The Miscellaneous Works of Mr. J. J. Rousseau (Volume 1) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1767. Excerpt: ... OBSERVATIONS ON THE Answer that hath been made to the foregoing Discourse. IOwe rather thanks than a reply to the anonymous author, who hath done me the honour of writing an answer to my dissertation. But a due sense of my acknowledgments must not make me sorget what I also owe to.truth Neither can I ever sorget that in holding a rational argument, men enter into a state of nature, and resume their primitive equali ty. The tract, which I am about to answer, abounds. with demonstrative truths to which I can make no manner of reply. For, however qualified I might be to play the sophist, I should be very sorry to be one of those who have an answer sor every thing. But my desence will not be the less easy; as it will be confined to a mere comparison of my own sentiments with the truths which are objected to them; sor if I prove that the latter do not really attack what I have advanced, I shall think the sormer are sussiciently desended. All the propofitions established by my adverfary, may be reduced to two principal points; the The one containing a commendation of the sciences, the other treating of their abuse. I shall examine each apart. It seems, by the manner of the answer, that my. opponent would have been pleased if I had faid more against the sciences than 1 have really done. It is supposed that the eulogium, I made on the sciences at first setting out, must have' been much against my will; it is, fays my antagonist, a consession sorced from me by the truth, which I speedily hastened to retract. But if this consession be an eulogium which truth hath sorced from me, it must be granted that I thought the sciences as good as 1 represented them: so that the author's praise of them h not contradictory to my opinion. That consession, it is faid, was sorced ...