But Rousseau is a moralist, or he is nothing. It is impossible,
therefore, putting the circumstances together, to mistake their design
in choosing the author, with whom they have begun to recommend a courses
studies.
Their great problem is to find a substitute for all the principles which
hitherto have been employed to regulate the human will and action. They
find dispositions in the mind of such force and quality as may fit men,
far better than the old morality, for the purposes of such a state as
theirs, and may go much further in supporting their power and destroying
their enemies. They have therefore chosen a selfish, flattering,
seductive, ostentatious vice, in the place of plain duty. True humility,
the basis of the Christian system, is the low, but deep and firm,
foundation of all real virtue. But this, as very painful in the
practice, and little imposing in the appearance, they have totally
discarded. Their object is to merge all natural and all social sentiment
in inordinate vanity. In a small degree, and conversant in little
things, vanity is of little moment. When full grown, it is the worst of
vices, and the occasional mimic of them all. It makes the whole man
false. It leaves nothing sincere or trustworthy about him. His best
qualities are poisoned and perverted by it, and operate exactly as the
worst.
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