by the sun’s beams.  To accuse oneself would amount to self-absolution.  There never was a street-porter or a silly woman who was not sure of having as much sense as was necessary.  We readily recognize in others a superiority in courage, physical strength, experience, agility, or beauty.  But a superior judgment we concede to nobody.  And we think that we could ourselves have discovered the reasons which occur naturally to others, if only we had looked in the same direction.’) (Sr.)

[16] My father’s cousin, a black-smith issue from a long line of country black-smiths, born in 1896, used to say that the basic principle elevating children was to ensure “that the child never should be able to exclude the possibility of good thrashing.” (Sr).

[17] Rousseau, “Contrat social,” I, ch. 7; III. ch. 13, 14, 15, 18; IV. ch. 1. — Cf.  Condorcet, ninth epoch.

[18] Rousseau, “Contrat social,” III, 1, 18; IV, 3.

[19] De Tocqueville, “L’Ancien régime,” book II. entire, and book III. ch. 3.

[20] Rousseau, “Contrat social.”  I.6.

[21] Ibidem I. 9.  “The State in relation to its members is master of all their possessions according to the social compact . . . possessors are considered as depositaries of the public wealth.”

[22] Rousseau, “Discours sur l’Economie politique,” 308.

[23] Ibid.  “Emile,” book V. 175.

[24] Rousseau, “Discours sur l’Economie politique,” 302

[25] Rousseau, on the “Government de Pologne,” 277, 283, 287.

[26] Ibid.  “Emile,” book I.

[27] Morelly, “Code de la nature.”  “At the age of five all children should be removed their families and brought up in common, at the charge of the State, in a uniform manner.”  A similar project, perfectly Spartan, was found among the papers of St.-Just.

[28] Rousseau, “Contrat social,” II. 3; IV.8.

[29] Cf.  Mercier, “L’an 2240,” I. ch. 17 and 18.  From 1770 on, he traces the programme of a system of worship similar to that of the Théophilanthropists, the chapter being entitled:  “Pas si éloigné qu’on pense.”

BOOK FOURTH.  THE PROPAGATION OF THE DOCTRINE.

CHAPTER I.

Success of this philosophy in France. — Failure of the same philosophy in England.

Several similar theories have in the past traversed the imagination of men, and similar theories are likely do so again.  In all ages and in all countries, it sufficed that man’s concept of his own nature changed for, as an indirect consequence, new utopias and discoveries would sprout in the fields of politics and religion.[1] — But this does not suffice for the propagation of the new doctrine nor, more important, for theory to be put into practice.  Although born in England, the philosophy of the eighteenth