\nsentiment, though only relative to myself in its origin, has taken such\nconsistency, and become so disengaged from all personal interest, that\nmy heart is inflamed at the sight or story of any wrongful action, just\nas much as if its effect fell on my own person. When I read of the\ncruelties of some ferocious tyrant, or the subtle atrocities of some\nvillain of a priest, I would fain start on the instant to poniard such\nwretches, though I were to perish a hundred times for the deed.... This\nmovement may be natural to me, and I believe it is so; but the profound\nrecollection of the first injustice I suffered was too long and too fast\nbound up with it, not to have strengthened it enormously.\"[13]\n\nTo men who belong to the silent and phlegmatic races like our own, all\nthis may possibly strike on the ear like a false or strained note. Yet a\ntranquil appeal to the real history of one's own strongest impressions\nmay disclose their roots in facts of childish experience, which\nremoteness of time has gradually emptied of the burning colour they once\nhad. This childish discovery of the existence in his own world of that\ninjustice which he had only seen through a glass very darkly in the\nimaginary world of his reading, was for Rousseau the angry dismissal\nfrom the primitive Eden, which in one shape and at one time or another\novertakes all men. \"Here,\" he says, \"was the term of the serenity of my\nchildish days. From this moment I ceased to enjoy a pure happiness, and\nI feel even at this day that the reminiscence of the delights of my\ninfancy here comes to an end.... Even the country lost in our eyes that\ncharm of sweetness and simplicity which goes to the heart; it seemed\nsombre and deserted, and was as if covered by a veil, hiding its\nbeauties from our sight. We no longer tended our little gardens, our\nplants, our flowers. We went no more lightly to scratch the earth,\nshouting for joy as we discovered the germ of the seed we had sown.\"\n\nWhatever may be the degree of literal truth in the Confessions, the\nwhole course of Rousseau's life forbids us to pass this passionate\ndescription by as overcharged or exaggerated. We are conscious in it of\na constitutional infirmity. We perceive an absence of healthy power of\nreaction against moral shock. Such shocks are experienced in many\nunavoidable forms by all save the dullest natures, when they first come\ninto contact with the sharp tooth of outer circumstance. Indeed, a man\nmust be either miraculously happy in his experiences, or exceptionally\nobtuse in observing and feeling, or else be the creature of base and\ncynical ideals, if life does not to the end continue to bring many a\nrepetition of that first day of incredulous bewilderment. But the urgent\ndemands for material activity quickly recall the mass of men to normal\nrelations with their fellows and the outer world. A vehement objective\ntemperament, like Voltaire's, is instantly roused by one of these\npenetrative stimuli into angry and tenacious resistance. A proud and\ncollected soul, like Goethe's, loftily follows its own inner aims,\nwithout taking any heed of the perturbations that arise from want of\nself-collection in a world still spelling its rudiments. A sensitive and\ndepressed spirit, like Rousseau's or Cowper's, finds itself without any\nof these reacting kinds of force, and the first stroke of cruelty or\noppression is the going out of a divine light.\n\nLeaving Bossey, Rousseau returned to Geneva, and passed two or three\nyears with his uncle, losing his time for the most part, but learning\nsomething of drawing and something of Euclid, for the former of which he\nshowed special inclination.[14] It was a question whether he was to be\nmade a watchmaker, a lawyer, or a minister. His own preference, as his\nafter-life might have led us to suppose, was in favour of the last of\nthe three; \"for I thought it a fine thing,\" he says, \"to preach.\" The\nuncle was a man of pleasure, and as often happens in such\ncircumstances, his love of pleasure had the effect of turning his wife\ninto a pietist. Their son was Rousseau's constant comrade. \"Our\nfriendship filled our hearts so amply, that if we were only together,\nthe simplest amusements were a delight.\" They made kites, cages, bows\nand arrows, drums, houses; they spoiled the tools of their grandfather,\nin trying to make watches like him. In the same cheerful imitative\nspirit, which is the main feature in childhood when it is not disturbed\nby excess of literary teaching, after Geneva had been visited by an\nItalian showman with a troop of marionettes, they made puppets and\ncomposed comedies for them; and when one day the uncle read aloud an\nelegant sermon, they abandoned their comedies, and turned with blithe\nenergy to exhortation. They had glimpses of the rougher side of life in\nthe biting mockeries of some schoolboys of the neighbourhood. These\nended in appeal to the god of youthful war, who pronounced so plainly\nfor the bigger battalions, that the release of their enemies from school\nwas the signal for the quick retreat of our pair within doors. All this\nis an old story in every biography written or unwritten. It seldom fails\nto touch us, either in the way of sympathetic reminiscence, or if life\nshould have gone somewhat too hardly with a man, then in the way of\nirony, which is not less real and poetic than the eironeia of a Greek\ndramatist, for being concerned with more unheroic creatures.\n\nAnd this rough play of the streets always seemed to Rousseau a manlier\nschooling than the effeminate tendencies which he thought he noticed in\nGenevese youth in after years. \"In my time,\" he says admiringly,\n\"children were brought up in rustic fashion and had no complexion to\nkeep.... Timid and modest before the old, they were bold, haughty,\ncombative among themselves; they had no curled locks to be careful of;\nthey defied one another at wrestling, running, boxing. They returned\nhome sweating, out of breath, torn; they were true blackguards, if you\nwill, but they made men who have zeal in their heart to serve their\ncountry and blood to shed for her. May we be able to say as much one day\nof our fine little gentlemen, and may these men at fifteen not turn out\nchildren at thirty.\"[15]\n\nTwo incidents of this period remain to us, described in Rousseau's own\nwords, and as they reveal a certain sweetness in which his life\nunhappily did not afterwards greatly abound, it may help our equitable\nbalance of impressions about him to reproduce them. Every Sunday he used\nto spend the day at P\u00e2quis at Mr. Fazy's, who had married one of his\naunts, and who carried on the production of printed calicoes. \"One day I\nwas in the drying-room, watching the rollers of the hot press; their\nbrightness pleased my eye; I was tempted to lay my fingers on them, and\nI was moving them up and down with much satisfaction along the smooth\ncylinder, when young Fazy placed himself in the wheel and gave it a\nhalf-quarter turn so adroitly, that I had just the ends of my two\nlongest fingers caught, but this was enough to crush the tips and tear\nthe nails. I raised a piercing cry; Fazy instantly turned back the\nwheel, and the blood gushed from my fingers. In the extremity of\nconsternation he hastened to me, embraced me, and besought me to cease\nmy cries, or he would be undone. In the height of my own pain, I was\ntouched by his; I instantly fell silent, we ran to the pond, where he\nhelped me to wash my fingers and to staunch the blood with moss. He\nentreated me with tears not to accuse him; I promised him that I would\nnot, and \u00cf kept my word so well that twenty years after no one knew the\norigin of the scar. I was kept in bed for more than three weeks, and for\nmore than two months was unable to use my hand. But I persisted that a\nlarge stone had fallen and crushed my fingers.\"[16]\n\nThe other story is of the same tenour, though there is a new touch of\nsensibility in its concluding words. \"I was playing at ball at Plain\nPalais, with one of my comrades named Plince. We began to quarrel over\nthe game; we fought, and in the fight he dealt me on my bare head a\nstroke so well directed, that with a stronger arm it would have dashed\nmy brains out. I fell to the ground, and there never was agitation like\nthat of this poor lad, as he saw the blood in my hair. He thought he had\nkilled me. He threw himself upon me, and clasped me eagerly in his arms,\nwhile his tears poured down his cheeks, and he uttered shrill cries. I\nreturned his embrace with all my force, weeping like him, in a state of\nconfused emotion which was not without a kind of sweetness. Then he\ntried to stop the blood which kept flowing, and seeing that our two\nhandkerchiefs were not enough, he dragged me off to his mother's; she\nhad a small garden hard by. The good woman nearly fell sick at sight of\nme in this condition; she kept strength enough to dress my wound, and\nafter bathing it well, she applied flower-de-luce macerated in brandy,\nan excellent remedy much used in our country. Her tears and those of her\nson, went to my very heart, so that I looked upon them for a long while\nas my mother and my brother.\"[17]\n\nIf it were enough that our early instincts should be thus amiable and\neasy, then doubtless the dismal sloughs in which men and women lie\nfloundering would occupy a very much more insignificant space in the\nfield of human experience. The problem, as we know, lies in the\ndiscipline of this primitive goodness. For character in a state of\nsociety is not a tree that grows into uprightness by the law of its own\nstrength, though an adorable instance here and there of rectitude and\nmoral loveliness that seem intuitive may sometimes tempt us into a\nmoment's belief in a contrary doctrine. In Rousseau's case this serious\nproblem was never solved; there was no deliberate preparation of his\nimpulses, prepossessions, notions; no foresight on the part of elders,\nand no gradual acclimatisation of a sensitive and ardent nature in the\nfixed principles which are essential to right conduct in the frigid zone\nof our relations with other people. It was one of the most elementary of\nRousseau's many perverse and mischievous contentions, that it is their\neducation by the older which ruins or wastes the abundant capacity for\nvirtue that subsists naturally in the young. His mind seems never to\nhave sought much more deeply for proof of this, than the fact that he\nhimself was innocent and happy so long as he was allowed to follow\nwithout disturbance the easy simple proclivities of his own temperament.\nCircumstances were not indulgent enough to leave the experiment to\ncomplete itself within these very rudimentary conditions.\n\nRousseau had been surrounded, as he is always careful to protest, with a\nreligious atmosphere. His father, though a man of pleasure, was\npossessed also not only of probity but of religion as well. His three\naunts were all in their degrees gracious and devout. M. Lambercier at\nBossey, \"although Churchman and preacher,\" was still a sincere believer\nand nearly as good in act as in word. His inculcation of religion was so\nhearty, so discreet, so reasonable, that his pupils, far from being\nwearied by the sermon, never came away without being touched inwardly\nand stirred to make virtuous resolutions. With his Aunt Bernard devotion\nwas rather more tiresome, because she made a business of it.[18] It\nwould be a distinct error to suppose that all this counted for nothing,\nfor let us remember that we are now engaged with the youth of the one\ngreat religious writer of France in the eighteenth century. When after\nmany years Rousseau's character hardened, the influences which had\nsurrounded his boyhood came out in their full force and the historian of\nopinion soon notices in his spirit and work a something which had no\ncounterpart in the spirit and work of men who had been trained in Jesuit\ncolleges. At the first outset, however, every trace of religious\nsentiment was obliterated from sight, and he was left unprotected\nagainst the shocks of the world and the flesh.\n\nAt the age of eleven Jean Jacques was sent into a notary's office, but\nthat respectable calling struck him in the same repulsive and\ninsufferable way in which it has struck many other boys of genius in all\ncountries. Contrary to the usual rule, he did not rebel, but was\nignominiously dismissed by his master[19] for dulness and inaptitude;\nhis fellow-clerks pronounced him stupid and incompetent past hope. He\nwas next apprenticed to an engraver,[20] a rough and violent man, who\nseems to have instantly plunged the boy into a demoralised stupefaction.\nThe reality of contact with this coarse nature benumbed as by touch of\ntorpedo the whole being of a youth who had hitherto lived on pure\nsensations and among those ideas which are nearest to sensations. There\nwere no longer heroic Romans in Rousseau's universe. \"The vilest\ntastes, the meanest bits of rascality, succeeded to my simple\namusements, without even leaving the least idea behind. I must, in spite\nof the worthiest education, have had a strong tendency to degenerate.\"\nThe truth was that he had never had any education in its veritable\nsense, as the process, on its negative side, of counteracting the\ninborn. There are two kinds, or perhaps we should more correctly say two\ndegrees, of the constitution in which the reflective part is weak. There\nare the men who live on sensation, but who do so lustily, with a certain\nfulness of blood and active energy of muscle. There are others who do so\npassively, not searching for excitement, but acquiescing. The former by\ntheir sheer force and plenitude of vitality may, even in a world where\nreflection is a first condition, still go far. The latter succumb, and\nas reflection does nothing for them, and as their sensations in such a\nworld bring them few blandishments, they are tolerably early surrounded\nwith a self-diffusing atmosphere of misery. Rousseau had none of this\nenergy which makes oppression bracing. For a time he sank.\n\nIt would be a mistake to let the story of the Confessions carry us into\nexaggerations. The brutality of his master and the harshness of his life\nled him to nothing very criminal, but only to wrong acts which are\ndespicable by their meanness, rather than in any sense atrocious. He\ntold lies as readily as the truth. He pilfered things to eat. He\ncunningly found a means of opening his master's private cabinet, and of\nusing his master's best instruments by stealth. He wasted his time in\nidle and capricious tasks. When the man, with all the ravity of an adult\nmoralist, describes these misdeeds of the boy, they assume a certain\nugliness of mien, and excites a strong disgust which, when the misdeeds\nthemselves are before us in actual life, we experience in a far more\nconsiderate form. The effect of calm, retrospective avowal is to create\na kind of feeling which is essentially unlike our feeling at what is\nactually avowed. Still it is clear that his unlucky career as apprentice\nbrought out in Rousseau slyness, greediness, slovenliness,\nuntruthfulness, and the whole ragged regiment of the squalider vices.\nThe evil of his temperament now and always was of the dull smouldering\nkind, seldom breaking out into active flame. There is a certain\nsordidness in the scene. You may complain that the details which\nRousseau gives of his youthful days are insipid. Yet such things are the\nweb and stuff of life, and these days of transition from childhood to\nfull manhood in every case mark a crisis. These insipidities test the\neducation of home and family, and they presage definitely what is to\ncome. The roots of character, good or bad, are shown for this short\nspace, and they remain unchanged, though most people learn from their\nfellows the decent and useful art of covering them over with a little\ndust, in the shape of accepted phrases and routine customs and a silence\nwhich is not oblivion.\n\nAfter a time the character of Jean Jacques was absolutely broken down.\nHe says little of the blows with which his offences were punished by his\nmaster, but he says enough to enable us to discern that they were\nterrible to him. This cowardice, if we choose to give the name to an\novermastering physical horror, at length brought his apprentice days to\nan end. He was now in his sixteenth year. He was dragged by his comrades\ninto sports for which he had little inclination, though he admits that\nonce engaged in them he displayed an impetuosity that carried him beyond\nthe others. Such pastimes naturally led them beyond the city walls, and\non two occasions Rousseau found the gates closed on his return. His\nmaster when he presented himself in the morning gave him such greeting\nas we may imagine, and held out things beyond imagining as penalty for a\nsecond sin in this kind. The occasion came, as, alas, it nearly always\ndoes. \"Half a league from the town,\" says Rousseau, \"I hear the retreat\nsounded, and redouble my pace; I hear the drum beat, and run at the top\nof my speed: I arrive out of breath, bathed in sweat; my heart beats\nviolently, I see from a distance the soldiers at their post, and call\nout with choking voice. It was too late. Twenty paces from the outpost\nsentinel, I saw the first bridge rising. I shuddered, as I watched those\nterrible horns, sinister and fatal augury of the inevitable lot which\nthat moment was opening for me.\"[21]\n\nIn manhood when we have the resource of our own will to fall back upon,\nwe underestimate the unsurpassed horror and anguish of such moments as\nthis in youth, when we know only the will of others, and that this will\nis inexorable against us. Rousseau dared not expose himself to the\nfulfilment of his master's menace, and he ran away (1728). But for this,\nwrote the unhappy man long years after, \"I should have passed, in the\nbosom of my religion, of my native land, of my family, and my friends, a\nmild and peaceful life, such as my character required, in the uniformity\nof work which suited my taste, and of a society after my heart. I should\nhave been a good Christian, good citizen, good father of a family, good\nfriend, good craftsman, good man in all. I should have been happy in my\ncondition, perhaps I might have honoured it; and after living a life\nobscure and simple, but even and gentle, I should have died peacefully\nin the midst of my own people. Soon forgotten, I should at any rate have\nbeen regretted as long as any memory of me was left.\"[22]\n\nAs a man knows nothing about the secrets of his own individual\norganisation, this illusory mapping out of a supposed Possible need\nseldom be suspected of the smallest insincerity. The poor madman who\ndeclares that he is a king kept out of his rights only moves our pity,\nand we perhaps owe pity no less to those in all the various stages of\naberration uncertificated by surgeons, down to the very edge of most\nrespectable sanity, who accuse the injustice of men of keeping them out\nof this or that kingdom, of which in truth their own composition\nfinally disinherited them at the moment when they were conceived in a\nmother's womb. The first of the famous Five Propositions of Jansen,\nwhich were a stumbling-block to popes and to the philosophy of the\neighteenth-century foolishness, put this clear and permanent truth into\na mystic and perishable formula, to the effect that there are some\ncommandments of God which righteous and good men are absolutely unable\nto obey, though ever so disposed to do them, and God does not give them\nso much grace that they are able to observe them.\n\nIf Rousseau's sensations in the evening were those of terror, the day\nand its prospect of boundless adventures soon turned them into entire\ndelight. The whole world was before him, and all the old conceptions of\nromance were instantly revived by the supposed nearness of their\nrealisation. He roamed for two or three days among the villages in the\nneighbourhood of Geneva, finding such hospitality as he needed in the\ncottages of friendly peasants. Before long his wanderings brought him to\nthe end of the territory of the little republic. Here he found himself\nin the domain of Savoy, where dukes and lords had for ages been the\ntraditional foes of the freedom and the faith of Geneva, Rousseau came\nto the village of Confignon, and the name of the priest of Confignon\nrecalled one of the most embittered incidents of the old feud. This feud\nhad come to take new forms; instead of midnight expeditions to scale the\ncity walls, the descendants of the Savoyard marauders of the sixteenth\ncentury were now intent with equivocal good will on rescuing the souls\nof the descendants of their old enemies from deadly heresy. At this time\na systematic struggle was going on between the priests of Savoy and the\nministers of Geneva, the former using every effort to procure the\nconversion of any Protestant on whom they could lay hands.[23] As it\nhappened, the priest of Confignon was one of the most active in this\ngood work.[24] He made the young Rousseau welcome, spoke to him of the\nheresies of Geneva and of the authority of the holy Church, and gave him\nsome dinner. He could hardly have had a more easy convert, for the\nnature with which he had to deal was now swept and garnished, ready for\nthe entrance of all devils or gods. The dinner went for much. \"I was too\ngood a guest,\" writes Rousseau in one of his few passages of humour, \"to\nbe a good theologian, and his Frangi wine, which struck me as excellent,\nwas such a triumphant argument on his side, that I should have blushed\nto oppose so capital a host.\"[25] So it was agreed that he should be put\nin a way to be further instructed of these matters. We may accept\nRousseau's assurance that he was not exactly a hypocrite in this rapid\ncomplaisance. He admits that any one who should have seen the artifices\nto which he resorted, might have thought him very false. But, he\nargues, \"flattery, or rather concession, is not always a vice; it is\noftener a virtue, especially in the young. The kindness with which a man\nreceives us, attaches us to him; it is not to make a fool of him that we\ngive way, but to avoid displeasing him, and not to return him evil for\ngood.\" He never really meant to change his religion; his fault was like\nthe coquetting of decent women, who sometimes, to gain their ends,\nwithout permitting anything or promising anything, lead men to hope more\nthan they mean to hold good.[26] Thereupon follow some austere\nreflections on the priest, who ought to have sent him back to his\nfriends; and there are strictures even upon the ministers of all\ndogmatic religions, in which the essential thing is not to do but to\nbelieve; their priests therefore, provided that they can convert a man\nto their faith, are wholly indifferent alike as to his worth and his\nworldly interests. All this is most just; the occasion for such a strain\nof remark, though so apposite on one side, is hardly well chosen to\nimpress us. We wonder, as we watch the boy complacently hoodwinking his\nentertainer, what has become of the Roman severity of a few months back.\nThis nervous eagerness to please, however, was the complementary element\nof a character of vague ambition, and it was backed by a stealthy\nconsciousness of intellectual superiority, which perhaps did something,\nthough poorly enough, to make such ignominy less deeply degrading.\n\nThe die was cast. M. Pontverre despatched his brand plucked from the\nburning to a certain Madame de Warens, a lady living at Annecy, and\ncounted zealous for the cause of the Church. In an interview whose\nminutest circumstances remained for ever stamped in his mind (March 21,\n1728), Rousseau exchanged his first words with this singular personage,\nwhose name and character he has covered with doubtful renown. He\nexpected to find some gray and wrinkled woman, saving a little remnant\nof days in good works. Instead of this, there turned round upon him a\nperson not more than eight-and-twenty years old, with gentle caressing\nair, a fascinating smile, a tender eye. Madame de Warens read the\nletters he brought, and entertained their bearer cheerfully. It was\ndecided after consultation that the heretic should be sent to a\nmonastery at Turin, where he might be brought over in form to the true\nChurch. At the monastery not only would the spiritual question of faith\nand the soul be dealt with, but at the same time the material problem of\nshelter and subsistence for the body would be solved likewise. Elated\nwith vanity at the thought of seeing before any of his comrades the\ngreat land of promise beyond the mountains, heedless of those whom he\nhad left, and heedless of the future before him and the object which he\nwas about, the young outcast made his journey over the Alps in all\npossible lightness of heart. \"Seeing country is an allurement which\nhardly any Genevese can ever resist. Everything that met my eye seemed\nthe guarantee of my approaching happiness. In the houses I imagined\nrustic festivals; in the fields, joyful sports; along the streams,\nbathing and fishing; on the trees, delicious fruits; under their shade,\nvoluptuous interviews; on the mountains, pails of milk and cream, a\ncharming idleness, peace, simplicity, the delight of going forward\nwithout knowing whither.\"[27] He might justly choose out this interval\nas more perfectly free from care or anxiety than any other of his life.\nIt was the first of the too rare occasions when his usually passive\nsensuousness was stung by novelty and hope into an active energy.\n\nThe seven or eight days of the journey came to an end, and the youth\nfound himself at Turin without money or clothes, an inmate of a dreary\nmonastery, among some of the very basest and foulest of mankind, who\npass their time in going from one monastery to another through Spain and\nItaly, professing themselves Jews or Moors for the sake of being\nsupported while the process of their conversion was going slowly\nforward. At the Hospice of the Catechumens the work of his conversion\nwas begun in such earnest as the insincerity of at least one of the\nparties to it might allow. It is needless to enter into the\ncircumstances of Rousseau's conversion to Catholicism. The mischievous\nzeal for theological proselytising has led to thousands of such hollow\nand degrading performances, but it may safely be said that none of them\nwas ever hollower than this. Rousseau avows that he had been brought up\nin the heartiest abhorrence of the older church, and that he never lost\nthis abhorrence. He fully explains that he accepted the arguments with\nwhich he was not very energetically plied, simply because he could not\nbear the idea of returning to Geneva, and he saw no other way out of his\npresent destitute condition. \"I could not dissemble from myself that the\nholy deed I was about to do, was at the bottom the action of a bandit.\"\n\"The sophism which destroyed me,\" he says in one of those eloquent\npieces of moralising, which bring ignoble action into a relief that\nexaggerates our condemnation, \"is that of most men, who complain of lack\nof strength when it is already too late for them to use it. It is only\nthrough our own fault that virtue costs us anything; if we could be\nalways sage, we should rarely feel the need of being virtuous. But\ninclinations that might be easily overcome, drag us on without\nresistance; we yield to light temptations of which we despise the\nhazard. Insensibly we fall into perilous situations, against which we\ncould easily have shielded ourselves, but from which we can afterwards\nonly make a way out by heroic efforts that stupefy us, and so we sink\ninto the abyss, crying aloud to God, Why hast thou made me so weak? But\nin spite of ourselves, God gives answer to our conscience, 'I made thee\ntoo weak to come out from the pit, because I made thee strong enough to\navoid falling into it.'\"[28] So the hopeful convert did fall in, not as\nhappens to the pious soul \"too hot for certainties in this our life,\"\nto find rest in liberty of private judgment and an open Bible, but\nsimply as a means of getting food, clothing, and shelter.[29] The boy\nwas clever enough to make some show of resistance, and he turned to good\nuse for this purpose the knowledge of Church history and the great\nReformation controversy which he had picked up at M. Lambercier's. He\nwas careful not to carry things too far, and exactly nine days after his\nadmission into the Hospice, he \"abjured the errors of the sect.\"[30] Two\ndays after that he was publicly received into the kindly bosom of the\ntrue Church with all solemnity, to the high edification of the devout of\nTurin, who marked their interest in the regenerate soul by contributions\nto the extent of twenty francs in small money.\n\nWith that sum and formal good wishes the fathers of the Hospice of the\nCatechumens thrust him out of their doors into the broad world. The\nyouth who had begun the day with dreams of palaces, found himself at\nnight sleeping in a den where he paid a halfpenny for the privilege of\nresting in the same room with the rude woman who kept the house, her\nhusband, her five or six children, and various other lodgers. This rough\nawakening produced no consciousness of hardship in a nature which,\nbeneath all fantastic dreams, always remained true to its first sympathy\nwith the homely lives of the poor. The woman of the house swore like a\ncarter, and was always dishevelled and disorderly: this did not prevent\nRousseau from recognising her kindness of heart and her staunch\nreadiness to befriend. He passed his days in wandering about the streets\nof Turin, seeing the wonders of a capital, and expecting some adventure\nthat should raise him to unknown heights. He went regularly to mass,\nwatched the pomp of the court, and counted upon stirring a passion in\nthe breast of a princess. \u00c0 more important circumstance was the effect\nof the mass in awakening in his own breast his latent passion for music;\na passion so strong that the poorest instrument, if it were only in\ntune, never failed to give him the liveliest pleasure. The king of\nSardinia was believed to have the best performers in Europe; less than\nthat was enough to quicken the musical susceptibility which is perhaps\nan invariable element in the most completely sensuous natures.\n\nWhen the end of the twenty francs began to seem a thing possible, he\ntried to get work as an engraver. A young woman in a shop took pity on\nhim, gave him work and food, and perhaps permitted him to make dumb and\ngrovelling love to her, until her husband returned home and drove her\nclient away from the door with threats and the waving of a wand not\nmagical.[31] Rousseau's self-love sought an explanation in the natural\nfury of an Italian husband's jealousy; but we need hardly ask for any\nother cause than a shopkeeper's reasonable objection to vagabonds.\n\nThe next step of this youth, who was always dreaming of the love of\nprincesses, was to accept with just thankfulness the position of lackey\nor footboy in the household of a widow. With Madame de Vercellis he\npassed three months, and at the end of that time she died. His stay here\nwas marked by an incident that has filled many pages with stormful\ndiscussion. When Madame de Vercellis died, a piece of old rose-coloured\nribbon was missing; Rousseau had stolen it, and it was found in his\npossession. They asked him whence he had taken it. He replied that it\nhad been given to him by Marion, a young and comely maid in the house.\nIn her presence and before the whole household he repeated his false\nstory, and clung to it with a bitter effrontery that we may well call\ndiabolic, remembering how the nervous terror of punishment and exposure\nsinks the angel in man. Our phrase, want of moral courage, really\ndenotes in the young an excruciating physical struggle, often so keen\nthat the victim clutches after liberation with the spontaneous tenacity\nand cruelty of a creature wrecked in mastering waters. Undisciplined\nsensations constitute egoism in the most ruthless of its shapes, and at\nthis epoch, owing either to the brutalities which surrounded his\napprentice life at Geneva, or to that rapid tendency towards\ndegeneration which he suspected in his own character, Rousseau was the\nslave of sensations which stained his days with baseness. \"Never,\" he\nsays, in his account of this hateful action, \"was wickedness further\nfrom me than at this cruel moment; and when I accused the poor girl, it\nis contradictory and yet it is true that my affection for her was the\ncause of what I did. She was present to my mind, and I threw the blame\nfrom myself on to the first object that presented itself. When I saw her\nappear my heart was torn, but the presence of so many people was too\nstrong for my remorse. I feared punishment very little; I only feared\ndisgrace, but I feared that more than death, more than crime, more than\nanything in the world. I would fain have buried myself in the depths of\nthe earth; invincible shame prevailed over all, shame alone caused my\neffrontery, and the more criminal I became, the more intrepid was I made\nby the fright of confessing it. I could see nothing but the horror of\nbeing recognised and declared publicly to my face a thief, liar, and\ntraducer.\"[32] When he says that he feared punishment little, his\nanalysis of his mind is most likely wrong, for nothing is clearer than\nthat a dread of punishment in any physical form was a peculiarly strong\nfeeling with him at this time. However that may have been, the same\nover-excited imagination which put every sense on the alarm and led him\ninto so abominable a misdemeanour, brought its own penalties. It led him\nto conceive a long train of ruin as having befallen Marion in\nconsequence of his calumny against her, and this dreadful thought\nhaunted him to the end of his life. In the long sleepless nights he\nthought he saw the unhappy girl coming to reproach him with a crime that\nseemed as fresh to him as if it had been perpetrated the day before.[33]\nThus the same brooding memory which brought back to him the sweet pain\nof his gentle kinswoman's household melody, preserved the darker side of\nhis history with equal fidelity and no less perfect continuousness.\nRousseau expresses a hope and belief that this burning remorse would\nserve as expiation for his fault; as if expiation for the destruction of\nanother soul could be anything but a fine name for self-absolution. We\nmay, however, charitably and reasonably think that the possible\nconsequences of his fault to the unfortunate Marion were not actual, but\nwere as much a hallucination as the midnight visits of her reproachful\nspirit. Indeed, we are hardly condoning evil, in suggesting that the\nwhole story from its beginning is marked with exaggeration, and that we\nwho have our own lives to lead shall find little help in criticising at\nfurther length the exact heinousness of the ignoble falsehood of a boy\nwho happened to grow up into a man of genius.[34]\n\nAfter an interval of six weeks, which were passed in the garret or\ncellar of his rough patroness with kind heart and ungentle tongue,\nRousseau again found himself a lackey in the house of a Piedmontese\nperson of quality. This new master, the Count of Gouvon, treated him\nwith a certain unusual considerateness, which may perhaps make us doubt\nthe narrative. His son condescended to teach the youth Latin, and\nRousseau presumed to entertain a passion for one of the daughters of the\nhouse, to whom he paid silent homage in the odd shape of attending to\nher wants at table with special solicitude. In this situation he had, or\nat least he supposed that he had, an excellent chance of ultimate\nadvancement. But advancement here or elsewhere means a measure of\nstability, and Rousseau's temperament in his youth was the archtype of\nthe mutable. An old comrade from Geneva visited him,[35] and as almost\nany incident is stimulating enough to fire the restlessness of\nimaginative youth, the gratitude which he professed to the Count of\nGouvon and his family, the prudence with which he marked his prospects,\nthe industry with which he profited by opportunity, all faded quickly\ninto mere dead and disembodied names of virtues. His imagination again\nwent over the journey across the mountains; the fields, the woods, the\nstreams, began to absorb his whole life. He recalled with delicious\nsatisfaction how charming the journey had seemed to him, and thought how\nfar more charming it would be in the society of a comrade of his own age\nand taste, without duty, or constraint, or obligation to go or stay\nother than as it might please them. \"It would be madness to sacrifice\nsuch a piece of good fortune to projects of ambition, which were slow,\ndifficult, doubtful of execution, and which, even if they should one day\nbe realised, were not with all their glory worth a quarter of an hour of\ntrue pleasure and freedom in youth.\"[36]\n\nOn these high principles he neglected his duties so recklessly that he\nwas dismissed from his situation, and he and his comrade began their\nhomeward wanderings with more than apostolic heedlessness as to what\nthey should eat or wherewithal they should be clothed. They had a toy\nfountain; they hoped that in return for the amusement to be conferred by\nthis wonder they should receive all that they might need. Their hopes\nwere not fulfilled. The exhibition of the toy fountain did not excuse\nthem from their reckoning. Before long it was accidentally broken, and\nto their secret satisfaction, for it had lost its novelty. Their naked,\nvagrancy was thus undisguised. They made their way by some means or\nother across the mountains, and their enjoyment of vagabondage was\nundisturbed by any thought of a future. \"To understand my delirium at\nthis moment,\" Rousseau says, in words which shed much light on darker\nparts of his history than fits of vagrancy, \"it is necessary to know to\nwhat a degree my heart is subject to get aflame with the smallest\nthings, and with what force it plunges into the imagination of the\nobject that attracts it, vain as that object may be. The most grotesque,\nthe most childish, the maddest schemes come to caress my favourite idea,\nand to show me the reasonableness of surrendering myself to it.\"[37] It\nwas this deep internal vehemence which distinguished Rousseau all\nthrough his life from the commonplace type of social revolter. A vagrant\nsensuous temperament, strangely compounded with Genevese austerity; an\nardent and fantastic imagination, incongruously shot with threads of\nfirm reason; too little conscience and too much; a monstrous and\ndiseased love of self, intertwined with a sincere compassion and keen\ninterest for the great fellowship of his brothers; a wild dreaming of\ndreams that were made to look like sanity by the close and specious\nconnection between conclusions and premisses, though the premisses\nhappened to have the fault of being profoundly unreal:--this was the\ntype of character that lay unfolded in the youth who, towards the autumn\nof 1729, reached Annecy, penniless and ragged, throwing himself once\nmore on the charity of the patroness who had given him shelter eighteen\nmonths before. Few figures in the world at that time were less likely to\nconciliate the favour or excite the interest of an observer, who had not\nstudied the hidden convolutions of human character deeply enough to know\nthat a boy of eighteen may be sly, sensual, restless, dreamy, and yet\nhave it in him to say things one day which may help to plunge a world\ninto conflagration.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Here is the line:--\n\nDidier Rousseau. | Jean | ----------------------- | | David. Noah. | |\nIsaac (b. 1680-5, d. 1745-7). Jean Fran\u00e7ois. | | | -------------- | |\n| JEAN JACQUES. Jean. Theodore.\n\n(_Musset-Pathay_, ii. 283.)\n\n[2] Picot's _Hist. de Gen\u00e8ve_, iii. 114.\n\n[3] _Conf._, i. 7.\n\n[4] _Lettre \u00e0 D'Alembert_, p. 187. Also _Nouv. H\u00e9l._, VI. v. 239.\n\n[5] _Conf._, i. 9. Also Second Letter to M. de Malesherbes, p. 356.\n\n[6] _R\u00eaveries_, iv. p. 189. \"My master and counsellor, Plutarch,\" he\nsays, when he lends a volume to Madame d'Epinay in 1756. _Corr._, i.\n265.\n\n[7] Dedication of the _Discours sur l'Origine de l'In\u00e9galit\u00e9_, p. 201.\n(June, 1754.)\n\n[8] _Conf._, i. 1.\n\n[9] _Ib_, i. 12.\n\n[10] The tenacity of this grateful recollection is shown in letters to\nher (Madame Gonceru)--one in 1754 (_Corr._, i. 204), another as late\nas 1770 (vi. 129), and a third in 1762 (_Oeuvr. et Corr. In\u00e9d._, 392).\n\n[11] _Conf._, i. 17-32.\n\n[12] See also _Conf._, i. 43; iii. 185; vii. 73; xii. 188, _n._ 2.\n\n[13] _Conf._, i. 27-31.\n\n[14] _Conf._, i. 38-47.\n\n[15] _Lettre \u00e0 D'Alembert_(1758), 178, 179.\n\n[16] _R\u00eaveries_, iv. 211, 212.\n\n[17] _Conf._ 212, 213.\n\n[18] _Conf._, ii. 102, 103.\n\n[19] M. Masseron.\n\n[20] M. Ducommun.\n\n[21] _Conf._, i. 69.\n\n[22] _Conf._, i. 72.\n\n[23] J. Gaberel's _Histoire de l'\u00c9glise de Gen\u00e8ve_ (Geneva, 1853-62),\nvol. iii. p. 285.\n\n[24] There is a minute in the register of the company of ministers, to\nthe effect that the Sieur de Pontverre \"is attracting many young men\nfrom this town, and changing their religion, and that the public ought\nto be warned.\" (Gaberel, iii. 224.)\n\n[25] _Conf._, ii. 76.\n\n[26] _Conf._, ii. 77.\n\n[27] _Conf._, ii. 90-97.\n\n[28] _Conf._, ii. 107\n\n[29] See _\u00c9mile_, iv. 124, 125, where the youth who was born a\nCalvinist, finding himself a stranger in a strange land, without\nresource, \"changed his religion to get bread.\"\n\n[30] In the _Confessions_ (ii. 115) he has grace enough to make the\nperiod a month; but the extract from the register of his baptism\n(Gaberel's _Hist. de l'\u00c9glise de Gen\u00e8ve_, iii. 224), which has been\nrecently published, shows that this is untrue: \"Jean Jacques Rousseau,\nde Gen\u00e8ve (Calviniste), entr\u00e9 \u00e0 l'hospice \u00e0 l'\u00e2ge de 16 ans, le 12\navril, 1728. Abjura les erreurs de la secte le 21; et le 23 du m\u00eame\nmois lui fut administr\u00e9 le saint bapt\u00eame, ayant pour parrain le sieur\nAndr\u00e9 Ferrero et pour marraine Fran\u00e7oise Christine Rora (ou Rovea).\"\n\nA little further on (p. 119) he speaks of having been shut up \"for two\nmonths,\" but this is not true even on his own showing.\n\n[31] Madame Basile. _Conf._, ii. 121-135.\n\n[32] _Conf._ ii. ad finem.\n\n[33] _Conf._, ii. 144.\n\n[34] Another version of the story mentioned by Musset-Pathay (i. 7)\nmakes the object of the theft a diamond, but there is really no\nevidence in the matter beyond that given by Rousseau himself.\n\n[35] Bacle, by name.\n\n[36] _Conf._, iii. 168.\n\n[37] _Conf._, iii. 170. A slightly idealised account of the situation\nis given in _\u00c9mile_, Bk. iv. 125.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nSAVOY.\n\n\nThe commonplace theory which the world takes for granted as to the\nrelations of the sexes, makes the woman ever crave the power and\nguidance of her physically stronger mate. Even if this be a true account\nof the normal state, there is at any rate a kind of temperament among\nthe many types of men, in which it seems as if the elements of character\nremain mere futile and dispersive particles, until compelled into unity\nand organisation by the creative shock of feminine influence. There are\nmen, famous or obscure, whose lives might be divided into a number of\nepochs, each defined and presided over by the influence of a woman. For\nthe inconstant such a calendar contains many divisions, for the constant\nit is brief and simple; for both alike it marks the great decisive\nphases through which character has moved.\n\nRousseau's temperament was deeply marked by this special sort of\nsusceptibility in one of its least agreeable forms. His sentiment was\nneither robustly and courageously animal, nor was it an intellectual\ndemand for the bright and vivacious sympathies in which women sometimes\nexcel. It had neither bold virility, nor that sociable energy which\nmakes close emotional companionship an essential condition of freedom of\nfaculty and completeness of work. There is a certain close and sickly\nair round all his dealings with women and all his feeling for them. We\nseem to move not in the star-like radiance of love, nor even in the\nfiery flames of lust, but among the humid heats of some unknown abode of\nthings not wholesome or manly. \"I know a sentiment,\" he writes, \"which\nis perhaps less impetuous than love, but a thousand times more\ndelicious, which sometimes is joined to love, and which is very often\napart from it. Nor is this sentiment friendship only; it is more\nvoluptuous, more tender; I do not believe that any one of the same sex\ncould be its object; at least I have been a friend, if ever man was, and\nI never felt this about any of my friends.\"[38] He admits that he can\nonly describe this sentiment by its effects; but our lives are mostly\nruled by elements that defy definition, and in Rousseau's case the\nsentiment which he could not describe was a paramount trait of his\nmental constitution. It was as a voluptuous garment; in it his\nimagination was cherished into activity, and protected against that\nouter air of reality which braces ordinary men, but benumbs and\ndisintegrates the whole vital apparatus of such an organisation as\nRousseau's. If he had been devoid of this feeling about women, his\ncharacter might very possibly have remained sterile. That feeling was\nthe complementary contribution, without which could be no fecundity.\n\nWhen he returned from his squalid Italian expedition in search of bread\nand a new religion, his mind was clouded with the vague desire, the\nsensual moodiness, which in such natures stains the threshold of\nmanhood. This unrest, with its mysterious torments and black delights,\nwas banished, or at least soothed into a happier humour, by the\ninfluence of a person who is one of the most striking types to be found\nin the gallery of fair women.\n\n\nI.\n\nA French writer in the eighteenth century, in a story which deals with a\nrather repulsive theme of action in a tone that is graceful, simple, and\npathetic, painted the portrait of a creature for whom no moralist with a\nreputation to lose can say a word; and we may, if we choose, fool\nourselves by supposing her to be without a counterpart in the\nbetter-regulated world of real life, but, in spite of both these\nobjections, she is an interesting and not untouching figure to those who\nlike to know all the many-webbed stuff out of which their brothers and\nsisters are made. The Manon Lescaut of the unfortunate Abb\u00e9 Prevost,\nkindly, bright, playful, tender, but devoid of the very germ of the idea\nof that virtue which is counted the sovereign recommendation of woman,\nhelps us to understand Madame de Warens. There are differences enough\nbetween them, and we need not mistake them for one and the same type.\nManon Lescaut is a prettier figure, because romance has fewer\nlimitations than real life; but if we think of her in reading of\nRousseau's benefactress, the vision of the imaginary woman tends to\nsoften our judgment of the actual one, as well as to enlighten our\nconception of a character that eludes the instruments of a commonplace\nanalysis.[39]\n\nShe was born at Vevai in 1700; she married early, and early disagreed\nwith her husband, from whom she eventually went away, abandoning family,\nreligion, country, and means of subsistence, with all gaiety of heart.\nThe King of Sardinia happened to be keeping his court at a small town on\nthe southern shores of the lake of Geneva, and the conversion of Madame\nde Warens to Catholicism by the preaching of the Bishop of Annecy,[40]\ngave a zest to the royal visit, as being a successful piece of sport in\nthat great spiritual hunt which Savoy loved to pursue at the expense of\nthe reformed church in Switzerland. The king, to mark his zeal for the\nfaith of his house, conferred on the new convert a small pension for\nlife; but as the tongues of the scandalous imputed a less pure motive\nfor such generosity in a parsimonious prince, Madame de Warens removed\nfrom the court and settled at Annecy. Her conversion was hardly more\nserious than Rousseau's own, because seriousness was no condition of her\nintelligence on any of its sides or in any of its relations. She was\nextremely charitable to the poor, full of pity for all in misfortune,\neasily moved to forgiveness of wrong or ingratitude; careless, gay,\nopen-hearted; having, in a word, all the good qualities which spring in\ncertain generous soils from human impulse, and hardly any of those which\nspring from reflection, or are implanted by the ordering of society. Her\nreason had been warped in her youth by an instructor of the devil's\nstamp;[41] finding her attached to her husband and to her duties, always\ncold, argumentative, and impregnable on the side of the senses, he\nattacked her by sophisms, and at last persuaded her that the union of\nthe sexes is in itself a matter of the most perfect indifference,\nprovided only that decorum of appearance be preserved, and the peace of\nmind of persons concerned be not disturbed.[42] This execrable lesson,\nwhich greater and more unselfish men held and propagated in grave books\nbefore the end of the century, took root in her mind. If we accept\nRousseau's explanation, it did so the more easily as her temperament was\ncold, and thus corroborated the idea of the indifference of what public\nopinion and private passion usually concur in investing with such\nenormous weightiness. \"I will even dare to say,\" Rousseau declares,\n\"that she only knew one true pleasure in the world, and that was to give\npleasure to those whom she loved.\"[43] He is at great pains to protest\nhow compatible this coolness of temperament is with excessive\nsensibility of character; and neither ethological theory nor practical\nobservation of men and women is at all hostile to what he is so anxious\nto prove. The cardinal element of character is the speed at which its\nenergies move; its rapidity or its steadiness, concentration or\nvolatility; whether the thought and feeling travel as quickly as light\nor as slowly as sound. A rapid and volatile constitution like that of\nMadame de Warens is inconsistent with ardent and glowing warmth, which\nbelongs to the other sort, but it is essentially bound up with\nsensibility, or readiness of sympathetic answer to every cry from\nanother soul. It is the slow, brooding, smouldering nature, like\nRousseau's own, in which we may expect to find the tropics.\n\nTo bring the heavy artillery of moral reprobation to bear upon a poor\nsoul like Madame de Warens is as if one should denounce flagrant want\nof moral purpose in the busy movements of ephemera. Her activity was\nincessant, but it ended in nothing better than debt, embarrassment, and\nconfusion. She inherited from her father a taste for alchemy, and spent\nmuch time in search after secret elixirs and the like. \"Quacks, taking\nadvantage of her weakness, made themselves her master, constantly\ninfested her, ruined her, and wasted, in the midst of furnaces and\nchemicals, intelligence, talents, and charms which would have made her\nthe delight of the best societies.\"[44] Perhaps, however, the too\nnotorious vagrancy of her amours had at least as much to do with her\nfailure to delight the best societies as her indiscreet passion for\nalchemy. Her person was attractive enough. \"She had those points of\nbeauty,\" says Rousseau, \"which are desirable, because they reside rather\nin expression than in feature. She had a tender and caressing air, a\nsoft eye, a divine smile, light hair of uncommon beauty. You could not\nsee a finer head or bosom, finer arms or hands.\"[45] She was full of\ntricks and whimsies. She could not endure the first smell of the soup\nand meats at dinner; when they were placed on the table she nearly\nswooned, and her disgust lasted some time, until at the end of half an\nhour or so she took her first morsel.[46] On the whole, if we accept the\ncurrent standard of sanity, Madame de Warens must be pronounced ever so\nlittle flighty; but a monotonous world can afford to be lenient to\npeople with a slight craziness, if it only has hearty benevolence and\ncheerfulness in its company, and is free from egoism or\nrapacious vanity.\n\nThis was the person within the sphere of whose attraction Rousseau was\ndecisively brought in the autumn of 1729, and he remained, with certain\nbreaks of vagabondage, linked by a close attachment to her until 1738.\nIt was in many respects the truly formative portion of his life. He\nacquired during this time much of his knowledge of books, such as it\nwas, and his principles of judging them. He saw much of the lives of the\npoor and of the world's ways with them. Above all his ideal was\nrevolutionised, and the recent dreams of Plutarchian heroism, of\ngrandeur, of palaces, princesses, and a glorious career full in the\nworld's eye, were replaced by a new conception of blessedness of life,\nwhich never afterwards faded from his vision, and which has held a front\nplace in the imagination of literary Europe ever since. The notions or\naspirations which he had picked up from a few books gave way to notions\nand aspirations which were shaped and fostered by the scenes of actual\nlife into which he was thrown, and which found his character soft for\ntheir impression. In one way the new pictures of a future were as\ndissociated from the conditions of reality as the old had been, and the\nsensuous life of the happy valley in Savoy as little fitted a man to\ncompose ideals for our gnarled and knotted world as the mental life\namong the heroics of sentimental fiction had done.\n\nRousseau's delight in the spot where Madame de Warens lived at Annecy\nwas the mark of the new ideal which circumstances were to engender in\nhim, and after him to spread in many hearts. His room looked over\ngardens and a stream, and beyond them stretched a far landscape. \"It was\nthe first time since leaving Bossey that I had green before my windows.\nAlways shut in by walls, I had nothing under my eye but house-tops and\nthe dull gray of the streets. How moving and delicious this novelty was\nto me! It brightened all the tenderness of my disposition. I counted the\nlandscape among the kindnesses of my dear benefactress; it seemed as if\nshe had brought it there expressly for me. I placed myself there in all\npeacefulness with her; she was present to me everywhere among the\nflowers and the verdure; her charms and those of spring were all mingled\ntogether in my eyes. My heart, which had hitherto been stifled, found\nitself more free in this ample space, and my sighs had more liberal vent\namong these orchard gardens.\"[47] Madame de Warens was the semi-divine\nfigure who made the scene live, and gave it perfect and harmonious\naccent. He had neither transports nor desires by her side, but existed\nin a state of ravishing calm, enjoying without knowing what. \"I could\nhave passed my whole life and eternity itself in this way, without an\ninstant of weariness. She is the only person with whom I never felt that\ndryness in conversation, which turns the duty of keeping it up into a\ntorment. Our intercourse was not so much conversation as an\ninexhaustible stream of chatter, which never came to an end until it was\ninterrupted from without. I only felt all the force of my attachment for\nher when she was out of my sight. So long as I could see her I was\nmerely happy and satisfied, but my disquiet in her absence went so far\nas to be painful. I shall never forget how one holiday, while she was at\nvespers, I went for a walk outside the town, my heart full of her image\nand of an eager desire to pass all my days by her side. I had sense\nenough to see that for the present this was impossible, and that the\nbliss which I relished so keenly must be brief. This gave to my musing a\nsadness which was free from everything sombre, and which was moderated\nby pleasing hope. The sound of the bells, which has always moved me to a\nsingular degree, the singing of the birds, the glory of the weather, the\nsweetness of the landscape, the scattered rustic dwellings in which my\nimagination placed our common home;--all this so struck me with a vivid,\ntender, sad, and touching impression that I saw myself as in an ecstasy\ntransported into the happy time and the happy place where my heart,\npossessed of all the felicity that could bring it delight, without even\ndreaming of the pleasures of sense, should share joys\ninexpressible.\"[48]\n\nThere was still, however, a space to be bridged between the doubtful now\nand this delicious future. The harshness of circumstance is ever\ninterposing with a money question, and for a vagrant of eighteen the\nfirst of all problems is a problem of economics. Rousseau was submitted\nto the observation of a kinsman of Madame de Warens,[49] and his verdict\ncorresponded with that of the notary of Geneva, with whom years before\nRousseau had first tried the critical art of making a living. He\npronounced that in spite of an animated expression, the lad was, if not\nthoroughly inept, at least of very slender intelligence, without ideas,\nalmost without attainments, very narrow indeed in all respects, and that\nthe honour of one day becoming a village priest was the highest piece of\nfortune to which he had any right to aspire.[50] So he was sent to the\nseminary, to learn Latin enough for the priestly offices. He began by\nconceiving a deadly antipathy to his instructor, whose appearance\nhappened to be displeasing to him. A second was found,[51] and the\npatient and obliging temper, the affectionate and sympathetic manner of\nhis new teacher made a great impression on the pupil, though the\nprogress in intellectual acquirement was as unsatisfactory in one case\nas in the other. It is characteristic of that subtle impressionableness\nto physical comeliness, which in ordinary natures is rapidly effaced by\npress of more urgent considerations, but which Rousseau's strongly\nsensuous quality retained, that he should have remembered, and thought\nworth mentioning years afterwards, that the first of his two teachers at\nthe seminary of Annecy had greasy black hair, a complexion as of\ngingerbread, and bristles in place of beard, while the second had the\nmost touching expression he ever saw in his life, with fair hair and\nlarge blue eyes, and a glance and a tone which made you feel that he was\none of the band predestined from their birth to unhappy days. While at\nTurin, Rousseau had made the acquaintance of another sage and benevolent\npriest,[52] and uniting the two good men thirty years after he conceived\nand drew the character of the Savoyard Vicar.[53]\n\nShortly the seminarists reported that, though not vicious, their pupil\nwas not even good enough for a priest, so deficient was he in\nintellectual faculty. It was next decided to try music, and Rousseau\nascended for a brief space into the seventh heaven of the arts. This was\none of the intervals of his life of which he says that he recalls not\nonly the times, places, persons, but all the surrounding objects, the\ntemperature of the air, its odour, its colour, a certain local\nimpression only felt there, and the memory of which stirs the old\ntransports anew. He never forgot a certain tune, because one Advent\nSunday he heard it from his bed being sung before daybreak on the steps\nof the cathedral; nor an old lame carpenter who played the counter-bass,\nnor a fair little abb\u00e9 who played the violin in the choir.[54] Yet he\nwas in so dreamy, absent, and distracted a state, that neither his\ngood-will nor his assiduity availed, and he could learn nothing, not\neven music. His teacher, one Le M\u00e2itre, belonged to that great class of\nirregular and disorderly natures with which Rousseau's destiny, in the\nshape of an irregular and disorderly temperament of his own, so\nconstantly brought him into contact. Le M\u00e2itre could not work without\nthe inspiration of the wine cup, and thus his passion for his art landed\nhim a sot. He took offence at a slight put upon him by the precentor of\nthe cathedral of which he was choir-master, and left Annecy in a furtive\nmanner along with Rousseau, whom the too comprehensive solicitude of\nMadame de Warens despatched to bear him company. They went together as\nfar as Lyons; here the unfortunate musician happened to fall into an\nepileptic fit in the street. Rousseau called for help, informed the\ncrowd of the poor man's hotel, and then seizing a moment when no one was\nthinking about him, turned the street corner and finally disappeared,\nthe musician being thus \"abandoned by the only friend on whom he had a\nright to count.\"[55] It thus appears that a man maybe exquisitely moved\nby the sound of bells, the song of birds, the fairness of smiling\ngardens, and yet be capable all the time without a qualm of misgiving of\nleaving a friend senseless in the road in a strange place. It has ceased\nto be wonderful how many ugly and cruel actions are done by people with\nan extraordinary sense of the beauty and beneficence of nature. At the\nmoment Rousseau only thought of getting back to Annecy and Madame de\nWarens. \"It is not,\" he says in words of profound warning, which many\nmen have verified in those two or three hours before the tardy dawn that\nswell into huge purgatorial \u00e6ons,--\"it is not when we have just done a\nbad action, that it torments us; it is when we recall it long after, for\nthe memory of it can never be thrust out.\"[56]\n\n\nII.\n\nWhen he made his way homewards again, he found to his surprise and\ndismay that his benefactress had left Annecy, and had gone for an\nindefinite time to Paris. He never knew the secret of this sudden\ndeparture, for no man, he says, was ever so little curious as to the\nprivate affairs of his friends. His heart, completely occupied with the\npresent, filled its whole capacity and entire space with that, and\nexcept for past pleasures no empty corner was ever left for what was\ndone with.[57] He says he was too young to take the desertion deeply to\nheart. Where he found subsistence we do not know. He was fascinated by a\nflashy French adventurer,[58] in whose company he wasted many hours, and\nthe precious stuff of youthful opportunity. He passed a summer day in\njoyful rustic fashion with two damsels whom he hardly ever saw again,\nbut the memory of whom and of the holiday that they had made with him\nremained stamped in his brain, to be reproduced many a year hence in\nsome of the traits of the new Helo\u00efsa and her friend Claire.[59] Then he\naccepted an invitation from a former waiting-woman of Madame de Warens\nto attend her home to Freiburg. On this expedition he paid an hour's\nvisit to his father, who had settled and remarried at Nyon. Returning\nfrom Freiburg, he came to Lausanne, where, with an audacity that might\nbe taken for the first presage of mental disturbance, he undertook to\nteach music. \"I have already,\" he says, \"noted some moments of\ninconceivable delirium, in which I ceased to be myself. Behold me now a\nteacher of singing, without knowing how to decipher an air. Without the\nleast knowledge of composition, I boasted of my skill in it before all\nthe world; and without ability to score the slenderest vaudeville, I\ngave myself out for a composer. Having been presented to M. de\nTreytorens, a professor of law, who loved music and gave concerts at his\nhouse, I insisted on giving him a specimen of my talent, and I set to\nwork to compose a piece for his concert with as much effrontery as if I\nknew all about it.\" The performance came off duly, and the strange\nimpostor conducted it with as much gravity as the profoundest master.\nNever since the beginning of opera has the like charivari greeted the\nears of men.[60] Such an opening was fatal to all chance of scholars,\nbut the friendly tavern-keeper who had first taken him in did not lack\neither hope or charity. \"How is it,\" Rousseau cried, many years after\nthis, \"that having found so many good people in my youth, I find so few\nin my advanced life? Is their stock exhausted? No; but the class in\nwhich I have to seek them now is not the same as that in which I found\nthem then. Among the common people, where great passions only speak at\nintervals, the sentiments of nature make themselves heard oftener. In\nthe higher ranks they are absolutely stifled, and under the mask of\nsentiment it is only interest or vanity that speaks.\"[61]\n\nFrom Lausanne he went to Neuch\u00e2tel, where he had more success, for,\nteaching others, he began himself to learn. But no success was marked\nenough to make him resist a vagrant chance. One day in his rambles\nfalling in with an archimandrite of the Greek church, who was traversing\nEurope in search of subscriptions for the restoration of the Holy\nSepulchre, he at once attached himself to him in the capacity of\ninterpreter. In this position he remained for a few weeks, until the\nFrench minister at Soleure took him away from the Greek monk, and\ndespatched him to Paris to be the attendant of a young officer.[62] A\nfew days in the famous city, which he now saw for the first time, and\nwhich disappointed his expectations just as the sea and all other\nwonders disappointed them,[63] convinced him that here was not what he\nsought, and he again turned his face southwards in search of Madame de\nWarens and more familiar lands.\n\nThe interval thus passed in roaming over the eastern face of France, and\nwhich we may date in the summer of 1732,[64] was always counted by\nRousseau among the happy epochs of his life, though the weeks may seem\ngrievously wasted to a generation which is apt to limit its ideas of\nredeeming the time to the two pursuits of reading books or making money.\nHe travelled alone and on foot from Soleure to Paris and from Paris back\nagain to Lyons, and this was part of the training which served him in\nthe stead of books. Scarcely any great writer since the revival of\nletters has been so little literary as Rousseau, so little indebted to\nliterature for the most characteristic part of his work. He was formed\nby life; not by life in the sense of contact with a great number of\nactive and important persons, or with a great number of persons of any\nkind, but in the rarer sense of free surrender to the plenitude of his\nown impressions. A world composed of such people, all dispensing with\nthe inherited portion of human experience, and living independently on\ntheir own stock, would rapidly fall backwards into dissolution. But\nthere is no more rash idea of the right composition of a society than\none which leads us to denounce a type of character for no better reason\nthan that, if it were universal, society would go to pieces. There is\nvery little danger of Rousseau's type becoming common, unless lunar or\nother great physical influences arise to work a vast change in the\ncerebral constitution of the species. We may safely trust the prodigious\n_vis inertioe_ of human nature to ward off the peril of an eccentricity\nbeyond bounds spreading too far. At present, however, it is enough,\nwithout going into the general question, to notice the particular fact\nthat while the other great exponents of the eighteenth century movement,\nHume, Voltaire, Diderot, were nourishing their natural strength of\nunderstanding by the study and practice of literature, Rousseau, the\nleader of the reaction against that movement, was wandering a beggar and\nan outcast, craving the rude fare of the peasant's hut, knocking at\nroadside inns, and passing nights in caves and holes in the fields, or\nin the great desolate streets of towns.\n\nIf such a life had been disagreeable to him, it would have lost all the\nsignificance that it now has for us. But where others would have found\naffliction, he had consolation, and where they would have lain desperate\nand squalid, he marched elate and ready to strike the stars. \"Never,\" he\nsays, \"did I think so much, exist so much, be myself so much, as in the\njourneys that I have made alone and on foot. Walking has something about\nit which animates and enlivens my ideas. I can hardly think while I am\nstill; my body must be in motion, to move my mind. The sight of the\ncountry, the succession of agreeable views, open air, good appetite, the\nfreedom of the alehouse, the absence of everything that could make me\nfeel dependence, or recall me to my situation--all this sets my soul\nfree, gives me a greater boldness of thought. I dispose of all nature as\nits sovereign lord; my heart, wandering from object to object, mingles\nand is one with the things that soothe it, wraps itself up in charming\nimages, and is intoxicated by delicious sentiment. Ideas come as they\nplease, not as I please: they do not come at all, or they come in a\ncrowd, overwhelming me with their number and their force. When I came to\na place I only thought of eating, and when I left it I only thought of\nwalking. I felt that a new paradise awaited me at the door, and I\nthought of nothing but of hastening in search of it.\"[65]\n\nHere again is a picture of one whom vagrancy assuredly did not\ndegrade:--\"I had not the least care for the future, and I awaited the\nanswer [as to the return of Madame de Warens to Savoy], lying out in the\nopen air, sleeping stretched out on the ground or on some wooden bench,\nas tranquilly as on a bed of roses. I remember passing one delicious\nnight outside the town [Lyons], in a road which ran by the side of\neither the Rhone or the Sa\u00f4ne, I forget which of the two. Gardens raised\non a terrace bordered the other side of the road. It had been very hot\nall day, and the evening was delightful; the dew moistened the parched\ngrass, the night was profoundly still, the air fresh without being cold;\nthe sun in going down had left red vapours in the heaven, and they\nturned the water to rose colour; the trees on the terrace sheltered\nnightingales, answering song for song. I went on in a sort of ecstasy,\nsurrendering my heart and every sense to the enjoyment of it all, and\nonly sighing for regret that I was enjoying it alone. Absorbed in the\nsweetness of my musing, I prolonged my ramble far into the night,\nwithout ever perceiving that I was tired. At last I found it out. I lay\ndown luxuriously on the shelf of a niche or false doorway made in the\nwall of the terrace; the canopy of my bed was formed by overarching\ntree-tops; a nightingale was perched exactly over my head, and I fell\nasleep to his singing. My slumber was delicious, my awaking more\ndelicious still. It was broad day, and my opening eyes looked on sun and\nwater and green things, and an adorable landscape. I rose up and gave\nmyself a shake; I felt hungry and started gaily for the town, resolved\nto spend on a good breakfast the two pieces of money which I still had\nleft. I was in such joyful spirits that I went along the road singing\nlustily.\"[66]\n\nThere is in this the free expansion of inner sympathy; the natural\nsentiment spontaneously responding to all the delicious movement of the\nexternal world on its peaceful and harmonious side, just as if the world\nof many-hued social circumstance which man has made for himself had no\nexistence. We are conscious of a full nervous elation which is not the\nproduct of literature, such as we have seen so many a time since, and\nwhich only found its expression in literature in Rousseau's case by\naccident. He did not feel in order to write, but felt without any\nthought of writing. He dreamed at this time of many lofty destinies,\namong them that of marshal of France, but the fame of authorship never\nentered into his dreams. When the time for authorship actually came,\nhis work had all the benefit of the absence of self-consciousness, it\nhad all the disinterestedness, so to say, with which the first fresh\nimpressions were suffered to rise in his mind.\n\nOne other picture of this time is worth remembering, as showing that\nRousseau was not wholly blind to social circumstances, and as\nillustrating, too, how it was that his way of dealing with them was so\nmuch more real and passionate, though so much less sagacious in some of\nits aspects, than the way of the other revolutionists of the century.\nOne day, when he had lost himself in wandering in search of some site\nwhich he expected to find beautiful, he entered the house of a peasant,\nhalf dead with hunger and thirst. His entertainer offered him nothing\nmore restoring than coarse barley bread and skimmed milk. Presently,\nafter seeing what manner of guest he had, the worthy man descended by a\nsmall trap into his cellar, and brought up some good brown bread, some\nmeat, and a bottle of wine, and an omelette was added afterwards. Then\nhe explained to the wondering Rousseau, who was a Swiss, and knew none\nof the mysteries of the French fisc, that he hid away his wine on\naccount of the duties, and his bread on account of the _taille_, and\ndeclared that he would be a ruined man if they suspected that he was not\ndying of hunger. All this made an impression on Rousseau which he never\nforgot. \"Here,\" he says, \"was the germ of the inextinguishable hatred\nwhich afterwards grew up in my heart against the vexations that harass\nthe common people, and against all their oppressors. This man actually\ndid not dare to eat the bread which he had won by the sweat of his brow,\nand only avoided ruin by showing the same misery as reigned\naround him.\"[67]\n\nIt was because he had thus seen the wrongs of the poor, not from without\nbut from within, not as a pitying spectator but as of their own company,\nthat Rousseau by and by brought such fire to the attack upon the old\norder, and changed the blank practice of the elder philosophers into a\ndeadly affair of ball and shell. The man who had been a servant, who had\nwanted bread, who knew the horrors of the midnight street, who had slept\nin dens, who had been befriended by rough men and rougher women, who saw\nthe goodness of humanity under its coarsest outside, and who above all\nnever tried to shut these things out from his memory, but accepted them\nas the most interesting, the most touching, the most real of all his\nexperiences, might well be expected to penetrate to the root of the\nmatter, and to protest to the few who usurp literature and policy with\ntheir ideas, aspirations, interests, that it is not they but the many,\nwhose existence stirs the heart and fills the eye with the great prime\nelements of the human lot.\n\n\nIII.\n\nIt was, then, some time towards the middle of 1732 that Rousseau arrived\nat Chamb\u00e9ri, and finally took up his residence with Madame de Warens, in\nthe dullest and most sombre room of a dull and sombre house. She had\nprocured him employment in connection with a land survey which the\ngovernment of Charles Emmanuel III. was then executing. It was only\ntemporary, and Rousseau's function was no loftier than that of clerk,\nwho had to copy and reduce arithmetical calculations. We may imagine how\nlittle a youth fresh from nights under the summer sky would relish eight\nhours a day of surly toil in a gloomy office, with a crowd of dirty and\nill-smelling fellow-workers.[68] If Rousseau was ever oppressed by any\nset of circumstances, his method was invariable: he ran away from them.\nSo now he threw up his post, and again tried to earn a little money by\nthat musical instruction in which he had made so many singular and\ngrotesque endeavours. Even here the virtues which make ordinary life a\npossible thing were not his. He was pleased at his lessons while there,\nbut he could not bear the idea of being bound to be there, nor the\nfixing of an hour. In time this experiment for a subsistence came to the\nsame end as all the others. He next rushed to Besan\u00e7on in search of the\nmusical instruction which he wished to give to others, but his baggage\nwas confiscated at the frontier, and he had to return.[69] Finally he\nabandoned the attempt, and threw himself loyally upon the narrow\nresources of Madame de Warens, whom he assisted in some singularly\nindefinite way in the transaction of her very indefinite and\nmiscellaneous affairs,--if we are here, as so often, to give the name of\naffairs to a very rapid and heedless passage along a shabby road\nto ruin.\n\nThe household at this time was on a very remarkable footing. Madame de\nWarens was at its head, and Claude Anet, gardener, butler, steward, was\nher factotum. He was a discreet person, of severe probity and few words,\nfirm, thrifty, and sage. The too comprehensive principles of his\nmistress admitted him to the closest intimacy, and in due time, when\nMadame de Warens thought of the seductions which ensnare the feet of\nyouth, Rousseau was delivered from them in an equivocal way by\nsolicitous application of the same maxims of comprehension. \"Although\nClaude Anet was as young as she was, he was so mature and so grave, that\nhe looked upon us as two children worthy of indulgence, and we both\nlooked upon him as a respectable man, whose esteem it was our business\nto conciliate. Thus there grew up between us three a companionship,\nperhaps without another example like it upon earth. All our wishes, our\ncares, our hearts were in common; nothing seemed to pass outside our\nlittle circle. The habit of living together, and of living together\nexclusively, became so strong that if at our meals one of the three was\nabsent, or there came a fourth, all was thrown out; and in spite of our\npeculiar relations, a _t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate_ was less sweet than a meeting of all\nthree.\"[70] Fate interfered to spoil this striking attempt after a new\ntype of the family, developed on a duandric base. Claude Anet was seized\nwith illness, a consequence of excessive fatigue in an Alpine expedition\nin search of plants, and he came to his end.[71] In him Rousseau always\nbelieved that he lost the most solid friend he ever possessed, \"a rare\nand estimable man, in whom nature served instead of education, and who\nnourished in obscure servitude all the virtues of great men.\"[72] The\nday after his death, Rousseau was speaking of their lost friend to\nMadame de Warens with the liveliest and most sincere affliction, when\nsuddenly in the midst of the conversation he remembered that he should\ninherit the poor man's clothes, and particularly a handsome black coat.\nA reproachful tear from his Maman, as he always somewhat nauseously\ncalled Madame de Warens, extinguished the vile thought and washed away\nits last traces.[73] After all, those men and women are exceptionally\nhappy, who have no such involuntary meanness of thought standing against\nthemselves in that unwritten chapter of their lives which even the most\ncandid persons keep privately locked up in shamefast recollection.\n\nShortly after his return to Chamb\u00e9ri, a wave from the great tide of\nEuropean affairs surged into the quiet valleys of Savoy. In the February\nof 1733, Augustus the Strong died, and the usual disorder followed in\nthe choice of a successor to him in the kingship of Poland. France was\nfor Stanislaus, the father-in-law of Lewis XV., while the Emperor\nCharles VI. and Anne of Russia were for August III., elector of Saxony.\nStanislaus was compelled to flee, and the French Government, taking up\nhis quarrel, declared war against the Emperor (October 14, 1733). The\nfirst act of this war, which was to end in the acquisition of Naples and\nthe two Sicilies by Spanish Bourbons, and of Lorraine by France, was the\ndespatch of a French expedition to the Milanese under Marshall Villars,\nthe husband of one of Voltaire's first idols. This took place in the\nautumn of 1733, and a French column passed through Chamb\u00e9ri, exciting\nlively interest in all minds, including Rousseau's. He now read the\nnewspapers for the first time, with the most eager sympathy for the\ncountry with whose history his own name was destined to be so\npermanently associated. \"If this mad passion,\" he says, \"had only been\nmomentary, I should not speak of it; but for no visible reason it took\nsuch root in my heart, that when I afterwards at Paris played the stern\nrepublican, I could not help feeling in spite of myself a secret\npredilection for the very nation that I found so servile, and the\ngovernment I made bold to assail.\"[74] This fondness for France was\nstrong, constant, and invincible, and found what was in the eighteenth\ncentury a natural complement in a corresponding dislike of England.[75]\n\nRousseau's health began to show signs of weakness. His breath became\nasthmatic, he had palpitations, he spat blood, and suffered from a slow\nfeverishness from which he never afterwards became entirely free.[76]\nHis mind was as feverish as his body, and the morbid broodings which\nactive life reduces to their lowest degree in most young men, were left\nto make full havoc along with the seven devils of idleness and vacuity.\nAn instinct which may flow from the unrecognised animal lying deep down\nin us all, suggested the way of return to wholesomeness. Rousseau\nprevailed upon Madame de Warens to leave the stifling streets for the\nfresh fields, and to deliver herself by retreat to rural solitude from\nthe adventurers who made her their prey. Les Charmettes, the modest\nfarm-house to which they retired, still stands. The modern traveller,\nwith a taste for relieving an imagination strained by great historic\nmonuments and secular landmarks, with the sight of spots associated with\nthe passion and meditation of some far-shining teacher of men, may walk\na short league from where the gray slate roofs of dull Chamb\u00e9ri bake in\nthe sun, and ascending a gently mounting road, with high leafy bank on\nthe right throwing cool shadows over his head, and a stream on the left\nmaking music at his feet, he sees an old red housetop lifted lonely\nabove the trees. The homes in which men have lived now and again lend\nthemselves to the beholder's subjective impression; they seemed to be\nbrooding in forlorn isolation like some life-wearied gray-beard over\nancient and sorrow-stricken memories. At Les Charmettes a pitiful\nmelancholy penetrates you. The supreme loveliness of the scene, the\nsweet-smelling meadows, the orchard, the water-ways, the little vineyard\nwith here and there a rose glowing crimson among the yellow stunted\nvines, the rust-red crag of the Nivolet rising against the sky far\nacross the broad valley; the contrast between all this peace, beauty,\nsilence, and the diseased miserable life of the famous man who found a\nscanty span of paradise in the midst of it, touches the soul with a\npathetic spell. We are for the moment lifted out of squalor, vagrancy,\nand disorder, and seem to hear some of the harmonies which sounded to\nthis perturbed spirit, soothing it, exalting it, and stirring those\ninmost vibrations which in truth make up all the short divine part of a\nman's life.[77]\n\n\"No day passes,\" he wrote in the very year in which he died, \"in which\nI do not recall with joy and tender effusion this single and brief time\nin my life, when I was fully myself, without mixture or hindrance, and\nwhen I may say in a true sense that I lived. I may almost say, like the\nprefect when disgraced and proceeding to end his days tranquilly in the\ncountry, 'I have passed seventy years on the earth, and I have lived but\nseven of them.' But for this brief and precious space, I should perhaps\nhave remained uncertain about myself; for during all the rest of my life\nI have been so agitated, tossed, plucked hither and thither by the\npassions of others, that, being nearly passive in a life so stormy, I\nshould find it hard to distinguish what belonged to me in my own\nconduct,--to such a degree has harsh necessity weighed upon me. But\nduring these few years I did what I wished to do, I was what I wished to\nbe.\"[78] The secret of such rare felicity is hardly to be described in\nwords. It was the ease of a profoundly sensuous nature with every sense\ngratified and fascinated. Caressing and undivided affection within\ndoors, all the sweetness and movement of nature without, solitude,\nfreedom, and the busy idleness of life in gardens,--these were the\nconditions of Rousseau's ideal state. \"If my happiness,\" he says, in\nlanguage of strange felicity, \"consisted in facts, actions, or words, I\nmight then describe and represent it in some way; but how say what was\nneither said nor done nor even thought, but only enjoyed and felt\nwithout my being able to point to any other object of my happiness than\nthe very feeling itself? I arose with the sun and I was happy; I went\nout of doors and I was happy; I saw Maman and I was happy; I left her\nand I was happy; I went among the woods and hills, I wandered about in\nthe dells, I read, I was idle, I dug in the garden, I gathered fruit, I\nhelped them indoors, and everywhere happiness followed me. It was not in\nany given thing, it was all in myself, and could never leave me for a\nsingle instant.\"[79] This was a true garden of Eden, with the serpent in\ntemporary quiescence, and we may count the man rare since the fall who\nhas found such happiness in such conditions, and not less blessed than\nhe is rare. The fact that he was one of this chosen company was among\nthe foremost of the circumstances which made Rousseau seem to so many\nmen in the eighteenth century as a spring of water in a thirsty land.\n\nAll innocent and amiable things moved him. He used to spend hours\ntogether in taming pigeons; he inspired them with such confidence that\nthey would follow him about, and allow him to take them wherever he\nwould, and the moment that he appeared in the garden two or three of\nthem would instantly settle on his arms or his head. The bees, too,\ngradually came to put the same trust in him, and his whole life was\nsurrounded with gentle companionship. He always began the day with the\nsun, walking on the high ridge above the slope on which the house lay,\nand going through his form of worship. \"It did not consist in a vain\nmoving of the lips, but in a sincere elevation of heart to the author of\nthe tender nature whose beauties lay spread out before my eyes. This act\npassed rather in wonder and contemplation than in requests; and I always\nknew that with the dispenser of true blessings, the best means of\nobtaining those which are needful for us, is less to ask than to deserve\nthem.\"[80] These effusions may be taken for the beginning of the\ndeistical reaction in the eighteenth century. While the truly scientific\nand progressive spirits were occupied in laborious preparation for\nadding to human knowledge and systematising it, Rousseau walked with his\nhead in the clouds among gods, beneficent authors of nature, wise\ndispensers of blessings, and the like. \"Ah, madam,\" he once said,\n\"sometimes in the privacy of my study, with my hands pressed tight over\nmy eyes or in the darkness of the night, I am of his opinion that there\nis no God. But look yonder (pointing with his hand to the sky, with head\nerect, and an inspired glance): the rising of the sun, as it scatters\nthe mists that cover the earth and lays bare the wondrous glittering\nscene of nature, disperses at the same moment all cloud from my soul. I\nfind my faith again, and my God, and my belief in him. I admire and\nadore him, and I prostrate myself in his presence.\"[81] As if that\nsettled the question affirmatively, any more than the absence of such\ntheistic emotion in many noble spirits settles it negatively. God became\nthe highest known formula for sensuous expansion, the synthesis of all\ncomplacent emotions, and Rousseau filled up the measure of his delight\nby creating and invoking a Supreme Being to match with fine scenery and\nsunny gardens. We shall have a better occasion to mark the attributes of\nthis important conception when we come to _Emilius_, where it was\nlaunched in a panoply of resounding phrases upon a Europe which was\ngrown too strong for Christian dogma, and was not yet grown strong\nenough to rest in a provisional ordering of the results of its own\npositive knowledge. Walking on the terrace at Les Charmettes, you are at\nthe very birth-place of that particular \u00catre Supr\u00eame to whom Robespierre\noffered the incense of an official festival.\n\nSometimes the reading of a Jansenist book would make him unhappy by the\nprominence into which it brought the displeasing idea of hell, and he\nused now and then to pass a miserable day in wondering whether this\ncruel destiny should be his. Madame de Warens, whose softness of heart\ninspired her with a theology that ought to have satisfied a seraphic\ndoctor, had abolished hell, but she could not dispense with purgatory\nbecause she did not know what to do with the souls of the wicked, being\nunable either to damn them, or to instal them among the good until they\nhad been purified into goodness. In truth it must be confessed, says\nRousseau, that alike in this world and the other the wicked are\nextremely embarrassing.[82] His own search after knowledge of his fate\nis well known. One day, amusing himself in a characteristic manner by\nthrowing stones at trees, he began to be tormented by fear of the\neternal pit. He resolved to test his doom by throwing a stone at a\nparticular tree; if he hit, then salvation; if he missed, then\nperdition. With a trembling hand and beating heart he threw; as he had\nchosen a large tree and was careful not to place himself too far away,\nall was well.[83] As a rule, however, in spite of the ugly phantoms of\ntheology, he passed his days in a state of calm. Even when illness\nbrought it into his head that he should soon know the future lot by more\nassured experiment, he still preserved a tranquillity which he justly\nqualifies as sensual.\n\nIn thinking of Rousseau's peculiar feeling for nature, which acquired\nsuch a decisive place in his character during his life at Les\nCharmettes, it is to be remembered that it was entirely devoid of that\nstormy and boisterous quality which has grown up in more modern\nliterature, out of the violent attempt to press nature in her most awful\nmoods into the service of the great revolt against a social and\nreligious tradition that can no longer be endured. Of this revolt\nRousseau was a chief, and his passion for natural aspects was connected\nwith this attitude, but he did not seize those of them which the poet of\n_Manfred_, for example, forced into an imputed sympathy with his own\nrebellion. Rousseau always loved nature best in her moods of quiescence\nand serenity, and in proportion as she lent herself to such moods in\nmen. He liked rivulets better than rivers. He could not bear the sight\nof the sea; its infertile bosom and blind restless tumblings filled him\nwith melancholy. The ruins of a park affected him more than the ruins of\ncastles.[84] It is true that no plain, however beautiful, ever seemed so\nin his eyes; he required torrents, rocks, dark forests, mountains, and\nprecipices.[85] This does not affect the fact that he never moralised\nappalling landscape, as post-revolutionary writers have done, and that\nthe Alpine wastes which throw your puniest modern into a rapture, had no\nattraction for him. He could steep himself in nature without climbing\nfifteen thousand feet to find her. In landscape, as has been said by one\nwith a right to speak, Rousseau was truly a great artist, and you can,\nif you are artistic too, follow him with confidence in his wanderings;\nhe understood that beauty does not require a great stage, and that the\neffect of things lies in harmony.[86] The humble heights of the Jura,\nand the lovely points of the valley of Chamb\u00e9ri, sufficed to give him\nall the pleasure of which he was capable. In truth a man cannot escape\nfrom his time, and Rousseau at least belonged to the eighteenth century\nin being devoid of the capacity for feeling awe, and the taste for\nobjects inspiring it. Nature was a tender friend with softest bosom, and\nno sphinx with cruel enigma. He felt neither terror, nor any sense of\nthe littleness of man, nor of the mysteriousness of life, nor of the\nunseen forces which make us their sport, as he peered over the precipice\nand heard the water roaring at the bottom of it; he only remained for\nhours enjoying the physical sensation of dizziness with which it turned\nhis brain, with a break now and again for hurling large stones, and\nwatching them roll and leap down into the torrent, with as little\nreflection and as little articulate emotion as if he had been a\nchild.[87]\n\nJust as it is convenient for purposes of classification to divide a man\ninto body and soul, even when we believe the soul to be only a function\nof the body, so people talk of his intellectual side and his emotional\nside, his thinking quality and his feeling quality, though in fact and\nat the roots these qualities are not two but one, with temperament for\nthe common substratum. During this period of his life the whole of\nRousseau's true force went into his feelings, and at all times feeling\npredominated over reflection, with many drawbacks and some advantages of\na very critical kind for subsequent generations of men. Nearly every one\nwho came into contact with him in the way of testing his capacity for\nbeing instructed pronounced him hopeless. He had several excellent\nopportunities of learning Latin, especially at Turin in the house of\nCount Gouvon, and in the seminary at Annecy, and at Les Charmettes he\ndid his best to teach himself, but without any better result than a very\nlimited power of reading. In learning one rule he forgot the last; he\ncould never master the most elementary laws of versification; he learnt\nand re-learnt twenty times the Eclogues of Virgil, but not a single word\nremained with him.[88] He was absolutely without verbal memory, and he\npronounces himself wholly incapable of learning anything from masters.\nMadame de Warens tried to have him taught both dancing and fencing; he\ncould never achieve a minuet, and after three months of instruction he\nwas as clumsy and helpless with his foil as he had been on the first\nday. He resolved to become a master at the chessboard; he shut himself\nup in his room, and worked night and day over the books with\nindescribable efforts which covered many weeks. On proceeding to the\ncaf\u00e9 to manifest his powers, he found that all the moves and\ncombinations had got mixed up in his head, he saw nothing but clouds on\nthe board, and as often as he repeated the experiment he only found\nhimself weaker than before. Even in music, for which he had a genuine\npassion and at which he worked hard, he never could acquire any facility\nat sight, and he was an inaccurate scorer, even when only copying the\nscore of others.[89]\n\nTwo things nearly incompatible, he writes in an important passage, are\nunited in me without my being able to think how; an extremely ardent\ntemperament, lively and impetuous passions, along with ideas that are\nvery slow in coming to birth, very embarrassed, and which never arise\nuntil after the event. \"One would say that my heart and my intelligence\ndo not belong to the same individual.... I feel all, and see nothing; I\nam carried away, but I am stupid.... This slowness of thinking, united\nwith such vivacity of feeling, possesses me not only in conversation,\nbut when I am alone and working. My ideas arrange themselves in my head\nwith incredible difficulty; they circulate there in a dull way and\nferment until they agitate me, fill me with heat, and give me\npalpitations; in the midst of this stir I see nothing clearly, I could\nnot write a single word. Insensibly the violent emotion grows still, the\nchaos is disentangled, everything falls into its place, but very slowly\nand after long and confused agitation.\"[90]\n\nSo far from saying that his heart and intelligence belonged to two\npersons, we might have been quite sure, knowing his heart, that his\nintelligence must be exactly what he describes its process to have been.\nThe slow-burning ecstasy in which he knew himself at his height and was\nmost conscious of fulness of life, was incompatible with the rapid and\ndeliberate generation of ideas. The same soft passivity, the same\nreceptiveness, which made his emotions like the surface of a lake under\nsky and breeze, entered also into the working of his intellectual\nfaculties. But it happens that in this region, in the attainment of\nknowledge, truth, and definite thoughts, even receptiveness implies a\ndistinct and active energy, and hence the very quality of temperament\nwhich left him free and eager for sensuous impressions, seemed to muffle\nhis intelligence in a certain opaque and resisting medium, of the\nindefinable kind that interposes between will and action in a dream. His\nrational part was fatally protected by a non-conducting envelope of\nsentiment; this intercepted clear ideas on their passage, and even cut\noff the direct and true impress of those objects and their relations,\nwhich are the material of clear ideas. He was no doubt right in his\navowal that objects generally made less impression on him than the\nrecollection of them; that he could see nothing of what was before his\neyes, and had only his intelligence in cases where memories were\nconcerned; and that of what was said or done in his presence, he felt\nand penetrated nothing.[91] In other words, this is to say that his\nmaterial of thought was not fact but image. When he plunged into\nreflection, he did not deal with the objects of reflection at first hand\nand in themselves, but only with the reminiscences of objects, which he\nhad never approached in a spirit of deliberate and systematic\nobservation, and with those reminiscences, moreover, suffused and\nsaturated by the impalpable but most potent essences of a fermenting\nimagination. Instead of urgently seeking truth with the patient energy,\nthe wariness, and the conscience, with the sharpened instruments, the\nsystematic apparatus, and the minute feelers and tentacles of the\ngenuine thinker and solid reasoner, he only floated languidly on a\nsummer tide of sensation, and captured premiss and conclusion in a\nsuccession of swoons. It would be a mistake to contend that no work can\nbe done for the world by this method, or that truth only comes to those\nwho chase her with logical forceps. But one should always try to\ndiscover how a teacher of men came by his ideas, whether by careful\ntoil, or by the easy bequest of generous phantasy.\n\nTo give a zest to rural delight, and partly perhaps to satisfy the\nintellectual interest which must have been an instinct in one who became\nso consummate a master in the great and noble art of composition,\nRousseau, during the time when he lived with Madame de Warens, tried as\nwell as he knew how to acquire a little knowledge of what fruit the\ncultivation of the mind of man had hitherto brought forth. According to\nhis own account, it was Voltaire's Letters on the English which first\ndrew him seriously to study, and nothing which that illustrious man\nwrote at this time escaped him. His taste for Voltaire inspired him with\nthe desire of writing with elegance, and of imitating \"the fine and\nenchanting colour of Voltaire's style\"[92]--an object in which he cannot\nbe held to have in the least succeeded, though he achieved a superb\nstyle of his own. On his return from Turin Madame de Warens had begun in\nsome small way to cultivate a taste for letters in him, though he had\nlost the enthusiasm of his childhood for reading. Saint Evremond,\nPuffendorff, the Henriade, and the Spectator happened to be in his room,\nand he turned over their pages. The Spectator, he says, pleased him\ngreatly and did him much good.[93] Madame de Warens was what he calls\nprotestant in literary taste, and would talk for ever of the great\nBayle, while she thought more of Saint Evremond than she could ever\npersuade Rousseau to think. Two or three years later than this he began\nto use his own mind more freely, and opened his eyes for the first time\nto the greatest question that ever dawns upon any human intelligence\nthat has the privilege of discerning it, the problem of a philosophy and\na body of doctrine.\n\nHis way of answering it did not promise the best results. He read an\nintroduction to the Sciences, then he took an Encyclop\u00e6dia and tried to\nlearn all things together, until he repented and resolved to study\nsubjects apart. This he found a better plan for one to whom long\napplication was so fatiguing, that he could not with any effect occupy\nhimself for half an hour on any one matter, especially if following the\nideas of another person.[94] He began his morning's work, after an hour\nor two of dispersive chat, with the Port-Royal Logic, Locke's Essay on\nthe Human Understanding, Malebranche, Leibnitz, Descartes.[95] He found\nthese authors in a condition of such perpetual contradiction among\nthemselves, that he formed the chimerical design of reconciling them\nwith one another. This was tedious, so he took up another method, on\nwhich he congratulated himself to the end of his life. It consisted in\nsimply adopting and following the ideas of each author, without\ncomparing them either with one another or with those of other writers,\nand above all without any criticism of his own. Let me begin, he said,\nby collecting a store of ideas, true or false, but at any rate clear,\nuntil my head is well enough stocked to enable me to compare and choose.\nAt the end of some years passed \"in never thinking exactly, except after\nother people, without reflecting so to speak, and almost without\nreasoning,\" he found himself in a state to think for himself. \"In spite\nof beginning late to exercise my judicial faculty, I never found that it\nhad lost its vigour, and when I came to publish my own ideas, I was\nhardly accused of being a servile disciple.\"[96]\n\nTo that fairly credible account of the matter, one can only say that\nthis mutually exclusive way of learning the thoughts of others, and\ndeveloping thoughts of your own, is for an adult probably the most\nmischievous, where it is not the most impotent, fashion in which\nintellectual exercise can well be taken. It is exactly the use of the\njudicial faculty, criticising, comparing, and defining, which is\nindispensable in order that a student should not only effectually\nassimilate the ideas of a writer, but even know what those ideas come to\nand how much they are worth. And so when he works at ideas of his own, a\njudicial faculty which has been kept studiously slumbering for some\nyears, is not likely to revive in full strength without any preliminary\ntraining. Rousseau was a man of singular genius, and he set an\nextraordinary mark on Europe, but this mark would have been very\ndifferent if he had ever mastered any one system of thought, or if he\nhad ever fully grasped what systematic thinking means. Instead of this,\nhis debt to the men whom he read was a debt of piecemeal, and his\nobligation an obligation for fragments; and this is perhaps the worst\nway of acquiring an intellectual lineage, for it leaves out the vital\ncontinuity of temper and method. It is a small thing to accept this or\nthat of Locke's notions upon education or the origin of ideas, if you do\nnot see the merit of his way of coming by his notions. In short,\nRousseau has distinctions in abundance, but the distinction of knowing\nhow to think, in the exact sense of that term, was hardly among them,\nand neither now nor at any other time did he go through any of that\ntoilsome and vigorous intellectual preparation to which the ablest of\nhis contemporaries, Diderot, Voltaire, D'Alembert, Turgot, Condorcet,\nHume, all submitted themselves. His comfortable view was that \"the\nsensible and interesting conversations of a woman of merit are more\nproper to form a young man than all the pedantical philosophy of\nbooks.\"[97]\n\nStyle, however, in which he ultimately became such a proficient, and\nwhich wrought such marvels as only style backed by passion can work,\nalready engaged his serious attention. We have already seen how Voltaire\nimplanted in him the first root idea, which so many of us never perceive\nat all, that there is such a quality of writing as style. He evidently\ntook pains with the form of expression and thought about it, in\nobedience to some inborn harmonious predisposition which is the source\nof all veritable eloquence, though there is no strong trace now nor for\nmany years to come of any irresistible inclination for literary\ncomposition. We find him, indeed, in 1736 showing consciousness of a\nslight skill in writing,[98] but he only thought of it as a possible\nrecommendation for a secretaryship to some great person. He also appears\nto have practised verses, not for their own sake, for he always most\njustly thought his own verses mediocre, and they are even worse; but on\nthe ground that verse-making is a rather good exercise for breaking\none's self to elegant inversions, and learning a greater ease in\nprose.[99] At the age of one and twenty he composed a comedy, long\nafterwards damned as _Narcisse_. Such prelusions, however, were of small\nimportance compared with the fact of his being surrounded by a moral\natmosphere in which his whole mind was steeped. It is not in the study\nof Voltaire or another, but in the deep soft soil of constant mood and\nold habit that such a style as Rousseau's has its growth.\n\nIt was the custom to return to Chamb\u00e9ri for the winter, and the day of\ntheir departure from Les Charmettes was always a day blurred and tearful\nfor Rousseau; he never left it without kissing the ground, the trees,\nthe flowers; he had to be torn away from it as from a loved companion.\nAt the first melting of the winter snows they left their dungeon in\nChamb\u00e9ri, and they never missed the earliest song of the nightingale.\nMany a joyful day of summer peace remained vivid in Rousseau's memory,\nand made a mixed heaven and hell for him long years after in the\nstifling dingy Paris street, and the raw and cheerless air of a\nDerbyshire winter.[100] \"We started early in the morning,\" he says,\ndescribing one of these simple excursions on the day of St. Lewis, who\nwas the very unconscious patron saint of Madame de Warens, \"together and\nalone; I proposed that we should go and ramble about the side of the\nvalley opposite to our own, which we had not yet visited. We sent our\nprovisions on before us, for we were to be out all day. We went from\nhill to hill and wood to wood, sometimes in the sun and often in the\nshade, resting from time to time and forgetting ourselves for whole\nhours; chatting about ourselves, our union, our dear lot, and offering\nunheard prayers that it might last. All seemed to conspire for the bliss\nof this day. Rain had fallen a short time before; there was no dust, and\nthe little streams were full; a light fresh breeze stirred the leaves,\nthe air was pure, the horizon without a cloud, and the same serenity\nreigned in our own hearts. Our dinner was cooked in a peasant's cottage,\nand we shared it with his family. These Savoyards are such good souls!\nAfter dinner we sought shade under some tall trees, where, while I\ncollected dry sticks for making our coffee, Maman amused herself by\nbotanising among the bushes, and the expedition ended in transports of\ntenderness and effusion.\"[101] This is one of such days as the soul\nturns back to when the misery that stalks after us all has seized it,\nand a man is left to the sting and smart of the memory of\nirrecoverable things.\n\nHe was resolved to bind himself to Madame de Warens with an inalterable\nfidelity for all the rest of his days; he would watch over her with all\nthe dutiful and tender vigilance of a son, and she should be to him\nsomething dearer than mother or wife or sister. What actually befell was\nthis. He was attacked by vapours, which he characterises as the disorder\nof the happy. One symptom of his disease was the conviction derived from\nthe rash perusal of surgeon's treatises, that he was suffering from a\npolypus in the heart. On the not very chivalrous principle that if he\ndid not spend Madame de Warens' money, he was only leaving it for\nadventurers and knaves, he proceeded to Montpellier to consult the\nphysicians, and took the money for his expenses out of his\nbenefactress's store, which was always slender because it was always\nopen to any hand. While on the road, he fell into an intrigue with a\ntravelling companion, whom critics have compared to the fair Philina of\nWilhelm Meister. In due time, the Montpellier doctor being unable to\ndiscover a disease, declared that the patient had none. The scenery was\ndull and unattractive, and this would have counterbalanced the\nweightiest prudential reasons with him at any time. Rousseau debated\nwhether he should keep tryst with his gay fellow-traveller, or return to\nChamb\u00e9ri. Remorse and that intractable emptiness of pocket which is the\niron key to many a deed of ingenuous-looking self-denial and Spartan\nvirtue, directed him homewards. Here he had a surprise, and perhaps\nlearnt a lesson. He found installed in the house a personage whom he\ndescribes as tall, fair, noisy, coxcombical, flat-faced, flat-souled.\nAnother triple alliance seemed a thing odious in the eyes of a man whom\nhis travelling diversions had made a Pharisee for the hour. He\nprotested, but Madame de Warens was a woman of principle, and declined\nto let Rousseau, who had profited by the doctrine of indifference, now\nset up in his own favour the contrary doctrine of a narrow and churlish\npartiality. So a short, delicious, and never-forgotten episode came to\nan end: this pair who had known so much happiness together were happy\ntogether no more, and the air became peopled for Rousseau with wan\nspectres of dead joys and fast gathering cares.\n\nThe dates of the various events described in the fifth and sixth books\nof the Confessions are inextricable, and the order is evidently inverted\nmore than once. The inversion of order is less serious than the\ncontradictions between the dates of the Confessions and the more\nauthentic and unmistakable dates of his letters. For instance, he\ndescribes a visit to Geneva as having been made shortly before Lautrec's\ntemporary pacification of the civic troubles of that town; and that\nevent took place in the spring of 1738. This would throw the Montpellier\njourney, which he says came after the visit to Geneva, into 1738, but\nthe letters to Madame de Warens from Grenoble and Montpellier are dated\nin the autumn and winter of 1737.[102] Minor verifications attest the\nexactitude of the dates of the letters,[103] and we may therefore\nconclude that he returned from Montpellier, found his place taken and\nlost his old delight in Les Charmettes, in the early part of 1738. In\nthe tenth of the R\u00eaveries he speaks of having passed \"a space of four or\nfive years\" in the bliss of Les Charmettes, and it is true that his\nconnection with it in one way and another lasted from the middle of 1736\nuntil about the middle of 1741. But as he left for Montpellier in the\nautumn of 1737, and found the obnoxious Vinzenried installed in 1738,\nthe pure and characteristic felicity of Les Charmettes perhaps only\nlasted about a year or a year and a half. But a year may set a deep mark\non a man, and give him imperishable taste of many things bitter\nand sweet.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[38] _Conf._, iii. 177.\n\n[39] Lamartine in _Raphael_ defies \"a reasonable man to recompose with\nany reality the character that Rousseau gives to his mistress, out of\nthe contradictory elements which he associates in her nature. One of\nthese elements excludes the other.\" It is worth while for any who care\nfor this kind of study to compare Madame de Warens with the Marquise\nde Courcelles, whom Sainte-Beuve has well called the Manon Lescaut of\nthe seventeenth century.\n\n[40] Described by Rousseau in a memorandum for the biographer of M. de\nBernex, printed in _M\u00e9langes_, pp. 139-144.\n\n[41] De Tavel, by name. Disorderly ideas as to the relations of the\nsexes began to appear in Switzerland along with the reformation of\nreligion. In the sixteenth century a woman appeared at Geneva with the\ndoctrine that it is as inhuman and as unjustifiable to refuse the\ngratification of this appetite in a man as to decline to give food and\ndrink to the starving. Picot's _Hist. de Gen\u00e8ve_, vol. ii.\n\n[42] _Conf._, v. 341. Also ii. 83; and vi. 401.\n\n[43] _Conf._, v. 345.\n\n[44] _Conf._, ii. 83.\n\n[45] _Ib._ ii. 82.\n\n[46] _Ib._ iii. 179. See also 200.\n\n[47] _Conf._, iii. 177, 178.\n\n[48] _Conf._, iii. 183.\n\n[49] M. d'Aubonne.\n\n[50] _Conf._, iii 192.\n\n[51] M. Gatier.\n\n[52] M. Gaime.\n\n[53] _Conf._, iii. 204.\n\n[54] _Ib._ iii. 209, 210.\n\n[55] _Conf._, iii. 217-222.\n\n[56] _Conf._, iv. 227.\n\n[57] _Ib._ iii. 224.\n\n[58] One Venture de Villeneuve, who visited him years afterwards\n(1755) in Paris, when Rousseau found that the idol of old days was a\ncrapulent debauchee. _Ib._ viii. 221.\n\n[59] Mdlles. de Graffenried and Galley. _Conf._, iv. 231.\n\n[60] _Ib._ iv. 254-256.\n\n[61] _Conf._, iv. 253.\n\n[62] While in the ambassador's house at Soleure, he was lodged in a\nroom which had once belonged to his namesake, Jean Baptiste Rousseau\n(_b. 1670--d. 1741_), whom the older critics astonishingly insist on\ncounting the first of French lyric poets. There was a third Rousseau,\nPierre [_b. 1725--d. 1785_], who wrote plays and did other work now\nwell forgotten. There are some lines imperfectly commemorative of the\ntrio--\n\nTrois auteurs que Rousseau l'on nomme, Connus de Paris jusqu'\u00e0 Rome,\nSont diff\u00e9rens; voici par o\u00f9; Rousseau de Paris fut grand homme;\nRousseau de Gen\u00e8ve est un fou; Rousseau de Toulouse un atome.\n\nJean Jacques refers to both his namesakes in his letter to Voltaire,\nJan. 30, 1750. _Corr._, i. 145.\n\n[63] The only object which ever surpassed his expectation was the\ngreat Roman structure near Nismes, the Pont du Gard. _Conf._, vi. 446.\n\n[64] Rousseau gives 1732 as the probable date of his return to\nChamb\u00e9ri, after his first visit to Paris [_Conf._, v. 305], and the\nonly objection to this is his mention of the incident of the march of\nthe French troops, which could not have happened until the winter of\n1733, as having taken place \"some months\" after his arrival.\nMusset-Pathay accepts this as decisive, and fixes the return in the\nspring of 1733 [i. 12]. My own conjectural chronology is this: Returns\nfrom Turin towards the autumn of 1729; stays at Annecy until the\nspring of 1731; passes the winter of 1731-2 at Neuch\u00e2tel; first visits\nParis in spring of 1732; returns to Savoy in the early summer of 1732.\nBut a precise harmonising of the dates in the Confessions is\nimpossible; Rousseau wrote them three and thirty years after our\npresent point [in 1766 at Wootton], and never claimed to be exact in\nminuteness of date. Fortunately such matters in the present case are\nabsolutely devoid of importance.\n\n[65] _Conf._, iv. 279, 280.\n\n[66] _Conf._, iv. 290, 291,\n\n[67] _Conf._, iv. 281-283.\n\n[68] _Conf._, v. 325.\n\n[69] _Conf._, v. 360-364. _Corr._, i. 21-24.\n\n[70] _Conf._, v. 349, 350.\n\n[71] Apparently in the summer of 1736, though, the reference to the\nreturn of the French troops at the peace [_Ib._ v. 365] would place it\nin 1735.\n\n[72] _Ib._ v. 356\n\n[73] _Ib._\n\n[74] _Conf._, v. 315, 316.\n\n[75] _Ib._ iv. 276. _Nouv. H\u00e9l._, II. xiv. 381, etc.\n\n[76] He refers to the ill-health of his youth, _Conf._, vii. 32, and\ndescribes an ominous head seizure while at Chamb\u00e9ri, _Ib._ vi. 396.\n\n[77] Rousseau's description of Les Charmettes is at the end of the\nfifth book. The present proprietor keeps the house arranged as it used\nto be, and has gathered one or two memorials of its famous tenant,\nincluding his poor _clavecin_ and his watch. In an outside wall,\nH\u00e9rault de Sechelles, when Commissioner from the Convention in the\ndepartment of Mont Blanc, inserted a little white stone with two most\nlapidary stanzas inscribed upon it, about _g\u00e9nie, solitude, fiert\u00e9,\ngloire, v\u00e9rit\u00e9, envie_, and the like.\n\n[78] _R\u00eaveries_, x. 336 (1778).\n\n[79] _Conf._, vi. 393.\n\n[80] _Conf._, vi. 412.\n\n[81] _M\u00e9m. de Mdme. d'Epinay_, i. 394. (M. Boiteau's edition:\nCharpentier. 1865.)\n\n[82] _Conf._, vi. 399.\n\n[83] _Ib._ vi. 424. Goethe made a similar experiment; see Mr. Lewes's\n_Life_, p. 126.\n\n[84] Bernardin de Saint Pierre tells us this. _Oeuvres_ (Ed. 1818),\nxii. 70, etc.\n\n[85] _Conf._, iv. 297. See also the description of the scenery of the\nValais, in the _Nouv. H\u00e9l._, Pt. I. Let. xxiii.\n\n[86] George Sand in _Mademoiselle la Quintinie_ (p. 27), a book\ncontaining some peculiarly subtle appreciations of the Savoy\nlandscape.\n\n[87] _Conf._, iv. 298.\n\n[88] _Conf._, vi. 416, 422, etc.; iii. 164; iii. 203; v. 347; v. 383,\n384. Also vii. 53.\n\n[89] _Conf._, v. 313, 367; iv. 293; ix. 353. Also _M\u00e9m. de Mdme.\nd'Epinay_, ii. 151.\n\n[90] _Ib._ iii. 192, 193.\n\n[91] _Conf._, iv. 301; iii. 195.\n\n[92] _Conf._, v. 372, 373. The mistaken date assigned to the\ncorrespondence between Voltaire and Frederick is one of many instances\nhow little we can trust the Confessions for minute accuracy, though\ntheir substantial veracity is confirmed by all the collateral evidence\nthat we have.\n\n[93] _Ib._ iii. 188. For his debt in the way of education to Madame de\nWarens, see also _Ib._ vii. 46.\n\n[94] _Conf._, vi. 409.\n\n[95] _Ib._ vi. 413. He adds a suspicious-looking \"_et cetera_.\"\n\n[96] _Conf._, vi. 414\n\n[97] _Conf._, iv. 295. See also v. 346.\n\n[98] _Corr._, 1736, pp. 26, 27.\n\n[99] _Conf._, iv. 271, where he says further that he never found\nenough attraction in French poetry to make him think of pursuing it.\n\n[100] The first part of the Confessions was written in Wootton in\nDerbyshire, in the winter of 1766-1767.\n\n[101] _Conf._, vi. 422.\n\n[102] _Corr._, i. 43, 46, 62, etc.\n\n[103] Musset-Pathay, i. 23, _n._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHERESA LE VASSEUR.\n\n\nMen like Rousseau, who are most heedless in letting their delight\nperish, are as often as not most loth to bury what they have slain, or\neven to perceive that life has gone out of it. The sight of simple\nhearts trying to coax back a little warm breath of former days into a\npresent that is stiff and cold with indifference, is touching enough.\nBut there is a certain grossness around the circumstances in which\nRousseau now and too often found himself, that makes us watch his\nembarrassment with some composure. One cannot easily think of him as a\nsimple heart, and we feel perhaps as much relief as he, when he resolves\nafter making all due efforts to thrust out the intruder and bring Madame\nde Warens over from theories which had become too practical to be\ninteresting, to leave Les Charmettes and accept a tutorship at Lyons.\nHis new patron was a De Mably, elder brother of the philosophic abb\u00e9 of\nthe same name (1709-85), and of the still more notable Condillac\n(1714-80).\n\nThe future author of the most influential treatise on education that has\never been written, was not successful in the practical and far more\narduous side of that master art.[104] We have seen how little training\nhe had ever given himself in the cardinal virtues of collectedness and\nself-control, and we know this to be the indispensable quality in all\nwho have to shape young minds for a humane life. So long as all went\nwell, he was an angel, but when things went wrong, he is willing to\nconfess that he was a devil. When his two pupils could not understand\nhim, he became frantic; when they showed wilfulness or any other part of\nthe disagreeable materials out of which, along with the rest, human\nexcellence has to be ingeniously and painfully manufactured, he was\nready to kill them. This, as he justly admits, was not the way to render\nthem either well learned or sage. The moral education of the teacher\nhimself was hardly complete, for he describes how he used to steal his\nemployer's wine, and the exquisite draughts which he enjoyed in the\nsecrecy of his own room, with a piece of cake in one hand and some dear\nromance in the other. We should forgive greedy pilferings of this kind\nmore easily if Rousseau had forgotten them more speedily. These are\nsurely offences for which the best expiation is oblivion in a throng of\nworthier memories.\n\nIt is easy to understand how often Rousseau's mind turned from the\ndeadly drudgery of his present employment to the beatitude of former\ndays. \"What rendered my present condition insupportable was the\nrecollection of my beloved Charmettes, of my garden, my trees, my\nfountain, my orchard, and above all of her for whom I felt myself born\nand who gave life to it all. As I thought of her, of our pleasures, our\nguileless days, I was seized by a tightness in my heart, a stopping of\nmy breath, which robbed me of all spirit.\"[105] For years to come this\nwas a kind of far-off accompaniment, thrumming melodiously in his ears\nunder all the discords of a miserable life. He made another effort to\nquicken the dead. Throwing up his office with his usual promptitude in\nescaping from the irksome, after a residence of something like a year at\nLyons (April, 1740--spring of 1741), he made his way back to his old\nhaunts. The first half-hour with Madame de Warens persuaded him that\nhappiness here was really at an end. After a stay of a few months, his\ndesolation again overcame him. It was agreed that he should go to Paris\nto make his fortune by a new method of musical notation which he had\ninvented, and after a short stay at Lyons, he found himself for the\nsecond time in the famous city which in the eighteenth century had\nbecome for the moment the centre of the universe.[106]\n\nIt was not yet, however, destined to be a centre for him. His plan of\nmusical notation was examined by a learned committee of the Academy, no\nmember of whom was instructed in the musical art. Rousseau, dumb,\ninarticulate, and unready as usual, was amazed at the ease with which\nhis critics by the free use of sounding phrases demolished arguments and\nobjections which he perceived that they did not at all understand. His\nexperience on this occasion suggested to him the most just reflection,\nhow even without breadth of intelligence, the profound knowledge of any\none thing is preferable in forming a judgment about it, to all possible\nenlightenment conferred by the cultivation of the sciences, without\nstudy of the special matter in question. It astonished him that all\nthese learned men, who knew so many things, could yet be so ignorant\nthat a man should only pretend to be a judge in his own craft.[107]\n\nHis musical path to glory and riches thus blocked up, he surrendered\nhimself not to despair but to complete idleness and peace of mind. He\nhad a few coins left, and these prevented him from thinking of a future.\nHe was presented to one or two great ladies, and with the blundering\ngallantry habitual to him he wrote a letter to one of the greatest of\nthem, declaring his passion for her. Madame Dupin was the daughter of\none, and the wife of another, of the richest men in France, and the\nattentions of a man whose acquaintance Madame Beuzenval had begun by\ninviting him to dine in the servants' hall, were not pleasing to\nher.[108] She forgave the impertinence eventually, and her stepson, M.\nFrancueil, was Rousseau's patron for some years.[109] On the whole,\nhowever, in spite of his own account of his social ineptitude, there\ncannot have been anything so repulsive in his manners as this account\nwould lead us to think. There is no grave anachronism in introducing\nhere the impression which he made on two fine ladies not many years\nafter this. \"He pays compliments, yet he is not polite, or at least he\nis without the air of politeness. He seems to be ignorant of the usages\nof society, but it is easily seen that he is infinitely intelligent. He\nhas a brown complexion, while eyes that overflow with fire give\nanimation to his expression. When he has spoken and you look at him, he\nappears comely; but when you try to recall him, his image is always\nextremely plain. They say that he has bad health, and endures agony\nwhich from some motive of vanity he most carefully conceals. It is\nthis, I fancy, which gives him from time to time an air of\nsullenness.\"[110] The other lady, who saw him at the same time, speaks\nof \"the poor devil of an author, who's as poor as Job for you, but with\nwit and vanity enough for four.... They say his history is as queer as\nhis person, and that is saying a good deal.... Madame Maupeou and I\ntried to guess what it was. 'In spite of his face,' said she (for it is\ncertain he is uncommonly plain), 'his eyes tell that love plays a great\npart in his romance.' 'No,' said I, 'his nose tells me that it is\nvanity.' 'Well then, 'tis both one and the other.'\"[111]\n\nOne of his patronesses took some trouble to procure him the post of\nsecretary to the French ambassador at Venice, and in the spring of 1743\nour much-wandering man started once more in quest of meat and raiment in\nthe famous city of the Adriatic. This was one of those steps of which\nthere are not a few in a man's life, that seem at the moment to rank\nforemost in the short line of decisive acts, and then are presently seen\nnot to have been decisive at all, but mere interruptions conducting\nnowhither. In truth the critical moments with us are mostly as points in\nslumber. Even if the ancient oracles of the gods were to regain their\nspeech once more on the earth, men would usually go to consult them on\ndays when the answer would have least significance, and could guide\nthem least far. That one of the most heedless vagrants in Europe, and as\nit happened one of the men of most extraordinary genius also, should\nhave got a footing in the train of the ambassador of a great government,\nwould naturally seem to him and others as chance's one critical stroke\nin his life. In reality it was nothing. The Count of Montaigu, his\nmaster, was one of the worst characters with whom Rousseau could for his\nown profit have been brought into contact. In his professional quality\nhe was not far from imbecile. The folly and weakness of the government\nat Versailles during the reign of Lewis XV., and its indifference to\ncompetence in every department except perhaps partially in the fisc, was\nfairly illustrated in its absurd representative at Venice. The\nsecretary, whose renown has preserved his master's name, has recorded\nmore amply than enough the grounds of quarrel between them. Rousseau is\nfor once eager to assert his own efficiency, and declares that he\nrendered many important services for which he was repaid with\ningratitude and persecution.[112] One would be glad to know what the\nCount of Montaigu's version of matters was, for in truth Rousseau's\nconduct in previous posts makes us wonder how it was that he who had\nhitherto always been unfaithful over few things, suddenly touched\nperfection when he became lord over many.\n\nThere is other testimony, however, to the ambassador's morbid quality,\nof which, after that general imbecility which was too common a thing\namong men in office to be remarkable, avarice was the most striking\ntrait. For instance, careful observation had persuaded him that three\nshoes are equivalent to two pairs, because there is always one of a pair\nwhich is more worn than its fellow; and hence he habitually ordered his\nshoes in threes.[113] It was natural enough that such a master and such\na secretary should quarrel over perquisites. That slightly cringing\nquality which we have noticed on one or two occasions in Rousseau's\nhungry youthful time, had been hardened out of him by circumstance or\nthe strengthening of inborn fibre. He would now neither dine in a\nservants' hall because a fine lady forgot what was due to a musician,\nnor share his fees with a great ambassador who forgot what was due to\nhimself. These sordid disputes are of no interest now to anybody, and we\nneed only say that after a period of eighteen months passed in\nuncongenial company, Rousseau parted from his count in extreme dudgeon,\nand the diplomatic career which he had promised to himself came to the\nsame close as various other careers had already done.\n\nHe returned to Paris towards the end of 1744, burning with indignation\nat the unjust treatment which he believed himself to have suffered, and\nlaying memorial after memorial before the minister at home. He assures\nus that it was the justice and the futility of his complaints, that left\nin his soul the germ of exasperation against preposterous civil\ninstitutions, \"in which the true common weal and real justice are always\nsacrificed to some seeming order or other, which is in fact destructive\nof all order, and only adds the sanction of public authority to the\noppression of the weak and the iniquity of the strong.\"[114]\n\nOne or two pictures connected with the Venetian episode remain in the\nmemory of the reader of the Confessions, and among them perhaps with\nmost people is that of the quarantine at Genoa in Rousseau's voyage to\nhis new post. The travellers had the choice of remaining on board the\nfelucca, or passing the time in an unfurnished lazaretto. This, we may\nnotice in passing, was his first view of the sea; he makes no mention of\nthe fact, nor does the sight or thought of the sea appear to have left\nthe least mark in any line of his writings. He always disliked it, and\nthought of it with melancholy. Rousseau, as we may suppose, found the\nwant of space and air in the boat the most intolerable of evils, and\npreferred to go alone to the lazaretto, though it had neither\nwindow-sashes nor tables nor chairs nor bed, nor even a truss of straw\nto lie down upon. He was locked up and had the whole barrack to himself.\n\"I manufactured,\" he says, \"a good bed out of my coats and shirts,\nsheets out of towels which I stitched together, a pillow out of my old\ncloak rolled up. I made myself a seat of one trunk placed flat, and a\ntable of the other. I got out some paper and my writing-desk, and\narranged some dozen books that I had by way of library. In short I made\nmyself so comfortable, that, with the exception of curtains and windows,\nI was nearly as well off in this absolutely naked lazaretto as in my\nlodgings in Paris. My meals were served with much pomp; two grenadiers,\nwith bayonets at their musket-ends, escorted them; the staircase was my\ndining-room, the landing did for table and the lower step for a seat,\nand when my dinner was served, they rang a little bell as they withdrew,\nto warn me to seat myself at table. Between my meals, when I was neither\nwriting nor reading, nor busy with my furnishing, I went for a walk in\nthe Protestant graveyard, or mounted into a lantern which looked out on\nto the port, and whence I could see the ships sailing in and out. I\npassed a fortnight in this way, and I could have spent the whole three\nweeks of the quarantine without feeling an instant's weariness.\"[115]\n\nThese are the occasions when we catch glimpses of the true Rousseau; but\nhis residence in Venice was on the whole one of his few really sociable\nperiods. He made friends and kept them, and there was even a certain\ngaiety in his life. He used to tell people their fortunes in a way that\nan earlier century would have counted unholy.[116] He rarely sought\npleasure in those of her haunts for which the Queen of the Adriatic had\na guilty renown, but he has left one singular anecdote, showing the\ndegree to which profound sensibility is capable of doing the moralist's\nwork in a man, and how a stroke of sympathetic imagination may keep one\nfrom sin more effectually than an ethical precept.[117] It is pleasanter\nto think of him as working at the formation of that musical taste which\nten years afterwards led him to amaze the Parisians by proving that\nFrench melody was a hollow idea born of national self-delusion. A\nVenetian experiment, whose evidence in the special controversy is less\nweighty perhaps than Rousseau supposed, was among the facts which\npersuaded him that Italian is the language of music. An Armenian who had\nnever heard any music was invited to listen first of all to a French\nmonologue, and then to an air of Galuppi's. Rousseau observed in the\nArmenian more surprise than pleasure during the performance of the\nFrench piece. The first notes of the Italian were no sooner struck, than\nhis eyes and whole expression softened; he was enchanted, surrendered\nhis whole soul to the ravishing impressions of the music, and could\nnever again be induced to listen to the performance of any\nFrench air.[118]\n\nMore important than this was the circumstance that the sight of the\ndefects of the government of the Venetian Republic first drew his mind\nto political speculation, and suggested to him the composition of a\nbook that was to be called Institutions Politiques.[119] The work, as\nthus designed and named, was never written, but the idea of it, after\nmany years of meditation, ripened first in the Discourse on Inequality,\nand then in the Social Contract.\n\nIf Rousseau's departure for Venice was a wholly insignificant element in\nhis life, his return from it was almost immediately followed by an event\nwhich counted for nothing at the moment, which his friends by and by\ncame to regard as the fatal and irretrievable disaster of his life, but\nwhich he persistently described as the only real consolation that heaven\npermitted him to taste in his misery, and the only one that enabled him\nto bear his many sore burdens.[120]\n\nHe took up his quarters at a small and dirty hotel not far from the\nSorbonne, where he had alighted on the occasion of his second arrival in\nParis.[121] Here was a kitchen-maid, some two-and-twenty years old, who\nused to sit at table with her mistress and the guests of the house. The\ncompany was rough, being mainly composed of Irish and Gascon abb\u00e9s, and\nother people to whom graces of mien and refinement of speech had come\nneither by nature nor cultivation. The hostess herself pitched the\nconversation in merry Rabelaisian key, and the apparent modesty of her\nserving-woman gave a zest to her own licence. Rousseau was moved with\npity for a maid defenceless against a ribald storm, and from pity he\nadvanced to some warmer sentiment, and he and Theresa Le Vasseur took\neach other for better for worse, in a way informal but sufficiently\neffective. This was the beginning of a union which lasted for the length\nof a generation and more, down to the day of Rousseau's most tragical\nending.[122] She thought she saw in him a worthy soul; and he was\nconvinced that he saw in her a woman of sensibility, simple and free\nfrom trick, and neither of the two, he says, was deceived in respect of\nthe other. Her intellectual quality was unique. She could never be\ntaught to read with any approach to success. She could never follow the\norder of the twelve months of the year, nor master a single arithmetical\nfigure, nor count a sum of money, nor reckon the price of a thing. A\nmonth's instruction was not enough to give knowledge of the hours of the\nday on the dial-plate. The words she used were often the direct\nopposites of the words that she meant to use.[123]\n\nThe marriage choice of others is the inscrutable puzzle of those who\nhave no eye for the fact that such choice is the great match of cajolery\nbetween purpose and invisible hazard; the blessedness of many lives is\nthe stake, as intention happens to cheat accident or to be cheated by\nit. When the match is once over, deep criticism of a game of pure chance\nis time wasted. The crude talk in which the unwise deliver their\njudgments upon the conditions of success in the relations between men\nand women, has flowed with unprofitable copiousness as to this not very\ninviting case. People construct an imaginary Rousseau out of his\nwritings, and then fetter their elevated, susceptible, sensitive, and\nhumane creation, to the unfortunate woman who could never be taught that\nApril is the month after March, or that twice four and a half are nine.\nNow we have already seen enough of Rousseau to know for how infinitely\nlittle he counted the gift of a quick wit, and what small store he set\neither on literary varnish or on capacity for receiving it. He was\ntouched in people with whom he had to do, not by attainment, but by\nmoral fibre or his imaginary impression of their moral fibre. Instead of\nanalysing a character, bringing its several elements into the balance,\ncomputing the more or less of this faculty or that, he loved to feel its\ninfluence as a whole, indivisible, impalpable, playing without sound or\nagitation around him like soft light and warmth and the fostering air.\nThe deepest ignorance, the dullest incapacity, the cloudiest faculties\nof apprehension, were nothing to him in man or woman, provided he could\nonly be sensible of that indescribable emanation from voice and eye and\nmovement, that silent effusion of serenity around spoken words, which\nnature has given to some tranquillising spirits, and which would have\nleft him free in an even life of indolent meditation and unfretted\nsense. A woman of high, eager, stimulating kind would have been a more\nfatal mate for him than the most stupid woman that ever rivalled the\nstupidity of man. Stimulation in any form always meant distress to\nRousseau. The moist warmth of the Savoy valleys was not dearer to him\nthan the subtle inhalations of softened and close enveloping\ncompanionship, in which the one needful thing is not intellectual\nequality, but easy, smooth, constant contact of feeling about the\nthousand small matters that make up the existence of a day. This is not\nthe highest ideal of union that one's mind can conceive from the point\nof view of intense productive energy, but Rousseau was not concerned\nwith the conditions of productive energy. He only sought to live, to be\nhimself, and he knew better than any critics can know for him, what kind\nof nature was the best supplement for his own. As he said in an\napophthegm with a deep melancholy lying at the bottom of it,--you never\ncan cite the example of a thoroughly happy man, for no one but the man\nhimself knows anything about it.[124] \"By the side of people we love,\"\nhe says very truly, \"sentiment nourishes the intelligence as well as the\nheart, and we have little occasion to seek ideas elsewhere. I lived with\nmy Theresa as pleasantly as with the finest genius in the\nuniverse.\"[125]\n\nTheresa Le Vasseur would probably have been happier if she had married a\nstout stable-boy, as indeed she did some thirty years hence by way of\ngathering up the fragments that were left; but there is little reason to\nthink that Rousseau would have been much happier with any other mate\nthan he was with Theresa. There was no social disparity between the two.\nShe was a person accustomed to hardship and coarseness, and so was he.\nAnd he always systematically preferred the honest coarseness of the\nplain people from whom he was sprung and among whom he had lived, to the\nmore hateful coarseness of heart which so often lurks under fine manners\nand a complete knowledge of the order of the months in the year and the\narithmetical table. Rousseau had been a serving-man, and there was no\ndeterioration in going with a serving-woman.[126] However this may be,\nit is certain that for the first dozen years or so of his\npartnership--and many others as well as he are said to have found in\nthis term a limit to the conditions of the original contract,--Rousseau\nhad perfect and entire contentment in the Theresa whom all his friends\npronounced as mean, greedy, jealous, degrading, as she was avowedly\nbrutish in understanding. Granting that she was all these things, how\nmuch of the responsibility for his acts has been thus shifted from the\nshoulders of Rousseau himself, whose connection with her was from\nbeginning to end entirely voluntary? If he attached himself deliberately\nto an unworthy object by a bond which he was indisputably free to break\non any day that he chose, were not the effects of such a union as much\ndue to his own character which sought, formed, and perpetuated it, as to\nthe character of Theresa Le Vasseur? Nothing, as he himself said in a\npassage to which he appends a vindication of Theresa, shows the true\nleanings and inclinations of a man better than the sort of attachments\nwhich he forms.[127]\n\nIt is a natural blunder in a literate and well-mannered society to\ncharge a mistake against a man who infringes its conventions in this\nparticular way. Rousseau knew what he was about, as well as politer\npersons. He was at least as happy with his kitchen wench as Addison was\nwith his countess, or Voltaire with his marchioness, and he would not\nhave been what he was, nor have played the part that he did play in the\neighteenth century, if he had felt anything derogatory or unseemly in a\nkitchen wench. The selection was probably not very deliberate; as it\nhappened, Theresa served as a standing illustration of two of his most\nmarked traits, a contempt for mere literary culture, and a yet deeper\ncontempt for social accomplishments and social position. In time he\nfound out the grievous disadvantages of living in solitude with a\ncompanion who did not know how to think, and whose stock of ideas was so\nslight that the only common ground of talk between them was gossip and\nquodlibets. But her lack of sprightliness, beauty, grace, refinement,\nand that gentle initiative by which women may make even a sombre life so\nvarious, went for nothing with him. What his friends missed in her, he\ndid not seek and would not have valued; and what he found in her, they\nwere naturally unable to appreciate, for they never were in the mood for\ndetecting it. \"I have not seen much of happy men,\" he wrote when near\nhis end, \"perhaps nothing; but I have many a time seen contented hearts,\nand of all the objects that have struck me, I believe it is this which\nhas always given most contentment to myself.\"[128] This moderate\nconception of felicity, which was always so characteristic with him, as\nan even, durable, and rather low-toned state of the feelings, accounts\nfor his prolonged acquiescence in a companion whom men with more elation\nin their ideal would assuredly have found hostile even to the most\nmodest contentment.\n\n\"The heart of my Theresa,\" he wrote long after the first tenderness had\nchanged into riper emotion on his side, and, alas, into indifference on\nhers, \"was that of an angel; our attachment waxed stronger with our\nintimacy, and we felt more and more each day that we were made for one\nanother. If our pleasures could be described, their simplicity would\nmake you laugh; our excursions together out of town, in which I would\nmunificently expend eight or ten halfpence in some rural tavern; our\nmodest suppers at my window, seated in front of one another on two small\nchairs placed on a trunk that filled up the breadth of the embrasure.\nHere the window did duty for a table, we breathed the fresh air, we\ncould see the neighbourhood and the people passing by, and though on the\nfourth story, could look down into the street as we ate. Who shall\ndescribe, who shall feel the charms of those meals, consisting of a\ncoarse quartern loaf, some cherries, a tiny morsel of cheese, and a pint\nof wine which we drank between us? Ah, what delicious seasoning there is\nin friendship, confidence, intimacy, gentleness of soul! We used\nsometimes to remain thus until midnight, without once thinking of the\ntime.\"[129]\n\nMen and women are often more fairly judged by the way in which they bear\nthe burden of what they have done, than by the prime act which laid the\nburden on their lives.[130] The deeper part of us shows in the manner of\naccepting consequences. On the whole, Rousseau's relations with this\nwoman present him in a better light than those with any other person\nwhatever. If he became with all the rest of the world suspicious, angry,\njealous, profoundly diseased in a word, with her he was habitually\ntrustful, affectionate, careful, most long-suffering. It sometimes even\noccurs to us that his constancy to Theresa was only another side of the\nmorbid perversity of his relations with the rest of the world. People of\na certain kind not seldom make the most serious and vital sacrifices for\nbare love of singularity, and a man like Rousseau was not unlikely to\nfeel an eccentric pleasure in proving that he could find merit in a\nwoman who to everybody else was desperate. One who is on bad terms with\nthe bulk of his fellows may contrive to save his self-respect and\nconfirm his conviction that they are all in the wrong, by preserving\nattachment to some one to whom general opinion is hostile; the private\nargument being that if he is capable of this degree of virtue and\nfriendship in an unfavourable case, how much more could he have\npractised it with others, if they would only have allowed him. Whether\nthis kind of apology was present to his mind or not, Rousseau could\nalways refer those who charged him with black caprice, to his steady\nkindness towards Theresa Le Vasseur. Her family were among the most\nodious of human beings, greedy, idle, and ill-humoured, while her mother\nhad every fault that a woman could have in Rousseau's eyes, including\nthat worst fault of setting herself up for a fine wit. Yet he bore with\nthem all for years, and did not break with Madame Le Vasseur until she\nhad poisoned the mind of her daughter, and done her best by rapacity and\nlying to render him contemptible to all his friends.\n\nIn the course of years Theresa herself gave him unmistakable signs of a\nchange in her affections. \"I began to feel,\" he says, at a date of\nsixteen or seventeen years from our present point, \"that she was no\nlonger for me what she had been in our happy years, and I felt it all\nthe more clearly as I was still the same towards her.\"[131] This was in\n1762, and her estrangement grew deeper and her indifference more open,\nuntil at length, seven years afterwards, we find that she had proposed a\nseparation from him. What the exact reasons for this gradual change may\nhave been we do not know, nor have we any right in ignorance of the\nwhole facts to say that they were not adequate and just. There are two\ngood traits recorded of the woman's character. She could never console\nherself for having let her father be taken away to end his days\nmiserably in a house of charity.[132] And the repudiation of her\nchildren, against which the glowing egoism of maternity always rebelled,\nremained a cruel dart in her bosom as long as she lived. We may suppose\nthat there was that about household life with Rousseau which might have\nbred disgusts even in one as little fastidious as Theresa was. Among\nother things which must have been hard to endure, we know that in\ncomposing his works he was often weeks together without speaking a word\nto her.[133] Perhaps again it would not be difficult to produce some\npassages in Rousseau's letters and in the Confessions, which show traces\nof that subtle contempt for women that lurks undetected in many who\nwould blush to avow it. Whatever the causes may have been, from\nindifference she passed to something like aversion, and in the one\nplace where a word of complaint is wrung from him, he describes her as\nrending and piercing his heart at a moment when his other miseries were\nat their height. His patience at any rate was inexhaustible; now old,\nworn by painful bodily infirmities, racked by diseased suspicion and the\nmost dreadful and tormenting of the minor forms of madness, nearly\nfriendless, and altogether hopeless, he yet kept unabated the old\ntenderness of a quarter of a century before, and expressed it in words\nof such gentleness, gravity, and self-respecting strength, as may touch\neven those whom his books leave unmoved, and who view his character with\ndeepest distrust. \"For the six-and-twenty years, dearest, that our union\nhas lasted, I have never sought my happiness except in yours, and have\nnever ceased to try to make you happy; and you saw by what I did\nlately,[134] that your honour and happiness were one as dear to me as\nthe other. I see with pain that success does not answer my solicitude,\nand that my kindness is not as sweet to you to receive, as it is sweet\nto me to show. I know that the sentiments of honour and uprightness with\nwhich you were born will never change in you; but as for those of\ntenderness and attachment which were once reciprocal between us, I feel\nthat they now only exist on my side. Not only, dearest of all friends,\nhave you ceased to find pleasure in my company, but you have to tax\nyourself severely even to remain a few minutes with me out of\ncomplaisance. You are at your ease with all the world but me. I do not\nspeak to you of many other things. We must take our friends with their\nfaults, and I ought to pass over yours, as you pass over mine. If you\nwere happy with me I could be content, but I see clearly that you are\nnot, and this is what makes my heart sore. If I could do better for your\nhappiness, I would do it and hold my peace; but that is not possible. I\nhave left nothing undone that I thought would contribute to your\nfelicity. At this moment, while I am writing to you, overwhelmed with\ndistress and misery, I have no more true or lively desire than to finish\nmy days in closest union with you. You know my lot,--it is such as one\ncould not even dare to describe, for no one could believe it. I never\nhad, my dearest, other than one single solace, but that the sweetest; it\nwas to pour out all my heart in yours; when I talked of my miseries to\nyou, they were soothed; and when you had pitied me, I needed pity no\nmore. My every resource, my whole confidence, is in you and in you only;\nmy soul cannot exist without sympathy, and cannot find sympathy except\nwith you. It is certain that if you fail me and I am forced to live\nalone, I am as a dead man. But I should die a thousand times more\ncruelly still, if we continued to live together in misunderstanding, and\nif confidence and friendship were to go out between us. It would be a\nhundred times better to cease to see each other; still to live, and\nsometimes to regret one another. Whatever sacrifice may be necessary on\nmy part to make you happy, be so at any cost, and I shall be content.\nWe have faults to weep over and to expiate, but no crimes; let us not\nblot out by the imprudence of our closing days the sweetness and purity\nof those we have passed together.\"[135] Think ill as we may of\nRousseau's theories, and meanly as we may of some parts of his conduct,\nyet to those who can feel the pulsing of a human life apart from a man's\nformul\u00e6, and can be content to leave to sure circumstance the tragic\nretaliation for evil behaviour, this letter is like one of the great\nmaster's symphonies, whose theme falls in soft strokes of melting pity\non the heart. In truth, alas, the union of this now diverse pair had\nbeen stained by crimes shortly after its beginning. In the estrangement\nof father and mother in their late years we may perhaps hear the rustle\nand spy the pale forms of the avenging spectres of their lost children.\n\nAt the time when the connection with Theresa Le Vasseur was formed,\nRousseau did not know how to gain bread. He composed the musical\ndiversion of the Muses Galantes, which Rameau rightly or wrongly\npronounced a plagiarism, and at the request of Richelieu he made some\nminor re-adaptations in Voltaire's Princesse de Navarre, which Rameau\nhad set to music--that \"farce of the fair\" to which the author of Za\u00efre\nowed his seat in the Academy.[136] But neither task brought him money,\nand he fell back on a sort of secretaryship, with perhaps a little of\nthe valet in it, to Madame Dupin and her son-in-law, M. de Francueil,\nfor which he received the too moderate income of nine hundred francs. On\none occasion he returned to his room expecting with eager impatience the\narrival of a remittance, the proceeds of some small property which came\nto him by the death of his father.[137] He found the letter, and was\nopening it with trembling hands, when he was suddenly smitten with shame\nat his want of self-control; he placed it unopened on the chimney-piece,\nundressed, slept better than usual, and when he awoke the next morning,\nhe had forgotten all about the letter until it caught his eye. He was\ndelighted to find that it contained his money, but \"I can swear,\" he\nadds, \"that my liveliest delight was in having conquered myself.\" An\noccasion for self-conquest on a more considerable scale was at hand. In\nthese tight straits, he received grievous news from the unfortunate\nTheresa. He made up his mind cheerfully what to do; the mother\nacquiesced after sore persuasion and with bitter tears; and the new-born\nchild was dropped into oblivion in the box of the asylum for foundlings.\nNext year the same easy expedient was again resorted to, with the same\nheedlessness on the part of the father, the same pain and reluctance on\nthe part of the mother. Five children in all were thus put away, and\nwith such entire absence of any precaution with a view to their\nidentification in happier times, that not even a note was kept of the\nday of their birth.[138]\n\nPeople have made a great variety of remarks upon this transaction, from\nthe economist who turns it into an illustration of the evil results of\nhospitals for foundlings in encouraging improvident unions, down to the\ntheologian who sees in it new proof of the inborn depravity of the human\nheart and the fall of man. Others have vindicated it in various ways,\none of them courageously taking up the ground that Rousseau had good\nreason to believe that the children were not his own, and therefore was\nfully warranted in sending the poor creatures kinless into the\nuniverse.[139] Perhaps it is not too transcendental a thing to hope that\ncivilisation may one day reach a point when a plea like this shall count\nfor an aggravation rather than a palliative; when a higher conception of\nthe duties of humanity, familiarised by the practice of adoption as well\nas by the spread of both rational and compassionate considerations as to\nthe blameless little ones, shall have expelled what is surely as some\nred and naked beast's emotion of fatherhood. What may be an excellent\nreason for repudiating a woman, can never be a reason for abandoning a\nchild, except with those whom reckless egoism has made willing to think\nit a light thing to fling away from us the moulding of new lives and the\nensuring of salutary nurture for growing souls.\n\nWe are, however, dispensed from entering into these questions of the\ngreater morals by the very plain account which the chief actor has given\nus, almost in spite of himself. His crime like most others was the\nresult of heedlessness, of the overriding of duty by the short dim-eyed\nselfishness of the moment. He had been accustomed to frequent a tavern,\nwhere the talk turned mostly upon topics which men with much\nself-respect put as far from them, as men with little self-respect will\nallow them to do. \"I formed my fashion of thinking from what I perceived\nto reign among people who were at bottom extremely worthy folk, and I\nsaid to myself, Since it is the usage of the country, as one lives here,\none may as well follow it. So I made up my mind to it cheerfully, and\nwithout the least scruple.\"[140] By and by he proceeded to cover this\nnude and intelligible explanation with finer phrases, about preferring\nthat his children should be trained up as workmen and peasants rather\nthan as adventurers and fortune-hunters, and about his supposing that in\nsending them to the hospital for foundlings he was enrolling himself a\ncitizen in Plato's Republic.[141] This is hardly more than the talk of\none become famous, who is defending the acts of his obscurity on the\nhigh principles which fame requires. People do not turn citizens of\nPlato's Republic \"cheerfully and without the least scruple,\" and if a\nman frequents company where the despatch of inconvenient children to the\nhospital was an accepted point of common practice, it is superfluous to\ndrag Plato and his Republic into the matter. Another turn again was\ngiven to his motives when his mind had become clouded by suspicious\nmania. Writing a year or two before his death he had assured himself\nthat his determining reason was the fear of a destiny for his children a\nthousand times worse than the hard life of foundlings, namely, being\nspoiled by their mother, being turned into monsters by her family, and\nfinally being taught to hate and betray their father by his plotting\nenemies.[142] This is obviously a mixture in his mind of the motives\nwhich led to the abandonment of the children and justified the act to\nhimself at the time, with the circumstances that afterwards reconciled\nhim to what he had done; for now he neither had any enemies plotting\nagainst him, nor did he suppose that he had. As for his wife's family,\nhe showed himself quite capable, when the time came, of dealing\nresolutely and shortly with their importunities in his own case, and he\nmight therefore well have trusted his power to deal with them in the\ncase of his children. He was more right when in 1770, in his important\nletter to M. de St. Germain, he admitted that example, necessity, the\nhonour of her who was dear to him, all united to make him entrust his\nchildren to the establishment provided for that purpose, and kept him\nfrom fulfilling the first and holiest of natural duties. \"In this, far\nfrom excusing, I accuse myself; and when my reason tells me that I did\nwhat I ought to have done in my situation, I believe that less than my\nheart, which bitterly belies it.\"[143] This coincides with the first\nundisguised account given in the Confessions, which has been already\nquoted, and it has not that flawed ring of cant and fine words which\nsounds through nearly all his other references to this great stain upon\nhis life, excepting one, and this is the only further document with\nwhich we need concern ourselves. In that,[144] which was written while\nthe unholy work was actually being done, he states very distinctly that\nthe motives were those which are more or less closely connected with\nmost unholy works, motives of money--the great instrument and measure of\nour personal convenience, the quantitative test of our self-control in\nplacing personal convenience behind duty to other people. \"If my misery\nand my misfortunes rob me of the power of fulfilling a duty so dear,\nthat is a calamity to pity me for, rather than a crime to reproach me\nwith. I owe them subsistence, and I procured a better or at least a\nsurer subsistence for them than I could myself have provided; this\ncondition is above all others.\" Next comes the consideration of their\nmother, whose honour must be kept. \"You know my situation; I gained my\nbread from day to day painfully enough; how then should I feed a family\nas well? And if I were compelled to fall back on the profession of\nauthor, how would domestic cares and the confusion of children leave me\npeace of mind enough in my garret to earn a living? Writings which\nhunger dictates are hardly of any use, and such a resource is speedily\nexhausted. Then I should have to resort to patronage, to intrigue, to\ntricks ... in short to surrender myself to all those infamies, for which\nI am penetrated with such just horror. Support myself, my children, and\ntheir mother on the blood of wretches? No, madame, it were better for\nthem to be orphans than to have a scoundrel for their father.... Why\nhave I not married, you will ask? Madame, ask it of your unjust laws. It\nwas not fitting for me to contract an eternal engagement; and it will\nnever be proved to me that my duty binds me to it. What is certain is\nthat I have never done it, and that I never meant to do it. But we ought\nnot to have children when we cannot support them. Pardon me, madame;\nnature means us to have offspring, since the earth produces sustenance\nenough for all; but it is the rich, it is your class, which robs mine of\nthe bread of my children.... I know that foundlings are not delicately\nnurtured; so much the better for them, they become more robust. They\nhave nothing superfluous given to them, but they have everything that is\nnecessary. They do not make gentlemen of them, but peasants or\nartisans.... They would not know how to dance, or ride on horseback, but\nthey would have strong unwearied legs. I would neither make authors of\nthem, nor clerks; I would not practise them in handling the pen, but the\nplough, the file, and the plane, instruments for leading a healthy,\nlaborious, innocent life.... I deprived myself of the delight of seeing\nthem, and I have never tasted the sweetness of a father's embrace. Alas,\nas I have already told you, I see in this only a claim on your pity, and\nI deliver them from misery at my own expense.\"[145] We may see here that\nRousseau's sophistical eloquence, if it misled others, was at least as\npowerful in misleading himself, and it may be noted that this letter,\nwith its talk of the children of the rich taking bread out of the mouths\nof the children of the poor, contains the first of those socialistic\nsentences by which the writer in after times gained so famous a name. It\nis at any rate clear from this that the real motive of the abandonment\nof the children was wholly material. He could not afford to maintain\nthem, and he did not wish to have his comfort disturbed by\ntheir presence.\n\nThere is assuredly no word to be said by any one with firm reason and\nunsophisticated conscience in extenuation of this crime. We have only to\nremember that a great many other persons in that lax time, when the\nstructure of the family was undermined alike in practice and\nspeculation, were guilty of the same crime; that Rousseau, better than\nthey, did not erect his own criminality into a social theory, but was\ntolerably soon overtaken by a remorse which drove him both to confess\nhis misdeed, and to admit that it was inexpiable; and that the atrocity\nof the offence owes half the blackness with which it has always been\ninvested by wholesome opinion, to the fact that the offender was by and\nby the author of the most powerful book by which parental duty has been\ncommended in its full loveliness and nobility. And at any rate, let\nRousseau be a little free from excessive reproach from all clergymen,\nsentimentalists, and others, who do their worst to uphold the common and\nrather bestial opinion in favour of reckless propagation, and who, if\nthey do not advocate the despatch of children to public institutions,\nstill encourage a selfish incontinence which ultimately falls in burdens\non others than the offenders, and which turns the family into a scene of\nsqualor and brutishness, producing a kind of parental influence that is\nfar more disastrous and demoralising than the absence of it in public\ninstitutions can possibly be. If the propagation of children without\nregard to their maintenance be either a virtue or a necessity, and if\nafterwards the only alternatives are their maintenance in an asylum on\nthe one hand, and their maintenance in the degradation of a\npoverty-stricken home on the other, we should not hesitate to give\npeople who act as Rousseau acted, all that credit for self-denial and\nhigh moral courage which he so audaciously claimed for himself. It\nreally seems to be no more criminal to produce children with the\ndeliberate intention of abandoning them to public charity, as Rousseau\ndid, than it is to produce them in deliberate reliance on the besotted\nmaxim that he who sends mouths will send meat, or any other of the\nspurious saws which make Providence do duty for self-control, and add to\nthe gratification of physical appetite the grotesque luxury of\nreligious unction.\n\nIn 1761 the Mar\u00e9chale de Luxembourg made efforts to discover Rousseau's\nchildren, but without success. They were gone beyond hope of\nidentification, and the author of _Emitius_ and his sons and daughters\nlived together in this world, not knowing one another. Rousseau with\nsingular honesty did not conceal his satisfaction at the fruitlessness\nof the charitable endeavours to restore them to him. \"The success of\nyour search,\" he wrote, \"could not give me pure and undisturbed\npleasure; it is too late, too late.... In my present condition this\nsearch interested me more for another person [Theresa] than myself; and\nconsidering the too easily yielding character of the person in question,\nit is possible that what she had found already formed for good or for\nevil, might turn out a sorry boon to her.\"[146] We may doubt, in spite\nof one or two charming and graceful passages, whether Rousseau was of a\nnature to have any feeling for the pathos of infancy, the bright blank\neye, the eager unpurposed straining of the hand, the many turns and\nchanges in murmurings that yet can tell us nothing. He was both too\nself-centred and too passionate for warm ease and fulness of life in all\nthings, to be truly sympathetic with a condition whose feebleness and\nimmaturity touch us with half-painful hope.\n\nRousseau speaks in the Confessions of having married Theresa\nfive-and-twenty years after the beginning of their acquaintance,[147]\nbut we hardly have to understand that any ceremony took place which\nanybody but himself would recognise as constituting a marriage. What\nhappened appears to have been this. Seated at table with Theresa and two\nguests, one of them the mayor of the place, he declared that she was his\nwife. \"This good and seemly engagement was contracted,\" he says, \"in all\nthe simplicity but also in all the truth of nature, in the presence of\ntwo men of worth and honour.... During the short and simple act, I saw\nthe honest pair melted in tears.\"[148] He had at this time whimsically\nassumed the name of Renou, and he wrote to a friend that of course he\nhad married in this name, for he adds, with the characteristic insertion\nof an irrelevant bit of magniloquence, \"it is not names that are\nmarried; no, it is persons.\" \"Even if in this simple and holy ceremony\nnames entered as a constituent part, the one I bear would have sufficed,\nsince I recognise no other. If it were a question of property to be\nassured, then it would be another thing, but you know very well that is\nnot our case.\"[149] Of course, this may have been a marriage according\nto the truth of nature, and Rousseau was as free to choose his own rites\nas more sacramental performers, but it is clear from his own words about\nproperty that there was no pretence of a marriage in law. He and Theresa\nwere on profoundly uncomfortable terms about this time,[150] and\nRousseau is not the only person by many thousands who has deceived\nhimself into thinking that some form of words between man and woman must\nmagically transform the substance of their characters and lives, and\nconjure up new relations of peace and steadfastness.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWe have, however, been outstripping slow-footed destiny, and have now to\nreturn to the time when Theresa did not drink brandy, nor run after\nstable-boys, nor fill Rousseau's soul with bitterness and suspicion, but\nsat contentedly with him in an evening taking a stoic's meal in the\nwindow of their garret on the fourth floor, seasoning it with\n\"confidence, intimacy, gentleness of soul,\" and that general comfort of\nsensation which, as we know to our cost, is by no means an invariable\ncondition either of duty done externally or of spiritual growth within.\nIt is perhaps hard for us to feel that we are in the presence of a great\nreligious reactionist; there is so little sign of the higher graces of\nthe soul, there are so many signs of the lowering clogs of the flesh.\nBut the spirit of a man moves in mysterious ways, and expands like the\nplants of the field with strange and silent stirrings. It is one of the\nchief tests of worthiness and freedom from vulgarity of soul in us, to\nbe able to have faith that this expansion is a reality, and the most\nimportant of all realities. We do not rightly seize the type of Socrates\nif we can never forget that he was the husband of Xanthippe, nor David's\nif we can only think of him as the murderer of Uriah, nor Peter's if we\ncan simply remember that he denied his master. Our vision is only\nblindness, if we can never bring ourselves to see the possibilities of\ndeep mystic aspiration behind the vile outer life of a man, or to\nbelieve that this coarse Rousseau, scantily supping with his coarse\nmate, might yet have many glimpses of the great wide horizons that are\nhaunted by figures rather divine than human.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[104] In theory he was even now curiously prudent and almost\nsagacious; witness the Projet pour l'Education, etc., submitted to M.\nde Mably, and printed in the volume of his Works entitled _M\u00e9langes_,\npp. 106-136. In the matter of Latin, it may be worth noting that\nRousseau rashly or otherwise condemns the practice of writing it, as a\nvexatious superfluity (p. 132).\n\n[105] _Conf._, vi. 471.\n\n[106] _Ib._, vi. 472-475; vii. 8.\n\n[107] _Conf._, vii. 18, 19.\n\n[108] Musset-Pathay (ii. 72) quotes the passage from Lord\nChesterfield's Letters, where the writer suggests Madame Dupin as a\nproper person with whom his son might in a regular and business-like\nmanner open the elevating game of gallant intrigue.\n\n[109] M. Dupin deserves honourable mention as having helped the\neditors of the Encyclop\u00e6dia by procuring information for them as to\nsalt-works (D'Alembert's _Discours Pr\u00e9liminaire_). His son M. Dupin de\nFrancueil, it may be worth noting, is a link in the genealogical chain\nbetween two famous personages. In 1777, the year before Rousseau's\ndeath, he married (in the chapel of the French embassy in London)\nAurora de Saxe, a natural daughter of the marshal, himself the natural\nson of August the Strong, King of Poland. From this union was born\nMaurice Dupin, and Maurice Dupin was the father of Madame George Sand.\nM. Francueil died in 1787.\n\n[110] _M\u00e9m. de Mdme. d'Epinay_, vol. i. ch. iv. p. 176.\n\n[111] _Ib._ vol. i. ch. iv. pp. 178, 179.\n\n[112] _Conf._, vii. 46, 51, 52, etc. A diplomatic piece in Rousseau's\nhandwriting has been found in the archives of the French consulate at\nConstantinople, as M. Girardin informs us. Voltaire unworthily spread\nthe report that Rousseau had been the ambassador's private attendant.\nFor Rousseau's reply to the calumny, see _Corr._, v. 75 (Jan. 5,\n1767); also iv. 150.\n\n[113] Bernardin de St. Pierre, _Oeuv._, xii. 55 _seq._\n\n[114] _Conf._, vii. 92.\n\n[115] _Conf._, vii. 38, 39.\n\n[116] _Lettres de la Montagne_, iii. 266.\n\n[117] _Conf._, vii. 75-84. Also a second example, 84-86. For Byron's\nopinion of one of these stories, see Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, vi.\n132. (Ed. 1837.)\n\n[118] _Lettre sur la Musique Fran\u00e7aise_ (1753), p. 186.\n\n[119] _Conf._, ix. 232.\n\n[120] _Ib._ vii. 97.\n\n[121] H\u00f4tel St. Quentin, rue des Cordiers, a narrow street running\nbetween the rue St. Jacques and the rue Victor Cousin. The still\nsqualid hostelry is now visible as H\u00f4tel J.J. Rousseau. There is some\ndoubt whether he first saw Theresa in 1743 or 1745. The account in Bk.\nvii. of the _Confessions_ is for the latter date (see also _Corr._,\nii. 207), but in the well-known letter to her in 1769 (_Ib._ vi. 79),\nhe speaks of the twenty-six years of their union. Their so-called\nmarriage took place in 1768, and writing in that year he speaks of the\nfive-and-twenty years of their attachment (_Ib._ v. 323), and in the\n_Confessions_ (ix. 249) he fixes their marriage at the same date; also\nin the letter to Saint-Germain (vi. 152). Musset-Pathay, though giving\n1745 in one place (i. 45), and 1743 in another (ii. 198), has with\nless than his usual care paid no attention to the discrepancy.\n\n[122] _Conf._, vii. 97-100.\n\n[123] _Conf._, vii. 101. A short specimen of her composition may be\ninteresting, at any rate to hieroglyphic students: \"Mesiceuras ancor\nmien re mies quan geu ceures o pres deu vous, e deu vous temoes tous\nla goies e latandres deu mon querque vous cones ces que getou gour e\nrus pour vous, e qui neu finiraes quotobocs ces mon quere qui vous\npaleu ces paes mes le vre ... ge sui avestous lamities e la reu conec\ncaceu posible e la tacheman mon cher bonnamies votreau enble e bon\namiess theress le vasseur.\" Of which dark words this is the\ninterpretation:--\"Mais il sera encore mieux remis quand je sera aupr\u00e8s\nde vous, et de vous t\u00e9moigner toute la joie et la tendresse de mon\ncoeur que vous connaissez que j'ai toujours eue pour vous, et qui ne\nfinira qu'au tombeau; c'est mon coeur qui vous parle, c'est pas mes\nl\u00e8vres.... Je suis avec toute l'amiti\u00e9 et la reconnaissance possibles,\net l'attachement, mon cher bon ami, votre humble et bonne amie,\nTh\u00e9r\u00e8se Le Vasseur.\" (_Rousseau, ses Amis et ses Ennemis_, ii. 450.)\nCertainly it was not learning and arts which hindered Theresa's\nmanners from being pure.\n\n[124] _Oeuv. et Corr. In\u00e9d._, 365.\n\n[125] _Conf._, vii. 102. See also _Corr._, v. 373 (Oct. 10, 1768). On\nthe other hand, _Conf._, ix. 249.\n\n[126] M. St. Marc Girardin, in one of his admirable papers on\nRousseau, speaks of him as \"a bourgeois unclassed by an alliance with\na tavern servant\" (_Rev. des Deux Mondes_, Nov. 1852, p. 759); but\nsurely Rousseau had unclassed himself long before, in the houses of\nMadame Vercellis, Count Gouvon, and even Madame de Warens, and by his\nrepudiation, from the time when he ran away from Geneva, of nearly\nevery bourgeois virtue and bourgeois prejudice.\n\n[127] _Conf._, vii. 11. Also footnote.\n\n[128] _R\u00eaveries_, ix. 309.\n\n[129] _Conf._, viii. 142, 143.\n\n[130] The other day I came for the first time upon the following in\nthe sayings of Madame de Lambert:--\"Ce ne sont pas toujours les fautes\nqui nous perdent; c'est la mani\u00e8re de se conduire apr\u00e9s les avoir\nfaites.\" [1877.]\n\n[131] _Conf._, xii. 187, 188.\n\n[132] _Ib._, viii. 221.\n\n[133] Bernardin de St. Pierre, _Oeuv._, xii. 103. See _Conf._, xii\n188, and _Corr._, v. 324.\n\n[134] Referring, no doubt, to the ceremony which he called their\nmarriage, and which had taken place in 1768.\n\n[135] _Corr._, vi. 79-86. August 12, 1769.\n\n[136] Composed in 1745. The _F\u00eates de Ramire_ was represented at\nVersailles at the very end of this year.\n\n[137] Some time in 1746-7. _Conf._, vii. 113, 114.\n\n[138] Probably in the winter of 1746-7. _Corr._, ii. 207. _Conf._,\nvii. 120-124. _Ib._, viii. 148. _Corr._, ii. 208. June 12, 1761, to\nthe Mar\u00e9chale de Luxembourg.\n\n[139] George Sand,--in an eloquent piece entitled _\u00c0 Propos des\nCharmettes (Revue des Deux Mondes_, November 15, 1863), in which she\nexpresses her own obligations to Jean Jacques. In 1761 Rousseau\ndeclares that he had never hitherto had the least reason to suspect\nTheresa's fidelity. _Corr._, ii. 209\n\n[140] _Conf._, vii. 123.\n\n[141] _Ib._, viii. 145-151.\n\n[142] _R\u00eaveries_, ix. 313. The same reason is given, _Conf._, ix. 252;\nalso in Letter to Madame B., January 17, 1770 (_Corr._, vi. 117).\n\n[143] _Corr._, vi. 152, 153. Feb. 27, 1770.\n\n[144] Letter to Madame de Francueil, April 20, 1751. _Corr._, i. 151.\n\n[145] _Corr._, i. 151-155\n\n[146] August 10, 1761. _Corr._, ii. 220. The Mar\u00e9chale de Luxembourg's\nnote on the subject, to which this is a reply, is given in _Rousseau,\nses Amis et ses Ennemis_, i. 444.\n\n[147] _Conf._, x. 249. See above, p. 106, _n._\n\n[148] To Lalliaud, Aug 31, 1768. _Corr._, v. 324. See also D'Escherny,\nquoted in Musset-Pathay, i. 169, 170.\n\n[149] To Du Peyrou, Sept. 26, 1768. _Corr._, v. 360.\n\n[150] To Mdlle. Le Vasseur, July 25, 1768. _Corr._, v. 116-119.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE DISCOURSES.\n\n\nThe busy establishment of local academies in the provincial centres of\nFrance only preceded the outbreak of the revolution by ten or a dozen\nyears; but one or two of the provincial cities, such as Bordeaux, Rouen,\nDijon, had possessed academies in imitation of the greater body of Paris\nfor a much longer time. Their activity covered a very varied ground,\nfrom the mere commonplaces of literature to the most practical details\nof material production. If they now and then relapsed into inquiries\nabout the laws of Crete, they more often discussed positive and\nscientific theses, and rather resembled our chambers of agriculture than\nbodies of more learned pretension. The academy of Dijon was one of the\nearliest of these excellent institutions, and on the whole the list of\nits theses shows it to have been among the most sensible in respect of\nthe subjects which it found worth thinking about. Its members, however,\ncould not entirely resist the intellectual atmosphere of the time. In\n1742 they invited discussion of the point, whether the natural law can\nconduct society to perfection without the aid of political laws.[151]\nIn 1749 they proposed this question as a theme for their prize essay:\n_Has the restoration of the sciences contributed to purify or to corrupt\nmanners?_ Rousseau was one of fourteen competitors, and in 1750 his\ndiscussion of the academic theme received the prize.[152] This was his\nfirst entry on the field of literature and speculation. Three years\nafterwards the same academy propounded another question: _What is the\norigin of inequality among men, and is it authorised by the natural\nlaw?_ Rousseau again competed, and though his essay neither gained the\nprize, nor created as lively an agitation as its predecessor had done,\nyet we may justly regard the second as a more powerful supplement to\nthe first.\n\nIt is always interesting to know the circumstances under which pieces\nthat have moved a world were originally composed, and Rousseau's account\nof the generation of his thoughts as to the influence of enlightenment\non morality, is remarkable enough to be worth transcribing. He was\nwalking along the road from Paris to Vincennes one hot summer afternoon\non a visit to Diderot, then in prison for his Letter on the Blind\n(1749), when he came across in a newspaper the announcement of the theme\npropounded by the Dijon academy. \"If ever anything resembled a sudden\ninspiration, it was the movement which began in me as I read this. All\nat once I felt myself dazzled by a thousand sparkling lights; crowds of\nvivid ideas thronged into my mind with a force and confusion that threw\nme into unspeakable agitation; I felt my head whirling in a giddiness\nlike that of intoxication. A violent palpitation oppressed me; unable to\nwalk for difficulty of breathing, I sank under one of the trees of the\navenue, and passed half an hour there in such a condition of excitement,\nthat when I arose I saw that the front of my waistcoat was all wet with\nmy tears, though I was wholly unconscious of shedding them. Ah, if I\ncould ever have written the quarter of what I saw and felt under that\ntree, with what clearness should I have brought out all the\ncontradictions of our social system; with what simplicity I should have\ndemonstrated that man is good naturally, and that by institutions only\nis he made bad.\"[153] Diderot encouraged him to compete for the prize,\nand to give full flight to the ideas which had come to him in this\nsingular way.[154]\n\nPeople have held up their hands at the amazing originality of the idea\nthat perhaps sciences and arts have not purified manners. This sentiment\nis surely exaggerated, if we reflect first that it occurred to the\nacademicians of Dijon as a question for discussion, and second that, if\nyou are asked whether a given result has or has not followed from\ncertain circumstances, the mere form of the question suggests No quite\nas readily as Yes. The originality lay not in the central contention,\nbut in the fervour, sincerity, and conviction of a most unacademic sort\nwith which it was presented and enforced. There is less originality in\ndenouncing your generation as wicked and adulterous than there is in\nbelieving it to be so, and in persuading the generation itself both that\nyou believe it and that you have good reasons to give. We have not to\nsuppose that there was any miracle wrought by agency celestial or\ninfernal in the sudden disclosure of his idea to Rousseau. Rousseau had\nbeen thinking of politics ever since the working of the government of\nVenice had first drawn his mind to the subject. What is the government,\nhe had kept asking himself, which is most proper to form a sage and\nvirtuous nation? What government by its nature keeps closest to the law?\nWhat is this law? And whence?[155] This chain of problems had led him to\nwhat he calls the historic study of morality, though we may doubt\nwhether history was so much his teacher as the rather meagrely nourished\nhandmaid of his imagination. Here was the irregular preparation, the\nhidden process, which suddenly burst into light and manifested itself\nwith an exuberance of energy, that passed to the man himself for an\ninward revolution with no precursive sign.\n\nRousseau's ecstatic vision on the road to Vincennes was the opening of a\nlife of thought and production which only lasted a dozen years, but\nwhich in that brief space gave to Europe a new gospel. Emilius and the\nSocial Contract were completed in 1761, and they crowned a work which if\nyou consider its origin, influence, and meaning with due and proper\nbreadth, is marked by signal unity of purpose and conception. The key to\nit is given to us in the astonishing transport at the foot of the\nwide-spreading oak. Such a transport does not come to us of cool and\nrational western temperament, but more often to the oriental after\nlonely sojourning in the wilderness, or in violent reactions on the road\nto Damascus and elsewhere. Jean Jacques detected oriental quality in his\nown nature,[156] and so far as the union of ardour with mysticism, of\nintense passion with vague dream, is to be defined as oriental, he\nassuredly deserves the name. The ideas stirred in his mind by the Dijon\nproblem suddenly \"opened his eyes, brought order into the chaos in his\nhead, revealed to him another universe. From the active effervescence\nwhich thus began in his soul, came sparks of genius which people saw\nglittering in his writings through ten years of fever and delirium, but\nof which no trace had been seen in him previously, and which would\nprobably have ceased to shine henceforth, if he should have chanced to\nwish to continue writing after the access was over. Inflamed by the\ncontemplation of these lofty objects, he had them incessantly present to\nhis mind. His heart, made hot within him by the idea of the future\nhappiness of the human race, and by the honour of contributing to it,\ndictated to him a language worthy of so high an enterprise ... and for a\nmoment, he astonished Europe by productions in which vulgar souls saw\nonly eloquence and brightness of understanding, but in which those who\ndwell in the ethereal regions recognised with joy one of their\nown.\"[157]\n\nThis was his own account of the matter quite at the end of his life, and\nthis is the only point of view from which we are secure against the\nvulgarity of counting him a deliberate hypocrite and conscious\ncharlatan. He was possessed, as holier natures than his have been, by an\nenthusiastic vision, an intoxicated confidence, a mixture of sacred rage\nand prodigious love, an insensate but absolutely disinterested revolt\nagainst the stone and iron of a reality which he was bent on melting in\na heavenly blaze of splendid aspiration and irresistibly persuasive\nexpression. The last word of this great expansion was Emilius, its first\nand more imperfectly articulated was the earlier of the two Discourses.\n\nRousseau's often-repeated assertion that here was the instant of the\nruin of his life, and that all his misfortunes flowed from that unhappy\nmoment, has been constantly treated as the word of affectation and\ndisguised pride. Yet, vain as he was, it may well have represented his\nsincere feeling in those better moods when mental suffering was strong\nenough to silence vanity. His visions mastered him for these thirteen\nyears, _grande mortalis oevi spatium_. They threw him on to that turbid\nsea of literature for which he had so keen an aversion, and from which,\nlet it be remarked, he fled finally away, when his confidence in the\nease of making men good and happy by words of monition had left him. It\nwas the torment of his own enthusiasm which rent that veil of placid\nliving, that in his normal moments he would fain have interposed between\nhis existence and the tumult of a generation with which he was\nprofoundly out of sympathy. In this way the first Discourse was the\nletting in of much evil upon him, as that and the next and the Social\nContract were the letting in of much evil upon all Europe.\n\nOf this essay the writer has recorded his own impression that, though\nfull of heat and force, it is absolutely wanting in logic and order, and\nthat of all the products of his pen, it is the feeblest in reasoning and\nthe poorest in numbers and harmony. \"For,\" as he justly adds, \"the art\nof writing is not learnt all at once.\"[158] The modern critic must be\ncontent to accept the same verdict; only a generation so in love as\nthis was with anything that could tickle its intellectual curiousness,\nwould have found in the first of the two Discourses that combination of\nspeculative and literary merit which was imputed to Rousseau on the\nstrength of it, and which at once brought him into a place among the\nnotables of an age that was full of them.[159] We ought to take in\nconnection with it two at any rate of the vindications of the Discourse,\nwhich the course of controversy provoked from its author, and which\nserve to complete its significance. It is difficult to analyse, because\nin truth it is neither closely argumentative, nor is it vertebrate, even\nas a piece of rhetoric. The gist of the piece, however, runs somewhat in\nthis wise:--\n\nBefore art had fashioned our manners, and taught our passions to use a\ntoo elaborate speech, men were rude but natural, and difference of\nconduct announced at a glance difference of character. To-day a vile and\nmost deceptive uniformity reigns over our manners, and all minds seem as\nif they had been cast in a single mould. Hence we never know with what\nsort of person we are dealing, hence the hateful troop of suspicions,\nfears, reserves, and treacheries, and the concealment of impiety,\narrogance, calumny, and scepticism, under a dangerous varnish of\nrefinement. So terrible a set of effects must have a cause. History\nshows that the cause here is to be found in the progress of sciences and\narts. Egypt, once so mighty, becomes the mother of philosophy and the\nfine arts; straightway behold its conquest by Cambyses, by Greeks, by\nRomans, by Arabs, finally by Turks. Greece twice conquered Asia, once\nbefore Troy, once in its own homes; then came in fatal sequence the\nprogress of the arts, the dissolution of manners, and the yoke of the\nMacedonian. Rome, founded by a shepherd and raised to glory by\nhusbandmen, began to degenerate with Ennius, and the eve of her ruin was\nthe day when she gave a citizen the deadly title of arbiter of good\ntaste. China, where letters carry men to the highest dignities of the\nstate, could not be preserved by all her literature from the conquering\npower of the ruder Tartar. On the other hand, the Persians, Scythians,\nGermans, remain in history as types of simplicity, innocence, and\nvirtue. Was not he admittedly the wisest of the Greeks, who made of his\nown apology a plea for ignorance, and a denunciation of poets, orators,\nand artists? The chosen people of God never cultivated the sciences, and\nwhen the new law was established, it was not the learned, but the simple\nand lowly, fishers and workmen, to whom Christ entrusted his teaching\nand its ministry.[160]\n\nThis, then, is the way in which chastisement has always overtaken our\npresumptuous efforts to emerge from that happy ignorance in which\neternal wisdom placed us; though the thick veil with which that wisdom\nhas covered all its operations seemed to warn us that we were not\ndestined to fatuous research. All the secrets that Nature hides from us\nare so many evils against which she would fain shelter us.\n\nIs probity the child of ignorance, and can science and virtue be really\ninconsistent with one another? These sounding contrasts are mere\ndeceits, because if you look nearly into the results of this science of\nwhich we talk so proudly, you will perceive that they confirm the\nresults of induction from history. Astronomy, for instance, is born of\nsuperstition; geometry from the desire of gain; physics from a futile\ncuriosity; all of them, even morals, from human pride. Are we for ever\nto be the dupes of words, and to believe that these pompous names of\nscience, philosophy, and the rest, stand for worthy and profitable\nrealities?[161] Be sure that they do not.\n\nHow many errors do we pass through on our road to truth, errors a\nthousandfold more dangerous than truth is useful? And by what marks are\nwe to know truth, when we think that we have found it? And above all, if\nwe do find it, who of us can be sure that he will make good use of it?\nIf celestial intelligences cultivated science, only good could result;\nand we may say as much of great men of the stamp of Socrates, who are\nborn to be the guides of others.[162] But the intelligences of common\nmen are neither celestial nor Socratic.\n\nAgain, every useless citizen may be fairly regarded as a pernicious man;\nand let us ask those illustrious philosophers who have taught us what\ninsects reproduce themselves curiously, in what ratio bodies attract\none another in space, what curves have conjugate points, points of\ninflection or reflection, what in the planetary revolutions are the\nrelations of areas traversed in equal times--let us ask those who have\nattained all this sublime knowledge, by how much the worse governed,\nless flourishing, or less perverse we should have been if they had\nattained none of it? Now if the works of our most scientific men and\nbest citizens lead to such small utility, tell us what we are to think\nof the crowd of obscure writers and idle men of letters who devour the\npublic substance in pure loss.\n\nThen it is in the nature of things that devotion to art leads to luxury,\nand luxury, as we all know from our own experience, no less than from\nthe teaching of history, saps not only the military virtues by which\nnations preserve their independence, but also those moral virtues which\nmake the independence of a nation worth preserving. Your children go to\ncostly establishments where they learn everything except their duties.\nThey remain ignorant of their own tongue, though they will speak others\nnot in use anywhere in the world; they gain the faculty of composing\nverses which they can barely understand; without capacity to distinguish\ntruth from error, they possess the art of rendering them\nindistinguishable to others by specious arguments. Magnanimity, equity,\ntemperance, courage, humanity, have no real meaning to them; and if they\nhear speak of God, it breeds more terror than awful fear.\n\nWhence spring all these abuses, if not from the disastrous inequality\nintroduced among men by the distinction of talents and the cheapening of\nvirtue?[163] People no longer ask of a man whether he has probity, but\nwhether he is clever; nor of a book whether it is useful, but whether it\nis well written. And after all, what is this philosophy, what are these\nlessons of wisdom, to which we give the prize of enduring fame? To\nlisten to these sages, would you not take them for a troop of\ncharlatans, all bawling out in the market-place, Come to me, it is only\nI who never cheat you, and always give good measure? One maintains that\nthere is no body, and that everything is mere representation; the other\nthat there is no entity but matter, and no God but the universe: one\nthat moral good and evil are chimeras; the other that men are wolves and\nmay devour one another with the easiest conscience in the world. These\nare the marvellous personages on whom the esteem of contemporaries is\nlavished so long as they live, and to whom immortality is reserved after\ntheir death. And we have now invented the art of making their\nextravagances eternal, and thanks to the use of typographic characters\nthe dangerous speculations of Hobbes and Spinoza will endure for ever.\nSurely when they perceive the terrible disorders which printing has\nalready caused in Europe, sovereigns will take as much trouble to\nbanish this deadly art from their states as they once took to\nintroduce it.\n\nIf there is perhaps no harm in allowing one or two men to give\nthemselves up to the study of sciences and arts, it is only those who\nfeel conscious of the strength required for advancing their subjects,\nwho have any right to attempt to raise monuments to the glory of the\nhuman mind. We ought to have no tolerance for those compilers who rashly\nbreak open the gate of the sciences, and introduce into their sanctuary\na populace that is unworthy even to draw near to it. It may be well that\nthere should be philosophers, provided only and always that the people\ndo not meddle with philosophising.[164]\n\nIn short, there are two kinds of ignorance: one brutal and ferocious,\nspringing from a bad heart, multiplying vices, degrading the reason, and\ndebasing the soul: the other \"a reasonable ignorance, which consists in\nlimiting our curiosity to the extent of the faculties we have received;\na modest ignorance, born of a lively love for virtue, and inspiring\nindifference only for what is not worthy of filling a man's heart, or\nfails to contribute to its improvement; a sweet and precious ignorance,\nthe treasure of a pure soul at peace with itself, which finds all its\nblessedness in inward retreat, in testifying to itself its own\ninnocence, and which feels no need of seeking a warped and hollow\nhappiness in the opinion of other people as to its enlightenment.\"[165]\n\n * * * * *\n\nSome of the most pointed assaults in this Discourse, such for instance\nas that on the pedantic parade of wit, or that on the excessive\npreponderance of literary instruction in the art of education, are due\nto Montaigne; and in one way, the Discourse might be described as\nbinding together a number of that shrewd man's detached hints by means\nof a paradoxical generalisation. But the Rousseau is more important than\nthe Montaigne in it. Another remark to be made is that its vigorous\ndisparagement of science, of the emptiness of much that is called\nscience, of the deadly pride of intellect, is an anticipation in a very\nprecise way of the attitude taken by the various Christian churches and\ntheir representatives now and for long, beginning with De Maistre, the\ngreatest of the religious reactionaries after Rousseau. The vilification\nof the Greeks is strikingly like some vehement passages in De Maistre's\nestimate of their share in sophisticating European intellect. At last\nRousseau even began to doubt whether \"so chattering a people could ever\nhave had any solid virtues, even in primitive times.\"[166] Yet\nRousseau's own thinking about society is deeply marked with opinions\nborrowed exactly from these very chatterers. His imagination was\nfascinated from the first by the freedom and boldness of Plato's social\nspeculations, to which his debt in a hundred details of his political\nand educational schemes is well known. What was more important than any\nobligation of detail was the fatal conception, borrowed partly from the\nGreeks and partly from Geneva, of the omnipotence of the Lawgiver in\nmoulding a social state after his own purpose and ideal. We shall\npresently quote the passage in which he holds up for our envy and\nimitation the policy of Lycurgus at Sparta, who swept away all that he\nfound existing and constructed the social edifice afresh from foundation\nto roof.[167] It is true that there was an unmistakable decay of Greek\nliterary studies in France from the beginning of the eighteenth century,\nand Rousseau seems to have read Plato only through Ficinus's\ntranslation. But his example and its influence, along with that of Mably\nand others, warrant the historian in saying that at no time did Greek\nideas more keenly preoccupy opinion than during this century.[168]\nPerhaps we may say that Rousseau would never have proved how little\nlearning and art do for the good of manners, if Plato had not insisted\non poets being driven out of the Republic. The article on Political\nEconomy, written by him for the Encyclop\u00e6dia (1755), rings with the\nnames of ancient rulers and lawgivers; the project of public education\nis recommended by the example of Cretans, Laced\u00e6monians, and Persians,\nwhile the propriety of the reservation of a state domain is suggested\nby Romulus.\n\nIt may be added that one of the not too many merits of the essay is the\nway in which the writer, more or less in the Socratic manner, insists on\ndragging people out of the refuge of sonorous general terms, with a\ngreat public reputation of much too well-established a kind to be\nsubjected to the affront of analysis. It is true that Rousseau himself\ncontributed nothing directly to that analytic operation which Socrates\nlikened to midwifery, and he set up graven images of his own in place of\nthe idols which he destroyed. This, however, did not wholly efface the\ndistinction, which he shares with all who have ever tried to lead the\nminds of men into new tracks, of refusing to accept the current coins of\nphilosophical speech without test or measurement. Such a treatment of\nthe great trite words which come so easily to the tongue and seem to\nweigh for so much, must always be the first step towards bringing\nthought back into the region of real matter, and confronting phrases,\nterms, and all the common form of the discussion of an age, with the\nactualities which it is the object of sincere discussion to penetrate.\n\nThe refutation of many parts of Rousseau's main contention on the\nprinciples which are universally accepted among enlightened men in\nmodern society is so extremely obvious that to undertake it would merely\nbe to draw up a list of the gratulatory commonplaces of which we hear\nquite enough in the literature and talk of our day. In this direction,\nperhaps it suffices to say that the Discourse is wholly one-sided,\nadmitting none of the conveniences, none of the alleviations of\nsuffering of all kinds, nothing of the increase of mental stature, which\nthe pursuit of knowledge has brought to the race. They may or may not\ncounterbalance the evils that it has brought, but they are certainly to\nbe put in the balance in any attempt at philosophic examination of the\nsubject. It contains no serious attempt to tell us what those alleged\nevils really are, or definitely to trace them one by one, to abuse of\nthe thirst for knowledge and defects in the method of satisfying it. It\nomits to take into account the various other circumstances, such as\nclimate, government, race, and the disposition of neighbours, which must\nenter equally with intellectual progress into whatever demoralisation\nhas marked the destinies of a nation. Finally it has for the base of its\nargument the entirely unsupported assumption of there having once been\nin the early history of each society a stage of mild, credulous, and\ninnocent virtue, from which appetite for the fruit of the forbidden tree\ncaused an inevitable degeneration. All evidence and all scientific\nanalogy are now well known to lead to the contrary doctrine, that the\nhistory of civilisation is a history of progress and not of decline from\na primary state. After all, as Voltaire said to Rousseau in a letter\nwhich only showed a superficial appreciation of the real drift of the\nargument, we must confess that these thorns attached to literature are\nonly as flowers in comparison with the other evils that have deluged the\nearth. \"It was not Cicero nor Lucretius nor Virgil nor Horace, who\ncontrived the proscriptions of Marius, of Sulla, of the debauched\nAntony, of the imbecile Lepidus, of that craven tyrant basely surnamed\nAugustus. It was not Marot who produced the St. Bartholomew massacre,\nnor the tragedy of the Cid that led to the wars of the Fronde. What\nreally makes, and always will make, this world into a valley of tears,\nis the insatiable cupidity and indomitable insolence of men, from Kouli\nKhan, who did not know how to read, down to the custom-house clerk, who\nknows nothing but how to cast up figures. Letters nourish the soul, they\nstrengthen its integrity, they furnish a solace to it,\"--and so on in\nthe sense, though without the eloquence, of the famous passage in\nCicero's defence of Archias the poet.[169] All this, however, in our\ntime is in no danger of being forgotten, and will be present to the mind\nof every reader. The only danger is that pointed out by Rousseau\nhimself: \"People always think they have described what the sciences do,\nwhen they have in reality only described what the sciences ought\nto do.\"[170]\n\nWhat we are more likely to forget is that Rousseau's piece has a\npositive as well as a negative side, and presents, in however vehement\nand overstated a way, a truth which the literary and speculative\nenthusiasm of France in the eighteenth century, as is always the case\nwith such enthusiasm whenever it penetrates either a generation or an\nindividual, was sure to make men dangerously ready to forget.[171] This\ntruth may be put in different terms. We may describe it as the\npossibility of eminent civic virtue existing in people, without either\nliterary taste or science or speculative curiosity. Or we may express it\nas the compatibility of a great amount of contentment and order in a\ngiven social state, with a very low degree of knowledge. Or finally, we\nmay give the truth its most general expression, as the subordination of\nall activity to the promotion of social aims. Rousseau's is an elaborate\nand roundabout manner of saying that virtue without science is better\nthan science without virtue; or that the well-being of a country depends\nmore on the standard of social duty and the willingness of citizens to\nconform to it, than on the standard of intellectual culture and the\nextent of its diffusion. In other words, we ought to be less concerned\nabout the speculative or scientific curiousness of our people than about\nthe height of their notion of civic virtue and their firmness and\npersistency in realising it. It is a moralist's way of putting the\nancient preacher's monition, that they are but empty in whom is not the\nwisdom of God. The importance of stating this is in our modern era\nalways pressing, because there is a constant tendency on the part of\nenergetic intellectual workers, first, to concentrate their energies on\na minute specialty, leaving public affairs and interests to their own\ncourse. Second, they are apt to overestimate their contributions to the\nstock of means by which men are made happier, and what is more serious,\nto underestimate in comparison those orderly, modest, self-denying,\nmoral qualities, by which only men are made worthier, and the continuity\nof society is made surer. Third, in consequence of their greater command\nof specious expression and their control of the organs of public\nopinion, they both assume a kind of supreme place in the social\nhierarchy, and persuade the majority of plain men unsuspectingly to take\nso very egregious an assumption for granted. So far as Rousseau's\nDiscourse recalled the truth as against this sort of error it was full\nof wholesomeness.\n\nUnfortunately his indignation against the overweening pretensions of the\nverse-writer, the gazetteer, and the great band of socialists at large,\nled him into a general position with reference to scientific and\nspeculative energy, which seems to involve a perilous misconception of\nthe conditions of this energy producing its proper results. It is easy\nnow, as it was easy for Rousseau in the last century, to ask in an\nepigrammatical manner by how much men are better or happier for having\nfound out this or that novelty in transcendental mathematics, biology,\nor astronomy; and this is very well as against the discoverer of small\nmarvels who shall give himself out for the benefactor of the human\nrace. But both historical experience and observation of the terms on\nwhich the human intelligence works, show us that we can only make sure\nof intellectual activity on condition of leaving it free to work all\nround, in every department and in every remotest nook of each\ndepartment, and that its most fruitful epochs are exactly those when\nthis freedom is greatest, this curiosity most keen and minute, and this\nwaste, if you choose to call the indispensable superfluity of force in a\nnatural process waste, most copious and unsparing. You will not find\nyour highest capacity in statesmanship, nor in practical science, nor in\nart, nor in any other field where that capacity is most urgently needed\nfor the right service of life, unless there is a general and vehement\nspirit of search in the air. If it incidentally leads to many\nindustrious futilities and much learned refuse, this is still the sign\nand the generative element of industry which is not futile, and of\nlearning which is something more than mere water spilled upon\nthe ground.\n\nWe may say in fine that this first Discourse and its vindications were a\ndim, shallow, and ineffective feeling after the great truth, that the\nonly normal state of society is that in which neither the love of virtue\nhas been thrust far back into a secondary place by the love of\nknowledge, nor the active curiosity of the understanding dulled,\nblunted, and made ashamed by soft, lazy ideals of life as a life only of\nthe affections. Rousseau now and always fell into the opposite extreme\nfrom that against which his whole work was a protest. We need not\ncomplain very loudly that while remonstrating against the restless\nintrepidity of the rationalists of his generation, he passed over the\ncentral truth, namely that the full and ever festal life is found in\nactive freedom of curiosity and search taking significance, motive,\nforce, from a warm inner pulse of human love and sympathy. It was not\ngiven to Rousseau to see all this, but it was given to him to see the\nside of it for which the most powerful of the men living with him had no\neyes, and the first Discourse was only a moderately successful attempt\nto bring his vision before Europe. It was said at the time that he did\nnot believe a word of what he had written.[172] It is a natural\ncharacteristic of an age passionately occupied with its own set of\nideas, to question either the sincerity or the sanity of anybody who\ndeclares its sovereign conceptions to be no better than foolishness. We\ncannot entertain such a suspicion. Perhaps the vehemence of controversy\ncarries him rather further than he quite meant to go, when he declares\nthat if he were a chief of an African tribe, he would erect on his\nfrontier a gallows, on which he would hang without mercy the first\nEuropean who should venture to pass into his territory, and the first\nnative who should dare to pass out of it.[173] And there are many other\nextravagances of illustration, but the main position is serious enough,\nas represented in the emblematic vignette with which the essay was\nprinted--the torch of science brought to men by Prometheus, who warns a\nsatyr that it burns; the satyr, seeing fire for the first time and being\nfain to embrace it, is the symbol of the vulgar men who, seduced by the\nglitter of literature, insist on delivering themselves up to its\nstudy.[174] Rousseau's whole doctrine hangs compactly together, and we\nmay see the signs of its growth after leaving his hands in the crude\nformula of the first Discourse, if we proceed to the more audacious\nparadox of the second.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among men opens with a\ndescription of the natural state of man, which occupies considerably\nmore than half of the entire performance. It is composed in a vein which\nis only too familiar to the student of the literature of the time,\npicturing each habit and thought, and each step to new habits and\nthoughts, with the minuteness, the fulness, the precision, of one who\nnarrates circumstances of which he has all his life been the close\neye-witness. The natural man reveals to us every motive, every process\ninternal and external, every slightest circumstance of his daily life,\nand each element that gradually transformed him into the non-natural\nman. One who had watched bees or beetles for years could not give us a\nmore full or confident account of their doings, their hourly goings in\nand out, than it was the fashion in the eighteenth century to give of\nthe walk and conversation of the primeval ancestor. The conditions of\nprimitive man were discussed by very incompetent ladies and gentlemen at\nconvivial supper parties, and settled with complete assurance.[175]\n\nRousseau thought and talked about the state of nature because all his\nworld was thinking and talking about it. He used phrases and formulas\nwith reference to it which other people used. He required no more\nevidence than they did, as to the reality of the existence of the\nsupposed set of conditions to which they gave the almost sacramental\nname of state of nature. He never thought of asking, any more than\nanybody else did in the middle of the eighteenth century, what sort of\nproof, how strong, how direct, was to be had, that primeval man had such\nand such habits, and changed them in such a way and direction, and for\nsuch reasons. Physical science had reached a stage by this time when its\nfollowers were careful to ask questions about evidence, correct\ndescription, verification. But the idea of accurate method had to be\nmade very familiar to men by the successes of physical science in the\nsearch after truths of one kind, before the indispensableness of\napplying it in the search after truths of all kinds had extended to the\nscience of the constitution and succession of social states. In this\nrespect Rousseau was not guiltier than the bulk of his contemporaries.\nVoltaire's piercing common sense, Hume's deep-set sagacity,\nMontesquieu's caution, prevented them from launching very far on to this\nmetaphysical sea of nature and natural laws and states, but none of them\nasked those critical questions in relation to such matters which occur\nso promptly in the present day to persons far inferior to them in\nintellectual strength. Rousseau took the notion of the state of nature\nbecause he found it to his hand; he fitted to it his own characteristic\naspirations, expanding and vivifying a philosophic conception with all\nthe heat of humane passion; and thus, although, at the end of the\nprocess when he had done with it, the state of nature came out blooming\nas the rose, it was fundamentally only the dry, current abstraction of\nhis time, artificially decorated to seduce men into embracing a strange\nideal under a familiar name.\n\nBefore analysing the Discourse on Inequality, we ought to make some\nmention of a remarkable man whose influence probably reached Rousseau in\nan indirect manner through Diderot; I mean Morelly.[176] In 1753 Morelly\npublished a prose poem called the Basiliade, describing the corruption\nof manners introduced by the errors of the lawgiver, and pointing out\nhow this corruption is to be amended by return to the empire of nature\nand truth. He was no doubt stimulated by what was supposed to be the\ncentral doctrine of Montesquieu, then freshly given to the world, that\nit is government and institutions which make men what they are. But he\nwas stimulated into a reaction, and in 1754 he propounded his whole\ntheory, in a piece which in closeness, consistency, and thoroughness is\nadmirably different from Rousseau's rhetoric.[177] It lacked the\nsovereign quality of persuasiveness, and so fell on deaf ears. Morelly\naccepts the doctrine that men are formed by the laws, but insists that\nmoralists and statesmen have always led us wrong by legislating and\nprescribing conduct on the false theory that man is bad, whereas he is\nin truth a creature endowed with natural probity. Then he strikes to the\nroot of society with a directness that Rousseau could not imitate, by\nthe position that \"these laws by establishing a monstrous division of\nthe products of nature, and even of their very elements--by dividing\nwhat ought to have remained entire, or ought to have been restored to\nentireness if any accident had divided them, aided and favoured the\nbreak-up of all sociability.\" All political and all moral evils are the\neffects of this pernicious cause--private property. He says of\nRousseau's first Discourse that the writer ought to have seen that the\ncorruption of manners which he set down to literature and art really\ncame from this venomous principle of property, which infects all that\nit touches.[178] Christianity, it is true, assailed this principle and\nrestored equality or community of possessions, but Christianity had the\nradical fault of involving such a detachment from earthly affections, in\norder to deliver ourselves to heavenly meditation, as brought about a\nnecessary degeneration in social activity. The form of government is a\nmatter of indifference, provided you can only assure community of goods.\nPolitical revolutions are at bottom the clash of material interests, and\nuntil you have equalised the one you will never prevent the other.[179]\n\nLet us turn from this very definite position to one of the least\ndefinite productions to be found in all literature.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt will seem a little odd that more than half of a discussion on the\norigin of inequality among men should be devoted to a glowing imaginary\ndescription, from which no reader could conjecture what thesis it was\ndesigned to support. But we have only to remember that Rousseau's object\nwas to persuade people that the happier state is that in which\ninequality does not subsist, that there had once been such a state, and\nthat this was first the state of nature, and then the state only one\ndegree removed from it, in which we now find the majority of savage\ntribes. At the outset he defines inequality as a word meaning two\ndifferent things; one, natural or physical inequality, such as\ndifference of age, of health, of physical strength, of attributes of\nintelligence and character; the other, moral or political inequality,\nconsisting in difference of privileges which some enjoy to the detriment\nof the rest, such as being richer, more honoured, more powerful. The\nformer differences are established by nature, the latter are authorised,\nif they were not established, by the consent of men.[180] In the state\nof nature no inequalities flow from the differences among men in point\nof physical advantage and disadvantage, and which remain without\nderivative differences so long as the state of nature endures\nundisturbed. Nature deals with men as the law of Sparta dealt with the\nchildren of its citizens; she makes those who are well constituted\nstrong and robust, and she destroys all the rest.\n\nThe surface of the earth is originally covered by dense forest, and\ninhabited by animals of every species. Men, scattered among them,\nimitate their industry, and so rise to the instinct of the brutes, with\nthis advantage that while each species has only its own, man, without\nanything special, appropriates the instincts of all. This admirable\ncreature, with foes on every side, is forced to be constantly on the\nalert, and hence to be always in full possession of all his faculties,\nunlike civilised man, whose native force is enfeebled by the mechanical\nprotections with which he has surrounded himself. He is not afraid of\nthe wild beasts around him, for experience has taught him that he is\ntheir master. His health is better than ours, for we live in a time when\nexcess of idleness in some, excess of toil in others, the heating and\nover-abundant diet of the rich, the bad food of the poor, the orgies and\nexcesses of every kind, the immoderate transport of every passion, the\nfatigue and strain of spirit,--when all these things have inflicted more\ndisorders upon us than the vaunted art of medicine has been able to keep\npace with. Even if the sick savage has only nature to hope from, on the\nother hand he has only his own malady to be afraid of. He has no fear of\ndeath, for no animal can know what death is, and the knowledge of death\nand its terrors is one of the first of man's terrible acquisitions\nafter abandoning his animal condition.[181] In other respects, such as\nprotection against weather, such as habitation, such as food, the\nsavage's natural power of adaptation, and the fact that his demands are\nmoderate in proportion to his means of satisfying them, forbid us to\nconsider him physically unhappy. Let us turn to the intellectual and\nmoral side.\n\nIf you contend that men were miserable, degraded, and outcast during\nthese primitive centuries because the intelligence was dormant, then do\nnot forget, first, that you are drawing an indictment against\nnature,--no trifling blasphemy in those days--and second, that you are\nattributing misery to a free creature with tranquil spirit and healthy\nbody, and that must surely be a singular abuse of the term. We see\naround us scarcely any but people who complain of the burden of their\nlives; but who ever heard of a savage in full enjoyment of his liberty\never dreaming of complaint about his life or of self-destruction?\n\nWith reference to virtues and vices in a state of nature, Hobbes is\nwrong in declaring that man in this state is vicious, as not knowing\nvirtue. He is not vicious, for the reason that he does not know what\nbeing good is. It is not development of enlightenment nor the\nrestrictions of law, but the calm of the passions and ignorance of vice,\nwhich keep them from doing ill. _Tanto plus in illis profitcit vitiorum\nignoratio, quam in his cognitio virtutis._\n\nBesides man has one great natural virtue, that of pity, which precedes\nin him the use of reflection, and which indeed he shares with some of\nthe brutes. Mandeville, who was forced to admit the existence of this\nadmirable quality in man, was absurd in not perceiving that from it flow\nall the social virtues which he would fain deny. Pity is more energetic\nin the primitive condition than it is among ourselves. It is reflection\nwhich isolates one. It is philosophy which teaches the philosopher to\nsay secretly at sight of a suffering wretch, Perish if it please thee; I\nam safe and sound. They may be butchering a fellow-creature under your\nwindow; all you have to do is to clap your hands to your ears, and argue\na little with yourself to hinder nature in revolt from making you feel\nas if you were in the case of the victim.[182] The savage man has not\ngot this odious gift. In the state of nature it is pity that takes the\nplace of laws, manners, and virtue. It is in this natural sentiment\nrather than in subtle arguments that we have to seek the reluctance that\nevery man would feel to do ill, even without the precepts of\neducation.[183]\n\nFinally, the passion of love, which produces such disasters in a state\nof society, where the jealousy of lovers and the vengeance of husbands\nlead each day to duels and murders, where the duty of eternal fidelity\nonly serves to occasion adulteries, and where the law of continence\nnecessarily extends the debauching of women and the practice of\nprocuring abortion[184]--this passion in a state of nature, where it is\npurely physical, momentary, and without any association of durable\nsentiment with the object of it, simply leads to the necessary\nreproduction of the species and nothing more.\n\n\"Let us conclude, then, that wandering in the forests, without industry,\nwithout speech, without habitation, without war, without connection of\nany kind, without any need of his fellows or without any desire to harm\nthem, perhaps even without ever recognising one of them individually,\nsavage man, subject to few passions and sufficing to himself, had only\nthe sentiments and the enlightenment proper to his condition. He was\nonly sensible of his real wants, and only looked because he thought he\nhad an interest in seeing; and his intelligence made no more progress\nthan his vanity. If by chance he hit on some discovery, he was all the\nless able to communicate it; as he did not know even his own children.\nAn art perished with its inventor. There was neither education nor\nprogress; generations multiplied uselessly; and as each generation\nalways started from the same point, centuries glided away in all the\nrudeness of the first ages, the race was already old, the individual\nremained always a child.\"\n\nThis brings us to the point of the matter. For if you compare the\nprodigious diversities in education and manner of life which reign in\nthe different orders of the civil condition, with the simplicity and\nuniformity of the savage and animal life, where all find nourishment in\nthe same articles of food, live in the same way, and do exactly the same\nthings, you will easily understand to what degree the difference between\nman and man must be less in the state of nature than in that of\nsociety.[185] Physical inequality is hardly perceived in the state of\nnature, and its indirect influences there are almost non-existent.\n\nNow as all the social virtues and other faculties possessed by man\npotentially were not bound by anything inherent in him to develop into\nactuality, he might have remained to all eternity in his admirable and\nmost fitting primitive condition, but for the fortuitous concurrence of\na variety of external changes. What are these different changes, which\nmay perhaps have perfected human reason, while they certainly have\ndeteriorated the race, and made men bad in making them sociable?\n\nWhat, then, are the intermediary facts between the state of nature and\nthe state of civil society, the nursery of inequality? What broke up the\nhappy uniformity of the first times? First, difference in soil, in\nclimate, in seasons, led to corresponding differences in men's manner of\nliving. Along the banks of rivers and on the shores of the sea, they\ninvented hooks and lines, and were eaters of fish. In the forests they\ninvented bows and arrows, and became hunters. In cold countries they\ncovered themselves with the skins of beasts. Lightning, volcanoes, or\nsome happy chance acquainted them with fire, a new protection against\nthe rigours of winter. In company with these natural acquisitions, grew\nup a sort of reflection or mechanical prudence, which showed them the\nkind of precautions most necessary to their security. From this\nrudimentary and wholly egoistic reflection there came a sense of the\nexistence of a similar nature and similar interests in their\nfellow-creatures. Instructed by experience that the love of well-being\nand comfort is the only motive of human actions, the savage united with\nhis neighbours when union was for their joint convenience, and did his\nbest to blind and outwit his neighbours when their interests were\nadverse to his own, and he felt himself the weaker. Hence the origin of\ncertain rude ideas of mutual obligation.[186]\n\nSoon, ceasing to fall asleep under the first tree, or to withdraw into\ncaves, they found axes of hard stone, which served them to cut wood, to\ndig the ground, and to construct hovels of branches and clay. This was\nthe epoch of a first revolution, which formed the establishment and\ndivision of families, and which introduced a rough and partial sort of\nproperty. Along with rudimentary ideas of property, though not\nconnected with them, came the rudimentary forms of inequality. When men\nwere thrown more together, then he who sang or danced the best, the\nstrongest, the most adroit, or the most eloquent, acquired the most\nconsideration--that is, men ceased to take uniform and equal place. And\nwith the coming of this end of equality there passed away the happy\nprimitive immunity from jealousy, envy, malice, hate.\n\nOn the whole, though men had lost some of their original endurance, and\ntheir natural pity had already undergone a certain deterioration, this\nperiod of the development of the human faculties, occupying a just\nmedium between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant\nactivity of our modern self-love, must have been at once the happiest\nand the most durable epoch. The more we reflect, the more evident we\nfind it that this state was the least subject to revolutions and the\nbest for man. \"So long as men were content with their rustic hovels, so\nlong as they confined themselves to stitching their garments of skin\nwith spines or fish bones, to decking their bodies with feathers and\nshells and painting them in different colours, to perfecting and\nbeautifying their bows and arrows--in a word, so long as they only\napplied themselves to works that one person could do, and to arts that\nneeded no more than a single hand, then they lived free, healthy, good,\nand happy, so far as was compatible with their natural constitution, and\ncontinued to enjoy among themselves the sweetness of independent\nintercourse. But from the moment that one man had need of the help of\nanother, as soon as they perceived it to be useful for one person to\nhave provisions for two, then equality disappeared, property was\nintroduced, labour became necessary, and the vast forests changed into\nsmiling fields, which had to be watered by the sweat of men, and in\nwhich they ever saw bondage and misery springing up and growing ripe\nwith the harvests.\"[187]\n\nThe working of metals and agriculture have been the two great agents in\nthis revolution. For the poet it is gold and silver, but for the\nphilosopher it is iron and corn, that have civilised men and undone the\nhuman race. It is easy to see how the latter of the two arts was\nsuggested to men by watching the reproducing processes of vegetation. It\nis less easy to be sure how they discovered metal, saw its uses, and\ninvented means of smelting it, for nature had taken extreme precautions\nto hide the fatal secret. It was probably the operation of some volcano\nwhich first suggested the idea of fusing ore. From the fact of land\nbeing cultivated its division followed, and therefore the institution of\nproperty in its full shape. From property arose civil society. \"The\nfirst man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, could think of saying,\n_This is mine_, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the\nreal founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, miseries,\nand horrors would not have been spared to the human race by one who,\nplucking up the stakes, or filling in the trench, should have called out\nto his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if\nyou forget that the earth belongs to no one, and that its fruits are for\nall.\"[188]\n\nThings might have remained equal even in this state, if talents had only\nbeen equal, and if for example the employment of iron and the\nconsumption of agricultural produce had always exactly balanced one\nanother. But the stronger did more work; the cleverer got more advantage\nfrom his work; the more ingenious found means of shortening his labour;\nthe husbandman had more need of metal, or the smith more need of grain;\nand while working equally, one got much gain, and the other could\nscarcely live. This distinction between Have and Have-not led to\nconfusion and revolt, to brigandage on the one side and constant\ninsecurity on the other.\n\nHence disorders of a violent and interminable kind, which gave rise to\nthe most deeply designed project that ever entered the human mind. This\nwas to employ in favour of property the strength of the very persons who\nattacked it, to inspire them with other maxims, and to give them other\ninstitutions which should be as favourable to property as natural law\nhad been contrary to it. The man who conceived this project, after\nshowing his neighbours the monstrous confusion which made their lives\nmost burdensome, spoke in this wise: \"Let us unite to shield the weak\nfrom oppression, to restrain the proud, and to assure to each the\npossession of what belongs to him; let us set up rules of justice and\npeace, to which all shall be obliged to conform, without respect of\npersons, and which may repair to some extent the caprices of fortune, by\nsubjecting the weak and the mighty alike to mutual duties. In a word,\ninstead of turning our forces against one another, let us collect them\ninto one supreme power to govern us by sage laws, to protect and defend\nall the members of the association, repel their common foes, and\npreserve us in never-ending concord.\" This, and not the right of\nconquest, must have been the origin of society and laws, which threw new\nchains round the poor and gave new might to the rich; and for the profit\nof a few grasping and ambitious men, subjected the whole human race\nhenceforth and for ever to toil and bondage and wretchedness\nwithout hope.\n\nThe social constitution thus propounded and accepted was radically\nimperfect from the outset, and in spite of the efforts of the sagest\nlawgivers, it has always remained imperfect, because it was the work of\nchance, and because, inasmuch as it was ill begun, time, while revealing\ndefects and suggesting remedies, could never repair its vices; _people\nwent on incessantly repairing and patching, instead of which it was\nindispensable to begin by making a clean surface and by throwing aside\nall the old materials, just as Lycurgus did in Sparta_.\n\nPut shortly, the main positions are these. In the state of nature each\nman lived in entire isolation, and therefore physical inequality was as\nif it did not exist. After many centuries, accident, in the shape of\ndifference of climate and external natural conditions, enforcing for the\nsake of subsistence some degree of joint labour, led to an increase of\ncommunication among men, to a slight development of the reasoning and\nreflective faculties, and to a rude and simple sense of mutual\nobligation, as a means of greater comfort in the long run. The first\nstate was good and pure, but the second state was truly perfect. It was\ndestroyed by a fresh succession of chances, such as the discovery of the\narts of metal-working and tillage, which led first to the institution of\nproperty, and second to the prominence of the natural or physical\ninequalities, which now began to tell with deadly effectiveness. These\ninequalities gradually became summed up in the great distinction between\nrich and poor; and this distinction was finally embodied in the\nconstitution of a civil society, expressly adapted to consecrate the\nusurpation of the rich, and to make the inequality of condition between\nthem and the poor eternal.\n\nWe thus see that the Discourse, unlike Morelly's terse exposition,\ncontains no clear account of the kind of inequality with which it deals.\nIs it inequality of material possession or inequality of political\nright? Morelly tells you decisively that the latter is only an accident,\nflowing from the first; that the key to renovation lies in the abolition\nof the first. Rousseau mixes the two confusedly together under a single\nname, bemoans each, but shrinks from a conclusion or a recommendation\nas to either. He declares property to be the key to civil society, but\nfalls back from any ideas leading to the modification of the institution\nlying at the root of all that he deplores.\n\nThe first general criticism, which in itself contains and covers nearly\nall others, turns on Method. \"Conjectures become reasons when they are\nthe most likely that you can draw from the nature of things,\" and \"it is\nfor philosophy in lack of history to determine the most likely facts.\"\nIn an inductive age this royal road is rigorously closed. Guesses drawn\nfrom the general nature of things can no longer give us light as to the\nparticular nature of the things pertaining to primitive men, any more\nthan such guesses can teach us the law of the movement of the heavenly\nbodies, or the foundations of jurisprudence. Nor can deduction from\nanything but propositions which have themselves been won by laborious\ninduction, ever lead us to the only kind of philosophy which has fair\npretension to determine the most probable of the missing facts in the\nchain of human history. That quantitative and differentiating knowledge\nwhich is science, was not yet thought of in connection with the\nmovements of our own race upon the earth. It is to be said, further,\nthat of the two possible ways of guessing about the early state, the\nconditions of advance from it, and the rest, Rousseau's guess that all\nmovement away from it has been towards corruption, is less supported by\nsubsequent knowledge than the guess of his adversaries, that it has\nbeen a movement progressive and upwards.\n\nThis much being said as to incurable vice of method, and there are\nfervent disciples of Rousseau now living who will regard one's craving\nfor method in talking about men as a foible of pedantry, we may briefly\nremark on one or two detached objections to Rousseau's story. To begin\nwith, there is no certainty as to there having ever been a state of\nnature of a normal and organic kind, any more than there is any one\nnormal and typical state of society now. There are infinitely diverse\nstates of society, and there were probably as many diverse states of\nnature. Rousseau was sufficiently acquainted with the most recent\nmetaphysics of his time to know that you cannot think of a tree in\ngeneral, nor of a triangle in general, but only of some particular tree\nor triangle.[189] In a similar way he might have known that there never\nwas any such thing as a state of nature in the general and abstract,\nfixed, typical, and single. He speaks of the savage state also, which\ncomes next, as one, identical, normal. It is, of course, nothing of the\nkind. The varieties of belief and habit and custom among the different\ntribes of savages, in reference to every object that can engage their\nattention, from death and the gods and immortality down to the uses of\nmarriage and the art of counting and the ways of procuring subsistence,\nare infinitely numerous; and the more we know about this vast diversity,\nthe less easy is it to think of the savage state in general. When\nRousseau extols the savage state as the veritable youth of the world, we\nwonder whether we are to think of the negroes of the Gold Coast, or the\nDyaks of Borneo, Papuans or Maoris, Cheyennes or Tierra-del-Fuegians or\nthe fabled Troglodytes; whether in the veritable youth of the world they\ncounted up to five or only to two; whether they used a fire-drill, and\nif so what kind of drill; whether they had the notion of personal\nidentity in so weak a shape as to practise the couvade; and a hundred\nother points, which we should now require any writer to settle, who\nshould speak of the savage state as sovereign, one, and indivisible, in\nthe way in which Rousseau speaks of it, and holds it up to our vain\nadmiration.\n\nAgain, if the savage state supervened upon the state of nature in\nconsequence of certain climatic accidents of a permanent kind, such as\nliving on the banks of a river or in a dense forest, how was it that the\nforce of these accidents did not begin to operate at once? How could the\nisolated state of nature endure for a year in face of them? Or what was\nthe precipitating incident which suddenly set them to work, and drew the\nprimitive men from an isolation so profound that they barely recognised\none another, into that semi-social state in which the family\nwas founded?\n\nWe cannot tell how the state of nature continued to subsist, or, if it\never subsisted, how and why it ever came to an end, because the agencies\nwhich are alleged to have brought it to an end must have been coeval\nwith the appearance of man himself. If gods had brought to men seed,\nfire, and the mechanical arts, as in one of the Platonic myths,[190] we\ncould understand that there was a long stage preliminary to these\nheavenly gifts. But if the gods had no part nor lot in it, and if the\naccidents that slowly led the human creature into union were as old as\nthat nature, of which indeed they were actually the component elements,\nthen man must have quitted the state of nature the very day on which he\nwas born into it. And what can be a more monstrous anachronism than to\nturn a flat-headed savage into a clever, self-conscious, argumentative\nutilitarian of the eighteenth century; working the social problem out in\nhis flat head with a keenness, a consistency, a grasp of first\nprinciples, that would have entitled him to a chair in the institute of\nmoral sciences, and entering the social union with the calm and\nreasonable deliberation of a great statesman taking a critical step in\npolicy? Aristotle was wiser when he fixed upon sociability as an\nultimate quality of human nature, instead of making it, as Rousseau and\nso many others have done, the conclusion of an unimpeachable train of\nsyllogistic reasoning.[191] Morelly even, his own contemporary, and\nmuch less of a sage than Aristotle, was still sage enough to perceive\nthat this primitive human machine, \"though composed of intelligent\nparts, generally operates independently of its reason; its deliberations\nare forestalled, and only leave it to look on, while sentiment does its\nwork.\"[192] It is the more remarkable that Rousseau should have fallen\ninto this kind of error, as it was one of his distinctions to have\nperceived and partially worked out the principle, that men guide their\nconduct rather from passion and instinct than from reasoned\nenlightenment.[193] The ultimate quality which he named pity is, after\nall, the germ of sociability, which is only extended sympathy. But he\ndid not firmly adhere to this ultimate quality, nor make any effort\nconsistently to trace out its various products.\n\nWe do not find, however, in Rousseau any serious attempt to analyse the\ncomposition of human nature in its primitive stages. Though constantly\nwarning his readers very impressively against confounding domesticated\nwith primitive men, he practically assumes that the main elements of\ncharacter must always have been substantially identical with such\nelements and conceptions as are found after the addition of many ages of\nincreasingly complex experience. There is something worth considering in\nhis notion that civilisation has had effects upon man analogous to those\nof domestication upon animals, but he lacked logical persistency enough\nto enable him to adhere to his own idea, and work out conclusions\nfrom it.\n\nIt might further be pointed out in another direction that he takes for\ngranted that the mode of advance into a social state has always been one\nand the same, a single and uniform process, marked by precisely the same\nset of several stages, following one another in precisely the same\norder. There is no evidence of this; on the contrary, evidence goes to\nshow that civilisation varies in origin and process with race and other\nthings, and that though in all cases starting from the prime factor of\nsociableness in man, yet the course of its development has depended on\nthe particular sets of circumstances with which that factor has had to\ncombine. These are full of variety, according to climate and racial\npredisposition, although, as has been justly said, the force of both\nthese two elements diminishes as the influence of the past in giving\nconsistency to our will becomes more definite, and our means of\nmodifying climate and race become better known. There is no sign that\nRousseau, any more than many other inquirers, ever reflected whether the\ncapacity for advance into the state of civil society in any highly\ndeveloped form is universal throughout the species, or whether there are\nnot races eternally incapable of advance beyond the savage state.\nProgress would hardly be the exception which we know it to be in the\nhistory of communities if there were not fundamental diversities in the\ncivilisable quality of races. Why do some bodies of men get on to the\nhigh roads of civilisation, while others remain in the jungle and\nthicket of savagery; and why do some races advance along one of these\nroads, and others advance by different roads?\n\nConsiderations of this sort disclose the pinched frame of trim theory\nwith which Rousseau advanced to set in order a huge mass of boundlessly\nvaried, intricate, and unmanageable facts. It is not, however, at all\nworth while to extend such criticism further than suffices to show how\nlittle his piece can stand the sort of questions which may be put to it\nfrom a scientific point of view. Nothing that Rousseau had to say about\nthe state of nature was seriously meant for scientific exposition, any\nmore than the Sermon on the Mount was meant for political economy. The\nimportance of the Discourse on Inequality lay in its vehement\ndenunciation of the existing social state. To the writer the question\nof the origin of inequality is evidently far less a matter at heart,\nthan the question of its results. It is the natural inclination of one\ndeeply moved by a spectacle of depravation in his own time and country,\nto extol some other time or country, of which he is happily ignorant\nenough not to know the drawbacks. Rousseau wrote about the savage state\nin something of the same spirit in which Tacitus wrote the Germania. And\nhere, as in the Discourse on the influence of science and art upon\nvirtue, there is a positive side. To miss this in resentment of the\nunscientific paradox that lies about it, is to miss the force of the\npiece, and to render its enormous influence for a generation after it\nwas written incomprehensible. We may always be quite sure that no set of\nideas ever produced this resounding effect on opinion, unless they\ncontained something which the social or spiritual condition of the men\nwhom they inflamed made true for the time, and true in an urgent sense.\nIs it not tenable that the state of certain savage tribes is more\nnormal, offers a better balance between desire and opportunity, between\nfaculty and performance, than the permanent state of large classes in\nwestern countries, the broken wreck of civilisation?[194] To admit this\nis not to conclude, as Rousseau so rashly concluded, that the movement\naway from the primitive stages has been productive only of evil and\nmisery even to the masses of men, the hewers of wood and the drawers of\nwater; or that it was occasioned, and has been carried on by the\npredominance of the lower parts and principles of human nature. Our\nprovisional acquiescence in the straitness and blank absence of outlook\nor hope of the millions who come on to the earth that greets them with\nno smile, and then stagger blindly under dull burdens for a season, and\nat last are shovelled silently back under the ground,--our acquiescence\ncan only be justified in the sight of humanity by the conviction that\nthis is one of the temporary conditions of a vast process, working\nforwards through the impulse and agency of the finer human spirits, but\nneeding much blood, many tears, uncounted myriads of lives, and\nimmeasurable geologic periods of time, for its high and beneficent\nconsummation. There is nothing surprising, perhaps nothing deeply\ncondemnable, in the burning anger for which this acquiescence is often\nchanged in the more impatient natures. As against the ignoble host who\nthink that the present ordering of men, with all its prodigious\ninequalities, is in foundation and substance the perfection of social\nblessedness, Rousseau was almost in the right. If the only alternative\nto the present social order remaining in perpetuity were a retrogression\nto some such condition as that of the islanders of the South Sea, a\nlover of his fellow-creatures might look upon the result, so far as it\naffected the happiness of the bulk of them, with tolerably complete\nindifference. It is only the faith that we are moving slowly away from\nthe existing order, as our ancestors moved slowly away from the old want\nof order, that makes the present endurable, and makes any tenacious\neffort to raise the future possible.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAn immense quantity of nonsense has been talked about the equality of\nman, for which those who deny that doctrine and those who assert it may\ndivide the responsibility. It is in reality true or false, according to\nthe doctrines with which it is confronted. As against the theory that\nthe existing way of sharing the laboriously acquired fruits and delights\nof the earth is a just representation and fair counterpart of natural\ninequalities among men in merit and capacity, the revolutionary theory\nis true, and the passionate revolutionary cry for equality of external\nchance most righteous and unanswerable. But the issues do not end here.\nTake such propositions as these:--there are differences in the capacity\nof men for serving the community; the well-being of the community\ndemands the allotment of high function in proportion to high faculty;\nthe rights of man in politics are confined to a right of the same\nprotection for his own interests as is given to the interests of others.\nAs against these principles, the revolutionary deductions from the\nequality of man are false. And such pretensions as that every man could\nbe made equally fit for every function, or that not only each should\nhave an equal chance, but that he who uses his chance well and sociably\nshould be kept on a level in common opinion and trust with him who uses\nit ill and unsociably, or does not use it at all,--the whole of this is\nobviously most illusory and most disastrous, and in whatever decree any\nset of men have ever taken it up, to that degree they have paid\nthe penalty.\n\nWhat Rousseau's Discourse meant, what he intended it to mean, and what\nhis first direct disciples understood it as meaning, is not that all men\nare born equal. He never says this, and his recognition of natural\ninequality implies the contrary proposition. His position is that the\nartificial differences, springing from the conditions of the social\nunion, do not coincide with the differences in capacity springing from\noriginal constitution; that the tendency of the social union as now\norganised is to deepen the artificial inequalities, and make the gulf\nbetween those endowed with privileges and wealth and those not so\nendowed ever wider and wider. It would have been very difficult a\nhundred years ago to deny the truth of this way of stating the case. If\nit has to some extent already ceased to be entirely true, and if violent\npopular forces are at work making it less and less true, we owe the\norigin of the change, among other causes and influences, not least to\nthe influence of Rousseau himself, and those whom he inspired. It was\nthat influence which, though it certainly did not produce, yet did as\ncertainly give a deep and remarkable bias, first to the American\nRevolution, and a dozen years afterwards to the French Revolution.\n\nIt would be interesting to trace the different fortunes which awaited\nthe idea of the equality of man in America and in France. In America it\nhas always remained strictly within the political order, and perhaps\nwith the considerable exception of the possibles share it may have had,\nalong with Christian notions of the brotherhood of man, and\nstatesmanlike notions of national prosperity, in leading to the\nabolition of slavery, it has brought forth no strong moral sentiment\nagainst the ethical and economic bases of any part of the social order.\nIn France, on the other hand, it was the starting-point of movements\nthat have had all the fervour and intensity of religions, and have made\nmen feel about social inequalities the burning shame and wrath with\nwhich a Christian saw the flourishing temples of unclean gods. This\ndifference in the interpretation and development of the first doctrine\nmay be explained in various ways,--by difference of material\ncircumstance between America and France; difference of the political and\nsocial level from which the principle of equality had to start; and not\nleast by difference of intellectual temperament. This last was itself\npartly the product of difference in religion, which makes the English\ndread the practical enforcement of logical conclusions, while the French\nhave hitherto been apt to dread and despise any tendency to stop\nshort of that.\n\n * * * * *\n\nLet us notice, finally, the important fact that the appearance of\nRousseau's Discourses was the first sign of reaction against the\nhistoric mode of inquiry into society that had been initiated by\nMontesquieu. The Spirit of Laws was published in 1748, with a truly\nprodigious effect. It coloured the whole of the social literature in\nFrance during the rest of the century. A history of its influence would\nbe a history of one of the most important sides of speculative activity.\nIn the social writings of Rousseau himself there is hardly a chapter\nwhich does not contain tacit reference to Montesquieu's book. The\nDiscourses were the beginning of a movement in an exactly opposite\ndirection; that is, away from patient collection of wide multitudes of\nfacts relating to the conditions of society, towards the promulgation of\narbitrary systems of absolute social dogmas. Mably, the chief dogmatic\nsocialist of the century, and one of the most dignified and austere\ncharacters, is an important example of the detriment done by the\ninfluence of Rousseau to that of Montesquieu, in the earlier stages of\nthe conflict between the two schools. Mably (1709-1785), of whom the\nremark is to be made that he was for some years behind the scenes of\ngovernment as De Tencin's secretary and therefore was versed in affairs,\nbegan his inquiries with Greece and Rome. \"You will find everything in\nancient history,\" he said.[195] And he remained entirely in this groove\nof thought until Rousseau appeared. He then gradually left Montesquieu.\n\"To find the duties of a legislator,\" he said, \"I descend into the\nabysses of my heart, I study my sentiments.\" He opposed the Economists,\nthe other school that was feeling its way imperfectly enough to a\npositive method. \"As soon as I see landed property established,\" he\nwrote, \"then I see unequal fortunes; and from these unequal fortunes\nmust there not necessarily result different and opposed interests, all\nthe vices of riches, all the vices of poverty, the brutalisation of\nintelligence, the corruption of civil manners?\" and so forth.[196] In\nhis most important work, published in 1776, we see Rousseau's notions\ndeveloped, with a logic from which their first author shrunk, either\nfrom fear, or more probably from want of firmness and consistency as a\nreasoner. \"It is to equality that nature has attached the preservation\nof our social faculties and happiness: and from this I conclude that\nlegislation will only be taking useless trouble, unless all its\nattention is first of all directed to the establishment of equality in\nthe fortune and condition of citizens.\"[197] That is to say not only\npolitical equality, but economic communism. \"What miserable folly, that\npersons who pass for philosophers should go on repeating after one\nanother that without property there can be no society. Let us leave\nillusion. It is property that divides us into two classes, rich and\npoor; the first will alway prefer their fortune to that of the state,\nwhile the second will never love a government or laws that leave them in\nmisery.\"[198] This was the kind of opinion for which Rousseau's diffuse\nand rhetorical exposition of social necessity had prepared France some\ntwenty years before. After powerfully helping the process of general\ndissolution, it produced the first fruits specifically after its own\nkind some twenty years later in the system of Baboeuf.[199]\n\nThe unflinching application of principles is seldom achieved by the men\nwho first launch them. The labour of the preliminary task seems to\nexhaust one man's stock of mental force. Rousseau never thought of the\nsubversion of society or its reorganisation on a communistic basis.\nWithin a few months of his profession of profound lament that the first\nman who made a claim to property had not been instantly unmasked as the\narch foe of the race, he speaks most respectfully of property as the\npledge of the engagements of citizens and the foundation of the social\npact, while the first condition of that pact is that every one should be\nmaintained in peaceful enjoyment of what belongs to him.[200] We need\nnot impute the apparent discrepancy to insincerity. Rousseau was always\napt to think in a slipshod manner. He sensibly though illogically\naccepted wholesome practical maxims, as if they flowed from theoretical\npremisses that were in truth utterly incompatible with them.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[151] Delandine's _Couronnes Acad\u00e9miques, ou Recueil de prix propos\u00e9s\npar les Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s Savantes_. (Paris, 2 vols., 1787.)\n\n[152] Musset-Pathay has collected the details connected with the award\nof the prize, ii. 365-367.\n\n[153] Second Letter to M. de Malesherbes, p. 358. Also _Conf._, viii.\n135.\n\n[154] Diderot's account (_Vie de S\u00e9n\u00e8que_, sect. 66, _Oeuv._, iii. 98;\nalso ii. 285) is not inconsistent with Rousseau's own, so that we may\ndismiss as apocryphal Marmontel's version of the story (_M\u00e9m._ VIII.),\nto the effect that Rousseau was about to answer the question with a\ncommonplace affirmative, until Diderot persuaded him that a paradox\nwould attract more attention. It has been said also that M. de\nFrancueil, and various others, first urged the writer to take a\nnegative line of argument. To suppose this possible is to prove one's\nincapacity for understanding what manner of man Rousseau was.\n\n[155] _Conf._, ix. 232, 233.\n\n[156] _Rousseau Juge de Jean Jacques, Dialogues_, i. 252.\n\n[157] _Dialogues_, i. 275, 276.\n\n[158] _Conf._, viii. 138.\n\n[159] \"It made a kind of revolution in Paris,\" says Grimm. _Corr.\nLit._, i. 108.\n\n[160] _R\u00e9p. au Roi de Pologne_, p. 111 and p. 113.\n\n[161] _R\u00e9p. \u00e0 M. Bordes_, 138.\n\n[162] _Ib._ 137.\n\n[163] \"The first source of the evil is inequality; from inequality\ncome riches ... from riches are born luxury and idleness; from luxury\ncome the fine arts, and from idleness the sciences.\" _R\u00e9p. au Roi de\nPologne_, 120, 121.\n\n[164] _R\u00e9p. \u00e0 M. Bordes_, 147. In the same spirit he once wrote the\nmore wholesome maxim, \"We should argue with the wise, and never with\nthe public.\" _Corr._, i. 191.\n\n[165] _R\u00e9p. au Roi de Pologne_, 128, 129.\n\n[166] _R\u00e9p. \u00e0 M. Bordes_, 150-161.\n\n[167] P. 174.\n\n[168] Egger's _Hell\u00e9nisme en France_, 28i\u00e8me le\u00e7on, p. 265.\n\n[169] Voltaire to J.J.R. Aug. 30, 1755.\n\n[170] _R\u00e9p. au Roi de Pologne_, 105.\n\n[171] In 1753 the French Academy, by way no doubt of summoning a\ncounter-blast to Rousseau, boldly offered as the subject of their\nessay the thesis that \"The love of letters inspires the love of\nvirtue,\" and the prize was won fitly enough by a Jesuit professor of\nrhetoric. See Delandine, i. 42.\n\n[172] Preface to _Narcisse_, 251.\n\n[173] _R\u00e9p. \u00e0 M. Bordes_, 167.\n\n[174] P. 187.\n\n[175] See for instance a strange discussion about _morale universelle_\nand the like in _M\u00e9m. de Mdme. d'Epinay_, i. 217-226.\n\n[176] Often described as Morelly the Younger, to distinguish him from\nhis father, who wrote an essay on the human heart, and another on the\nhuman intelligence.\n\n[177] _Code de la Nature, ou le v\u00e9ritable esprit de ses loix, de tout\ntems n\u00e9glig\u00e9 ou m\u00e9connu._\n\n[178] P. 169. Rousseau did not see it then, but he showed himself on\nthe track.\n\n[179] At the end of the _Code de la Nature_ Morelly places a complete\nset of rules for the organisation of a model community. The base of it\nwas the absence of private property--a condition that was to be\npreserved by vigilant education of the young in ways of thinking, that\nshould make the possession of private property odious or\ninconceivable. There are to be sumptuary laws of a moderate kind. The\ngovernment is to be in the hands of the elders. The children are to be\ntaken away from their parents at the age of five; reared and educated\nin public establishments; and returned to their parents at the age of\nsixteen or so when they will marry. Marriage is to be dissoluble at\nthe end of ten years, but after divorce the woman is not to marry a\nman younger than herself, nor is the man to marry a woman younger than\nthe wife from whom he has parted. The children of a divorced couple\nare to remain with the father, and if he marries again, they are to be\nheld the children of the second wife. Mothers are to suckle their own\nchildren (p. 220). The whole scheme is fuller of good ideas than such\nschemes usually are.\n\n[180] P. 218.\n\n[181] This is obviously untrue. Animals do not know death in the sense\nof scientific definition, and probably have no abstract idea of it as\na general state; but they know and are afraid of its concrete\nphenomena, and so are most savages.\n\n[182] This is one of the passages in the Discourse, the harshness of\nwhich was afterwards attributed by Rousseau to the influence of\nDiderot. _Conf._, viii. 205, _n._\n\n[183] P. 261.\n\n[184] As if sin really came by the law in this sense; as if a law\ndefining and prohibiting a malpractice were the cause of the\ncommission of the act which it constituted a malpractice. As if giving\na name and juristic classification to any kind of conduct were adding\nto men's motives for indulging in it.\n\n[185] P. 269.\n\n[186] P. 278.\n\n[187] Pp. 285-287.\n\n[188] P. 273.\n\n[189] P. 250.\n\n[190] _Politicus_, 268 D-274 E.\n\n[191] Here for instance is D'Alembert's story:--\"The necessity of\nshielding our own body from pain and destruction leads us to examine\namong external objects those which are useful and those which are\nhurtful, so that we may seek the one and flee the others. But we\nhardly begin our search into such objects before we discover among\nthem a great number of beings which strike us as exactly like\nourselves; that is, whose form is just like our own, and who, so far\nas we can judge at the first glance, appear to have the same\nperceptions. Everything therefore leads us to suppose that they have\nalso the same wants, and consequently the same interest in satisfying\nthem, whence it results that we must find great advantage in joining\nwith them for the purpose of distinguishing in nature what has the\npower of preserving us from what has the power of hurting us. The\ncommunication of ideas is the principle and the stay of this union,\nand necessarily demands the invention of signs; such is the origin of\nthe formation of societies.\" _Discours Pr\u00e9liminaire de\nl'Encyclop\u00e9die._ Contrast this with Aristotle's sensible statement\n(_Polit._ I. ii. 15) that \"there is in men by nature a strong impulse\nto enter into such union.\"\n\n[192] _Code de la Nature._\n\n[193] See, for example, his criticism on the Abb\u00e9 de St. Pierre.\n_Conf._, viii. 264. And also in the analysis of this very Discourse,\nabove, vol. i. p. 163.\n\n[194] \"I have lived with communities of savages in South America and\nin the East, who have no laws or law courts but the public opinion of\nthe visage freely expressed. Each man scrupulously respects the rights\nof his fellow, and any infraction of those rights rarely or never\ntakes place. In such a community all are nearly equal. There are none\nof those wide distinctions of education and ignorance, wealth and\npoverty, master and servant, which are the products of our\ncivilisation; there is none of that widespread division of labour\nwhich, while it increases wealth, produces also conflicting interests;\nthere is not that severe competition and struggle for existence, or\nfor wealth, which the dense population of civilised countries\ninevitably creates. All incitements to great crimes are thus wanting,\nand petty ones are repressed, partly by the influence of public\nopinion, but chiefly by that natural sense of justice and of his\nneighbour's right, which seems to be in some degree inherent in every\nrace of man. Now, although we have progressed vastly beyond the savage\nstate in intellectual achievements, we have not advanced equally in\nmorals. It is true that among those classes who have no wants that\ncannot be easily supplied, and among whom public opinion has great\ninfluence, the rights of others are fully respected. It is true, also,\nthat we have vastly extended the sphere of those rights, and include\nwithin them all the brotherhood of man. But it is not too much to say,\nthat the mass of our populations have not at all advanced beyond the\nsavage code of morals, and have in many cases sunk below it.\"\nWallace's _Malay Archipelago_, vol. ii. pp. 460-461.\n\n[195] So too Bougainville, a brother of the navigator, said in 1760,\n\"For an attentive observer who sees nothing in events of the utmost\ndiversity of appearance but the natural effects of a certain number of\ncauses differently combined, Greece is the universe in small, and the\nhistory of Greece an excellent epitome of universal history.\" (Quoted\nin Egger's _Hell\u00e9nisme en France_, ii. 272.) The revolutionists of the\nnext generation, who used to appeal so unseasonably to the ancients,\nwere only following a literary fashion set by their fathers.\n\n[196] _Doutes sur l'Ordre Naturel_; _Oeuv._, xi. 80. (Ed. 1794, 1795.)\n\n[197] _La L\u00e9gislation_, I. i.\n\n[198] _Ibid._\n\n[199] It is not within our province to examine the vexed question\nwhether the Convention was fundamentally socialist, and not merely\npolitical. That socialist ideas were afloat in the minds of some\nmembers, one can hardly doubt. See Von Sybel's _Hist. of the French\nRevolution_, Bk. II. ch. iv., on one side, and Quinet's _La\nR\u00e9volution_, ii. 90-107, on the other.\n\n[200] _Economie Politique_, pp. 41, 53, etc.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nPARIS.\n\n\nI.\n\nBy what subtle process did Rousseau, whose ideal had been a summer life\namong all the softnesses of sweet gardens and dappled orchards, turn\ninto panegyrist of the harsh austerity of old Cato and grim Brutus's\ncivic devotion? The amiability of eighteenth century France--and France\nwas amiable in spite of the atrocities of White Penitents at Toulouse,\nand black Jansenists at Paris, and the men and women who dealt in\n_lettres-de-cachet_ at Versailles--was revolted by the name of the cruel\npatriot who slew his son for the honour of discipline.[201] How came\nRousseau of all men, the great humanitarian of his time, to rise to the\nheight of these unlovely rigours?\n\nThe answer is that he was a citizen of Geneva transplanted. He had been\nbred in puritan and republican tradition, with love of God and love of\nlaw and freedom and love of country all penetrating it, and then he had\nbeen accidentally removed to a strange city that was in active ferment\nwith ideas that were the direct abnegation of all these. In Paris the\nidea of a God was either repudiated along with many other ancestral\nconceptions, or else it was fatally entangled with the worst\nsuperstition and not seldom with the vilest cruelties. The idea of\nfreedom was unknown, and the idea of law was benumbed by abuses and\nexceptions. The idea of country was enfeebled in some and displaced in\nothers by a growing passion for the captivating something styled\ncitizenship of the world. If Rousseau could have ended his days among\nthe tranquil lakes and hills of Savoy, Geneva might possibly never have\ncome back to him. For it depends on circumstance, which of the chances\nthat slumber within us shall awake, and which shall fall unroused with\nus into the darkness. The fact of Rousseau ranking among the greatest of\nthe writers of the French language, and the yet more important fact that\nhis ideas found their most ardent disciples and exploded in their most\nviolent form in France, constantly make us forget that he was not a\nFrenchman, but a Genevese deeply imbued with the spirit of his native\ncity. He was thirty years old before he began even temporarily to live\nin France: he had only lived there some five or six years when he wrote\nhis first famous piece, so un-French in all its spirit; and the ideas of\nthe Social Contract were in germ before he settled in France at all.\n\nThere have been two great religious reactions, and the name of Geneva\nhas a fundamental association with each of them. The first was that\nagainst the paganised Catholicism of the renaissance, and of this\nCalvin was a prime leader; the second was that against the materialism\nof the eighteenth century, of which the prime leader was Rousseau. The\ndiplomatist was right who called Geneva the fifth part of the world. At\nthe congress of Vienna, some one, wearied at the enormous place taken by\nthe hardly visible Geneva in the midst of negotiations involving\nmomentous issues for the whole habitable globe, called out that it was\nafter all no more than a grain of sand. But he was not wrong who made\nbold to reply, \"Geneva is no grain of sand; 'tis a grain of musk that\nperfumes all Europe.\"[202] We have to remember that it was at all events\nas a grain of musk ever pervading the character of Rousseau. It happened\nin later years that he repudiated his allegiance to her, but however\nbitterly a man may quarrel with a parent, he cannot change blood, and\nRousseau ever remained a true son of the city of Calvin. We may perhaps\nconjecture without excessive fancifulness that the constant spectacle\nand memory of a community, free, energetic, and prosperous, whose\ninstitutions had been shaped and whose political temper had been\ninspired by one great lawgiver, contributed even more powerfully than\nwhat he had picked up about Lycurgus and Laced\u00e6mon, to give him a turn\nfor Utopian speculation, and a conviction of the artificiality and easy\nmodifiableness of the social structure. This, however, is less certain\nthan that he unconsciously received impressions in his youth from the\ncircumstances of Geneva, both as to government and religion, as to\nfreedom, order, citizenship, manners, which formed the deepest part of\nhim on the reflective side, and which made themselves visible whenever\nhe exchanged the life of beatified sense for moods of speculative\nenergy, \"Never,\" he says, \"did I see the walls of that happy city, I\nnever went into it, without feeling a certain faintness at my heart, due\nto excess of tender emotion. At the same time that the noble image of\nfreedom elevated my soul, those of equality, of union, of gentle\nmanners, touched me even to tears.\"[203] His spirit never ceased to\nhaunt city and lake to the end, and he only paid the debt of an owed\nacknowledgment in the dedication of his Discourse on Inequality to the\nrepublic of Geneva.[204] It was there it had its root. The honour in\nwhich industry was held in Geneva, the democratic phrases that\nconstituted the dialect of its government, the proud tradition of the\nlong battle which had won and kept its independence, the severity of its\nmanners, the simplicity of its pleasures,--all these things awoke in his\nmemory as soon as ever occasion drew him to serious thought. More than\nthat, he had in a peculiar manner drawn in with the breath of his\nearliest days in this theocratically constituted city, the vital idea\nthat there are sacred things and objects of reverence among men. And\nhence there came to him, though with many stains and much misdirection,\nthe most priceless excellence of a capacity for devout veneration.\n\nThere is certainly no real contradiction between the quality of\nreverence and the more equivocal quality of a sensuous temperament,\nthough a man may well seem on the surface, as the first succeeds the\nsecond in rule over him, to be the contradiction to his other self. The\nobjects of veneration and the objects of sensuous delight are externally\nso unlike and so incongruous, that he who follows both in their turns is\nas one playing the part of an ironical chorus in the tragi-comic drama\nof his own life. You may perceive these two to be mere imperfect or\nillusory opposites, when you confront a man like Rousseau with the true\nopposite of his own type; with those who are from their birth analysts\nand critics, keen, restless, urgent, inexorably questioning. That\nenergetic type, though not often dead or dull on the side of sense, yet\nis incapable of steeping itself in the manifold delights of eye and ear,\nof nostril and touch, with the peculiar intensity of passive absorption\nthat seeks nothing further nor deeper than unending continuance of this\nprofound repose of all filled sensation, just as it is incapable of the\nkindred mood of elevated humility and joyful unasking devoutness in the\npresence of emotions and dim thoughts that are beyond the compass\nof words.\n\nThe citizen of Geneva with this unseen fibre of Calvinistic veneration\nand austerity strong and vigorous within him, found a world that had\nnothing sacred and took nothing for granted; that held the past in\ncontempt, and ever like old Athenians asked for some new thing; that\ncounted simplicity of life an antique barbarism, and literary\ncuriousness the master virtue. There were giants in this world, like the\npanurgic Diderot. There were industrious, worthy, disinterested men, who\nused their minds honestly and actively with sincere care for truth, like\nD'Holbach. There was poured around the whole, like a high stimulating\natmosphere to the stronger, and like some evil mental aphrodisiac to the\nweaker, the influence of Voltaire, the great indomitable chieftain of\nthem all. Intellectual size half redeems want of perfect direction by\nits generous power and fulness. It was not the strong men, atheists and\nphilosophisers as they were, who first irritated Rousseau into revolt\nagainst their whole system of thought in all its principles. The dissent\nbetween him and them was fundamental and enormous, and in time it flamed\nout into open war. Conflict of theory, however, was brought home to him\nfirst by slow-growing exasperation at the follies in practice of the\nminor disciples of the gospel of knowing and acting, as distinguished\nfrom his own gospel of placid being. He craved beliefs that should\nuphold men in living their lives, substantial helps on which they might\nlean without examination and without mistrust: his life in Paris was\nthrown among people who lived in the midst of open questions, and\nrevelled in a reflective and didactic morality, which had no root in the\nheart and so made things easy for the practical conscience. He sought\ntranquillity and valued life for its own sake, not as an arena and a\ntheme for endless argument and debate: he found friends who knew no\nhigher pleasure than the futile polemics of mimic philosophy over\ndessert, who were as full of quibble as the wrong-headed interlocutors\nin a Platonic dialogue, and who babbled about God and state of nature,\nabout virtue and the spirituality of the soul, much as Boswell may have\ndone when Johnson complained of him for asking questions that would make\na man hang himself. The highest things were thus brought down to the\nlevel of the cheapest discourse, and subjects which the wise take care\nonly to discuss with the wise, were here everyday topics for all comers.\n\nThe association with such high themes of those light qualities of tact,\ngaiety, complaisance, which are the life of the superficial commerce of\nmen and women of the world, probably gave quite as much offence to\nRousseau as the doctrines which some of his companions had the honest\ncourage or the heedless fatuity to profess. It was an outrage to all the\nserious side of him to find persons of quality introducing materialism\nas a new fashion, and atheism as the liveliest of condiments. The\nperfume of good manners only made what he took for bad principles the\nworse, and heightened his impatience at the flippancy of pretensions to\noverthrow the beliefs of a world between two wines.\n\nDoctrine and temperament united to set him angrily against the world\naround him. The one was austere and the other was sensuous, and the\nsensuous temperament in its full strength is essentially solitary. The\nplay of social intercourse, its quick transitions, and incessant\ndemands, are fatal to free and uninterrupted abandonment to the flow of\nsoft internal emotions. Rousseau, dreaming, moody, indolently,\nmeditative, profoundly enwrapped in the brooding egoism of his own\nsensations, had to mix with men and women whose egoism took the contrary\nform of an eager desire to produce flashing effects on other people. We\nmay be sure that as the two sides of his character--his notions of\nserious principle, and his notions of personal comfort--both went in the\nsame direction, the irritation and impatience with which they inspired\nhim towards society did not lessen with increased communication, but\nnaturally deepened with a more profoundly settled antipathy.\n\nRousseau lived in Paris for twelve years, from his return from Venice in\n1744 until his departure in 1756 for the rustic lodge in a wood which\nthe good-will of Madame d'Epinay provided for him. We have already seen\none very important side of his fortunes during these years, in the\nrelations he formed with Theresa, and the relations which he repudiated\nwith his children. We have heard too the new words with which during\nthese years he first began to make the hearts of his contemporaries wax\nhot within them. It remains to examine the current of daily circumstance\non which his life was embarked, and the shores to which it was\nbearing him.\n\nHis patrons were at present almost exclusively in the circle of\nfinance. Richelieu, indeed, took him for a moment by the hand, but even\nthe introduction to him was through the too frail wife of one of the\ngreatest of the farmers general.[205] Madame Dupin and Madame d'Epinay,\nhis two chief patronesses, were also both of them the wives of magnates\nof the farm. The society of the great people of this world was marked by\nall the glare, artificiality, and sentimentalism of the epoch, but it\nhad also one or two specially hollow characteristics of its own. As is\nalways the case when a new rich class rises in the midst of a community\npossessing an old caste, the circle of Parisian financiers made it their\nhighest social aim to thrust and strain into the circle of the\nVersailles people of quality. They had no normal life of their own, with\nindependent traditions and self-respect; and for the same reason that an\nessentially worn-out aristocracy may so long preserve a considerable\ndegree of vigour and even of social utility under certain circumstances\nby means of tenacious pride in its own order, a new plutocracy is\ndemoralised from the very beginning of its existence by want of a\nsimilar kind of pride in itself, and by the ignoble necessity of craving\nthe countenance of an upper class that loves to despise and humiliate\nit. Besides the more obvious evils of a position resting entirely on\nmaterial opulence, and maintaining itself by coarse and glittering\nostentation, there is a fatal moral hollowness which infects both\nserious conduct and social diversion. The result is seen in imitative\nmanners, affected culture, and a mixture of timorous self-consciousness\nwithin and noisy self-assertion without, which completes the most\ndistasteful scene that any collected spirit can witness.\n\nRousseau was, as has been said, the secretary of Madame Dupin and her\nstepson Francueil. He occasionally went with them to Chenonceaux in\nTouraine, one of Henry the Second's castles built for Diana of Poitiers,\nand here he fared sumptuously every day. In Paris his means, as we know,\nwere too strait. For the first two years he had a salary of nine hundred\nfrancs; then his employers raised it to as much as fifty louis. For the\nfirst of the Discourses the publisher gave him nothing, and for the\nsecond he had to extract his fee penny by penny, and after long waiting.\nHis comic opera, the Village Soothsayer, was a greater success; it\nbrought him the round sum of two hundred louis from the court, and some\nfive and twenty more from the bookseller, and so, he says, \"the\ninterlude, which cost me five or six weeks of work, produced nearly as\nmuch money as Emilius afterwards did, which had cost me twenty years of\nmeditation and three years of composition.\"[206] Before the arrival of\nthis windfall, M. Francueil, who was receiver-general, offered him the\npost of cashier in that important department, and Rousseau attended for\nsome weeks to receive the necessary instructions. His progress was tardy\nas usual, and the complexities of accounts were as little congenial to\nhim as notarial complexities had been three and twenty years previously.\nIt is, however, one of the characteristics of times of national break-up\nnot to be peremptory in exacting competence, and Rousseau gravely sat at\nthe receipt of custom, doing the day's duty with as little skill as\nliking. Before he had been long at his post, his official chief going on\na short journey left him in charge of the chest, which happened at the\nmoment to contain no very portentous amount. The disquiet with which the\nwatchful custody of this moderate treasure harassed and afflicted\nRousseau, not only persuaded him that nature had never designed him to\nbe the guardian of money chests, but also threw him into a fit of very\npainful illness. The surgeons let him understand that within six months\nhe would be in the pale kingdoms. The effect of such a hint on a man of\nhis temper, and the train of reflections which it would be sure to set\naflame, are to be foreseen by us who know Rousseau's fashion of dealing\nwith the irksome. Why sacrifice the peace and charm of the little\nfragment of days left to him, to the bondage of an office for which he\nfelt nothing but disgust? How reconcile the austere principles which he\nhad just adopted in his denunciation of sciences and arts, and his\npanegyric on the simplicity of the natural life, with such duties as he\nhad to perform? And how preach disinterestedness and frugality from amid\nthe cashboxes of a receiver-general? Plainly it was his duty to pass in\nindependence and poverty the little time that was yet left to him, to\nbring all the forces of his soul to bear in breaking the fetters of\nopinion, and to carry out courageously whatever seemed best to himself,\nwithout suffering the judgment of others to interpose the slightest\nembarrassment or hindrance.[207]\n\nWith Rousseau, to conceive a project of this kind for simplifying his\nlife was to hasten urgently towards its realisation, because such\nprojects harmonised with all his strongest predispositions. His design\nmastered and took whole possession of him. He resolved to earn his\nliving by copying music, as that was conformable to his taste, within\nhis capacity, and compatible with entire personal freedom. His patron\ndid as the world is so naturally ready to do with those who choose the\nstoic's way; he declared that Rousseau was gone mad.[208] Talk like this\nhad no effect on a man whom self-indulgence led into a path that others\nwould only have been forced into by self-denial. Let it be said,\nhowever, that this is a form of self-indulgence of which society is\nnever likely to see an excess, and meanwhile we may continue to pay it\nsome respect as assuredly leaning to virtue's side. Rousseau's many\nlapses from grace perhaps deserve a certain gentleness of treatment,\nafter the time when with deliberation and collected effort he set\nhimself to the hard task of fitting his private life to his public\nprinciples. Anything that heightens the self-respect of the race is good\nfor us to behold, and it is a permanent source of comfort to all who\nthirst after reality in teachers, whether their teaching happens to be\nour own or not, to find that the prophet of social equality was not a\nfine gentleman, nor the teacher of democracy a hanger-on to the silly\nskirts of fashion.\n\nRousseau did not merely throw up a post which would one day have made\nhim rich. Stoicism on the heroic, peremptory scale is not so difficult\nas the application of the same principle to trifles. Besides this\ngreater sacrifice, he gave up the pleasant things for which most men\nvalue the money that procures them, and instituted an austere sumptuary\nreform in truly Genevese spirit. His sword was laid aside; for flowing\nperuke was substituted the small round wig; he left off gilt buttons and\nwhite stockings, and he sold his watch with the joyful and singular\nthought that he would never again need to know the time. One sacrifice\nremained to be made. Part of his equipment for the Venetian embassy had\nbeen a large stock of fine linen, and for this he retained a particular\naffection, for both now and always Rousseau had a passion for personal\ncleanliness, as he had for corporeal wholesomeness. He was seasonably\ndelivered from bondage to his fine linen by aid from without. One\nChristmas Eve it lay drying in a garret in the rather considerable\nquantity of forty-two shirts, when a thief, always suspected to be the\nbrother of Theresa, broke open the door and carried off the treasure,\nleaving Rousseau henceforth to be the contented wearer of coarser\nstuffs.[209]\n\nWe may place this reform towards the end of the year 1750, or the\nbeginning of 1751, when his mind was agitated by the busy discussion\nwhich his first Discourse excited, and by the new ideas of literary\npower which its reception by the public naturally awakened in him. \"It\ntakes,\" wrote Diderot, \"right above the clouds; never was such a\nsuccess.\"[210] We can hardly have a surer sign of a man's fundamental\nsincerity than that his first triumph, the first revelation to him of\nhis power, instead of seducing him to frequent the mischievous and\ndisturbing circle of his applauders, should throw him inwards upon\nhimself and his own principles with new earnestness and refreshed\nindependence. Rousseau very soon made up his mind what the world was\nworth to him; and this, not as the ordinary sentimentalist or satirist\ndoes, by way of set-off against the indulgence of personal foibles, but\nfrom recognition of his own qualities, of the bounds set to our capacity\nof life, and of the limits of the world's power to satisfy us. \"When my\ndestiny threw me into the whirlpool of society,\" he wrote in his last\nmeditation on the course of his own life, \"I found nothing there to\ngive a moment's solace to my heart. Regret for my sweet leisure followed\nme everywhere; it shed indifference or disgust over all that might have\nbeen within my reach, leading to fortune and honours. Uncertain in the\ndisquiet of my desires, I hoped for little, I obtained less, and I felt\neven amid gleams of prosperity that if I obtained all that I supposed\nmyself to be seeking, I should still not have found the happiness for\nwhich my heart was greedily athirst, though without distinctly knowing\nits object. Thus everything served to detach my affections from society,\neven before the misfortunes which were to make me wholly a stranger to\nit. I reached the age of forty, floating between indigence and fortune,\nbetween wisdom and disorder, full of vices of habit without any evil\ntendency at heart, living by hazard, distracted as to my duties without\ndespising them, but often without much clear knowledge what they\nwere.\"[211]\n\nA brooding nature gives to character a connectedness and unity that is\nin strong contrast with the dispersion and multiformity of the active\ntype. The attractions of fame never cheated Rousseau into forgetfulness\nof the commanding principle that a man's life ought to be steadily\ncomposed to oneness with itself in all its parts, as by mastery of an\nart of moral counterpoint, and not crowded with a wild mixture of aim\nand emotion like distracted masks in high carnival. He complains of the\nphilosophers with whom he came into contact, that their philosophy was\nsomething foreign to them and outside of their own lives. They studied\nhuman nature for the sake of talking learnedly about it, not for the\nsake of self-knowledge; they laboured to instruct others, not to\nenlighten themselves within. When they published a book, its contents\nonly interested them to the extent of making the world accept it,\nwithout seriously troubling themselves whether it were true or false,\nprovided only that it was not refuted. \"For my own part, when I desired\nto learn, it was to know things myself, and not at all to teach others.\nI always believed that before instructing others it was proper to begin\nby knowing enough for one's self; and of all the studies that I have\ntried to follow in my life in the midst of men, there is hardly one that\nI should not have followed equally if I had been alone, and shut up in a\ndesert island for the rest of my days.\"[212]\n\nWhen we think of Turgot, whom Rousseau occasionally met among the\nsociety which he denounces, such a denunciation sounds a little\noutrageous. But then Turgot was perhaps the one sane Frenchman of the\nfirst eminence in the eighteenth century. Voltaire chose to be an exile\nfrom the society of Paris and Versailles as pertinaciously as Rousseau\ndid, and he spoke more bitterly of it in verse than Rousseau ever spoke\nbitterly of it in prose.[213] It was, as has been so often said, a\nsociety dominated by women, from the king's mistress who helped to ruin\nFrance, down to the financier's wife who gave suppers to flashy men of\nletters. The eighteenth century salon has been described as having three\nstages; the salon of 1730, still retaining some of the stately\ndomesticity, elegance, dignity of the age of Lewis XIV.; that of 1780,\ngrave, cold, dry, given to dissertation; and between the two, the salon\nof 1750, full of intellectual stir, brilliance, frivolous originality,\nglittering wastefulness.[214] Though this division of time must not be\npressed too closely, it is certain that the era of Rousseau's advent in\nliterature with his Discourses fell in with the climax of social\nunreality in the surface intercourse of France, and that the same date\nmarks the highest point of feminine activity and power.\n\nThe common mixture of much reflective morality in theory with much\nlight-hearted immorality in practice, never entered so largely into\nmanners. We have constantly to wonder how they analysed and defined the\nword Virtue, to which they so constantly appealed in letters,\nconversation, and books, as the sovereign object for our deepest and\nwarmest adoration. A whole company of transgressors of the marriage law\nwould melt into floods of tears over a hymn to virtue, which they must\nsurely have held of too sacred an essence to mix itself with any one\nvirtue in particular, except that very considerable one of charitably\nletting all do as they please. It is much, however, that these tears,\nif not very burning, were really honest. Society, though not believing\nvery deeply in the supernatural, was not cursed with an arid, parching,\nand hardened scepticism about the genuineness of good emotions in a man,\nand so long as people keep this baleful poison out of their hearts,\ntheir lives remain worth having.\n\nIt is true that cynicism in the case of some women of this time\noccasionally sounded in a diabolic key, as when one said, \"It is your\nlover to whom you should never say that you don't believe in God; to\none's husband that does not matter, because in the case of a lover one\nmust reserve for one's self some door of escape, and devotional scruples\ncut everything short.\"[215] Or here: \"I do not distrust anybody, for\nthat is a deliberate act; but I do not trust anybody, and there is no\ntrouble in this.\"[216] Or again in the word thrown to a man vaunting the\nprobity of some one: \"What! can a man of intelligence like you accept\nthe prejudice of _meum_ and _tuum_?\"[217] Such speech, however, was\nprobably most often a mere freak of the tongue, a mode and fashion, as\nwho should go to a masked ball in guise of Mephistopheles, without\nanything more Mephistophelian about him than red apparel and peaked\ntoes. \"She was absolutely charming,\" said one of a new-comer; \"she did\nnot utter one single word that was not a paradox.\"[218] This was the\npassing taste. Human nature is able to keep itself wholesome in\nfundamentals even under very great difficulties, and it is as wise as it\nis charitable in judging a sharp and cynical tone to make large\nallowances for mere costume and assumed character.\n\nIn respect of the light companionship of common usage, however, it is\nexactly the costume which comes closest to us, and bad taste in that is\nmost jarring and least easily forgiven. There is a certain stage in an\nobservant person's experience of the heedlessness, indolence, and native\nfolly of men and women--and if his observation be conducted in a\ncatholic spirit, he will probably see something of this not merely in\nothers--when the tolerable average sanity of human arrangements strikes\nhim as the most marvellous of all the fortunate accidents in the\nuniverse. Rousseau could not even accept the fact of this miraculous\nresult, the provisional and temporary sanity of things, and he\nconfronted society with eyes of angry chagrin. A great lady asked him\nhow it was that she had not seen him for an age. \"Because when I wish to\nsee you, I wish to see no one but you. What do you want me to do in the\nmidst of your society? I should cut a sorry figure in a circle of\nmincing tripping coxcombs; they do not suit me.\" We cannot wonder that\non some occasion when her son's proficiency was to be tested before a\ncompany of friends, Madame d'Epinay prayed Rousseau to be of them, on\nthe ground that he would be sure to ask the child outrageously absurd\nquestions, which would give gaiety to the affair.[219] As it happened,\nthe father was unwise. He was a man of whom it was said that he had\ndevoured two million francs, without either saying or doing a single\ngood thing. He rewarded the child's performance with the gift of a\nsuperb suit of cherry-coloured velvet, extravagantly trimmed with costly\nlace; the peasant from whose sweat and travail the money had been wrung,\nwent in heavy rags, and his children lived as the beasts of the field.\nThe poor youth was ill dealt with. \"That is very fine,\" said rude\nDuclos, \"but remember that a fool in lace is still a fool.\" Rousseau, in\nreply to the child's importunity, was still blunter: \"Sir, I am no judge\nof finery, I am only a judge of man; I wished to talk with you a little\nwhile ago, but I wish so no longer.\"[220]\n\nMarmontel, whose account may have been coloured by retrospection in\nlater years, says that before the success of the first Discourse,\nRousseau concealed his pride under the external forms of a politeness\nthat was timid even to obsequiousness; in his uneasy glance you\nperceived mistrust and observant jealousy; there was no freedom in his\nmanner, and no one ever observed more cautiously the hateful precept to\nlive with your friends as though they were one day to be your\nenemies.[221] Grimm's description is different and more trustworthy.\nUntil he began to affect singularity, he says, Rousseau had been gallant\nand overflowing with artificial compliment, with manners that were\nhoneyed and even wearisome in their soft elaborateness. All at once he\nput on the cynic's cloak, and went to the other extreme. Still in spite\nof an abrupt and cynical tone he kept much of his old art of elaborate\nfine speeches, and particularly in his relations with women.[222] Of his\nabruptness, he tells a most displeasing tale. \"One day Rousseau told us\nwith an air of triumph, that as he was coming out of the opera where he\nhad been seeing the first representation of the Village Soothsayer, the\nDuke of Zweibr\u00fccken had approached him with much politeness, saying,\n'Will you allow me to pay you a compliment?' and that he replied, 'Yes,\nif it be very short.' Everybody was silent at this, until I said to him\nlaughingly, 'Illustrious citizen and co-sovereign of Geneva, since there\nresides in you a part of the sovereignty of the republic, let me\nrepresent to you that, for all the severity of your principles, you\nshould hardly refuse to a sovereign prince the respect due to a\nwater-carrier, and that if you had met a word of good-will from a\nwater-carrier with an answer as rough and brutal as that, you would have\nhad to reproach yourself with a most unseasonable piece of\nimpertinence.'\"[223]\n\nThere were still more serious circumstances when exasperation at the\nflippant tone about him carried him beyond the ordinary bounds of that\npolite time. A guest at table asked contemptuously what was the use of a\nnation like the French having reason, if they did not use it. \"They mock\nthe other nations of the earth, and yet are the most credulous of all.\"\nROUSSEAU: \"I forgive them for their credulity, but not for condemning\nthose who are credulous in some other way.\" Some one said that in\nmatters of religion everybody was right, but that everybody should\nremain in that in which he had been born. ROUSSEAU, with warmth: \"Not\nso, by God, if it is a bad one, for then it can do nothing but harm.\"\nThen some one contended that religion always did some good, as a kind of\nrein to the common people who had no other morality. All the rest cried\nout at this in indignant remonstrance, one shrewd person remarking that\nthe common people had much livelier fear of being hanged than of being\ndamned. The conversation was broken off for a moment by the hostess\ncalling out, \"After all, one must nourish the tattered affair we call\nour body, so ring and let them bring us the joint.\" This done, the\nservants dismissed, and the door shut, the discussion was resumed with\nsuch vehemence by Duclos and Saint Lambert, that, says the lady who\ntells us the story, \"I feared they were bent on destroying all religion,\nand I prayed for some mercy to be shown at any rate to natural\nreligion.\" There was not a whit more sympathy for that than for the\nrest. Rousseau declared himself _paullo infirmior_, and clung to the\nmorality of the gospel as the natural morality which in old times\nconstituted the whole and only creed. \"But what is a God,\" cried one\nimpetuous disputant, \"who gets angry and is appeased again?\" Rousseau\nbegan to murmur between grinding teeth, and a tide of pleasantries set\nin at his expense, to which came this: \"If it is a piece of cowardice to\nsuffer ill to be spoken of one's friend behind his back, 'tis a crime to\nsuffer ill to be spoken of one's God, who is present; and for my part,\nsirs, I believe in God.\" \"I admit,\" said the atheistic champion, \"that\nit is a fine thing to see this God bending his brow to earth and\nwatching with admiration the conduct of a Cato. But this notion is, like\nmany others, very useful in some great heads, such as Trajan, Marcus\nAurelius, Socrates, where it can only produce heroism, but it is the\ngerm of all madnesses.\" ROUSSEAU: \"Sirs, I leave the room if you say\nanother word more,\" and he was rising to fulfil his threat, when the\nentry of a new-comer stopped the discussion.[224]\n\nHis words on another occasion show how all that he saw helped to keep up\na fretted condition of mind, in one whose soft tenacious memory turned\ndaily back to simple and unsophisticated days among the green valleys,\nand refused to acquiesce in the conditions of changed climate. So\nterrible a thing is it to be the bondsman of reminiscence. Madame\nd'Epinay was suspected, wrongfully as it afterwards proved, of having\ndestroyed some valuable papers belonging to a dead relative. There was\nmuch idle and cruel gossip in an ill-natured world. Rousseau, her\nfriend, kept steadfast silence: she challenged his opinion. \"What am I\nto say?\" he answered; \"I go and come, and all that I hear outrages and\nrevolts me. I see the one so evidently malicious and so adroit in their\ninjustice; the other so awkward and so stupid in their good intentions,\nthat I am tempted (and it is not the first time) to look on Paris as a\ncavern of brigands, of whom every traveller in his turn is the victim.\nWhat gives me the worst idea of society is to see how eager each person\nis to pardon himself, by reason of the number of the people who are like\nhim.\"[225]\n\nNotwithstanding his hatred of this cavern of brigands, and the little\npains he took to conceal his feelings from any individual brigand,\nwhether male or female, with whom he had to deal, he found out that \"it\nis not always so easy as people suppose to be poor and independent.\"\nMerciless invasion of his time in every shape made his life weariness.\nSometimes he had the courage to turn and rend the invader, as in the\nletter to a painter who sent him the same copy of verses three times,\nrequiring immediate acknowledgment. \"It is not just,\" at length wrote\nthe exasperated Rousseau, \"that I should be tyrannised over for your\npleasure; not that my time is precious, as you say; it is either passed\nin suffering or it is lost in idleness; but when I cannot employ it\nusefully for some one, I do not wish to be hindered from wasting it in\nmy own fashion. A single minute thus usurped is what all the kings of\nthe universe could not give me back, and it is to be my own master that\nI flee from the idle folk of towns,--people as thoroughly wearied as\nthey are thoroughly wearisome,--who, because they do not know what to do\nwith their own time, think they have a right to waste that of\nothers.\"[226] The more abruptly he treated visitors, persecuting\ndinner-givers, and all the tribe of the importunate, the more obstinate\nthey were in possessing themselves of his time. In seizing the hours\nthey were keeping his purse empty, as well as keeping up constant\nirritation in his soul. He appears to have earned forty sous for a\nmorning's work, and to have counted this a fair fee, remarking modestly\nthat he could not well subsist on less.[227] He had one chance of a\npension, which he threw from him in a truly characteristic manner.\n\nWhen he came to Paris he composed his musical diversion of the Muses\nGalantes, which was performed (1745) in the presence of Rameau, under\nthe patronage of M. de la Popelini\u00e8re. Rameau apostrophised the unlucky\ncomposer with much violence, declaring that one-half of the piece was\nthe work of a master, while the other was that of a person entirely\nignorant of the musical rudiments; the bad work therefore was\nRousseau's own, and the good was a plagiarism.[228] This repulse did not\ndaunt the hero. Five or six years afterwards on a visit to Passy, as he\nwas lying awake in bed, he conceived the idea of a pastoral interlude\nafter the manner of the Italian comic operas. In six days the Village\nSoothsayer was sketched, and in three weeks virtually completed. Duclos\nprocured its rehearsal at the Opera, and after some debate it was\nperformed before the court at Fontainebleau. The Plutarchian stoic, its\nauthor, went from Paris in a court coach, but his Roman tone deserted\nhim, and he felt shamefaced as a schoolboy before the great world, such\ndivinity doth hedge even a Lewis XV., and even in a soul of Genevan\ntemper. The piece was played with great success, and the composer was\ninformed that he would the next day have the honour of being presented\nto the king, who would most probably mark his favour by the bestowal of\na pension.[229] Rousseau was tossed with many doubts. He would fain have\ngreeted the king with some word that should show sensibility to the\nroyal graciousness, without compromising republican severity, \"clothing\nsome great and useful truth in a fine and deserved compliment.\" This\nmoral difficulty was heightened by a physical one, for he was liable to\nan infirmity which, if it should overtake him in presence of king and\ncourtiers, would land him in an embarrassment worse than death. What\nwould become of him if mind or body should fail, if either he should be\ndriven into precipitate retreat, or else there should escape him,\ninstead of the great truth wrapped delicately round in veracious\npanegyric, a heavy, shapeless word of foolishness? He fled in terror,\nand flung up the chance of pension and patronage. We perceive the born\ndreamer with a phantasmagoric imagination, seizing nothing in just\nproportion and true relation, and paralysing the spirit with terror of\nunrealities; in short, with the most fatal form of moral cowardice,\nwhich perhaps it is a little dangerous to try to analyse into\nfiner names.\n\nWhen Rousseau got back to Paris he was amazed to find that Diderot spoke\nto him of this abandonment of the pension with a fire that he could\nnever have expected from a philosopher, Rousseau plainly sharing the\nopinion of more vulgar souls that philosopher is but fool writ large.\n\"He said that if I was disinterested on my own account, I had no right\nto be so on that of Madame Le Vasseur and her daughter, and that I owed\nit to them not to let pass any possible and honest means of giving them\nbread.... This was the first real dispute I had with him, and all our\nquarrels that followed were of the same kind; he laying down for me what\nhe insisted that I should do, and I refusing because I thought that I\nought not to do it.\"[230]\n\nLet us abstain, at this and all other points, from being too sure that\nwe easily see to the bottom of our Rousseau. When we are most ready to\nfling up the book and to pronounce him all selfishness and sophistry,\nsome trait is at hand to revive moral interest in him, and show him\nunlike common men, reverent of truth and human dignity. There is a\nslight anecdote of this kind connected with his visit to Fontainebleau.\nThe day after the representation of his piece, he happened to be taking\nhis breakfast in some public place. An officer entered, and, proceeding\nto describe the performance of the previous day, told at great length\nall that had happened, depicted the composer with much minuteness, and\ngave a circumstantial account of his conversation. In this story, which\nwas told with equal assurance and simplicity, there was not a word of\ntruth, as was clear from the fact that the author of whom he spoke with\nsuch intimacy sat unknown and unrecognised before his eyes. The effect\non Rousseau was singular enough. \"The man was of a certain age; he had\nno coxcombical or swaggering air; his expression bespoke a man of merit,\nand his cross of St. Lewis showed that he was an old officer. While he\nwas retailing his untruths, I grew red in the face, I lowered my eyes, I\nsat on thorns; I tried to think of some means of believing him to have\nmade a mistake in good faith. At length trembling lest some one should\nrecognise me and confront him, I hastened to finish my chocolate without\nsaying a word; and stooping down as I passed in front of him, I went\nout as fast as possible, while the people present discussed his tale. I\nperceived in the street that I was bathed in sweat, and I am sure that\nif any one had recognised me and called me by name before I got out,\nthey would have seen in me the shame and embarrassment of a culprit,\nsimply from a feeling of the pain the poor man would have had to suffer\nif his lie had been discovered.\"[231] One who can feel thus vividly\nhumiliated by the meanness of another, assuredly has in himself the\nwholesome salt of respect for the erectness of his fellows; he has the\nrare sentiment that the compromise of integrity in one of them is as a\nstain on his own self-esteem, and a lowering of his own moral stature.\nThere is more deep love of humanity in this than in giving many alms,\nand it was not the less deep for being the product of impulse and\nsympathetic emotion, and not of a logical sorites.\n\nAnother scene in a caf\u00e9 is worth referring to, because it shows in the\nsame way that at this time Rousseau's egoism fell short of the\nfatuousness to which disease or vicious habit eventually depraved it. In\n1752 he procured the representation of his comedy of Narcisse, which he\nhad written at the age of eighteen, and which is as well worth reading\nor playing as most comedies by youths of that amount of experience of\nthe ways of the world and the heart of man. Rousseau was amazed and\ntouched by the indulgence of the public, in suffering without any sign\nof impatience even a second representation of his piece. For himself,\nhe could not so much as sit out the first; quitting the theatre before\nit was over, he entered the famous caf\u00e9 de Procope at the other side of\nthe street, where he found critics as wearied as himself. Here he called\nout, \"The new piece has fallen flat, and it deserved to fall flat; it\nwearied me to death. It is by Rousseau of Geneva, and I am that very\nRousseau.\"[232] The relentless student of mental pathology is very\nlikely to insist that even this was egoism standing on its head and not\non its feet, choosing to be noticed for an absurdity, rather than not be\nnoticed at all. It may be so, but this inversion of the ordinary form of\nvanity is rare enough to be not unrefreshing, and we are very loth to\nhand Rousseau wholly over to the pathologist before his hour has come.\n\n\nII.\n\nIn the summer of 1754 Rousseau, in company with his Theresa, went to\nrevisit the city of his birth, partly because an exceptionally\nfavourable occasion presented itself, but in yet greater part because he\nwas growing increasingly weary of the uncongenial world in which he\nmoved. On his road he turned aside to visit her who had been more than\neven his birth-place to him. He felt the shock known to all who cherish\na vision for a dozen years, and then suddenly front the changed reality.\nHe had not prepared himself by recalling the commonplace which we only\nremember for others, how time wears hard and ugly lines into the face\nthat recollection at each new energy makes lovelier with an added\nsweetness. \"I saw her,\" he says, \"but in what a state, O God, in what\ndebasement! Was this the same Madame de Warens, in those days so\nbrilliant, to whom the priest of Pontverre had sent me! How my heart was\ntorn by the sight!\" Alas, as has been said with a truth that daily\nexperience proves to those whom pity and self-knowledge have made most\nindulgent, as to those whom pinched maxims have made most\nrigorous,--_morality is the nature of things_.[233] We may have a humane\ntenderness for our Manon Lescaut, but we have a deep presentiment all\nthe time that the poor soul must die in a penal settlement. It is partly\na question of time; whether death comes fast enough to sweep you out of\nreach of the penalties which the nature of things may appoint, but which\nin their fiercest shape are mostly of the loitering kind. Death was\nunkind to Madame de Warens, and the unhappy creature lived long enough\nto find that morality does mean something after all; that the old hoary\nworld has not fixed on prudence in the outlay of money as a good thing,\nout of avarice or pedantic dryness of heart; nor on some continence and\norder in the relations of men and women as a good thing, out of\ncheerless grudge to the body, but because the breach of such virtues is\never in the long run deadly to mutual trust, to strength, to freedom, to\ncollectedness, which are the reserve of humanity against days of ordeal.\n\nRousseau says that he tried hard to prevail upon his fallen benefactress\nto leave Savoy, to come and take up her abode peacefully with him, while\nhe and Theresa would devote their days to making her happy. He had not\nforgotten her in the little glimpse of prosperity; he had sent her money\nwhen he had it.[234] She was sunk in indigence, for her pension had long\nbeen forestalled, but still she refused to change her home. While\nRousseau was at Geneva she came to see him. \"She lacked money to\ncomplete her journey; I had not enough about me; I sent it to her an\nhour afterwards by Theresa. Poor Maman! Let me relate this trait of her\nheart. The only trinket she had left was a small ring; she took it from\nher finger to place it on Theresa's, who instantly put it back, as she\nkissed the noble hand and bathed it with her tears.\" In after years he\npoured bitter reproaches upon himself for not quitting all to attach his\nlot to hers until her last hour, and he professes always to have been\nhaunted by the liveliest and most enduring remorse.[235] Here is the\nworst of measuring duty by sensation instead of principle; if the\nsensations happen not to be in right order at the critical moment, the\nchance goes by, never to return, and then, as memory in the best of\nsuch temperaments is long though not without intermittence, old\nsentiment revives and drags the man into a burning pit. Rousseau appears\nnot to have seen her again, but the thought of her remained with him to\nthe end, like a soft vesture fragrant with something of the sweet\nmysterious perfume of many-scented night in the silent garden at\nCharmettes. She died in a hovel eight years after this, sunk in disease,\nmisery, and neglect, and was put away in the cemetery on the heights\nabove Chamb\u00e9ri.[236] Rousseau consoled himself with thoughts of another\nworld that should reunite him to her and be the dawn of new happiness;\nlike a man who should illusorily confound the last glistening of a\nwintry sunset seen through dark yew-branches, with the broad-beaming\nstrength of the summer morning. \"If I thought,\" he said, \"that I should\nnot see her in the other life, my poor imagination would shrink from the\nidea of perfect bliss, which I would fain promise myself in it.\"[237] To\npluck so gracious a flower of hope on the edge of the sombre unechoing\ngulf of nothingness into which our friend has slid silently down, is a\nnatural impulse of the sensitive soul, numbing remorse and giving a\nmoment's relief to the hunger and thirst of a tenderness that has been\nrobbed of its object. Yet would not men be more likely to have a deeper\nlove for those about them, and a keener dread of filling a house with\naching hearts, if they courageously realised from the beginning of their\ndays that we have none of this perfect companionable bliss to promise\nourselves in other worlds, that the black and horrible grave is indeed\nthe end of our communion, and that we know one another no more?\n\nThe first interview between Rousseau and Madame de Warens was followed\nby his ludicrous conversion to Catholicism (1728); the last was\ncontemporary with his re-conversion to the faith in which he had been\nreared. The sight of Geneva gave new fire to his Republican enthusiasm;\nhe surrendered himself to transports of patriotic zeal. The thought of\nthe Parisian world that he had left behind, its frivolity, its\npetulance, its disputation over all things in heaven and on the earth,\nits profound deadness to all civic activity, quickened his admiration\nfor the simple, industrious, and independent community from which he\nnever forgot that he was sprung. But no Catholic could enjoy the rights\nof citizenship. So Rousseau proceeded to reflect that the Gospel is the\nsame for all Christians, and the substance of dogma only differs,\nbecause people interposed with explanations of what they could not\nunderstand; that therefore it is in each country the business of the\nsovereign to fix both the worship and the amount and quality of\nunintelligible dogma; that consequently it is the citizen's duty to\nadmit the dogma, and follow the worship by law appointed. \"The society\nof the Encyclop\u00e6dists, far from shaking my faith, had confirmed it by my\nnatural aversion for partisanship and controversy. The reading of the\nBible, especially of the Gospel, to which I had applied myself for\nseveral years, had made me despise the low and childish interpretation\nput upon the words of Christ by the people who were least worthy to\nunderstand him. In a word, philosophy by drawing me towards the\nessential in religion, had drawn me away from that stupid mass of\ntrivial formulas with which men had overlaid and darkened it.\"[238] We\nmay be sure that if Rousseau had a strong inclination towards a given\ncourse of action, he would have no difficulty in putting his case in a\nblaze of the brightest light, and surrounding it with endless emblems\nand devices of superlative conviction. In short, he submitted himself\nfaithfully to the instruction of the pastor of his parish; was closely\ncatechised by a commission of members of the consistory; received from\nthem a certificate that he had satisfied the requirements of doctrine in\nall points; was received to partake of the Communion, and finally\nrestored to all his rights as a citizen.[239]\n\nThis was no farce, such as Voltaire played now and again at the expense\nof an unhappy bishop or unhappier parish priest; nor such as Rousseau\nhimself had played six-and-twenty years before, at the expense of those\nhonest Catholics of Turin whose helpful donation of twenty francs had\nmarked their enthusiasm over a soul that had been lost and was found\nagain. He was never a Catholic, any more than he was ever an atheist,\nand if it might be said in one sense that he was no more a Protestant\nthan he was either of these two, yet he was emphatically the child of\nProtestantism. It is hardly too much to say that one bred in Catholic\ntradition and observance, accustomed to think of the whole life of men\nas only a manifestation of the unbroken life of the Church, and of all\nthe several communities of men as members of that great organisation\nwhich binds one order to another, and each generation to those that have\ngone before and those that come after, would never have dreamed that\nmonstrous dream of a state of nature as a state of perfection. He would\nnever have held up to ridicule and hate the idea of society as an\norganism with normal parts and conditions of growth, and never have left\nthe spirit of man standing in bald isolation from history, from his\nfellows, from a Church, from a mediator, face to face with the great\nvague phantasm. Nor, on the other hand, is it likely that one born and\nreared in the religious school of authority with its elaborately\ndisciplined hierarchy, would have conceived that passion for political\nfreedom, that zeal for the rights of peoples against rulers, that\nenergetic enthusiasm for a free life, which constituted the fire and\nessence of Rousseau's writing. As illustration of this, let us remark\nhow Rousseau's teaching fared when it fell upon a Catholic country like\nFrance: so many of its principles were assimilated by the revolutionary\nschools as were wanted for violent dissolvents, while the rest dropped\naway, and in this rejected portion was precisely the most vital part of\nhis system. In other words, in no country has the power of collective\norganisation been so pressed and exalted as in revolutionised France,\nand in no country has the free life of the individual been made to count\nfor so little. With such force does the ancient system of temporal and\nspiritual organisation reign in the minds of those who think most\nconfidently that they have cast it wholly out of them. The use of reason\nmay lead a man far, but it is the past that has cut the groove.\n\nIn re-embracing the Protestant confession, therefore, Rousseau was not\nleaving Catholicism, to which he had never really passed over; he was\nonly undergoing in entire gravity of spirit a formality which reconciled\nhim with his native city, and reunited those strands of spiritual\nconnection with it which had never been more than superficially parted.\nThere can be little doubt that the four months which he spent in Geneva\nin 1754 marked a very critical time in the formation of some of the most\nmemorable of his opinions. He came from Paris full of inarticulate and\nsmouldering resentment against the irreverence and denial of the\nmaterialistic circle which used to meet at the house of D'Holbach. What\nsort of opinions he found prevailing among the most enlightened of the\nGenevese pastors we know from an abundance of sources. D'Alembert had\nthree or four years later than this to suffer a bitter attack from\nthem, but the account of the creed of some of the ministers which he\ngave in his article on Geneva in the Encyclopedia, was substantially\ncorrect. \"Many of them,\" he wrote, \"have ceased to believe in the\ndivinity of Jesus Christ. Hell, one of the principal points in our\nbelief, is no longer one with many of the Genevese pastors, who contend\nthat it is an insult to the Divinity to imagine that a being full of\ngoodness and justice can be capable of punishing our faults by an\neternity of torment. In a word, they have no other creed than pure\nSocinianism, rejecting everything that they call mysteries, and\nsupposing the first principle of a true religion to be that it shall\npropose nothing for belief which clashes with reason. Religion here is\nalmost reduced to the adoration of one single God, at least among nearly\nall who do not belong to the common people; and a certain respect for\nJesus Christ and the Scriptures is nearly the only thing that\ndistinguishes the Christianity of Geneva from pure Deism.\"[240] And it\nwould be easy to trace the growth of these rationalising tendencies.\nThroughout the seventeenth century men sprang up who anticipated some of\nthe rationalistic arguments of the eighteenth, in denying the Trinity,\nand so forth,[241] but the time was not then ripe. The general\nconditions grew more favourable. Burnet, who was at Geneva in 1685-6,\nsays that though there were not many among the Genevese of the first\nform of learning, \"yet almost everybody here has a good tincture of a\nlearned education.\"[242] The pacification of civic troubles in 1738 was\nfollowed by a quarter of a century of extreme prosperity and\ncontentment, and it is in such periods that the minds of men previously\ntrained are wont to turn to the great matters of speculation. There was\nat all times a constant communication, both public and private, going on\nbetween Geneva and Holland, as was only natural between the two chief\nProtestant centres of the Continent. The controversy of the seventeenth\ncentury between the two churches was as keenly followed in Geneva as at\nLeyden, and there is more than one Genevese writer who deserves a place\nin the history of the transition in the beginning of the eighteenth\ncentury from theology proper to that metaphysical theology, which was\nthe first marked dissolvent of dogma within the Protestant bodies. To\nthis general movement of the epoch, of course, Descartes supplied the\nfirst impulse. The leader of the movement in Geneva, that is of an\nattempt to pacify the Christian churches on the basis of some such Deism\nas was shortly to find its passionate expression in the Savoyard\nVicar's Confession of Faith, was John Alphonse Turretini (1661-1737). He\nbelonged to a family of Italian refugees from Lucca, and his grandfather\nhad been sent on a mission to Holland for aid in defence of Geneva\nagainst Catholic Savoy. He went on his travels in 1692; he visited\nHolland, where he saw Bayle, and England, where he saw Newton, and\nFrance, where he saw Bossuet. Chouet initiated him into the mysteries of\nDescartes. All this bore fruit when he returned home, and his eloquent\nexposition of rationalistic ideas aroused the usual cry of heresy from\nthe people who justly insist that Deism is not Christianity. There was\nmuch stir for many years, but he succeeded in holding his own and in\nfinding many considerable followers.[243] For example, some three years\nor so after his death, a work appeared in Geneva under the title of _La\nReligion Essentielle a l'Homme_, showing that faith in the existence of\na God suffices, and treating with contempt the belief in the\ninspiration of the Gospels.[244]\n\nThus we see what vein of thought was running through the graver and more\nactive minds of Geneva about the time of Rousseau's visit. Whether it be\ntrue or not that the accepted belief of many of the preachers was a pure\nDeism, it is certain that the theory was fully launched among them, and\nthat those who could not accept it were still pressed to refute it, and\nin refuting, to discuss. Rousseau's friendships were according to his\nown account almost entirely among the ministers of religion and the\nprofessors of the academy, precisely the sort of persons who would be\nmost sure to familiarise him, in the course of frequent conversations,\nwith the current religious ideas and the arguments by which they were\nopposed or upheld. We may picture the effect on his mind of the\ndifference in tone and temper in these grave, candid, and careful men,\nand the tone of his Parisian friends in discussing the same high themes;\nhow this difference would strengthen his repugnance, and corroborate his\nown inborn spirit of veneration; how he would here feel himself in his\nown world. For as wise men have noticed, it is not so much difference of\nopinion that stirs resentment in us, at least in great subjects where\nthe difference is not trivial but profound, as difference in gravity of\nhumour and manner of moral approach. He returned to Paris (Oct. 1754)\nwarm with the resolution to give up his concerns there, and in the\nspring go back once and for all to the city of liberty and virtue, where\nmen revered wisdom and reason instead of wasting life in the frivolities\nof literary dialectic.[245]\n\nThe project, however, grew cool. The dedication of his Discourse on\nInequality to the Republic was received with indifference by some and\nindignation by others.[246] Nobody thought it a compliment, and some\nthought it an impertinence. This was one reason which turned his purpose\naside. Another was the fact that the illustrious Voltaire now also\nsigned himself Swiss, and boasted that if he shook his wig the powder\nflew over the whole of the tiny Republic. Rousseau felt certain that\nVoltaire would make a revolution in Geneva, and that he should find in\nhis native country the tone, the air, the manners which were driving him\nfrom Paris. From that moment he counted Geneva lost. Perhaps he ought to\nmake head against the disturber, but what could he do alone, timid and\nbad talker as he was, against a man arrogant, rich, supported by the\ncredit of the great, of brilliant eloquence, and already the very idol\nof women and young men?[247] Perhaps it would not be uncharitable to\nsuspect that this was a reason after the event, for no man was ever so\nfond as Rousseau, or so clever a master in the art, of covering an\naccident in a fine envelope of principle, and, as we shall see, he was\nat this time writing to Voltaire in strains of effusive panegyric. In\nthis case he almost tells us that the one real reason why he did not\nreturn to Geneva was that he found a shelter from Paris close at hand.\nEven before then he had begun to conceive characteristic doubts whether\nhis fellow-citizens at Geneva would not be nearly as hostile to his love\nof living solitarily and after his own fashion as the good people\nof Paris.\n\nRousseau has told us a pretty story, how one day he and Madame d'Epinay\nwandering about the park came upon a dilapidated lodge surrounded by\nfruit gardens, in the skirts of the forest of Montmorency; how he\nexclaimed in delight at its solitary charm that here was the very place\nof refuge made for him; and how on a second visit he found that his good\nfriend had in the interval had the old lodge pulled down, and replaced\nby a pretty cottage exactly arranged for his own household. \"My poor\nbear,\" she said, \"here is your place of refuge; it was you who chose it,\n'tis friendship offers it; I hope it will drive away your cruel notion\nof going from me.\"[248] Though moved to tears by such kindness,\nRousseau did not decide on the spot, but continued to waver for some\ntime longer between this retreat and return to Geneva.\n\nIn the interval Madame d'Epinay had experience of the character she was\ndealing with. She wrote to Rousseau pressing him to live at the cottage\nin the forest, and begging him to allow her to assist him in assuring\nthe moderate annual provision which he had once accidentally declared to\nmark the limit of his wants.[249] He wrote to her bitterly in reply,\nthat her proposition struck ice into his soul, and that she could have\nbut sorry appreciation of her own interests in thus seeking to turn a\nfriend into a valet. He did not refuse to listen to what she proposed,\nif only she would remember that neither he nor his sentiments were for\nsale.[250] Madame d'Epinay wrote to him patiently enough in return, and\nthen Rousseau hastened to explain that his vocabulary needed special\nappreciation, and that he meant by the word valet \"the degradation into\nwhich the repudiation of his principles would throw his soul. The\nindependence I seek is not immunity from work; I am firm for winning my\nown bread, I take pleasure in it; but I mean not to subject myself to\nany other duty, if I can help it. I will never pledge any portion of my\nliberty, either for my own subsistence or that of any one else. I intend\nto work, but at my own will and pleasure, and even to do nothing, if it\nhappens to suit me, without any one finding fault except my\nstomach.\"[251] We may call this unamiable, if we please, but in a\nfrivolous world amiability can hardly go with firm resolve to live an\nindependent life after your own fashion. The many distasteful sides of\nRousseau's character ought not to hinder us from admiring his\nsteadfastness in refusing to sacrifice his existence to the first person\nwho spoke him civilly. We may wish there had been more of rugged\nsimplicity in his way of dealing with temptations to sell his birthright\nfor a mess of pottage; less of mere irritability. But then this\nirritability is one side of soft temperament. The soft temperament is\neasily agitated, and this unpleasant disturbance does not stir up true\nanger nor lasting indignation, but only sends quick currents of eager\nirritation along the sufferer's nerves. Rousseau, quivering from head to\nfoot with self-consciousness, is sufficiently unlike our plain Johnson,\nthe strong-armoured; yet persistent withstanding of the patron is as\nworthy of our honour in one instance as in the other. Indeed, resistance\nto humiliating pressure is harder for such a temper as Rousseau's, in\nwhich deliberate endeavour is needed, than it is for the naturally\nstoical spirit which asserts itself spontaneously and rises\nwithout effort.\n\nWhen our born solitary, wearied of Paris and half afraid of the too\nfriendly importunity of Geneva, at length determined to accept Madame\nd'Epinay's offer of the Hermitage on conditions which left him an\nentire sentiment of independence of movement and freedom from all sense\nof pecuniary obligation, he was immediately exposed to a very copious\ntorrent of pleasantry and remonstrance from the highly social circle who\nmet round D'Holbach's dinner-table. They deemed it sheer midsummer\nmadness, or even a sign of secret depravity, to quit their cheerful\nworld for the dismal solitude of woods and fields. \"Only the bad man is\nalone,\" wrote Diderot in words which Rousseau kept resentfully in his\nmemory as long as he lived. The men and women of the eighteenth century\nhad no comprehension of solitude, the strength which it may impart to\nthe vigorous, the poetic graces which it may shed about the life of\nthose who are less than vigorous; and what they did not comprehend, they\ndreaded and abhorred, and thought monstrous in the one man who did\ncomprehend it. They were all of the mind of Socrates when he said to\nPh\u00e6drus, \"Knowledge is what I love, and the men who dwell in the town\nare my teachers, not trees and landscape.\"[252] Sarcasms fell on him\nlike hail, and the prophecies usual in cases where a stray soul does not\nshare the common tastes of the herd. He would never be able to live\nwithout the incense and the amusements of the town; he would be back in\na fortnight; he would throw up the whole enterprise within three\nmonths.[253] Amid a shower of such words, springing from men's perverse\nblindness to the binding propriety of keeping all propositions as to\nwhat is the best way of living in respect of place, hours,\ncompanionship, strictly relative to each individual case, Rousseau\nstubbornly shook the dust of the city from off his feet, and sought new\nlife away from the stridulous hum of men. Perhaps we are better pleased\nto think of the unwearied Diderot spending laborious days in factories\nand quarries and workshops and forges, while friendly toilers patiently\nexplained to him the structure of stocking looms and velvet looms, the\nprocesses of metal-casting and wire-drawing and slate-cutting, and all\nthe other countless arts and ingenuities of fabrication, which he\nafterwards reproduced to a wondering age in his spacious and magnificent\nrepertory of human thought, knowledge, and practical achievement. And it\nis yet more elevating to us to think of the true stoic, the great\nhigh-souled Turgot, setting forth a little later to discharge beneficent\nduty in the hard field of his distant Limousin commissionership,\nenduring many things and toiling late and early for long years, that the\nburden of others might be lighter, and the welfare of the land more\nassured. But there are many paths for many men, and if only magnanimous\nself-denial has the power of inspiration, and can move us with the deep\nthrill of the heroic, yet every truthful protest, even of excessive\npersonality, against the gregarious trifling of life in the social\ngroove, has a side which it is not ill for us to consider, and perhaps\nfor some men and women in every generation to seek to imitate.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[201] _R\u00e9p. \u00e0 M. Bordes_, 163.\n\n[202] Pictet de Sergy., i. 18.\n\n[203] _Conf._, iv. 248.\n\n[204] _Ib._ ix. 279. Also _Economie Politique_.\n\n[205] Madame de la Popelini\u00e8re, whose adventures and the misadventures\nof her husband are only too well known to the reader of Marmontel's\nMemoirs.\n\n[206] The passages relating to income during his first residence in\nParis (1744-1756) are at pp. 119, 145, 153, 165, 200, 227, in Books\nvii.-ix. of the _Confessions_. Rousseau told Bernardin de St. Pierre\n(_Oeuv._, xii. 74) that Emile was sold for 7000 livres. In the\n_Confessions_ (xi. 126), he says 6000 livres, and one or two hundred\ncopies. It may be worth while to add that Diderot and D'Alembert\nreceived 1200 livres a year apiece for editing the Encyclop\u00e6dia.\nSterne received \u00a3650 for two volumes of _Tristram Shandy_ in 1780.\nWalpole's _Letters_, in. 298.\n\n[207] _Conf._, viii. 154-157.\n\n[208] _Ib._ viii. 160.\n\n[209] _Conf._, viii. 160, 161.\n\n[210] _Ib._ viii. 159.\n\n[211] _R\u00e9veries_, iii 168.\n\n[212] _R\u00eaveries_, iii. 166.\n\n[213] See the _Ep\u00eetre \u00e0 Mdme. la Marquise du Ch\u00e2telet, sur la\nCalomnie_.\n\n[214] _La Femme au 18i\u00e8me si\u00e8cle_, par MM. de Goncourt, p. 40.\n\n[215] Madame d'Epinay's _M\u00e9m._, i. 295.\n\n[216] Quoted in Goncourt's _Femme au 18i\u00e8me si\u00e8cle_, p. 378.\n\n[217] _Ib._, p. 337.\n\n[218] Mdlle. L'Espinasse's _Letters_, ii. 89.\n\n[219] Madame d'Epinay's _M\u00e9m._, ii. 47, 48.\n\n[220] _Ib._, ii. 55.\n\n[221] _M\u00e9m._, Bk. iv. 327.\n\n[222] _Corr. Lit._, iii. 58.\n\n[223] _Ib._, 54.\n\n[224] Madame d'Epinay's _M\u00e9m._, i. 378-381. Saint Lambert formulated\nhis atheism afterwards in the _Cat\u00e9chisme Universel_.\n\n[225] Madame d'Epinay's _M\u00e9m._, i. 443.\n\n[226] _Corr._, i. 317. Sept. 14, 1756.\n\n[227] Letter to Madame de Cr\u00e9qui, 1752. _Corr._, i. 171.\n\n[228] _Conf_,., vii. 104.\n\n[229] The _Devin du Village_ was played at Fontainebleau on October\n18, 1752, and at the Opera in Paris in March 1753. Madame de Pompadour\ntook a part in it in a private performance. See Rousseau's note to\nher, _Corr._, i. 178.\n\n[230] _Conf._, viii. 190.\n\n[231] _Conf._, viii. 183.\n\n[232] _Conf._, viii. 202; and Musset-Pathay, ii. 439. When in\nStrasburg, in 1765, he could not bring himself to be present at its\nrepresentation. _Oeuv. et Corr. In\u00e9d._, p. 434.\n\n[233] Madame de Sta\u00ebl insisted that her father said this, and Necker\ninsisted that it was his daughter's.\n\n[234] _Corr._, i. 176. Feb. 13, 1753.\n\n[235] _Conf._, viii. 208-210.\n\n[236] She died on July 30, 1762, aged \"about sixty-three years.\"\nArthur Young, visiting Chamb\u00e9ri in 1789, with some trouble procured\nthe certificate of her death, which may be found in his _Travels_, i.\n272. See a letter of M. de Conzi\u00e9 to Rousseau, in M.\nStreckeisen-Moultou's collection, ii. 445.\n\n[237] _Conf._, xii. 233.\n\n[238] _Conf._, viii. 210.\n\n[239] Gaberel's _Rousseau et les Genevois_, p. 62. _Conf._, viii. 212.\n\n[240] The venerable Company of Pastors and Professors of the Church\nand Academy of Geneva appointed a committee, as in duty bound, to\nexamine these allegations, and the committee, equally in duty bound,\nreported (Feb. 10, 1758) with mild indignation, that they were\nunfounded, and that the flock was untainted by unseasonable use of its\nmind. See on this Rousseau's _Lettres \u00e9crites de la Montagne_, ii.\n231.\n\n[241] See Picot's _Hist. de Gen\u00e8ve_, ii. 415.\n\n[242] _Letters containing an account of Switzerland, Italy, etc., in\n1685-86._ By G. Burnet, p. 9.\n\n[243] J.A. Turretini's complete works were published as late as 1776,\nincluding among much besides that no longer interests men, an _Oratio\nde Scientiarum Vanitate et Proestantia_ (vol. iii. 437), not at all in\nthe vein of Rousseau's Discourse, and a treatise in four parts, _De\nLegibus Naturalibus_, in which, among other matters, he refutes Hobbes\nand assails the doctrine of Utility (i. 173, etc.), by limiting its\ndefinition to [Greek: to pros heauton] in its narrowest sense. He\nappears to have been a student of Spinoza (i. 326). Francis Turretini,\nhis father, took part in the discussion as to the nature of the treaty\nor contract between God and man, in a piece entitled _Foedus Natur\u00e6 a\nprimo homine ruptum, ejusque Proevaricationem posteris imputatam_\n(1675).\n\n[244] Gaberel's _Eglise de Gen\u00e8ve_, iii. 188.\n\n[245] _Corr._, i. 223 (to Vernes, April 5, 1755).\n\n[246] _Conf._, viii. 215, 216. _Corr._, i. 218 (to Perdriau, Nov. 28,\n1754).\n\n[247] _Conf._, viii. 218.\n\n[248] _Conf._, viii. 217. It is worth noticing as bearing on the\naccuracy of the Confessions, that Madame d'Epinay herself (_M\u00e9m._, ii.\n115) says that when she began to prepare the Hermitage for Rousseau he\nhad never been there, and that she was careful to lead him to believe\nthat the expense had not been incurred for him. Moreover her letter to\nhim describing it could only have been written to one who had not seen\nit, and though her Memoirs are full of sheer imagination and romance,\nthe documents in them are substantially authentic, and this letter is\nshown to be so by Rousseau's reply to it.\n\n[249] _M\u00e9m._, ii. 116.\n\n[250] _Corr._ (1755), i. 242.\n\n[251] _Corr._, i. 245.\n\n[252] _Ph\u00e6drus_, 230.\n\n[253] _Conf._, viii. 221, etc.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE HERMITAGE.\n\n\nIt would have been a strange anachronism if the decade of the\nEncyclop\u00e6dia and the Seven Years' War had reproduced one of those scenes\nwhich are as still resting-places amid the ceaseless forward tramp of\nhumanity, where some holy man turned away from the world, and with\nadorable seriousness sought communion with the divine in mortification\nof flesh and solitude of spirit. Those were the retreats of firm hope\nand beatified faith. The hope and faith of the eighteenth century were\ncentred in action, not in contemplation, and the few solitaries of that\nepoch, as well as of another nearer to our own, fled away from the\nimpotence of their own will, rather than into the haven of satisfied\nconviction and clear-eyed acceptance. Only one of them--Wordsworth, the\npoetic hermit of our lakes--impresses us in any degree like one of the\ngreat individualities of the ages when men not only craved for the\nunseen, but felt the closeness of its presence over their heads and\nabout their feet. The modern anchorite goes forth in the spirit of the\npreacher who declared all the things that are under the sun to be\nvanity, not in the transport of the saint who knew all the things that\nare under the sun to be no more than the shadow of a dream in the light\nof a celestial brightness to come.\n\nRousseau's mood, deeply tinged as it was by bitterness against society\nand circumstance, still contained a strong positive element in his\nnative exultation in all natural objects and processes, which did not\nleave him vacantly brooding over the evil of the world he had quitted.\nThe sensuousness that penetrated him kept his sympathy with life\nextraordinarily buoyant, and all the eager projects for the disclosure\nof a scheme of wisdom became for a time the more vividly desired, as the\ngeneral tide of desire flowed more fully within him. To be surrounded\nwith the simplicity of rural life was with him not only a stimulus, but\nan essential condition to free intellectual energy. Many a time, he\nsays, when making excursions into the country with great people, \"I was\nso tired of fine rooms, fountains, artificial groves and flower beds,\nand the still more tiresome people who displayed all these; I was so\nworn out with pamphlets, card-playing, music, silly jokes, stupid airs,\ngreat suppers, that as I spied a poor hawthorn copse, a hedge, a\nfarmstead, a meadow, as in passing through a hamlet I snuffed the odour\nof a good chervil omelette, as I heard from a distance the rude refrain\nof the shepherd's songs, I used to wish at the devil the whole tale of\nrouge and furbelows.\"[254] He was no anchorite proper, one weary of the\nworld and waiting for the end, but a man with a strong dislike for one\nkind of life and a keen liking for another kind. He thought he was now\nabout to reproduce the old days of the Charmettes, true to his\ninveterate error that one may efface years and accurately replace a\npast. He forgot that instead of the once vivacious and tender\nbenefactress who was now waiting for slow death in her hovel, his\nhouse-mates would be a poor dull drudge and her vile mother. He forgot,\ntoo, that since those days the various processes of intellectual life\nhad expanded within him, and produced a busy fermentation which makes a\nman's surroundings very critical. Finally, he forgot that in proportion\nas a man suffers the smooth course of his thought to depend on anything\nexternal, whether on the greenness of the field or the gaiety of the\nstreet or the constancy of friends, so comes he nearer to chance of\nmaking shipwreck. Hence his tragedy, though the very root of the tragedy\nlay deeper,--in temperament.\n\n\nI.\n\nRousseau's impatience drove him into the country almost before the walls\nof his little house were dry (April 9, 1756). \"Although it was cold, and\nsnow still lay upon the ground, the earth began to show signs of life;\nviolets and primroses were to be seen; the buds on the trees were\nbeginning to shoot; and the very night of my arrival was marked by the\nfirst song of the nightingale. I heard it close to my window in a wood\nthat touched the house. After a light sleep I awoke, forgetting that I\nwas transplanted; I thought myself still in the Rue de Grenelle, when in\nan instant the warbling of the birds made me thrill with delight. My\nvery first care was to surrender myself to the impression of the rustic\nobjects about me. Instead of beginning by arranging things inside my\nquarters, I first set about planning my walks, and there was not a path\nnor a copse nor a grove round my cottage which I had not found out\nbefore the end of the next day. The place, which was lonely rather than\nwild, transported me in fancy to the end of the world, and no one could\never have dreamed that we were only four leagues from Paris.\"[255]\n\nThis rural delirium, as he justly calls it, lasted for some days, at the\nend of which he began seriously to apply himself to work. But work was\ntoo soon broken off by a mood of vehement exaltation, produced by the\nstimulus given to all his senses by the new world of delight in which he\nfound himself. This exaltation was in a different direction from that\nwhich had seized him half a dozen years before, when he had discarded\nthe usage and costume of politer society, and had begun to conceive an\nangry contempt for the manners, prejudices, and maxims of his time.\nRestoration to a more purely sensuous atmosphere softened this\nausterity. No longer having the vices of a great city before his eyes,\nhe no longer cherished the wrath which they had inspired in him. \"When I\ndid not see men, I ceased to despise them; and when I had not the bad\nbefore my eyes, I ceased to hate them. My heart, little made as it is\nfor hate, now did no more than deplore their wretchedness, and made no\ndistinction between their wretchedness and their badness. This state, so\nmuch more mild, if much less sublime, soon dulled the glowing enthusiasm\nthat had long transported me.\"[256] That is to say, his nature remained\nfor a moment not exalted but fairly balanced. It was only for a moment.\nAnd in studying the movements of impulse and reflection in him at this\ncritical time of his life, we are hurried rapidly from phase to phase.\nOnce more we are watching a man who lived without either intellectual or\nspiritual direction, swayed by a reminiscence, a passing mood, a\npersonality accidentally encountered, by anything except permanent aim\nand fixed objects, and who would at any time have surrendered the most\ndeliberately pondered scheme of persistent effort to the fascination of\na cottage slumbering in a bounteous landscape. Hence there could be no\nnormally composed state for him; the first soothing effect of the rich\nlife of forest and garden on a nature exasperated by the life of the\ntown passed away, and became transformed into an exaltation that swept\nthe stoic into space, leaving sensuousness to sovereign and uncontrolled\ntriumph, until the delight turned to its inevitable ashes and\nbitterness.\n\nAt first all was pure and delicious. In after times when pain made him\ngloomily measure the length of the night, and when fever prevented him\nfrom having a moment of sleep, he used to try to still his suffering by\nrecollection of the days that he had passed in the woods of Montmorency,\nwith his dog, the birds, the deer, for his companions. \"As I got up with\nthe sun to watch his rising from my garden, if I saw the day was going\nto be fine, my first wish was that neither letters nor visits might come\nto disturb its charm. After having given the morning to divers tasks\nwhich I fulfilled with all the more pleasure that I could put them off\nto another time if I chose, I hastened to eat my dinner, so as to escape\nfrom the importunate and make myself a longer afternoon. Before one\no'clock, even on days of fiercest heat, I used to start in the blaze of\nthe sun, along with my faithful Achates, hurrying my steps lest some one\nshould lay hold of me before I could get away. But when I had once\npassed a certain corner, with what beating of the heart, with what\nradiant joy, did I begin to breathe freely, as I felt myself safe and my\nown master for the rest of the day! Then with easier pace I went in\nsearch of some wild and desert spot in the forest, where there was\nnothing to show the hand of man, or to speak of servitude and\ndomination; some refuge where I could fancy myself its discoverer, and\nwhere no inopportune third person came to interfere between nature and\nme. She seemed to spread out before my eyes a magnificence that was\nalways new. The gold of the broom and the purple of the heather struck\nmy eyes with a glorious splendour that went to my very heart; the\nmajesty of the trees that covered me with their shadow, the delicacy of\nthe shrubs that surrounded me, the astonishing variety of grasses and\nflowers that I trod under foot, kept my mind in a continual alternation\nof attention and delight.... My imagination did not leave the earth thus\nsuperbly arrayed without inhabitants. I formed a charming society, of\nwhich I did not feel myself unworthy; I made a golden age to please my\nown fancy, and filling up these fair days with all those scenes of my\nlife that had left sweet memories behind, and all that my heart could\nyet desire or hope in scenes to come, I waxed tender even to shedding\ntears over the true pleasures of humanity, pleasures so delicious, so\npure, and henceforth so far from the reach of men. Ah, if in such\nmoments any ideas of Paris, of the age, of my little aureole as author,\ncame to trouble my dreams, with what disdain did I drive them out, to\ndeliver myself without distraction to the exquisite sentiments of which\nI was so full. Yet in the midst of it all, the nothingness of my\nchimeras sometimes broke sadly upon my mind. Even if every dream had\nsuddenly been transformed into reality, it would not have been enough;\nI should have dreamed, imagined, yearned still.\" Alas, this deep\ninsatiableness of sense, the dreary vacuity of soul that follows fulness\nof animal delight, the restless exactingness of undirected imagination,\nwas never recognised by Rousseau distinctly enough to modify either his\nconduct or his theory of life. He filled up the void for a short space\nby that sovereign aspiration, which changed the dead bones of old\ntheology into the living figure of a new faith. \"From the surface of the\nearth I raised my ideas to all the existences in nature, to the\nuniversal system of things, to the incomprehensible Being who embraces\nall. Then with mind lost in that immensity, I did not think, I did not\nreason, I did not philosophise; with a sort of pleasure I felt\noverwhelmed by the weight of the universe, I surrendered myself to the\nravishing confusion of these vast ideas. I loved to lose myself in\nimagination in immeasurable space; within the limits of real existences\nmy heart was too tightly compressed; in the universe I was stifled; I\nwould fain have launched myself into the infinite. I believe that if I\nhad unveiled all the mysteries of nature, I should have found myself in\na less delicious situation than that bewildering ecstasy to which my\nmind so unreservedly delivered itself, and which sometimes transported\nme until I cried out, 'O mighty Being! O mighty Being!' without power of\nany other word or thought.\"[257]\n\nIt is not wholly insignificant that though he could thus expand his\nsoul with ejaculatory delight in something supreme, he could not endure\nthe sight of one of his fellow-creatures. \"If my gaiety lasted the whole\nnight, that showed that I had passed the day alone; I was very different\nafter I had seen people, for I was rarely content with others and never\nwith myself. Then in the evening I was sure to be in taciturn or\nscolding humour.\" It is not in every condition that effervescent passion\nfor ideal forms of the religious imagination assists sympathy with the\nreal beings who surround us. And to this let us add that there are\nnatures in which all deep emotion is so entirely associated with the\nideal, that real and particular manifestations of it are repugnant to\nthem as something alien; and this without the least insincerity, though\nwith a vicious and disheartening inconsistency. Rousseau belonged to\nthis class, and loved man most when he saw men least. Bad as this was,\nit does not justify us in denouncing his love of man as artificial; it\nwas one side of an ideal exaltation, which stirred the depths of his\nspirit with a force as genuine as that which is kindled in natures of\nanother type by sympathy with the real and concrete, with the daily walk\nand conversation and actual doings and sufferings of the men and women\nwhom we know. The fermentation which followed his arrival at the\nHermitage, in its first form produced a number of literary schemes. The\nidea of the Political Institutions, first conceived at Venice, pressed\nupon his meditations. He had been earnestly requested to compose a\ntreatise on education. Besides this, his thoughts wandered confusedly\nround the notion of a treatise to be called Sensitive Morality, or the\nMaterialism of the Sage, the object of which was to examine the\ninfluence of external agencies, such as light, darkness, sound, seasons,\nfood, noise, silence, motion, rest, on our corporeal machine, and thus\nindirectly upon the soul also. By knowing these and acquiring the art of\nmodifying them according to our individual needs, we should become surer\nof ourselves and fix a deeper constancy in our lives. An external system\nof treatment would thus be established, which would place and keep the\nsoul in the condition most favourable to virtue.[258] Though the\ntreatise was never completed, and the sketch never saw the light, we\nperceive at least that Rousseau would have made the means of access to\ncharacter wide enough, and the material influences that impress it and\nproduce its caprices, multitudinous enough, instead of limiting them\nwith the medical specialist to one or two organs, and one or two of the\nconditions that affect them. Nor, on the other hand, do the words in\nwhich he sketches his project in the least justify the attribution to\nhim of the doctrine of the absolute power of the physical constitution\nover the moral habits, whether that doctrine would be a credit or a\ndiscredit to his philosophical thoroughness of perception. No one denies\nthe influence of external conditions on the moral habits, and Rousseau\nsays no more than that he proposed to consider the extent and the\nmodifiableness of this influence. It was not then deemed essential for a\nspiritualist thinker to ignore physical organisation.\n\nA third undertaking of a more substantial sort was to arrange and edit\nthe papers and printed works of the Abb\u00e9 de Saint Pierre (1658-1743),\nconfided to him through the agency of Saint Lambert, and partly also of\nMadame Dupin, the warm friend of that singular and good man.[259] This\ntask involved reading, considering, and picking extracts from\ntwenty-three diffuse and chaotic volumes, full of prolixity and\nrepetition. Rousseau, dreamer as he was, yet had quite keenness of\nperception enough to discern the weakness of a dreamer of another sort;\nand he soon found out that the Abb\u00e9 de Saint Pierre's views were\nimpracticable, in consequence of the author's fixed idea that men are\nguided rather by their lights than by their passions. In fact, Saint\nPierre was penetrated with the eighteenth-century faith to a peculiar\ndegree. As with Condorcet afterwards, he was led by his admiration for\nthe extent of modern knowledge to adopt the principle that perfected\nreason is capable of being made the base of all institutions, and would\nspeedily terminate all the great abuses of the world. \"He went wrong,\"\nsays Rousseau, \"not merely in having no other passion but that of\nreason, but by insisting on making all men like himself, instead of\ntaking them as they are and as they will continue to be.\" The critic's\nown error in later days was not very different from this, save that it\napplied to the medium in which men live, rather than to themselves, by\nrefusing to take complex societies as they are, even as starting-points\nfor higher attempts at organisation. Rousseau had occasionally seen the\nold man, and he preserved the greatest veneration for his memory,\nspeaking of him as the honour of his age and race, with a fulness of\nenthusiasm very unusual towards men, though common enough towards\ninanimate nature. The sincerity of this respect, however, could not make\nthe twenty-three volumes which the good man had written, either fewer in\nnumber or lighter in contents, and after dealing as well as he could\nwith two important parts of Saint Pierre's works, he threw up the\ntask.[260] It must not be supposed that Rousseau would allow that\nfatigue or tedium had anything to do with a resolve which really needed\nno better justification. As we have seen before, he had amazing skill in\nfinding a certain ingeniously contrived largeness for his motives. Saint\nPierre's writings were full of observations on the government of France,\nsome of them remarkably bold in their criticism, but he had not been\npunished for them because the ministers always looked upon him as a\nkind of preacher rather than a genuine politician, and he was allowed to\nsay what he pleased, because it was observed that no one listened to\nwhat he said. Besides, he was a Frenchman, and Rousseau was not, and\nhence the latter, in publishing Saint Pierre's strictures on French\naffairs, was exposing himself to a sharp question why he meddled with a\ncountry that did not concern him. \"It surprised me,\" says Rousseau,\n\"that the reflection had not occurred to me earlier,\" but this\ncoincidence of the discovery that the work was imprudent, with the\ndiscovery that he was weary of it, will surprise nobody versed in study\nof a man who lives in his sensations, and yet has vanity enough to\ndislike to admit it.\n\nThe short remarks which Rousseau appended to his abridgment of Saint\nPierre's essays on Perpetual Peace, and on a Polysynodia, or Plurality\nof Councils, are extremely shrewd and pointed, and would suffice to show\nus, if there were nothing else to do so, the right kind of answer to\nmake to the more harmful dreams of the Social Contract. Saint Pierre's\nfault is said, with entire truth, to be a failure to make his views\nrelative to men, to times, to circumstances; and there is something that\nstartles us when we think whose words we are reading, in the declaration\nthat, \"whether an existing government be still that of old times, or\nwhether it have insensibly undergone a change of nature, it is equally\nimprudent to touch it: if it is the same, it must be respected, and if\nit has degenerated, that is due to the force of time and circumstance,\nand human sagacity is powerless.\" Rousseau points to France, asking his\nreaders to judge the peril of once moving by an election the enormous\nmasses comprising the French monarchy; and in another place, after a\nwise general remark on the futility of political machinery without men\nof a certain character, he illustrates it by this scornful question:\nWhen you see all Paris in a ferment about the rank of a dancer or a wit,\nand the affairs of the academy or the opera making everybody forget the\ninterest of the ruler and the glory of the nation, what can you hope\nfrom bringing political affairs close to such a people, and removing\nthem from the court to the town?[261] Indeed, there is perhaps not one\nof these pages which Burke might not well have owned.[262]\n\nA violent and prolonged crisis followed this not entirely unsuccessful\neffort after sober and laborious meditation. Rousseau was now to find\nthat if society has its perils, so too has solitude, and that if there\nis evil in frivolous complaisance for the puppet-work of a world that is\nonly a little serious, so there is evil in a passionate tenderness for\nphantoms of an imaginary world that is not serious at all. To the pure\nor stoical soul the solitude of the forest is strength, but then the\nimagination must know the yoke. Rousseau's imagination, in no way of the\nstrongest either as receptive or inventive, was the free accomplice of\nhis sensations. The undisciplined force of animal sensibility gradually\nrose within him, like a slowly welling flood. The spectacle does not\neither brighten or fortify the student's mind, yet if there are such\nstates, it is right that those who care to speak of human nature should\nhave an opportunity of knowing its less glorious parts. They may be\npresumed to exist, though in less violent degree, in many people whom we\nmeet in the street and at the table, and there can be nothing but danger\nin allowing ourselves to be so narrowed by our own virtuousness,\nviciousness being conventionally banished to the remoter region of the\nthird person, as to forget the presence of \"the brute brain within the\nman's.\" In Rousseau's case, at any rate, it was no wicked broth nor\nmagic potion that \"confused the chemic labour of the blood,\" but the too\npotent wine of the joyful beauty of nature herself, working misery in a\nmental structure that no educating care nor envelope of circumstance had\never hardened against her intoxication. Most of us are protected against\nthis subtle debauch of sensuous egoism by a cool organisation, while\neven those who are born with senses and appetites of great strength and\nkeenness, are guarded by accumulated discipline of all kinds from\nwithout, especially by the necessity for active industry which brings\nthe most exaggerated native sensibility into balance. It is the constant\nand rigorous social parade which keeps the eager regiment of the senses\nfrom making furious rout. Rousseau had just repudiated all social\nobligation, and he had never gone through external discipline. He was at\nan age when passion that has never been broken in has the beak of the\nbald vulture, tearing and gnawing a man; but its first approach is in\nfair shapes.\n\nWandering and dreaming \"in the sweetest season of the year, in the month\nof June, under the fresh groves, with the song of the nightingale and\nthe soft murmuring of the brooks in his ear,\" he began to wonder\nrestlessly why he had never tasted in their plenitude the vivid\nsentiments which he was conscious of possessing in reserve, or any of\nthat intoxicating delight which he felt potentially existent in his\nsoul. Why had he been created with faculties so exquisite, to be left\nthus unused and unfruitful? The feeling of his own quality, with this of\na certain injustice and waste superadded, brought warm tears which he\nloved to let flow. Visions of the past, from girl playmates of his youth\ndown to the Venetian courtesan, thronged in fluttering tumult into his\nbrain. He saw himself surrounded by a seraglio of houris whom he had\nknown, until his blood was all aflame and his head in a whirl. His\nimagination was kindled into deadly activity. \"The impossibility of\nreaching to the real beings plunged me into the land of chimera; and\nseeing nothing actual that rose to the height of my delirium, I\nnourished it in an ideal world, which my creative imagination had soon\npeopled with beings after my heart's desire. In my continual ecstasies,\nI made myself drunk with torrents of the most delicious sentiments that\never entered the heart of man. Forgetting absolutely the whole human\nrace, I invented for myself societies of perfect creatures, as heavenly\nfor their virtues as their beauties; sure, tender, faithful friends,\nsuch as I never found in our nether world. I had such a passion for\nhaunting this empyrean with all its charming objects, that I passed\nhours and days in it without counting them as they went by; and losing\nrecollection of everything else, I had hardly swallowed a morsel in hot\nhaste, before I began to burn to run off in search of my beloved groves.\nIf, when I was ready to start for the enchanted world, I saw unhappy\nmortals coming to detain me on the dull earth, I could neither moderate\nnor hide my spleen, and, no longer master over myself, I used to give\nthem greeting so rough that it might well be called brutal.\"[263]\n\nThis terrific malady was something of a very different kind from the\ntranquil sensuousness of the days in Savoy, when the blood was young,\nand life was not complicated with memories, and the sweet freshness of\nnature made existence enough. Then his supreme expansion had been\nattended with a kind of divine repose, and had found edifying voice in\ndevout acknowledgment in the exhilaration of the morning air of the\ngoodness and bounty of a beneficent master. In this later and more\npitiable time the beneficent master hid himself, and creation was only\nnot a blank because it was veiled by troops of sirens not in the flesh.\nNature without the association of some living human object, like Madame\nde Warens, was a poison to Rousseau, until the advancing years which\nslowly brought decay of sensual force thus brought the antidote. At our\npresent point we see one stricken with an ugly disease. It was almost\nmercy when he was laid up with a sharp attack of the more painful, but\nfar less absorbing and frightful disorder, to which Rousseau was subject\nall his life long. It gave pause to what he misnames his angelic loves.\n\"Besides that one can hardly think of love when suffering anguish, my\nimagination, which is animated by the country and under the trees,\nlanguishes and dies in a room and under roof-beams.\" This interval he\nemployed with some magnanimity, in vindicating the ways and economy of\nProvidence, in the letter to Voltaire which we shall presently examine.\nThe moment he could get out of doors again into the forest, the\ntransport returned, but this time accompanied with an active effort in\nthe creative faculties of his mind to bring the natural relief to these\nover-wrought paroxysms of sensual imagination. He soothed his emotions\nby associating them with the life of personages whom he invented, and by\nintroducing into them that play and movement and changing relation which\nprevented them from bringing his days to an end in malodorous fever. The\negoism of persistent invention and composition was at least better than\nthe egoism of mere unreflecting ecstasy in the charm of natural\nobjects, and took off something from the violent excess of sensuous\nforce. His thought became absorbed in two female figures, one dark and\nthe other fair, one sage and the other yielding, one gentle and the\nother quick, analogous in character but different, not handsome but\nanimated by cheerfulness and feeling. To one of these he gave a lover,\nto whom the other was a tender friend. He planted them all, after much\ndeliberation and some changes, on the shores of his beloved lake at\nVevay, the spot where his benefactress was born, and which he always\nthought the richest and loveliest in all Europe.\n\nThis vicarious or reflected egoism, accompanied as it was by a certain\namount of productive energy, seemed to mark a return to a sort of moral\nconvalescence. He walked about the groves with pencil and tablets,\nassigning this or that thought or expression to one or other of the\nthree companions of his fancy. When the bad weather set in, and he was\nconfined to the house (the winter of 1756-7), he tried to resume his\nordinary indoor labour, the copying of music and the compilation of his\nMusical Dictionary. To his amazement he found that this was no longer\npossible. The fever of that literary composition of which he had always\nsuch dread had strong possession of him. He could see nothing on any\nside but the three figures and the objects about them made beautiful by\nhis imagination. Though he tried hard to dismiss them, his resistance\nwas vain, and he set himself to bringing some order into his thoughts\n\"so as to produce a kind of romance.\" We have a glimpse of his mental\nstate in the odd detail, that he could not bear to write his romance on\nanything but the very finest paper with gilt edges; that the powder with\nwhich he dried the ink was of azure and sparkling silver; and that he\ntied up the quires with delicate blue riband.[264] The distance from all\nthis to the state of nature is obviously very great indeed. It must not\nbe supposed that he forgot his older part as Cato, Brutus, and the other\nPlutarchians. \"My great embarrassment,\" he says honestly, \"was that I\nshould belie myself so clearly and thoroughly. After the severe\nprinciples I had just been laying down with so much bustle, after the\naustere maxims I had preached so energetically, after so many biting\ninvectives against the effeminate books that breathed love and soft\ndelights, could anything be imagined more shocking, more unlooked-for,\nthan to see me inscribe myself with my own hand among the very authors\non whose books I had heaped this harsh censure? I felt this\ninconsequence in all its force, I taxed myself with it, I blushed over\nit, and was overcome with mortification; but nothing could restore me to\nreason.\"[265] He adds that perhaps on the whole the composition of the\nNew Helo\u00efsa was turning his madness to the best account. That may be\ntrue, but does not all this make the bitter denunciation, in the Letter\nto D'Alembert, of love and of all who make its representation a\nconsiderable element in literature or the drama, at the very time when\nhe was composing one of the most dangerously attractive romances of his\ncentury, a rather indecent piece of invective? We may forgive\ninconsistency when it is only between two of a man's theories, or two\nself-concerning parts of his conduct, but hardly when it takes the form\nof reviling in others what the reviler indulgently permits to himself.\n\nWe are more edified by the energy with which Rousseau refused connivance\nwith the public outrages on morality perpetrated by a patron. M.\nd'Epinay went to pay him a visit at the Hermitage, taking with him two\nladies with whom his relations were less than equivocal, and for whom\namong other things he had given Rousseau music to copy. \"They were\ncurious to see the eccentric man,\" as M. d'Epinay afterwards told his\nscandalised wife, for it was in the manners of the day on no account to\nparade even the most notorious of these unblessed connections. \"He was\nwalking in front of the door; he saw me first; he advanced cap in hand;\nhe saw the ladies; he saluted us, put on his cap, turned his back, and\nstalked off as fast as he could. Can anything be more mad?\"[266] In the\nmiserable and intricate tangle of falsity, weakness, sensuality, and\nquarrel, which make up this chapter in Rousseau's life, we are glad of\neven one trait of masculine robustness. We should perhaps be still more\nglad if the unwedded Theresa were not visible in the background of this\nscene of high morals.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe New Helo\u00efsa was not to be completed without a further extension of\nmorbid experience of a still more burning kind than the sufferings of\ncompressed passion. The feverish torment of mere visions of the air\nswarming impalpable in all his veins, was replaced when the earth again\nbegan to live and the sap to stir in plants, by the more concentred fire\nof a consuming passion for one who was no dryad nor figure of a dream.\nIn the spring of 1757 he received a visit from Madame d'Houdetot, the\nsister-in-law of Madame d'Epinay.[267] Her husband had gone to the war\n(we are in the year of Rossbach), and so had her lover, Saint Lambert,\nwhose passion had been so fatal to Voltaire's Marquise du Ch\u00e2telet eight\nyears before. She rode over in man's guise to the Hermitage from a house\nnot very far off, where she was to pass her retreat during the absence\nof her two natural protectors. Rousseau had seen her before on various\noccasions; she had been to the Hermitage the previous year, and had\npartaken of its host's homely fare.[268] But the time was not ripe; the\nforce of a temptation is not from without but within. Much, too,\ndepended with our hermit on the temperature; one who would have been a\nvery ordinary mortal to him in cold and rain, might grow to Aphrodite\nherself in days when the sun shone hot and the air was aromatic. His\nfancy was suddenly struck with the romantic guise of the female\ncavalier, and this was the first onset of a veritable intoxication,\nwhich many men have felt, but which no man before or since ever invited\nthe world to hear the story of. He may truly say that after the first\ninterview with her in this disastrous spring, he was as one who had\nthirstily drained a poisoned bowl. A sort of palsy struck him. He lay\nweeping in his bed at night, and on days when he did not see the\nsorceress he wept in the woods.[269] He talked to himself for hours, and\nwas of a black humour to his house-mates. When approaching the object of\nthis deadly fascination, his whole organisation seemed to be dissolved.\nHe walked in a dream that filled him with a sense of sickly torture,\ncommixed with sicklier delight.\n\nPeople speak with precisely marked division of mind and body, of will,\nemotion, understanding; the division is good in logic, but its\nconvenient lines are lost to us as we watch a being with soul all\nblurred, body all shaken, unstrung, poisoned, by erotic mania, rising in\nslow clouds of mephitic steam from suddenly heated stagnancies of the\nblood, and turning the reality of conduct and duty into distant\nunmeaning shadows. If such a disease were the furious mood of the brute\nin spring-time, it would be less dreadful, but shame and remorse in the\never-struggling reason of man or woman in the grip of the foul thing,\nproduces an aggravation of frenzy that makes the mental healer tremble.\nAdd to all this lurking elements of hollow rage that his passion was not\nreturned; of stealthy jealousy of the younger man whose place he could\nnot take, and who was his friend besides; of suspicion that he was a\nlittle despised for his weakness by the very object of it, who saw that\nhis hairs were sprinkled with gray,--and the whole offers a scene of\nmoral humiliation that half sickens, half appals, and we turn away with\ndismay as from a vision of the horrid loves of heavy-eyed and scaly\nshapes that haunted the warm primeval ooze.\n\nMadame d'Houdetot, the unwilling enchantress bearing in an unconscious\nhand the cup of defilement, was not strikingly singular either in\nphysical or mental attraction. She was now seven-and-twenty. Small-pox,\nthe terrible plague of the country, had pitted her face and given a\nyellowish tinge to her complexion; her features were clumsy and her brow\nlow; she was short-sighted, and in old age at any rate was afflicted by\nan excessive squint. This homeliness was redeemed by a gentle and\ncaressing expression, and by a sincerity, a gaiety of heart, and free\nsprightliness of manner, that no trouble could restrain. Her figure was\nvery slight, and there was in all her movements at once awkwardness and\ngrace. She was natural and simple, and had a fairly good judgment of a\nmodest kind, in spite of the wild sallies in which her spirits sometimes\nfound vent. Capable of chagrin, she was never prevented by it from\nyielding to any impulse of mirth. \"She weeps with the best faith in the\nworld, and breaks out laughing at the same moment; never was anybody so\nhappily born,\" says her much less amiable sister-in-law.[270] Her\nhusband was indifferent to her. He preserved an attachment to a lady\nwhom he knew before his marriage, whose society he never ceased to\nfrequent, and who finally died in his arms in 1793. Madame d'Houdetot\nfound consolation in the friendship of Saint Lambert. \"We both of us,\"\nsaid her husband, \"both Madame d'Houdetot and I, had a vocation for\nfidelity, only there was a mis-arrangement.\" She occasionally composed\nverses of more than ordinary point, but she had good sense enough not to\nwrite them down, nor to set up on the strength of them for poetess and\nwit.[271] Her talk in her later years, and she lived down to the year of\nLeipsic, preserved the pointed sententiousness of earlier time. One day,\nfor instance, in the era of the Directory, a conversation was going on\nas to the various merits and defects of women; she heard much, and then\nwith her accustomed suavity of voice contributed this light\nsummary:--\"Without women, the life of man would be without aid at the\nbeginning, without pleasure in the middle, and without solace at the\nend.\"[272]\n\nWe may be sure that it was not her power of saying things of this sort\nthat kindled Rousseau's flame, but rather the sprightly naturalness,\nfrankness, and kindly softness of a character which in his opinion\nunited every virtue except prudence and strength, the two which Rousseau\nwould be least likely to miss. The bond of union between them was\nsubtle. She found in Rousseau a sympathetic listener while she told the\nstory of her passion for Saint Lambert, and a certain contagious force\nproduced in him a thrill which he never felt with any one else before or\nafter. Thus, as he says, there was equally love on both sides, though it\nwas not reciprocal. \"We were both of us intoxicated with passion, she\nfor her lover, I for her; our sighs and sweet tears mingled. Tender\nconfidants, each of the other, our sentiments were of such close kin\nthat it was impossible for them not to mix; and still she never forgot\nher duty for a moment, while for myself, I protest, I swear, that if\nsometimes drawn astray by my senses, still\"--still he was a paragon of\nvirtue, subject to rather new definition. We can appreciate the author\nof the New Helo\u00efsa; we can appreciate the author of Emilius; but this\nstrained attempt to confound those two very different persons by\ncombining tearful erotics with high ethics, is an exhibition of\nself-delusion that the most patient analyst of human nature might well\nfind hard to suffer. \"The duty of privation exalted my soul. The glory\nof all the virtues adorned the idol of my heart in my sight; to soil its\ndivine image would have been to annihilate it,\" and so forth.[273]\nMoon-lighted landscape gave a background for the sentimentalist's\npicture, and dim groves, murmuring cascades, and the soft rustle of the\nnight air, made up a scene which became for its chief actor \"an immortal\nmemory of innocence and delight.\" \"It was in this grove, seated with her\non a grassy bank, under an acacia heavy with flowers, that I found\nexpression for the emotions of my heart in words that were worthy of\nthem. 'Twas the first and single time of my life; but I was sublime, if\nyou can use the word of all the tender and seductive things that the\nmost glowing love can bring into the heart of a man. What intoxicating\ntears I shed at her knees, what floods she shed in spite of herself! At\nlength in an involuntary transport, she cried out, 'Never was man so\ntender, never did man love as you do! But your friend Saint Lambert\nhears us, and my heart cannot love twice.'\"[274] Happily, as we learn\nfrom another source, a breath of wholesome life from without brought the\ntranscendental to grotesque end. In the climax of tears and\nprotestations, an honest waggoner at the other side of the park wall,\nurging on a lagging beast launched a round and far-sounding oath out\ninto the silent night. Madame d'Houdetot answered with a lively\ncontinuous peal of young laughter, while an angry chill brought back the\ndiscomfited lover from an ecstasy that was very full of peril.[275]\n\nRousseau wrote in the New Helo\u00efsa very sagely that you should grant to\nthe senses nothing when you mean to refuse them anything. He admits that\nthe saying was falsified by his relations with Madame d'Houdetot.\nClearly the credit of this happy falsification was due to her rather\nthan to himself. What her feelings were, it is not very easy to see.\nHonest pity seems to have been the strongest of them. She was idle and\nunoccupied, and idleness leaves the soul open for much stray generosity\nof emotion, even towards an importunate lover. She thought him mad, and\nshe wrote to Saint Lambert to say so. \"His madness must be very strong,\"\nsaid Saint Lambert, \"since she can perceive it.\"[276]\n\nCharacter is ceaselessly marching, even when we seem to have sunk into a\nfixed and stagnant mood. The man is awakened from his dream of passion\nby inexorable event; he finds the house of the soul not swept and\ngarnished for a new life, but possessed by demons who have entered\nunseen. In short, such profound disorder of spirit, though in its first\nstage marked by ravishing delirium, never escapes a bitter sequel. When\na man lets his soul be swept away from the narrow track of conduct\nappointed by his relations with others, still the reality of such\nrelations survives. He may retreat to rural lodges; that will not save\nhim either from his own passion, or from some degree of that kinship\nwith others which instantly creates right and wrong like a wall of brass\naround him. Let it be observed that the natures of finest stuff suffer\nmost from these forced reactions, and it was just because Rousseau had\ninnate moral sensitiveness, and a man like Diderot was without it, that\nthe first felt his fall so profoundly, while the second was unconscious\nof having fallen at all.\n\nOne day in July Rousseau went to pay his accustomed visit. He found\nMadame d'Houdetot dejected, and with the flush of recent weeping on her\ncheeks. A bird of the air had carried the matter. As usual, the matter\nwas carried wrongly, and apparently all that Saint Lambert suspected was\nthat Rousseau's high principles had persuaded Madame d'Houdetot of the\nviciousness of her relations with her lover.[277] \"They have played us\nan evil turn,\" cried Madame d'Houdetot; \"they have been unjust to me,\nbut that is no matter. Either let us break off at once, or be what you\nought to be.\"[278] This was Rousseau's first taste of the ashes of\nshame into which the lusciousness of such forbidden fruit, plucked at\nthe expense of others, is ever apt to be transformed. Mortification of\nthe considerable spiritual pride that was yet alive after this lapse,\nwas a strong element in the sum of his emotion, and it was pointed by\nthe reflection which stung him so incessantly, that his monitress was\nyounger than himself. He could never master his own contempt for the\ngallantry of grizzled locks.[279] His austerer self might at any rate\nhave been consoled by knowing that this scene was the beginning of the\nend, though the end came without any seeking on his part and without\nviolence. To his amazement, one day Saint Lambert and Madame d'Houdetot\ncame to the Hermitage, asking him to give them dinner, and much to the\ncredit of human nature's elasticity, the three passed a delightful\nafternoon. The wronged lover was friendly, though a little stiff, and he\npassed occasional slights which Rousseau would surely not have forgiven,\nif he had not been disarmed by consciousness of guilt. He fell asleep,\nas we can well imagine that he might do, while Rousseau read aloud his\nvery inadequate justification of Providence against Voltaire.[280]\n\nIn time he returned to the army, and Rousseau began to cure himself of\nhis mad passion. His method, however, was not unsuspicious, for it\ninvolved the perilous assistance of Madame d'Houdetot. Fortunately her\nloyalty and good sense forced a more resolute mode upon him. He found,\nor thought he found her distracted, emharrassed, indifferent. In despair\nat not being allowed to heal his passionate malady in his own fashion,\nhe did the most singular thing that he could have done under the\ncircumstances. He wrote to Saint Lambert.[281] His letter is a prodigy\nof plausible duplicity, though Rousseau in some of his mental states had\nso little sense of the difference between the actual and the imaginary,\nand was moreover so swiftly borne away on a flood of fine phrases, that\nit is hard to decide how far this was voluntary, and how far he was his\nown dupe. Voluntary or not, it is detestable. We pass the false whine\nabout \"being abandoned by all that was dear to him,\" as if he had not\ndeliberately quitted Paris against the remonstrance of every friend he\nhad; about his being \"solitary and sad,\" as if he was not ready at this\nvery time to curse any one who intruded on his solitude, and hindered\nhim of a single half-hour in the desert spots that he adored.\nRemembering the scenes in moon-lighted groves and elsewhere, we read\nthis:--\"Whence comes her coldness to me? Is it possible that you can\nhave suspected me of wronging you with her, and of turning perfidious in\nconsequence of an unseasonably rigorous virtue? A passage in one of your\nletters shows a glimpse of some such suspicion. No, no, Saint Lambert,\nthe breast of J.J. Rousseau never held the heart of a traitor, and I\nshould despise myself more than you suppose, if I had ever tried to rob\nyou of her heart.... Can you suspect that her friendship for me may hurt\nher love for you? Surely natures endowed with sensibility are open to\nall sorts of affections, and no sentiment can spring up in them which\ndoes not turn to the advantage of the dominant passion. Where is the\nlover who does not wax the more tender as he talks to his friend of her\nwhom he loves? And is it not sweeter for you in your banishment that\nthere should be some sympathetic creature to whom your mistress loves to\ntalk of you, and who loves to hear?\"\n\nLet us turn to another side of his correspondence. The way in which the\nsympathetic creature in the present case loved to hear his friend's\nmistress talk of him, is interestingly shown in one or two passages from\na letter to her; as when he cries, \"Ah, how proud would even thy lover\nhimself be of thy constancy, if he only knew how much it has\nsurmounted.... I appeal to your sincerity. You, the witness and the\ncause of this delirium, these tears, these ravishing ecstasies, these\ntransports which were never made for mortal, say, have I ever tasted\nyour favours in such a way that I deserve to lose them?... Never once\ndid my ardent desires nor my tender supplications dare to solicit\nsupreme happiness, without my feeling stopped by the inner cries of a\nsorrow-stricken soul.... O Sophie, after moments so sweet, the idea of\neternal privation is too frightful for one who groans that he cannot\nidentify himself with thee. What, are thy tender eyes never again to be\nlowered with a delicious modesty, intoxicating me with pleasure? What,\nare my burning lips never again to lay my very soul on thy heart along\nwith my kisses? What, may I never more feel that heavenly shudder, that\nrapid and devouring fire, swifter than lightning?\"[282].... We see a\nsympathetic creature assuredly, and listen to the voice of a nature\nendowed with sensibility even more than enough, but with decency,\nloyalty, above all with self-knowledge, far less than enough.\n\nOne more touch completes the picture of the fallen desperate man. He\ntakes great trouble to persuade Saint Lambert that though the rigour of\nhis principles constrains him to frown upon such breaches of social law\nas the relations between Madame d'Houdetot and her lover, yet he is so\nattached to the sinful pair that he half forgives them. \"Do not\nsuppose,\" he says, with superlative gravity, \"that you have seduced me\nby your reasons; I see in them the goodness of your heart, not your\njustification. I cannot help blaming your connection: you can hardly\napprove it yourself; and so long as you both of you continue dear to me,\nI will never leave you in careless security as to the innocence of your\nstate. Yet love such as yours deserves considerateness.... I feel\nrespect for a union so tender, and cannot bring myself to attempt to\nlead it to virtue along the path of despair\" (p. 401).\n\nIgnorance of the facts of the case hindered Saint Lambert from\nappreciating the strange irony of a man protesting about leading to\nvirtue along the path of despair a poor woman whom he had done as much\nas he could to lead to vice along the path of highly stimulated sense.\nSaint Lambert was as much a sentimentalist as Rousseau was, but he had a\ncertain manliness, acquired by long contact with men, which his\ncorrespondent only felt in moods of severe exaltation. Saint Lambert\ntook all the blame on himself. He had desired that his mistress and his\nfriend should love one another; then he thought he saw some coolness in\nhis mistress, and he set the change down to his friend, though not on\nthe true grounds. \"Do not suppose that I thought you perfidious or a\ntraitor; I knew the austerity of your principles; people had spoken to\nme of it; and she herself did so with a respect that love found hard to\nbear.\" In short, he had suspected Rousseau of nothing worse than being\nover-virtuous, and trying in the interest of virtue to break off a\nconnection sanctioned by contemporary manners, but not by law or\nreligion. If Madame d'Houdetot had changed, it was not that she had\nceased to honour her good friend, but only that her lover might be\nspared a certain chagrin, from suspecting the excess of scrupulosity and\nconscience in so austere an adviser.[283]\n\nIt is well known how effectively one with a germ of good principle in\nhim is braced by being thought better than he is. With this letter in\nhis hands and its words in his mind, Rousseau strode off for his last\ninterview with Madame d'Houdetot. Had Saint Lambert, he says, been less\nwise, less generous, less worthy, I should have been a lost man. As it\nwas, he passed four or five hours with her in a delicious calm,\ninfinitely more delightful than the accesses of burning fever which had\nseized him before. They formed the project of a close companionship of\nthree, including the absent lover; and they counted on the project\ncoming more true than such designs usually do, \"since all the feelings\nthat can unite sensitive and upright hearts formed the foundation of it,\nand we three united talents enough as well as knowledge enough to\nsuffice to ourselves, without need of aid or supplement from others.\"\nWhat happened was this. Madame d'Houdetot for the next three or four\nmonths, which were among the most bitter in Rousseau's life, for then\nthe bitterness which became chronic was new and therefore harder to be\nborne, wrote him the wisest, most affectionate, and most considerate\nletters that a sincere and sensible woman ever wrote to the most\npetulant, suspicious, perverse, and irrestrainable of men. For patience\nand exquisite sweetness of friendship some of these letters are\nmatchless, and we can only conjecture the wearing querulousness of the\nletters to which they were replies. If through no fault of her own she\nhad been the occasion of the monstrous delirium of which he never shook\noff the consequences, at least this good soul did all that wise counsel\nand grave tenderness could do, to bring him out of the black slough of\nsuspicion and despair into which he was plunged.[284] In the beginning\nof 1758 there was a change. Rousseau's passion for her somehow became\nknown to all the world; it reached the ears of Saint Lambert, and was\nthe cause of a passing disturbance between him and his mistress. Saint\nLambert throughout acted like a man who is thoroughly master of himself.\nAt first, we learn, he ceased for a moment to see in Rousseau the virtue\nwhich he sought in him, and which he was persuaded that he found in him.\n\"Since then, however,\" wrote Madame d'Houdetot, \"he pities you more for\nyour weakness than he reproaches you, and we are both of us far from\njoining the people who wish to blacken your character; we have and\nalways shall have the courage to speak of you with esteem.\"[285] They\nsaw one another a few times, and on one occasion the Count and Countess\nd'Houdetot, Saint Lambert, and Rousseau all sat at table together,\nhappily without breach of the peace.[286] One curious thing about this\nmeeting was that it took place some three weeks after Rousseau and Saint\nLambert had interchanged letters on the subject of the quarrel with\nDiderot, in which each promised the other contemptuous oblivion.[287]\nPerpetuity of hate is as hard as perpetuity of love for our poor\nshort-spanned characters, and at length the three who were once to have\nlived together in self-sufficing union, and then in their next mood to\nhave forgotten one another instantly and for ever, held to neither of\nthe extremes, but settled down into an easier middle path of indifferent\ngood-will. The conduct of all three, said the most famous of them, may\nserve for an example of the way in which sensible people separate, when\nit no longer suits them to see one another.[288] It is at least certain\nthat in them Rousseau lost two of the most unimpeachably good friends\nthat he ever possessed.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe egoistic character that loves to brood and hates to act, is big with\ncatastrophe. We have now to see how the inevitable law accomplished\nitself in the case of Rousseau. In many this brooding egoism produces a\nsilent and melancholy insanity; with him it was developed into something\nof acridly corrosive quality. One of the agents in this disastrous\nprocess was the wearing torture of one of the most painful of disorders.\nThis disorder, arising from an internal malformation, harassed him from\nhis infancy to the day of his death. Our fatuous persistency in reducing\nman to the spiritual, blinds the biographer to the circumstance that the\nhistory of a life is the history of a body no less than that of a soul.\nMany a piece of conduct that divides the world into two factions of\nmoral assailants and moral vindicators, provoking a thousand ingenuities\nof ethical or psychological analysis, ought really to have been nothing\nmore than an item in a page of a pathologist's case-book. We are not to\nsuspend our judgment on action; right and wrong can depend on no man's\nmalformations. In trying to know the actor, it is otherwise; here it is\nfolly to underestimate the physical antecedents of mental phenomena. In\nfirm and lofty character, pain is mastered; in a character so little\nendowed with cool tenacious strength as Rousseau's, pain such as he\nendured was enough to account, not for his unsociality, which flowed\nfrom temperament, but for the bitter, irritable, and suspicious form\nwhich this unsociality now first assumed. Rousseau was never a saintly\nnature, but far the reverse, and in reading the tedious tale of his\nquarrels with Grimm and Madame d'Epinay and Diderot--a tale of\nlabyrinthine nightmares--let us remember that we may even to this point\nexplain what happened, without recourse to the too facile theory of\ninsanity, unless one defines that misused term so widely as to make many\nsane people very uncomfortable.\n\nHis own account was this: \"In my quality of solitary, I am more\nsensitive than another; if I am wrong with a friend who lives in the\nworld, he thinks of it for a moment, and then a thousand distractions\nmake him forget it for the rest of the day; but there is nothing to\ndistract me as to his wrong towards me; deprived of my sleep, I busy\nmyself with him all night long; solitary in my walks, I busy myself with\nhim from sunrise until sunset; my heart has not an instant's relief, and\nthe harshness of a friend gives me in one day years of anguish. In my\nquality of invalid, I have a title to the considerateness that humanity\nowes to the weakness or irritation of a man in agony. Who is the friend,\nwho is the good man, that ought not to dread to add affliction to an\nunfortunate wretch tormented with a painful and incurable malady?\"[289]\nWe need not accept this as an adequate extenuation of perversities, but\nit explains them without recourse to the theory of uncontrollable\ninsanity. Insanity came later, the product of intellectual excitation,\npublic persecution, and moral reaction after prolonged tension.\nMeanwhile he may well be judged by the standards of the sane; knowing\nhis temperament, his previous history, his circumstances, we have no\ndifficulty in accounting for his conduct. Least of all is there any need\nfor laying all the blame upon his friends. There are writers whom\nenthusiasm for the principles of Jean Jacques has driven into fanatical\ndenigration of every one whom he called his enemy, that is to say,\nnearly every one whom he ever knew.[290] Diderot said well, \"Too many\nhonest people would be wrong, if Jean Jacques were right.\"\n\nThe first downright breach was with Grimm, but there were angry passages\nduring the year 1757, not only with him, but with Diderot and Madame\nd'Epinay as well. Diderot, like many other men of energetic nature\nunchastened by worldly wisdom, was too interested in everything that\nattracted his attention to keep silence over the indiscretion of a\nfriend. He threw as much tenacity and zeal into a trifle, if it had once\nstruck him, as he did into the Encyclop\u00e6dia. We have already seen how\nwarmly he rated Jean Jacques for missing the court pension. Then he\nscolded and laughed at him for turning hermit. With still more\nseriousness he remonstrated with him for remaining in the country\nthrough the winter, thus endangering the life of Theresa's aged mother.\nThis stirred up hot anger in the Hermitage, and two or three bitter\nletters were interchanged,[291] those of Diderot being pronounced by a\nperson who was no partisan of Rousseau decidedly too harsh.[292] Yet\nthere is copious warmth of friendship in these very letters, if only the\nman to whom they were written had not hated interference in his affairs\nas the worst of injuries. \"I loved Diderot tenderly, I esteemed him\nsincerely,\" says Rousseau, \"and I counted with entire confidence upon\nthe same sentiments in him. But worn out by his unwearied obstinacy in\neverlastingly thwarting my tastes, my inclinations, my ways of living,\neverything that concerned myself only; revolted at seeing a younger man\nthan myself insist with all his might on governing me like a child;\nchilled by his readiness in giving his promise and his negligence in\nkeeping it; tired of so many appointments which he made and broke, and\nof his fancy for repairing them by new ones to be broken in their turn;\nprovoked at waiting for him to no purpose three or four times a month on\ndays which he had fixed, and of dining alone in the evening, after going\non as far as St. Denis to meet him and waiting for him all day,--I had\nmy heart already full of a multitude of grievances.\"[293] This\nirritation subsided in presence of the storms that now rose up against\nDiderot. He was in the thick of the dangerous and mortifying\ndistractions stirred up by the foes of the Encyclop\u00e6dia. Rousseau in\nfriendly sympathy went to see him; they embraced, and old wrongs were\nforgotten until new arose.[294]\n\nThere is a less rose-coloured account than this. Madame d'Epinay assigns\ntwo motives to Rousseau: a desire to find an excuse for going to Paris,\nin order to avoid seeing Saint Lambert; secondly, a wish to hear\nDiderot's opinion of the two first parts of the New Helo\u00efsa. She says\nthat he wanted to borrow a portfolio in which to carry the manuscripts\nto Paris; Rousseau says that they had already been in Diderot's\npossession for six months.[295] As her letters containing this very\ncircumstantial story were written at the moment, it is difficult to\nuphold the Confessions as valid authority against them. Thirdly,\nRousseau told her that he had not taken his manuscripts to Paris (p.\n302), whereas Grimm writing a few days later (p. 309) mentions that he\nhas received a letter from Diderot, to the effect that Rousseau's visit\nhad no other object than the revision of these manuscripts. The scene is\ncharacteristic. \"Rousseau kept him pitilessly at work from Saturday at\nten o'clock in the morning till eleven at night on Monday, hardly giving\nhim time to eat and drink. The revision at an end, Diderot chats with\nhim about a plan he has in his head, and begs Rousseau to help him in\ncontriving some incident which he cannot yet arrange to his taste. 'It\nis too difficult,' replies the hermit coldly, 'it is late, and I am not\nused to sitting up. Good night; I am off at six in the morning, and 'tis\ntime for bed.' He rises from his chair, goes to bed, and leaves Diderot\npetrified at his behaviour. The day of his departure, Diderot's wife saw\nthat her husband was in bad spirits, and asked the reason. 'It is that\nman's want of delicacy,' he replied, 'which afflicts me; he makes me\nwork like a slave, but I should never have found that out, if he had not\nso drily refused to take an interest in me for a quarter of an hour.'\n'You are surprised at that,' his wife answered; 'do you not know him? He\nis devoured with envy; he goes wild with rage when anything fine appears\nthat is not his own. You will see him one day commit some great crime\nrather than let himself be ignored. I declare I would not swear that he\nwill not join the ranks of the Jesuits, and undertake their\nvindication.'\"\n\nOf course we cannot be sure that Grimm did not manipulate these letters\nlong after the event, but there is nothing in Rousseau's history to make\nus perfectly sure that he was incapable either of telling a falsehood to\nMadame d'Epinay, or of being shamelessly selfish in respect of Diderot.\nI see no reason to refuse substantial credit to Grimm's account, and the\npoints of coincidence between that and the Confessions make its truth\nprobable.[296]\n\nRousseau's relations with Madame d'Epinay were more complex, and his\nsentiments towards her underwent many changes. There was a prevalent\nopinion that he was her lover, for which no real foundation seems to\nhave existed.[297] Those who disbelieved that he had reached this\ndistinction, yet made sure that he had a passion for her, which may or\nmay not have been true.[298] Madame d'Epinay herself was vain enough to\nbe willing that this should be generally accepted, and it is certain\nthat she showed a friendship for him which, considering the manners of\nthe time, was invitingly open to misconception. Again, she was jealous\nof her sister-in-law, Madame d'Houdetot, if for no other reason than\nthat the latter, being the wife of a Norman noble, had access to the\ncourt, and this was unattainable by the wife of a farmer-general. Hence\nMadame d'Epinay's barely-concealed mortification when she heard of the\nmeetings in the forest, the private suppers, the moonlight rambles in\nthe park. When Saint Lambert first became uneasy as to the relations\nbetween Rousseau and his mistress, and wrote to her to say that he was\nso, Rousseau instantly suspected that Madame d'Epinay had been his\ninformant. Theresa confirmed the suspicion by tales of baskets and\ndrawers ransacked by Madame d'Epinay in search of Madame d'Houdetot's\nletters to him. Whether these tales were true or not, we can never know;\nwe can only say that Madame d'Epinay was probably not incapable of these\nmeannesses, and that there is no reason to suppose that she took the\npains to write directly to Saint Lambert a piece of news which she was\nwriting to Grimm, knowing that he was then in communication with Saint\nLambert. She herself suspected that Theresa had written to Saint\nLambert,[299] but it may be doubted whether Theresa's imagination could\nhave risen to such feat as writing to a marquis, and a marquis in what\nwould have seemed to her to be remote and inaccessible parts of the\nearth. All this, however, has become ghostly for us; a puzzle that can\nnever be found out, nor be worth finding out. Rousseau was persuaded\nthat Madame d'Epinay was his betrayer, and was seized by one of his\nblackest and most stormful moods. In reply to an affectionate letter\nfrom her, inquiring why she had not seen him for so long, he wrote thus:\n\"I can say nothing to you yet. I wait until I am better informed, and\nthis I shall be sooner or later. Meanwhile, be certain that accused\ninnocence will find a champion ardent enough to make calumniators\nrepent, whoever they may be.\" It is rather curious that so strange a\nmissive as this, instead of provoking Madame d'Epinay to anger, was\nanswered by a warmer and more affectionate letter than the first. To\nthis Rousseau replied with increased vehemence, charged with dark and\nmysteriously worded suspicion. Still Madame d'Epinay remained willing to\nreceive him. He began to repent of his imprudent haste, because it would\ncertainly end by compromising Madame d'Houdetot, and because, moreover,\nhe had no proof after all that his suspicions had any foundation. He\nwent instantly to the house of Madame d'Epinay; at his approach she\nthrew herself on his neck and melted into tears. This unexpected\nreception from so old a friend moved him extremely; he too wept\nabundantly. She showed no curiosity as to the precise nature of his\nsuspicions or their origin, and the quarrel came to an end.[300]\n\nGrimm's turn followed. Though they had been friends for many years,\nthere had long been a certain stiffness in their friendship. Their\ncharacters were in fact profoundly antipathetic. Rousseau we\nknow,--sensuous, impulsive, extravagant, with little sense of the\ndifference between reality and dreams. Grimm was exactly the opposite;\njudicious, collected, self-seeking, coldly upright. He was a German\n(born at Ratisbon), and in Paris was first a reader to the Duke of Saxe\nGotha, with very scanty salary. He made his way, partly through the\nfriendship of Rousseau, into the society of the Parisian men of letters,\nrapidly acquired a perfect mastery of the French language, and with the\ninspiring help of Diderot, became an excellent critic. After being\nsecretary to sundry high people, he became the literary correspondent of\nvarious German sovereigns, keeping them informed of what was happening\nin the world of art and letters, just as an ambassador keeps his\ngovernment informed of what happens in politics. The sobriety,\nimpartiality, and discrimination of his criticism make one think highly\nof his literary judgment; he had the courage, or shall we say he\npreserved enough of the German, to defend both Homer and Shakespeare\nagainst the unhappy strictures of Voltaire.[301] This is not all,\nhowever; his criticism is conceived in a tone which impresses us with\nthe writer's integrity. And to this internal evidence we have to add the\nexternal corroboration that in the latter part of his life he filled\nvarious official posts, which implied a peculiar confidence in his\nprobity on the part of those who appointed him. At the present moment\n(1756-57), he was acting as secretary to Marshal d'Estr\u00e9es, commander of\nthe French army in Westphalia at the outset of the Seven Years' War. He\nwas an able and helpful man, in spite of his having a rough manner,\npowdering his face, and being so monstrously scented as to earn the name\nof the musk-bear. He had that firmness and positivity which are not\nalways beautiful, but of which there is probably too little rather than\ntoo much in the world, certainly in the France of his time, and of which\nthere was none at all in Rousseau. Above all things he hated\ndeclamation. Apparently cold and reserved, he had sensibility enough\nunderneath the surface to go nearly out of his mind for love of a singer\nat the opera who had a thrilling voice. As he did not believe in the\nmetaphysical doctrine about the freedom of the will, he accepted from\ntemperament the necessity which logic confirmed, of guiding the will by\nconstant pressure from without. \"I am surprised,\" Madame d'Epinay said\nto him, \"that men should be so little indulgent to one another.\" \"Nay,\nthe want of indulgence comes of our belief in freedom; it is because the\nestablished morality is false and bad, inasmuch as it starts from this\nfalse principle of liberty.\" \"Ah, but the contrary principle, by making\none too indulgent, disturbs order.\" \"It does nothing of the kind. Though\nman does not wholly change, he is susceptible of modification; you can\nimprove him; hence it is not useless to punish him. The gardener does\nnot cut down a tree that grows crooked; he binds up the branch and keeps\nit in shape; that is the effect of public punishment.\"[302] He applied\nthe same doctrine, as we shall see, to private punishment for social\ncrookedness.\n\nIt is easy to conceive how Rousseau's way of ordering himself would\ngradually estrange so hard a head as this. What the one thought a\nweighty moral reformation, struck the other as a vain desire to attract\nattention. Rousseau on the other hand suspected Grimm of intriguing to\nremove Theresa from him, as well as doing his best to alienate all his\nfriends. The attempted alienation of Theresa consisted in the secret\nallowance to her mother and her by Grimm and Diderot of some sixteen\npounds a year.[303] Rousseau was unaware of this, but the whisperings\nand goings and comings to which it gave rise, made him darkly uneasy.\nThat the suspicions in other respects were in a certain sense not wholly\nunfounded, is shown by Grimm's own letters to Madame d'Epinay. He\ndisapproved of her installing Rousseau in the Hermitage, and warned her\nin a very remarkable prophecy that solitude would darken his\nimagination.[304] \"He is a poor devil who torments himself, and does not\ndare to confess the true subject of all his sufferings, which is in his\ncursed head and his pride; he raises up imaginary matters, so as to have\nthe pleasure of complaining of the whole human race.\"[305] More than\nonce he assures her that Rousseau will end by going mad, it being\nimpossible that so hot and ill-organised a head should endure\nsolitude.[306] Rousseauite partisans usually explain all this by\nsupposing that Grimm was eager to set a woman for whom he had a passion,\nagainst a man who was suspected of having a passion for her; and it is\npossible that jealousy may have stimulated the exercise of his natural\nshrewdness. But this shrewdness, added to entire want of imagination and\na very narrow range of sympathy, was quite enough to account for Grimm's\nharsh judgment, without the addition of any sinister sentiment. He was\nperfectly right in suspecting Rousseau of want of loyalty to Madame\nd'Epinay, for we find our hermit writing to her in strains of perfect\nintimacy, while he was writing of her to Madame d'Houdetot as \"your\nunworthy sister.\"[307] On the other hand, while Madame d'Epinay was\noverwhelming him with caressing phrases, she was at the same moment\ndescribing him to Grimm as a master of impertinence and intractableness.\nAs usual where there is radical incompatibility of character, an\nattempted reconciliation between Grimm and Rousseau (some time in the\nearly part of October 1757) had only made the thinly veiled antipathy\nmore resolute. Rousseau excused himself for wrongs of which in his heart\nhe never thought himself guilty. Grimm replied by a discourse on the\nvirtues of friendship and his own special aptitude for practising them.\nHe then conceded to the impetuous penitent the kiss of peace, in a\nslight embrace which was like the accolade given by a monarch to new\nknights.[308] The whole scene is ignoble. We seem to be watching an\nunclean cauldron, with Theresa's mother, a cringing and babbling crone,\nstanding witch-like over it and infusing suspicion, falsehood, and\nmalice. When minds are thus surcharged, any accident suffices to\nrelease the evil creatures that lurk in an irritated imagination.\n\nOne day towards the end of the autumn of 1757, Rousseau learned to his\nunbounded surprise that Madame d'Epinay had been seized with some\nstrange disorder, which made it advisable that she should start without\nany delay for Geneva, there to place herself under the care of Tronchin,\nwho was at that time the most famous doctor in Europe. His surprise was\ngreatly increased by the expectation which he found among his friends\nthat he would show his gratitude for her many kindnesses to him, by\noffering to bear her company on her journey, and during her stay in a\ntown which was strange to her and thoroughly familiar to him. It was to\nno purpose that he protested how unfit was one invalid to be the nurse\nof another; and how great an incumbrance a man would be in a coach in\nthe bad season, when for many days he was absolutely unable to leave his\nchamber without danger. Diderot, with his usual eagerness to guide a\nfriend's course, wrote him a letter urging that his many obligations,\nand even his grievances in respect of Madame d'Epinay, bound him to\naccompany her, as he would thus repay the one and console himself for\nthe other. \"She is going into a country where she will be like one\nfallen from the clouds. She is ill; she will need amusement and\ndistraction. As for winter, are you worse now than you were a month\nback, or than you will be at the opening of the spring? For me, I\nconfess that if I could not bear the coach, I would take a staff and\nfollow her on foot.\"[309] Rousseau trembled with fury, and as soon as\nthe transport was over, he wrote an indignant reply, in which he more or\nless politely bade the panurgic one to attend to his own affairs, and\nhinted that Grimm was making a tool of him. Next he wrote to Grimm\nhimself a letter, not unfriendly in form, asking his advice and\npromising to follow it, but hardly hiding his resentment. By this time\nhe had found out the secret of Madame d'Epinay's supposed illness and\nher anxiety to pass some months away from her family, and the share\nwhich Grimm had in it. This, however, does not make many passages of his\nletter any the less ungracious or unseemly. \"If Madame d'Epinay has\nshown friend' ship to me, I have shown more to her.... As for benefits,\nfirst of all I do not like them, I do not want them, and I owe no thanks\nfor any that people may burden me with by force. Madame d'Epinay, being\nso often left alone in the country, wished me for company; it was for\nthat she had kept me. After making one sacrifice to friendship, I must\nnow make another to gratitude. A man must be poor, must be without a\nservant, must be a hater of constraint, and he must have my character,\nbefore he can know what it is for me to live in another person's house.\nFor all that, I lived two years in hers, constantly brought into bondage\nwith the finest harangues about liberty, served by twenty domestics, and\ncleaning my own shoes every morning, overloaded with gloomy indigestion,\nand incessantly sighing for my homely porringer.... Consider how much\nmoney an hour of the life and the time of a man is worth; compare the\nkindnesses of Madame d'Epinay with the sacrifice of my native country\nand two years of serfdom; and then tell me whether the obligation is\ngreater on her side or mine.\" He then urges with a torrent of impetuous\neloquence the thoroughly sound reasons why it was unfair and absurd for\nhim, a beggar and an invalid, to make the journey with Madame d'Epinay,\nrich and surrounded by attendants. He is particularly splenetic that the\nphilosopher Diderot, sitting in his own room before a good fire and\nwrapped in a well-lined dressing-gown, should insist on his doing his\nfive and twenty leagues a day on foot, through the mud in winter.[310]\n\nThe whole letter shows, as so many incidents in his later life showed,\nhow difficult it was to do Rousseau a kindness with impunity, and how\nlittle such friends as Madame d'Epinay possessed the art of soothing\nthis unfortunate nature. They fretted him by not leaving him\nsufficiently free to follow his own changing moods, while he in turn\nlost all self-control, and yielded in hours of bodily torment to angry\nand resentful fancies. But let us hasten to an end. Grimm replied to his\neloquent manifesto somewhat drily, to the effect that he would think the\nmatter over, and that meanwhile Rousseau had best keep quiet in his\nhermitage. Rousseau burning with excitement at once conceived a thousand\nsuspicions, wholly unable to understand that a cold and reserved German\nmight choose to deliberate at length, and finally give an answer with\nbrevity. \"After centuries of expectation in the cruel uncertainty in\nwhich this barbarous man had plunged me\"--that is after eight or ten\ndays, the answer came, apparently not without a second direct\napplication for one.[311] It was short and extremely pointed, not\ncomplaining that Rousseau had refused to accompany Madame d'Epinay but\nprotesting against the horrible tone of the apology which he had sent to\nhim for not accompanying her. \"It has made me quiver with indignation;\nso odious are the principles it contains, so full is it of blackness and\nduplicity. You venture to talk to me of your slavery, to me who for more\nthan two years have been the daily witness of all the marks of the\ntenderest and most generous friendship that you have received at the\nhands of that woman. If I could pardon you, I should think myself\nunworthy of having a single friend. I will never see you again while I\nlive, and I shall think myself happy if I can banish the recollection of\nyour conduct from my mind.\"[312] A flash of manly anger like this is\nvery welcome to us, who have to thread a tedious way between morbid\negoistic irritation on the one hand, and sly pieces of equivocal\ncomplaisance on the other. The effect on Rousseau was terrific. In a\nparoxysm he sent Grimm's letter back to him, with three or four lines in\nthe same key. He wrote note after note to Madame d'Houdetot, in\nshrieks. \"Have I a single friend left, man or woman? One word, only one\nword, and I can live.\" A day or two later: \"Think of the state I am in.\nI can bear to be abandoned by all the world, but you! You who know me so\nwell! Great God! am I a scoundrel? a scoundrel, I!\"[313] And so on,\nraving. It was to no purpose that Madame d'Houdetot wrote him soothing\nletters, praying him to calm himself, to find something to busy himself\nwith, to remain at peace with Madame d'Epinay, \"who had never appeared\nother than the most thoughtful and warm-hearted friend to him.\"[314] He\nwas almost ready to quarrel with Madame d'Houdetot herself because she\npaid the postage of her letters, which he counted an affront to his\npoverty.[315] To Madame d'Epinay he had written in the midst of his\ntormenting uncertainty as to the answer which Grimm would make to his\nletter. It was an ungainly assertion that she was playing a game of\ntyranny and intrigue at his cost. For the first time she replied with\nspirit and warmth. \"Your letter is hardly that of a man who, on the eve\nof my departure, swore to me that he could never in his life repair the\nwrongs he had done me.\" She then tersely remarks that it is not natural\nto pass one's life in suspecting and insulting one's friends, and that\nhe abuses her patience. To this he answered with still greater terseness\nthat friendship was extinct between them, and that he meant to leave the\nHermitage, but as his friends desired him to remain there until the\nspring he would with her permission follow their counsel. Then she, with\na final thrust of impatience, in which we perhaps see the hand of Grimm:\n\"Since you meant to leave the Hermitage, and felt you ought to do so, I\nam astonished that your friends could detain you. For me, I don't\nconsult mine as to my duties, and I have nothing more to say to you as\nto yours.\" This was the end. Rousseau returned for a moment from ignoble\npetulance to dignity and self-respect. He wrote to her that if it is a\nmisfortune to make a mistake in the choice of friends, it is one not\nless cruel to awake from so sweet an error, and two days before he\nwrote, he left her house. He found a cottage at Montmorency, and\nthither, nerved with fury, through snow and ice he carried his scanty\nhousehold goods (Dec. 15, 1757).[316]\n\nWe have a picture of him in this fatal month. Diderot went to pay him a\nvisit (Dec. 5). Rousseau was alone at the bottom of his garden. As soon\nas he saw Diderot, he cried in a voice of thunder and with his eyes all\naflame: \"What have you come here for?\" \"I want to know whether you are\nmad or malicious.\" \"You have known me for fifteen years; you are well\naware how little malicious I am, and I will prove to you that I am not\nmad: follow me.\" He then drew Diderot into a room, and proceeded to\nclear himself, by means of letters, of the charge of trying to make a\nbreach between Saint Lambert and Madame d'Houdetot. They were in fact\nletters that convicted him, as we know, of trying to persuade Madame\nd'Houdetot of the criminality of her relations with her lover, and at\nthe same time to accept himself in the very same relation. Of all this\nwe have heard more than enough already. He was stubborn in the face of\nDiderot's remonstrance, and the latter left him in a state which he\ndescribed in a letter to Grimm the same night. \"I throw myself into your\narms, like one who has had a shock of fright: that man intrudes into my\nwork; he fills me with trouble, and I am as if I had a damned soul at my\nside. May I never see him again; he would make me believe in devils and\nhell.\"[317] And thus the unhappy man who had began this episode in his\nlife with confident ecstasy in the glories and clear music of spring,\nended it looking out from a narrow chamber upon the sullen crimson of\nthe wintry twilight and over fields silent in snow, with the haggard\ndesperate gaze of a lost spirit.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[254] _Conf._, ix. 247.\n\n[255] _Conf._, ix. 230. Madame d'Epinay (_M\u00e9m._, ii. 132) has given an\naccount of the installation, with a slight discrepancy of date. When\nMadame d'Epinay's son-in-law emigrated at the Revolution, the\nHermitage--of which nothing now stands--along with the rest of the\nestate became national property, and was bought after other purchasers\nby Robespierre, and afterwards by Gr\u00e9try the composer, who paid 10,000\nlivres for it.\n\n[256] _Conf._, ix. 255.\n\n[257] Third letter to Malesherbes, 364-368.\n\n[258] _Conf._, ix. 239.\n\n[259] _Conf._, ix. 237, 238, and 263, etc.\n\n[260] The extract from the Project for Perpetual Peace and the\nPolysynodia, together with Rousseau's judgments on them, are found at\nthe end of the volume containing the Social Contract. The first, but\nwithout the judgment, was printed separately without Rousseau's\npermission, in 1761, by Bastide, to whom he had sold it for twelve\nlouis for publication in his journal only. _Conf._, xi. 107. _Corr._,\nii. 110, 128.\n\n[261] P. 485.\n\n[262] For a sympathetic account of the Abb\u00e9 de Saint Pierre's life and\nspeculations, see M. L\u00e9once de Lavergne's _Economistes fran\u00e7ais du\n18i\u00e8me si\u00e8cle_ (Paris: 1870). Also Comte's _Lettres \u00e0 M. Valat_, p.\n73.\n\n[263] _Conf._, ix. 270-274.\n\n[264] _Conf._, ix. 289.\n\n[265] _Ib._ ix. 286.\n\n[266] D'Epinay, ii. 153.\n\n[267] Madame d'Houdetot, (_b._ 1730--_d._ 1813) was the daughter of M.\nde Bellegarde, the father of Madame d'Epinay's husband. Her marriage\nwith the Count d'Houdetot, of high Norman stock, took place in 1748.\nThe circumstances of the marriage, which help to explain the lax view\nof the vows common among the great people of the time, are given with\nperhaps a shade too much dramatic colouring in Madame d'Epinay's\n_M\u00e9m._, i 101.\n\n[268] _Conf._, ix. 281.\n\n[269] D'Epinay, ii. 246.\n\n[270] D'Epinay, ii. 269.\n\n[271] Musset-Pathay has collected two or three trifles of her\ncomposition, ii. 136-138. Heal so quotes Madame d'Allard's account of\nher, pp. 140, 141.\n\n[272] Quoted by M. Girardin, _Rev. des Deux Mondes_, Sept. 1853, p.\n1080.\n\n[273] _Conf._, ix. 304.\n\n[274] _Ib._ ix. 305. Slightly modified version in _Corr._, i. 377.\n\n[275] M. Boiteau's note to Madame d'Epinay, ii. 273.\n\n[276] Grimm, to Madame d'Epinay, ii. 305.\n\n[277] This is shown partly by Saint Lambert's letter to Rousseau, to\nwhich we come presently, and partly by a letter of Madame d'Houdetot\nto Rousseau in May, 1758 (Streckeisen-Moultou, i. 411-413), where she\ndistinctly says that she concealed his mad passion for her from Saint\nLambert, who first heard of it in common conversation.\n\n[278] _Conf._, ix. 311.\n\n[279] Besides the many hints of reference to this in the Confessions,\nsee the phrenetic Letters to Sarah, printed in the _M\u00e9langes_, pp.\n347-360.\n\n[280] _Conf._, ix. 337.\n\n[281] _Corr._, i. 398. Sept. 4, 1757.\n\n[282] To Madame d'Houdetot. _Corr._, i. 376-387. June 1757.\n\n[283] Saint Lambert to Rousseau, from Wolfenbuttel, Oct. 11, 1757.\nStreckeisen-Moultou, i. 415.\n\n[284] These letters are given in M. Streckeisen-Moultou's first volume\n(pp. 354-414). The thirty-second of them (Jan. 10, 1758) is perhaps\nthe one best worth turning to.\n\n[285] Streckeisen-Moultou, i. 412. May 6, 1768. _Conf._, x. 15.\n\n[286] _Ib._ x. 22.\n\n[287] _Ib._ x. 18. Streckeisen, i. 422.\n\n[288] _Conf._, x. 24.\n\n[289] To Madame d'Epinay, 1757. _Corr._, i. 362, 353. See also\n_Conf._, ix. 307.\n\n[290] One of the most unflinching in this kind is an _Essai sur la vie\net le caract\u00e8re de J.J. Rousseau_, by G.H. Morin (Paris: 1851): the\nlaborious production of a bitter advocate, who accepts the\nConfessions, Dialogues, Letters, etc., with the reverence due to\nverbal inspiration, and writes of everybody who offended his hero,\nquite in the vein of Marat towards aristocrats.\n\n[291] _Corr._, i. 327-335. D'Epinay, ii. 165-182\n\n[292] D'Epinay, ii. 173.\n\n[293] _Conf._, ix. 325.\n\n[294] _Ib._, ix. 334.\n\n[295] _M\u00e9m._, ii. 297. She also places the date many mouths later than\nRousseau, and detaches the reconciliation from the quarrel in the\nwinter of 1756-1757.\n\n[296] The same story is referred to in Madame de Vandeul's _M\u00e9m. de\nDiderot, _p. 61.\n\n[297] _Conf._, ix. 245, 246.\n\n[298] Grimm to Madame d'Epinay, ii. 259, 269, 313, 326. _Conf._, x.\n17.\n\n[299] _M\u00e9m._, ii. 318.\n\n[300] _Conf._, ix. 322. Madame d'Epinay (_M\u00e9m._, ii. 326), writing to\nGrimm, gives a much colder and stiffer colour to the scene of\nreconciliation, but the nature of her relations with him would account\nfor this. The same circumstance, as M. Girardin has pointed out (_Rev.\ndes Deux Mondes_, Sept. 1853), would explain the discrepancy between\nher letters as given in the Confessions, and the copies of them sent\nto Grimm, and printed in her Memoirs. M. Sainte Beuve, who is never\nperfectly master of himself in dealing with the chiefs of the\nrevolutionary schools, as might indeed have been expected in a writer\nwith his predilections for the seventeenth century, rashly hints\n(_Causeries_, vii. 301) that Rousseau was the falsifier. The\npublication from the autograph originals sets this at rest.\n\n[301] For Shakespeare, see _Corr. Lit._, iv. 143, etc.\n\n[302] D'Epinay, ii. 188.\n\n[303] D'Epinay, ii. 150. Also Vandeul's _M\u00e9m. de Diderot_, p. 61.\n\n[304] _M\u00e9m._ ii. 128.\n\n[305] P. 258. See also p. 146.\n\n[306] Pp. 282, 336, etc.\n\n[307] _Corr._, i. 386. June 1757.\n\n[308] _Conf._, ix. 355. For Madame d'Epinay's equally credible\nversion, assigning all the stiffness and arrogance to Rousseau, see\n_M\u00e9m._, ii. 355-358. Saint Lambert refers to the momentary\nreconciliation in his letter to Rousseau of Nov. 21 (Streckeisen, i.\n418), repeating what he had said before (p. 417), that Grimm always\nspoke of Mm in amicable terms, though complaining of Rousseau's\ninjustice.\n\n[309] _Conf._, ix. 372.\n\n[310] _Corr._, i. 404-416. Oct 19, 1757.\n\n[311] Grimm to Diderot, in Madame d'Epinay's _M\u00e9m._ ii. 386. Nov. 3,\n1757.\n\n[312] D'Epinay, ii. 387. Nov. 3.\n\n[313] _Corr._, i. 425. Nov. 8. _Ib._ 426.\n\n[314] Streckeisen-Moultou, i. 381-383.\n\n[315] _Ib._ 387. Many years after, Rousseau told Bernardin de St.\nPierre (_Oeuv._, xii. 57) that one of the reasons which made him leave\nthe Hermitage was the indiscretion of friends who insisted on sending\nhim letters by some conveyance that cost 4 francs, when it might\nequally well have been sent for as many sous.\n\n[316] The sources of all this are in the following places. _Corr._, i.\n416. Oct. 29. Streckeisen, i. 349. Nov. 12. _Conf._, ix. 377. _Corr._,\ni. 427. Nov. 23. _Conf._, ix. 381. Dec. 1. _Ib._, ix. 383. Dec. 17.\n\n[317] Diderot to Grimm; D'Epinay, ii. 397. Diderot's _Oeuv._, xix.\n446. See also 449 and 210.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nMUSIC.\n\n\nSimplification has already been used by us as the key-word to Rousseau's\naims and influence. The scheme of musical notation with which he came to\ntry his fortune in Paris in 1741, his published vindication of it, and\nhis musical compositions afterwards all fall under this term. Each of\nthem was a plea for the extrication of the simple from the cumbrousness\nof elaborated pedantry, and for a return to nature from the unmeaning\ndevices of false art. And all tended alike in the popular direction,\ntowards the extension of enjoyment among the common people, and the\nglorification of their simple lives and moods, in the art designed for\nthe great.\n\nThe Village Soothsayer was one of the group of works which marked a\nrevolution in the history of French music, by putting an end to the\ntyrannical tradition of Lulli and Rameau, and preparing the way through\na middle stage of freshness, simplicity, naturalism, up to the noble\nseverity of Gluck (1714-1787). This great composer, though a Bohemian by\nbirth, found his first appreciation in a public that had been trained\nby the Italian pastoral operas, of which Rousseau's was one of the\nearliest produced in France. Gr\u00e9tri, the Fleming (1741-1813), who had a\nhearty admiration for Jean Jacques, and out of a sentiment of piety\nlived for a time in his Hermitage, came in point of musical excellence\nbetween the group of Rousseau, Philidor, Duni, and the rest, and Gluck.\n\"I have not produced exaltation in people's heads by tragical\nsuperlative,\" Gr\u00e9tri said, \"but I have revealed the accent of truth,\nwhich I have impressed deeper in men's hearts.\"[318] These words express\nsufficiently the kind of influence which Rousseau also had. Crude as the\nmusic sounds to us who are accustomed to more sumptuous schools, we can\nstill hear in it the note which would strike a generation weary of\nRameau. It was the expression in one way of the same mood which in\nanother way revolted against paint, false hair, and preposterous costume\nas of savages grown opulent. Such music seems without passion or\nsubtlety or depth or magnificence. Thus it had hardly any higher than a\nnegative merit, but it was the necessary preparation for the acceptance\nof a more positive style, that should replace both the elaborate false\nart of the older French composers and the too colourless realism of the\npastoral comic opera, by the austere loveliness and elevation of _Orfeo_\nand _Alceste_.\n\nIn 1752 an Italian company visited Paris, and performed at the Opera a\nnumber of pieces by Pergolese, and other composers of their country. A\nviolent war arose, which agitated Paris far more intensely than the\ndefeat of Rossbach and the loss of Canada did afterwards. The quarrel\nbetween the Parliament and the Clergy was at its height. The Parliament\nhad just been exiled, and the gravest confusion threatened the State.\nThe operatic quarrel turned the excitement of the capital into another\nchannel. Things went so far that the censor was entreated to prohibit\nthe printing of any work containing the damnable doctrine and position\nthat Italian music is good. Rousseau took part enthusiastically with the\nItalians.[319] His Letter on French Music (1753) proved to the great\nfury of the people concerned, that the French had no national music, and\nthat it would be so much the worse for them if they ever had any. Their\nlanguage, so proper to be the organ of truth and reason, was radically\nunfit either for poetry or music. All national music must derive its\nprincipal characteristics from the language. Now if there is a language\nin Europe fit for music, it is certainly the Italian, for it is sweet,\nsonorous, harmonious, and more accentuated than any other, and these are\nprecisely the four qualities which adapt a language to singing. It is\nsweet because the articulations are not composite, because the meeting\nof consonants is both infrequent and soft, and because a great number of\nthe syllables being only formed of vowels, frequent elisions make its\npronunciation more flowing. It is sonorous because most of the vowels\nare full, because it is without composite diphthongs, because it has\nfew or no nasal vowels. Again, the inversions of the Italian are far\nmore favourable to true melody than the didactic order of French. And so\nonwards, with much close grappling of the matter. French melody does not\nexist; it is only a sort of modulated plain-song which has nothing\nagreeable in itself, which only pleases with the aid of a few capricious\nornaments, and then only pleases those who have agreed to find it\nbeautiful.[320]\n\nThe letter contains a variety of acute remarks upon music, and includes\na vigorous protest against fugues, imitations, double designs, and the\nlike. Scarcely any one succeeds in them, and success even when obtained\nhardly rewards the labour. As for counterfugues, double fugues, and\n\"other difficult fooleries that the ear cannot endure nor the reason\njustify,\" they are evidently relics of barbarism and bad taste which\nonly remain, like the porticoes of our gothic churches, to the disgrace\nof those who had patience enough to construct them.[321] The last\nphrase-and both Voltaire and Turgot used gothic architecture as the\nsymbol for the supreme of rudeness and barbarism--shows that even a man\nwho seems to run counter to the whole current of his time yet does not\nescape its influence.\n\nGrimm, after remarking on the singularity of a demonstration of the\nimpossibility of setting melody to French words on the part of a writer\nwho had just produced the Village Soothsayer, informs us that the letter\ncreated a furious uproar, and set all Paris in a blaze. He had himself\ntaken the side of the Italians in an amusing piece of pleasantry, which\nbecame a sort of classic model for similar facetiousness in other\ncontroversies of the century. The French, as he said, forgive everything\nin favour of what makes them laugh, but Rousseau talked reason and\ndemolished the pretensions of French music with great sounding strokes\nas of an axe.[322] Rousseau expected to be assassinated, and gravely\nassures us that there was a plot to that effect, as well as a design to\nput him in the Bastille. This we may fairly surmise to have been a\nfiction of his own imagination, and the only real punishment that\novertook him was the loss of his right to free admission to the Opera.\nAfter what he had said of the intolerable horrors of French music, the\ndirectors of the theatre can hardly be accused of vindictiveness in\nreleasing him from them.[323] Some twenty years after (1774), when Paris\nwas torn asunder by the violence of the two great factions of the\nGluckists and Piccinists, Rousseau retracted his opinion as to the\nimpossibility of wedding melody to French words.[324] He went as often\nas he could to hear the works both of Gr\u00e9tri and Gluck, and _Orfeo_\ndelighted him, while the _Fausse magie_ of the former moved him to say\nto the composer, \"Your music stirs sweet sensations to which I thought\nmy heart had long been closed.\"[325] This being so, and life being as\nbrief as art is long, we need not further examine the controversy. It\nmay be worth adding that Rousseau wrote some of the articles on music\nfor the Encyclop\u00e6dia, and that in 1767 he published a not inconsiderable\nMusical Dictionary of his own.\n\nHis scheme of a new musical notation and the principles on which he\ndefended it are worth attention, because some of the ideas are now\naccepted as the base of a well-known and growing system of musical\ninstruction. The aim of the scheme, let us say to begin with, was at\nonce practical and popular; to reduce the difficulty of learning music\nto the lowest possible point, and so to bring the most delightful of the\narts within the reach of the largest possible number of people. Hence,\nalthough he maintains the fitness of his scheme for instrumental as well\nas vocal performances, it is clearly the latter which he has most at\nheart, evidently for the reason that this is the kind of music most\naccessible to the thousands, and it was always the thousands of whom\nRousseau thought. This is the true distinction of music, it is for the\npeople; and the best musical notation is that which best enables persons\nto sing at sight. The difficulty of the old notation had come\npractically before him as a teacher. The quantity of details which the\npupil was forced to commit to memory before being able to sing from the\nopen book, struck him then as the chief obstacle to anything like\nfacility in performance, and without some of this facility he rightly\nfelt that music must remain a luxury for the few. So genuine was his\ninterest in the matter, that he was not very careful to fight for the\noriginality of his own scheme. Our present musical signs, he said, are\nso imperfect and so inconvenient that it is no wonder that several\npersons have tried to re-cast or amend them; nor is it any wonder that\nsome of them should have hit upon the same device in selecting the signs\nmost natural and proper, such as numerical figures. As much, however,\ndepends on the way of dealing with these figures, as with their\nadoption, and here he submitted that his own plan was as novel as it was\nadvantageous.[326] Thus we have to bear in mind that Rousseau's scheme\nwas above all things a practical device, contrived for making the\nteaching and the learning of musical elements an easier process.[327]\n\nThe chief element of the project consists in the substitution of a\nrelative series of notes or symbols in place of an absolute series. In\nthe common notation any given note, say the A of the treble clef, is\nuniformly represented by the same symbol, namely, the position of second\nspace in the clef, whatever key it may belong to. Rousseau, insisting on\nthe varying quality impressed on any tone of a given pitch by the\nkey-note of the scale to which it belongs, protested against the same\nname being given to the tone, however the quality of it might vary. Thus\nRe or D, which is the second tone in the key of C, ought, according to\nhim, to have a different name when found as the fifth in the key of G,\nand in every case the name should at once indicate the interval of a\ntone from its key-note. His mode of effecting this change is as follows.\nThe names _ut, re_, and the rest, are kept for the fixed order of the\ntones, C, D, E, and the rest. The key of a piece is shown by prefixing\none of these symbols, and this determines the absolute quality of the\nmelody as to pitch. That settled, every tone is expressed by a number\nbearing a relation to the key-note. This tonic note is represented by\none, the other six tones of the scale are expressed by the numbers from\ntwo to seven. In the popular Tonic Sol-Fa notation, which corresponds\nso closely to Rousseau's in principle, the key-note is always styled Do,\nand the other symbols, _mi_, _la_, and the rest, indicate at once the\nrelative position of these tones in their particular key or scale. Here\nthe old names were preserved as being easily sung; Rousseau selected\nnumbers because he supposed that they best expressed the generation of\nthe sounds.[328]\n\nRousseau attempted to find a theoretic base for this symbolic\nestablishment of the relational quality of tones, and he dimly guessed\nthat the order of the harmonics or upper tones of a given tonic would\nfurnish a principle for forming the familiar major scale,[329] but his\nknowledge of the order was faulty. He was perhaps groping after the idea\nby which Professor Helmholtz has accounted for the various mental\neffects of the several intervals in a key--namely, the degree of natural\naffinity, measured by means of the upper tones, existing between the\ngiven tone and its tonic. Apart from this, however, the practical value\nof his ideas in instruction in singing is clearly shown by the\ncircumstance that at any given time many thousands of young children are\nnow being taught to read melody in the Sol-Fa notation in a few weeks.\nThis shows how right Rousseau was in continually declaring the ease of\nhitting a particular tone, when the relative position of the tone in\nrespect to the key-note is clearly manifested. A singer in trying to hit\nthe tone is compelled to measure the interval between it and the\npreceding tone, and the simplest and easiest mode of doing this is to\nassociate every tone with the tonics, thus constituting it a term of a\nrelation with this fundamental tone.\n\nRousseau made a mistake when he supposed that his ideas were just as\napplicable to instrumental as they were to vocal music. The requirements\nof the singer are not those of the player. To a performer on the piano,\nwho has to light rapidly and simultaneously on a number of tones, or to\na violinist who has to leap through several octaves with great rapidity,\nthe most urgent need is that of a definite and fixed mark, by which the\nabsolute pitch of each successive tone may be at once recognised.\nNeither of these has any time to think about the melodious relation of\nthe tones; it is quite as much as they can do to find their place on the\nkey-board or the string. Rousseau's scheme, or any similar one, fails to\nsupply the clear and obvious index to pitch supplied by the old system.\nOld Rameau pointed this out to Rousseau when the scheme was laid before\nhim, and Rousseau admitted that the objection was decisive,[330] though\nhis admission was not practically deterrent.\n\nHis device for expressing change of octave by means of points would\nrender the rapid seizing of a particular tone by the performer still\nmore difficult, and it is strange that he should have preferred this to\nthe other plan suggested, of indicating height of octave by visible\nplace above or below a horizontal line. Again, his attempt to simplify\nthe many varieties of musical time by reducing them all to the two modes\nof double and triple time, though laudable enough, yet implies an\nimperfect recognition of the full meaning of time, by omitting all\nreference to the distribution of accent and to the average time value of\nthe tones in a particular movement.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[318] Quoted in Martin's _Hist. de France_, xvi. 158.\n\n[319] _Conf._, viii. 197. Grimm, _Corr. Lit._, i. 27.\n\n[320] _Lettre sur la Musique Fran\u00e7aise_, 178, etc., 187.\n\n[321] P. 197.\n\n[322] _Corr. Lit._, i. 92. His own piece was _Le petit proph\u00e8te de\nBoehmischbroda_, the style of which will be seen in a subsequent\nfootnote.\n\n[323] He was burnt in effigy by the musicians of the Opera. Grimm,\n_Corr. Lit._, i. 113.\n\n[324] This is Turgot's opinion on the controversy (Letter to Caillard,\n_Oeuv._, ii. 827):--\"Tous avez donc vu Jean-Jacques; la musique est un\nexcellent passe-port aupr\u00e8s de lui. Quant \u00e0 l'impossibilit\u00e9 de faire\nde la musique fran\u00e7aise, je ne puis y croire, et votre raison ne me\npara\u00eet pas bonne; car il n'est point vrai que l'essence de la langue\nfran\u00e7aise est d'\u00eatre sans accent. Point de conversation anim\u00e9e sans\nbeaucoup d'accent; mais l'accent est libre et d\u00e9termin\u00e9 seulement par\nl'affection de celui qui parle, sans \u00eatre fix\u00e9 par des conventions sur\ncertaines syllabes, quoique nous ayons aussi dans plusieurs mots des\nsyllabes dominantes qui seules peuvent \u00eatre accentu\u00e9es.\"\n\n[325] Musset-Pathay, i. 289.\n\n[326] Preface to _Dissertation sur la Musique Moderne_, pp. 32, 33.\n\n[327] I am indebted to Mr. James Sully, M.A., for furnishing me with\nnotes on a technical subject with which I have too little\nacquaintance.\n\n[328] _Dissertation_, p. 42.\n\n[329] P. 52.\n\n[330] _Conf._, vii. 18, 19. Also _Dissertation_, pp. 74, 75.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nVOLTAIRE AND D'ALEMBERT.\n\n\nEverybody in the full tide of the eighteenth century had something to do\nwith Voltaire, from serious personages like Frederick the Great and\nTurgot, down to the sorriest poetaster who sent his verses to be\ncorrected or bepraised. Rousseau's debt to him in the days of his\nunformed youth we have already seen, as well as the courtesies with\nwhich they approached one another, when Richelieu employed the\nstruggling musician to make some modifications in the great man's\nunconsidered court-piece. Neither of them then dreamed that their two\nnames were destined to form the great literary antithesis of the\ncentury. In the ten years that elapsed between their first interchange\nof letters and their first fit of coldness, it must have been tolerably\nclear to either of them, if either of them gave thought to the matter,\nthat their dissidence was increasing and likely to increase. Their\nmethods were different, their training different, their points of view\ndifferent, and above all these things, their temperaments were different\nby a whole heaven's breadth.\n\nA great number of excellent and pointed half-truths have been uttered\nby various persons in illustration of all these contrasts. The\nphilosophy of Voltaire, for instance, is declared to be that of the\nhappy, while Rousseau is the philosopher of the unhappy. Voltaire steals\naway their faith from those who doubt, while Rousseau strikes doubt into\nthe mind of the unbeliever. The gaiety of the one saddens, while the\nsadness of the other consoles. If we pass from the marked divergence in\ntendencies, which is imperfectly hinted at in such sayings as these, to\nthe divergence between them in all the fundamental conditions of\nintellectual and moral life, then the variation which divided the\nrevolutionary stream into two channels, flowing broadly apart through\nunlike regions and climates down to the great sea, is intelligible\nenough. Voltaire was the arch-representative of all those elements in\ncontemporary thought, its curiosity, irreverence, intrepidity,\nvivaciousness, rationality, to which, as we have so often had to say,\nRousseau's temperament and his Genevese spirit made him profoundly\nantipathetic. Voltaire was the great high priest, robed in the dazzling\nvestments of poetry and philosophy and history, of that very religion of\nknowledge and art which Rousseau declared to be the destroyer of the\nfelicity of men. The glitter has faded away from Voltaire's philosophic\nraiment since those days, and his laurel bough lies a little leafless.\nStill this can never make us forget that he was in his day and\ngeneration one of the sovereign emancipators, because he awoke one\ndormant set of energies, just as Rousseau presently came to awake\nanother set. Each was a power, not merely by virtue of some singular\npreeminence of understanding or mysterious unshared insight of his own,\nbut for a far deeper reason. No partial and one-sided direction can\npermanently satisfy the manifold aspirations and faculties of the human\nmind in the great average of common men, and it is the common average of\nmen to whom exceptional thinkers speak, whom they influence, and by whom\nthey are in turn influenced, depressed, or buoyed up, just as a painter\nor a dramatist is affected. Voltaire's mental constitution made him\neagerly objective, a seeker of true things, quivering for action,\nadmirably sympathetic with all life and movement, a spirit restlessly\ntraversing the whole world. Rousseau, far different from this, saw in\nhimself a reflected microcosm of the outer world, and was content to\ntake that instead of the outer world, and as its truest version. He made\nhis own moods the premisses from which he deduced a system of life for\nhumanity, and so far as humanity has shared his moods or some parts of\nthem, his system was true, and has been accepted. To him the bustle of\nthe outer world was only a hindrance to that process of self-absorption\nwhich was his way of interpreting life. Accessible only to interests of\nemotion and sense, he was saved from intellectual sterility, and made\neloquent, by the vehemence of his emotion and the fire of his senses. He\nwas a master example of sensibility, as Voltaire was a master example\nof clear-eyed penetration.\n\nThis must not be taken for a rigid piece of mutually exclusive division,\nfor the edges of character are not cut exactly sharp, as words are.\nEspecially when any type is intense, it seems to meet and touch its\nopposite. Just as Voltaire's piercing activity and soundness of\nintelligence made him one of the humanest of men, so Rousseau's\nemotional susceptibility endowed him with the gift of a vision that\ncarried far into the social depths. It was a very early criticism on the\npair, that Voltaire wrote on more subjects, but that Rousseau was the\nmore profound. In truth one was hardly much more profound than the\nother. Rousseau had the sonorousness of speech which popular confusion\nof thought is apt to identify with depth. And he had seriousness. If\nprofundity means the quality of seeing to the heart of subjects,\nRousseau had in a general way rather less of it than the shrewd-witted\ncrusher of the Infamous. What the distinction really amounts to is that\nRousseau had a strong feeling for certain very important aspects of\nhuman life, which Voltaire thought very little about, or never thought\nabout at all, and that while Voltaire was concerned with poetry,\nhistory, literature, and the more ridiculous parts of the religious\nsuperstition of his time, Rousseau thought about social justice and duty\nand God and the spiritual consciousness of men, with a certain attempt\nat thoroughness and system. As for the substance of his thinking, as we\nhave already seen in the Discourses, and shall soon have an opportunity\nof seeing still more clearly, it was often as thin and hollow as if he\nhad belonged to the company of the epigrammatical, who, after all, have\nfar less of a monopoly of shallow thinking than is often supposed. The\nprime merit of Rousseau, in comparing him with the brilliant chief of\nthe rationalistic school of the time, is his reverence; reverence for\nmoral worth in however obscure intellectual company, for the dignity of\nhuman character and the loftiness of duty, for some of those cravings of\nthe human mind after the divine and incommensurable, which may indeed\noften be content with solutions proved by long time and slow experience\nto be inadequate, but which are closely bound up with the highest\nelements of nobleness of soul.\n\nIt was this spiritual part of him which made Rousseau a third great\npower in the century, between the Encyclop\u00e6dic party and the Church. He\nrecognised a something in men, which the Encyclop\u00e6dists treated as a\nchimera imposed on the imagination by theologians and others for their\nown purposes. And he recognised this in a way which did not offend the\nrational feeling of the times, as the Catholic dogmas offended it. In a\nword he was religious. In being so, he separated himself from Voltaire\nand his school, who did passably well without religion. Again, he was a\npuritan. In being this, he was cut off from the intellectually and\nmorally unreformed church, which was then the organ of religion in\nFrance. Nor is this all. It was Rousseau, and not the feeble\ncontroversialists put up from time to time by the Jesuits and other\necclesiastical bodies, who proved the effective champion of religion,\nand the only power who could make head against the triumphant onslaught\nof the Voltaireans. He gave up Christian dogmas and mysteries, and,\nthrowing himself with irresistible ardour upon the emotions in which all\nreligions have their root and their power, he breathed new life into\nthem, he quickened in men a strong desire to have them satisfied, and he\nbeat back the army of emancipators with the loud and incessantly\nrepeated cry that they were not come to deliver the human mind, but to\nroot out all its most glorious and consolatory attributes. This immense\nachievement accomplished,--the great framework of a faith in God and\nimmortality and providential government of the world thus preserved, it\nwas an easy thing by and by for the churchmen to come back, and once\nmore unpack and restore to their old places the temporarily discredited\nparaphernalia of dogma and mystery. How far all this was good or bad for\nthe mental elevation of France and Europe, we shall have a better\nopportunity of considering presently.\n\nWe have now only to glance at the first skirmishes between the religious\nreactionist, on the one side, and, on the other, the leader of the\nschool who believed that men are better employed in thinking as\naccurately, and knowing as widely, and living as humanely, as all those\ndifficult processes are possible, than in wearying themselves in futile\nsearch after gods who dwell on inaccessible heights.\n\n * * * * *\n\nVoltaire had acknowledged Rousseau's gift of the second Discourse with\nhis usual shrewd pleasantry: \"I have received your new book against the\nhuman race, and thank you for it. Never was such cleverness used in the\ndesign of making us all stupid. One longs in reading your book to walk\non all fours. But as I have lost that habit for more than sixty years, I\nfeel unhappily the impossibility of resuming it. Nor can I embark in\nsearch of the savages of Canada, because the maladies to which I am\ncondemned render a European surgeon necessary to me; because war is\ngoing on in those regions; and because the example of our actions has\nmade the savages nearly as bad as ourselves. So I content myself with\nbeing a very peaceable savage in the solitude which I have chosen near\nyour native place, where you ought to be too.\" After an extremely\ninadequate discussion of one or two points in the essay,[331] he\nconcludes:--\"I am informed that your health is bad; you ought to come to\nset it up again in your native air, to enjoy freedom, to drink with me\nthe milk of our cows and browse our grass.\"[332] Rousseau replied to all\nthis in a friendly way, recognising Voltaire as his chief, and actually\nat the very moment when he tells us that the corrupting presence of the\narrogant and seductive man at Geneva helped to make the idea of\nreturning to Geneva odious to him, hailing him in such terms as\nthese:--\"Sensible of the honour you do my country, I share the gratitude\nof my fellow-citizens, and hope that it will increase when they have\nprofited by the lessons that you of all men are able to give them.\nEmbellish the asylum you have chosen; enlighten a people worthy of your\ninstruction; and do you who know so well how to paint virtue and\nfreedom, teach us to cherish them in our walls.\"[333]\n\nWithin a year, however, the bright sky became a little clouded. In 1756\nVoltaire published one of the most sincere, energetic, and passionate\npieces to be found in the whole literature of the eighteenth century,\nhis poem on the great earthquake of Lisbon (November 1755). No such word\nhad been heard in Europe since the terrible images in which Pascal had\nfigured the doom of man. It was the reaction of one who had begun life\nby refuting Pascal with doctrines of cheerfulness drawn from the\noptimism of Pope and Leibnitz, who had done Pope's Essay on Man\n(1732-34) into French verse as late as 1751,[334] and whose imagination,\nalready sombred by the triumphant cruelty and superstition which raged\naround him, was suddenly struck with horror by a catastrophe which, in a\nworld where whatever is is best, destroyed hundreds of human creatures\nin the smoking ashes and engulfed wreck of their city. How, he cried,\ncan you persist in talking of the deliberate will of a free and\nbenevolent God, whose eternal laws necessitated such an appalling climax\nof misery and injustice as this? Was the disaster retributive? If so,\nwhy is Lisbon in ashes, while Paris dances? The enigma is desperate and\ninscrutable, and the optimist lives in the paradise of the fool. We ask\nin vain what we are, where we are, whither we go, whence we came. We are\ntormented atoms on a clod of earth, whom death at last swallows up, and\nwith whom destiny meanwhile makes cruel sport. The past is only a\ndisheartening memory, and if the tomb destroys the thinking creature,\nhow frightful is the present!\n\nWhatever else we may say of Voltaire's poem, it was at least the first\nsign of the coming reaction of sympathetic imagination against the\npolished common sense of the great Queen Anne school, which had for more\nthan a quarter of a century such influence in Europe.[335] It is a\nlittle odd that Voltaire, the most brilliant and versatile branch of\nthis stock, should have broken so energetically away from it, and that\nhe should have done so, shows how open and how strong was the feeling in\nhim for reality and actual circumstance.\n\nRousseau was amazed that a man overwhelmed as Voltaire was with\nprosperity and glory, should declaim against the miseries of this life\nand pronounce that all is evil and vanity. \"Voltaire in seeming always\nto believe in God, never really believed in anybody but the devil, since\nhis pretended God is a maleficent being who according to him finds all\nhis pleasure in working mischief. The absurdity of this doctrine is\nespecially revolting in a man crowned with good things of every sort,\nand who from the midst of his own happiness tries to fill his\nfellow-creatures with despair, by the cruel and terrible image of the\nserious calamities from which he is himself free.\"[336]\n\nAs if any doctrine could be more revolting than this which Rousseau so\nquietly takes for granted, that if it is well with me and I am free from\ncalamities, then there must needs be a beneficent ruler of the universe,\nand the calamities of all the rest of the world, if by chance they catch\nthe fortunate man's eye, count for nothing in our estimate of the method\nof the supposed divine government. It is hard to imagine a more\nexecrable emotion than the complacent religiosity of the prosperous.\nVoltaire is more admirable in nothing than in the ardent humanity and\nfar-spreading lively sympathy with which he interested himself in all\nthe world's fortunes, and felt the catastrophe of Lisbon as profoundly\nas if the Geneva at his gates had been destroyed. He relished his own\nprosperity keenly enough, but his prosperity became ashes in his mouth\nwhen he heard of distress or wrong, and he did not rest until he had\nmoved heaven and earth to soothe the distress and repair the wrong. It\nwas his impatience in the face of the evils of the time which wrung from\nhim this desperate cry, and it is precisely because these evils did not\ntouch him in his own person, that he merits the greater honour for the\nsurpassing energy and sincerity of his feeling for them.\n\nRousseau, however, whose biographer has no such stories to tell as those\nof Calas and La Barre, Sirven and Lally, but only tales of a maiden\nwrongfully accused of theft, and a friend left senseless on the pavement\nof a strange town, and a benefactress abandoned to the cruelty of her\nfate, still was moved in the midst of his erotic visions in the forest\nof Montmorency to speak a jealous word in vindication of the divine\ngovernment of our world. For him at any rate life was then warm and the\nday bright and the earth very fair, and he lauded his gods accordingly.\nIt was his very sensuousness, as we are so often saying, that made him\nreligious. The optimism which Voltaire wished to destroy was to him a\nsovereign element of comfort. \"Pope's poem,\" he says, \"softens my\nmisfortunes and inclines me to patience, while yours sharpens all my\npains, excites me to murmuring, and reduces me to despair. Pope and\nLeibnitz exhort me to resignation by declaring calamities to be a\nnecessary effect of the nature and constitution of the universe. You\ncry, Suffer for ever, unhappy wretch; if there be a God who created\nthee, he could have stayed thy pains if he would: hope for no end to\nthem, for there is no reason to be discerned for thy existence, except\nto suffer and to perish.\"[337] Rousseau then proceeds to argue the\nmatter, but he says nothing really to the point which Pope had not said\nbefore, and said far more effectively. He begins, however, originally\nenough by a triumphant reference to his own great theme of the\nsuperiority of the natural over the civil state. Moral evil is our own\nwork, the result of our liberty; so are most of our physical evils,\nexcept death, and that is mostly an evil only from the preparations that\nwe make for it. Take the case of Lisbon. Was it nature who collected the\ntwenty thousand houses, all seven stories high? If the people of Lisbon\nhad been dispersed over the face of the country, as wild tribes are,\nthey would have fled at the first shock, and they would have been seen\nthe next day twenty leagues away, as gay as if nothing had happened. And\nhow many of them perished in the attempt to rescue clothes or papers or\nmoney? Is it not true that the person of a man is now, thanks to\ncivilisation, the least part of himself, and is hardly worth saving\nafter loss of the rest? Again, there are some events which lose much of\ntheir horror when we look at them closely. A premature death is not\nalways a real evil and may be a relative good; of the people crushed to\ndeath under the ruins of Lisbon, many no doubt thus escaped still worse\ncalamities. And is it worse to be killed swiftly than to await death in\nprolonged anguish?[338]\n\nThe good of the whole is to be sought before the good of the part.\nAlthough the whole material universe ought not to be dearer to its\nCreator than a single thinking and feeling being, yet the system of the\nuniverse which produces, preserves, and perpetuates all thinking and\nfeeling beings, ought to be dearer to him than any one of them, and he\nmay, notwithstanding his goodness, or rather by reason of his goodness,\nsacrifice something of the happiness of individuals to the preservation\nof the whole. \"That the dead body of a man should feed worms or wolves\nor plants is not, I admit, a compensation for the death of such a man;\nbut if in the system of this universe, it is necessary for the\npreservation of the human race that there should be a circulation of\nsubstance between men, animals, vegetables, then the particular mishap\nof an individual contributes to the general good. I die, I am eaten by\nworms; but my children, my brothers, will live as I have lived; my body\nenriches the earth of which they will consume the fruits; and so I do,\nby the order of nature and for all men, what Codrus, Curtius, the Decii,\nand a thousand others, did of their own free will for a small part of\nmen.\" (p. 305.)\n\nAll this is no doubt very well said, and we are bound to accept it as\ntrue doctrine. Although, however, it may make resignation easier by\nexplaining the nature of evil, it does not touch the point of Voltaire's\noutburst, which is that evil exists, and exists in shapes which it is a\nmere mockery to associate with the omnipotence of a benevolent\ncontroller of the world's forces. According to Rousseau, if we go to the\nroot of what he means, there is no such thing as evil, though much that\nto our narrow and impatient sight has the look of it. This may be true\nif we use that fatal word in an arbitrary and unreal sense, for the\navoidable, the consequent without antecedent, or antecedent without\nconsequent. If we consent to talk in this way, and only are careful to\ndefine terms so that there is no doubt as to their meaning, it is hardly\ndeniable that evil is a mere word and not a reality, and whatever is is\nindeed right and best, because no better is within our reach. Voltaire,\nhowever, like the man of sense that he was, exclaimed that at any rate\nrelatively to us poor creatures the existence of pain, suffering, waste,\nwhether caused or uncaused, whether in accordance with stern immutable\nlaw or mere divine caprice, is a most indisputable reality: from our\npoint of view it is a cruel puerility to cry out at every calamity and\nevery iniquity that all is well in the best of possible worlds, and to\nsing hymns of praise and glory to the goodness and mercy of a being of\nsupreme might, who planted us in this evil state and keeps us in it.\nVoltaire's is no perfect philosophy; indeed it is not a philosophy at\nall, but a passionate ejaculation; but it is perfect in comparison with\na cut and dried system like this of Rousseau's, which rests on a mocking\njuggle with phrases, and the substitution by dexterous sleight of hand\nof one definition for another.\n\nRousseau really gives up the battle, by confessing frankly that the\nmatter is beyond the light of reason, and that, \"if the theist only\nfounds his sentiment on probabilities, the atheist with still less\nprecision only founds his on the alternative possibilities.\" The\nobjections on both sides are insoluble, because they turn on things of\nwhich men can have no veritable idea; \"yet I believe in God as strongly\nas I believe any other truth, because believing and not believing are\nthe last things in the world that depend on me.\" So be it. But why take\nthe trouble to argue in favour of one side of an avowedly insoluble\nquestion? It was precisely because he felt that the objections on both\nsides cannot be answered, that Voltaire, hastily or not, cried out that\nhe faced the horrors of such a catastrophe as the Lisbon earthquake\nwithout a glimpse of consolation. The upshot of Rousseau's remonstrance\nonly amounted to this, that he could not furnish one with any\nconsolation out of the armoury of reason, that he himself found this\nconsolation, but in a way that did not at all depend upon his own effort\nor will, and was therefore as incommunicable as the advantage of having\na large appetite or being six feet high. The reader of Rousseau becomes\naccustomed to this way of dealing with subjects of discussion. We see\nhim using his reason as adroitly as he knows how for three-fourths of\nthe debate, and then he suddenly flings himself back with a triumphant\nkind of weariness into the buoyant waters of emotion and sentiment. \"You\nsir, who are a poet,\" once said Madame d'Epinay to Saint Lambert, \"will\nagree with me that the existence of a Being, eternal, all powerful, and\nof sovereign intelligence, is at any rate the germ of the finest\nenthusiasm.\"[339] To take this position and cleave to it may be very\nwell, but why spoil its dignity and repose by an unmeaning and\nsuperfluous flourish of the weapons of the reasoner?\n\nWith the same hasty change of direction Rousseau says the true question\nis not whether each of us suffers or not, but whether it is good that\nthe universe should be, and whether our misfortunes were inevitable in\nits constitution. Then within a dozen lines he admits that there can be\nno direct proof either way; we must content ourselves with settling it\nby means of inference from the perfections of God. Of course, it is\nclear that in the first place what Rousseau calls the true question\nconsists of two quite distinct questions. Is the universe in its present\nordering on the whole good relatively either to men, or to all sentient\ncreatures? Next was evil an inevitable element in that ordering? Second,\nthis way of putting it does not in the least advance the case against\nVoltaire, who insisted that no fine phrases ought to hide from us the\ndreadful power and crushing reality of evil and the desolate plight in\nwhich we are left. This is no exhaustive thought, but a deep cry of\nanguish at the dark lot of men, and of just indignation against the\nphilosophy which to creatures asking for bread gave the brightly\npolished stone of sentimental theism. Rousseau urged that Voltaire\nrobbed men of their only solace. What Voltaire really did urge was that\nthe solace derived from the attribution of humanity and justice to the\nSupreme Being, and from the metaphysical account of evil, rests on too\nnarrow a base either to cover the facts, or to be a true solace to any\nman who thinks and observes. He ought to have gone on, if it had only\nbeen possible in those times, to persuade his readers that there is no\nsolace attainable, except that of an energetic fortitude, and that we do\nbest to go into life not in a softly lined silken robe, but with a sharp\nsword and armour thrice tempered. As between himself and Rousseau, he\nsaw much the more keenly of the two, and this was because he approached\nthe matter from the side of the facts, while the latter approached it\nfrom the side of his own mental comfort and the preconceptions\ninvolved in it.\n\nThe most curious part of this curious letter is the conclusion, where\nRousseau, loosely wandering from his theme, separates Voltaire from the\nphilosopher, and beseeches him to draw up a moral code or profession of\ncivil faith that should contain positively the social maxims that\neverybody should be bound to admit, and negatively the intolerant maxims\nthat everybody should be forced to reject as seditious. Every religion\nin accord with the code should be allowed, and every religion out of\naccord with it proscribed, or a man might be free to have no other\nreligion but the code itself.\n\nVoltaire was much too clear-headed a person to take any notice of\nnonsense like this. Rousseau's letter remained unanswered, nor is there\nany reason to suppose that Voltaire ever got through it, though Rousseau\nchose to think that _Candide_ (1759) was meant for a reply to him.[340]\nHe is careful to tell us that he never read that incomparable satire,\nfor which one would be disposed to pity any one except Rousseau, whose\nappreciation of wit, if not of humour also, was probably more deficient\nthan in any man who ever lived, either in Geneva or any other country\nfashioned after Genevan guise. Rousseau's next letter to Voltaire was\nfour years later, and by that time the alienation which had no\ndefinitely avowed cause, and can be marked by no special date, had\nbecome complete. \"I hate you, in fact,\" he concluded, \"since you have so\nwilled it; but I hate you like a man still worthier to have loved you,\nif you had willed it. Of all the sentiments with which my heart was full\ntowards you, there only remains the admiration that we cannot refuse to\nyour fine genius, and love for your writings. If there is nothing in you\nwhich I can honour but your talents, that is no fault of mine.\"[341] We\nknow that Voltaire did not take reproach with serenity, and he behaved\nwith bitter violence towards Rousseau in circumstances when silence\nwould have been both more magnanimous and more humane. Rousseau\noccasionally, though not very often, retaliated in the same vein.[342]\nOn the whole his judgment of Voltaire, when calmly given, was not meant\nto be unkind. \"Voltaire's first impulse,\" he said, \"is to be good; it is\nreflection that makes him bad.\"[343] Tronchin had said in the same way\nthat Voltaire's heart was the dupe of his understanding. Rousseau is\nalways trying to like him, he always recognises him as the first man of\nthe time, and he subscribed his mite for the erection of a statue to\nhim. It was the satire and mockery in Voltaire which irritated Rousseau\nmore than the doctrines or denial of doctrine which they cloaked; in his\neyes sarcasm was always the veritable dialect of the evil power. It says\nsomething for the sincerity of his efforts after equitable judgment,\nthat he should have had the patience to discern some of the fundamental\nmerit of the most remorseless and effective mocker that ever made\nsuperstition look mean, and its doctors ridiculous.\n\n\nII.\n\nVoltaire was indirectly connected with Rousseau's energetic attack upon\nanother great Encyclop\u00e6dist leader, the famous Letter to D'Alembert on\nStage Plays. \"There,\" Rousseau said afterwards, \"is my favourite book,\nmy Benjamin, because I produced it without effort, at the first\ninspiration, and in the most lucid moments of my life.\"[344] Voltaire,\nwho to us figures so little as a poet and dramatist, was to himself and\nto his contemporaries of this date a poet and dramatist before all else,\nthe author of _Za\u00efre_ and _Mahomet_, rather than of _Candide_ and the\n_Philosophical Dictionary_. D'Alembert was Voltaire's staunchest\nhenchman. He only wrote his article on Geneva for the Encyclop\u00e6dia to\ngratify the master. Fresh from a visit to him when he composed it, he\ntook occasion to regret that the austerity of the tradition of the city\ndeprived it of the manifold advantages of a theatre. This suggestion had\nits origin partly in a desire to promote something that would please the\neager vanity of the dramatist whom Geneva now had for so close a\nneighbour, and who had just set her the example by setting up a theatre\nof his own; and partly, also, because it gave the writer an opportunity\nof denouncing the intolerant rigour with which the church nearer home\ntreated the stage and all who appeared on it. Geneva was to set an\nexample that could not be resisted, and France would no longer see\nactors on the one hand pensioned by the government, and on the other an\nobject of anathema, excommunicated by priests and regarded with contempt\nby citizens.[345]\n\nThe inveterate hostility of the church to the theatre was manifested by\nthe French ecclesiastics in the full eighteenth century as bitterly as\never. The circumstance that Voltaire was the great play-writer of the\ntime would not tend to soften their traditional prejudice, and the\npersecution of players by priests was in some sense an episode of the\nwar between the priest and the philosophers. The latter took up the\ncause of the stage partly because they hoped to make the drama an\neffective rival to the teaching of pulpit and confessional, partly from\ntheir natural sympathy with an elevated form of intellectual\nmanifestation, and partly from their abhorrence of the practical\ninhumanity with which the officers of the church treated stage\nperformers. While people of quality eagerly sought the society of those\nwho furnished them as much diversion in private as in public, the church\nrefused to all players the marriage blessing; when an actor or actress\nwished to marry, they were obliged to renounce the stage, and the\nArchbishop of Paris diligently resisted evasion or subterfuge.[346] The\natrocities connected with the refusal of burial, as well in the case of\nplayers as of philosophers, are known to all readers in a dozen\nillustrious instances, from Moli\u00e8re and Adrienne Lecouvreur downwards.\n\nHere, as along the whole line of the battle between new light and old\nprejudice, Rousseau took part, if not with the church, at least against\nits adversaries. His point of view was at bottom truly puritanical.\nJeremy Collier in his _Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of\nthe English Stage_ (1698) takes up quite a different position. This once\nfamous piece was not a treatment of the general question, but an attack\non certain specific qualities of the plays of his time--their indecency\nof phrase, their oaths, their abuse of the clergy, the gross libertinism\nof the characters. One can hardly deny that this was richly deserved by\nthe English drama of the Restoration, and Collier's strictures were not\napplicable, nor meant to apply, either to the ancients, for he has a\ngood word even for Aristophanes, or to the French drama. Bossuet's\nloftier denunciation, like Rousseau's, was puritanical, and it extended\nto the whole body of stage plays. He objected to the drama as a school\nof concupiscence, as a subtle or gross debaucher of the gravity and\npurity of the understanding, as essentially a charmer of the senses, and\ntherefore the most equivocal and untrustworthy of teachers. He appeals\nto the fathers, to Scripture, to Plato, and even to Christ, who cried,\n_Woe unto you that laugh_.[347] There is a fine austerity about\nBossuet's energetic criticism; it is so free from breathless eagerness,\nand so severe without being thinly bitter. The churchmen of a generation\nor two later had fallen from this height into gloomy peevishness.\n\nRousseau's letter on the theatre, it need hardly be said, is meant to be\nan appeal to the common sense and judgment of his readers, and not\nconceived in the ecclesiastical tone of unctuous anathema and fulgurant\nmenace. It is no bishop's pastoral, replete with solecisms of thought\nand idiom, but a piece of firm dialectic in real matter. His position is\nthis: that the moral effect of the stage can never be salutary in\nitself, while it may easily be extremely pernicious, and that the habit\nof frequenting the theatre, the taste for imitating the style of the\nactors, the cost in money, the waste in time, and all the other\naccessory conditions, apart from the morality of the matter represented,\nare bad things in themselves, absolutely and in every circumstance.\nSecondly, these effects in all kinds are specially bad in relation to\nthe social condition and habits of Geneva.[348] The first part of the\ndiscussion is an ingenious answer to some of the now trite pleas for\nthe morality of the drama, such as that tragedy leads to pity through\nterror, that comedy corrects men while amusing them, that both make\nvirtue attractive and vice hateful.[349] Rousseau insists with abundance\nof acutely chosen illustration that the pity that is awaked by tragedy\nis a fleeting emotion which subsides when the curtain falls; that comedy\nas often as not amuses men at the expense of old age, uncouth virtue,\npaternal carefulness, and other objects which we should be taught rather\nto revere than to ridicule; and that both tragedy and comedy, instead of\nmaking vice hateful, constantly win our sympathy for it. Is not the\nFrench stage, he asks, as much the triumph of great villains, like\nCatilina, Mahomet, Atreus, as of illustrious heroes?\n\nThis rude handling of accepted commonplace is always one of the most\ninteresting features in Rousseau's polemic. It was of course a\ncharacteristic of the eighteenth century always to take up the ethical\nand high prudential view of whatever had to be justified, and Rousseau\nseems from this point to have been successful in demolishing arguments\nwhich might hold of Greek tragedy at its best, but which certainly do\nnot hold of any other dramatic forms. The childishness of the old\ncriticism which attaches the label of some moral from the copybook to\neach piece, as its lesson and point of moral aim, is evident. In\nrepudiating this Rousseau was certainly right.[350] Both the assailants\nand the defenders of the stage, however, commit the double error, first\nof supposing that the drama is always the same thing, from the Agamemnon\ndown to the last triviality of a London theatre, and next of pitching\nthe discussion in too high a key, as if the effect or object of a stage\nplay in the modern era, where grave sentiment clothes itself in other\nforms, were substantially anything more serious than an evening's\namusement. Apart from this, and in so far as the discussion is confined\nto the highest dramatic expression, the true answer to Rousseau is now a\nvery plain one. The drama does not work in the sphere of direct\nmorality, though like everything else in the world it has a moral or\nimmoral aspect. It is an art of ideal presentation, not concerned with\nthe inculcation of immediate practical lessons, but producing a stir in\nall our sympathetic emotions, quickening the imagination, and so\ncommunicating a wider life to the character of the spectator. This is\nwhat the drama in the hands of a worthy master does; it is just what\nnoble composition in music does, and there is no more directly\nmoralising effect in the one than in the other. You must trust to the\nsum of other agencies to guide the interest and sympathy thus quickened\ninto channels of right action. Rousseau, like most other\ncontroversialists, makes an attack of which the force rests on the\nassumption that the special object of the attack is the single\ninfluencing element and the one decisive instrument in making men had or\ngood. What he says about the drama would only be true if the public went\nto the play all day long, and were accessible to no other moral force\nwhatever, modifying and counteracting such lessons as they might learn\nat the theatre. He failed here as in the wider controversy on the\nsciences and arts, to consider the particular subject of discussion in\nrelation to the whole of the general medium in which character moves,\nand by whose manifold action and reaction it is incessantly affected and\nvariously shaped.\n\nSo when he passed on from the theory of dramatic morality to the matter\nwhich he had more at heart, namely, the practical effects of introducing\nthe drama into Geneva, he keeps out of sight all the qualities in the\nGenevese citizen which would protect him against the evil influence of\nthe stage, though it is his anxiety for the preservation of these very\nqualities that gives all its fire to his eloquence. If the citizen\nreally was what Rousseau insisted that he was, then his virtues would\nsurely neutralise the evil of the drama; if not, the drama would do him\nno harm. We need not examine the considerations in which Rousseau\npointed out the special reasons against introducing a theatre into his\nnative town. It would draw the artisans away from their work, cause\nwasteful expenditure of money in amusements, break up the harmless and\ninexpensive little clubs of men and the social gatherings of women. The\ntown was not populous enough to support a theatre, therefore the\ngovernment would have to provide one, and this would mean increased\ntaxation. All this was the secondary and merely colourable support by\nargumentation, of a position that had been reached and was really held\nby sentiment. Rousseau hated the introduction of French plays in the\nsame way that Cato hated the introduction of fine talkers from Greece.\nIt was an innovation, and so habitual was it with Rousseau to look on\nall movement in the direction of what the French writers called taste\nand cultivation as depraving, that he cannot help taking for granted\nthat any change in manners associated with taste must necessarily be a\nchange for the worse. Thus the Letter to D'Alembert was essentially a\nsupplement to the first Discourse; it was an application of its\nprinciples to a practical case. It was part of his general reactionary\nprotest against philosophers, poets, men of letters, and all their\nworks, without particular apprehension on the side of the drama. Hence\nits reasoning is much less interesting than its panegyric on the\nsimplicity, robust courage, and manliness of the Genevese, and its\ninvective against the effeminacy and frivolity of the Parisian. One of\nthe most significant episodes in the discussion is the lengthy criticism\non the immortal Misanthrope of Moli\u00e8re. Rousseau admits it for the\nmasterpiece of the comic muse, though with characteristic perversity he\ninsists that the hero is not misanthropic enough, nor truly misanthropic\nat all, because he flies into rage at small things affecting himself,\ninstead of at the large follies of the race. Again, he says that Moli\u00e8re\nmakes Alceste ridiculous, virtuous as he is, in order to win the\napplause of the pit. It is for the character of Philinte, however, that\nRousseau reserves all his spleen. He takes care to describe him in terms\nwhich exactly hit Rousseau's own conception of his philosophic enemies,\nwho find all going well because they have no interest in anything going\nbetter; who are content with everybody, because they do not care for\nanybody; who round a full table maintain that it is not true that the\npeople are hungry. As criticism, one cannot value this kind of analysis.\nD'Alembert replied with a much more rational interpretation of the great\ncomedy, but finding himself seized with the critic's besetting\nimpertinence of improving masterpieces, he suddenly stopped with the\nbecoming reflection--\"But I perceive, sir, that I am giving lessons to\nMoli\u00e8re.\"[351]\n\nThe constant thought of Paris gave Rousseau an admirable occasion of\npainting two pictures in violent contrast, each as over-coloured as the\nother by his mixed conceptions of the Plutarchian antique and imaginary\npastoral. We forget the depravation of the stage and the ill living of\ncomedians in magnificent descriptions of the manly exercises and\ncheerful festivities of the free people on the shores of the Lake of\nGeneva, and in scornful satire on the Parisian seraglios, where some\nwoman assembles a number of men who are more like women than their\nentertainers. We see on the one side the rude sons of the republic,\nboxing, wrestling, running, in generous emulation, and on the other the\ncoxcombs of cultivated Paris imprisoned in a drawing-room, \"rising up,\nsitting down, incessantly going and coming to the fire-place, to the\nwindow, taking up a screen and putting it down again a hundred times,\nturning over books, flitting from picture to picture, turning and\npirouetting about the room, while the idol stretched motionless on a\ncouch all the time is only alive in her tongue and eyes\" (p. 161). If\nthe rough patriots of the Lake are less polished in speech, they are all\nthe weightier in reason; they do not escape by a pleasantry or a\ncompliment; each feeling himself attacked by all the forces of his\nadversary, he is obliged to employ all his own to defend himself, and\nthis is how a mind acquires strength and precision. There may be here\nand there a licentious phrase, but there is no ground for alarm in that.\nIt is not the least rude who are always the most pure, and even a rather\nclownish speech is better than that artificial style in which the two\nsexes seduce one another, and familiarise themselves decently with vice.\n'Tis true our Swiss drinks too much, but after all let us not calumniate\neven vice; as a rule drinkers are cordial and frank, good, upright,\njust, loyal, brave, and worthy folk. Wherever people have most\nabhorrence of drunkenness, be sure they have most reason to fear lest\nits indiscretion should betray intrigue and treachery. In Switzerland it\nis almost thought well of, while at Naples they hold it in horror; but\nat bottom which is the more to be dreaded, the intemperance of the Swiss\nor the reserve of the Italian? It is hardly surprising to learn that the\npeople of Geneva were as little gratified by this well-meant panegyric\non their jollity as they had been by another writer's friendly eulogy on\ntheir Socinianism.[352]\n\nThe reader who was not moved to turn brute and walk on all fours by the\npictures of the state of nature in the Discourses, may find it more\ndifficult to resist the charm of the brotherly festivities and simple\npastimes which in the Letter to D'Alembert the patriot holds up to the\nadmiration of his countrymen and the envy of foreigners. The writer is\nin Sparta, but he tempers his Sparta with a something from Charmettes.\nNever before was there so attractive a combination of martial austerity\nwith the grace of the idyll. And the interest of these pictures is much\nmore than literary; it is historic also. They were the original version\nof those great gatherings in the Champ de Mars and strange suppers of\nfraternity during the progress of the Revolution in Paris, which have\namused the cynical ever since, but which pointed to a not unworthy\naspiration. The fine gentlemen whom Rousseau did so well to despise had\nthen all fled, and the common people under Rousseauite leaders were\ndoing the best they could to realise on the banks of the Seine the\nimaginary joymaking and simple fellowship which had been first dreamed\nof for the banks of Lake Leman, and commended with an eloquence that\nstruck new chords in minds satiated or untouched by the brilliance of\nmere literature. There was no real state of things in Geneva\ncorresponding to the gracious picture which Rousseau so generously\npainted, and some of the citizens complained that his account of their\nsocial joys was as little deserved as his ingenious vindication of their\nhearty feeling for barrel or bottle was little founded.[353]\n\nThe glorification of love of country did little for the Genevese for\nwhom it was meant, but it penetrated many a soul in the greater nation\nthat lay sunk in helpless indifference to its own ruin. Nowhere else\namong the writers who are the glory of France at this time, is any\nserious eulogy of patriotism. Rousseau glows with it, and though he\nalways speaks in connection with Geneva, yet there is in his words a\ngenerous breadth and fire which gave them an irresistible\ncontagiousness. There are many passages of this fine persuasive force in\nthe Letter to D'Alembert; perhaps this, referring to the citizens of\nGeneva who had gone elsewhere in search of fortune, is as good as\nanother. Do you think that the opening of a theatre, he asks, will bring\nthem back to their mother city? No; \"each of them must feel that he can\nnever find anywhere else what he has left behind in his own land; an\ninvincible charm must call him back to the spot that he ought never to\nhave quitted; the recollection of their first exercises, their first\npleasures, their first sights, must remain deeply graven in their\nhearts; the soft impressions made in the days of their youth must abide\nand grow stronger with advancing years, while a thousand others wax dim;\nin the midst of the pomp of great cities and all their cheerless\nmagnificence, a secret voice must for ever cry in the depth of the\nwanderer's soul, Ah, where are the games and holidays of my youth? Where\nis the concord of the townsmen, where the public brotherhood? Where is\npure joy and true mirth? Where are peace, freedom, equity? Let us hasten\nto seek all these. With the heart of a Genevese, with a city as smiling,\na landscape as full of delight, a government as just, with pleasures so\ntrue and so pure, and all that is needed to be able to relish them, how\nis it that we do not all adore our birth-land? It was thus in old times\nthat by modest feasts and homely games her citizens were called back by\nthat Sparta which I can never quote often enough as an example for us;\nthus in Athens in the midst of fine art, thus in Susa in the very bosom\nof luxury and soft delights, the wearied Spartan sighed after his coarse\npastimes and exhausting exercises\" (p. 211).[354]\n\nAny reference to this powerfully written, though most sophistical\npiece, would be imperfect which should omit its slightly virulent\nonslaught upon women and the passion which women inspire. The modern\ndrama, he said, being too feeble to rise to high themes, has fallen back\non love; and on this hint he proceeds to a censure of love as a poetic\ntheme, and a bitter estimate of women as companions for men, which might\nhave pleased Calvin or Knox in his sternest mood. The same eloquence\nwhich showed men the superior delights of the state of nature, now shows\nthe superior fitness of the oriental seclusion of women; it makes a\nsympathetic reader tremble at the want of modesty, purity, and decency,\nin the part which women are allowed to take by the infatuated men of a\nmodern community.\n\nAll this, again, is directed against \"that philosophy of a day, which is\nborn and dies in the corner of a city, and would fain stifle the cry of\nnature and the unanimous voice of the human race\" (p. 131). The same\nintrepid spirits who had brought reason to bear upon the current notions\nof providence, inspiration, ecclesiastical tradition, and other\nunlighted spots in the human mind, had perceived that the subjection of\nwomen to a secondary place belonged to the same category, and could not\nany more successfully be defended by reason. Instead of raging against\nwomen for their boldness, their frivolousness, and the rest, as our\npassionate sentimentalist did, the opposite school insisted that all\nthese evils were due to the folly of treating women with gallantry\ninstead of respect, and to the blindness of refusing an equally vigorous\nand masculine education to those who must be the closest companions of\neducated man. This was the view forced upon the most rational observers\nof a society where women were so powerful, and so absolutely unfit by\nwant of intellectual training for the right use of social power.\nD'Alembert expressed this view in a few pages of forcible pleading in\nhis reply to Rousseau,[355] and some thirty-two years later, when all\nquestions had become political (1790), Condorcet ably extended the same\nline of argument so as to make it cover the claims of women to all the\nrights of citizenship.[356] From the nature of the case, however, it is\nimpossible to confute by reason a man who denies that the matter in\ndispute is within the decision and jurisdiction of reason, and who\nsupposes that his own opinion is placed out of the reach of attack when\nhe declares it to be the unanimous voice of the human race. We may\nremember that the author of this philippic against love was at the very\nmoment brooding over the New Helo\u00efsa, and was fresh from strange\ntransports at the feet of the Julie whom we know.\n\nThe Letter on the Stage was the definite mark of Rousseau's schism from\nthe philosophic congregation. Has Jean Jacques turned a father of the\nchurch? asked Voltaire. Deserters who fight against their country ought\nto be hung. The little flock are falling to devouring one another. This\narch-madman, who might have been something, if he would only have been\nguided by his brethren of the Encyclop\u00e6dia, takes it into his head to\nmake a band of his own. He writes against the stage, after writing a bad\nplay of his own. He finds four or five rotten staves of Diogenes' tub,\nand instals himself therein to bark at his friends.[357] D'Alembert was\nmore tolerant, but less clear-sighted. He insisted that the little flock\nshould do its best to heal divisions instead of widening them. Jean\nJacques, he said, \"is a madman who is very clever, and who is only\nclever when he is in a fever; it is best therefore neither to cure nor\nto insult him.\"\n\nRousseau made the preface to the Letter on the Stage an occasion for a\nproclamation of his final breach with Diderot. \"I once,\" he said,\n\"possessed a severe and judicious Aristarchus; I have him no longer, and\nwish for him no longer.\" To this he added in a footnote a passage from\nEcclesiasticus, to the effect that if you have drawn a sword on a friend\nthere still remains a way open, and if you have spoken cheerless words\nto him concord is still possible, but malicious reproach and the\nbetrayal of a secret--these things banish friendship beyond return. This\nwas the end of his personal connection with the men whom he always\ncontemptuously called the Holbachians. After 1760 the great stream\ndivided into two; the rationalist and the emotional schools became\nvisibly antipathetic, and the voice of the epoch was no longer single or\nundistracted.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[331] See above p. 149.\n\n[332] Voltaire to Rousseau. Aug. 30, 1755.\n\n[333] _Corr._, i. 237. Sept. 10, 1755.\n\n[334] _La Loi Naturelle._\n\n[335] In 1754 the Berlin Academy proposed for a prize essay, An\nExamination of Pope's System, and Lessing the next year wrote a\npamphlet to show that Pope had no system, but only a patchwork. See\nMr. Pattison's _Introduction to Pope's Essay on Man_, p. 12. Sime's\n_Lessing_, i. 128.\n\n[336] _Conf._ ix. 276.\n\n[337] _Corr._, i. 289-316. Aug. 18, 1756.\n\n[338] Joseph De Maistre put all this much more acutely; _Soir\u00e9es_, iv.\n\n[339] Madame d'Epinay, _M\u00e9m._, i. 380.\n\n[340] _Conf._, ix. 277. Also _Corr._, iii. 326. March 11, 1764.\nTronchin's long letter, to which Rousseau refers in this passage, is\ngiven in M. Streckeisen-Moultou's collection, i. 323, and is\ninteresting to people who care to know how Voltaire looked to a doctor\nwho saw him closely.\n\n[341] _Corr._, ii. 132. June 17, 1760. Also _Conf._, x. 91.\n\n[342] Some other interesting references to Voltaire in Rousseau's\nletters are--ii. 170 (Nov. 29, 1760), denouncing Voltaire as \"that\ntrumpet of impiety, that fine genius, and that low soul,\" and so\nforth; iii. 29 (Oct. 30, 1762), accusing Voltaire of malicious\nintrigues against him in Switzerland; iii. 168 (Mar. 21, 1763), that\nif there is to be any reconciliation, Voltaire must make first\nadvances; iii. 280 (Dec., 1763), described a trick played by Voltaire;\niv. 40 (Jan. 31, 1765) 64; _Corr._, v. 74 (Jan. 5, 1767), replying to\nVoltaire's calumnious account of his early life; note on this subject\ngiving Voltaire the lie direct, iv. 150 (May 31, 1765); the _Lettre \u00e0\nD'Almbert_, p. 193, etc.\n\n[343] Bernardin St. Pierre, xii. 96. In the same sense, in Dusaulx,\n_Mes Rapports avec J.J.R._, (Paris: 1798), p. 101. See also _Corr._,\niv. 254. Dec. 30, 1765. And again, iv. 276, Feb. 28, 1766, and p. 356.\n\n[344] Dusaulx, p. 102.\n\n[345] This part of D'Alembert's article is reproduced in Rousseau's\npreface, and the whole is given at the end of the volume in M.\nAuguis's edition, p. 409.\n\n[346] Goncourt, _Femme au 18i\u00e8me si\u00e8cle_, p. 256. Grimm, _Corr. Lit._,\nvi. 248.\n\n[347] _Maximes sur la Com\u00e9die_, \u00a715, etc. They were written in reply\nto a plea for Comedy by Caffaro, a Jesuit father.\n\n[348] The letter may be conveniently divided into three parts: I. pp.\n1-89, II. pp. 90-145, III. pp. 146 to the end. Of course if Rousseau\nin saying that tragedy leads to pity through terror, was thinking of\nthe famous passage in the sixth chapter of Aristotle's _Poetics_, he\nwas guilty of a shocking mistranslation.\n\n[349] Some of the arguments seem drawn from Plato; see, besides the\nwell-known passages in the _Republic_, the _Laws_, iv. 719, and still\nmore directly, _Gorgias_, 502.\n\n[350] Yet D'Alembert in his very cool and sensible reply (p. 245)\nrepeats the old saws, as that in _Catilina_ we learn the lesson of the\nharm which may be done to the human race by the abuse of great\ntalents, and so forth.\n\n[351] _Lettre \u00e0 M. J.J. Rousseau_, p. 258.\n\n[352] D'Alembert's _Lettre \u00e0 J.J. Rousseau_, p. 277. Rousseau has a\npassage to the same effect, that false people are always sober, in the\n_Nouv. H\u00e9l., _Pt. I. xxiii. 123.\n\n[353] Tronchin, for instance, in a letter to Rousseau, in M.\nStreckeisen-Moultou's collection, i. 325.\n\n[354] A troop of comedians had been allowed to play for a short time\nin Geneva, with many protests, during the mediation of 1738. In 1766,\neight years after Rousseau's letter, the government gave permission\nfor the establishment of a theatre in the town. It was burnt down in\n1768, and Voltaire spitefully hinted that the catastrophe was the\nresult of design, instigated by Rousseau (_Corr._ v. 299, April 26,\n1768). The theatre was not re-erected until 1783, when the oligarchic\nparty regained the ascendancy and brought back with them the drama,\nwhich the democrats in their reign would not permit.\n\n[355] _Lettre \u00e0 J.J. Rousseau_, pp. 265-271.\n\n[356] _Oeuv._, x. 121.\n\n[357] To Thieriot, Sept. 17, 1758. To D'Alembert, Oct. 20, 1761. _Ib._\nMarch 19, 1761.\n\n\nEND OF VOL. I.\n\n\n_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_\n\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\nROUSSEAU\n\n\nBY\n\nJOHN MORLEY\n\n\nVOL. II.\n\n\nLondon\nMACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED\nNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n1905\n\n_All rights reserved_\n\n_First printed in this form 1886_\n_Reprinted 1888, 1891, 1896, 1900, 1905_\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. II.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nMONTMORENCY--THE NEW HELO\u00cfSA.\n\nConditions preceding the composition of the New Helo\u00efsa 1\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Luxembourg 2\n\nRousseau and his patrician acquaintances 4\n\nPeaceful life at Montmorency 9\n\nEquivocal prudence occasionally shown by Rousseau 12\n\nHis want of gratitude for commonplace service 13\n\nBad health, and thoughts of suicide 16\n\nEpisode of Madame Latour de Franqueville 17\n\nRelation of the New Helo\u00efsa to Rousseau's general doctrine 20\n\nAction of the first part of the story 25\n\nContrasted with contemporary literature 25\n\nAnd with contemporary manners 27\n\nCriticism of the language and principal actors 28, 29\n\nPopularity of the New Helo\u00efsa 31\n\nIts reactionary intellectual direction 33\n\nAction of the second part 35, 36\n\nIts influence on Goethe and others 38\n\nDistinction between Rousseau and his school 40\n\nSingular pictures of domesticity 42\n\nSumptuary details 44\n\nThe slowness of movement in the work justified 46\n\nExaltation of marriage 47\n\nEqualitarian tendencies 49\n\nNot inconsistent with social quietism 51\n\nCompensation in the political consequences of the triumph of sentiment\n54\n\nCircumstances of the publication of the New Helo\u00efsa 55\n\nNature of the trade in books 57\n\nMalesherbes and the printing of Emilius 61\n\nRousseau's suspicions 62\n\nThe great struggle of the moment 64\n\nProscription of Emilius 67\n\nFlight of the author 67\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nPERSECUTION.\n\nRousseau's journey from Switzerland 69\n\nAbsence of vindictiveness 70\n\nArrival at Yverdun 72\n\nRepairs to Motiers 73\n\nRelations with Frederick the Great 74\n\nLife at Motiers 77\n\nLord Marischal 79\n\nVoltaire 81\n\nRousseau's letter to the Archbishop of Paris 83\n\nIts dialectic 86\n\nThe ministers of Neuch\u00e2tel 90\n\nRousseau's singular costume 92\n\nHis throng of visitors 93\n\nLewis, prince of W\u00fcrtemberg 95\n\nGibbon 96\n\nBoswell 98\n\nCorsican affairs 99\n\nThe feud at Geneva 102\n\nRousseau renounces his citizenship 105\n\nThe Letters from the Mountain 106\n\nPolitical side 107\n\nConsequent persecution at Motiers 107\n\nFlight to the isle of St. Peter 108\n\nThe fifth of the _R\u00eaveries_ 109\n\nProscription by the government of Berne 116\n\nRousseau's singular request 116\n\nHis renewed flight 117\n\nPersuaded to seek shelter in England 118\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE SOCIAL CONTRACT.\n\nRousseau's reaction against perfectibility 119\n\nAbandonment of the position of the Discourses 121\n\nDoubtful idea of equality 121\n\nThe Social Contract, a repudiation of the historic method 124\n\nYet it has glimpses of relativity 127\n\nInfluence of Greek examples 129\n\nAnd of Geneva 131\n\nImpression upon Robespierre and Saint Just 132\n\nRousseau's scheme implied a small territory 135\n\nWhy the Social Contract made fanatics 137\n\nVerbal quality of its propositions 138\n\nThe doctrine of public safety 143\n\nThe doctrine of the sovereignty of peoples 144\n\nIts early phases 144\n\nIts history in the sixteenth century 146\n\nHooker and Grotius 148\n\nLocke 149\n\nHobbes 151\n\nCentral propositions of the Social Contract--\n\n 1. Origin of society in compact 154\n Different conception held by the Physiocrats 156\n\n 2. Sovereignty of the body thus constituted 158\n Difference from Hobbes and Locke 159\n The root of socialism 160\n Republican phraseology 161\n\n 3. Attributes of sovereignty 162\n\n 4. The law-making power 163\n A contemporary illustration 164\n Hints of confederation 166\n\n 5. Forms of government 168\n Criticism on the common division 169\n Rousseau's preference for elective aristocracy 172\n\n 6. Attitude of the state to religion 173\n Rousseau's view, the climax of a reaction 176\n Its effect at the French Revolution 179\n Its futility 180\n\nAnother method of approaching the philosophy of government--\n\n Origin of society not a compact 183\n\n The true reason of the submission of a minority to a majority 184\n\n Rousseau fails to touch actual problems 186\n\n The doctrine of resistance, for instance 188\n\n Historical illustrations 190\n\n Historical effect of the Social Contract in France and Germany 193\n\n Socialist deductions from it 194\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nEMILIUS.\n\nRousseau touched by the enthusiasm of his time 197\n\nContemporary excitement as to education, part of the revival of\n naturalism 199\n\nI.--Locke, on education 202\n Difference between him and Rousseau 204\n Exhortations to mothers 205\n Importance of infantile habits 208\n Rousseau's protest against reasoning with children 209\n Criticised 209\n The opposite theory 210\n The idea of property 212\n Artificially contrived incidents 214\n Rousseau's omission of the principle of authority 215\n Connected with his neglect of the faculty of sympathy 219\n\nII.--Rousseau's ideal of living 221\n The training that follows from it 222\n The duty of knowing a craft 223\n Social conception involved in this moral conception 226\n\nIII.--Three aims before the instructor 229\n Rousseau's omission of training for the social conscience 230\n No contemplation of society as a whole 232\n Personal interest, the foundation of the morality of Emilius 233\n The sphere and definition of the social conscience 235\n\nIV.--The study of history 237\n Rousseau's notions upon the subject 239\n\nV.--Ideals of life for women 241\n Rousseau's repudiation of his own principles 242\n His oriental and obscurantist position 243\n Arising from his want of faith in improvement 244\n His reactionary tendencies in this region eventually\n neutralised 248\n\nVI.--Sum of the merits of Emilius 249\n Its influence in France and Germany 251\n In England 252\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE SAVOYARD VICAR.\n\nShallow hopes entertained by the dogmatic atheists 256\n\nThe good side of the religious reaction 258\n\nIts preservation of some parts of Christian influence 259\n\nEarlier forms of deism 260\n\nThe deism of the Savoyard Vicar 264\n\nThe elevation of man, as well as the restoration of a divinity 265\n\nA divinity for fair weather 268\n\nReligious self-denial 269\n\nThe Savoyard Vicar's vital omission 270\n\nHis position towards Christianity 272\n\nIts effectiveness as a solvent 273\n\nWeakness of the subjective test 276\n\nThe Savoyard Vicar's deism not compatible with growing intellectual\n conviction 276\n\nThe true satisfaction of the religious emotion 277\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nENGLAND.\n\nRousseau's English portrait 281\n\nHis reception in Paris 282\n\nAnd in London 283\n\nHume's account of him 284\n\nSettlement at Wootton 286\n\nThe quarrel with Hume 287\n\nDetail of the charges against Hume 287-291\n\nWalpole's pretended letter from Frederick 291\n\nBaselessness of the whole delusion 292\n\nHume's conduct in the quarrel 293\n\nThe war of pamphlets 295\n\nCommon theory of Rousseau's madness 296\n\nPreparatory conditions 297\n\nExtension of disorder from the affective life to the intelligence 299\n\nThe Confessions 301\n\nHis life at Wootton 306\n\nFlight from Derbyshire 306\n\nAnd from England 308\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE END.\n\nThe elder Mirabeau 309\n\nShelters Rousseau at Fleury 311\n\nRousseau at Trye 312\n\nIn Dauphiny 314\n\nReturn to Paris 314\n\nThe _R\u00eaveries_ 315\n\nLife in Paris 316\n\nBernardin de St. Pierre's account of him 317\n\nAn Easter excursion 320\n\nRousseau's unsociality 322\n\nPoland and Spain 324\n\nWithdrawal to Ermenonville 326\n\nHis death 326\n\n\n\n\nROUSSEAU.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nMONTMORENCY--THE NEW HELO\u00cfSA.\n\n\nThe many conditions of intellectual productiveness are still hidden in\nsuch profound obscurity that we are unable to explain why a period of\nstormy moral agitation seems to be in certain natures the\nindispensable antecedent of their highest creative effort. Byron is\none instance, and Rousseau is another, in which the current of\nstimulating force made this rapid way from the lower to the higher\nparts of character, and only expended itself after having traversed\nthe whole range of emotion and faculty, from their meanest, most\nrealistic, most personal forms of exercise, up to the summit of what\nis lofty and ideal. No man was ever involved in such an odious\ncomplication of moral maladies as beset Rousseau in the winter of\n1758. Yet within three years of this miserable epoch he had completed\nnot only the New Helo\u00efsa, which is the monument of his fall, but the\nSocial Contract, which was the most influential, and Emilius, which\nwas perhaps the most elevated and spiritual, of all the productions of\nthe prolific genius of France in the eighteenth century. A poor\nlight-hearted Marmontel thought that the secret of Rousseau's success\nlay in the circumstance that he began to write late, and it is true\nthat no other author, so considerable as Rousseau, waited until the\nage of fifty for the full vigour of his inspiration. No tale of years,\nhowever, could have ripened such fruit without native strength and\nincommunicable savour. Nor can the mechanical movement of those better\nordered characters which keep the balance of the world even, impart to\nliterature that peculiar quality, peculiar but not the finest, that\ncomes from experience of the black unlighted abysses of the soul.\n\nThe period of actual production was externally calm. The New Helo\u00efsa\nwas completed in 1759, and published in 1761. The Social Contract was\npublished in the spring of 1762, and Emilius a few weeks later.\nThroughout this period Rousseau was, for the last time in his life, at\npeace with most of his fellows. Though he never relented from his\nantipathy to the Holbachians, for the time it slumbered, until a more\nreal and serious persecution than any which he imputed to them,\ntransformed his antipathy into a gloomy frenzy.\n\nThe new friends whom he made at Montmorency were among the greatest\npeople in the kingdom. The Duke of Luxembourg (1702-64) was a marshal\nof France, and as intimate a friend of the king as the king was\ncapable of having. The Mar\u00e9chale de Luxembourg (1707-87) had been one\nof the most beautiful, and continued to be one of the most brilliant\nleaders of the last aristocratic generation that was destined to sport\non the slopes of the volcano. The former seems to have been a loyal\nand homely soul; the latter, restless, imperious, penetrating,\nunamiable. Their dealings with Rousseau were marked by perfect\nsincerity and straightforward friendship. They gave him a convenient\napartment in a small summer lodge in the park, to which he retreated\nwhen he cared for a change from his narrow cottage. He was a constant\nguest at their table, where he met the highest personages in France.\nThe marshal did not disdain to pay him visits, or to walk with him, or\nto discuss his private affairs. Unable as ever to shine in\nconversation, yet eager to show his great friends that they had to do\nwith no common mortal, Rousseau bethought him of reading the New\nHelo\u00efsa aloud to them. At ten in the morning he used to wait upon the\nmar\u00e9chale, and there by her bedside he read the story of the love, the\nsin, the repentance of Julie, the distraction of Saint Preux, the\nwisdom of Wolmar, and the sage friendship of Lord Edward, in tones\nwhich enchanted her both with his book and its author for all the rest\nof the day, as all the women in France were so soon to be\nenchanted.[1] This, as he expected, amply reconciled her to the\nuncouthness and clumsiness of his conversation, which was at least as\nmaladroit and as spiritless in the presence of a duchess as it was in\npresences less imposing.\n\nOne side of character is obviously tested by the way in which a man\nbears himself in his relations with those of greater social\nconsideration. Rousseau was taxed by some of his plebeian enemies with\na most unheroic deference to his patrician friends. He had a dog whose\nname was _Duc_. When he came to sit at a duke's table, he changed his\ndog's name to _Turc_.[2] Again, one day in a transport of tenderness\nhe embraced the old marshal--the duchess embraced Rousseau ten times a\nday, for the age was effusive--\"Ah, monsieur le mar\u00e9chal, I used to\nhate the great before I knew you, and I hate them still more, since\nyou make me feel so strongly how easy it would be for them to have\nthemselves adored.\"[3] On another occasion he happened to be playing\nat chess with the Prince of Conti, who had come to visit him in his\ncottage.[4] In spite of the signs and grimaces of the attendants, he\ninsisted on beating the prince in a couple of games. Then he said with\nrespectful gravity, \"Monseigneur, I honour your serene highness too\nmuch not to beat you at chess always.\"[5] A few days after, the\nvanquished prince sent him a present of game which Rousseau duly\naccepted. The present was repeated, but this time Rousseau wrote to\nMadame de Boufflers that he would receive no more, and that he loved\nthe prince's conversation better than his gifts.[6] He admits that\nthis was an ungracious proceeding, and that to refuse game \"from a\nprince of the blood who throws such good feeling into the present, is\nnot so much the delicacy of a proud man bent on preserving his\nindependence, as the rusticity of an unmannerly person who does not\nknow his place.\"[7] Considering the extreme virulence with which\nRousseau always resented gifts even of the most trifling kind from his\nfriends, one may perhaps find some inconsistency in this condemnation\nof a sort of conduct to which he tenaciously clung on all other\noccasions. If the fact of the donor being a prince of the blood is\nallowed to modify the quality of the donation, that is hardly a\ndefensible position in the austere citizen of Geneva. Madame de\nBoufflers,[8] the intimate friend of our sage Hume, and the yet more\nintimate friend of the Prince of Conti, gave him a judicious warning\nwhen she bade him beware of laying himself open to a charge of\naffectation, lest it should obscure the brightness of his virtue and\nso hinder its usefulness. \"Fabius and Regulus would have accepted such\nmarks of esteem, without feeling in them any hurt to their\ndisinterestedness and frugality.\"[9] Perhaps there is a flutter of\nself-consciousness that is not far removed from this affectation, in\nthe pains which Rousseau takes to tell us that after dining at the\ncastle, he used to return home gleefully to sup with a mason who was\nhis neighbour and his friend.[10] On the whole, however, and so far as\nwe know, Rousseau conducted himself not unworthily with these high\npeople. His letters to them are for the most part marked by\nself-respect and a moderate graciousness, though now and again he\nmakes rather too much case of the difference of rank, and asserts his\nindependence with something too much of protestation.[11] Their\nrelations with him are a curious sign of the interest which the\nmembers of the great world took in the men who were quietly preparing\nthe destruction both of them and their world. The Mar\u00e9chale de\nLuxembourg places this squalid dweller in a hovel on her estate in the\nplace of honour at her table, and embraces his Theresa. The Prince of\nConti pays visits of courtesy and sends game to a man whom he employs\nat a few sous an hour to copy manuscript for him. The Countess of\nBoufflers, in sending him the money, insists that he is to count her\nhis warmest friend.[12] When his dog dies, the countess writes to\nsympathise with his chagrin, and the prince begs to be allowed to\nreplace it.[13] And when persecution and trouble and infinite\nconfusion came upon him, they all stood as fast by him as their own\ncomfort would allow. Do we not feel that there must have been in the\nunhappy man, besides all the recorded pettinesses and perversities\nwhich revolt us in him, a vein of something which touched men, and\nmade women devoted to him, until he splenetically drove both men and\nwomen away from him? With Madame d'Epinay and Madame d'Houdetot, as\nwith the dearer and humbler patroness of his youth, we have now parted\ncompany. But they are instantly succeeded by new devotees. And the\nlovers of Rousseau, in all degrees, were not silly women led captive\nby idle fancy. Madame de Boufflers was one of the most distinguished\nspirits of her time. Her friendship for him was such, that his\nsensuous vanity made Rousseau against all reason or probability\nconfound it with a warmer form of emotion, and he plumes himself in a\nmanner most displeasing on the victory which he won over his own\nfeelings on the occasion.[14] As a matter of fact he had no feelings\nto conquer, any more than the supposed object of them ever bore him\nany ill-will for his indifference, as in his mania of suspicion he\nafterwards believed.\n\nThere was a calm about the too few years he passed at Montmorency,\nwhich leaves us in doubt whether this mania would ever have afflicted\nhim, if his natural irritation had not been made intense and\nirresistible by the cruel distractions that followed the publication\nof Emilius. He was tolerably content with his present friends. The\nsimplicity of their way of dealing with him contrasted singularly, as\nhe thought, with the never-ending solicitudes, as importunate as they\nwere officious, of the patronising friends whom he had just cast\noff.[15] Perhaps, too, he was soothed by the companionship of persons\nwhose rank may have flattered his vanity, while unlike Diderot and his\nold literary friends in Paris, they entered into no competition with\nhim in the peculiar sphere of his own genius. Madame de Boufflers,\nindeed, wrote a tragedy, but he told her gruffly enough that it was a\nplagiarism from Southerne's Oroonoko.[16] That Rousseau was\nthoroughly capable of this pitiful emotion of sensitive literary\njealousy is proved, if by nothing else, by his readiness to suspect\nthat other authors were jealous of him. No one suspects others of a\nmeanness of this kind unless he is capable of it himself. The\nresounding success which followed the New Helo\u00efsa and Emilius put an\nend to these apprehensions. It raised him to a pedestal in popular\nesteem as high as that on which Voltaire stood triumphant. That very\nsuccess unfortunately brought troubles which destroyed Rousseau's last\nchance of ending his days in full reasonableness.\n\nMeanwhile he enjoyed his final interval of moderate wholesomeness and\npeace. He felt his old healthy joy in the green earth. One of the\nletters commemorates his delight in the great scudding south-west\nwinds of February, soft forerunners of the spring, so sweet to all who\nlive with nature.[17] At the end of his garden was a summer-house, and\nhere even on wintry days he sat composing or copying. It was not music\nonly that he copied. He took a curious pleasure in making transcripts\nof his romance, and he sold them to the Duchess of Luxembourg and\nother ladies for some moderate fee.[18] Sometimes he moved from his\nown lodging to the quarters in the park which his great friends had\ninduced him to accept. \"They were charmingly neat; the furniture was\nof white and blue. It was in this perfumed and delicious solitude, in\nthe midst of woods and streams and choirs of birds of every kind,\nwith the fragrance of the orange-flower poured round me, that I\ncomposed in a continual ecstasy the fifth book of Emilius. With what\neagerness did I hasten every morning at sunrise to breathe the balmy\nair! What good coffee I used to make under the porch in company with\nmy Theresa! The cat and the dog made up the party. That would have\nsufficed me for all the days of my life, and I should never have known\nweariness.\" And so to the assurance, so often repeated under so many\ndifferent circumstances, that here was a true heaven upon earth, where\nif fates had only allowed he would have known unbroken innocence and\nlasting happiness.[19]\n\nYet he had the wisdom to warn others against attempting a life such as\nhe craved for himself. As on a more memorable occasion, there came to\nhim a young man who would fain have been with him always, and whom he\nsent away exceeding sorrowful. \"The first lesson I should give you\nwould be not to surrender yourself to the taste you say you have for\nthe contemplative life. It is only an indolence of the soul, to be\ncondemned at any age, but especially so at yours. Man is not made to\nmeditate, but to act. Labour therefore in the condition of life in\nwhich you have been placed by your family and by providence: that is\nthe first precept of the virtue which you wish to follow. If residence\nat Paris, joined to the business you have there, seems to you\nirreconcilable with virtue, do better still, and return to your own\nprovince. Go live in the bosom of your family, serve and solace your\nhonest parents. There you will be truly fulfilling the duties that\nvirtue imposes on you.\"[20] This intermixture of sound sense with\nunutterable perversities almost suggests a doubt how far the\nperversities were sincere, until we remember that Rousseau even in the\nmost exalted part of his writings was careful to separate immediate\npractical maxims from his theoretical principles of social\nphilosophy.[21]\n\nOccasionally his good sense takes so stiff and unsympathetic a form as\nto fill us with a warmer dislike for him than his worst paradoxes\ninspire. A correspondent had written to him about the frightful\npersecutions which were being inflicted on the Protestants in some\ndistrict of France. Rousseau's letter is a masterpiece in the style of\nEliphaz the Temanite. Our brethren must surely have given some pretext\nfor the evil treatment to which they were subjected. One who is a\nChristian must learn to suffer, and every man's conduct ought to\nconform to his doctrine. Our brethren, moreover, ought to remember\nthat the word of God is express upon the duty of obeying the laws set\nup by the prince. The writer cannot venture to run any risk by\ninterceding in favour of our brethren with the government. \"Every one\nhas his own calling upon the earth; mine is to tell the public harsh\nbut useful truths. I have preached humanity, gentleness, tolerance, so\nfar as it depended upon me; 'tis no fault of mine if the world has not\nlistened. I have made it a rule to keep to general truths; I produce\nno libels, no satires; I attack no man, but men; not an action, but a\nvice.\"[22] The worst of the worthy sort of people, wrote Voltaire, is\nthat they are such cowards: a man groans over a wrong, he holds his\ntongue, he takes his supper, and he forgets all about it.[23] If\nVoltaire could not write like F\u00e9nelon, at least he could never talk\nlike Tartufe; he responded to no tale of wrong with words about his\nmission, with strings of antitheses, but always with royal anger and\nthe spring of alert and puissant endeavour. In an hour of oppression\none would rather have been the friend of the saviour of the Calas and\nof Sirven, than of the vindicator of theism.\n\nRousseau, however, had good sense enough in less equivocal forms than\nthis. For example, in another letter he remonstrates with a\ncorrespondent for judging the rich too harshly. \"You do not bear in\nmind that having from their childhood contracted a thousand wants\nwhich we are without, then to bring them down to the condition of the\npoor, would be to make them more miserable than the poor. We should be\njust towards all the world, even to those who are not just to us. Ah,\nif we had the virtues opposed to the vices which we reproach in them,\nwe should soon forget that such people were in the world. One word\nmore. To have any right to despise the rich, we ought ourselves to be\nprudent and thrifty, so as to have no need of riches.\"[24] In the\nobservance of this just precept Rousseau was to the end of his life\nabsolutely without fault. No one was more rigorously careful to make\nhis independence sure by the fewness of his wants and by minute\nfinancial probity. This firm limitation of his material desires was\none cause of his habitual and almost invariable refusal to accept\npresents, though no doubt another cause was the stubborn and\nungracious egoism which made him resent every obligation.\n\nIt is worth remembering in illustration of the peculiar susceptibility\nand softness of his character where women were concerned--it was not\nquite without exception--that he did not fly into a fit of rage over\ntheir gifts, as he did over those of men. He remonstrated, but in\ngentler key. \"What could I do with four pullets?\" he wrote to a lady\nwho had presented them to him. \"I began by sending two of them to\npeople to whom I am indifferent. That made me think of the difference\nthere is between a present and a testimony of friendship. The first\nwill never find in me anything but a thankless heart; the second....\nAh, if you had only given me news of yourself without sending me\nanything else, how rich and how grateful you would have made me;\ninstead of that the pullets are eaten, and the best thing I can do is\nto forget all about them; let us say no more.\"[25] Rude and repellent\nas this may seem, and as it is, there is a rough kind of playfulness\nabout it, when compared with the truculence which he was not slow to\nexhibit to men. If a friend presumed to thank him for any service, he\nwas peremptorily rebuked for his ignorance of the true qualities of\nfriendship, with which thankfulness has no connection. He\nostentatiously refused to offer thanks for services himself, even to a\nwoman whom he always treated with so much consideration as the\nMar\u00e9chale de Luxembourg. He once declared boldly that modesty is a\nfalse virtue,[26] and though he did not go so far as to make gratitude\nthe subject of a corresponding formula of denunciation, he always\nimplied that this too is really one of the false virtues. He confessed\nto Malesherbes, without the slightest contrition, that he was\nungrateful by nature.[27] To Madame d'Epinay he once went still\nfurther, declaring that he found it hard not to hate those who had\nused him well.[28] Undoubtedly he was right so far as this, that\ngratitude answering to a spirit of exaction in a benefactor is no\nmerit; a service done in expectation of gratitude is from that fact\nstripped of the quality which makes gratitude due, and is a mere piece\nof egoism in altruistic disguise. Kindness in its genuine forms is a\ntestimony of good feeling, and conventional speech is perhaps a little\ntoo hard, as well as too shallow and unreal, in calling the recipient\nevil names because he is unable to respond to the good feeling.\nRousseau protested against a conception of friendship which makes of\nwhat ought to be disinterested helpfulness a title to everlasting\ntribute. His way of expressing this was harsh and unamiable, but it\nwas not without an element of uprightness and veracity. As in his\ngreater themes, so in his paradoxes upon private relations, he hid\nwholesome ingredients of rebuke to the unquestioning acceptance of\ncommon form. \"I am well pleased,\" he said to a friend, \"both with thee\nand thy letters, except the end, where thou say'st thou art more mine\nthan thine own. For there thou liest, and it is not worth while to\ntake the trouble to _thee_ and _thou_ a man as thine intimate, only to\ntell him untruths.\"[29] Chesterfield was for people with much\nself-love of the small sort, probably a more agreeable person to meet\nthan Doctor Johnson, but Johnson was the more wholesome companion for\na man.\n\nOccasionally, though not very often, he seems to have let spleen take\nthe place of honest surliness, and so drifted into clumsy and\nill-humoured banter, of a sort that gives a dreary shudder to one\nfresh from Voltaire. \"So you have chosen for yourself a tender and\nvirtuous mistress! I am not surprised; all mistresses are that. You\nhave chosen her in Paris! To find a tender and virtuous mistress in\nParis is to have not such bad luck. You have made her a promise of\nmarriage? My friend, you have made a blunder; for if you continue to\nlove, the promise is superfluous, and if you do not, then it is no\navail. You have signed it with your blood? That is all but tragic; but\nI don't know that the choice of the ink in which he writes, gives\nanything to the fidelity of the man who signs.\"[30]\n\nWe can only add that the health in which a man writes may possibly\nexcuse the dismal quality of what he writes, and that Rousseau was now\nas always the prey of bodily pain which, as he was conscious, made him\ndistraught. \"My sufferings are not very excruciating just now,\" he\nwrote on a later occasion, \"but they are incessant, and I am not out\nof pain a single moment day or night, and this quite drives me mad. I\nfeel bitterly my wrong conduct and the baseness of my suspicions; but\nif anything can excuse me, it is my mournful state, my loneliness,\"\nand so on.[31] This prolonged physical anguish, which was made more\nintense towards the end of 1761 by the accidental breaking of a\nsurgical instrument,[32] sometimes so nearly wore his fortitude away\nas to make him think of suicide.[33] In Lord Edward's famous letter on\nsuicide in the New Helo\u00efsa, while denying in forcible terms the right\nof ending one's days merely to escape from intolerable mental\ndistress, he admits that inasmuch as physical disorders only grow\nincessantly worse, violent and incurable bodily pain may be an excuse\nfor a man making away with himself; he ceases to be a human being\nbefore dying, and in putting an end to his life he only completes his\nrelease from a body that embarrasses him, and contains his soul no\nlonger.[34] The thought was often present to him in this form.\nEighteen months later than our last date, the purpose grew very\ndeliberate under an aggravation of his malady, and he seriously looked\nupon his own case as falling within the conditions of Lord Edward's\nexception.[35] It is difficult, in the face of outspoken declarations\nlike these, to know what writers can be thinking of when, with respect\nto the controversy on the manner of Rousseau's death, they pronounce\nhim incapable of such a dereliction of his own most cherished\nprinciples as anything like self-destruction would have been.\n\nAs he sat gnawed by pain, with surgical instruments on his table, and\nsombre thoughts of suicide in his head, the ray of a little episode of\nromance shone in incongruously upon the scene. Two ladies in Paris,\nabsorbed in the New Helo\u00efsa, like all the women of the time,\nidentified themselves with the Julie and the Claire of the novel that\nnone could resist. They wrote anonymously to the author, claiming\ntheir identification with characters fondly supposed to be immortal.\n\"You will know that Julie is not dead, and that she lives to love you;\nI am not this Julie, you perceive it by my style; I am only her\ncousin, or rather her friend, as Claire was.\" The unfortunate Saint\nPreux responded as gallantly as he could be expected to do in the\nintervals of surgery. \"You do not know that the Saint Preux to whom\nyou write is tormented with a cruel and incurable disorder, and that\nthe very letter he writes to you is often interrupted by distractions\nof a very different kind.\"[36] He figures rather uncouthly, but the\nunknown fair were not at first disabused, and one of them never was.\nRousseau was deeply suspicious. He feared to be made the victim of a\nmasculine pleasantry. From women he never feared anything. His letters\nwere found too short, too cold. He replied to the remonstrance by a\nreference of extreme coarseness. His correspondents wrote from the\nneighbourhood of the Palais Royal, then and for long after the haunt\nof mercenary women. \"You belong to your quarter more than I thought,\"\nhe said brutally.[37] The vulgarity of the lackey was never quite\nobliterated in him, even when the lackey had written Emilius. This\nwas too much for the imaginary Claire. \"I have given myself three good\nblows on my breast for the correspondence that I was silly enough to\nopen between you,\" she wrote to Julie, and she remained implacable.\nThe Julie, on the contrary, was faithful to the end of Rousseau's\nlife. She took his part vehemently in the quarrel with Hume, and wrote\nin defence of his memory after he was dead. She is the most remarkable\nof all the instances of that unreasoning passion which the New Helo\u00efsa\ninflamed in the breasts of the women of that age. Madame Latour\npursued Jean Jacques with a devotion that no coldness could repulse.\nShe only saw him three times in all, the first time not until 1766,\nwhen he was on his way through Paris to England. The second time, in\n1772, she visited him without mentioning her name, and he did not\nrecognise her; she brought him some music to copy, and went away\nunknown. She made another attempt, announcing herself: he gave her a\nfrosty welcome, and then wrote to her that she was to come no more.\nWith a strange fidelity she bore him no grudge, but cherished his\nmemory and sorrowed over his misfortunes to the day of her death. He\nwas not an idol of very sublime quality, but we may think kindly of\nthe idolatress.[38] Worshippers are ever dearer to us than their\ngraven images. Let us turn to the romance which touched women in this\nway, and helped to give a new spirit to an epoch.\n\n\nII.\n\nAs has been already said, it is the business of criticism to separate\nwhat is accidental in form, transitory in manner, and merely local in\nsuggestion, from the general ideas which live under a casual and\nparticular literary robe. And so we have to distinguish the external\nconditions under which a book like the New Helo\u00efsa is produced, from\nthe living qualities in the author which gave the external conditions\ntheir hold upon him, and turned their development in one direction\nrather than another. We are only encouraging poverty of spirit, when\nwe insist on fixing our eyes on a few of the minuti\u00e6 of construction,\ninstead of patiently seizing larger impressions and more durable\nmeanings; when we stop at the fortuitous incidents of composition,\ninstead of advancing to the central elements of the writer's\ncharacter.\n\nThese incidents in the case of the New Helo\u00efsa we know; the sensuous\ncommunion with nature in her summer mood in the woods of Montmorency,\nthe long hours and days of solitary expansion, the despairing passion\nfor the too sage Julie of actual experience. But the power of these\nimpressions from without depended on secrets of conformation within.\nAn adult with marked character is, consciously or unconsciously, his\nown character's victim or sport. It is his whole system of impulses,\nideas, pre-occupations, that make those critical situations ready,\ninto which he too hastily supposes that an accident has drawn him. And\nthis inner system not only prepares the situation; it forces his\ninterpretation of the situation. Much of the interest of the New\nHelo\u00efsa springs from the fact that it was the outcome, in a sense of\nwhich the author himself was probably unconscious, of the general\ndoctrine of life and conduct which he only professed to expound in\nwritings of graver pretension. Rousseau generally spoke of his romance\nin phrases of depreciation, as the monument of a passing weakness. It\nwas in truth as entirely a monument of the strength, no less than the\nweakness, of his whole scheme, as his weightiest piece. That it was\nnot so deliberately, only added to its effect. The slow and musing air\nwhich underlies all the assumption of ardent passion, made a way for\nthe doctrine into sensitive natures, that would have been untouched by\nthe pretended ratiocination of the Discourses, and the didactic manner\nof the Emilius.\n\nRousseau's scheme, which we must carefully remember was only present\nto his own mind in an informal and fragmentary way, may be shortly\ndescribed as an attempt to rehabilitate human nature in as much of the\nsupposed freshness of primitive times, as the hardened crust of civil\ninstitutions and social use might allow. In this survey, however\nincoherently carried out, the mutual passion of the two sexes was the\nvery last that was likely to escape Rousseau's attention. Hence it was\nwith this that he began. The Discourses had been an attack upon the\ngeneral ordering of society, and an exposition of the mischief that\nsociety has done to human nature at large. The romance treated one set\nof emotions in human nature particularly, though it also touches the\nwhole emotional sphere indirectly. And this limitation of the field\nwas accompanied by a total revolution in the method. Polemic was\nabandoned; the presence of hostility was forgotten in appearance, if\nnot in the heart of the writer; instead of discussion, presentation;\ninstead of abstract analysis of principles, concrete drawing of\npersons and dramatic delineation of passion. There is, it is true, a\nmonstrous superfluity of ethical exposition of most doubtful value,\nbut then that, as we have already said, was in the manners of the\ntime. All people in those days with any pretensions to use their\nminds, wrote and talked in a superfine ethical manner, and violently\ntranslated the dictates of sensibility into formulas of morality. The\nimportant thing to remark is not that this semi-didactic strain is\npresent, but that there is much less of it, and that it takes a far\nmore subordinate place, than the subject and the reigning taste would\nhave led us to expect. It is true, also, that Rousseau declared his\nintention in the two characters of Julie and of Wolmar, who eventually\nbecame Julie's husband, of leading to a reconciliation between the two\ngreat opposing parties, the devout and the rationalistic; of teaching\nthem the lesson of reciprocal esteem, by showing the one that it is\npossible to believe in a God without being a hypocrite, and the other\nthat it is possible to be an unbeliever without being a scoundrel.[39]\nThis intention, if it was really present to Rousseau's mind while he\nwas writing, and not an afterthought characteristically welcomed for\nthe sake of giving loftiness and gravity to a composition of which he\nwas always a little ashamed, must at any rate have been of a very pale\nkind. It would hardly have occurred to a critic, unless Rousseau had\nso emphatically pointed it out, that such a design had presided over\nthe composition, and contemporary readers saw nothing of it. In the\nfirst part of the story, which is wholly passionate, it is certainly\nnot visible, and in the second part neither of the two contending\nfactions was likely to learn any lesson with respect to the other.\nChurchmen would have insisted that Wolmar was really a Christian\ndressed up as an atheist, and philosophers would hardly have accepted\nJulie as a type of the too believing people who broke Calas on the\nwheel, and cut off La Barre's head.\n\nFrench critics tell us that no one now reads the New Helo\u00efsa in France\nexcept deliberate students of the works of Rousseau, and certainly few\nin this generation read it in our own country.[40] The action is very\nslight, and the play of motives very simple, when contrasted with the\ningenuity of invention, the elaborate subtleties of psychological\nanalysis, the power of rapid change from one perturbing incident or\nexcited humour to another, which mark the modern writer of sentimental\nfiction. As the title warns us, it is a story of a youthful tutor and\na too fair disciple, straying away from the lessons of calm philosophy\ninto the heated places of passion. The high pride of Julie's father\nforbade all hope of their union, and in very desperation the unhappy\npair lost the self-control of virtue, and threw themselves into the\npit that lies so ready to our feet. Remorse followed with quick step,\nfor Julie had with her purity lost none of the other lovelinesses of a\ndutiful character. Her lover was hurried away from the country by the\ngenerous solicitude of an English nobleman, one of the bravest,\ntenderest, and best of men. Julie, left undisturbed by her lover's\npresence, stricken with affliction at the death of a sweet and\naffectionate mother, and pressed by the importunities of a father whom\nshe dearly loved, in spite of all the disasters which his will had\nbrought upon her, at length consented to marry a foreign baron from\nsome northern court. Wolmar was much older than she was; a devotee of\ncalm reason, without a system and without prejudices, benevolent,\norderly, above all things judicious. The lover meditated suicide, from\nwhich he was only diverted by the arguments of Lord Edward, who did\nmore than argue; he hurried the forlorn man on board the ship of\nAdmiral Anson, then just starting for his famous voyage round the\nworld. And this marks the end of the first episode.\n\nRousseau always urged that his story was dangerous for young girls,\nand maintained that Richardson was grievously mistaken in supposing\nthat they could be instructed by romances. It was like setting fire to\nthe house, he said, for the sake of making the pumps play.[41] As he\nadmitted so much, he is not open to attack on this side, except from\nthose who hold the theory that no books ought to be written which may\nnot prudently be put into the hands of the young,--a puerile and\ncontemptible doctrine that must emasculate all literature and all art,\nby excluding the most interesting of human relations and the most\npowerful of human passions. There is not a single composition of the\nfirst rank outside of science, from the Bible downwards, that could\nundergo the test. The most useful standard for measuring the\nsignificance of a book in this respect is found in the manners of the\ntime, and the prevailing tone of contemporary literature. In trying to\nappreciate the meaning of the New Helo\u00efsa and its popularity, it is\nwell to think of it as a delineation of love, in connection not only\nwith such a book as the Pucelle, where there is at least wit, but with\na story like Duclos's, which all ladies both read and were not in the\nleast ashamed to acknowledge that they had read; or still worse, such\nan abomination as Diderot's first stories; or a story like Laclos's,\nwhich came a generation later, and with its infinite briskness and\ndevilry carried the tradition of artistic impurity to as vigorous a\nmanifestation as it is capable of reaching.[42] To a generation whose\nliterature is as pure as the best English, American, and German\nliterature is in the present day, the New Helo\u00efsa might without doubt\nbe corrupting. To the people who read Cr\u00e9billon and the Pucelle, it\nwas without doubt elevating.\n\nThe case is just as strong if we turn from books to manners. Without\nlooking beyond the circle of names that occur in Rousseau's own\nhistory, we see how deep the depravity had become. Madame d'Epinay's\ngallant sat at table with the husband, and the husband was perfectly\naware of the relations between them. M. d'Epinay had notorious\nrelations with two public women, and was not ashamed to refer to them\nin the presence of his wife, and even to seek her sympathy on an\noccasion when one of them was in some trouble. Not only this, but\nhusband and lover used to pursue their debaucheries in the town\ntogether in jovial comradeship. An opera dancer presided at the table\nof a patrician abb\u00e9 in his country house, and he passed weeks in her\nhouse in the town. As for shame, says Barbier on one occasion, \"'tis\ntrue the king has a mistress, but who has not?--except the Duke of\nOrleans; he has withdrawn to Ste. Genevi\u00e8ve, and is thoroughly\ndespised in consequence, and rightly.\"[43] Reeking disorder such as\nall this illustrates, made the passion of the two imaginary lovers of\nthe fair lake seem like a breath from the garden of Eden. One virtue\nwas lost in that simple paradise, but even that loss was followed by\ncircumstances of mental pain and far circling distress, which banished\nthe sin into a secondary place; and what remained to strike the\nimagination of the time were delightful pictures of fast union between\ntwo enchanting women, of the patience and compassionateness of a grave\nmother, of the chivalrous warmth and helpfulness of a loyal friend.\nAny one anxious to pick out sensual strokes and turns of grossness\ncould make a small collection of such defilements from the New Helo\u00efsa\nwithout any difficulty. They were in Rousseau's character, and so they\ncame out in his work. Saint Preux afflicts us with touches of this\nkind, just as we are afflicted with similar touches in the\nConfessions. They were not noticed at that day, when people's ears did\nnot affect to be any chaster than the rest of them.\n\nA historian of opinion is concerned with the general effect that was\nactually produced by a remarkable book, and with the causes that\nproduced it. It is not his easy task to produce a demonstration that\nif the readers had all been as wise and as virtuous as the moralist\nmight desire them to be, or if they had all been discriminating and\nscientific critics, not this, but a very different impression would\nhave followed. Today we may wonder at the effect of the New Helo\u00efsa.\nA long story told in letters has grown to be a form incomprehensible\nand intolerable to us. We find Richardson hard to be borne, and he put\nfar greater vivacity and wider variety into his letters than Rousseau\ndid, though he was not any less diffuse, and he abounds in repetitions\nas Rousseau does not. Rousseau was absolutely without humour; that\nbelongs to the keenly observant natures, and to those who love men in\nthe concrete, not only humanity in the abstract. The pleasantries of\nJulie's cousin, for instance, are heavy and misplaced. Thus the whole\nbook is in one key, without the dramatic changes of Richardson, too\nfew even as those are. And who now can endure that antique fashion of\napostrophising men and women, hot with passion and eager with all\nactive impulses, in oblique terms of abstract qualities, as if their\npassion and their activity were only the inconsiderable embodiment of\nfine general ideas? We have not a single thrill, when Saint Preux\nbeing led into the chamber where his mistress is supposed to lie\ndying, murmurs passionately, \"What shall I now see in the same place\nof refuge where once all breathed the ecstasy that intoxicated my\nsoul, in this same object who both caused and shared my transports!\nthe image of death, virtue unhappy, beauty expiring!\"[44] This\nrhetorical artificiality of phrase, so repulsive to the more realistic\ntaste of a later age, was as natural then as that facility of shedding\ntears, which appears so deeply incredible a performance to a\ngeneration that has lost that particular fashion of sensibility,\nwithout realising for the honour of its ancestors the physiological\ntruth of the power of the will over the secretions.\n\nThe characters seem as stiff as some of the language, to us who are\naccustomed to an Asiatic luxuriousness of delineation. Yet the New\nHelo\u00efsa was nothing less than the beginning of that fresh, full,\nhighly-coloured style which has now taught us to find so little charm\nin the source and original of it. Saint Preux is a personage whom no\nwidest charity, literary, philosophic, or Christian, can make\nendurable. Egoism is made thrice disgusting by a ceaseless redundance\nof fine phrases. The exaggerated conceits of love in our old poets\nturn graciously on the lover's eagerness to offer every sacrifice at\nthe feet of his mistress. Even Werther, stricken creature as he was,\nyet had the stoutness to blow his brains out, rather than be the\ninstrument of surrounding the life of his beloved with snares. Saint\nPreux's egoism is unbrightened by a single ray of tender abnegation,\nor a single touch of the sweet humility of devoted passion. The slave\nof his sensations, he has no care beyond their gratification. With\nsome rotund nothing on his lips about virtue being the only path to\nhappiness, his heart burns with sickly desire. He writes first like a\npedagogue infected by some cantharidean philter, and then like a\npedagogue without the philter, and that is the worse of the two.\nLovelace and the Count of Valmont are manly and hopeful characters in\ncomparison. Werther, again, at least represents a principle of\nrebellion, in the midst of all his self-centred despair, and he\nretains strength enough to know that his weakness is shameful. His\ndespair, moreover, is deeply coloured with repulsed social\nambition.[45] He feels the world about him. His French prototype, on\nthe contrary, represents nothing but the unalloyed selfishness of a\nsensual love for which there is no universe outside of its own fevered\npulsation.\n\nJulie is much less displeasing, partly perhaps for the reason that she\nbelongs to the less displeasing sex. At least, she preserves\nfortitude, self-control, and profound considerateness for others. At a\ncertain point her firmness even moves a measure of enthusiasm. If the\nNew Helo\u00efsa could be said to have any moral intention, it is here\nwhere women learn from the example of Julie's energetic return to\nduty, the possibility and the satisfaction of bending character back\nto comeliness and honour. Excellent as this is from a moral point of\nview, the reader may wish that Julie had been less of a preacher, as\nwell as less of a sinner. And even as sinner, she would have been more\nreadily forgiven if she had been less deliberate. A maiden who\nsacrifices her virtue in order that the visible consequences may force\nher parents to consent to a marriage, is too strategical to be\nperfectly touching. As was said by the cleverest, though not the\ngreatest, of all the women whose youth was fascinated by Rousseau,\nwhen one has renounced the charms of virtue, it is at least well to\nhave all the charms that entire surrender of heart can bestow.[46] In\nspite of this, however, Julie struck the imagination of the time, and\nstruck it in a way that was thoroughly wholesome. The type taught men\nsome respect for the dignity of women, and it taught women a firmer\nrespect for themselves. It is useless, even if it be possible, to\npresent an example too lofty for the comprehension of an age. At this\nmoment the most brilliant genius in the country was filling France\nwith impish merriment at the expense of the greatest heroine that\nFrance had then to boast. In such an atmosphere Julie had almost the\nhalo of saintliness.\n\nWe may say all we choose about the inconsistency, the excess of\npreaching, the excess of prudence, in the character of Julie. It was\nsaid pungently enough by the wits of the time.[47] Nothing that could\nbe said on all this affected the fact, that the women between 1760\nand the Revolution were intoxicated by Rousseau's creation to such a\npitch that they would pay any price for a glass out of which Rousseau\nhad drunk, they would kiss a scrap of paper that contained a piece of\nhis handwriting, and vow that no woman of true sensibility could\nhesitate to consecrate her life to him, if she were only certain to be\nrewarded by his attachment.[48] The booksellers were unable to meet\nthe demand. The book was let out at the rate of twelve sous a volume,\nand the volume could not be detained beyond an hour. All classes\nshared the excitement, courtiers, soldiers, lawyers, and\nbourgeois.[49] Stories were told of fine ladies, dressed for the ball,\nwho took the book up for half an hour until the time should come for\nstarting; they read until midnight, and when informed that the\ncarriage waited, answered not a word, and when reminded by and by that\nit was two o'clock, still read on, and then at four, having ordered\nthe horses to be taken out of the carriage, disrobed, went to bed, and\npassed the remainder of the night in reading. In Germany the effect\nwas just as astonishing. Kant only once in his life failed to take his\nafternoon walk, and this unexampled omission was due to the witchery\nof the New Helo\u00efsa. Gallantry was succeeded by passion, expansion,\nexaltation; moods far more dangerous for society, as all enthusiasm is\ndangerous, but also far higher and pregnant with better hopes for\ncharacter. To move the sympathetic faculties is the first step towards\nkindling all the other energies which make life wiser and more\nfruitful. It is especially worth noticing that nothing in the\ncharacter of Julie concentrates this outburst of sympathy in\nsubjective broodings. Julie is the representative of one recalled to\nthe straight path by practical, wholesome, objective sympathy for\nothers, not of one expiring in unsatisfied yearnings for the sympathy\nof others for herself, and in moonstruck subjective aspirations. The\nwomen who wept over her romance read in it the lesson of duty, not of\nwhimpering introspection. The danger lay in the mischievous\nintellectual direction which Rousseau imparted to this effusion.\n\nThe stir which the Julie communicated to the affections in so many\nways, marked progress, but in all the elements of reason she was the\nmost perilous of reactionaries. So hard it is with the human mind,\nconstituted as it is, to march forward a space further to the light,\nwithout making some fresh swerve obliquely towards old darkness. The\ngreat effusion of natural sentiment was in the air before the New\nHelo\u00efsa appeared, to condense and turn it into definite channels. One\nbeautiful character, Vauven argues (1715-1747), had begun to teach the\nculture of emotional instinct in some sayings of exquisite sweetness\nand moderation, as that \"Great thoughts come from the heart.\" But he\ncame too soon, and, alas for us all, he died young, and he made no\nmark. Moderation never can make a mark in the epochs when men are\nbeginning to feel the urgent spirit of a new time. Diderot strove with\nmore powerful efforts, in the midst of all his herculean labours for\nthe acquisition and ordering of knowledge, in the same direction\ntowards the great outer world of nature, and towards the great inner\nworld of nature in the human breast. His criticisms on the paintings\nof each year, mediocre as the paintings were, are admirable even now\nfor their richness and freshness. If Diderot had been endowed with\nemotional tenacity, as he was with tenacity of understanding and of\npurpose, the student of the eighteenth century would probably have\nbeen spared the not perfectly agreeable task of threading a way along\nthe sinuosities of the character and work of Rousseau. But Rousseau\nhad what Diderot lacked--sustained ecstatic moods, and fervid trances;\nhis literary gesture was so commanding, his apparel so glistening, his\nvoice so rich in long-drawn notes of plangent vibration. His words\nare the words of a prophet; a prophet, it is understood, who had lived\nin Paris, and belonged to the eighteenth century, and wrote in French\ninstead of Hebrew. The mischief of his work lay in this, that he\nraised feeling, now passionate, now quietest, into the supreme place\nwhich it was to occupy alone, and not on an equal throne and in equal\nalliance with understanding. Instead of supplementing reason, he\nplaced emotion as its substitute. And he made this evil doctrine come\nfrom the lips of a fictitious character, who stimulated fancy and\nfascinated imagination. Voltaire laughed at the _baisers \u00e2cres_ of\nMadame de Wolmar, and declared that a criticism of the Marquis of\nXim\u00e9n\u00e8s had crushed the wretched romance.[50] But Madame de Wolmar was\nso far from crushed, that she turned the flood of feeling which her\nown charms, passion, remorse, and conversion had raised, in a\ndirection that Voltaire abhorred, and abhorred in vain.\n\nIt is after the marriage of Julie to Wolmar that the action of the\nstory takes the turn which sensible men like Voltaire found laughable.\nSaint Preux is absent with Admiral Anson for some years. On his return\nto Europe he is speedily invited by the sage Wolmar, who knows his\npast history perfectly well, to pay them a visit. They all meet with\nleapings on the neck and hearty kisses, the unprejudiced Wolmar\npreserving an open, serene, and smiling air. He takes his young friend\nto a chamber, which is to be reserved for him and for him only. In a\nfew days he takes an opportunity of visiting some distant property,\nleaving his wife and Saint Preux together, with the sublime of\nmagnanimity. At the same time he confides to Claire his intention of\nentrusting to Saint Preux the education of his children. All goes\nperfectly well, and the household presents a picture of contentment,\nprosperity, moderation, affection, and evenly diffused happiness,\nwhich in spite of the disagreeableness of the situation is even now\nextremely charming. There is only one cloud. Julie is devoured by a\nsource of hidden chagrin. Her husband, \"so sage, so reasonable, so far\nfrom every kind of vice, so little under the influence of human\npassions, is without the only belief that makes virtue precious, and\nin the innocence of an irreproachable life he carries at the bottom of\nhis heart the frightful peace of the wicked.\"[51] He is an atheist.\nJulie is now a pietest, locking herself for hours in her chambers,\nspending days in self-examination and prayer, constantly reading the\npages of the good F\u00e9nelon.[52] \"I fear,\" she writes to Saint Preux,\n\"that you do not gain all you might from religion in the conduct of\nyour life, and that philosophic pride disdains the simplicity of the\nChristian. You believe prayers to be of scanty service. That is not,\nyou know, the doctrine of Saint Paul, nor what our Church professes.\nWe are free, it is true, but we are ignorant, feeble, prone to ill.\nAnd whence should light and force come, if not from him who is their\nvery well-spring?... Let us be humble, to be sage; let us see our\nweakness, and we shall be strong.\"[53] This was the opening of the\ndeistical reaction; it was thus, associated with everything that\nstruck imagination and moved the sentiment of his readers, that\nRousseau brought back those sophistical conclusions which Pascal had\ndrawn from premisses of dark profound truth, and that enervating\ndisplacement of reason by celestial contemplation, which F\u00e9nelon had\nonce made beautiful by the persuasion of virtuous example. He was\njustified in saying, as he afterwards did, that there was nothing in\nthe Savoyard Vicar's Profession of Faith which was not to be found in\nthe letters of Julie. These were the effective preparations for that\nmore famous manifesto; they surrounded belief with all the attractions\nof an interesting and sympathetic preacher, and set it to a harmony of\ncircumstance that touched softer fibres.\n\nFor, curiously enough, while the first half of the romance is a scene\nof disorderly passion, the second is the glorification of the family.\nA modern writer of genius has inveighed with whimsical bitterness\nagainst the character of Wolmar,--supposed, we may notice in passing,\nto be partially drawn from D'Holbach,--a man performing so long an\nexperiment on these two souls, with the terrible curiosity of a\nsurgeon engaged in vivisection.[54] It was, however, much less\ndifficult for contemporaries than it is for us to accept so\nunwholesome and prurient a situation. They forgot all the evil that\nwas in it, in the charm of the account of Wolmar's active, peaceful,\nfrugal, sunny household. The influence of this was immense.[55] It may\nbe that the overstrained scene where Saint Preux waits for Julie in\nher room, suggested the far lovelier passage of Faust in the chamber\nof the hapless Margaret. But we may, at least, be sure that Werther\n(1774) would not have found Charlotte cutting bread and butter, if\nSaint Preux had not gone to see Julie take cream and cakes with her\nchildren and her female servants. And perhaps the other and nobler\nCharlotte of the _Wahlverwandtschaften_ (1809) would not have detained\nus so long with her moss hut, her terrace, her park prospect, if Julie\nhad not had her elysium, where the sweet freshness of the air, the\ncool shadows, the shining verdure, flowers diffusing fragrance and\ncolour, water running with soft whisper, and the song of a thousand\nbirds, reminded the returned traveller of Tinian and Juan Fernandez.\nThere is an animation, a variety, an accuracy, a realistic brightness\nin this picture, which will always make it enchanting, even to those\nwho cannot make their way through any other letter in the New\nHelo\u00efsa.[56] Such qualities place it as an idyllic piece far above\nsuch pieces in Goethe's two famous romances. They have a clearness\nand spontaneous freshness which are not among the bountiful gifts of\nGoethe. There are other admirable landscapes in the New Helo\u00efsa,\nthough not too many of them, and the minute and careful way in which\nRousseau made their features real to himself, is accidentally shown in\nhis urgent prayer for exactitude in the engraving of the striking\nscene where Saint Preux and Julie visit the monuments of their old\nlove for one another.[57] \"I have traversed all Rousseau's ground with\nthe Helo\u00efsa before me,\" said Byron, \"and am struck to a degree I\ncannot express, with the force and accuracy of his descriptions and\nthe beauty of their reality.\"[58] They were memories made true by long\ndreaming, by endless brooding. The painter lived with these scenes\never present to the inner eye. They were his real world, of which the\ntamer world of meadow and woodland actually around him only gave\nsuggestion. He thought of the green steeps, the rocks, the mountain\npines, the waters of the lake, \"the populous solitude of bees and\nbirds,\" as of some divine presence, too sublime for personality. And\nthey were always benign, standing in relief with the malignity or\nfolly of the hurtful insect, Man. He was never a manich\u00e6an towards\nnature. To him she was all good and bounteous. The demon forces that\nso fascinated Byron were to Rousseau invisible. These were the\ncompositions that presently inspired the landscapes of _Paul and\nVirginia_ (1788), of _Atala_ and _Ren\u00e9_ (1801), and of _Obermann_\n(1804), as well as those punier imitators who resemble their masters\nas the hymns of a methodist negro resemble the psalms of David. They\nwere the outcome of eager and spontaneous feeling for nature, and not\nthe mere hackneyed common-form and inflated description of the\nliterary pastoral.[59]\n\nThis leads to another great and important distinction to be drawn\nbetween Rousseau and the school whom in other respects he inspired.\nThe admirable Sainte Beuve perplexes one by his strange remark, that\nthe union of the poetry of the family and the hearth with the poetry\nof nature is essentially wanting to Rousseau.[60] It only shows that\nthe great critic had for the moment forgotten the whole of the second\npart of the New Helo\u00efsa, and his failure to identify Cowper's allusion\nto the _matin\u00e9e \u00e0 l'anglaise_ certainly proves that he had at any rate\nforgotten one of the most striking and delicious scenes of the hearth\nin French literature.[61] The tendency to read Rousseau only in the\nByronic sense is one of those foregone conclusions which are\nconstantly tempting the critic to travel out of his record. Rousseau\nassuredly had a Byronic side, but he is just as often a Cowper done\ninto splendid prose. His pictures are full of social animation and\ndomestic order. He had exalted the simplicity of the savage state in\nhis Discourses, but when he came to constitute an ideal life, he found\nit in a household that was more, and not less, systematically\ndisciplined than those of the common society around him. The paradise\nin which his Julie moved with Wolmar and Saint Preux, was no more and\nno less than an establishment of the best kind of the rural\nmiddle-class, frugal, decorous, wholesome, tranquilly austere. No most\nsentimental savage could have found it endurable, or could himself\nwithout profound transformation of his manners have been endured in\nit. The New Helo\u00efsa ends by exalting respectability, and putting the\nspirit of insurrection to shame. Self-control, not revolt, is its last\nword.\n\nThis is what separates Rousseau here and throughout from S\u00e9nancour,\nByron, and the rest. He consummates the triumph of will, while their\nreigning mood is grave or reckless protest against impotence of will,\nthe little worth of common aims, the fretting triviality of common\nrules. Franklin or Cobbett might have gloried in the regularity of\nMadame de Wolmar's establishment. The employment of the day was marked\nout with precision. By artful adjustment of pursuits, it was contrived\nthat the men-servants should be kept apart from the maid-servants,\nexcept at their repasts. The women, namely, a cook, a housemaid, and a\nnurse, found their pastime in rambles with their mistress and her\nchildren, and lived mainly with them. The men were amused by games for\nwhich their master made regulated provision, now for summer, now for\nwinter, offering prizes of a useful kind for prowess and adroitness.\nOften on a Sunday night all the household met in an ample chamber,\nand passed the evening in dancing. When Saint Preux inquired whether\nthis was not a rather singular infraction of puritan rule, Julie\nwisely answered that pure morality is so loaded with severe duties,\nthat if you add to them the further burden of indifferent forms, it\nmust always be at the cost of the essential.[62] The servants were\ntaken from the country, never from the town. They entered the\nhousehold young, were gradually trained, and never went away except to\nestablish themselves.\n\nThe vulgar and obvious criticism on all this is that it is utopian,\nthat such households do not generally exist, because neither masters\nnor servants possess the qualities needed to maintain these relations\nof unbroken order and friendliness. Perhaps not; and masters and\nservants will be more and more removed from the possession of such\nqualities, and their relations further distant from such order and\nfriendliness, if writers cease to press the beauty and serviceableness\nof a domesticity that is at present only possible in a few rare cases,\nor to insist on the ugliness, the waste of peace, the deterioration of\ncharacter, that are the results of our present system. Undoubtedly it\nis much easier for Rousseau to draw his picture of semi-patriarchal\nfelicity, than for the rest of us to realise it. It was his function\nto press ideals of sweeter life on his contemporaries, and they may be\ncounted fortunate in having a writer who could fulfil this function\nwith Rousseau's peculiar force of masterly persuasion. His scornful\ndiatribes against the domestic police of great houses, and the\nessential inhumanity of the ordinary household relations, are both\nexcellent and of permanent interest. There is the full breath of a new\nhumaneness in them. They were the right way of attacking the\ndecrepitude of feudal luxury and insolence, and its imitation among\nthe great farmers-general. This criticism of the conditions of\ndomestic service marks a beginning of true democracy, as distinguished\nfrom the mere pulverisation of aristocracy. It rests on the claim of\nthe common people to an equal consideration, as equally useful and\nequally capable of virtue and vice; and it implies the essential\npriority of social over political reform.\n\nThe story abounds in sumptuary detail. The table partakes of the\ngeneral plenty, but this plenty is not ruinous. The senses are\ngratified without daintiness. The food is common, but excellent of its\nkind. The service is simple, yet exquisite. All that is mere show, all\nthat depends on vulgar opinion, all fine and elaborate dishes whose\nvalue comes of their rarity, and whose names you must know before\nfinding any goodness in them, are banished without recall. Even in\nsuch delicacies as they permit themselves, our friends abstain every\nday from certain things which are reserved for feasts on special\noccasions, and which are thus made more delightful without being more\ncostly. What do you suppose these delicacies are? Rare game, or fish\nfrom the sea, or dainties from abroad? Better than all that; some\ndelicious vegetable of the district, one of the savoury things that\ngrow in our garden, some fish from the lake dressed in a peculiar way,\nsome cheese from our mountains. The service is modest and rustic, but\nclean and smiling. Neither gold-laced liveries in sight of which you\ndie of hunger, nor tall crystals laden with flowers for your only\ndessert, here take the place of honest dishes. Here people have not\nthe art of nourishing the stomach through the eyes, but they know how\nto add grace to good cheer, to eat heartily without inconvenience, to\ndrink merrily without losing reason, to sit long at table without\nweariness, and always to rise from it without disgust.[63]\n\nOne singularity in this ideal household was the avoidance of those\nmiddle exchanges between production and consumption, which enrich the\nshopkeeper but impoverish his customers. Not one of these exchanges is\nmade without loss, and the multiplication of these losses would weaken\neven a man of fortune. Wolmar seeks those real exchanges in which the\nconvenience of each party to the bargain serves as profit for both.\nThus the wool is sent to the factories, from which they receive cloth\nin exchange; wine, oil, and bread are produced in the house; the\nbutcher pays himself in live cattle; the grocer receives grain in\nreturn for his goods; the wages of the labourers and the\nhouse-servants are derived from the produce of the land which they\nrender valuable.[64] It was reserved for Fourier, Cabet, and the rest,\nto carry to its highest point this confusion of what is so\nfascinating in a book with what is practicable in society.\n\nThe expatiation on the loveliness of a well-ordered interior may\nstrike the impatient modern as somewhat long, and the movement as very\nslow, just as people complain of the same things in Goethe's\n_Wahlverwandtschaften_. Such complaint only proves inability, which is\nor is not justifiable, to seize the spirit of the writer. The\nexpatiation was long and the movement slow, because Rousseau was full\nof his thoughts; they were a deep and glowing part of himself, and did\nnot merely skim swiftly and lightly through his mind. Anybody who\ntakes the trouble may find out the difference between this expression\nof long mental brooding, and a merely elaborated diction.[65] The\nlength is an essential part of the matter. The whole work is the\nreflection of a series of slow inner processes, the many careful\nweavings of a lonely and miserable man's dreams. And Julie expressed\nthe spirit and the joy of these dreams when she wrote, \"People are\nonly happy before they are happy. Man, so eager and so feeble, made to\ndesire all and obtain little, has received from heaven a consoling\nforce which brings all that he desires close to him, which subjects it\nto his imagination, which makes it sensible and present before him,\nwhich delivers it over to him. The land of chimera is the only one in\nthis world that is worth dwelling in, and such is the nothingness of\nthe human lot, that except the being who exists in and by himself,\nthere is nothing beautiful except that which does not exist.\"[66]\n\nClosely connected with the vigorous attempt to fascinate his public\nwith the charm of a serene, joyful, and ordered house, is the\nrestoration of marriage in the New Helo\u00efsa to a rank among high and\nhonourable obligations, and its representation as the best support of\nan equable life of right conduct and fruitful harmonious emotion.\nRousseau even invested it with the mysterious dignity as of some\nnatural sacrament. \"This chaste knot of nature is subject neither to\nthe sovereign power nor to paternal authority,\" he cried, \"but only to\nthe authority of the common Father.\" And he pointed his remark by a\nbitter allusion to a celebrated case in which a great house had\nprevailed on the courts to annul the marriage of an elder son with a\nyoung actress, though her character was excellent, and though she had\nbefriended him when he was abandoned by everybody else.[67] This was\none of the countless democratic thrusts in the book. In the case of\nits heroine, however, the author associated the sanctity of marriage\nnot only with equality but with religion. We may imagine the spleen\nwith which the philosophers, with both their hatred of the faith, and\ntheir light esteem of marriage bonds, read Julie's eloquent account of\nher emotions at the moment of her union with Wolmar. \"I seemed to\nbehold the organ of Providence and to hear the voice of God, as the\nminister gravely pronounced the words of the holy service. The purity,\nthe dignity, the sanctity of marriage, so vividly set forth in the\nwords of scripture; its chaste and sublime duties, so important to the\nhappiness, order, and peace of the human race, so sweet to fulfil even\nfor their own sake--all this made such an impression on me that I\nseemed to feel within my breast a sudden revolution. An unknown power\nseemed all at once to arrest the disorder of my affections, and to\nrestore them to accordance with the law of duty and of nature. The\neternal eye that sees everything, I said to myself, now reads to the\ndepth of my heart.\"[68] She has all the well-known fervour of the\nproselyte, and never wearies of extolling the peace of the wedded\nstate. Love is no essential to its perfection. \"Worth, virtue, a\ncertain accord not so much in condition and age as in character and\ntemper, are enough between husband and wife; and this does not prevent\nthe growth from such a union of a very tender attachment, which is\nnone the less sweet for not being exactly love, and is all the more\nlasting.\"[69] Years after, when Saint Preux has returned and is\nsettled in the household, she even tries to persuade him to imitate\nher example, and find contentment in marriage with her cousin. The\nearnestness with which she presses the point, the very sensible but\nnot very delicate references to the hygienic drawbacks of celibacy,\nand the fact that the cousin whom she would fain have him marry, had\ncomplaisantly assisted them in their past loves, naturally drew the\nfire of Rousseau's critical enemies.\n\nSuch matters did not affect the general enthusiasm. When people are\nweary of a certain way of surveying life, and have their faces eagerly\nset in some new direction, they read in a book what it pleases them to\nread; they assimilate as much as falls in with their dominant mood,\nand the rest passes away unseen. The French public were bewitched by\nJulie, and were no more capable of criticising her than Julie was\ncapable of criticising Saint Preux in the height of her passion for\nhim. When we say that Rousseau was the author of this movement, all we\nmean is that his book and its chief personage awoke emotion to\nself-consciousness, gave it a dialect, communicated an impulse in\nfavour of social order, and then very calamitously at the same moment\ndivorced it from the fundamental conditions of progress, by divorcing\nit from disciplined intelligence and scientific reason.\n\nApart from the general tendency of the New Helo\u00efsa in numberless\nindirect ways to bring the manners of the great into contempt, by the\npresentation of the happiness of a simple and worthy life, thrifty,\nself-sufficing, and homely, there is one direct protest of singular\neloquence and gravity. Julie's father is deeply revolted at the bare\nnotion of marrying his daughter to a teacher. Rousseau puts his\nvigorous remonstrance against pride of birth into the mouth of an\nEnglish nobleman. This is perhaps an infelicitous piece of\nprosopopoeia, but it is interesting as illustrative of the idea of\nEngland in the eighteenth century as the home of stout-hearted\nfreedom. We may quote one piece from the numerous bits of very\nstraightforward speaking in which our representative expressed his\nmind as to the significance of birth. \"My friend has nobility,\" cried\nLord Edward, \"not written in ink on mouldering parchments, but graven\nin his heart in characters that can never be effaced. For my own part,\nby God, I should be sorry to have no other proof of my merit but that\nof a man who has been in his grave these five hundred years. If you\nknow the English nobility, you know that it is the most enlightened,\nthe best informed, the wisest, the bravest in Europe. That being so, I\ndon't care to ask whether it is the oldest or not. We are not, it is\ntrue, the slaves of the prince, but his friends; nor the tyrants of\nthe people, but their leaders. We hold the balance true between\npeople, and monarch. Our first duty is towards the nation, our second\ntowards him who governs; it is not his will but his right that we\nconsider.... We suffer no one in the land to say _God and my sword_,\nnor more than this, _God and my right_.\"[70] All this was only\nputting Montesquieu into heroics, it is true, but a great many people\nread the romance who were not likely to read the graver book. And\nthere was a wide difference between the calm statement of a number of\npolitical propositions about government, and their transformation into\ndramatic invective against the arrogance of all social inequality that\ndoes not correspond with inequalities of worth.\n\nThere is no contradiction between this and the social quietism of\nother parts of the book. Moral considerations and the paramount place\nthat they hold in Rousseau's way of thinking, explain at once his\ncontempt for the artificial privileges and assumptions of high rank,\nand his contempt for anything like discontent with the conditions of\nhumble rank. Simplicity of life was his ideal. He wishes us to despise\nboth those who have departed from it, and those who would depart from\nit if they could. So Julie does her best to make the lot of the\npeasants as happy as it is capable of being made, without ever helping\nthem to change it for another. She teaches them to respect their\nnatural condition in respecting themselves. Her prime maxim is to\ndiscourage change of station and calling, but above all to dissuade\nthe villager, whose life is the happiest of all, from leaving the true\npleasures of his natural career for the fever and corruption of\ntowns.[71] Presently a recollection of the sombre things that he had\nseen in his rambles through France crossed Rousseau's pastoral\nvisions, and he admitted that there were some lands in which the\npublican devours the fruits of the earth; where the misery that covers\nthe fields, the bitter greed of some grasping farmer, the inflexible\nrigour of an inhuman master, take something from the charm of his\nrural scenes. \"Worn-out horses ready to expire under the blows they\nreceive, wretched peasants attenuated by hunger, broken by weariness,\nclad in rags, hamlets all in ruins--these things offer a mournful\nspectacle to the eye: one is almost sorry to be a man, as we think of\nthe unhappy creatures on whose blood we have to feed.\"[72]\n\nYet there is no hint in the New Helo\u00efsa of the socialism which Morelly\nand Mably flung themselves upon, as the remedy for all these desperate\nhorrors. Property, in every page of the New Helo\u00efsa, is held in full\nrespect; the master has the honourable burden of patriarchal duty; the\nservant the not less honourable burden of industry and faithfulness;\ndisobedience or vice is promptly punished with paternal rigour and\nmore than paternal inflexibility. The insurrectionary quality and\neffect of Rousseau's work lay in no direct preaching or vehement\ndenunciation of the abuses that filled France with cruelty on the one\nhand and sodden misery on the other. It lay in pictures of a social\nstate in which abuses and cruelty cannot exist, nor any miseries save\nthose which are inseparable from humanity. The contrast between the\nsober, cheerful, prosperous scenes of romance, and the dreariness of\nthe reality of the field life of France,--this was the element that\nfilled generous souls with an intoxicating transport.\n\nRousseau's way of dealing with the portentous questions that lay about\nthat tragic scene of deserted fields, ruined hamlets, tottering\nbrutes, and hunger-stricken men, may be gathered from one of the many\ntraits in Julie which endeared her to that generation, and might\nendear her even to our own if it only knew her. Wolmar's house was\nnear a great high-road, and so was daily haunted by beggars. Not one\nof these was allowed to go empty away. And Julie had as many excellent\nreasons to give for her charity, as if she had been one of the\nphilosophers of whom she thought so surpassingly ill. If you look at\nmendicancy merely as a trade, what is the harm of a calling whose end\nis to nourish feelings of humanity and brotherly love? From the point\nof view of talent, why should I not pay the eloquence of a beggar who\nstirs my pity, as highly as that of a player who makes me shed tears\nover imaginary sorrows? If the great number of beggars is burdensome\nto the state, of how many other professions that people encourage, may\nyou not say the same? How can I be sure that the man to whom I give\nalms is not an honest soul, whom I may save from perishing? In short,\nwhatever we may think of the poor wretches, if we owe nothing to the\nbeggar, at least we owe it to ourselves to pay honour to suffering\nhumanity or to its image.[73] Nothing could be more admirably\nillustrative of the author's confidence that the first thing for us to\ndo is to satisfy our fine feelings, and that then all the rest shall\nbe added unto us. The doctrine spread so far, that Necker,--a sort of\nJulie in a frock-coat, who had never fallen, the incarnation of this\ndoctrine on the great stage of affairs,--was hailed to power to ward\noff the bankruptcy of the state by means of a good heart and moral\nsentences, while Turgot with science and firmness for his resources\nwas driven away as an economist and a philosopher.\n\nAt a first glance, it may seem that there was compensation for the\ntriumph of sentiment over reason, and that if France was ruined by the\ndreams in which Rousseau encouraged the nation to exult, she was saved\nby the fervour and resoluteness of the aspirations with which he\nfilled the most generous of her children. No wide movement, we may be\nsure, is thoroughly understood until we have mastered both its\nmaterial and its ideal sides. Materially, Rousseau's work was\ninevitably fraught with confusion because in this sphere not to be\nscientific, not to be careful in tracing effects to their true causes,\nis to be without any security that the causes with which we try to\ndeal will lead to the effects that we desire. A Roman statesman who\nhad gone to the Sermon on the Mount for a method of staying the\neconomic ruin of the empire, its thinning population, its decreasing\ncapital, would obviously have found nothing of what he sought. But the\nmoral nature of man is redeemed by teaching that may have no bearing\non economics, or even a bearing purely mischievous, and which has to\nbe corrected by teaching that probably goes equally far in the\ncontrary direction of moral mischief. In the ideal sphere, the\nprocesses are very complex. In measuring a man's influence within it\nwe have to balance. Rousseau's action was undoubtedly excellent in\nleading men and women to desire simple lives, and a more harmonious\nsocial order. Was this eminent benefit more than counterbalanced by\nthe eminent disadvantage of giving a reactionary intellectual\ndirection? By commending irrational retrogression from active use of\nthe understanding back to dreamy contemplation?\n\nTo one teacher is usually only one task allotted. We do not reproach\nwant of science to the virtuous and benevolent Channing; his goodness\nand effusion stirred women and the young, just as Rousseau did, to\nsentimental but humane aspiration. It was this kind of influence that\nformed the opinion which at last destroyed American slavery. We owe a\nplace in the temple that commemorates human emancipation, to every man\nwho has kindled in his generation a brighter flame of moral\nenthusiasm, and a more eager care for the realisation of good and\nvirtuous ideals.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe story of the circumstances of the publication of Emilius and the\npersecution which befell its author in consequence, recalls us to the\ndistinctively evil side of French history in this critical epoch, and\ncarries us away from light into the thick darkness of political\nintrigue, obscurantist faction, and a misgovernment which was at once\ntyrannical and decrepit. It is almost impossible for us to realise the\nexistence in the same society of such boundless license of thought,\nand such unscrupulous restraint upon its expression. Not one of\nRousseau's three chief works, for instance, was printed in France. The\nwhole trade in books was a sort of contraband, and was carried on with\nthe stealth, subterfuge, daring, and knavery that are demanded in\ncontraband dealings. An author or a bookseller was forced to be as\ncareful as a kidnapper of coolies or the captain of a slaver would be\nin our own time. He had to steer clear of the court, of the\nparliament, of Jansenists, of Jesuits, of the mistresses of the king\nand the minister, of the friends of the mistresses, and above all of\nthat organised hierarchy of ignorance and oppression in all times and\nplaces where they raise their masked heads,--the bishops and\necclesiastics of every sort and condition. Palissot produced his\ncomedy to please the devout at the expense of the philosophers (1760).\nMadame de Robecq, daughter of Rousseau's marshal of Luxembourg,\ninstigated and protected him, for Diderot had offended her.[74]\nMorellet replied in a piece in which the keen vision of feminine spite\ndetected a reference to Madame de Robecq. Though dying, she still had\nrelations with Choiseul, and so Morellet was flung into the\nBastile.[75] Diderot was thrown for three months into Vincennes, where\nwe saw him on a memorable occasion, for his Letter on the Blind\n(1748), nominally because it was held to contain irreligious doctrine,\nreally because he had given offence to D'Argenson's mistress by\nhinting that she might be very handsome, but that her judgment on\nscientific experiment was of no value.[76]\n\nThe New Helo\u00efsa could not openly circulate in France so long as it\ncontained the words, \"I would rather be the wife of a charcoal-burner\nthan the mistress of a king.\" The last word was altered to \"prince,\"\nand then Rousseau was warned that he would offend the Prince de Conti\nand Madame de Boufflers.[77] No work of merit could appear without\nmore or less of slavish mutilation, and no amount of slavish\nmutilation could make the writer secure against the accidental grudge\nof people who had influence in high quarters.[78]\n\nIf French booksellers in the stirring intellectual time of the\neighteenth century needed all the craft of a smuggler, their morality\nwas reduced to an equally low level in dealing not only with the\npolice, but with their own accomplices, the book-writers. They excused\nthemselves from paying proper sums to authors, on the ground that they\nwere robbed of the profits that would enable them to pay such sums, by\nthe piracy of their brethren in trade. But then they all pirated the\nworks of one another. The whole commerce was a mass of fraud and\nchicane, and every prominent author passed his life between two fires.\nHe was robbed, his works were pirated, and, worse than robbery and\npiracy, they were defaced and distorted by the booksellers. On the\nother side he was tormented to death by the suspicion and timidity,\nalternately with the hatred and active tyranny of the administration.\nAs we read the story of the lives of all these strenuous men, their\nstruggles, their incessant mortifications, their constantly reviving\nand ever irrepressible vigour and interest in the fight, we may wish\nthat the shabbiness and the pettiness of the daily lives of some of\nthem had faded away from memory, and left us nothing to think of in\nconnection with their names but the alertness, courage, tenacity,\nself-sacrifice, and faith with which they defended the cause of human\nemancipation and progress. Happily the mutual hate of the Christian\nfactions, to which liberty owes at least as much as charity owes to\ntheir mutual love, prevented a common union for burning the\nphilosophers as well as their books. All torments short of this they\nendured, and they had the great merit of enduring them without any\nhope of being rewarded after their death, as truly good men must\nalways be capable of doing.\n\nRousseau had no taste for martyrdom, nor any intention of courting it\nin even its slightest forms. Holland was now the great printing press\nof France, and when we are counting up the contributions of\nProtestantism to the enfranchisement of Europe, it is just to remember\nthe indispensable services rendered by the freedom of the press in\nHolland to the dissemination of French thought in the eighteenth\ncentury, as well as the shelter that it gave to the French thinkers in\nthe seventeenth, including Descartes, the greatest of them all. The\nmonstrous tediousness of printing a book at Amsterdam or the Hague,\nthe delay, loss, and confusion in receiving and transmitting the\nproofs, and the subterranean character of the entire process,\nincluding the circulation of the book after it was once fairly\nprinted, were as grievous to Rousseau as to authors of more impetuous\ntemper. He agreed with Rey, for instance, the Amsterdam printer, to\nsell him the Social Contract for 1000 francs. The manuscript had then\nto be cunningly conveyed to Amsterdam. Rousseau wrote it out in very\nsmall characters, sealed it carefully up, and entrusted it to the care\nof the chaplain of the Dutch embassy, who happened to be a native of\nVaud. In passing the barrier, the packet fell into the hands of the\nofficials. They tore it open and examined it, happily unconscious that\nthey were handling the most explosive kind of gunpowder that they had\never meddled with. It was not until the chaplain claimed it in the\nname of ambassadorial privilege, that the manuscript was allowed to go\non its way to the press.[79] Rousseau repeats a hundred times, not\nonly in the Confessions, but also in letters to his friends, how\nresolutely and carefully he avoided any evasion of the laws of the\ncountry in which he lived. The French government was anxious enough on\nall grounds to secure for France the production of the books of which\nFrance was the great consumer, but the severity of its censorship\nprevented this.[80] The introduction of the books, when printed, was\ntolerated or connived at, because the country would hardly have\nendured to be deprived of the enjoyment of its own literature. By a\ngreater inconsistency the reprinting of a book which had once found\nadmission into the country, was also connived at. Thus M. de\nMalesherbes, out of friendship for Rousseau, wished to have an edition\nof the New Helo\u00efsa printed in France, and sold for the benefit of the\nauthor. That he should have done so is a curious illustration of the\nlow morality engendered by a repressive system imperfectly carried\nout. For Rousseau had sold the book to Rey. Rey had treated with a\nFrench bookseller in the usual way, that is, had sent him half the\nedition printed, the bookseller paying either in cash or other books\nfor all the copies he received. Therefore to print an independent\nedition in Paris was to injure, not Rey the foreigner, but the French\nbookseller who stood practically in Rey's place. It was setting two\nFrench booksellers to ruin one another. Rousseau emphatically declined\nto receive any profit from such a transaction. But, said Malesherbes,\nyou sold to Rey a right which you had not got, the right of sole\nproprietorship, excluding the competition of a pirated reprint. Then,\nanswered Rousseau, if the right which I sold happens to prove less\nthan I thought, it is clear that far from taking advantage of my\nmistake, I owe to Rey compensation for any loss that he may\nsuffer.[81]\n\nThe friendship of Malesherbes for the party of reason was shown on\nnumerous occasions. As director of the book trade he was really the\ncensor of the literature of the time.[82] The story of his service to\nDiderot is well known--how he warned Diderot that the police were\nabout to visit his house and overhaul his papers, and how when Diderot\ndespaired of being able to put them out of sight in his narrow\nquarters, Malesherbes said, \"Then send them all to me,\" and took care\nof them until the storm was overpast. The proofs of the New Helo\u00efsa\ncame through his hands, and now he made himself Rousseau's agent in\nthe affairs relative to the printing of Emilius. Rousseau entrusted\nthe whole matter to him and to Madame de Luxembourg, being confident\nthat, in acting through persons of such authority and position, he\nshould be protected against any unwitting illegality. Instead of being\nsent to Rey, the manuscript was sold to a bookseller in Paris for six\nthousand francs.[83] A long time elapsed before any proofs reached the\nauthor, and he soon perceived that an edition was being printed in\nFrance as well as in Holland. Still, as Malesherbes was in some sort\nthe director of the enterprise, the author felt no alarm. Duclos came\nto visit him one day, and Rousseau read aloud to him the Savoyard\nVicar's Profession of Faith. \"What, citizen,\" he cried, \"and that is\npart of a book that they are printing at Paris! Be kind enough not to\ntell any one that you read this to me.\"[84] Still Rousseau remained\nsecure. Then the printing came to a standstill, and he could not find\nout the reason, because Malesherbes was away, and the printer did not\ntake the trouble to answer his letters. \"My natural tendency,\" he\nsays, and as the rest of his life only too abundantly proved, \"is to\nbe afraid of darkness; mystery always disturbs me, it is utterly\nantipathetic to my character, which is open even to the pitch of\nimprudence. The aspect of the most hideous monster would alarm me\nlittle, I verily believe; but if I discern at night a figure in a\nwhite sheet, I am sure to be terrified out of my life.\"[85] So he at\nonce fancied that by some means the Jesuits had got possession of his\nbook, and knowing him to be at death's door, designed to keep the\nEmilius back until he was actually dead, when they would publish a\ntruncated version of it to suit their own purposes.[86] He wrote\nletter upon letter to the printer, to Malesherbes, to Madame de\nLuxembourg, and if answers did not come, or did not come exactly when\nhe expected them, he grew delirious with anxiety. If he dropped his\nconviction that the Jesuits were plotting the ruin of his book and the\ndefilement of his reputation, he lost no time in fastening a similar\ndesign upon the Jansenists, and when the Jansenists were acquitted,\nthen the turn of the philosophers came. We have constantly to remember\nthat all this time the unfortunate man was suffering incessant pain,\nand passing his nights in sleeplessness and fever. He sometimes threw\noff the black dreams of unfathomable suspicion, and dreamed in their\nstead of some sunny spot in pleasant Touraine, where under a mild\nclimate and among a gentle people he should peacefully end his\ndays.[87] At other times he was fond of supposing M. de Luxembourg\nnot a duke, nor a marshal of France, but a good country squire living\nin some old mansion, and himself not an author, not a maker of books,\nbut with moderate intelligence and slight attainment, finding with the\nsquire and his dame the happiness of his life, and contributing to the\nhappiness of theirs.[88] Alas, in spite of all his precautions, he had\nunwittingly drifted into the stream of great affairs. He and his book\nwere sacrificed to the exigencies of faction; and a persecution set\nin, which destroyed his last chance of a composed life, by giving his\nreason, already disturbed, a final blow from which it never recovered.\n\nEmilius appeared in the crisis of the movement against the Jesuits.\nThat formidable order had offended Madame de Pompadour by a refusal to\nrecognise her power and position,--a manly policy, as creditable to\ntheir moral vigour as it was contrary to the maxims which had made\nthem powerful. They had also offended Choiseul by the part they had\ntaken in certain hostile intrigues at Versailles. The parliaments had\nalways been their enemies. This was due first to the jealousy with\nwhich corporations of lawyers always regard corporations of\necclesiastics, and next to their hatred of the bull Unigenitus, which\nhad been not only an infraction of French liberties, but the occasion\nof special humiliation to the parliaments. Then the hostility of the\nparliaments to the Jesuits was caused by the harshness with which the\nsystem of confessional tickets was at this time being carried out.\nFinally, the once powerful house of Austria, the protector of all\nretrograde interests, was now weakened by the Seven Years' War; and\nwas unable to bring effective influence to bear on Lewis XV. At last\nhe gave his consent to the destruction of the order. The commercial\nbankruptcy of one of their missions was the immediate occasion of\ntheir fall, and nothing could save them. \"I only know one man,\" said\nGrimm, \"in a position to have composed an apology for the Jesuits in\nfine style, if it had been in his way to take the side of that tribe,\nand this man is M. Rousseau.\" The parliaments went to work with\nalacrity, but they were quite as hostile to the philosophers as they\nwere to the Jesuits, and hence their anxiety to show that they were no\nallies of the one even when destroying the other.\n\nContemporaries seldom criticise the shades and variations of\ninnovating speculation with any marked nicety. Anything with the stamp\nof rationality on its phrases or arguments was roughly set down to the\nschool of the philosophers, and Rousseau was counted one of their\nnumber, like Voltaire or Helv\u00e9tius. The Emilius appeared in May 1762.\nOn the 11th of June the parliament of Paris ordered the book to be\nburnt by the public executioner, and the writer to be arrested. For\nRousseau always scorned the devices of Voltaire and others; he\ncourageously insisted on placing his name on the title-page of all his\nworks,[89] and so there was none of the usual difficulty in\nidentifying the author. The grounds of the proceedings were alleged\nirreligious tendencies to be found in the book.[90]\n\nThe indecency of the requisition in which the advocate-general\ndemanded its proscription, was admitted even by people who were least\nlikely to defend Rousseau.[91] The author was charged with saying not\nonly that man may be saved without believing in God, but even that the\nChristian religion does not exist--paradox too flagrant even for the\nwriter of the Discourse on Inequality. No evidence was produced either\nthat the alleged assertions were in the book, or that the name of the\nauthor was really the name on its title-page. Rousseau fared no worse,\nbut better, than his fellows, for there was hardly a single man of\nletters of that time who escaped arbitrary imprisonment.\n\nThe unfortunate author had news of the ferment which his work was\ncreating in Paris, and received notes of warning from every hand, but\nhe could not believe that the only man in France who believed in God\nwas to be the victim of the defenders of Christianity.[92] On the 8th\nof June he spent a merry day with two friends, taking their dinner in\nthe fields. \"Ever since my youth I had a habit of reading at night in\nmy bed until my eyes grew heavy. Then I put out the candle, and tried\nto fall asleep for a few minutes, but they seldom lasted long. My\nordinary reading at night was the Bible, and I have read it\ncontinuously through at least five or six times in this way. That\nnight, finding myself more wakeful than usual, I prolonged my reading,\nand read through the whole of the book which ends with the Levite of\nEphraim, and which if I mistake not is the book of Judges. The story\naffected me deeply, and I was busy over it in a kind of dream, when\nall at once I was roused by lights and noises.\"[93]\n\nIt was two o'clock in the morning. A messenger had come in hot haste\nto carry him to Madame de Luxembourg. News had reached her of the\nproposed decree of the parliament. She knew Rousseau well enough to be\nsure that if he were seized and examined, her own share and that of\nMalesherbes in the production of the condemned book would be made\npublic, and their position uncomfortably compromised. It was to their\ninterest that he should avoid arrest by flight, and they had no\ndifficulty in persuading him to fall in with their plans. After a\ntearful farewell with Theresa, who had hardly been out of his sight\nfor seventeen years, and many embraces from the greater ladies of the\ncastle, he was thrust into a chaise and despatched on the first stage\nof eight melancholy years of wandering and despair, to be driven from\nplace to place, first by the fatuous tyranny of magistrates and\nreligious doctors, and then by the yet more cruel spectres of his own\ndiseased imagination, until at length his whole soul became the home\nof weariness and torment.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] _Conf._, x. 62.\n\n[2] _Conf._, x.\n\n[3] _Ib._ x. 70.\n\n[4] Louis Fran\u00e7ois de Bourbon, Prince de Conti (1717-1776), was\ngreat-grandson of the brother of the Great Cond\u00e9. He performed\ncreditable things in the war of the Austrian Succession (in Piedmont\n1744, in Belgium 1745); had a scheme of foreign policy as director of\nthe secret diplomacy of Lewis XV. (1745-1756), which was to make\nTurkey, Poland, Sweden, Prussia, a barrier against Russia primarily,\nand Austria secondarily; lastly went into moderate opposition to the\ncourt, protesting against the destruction of the _parlements_ (1771),\nand afterwards opposing the reforms of Turgot (1776). Finally he had\nthe honour of refusing the sacraments of the church on his deathbed.\nSee Martin's _Hist. de France_, xv. and xvi.\n\n[5] _Conf._, 97. _Corr._, v. 215.\n\n[6] _Corr._, ii. 144. Oct. 7, 1760.\n\n[7] _Conf._, x. 98.\n\n[8] The reader will distinguish this correspondent of Rousseau's,\n_Comtesse_ de Boufflers-Rouveret (1727-18--), from the _Duchesse_ de\nBoufflers, which was the title of Rousseau's Mar\u00e9chale de Luxembourg\nbefore her second marriage. And also from the _Marquise_ de Boufflers,\nsaid to be the mistress of the old king Stanislaus at Lun\u00e9ville, and\nthe mother of the Chevalier de Boufflers (who was the intimate of\nVoltaire, sat in the States General, emigrated, did homage to\nNapoleon, and finally died peaceably under Lewis XVIII.). See Jal's\n_Dict. Critique_, 259-262. Sainte Beuve has an essay on our present\nComtesse de Boufflers (_Nouveaux Lundis_, iv. 163). She is the Madame\nde Boufflers who was taken by Beauclerk to visit Johnson in his Temple\nchambers, and was conducted to her coach by him in a remarkable manner\n(Boswell's _Life_, ch. li. p. 467). Also much talked of in H.\nWalpole's Letters. See D'Alembert to Frederick, April 15, 1768.\n\n[9] Streckeisen, ii. 32.\n\n[10] _Conf._, x. 71.\n\n[11] For instance, _Corr._ ii. 85, 90, 92, etc. 1759.\n\n[12] Streckeisen, ii. 28, etc.\n\n[13] _Ib._, 29.\n\n[14] _Conf._, x. 99.\n\n[15] _Ib._, x. 57.\n\n[16] _Ib._, xi. 119.\n\n[17] _Corr._, ii. 196. Feb. 16, 1761.\n\n[18] _Ib._, ii. 102, 176, etc.\n\n[19] _Conf._, x. 60.\n\n[20] _Corr._, ii. 12.\n\n[21] As M. St. Marc Girardin has put it: \"There are in all Rousseau's\ndiscussions two things to be carefully distinguished from one another;\nthe maxims of the discourse, and the conclusions of the controversy.\nThe maxims are ordinarily paradoxical; the conclusions are full of\ngood sense.\" _Rev. des Deux Mondes_, Aug. 1852, p. 501.\n\n[22] _Corr._, ii. 244-246. Oct. 24, 1761.\n\n[23] _Ib._, 1766. _Oeuv._, lxxv. 364.\n\n[24] _Corr._, ii. 32. (1758.)\n\n[25] _Corr._, ii. 63. Jan. 15, 1779.\n\n[26] Bernardin de St. Pierre, xii. 102.\n\n[27] 4th Letter, p. 375.\n\n[28] _M\u00e9m._, ii. 299.\n\n[29] _Corr._, ii. 98. July 10, 1759.\n\n[30] _Corr._, ii. 106. Nov. 10, 1759.\n\n[31] _Ib._, ii. 179. Jan. 18, 1761.\n\n[32] _Ib._, ii. 268. Dec. 12, 1761.\n\n[33] _Ib._, ii. 28. Dec. 23, 1761.\n\n[34] _Nouv. H\u00e9l._, III. xxii. 147. In 1784 Hume's suppressed essays on\n\"Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul\" were published in\nLondon:--\"With Remarks, intended as an Antidote to the Poison\ncontained in these Performances, by the Editor; to which is added, Two\nLetters on Suicide, from Rousseau's Eloisa.\" In the preface the reader\nis told that these \"two very masterly letters have been much\ncelebrated.\" See Hume's _Essays_, by Green and Grose, i. 69, 70.\n\n[35] _Corr._, iii. 235. Aug. 1, 1763.\n\n[36] _Corr._, ii. 226. Sept. 29, 1761.\n\n[37] P. 294. Jan. 11, 1762.\n\n[38] Madame Latour (Nov. 7, 1730-Sept. 6, 1789) was the wife of a man\nin the financial world, who used her ill and dissipated as much of her\nfortune as he could, and from whom she separated in 1775. After that\nshe resumed her maiden name and was known as Madame de Franqueville.\nMusset-Pathay, ii. 182, and Sainte Beuve, _Causeries_, ii. 63.\n\n[39] _Corr._, ii. 214. _Conf._, ix. 289.\n\n[40] English translations of Rousseau's works appeared very speedily\nafter the originals. A second edition of the Helo\u00efsa was called for as\nearly as May 1761. See _Corr._ ii. 223. A German translation of the\nHelo\u00efsa appeared at Leipzig in 1761, in six duodecimos.\n\n[41] For instance, _Corr._, ii. 168. Nov. 19, 1762.\n\n[42] Choderlos de La Clos: 1741-1803.\n\n[43] Journal, iv. 496. (Ed. Charpentier, 1857.)\n\n[44] _Nouv. H\u00e9l._, III. xiv. 48.\n\n[45] _E.g._ Letters, 40-46.\n\n[46] Madame de Sta\u00ebl (1765-1817), in her _Lettres sur les \u00e9crits et le\ncaract\u00e8re de J.J. Rousseau_, written when she was twenty, and her\nfirst work of any pretensions. _Oeuv._, i. 41. Ed. 1820.\n\n[47] Nowhere more pungently than in a little piece of some half-dozen\npages, headed, _Pr\u00e9diction tir\u00e9e d'un vieux Manuscrit_, the form of\nwhich is borrowed from Grimm's squib in the dispute about French\nmusic, _Le petit Proph\u00e8te de Boehmischbroda_, though it seems to me to\nbe superior to Grimm in pointedness. Here are a few verses from the\nsupposed prophecy of the man who should come--and of what he should\ndo. \"Et la multitude courra sur ses pas et plusieurs croiront en lui.\nEt il leur dira: Vous \u00eates des sc\u00e9l\u00e9rats et des fripons, vos femmes\nsont toutes des femmes perdues, et je viens vivre parmi vous. Et il\najoutera tous les hommes sont vertueux dans le pays o\u00f9 je suis n\u00e9, et\nje n'habiterai jamais le pays o\u00f9 je suis n\u00e9.... Et il dira aussi qu'il\nest impossible d'avoir des moeurs, et de lire des Romans, et il fera\nun Roman; et dans son Roman le vice sera en action et la vertu en\nparoles, et ses personages seront forcen\u00e9s d'amour et de philosophie.\nEt dans son Roman on apprendra l'art de suborner philosophiquement une\njeune fille. Et l'Ecoli\u00e8re perdra toute honte et toute pudeur, et elle\nfera avec son ma\u00eetre des sottises et des maximes.... Et le bel Ami\n\u00e9tant dans un Bateau seul avec sa Ma\u00eetresse voudra le jetter dans\nl'eau et se pr\u00e9cipiter avec elle. Et ils appelleront tout cela de la\nPhilosophie et de la Vertu,\" and so on, humorously enough in its way.\n\n[48] See passages in Goncourt's _La Femme au 18i\u00e8me si\u00e8cle_, p. 380.\n\n[49] Musset-Pathay, II. 361. See Madame Roland's _M\u00e9m._, i. 207.\n\n[50] _Corr._, March 3, and March 19, 1761. The criticisms of Xim\u00e9n\u00e8s,\na thoroughly mediocre person in all respects, were entirely literary,\nand were directed against the too strained and highly coloured quality\nof the phrases--\"baisers \u00e2cres\"--among them.\n\n[51] _Nouv. H\u00e9l._, V. v. 115.\n\n[52] VI. vii.\n\n[53] VI. vi.\n\n[54] Michelet's _Louis XV. et Louis XVI._, p. 58.\n\n[55] See Hettner's _Literaturgeschichte_, II. 486.\n\n[56] IV. xi.\n\n[57] IV. xvii. See vol. iii. 423.\n\n[58] In 1816. Moore's _Life_, iii. 247; also 285. And the note to the\nstanzas in the Third Canto,--a note curious for a slight admixture of\ntranscendentalism, so rare a thing with Byron, who, sentimental though\nhe was, usually rejoiced in a truly Voltairean common sense.\n\n[59] \"The present fashion in France, of passing some time in the\ncountry, is new; at this time of the year, and for many weeks past,\nParis is, comparatively speaking, empty. Everybody who has a country\nseat is at it, and such as have none visit others who have. This\nremarkable revolution in the French manners is certainly one of the\nbest customs they have taken from England; and its introduction was\neffected the easier, being assisted by the magic of Rousseau's\nwritings. Mankind are much indebted to that splendid genius, who, when\nliving, was hunted from country to country, to seek an asylum, with as\nmuch venom as if he had been a mad dog; thanks to the vile spirit of\nbigotry, which has not received its death wound. Women of the first\nfashion in France are now ashamed of not nursing their own children;\nand stays are universally proscribed from the bodies of the poor\ninfants, which were for so many ages torture to them, as they are\nstill in Spain. The country residence may not have effects equally\nobvious; but they will be no less sure in the end, and in all respects\nbeneficial to every class in the state.\" Arthur Young's _Travels_, i.\n72.\n\n[60] _Causeries_, xi. 195.\n\n[61] _Nouv. H\u00e9l._, V. iii. \"You remember Rousseau's description of an\nEnglish morning: such are the mornings I spend with these good\npeople.\"--Cowper to Joseph Hill, Oct. 25, 1765. _Works_, iii. 269. In\na letter to William Unwin (Sept. 21, 1779), speaking of his being\nengaged in mending windows, he says, \"Rousseau would have been charmed\nto have seen me so occupied, and would have exclaimed with rapture\nthat he had found the Emilius who, he supposed, had subsisted only in\nhis own idea.\" For a description illustrative of the likeness between\nRousseau and Cowper in their feeling for nature, see letter to Newton\n(Sept. 18, 1784, v. 78), and compare it with the description of Les\nCharmettes, making proper allowance for the colour of prose.\n\n[62] IV. x. 260.\n\n[63] V. ii. 37.\n\n[64] V. ii. 47-52.\n\n[65] Rousseau considered that the Fourth and Sixth parts of the New\nHelo\u00efsa were masterpieces of diction. _Conf._ ix. 334.\n\n[66] VI. viii.. 298. _Conf._, xi. 106.\n\n[67] The La B\u00e9doy\u00e8re case, which began in 1745. See Barbier, iv. 54,\n59, etc.\n\n[68] III. xviii. 84.\n\n[69] III. xx. 116. In the letter to Christopher de Beaumont (p. 102),\nhe fires a double shot against the philosophers on the one hand, and\nthe church on the other; exalting continence and purity, of which the\nphilosophers in their reaction against asceticism thought lightly, and\nexalting marriage over the celibate state, which the churchmen\nassociated with mysterious sanctity.\n\n[70] I. lxii.\n\n[71] V. ii.\n\n[72] V. vii. 141.\n\n[73] V. ii. 31-33.\n\n[74] For the Robecq family, see Saint Simon, xviii. 58.\n\n[75] Morellet's _M\u00e9m._, i. 89-93. Rousseau, _Conf._, x. 85, etc. This\n_Vision_ is also in the style of Grimm's _P\u00e9tit Proph\u00e8te_, like the\npiece referred to in a previous note, vol. ii. p. 31.\n\n[76] Madame de Vandeul's _M\u00e9m. sur Diderot_, p. 27. Rousseau, _Conf._,\nvii. 130.\n\n[77] _Nouv. H\u00e9l._, V. xiii. 194. _Conf._, x. 43.\n\n[78] The reader will find a fuller mention of the French book trade in\nmy _Diderot_, ch. vi.\n\n[79] _Conf._, xi. 127.\n\n[80] See a letter from Rousseau to Malesherbes, Nov. 5, 1760. _Corr._,\nii. 157.\n\n[81] _Corr._, ii. 157.\n\n[82] C.G. de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (p. 1721--guillotined, 1794),\nson of the chancellor, and one of the best instructed and most\nenlightened men of the century--a Turgot of the second rank--was\nDirecteur de la Librairie from 1750-1763. The process was this: a book\nwas submitted to him; he named a censor for it; on the censor's report\nthe director gave or refused permission to print, or required\nalterations. Even after these formalities were complied with, the book\nwas liable to a decree of the royal council, a decree of the\nparliament, or else a _lettre-de-cachet_ might send the author to the\nBastile. See Barbier, vii. 126.\n\nAfter Lord Shelburne saw Malesherbes, he said, \"I have seen for the\nfirst time in my life what I never thought could exist--a man whose\nsoul is absolutely free from hope or fear, and yet who is full of life\nand ardour.\" Mdlle. Lespinasse's _Lettres_, 90.\n\n[83] See note, p. 132.\n\n[84] _Conf._, xi. 134.\n\n[85] _Conf._, xi. 139.\n\n[86] _Ib._, xi. 139. _Corr._, ii. 270, etc. Dec. 12, 1761, etc.\n\n[87] _Conf._, xi. 150.\n\n[88] Fourth Letter to Malesherbes, p. 377.\n\n[89] With one trifling exception, the Letter to Grimm on the Opera of\nOmphale (1752): _\u00c9crits sur la Musique_, p. 337.\n\n[90] See Barbier's Journal, viii. 45 (Ed. Charpentier, 1857). A\nsuccinct contemporary account of the general situation is to be found\nin D'Alembert's little book, the _Destruction des J\u00e9suites_.\n\n[91] Grimm, for instance: _Corr. Lit._, iii. 117.\n\n[92] _Corr._, ii. 337. June 7, 1672. _Conf._, xi. 152, 162.\n\n[93] _Conf._, xi. 162. The Levite's story is to be read in _Judges_,\nch. xix.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nPERSECUTION.[94]\n\n\nThose to whom life consists in the immediate consciousness of\ntheir own direct relations with the people and circumstances that are\nin close contact with them, find it hard to follow the moods of a man\nto whom such consciousness is the least part of himself, and such\nrelations the least real part of his life. Rousseau was no sooner in\nthe post-chaise which was bearing him away towards Switzerland, than\nthe troubles of the previous day at once dropped into a pale and\ndistant past, and he returned to a world where was neither parliament,\nnor decree for burning books, nor any warrant for personal arrest. He\ntook up the thread where harassing circumstances had broken it, and\nagain fell musing over the tragic tale of the Levite of Ephraim. His\ndream absorbed him so entirely as to take specific literary form, and\nbefore the journey was at an end he had composed a long impassioned\nversion of the Bible story. Though it has Rousseau's usual fine\nsonorousness in a high degree, no man now reads it; the author himself\nalways preserved a certain tenderness for it.[95] The contrast\nbetween this singular quietism and the angry stir that marked\nVoltaire's many flights in post-chaises, points like all else to the\nprofound difference between the pair. Contrast with Voltaire's shrill\ncries under any personal vexation, this calm utterance:--\"Though the\nconsequences of this affair have plunged me into a gulf of woes from\nwhich I shall never come up again so long as I live, I bear these\ngentlemen no grudge. I am aware that their object was not to do me any\nharm, but only to reach ends of their own. I know that towards me they\nhave neither liking nor hate. I was found in their way, like a pebble\nthat you thrust aside with the foot without even looking at it. They\nought not to say they have performed their duty, but that they have\ndone their business.\"[96] A new note from a persecuted writer.\n\nRousseau, in spite of the belief which henceforth possessed him that\nhe was the victim of a dark unfathomable plot, and in spite of passing\noutbreaks of gloomy rage, was incapable of steady glowing and active\nresentments. The world was not real enough to him for this. A throng\nof phantoms pressed noiselessly before his sight, and dulled all sense\nof more actual impression. \"It is amazing,\" he wrote, \"with what ease\nI forget past ill, however fresh it may be. In proportion as the\nanticipation of it alarms and confuses me when I see it coming, so\nthe memory of it returns feebly to my mind and dies out the moment\nafter it has arrived. My cruel imagination, which torments itself\nincessantly in anticipating woes that are still unborn, makes a\ndiversion for my memory, and hinders me from recalling those which\nhave gone. I exhaust disaster beforehand. The more I have suffered in\nforeseeing it, the more easily do I forget it; while on the contrary,\nbeing incessantly busy with my past happiness, I recall it and brood\nand ruminate over it, so as to enjoy it over again whenever I\nwish.\"[97] The same turn of humour saved him from vindictiveness. \"I\nconcern myself too little with the offence, to feel much concern about\nthe offender. I only think of the hurt that I have received from him,\non account of the hurt that he may still do me; and if I were sure he\nwould do me no more, what he had already done would be forgotten\nstraightway.\" Though he does not carry the analysis any further, we\nmay easily perceive that the same explanation covers what he called\nhis natural ingratitude. Kindness was not much more vividly understood\nby him than malice. It was only one form of the troublesome\ninterposition of an outer world in his life; he was fain to hurry back\nfrom it to the real world of his dreams. If any man called practical\nis tempted to despise this dreaming creature, as he fares in his\nchaise from stage to stage, let him remember that one making that\njourney through France less than thirty years later might have seen\nthe castles of the great flaring in the destruction of a most\nrighteous vengeance, the great themselves fleeing ignobly from the\nland to which their selfishness, and heedlessness, and hatred of\nimprovement, and inhuman pride had been a curse, while the legion of\ntoilers with eyes blinded by the oppression of ages were groping with\npassionate uncertain hand for that divine something which they thought\nof as justice and right. And this was what Rousseau both partially\nforesaw and helped to prepare,[98] while the common politicians, like\nChoiseul or D'Aiguillon, played their poor game--the elemental forces\nrising unseen into tempest around them.\n\nHe reached the territory of the canton of Berne, and alighted at the\nhouse of an old friend at Yverdun,[99] where native air, the beauty of\nthe spot, and the charms of the season, immediately repaired all\nweariness and fatigue.[100] Friends at Geneva wrote letters of sincere\nfeeling, joyful that he had not followed the precedent of Socrates too\nclosely by remaining in the power of a government eager to destroy\nhim.[101] A post or two later brought worse news. The Council at\nGeneva ordered not only Emilius, but the Social Contract also, to be\npublicly burnt, and issued a warrant of arrest against their author,\nif he should set foot in the territory of the republic (June\n19).[102] Rousseau could hardly believe it possible that the free\nGovernment which he had held up to the reverence of Europe, could have\ncondemned him unheard, but he took occasion in a highly characteristic\nmanner to chide severely a friend at Geneva who had publicly taken his\npart.[103] Within a fortnight this blow was followed by another. His\ntwo books were reported to the senate of Berne, and Rousseau was\ninformed by one of the authorities that a notification was on its way\nadmonishing him to quit the canton within the space of fifteen\ndays.[104] This stroke he avoided by flight to Motiers, a village in\nthe principality of Neuch\u00e2tel (July 10), then part of the dominions of\nthe King of Prussia.[105] Rousseau had some antipathy to Frederick,\nboth because he had beaten the French, whom Rousseau loved, and\nbecause his maxims and his conduct alike seemed to trample under foot\nrespect for the natural law and not a few human duties. He had\ncomposed a verse to the effect that Frederick thought like a\nphilosopher and acted like a king, philosopher and king notoriously\nbeing words of equally evil sense in his dialect. There was also a\npassage in Emilius about Adrastus, King of the Daunians, which was\ncommonly understood to mean Frederick, King of the Prussians. Still\nRousseau was acute enough to know that mean passions usually only rule\nthe weak, and have little hold over the strong. He boldly wrote both\nto the king and to Lord Marischal, the governor of the principality,\ninforming them that he was there, and asking permission to remain in\nthe only asylum left for him upon the earth.[106] He compared himself\nloftily to Coriolanus among the Volscians, and wrote to the king in a\nvein that must have amused the strong man. \"I have said much ill of\nyou, perhaps I shall still say more; yet, driven from France, from\nGeneva, from the canton of Berne, I am come to seek shelter in your\nstates. Perhaps I was wrong in not beginning there; this is eulogy of\nwhich you are worthy. Sire, I have deserved no grace from you, and I\nseek none, but I thought it my duty to inform your majesty that I am\nin your power, and that I am so of set design. Your majesty will\ndispose of me as shall seem good to you.\"[107] Frederick, though no\nadmirer of Rousseau or his writings,[108] readily granted the required\npermission. He also, says Lord Marischal, \"gave me orders to furnish\nhim his small necessaries if he would accept them; and though that\nking's philosophy be very different from that of Jean Jacques, yet he\ndoes not think that a man of an irreproachable life is to be\npersecuted because his sentiments are singular. He designs to build\nhim a hermitage with a little garden, which I find he will not accept,\nnor perhaps the rest, which I have not yet offered him.\"[109] When the\noffer of the flour, wine, and firewood was at length made in as\ndelicate terms as possible, Rousseau declined the gift on grounds\nwhich may raise a smile, but which are not without a rather touching\nsimplicity.[110] \"I have enough to live on for two or three years,\" he\nsaid, \"but if I were dying of hunger, I would rather in the present\ncondition of your good prince, and not being of any service to him, go\nand eat grass and grub up roots, than accept a morsel of bread from\nhim.\"[111] Hume might well call this a phenomenon in the world of\nletters, and one very honourable for the person concerned.[112] And we\nrecognise its dignity the more when we contrast it with the baseness\nof Voltaire, who drew his pension from the King of Prussia while\nFrederick was in his most urgent straits, and while the poet was\nsportively exulting to all his correspondents in the malicious\nexpectation that he would one day have to allow the King of Prussia\nhimself a pension.[113] And Rousseau was a poor man, living among the\npoor and in their style. His annual outlay at this time was covered by\nthe modest sum of sixty louis.[114] What stamps his refusal of\nFrederick's gifts as true dignity, is the fact that he not only did\nnot refuse money for any work done, but expected and asked for it.\nMalesherbes at this very time begged him to collect plants for him.\nJoyfully, replied Rousseau, \"but as I cannot subsist without the aid\nof my own labour, I never meant, in spite of the pleasure that it\nmight otherwise have been to me, to offer you the use of my time for\nnothing.\"[115] In the same year, we may add, when the tremendous\nstruggle of the Seven Years' War was closing, the philosopher wrote a\nsecond terse epistle to the king, and with this their direct\ncommunication came to an end. \"Sire, you are my protector and my\nbenefactor; I would fain repay you if I can. You wish to give me\nbread; is there none of your own subjects in want of it? Take that\nsword away from my sight, it dazzles and pains me. It has done its\nwork only too well; the sceptre is abandoned. Great is the career for\nkings of your stuff, and you are still far from the term; time\npresses, you have not a moment to lose. Fathom well your heart, O\nFrederick! Can you dare to die without having been the greatest of\nmen? Would that I could see Frederick, the just and the redoubtable,\ncovering his states with multitudes of men to whom he should be a\nfather; then will J.J. Rousseau, the foe of kings, hasten to die at\nthe foot of his throne.\"[116] Frederick, strong as his interest was in\nall curious persons who could amuse him, was too busy to answer this,\nand Rousseau was not yet recognised as Voltaire's rival in power and\npopularity.\n\nMotiers is one of the half-dozen decent villages standing in the flat\nbottom of the Val de Travers, a widish valley that lies between the\ngorges of the Jura and the Lake of Neuch\u00e2tel, and is famous in our day\nfor its production of absinthe and of asphalt. The flat of the valley,\nwith the Reuss making a bald and colourless way through the midst of\nit, is nearly treeless, and it is too uniform to be very pleasing. In\nwinter the climate is most rigorous, for the level is high, and the\nsurrounding hills admit the sun's rays late and cut them off early.\nRousseau's description, accurate and recognisable as it is,[117]\nstrikes an impartial tourist as too favourable. But when a piece of\nscenery is a home to a man, he has an eye for a thousand outlines,\nchanges of light, soft variations of colour; the landscape lives for\nhim with an unspoken suggestion and intimate association, to all of\nwhich the swift passing stranger is very cold.\n\nHis cottage, which is still shown, was in the midst of the other\nhouses, and his walks, which were at least as important to him as the\nhome in which he dwelt, lay mostly among woody heights with streaming\ncascades. The country abounded in natural curiosities of a humble\nsort, and here that interest in plants which had always been strong in\nhim, began to grow into a passion. Rousseau had so curious a feeling\nabout them, that when in his botanical expeditions he came across a\nsingle flower of its kind, he could never bring himself to pluck it.\nHis sight, though not good for distant objects, was of the very finest\nfor things held close; his sense of smell was so acute and subtle\nthat, according to a good witness, he might have classified plants by\nodours, if language furnished as many names as nature supplies\nvarieties of fragrance.[118] He insisted in all botanising and other\nwalking excursions on going bareheaded, even in the heat of the\ndog-days; he declared that the action of the sun did him good. When\nthe days began to turn, the summer was straightway at an end for him:\n\"My imagination,\" he said, in a phrase which went further through his\nlife than he supposed, \"at once brings winter.\" He hated rain as much\nas he loved sun, so he must once have lost all the mystic fascination\nof the green Savoy lakes gleaming luminous through pale showers, and\nnow again must have lost the sombre majesty of the pines of his valley\ndripping in torn edges of cloud, and all those other sights in\nlandscape that touch subtler parts of us than comforted sense.\n\nOne of his favourite journeys was to Colombier, the summer retreat of\nLord Marischal. For him he rapidly conceived the same warm friendship\nwhich he felt for the Duke of Luxembourg, whom he had just left. And\nthe sagacious, moderate, silent Scot had as warm a liking for the\nstrange refugee who had come to him for shelter, or shall we call it a\nkind of shaggy compassion, as of a faithful inarticulate creature. His\nletters, which are numerous enough, abound in expressions of hearty\ngood-will. These, if we reflect on the genuine worth, veracity,\npenetration, and experience of the old man who wrote them, may fairly\nbe counted the best testimony that remains to the existence of\nsomething sterling at the bottom of Rousseau's character.[119] It is\nhere no insincere fine lady of the French court, but a homely and\nweather-beaten Scotchman, who speaks so often of his refugee's\nrectitude of heart and true sensibility.[120]\n\nHe insisted on being allowed to settle a small sum on Theresa, who\nhad joined Rousseau at Motiers, and in other ways he showed a true\nsolicitude and considerateness both for her and for him.[121] It was\nhis constant dream, that on his return to Scotland, Jean Jacques\nshould accompany him, and that with David Hume, they would make a trio\nof philosophic hermits; that this was no mere cheery pleasantry is\nshown by the pains he took in settling the route for the journey.[122]\nThe plan only fell through in consequence of Frederick's cordial\nurgency that his friend should end his days with him; he returned to\nPrussia and lived at Sans Souci until the close, always retaining\nsomething of his good-will for \"his excellent savage,\" as he called\nthe author of the Discourses. They had some common antipathies,\nincluding the fundamental one of dislike to society, and especially to\nthe society of the people of Neuch\u00e2tel, the Gascons of Switzerland.\n\"Rousseau is gay in company,\" Lord Marischal wrote to Hume, \"polite,\nand what the French call _aimable_, and gains ground daily in the\nopinion of even the clergy here. His enemies elsewhere continue to\npersecute him, and he is pestered with anonymous letters.\"[123]\n\nSome of these were of a humour that disclosed the master hand.\nVoltaire had been universally suspected of stirring up the feeling of\nGeneva against its too famous citizen,[124] though for a man of less\nenergy the affair of the Calas, which he was now in the thick of,\nmight have sufficed. Voltaire's letters at this time show how hard he\nfound it in the case of Rousseau to exercise his usual pity for the\nunfortunate. He could not forget that the man who was now tasting\npersecution had barked at philosophers and stage-plays; that he was a\nfalse brother, who had fatuously insulted the only men who could take\nhis part; that he was a Judas who had betrayed the sacred cause.[125]\nOn the whole, however, we ought probably to accept his word, though\nnot very categorically given,[126] that he had nothing to do with the\naction taken against Rousseau. That action is quite adequately\nexplained, first by the influence of the resident of France at Geneva,\nwhich we know to have been exerted against the two fatal books,[127]\nand second by the anxiety of the oligarchic party to keep out of their\ntown a man whose democratic tendencies they now knew so well and so\njustly dreaded.[128] Moultou, a Genevese minister, in the full tide\nof devotion and enthusiasm for the author of Emilius, met Voltaire at\nthe house of a lady in Geneva. All will turn out well, cried the\npatriarch; \"the syndics will say M. Rousseau, you have done ill to\nwrite what you have written; promise for the future to respect the\nreligion of your country. Jean Jacques will promise, and perhaps he\nwill say that the printer took the liberty of adding a sheet or two to\nhis book.\" \"Never,\" cried the ardent Moultou; \"Jean Jacques never puts\nhis name to works to disown them after.\"[129] Voltaire disowned his\nown books with intrepid and sustained mendacity, yet he bore no grudge\nto Moultou for his vehemence. He sent for him shortly afterwards,\nprofessed an extreme desire to be reconciled with Rousseau, and would\ntalk of nothing else. \"I swear to you,\" wrote Moultou, \"that I could\nnot understand him the least in the world; he is a marvellous actor; I\ncould have sworn that he loved you.\"[130] And there really was no\nacting in it. The serious Genevese did not see that he was dealing\nwith \"one all fire and fickleness, a child.\"\n\nRousseau soon found out that he had excited not only the band of\nprofessed unbelievers, but also the tormenting wasps of orthodoxy. The\ndoctors of the Sorbonne, not to be outdone in fervour for truth by the\nlawyers of the parliament, had condemned Emilius as a matter of\ncourse. In the same spirit of generous emulation, Christopher de\nBeaumont, \"by the divine compassion archbishop of Paris, Duke of Saint\nCloud, peer of France, commander of the order of the Holy Ghost,\" had\nissued (Aug. 20, 1762) one of those hateful documents in which\nbishops, Catholic and Protestant, have been wont for the last century\nand a half to hide with swollen bombastic phrase their dead and\ndecomposing ideas. The windy folly of these poor pieces is usually in\nproportion to the hierarchic rank of those who promulgate them, and an\narchbishop owes it to himself to blaspheme against reason and freedom\nin superlatives of malignant unction. Rousseau's reply (Nov. 18, 1762)\nis a masterpiece of dignity and uprightness. Turning to it from the\nmandate which was its provocative, we seem to grasp the hand of a man,\nafter being chased by a nightmare of masked figures. Rousseau never\nshowed the substantial quality of his character more surely and\nunmistakably than in controversy. He had such gravity, such austere\nself-command, such closeness of grip. Most of us feel pleasure in\nreading the matchless banter with which Voltaire assailed his\ntheological enemies. Reading Rousseau's letter to De Beaumont we\nrealise the comparative lowness of the pleasure which Voltaire had\ngiven us. We understand how it was that Rousseau made fanatics, while\nVoltaire only made sceptics. At the very first words, the mitre, the\ncrosier, the ring, fall into the dust; the Archbishop of Paris, the\nDuke of Saint Cloud, the peer of France, the commander of the Holy\nGhost, is restored from the disguises of his enchantment, and becomes\na human being. We hear the voice of a man hailing a man. Voltaire\noften sank to the level of ecclesiastics. Rousseau raised the\narchbishop to his own level, and with magnanimous courtesy addressed\nhim as an equal. \"Why, my lord, have I anything to say to you? What\ncommon tongue can we use? How are we to understand one another? And\nwhat is there between me and you?\" And he persevered in this distant\nlofty vein, hardly permitting himself a single moment of acerbity. We\nfeel the ever-inspiring breath of seriousness and sincerity. This was\nbecause, as we repeat so often, Rousseau's ideas, all engendered of\ndreams as they were, yet lived in him and were truly rooted in his\ncharacter. He did not merely say, as any of us can say so fluently,\nthat he craved reality in human relations, that distinctions of rank\nand post count for nothing, that our lives are in our own hands and\nought not to be blown hither and thither by outside opinion and words\nheedlessly scattered; that our faith, whatever it may be, is the most\nsacred of our possessions, organic, indissoluble, self-sufficing; that\nour passage across the world, if very short, is yet too serious to be\nwasted in frivolous disrespect for ourselves, and angry disrespect for\nothers. All this was actually his mind. And hence the little\ndifficulty he had in keeping his retort to the archbishop, as to his\nother antagonists, on a worthy level.\n\nOnly once or twice does his sense of the reckless injustice with which\nhe had been condemned, and of the persecution which was inflicted on\nhim by one government after another, stir in him a blaze of high\nremonstrance. \"You accuse me of temerity,\" he cried; \"how have I\nearned such a name, when I only propounded difficulties, and even that\nwith so much reserve; when I only advanced reasons, and even that with\nso much respect; when I attacked no one, nor even named one? And you,\nmy lord, how do you dare to reproach with temerity a man of whom you\nspeak with such scanty justice and so little decency, with so small\nrespect and so much levity? You call me impious, and of what impiety\ncan you accuse me--me who never spoke of the Supreme Being except to\npay him the honour and glory that are his due, nor of man except to\npersuade all men to love one another? The impious are those who\nunworthily profane the cause of God by making it serve the passions of\nmen. The impious are those who, daring to pass for the interpreters of\ndivinity, and judges between it and man, exact for themselves the\nhonours that are due to it only. The impious are those who arrogate to\nthemselves the right of exercising the power of God upon earth, and\ninsist on opening and shutting the gates of heaven at their own good\nwill and pleasure. The impious are those who have libels read in the\nchurch. At this horrible idea my blood is enkindled, and tears of\nindignation fall from my eyes. Priests of the God of peace, you shall\nrender an account one day, be very sure, of the use to which you have\ndared to put his house.... My lord, you have publicly insulted me:\nyou are now convicted of heaping calumny upon me. If you were a\nprivate person like myself, so that I could cite you before an\nequitable tribunal, and we could both appear before it, I with my\nbook, and you with your mandate, assuredly you would be declared\nguilty; you would be condemned to make reparation as public as the\nwrong was public. But you belong to a rank that relieves you from the\nnecessity of being just, and I am nothing. Yet you who profess the\ngospel, you, a prelate appointed to teach others their duty, you know\nwhat your own duty is in such a case. Mine I have done: I have nothing\nmore to say to you, and I hold my peace.\"[131]\n\nThe letter was as good in dialectic as it was in moral tone. For this\nis a little curious, that Rousseau, so diffuse in expounding his\nopinions, and so unscientific in his method of coming to them, should\nhave been one of the keenest and most trenchant of the\ncontroversialists of a very controversial time. Some of his strokes in\ndefence of his first famous assault on civilisation are as hard, as\ndirect, and as effective as any in the records of polemical\nliterature. We will give one specimen from the letter to the\nArchbishop of Paris; it has the recommendation of touching an argument\nthat is not yet quite universally recognised for slain. The Savoyard\nVicar had dwelt on the difficulty of accepting revelation as the voice\nof God, on account of the long distance of time between us, and the\nquestionableness of the supporting testimony. To which the archbishop\nthus:--\"But is there not then an infinity of facts, even earlier than\nthose of the Christian revelation, which it would be absurd to doubt?\nBy what way other than that of human testimony has our author himself\nknown the Sparta, the Athens, the Rome, whose laws, manners, and\nheroes he extols with such assurance? How many generations of men\nbetween him and the historians who have preserved the memory of these\nevents?\" First, says Rousseau in answer, \"it is in the order of things\nthat human circumstances should be attested by human evidence, and\nthey can be attested in no other way. I can only know that Rome and\nSparta existed, because contemporaries assure me that they existed. In\nsuch a case this intermediate communication is indispensable. But why\nis it necessary between God and me? Is it simple or natural that God\nshould have gone in search of Moses to speak to Jean Jacques Rousseau?\nSecond, nobody is obliged to believe that Sparta once existed, and\nnobody will be devoured by eternal flames for doubting it. Every fact\nof which we are not witnesses is only established by moral proofs, and\nmoral proofs have various degrees of strength. Will the divine justice\nhurl me into hell for missing the exact point at which a proof becomes\nirresistible? If there is in the world an attested story, it is that\nof vampires; nothing is wanting for judicial proof,--reports and\ncertificates from notables, surgeons, clergy, magistrates. But who\nbelieves in vampires, and shall we all be damned for not believing?\nThird, _my constant experience and that of all men is stronger in\nreference to prodigies than the testimony of some men_.\"\n\nHe then strikes home with a parable. The Abb\u00e9 P\u00e2ris had died in the\nodour of Jansenist sanctity (1727), and extraordinary doings went on\nat his tomb; the lame walked, men and women sick of the palsy were\nmade whole, and so forth. Suppose, says Rousseau, that an inhabitant\nof the Rue St. Jacques speaks thus to the Archbishop of Paris, \"My\nlord, I know that you neither believe in the beatitude of St. Jean de\nP\u00e2ris, nor in the miracles which God has been pleased publicly to work\nupon his tomb in the sight of the most enlightened and most populous\ncity in the world; but I feel bound to testify to you that I have just\nseen the saint in person raised from the dead in the spot where his\nbones were laid.\" The man of the Rue St. Jacques gives all the detail\nof such a circumstance that could strike a beholder. \"I am persuaded\nthat on hearing such strange news, you will begin by interrogating him\nwho testifies to its truth, as to his position, his feelings, his\nconfessor, and other such points; and when from his air, as from his\nspeech, you have perceived that he is a poor workman, and when having\nno confessional ticket to show you, he has confirmed your notion that\nhe is a Jansenist, Ah, ah, you will say to him, you are a\nconvulsionary, and have seen Saint P\u00e2ris resuscitated. There is\nnothing wonderful in that; you have seen so many other wonders!\" The\nman would insist that the miracle had been seen equally by a number of\nother people, who though Jansenists, it is true, were persons of sound\nsense, good character, and excellent reputation. Some would send the\nman to Bedlam, \"but you after a grave reprimand, will be content with\nsaying: I know that two or three witnesses, good people and of sound\nsense, may attest the life or the death of a man, but I do not know\nhow many more are needed to establish the resurrection of a Jansenist.\nUntil I find that out, go, my son, and try to strengthen your brain: I\ngive you a dispensation from fasting, and here is something for you to\nmake your broth with. That is what you would say, and what any other\nsensible man would say in your place. Whence I conclude that even\naccording to you and to every other sensible man, the moral proofs\nwhich are sufficient to establish facts that are in the order of moral\npossibilities, are not sufficient to establish facts of another order\nand purely supernatural.\"[132]\n\nPerhaps, however, the formal denunciation by the Archbishop of Paris\nwas less vexatious than the swarming of the angrier hive of ministers\nat his gates. \"If I had declared for atheism,\" he says bitterly, \"they\nwould at first have shrieked, but they would soon have left me in\npeace like the rest. The people of the Lord would not have kept watch\nover me; everybody would not have thought he was doing me a high\nfavour in not treating me as a person cut off from communion, and I\nshould have been quits with all the world. The holy women in Israel\nwould not have written me anonymous letters, and their charity would\nnot have breathed devout insults. They would not have taken the\ntrouble to assure me in all humility of heart that I was a castaway,\nan execrable monster, and that the world would have been well off if\nsome good soul had been at the pains to strangle me in my cradle.\nWorthy people on their side would not torment themselves and torment\nme to bring me back to the way of salvation; they would not charge at\nme from right and left, nor stifle me under the weight of their\nsermons, nor force me to bless their zeal while I cursed their\nimportunity, nor to feel with gratitude that they are obeying a call\nto lay me in my very grave with weariness.\"[133]\n\nHe had done his best to conciliate the good opinion of his vigilant\nneighbours. Their character for contentious orthodoxy was well known.\nIt was at Neuch\u00e2tel that the controversy as to the eternal punishment\nof the wicked raged with a fury that ended in a civil outbreak. The\npeace of the town was violently disturbed, ministers were suspended,\nmagistrates were interdicted, life was lost, until at last Frederick\npromulgated his famous bull:--\"Let the parsons who make for themselves\na cruel and barbarous God, be eternally damned as they desire and\ndeserve; and let those parsons who conceive God gentle and merciful,\nenjoy the plenitude of his mercy.\"[134] When Rousseau came within the\nterritory, preparations were made to imitate the action of Paris,\nGeneva, and Berne. It was only the king's express permission that\nsaved him from a fourth proscription. The minister at Motiers was of\nthe less inhuman stamp, and Rousseau, feeling that he could not,\nwithout failing in his engagements and his duty as a citizen, neglect\nthe public profession of the faith to which he had been restored eight\nyears before, attended the religious services with regularity. He even\nwrote to the pastor a letter in vindication of his book, and\nprotesting the sincerity of his union with the reformed\ncongregation.[135] The result of this was that the pastor came to tell\nhim how great an honour he held it to count such a member in his\nflock, and how willing he was to admit him without further examination\nto partake of the communion.[136] Rousseau went to the ceremony with\neyes full of tears and a heart swelling with emotion. We may respect\nhis mood as little or as much as we please, but it was certainly more\nedifying than the sight of Voltaire going through the same rite,\nmerely to harass a priest and fill a bishop with fury.\n\nIn all other respects he lived a harmless life during the three years\nof his sojourn in the Val de Travers. As he could never endure what he\ncalls the inactive chattering of the parlour--people sitting in front\nof one another with folded hands and nothing in motion except the\ntongue--he learnt the art of making laces; he used to carry his pillow\nabout with him, or sat at his own door working like the women of the\nvillage, and chatting with the passers-by. He made presents of his\nwork to young women about to marry, always on the condition that they\nshould suckle their children when they came to have them. If a little\nwhimsical, it was a harmless and respectable pastime. It is pleasanter\nto think of a philosopher finding diversion in weaving laces, than of\nnoblemen making it the business of their lives to run after ribands. A\nsociety clothed in breeches was incensed about the same time by\nRousseau's adoption of the Armenian costume, the vest, the furred\nbonnet, the caftan, and the girdle. There was nothing very wonderful\nin this departure from use. An Armenian tailor used often to visit\nsome friends at Montmorency. Rousseau knew him, and reflected that\nsuch a dress would be of singular comfort to him in the circumstances\nof his bodily disorder.[137] Here was a solid practical reason for\nwhat has usually been counted a demonstration of a turned brain.\nRousseau had as good cause for going about in a caftan as Chatham had\nfor coming to the House of Parliament wrapped in flannel. Vanity and a\ndesire to attract notice may, we admit, have had something to do with\nRousseau's adoption of an uncommon way of dressing. Shrewd wits like\nthe Duke of Luxembourg and his wife did not suppose that it was so.\nWe, living a hundred years after, cannot possibly know whether it was\nso or not, and our estimate of Rousseau's strange character would be\nvery little worth forming, if it only turned on petty singularities of\nthis kind. The foolish, equivocally gifted with the quality of\narticulate speech, may, if they choose, satisfy their own self-love by\nreducing all action out of the common course to a series of variations\non the same motive in others. Men blessed by the benignity of\nexperience will be thankful not to waste life in guessing evil about\nunknowable trifles.\n\nDuring his stay at Motiers Rousseau's time was hardly ever his own.\nVisitors of all nations, drawn either by respect for his work or by\ncuriosity to see a man who had been prescribed by so many governments,\ncame to him in throngs. His partisans at Geneva insisted on sending\npeople to convince themselves how good a man they were persecuting. \"I\nhad never been free from strangers for six weeks,\" he writes. \"Two\ndays after, I had a Westphalian gentleman and one from Genoa; six days\nlater, two persons from Zurich, who stayed a week; then a Genevese,\nrecovering from an illness, and coming for change of air, fell ill\nagain, and he has only just gone away.\"[138] One visitor, writing home\nto his wife of the philosopher to whom he had come on a pilgrimage,\ndescribes his manners in terms which perhaps touch us with\nsurprise:--\"Thou hast no idea how charming his society is, what true\npoliteness there is in his manners, what a depth of serenity and\ncheerfulness in his talk. Didst thou not expect quite a different\npicture, and figure to thyself an eccentric creature, always grave and\nsometimes even abrupt? Ah, what a mistake! To an expression of great\nmildness he unites a glance of fire, and eyes of a vivacity the like\nof which never was seen. When you handle any matter in which he takes\nan interest, then his eyes, his lips, his hands, everything about him\nspeaks. You would be quite wrong to picture in him an everlasting\ngrumbler. Not at all; he laughs with those who laugh, he chats and\njokes with children, he rallies his housekeeper.\"[139] He was not so\ncivil to all the world, and occasionally turned upon his pursuers with\na word of most sardonic roughness.[140] But he could also be very\ngenerous. We find him pressing a loan from his scanty store on an\noutcast adventurer, and warning him, \"When I lend (which happens\nrarely enough), 'tis my constant maxim never to count on repayment,\nnor to exact it.\"[141] He received hundreds of letters, some seeking\nan application of his views on education to a special case, others\ncraving further exposition of his religious doctrines. Before he had\nbeen at Motiers nine months he had paid ten louis for the postage of\nletters, which after all contained little more than reproaches,\ninsults, menaces, imbecilities.[142]\n\nNot the least curious of his correspondence at this time is that with\nthe Prince of W\u00fcrtemberg, then living near Lausanne.[143] The prince\nhad a little daughter four months old, and he was resolved that her\nupbringing should be carried on as the author of Emilius might please\nto direct. Rousseau replied courteously that he did not pretend to\ndirect the education of princes or princesses.[144] His undaunted\ncorrespondent sent him full details of his babe's habits and\nfaculties, and continued to do so at short intervals, with the\nfondness of a young mother or an old nurse. Rousseau was interested,\nand took some trouble to draw up rules for the child's nurture and\nadmonition. One may smile now and then at the prince's ingenuous zeal,\nbut his fervid respect and devotion for the teacher in whom he thought\nhe had found the wisest man that ever lived, and who had at any rate\nspoken the word that kindled the love of virtue and truth in him, his\neagerness to know what Rousseau thought right, and his equal eagerness\nin trying to do it, his care to arrange his household in a simple and\nmethodical way to please his master, his discipular patience when\nRousseau told him that his verses were poor, or that he was too fond\nof his wife,--all this is a little uncommon in a prince, and deserves\na place among the ample mass of other evidence of the power which\nRousseau's pictures of domestic simplicity and wise and humane\neducation had in the eighteenth century. It gives us a glimpse, close\nand direct, of the naturalist revival reaching up into high places.\nBut the trade of philosopher in such times is perhaps an irksome one,\nand Rousseau was the private victim of his public action. His prince\nsent multitudes of Germans to visit the sage, and his letters, endless\nwith their details of the nursery, may well have become a little\ntedious to a worn-out creature who only wanted to be left alone.[145]\nThe famous Prince Henry, Frederick's brother, thought a man happy who\ncould have the delight of seeing Rousseau as often as he chose.[146]\nPeople forgot the other side of this delight, and the unlucky\nphilosopher found in a hundred ways alike from enemies and the friends\nwhose curiosity makes them as bad as enemies, that the pedestal of\nglory partakes of the nature of the pillory or the stocks.\n\nIt is interesting to find the famous English names of Gibbon and\nBoswell in the list of the multitudes with whom he had to do at this\ntime.[147] The former was now at Lausanne, whither he had just\nreturned from that memorable visit to England which persuaded him that\nhis father would never endure his alliance with the daughter of an\nobscure Swiss pastor. He had just \"yielded to his fate, sighed as a\nlover, and obeyed as a son.\" \"How sorry I am for our poor Mademoiselle\nCurchod,\" writes Moultou to Rousseau; \"Gibbon whom she loves, and to\nwhom she has sacrificed, as I know, some excellent matches, has come\nto Lausanne, but cold, insensible, and as entirely cured of his old\npassion as she is far from cure. She has written me a letter that\nmakes my heart ache.\" He then entreats Rousseau to use his influence\nwith Gibbon, who is on the point of starting for Motiers, by extolling\nto him the lady's worth and understanding.[148] \"I hope Mr. Gibbon\nwill not come,\" replied the sage; \"his coldness makes me think ill of\nhim. I have been looking over his book again [the _Essai sur l'\u00e9tude\nde la litt\u00e9rature_, 1761]; he runs after brilliance too much, and is\nstrained and stilted. Mr. Gibbon is not the man for me, and I do not\nthink he is the man for Mademoiselle Curchod either.\"[149] Whether\nGibbon went or not, we do not know. He knew in after years what had\nbeen said of him by Jean Jacques, and protested with mild pomp that\nthis extraordinary man should have been less precipitate in\ncondemning the moral character and the conduct of a stranger.[150]\n\nBoswell, as we know, had left Johnson \"rolling his majestic frame in\nhis usual manner\" on Harwich beach in 1763, and was now on his\ntravels. Like many of his countrymen, he found his way to Lord\nMarischal, and here his indomitable passion for making the personal\nacquaintance of any one who was much talked about, naturally led him\nto seek so singular a character as the man who was now at Motiers.\nWhat Rousseau thought of one who was as singular a character as\nhimself in another direction, we do not know.[151] Lord Marischal\nwarned Rousseau that his visitor is of excellent disposition, but full\nof visionary ideas, even having seen spirits--a serious proof of\nunsoundness to a man who had lived in the very positive atmosphere of\nFrederick's court at Berlin. \"I only hope,\" says the sage Scot, of the\nScot who was not sage, \"that he may not fall into the hands of people\nwho will turn his head: he was very pleased with the reception you\ngave him.\"[152] As it happens, he was the means of sending Boswell to\na place where his head was turned, though not very mischievously.\nRousseau was at that time full of Corsican projects, of which this is\nthe proper place for us very briefly to speak.\n\nThe prolonged struggles of the natives of Corsica to assert their\nindependence of the oppressive administration of the Genoese, which\nhad begun in 1729, came to end for a moment in 1755, when Paoli\n(1726-1807) defeated the Genoese, and proceeded to settle the\ngovernment of the island. In the Social Contract Rousseau had said,\n\"There is still in Europe one country capable of legislation, and that\nis the island of Corsica. The valour and constancy with which this\nbrave people has succeeded in recovering and defending its liberty,\nentitle it to the good fortune of having some wise man to teach them\nhow to preserve it. I have a presentiment that this little isle will\none day astonish Europe,\"[153]--a presentiment that in a sense came\ntrue enough long after Rousseau was gone, in a man who was born on the\nlittle island seven years later than the publication of this passage.\nSome of the Corsican leaders were highly flattered, and in August\n1764, Buttafuoco entered into correspondence with Rousseau for the\npurpose of inducing him to draw up a set of political institutions and\na code of laws. Paoli himself was too shrewd to have much belief in\nthe application of ideal systems, and we are assured that he had no\nintention of making Rousseau the Solon of his island, but only of\ninducing him to inflame the gallantry of its inhabitants by writing a\nhistory of their exploits.[154] Rousseau, however, did not understand\nthe invitation in this narrower sense. He replied that the very idea\nof such a task as legislation transported his soul, and he entered\ninto it with the liveliest ardour. He resolved to quarter himself with\nTheresa in a cottage in some lonely district in the island; in a year\nhe would collect the necessary information as to the manners and\nopinions of the inhabitants, and three years afterwards he would\nproduce a set of institutions that should be fit for a free and\nvalorous people.[155] In the midst of this enthusiasm (May 1765) he\nurged Boswell to visit Corsica, and gave him a letter to Paoli, with\nresults which we know in the shape of an Account of Corsica (1768),\nand in a feverishness of imagination upon the subject for many a long\nday afterwards. \"Mind your own affairs,\" at length cried Johnson\nsternly to him, \"and leave the Corsicans to theirs; I wish you would\nempty your head of Corsica.\"[156] At the end of 1765, the immortal\nhero-worshipper on his return expected to come upon his hero at\nMotiers, but finding that he was in Paris wrote him a wonderful letter\nin wonderful French. \"You will forget all your cares for many an\nevening, while I tell you what I have seen. I owe you the deepest\nobligation for sending me to Corsica. The voyage has done me\nmarvellous good. It has made me as if all the lives of Plutarch had\nsunk into my soul.... I am devoted to the Corsicans heart and soul; if\nyou, illustrious Rousseau, the philosopher whom they have chosen to\nhelp them by your lights to preserve and enjoy the liberty which they\nhave acquired with so much heroism--if you have cooled towards these\ngallant islanders, why then I am sorry for you, that is all I can\nsay.\"[157]\n\nAlas, by this time the gallant islanders had been driven out of\nRousseau's mind by personal mishaps. First, Voltaire or some other\nenemy had spread the rumour that the invitation to become the Lycurgus\nof Corsica was a practical joke, and Rousseau's suspicious temper\nfound what he took for confirmation of this in some trifling incidents\nwith which we certainly need not concern ourselves.[158] Next, a very\nreal storm had burst upon him which drove him once more to seek a new\nplace of shelter, other than an island occupied by French troops. For\nFrance having begun by despatching auxiliaries to the assistance of\nthe Genoese (1764), ended by buying the island from the Genoese\nsenate, with a sort of equity of redemption (1768)--an iniquitous\ntransaction, as Rousseau justly called it, equally shocking to\njustice, humanity, reason, and policy.[159] Civilisation would have\nbeen saved one of its sorest trials if Genoa could have availed\nherself of her equity, and so have delivered France from the\nacquisition of the most terrible citizen that ever scourged a\nstate.[160]\n\nThe condemnation of Rousseau by the Council in 1762 had divided Geneva\ninto two camps, and was followed by a prolonged contention between his\npartisans and his enemies. The root of the contention was political\nrather than theological. To take Rousseau's side was to protest\nagainst the oligarchic authority which had condemned him, and the\nquarrel about Emilius was only an episode in the long war between the\npopular and aristocratic parties. This strife, after coming to a\nheight for the first time in 1734, had abated after the pacification\nof 1738, but the pacification was only effective for a time, and the\nroots of division were still full of vitality. The lawfulness of the\nauthority and the regularity of the procedure by which Rousseau had\nbeen condemned, offered convenient ground for carrying on the dispute,\nand its warmth was made more intense by the suggestion on the popular\nside that perhaps the religion of the book which the oligarchs had\ncondemned was more like Christianity than the religion of the\noligarchs who condemned it.\n\nRousseau was too near the scene of the quarrel, too directly involved\nin its issues, too constantly in contact with the people who were\nengaged in it, not to feel the angry buzzings very close about his\nears. If he had been as collected and as self-possessed as he loved to\nfancy, they would have gone for very little in the life of the day.\nBut Rousseau never stood on the heights whence a strong man surveys\nwith clear eye and firm soul the unjust or mean or furious moods of\nthe world. Such achievement is not hard for the creature who is\nwrapped up in himself; who is careless of the passions of men about\nhim, because he thinks they cannot hurt him, and not because he has\nmeasured them, and deliberately assigned them a place among the\nelements in which a man's destiny is cast. It is only hard for one who\nis penetrated by true interest in the opinion and action of his\nfellows, thus to keep both sympathy warm and self-sufficience true.\nThe task was too hard for Rousseau, though his patience under long\npersecution far surpassed that of any of the other oppressed teachers\nof the time. In the spring of 1763 he deliberately renounced in all\ndue forms his rights of burgess-ship and citizenship in the city and\nrepublic of Geneva.[161] And at length he broke forth against his\nGenevese persecutors in the Letters from the Mountain (1764), a long\nbut extremely vigorous and adroit rejoinder to the pleas which his\nenemies had put forth in Tronchin's Letters from the Country. If any\none now cares to satisfy himself how really unjust and illegal the\ntreatment was, which Rousseau received at the hands of the authorities\nof his native city, he may do so by examining these most forcible\nletters. The second part of them may interest the student of political\nhistory by its account of the working of the institutions of the\nlittle republic. We seem to be reading over again the history of a\nGreek city; the growth of a wealthy class in face of an increasing\nnumber of poor burgesses, the imposition of burdens in unfair\nproportions upon the metoikoi, the gradual usurpation of legislative\nand administrative function (including especially the judicial) by the\noligarchs, and the twisting of democratic machinery to oligarchic\nends; then the growth of staseis or violent factions, followed by\nmetabol\u00e9 or overthrow of the established constitution, ending in\nforeign intervention. The Four Hundred at Athens would have treated\nany Social Contract that should have appeared in their day, just as\nsternly as the Two Hundred or the Twenty-five treated the Social\nContract that did appear, and for just the same reasons.\n\nRousseau proved his case with redundancy of demonstration. A body of\nburgesses had previously availed themselves (Nov. 1763) of a legal\nright, and made a technical representation to the Lesser Council that\nthe laws had been broken in his case. The Council in return availed\nitself of an equally legal right, its _droit n\u00e9gatif_, and declined to\nentertain the representation, without giving any reasons.\nUnfortunately for Rousseau's comfort, the ferment which his new\nvindication of his cause stirred up, did not end with the condemnation\nand burning of his manifesto. For the parliament of Paris ordered the\nLetters from the Mountain to be burned, and the same decree and the\nsame faggot served for that and for Voltaire's Philosophical\nDictionary (April 1765).[162] It was also burned at the Hague (Jan.\n22). An observer by no means friendly to the priests noticed that at\nParis it was not the fanatics of orthodoxy, but the encyclop\u00e6dists and\ntheir flock, who on this occasion raised the storm and set the zeal of\nthe magistrates in motion.[163] The vanity and egoism of rationalistic\nsects can be as fatal to candour, justice, and compassion as the\nintolerant pride of the great churches.\n\nPersecution came nearer to Rousseau and took more inconvenient shapes\nthan this. A terrible libel appeared (Feb. 1765), full of the coarsest\ncalumnies. Rousseau, stung by their insolence and falseness, sent it\nto Paris to be published there with a prefatory note, stating that it\nwas by a Genevese pastor whom he named. This landed him in fresh\nmortification, for the pastor disavowed the libel, Rousseau declined\nto accept the disavowal, and sensible men were wearied by acrimonious\ndeclarations, explanations, protests.[164] Then the clergy of\nNeuch\u00e2tel were not able any longer to resist the opportunity of\ninflicting such torments as they could, upon a heretic whom they might\nmore charitably have left to those ultimate and everlasting torments\nwhich were so precious to their religious imagination. They began to\npress the pastor of the village where Rousseau lived, and with whom he\nhad hitherto been on excellent terms. The pastor, though he had been\nliberal enough to admit his singular parishioner to the communion, in\nspite of the Savoyard Vicar, was not courageous enough to resist the\nbigotry of the professional body to which he belonged. He warned\nRousseau not to present himself at the next communion. The philosopher\ninsisted that he had a right to do this, until formally cast out by\nthe consistory. The consistory, composed mainly of a body of peasants\nentirely bound to their minister in matters of religion, cited him to\nappear, and answer such questions as might test his loyalty to the\nfaith. Rousseau prepared a most deliberate vindication of all that he\nhad written, which he intended to speak to his rustic judges. The eve\nof the morning on which he had to appear, he knew his discourse by\nheart; when morning came he could not repeat two sentences. So he fell\nback on the instrument over which he had more mastery than he had over\ntongue or memory, and wrote what he wished to say. The pastor, in whom\nirritated egoism was probably by this time giving additional heat to\nprofessional zeal, was for fulminating a decree of excommunication,\nbut there appears to have been some indirect interference with the\nproceedings of the consistory by the king's officials at Neuch\u00e2tel,\nand the ecclesiastical bolt was held back.[165] Other weapons were not\nwanting. The pastor proceeded to spread rumours among his flock that\nRousseau was a heretic, even an atheist, and most prodigious of all,\nthat he had written a book containing the monstrous doctrine that\nwomen have no souls. The pulpit resounded with sermons proving to the\nhonest villagers that antichrist was quartered in their parish in very\nflesh. The Armenian apparel gave a high degree of plausibleness to\nsuch an opinion, and as the wretched man went by the door of his\nneighbours, he heard cursing and menace, while a hostile pebble now\nand again whistled past his ear. His botanising expeditions were\nbelieved to be devoted to search for noxious herbs, and a man who\ndied in the agonies of nephritic colic, was supposed to have been\npoisoned by him.[166] If persons went to the post-office for letters\nfor him, they were treated with insult.[167] At length the ferment\nagainst him grew hot enough to be serious. A huge block of stone was\nfound placed so as to kill him when he opened his door; and one night\nan attempt was made to stone him in his house.[168] Popular hate shown\nwith this degree of violence was too much for his fortitude, and after\na residence of rather more than three years (September 8-10, 1765), he\nfled from the inhospitable valley to seek refuge he knew not where.\n\nIn his rambles of a previous summer he had seen a little island in the\nlake of Bienne, which struck his imagination and lived in his memory.\nThither he now, after a moment of hesitation, turned his steps, with\nsomething of the same instinct as draws a child towards a beam of the\nsun. He forgot or was heedless of the circumstance that the isle of\nSt. Peter lay in the jurisdiction of the canton of Berne, whose\ngovernment had forbidden him their territory. Strong craving for a\nlittle ease in the midst of his wretchedness extinguished thought of\njurisdictions and proscriptive decrees.\n\nThe spot where he now found peace for a brief space usually\ndisappoints the modern hunter for the picturesque, who after wearying\nhimself with the follies of a capital seeks the most violent tonic\nthat he can find in the lonely terrors of glacier and peak, and sees\nonly tameness in a pygmy island, that offers nothing sublimer than a\nhigh grassy terrace, some cool over-branching avenues, some mimic\nvales, and meadows and vineyards sloping down to the sheet of blue\nwater at their feet. Yet, as one sits here on a summer day, with tired\nmowers sleeping on their grass heaps in the sun, in a stillness\nfaintly broken by the timid lapping of the water in the sedge, or the\nrustling of swift lizards across the heated sand, while the Bernese\nsnow giants line a distant horizon with mysterious solitary shapes, it\nis easy to know what solace life in such a scene might bring to a man\ndistracted by pain of body and pain and weariness of soul. Rousseau\nhas commemorated his too short sojourn here in the most perfect of all\nhis compositions.[169]\n\n \"I found my existence so charming, and led a life so\n agreeable to my humour, that I resolved here to end my days.\n My only source of disquiet was whether I should be allowed\n to carry my project out. In the midst of the presentiments\n that disturbed me, I would fain have had them make a\n perpetual prison of my refuge, to confine me in it for all\n the rest of my life. I longed for them to cut off all chance\n and all hope of leaving it; to forbid me holding any\n communication with the mainland, so that, knowing nothing\n of what was going on in the world, I might have forgotten\n the world's existence, and people might have forgotten mine\n too. They only suffered me to pass two months in the island,\n but I could have passed two years, two centuries, and all\n eternity, without a moment's weariness, though I had not,\n with my companion, any other society than that of the\n steward, his wife, and their servants. They were in truth\n honest souls and nothing more, but that was just what I\n wanted.... Carried thither in a violent hurry, alone and\n without a thing, I afterwards sent for my housekeeper, my\n books, and my scanty possessions, of which I had the delight\n of unpacking nothing, leaving my boxes and chests just as\n they had come, and dwelling in the house where I counted on\n ending my days, exactly as if it were an inn whence I must\n needs set forth on the morrow. All things went so well, just\n as they were, that to think of ordering them better were to\n spoil them. One of my greatest joys was to leave my books\n safely fastened up in their boxes, and to be without even a\n case for writing. When any luckless letter forced me to take\n up a pen for an answer, I grumblingly borrowed the steward's\n inkstand, and hurried to give it back to him with all the\n haste I could, in the vain hope that I should never have\n need of the loan any more. Instead of meddling with those\n weary quires and reams and piles of old books, I filled my\n chamber with flowers and grasses, for I was then in my first\n fervour for botany. Having given up employment that would be\n a task to me, I needed one that would be an amusement, nor\n cause me more pains than a sluggard might choose to take. I\n undertook to make the _Flora petrinsularis_, and to describe\n every single plant on the island, in detail enough to occupy\n me for the rest of my days. In consequence of this fine\n scheme, every morning after breakfast, which we all took in\n company, I used to go with a magnifying glass in my hand and\n my Systema Natur\u00e6 under my arm, to visit some district of\n the island. I had divided it for that purpose into small\n squares, meaning to go through them one after another in\n each season of the year. At the end of two or three hours I\n used to return laden with an ample harvest, a provision for\n amusing myself after dinner indoors, in case of rain. I\n spent the rest of the morning in going with the steward, his\n wife, and Theresa, to see the labourers and the harvesting,\n and I generally set to work along with them; many a time\n when people from Berne came to see me, they found me perched\n on a high tree, with a bag fastened round my waist; I kept\n filling it with fruit and then let it down to the ground\n with a rope. The exercise I had taken in the morning and the\n good humour that always comes from exercise, made the repose\n of dinner vastly pleasant to me. But if dinner was kept up\n too long, and fine weather invited me forth, I could not\n wait, but was speedily off to throw myself all alone into a\n boat, which, when the water was smooth enough, I used to\n pull out to the middle of the lake. There, stretched at full\n length in the boat's bottom, with my eyes turned up to the\n sky, I let myself float slowly hither and thither as the\n water listed, sometimes for hours together, plunged in a\n thousand confused delicious musings, which, though they had\n no fixed nor constant object, were not the less on that\n account a hundred times dearer to me than all that I had\n found sweetest in what they call the pleasures of life.\n Often warned by the going down of the sun that it was time\n to return, I found myself so far from the island that I was\n forced to row with all my might to get in before it was\n pitch dark. At other times, instead of losing myself in the\n midst of the waters, I had a fancy to coast along the green\n shores of the island, where the clear waters and cool\n shadows tempted me to bathe. But one of my most frequent\n expeditions was from the larger island to the less; there I\n disembarked and spent my afternoon, sometimes in mimic\n rambles among wild elders, persicaries, willows, and shrubs\n of every species, sometimes settling myself on the top of a\n sandy knoll, covered with turf, wild thyme, flowers, even\n sainfoin and trefoil that had most likely been sown there in\n old days, making excellent quarters for rabbits. They might\n multiply in peace without either fearing anything or harming\n anything. I spoke of this to the steward. He at once had\n male and female rabbits brought from Neuch\u00e2tel, and we went\n in high state, his wife, one of his sisters, Theresa, and I,\n to settle them in the little islet. The foundation of our\n colony was a feast-day. The pilot of the Argonauts was not\n prouder than I, as I bore my company and the rabbits in\n triumph from our island to the smaller one....\n\n When the lake was too rough for me to sail, I spent my\n afternoon in going up and down the island, gathering plants\n to right and left; seating myself now in smiling lonely\n nooks to dream at my ease, now on little terraces and\n knolls, to follow with my eyes the superb and ravishing\n prospect of the lake and its shores, crowned on one side by\n the neighbouring hills, and on the other melting into rich\n and fertile plains up to the feet of the pale blue mountains\n on their far-off edge.\n\n As evening drew on, I used to come down from the high ground\n and sit on the beach at the water's brink in some hidden\n sheltering place. There the murmur of the waves and their\n agitation, charmed all my senses and drove every other\n movement away from my soul; they plunged it into delicious\n dreamings, in which I was often surprised by night. The flux\n and reflux of the water, its ceaseless stir-swelling and\n falling at intervals, striking on ear and sight, made up for\n the internal movements which my musings extinguished; they\n were enough to give me delight in mere existence, without\n taking any trouble of thinking. From time to time arose some\n passing thought of the instability of the things of this\n world, of which the face of the waters offered an image; but\n such light impressions were swiftly effaced in the\n uniformity of the ceaseless motion, which rocked me as in a\n cradle; it held me with such fascination that even when\n called at the hour and by the signal appointed, I could not\n tear myself away without summoning all my force.\n\n After supper, when the evening was fine, we used to go all\n together for a saunter on the terrace, to breathe the\n freshness of the air from the lake. We sat down in the\n arbour, laughing, chatting, or singing some old song, and\n then we went home to bed, well pleased with the day, and\n only craving another that should be exactly like it on the\n morrow....\n\n All is in a continual flux upon the earth. Nothing in it\n keeps a form constant and determinate; our affections,\n fastening on external things, necessarily change and pass\n just as they do. Ever in front of us or behind us, they\n recall the past that is gone, or anticipate a future that in\n many a case is destined never to be. There is nothing solid\n to which the heart can fix itself. Here we have little more\n than a pleasure that comes and passes away; as for the\n happiness that endures, I cannot tell if it be so much as\n known among men. There is hardly in the midst of our\n liveliest delights a single instant when the heart could\n tell us with real truth--\"_I would this instant might last\n for ever_.\" And how can we give the name of happiness to a\n fleeting state that all the time leaves the heart unquiet\n and void, that makes us regret something gone, or still long\n for something to come?\n\n But if there is a state in which the soul finds a situation\n solid enough to comport with perfect repose, and with the\n expansion of its whole faculty, without need of calling back\n the past, or pressing on towards the future; where time is\n nothing for it, and the present has no ending; with no mark\n for its own duration and without a trace of succession;\n without a single other sense of privation or delight, of\n pleasure or pain, of desire or apprehension, than this\n single sense of existence--so long as such a state endures,\n he who finds himself in it may talk of bliss, not with a\n poor, relative, and imperfect happiness such as people find\n in the pleasures of life, but with a happiness full,\n perfect, and sufficing, that leaves in the soul no conscious\n unfilled void. Such a state was many a day mine in my\n solitary musings in the isle of St. Peter, either lying in\n my boat as it floated on the water, or seated on the banks\n of the broad lake, or in other places than the little isle\n on the brink of some broad stream, or a rivulet murmuring\n over a gravel bed.\n\n What is it that one enjoys in a situation like this? Nothing\n outside of one's self, nothing except one's self and one's\n own existence.... But most men, tossed as they are by\n unceasing passion, have little knowledge of such a state;\n they taste it imperfectly for a few moments, and then retain\n no more than an obscure confused idea of it, that is too\n weak to let them feel its charm. It would not even be good\n in the present constitution of things, that in their\n eagerness for these gentle ecstasies, they should fall into\n a disgust for the active life in which their duty is\n prescribed to them by needs that are ever on the increase.\n But a wretch cut off from human society, who can do nothing\n here below that is useful and good either for himself or for\n other people, may in such a state find for all lost human\n felicities many recompenses, of which neither fortune nor\n men can ever rob him.\n\n 'Tis true that these recompenses cannot be felt by all\n souls, nor in all situations. The heart must be in peace,\n nor any passion come to trouble its calm. There must be in\n the surrounding objects neither absolute repose nor excess\n of agitation, but a uniform and moderated movement without\n shock, without interval. With no movement, life is only\n lethargy. If the movement be unequal or too strong, it\n awakes us; by recalling us to the objects around, it\n destroys the charm of our musing, and plucks us from within\n ourselves, instantly to throw us back under the yoke of\n fortune and man, in a moment to restore us to all the\n consciousness of misery. Absolute stillness inclines one to\n gloom. It offers an image of death: then the help of a\n cheerful imagination is necessary, and presents itself\n naturally enough to those whom heaven has endowed with such\n a gift. The movement which does not come from without then\n stirs within us. The repose is less complete, it is true;\n but it is also more agreeable when light and gentle ideas,\n without agitating the depths of the soul, only softly skim\n the surface. This sort of musing we may taste whenever there\n is tranquillity about us, and I have thought that in the\n Bastile, and even in a dungeon where no object struck my\n sight, I could have dreamed away many a thrice pleasurable\n day.\n\n But it must be said that all this came better and more\n happily in a fruitful and lonely island, where nothing\n presented itself to me save smiling pictures, where nothing\n recalled saddening memories, where the fellowship of the few\n dwellers there was gentle and obliging, without being\n exciting enough to busy me incessantly, where, in short, I\n was free to surrender myself all day long to the promptings\n of my taste or to the most luxurious indolence.... As I came\n out from a long and most sweet musing fit, seeing myself\n surrounded by verdure and flowers and birds, and letting my\n eyes wander far over romantic shores that fringed a wide\n expanse of water bright as crystal, I fitted all these\n attractive objects into my dreams; and when at last I slowly\n recovered myself and recognised what was about me, I could\n not mark the point that cut off dream from reality, so\n equally did all things unite to endear to me the lonely\n retired life I led in this happy spot! Why can that life not\n come back to me again? Why can I not go finish my days in\n the beloved island, never to quit it, never again to see in\n it one dweller from the mainland, to bring back to me the\n memory of all the woes of every sort that they have\n delighted in heaping on my head for all these long years?...\n Freed from the earthly passions engendered by the tumult of\n social life, my soul would many a time lift itself above\n this atmosphere, and commune beforehand with the heavenly\n intelligences, into whose number it trusts to be ere long\n taken.\"\n\nThe exquisite dream, thus set to words of most soothing music, came\nsoon to its end. The full and perfect sufficience of life was abruptly\ndisturbed. The government of Berne gave him notice to quit the island\nand their territory within fifteen days. He represented to the\nauthorities that he was infirm and ill, that he knew not whither to\ngo, and that travelling in wintry weather would be dangerous to his\nlife. He even made the most extraordinary request that any man in\nsimilar straits ever did make. \"In this extremity,\" he wrote to their\nrepresentative, \"I only see one resource for me, and however frightful\nit may appear, I will adopt it, not only without repugnance, but with\neagerness, if their excellencies will be good enough to give their\nconsent. It is that it should please them for me to pass the rest of\nmy days in prison in one of their castles, or such other place in\ntheir states as they may think fit to select. I will there live at my\nown expense, and I will give security never to put them to any cost. I\nsubmit to be without paper or pen, or any communication from without,\nexcept so far as may be absolutely necessary, and through the channel\nof those who shall have charge of me. Only let me have left, with the\nuse of a few books, the liberty to walk occasionally in a garden, and\nI am content. Do not suppose that an expedient, so violent in\nappearance, is the fruit of despair. My mind is perfectly calm at this\nmoment; I have taken time to think about it, and it is only after\nprofound consideration that I have brought myself to this decision.\nMark, I pray you, that if this seems an extraordinary resolution, my\nsituation is still more so. The distracted life that I have been made\nto lead for several years without intermission would be terrible for a\nman in full health; judge what it must be for a miserable invalid worn\ndown with weariness and misfortune, and who has now no wish save only\nto die in a little peace.\"[170]\n\nThat the request was made in all sincerity we may well believe. The\ndifference between being in prison and being out of it was really not\nconsiderable to a man who had the previous winter been confined to his\nchamber for eight months without a break.[171] In other respects the\nworld was as cheerless as any prison could be. He was an exile from\nthe only places he knew, and to him a land unknown was terrible. He\nhad thought of Vienna, and the Prince of W\u00fcrtemburg had sought the\nrequisite permission for him, but the priests were too strong in the\ncourt of the house of Austria.[172] Madame d'Houdetot offered him a\nresting-place in Normandy, and Saint Lambert in Lorraine.[173] He\nthought of Potsdam. Rey, the printer, pressed him to go to Holland. He\nwondered if he should have strength to cross the Alps and make his way\nto Corsica. Eventually he made up his mind to go to Berlin, and he\nwent as far as Strasburg on his road thither.[174] Here he began to\nfear the rude climate of the northern capital; he changed his plans,\nand resolved to accept the warm invitations that he had received to\ncross over to England. His friends used their interest to procure a\npassport for him,[175] and the Prince of Conti offered him an\napartment in the privileged quarter of the Temple, on his way through\nParis. His own purpose seems to have been irresolute to the last, but\nhis friends acted with such energy and bustle on his behalf that the\nEnglish scheme was adopted, and he found himself in Paris (Dec. 17,\n1765), on his way to London, almost before he had deliberately\nrealised what he was doing. It was a step that led him into many fatal\nvexations, as we shall presently see. Meanwhile we may pause to\nexamine the two considerable books which had involved his life in all\nthis confusion and perplexity.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[94] June, 1762-December, 1765.\n\n[95] _Conf._, xi. 175. It is generally printed in the volume of his\nworks entitled _M\u00e9langes_.\n\n[96] _Corr._, iii. 416.\n\n[97] _Conf._, xi. 172.\n\n[98] For a remarkable anticipation of the ruin of France, see _Conf._,\nxi. 136.\n\n[99] M. Roguin. June 14, 1762.\n\n[100] _Corr._, ii. 347.\n\n[101] Streckeisen, i. 35.\n\n[102] His friend Moultou wrote him the news, Streckeisen, i. 43.\nGeneva was the only place at which the Social Contract was burnt. Here\nthere were peculiar reasons, as we shall see.\n\n[103] _Corr._, ii. 356.\n\n[104] _Ib._, ii. 358, 369, etc.\n\n[105] The principality of Neuch\u00e2tel had fallen by marriage (1504) to\nthe French house of Orleans-Longueville, which with certain\ninterruptions retained it until the extinction of the line by the\ndeath of Marie, Duchess of Nemours (1707). Fifteen claimants arose\nwith fifteen varieties of far-off title, as well as a party for\nconstituting Neuch\u00e2tel a Republic and making it a fourteenth canton.\n(Saint Simon, v. 276.) The Estates adjudged the sovereignty to the\nProtestant house of Prussia (Nov. 3, 1707). Lewis XIV., as heir of the\npretensions of the extinct line, protested. Finally, at the peace of\nUtrecht (1713), Lewis surrendered his claim in exchange for the\ncession by Prussia of the Principality of Orange, and Prussia held it\nuntil 1806. The disturbed history of the connection between Prussia\nand Neuch\u00e2tel from 1814, when it became the twenty-first canton of the\nSwiss Confederation, down to 1857, does not here concern us.\n\n[106] _Corr._, ii. 370.\n\n[107] _Corr._, ii. 371. July 1762.\n\n[108] D'Alembert, who knew Frederick better than any of the\nphilosophers, to Voltaire, Nov. 22, 1765.\n\n[109] Letter to Hume; Burton's _Life of Hume_, ii. 105, corroborating\n_Conf._, xii. 196.\n\n[110] Marischal to J.J.R.; Streckeisen, ii. 70.\n\n[111] _Corr._, iii. 40. Nov. 1, 1762.\n\n[112] Burton's _Life_, ii. 113.\n\n[113] Voltaire's _Corr._ (1758). _Oeuv._, lxxv. pp. 31 and 80.\n\n[114] _Conf._, xii. 237.\n\n[115] _Corr._, iii. 41. Nov. 11, 1762.\n\n[116] _Corr._, iii. 38. Oct. 30, 1762.\n\n[117] _Ib._, iii. 110-115. Jan. 28, 1763.\n\n[118] Bernardin de St. Pierre, xii. 103, 59, etc.\n\n[119] George Keith (1685-1778) was elder brother of Frederick's famous\nfield-marshal, James Keith. They had taken part in the Jacobite rising\nof 1715, and fled abroad on its failure. James Keith brought his\nbrother into the service of the King of Prussia, who sent him as\nambassador to Paris (1751), afterwards made him Governor of Neuch\u00e2tel\n(1754), and eventually prevailed on the English Government to\nreinstate him in the rights which he had forfeited by his share in the\nrebellion (1763).\n\n[120] Streckeisen, ii. 98, etc.\n\n[121] One of Rousseau's chief distresses hitherto arose from the\nindigence in which Theresa would be placed in case of his death. Rey,\nthe bookseller, gave her an annuity of about \u00a316 a year, and Lord\nMarischal's gift seems to have been 300 louis, the only money that\nRousseau was ever induced to accept from any one in his life. See\nStreckeisen, ii. 99; _Corr._, iii. 336. The most delicate and sincere\nof the many offers to provide for Theresa was made by Madame de\nVerdelin (Streckeisen, ii. 506). The language in which Madame de\nVerdelin speaks of Theresa in all her letters is the best testimony to\ncharacter that this much-abused creature has to produce.\n\n[122] _Ib._, 90, 92, etc. Summer of 1763.\n\n[123] Burton's _Life of Hume_, ii. 105. Oct. 2, 1762.\n\n[124] The Confessions are not our only authority for this. See\nStreckeisen, ii. 64; also D'Alembert to Voltaire, Sept. 8, 1762.\n\n[125] Voltaire's _Corr._ _Oeuv._, lxvii. 458, 459, 485, etc.\n\n[126] To D'Alembert, Sept. 15, 1762.\n\n[127] Moultou to Rousseau, Streckeisen, i. 85, 87.\n\n[128] Moultou to Rousseau, Streckeisen, i. 85, 87.\n\n[129] Streckeisen, i. 50.\n\n[130] _Ib._, i. 76.\n\n[131] _Lettre \u00e0 Christophe de Beaumont_, pp. 163-166.\n\n[132] _Lettre \u00e0 Christophe de Beaumont_, pp. 130-135.\n\n[133] _Lettre \u00e0 Christophe de Beaumont_, p. 93.\n\n[134] Carlyle's _Frederick_, Bk. xxi. ch. iv. Rousseau, _Corr._, iii.\n102.\n\n[135] _Corr._, iii. 57. Nov. 1762. To M. Montmollin.\n\n[136] _Conf._, xii. 206.\n\n[137] _Conf._, xii. 198.\n\n[138] _Corr._, iii. 295. Dec. 25, 1763.\n\n[139] Quoted in Musset-Pathay, ii. 500.\n\n[140] For instance, _Corr._, iii. 249.\n\n[141] _Ib._, iii. 364, 381.\n\n[142] _Corr._, iii. 181-186, etc.\n\n[143] Prince Lewis Eugene, son of Charles Alexander (reigning duke\nfrom 1733 to 1737); a younger brother of Charles Eugene, known as\nSchiller's Duke of W\u00fcrtemberg, who reigned up to 1793. Frederick\nEugene, known in the Seven Years' War, was another brother. Rousseau's\ncorrespondent became reigning duke in 1793, but only lived a year and\na half afterwards.\n\n[144] _Corr._, iii. 250. Sept. 29, 1763.\n\n[145] The prince's letters are given in the Streckeisen collection,\nvol. ii.\n\n[146] Streckeisen, ii. 202.\n\n[147] Possibly Wilkes also; _Corr._, iv. 200.\n\n[148] Streckeisen, i. 89. June 1, 1763.\n\n[149] _Corr._, iii. 202. June 4, 1763.\n\n[150] _Memoirs of my Life_, p. 55, _n._ (Ed. 1862). Necker\n(1732-1804), whom Mdlle. Curchod ultimately married, was an eager\nadmirer of Rousseau. \"Ah, how close the tender, humane, and virtuous\nsoul of Julie,\" he wrote to her author, \"has brought me to you. How\nthe reading of those letters gratified me! how many good emotions did\nthey stir or fortify! How many sublimities in a thousand places in\nthese six volumes; not the sublimity that perches itself in the\nclouds, but that which pushes everyday virtues to their highest\npoint,\" and so on. Feb. 16, 1761. Streckeisen, i. 333.\n\n[151] Boswell's name only occurs twice in Rousseau's letters, I\nbelieve; once (_Corr._, iv. 394) as the writer of a letter which Hume\nwas suspected of tampering with, and previously (iv. 70) as the bearer\nof a letter. See also Streckeisen, i. 262.\n\n[152] Streckeisen, ii. 111. Jan. 18, 1765.\n\n[153] Bk. ii. ch. x.\n\n[154] Boswell's _Account of Corsica_, p. 367.\n\n[155] The correspondence between Rousseau and Buttafuoco has been\npublished in the _Oeuvres et Corr. In\u00e9dites de J.J.R._, 1861. See pp.\n35, 43, etc.\n\n[156] Boswell's _Life_, 179, 193, etc. (Ed. 1866).\n\n[157] _\"Je suis tout homme de pouvoir vous regarder avec piti\u00e9!\"_\nLetter dated Jan. 4, 1766, and given by Musset-Pathay as from a Scotch\nlord, unnamed. Boswell had the honour of conducting Theresa to\nEngland, after Hume had taken Rousseau over. \"This young gentleman,\"\nwrites Hume, \"very good-humoured, very agreeable, and very mad--has\nsuch a rage for literature that I dread some circumstance fatal to our\nfriend's honour. You remember the story of Terentia, who was first\nmarried to Cicero, then to Sallust, and at last in her old age married\na young nobleman, who imagined that she must possess some secret which\nwould convey to him eloquence and genius.\" Burton's _Life_, ii. 307,\n308. Boswell mentions that he met Rousseau in England (_Account of\nCorsica_, p. 340), and also gives Rousseau's letter introducing him to\nPaoli (p. 266).\n\n[158] To Buttafuoco, p. 48, etc.\n\n[159] _Corr._, vi. 176. Feb. 26, 1770.\n\n[160] It may be worth noticing, as a link between historic personages,\nthat Napoleon Bonaparte's first piece was a _Lettre \u00e0 Matteo\nButtafuoco_ (1791), the same Buttafuoco with whom Rousseau\ncorresponded, who had been Choiseul's agent in the union of the island\nto France, was afterwards sent as deputy to the Constituent, and\nfinally became the bitterest enemy of Paoli and the patriotic party.\n\n[161] _Corr._, iii. 190. To the First Syndic, May 12, 1763.\n\n[162] Grimm's _Corr. Lit._, iv. 235. For Rousseau's opinion of his\nbook's companion at the stake, see _Corr._, iii. 442.\n\n[163] Streckeisen, ii. 526.\n\n[164] There appears to be no doubt that Rousseau was wrong in\nattributing to Vernes the _Sentimens des Citoyens_.\n\n[165] _Corr._, iv. 116, 122 (April 1765), 165-196 (August); also\n_Conf._, xii. 245.\n\n[166] Note to M. Auguis's edition, _Corr._, v. 395.\n\n[167] _Corr._, iv. 204.\n\n[168] _Conf._, xii. 259. This lapidation has sometimes been doubted,\nand treated as an invention of Rousseau's morbid suspicion. The\nofficial documents prove that his account was substantially true (see\nMusset-Pathay, ii. 559.)\n\n[169] The fifth of the _R\u00eaveries_. See also _Conf._, 262-279, and\n_Corr._, iv. 206-224. His stay in the island was from the second week\nin September down to the last in October, 1765.\n\n[170] _Corr._, iv. 221. Oct. 20, 1765.\n\n[171] _Ib._, iv. 136, etc. April 27, 1765.\n\n[172] Streckeisen-Moultou, ii. 209, 212.\n\n[173] _Ib._, ii. 554.\n\n[174] He arrived at Strasburg on the 2d or 3d of November, left it\nabout the end of the first week in December, and arrived in Paris on\nthe 16th of December 1765. A sort of apocryphal tradition is said to\nlinger in the island about Rousseau's last evening on the island, how\nafter supper he called for a lute, and sang some passably bad verses.\nSee M. Bougy's _J.J. Rousseau_, p. 179 (Paris: 1853.)\n\n[175] Madame de Verdelin to J.J.R. Streckeisen, ii. 532. The minister\neven expressed his especial delight at being able to serve Rousseau,\nso little seriousness was there now in the formalities of absolution.\n_Ib._ 547.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE SOCIAL CONTRACT.\n\n\nThe dominant belief of the best minds of the latter half of\nthe eighteenth century was a passionate faith in the illimitable\npossibilities of human progress. Nothing short of a general overthrow\nof the planet could in their eyes stay the ever upward movement of\nhuman perfectibility. They differed as to the details of the\nphilosophy of government which they deduced from this philosophy of\nsociety, but the conviction that a golden era of tolerance,\nenlightenment, and material prosperity was close at hand, belonged to\nthem all. Rousseau set his face the other way. For him the golden era\nhad passed away from our globe many centuries ago. Simplicity had fled\nfrom the earth. Wisdom and heroism had vanished from out of the minds\nof leaders. The spirit of citizenship had gone from those who should\nhave upheld the social union in brotherly accord. The dream of human\nperfectibility which nerved men like Condorcet, was to Rousseau a sour\nand fantastic mockery. The utmost that men could do was to turn their\neyes to the past, to obliterate the interval, to try to walk for a\nspace in the track of the ancient societies. They would hardly\nsucceed, but endeavour might at least do something to stay the plague\nof universal degeneracy. Hence the fatality of his system. It placed\nthe centre of social activity elsewhere than in careful and rational\nexamination of social conditions, and in careful and rational effort\nto modify them. As we began by saying, it substituted a retrograde\naspiration for direction, and emotion for the discovery of law. We can\nhardly wonder, when we think of the intense exaltation of spirit\nproduced both by the perfectibilitarians and the followers of\nRousseau, and at the same time of the political degradation and\nmaterial disorder of France, that so violent a contrast between the\nideal and the actual led to a great volcanic outbreak. Alas, the\ncrucial difficulty of political change is to summon new force without\ndestroying the sound parts of a structure which it has taken so many\ngenerations to erect. The Social Contract is the formal denial of the\npossibility of successfully overcoming the difficulty.\n\n\"Although man deprives himself in the civil state of many advantages\nwhich he holds from nature, yet he acquires in return others so great,\nhis faculties exercise and develop themselves, his ideas extend, his\nsentiments are ennobled, his whole soul is raised to such a degree,\nthat if the abuses of this new condition did not so often degrade him\nbelow that from which he has emerged, he would be bound to bless\nwithout ceasing the happy moment which rescued him from it for ever,\nand out of a stupid and blind animal made an intelligent being and a\nman.\"[176] The little parenthesis as to the frequent degradation\nproduced by the abuses of the social condition, does not prevent us\nfrom recognising in the whole passage a tolerably complete surrender\nof the main position which was taken up in the two Discourses. The\nshort treatise on the Social Contract is an inquiry into the just\nfoundations and most proper form of that very political society, which\nthe Discourses showed to have its foundation in injustice, and to be\nincapable of receiving any form proper for the attainment of the full\nmeasure of human happiness.\n\nInequality in the same way is no longer denounced, but accepted and\ndefined. Locke's influence has begun to tell. The two principal\nobjects of every system of legislation are declared to be liberty and\nequality. By equality we are warned not to understand that the degrees\nof power and wealth should be absolutely the same, but that in respect\nof power, such power should be out of reach of any violence, and be\ninvariably exercised in virtue of the laws; and in respect of riches,\nthat no citizen should be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor\nenough to sell himself. Do you say this equality is a mere chimera? It\nis precisely because the force of things is constantly tending to\ndestroy equality, that the force of legislation ought as constantly to\nbe directed towards upholding it.[177] This is much clearer than the\nindefinite way of speaking which we have already noticed in the second\nDiscourse. It means neither more nor less than that equality before\nthe law which is one of the elementary marks of a perfectly free\ncommunity.\n\nThe idea of the law being constantly directed to counteract the\ntendencies to violent inequalities in material possessions among\ndifferent members of a society, is too vague to be criticised. Does it\ncover and warrant so sweeping a measure as the old _seisachtheia_ of\nSolon, voiding all contracts in which the debtor had pledged his land\nor his person; or such measures as the agrarian laws of Licinius and\nthe Gracchi? Or is it to go no further than to condemn such a law as\nthat which in England gives unwilled lands to the eldest son? We can\nonly criticise accurately a general idea of this sort in connection\nwith specific projects in which it is applied. As it stands, it is no\nmore than the expression of what the author thinks a wise principle of\npublic policy. It assumes the existence of property just as completely\nas the theory of the most rigorous capitalist could do; it gives no\nencouragement, as the Discourse did, to the notion of an equality in\nbeing without property. There is no element of communism in a\nprinciple so stated, but it suggests a social idea, based on the moral\nclaim of men to have equality of opportunity. This ideal stamped\nitself on the minds of Robespierre and the other revolutionary\nleaders, and led to practical results in the sale of the Church and\nother lands in small lots, so as to give the peasant a market to buy\nin. The effect of the economic change thus introduced happened to work\nin the direction in which Rousseau pointed, for it is now known that\nthe most remarkable and most permanent of the consequences of the\nrevolution in the ownership of land was the erection, between the two\nextreme classes of proprietors, of an immense body of middle-class\nfreeholders. This state is not equality, but gradation, and there is\nundoubtedly an immense difference between the two. Still its origin is\nan illustration on the largest scale in history of the force of\nlegislation being exerted to counteract an irregularity that had\nbecome unbearable.[178]\n\nNotwithstanding the disappearance of the more extravagant elements of\nthe old thesis, the new speculation was far from being purged of the\nfundamental errors that had given such popularity to its predecessors.\n\"If the sea,\" he says in one place, \"bathes nothing but inaccessible\nrocks on your coasts, remain barbarous ichthyophagi; you will live all\nthe more tranquilly for it, better perhaps, and assuredly more\nhappily.\"[179] Apart from an outburst like this, the central idea\nremained the same, though it was approached from another side and with\ndifferent objects. The picture of a state of nature had lost none of\nits perilous attraction, though it was hung in a slightly changed\nlight. It remained the starting-point of the right and normal\nconstitution of civil society, just as it had been the starting-point\nof the denunciation of civil society as incapable of right\nconstitution, and as necessarily and for ever abnormal. Equally with\nthe Discourses, the Social Contract is a repudiation of that historic\nmethod which traces the present along a line of ascertained\ncircumstances, and seeks an improved future in an unbroken\ncontinuation of that line. The opening words, which sent such a thrill\nthrough the generation to which they were uttered in two continents,\n\"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,\" tell us at the\noutset that we are as far away as ever from the patient method of\npositive observation, and as deeply buried as ever in deducing\npractical maxims from a set of conditions which never had any other\nthan an abstract and phantasmatic existence. How is a man born free?\nIf he is born into isolation, he perishes instantly. If he is born\ninto a family, he is at the moment of his birth committed to a state\nof social relation, in however rudimentary a form; and the more or\nless of freedom which this state may ultimately permit to him, depends\nupon circumstances. Man was hardly born free among Romans and\nAthenians, when both law and public opinion left a father at perfect\nliberty to expose his new-born infant. And the more primitive the\ncircumstances, the later the period at which he gains freedom. A child\nwas not born free in the early days of the Roman state, when the\n_patria potestas_ was a vigorous reality. Nor, to go yet further back,\nwas he born free in the times of the Hebrew patriarchs, when Abraham\nhad full right of sacrificing his son, and Jephthah of sacrificing his\ndaughter.\n\nBut to speak thus is to speak what we do know. Rousseau was not open\nto such testimony. \"My principles,\" he said in contempt of Grotius,\n\"are not founded on the authority of poets; they come from the nature\nof things and are based on reason.\"[180] He does indeed in one place\nexpress his reverence for the Judaic law, and administers a just\nrebuke to the philosophic arrogance which saw only successful\nimpostors in the old legislators.[181] But he paid no attention to\nthe processes and usages of which this law was the organic expression,\nnor did he allow himself to learn from it the actual conditions of the\nsocial state which accepted it. It was Locke, whose essay on civil\ngovernment haunts us throughout the Social Contract, who had taught\nhim that men are born free, equal, and independent. Locke evaded the\ndifficulty of the dependence of childhood by saying that when the son\ncomes to the estate that made his father a free man, he becomes a free\nman too.[182] What of the old Roman use permitting a father to sell\nhis son three times? In the same metaphysical spirit Locke had laid\ndown the absolute proposition that \"conjugal society is made by a\nvoluntary compact between man and woman.\"[183] This is true of a small\nnumber of western societies in our own day, but what of the primitive\nusages of communal marriages, marriages by capture, purchase, and the\nrest? We do not mean it as any discredit to writers upon government in\nthe seventeenth century that they did not make good out of their own\nconsciousness the necessary want of knowledge about primitive\ncommunities. But it is necessary to point out, first, that they did\nnot realise all the knowledge within their reach, and next that, as a\nconsequence of this, their propositions had a quality that vitiated\nall their speculative worth. Filmer's contention that man is not\nnaturally free was truer than the position of Locke and Rousseau, and\nit was so because Filmer consulted and appealed to the most authentic\nof the historic records then accessible.[184]\n\nIt is the more singular that Rousseau should have thus deliberately\nput aside all but the most arbitrary and empirical historical lessons,\nand it shows the extraordinary force with which men may be mastered by\nabstract prepossessions, even when they have a partial knowledge of\nthe antidote; because Rousseau in several places not only admits, but\ninsists upon, the necessity of making institutions relative to the\nstate of the community, in respect of size, soil, manners, occupation,\nmorality, character. \"It is in view of such relations as these that we\nmust assign to each people a particular system, which shall be the\nbest, not perhaps in itself, but for the state for which it is\ndestined.\"[185] In another place he calls attention to manners,\ncustoms, above all to opinion, as the part of a social system on which\nthe success of all the rest depends; particular rules being only the\narching of the vault, of which manners, though so much tardier in\nrising, form a key-stone that can never be disturbed.[186] This was\nexcellent so far as it went, but it was one of the many great truths,\nwhich men may hold in their minds without appreciating their full\nvalue. He did not see that these manners, customs, opinions, have old\nroots which must be sought in a historic past; that they are connected\nwith the constitution of human nature, and that then in turn they\nprepare modifications of that constitution. His narrow, symmetrical,\nimpatient humour unfitted him to deal with the complex tangle of the\nhistory of social growths. It was essential to his mental comfort that\nhe should be able to see a picture of perfect order and logical system\nat both ends of his speculation. Hence, he invented, to begin with,\nhis ideal state of nature, and an ideal mode of passing from that to\nthe social state. He swept away in his imagination the whole series of\nactual incidents between present and past; and he constructed a system\nwhich might be imposed upon all societies indifferently by a\nlegislator summoned for that purpose, to wipe out existing uses, laws,\nand institutions, and make afresh a clear and undisturbed beginning of\nnational life. The force of habit was slowly and insensibly to be\nsubstituted for that of the legislator's authority, but the existence\nof such habits previously as forces to be dealt with, and the\nexistence of certain limits of pliancy in the conditions of human\nnature and social possibility, are facts of which the author of the\nSocial Contract takes not the least account.\n\nRousseau knew hardly any history, and the few isolated pieces of old\nfact which he had picked up in his very slight reading were exactly\nthe most unfortunate that a student in need of the historic method\ncould possibly have fallen in with. The illustrations which are\nscantily dispersed in his pages,--and we must remark that they are no\nmore than illustrations for conclusions arrived at quite independently\nof them, and not the historical proof and foundations of his\nconclusions,--are nearly all from the annals of the small states of\nancient Greece, and from the earlier times of the Roman republic. We\nhave already pointed out to what an extent his imagination was struck\nat the time of his first compositions by the tale of Lycurgus. The\ninfluence of the same notions is still paramount. The hopelessness of\ngiving good laws to a corrupt people is supposed to be demonstrated by\nthe case of Minos, whose legislation failed in Crete because the\npeople for whom he made laws were sunk in vices; and by the further\nexample of Plato, who refused to give laws to the Arcadians and\nCyrenians, knowing that they were too rich and could never suffer\nequality.[187] The writer is thinking of Plato's Laws, when he says\nthat just as nature has fixed limits to the stature of a well-formed\nman, outside of which she produces giants and dwarfs, so with\nreference to the best constitution for a state, there are bounds to\nits extent, so that it may be neither too large to be capable of good\ngovernment, nor too small to be independent and self-sufficing. The\nfurther the social bond is extended, the more relaxed it becomes, and\nin general a small state is proportionally stronger than a large\none.[188] In the remarks with which he proceeds to corroborate this\nposition, we can plainly see that he is privately contrasting an\nindependent Greek community with the unwieldy oriental monarchy\nagainst which at one critical period Greece had to contend. He had\nnever realised the possibility of such forms of polity as the Roman\nEmpire, or the half-federal dominion of England which took such\nenormous dimensions in his time, or the great confederation of states\nwhich came to birth two years before he died. He was the servant of\nhis own metaphor, as the Greek writers so often were. His argument\nthat a state must be of a moderate size because the rightly shapen man\nis neither dwarf nor giant, is exactly on a par with Aristotle's\nargument to the same effect, on the ground that beauty demands size,\nand there must not be too great nor too small size, because a ship\nsails badly if it be either too heavy or too light.[189] And when\nRousseau supposes the state to have ten thousand inhabitants, and\ntalks about the right size of its territory,[190] who does not think\nof the five thousand and forty which the Athenian Stranger prescribed\nto Cleinias the Cretan as the exactly proper number for the perfectly\nformed state?[191] The prediction of the short career which awaits a\nstate that is cursed with an extensive and accessible seaboard,\ncorresponds precisely with the Athenian Stranger's satisfaction that\nthe new city is to be eighty stadia from the coast.[192] When Rousseau\nhimself began to think about the organisation of Corsica, he praised\nthe selection of Corte as the chief town of a patriotic\nadministration, because it was far from the sea, and so its\ninhabitants would long preserve their simplicity and uprightness.[193]\nAnd in later years still, when meditating upon a constitution for\nPoland, he propounded an economic system essentially Spartan; the\npeople were enjoined to think little about foreigners, to give\nthemselves little concern about commerce, to suppress stamped paper,\nand to put a tithe upon the land.[194]\n\nThe chapter on the Legislator is in the same region. We are again\nreferred to Lycurgus; and to the circumstance that Greek towns usually\nconfided to a stranger the sacred task of drawing up their laws. His\nexperience in Venice and the history of his native town supplemented\nthe examples of Greece. Geneva summoned a stranger to legislate for\nher, and \"those who only look on Calvin as a theologian have a scanty\nidea of the extent of his genius; the preparation of our wise edicts,\nin which he had so large a part, do him as much honour as his\nInstitutes.\"[195] Rousseau's vision was too narrow to let him see the\ngrowth of government and laws as a co-ordinate process, flowing from\nthe growth of all the other parts and organs of society, and advancing\nin more or less equal step along with them. He could begin with\nnothing short of an absolute legislator, who should impose a system\nfrom without by a single act, a structure hit upon once for all by his\nindividual wisdom, not slowly wrought out by many minds, with popular\nassent and co-operation, at the suggestion of changing social\ncircumstances and need.[196]\n\nAll this would be of very trifling importance in the history of\npolitical literature, but for the extraordinary influence which\ncircumstances ultimately bestowed upon it. The Social Contract was the\ngospel of the Jacobins, and much of the action of the supreme party in\nFrance during the first months of the year 1794 is only fully\nintelligible when we look upon it as the result and practical\napplication of Rousseau's teaching. The conception of the situation\nentertained by Robespierre and Saint Just was entirely moulded on all\nthis talk about the legislators of Greece and Geneva. \"The transition\nof an oppressed nation to democracy is like the effort by which nature\nrose from nothingness to existence. You must entirely refashion a\npeople whom you wish to make free--destroy its prejudices, alter its\nhabits, limit its necessities, root up its vices, purify its desires.\nThe state therefore must lay hold on every human being at his birth,\nand direct his education with powerful hand. Solon's weak confidence\nthrew Athens into fresh slavery, while Lycurgus's severity founded the\nrepublic of Sparta on an immovable basis.\"[197] These words, which\ncome from a decree of the Committee of Public Safety, might well be\ntaken for an excerpt from the Social Contract. The fragments of the\ninstitutions by which Saint Just intended to regenerate his country,\nreveal a man with the example of Lycurgus before his eyes in every\nline he wrote.[198] When on the eve of the Thermidorian revolution\nwhich overthrew him and his party, he insisted on the necessity of a\ndictatorship, he was only thinking of the means by which he should at\nlength obtain the necessary power for forcing his regenerating\nprojects on the country; for he knew that Robespierre, whom he named\nas the man for the dictatorship, accepted his projects, and would lend\nthe full force of the temporal arm to the propagation of ideas which\nthey had acquired together from Jean Jacques, and from the Greeks to\nwhom Jean Jacques had sent them for example and instruction.[199] No\ndoubt the condition of France after 1792 must naturally have struck\nany one too deeply imbued with the spirit of the Social Contract to\nlook beneath the surface of the society with which the Convention had\nto deal, as urgently inviting a lawgiver of the ancient stamp. The old\norder in church and state had been swept away, no organs for the\nperformance of the functions of national life were visible, the moral\nideas which had bound the social elements together in the extinct\nmonarchy seemed to be permanently sapped. A politician who had for\nyears been dreaming about Minos and Lycurgus and Calvin, especially if\nhe lived in a state with such a tradition of centralisation as ruled\nin France, was sure to suppose that here was the scene and the moment\nfor a splendid repetition on an immense scale of those immortal\nachievements. The futility of the attempt was the practical and ever\nmemorable illustration of the defect of Rousseau's geometrical method.\nIt was one thing to make laws for the handful of people who lived in\nGeneva in the sixteenth century, united in religious faith, and\naccepting the same form and conception of the common good. It was a\nvery different thing to try to play Calvin over some twenty-five\nmillions of a heterogeneously composed nation, abounding in variations\nof temperament, faith, laws, and habits and weltering in unfathomable\ndistractions. The French did indeed at length invite a heaven-sent\nstranger from Corsica to make laws for them, but not until he had set\nhis foot upon their neck; and even Napoleon Bonaparte, who had begun\nlife like the rest of his generation by writing Rousseauite essays,\nmade a swift return to the historic method in the equivocal shape of\nthe Concordat.\n\nNot only were Rousseau's schemes of polity conceived from the point of\nview of a small territory with a limited population. \"You must not,\"\nhe says in one place, \"make the abuses of great states an objection to\na writer who would fain have none but small ones.\"[200] Again, when he\nsaid that in a truly free state the citizens performed all their\nservices to the community with their arms and none by money, and that\nhe looked upon the corv\u00e9e (or compulsory labour on the public roads)\nas less hostile to freedom than taxes,[201] he showed that he was\nthinking of a state not greatly passing the dimensions of a parish.\nThis was not the only defect of his schemes. They assumed a sort of\nstate of nature in the minds of the people with whom the lawgiver had\nto deal. Saint Just made the same assumption afterwards, and trusted\nto his military school to erect on these bare plots whatever\nsuperstructure he might think fit to appoint. A society that had for\nso many centuries been organised and moulded by a powerful and\nenergetic church, armed with a definite doctrine, fixing the same\nmoral tendencies in a long series of successive generations, was not\nin the naked mental state which the Jacobins postulated. It was not\nprepared to accept free divorce, the substitution of friendship for\nmarriage, the displacement of the family by the military school, and\nthe other articles in Saint Just's programme of social renovation. The\ntwelve apostles went among people who were morally swept and\ngarnished, and they went armed with instruments proper to seize the\nimagination of their hearers. All moral reformers seek the ignorant\nand simple, poor fishermen in one scene, labourers and women in\nanother, for the good reason that new ideas only make way on ground\nthat is not already too heavily encumbered with prejudices. But France\nin 1793 was in no condition of this kind. Opinion in all its spheres\nwas deepened by an old and powerful organisation, to a degree which\nmade any attempt to abolish the opinion, as the organisation appeared\nto have been abolished, quite hopeless until the lapse of three or\nfour hundred years had allowed due time for dissolution. After all it\nwas not until the fourth century of our era that the work of even the\ntwelve apostles began to tell decisively and quickly. As for the\nLycurgus of whom the French chattered, if such a personality ever\nexisted out of the region of myth, he came to his people armed with an\noracle from the gods, just as Moses did, and was himself regarded as\nhaving a nature touched with divinity. No such pretensions could well\nbe made by any French legislator within a dozen years or so of the\ndeath of Voltaire.\n\nLet us here remark that it was exactly what strikes us as the\ndesperate absurdity of the assumptions of the Social Contract, which\nconstituted the power of that work, when it accidentally fell into the\nhands of men who surveyed a national system wrecked in all its parts.\nThe Social Contract is worked out precisely in that fashion which, if\nit touches men at all, makes them into fanatics. Long trains of\nreasoning, careful allegation of proofs, patient admission on every\nhand of qualifying propositions and multitudinous limitations, are\nessential to science, and produce treatises that guide the wise\nstatesman in normal times. But it is dogma that gives fervour to a\nsect. There are always large classes of minds to whom anything in the\nshape of a vigorously compact system is irresistibly fascinating, and\nto whom the qualification of a proposition, or the limitation of a\ntheoretic principle is distressing or intolerable. Such persons always\ncome to the front for a season in times of distraction, when the party\nthat knows its own aims most definitely is sure to have the best\nchance of obtaining power. And Rousseau's method charmed their\ntemperament. A man who handles sets of complex facts is necessarily\nslow-footed, but one who has only words to deal with, may advance with\na speed, a precision, a consistency, a conclusiveness, that has a\nmagical potency over men who insist on having politics and theology\ndrawn out in exact theorems like those of Euclid.\n\nRousseau traces his conclusions from words, and develops his system\nfrom the interior germs of phrases. Like the typical schoolman, he\nassumes that analysis of terms is the right way of acquiring new\nknowledge about things; he mistakes the multiplication of propositions\nfor the discovery of fresh truth. Many pages of the Social Contract\nare mere logical deductions from verbal definitions: the slightest\nattempt to confront them with actual fact would have shown them to be\nnot only valueless, but wholly meaningless, in connection with real\nhuman nature and the visible working of human affairs. He looks into\nthe word, or into his own verbal notion, and tells us what is to be\nfound in that, whereas we need to be told the marks and qualities that\ndistinguish the object which the word is meant to recall. Hence arises\nhis habit of setting himself questions, with reference to which we\ncannot say that the answers are not true, but only that the questions\nthemselves were never worth asking. Here is an instance of his method\nof supposing that to draw something from a verbal notion is to find\nout something corresponding to fact. \"We can distinguish in the\nmagistrate three essentially different wills: 1st, the will peculiar\nto him as an individual, which only tends to his own particular\nadvantage; 2nd, the common will of the magistrates, which refers only\nto the advantage of the prince [_i.e._ the government], and this we\nmay name corporate will, which is general in relation to the\ngovernment, and particular in relation to the state of which the\ngovernment is a part; 3rd, the will of the people or sovereign will,\nwhich is general, as well in relation to the state considered as a\nwhole, as in relation to the government considered as part of the\nwhole.\"[202] It might be hard to prove that all this is not true, but\nthen it is unreal and comes to nothing, as we see if we take the\ntrouble to turn it into real matter. Thus a member of the British\nHouse of Commons, who is a magistrate in Rousseau's sense, has three\nessentially different wills: first, as a man, Mr. So-and-so; second,\nhis corporate will, as member of the chamber, and this will is general\nin relation to the legislature, but particular in relation to the\nwhole body of electors and peers; third, his will as a member of the\ngreat electoral body, which is a general will alike in relation to the\nelectoral body and to the legislature. An English publicist is\nperfectly welcome to make assertions of this kind, if he chooses to do\nso, and nobody will take the trouble to deny them. But they are\nnonsense. They do not correspond to the real composition of a member\nof parliament, nor do they shed the smallest light upon any part\neither of the theory of government in general, or the working of our\nown government in particular. Almost the same kind of observation\nmight be made of the famous dogmatic statements about sovereignty.\n\"Sovereignty, being only the exercise of the general will, can never\nbe alienated, and the sovereign, who is only a collective being, can\nonly be represented by himself: the power may be transmitted, but not\nthe will;\"[203] sovereignty is indivisible, not only in principle, but\nin object;[204] and so forth. We shall have to consider these remarks\nfrom another point of view. At present we refer to them as\nillustrating the character of the book, as consisting of a number of\nexpansions of definitions, analysed as words, not compared with the\nfacts of which the words are representatives. This way of treating\npolitical theory enabled the writer to assume an air of certitude and\nprecision, which led narrow deductive minds completely captive. Burke\npoured merited scorn on the application of geometry to politics and\nalgebraic formulas to government, but then it was just this seeming\ndemonstration, this measured accuracy, that filled Rousseau's\ndisciples with a supreme and undoubting confidence which leaves the\nmodern student of these schemes in amazement unspeakable. The thinness\nof Robespierre's ideas on government ceases to astonish us, when we\nremember that he had not trained himself to look upon it as the art of\ndealing with huge groups of conflicting interests, of hostile\npassions, of hardly reconcilable aims, of vehemently opposed forces.\nHe had disciplined his political intelligence on such meagre and\nunsubstantial argumentation as the following:--\"Let us suppose the\nstate composed of ten thousand citizens. The sovereign can only be\nconsidered collectively and as a body; but each person, in his quality\nas subject, is considered as an individual unit; thus the sovereign is\nto the subject as ten thousand is to one; in other words, each member\nof the state has for his share only the ten-thousandth part of the\nsovereign authority, though he is submitted to it in all his own\nentirety. If the people be composed of a hundred thousand men, the\ncondition of the subjects does not change, and each of them bears\nequally the whole empire of the laws, while his suffrage, reduced to a\nhundred-thousandth, has ten times less influence in drawing them up.\nThen, the subject remaining still only one, the relation of the\nsovereign augments in the ratio of the number of the citizens. Whence\nit follows that, the larger the state becomes, the more does liberty\ndiminish.\"[205]\n\nApart from these arithmetical conceptions, and the deep charm which\ntheir assurance of expression had for the narrow and fervid minds of\nwhich England and Germany seem to have got finally rid in Anabaptists\nand Fifth Monarchy men, but which still haunted France, there were\nmaxims in the Social Contract of remarkable convenience for the\nmembers of a Committee of Public Safety. \"How can a blind multitude,\"\nthe writer asks in one place, \"which so often does not know its own\nwill, because it seldom knows what is good for it, execute of itself\nan undertaking so vast and so difficult as a system of\nlegislation?\"[206] Again, \"as nature gives to each man an absolute\npower over all his members, so the social pact gives to the body\npolitic an absolute power over all its members; and it is this same\npower which, when directed by the general will, bears, as I have said,\nthe name of sovereignty.\"[207] Above all, the little chapter on a\ndictatorship is the very foundation of the position of the\nRobespierrists in the few months immediately preceding their fall. \"It\nis evidently the first intention of the people that the state should\nnot perish,\" and so on, with much criticism of the system of\noccasional dictatorships, as they were resorted to in old Rome.[208]\nYet this does not in itself go much beyond the old monarchic doctrine\nof Prerogative, as a corrective for the slowness and want of immediate\napplicability of mere legal processes in cases of state emergency; and\nit is worth noticing again and again that in spite of the shriekings\nof reaction, the few atrocities of the Terror are an almost invisible\nspeck compared with the atrocities of Christian churchmen and lawful\nkings, perpetrated in accordance with their notion of what constituted\npublic safety. So far as Rousseau's intention goes, we find in his\nwritings one of the strongest denunciations of the doctrine of public\nsafety that is to be found in any of the writings of the century. \"Is\nthe safety of a citizen,\" he cries, \"less the common cause than the\nsafety of the state? They may tell us that it is well that one should\nperish on behalf of all. I will admire such a sentence in the mouth of\na virtuous patriot, who voluntarily and for duty's sake devotes\nhimself to death for the salvation of his country. But if we are to\nunderstand that it is allowed to the government to sacrifice an\ninnocent person for the safety of the multitude, I hold this maxim for\none of the most execrable that tyranny has ever invented, and the most\ndangerous that can be admitted.\"[209] It may be said that the\nTerrorists did not sacrifice innocent life, but the plea is frivolous\non the lips of men who proscribed whole classes. You cannot justly\ndraw a capital indictment against a class. Rousseau, however, cannot\nfairly be said to have had a share in the responsibility for the more\ncriminal part of the policy of 1793, any more than the founder of\nChristianity is responsible for the atrocities that have been\ncommitted by the more ardent worshippers of his name, and justified by\nstray texts caught up from the gospels. Helv\u00e9tius had said, \"All\nbecomes legitimate and even virtuous on behalf of the public safety.\"\nRousseau wrote in the margin, \"The public safety is nothing unless\nindividuals enjoy security.\"[210] The author of a theory is not\nanswerable for the applications which may be read into it by the\npassions of men and the exigencies of a violent crisis. Such\napplications show this much and no more, that the theory was\nconstructed with an imperfect consideration of the qualities of human\nnature, with too narrow a view of the conditions of society, and\ntherefore with an inadequate appreciation of the consequences which\nthe theory might be drawn to support.\n\nIt is time to come to the central conception of the Social Contract,\nthe dogma which made of it for a time the gospel of a nation, the\nmemorable doctrine of the sovereignty of peoples. Of this doctrine\nRousseau was assuredly not the inventor, though the exaggerated\nlanguage of some popular writers in France leads us to suppose that\nthey think of him as nothing less. Even in the thirteenth century the\nconstitution of the Orders, and the contests of the friars with the\nclergy, had engendered faintly democratic ways of thinking.[211] Among\nothers the great Aquinas had protested against the juristic doctrine\nthat the law is the pleasure of the prince. The will of the prince, he\nsays, to be a law, must be directed by reason; law is appointed for\nthe common good, and not for a special or private good: it follows\nfrom this that only the reason of the multitude, or of a prince\nrepresenting the multitude, can make a law.[212] A still more\nremarkable approach to later views was made by Marsilio of Padua,\nphysician to Lewis of Bavaria, who wrote a strong book on his master's\nside, in the great contest between him and the pope (1324). Marsilio\nin the first part of his work not only lays down very elaborately the\nproposition that laws ought to be made by the \"_universitas civium_\";\nhe places this sovereignty of the people on the true basis (which\nRousseau only took for a secondary support to his original compact),\nnamely, the greater likelihood of laws being obeyed in the first\nplace, and being good laws in the second, when they are made by the\nbody of the persons affected. \"No one knowingly does hurt to himself,\nor deliberately asks what is unjust, and on that account all or a\ngreat majority must wish such law as best suits the common interest of\nthe citizens.\"[213] Turning from this to the Social Contract, or to\nLocke's essay on Government, the identity in doctrine and\ncorrespondence in dialect may teach us how little true originality\nthere can he among thinkers who are in the same stage; how a\nmetaphysician of the thirteenth century and a metaphysician of the\neighteenth hit on the same doctrine; and how the true classification\nof thinkers does not follow intervals of time, but is fixed by\ndifferences of method. It is impossible that in the constant play of\ncircumstances and ideas in the minds of different thinkers, the same\ncombinations of form and colour in a philosophic arrangement of such\ncircumstances and ideas should not recur. Signal novelties in thought\nare as limited as signal inventions in architectural construction. It\nis only one of the great changes in method, that can remove the limits\nof the old combinations, by bringing new material and fundamentally\naltering the point of view.\n\nIn the sixteenth century there were numerous writers who declared the\nright of subjects to depose a bad sovereign, but this position is to\nbe distinguished from Rousseau's doctrine. Thus, if we turn to the\ngreat historic event of 1581, the rejection of the yoke of Spain by\nthe Dutch, we find the Declaration of Independence running, \"that if a\nprince is appointed by God over the land, it is to protect them from\nharm, even as a shepherd to the guardianship of his flock. The\nsubjects are not appointed by God for the behoof of the prince, but\nthe prince for his subjects, without whom he is no prince.\" This is\nobviously divine right, fundamentally modified by a popular\nprinciple, accepted to meet the exigencies of the occasion, and to\njustify after the event a measure which was dictated by urgent need\nfor practical relief. Such a notion of the social compact was still\nemphatically in the semi-patriarchal stage, and is distinct as can be\nfrom the dogma of popular sovereignty as Rousseau understood it. But\nit plainly marked a step on the way. It was the development of\nProtestant principles which produced and necessarily involved the\nextreme democratic conclusion. Time was needed for their full\nexpansion in this sense, but the result could only have been avoided\nby a suppression of the Reformation, and we therefore count it\ninevitable. Bodin (1577) had defined sovereignty as residing in the\nsupreme legislative authority, without further inquiry as to the\nsource or seat of that authority, though he admits the vague position\nwhich even Lewis XIV. did not deny, that the object of political\nsociety is the greatest good of every citizen or the whole state. In\n1603 a Protestant professor of law in Germany, Althusen by name,\npublished a treatise of Politics, in which the doctrine of the\nsovereignty of peoples was clearly formulated, to the profound\nindignation both of Jesuits and of Protestant jurists.[214] Rousseau\nmentions his name;[215] it does not appear that he read Althusen's\nrather uncommon treatise, but its teaching would probably have a place\nin the traditions of political theorising current at Geneva, to the\nspirit of whose government it was so congenial. Hooker, vindicating\nepiscopacy against the democratic principles of the Puritans, had\nstill been led, apparently by way of the ever dominant idea of a law\nnatural, to base civil government on the assent of the governed, and\nhad laid down such propositions as these: \"Laws they are not, which\npublic approbation hath not made so. Laws therefore human, of what\nkind soever, are available by consent,\" and so on.[216] The views of\nthe Ecclesiastical Polity were adopted by Locke, and became the\nfoundation of the famous essay on Civil Government, from which popular\nleaders in our own country drew all their weapons down to the outbreak\nof the French Revolution. Grotius (1625) starting from the principle\nthat the law of nature enjoins that we should stand by our agreements,\nthen proceeded to assume either an express, or at any rate a tacit and\nimplied, promise on the part of all who become members of a community,\nto obey the majority of the body, or a majority of those to whom\nauthority has been delegated.[217] This is a unilateral view of the\nsocial contract, and omits the element of reciprocity which in\nRousseau's idea was cardinal.\n\nLocke was Rousseau's most immediate inspirer, and the latter affirmed\nhimself to have treated the same matters exactly on Locke's\nprinciples. Rousseau, however, exaggerated Locke's politics as greatly\nas Condillac exaggerated his metaphysics. There was the important\ndifference that Locke's essay on Civil Government was the\njustification in theory of a revolution which had already been\naccomplished in practice, while the Social Contract, tinged as it was\nby silent reference in the mind of the writer to Geneva, was yet a\nspeculation in the air. The circumstances under which it was written\ngave to the propositions of Locke's piece a reserve and moderation\nwhich savour of a practical origin and a special case. They have not\nthe wide scope and dogmatic air and literary precision of the\ncorresponding propositions in Rousseau. We find in Locke none of those\nconcise phrases which make fanatics. But the essential doctrine is\nthere. The philosopher of the Revolution of 1688 probably carried its\nprinciples further than most of those who helped in the Revolution had\nany intention to carry them, when he said that \"the legislature being\nonly a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in\nthe people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative.\"[218]\nIt may be questioned how many of the peers of that day would have\nassented to the proposition that the people--and did Locke mean by the\npeople the electors of the House of Commons, or all males over\ntwenty-one, or all householders paying rates?--could by any expression\nof their will abolish the legislative power of the upper chamber, or\nput an end to the legislative and executive powers of the crown. But\nLocke's statements are direct enough, though he does not use so terse\na label for his doctrine as Rousseau affixed to it.\n\nAgain, besides the principle of popular sovereignty, Locke most likely\ngave to Rousseau the idea of the origin of this sovereignty in the\ncivil state in a pact or contract, which was represented as the\nfoundation and first condition of the civil state. From this naturally\nflowed the connected theory, of a perpetual consent being implied as\ngiven by the people to each new law. We need not quote passages from\nLocke to demonstrate the substantial correspondence of assumption\nbetween him and the author of the Social Contract. They are found in\nevery chapter.[219] Such principles were indispensable for the defence\nof a Revolution like that of 1688, which was always carefully marked\nout by its promoters, as well as by its eloquent apologist and\nexpositor a hundred years later, the great Burke, as above all things\na revolution within the pale of the law or the constitution. They\nrepresented the philosophic adjustment of popular ideas to the\npolitical changes wrought by shifting circumstances, as distinguished\nfrom the biblical or Hebraic method of adjusting such ideas, which had\nprevailed in the contests of the previous generation.\n\nYet there was in the midst of those contests one thinker of the first\nrank in intellectual power, who had constructed a genuine philosophy\nof government. Hobbes's speculations did not fit in with the theory of\neither of the two bodies of combatants in the Civil War. They were\neach in the theological order of ideas, and neither of them sought or\nwas able to comprehend the application of philosophic principles to\ntheir own case or to that of their adversaries.[220] Hebrew precedents\nand bible texts, on the one hand; prerogative of use and high church\ndoctrine, on the other. Between these was no space for the acceptance\nof a secular and rationalistic theory, covering the whole field of a\nsocial constitution. Now the influence of Hobbes upon Rousseau was\nvery marked, and very singular. There were numerous differences\nbetween the philosopher of Geneva and his predecessor of Malmesbury.\nThe one looked on men as good, the other looked on them as bad. The\none described the state of nature as a state of peace, the other as a\nstate of war. The one believed that laws and institutions had depraved\nman, the other that they had improved him.[221] But these differences\ndid not prevent the action of Hobbes on Rousseau. It resulted in a\ncurious fusion between the premisses and the temper of Hobbes and the\nconclusions of Locke. This fusion produced that popular absolutism of\nwhich the Social Contract was the theoretical expression, and Jacobin\nsupremacy the practical manifestation. Rousseau borrowed from Hobbes\nthe true conception of sovereignty, and from Locke the true conception\nof the ultimate seat and original of authority, and of the two\ntogether he made the great image of the sovereign people. Strike the\ncrowned head from that monstrous figure which is the frontispiece of\nthe Leviathan, and you have a frontispiece that will do excellently\nwell for the Social Contract. Apart from a multitude of other\nobligations, good and bad, which Rousseau owed to Hobbes, as we shall\npoint out, we may here mention that of the superior accuracy of the\nnotion of law in the Social Contract over the notion of law in\nMontesquieu's work. The latter begins, as everybody knows, with a\ndefinition inextricably confused: \"Laws are necessary relations\nflowing from the nature of things, and in this sense all beings have\ntheir laws, divinity has its laws, the material world has its laws,\nthe intelligences superior to men have their laws, the beasts have\ntheir laws, man has his laws.... There is a primitive reason, and laws\nare the relations to be found between that and the different beings,\nand the relations of these different beings among one another.\"[222]\nRousseau at once put aside these divergent meanings, made the proper\ndistinction between a law of nature and the imperative law of a state,\nand justly asserted that the one could teach us nothing worth knowing\nabout the other.[223] Hobbes's phraseology is much less definite than\nthis, and shows that he had not himself wholly shaken off the same\nconfusion as reigned in Montesquieu's account a century later. But\nthen Hobbes's account of the true meaning of sovereignty was so clear,\nfirm, and comprehensive, as easily to lead any fairly perspicuous\nstudent who followed him, to apply it to the true meaning of law. And\non this head of law not so much fault is to be found with Rousseau, as\non the head of larger constitutional theory. He did not look long\nenough at given laws, and hence failed to seize all their distinctive\nqualities; above all he only half saw, if he saw at all, that a law is\na command and not a contract, and his eyes were closed to this,\nbecause the true view was incompatible with his fundamental assumption\nof contract as the base of the social union.[224] But he did at all\nevents grasp the quality of generality as belonging to laws proper,\nand separated them justly from what he calls decrees, which we are now\ntaught to name occasional or particular commands.[225] This is worth\nmentioning, because it shows that, in spite of his habits of\nintellectual laxity, Rousseau was capable, where he had a clear-headed\nmaster before him, of a very considerable degree of precision of\nthought, however liable it was to fall into error or deficiency for\nwant of abundant comparison with bodies of external fact. Let us now\nproceed to some of the central propositions of the Social Contract.\n\n1. The origin of society dates from the moment when the obstacles\nwhich impede the preservation of men in a state of nature are too\nstrong for such forces as each individual can employ in order to keep\nhimself in that state. At this point they can only save themselves by\naggregation. Problem: to find a form of association which defends and\nprotects with the whole common force the person and property of each\nassociate, and by which, each uniting himself to all, still only obeys\nhimself, and remains as free as he was before. Solution: a social\ncompact reducible to these words, \"Each of us places in common his\nperson and his whole power under the supreme direction of the general\nwill; and we further receive each member as indivisible part of the\nwhole.\" This act of association constitutes a moral and collective\nbody, a public person.\n\nThe practical importance and the mischief of thus suffering society to\nrepose on conventions which the human will had made, lay in the\ncorollary that the human will is competent at any time to unmake them,\nand also therefore to devise all possible changes that fell short of\nunmaking them. This was the root of the fatal hypothesis of the\ndictator, or divinely commissioned lawgiver. External circumstance and\nhuman nature alike were passive and infinitely pliable; they were the\nmaterial out of which the legislator was to devise conventions at\npleasure, without apprehension as to their suitableness either to the\nconditions of society among which they were to work, or to the\npassions and interests of those by whom they were to be carried out,\nand who were supposed to have given assent to them. It would be unjust\nto say that Rousseau actually faced this position and took the\nconsequences. He expressly says in more places than one that the\nscience of Government is only a science of combinations, applications,\nand exceptions, according to time, place, and circumstance.[226] But\nto base society on conventions is to impute an element of\narbitrariness to these combinations and applications, and to make them\nindependent, as they can never be, of the limits inexorably fixed by\nthe nature of things. The notion of compact is the main source of all\nthe worst vagaries in Rousseau's political speculation.\n\nIt is worth remarking in the history of opinion, that there was at\nthis time in France a little knot of thinkers who were nearly in full\npossession of the true view of the limits set by the natural ordering\nof societies to the power of convention and the function of the\nlegislators. Five years after the publication of the Social Contract,\na remarkable book was written by one of the economic sect of the\nPhysiocrats, the later of whom, though specially concerned with the\nmaterial interests of communities, very properly felt the necessity of\nconnecting the discussion of wealth with the assumption of certain\nfundamental political conditions. They felt this, because it is\nimpossible to settle any question about wages or profits, for\ninstance, until you have first settled whether you are assuming the\nprinciples of liberty and property. This writer with great consistency\nfound the first essential of all social order in conformity of\npositive law and institution to those qualities of human nature, and\ntheir relations with those material instruments of life, which, and\nnot convention, were the true origin, as they are the actual grounds,\nof the perpetuation of our societies.[227] This was wiser than\nRousseau's conception of the lawgiver as one who should change human\nnature, and take away from man the forces that are naturally his own,\nto replace them by others comparatively foreign to him.[228] Rousseau\nonce wrote, in a letter about Rivi\u00e8re's book, that the great problem\nin politics, which might be compared with the quadrature of the circle\nin geometry, is to find a form of government which shall place law\nabove man.[229] A more important problem, and not any less difficult\nfor the political theoriser, is to mark the bounds at which the\nauthority of the law is powerless or mischievous in attempting to\ncontrol the egoistic or non-social parts of man. This problem Rousseau\nignored, and that he should do so was only natural in one who\nbelieved that man had bound himself by a convention, strictly to\nsuppress his egoistic and non-social parts, and who based all his\nspeculation on this pact as against the force, or the paternal\nauthority, or the will of a Supreme Being, in which other writers\nfounded the social union.\n\n2. The body thus constituted by convention is the sovereign. Each\ncitizen is a member of the sovereign, standing in a definite relation\nto individuals _qua_ individuals; he is also as an individual a member\nof the state and subject to the sovereign, of which from the first\npoint of view he is a component element. The sovereign and the body\npolitic are one and the same thing.[230]\n\nOf the antecedents and history of this doctrine enough has already\nbeen said. Its general truth as a description either of what is, or\nwhat ought to be and will be, demands an ampler discussion than there\nis any occasion to carry on here. We need only point out its place as\na kind of intermediate dissolvent for which the time was most ripe. It\nbreaks up the feudal conception of political authority as a property\nof land-ownership, noble birth, and the like, and it associates this\nauthority widely and simply with the bare fact of participation in any\nform of citizenship in the social union. The later and higher idea of\nevery share of political power as a function to be discharged for the\ngood of the whole body, and not merely as a right to be enjoyed for\nthe advantage of its possessor, was a form of thought to which\nRousseau did not rise. That does not lessen the effectiveness of the\nblow which his doctrine dealt to French feudalism, and which is its\nmain title to commemoration in connection with his name.\n\nThe social compact thus made is essentially different from the social\ncompact which Hobbes described as the origin of what he calls\ncommonwealths by institution, to distinguish them from commonwealths\nby acquisition, that is to say, states formed by conquest or resting\non hereditary rule. \"A commonwealth,\" Hobbes says, \"is said to be\ninstituted when a multitude of men do agree and covenant, every one\nwith every one, that to whatsoever man or assembly of men shall be\ngiven by the major part the right to present the person of them all,\nthat is to say, to be their representative; every one ... shall\nauthorise all the actions and judgments of that man or assembly of\nmen, in the same manner as if they were his own, to the end to live\npeaceably among themselves, and be protected against other men.\"[231]\nBut Rousseau's compact was an act of association among equals, who\nalso remained equals. Hobbes's compact was an act of surrender on the\npart of the many to one or a number. The first was the constitution of\ncivil society, the second was the erection of a government. As nobody\nnow believes in the existence of any such compact in either one form\nor the other, it would be superfluous to inquire which of the two is\nthe less inaccurate. All we need do is to point out that there was\nthis difference. Rousseau distinctly denied the existence of any\nelement of contract in the erection of a government; there is only one\ncontract in the state, he said, and it is that of association.[232]\nLocke's notion of the compact which was the beginning of every\npolitical society is indefinite on this point; he speaks of it\nindifferently as an agreement of a body of free men to unite and\nincorporate into a society, and an agreement to set up a\ngovernment.[233] Most of us would suppose the two processes to be as\nnearly identical as may be; Rousseau drew a distinction, and from this\ndistinction he derived further differences.\n\nHere, we may remark, is the starting-point in the history of the ideas\nof the revolution, of one of the most prominent of them all, that of\nFraternity. If the whole structure of society rests on an act of\npartnership entered into by equals on behalf of themselves and their\ndescendants for ever, the nature of the union is not what it would be,\nif the members of the union had only entered it to place their\nliberties at the feet of some superior power. Society in the one case\nis a covenant of subjection, in the other a covenant of social\nbrotherhood. This impressed itself deeply on the feelings of men like\nRobespierre, who were never so well pleased as when they could find\nfor their sentimentalism a covering of neat political logic. The same\nidea of association came presently to receive a still more remarkable\nand momentous extension, when it was translated from the language of\nmere government into that of the economic organisation of communities.\nRousseau's conception went no further than political association, as\ndistinct from subjection. Socialism, which came by and by to the front\nplace, carried the idea to its fullest capacity, and presented all the\nrelations of men with one another as fixed by the same bond. Men had\nentered the social union as brethren, equal, and co-operators, not\nmerely for purposes of government, but for purposes of mutual succour\nin all its aspects. This naturally included the most important of all,\nmaterial production. They were not associated merely as equal\nparticipants in political sovereignty; they were equal participants in\nall the rest of the increase made to the means of human happiness by\nunited action. Socialism is the transfer of the principle of fraternal\nassociation from politics, where Rousseau left it, to the wider sphere\nof industrial force.\n\nIt is perhaps worth notice that another famous revolutionary term\nbelongs to the same source. All the associates of this act of union,\nbecoming members of the city, are as such to be called Citizens, as\nparticipating in the sovereign authority.[234] The term was in\nfamiliar use enough among the French in their worst days, but it was\nRousseau's sanction which marked it in the new times with a sort of\nsacramental stamp. It came naturally to him, because it was the name\nof the first of the two classes which constituted the active portion\nof the republic of Geneva, and the only class whose members were\neligible to the chief magistracies.\n\n3. We next have a group of propositions setting forth the attributes\nof sovereignty. It is inalienable.[235] It is indivisible.\n\nThese two propositions, which play such a part in the history of some\nof the episodes of the French Revolution, contain no more than was\ncontended for by Hobbes, and has been accepted in our own times by\nAustin. When Hobbes says that \"to the laws which the sovereign maketh,\nthe sovereign is not subject, for if he were subject to the civil laws\nhe were subject to himself, which were not subjection but freedom,\"\nhis notion of sovereignty is exactly that expressed by Rousseau in his\nunexplained dogma of the inalienableness of sovereignty. So Rousseau\nmeans no more by the dogma that sovereignty is indivisible, than\nAustin meant when he declared of the doctrine that the legislative\nsovereign powers and the executive sovereign powers belong in any\nsociety to distinct parties, that it is a supposition too palpably\nfalse to endure a moment's examination.[236] The way in which this\naccount of the indivisibleness of sovereignty was understood during\nthe revolution, twisted it into a condemnation of the dreaded idea of\nFederalism. It might just as well have been interpreted to condemn\nalliances between nations; for the properties of sovereignty are\nclearly independent of the dimensions of the sovereign unit. Another\neffect of this doctrine was the rejection by the Constituent Assembly\nof the balanced parliamentary system, which the followers of\nMontesquieu would fain have introduced on the English model. Whether\nthat was an evil or a good, publicists will long continue to dispute.\n\n4. The general will of the sovereign upon an object of common interest\nis expressed in a law. Only the sovereign can possess this law-making\npower, because no one but the sovereign has the right of declaring the\ngeneral will. The legislative power cannot be exerted by delegation or\nrepresentation. The English fancy that they are a free nation, but\nthey are grievously mistaken. They are only free during the election\nof members of parliament; the members once chosen, the people are\nslaves, nay, as people they have ceased to exist.[237] It is\nimpossible for the sovereign to act, except when the people are\nassembled. Besides such extraordinary assemblies as unforeseen events\nmay call for, there must be fixed periodical meetings that nothing can\ninterrupt or postpone. Do you call this chimerical? Then you have\nforgotten the Roman comitia, as well as such gatherings of the people\nas those of the Macedonians and the Franks and most other nations in\ntheir primitive times. What has existed is certainly possible.[238]\n\nIt is very curious that Rousseau in this part of his subject should\nhave contented himself with going back to Macedonia and Rome, instead\nof pointing to the sovereign states that have since become confederate\nwith his native republic. A historian in our own time has described\nwith an enthusiasm that equals that of the Social Contract, how he saw\nthe sovereign people of Uri and the sovereign people of Appenzell\ndischarge the duties of legislation and choice of executive, each in\nthe majesty of its corporate person.[239] That Rousseau was influenced\nby the free sovereignty of the states of the Swiss confederation, as\nwell as by that of his own city, we may well believe. Whether he was\nor not, it must always be counted a serious misfortune that a writer\nwho was destined to exercise such power in a crisis of the history of\na great nation, should have chosen his illustrations from a time and\nfrom societies so remote, that the true conditions of their political\nsystem could not possibly be understood with any approach to reality,\nwhile there were, within a few leagues of his native place,\ncommunities where the system of a sovereign public in his own sense\nwas actually alive and flourishing and at work. From them the full\nmeaning of his theories might have been practically gathered, and\nwhatever useful lessons lay at the bottom of them might have been made\nplain. As it was, it came to pass singularly enough that the effect of\nthe French Revolution was the suppression, happily only for a time, of\nthe only governments in Europe where the doctrine of the favourite\napostle of the Revolution was a reality. The constitution of the\nHelvetic Republic in 1798 was as bad a blow to the sovereignty of\npeoples in a true sense, as the old house of Austria or Charles of\nBurgundy could ever have dealt. That constitution, moreover, was\ndirectly opposed to the Social Contract in setting up what it called\nrepresentative democracy, for representative democracy was just what\nRousseau steadily maintained to be a nullity and a delusion.\n\nThe only lesson which the Social Contract contained for a statesman\nbold enough to take into his hands the reconstruction of France,\nundoubtedly pointed in the direction of confederation. At one place,\nwhere he became sensible of the impotence which his assumption of a\nsmall state inflicted on his whole speculation, Rousseau said he would\npresently show how the good order of a small state might be united to\nthe external power of a great people. Though he never did this, he\nhints in a footnote that his plan belonged to the theory of\nconfederations, of which the principles were still to be\nestablished.[240] When he gave advice for the renovation of the\nwretched constitution of Poland, he insisted above all things that\nthey should apply themselves to extend and perfect the system of\nfederate governments, \"the only one that unites in itself all the\nadvantages of great and small states.\"[241] A very few years after the\nappearance of his book, the great American union of sovereign states\narose to point the political moral. The French revolutionists missed\nthe force alike of the practical example abroad, and of the theory of\nthe book which they took for gospel at home. How far they were driven\nto this by the urgent pressure of foreign war, or whether they would\nhave followed the same course without that interference, merely in\nobedience to the catholic and monarchic absolutism which had sunk so\nmuch deeper into French character than people have been willing to\nadmit, we cannot tell. The fact remains that the Jacobins, Rousseau's\nimmediate disciples, at once took up the chain of centralised\nauthority where it had been broken off by the ruin of the monarchy.\nThey caught at the letter of the dogma of a sovereign people, and lost\nits spirit. They missed the germ of truth in Rousseau's scheme,\nnamely, that for order and freedom and just administration the unit\nshould not be too large to admit of the participation of the persons\nconcerned in the management of their own public affairs. If they had\nrealised this and applied it, either by transforming the old monarchy\ninto a confederacy of sovereign provinces, or by some less sweeping\nmodification of the old centralised scheme of government, they might\nhave saved France.[242] But, once more, men interpret a political\ntreatise on principles which either come to them by tradition; or\nelse spring suddenly up from roots of passion.[243]\n\n5. The government is the minister of the sovereign. It is an\nintermediate body set up between sovereign and subjects for their\nmutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the\nmaintenance of civil and political freedom. The members comprising it\nare called magistrates or kings, and to the whole body so composed,\nwhether of one or of more than one, is given the name of prince. If\nthe whole power is centred in the hands of a single magistrate, from\nwhom all the rest hold their authority, the government is called a\nmonarchy. If there are more persons simply citizens than there are\nmagistrates, this is an aristocracy.[244] If more citizen magistrates\nthan simple private citizens, that is a democracy. The last government\nis as a general rule best fitted for small states, and the first for\nlarge ones--on the principle that the number of the supreme\nmagistrates ought to be in the inverse ratio of that of the citizens.\nBut there is a multitude of circumstances which may furnish reasons\nfor exceptions to this general rule.\n\nThis common definition of the three forms of governments according to\nthe mere number of the participants in the chief magistracy, though\nadopted by Hobbes and other writers, is certainly inadequate and\nuninstructive, without some further qualification. Aristotle, for\ninstance, furnishes such a qualification, when he refers to the\ninterests in which the government is carried on, whether the interest\nof a small body or of the whole of the citizens.[245] Montesquieu's\nwell-known division, though logically faulty, still has the merit of\npointing to conditions of difference among forms of government,\noutside of and apart from the one fact of the number of the sovereign.\nTo divide governments, as Montesquieu did, into republics, monarchies,\nand despotisms, was to use two principles of division, first the\nnumber of the sovereign, and next something else, namely, the\ndifference between a constitutional and an absolute monarch. Then he\nreturned to the first principle of division, and separated a republic\ninto a government of all, which is a democracy, and a government by a\npart, which is aristocracy.[246] Still, to have introduced the element\nof law-abidingness in the chief magistracy, whether of one or more,\nwas to have called attention to the fact that no single distinction is\nenough to furnish us with a conception of the real and vital\ndifferences which may exist between one form of government and\nanother.[247]\n\nThe important fact about a government lies quite as much in the\nqualifying epithet which is to be affixed to any one of the three\nnames, as in the name itself. We know nothing about a monarchy, until\nwe have been told whether it is absolute or constitutional; if\nabsolute, whether it is administered in the interests of the realm,\nlike that of Prussia under Frederick the Great, or in the interests of\nthe ruler, like that of an Indian principality under a native prince;\nif constitutional, whether the real power is aristocratic, as in Great\nBritain a hundred years ago, or plutocratic, as in Great Britain\nto-day, or popular, as it may be here fifty years hence. And so with\nreference to each of the other two forms; neither name gives us any\ninstruction, except of a merely negative kind, until it has been made\nprecise by one or more explanatory epithets. What is the common\nquality of the old Roman republic, the republics of the Swiss\nconfederation, the republic of Venice, the American republic, the\nrepublic of Mexico? Plainly the word republic has no further effect\nbeyond that of excluding the idea of a recognised dynasty.\n\nRousseau is perhaps less open to this kind of criticism than other\nwriters on political theory, for the reason that he distinguishes the\nconstitution of the state from the constitution of the government. The\nfirst he settles definitely. The whole body of the people is to be\nsovereign, and to be endowed alone with what he conceived as the only\ngenuinely legislative power. The only question which he considers open\nis as to the form in which the _delegated executive authority_ shall\nbe organised. Democracy, the immediate government of all by all, he\nrejects as too perfect for men; it requires a state so small that each\ncitizen knows all the others, manners so simple that the business may\nbe small and the mode of discussion easy, equality of rank and fortune\nso general as not to allow of the overriding of political equality by\nmaterial superiority, and so forth.[248] Monarchy labours under a\nnumber of disadvantages which are tolerably obvious. \"One essential\nand inevitable defect, which must always place monarchic below\nrepublican government, is that in the latter the public voice hardly\never promotes to the first places any but capable and enlightened men\nwho fill them with honour; whereas those who get on in monarchies, are\nfor the most part small busybodies, small knaves, small intriguers, in\nwhom the puny talents which are the secret of reaching substantial\nposts in courts, only serve to show their stupidity to the public as\nsoon as they have made their way to the front. The people is far less\nlikely to make a blunder in a choice of this sort, than the prince,\nand a man of true merit is nearly as rare in the ministry, as a fool\nat the head of the government of a republic.\"[249] There remains\naristocracy. Of this there are three sorts: natural, elective, and\nhereditary. The first can only thrive among primitive folk, while the\nthird is the worst of all governments. The second is the best, for it\nis aristocracy properly so called. If men only acquire rule in virtue\nof election, then purity, enlightenment, experience, and all the other\ngrounds of public esteem and preference, become so many new guarantees\nthat the administration shall be wise and just. It is the best and\nmost natural order that the wisest should govern the multitude,\nprovided you are sure that they will govern the multitude for its\nadvantage, and not for their own. If aristocracy of this kind requires\none or two virtues less than a popular executive, it also demands\nothers which are peculiar to itself, such as moderation in the rich\nand content in the poor. For this form comports with a certain\ninequality of fortune, for the reason that it is well that the\nadministration of public affairs should be confided to those who are\nbest able to give their whole time to it. At the same time it is of\nimportance that an opposite choice should occasionally teach the\npeople that in the merit of men there are more momentous reasons of\npreference than wealth.[250] Rousseau, as we have seen, had pronounced\nEnglish liberty to be no liberty at all, save during the few days once\nin seven years when the elections to parliament take place. Yet this\nscheme of an elective aristocracy was in truth a very near approach\nto the English form as it is theoretically presented in our own day,\nwith a suffrage gradually becoming universal. If the suffrage were\nuniversal, and if its exercise took place once a year, our system, in\nspite of the now obsolescent elements of hereditary aristocracy and\nnominal monarchy, would be as close a realisation of the scheme of the\nSocial Contract as any representative system permits. If Rousseau had\nfurther developed his notions of confederation, the United States\nwould most have resembled his type.\n\n6. What is to be the attitude of the state in respect of religion?\nCertainly not that prescribed by the policy of the middle ages. The\nseparation of the spiritual from the temporal power, indicated by\nJesus Christ, and developed by his followers in the course of many\nsubsequent generations, was in Rousseau's eyes most mischievous,\nbecause it ended in the subordination of the temporal power to the\nspiritual, and that is incompatible with an efficient polity. Even the\nkings of England, though they style themselves heads of the church,\nare really its ministers and servants.[251]\n\nThe last allegation evinces Rousseau's usual ignorance of history, and\nneed not be discussed, any more than his proposition on which he lays\nso much stress, that Christians cannot possibly be good soldiers, nor\ntruly good citizens, because their hearts being fixed upon another\nworld, they must necessarily be indifferent to the success or failure\nof such enterprises as they may take up in this.[252] In reading the\nSocial Contract, and some other of the author's writings besides, we\nhave constantly to interpret the direct, positive, categorical form of\nassertion into something of this kind--\"Such and such consequences\nought logically to follow from the meaning of the name, or the\ndefinition of a principle, or from such and such motives.\" The change\nof this moderate form of provisional assertion into the unconditional\nstatement that such and such consequences have actually followed,\nconstantly lands the author in propositions which any reader who tests\nthem by an appeal to the experience of mankind, written and unwritten,\nat once discovers to be false and absurd. Rousseau himself took less\ntrouble to verify his conclusions by such an appeal to experience than\nany writer that ever lived in a scientific age. The other remark to be\nmade on the above section is that the rejection of the Christian or\necclesiastical division of the powers of the church and the powers of\nthe state, is the strongest illustration that could be found of the\ndebt of Rousseau's conception of a state to the old pagan conception.\nIt was the main characteristic of the polities which Christian\nmonotheism and feudalism together succeeded in replacing, to recognise\nno such division as that between church and state, pope and emperor.\nRousseau resumed the old conception. But he adjusted it in a certain\ndegree to the spirit of his own time, and imposed certain\nphilosophical limitations upon it. His scheme is as follows.\n\nReligion, he says, in its relation to the state, may be considered as\nof three kinds. First, natural religion, without temple, altar, or\nrite, the true and pure theism of the natural conscience of man.\nSecond, local, civil, or positive religion, with dogmas, rites,\nexercises; a theology of a primitive people, exactly co-extensive with\nall the rights and all the duties of men. Third, a religion like the\nChristianity of the Roman church, which gives men two sets of laws,\ntwo chiefs, two countries, submits them to contradictory duties, and\nprevents them from being able to be at once devout and patriotic. The\nlast of these is so evidently pestilent as to need no discussion. The\nsecond has the merit of teaching men to identify duty to their gods\nwith duty to their country; under this to die for the land is\nmartyrdom, to break its laws impiety, and to subject a culprit to\npublic execration is to devote him to the anger of the gods. But it is\nbad, because it is at bottom a superstition, and because it makes a\npeople sanguinary and intolerant. The first of all, which is now\nstyled a Christian theism, having no special relation with the body\npolitic, adds no force to the laws. There are many particular\nobjections to Christianity flowing from the fact of its not being a\nkingdom of this world, and this above all, that Christianity only\npreaches servitude and dependence.[253] What then is to be done? The\nsovereign must establish a purely civil profession of faith. It will\nconsist of the following positive dogmas:--the existence of a\ndivinity, powerful, intelligent, beneficent and foreseeing; the life\nto come; the happiness of the just, the chastisement of the wicked;\nthe sanctity of the social contract and the laws. These articles of\nbelief are imposed, not as dogmas of religion exactly, but as\nsentiments of sociability. If any one declines to accept them, he\nought to be exiled, not for being impious, but for being unsociable,\nincapable of sincere attachment to the laws, or of sacrificing his\nlife to his duty. If any one, after publicly recognising these dogmas,\ncarries himself as if he did not believe them, let him be punished by\ndeath, for he has committed the worst of crimes, he has lied before\nthe laws.[254]\n\nRousseau thus, unconsciously enough, brought to its climax that\nreaction against the absorption of the state in the church which had\nfirst taken a place in literature in the controversy between legists\nand canonists, and had found its most famous illustration in the De\nMonarchi\u00e2 of the great poet of catholicism. The division of two\nco-equal realms, one temporal, the other spiritual, was replaced in\nthe Genevese thinker by what he admitted to be \"pure Hobbism.\" This,\nthe rigorous subordination of the church to the state, was the end, so\nfar as France went, of the speculative controversy which had occupied\nEurope for so many ages, as to the respective powers of pope and\nemperor, of positive law and law divine. The famous civil constitution\nof the clergy (1790), which was the expression of Rousseau's principle\nas formulated by his disciples in the Constituent Assembly, was the\nrevolutionary conclusion to the world-wide dispute, whose most\nmelodramatic episode had been the scene in the courtyard of Canossa.\n\nRousseau's memorable prescription, banishing all who should not\nbelieve in God, or a future state, or in rewards and punishments for\nthe deeds done in the body, and putting to death any who, after\nsubscribing to the required profession, should seem no longer to hold\nit, has naturally created a very lively horror in a tolerant\ngeneration like our own, some of whose finest spirits have rejected\ndeliberately and finally the articles of belief, without which they\ncould not have been suffered to exist in Rousseau's state. It seemed\nto contemporaries, who were enthusiastic above all things for humanity\nand infinite tolerance, these being the prizes of the long conflict\nwhich they hoped they were completing, to be a return to the horrors\nof the Holy Office. Men were as shocked as the modern philosopher is,\nwhen he finds the greatest of the followers of Socrates imposing in\nhis latest piece the penalty of imprisonment for five years, to be\nfollowed in case of obduracy by death, on one who should not believe\nin the gods set up for the state by the lawmaker.[255] And we can\nhardly comfort ourselves, as Milton did about Plato, who framed laws\nwhich no city ever yet received, and \"fed his fancy with making many\nedicts to his airy burgomasters, which they who otherwise admire him,\nwish had been rather buried and excused in the genial cups of an\nacademic night-sitting.\"[256] Rousseau's ideas fell among men who were\nmost potent and corporeal burgomasters. In the winter of 1793 two\nparties in Paris stood face to face; the rationalistic, Voltairean\nparty of the Commune, named improperly after H\u00e9bert, but whose best\nmember was Chaumette, and the sentimental, Rousseauite party, led by\nRobespierre. The first had industriously desecrated the churches, and\nconsummated their revolt against the gods of the old time by the\npublic worship of the Goddess of Reason, who was prematurely set up\nfor deity of the new time. Robespierre retaliated with the mummeries\nof the Festival of the Supreme Being, and protested against atheism as\nthe crime of aristocrats. Presently the atheistic party succumbed.\nChaumette was not directly implicated in the proceedings which led to\ntheir fall, but he was by and by accused of conspiring with H\u00e9bert,\nClootz, and the rest, \"to destroy all notion of Divinity and base the\ngovernment of France on atheism.\" \"They attack the immortality of the\nsoul,\" cried Saint Just, \"the thought which consoled Socrates in his\ndying moments, and their dream is to raise atheism into a worship.\"\nAnd this was the offence, technically and officially described, for\nwhich Chaumette and Clootz were sent to the guillotine (April 1794),\nstrictly on the principle which had been laid down in the Social\nContract, and accepted by Robespierre.[257]\n\nIt would have been odd in any writer less firmly possessed with the\ninfallibility of his own dreams than Rousseau was, that he should not\nhave seen the impossibility in anything like the existing conditions\nof human nature, of limiting the profession of civil faith to the\nthree or four articles which happened to constitute his own belief.\nHaving once granted the general position that a citizen may be\nrequired to profess some religious faith, there is no speculative\nprinciple, and there is no force in the world, which can fix any bound\nto the amount or kind of religious faith which the state has the right\nthus to exact. Rousseau said that a man was dangerous to the city who\ndid not believe in God, a future state, and divine reward and\nretribution. But then Calvin thought a man dangerous who did not\nbelieve both that there is only one God, and also that there are\nthree Gods. And so Chaumette went to the scaffold, and Servetus to the\nstake, on the one common principle that the civil magistrate is\nconcerned with heresy. And H\u00e9bert was only following out the same\ndoctrine in a mild and equitable manner, when he insisted on\npreventing the publication of a book in which the author professed his\nbelief in a God. A single step in the path of civil interference with\nopinion leads you the whole way.\n\nThe history of the Protestant churches is enough to show the pitiable\nfutility of the proviso for religious tolerance with which Rousseau\nclosed his exposition. \"If there is no longer an exclusive national\nreligion, then every creed ought to be tolerated which tolerates other\ncreeds, so long as it contains nothing contrary to the duties of the\ncitizen. But whoever dares to say, _Out of the church, no salvation_,\nought to be banished from the state.\" The reason for which Henry IV.\nembraced the Roman religion--namely, that in that he might be saved,\nin the opinion alike of Protestants and Catholics, whereas in the\nreformed faith, though he was saved according to Protestants, yet\naccording to Catholics he was necessarily damned,--ought to have made\nevery honest man, and especially every prince, reject it. It was the\nmore curious that Rousseau did not see the futility of drawing the\nline of tolerance at any given set of dogmas, however simple and\nslight and acceptable to himself they might be, because he invited\nspecial admiration for D'Argenson's excellent maxim that \"in the\nrepublic everybody is perfectly free in what does not hurt\nothers.\"[258] Surely this maxim has very little significance or value,\nunless we interpret it as giving entire liberty of opinion, because no\nopinion whatever can hurt others, until it manifests itself in act,\nincluding of course speech, which is a kind of act. Rousseau admitted\nthat over and above the profession of civil faith, a citizen might\nhold what opinions he pleased, in entire freedom from the sovereign's\ncognisance or jurisdiction; \"for as the sovereign has no competence in\nthe other world, the fate of subjects in that other world is not his\naffair, provided they are good citizens in this.\" But good citizenship\nconsists in doing or forbearing from certain actions, and to punish\nmen on the inference that forbidden action is likely to follow from\nthe rejection of a set of opinions, or to exact a test oath of\nadherence to such opinions on the same principle, is to concede the\nwhole theory of civil intolerance, however little Rousseau may have\nrealised the perfectly legitimate applications of his doctrine. It was\nan unconscious compromise. He was thinking of Calvin in practice and\nHobbes in theory, and he was at the same time influenced by the\nmoderate spirit of his time, and the comparatively reasonable\ncharacter of his personal belief. He praised Hobbes as the only author\nwho had seen the right remedy for the conflict of the spiritual and\ntemporal jurisdictions, by proposing to unite the two heads of the\neagle, and reducing all to political unity, without which never will\neither state or government be duly constituted. But Hobbes was\nconsistent without flinching. He refused to set limits to the\nreligious prescriptions which a sovereign might impose, for \"even when\nthe civil sovereign is an infidel, every one of his own subjects that\nresisteth him, sinneth against the laws of God (for such are the laws\nof nature), and rejecteth the counsel of the apostles, that\nadmonisheth all Christians to obey their princes.... And for their\nfaith, it is internal and invisible: they have the licence that Naaman\nhad, and need not put themselves into danger for it; but if they do,\nthey ought to expect their reward in heaven, and not complain of their\nlawful sovereign.\"[259] All this flowed from the very idea and\ndefinition of sovereignty, which Rousseau accepted from Hobbes, as we\nhave already seen. Such consequences, however, stated in these bold\nterms, must have been highly revolting to Rousseau; he could not\nassent to an exercise of sovereignty which might be atheistic,\nMahometan, or anything else unqualifiedly monstrous. He failed to see\nthe folly of trying to unite the old notions of a Christian\ncommonwealth with what was fundamentally his own notion of a\ncommonwealth after the ancient type. He stripped the pagan republics,\nwhich he took for his model, of their national and official\npolytheism, and he put on in its stead a scanty remnant of theism\nslightly tinged with Christianity.\n\nThen he practically accepted Hobbes's audacious bidding to the man who\nshould not be able to accept the state creed, to go courageously to\nmartyrdom, and leave the land in peace. For the modern principle,\nwhich was contained in D'Argenson's saying previously quoted, that the\ncivil power does best absolutely and unreservedly to ignore\nspirituals, he was not prepared either by his emancipation from the\ntheological ideas of his youth, or by his observation of the working\nand tendencies of systems, which involved the state in some more or\nless close relations with the church, either as superior, equal, or\nsubordinate. Every test is sure to insist on mental independence\nending exactly where the speculative curiosity of the time is most\nintent to begin.\n\nLet us now shortly confront Rousseau's ideas with some of the\npropositions belonging to another method of approaching the philosophy\nof government, that have for their key-note the conception of\nexpediency or convenience, and are tested by their conformity to the\nobserved and recorded experience of mankind. According to this method,\nthe ground and origin of society is not a compact; that never existed\nin any known case, and never was a condition of obligation either in\nprimitive or developed societies, either between subjects and\nsovereign, or between the equal members of a sovereign body. The true\nground is an acceptance of conditions which came into existence by the\nsociability inherent in man, and were developed by man's spontaneous\nsearch after convenience. The statement that while the constitution\nof man is the work of nature, that of the state is the work of\nart,[260] is as misleading as the opposite statement that governments\nare not made but grow.[261] The truth lies between them, in such\npropositions as that institutions owe their existence and development\nto deliberate human effort, working in accordance with circumstances\nnaturally fixed both in human character and in the external field of\nits activity. The obedience of the subject to the sovereign has its\nroot not in contract but in force,--the force of the sovereign to\npunish disobedience. A man does not consent to be put to death if he\nshall commit a murder, for the reason alleged by Rousseau, namely, as\na means of protecting his own life against murder.[262] There is no\nconsent in the transaction. Some person or persons, possessed of\nsovereign authority, promulgated a command that the subject should not\ncommit murder, and appointed penalties for such commission and it was\nnot a fictitious assent to these penalties, but the fact that the\nsovereign was strong enough to enforce them, which made the command\nvalid.\n\nSupposing a law to be passed in an assembly of the sovereign people by\na majority; what binds a member of the minority to obedience?\nRousseau's answer is this:--When the law is proposed, the question\nput is not whether they approve or reject the proposition, but whether\nit is conformable to the general will: the general will appears from\nthe votes: if the opinion contrary to my own wins the day, that only\nproves that I was mistaken, and that what I took for the general will\nwas not really so.[263] We can scarcely imagine more nonsensical\nsophistry than this. The proper answer evidently is, that either\nexperience or calculation has taught the citizens in a popular\ngovernment that in the long run it is most expedient for the majority\nof votes to decide the law. In other words, the inconvenience to the\nminority of submitting to a law which they dislike, is less than the\ninconvenience of fighting to have their own way, or retiring to form a\nseparate community. The minority submit to obey laws which were made\nagainst their will, because they cannot avoid the necessity of\nundergoing worse inconveniences than are involved in this submission.\nThe same explanation partially covers what is unfortunately the more\nfrequent case in the history of the race, the submission of the\nmajority to the laws imposed by a minority of one or more. In both\nthese cases, however, as in the general question of the source of our\nobedience to the laws, deliberate and conscious sense of convenience\nis as slight in its effect upon conduct here, as it is in the rest of\nthe field of our moral motives. It is covered too thickly over and\nconstantly neutralised by the multitudinous growths of use, by the\nmany forms of fatalistic or ascetic religious sentiment, by physical\napathy of race, and all other conditions that interpose to narrow or\nabrogate the authority of pure reason over human conduct. Rousseau,\nexpounding his conception of a normal political state, was no doubt\nwarranted in leaving these complicating conditions out of account,\nthough to do so is to rob any treatise on government of much of its\npossible value. The same excuse cannot warrant him in basing his\npolitical institutions upon a figment, instead of upon the substantial\nground of propositions about human nature, which the average of\nexperience in given races and at given stages of advancement has shown\nto be true within those limits. There are places in his writings where\nhe reluctantly admits that men are only moved by their interests, and\nhe does not even take care to qualify this sufficiently.[264] But\nthroughout the Social Contract we seem to be contemplating the\nerection of a machine which is to work without reference to the only\nforces that can possibly impart movement to it.\n\nThe consequence of this is that Rousseau gives us not the least help\ntowards the solution of any of the problems of actual government,\nbecause these are naturally both suggested and guided by\nconsiderations of expediency and improvement. It is as if he had never\nreally settled the ends for which government exists, beyond the\nconstruction of the symmetrical machine of government itself. He is a\ngeometer, not a mechanician; or shall we say that he is a mechanician,\nand not a biologist concerned with the conditions of a living\norganism. The analogy of the body politic to the body natural was as\npresent to him as it had been to all other writers on society, but he\nfailed to seize the only useful lessons which such an analogy might\nhave taught him--diversity of structure, difference of function,\ndevelopment of strength by exercise, growth by nutrition--all of which\nmight have been serviceably translated into the dialect of political\nscience, and might have bestowed on his conception of political\nsociety more of the features of reality. We see no room for the free\nplay of divergent forces, the active rivalry of hostile interests, the\nregulated conflict of multifarious personal aims, which can never be\nextinguished, except in moments of driving crisis, by the most sincere\nattachment to the common causes of the land. Thus the modern question\nwhich is of such vital interest for all the foremost human societies,\nof the union of collective energy with the encouragement of individual\nfreedom, is, if not wholly untouched, at least wholly unillumined by\nanything that Rousseau says. To tell us that a man on entering a\nsociety exchanges his natural liberty for civil liberty which is\nlimited by the general will,[265] is to give us a phrase, where we\nseek a solution. To say that if it is the opposition of private\ninterests which made the establishment of societies necessary, it is\nthe accord of those interests which makes them possible,[266] is to\nutter a truth which feeds no practical curiosity. The opposition of\nprivate interests remains, in spite of the yoke which their accord has\nimposed upon it, but which only controls and does not suppress such an\nopposition. What sort of control? What degree? What bounds?\n\nSo again let us consider the statement that the instant the government\nusurps the sovereignty, then the social pact is broken, and all the\ncitizens, restored by right to their natural liberty, are forced but\nnot morally obliged to obey.[267] He began by telling his readers that\nman, though born free, is now everywhere in chains; and therefore it\nwould appear that in all existing cases the social pact has been\nbroken, and the citizens living under the reign of force, are free to\nresume their natural liberty, if they are only strong enough to do so.\nThis declaration of the general duty of rebellion no doubt had its\nshare in generating that fervid eagerness that all other peoples\nshould rise and throw off the yoke, which was one of the most\nastonishing anxieties of the French during their revolution. That was\nnot the worst quality of such a doctrine. It made government\nimpossible, by basing the right or duty of resistance on a question\nthat could not be reached by positive evidence, but must always be\ndecided by an arbitrary interpretation of an arbitrarily imagined\ndocument. The moderate proposition that resistance is lawful if a\ngovernment is a bad one, and if the people are strong enough to\noverthrow it, and if their leaders have reason to suppose they can\nprovide a less bad one in its place, supplies tests that are capable\nof application. Our own writers in favour of the doctrine of\nresistance partly based their arguments upon the historic instances of\nthe Old Testament, and it is one of the most striking contributions of\nProtestantism to the cause of freedom, that it sent people in an\nadmiring spirit to the history of the most rebellious nation that ever\nexisted, and so provided them in Hebrew insurgency with a corrective\nfor the too submissive political teaching of the Gospel. But these\nwriters have throughout a tacit appeal to expediency, as writers might\nalways be expected to have, who were really meditating on the\npossibility of their principles being brought to the test of practice.\nThere can be no evidence possible, with a test so vague as the fact of\nthe rupture of a compact whose terms are authentically known to nobody\nconcerned. Speak of bad laws and good, wise administration or unwise,\njust government or unjust, extravagant or economical, civically\nelevating or demoralising; all these are questions which men may apply\nthemselves to settle with knowledge, and with a more or less definite\ndegree of assurance. But who can tell how he is to find out whether\nsovereignty has been usurped, and the social compact broken? Was there\na usurpation of sovereignty in France not many years ago, when the\nassumption of power by the prince was ratified by many millions of\nvotes?\n\nThe same case, we are told, namely, breach of the social compact and\nrestoration of natural liberty, occurs when the members of the\ngovernment usurp separately the power which they ought only to\nexercise in a body.[268] Now this description applies very fairly to\nthe famous episode in our constitutional history, connected with\nGeorge the Third's first attack of madness in 1788. Parliament cannot\nlawfully begin business without a declaration of the cause of summons\nfrom the crown. On this occasion parliament both met and deliberated\nwithout communication from the crown. What was still more important\nwas a vote of the parliament itself, authorising the passing of\nletters patent under the great seal for opening parliament by\ncommission, and for giving assent to a Regency Bill. This was a\ndistinct usurpation of regal authority. Two members of the government\n(in Rousseau's sense of the term), namely the houses of parliament,\nusurped the power which they ought only to have exercised along with\nthe crown.[269] The Whigs denounced the proceeding as a fiction, a\nforgery, a phantom, but if they had been readers of the Social\nContract, and if they had been bitten by its dogmatic temper, they\nwould have declared the compact of union violated, and all British\ncitizens free to resume their natural rights. Not even the bitter\nvirulence of faction at that time could tempt any politician to take\nup such a line, though within half a dozen years each of the\ndemocratic factions in France had worked at the overthrow of every\nother in turn, on the very principle which Rousseau had formulated and\nRobespierre had made familiar, that usurped authority is a valid\nreason for annihilating a government, no matter under what\ncircumstances, nor how small the chance of replacing it by a better,\nnor how enormous the peril to the national well-being in the process.\nThe true opposite to so anarchic a doctrine is assuredly not that of\npassive obedience either to chamber or monarch, but the right and duty\nof throwing off any government which inflicts more disadvantages than\nit confers advantages. Rousseau's whole theory tends inevitably to\nsubstitute a long series of struggles after phrases and shadows in the\nnew era, for the equally futile and equally bloody wars of dynastic\nsuccession which have been the great curse of the old. Men die for a\nphrase as they used to die for a family. The other theory, which all\nEnglish politicians accept in their hearts, and so many commanding\nFrench politicians have seemed in their hearts to reject, was first\nexpounded in direct view of Rousseau's teaching by Paley.[270] Of\ncourse the greatest, widest, and loftiest exposition of the bearings\nof expediency on government and its conditions, is to be found in the\nmagnificent and immortal pieces of Burke, some of them suggested by\nabsolutist violations of the doctrine in our own affairs, and some of\nthem by anarchic violation of it in the affairs of France, after the\nseed sown by Rousseau had brought forth fruit.\n\nWe should, however, be false to our critical principle, if we did not\nrecognise the historical effect of a speculation scientifically\nvalueless. There has been no attempt to palliate either the\nshallowness or the practical mischievousness of the Social Contract.\nBut there is another side to its influence. It was the match which\nkindled revolutionary fire in generous breasts throughout Europe. Not\nin France merely, but in Germany as well, its phrases became the\nlanguage of all who aspired after freedom. Schiller spoke of Rousseau\nas one who \"converted Christians into human beings,\" and the _Robbers_\n(1778) is as if it had been directly inspired by the doctrine that\nusurped sovereignty restores men to their natural rights. Smaller men\nin the violent movement which seized all the youth of Germany at that\ntime, followed the same lead, if they happened to have any feeling\nabout the political condition of their enslaved countries.\n\nThere was alike in France and Germany a craving for a return to nature\namong the whole of the young generation.[271] The Social Contract\nsupplied a dialect for this longing on one side, just as the Emilius\nsupplied it on another. Such parts in it as people did not understand\nor did not like, they left out. They did not perceive its direction\ntowards that \"perfect Hobbism,\" which the author declared to be the\nonly practical alternative to a democracy so austere as to be\nintolerable. They grasped phrases about the sovereignty of the people,\nthe freedom for which nature had destined man, the slavery to which\ntyrants and oppressors had brought him. Above all they were struck by\nthe patriotism which shines so brightly in every page, like the fire\non the altar of one of those ancient cities which had inspired the\nwriter's ideal.\n\nYet there is a marked difference in the channels along which\nRousseau's influence moved in the two countries. In France it was\ndrawn eventually into the sphere of direct politics. In Germany it\ninspired not a great political movement, but an immense literary\nrevival. In France, as we have already said, the patriotic flame\nseemed extinct. The ruinous disorder of the whole social system made\nthe old love of country resemble love for a phantom, and so much of\npatriotic speech as survived was profoundly hollow. Even a man like\nTurgot was not so much a patriot as a passionate lover of improvement,\nand with the whole school of which this great spirit was the noblest\nand strongest, a generous citizenship of the world had replaced the\nnarrower sentiment which had inflamed antique heroism. Rousseau's\nexaltation of the Greek and Roman types in all their concentration and\nintensity, touches mortals of commoner mould. His theory made the\nnative land what it had been to the citizens of earlier date, a true\ncentre of existence, round which all the interests of the community,\nall its pursuits, all its hopes, grouped themselves with entire\nsingleness of convergence, just as religious faith is the centre of\nexistence to a church. It was the virile and patriotic energy thus\nevoked which presently saved France from partition.\n\nWe complete the estimate of the positive worth and tendencies of the\nSocial Contract by adding to this, which was for the time the cardinal\nservice, of rekindling the fire of patriotism, the rapid deduction\nfrom the doctrine of the sovereignty of peoples of the great truth,\nthat a nation with a civilised polity does not consist of an order or\na caste, but of the great body of its members, the army of toilers who\nmake the most painful of the sacrifices that are needed for the\ncontinuous nutrition of the social organisation. As Condorcet put it,\nand he drew inspiration partly from the intellectual school of\nVoltaire, and partly from the social school of Rousseau, all\ninstitutions ought to have for their aim the physical, intellectual,\nand moral amelioration of the poorest and most numerous class.[272]\nThis is the People. Second, there gradually followed from the\nimportant place given by Rousseau to the idea of equal association, as\nat once the foundation and the enduring bond of a community, those\nschemes of Mutualism, and all the other shapes of collective action\nfor a common social good, which have possessed such commanding\nattraction for the imagination of large classes of good men in France\never since. Hitherto these forms have been sterile and deceptive, and\nthey must remain so, until the idea of special function has been\nraised to an equal level of importance with that of united forces\nworking together to a single end.\n\nIn these ways the author of the Social Contract did involuntarily and\nunconsciously contribute to the growth of those new and progressive\nideas, in which for his own part he lacked all faith. Pr\u00e6-Newtonians\nknew not the wonders of which Newton was to find the key; and so we,\ngrown weary of waiting for the master intelligence who may effect the\nfinal combination of moral and scientific ideas needed for a new\nsocial era, may be inclined to lend a half-complacent ear to the arid\nsophisters who assume that the last word of civilisation has been\nheard in existing arrangements. But we may perhaps take courage from\nhistory to hope that generations will come, to whom our system of\ndistributing among a few the privileges and delights that are procured\nby the toil of the many, will seem just as wasteful, as morally\nhideous, and as scientifically indefensible, as that older system\nwhich impoverished and depopulated empires, in order that a despot or\na caste might have no least wish ungratified, for which the lives or\nthe hard-won treasure of others could suffice.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[176] _Cont. Soc._, I. viii.\n\n[177] _Cont. Soc._, II. xi. He had written in much the same sense in\nhis article on Political Economy in the Encyclop\u00e6dia, p. 34.\n\n[178] Robespierre disclaimed the intention of attacking property, and\ntook up a position like that of Rousseau--teaching the poor contempt\nfor the rich, not envy. \"I do not want to touch your treasures,\" he\ncried, on one occasion, \"however impure their source. It is far more\nan object of concern to me to make poverty honourable, than to\nproscribe wealth; the thatched hut of Fabricius never need envy the\npalace of Crassus. I should be at least as content, for my own part,\nto be one of the sons of Aristides, brought up in the Prytaneium at\nthe public expense, as the heir presumptive of Xerxes, born in the\nmire of royal courts, to sit on a throne decorated by the abasement of\nthe people, and glittering with the public misery.\" Quoted in Malon's\n_Expos\u00e9 des Ecoles Socialistes fran\u00e7aises_, 15. Baboeuf carried\nRousseau's sentiments further towards their natural conclusion by such\npropositions as these: \"The goal of the revolution is to destroy\ninequality, and to re-establish the happiness of all.\" \"The revolution\nis not finished, because the rich absorb all the property, and hold\nexclusive power; while the poor toil like born slaves, languish in\nwretchedness, and are nothing in the state.\" _Expos\u00e9 des Ecoles\nSocialistes fran\u00e7aises_, p. 29.\n\n[179] _Cont. Soc._, II. xi.\n\n[180] _Cont. Soc._, I. iv.\n\n[181] _Ib._, II. vii.\n\n[182] Ch. vi. (vol. v. 371; edit. 1801).\n\n[183] Ch. vii. (p. 383.)\n\n[184] Goguet, in his _Origine des Lois, des Arts, et des Sciences_\n(1758), really attempted as laboriously as possible to carry out a\nnotion of the historical method, but the fact that history itself at\nthat time had never been subjected to scientific examination made his\neffort valueless. He accumulates testimony which would be excellent\nevidence, if only it had been sifted, and had come out of the process\nsubstantially undiminished. Yet even Goguet, who thus carefully\nfollowed the accounts of early societies given in the Bible and other\nmonuments, intersperses abstract general statements about man being\nborn free and independent (i. 25), and entering society as the result\nof deliberate reflection.\n\n[185] _Cont. Soc._, II. xi. Also III. viii.\n\n[186] II. xi. Also ch. viii.\n\n[187] II. viii.\n\n[188] II. ix.\n\n[189] _Politics_, VII. iv. 8, 10.\n\n[190] _Cont. Soc._, II. x.\n\n[191] Plato's _Laws_, v. 737.\n\n[192] _Ib._, iv. 705.\n\n[193] _Projet de Constitution pour la Corse_, p. 75.\n\n[194] _Gouvernement de Pologne_, ch. xi.\n\n[195] _Cont. Soc._, II. vii.\n\n[196] Goguet was much nearer to a true conception of this kind; see,\nfor instance, _Origine des Lois_, i. 46.\n\n[197] Decree of the Committee, April 20, 1794, reported by\nBillaud-Varennes. Compare ch. iv. of Rousseau's _Consid\u00e9rations sur le\nGouvernement de Pologne_.\n\n[198] Here are some of Saint Just's regulations:--No servants, nor\ngold or silver vessels; no child under 16 to eat meat, nor any adult\nto eat meat on three days of the decade; boys at the age of 7 to be\nhanded over to the school of the nation, where they were to be brought\nup to speak little, to endure hardships, and to train for war; divorce\nto be free to all; friendship ordained a public institution, every\ncitizen on coming to majority being bound to proclaim his friends, and\nif he had none, then to be banished; if one committed a crime, his\nfriends were to be banished. Quoted in Von Sybel's _Hist. French\nRev._, iv. 49. When Morelly dreamed his dream of a model community in\n1754 (see above, vol. i. p. 158) he little supposed, one would think,\nthat within forty years a man would be so near trying the experiment\nin France as Saint Just was. Baboeuf is pronounced by La Harpe to have\nbeen inspired by the Code de la Nature, which La Harpe impudently set\ndown to Diderot, on whom every great destructive piece was\nsystematically fathered.\n\n[199] I forget where I have read the story of some member of the\nConvention being very angry because the library contained no copy of\nthe laws which Minos gave to the Cretans.\n\n[200] III. xiii.\n\n[201] III. xv. He actually recommended the Poles to pay all public\nfunctionaries in kind, and to have the public works executed on the\nsystem of corv\u00e9e. _Gouvernement de Pologne_, ch. xi.\n\n[202] _Cont. Soc._, III. ii.\n\n[203] II. i.\n\n[204] II. ii.\n\n[205] III. i.\n\n[206] II. vi.\n\n[207] II. iv.\n\n[208] IV. vi.\n\n[209] _Economie Politique_, p. 30.\n\n[210] _M\u00e9langes_, p. 310.\n\n[211] See for instance Green's _History of the English People_, i.\n266.\n\n[212] _Summa_, xc.-cviii. (1265-1273). See Maurice's _Moral and\nMetaphysical Philosophy_, i. 627, 628. Also Franck's _R\u00e9formateurs et\nPublicistes de l'Europe_, p. 48, etc.\n\n[213] _Defensor Pacis_, Pt. I., ch. xii. This, again, is an example of\nMarsilio's position:--\"Convenerunt enim homines ad civilem\ncommunicationem propter commodum et vit\u00e6 sufficientiam consequendam,\net opposita declinandum. Qu\u00e6 igitur omnium tangere possunt commodum et\nincommodum, ab omnibus sciri debent et audiri, ut commodum assequi et\noppositum repellere possint.\" The whole chapter is a most interesting\nanticipation, partly due to the influence of Aristotle, of the notions\nof later centuries.\n\n[214] See Bayle's Dict., s.v. _Althusius_.\n\n[215] _Lettres de la Montagne_, I. vi. 388.\n\n[216] _Eccles. Polity_, Bk. i.; bks. i.-iv., 1594; bk. v., 1597; bks.\nvi.-viii., 1647,--being forty-seven years after the author's death.\n\n[217] Goguet (_Origine des Lois_, i. 22) dwells on tacit conventions\nas a kind of engagement to which men commit themselves with extreme\nfacility. He was thus rather near the true idea of the spontaneous\norigin and unconscious acceptance of early institutions.\n\n[218] Of Civil Government, ch. xiii. See also ch. xi. \"This\nlegislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but\nsacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once\nplaced it; nor can any edict of anybody else, in what form soever\nconceived, or by what power soever backed, have the force and\nobligation of a law, which has not its sanction from that legislative\nwhich the public has chosen and appointed; for without this the law\ncould not have that which is absolutely necessary to its being a\nlaw--the consent of the society; over whom nobody can have a power to\nmake laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from\nthem.\" If Rousseau had found no neater expression for his doctrine\nthan this, the Social Contract would assuredly have been no explosive.\n\n[219] See especially ch. viii.\n\n[220] Hence the antipathy of the clergy, catholic, episcopalian, and\npresbyterian, to which, as Austin has pointed out (_Syst. of\nJurisprudence_, i. 288, _n._), Hobbes mainly owes his bad repute.\n\n[221] See Diderot's article on _Hobbisme_ in the Encyclop\u00e6dia,\n_Oeuv._, xv. 122.\n\n[222] _Esprit des Lois_, I. i.\n\n[223] _Cont. Soc._, II. vi. 50.\n\n[224] Goguet has the merit of seeing distinctly that command is the\nessence of law.\n\n[225] _Cont. Soc._, II. vi. 51-53. See Austin's _Jurisprudence_, i.\n95, etc.; also _Lettres \u00e9crites de la Montagne_, I. vi. 380, 381.\n\n[226] See, for instance, letter to Mirabeau (_l'ami des hommes_), July\n26, 1767. _Corr._, v. 179. The same letter contains his criticism on\nthe good despot of the Economists.\n\n[227] _L'Ordre Naturel et Essentiel des Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s Politiques_ (1767).\nBy Mercier de la Rivi\u00e8re. One episode in the life of Mercier de la\nRivi\u00e8re is worth recounting, as closely connected with the subject we\nare discussing. Just as Corsicans and Poles applied to Rousseau,\nCatherine of Russia, in consequence of her admiration for Rivi\u00e8re's\nbook, summoned him to Russia to assist her in making laws. \"Sir,\" said\nthe Czarina, \"could you point out to me the best means for the good\ngovernment of a state?\" \"Madame, there is only one way, and that is\nbeing just; in other words, in keeping order and exacting obedience to\nthe laws.\" \"But on what base is it best to make the laws of an empire\nrepose?\" \"There is only one base, Madame: the nature of things and of\nmen.\" \"Just so; but when you wish to give laws to a people, what are\nthe rules which indicate most surely such laws as are most suitable?\"\n\"To give or make laws, Madame, is a task that God has left to none.\nAh, who is the man that should think himself capable of dictating laws\nfor beings that he does not know, or knows so ill? And by what right\ncan he impose laws on beings whom God has never placed in his hands?\"\n\"To what, then, do you reduce the science of government?\" \"To studying\ncarefully; recognising and setting forth the laws which God has graven\nso manifestly in the very organisation of men, when he called them\ninto existence. To wish to go any further would be a great misfortune\nand a most destructive undertaking.\" \"Sir, I am very pleased to have\nheard what you have to say; I wish you good day.\" Quoted from\nThi\u00e9bault's _Souvenirs de Berlin_, in M. Daire's edition of the\n_Physiocrates_, ii. 432.\n\n[228] _Cont. Soc._, II. vii.\n\n[229] _Corr._, v. 181.\n\n[230] _Cont. Soc._, I. v., vi., vii.\n\n[231] _Leviathan_, II., ch. xviii. vol. iii. 159 (Molesworth's\nedition).\n\n[232] _Cont. Soc._, III. xvi.\n\n[233] _Civil Government_, ch. viii. \u00a7 99.\n\n[234] I. vi. Especially the footnote.\n\n[235] _Cont. Soc._, II. i.\n\n[236] _Syst. of Jurisprudence_, i. 256.\n\n[237] _Cont. Soc._, III. xv. 137. It was not long, however, before\nRousseau found reason to alter his opinion in this respect. The\nchampions of the Council at Geneva compared the _droit n\u00e9gatif_, in\nthe exercise of which the Council had refused to listen to the\nrepresentations of Rousseau's partisans (see above, vol. ii. p. 105)\nto the right of veto possessed by the crown in Great Britain. Rousseau\nseized upon this egregious blunder, which confused the power of\nrefusing assent to a proposed law, with the power of refusing justice\nunder law already passed. He at once found illustrations of the\ndifference, first in the case of the printers of No. 45 of the _North\nBriton_, who brought actions for false imprisonment (1763), and next\nin the proceedings against Wilkes at the same time. If Wilkes, said\nRousseau, had written, printed, published, or said, one-fourth against\nthe Lesser Council at Geneva of what he said, wrote, printed, and\npublished openly in London against the court and the government, he\nwould have been heavily punished, and most likely put to death. And so\nforth, until he has proved very pungently how different degrees of\nfreedom are enjoyed in Geneva and in England. _Lettres \u00e9crites de la\nMontague_, ix. 491-500. When he wrote this he was unaware that the\nTriennial Act had long been replaced by the Septennial Act of the 1\nGeo. I. On finding out, as he did afterwards, that a parliament could\nsit for seven years, he thought as meanly of our liberty as ever.\n_Consid\u00e9rations sur les gouvernement de Pologne_, ch. vii. 253-260. In\nhis _Projet de Constitution pour la Corse_, p. 113, he says that \"the\nEnglish do not love liberty for itself, but because it is most\nfavourable to money-making.\"\n\n[238] III., xi., xii., and xiii.\n\n[239] Mr. Freeman's _Growth of the English Constitution_, c. i.\n\n[240] _Cont. Soc._, III. xv. 140. A small manuscript containing his\nideas on confederation was given by Rousseau to the Count d'Antraigues\n(afterwards an _\u00e9migr\u00e9_), who destroyed it in 1789, lest its arguments\nshould be used to sap the royal authority. See extract from his\npamphlet, prefixed to M. Auguis's edition of the Social Contract, pp.\nxxiii, xxiv.\n\n[241] _Gouvernement de Pologne_, v. 246.\n\n[242] Of course no such modification as that proposed by Comte\n(_Politique Positive_, iv. 421) would come within the scope of the\ndoctrine of the Social Contract. For each of the seventeen Intendances\ninto which Comte divides France, is to be ruled by a chief, \"always\nappointed and removed by the central power.\" There is no room for the\nsovereignty of the people here, even in things parochial.\n\n[243] There was one extraordinary instance during the revolution of\nattempting to make popular government direct on Rousseau's principle,\nin the scheme (1790) of which Danton was a chief supporter, for\nreorganising the municipal administration of Paris. The assemblies of\nsections were to sit permanently; their vote was to be taken on\ncurrent questions; and action was to follow the aggregate of their\ndegrees. See Von Sybel's _Hist. Fr. Rev._ i. 275; M. Louis Blanc's\n_History_, Bk. III. ch. ii.\n\n[244] This was also Bodin's definition of an aristocratic state; \"si\nminor pars civium c\u00e6teris imperat.\"\n\n[245] _Politics_, III. vi.-vii.\n\n[246] _Esprit des Lois_, II. i. ii.\n\n[247] Rousseau gave the name of _tyrant_ to a usurper of royal\nauthority in a kingdom, and _despot_ to a usurper of the sovereign\nauthority (_i.e._ [Greek: tyrannos] in the Greek sense). The former\nmight govern according to the laws, but the latter placed himself\nabove the laws (_Cont. Soc._, III. x.) This corresponded to Locke's\ndistinction: \"As usurpation is the exercise of power which another\nhath a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of a power beyond right,\nwhich nobody can have a right to.\" _Civil Gov._, ch. xviii.\n\n[248] III. iv.\n\n[249] III. vi.\n\n[250] III. v.\n\n[251] _Cont. Soc._, IV. viii.\n\n[252] _Cont. Soc._, IV. viii. 197-201.\n\n[253] This is not unlike what Tocqueville says somewhere, that\nChristianity bids you render unto C\u00e6sar the things that are C\u00e6sar's,\nbut seems to discourage any inquiry whether C\u00e6sar is an usurper or a\nlawful ruler.\n\n[254] _Cont. Soc._, IV. viii. 203. As we have already seen, he had\nentreated Voltaire, of all men in the world, to draw up a civil\nprofession of faith. See vol. i. 326.\n\nIn the New Helo\u00efsa (V. v. 117, _n._) Rousseau expresses his opinion\nthat \"no true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. _If I were\na magistrate, and if the law pronounced the penalty of death against\natheists, I would begin by burning as such whoever should come to\ninform against another._\"\n\n[255] Plato's _Laws_, Bk. x. 909, etc.\n\n[256] _Areopagitica_, p. 417. (Edit. 1867.)\n\n[257] See a speech of his, which is Rousseau's \"civil faith\" done into\nrhetoric, given in M. Louis Blanc's _Hist. de la R\u00e9v. Fran\u00e7aise_, Bk.\nx. c. xiv.\n\n[258] _Consid\u00e9rations sur le gouvernement ancien et pr\u00e9sent de la\nFrance_ (1764). Quoted by Rousseau from a manuscript copy.\n\n[259] _Leviathan_, ch. xliii. 601. Also ch. xlii.\n\n[260] _Cont. Soc._, III. xi. Borrowed from Hobbes, who said, \"Magnus\nille Leviathan qu\u00e6 civitas appellatur, opificium artis est.\"\n\n[261] Mackintosh's.\n\n[262] _Cont. Soc._, II. v.\n\n[263] IV. ii.\n\n[264] For instance, _Gouvernement de la Pologne_, ch. xi. p. 305. And\n_Corr._, v. 180.\n\n[265] _Cont. Soc._, I. viii.\n\n[266] _Cont. Soc._, II. i.\n\n[267] _Ib._, III. x. \"Let every individual who may usurp the\nsovereignty be instantly put to death by free men.\" Robespierre's\n_D\u00e9claration des droits de l'homme_, \u00a7 27. \"When the government\nviolates the rights of the people, insurrection becomes for the people\nthe most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.\" \u00a7 35.\n\n[268] _Cont. Soc._, III. x.\n\n[269] See May's _Constitutional Hist. of England_, ch. iii; and Lord\nStanhope's _Life of Pitt_, vol. ii. ch. xii.\n\n[270] In the 6th book of the _Moral Philosophy_ (1785), ch. iii., and\nelsewhere. In the preface he refers to the effect which Rousseau's\npolitical theory was supposed to have had in the civil convulsions of\nGeneva, as one of the reasons which encouraged him to publish his own\nbook.\n\n[271] One side of this was the passion for geographical exploration\nwhich took possession of Europe towards the middle of the eighteenth\ncentury. See the _Life of Humboldt_, i. 28, 29. (_Eng. Trans._ by\nLassell.)\n\n[272] Rousseau's influence on Condorcet is seen in the latter's maxim,\nwhich has found such favour in the eyes of socialist writers, that\n\"not only equality of right, but equality of fact, is the goal of the\nsocial art.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nEMILIUS.\n\n\nOne whose most intense conviction was faith in the goodness\nof all things and creatures as they are first produced by nature, and\nso long as they remain unsophisticated by the hand and purpose of man,\nwas in some degree bound to show a way by which this evil process of\nsophistication might be brought to the lowest possible point, and the\nbest of all natural creatures kept as near as possible to his high\noriginal. Rousseau, it is true, held in a sense of his own the\ndoctrine of the fall of man. That doctrine, however, has never made\npeople any more remiss in the search after a virtue, which if they\nought to have regarded it as hopeless according to strict logic, is\nstill indispensable in actual life. Rousseau's way of believing that\nman had fallen was so coloured at once by that expansion of sanguine\nemotion which marked his century, and by that necessity for repose in\nidyllic perfection of simplicity which marked his own temperament,\nthat enthusiasm for an imaginary human creature effectually shut out\nthe dogma of his fatal depravation. \"How difficult a thing it is,\"\nMadame d'Epinay once said to him, \"to bring up a child.\" \"Assuredly\nit is,\" answered Rousseau; \"because the father and mother are not made\nby nature to bring it up, nor the child to be brought up.\"[273] This\ncynical speech can only have been an accidental outbreak of spleen. It\nwas a contradiction to his one constant opinion that nature is all\ngood and bounteous, and that the inborn capacity of man for reaching\ntrue happiness knows no stint.\n\nIn writing Emilius, he sat down to consider what man is, and what can\nbe made of him. Here, as in all the rest of his work, he only obeyed\nthe tendencies of his time in choosing a theme. An age touched by the\nspirit of hope inevitably turns to the young; for with the young lies\nfulfilment. Such epochs are ever pressing with the question, how is\nthe future to be shaped? Our answer depends on the theory of human\ndisposition, and in these epochs the theory is always optimistic.\nRousseau was saved, as so many thousands of men have been alike in\nconduct and speculation, by inconsistency, and not shrinking from two\nmutually contradictory trains of thought. Society is corrupt, and\nsociety is the work of man. Yet man, who has engendered this corrupted\nbirth, is good and whole. The strain in the argument may be pardoned\nfor the hopefulness of the conclusion. It brought Rousseau into\nharmony with the eager effort of the time to pour young character into\nfiner mould, and made him the most powerful agent in giving to such\nefforts both fervour and elevation. While others were content with\nthe mere enunciation of maxims and precepts, he breathed into them the\nspirit of life, and enforced them with a vividness of faith that\nclothed education with the augustness and unction of religion. The\ntraining of the young soul to virtue was surrounded with something of\nthe awful holiness of a sacrament; and those who laboured in this\nsanctified field were exhorted to a constancy of devotion, and were\npromised a fulness of recompense, that raised them from the rank of\ndrudges to a place of highest honour among the ministers of nature.\n\nEverybody at this time was thinking about education, partly perhaps on\naccount of the suppression of the Jesuits, the chief instructors of\nthe time, and a great many people were writing about it. The Abb\u00e9 de\nSaint Pierre had had new ideas on education, as on all the greater\ndepartments of human interest. Madame d'Epinay wrote considerations\nupon the bringing up of the young.[274] Madame de Grafigny did the\nsame in a less grave shape.[275] She received letters from the\nprecociously sage Turgot, abounding in the same natural and sensible\nprecepts which ten years later were commended with more glowing\neloquence in the pages of Emilius.[276] Grimm had an elaborate scheme\nfor a treatise on education.[277] Helv\u00e9tius followed his exploration\nof the composition of the human mind, by a treatise on the training\nproper for the intellectual and moral faculties. Education by these\nand other writers was being conceived in a wider sense than had been\nknown to ages controlled by ecclesiastical collegians. It slowly came\nto be thought of in connection with the family. The improvement of\nideas upon education was only one phase of that great general movement\ntowards the restoration of the family, which was so striking a\nspectacle in France after the middle of the century. Education now\ncame to comprehend the whole system of the relations between parents\nand their children, from earliest infancy to maturity. The direction\nof this wider feeling about such relations tended strongly towards an\nincreased closeness in them, more intimacy, and a more continuous\nsuffusion of tenderness and long attachment. All this was part of the\ngeneral revival of naturalism. People began to reflect that nature was\nnot likely to have designed infants to be suckled by other women than\ntheir own mothers, nor that they should be banished from the society\nof those who are most concerned in their well-being, from the cheerful\nhearth and wise affectionate converse of home, to the frigid\ndiscipline of colleges and convents and the unamiable monition of\nstrangers.\n\nThen the rising rebellion against the church and its faith perhaps\ncontributed something towards a movement which, if it could not break\nthe religious monopoly of instruction, must at least introduce the\nparent as a competitor with the priestly instructor for influence over\nthe ideas, habits, and affections of his children. The rebellion was\naimed against the spirit as well as the manner of the established\nsystem. The church had not fundamentally modified the significance of\nthe dogma of the fall and depravity of man; education was still\nconceived as a process of eradication and suppression of the mystical\nold Adam. The new current flowed in channels far away from that black\nfolly of superstition. Men at length ventured once more to look at one\nanother with free and generous gaze. The veil of the temple was rent,\nand the false mockeries of the shrine of the Hebrew divinity made\nplain to scornful eyes. People ceased to see one another as guilty\nvictims cowering under a divine curse. They stood erect in\nconsciousness of manhood. The palsied conception of man, with his\nlarge discourse of reason looking before and after, his lofty and\nmajestic patience in search for new forms of beauty and new secrets of\ntruth, his sense of the manifold sweetness and glory and awe of the\nuniverse, above all, his infinite capacity of loyal pity and love for\nhis comrades in the great struggle, and his high sorrow for his own\nwrong-doing,--the palsied and crushing conception of this excellent\nand helpful being as a poor worm, writhing under the vindictive and\nmeaningless anger of an omnipotent tyrant in the large heavens, only\nto be appeased by sacerdotal intervention, was fading back into those\nregions of night, whence the depth of human misery and the\nobscuration of human intelligence had once permitted its escape, to\nhang evilly over the western world for a season. So vital a change in\nthe point of view quickly touched the theory and art of the upbringing\nof the young. Education began to figure less as the suppression of the\nnatural man, than his strengthening and development; less as a process\nof rooting out tares, more as the grateful tending of shoots abounding\nin promise of richness. What had been the most drearily mechanical of\nduties, was transformed into a task that surpassed all others in\ninterest and hope. If man be born not bad but good, under no curse,\nbut rather the bestower and receiver of many blessings, then the\nentire atmosphere of young life, in spite of the toil and the peril,\nis made cheerful with the sunshine and warmth of the great folded\npossibilities of excellence, happiness, and well-doing.\n\n\nI.\n\nLocke in education, as in metaphysics and in politics, was the pioneer\nof French thought. In education there is less room for scientific\noriginality. The sage of a parish, provided only she began her trade\nwith an open and energetic mind, may here pass philosophers. Locke was\nnearly as sage, as homely, as real, as one of these strenuous women.\nThe honest plainness of certain of his prescriptions for the\npreservation of physical health perhaps keeps us somewhat too near the\nearth. His manner throughout is marked by the stout wisdom of the\npractical teacher, who is content to assume good sense in his hearers,\nand feels no necessity for kindling a blaze or raising a tempest. He\ngives us a practical manual for producing a healthy, instructed,\nupright, well-mannered young English squire, who shall be rightly\nfitted to take his own life sensibly in hand, and procure from it a\nfair amount of wholesome satisfaction both for himself and the people\nwith whom he is concerned. Locke's treatise is one of the most\nadmirable protests in the world against effeminacy and pedantry, and\nparents already moved by grave desire to do their duty prudently to\ntheir sons, will hardly find another book better suited to their ends.\nBesides Locke, we must also count Charron, and the amazing educator of\nGargantua, and Montaigne before either, among the writers whom\nRousseau had read, with that profit and increase which attends the\ndropping of the good ideas of other men into fertile minds.\n\nThere is an immense class of natures, and those not the lowest, which\nthe connection of duty with mere prudence does not carry far enough.\nThey only stir when something has moved their feeling for the ideal,\nand raised the mechanical offices of the narrow day into association\nwith the spaciousness and height of spiritual things. To these\nRousseau came. For both the tenour and the wording of the most\nstriking precepts of the Emilius, he owes much to Locke. But what was\nso realistic in him becomes blended in Rousseau with all the power and\nrichness and beauty of an ideal that can move the most generous parts\nof human character. The child is treated as the miniature of humanity;\nit thus touches the whole sphere of our sympathies, warms our\ncuriosity as to the composition of man's nature, and becomes the very\neye and centre of moral and social aspirations.\n\nAccordingly Rousseau almost at once begins by elaborating his\nconception of the kind of human creature which it is worth while to\ntake the trouble to rear, and the only kind which pure nature will\nhelp you in perfecting. Hence Emilius, besides being a manual for\nparents, contains the lines of a moral type of life and character for\nall others. The old thought of the Discourses revives in full vigour.\nThe artifices of society, the perverting traditions of use, the feeble\nmaxims of indolence, convention, helpless dependence on the aid or the\napproval of others, are routed at the first stroke. The old regimen of\naccumulated prejudice is replaced, in dealing alike with body and\nsoul, by the new system of liberty and nature. In saying this we have\nalready said that the exaltation of Spartan manners which runs through\nRousseau's other writings has vanished, and that every trace of the\nmuch-vaunted military and public training has yielded before the\nattractive thought of tender parents and a wisely ruled home. Public\ninstruction, we learn, can now no longer exist, because there is no\nlonger such a thing as country, and therefore there can no longer be\ncitizens. Only domestic education can now help us to rear the man\naccording to nature,--the man who knows best among us how to bear\nthe mingled good and ill of our life.\n\nThe artificial society of the time, with its aspirations after a\nreturn to nature, was moved to the most energetic enthusiasm by\nRousseau's famous exhortations to mothers to nourish their own little\nones. Morelly, as we have seen, had already enjoined the adoption of\nthis practice. So too had Buffon. But Morelly's voice had no\nresonance, Buffon's reasons were purely physical, and children were\nstill sent out to nurse, until Rousseau's more passionate moral\nentreaties awoke maternal conscience. \"Do these tender mothers,\" he\nexclaimed, \"who, when they have got rid of their infants, surrender\nthemselves gaily to all the diversions of the town, know what sort of\nusage the child in the village is receiving, fastened in his swaddling\nband? At the least interruption that comes, they hang him up by a nail\nlike a bundle of rags, and there the poor creature remains thus\ncrucified, while the nurse goes about her affairs. Every child found\nin this position had a face of purple; as the violent compression of\nthe chest would not allow the blood to circulate, it all went to the\nhead, and the victim was supposed to be very quiet, just because it\nhad not strength enough to cry out.\"[278] But in Rousseau, as in\nBeethoven, a harsh and rugged passage is nearly always followed by\nsome piece of exquisite and touching melody. The force of these\nindignant pictures was heightened and relieved by moving appeal to\nall the tender joys of maternal solicitude, and thoughts of all that\nthis solicitude could do for the happiness of the home, the father,\nand the young. The attraction of domestic life is pronounced the best\nantidote to the ill living of the time. The bustle of children, which\nyou now think so importunate, gradually becomes delightful; it brings\nfather and mother nearer to one another; and the lively animation of a\nfamily added to domestic cares, makes the dearest occupation of the\nwife, and the sweetest of all his amusements to the husband. If women\nwill only once more become mothers again, men will very soon become\nfathers and husbands.[279]\n\nThe physical effect of this was not altogether wholesome. Rousseau's\neloquence excited women to an inordinate pitch of enthusiasm for the\nduty of suckling their infants, but his contemptuous denunciation of\nthe gaieties of Paris could not extinguish the love of amusement.\n\n Quid quod libelli Stoici inter sericos\n Jacere pulvillos amant?\n\nSo young mothers tried as well as they could to satisfy both desires,\nand their babes were brought to them at all unseasonable hours, while\nthey were full of food and wine, or heated with dancing or play, and\nthere received the nurture which, but for Rousseau, they would have\ndrawn in more salutary sort from a healthy foster-mother in the\ncountry. This, however, was only an incidental drawback to a movement\nwhich was in its main lines full of excellent significance. The\nimportance of giving freedom to the young limbs, of accustoming the\nbody to rudeness and vicissitude of climate, of surrounding youth with\nlight and cheerfulness and air, and even a tiny detail such as the\npropriety of substituting for coral or ivory some soft substance\nagainst which the growing teeth might press a way without irritation,\nall these matters are handled with a fervid reality of interest that\ngives to the tedium of the nursery a genuine touch of the poetic.\nSwathings, bandages, leading-strings, are condemned with a warmth like\nthat with which the author had denounced comedy.[280] The city is held\nup to indignant reprobation as the gulf of infant life, just as it had\nbeen in his earlier pieces as the gulf of all the loftiest energies of\nthe adult life. Every child ought to be born and nursed in the\ncountry, and it would be all the better if it remained in the country\nto the last day of its existence. You must accustom it little by\nlittle to the sight of disagreeable objects, such as toads and snakes;\nalso in the same gradual manner to the sound of alarming noises,\nbeginning with snapping a cap in a pistol. If the infant cries from\npain which you cannot remove, make no attempt to soothe it; your\ncaresses will not lessen the anguish of its colic, while the child\nwill remember what it has to do in order to be coaxed and to get its\nown way. The nurse may amuse it by songs and lively cries, but she is\nnot to din useless words into its ears; the first articulations that\ncome to it should be few, easy, distinct, frequently repeated, and\nonly referring to objects which may be shown to the child. \"Our\nunlucky facility in cheating ourselves with words that we do not\nunderstand, begins earlier than we suppose.\" Let there be no haste in\ninducing the child to speak articulately. The evil of precipitation in\nthis respect is not that children use and hear words without sense,\nbut that they use and hear them in a different sense from our own,\nwithout our perceiving it. Mistakes of this sort, committed thus\nearly, have an influence, even after they are cured, over the turn of\nthe mind for the rest of the creature's life. Hence it is a good thing\nto keep a child's vocabulary as limited as possible, lest it should\nhave more words than ideas, and should say more than it can possibly\nrealise in thought.[281]\n\nIn moral as in intellectual habits, the most perilous interval in\nhuman life is that between birth and the age of twelve. The great\nsecret is to make the early education purely negative; a process of\nkeeping the heart, naturally so good, clear of vice, and the\nintelligence, naturally so true, clear of error. Take for first,\nsecond, and third precept, to follow nature and leave her free to the\nperformance of her own tasks. Until the age of reason, there can be no\nidea of moral beings or social relations. Therefore, says Rousseau, no\nmoral discussion. Locke's maxim in favour of constantly reasoning with\nchildren was a mistake. Of all the faculties of man, reason, which is\nonly a compound of the rest, is that which is latest in development,\nand yet it is this which we are to use to develop those which come\nearliest of all. Such a course is to begin at the end, and to turn the\nfinished work into an instrument. \"In speaking to children in these\nearly years a language which they do not comprehend, we accustom them\nto cheat themselves with words, to criticise what is said to them, to\nthink themselves as wise as their masters, to become disputatious and\nmutinous.\" If you forget that nature meant children to be children\nbefore growing into men, you only force a fruit that has neither\nripeness nor savour, and must soon go bad; you will have youthful\ndoctors and old infants.\n\nTo all this, however, there is certainly another side which Rousseau\nwas too impetuous to see. Perfected reason is truly the tardiest of\nhuman endowments, but it can never be perfected at all unless the\nprocess be begun, and, within limits, the sooner the beginning is\nmade, the earlier will be the ripening. To know the grounds of right\nconduct is, we admit, a different thing from feeling a disposition to\npractise it. But nobody will deny the expediency of an intelligent\nacquaintance with the reasons why one sort of conduct is bad, and its\nopposite good, even if such an acquaintance can never become a\nsubstitute for the spontaneous action of thoroughly formed habit. For\none thing, cases are constantly arising in a man's life that demand\nthe exercise of reason, to settle the special application of\nprinciples which may have been acquired without knowledge of their\nrational foundation. In such cases, which are the critical and testing\npoints of character, all depends upon the possession of a more or less\njustly trained intelligence, and the habit of using it. Now, as we\nhave said, it is one of the great merits of the Emilius that it calls\nsuch attention to the early age at which mental influences begin to\noperate. Why should the gradual formation of the master habit of using\nthe mind be any exception?\n\nBelief in the efficacy of preaching is the bane of educational\nsystems. Verbal lessons seem as if they ought to be so deeply\neffective, if only the will and the throng of various motives which\nguide it, instantly followed impression of a truth upon the\nintelligence. And they are, moreover, so easily communicated, saving\nthe parent a lifetime of anxious painstaking in shaping his own\ncharacter, after such a pattern as shall silently draw all within its\ninfluence to pursuit of good and honourable things. The most valuable\nof Rousseau's notions about education, though he by no means\nconsistently adhered to them, was his urgent contempt for this\nfatuous substitution of spoken injunctions and prohibitions, for the\ndeeper language of example, and the more living instruction of visible\ncircumstance. The vast improvements that have since taken place in the\ntheory and the art of education all over Europe, and of which he has\nthe honour of being the first and most widely influential promoter,\nmay all be traced to the spread of this wise principle, and its\nadoption in various forms. The change in the up-bringing of the young\nexactly corresponds to the change in the treatment of the insane. We\nmay look back to the old system of endless catechisms, apophthegms,\nmoral fables, and the rest of the paraphernalia of moral didactics,\nwith the same horror with which we regard the gags, strait-waistcoats,\nchains, and dark cells, of poor mad people before the intervention of\nPinel.\n\nIt is clear now to everybody who has any opinion on this most\nimportant of all subjects, that spontaneousness is the first quality\nin connection with right doing, which you can develop in the young,\nand this spontaneousness of habit is best secured by associating it\nwith the approval of those to whom the child looks. Sympathy, in a\nword, is the true foundation from which to build up the structure of\ngood habit. The young should be led to practise the elementary parts\nof right conduct from the desire to please, because that is a securer\nbasis than the conclusions of an embryo reason, applied to the most\ncomplex conditions of action, while the grounds on which action is\njustified or condemned may be made plain in the fulness of time, when\nthe understanding is better able to deal with the ideas and terms\nessential to the matter. You have two aims to secure, each without\nsacrifice of the other. These are, first, that the child shall grow up\nwith firm and promptly acting habit; second, that it shall retain\nrespect for reason and an open mind. The latter may be acquired in the\nless immature years, but if the former be not acquired in the earlier\ntimes, a man grows up with a drifting unsettledness of will, that\nmakes his life either vicious by quibbling sophistries, or helpless\nfor want of ready conclusions.\n\nThe first idea which is to be given to a child, little as we might\nexpect such a doctrine from the author of the Second Discourse, is\ndeclared to be that of property. And he can only acquire this idea by\nhaving something of his own. But how are we to teach him the\nsignificance of a thing being one's own? It is a prime rule to attempt\nto teach nothing by a verbal lesson; all instruction ought to be left\nto experience.[282] Therefore you must contrive some piece of\nexperience which shall bring this notion of property vividly into a\nchild's mind; the following for instance. Emilius is taken to a piece\nof garden; his instructor digs and dresses the ground for him, and the\nboy takes possession by sowing some beans. \"We come every day to water\nthem, and see them rise out of the ground with transports of joy. I\nadd to this joy by saying, This belongs to you. Then explaining the\nterm, I let him feel that he has put into the ground this time,\nlabour, trouble, his person in short; that there is in this bit of\nground something of himself which he may maintain against every comer,\nas he might withdraw his own arm from the hand of another man who\nwould fain retain it in spite of him.\" One day Emilius comes to his\nbeloved garden, watering-pot in hand, and finds to his anguish and\ndespair that all the beans have been plucked up, that the ground has\nbeen turned over, and that the spot is hardly recognisable. The\ngardener comes up, and explains with much warmth that he had sown the\nseed of a precious Maltese melon in that particular spot long before\nEmilius had come with his trumpery beans, and that therefore it was\nhis land; that nobody touches the garden of his neighbour, in order\nthat his own may remain untouched; and that if Emilius wants a piece\nof garden, he must pay for it by surrendering to the owner half the\nproduce.[283] Thus, says Rousseau, the boy sees how the notion of\nproperty naturally goes back to the right of the first occupant as\nderived from labour. We should have thought it less troublesome, as it\nis certainly more important, to teach a boy the facts of property\npositively and imperatively. This rather elaborate ascent to origins\nseems an exaggerated form of that very vice of over-instructing the\ngrowing reason in abstractions, which Rousseau had condemned so short\na time before.\n\nAgain, there is the very strong objection to conveying lessons by\nartificially contrived incidents, that children are nearly always\nextremely acute in suspecting and discovering such contrivances. Yet\nRousseau recurs to them over and over again, evidently taking delight\nin their ingenuity. Besides the illustration of the origin and\nsignificance of property, there is the complex fancy in which a\njuggler is made to combine instruction as to the properties of the\nmagnet with certain severe moral truths.[284] The tutor interests\nEmilius in astronomy and geography by a wonderful stratagem indeed.\nThe poor youth loses his way in a wood, is overpowered by hunger and\nweariness, and then is led on by his cunning tutor to a series of\ninferences from the position of the sun and so forth, which convince\nhim that his home is just over the hedge, where it is duly found to\nbe.[285] Here, again, is the way in which the instructor proposes to\nstir activity of limb in the young Emilius. \"In walking with him of an\nafternoon, I used sometimes to put in my pocket two cakes of a sort he\nparticularly liked; we each of us ate one. One day he perceived that I\nhad three cakes; he could easily have eaten six; he promptly\ndespatches his own, to ask me for the third. Nay, I said to him, I\ncould well eat it myself, or we would divide it, but I would rather\nsee it made the prize of a running match between the two little boys\nthere.\" The little boys run their race, and the winner devours the\ncake. This and subsequent repetitions of the performance at first\nonly amused Emilius, but he presently began to reflect, and perceiving\nthat he also had two legs, he began privately to try how fast he could\nrun. When he thought he was strong enough, he importuned his tutor for\nthe third cake, and on being refused, insisted on being allowed to\ncompete for it. The habit of taking exercise was not the only\nadvantage gained. The tutor resorted to a variety of further\nstratagems in order to induce the boy to find out and practise visual\ncompass, and so forth.[286] If we consider, as we have said, first the\nreadiness of children to suspect a stratagem wherever instruction is\nconcerned, and next their resentment on discovering artifice of that\nkind, all this seems as little likely to be successful as it is\nassuredly contrary to Rousseau's general doctrine of leaving\ncircumstances to lead.\n\nIn truth Rousseau's appreciation of the real nature of spontaneousness\nin the processes of education was essentially inadequate, and that it\nwas so, arose from a no less inadequate conception of the right\ninfluence upon the growing character, of the great principle of\nauthority. His dread lest the child should ever be conscious of the\npressure of a will external to its own, constituted a fundamental\nweakness of his system. The child, we are told with endless\nrepetition, ought always to be led to suppose that it is following its\nown judgment or impulses, and has only them and their consequences to\nconsider. But Rousseau could not help seeing, as he meditated on the\nactual development of his Emilius, that to leave him thus to the\ntraining of accident would necessarily end in many fatal gaps and\nchasms. Yet the hand and will of the parent or the master could not be\nallowed to appear. The only alternative, therefore, was the secret\npreparation of artificial sets of circumstances, alike in work and in\namusement. Jean Paul was wiser than Jean Jacques. \"Let not the teacher\nafter the work also order and regulate the games. It is decidedly\nbetter not to recognise or make any order in games, than to keep it up\nwith difficulty and send the zephyrets of pleasure through artistic\nbellows and air-pumps to the little flowers.\"[287]\n\nThe spontaneousness which we ought to seek, does not consist in\npromptly willing this or that, independently of an authority imposed\nfrom without, but in a self-acting desire to do what is right under\nall its various conditions, including what the child finds pleasant to\nitself on the one hand, and what it has good reason to suppose will be\npleasant to its parents on the other. \"You must never,\" Rousseau\ngravely warns us, \"inflict punishment upon children as punishment; it\nshould always fall upon them as a natural consequence of their\nill-behaviour.\"[288] But why should one of the most closely following\nof all these consequences be dissembled or carefully hidden from\nsight, namely, the effect of ill-behaviour upon the contentment of the\nchild's nearest friend? Why are the effects of conduct upon the\nactor's own physical well-being to be the only effects honoured with\nthe title of being natural? Surely, while we leave to the young the\nwidest freedom of choice, and even habitually invite them to decide\nfor themselves between two lines of conduct, we are bound afterwards\nto state our approval or disapproval of their decision, so that on the\nnext occasion they may take this anger or pleasure in others into\nproper account in their rough and hasty forecast, often less hasty\nthan it seems, of the consequences of what they are about to do. One\nof the most important of educating influences is lost, if the young\nare not taught to place the feelings of others in a front place, when\nthey think in their own simple way of what will happen to them from\nyielding to a given impulse. Rousseau was quite right in insisting on\npractical experience of consequences as the only secure foundation for\nself-acting habit; he was fatally wrong in mutilating this experience\nby the exclusion from it of the effects of perceiving, resisting,\naccepting, ignoring, all will and authority from without. The great,\nand in many respects so admirable, school of Rousseauite\nphilanthropists, have always been feeble on this side, alike in the\ntreatment of the young by their instructors, and the treatment of\nsocial offenders by a government.\n\nAgain, consider the large group of excellent qualities which are\nassociated with affectionate respect for a more fully informed\nauthority. In a world where necessity stands for so much, it is no\ninconsiderable gain to have learnt the lesson of docility on easy\nterms in our earliest days. If in another sense the will of each\nindividual is all-powerful over his own destinies, it is best that\nthis idea of firm purpose and a settled energy that will not be\ndenied, should grow up in the young soul in connection with a riper\nwisdom and an ampler experience than its own; for then, when the time\nfor independent action comes, the force of the association will\ncontinue. Finally, although none can be vicariously wise, none sage by\nproxy, nor any pay for the probation of another, yet is it not a\npuerile wastefulness to send forth the young all bare to the ordeal,\nwhile the armour of old experience and tempered judgment hangs idle on\nthe wall? Surely it is thus by accumulation of instruction from\ngeneration to generation, that the area of right conduct in the world\nis extended. Such instruction must with youth be conveyed by military\nword of command as often as by philosophical persuasion of its worth.\nNor is the atmosphere of command other than bracing, even to those who\nare commanded. If education is to be mainly conducted by force of\nexample, it is a dreadful thing that the child is ever to have before\nits eyes as living type and practical exemplar the pale figure of\nparents without passions, and without a will as to the conduct of\nthose who are dependent on them. Even a slight excess of anger,\nimpatience, and the spirit of command, would be less demoralising to\nthe impressionable character than the constant sight of a man\nartificially impassive. Rousseau is perpetually calling upon men to\ntry to lay aside their masks; yet the model instructor whom he has\ncreated for us is to be the most artfully and elaborately masked of\nall men; unless he happens to be naturally without blood and without\nphysiognomy.\n\nRousseau, then, while he put away the old methods which imprisoned the\nyoung spirit in injunctions and over-solicitous monitions, yet did\nnone the less in his own scheme imprison it in a kind of hothouse,\nwhich with its regulated temperature and artificially contrived access\nof light and air, was in many respects as little the method of nature,\nthat is to say it gave as little play for the spontaneous working and\ngrowth of the forces of nature in the youth's breast, as that regimen\nof the cloister which he so profoundly abhorred. Partly this was the\nresult of a ludicrously shallow psychology. He repeats again and again\nthat self-love is the one quality in the youthful embryo of character,\nfrom which you have to work. From this, he says, springs the desire of\npossessing pleasure and avoiding pain, the great fulcrum on which the\nlever of experience rests. Not only so, but from this same\nunslumbering quality of self-love you have to develop regard for\nothers. The child's first affection for his nurse is a result of the\nfact that she serves his comfort, and so down to his passion in later\nyears for his mistress. Now this is not the place for a discussion as\nto the ultimate atom of the complex moral sentiments of men and women,\nnor for an examination of the question whether the faculty of\nsympathy has or has not an origin independent of self-love. However\nthat may be, no one will deny that sympathy appears in good natures\nextremely early, and is susceptible of rapid cultivation from the very\nfirst. Here is the only adequate key to that education of the\naffections, from their rudimentary expansion in the nursery, until\nthey include the complete range of all the objects proper to them.\n\nOne secret of Rousseau's omission of this, the most important of all\neducating agencies, from the earlier stages of the formation of\ncharacter, was the fact which is patent enough in every page, that he\nwas not animated by that singular tenderness and almost mystic\naffection for the young, which breathes through the writings of some\nof his German followers, of Richter above all others, and which\nreveals to those who are sensible of it, the hold that may so easily\nbe gained for all good purposes upon the eager sympathy of the\nyouthful spirit. The instructor of Emilius speaks the words of a wise\nonlooker, sagely meditating on the ideal man, rather than of a parent\nwho is living the life of his child through with him. Rousseau's\ninterest in children, though perfectly sincere, was still \u00e6sthetic,\nmoral, reasonable, rather than that pure flood of full-hearted feeling\nfor them, which is perhaps seldom stirred except in those who have\nactually brought up children of their own. He composed a vindication\nof his love for the young in an exquisite piece;[289] but it has none\nof the yearnings of the bowels of tenderness.\n\n\nII.\n\nEducation being the art of preparing the young to grow into\ninstruments of happiness for themselves and others, a writer who\nundertakes to speak about it must naturally have some conception of\nthe kind of happiness at which his art aims. We have seen enough of\nRousseau's own life to know what sort of ideal he would be likely to\nset up. It is a healthier epicureanism, with enough stoicism to make\nhappiness safe in case that circumstances should frown. The man who\nhas lived most is not he who has counted most years, but he who has\nmost felt life.[290] It is mere false wisdom to throw ourselves\nincessantly out of ourselves, to count the present for nothing, ever\nto pursue without ceasing a future which flees in proportion as we\nadvance, to try to transport ourselves from whence we are not, to some\nplace where we shall never be.[291] He is happiest who suffers fewest\npains, and he is most miserable who feels fewest pleasures. Then we\nhave a half stoical strain. The felicity of man here below is only a\nnegative state, to be measured by the more or less of the ills he\nundergoes. It is in the disproportion between desires and faculties\nthat our misery consists. Happiness, therefore, lies not in\ndiminishing our desires, nor any more in extending our faculties, but\nin diminishing the excess of desire over faculty, and in bringing\npower and will into perfect balance.[292] Excepting health, strength,\nrespect for one's self, all the goods of this life reside in opinion;\nexcepting bodily pain and remorse of conscience, all our ills are in\nimagination. Death is no evil; it is only made so by half-knowledge\nand false wisdom. \"Live according to nature, be patient, and drive\naway physicians; you will not avoid death, but you will only feel it\nonce, while they on the other hand would bring it daily before your\ntroubled imagination, and their false art, instead of prolonging your\ndays, only hinders you from enjoying them. Suffer, die, or recover;\nbut above all things live, live up to your last hour.\" It is\nforesight, constantly carrying us out of ourselves, that is the true\nsource of our miseries.[293] O man, confine thy existence within\nthyself, and thou wilt cease to be miserable. Thy liberty, thy power,\nreach exactly as far as thy natural forces, and no further; all the\nrest is slavery and illusion. The only man who has his own will is he\nwho does not need in order to have it the arms of another person at\nthe end of his own.[294]\n\nThe training that follows from this is obvious. The instructor has\ncarefully to distinguish true or natural need from the need which is\nonly fancied, or which only comes from superabundance of life.\nEmilius, who is brought up in the country, has nothing in his room to\ndistinguish it from that of a peasant.[295] If he is taken to a\nluxurious banquet, he is bidden, instead of heedlessly enjoying it, to\nreflect austerely how many hundreds or thousands of hands have been\nemployed in preparing it.[296] His preference for gay colours in his\nclothes is to be consulted, because this is natural and becoming to\nhis age, but the moment he prefers a stuff merely because it is rich,\nbehold a sophisticated creature.[297] The curse of the world is\ninequality, and inequality springs from the multitude of wants, which\ncause us to be so much the more dependent. What makes man essentially\ngood is to have few wants, and to abstain from comparing himself with\nothers; what makes him essentially bad, is to have many wants, and to\ncling much to opinion.[298] Hence, although Emilius happened to have\nboth wealth and good birth, he is not brought up to be a gentleman,\nwith the prejudices and helplessness and selfishness too naturally\nassociated with that abused name.\n\nThis cardinal doctrine of limitation of desire, with its corollary of\nself-sufficience, contains in itself the great maxim that Emilius and\nevery one else must learn some trade. To work is an indispensable duty\nin the social man. Rich or poor, powerful or weak, every idle citizen\nis a knave. And every boy must learn a real trade, a trade with his\nhands. It is not so much a matter of learning a craft for the sake of\nknowing one, as for the sake of conquering the prejudices which\ndespise it. Labour for glory, if you have not to labour from\nnecessity. Lower yourself to the condition of the artisan, so as to be\nabove your own. In order to reign in opinion, begin by reigning over\nit. All things well considered, the trade most to be preferred is\nthat of carpenter; it is clean, useful, and capable of being carried\non in the house; it demands address and diligence in the workman, and\nthough the form of the work is determined by utility, still elegance\nand taste are not excluded.[299] There are few prettier pictures than\nthat where Sophie enters the workshop, and sees in amazement her young\nlover at the other end, in his white shirt-sleeves, his hair loosely\nfastened back, with a chisel in one hand and a mallet in the other,\ntoo intent upon his work to perceive even the approach of his\nmistress.[300]\n\nWhen the revolution came, and princes and nobles wandered in indigent\nexile, the disciples of Rousseau pointed in unkind triumph to the\nadvantage these unfortunate wretches would have had if they had not\nbeen too puffed up with the vanity of feudalism to follow the prudent\nexample of Emilius in learning a craft. That Rousseau should have laid\nso much stress on the vicissitudes of fortune, which might cause even\na king to be grateful one day that he had a trade at the end of his\narms, is sometimes quoted as a proof of his foresight of troublous\ntimes. This, however, goes too far, because, apart from the instances\nof such vicissitudes among the ancients, the King of Syracuse keeping\nschool at Corinth, or Alexander, son of Perseus, becoming a Roman\nscrivener, he actually saw Charles Edward, the Stuart pretender,\nwandering from court to court in search of succour and receiving only\nrebuffs; and he may well have known that after the troubles of 1738 a\nconsiderable number of the oligarchs of his native Geneva had gone\ninto exile, rather than endure the humiliation of their party.[301]\nBesides all this, the propriety of being able to earn one's bread by\nsome kind of toil that would be useful in even the simplest societies,\nflowed necessarily from every part of his doctrine of the aims of life\nand the worth of character. He did, however, say, \"We approach a state\nof crisis and an age of revolutions,\" which proved true, but he added\ntoo much when he pronounced it impossible that the great monarchies of\nEurope could last long.[302] And it is certain that the only one of\nthe great monarchies which did actually fall would have had a far\nbetter chance of surviving if Lewis XVI. had been as expert in the\ntrade of king as he was in that of making locks and bolts.\n\nFrom this semi-stoical ideal there followed certain social notions,\nof which Rousseau had the distinction of being the most powerful\npropagator. As has so often been said, his contemporaries were willing\nto leave social questions alone, provided only the government would\nsuffer the free expression of opinion in literature and science.\nRousseau went deeper. His moral conception of individual life and\ncharacter contained in itself a social conception, and he did not\nshrink from boldly developing it. The rightly constituted man suffices\nfor himself and is free from prejudices. He has arms, and knows how to\nuse them; he has few wants, and knows how to satisfy them. Nurtured in\nthe most absolute freedom, he can think of no worse ill than\nservitude. He attaches himself to the beauty which perishes not,\nlimiting his desires to his condition, learning to lose whatever may\nbe taken away from him, to place himself above events, and to detach\nhis heart from loved objects without a pang.[303] He pities miserable\nkings, who are the bondsmen of all that seems to obey them; he pities\nfalse sages, who are fast bound in the chains of their empty renown;\nhe pities the silly rich, martyrs to their own ostentation.[304] All\nthe sympathies of such a man therefore naturally flow away from these,\nthe great of the earth, to those who lead the stoic's life perforce.\n\"It is the common people who compose the human race; what is not the\npeople is hardly worth taking into account. Man is the same in all\nranks; that being so, the ranks which are most numerous deserve most\nrespect. Before one who reflects, all civil distinctions vanish: he\nmarks the same passions and the same feelings in the clown as in the\nman covered with reputation; he can only distinguish their speech, and\na varnish more or less elaborately laid on. Study people of this\nhumble condition; you will perceive that under another sort of\nlanguage, they have as much intelligence as you, and more good sense.\nRespect your species: reflect that it is essentially made up of the\ncollection of peoples; that if every king and every philosopher were\ncut off from among them, they would scarcely be missed, and the world\nwould go none the worse.\"[305] As it is, the universal spirit of the\nlaw in every country is invariably to favour the strong against the\nweak, and him who has, against him who has not. The many are\nsacrificed to the few. The specious names of justice and subordination\nserve only as instruments for violence and arms for iniquity. The\nostentatious orders who pretend to be useful to the others, are in\ntruth only useful to themselves at the expense of the others.[306]\n\nThis was carrying on the work which had already been begun in the New\nHelo\u00efsa, as we have seen, but in the Emilius it is pushed with a\ngravity and a directness, that could not be imparted to the picture of\na fanciful and arbitrarily chosen situation. The only writer who has\napproached Rousseau, so far as I know, in fulness and depth of\nexpression in proclaiming the sorrows and wrongs of the poor blind\ncrowd, who painfully drag along the car of triumphant civilisation\nwith its handful of occupants, is the author of the Book of the\nPeople. Lamennais even surpasses Rousseau in the profundity of his\npathos; his pictures of the life of hut and hovel are as sincere and\nas touching; and there is in them, instead of the anger and bitterness\nof the older author, righteous as that was, a certain heroism of pity\nand devoted sublimity of complaint, which lift the soul up from\nresentment into divine moods of compassion and resolve, and stir us\nlike a tale of noble action.[307] It was Rousseau, however, who first\nsounded the note of which the religion that had once been the champion\nand consoler of the common people, seemed long to have lost even the\ntradition. Yet the teaching was not constructive, because the ideal\nman was not made truly social. Emilius is brought up in something of\nthe isolation of the imaginary savage of the state of nature. He\nmarries, and then he and his wife seem only fitted to lead a life of\ndetachment from the interests of the world in which they are placed.\nSocial or political education, that is the training which character\nreceives from the medium in which it grows, is left out of account,\nand so is the correlative process of preparation for the various\nconditions and exigencies which belong to that medium, until it is too\nlate to take its natural place in character. Nothing can be clumsier\nthan the way in which Rousseau proposes to teach Emilius the existence\nand nature of his relations with his fellows. And the reason of this\nwas that he had never himself in the course of his ruminations,\nwillingly thought of Emilius as being in a condition of active social\nrelation, the citizen of a state.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThere appear to be three dominant states of mind, with groups of\nfaculties associated with each of them, which it is the business of\nthe instructor firmly to establish in the character of the future man.\nThe first is a resolute and unflinching respect for Truth; for the\nconclusions, that is to say, of the scientific reason, comprehending\nalso a constant anxiety to take all possible pains that such\nconclusions shall be rightly drawn. Connected with this is the\ndiscipline of the whole range of intellectual faculties, from the\nsimple habit of correct observation, down to the highly complex habit\nof weighing and testing the value of evidence. This very important\nbranch of early discipline, Rousseau for reasons of his own which we\nhave already often referred to, cared little about, and he throws very\nlittle light upon it, beyond one or two extremely sensible precepts of\nthe negative kind, warning us against beginning too soon and forcing\nan apparent progress too rapidly. The second fundamental state in a\nrightly formed character is a deep feeling for things of the spirit\nwhich are unknown and incommensurable; a sense of awe, mystery,\nsublimity, and the fateful bounds of life at its beginning and its\nend. Here is the Religious side, and what Rousseau has to say of this\nwe shall presently see. It is enough now to remark that Emilius was\nnever to hear the name of a God or supreme being until his reason was\nfairly ripened. The third state, which is at least as difficult to\nbring to healthy perfection as either of the other two, is a passion\nfor Justice.\n\nThe little use which Rousseau made of this momentous and\nmuch-embracing word, which names the highest peak of social virtue, is\na very striking circumstance. The reason would seem to be that his\nsense of the relations of men with one another was not virile enough\nto comprehend the deep austerer lines which mark the brow of the\nbenignant divinity of Justice. In the one place in his writings where\nhe speaks of justice freely, he shows a narrowness of idea, which was\nperhaps as much due to intellectual confusion as to lack of moral\nrobustness. He says excellently that \"love of the human race is\nnothing else in us but love of justice,\" and that \"of all the virtues,\njustice is that which contributes most to the common good of men.\"\nWhile enjoining the discipline of pity as one of the noblest of\nsentiments, he warns us against letting it degenerate into weakness,\nand insists that we should only surrender ourselves to it when it\naccords with justice.[308] But that is all. What constitutes justice,\nwhat is its standard, what its source, what its sanction, whence the\nextraordinary holiness with which its name has come to be invested\namong the most highly civilised societies of men, we are never told,\nnor do we ever see that our teacher had seen the possibility of such\nquestions being asked. If they had been propounded to him, he would,\nit is most likely, have fallen back upon the convenient mystery of the\nnatural law. This was the current phrase of that time, and it was\nmeant to embody a hypothetical experience of perfect human relations\nin an expression of the widest generality. If so, this would have to\nbe impressed upon the mind of Emilius in the same way as other\nmysteries. As a matter of fact, Emilius was led through pity up to\nhumanity, or sociality in an imperfect signification, and there he was\nleft without a further guide to define the marks of truly social\nconduct.\n\nThis imperfection was a necessity, inseparable from Rousseau's\ntenacity in keeping society in the background of the picture of life\nwhich he opened to his pupil. He said, indeed, \"We must study society\nby men, and men by society; those who would treat politics and\nmorality apart will never understand anything about either one or the\nother.\"[309] This is profoundly true, but we hardly see in the\nmorality which is designed for Emilius the traces of political\nelements. Yet without some gradually unfolded presentation of society\nas a whole, it is scarcely possible to implant the idea of justice\nwith any hope of large fertility. You may begin at a very early time\nto develop, even from the primitive quality of self-love, a notion of\nequity and a respect for it, but the vast conception of social justice\ncan only find room in a character that has been made spacious by\nhabitual contemplation of the height and breadth and close\ncompactedness of the fabric of the relations that bind man to man, and\nof the share, integral or infinitesimally fractional, that each has in\nthe happiness or woe of other souls. And this contemplation should\nbegin when we prepare the foundation of all the other maturer habits.\nYouth can hardly recognise too soon the enormous unresting machine\nwhich bears us ceaselessly along, because we can hardly learn too soon\nthat its force and direction depend on the play of human motives, of\nwhich our own for good or evil form an inevitable part when the ripe\nyears come. To one reared with the narrow care devoted to Emilius, or\nwith the capricious negligence in which the majority are left to grow\nto manhood, the society into which they are thrown is a mere moral\nwilderness. They are to make such way through it as they can, with\negotism for their only trusty instrument. This egotism may either be a\nbludgeon, as with the most part, or it may be a delicately adjusted\nand fastidiously decorated compass, as with an Emilius. In either case\nis no perception that the gross outer contact of men with another is\ntransformed by worthiness of common aim and loyal faith in common\nexcellences, into a thing beautiful and generous. It is our business\nto fix and root the habit of thinking of that _moral_ union, into\nwhich, as Kant has so admirably expressed it, the _pathological_\nnecessities of situation that first compelled social concert, have\nbeen gradually transmuted. Instead of this, it is exactly the\nprimitive pathological conditions that a narrow theory of education\nbrings first into prominence; as if knowledge of origins were\nindispensable to a right attachment to the transformed conditions of a\nmaturer system.\n\nIt has been said that Rousseau founds all morality upon personal\ninterest, perhaps even more specially than Helv\u00e9tius himself. The\naccusation is just. Emilius will enter adult life without the germs of\nthat social conscience, which animates a man with all the associations\nof duty and right, of gratitude for the past and resolute hope for the\nfuture, in face of the great body of which he finds himself a part. \"I\nobserve,\" says Rousseau, \"that in the modern ages men have no hold\nupon one another save through force and interest, while the ancients\non the other hand acted much more by persuasion and the affections of\nthe soul.\"[310] The reason was that with the ancients, supposing him\nto mean the Greeks and Romans, the social conscience was so much wider\nin its scope than the comparatively narrow fragment of duty which is\nsupposed to come under the sacred power of conscience in the more\ncomplex and less closely contained organisation of a modern state. The\nneighbours to whom a man owed duty in those times comprehended all the\nmembers of his state. The neighbours of the modern preacher of duty\nare either the few persons with whom each of us is brought into actual\nand palpable contact, or else the whole multitude of dwellers on the\nearth,--a conception that for many ages to come will remain with the\nmajority of men and women too vague to exert an energetic and\nconcentrating influence upon action, and will lead them no further\nthan an uncoloured and nerveless cosmopolitanism.\n\nWhat the young need to have taught to them in this too little\ncultivated region, is that they are born not mere atoms floating\nindependent and apart for a season through a terraqueous medium, and\nsucking up as much more than their share of nourishment as they can\nseize; nor citizens of the world with no more definite duty than to\nkeep their feelings towards all their fellows in a steady simmer of\nbland complacency; but soldiers in a host, citizens of a polity whose\nboundaries are not set down in maps, members of a church the\nhandwriting of whose ordinances is not in the hieroglyphs of idle\nmystery, nor its hope and recompense in the lands beyond death. They\nneed to be taught that they owe a share of their energies to the great\nstruggle which is in ceaseless progress in all societies in an endless\nvariety of forms, between new truth and old prejudice, between love of\nself or class and solicitous passion for justice, between the\nobstructive indolence and inertia of the many and the generous mental\nactivity of the few. This is the sphere and definition of the social\nconscience. The good causes of enlightenment and justice in all\nlands,--here is the church militant in which we should early seek to\nenrol the young, and the true state to which they should be taught\nthat they owe the duties of active and arduous citizenship. These are\nthe struggles with which the modern instructor should associate those\nvirtues of fortitude, tenacity, silent patience, outspoken energy,\nreadiness to assert ourselves and readiness to efface ourselves,\nwillingness to suffer and resolution to inflict suffering, which men\nof old knew how to show for their gods or their sovereign. But the\nideal of Emilius was an ideal of quietism; to possess his own soul in\npatience, with a suppressed intelligence, a suppressed sociality,\nwithout a single spark of generous emulation in the courses of\nstrong-fibred virtue, or a single thrill of heroical pursuit after so\nmuch as one great forlorn cause.\n\n\"If it once comes to him, in reading these parallels of the famous\nancients, to desire to be another rather than himself, were this other\nSocrates, were he Cato, you have missed the mark; he who begins to\nmake himself a stranger to himself, is not long before he forgets\nhimself altogether.\"[311] But if a man only nurses the conception of\nhis own personality, for the sake of keeping his own peace and\nself-contained comfort at a glow of easy warmth, assuredly the best\nthing that can befall him is that he should perish, lest his example\nshould infect others with the same base contagion. Excessive\npersonality when militant is often wholesome, excessive personality\nthat only hugs itself is under all circumstances chief among unclean\nthings. Thus even Rousseau's finest monument of moral enthusiasm is\nfatally tarnished by the cold damp breath of isolation, and the very\nbook which contained so many elements of new life for a state, was at\nbottom the apotheosis of social despair.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe great agent in fostering the rise to vigour and uprightness of a\nsocial conscience, apart from the yet more powerful instrument of a\nstrong and energetic public spirit at work around the growing\ncharacter, must be found in the study of history rightly directed with\na view to this end. It is here, in observing the long processes of\ntime and appreciating the slowly accumulating sum of endeavour, that\nthe mind gradually comes to read the great lessons how close is the\nbond that links men together. It is here that he gradually begins to\nacquire the habit of considering what are the conditions of wise\nsocial activity, its limits, its objects, its rewards, what is the\ncapacity of collective achievement, and of what sort is the\nsignificance and purport of the little span of time that cuts off the\nyesterday of our society from its to-morrow.\n\nRousseau had very rightly forbidden the teaching of history to young\nchildren, on the ground that the essence of history lies in the moral\nrelations between the bare facts which it recounts, and that the terms\nand ideas of these relations are wholly beyond the intellectual grasp\nof the very young.[312] He might have based his objections equally\nwell upon the impossibility of little children knowing the meaning of\nthe multitude of descriptive terms which make up a historical manual,\nor realising the relations between events in bare point of time,\nalthough childhood may perhaps be a convenient period for some\nmechanical acquisition of dates. According to Rousseau, history was to\nappear very late in the educational course, when the youth was almost\nready to enter the world. It was to be the finishing study, from which\nhe should learn not sociality either in its scientific or its higher\nmoral sense, but the composition of the heart of man, in a safer way\nthan through actual intercourse with society. Society might make him\neither cynical or frivolous. History would bring him the same\ninformation, without subjecting him to the same perils. In society you\nonly hear the words of men; to know man you must observe his actions,\nand actions are only unveiled in history.[313] This view is hardly\nworth discussing. The subject of history is not the heart of man, but\nthe movements of societies. Moreover, the oracles of history are\nentirely dumb to one who seeks from them maxims for the shaping of\ndaily conduct, or living instruction as to the motives, aims,\ncaprices, capacities of self-restraint, self-sacrifice, of those with\nwhom the occasions of life bring us into contact.\n\nIt is true that at the close of the other part of his education,\nEmilius was to travel and there find the comment upon the completed\ncircle of his studies.[314] But excellent as travel is for some of the\nbest of those who have the opportunity, still for many it is\nvalueless for lack of the faculty of curiosity. For the great\nmajority it is impossible for lack of opportunity. To trust so much as\nRousseau did to the effect of travelling, is to leave a large chasm in\neducation unbridged.\n\nIt is interesting, however, to notice some of Rousseau's notions about\nhistory as an instrument for conveying moral instruction, a few of\nthem are so good, others are so characteristically narrow. \"The worst\nhistorians for a young man,\" he says, \"are those who judge. The facts,\nthe facts; then let him judge for himself. If the author's judgment is\nfor ever guiding him, he is only seeing with the eye of another, and\nas soon as this eye fails him, he sees nothing.\" Modern history is not\nfit for instruction, not only because it has no physiognomy, all our\nmen being exactly like one another, but because our historians, intent\non brilliance above all other things, think of nothing so much as\npainting highly coloured portraits, which for the most part represent\nnothing at all.[315] Of course such a judgment as this implies an\nignorance alike of the ends and meaning of history, which, considering\nthat he was living in the midst of a singular revival of historical\nstudy, is not easy to pardon. If we are to look only to perfection of\nform and arrangement, it may have been right for one living in the\nmiddle of the last century to place the ancients in the first rank\nwithout competitors. But the author of the Discourse upon literature\nand the arts might have been expected to look beyond composition, and\nthe contemporary of Voltaire's _Essai sur les Moeurs_ (1754-1757)\nmight have been expected to know that the profitable experience of the\nhuman race did not close with the fall of the Roman republic. Among\nthe ancient historians, he counted Thucydides to be the true model,\nbecause he reports facts without judging, and omits none of the\ncircumstances proper for enabling us to judge of them for\nourselves--though how Rousseau knew what facts Thucydides has omitted,\nI am unable to divine. Then come C\u00e6sar's Commentaries and Xenophon's\nRetreat of the Ten Thousand. The good Herodotus, without portraits and\nwithout maxims, but abounding in details the most capable of\ninteresting and pleasing, would perhaps be the best of historians, if\nonly these details did not so often degenerate into puerilities. Livy\nis unsuited to youth, because he is political and a rhetorician.\nTacitus is the book of the old; you must have learnt the art of\nreading facts, before you can be trusted with maxims.\n\nThe drawback of histories such as those of Thucydides and C\u00e6sar,\nRousseau admits to be that they dwell almost entirely on war, leaving\nout the true life of nations, which belongs to the unwritten\nchronicles of peace. This leads him to the equally just reflection\nthat historians while recounting facts omit the gradual and\nprogressive causes which led to them. \"They often find in a battle\nlost or won the reason of a revolution, which even before the battle\nwas already inevitable. War scarcely does more than bring into full\nlight events determined by moral causes, which historians can seldom\npenetrate.\"[316] A third complaint against the study which he began by\nrecommending as a proper introduction to the knowledge of man, is that\nit does not present men but actions, or at least men only in their\nparade costume and in certain chosen moments, and he justly reproaches\nwriters alike of history and biography, for omitting those trifling\nstrokes and homely anecdotes, which reveal the true physiognomy of\ncharacter. \"Remain then for ever, without bowels, without nature;\nharden your hearts of cast iron in your trumpery decency, and make\nyourselves despicable by force of dignity.\"[317] And so after all, by\na common stroke of impetuous inconsistency, he forsakes history, and\nfalls back upon the ancient biographies, because, all the low and\nfamiliar details being banished from modern style, however true and\ncharacteristic, men are as elaborately tricked out by our authors in\ntheir private lives as they were tricked out upon the stage of the\nworld.\n\n\nV.\n\nAs women are from the constitution of things the educators of us all\nat the most critical periods, and mainly of their own sex from the\nbeginning to the end of education, the writer of the most imperfect\ntreatise on this world-interesting subject can hardly avoid saying\nsomething on the upbringing of women. Such a writer may start from\none of three points of view; he may consider the woman as destined to\nbe a wife, or a mother, or a human being; as the companion of a man,\nas the rearer of the young, or as an independent personality, endowed\nwith gifts, talents, possibilities, in less or greater number, and\ncapable, as in the case of men, of being trained to the worst or the\nbest uses. Of course to every one who looks into life, each of these\nthree ideals melts into the other two, and we can only think of them\neffectively when they are blended. Yet we test a writer's appreciation\nof the conditions of human progress by observing the function which he\nmakes most prominent. A man's whole thought of the worth and aim of\nwomanhood depends upon the generosity and elevation of the ideal which\nis silently present in his mind, while he is specially meditating the\nrelations of woman as wife or as mother. Unless he is really capable\nof thinking of them as human beings, independently of these two\nfunctions, he is sure to have comparatively mean notions in connection\nwith them in respect of the functions which he makes paramount.\n\nRousseau breaks down here. The unsparing fashion in which he developed\nthe theory of individualism in the case of Emilius, and insisted on\nman being allowed to grow into the man of nature, instead of the man\nof art and manufacture, might have led us to expect that when he came\nto speak of women, he would suffer equity and logic to have their way,\nby giving equally free room in the two halves of the human race, for\nthe development of natural force and capacity. If, as he begins by\nsaying, he wishes to bring up Emilius, not to be a merchant nor a\nphysician nor a soldier nor to the practice of any other special\ncalling, but to be first and above all a man, why should not Sophie\ntoo be brought up above all to be a human being, in whom the special\nqualifications of wifehood and motherhood may be developed in their\ndue order? Emilius is a man first, a husband and a father afterwards\nand secondarily. How can Sophie be a companion for him, and an\ninstructor for their children, unless she likewise has been left in\nthe hands of nature, and had the same chances permitted to her as were\ngiven to her predestined mate? Again, the pictures of the New Helo\u00efsa\nwould have led us to conceive the ideal of womanly station not so much\nin the wife, as in the house-mother, attached by esteem and sober\naffection to her husband, but having for her chief functions to be the\ngentle guardian of her little ones, and the mild, firm, and prudent\nadministrator of a cheerful and well-ordered household. In the last\nbook of the Emilius, which treats of the education of girls, education\nis reduced within the compass of an even narrower ideal than this. We\nare confronted with the oriental conception of women. Every principle\nthat has been followed in the education of Emilius is reversed in the\neducation of women. Opinion, which is the tomb of virtue among men, is\namong women its high throne. The whole education of women ought to be\nrelative to men; to please them, to be useful to them, to make\nthemselves loved and honoured by them, to console them, to render\ntheir lives agreeable and sweet to them,--these are the duties which\nought to be taught to women from their childhood. Every girl ought to\nhave the religion of her mother, and every wife that of her husband.\nNot being in a condition to judge for themselves, they ought to\nreceive the decision of fathers and husbands as if it were that of the\nchurch. And since authority is the rule of faith for women, it is not\nso much a matter of explaining to them the reasons for belief, as for\nexpounding clearly to them what to believe. Although boys are not to\nhear of the idea of God until they are fifteen, because they are not\nin a condition to apprehend it, yet girls who are still less in a\ncondition to apprehend it, are _therefore_ to have it imparted to them\nat an earlier age. Woman is created to give way to man, and to suffer\nhis injustice. Her empire is an empire of gentleness, mildness, and\ncomplaisance. Her orders are caresses, and her threats are tears.\nGirls must not only be made laborious and vigilant; they must also\nvery early be accustomed to being thwarted and kept in restraint. This\nmisfortune, if they feel it one, is inseparable from their sex, and if\never they attempt to escape from it, they will only suffer misfortunes\nstill more cruel in consequence.[318]\n\nAfter a series of oriental and obscurantist propositions of this kind,\nit is of little purpose to tell us that women have more intelligence\nand men more genius; that women observe, while men reason; that men\nwill philosophise better upon the human heart, while women will be\nmore skilful in reading it.[319] And it is a mere mockery to end the\nmatter by a fervid assurance, that in spite of prejudices that have\ntheir origin in the manners of the time, the enthusiasm for what is\nworthy and noble is no more foreign to women than it is to men, and\nthat there is nothing which under the guidance of nature may not be\nobtained from them as well as from ourselves.[320] Finally there is a\ncomplete surrender of the obscurantist position in such a sentence as\nthis: \"I only know for either sex two really distinct classes; one the\npeople who think, the other the people who do not think, and this\ndifference comes almost entirely from education. A man of the first of\nthese classes ought not to marry into the other; for the greatest\ncharm of companionship is wanting, when in spite of having a wife he\nis reduced to think by himself. It is only a cultivated spirit that\nprovides agreeable commerce, and 'tis a cheerless thing for a father\nof a family who loves his home, to be obliged to shut himself up\nwithin himself, and to have no one about him who understands him.\nBesides, how is a woman who has no habits of reflection to bring up\nher children?\"[321] Nothing could be more excellently urged. But how\nis a woman to have habits of reflection, when she has been constantly\nbrought up in habits of the closest mental bondage, trained always to\nconsider her first business to be the pleasing of some man, and her\ninstruments not reasonable persuasion but caressing and crying?\n\nThis pernicious nonsense was mainly due, like nearly all his most\nserious errors, to Rousseau's want of a conception of improvement in\nhuman affairs. If he had been filled with that conception as Turgot,\nCondorcet, and others were, he would have been forced as they were, to\nmeditate upon changes in the education and the recognition accorded to\nwomen, as one of the first conditions of improvement. For lack of\nthis, he contributed nothing to the most important branch of the\nsubject that he had undertaken to treat. He was always taunting the\nchampions of reigning systems of training for boys, with the vicious\nor feeble men whom he thought he saw on every hand around him. The\nsame kind of answer obviously meets the current idea, which he adopted\nwith a few idyllic decorations of his own, of the type of the\nrelations between men and women. That type practically reduces\nmarriage in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred to a dolorous\nparody of a social partnership. It does more than any one other cause\nto keep societies back, because it prevents one half of the members of\na society from cultivating all their natural energies. Thus it\nproduces a waste of helpful quality as immeasurable as it is\ndeplorable, and besides rearing these creatures of mutilated faculty\nto be the intellectually demoralising companions of the remaining half\nof their own generation, makes them the mothers and the earliest and\nmost influential instructors of the whole of the generation that comes\nafter.[322] Of course, if any one believes that the existing\narrangements of a western community are the most successful that we\ncan ever hope to bring into operation, we need not complain of\nRousseau. If not, then it is only reasonable to suppose that a\nconsiderable portion of the change will be effected in the hitherto\nneglected and subordinate half of the race. That reconstitution of the\nfamily, which Rousseau and others among his contemporaries rightly\nsought after as one of the most pressing needs of the time, was\nessentially impossible, so long as the typical woman was the adornment\nof a semi-philosophic seraglio, a sort of compromise between the\nfrowzy ideal of an English bourgeois and the impertinent ideal of a\nParisian gallant. Condorcet and others made a grievous mistake in\ndefending the free gratification of sensual passion, as one of the\nconditions of happiness and making the most of our lives.[323] But\neven this was not at bottom more fatal to the maintenance and order of\nthe family, than Rousseau's enervating notion of keeping women in\nstrict intellectual and moral subjection was fatal to the family as\nthe true school of high and equal companionship, and the fruitful\nseed-ground of wise activities and new hopes for each fresh\ngeneration.\n\nThis was one side of Rousseau's reactionary tendencies. Fortunately\nfor the revolution of thirty years later, which illustrated the\ngallery of heroic women with some of its most splendid names, his\npower was in this respect neutralised by other stronger tendencies in\nthe general spirit of the age. The aristocracy of sex was subjected to\nthe same destructive criticism as the aristocracy of birth. The same\nfeeling for justice which inspired the demand for freedom and equality\nof opportunity among men, led to the demand for the same freedom and\nequality of opportunity between men and women. All this was part of\nthe energy of the time, which Rousseau disliked with undisguised\nbitterness. It broke inconveniently in upon his quietest visions. He\nhad no conception, with his sensuous brooding imagination, never\nwholly purged of grossness, of that high and pure type of women whom\nFrench history so often produced in the seventeenth century, and who\nwere not wanting towards the close of the eighteenth, a type in which\ndevotion went with force, and austerity with sweetness, and divine\ncandour and transparent innocence with energetic loyalty and\nintellectual uprightness and a firmly set will. Such thoughts were not\nfor Rousseau, a dreamer led by his senses. Perhaps they are for none\nof us any more. When we turn to modern literature from the pages in\nwhich F\u00e9nelon speaks of the education of girls, who does not feel that\nthe world has lost a sacred accent, as if some ineffable essence has\npassed out from our hearts?\n\nThe fifth book of Emilius is not a chapter on the education of women,\nbut an idyll. We have already seen the circumstances under which\nRousseau composed it, in a profound and delicious solitude, in the\nmidst of woods and streams, with the fragrance of the orange-flower\npoured around him, and in continual ecstasy. As an idyll it is\ndelicious; as a serious contribution to the hardest of problems it is\nnaught. The sequel, by a stroke of matchless whimsicality, unless it\nbe meant, as it perhaps may have been, for a piece of deep tragic\nirony, is the best refutation that Rousseau's most energetic adversary\ncould have desired. The Sophie who has been educated on the oriental\nprinciple, has presently to confess a flagrant infidelity to the\nblameless Emilius, her lord.[324]\n\n\nVI.\n\nYet the sum of the merits of Emilius as a writing upon education is\nnot to be lightly counted. Its value lies, as has been said of the New\nHelo\u00efsa, in the spirit which animates it and communicates itself with\nvivid force to the reader. It is one of the seminal books in the\nhistory of literature, and of such books the worth resides less in the\nparts than in the whole. It touched the deeper things of character. It\nfilled parents with a sense of the dignity and moment of their task.\nIt cleared away the accumulation of clogging prejudices and obscure\ninveterate usage, which made education one of the dark formalistic\narts. It admitted floods of light and air into the tightly closed\nnurseries and schoolrooms. It effected the substitution of growth for\nmechanism. A strong current of manliness, wholesomeness, simplicity,\nself-reliance, was sent by it through Europe, while its eloquence was\nthe most powerful adjuration ever addressed to parental affection to\ncherish the young life in all love and considerate solicitude. It was\nthe charter of youthful deliverance. The first immediate effect of\nEmilius in France was mainly on the religious side. It was the\nChristian religion that needed to be avenged, rather than education\nthat needed to be amended, and the press overflowed with replies to\nthat profession of faith which we shall consider in the next chapter.\nStill there was also an immense quantity of educational books and\npamphlets, which is to be set down, first to the suppression of the\nJesuits, the great educating order, and the vacancy which they left;\nand next to the impulse given by the Emilius to a movement from which\nthe book itself had originally been an outcome.[325] But why try to\nstate the influence of Emilius on France in this way? To strike the\naccount truly would be to write the history of the first French\nRevolution.[326] All mothers, as Michelet says, were big with\nEmilius. \"It is not without good reason that people have noted the\nchildren born at this glorious moment, as animated by a superior\nspirit, by a gift of flame and genius. It is the generation of\nrevolutionary Titans: the other generation not less hardy in science.\nIt is Danton, Vergniaud, Desmoulins; it is Amp\u00e8re, La Place, Cuvier,\nGeoffroy Saint Hilaire.\"[327]\n\nIn Germany Emilius had great power. There it fell in with the\nextraordinary movement towards naturalness and freedom of which we\nhave already spoken.[328] Herder, whom some have called the Rousseau\nof the Germans, wrote with enthusiasm to his then beloved Caroline of\nthe \"divine Emilius,\" and he never ceased to speak of Rousseau as his\ninspirer and his master.[329] Basedow (1723), that strange, restless,\nand most ill-regulated person, was seized with an almost phrenetic\nenthusiasm for Rousseau's educational theories, translated them into\nGerman, and repeated them in his works over and over again with an\nincessant iteration. Lavater (1741-1801), who differed from Basedow in\nbeing a fervent Christian of soft mystic faith, was thrown into\ncompany with him in 1774, and grew equally eager with him in the cause\nof reforming education in the Rousseauite sense.[330] Pestalozzi\n(1746-1827), the most systematic, popular, and permanently successful\nof all the educational reformers, borrowed his spirit and his\nprinciples mainly from the Emilius, though he gave larger extension\nand more intelligent exactitude to their application. Jean Paul the\nUnique, in the preface to his Levana, or Doctrine of Education (1806),\none of the most excellent of all books on the subject, declares that\namong previous works to which he owes a debt, \"first and last he names\nRousseau's Emilius; no preceding work can be compared to his; in no\nprevious work on education was the ideal so richly combined with the\nactual,\" and so forth.[331] It was not merely a Goethe, a Schiller, a\nHerder, whom Rousseau fired with new thoughts. The smaller men, such\nas Fr. Jacobi, Heinse, Klinger, shared the same inspiration. The\nworship of Rousseau penetrated all classes, and touched every degree\nof intelligence.[332]\n\nIn our own country Emilius was translated as soon as it appeared, and\nmust have been widely read, for a second version of the translation\nwas called for in a very short time. So far as a cursory survey gives\none a right to speak, its influence here in the field of education is\nnot very perceptible. That subject did not yet, nor for some time to\ncome, excite much active thought in England. Rousseau's speculations\non society both in the Emilius and elsewhere seem to have attracted\nmore attention. Reference has already been made to Paley.[333] Adam\nFerguson's celebrated Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) has\nmany allusions, direct and indirect, to Rousseau.[334] Kames's\nSketches of the History of Man (1774) abounds still more copiously in\nreferences to Emilius, sometimes to controvert its author, more often\nto cite him as an authority worthy of respect, and Rousseau's crude\nnotions about women are cited with special acceptance.[335] Cowper was\nprobably thinking of the Savoyard Vicar when he wrote the energetic\nlines in the Task, beginning \"Haste now, philosopher, and set him\nfree,\" scornfully defying the deist to rescue apostate man.[336] Nor\nshould we omit what was counted so important a book in its day as\nGodwin's Enquiry concerning Political Justice (1793). It is perhaps\nmore French in its spirit than any other work of equal consequence in\nour literature of politics, and in its composition the author was\navowedly a student of Rousseau, as well as of the members of the\nmaterialistic school.\n\nIn fine we may add that Emilius was the first expression of that\ndemocratic tendency in education, which political and other\ncircumstances gradually made general alike in England, France, and\nGermany; a tendency, that is, to look on education as a process\nconcerning others besides the rich and the well-born. As has often\nbeen remarked, Ascham, Milton, Locke, F\u00e9nelon, busy themselves about\nthe instruction of young gentlemen and gentlewomen. The rest of the\nworld are supposed to be sufficiently provided for by the education of\ncircumstance. Since the middle of the eighteenth century this\nmonopolising conception has vanished, along with and through the same\ngeneral agencies as the corresponding conception of social monopoly.\nRousseau enforced the production of a natural and self-sufficing man\nas the object of education, and showed, or did his best to show, the\ninfinite capacity of the young for that simple and natural\ncultivation. This easily and directly led people to reflect that such\na capacity was not confined to the children of the rich, nor the hope\nof producing a natural and sufficing man narrowed to those who had\nevery external motive placed around them for being neither natural nor\nself-sufficing.\n\nVoltaire pronounced Emilius a stupid romance, but admitted that it\ncontained fifty pages which he would have bound in morocco. These, we\nmay be sure, concerned religion; in truth it was the Savoyard Vicar's\nprofession of faith which stirred France far more than the upbringing\nof the natural man in things temporal. Let us pass to that eloquent\ndocument which is inserted in the middle of the Emilius, as the\nexpression of the religious opinion that best befits the man of\nnature--a document most hyperbolically counted by some French\nenthusiasts for the spiritualist philosophy and the religion of\nsentiment, as the noblest monument of the eighteenth century.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[273] _M\u00e9m. de Mdme. d'Epinay_, ii. 276, 278.\n\n[274] _Lettres \u00e0 mon Fils_ (1758), and _Les Conversations d'Emilie_\n(1783).\n\n[275] _Lettres P\u00e9ruviennes._\n\n[276] _Oeuv._, ii. 785-794.\n\n[277] _Corr. Lit._, iii. 65.\n\n[278] _Emile_, I. 27.\n\n[279] It is interesting to recall a similar movement in the Roman\nsociety of the second century of our era. See the advice of Favorinus\nto mothers, in Aulus Gellius, xii. 1. M. Boissier, contrasting the\nsolicitude of Tacitus and Marcus Aurelius for the infant young with\nthe brutality of Cicero, remarks that in the time of Seneca men\ndiscussed in the schools the educational theories of Rousseau's\nEmilius. (_La Relig. Romaine_, ii. 202.)\n\n[280] See also his diatribe against whalebone and tight-lacing for\ngirls, V. 27.\n\n[281] _Emile_, I. 93, etc.\n\n[282] _Emile_, II. 141.\n\n[283] _Emile_, II. 156-160.\n\n[284] _Emile_, III. 338-345.\n\n[285] III. 358, etc.\n\n[286] _Emile_, II. 263-267.\n\n[287] _Levana_, ch. iii. \u00a7 54.\n\n[288] _Emile_, II. 163.\n\n[289] The Ninth Promenade (_R\u00eaveries_, 309).\n\n[290] _Emile_, I. 23.\n\n[291] II. 109.\n\n[292] II. 111.\n\n[293] _Emile_, II. 113-117.\n\n[294] II. 121.\n\n[295] II. 143.\n\n[296] _Emile_, III. 382.\n\n[297] II. 227.\n\n[298] IV. 10.\n\n[299] _Emile_, III. 394.\n\n[300] V. 199.\n\n[301] The reader will not forget the famous supper-party of princes in\n_Candide_.\n\n[302] _Emile_, III. 392, and note. A still more remarkable passage, as\nfar as it goes, is that in the _Confessions_ (xi. 136):--\"The\ndisasters of an unsuccessful war, all of which came from the fault of\nthe government, the incredible disorder of the finances, the continual\ndissensions of the administration, divided as it was among two or\nthree ministers at open war with one another, and who for the sake of\nhurting one another dragged the kingdom into ruin; the general\ndiscontent of the people, and of all the orders of the state; the\nobstinacy of a wrong-headed woman, who, always sacrificing her better\njudgment, if indeed she had any, to her tastes, dismissed the most\ncapable from office, to make room for her favourites ... all this\nprospect of a coming break-up made me think of seeking shelter\nelsewhere.\"\n\n[303] _Emile_, V. 220.\n\n[304] IV. 85.\n\n[305] _Emile_, IV. 38, 39. Hence, we suppose, the famous reply to\nLavoisier's request that his life might be spared from the guillotine\nfor a fortnight, in order that he might complete some experiments,\nthat the Republic has no need of chemists.\n\n[306] IV. 65. Jefferson, who was American minister in France from 1784\nto 1789, and absorbed a great many of the ideas then afloat, writes in\nwords that seem as if they were borrowed from Rousseau:--\"I am\nconvinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without\ngovernment, enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree\nof happiness than those who live under European governments. Among the\nformer public opinion is in the state of law, and restrains morals as\npowerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence\nof governing, they have divided their nation into two classes, wolves\nand sheep. I do not exaggerate; this is a true picture of Europe.\"\nTucker's _Life of Jefferson_, i. 255.\n\n[307] Lamennais was influenced by Rousseau throughout. In the _Essay\non Indifference_ he often appeals to him as the vindicator of the\nreligious sentiment (_e.g._ i. 21, 52, iv. 375, etc. Ed. 1837). The\nsame influence is seen still more markedly in the _Words of a\nBeliever_ (1835), when dogma had departed, and he was left with a kind\nof dual deism, thus being less estranged from Rousseau than in the\nfirst days (_e.g._ \u00a7 xix. \"Tous naissent \u00e9gaux,\" etc., \u00a7 xxi., etc.)\nThe _Book of the People_ is thoroughly Rousseauite.\n\n[308] _Emile_, IV. 105.\n\n[309] _Emile_, IV. 63.\n\n[310] _Emile_, IV. 273.\n\n[311] _Emile_, IV. 83.\n\n[312] _Emile_, II. 185. See the previous page for some equally prudent\nobservations on the folly of teaching geography to little children.\n\n[313] _Emile_, IV. 68.\n\n[314] V. 231, etc.\n\n[315] _Emile_, IV. 71.\n\n[316] _Emile_, IV. 73.\n\n[317] IV. 77.\n\n[318] _Emile_, V. 22, 53, 54, 101, 128-132.\n\n[319] _Emile_, V. 78.\n\n[320] V. 122.\n\n[321] V. 129, 130.\n\n[322] Well did Jean Paul say, \"If we regard all life as an educational\ninstitution, a circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all\nthe nations he has seen than by his nurse.\"--_Levana._\n\n[323] _Tableau des Progr\u00e8s de l'Esprit Humain._ _Oeuv._, vi. pp. 264,\n523-526, and elsewhere. [Ed. 1847-1849.]\n\n[324] _Emile et Sophie_, i.\n\n[325] For an account of some of these, see Grimm's _Corr. Lit._, iii.\n211, 252, 347, etc. Also _Corr. In\u00e9d._, p. 143.\n\n[326] For the early date at which Rousseau's power began to meet\nrecognition, see D'Alembert to Voltaire, July 31, 1762.\n\n[327] _Louis xv. et xvi._, p. 226.\n\n[328] See above, vol. ii. p. 193.\n\n[329] Hettner, III. iii., 2, p. 27, _s.v._ Herder.\n\n[330] The suggestion of the speculation with which Lavater's name is\nmost commonly associated, is to be found in the Emilius. \"It is\nsupposed that physiognomy is only a development of features already\nmarked by nature. For my part, I should think that besides this\ndevelopment, the features of a man's countenance form themselves\ninsensibly and take their expression from the frequent and habitual\nwearing into them of certain affections of the soul. These affections\nmark themselves in the countenance, nothing is more certain; and when\nthey grow into habits, they must leave durable impressions upon it.\"\nIV. 49, 50.\n\n[331] Author's Preface, x.\n\n[332] See an excellent page in M. Joret's _Herder_, 322.\n\n[333] See above, vol. ii. p. 191.\n\n[334] _E.g._ pp. 8, 198, 204, 205.\n\n[335] _E.g._ Bk. I. \u00a7 5, p. 279. \u00a7 6, p. 406, 419, etc. (the portion\nconcerning the female sex).\n\n[336] Vv. 670-703. We have already seen (above, vol. ii. p. 41, _n._)\nthat Cowper had read Emilius, and the mocking reference to the Deist\nas \"an Orpheus and omnipotent in song,\" coincides with Rousseau's\ncomparison of the Savoyard Vicar to \"the divine Orpheus singing the\nfirst hymn\" (_Emile_, IV. 205).\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE SAVOYARD VICAR.\n\n\nThe band of dogmatic atheists who met round D'Holbach's\ndinner-table indulged a shallow and futile hope, if it was not an\nungenerous one, when they expected the immediate advent of a\ngeneration with whom a humane and rational philosophy should displace,\nnot merely the superstitions which had grown around the Christian\ndogma, but every root and fragment of theistic conception. A hope of\nthis kind implied a singularly random idea, alike of the hold which\nChristianity had taken of the religious emotion in western Europe, and\nof the durableness of those conditions in human character, to which\nsome belief in a deity with a greater or fewer number of good\nattributes brings solace and nourishment. A movement like that of\nChristianity does not pass through a group of societies, and then\nleave no trace behind. It springs from many other sources besides that\nof adherence to the truth of its dogmas. The stream of its influence\nmust continue to flow long after adherence to the letter has been\nconfined to the least informed portions of a community. The\nEncyclop\u00e6dists knew that they had sapped religious dogma and shaken\necclesiastical organisation. They forgot that religious sentiment on\nthe one hand, and habit of respect for authority on the other, were\nboth of them still left behind. They had convinced themselves by a\nhost of persuasive analogies that the universe is an automatic\nmachine, and man only an industrious particle in the stupendous whole;\nthat a final cause is not cognisable by our limited intelligence; and\nthat to make emotion in this or any other respect a test of objective\ntruth and a ground of positive belief, is to lower both truth and the\nreason which is its single arbiter. They forgot that imagination is as\nactive in man as his reason, and that a craving for mental peace may\nbecome much stronger than passion for demonstrated truth. Christianity\nhad given to this craving in western Europe a definite mould, which\nwas not to be effaced in a day, and one or two of its lines mark a\npermanent and noble acquisition to the highest forces of human nature.\nThere will have to be wrought a profounder and more far-spreading\nmodification than any which the French atheists could effect, before\nall debilitating influences in the old creed can be effaced, its\nelevating influences finally separated from them, and then permanently\npreserved in more beneficent form and in an association less\nquestionable to the understanding.\n\nNeither a purely negative nor a direct attack can ever suffice. There\nmust be a coincidence of many silently oppugnant forces, emotional,\nscientific, and material. And, above all, there must be the slow\nsteadfast growth of some replacing faith, which shall retain all the\nelements of moral beauty that once gave light to the old belief that\nhas disappeared, and must still possess a living force in the new.\n\nHere we find the good side of a religious reaction such as that which\nRousseau led in the last century, and of which the Savoyard Vicar's\nprofession of faith was the famous symbol. Evil as this reaction was\nin many respects, and especially in the check which it gave to the\napplication of positive methods and conceptions to the most important\ngroup of our beliefs, yet it had what was the very signal merit under\nthe circumstances of the time, of keeping the religious emotions alive\nin association with a tolerant, pure, lofty, and living set of\narticles of faith, instead of feeding them on the dead superstitions\nwhich were at that moment the only practical alternative. The deism of\nRousseau could not in any case have acquired the force of the\ncorresponding religious reaction in England, because the former never\nacquired a compact and vigorous external organisation, as the latter\ndid, especially in Wesleyanism and Evangelicalism, the most remarkable\nof its developments. In truth the vague, fluid, purely subjective\ncharacter of deism disqualifies it from forming the doctrinal basis of\nany great objective and visible church, for it is at bottom the\nsublimation of individualism. But in itself it was a far less\nretrogressive, as well as a far less powerful, movement. It kept fewer\nof those dogmas which gradual change of intellectual climate had\nreduced to the condition of rank superstitions. It preserved some of\nits own, which a still further extension of the same change is\nassuredly destined to reduce to the same condition; but, nevertheless,\nalong with them it cherished sentiments which the world will never\nwillingly let die.\n\nThe one cardinal service of the Christian doctrine, which is of course\nto be distinguished from the services rendered to civilisation in\nearly times by the Christian church, has been the contribution to the\nactive intelligence of the west, of those moods of holiness, awe,\nreverence, and silent worship of an Unseen not made with hands, which\nthe Christianising Jews first brought from the east. Of the fabric\nwhich four centuries ago looked so stupendous and so enduring, with\nits magnificent whole and its minutely reticulated parts of belief and\npractice, this gradual creation of a new temperament in the religious\nimagination of Western Europe and the countries that take their mental\ndirection from her, is perhaps the only portion that will remain\ndistinctly visible, after all the rest has sunk into the repose of\nhistories of opinion. Whether this be the case or not, the fact that\nthese deeper moods are among the richest acquisitions of human nature,\nwill not be denied either by those who think that Christianity\nassociates them with objects destined permanently to awake them in\ntheir loftiest form, or by others who believe that the deepest moods\nof which man is capable, must ultimately ally themselves with\nsomething still more purely spiritual than the anthropomorphised\ndeities of the falling church. And if so, then Rousseau's deism, while\nintercepting the steady advance of the rationalistic assault and\ndiverting the current of renovating energy, still did something to\nkeep alive in a more or less worthy shape those parts of the slowly\nexpiring system which men have the best reasons for cherishing.\n\nLet us endeavour to characterise Rousseau's deism with as much\nprecision as it allows. It was a special and graceful form of a\ndoctrine which, though susceptible, alike in theory and in the\npractical history of religious thought, of numberless wide varieties\nof significance, is commonly designated by the name of deism, without\nqualification. People constantly speak as if deism only came in with\nthe eighteenth century. It would be impossible to name any century\nsince the twelfth, in which distinct and abundant traces could not be\nfound within the dominion of Christianity of a belief in a\nsupernatural power apart from the supposed disclosure of it in a\nspecial revelation.[337] A pr\u00e6ter-christian deism, or the principle of\nnatural religion, was inevitably contained in the legal conception of\na natural law, for how can we dissociate the idea of law from the idea\nof a definite lawgiver? The very scholastic disputations themselves,\nby the sharpness and subtlety which they gave to the reasoning\nfaculty, set men in search of novelties, and these novelties were not\nalways of a kind which orthodox views of the Christian mysteries could\nhave sanctioned. It has been said that religion is at the cradle of\nevery nation, and philosophy at its grave; it is at least true that\nthe cradle of philosophy is the open grave of religion. Wherever there\nis argumentation, there is sure to be scepticism. When people begin to\nreason, a shadow has already fallen across faith, though the reasoners\nmight have shrunk with horror from knowledge of the goal of their\nwork, and though centuries may elapse before the shadow deepens into\neclipse. But the church was strong and alert in the times when free\nthought vainly tried to rear a dangerous head in Italy. With the\nProtestant revolution came slowly a wider freedom, while the prolonged\nand tempestuous discussion between the old church and the reformed\nbodies, as well as the manifold variations among those bodies at\nstrife with one another, stimulated the growth of religious thought in\nmany directions that tended away from the exclusive pretensions of\nChristianity to be the oracle of the divine Spirit. The same feeling\nwhich thrust aside the sacerdotal interposition between the soul of\nman and its sovereign creator and inspirer, gradually worked towards\nthe dethronement of those mediators other than sacerdotal, in whom the\nmoral timidity of a dark and stricken age had once sought shade from\nthe too dazzling brightness of the All-powerful and the Everlasting.\nThe assertion of the rights and powers of the individual reason within\nthe limits of the sacred documents, began in less than a hundred years\nto grow into an assertion of the same rights and powers beyond those\nlimits. The rejection of tradition as a substitute for independent\njudgment, in interpreting or supplementing the records of revelation,\ngradually impaired the traditional authority both of the records\nthemselves, and of the central doctrines which all churches had in one\nshape or another agreed to accept. The Trinitarian controversy of the\nsixteenth century must have been a stealthy solvent. The deism of\nEngland in the eighteenth century, which Voltaire was the prime agent\nin introducing in its negative, colourless, and essentially futile\nshape into his own country, had its main effect as a process of\ndissolution.\n\nAll this, however, down to the deistical movement which Rousseau found\nin progress at Geneva in 1754,[338] was distinctly the outcome in a\nmore or less marked way of a rationalising and philosophic spirit, and\nnot of the religious spirit. The sceptical side of it with reference\nto revealed religion, predominated over the positive side of it with\nreference to natural religion. The wild pantheism of which there were\none or two extraordinary outbursts during the latter part of the\nmiddle ages, to mark the mystical influence which Platonic studies\nuncorrected by science always exert over certain temperaments, had\nbeen full of religiosity, such as it was. These had all passed away\nwith a swift flash. There were, indeed, mystics like the author of the\nimmortal _De Imitatione_, in whom the special qualities of Christian\ndoctrine seem to have grown pale in a brighter flood of devout\naspiration towards the perfections of a single Being. But this was not\nthe deism with which either Christianity on the one side, or atheism\non the other, had ever had to deal in France. Deism, in its formal\nacceptation, was either an idle piece of vaporous sentimentality, or\nelse it was the first intellectual halting-place for spirits who had\ntravelled out of the pale of the old dogmatic Christianity, and lacked\nstrength for the continuance of their onward journey. In the latter\ncase, it was only another name either for the shrewd rough conviction\nof the man of the world, that his universe could not well be imagined\nto go on without a sort of constitutional monarch, reigning but not\ngoverning, keeping evil-doers in order by fear of eternal punishment,\nand lending a sacred countenance to the indispensable doctrines of\nproperty, the gradation of rank and station, and the other moral\nfoundations of the social structure. Or else it was a name for a\npurely philosophic principle, not embraced with fervour as the basis\nof a religion, but accepted with decorous satisfaction as the\nalternative to a religion; not seized upon as the mainspring of\nspiritual life, but held up as a shield in a controversy.\n\nThe deism which the Savoyard Vicar explained to Emilius in his\nprofession of faith was pitched in a very different tone from this.\nThough the Vicar's conception of the Deity was lightly fenced round\nwith rationalistic supports of the usual kind, drawn from the\nevidences of will and intelligence in the vast machinery of the\nuniverse, yet it was essentially the product not of reason, but of\nemotional expansion, as every fundamental article of a faith that\ntouches the hearts of many men must always be. The Savoyard Vicar did\nnot believe that a God had made the great world, and rules it with\nmajestic power and supreme justice, in the same way in which he\nbelieved that any two sides of a triangle are greater than the third\nside. That there is a mysterious being penetrating all creation with\nforce, was not a proposition to be demonstrated, but only the poor\ndescription in words of an habitual mood going far deeper into life\nthan words can ever carry us. Without for a single moment falling off\ninto the nullities of pantheism, neither did he for a single moment\nsuffer his thought to stiffen and grow hard in the formal lines of a\ntheological definition or a systematic credo. It remains firm enough\nto give the religious imagination consistency and a centre, yet\nluminous enough to give the spiritual faculty a vivifying\nconsciousness of freedom and space. A creed is concerned with a number\nof affirmations, and is constantly held with honest strenuousness by\nmultitudes of men and women who are unfitted by natural temperament\nfor knowing what the glow of religious emotion means to the human\nsoul,--for not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, enters the kingdom of\nheaven. The Savoyard Vicar's profession of faith was not a creed, and\nso has few affirmations; it was a single doctrine, melted in a glow of\ncontemplative transport. It is impossible to set about disproving it,\nfor its exponent repeatedly warns his disciple against the idleness of\nlogomachy, and insists that the existence of the Divinity is traced\nupon every heart in letters that can never be effaced, if we are only\ncontent to read them with lowliness and simplicity. You cannot\ndemonstrate an emotion, nor prove an aspiration. How reason, asks the\nSavoyard Vicar, about that which we cannot conceive? Conscience is the\nbest of all casuists, and conscience affirms the presence of a being\nwho moves the universe and ordains all things, and to him we give the\nname of God.\n\n\"To this name I join the ideas of intelligence, power, will, which I\nhave united in one, and that of goodness, which is a necessary\nconsequence flowing from them. But I do not know any the better for\nthis the being to whom I have given the name; he escapes equally from\nmy senses and my understanding; the more I think of him, the more I\nconfound myself. I have full assurance that he exists, and that he\nexists by himself. I recognise my own being as subordinate to his and\nall the things that are known to me as being absolutely in the same\ncase. I perceive God everywhere in his works; I feel him in myself; I\nsee him universally around me. But when I fain would seek where he is,\nwhat he is, of what substance, he glides away from me, and my troubled\nsoul discerns nothing.\"[339]\n\n\"In fine, the more earnestly I strive to contemplate his infinite\nessence, the less do I conceive it. But it is, and that suffices me.\nThe less I conceive it, the more I adore. I bow myself down, and say\nto him, O being of beings, I am because thou art; to meditate\nceaselessly on thee by day and night, is to raise myself to my\nveritable source and fount. The worthiest use of my reason is to make\nitself as naught before thee. It is the ravishment of my soul, it is\nthe solace of my weakness, to feel myself brought low before the awful\nmajesty of thy greatness.\"[340]\n\nSouls weary of the fierce mockeries that had so long been flying like\nfiery shafts against the far Jehovah of the Hebrews, and the silent\nChrist of the later doctors and dignitaries, and weary too of the\northodox demonstrations that did not demonstrate, and leaden\nrefutations that could not refute, may well have turned with ardour to\nlisten to this harmonious spiritual voice, sounding clear from a\nregion towards which their hearts yearned with untold aspiration, but\nfrom which the spirit of their time had shut them off with brazen\nbarriers. It was the elevation and expansion of man, as much as it was\nthe restoration of a divinity. To realise this, one must turn to such\na book as Helv\u00e9tius's, which was supposed to reveal the whole inner\nmachinery of the heart. Man was thought of as a singular piece of\nmechanism principally moved from without, not as a conscious organism,\nreceiving nourishment and direction from the medium in which it is\nplaced, but reacting with a life of its own from within. It was this\nfree and energetic inner life of the individual which the Savoyard\nVicar restored to lawful recognition, and made once more the centre of\nthat imaginative and spiritual existence, without which we live in a\nuniverse that has no sun by day nor any stars by night. A writer in\nwhom learning has not extinguished enthusiasm, compares this to the\nadvance made by Descartes, who had given certitude to the soul by\nturning thought confidently upon itself; and he declares that the\nSavoyard Vicar is for the emancipation of sentiment what the Discourse\nupon Method was for the emancipation of the understanding.[341] There\nis here a certain audacity of panegyric; still the fact that Rousseau\nchose to link the highest forms of man's ideal life with a fading\nprojection of the lofty image which had been set up in older days,\nought not to blind us to the excellent energies which, notwithstanding\ndefect of association, such a vindication of the ideal was certain to\nquicken. And at least the lines of that high image were nobly traced.\n\nYet who does not feel that it is a divinity for fair weather?\nRousseau, with his fine sense of a proper and artistic setting,\nimagined the Savoyard Vicar as leading his youthful convert at break\nof a summer day to the top of a high hill, at whose feet the Po flowed\nbetween fertile banks; in the distance the immense chain of the Alps\ncrowned the landscape; the rays of the rising sun projected long level\nshadows from the trees, the slopes, the houses, and accented with a\nthousand lines of light the most magnificent of panoramas.[342] This\nwas the fitting suggestion, so serene, warm, pregnant with power and\nhope, and half mysterious, of the idea of godhead which the man of\npeace after an interval of silent contemplation proceeded to expound.\nRousseau's sentimental idea at least did not revolt moral sense; it\ndid not afflict the firmness of intelligence; nor did it silence the\ndiviner melodies of the soul. Yet, once more, the heavens in which\nsuch a deity dwells are too high, his power is too impalpable, the\nmysterious air which he has poured around his being is too awful and\nimpenetrable, for the rays from the sun of such majesty to reach more\nthan a few contemplative spirits, and these only in their hours of\ntranquillity and expansion. The thought is too vague, too far, to\nbring comfort and refreshment to the mass of travailing men, or to\ninvest duty with the stern ennobling quality of being done, \"if I have\ngrace to use it so as ever in the great Taskmaster's eye.\"\n\nThe Savoyard Vicar was consistent with the sublimity of his own\nconception. He meditated on the order of the universe with a reverence\ntoo profound to allow him to mingle with his thoughts meaner desires\nas to the special relations of that order to himself. \"I penetrate all\nmy faculties,\" he said, \"with the divine essence of the author of the\nworld; I melt at the thought of his goodness, and bless all his gifts,\nbut I do not pray to him. What should I ask of him? That for me he\nshould change the course of things, and in my favour work miracles?\nCould I, who must love above all else the order established by his\nwisdom and upheld by his providence, presume to wish such order\ntroubled for my sake? Nor do I ask of him the power of doing\nrighteousness; why ask for what he has given me? Has he not bestowed\non me conscience to love what is good, reason to ascertain it, freedom\nto choose it? If I do ill, I have no excuse; I do it because I will\nit. To pray to him to change my will, is to seek from him what he\nseeks from me; it is to wish no longer to be human, it is to wish\nsomething other than what is, it is to wish disorder and evil.\"[343]\nWe may admire both the logical consistency of such self-denial and the\nmanliness which it would engender in the character that were strong\nenough to practise it. But a divinity who has conceded no right of\npetition is still further away from our lives than the divinities of\nmore popular creeds.\n\nEven the fairest deism is of its essence a faith of egotism and\ncomplacency. It does not incorporate in the very heart of the\nreligious emotion the pitifulness and sorrow which Christianity first\nclothed with associations of sanctity, and which can never henceforth\nmiss their place in any religious system to be accepted by men. Why is\nthis? Because a religion that leaves them out, or thrusts them into a\nhidden corner, fails to comprehend at least one half, and that the\nmost touching and impressive half, of the most conspicuous facts of\nhuman life. Rousseau was fuller of the capacity of pity than ordinary\nmen, and this pity was one of the deepest parts of himself. Yet it did\nnot enter into the composition of his religious faith, and this shows\nthat his religious faith, though entirely free from suspicion of\ninsincerity or ostentatious assumption, was like deism in so many\ncases, whether rationalistic or emotional, a kind of gratuitously\nadopted superfluity, not the satisfaction of a profound inner craving\nand resistless spiritual necessity. He speaks of the good and the\nwicked with the precision and assurance of the most pharisaic\ntheologian, and he begins by asking of what concern it is to him\nwhether the wicked are punished with eternal torment or not, though he\nconcludes more graciously with the hope that in another state the\nwicked, delivered from their malignity, may enjoy a bliss no less than\nhis own.[344] But the divine pitifulness which we owe to\nChristianity, and which will not be the less eagerly cherished by\nthose who repudiate Christian tradition and doctrines, enjoins upon us\nthat we should ask, Who are the wicked, and which is he that is\nwithout sin among us? Rousseau answered this glibly enough by some\nformula of metaphysics, about the human will having been left and\nconstituted free by the creator of the world; and that man is the bad\nman who abuses his freedom. Grace, fate, destiny, force of\ncircumstances, are all so many names for the protests which the frank\nsense of fact has forced from man against this miserably inadequate\nexplanation of the foundations of moral responsibility.\n\nWhatever these foundations may be, the theories of grace and fate had\nat any rate the quality of connecting human conduct with the will of\nthe gods. Rousseau's deism, severing the influence of the Supreme\nBeing upon man, at the very moment when it could have saved him from\nthe guilt that brings misery,--that is at the moment when conduct\nbegins to follow the preponderant motives or the will,--did thus\neffectually cut off the most admirable and fertile group of our\nsympathies from all direct connection with religious sentiment.\nToiling as manfully as we may through the wilderness of our seventy\nyears, we are to reserve our deepest adoration for the being who has\nleft us there, with no other solace than that he is good and just and\nall-powerful, and might have given us comfort and guidance if he\nwould. This was virtually the form which Pelagius had tried to impose\nupon Christianity in the fifth century, and which the souls of men,\nthirsting for consciousness of an active divine presence, had then\nunder the lead of Augustine so energetically cast away from them. The\nfaith to which they clung while rejecting this great heresy, though\njust as transcendental, still had the quality of satisfying a\nspiritual want. It was even more readily to be accepted by the human\nintelligence, for it endowed the supreme power with the father's\nexcellence of compassion, and presented for our reverence and\ngratitude and devotion a figure who drew from men the highest love for\nthe God whom they had not seen, along with the warmest pity and love\nfor their brethren whom they had seen.\n\nThe Savoyard Vicar's own position to Christianity was one of\nreverential scepticism. \"The holiness of the gospel,\" he said, \"is an\nargument that speaks to my heart and to which I should even be sorry\nto find a good answer. Look at the books of the philosophers with all\ntheir pomp; how puny they are by the side of that! Is there here the\ntone of an enthusiast or an ambitious sectary? What gentleness, what\npurity, in his manners, what touching grace in his teaching, what\nloftiness in his maxims! Assuredly there was something more than human\nin such teaching, such a character, such a life, such a death. If the\nlife and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death\nof Jesus are those of a god. Shall we say that the history of the\ngospels is invented at pleasure? My friend, that is not the fashion of\ninvention; and the facts about Socrates are less attested than the\nfacts about Christ.[345] Yet with all that, this same gospel abounds\nin things incredible, which are repugnant to reason, and which it is\nimpossible for any sensible man to conceive or admit. What are we to\ndo in the midst of all these contradictions? To be ever modest and\ncircumspect, my son; to respect in silence what one can neither reject\nnor understand, and to make one's self lowly before the great being\nwho alone knows the truth.\"[346]\n\n\"I regard all particular religions as so many salutary institutions,\nwhich prescribe in every country a uniform manner of honouring God by\npublic worship. I believe them all good, so long as men serve God\nfittingly in them. The essential worship is the worship of the heart.\nGod never rejects this homage, under whatever form it be offered to\nhim. In other days I used to say mass with the levity which in time\ninfects even the gravest things, when we do them too often. Since\nacquiring my new principles I celebrate it with more veneration; I am\noverwhelmed by the majesty of the Supreme Being, by his presence, by\nthe insufficiency of the human mind, which conceives so little what\npertains to its author. When I approach the moment of consecration, I\ncollect myself for performing the act with all the feelings required\nby the church, and the majesty of the sacrament; I strive to\nannihilate my reason before the supreme intelligence, saying, 'Who art\nthou, that thou shouldest measure infinite power?'\"[347]\n\nA creed like this, whatever else it may be, is plainly a powerful\nsolvent of every system of exclusive dogma. If the one essential to\ntrue worship, the worship of the heart and the inner sentiment, be\nmystic adoration of an indefinable Supreme, then creeds based upon\nbooks, prophecies, miracles, revelations, all fall alike into the\nsecond place among things that may be lawful and may be expedient, but\nthat can never be exacted from men by a just God as indispensable to\nvirtue in this world or to bliss in the next. No better answer has\never been given to the exclusive pretensions of sect, Christian,\nJewish, or Mahometan, than that propounded by the Savoyard Vicar with\nsuch energy, closeness, and most sarcastic fire.[348] It was turning\nan unexpected front upon the presumptuousness of all varieties of\ntheological infallibilists, to prove to them that if you insist upon\nacceptance of this or that special revelation, over and above the\ndictates of natural religion, then you are bound not only to grant,\nbut imperatively to enjoin upon all men, a searching inquiry and\ncomparison, that they may spare no pains in an affair of such\nmomentous issue in proving to themselves that this, and none of the\ncompeting revelations, is the veritable message of eternal safety.\n\"Then no other study will be possible but that of religion: hardly\nshall one who has enjoyed the most robust health, employed his time\nand used his reason to best purpose, and lived the greatest number of\nyears, hardly shall such an one in his extreme age be quite sure what\nto believe, and it will be a marvel if he finds out before he dies, in\nwhat faith he ought to have lived.\" The superiority of the sceptical\nparts of the Savoyard Vicar's profession, as well as those of the\nLetters from the Mountain to which we referred previously, over the\nbiting mockeries which Voltaire had made the fashionable method of\nassault, lay in this fact. The latter only revolted and irritated all\nserious temperaments to whom religion is a matter of honest concern,\nwhile the former actually appealed to their religious sense in support\nof his doubts; and the more intelligent and sincere this sense\nhappened to be, the more surely would Rousseau's gravely urged\nobjections dissolve the hard particles of dogmatic belief. His\nobjections were on a moral level with the best side of the religion\nthat they oppugned. Those of Voltaire were only on a level with its\nlowest side, and that was the side presented by the gross and\nrepulsive obscurantism of the functionaries of the church.\n\nUnfortunately Rousseau had placed in the hands of the partisans of\nevery exclusive revelation an instrument which was quite enough to\ndisperse all his objections to the winds, and which was the very\ninstrument that defended his own cherished religion. If he was\nsatisfied with replying to the atheist and the materialist, that he\nknew there is a supreme God, and that the soul must have here and\nhereafter an existence apart from the body, because he found these\ntruths ineffaceably written upon his own heart, what could prevent the\nChristian or the Mahometan from replying to Rousseau that the New\nTestament or the Koran is the special and final revelation from the\nSupreme Power to his creatures? If you may appeal to the voice of the\nheart and the dictate of the inner sentiment in one case, why not in\nthe other also? A subjective test necessarily proves anything that any\nman desires, and the accident of the article proved appearing either\nreasonable or monstrous to other people, cannot have the least bearing\non its efficacy or conclusiveness.\n\nDeism like the Savoyard Vicar's opens no path for the future, because\nit makes no allowance for the growth of intellectual conviction, and\nbinds up religion with mystery, with an object whose attributes can\nneither be conceived nor defined, with a Being too all-embracing to be\nable to receive anything from us, too august, self-contained, remote,\nto be able to bestow on us the humble gifts of which we have need. The\ntemperature of thought is slowly but without an instant's recoil\nrising to a point when a mystery like this, definite enough to be\nimposed as a faith, but too indefinite to be grasped by understanding\nas a truth, melts away from the emotions of religion. Then those\ninstincts of holiness, without which the world would be to so many of\nits highest spirits the most dreary of exiles, will perhaps come to\nassociate themselves less with unseen divinities, than with the long\nbrotherhood of humanity seen and unseen. Here we shall move with an\nassurance that no scepticism and no advance of science can ever shake,\nbecause the benefactions which we have received from the strenuousness\nof human effort can never be doubted, and each fresh acquisition in\nknowledge or goodness can only kindle new fervour. Those who have the\nreligious imagination struck by the awful procession of man from the\nregion of impenetrable night, by his incessant struggle with the\nhardness of the material world, and his sublimer struggle with the\nhard world of his own egotistic passions, by the pain and sacrifice by\nwhich generation after generation has added some small piece to the\ntemple of human freedom or some new fragment to the ever incomplete\nsum of human knowledge, or some fresh line to the types of strong or\nbeautiful character,--those who have an eye for all this may indeed\nhave no ecstasy and no terror, no heaven nor hell, in their religion,\nbut they will have abundant moods of reverence, deep-seated gratitude,\nand sovereign pitifulness.\n\nAnd such moods will not end in sterile exaltation, or the deathly\nchills of spiritual reaction. They will bring forth abundant fruit in\nnew hope and invigorated endeavour. This devout contemplation of the\nexperience of the race, instead of raising a man into the clouds,\nbrings him into the closest, loftiest, and most conscious relations\nwith his kind, to whom he owes all that is of value in his own life,\nand to whom he can repay his debt by maintaining the beneficent\ntradition of service, by cherishing honour for all the true and sage\nspirits that have shone upon the earth, and sorrow and reprobation for\nall the unworthier souls whose light has gone out in baseness. A man\nwith this faith can have no foul spiritual pride, for there is no\nmysteriously accorded divine grace in which one may be a larger\nparticipant than another. He can have no incentives to that mutilation\nwith which every branch of the church, from the oldest to the youngest\nand crudest, has in its degree afflicted and retarded mankind, because\nthe key-note of his religion is the joyful energy of every faculty,\npractical, reflective, creative, contemplative, in pursuit of a\nvisible common good. And he can be plunged into no fatal and\nparalysing despair by any doctrine of mortal sin, because active faith\nin humanity, resting on recorded experience, discloses the many\npossibilities of moral recovery, and the work that may be done for men\nin the fragment of days, redeeming the contrite from their burdens by\nmanful hope. If religion is our feeling about the highest forces that\ngovern human destiny, then as it becomes more and more evident how\nmuch our destiny is shaped by the generation of the dead who have\nprepared the present, and by the purport of our hopes and the\ndirection of our activity for the generations that are to fill the\nfuture, the religious sentiment will more and more attach itself to\nthe great unseen host of our fellows who have gone before us and who\nare to come after. Such a faith is no rag of metaphysic floating in\nthe sunshine of sentimentalism, like Rousseau's faith. It rests on a\npositive base, which only becomes wider and firmer with the widening\nof experience and the augmentation of our skill in interpreting it.\nNor is it too transcendent for practical acceptance. One of the most\nscientific spirits of the eighteenth century, while each moment\nexpecting the knock of the executioner at his door, found as religious\na solace as any early martyr had ever found in his barbarous\nmysteries, when he linked his own efforts for reason and freedom with\nthe eternal chain of the destinies of man. \"This contemplation,\" he\nwrote and felt, \"is for him a refuge into which the rancour of his\npersecutors can never follow him; in which, living in thought with man\nreinstated in the rights and the dignity of his nature, he forgets man\ntormented and corrupted by greed, by base fear, by envy; it is here\nthat he truly abides with his fellows, in an elysium that his reason\nhas known how to create for itself, and that his love for humanity\nadorns with all purest delights.\"[349]\n\nThis, to the shame of those wavering souls who despair of progress at\nthe first moment when it threatens to leave the path that they have\nmarked out for it, was written by a man at the very close of his days,\nwhen every hope that he had ever cherished seemed to one without the\neye of faith to be extinguished in bloodshed, disorder, and barbarism.\nBut there is a still happier season in the adolescence of generous\nnatures that have been wisely fostered, when the horizons of the\ndawning life are suddenly lighted up with a glow of aspiration towards\ngood and holy things. Commonly, alas, this priceless opportunity is\nlost in a fit of theological exaltation, which is gradually choked out\nby the dusty facts of life, and slowly moulders away into dry\nindifference. It would not be so, but far different, if the Savoyard\nVicar, instead of taking the youth to the mountain-top, there to\ncontemplate that infinite unseen which is in truth beyond\ncontemplation by the limited faculties of man, were to associate these\nfine impulses of the early prime with the visible, intelligible, and\nstill sublime possibilities of the human destiny,--that imperial\nconception, which alone can shape an existence of entire proportion in\nall its parts, and leave no natural energy of life idle or athirst. Do\nyou ask for sanctions! One whose conscience has been strengthened from\nyouth in this faith, can know no greater bitterness than the stain\ncast by wrong act or unworthy thought on the high memories with which\nhe has been used to walk, and the discord wrought in hopes that have\nbecome the ruling harmony of his days.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[337] See Hallam's _Literature of Europe_, Pt. I. ch. ii. \u00a7 64. Again\n(for the 16th century), Pt. II. ch. ii. \u00a7 53. See also for mention of\na sect of deists at Lyons about 1560, Bayle's Dictionary, _s.v._\nViret.\n\n[338] See above, vol. i. pp. 223-227.\n\n[339] _Emile_, IV. 163.\n\n[340] IV. 183-185.\n\n[341] M. Henri Martin's _Hist. de France_, xvi. 101, where there is an\ninteresting, but, as it seems to the present writer, hardly a\nsuccessful attempt, to bring the Savoyard Vicar's eloquence into\nscientific form.\n\n[342] _Emile_, IV. 135.\n\n[343] _Emile_, IV. 204.\n\n[344] _Emile_, IV. 181, 182. In a letter to Vernes (Feb. 18, 1758.\n_Corr._, ii. 9) he expresses his suspicion that possibly the souls of\nthe wicked may be annihilated at their death, and that being and\nfeeling may prove the first reward of a good life. In this letter he\nasks also, with the same magnanimous security as the Savoyard Vicar,\n\"of what concern the destiny of the wicked can be to him.\"\n\n[345] A similar disparagement of Socrates, in comparison with the\nChrist of the Gospels, is to be found in the long letter of Jan. 15,\n1769 (_Corr._, vi. 59, 60), to M----, accompanied by a violent\ndenigration of the Jews, conformably to the philosophic prejudice of\nthe time.\n\n[346] _Emile_, IV. 241, 242.\n\n[347] _Emile_, IV. 243.\n\n[348] IV. 210-236.\n\n[349] Condorcet's _Progr\u00e8s de l'Esprit Humain_ (1794). _Oeuv._, vi.\n276.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nENGLAND.[350]\n\n\nThere is in an English collection a portrait of Jean Jacques,\nwhich was painted during his residence in this country by a provincial\nartist. Singular and displeasing as it is, yet this picture lights up\nfor us many a word and passage in Rousseau's life here and elsewhere,\nwhich the ordinary engravings, and the trim self-complacency of the\nstatue on the little island at Geneva, would leave very\nincomprehensible. It is almost as appalling in its realism as some of\nthe dark pits that open before the reader of the Confessions. Hard\nstruggles with objective difficulty and external obstacle wear deep\nfurrows in the brow; they throw into the glance a solicitude, half\npenetrating and defiant, half dejected. When a man's hindrances have\nsprung up from within, and the ill-fought battle of his days has been\nwith his own passions and morbid broodings and unchastened dreams, the\neye and the facial lines tell the story of that profound moral defeat\nwhich is unlighted by the memories of resolute combat with evil and\nweakness, and leaves only eternal desolation and the misery that is\nformless. Our English artist has produced a vision from that prose\nInferno which is made so populous in the modern epoch by impotence of\nwill. Those who have seen the picture may easily understand how\nlargely the character of the original must have been pregnant with\nharassing confusion and distress.\n\nFour years before this (1762), Hume, to whom Lord Marischal had told\nthe story of Rousseau's persecutions, had proffered his services, and\ndeclared his eagerness to help in finding a proper refuge for him in\nEngland. There had been an exchange of cordial letters,[351] and then\nthe matter had lain quiet, until the impossibility of remaining longer\nin Neuch\u00e2tel had once more set his friends on procuring a safe\nestablishment for their rather difficult refugee. Rousseau's\nappearance in Paris had created the keenest excitement. \"People may\ntalk of ancient Greece as they please,\" wrote Hume from Paris, \"but no\nnation was ever so proud of genius as this, and no person ever so much\nengaged their attention as Rousseau! Voltaire and everybody else are\nquite eclipsed by him.\" Even Theresa Le Vasseur, who was declared very\nhomely and very awkward, was more talked of than the Princess of\nMorocco or the Countess of Egmont, on account of her fidelity towards\nhim. His very dog had a name and reputation in the world.[352]\nRousseau is always said to have liked the stir which his presence\ncreated, but whether this was so or not, he was very impatient to be\naway from it as soon as possible.\n\nIn company with Hume, he left Paris in the second week of January\n1766. They crossed from Calais to Dover by night in a passage that\nlasted twelve hours. Hume, as the orthodox may be glad to know, was\nextremely ill, while Rousseau cheerfully passed the whole night upon\ndeck, taking no harm, though the seamen were almost frozen to\ndeath.[353] They reached London on the thirteenth of January, and the\npeople of London showed nearly as lively an interest in the strange\npersonage whom Hume had brought among them, as the people of Paris had\ndone. A prince of the blood at once went to pay his respects to the\nSwiss philosopher. The crowd at the playhouse showed more curiosity\nwhen the stranger came in than when the king and queen entered. Their\nmajesties were as interested as their subjects, and could scarcely\nkeep their eyes off the author of Emilius. George III., then in the\nheyday of his youth, was so pleased to have a foreigner of genius\nseeking shelter in his kingdom, that he readily acceded to Conway's\nsuggestion, prompted by Hume, that Rousseau should have a pension\nsettled on him. The ever illustrious Burke, then just made member of\nParliament, saw him nearly every day, and became persuaded that \"he\nentertained no principle either to influence his heart, or guide his\nunderstanding, but vanity.\"[354] Hume, on the contrary, thought the\nbest things of his client; \"He has an excellent warm heart, and in\nconversation kindles often to a degree of heat which looks like\ninspiration; I love him much, and hope that I have some share in his\naffections.... He is a very modest, mild, well-bred, gentle-spirited\nand warm-hearted man, as ever I knew in my life. He is also to\nappearance very sociable. I never saw a man who seems better\ncalculated for good company, nor who seems to take more pleasure in\nit.\" \"He is a very agreeable, amiable man; but a great humorist. The\nphilosophers of Paris foretold to me that I could not conduct him to\nCalais without a quarrel; but I think I could live with him all my\nlife in mutual friendship and esteem. I believe one great source of\nour concord is that neither he nor I are disputatious, which is not\nthe case with any of them. They are also displeased with him, because\nthey think he over-abounds in religion; and it is indeed remarkable\nthat the philosopher of this age who has been most persecuted, is by\nfar the most devout.\"[355]\n\nWhat the Scotch philosopher meant by calling his pupil a humorist, may\nperhaps be inferred from the story of the trouble he had in prevailing\nupon Rousseau to go to the play, though Garrick had appointed a\nspecial occasion and set apart a special box for him. When the hour\ncame, Rousseau declared that he could not leave his dog behind him.\n\"The first person,\" he said, \"who opens the door, Sultan will run into\nthe streets in search of me and will be lost.\" Hume told him to lock\nSultan up in the room, and carry away the key in his pocket. This was\ndone, but as they proceeded downstairs, the dog began to howl; his\nmaster turned back and avowed he had not resolution to leave him in\nthat condition. Hume, however, caught him in his arms, told him that\nMr. Garrick had dismissed another company in order to make room for\nhim, that the king and queen were expecting to see him, and that\nwithout a better reason than Sultan's impatience it would be\nridiculous to disappoint them. Thus, a little by reason, but more by\nforce, he was carried off.[356] Such a story, whatever else we may\nthink of it, shows at least a certain curious and not untouching\nsimplicity. And singularity which made Rousseau like better to keep\nhis dog company at home, than to be stared at by a gaping pit, was too\nprivate in its reward to be the result of that vanity and affectation\nwith which he was taxed by men who lived in another sphere of motive.\n\nThere was considerable trouble in settling Rousseau. He was eager to\nleave London almost as soon as he arrived in it. Though pleased with\nthe friendly reception which had been given him, he pronounced London\nto be as much devoted to idle gossip and frivolity as other capitals.\nHe spent a few weeks in the house of a farmer at Chiswick, thought\nabout fixing himself in the Isle of Wight, then in Wales, then\nsomewhere in our fair Surrey, whose scenery, one is glad to know,\ngreatly attracted him. Finally arrangements were made by Hume with Mr.\nDavenport for installing him in a house belonging to the latter, at\nWootton, near Ashbourne, in the Peak of Derbyshire.[357] Hither\nRousseau proceeded with Theresa, at the end of March. Mr. Davenport\nwas a gentleman of large property, and as he seldom inhabited this\nsolitary house, was very willing that Rousseau should take up his\nabode there without payment. This, however, was what Rousseau's\nindependence could not brook, and he insisted that his entertainer\nshould receive thirty pounds a year for the board of himself and\nTheresa.[358] So here he settled, in an extremely bitter climate,\nknowing no word of the language of the people about him, with no\ncompanionship but Theresa's, and with nothing to do but walk when the\nweather was fair, play the harpsicord when it rained, and brood over\nthe incidents which had occurred to him since he had left Switzerland\nsix months before. The first fruits of this unfortunate leisure were a\nbitter quarrel with Hume, one of the most famous and far-resounding of\nall the quarrels of illustrious men, but one about which very little\nneeds now be said. The merits of it are plain, and all significance\nthat may ever have belonged to it is entirely dead. The incubation of\nhis grievances began immediately after his arrival at Wootton, but two\nmonths elapsed before they burst forth in full flame.[359]\n\nThe general charge against Hume was that he was a member of an\naccursed triumvirate; Voltaire and D'Alembert were the other partners;\nand their object was to blacken the character of Rousseau and render\nhis life miserable. The particular acts on which this belief was\nestablished were the following:--\n\n(1) While Rousseau was in Paris, there appeared a letter nominally\naddressed to him by the King of Prussia, and written in an ironical\nstrain, which persuaded Jean Jacques himself that it was the work of\nVoltaire.[360] Then he suspected D'Alembert. It was really the\ncomposition of Horace Walpole, who was then in Paris. Now Hume was the\nfriend of Walpole, and had given Rousseau a card of introduction to\nhim for the purpose of entrusting Walpole with the carriage of some\npapers. Although the false letter produced the liveliest amusement at\nRousseau's cost, first in Paris and then in London, Hume, while\nfeigning to be his warm friend and presenting him to the English\npublic, never took any pains to tell the world that the piece was a\nforgery, nor did he break with its wicked author.[361] (2) When\nRousseau assured Hume that D'Alembert was a cunning and dishonourable\nman, Hume denied it with an amazing heat, although he well knew the\nlatter to be Rousseau's enemy.[362] (3) Hume lived in London with the\nson of Tronchin, the Genevese surgeon, and the most mortal of all the\nfoes of Jean Jacques.[363] (4) When Rousseau first came to London, his\nreception was a distinguished triumph for the victim of persecution\nfrom so many governments. England was proud of being his place of\nrefuge, and justly vaunted the freedom of her laws and administration.\nSuddenly and for no assignable cause the public tone changed, the\nnewspapers either fell silent or else spoke unfavourably, and Rousseau\nwas thought of no more. This must have been due to Hume, who had much\ninfluence among people of credit, and who went about boasting of the\nprotection which he had procured for Jean Jacques in Paris.[364] (5)\nHume resorted to various small artifices for preventing Rousseau from\nmaking friends, for procuring opportunities of opening Rousseau's\nletters, and the like.[365] (6) A violent satirical letter against\nRousseau appeared in the English newspapers, with allusions which\ncould only have been supplied by Hume. (7) On the first night after\ntheir departure from Paris, Rousseau, who occupied the same room with\nHume, heard him call out several times in the middle of the night in\nthe course of his dreams, _Je tiens Jean Jacques Rousseau_, with\nextreme vehemence--which words, in spite of the horribly sardonic tone\nof the dreamer, he interpreted favourably at the time, but which later\nevent proved to have been full of malign significance.[366] (8)\nRousseau constantly found Hume eyeing him with a glance of sinister\nand diabolic import that filled him with an astonishing disquietude,\nthough he did his best to combat it. On one of these occasions he was\nseized with remorse, fell upon Hume's neck, embraced him warmly, and,\nsuffocated with sobs and bathed in tears, cried out in broken accents,\n_No, no, David Hume is no traitor_, with many protests of affection.\nThe phlegmatic Hume only returned his embrace with politeness, stroked\nhim gently on the back, and repeated several times in a tranquil\nvoice, _Quoi, mon cher monsieur! Eh! mon cher monsieur! Quoi donc, mon\ncher monsieur!_[367] (9) Although for many weeks Rousseau had kept a\nfirm silence to Hume, neglecting to answer letters that plainly called\nfor answer, and marking his displeasure in other unmistakable ways,\nyet Hume had never sought any explanation of what must necessarily\nhave struck him as so singular, but continued to write as if nothing\nhad happened. Was not this positive proof of a consciousness of\nperfidy?\n\nSome years afterwards he substituted another shorter set of\ngrievances, namely, that Hume would not suffer Theresa to sit at table\nwith him; that he made a show of him; and that Hume had an engraving\nexecuted of himself, which made him as beautiful as a cherub, while in\nanother engraving, which was a pendant to his own, Jean Jacques was\nmade as ugly as a bear.[368]\n\nIt would be ridiculous for us to waste any time in discussing these\ncharges. They are not open to serious examination, though it is\nastonishing to find writers in our own day who fully believe that Hume\nwas a traitor, and behaved extremely basely to the unfortunate man\nwhom he had inveigled over to a barbarous island. The only part of the\nindictment about which there could be the least doubt, was the\npossibility of Hume having been an accomplice in Walpole's very small\npleasantry. Some of his friends in Paris suspected that he had had a\nhand in the supposed letter from the King of Prussia. Although the\nletter constituted no very malignant jest, and could not by a sensible\nman have been regarded as furnishing just complaint against one who,\nlike Walpole, was merely an impudent stranger, yet if it could be\nshown that Hume had taken an active part either in the composition or\nthe circulation of a spiteful bit of satire upon one towards whom he\nwas pretending a singular affection, then we should admit that he\nshowed such a want of sense of the delicacy of friendship as amounted\nto something like treachery. But a letter from Walpole to Hume sets\nthis doubt at rest. \"I cannot be precise as to the time of my writing\nthe King of Prussia's letter, but ... I not only suppressed the letter\nwhile you stayed there, out of delicacy to you, but it was the reason\nwhy, out of delicacy to myself, I did not go to see him as you often\nproposed to me, thinking it wrong to go and make a cordial visit to a\nman, with a letter in my pocket to laugh at him.\"[369]\n\nWith this all else falls to the ground. It would be as unwise in us,\nas it was in Rousseau himself, to complicate the hypotheses. Men do\nnot act without motives, and Hume could have no motive in entering\ninto any plot against Rousseau, even if the rival philosophers in\nFrance might have motives. We know the character of our David Hume\nperfectly well, and though it was not faultless, its fault certainly\nlay rather in an excessive desire to make the world comfortable for\neverybody, than in anything like purposeless malignity, of which he\nnever had a trace. Moreover, all that befell Rousseau through Hume's\nagency was exceedingly to his advantage. Hume was not without vanity,\nand his letters show that he was not displeased at the addition to his\nconsequence which came of his patronage of a man who was much talked\nabout and much stared at. But, however this was, he did all for\nRousseau that generosity and thoughtfulness could do. He was at great\npains in establishing him; he used his interest to procure for him the\ngrant of a pension from the king; when Rousseau provisionally refused\nthe pension rather than owe anything to Hume, the latter, still\nignorant of the suspicion that was blackening in Rousseau's mind,\nsupposed that the refusal came from the fact of the pension being kept\nprivate, and at once took measures with the minister to procure the\nremoval of the condition of privacy. Besides undeniable acts like\nthese, the state of Hume's mind towards his curious ward is abundantly\nshown in his letters to all his most intimate friends, just as\nRousseau's gratitude to him is to be read in all his early letters\nboth to Hume and other persons. In the presence of such facts on the\none side, and in the absence of any particle of intelligible evidence\nto neutralise them on the other, to treat Rousseau's charges with\ngravity is irrational.\n\nIf Hume had written back in a mild and conciliatory strain, there can\nbe no doubt that the unfortunate victim of his own morbid imagination\nwould, for a time at any rate, have been sobered and brought to a\nsense of his misconduct. But Hume was incensed beyond control at what\nhe very pardonably took for a masterpiece of atrocious ingratitude. He\nreproached Rousseau in terms as harsh as those which Grimm had used\nnine years before. He wrote to all his friends, withdrawing the kindly\nwords he had once used of Rousseau's character, and substituting in\ntheir place the most unfavourable he could find. He gave the\nphilosophic circle in Paris exquisite delight by the confirmation\nwhich his story furnished of their own foresight, when they had warned\nhim that he was taking a viper to his bosom. Finally, in spite of the\nadvice of Adam Smith, of one of the greatest of men, Turgot, and one\nof the smallest, Horace Walpole, he published a succinct account of\nthe quarrel, first in French, and then in English. This step was\nchiefly due to the advice of the clique of whom D'Alembert was the\nspokesman, though it is due to him to mention that he softened various\nexpressions in Hume's narrative, which he pronounced too harsh. It may\nbe true that a council of war never fights; a council of men of\nletters always does. The governing committee of a literary,\nphilosophical, or theological clique form the very worst advisers any\nman can have.\n\nMuch must be forgiven to Hume, stung as he was by what appeared the\nmost hateful ferocity in one on whom he had heaped acts of affection.\nStill, one would have been glad on behalf of human dignity, if he had\nsuffered with firm silence petulant charges against which the\nconsciousness of his own uprightness should have been the only answer.\nThat high pride, of which there is too little rather than too much in\nthe world, and which saves men from waste of themselves and others in\npitiful accusations, vindications, retaliations, should have helped\nhumane pity in preserving him from this poor quarrel. Long afterwards\nRousseau said, \"England, of which they paint such fine pictures in\nFrance, has so cheerless a climate; my soul, wearied with many shocks,\nwas in a condition of such profound melancholy, that in all that\npassed I believe I committed many faults. But are they comparable to\nthose of the enemies who persecuted me, supposing them even to have\ndone no more than published our private quarrels?\"[370] An ampler\ncontrition would have been more seemly in the first offender, but\nthere is a measure of justice in his complaint. We need not, however,\nreproach the good Hume. Before six months were over, he admits that he\nis sometimes inclined to blame his publication, and always to regret\nit.[371] And his regret was not verbal merely. When Rousseau had\nreturned to France, and was in danger of arrest, Hume was most urgent\nin entreating Turgot to use his influence with the government to\nprotect the wretched wanderer, and Turgot's answer shows both how\nsincere this humane interposition was, and how practically\nserviceable.[372]\n\nMeanwhile there ensued a horrible fray in print. Pamphlets appeared in\nParis and London in a cloud. The Succinct Exposure was followed by\nsuccinct rejoinders. Walpole officiously printed his own account of\nhis own share in the matter. Boswell officiously wrote to the\nnewspapers defending Rousseau and attacking Walpole. King George\nfollowed the battle with intense curiosity. Hume with solemn\nformalities sent the documents to the British Museum. There was\nsilence only in one place, and that was at Wootton. The unfortunate\nperson who had done all the mischief printed not a word.\n\nThe most prompt and quite the least instructive of the remarks\ninvariably made upon any one who has acted in an unusual manner, is\nthat he must be mad. This universal criticism upon the unwonted really\ntells us nothing, because the term may cover any state of mind from a\nwarranted dissent from established custom, down to absolute dementia.\nRousseau was called mad when he took to wearing convenient clothes and\nliving frugally. He was called mad when he quitted the town and went\nto live in the country. The same facile explanation covered his\nquarrel with importunate friends at the Hermitage. Voltaire called him\nmad for saying that if there were perfect harmony of taste and\ntemperament between the king's daughter and the executioner's son, the\npair ought to be allowed to marry. We who are not forced by\nconversational necessities to hurry to a judgment, may hesitate to\ntake either taste for the country, or for frugal living, or even for\ndemocratic extravagances, as a mark of a disordered mind.[373] That\nRousseau's conduct towards Hume was inconsistent with perfect mental\nsoundness is quite plain. But to say this with crude trenchancy,\nteaches us nothing. Instead of paying ourselves with phrases like\nmonomania, it is more useful shortly to trace the conditions which\nprepared the way for mental derangement, because this is the only\nmeans of understanding either its nature, or the degree to which it\nextended. These conditions in Rousseau's case are perfectly simple and\nobvious to any one who recognises the principle, that the essential\nfacts of such mental disorder as his must be sought not in the\nsymptoms, but from the whole range of moral and intellectual\nconstitution, acted on by physical states and acting on them in turn.\n\nRousseau was born with an organisation of extreme sensibility. This\npredisposition was further deepened by the application in early youth\nof mental influences specially calculated to heighten juvenile\nsensibility. Corrective discipline from circumstance and from formal\ninstruction was wholly absent, and thus the particular excess in his\ntemperament became ever more and more exaggerated, and encroached at a\nrate of geometrical progression upon all the rest of his impulses and\nfaculties; these, if he had been happily placed under some of the many\nforms of wholesome social pressure, would then on the contrary have\ngradually reduced his sensibility to more normal proportion. When the\nvicious excess had decisively rooted itself in his character, he came\nto Paris, where it was irritated into further activity by the\nuncongeniality of all that surrounded him. Hence the growth of a\nmarked unsociality, taking literary form in the Discourses, and\npractical form in his retirement from the town. The slow depravation\nof the affective life was hastened by solitude, by sensuous expansion,\nby the long musings of literary composition. Well does Goethe's\nPrincess warn the hapless Tasso:--\n\n Dieser Pfad\n Verleitet uns, durch einsames Geb\u00fcsch,\n Durch stille Th\u00e4ler fortzuwandern; mehr\n Und mehr verw\u00f6hnt sich das Gem\u00fcth und strebt\n Die goldne Zeit, die ihm von aussen mangelt,\n In seinem Innern wieder herzustellen,\n So wenig der Versuch gelingen will.\n\nThen came harsh and unjust treatment prolonged for many months, and\nthis introduced a slight but genuinely misanthropic element of\nbitterness into what had hitherto been an excess of feeling about\nhimself, rather than any positive feeling of hostility or suspicion\nabout others. Finally and perhaps above all else, he was the victim of\ntormenting bodily pain, and of sleeplessness which resulted from it.\nThe agitation and excitement of the journey to England, completed the\nsum of the conditions of disturbance, and as soon as ever he was\nsettled at Wootton, and had leisure to brood over the incidents of\nthe few weeks since his arrival in England, the disorder which had\nlong been spreading through his impulses and affections, suddenly but\nby a most natural sequence extended to the faculties of his\nintelligence, and he became the prey of delusion, a delusion which was\nnot yet fixed, but which ultimately became so.\n\n\"He has only _felt_ during the whole course of his life,\" wrote Hume\nsympathetically; \"and in this respect his sensibility rises to a pitch\nbeyond what I have seen any example of; but it still gives him a more\nacute feeling of pain than of pleasure. He is like a man who was\nstripped not only of his clothes, but of his skin, and turned out in\nthat situation to combat with the rude and boisterous elements.\"[374]\nA morbid affective state of this kind and of such a degree of\nintensity, was the sure antecedent of a morbid intellectual state,\ngeneral or partial, depressed or exalted. One who is the prey of\nunsound feelings, if they are only marked enough and persistent\nenough, naturally ends by a correspondingly unsound arrangement of all\nor some of his ideas to match. The intelligence is seduced into\nfinding supports in misconception of circumstances, for a\nmisconception of human relation which had its root in disordered\nemotion. This completes the breach of correspondence between the man's\nnature and the external facts with which he has to deal, though the\nbreach may not, and in Rousseau's case certainly did not, extend along\nthe whole line of feeling and judgment. Rousseau's delusion about\nHume's sinister feeling and designs, which was the first definite\nmanifestation of positive unsoundness in the sphere of the\nintelligence, was a last result of the gradual development of an\ninherited predisposition to affective unsoundness, which unhappily for\nthe man's history had never been counteracted either by a strenuous\neducation, or by the wholesome urgencies of life.\n\nWe have only to remember that with him, as with the rest of us, there\nwas entire unity of nature, without cataclysm or marvel or\ninexplicable rupture of mental continuity. All the facts came in an\norder that might have been foretold; they all lay together, with their\nfoundations down in physical temperament; the facts which made\nRousseau's name renowned and his influence a great force, along with\nthose which made his life a scandal to others and a misery to himself.\nThe deepest root of moral disorder lies in an immoderate expectation\nof happiness, and this immoderate unlawful expectation was the mark\nboth of his character and his work. The exaltation of emotion over\nintelligence was the secret of his most striking production; the same\nexaltation, by gaining increased mastery over his whole existence, at\nlength passed the limit of sanity and wrecked him. The tendency of the\ndominant side of a character towards diseased exaggeration is a fact\nof daily observation. The ruin which the excess of strong religious\nimagination works in natures without the quality of energetic\nobjective reaction, was shown in the case of Rousseau's contemporary,\nCowper. This gentle poet's delusions about the wrath of God were\nequally pitiable and equally a source of torment to their victim, with\nRousseau's delusions about the malignity of his mysterious plotters\namong men. We must call such a condition unsound, but the important\nthing is to remember that insanity was only a modification of certain\nspecially marked tendencies of the sufferer's sanity.\n\nThe desire to protect himself against the defamation of his enemies\nled him at this time to compose that account of his own life, which is\nprobably the only one of his writings that continues to be generally\nread. He composed the first part of the Confessions at Wootton, during\nthe autumn and winter of 1766. The idea of giving his memoirs to the\npublic was an old one, originally suggested by one of his publishers.\nTo write memoirs of one's own life was one of the fancies of the time,\nbut like all else, it became in Rousseau's hand something more\nfar-reaching and sincere than a passing fashion. Other people wrote\npolite histories of their outer lives, amply coloured with romantic\ndecorations. Rousseau with unquailing veracity plunged into the inmost\ndepths, hiding nothing that would be likely to make him either\nridiculous or hateful in common opinion, and inventing nothing that\ncould attract much sympathy or much admiration. Though, as has been\npointed out already, the Confessions abound in small inaccuracies of\ndate, hardly to be avoided by an oldish man in reference to the facts\nof his boyhood, whether a Rousseau or a Goethe, and though one or two\nof the incidents are too deeply coloured with the hues of sentimental\nreminiscence, and one or two of them are downright impossible, yet\nwhen all these deductions have been made, the substantial truthfulness\nof what remains is made more evident with every addition to our\nmaterials for testing them. When all the circumstances of Rousseau's\nlife are weighed, and when full account has been taken of his proved\ndelinquencies, we yet perceive that he was at bottom a character as\nessentially sincere, truthful, careful of fact and reality, as is\nconsistent with the general empire of sensation over untrained\nintelligence.[375] As for the egotism of the Confessions, it is hard\nto see how a man is to tell the story of his own life without egotism.\nAnd it may be worth adding that the self-feeling which comes to the\nsurface and asserts itself, is in a great many cases far less vicious\nand debilitating than the same feeling nursed internally with a\ntroglodytish shyness. But Rousseau's egotism manifested itself\nperversely. This is true to a certain small extent, and one or two of\nthe disclosures in the Confessions are in very nauseous matter, and\nare made moreover in a very nauseous manner. There are some vices\nwhose grotesqueness stirs us more deeply than downright atrocities,\nand we read of certain puerilities avowed by Rousseau, with a livelier\nimpatience than old Benvenuto Cellini quickens in us, when he\nconfesses to a horrible assassination. This morbid form of\nself-feeling is only less disgusting than the allied form which\nclothes itself in the phrases of religious exaltation. And there is\nnot much of it. Blot out half a dozen pages from the Confessions, and\nthe egotism is no more perverted than in the confessions of Augustine\nor of Cardan.\n\nThese remarks are not made to extenuate Rousseau's faults, or to raise\nthe popular estimate of his character, but simply in the interests of\na greater precision of criticism. In England criticism has nearly\nalways been of the most vulgar superficiality in respect to Rousseau,\nfrom the time of Horace Walpole downwards. The Confessions in their\nleast agreeable parts, or rather especially in those parts, are the\nexpression on a new side and in a peculiar way of the same notion of\nthe essential goodness of nature and the importance of understanding\nnature and restoring its reign, which inspired the Discourses and\nEmilius. \"I would fain show to my fellows,\" he began, \"a man in all\nthe truth of nature,\" and he cannot be charged with any failure to\nkeep his word. He despised opinion, and hence was careless to observe\nwhether or no this revelation of human nakedness was likely to add to\nthe popular respect for nature and the natural man. After all,\nconsidering that literature is for the most part a hollow and\npretentious phantasmagoria of mimic figures posing in breeches and\nperuke, we may try to forgive certain cruel blows to the dignified\nassumptions, solemn words, and high heels of convention, in one who\nwould not lie, nor dissemble kinship with the four-footed. Intense\nsubjective preoccupations in markedly emotional natures all tend to\ncome to the same end. The distance from Rousseau's odious erotics to\nthe glorified ecstasies of many a poor female saint is not far. In any\ncase, let us know the facts about human nature, and the pathological\nfacts no less than the others. These are the first thing, and the\nsecond, and the third also.\n\nThe exaltation of the opening page of the Confessions is shocking. No\nmonk nor saint ever wrote anything more revolting in its blasphemous\nself-feeling. But the exaltation almost instantly became calm, when\nthe course of the story necessarily drew the writer into dealings with\nobjective facts, even muffled as they were by memory and imagination.\nThe broodings over old reminiscence soothed him, the labour of\ncomposition occupied him, and he forgot, as the modern reader would\nnever know from internal evidence, that he was preparing a vindication\nof his life and character against the infamies with which Hume and\nothers were supposed to be industriously blackening them. While he was\nwriting this famous composition, severed by so vast a gulf from the\nmodes of English provincial life, he was on good terms with one or two\nof the great people in his neighbourhood, and kept up a gracious and\nsocial correspondence with them. He was greatly pleased by a\ncompliment that was paid to him by the government, apparently through\nthe interest of General Conway. The duty that had been paid upon\ncertain boxes forwarded to Rousseau from Switzerland was recouped by\nthe treasury,[376] and the arrangements for the annual pension of one\nhundred pounds were concluded and accepted by him, after he had duly\nsatisfied himself that Hume was not the indirect author of the\nbenefaction.[377] The weather was the worst possible, but whenever it\nallowed him to go out of doors, he found delight in climbing the\nheights around him in search of curious mosses; for he had now come to\nthink the discovery of a single new plant a hundred times more useful\nthan to have the whole human race listening to your sermons for half a\ncentury.[378] \"This indolent and contemplative life that you do not\napprove,\" he wrote to the elder Mirabeau, \"and for which I pretend to\nmake no excuses, becomes every day more delicious to me: to wander\nalone among the trees and rocks that surround my dwelling; to muse or\nrather to extravagate at my ease, and as you say to stand gaping in\nthe air; when my brain gets too hot, to calm it by dissecting some\nmoss or fern; in short, to surrender myself without restraint to my\nphantasies, which, heaven be thanked, are all under my own\ncontrol,--all that is for me the height of enjoyment, to which I can\nimagine nothing superior in this world for a man of my age and in my\ncondition.\"[379]\n\nThis contentment did not last long. The snow kept him indoors. The\nexcitement of composition abated. Theresa harassed him by ignoble\nquarrels with the women in the kitchen. His delusions returned with\ngreater force than before. He believed that the whole English nation\nwas in a plot against him, that all his letters were opened before\nreaching London and before leaving it, that all his movements were\nclosely watched, and that he was surrounded by unseen guards to\nprevent any attempt at escape.[380] At length these delusions got such\ncomplete mastery over him, that in a paroxysm of terror he fled away\nfrom Wootton, leaving money, papers, and all else behind him. Nothing\nwas heard of him for a fortnight, when Mr. Davenport received a letter\nfrom him dated at Spalding in Lincolnshire. Mr. Davenport's conduct\nthroughout was marked by a humanity and patience that do him the\nhighest honour. He confesses himself \"quite moved to read poor\nRousseau's mournful epistle.\" \"You shall see his letter,\" he writes to\nHume, \"the first opportunity; but God help him, I can't for pity give\na copy; and 'tis so much mixed with his own poor little private\nconcerns, that it would not be right in me to do it.\"[381] This is\nthe generosity which makes Hume's impatience and that of his\nmischievous advisers in Paris appear petty. Rousseau had behaved quite\nas ill to Mr. Davenport as he had done to Hume, and had received at\nleast equal services from him.[382] The good man at once sent a\nservant to Spalding in search of his unhappy guest, but Rousseau had\nagain disappeared. The parson of the parish had passed several hours\nof each day in his company, and had found him cheerful and\ngood-humoured. He had had a blue coat made for himself, and had\nwritten a long letter to the lord chancellor, praying him to appoint a\nguard, at Rousseau's own expense, to escort him in safety out of the\nkingdom where enemies were plotting against his life.[383] He was next\nheard of at Dover (May 18), whence he wrote a letter to General\nConway, setting forth his delusion in full form.[384] He is the victim\nof a plot; the conspirators will not allow him to leave the island,\nlest he should divulge in other countries the outrages to which he has\nbeen subjected here; he perceives the sinister manoeuvres that will\narrest him if he attempts to put his foot on board ship. But he warns\nthem that his tragical disappearance cannot take place without\ncreating inquiry. Still if General Conway will only let him go, he\ngives his word of honour that he will not publish a line of the\nmemoirs he has written, nor ever divulge the wrongs which he has\nsuffered in England. \"I see my last hour approaching,\" he concluded;\n\"I am determined, if necessary, to advance to meet it, and to perish\nor be free; there is no longer any other alternative.\" On the same\nevening on which he wrote this letter (about May 20-22), the forlorn\ncreature took boat and landed at Calais, where he seems at once to\nhave recovered his composure and a right mind.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[350] Jan. 1766--May 1767.\n\n[351] Streckeisen, ii. 275, etc. _Corr._, iii.\n\n[352] Burton, ii. 299.\n\n[353] The materials for this chapter are taken from Rousseau's\n_Correspondence_ (vols. iv. and v.), and from Hume's letters to\nvarious persons, given in the second volume of Mr. Burton's _Life of\nHume_. Everybody who takes an interest in Rousseau is indebted to Mr.\nBurton for the ample documents which he has provided. Yet one cannot\nbut regret the satire on Rousseau with which he intersperses them, and\nwhich is not always felicitous. For one instance, he implies (p. 295)\nthat Rousseau invented the story given in the Confessions, of Hume's\ncorrecting the proofs of Wallace's book against himself. The story may\nbe true or not, but at any rate Rousseau had it very circumstantially\nfrom Lord Marischal; see letter from Lord M. to J.J.R., in\nStreckeisen, ii. 67. Again, such an expression as Rousseau's\n\"_occasional_ attention to small matters\" (p. 321) only shows that the\nwriter has not read Rousseau's letters, which are indeed not worth\nreading, except by those who wish to have a right to speak about\nRousseau's character. The numerous pamphlets on the quarrel between\nHume and Rousseau, if I may judge from those of them which I have\nturned over, really shed no light on the matter, though they added\nmuch heat. For the journey, see _Corr._, iv. 307; Burton, ii. 304.\n\n[354] _Letter to a Member of the National Assembly._ The same passage\ncontains some strong criticism on Rousseau's style.\n\n[355] Burton, 304, 309, 310.\n\n[356] _Ib._ ii. 309, _n._\n\n[357] Mr. Howitt has given an account of Rousseau's quarters at\nWootton, in his _Visits to Remarkable Places_. One or two aged\npeasants had some confused memory of \"old Ross-hall.\" For Rousseau's\nown description, see his letters to Mdme. de Luze, May 10, 1766.\n_Corr._, iv. 326.\n\n[358] Burton, 313. It has been stated that Rousseau never paid this;\nat any rate when he fled, he left between thirty and forty pounds in\nMr. Davenport's hands. See Davenport to Hume; Burton, 367. Rousseau's\naccurate probity in affairs of money is absolutely unimpeachable.\n\n[359] _Corr._ iv. 312. April 9, 1766.\n\n[360] Here is a translation of this rather poor piece of sarcasm:--\"My\ndear Jean Jacques--You have renounced Geneva, your native place. You\nhave caused your expulsion from Switzerland, a country so extolled in\nyour writings; France has issued a warrant against you; so do you come\nto me. I admire your talents; I am amused by your dreamings, though\nlet me tell you they absorb you too much and for too long. You must at\nlength be sober and happy; you have caused enough talk about yourself\nby oddities which in truth are hardly becoming a really great man.\nProve to your enemies that you can now and then have common sense.\nThat will annoy them and do you no harm. My states offer you a\npeaceful retreat. I wish you well, and will treat you well, if you\nwill let me. But if you persist in refusing my help, do not reckon\nupon my telling any one that you did so. If you are bent on tormenting\nyour spirit to find new misfortunes, choose whatever you like best. I\nam a king, and can procure them for you at your pleasure; and what\nwill certainly never happen to you in respect of your enemies, I will\ncease to persecute you as soon as you cease to take a pride in being\npersecuted. Your good friend, FREDERICK.\"\n\n[361] _Corr._, iv. 313, 343, 388, 398.\n\n[362] _Ib._ 395.\n\n[363] _Ib._ 389, etc.\n\n[364] _Ib._ 384.\n\n[365] _Ib._ 343, 344, 387, etc.\n\n[366] _Corr._, iv. 346.\n\n[367] _Ib._ 390. A letter from Hume to Blair, long before the rupture\novert, shows the former to have been by no means so phlegmatic on this\noccasion as he may have seemed. \"I hope,\" he writes, \"you have not so\nbad an opinion of me as to think I was not melted on this occasion; I\nassure you I kissed him and embraced him twenty times, with a\nplentiful effusion of tears. I think no scene of my life was ever more\naffecting.\" Burton, ii. 315. The great doubters of the eighteenth\ncentury could without fear have accepted the test of the ancient\nsaying, that men without tears are worth little.\n\n[368] Bernardin de St. Pierre, _Oeuv._, xii. 79.\n\n[369] Walpole's _Letters_, v. 7 (Cunningham's edition). For other\nletters from the shrewd coxcomb on the same matter, see pp. 23-28. A\ncorroboration of the statement that Hume knew nothing of the letter\nuntil he was in England, may be inferred from what he wrote to Madame\nde Boufflers; Burton, ii. 306, and _n._ 2.\n\n[370] Bernardin de St. Pierre, _Oeuv._, xii. 79.\n\n[371] To Adam Smith. Burton, 380.\n\n[372] Burton, 381.\n\n[373] A very common but random opinion traces Rousseau's insanity to\ncertain disagreeable habits avowed in the Confessions. They may have\ncontributed in some small degree to depression of vital energies,\nthough for that matter Rousseau's strength and power of endurance were\nremarkable to the end. But they certainly did not produce a mental\nstate in the least corresponding to that particular variety of\ninsanity, which possesses definitely marked features.\n\n[374] Burton, ii. 314.\n\n[375] For an instructive and, as it appears to me, a thoroughly\ntrustworthy account of the temper in which the Confessions were\nwritten, see the 4th of the _R\u00eaveries_.\n\n[376] Letter to the Duke of Grafton, Feb. 27, 1767. _Corr._, v. 98:\nalso 118.\n\n[377] _Ib._ v. 133; also to General Conway (March 26), p. 137, etc.\n\n[378] _Corr._, v. 37.\n\n[379] _Corr._, v. 88.\n\n[380] See the letters to Du Peyrou, of the 2d and 4th of April 1767.\n_Corr._, v. 140-147.\n\n[381] Davenport to Hume; Burton, 367-371.\n\n[382] J.J.R. to Davenport, Dec. 22, 1766, and April 30, 1767. _Corr._,\nv. 66, 152.\n\n[383] Burton, 369, 375.\n\n[384] _Corr._, v. 153.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE END.\n\n\nBefore leaving England, Rousseau had received more than one\nlong and rambling letter from a man who was as unlike the rest of\nmankind as he was unlike them himself. This was the Marquis of\nMirabeau (1715-89), the violent, tyrannical, pedantic, humoristic sire\nof a more famous son. Perhaps we might say that Mirabeau and Rousseau\nwere the two most singular originals then known to men, and Mirabeau's\noriginality was in some respects the more salient of the two. There is\nless of the conventional tone of the eighteenth century Frenchman in\nhim than in any other conspicuous man of the time, though like many\nother headstrong and despotic souls he picked up the current notions\nof philanthropy and human brotherhood. He really was by very force of\ntemperament that rebel against the narrowness, trimness, and moral\nformalism of the time which Rousseau only claimed and attempted to be,\nwith the secondary degree of success that follows vehemence without\nnative strength. Mirabeau was a sort of Swift, who had strangely taken\nup the trade of friendship for man and adopted the phrases of\nperfectibility; while Rousseau on the other hand was meant for a\nF\u00e9nelon, save that he became possessed of unclean devils.\n\nMirabeau, like Jean Jacques himself, was so impressed by the marked\ntenor of contemporary feeling, its prudential didactics, its\nformulistic sociality, that his native insurgency only found vent in\nprivate life, while in public he played pedagogue to the human race.\nFriend of Quesnai and orthodox economist as he was, he delighted in\nRousseau's books: \"I know no morality that goes deeper than yours; it\nstrikes like a thunderbolt, and advances with the steady assurance of\ntruth, for you are always true, according to your notions for the\nmoment.\" He wrote to tell him so, but he told him at the same time at\ngreat length, and with a caustic humour and incoherency less academic\nthan Rabelaisian, that he had behaved absurdly in his quarrel with\nHume. There is nothing more quaint than the appearance of a few of the\nsacramental phrases of the sect of the economists, floating in the\nmidst of a copious stream of egoistic whimsicalities. He concludes\nwith a diverting enumeration of all his country seats and demesnes,\nwith their respective advantages and disadvantages, and prays Rousseau\nto take up his residence in whichever of them may please him\nbest.[385]\n\nImmediately on landing at Calais Rousseau informed Mirabeau, and\nMirabeau lost no time in conveying him stealthily, for the warrant of\nthe parliament of Paris was still in force, to a house at Fleury. But\nthe Friend of Men, to use his own account of himself, \"bore letters as\na plum-tree bears plums,\" and wrote to his guest with strange\nhumoristic volubility and droll imperturbable temper, as one who knew\nhis Jean Jacques. He exhorts him in many sheets to harden himself\nagainst excessive sensibility, to be less pusillanimous, to take\nsociety more lightly, as his own light estimate of its worth should\nlead him to do. \"No doubt its outside is a shifting surface-picture,\nnay even ridiculous, if you will; but if the irregular and ceaseless\nflight of butterflies wearies you in your walk, it is your own fault\nfor looking continuously at what was only made to adorn and vary the\nscene. But how many social virtues, how much gentleness and\nconsiderateness, how many benevolent actions, remain at the bottom of\nit all.\"[386] Enormous manifestoes of the doctrine of perfectibility\nwere not in the least degree either soothing or interesting to\nRousseau, and the thrusts of shrewd candour at his expense might touch\nhis fancy on a single occasion, but not oftener. Two humorists are\nseldom successful in amusing one another. Besides, Mirabeau insisted\nthat Jean Jacques should read this or that of his books. Rousseau\nanswered that he would try, but warned him of the folly of it. \"I do\nnot engage always to follow what you say, because it has always been\npainful to me to think, and fatiguing to follow the thoughts of other\npeople, and at present I cannot do so at all.\"[387] Though they\ncontinued to be good friends, Rousseau only remained three or four\nweeks at Fleury. His old acquaintance at Montmorency, the Prince of\nConti, partly perhaps from contrition at the rather unchivalrous\nfashion in which his great friends had hustled the philosopher away at\nthe time of the decree of the parliament of Paris, offered him refuge\nat one of his country seats at Trye near Gisors. Here he installed\nRousseau under the name of Renou, either to silence the indiscreet\ncuriosity of neighbours, or to gratify a whim of Rousseau himself.\n\nRousseau remained for a year (June 1767-June 1768), composing the\nsecond part of the Confessions, in a condition of extreme mental\nconfusion. Dusky phantoms walked with him once more. He knew the\ngardener, the servants, the neighbours, all to be in the pay of Hume,\nand that he was watched day and night with a view to his\ndestruction.[388] He entirely gave up either reading or writing, save\na very small number of letters, and he declared that to take up the\npen even for these was like lifting a load of iron. The only interest\nhe had was botany, and for this his passion became daily more intense.\nHe appears to have been as contented as a child, so long as he could\nemploy himself in long expeditions in search of new plants, in\narranging a herbarium, in watching the growth of the germ of some rare\nseed which needed careful tending. But the story had once more the\nsame conclusion. He fled from Trye, as he had fled from Wootton. He\nmeant apparently to go to Chamb\u00e9ri, drawn by the deep magnetic force\nof old memories that seemed long extinct. But at Grenoble on his way\nthither he encountered a substantial grievance. A man alleged that he\nhad lent Rousseau a few francs seven years previously. He was\nundoubtedly mistaken, and was fully convicted of his mistake by proper\nauthorities, but Rousseau's correspondents suffered none the less for\nthat. We all know when monomania seizes a man, how adroitly and how\neagerly it colours every incident. The mistaken claim was proof\ndemonstrative of that frightful and tenebrous conspiracy, which they\nmight have thought a delusion hitherto, but which, alas, this showed\nto be only too tragically real; and so on, through many pages of\ndroning wretchedness.[389] Then we find him at Bourgoin, where he\nspent some months in shabby taverns, and then many months more at\nMonquin on adjoining uplands.[390] The estrangement from Theresa, of\nwhich enough has been said already,[391] was added to his other\ntorments. He resolved, as so many of the self-tortured have done\nsince, to go in search of happiness to the western lands beyond the\nAtlantic, where the elixir of bliss is thought by the wearied among us\nto be inexhaustible and assured. Almost in the same page he turns his\nface eastwards, and dreams of ending his days peacefully among the\nislands of the Grecian archipelago. Next he gravely, not only\ndesigned, but actually took measures, to return to Wootton. All was no\nmore than the momentary incoherent purpose of a sick man's dream, the\nweary distraction of one who had deliberately devoted himself to\nisolation from his fellows, without first sitting down carefully to\ncount the cost, or to measure the inner resources which he possessed\nto meet the deadly strain that isolation puts on every one of a man's\nmental fibres. Geographical loneliness is to some a condition of their\nfullest strength, but most of the few who dare to make a moral\nsolitude for themselves, find that they have assuredly not made peace.\nSuch solitude, as South said of the study of the Apocalypse, either\nfinds a man mad, or leaves him so. Not all can play the stoic who\nwill, and it is still more certain that one who like Rousseau has lain\ndown with the doctrine that in all things imaginable it is impossible\nfor him to do at all what he cannot do with pleasure, will end in a\ncondition of profound and hopeless impotence in respect to pleasure\nitself.\n\nIn July 1770, he made his way to Paris, and here he remained eight\nyears longer, not without the introduction of a certain degree of\norder into his outer life, though the clouds of vague suspicion and\ndistrust, half bitter, half mournful, hung heavily as ever upon his\nmind. The Dialogues, which he wrote at this period (1775-76) to\nvindicate his memory from the defamation that was to be launched in a\ndark torrent upon the world at the moment of his death, could not\npossibly have been written by a man in his right mind. Yet the best of\nthe Musings, which were written still nearer the end, are masterpieces\nin the style of contemplative prose. The third, the fifth, the\nseventh, especially abound in that even, full, mellow gravity of tone\nwhich is so rare in literature, because the deep absorption of spirit\nwhich is its source is so rare in life. They reveal Rousseau to us\nwith a truth beyond that attained in any of his other pieces--a\nmournful sombre figure, looming shadowily in the dark glow of sundown\namong sad and desolate places. There is nothing like them in the\nFrench tongue, which is the speech of the clear, the cheerful, or the\naugust among men; nothing like this sonorous plainsong, the strangely\nmelodious expression in the music of prose of a darkened spirit which\nyet had imaginative visions of beatitude.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt is interesting to look on one or two pictures of the last waste and\nobscure years of the man, whose words were at this time silently\nfermenting for good and for evil in many spirits--a Schiller, a\nHerder, a Jeanne Phlipon, a Robespierre, a Gabriel Mirabeau, and many\nhundreds of those whose destiny was not to lead, but ingenuously to\nfollow. Rousseau seems to have repulsed nearly all his ancient\nfriends, and to have settled down with dogged resolve to his old trade\nof copying music. In summer he rose at five, copied music until\nhalf-past seven; munched his breakfast, arranging on paper during the\nprocess such plants as he had gathered the previous afternoon; then he\nreturned to his work, dined at half-past twelve, and went forth to\ntake coffee at some public place. He would not return from his walk\nuntil nightfall, and he retired at half-past ten. The pavements of\nParis were hateful to him because they tore his feet, and, said he,\nwith deeply significant antithesis, \"I am not afraid of death, but I\ndread pain.\" He always found his way as fast as possible to one of the\nsuburbs, and one of his greatest delights was to watch Mont Val\u00e9rien\nin the sunset. \"Atheists,\" he said calumniously, \"do not love the\ncountry; they like the environs of Paris, where you have all the\npleasures of the city, good cheer, books, pretty women; but if you\ntake these things away, then they die of weariness.\" The note of every\nbird held him attentive, and filled his mind with delicious images. A\ngraceful story is told of two swallows who made a nest in Rousseau's\nsleeping-room, and hatched the eggs there. \"I was no more than a\ndoorkeeper for them,\" he said, \"for I kept opening the window for them\nevery moment. They used to fly with a great stir round my head, until\nI had fulfilled the duties of the tacit convention between these\nswallows and me.\"\n\nIn January 1771, Bernardin de St. Pierre, author of the immortal _Paul\nand Virginia_ (1788), finding himself at the Cape of Good Hope, wrote\nto a friend in France just previously to his return to Europe,\ncounting among other delights that of seeing two summers in one\nyear.[392] Rousseau happened to see the letter, and expressed a desire\nto make the acquaintance of a man who in returning home should think\nof that as one of his chief pleasures. To this we owe the following\npictures of an interior from St. Pierre's hand:--\n\n In the month of June in 1772, a friend having offered to\n take me to see Jean Jacques Rousseau, he brought me to a\n house in the Rue Pl\u00e2tri\u00e8re, nearly opposite to the H\u00f4tel de\n la Poste. We mounted to the fourth story. We knocked, and\n Madame Rousseau opened the door. \"Come in, gentlemen,\" she\n said, \"you will find my husband.\" We passed through a very\n small antechamber, where the household utensils were neatly\n arranged, and from that into a room where Jean Jacques was\n seated in an overcoat and a white cap, busy copying music.\n He rose with a smiling face, offered us chairs, and resumed\n his work, at the same time taking a part in conversation. He\n was thin and of middle height. One shoulder struck me as\n rather higher than the other ... otherwise he was very well\n proportioned. He had a brown complexion, some colour on his\n cheek-bones, a good mouth, a well-made nose, a rounded and\n lofty brow, and eyes full of fire. The oblique lines falling\n from the nostrils to the extremity of the lips, and marking\n a physiognomy, in his case expressed great sensibility and\n something even painful. One observed in his face three or\n four of the characteristics of melancholy--the deep receding\n eyes and the elevation of the eyebrows; you saw profound\n sadness in the wrinkles of the brow; a keen and even caustic\n gaiety in a thousand little creases at the corners of the\n eyes, of which the orbits entirely disappeared when he\n laughed.... Near him was a spinette on which from time to\n time he tried an air. Two little beds of blue and white\n striped calico, a table, and a few chairs, made the stock of\n his furniture. On the walls hung a plan of the forest and\n park of Montmorency, where he had once lived, and an\n engraving of the King of England, his old benefactor. His\n wife was sitting mending linen; a canary sang in a cage hung\n from the ceiling; sparrows came for crumbs on to the sills\n of the windows, which on the side of the street were open;\n while in the window of the antechamber we noticed boxes and\n pots filled with such plants as it pleases nature to sow.\n There was in the whole effect of his little establishment an\n air of cleanness, peace, and simplicity, which was\n delightful.\n\nA few days after, Rousseau returned the visit. \"He wore a round wig,\nwell powdered and curled, carrying a hat under his arm, and in a full\nsuit of nankeen. His whole exterior was modest, but extremely neat.\"\nHe expressed his passion for good coffee, saying that this and ice\nwere the only two luxuries for which he cared. St. Pierre happened to\nhave brought some from the Isle of Bourbon, so on the following day he\nrashly sent Rousseau a small packet, which at first produced a polite\nletter of thanks; but the day after the letter of thanks came one of\nharsh protest against the ignominy of receiving presents which could\nnot be returned, and bidding the unfortunate donor to choose between\ntaking his coffee back or never seeing his new friend again. A fair\nbargain was ultimately arranged, St. Pierre receiving in exchange for\nhis coffee some curious root or other, and a book on ichthyology.\nImmediately afterwards he went to dine with his sage. He arrived at\neleven in the forenoon, and they conversed until half-past twelve.\n\n Then his wife laid the cloth. He took a bottle of wine, and\n as he put it on the table, asked whether we should have\n enough, or if I was fond of drinking. \"How many are there of\n us,\" said I. \"Three,\" he said; \"you, my wife, and myself.\"\n \"Well,\" I went on, \"when I drink wine and am alone, I drink\n a good half-bottle, and I drink a trifle more when I am with\n friends.\" \"In that case,\" he answered, \"we shall not have\n enough; I must go down into the cellar.\" He brought up a\n second bottle. His wife served two dishes, one of small\n tarts, and another which was covered. He said, showing me\n the first, \"That is your dish and the other is mine.\" \"I\n don't eat much pastry,\" I said, \"but I hope to be allowed to\n taste what you have got.\" \"Oh, they are both common,\" he\n replied; \"but most people don't care for this. 'Tis a Swiss\n dish; a compound of lard, mutton, vegetables, and\n chestnuts.\" It was excellent. After these two dishes, we had\n slices of beef in salad; then biscuits and cheese; after\n which his wife served the coffee.\n\n * * * * *\n\n One morning when I was at his house, I saw various domestics\n either coming for rolls of music, or bringing them to him to\n copy. He received them standing and uncovered. He said to\n some, \"The price is so much,\" and received the money; to\n others, \"How soon must I return my copy?\" \"My mistress would\n like to have it back in a fortnight.\" \"Oh, that's out of the\n question: I have work, I can't do it in less than three\n weeks.\" I inquired why he did not take his talents to better\n market. \"Ah,\" he answered, \"there are two Rousseaus in the\n world; one rich, or who might have been if he had chosen; a\n man capricious, singular, fantastic; this is the Rousseau of\n the public; the other is obliged to work for his living, the\n Rousseau whom you see.\"[393]\n\nThey often took long rambles together, and all proceeded most\nharmoniously, unless St. Pierre offered to pay for such refreshment as\nthey might take, when a furious explosion was sure to follow. Here is\none more picture, without explosion.\n\n _An Easter Monday Excursion to Mont Val\u00e9rien._\n\n We made an appointment at a caf\u00e9 in the Champs Elys\u00e9es. In\n the morning we took some chocolate. The wind was westerly,\n and the air fresh. The sun was surrounded by white clouds,\n spread in masses over an azure sky. Reaching the Bois de\n Boulogne by eight o'clock, Jean Jacques set to work\n botanising. As he collected his little harvest, we kept\n walking along. We had gone through part of the wood, when in\n the midst of the solitude we perceived two young girls, one\n of whom was arranging the other's hair.--[Reminded them of\n some verses of Virgil.]....\n\n Arrived on the edge of the river, we crossed the ferry with\n a number of people whom devotion was taking to Mont\n Val\u00e9rien. We climbed an extremely stiff slope, and were\n hardly on the top before hunger overtook us and we began to\n think of dining. Rousseau then led the way towards a\n hermitage, where he knew we could make sure of hospitality.\n The brother who opened to us, conducted us to the chapel,\n where they were reciting the litanies of providence, which\n are extremely beautiful.... When we had prayed, Jean Jacques\n said to me with genuine feeling: \"Now I feel what is said in\n the gospel, 'Where several of you are gathered together in\n my name, there will I be in the midst of them.' There is a\n sentiment of peace and comfort here that penetrates the\n soul.\" I replied, \"If F\u00e9nelon were alive, you would be a\n Catholic.\" \"Ah,\" said he, the tears in his eyes, \"if F\u00e9nelon\n were alive, I would seek to be his lackey.\"\n\n Presently we were introduced into the refectory; we seated\n ourselves during the reading. The subject was the injustice\n of the complainings of man: God has brought him from\n nothing, he oweth him nothing. After the reading, Rousseau\n said to me in a voice of deep emotion: \"Ah, how happy is the\n man who can believe....\" We walked about for some time in\n the cloister and the gardens. They command an immense\n prospect. Paris in the distance reared her towers all\n covered with light, and made a crown to the far-spreading\n landscape. The brightness of the view contrasted with the\n great leaden clouds that rolled after one another from the\n west, and seemed to fill the valley.... In the afternoon\n rain came on, as we approached the Porte Maillot. We took\n shelter along with a crowd of other holiday folk under some\n chestnut-trees whose leaves were coming out. One of the\n waiters of a tavern perceiving Jean Jacques, rushed to him\n full of joy, exclaiming, \"What, is it you, _mon bonhomme_?\n Why, it is a whole age since we have seen you.\" Rousseau\n replied cheerfully, \"'Tis because my wife has been ill, and\n I myself have been out of sorts.\" \"_Mon pauvre bonhomme_,\"\n replied the lad, \"you must not stop here; come in, come in,\n and I will find room for you.\" He hurried us along to a room\n upstairs, where in spite of the crowd he procured for us\n chairs and a table, and bread and wine. I said to Jean\n Jacques, \"He seems very familiar with you.\" He answered,\n \"Yes, we have known one another some years. We used to come\n here in fine weather, my wife and I, to eat a cutlet of an\n evening.\"[394]\n\nThings did not continue to go thus smoothly. One day St. Pierre went\nto see him, and was received without a word, and with stiff and gloomy\nmien. He tried to talk, but only got monosyllables; he took up a book,\nand this drew a sarcasm which sent him forth from the room. For more\nthan two months they did not meet. At length they had an accidental\nencounter at a street corner. Rousseau accosted St. Pierre, and with a\ngradually warming sensibility proceeded thus: \"There are days when I\nwant to be alone and crave privacy. I come back from my solitary\nexpeditions so calm and contented. There I have not been wanting to\nanybody, nor has anybody been wanting to me,\" and so on.[395] He\nexpressed this humour more pointedly on some other occasion, when he\nsaid that there were times in which he fled from the eyes of men as\nfrom Parthian arrows. As one said who knew from experience, the fate\nof his most intimate friend depended on a word or a gesture.[396]\nAnother of them declared that he knew Rousseau's style of discarding a\nfriend by letter so thoroughly, that he felt confident he could supply\nRousseau's place in case of illness or absence.[397] In much of this\nwe suspect that the quarrel was perfectly justified. Sociality meant a\nfutile display before unworthy and condescending curiosity. \"It is not\nI whom they care for,\" he very truly said, \"but public opinion and\ntalk about me, without a thought of what real worth I may have.\" Hence\nhis steadfast refusal to go out to dine or sup. The mere impertinence\nof the desire to see him was illustrated by some coxcombs who insisted\nwith a famous actress of his acquaintance, that she should invite the\nstrange philosopher to meet them. She was aware that no known force\nwould persuade Rousseau to come, so she dressed up her tailor as\nphilosopher, bade him keep a silent tongue, and vanish suddenly\nwithout a word of farewell. The tailor was long philosophically\nsilent, and by the time that wine had loosened his tongue, the rest of\nthe company were too far gone to perceive that the supposed Rousseau\nwas chattering vulgar nonsense.[398] We can believe that with admirers\nof this stamp Rousseau was well pleased to let tailors or others stand\nin his place. There were some, however, of a different sort, who\nflitted across his sight and then either vanished of their own accord,\nor were silently dismissed, from Madame de Genlis up to Gr\u00e9try and\nGluck. With Gluck he seems to have quarrelled for setting his music to\nFrench words, when he must have known that Italian was the only tongue\nfit for music.[399] Yet it was remarked that no one ever heard him\nspeak ill of others. His enemies, the figures of his delusion, were\nvaguely denounced in many dronings, but they remained in dark shadow\nand were unnamed. When Voltaire paid his famous last visit to the\ncapital (1778), some one thought of paying court to Rousseau by making\na mock of the triumphal reception of the old warrior, but Rousseau\nharshly checked the detractor. It is true that in 1770-71 he gave to\nsome few of his acquaintances one or more readings of the Confessions,\nalthough they contained much painful matter for many people still\nliving, among the rest for Madame d'Epinay. She wrote justifiably\nenough to the lieutenant of police, praying that all such readings\nmight be prohibited, and it is believed that they were so\nprohibited.[400]\n\nIn 1769, when Polish anarchy was at its height, as if to show at once\nhow profound the anarchy was, and how profound the faith among many\nminds in the power of the new French theories, an application was made\nto Mably to draw up a scheme for the renovation of distracted Poland.\nMably's notions won little esteem from the persons who had sought for\nthem, and in 1771 a similar application was made to Rousseau in his\nParisian garret. He replied in the Considerations on the Government of\nPoland, which are written with a good deal of vigour of expression,\nbut contain nothing that needs further discussion. He hinted to the\nPoles with some shrewdness that a curtailment of their territory by\ntheir neighbours was not far off,[401] and the prediction was rapidly\nfulfilled by the first partition of Poland in the following year.\n\nHe was asked one day of what nation he had the highest opinion. He\nanswered, the Spanish. The Spanish nation, he said, has a character;\nif it is not rich, it still preserves all its pride and self-respect\nin the midst of its poverty; and it is animated by a single spirit,\nfor it has not been scourged by the conflicting opinions of\nphilosophy.[402]\n\nHe was extremely poor for these last eight years of his life. He seems\nto have drawn the pension which George III. had settled on him, for\nnot more than one year. We do not know why he refused to receive it\nafterwards. A well-meaning friend, when the arrears amounted to\nbetween six and seven thousand francs, applied for it on his behalf,\nand a draft for the money was sent. Rousseau gave the offender a\nvigorous rebuke for meddling in affairs that did not concern him, and\nthe draft was destroyed. Other attempts to induce him to draw this\nmoney failed equally.[403] Yet he had only about fifty pounds a year\nto live on, together with the modest amount which he earned by copying\nmusic.[404]\n\nThe sting of indigence began to make itself felt towards 1777. His\nhealth became worse and he could not work. Theresa was waxing old, and\ncould no longer attend to the small cares of the household. More than\none person offered them shelter and provision, and the old\ndistractions as to a home in which to end his days began once again.\nAt length M. Girardin prevailed upon him to come and live at\nErmenonville, one of his estates some twenty miles from Paris. A dense\ncloud of obscure misery hangs over the last months of this forlorn\nexistence.[405] No tragedy had ever a fifth act so squalid. Theresa's\ncharacter seems to have developed into something truly bestial.\nRousseau's terrors of the designs of his enemies returned with great\nviolence. He thought he was imprisoned, and he knew that he had no\nmeans of escape. One day (July 2, 1778), suddenly and without a single\nwarning symptom, all drew to an end; the sensations which had been the\nruling part of his life were affected by pleasure and pain no more,\nthe dusky phantoms all vanished into space. The surgeons reported that\nthe cause of his death was apoplexy, but a suspicion has haunted the\nworld ever since, that he destroyed himself by a pistol-shot. We\ncannot tell. There is no inherent improbability in the fact of his\nhaving committed suicide. In the New Helo\u00efsa he had thrown the\nconditions which justified self-destruction into a distinct formula.\nFifteen years before, he declared that his own case fell within the\nconditions which he had prescribed, and that he was meditating\naction.[406] Only seven years before, he had implied that a man had\nthe right to deliver himself of the burden of his own life, if its\nmiseries were intolerable and irremediable.[407] This, however, counts\nfor nothing in the absence of some kind of positive evidence, and of\nthat there is just enough to leave the manner of his end a little\ndoubtful.[408] Once more, we cannot tell.\n\nBy the serene moonrise of a summer night, his body was put under the\nground on an island in the midst of a small lake, where poplars throw\nshadows over the still water, silently figuring the destiny of\nmortals. Here it remained for sixteen years. Then amid the roar of\ncannon, the crash of trumpet and drum, and the wild acclamations of a\npopulace gone mad in exultation, terror, fury, it was ordered that the\npoor dust should be transported to the national temple of great men.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[385] Streckeisen, ii. 315-328.\n\n[386] Streckeisen, ii. 337.\n\n[387] June 19, 1767. _Corr._, v. 172.\n\n[388] _Corr._, v. 267, 375.\n\n[389] _Corr._, v. 330-381, 408, etc.\n\n[390] Bourgoin, Aug. 1768, to March, 1769. Monquin, to July 1770.\n\n[391] See above, vol. i. chap. iv.\n\n[392] The life of Bernardin de St. Pierre (1737-1814) was nearly as\nirregular as that of his friend and master. But his character was\nessentially crafty and selfish, like that of many other\nsentimentalists of the first order.\n\n[393] _Oeuv._, xii. 69, 73.\n\n[394] _Oeuv._, xii. 104, etc.; and also the _Pr\u00e9ambule de l'Arcadie_,\n_Oeuv._, vii. 64, 65.\n\n[395] St. Pierre, xii. 81-83.\n\n[396] Dusaulx, p. 81. For his quarrel with Rousseau, see pp. 130, etc.\n\n[397] Rulhi\u00e8res in Dusaulx, p. 179. For a strange interview between\nRulhi\u00e8res and Rousseau, see pp. 185-186.\n\n[398] Musset-Pathay, i. 181.\n\n[399] _Ib._\n\n[400] Musset-Pathay, i. 209. Rousseau gave a copy of the Confessions\nto Moultou, but forbade the publication before the year 1800.\nNotwithstanding this, printers procured copies surreptitiously,\nperhaps through Theresa, ever in need of money; the first part was\npublished four years, and the second part with many suppressions\neleven years, after his death, in 1782 and 1789 respectively. See\nMusset-Pathay, ii. 464.\n\n[401] Ch. v. Such a curtailment, he says, \"would no doubt be a great\nevil for the parts dismembered, but it would be a great advantage for\nthe body of the nation.\" He urged federation as the condition of any\nsolid improvement in their affairs.\n\n[402] Bernardin de St. Pierre, xii. 37. Comte had a similar admiration\nfor Spain and for the same reason.\n\n[403] Corancez, quoted in Musset-Pathay, i. 239. Also _Corr._, vi.\n295.\n\n[404] _Corr._, vi. 303.\n\n[405] Robespierre, then a youth, is said to have invited him here. See\nHamel's _Robespierre_, i. 22.\n\n[406] See above, vol. i. pp. 16, 17.\n\n[407] _Corr._, vi. 264.\n\n[408] The case stands thus:--(1) There was the certificate of five\ndoctors, attesting that Rousseau had died of apoplexy. (2) The\nassertion of M. Girardin, in whose house he died, that there was no\nhole in his head, nor poison in the stomach or viscera, nor other sign\nof self-destruction. (3) The assertion of Theresa to the same effect.\nOn the other hand, we have the assertion of Corancez, that on his\njourney to Ermenonville on the day of Rousseau's burial a horse-master\non the road had said, \"Who would have supposed that M. Rousseau would\nhave destroyed himself!\"--and a variety of inferences from the wording\nof the certificate, and of Theresa's letter. Musset-Pathay believes in\nthe suicide, and argued very ingeniously against M. Girardin. But his\narguments do not go far beyond verbal ingenuity, showing that suicide\nwas possible, and was consistent with the language of the documents,\nrather than adducing positive testimony. See vol. i. of his _History_,\npp. 268, etc. The controversy was resumed as late as 1861, between the\n_Figaro_ and the _Monde Illustr\u00e9_. See also M. Jal's _Dict. Crit. de\nBiog. et d'Hist._, p. 1091.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\nACADEMIES (French) local, i. 132.\n\nAcademy, of Dijon, Rousseau writes essays for, i. 133;\n French, prize essay against Rousseau's Discourse, i. 150, _n._\n\nActors, how regarded in France in Rousseau's time, i. 322.\n\nAlthusen, teaches doctrine of sovereignty of the people, ii. 147.\n\nAmerica (U.S.), effects in, of the doctrine of the equality of men,\n i. 182.\n\nAmerican colonists indebted in eighteenth century to Rousseau's\n writings, i. 3.\n\nAnchorite, distinction between the old and the new, i. 234.\n\nAnnecy, i. 34, 50;\n Rousseau's room at, i. 54;\n Rousseau's teachers at, i. 56;\n seminary at, i. 82.\n\nAquinas, protest against juristical doctrine of law being the\n pleasure of the prince, ii. 144, 145.\n\nAristotle on Origin of Society, i. 174.\n\nAtheism, Rousseau's protest against, i. 208;\n St. Lambert on, i. 209, _n._;\n Robespierre's protest against, ii. 178;\n Chaumette put to death for endeavouring to base the government of\n France on, ii. 180.\n\nAugustine (of Hippo), ii. 272, 303.\n\nAustin, John, ii. 151, _n._;\n on Sovereignty, ii. 162.\n\nAuthors, difficulties of, in France in the eighteenth century, ii.\n 55-61.\n\n\nBABOEUF, on the Revolution, ii. 123, _n._\n\nBarbier, ii. 26.\n\nBasedow, his enthusiasm for Rousseau's educational theories, ii. 251.\n\nBeaumont, De, Archbishop of Paris, mandate against Rousseau issued\n by, ii. 83;\n argument from, ii. 86.\n\nBernard, maiden name of Rousseau's mother, i. 10.\n\nBienne, Rousseau driven to take refuge in island in lake of, ii.\n 108;\n his account of, ii. 109-115.\n\nBodin, on Government, ii. 147;\n his definition of an aristocratic state, ii. 168, _n._\n\nBonaparte, Napoleon, ii. 102, _n._\n\nBossuet, on Stage Plays, i. 321.\n\nBoswell, James, ii. 98;\n visits Rousseau, ii. 98, also _ib._ _n._;\n urged by Rousseau to visit Corsica, ii. 100;\n his letter to Rousseau, ii. 101.\n\nBoufflers, Madame de, ii. 5, _ib._ _n._\n\nBougainville (brother of the navigator), i. 184, _n._\n\nBrutus, how Rousseau came to be panegyrist of, i. 187.\n\nBuffon, ii. 205.\n\nBurke, ii. 140, 192.\n\nBurnet, Bishop, on Genevese, i. 225.\n\nBurton, John Hill, his _Life of Hume_ (on Rousseau), ii. 283,\n _n._\n\nByron, Lord, antecedents of highest creative efforts, ii. 1;\n effect of nature upon, ii. 40;\n difference between and Rousseau, ii. 41.\n\n\nCALAS, i. 312.\n\nCalvin, i. 4, 189;\n Rousseau on, as a legislator, ii. 131;\n and Servetus, ii. 180;\n mentioned, ii. 181.\n\n_Candide_, thought by Rousseau to be meant as a reply to him,\n i. 319.\n\nCardan, ii. 303.\n\nCato, how Rousseau came to be his panegyrist, i. 187.\n\nChamb\u00e9ri, probable date of Rousseau's return to, i. 62, _n._;\n takes up his residence there, i. 69;\n effect on his mind of a French column of troops passing through,\n i. 72, 73;\n his illness at, i. 73, _n._\n\nCharmettes, Les, Madame de Warens's residence, i. 73;\n present condition of, i. 74, 75, _n._;\n time spent there by Rousseau, i. 94.\n\nCharron, ii. 203.\n\nChateaubriand, influenced by Rousseau, i. 3.\n\nChatham, Lord, ii. 92.\n\nChaumette, ii. 178;\n guillotined on charge of endeavouring to establish atheism in\n France, ii. 179.\n\nChesterfield, Lord, ii. 15.\n\nChoiseul, ii. 57, 64, 72.\n\nCitizen, revolutionary use of word, derived from Rousseau, ii. 161.\n\nCivilisation, variety of the origin and process of, i. 176;\n defects of, i. 176;\n one of the worst trials of, ii. 102.\n\nCobbett, ii. 42.\n\nCollier, Jeremy, on the English Stage, i. 323.\n\nCondillac, i. 95.\n\nCondorcet, i. 89;\n on Social Position of Women, i. 335;\n human perfectibility, ii. 119;\n inspiration of, drawn from the school of Voltaire and Rousseau,\n ii. 194;\n belief of, in the improvement of humanity, ii. 246;\n grievous mistake of, ii. 247.\n\nConfessions, the, not to be trusted for minute accuracy, i. 86,\n _n._;\n or for dates, i. 93;\n first part written 1766, ii. 301;\n their character, ii. 303;\n published surreptitiously, ii. 324, _n._;\n readings from, prohibited by police, ii. 324.\n\nConti, Prince of, ii. 4-7;\n receives Rousseau at Trye, ii. 118.\n\nContract, Social, i. 136.\n\nCorsica, struggles for independence of, ii. 99;\n Rousseau invited to legislate for, ii. 99-102;\n bought by France, ii. 102.\n\nCowper, i. 20;\n ii. 41;\n on Rousseau, ii. 41 _n._;\n lines in the Task, ii. 253;\n his delusions, ii. 301.\n\nCynicism, Rousseau's assumption of, i. 206.\n\n\nD'AIGUILLON, ii. 72.\n\nD'Alembert, i. 89;\n Voltaire's staunchest henchman, i. 321;\n his article on Geneva, i. 321;\n on Stage Plays, i. 326, _n._;\n on Position of Women in Society, i. 335;\n on Rousseau's letter on the Theatre, i. 336;\n suspected by Rousseau of having written the pretended letter from\n Frederick of Prussia, ii. 288;\n advises Hume to publish account of Rousseau's quarrel with him,\n ii. 294.\n\nD'Argenson, ii. 180.\n\nDates of Rousseau's letters to be relied on, not those of the\n Confessions, i. 93.\n\nDavenport, Mr., provides Rousseau with a home at Wootton, ii. 286;\n his kindness to Rousseau, ii. 306.\n\nDeism, Rousseau's, ii. 260-275;\n that of others, ii. 262-265;\n shortcomings of Rousseau's, ii. 270.\n\nDemocracy defined, ii. 168;\n rejected by Rousseau, as too perfect for men, ii. 171.\n\nD'Epinay, Madame, i. 194, 195, 205;\n gives the Hermitage to Rousseau, i. 229, _n._;\n his quarrels with, i. 271;\n his relations with, i. 273, 276;\n journey to Geneva of, i. 284;\n squabbles arising out of, between, and Rousseau, Diderot, and\n Grimm, i. 285-290;\n mentioned, ii. 7, 26, 197;\n wrote on education, ii. 199;\n applies to secretary of police to prohibit Rousseau's readings\n from his Confessions, ii. 324.\n\nD'Epinay, Monsieur, i. 254; ii. 26.\n\nDescartes, i. 87, 225; ii. 267.\n\nDeux Ponts, Duc de, Rousseau's rude reply to, i. 207.\n\nD'Holbach, i. 192;\n Rousseau's dislike of his materialistic friends, i. 223;\n ii. 37, 256.\n\nD'Houdetot, Madame, i. 255-270;\n Madame d'Epinay's jealousy of, i. 278;\n mentioned, ii. 7;\n offers Rousseau a home in Normandy, ii. 117.\n\nDiderot, i. 64, 89, 133;\n tries to manage Rousseau, i. 213;\n his domestic misconduct, i. 215;\n leader of the materialistic party, i. 223;\n on Solitary Life, i. 232;\n his active life, i. 233;\n without moral sensitiveness, i. 262;\n mentioned, i. 262, 269, 271;\n ii. 8;\n his relations with Rousseau, i. 271;\n accused of pilfering Goldoni's new play, i. 275;\n his relations and contentions with Rousseau, i. 275, 276;\n lectures Rousseau about Madame d'Epinay, i. 284;\n visits Rousseau after his leaving the Hermitage, i. 289;\n Rousseau's final breach with, i. 336;\n his criticism, and plays, ii. 34;\n his defects, ii. 34;\n thrown into prison, ii. 57;\n his difficulties with the Encyclop\u00e6dists, ii. 57;\n his papers saved from the police by Malesherbes, ii. 62.\n\nDijon, academy of, i. 132.\n\nDiscourses, The, Circumstances of the composition of the first\n Discourse, i. 133-136;\n summary of it, i. 138-145\n disastrous effect of the progress of sciences and arts, i.\n 140, 141;\n error more dangerous than truth useful, i. 141;\n uselessness of learning and art, i. 141, 142;\n terrible disorders caused in Europe by the art of printing, i.\n 143;\n two kinds of ignorance, i. 144;\n the relation of this Discourse to Montaigne, i. 145;\n its one-sidedness and hollowness, i. 148;\n shown by Voltaire, i. 148;\n its positive side, i. 149, 150;\n second Discourse, origin of the Inequality of Man, i. 154;\n summary of it, i. 159, 170;\n state of nature, i. 150, 162;\n Hobbes's mistake, i. 161;\n what broke up the \"state of nature,\" i. 164;\n its preferableness, i. 166, 167;\n origin of society and laws, i. 168;\n \"new state of nature,\" i. 169;\n main position of the Discourse, i. 169;\n its utter inclusiveness, i. 170;\n criticism on its method, i. 170;\n on its matter, i. 172;\n wanting in evidence, i. 172;\n further objections to it, i. 173;\n assumes uniformity of process, i. 176;\n its unscientific character, i. 177;\n its real importance, i. 178;\n its protest against the mockery of civilisation, i. 178;\n equality of man, i. 181;\n different effects of this doctrine in France and the United States\n explained, i. 182, 183;\n discovers a reaction against the historical method of Montesquieu,\n i. 183, 184;\n pecuniary results of, i. 196;\n Diderot's praise of first Discourse, i. 200;\n Voltaire's acknowledgement of gift of second Discourse, i. 308;\n the, an attack on the general ordering of society, ii. 22;\n referred to, ii. 41.\n\nDrama, its proper effect, i. 326;\n what would be that of its introduction into Geneva, i. 327;\n true answer to Rousseau's contentions, i. 329.\n\nDramatic morality, i. 326.\n\nDrinkers, Rousseau's estimate of, i. 330.\n\nDrunkenness, how esteemed in Switzerland and Naples, i. 331.\n\nDuclos, i. 206;\n ii. 62.\n\nDuni, i. 292.\n\nDupin, Madame de, Rousseau secretary to, i. 120;\n her position in society, i. 195;\n Rousseau's country life with, i. 196;\n friend of the Abb\u00e9 de Saint Pierre, i. 244.\n\n\nEDUCATION, interest taken in, in France in Rousseau's time, ii. 193,\n 194;\n its new direction ii. 195;\n Locke, the pioneer of, ii. 202, 203;\n Rousseau's special merit in connection with, ii. 203;\n his views on (see Emilius, _passim_, as well as for general\n consideration of) what it is, ii. 219;\n plans of, of Locke and others, designed for the higher class, ii.\n 254;\n Rousseau's for all, ii. 254.\n\n_Emile_, i. 136, 196.\n\nEmilius, character of, ii. 2, 3;\n particulars of the publication of, ii. 59, 60;\n effect of, on Rousseau's fortunes, ii. 62-64;\n ordered to be burnt by public executioner at Paris, ii. 65;\n at Geneva, ii. 72;\n condemned by the Sorbonne, ii. 82;\n supplied (as also did the Social Contract) dialect for the longing\n in France and Germany to return to nature, ii. 193;\n substance of, furnished by Locke, ii. 202;\n examination of, ii. 197-280;\n mischief produced by its good advice, ii. 206, 207;\n training of young children, ii. 207, 208;\n constantly reasoning with them a mistake of Locke's, ii. 209;\n Rousseau's central idea, disparagement of the reasoning faculty,\n ii. 209, 210;\n theories of education, practice better than precept, ii. 211;\n the idea of property, the first that Rousseau would have given to\n a child, ii. 212;\n modes of teaching, ii. 214, 215;\n futility of such methods, ii. 215, 216;\n where Rousseau is right, and where wrong, ii. 219, 220;\n effect of his own want of parental love, ii. 220;\n teaches that everybody should learn a trade, ii. 223;\n no special foresight, ii. 224, 225;\n supremacy of the common people insisted upon, ii. 226, 227;\n three dominant states of mind to be established by the instructor,\n ii. 229, 230;\n Rousseau's incomplete notion of justice, ii. 231;\n ideal of Emilius, ii. 232, 233;\n forbids early teaching of history, ii. 237, 238;\n disparages modern history, ii. 239;\n criticism on the old historians, ii. 240;\n education of women, ii. 241;\n Rousseau's failure here, ii. 242, 243;\n inconsistent with himself, ii. 244, 245;\n worthlessness of his views, ii. 249;\n real merits of the work, ii. 249;\n its effect in Germany, ii. 251, 252;\n not much effect on education in England, ii. 252;\n Emilius the first expression of democratic teaching in education,\n ii. 254;\n Rousseau's deism, ii. 258, 260, 264-267, 269, 270, 276;\n its inadequacy for the wants of men, ii. 267-270;\n his position towards Christianity, ii. 270-276;\n real satisfaction of the religious emotions, ii. 275-280.\n\nEncyclop\u00e6dia, The, D'Alembert's article on Geneva in, i. 321.\n\nEncyclop\u00e6dists, the society of, confirms Rousseau's religious\n faith, i. 221;\n referred to, ii. 257.\n\nEvil, discussions on Rousseau's, Voltaire's, and De Maistre's\n teachings concerning, i. 313, _n._, 318;\n different effect of existence of, on Rousseau and Voltaire, i. 319.\n\n\nF\u00c9NELON, ii. 37, 248;\n Rousseau's veneration for, ii. 321.\n\nFerguson, Adam, ii. 253.\n\nFilmer contends that a man is not naturally free, ii. 126.\n\nFoundling Hospital, Rousseau sends his children to the, i. 120.\n\nFrance, debt of, to Rousseau, i. 3;\n Rousseau the one great religious writer of, in the eighteenth\n century, i. 26;\n his wanderings in the east of, i. 61;\n his fondness for, i. 62-72;\n establishment of local academies in, i. 132;\n decay in, of Greek literary studies, i. 146;\n effects in, of doctrine of equality of man, i. 182;\n effects in, of Montesquieu's \"Spirit of Laws,\" i. 183;\n amiability of, in the eighteenth century, i. 187;\n effect of Rousseau's writings in, i. 187;\n collective organisation in, i. 222;\n St. Pierre's strictures on government of, i. 244;\n Rousseau on government of, i. 246;\n effect of Rousseau's spiritual element on, i. 306;\n patriotism wanting in, i. 332;\n difficulties of authorship in, ii. 55-64;\n buys Corsica from the Genoese, ii. 102;\n state of, after 1792, apparently favourable to the carrying out of\n Rousseau's political views, ii. 131, 132;\n in 1793, ii. 135;\n haunted by narrow and fervid minds, ii. 142.\n\nFrancueil, Rousseau's patron, i. 99;\n grandfather of Madame George Sand, i. 99, _n._;\n Rousseau's salary from, i. 120;\n country-house of, i. 196.\n\nFranklin, Benjamin, ii. 42.\n\nFrederick of Prussia, relations between, and Rousseau, ii. 73-78;\n \"famous bull\" of, ii. 90.\n\nFreeman on Growth of English Constitution, ii. 164.\n\nFrench, principles of, revolution, i. 1, 2, 3;\n process and ideas of, i. 4;\n Rousseau of old, stock, i. 8;\n poetry, Rousseau on, i. 90, _ib. n._;\n melody, i. 105;\n academy, thesis for prize, i. 150, _n._;\n philosophers, i. 202,\n music, i. 291;\n music, its pretensions demolished by Rousseau, i. 294;\n ecclesiastics opposed to the theatre, ii. 322;\n stage, Rousseau on, i. 325;\n morals, depravity of, ii. 26, 27;\n Barbier on, ii. 26;\n thought, benefit, or otherwise of revolution on, ii. 54;\n history, evil side of, in Rousseau's time, ii. 56;\n indebted to Holland for freedom of the press, ii. 59;\n catholic and monarchic absolutism sunk deep into the character of\n the, ii. 167.\n\nFrench Convention, story of member of the, ii. 134, _n._\n\n\nGALUPPI, effect of his music, i. 105.\n\nGeneva, i. 8;\n characteristics of its people, i. 9;\n Rousseau's visit to, i. 93;\n influence of, on Rousseau, i. 94;\n he revisits it in 1754, i. 186-190, 218;\n turns Protestant again there, i. 220;\n religious opinion in, i. 223 (also i. 224, _n._);\n Rousseau thinks of taking up his abode in, i. 228;\n Voltaire at, i. 308;\n D'Alembert's article on, in Encyclop\u00e6dia, i. 321;\n Rousseau's notions of effect of\n introducing the drama at, i. 327;\n council of, order public burning of Emilius and the Social\n Contract, and arrest of the author if he came there, ii. 72;\n the only place where the Social Contract was actually burnt, ii. 73,\n _n._;\n Voltaire suspected to have had a hand in the matter, ii. 81;\n council of, divided into two camps by Rousseau's condemnation, in\n 1762, ii. 102;\n Rousseau renounces his citizenship in, ii. 104;\n working of the republic, ii. 104.\n\nGenevese, Bishop Burnet on, i. 225;\n Rousseau's distrust of, i. 228;\n his panegyric on, i. 328;\n manners of, according to Rousseau, i. 330;\n their complaint of it, i. 331.\n\nGenlis, Madame de, ii. 323.\n\nGenoa, Rousseau in quarantine at, i. 103;\n Corsica sold to France by, ii. 102.\n\nGermany, sentimental movements in, ii. 33.\n\nGibbon, Edward, at Lausanne, ii. 96.\n\nGirardin, St. Marc, on Rousseau, i. 111, _n._;\n on Rousseau's discussions, ii. 11, _n._;\n offers Rousseau a home, ii. 326.\n\nGluck, i. 291, 296;\n Rousseau quarrels with, for setting his music to French words, ii.\n 323.\n\nGoethe, i. 20.\n\nGoguet on Society, ii. 127, _n._;\n on tacit conventions, ii. 148, _n._;\n on law, ii. 153, _n._\n\nGoldoni, Diderot accused of pilfering his new play, i. 275.\n\nGothic architecture denounced by Voltaire and Turgot, i. 294.\n\nGouvon, Count, Rousseau servant to, i. 42.\n\nGovernment, disquisitions on, ii. 131-206;\n remarks on, ii. 131-141;\n early democratic ideas of, ii. 144-148;\n Hobbes' philosophy of, ii. 151;\n Rousseau's science of, ii. 155, 156;\n De la Rivi\u00e8re's science of, ii. 156, _n._;\n federation recommended by Rousseau to the Poles, ii. 166;\n three forms of government defined, ii. 169;\n definition inadequate, ii. 169;\n Montesquieu's definition, ii. 169;\n Rousseau's distinction between _tyrant_ and _despot_, ii.\n 169, _n._;\n his objection to democracy, ii. 172;\n to monarchy, ii. 173;\n consideration of aristocracy, ii. 174;\n his own scheme, ii. 175;\n Hobbes's \"Passive Obedience,\" ii. 181, 182;\n social conscience theory, ii. 183-187;\n government made impossible by Rousseau's doctrine of social\n contract, ii. 188-192;\n Burke on expediency in, ii. 192;\n what a civilised nation is, ii. 194;\n Jefferson on, ii. 227, 228, _n._\n\nGovernments, earliest, how composed, i. 169.\n\nGraffigny, Madame de, ii. 199.\n\nGratitude, Rousseau on, ii. 14, 15;\n explanation of his want of, ii. 70.\n\nGreece, importance of history of, i. 184, and _ib._ _n._\n\nGreek ideas, influence of, in France in the eighteenth century, i.\n 146.\n\nGrenoble, i. 93.\n\nGr\u00e9try, i. 292, 296; ii. 323.\n\nGrimm,\n description of Rousseau by, i. 206;\n Rousseau's quarrels with, i. 279;\n letter of, about Rousseau and Diderot, i. 275;\n relations of, with Rousseau, i. 279;\n some account of his life, i. 279;\n his conversation with Madame d'Epinay, i. 281;\n criticism on Rousseau, i. 281;\n natural want of sympathy between the two, i. 282;\n Rousseau's quarrel with, i. 285-290; ii. 65, 199.\n\nGrotius, on Government, ii. 148.\n\n\nH\u00c9BERT, ii. 178;\n prevents publication of a book in which the author professed his\n belief in a god, ii. 179.\n\nHelmholtz, i. 299.\n\nHelv\u00e9tius, i. 191; ii. 65, 199.\n\nHerder, ii. 251;\n Rousseau's influence on, ii. 315.\n\nHermitage, the, given to Rousseau by Madame d'Epinay, i. 229 (also\n _ib._ _n._);\n what his friends thought of it, i. 231;\n sale of, after the Revolution, i. 237, _n._;\n reasons for Rousseau's leaving, i. 286.\n\nHildebrand, i. 4.\n\nHobbes, i. 143, 161;\n his \"Philosophy of Government,\" ii. 151;\n singular influence of, upon Rousseau, ii. 151, 183;\n essential difference between his views and those of Rousseau, ii.\n 159;\n on Sovereignty, ii. 162;\n Rousseau's definition of the three forms of government adopted\n by, inadequate, ii. 168;\n would reduce spiritual and temporal jurisdiction to one political\n unity, ii. 183.\n\nHolbachians, i. 337; ii. 2.\n\nHooker, on Civil Government, ii. 148.\n\nH\u00f4tel St. Quentin, Rousseau at, i. 106.\n\nHume, David, i. 64, 89;\n his deep-set sagacity, i. 156, ii. 6, 75;\n suspected of tampering with Boswell's letter, ii. 98, _n._;\n on Boswell, ii. 101, _n._;\n his eagerness to find Rousseau a refuge in England, ii. 282, 283;\n his account of Rousseau, ii. 284;\n finds him a home at Wootton, ii. 286;\n Rousseau's quarrel with, ii. 286-291 (also ii. 290, _n._);\n his innocence of Walpole's letter, ii. 292;\n his conduct in the quarrel, ii. 293;\n saves Rousseau from arrest of French Government, ii. 295;\n on Rousseau's sensitiveness, ii. 299.\n\n\nIMAGINATION, Rousseau's, i. 247.\n\n\nJACOBINS, the, Rousseau's Social Contract, their gospel, ii. 132,\n 133;\n their mistake, ii. 136;\n convenience to them of some of the maxims of the Social Contract,\n ii. 142;\n Jacobin supremacy and Hobbism, ii. 152;\n how they might have saved France, ii. 167.\n\nJansen, his propositions, i. 81.\n\nJansenists, Rousseau's suspicions of, ii. 63;\n mentioned, ii. 89.\n\nJean Paul, ii. 216, 252.\n\nJefferson, ii. 227, _n._\n\nJesuits, Rousseau's suspicions of the, ii. 64;\n the, and parliaments, ii. 65;\n movement against, ii. 65;\n suppression of the, leads to increased thought about education,\n ii. 199.\n\nJohnson, ii. 15, 98.\n\n\nKAMES, Lord, ii. 253.\n\n\nLAMENNAIS, influenced by Rousseau, ii. 228.\n\nLanguage, origin of, i. 161.\n\nLatour, Madame, ii. 19, _ib. n._\n\nLavater favourable to education on Rousseau's plan, ii. 251 (also\n _ib._ _n._)\n\nLavoisier, reply to his request for a fortnight's respite, ii. 227,\n _n._\n\nLaw, not a contract, ii. 153.\n\nLecouvreur, Adrienne, refused Christian burial on account of her\n being an actress, i. 323.\n\nLeibnitz, i. 87;\n his optimism, i. 309;\n on the constitution of the universe, i. 312.\n\nLessing, on Pope, i. 310, _n._\n\n\"Letters from the Mountain,\" ii. 104;\n burned, by command, at Paris and the Hague, ii. 105.\n\nLiberty, English, Rousseau's notion of, ii. 163, _n._\n\nLife, Rousseau's condemnation of the contemplative, i. 10;\n his idea of household, i. 41;\n easier for him to preach than for others to practise, i. 43.\n\nLisbon, earthquake of, Voltaire on, i. 310;\n Rousseau's letter to Voltaire on, i. 310, 311.\n\nLocke, his Essay, i. 87;\n his notions, i. 87;\n his influence upon Rousseau, ii. 121-126;\n on Marriage, ii. 126;\n on Civil Government, ii. 149, 150, _n._;\n indefiniteness of his views, ii. 160;\n the pioneer of French thought on education, ii. 202, 203;\n Rousseau's indebtedness to, ii. 203;\n his mistake in education, ii. 209;\n subjects of his theories, ii. 254.\n\nLulli (music), i. 291.\n\nLuther, i. 4.\n\nLuxembourg, the Duke of, gives Rousseau a home, ii. 2-7, 9.\n\nLuxembourg, the Mar\u00e9chale de, in vain seeks Rousseau's children,\n i. 128;\n helps to get Emilius published, ii. 63-64, 67.\n\nLycurgus, ii. 129, 131;\n influence of, upon Saint Just, ii. 133.\n\nLyons, Rousseau a tutor at, i. 95-97.\n\n\nMABLY, De, i. 95;\n his socialism, i. 184;\n applied to for scheme for the government of Poland, ii. 324.\n\nMaistre, De, i. 145;\n on Optimism, i. 314.\n\nMaitre, Le, teaches Rousseau music, i. 58.\n\nMalebranche, i. 87.\n\nMalesherbes, Rousseau confesses his ungrateful nature to, ii. 14;\n his dishonest advice to Rousseau, ii. 60;\n helps Diderot, ii. 62;\n and Rousseau in the publishing of Emilius, ii. 62, 63;\n endangered by it, ii. 67;\n asks Rousseau to collect plants for him, ii. 76.\n\nMan, his specific distinction from other animals, i. 161;\n his state of nature, i. 161;\n Hobbes wrong concerning this, i. 161;\n equality of, i. 180;\n effects of this doctrine in France and in the United States, i.\n 182;\n not naturally free, ii. 126.\n\nMandeville, i. 162.\n\nManners, Rousseau's, Marmontel, and Grimm on, i. 205, 206;\n Rousseau on Swiss, i. 329, 330;\n depravity of French, in the eighteenth century, ii. 25, 26.\n\nMarischal, Lord, friendship between, and Rousseau, ii. 79-81;\n account of, ii. 80;\n on Boswell, ii. 98\n\nMarmontel, on Rousseau's manners, i. 206;\n on his success, ii. 2.\n\nMarriage, design of the New Helo\u00efsa to exalt, ii. 46-48, _ib._\n _n._\n\nMarsilio, of Padua, on Law, ii. 145.\n\nMen, inequality of, Rousseau's second Discourse (see Discourses),\n dedicated to the republic of Geneva, i. 190;\n how received there, i. 228.\n\nMirabeau the elder, Rousseau's letter to, from Wootton, ii. 305, 306;\n his character, ii. 309-312;\n receives Rousseau at Fleury, ii. 311.\n\nMirabeau, Gabriel, Rousseau's influence on, ii. 315.\n\nMoli\u00e8re (Misanthrope of), Rousseau's criticism on, i. 329;\n D'Alembert on, i. 329.\n\nMonarchy, Rousseau's objection to, ii. 171.\n\nMontaigu, Count de, avarice of, i. 101, 102.\n\nMontaigne, Rousseau's obligations to, i. 145;\n influence of, on Rousseau, ii. 203.\n\nMontesquieu, \"incomplete positivity\" of, i. 156;\n on Government, i. 157;\n effect of his Spirit of Laws on Rousseau, i. 183;\n confused definition of laws, ii. 153;\n balanced parliamentary system of, ii. 163;\n his definition of forms of government, ii. 169.\n\nMontmorency, Rousseau goes to live there, i. 229;\n his life at, ii. 2-9.\n\nMontpellier, i. 92.\n\nMorals, state of, in France in the eighteenth century, ii. 26.\n\nMorellet, thrown into the Bastile, ii. 57.\n\nMorelly, his indirect influence on Rousseau, i. 156;\n his socialistic theory, i. 157, 158;\n his rules for organising a model community, i. 158, _n._;\n his terse exposition of inequality contrasted with that of Rousseau,\n i. 170;\n on primitive human nature, i. 175;\n his socialism, ii. 52;\n influence of his \"model community\" upon St. Just, ii. 133,\n _n._;\n advice to mothers, ii. 205.\n\nMotiers, Rousseau's home there, ii. 77;\n attends divine service at, ii. 91;\n life at, ii. 91, 93.\n\nMoultou (pastor of Motiers), his enthusiasm for Rousseau, ii. 82.\n\nMusic, Rousseau undertakes to teach, i. 60;\n Rousseau's opinion concerning Italian, i. 105;\n effect of Galuppi's, i. 105;\n Rousseau earns his living by copying, i. 196; ii. 315;\n Rameau's criticism on Rousseau's _Muses Galantes_, i. 211;\n French, i. 291;\n Rousseau's letter on, i. 292;\n Italian, denounced at Paris, i. 292;\n Rousseau utterly condemns French, i. 294;\n quarrels with Gluck for setting his, to French words, ii. 323.\n\nMusical notation, Rousseau's, i. 291;\n his Musical Dictionary, i. 296;\n his notation explained, i. 296-301;\n his system inapplicable to instruments, i. 301.\n\n\nNAPLES, drunkenness, how regarded in, i. 331.\n\n_Narcisse_, Rousseau's condemnation of his own comedy of, i.\n 215.\n\nNature, Rousseau's love of, i. 234-241; ii. 39;\n state of, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Hume on, i. 156-158;\n Rousseau's, in Second Discourse, i. 171-180;\n his starting-point of right, and normal constitution of civil\n society, ii. 124. See State of Nature.\n\nNecker, ii. 54, 98, _n._\n\nNeuch\u00e2tel, flight to principality of, by Rousseau, ii. 73;\n history of, ii. 73, _n._;\n outbreak at, arising from religious controversy, ii. 90;\n preparations for driving Rousseau out of, defeated by Frederick of\n Prussia, ii. 90;\n clergy of, against Rousseau, ii. 106.\n\nNew Helo\u00efsa, first conception of, i. 250;\n monument of Rousseau's fall, ii. 1;\n when completed and published, ii. 2;\n read aloud to the Duchess de Luxembourg, ii. 3;\n letter on suicide in, ii. 16;\n effects upon Parisian ladies of reading the, ii. 18, 19;\n criticism on, ii. 20-55;\n his scheme proposed in it, ii. 21;\n its story, ii. 24;\n its purity, contrasted with contemporary and later French\n romances, ii. 24;\n its general effect, ii. 27;\n Rousseau absolutely without humour, ii. 27;\n utter selfishness of hero of, ii. 30;\n its heroine, ii. 30;\n its popularity, ii. 231, 232;\n burlesque on it, ii. 31, _n._;\n its vital defect, ii. 35;\n difference between Rousseau, Byron, and others, ii. 42;\n sumptuary details of the story, ii. 44, 45;\n its democratic tendency, ii. 49, 50;\n the bearing of its teaching, ii. 54;\n hindrances to its circulation in France, ii. 57;\n Malesherbes's low morality as to publishing, ii. 61.\n\n\nOPTIMISM of Pope and Leibnitz, i. 309-310;\n discussed, ii. 128-130.\n\nOrigin of inequality among men, i. 156. See also Discourses.\n\n\nPALEY, ii. 191, _n._\n\nPalissot, ii. 56.\n\nParis, Rousseau's first visit to, i. 61;\n his second, i. 63, 97, 102;\n third visit, i. 106;\n effect in, of his first Discourse, i. 139, _n._;\n opinions in, on religion, laws, etc., i. 185;\n \"mimic philosophy\" there, i. 193;\n society in, in Rousseau's time, i. 202-211;\n his view of it, i. 210;\n composes there his _Muses Galantes_, i. 211;\n returns to, from Geneva, i. 228;\n his belief of the unfitness of its people for political affairs,\n i. 246;\n goes to, in 1741, with his scheme of musical notation, i. 291;\n effect there of his letter on music, i. 295;\n Rousseau's imaginary contrast between, and Geneva, i. 329;\n Emilius ordered to be publicly burnt in, ii. 65;\n parliament of, orders \"Letters from the Mountain\" to be burnt,\n ii. 295;\n also Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, ii. 295;\n Danton's scheme for municipal administration of, ii. 168,\n _n._;\n two parties (those of Voltaire and of Rousseau) in, in 1793, ii.\n 178;\n excitement in, at Rousseau's appearance in 1765, ii. 283;\n he goes to live there in 1770, ii. 314;\n Voltaire's last visit to, ii. 323, 324.\n\nP\u00e2ris, Abb\u00e9, miracles at his tomb, ii. 88.\n\nParisian frivolity, i. 193, 220, 329.\n\nParliament and Jesuits, ii. 64.\n\nPascal, ii. 37.\n\nPassy, Rousseau composes the \"Village Soothsayer\" at, i. 212.\n\nPaul, St., effect of, on western society, i. 4.\n\nPeasantry, French, oppression of, i. 67, 68.\n\nPedigree of Rousseau, i. 8, _n._\n\nPelagius, ii. 272.\n\nPeoples, sovereignty of, Rousseau not the inventor of doctrine of,\n ii. 144-148;\n taught by Althusen, i. 147;\n constitution of Helvetic Republic in 1798, a blow at, ii. 165.\n\nPergolese, i. 292.\n\nPestalozzi indebted to Emilius, ii. 252.\n\nPhilidor, i. 292.\n\nPhilosophers, of Rousseau's time, contradicting each other, i. 87;\n Rousseau's complaint of the, i. 202;\n war between the, and the priests, i. 322;\n Rousseau's reactionary protest against, i. 328;\n troubles of, ii. 59;\n parliaments hostile to, ii. 64.\n\nPhilosophy, Rousseau's disgust at mimic, at Paris, i. 193;\n drew him to the essential in religion, i. 220;\n Voltaire's no perfect, i. 318.\n\nPhlipon, Jean Marie, Rousseau's influence on, ii. 315.\n\nPlato, his republic, i. 122;\n his influence on Rousseau, i. 146, 325, _n._;\n Milton on his Laws, ii. 178.\n\nPlays (stage), Rousseau's letter on, to D'Alembert, i. 321;\n his views of, i. 323;\n Jeremy Collier and Bossuet on, i. 323;\n in Geneva, i. 333, 334, _n._;\n Rousseau, Voltaire, and D'Alembert on, i. 332-337.\n\nPlutarch, Rousseau's love for, i. 13.\n\nPlutocracy, new, faults of, i. 195.\n\nPompadour, Madame de, and the Jesuits, ii. 64.\n\nPontverre (priest) converts Rousseau to Romanism, i. 31-35.\n\nPope, his Essay on Man translated by Voltaire, i. 309;\n Berlin Academy and Lessing on it, i. 310, _n._;\n criticism on it by Rousseau, i. 312;\n its general position reproduced by Rousseau, i. 315.\n\nPopelini\u00e8re, M. de, i. 211.\n\nPositive knowledge, i. 78.\n\nPress, freedom of the, ii. 59.\n\nPr\u00e9vost, Abb\u00e9, i. 48.\n\n_Projet pour l'Education_, i. 96, _n._\n\nProperty, private, evils ascribed to i. 157, 185;\n Robespierre disclaimed the intention of attacking, i. 123,\n _n._\n\nProtestant principles, effect of development of, ii. 146-147.\n\nProtestantism, his conversion to, i. 220;\n its influence on Rousseau, i. 221.\n\n\nRAMEAU on Rousseau's _Muses Galantes_, i. 119, 211;\n mentioned, i. 291.\n\nRationalism, i. 224, 225;\n influence of Descartes on, i. 225.\n\nReason, De Saint Pierre's views of, i. 244.\n\nReform, essential priority of social over political, ii. 43.\n\nReligion, simplification of, i. 3;\n ideas of, in Paris, i. 186, 187, 207, 208;\n Rousseau's view of, i. 220;\n doctrines of, in Geneva, i. 223-227, also _n._;\n curious project concerning it, by Rousseau, i. 317;\n separation of spiritual and temporal powers deemed mischievous by\n Rousseau, ii. 173;\n in its relation to the state may be considered as of three kinds,\n ii. 175;\n duty of the sovereign to establish a civil confession of faith,\n ii. 176, 177;\n positive dogmas of this, ii. 176;\n Rousseau's \"pure Hobbism,\" ii. 177.\n See Savoyard Vicar (Emilius), ii. 256, 281.\n\nRenou, Rousseau assumes name of, i. 129; ii. 312.\n\nRevelation, Christian, Rousseau's controversy on, with Archbishop of\n Paris, ii. 86-91.\n\n_R\u00eaveries_, Rousseau's relinquishing society, i. 199;\n description of his life in the isle of St. Peter, in the, ii.\n 109-115;\n their style ii. 314.\n\nRevolution, French, principles of, i. 1, 2;\n benefits of, or otherwise, ii. 54;\n Baboeuf on, ii. 123, 124, _n._;\n the starting point in the history of its ideas, ii. 160.\n\nRevolutionary process and ideal i. 4, 5.\n\nRevolutionists, difference among, i. 2.\n\nRichardson (the novelist), ii. 25, 28.\n\nRichelieu's brief patronage of Rousseau, i. 195, 302.\n\nRivi\u00e8re, de la, origin of society, ii. 156, 157;\n anecdote of, ii. 156, 157, _n._\n\nRobecq, Madame de, ii. 56.\n\nRobespierre, ii. 123, 134, 160, 178, 179;\n his \"sacred right of insurrection,\" ii. 188, _n._;\n Rousseau's influence on, ii. 315.\n\nRousseau, Didier, i. 8.\n\nRousseau, Jean Baptiste, i. 61, _n._\n\nRousseau, Jean Jacques, influence of his writings on France and the\n American colonists, i. 1, 2;\n on Robespierre, Paine, and Chateaubriand, i. 3;\n his place as a leader, i. 3;\n starting-point, of his mental habits, i. 4;\n personality of, i. 4;\n influence on the common people, i. 5;\n his birth and ancestry, i. 8;\n pedigree, i. 8, _n._;\n parents, i. 10, 11;\n influence upon him of his father's character, i. 11, 12;\n his reading in childhood, i. 12, 13;\n love of Plutarch, i. 13;\n early years, i. 13, 14;\n sent to school at Bossey, i. 15;\n deterioration of his moral character there, i. 17;\n indignation at an unjust punishment, i. 17, 18;\n leaves school, i. 20;\n youthful life at Geneva, i. 21, 22;\n his remarks on its character, i. 24;\n anecdotes of it, i. 22, 24;\n his leading error as to the education of the young, i. 25, 26;\n religious training, i. 25;\n apprenticeship, i. 26;\n boyish doings, i. 27;\n harshness of his master, i. 27;\n runs away, i. 29;\n received by the priest of Confignon, i. 31;\n sent to Madame de Warens, i. 84;\n at Turin, i. 35;\n hypocritical conversion to Roman Catholicism, i. 37;\n motive, i. 38;\n registry of his baptism, i. 38, _n._;\n his forlorn condition, i. 39;\n love of music, i. 39;\n becomes servant to Madame de Vercellis, i. 39;\n his theft, lying, and excuses for it, i. 39, 40;\n becomes servant to Count of Gouvon, i. 42;\n dismissed, i. 43;\n returns to Madame de Warens, i. 45;\n his temperament, i. 46, 47;\n in training for the priesthood, but pronounced too stupid, i. 57;\n tries music, i. 57;\n shamelessly abandons his companion, i. 58;\n goes to Freiburg, Neuch\u00e2tel, and Paris, i. 61, 62;\n conjectural chronology of his movements about this time. i. 62,\n _n._;\n love of vagabond life, i. 62-68;\n effect upon him of his intercourse with the poor, i. 68;\n becomes clerk to a land surveyor at Chamb\u00e9ri, i. 69;\n life there, i. 69-72;\n ill-health and retirement to Les Charmettes, i. 73;\n his latest recollection of this time, i. 75-77;\n his \"form of worship,\" i. 77;\n love of nature, i. 77, 78;\n notion of deity, i. 77;\n peculiar intellectual feebleness, i. 81;\n criticism on himself, i. 83;\n want of logic in his mental constitution, i. 85;\n effect on him of Voltaire's Letters on the English, i. 85;\n self-training, i. 86;\n mistaken method of it, i. 86, 87;\n writes a comedy, i. 89;\n enjoyment of rural life at Les Charmettes, i. 91, 92;\n robs Madame de Warens, i. 92;\n leaves her, i. 93;\n discrepancy between dates of his letters and the Confessions, i.\n 93;\n takes a tutorship at Lyons, i. 95;\n condemns the practice of writing Latin, i. 96, _n._;\n resigns his tutorship, and goes to Paris, i. 97;\n reception there, i. 98-100;\n appointed secretary to French Ambassador at Venice, i. 100-106;\n in quarantine at Genoa, i. 104;\n his estimate of French melody, i. 105;\n returns to Paris, i. 106;\n becomes acquainted with Theresa Le Vasseur, i. 106;\n his conduct criticised, i. 107-113;\n simple life, i. 113;\n letter to her, i. 115-119;\n his poverty, i. 119;\n becomes secretary to Madame Dupin and her son-in-law, M. de\n Francueil, i. 119;\n sends his children to the foundling hospital, i. 120, 121;\n paltry excuses for the crime, i. 121-126;\n his pretended marriage under the name of Renou, i. 129;\n his Discourses, i. 132-186 (see Discourses);\n writes essays for academy of Dijon, i. 132;\n origin of first essay, i. 133-137;\n his \"visions\" for thirteen years, i. 138;\n evil effect upon himself of the first Discourse, i. 138;\n of it, the second Discourse and the Social Contract upon Europe,\n i. 138;\n his own opinion of it, i. 138, 139;\n influence of Plato upon him, i. 146;\n second Discourse, i. 154;\n his \"State of Nature,\" i. 159;\n no evidence for it, i. 172;\n influence of Montesquieu on him, i. 183;\n inconsistency of his views, i. 124;\n influence of Geneva upon him, i. 187, 188;\n his disgust at Parisian philosophers, i. 191, 192;\n the two sides of his character, i. 193;\n associates in Paris, i. 193;\n his income, i. 196, 197, _n._;\n post of cashier, i. 196;\n throws it up, i. 197, 198;\n determines to earn his living by copying music, i. 198, 199;\n change of manners, i. 201;\n dislike of the manners of his time, i. 202, 203;\n assumption of a seeming cynicism, i. 206;\n Grimm's rebuke of it, i. 206;\n Rousseau's protest against atheism, i. 208, 209;\n composes a musical interlude, the Village Soothsayer, i. 212;\n his nervousness loses him the chance of a pension, i. 213;\n his moral simplicity, i. 214, 215;\n revisits Geneva, i. 216;\n re-conversion to Protestantism, i. 220;\n his friends at Geneva, i. 227;\n their effect upon him, i. 227;\n returns to Paris, i. 227;\n the Hermitage offered him by Madame d'Epinay, i. 229, 230 (and\n _ib. n._);\n retires to it against the protests of his friends, i. 231;\n his love of nature, i. 234, 235, 236;\n first days at the Hermitage, i. 237;\n rural delirium, i. 237;\n dislike of society, i. 242;\n literary scheme, i. 242, 243;\n remarks on Saint Pierre, i. 246;\n violent mental crisis, i. 247;\n employs his illness in writing to Voltaire on Providence, i. 250,\n 251;\n his intolerance of vice in others, i. 254;\n acquaintance with Madame de Houdetot, i. 255-269;\n source of his irritability, i. 270, 271;\n blind enthusiasm of his admirers, i. 273, also _ib. n._;\n quarrels with Diderot, i. 275;\n Grimm's account of them, i. 276;\n quarrels with Madame d'Epinay, i. 276, 288;\n relations with Grimm, i. 279;\n want of sympathy between the two, i. 279;\n declines to accompany Madame d'Epinay to Geneva, i. 285;\n quarrels with Grimm, i. 285;\n leaves the Hermitage, i. 289, 290;\n aims in music, i. 291;\n letter on French music, i. 293, 294;\n writes on music in the Encyclop\u00e6dia, i. 296;\n his Musical Dictionary, i. 296;\n scheme and principles of his new musical notation, i. 269;\n explained, i. 298, 299;\n its practical value, i. 299;\n his mistake, i. 300;\n minor objections, i. 300;\n his temperament and Genevan spirit, i. 303;\n compared with Voltaire, i. 304, 305;\n had a more spiritual element than Voltaire, i. 306;\n its influence in France, i. 307;\n early relations with Voltaire, i. 308;\n letter to him on his poem on the earthquake at Lisbon, i. 312,\n 313, 314;\n reasons in a circle, i. 316;\n continuation of argument against Voltaire, i. 316, 317;\n curious notion about religion, i. 317;\n quarrels with Voltaire, i. 318, 319;\n denounces him as a \"trumpet of impiety,\" i. 320, _n._;\n letter to D'Alembert on Stage Plays, i. 321;\n true answer to his theory, i. 323, 324;\n contrasts Paris and Geneva, i. 327, 328;\n his patriotism, i. 329, 330, 331;\n censure of love as a poetic theme, i. 334, 335;\n on Social Position of Women, i. 335;\n Voltaire and D'Alembert's criticism on his Letter on Stage Plays,\n i. 336, 337;\n final break with Diderot, i. 336;\n antecedents of his highest creative efforts, ii. 1;\n friends at Montmorency, ii. 2;\n reads the New Helo\u00efsa to the Mar\u00e9chale de Luxembourg, ii. 2;\n unwillingness to receive gifts, ii. 5;\n his relations with the Duke and Duchess de Luxembourg, ii. 7;\n misunderstands the friendliness of Madame de Boufflers, ii. 7;\n calm life at Montmorency, ii. 8;\n literary jealousy, ii. 8;\n last of his peaceful days, ii. 9;\n advice to a young man against the contemplative life, ii. 10;\n offensive form of his \"good sense\" concerning persecution of\n Protestants, ii. 11, 12;\n cause of his unwillingness to receive gifts, ii. 13, 14;\n owns his ungrateful nature, ii. 15;\n ill-humoured banter, ii. 15;\n his constant bodily suffering, ii. 16;\n thinks of suicide, ii. 16;\n correspondence with the readers of the New Helo\u00efsa, ii. 19, 20;\n the New Helo\u00efsa, criticism on, ii. 20-55 (see New Helo\u00efsa);\n his publishing difficulties, ii. 56;\n no taste for martyrdom, ii. 59, 60;\n curious discussion between, ii. 59;\n and Malesherbes, ii. 60;\n indebted to Malesherbes in the publication of Emilius, ii. 61, 62;\n suspects Jesuits, Jansenists, and philosophers of plotting to\n crush the book, ii. 63;\n himself counted among the latter, ii. 65;\n Emilius ordered to be burnt by public executioner, on the charge\n of irreligious tendency, and its author to be arrested, ii. 65;\n his flight, ii. 67;\n literary composition on the journey to Switzerland, ii. 69;\n contrast between him and Voltaire, ii. 70;\n explanation of his \"natural ingratitude,\" ii. 71;\n reaches the canton of Berne, and ordered to quit it, ii. 72;\n Emilius and Social Contract condemned to be publicly burnt at\n Geneva, and author arrested if he came there, ii. 72, 73;\n takes refuge at Motiers, in dominions of Frederick of Prussia, ii.\n 73;\n characteristic letters to the king, ii. 74, 77;\n declines pecuniary help from him, ii. 75;\n his home and habits at Motiers, ii. 77, 78;\n Voltaire supposed to have stirred up animosity against him at\n Geneva, ii. 81;\n Archbishop of Paris writes against him, ii. 83;\n his reply, and character as a controversialist, ii. 83-90;\n life at Val de Travers (Motiers), ii. 91-95;\n his generosity, ii. 93;\n corresponds with the Prince of W\u00fcrtemberg on the education of the\n prince's daughter, ii. 95, 96;\n on Gibbon, ii. 96;\n visit from Boswell, ii. 98;\n invited to legislate for Corsica, ii. 99, _n._;\n urges Boswell to go there, ii. 100;\n denounces its sale by the Genoese, ii. 102;\n renounces his citizenship of Geneva, ii. 103;\n his Letters from the Mountain, ii. 104;\n the letters condemned to be burned at Paris and the Hague, ii.\n 105;\n libel upon, ii. 105;\n religious difficulties with his pastor, ii. 106;\n ill-treatment of, in parish, ii. 106;\n obliged to leave it, ii. 108;\n his next retreat, ii. 108;\n account in the _R\u00eaveries_ of his short stay there, ii. 109-115;\n expelled by government of Berne, ii. 116;\n makes an extraordinary request to it, ii. 116, 117;\n difficulties in finding a home, ii. 117;\n short stay at Strasburg, ii. 117, _n._;\n decides on going to England, ii. 118;\n his Social Contract, and criticism on, ii. 119, 196 (see Social\n Contract);\n scanty acquaintance with history, ii. 129;\n its effects on his political writings, ii. 129, 136;\n his object in writing Emilius, ii. 198;\n his confession of faith, under the character of the Savoyard Vicar\n (see Emilius), ii. 257-280;\n excitement caused by his appearance in Paris in 1765, ii. 282;\n leaves for England in company with Hume, ii. 283;\n reception in London, ii. 283, 284;\n George III. gives him a pension, ii. 284;\n his love for his dog, ii. 286;\n finds a home at Wootton, ii. 286;\n quarrels with Hume, ii. 287;\n particulars in connection with it, ii. 287-296;\n his approaching insanity at this period, ii. 296;\n the preparatory conditions of it, ii. 297-301;\n begins writing the Confessions, ii. 301;\n their character, ii. 301-304;\n life at Wootton, ii. 305, 306;\n sudden flight thence, ii. 306;\n kindness of Mr. Davenport, ii. 306, 307;\n his delusion, ii. 307;\n returns to France, ii. 308;\n received at Fleury by the elder Mirabeau, ii. 310, 311;\n the prince of Conti next receives him at Trye, ii. 312;\n composes the second part of the Confessions here, ii. 312;\n delusion returns, ii. 312, 313;\n leaves Trye, and wanders about the country, ii. 312, 313;\n estrangement from Theresa, ii. 313;\n goes to Paris, ii. 314;\n writes his Dialogues there, ii. 314;\n again earns his living by copying music, ii. 315;\n daily life in, ii. 315, 316;\n Bernardin St. Pierre's account of him, ii. 317-321;\n his veneration for F\u00e9nelon, ii. 321;\n his unsociality, ii. 322;\n checks a detractor of Voltaire, ii. 324;\n draws up his Considerations on the Government of Poland, ii. 324;\n estimate of the Spanish, ii. 324;\n his poverty, ii. 325;\n accepts a home at Ermenonville from M. Girardin, ii. 326;\n his painful condition, ii. 326;\n sudden death, ii. 326;\n cause of it unknown, ii. 326 (see also _ib. n._);\n his interment, ii. 326;\n finally removed to Paris, ii. 328.\n\n\nSAINTE BEUVE on Rousseau and Madame d'Epinay, i. 279, _n._;\n on Rousseau, ii. 40.\n\nSaint Germain, M. de, Rousseau's letter to, i. 123.\n\nSaint Just, ii. 132, 133;\n his political regulations, ii. 133, _n._;\n base of his system, ii. 136;\n against the atheists, ii. 179.\n\nSaint Lambert, i. 244;\n offers Rousseau a home in Lorraine, ii. 117.\n\nSaint Pierre, Abb\u00e9 de, Rousseau arranges papers of, i. 244;\n his views concerning reason, _ib._;\n boldness of his observations, i. 245.\n\nSaint Pierre, Bernardin de, account of his visit to Rousseau at\n Paris, ii. 317-321.\n\nSand, Madame G., i. 81, _n._;\n Savoy landscape, i. 99, _n._;\n ancestry of, i. 121, _n._\n\nSavages, code of morals of, i. 178-179, _n._\n\nSavage state, advantages of, Rousseau's letter to Voltaire, i. 312.\n\nSavoy, priests of, proselytisers, i. 30, 31, 33 (also _ib._ _n._)\n\nSavoyard Vicar, the, origin of character of, ii. 257-280 (see\n Emilius).\n\nSchiller on Rousseau, ii. 192 (also _ib._ _n._);\n Rousseau's influence on, ii. 315.\n\nServetus, ii. 180.\n\nSimplification, the revolutionary process and ideal of, i. 4;\n in reference to Rousseau's music, i. 291.\n\nSocial conscience, theory and definition of, ii. 234, 235;\n the great agent in fostering, ii. 237.\n\nSocial Contract, the, ill effect of, on Europe, i. 138;\n beginning of its composition, i. 177;\n ideas of, i. 188;\n its harmful dreams, i. 246;\n influence of, ii. 1;\n price of, and difficulties in publishing, ii. 59;\n ordered to be burnt at Geneva, ii. 72, 73, 104;\n detailed criticism of, ii. 119-196;\n Rousseau diametrically opposed to the dominant belief of his day\n in human perfectibility, ii. 119;\n object of the work, ii. 120;\n main position of the two Discourses given up in it, ii. 120;\n influenced by Locke, ii. 120;\n its uncritical, illogical principles, ii. 123, 124;\n its impracticableness, ii. 128;\n nature of his illustrations, ii. 128-133;\n the \"gospel of the Jacobins,\" ii. 132, 133;\n the desperate absurdity of its assumptions gave it power in the\n circumstances of the times, ii. 135-141;\n some of its maxims very convenient for ruling Jacobins, ii. 142;\n its central conception, the sovereignty of peoples, ii. 144;\n Rousseau not its inventor, ii. 144, 145;\n this to be distinguished from doctrine of right of subjects to\n depose princes, ii. 146;\n Social Contract idea of government, probably derived from Locke,\n ii. 150;\n falseness of it, ii. 153, 154;\n origin of society, ii. 154;\n ill effects on Rousseau's political speculation, ii. 155;\n what constitutes the sovereignty, ii. 158;\n Rousseau's Social Contract different from that of Hobbes, ii. 159;\n Locke's indefiniteness on, ii. 160;\n attributes of sovereignty, ii. 163;\n confederation, ii. 164, 165;\n his distinction between _tyrant_ and _despot_, ii. 169,\n _n._;\n distinguishes constitution of the state from that of the government,\n ii. 170;\n scheme of an elective aristocracy, ii. 172;\n similarity to the English form of government, ii. 173;\n the state in respect to religion, ii. 173;\n habitually illogical form of his statements, ii. 173, 174;\n duty of sovereign to establish civil profession of faith, ii. 175,\n 176;\n infringement of it to be punished, even by death, ii. 176;\n Rousseau's Hobbism, ii. 177;\n denial of his social compact theory, ii. 183, 184;\n futility of his disquisitions on, ii. 185, 186;\n his declaration of general duty of rebellion (arising out of the\n universal breach of social compact) considered, ii. 188;\n it makes government impossible, ii. 188;\n he urges that usurped authority is another valid reason for\n rebellion, ii. 190;\n practical evils of this, ii. 192;\n historical effect of the Social Contract, ii. 192-195.\n\nSocial quietism of some parts of New Helo\u00efsa, ii. 49.\n\nSocialism: Morelly, and De Mably, ii. 52;\n what it is, ii. 159.\n\nSocialistic theory of Morelly, i. 158, 159 (also i. 158, _n._)\n\nSociety, Aristotle on, i. 174;\n D'Alembert's statements on, i. 174, _n._;\n Parisian, Rousseau on, i. 209;\n dislike of, i. 242;\n Rousseau's origin of, ii. 153;\n true grounds of, ii. 155, 156.\n\nSocrates, i. 131, 140, 232; ii. 72, 273.\n\nSolitude, eighteenth century notions of, i. 231, 232.\n\nSolon, ii. 133.\n\nSorbonne, the, condemns Emilius, ii. 82.\n\nSpectator, the, Rousseau's liking for, i. 86.\n\nSpinoza, dangerous speculations of, i. 143.\n\nSta\u00ebl, Madame de, i. 217, _n._\n\nStage players, how treated in France, i. 322.\n\nStage plays (see Plays).\n\nState of Nature, Rousseau's, i. 159, 160;\n Hobbes on, i. 161 (see Nature).\n\nSuicide, Rousseau on, ii. 16;\n a mistake to pronounce him incapable of, ii. 19.\n\nSwitzerland, i. 330.\n\n\nTACITUS, i. 177.\n\nTheatre, Rousseau's letter, objecting to the, i. 133;\n his error in the matter, i. 134.\n\nTheology, metaphysical, Descartes' influence on, i. 226.\n\nTheresa (see Le Vasseur).\n\nThought, school of, division between rationalists and emotionalists,\n i. 337.\n\nTonic Sol-fa notation, close correspondence of the, to Rousseau's\n system, i. 299.\n\nTronchin on Voltaire, i. 319, _n._, 321.\n\nTurgot, i. 89;\n his discourses at the Sorbonne in 1750, i. 155;\n the one sane eminent Frenchman of eighteenth century, i. 202;\n his unselfish toil, i. 233; ii. 193;\n mentioned, ii. 246, 294.\n\nTurin, Rousseau at, i. 34-43;\n leaves it, i. 45;\n tries to learn Latin at, i. 91.\n\nTurretini and other rationalisers, i. 226;\n his works, i. 226, _n._\n\n\nUNIVERSE, constitution of, discussion on, i. 311-317.\n\n\nVAGABOND life, Rousseau's love of, i. 63, 68.\n\nVal de Travers, ii. 77; Rousseau's life in, ii. 91-95.\n\nVasseur, Theresa Le, Rousseau's first acquaintance with, i. 106,\n 107, also _ib._ _n._;\n their life together, i. 110-113;\n well befriended, ii. 80, _n._;\n her evil character, ii. 326.\n\nVauvenargues on emotional instinct, ii. 34.\n\nVenice, Rousseau at, i. 100-106.\n\nVercellis, Madame de, Rousseau servant to, i. 39.\n\nVerdelin, Madame de, her kindness to Theresa, ii. 80, _n._;\n to Rousseau, ii. 118, _n._\n\nVillage Soothsayer, the (_Devin du Village_), composed at\n Passy, performed at Fontainebleau and Paris, i. 212;\n marked a revolution in French Music, i. 291.\n\nVoltaire, i. 2, 21, 63;\n effect on Rousseau of his Letters on the English, i. 86;\n spreads a derogatory report about Rousseau, i. 101, _n._;\n his \"Princesse de Navarre,\" i. 119;\n criticism on Rousseau's first Discourse, i. 147;\n effect on his work of his common sense, i. 155;\n avoids the society of Paris, i. 202;\n his conversion to Romanism, i. 220, 221;\n strictures on Homer and Shakespeare, i. 280;\n his position in the eighteenth century, i. 301;\n general difference between, and Rousseau, i. 301;\n clung to the rationalistic school of his day, i. 305;\n on Rousseau's second Discourse, i. 308;\n his poem on the earthquake of Lisbon, i. 309, 310;\n his sympathy with suffering, i. 311, 312;\n entreated by Rousseau to draw up a civil profession of religious\n faith, i. 317;\n denounced by Rousseau as a \"trumpet of impiety,\" i. 317, 320,\n _n._;\n his satire and mockery irritated Rousseau, i. 319;\n what he was to his contemporaries, i. 321;\n the great play-writer of the time, i. 321;\n his criticism of Rousseau's Letter on the Theatre, i. 336;\n his indignation at wrong, ii. 11;\n ridicule of the New Helo\u00efsa, ii. 34;\n less courageous than Rousseau, ii. 65;\n contrast between the two, i. 99, ii. 75;\n supposed to have stirred up animosity at Geneva against Rousseau,\n ii. 81;\n denies it, ii. 81;\n his notion of how the matter would end, ii. 81;\n his fickleness, ii. 83;\n on Rousseau's connection with Corsica, ii. 101;\n his Philosophical Dictionary burnt by order at Paris, ii. 105;\n his opinion of Emilius, ii. 257;\n prime agent in introducing English deism into France, ii. 262;\n suspected by Rousseau of having written the pretended letter from\n the King of Prussia, ii. 288;\n last visit to Paris, ii. 324.\n\n\nWALKING, Rousseau's love of, i. 63.\n\nWalpole, Horace, writer of the pretended letter from the King of\n Prussia, ii. 288, _n._;\n advises Hume not to publish his account of Rousseau's quarrel with\n him, ii. 295.\n\nWar arising out of the succession to the crown of Poland, i. 72.\n\nWarens, Madame de, Rousseau's introduction to, i. 34;\n her personal appearance, i. 34;\n receives Rousseau into her house, i. 43;\n her early life, i. 48;\n character of, i. 49-51;\n goes to Paris, i. 59;\n receives Rousseau at Chamb\u00e9ri, and gets him employment, i. 69;\n her household, i. 70;\n removes to Les Charmettes, i. 73;\n cultivates Rousseau's taste for letters, i. 85;\n Saint Louis, her patron saint, i. 91;\n revisited by Rousseau in 1754, i. 216;\n her death in poverty and wretchedness, i. 217, 218 (also i. 219,\n _n._)\n\nWesleyanism, ii. 258.\n\nWomen, Condorcet on social position of, i. 335;\n D'Alembert and Condorcet on, i. 335.\n\nWootton, Rousseau's home at, ii. 286.\n\nWorld, divine government of, Rousseau vindicates, i. 312.\n\nW\u00fcrtemberg, correspondence between Prince of, and Rousseau, on the\n education of the little princess, ii. 95;\n becomes reigning duke, ii. 95, _n._;\n seeks permission for Rousseau to live in Vienna, ii. 117.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh._","title":"Rousseau (Volume 1 and 2)","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":188178}