ROUSSEAU'S CONTRIBUTIONS 333 



return to classical models. While the man who goes to him in a sym- 

 pathetic spirit finds in him a seer with inspiration for every different 

 mood, the critic who looks to see what his teaching really is finds that 

 there is on every point not one opinion, but several, that there is 

 nowhere consistency, and when comparison is made between precept 

 and act he finds every reason to suspect insincerity. The opposing the- 

 ories are reconciled, however, when we recognize that we are dealing 

 with an unstable nervous system, that Eousseau was not competent to 

 coordinate and test his theories, nor to exert full control over his acts. 

 His theories are dreams, his acts are the acts of a somnambulist. They 

 should not be judged by the ordinary standards. 



Enough of the psychology of Eousseau: our real question is, what 

 did Eousseau contribute to psychology? This is somewhat difficult to 

 answer. His specific contributions are practically nil. The psychol- 

 ogy that he uses in his writings is varied. Passages in the Emile are 

 evidently taken almost verbatim from Condillac, other passages he 

 evidently owes to Descartes, while still others show the influence of 

 Locke. In no place does he develop any important views of his own or 

 even harmonize those that he borrowed. He had no followers in psy- 

 chology. One can point to no one who was distinctively a psychologist 

 that owes much to Eousseau. His strongest influence has been very 

 recent and very indirect. Through his educational teachings that in- 

 struction should be based upon a knowledge of the child, he has perhaps 

 had some small part in stimulating the studies of childhood that have 

 been made in the past few decades. 



Eousseau's greatest contribution to psychology is probably the raw 

 material that he provided in his Confessions. No one else has attempted 

 to lav bare the innermost secrets of his life in the same degree. Were it 

 to be worked over carefully there is undoubtedly much of great value. 

 Even this however suffers from two drawbacks. It is written for the 

 most part so long after the events that it is probably inaccurate. It is 

 rather Eousseau's theory of what his life should have been when viewed 

 from near its close than a real account of the life itself. The second 

 difficulty is the pathological character of the material. It has furnished 

 much material or at least many illustrations to the psycho-pathologist, 

 but the student of the normal mind must take all the statements with 

 caution. 



If Eousseau's influence upon psychology was negligible, his influ- 

 ence upon philosophy was of great importance. His greatest contribu- 

 tion to that discipline was through his effect upon Kant. Little as 

 there seems to be in common between the stern German rationalist and 

 the unbalanced French enthusiast, there is much to indicate that Eous- 

 seau affected Kant's general ideas in no inconsiderable degree. Of com- 

 mon knowledge is the story that Kant gave up his daily walk to read 



