expression in the discourse was not entirely of his choosing and that he was presenting his paper as a frankly ex parte statement in a competition organized by an academy. In such a competition a dispassionate essay was not to be expected, and it is a curious fact that not even critics friendly to Rousseau should have fully realized the ethics of his position. The ethics of discourse-writing, a favorite amusement of eighteenth century lettrés, was much the same as the ethics of present day intercollegiate debating. Having chosen his side of an open question it was the duty of the disputant to present it as strongly and convincingly as possible. The form, to be sure, suited Rousseau's essentially one-sided temperament, and his heart was doubtless in his work. La nuance was never his affair. Quite possibly too, a sudden celebrity turned his head and led him at times to renchérir upon what was already a paradox and to draw grotesquely flattering pictures of primitive man. If amusing, it was none the less premature to say of him, as did Voltaire, that he was merely vaunting le bonheur à quatre pattes, or to assume that he advocated that we should suddenly turn back the hands of the clock and run, content again, upon all fours. It is likewise unfair to hold that we catch Rousseau in flagrant contradiction of himself when we later find him with much expense of spirit elaborating a careful state and advocating a new system of education, neither of which institutions would be necessary if this stage of purely primitive bliss were his final aim and end.

To judge properly Rousseau's position we must con- `

sider his work as a whole. The fundamental unity of his purpose will be apparent if we look upon his philosophy, as does M. Émile Boutroux,19 as presenting a mythical history of humanity as it passes through its three successive stages.

The first stage is the state of nature in which man lives out his individual life in the light of his instinct, following his impulses, which Rousseau believed to be fundamentally good and right, and guided only by his sentiment. His intelligence is as yet undeveloped and entirely subordinate to sentiment and conscience. This stage, however, is in its nature transitory, and once passed, cannot be recalled, and if Rousseau painted this way of life in attractive colors, it was, as we shall see from the Émile and the Contrat Social, by no means his purpose to bring it again into being. For in this state of nature the individual, though free, enjoys but a precarious existence and is soon constrained to combat the forces which threaten his life. To increase his power of resisting these hostile forces he now joins with his fellows and begins to develop his natural resources. At this point he from necessity passes over into the second stage which we may designate as the social state.

In entering upon this second state man's primary end was to defend himself and to increase his power of resistance. This he did largely through the development of the arts and sciences. But he soon came to seek power and preeminence for their own sakes, for

19 Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, Vol. XX, pp. 265-274. To M. Boutroux's excellent study I am much indebted.

got his natural equality and lost touch altogether with the kind of life he had lived in the state of nature, and consequently with what Rousseau considered the proper and natural aims of the individual. The development of the intelligence having become an end in itself, the struggle is now carried on, not in the interest of safely achieving the natural destiny of man, but merely in the interest of establishing supremacy and individual domination over one's fellows. Sentiment and conscience which lead man to fulfil this natural destiny were forced to a subordinate position in his life. His moral nature became warped and perverted, and instead of obeying his conscience he enters upon what may be called in theological terms the state of perversion or sin. Moral deterioration, in other words, follows in the wake of the arts and sciences which beget inequality and injustice. Yet the enlarging of his horizon and the development of his faculties need not necessarily be an evil. Through consciousness of sin, as in Julie's case, for instance, man may rise to a plane higher than that of his first stage of ignorant if blissful innocence. To do this he must pass into the third, or what we may call the political state.

To reestablish justice and equality, society must now be transformed into the State, which shall at once protect life and again render possible the full realization of the individual destiny. This state is based upon an ideal contract by which man submits himself not to an alien power with an independent interest, which tends to degrade him, but to the power which he himself has

created for the purpose of completely realizing himself. This lends dignity to his new life. The State can act therefore only in accordance with the ‘general will,' and under penalty of negating itself must not take any action which shall be hostile to the higher interest of its constituent members. In other words, the individuals, now joined by a mystic bond, merely through the exercise of certain of their rights, automatically become the State. The State "compels them to be free." It can therefore control the action of its members only up to a certain point. It guarantees equality and liberty which were lost in the social stage, and once again leaves man free to "pursue his happiness." Beyond him opens out again the free field for individual self-realization which must take place along the line of man's natural ends. For the purpose of his redemption, man must therefore, if he would enter into the highest stage of his progress, at once be educated as a citizen and again be put into touch with the great guiding natural forces. Feeling and conscience are again supreme.

"One moment now may give us more

Than years of toiling reason."20

For the purpose of this regeneration the life of comparative solitude, or simple rusticity which is preached in Emile, and of constant communion with nature, is best. In the interest of this newer "normal" education he would have subscribed to the lines of his English disciple:

20 Wordsworth. To my Sister.

"Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife,

Let Nature be your teacher."

The warping of man's moral nature which Rousseau accepted as the result of his participation in the merely social life could thus be rectified, for as Wordsworth says,

"One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man

Of moral evil and of good

Than all the sages can."

Therefore in this sense Rousseau too would have said

and did say:

"Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives."21

It should be remembered that we have been trying to expound and make plain Rousseau's system in order to make clearer the place and bearing of the First Discourse in his completed work. It would be easy to show that from the point of view of a political instrument his state, as outlined in the Contrat Social, presents insuperable difficulties and that it would not accomplish in practice, the aim for which it was intended by this "utopian dreamer." It should, however, be borne in mind that Rousseau never intended the Contrat to be accepted as a constitution by any existing state. He designed it as a statement of general principles and of political ideals. There can be no ques21 Wordsworth. The Tables Turned.