RESTRICTIONS OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY 457 



interest of the whole society." Kant, who was less optimistic 

 than Adam Smith as to the natural goodness of men, introduced 

 as a precaution his Rechtsgesetze, designed to maintain equity 

 in social relations. But the Rechtsgesetze, we have seen, con- 

 stitute a limitation of individual liberty. 



What is, perhaps, more surprising than the optimism of Adam 

 Smith and Ricardo, products of the eighteenth century which 

 had brought forth Rousseau,^ is the inconsistency of Mill ; who, 

 while declaring, on the one hand, that every restriction of 

 competition is an evil, proclaimed, nevertheless, on the other 

 hand, that the liberty of each is subject to the restriction that 

 it must not infringe on the liberty of others. As if even the idea 

 of that competition so dear to Mill was reconcilable with the 

 ethical restriction whic^ he added ! In competition the strongest 



* It is fortunate that the admirable series of lectures on Rousseau 

 which M. Jules Lemaitre delivered at the Soeiete de Gsographie in Paris 

 during the winter session 1906-07 have now appeared in book form. Never 

 have the puerilities, the incoherences, the repulsive sentimentalism, of 

 Rousseau's philosophy been exposed so mercilessly and in so masterly a 

 manner as by M. Lemaitre, who sees rightly in Rousseau the father of 

 nearly all the errors and perversions of our present-day civilisation. It 

 is refreshing to see at last a Frenchman of European reputation exposing 

 the hollowness of Rousseau's sophistries in Paris itself ; and as admiration for 

 Rousseau is stiU a dogma in the University, it is fortunate that M. Lemaitre 

 should have been selected to lead the combat against this official dogma. 



It is difficult for a biologist to speak with patience 'of the Discours sur 

 Vlnegalite ; it is equally difficult to understand the infatuation which the 

 author of the Confessions has inspired in Europe, and not only in Prance. 

 When we reflect on the ignominy of Rousseau's character ; when we 

 remember that he was capable of deliberately accusing a fellow-servant 

 in a house where he was employed as valet of a theft of which he himself 

 was guilty, in order to save himself ; when we remember that he was 

 capable of abandoning a sick and helpless companion on the road, because 

 the latter was a burden ; when we remember the supreme infamy with 

 which Rousseau's name will always be associated, an infamy five times 

 repeated — i.e., the successive abandonment of his five children ; when 

 we remember these salient traits of Rousseau's character, we cannot fail 

 to ask ourselves with amazement how it was possible for such a man — a 

 thief and a rascal, physically and morally degenerate, who died insane — 

 to have exercised so extraordinary an influence. 



