Like the statue of Glaucus, which time, sea and storms had disfigured to such an extent that it looked less like a god than a wild beast, the human soul, altered in the midst of society by a thousand constantly recurring causes, by the acquisition of a multitude of bits of knowledge and of errors, by changes that took place in the constitution of bodies, by the constant impact of the passions, has, as it were, changed its appearance to the point of being nearly unrecognizable. And instead of a being active always by certain and invariable principles, instead of that heavenly and majestic
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do i understand this symbolic image being painted by the author?
this is a weathered ruins of a statue. statue of glaucas, if you chip away barnicles and pollution. you have the tabula rasa blank slate
for example a human with conditioned corruption and unnatural depravity - we are like this gunged up statue that needs chipping away.
roussea is going to chip the barnacles and reveal the natural human.
