I often said to myself, 'My sole study has been to merit well of mankind; why do I fear them ?'" He attributes his improved health of mind and body to the counsels of his friend, J.J.Rousseau.

"I renounced," says he, "my books.

I threw my eyes upon the works of nature, which spake to all my senses a language which neither time nor nations have it in their power to alter.
Thenceforth my histories and my journals were the herbage of the fields and meadows.

My thoughts did not go forth painfully after them, as in the case of human systems; but their thoughts, under a thousand engaging forms, quietly sought me.

In these I studied, without effort, the laws of that Universal Wisdom which had surrounded me from the cradle, but on which heretofore I had bestowed little attention." Speaking of Rousseau, he says: "I derived inexpressible satisfaction from his society.