nifestation of positive unsoundness in the sphere of the
intelligence, was a last result of the gradual development of an
inherited predisposition to affective unsoundness, which unhappily for
the man's history had never been counteracted either by a strenuous
education, or by the wholesome urgencies of life.

We have only to remember that with him, as with the rest of us, there
was entire unity of nature, without cataclysm or marvel or
inexplicable rupture of mental continuity. All the facts came in an
order that might have been foretold; they all lay together, with their
foundations down in physical temperament; the facts which made
Rousseau's name renowned and his influence a great force, along with
those which made his life a scandal to others and a misery to himself.
The deepest root of moral disorder lies in an immoderate expectation
of happiness, and this immoderate unlawful expectation was the mark
both of his character and his work. The exaltation of emotion over
intelligence was the secret of his most striking production; the same
exaltation, by gaining increased mastery over his whole existence, at
length passed the limit of sanity and wrecked him. The tendency of the
dominant side of a character towards diseased exaggeration is a fact
of daily observation. The ruin which the excess of strong religious
imagination works in natures without the quality of energetic
objective reaction, was shown in the case of Rousseau's contemporary,
Cowper. This gentle poet's delusions about the wrath of God were
equally pitiable and equally a source of torment to their victim, with
Rousseau's delusions about the malignity of his mysterious plotters
among men. We must call such a condition unsound, but the important
thing is to remember that insanity was only a modification of certain
specially marked tendencies of the sufferer's sanity.

The desire to protect himself against the defamation of his enemies
led him at this time to compose that account of his own life, which is
probably the only one of his writings that continues to be generally
read. He composed the first part of the Confessions at Wootton, during
the autumn and winter of 1766. The idea of giving his memoirs to the
public was an old one, originally suggested by one of his publishers.
To write memoirs of one's own life was one of the fancies of the time,
but like all else, it became in Rousseau's hand something more
far-reaching and sincere than a passing fashio