ROUSSEAU ON REVOLUTION
Rousseau's best-known prediction of revolution was the one that he published in his Emile of
1762, where, he wrote, "we are approaching the stateof crisis andthe century of revolutions", because,
headded in a note, it was "impossible forthegreat monarchies of Europe to lastmuch longer".^ It was
a claim that he repeated in his Considerations on the Government of Poland^ written in 1772, but
published only posthumously in 1781. "I see", he wrote there, "all the states of Europe rushing to their
ruin. Monarchies, republics, all those nations with all their magnificent institutions, all those fine and
wisely balanced governments, have grown decrepit and threaten soon to die".^ As this indicated, the
prediction applied as much to Britain as to the absolute monarchies of the European mainland. "It is
easyto foresee that in twentyyears from this time, England, with all its glory, will be ruined and have
lost the remainder of its liberty", Rousseau wrote in 1760.^ The likely cause might come from within,
as in the prediction of revolution made at the end of the Discourse on the Origin ofInequality, where,
Rousseau wrote, the "uprising that finally strangles or dethrones a sultan is as lawful an action as those
by which, the day before, he disposed of his subjects' goods and lives"."* Or, it might come from
without. "The Russian empire will try to subjugate Europe, and will itselfbe subjugated", Rousseau
predicted in The Social Contract, "The Tartars, its subjects or neighbours, will become its masters and
ours. This revolution seems to me inevitable. All the kings of Europe are working in concert to hasten
it."^
^ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile. ou de 1'education [1762], ed. Michel Launay (Paris, Gamier
Flammarion, 1966), Bk. Ill, p. 252.
^ Jean Jacques Rousseau, Considerations sur le gouvemement de Pologne [1772], ed. Barbara de
Negroni (Paris, 1990), p. 164. I have slightly modified the translation given in Jean Jacques Rpusseau,
The Social Contract andother political writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge, 1997), p. 178.
^ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, AProject for Perpetual Peace (London, 1761), p. 16 (see also Rousseau, OC,
III, p. 573, note).
"* Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Discourses and other earlv political writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch
(Cambridge, CUP, 1997), p. 186.
^ Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and other political writings, ed. Gourevitch, bk 2, ch. 8,
p. 73.