ght on the part of elders,
and no gradual acclimatisation of a sensitive and ardent nature in the
fixed principles which are essential to right conduct in the frigid zone
of our relations with other people. It was one of the most elementary of
Rousseau's many perverse and mischievous contentions, that it is their
education by the older which ruins or wastes the abundant capacity for
virtue that subsists naturally in the young. His mind seems never to
have sought much more deeply for proof of this, than the fact that he
himself was innocent and happy so long as he was allowed to follow
without disturbance the easy simple proclivities of his own temperament.
Circumstances were not indulgent enough to leave the experiment to
complete itself within these very rudimentary conditions.

Rousseau had been surrounded, as he is always careful to protest, with a
religious atmosphere. His father, though a man of pleasure, was
possessed also not only of probity but of religion as well. His three
aunts were all in their degrees gracious and devout. M. Lambercier at
Bossey, "although Churchman and preacher," was still a sincere believer
and nearly as good in act as in word. His inculcation of religion was so
hearty, so discreet, so reasonable, that his pupils, far from being
wearied by the sermon, never came away without being touched inwardly
and stirred to make virtuous resolutions. With his Aunt Bernard devotion
was rather more tiresome, because she made a business of it.[18] It
would be a distinct error to suppose that all this counted for nothing,
for let us remember that we are now engaged with the youth of the one
great religious writer of France in the eighteenth century. When after
many years Rousseau's character hardened, the influences which had
surrounded his boyhood came out in their full force and the historian of
opinion soon notices in his spirit and work a something which had no
counterpart in the spirit and work of men who had been trained in Jesuit
colleges. At the first outset, however, every trace of religious
sentiment was obliterated from sight, and he was left unprotected
against the shocks of the world and the flesh.

At the age of eleven Jean Jacques was sent into a notary's office, but
that respectable calling struck him in the same repulsive and
insufferable way in which it has struck many other boys of genius in all
countries. Contrary to the usual rule, he did not rebel, but was
ignominiously dismissed b