science, so Rousseau's problem raised the question concerning the value of civilization.
Rousseau was born in Geneva. His restless spirit, chafing under the restraints of social custom, impelled him to a life of romantic travel and adventure, turning up in Paris in the year 1741, where he became a friend of Diderot and Holbach. The thought of the contradiction between nature and culture (Kultur), containing the principles of far-reaching consequences, caused him to leave Paris in order that he might live in the country, and the rupture with his Encyclopedist friends soon followed. His writings made him a fugitive and vagabond. He was not even able to find a permanent residence in Switzerland. During his latter years his suspicions and illusion of persecution developed a decidedly morbid character. He spent his last years in seclusion in France.
a. His first essays (Discours sur les sciences et les arts, 1750, and Discours sur I'origine et les fondements de I'in- egalite parmi les hommes, 1755) draw a sharp contrast between nature and culture. Several different classes of ideas are vaguely combined in Rousseau's earlier theories of nature, but his ideas are gradually clarified by constant reflection, so that his theory of nature as it appears in his masterpiece, Emile (1762), is very clear. In the third dialogue of the remarkable essay entitled Rousseau juge de Jean Jacques he calls attention to the fact that his works form a connected series, which leads back step by step to certain fundamental principles. Whoever would wish to read him synthetically, he says, must therefore begin with Emile. His object in the first essays was to criticize the existing state of culture and to remove the obstacles which impede natural development. The direct and positive elaboration of his principles must necessarily
