The Confessions Of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 1528698
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 1
subject: madam
subject: time
subject: heart
subject: conyngham
subject: mallory
subject: book
subject: begun
subject: precedent
subject: rousseau
subject: jean
subject: jacques
subject: confessions
subject: western
subject: philosophy
type: text
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sort title: Confessions Of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The
full text: 1782 THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU by Jean-Jacques Rousseau translated by W. Conyngham Mallory BOOK I [1712-1728] I HAVE begun on a work which is without precedent, whose accomplishment will have no imitator. I propose to set before my fellow-mortals a man in all the truth of nature; and this man shall be myself. I have studied mankind and know my heart; I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature has acted rightly or wrongly in destroying the mold in which she cast me, can only be decided after I have been read. I will present myself, whenever the last trumpet shall sound, before the Sovereign Judge with this book in my hand, and loudly proclaim, "Thus have I acted; these were my thoughts; such was I. With equal freedom and veracity have I related what was laudable or wicked, I have concealed no crimes, added no virtues; and if I have sometimes introduced superfluous ornament, it was merely to occupy a void occasioned by defect of memory: I may have supposed that certain, which I only knew to be probable, but have never asserted as truth, a conscious falsehood. Such as I was, I have declared myself; sometimes vile and despicable, at others, virtuous, generous, and sublime; even as Thou hast read my inmost soul: Power Eternal! assemble round Thy throne an innumerable throng of my fellow-mortals, let them listen to my confessions, let them blush at my depravity, let them tremble at my sufferings; let each in his turn expose with equal sincerity the failings, the wanderings of his heart, and if he dare, aver, I was better than that man." I was born at Geneva, in 1712, son of Isaac Rousseau and Susannah Bernard, citizens. My father's share of a moderate competency, which was divided among fifteen children, being very trivial, his business of a watchmaker (in which he had the reputation of great ingenuity) was his only dependence. My mother's circumst…