The first work, as I have said, which brought Rousseau into notice was the treatise for the Academy of Dijon, as to whether the arts and sciences have contributed to corrupt or to purify morals. Rousseau followed the bent of his genius, in maintaining that they have done more harm than good; and he was so fresh and original and brilliant that he gained the prize. This little work contains the germ of all his subsequent theories, especially that in which he magnifies the state of nature over civilization,--an amazing paradox, which, however, appealed to society when men were wearied with the very pleasures for which they lived.
Rousseau's cant about the virtues engendered by ignorance, idleness, and barbarism is repulsive to every sound mind, Civilization may present greater temptations than a state of nature, but these are inseparable from any growth, and can be overcome by the valorous mind. Who but a madman would sweep away civilization with its factitious and remediable evils for barbarism with its untutored impulses and animal life? Here Rousseau makes war upon society, upon all that is glorious in the advance of intellect and the growth of morality,--upon the reason and aspirations of mankind. Can inexperience be a better guide than experience, when it encounters crime and folly? Yet, on the other hand, a plea for greater simplicity of life, a larger study of Nature, and a freer enjoyment of its refreshing contrasts to the hot-house life of cities, is one of the most reasonable and healthful impulses of our own day.
What can be more absurd, although bold and striking, than Rousseau's essay on the "Origin of Human Inequalities"! In this he pushes out the doctrine of personal liberty to its utmost logical sequence, so as to do away with government itself, and with all regulation for the common good. We do not quarrel with his abstract propositions in respect to political equality; but his deductions strike a blow at civilization, since he maintains that inequalities of human condition are the source of all political and social evils, while Christianity, confirmed by common-sense, teaches that the source of social evils is in the selfish nature of man rather than in his outward condition. And further, if it were possible to destroy the inequalities of life, they would soon again return, even with the most boundless liberty. Here common-sense is sacrificed to a captivating theory, and all the experiences of the world are ignored.
This shows the folly of projecting any abstract theory, however true, to its remote and logical sequence. In the attempt we are almost certain to be landed in absurdity, so complicated are the relations of life, especially in governmental and political science. What doctrine of civil or political economy would be applicable in all ages and all countries and all conditions? Like the ascertained laws of science, or the great and accepted truths of the Bible, political axioms are to be considered in their relation with other truths equally accepted, or men are soon brought into a labyrinth of difficulties, and the strongest intellect is perplexed.
And especially will this be the case when a theory under consideration is not a truth but an assumption. That was the trouble with Rousseau. His theories, disdainful of experience, however logically treated, became in their remotest sequence and application insulting to the human understanding, because they were often not only assumptions, but assumptions of what was not true, although very specious and flattering to certain classes.
Rousseau confounded the great truth of the justice of moral and political equality with the absurd and unnatural demand for social and material equality. The great modern cry for equal opportunity for all is sound and Christian; but any attempt to guarantee individual success in using opportunity, to insure the lame and the lazy an equal rank in the race, must end in confusion and distraction.
The evil of Rousseau's crude theories or false assumptions was practically seen in the acceptance of their logical conclusions, which led to anarchy, murder, pillage, and outrageous excess. The great danger attending his theories is that they are generally half-truths,--truth and falsehood blended. His writings are sophistical. It is difficult to separate the truth from the error, by reason of the marvellous felicity of his language. I do not underrate his genius or his style. He was doubtless an original thinker and a most brilliant and artistic writer; and by so much did he confuse people, even by the speciousness of his logic. There is nothing indefinite in what he advances. He is not a poet dealing in mysticisms, but a rhetorical philosopher, propounding startling theories, partly true and partly false, which he logically enforces with matchless eloquence.
Probably the most influential of Rousseau's writings was "The Social Contract,"--the great textbook of the Revolution. In this famous treatise he advanced some important ideas which undoubtedly are based on ultimate truth, such as that the people are the source of power, that might does not make right, that slavery is an aggression on human rights; but with these ideal truths he combines the assertion that government is a contract between the governor and the governed. In a perfect state of society this may be the ideal; but society is not and never has been perfect, and certainly in all the early ages of the world governments were imposed upon people by the strong hand, irrespective of their will and wishes,--and these were the only governments which were fit and useful in that elder day. Governments, as a plain matter of fact, have generally arisen from circumstances and relations with which the people have had little to do. The Oriental monarchies were the gradual outgrowth of patriarchal tradition and successful military leadership, and in regard to them the people were never consulted at all. The Roman Empire was ruled without the consent of the governed. Feudal monarchies in Europe were based on the divine rights of kings. There was no state in Europe where a compact or social contract had been made or implied. Even later, when the French elected Napoleon, they chose a monarch because they feared anarchy, without making any stipulation. There were no contracting parties.
The error of Rousseau was in assuming a social contract as a fact, and then reasoning upon the assumption. His premises are wrong, or at least they are nothing more than statements of what abstractly might be made to follow from the assumption that the people actually are the source of power,--a condition most desirable and in the last analysis correct, since even military despots use the power of the people in order to oppress the people, but which is practically true only in certain states. Yet, after all, when brought under the domain of law by the sturdy sense and utilitarian sagacity of the Anglo-Saxon race, Rousseau's doctrine of the sovereignty of the people is the great political motor of this century, in republics and monarchies alike.
Again, Rousseau maintains that, whatever acquisitions an individual or a society may make, the right to this property must be always subordinate to the right which the community at large has over the possessions of all. Here is the germ of much of our present-day socialism. Whatever element of truth there may be in the theory that would regard land and capital, the means of production, as the joint possession of all the members of the community,--the basic doctrine of socialism,--any forcible attempt to distribute present results of individual production and accumulation would be unjust and dangerous to the last degree. In the case of the furious carrying out of this doctrine by the crazed French revolutionists, it led to outrageous confiscation, on the ground that all property belonged to the state, and therefore the representatives of the nation could do what they pleased with it. This shallow sophistry was accepted by the French National Convention when it swept away estates of nobles and clergy, not on the tenable ground that the owners were public enemies, but on the baseless pretext that their property belonged to the nation.