But the chief beauty of that wonderful conception of an empassioned and meditative mind is to be found in the inimitable manner in which the thoughts are embodied, and in the tenderness, the truth, the profundity of the thoughts themselves: when Lord Edouard says, 'c'est le chemin des passions qui m'a conduit a la philosophie,' he inculcates, in one simple phrase, a profound and unanswerable truth.

It is in these remarks that nature is chiefly found in the writings of Rousseau: too much engrossed in himself to be deeply skilled in the characters of others, that very self-study had yet given him a knowledge of the more hidden recesses of the heart.

He could perceive at once the motive and the cause of actions, but he wanted the patience to trace the elaborate and winding progress of their effects.
He saw the passions in their home, but he could not follow them abroad.
He knew mankind in the general, but not men in the detail.

Thus, when he makes an aphorism or reflection, it comes home at once to you as true; but when he would analyze that reflection, when he argues, reasons, and attempts to prove, you reject him as unnatural, or you refute him as false.

It is then that he partakes of that manie commune which he imputes to other philosophers, 'de nier ce qui est, et d'expliquer ce qui n'est pas.'" There was a short pause.