Sleep
The simile of sleep has been employed for childhood. According to Rousseau, childhood is the sleep of reason because children learn in a different way during their childhood than the adults who use logic in everything. They get impressions of things instead of understanding the logic. According to Rousseau, children should better be taught by nature instead of pouring the burdens of logic and reason upon them. He says" Give nature time to work before you take over her business, lest you interfere with her dealings. You assert that you know the value of time and are afraid to waste it. You fail to perceive that it is a greater waste of time to use it ill than to do nothing, and that a child ill taught is further from virtue than a child who has learnt nothing at all. You are afraid to see him spending his early years doing nothing. Is it nothing to be happy, nothing to run and jump all day?"
If a person doesn't sleep we consider him as robbing himself of the joys of life. Same is the case with children if they don't play or enjoy their time, it would be like robbing them of the pleasures of life. Rousseau says, " Remember that childhood is the sleep of reason." We should not judge children based on their leisure activities because this is the best way of spending the childhood I.e. to do nothing like adults.
Mirror
The brain of a child has been compared with a mirror. Children doesn't take ideas from things instead they just save images in their minds. Rousseau says, "The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin. You fail to see that this very facility proves that they are not learning. Their shining, polished brain reflects, as in a mirror, the things you show them, but nothing sinks in. The child remembers the words and the ideas are reflected back; his hearers understand them, but to him they are meaningless."
The reason does not develop at an early age and the children just memorize things. They do not grasp ideas like adults so instilling ideas is just a wastage of time. According to Rousseau, "Before the age of reason the child receives images, not ideas; and there is this difference between them: images are merely the pictures of external objects, while ideas are notions about those objects determined by their relations."
Arm
Rousseau has used the simile of arm for brains of men. He says that our minds have become habitual of using tools like our arms. We do not think by ourselves instead we collect information from here and there. " There is no real advance in human reason, for what we gain in one direction we lose in another; for all minds start from the same point, and as the time spent in learning what others have thought is so much time lost in learning to think for ourselves, we have more acquired knowledge and less vigor of mind. Our minds like our arms are accustomed to use tools for everything, and to do nothing for themselves."
The process of creative thinking has been declined. Especially in this era of information technology, humanity is depending more upon the gadgets and internet instead of its mind. We try to find everything on Google instead of finding answers by ourselves.
Slaves
The author has used the metaphor of slave for humans because they have become slaves of everything. Instead of controlling the things around them, they are being controlled by them. Whenever they try to move forward, they are dragged behind by their own creations.
Rousseau says, " The more I study the works of men in their institutions, the more clearly I see that, in their efforts after independence, they become slaves, and that their very freedom is wasted in vain attempts to assure its continuance. That they may not be carried away by the flood of things, they form all sorts of attachments; then as soon as they wish to move forward they are surprised to find that everything drags them back. It seems to me that to set oneself free we need do nothing, we need only continue to desire freedom." A man can only be free if he keeps on desiring for freedom instead of trying to assert that he is free.
