"Rousseau, Jean-Jacques - Confessions of Jean-jacques Rousseau, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rousseau Jacques)

1782

THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

translated by W. Conyngham Mallory

BOOK I



[1712-1728]



I HAVE begun on a work which is without precedent, whose

accomplishment will have no imitator. I propose to set before my

fellow-mortals a man in all the truth of nature; and this man shall be

myself.

I have studied mankind and know my heart; I am not made like any one

I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if

not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature has acted

rightly or wrongly in destroying the mold in which she cast me, can

only be decided after I have been read.

I will present myself, whenever the last trumpet shall sound, before

the Sovereign Judge with this book in my hand, and loudly proclaim,

"Thus have I acted; these were my thoughts; such was I. With equal

freedom and veracity have I related what was laudable or wicked, I

have concealed no crimes, added no virtues; and if I have sometimes

introduced superfluous ornament, it was merely to occupy a void

occasioned by defect of memory: I may have supposed that certain,

which I only knew to be probable, but have never asserted as truth,