e says, "If
ever anything resembled a sudden inspiration, it was the movement which
began in me as I read this. All at once I felt myself dazzled by a
thousand sparkling lights; crowds of vivid ideas thronged into my mind
with a force and confusion which threw me into unspeakable agitation; I
felt my head whirling in a giddiness like that of intoxication. A
violent palpitation oppressed me; unable to walk for difficulty of
breathing, I sank under one of the trees of the avenue, and passed half
an hour there in such a condition of excitement that when I rose I saw
that the front of my waistcoat was all wet with tears, though I was
wholly unconscious of shedding them. Ah, if I could have written the
quarter of what I saw and felt under that tree, with what clearness
should I have brought out all the contradictions of our social system;
with what simplicity should I have demonstrated that man is good
naturally, and that by institution only is he made bad."

This essay made him famous, and its publication was the beginning of a
remarkable literary career. His principal literary works are his
"Confessions," in which he declares that he conceals nothing concerning
himself; the "Social Contract," an anti-monarchic work, which many
believe incited the French Revolution; "Heloise," a novel over-strained
in sentiment and immoral in its teachings, but "full of pathos and
knowledge of the human heart"; and "Emile," his greatest work, which
contains his educational theories. The "Emile"[123] was an epoch-making
book, which excited great interest throughout Europe. It is said that
the philosopher Emanuel Kant became so absorbed in reading it that he
forgot to take his daily walk.

=Pedagogy.=--(_a_) Rousseau's first principle is, "Everything is good as
it comes from the hands of the Author of nature; everything degenerates
in the hands of man." It follows, then, that education has only to
prevent the entrance of evil, and let nature continue the work begun.
It is to be a negative, as well as a natural, process. The fallacy of
this principle is very forcibly shown by Vogel[124] as follows: "The
very first sentence of 'Emile,' that man by nature is good, is a
fundamental error; for by nature, that is, from birth, man is neither
good nor bad, but morally indifferent. Only when the individual
possesses mature self-consciousness does he have a correct idea of good
and evil. If man by nature is good, it is inexplicable how evil can
origi