202ROUSSEAU, JEAN-JACQUES
colonies and France, along with industrial
developments, was altering the structure
of European society. Great advances
and changes in society and technology
were generating both excitement and
anguish. The Enlightenment tended to
embrace the benefits of reason and prog-
ress, whereas Romanticism tended to be
more skeptical about the power of the
new science to explain all phenomena.
Romanticism was also wary of abstract
universalism. The period was one of both
erosion of and nostalgia for tradition and
order. It was also marked by interest in
folk cultures and particular human com-
munities and practices. Romanticism
attempted to fuse reason with emotion;
thus, in music, poetry, and the arts we find
a insistence upon the validity of feeling.
For example, Schleiermacher’s Speeches of
1799, defines religion as a “sense and taste
for the infinite.” For some Romantics, art
became a substitute for religion, while for
others it became a new handmaiden. The
latter move became the basis for a revival
of the “Gothic” Middle Ages.
ROUSSEAU, JEAN-JACQUES (1712–
1778). Born in Geneva, Rousseau was
equal in celebrity and cultural impor-
tance during his lifetime with his semi-
rival Voltaire. Rousseau taught that
humanity in a state of nature (before state
and society) was fundamentally good,
free, and uncorrupt. He believed that
legitimate state power is created only
when persons yield their natural rights to
a greater community, but that political
community can cease to have a right to
political power if it violates the will of the
people. Rousseau believed in a good,
provident God, arguing that the evils of
this world were not incompatible with
God’s goodness. He authored his Confes-
sions (1782–1789), which is widely recog-
nized as an important step in the
development of autobiography (perhaps
his Confessions was the biggest event in
the genre of autobiography since Augus-
tine’s Confessions). His other works
include Discourses on the Sciences and the
Arts (1751, known as the First Discourse),
A Discourse upon the Origin and Founda-
tion of the Inequality Among Mankind
(1755, known as the Second Discourse),
Letter to M. D’Alembert on the Theatre
(1758), The Social Contract (1762), The
New Héloïse (1761), Émile, or Education
(1762), Government of Poland (1772),
Essay on the Origin of Languages (1781),
and Reveries of a Solitary Walker (1782).ROYCE, JOSIAH (1855–1916). An
American pragmatist and idealist. Royce’s
form of theism involved human persons
participating in and forming a divine
community over time, notwithstanding
world evils. His works include The Reli-
gious Aspect of Philosophy (1885), The
Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892), The
Conception of God (1897), Studies of Good
and Evil (1898), The World and the Indi-
vidual (2 vols., 1900), The Conception
of Immortality (1900), The Philosophy of