Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/422

 384 Readings in European History common vocation is manhood, and whoever is well trained for that cannot fulfill any vocation badly which demands manhood. Whether my pupil be destined for the army, the church, or the bar, concerns me but little. Before he is called to the career chosen by his parents, Nature summons him to the duties of human life. To live is the trade I wish to teach him. . . . All our wisdom consists in servile preju- dices ; all our customs are but suggestion, anxiety, and con- straint. Civilized man is born, lives, dies in a state of slavery. At his birth he is sewed in swaddling clothes ; at his death he is nailed in a coffin ; and as long as he pre- serves the human form he is fettered by our institutions. It is said that nurses sometimes claim to give the infant's head a better form by kneading it, and we permit them to do this ! It would appear that our heads were badly fashioned by the Author of Nature, and that they need to be made over outwardly by the midwife and inwardly by philosophers! The Caribbeans are more fortunate than we by half. . . . Observe Nature and follow the path she traces for you ! Rousseau closes his Social Contract with a chapter on " civil religion." Roman Catholic Christianity he regarded as very noxious to the state: even the Chris- tianity that he discovered in the Gospels, which he pro- fesses to admire, did not, he believed, help to make good citizens, but rather the contrary. 389. Rous- Christianity is a purely spiritual religion, occupied solely seau's with heavenly things : the country of a Christian is not deistic religion. °f tn ^ s world. He does his duty, it is true, but he does it with a profound indifference as to the good or ill success of his efforts. Provided he has nothing to reproach himself with, it matters little to him whether things go well or ill here below. If the state is flourishing, he scarcely dares enjoy the public felicity; he fears to become proud of the glory of his country. If the state degenerates, he blesses the hand of God which lies heavy upon his people. . ..