And there, walking all day long, Rousseau conceived the insane plan to identify – in himself, homo viator, walking man – the natural man, one not disfigured by culture, education, art: man as he would have been before books or salons, before society or paid labour. He wasn’t walking to find his own identity, or to rediscover a disguised singularity, or to get a rest from shuffling masks; but walking long distances to find in himself the man from another age, the first man.
