Editing Jean-Jacques Rousseau (section)

===Appreciation and influence===

The book ''[[The Story of Civilization#X. Rousseau and Revolution (1967)|Rousseau and Revolution]]'', by [[Will Durant|Will]] and [[Ariel Durant]], begins with the following words about Rousseau:

[[File:Les dernières paroles de Jean-Jacques Rousseau.jpg|thumb|Les dernières paroles de Jean-Jacques Rousseau]]

{{blockquote|How did it come about that a man born poor, losing his mother at birth and soon deserted by his father, afflicted with a painful and humiliating disease, left to wander for twelve years among alien cities and conflicting faiths, repudiated by society and civilization, repudiating [[Voltaire]], [[Denis Diderot|Diderot]], the ''[[Encyclopédie]]'' and the [[Age of Enlightenment|Age of Reason]], driven from place to place as a dangerous rebel, suspected of crime and insanity, and seeing, in his last months, the apotheosis of his greatest enemy—how did it come about that this man, after his death, triumphed over Voltaire, revived religion, transformed education, elevated the morals of France, inspired the [[Romanticism|Romantic movement]] and the French Revolution, influenced the philosophy of [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]] and [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]], the plays of Schiller, the novels of Goethe, the poems of Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley, the socialism of Marx, the ethics of Tolstoy and, altogether, had more effect upon posterity than any other writer or thinker of that eighteenth century in which writers were more influential than they had ever been before?{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=3}}}}

The German writers [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]], [[Friedrich Schiller|Schiller]], and [[Johann Gottfried Herder|Herder]] have stated that Rousseau's writings inspired them. Herder regarded Rousseau to be his "guide", and Schiller compared Rousseau to Socrates. Goethe, in 1787, stated: "''[[Emile, or On Education|Emile]]'' and its sentiments had a universal influence on the cultivated mind."{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=889}} The elegance of Rousseau's writing is held to have inspired a significant transformation in French poetry and drama—freeing them from rigid literary norms.

Other writers who were influenced by Rousseau's writings included [[Giacomo Leopardi|Leopardi]] in Italy; [[Alexander Pushkin|Pushkin]] and [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]] in Russia; [[William Wordsworth|Wordsworth]], [[Robert Southey|Southey]], [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Coleridge]], [[Lord Byron|Byron]], [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]], [[John Keats|Keats]], and [[William Blake|Blake]] in England; and [[Nathaniel Hawthorne|Hawthorne]] and [[Henry David Thoreau|Thoreau]] in America. According to Tolstoy: "At sixteen I carried around my neck, instead of the usual cross, a medallion with Rousseau's portrait."{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=891}}

Rousseau's ''[[Discourse on the Arts and Sciences]]'', emphasizing individualism and repudiating "civilization", was appreciated by, among others, [[Thomas Paine]], [[William Godwin]], Shelley, Tolstoy, and [[Edward Carpenter]].{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=891}} Rousseau's contemporary [[Voltaire]] appreciated the section in ''[[Emile, or On Education|Emile]]'' titled ''Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar''.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=190}}{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=191}}

Despite his criticisms, Carlyle admired Rousseau's sincerity: "with all his drawbacks, and they are many, he has the first and chief characteristic of a Hero: he is heartily ''in earnest''. In earnest, if ever man was; as none of these French Philosophers were." He also admired his repudiation of atheism:<blockquote>Strangely through all that defacement, degradation and almost madness, there is in the inmost heart of poor Rousseau a spark of real heavenly fire. Once more, out of the element of that withered mocking Philosophism, Scepticism and Persiflage, there has arisen in this man the ineradicable feeling and knowledge that this Life of ours is true: not a Scepticism, Theorem, or Persiflage, but a Fact, an awful Reality. Nature had made that revelation to him; had ordered him to speak it out. He got it spoken out; if not well and clearly, then ill and dimly,—as clearly as he could.<ref name=":1" /></blockquote>Modern admirers of Rousseau include [[John Dewey]] and [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]].<ref name="Josephson 1983" /> According to [[Matthew Josephson]], Rousseau has remained controversial for more than two centuries, and has continued to gain admirers and critics down to the present time. However, in their own way, both critics and admirers have served to underscore the significance of the man, while those who have evaluated him with fairness have agreed that he was the finest thinker of his time on the question of civilization.<ref name="Josephson 1983">{{cite book |title=The Essential Rousseau |translator=Lowell Bair |author=[[Matthew Josephson]] |contribution=Introduction |publisher=Meridian |pages=vii, xvi |year=1983}}</ref>{{NoteTag|"For more than two centuries since Rousseau's writings were first published, controversy over the man and his ideas has continued virtually unabated. In their diverse ways his admirers and his opponents both have affirmed his importance in world history: the supporting party has seen him as the Friend of Man, the prophet of the new democratic ages that were to come after him, and one of the fathers of the French Revolution; his antagonists have pronounced him as a dangerous heretic who scorned organized religion, and as the inspirer of romanticism in literature and an unbridled libertarianism in politics. Indeed, they have somehow attributed to him the origin of many of the alleged evils of modern times, ranging from the restiveness of 'hippie' youth to the rigors of totalitarian societies. However, those who have tried to judge Rousseau fairly have generally agreed that among the philosophical writers of his century he was the one who stated the problem of civilization with more clarity and force than any of his contemporaries ... His works as a moralist and political philosopher influenced and fascinated minds as different as those of Hume, Kant, [[Goethe]], Byron, [[Schiller]], and, in recent times, the American behaviorist philosopher [[John Dewey]]. New opponents of conservative bias have continued to write against him in the present century, but he has also won new admirers, such as the great French anthropologist [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]]."—[[Matthew Josephson]], in his introduction to ''The Essential Rousseau''<ref name="Josephson 1983" />}}