The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete

The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete

Among the notable books of later timeswe may say, without exaggeration, of all timemust be reckoned The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau. It deals with leading personages and transactions of a momentous epoch, when absolutism and feudalism were rallying for their last struggle against the modern spirit, chiefly represented by Voltaire, the Encyclopedists, and Rousseau himselfa struggle to which, after many fierce intestine quarrels and sanguinary wars throughout Europe and America, has succeeded the prevalence of those more tolerant and rational principles by which the statesmen of our own day are actuated. On these matters, however, it is not our province to enlarge; nor is it necessary to furnish any detailed account of our authors political, religious, and philosophic axioms and systems, his paradoxes and his errors in logic: these have been so long and so exhaustively disputed over by contending factions that little is left for even the most assiduous gleaner in the field. The inquirer will find, in Mr. John Moneys excellent work, the opinions of Rousseau reviewed succinctly and impartially. The Contrat Social, the Lettres Ecrites de la Montagne, and other treatises that once aroused fierce controversy, may therefore be left in the repose to which they have long been consigned, so far as the mass of mankind is concerned, though they must always form part of the library of the politician and the historian. One prefers to turn to the man Rousseau as he paints himself in the remarkable work before us. That the task which he undertook in offering to show himselfas Persius puts itIntus et in cute, to posterity, exceeded his powers, is a trite criticism; like all human enterprises, his purpose was only imperfectly fulfilled; but this circumstance in no way lessens the attractive qualities of his book, not only for the student of history or psychology, but for the intelligent man of the world. Its startling frankness gives it a peculiar interest wanting in most other autobiographies. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 3913
Author: Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
Release Date: Aug 15, 2004
Format: eBook
Language: English