:

THE

CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

MARCH, 1868.

ART. I.-JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU.

Rousseau et les Génevois. Par M. J. GABEREL, ancien pasteur. Genève : Joel Cherbulier, 1858. Paris: Même Maison, Rue de la Monnaie, 10.

THIS book, published some years since, contains interesting matter for any new biography of the great, sad prose-poet of France in the eighteenth century. It contains reminiscences concerning him from simple, honest, Christian men, — his fellow-townsmen, who knew him and loved him. They do not think of him as the great philosopher and marvellous writer, who first set the French language on fire, and turned its cold phrases into burning eloquence. They think of him only as one whom they could not quite understand, or quite approve of; but whom they could not help loving. It contains contributions from many citizens of Geneva and the neighboring towns, and shows us Rousseau when his unquiet heart and sensitive nature found peace for a time among his simple fellow-citizens. The period, perhaps, has hardly yet arrived for writing the biography of this great soul; but, when it comes, this unpretending volume will be one of its "Memoires pour servir." It informs us, too, that there is a collection of nearly two thousand inedited letters of Rousseau in the Library of Neufchâtel, classified by the librarian, M. Bovet. It also

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mentions, that M. le docteur Coindet, grand-nephew of Rousseau's friend of that name, has a voluminous collection of notes and letters, addressed to his uncle by the philosopher. It has many interesting anecdotes, all tending to show, that, in the opinion of these good men, who knew Rousseau in his private life, he was a sincerely religious man; a truth-seeking, truth-loving man; and one who desired human love and sympathy more than fame.

Perhaps the present century may be able to do justice to Rousseau, and we have long desired to utter at least one protest against the wide-spread opinion, in the Christian public, of his infidelity in opinion and his immorality of character. The common view of Rousseau is wholly unjust to his belief and his life. Unfortunate and unhappy in a thousand ways, he is not that ogre of evil which his name represents to so many minds.

Rousseau was a phenomenon, unintelligible to his own time, and not yet understood by ours. To his contemporaries, he was the object of immense admiration and enormous odium; and, to our age, he stands as a misty representative of sophistry and unbelief. He is classified with Hume and Voltaire, though radically opposed to them in all his ideas, and antipathetic in all the tendencies of his nature. When his works first appeared, they electrified France and Europe. Hume writes from Paris in 1765, "It is impossible to express or imagine the enthusiasm of this nation in his favor: no person ever so much engaged their attention as Rousseau. Voltaire and everybody else are quite eclipsed by him." When "La Nouvelle Héloïse " appeared, the libraries could not answer the calls made for it from all classes. The book was let by the day and by the hour. But this universal and immense admiration was attended or immediately followed by a terrible hatred and persecution. Banished from Paris for the publication of "Emile," a work which contains the germs of our modern improvements in education, he went to Geneva; threatened with imprisonment there, he fled to Neufchâtel; driven from that place, he went and lived on an island in the Lake of Bienne, from which he was again expelled by the

Canton of Berne. Longing for repose, he was a perpetual wanderer; thirsting for sympathy, he was in constant warfare. The only literary man of his time who was sincerely religious, he passed then, and has passed ever since, as an example of unbelief. A singular character certainly, and well deserving our study. Lord Holland tells us that Napoleon said of Rousseau, that "without him there would have been no French Revolution." The historian Schlosser speaks of his "bringing forward an entirely new system of absolute democracy." Von Raumer, in his history of education, gives Rousseau a high place as the founder and inspirer of this modern science. Sismondi says, "Rousseau, in his writings, went to the foundations of human society." Buckle remarks, that he has not found a single instance of an attack on Christianity in all Rousseau's writings; and that in this respect he was entirely distinguished from the other writers of his day. Louis Blanc declares that Rousseau alone withstood the movement headed by Voltaire and all the philosophers, resisting by himself the whole spirit of his time. "The age exalted reason; he preached sentiment. Among the prophets of individualism, he alone taught the Christian doctrine of brotherhood. The mission of Jean Jacques, in a society which was in a state of disintegration, was to oppose to the exaggerated worship of reason the worship of sentiment." M. Villemain, one of the most respectable among the historians of French literature, considers him "the successor of Montesquieu in political science," "the sincere friend of morality and justice," "magical in his talent," "with a soul of fire;" and agrees with those who ascribe to his genius an immense influence over the future. He was, says he, "the Bible of his time; and there was not an act in the French Revolution in which you do not find his good or evil influence." But, as regards religion, Villemain declares, that, "at a period when the old religious beliefs had faded away from the public mind, no better and no more useful book than 'Emile' could have been offered to it." Rousseau, he adds, "was the religious teacher of his time, inspiring a faith in God, in the Soul, in Goodness here and Immortality hereafter,

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which was not taught then, even in the Christian pulpits. For the Catholic pulpit of France then preached mere moral discourses on 'Affability,' on 'Equanimity of Temper,' or 'The Love of Order;' and sought to be pardoned its sacred mission by affecting a kind of judicious worldliness." The school of Sensation ruled in philosophy: and to the school of Sensation Rousseau uttered these words: "Judgment and Sensation are not the same thing: I am not merely a sensitive and passive being, but also an active and intelligent being; and, whatever Philosophy may say about it, I shall venture to claim the honor of being able to think." In reply to Diderot, d'Holbach, and Helvetius, and to the Atheism which they taught, he inferred an intelligent Supreme Being from the very existence of matter. To the Encyclopedists he replies, Philosophy can do nothing which Religion cannot do better than she; and Religion can do a great many other things which Philosophy cannot do at all."

We have quoted these authorities to show, that we are not alone in asserting, that, down to the present time, Rousseau has not been generally understood, and that he deserves a further and more impartial study. We shall endeavor to avoid the opposite extreme of indiscriminate praise. We shall point out the errors and faults of Jean Jacques, neither of which are hard to discover.

Jean Jacques Rousseau was born at Geneva in 1712, and died near Paris in 1778, at the age of 66. He was a contemporary, during most of his life, with such men as Swedenborg, Kant, Voltaire, John Wesley, Benjamin Franklin, Linnæus, Dr. Johnson, Hume, and Burke. How different were these from each other! how hard for them to understand each other! How hard for the practical Benjamin Franklin, the tory Samuel Johnson, the pious Wesley, the philosophic Kant, or the mystical Swedenborg, to find any meaning or use in such a man as Rousseau! But posterity, looking backward, can recognize the good which all.have done by all their different methods. "There are so many voices in the world, but none without its own signification."

I.

The Life of Rousseau divides itself into these periods:

I. From 1712 to 1741,- that is, from his birth till he was twentynine; during which time, an orphan; sent to school at Bossey; apprenticed to an engraver; with the curate in Savoy, and with Mme. Warens; he slowly develops unknown to the world.

II. From 1741 to 1750; that is, from twenty-nine to thirty-eight. In Paris, with his system of musical notation; with the French Embassy to Venice, and in Paris again; but still unknown.

III, From 1750 to 1762; that is, from thirty-eight to fifty. He publishes his first Essay, his "Social Contract," his "Emile," and his "Nouvelle Héloïse."

IV. From 1762 to 1778; that is, from fifty to sixty-six. He lives a life of exile and controversy, till his death.

The family of Rousseau were French; and, though Rousseau was fond of calling himself a citizen of Geneva, he belonged altogether in his soul, as in literature, to France. His ancestors were Huguenots, who had gone to Switzerland to secure liberty of conscience. His father was a watchmaker. His mother died when he was born; and he never knew a mother's care. He was a sickly child; and his father, to amuse him, would sit up all night reading novels to him. But when he was ten years old he lost his father also, who went into exile. in consequence of fighting a duel, and abandoned his child to the care of his uncle, who placed him at school in the town of Bossey. At twelve years he was put as an apprentice with an engraver, who was a harsh employer; and, when Rousseau was sixteen, he ran away, and took refuge with a Catholic curate in Savoy, who, instead of sending him back to his family, preferred to keep him, that he might convert him to the Catholic Church. For this purpose, he sent him to live with Madame Warens, a lady who figures largely in his memoirs. She was a recent convert to the Catholic Church. She had deserted her husband, with whom she did not live happily. Protected by the King of Sardinia, and living on