Produced by David Widger
THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
(In 12 books)
Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society
London, 1903
CONTENTS:
Introduction—S.W. Orson
Book I.
Among the notable books of later times-we may say, without exaggeration,of all time—must be reckoned The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau.It deals with leading personages and transactions of a momentous epoch,when absolutism and feudalism were rallying for their last struggleagainst the modern spirit, chiefly represented by Voltaire, theEncyclopedists, and Rousseau himself—a struggle to which, after manyfierce intestine quarrels and sanguinary wars throughout Europe andAmerica, has succeeded the prevalence of those more tolerant and rationalprinciples by which the statesmen of our own day are actuated.
On these matters, however, it is not our province to enlarge; nor is itnecessary to furnish any detailed account of our author's political,religious, and philosophic axioms and systems, his paradoxes and hiserrors in logic: these have been so long and so exhaustively disputedover by contending factions that little is left for even the mostassiduous gleaner in the field. The inquirer will find, in Mr. JohnMoney's excellent work, the opinions of Rousseau reviewed succinctly andimpartially. The 'Contrat Social', the 'Lattres Ecrites de la Montagne',and other treatises that once aroused fierce controversy, may thereforebe left in the repose to which they have long been consigned, so far asthe mass of mankind is concerned, though they must always form part ofthe library of the politician and the historian. One prefers to turn tothe man Rousseau as he paints himself in the remarkable work before us.
That the task which he undertook in offering to show himself—as Persiusputs it—'Intus et in cute', to posterity, exceeded his powers, is atrite criticism; like all human enterprises, his purpose was onlyimperfectly fulfilled; but this circumstance in no way lessens theattractive qualities of his book, not only for the student of history orpsychology, but for the intelligent man of the world. Its startlingfrankness gives it a peculiar interest wanting in most otherautobiographies.
Many censors have elected to sit in judgment on the failings of thisstrangely constituted being, and some have pronounced upon him verysevere sentences. Let it be said once for all that his faults andmistakes were generally due to causes over which he had but littlecontrol, such as a defective education, a too acute sensitiveness, whichengendered suspicion of his fellows, irresolution, an overstrained senseof honour and independence, and an obstinate refusal to take advice fromthose who really wished to befriend him; nor should it be forgotten thathe was afflicted during the greater part of his life with an incurabledisease.
Lord Byron had a soul near akin to Rousseau's, whose writings naturallymade a deep impression on the poet's mind, and probably had an influenceon his conduct and modes of thought: In some stanzas of 'Childe Harold'this sympathy is expressed with truth and power; especially is theweakness of the Swiss philosopher's character summed up in the followingadmirable lines:
"Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,
The apostle of affliction, he who threw
Enchantment over passion, and from woe
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew
The breath w