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Updated: May 29, 2025
Voltaire's is no perfect philosophy; indeed it is not a philosophy at all, but a passionate ejaculation; but it is perfect in comparison with a cut and dried system like this of Rousseau's, which rests on a mocking juggle with phrases, and the substitution by dexterous sleight of hand of one definition for another.
We may be sure that it was not her power of saying things of this sort that kindled Rousseau's flame, but rather the sprightly naturalness, frankness, and kindly softness of a character which in his opinion united every virtue except prudence and strength, the two which Rousseau would be least likely to miss. The bond of union between them was subtle.
We may see here that Rousseau's sophistical eloquence, if it misled others, was at least as powerful in misleading himself, and it may be noted that this letter, with its talk of the children of the rich taking bread out of the mouths of the children of the poor, contains the first of those socialistic sentences by which the writer in after times gained so famous a name.
Like Voltaire, too, he journeyed over Europe, finding refuge in Geneva, whence came his father's family. He was a man of sordid life and without morality; but he was true to his life's purpose, and toiled at uncongenial tasks rather than write at other bidding than that of his own soul. Rousseau's play Le Devin du Village had a court success that brought him into favour with gay ladies.
If we consider, as we have said, first the readiness of children to suspect a stratagem wherever instruction is concerned, and next their resentment on discovering artifice of that kind, all this seems as little likely to be successful as it is assuredly contrary to Rousseau's general doctrine of leaving circumstances to lead.
The ugly and uninhabitable edifices of Rousseau's genius required for their erection a field from which all possible traces of civilized building had been removed. But Montesquieu, while he satirized the vices of the society which he saw about him, yet appreciated at their full value the benefits of civilization.
Thus when virtue or honour make it proper to check a passion, the burden is thrown on the weaker shoulders, contrary to reason and true modesty, which, at least, should render the self-denial mutual, to say nothing of the generosity of bravery, supposed to be a manly virtue. In the same strain runs Rousseau's and Dr.
They should learn practical, useful things, instead of Latin and Greek. "Let them learn what they must do when they are men, and not what they must forget." It is hard to fix limits to the influence of Rousseau's writings. True, both the orthodox Catholics and the philosophical Deists condemned him. But his followers were many, both bourgeois and noble.
The masses were unknown and undiscovered, or, where they emerged, it was either to protest against some wise reform like Walpole's Excise Scheme, or to become, as in Goldsmith and Cowper and Crabbe, the object of half-pitying poetic sentiment. How deep-rooted was the notion of aristocratic control was to be shown when France turned into substantial fact Rousseau's demand for freedom.
A poor light-hearted Marmontel thought that the secret of Rousseau's success lay in the circumstance that he began to write late, and it is true that no other author, so considerable as Rousseau, waited until the age of fifty for the full vigour of his inspiration. No tale of years, however, could have ripened such fruit without native strength and incommunicable savour.
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