Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
One fine summer's day in 1749, a solitary walker on the road from Paris to Vincennes had, so the story goes, a vision. The solitary walker was Jean Jacques Rousseau. The vision occurred to him as he read a newspaper advertisement about an essay contest sponsored by the Academy of Dijon. The subject proposed for the essay was “Has the progress of the arts and sciences contributed more to the corruption or purification of morals?”
1. Boyd, William, The Emile of Jean Jacques Rousseau (Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, 1962).Google Scholar