Rousseau's personal character is a puzzle to moralists. There is no denying the vices and meannesses which stained it: these rest on the most unimpeachable testimony —his own. They are set forth with copious and melancholy sincerity in his Confessions, and the very incidents that lead us to condemn him most severely would never have been known to the world had he not chosen to reveal them. But he does not exculpate himself (as many suppose): on the contrary, he covers himself often with bitter and sad reproaches. On the whole, we are inclined to believe that he was, at bottom, an honest, warm-hearted, humane creature—free from guile, but full of a feminine jealousy, aggravated by long persecutions into a species of insanity; volatile, but not faithless; an erring, but withal a lovable mortal. His grand defect was in strength of "A man in convulsions," says Carlyle, speaking of Rousseau (Heroes and fiero_worship), is not strong, though six men cannot hold him;" and all through his spasmodic life, and the splendid sentimentalism of his writings, we are conscious of a " forcible feebleness," a want of genuine intellectual power and insight. His opinions
in a philosophical point of view are valueless; men of any vigor or acuteness care nothing for his notions about the social contract—influential though they once were during that period of crazy enthusiasm and sham speculation, the French revolution— nor for his shallow panegyrics on the " savage state;" but when he paints the emotions of a tender and voluptuous love, the rose-colored charm of his genius is irresistible. The most famous of his productions are Discours Stir l'Origine et les Buidements de parmi les Hommes (Amst. 1755); Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise (1760); Du Con trot Social, ou Principles da Droit Politique (Amst. 1762); Emile, ou de l'Education. (Amst. 1874); and Les Confessions, suirks des Reveries d'un Promeneur Solitaire (Geneva, 1782; posthumous); but besides these he wrote a vast number of miscellaneous essays, letters, and treatises. His (Euv•es Completes have gone through innumerable editions. See Morley's monograph (1873).