The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseau's Thought - Paperbackby Arthur M. Melzer (Author) The true key to all the perplexities of the human condition, Rousseau boldly claims, is the "natural goodness of man." It is also the key to his own notoriously contradictory writings, which, he insists, are actually the disassembled parts of a rigorous philosophical system rooted in that fundamental principle. What if this problematic claim so often repeated, but as often dismissed were resolutely followed and explored?