Named in honor of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), citizen of Geneva, moralist and writer. The guiding idea of his discourses and novels was that human nature is principally good but gets corrupted by society under the influence of science and art, which he believed to enhance social inequality and discontentment. Hence his emotional exhortations for a return to nature and simple life. Real and also imagined persecution made him seek refuge in many remote places in western Europe. Rousseau’s ideas later proved highly influential in inspiring the French Revolution, Storm and Stress, romanticism and socialism. (M 22496) _ _.