Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that we are inherently good, but we become corrupted by the evils of society. We are born good - and that is our natural state. In later life he wished to live a simple life, to be close to nature and to enjoy what it gives us - a concern said to have been fostered by his father. Through attending to nature we are more likely to live a life of virtue.

Rousseau was interested in people being natural. "We are born capable of sensation and from birth are affected in diverse ways by the objects around us. As soon as we become conscious of our sensations we are inclined to seek or to avoid the objects which produce them: at first, because they are agreeable or disagreeable to us, later because we discover that they suit or do not suit us, and ultimately because of the judgements we pass on them by reference to the idea of happiness of perfection we get from reason.

These inclinations extend and strengthen with the growth of sensibility and intelligence, but under the pressure of habit they are changed to some extent with our opinions. The inclinations before this change are what I call our nature. In my view everything ought to be in conformity with these original inclinations.

(Émile, Book 1) Rousseau's Reveries of the Solitary Walker, show both his isolation and alienation, and some paths into happiness. 'Everything is in constant flux on this earth', he writes. "But if there is a state where the soul can find a resting-place secure enough to establish itself and concentrate its entire being there, with no need to remember the past or reach into the future, where time is nothing to it, where the present runs on indefinitely but this duration goes unnoticed, with no sign of the passing of time, and no other feeling of deprivation or enjoyment, pleasure or pain, desire or fear than the simple feeling of existence, a feeling that fills our soul entirely, as long as this state lasts, we can call ourselves happy, not with a poor, incomplete and relative happiness such as we find in the pleasures of life, but with a sufficient, complete and perfect happiness which leaves no emptiness to be filled in the soul.

Such is the state which I often experienced on the Island of Saint-Pierre in my solitary reveries, whether I lay in a boat and drifted where the water carried me, or sat by the shores of the stormy lake, or elsewhere, on the banks of a lovely river or a stream murmuring over the stones."

In many respects Rousseau's vision could be labeled as 'green'. But with this comes a classic tension between the individual and society, solitude and association - and this is central to his work. Chapter 1 of his classic work on political theory The Social Contract (published in 1762) begins famously, 'Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains'.

It is an expression of his belief that we corrupted by society. The social contract he explores in the book involves people recognizing a collective 'general will'. This general will is supposed to represent the common good or public interest - and it is something that each individual has a hand in making. All citizens should participate - and should be committed to the general good - even if it means acting against their private or personal interests.

For example, we might support a political party that proposes to tax us heavily (as we have a large income) because we can see the benefit that this taxation can bring to all. To this extent, Rousseau believed that the good individual, or citizen, should not put their private ambitions first. This way of living, he argued, can promote liberty and equality - and it arises out of, and fosters, a spirit of fraternity.

The cry of 'liberty, equality and fraternity' is familiar to us today through the French Revolution (1789 - 1799) - and the impact of the thinking and experiences of that time have had on political movements in many different parts of the world since. Just how the 'general will' comes about is unclear - and this has profound implications. If we are to put the general will over the individual or 'particular' will then there needs to be safeguards against the exploitation of individuals and minorities.

On education

The focus of Émile is upon the individual tuition of a boy/young man in line with the principles of 'natural education'. This focus tends to be what is taken up by later commentators, yet Rousseau's concern with the individual is balanced in some of his other writing with the need for public or national education.

In A Discourse on Political Economy and Considerations for the Government of Poland we get a picture of public education undertaken in the interests of the community as a whole. From the first moment of life, men ought to begin learning to deserve to live; and, as at the instant of birth we partake of the rights of citizenship, that instant ought to be the beginning of the exercise of our duty.