Jean Jacques Rousseau, less ingenious, but more eloquent, had studied politics, not in the laws, but in nature.  A free but oppressed and suffering mind, the palpitation of his noble heart had made every heart beat that had been ulcerated by the odious inequality of social conditions.  It was the revolt of the ideal against the real.  He had been the tribune of nature, the Gracchus of philosophy—­he had not produced the history of institutions, only its vision—­but that vision descended from heaven and returned thither.  There was to be seen the design of God and the excess of his love—­but there was not enough seen of the infirmity of men.  It was the Utopia of government; but by this Rousseau led further astray.  To impel the people to passion there must be some slight illusion mingled with the truth; reality alone was too chilling to fanaticise the human mind; it is only roused to enthusiasm by things something out of nature.  What is termed the ideal is the attraction and force of religions, which always aspire higher than they mount; this is how fanaticism is produced, that delirium of virtue.  Rousseau was the ideal of politics, as Fenelon was the ideal of Christianity.

Voltaire had the genius of criticism, that power of raillery which withers all it overthrows.  He had made human nature laugh at itself, had felled it low in order to raise it, had laid bare before it all errors, prejudices, iniquities, and crimes of ignorance; he had urged it to rebellion against consecrated ideas, not by the ideal but by sheer contempt.  Destiny gave him eighty years of existence, that he might slowly decompose the decayed age; he had the time to combat against time, and when he fell he was the conqueror.  His disciples filled courts, academies, and saloons; those of Rousseau grew splenetic and visionary amongst the lower orders of society.  The one had been the fortunate and elegant advocate of the aristocracy, the other was the secret consoler and beloved avenger of the democracy.  His book was the book of all oppressed and tender souls.  Unhappy and devotee himself, he had placed God by the side of the people; his doctrines sanctified the mind, whilst they led the heart to rebellion.  There was vengeance in his very accent, but there was piety also.  Voltaire’s followers would have overturned altars, those of Rousseau would have raised them.  The one could have done without virtues, and made arrangements with thrones; the other had absolute need of a God, and could only have founded republics.

Their numerous disciples progressed with their missions, and possessed all the organs of public thought.  From the seat of geometry to the consecrated pulpit, the philosophy of the 18th century invaded or altered every thing.  D’Alembert, Diderot, Raynal, Buffon, Condorcet, Bernardin Saint Pierre, Helvetius, Saint Lambert, La Harpe, were the church of the new era.  One sole thought animated these diverse minds—­the renovation of human ideas.