Emile, or On Education

that one would wish to save his life. He was victorious, and returned triumphantly to die in agony. This has no great relation, it seems to me, to the men we know.

The Spartan Pedaeretus presents himself to be admitted to the council of the three hundred; he is rejected. He returns home very joyful that there were found in Sparta three hundred men worthier than he. I assume this demonstration to be sincere, and there is reason to believe that it was: there is the citizen.

A woman of Sparta had five sons in the army and was awaiting news of the battle. An Helot a member of a subjugated population in Sparta arrives; she asks him for news, trembling. Your five sons have been killed. Vile slave, did I ask you that? We have won the victory. The mother runs to the Temple and gives thanks to the Gods. There is the citizen.

He who, in the civil order, wants to preserve the primacy of the feelings of nature does not know what he wants. Always in contradiction with himself, always fluctuating between his inclinations and his duties, he will never be either man or citizen; he will be good neither for himself nor for others. He will be one of those men of our days, a Frenchman,