"Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man."
Rousseau firmly believes in religion and in the corruption of human nature. His philosophy of education is based upon an innate fear of humanity's susceptibility to corruption. In this book, he proposes education as a safeguard against the continual corruption of human society.
". . . But let mothers deign to nurse their children, morals will reform themselves, nature's sentiments will be awakened in every heart, the state will be repeopled . . ."
This quotation serves to illustrate Rousseau's propensity to obsess. When he believes in something, he believes so emphatically that it can be offputting to readers. For example, Rousseau thinks mothers should breastfeed their babies because it is natural and will encourage the child to participate in life in a more natural manner. He devotes pages to this one point of childrearing, obviously obsessing over its significance in the greater arc of childhood development.
"We have made an active and thinking being. It remains for us, in order to complete the man, only to make a loving and feeling being -- that is to say, to perfect reason by sentiment."
Until Emile reaches adolescence, he is taught nothing about spiritual or emotional development. Rousseau believes that the final step to civic virtue is sentiment, or sympathy. He worries that Emile will not comprehend spiritual instruction earlier and thus does not teach him these things as a child in order to prevent confusion and corruption in the boy's soul.
". . . Everything man and woman have in common belongs to the species, and . . . everything which distinguishes them belongs to the sex."
Rousseau sees men and women as vastly different beings. He attributes the various divergences in women's temperaments to their being women, and this he considers inferior. To the extent that women are human, Rousseau thinks they should be education. But everything that applies to distinguish her from men socially and physically, disqualifies her from formal education the equal of her male peers.
