Rousseau (Ro'so'), Jean Jacques. French philosopher. Born 1712, son of a watchmaker at Geneva. Was apprenticed to an engraver, but made his escape into Savoy in 1728, where he was found by a priest, who entrusted him to the care of Madame de Warens at Annecy. During the ensuing years, the greater part of his time as spent in her house, but Rousseau finally quarreled with her and went to Paris in 1741, whence in 1742 he accompanied the French ambassador to Venice as secretary. In 1759 he gained a prize, offered by the Academy of Dijon, by an essay attacking the influence of the arts and sciences on society. Of his subsequent writings, the following are the most famous: "Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise," a romance (1760), "Du Contrat Social" (1762), and "Emile," a philosophical romance treating of education (1762). The years 1766-67 he spent in England as the guest of Hume, but quarreled with him, and returned to France. Rousseau died in 1778.

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