Rousseau, on the other hand, possessed no such exalted qualities; and
the biography of this great Frenchman is shorter than Adam Smith’s and
only a little longer than that of the English divine, Joseph Butler!
The _Britannica_ informs us that Rousseau’s moral character was weak
and that he did not stand very high as a man. Furthermore, he was not a
philosopher; the essence of his religion was sentimentalism; and during
the last ten or fifteen years of his life he was not sane. If you wish to
see how unjust and biased is this moral denunciation of Rousseau, turn
to any unprejudiced history of philosophy, and compare the serious and
lengthy consideration given him, with the consideration given the English
moral thinkers who prove such great favorites with the _Britannica’s_
editors.
The German “philosophers of the enlightenment” are given even less
consideration. Christian Wolff, whose philosophy admittedly held almost
undisputed sway in Germany till eclipsed by Kantianism, receives only a
column-and-a-half biography, only half the space given to Samuel Clarke,
the English theological writer, and equal space with John Norris, the
English philosophical divine, and with Arthur Collier, the English High
Church theologian. Even Anthony Collins, the English deist, receives
nearly as long a biography. Moses Mendelssohn draws only two and a half
columns; Crusius, only half a column; Lambert, only a little over
three-fourths of a column; Reimarus, only a column and a third, in which
he is considered from the standpoint of the English deists; and Edelmann
and Tetens have no biographies whatever!
Kant, as I have noted, receives less biographical space than Isaac
Newton, and only about a fifth more space than does either John Locke or
Hume. It is unnecessary to indicate here the prejudice shown by these
comparisons. Every one is cognizant of Kant’s tremendous importance in
the history of thought, and knows what relative consideration should
be given him in a work like the _Britannica_. Hamann, “the wise man of
the North,” who was the foremost of Kant’s opponents, receives only a
column-and-a-quarter biography, in which he is denounced. His writings,
to one not acquainted with the man, must be “entirely unintelligible
and, from their peculiar, pietistic tone and scriptural jargon, probably
offensive.” And he expressed himself in “uncouth, barbarous fashion.”
Herder, however, another and lesser opponent of Kantianism, receives
four and a half columns. Jacobi receives three; Reinhold, half a column;
Maimon, two-thirds of a column; and Schiller, four and a half columns.
Compare these allotments of space with: Thomas Hill Green, the English
neo-Kantian, two and two-thirds columns; Richard Price, a column and
three-fourths; Martineau, the English philosophic divine, five columns;
Ralph Cudworth, two columns; and Joseph Butler, six and a half columns!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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