On Learning and the Arts. 44L 
whole world to be mad, while the world thought 
him to be mad, but unhappily the world cut- 
voted him. Roussseau must have thought, if he 
thought as he wrote, that a mania had possessed 
man from a very early period, and that in his 
day this mania had risen to its greatest height. 
It was well that the question did not come to 
issue between him and the world, for the world 
would assuredly have out-voted him, Rousseau 
is however entitled to a philosophic and argu- 
mentative reply. 
In the first part of that discourse Rousseau 
objects to knowledge, that it is the parent of that 
external civility and politeness, by which the 
foundation of candor and plain dealing are un- 
dermined, and fellow-intercourse becomes con- 
Strained and disguised. Before art, says he, had 
fashioned our manners, imposed concealment on 
our passions, and taught us to speak a borrowed 
language, our behaviour though rustic, was 
natural, He admits that human nature, at the 
‘bottom, might not perhaps be better ; but he as- 
serts, that men derived security from being able to 
read each other’s thoughts, and that this advan- 
tage, of which we now know not the value, 
preserved them from many vices. To this part 
of his charge the present essay is confined. 
“In answer to this charge it is asserted, that 
external civility and politeness are not the off- 
