Rousseau's _Emile_, the greatest of all works on education, has already been issued in this series. In this volume are contained the most important of his political works. Of these the _Social Contract_, by far the most significant, is the latest in date. It represents the maturity of his thought, while the other works only illustrate his development. Born in 1712, he issued no work of importance till 1750; but he tells us, in the _Confessions,_ that in 1743, when he was attached to the Embassy at Venice, he had already conceived the idea of a great work on _Political Institutions_, "which was to put the seal on his reputation." He seems, however, to have made little progress with this work, until in 1749 he happened to light on the announcement of a prize offered by the Academy of Dijon for an answer to the question, "Has the progress of the arts and sciences tended to the purification or to the corruption of morality?" His old ideas came thronging back, and sick at heart of the life he had been leading among the Paris _lumières_, he composed a violent and rhetorical diatribe against civilisation generally. In the following year, this work, having been awarded the prize by the Academy, was published by its author. His success was instantaneous; he became at once a famous man, the "lion" of Parisian literary circles. Refutations of his work were issued by professors, scribblers, outraged theologians and even by the King of Poland. Rousseau endeavoured to answer them all, and in the course of argument his thought developed. From 1750 to the publication of the _Social Contract_ and _Emile_ in 1762 he gradually evolved his views: in those twelve years he made his unique contribution to political thought.