The period of sophistication which the late seventeenth century saw in Europe is revealed especially by the Memoirs which abounded at the time. Saint-Simon and Madame de Sévigné, Madame de Motteville and Louis XIV, while embracing all contemporary history, give minute details of the famous men and women of that period. Later, when sophistication had been replaced by frivolity, and when the morals of the great nations of Europe had lost their decorum, free love and its pleasures, irresponsibility and antinomy became the fashion. The _Confessions_ of Jean-Jacques Rousseau testify to this fact, although his preoccupations were subjective and introspective. He was determined to unveil himself so that the features of his life would be as clear to men as they had been to God. And there was a challenge in his gesture: he would expose all his vileness and then dare any one to say “I am a better man!” He wrote his autobiography at a time when his mental balance was not what it had been; but that is one of its greatest merits. It is a common impression among sane persons that the writings of psychopaths are without value or interest. They are usually of greater merit artistically, and far more informative and suggestive than those of the equilibrated. What Rousseau did for himself, lesser men were tempted to do for others, and thus from its most famous life-history, biographical writing got its first great stimulus in France. As time progressed and artistic achievement became less important, biographies were replaced by contributions “useful” to civilisation. Biographies and autobiographies then grew less concerned with ideals and became mirrors of personalities. Always a sign of the times, they were never more so than when they shed some of their introspection, and took on universality and externalisation. Our conception of personality confronted with modern scientific analysis becomes less specific. We can not define self, we can describe it; it is so chameleon-like that the self of one day or one year is not like the one of the day before or the year after. In view of the tremendous and increasing interest in personality due to an awakening of the sense of personal responsibility, to the increasing interest in human immortality, and to the widespread and searching study of abnormal manifestations of personality, it is not to be wondered that biographical writing which aims at revealing personality is so popular.