Beacon Lights of History, Volume 13 | Page 7

one whom he calls "a man born without a skin."
Rousseau returns to France at the age of fifty-five. After various
wanderings he is permitted to settle in Paris, where he lives with great
frugality in a single room, poorly furnished,--supporting himself by
again copying music, sought still in high society, yet shy, reserved,
forlorn, bitter; occasionally making new friends, who are attracted by
the infantine simplicity of his manners and apparent amiability, but
losing them almost as soon as made by his petty jealousies and
irritability, being "equally indignant at neglect and intolerant of
attention."
Rousseau's declining health and the fear of his friends that he was on
the borders of insanity led to his last retreat, offered by a munificent
friend, at Ermenonville, near Paris, where he died at sixty-six years of
age, in 1778, as some think from poison administered by his own hand.

The revolutionary National Assembly of France in 1790 bestowed a
pension of fifteen hundred francs on his worthless widow, who had
married a stable-boy soon after the death of her husband.
Such was the checkered life of Rousseau. As to his character, Lord
Brougham says that "never was so much genius before united with so
much weakness." The leading spring of his life was egotism. He never
felt himself wrong, and the sophistries he used to justify his
immoralities are both ludicrous and pitiable. His treatment of Madame
de Warens, his first benefactor, was heartless, while the abandonment
of his children was infamous. He twice changed his religion without
convictions, for the advancement of his fortunes. He pretended to be
poor when he was independent in his circumstances. He supposed
himself to be without vanity, while he was notoriously the most
conceited man in France. He quarrelled with all his friends. He made
war on society itself. He declared himself a believer in Christianity, but
denied all revelation, all miracles, all inspiration, all supernaturalism,
and everything he could not reconcile with his reason. His bitterest
enemies were the atheists themselves, who regarded him as a hypocrite,
since he professed to believe in what he undermined. The hostility of
the Church was excited against him, not because he directly assailed
Christianity, but because he denied all its declarations and sapped its
authority.
Rousseau was, however, a sentimentalist rather than a rationalist, an
artist rather than a philosopher. He was not a learned man, but a bold
thinker. He would root out all distinctions in society, because they
could not be reconciled with his sense of justice. He preached a gospel
of human rights, based not on Christianity but on instinct. He was full
of impracticable theories. He would have no war, no suffering, no
hardship, no bondage, no fear, and even no labor, since these were evils,
and, according to his notions of moral government, unnecessary. But in
all his grand theories he ignored the settled laws of Providence,--even
those of that "Nature" he so fervently worshipped,--all that is decreed
concerning man or woman, all that is stern and real in existence; and
while he uttered such sophistries, he excited discontent with the
inevitable condition of man, he loosened family ties, he relaxed

wholesome restraints, he infused an intense hatred of all conditions
subject to necessary toil.
The life of this embittered philanthropist was as great a contradiction as
were his writings. This benevolent man sends his own children to a
foundling hospital. This independent man lives for years on the bounty
of an erring woman, whom at last he exposes and deserts. This
high-minded idealizer of friendship quarrels with every man who seeks
to extricate him from the consequences of his own imprudence. This
affectionate lover refuses a seat at his table to the woman with whom
he lives and who is the mother of his children. This proud republican
accepts a pension from King George III., and lives in the houses of
aristocratic admirers without payment. This religious teacher rarely
goes to church, or respects the outward observances of the Christianity
he affects. This moral theorizer, on his own confession, steals and lies
and cheats. This modest innocent corrupts almost every woman who
listens to his eloquence. This lofty thinker consumes his time in
frivolity and senseless quarrels. This patriot makes war on the
institutions of his country and even of civilized life. This humble man
turns his back on every one who will not do him reverence.
Such was this precursor of revolutions, this agitator, this hypocrite, this
egotist, this lying prophet,--a man admired and despised, brilliant but
indefinite, original but not true, acute but not wise; logical, but
reasoning on false premises; advancing some great truths, but spoiling
their legitimate effect by sophistries and falsehoods.
Why, then, discuss the ideas and influence of so despicable a creature?
Because, sophistical as they were,