which under cloak of freeing men from the perplexities of passions bids them be idle.' From these few thoughts which I quote," continues Voltaire, "you may gather that it cannot be said of Vauvenargues, as it has been said of these partyphilosophers, these Neo-Stoics [probably the Jansenists are meant] who have deceived the weak: "Ils ont eu l'art de bien connaître Ce qu'il est ni ce qu'il doit être.'" However that may be, Voltaire was not wrong in admiring Vauvenargues as a very beautiful soul and a very remarkable writer. Condillac must not be omitted from the list of the principal philosophers of the eighteenth century. The Abbé de Condillac is a man who has made a system from the scattered eighteenth-century ideas concerning the nature of man. This system is probably false, but substantial, well-constructed, very clear, very much in earnest also, and free from the eccentricities and absurdities of wordy warfare. His "Essai sur l'Origine des Connaissances humaines" and his "Traité des Sensations form a complete exposition of sensualist philosophy, a philosophy, that is, which believes that everything in man is due to sensation, and that man is entirely made up of sensations, which are gradually changed into feelings, ideas, reasonings, and so forth. The germ of this philosophy may be said to be found in Locke, though it is a debatable point. It may be found in a latent state in Voltaire, who adored Locke, in Diderot, and in almost all the minds of the eighteenth century. But in Condillac it finds its clear, systematic, and definite expression. Condillac was but slightly esteemed in his own time-more attention being given, as at almost all times, to those who cry aloud than to those who speak plainly, but he has had better fortune since his death. He was the head of a school. His philosophy was established. It was taught everywhere in France until the advent of Louis XVIII. and Royer-Collard. CHAPTER VI THE SENTIMENTAL RENAISSANCE-ROUSSEAU AND HIS DISCIPLES DATING from the middle of the century there was more than one king of the public mind. Two men dominated public opinion, who, as may be readily believed, had little liking one for the other. They were Voltaire and Rousseau. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was born in Geneva shortly after the beginning of the century, but waited until the age of forty before scattering his thoughts among men, raised an intellectual whirlwind the moment he began to write. His first works were in complete sympathy with the hidden feeling of the time, and yet quite opposed to its ordinary line of thought. This imparted to them the force of an already accepted opinion as well as the charm of paradox. Profoundly convinced of the natural goodness of man, and persuaded that it was society that had spoilt him, he was at heart quite as optimistic as all his contemporaries. In addition to this, he had all the advantages of the satirist in looking upon the world he saw around him as entirely evil, while at the same time he was ready to fan all the ideas of revolt or reform that were in the very air of the century. All this attracted attention from the very first. The "Discours sur les Lettres et les Arts," which tried to prove that intellectual culture is detrimental to humanity, the "Discours sur les Causes de l'Inéqualité parmi les Hommes," which contained many right ideas as exponents of a strange, dangerous, and provoking theory, made Rousseau's name at once well known, and produced attacks upon him which made him even better known. Then came "La Lettre à D'Alembert sur les Spec tacles," attacking the favourite pastime of the century, and recalling men to the pursuit of simple pleasures and rural habits. This was done partly with the help of sarcasm, partly with that of eloquence, and it distinctly showed to the world that a new writer, and more especially a new orator-a thing unknown for the last fifty years—had arisen. Then an impassioned novel, which was at the same time a poem of the country and of home life, and also a satire on the morals of the world, and a fine sermon on the subject of virtue for such was "La Nouvelle Héloïse "—brought all the women to the feet of Jean-Jacques, and revealed the fact that yet another poet, and a wondrous one, had come into French literature. Besides this came later on the "Contrat Social," a political treatise, which is, as it were, the Bible of democratic government. It was followed by that pædagogic novel which is as fanciful as " Télémaque," but brilliant, strange, entertaining as are all the books of Jean-Jacques, full too, as all the others are, of new, interesting, and right ideas. This was "Émile "-trashy in parts, more than once contradictory, nevertheless a work that inspires, forces thought at every moment, and makes for true progress. Finally, later on, his last works, which appeared for the most part after his death--"Lettres écrites de la Montagne," "Rêveries d'un Promeneur solitaire," and particularly the "Confessions"-set the seal to a glory that is one of the greatest, most vital, most lasting and most growing ever known in the history of all literatures. Rousseau had a powerful and most attractive mind. It enslaves and dominates by its very faults when it does not conquer by the less obvious force of its logic. It has so stirred up and yet soothed the feelings of the old world that it seems to have killed it without ever ceasing to caress it. Rousseau proved to the world that it was absurdand then he fascinated it with theories, dreams, alluring declamations, and phrases that had the ring of music. He was a writer and a musician, a philosopher and a poet, a moralist and a novelist, a lay priest and yet a libertine-but above all he was an enchanter whose ideas had upon men the effect that passions generally have, because they were all indeed steeped in feeling and in hot and fiery passion. The ideas of Rousseau are like sensual ideas. His influence has been immense upon morals, and even upon customs, education, and politics. In literature alone Rousseau amounts to a literary revolution. He reinstated feeling on the throne held for half a century by reason only. Literature became the outpouring of the heart, though it had long given expression only to the mind. Poetry, eloquence, and lyric charm found their way even into prosethough for a long time they had had no place in verse. The horizon grew broader. There is another thing to be noticed. The introduction of the spirit of Northern literature is not due to Rousseau. Voltaire, before him, had introduced English ideas. Diderot too had praised and imitated Sterne and Richardson. But more than any other it was Rousseau who accustomed the French minds to feel somewhat in the way of the Germans and English; and this helped to enlarge the hitherto somewhat limited field of French understanding, and particularly of French imagination. Also it is most important to note that just as the influence of England and perhaps Germany upon Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a very real thing, so too his influence on the English and German alike has been very considerable, and has been so prolonged that it still exists stronger than ever, and stronger than with us. Rousseau has revived for modern times the phenomena of literary suggestiveness which seemed to belong only to the past. For a certain number of generations he has been as it were a deity of revelation, and a kind of worship centred, and still centres, around his name. If it should be suggested that it is the same in the case of Voltaire, it must be admitted, first of all, that it is not so certain in this case, and secondly, that there is the following great difference to be reckoned with. The Voltaireans worship Voltaire without having read him, because they adore in him opinions that he never held, while the worshippers of Rousseau are at the same time his readers and really know what they are worshipping, since they are able to reproduce in themselves his own soul-state. No man from the time of the last founders of religions has been so prolific in creating spiritual states of mind. We must be careful to make no mistake about Rousseau's disciples. Disciples came forward at once but the greatest among them, the true school of Rousseau, belong rather to our century than his own. We shall speak of them again when we are treating of Romanticism. Let us now deal with those of his pupils who were his immediate successors. The first thing that contemporary men of letters borrowed, as it were, from Rousseau was the deep feeling for nature in which he was so rich, and that had been almost unknown in France from the end of the seventeenth century. Nature became the fashion. Thus Saint-Lambert produced the poem of "Les Saisons," a poem that was cold and without depth, but, as Madame du Deffand spitefully said, full of birds and brooks and bees and trees. Then came M. Boucher with his poem "Les Mois," which was somewhat overrated before it came out and not fully appreciated after it appeared. Rivarol called it the finest wreck of the century, just as "La Pucelle" had been of the preceding one, but it was a wreck of which even the broken spars were still splendid. Delille himself would never have existed if Rousseau had not written, or at least he would have occupied quite a different place in the literary world. In his translations of the "Georgics," the "Eneid," and "Paradise Lost," he showed himself possessed of brilliant powers of description and good versification, though he lacked feeling, imagination, insight, and a living grasp of things, besides verve, warmth, movement, and a sense of rhythm. He showed the same defects and merits in his numerous later poems-"Jardins,” "Homme des Champs," "Imagination," "Trois Règnes de la Nature," &c. The greatest of the disciples of Rousseau in the eighteenth century, and also the one who was most directly inspired by him, was Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, who was a real prose poet and possessed a truly distinguished mind. He was a sailor, an officer, and a traveller, being thus the first forerunner of Pierre Loti. He described countries which he had visited in his |