Before considering it in detail certain gen eral considerations must be borne in mind. The greatness of Rousseau is due to the fact that his work marks the end of 'one era and the beginning of another. We may admit, as re cent studies have shown, that the isolated' elez meets, the disjecta ',tumbrel of his philosophy, are to be found in predecessors and contem poraries. It is none the less true that be marks the end of classicism in literature and of medi aeval theories of the rights of empire , and church in politics and religion. He tended 'to break the hold of all external sanctions in state, church, literature and society. His atti• tude toward the past is in general that of the modern radical. He starts on the other hand that immense enthusiasm for individual lib.
erty and emotional participation is life which is to be the most characteristic feature of ro manticism. He will exalt freedom as against any externally constituted authority; natural impulse as against discipline, and the indi vidual's feeling (which he wasuften to identify with conscience) as against any convention of society. Phases of this spirit were to exert extraordinary influence hi Germany on Herder, Schiller and Kant, and in England on men like Godwin and Wordsworth, while in France its first powerful expressing is to be found in enthusiasm of the Revolution. Such an attitude was 'essentially dynamic in an age that clamored for new principles, though it was weak on the constructive side, for it elements of cohesion, and it was fraught with danger wherever, as only too often, it made the individual and not mankind the point of reference in all human relationships and actions. For all its dangers, however, it is hardly too much to say that this attitude was the most powerful regenerative force of the late, 18th and 19th centuries. It is as contribu tory to this general body of doctrine that each Of Rousseau s works should be judged if we are prqperly to gauge its historical importance. We have seen that by temperament and ex perience he was already peculiarly fitted to become its champion. He was essentially the novas homo, the man without attachments, who' was as strange to the highly socialized life of 18th century Paris as a man from Mars. By temperament he was averse to discipline and control. The circumstances of his life had not as yet, indeed were never, to force either upon him. He had from a boy been at home in nature and was ever to feel awkward and con strained in society. His posture wac, there fore, one of attack and he had been endowed with an extraordinary and as yet untried gift Of eloquence.
Upon his way to Vincennes his eye fell upon an announcement that the' Academy of Dijon was offering a prize for the best discourse on the subject whether the arts and sciences have contributed to improve morals. Putting the question thus sharply before him seems to have released all of his pent-up social antagonisms and as he tells the story he fell in a trance and began to write feverishly at his first famous essay. Naturally he answered the question
with a ringing negative. The development of the arts and sciences, he said, not only did not improve man in habits and morals, but he im plied that with their progress man deteriorated. Society corrupted man's native goodness. The discourse is naturally.' full of inconsistencies and it is less well written than its successors. Its importance, however, lies in its purport. It is this that makes it the harbinger of a new dispensation; for it presents society and exist ing institutions as the perverting manleind. In other words it throws them upon the de fensive and inaugurates the age of experiment and reform. His next discourse on 'The Ori gin of Inequality (1753) is a much better if less striking performance and in it he dis tinguishes between , natural and unnatural or social inequality. Its, upshot very briefly is that the former,— inequalities of talent, natural en dowment, etc.,— are good and should be fos tered, while the latter— inequalities of social position, rank, inherited wealth, etc.,— are evil, .go back the :institution of •private property and should be abolished, For 'some time be fore 1750 Rousseau had been living in a posi tion of relative comfort and had been received in the houses of the great. Possibly as the re sult of illness and from a desire for notoriety as well as from a constitutional inability to accept restraint, he decided to arefoim) and live the simple life. He made no• attempt to recover his wardrobe, which had been ,stolen, gave away his watch and sword and dressed in simple garb. In 1756 he retired to a cottage near the forest of Montmorency. Here he broke with most of his old friends including Diderot and his patroness, Mme, d'Epinay. ' In this quiet neighborhood he pondered and wrote during, the next six, years his mss term li eces, New eloise,) and (The Social which were published:in 1761 and 1762. His misfortunes now increased with his fame and the remainder of his lifejs a tragedy clouded certainly by fixed delusions, possibly by periods of insanity. The. (Emile) was condemned in Paris and a decree pro nounced against Rousseau which forced him to lesive France for Switzerland. Geneva was 110 more tolerant and be suffered from real or im aginary persecutions or both, and moves•frqm place to place in a mood that approaches disc traction. He is consumed Jr) the desire to jus tify himself and confute fin enemies and his later works, Letters to M. de Males herbes,> Confessions,> jitdge of Jean-Jacques) and the (Reveries) are de voted to this end. David Hume, who respected his genius, invited him to England, but here his delusions followed him and he accused his benefactor of conspiring with his enemies. He returned to France, where he lived for a 'time in disguise, and finally with Therese, whom he had now married, he conies back to live in 'Paris (1770) until his death at Ermenonville (1778).