iterary studies in France from the beginning of the eighteenth century,
and Rousseau seems to have read Plato only through Ficinus's
translation. But his example and its influence, along with that of Mably
and others, warrant the historian in saying that at no time did Greek
ideas more keenly preoccupy opinion than during this century.[168]
Perhaps we may say that Rousseau would never have proved how little
learning and art do for the good of manners, if Plato had not insisted
on poets being driven out of the Republic. The article on Political
Economy, written by him for the Encyclopaedia (1755), rings with the
names of ancient rulers and lawgivers; the project of public education
is recommended by the example of Cretans, Lacedaemonians, and Persians,
while the propriety of the reservation of a state domain is suggested
by Romulus.

It may be added that one of the not too many merits of the essay is the
way in which the writer, more or less in the Socratic manner, insists on
dragging people out of the refuge of sonorous general terms, with a
great public reputation of much too well-established a kind to be
subjected to the affront of analysis. It is true that Rousseau himself
contributed nothing directly to that analytic operation which Socrates
likened to midwifery, and he set up graven images of his own in place of
the idols which he destroyed. This, however, did not wholly efface the
distinction, which he shares with all who have ever tried to lead the
minds of men into new tracks, of refusing to accept the current coins of
philosophical speech without test or measurement. Such a treatment of
the great trite words which come so easily to the tongue and seem to
weigh for so much, must always be the first step towards bringing
thought back into the region of real matter, and confronting phrases,
terms, and all the common form of the discussion of an age, with the
actualities which it is the object of sincere discussion to penetrate.

The refutation of many parts of Rousseau's main contention on the
principles which are universally accepted among enlightened men in
modern society is so extremely obvious that to undertake it would merely
be to draw up a list of the gratulatory commonplaces of which we hear
quite enough in the literature and talk of our day. In this direction,
perhaps it suffices to say that the Discourse is wholly one-sided,
admitting none of the conveniences, none of the alleviations of
suffering of al