The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-07-14
Tulane University.
Selected Studies and Criticism

Selected Studies and Criticism.
Rousseau was the direct inspirer of
the men who made the French revolu-
ton. His fervid defamation about
equality and brotherhood, and his sem
timental republicanism, were seed as
we'll suited to the soil in which they
were sown as Montesquieu's reasoned
constitutionalism was unsuited to it.
Rousseau, indeed, if the proof of the
excellence of preaching is in the prac-
| tice of the hearers, was the greatest
preacher of the century. He denounced
the practice of putting infants out to
nurse, and mothers began to suckle
their own children; he recommended
instruction in useful arts, and Znany an
emigre noble had to thank Rousseau
for being able to earn his bread in
exile; he denounced speculative athe-
ism, urging the undogmatic but emo
tional creed, and the first wave of the
religious reaction was set going, to
eliminate in the catholic movement of
Chateaubriand and Lamennais. But in
literature itself his influence was quite
as powerful He was not, indeed, the
founder of the school of analysis of
feeling in the novel, but he was the
populariZer of it. He was almost the
: founder of sentimentalism in general
and he was absolutely the
III 81 " IIidhe WOIu painting VI IdluIe
an almost Indispensable element of all
imaginative and fictitious writing, both
in prose and poetry
Rousseau was essentially an idealist,
but an idealist whose dreams and Wis
ions were inspired by the play of his
sensibility upon his intellect and imag-
ination, and therefore he was the least
impersonal of thinkers Generous of
with
cions; inordinately proud, he nursed
his pride amid sordid realities; cher
ishing ideals of purity and innocence,
he sank deep in the mire of magma
tive sensuality; effeminate, he was also
indomitable; an uncompromising OPP
timist, he saw the whole world lying in
wickedness; a passionate lover of free
dom. he aimed at establishing the most
unqualified of tyrannies; among the
devout he was a free-thinker, among
the philosophers he was the sentiment
talist of theopathy. He stands apart
from his contemporaries; they did hon.
age to the understanding: he was the
devotee of the heart; they belonged to
a brilliant society; he was elated, suf-
fered, brooded, dreamed in solitude;
they were aristocratic, at least by vir-
tue of the intellectual culture which
they represented: he was plebeian in
his origin and popular in his sympa-
thieS. He became a great writer COM
paratively late in life, under the COM
pulsion of a ruling idea which lies at
the center of all his more important
works, except such as are apologize
and photographed. Nature has made
man good and happy; society has made
him evil and miserable. Are we, then,
to return to state of primitive saw
agery? No; society cannot retrograde.
But in many ways we can ameliorate
human life by approXimating to a nat
ural condition.-Edward Dowden.
Jean Jacques Rousseau was a writer
who marched under none of the recog-
nized banners of the day. The ency-
clopedists had hattered themselves
that they had tuned the opinion of all
Europe to their philosophical strain,
when suddenly they heard his discord-
ant note. Without family, without
friends, without home, wandering from
place to place, from one condition in
life to another, he conceived a species
of revolt against society, and a feeling
of bitterness against those civil organ
izations in which he could never find a
suitable place. He combated the athe-
ism of the encyclopedias, their mater
lallsm and contempt for moral virtue
for pure deism was his creed. He be-
lieved in supreme being, a future
state, and the excellence of virtue: but.
denying all revealed religion. he would
have men advance in the paths of vir-
tue, freely and proudly, from love of
virtue itself. and not from any sense
of duty or obligation.-Botta.
Others have left works more perfect.
and above all more beneficent but T do
not believe that in the whole history of
literature there exists the man whose
influence has been so decisive, so far
reaching, and upon whom il is so diff
cult to form fair judgment Measured
from the point of view of today, this
influence seems disproportioned to the
genius which exercised it and to the
value of the works of that genius. But
the most perfect works do not neces-
sarily count the most, and the keenest
criticism cannot always explain the
mysterious affinities of genius, of
thought and of morals. 1t has been
questioned whether this influence. the
extent and duration of which are in
contestable. has been a salutary one.
We are not now to consider this. An
an irresistible guide. Rousseau
has not been an infallible one. MANY
have gone astray in following him. If
he had a kind and feeling heart. he
had not less faulty intellect. and his
paradoxes often paralyzed his good in
tention. The ability with which he fol-
lowed them to their extreme conclu-
sion, like the eloquence he EMPLOYED in
their service, only served to render
them more dangerous. Therefore. in
penetrating so deeply the consciousness
of the generations that followed him
Rousseaus thought has drawn upon
them many ills. 1t has involved them
in many groupings and errors. in MANY
delusive visions and sufferings.-Ed-
Guard Rod.