Whereas it seems to me that my mental transformations are
but philosophical experiences. I am tied to none. I am but making
psychological investigations. At the same time I do not hide from myself
that such experiences weaken the hold of common sense, because they act
as solvents of all personal interests and prejudices. I can only defend
myself against them by returning to the common life of men, and by
bracing and fortifying the will.
July 14, 1880.--What is the book which, of all Genevese literature, I
would soonest have written? Perhaps that of Madame Necker de Saussure,
or Madame de Stael's "L'Allemagne." To a Genevese, moral philosophy is
still the most congenial and remunerative of studies. Intellectual
seriousness is what suits us least ill. History, politics, economical
science, education, practical philosophy--these are our subjects. We
have everything to lose in the attempt to make ourselves mere
Frenchified copies of the Parisians: by so doing we are merely carrying
water to the Seine. Independent criticism is perhaps easier at Geneva
than at Paris, and Geneva ought to remain faithful to her own special
line, which, as compared with that of France, is one of greater freedom
from the tyranny of taste and fashion on the one hand, and the tyranny
of ruling opinion on the other--of Catholicism or Jacobinism.
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