When my authority is firmly established, my first care will be to avoid the necessity of using it.  I shall spare no pains to become more and more firmly established in his confidence, to make myself the confidant of his heart and the arbiter of his pleasures.  Far from combating his youthful tastes, I shall consult them that I may be their master; I will look at things from his point of view that I may be his guide; I will not seek a remote distant good at the cost of his present happiness.  I would always have him happy always if that may be.

Those who desire to guide young people rightly and to preserve them from the snares of sense give them a disgust for love, and would willingly make the very thought of it a crime, as if love were for the old.  All these mistaken lessons have no effect; the heart gives the lie to them.  The young man, guided by a surer instinct, laughs to himself over the gloomy maxims which he pretends to accept, and only awaits the chance of disregarding them.  All that is contrary to nature.  By following the opposite course I reach the same end more safely.  I am not afraid to encourage in him the tender feeling for which he is so eager, I shall paint it as the supreme joy of life, as indeed it is; when I picture it to him, I desire that he shall give himself up to it; by making him feel the charm which the union of hearts adds to the delights of sense, I shall inspire him with a disgust for debauchery; I shall make him a lover and a good man.

How narrow-minded to see nothing in the rising desires of a young heart but obstacles to the teaching of reason.  In my eyes, these are the right means to make him obedient to that very teaching.  Only through passion can we gain the mastery over passions; their tyranny must be controlled by their legitimate power, and nature herself must furnish us with the means to control her.

Emile is not made to live alone, he is a member of society, and must fulfil his duties as such.  He is made to live among his fellow-men and he must get to know them.  He knows mankind in general; he has still to learn to know individual men.  He knows what goes on in the world; he has now to learn how men live in the world.  It is time to show him the front of that vast stage, of which he already knows the hidden workings.  It will not arouse in him the foolish admiration of a giddy youth, but the discrimination of an exact and upright spirit.  He may no doubt be deceived by his passions; who is there who yields to his passions without being led astray by them?  At least he will not be deceived by the passions of other people.  If he sees them, he will regard them with the eye of the wise, and will neither be led away by their example nor seduced by their prejudices.