im to
Melancholy -- Return to Corsica.

[Sidenote: 1786-87.]

In one sense it is true that the first Emperor of the French was a man
of no age and of no country; in another sense he was, as few have
been, the child of his surroundings and of his time. The study of
politics was his own notion; the matter and method of the study were
conditioned by his relations to the thought of Europe in the
eighteenth century. He evidently hoped that his military and political
attainments would one day meet in the culmination of a grand career.
To the world and probably to himself it seemed as if the glorious
period of the Consulate were the realization of this hope. Those years
of his life which so appear were, in fact, the least successful. The
unsoundness of his political instructors, and the temper of the age,
combined to thwart this ambitious purpose, and render unavailing all
his achievements.

Rousseau had every fascination for the young of that time--a
captivating style, persuasive logic, the sentiment of a poet, the
intensity of a prophet. A native of Corsica would be doubly drawn to
him by his interest in that romantic island. Sitting at the feet of
such a teacher, a young scholar would learn through convincing
argument the evils of a passing social state as they were not
exhibited elsewhere. He would discern the dangers of ecclesiastical
authority, of feudal privilege, of absolute monarchy; he would see
their disastrous influence in the prostitution, not only of social,
but of personal morality; he would become familiar with the necessity
for renewing institutions as the only means of regenerating society.
All these lessons would have a value not to be exaggerated. On the
other hand, when it came to the substitution of positive teaching for
negative criticism, he would learn nothing of value and much that was
most dangerous. In utter disregard of a sound historical method, there
was set up as the cornerstone of the new political structure a fiction
of the most treacherous kind. Buonaparte in his notes, written as he
read, shows his contempt for it in an admirable refutation of the
fundamental error of Rousseau as to the state of nature by this
remark: "I believe man in the state of nature had the same power of
sensation and reason which he now has." But if he did not accept the
premises, there was a portion of the conclusion which he took with
avidity, the most dangerous point in all Rousseau's system; namely,
th