Beacon Lights of History, Volume 13 | Page 4

the grand reforms of which he was a part, and for which

his generation in England is praised; while his writings remain a
treasure-house of political and moral wisdom, sure to be drawn upon
during every public discussion of governmental principles. Rousseau,
although a writer of a hundred years ago, seems to me a fit
representative of political, social, and educational ideas in the present
day, because his theories are still potent, and even in this scientific age
more widely diffused than ever before. Not without reason, it is true,
for he embodied certain germinant ideas in a fascinating literary style;
but it is hard to understand how so weak a man could have exercised
such far-reaching influence.
Himself a genuine and passionate lover of Nature; recognizing in his
principles of conduct no duties that could conflict with personal
inclinations; born in democratic and freedom-loving Switzerland, and
early imbued through his reading of German and English writers with
ideas of liberty,--which in those conservative lands were
wholesome,--he distilled these ideas into charming literary creations
that were eagerly read by the restless minds of France and wrought in
them political frenzy. The reforms he projected grew out of his theories
of the "rights" of man, without reference to the duties that limit those
rights; and his appeal for their support to men's passions and selfish
instincts and to a sentimental philosophy, in an age of irreligion and
immorality, aroused a political tempest which he little contemplated.
In an age so infidel and brilliant as that which preceded the French
Revolution, the writings of Rousseau had a peculiar charm, and
produced a great effect even on men who despised his character and
ignored his mission. He engendered the Robespierres and Condorcets
of the Revolution,--those sentimental murderers, who under the guise
of philosophy attacked the fundamental principles of justice and
destroyed the very rights which they invoked.
Jean Jacques Rousseau was born at Geneva in the year 1712, when
Voltaire was first rising into notice. He belonged to the plebeian ranks,
being the son of a watchmaker; was sickly, miserable, and morbid from
a child; was poorly educated, but a great devourer of novels (which his
father--sentimental as he--read with him), poetry, and gushing

biographies; although a little later he became, with impartial facility,
equally delighted with the sturdy Plutarch. His nature was passionate
and inconstant, his sensibilities morbidly acute, and his imagination
lively. He hated all rules, precedents, and authority. He was lazy,
listless, deceitful, and had a great craving for novelties and
excitement,--as he himself says, "feeling everything and knowing
nothing." At an early age, without money or friends, he ran away from
the engraver to whom he had been apprenticed, and after various
adventures was first kindly received by a Catholic priest in Savoy; then
by a generous and erring woman of wealth lately converted to
Catholicism; and again by the priests of a Catholic Seminary in
Sardinia, under whose tuition, and in order to advance his personal
fortunes, he abjured the religion in which he had been brought up, and
professed Catholicism. This, however, cost him no conscientious
scruples, for his religious training had been of the slimmest, and
principles he had none.
We next see Rousseau as a footman in the service of an Italian
Countess, where he was mean enough to accuse a servant girl of a theft
he had himself committed, thereby causing her ruin. Again, employed
as a footman in the service of another noble family, his extraordinary
talents were detected, and he was made secretary. But all this kindness
he returned with insolence, and again became a wanderer. In his
isolation he sought the protection of the Swiss lady who had before
befriended him, Madame de Warens. He began as her secretary, and
ended in becoming her lover. In her house he saw society and learned
music.
A fit of caprice induced Rousseau to throw up this situation, and he
then taught music in Chambéry for a living, studied hard, read Voltaire,
Descartes, Locke, Hobbes, Leibnitz, and Puffendorf, and evinced an
uncommon vivacity and talent for conversation, which made him a
favorite in social circles. His chief labor, however, for five years was in
inventing a system of musical notation, which led him to Lyons, and
then, in 1741, to Paris.
He was now twenty-nine years old,--a visionary man, full of schemes,

with crude opinions and unbounded self-conceit, but poor and
unknown,--a true adventurer, with many agreeable qualities, irregular
habits, and not very scrupulous morals. Favored by letters of
introduction to ladies of distinction,--for he was a favorite with ladies,
who liked his enthusiasm, freshness, elegant talk, and grand
sentiments,--he succeeded in getting his system of musical notation
examined, although not accepted, by the French Academy, and secured
an appointment as secretary in the suite of the