Alpha Book

"Let them learn what they must do
when they are men, and not what they must forget."
It is hard to fix limits to the influence of Rousseau's writings. True,
both the orthodox Catholics and the philosophical Deists condemned him.
But his followers were many, both bourgeois and noble. "Back to nature"
became the fad of the day, and court ladies pretended to live a
"natural" life and to go fishing. His theory of the social contract,
his contention that wealth should not be divided among a few, his idea
that the people should rule themselves,--these were to be the
inspiration of the republican stage of the French Revolution, and in
time to permeate all Europe.
[Sidenote: Beccaria]
The spirit of reform was applied not only against the clergy, the
nobles, the monarchy, and faulty systems of law and education, but
likewise to the administration of justice. Hitherto the most barbarous
"punishments" had been meted out. A pickpocket might be hung for
stealing a couple of shillings [Footnote: In England.


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