of Ermenonville, and there his ashes rested till the triumph of the Revolution, which he had done so. much to bring about. On the 11th of October, 1793, they were removed, amid a tumult of enthusiasm, to Paris, and placed in the Pantheon, over whose portal are inscribed the words: Aux grands Hommes, la Patrie reconnaissante.

This sketch of Rousseau's life, imperfect as it is, will enable us to form a conception and an estimate of his character and ideals, which underlie his social and educational theories.

We shall not greatly err, if we say that the foundation of Rousseau's character was spontaneity, that his whole life was an endeavor to give free and unconstrained expression to this, and that his works were so many efforts to champion it, as the ideal of life, and to show how it might be preserved, free from constraint and corruption. In Rousseau himself, this spontaneity, naturally very rich and strong, was fostered by an education which, leaving him at liberty to follow his momentary caprices, fired his imagination and made it ungovernable, so that he early became utterly incapable of submitting to any restraint, regulation, continuous occupation, or duty, however sacred. He lived in, and for, the present moment, seeking to draw from it the greatest amount of enjoyment, tranquil or ecstatic, as his mood happened to demand, without any thought of past, future, or the claims of others. He was too immediate to cherish

1 The report that he committed suicide seems utterly destitute of foundation. [Since this was written, an examination of his skull has placed this beyond doubt.]

either love or hatred for absent things or persons. He was without malignity, because malignity causes discomfort; he loved for the pleasure love gave him, and when that ceased, love ceased. He was equally a stranger to revenge and gratitude. He could abandon his best friend, and then weep torrents of delicious tears over his or her forlorn condition. He could gush over his friends as long as they were willing merely to gush back; but, when they showed any signs of coldness, or tried to call him back to a sense of duty, he was ready to accuse them of the grossest ingratitude or blackest treachery. Knowing absolutely nothing of moral discipline, and having learnt none of those moral principles which render permanent and healthy social relations possible, he easily got disgusted with society, and was always ready to withdraw to solitude, which he could people with beings endowed with prodigal emotion, duly responsive to his own. For the same reason, while he exulted in virtue, when virtue was picturesque and pleasant, he was ready to give way to the basest of vices, if he could thereby obtain pleasure or avoid pain. He could never prevail upon himself to do anything that was disagreeable, no matter what law of duty imposed it upon him. He could wax eloquent on the duties of parents, and melt into tears at the sight of innocent children; yet he sent his own offspring to the foundling asylum. Such are some of the fruits of spontaneity.

But perhaps the most astonishing thing about Rousseau is, that he went through life, not only without learning the meaning of duty, but firmly believing

that the life of pure spontaneity and caprice which he led was the ideal life, and that he himself was the best of men. This, indeed, he openly maintains. So far, indeed, was he from being ashamed of his undisciplined spontaneity, that he wrote his Confessions to prove that the spontaneous man is the best of men. We need not be surprised, then, to find that all his works are so many pleas for spontaneity, so many attempts to show all the evils which afflict humanity to be due to restraints placed upon spontaneity or attempts to discipline it; that they are so many schemes for making humanity blest, by the removal of these restraints. Indeed, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the whole aim of Rousseau's literary activity is to show how men may be made happy and contented, without being obliged to become moral.

But what Rousseau sought to prove by eloquent words, by insidious appeals to man's natural craving for happiness on easy terms, he disproved by his own character, his actions, and the sad results of both. His character, with its obtrusive independence, due to absence of all acknowledgment of moral ties, is spongy, unmanly, and repellent. We might pity him, if he did not pity himself so much; but we can in no case admire or love him. His actions are merely so many efforts to obtain self-satisfaction, and that, too, of a purely sensuous, not to say sensual, sort. Though often imprudent, he is never heroic; though sentimentally or picturesquely kind, he is never generous or high-minded. If he submits to wrong, he does so more from sloth than from magnanimity. The results of his character and actions, of which his theories are

but the generalized expression and defence, are a sufficient warning against such character, actions, and theories. These results were querulousness, misery, and insanity, unillumined by one ray of conscious heroism or moral worth. The man who had no other interest in life than the satisfaction of his own senses and emotions, found life meaningless, when satiety, abuse, and age had blunted these; and when, despite all unnatural stimulation from a diseased imagination, they became sources of pain, instead of sources of pleasure, nothing was left for him but spontaneous reactions in the form of querulousness, self-pity, and insanity. A sadder old age than Rousseau's is not often recorded.

As the above estimate of Rousseau's character may seem harsh and unsympathetic, it ought to be added that it is based entirely upon his own account of himself. In order to show this, it may be well to transcribe here a few passages from the four letters which He wrote to M. de Malesherbes, in January, 1762, in his best days, shortly before the publication of the Social Contract and Emile:

66

My heart cares too much for other attachments, to care so much for public opinion. I am too fond of my pleasure and my independence, to be as much the slave of vanity as they suppose. A man for whom fortune and the hope of a brilliant future never outweighed a rendezvous or a pleasant supper, is not likely to sacrifice his honor to the desire of being talked about." "I was long mistaken as to the cause of my invincible disgust with human society." "What, then, is this

...

cause? It is simply this indomitable spirit of liberty, which nothing has been able to overcome, and 'honors, reputation even, are as nothing. spirit of liberty is due less to pride than

before which fortune, Certain it is that this to indolence; but this

indolence is incredible. Everything scares it; the smallest duties of civil life are insupportable to it; a word to speak, a letter to write, a visit to pay, as soon as they have to be done, are tortures to me. This is why, while ordinary intercourse with men is odious to me, friendship is so dear- because there is no duty about it. You follow your heart, and all is done. This also is why I have always dreaded kindnesses; for every kindness demands gratitude, and I feel my heart ungrateful, simply because gratitude is a duty. In a word, the kind of happiness I want consists, not so much in doing what I wish, as in not doing what I don't wish. Active life has no temptations for me. I had a thousand times rather do nothing than do anything against my will. I have a hundred times thought that I should not have been unhappy in the Bastille, having merely to stay there." "An indolent soul, recoiling from all responsibilities, and an ardent, bilious temperament, easily affected and excessively sensitive to all that affects it, are two things which seem unlikely to meet in the same character; yet, contrary though they be, they form the basis of mine."

...

"My soul, alienated from itself, belongs wholly to my body; the disordered condition of my poor machine holds it every day more captive, until the time when the two shall part company altogether." . . . "My woes are the work of Nature; my happiness is my own work. Say what you will, I have been well-behaved, because I have been as happy as my nature allowed me to be. I have not looked for my happiness in the far distance, but in myself; and there I have found it.". "When my sufferings make me sadly measure the length of the nights, what period of my life do you suppose I recall most frequently and with most pleasure, in my dreams?" "It is the period of my retreat, my solitary walks, the swift but delicious days I have passed all by myself, with my good, simple housekeeper, my beloved dog, my old cat, the birds of the field and the deer of the forest, the whole of nature and its inconceivable author. When, rising with the sun, in order to see him rise. . . I saw the approach of a fine day, my first wish was that neither letters nor visits would come to spoil its charm. After giving up the forenoon to different chores, all of which I did with pleasure, because I