Rousseau And Tolstoy Natural - Civilization Is A Comparative Study

Rousseau's thought has strong unification and the systemic character. The opposition and conflict between the nature and the civilization (custom) is almost the whole Rousseau's thought. The author believed that the nature which was opposed to civilization included three contents in Rousseau's thought system. First, it refers to the entitative nature, that is the nature consisted by the mountains, rivers, vegetation, birds, beasts, insects and fishes etc. Rousseau was special to the beautiful nature. Second, it refers to the nature in the historical significance, namely a kind of natural condition which is supposed to exist before the appearance of civilization. This is the most ideal and innocent condition. Last, it refers to the person's internal nature, namely the nature of human's naivete and modesty, which takes the conscience call as the basic value orientation. There are many similarities between the thought of Rousseau and that of Tolstoy. Tolstoy also deeply loved the nature, who also advocated the regress from the civilization to the nature. In order to get rid of all kinds of abuses taken from civilization society, he advocated human should return to the nature and find the good plan to solve the above problem in the nature. Moreover, Tolstoy proposed that the heart surpasses the brain. He believed that the conscience is our best and most correct guide. It is human's inherent emotion conscience, but not the logos, which distinguishes the man from the beast and makes the man be close to the divinity. In this paper, the thought of the nature and the civilization between Rousseau and Tolstoy was compared by the above three contents. By comparing, one can more accurately grasp the soul of their though and penetrate the surface of phenomenon to peek the time spirit and the cultural atmosphere under a broader background.