The Confessions(忏悔录)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Introduction
Among the notable books of later times-we may say, without
exaggeration, of all time—must be reckoned The Confessions of Jean
Jacques Rousseau. It deals with leading personages and transactions
of a momentous epoch, when absolutism and feudalism were rallying
for their last struggle against the modern spirit, chiefly
represented by Voltaire, the Encyclopedists, and Rousseau himself—a
struggle to which, after many fierce intestine quarrels and
sanguinary wars throughout Europe and America, has succeeded the
prevalence of those more tolerant and rational principles by which
the statesmen of our own day are actuated.
On these matters, however, it is not our province to enlarge;
nor is it necessary to furnish any detailed account of our author's
political, religious, and philosop…