Note 175 — XXVII. ROUSSEAU. 1712–1778.

Rousseau adds in a note: “I know that the English boast loudly of their humanity and of the good disposition of their nation, which they term ‘good nature,’ but it is in vain for them to proclaim this far and wide. Nobody repeats it after them.” Gibbon, in the well-known passage in his xxvith chapter, in which he speculates upon the influence of flesh-eating in regard to the savage habits of the Tartar tribes, quoting this remark of Rousseau, in his ironical way, says: “Whatever we may think of the general observation, we shall not easily allow the truth of his example.”—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xxvi.