Political writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau / edited by C.E. Vaughan

In the current editions of Rousseau, the political writings are scattered over some four or five volumes. And to these must be added various pieces, separately issued within the last sixty years and never yet included in the collected Works: the Projet de Constitution pour la Corse, published by Streckeisen-Moultou in 1861; the first draft of the Contrat social, published by M. Alexeieff in 1887 and in 1896 by M. Dreyfus-Brisac; a variety of Fragments, some of great importance, published by the first and the last of the three scholars just mentioned and by M. Winden berger (République confédérative des petits Etats, 1900); and finally, some further Fragments, which have hitherto lain buried in the Library of Neuchâtel.

Such a scattering of material is certainly inconvenient. What is worse, it has probably tended to obscure the wide range of Rousseau's enquiry and, in particular, the practical object with which much of it was carried out. A glance at these volumes will suffice to shew that more than half of their contents were written with a directly practical purpose: for the sake of reforming evils which affected the whole of Europe, or some one of the States of which the European commonwealth is built up. The miseries of war and the remedy offered by Federation; the wrongs entailed by vast inequalities of wealth and inequitable methods of taxation, with the best means of striking at their root; above all, the over whelming importance of a sound system of Education to the well-being of nations: these are some of the subjects to which he returns again and again, and on which he is full of fruitful suggestion. All this may accord ill with the picture which paints him as nothing but a theorist and a dreamer. But it is one side of his genius; and it is only when this aspect of his work has been fully realised that his greatness, even as a theorist, can be properly understood.