1. For this incident, see Rousseau, , The Confessions, Cohen, J. M., trans. (Baltimore, 1954), p. 91. For his experience as a tutor, see Ibid., esp. 252–7; and for his giving his children to a foundling home, see Ibid., pp. 332–4.Google Scholar

2. The fullest such work is Babbitt's, Irving Rousseau and Romanticism (New York, 1955 [1st ed., 1919]), which was an erudite and provocative critique of romanticism; but in this Rousseau's work is not studied, for instead his life is used as a cautionary emblem of the sink into which romanticism leads.Google Scholar

3. See especially, “ Emile Reconsidered” in Bantock, G. H., Education and Values: Essays in the Theory of Education (London, 1965) as well as passing discussions in this book, in Bantock, G. H., Education in an Industrial Society (London, 1963) and in Bantock, G. H., Freedom and Authority in Education” A Criticism of Modern Cultural and Educational Assumptions (London, 1955).Google Scholar

4. Bantock, , Freedom and Authority, pp. 59–60.Google Scholar

5. Bantock, , Education and Values, pp. 54–5.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., p. 56.Google Scholar

7. Ibid.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., p. 73.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., pp. 83–4.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., p. 84.Google Scholar

11. Rousseau, , The Confessions, Cohen, J. M., trans., p. 166.Google Scholar

12. Rousseau's strategy in Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques was based on the recognition that however much his character had been derided, his work was there to be taken into account and consequently he set out to show how his character, rightly understood, correlated with his principles and unlike The Confessions, where he said little about his books, here he said much, even in one part offering up a series of satirical extracts. See the edition of the Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Oeuvre completes, Vol. I (Paris, 1959), pp. 661–992. From here on, references to the Oeuvre completes will be by the abbreviation OC followed by the volume and page numbers: in this case OCI, pp. 661–992.Google Scholar

13. See, for instance, “Seconde preface,” to La nouvelle Heloise, OCII, esp. pp. 13–25.Google Scholar

14. Shklar, Judith N. has examined the various forms of authority in Rousseau's work very well and I am much indebted to her essay, “Rousseau's Images of Authority” (1964) reprinted in Cranston, Maurice and Peters, Richard S., eds., Hobbes and Rousseau: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City, 1972), pp. 333–365, and to her book, Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau's Social Theory, (Cambridge, 1969).Google Scholar

15. This is obvious in his critical works such as the two discourses. It is fundamental, however, to The Social Contract, which is addressed to making authority legitimate, that is, to making political authority coincide with the will of the participant in the community (see esp. Book I, Ch. I). Likewise, , in The Government of Poland, Rousseau tried hard to make good use of the existing perceptions of authority and tradition; he was concerned that the Polish reformers change in profound but subtle and powerful ways the perception of authority, not that they impose a new system in fashionable conformity to sophisticated principles. The opening chapter, “The Question Posed,” concludes: “By what means, then, are we to move men's hearts and bring them to love their fatherland and its laws? Dare I say? Through the games they play as children, through institutions that, though a superficial man would deem them pointless, develop habits that abide and attachments that nothing can dissolve.” Rousseau, , The Government of Poland , Kendall, Willmoore, trans. (Indianapolis, 1972), p. 4.Google Scholar

16. See, de Maistre, Joseph, The Works of Joseph de Maistre, Lively, Jack, trans. (New York, 1971), pp. 98–9.Google Scholar

17. See, for instance, Rousseau's observations in the “Preface” and the opening section of “The Discourse on Inequality;” Rousseau, , The First and Second Discourses, Roger, D. and Masters, Judith R., trans. (New York, 1964), pp. 97, 103.Google Scholar

18. Rousseau did not offer and defend an epistemology and insofar as he held a theory of knowledge that he might have identified as such, it was the neo-Lockean sensationalism typical of the philosophes. His phenomenolism developed, as it should have, out of his experience, not his reflection. Because of this, his autobiographical writings should be taken for what they are, the epistemological groundwork of his earlier treatises. Rousseau was not only being narcissistic in his autobiographical obsession: his experience was the ground of his elucidation of what he found in experience.Google Scholar

19. Connections between Kant and Rousseau are explored well by Cassirer, Ernst in Rousseau, Kant and Goethe, Gutmann, , Kristeller, , and Randall, , trans. (New York, 1963), esp. pp. 43–55.Google Scholar

20. Jean Guéhenno is considerably more informative about this incident in his excellent study Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John, and Weightman, Doreen, trans. (New York, 1966), Vol. I, pp. 9–10, than Rousseau was in the laconic paragraph in The Confessions, Bk.I, Cohen, , trans. p. 23.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., p. 29.Google Scholar

22. Rousseau's own account does not accord very well with the few documentary facts that survive about his experience at the hospice. Compare Ibid., pp. 65–73 with Guehénno's, findings in Jean Jacques Rousseau, pp. 25–7.Google Scholar

23. Rousseau, , The Confessions, Cohen, , trans., pp. 388–9.Google Scholar

24. Rousseau, , Les reveries du promeneur solitaire, OCI p. 1094, McClintock, , trans. Cf. Ibid., p. 1082, and Rousseau juge de Jean Jacques, Ibid., pp. 826–7.Google Scholar

25. Rousseau's, “Note O” to “The Discourse on Inequality,” The First and Second Discourses, Masters, , trans., p. 222.Google Scholar

26. In what follows I will not translate amour de soi and amour propre, for there are implications in the French that seem impossible to catch in English. The common English renderings of amour de soi—“love of oneself” of “self-love”—are quite inert compared to the French, for although amour de soi is literally “love of oneself,” soi sounds exactly the same as sois, the first person subjunctive of the verb “to be” and makes it resonate with a sense of possibility. Amour propre is often translated as “vanity” or “pride” or “egotism.” Each of these, however, have direct French equivalents, vanité, orgueil, égotisme. Further, they suggest that amour propre is more elemental than Rousseau believed. The use of propre in the phrase is perfect for Rousseau's conviction that the emotion arises only on the comparison of externalities: the basic meaning that makes propre usable in Rousseau's phrase is as the adjective signifying that something is one's own as distinct from similar things belonging to others—ma propre maison, my own house. But it further signifies things that are proper, correct, characteristic, even neat or clean—ma maison propre, my clean house. Amour propre is a love preoccupied with things its own and things conventionally viewed.Google Scholar

27. The First and Second Discourses, Masters, , trans., p. 34.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., pp. 35–6.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., p. 58.Google Scholar

30. Rousseau, , “Preface,” Narcisse ou l'amant de lui-même, OCII, p. 970, Translations from the Oeuvres completes are by McClintock, .Google Scholar

31. Rousseau, , Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloise, Pt. II, Letter XVII, OCII, p. 250, McClintock, , trans. The abridged translation by McDowell, Judith H., La Nouvelle Héloise: Julie, or the New Eloise (University Park, Pennsylvania, 1968), is unfortunately not very useful owing to McDowell's decision to shorten the work by leaving out the “digressions” from the soap opera. And this despite Rousseau's “Second Preface” in which he warned young ladies against thinking that the love story was the most important thing in the book! Google Scholar

32. Rousseau juge de Jean Jacques, OCI, p. 669.Google Scholar

33. Ibid., p. 806.Google Scholar

34. Ibid.Google Scholar

35. A good example of Rousseau's qualified enthusiasm is reported in a letter from Madame D'Epinay to Grimm, 1757, translated by William Boyd in The Minor Educational Writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau (New York, 1962), p. 104. See for fuller examples, La nouvelle Héloise, Pt. VI, Letter V, OCII, pp. 657–663 and Rousseau, , Lettres écrites de la montagne, OCIII, pp. 683–897.Google Scholar

36. Rousseau, , Politics and the Arts: Letter to M. D'Alembert on the Theatre, Bloom, Allan, trans. (Ithaca, New York, 1968), p. 63.Google Scholar

37. La nouvelle Héloise, Pt. II Letter XXVII, OCII, p. 304, McClintock, , trans.Google Scholar

38. The Confessions, Bk. IX, Cohen, , trans., pp. 388–9. See also Rousseau juge de Jean Jacques, OCI, p. 791: “The Letter to M. d'Alembert on the Theater, Héloise, Emile, The Social Contract, the Essays on Perpetual Peace and On Theatrical Imitation, and other writings no less admirable that have not yet appeared are the fruits of the withdrawal of J. I doubt that a philosopher has meditated more profoundly, more usefully perhaps, and written more in so little time.” Google Scholar

39. Rousseau, , Les reveries du promeneur solitaire, Eighth Walk, OCI, p. 1079.Google Scholar

40. The Social Contract, Bk.I, Ch. 6, Cranston, Maurice, trans., p. 60.Google Scholar

41. Ibid., p. 74.Google Scholar

42. See “A Discourse on Political Economy,” in Rousseau, , The Social Contract and Discourses, Cole, G. D. H., trans. (New York, 1950), esp. pp. 297–8, and 298–311 passim; The Social Contract, Bk. II, Ch. 4; The Government of Poland, Ch. III; and the contract proposed for Corsicans, , Constitution pour la corse, OCIII, p. 943.Google Scholar

43. Cranston, whose translation of The Social Contract is generally excellent, renders la volonté particulière as “the private will.” This seems to weaken the contrast between general and particular that Rousseau wanted to emphasize with his terminology and it introduces unnecessarily the possibility of thinking that one's particular will, identified with the privacy of one's inner concerns, differs not only in object, but also in character, from one's general will. Kendall, Willmoore in The Social Contract (Chicago, 1954), p. 34, translated la volonté particulière as “the will of the individual,” a patent example of translation as treachery.Google Scholar

44. The Social Contract, Bk. II, Ch. I, OCIII, p. 368.Google Scholar

45. Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. VII, OCIII, p. 363.Google Scholar

46. Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. VI, OCIII, p. 361.Google Scholar

47. Rousseau, , Du contract social, premiere version, OCIII, p. 292. Cf. The Social Contract, Bk. I, Ch. VII, OCIII, p. 364, where the wording is not quite as strong although the sense is quite the same.Google Scholar

48. Rousseau, , “Discours sur l'economie politique,” OCIII, p. 260.Google Scholar

49. Rousseau, , Le gouvernement de Pologne, OCIII, p. 969.Google Scholar

50. Rousseau, , Du contrat social, premiere version, OCIII, p. 294.Google Scholar

51. Rousseau, , The Social Contract, Bk. II, Ch. VII, Cranston, Maurice, trans., p. 86. In Bk. II, Ch. VIII, Rousseau asserted that regeneration after degeneration was impossible: liberty could be gained, but not regained.Google Scholar

52. See The Confessions, Bk. XI, Cohen, J. M., trans., pp. 523, 525, 529–30; cf. Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques, OCI, p. 934, and most strongly of all, Lettres écrits de la montagne, OCIII, p. 697.Google Scholar

53. Thus, in Book II of Emile, Rousseau advises quite complicated social situations for putting over to the child some important points: the idea of property with the set-up argument between Emile and the gardener, the careful disciplining of caprice by planting a stranger to make Emile aware of the folly of his solitary walk, and the drawing of the child towards exercise by developing the races for the cakes. See Emile , Foxley, Barbara, trans. (New York, 1961), pp. 62–3, 85–9, 105–7.Google Scholar

54. Book IV is an extended examination of how amour propre must inevitably develop in Emile and how he can learn to limit and control it. Foxley's translation in this part, as in most others, is poor; throughout her English version lacks the clarity, precision, and force of Rousseau's French version. Her use of “self-love” for amour de soi and “selfishness” for amour propre is adequate, but she does not maintain this terminology with the rigor that Rousseau does. Throughout, her translations do not put points with care, and while any single instance may seem minor, cumulatively these make the book, divagations at any rate, seem much looser than it is. A typical instance may be found in her rendering of “Quoique la pudeur soit naturelle a l'espece humaine, naturellement les enfans n'en ont point,” a line chosen at random (OCIV, p. 497). Foxley's version is: “Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children,” which is not what Rousseau said and which exaggerates the separation between human adults and human children. Rousseau was observing that modesty was natural to the human species, of which children are a part, but “naturally, children do not have any” modesty because it has not developed yet. With thousands of such instances of minor distortion, Foxley's must be counted a very poor translation. But at least it is relatively complete, which cannot be said for Boyd's, William The Emile of Jean Jacques Rousseau: Selections (New York, 1962). Boyd translates amour de soi as self-love and amour propre as self-esteem, rendering the distinction almost invisible, but then worse yet, Boyd eviscerates the topic, seeing fit to include only one paragraph from the pages devoted to the distinction, pages which Burgelin, Pierre, editor of the Pléiade text, calls “the heart of Emile“ (OCIV, p. 1455).Google Scholar

55. Rousseau, , “Lettre a Christophe de Beaumont, Archeveque de Paris …,” (1763), OCIV, p.935.Google Scholar

56. Ibid., p. 937.Google Scholar

57. See esp. Emile, OCIV, pp. 388–9.Google Scholar

58. Ibid., p. 309.Google Scholar

59. Ibid., p. 310.Google Scholar

60. Ibid., pp. 534.Google Scholar

61. Ibid., pp. 583–606.Google Scholar

62. Rousseau, , “Emile et Sophie, ou les solitaires,” esp. OCIV, pp. 920–4, where Emile finds his place a slave, close to death from overwork and poor food and begins acting on his amour de soi. Google Scholar

63. Rousseau had always seemed to me highly manipulative in having his tutor disguise his authority as necessity. If, however, one accepts one's place and comes to see authority simply as a type of necessity, then the disguise becomes truly a dis-guising, making the act appear to the child as what it is—an act of necessity—before the child has himself reached the level of understanding that would enable him in any event to see it for that.Google Scholar