172 ROUSSEAU. 



six or seven years."* His capacity of defining with 

 logical precision is shown by his reckoning an elective 

 aristocracy as one form of that polity, and of course 

 preferring it to either a natural or an hereditary aristo- 

 cracy, nay, apparently to any other kind of government, 

 without perceiving that it is nothing like an aristocracy 

 at all, but is, in truth, a form of the representative 

 government which he condemns (Lib. iii. ch. 5) . His 

 power of dealing with particular constitutions is seen 

 in his comments on that of Poland, the subject of a 

 separate treatise which he published in 1772. He 

 considers the radical vice of the Polish government to 

 be the extent of the country, and recommends either a 

 federal union or the abandonment to neighbouring 

 powers of some part of its dominions a plan which 

 those powers full soon caused to be adopted. The 

 election of the sovereign he holds to be a good princi- 

 ple, under wise restrictions ; and the one which he 

 proposes is the selection by the whole people of one 

 from among the noblemen of the first class, to be 

 chosen by lot, an absurdity unexampled in political 

 reveries. (' Considerations sur le Gouvernement de Po- 

 logne,' ch. v. xiv.) 



The merits of the ' Emile ' are of a much higher 

 order ; for together with wild theories, mere fantastical 

 dreams of education, it contains a great deal of striking, 

 though certainly not pure, composition, sometimes of a 



* " Le peuple Anglais pense etre libre : il se trompe fort ; il ne 

 Test que durant 1'election des membres du Parlement ; si tot ils ont 

 elu, il est esclave, il n'est rien. Dans les courts momens de sa 

 liberte, 1'usage qu'il en fait merite bien qu'il la perde " (liv. iii. 

 ch. 15). 



