Band 
Vol. II.
Seite
135
JPEG-Download
 

ROUSSEAU.

1 35

■woman—the cares required by children ; yet Rousseaudescribes his natural man as satisfying his desires bychance, — leaving the woman on the instant; whileshe, on her side, goes through child-bearing, child-birth,and child-nurture alone. Much may be granted to thestrength that human beings enjoy in savage life ; muchto the little needed by the inhabitants of those happy isleswhere food grows beneath their feet; but, in all, manhas ever been found (except in one or two cases, wherethe human animal descends below brutes,) the protectorof women, and the source of his children’s subsistence ;and among all societies, however barbarously constituted,the gentler and nobler individuals among them have lovedtheir wives and their offspring with constant and self-sacrificing passion. Let us advance civilisation to itshighest pitch, or retrograde to its origin, —and let bothbring freedom from political and social slavery ; butin all let us hold fast by the affections: the cultivationof these ought to be the scope of every teacher of mo-rality, every well-wisher to the improvement of thehuman race. Poor Rousseau, who had thrust his off-spring from parental care to the niggard benevolence of apublic charity, found some balm to the remorse that nowand then stung him, by rejecting the affections out ofhis scheme of the state of natural man.

Ilis work had a sudden and prodigious success; andas the ideas that inspired it disclosed a new and intel-lectual world to him, so did the favour of the public opena new scene of life. It was soon after writing this essay,that M. de Franceuil offered him the place of cashier.The uneasiness he felt, and other circumstances, com-bined to give him a fit of illness. During the deli-rium of fever, and during the reveries of convalescence,he formed a plan for securing his independence. Hebelieved that he had but a few years to live; and he sawno prudence in working for a fortune he could neverenjoy. He resolved therefore to renounce his place ofcashier, to give up that of secretary to madame Dupin,and tr gain his subsistence by copying music. In Paris ,k 4