18 AUGUST 1917, Page 17

A Lasting Peace. By J. J. Rousseau. Translated by C.

E. Vaughan. (Constable & Co. Is. net. )—Professor Vaughan's translation of two essays by Rousseau is timely and interesting. In the first, published in 1761-82, he describes and criticizes the Abbe de Saint Pierre's project for a Federation of Europe. In the second, " The State of War," a fragment which did not see the light till 1896, ha argues that a belligerent should, as far as possible, respect private property and the unarmed civilians, as Germany has deliber- ately refused to do. Ho saw the merits of the Abbe's dream, and yetknew that it would not be realized, because rulers do not know their true interests. " If, in spite of all this, tho project remains unrealised, that is not because it is Utopian ; it is because men are crary, and because to be sane in a world of madmen is in itself a kind of madness."