Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Read online

  The Collected Works of

  JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

  (1712-1778)

  Contents

  The Books

  DISCOURSE ON THE ARTS AND SCIENCES

  DISCOURSE ON THE ORIGIN AND BASIS OF INEQUALITY AMONG MEN

  DISCOURSE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY

  ÉMILE, OR ON EDUCATION

  THE SOCIAL CONTRACT, OR PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL RIGHT

  CONSTITUTIONAL PROJECT FOR CORSICA

  CONSIDERATIONS ON THE GOVERNMENT OF POLAND

  REVERIES OF A SOLITARY WALKER

  The Autobiography

  THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

  The Criticism

  ROUSSEAU by William Cleaver Wilkinson

  ROUSSEAU AND ROMANTICISM by Irving Babbitt

  ROUSSEAU by John Cowper Powys

  THE RELIGION OF ROUSSEAU by John Middleton Murry

  COWPER AND ROUSSEAU by Leslie Stephen

  THE ROUSSEAU AFFAIR by Lytton Strachey

  ROUSSEAU AND THE SENTIMENTALISTS by James Russell Lowell

  ROUSSEAU by George Brandes

  ROUSSEAU IN ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY by Edmund Gosse

  The Biographies

  ROUSSEAU by John Morley

  JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU by Hugh Chisholm

  The Delphi Classics Catalogue

  © Delphi Classics 2017

  Version 1

  The Collected Works of

  JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

  By Delphi Classics, 2017

  COPYRIGHT

  Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

  © Delphi Classics, 2017.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

  ISBN: 978 1 78656 089 6

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  The Books

  40, Grand-Rue, Geneva—Rousseau’s birthplace in 1712. Geneva was at that time a city-state and a Protestant associate of the Swiss Confederacy.

  A plaque at the birthplace

  Geneva, 1602

  Geneva today

  DISCOURSE ON THE ARTS AND SCIENCES

  Translated by G. D. H. Cole

  The French first edition of Discourse on the Sciences and Art appeared in 1750, published by Barillot & fils, with the first English translation being released the following year by W. Owen. The work was written in response to a 1749 advertisement in an issue of Mercure de France, which offered a reward from the Academy of Dijon for an essay on the relationship between the arts and sciences and morals. The author had seen the advertisement while he was visiting his friend, Denis Diderot, in prison. Diderot, who was a philosopher and editor of the Encyclopédie, was imprisoned at Vincennes between July and November 1749 as his writings about religion and morality were considered to be offensive and dangerous. Rousseau asserted that he was immediately inspired and enthused by the subject of the advertisement and he felt compelled to craft a response.

  Rousseau had various jobs during his twenties and thirties, including a period as a tutor in Lyon and serving as a secretary to the French ambassador to Venice. While living in Venice, he developed a lifelong passion for Italian opera, although he found working for the government to be a frustrating and dispiriting experience. The philosopher’s essay answers the question ‘Has the restoration of the Sciences and the Arts Contributed to the Purification of Morals?’ He argues that humankind is not happier or more virtuous in modern times, but miserable and debased by a corrupt society that breeds selfishness and servitude. He believes that the things humankind is taught to admire are ultimately responsible for its degradation and suffering. Rousseau argues that it is less a case of the arts and sciences causing the corruption of society and more that a prior morally corrupt order has allowed the arts and sciences to have a further corrupting effect.

  1750 French edition

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  MORAL EFFECTS OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES

  THE FIRST PART

  THE SECOND PART

  Denis Diderot by Louis-Michel van Loo, 1767. Diderot (1713-1784) was a philosopher and art critic, who became a prominent figure during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert.

  A DISCOURSE

  WHICH WON THE PRIZE AT THE ACADEMY OF DIJON IN 1750, ON THIS QUESTION PROPOSED BY THE ACADEMY:

  HAS THE RESTORATION OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES HAD A PURIFYING EFFECT UPON MORALS?

  Barbaras his ego sum, qui non intelligor illis. — OVID.

  PREFACE

  The following pages contain a discussion of one of the most sublime and interesting of all moral questions. It is not concerned, however, with those metaphysical subtleties, which of late have found their way into every department of literature, and from which even our academic curricula are not always free. We have now to do with one of those truths on which the happiness of mankind depends.

  I foresee that I shall not readily be forgiven for having taken up the position I have adopted. Setting myself up against all that is nowadays most admired, I can expect no less than a universal outcry against me: nor is the approbation of a few sensible men enough to make me count on that of the public. But I have taken my stand, and I shall be at no pains to please either intellectuals or men of the world. There are in all ages men born to be in bondage to the opinions of the society in which they live. There are not a few, who to-day play the free-thinker and the philosopher, who would, if they had lived in the time of the League, have been no more than fanatics. No author, who has a mind to outlive his own age, should write for such readers.

  A word more and I have done. As I did not expect the honour conferred on me, I had, since sending in my Discourse, so altered and enlarged it as almost to make it a new work; but in the circumstances I have felt bound to publish it just as it was when it received the prize. I have only added a few notes, and left two alterations which are easily recognisable, of which the Academy possibly might not have approved. The respect, gratitude and even justice I owe to that body seemed to me to demand this acknowledgment.

  Here I am, a barbarian, because men understand me not.

  MORAL EFFECTS OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES

  Decipimur specie recti. — HORACE.

  The question before me is, “Whether the Restoration of the arts and sciences has had the effect of purifying or corrupting morals.” Which side am I to take? That, gentlemen, which becomes an honest man, who is sensible of his own ignorance, and thinks himself none the worse for it.

  I feel the difficulty of treating this subject fittingly, before the tribunal which is to judge of what I advance. How can I presume to belittle the sciences before one of the most learned assemblies in Europe, to commend ignorance in a famous Academy, and reconcile my contempt for study with the respect due to the truly learned?

  I was aware of these inconsistencies, but not discouraged by them. It is not science, I s
aid to myself, that I am attacking; it is virtue that I am defending, and that before virtuous men — and goodness is even dearer to the good than learning to the learned.

  What then have I to fear? The sagacity of the assembly before which I am pleading? That, I acknowledge, is to be feared; but rather on account of faults of construction than of the views I hold. Just sovereigns have never hesitated to decide against themselves in doubtful cases; and indeed the most advantageous situation in which a just claim can be, is that of being laid before a just and enlightened arbitrator, who is judge in his own case.

  To this motive, which encouraged me, I may add another which finally decided me. And this is, that as I have upheld the cause of truth to the best of my natural abilities, whatever my apparent success, there is one reward which cannot fail me. That reward I shall find in the bottom of my heart.

  THE FIRST PART

  It is a noble and beautiful spectacle to see man raising himself, so to speak, from nothing by his own exertions; dissipating, by the light of reason, all the thick clouds in which he was by nature enveloped; mounting above himself; soaring in thought even to the celestial regions; like the sun, encompassing with giant strides the vast extent of the universe; and, what is still grander and more wonderful, going back into himself, there to study man and get to know his own nature, his duties and his end. All these miracles we have seen renewed within the last few generations.

  Europe had relapsed into the barbarism of the earliest ages; the inhabitants of this part of the world, which is at present so highly enlightened, were plunged, some centuries ago, in a state still-worse than ignorance. A scientific jargon, more despicable than mere ignorance, had usurped the name of knowledge, and opposed an almost invincible obstacle to its restoration.

  Things had come to such a pass, that it required a complete revolution to bring men back to common sense. This came at last from the quarter from which it was least to be expected. It was the stupid Mussulman, the eternal scourge of letters, who was the immediate cause of their revival among us. The fall of the throne of Constantine brought to Italy the relics of ancient Greece; and with these precious spoils France in turn was enriched. The sciences soon followed literature, and the art of thinking joined that of writing: an order which may seem strange, but is perhaps only too natural. The world now began to perceive the principal advantage of an intercourse with the Muses, that of rendering mankind more sociable by inspiring them with the desire to please one another with performances worthy of their mutual approbation.

  The mind, as well as the body, has its needs: those of the body are the basis of society, those of the mind its ornaments.

  So long as government and law provide for the security and well-being of men in their common life, the arts, literature and the sciences, less despotic though perhaps more powerful, fling garlands of flowers over the chains which weigh them down. They stifle in men’s breasts that sense of original liberty, for which they seem to have been born; cause them to love their own slavery, and so make of them what is called a civilised people.

  Necessity raised up thrones; the arts and sciences have made them strong. Powers of the earth, cherish all talents and protect those who cultivate them. Civilised peoples, cultivate such pursuits: to them, happy slaves, you owe that delicacy and exquisiteness of taste, which is so much your boast, that sweetness of disposition and urbanity of manners which make intercourse so easy and agreeable among you — in a word, the appearance of all the virtues, without being in possession of one of them.

  It was for this sort of accomplishment, which is by so much the more captivating as it seems less affected, that Athens and Rome were so much distinguished in the boasted times of their splendour and magnificence: and it is doubtless in the same respect that our own age and nation will excel all periods and peoples. An air of philosophy without pedantry; an address at once natural and engaging, distant equally from Teutonic clumsiness and Italian pantomime; these are the effects of a taste acquired by liberal studies and improved by conversation with the world. What happiness would it be for those who live among us, if our external appearance were always a true mirror of our hearts; if decorum were but virtue; if the maxims we professed were the rules of our conduct; and if real philosophy were inseparable from the title of a philosopher! But so many good qualities too seldom go together; virtue rarely appears in so much pomp and state.

  Richness of apparel may proclaim the man of fortune, and elegance the man of taste; but true health and manliness are known by different signs. It is under the home-spun of the labourer, and not beneath the gilt and tinsel of the courtier, that we should look for strength and vigour of body.

  External ornaments are no less foreign to virtue, which is the strength and activity of the mind. The honest man is an athlete, who loves to wrestle stark naked; he scorns all those vile trappings, which prevent the exertion of his strength, and were, for the most part, invented only to conceal some deformity.

  Before art had moulded our behaviour, and taught our passions to speak an artificial language, our morals were rude but natural; and the different ways in which we behaved proclaimed at the first glance die difference of our dispositions. Human nature was not at bottom better then than now; but men found their security in the ease with which they could see through one another, and this advantage, of which we no longer feel the value, prevented their having many vices.

  In our day, now that more subtle study and a more refined taste have reduced the art of pleasing to a system, there prevails in modern manners a servile and deceptive conformity; so that one would think every mind had been cast in the same mould. Politeness requires this thing; decorum that; ceremony has its forms, and fashion its laws, and these we must always follow, never the promptings of our own nature.

  We no longer dare seem what we really are, but lie under a perpetual restraint; in the meantime the herd of men, which we call society, all act under the same circumstances exactly alike, unless very particular and powerful motives prevent them. Thus we never know with whom we have to deal; and even to know our friends we must wait for some critical and pressing occasion; that is, till it is too late; for it is on those very occasions that such knowledge is of use to us.

  What a train of vices must attend this uncertainty! Sincere friendship, real esteem, and perfect confidence are banished from among men. Jealousy, suspicion, fear, coldness, reserve, hate and fraud lie constantly concealed under that uniform and deceitful veil of politeness; that boasted candour and urbanity, for which we are indebted to the light and leading of this age. We shall no longer take in vain by our oaths the name of our Creator; but we shall insult Him with our blasphemies, and our scrupulous ears will take no offence. We have grown too modest to brag of our own deserts; but we do not scruple to decry those of others. We do not grossly outrage even our enemies, but artfully calumniate them. Our hatred of other nations diminishes, but patriotism dies with it. Ignorance is held in contempt; but a dangerous scepticism has succeeded it. Some vices indeed are condemned and others grown dishonourable; but we have still many that are honoured with the names of virtues, and it is become necessary that we should either have, or at least pretend to have them. Let who will extol the moderation of our modern sages, I see nothing in it but a refinement of intemperance as unworthy of my commendation as their artificial simplicity.

  Such is the purity to which our morals have attained; this is the virtue we have made our own. Let the arts and sciences claim the share they have had in this salutary work. I shall add but one reflection more; suppose an inhabitant of some distant country should endeavour to form an idea of European morals from the state of the sciences, the perfection of the arts, the propriety of our public entertainments, the politeness of our behaviour, the affability of our conversation, our constant professions of benevolence, and from those tumultuous assemblies of people of all ranks, who seem, from morning till night, to have no other care than to oblige one another. Such a stranger, I maintain, would arrive at a total
ly false view of our morality.

  Where there is no effect, it is idle to look for a cause: but here the effect is certain and the depravity actual; our minds have been corrupted in proportion as the arts and sciences have improved. Will it be said, that this is a misfortune peculiar to the present age? No, gentlemen, the evils resulting from our vain curiosity are as old as the world. The daily ebb and flow of the tides are not more regularly influenced by the moon, than the morals of a people by the progress of the arts and sciences. As their light has risen above our horizon, virtue has taken flight, and the same phenomenon has been constantly observed in all times and places.

  Take Egypt, the first school of mankind, that ancient country, famous for its fertility under a brazen sky; the spot from which Sesostris once set out to conquer the world. Egypt became the mother of philosophy and the fine arts; soon she was conquered by Cambyses, and then successively by the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, and finally the Turks.

  Take Greece, once peopled by heroes, who twice vanquished Asia. Letters, as yet in their infancy, had not corrupted the disposition of its inhabitants; but the progress of the sciences soon produced a dissoluteness of manners, and the imposition of the Macedonian yoke: from which time Greece, always learned, always voluptuous and always a slave, has experienced amid all its revolutions no more than a change of masters. Not all the eloquence of Demosthenes could breathe life into a body which luxury and the arts had once enervated.

  It was not till the days of Ennius and Terence that Rome, founded by a shepherd, and made illustrious by I peasants, began to degenerate. But after the appearance of an Ovid, a Catullus, a Martial, and the rest of those numerous obscene authors, whose very names are enough to put modesty to the blush, Rome, once the shrine of virtue, became the theatre of vice, a scorn among the nations, and an object of derision even to barbarians. Thus the capital of the world at length submitted to the yoke of slavery it had imposed on others, and the very day of its fall was the eve of that on which it conferred on one of its citizens the title of Arbiter of Good Taste.