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SOCIAL FORCES IN MODERN LITERATURE

He carries the human race of the future within his heart They call
him a savage, a misanthrope, because he despises the intoxication
of vanity and flees from the scene of childish trifles. In a word they
are like the pharisees of every age at the coming of a prophet ; and
God is able to say of them also, ** I have sent them my son and they
have not known him." . . . The time is not distant when general
opinion shall take no more exception to Saint Rousseau than to
Saint Augustine, ... for Rousseau is the most orthodox Christian
for the Church of the future, as the publican Matthew and the perse-
cutor Paul are for the Church of the past.^

That time has not yet arrived, if arrive it ever will. To
Lasserre, one of the latest analysts of Rousseau's teach-
ings, he still remains a combination of " fear, pride, and
sensuousness. The first, by causing the heart to tremble,
interdicts knowledge. It counsels man's flight. Further,
its union with sensuousness gives birth to the false world
of reveries. From its union with pride is bom the deep-
seated attempt to have himself accepted and admirecf ly
men as the victim of a superior destiny." ^

When men thus take sides we may be sure that there
is some good in the person attacked or defended. What
was there in Rousseau worthy of our attention ? Simply
this : Rousseau reasserted the worth and validity of human
emotion. Preceding philosophic and literary men had ap-
proached human nature mainly on its intellectual, rational
side. Their remedy for the betterment of society and of
the individual had been applied merely to the seat of
reason. Make man think right and he will do right, had
been the only remedy they had in their social pharmaco-
poeia. We have seen the best of these social physicians

^ George Sand, Quelqucs reflexions sur J. J. Rousseau.
