which was not taught then, even in the Christian pulpits. For the Catholic pulpit of France then preached mere moral discourses on 'Affability,' on 'Equanimity of Temper,' or 'The Love of Order;' and sought to be pardoned its sacred mission by affecting a kind of judicious worldliness." The school of Sensation ruled in philosophy: and to the school of Sensation Rousseau uttered these words: "Judgment and Sensation are not the same thing: I am not merely a sensitive and passive being, but also an active and intelligent being; and, whatever Philosophy may say about it, I shall venture to claim the honor of being able to think." In reply to Diderot, d'Holbach, and Helvetius, and to the Atheism which they taught, he inferred an intelligent Supreme Being from the very existence of matter. To the Encyclopedists he replies, Philosophy can do nothing which Religion cannot do better than she; and Religion can do a great many other things which Philosophy cannot do at all.”

We have quoted these authorities to show, that we are not alone in asserting, that, down to the present time, Rousseau has not been generally understood, and that he deserves a further and more impartial study. We shall endeavor to avoid the opposite extreme of indiscriminate praise. We shall point out the errors and faults of Jean Jacques, neither of which are hard to discover.

Jean Jacques Rousseau was born at Geneva in 1712, and died near Paris in 1778, at the age of 66. He was a contemporary, during most of his life, with such men as Swedenborg, Kant, Voltaire, John Wesley, Benjamin Franklin, Linnæus, Dr. Johnson, Hume, and Burke. How different were these from each other! how hard for them to understand each other! How hard for the practical Benjamin Franklin, the tory Samuel Johnson, the pious Wesley, the philosophic Kant, or the mystical Swedenborg, to find any meaning or use in such a man as Rousseau! But posterity, looking backward, can recognize the good which all have done by all their different methods. "There are so many voices in the world, but none without its own signification."

I.

The Life of Rousseau divides itself into these periods:

I. From 1712 to 1741, that is, from his birth till he was twentynine; during which time, an orphan; sent to school at Bossey; apprenticed to an engraver; with the curate in Savoy, and with Mme. Warens; he slowly develops unknown to the world.

II. From 1741 to 1750; that is, from twenty-nine to thirty-eight. In Paris, with his system of musical notation; with the French Embassy to Venice, and in Paris again; but still unknown.

III. From 1750 to 1762; that is, from thirty-eight to fifty. He publishes his first Essay, his "Social Contract," his "Emile," and his "Nouvelle Héloïse."

IV. From 1762 to 1778; that is, from fifty to sixty-six. He lives a life of exile and controversy, till his death.

The family of Rousseau were French; and, though Rousseau was fond of calling himself a citizen of Geneva, he belonged altogether in his soul, as in literature, to France. His ancestors were Huguenots, who had gone to Switzerland to secure liberty of conscience. His father was a watchmaker. His mother died when he was born; and he never knew a mother's care. He was a sickly child; and his father, to amuse him, would sit up all night reading novels to him. But when he was ten years old he lost his father also, who went into exile in consequence of fighting a duel, and abandoned his child to the care of his uncle, who placed him at school in the town of Bossey. At twelve years he was put.as an apprentice with an engraver, who was a harsh employer; and, when Rousseau was sixteen, he ran away, and took refuge with a Catholic curate in Savoy, who, instead of sending him back to his family, preferred to keep him, that he might convert him to the Catholic Church. For this purpose, he sent him to live with Madame Warens, a lady who figures largely in his memoirs. She was a recent convert to the Catholic Church. She had deserted her husband, with whom she did not live happily. Protected by the King of Sardinia, and living on

a small pension; a pretty woman, kind-hearted, but without principle, she persuaded Rousseau to abjure Protestantism, which he did in the city of Turin in 1728. Here, as before, the boy was left without friends or protectors. He lived at service, and received good advice from a deistical abbé, who taught him at the same time morality and deism. From Turin he returned to Madame Warens, who was still living at Annecy. He studied music and gave lessons therein, by which he helped to gain a support. After some wanderings and changes of fortune, at the age of twenty-one he received an appointment from the King of Sardinia, through the influence of his old friend, Madame Warens. In 1736 he went to live with her at Charmettes, in the country, where he passed some happy years in work, in study, and the enjoyment of

nature.

In 1741, at the age of twenty-nine, Rousseau went to Paris in order to exhibit a new method of musical notation. He carried in his pocket fifteen pieces of silver and his comedy of Narcissus. His musical notation did not succeed; but he obtained introductions to different persons of distinction, and through one of them received the office of Secretary of Legation to the French embassy at Venice, where he distinguished himself by his fidelity and energy. Returning to Paris, he became acquainted with Thérèse le Vasseur. She was a laundress, three and twenty years old, ignorant, and incapable of being educated. She never could learn the names of the months, nor how to count. But she was lively, gentle, and kind. With her Rousseau lived many years, and finally married her. His father dying about this time, Rousseau secured his share of his mother's inheritance, the life interest of which he had allowed his father to enjoy. But all his means were wanted to help his friend Madame Warens, who had become poor, and the relations of Thérèse, who were very greedy.

In 1750, when thirty-eight years old, he wrote the work which introduced him to the public, which was a short treatise on a prize question proposed by the Academy of Dijon, on the question whether the revival of learning has contrib

uted to the improvement of morals. He took the negative side, and in doing so commenced the career of thought which gave him all his distinction. His doctrine was, that man was only good and only happy while following nature, and that the arts and sciences are the children of a corrupt civilization. His treatise received the prize. It was followed by a successful opera, a letter on French music, and, in 1753, a Treatise on the Origin of Inequality among Mankind. In this he carried still further his favorite doctrine of the fall of man through civilization.

He had before him the terrible inequalities which then existed in France. He meant to attack Despotism, and he attacked all society. He meant to attack the enormous distinctions of property, and he attacked property itself.

"The first man," said he, "who, having inclosed a piece of ground, said, 'It belongs to me,' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, and murders would not he have spared to the human race who should have plucked up the fence, and said to his companions, 'Beware of listening to this impostor: you are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to everybody, and that the earth itself belongs to nobody."

This treatise produced great excitement, and, of course, much opposition, as well as admiration. Voltaire, thanking Rousseau for his work, wrote to him, "One feels a desire to go on all fours while reading your essay." Buffon brought some serious objections, founded on the physical nature of man, which demanded society to protect the feeble age of childhood.

From this time it was evident that there was a breach between Rousseau and the French philosophers Diderot, Grimm, and Holbach. His ideas and theirs were radically opposed. He believed in God, in Immortality, and Retribution they believed in this present world and the five senses. He believed in the Brotherhood of man: they believed in every one for himself. He was the champion of Equality: they were the friends and protegés of the Aristocrats. They

looked down upon him with an air of patronage, and treated him with contemptuous and tyrannical superiority. The blame of these difficulties long rested on Rousseau, and was attributed to his morbid jealousy. But M. Villemain says that now, when so many correspondences have been published, we must confess that these friends of Rousseau were very hard upon him.

In 1754, Rousseau took possession of the cottage at Montmorency, about four miles from Paris, called the Hermitage. It was a present from Mme. d'Épinay, who owned the estate. Walking with her one day in this pleasant valley, he cried out, "What an asylum for me!" She made no reply, but rebuilt the house, and, the next time they visited the place, playfully said, "My bear, behold your asylum!" In this happy retirement he wrote the "Nouvelle Héloïse," and most of the "Emile." What an active and marvellous employment of his time during the six years which he passed here, and at the village of Montmorency afterward! For, beside the "Héloïse" and "Emile," he wrote the letter to D'Alembert, and the "Social Contract ;" and, when driven from his asylum, during his flight, "The Levite of Ephraim." It was the most fruitful period of his life, the happy autumn in which the long, cold spring-time of his struggling youth, and the passionate heats of his summer, bore the rich fruits of thought and labor. It was the only really happy period of his life, — the little interval of sunshine in the midst of a stormy day. The rest of his days- persecuted at once by Catholic and Protestant bigots, and by philosophical unbelievers; driven an exile from France into Switzerland, from Switzerland into Prussia, and from Prussia into England; half crazy with suspicion and jealousy; the object at the same moment of fanatical hatred, extravagant admiration, and bitter ridicule, — he never knew a quiet hour till he dropped exhausted into his grave. And, as if the same fate which pursued him in life was to follow him into his tomb, he was not allowed to sleep peacefully on the island in the little lake, shaded with poplars, so well suited as a resting-place for the tired son of genius; but was carried in 1791, with Voltaire, to the Pantheon, and