ROUSSEAU

BY

JOHN MORLEY

VOL. I and II.

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1905

All rights reserved

First printed in this form 1886
Reprinted 1888, 1891, 1896, 1900, 1905

NOTE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

This work differs from its companion volume in offering something more like a continuous personal history than was necessary in the case of such a man as Voltaire, the story of whose life may be found in more than one English book of repute. Of Rousseau there is, I believe, no full biographical account in our literature, and even France has nothing more complete under this head than Musset-Pathay's Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de J.J. Rousseau (1821). This, though a meritorious piece of labour, is extremely crude and formless in composition and arrangement, and the interpreting portions are devoid of interest.

The edition of Rousseau's works to which the references have been made is that by M. Auguis, in twenty-seven volumes, published in 1825 by Dalibon. In 1865 M. Streckeisen-Moultou published from the originals, which had been deposited in the library of Neuchâtel by Du Peyrou, the letters addressed to Rousseau by various correspondents. These two interesting volumes, which are entitled Rousseau, ses Amis et ses Ennemis, are mostly referred to under the name of their editor.

February, 1873.

The second edition in 1878 was revised; some portions were considerably shortened, and a few additional footnotes inserted. No further changes have been made in the present edition.

January, 1886.

VOLUME I.

VOLUME II.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

CHAPTER I.

Preliminary.

CHAPTER II.

Youth.

CHAPTER III.

Savoy.

CHAPTER IV.

Theresa Le Vasseur.

CHAPTER V.

The Discourses.

CHAPTER VI.

Paris.

CHAPTER VII.

The Hermitage.

CHAPTER VIII.

Music.

CHAPTER IX.

Voltaire And D'Alembert.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

VOLUME II.

CHAPTER I.

Montmorency—The New Heloïsa.

Conditions preceding the composition of the New Heloïsa 1

The Duke and Duchess of Luxembourg 2

Rousseau and his patrician acquaintances 4

Peaceful life at Montmorency 9

Equivocal prudence occasionally shown by Rousseau 12

His want of gratitude for commonplace service 13

Bad health, and thoughts of suicide 16

Episode of Madame Latour de Franqueville 17

Relation of the New Heloïsa to Rousseau's general doctrine 20

Action of the first part of the story 25

Contrasted with contemporary literature 25

And with contemporary manners 27

Criticism of the language and principal actors 28, 29

Popularity of the New Heloïsa 31

Its reactionary intellectual direction 33

Action of the second part 35, 36

Its influence on Goethe and others 38

Distinction between Rousseau and his school 40

Singular pictures of domesticity 42

Sumptuary details 44

The slowness of movement in the work justified 46

Exaltation of marriage 47

Equalitarian tendencies 49

Not inconsistent with social quietism 51

Compensation in the political consequences of the triumph of sentiment 54

Circumstances of the publication of the New Heloïsa 55

Nature of the trade in books 57

Malesherbes and the printing of Emilius 61

Rousseau's suspicions 62

The great struggle of the moment 64

Proscription of Emilius 67

Flight of the author 67

CHAPTER II.

Persecution.

Rousseau's journey from Switzerland 69

Absence of vindictiveness 70

Arrival at Yverdun 72

Repairs to Motiers 73

Relations with Frederick the Great 74

Life at Motiers 77

Lord Marischal 79

Voltaire 81

Rousseau's letter to the Archbishop of Paris 83

Its dialectic 86

The ministers of Neuchâtel 90

Rousseau's singular costume 92

His throng of visitors 93

Lewis, prince of Würtemberg 95

Gibbon 96

Boswell 98

Corsican affairs 99

The feud at Geneva 102

Rousseau renounces his citizenship 105

The Letters from the Mountain 106

Political side 107

Consequent persecution at Motiers 107

Flight to the isle of St. Peter 108

The fifth of the Rêveries 109

Proscription by the government of Berne 116

Rousseau's singular request 116

His renewed flight 117

Persuaded to seek shelter in England 118

CHAPTER III.

The Social Contract.

Rousseau's reaction against perfectibility 119

Abandonment of the position of the Discourses 121

Doubtful idea of equality 121

The Social Contract, a repudiation of the historic method 124

Yet it has glimpses of relativity 127

Influence of Greek examples 129

And of Geneva 131

Impression upon Robespierre and Saint Just 132

Rousseau's scheme implied a small territory 135

Why the Social Contract made fanatics 137

Verbal quality of its propositions 138

The doctrine of public safety 143

The doctrine of the sovereignty of peoples 144

Its early phases 144

Its history in the sixteenth century 146

Hooker and Grotius 148

Locke 149

Hobbes 151

Central propositions of the Social Contract—

1. Origin of society in compact 154
Different conception held by the Physiocrats 156

2. Sovereignty of the body thus constituted 158
Difference from Hobbes and Locke 159
The root of socialism 160
Republican phraseology 161

3. Attributes of sovereignty 162

4. The law-making power 163
A contemporary illustration 164
Hints of confederation 166

5. Forms of government 168
Criticism on the common division 169
Rousseau's preference for elective aristocracy 172

6. Attitude of the state to religion 173
Rousseau's view, the climax of a reaction 176
Its effect at the French Revolution 179
Its futility 180

Another method of approaching the philosophy of government—

Origin of society not a compact 183

The true reason of the submission of a minority to a majority 184

Rousseau fails to touch actual problems 186

The doctrine of resistance, for instance 188

Historical illustrations 190

Historical effect of the Social Contract in France and Germany 193

Socialist deductions from it 194

CHAPTER IV.

Emilius.

Rousseau touched by the enthusiasm of his time 197

Contemporary excitement as to education, part of the revival of naturalism 199

I.—Locke, on education 202
Difference between him and Rousseau 204
Exhortations to mothers 205
Importance of infantile habits 208
Rousseau's protest against reasoning with children 209
Criticised 209
The opposite theory 210
The idea of property 212
Artificially contrived incidents 214
Rousseau's omission of the principle of authority 215
Connected with his neglect of the faculty of sympathy 219

II.—Rousseau's ideal of living 221
The training that follows from it 222
The duty of knowing a craft 223
Social conception involved in this moral conception 226

III.—Three aims before the instructor 229
Rousseau's omission of training for the social conscience 230
No contemplation of society as a whole 232
Personal interest, the foundation of the morality of Emilius 233
The sphere and definition of the social conscience 235

IV.—The study of history 237
Rousseau's notions upon the subject 239

V.—Ideals of life for women 241
Rousseau's repudiation of his own principles 242
His oriental and obscurantist position 243
Arising from his want of faith in improvement 244
His reactionary tendencies in this region eventually neutralised 248

VI.—Sum of the merits of Emilius 249
Its influence in France and Germany 251
In England 252

CHAPTER V.

The Savoyard Vicar.

Shallow hopes entertained by the dogmatic atheists 256

The good side of the religious reaction 258

Its preservation of some parts of Christian influence 259

Earlier forms of deism 260

The deism of the Savoyard Vicar 264

The elevation of man, as well as the restoration of a divinity 265

A divinity for fair weather 268

Religious self-denial 269

The Savoyard Vicar's vital omission 270

His position towards Christianity 272

Its effectiveness as a solvent 273

Weakness of the subjective test 276

The Savoyard Vicar's deism not compatible with growing intellectual conviction 276

The true satisfaction of the religious emotion 277