So strong a personal attachment to Nature, solitude, and retirement had not been known before; but it was thrown into this high relief by the morbid dread of man and hatred of culture, which formed a constant dark background to his mind.  It was a state of mind which naturally led to intense dislike of formal French gardens and open admiration of the English park.  He rejected all the garnish of garden-craft, even grafted roses and fruit trees, and only admitted indigenous plants which grew outdoors.[13] It is greatly due to his feeling for English Park style that a healthier garden-craft gained ground in Germany as well as France.  The foremost maxim of his philosophy and teaching, that everything is good as it comes from the bosom of mother Nature, or rather from the hand of God, and that man and his culture are responsible for all the evil, worked out in his attitude towards Nature.

He placed her upon a pedestal, worshipping her, and the Creator through her, and this made him the first to recognize the fact that study of Nature, especially of botany, should be an important factor in the education of children.

His Confessions, the truest photographs of a human character in existence, shew at once the keenest introspection and intense love for Nature.  No one before Rousseau had been so aware of his own individuality—­that is, of himself, as a being—­who in this particular state only exists once, and has therefore not only relative but absolute value.  He gave this peculiarity its full value, studying it as a thing outside himself, of which every detail was important, watching with great interest his own change of moods, the fluctuations of that double self which now lifted him to the ideal, now cast him down to the lowest and commonest.  His relation to Nature was the best thing about him, and when he was happy, as he was for the first time in the society of Mademoiselle de Warens, Nature seemed lovelier than ever.

The scattered passages about Nature in the Confessions have a youthful freshness: 

’The appearance of Aurora seemed so delightful one morning, that, putting on my clothes, I hastened into the country to see the rising of the sun.  I enjoyed that pleasure to its utmost extent.  It was one week after midsummer:  the earth was covered with verdure and flowers; the nightingales, whose soft warblings were almost over, seemed to vie with each other, and, in concert with birds of various kinds, to bid adieu to spring and hail the approach of a beautiful summer’s day.’

He loved rambling over hill and dale, even by night; thus, when he was at Lyons: