He regarded Christianity with a sort of
reverent scepticism. But his thought was revolutionary and repugnant to
orthodoxy; it made against authority in every sphere; and it had an
enormous influence. The clergy perhaps dreaded his theories more than
the scoffs and negations of Voltaire. For some years he was a fugitive
on the face of the earth. Emile, his brilliant contribution to the
theory of education, appeared in 1762. It contains some remarkable pages
on religion, "the profession of faith of a Savoyard vicar," in which the
author's deistic faith is strongly affirmed and revelation and theology
rejected. The book was publicly burned in Paris and an order issued for
Rousseau's arrest. Forced by his friends to flee, he was debarred from
returning to Geneva, for the government of that canton followed the
example of Paris. He sought refuge in the canton of Bern and was ordered
to quit. He then fled to the principality of Neufchatel which belonged
to Prussia. Frederick the Great, the one really tolerant ruler of the
age, gave him protection, but he was persecuted and calumniated by the
local clergy, who but for Frederick would
[158] have expelled him, and he went to England for a few months (1766),
then returning to France, where he was left unmolested till his death.
The religious views of Rousseau are only a minor point in his heretical
speculations. It was by his daring social and political theories that he
set the world on fire.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142