Émile, Néaulme, Amsterdam, 1762 (parts of Books I. and V. deal with political theory).

Lettres écrites de la Montagne, Rey, Amsterdam, 1764 (Lettres vi.-ix.).

Projet de Constitution pour la Corse (Geneva MS. f. 229 and MS. Neuchâtel, 7844): written in 1765, first published in M. StreckeisenMoultou's Euvres et Correspondance inédites de J.-J. Rousseau (Paris, 1861). A more correct text will be found in Political Writings of Rousseau, vol. ii.

Considérations sur le Gouvernement de Pologne, first published in collected edition of Rousseau's Works (Geneva, 1782); it is in vol. i. of the 4to ed., and vol. ii. of the 12mo.

Besides these must be mentioned the Fragments in the Libraries of Neuchâtel and Geneva, as published in the Books entered under B, and also by M. Windenberger, in his République Confédérative des petits Etats (Paris, 1900). Of these Fragments the most important is L'état de Guerre (MS. Neuchâtel, 7856), the date of which is probably about that of the Discours sur l'inégalité and the Economie politique (i.e. shortly before, or shortly after, 1753-54).

D. WORKS NECESSARY FOR THE UNDERSTANDING OF ROUSSEAU'S
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY,
CONTAINING IMPORTANT
CRITICISMS OF IT.1

(a) Predecessors of Rousseau :

OR

Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis, 1625.

Hobbes, De Cive, 1642; *Leviathan, 1651.

Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus, 1670; *Tractatus Politicus, 1677.

Locke, Two Essays of Civil Government, 1690. The first essay gives Locke's criticism of Filmer and divine right; the second, which is far more important, formulates his own theory of the State.

Bossuet, Politique tirée de l'Écriture Sainte, 1709 (written 1670-80). Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, 1748.

(b) Critics of Rousseau :

Voltaire, *Idées républicaines, 1762 (Œuvres, vol. xxiv., Paris 1879, sq.).

Beauclair, Anti-Contrat social, 1764.

Mme de Staël, Lettres sur les ouvrages et le caractère de J.-J. Rousseau, 1788).

*J.-J. Rousseau, aristocrate (by Lenormant (?)), 1790.

Gudin, *Supplément du Contrat social, applicable particulièrement aux grandes nations, 1791.

Mercier, J.-J. Rousseau, considéré comme l'un des premiers auteurs de la Révolution française, 2 vols., 1791.

*

d'Escherny, Eloge de J.-J. Rousseau (in Philosophie de Politique, 2 vols., 1796).

Joseph de Maistre, Étude sur la souveraineté (1794–6); *Considéra1 The most essential of these are marked *.

tions sur la France, 1796; *Le Principe générateur des constitutions politiques, 1809; Le Pape, 1819; Examen d'un écrit de J.-J. Rousseaui.e. the Discours sur l'inégalité (Euvres, vol. vii. ed. Lyon, 1884 sq.).

Benjamin Constant, Principes de Politique, 1815; Cours de Politique Constitutionnelle, 4 vols. 1817-20.

Burke, *Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790; *Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791; *Appeal from the new to the old Whigs, 1791; *Letters on a Peace with the Regicide Directory of France, 1796-97.

Kant, Rechtslehre, 1797 (deeply influenced by Rousseau).

Proudhon, Idée générale de la Révolution au 19me siècle, 1851.
Janet, *Histoire de la Philosophie morale (vol. ii.), 1858.

Lamartine, J.-J. Rousseau, son faux Contrat social et le vrai Contrat social, 1866.

Bosscha, Lettres inédites de J.-J. Rousseau à Marc Michel Rey, 1858. These letters throw much light upon facts connected with the publication of the Contrat.

Morley, Rousseau, 2 vols. 1873.

T. H. Green,* Works, vol. ii. (Lectures on Political Obligation), 1886. Höffding, J.-J. Rousseau og hans Filosofi, 1896.

Bosanquet,*The Philosophical Theory of the State, 1899.

Windenberger, La République confédérative des petits Etats, 1900. Faguet, Dix-huitième Siècle, études littéraires, 1901 (19th edition); *La Politique comparée de Montesquieu, Rousseau et Voltaire, 1902; Rousseau penseur, 1912.

*

Schinz, *La Question du Contrat social (Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, Oct.-Dec. 1912; Jan.-March 1914).

Beaulavon, *La Question du Contrat social, une fausse solution (Revue d'hist. litt. de la France, 1913).

Masson, *La Religion de J.-J. Rousseau, 3 vols. 1916. See especially vol. ii. chaps. v. (Le problème de la religion civile) and vii.

A rough classification of the above writers may be of some service to the student.

Broadly speaking, the study of Rousseau has passed, as might have been expected, through two successive phases. There is the period of partisanship, hostile or admiring, on the one hand. There is the period of criticism, more or less discriminating, upon the other. The dividing line may be taken to fall about the middle of the last century: Proudhon being the last of the old order, and Janet, who brought to the task both a very wide knowledge and a very notable grasp of political theory, the first of the new. On either side, room must naturally be made for a few stragglers: Kant and d'Escherny in the earlier period; Lamartine and others, whom it is not necessary to mention, in the later.

When we come to particular writers, the two first on our list, Voltaire and Beauclair, represent the hostility of contemporary 'philosophy' to the teaching and, in the case of Voltaire, to the person also of Rousseau. The next five writers, from Mme de Staël to d'Escherny, stand, on the whole, for the spirit of reverent discipleship which marked the era of the Revolution: Mercier fastening upon the more individualist and 'liberal' side of Rousseau's theory, while the author of J.-J. Rousseau, aristocrate lays stress upon its conservative elements, which are quite undeniable, to the total exclusion of all the

rest. D'Escherny-who, as has already been indicated, was no partisan -saw more clearly into the general drift of Rousseau's arguments than any of the others.

With Joseph de Maistre and Constant, we come to the first stage in the reaction against Rousseau's influence; the former leading the revolt in the name of Catholicism and historical tradition; the latter following, as the champion of individualist liberalism, pure and simple. Thus, by the time of Napoleon's fall, the two main charges which have subsequently been pressed against Rousseau-that he is at once the unyielding champion and the bitter enemy of individualism, at once the unsparing assailant and the slavish worshipper of the State-had already been launched; in both cases with great ability and with passionate conviction.

Side by side with de Maistre must be placed the far greater figure of Burke, who anticipated all that is vital in his criticisms, cast them in a less sectarian form and reinforced them with a whole world of ideas, the fruit of long experience and reflection, to which the brilliant master of paradoxes was an utter stranger. To assail the individualist side of Rousseau's doctrine is the burden of all Burke's earlier pieces, from the Reflections to the Appeal from the new to the old Whigs. In his final assault however, the Letters on a Regicide Peace, he suddenly changes the issue and for the first time challenges the opposite strain in Rousseau's argument, the exaltation of the State at the expense of the individual. What is the reason of this apparent inconsistency? The answer is that Burke never concerned himself with theory until it had translated itself into practice; and that, if he changed his front, it was because the revolutionists had previously changed theirs. The Regicide Peace was the first writing he composed after the Jacobin triumph of 1793-4. And it was that triumph which first stamped the anti-individualist theory as a force to be seriously reckoned with in the field of action. Proudhon too, it may be noted, throws the same double challenge in the face of Rousseau. To him, as to Burke, Rousseau is no less hateful as anti-individualist than as individualist. His tirade, however, like Lamartine's, draws its strength rather from the name of the author than from its own inherent force.

In the main, it may be said that subsequent criticism, with less exaggeration and more attempt at comprehension, has followed the lines marked out by Burke and the two earliest of his French followers. One army of critics-from first to last it has been specially strong upon French soil-has assailed Rousseau on the ground that 'individuality is left out of his scheme of government-the State is all in all.' Another, ignoring (with Burke and de Maistre) the more conservative and historical strain in his theory, has seen in him little but a pure revolutionary and iconoclast. This, it would seem, is the charge that has weighed most with Lord Morley; it has also counted for much, though by no means for all, in the more sympathetic estimate of M. Faguet. In both charges, it must be admitted, there is a considerable element of truth. Both must be faced by all who desire to grasp the problem, as it presented itself to Rousseau. Both must be carefully weighed by all who would seek to understand the answer which he gave it.

The weak spot in all these writers-a partial exception must be made in favour of M. Faguet-is that they still think too much as

partisans. And the reason is that, with the one exception mentioned, they make no serious attempt to put Rousseau in his historical setting, to fix his place in the development of political theory, to sift out the more fruitful elements of his doctrine and to determine the part, both for good and for evil, which his influence has played in the history of political ideas.

The defect has been made good by the small band of thinkersphilosophers both by instinct and training-who still remain on our list by Paul Janet and M. Beaulavon in France; by Professor Höffding in Denmark; by T. H. Green and Mr. Bosanquet in our own country. Their work is supplemented by another small band of scholars who have devoted themselves to the study of Rousseau's political and religious ideas. Of these, M. Beaulavon, M. Windenberger, M. Schinz, and the late M. Maurice Masson deserve special attention. The last,

in particular, has written the best book about Rousseau which has yet appeared. It is lamentable that a life so rich in promise should have been cut off so early.

The general drift of all the more competent critics, from Janet onwards, has been to insist that the truly distinctive and original strain in Rousseau's contribution to political philosophy lies in his exaltation of the State, and to judge him accordingly.

As for Histories of the Revolution-and the better they are the more light they throw upon the influence of Rousseau-that of M. Aulard (3rd edition, Paris, 1905) will be found the most instructive.

APPENDIX

FIRST DRAFT OF THE CONTRAT SOCIAL (Geneva MS. français, 225)

CHAP. II.-De la société générale du genre humain.1 COMMENÇONS par rechercher d'où naît la nécessité des institutions politiques.

La force de l'homme est tellement proportionnée à ses besoins naturels et à son état primitif que, pour peu que cet état change et que ces besoins augmentent, l'assistance de ses semblables lui devient nécessaire ; et quand enfin ses désirs embrassent toute la nature, le concours de tout le genre humain suffit à peine pour les assouvir. C'est ainsi que les mêmes causes qui nous rendent méchants nous rendent encore esclaves et nous asservissent en nous dépravant. Le sentiment de notre faiblesse vient moins de notre nature que de notre cupidité : nos besoins nous rapprochent à mesure que nos passions nous divisent; et plus nous devenons ennemis de nos semblables, moins nous pouvons nous passer d'eux. Tels sont les premiers liens de la société générale; tels sont les fondements de cette bienveillance dont la nécessité reconnue semble étouffer le sentiment, et dont chacun voudrait recueiller le fruit sans être obligé de la cultiver. Car, quant à l'identité de nature, son effet est nul en cela; parce qu'elle est autant pour les hommes un sujet de querelle que d'union, et met aussi souvent entre eux la concurrence et la jalousie que la bonne intelligence et l'accord.

De ce nouvel ordre de choses naissent des multitudes de rapports sans mesure, sans règle, sans consistance, que les hommes aftèrent et changent continuellement, cent travaillant à les détruire pour un qui travaille à les fixer. Et comme l'existence relative d'un homme dans l'état de nature dépend de mille autres rapports qui sont dans

1 This chapter on natural law is reproduced here, not only because it is an exceedingly remarkable piece of argument, but also because, without it, it is hardly possible to understand what Rousseau conceived to be the motives which drove men from the state of nature to the civil state. See Note to Book I. Chap. vi.