nor a writer of the highest order, attaches us by the beauty of his
character as seen through his half-finished work, more than any other
author of the earlier part of the eighteenth century. He was born
(1715) at Aix, in Provence, received a scanty education, served in
the army during more than ten years, retired with broken health and
found no other employment, lived on modest resources, enjoyed the
acquaintance of the Marquis de Mirabeau and the friendship and high
esteem of Voltaire, and died in 1747, at the early age of thirty-two.
His knowledge of literature hardly extended beyond that of his French
predecessors of the seventeenth century. The chief influences that
reached him came from Pascal, Bossuet, and Fenelon. His learning was
derived from action, from the observation of men, and from
acquaintance with his own heart.

The writings of Vauvenargues are the fragmentary _Introduction a la
Connaissance de l'Esprit Humain_, followed by _Reflexions et
Maximes_ (1746), and a few short pieces of posthumous publication.
He is a moralist, who studies those elements of character which tend
to action, and turns away from metaphysical speculations. His early
faith in Christianity insensibly declined and disappeared, but his
spirit remained religious; he believed in God and immortality, and
he never became a militant philosopher. He thought generously of human
nature, but without extravagant optimism. The reason, acting alone,
he distrusted; he found the source of our highest convictions and
our noblest practice in the emotions, in the heart, in the obscure
depths of character and of nature. Here, indeed, is Vauvenargues'
originality. In an age of ill living, he conceived a worthy ideal
of conduct; in an age tending towards an exaggerated homage to reason,
he honoured the passions: "Great thoughts come from the heart"; "We
owe, perhaps, to the passions the greatest gains of the intellect";
"The passions have taught men reason."

Vauvenargues, with none of the violences of Rousseau's temperament,
none of the excess of his sensibility, by virtue of his recognition
of the potency of nature, of the heart, may be called a precursor
of Rousseau. Into his literary criticism he carries the same
tendencies: it is far from judicial criticism; its merit is that it
is personal and touched with emotion. His total work seems but a
fragment, yet his life had a certain completeness; he knew how to
act, to think, to feel, and after gre