[[5]] Civil bondage, as understood by Rousseau, consists in the laws and obligations of civilized life itself. He extols the state of nature as the ideal condition, the condition of perfect freedom, without seeing that, on the contrary, true liberty cannot exist without the protection of laws, while the state of nature is only the enslavement of the weak by the strong—the triumph of brute force.
[[6]] In this unconditional form the principle is inadmissible. Any one who has the rearing of children knows this. But the idea underlying the paradox ought to be recognized, for it is a just one. We ought not to command merely for the pleasure of commanding, but solely to interpret to the child the requirements of the case in hand. To command him for the sake of commanding is an abuse of power: it is a baseness which will end in disaster. On the other hand, we cannot leave it to circumstances to forbid what ought not to be done. Only, the command should be intelligible, reasonable, and unyielding. This is really what Rousseau means.
[[7]] This is not strictly true. The child early has the consciousness of right and wrong; and if it be true that neither chastisement nor reproof is to be abused, it is no less certain that conscience is early awake within him, and that it ought not to be neglected in a work so delicate as that of education: on condition, be it understood, that we act with simplicity, without pedantry, and that we employ example more than lectures. Rousseau says this admirably a few pages farther on.
[[8]] Nothing is more injudicious than such a question, especially when the child is in fault. In that case, if he thinks you know what he has done, he will see that you are laying a snare for him, and this opinion cannot fail to set him against you. If he thinks you do not know he will say to himself, "Why should I disclose my fault?" And thus the first temptation to falsehood is the result of your imprudent question.—[Note by J. J. ROUSSEAU.]
[[9]] He refers to Cato, surnamed of Utica, from the African city in which he ended his own life. When a child, he was often invited by his brother to the house of the all-powerful Sulla. The cruelties of the tyrant roused the boy to indignation, and it was necessary to watch him lest he should attempt to kill Sulla. It was in the latter's antechamber that the scene described by Plutarch occurred.
[[10]] While writing this I have reflected a hundred times that in an extended work it is impossible always to use the same words in the same sense. No language is rich enough to furnish terms and expressions to keep pace with the possible modifications of our ideas. The method which defines all the terms, and substitutes the definition for the term, is fine, but impracticable; for how shall we then avoid travelling in a circle? If definitions could be given without using words, they might be useful. Nevertheless, I am convinced that, poor as our language is, we can make ourselves understood, not by always attaching the same meaning to the same words, but by so using each word that its meaning shall be sufficiently determined by the ideas nearly related to it, and so that each sentence in which a word is used shall serve to define the word. Sometimes I say that children are incapable of reasoning, and sometimes I make them reason extremely well; I think that my ideas do not contradict each other, though I cannot escape the inconvenient contradictions of my mode of expression.