He ran away from this situation when he was sixteen, met and
was befriended by Mme. de Warrens and, as a means of main
taining her friendship, converted from Protestantism to Catholi
cism.
In 1750 his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences won an award
from the Academy of Dijon. In it he contended that civilization
had morally and physically weakened man and that the natural
state was superior to modem society. Four years later he wrote
Discourse on the Origin o f Inequality, which claimed that man
is naturally good but is tainted by institutions, and that the
inequalities that result from social organizations are artificial
and bad. His two most important works were published in 1762,
Emile, a commentary on education and religion, and the Social
Contract, a political treatise and his greatest achievement. His
Confessions, an autobiography, is an emotional portrayal of an
interesting but self-absorbed egotist.
After the publication of Emile, Rousseau fled from France to
Geneva to avoid a hostile government and public. In 1766 he
travelled to England where he stayed with David Hume until the
temperamental Rousseau fought with Hume and returned to
France in 1767. After travelling throughout France, he re
nounced his Genevan citizenship and settled in Paris in 1770.
Rousseau was unlike most philosophers; certainly he was not
like the stereotype. He was emotional, egotistical, undisciplined,
moody, disputatious, changed religions whenever it suited his
purposes, had numerous lovers, abandoned the five children
bom to his barmaid mistress, and probably took his own life. Yet,
until his death, Rousseau believed that all men by nature were
good, and that social institutions had corrupted us all.
Man, according to Rousseau, is a natural animal and as such
has two basic governing principles, self-preservation and com
passion. Self-love is the foundation for self-preservation, both
natural and good, and man’s social nature is the basis for his
feelings of pity and sympathy with others. In the state of nature,
man existed as a “noble savage,” free and equal. Without
institutions to corrupt him, man lives in a blissful harmony with
others, eating, sleeping, making love whenever the moment
dictates, like a happy, contented animal—but with the intelli
gence to appreciate his condition.
However, with the invention of tools and the coming together
170 Political Theory: The Relationship of Man and the State