these ideas may be said to rest, the supports on which his senses repose.  He does not attempt to know the nature of things, but only to know things in so far as they affect himself.  He only judges what is outside himself in relation to himself, and his judgment is exact and certain.  Caprice and prejudice have no part in it.  He values most the things which are of use to himself, and as he never departs from this standard of values, he owes nothing to prejudice.

Emile is industrious, temperate, patient, stedfast, and full of courage.  His imagination is still asleep, so he has no exaggerated ideas of danger; the few ills he feels he knows how to endure in patience, because he has not learnt to rebel against fate.  As to death, he knows not what it means; but accustomed as he is to submit without resistance to the law of necessity, he will die, if die he must, without a groan and without a struggle; that is as much as we can demand of nature, in that hour which we all abhor.  To live in freedom, and to be independent of human affairs, is the best way to learn how to die.

In a word Emile is possessed of all that portion of virtue which concerns himself.  To acquire the social virtues he only needs a knowledge of the relations which make those virtues necessary; he only lacks knowledge which he is quite ready to receive.

He thinks not of others but of himself, and prefers that others should do the same.  He makes no claim upon them, and acknowledges no debt to them.  He is alone in the midst of human society, he depends on himself alone, for he is all that a boy can be at his age.  He has no errors, or at least only such as are inevitable; he has no vices, or only those from which no man can escape.  His body is healthy, his limbs are supple, his mind is accurate and unprejudiced, his heart is free and untroubled by passion.  Pride, the earliest and the most natural of passions, has scarcely shown itself.  Without disturbing the peace of others, he has passed his life contented, happy, and free, so far as nature allows.  Do you think that the earlier years of a child, who has reached his fifteenth year in this condition, have been wasted?

BOOK IV

How swiftly life passes here below!  The first quarter of it is gone before we know how to use it; the last quarter finds us incapable of enjoying life.  At first we do not know how to live; and when we know how to live it is too late.  In the interval between these two useless extremes we waste three-fourths of our time sleeping, working, sorrowing, enduring restraint and every kind of suffering.  Life is short, not so much because of the short time it lasts, but because we are allowed scarcely any time to enjoy it.  In vain is there a long interval between the hour of death and that of birth; life is still too short, if this interval is not well spent.