Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1878-07-07
ANOTHER CENTENARY.
Voltaire and ROusseau-A COntrast-The
One an AristOcrat, Without Broad or
Generous Human Sympathies-
The Other Man OF the
People,
Who Appealed in Behalf OF Humanity,
and INDICATED the Rights OF Man
Against the Expressions OF Gen.
turtles, and Demanded Devel-
Opment, Prosperity and
Happiness.

New York Tribune: The centennial ami
versary of the death of Voltaire, which was
recently noticed in these columns, is succeeded
day by the centenary of Rousseau, who
died on the second of July, 1778. Among
the great lights of French literature in the
eighteenth century, no two persons are more
strongly contrasted In personal character, in
telIectual and moral endowments, literary
culture and social influence than these illus
trious writers. Voltaire was born In the pur-
pie; his cradle was rocked in an atmosphere
of learning and refinement; while yet In his
boyhood, he was courted and flattered in the
the most brilliant circles of Partisan society.
He found his associates among the gifted
women whose presence cast an Elusive splen-
dor over the salons of fashionable life, and
the men of genus who then were at the
hight of their renown, but whose star was
destined to grow pale beneath the ascendancy
of the rising sun. Rousseau first saw the
light in the little city of Geneva, place Of
noble historical associations, but of provincial
character, limited and pedantic in Its
ways of thinking, the tone of its society
of antique cast, and its mode Of
worship, as Heine maliciously remarks
adapted only to the religion of watchmakers
The parents of Rousseau were obscure people
in humble life. With only the advantages Of
an ordinary school education, his father wa;
unable to inspire the growing boy with the
love of literature, or even with moderate
curiosity in the pursuit of knowledge. He
was a voracious reader of novels, and for a
time the son shared with him this enjoyment
and also acquired romantic passion for the
heroes of ancient history; but this soon came
to an end; and the young Rousseau was Sent
to Swiss school where he pro6ted little by
his lessons and soon became a prodigy Of
youthful depravity and uneleanliness. In ar
age of great social license, Voltaire was not
conspicuous above his fellows for the vices
of his day; Rousseau, according to hi:
own audacious confessions, was early ad.
dicted to deception, theft, gluttony and in
credible self-lndulgence. The vilest tastes, ,
as he informs his readers, 1.-THE meanest bits
of rascality, succeeded to my simple amuse-
ments, without even leaving the least idea
behind" In the early years of life, which
were devoted by Voltaire to grave studies, in
innate social intercourse with the most bril-
liant spirits of his day, and the practice oil
elaborate composition, Rousseau was an adj
venturer and vagabond, fond of the lowest
company, and giving no sign of intellectual
activity or humane aspiration. He had near
ly attained the age of forty years, before the
commencement ofhis literary career. Voltaire
was a writer from his youth up; his mind
ripened into maturity at tender age; and
the habit of intellectual research and con-
struction soon became a second nature. Vol
taire was scholar of rare attainments, and
still rarer diligence; superficial, no doubt;
warped by his inveterate prejudice, and en-
ticed by plausible pretension; but yet man
of thought, of conviction, of sympathy with
justice and truth; philosopher in his way,
and looking at life and society in their intel
lectual aspects. Voltalre attacked the abuses
which aroused his energy with Intellectual
weapons, with argument, with wit,
with scofing ridicule, with mer-
CHESS satire, never from sentiment, never
with tenderness, never with the glow of warm
and indignant feeling. The genius which In
spired his wrath was the cynical, hooking
devil of contempt; never the loving angel who
spreads his soft wings for the succor and sup
port of humanity. Rousseau was destitute of
the insight of the philosopher; he had pas
sion for paradoxes, without the Judgment to
detect their fallacies; his imagination was
kindled by visions of the glorious destiny of
man under congenial social conditions, but in
the conception of means for their attainment
his mind was as powerless as a child's; he
had no sense of organization, no perception
of the action and reaction of cause and effect;
no steady purpose of method and prepara-
ton for realizing the fancies which were sug-
gested to his mind in dreams of the night.
He was the rapt prophet of a new dispensa-
ton, the imprisoned decla1mer on the glo-
ries of TRANSPORTED society, the creature of
purple splendors of the cloud-land on
which he would erect the tabernacle
of the Lord among the children of
men. Of the form, or color, or proportions
or texture of this enchanted creation he had
no distinct idea himself, and, of course, could
give none to the crowd of admirers, who
waited on his words, bewildered by his elo-
quence, and kindled into spasms of vague en-
thuslasm by the gush of his fiery sympathies.
Voltaire was prompted by keen sense of
personal justice; he waged instructive war
against the pretensions of arbitrary power,
of official insolence, of prestly assumption !;
but he always had in view the select and
polished circle, to which he himself belonged.
He had no love of the people, no sense of hu-
mainly, IN Its broadcast concentrations, no
visions of society in which righteousness
and peace" should be the foundation of civil
order, and ''holiness to the Lord" should be
on the bells of the horses, the
fringes of garments, the implements of in
dustry, and the life of the people. 'The
people, says Voltaire, sis an OK who re-
quires only the yoke, the goad, and little
depended on his character; the in
huence of Rousseau vas in spite of his char
acter. Voltaire affected to be a model of
external propriety; his wig was always deity
powdered; his shoe buckles shone with the
brightness of solid silver; his apparel was
dainty specimen Of the art sartorial; and he
took his pinch of snuff with a lordly grace
that could notibe reached by plebelan nostrils.
Rousseau wen. clad in fantastic costume;
the DEGREES of fashion in his case were dead
letter; for a large part of his life he was an
outcast and tramp; while he so charmingly
depicted the morality of the future, he de6ed
the decencies of life In the present; his wife
was his mistress, and his children were sent
to the founding hospital. The title of Rous-
seau to the remembrance of the present age
rests upon his appeals in behalf of humanity,
his vlndication of the rights of man against
the oppression of centuries. 1t he was not
the first to proclaim the natural dignity of
man, as against the artificial institutions
OF society, he was the first In the
eighteenth century to apply the principle
to political order, and to demand for the peo
Pile the conditions of development, prosperity
and happiness. He gave voice to the preg
nant ideas of freedom and equality which in
splred the French revolution, and, In spite of
the outrages and atrocities which have been
perpetrated In their name by brute force,
have been largely accepted as the essential
terms OF modern progress. 1t has been
by a recent English writer of
signal ability that the influence of Rousseau
gave an important impulse to The American
revolution, and that his ideas and phrases
are embodied in the great charter of Ameri-
Sdu DuI luoIt Is d lOOS6n6SS IN InlS
assertion of which we do not find frequent
in the writings of its author The
Declaration of Independence was not po-
itical charter. Nor does it attempt to es-
tablish the foundations of civil government,
rs matter of precedent and authority. 1t
was the simple expression of con-
7ictions that had been current
among thinking men since the first
settlement of the country. 1t did not pre-
END to announce any novelties in doctrine,
10 introduce any strange speculations into
inc flowing stream of American thought, but
simply to embody the ideas which had been
Of household influence from the earliest his
tory of the American colonies. The princi-
Plies of the revolution were distinctly formu
ated in the cabin of the Mayhower, nearly
century previous to the birth of Rousseau.
His writings had little circulation in this
country at the colonial epoch. An acquaint-
ance with French literature was rare ac-
The studious men of the
period investigated the principles of liberty
n the works of Sidney, and Milton, and
Locke, but never acknowledged the vehement
leclaimer of France as their master
N political science. Traces of Rous-
,eau may no doubt be detected in the
writings of Thomas Paine; he made strong
impression on the ardent and susceptible
mind of Jefferson; but the serene and grave
wisdom of the youthful Washington was
never dazzled by the brilliant lights of for
IGN elOQuence; the SANITY Puritan of Bos-