VII ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 295 



through innumerable channels and passing under 

 other names, are still regarded as the foundations 

 of political science by the existing representatives 

 of the classes who were so much attracted by t linn 

 when they were put forth. My friend, Mr. John 

 Morley, who probably knows more about Rousseau 

 and his school than anybody else, 1 must have been 

 entertained (so far as amusement is possible to 

 the subject of the process of "heckling") when 

 Rousseau's plats, the indigestibility of which he 

 exposed so many years ago, were set before him as 

 a wholesome British dish ; the situation had a 

 certain piquancy, which no one would appreciate 

 more keenly. 



I happened to be very much occupied upon 

 subjects of a totally different character, and had 

 no mind to leave them, when the narrative of this 

 occurrence and some letters to which it gave rise, 

 appeared in the " Times. " But I have very long 

 entertained the conviction that the revived 

 Rousseauism of our day is working sad mischief, 

 leading astray those who have not the time, even 

 when they possess the ability, to go to the root of 

 the superficially plausible doctrines which are 

 disseminated among them. And I thought it was 



1 If I had not reason to think that Mr. Morley's Rousseau, 

 and Sir Henry Maine's Aiicicnt Law, especially the admirable 

 chapters III. and IV., must be unknown to many political 

 writers and speakers, and fi fortiori to the general public, there 

 would be no excuse for the present essay, which simply restates 

 the case which they have so exhaustively treated. 



