Book IV - Age 15 to Age 20

How swiftly life passes here below! The first quarter of it is gone
before we know how to use it; the last quarter finds us incapable
of enjoying life. At first we do not know how to live; and when
we know how to live it is too late. In the interval between these
two useless extremes we waste three-fourths of our time sleeping,
working, sorrowing, enduring restraint and every kind of suffering.
Life is short, not so much because of the short time it lasts, but
because we are allowed scarcely any time to enjoy it. In vain is
there a long interval between the hour of death and that of birth;
life is still too short, if this interval is not well spent.

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born
into life; born a human being, and born a man. Those who regard woman
as an imperfect man are no doubt mistaken, but they have external
resemblance on their side. Up to the age of puberty children of
both sexes have little to distinguish them to the eye, the same
face and form, the same complexion and voice, everything is the
same; girls are children and boys are children; one name is enough
for creatures so closely resembling one another. Males whose development
is arrested preserve this resemblance all their lives; they are
always big children; and women who never lose this resemblance seem
in many respects never to be more than children.

But, speaking generally, man is not meant to remain a child. He
leaves childhood behind him at the time ordained by nature; and this
critical moment, short enough in itself, has far-reaching consequences.

As the roaring of the waves precedes the tempest, so the murmur
of rising passions announces this tumultuous change; a suppressed
excitement warns us of the approaching danger. A change of temper,
frequent outbreaks of anger, a perpetual stirring of the mind,
make the child almost ungovernable. He becomes deaf to the voice
he used to obey; he is a lion in a fever; he distrusts his keeper
and refuses to be controlled.

With the moral symptoms of a changing temper there are perceptible
changes in appearance. His countenance develops and takes the stamp
of his character; the soft and sparse down upon his cheeks becomes
darker and stiffer. His voice grows hoarse or rather he loses it
altogether. He is neither a child nor a man and cannot speak like
either of them. His eyes, those organs of the soul which till
now were dumb, find speech and meaning; a kindling fire illumines
them, there is still a sacred innocence in their ever brightening
glance, but they have lost their first meaningless expression; he
is already aware that they can say too much; he is beginning to
learn to lower his eyes and blush, he is becoming sensitive, though
he does not know what it is that he feels; he is uneasy without
knowing why. All this may happen gradually and give you time enough;
but if his keenness becomes impatience, his eagerness madness, if
he is angry and sorry all in a moment, if he weeps without cause,
if in the presence of objects which are beginning to be a source
of danger his pulse quickens and his eyes sparkle, if he trembles
when a woman's hand touches his, if he is troubled or timid in her
presence, O Ulysses, wise Ulysses! have a care! The passages you
closed with so much pains are open; the winds are unloosed; keep
your hand upon the helm or all is lost.

This is the second birth I spoke of; then it is that man really
enters upon life; henceforth no human passion is a stranger to him.
Our efforts so far have been child's play, now they are of the
greatest importance. This period when education is usually finished
is just the time to begin; but to explain this new plan properly,
let us take up our story where we left it.

Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to
destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would
be to overcome nature, to reshape God's handiwork. If God bade
man annihilate the passions he has given him, God would bid him be
and not be; He would contradict himself. He has never given such a
foolish commandment, there is nothing like it written on the heart
of man, and what God will have a man do, He does not leave to the
words of another man. He speaks Himself; His words are written in
the secret heart.

Now I consider those who would prevent the birth of the passions
almost as foolish as those who would destroy them, and those who
think this has been my object hitherto are greatly mistaken.

But should we reason rightly, if from the fact that passions
are natural to man, we inferred that all the passions we feel in
ourselves and behold in others are natural? Their source, indeed,
is natural; but they have been swollen by a thousand other streams;
they are a great river which is constantly growing, one in which
we can scarcely find a single drop of the original stream. Our
natural passions are few in number; they are the means to freedom,
they tend to self-preservation. All those which enslave and destroy
us have another source; nature does not bestow them on us; we seize
on them in her despite.

The origin of our passions, the root and spring of all the rest,
the only one which is born with man, which never leaves him as long
as he lives, is self-love; this passion is primitive, instinctive,
it precedes all the rest, which are in a sense only modifications
of it. In this sense, if you like, they are all natural. But most
of these modifications are the result of external influences,
without which they would never occur, and such modifications, far
from being advantageous to us, are harmful. They change the original
purpose and work against its end; then it is that man finds himself
outside nature and at strife with himself.

Self-love is always good, always in accordance with the order of
nature. The preservation of our own life is specially entrusted to
each one of us, and our first care is, and must be, to watch over
our own life; and how can we continually watch over it, if we do
not take the greatest interest in it?

Self-preservation requires, therefore, that we shall love ourselves;
we must love ourselves above everything, and it follows directly
from this that we love what contributes to our preservation. Every
child becomes fond of its nurse; Romulus must have loved the she-wolf
who suckled him. At first this attachment is quite unconscious; the
individual is attracted to that which contributes to his welfare and
repelled by that which is harmful; this is merely blind instinct.
What transforms this instinct into feeling, the liking into love,
the aversion into hatred, is the evident intention of helping
or hurting us. We do not become passionately attached to objects
without feeling, which only follow the direction given them; but
those from which we expect benefit or injury from their internal
disposition, from their will, those we see acting freely for or
against us, inspire us with like feelings to those they exhibit
towards us. Something does us good, we seek after it; but we love
the person who does us good; something harms us and we shrink from
it, but we hate the person who tries to hurt us.

The child's first sentiment is self-love, his second, which is
derived from it, is love of those about him; for in his present
state of weakness he is only aware of people through the help and
attention received from them. At first his affection for his nurse
and his governess is mere habit. He seeks them because he needs
them and because he is happy when they are there; it is rather
perception than kindly feeling. It takes a long time to discover
not merely that they are useful to him, but that they desire to be
useful to him, and then it is that he begins to love them.

So a child is naturally disposed to kindly feeling because he
sees that every one about him is inclined to help him, and from
this experience he gets the habit of a kindly feeling towards his
species; but with the expansion of his relations, his needs, his
dependence, active or passive, the consciousness of his relations
to others is awakened, and leads to the sense of duties and
preferences. Then the child becomes masterful, jealous, deceitful,
and vindictive. If he is not compelled to obedience, when he does
not see the usefulness of what he is told to do, he attributes it
to caprice, to an intention of tormenting him, and he rebels. If
people give in to him, as soon as anything opposes him he regards
it as rebellion, as a determination to resist him; he beats the chair
or table for disobeying him. Self-love, which concerns itself only
with ourselves, is content to satisfy our own needs; but selfishness,
which is always comparing self with others, is never satisfied and
never can be; for this feeling, which prefers ourselves to others,
requires that they should prefer us to themselves, which is impossible.
Thus the tender and gentle passions spring from self-love, while
the hateful and angry passions spring from selfishness. So it is
the fewness of his needs, the narrow limits within which he can
compare himself with others, that makes a man really good; what
makes him really bad is a multiplicity of needs and dependence on
the opinions of others. It is easy to see how we can apply this
principle and guide every passion of children and men towards
good or evil. True, man cannot always live alone, and it will be
hard therefore to remain good; and this difficulty will increase
of necessity as his relations with others are extended. For this
reason, above all, the dangers of social life demand that the
necessary skill and care shall be devoted to guarding the human
heart against the depravity which springs from fresh needs.

Man's proper study is that of his relation to his environment. So
long as he only knows that environment through his physical nature,
he should study himself in relation to things; this is the business
of his childhood; when he begins to be aware of his moral nature,
he should study himself in relation to his fellow-men; this is the
business of his whole life, and we have now reached the time when
that study should be begun.

As soon as a man needs a companion he is no longer an isolated
creature, his heart is no longer alone. All his relations with his
species, all the affections of his heart, come into being along
with this. His first passion soon arouses the rest.

The direction of the instinct is uncertain. One sex is attracted
by the other; that is the impulse of nature. Choice, preferences,
individual likings, are the work of reason, prejudice, and habit;
time and knowledge are required to make us capable of love; we do
not love without reasoning or prefer without comparison. These judgments
are none the less real, although they are formed unconsciously.
True love, whatever you may say, will always be held in honour
by mankind; for although its impulses lead us astray, although it
does not bar the door of the heart to certain detestable qualities,
although it even gives rise to these, yet it always presupposes
certain worthy characteristics, without which we should be incapable
of love. This choice, which is supposed to be contrary to reason,
really springs from reason. We say Love is blind because his eyes
are better than ours, and he perceives relations which we cannot
discern. All women would be alike to a man who had no idea of virtue
or beauty, and the first comer would always be the most charming.
Love does not spring from nature, far from it; it is the curb and
law of her desires; it is love that makes one sex indifferent to
the other, the loved one alone excepted.

We wish to inspire the preference we feel; love must be mutual.
To be loved we must be worthy of love; to be preferred we must be
more worthy than the rest, at least in the eyes of our beloved.
Hence we begin to look around among our fellows; we begin to compare
ourselves with them, there is emulation, rivalry, and jealousy.
A heart full to overflowing loves to make itself known; from the
need of a mistress there soon springs the need of a friend He who
feels how sweet it is to be loved, desires to be loved by everybody;
and there could be no preferences if there were not many that
fail to find satisfaction. With love and friendship there begin
dissensions, enmity, and hatred. I behold deference to other
people's opinions enthroned among all these divers passions, and
foolish mortals, enslaved by her power, base their very existence
merely on what other people think.

Expand these ideas and you will see where we get that form of
selfishness which we call natural selfishness, and how selfishness
ceases to be a simple feeling and becomes pride in great minds, vanity
in little ones, and in both feeds continually at our neighbour's
cost. Passions of this kind, not having any germ in the child's
heart, cannot spring up in it of themselves; it is we who sow the
seeds, and they never take root unless by our fault. Not so with
the young man; they will find an entrance in spite of us. It is
therefore time to change our methods.

Let us begin with some considerations of importance with regard to
the critical stage under discussion. The change from childhood to
puberty is not so clearly determined by nature but that it varies
according to individual temperament and racial conditions. Everybody
knows the differences which have been observed with regard to this
between hot and cold countries, and every one sees that ardent
temperaments mature earlier than others; but we may be mistaken as
to the causes, and we may often attribute to physical causes what
is really due to moral: this is one of the commonest errors in
the philosophy of our times. The teaching of nature comes slowly;
man's lessons are mostly premature. In the former case, the senses
kindle the imagination, in the latter the imagination kindles the
senses; it gives them a precocious activity which cannot fail to
enervate the individual and, in the long run, the race. It is a more
general and more trustworthy fact than that of climatic influences,
that puberty and sexual power is always more precocious among
educated and civilised races, than among the ignorant and barbarous.
[Footnote: "In towns," says M. Buffon, "and among the well-to-do
classes, children accustomed to plentiful and nourishing food sooner
reach this state; in the country and among the poor, children are
more backward, because of their poor and scanty food." I admit the
fact but not the explanation, for in the districts where the food
of the villagers is plentiful and good, as in the Valais and even
in some of the mountain districts of Italy, such as Friuli, the
age of puberty for both sexes is quite as much later than in the
heart of the towns, where, in order to gratify their vanity, people
are often extremely parsimonious in the matter of food, and where
most people, in the words of the proverb, have a velvet coat and
an empty belly. It is astonishing to find in these mountainous
regions big lads as strong as a man with shrill voices and smooth
chins, and tall girls, well developed in other respects, without
any trace of the periodic functions of their sex. This difference
is, in my opinion, solely due to the fact that in the simplicity of
their manners the imagination remains calm and peaceful, and does
not stir the blood till much later, and thus their temperament
is much less precocious.] Children are preternaturally quick to
discern immoral habits under the cloak of decency with which they
are concealed. The prim speech imposed upon them, the lessons
in good behaviour, the veil of mystery you profess to hang before
their eyes, serve but to stimulate their curiosity. It is plain,
from the way you set about it, that they are meant to learn what
you profess to conceal; and of all you teach them this is most
quickly assimilated.

Consult experience and you will find how far this foolish method
hastens the work of nature and ruins the character. This is one of
the chief causes of physical degeneration in our towns. The young
people, prematurely exhausted, remain small, puny, and misshapen,
they grow old instead of growing up, like a vine forced to bear
fruit in spring, which fades and dies before autumn.

To know how far a happy ignorance may prolong the innocence of
children, you must live among rude and simple people. It is a sight
both touching and amusing to see both sexes, left to the protection
of their own hearts, continuing the sports of childhood in the
flower of youth and beauty, showing by their very familiarity the
purity of their pleasures. When at length those delightful young
people marry, they bestow on each other the first fruits of their
person, and are all the dearer therefore. Swarms of strong and healthy
children are the pledges of a union which nothing can change, and
the fruit of the virtue of their early years.

If the age at which a man becomes conscious of his sex is deferred
as much by the effects of education as by the action of nature,
it follows that this age may be hastened or retarded according to
the way in which the child is brought up; and if the body gains
or loses strength in proportion as its development is accelerated
or retarded, it also follows that the more we try to retard it
the stronger and more vigorous will the young man be. I am still
speaking of purely physical consequences; you will soon see that
this is not all.

From these considerations I arrive at the solution of the question
so often discussed--Should we enlighten children at an early period
as to the objects of their curiosity, or is it better to put them
off with decent shams? I think we need do neither. In the first
place, this curiosity will not arise unless we give it a chance.
We must therefore take care not to give it an opportunity. In the
next place, questions one is not obliged to answer do not compel us
to deceive those who ask them; it is better to bid the child hold
his tongue than to tell him a lie. He will not be greatly surprised
at this treatment if you have already accustomed him to it in matters
of no importance. Lastly, if you decide to answer his questions,
let it be with the greatest plainness, without mystery or confusion,
without a smile. It is much less dangerous to satisfy a child's
curiosity than to stimulate it.

Let your answers be always grave, brief, decided, and without trace
of hesitation. I need not add that they should be true. We cannot
teach children the danger of telling lies to men without realising,
on the man's part, the danger of telling lies to children. A single
untruth on the part of the master will destroy the results of his
education.

Complete ignorance with regard to certain matters is perhaps the
best thing for children; but let them learn very early what it is
impossible to conceal from them permanently. Either their curiosity
must never be aroused, or it must be satisfied before the age when
it becomes a source of danger. Your conduct towards your pupil
in this respect depends greatly on his individual circumstances,
the society in which he moves, the position in which he may find
himself, etc. Nothing must be left to chance; and if you are not
sure of keeping him in ignorance of the difference between the
sexes till he is sixteen, take care you teach him before he is ten.

I do not like people to be too fastidious in speaking with children,
nor should they go out of their way to avoid calling a spade a
spade; they are always found out if they do. Good manners in this
respect are always perfectly simple; but an imagination soiled by
vice makes the ear over-sensitive and compels us to be constantly
refining our expressions. Plain words do not matter; it is lascivious
ideas which must be avoided.

Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children.
Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil; and how should
children without this knowledge of evil have the feeling which
results from it? To give them lessons in modesty and good conduct
is to teach them that there are things shameful and wicked, and to
give them a secret wish to know what these things are. Sooner or
later they will find out, and the first spark which touches the
imagination will certainly hasten the awakening of the senses.
Blushes are the sign of guilt; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

Children have not the same desires as men; but they are subject
like them to the same disagreeable needs which offend the senses,
and by this means they may receive the same lessons in propriety.
Follow the mind of nature which has located in the same place
the organs of secret pleasures and those of disgusting needs; she
teaches us the same precautions at different ages, sometimes by means
of one idea and sometimes by another; to the man through modesty,
to the child through cleanliness.

I can only find one satisfactory way of preserving the child's
innocence, to surround him by those who respect and love him.
Without this all our efforts to keep him in ignorance fail sooner
or later; a smile, a wink, a careless gesture tells him all we
sought to hide; it is enough to teach him to perceive that there
is something we want to hide from him. The delicate phrases and
expressions employed by persons of politeness assume a knowledge
which children ought not to possess, and they are quite out of
place with them, but when we truly respect the child's innocence we
easily find in talking to him the simple phrases which befit him.
There is a certain directness of speech which is suitable and
pleasing to innocence; this is the right tone to adopt in order
to turn the child from dangerous curiosity. By speaking simply to
him about everything you do not let him suspect there is anything
left unsaid. By connecting coarse words with the unpleasant ideas
which belong to them, you quench the first spark of imagination;
you do not forbid the child to say these words or to form these
ideas; but without his knowing it you make him unwilling to recall
them. And how much confusion is spared to those who speaking from
the heart always say the right thing, and say it as they themselves
have felt it!

"Where do little children come from?" This is an embarrassing question,
which occurs very naturally to children, one which foolishly or
wisely answered may decide their health and their morals for life.
The quickest way for a mother to escape from it without deceiving
her son is to tell him to hold his tongue. That will serve its turn
if he has always been accustomed to it in matters of no importance,
and if he does not suspect some mystery from this new way of
speaking. But the mother rarely stops there. "It is the married
people's secret," she will say, "little boys should not be so
curious." That is all very well so far as the mother is concerned,
but she may be sure that the little boy, piqued by her scornful
manner, will not rest till he has found out the married people's
secret, which will very soon be the case.

Let me tell you a very different answer which I heard given to
the same question, one which made all the more impression on me,
coming, as it did, from a woman, modest in speech and behaviour,
but one who was able on occasion, for the welfare of her child
and for the cause of virtue, to cast aside the false fear of blame
and the silly jests of the foolish. Not long before the child had
passed a small stone which had torn the passage, but the trouble
was over and forgotten. "Mamma," said the eager child, "where do
little children come from?" "My child," replied his mother without
hesitation, "women pass them with pains that sometimes cost their
life." Let fools laugh and silly people be shocked; but let the
wise inquire if it is possible to find a wiser answer and one which
would better serve its purpose.

In the first place the thought of a need of nature with which
the child is well acquainted turns his thoughts from the idea
of a mysterious process. The accompanying ideas of pain and death
cover it with a veil of sadness which deadens the imagination and
suppresses curiosity; everything leads the mind to the results, not
the causes, of child-birth. This is the information to which this
answer leads. If the repugnance inspired by this answer should
permit the child to inquire further, his thoughts are turned to the
infirmities of human nature, disgusting things, images of pain.
What chance is there for any stimulation of desire in such a
conversation? And yet you see there is no departure from truth, no
need to deceive the scholar in order to teach him.

Your children read; in the course of their reading they meet
with things they would never have known without reading. Are they
students, their imagination is stimulated and quickened in the
silence of the study. Do they move in the world of society, they hear
a strange jargon, they see conduct which makes a great impression
on them; they have been told so continually that they are men that
in everything men do in their presence they at once try to find
how that will suit themselves; the conduct of others must indeed
serve as their pattern when the opinions of others are their law.
Servants, dependent on them, and therefore anxious to please them,
flatter them at the expense of their morals; giggling governesses
say things to the four-year-old child which the most shameless
woman would not dare to say to them at fifteen. They soon forget
what they said, but the child has not forgotten what he heard.
Loose conversation prepares the way for licentious conduct; the
child is debauched by the cunning lacquey, and the secret of the
one guarantees the secret of the other.

The child brought up in accordance with his age is alone. He knows
no attachment but that of habit, he loves his sister like his watch,
and his friend like his dog. He is unconscious of his sex and his
species; men and women are alike unknown; he does not connect their
sayings and doings with himself, he neither sees nor hears, or he
pays no heed to them; he is no more concerned with their talk than
their actions; he has nothing to do with it. This is no artificial
error induced by our method, it is the ignorance of nature. The
time is at hand when that same nature will take care to enlighten
her pupil, and then only does she make him capable of profiting
by the lessons without danger. This is our principle; the details
of its rules are outside my subject; and the means I suggest with
regard to other matters will still serve to illustrate this.

Do you wish to establish law and order among the rising passions,
prolong the period of their development, so that they may have time
to find their proper place as they arise. Then they are controlled
by nature herself, not by man; your task is merely to leave it
in her hands. If your pupil were alone, you would have nothing to
do; but everything about him enflames his imagination. He is swept
along on the torrent of conventional ideas; to rescue him you must
urge him in the opposite direction. Imagination must be curbed
by feeling and reason must silence the voice of conventionality.
Sensibility is the source of all the passions, imagination determines
their course. Every creature who is aware of his relations must
be disturbed by changes in these relations and when he imagines
or fancies he imagines others better adapted to his nature. It is
the errors of the imagination which transmute into vices the passions
of finite beings, of angels even, if indeed they have passions; for
they must needs know the nature of every creature to realise what
relations are best adapted to themselves.

This is the sum of human wisdom with regard to the use of
the passions. First, to be conscious of the true relations of man
both in the species and the individual; second, to control all the
affections in accordance with these relations.

But is man in a position to control his affections according to
such and such relations? No doubt he is, if he is able to fix his
imagination on this or that object, or to form this or that habit.
Moreover, we are not so much concerned with what a man can do for
himself, as with what we can do for our pupil through our choice
of the circumstances in which he shall be placed. To show the means
by which he may be kept in the path of nature is to show plainly
enough how he might stray from that path.

So long as his consciousness is confined to himself there is no
morality in his actions; it is only when it begins to extend beyond
himself that he forms first the sentiments and then the ideas of
good and ill, which make him indeed a man, and an integral part of
his species. To begin with we must therefore confine our observations
to this point.

These observations are difficult to make, for we must reject the
examples before our eyes, and seek out those in which the successive
developments follow the order of nature.

A child sophisticated, polished, and civilised, who is only awaiting
the power to put into practice the precocious instruction he has
received, is never mistaken with regard to the time when this power
is acquired. Far from awaiting it, he accelerates it; he stirs his
blood to a premature ferment; he knows what should be the object
of his desires long before those desires are experienced. It is
not nature which stimulates him; it is he who forces the hand of
nature; she has nothing to teach him when he becomes a man; he was
a man in thought long before he was a man in reality.

The true course of nature is slower and more gradual. Little by
little the blood grows warmer, the faculties expand, the character
is formed. The wise workman who directs the process is careful
to perfect every tool before he puts it to use; the first desires
are preceded by a long period of unrest, they are deceived by a
prolonged ignorance, they know not what they want. The blood ferments
and bubbles; overflowing vitality seeks to extend its sphere. The
eye grows brighter and surveys others, we begin to be interested
in those about us, we begin to feel that we are not meant to live
alone; thus the heart is thrown open to human affection, and becomes
capable of attachment.

The first sentiment of which the well-trained youth is capable is
not love but friendship. The first work of his rising imagination
is to make known to him his fellows; the species affects him before
the sex. Here is another advantage to be gained from prolonged
innocence; you may take advantage of his dawning sensibility to sow
the first seeds of humanity in the heart of the young adolescent.
This advantage is all the greater because this is the only time in
his life when such efforts may be really successful.

I have always observed that young men, corrupted in early youth
and addicted to women and debauchery, are inhuman and cruel; their
passionate temperament makes them impatient, vindictive, and angry;
their imagination fixed on one object only, refuses all others;
mercy and pity are alike unknown to them; they would have sacrificed
father, mother, the whole world, to the least of their pleasures.
A young man, on the other hand, brought up in happy innocence, is
drawn by the first stirrings of nature to the tender and affectionate
passions; his warm heart is touched by the sufferings of his
fellow-creatures; he trembles with delight when he meets his comrade,
his arms can embrace tenderly, his eyes can shed tears of pity; he
learns to be sorry for offending others through his shame at causing
annoyance. If the eager warmth of his blood makes him quick, hasty,
and passionate, a moment later you see all his natural kindness of
heart in the eagerness of his repentance; he weeps, he groans over
the wound he has given; he would atone for the blood he has shed
with his own; his anger dies away, his pride abases itself before
the consciousness of his wrong-doing. Is he the injured party, in
the height of his fury an excuse, a word, disarms him; he forgives
the wrongs of others as whole-heartedly as he repairs his own.
Adolescence is not the age of hatred or vengeance; it is the age of
pity, mercy, and generosity. Yes, I maintain, and I am not afraid
of the testimony of experience, a youth of good birth, one who has
preserved his innocence up to the age of twenty, is at that age
the best, the most generous, the most loving, and the most lovable
of men. You never heard such a thing; I can well believe that
philosophers such as you, brought up among the corruption of the
public schools, are unaware of it.

Man's weakness makes him sociable. Our common sufferings draw our
hearts to our fellow-creatures; we should have no duties to mankind
if we were not men. Every affection is a sign of insufficiency;
if each of us had no need of others, we should hardly think of
associating with them. So our frail happiness has its roots in our
weakness. A really happy man is a hermit; God only enjoys absolute
happiness; but which of us has any idea what that means? If
any imperfect creature were self-sufficing, what would he have to
enjoy? To our thinking he would be wretched and alone. I do not
understand how one who has need of nothing could love anything,
nor do I understand how he who loves nothing can be happy.

Hence it follows that we are drawn towards our fellow-creatures
less by our feeling for their joys than for their sorrows; for in
them we discern more plainly a nature like our own, and a pledge
of their affection for us. If our common needs create a bond
of interest our common sufferings create a bond of affection. The
sight of a happy man arouses in others envy rather than love, we
are ready to accuse him of usurping a right which is not his, of
seeking happiness for himself alone, and our selfishness suffers
an additional pang in the thought that this man has no need of us.
But who does not pity the wretch when he beholds his sufferings?
who would not deliver him from his woes if a wish could do it?
Imagination puts us more readily in the place of the miserable man
than of the happy man; we feel that the one condition touches us
more nearly than the other. Pity is sweet, because, when we put
ourselves in the place of one who suffers, we are aware, nevertheless,
of the pleasure of not suffering like him. Envy is bitter, because
the sight of a happy man, far from putting the envious in his place,
inspires him with regret that he is not there. The one seems to
exempt us from the pains he suffers, the other seems to deprive us
of the good things he enjoys.

Do you desire to stimulate and nourish the first stirrings of
awakening sensibility in the heart of a young man, do you desire
to incline his disposition towards kindly deed and thought, do
not cause the seeds of pride, vanity, and envy to spring up in him
through the misleading picture of the happiness of mankind; do not
show him to begin with the pomp of courts, the pride of palaces,
the delights of pageants; do not take him into society and into
brilliant assemblies; do not show him the outside of society till
you have made him capable of estimating it at its true worth.
To show him the world before he is acquainted with men, is not to
train him, but to corrupt him; not to teach, but to mislead.

By nature men are neither kings, nobles, courtiers, nor millionaires.
All men are born poor and naked, all are liable to the sorrows of
life, its disappointments, its ills, its needs, its suffering of
every kind; and all are condemned at length to die. This is what
it really means to be a man, this is what no mortal can escape.
Begin then with the study of the essentials of humanity, that which
really constitutes mankind.

At sixteen the adolescent knows what it is to suffer, for he himself
has suffered; but he scarcely realises that others suffer too; to
see without feeling is not knowledge, and as I have said again and
again the child who does not picture the feelings of others knows
no ills but his own; but when his imagination is kindled by the
first beginnings of growing sensibility, he begins to perceive
himself in his fellow-creatures, to be touched by their cries, to
suffer in their sufferings. It is at this time that the sorrowful
picture of suffering humanity should stir his heart with the first
touch of pity he has ever known.

If it is not easy to discover this opportunity in your scholars,
whose fault is it? You taught them so soon to play at feeling, you
taught them so early its language, that speaking continually in
the same strain they turn your lessons against yourself, and give
you no chance of discovering when they cease to lie, and begin to
feel what they say. But look at Emile; I have led him up to this
age, and he has neither felt nor pretended to feel. He has never
said, "I love you dearly," till he knew what it was to love; he has
never been taught what expression to assume when he enters the room
of his father, his mother, or his sick tutor; he has not learnt the
art of affecting a sorrow he does not feel. He has never pretended
to weep for the death of any one, for he does not know what it is
to die. There is the same insensibility in his heart as in his
manners. Indifferent, like every child, to every one but himself,
he takes no interest in any one; his only peculiarity is that he
will not pretend to take such an interest; he is less deceitful
than others.

Emile having thought little about creatures of feeling will be a
long time before he knows what is meant by pain and death. Groans
and cries will begin to stir his compassion, he will turn away his
eyes at the sight of blood; the convulsions of a dying animal will
cause him I know not what anguish before he knows the source of
these impulses. If he were still stupid and barbarous he would not
feel them; if he were more learned he would recognise their source;
he has compared ideas too frequently already to be insensible, but
not enough to know what he feels.

So pity is born, the first relative sentiment which touches the
human heart according to the order of nature. To become sensitive
and pitiful the child must know that he has fellow-creatures who
suffer as he has suffered, who feel the pains he has felt, and
others which he can form some idea of, being capable of feeling
them himself. Indeed, how can we let ourselves be stirred by pity
unless we go beyond ourselves, and identify ourselves with the
suffering animal, by leaving, so to speak, our own nature and taking
his. We only suffer so far as we suppose he suffers; the suffering
is not ours but his. So no one becomes sensitive till his imagination
is aroused and begins to carry him outside himself.

What should we do to stimulate and nourish this growing sensibility,
to direct it, and to follow its natural bent? Should we not present
to the young man objects on which the expansive force of his heart
may take effect, objects which dilate it, which extend it to other
creatures, which take him outside himself? should we not carefully
remove everything that narrows, concentrates, and strengthens the
power of the human self? that is to say, in other words, we should
arouse in him kindness, goodness, pity, and beneficence, all the
gentle and attractive passions which are naturally pleasing to man;
those passions prevent the growth of envy, covetousness, hatred,
all the repulsive and cruel passions which make our sensibility
not merely a cipher but a minus quantity, passions which are the
curse of those who feel them.

I think I can sum up the whole of the preceding reflections in two
or three maxims, definite, straightforward, and easy to understand.

FIRST MAXIM.--It is not in human nature to put ourselves in the place
of those who are happier than ourselves, but only in the place of
those who can claim our pity.

If you find exceptions to this rule, they are more apparent than
real. Thus we do not put ourselves in the place of the rich or great
when we become fond of them; even when our affection is real, we
only appropriate to ourselves a part of their welfare. Sometimes
we love the rich man in the midst of misfortunes; but so long as he
prospers he has no real friend, except the man who is not deceived
by appearances, who pities rather than envies him in spite of his
prosperity.

The happiness belonging to certain states of life appeals to us;
take, for instance, the life of a shepherd in the country. The charm
of seeing these good people so happy is not poisoned by envy; we
are genuinely interested in them. Why is this? Because we feel we
can descend into this state of peace and innocence and enjoy the
same happiness; it is an alternative which only calls up pleasant
thoughts, so long as the wish is as good as the deed. It is always
pleasant to examine our stores, to contemplate our own wealth, even
when we do not mean to spend it.

From this we see that to incline a young man to humanity you must
not make him admire the brilliant lot of others; you must show
him life in its sorrowful aspects and arouse his fears. Thus it
becomes clear that he must force his own way to happiness, without
interfering with the happiness of others.

SECOND MAXIM.--We never pity another's woes unless we know we may
suffer in like manner ourselves.

"Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco."--Virgil.

I know nothing go fine, so full of meaning, so touching, so true
as these words.

Why have kings no pity on their people? Because they never expect
to be ordinary men. Why are the rich so hard on the poor? Because
they have no fear of becoming poor. Why do the nobles look down
upon the people? Because a nobleman will never be one of the lower
classes. Why are the Turks generally kinder and more hospitable
than ourselves? Because, under their wholly arbitrary system of
government, the rank and wealth of individuals are always uncertain
and precarious, so that they do not regard poverty and degradation
as conditions with which they have no concern; to-morrow, any one
may himself be in the same position as those on whom he bestows
alms to-day. This thought, which occurs again and again in eastern
romances, lends them a certain tenderness which is not to be found
in our pretentious and harsh morality.

So do not train your pupil to look down from the height of his glory
upon the sufferings of the unfortunate, the labours of the wretched,
and do not hope to teach him to pity them while he considers them
as far removed from himself. Make him thoroughly aware of the fact
that the fate of these unhappy persons may one day be his own, that
his feet are standing on the edge of the abyss, into which he may
be plunged at any moment by a thousand unexpected irresistible
misfortunes. Teach him to put no trust in birth, health, or riches;
show him all the changes of fortune; find him examples--there are
only too many of them--in which men of higher rank than himself
have sunk below the condition of these wretched ones. Whether by
their own fault or another's is for the present no concern of ours;
does he indeed know the meaning of the word fault? Never interfere
with the order in which he acquires knowledge, and teach him only
through the means within his reach; it needs no great learning
to perceive that all the prudence of mankind cannot make certain
whether he will be alive or dead in an hour's time, whether
before nightfall he will not be grinding his teeth in the pangs of
nephritis, whether a month hence he will be rich or poor, whether
in a year's time he may not be rowing an Algerian galley under the
lash of the slave-driver. Above all do not teach him this, like
his catechism, in cold blood; let him see and feel the calamities
which overtake men; surprise and startle his imagination with the
perils which lurk continually about a man's path; let him see the
pitfalls all about him, and when he hears you speak of them, let
him cling more closely to you for fear lest he should fall. "You
will make him timid and cowardly," do you say? We shall see; let
us make him kindly to begin with, that is what matters most.

THIRD MAXIM.--The pity we feel for others is proportionate, not
to the amount of the evil, but to the feelings we attribute to the
sufferers.

We only pity the wretched so far as we think they feel the need of
pity. The bodily effect of our sufferings is less than one would
suppose; it is memory that prolongs the pain, imagination which
projects it into the future, and makes us really to be pitied.
This is, I think, one of the reasons why we are more callous to
the sufferings of animals than of men, although a fellow-feeling
ought to make us identify ourselves equally with either. We scarcely
pity the cart-horse in his shed, for we do not suppose that while
he is eating his hay he is thinking of the blows he has received
and the labours in store for him. Neither do we pity the sheep
grazing in the field, though we know it is about to be slaughtered,
for we believe it knows nothing of the fate in store for it. In
this way we also become callous to the fate of our fellow-men, and
the rich console themselves for the harm done by them to the poor,
by the assumption that the poor are too stupid to feel. I usually
judge of the value any one puts on the welfare of his fellow-creatures
by what he seems to think of them. We naturally think lightly of
the happiness of those we despise. It need not surprise you that
politicians speak so scornfully of the people, and philosophers
profess to think mankind so wicked.

The people are mankind; those who do not belong to the people are
so few in number that they are not worth counting. Man is the same
in every station of life; if that be so, those ranks to which most
men belong deserve most honour. All distinctions of rank fade away
before the eyes of a thoughtful person; he sees the same passions,
the same feelings in the noble and the guttersnipe; there is merely
a slight difference in speech, and more or less artificiality
of tone; and if there is indeed any essential difference between
them, the disadvantage is all on the side of those who are more
sophisticated. The people show themselves as they are, and they are
not attractive; but the fashionable world is compelled to adopt a
disguise; we should be horrified if we saw it as it really is.

There is, so our wiseacres tell us, the same amount of happiness
and sorrow in every station. This saying is as deadly in its effects
as it is incapable of proof; if all are equally happy why should
I trouble myself about any one? Let every one stay where he is;
leave the slave to be ill-treated, the sick man to suffer, and
the wretched to perish; they have nothing to gain by any change in
their condition. You enumerate the sorrows of the rich, and show the
vanity of his empty pleasures; what barefaced sophistry! The rich
man's sufferings do not come from his position, but from himself
alone when he abuses it. He is not to be pitied were he indeed
more miserable than the poor, for his ills are of his own making,
and he could be happy if he chose. But the sufferings of the poor
man come from external things, from the hardships fate has imposed
upon him. No amount of habit can accustom him to the bodily ills
of fatigue, exhaustion, and hunger. Neither head nor heart can serve
to free him from the sufferings of his condition. How is Epictetus
the better for knowing beforehand that his master will break his
leg for him; does he do it any the less? He has to endure not only
the pain itself but the pains of anticipation. If the people were
as wise as we assume them to be stupid, how could they be other
than they are? Observe persons of this class; you will see that,
with a different way of speaking, they have as much intelligence
and more common-sense than yourself. Have respect then for your
species; remember that it consists essentially of the people, that
if all the kings and all the philosophers were removed they would
scarcely be missed, and things would go on none the worse. In a word,
teach your pupil to love all men, even those who fail to appreciate
him; act in such way that he is not a member of any class, but
takes his place in all alike: speak in his hearing of the human
race with tenderness, and even with pity, but never with scorn.
You are a man; do not dishonour mankind.

It is by these ways and others like them--how different from the
beaten paths--that we must reach the heart of the young adolescent
And stimulate in him the first impulses of nature; we must develop
that heart and open its doors to his fellow-creatures, and there
must be as little self-interest as possible mixed up with these
impulses; above all, no vanity, no emulation, no boasting, none of
those sentiments which force us to compare ourselves with others;
for such comparisons are never made without arousing some measure
of hatred against those who dispute our claim to the first place,
were it only in our own estimation. Then we must be either blind
or angry, a bad man or a fool; let us try to avoid this dilemma.
Sooner or later these dangerous passions will appear, so you tell
me, in spite of us. I do not deny it. There is a time and place
for everything; I am only saying that we should not help to arouse
these passions.

This is the spirit of the method to be laid down. In this case examples
and illustrations are useless, for here we find the beginning of
the countless differences of character, and every example I gave
would possibly apply to only one case in a hundred thousand. It is
at this age that the clever teacher begins his real business, as
a student and a philosopher who knows how to probe the heart and
strives to guide it aright. While the young man has not learnt to
pretend, while he does not even know the meaning of pretence, you
see by his look, his manner, his gestures, the impression he has
received from any object presented to him; you read in his countenance
every impulse of his heart; by watching his expression you learn
to protect his impulses and actually to control them.

It has been commonly observed that blood, wounds, cries and groans,
the preparations for painful operations, and everything which directs
the senses towards things connected with suffering, are usually the
first to make an impression on all men. The idea of destruction, a
more complex matter, does not have so great an effect; the thought
of death affects us later and less forcibly, for no one knows from
his own experience what it is to die; you must have seen corpses
to feel the agonies of the dying. But when once this idea is
established in the mind, there is no spectacle more dreadful in our
eyes, whether because of the idea of complete destruction which it
arouses through our senses, or because we know that this moment must
come for each one of us and we feel ourselves all the more keenly
affected by a situation from which we know there is no escape.

These various impressions differ in manner and in degree, according to
the individual character of each one of us and his former habits,
but they are universal and no one is altogether free from them.
There are other impressions less universal and of a later growth,
impressions most suited to sensitive souls, such impressions as we
receive from moral suffering, inward grief, the sufferings of the
mind, depression, and sadness. There are men who can be touched by
nothing but groans and tears; the suppressed sobs of a heart labouring
under sorrow would never win a sigh; the sight of a downcast visage, a
pale and gloomy countenance, eyes which can weep no longer, would
never draw a tear from them. The sufferings of the mind are as
nothing to them; they weigh them, their own mind feels nothing;
expect nothing from such persons but inflexible severity, harshness,
cruelty. They may be just and upright, but not merciful, generous,
or pitiful. They may, I say, be just, if a man can indeed be just
without being merciful.

But do not be in a hurry to judge young people by this standard,
more especially those who have been educated rightly, who have no
idea of the moral sufferings they have never had to endure; for
once again they can only pity the ills they know, and this apparent
insensibility is soon transformed into pity when they begin to feel
that there are in human life a thousand ills of which they know
nothing. As for Emile, if in childhood he was distinguished by
simplicity and good sense, in his youth he will show a warm and
tender heart; for the reality of the feelings depends to a great
extent on the accuracy of the ideas.

But why call him hither? More than one reader will reproach me
no doubt for departing from my first intention and forgetting the
lasting happiness I promised my pupil. The sorrowful, the dying,
such sights of pain and woe, what happiness, what delight is this
for a young heart on the threshold of life? His gloomy tutor, who
proposed to give him such a pleasant education, only introduces him
to life that he may suffer. This is what they will say, but what
care I? I promised to make him happy, not to make him seem happy.
Am I to blame if, deceived as usual by the outward appearances,
you take them for the reality?

Let us take two young men at the close of their early education,
and let them enter the world by opposite doors. The one mounts at
once to Olympus, and moves in the smartest society; he is taken
to court, he is presented in the houses of the great, of the rich,
of the pretty women. I assume that he is everywhere made much of,
and I do not regard too closely the effect of this reception on his
reason; I assume it can stand it. Pleasures fly before him, every
day provides him with fresh amusements; he flings himself into
everything with an eagerness which carries you away. You find him
busy, eager, and curious; his first wonder makes a great impression
on you; you think him happy; but behold the state of his heart;

you think he is rejoicing, I think he suffers.

What does he see when first he opens his eyes? all sorts of so-called
pleasures, hitherto unknown. Most of these pleasures are only for
a moment within his reach, and seem to show themselves only to
inspire regret for their loss. Does he wander through a palace;
you see by his uneasy curiosity that he is asking why his father's
house is not like it. Every question shows you that he is comparing
himself all the time with the owner of this grand place. And all
the mortification arising from this comparison at once revolts and
stimulates his vanity. If he meets a young man better dressed than
himself, I find him secretly complaining of his parents' meanness.
If he is better dressed than another, he suffers because the latter
is his superior in birth or in intellect, and all his gold lace is
put to shame by a plain cloth coat. Does he shine unrivalled in
some assembly, does he stand on tiptoe that they may see him better,
who is there who does not secretly desire to humble the pride and
vanity of the young fop? Everybody is in league against him; the
disquieting glances of a solemn man, the biting phrases of some
satirical person, do not fail to reach him, and if it were only
one man who despised him, the scorn of that one would poison in a
moment the applause of the rest.

Let us grant him everything, let us not grudge him charm and worth;
let him be well-made, witty, and attractive; the women will run
after him; but by pursuing him before he is in love with them,
they will inspire rage rather than love; he will have successes,
but neither rapture nor passion to enjoy them. As his desires are
always anticipated; they never have time to spring up among his
pleasures, so he only feels the tedium of restraint. Even before
he knows it he is disgusted and satiated with the sex formed to
be the delight of his own; if he continues its pursuit it is only
through vanity, and even should he really be devoted to women, he
will not be the only brilliant, the only attractive young man, nor
will he always find his mistresses prodigies of fidelity.

I say nothing of the vexation, the deceit, the crimes, and the
remorse of all kinds, inseparable from such a life. We know that
experience of the world disgusts us with it; I am speaking only of
the drawbacks belonging to youthful illusions.

Hitherto the young man has lived in the bosom of his family and his
friends, and has been the sole object of their care; what a change
to enter all at once into a region where he counts for so little; to
find himself plunged into another sphere, he who has been so long
the centre of his own. What insults, what humiliation, must he endure,
before he loses among strangers the ideas of his own importance
which have been formed and nourished among his own people! As
a child everything gave way to him, everybody flocked to him; as
a young man he must give place to every one, or if he preserves
ever so little of his former airs, what harsh lessons will bring
him to himself! Accustomed to get everything he wants without any
difficulty, his wants are many, and he feels continual privations.
He is tempted by everything that flatters him; what others have,
he must have too; he covets everything, he envies every one, he
would always be master. He is devoured by vanity, his young heart
is enflamed by unbridled passions, jealousy and hatred among the
rest; all these violent passions burst out at once; their sting
rankles in him in the busy world, they return with him at night, he
comes back dissatisfied with himself, with others; he falls asleep
among a thousand foolish schemes disturbed by a thousand fancies,
and his pride shows him even in his dreams those fancied pleasures;
he is tormented by a desire which will never be satisfied. So much
for your pupil; let us turn to mine.

If the first thing to make an impression on him is something
sorrowful his first return to himself is a feeling of pleasure.
When he sees how many ills he has escaped he thinks he is happier
than he fancied. He shares the suffering of his fellow-creatures,
but he shares it of his own free will and finds pleasure in it.
He enjoys at once the pity he feels for their woes and the joy of
being exempt from them; he feels in himself that state of vigour
which projects us beyond ourselves, and bids us carry elsewhere
the superfluous activity of our well-being. To pity another's woes
we must indeed know them, but we need not feel them. When we have
suffered, when we are in fear of suffering, we pity those who
suffer; but when we suffer ourselves, we pity none but ourselves.
But if all of us, being subject ourselves to the ills of life, only
bestow upon others the sensibility we do not actually require for
ourselves, it follows that pity must be a very pleasant feeling,
since it speaks on our behalf; and, on the other hand, a hard-hearted
man is always unhappy, since the state of his heart leaves him no
superfluous sensibility to bestow on the sufferings of others.

We are too apt to judge of happiness by appearances; we suppose it
is to be found in the most unlikely places, we seek for it where
it cannot possibly be; mirth is a very doubtful indication of its
presence. A merry man is often a wretch who is trying to deceive
others and distract himself. The men who are jovial, friendly,
and contented at their club are almost always gloomy grumblers at
home, and their servants have to pay for the amusement they give
among their friends. True contentment is neither merry nor noisy;
we are jealous of so sweet a sentiment, when we enjoy it we think
about it, we delight in it for fear it should escape us. A really
happy man says little and laughs little; he hugs his happiness, so
to speak, to his heart. Noisy games, violent delight, conceal the
disappointment of satiety. But melancholy is the friend of pleasure;
tears and pity attend our sweetest enjoyment, and great joys call
for tears rather than laughter.

If at first the number and variety of our amusements seem to
contribute to our happiness, if at first the even tenor of a quiet
life seems tedious, when we look at it more closely we discover
that the pleasantest habit of mind consists in a moderate enjoyment
which leaves little scope for desire and aversion. The unrest of
passion causes curiosity and fickleness; the emptiness of noisy
pleasures causes weariness. We never weary of our state when we
know none more delightful. Savages suffer less than other men from
curiosity and from tedium; everything is the same to them--themselves,
not their possessions--and they are never weary.

The man of the world almost always wears a mask. He is scarcely
ever himself and is almost a stranger to himself; he is ill at ease
when he is forced into his own company. Not what he is, but what
he seems, is all he cares for.

I cannot help picturing in the countenance of the young man
I have just spoken of an indefinable but unpleasant impertinence,
smoothness, and affectation, which is repulsive to a plain man,
and in the countenance of my own pupil a simple and interesting
expression which indicates the real contentment and the calm
of his mind; an expression which inspires respect and confidence,
and seems only to await the establishment of friendly relations
to bestow his own confidence in return. It is thought that the
expression is merely the development of certain features designed
by nature. For my own part I think that over and above this
development a man's face is shaped, all unconsciously, by the
frequent and habitual influence of certain affections of the heart.
These affections are shown on the face, there is nothing more
certain; and when they become habitual, they must surely leave lasting
traces. This is why I think the expression shows the character, and
that we can sometimes read one another without seeking mysterious
explanations in powers we do not possess.

A child has only two distinct feelings, joy and sorrow; he laughs
or he cries; he knows no middle course, and he is constantly passing
from one extreme to the other. On account of these perpetual changes
there is no lasting impression on the face, and no expression; but
when the child is older and more sensitive, his feelings are keener
or more permanent, and these deeper impressions leave traces more
difficult to erase; and the habitual state of the feelings has an
effect on the features which in course of time becomes ineffaceable.
Still it is not uncommon to meet with men whose expression varies
with their age. I have met with several, and I have always found
that those whom I could observe and follow had also changed their
habitual temper. This one observation thoroughly confirmed would
seem to me decisive, and it is not out of place in a treatise on
education, where it is a matter of importance, that we should learn
to judge the feelings of the heart by external signs.

I do not know whether my young man will be any the less amiable
for not having learnt to copy conventional manners and to feign
sentiments which are not his own; that does not concern me at
present, I only know he will be more affectionate; and I find it
difficult to believe that he, who cares for nobody but himself,
can so far disguise his true feelings as to please as readily as he
who finds fresh happiness for himself in his affection for others.
But with regard to this feeling of happiness, I think I have said
enough already for the guidance of any sensible reader, and to show
that I have not contradicted myself.

I return to my system, and I say, when the critical age approaches,
present to young people spectacles which restrain rather than
excite them; put off their dawning imagination with objects which,
far from inflaming their senses, put a check to their activity.
Remove them from great cities, where the flaunting attire and the
boldness of the women hasten and anticipate the teaching of nature,
where everything presents to their view pleasures of which they
should know nothing till they are of an age to choose for themselves.
Bring them back to their early home, where rural simplicity allows
the passions of their age to develop more slowly; or if their taste
for the arts keeps them in town, guard them by means of this very
taste from a dangerous idleness. Choose carefully their company,
their occupations, and their pleasures; show them nothing but
modest and pathetic pictures which are touching but not seductive,
and nourish their sensibility without stimulating their senses.
Remember also, that the danger of excess is not confined to any one
place, and that immoderate passions always do irreparable damage.
You need not make your pupil a sick-nurse or a Brother of Pity; you
need not distress him by the perpetual sight of pain and suffering;
you need not take him from one hospital to another, from the gallows
to the prison. He must be softened, not hardened, by the sight of
human misery. When we have seen a sight it ceases to impress us,
use is second nature, what is always before our eyes no longer
appeals to the imagination, and it is only through the imagination
that we can feel the sorrows of others; this is why priests and
doctors who are always beholding death and suffering become so
hardened. Let your pupil therefore know something of the lot of
man and the woes of his fellow-creatures, but let him not see them
too often. A single thing, carefully selected and shown at the right
time, will fill him with pity and set him thinking for a month. His
opinion about anything depends not so much on what he sees, but on
how it reacts on himself; and his lasting impression of any object
depends less on the object itself than on the point of view from
which he regards it. Thus by a sparing use of examples, lessons,
and pictures, you may blunt the sting of sense and delay nature
while following her own lead.

As he acquires knowledge, choose what ideas he shall attach to it;
as his passions awake, select scenes calculated to repress them.
A veteran, as distinguished for his character as for his courage,
once told me that in early youth his father, a sensible man but
extremely pious, observed that through his growing sensibility he
was attracted by women, and spared no pains to restrain him; but at
last when, in spite of all his care, his son was about to escape
from his control, he decided to take him to a hospital, and,
without telling him what to expect, he introduced him into a room
where a number of wretched creatures were expiating, under a terrible
treatment, the vices which had brought them into this plight. This
hideous and revolting spectacle sickened the young man. "Miserable
libertine," said his father vehemently, "begone; follow your vile
tastes; you will soon be only too glad to be admitted to this ward,
and a victim to the most shameful sufferings, you will compel your
father to thank God when you are dead."

These few words, together with the striking spectacle he beheld,
made an impression on the young man which could never be effaced.
Compelled by his profession to pass his youth in garrison,
he preferred to face all the jests of his comrades rather than to
share their evil ways. "I have been a man," he said to me, "I have
had my weaknesses, but even to the present day the sight of a harlot
inspires me with horror." Say little to your pupil, but choose
time, place, and people; then rely on concrete examples for your
teaching, and be sure it will take effect.

The way childhood is spent is no great matter; the evil which may
find its way is not irremediable, and the good which may spring
up might come later. But it is not so in those early years when
a youth really begins to live. This time is never long enough for
what there is to be done, and its importance demands unceasing
attention; this is why I lay so much stress on the art of prolonging
it. One of the best rules of good farming is to keep things back as
much as possible. Let your progress also be slow and sure; prevent
the youth from becoming a man all at once. While the body is growing
the spirits destined to give vigour to the blood and strength to
the muscles are in process of formation and elaboration. If you turn
them into another channel, and permit that strength which should
have gone to the perfecting of one person to go to the making of
another, both remain in a state of weakness and the work of nature
is unfinished. The workings of the mind, in their turn, are affected
by this change, and the mind, as sickly as the body, functions
languidly and feebly. Length and strength of limb are not the same
thing as courage or genius, and I grant that strength of mind does
not always accompany strength of body, when the means of connection
between the two are otherwise faulty. But however well planned
they may be, they will always work feebly if for motive power they
depend upon an exhausted, impoverished supply of blood, deprived
of the substance which gives strength and elasticity to all the
springs of the machinery. There is generally more vigour of mind
to be found among men whose early years have been preserved from
precocious vice, than among those whose evil living has begun at the
earliest opportunity; and this is no doubt the reason why nations
whose morals are pure are generally superior in sense and courage
to those whose morals are bad. The latter shine only through I
know not what small and trifling qualities, which they call wit,
sagacity, cunning; but those great and noble features of goodness
and reason, by which a man is distinguished and honoured through
good deeds, virtues, really useful efforts, are scarcely to be
found except among the nations whose morals are pure.

Teachers complain that the energy of this age makes their pupils
unruly; I see that it is so, but are not they themselves to blame?
When once they have let this energy flow through the channel of the
senses, do they not know that they cannot change its course? Will
the long and dreary sermons of the pedant efface from the mind of
his scholar the thoughts of pleasure when once they have found an
entrance; will they banish from his heart the desires by which it
is tormented; will they chill the heat of a passion whose meaning
the scholar realises? Will not the pupil be roused to anger by the
obstacles opposed to the only kind of happiness of which he has
any notion? And in the harsh law imposed upon him before he can
understand it, what will he see but the caprice and hatred of a
man who is trying to torment him? Is it strange that he rebels and
hates you too?

I know very well that if one is easy-going one may be tolerated,
and one may keep up a show of authority. But I fail to see the use
of an authority over the pupil which is only maintained by fomenting
the vices it ought to repress; it is like attempting to soothe a
fiery steed by making it leap over a precipice.

Far from being a hindrance to education, this enthusiasm of
adolescence is its crown and coping-stone; this it is that gives
you a hold on the youth's heart when he is no longer weaker than
you. His first affections are the reins by which you control his
movements; he was free, and now I behold him in your power. So long
as he loved nothing, he was independent of everything but himself
and his own necessities; as soon as he loves, he is dependent on
his affections. Thus the first ties which unite him to his species
are already formed. When you direct his increasing sensibility in
this direction, do not expect that it will at once include all men,
and that the word "mankind" will have any meaning for him. Not so;
this sensibility will at first confine itself to those like himself,
and these will not be strangers to him, but those he knows, those
whom habit has made dear to him or necessary to him, those who are
evidently thinking and feeling as he does, those whom he perceives
to be exposed to the pains he has endured, those who enjoy the
pleasures he has enjoyed; in a word, those who are so like himself
that he is the more disposed to self-love. It is only after long
training, after much consideration as to his own feelings and the
feelings he observes in others, that he will be able to generalise
his individual notions under the abstract idea of humanity, and
add to his individual affections those which may identify him with
the race.

When he becomes capable of affection, he becomes aware of the
affection of others, [Footnote: Affection may be unrequited; not
so friendship. Friendship is a bargain, a contract like any other;
though a bargain more sacred than the rest. The word "friend" has
no other correlation. Any man who is not the friend of his friend
is undoubtedly a rascal; for one can only obtain friendship by
giving it, or pretending to give it.] and he is on the lookout for
the signs of that affection. Do you not see how you will acquire a
fresh hold on him? What bands have you bound about his heart while
he was yet unaware of them! What will he feel, when he beholds
himself and sees what you have done for him; when he can compare
himself with other youths, and other tutors with you! I say, "When
he sees it," but beware lest you tell him of it; if you tell him
he will not perceive it. If you claim his obedience in return for
the care bestowed upon him, he will think you have over-reached him;
he will see that while you profess to have cared for him without
reward, you meant to saddle him with a debt and to bind him to
a bargain which he never made. In vain you will add that what you
demand is for his own good; you demand it, and you demand it in
virtue of what you have done without his consent. When a man down
on his luck accepts the shilling which the sergeant professes to
give him, and finds he has enlisted without knowing what he was
about, you protest against the injustice; is it not still more unjust
to demand from your pupil the price of care which he has not even
accepted!

Ingratitude would be rarer if kindness were less often the investment
of a usurer. We love those who have done us a kindness; what a
natural feeling! Ingratitude is not to be found in the heart of man,
but self-interest is there; those who are ungrateful for benefits
received are fewer than those who do a kindness for their own ends.
If you sell me your gifts, I will haggle over the price; but if
you pretend to give, in order to sell later on at your own price,
you are guilty of fraud; it is the free gift which is beyond price.
The heart is a law to itself; if you try to bind it, you lose it;
give it its liberty, and you make it your own.

When the fisherman baits his line, the fish come round him without
suspicion; but when they are caught on the hook concealed in the
bait, they feel the line tighten and they try to escape. Is the
fisherman a benefactor? Is the fish ungrateful? Do we find a man
forgotten by his benefactor, unmindful of that benefactor? On the
contrary, he delights to speak of him, he cannot think of him without
emotion; if he gets a chance of showing him, by some unexpected
service, that he remembers what he did for him, how delighted
he is to satisfy his gratitude; what a pleasure it is to earn the
gratitude of his benefactor. How delightful to say, "It is my turn
now." This is indeed the teaching of nature; a good deed never
caused ingratitude.

If therefore gratitude is a natural feeling, and you do not destroy
its effects by your blunders, be sure your pupil, as he begins to
understand the value of your care for him, will be grateful for
it, provided you have not put a price upon it; and this will give
you an authority over his heart which nothing can overthrow. But
beware of losing this advantage before it is really yours, beware
of insisting on your own importance. Boast of your services and
they become intolerable; forget them and they will not be forgotten.
Until the time comes to treat him as a man let there be no question
of his duty to you, but his duty to himself. Let him have his
freedom if you would make him docile; hide yourself so that he may
seek you; raise his heart to the noble sentiment of gratitude by
only speaking of his own interest. Until he was able to understand
I would not have him told that what was done was for his good; he
would only have understood such words to mean that you were dependent
on him and he would merely have made you his servant. But now that
he is beginning to feel what love is, he also knows what a tender
affection may bind a man to what he loves; and in the zeal which
keeps you busy on his account, he now sees not the bonds of a slave,
but the affection of a friend. Now there is nothing which carries
so much weight with the human heart as the voice of friendship
recognised as such, for we know that it never speaks but for our
good. We may think our friend is mistaken, but we never believe
he is deceiving us. We may reject his advice now and then, but we
never scorn it.

We have reached the moral order at last; we have just taken the
second step towards manhood. If this were the place for it, I would
try to show how the first impulses of the heart give rise to the
first stirrings of conscience, and how from the feelings of love
and hatred spring the first notions of good and evil. I would show
that justice and kindness are no mere abstract terms, no mere moral
conceptions framed by the understanding, but true affections of the
heart enlightened by reason, the natural outcome of our primitive
affections; that by reason alone, unaided by conscience, we cannot
establish any natural law, and that all natural right is a vain
dream if it does not rest upon some instinctive need of the human
heart. [Footnote: The precept "Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you" has no true foundation but that of conscience
and feeling; for what valid reason is there why I, being myself,
should do what I would do if I were some one else, especially when
I am morally certain I never shall find myself in exactly the same
case; and who will answer for it that if I faithfully follow out
this maxim, I shall get others to follow it with regard to me? The
wicked takes advantage both of the uprightness of the just and of
his own injustice; he will gladly have everybody just but himself.
This bargain, whatever you may say, is not greatly to the advantage
of the just. But if the enthusiasm of an overflowing heart identifies
me with my fellow-creature, if I feel, so to speak, that I will not
let him suffer lest I should suffer too, I care for him because I
care for myself, and the reason of the precept is found in nature
herself, which inspires me with the desire for my own welfare
wherever I may be. From this I conclude that it is false to say that
the precepts of natural law are based on reason only; they have a
firmer and more solid foundation. The love of others springing from
self-love, is the source of human justice. The whole of morality is
summed up in the gospel in this summary of the law.] But I do not
think it is my business at present to prepare treatises on metaphysics
and morals, nor courses of study of any kind whatsoever; it is
enough if I indicate the order and development of our feelings and
our knowledge in relation to our growth. Others will perhaps work
out what I have here merely indicated.

Hitherto my Emile has thought only of himself, so his first glance
at his equals leads him to compare himself with them; and the first
feeling excited by this comparison is the desire to be first. It
is here that self-love is transformed into selfishness, and this is
the starting point of all the passions which spring from selfishness.
But to determine whether the passions by which his life will be
governed shall be humane and gentle or harsh and cruel, whether
they shall be the passions of benevolence and pity or those of envy
and covetousness, we must know what he believes his place among men
to be, and what sort of obstacles he expects to have to overcome
in order to attain to the position he seeks.

To guide him in this inquiry, after we have shown him men by means
of the accidents common to the species, we must now show him them
by means of their differences. This is the time for estimating
inequality natural and civil, and for the scheme of the whole social
order.

Society must be studied in the individual and the individual in
society; those who desire to treat politics and morals apart from
one another will never understand either. By confining ourselves
at first to the primitive relations, we see how men should be
influenced by them and what passions should spring from them; we
see that it is in proportion to the development of these passions
that a man's relations with others expand or contract. It is not so
much strength of arm as moderation of spirit which makes men free
and independent. The man whose wants are few is dependent on but
few people, but those who constantly confound our vain desires
with our bodily needs, those who have made these needs the basis
of human society, are continually mistaking effects for causes,
and they have only confused themselves by their own reasoning.

Since it is impossible in the state of nature that the difference
between man and man should be great enough to make one dependent
on another, there is in fact in this state of nature an actual and
indestructible equality. In the civil state there is a vain and
chimerical equality of right; the means intended for its maintenance,
themselves serve to destroy it; and the power of the community,
added to the power of the strongest for the oppression of the
weak, disturbs the sort of equilibrium which nature has established
between them. [Footnote: The universal spirit of the laws of every
country is always to take the part of the strong against the weak,
and the part of him who has against him who has not; this defect
is inevitable, and there is no exception to it.] From this first
contradiction spring all the other contradictions between the real
and the apparent, which are to be found in the civil order. The many
will always be sacrificed to the few, the common weal to private
interest; those specious words--justice and subordination--will
always serve as the tools of violence and the weapons of injustice;
hence it follows that the higher classes which claim to be useful
to the rest are really only seeking their own welfare at the expense
of others; from this we may judge how much consideration is due to
them according to right and justice. It remains to be seen if the
rank to which they have attained is more favourable to their own
happiness to know what opinion each one of us should form with regard
to his own lot. This is the study with which we are now concerned;
but to do it thoroughly we must begin with a knowledge of the human
heart.

If it were only a question of showing young people man in his mask,
there would be no need to point him out, and he would always be
before their eyes; but since the mask is not the man, and since
they must not be led away by its specious appearance, when you paint
men for your scholar, paint them as they are, not that he may hate
them, but that he may pity them and have no wish to be like them.
In my opinion that is the most reasonable view a man can hold with
regard to his fellow-men.

With this object in view we must take the opposite way from that
hitherto followed, and instruct the youth rather through the experience
of others than through his own. If men deceive him he will hate
them; but, if, while they treat him with respect, he sees them
deceiving each other, he will pity them. "The spectacle of the
world," said Pythagoras, "is like the Olympic games; some are buying
and selling and think only of their gains; others take an active
part and strive for glory; others, and these not the worst, are
content to be lookers-on."

I would have you so choose the company of a youth that he should
think well of those among whom he lives, and I would have you so
teach him to know the world that he should think ill of all that
takes place in it. Let him know that man is by nature good, let
him feel it, let him judge his neighbour by himself; but let him
see how men are depraved and perverted by society; let him find the
source of all their vices in their preconceived opinions; let him
be disposed to respect the individual, but to despise the multitude;
let him see that all men wear almost the same mask, but let him
also know that some faces are fairer than the mask that conceals
them.

It must be admitted that this method has its drawbacks, and it is
not easy to carry it out; for if he becomes too soon engrossed in
watching other people, if you train him to mark too closely the
actions of others, you will make him spiteful and satirical, quick
and decided in his judgments of others; he will find a hateful
pleasure in seeking bad motives, and will fail to see the good even
in that which is really good. He will, at least, get used to the
sight of vice, he will behold the wicked without horror, just as we
get used to seeing the wretched without pity. Soon the perversity
of mankind will be not so much a warning as an excuse; he will say,
"Man is made so," and he will have no wish to be different from
the rest.

But if you wish to teach him theoretically to make him acquainted,
not only with the heart of man, but also with the application of
the external causes which turn our inclinations into vices; when
you thus transport him all at once from the objects of sense to the
objects of reason, you employ a system of metaphysics which he is
not in a position to understand; you fall back into the error, so
carefully avoided hitherto, of giving him lessons which are like
lessons, of substituting in his mind the experience and the authority
of the master for his own experience and the development of his
own reason.

To remove these two obstacles at once, and to bring the human heart
within his reach without risk of spoiling his own, I would show
him men from afar, in other times or in other places, so that he
may behold the scene but cannot take part in it. This is the time
for history; with its help he will read the hearts of men without
any lessons in philosophy; with its help he will view them as a
mere spectator, dispassionate and without prejudice; he will view
them as their judge, not as their accomplice or their accuser.

To know men you must behold their actions. In society we hear them
talk; they show their words and hide their deeds; but in history
the veil is drawn aside, and they are judged by their deeds. Their
sayings even help us to understand them; for comparing what they
say and what they do, we see not only what they are but what they
would appear; the more they disguise themselves the more thoroughly
they stand revealed.

Unluckily this study has its dangers, its drawbacks of several
kinds. It is difficult to adopt a point of view which will enable
one to judge one's fellow-creatures fairly. It is one of the chief
defects of history to paint men's evil deeds rather than their
good ones; it is revolutions and catastrophes that make history
interesting; so long as a nation grows and prospers quietly in
the tranquillity of a peaceful government, history says nothing;
she only begins to speak of nations when, no longer able to be
self-sufficing, they interfere with their neighbours' business, or
allow their neighbours to interfere with their own; history only
makes them famous when they are on the downward path; all our
histories begin where they ought to end. We have very accurate
accounts of declining nations; what we lack is the history of those
nations which are multiplying; they are so happy and so good that
history has nothing to tell us of them; and we see indeed in our
own times that the most successful governments are least talked
of. We only hear what is bad; the good is scarcely mentioned. Only
the wicked become famous, the good are forgotten or laughed to
scorn, and thus history, like philosophy, is for ever slandering
mankind.

Moreover, it is inevitable that the facts described in history
should not give an exact picture of what really happened; they are
transformed in the brain of the historian, they are moulded by his
interests and coloured by his prejudices. Who can place the reader
precisely in a position to see the event as it really happened?
Ignorance or partiality disguises everything. What a different
impression may be given merely by expanding or contracting the
circumstances of the case without altering a single historical
incident. The same object may be seen from several points of view,
and it will hardly seem the same thing, yet there has been no
change except in the eye that beholds it. Do you indeed do honour
to truth when what you tell me is a genuine fact, but you make it
appear something quite different? A tree more or less, a rock to
the right or to the left, a cloud of dust raised by the wind, how
often have these decided the result of a battle without any one
knowing it? Does that prevent history from telling you the cause
of defeat or victory with as much assurance as if she had been
on the spot? But what are the facts to me, while I am ignorant of
their causes, and what lessons can I draw from an event, whose true
cause is unknown to me? The historian indeed gives me a reason, but
he invents it; and criticism itself, of which we hear so much, is
only the art of guessing, the art of choosing from among several
lies, the lie that is most like truth.

Have you ever read Cleopatra or Cassandra or any books of the kind?
The author selects some well-known event, he then adapts it to his
purpose, adorns it with details of his own invention, with people
who never existed, with imaginary portraits; thus he piles fiction
on fiction to lend a charm to his story. I see little difference
between such romances and your histories, unless it is that the
novelist draws more on his own imagination, while the historian
slavishly copies what another has imagined; I will also admit, if
you please, that the novelist has some moral purpose good or bad,
about which the historian scarcely concerns himself.

You will tell me that accuracy in history is of less interest than
a true picture of men and manners; provided the human heart is
truly portrayed, it matters little that events should be accurately
recorded; for after all you say, what does it matter to us what
happened two thousand years ago? You are right if the portraits are
indeed truly given according to nature; but if the model is to be
found for the most part in the historian's imagination, are you not
falling into the very error you intended to avoid, and surrendering
to the authority of the historian what you would not yield to
the authority of the teacher? If my pupil is merely to see fancy
pictures, I would rather draw them myself; they will, at least, be
better suited to him.

The worst historians for a youth are those who give their opinions.
Facts! Facts! and let him decide for himself; this is how he will
learn to know mankind. If he is always directed by the opinion of
the author, he is only seeing through the eyes of another person,
and when those ayes are no longer at his disposal he can see nothing.

I leave modern history on one side, not only because it has no
character and all our people are alike, but because our historians,
wholly taken up with effect, think of nothing but highly coloured
portraits, which often represent nothing. [Footnote: Take, for
instance, Guicciardini, Streda, Solis, Machiavelli, and sometimes
even De Thou himself. Vertot is almost the only one who knows
how to describe without giving fancy portraits.] The old historians
generally give fewer portraits and bring more intelligence
and common-sense to their judgments; but even among them there is
plenty of scope for choice, and you must not begin with the wisest
but with the simplest. I would not put Polybius or Sallust into
the hands of a youth; Tacitus is the author of the old, young men
cannot understand him; you must learn to see in human actions the
simplest features of the heart of man before you try to sound its
depths. You must be able to read facts clearly before you begin
to study maxims. Philosophy in the form of maxims is only fit for
the experienced. Youth should never deal with the general, all
its teaching should deal with individual instances.

To my mind Thucydides is the true model of historians. He relates
facts without giving his opinion; but he omits no circumstance
adapted to make us judge for ourselves. He puts everything that he
relates before his reader; far from interposing between the facts
and the readers, he conceals himself; we seem not to read but to
see. Unfortunately he speaks of nothing but war, and in his stories
we only see the least instructive part of the world, that is to
say the battles. The virtues and defects of the Retreat of the Ten
Thousand and the Commentaries of Caesar are almost the same. The
kindly Herodotus, without portraits, without maxims, yet flowing,
simple, full of details calculated to delight and interest in the
highest degree, would be perhaps the best historian if these very
details did not often degenerate into childish folly, better adapted
to spoil the taste of youth than to form it; we need discretion
before we can read him. I say nothing of Livy, his turn will come;
but he is a statesman, a rhetorician, he is everything which is
unsuitable for a youth.

History in general is lacking because it only takes note of striking
and clearly marked facts which may be fixed by names, places,
and dates; but the slow evolution of these facts, which cannot be
definitely noted in this way, still remains unknown. We often find
in some battle, lost or won, the ostensible cause of a revolution
which was inevitable before this battle took place. War only makes
manifest events already determined by moral causes, which few
historians can perceive.

The philosophic spirit has turned the thoughts of many of the
historians of our times in this direction; but I doubt whether
truth has profited by their labours. The rage for systems has got
possession of all alike, no one seeks to see things as they are,
but only as they agree with his system.

Add to all these considerations the fact that history shows us
actions rather than men, because she only seizes men at certain
chosen times in full dress; she only portrays the statesman when
he is prepared to be seen; she does not follow him to his home, to
his study, among his family and his friends; she only shows him in
state; it is his clothes rather than himself that she describes.

I would prefer to begin the study of the human heart with reading
the lives of individuals; for then the man hides himself in vain,
the historian follows him everywhere; he never gives him a moment's
grace nor any corner where he can escape the piercing eye of the
spectator; and when he thinks he is concealing himself, then it is
that the writer shows him up most plainly.

"Those who write lives," says Montaigne, "in so far as they delight
more in ideas than in events, more in that which comes from within
than in that which comes from without, these are the writers I
prefer; for this reason Plutarch is in every way the man for me."

It is true that the genius of men in groups or nations is very
different from the character of the individual man, and that we
have a very imperfect knowledge of the human heart if we do not
also examine it in crowds; but it is none the less true that to
judge of men we must study the individual man, and that he who had
a perfect knowledge of the inclinations of each individual might
foresee all their combined effects in the body of the nation.

We must go back again to the ancients, for the reasons already
stated, and also because all the details common and familiar, but
true and characteristic, are banished by modern stylists, so that
men are as much tricked out by our modern authors in their private
life as in public. Propriety, no less strict in literature than
in life, no longer permits us to say anything in public which we
might not do in public; and as we may only show the man dressed up
for his part, we never see a man in our books any more than we do
on the stage. The lives of kings may be written a hundred times,
but to no purpose; we shall never have another Suetonius.

The excellence of Plutarch consists in these very details which
we are no longer permitted to describe. With inimitable grace he
paints the great man in little things; and he is so happy in the
choice of his instances that a word, a smile, a gesture, will often
suffice to indicate the nature of his hero. With a jest Hannibal
cheers his frightened soldiers, and leads them laughing to the
battle which will lay Italy at his feet; Agesilaus riding on a
stick makes me love the conqueror of the great king; Caesar passing
through a poor village and chatting with his friends unconsciously
betrays the traitor who professed that he only wished to be Pompey's
equal. Alexander swallows a draught without a word--it is the
finest moment in his life; Aristides writes his own name on the
shell and so justifies his title; Philopoemen, his mantle laid aside,
chops firewood in the kitchen of his host. This is the true art of
portraiture. Our disposition does not show itself in our features,
nor our character in our great deeds; it is trifles that show what
we really are. What is done in public is either too commonplace
or too artificial, and our modern authors are almost too grand to
tell us anything else.

M. de Turenne was undoubtedly one of the greatest men of the last
century. They have had the courage to make his life interesting by
the little details which make us know and love him; but how many
details have they felt obliged to omit which might have made us
know and love him better still? I will only quote one which I have
on good authority, one which Plutarch would never have omitted, and
one which Ramsai would never have inserted had he been acquainted
with it.

On a hot summer's day Viscount Turenne in a little white vest and
nightcap was standing at the window of his antechamber; one of
his men came up and, misled by the dress, took him for one of the
kitchen lads whom he knew. He crept up behind him and smacked him
with no light hand. The man he struck turned round hastily. The valet
saw it was his master and trembled at the sight of his face. He
fell on his knees in desperation. "Sir, I thought it was George."
"Well, even if it was George," exclaimed Turenne rubbing the injured
part, "you need not have struck so hard." You do not dare to say
this, you miserable writers! Remain for ever without humanity and
without feeling; steel your hard hearts in your vile propriety, make
yourselves contemptible through your high-mightiness. But as for
you, dear youth, when you read this anecdote, when you are touched
by all the kindliness displayed even on the impulse of the moment,
read also the littleness of this great man when it was a question
of his name and birth. Remember it was this very Turenne who always
professed to yield precedence to his nephew, so that all men might
see that this child was the head of a royal house. Look on this
picture and on that, love nature, despise popular prejudice, and
know the man as he was.

There are few people able to realise what an effect such reading,
carefully directed, will have upon the unspoilt mind of a youth.
Weighed down by books from our earliest childhood, accustomed to
read without thinking, what we read strikes us even less, because
we already bear in ourselves the passions and prejudices with which
history and the lives of men are filled; all that they do strikes
us as only natural, for we ourselves are unnatural and we judge
others by ourselves. But imagine my Emile, who has been carefully
guarded for eighteen years with the sole object of preserving a
right judgment and a healthy heart, imagine him when the curtain
goes up casting his eyes for the first time upon the world's stage;
or rather picture him behind the scenes watching the actors don
their costumes, and counting the cords and pulleys which deceive
with their feigned shows the eyes of the spectators. His first
surprise will soon give place to feelings of shame and scorn of his
fellow-man; he will be indignant at the sight of the whole human
race deceiving itself and stooping to this childish folly; he will
grieve to see his brothers tearing each other limb from limb for
a mere dream, and transforming themselves into wild beasts because
they could not be content to be men.

Given the natural disposition of the pupil, there is no doubt that
if the master exercises any sort of prudence or discretion in
his choice of reading, however little he may put him in the way
of reflecting on the subject-matter, this exercise will serve as
a course in practical philosophy, a philosophy better understood
and more thoroughly mastered than all the empty speculations with
which the brains of lads are muddled in our schools. After following
the romantic schemes of Pyrrhus, Cineas asks him what real good he
would gain by the conquest of the world, which he can never enjoy
without such great sufferings; this only arouses in us a passing
interest as a smart saying; but Emile will think it a very wise
thought, one which had already occurred to himself, and one which
he will never forget, because there is no hostile prejudice in
his mind to prevent it sinking in. When he reads more of the life
of this madman, he will find that all his great plans resulted in
his death at the hands of a woman, and instead of admiring this
pinchbeck heroism, what will he see in the exploits of this great
captain and the schemes of this great statesman but so many steps
towards that unlucky tile which was to bring life and schemes alike
to a shameful death?

All conquerors have not been killed; all usurpers have not failed
in their plans; to minds imbued with vulgar prejudices many of them
will seem happy, but he who looks below the surface and reckons
men's happiness by the condition of their hearts will perceive
their wretchedness even in the midst of their successes; he will
see them panting after advancement and never attaining their prize,
he will find them like those inexperienced travellers among the
Alps, who think that every height they see is the last, who reach
its summit only to find to their disappointment there are loftier
peaks beyond.

Augustus, when he had subdued his fellow-citizens and destroyed
his rivals, reigned for forty years over the greatest empire that
ever existed; but all this vast power could not hinder him from
beating his head against the walls, and filling his palace with his
groans as he cried to Varus to restore his slaughtered legions. If
he had conquered all his foes what good would his empty triumphs
have done him, when troubles of every kind beset his path, when
his life was threatened by his dearest friends, and when he had to
mourn the disgrace or death of all near and dear to him? The wretched
man desired to rule the world and failed to rule his own household.
What was the result of this neglect? He beheld his nephew, his
adopted child, his son-in-law, perish in the flower of youth, his
grandson reduced to eat the stuffing of his mattress to prolong
his wretched existence for a few hours; his daughter and his
granddaughter, after they had covered him with infamy, died, the
one of hunger and want on a desert island, the other in prison by
the hand of a common archer. He himself, the last survivor of his
unhappy house, found himself compelled by his own wife to acknowledge
a monster as his heir. Such was the fate of the master of the world,
so famous for his glory and his good fortune. I cannot believe that
any one of those who admire his glory and fortune would accept them
at the same price.

I have taken ambition as my example, but the play of every human
passion offers similar lessons to any one who will study history
to make himself wise and good at the expense of those who went
before. The time is drawing near when the teaching of the life
of Anthony will appeal more forcibly to the youth than the life
of Augustus. Emile will scarcely know where he is among the many
strange sights in his new studies; but he will know beforehand how
to avoid the illusion of passions before they arise, and seeing how
in all ages they have blinded men's eyes, he will be forewarned of
the way in which they may one day blind his own should he abandon
himself to them. [Footnote: It is always prejudice which stirs
up passion in our heart. He who only sees what really exists and
only values what he knows, rarely becomes angry. The errors of
our judgment produce the warmth of our desires.] These lessons, I
know, are unsuited to him, perhaps at need they may prove scanty
and ill-timed; but remember they are not the lessons I wished to
draw from this study. To begin with, I had quite another end in
view; and indeed, if this purpose is unfulfilled, the teacher will
be to blame.

Remember that, as soon as selfishness has developed, the self
in its relations to others is always with us, and the youth never
observes others without coming back to himself and comparing himself
with them. From the way young men are taught to study history I
see that they are transformed, so to speak, into the people they
behold, that you strive to make a Cicero, a Trajan, or an Alexander
of them, to discourage them when they are themselves again, to
make every one regret that he is merely himself. There are certain
advantages in this plan which I do not deny; but, so far as Emile
is concerned, should it happen at any time when he is making these
comparisons that he wishes to be any one but himself--were it
Socrates or Cato--I have failed entirely; he who begins to regard
himself as a stranger will soon forget himself altogether.

It is not philosophers who know most about men; they only view them
through the preconceived ideas of philosophy, and I know no one so
prejudiced as philosophers. A savage would judge us more sanely.
The philosopher is aware of his own vices, he is indignant at ours,
and he says to himself, "We are all bad alike;" the savage beholds
us unmoved and says, "You are mad." He is right, for no one does
evil for evil's sake. My pupil is that savage, with this difference:
Emile has thought more, he has compared ideas, seen our errors at
close quarters, he is more on his guard against himself, and only
judges of what he knows.

It is our own passions that excite us against the passions of
others; it is our self-interest which makes us hate the wicked;
if they did us no harm we should pity rather than hate them. We
should readily forgive their vices if we could perceive how their
own heart punishes those vices. We are aware of the offence, but we
do not see the punishment; the advantages are plain, the penalty is
hidden. The man who thinks he is enjoying the fruits of his vices
is no less tormented by them than if they had not been successful; the
object is different, the anxiety is the same; in vain he displays
his good fortune and hides his heart; in spite of himself his
conduct betrays him; but to discern this, our own heart must be
utterly unlike his.

We are led astray by those passions which we share; we are disgusted
by those that militate against our own interests; and with a want
of logic due to these very passions, we blame in others what we fain
would imitate. Aversion and self-deception are inevitable when we
are forced to endure at another's hands what we ourselves would do
in his place.

What then is required for the proper study of men? A great wish
to know men, great impartiality of judgment, a heart sufficiently
sensitive to understand every human passion, and calm enough to
be free from passion. If there is any time in our life when this
study is likely to be appreciated, it is this that I have chosen
for Emile; before this time men would have been strangers to him;
later on he would have been like them. Convention, the effects of
which he already perceives, has not yet made him its slave, the
passions, whose consequences he realises, have not yet stirred his
heart. He is a man; he takes an interest in his brethren; he is
a just man and he judges his peers. Now it is certain that if he
judges them rightly he will not want to change places with any one
of them, for the goal of all their anxious efforts is the result
of prejudices which he does not share, and that goal seems to him
a mere dream. For his own part, he has all he wants within his
reach. How should he be dependent on any one when he is self-sufficing
and free from prejudice? Strong arms, good health, [Footnote: I
think I may fairly reckon health and strength among the advantages
he has obtained by his education, or rather among the gifts of
nature which his education has preserved for him.] moderation, few
needs, together with the means to satisfy those needs, are his.
He has been brought up in complete liberty and servitude is the
greatest ill he understands. He pities these miserable kings, the
slaves of all who obey them; he pities these false prophets fettered
by their empty fame; he pities these rich fools, martyrs to their
own pomp; he pities these ostentatious voluptuaries, who spend their
life in deadly dullness that they may seem to enjoy its pleasures.
He would pity the very foe who harmed him, for he would discern his
wretchedness beneath his cloak of spite. He would say to himself,
"This man has yielded to his desire to hurt me, and this need of
his places him at my mercy."

One step more and our goal is attained. Selfishness is a dangerous
tool though a useful one; it often wounds the hand that uses it,
and it rarely does good unmixed with evil. When Emile considers his
place among men, when he finds himself so fortunately situated, he
will be tempted to give credit to his own reason for the work of
yours, and to attribute to his own deserts what is really the result
of his good fortune. He will say to himself, "I am wise and other
men are fools." He will pity and despise them and will congratulate
himself all the more heartily; and as he knows he is happier than
they, he will think his deserts are greater. This is the fault we
have most to fear, for it is the most difficult to eradicate. If
he remained in this state of mind, he would have profited little
by all our care; and if I had to choose, I hardly know whether I
would not rather choose the illusions of prejudice than those of
pride.

Great men are under no illusion with respect to their superiority;
they see it and know it, but they are none the less modest. The
more they have, the better they know what they lack. They are less
vain of their superiority over us than ashamed by the consciousness
of their weakness, and among the good things they really possess,
they are too wise to pride themselves on a gift which is none of
their getting. The good man may be proud of his virtue for it is
his own, but what cause for pride has the man of intellect? What
has Racine done that he is not Pradon, and Boileau that he is not
Cotin?

The circumstances with which we are concerned are quite different.
Let us keep to the common level. I assumed that my pupil had neither
surpassing genius nor a defective understanding. I chose him of an
ordinary mind to show what education could do for man. Exceptions
defy all rules. If, therefore, as a result of my care, Emile
prefers his way of living, seeing, and feeling to that of others,
he is right; but if he thinks because of this that he is nobler
and better born than they, he is wrong; he is deceiving himself;
he must be undeceived, or rather let us prevent the mistake, lest
it be too late to correct it.

Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of any folly but vanity;
there is no cure for this but experience, if indeed there is any
cure for it at all; when it first appears we can at least prevent
its further growth. But do not on this account waste your breath
on empty arguments to prove to the youth that he is like other men
and subject to the same weaknesses. Make him feel it or he will
never know it. This is another instance of an exception to my own
rules; I must voluntarily expose my pupil to every accident which
may convince him that he is no wiser than we. The adventure with
the conjurer will be repeated again and again in different ways; I
shall let flatterers take advantage of him; if rash comrades draw
him into some perilous adventure, I will let him run the risk;
if he falls into the hands of sharpers at the card-table, I will
abandon him to them as their dupe.[Footnote: Moreover our pupil
will be little tempted by this snare; he has so many amusements
about him, he has never been bored in his life, and he scarcely knows
the use of money. As children have been led by these two motives,
self-interest and vanity, rogues and courtesans use the same means
to get hold of them later. When you see their greediness encouraged
by prizes and rewards, when you find their public performances
at ten years old applauded at school or college, you see too how
at twenty they will be induced to leave their purse in a gambling
hell and their health in a worse place. You may safely wager that
the sharpest boy in the class will become the greatest gambler and
debauchee. Now the means which have not been employed in childhood
have not the same effect in youth. But we must bear in mind
my constant plan and take the thing at its worst. First I try to
prevent the vice; then I assume its existence in order to correct
it.] I will let them flatter him, pluck him, and rob him; and when
having sucked him dry they turn and mock him, I will even thank
them to his face for the lessons they have been good enough to give
him. The only snares from which I will guard him with my utmost
care are the wiles of wanton women. The only precaution I shall take
will be to share all the dangers I let him run, and all the insults
I let him receive. I will bear everything in silence, without a
murmur or reproach, without a word to him, and be sure that if this
wise conduct is faithfully adhered to, what he sees me endure on
his account will make more impression on his heart than what he
himself suffers.

I cannot refrain at this point from drawing attention to the sham
dignity of tutors, who foolishly pretend to be wise, who discourage
their pupils by always professing to treat them as children, and
by emphasising the difference between themselves and their scholars
in everything they do. Far from damping their youthful spirits in
this fashion, spare no effort to stimulate their courage; that they
may become your equals, treat them as such already, and if they
cannot rise to your level, do not scruple to come down to theirs
without being ashamed of it. Remember that your honour is no longer
in your own keeping but in your pupil's. Share his faults that
you may correct them, bear his disgrace that you may wipe it out;
follow the example of that brave Roman who, unable to rally his
fleeing soldiers, placed himself at their head, exclaiming, "They
do not flee, they follow their captain!" Did this dishonour him?
Not so; by sacrificing his glory he increased it. The power of
duty, the beauty of virtue, compel our respect in spite of all our
foolish prejudices. If I received a blow in the course of my duties
to Emile, far from avenging it I would boast of it; and I doubt
whether there is in the whole world a man so vile as to respect me
any the less on this account.

I do not intend the pupil to suppose his master to be as ignorant,
or as liable to be led astray, as he is himself. This idea is
all very well for a child who can neither see nor compare things,
who thinks everything is within his reach, and only bestows his
confidence on those who know how to come down to his level. But a
youth of Emile's age and sense is no longer so foolish as to make
this mistake, and it would not be desirable that he should. The
confidence he ought to have in his tutor is of another kind; it
should rest on the authority of reason, and on superior knowledge,
advantages which the young man is capable of appreciating while
he perceives how useful they are to himself. Long experience has
convinced him that his tutor loves him, that he is a wise and good
man who desires his happiness and knows how to procure it. He ought
to know that it is to his own advantage to listen to his advice.
But if the master lets himself be taken in like the disciple, he
will lose his right to expect deference from him, and to give him
instruction. Still less should the pupil suppose that his master
is purposely letting him fall into snares or preparing pitfalls for
his inexperience. How can we avoid these two difficulties? Choose
the best and most natural means; be frank and straightforward like
himself; warn him of the dangers to which he is exposed, point them
out plainly and sensibly, without exaggeration, without temper,
without pedantic display, and above all without giving your opinions
in the form of orders, until they have become such, and until this
imperious tone is absolutely necessary. Should he still be obstinate as
he often will be, leave him free to follow his own choice, follow
him, copy his example, and that cheerfully and frankly; if possible
fling yourself into things, amuse yourself as much as he does. If
the consequences become too serious, you are at hand to prevent
them; and yet when this young man has beheld your foresight and your
kindliness, will he not be at once struck by the one and touched
by the other? All his faults are but so many hands with which
he himself provides you to restrain him at need. Now under these
circumstances the great art of the master consists in controlling
events and directing his exhortations so that he may know beforehand
when the youth will give in, and when he will refuse to do so,
so that all around him he may encompass him with the lessons of
experience, and yet never let him run too great a risk.

Warn him of his faults before he commits them; do not blame him
when once they are committed; you would only stir his self-love to
mutiny. We learn nothing from a lesson we detest. I know nothing
more foolish than the phrase, "I told you so." The best way to make
him remember what you told him is to seem to have forgotten it. Go
further than this, and when you find him ashamed of having refused
to believe you, gently smooth away the shame with kindly words. He
will indeed hold you dear when he sees how you forget yourself on
his account, and how you console him instead of reproaching him.
But if you increase his annoyance by your reproaches he will hate
you, and will make it a rule never to heed you, as if to show you
that he does not agree with you as to the value of your opinion.

The turn you give to your consolation may itself be a lesson
to him, and all the more because he does not suspect it. When you
tell him, for example, that many other people have made the same
mistakes, this is not what he was expecting; you are administering
correction under the guise of pity; for when one thinks oneself
better than other people it is a very mortifying excuse to console
oneself by their example; it means that we must realise that the
most we can say is that they are no better than we.

The time of faults is the time for fables. When we blame the guilty
under the cover of a story we instruct without offending him; and
he then understands that the story is not untrue by means of the
truth he finds in its application to himself. The child who has
never been deceived by flattery understands nothing of the fable I
recently examined; but the rash youth who has just become the dupe
of a flatterer perceives only too readily that the crow was a fool.
Thus he acquires a maxim from the fact, and the experience he would
soon have forgotten is engraved on his mind by means of the fable.
There is no knowledge of morals which cannot be acquired through our
own experience or that of others. When there is danger, instead of
letting him try the experiment himself, we have recourse to history.
When the risk is comparatively slight, it is just as well that
the youth should be exposed to it; then by means of the apologue
the special cases with which the young man is now acquainted are
transformed into maxims.

It is not, however, my intention that these maxims should be
explained, nor even formulated. Nothing is so foolish and unwise
as the moral at the end of most of the fables; as if the moral
was not, or ought not to be so clear in the fable itself that the
reader cannot fail to perceive it. Why then add the moral at the end,
and go deprive him of the pleasure of discovering it for himself.
The art of teaching consists in making the pupil wish to learn.
But if the pupil is to wish to learn, his mind must not remain in
such a passive state with regard to what you tell him that there
is really nothing for him to do but listen to you. The master's
vanity must always give way to the scholars; he must be able
to say, I understand, I see it, I am getting at it, I am learning
something. One of the things which makes the Pantaloon in the
Italian comedies so wearisome is the pains taken by him to explain
to the audience the platitudes they understand only too well already.
We must always be intelligible, but we need not say all there is
to be said. If you talk much you will say little, for at last no
one will listen to you. What is the sense of the four lines at the
end of La Fontaine's fable of the frog who puffed herself up. Is
he afraid we should not understand it? Does this great painter need
to write the names beneath the things he has painted? His morals,
far from generalising, restrict the lesson to some extent to the
examples given, and prevent our applying them to others. Before I
put the fables of this inimitable author into the hands of a youth,
I should like to cut out all the conclusions with which he strives
to explain what he has just said so clearly and pleasantly. If
your pupil does not understand the fable without the explanation,
he will not understand it with it.

Moreover, the fables would require to be arranged in a more didactic
order, one more in agreement with the feelings and knowledge of
the young adolescent. Can you imagine anything so foolish as to
follow the mere numerical order of the book without regard to our
requirements or our opportunities. First the grasshopper, then the
crow, then the frog, then the two mules, etc. I am sick of these
two mules; I remember seeing a child who was being educated for
finance; they never let him alone, but were always insisting on the
profession he was to follow; they made him read this fable, learn
it, say it, repeat it again and again without finding in it the
slightest argument against his future calling. Not only have I
never found children make any real use of the fables they learn,
but I have never found anybody who took the trouble to see that
they made such a use of them. The study claims to be instruction
in morals; but the real aim of mother and child is nothing but to
set a whole party watching the child while he recites his fables;
when he is too old to recite them and old enough to make use of
them, they are altogether forgotten. Only men, I repeat, can learn
from fables, and Emile is now old enough to begin.

I do not mean to tell you everything, so I only indicate the paths
which diverge from the right way, so that you may know how to avoid
them. If you follow the road I have marked out for you, I think
your pupil will buy his knowledge of mankind and his knowledge of
himself in the cheapest market; you will enable him to behold the
tricks of fortune without envying the lot of her favourites, and
to be content with himself without thinking himself better than
others. You have begun by making him an actor that he may learn to
be one of the audience; you must continue your task, for from the
theatre things are what they seem, from the stage they seem what
they are. For the general effect we must get a distant view, for
the details we must observe more closely. But how can a young man
take part in the business of life? What right has he to be initiated
into its dark secrets? His interests are confined within the limits
of his own pleasures, he has no power over others, it is much the
same as if he had no power at all. Man is the cheapest commodity
on the market, and among all our important rights of property, the
rights of the individual are always considered last of all.

When I see the studies of young men at the period of their greatest
activity confined to purely speculative matters, while later on
they are suddenly plunged, without any sort of experience, into
the world of men and affairs, it strikes me as contrary alike to
reason and to nature, and I cease to be surprised that so few men
know what to do. How strange a choice to teach us so many useless
things, while the art of doing is never touched upon! They profess
to fit us for society, and we are taught as if each of us were
to live a life of contemplation in a solitary cell, or to discuss
theories with persons whom they did not concern. You think you
are teaching your scholars how to live, and you teach them certain
bodily contortions and certain forms of words without meaning.
I, too, have taught Emile how to live; for I have taught him to
enjoy his own society and, more than that, to earn his own bread.
But this is not enough. To live in the world he must know how to
get on with other people, he must know what forces move them, he
must calculate the action and re-action of self-interest in civil
society, he must estimate the results so accurately that he will
rarely fail in his undertakings, or he will at least have tried
in the best possible way. The law does not allow young people to
manage their own affairs nor to dispose of their own property; but
what would be the use of these precautions if they never gained any
experience until they were of age. They would have gained nothing
by the delay, and would have no more experience at five-and-twenty
than at fifteen. No doubt we must take precautions, so that a youth,
blinded by ignorance or misled by passion, may not hurt himself;
but at any age there are opportunities when deeds of kindness and
of care for the weak may be performed under the direction of a wise
man, on behalf of the unfortunate who need help.

Mothers and nurses grow fond of children because of the care they
lavish on them; the practice of social virtues touches the very
heart with the love of humanity; by doing good we become good; and
I know no surer way to this end. Keep your pupil busy with the good
deeds that are within his power, let the cause of the poor be his
own, let him help them not merely with his money, but with his
service; let him work for them, protect them, let his person and
his time be at their disposal; let him be their agent; he will
never all his life long have a more honourable office. How many of
the oppressed, who have never got a hearing, will obtain justice
when he demands it for them with that courage and firmness which
the practice of virtue inspires; when he makes his way into the
presence of the rich and great, when he goes, if need be, to the
footstool of the king himself, to plead the cause of the wretched,
the cause of those who find all doors closed to them by their poverty,
those who are so afraid of being punished for their misfortunes
that they do not dare to complain?

But shall we make of Emile a knight-errant, a redresser of wrongs,
a paladin? Shall he thrust himself into public life, play the sage
and the defender of the laws before the great, before the magistrates,
before the king? Shall he lay petitions before the judges and plead
in the law courts? That I cannot say. The nature of things is not
changed by terms of mockery and scorn. He will do all that he knows
to be useful and good. He will do nothing more, and he knows that
nothing is useful and good for him which is unbefitting his age.
He knows that his first duty is to himself; that young men should
distrust themselves; that they should act circumspectly; that they
should show respect to those older than themselves, reticence and
discretion in talking without cause, modesty in things indifferent, but
courage in well doing, and boldness to speak the truth. Such were
those illustrious Romans who, having been admitted into public life,
spent their days in bringing criminals to justice and in protecting
the innocent, without any motives beyond those of learning, and of
the furtherance of justice and of the protection of right conduct.

Emile is not fond of noise or quarrelling, not only among men, but
among animals. [Footnote: "But what will he do if any one seeks a
quarrel with him?" My answer is that no one will ever quarrel with
him, he will never lend himself to such a thing. But, indeed, you
continue, who can be safe from a blow, or an insult from a bully,
a drunkard, a bravo, who for the joy of killing his man begins by
dishonouring him? That is another matter. The life and honour of
the citizens should not be at the mercy of a bully, a drunkard, or
a bravo, and one can no more insure oneself against such an accident
than against a falling tile. A blow given, or a lie in the teeth,
if he submit to them, have social consequences which no wisdom
can prevent and no tribunal can avenge. The weakness of the laws,
therefore, so far restores a man's independence; he is the sole
magistrate and judge between the offender and himself, the sole
interpreter and administrator of natural law. Justice is his due,
and he alone can obtain it, and in such a case there is no government
on earth so foolish as to punish him for so doing. I do not say he
must fight; that is absurd; I say justice is his due, and he alone
can dispense it. If I were king, I promise you that in my kingdom
no one would ever strike a man or call him a liar, and yet I would
do without all those useless laws against duels; the means are
simple and require no law courts. However that may be, Emile knows
what is due to himself in such a case, and the example due from
him to the safety of men of honour. The strongest of men cannot
prevent insult, but he can take good care that his adversary has
no opportunity to boast of that insult.] He will never set two dogs
to fight, he will never set a dog to chase a cat. This peaceful
spirit is one of the results of his education, which has never
stimulated self-love or a high opinion of himself, and so has
not encouraged him to seek his pleasure in domination and in the
sufferings of others. The sight of suffering makes him suffer too;
this is a natural feeling. It is one of the after effects of vanity
that hardens a young man and makes him take a delight in seeing the
torments of a living and feeling creature; it makes him consider
himself beyond the reach of similar sufferings through his superior
wisdom or virtue. He who is beyond the reach of vanity cannot fall
into the vice which results from vanity. So Emile loves peace.
He is delighted at the sight of happiness, and if he can help to
bring it about, this is an additional reason for sharing it. I do
not assume that when he sees the unhappy he will merely feel for
them that barren and cruel pity which is content to pity the ills
it can heal. His kindness is active and teaches him much he would
have learnt far more slowly, or he would never have learnt at all,
if his heart had been harder. If he finds his comrades at strife,
he tries to reconcile them; if he sees the afflicted, he inquires
as to the cause of their sufferings; if he meets two men who hate
each other, he wants to know the reason of their enmity; if he finds
one who is down-trodden groaning under the oppression of the rich
and powerful, he tries to discover by what means he can counteract
this oppression, and in the interest he takes with regard to all
these unhappy persons, the means of removing their sufferings are
never out of his sight. What use shall we make of this disposition
so that it may re-act in a way suited to his age? Let us direct
his efforts and his knowledge, and use his zeal to increase them.

I am never weary of repeating: let all the lessons of young people
take the form of doing rather than talking; let them learn nothing
from books which they can learn from experience. How absurd to
attempt to give them practice in speaking when they have nothing
to say, to expect to make them feel, at their school desks, the
vigour of the language of passion and all the force of the arts
of persuasion when they have nothing and nobody to persuade! All
the rules of rhetoric are mere waste of words to those who do not
know how to use them for their own purposes. How does it concern
a schoolboy to know how Hannibal encouraged his soldiers to cross
the Alps? If instead of these grand speeches you showed him how to
induce his prefect to give him a holiday, you may be sure he would
pay more attention to your rules.

If I wanted to teach rhetoric to a youth whose passions were as
yet undeveloped, I would draw his attention continually to things
that would stir his passions, and I would discuss with him how
he should talk to people so as to get them to regard his wishes
favourably. But Emile is not in a condition so favourable to the
art of oratory. Concerned mainly with his physical well-being,
he has less need of others than they of him; and having nothing to
ask of others on his own account, what he wants to persuade them
to do does not affect him sufficiently to awake any very strong
feeling. From this it follows that his language will be on the
whole simple and literal. He usually speaks to the point and only
to make himself understood. He is not sententious, for he has
not learnt to generalise; he does not speak in figures, for he is
rarely impassioned.

Yet this is not because he is altogether cold and phlegmatic,
neither his age, his character, nor his tastes permit of this. In
the fire of adolescence the life-giving spirits, retained in the
blood and distilled again and again, inspire his young heart with
a warmth which glows in his eye, a warmth which is felt in his
words and perceived in his actions. The lofty feeling with which
he is inspired gives him strength and nobility; imbued with tender
love for mankind his words betray the thoughts of his heart;
I know not how it is, but there is more charm in his open-hearted
generosity than in the artificial eloquence of others; or rather
this eloquence of his is the only true eloquence, for he has only
to show what he feels to make others share his feelings.

The more I think of it the more convinced I am that by thus
translating our kindly impulses into action, by drawing from our
good or ill success conclusions as to their cause, we shall find
that there is little useful knowledge that cannot be imparted to a
youth; and that together with such true learning as may be got at
college he will learn a science of more importance than all the rest
together, the application of what he has learned to the purposes
of life. Taking such an interest in his fellow-creatures, it is
impossible that he should fail to learn very quickly how to note
and weigh their actions, their tastes, their pleasures, and to
estimate generally at their true value what may increase or diminish
the happiness of men; he should do this better than those who care
for nobody and never do anything for any one. The feelings of those
who are always occupied with their own concerns are too keenly
affected for them to judge wisely of things. They consider everything
as it affects themselves, they form their ideas of good and ill
solely on their own experience, their minds are filled with all
sorts of absurd prejudices, and anything which affects their own
advantage ever so little, seems an upheaval of the universe.

Extend self-love to others and it is transformed into virtue,
a virtue which has its root in the heart of every one of us. The
less the object of our care is directly dependent on ourselves, the
less we have to fear from the illusion of self-interest; the more
general this interest becomes, the juster it is; and the love of
the human race is nothing but the love of justice within us. If
therefore we desire Emile to be a lover of truth, if we desire that
he should indeed perceive it, let us keep him far from self-interest
in all his business. The more care he bestows upon the happiness of
others the wiser and better he is, and the fewer mistakes he will
make between good and evil; but never allow him any blind preference
founded merely on personal predilection or unfair prejudice. Why
should he harm one person to serve another? What does it matter to
him who has the greater share of happiness, providing he promotes
the happiness of all? Apart from self-interest this care for the
general well-being is the first concern of the wise man, for each
of us forms part of the human race and not part of any individual
member of that race.

To prevent pity degenerating into weakness we must generalise it
and extend it to mankind. Then we only yield to it when it is in
accordance with justice, since justice is of all the virtues that
which contributes most to the common good. Reason and self-love
compel us to love mankind even more than our neighbour, and to pity
the wicked is to be very cruel to other men.

Moreover, you must bear in mind that all these means employed to
project my pupil beyond himself have also a distinct relation to
himself; since they not only cause him inward delight, but I am
also endeavouring to instruct him, while I am making him kindly
disposed towards others.

First I showed the means employed, now I will show the result. What
wide prospects do I perceive unfolding themselves before his mind!
What noble feelings stifle the lesser passions in his heart! What
clearness of judgment, what accuracy in reasoning, do I see developing
from the inclinations we have cultivated, from the experience which
concentrates the desires of a great heart within the narrow bounds
of possibility, so that a man superior to others can come down to
their level if he cannot raise them to his own! True principles
of justice, true types of beauty, all moral relations between man
and man, all ideas of order, these are engraved on his understanding;
he sees the right place for everything and the causes which drive
it from that place; he sees what may do good, and what hinders it.
Without having felt the passions of mankind, he knows the illusions
they produce and their mode of action.

I proceed along the path which the force of circumstances compels
me to tread, but I do not insist that my readers shall follow me.
Long ago they have made up their minds that I am wandering in the
land of chimeras, while for my part I think they are dwelling in
the country of prejudice. When I wander so far from popular beliefs
I do not cease to bear them in mind; I examine them, I consider
them, not that I may follow them or shun them, but that I may weigh
them in the balance of reason. Whenever reason compels me to abandon
these popular beliefs, I know by experience that my readers will
not follow my example; I know that they will persist in refusing
to go beyond what they can see, and that they will take the youth
I am describing for the creation of my fanciful imagination, merely
because he is unlike the youths with whom they compare him; they
forget that he must needs be different, because he has been brought
up in a totally different fashion; he has been influenced by wholly
different feelings, instructed in a wholly different manner, so
that it would be far stranger if he were like your pupils than if
he were what I have supposed. He is a man of nature's making, not
man's. No wonder men find him strange.

When I began this work I took for granted nothing but what could be
observed as readily by others as by myself; for our starting-point,
the birth of man, is the same for all; but the further we go, while
I am seeking to cultivate nature and you are seeking to deprave
it, the further apart we find ourselves. At six years old my pupil
was not so very unlike yours, whom you had not yet had time to
disfigure; now there is nothing in common between them; and when
they reach the age of manhood, which is now approaching, they will
show themselves utterly different from each other, unless all my pains
have been thrown away. There may not be so very great a difference
in the amount of knowledge they possess, but there is all the
difference in the world in the kind of knowledge. You are amazed
to find that the one has noble sentiments of which the others have
not the smallest germ, but remember that the latter are already
philosophers and theologians while Emile does not even know what
is meant by a philosopher and has scarcely heard the name of God.

But if you come and tell me, "There are no such young men, young
people are not made that way; they have this passion or that, they
do this or that," it is as if you denied that a pear tree could
ever be a tall tree because the pear trees in our gardens are all
dwarfs.

I beg these critics who are so ready with their blame to consider
that I am as well acquainted as they are with everything they say,
that I have probably given more thought to it, and that, as I have
no private end to serve in getting them to agree with me, I have
a right to demand that they should at least take time to find out
where I am mistaken. Let them thoroughly examine the nature of
man, let them follow the earliest growth of the heart in any given
circumstances, so as to see what a difference education may make in
the individual; then let them compare my method of education with
the results I ascribe to it; and let them tell me where my reasoning
is unsound, and I shall have no answer to give them.

It is this that makes me speak so strongly, and as I think with
good excuse: I have not pledged myself to any system, I depend as
little as possible on arguments, and I trust to what I myself have
observed. I do not base my ideas on what I have imagined, but on
what I have seen. It is true that I have not confined my observations
within the walls of any one town, nor to a single class of people;
but having compared men of every class and every nation which
I have been able to observe in the course of a life spent in this
pursuit, I have discarded as artificial what belonged to one nation
and not to another, to one rank and not to another; and I have
regarded as proper to mankind what was common to all, at any age,
in any station, and in any nation whatsoever.

Now if in accordance with this method you follow from infancy the
course of a youth who has not been shaped to any special mould, one
who depends as little as possible on authority and the opinions of
others, which will he most resemble, my pupil or yours? It seems
to me that this is the question you must answer if you would know
if I am mistaken.

It is not easy for a man to begin to think; but when once he has
begun he will never leave off. Once a thinker, always a thinker,
and the understanding once practised in reflection will never rest.
You may therefore think that I do too much or too little; that
the human mind is not by nature so quick to unfold; and that after
having given it opportunities it has not got, I keep it too long
confined within a circle of ideas which it ought to have outgrown.

But remember, in the first place, that when I want to train
a natural man, I do not want to make him a savage and to send him
back to the woods, but that living in the whirl of social life
it is enough that he should not let himself be carried away by
the passions and prejudices of men; let him see with his eyes and
feel with his heart, let him own no sway but that of reason. Under
these conditions it is plain that many things will strike him;
the oft-recurring feelings which affect him, the different ways of
satisfying his real needs, must give him many ideas he would not
otherwise have acquired or would only have acquired much later.
The natural progress of the mind is quickened but not reversed.
The same man who would remain stupid in the forests should become
wise and reasonable in towns, if he were merely a spectator in
them. Nothing is better fitted to make one wise than the sight of
follies we do not share, and even if we share them, we still learn,
provided we are not the dupe of our follies and provided we do not
bring to them the same mistakes as the others.

Consider also that while our faculties are confined to the things of
sense, we offer scarcely any hold to the abstractions of philosophy
or to purely intellectual ideas. To attain to these we require
either to free ourselves from the body to which we are so strongly
bound, or to proceed step by step in a slow and gradual course,
or else to leap across the intervening space with a gigantic bound
of which no child is capable, one for which grown men even require
many steps hewn on purpose for them; but I find it very difficult
to see how you propose to construct such steps.

The Incomprehensible embraces all, he gives its motion to the
earth, and shapes the system of all creatures, but our eyes cannot
see him nor can our hands search him out, he evades the efforts
of our senses; we behold the work, but the workman is hidden from
our eyes. It is no small matter to know that he exists, and when
we have got so far, and when we ask. What is he? Where is he? our
mind is overwhelmed, we lose ourselves, we know not what to think.

Locke would have us begin with the study of spirits and go on to
that of bodies. This is the method of superstition, prejudice, and
error; it is not the method of nature, nor even that of well-ordered
reason; it is to learn to see by shutting our eyes. We must have
studied bodies long enough before we can form any true idea of
spirits, or even suspect that there are such beings. The contrary
practice merely puts materialism on a firmer footing.

Since our senses are the first instruments to our learning, corporeal
and sensible bodies are the only bodies we directly apprehend. The
word "spirit" has no meaning for any one who has not philosophised.
To the unlearned and to the child a spirit is merely a body. Do
they not fancy that spirits groan, speak, fight, and make noises?
Now you must own that spirits with arms and voices are very like
bodies. This is why every nation on the face of the earth, not even
excepting the Jews, have made to themselves idols. We, ourselves,
with our words, Spirit, Trinity, Persons, are for the most part quite
anthropomorphic. I admit that we are taught that God is everywhere;
but we also believe that there is air everywhere, at least in our
atmosphere; and the word Spirit meant originally nothing more than
breath and wind. Once you teach people to say what they do not
understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like.

The perception of our action upon other bodies must have first
induced us to suppose that their action upon us was effected in
like manner. Thus man began by thinking that all things whose action
affected him were alive. He did not recognise the limits of their
powers, and he therefore supposed that they were boundless; as
soon as he had supplied them with bodies they became his gods. In
the earliest times men went in terror of everything and everything
in nature seemed alive. The idea of matter was developed as slowly
as that of spirit, for the former is itself an abstraction.

Thus the universe was peopled with gods like themselves. The stars,
the winds and the mountains, rivers, trees, and towns, their very
dwellings, each had its soul, its god, its life. The teraphim of
Laban, the manitos of savages, the fetishes of the negroes, every
work of nature and of man, were the first gods of mortals; polytheism
was their first religion and idolatry their earliest form of worship.
The idea of one God was beyond their grasp, till little by little
they formed general ideas, and they rose to the idea of a first
cause and gave meaning to the word "substance," which is at bottom
the greatest of abstractions. So every child who believes in God
is of necessity an idolater or at least he regards the Deity as a
man, and when once the imagination has perceived God, it is very
seldom that the understanding conceives him. Locke's order leads
us into this same mistake.

Having arrived, I know not how, at the idea of substance, it is
clear that to allow of a single substance it must be assumed that
this substance is endowed with incompatible and mutually exclusive
properties, such as thought and size, one of which is by its nature
divisible and the other wholly incapable of division. Moreover it
is assumed that thought or, if you prefer it, feeling is a primitive
quality inseparable from the substance to which it belongs, that
its relation to the substance is like the relation between substance
and size. Hence it is inferred that beings who lose one of these
attributes lose the substance to which it belongs, and that death
is, therefore, but a separation of substances, and that those
beings in whom the two attributes are found are composed of the
two substances to which those two qualities belong.

But consider what a gulf there still is between the idea of two
substances and that of the divine nature, between the incomprehensible
idea of the influence of our soul upon our body and the idea of the
influence of God upon every living creature. The ideas of creation,
destruction, ubiquity, eternity, almighty power, those of the divine
attributes--these are all ideas so confused and obscure that few
men succeed in grasping them; yet there is nothing obscure about
them to the common people, because they do not understand them in
the least; how then should they present themselves in full force,
that is to say in all their obscurity, to the young mind which is
still occupied with the first working of the senses, and fails to
realise anything but what it handles? In vain do the abysses of
the Infinite open around us, a child does not know the meaning of
fear; his weak eyes cannot gauge their depths. To children everything
is infinite, they cannot assign limits to anything; not that their
measure is so large, but because their understanding is so small.
I have even noticed that they place the infinite rather below than
above the dimensions known to them. They judge a distance to be
immense rather by their feet than by their eyes; infinity is bounded
for them, not so much by what they can see, but how far they can
go. If you talk to them of the power of God, they will think he
is nearly as strong as their father. As their own knowledge is in
everything the standard by which they judge of what is possible,
they always picture what is described to them as rather smaller
than what they know. Such are the natural reasonings of an ignorant
and feeble mind. Ajax was afraid to measure his strength against
Achilles, yet he challenged Jupiter to combat, for he knew Achilles
and did not know Jupiter. A Swiss peasant thought himself the
richest man alive; when they tried to explain to him what a king
was, he asked with pride, "Has the king got a hundred cows on the
high pastures?"

I am aware that many of my readers will be surprised to find me
tracing the course of my scholar through his early years without
speaking to him of religion. At fifteen he will not even know that
he has a soul, at eighteen even he may not be ready to learn about
it. For if he learns about it too soon, there is the risk of his
never really knowing anything about it.

If I had to depict the most heart-breaking stupidity, I would paint
a pedant teaching children the catechism; if I wanted to drive
a child crazy I would set him to explain what he learned in his
catechism. You will reply that as most of the Christian doctrines
are mysteries, you must wait, not merely till the child is a man,
but till the man is dead, before the human mind will understand
those doctrines. To that I reply, that there are mysteries which
the heart of man can neither conceive nor believe, and I see no
use in teaching them to children, unless you want to make liars of
them. Moreover, I assert that to admit that there are mysteries,
you must at least realise that they are incomprehensible, and
children are not even capable of this conception! At an age when
everything is mysterious, there are no mysteries properly so-called.

"We must believe in God if we would be saved." This doctrine wrongly
understood is the root of bloodthirsty intolerance and the cause of
all the futile teaching which strikes a deadly blow at human reason
by training it to cheat itself with mere words. No doubt there is
not a moment to be lost if we would deserve eternal salvation; but
if the repetition of certain words suffices to obtain it, I do not
see why we should not people heaven with starlings and magpies as
well as with children.

The obligation of faith assumes the possibility of belief.
The philosopher who does not believe is wrong, for he misuses the
reason he has cultivated, and he is able to understand the truths
he rejects. But the child who professes the Christian faith--what
does he believe? Just what he understands; and he understands so
little of what he is made to repeat that if you tell him to say
just the opposite he will be quite ready to do it. The faith of
children and the faith of many men is a matter of geography. Will
they be rewarded for having been born in Rome rather than in Mecca?
One is told that Mahomet is the prophet of God and he says, "Mahomet
is the prophet of God." The other is told that Mahomet is a rogue
and he says, "Mahomet is a rogue." Either of them would have said
just the opposite had he stood in the other's shoes. When they are
so much alike to begin with, can the one be consigned to Paradise
and the other to Hell? When a child says he believes in God, it is
not God he believes in, but Peter or James who told him that there
is something called God, and he believes it after the fashion of
Euripides--

"O Jupiter, of whom I know nothing but thy name."

[Footnote: Plutarch. It is thus that the tragedy of Menalippus
originally began, but the clamour of the Athenians compelled
Euripides to change these opening lines.]

We hold that no child who dies before the age of reason will be
deprived of everlasting happiness; the Catholics believe the same
of all children who have been baptised, even though they have never
heard of God. There are, therefore, circumstances in which one can
be saved without belief in God, and these circumstances occur in
the case of children or madmen when the human mind is incapable of
the operations necessary to perceive the Godhead. The only difference
I see between you and me is that you profess that children of seven
years old are able to do this and I do not think them ready for it
at fifteen. Whether I am right or wrong depends, not on an article
of the creed, but on a simple observation in natural history.

From the same principle it is plain that any man having reached
old age without faith in God will not, therefore, be deprived of
God's presence in another life if his blindness was not wilful;
and I maintain that it is not always wilful. You admit that it is
so in the case of lunatics deprived by disease of their spiritual
faculties, but not of their manhood, and therefore still entitled
to the goodness of their Creator. Why then should we not admit it
in the case of those brought up from infancy in seclusion, those
who have led the life of a savage and are without the knowledge that
comes from intercourse with other men. [Footnote: For the natural
condition of the human mind and its slow development, cf. the first
part of the Discours sur Inegalite.] For it is clearly impossible
that such a savage could ever raise his thoughts to the knowledge
of the true God. Reason tells that man should only be punished
for his wilful faults, and that invincible ignorance can never
be imputed to him as a crime. Hence it follows that in the sight
of the Eternal Justice every man who would believe if he had the
necessary knowledge is counted a believer, and that there will be
no unbelievers to be punished except those who have closed their
hearts against the truth.

Let us beware of proclaiming the truth to those who cannot as yet
comprehend it, for to do so is to try to inculcate error. It would
be better to have no idea at all of the Divinity than to have
mean, grotesque, harmful, and unworthy ideas; to fail to perceive
the Divine is a lesser evil than to insult it. The worthy Plutarch
says, "I would rather men said, 'There is no such person as Plutarch,'
than that they should say, 'Plutarch is unjust, envious, jealous,
and such a tyrant that he demands more than can be performed.'"

The chief harm which results from the monstrous ideas of God which
are instilled into the minds of children is that they last all their
life long, and as men they understand no more of God than they did
as children. In Switzerland I once saw a good and pious mother who
was so convinced of the truth of this maxim that she refused to
teach her son religion when he was a little child for fear lest he
should be satisfied with this crude teaching and neglect a better
teaching when he reached the age of reason. This child never heard
the name of God pronounced except with reverence and devotion,
and as soon as he attempted to say the word he was told to hold
his tongue, as if the subject were too sublime and great for him.
This reticence aroused his curiosity and his self-love; he looked
forward to the time when he would know this mystery so carefully
hidden from him. The less they spoke of God to him, the less he was
himself permitted to speak of God, the more he thought about Him;
this child beheld God everywhere. What I should most dread as the
result of this unwise affectation of mystery is this: by over-stimulating
the youth's imagination you may turn his head, and make him at the
best a fanatic rather than a believer.

But we need fear nothing of the sort for Emile, who always declines
to pay attention to what is beyond his reach, and listens with
profound indifference to things he does not understand. There are
so many things of which he is accustomed to say, "That is no concern
of mine," that one more or less makes little difference to him;
and when he does begin to perplex himself with these great matters,
it is because the natural growth of his knowledge is turning his
thoughts that way.

We have seen the road by which the cultivated human mind approaches
these mysteries, and I am ready to admit that it would not attain
to them naturally, even in the bosom of society, till a much later
age. But as there are in this same society inevitable causes which
hasten the development of the passions, if we did not also hasten
the development of the knowledge which controls these passions
we should indeed depart from the path of nature and disturb her
equilibrium. When we can no longer restrain a precocious development
in one direction we must promote a corresponding development in
another direction, so that the order of nature may not be inverted,
and so that things should progress together, not separately, so
that the man, complete at every moment of his life, may never find
himself at one stage in one of his faculties and at another stage
in another faculty.

What a difficulty do I see before me! A difficulty all the greater
because it depends less on actual facts than on the cowardice of
those who dare not look the difficulty in the face. Let us at least
venture to state our problem. A child should always be brought up
in his father's religion; he is always given plain proofs that this
religion, whatever it may be, is the only true religion, that all
others are ridiculous and absurd. The force of the argument depends
entirely on the country in which it is put forward. Let a Turk,
who thinks Christianity so absurd at Constantinople, come to Paris
and see what they think of Mahomet. It is in matters of religion
more than in anything else that prejudice is triumphant. But when
we who profess to shake off its yoke entirely, we who refuse to yield
any homage to authority, decline to teach Emile anything which he
could not learn for himself in any country, what religion shall
we give him, to what sect shall this child of nature belong? The
answer strikes me as quite easy. We will not attach him to any sect,
but we will give him the means to choose for himself according to
the right use of his own reason.

Incedo per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso.--Horace, lib. ii. ode I.

No matter! Thus far zeal and prudence have taken the place of
caution. I hope that these guardians will not fail me now. Reader,
do not fear lest I should take precautions unworthy of a lover of
truth; I shall never forget my motto, but I distrust my own judgment
all too easily. Instead of telling you what I think myself, I will
tell you the thoughts of one whose opinions carry more weight than
mine. I guarantee the truth of the facts I am about to relate;
they actually happened to the author whose writings I am about to
transcribe; it is for you to judge whether we can draw from them
any considerations bearing on the matter in hand. I do not offer
you my own idea or another's as your rule; I merely present them
for your examination.

Thirty years ago there was a young man in an Italian town; he was
an exile from his native land and found himself reduced to the depths
of poverty. He had been born a Calvinist, but the consequences of
his own folly had made him a fugitive in a strange land; he had
no money and he changed his religion for a morsel of bread. There
was a hostel for proselytes in that town to which he gained admission.
The study of controversy inspired doubts he had never felt before,
and he made acquaintance with evil hitherto unsuspected by him; he
heard strange doctrines and he met with morals still stranger to
him; he beheld this evil conduct and nearly fell a victim to it.
He longed to escape, but he was locked up; he complained, but his
complaints were unheeded; at the mercy of his tyrants, he found
himself treated as a criminal because he would not share their
crimes. The anger kindled in a young and untried heart by the first
experience of violence and injustice may be realised by those who
have themselves experienced it. Tears of anger flowed from his
eyes, he was wild with rage; he prayed to heaven and to man, and
his prayers were unheard; he spoke to every one and no one listened
to him. He saw no one but the vilest servants under the control
of the wretch who insulted him, or accomplices in the same crime
who laughed at his resistance and encouraged him to follow their
example. He would have been ruined had not a worthy priest visited
the hostel on some matter of business. He found an opportunity
of consulting him secretly. The priest was poor and in need of
help himself, but the victim had more need of his assistance, and
he did not hesitate to help him to escape at the risk of making a
dangerous enemy.

Having escaped from vice to return to poverty, the young
man struggled vainly against fate: for a moment he thought he had
gained the victory. At the first gleam of good fortune his woes and
his protector were alike forgotten. He was soon punished for this
ingratitude; all his hopes vanished; youth indeed was on his side,
but his romantic ideas spoiled everything. He had neither talent
nor skill to make his way easily, he could neither be commonplace
nor wicked, he expected so much that he got nothing. When he had
sunk to his former poverty, when he was without food or shelter
and ready to die of hunger, he remembered his benefactor.

He went back to him, found him, and was kindly welcomed; the sight of
him reminded the priest of a good deed he had done; such a memory
always rejoices the heart. This man was by nature humane and
pitiful; he felt the sufferings of others through his own, and his
heart had not been hardened by prosperity; in a word, the lessons
of wisdom and an enlightened virtue had reinforced his natural
kindness of heart. He welcomed the young man, found him a lodging,
and recommended him; he shared with him his living which was barely
enough for two. He did more, he instructed him, consoled him, and
taught him the difficult art of bearing adversity in patience. You
prejudiced people, would you have expected to find all this in a
priest and in Italy?

This worthy priest was a poor Savoyard clergyman who had offended
his bishop by some youthful fault; he had crossed the Alps to find
a position which he could not obtain in his own country. He lacked
neither wit nor learning, and with his interesting countenance
he had met with patrons who found him a place in the household of
one of the ministers, as tutor to his son. He preferred poverty to
dependence, and he did not know how to get on with the great. He
did not stay long with this minister, and when he departed he took
with him his good opinion; and as he lived a good life and gained
the hearts of everybody, he was glad to be forgiven by his bishop
and to obtain from him a small parish among the mountains, where he
might pass the rest of his life. This was the limit of his ambition.

He was attracted by the young fugitive and he questioned him closely.
He saw that ill-fortune had already seared his heart, that scorn
and disgrace had overthrown his courage, and that his pride,
transformed into bitterness and spite, led him to see nothing in
the harshness and injustice of men but their evil disposition and
the vanity of all virtue. He had seen that religion was but a mask
for selfishness, and its holy services but a screen for hypocrisy;
he had found in the subtleties of empty disputations heaven and
hell awarded as prizes for mere words; he had seen the sublime and
primitive idea of Divinity disfigured by the vain fancies of men;
and when, as he thought, faith in God required him to renounce
the reason God himself had given him, he held in equal scorn our
foolish imaginings and the object with which they are concerned.
With no knowledge of things as they are, without any idea of their
origins, he was immersed in his stubborn ignorance and utterly
despised those who thought they knew more than himself.

The neglect of all religion soon leads to the neglect of a man's
duties. The heart of this young libertine was already far on this
road. Yet his was not a bad nature, though incredulity and misery
were gradually stifling his natural disposition and dragging him
down to ruin; they were leading him into the conduct of a rascal
and the morals of an atheist.

The almost inevitable evil was not actually consummated. The young
man was not ignorant, his education had not been neglected. He was
at that happy age when the pulse beats strongly and the heart is
warm, but is not yet enslaved by the madness of the senses. His heart
had not lost its elasticity. A native modesty, a timid disposition
restrained him, and prolonged for him that period during which
you watch your pupil so carefully. The hateful example of brutal
depravity, of vice without any charm, had not merely failed to
quicken his imagination, it had deadened it. For a long time disgust
rather than virtue preserved his innocence, which would only succumb
to more seductive charms.

The priest saw the danger and the way of escape. He was not discouraged
by difficulties, he took a pleasure in his task; he determined to
complete it and to restore to virtue the victim he had snatched
from vice. He set about it cautiously; the beauty of the motive
gave him courage and inspired him with means worthy of his zeal.
Whatever might be the result, his pains would not be wasted. We
are always successful when our sole aim is to do good.

He began to win the confidence of the proselyte by not asking any
price for his kindness, by not intruding himself upon him, by not
preaching at him, by always coming down to his level, and treating
him as an equal. It was, so I think, a touching sight to see a
serious person becoming the comrade of a young scamp, and virtue
putting up with the speech of licence in order to triumph over it
more completely. When the young fool came to him with his silly
confidences and opened his heart to him, the priest listened and
set him at his ease; without giving his approval to what was bad,
he took an interest in everything; no tactless reproof checked his
chatter or closed his heart; the pleasure which he thought was given
by his conversation increased his pleasure in telling everything;
thus he made his general confession without knowing he was confessing
anything.

After he had made a thorough study of his feelings and disposition,
the priest saw plainly that, although he was not ignorant for his
age, he had forgotten everything that he most needed to know, and
that the disgrace which fortune had brought upon him had stifled in
him all real sense of good and evil. There is a stage of degradation
which robs the soul of its life; and the inner voice cannot be
heard by one whose whole mind is bent on getting food. To protect
the unlucky youth from the moral death which threatened him, he
began to revive his self-love and his good opinion of himself. He
showed him a happier future in the right use of his talents; he
revived the generous warmth of his heart by stories of the noble
deeds of others; by rousing his admiration for the doers of these
deeds he revived his desire to do like deeds himself. To draw him
gradually from his idle and wandering life, he made him copy out
extracts from well-chosen books; he pretended to want these extracts,
and so nourished in him the noble feeling of gratitude. He taught
him indirectly through these books, and thus he made him sufficiently
regain his good opinion of himself so that he would no longer think
himself good for nothing, and would not make himself despicable in
his own eyes.

A trifling incident will show how this kindly man tried, unknown
to him, to raise the heart of his disciple out of its degradation,
without seeming to think of teaching. The priest was so well known
for his uprightness and his discretion, that many people preferred
to entrust their alms to him, rather than to the wealthy clergy of
the town. One day some one had given him some money to distribute
among the poor, and the young man was mean enough to ask for some
of it on the score of poverty. "No," said he, "we are brothers,
you belong to me and I must not touch the money entrusted to me."
Then he gave him the sum he had asked for out of his own pocket.
Lessons of this sort seldom fail to make an impression on the heart
of young people who are not wholly corrupt.

I am weary of speaking in the third person, and the precaution is
unnecessary; for you are well aware, my dear friend, that I myself
was this unhappy fugitive; I think I am so far removed from the
disorders of my youth that I may venture to confess them, and the
hand which rescued me well deserves that I should at least do honour
to its goodness at the cost of some slight shame.

What struck me most was to see in the private life of my worthy
master, virtue without hypocrisy, humanity without weakness, speech
always plain and straightforward, and conduct in accordance with
this speech. I never saw him trouble himself whether those whom he
assisted went to vespers or confession, whether they fasted at the
appointed seasons and went without meat; nor did he impose upon them
any other like conditions, without which you might die of hunger
before you could hope for any help from the devout.

Far from displaying before him the zeal of a new convert, I was
encouraged by these observations and I made no secret of my way of
thinking, nor did he seem to be shocked by it. Sometimes I would
say to myself, he overlooks my indifference to the religion I have
adopted because he sees I am equally indifferent to the religion
in which I was brought up; he knows that my scorn for religion is
not confined to one sect. But what could I think when I sometimes
heard him give his approval to doctrines contrary to those of the
Roman Catholic Church, and apparently having but a poor opinion of
its ceremonies. I should have thought him a Protestant in disguise
if I had not beheld him so faithful to those very customs which he
seemed to value so lightly; but I knew he fulfilled his priestly
duties as carefully in private as in public, and I knew not what
to think of these apparent contradictions. Except for the fault
which had formerly brought about his disgrace, a fault which he
had only partially overcome, his life was exemplary, his conduct
beyond reproach, his conversation honest and discreet. While I lived
on very friendly terms with him, I learnt day by day to respect
him more; and when he had completely won my heart by such great
kindness, I awaited with eager curiosity the time when I should
learn what was the principle on which the uniformity of this strange
life was based.

This opportunity was a long time coming. Before taking his disciple
into his confidence, he tried to get the seeds of reason and kindness
which he had sown in my heart to germinate. The most difficult
fault to overcome in me was a certain haughty misanthropy, a certain
bitterness against the rich and successful, as if their wealth
and happiness had been gained at my own expense, and as if their
supposed happiness had been unjustly taken from my own. The foolish
vanity of youth, which kicks against the pricks of humiliation,
made me only too much inclined to this angry temper; and the
self-respect, which my mentor strove to revive, led to pride, which
made men still more vile in my eyes, and only added scorn to my
hatred.

Without directly attacking this pride, he prevented it from
developing into hardness of heart; and without depriving me of my
self-esteem, he made me less scornful of my neighbours. By continually
drawing my attention from the empty show, and directing it to the
genuine sufferings concealed by it, he taught me to deplore the
faults of my fellows and feel for their sufferings, to pity rather
than envy them. Touched with compassion towards human weaknesses
through the profound conviction of his own failings, he viewed
all men as the victims of their own vices and those of others; he
beheld the poor groaning under the tyranny of the rich, and the
rich under the tyranny of their own prejudices. "Believe me," said
he, "our illusions, far from concealing our woes, only increase them
by giving value to what is in itself valueless, in making us aware
of all sorts of fancied privations which we should not otherwise
feel. Peace of heart consists in despising everything that might
disturb that peace; the man who clings most closely to life is the
man who can least enjoy it; and the man who most eagerly desires
happiness is always most miserable."

"What gloomy ideas!" I exclaimed bitterly. "If we must deny ourselves
everything, we might as well never have been born; and if we must
despise even happiness itself who can be happy?" "I am," replied
the priest one day, in a tone which made a great impression on me.
"You happy! So little favoured by fortune, so poor, an exile and
persecuted, you are happy! How have you contrived to be happy?"
"My child," he answered, "I will gladly tell you."

Thereupon he explained that, having heard my confessions, he would
confess to me. "I will open my whole heart to yours," he said,
embracing me. "You will see me, if not as I am, at least as I
seem to myself. When you have heard my whole confession of faith,
when you really know the condition of my heart, you will know why
I think myself happy, and if you think as I do, you will know how
to be happy too. But these explanations are not the affair of a
moment, it will take time to show you all my ideas about the lot
of man and the true value of life; let us choose a fitting time and
a place where we may continue this conversation without interruption."

I showed him how eager I was to hear him. The meeting was fixed
for the very next morning. It was summer time; we rose at daybreak.
He took me out of the town on to a high hill above the river Po,
whose course we beheld as it flowed between its fertile banks; in
the distance the landscape was crowned by the vast chain of the
Alps; the beams of the rising sun already touched the plains and
cast across the fields long shadows of trees, hillocks, and houses,
and enriched with a thousand gleams of light the fairest picture
which the human eye can see. You would have thought that nature
was displaying all her splendour before our eyes to furnish a text
for our conversation. After contemplating this scene for a space
in silence, the man of peace spoke to me.

THE CREED OF A SAVOYARD PRIEST

My child, do not look to me for learned speeches or profound
arguments. I am no great philosopher, nor do I desire to be one.
I have, however, a certain amount of common-sense and a constant
devotion to truth. I have no wish to argue with you nor even to
convince you; it is enough for me to show you, in all simplicity of
heart, what I really think. Consult your own heart while I speak;
that is all I ask. If I am mistaken, I am honestly mistaken, and
therefore my error will not be counted to me as a crime; if you,
too, are honestly mistaken, there is no great harm done. If I am
right, we are both endowed with reason, we have both the same motive
for listening to the voice of reason. Why should not you think as
I do?

By birth I was a peasant and poor; to till the ground was my portion;
but my parents thought it a finer thing that I should learn to get
my living as a priest and they found means to send me to college.
I am quite sure that neither my parents nor I had any idea of
seeking after what was good, useful, or true; we only sought what
was wanted to get me ordained. I learned what was taught me, I
said what I was told to say, I promised all that was required, and
I became a priest. But I soon discovered that when I promised not
to be a man, I had promised more than I could perform.

Conscience, they tell us, is the creature of prejudice, but I know
from experience that conscience persists in following the order
of nature in spite of all the laws of man. In vain is this or that
forbidden; remorse makes her voice heard but feebly when what we
do is permitted by well-ordered nature, and still more when we are
doing her bidding. My good youth, nature has not yet appealed to
your senses; may you long remain in this happy state when her voice
is the voice of innocence. Remember that to anticipate her teaching
is to offend more deeply against her than to resist her teaching;
you must first learn to resist, that you may know when to yield
without wrong-doing.

From my youth up I had reverenced the married state as the first
and most sacred institution of nature. Having renounced the right
to marry, I was resolved not to profane the sanctity of marriage;
for in spite of my education and reading I had always led a simple
and regular life, and my mind had preserved the innocence of its
natural instincts; these instincts had not been obscured by worldly
wisdom, while my poverty kept me remote from the temptations dictated
by the sophistry of vice.

This very resolution proved my ruin. My respect for marriage led
to the discovery of my misconduct. The scandal must be expiated;
I was arrested, suspended, and dismissed; I was the victim of
my scruples rather than of my incontinence, and I had reason to
believe, from the reproaches which accompanied my disgrace, that
one can often escape punishment by being guilty of a worse fault.

A thoughtful mind soon learns from such experiences. I found my
former ideas of justice, honesty, and every duty of man overturned
by these painful events, and day by day I was losing my hold on
one or another of the opinions I had accepted. What was left was
not enough to form a body of ideas which could stand alone, and
I felt that the evidence on which my principles rested was being
weakened; at last I knew not what to think, and I came to the same
conclusion as yourself, but with this difference: My lack of faith
was the slow growth of manhood, attained with great difficulty,
and all the harder to uproot.

I was in that state of doubt and uncertainty which Descartes
considers essential to the search for truth. It is a state which
cannot continue, it is disquieting and painful; only vicious
tendencies and an idle heart can keep us in that state. My heart
was not so corrupt as to delight in it, and there is nothing which
so maintains the habit of thinking as being better pleased with
oneself than with one's lot.

I pondered, therefore, on the sad fate of mortals, adrift upon this
sea of human opinions, without compass or rudder, and abandoned
to their stormy passions with no guide but an inexperienced pilot
who does not know whence he comes or whither he is going. I said
to myself, "I love truth, I seek her, and cannot find her. Show
me truth and I will hold her fast; why does she hide her face from
the eager heart that would fain worship her?"

Although I have often experienced worse sufferings, I have never
led a life so uniformly distressing as this period of unrest and
anxiety, when I wandered incessantly from one doubt to another,
gaining nothing from my prolonged meditations but uncertainty,
darkness, and contradiction with regard to the source of my being
and the rule of my duties.

I cannot understand how any one can be a sceptic sincerely and on
principle. Either such philosophers do not exist or they are the
most miserable of men. Doubt with regard to what we ought to know
is a condition too violent for the human mind; it cannot long be
endured; in spite of itself the mind decides one way or another,
and it prefers to be deceived rather than to believe nothing.

My perplexity was increased by the fact that I had been brought
up in a church which decides everything and permits no doubts, so
that having rejected one article of faith I was forced to reject
the rest; as I could not accept absurd decisions, I was deprived of
those which were not absurd. When I was told to believe everything,
I could believe nothing, and I knew not where to stop.

I consulted the philosophers, I searched their books and examined
their various theories; I found them all alike proud, assertive,
dogmatic, professing, even in their so-called scepticism, to know
everything, proving nothing, scoffing at each other. This last
trait, which was common to all of them, struck me as the only point
in which they were right. Braggarts in attack, they are weaklings
in defence. Weigh their arguments, they are all destructive; count
their voices, every one speaks for himself; they are only agreed in
arguing with each other. I could find no way out of my uncertainty
by listening to them.

I suppose this prodigious diversity of opinion is caused, in the
first place, by the weakness of the human intellect; and, in the
second, by pride. We have no means of measuring this vast machine,
we are unable to calculate its workings; we know neither its guiding
principles nor its final purpose; we do not know ourselves, we know
neither our nature nor the spirit that moves us; we scarcely know
whether man is one or many; we are surrounded by impenetrable
mysteries. These mysteries are beyond the region of sense, we think
we can penetrate them by the light of reason, but we fall back on
our imagination. Through this imagined world each forces a way for
himself which he holds to be right; none can tell whether his path
will lead him to the goal. Yet we long to know and understand it
all. The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable. We
prefer to trust to chance and to believe what is not true, rather
than to own that not one of us can see what really is. A fragment
of some vast whole whose bounds are beyond our gaze, a fragment
abandoned by its Creator to our foolish quarrels, we are vain
enough to want to determine the nature of that whole and our own
relations with regard to it.

If the philosophers were in a position to declare the truth, which
of them would care to do so? Every one of them knows that his own
system rests on no surer foundations than the rest, but he maintains
it because it is his own. There is not one of them who, if he chanced
to discover the difference between truth and falsehood, would not
prefer his own lie to the truth which another had discovered. Where
is the philosopher who would not deceive the whole world for his
own glory? If he can rise above the crowd, if he can excel his
rivals, what more does he want? Among believers he is an atheist;
among atheists he would be a believer.

The first thing I learned from these considerations was to restrict
my inquiries to what directly concerned myself, to rest in profound
ignorance of everything else, and not even to trouble myself to
doubt anything beyond what I required to know.

I also realised that the philosophers, far from ridding me of my
vain doubts, only multiplied the doubts that tormented me and failed
to remove any one of them. So I chose another guide and said, "Let
me follow the Inner Light; it will not lead me so far astray as
others have done, or if it does it will be my own fault, and I shall
not go so far wrong if I follow my own illusions as if I trusted
to their deceits."

I then went over in my mind the various opinions which I had held
in the course of my life, and I saw that although no one of them was
plain enough to gain immediate belief, some were more probable than
others, and my inward consent was given or withheld in proportion
to this improbability. Having discovered this, I made an unprejudiced
comparison of all these different ideas, and I perceived that the
first and most general of them was also the simplest and the most
reasonable, and that it would have been accepted by every one if only
it had been last instead of first. Imagine all your philosophers,
ancient and modern, having exhausted their strange systems of force,
chance, fate, necessity, atoms, a living world, animated matter,
and every variety of materialism. Then comes the illustrious Clarke
who gives light to the world and proclaims the Being of beings
and the Giver of things. What universal admiration, what unanimous
applause would have greeted this new system--a system so great, so
illuminating, and so simple. Other systems are full of absurdities;
this system seems to me to contain fewer things which are beyond
the understanding of the human mind. I said to myself, "Every
system has its insoluble problems, for the finite mind of man is
too small to deal with them; these difficulties are therefore no
final arguments, against any system. But what a difference there
is between the direct evidence on which these systems are based!
Should we not prefer that theory which alone explains all the facts,
when it is no more difficult than the rest?"

Bearing thus within my heart the love of truth as my only philosophy,
and as my only method a clear and simple rule which dispensed with
the need for vain and subtle arguments, I returned with the help
of this rule to the examination of such knowledge as concerned
myself; I was resolved to admit as self-evident all that I could
not honestly refuse to believe, and to admit as true all that seemed
to follow directly from this; all the rest I determined to leave
undecided, neither accepting nor rejecting it, nor yet troubling
myself to clear up difficulties which did not lead to any practical
ends.

But who am I? What right have I to decide? What is it that determines
my judgments? If they are inevitable, if they are the results of the
impressions I receive, I am wasting my strength in such inquiries;
they would be made or not without any interference of mine. I must
therefore first turn my eyes upon myself to acquaint myself with the
instrument I desire to use, and to discover how far it is reliable.

I exist, and I have senses through which I receive impressions.
This is the first truth that strikes me and I am forced to accept
it. Have I any independent knowledge of my existence, or am I only
aware of it through my sensations? This is my first difficulty, and
so far I cannot solve it. For I continually experience sensations,
either directly or indirectly through memory, so how can I know if
the feeling of self is something beyond these sensations or if it
can exist independently of them?

My sensations take place in myself, for they make me aware of my
own existence; but their cause is outside me, for they affect me
whether I have any reason for them or not, and they are produced
or destroyed independently of me. So I clearly perceive that my
sensation, which is within me, and its cause or its object, which
is outside me, are different things.

Thus, not only do I exist, but other entities exist also, that is
to say, the objects of my sensations; and even if these objects
are merely ideas, still these ideas are not me.

But everything outside myself, everything which acts upon my senses,
I call matter, and all the particles of matter which I suppose to be
united into separate entities I call bodies. Thus all the disputes
of the idealists and the realists have no meaning for me; their
distinctions between the appearance and the reality of bodies are
wholly fanciful.

I am now as convinced of the existence of the universe as of
my own. I next consider the objects of my sensations, and I find
that I have the power of comparing them, so I perceive that I am
endowed with an active force of which I was not previously aware.

To perceive is to feel; to compare is to judge; to judge and to feel
are not the same. Through sensation objects present themselves to
me separately and singly as they are in nature; by comparing them
I rearrange them, I shift them so to speak, I place one upon another
to decide whether they are alike or different, or more generally
to find out their relations. To my mind, the distinctive faculty of
an active or intelligent being is the power of understanding this
word "is." I seek in vain in the merely sensitive entity that
intelligent force which compares and judges; I can find no trace of
it in its nature. This passive entity will be aware of each object
separately, it will even be aware of the whole formed by the two
together, but having no power to place them side by side it can
never compare them, it can never form a judgment with regard to
them.

To see two things at once is not to see their relations nor to judge
of their differences; to perceive several objects, one beyond the
other, is not to relate them. I may have at the same moment an idea
of a big stick and a little stick without comparing them, without
judging that one is less than the other, just as I can see my whole
hand without counting my fingers. [Footnote: M. de le Cordamines'
narratives tell of a people who only know how to count up to three.
Yet the men of this nation, having hands, have often seen their
fingers without learning to count up to five.] These comparative
ideas, 'greater', 'smaller', together with number ideas of 'one',
'two', etc. are certainly not sensations, although my mind only
produces them when my sensations occur.

We are told that a sensitive being distinguishes sensations from each
other by the inherent differences in the sensations; this requires
explanation. When the sensations are different, the sensitive
being distinguishes them by their differences; when they are alike,
he distinguishes them because he is aware of them one beyond the
other. Otherwise, how could he distinguish between two equal objects
simultaneously experienced? He would necessarily confound the two
objects and take them for one object, especially under a system
which professed that the representative sensations of space have
no extension.

When we become aware of the two sensations to be compared, their
impression is made, each object is perceived, both are perceived,
but for all that their relation is not perceived. If the judgment
of this relation were merely a sensation, and came to me solely
from the object itself, my judgments would never be mistaken, for
it is never untrue that I feel what I feel.

Why then am I mistaken as to the relation between these two sticks,
especially when they are not parallel? Why, for example, do I say
the small stick is a third of the large, when it is only a quarter?
Why is the picture, which is the sensation, unlike its model which
is the object? It is because I am active when I judge, because
the operation of comparison is at fault; because my understanding,
which judges of relations, mingles its errors with the truth of
sensations, which only reveal to me things.

Add to this a consideration which will, I feel sure, appeal to
you when you have thought about it: it is this--If we were purely
passive in the use of our senses, there would be no communication
between them; it would be impossible to know that the body we are
touching and the thing we are looking at is the same. Either we
should never perceive anything outside ourselves, or there would
be for us five substances perceptible by the senses, whose identity
we should have no means of perceiving.

This power of my mind which brings my sensations together and
compares them may be called by any name; let it be called attention,
meditation, reflection, or what you will; it is still true that
it is in me and not in things, that it is I alone who produce it,
though I only produce it when I receive an impression from things.
Though I am compelled to feel or not to feel, I am free to examine
more or less what I feel.

Being now, so to speak, sure of myself, I begin to look at things
outside myself, and I behold myself with a sort of shudder flung
at random into this vast universe, plunged as it were into the vast
number of entities, knowing nothing of what they are in themselves
or in relation to me. I study them, I observe them; and the first
object which suggests itself for comparison with them is myself.

All that I perceive through the senses is matter, and I deduce
all the essential properties of matter from the sensible qualities
which make me perceive it, qualities which are inseparable from it.
I see it sometimes in motion, sometimes at rest, [Footnote: This
repose is, if you prefer it, merely relative; but as we perceive
more or less of motion, we may plainly conceive one of two extremes,
which is rest; and we conceive it so clearly that we are even
disposed to take for absolute rest what is only relative. But it
is not true that motion is of the essence of matter, if matter may
be conceived of as at rest.] hence I infer that neither motion nor
rest is essential to it, but motion, being an action, is the result
of a cause of which rest is only the absence. When, therefore,
there is nothing acting upon matter it does not move, and for the
very reason that rest and motion are indifferent to it, its natural
state is a state of rest.

I perceive two sorts of motions of bodies, acquired motion and
spontaneous or voluntary motion. In the first the cause is external
to the body moved, in the second it is within. I shall not conclude
from that that the motion, say of a watch, is spontaneous, for if no
external cause operated upon the spring it would run down and the
watch would cease to go. For the same reason I should not admit
that the movements of fluids are spontaneous, neither should I
attribute spontaneous motion to fire which causes their fluidity.
[Footnote: Chemists regard phlogiston or the element of fire as
diffused, motionless, and stagnant in the compounds of which it
forms part, until external forces set it free, collect it and set
it in motion, and change it into fire.]

You ask me if the movements of animals are spontaneous; my answer
is, "I cannot tell," but analogy points that way. You ask me again,
how do I know that there are spontaneous movements? I tell you, "I
know it because I feel them." I want to move my arm and I move it
without any other immediate cause of the movement but my own will.
In vain would any one try to argue me out of this feeling, it is
stronger than any proofs; you might as well try to convince me that
I do not exist.

If there were no spontaneity in men's actions, nor in anything
that happens on this earth, it would be all the more difficult to
imagine a first cause for all motion. For my own part, I feel myself
so thoroughly convinced that the natural state of matter is a state
of rest, and that it has no power of action in itself, that when
I see a body in motion I at once assume that it is either a living
body or that this motion has been imparted to it. My mind declines
to accept in any way the idea of inorganic matter moving of its
own accord, or giving rise to any action.

Yet this visible universe consists of matter, matter diffused and
dead, [Footnote: I have tried hard to grasp the idea of a living
molecule, but in vain. The idea of matter feeling without any senses
seems to me unintelligible and self-contradictory. To accept or
reject this idea one must first understand it, and I confess that
so far I have not succeeded.] matter which has none of the cohesion,
the organisation, the common feeling of the parts of a living body,
for it is certain that we who are parts have no consciousness of
the whole. This same universe is in motion, and in its movements,
ordered, uniform, and subject to fixed laws, it has none of that
freedom which appears in the spontaneous movements of men and
animals. So the world is not some huge animal which moves of its
own accord; its movements are therefore due to some external cause,
a cause which I cannot perceive, but the inner voice makes this
cause so apparent to me that I cannot watch the course of the
sun without imagining a force which drives it, and when the earth
revolves I think I see the hand that sets it in motion.

If I must accept general laws whose essential relation to matter
is unperceived by me, how much further have I got? These laws, not
being real things, not being substances, have therefore some other
basis unknown to me. Experiment and observation have acquainted us
with the laws of motion; these laws determine the results without
showing their causes; they are quite inadequate to explain the
system of the world and the course of the universe. With the help
of dice Descartes made heaven and earth; but he could not set his
dice in motion, nor start the action of his centrifugal force without
the help of rotation. Newton discovered the law of gravitation; but
gravitation alone would soon reduce the universe to a motionless
mass; he was compelled to add a projectile force to account for
the elliptical course of the celestial bodies; let Newton show us
the hand that launched the planets in the tangent of their orbits.

The first causes of motion are not to be found in matter; matter
receives and transmits motion, but does not produce it. The more
I observe the action and reaction of the forces of nature playing
on one another, the more I see that we must always go back from one
effect to another, till we arrive at a first cause in some will;
for to assume an infinite succession of causes is to assume that
there is no first cause. In a word, no motion which is not caused
by another motion can take place, except by a spontaneous, voluntary
action; inanimate bodies have no action but motion, and there is
no real action without will. This is my first principle. I believe,
therefore, that there is a will which sets the universe in motion
and gives life to nature. This is my first dogma, or the first
article of my creed.

How does a will produce a physical and corporeal action? I cannot
tell, but I perceive that it does so in myself; I will to do
something and I do it; I will to move my body and it moves, but
if an inanimate body, when at rest, should begin to move itself,
the thing is incomprehensible and without precedent. The will is
known to me in its action, not in its nature. I know this will as
a cause of motion, but to conceive of matter as producing motion
is clearly to conceive of an effect without a cause, which is not
to conceive at all.

It is no more possible for me to conceive how my will moves my body
than to conceive how my sensations affect my mind. I do not even
know why one of these mysteries has seemed less inexplicable than the
other. For my own part, whether I am active or passive, the means
of union of the two substances seem to me absolutely incomprehensible.
It is very strange that people make this very incomprehensibility a
step towards the compounding of the two substances, as if operations
so different in kind were more easily explained in one case than
in two.

The doctrine I have just laid down is indeed obscure; but at least
it suggests a meaning and there is nothing in it repugnant to reason
or experience; can we say as much of materialism? Is it not plain
that if motion is essential to matter it would be inseparable from
it, it would always be present in it in the same degree, always
present in every particle of matter, always the same in each
particle of matter, it would not be capable of transmission, it
could neither increase nor diminish, nor could we ever conceive of
matter at rest. When you tell me that motion is not essential to
matter but necessary to it, you try to cheat me with words which
would be easier to refute if there was a little more sense in them.
For either the motion of matter arises from the matter itself and
is therefore essential to it; or it arises from an external cause
and is not necessary to the matter, because the motive cause acts
upon it; we have got back to our original difficulty.

The chief source of human error is to be found in general and abstract
ideas; the jargon of metaphysics has never led to the discovery of
any single truth, and it has filled philosophy with absurdities of
which we are ashamed as soon as we strip them of their long words.
Tell me, my friend, when they talk to you of a blind force diffused
throughout nature, do they present any real idea to your mind? They
think they are saying something by these vague expressions--universal
force, essential motion--but they are saying nothing at all. The idea
of motion is nothing more than the idea of transference from place
to place; there is no motion without direction; for no individual
can move all ways at once. In what direction then does matter move
of necessity? Has the whole body of matter a uniform motion, or
has each atom its own motion? According to the first idea the whole
universe must form a solid and indivisible mass; according to the
second it can only form a diffused and incoherent fluid, which
would make the union of any two atoms impossible. What direction
shall be taken by this motion common to all matter? Shall it be
in a straight line, in a circle, or from above downwards, to the
right or to the left? If each molecule has its own direction, what
are the causes of all these directions and all these differences?
If every molecule or atom only revolved on its own axis, nothing
would ever leave its place and there would be no transmitted motion,
and even then this circular movement would require to follow some
direction. To set matter in motion by an abstraction is to utter
words without meaning, and to attribute to matter a given direction
is to assume a determining cause. The more examples I take, the
more causes I have to explain, without ever finding a common agent
which controls them. Far from being able to picture to myself an
entire absence of order in the fortuitous concurrence of elements,
I cannot even imagine such a strife, and the chaos of the universe
is less conceivable to me than its harmony. I can understand that
the mechanism of the universe may not be intelligible to the human
mind, but when a man sets to work to explain it, he must say what
men can understand.

If matter in motion points me to a will, matter in motion according
to fixed laws points me to an intelligence; that is the second article
of my creed. To act, to compare, to choose, are the operations of
an active, thinking being; so this being exists. Where do you find
him existing, you will say? Not merely in the revolving heavens,
nor in the sun which gives us light, not in myself alone, but in
the sheep that grazes, the bird that flies, the stone that falls,
and the leaf blown by the wind.

I judge of the order of the world, although I know nothing of its
purpose, for to judge of this order it is enough for me to compare
the parts one with another, to study their co-operation, their
relations, and to observe their united action. I know not why the
universe exists, but I see continually how it is changed; I never
fail to perceive the close connection by which the entities of
which it consists lend their aid one to another. I am like a man
who sees the works of a watch for the first time; he is never weary
of admiring the mechanism, though he does not know the use of the
instrument and has never seen its face. I do not know what this is
for, says he, but I see that each part of it is fitted to the rest,
I admire the workman in the details of his work, and I am quite
certain that all these wheels only work together in this fashion
for some common end which I cannot perceive.

Let us compare the special ends, the means, the ordered relations
of every kind, then let us listen to the inner voice of feeling;
what healthy mind can reject its evidence? Unless the eyes are
blinded by prejudices, can they fail to see that the visible order
of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence? What sophisms
must be brought together before we fail to understand the harmony
of existence and the wonderful co-operation of every part for the
maintenance of the rest? Say what you will of combinations and
probabilities; what do you gain by reducing me to silence if you
cannot gain my consent? And how can you rob me of the spontaneous
feeling which, in spite of myself, continually gives you the lie?
If organised bodies had come together fortuitously in all sorts of
ways before assuming settled forms, if stomachs are made without
mouths, feet without heads, hands without arms, imperfect organs of
every kind which died because they could not preserve their life,
why do none of these imperfect attempts now meet our eyes; why has
nature at length prescribed laws to herself which she did not at
first recognise? I must not be surprised if that which is possible
should happen, and if the improbability of the event is compensated
for by the number of the attempts. I grant this; yet if any one
told me that printed characters scattered broadcast had produced
the Aeneid all complete, I would not condescend to take a single
step to verify this falsehood. You will tell me I am forgetting the
multitude of attempts. But how many such attempts must I assume to
bring the combination within the bounds of probability? For my own
part the only possible assumption is that the chances are infinity
to one that the product is not the work of chance. In addition to
this, chance combinations yield nothing but products of the same
nature as the elements combined, so that life and organisation will
not be produced by a flow of atoms, and a chemist when making his
compounds will never give them thought and feeling in his crucible.
[Footnote: Could one believe, if one had not seen it, that human
absurdity could go so far? Amatus Lusitanus asserts that he saw a
little man an inch long enclosed in a glass, which Julius Camillus,
like a second Prometheus, had made by alchemy. Paracelsis (De
natura rerum) teaches the method of making these tiny men, and he
maintains that the pygmies, fauns, satyrs, and nymphs have been made
by chemistry. Indeed I cannot see that there is anything more to
be done, to establish the possibility of these facts, unless it
is to assert that organic matter resists the heat of fire and that
its molecules can preserve their life in the hottest furnace.]

I was surprised and almost shocked when I read Neuwentit. How
could this man desire to make a book out of the wonders of nature,
wonders which show the wisdom of the author of nature? His book would
have been as large as the world itself before he had exhausted his
subject, and as soon as we attempt to give details, that greatest
wonder of all, the concord and harmony of the whole, escapes us.
The mere generation of living organic bodies is the despair of the
human mind; the insurmountable barrier raised by nature between the
various species, so that they should not mix with one another, is
the clearest proof of her intention. She is not content to have
established order, she has taken adequate measures to prevent the
disturbance of that order.

There is not a being in the universe which may not be regarded as
in some respects the common centre of all, around which they are
grouped, so that they are all reciprocally end and means in relation
to each other. The mind is confused and lost amid these innumerable
relations, not one of which is itself confused or lost in the
crowd. What absurd assumptions are required to deduce all this
harmony from the blind mechanism of matter set in motion by chance!
In vain do those who deny the unity of intention manifested in the
relations of all the parts of this great whole, in vain do they
conceal their nonsense under abstractions, co-ordinations, general
principles, symbolic expressions; whatever they do I find it
impossible to conceive of a system of entities so firmly ordered
unless I believe in an intelligence that orders them. It is not in
my power to believe that passive and dead matter can have brought
forth living and feeling beings, that blind chance has brought
forth intelligent beings, that that which does not think has brought
forth thinking beings.

I believe, therefore, that the world is governed by a wise and
powerful will; I see it or rather I feel it, and it is a great
thing to know this. But has this same world always existed, or has
it been created? Is there one source of all things? Are there two
or many? What is their nature? I know not; and what concern is it
of mine? When these things become of importance to me I will try
to learn them; till then I abjure these idle speculations, which may
trouble my peace, but cannot affect my conduct nor be comprehended
by my reason.

Recollect that I am not preaching my own opinion but explaining
it. Whether matter is eternal or created, whether its origin is
passive or not, it is still certain that the whole is one, and that
it proclaims a single intelligence; for I see nothing that is not
part of the same ordered system, nothing which does not co-operate
to the same end, namely, the conservation of all within the
established order. This being who wills and can perform his will,
this being active through his own power, this being, whoever he may
be, who moves the universe and orders all things, is what I call
God. To this name I add the ideas of intelligence, power, will,
which I have brought together, and that of kindness which is their
necessary consequence; but for all this I know no more of the being
to which I ascribe them. He hides himself alike from my senses
and my understanding; the more I think of him, the more perplexed
I am; I know full well that he exists, and that he exists of himself
alone; I know that my existence depends on his, and that everything
I know depends upon him also. I see God everywhere in his works;
I feel him within myself; I behold him all around me; but if I try
to ponder him himself, if I try to find out where he is, what he
is, what is his substance, he escapes me and my troubled spirit
finds nothing.

Convinced of my unfitness, I shall never argue about the nature of
God unless I am driven to it by the feeling of his relations with
myself. Such reasonings are always rash; a wise man should venture
on them with trembling, he should be certain that he can never
sound their abysses; for the most insolent attitude towards God is
not to abstain from thinking of him, but to think evil of him.

After the discovery of such of his attributes as enable me to conceive
of his existence, I return to myself, and I try to discover what is
my place in the order of things which he governs, and I can myself
examine. At once, and beyond possibility of doubt, I discover my
species; for by my own will and the instruments I can control to
carry out my will, I have more power to act upon all bodies about
me, either to make use of or to avoid their action at my pleasure,
than any of them has power to act upon me against my will by mere
physical impulsion; and through my intelligence I am the only one
who can examine all the rest. What being here below, except man,
can observe others, measure, calculate, forecast their motions,
their effects, and unite, so to speak, the feeling of a common
existence with that of his individual existence? What is there so
absurd in the thought that all things are made for me, when I alone
can relate all things to myself?

It is true, therefore, that man is lord of the earth on which he
dwells; for not only does he tame all the beasts, not only does he
control its elements through his industry; but he alone knows how
to control it; by contemplation he takes possession of the stars
which he cannot approach. Show me any other creature on earth who
can make a fire and who can behold with admiration the sun. What!
can I observe and know all creatures and their relations; can
I feel what is meant by order, beauty, and virtue; can I consider
the universe and raise myself towards the hand that guides it; can
I love good and perform it; and should I then liken myself to the
beasts? Wretched soul, it is your gloomy philosophy which makes
you like the beasts; or rather in vain do you seek to degrade
yourself; your genius belies your principles, your kindly heart
belies your doctrines, and even the abuse of your powers proves
their excellence in your own despite.

For myself, I am not pledged to the support of any system. I am a
plain and honest man, one who is not carried away by party spirit,
one who has no ambition to be head of a sect; I am content with
the place where God has set me; I see nothing, next to God himself,
which is better than my species; and if I had to choose my place in
the order of creation, what more could I choose than to be a man!

I am not puffed up by this thought, I am deeply moved by it; for
this state was no choice of mine, it was not due to the deserts
of a creature who as yet did not exist. Can I behold myself thus
distinguished without congratulating myself on this post of honour,
without blessing the hand which bestowed it? The first return to
self has given birth to a feeling of gratitude and thankfulness
to the author of my species, and this feeling calls forth my first
homage to the beneficent Godhead. I worship his Almighty power and
my heart acknowledges his mercies. Is it not a natural consequence
of our self-love to honour our protector and to love our benefactor?

But when, in my desire to discover my own place within my species,
I consider its different ranks and the men who fill them, where am
I now? What a sight meets my eyes! Where is now the order I perceived?
Nature showed me a scene of harmony and proportion; the human race
shows me nothing but confusion and disorder. The elements agree
together; men are in a state of chaos. The beasts are happy; their
king alone is wretched. O Wisdom, where are thy laws? O Providence,
is this thy rule over the world? Merciful God, where is thy Power?
I behold the earth, and there is evil upon it.

Would you believe it, dear friend, from these gloomy thoughts and
apparent contradictions, there was shaped in my mind the sublime
idea of the soul, which all my seeking had hitherto failed to
discover? While I meditated upon man's nature, I seemed to discover
two distinct principles in it; one of them raised him to the study
of the eternal truths, to the love of justice, and of true morality,
to the regions of the world of thought, which the wise delight to
contemplate; the other led him downwards to himself, made him the
slave of his senses, of the passions which are their instruments,
and thus opposed everything suggested to him by the former principle.
When I felt myself carried away, distracted by these conflicting
motives, I said, No; man is not one; I will and I will not; I feel
myself at once a slave and a free man; I perceive what is right, I
love it, and I do what is wrong; I am active when I listen to the
voice of reason; I am passive when I am carried away by my passions;
and when I yield, my worst suffering is the knowledge that I might
have resisted.

Young man, hear me with confidence. I will always be honest with
you. If conscience is the creature of prejudice, I am certainly
wrong, and there is no such thing as a proof of morality; but if
to put oneself first is an inclination natural to man, and if the
first sentiment of justice is moreover inborn in the human heart,
let those who say man is a simple creature remove these contradictions
and I will grant that there is but one substance.

You will note that by this term 'substance' I understand generally
the being endowed with some primitive quality, apart from all special
and secondary modifications. If then all the primitive qualities
which are known to us can be united in one and the same being, we
should only acknowledge one substance; but if there are qualities
which are mutually exclusive, there are as many different substances
as there are such exclusions. You will think this over; for my
own part, whatever Locke may say, it is enough for me to recognise
matter as having merely extension and divisibility to convince
myself that it cannot think, and if a philosopher tells me that
trees feel and rocks think [Footnote: It seems to me that modern
philosophy, far from saying that rocks think, has discovered that
men do not think. It perceives nothing more in nature than sensitive
beings; and the only difference it finds between a man and a stone
is that a man is a sensitive being which experiences sensations, and
a stone is a sensitive being which does not experience sensations.
But if it is true that all matter feels, where shall I find the
sensitive unit, the individual ego? Shall it be in each molecule of
matter or in bodies as aggregates of molecules? Shall I place this
unity in fluids and solids alike, in compounds and in elements? You
tell me nature consists of individuals. But what are these individuals?
Is that stone an individual or an aggregate of individuals? Is
it a single sensitive being, or are there as many beings in it as
there are grains of sand? If every elementary atom is a sensitive
being, how shall I conceive of that intimate communication by which
one feels within the other, so that their two egos are blended in
one? Attraction may be a law of nature whose mystery is unknown to
us; but at least we conceive that there is nothing in attraction
acting in proportion to mass which is contrary to extension and
divisibility. Can you conceive of sensation in the same way? The
sensitive parts have extension, but the sensitive being is one and
indivisible; he cannot be cut in two, he is a whole or he is nothing;
therefore the sensitive being is not a material body. I know not
how our materialists understand it, but it seems to me that the
same difficulties which have led them to reject thought, should
have made them also reject feeling; and I see no reason why, when
the first step has been taken, they should not take the second
too; what more would it cost them? Since they are certain they do
not think, why do they dare to affirm that they feel?] in vain will
he perplex me with his cunning arguments; I merely regard him as
a dishonest sophist, who prefers to say that stones have feeling
rather than that men have souls.

Suppose a deaf man denies the existence of sounds because he has
never heard them. I put before his eyes a stringed instrument and
cause it to sound in unison by means of another instrument concealed
from him; the deaf man sees the chord vibrate. I tell him, "The
sound makes it do that." "Not at all," says he, "the string itself
is the cause of the vibration; to vibrate in that way is a quality
common to all bodies." "Then show me this vibration in other
bodies," I answer, "or at least show me its cause in this string."
"I cannot," replies the deaf man; "but because I do not understand
how that string vibrates why should I try to explain it by means of
your sounds, of which I have not the least idea? It is explaining
one obscure fact by means of a cause still more obscure. Make me
perceive your sounds; or I say there are no such things."

The more I consider thought and the nature of the human mind, the
more likeness I find between the arguments of the materialists and
those of the deaf man. Indeed, they are deaf to the inner voice
which cries aloud to them, in a tone which can hardly be mistaken.
A machine does not think, there is neither movement nor form which
can produce reflection; something within thee tries to break the
bands which confine it; space is not thy measure, the whole universe
does not suffice to contain thee; thy sentiments, thy desires, thy
anxiety, thy pride itself, have another origin than this small body
in which thou art imprisoned.

No material creature is in itself active, and I am active. In vain
do you argue this point with me; I feel it, and it is this feeling
which speaks to me more forcibly than the reason which disputes it.
I have a body which is acted upon by other bodies, and it acts in
turn upon them; there is no doubt about this reciprocal action;
but my will is independent of my senses; I consent or I resist;
I yield or I win the victory, and I know very well in myself when
I have done what I wanted and when I have merely given way to
my passions. I have always the power to will, but not always the
strength to do what I will. When I yield to temptation I surrender
myself to the action of external objects. When I blame myself for
this weakness, I listen to my own will alone; I am a slave in my
vices, a free man in my remorse; the feeling of freedom is never
effaced in me but when I myself do wrong, and when I at length
prevent the voice of the soul from protesting against the authority
of the body.

I am only aware of will through the consciousness of my own will,
and intelligence is no better known to me. When you ask me what
is the cause which determines my will, it is my turn to ask what
cause determines my judgment; for it is plain that these two causes
are but one; and if you understand clearly that man is active in
his judgments, that his intelligence is only the power to compare
and judge, you will see that his freedom is only a similar power
or one derived from this; he chooses between good and evil as he
judges between truth and falsehood; if his judgment is at fault, he
chooses amiss. What then is the cause that determines his will? It
is his judgment. And what is the cause that determines his judgment?
It is his intelligence, his power of judging; the determining cause
is in himself. Beyond that, I understand nothing.

No doubt I am not free not to desire my own welfare, I am not free
to desire my own hurt; but my freedom consists in this very thing,
that I can will what is for my own good, or what I esteem as such,
without any external compulsion. Does it follow that I am not my
own master because I cannot be other than myself?

The motive power of all action is in the will of a free creature; we
can go no farther. It is not the word freedom that is meaningless, but
the word necessity. To suppose some action which is not the effect
of an active motive power is indeed to suppose effects without
cause, to reason in a vicious circle. Either there is no original
impulse, or every original impulse has no antecedent cause, and
there is no will properly so-called without freedom. Man is therefore
free to act, and as such he is animated by an immaterial substance;
that is the third article of my creed. From these three you will
easily deduce the rest, so that I need not enumerate them.

If man is at once active and free, he acts of his own accord; what
he does freely is no part of the system marked out by Providence
and it cannot be imputed to Providence. Providence does not will
the evil that man does when he misuses the freedom given to him;
neither does Providence prevent him doing it, either because the
wrong done by so feeble a creature is as nothing in its eyes, or
because it could not prevent it without doing a greater wrong and
degrading his nature. Providence has made him free that he may
choose the good and refuse the evil. It has made him capable of this
choice if he uses rightly the faculties bestowed upon him, but it
has so strictly limited his powers that the misuse of his freedom
cannot disturb the general order. The evil that man does reacts
upon himself without affecting the system of the world, without
preventing the preservation of the human species in spite of
itself. To complain that God does not prevent us from doing wrong
is to complain because he has made man of so excellent a nature,
that he has endowed his actions with that morality by which they
are ennobled, that he has made virtue man's birthright. Supreme
happiness consists in self-content; that we may gain this self-content
we are placed upon this earth and endowed with freedom, we are
tempted by our passions and restrained by conscience. What more
could divine power itself have done on our behalf? Could it have made
our nature a contradiction, and have given the prize of well-doing
to one who was incapable of evil? To prevent a man from wickedness,
should Providence have restricted him to instinct and made him
a fool? Not so, O God of my soul, I will never reproach thee that
thou hast created me in thine own image, that I may be free and
good and happy like my Maker!

It is the abuse of our powers that makes us unhappy and wicked.
Our cares, our sorrows, our sufferings are of our own making. Moral
ills are undoubtedly the work of man, and physical ills would be
nothing but for our vices which have made us liable to them. Has
not nature made us feel our needs as a means to our preservation!
Is not bodily suffering a sign that the machine is out of order
and needs attention? Death.... Do not the wicked poison their own
life and ours? Who would wish to live for ever? Death is the cure
for the evils you bring upon yourself; nature would not have you
suffer perpetually. How few sufferings are felt by man living in
a state of primitive simplicity! His life is almost entirely free
from suffering and from passion; he neither fears nor feels death;
if he feels it, his sufferings make him desire it; henceforth it
is no evil in his eyes. If we were but content to be ourselves we
should have no cause to complain of our lot; but in the search for
an imaginary good we find a thousand real ills. He who cannot bear
a little pain must expect to suffer greatly. If a man injures his
constitution by dissipation, you try to cure him with medicine;
the ill he fears is added to the ill he feels; the thought of
death makes it horrible and hastens its approach; the more we seek
to escape from it, the more we are aware of it; and we go through
life in the fear of death, blaming nature for the evils we have
inflicted on ourselves by our neglect of her laws.

O Man! seek no further for the author of evil; thou art he. There
is no evil but the evil you do or the evil you suffer, and both
come from yourself. Evil in general can only spring from disorder,
and in the order of the world I find a never failing system. Evil
in particular cases exists only in the mind of those who experience
it; and this feeling is not the gift of nature, but the work of
man himself. Pain has little power over those who, having thought
little, look neither before nor after. Take away our fatal progress,
take away our faults and our vices, take away man's handiwork, and
all is well.

Where all is well, there is no such thing as injustice. Justice and
goodness are inseparable; now goodness is the necessary result of
boundless power and of that self-love which is innate in all sentient
beings. The omnipotent projects himself, so to speak, into the being
of his creatures. Creation and preservation are the everlasting
work of power; it does not act on that which has no existence; God
is not the God of the dead; he could not harm and destroy without
injury to himself. The omnipotent can only will what is good.
[Footnote: The ancients were right when they called the supreme
God Optimus Maximus, but it would have been better to say Maximus
Optimus, for his goodness springs from his power, he is good
because he is great.] Therefore he who is supremely good, because
he is supremely powerful, must also be supremely just, otherwise
he would contradict himself; for that love of order which creates
order we call goodness and that love of order which preserves order
we call justice.

Men say God owes nothing to his creatures. I think he owes them
all he promised when he gave them their being. Now to give them
the idea of something good and to make them feel the need of it,
is to promise it to them. The more closely I study myself, the more
carefully I consider, the more plainly do I read these words, "Be
just and you will be happy." It is not so, however, in the present
condition of things, the wicked prospers and the oppression of the
righteous continues. Observe how angry we are when this expectation
is disappointed. Conscience revolts and murmurs against her Creator;
she exclaims with cries and groans, "Thou hast deceived me."

"I have deceived thee, rash soul! Who told thee this? Is thy soul
destroyed? Hast thou ceased to exist? O Brutus! O my son! let there
be no stain upon the close of thy noble life; do not abandon thy
hope and thy glory with thy corpse upon the plains of Philippi.
Why dost thou say, 'Virtue is naught,' when thou art about to enjoy
the reward of virtue? Thou art about to die! Nay, thou shalt live,
and thus my promise is fulfilled."

One might judge from the complaints of impatient men that God owes
them the reward before they have deserved it, that he is bound to
pay for virtue in advance. Oh! let us first be good and then we
shall be happy. Let us not claim the prize before we have won it,
nor demand our wages before we have finished our work. "It is not
in the lists that we crown the victors in the sacred games," says
Plutarch, "it is when they have finished their course."

If the soul is immaterial, it may survive the body; and if
it so survives, Providence is justified. Had I no other proof of
the immaterial nature of the soul, the triumph of the wicked and
the oppression of the righteous in this world would be enough to
convince me. I should seek to resolve so appalling a discord in the
universal harmony. I should say to myself, "All is not over with
life, everything finds its place at death." I should still have to
answer the question, "What becomes of man when all we know of him
through our senses has vanished?" This question no longer presents
any difficulty to me when I admit the two substances. It is easy
to understand that what is imperceptible to those senses escapes
me, during my bodily life, when I perceive through my senses only.
When the union of soul and body is destroyed, I think one may be
dissolved and the other may be preserved. Why should the destruction
of the one imply the destruction of the other? On the contrary, so
unlike in their nature, they were during their union in a highly
unstable condition, and when this union comes to an end they both
return to their natural state; the active vital substance regains
all the force which it expended to set in motion the passive dead
substance. Alas! my vices make me only too well aware that man is
but half alive during this life; the life of the soul only begins
with the death of the body.

But what is that life? Is the soul of man in its nature immortal?
I know not. My finite understanding cannot hold the infinite; what
is called eternity eludes my grasp. What can I assert or deny, how
can I reason with regard to what I cannot conceive? I believe that
the soul survives the body for the maintenance of order; who knows
if this is enough to make it eternal? However, I know that the
body is worn out and destroyed by the division of its parts, but
I cannot conceive a similar destruction of the conscious nature,
and as I cannot imagine how it can die, I presume that it does not
die. As this assumption is consoling and in itself not unreasonable,
why should I fear to accept it?

I am aware of my soul; it is known to me in feeling and in thought;
I know what it is without knowing its essence; I cannot reason
about ideas which are unknown to me. What I do know is this, that
my personal identity depends upon memory, and that to be indeed
the same self I must remember that I have existed. Now after death
I could not recall what I was when alive unless I also remembered
what I felt and therefore what I did; and I have no doubt that
this remembrance will one day form the happiness of the good and
the torment of the bad. In this world our inner consciousness is
absorbed by the crowd of eager passions which cheat remorse. The
humiliation and disgrace involved in the practice of virtue do not
permit us to realise its charm. But when, freed from the illusions
of the bodily senses, we behold with joy the supreme Being and
the eternal truths which flow from him; when all the powers of our
soul are alive to the beauty of order and we are wholly occupied in
comparing what we have done with what we ought to have done, then
it is that the voice of conscience will regain its strength and sway;
then it is that the pure delight which springs from self-content,
and the sharp regret for our own degradation of that self, will
decide by means of overpowering feeling what shall be the fate
which each has prepared for himself. My good friend, do not ask me
whether there are other sources of happiness or suffering; I cannot
tell; that which my fancy pictures is enough to console me in this
life and to bid me look for a life to come. I do not say the good
will be rewarded, for what greater good can a truly good being expect
than to exist in accordance with his nature? But I do assert that
the good will be happy, because their maker, the author of all
justice, who has made them capable of feeling, has not made them
that they may suffer; moreover, they have not abused their freedom
upon earth and they have not changed their fate through any fault
of their own; yet they have suffered in this life and it will be made
up to them in the life to come. This feeling relies not so much on
man's deserts as on the idea of good which seems to me inseparable
from the divine essence. I only assume that the laws of order are
constant and that God is true to himself.

Do not ask me whether the torments of the wicked will endure for
ever, whether the goodness of their creator can condemn them to
the eternal suffering; again, I cannot tell, and I have no empty
curiosity for the investigation of useless problems. How does the
fate of the wicked concern me? I take little interest in it. All
the same I find it hard to believe that they will be condemned to
everlasting torments. If the supreme justice calls for vengeance,
it claims it in this life. The nations of the world with their errors
are its ministers. Justice uses self-inflicted ills to punish the
crimes which have deserved them. It is in your own insatiable souls,
devoured by envy, greed, and ambition, it is in the midst of your
false prosperity, that the avenging passions find the due reward
of your crimes. What need to seek a hell in the future life? It is
here in the breast of the wicked.

When our fleeting needs are over, and our mad desires are at rest,
there should also be an end of our passions and our crimes. Can
pure spirits be capable of any perversity? Having need of nothing,
why should they be wicked? If they are free from our gross senses,
if their happiness consists in the contemplation of other beings,
they can only desire what is good; and he who ceases to be bad can
never be miserable. This is what I am inclined to think though I
have not been at the pains to come to any decision. O God, merciful
and good, whatever thy decrees may be I adore them; if thou shouldst
commit the wicked to everlasting punishment, I abandon my feeble
reason to thy justice; but if the remorse of these wretched beings
should in the course of time be extinguished, if their sufferings
should come to an end, and if the same peace shall one day be the
lot of all mankind, I give thanks to thee for this. Is not the
wicked my brother? How often have I been tempted to be like him?
Let him be delivered from his misery and freed from the spirit of
hatred that accompanied it; let him be as happy as I myself; his
happiness, far from arousing my jealousy, will only increase my
own.

Thus it is that, in the contemplation of God in his works, and in
the study of such of his attributes as it concerned me to know,
I have slowly grasped and developed the idea, at first partial
and imperfect, which I have formed of this Infinite Being. But if
this idea has become nobler and greater it is also more suited to
the human reason. As I approach in spirit the eternal light, I am
confused and dazzled by its glory, and compelled to abandon all
the earthly notions which helped me to picture it to myself. God
is no longer corporeal and sensible; the supreme mind which rules
the world is no longer the world itself; in vain do I strive to
grasp his inconceivable essence. When I think that it is he that
gives life and movement to the living and moving substance which
controls all living bodies; when I hear it said that my soul is
spiritual and that God is a spirit, I revolt against this abasement
of the divine essence; as if God and my soul were of one and the
same nature! As if God were not the one and only absolute being,
the only really active, feeling, thinking, willing being, from whom
we derive our thought, feeling, motion, will, our freedom and our
very existence! We are free because he wills our freedom, and his
inexplicable substance is to our souls what our souls are to our
bodies. I know not whether he has created matter, body, soul, the
world itself. The idea of creation confounds me and eludes my grasp;
so far as I can conceive of it I believe it; but I know that he has
formed the universe and all that is, that he has made and ordered
all things. No doubt God is eternal; but can my mind grasp the idea
of eternity? Why should I cheat myself with meaningless words?
This is what I do understand; before things were--God was; he will
be when they are no more, and if all things come to an end he will
still endure. That a being beyond my comprehension should give life
to other beings, this is merely difficult and beyond my understanding;
but that Being and Nothing should be convertible terms, this is
indeed a palpable contradiction, an evident absurdity.

God is intelligent, but how? Man is intelligent when he reasons, but
the Supreme Intelligence does not need to reason; there is neither
premise nor conclusion for him, there is not even a proposition.
The Supreme Intelligence is wholly intuitive, it sees what is and
what shall be; all truths are one for it, as all places are but one
point and all time but one moment. Man's power makes use of means,
the divine power is self-active. God can because he wills; his
will is his power. God is good; this is certain; but man finds his
happiness in the welfare of his kind. God's happiness consists in
the love of order; for it is through order that he maintains what
is, and unites each part in the whole. God is just; of this I am
sure, it is a consequence of his goodness; man's injustice is not
God's work, but his own; that moral justice which seems to the
philosophers a presumption against Providence, is to me a proof of
its existence. But man's justice consists in giving to each his
due; God's justice consists in demanding from each of us an account
of that which he has given us.

If I have succeeded in discerning these attributes of which I have
no absolute idea, it is in the form of unavoidable deductions, and
by the right use of my reason; but I affirm them without understanding
them, and at bottom that is no affirmation at all. In vain do I
say, God is thus, I feel it, I experience it, none the more do I
understand how God can be thus.

In a word: the more I strive to envisage his infinite essence the
less do I comprehend it; but it is, and that is enough for me; the
less I understand, the more I adore. I abase myself, saying, "Being
of beings, I am because thou art; to fix my thoughts on thee is
to ascend to the source of my being. The best use I can make of my
reason is to resign it before thee; my mind delights, my weakness
rejoices, to feel myself overwhelmed by thy greatness."

Having thus deduced from the perception of objects of sense and
from my inner consciousness, which leads me to judge of causes by
my native reason, the principal truths which I require to know, I
must now seek such principles of conduct as I can draw from them,
and such rules as I must lay down for my guidance in the fulfilment
of my destiny in this world, according to the purpose of my Maker.
Still following the same method, I do not derive these rules from
the principles of the higher philosophy, I find them in the depths
of my heart, traced by nature in characters which nothing can efface.
I need only consult myself with regard to what I wish to do; what
I feel to be right is right, what I feel to be wrong is wrong;
conscience is the best casuist; and it is only when we haggle with
conscience that we have recourse to the subtleties of argument.
Our first duty is towards ourself; yet how often does the voice of
others tell us that in seeking our good at the expense of others
we are doing ill? We think we are following the guidance of nature,
and we are resisting it; we listen to what she says to our senses,
and we neglect what she says to our heart; the active being obeys,
the passive commands. Conscience is the voice of the soul, the
passions are the voice of the body. It is strange that these voices
often contradict each other? And then to which should we give heed?
Too often does reason deceive us; we have only too good a right to
doubt her; but conscience never deceives us; she is the true guide
of man; it is to the soul what instinct is to the body, [Footnote:
Modern philosophy, which only admits what it can understand, is
careful not to admit this obscure power called instinct which seems
to guide the animals to some end without any acquired experience.
Instinct, according to some of our wise philosophers, is only a
secret habit of reflection, acquired by reflection; and from the
way in which they explain this development one ought to suppose
that children reflect more than grown-up people: a paradox strange
enough to be worth examining. Without entering upon this discussion I
must ask what name I shall give to the eagerness with which my dog
makes war on the moles he does not eat, or to the patience with
which he sometimes watches them for hours and the skill with which
he seizes them, throws them to a distance from their earth as soon
as they emerge, and then kills them and leaves them. Yet no one
has trained him to this sport, nor even told him there were such
things as moles. Again, I ask, and this is a more important question,
why, when I threatened this same dog for the first time, why did
he throw himself on the ground with his paws folded, in such a
suppliant attitude .....calculated to touch me, a position which
he would have maintained if, without being touched by it, I had
continued to beat him in that position? What! Had my dog, little
more than a puppy, acquired moral ideas? Did he know the meaning
of mercy and generosity? By what acquired knowledge did he seek
to appease my wrath by yielding to my discretion? Every dog in the
world does almost the same thing in similar circumstances, and I
am asserting nothing but what any one can verify for himself. Will
the philosophers, who so scornfully reject instinct, kindly explain
this fact by the mere play of sensations and experience which they
assume we have acquired? Let them give an account of it which will
satisfy any sensible man; in that case I have nothing further to
urge, and I will say no more of instinct.] he who obeys his conscience
is following nature and he need not fear that he will go astray.
This is a matter of great importance, continued my benefactor,
seeing that I was about to interrupt him; let me stop awhile to
explain it more fully.

The morality of our actions consists entirely in the judgments we
ourselves form with regard to them. If good is good, it must be
good in the depth of our heart as well as in our actions; and the
first reward of justice is the consciousness that we are acting
justly. If moral goodness is in accordance with our nature, man can
only be healthy in mind and body when he is good. If it is not so,
and if man is by nature evil, he cannot cease to be evil without
corrupting his nature, and goodness in him is a crime against
nature. If he is made to do harm to his fellow-creatures, as the
wolf is made to devour his prey, a humane man would be as depraved
a creature as a pitiful wolf; and virtue alone would cause remorse.

My young friend, let us look within, let us set aside all personal
prejudices and see whither our inclinations lead us. Do we take
more pleasure in the sight of the sufferings of others or their
joys? Is it pleasanter to do a kind action or an unkind action,
and which leaves the more delightful memory behind it? Why do you
enjoy the theatre? Do you delight in the crimes you behold? Do you
weep over the punishment which overtakes the criminal? They say
we are indifferent to everything but self-interest; yet we find
our consolation in our sufferings in the charms of friendship and
humanity, and even in our pleasures we should be too lonely and
miserable if we had no one to share them with us. If there is no
such thing as morality in man's heart, what is the source of his
rapturous admiration of noble deeds, his passionate devotion to
great men? What connection is there between self-interest and this
enthusiasm for virtue? Why should I choose to be Cato dying by his
own hand, rather than Caesar in his triumphs? Take from our hearts
this love of what is noble and you rob us of the joy of life. The
mean-spirited man in whom these delicious feelings have been stifled
among vile passions, who by thinking of no one but himself comes
at last to love no one but himself, this man feels no raptures, his
cold heart no longer throbs with joy, and his eyes no longer fill
with the sweet tears of sympathy, he delights in nothing; the wretch
has neither life nor feeling, he is already dead.

There are many bad men in this world, but there are few of these
dead souls, alive only to self-interest, and insensible to all that
is right and good. We only delight in injustice so long as it is
to our own advantage; in every other case we wish the innocent to
be protected. If we see some act of violence or injustice in town
or country, our hearts are at once stirred to their depths by an
instinctive anger and wrath, which bids us go to the help of the
oppressed; but we are restrained by a stronger duty, and the law
deprives us of our right to protect the innocent. On the other hand,
if some deed of mercy or generosity meets our eye, what reverence
and love does it inspire! Do we not say to ourselves, "I should
like to have done that myself"? What does it matter to us that two
thousand years ago a man was just or unjust? and yet we take the
same interest in ancient history as if it happened yesterday. What
are the crimes of Cataline to me? I shall not be his victim. Why
then have I the same horror of his crimes as if he were living
now? We do not hate the wicked merely because of the harm they do
to ourselves, but because they are wicked. Not only do we wish to
be happy ourselves, we wish others to be happy too, and if this
happiness does not interfere with our own happiness, it increases
it. In conclusion, whether we will or not, we pity the unfortunate;
when we see their suffering we suffer too. Even the most depraved
are not wholly without this instinct, and it often leads them to
self-contradiction. The highwayman who robs the traveller, clothes
the nakedness of the poor; the fiercest murderer supports a fainting
man.

Men speak of the voice of remorse, the secret punishment of hidden
crimes, by which such are often brought to light. Alas! who does
not know its unwelcome voice? We speak from experience, and we
would gladly stifle this imperious feeling which causes us such
agony. Let us obey the call of nature; we shall see that her yoke
is easy and that when we give heed to her voice we find a joy in
the answer of a good conscience. The wicked fears and flees from
her; he delights to escape from himself; his anxious eyes look
around him for some object of diversion; without bitter satire and
rude mockery he would always be sorrowful; the scornful laugh is
his one pleasure. Not so the just man, who finds his peace within
himself; there is joy not malice in his laughter, a joy which
springs from his own heart; he is as cheerful alone as in company,
his satisfaction does not depend on those who approach him; it
includes them.

Cast your eyes over every nation of the world; peruse every volume
of its history; in the midst of all these strange and cruel forms
of worship, among this amazing variety of manners and customs, you
will everywhere find the same ideas of right and justice; everywhere
the same principles of morality, the same ideas of good and evil.
The old paganism gave birth to abominable gods who would have been
punished as scoundrels here below, gods who merely offered, as a
picture of supreme happiness, crimes to be committed and lust to
be gratified. But in vain did vice descend from the abode of the
gods armed with their sacred authority; the moral instinct refused to
admit it into the heart of man. While the debaucheries of Jupiter
were celebrated, the continence of Xenocrates was revered; the
chaste Lucrece adored the shameless Venus; the bold Roman offered
sacrifices to Fear; he invoked the god who mutilated his father,
and he died without a murmur at the hand of his own father. The
most unworthy gods were worshipped by the noblest men. The sacred
voice of nature was stronger than the voice of the gods, and won
reverence upon earth; it seemed to relegate guilt and the guilty
alike to heaven.

There is therefore at the bottom of our hearts an innate principle
of justice and virtue, by which, in spite of our maxims, we judge
our own actions or those of others to be good or evil; and it is
this principle that I call conscience.

But at this word I hear the murmurs of all the wise men so-called.
Childish errors, prejudices of our upbringing, they exclaim in
concert! There is nothing in the human mind but what it has gained
by experience; and we judge everything solely by means of the ideas
we have acquired. They go further; they even venture to reject the
clear and universal agreement of all peoples, and to set against
this striking unanimity in the judgment of mankind, they seek out
some obscure exception known to themselves alone; as if the whole
trend of nature were rendered null by the depravity of a single
nation, and as if the existence of monstrosities made an end
of species. But to what purpose does the sceptic Montaigne strive
himself to unearth in some obscure corner of the world a custom
which is contrary to the ideas of justice? To what purpose does
he credit the most untrustworthy travellers, while he refuses to
believe the greatest writers? A few strange and doubtful customs,
based on local causes, unknown to us; shall these destroy a general
inference based on the agreement of all the nations of the earth,
differing from each other in all else, but agreed in this? O
Montaigne, you pride yourself on your truth and honesty; be sincere
and truthful, if a philosopher can be so, and tell me if there is
any country upon earth where it is a crime to keep one's plighted
word, to be merciful, helpful, and generous, where the good man is
scorned, and the traitor is held in honour.

Self-interest, so they say, induces each of us to agree for the
common good. But bow is it that the good man consents to this to
his own hurt? Does a man go to death from self-interest? No doubt
each man acts for his own good, but if there is no such thing as
moral good to be taken into consideration, self-interest will only
enable you to account for the deeds of the wicked; possibly you
will not attempt to do more. A philosophy which could find no place
for good deeds would be too detestable; you would find yourself
compelled either to find some mean purpose, some wicked motive, or
to abuse Socrates and slander Regulus. If such doctrines ever took
root among us, the voice of nature, together with the voice of
reason, would constantly protest against them, till no adherent of
such teaching could plead an honest excuse for his partisanship.

It is no part of my scheme to enter at present into metaphysical
discussions which neither you nor I can understand, discussions
which really lead nowhere. I have told you already that I do not
wish to philosophise with you, but to help you to consult your own
heart. If all the philosophers in the world should prove that I am
wrong, and you feel that I am right, that is all I ask.

For this purpose it is enough to lead you to distinguish between
our acquired ideas and our natural feelings; for feeling precedes
knowledge; and since we do not learn to seek what is good for us
and avoid what is bad for us, but get this desire from nature, in
the same way the love of good and the hatred of evil are as natural
to us as our self-love. The decrees of conscience are not judgments
but feelings. Although all our ideas come from without, the feelings
by which they are weighed are within us, and it is by these feelings
alone that we perceive fitness or unfitness of things in relation
to ourselves, which leads us to seek or shun these things.

To exist is to feel; our feeling is undoubtedly earlier than our
intelligence, and we had feelings before we had ideas.[Footnote:
In some respects ideas are feelings and feelings are ideas. Both
terms are appropriate to any perception with which we are concerned,
appropriate both to the object of that perception and to ourselves
who are affected by it; it is merely the order in which we are
affected which decides the appropriate term. When we are chiefly
concerned with the object and only think of ourselves as it were by
reflection, that is an idea; when, on the other hand, the impression
received excites our chief attention and we only think in the second
place of the object which caused it, it is a feeling.] Whatever may
be the cause of our being, it has provided for our preservation by
giving us feelings suited to our nature; and no one can deny that
these at least are innate. These feelings, so far as the individual
is concerned, are self-love, fear, pain, the dread of death, the
desire for comfort. Again, if, as it is impossible to doubt, man
is by nature sociable, or at least fitted to become sociable, he
can only be so by means of other innate feelings, relative to his
kind; for if only physical well-being were considered, men would
certainly be scattered rather than brought together. But the motive
power of conscience is derived from the moral system formed through
this twofold relation to himself and to his fellow-men. To know
good is not to love it; this knowledge is not innate in man; but as
soon as his reason leads him to perceive it, his conscience impels
him to love it; it is this feeling which is innate.

So I do not think, my young friend, that it is impossible to explain
the immediate force of conscience as a result of our own nature,
independent of reason itself. And even should it be impossible,
it is unnecessary; for those who deny this principle, admitted and
received by everybody else in the world, do not prove that there
is no such thing; they are content to affirm, and when we affirm
its existence we have quite as good grounds as they, while we have
moreover the witness within us, the voice of conscience, which
speaks on its own behalf. If the first beams of judgment dazzle
us and confuse the objects we behold, let us wait till our feeble
sight grows clear and strong, and in the light of reason we shall
soon behold these very objects as nature has already showed them
to us. Or rather let us be simpler and less pretentious; let us be
content with the first feelings we experience in ourselves, since
science always brings us back to these, unless it has led us astray.

Conscience! Conscience! Divine instinct, immortal voice from
heaven; sure guide for a creature ignorant and finite indeed, yet
intelligent and free; infallible judge of good and evil, making
man like to God! In thee consists the excellence of man's nature
and the morality of his actions; apart from thee, I find nothing in
myself to raise me above the beasts--nothing but the sad privilege
of wandering from one error to another, by the help of an unbridled
understanding and a reason which knows no principle.

Thank heaven we have now got rid of all that alarming show of
philosophy; we may be men without being scholars; now that we need
not spend our life in the study of morality, we have found a less
costly and surer guide through this vast labyrinth of human thought.
But it is not enough to be aware that there is such a guide;
we must know her and follow her. If she speaks to all hearts, how
is it that so few give heed to her voice? She speaks to us in the
language of nature, and everything leads us to forget that tongue.
Conscience is timid, she loves peace and retirement; she is startled
by noise and numbers; the prejudices from which she is said to arise
are her worst enemies. She flees before them or she is silent; their
noisy voices drown her words, so that she cannot get a hearing;
fanaticism dares to counterfeit her voice and to inspire crimes
in her name. She is discouraged by ill-treatment; she no longer
speaks to us, no longer answers to our call; when she has been
scorned so long, it is as hard to recall her as it was to banish
her.

How often in the course of my inquiries have I grown weary of my
own coldness of heart! How often have grief and weariness poured
their poison into my first meditations and made them hateful to me!
My barren heart yielded nothing but a feeble zeal and a lukewarm
love of truth. I said to myself: Why should I strive to find what
does not exist? Moral good is a dream, the pleasures of sense
are the only real good. When once we have lost the taste for the
pleasures of the soul, how hard it is to recover it! How much more
difficult to acquire it if we have never possessed it! If there
were any man so wretched as never to have done anything all his life
long which he could remember with pleasure, and which would make him
glad to have lived, that man would be incapable of self-knowledge,
and for want of knowledge of goodness, of which his nature is
capable, he would be constrained to remain in his wickedness and
would be for ever miserable. But do you think there is any one man
upon earth so depraved that he has never yielded to the temptation
of well-doing? This temptation is so natural, so pleasant, that it
is impossible always to resist it; and the thought of the pleasure
it has once afforded is enough to recall it constantly to our
memory. Unluckily it is hard at first to find satisfaction for it;
we have any number of reasons for refusing to follow the inclinations
of our heart; prudence, so called, restricts the heart within the
limits of the self; a thousand efforts are needed to break these
bonds. The joy of well-doing is the prize of having done well,
and we must deserve the prize before we win it. There is nothing
sweeter than virtue; but we do not know this till we have tried it.
Like Proteus in the fable, she first assumes a thousand terrible
shapes when we would embrace her, and only shows her true self to
those who refuse to let her go.

Ever at strife between my natural feelings, which spoke of the
common weal, and my reason, which spoke of self, I should have
drifted through life in perpetual uncertainty, hating evil, loving
good, and always at war with myself, if my heart had not received
further light, if that truth which determined my opinions had not
also settled my conduct, and set me at peace with myself. Reason
alone is not a sufficient foundation for virtue; what solid ground
can be found? Virtue we are told is love of order. But can this
love prevail over my love for my own well-being, and ought it so
to prevail? Let them give me clear and sufficient reason for this
preference. Their so-called principle is in truth a mere playing
with words; for I also say that vice is love of order, differently
understood. Wherever there is feeling and intelligence, there
is some sort of moral order. The difference is this: the good man
orders his life with regard to all men; the wicked orders it for
self alone. The latter centres all things round himself; the other
measures his radius and remains on the circumference. Thus his
place depends on the common centre, which is God, and on all the
concentric circles which are His creatures. If there is no God,
the wicked is right and the good man is nothing but a fool.

My child! May you one day feel what a burden is removed when, having
fathomed the vanity of human thoughts and tasted the bitterness of
passion, you find at length near at hand the path of wisdom, the
prize of this life's labours, the source of that happiness which
you despaired of. Every duty of natural law, which man's injustice
had almost effaced from my heart, is engraven there, for the second
time in the name of that eternal justice which lays these duties
upon me and beholds my fulfilment of them. I feel myself merely the
instrument of the Omnipotent, who wills what is good, who performs
it, who will bring about my own good through the co-operation of my
will with his own, and by the right use of my liberty. I acquiesce
in the order he establishes, certain that one day I shall enjoy
that order and find my happiness in it; for what sweeter joy is
there than this, to feel oneself a part of a system where all is
good? A prey to pain, I bear it in patience, remembering that it
will soon be over, and that it results from a body which is not
mine. If I do a good deed in secret, I know that it is seen, and
my conduct in this life is a pledge of the life to come. When I
suffer injustice, I say to myself, the Almighty who does all things
well will reward me: my bodily needs, my poverty, make the idea
of death less intolerable. There will be all the fewer bonds to be
broken when my hour comes.

Why is my soul subjected to my senses, and imprisoned in this body
by which it is enslaved and thwarted? I know not; have I entered
into the counsels of the Almighty? But I may, without rashness,
venture on a modest conjecture. I say to myself: If man's soul
had remained in a state of freedom and innocence, what merit would
there have been in loving and obeying the order he found established,
an order which it would not have been to his advantage to disturb?
He would be happy, no doubt, but his happiness would not attain to
the highest point, the pride of virtue, and the witness of a good
conscience within him; he would be but as the angels are, and
no doubt the good man will be more than they. Bound to a mortal
body, by bonds as strange as they are powerful, his care for the
preservation of this body tempts the soul to think only of self,
and gives it an interest opposed to the general order of things,
which it is still capable of knowing and loving; then it is that
the right use of his freedom becomes at once the merit and the
reward; then it is that it prepares for itself unending happiness, by
resisting its earthly passions and following its original direction.

If even in the lowly position in which we are placed during our present
life our first impulses are always good, if all our vices are of
our own making, why should we complain that they are our masters?
Why should we blame the Creator for the ills we have ourselves
created, and the enemies we ourselves have armed against us? Oh,
let us leave man unspoilt; he will always find it easy to be good
and he will always be happy without remorse. The guilty, who assert
that they are driven to crime, are liars as well as evil-doers; how
is it that they fail to perceive that the weakness they bewail is
of their own making; that their earliest depravity was the result
of their own will; that by dint of wishing to yield to temptations,
they at length yield to them whether they will or no and make them
irresistible? No doubt they can no longer avoid being weak and
wicked, but they need not have become weak and wicked. Oh, how easy
would it be to preserve control of ourselves and of our passions,
even in this life, if with habits still unformed, with a mind
beginning to expand, we were able to keep to such things as we ought
to know, in order to value rightly what is unknown; if we really
wished to learn, not that we might shine before the eyes of others,
but that we might be wise and good in accordance with our nature,
that we might be happy in the performance of our duty. This study
seems tedious and painful to us, for we do not attempt it till we
are already corrupted by vice and enslaved by our passions. Our
judgments and our standards of worth are determined before we have
the knowledge of good and evil; and then we measure all things by
this false standard, and give nothing its true worth.

There is an age when the heart is still free, but eager, unquiet,
greedy of a happiness which is still unknown, a happiness which it
seeks in curiosity and doubt; deceived by the senses it settles at
length upon the empty show of happiness and thinks it has found it
where it is not. In my own case these illusions endured for a long
time. Alas! too late did I become aware of them, and I have not
succeeded in overcoming them altogether; they will last as long as
this mortal body from which they arise. If they lead me astray, I
am at least no longer deceived by them; I know them for what they
are, and even when I give way to them, I despise myself; far from
regarding them as the goal of my happiness, I behold in them an
obstacle to it. I long for the time when, freed from the fetters
of the body, I shall be myself, at one with myself, no longer torn
in two, when I myself shall suffice for my own happiness. Meanwhile
I am happy even in this life, for I make small account of all its
evils, in which I regard myself as having little or no part, while
all the real good that I can get out of this life depends on myself
alone.

To raise myself so far as may be even now to this state of happiness,
strength, and freedom, I exercise myself in lofty contemplation. I
consider the order of the universe, not to explain it by any futile
system, but to revere it without ceasing, to adore the wise Author
who reveals himself in it. I hold intercourse with him; I immerse
all my powers in his divine essence; I am overwhelmed by his kindness,
I bless him and his gifts, but I do not pray to him. What should I
ask of him--to change the order of nature, to work miracles on my
behalf? Should I, who am bound to love above all things the order
which he has established in his wisdom and maintained by his
providence, should I desire the disturbance of that order on my own
account? No, that rash prayer would deserve to be punished rather
than to be granted. Neither do I ask of him the power to do right;
why should I ask what he has given me already? Has he not given
me conscience that I may love the right, reason that I may perceive
it, and freedom that I may choose it? If I do evil, I have no
excuse; I do it of my own free will; to ask him to change my will
is to ask him to do what he asks of me; it is to want him to do
the work while I get the wages; to be dissatisfied with my lot is
to wish to be no longer a man, to wish to be other than what I am,
to wish for disorder and evil. Thou source of justice and truth,
merciful and gracious God, in thee do I trust, and the desire of
my heart is--Thy will be done. When I unite my will with thine, I
do what thou doest; I have a share in thy goodness; I believe that
I enjoy beforehand the supreme happiness which is the reward of
goodness.

In my well-founded self-distrust the only thing that I ask of God,
or rather expect from his justice, is to correct my error if I go
astray, if that error is dangerous to me. To be honest I need not
think myself infallible; my opinions, which seem to me true, may
be so many lies; for what man is there who does not cling to his
own beliefs; and how many men are agreed in everything? The illusion
which deceives me may indeed have its source in myself, but it
is God alone who can remove it. I have done all I can to attain
to truth; but its source is beyond my reach; is it my fault if my
strength fails me and I can go no further; it is for Truth to draw
near to me.

The good priest had spoken with passion; he and I were overcome
with emotion. It seemed to me as if I were listening to the divine
Orpheus when he sang the earliest hymns and taught men the worship
of the gods. I saw any number of objections which might be raised;
yet I raised none, for I perceived that they were more perplexing
than serious, and that my inclination took his part. When he spoke
to me according to his conscience, my own seemed to confirm what
he said.

"The novelty of the sentiments you have made known to me," said
I, "strikes me all the more because of what you confess you do not
know, than because of what you say you believe. They seem to be very
like that theism or natural religion, which Christians profess to
confound with atheism or irreligion which is their exact opposite.
But in the present state of my faith I should have to ascend
rather than descend to accept your views, and I find it difficult
to remain just where you are unless I were as wise as you. That I
may be at least as honest, I want time to take counsel with myself.
By your own showing, the inner voice must be my guide, and you have
yourself told me that when it has long been silenced it cannot be
recalled in a moment. I take what you have said to heart, and I must
consider it. If after I have thought things out, I am as convinced
as you are, you will be my final teacher, and I will be your disciple
till death. Continue your teaching however; you have only told me
half what I must know. Speak to me of revelation, of the Scriptures,
of those difficult doctrines among which I have strayed ever since
I was a child, incapable either of understanding or believing them,
unable to adopt or reject them."

"Yes, my child," said he, embracing me, "I will tell you all I
think; I will not open my heart to you by halves; but the desire
you express was necessary before I could cast aside all reserve. So
far I have told you nothing but what I thought would be of service
to you, nothing but what I was quite convinced of. The inquiry
which remains to be made is very difficult. It seems to me full
of perplexity, mystery, and darkness; I bring to it only doubt
and distrust. I make up my mind with trembling, and I tell you my
doubts rather than my convictions. If your own opinions were more
settled I should hesitate to show you mine; but in your present
condition, to think like me would be gain. [Footnote: I think the
worthy clergyman might say this at the present time to the general
public.] Moreover, give to my words only the authority of reason;
I know not whether I am mistaken. It is difficult in discussion
to avoid assuming sometimes a dogmatic tone; but remember in this
respect that all my assertions are but reasons to doubt me. Seek
truth for yourself, for my own part I only promise you sincerity.

"In my exposition you find nothing but natural religion; strange
that we should need more! How shall I become aware of this need?
What guilt can be mine so long as I serve God according to the
knowledge he has given to my mind, and the feelings he has put
into my heart? What purity of morals, what dogma useful to man and
worthy of its author, can I derive from a positive doctrine which
cannot be derived without the aid of this doctrine by the right
use of my faculties? Show me what you can add to the duties of the
natural law, for the glory of God, for the good of mankind, and for
my own welfare; and what virtue you will get from the new form of
religion which does not result from mine. The grandest ideas of
the Divine nature come to us from reason only. Behold the spectacle
of nature; listen to the inner voice. Has not God spoken it all to
our eyes, to our conscience, to our reason? What more can man tell
us? Their revelations do but degrade God, by investing him with
passions like our own. Far from throwing light upon the ideas of
the Supreme Being, special doctrines seem to me to confuse these
ideas; far from ennobling them, they degrade them; to the inconceivable
mysteries which surround the Almighty, they add absurd contradictions,
they make man proud, intolerant, and cruel; instead of bringing
peace upon earth, they bring fire and sword. I ask myself what
is the use of it all, and I find no answer. I see nothing but the
crimes of men and the misery of mankind.

"They tell me a revelation was required to teach men how God would
be served; as a proof of this they point to the many strange rites
which men have instituted, and they do not perceive that this very
diversity springs from the fanciful nature of the revelations. As
soon as the nations took to making God speak, every one made him
speak in his own fashion, and made him say what he himself wanted.
Had they listened only to what God says in the heart of man, there
would have been but one religion upon earth.

"One form of worship was required; just so, but was this a matter
of such importance as to require all the power of the Godhead to
establish it? Do not let us confuse the outward forms of religion
with religion itself. The service God requires is of the heart; and
when the heart is sincere that is ever the same. It is a strange
sort of conceit which fancies that God takes such an interest in
the shape of the priest's vestments, the form of words he utters,
the gestures he makes before the altar and all his genuflections.
Oh, my friend, stand upright, you will still be too near the earth.
God desires to be worshipped in spirit and in truth; this duty
belongs to every religion, every country, every individual. As to
the form of worship, if order demands uniformity, that is only a
matter of discipline and needs no revelation.

"These thoughts did not come to me to begin with. Carried away by
the prejudices of my education, and by that dangerous vanity which
always strives to lift man out of his proper sphere, when I could
not raise my feeble thoughts up to the great Being, I tried to
bring him down to my own level. I tried to reduce the distance he
has placed between his nature and mine. I desired more immediate
relations, more individual instruction; not content to make God
in the image of man that I might be favoured above my fellows,
I desired supernatural knowledge; I required a special form of
worship; I wanted God to tell me what he had not told others, or
what others had not understood like myself.

"Considering the point I had now reached as the common centre from
which all believers set out on the quest for a more enlightened
form of religion, I merely found in natural religion the elements
of all religion. I beheld the multitude of diverse sects which hold
sway upon earth, each of which accuses the other of falsehood and
error; which of these, I asked, is the right? Every one replied,
'My own;' every one said, 'I alone and those who agree with me
think rightly, all the others are mistaken.' And how do you know
that your sect is in the right? Because God said so. And how do
you know God said so? [Footnote: "All men," said a wise and good
priest, "maintain that they hold and believe their religion (and
all use the same jargon), not of man, nor of any creature, but of
God. But to speak truly, without pretence or flattery, none of them
do so; whatever they may say, religions are taught by human hands
and means; take, for example, the way in which religions have been
received by the world, the way in which they are still received
every day by individuals; the nation, the country, the locality
gives the religion; we belong to the religion of the place where
we are born and brought up; we are baptised or circumcised, we are
Christians, Jews, Mohametans before we know that we are men; we
do not pick and choose our religion for see how ill the life and
conduct agree with the religion, see for what slight and human
causes men go against the teaching of their religion."--Charron,
De la Sagesse.--It seems clear that the honest creed of the holy
theologian of Condom would not have differed greatly from that of
the Savoyard priest.] And who told you that God said it? My pastor,
who knows all about it. My pastor tells me what to believe and I
believe it; he assures me that any one who says anything else is
mistaken, and I give not heed to them.

"What! thought I, is not truth one; can that which is true for me
be false for you? If those who follow the right path and those who
go astray have the same method, what merit or what blame can be
assigned to one more than to the other? Their choice is the result
of chance; it is unjust to hold them responsible for it, to reward
or punish them for being born in one country or another. To dare to
say that God judges us in this manner is an outrage on his justice.

"Either all religions are good and pleasing to God, or if there
is one which he prescribes for men, if they will be punished for
despising it, he will have distinguished it by plain and certain
signs by which it can be known as the only true religion; these
signs are alike in every time and place, equally plain to all men,
great or small, learned or unlearned, Europeans, Indians, Africans,
savages. If there were but one religion upon earth, and if all
beyond its pale were condemned to eternal punishment, and if there
were in any corner of the world one single honest man who was not
convinced by this evidence, the God of that religion would be the
most unjust and cruel of tyrants.

"Let us therefore seek honestly after truth; let us yield nothing
to the claims of birth, to the authority of parents and pastors,
but let us summon to the bar of conscience and of reason all that
they have taught us from our childhood. In vain do they exclaim,
'Submit your reason;' a deceiver might say as much; I must have
reasons for submitting my reason.

"All the theology I can get for myself by observation of the universe
and by the use of my faculties is contained in what I have already
told you. To know more one must have recourse to strange means.
These means cannot be the authority of men, for every man is of
the same species as myself, and all that a man knows by nature I am
capable of knowing, and another may be deceived as much as I; when
I believe what he says, it is not because he says it but because
he proves its truth. The witness of man is therefore nothing more
than the witness of my own reason, and it adds nothing to the
natural means which God has given me for the knowledge of truth.

"Apostle of truth, what have you to tell me of which I am not the
sole judge? God himself has spoken; give heed to his revelation.
That is another matter. God has spoken, these are indeed words which
demand attention. To whom has he spoken? He has spoken to men. Why
then have I heard nothing? He has instructed others to make known
his words to you. I understand; it is men who come and tell me what
God has said. I would rather have heard the words of God himself;
it would have been as easy for him and I should have been secure
from fraud. He protects you from fraud by showing that his envoys
come from him. How does he show this? By miracles. Where are these
miracles? In the books. And who wrote the books? Men. And who
saw the miracles? The men who bear witness to them. What! Nothing
but human testimony! Nothing but men who tell me what others told
them! How many men between God and me! Let us see, however, let
us examine, compare, and verify. Oh! if God had but deigned to free
me from all this labour, I would have served him with all my heart.

"Consider, my friend, the terrible controversy in which I am now
engaged; what vast learning is required to go back to the remotest
antiquity, to examine, weigh, confront prophecies, revelations,
facts, all the monuments of faith set forth throughout the world,
to assign their date, place, authorship, and occasion. What exactness
of critical judgment is needed to distinguish genuine documents from
forgeries, to compare objections with their answers, translations
with their originals; to decide as to the impartiality of witnesses,
their common-sense, their knowledge; to make sure that nothing
has been omitted, nothing added, nothing transposed, altered, or
falsified; to point out any remaining contradictions, to determine
what weight should be given to the silence of our adversaries
with regard to the charges brought against them; how far were they
aware of those charges; did they think them sufficiently serious
to require an answer; were books sufficiently well known for our
books to reach them; have we been honest enough to allow their
books to circulate among ourselves and to leave their strongest
objections unaltered?

"When the authenticity of all these documents is accepted, we must
now pass to the evidence of their authors' mission; we must know the
laws of chance, and probability, to decide which prophecy cannot
be fulfilled without a miracle; we must know the spirit of the
original languages, to distinguish between prophecy and figures of
speech; we must know what facts are in accordance with nature and
what facts are not, so that we may say how far a clever man may
deceive the eyes of the simple and may even astonish the learned;
we must discover what are the characteristics of a prodigy and how
its authenticity may be established, not only so far as to gain
credence, but so that doubt may be deserving of punishment; we must
compare the evidence for true and false miracles, and find sure
tests to distinguish between them; lastly we must say why God chose
as a witness to his words means which themselves require so much
evidence on their behalf, as if he were playing with human credulity,
and avoiding of set purpose the true means of persuasion.

"Assuming that the divine majesty condescends so far as to make a
man the channel of his sacred will, is it reasonable, is it fair,
to demand that the whole of mankind should obey the voice of this
minister without making him known as such? Is it just to give him
as his sole credentials certain private signs, performed in the
presence of a few obscure persons, signs which everybody else can
only know by hearsay? If one were to believe all the miracles that
the uneducated and credulous profess to have seen in every country
upon earth, every sect would be in the right; there would be more
miracles than ordinary events; and it would be the greatest miracle
if there were no miracles wherever there were persecuted fanatics.
The unchangeable order of nature is the chief witness to the wise
hand that guides it; if there were many exceptions, I should hardly
know what to think; for my own part I have too great a faith in God
to believe in so many miracles which are so little worthy of him.

"Let a man come and say to us: Mortals, I proclaim to you the will
of the Most Highest; accept my words as those of him who has sent
me; I bid the sun to change his course, the stars to range themselves
in a fresh order, the high places to become smooth, the floods to
rise up, the earth to change her face. By these miracles who will
not recognise the master of nature? She does not obey impostors,
their miracles are wrought in holes and corners, in deserts, within
closed doors, where they find easy dupes among a small company
of spectators already disposed to believe them. Who will venture
to tell me how many eye-witnesses are required to make a miracle
credible! What use are your miracles, performed if proof of your
doctrine, if they themselves require so much proof! You might as
well have let them alone.

"There still remains the most important inquiry of all with regard
to the doctrine proclaimed; for since those who tell us God works
miracles in this world, profess that the devil sometimes imitates
them, when we have found the best attested miracles we have got
very little further; and since the magicians of Pharaoh dared in
the presence of Moses to counterfeit the very signs he wrought at
God's command, why should they not, behind his back, claim a like
authority? So when we have proved our doctrine by means of miracles,
we must prove our miracles by means of doctrine, [Footnote: This
is expressly stated in many passages of Scripture, among others in
Deuteronomy xiii., where it is said that when a prophet preaching
strange gods confirms his words by means of miracles and what he
foretells comes to pass, far from giving heed to him, this prophet
must be put to death. If then the heathen put the apostles to
death when they preached a strange god and confirmed their words by
miracles which came to pass I cannot see what grounds we have for
complaint which they could not at once turn against us. Now, what
should be done in such a case? There is only one course; to return
to argument and let the miracles alone. It would have been better
not to have had recourse to them at all. That is plain common-sense
which can only be obscured by great subtlety of distinction. Subtleties
in Christianity! So Jesus Christ was mistaken when he promised the
kingdom of heaven to the simple, he was mistaken when he began his
finest discourse with the praise of the poor in spirit, if so much
wit is needed to understand his teaching and to get others to believe
in him. When you have convinced me that submission is my duty, all
will be well; but to convince me of this, come down to my level;
adapt your arguments to a lowly mind, or I shall not recognise you
as a true disciple of your master, and it is not his doctrine that
you are teaching me.] for fear lest we should take the devil's
doings for the handiwork of God. What think you of this dilemma?

"This doctrine, if it comes from God, should bear the sacred stamp
of the godhead; not only should it illumine the troubled thoughts
which reason imprints on our minds, but it should also offer us
a form of worship, a morality, and rules of conduct in accordance
with the attributes by means of which we alone conceive of God's
essence. If then it teaches us what is absurd and unreasonable, if
it inspires us with feelings of aversion for our fellows and terror
for ourselves, if it paints us a God, angry, jealous, revengeful,
partial, hating men, a God of war and battles, ever ready to strike
and to destroy, ever speaking of punishment and torment, boasting
even of the punishment of the innocent, my heart would not be drawn
towards this terrible God, I would take good care not to quit the
realm of natural religion to embrace such a religion as that; for
you see plainly I must choose between them. Your God is not ours.
He who begins by selecting a chosen people, and proscribing the rest
of mankind, is not our common father; he who consigns to eternal
punishment the greater part of his creatures, is not the merciful
and gracious God revealed to me by my reason.

"Reason tells me that dogmas should be plain, clear, and striking
in their simplicity. If there is something lacking in natural
religion, it is with respect to the obscurity in which it leaves
the great truths it teaches; revelation should teach us these truths
in a way which the mind of man can understand; it should bring them
within his reach, make him comprehend them, so that he may believe
them. Faith is confirmed and strengthened by understanding; the
best religion is of necessity the simplest. He who hides beneath
mysteries and contradictions the religion that he preaches to me,
teaches me at the same time to distrust that religion. The God whom
I adore is not the God of darkness, he has not given me understanding
in order to forbid me to use it; to tell me to submit my reason
is to insult the giver of reason. The minister of truth does not
tyrannise over my reason, he enlightens it.

"We have set aside all human authority, and without it I do not see
how any man can convince another by preaching a doctrine contrary
to reason. Let them fight it out, and let us see what they have to
say with that harshness of speech which is common to both.

"INSPIRATION: Reason tells you that the whole is greater than the
part; but I tell you, in God's name, that the part is greater than
the whole.

"REASON: And who are you to dare to tell me that God contradicts
himself? And which shall I choose to believe. God who teaches me,
through my reason, the eternal truth, or you who, in his name,
proclaim an absurdity?

"INSPIRATION: Believe me, for my teaching is more positive; and I
will prove to you beyond all manner of doubt that he has sent me.

"REASON: What! you will convince me that God has sent you to bear
witness against himself? What sort of proofs will you adduce to
convince me that God speaks more surely by your mouth than through
the understanding he has given me?

"INSPIRATION: The understanding he has given you! Petty, conceited
creature! As if you were the first impious person who had been led
astray through his reason corrupted by sin.

"REASON: Man of God, you would not be the first scoundrel who
asserts his arrogance as a proof of his mission.

"INSPIRATION: What! do even philosophers call names?

"REASON: Sometimes, when the saints set them the example.

"INSPIRATION: Oh, but I have a right to do it, for I am speaking
on God's behalf.

"REASON: You would do well to show your credentials before you make
use of your privileges.

"INSPIRATION: My credentials are authentic, earth and heaven will
bear witness on my behalf. Follow my arguments carefully, if you
please.

"REASON: Your arguments! You forget what you are saying. When you
teach me that my reason misleads me, do you not refute what it might
have said on your behalf? He who denies the right of reason, must
convince me without recourse to her aid. For suppose you have
convinced me by reason, how am I to know that it is not my reason,
corrupted by sin, which makes me accept what you say? besides,
what proof, what demonstration, can you advance, more self-evident
than the axiom it is to destroy? It is more credible that a good
syllogism is a lie, than that the part is greater than the whole.

"INSPIRATION: What a difference! There is no answer to my evidence;
it is of a supernatural kind.

"REASON: Supernatural! What do you mean by the word? I do not
understand it.

"INSPIRATION: I mean changes in the order of nature, prophecies,
signs, and wonders of every kind.

"REASON: Signs and wonders! I have never seen anything of the kind.

"INSPIRATION: Others have seen them for you. Clouds of witnesses--the
witness of whole nations....

"REASON: Is the witness of nations supernatural?

"INSPIRATION: No; but when it is unanimous, it is incontestable.

"REASON: There is nothing so incontestable as the principles of
reason, and one cannot accept an absurdity on human evidence. Once
more, let us see your supernatural evidence, for the consent of
mankind is not supernatural.

"INSPIRATION: Oh, hardened heart, grace does not speak to you.

"REASON: That is not my fault; for by your own showing, one must
have already received grace before one is able to ask for it. Begin
by speaking to me in its stead.

"INSPIRATION: But that is just what I am doing, and you will not
listen. But what do you say to prophecy?

"REASON: In the first place, I say I have no more heard a prophet
than I have seen a miracle. In the next, I say that no prophet
could claim authority over me.

"INSPIRATION: Follower of the devil! Why should not the words of
the prophets have authority over you?

"REASON: Because three things are required, three things which will
never happen: firstly, I must have heard the prophecy; secondly,
I must have seen its fulfilment; and thirdly, it must be clearly
proved that the fulfilment of the prophecy could not by any possibility
have been a mere coincidence; for even if it was as precise, as
plain, and clear as an axiom of geometry, since the clearness of
a chance prediction does not make its fulfilment impossible, this
fulfilment when it does take place does not, strictly speaking,
prove what was foretold.

"See what your so-called supernatural proofs, your miracles, your
prophecies come to: believe all this upon the word of another,
Submit to the authority of men the authority of God which speaks to
my reason. If the eternal truths which my mind conceives of could
suffer any shock, there would be no sort of certainty for me; and
far from being sure that you speak to me on God's behalf, I should
not even be sure that there is a God.

"My child, here are difficulties enough, but these are not all.
Among so many religions, mutually excluding and proscribing each
other, one only is true, if indeed any one of them is true. To
recognise the true religion we must inquire into, not one, but all;
and in any question whatsoever we have no right to condemn unheard.
[Footnote: On the other hand, Plutarch relates that the Stoics
maintained, among other strange paradoxes, that it was no use hearing
both sides; for, said they, the first either proves his point or
he does not prove it; if he has proved it, there is an end of it,
and the other should be condemned: if he has not proved it, he
himself is in the wrong and judgment should be given against him.
I consider the method of those who accept an exclusive revelation
very much like that of these Stoics. When each of them claims to
be the sole guardian of truth, we must hear them all before we can
choose between them without injustice.] The objections must be
compared with the evidence; we must know what accusation each brings
against the other, and what answers they receive. The plainer any
feeling appears to us, the more we must try to discover why so many
other people refuse to accept it. We should be simple, indeed, if
we thought it enough to hear the doctors on our own side, in order
to acquaint ourselves with the arguments of the other. Where can
you find theologians who pride themselves on their honesty? Where
are those who, to refute the arguments of their opponents, do
not begin by making out that they are of little importance? A man
may make a good show among his own friends, and be very proud of
his arguments, who would cut a very poor figure with those same
arguments among those who are on the other side. Would you find
out for yourself from books? What learning you will need! What
languages you must learn; what libraries you must ransack; what an
amount of reading must be got through! Who will guide me in such
a choice? It will be hard to find the best books on the opposite
side in any one country, and all the harder to find those on all
sides; when found they would be easily answered. The absent are
always in the wrong, and bad arguments boldly asserted easily efface
good arguments put forward with scorn. Besides books are often very
misleading, and scarcely express the opinions of their authors.
If you think you can judge the Catholic faith from the writings
of Bossuet, you will find yourself greatly mistaken when you have
lived among us. You will see that the doctrines with which Protestants
are answered are quite different from those of the pulpit. To
judge a religion rightly, you must not study it in the books of its
partisans, you must learn it in their lives; this is quite another
matter. Each religion has its own traditions, meaning, customs,
prejudices, which form the spirit of its creed, and must be taken
in connection with it.

"How many great nations neither print books of their own nor read
ours! How shall they judge of our opinions, or we of theirs? We
laugh at them, they despise us; and if our travellers turn them
into ridicule, they need only travel among us to pay us back in
our own coin. Are there not, in every country, men of common-sense,
honesty, and good faith, lovers of truth, who only seek to know
what truth is that they may profess it? Yet every one finds truth
in his own religion, and thinks the religion of other nations
absurd; so all these foreign religions are not so absurd as they
seem to us, or else the reason we find for our own proves nothing.

"We have three principal forms of religion in Europe. One accepts
one revelation, another two, and another three. Each hates the
others, showers curses on them, accuses them of blindness, obstinacy,
hardness of heart, and falsehood. What fair-minded man will dare
to decide between them without first carefully weighing their
evidence, without listening attentively to their arguments? That
which accepts only one revelation is the oldest and seems the best
established; that which accepts three is the newest and seems the
most consistent; that which accepts two revelations and rejects the
third may perhaps be the best, but prejudice is certainly against
it; its inconsistency is glaring.

"In all three revelations the sacred books are written in languages
unknown to the people who believe in them. The Jews no longer
understand Hebrew, the Christians understand neither Hebrew nor
Greek; the Turks and Persians do not understand Arabic, and the
Arabs of our time do not speak the language of Mahomet. Is not
it a very foolish way of teaching, to teach people in an unknown
tongue? These books are translated, you say. What an answer! How
am I to know that the translations are correct, or how am I to
make sure that such a thing as a correct translation is possible?
If God has gone so far as to speak to men, why should he require
an interpreter?

"I can never believe that every man is obliged to know what is
contained in books, and that he who is out of reach of these books,
and of those who understand them, will be punished for an ignorance
which is no fault of his. Books upon books! What madness! As
all Europe is full of books, Europeans regard them as necessary,
forgetting that they are unknown throughout three-quarters of the
globe. Were not all these books written by men? Why then should a
man need them to teach him his duty, and how did he learn his duty
before these books were in existence? Either he must have learnt
his duties for himself, or his ignorance must have been excused.

"Our Catholics talk loudly of the authority of the Church; but what
is the use of it all, if they also need just as great an array of
proofs to establish that authority as the other seeks to establish
their doctrine? The Church decides that the Church has a right to
decide. What a well-founded authority! Go beyond it, and you are
back again in our discussions.

"Do you know many Christians who have taken the trouble to inquire
what the Jews allege against them? If any one knows anything at
all about it, it is from the writings of Christians. What a way of
ascertaining the arguments of our adversaries! But what is to be
done? If any one dared to publish in our day books which were openly
in favour of the Jewish religion, we should punish the author,
publisher, and bookseller. This regulation is a sure and certain
plan for always being in the right. It is easy to refute those who
dare not venture to speak.

"Those among us who have the opportunity of talking with Jews are
little better off. These unhappy people feel that they are in our
power; the tyranny they have suffered makes them timid; they know
that Christian charity thinks nothing of injustice and cruelty;
will they dare to run the risk of an outcry against blasphemy? Our
greed inspires us with zeal, and they are so rich that they must
be in the wrong. The more learned, the more enlightened they are,
the more cautious. You may convert some poor wretch whom you have
paid to slander his religion; you get some wretched old-clothes-man
to speak, and he says what you want; you may triumph over their
ignorance and cowardice, while all the time their men of learning
are laughing at your stupidity. But do you think you would get
off so easily in any place where they knew they were safe! At the
Sorbonne it is plain that the Messianic prophecies refer to Jesus
Christ. Among the rabbis of Amsterdam it is just as clear that they
have nothing to do with him. I do not think I have ever heard the
arguments of the Jews as to why they should not have a free state,
schools and universities, where they can speak and argue without
danger. Then alone can we know what they have to say.

"At Constantinople the Turks state their arguments, but we dare not
give ours; then it is our turn to cringe. Can we blame the Turks
if they require us to show the same respect for Mahomet, in whom
we do not believe, as we demand from the Jews with regard to Jesus
Christ in whom they do not believe? Are we right? On what grounds
of justice can we answer this question?

"Two-thirds of mankind are neither Jews, Mahometans, nor Christians;
and how many millions of men have never heard the name of Moses,
Jesus Christ, or Mahomet? They deny it; they maintain that our
missionaries go everywhere. That is easily said. But do they go into
the heart of Africa, still undiscovered, where as yet no European
has ever ventured? Do they go to Eastern Tartary to follow on
horseback the wandering tribes, whom no stranger approaches, who
not only know nothing of the pope, but have scarcely heard tell
of the Grand Lama! Do they penetrate into the vast continents
of America, where there are still whole nations unaware that the
people of another world have set foot on their shores? Do they
go to Japan, where their intrigues have led to their perpetual
banishment, where their predecessors are only known to the rising
generation as skilful plotters who came with feigned zeal to take
possession in secret of the empire? Do they reach the harems of the
Asiatic princes to preach the gospel to those thousands of poor
slaves? What have the women of those countries done that no missionary
may preach the faith to them? Will they all go to hell because of
their seclusion?

"If it were true that the gospel is preached throughout the world,
what advantage would there be? The day before the first missionary
set foot in any country, no doubt somebody died who could not hear
him. Now tell me what we shall do with him? If there were a single
soul in the whole world, to whom Jesus Christ had never been
preached, this objection would be as strong for that man as for a
quarter of the human race.

"If the ministers of the gospel have made themselves heard among
far-off nations, what have they told them which might reasonably be
accepted on their word, without further and more exact verification?
You preach to me God, born and dying, two thousand years ago, at
the other end of the world, in some small town I know not where;
and you tell me that all who have not believed this mystery are
damned. These are strange things to be believed so quickly on the
authority of an unknown person. Why did your God make these things
happen so far off, if he would compel me to know about them? Is
it a crime to be unaware of what is happening half a world away?
Could I guess that in another hemisphere there was a Hebrew nation
and a town called Jerusalem? You might as well expect me to know
what was happening in the moon. You say you have come to teach me;
but why did you not come and teach my father, or why do you consign
that good old man to damnation because he knew nothing of all
this? Must he be punished everlastingly for your laziness, he who
was so kind and helpful, he who sought only for truth? Be honest;
put yourself in my place; see if I ought to believe, on your word
alone, all these incredible things which you have told me, and
reconcile all this injustice with the just God you proclaim to
me. At least allow me to go and see this distant land where such
wonders, unheard of in my own country, took place; let me go and
see why the inhabitants of Jerusalem put their God to death as a
robber. You tell me they did not know he was God. What then shall
I do, I who have only heard of him from you? You say they have been
punished, dispersed, oppressed, enslaved; that none of them dare
approach that town. Indeed they richly deserved it; but what do its
present inhabitants say of their crime in slaying their God! They
deny him; they too refuse to recognise God as God. They are no
better than the children of the original inhabitants.

"What! In the very town where God was put to death, neither the
former nor the latter inhabitants knew him, and you expect that I
should know him, I who was born two thousand years after his time,
and two thousand leagues away? Do you not see that before I can
believe this book which you call sacred, but which I do not in the
least understand, I must know from others than yourself when and by
whom it was written, how it has been preserved, how it came into
your possession, what they say about it in those lands where it is
rejected, and what are their reasons for rejecting it, though they
know as well as you what you are telling me? You perceive I must
go to Europe, Asia, Palestine, to examine these things for myself;
it would be madness to listen to you before that.

"Not only does this seem reasonable to me, but I maintain that it
is what every wise man ought to say in similar circumstances; that
he ought to banish to a great distance the missionary who wants
to instruct and baptise him all of a sudden before the evidence is
verified. Now I maintain that there is no revelation against which
these or similar objections cannot be made, and with more force
than against Christianity. Hence it follows that if there is but
one true religion and if every man is bound to follow it under pain
of damnation, he must spend his whole life in studying, testing,
comparing all these religions, in travelling through the countries
in which they are established. No man is free from a man's first
duty; no one has a right to depend on another's judgment. The
artisan who earns his bread by his daily toil, the ploughboy who
cannot read, the delicate and timid maiden, the invalid who can
scarcely leave his bed, all without exception must study, consider,
argue, travel over the whole world; there will be no more fixed
and settled nations; the whole earth will swarm with pilgrims on
their way, at great cost of time and trouble, to verify, compare,
and examine for themselves the various religions to be found. Then
farewell to the trades, the arts, the sciences of mankind, farewell
to all peaceful occupations; there can be no study but that
of religion, even the strongest, the most industrious, the most
intelligent, the oldest, will hardly be able in his last years to
know where he is; and it will be a wonder if he manages to find
out what religion he ought to live by, before the hour of his death.

"Hard pressed by these arguments, some prefer to make God unjust
and to punish the innocent for the sins of their fathers, rather
than to renounce their barbarous dogmas. Others get out of the
difficulty by kindly sending an angel to instruct all those who
in invincible ignorance have lived a righteous life. A good idea,
that angel! Not content to be the slaves of their own inventions
they expect God to make use of them also!

"Behold, my son, the absurdities to which pride and intolerance
bring us, when everybody wants others to think as he does, and
everybody fancies that he has an exclusive claim upon the rest of
mankind. I call to witness the God of Peace whom I adore, and whom
I proclaim to you, that my inquiries were honestly made; but when
I discovered that they were and always would be unsuccessful, and
that I was embarked upon a boundless ocean, I turned back, and
restricted my faith within the limits of my primitive ideas. I
could never convince myself that God would require such learning
of me under pain of hell. So I closed all my books. There is one
book which is open to every one--the book of nature. In this good
and great volume I learn to serve and adore its Author. There
is no excuse for not reading this book, for it speaks to all in a
language they can understand. Suppose I had been born in a desert
island, suppose I had never seen any man but myself, suppose I had
never heard what took place in olden days in a remote corner of
the world; yet if I use my reason, if I cultivate it, if I employ
rightly the innate faculties which God bestows upon me, I shall
learn by myself to know and love him, to love his works, to will
what he wills, and to fulfil all my duties upon earth, that I may
do his pleasure. What more can all human learning teach me?

"With regard to revelation, if I were a more accomplished disputant,
or a more learned person, perhaps I should feel its truth, its
usefulness for those who are happy enough to perceive it; but if I
find evidence for it which I cannot combat, I also find objections
against it which I cannot overcome. There are so many weighty
reasons for and against that I do not know what to decide, so that
I neither accept nor reject it. I only reject all obligation to be
convinced of its truth; for this so-called obligation is incompatible
with God's justice, and far from removing objections in this way
it would multiply them, and would make them insurmountable for the
greater part of mankind. In this respect I maintain an attitude of
reverent doubt. I do not presume to think myself infallible; other
men may have been able to make up their minds though the matter
seems doubtful to myself; I am speaking for myself, not for them;
I neither blame them nor follow in their steps; their judgment may
be superior to mine, but it is no fault of mine that my judgment
does not agree with it.

"I own also that the holiness of the gospel speaks to my heart,
and that this is an argument which I should be sorry to refute.
Consider the books of the philosophers with all their outward show;
how petty they are in comparison! Can a book at once so grand and
so simple be the work of men? Is it possible that he whose history
is contained in this book is no more than man? Is the tone of this
book, the tone of the enthusiast or the ambitious sectary? What
gentleness and purity in his actions, what a touching grace in his
teaching, how lofty are his sayings, how profoundly wise are his
sermons, how ready, how discriminating, and how just are his answers!
What man, what sage, can live, suffer, and die without weakness
or ostentation? When Plato describes his imaginary good man,
overwhelmed with the disgrace of crime, and deserving of all the
rewards of virtue, every feature of the portrait is that of Christ;
the resemblance is so striking that it has been noticed by all
the Fathers, and there can be no doubt about it. What prejudices
and blindness must there be before we dare to compare the son of
Sophronisca with the son of Mary. How far apart they are! Socrates
dies a painless death, he is not put to open shame, and he plays
his part easily to the last; and if this easy death had not done
honour to his life, we might have doubted whether Socrates, with all
his intellect, was more than a mere sophist. He invented morality,
so they say; others before him had practised it; he only said
what they had done, and made use of their example in his teaching.
Aristides was just before Socrates defined justice; Leonidas died
for his country before Socrates declared that patriotism was a
virtue; Sparta was sober before Socrates extolled sobriety; there
were plenty of virtuous men in Greece before he defined virtue.
But among the men of his own time where did Jesus find that pure
and lofty morality of which he is both the teacher and pattern?
[Footnote: Cf. in the Sermon on the Mount the parallel he himself
draws between the teaching of Moses and his own.--Matt. v.] The
voice of loftiest wisdom arose among the fiercest fanaticism, the
simplicity of the most heroic virtues did honour to the most degraded
of nations One could wish no easier death than that of Socrates,
calmly discussing philosophy with his friends; one could fear nothing
worse than that of Jesus, dying in torment, among the insults,
the mockery, the curses of the whole nation. In the midst of these
terrible sufferings, Jesus prays for his cruel murderers. Yes,
if the life and death of Socrates are those of a philosopher, the
life and death of Christ are those of a God. Shall we say that the
gospel story is the work of the imagination? My friend, such things
are not imagined; and the doings of Socrates, which no one doubts,
are less well attested than those of Jesus Christ. At best, you
only put the difficulty from you; it would be still more incredible
that several persons should have agreed together to invent such a
book, than that there was one man who supplied its subject matter.
The tone and morality of this story are not those of any Jewish
authors, and the gospel indeed contains characters so great, so
striking, so entirely inimitable, that their invention would be
more astonishing than their hero. With all this the same gospel
is full of incredible things, things repugnant to reason, things
which no natural man can understand or accept. What can you do
among so many contradictions? You can be modest and wary, my child;
respect in silence what you can neither reject nor understand, and
humble yourself in the sight of the Divine Being who alone knows
the truth.

"This is the unwilling scepticism in which I rest; but this scepticism
is in no way painful to me, for it does not extend to matters of
practice, and I am well assured as to the principles underlying all
my duties. I serve God in the simplicity of my heart; I only seek
to know what affects my conduct. As to those dogmas which have
no effect upon action or morality, dogmas about which so many men
torment themselves, I give no heed to them. I regard all individual
religions as so many wholesome institutions which prescribe a
uniform method by which each country may do honour to God in public
worship; institutions which may each have its reason in the country,
the government, the genius of the people, or in other local causes
which make one preferable to another in a given time or place. I
think them all good alike, when God is served in a fitting manner.
True worship is of the heart. God rejects no homage, however offered,
provided it is sincere. Called to the service of the Church in
my own religion, I fulfil as scrupulously as I can all the duties
prescribed to me, and my conscience would reproach me if I were
knowingly wanting with regard to any point. You are aware that after
being suspended for a long time, I have, through the influence of
M. Mellarede, obtained permission to resume my priestly duties,
as a means of livelihood. I used to say Mass with the levity that
comes from long experience even of the most serious matters when
they are too familiar to us; with my new principles I now celebrate
it with more reverence; I dwell upon the majesty of the Supreme
Being, his presence, the insufficiency of the human mind, which
so little realises what concerns its Creator. When I consider how
I present before him the prayers of all the people in a form laid
down for me, I carry out the whole ritual exactly; I give heed
to what I say, I am careful not to omit the least word, the least
ceremony; when the moment of the consecration approaches, I collect my
powers, that I may do all things as required by the Church and by
the greatness of this sacrament; I strive to annihilate my own reason
before the Supreme Mind; I say to myself, Who art thou to measure
infinite power? I reverently pronounce the sacramental words, and
I give to their effect all the faith I can bestow. Whatever may
be this mystery which passes understanding, I am not afraid that
at the day of judgment I shall be punished for having profaned it
in my heart."

Honoured with the sacred ministry, though in its lowest ranks, I
will never do or say anything which may make me unworthy to fulfil
these sublime duties. I will always preach virtue and exhort men
to well-doing; and so far as I can I will set them a good example.
It will be my business to make religion attractive; it will be my
business to strengthen their faith in those doctrines which are
really useful, those which every man must believe; but, please God,
I shall never teach them to hate their neighbour, to say to other
men, You will be damned; to say, No salvation outside the Church.
[Footnote: The duty of following and loving the religion of our
country does not go so far as to require us to accept doctrines
contrary to good morals, such as intolerance. This horrible
doctrine sets men in arms against their fellow-men, and makes them
all enemies of mankind. The distinction between civil toleration
and theological toleration is vain and childish. These two kinds
of toleration are inseparable, and we cannot accept one without the
other. Even the angels could not live at peace with men whom they
regarded as the enemies of God.] If I were in a more conspicuous
position, this reticence might get me into trouble; but I am too
obscure to have much to fear, and I could hardly sink lower than I
am. Come what may, I will never blaspheme the justice of God, nor
lie against the Holy Ghost.

"I have long desired to have a parish of my own; it is still
my ambition, but I no longer hope to attain it. My dear friend, I
think there is nothing so delightful as to be a parish priest. A
good clergyman is a minister of mercy, as a good magistrate is a
minister of justice. A clergyman is never called upon to do evil;
if he cannot always do good himself, it is never out of place for
him to beg for others, and he often gets what he asks if he knows
how to gain respect. Oh! if I should ever have some poor mountain
parish where I might minister to kindly folk, I should be happy
indeed; for it seems to me that I should make my parishioners happy.
I should not bring them riches, but I should share their poverty;
I should remove from them the scorn and opprobrium which are harder
to bear than poverty. I should make them love peace and equality,
which often remove poverty, and always make it tolerable. When they
saw that I was in no way better off than themselves, and that yet
I was content with my lot, they would learn to put up with their
fate and to be content like me. In my sermons I would lay more stress
on the spirit of the gospel than on the spirit of the church; its
teaching is simple, its morality sublime; there is little in it
about the practices of religion, but much about works of charity.
Before I teach them what they ought to do, I would try to practise
it myself, that they might see that at least I think what I say.
If there were Protestants in the neighbourhood or in my parish, I
would make no difference between them and my own congregation so
far as concerns Christian charity; I would get them to love one
another, to consider themselves brethren, to respect all religions,
and each to live peaceably in his own religion. To ask any one to
abandon the religion in which he was born is, I consider, to ask
him to do wrong, and therefore to do wrong oneself. While we await
further knowledge, let us respect public order; in every country
let us respect the laws, let us not disturb the form of worship
prescribed by law; let us not lead its citizens into disobedience;
for we have no certain knowledge that it is good for them to abandon
their own opinions for others, and on the other hand we are quite
certain that it is a bad thing to disobey the law.

"My young friend, I have now repeated to you my creed as God reads
it in my heart; you are the first to whom I have told it; perhaps
you will be the last. As long as there is any true faith left among
men, we must not trouble quiet souls, nor scare the faith of the
ignorant with problems they cannot solve, with difficulties which
cause them uneasiness, but do not give them any guidance. But
when once everything is shaken, the trunk must be preserved at the
cost of the branches. Consciences, restless, uncertain, and almost
quenched like yours, require to be strengthened and aroused; to
set the feet again upon the foundation of eternal truth, we must
remove the trembling supports on which they think they rest.

"You are at that critical age when the mind is open to conviction,
when the heart receives its form and character, when we decide our
own fate for life, either for good or evil. At a later date, the
material has hardened and fresh impressions leave no trace. Young
man, take the stamp of truth upon your heart which is not yet
hardened, if I were more certain of myself, I should have adopted
a more decided and dogmatic tone; but I am a man ignorant and.
liable to error; what could I do? I have opened my heart fully to
you; and I have told what I myself hold for certain and sure; I
have told you my doubts as doubts, my opinions as opinions; I have
given you my reasons both for faith and doubt. It is now your turn
to judge; you have asked for time; that is a wise precaution and
it makes me think well of you. Begin by bringing your conscience
into that state in which it desires to see clearly; be honest with
yourself. Take to yourself such of my opinions as convince you,
reject the rest. You are not yet so depraved by vice as to run the
risk of choosing amiss. I would offer to argue with you, but as
soon as men dispute they lose their temper; pride and obstinacy
come in, and there is an end of honesty. My friend, never argue;
for by arguing we gain no light for ourselves or for others. So far
as I myself am concerned, I have only made up my mind after many
years of meditation; here I rest, my conscience is at peace, my
heart is satisfied. If I wanted to begin afresh the examination of
my feelings, I should not bring to the task a purer love of truth;
and my mind, which is already less active, would be less able to
perceive the truth. Here I shall rest, lest the love of contemplation,
developing step by step into an idle passion, should make me
lukewarm in the performance of my duties, lest I should fall into
my former scepticism without strength to struggle out of it. More
than half my life is spent; I have barely time to make good use of
what is left, to blot out my faults by my virtues. If I am mistaken,
it is against my will. He who reads my inmost heart knows that
I have no love for my blindness. As my own knowledge is powerless
to free me from this blindness, my only way out of it is by a good
life; and if God from the very stones can raise up children to
Abraham, every man has a right to hope that he may be taught the
truth, if he makes himself worthy of it.

"If my reflections lead you to think as I do, if you share my
feelings, if we have the same creed, I give you this advice: Do
not continue to expose your life to the temptations of poverty and
despair, nor waste it in degradation and at the mercy of strangers;
no longer eat the shameful bread of charity. Return to your own
country, go back to the religion of your fathers, and follow it in
sincerity of heart, and never forsake it; it is very simple and very
holy; I think there is no other religion upon earth whose morality
is purer, no other more satisfying to the reason. Do not trouble
about the cost of the journey, that will be provided for you.
Neither do you fear the false shame of a humiliating return; we
should blush to commit a fault, not to repair it. You are still at
an age when all is forgiven, but when we cannot go on sinning with
impunity. If you desire to listen to your conscience, a thousand
empty objections will disappear at her voice. You will feel that, in
our present state of uncertainty, it is an inexcusable presumption
to profess any faith but that we were born into, while it is
treachery not to practise honestly the faith we profess. If we go
astray, we deprive ourselves of a great excuse before the tribunal
of the sovereign judge. Will he not pardon the errors in which we
were brought up, rather than those of our own choosing?

"My son, keep your soul in such a state that you always desire
that there should be a God and you will never doubt it. Moreover,
whatever decision you come to, remember that the real duties of
religion are independent of human institutions; that a righteous
heart is the true temple of the Godhead; that in every land, in
every sect, to love God above all things and to love our neighbour
as ourself is the whole law; remember there is no religion which
absolves us from our moral duties; that these alone are really
essential, that the service of the heart is the first of these duties,
and that without faith there is no such thing as true virtue.

"Shun those who, under the pretence of explaining nature, sow
destructive doctrines in the heart of men, those whose apparent
scepticism is a hundredfold more self-assertive and dogmatic than
the firm tone of their opponents. Under the arrogant claim, that
they alone are enlightened, true, honest, they subject us imperiously
to their far-reaching decisions, and profess to give us, as the
true principles of all things, the unintelligible systems framed by
their imagination. Moreover, they overthrow, destroy, and trample
under foot all that men reverence; they rob the afflicted of
their last consolation in their misery; they deprive the rich and
powerful of the sole bridle of their passions; they tear from the
very depths of man's heart all remorse for crime, and all hope of
virtue; and they boast, moreover, that they are the benefactors of
the human race. Truth, they say, can never do a man harm. I think
so too, and to my mind that is strong evidence that what they
teach is not true. [Footnote: The rival parties attack each other
with so many sophistries that it would be a rash and overwhelming
enterprise to attempt to deal with all of them; it is difficult
enough to note some of them as they occur. One of the commonest
errors among the partisans of philosophy is to contrast a nation
of good philosophers with a nation of bad Christians; as if it were
easier to make a nation of good philosophers than a nation of good
Christians. I know not whether in individual cases it is easier to
discover one rather than the other; but I am quite certain that,
as far as nations are concerned, we must assume that there will
be those who misuse their philosophy without religion, just as our
people misuse their religion without philosophy, and that seems
to put quite a different face upon the matter.]--Bayle has proved
very satisfactorily that fanaticism is more harmful than atheism,
and that cannot be denied; but what he has not taken the trouble to
say, though it is none the less true, is this: Fanaticism, though
cruel and bloodthirsty, is still a great and powerful passion,
which stirs the heart of man, teaching him to despise death, and
giving him an enormous motive power, which only needs to be guided
rightly to produce the noblest virtues; while irreligion, and the
argumentative philosophic spirit generally, on the other hand,
assaults the life and enfeebles it, degrades the soul, concentrates
all the passions in the basest self-interest, in the meanness of
the human self; thus it saps unnoticed the very foundations of all
society, for what is common to all these private interests is so
small that it will never outweigh their opposing interests.--If
atheism does not lead to bloodshed, it is less from love of peace
than from indifference to what is good; as if it mattered little
what happened to others, provided the sage remained undisturbed in
his study. His principles do not kill men, but they prevent their
birth, by destroying the morals by which they were multiplied, by
detaching them from their fellows, by reducing all their affections
to a secret selfishness, as fatal to population as to virtue. The
indifference of the philosopher is like the peace in a despotic state;
it is the repose of death; war itself is not more destructive.--Thus
fanaticism though its immediate results are more fatal than those
of what is now called the philosophic mind, is much less fatal in
its after effects. Moreover, it is an easy matter to exhibit fine
maxims in books; but the real question is--Are they really in
accordance with your teaching, are they the necessary consequences
of it? and this has not been clearly proved so far. It remains
to be seen whether philosophy, safely enthroned, could control
successfully man's petty vanity, his self-interest, his ambition,
all the lesser passions of mankind, and whether it would practise
that sweet humanity which it boasts of, pen in hand.--In theory,
there is no good which philosophy can bring about which is not equally
secured by religion, while religion secures much that philosophy
cannot secure.--In practice, it is another matter; but still we
must put it to the proof. No man follows his religion in all things,
even if his religion is true; most people have hardly any religion,
and they do not in the least follow what they have; that is still
more true; but still there are some people who have a religion
and follow it, at least to some extent; and beyond doubt religious
motives do prevent them from wrong-doing, and win from them virtues,
praiseworthy actions, which would not have existed but for these
motives.--A monk denies that money was entrusted to him; what of
that? It only proves that the man who entrusted the money to him
was a fool. If Pascal had done the same, that would have proved that
Pascal was a hypocrite. But a monk! Are those who make a trade of
religion religious people? All the crimes committed by the clergy,
as by other men, do not prove that religion is useless, but that
very few people are religious.--Most certainly our modern governments
owe to Christianity their more stable authority, their less frequent
revolutions; it has made those governments less bloodthirsty; this
can be shown by comparing them with the governments of former times.
Apart from fanaticism, the best known religion has given greater
gentleness to Christian conduct. This change is not the result of
learning; for wherever learning has been most illustrious humanity
has been no more respected on that account; the cruelties of the
Athenians, the Egyptians, the Roman emperors, the Chinese bear
witness to this. What works of mercy spring from the gospel! How
many acts of restitution, reparation, confession does the gospel
lead to among Catholics! Among ourselves, as the times of communion
draw near, do they not lead us to reconciliation and to alms-giving?
Did not the Hebrew Jubilee make the grasping less greedy, did it
not prevent much poverty? The brotherhood of the Law made the nation
one; no beggar was found among them. Neither are there beggars
among the Turks, where there are countless pious institutions;
from motives of religion they even show hospitality to the foes of
their religion.--"The Mahometans say, according to Chardin, that
after the interrogation which will follow the general resurrection,
all bodies will traverse a bridge called Poul-Serrho, which is
thrown across the eternal fires, a bridge which may be called the
third and last test of the great Judgment, because it is there that
the good and bad will be separated, etc.--"The Persians, continues
Chardin, make a great point of this bridge; and when any one suffers
a wrong which he can never hope to wipe out by any means or at any
time, he finds his last consolation in these words: 'By the living
God, you will pay me double at the last day; you will never get
across the Poul-Serrho if you do not first do me justice; I will
hold the hem of your garment, I will cling about your knees.' I
have seen many eminent men, of every profession, who for fear lest
this hue and cry should be raised against them as they cross that
fearful bridge, beg pardon of those who complained against them;
it has happened to me myself on many occasions. Men of rank, who
had compelled me by their importunity to do what I did not wish
to do, have come to me when they thought my anger had had time to
cool, and have said to me; I pray you "Halal becon antchisra," that
is, "Make this matter lawful and right." Some of them have even
sent gifts and done me service, so that I might forgive them and
say I did it willingly; the cause of this is nothing else but this
belief that they will not be able to get across the bridge of hell
until they have paid the uttermost farthing to the oppressed."--Must
I think that the idea of this bridge where so many iniquities are
made good is of no avail? If the Persians were deprived of this
idea, if they were persuaded that there was no Poul-Serrho, nor
anything of the kind, where the oppressed were avenged of their
tyrants after death, is it not clear that they would be very much
at their ease, and they would be freed from the care of appeasing
the wretched? But it is false to say that this doctrine is hurtful;
yet it would not be true.--O Philosopher, your moral laws are all
very fine; but kindly show me their sanction. Cease to shirk the
question, and tell me plainly what you would put in the place of
Poul-Serrho.

"My good youth, be honest and humble; learn how to be ignorant, then
you will never deceive yourself or others. If ever your talents are
so far cultivated as to enable you to speak to other men, always
speak according to your conscience, without oaring for their
applause. The abuse of knowledge causes incredulity. The learned
always despise the opinions of the crowd; each of them must have his
own opinion. A haughty philosophy leads to atheism just as blind
devotion leads to fanaticism. Avoid these extremes; keep steadfastly
to the path of truth, or what seems to you truth, in simplicity of
heart, and never let yourself be turned aside by pride or weakness.
Dare to confess God before the philosophers; dare to preach humanity
to the intolerant. It may be you will stand alone, but you will
bear within you a witness which will make the witness of men of no
account with you. Let them love or hate, let them read your writings
or despise them; no matter. Speak the truth and do the right; the
one thing that really matters is to do one's duty in this world;
and when we forget ourselves we are really working for ourselves.
My child, self-interest misleads us; the hope of the just is the
only sure guide."

I have transcribed this document not as a rule for the sentiments
we should adopt in matters of religion, but as an example of the way
in which we may reason with our pupil without forsaking the method
I have tried to establish. So long as we yield nothing to human
authority, nor to the prejudices of our native land, the light of
reason alone, in a state of nature, can lead us no further than to
natural religion; and this is as far as I should go with Emile. If
he must have any other religion, I have no right to be his guide;
he must choose for himself.

We are working in agreement with nature, and while she is shaping
the physical man, we are striving to shape his moral being, but
we do not make the same progress. The body is already strong and
vigorous, the soul is still frail and delicate, and whatever can be
done by human art, the body is always ahead of the mind. Hitherto
all our care has been devoted to restrain the one and stimulate
the other, so that the man might be as far as possible at one with
himself. By developing his individuality, we have kept his growing
susceptibilities in check; we have controlled it by cultivating
his reason. Objects of thought moderate the influence of objects
of sense. By going back to the causes of things, we have withdrawn
him from the sway of the senses; it is an easy thing to raise him
from the study of nature to the search for the author of nature.

When we have reached this point, what a fresh hold we have got over
our pupil; what fresh ways of speaking to his heart! Then alone
does he find a real motive for being good, for doing right when he
is far from every human eye, and when he is not driven to it by
law. To be just in his own eyes and in the sight of God, to do his
duty, even at the cost of life itself, and to bear in his heart
virtue, not only for the love of order which we all subordinate
to the love of self, but for the love of the Author of his being,
a love which mingles with that self-love, so that he may at length
enjoy the lasting happiness which the peace of a good conscience
and the contemplation of that supreme being promise him in another
life, after he has used this life aright. Go beyond this, and I see
nothing but injustice, hypocrisy, and falsehood among men; private
interest, which in competition necessarily prevails over everything
else, teaches all things to adorn vice with the outward show of
virtue. Let all men do what is good for me at the cost of what is
good for themselves; let everything depend on me alone; let the
whole human race perish, if needs be, in suffering and want, to
spare me a moment's pain or hunger. Yes, I shall always maintain
that whoso says in his heart, "There is no God," while he takes
the name of God upon his lips, is either a liar or a madman.

Reader, it is all in vain; I perceive that you and I shall never
see Emile with the same eyes; you will always fancy him like your
own young people, hasty, impetuous, flighty, wandering from fete to
fete, from amusement to amusement, never able to settle to anything.
You smile when I expect to make a thinker, a philosopher, a young
theologian, of an ardent, lively, eager, and fiery young man,
at the most impulsive period of youth. This dreamer, you say, is
always in pursuit of his fancy; when he gives us a pupil of his
own making, he does not merely form him, he creates him, he makes
him up out of his own head; and while he thinks he is treading in
the steps of nature, he is getting further and further from her.
As for me, when I compare my pupil with yours, I can scarcely find
anything in common between them. So differently brought up, it is
almost a miracle if they are alike in any respect. As his childhood
was passed in the freedom they assume in youth, in his youth he
begins to bear the yoke they bore as children; this yoke becomes
hateful to them, they are sick of it, and they see in it nothing
but their masters' tyranny; when they escape from childhood, they
think they must shake off all control, they make up for the prolonged
restraint imposed upon them, as a prisoner, freed from his fetters,
moves and stretches and shakes his limbs. [Footnote: There is no
one who looks down upon childhood with such lofty scorn as those
who are barely grown-up; just as there is no country where rank is
more strictly regarded than that where there is little real inequality;
everybody is afraid of being confounded with his inferiors.] Emile,
however, is proud to be a man, and to submit to the yoke of his
growing reason; his body, already well grown, no longer needs so
much action, and begins to control itself, while his half-fledged
mind tries its wings on every occasion. Thus the age of reason
becomes for the one the age of licence; for the other, the age of
reasoning.

Would you know which of the two is nearer to the order of nature!
Consider the differences between those who are more or less removed
from a state of nature. Observe young villagers and see if they
are as undisciplined as your scholars. The Sieur de Beau says that
savages in childhood are always active, and ever busy with sports
that keep the body in motion; but scarcely do they reach adolescence
than they become quiet and dreamy; they no longer devote themselves
to games of skill or chance. Emile, who has been brought up in full
freedom like young peasants and savages, should behave like them
and change as he grows up. The whole difference is in this, that
instead of merely being active in sport or for food, he has, in the
course of his sports, learned to think. Having reached this stage,
and by this road, he is quite ready to enter upon the next stage to
which I introduce him; the subjects I suggest for his consideration
rouse his curiosity, because they are fine in themselves, because
they are quite new to him, and because he is able to understand
them. Your young people, on the other hand, are weary and overdone
with your stupid lessons, your long sermons, and your tedious
catechisms; why should they not refuse to devote their minds to
what has made them sad, to the burdensome precepts which have been
continually piled upon them, to the thought of the Author of their
being, who has been represented as the enemy of their pleasures?
All this has only inspired in them aversion, disgust, and weariness;
constraint has set them against it; why then should they devote
themselves to it when they are beginning to choose for themselves?
They require novelty, you must not repeat what they learned
as children. Just so with my own pupil, when he is a man I speak
to him as a man, and only tell him what is new to him; it is just
because they are tedious to your pupils that he will find them to
his taste.

This is how I doubly gain time for him by retarding nature to the
advantage of reason. But have I indeed retarded the progress of
nature? No, I have only prevented the imagination from hastening
it; I have employed another sort of teaching to counterbalance
the precocious instruction which the young man receives from other
sources. When he is carried away by the flood of existing customs
and I draw him in the opposite direction by means of other customs,
this is not to remove him from his place, but to keep him in it.

Nature's due time comes at length, as come it must. Since man must
die, he must reproduce himself, so that the species may endure and
the order of the world continue. When by the signs I have spoken of
you perceive that the critical moment is at hand, at once abandon
for ever your former tone. He is still your disciple, but not your
scholar. He is a man and your friend; henceforth you must treat
him as such.

What! Must I abdicate my authority when most I need it? Must I
abandon the adult to himself just when he least knows how to control
himself, when he may fall into the gravest errors! Must I renounce
my rights when it matters most that I should use them on his behalf?
Who bids you renounce them; he is only just becoming conscious of
them. Hitherto all you have gained has been won by force or guile;
authority, the law of duty, were unknown to him, you had to constrain
or deceive him to gain his obedience. But see what fresh chains
you have bound about his heart. Reason, friendship, affection,
gratitude, a thousand bonds of affection, speak to him in a voice
he cannot fail to hear. His ears are not yet dulled by vice, he
is still sensitive only to the passions of nature. Self-love, the
first of these, delivers him into your hands; habit confirms this.
If a passing transport tears him from you, regret restores him to
you without delay; the sentiment which attaches him to you is the
only lasting sentiment, all the rest are fleeting and self-effacing.
Do not let him become corrupt, and he will always be docile; he
will not begin to rebel till he is already perverted.

I grant you, indeed, that if you directly oppose his growing desires
and foolishly treat as crimes the fresh needs which are beginning
to make themselves felt in him, he will not listen to you for
long; but as soon as you abandon my method I cannot be answerable
for the consequences. Remember that you are nature's minister; you
will never be her foe.

But what shall we decide to do? You see no alternative but either
to favour his inclinations or to resist them; to tyrannise or to
wink at his misconduct; and both of these may lead to such dangerous
results that one must indeed hesitate between them.

The first way out of the difficulty is a very early marriage; this
is undoubtedly the safest and most natural plan. I doubt, however,
whether it is the best or the most useful. I will give my reasons
later; meanwhile I admit that young men should marry when they reach
a marriageable age. But this age comes too soon; we have made them
precocious; marriage should be postponed to maturity.

If it were merely a case of listening to their wishes and following
their lead it would be an easy matter; but there are so many
contradictions between the rights of nature and the laws of society
that to conciliate them we must continually contradict ourselves.
Much art is required to prevent man in society from being altogether
artificial.

For the reasons just stated, I consider that by the means I have
indicated and others like them the young man's desires may be kept
in ignorance and his senses pure up to the age of twenty. This is
so true that among the Germans a young man who lost his virginity
before that age was considered dishonoured; and the writers justly
attribute the vigour of constitution and the number of children
among the Germans to the continence of these nations during youth.

This period may be prolonged still further, and a few centuries
ago nothing was more common even in France. Among other well-known
examples, Montaigne's father, a man no less scrupulously truthful
than strong and healthy, swore that his was a virgin marriage at
three and thirty, and he had served for a long time in the Italian
wars. We may see in the writings of his son what strength and
spirit were shown by the father when he was over sixty. Certainly
the contrary opinion depends rather on our own morals and our own
prejudices than on the experience of the race as a whole.

I may, therefore, leave on one side the experience of our young
people; it proves nothing for those who have been educated in
another fashion. Considering that nature has fixed no exact limits
which cannot be advanced or postponed, I think I may, without going
beyond the law of nature, assume that under my care Emil has so far
remained in his first innocence, but I see that this happy period
is drawing to a close. Surrounded by ever-increasing perils, he
will escape me at the first opportunity in spite of all my efforts,
and this opportunity will not long be delayed; he will follow the
blind instinct of his senses; the chances are a thousand to one on
his ruin. I have considered the morals of mankind too profoundly
not to be aware of the irrevocable influence of this first moment
on all the rest of his life. If I dissimulate and pretend to see
nothing, he will take advantage of my weakness; if he thinks he
can deceive me, he will despise me, and I become an accomplice in
his destruction. If I try to recall him, the time is past, he no
longer heeds me, he finds me tiresome, hateful, intolerable; it
will not be long before he is rid of me. There is therefore only
one reasonable course open to me; I must make him accountable for
his own actions, I must at least preserve him from being taken
unawares, and I must show him plainly the dangers which beset his
path. I have restrained him so far through his ignorance; henceforward
his restraint must be his own knowledge.

This new teaching is of great importance, and we will take up our
story where we left it. This is the time to present my accounts,
to show him how his time and mine have been spent, to make known
to him what he is and what I am; what I have done, and what he has
done; what we owe to each other; all his moral relations, all the
undertakings to which he is pledged, all those to which others
have pledged themselves in respect to him; the stage he has reached
in the development of his faculties, the road that remains to be
travelled, the difficulties he will meet, and the way to overcome
them; how I can still help him and how he must henceforward help
himself; in a word, the critical time which he has reached, the
new dangers round about him, and all the valid reasons which should
induce him to keep a close watch upon himself before giving heed
to his growing desires.

Remember that to guide a grown man you must reverse all that you
did to guide the child. Do not hesitate to speak to him of those
dangerous mysteries which you have so carefully concealed from him
hitherto. Since he must become aware of them, let him not learn
them from another, nor from himself, but from you alone; since he
must henceforth fight against them, let him know his enemy, that
he may not be taken unawares.

Young people who are found to be aware of these matters, without
our knowing how they obtained their knowledge, have not obtained it
with impunity. This unwise teaching, which can have no honourable
object, stains the imagination of those who receive it if it does
nothing worse, and it inclines them to the vices of their instructors.
This is not all; servants, by this means, ingratiate themselves
with a child, gain his confidence, make him regard his tutor as a
gloomy and tiresome person; and one of the favourite subjects of
their secret colloquies is to slander him. When the pupil has got
so far, the master may abandon his task; he can do no good.

But why does the child choose special confidants? Because of the
tyranny of those who control him. Why should he hide himself from
them if he were not driven to it? Why should he complain if he had
nothing to complain of? Naturally those who control him are his
first confidants; you can see from his eagerness to tell them what
he thinks that he feels he has only half thought till he has told
his thoughts to them. You may be sure that when the child knows you
will neither preach nor scold, he will always tell you everything,
and that no one will dare to tell him anything he must conceal from
you, for they will know very well that he will tell you everything.

What makes me most confident in my method is this: when I follow
it out as closely as possible, I find no situation in the life of
my scholar which does not leave me some pleasing memory of him.
Even when he is carried away by his ardent temperament or when he
revolts against the hand that guides him, when he struggles and is
on the point of escaping from me, I still find his first simplicity
in his agitation and his anger; his heart as pure as his body, he
has no more knowledge of pretence than of vice; reproach and scorn
have not made a coward of him; base fears have never taught him
the art of concealment. He has all the indiscretion of innocence;
he is absolutely out-spoken; he does not even know the use of
deceit. Every impulse of his heart is betrayed either by word or
look, and I often know what he is feeling before he is aware of it
himself.

So long as his heart is thus freely opened to me, so long as he
delights to tell me what he feels, I have nothing to fear; the danger
is not yet at hand; but if he becomes more timid, more reserved,
if I perceive in his conversation the first signs of confusion and
shame, his instincts are beginning to develop, he is beginning to
connect the idea of evil with these instincts, there is not a moment
to lose, and if I do not hasten to instruct him, he will learn in
spite of me.

Some of my readers, even of those who agree with me, will think
that it is only a question of a conversation with the young man at
any time. Oh, this is not the way to control the human heart. What
we say has no meaning unless the opportunity has been carefully
chosen. Before we sow we must till the ground; the seed of virtue
is hard to grow; and a long period of preparation is required before
it will take root. One reason why sermons have so little effect is
that they are offered to everybody alike, without discrimination
or choice. How can any one imagine that the same sermon could be
suitable for so many hearers, with their different dispositions,
so unlike in mind, temper, age, sex, station, and opinion. Perhaps
there are not two among those to whom what is addressed to all is
really suitable; and all our affections are so transitory that perhaps
there are not even two occasions in the life of any man when the
same speech would have the same effect on him. Judge for yourself
whether the time when the eager senses disturb the understanding
and tyrannise over the will, is the time to listen to the solemn
lessons of wisdom. Therefore never reason with young men, even
when they have reached the age of reason, unless you have first
prepared the way. Most lectures miss their mark more through the
master's fault than the disciple's. The pedant and the teacher say
much the same; but the former says it at random, and the latter
only when he is sure of its effect.

As a somnambulist, wandering in his sleep, walks along the edge
of a precipice, over which he would fall if he were awake, so my
Emile, in the sleep of ignorance, escapes the perils which he does
not see; were I to wake him with a start, he might fall. Let us
first try to withdraw him from the edge of the precipice, and then
we will awake him to show him it from a distance.

Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse
with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young
man, and these lead him constantly into danger. I divert his senses
by other objects of sense; I trace another course for his spirits
by which I distract them from the course they would have taken; it
is by bodily exercise and hard work that I check the activity of
the imagination, which was leading him astray. When the arms are
hard at work, the imagination is quiet; when the body is very weary,
the passions are not easily inflamed. The quickest and easiest
precaution is to remove him from immediate danger. At once I take
him away from towns, away from things which might lead him into
temptation. But that is not enough; in what desert, in what wilds,
shall he escape from the thoughts which pursue him? It is not
enough to remove dangerous objects; if I fail to remove the memory
of them, if I fail to find a way to detach him from everything,
if I fail to distract him from himself, I might as well have left
him where he was.

Emile has learned a trade, but we do not have recourse to it; he
is fond of farming and understands it, but farming is not enough;
the occupations he is acquainted with degenerate into routine; when
he is engaged in them he is not really occupied; he is thinking of
other things; head and hand are at work on different subjects. He
must have some fresh occupation which has the interest of novelty--an
occupation which keeps him busy, diligent, and hard at work, an
occupation which he may become passionately fond of, one to which
he will devote himself entirely. Now the only one which seems to
possess all these characteristics is the chase. If hunting is ever
an innocent pleasure, if it is ever worthy of a man, now is the
time to betake ourselves to it. Emile is well-fitted to succeed in
it. He is strong, skilful, patient, unwearied. He is sure to take
a fancy to this sport; he will bring to it all the ardour of youth;
in it he will lose, at least for a time, the dangerous inclinations
which spring from softness. The chase hardens the heart a well as
the body; we get used to the sight of blood and cruelty. Diana is
represented as the enemy of love; and the allegory is true to life;
the languors of love are born of soft repose, and tender feelings
are stifled by violent exercise. In the woods and fields, the lover
and the sportsman are so diversely affected that they receive very
different impressions. The fresh shade, the arbours, the pleasant
resting-places of the one, to the other are but feeding grounds, or
places where the quarry will hide or turn to bay. Where the lover
hears the flute and the nightingale, the hunter hears the horn
and the hounds; one pictures to himself the nymphs and dryads, the
other sees the horses, the huntsman, and the pack. Take a country
walk with one or other of these men; their different conversation
will soon show you that they behold the earth with other eyes,
and that the direction of their thoughts is as different as their
favourite pursuit.

I understand how these tastes may be combined, and that at last men
find time for both. But the passions of youth cannot be divided in
this way. Give the youth a single occupation which he loves, and
the rest will soon be forgotten. Varied desires come with varied
knowledge, and the first pleasures we know are the only ones we
desire for long enough. I would not have the whole of Emile's youth
spent in killing creatures, and I do not even profess to justify
this cruel passion; it is enough for me that it serves to delay a
more dangerous passion, so that he may listen to me calmly when I
speak of it, and give me time to describe it without stimulating
it.

There are moments in human life which can never be forgotten. Such
is the time when Emile receives the instruction of which I have
spoken; its influence should endure all his life through. Let us
try to engrave it on his memory so that it may never fade away. It
is one of the faults of our age to rely too much on cold reason,
as if men were all mind. By neglecting the language of expression
we have lost the most forcible mode of speech. The spoken word is
always weak, and we speak to the heart rather through the eyes than
the ears. In our attempt to appeal to reason only, we have reduced
our precepts to words, we have not embodied them in deed. Mere
reason is not active; occasionally she restrains, more rarely she
stimulates, but she never does any great thing. Small minds have a
mania for reasoning. Strong souls speak a very different language,
and it is by this language that men are persuaded and driven to
action.

I observe that in modern times men only get a hold over others by
force or self-interest, while the ancients did more by persuasion,
by the affections of the heart; because they did not neglect the
language; of symbolic expression. All agreements were drawn up
solemnly, so that they might be more inviolable; before the reign
of force, the gods were the judges of mankind; in their presence,
individuals made their treaties and alliances, and pledged themselves
to perform their promises; the face of the earth was the book in
which the archives were preserved. The leaves of this book were
rocks, trees, piles of stones, made sacred by these transactions,
and regarded with reverence by barbarous men; and these pages were
always open before their eyes. The well of the oath, the well of
the living and seeing one; the ancient oak of Mamre, the stones of
witness, such were the simple but stately monuments of the sanctity
of contracts; none dared to lay a sacrilegious hand on these
monuments, and man's faith was more secure under the warrant of
these dumb witnesses than it is to-day upon all the rigour of the
law.

In government the people were over-awed by the pomp and splendour
of royal power. The symbols of greatness, a throne, a sceptre, a
purple robe, a crown, a fillet, these were sacred in their sight.
These symbols, and the respect which they inspired, led them to
reverence the venerable man whom they beheld adorned with them;
without soldiers and without threats, he spoke and was obeyed.
[Footnote: The Roman Catholic clergy have very wisely retained
these symbols, and certain republics, such as Venice, have followed
their example. Thus the Venetian government, despite the fallen
condition of the state, still enjoys, under the trappings of
its former greatness, all the affection, all the reverence of the
people; and next to the pope in his triple crown, there is perhaps
no king, no potentate, no person in the world so much respected
as the Doge of Venice; he has no power, no authority, but he is
rendered sacred by his pomp, and he wears beneath his ducal coronet
a woman's flowing locks. That ceremony of the Bucentaurius, which
stirs the laughter of fools, stirs the Venetian populace to shed
its life-blood for the maintenance of this tyrannical government.]
In our own day men profess to do away with these symbols. What are
the consequences of this contempt? The kingly majesty makes no
impression on all hearts, kings can only gain obedience by the help
of troops, and the respect of their subjects is based only on the
fear of punishment. Kings are spared the trouble of wearing their
crowns, and our nobles escape from the outward signs of their
station, but they must have a hundred thousand men at their command
if their orders are to be obeyed. Though this may seem a finer
thing, it is easy to see that in the long run they will gain nothing.

It is amazing what the ancients accomplished with the aid of
eloquence; but this eloquence did not merely consist in fine speeches
carefully prepared; and it was most effective when the orator said
least. The most startling speeches were expressed not in words but
in signs; they were not uttered but shown. A thing beheld by the
eyes kindles the imagination, stirs the curiosity, and keeps the
mind on the alert for what we are about to say, and often enough
the thing tells the whole story. Thrasybulus and Tarquin cutting
off the heads of the poppies, Alexander placing his seal on the
lips of his favourite, Diogenes marching before Zeno, do not these
speak more plainly than if they had uttered long orations? What
flow of words could have expressed the ideas as clearly? Darius,
in the course of the Scythian war, received from the king of the
Scythians a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows. The ambassador
deposited this gift and retired without a word. In our days he would
have been taken for a madman. This terrible speech was understood,
and Darius withdrew to his own country with what speed he could.
Substitute a letter for these symbols and the more threatening it
was the less terror it would inspire; it would have been merely a
piece of bluff, to which Darius would have paid no attention.

What heed the Romans gave to the language of signs! Different ages
and different ranks had their appropriate garments, toga, tunic,
patrician robes, fringes and borders, seats of honour, lictors,
rods and axes, crowns of gold, crowns of leaves, crowns of flowers,
ovations, triumphs, everything had its pomp, its observances,
its ceremonial, and all these spoke to the heart of the citizens.
The state regarded it as a matter of importance that the populace
should assemble in one place rather than another, that they should
or should not behold the Capitol, that they should or should not
turn towards the Senate, that this day or that should be chosen for
their deliberations. The accused wore a special dress, so did the
candidates for election; warriors did not boast of their exploits,
they showed their scars. I can fancy one of our orators at the
death of Caesar exhausting all the commonplaces of rhetoric to give
a pathetic description of his wounds, his blood, his dead body;
Anthony was an orator, but he said none of this; he showed the
murdered Caesar. What rhetoric was this!

But this digression, like many others, is drawing me unawares away
from my subject; and my digressions are too frequent to be borne
with patience. I therefore return to the point.

Do not reason coldly with youth. Clothe your reason with a body,
if you would make it felt. Let the mind speak the language of the
heart, that it may be understood. I say again our opinions, not our
actions, may be influenced by cold argument; they set us thinking,
not doing; they show us what we ought to think, not what we ought
to do. If this is true of men, it is all the truer of young people
who are still enwrapped in their senses and cannot think otherwise
than they imagine.

Even after the preparations of which I have spoken, I shall take
good care not to go all of a sudden to Emile's room and preach a
long and heavy sermon on the subject in which he is to be instructed.
I shall begin by rousing his imagination; I shall choose the time,
place, and surroundings most favourable to the impression I wish
to make; I shall, so to speak, summon all nature as witness to our
conversations; I shall call upon the eternal God, the Creator of
nature, to bear witness to the truth of what I say. He shall judge
between Emile and myself; I will make the rocks, the woods, the
mountains round about us, the monuments of his promises and mine;
eyes, voice, and gesture shall show the enthusiasm I desire to
inspire. Then I will speak and he will listen, and his emotion will
be stirred by my own. The more impressed I am by the sanctity of
my duties, the more sacred he will regard his own. I will enforce
the voice of reason with images and figures, I will not give him
long-winded speeches or cold precepts, but my overflowing feelings
will break their bounds; my reason shall be grave and serious, but
my heart cannot speak too warmly. Then when I have shown him all
that I have done for him, I will show him how he is made for me;
he will see in my tender affection the cause of all my care. How
greatly shall I surprise and disturb him when I change my tone.
Instead of shrivelling up his soul by always talking of his own
interests, I shall henceforth speak of my own; he will be more
deeply touched by this. I will kindle in his young heart all the
sentiments of affection, generosity, and gratitude which I have
already called into being, and it will indeed be sweet to watch

their growth. I will press him to my bosom, and weep over him in
my emotion; I will say to him: "You are my wealth, my child, my
handiwork; my happiness is bound up in yours; if you frustrate my
hopes, you rob me of twenty years of my life, and you bring my grey
hairs with sorrow to the grave." This is the way to gain a hearing
and to impress what is said upon the heart and memory of the young
man.

Hitherto I have tried to give examples of the way in which a tutor
should instruct his pupil in cases of difficulty. I have tried to
do so in this instance; but after many attempts I have abandoned
the task, convinced that the French language is too artificial
to permit in print the plainness of speech required for the first
lessons in certain subjects.

They say French is more chaste than other languages; for my own
part I think it more obscene; for it seems to me that the purity
of a language does not consist in avoiding coarse expressions but
in having none. Indeed, if we are to avoid them, they must be in
our thoughts, and there is no language in which it is so difficult
to speak with purity on every subject than French. The reader is
always quicker to detect than the author to avoid a gross meaning,
and he is shocked and startled by everything. How can what is heard
by impure ears avoid coarseness? On the other hand, a nation whose
morals are pure has fit terms for everything, and these terms are
always right because they are rightly used. One could not imagine
more modest language than that of the Bible, just because of its
plainness of speech. The same things translated into French would
become immodest. What I ought to say to Emile will sound pure and
honourable to him; but to make the same impression in print would
demand a like purity of heart in the reader.

I should even think that reflections on true purity of speech
and the sham delicacy of vice might find a useful place in the
conversations as to morality to which this subject brings us; for
when he learns the language of plain-spoken goodness, he must also
learn the language of decency, and he must know why the two are
so different. However this may be, I maintain that if instead of
the empty precepts which are prematurely dinned into the ears of
children, only to be scoffed at when the time comes when they might
prove useful, if instead of this we bide our time, if we prepare
the way for a hearing, if we then show him the laws of nature in
all their truth, if we show him the sanction of these laws in the
physical and moral evils which overtake those who neglect them,
if while we speak to him of this great mystery of generation, we
join to the idea of the pleasure which the Author of nature has
given to this act the idea of the exclusive affection which makes
it delightful, the idea of the duties of faithfulness and modesty
which surround it, and redouble its charm while fulfilling its
purpose; if we paint to him marriage, not only as the sweetest form
of society, but also as the most sacred and inviolable of contracts,
if we tell him plainly all the reasons which lead men to respect
this sacred bond, and to pour hatred and curses upon him who dares
to dishonour it; if we give him a true and terrible picture of the
horrors of debauch, of its stupid brutality, of the downward road
by which a first act of misconduct leads from bad to worse, and at
last drags the sinner to his ruin; if, I say, we give him proofs
that on a desire for chastity depends health, strength, courage,
virtue, love itself, and all that is truly good for man--I maintain
that this chastity will be so dear and so desirable in his eyes,
that his mind will be ready to receive our teaching as to the way
to preserve it; for so long as we are chaste we respect chastity;
it is only when we have lost this virtue that we scorn it.

It is not true that the inclination to evil is beyond our control,
and that we cannot overcome it until we have acquired the habit of
yielding to it. Aurelius Victor says that many men were mad enough
to purchase a night with Cleopatra at the price of their life,
and this is not incredible in the madness of passion. But let us
suppose the maddest of men, the man who has his senses least under
control; let him see the preparations for his death, let him realise
that he will certainly die in torment a quarter of an hour later;
not only would that man, from that time forward, become able
to resist temptation, he would even find it easy to do so; the
terrible picture with which they are associated will soon distract
his attention from these temptations, and when they are continually
put aside they will cease to recur. The sole cause of our weakness
is the feebleness of our will, and we have always strength to
perform what we strongly desire. "Volenti nihil difficile!" Oh! if
only we hated vice as much as we love life, we should abstain as
easily from a pleasant sin as from a deadly poison in a delicious
dish.

How is it that you fail to perceive that if all the lessons given
to a young man on this subject have no effect, it is because they
are not adapted to his age, and that at every age reason must be
presented in a shape which will win his affection? Speak seriously
to him if required, but let what you say to him always have a charm
which will compel him to listen. Do not coldly oppose his wishes;
do not stifle his imagination, but direct it lest it should bring
forth monsters. Speak to him of love, of women, of pleasure; let
him find in your conversation a charm which delights his youthful
heart; spare no pains to make yourself his confidant; under this
name alone will you really be his master. Then you need not fear
he will find your conversation tedious; he will make you talk more
than you desire.

If I have managed to take all the requisite precautions in accordance
with these maxims, and have said the right things to Emile at the
age he has now reached, I am quite convinced that he will come of
his own accord to the point to which I would lead him, and will
eagerly confide himself to my care. When he sees the dangers by
which he is surrounded, he will say to me with all the warmth of
youth, "Oh, my friend, my protector, my master! resume the authority
you desire to lay aside at the very time when I most need it;
hitherto my weakness has given you this power. I now place it in
your hands of my own free-will, and it will be all the more sacred
in my eyes. Protect me from all the foes which are attacking me,
and above all from the traitors within the citadel; watch over
your work, that it may still be worthy of you. I mean to obey your
laws, I shall ever do so, that is my steadfast purpose; if I ever
disobey you, it will be against my will; make me free by guarding
me against the passions which do me violence; do not let me become
their slave; compel me to be my own master and to obey, not my
senses, but my reason."

When you have led your pupil so far (and it will be your own fault
if you fail to do so), beware of taking him too readily at his word,
lest your rule should seem too strict to him, and lest he should
think he has a right to escape from it, by accusing you of taking
him by surprise. This is the time for reserve and seriousness; and
this attitude will have all the more effect upon him seeing that
it is the first time you have adopted it towards him.

You will say to him therefore: "Young man, you readily make promises
which are hard to keep; you must understand what they mean before
you have a right to make them; you do not know how your fellows
are drawn by their passions into the whirlpool of vice masquerading
as pleasure. You are honourable, I know; you will never break your
word, but how often will you repent of having given it? How often
will you curse your friend, when, in order to guard you from the
ills which threaten you, he finds himself compelled to do violence
to your heart. Like Ulysses who, hearing the song of the Sirens,
cried aloud to his rowers to unbind him, you will break your
chains at the call of pleasure; you will importune me with your
lamentations, you will reproach me as a tyrant when I have your
welfare most at heart; when I am trying to make you happy, I shall
incur your hatred. Oh, Emile, I can never bear to be hateful in
your eyes; this is too heavy a price to pay even for your happiness.
My dear young man, do you not see that when you undertake to obey
me, you compel me to promise to be your guide, to forget myself
in my devotion to you, to refuse to listen to your murmurs and
complaints, to wage unceasing war against your wishes and my own.
Before we either of us undertake such a task, let us count our
resources; take your time, give me time to consider, and be sure
that the slower we are to promise, the more faithfully will our
promises be kept."

You may be sure that the more difficulty he finds in getting your
promise, the easier you will find it to carry it out. The young
man must learn that he is promising a great deal, and that you
are promising still more. When the time is come, when he has, so
to say, signed the contract, then change your tone, and make your
rule as gentle as you said it would be severe. Say to him, "My
young friend, it is experience that you lack; but I have taken care
that you do not lack reason. You are ready to see the motives of
my conduct in every respect; to do this you need only wait till
you are free from excitement. Always obey me first, and then ask
the reasons for my commands; I am always ready to give my reasons
so soon as you are ready to listen to them, and I shall never be
afraid to make you the judge between us. You promise to follow my
teaching, and I promise only to use your obedience to make you the
happiest of men. For proof of this I have the life you have lived
hitherto. Show me any one of your age who has led as happy a life
as yours, and I promise you nothing more."

When my authority is firmly established, my first care will be to
avoid the necessity of using it. I shall spare no pains to become
more and more firmly established in his confidence, to make myself
the confidant of his heart and the arbiter of his pleasures. Far
from combating his youthful tastes, I shall consult them that I
may be their master; I will look at things from his point of view
that I may be his guide; I will not seek a remote distant good at
the cost of his present happiness. I would always have him happy
always if that may be.

Those who desire to guide young people rightly and to preserve them
from the snares of sense give them a disgust for love, and would
willingly make the very thought of it a crime, as if love were
for the old. All these mistaken lessons have no effect; the heart
gives the lie to them. The young man, guided by a surer instinct,
laughs to himself over the gloomy maxims which he pretends to
accept, and only awaits the chance of disregarding them. All that
is contrary to nature. By following the opposite course I reach
the same end more safely. I am not afraid to encourage in him the
tender feeling for which he is so eager, I shall paint it as the
supreme joy of life, as indeed it is; when I picture it to him, I
desire that he shall give himself up to it; by making him feel the
charm which the union of hearts adds to the delights of sense, I
shall inspire him with a disgust for debauchery; I shall make him
a lover and a good man.

How narrow-minded to see nothing in the rising desires of a young
heart but obstacles to the teaching of reason. In my eyes, these
are the right means to make him obedient to that very teaching.
Only through passion can we gain the mastery over passions; their
tyranny must be controlled by their legitimate power, and nature
herself must furnish us with the means to control her.

Emile is not made to live alone, he is a member of society, and must
fulfil his duties as such. He is made to live among his fellow-men
and he must get to know them. He knows mankind in general; he has
still to learn to know individual men. He knows what goes on in the
world; he has now to learn how men live in the world. It is time
to show him the front of that vast stage, of which he already
knows the hidden workings. It will not arouse in him the foolish
admiration of a giddy youth, but the discrimination of an exact
and upright spirit. He may no doubt be deceived by his passions;
who is there who yields to his passions without being led astray
by them? At least he will not be deceived by the passions of other
people. If he sees them, he will regard them with the eye of the
wise, and will neither be led away by their example nor seduced by
their prejudices.

As there is a fitting age for the study of the sciences, so there
is a fitting age for the study of the ways of the world. Those who
learn these too soon, follow them throughout life, without choice
or consideration, and although they follow them fairly well they
never really know what they are about. But he who studies the ways
of the world and sees the reason for them, follows them with more
insight, and therefore more exactly and gracefully. Give me a child
of twelve who knows nothing at all; at fifteen I will restore him
to you knowing as much as those who have been under instruction
from infancy; with this difference, that your scholars only know
things by heart, while mine knows how to use his knowledge. In
the same way plunge a young man of twenty into society; under good
guidance, in a year's time, he will be more charming and more truly
polite than one brought up in society from childhood. For the former
is able to perceive the reasons for all the proceedings relating
to age, position, and sex, on which the customs of society depend,
and can reduce them to general principles, and apply them to
unforeseen emergencies; while the latter, who is guided solely by
habit, is at a loss when habit fails him.

Young French ladies are all brought up in convents till they are
married. Do they seem to find any difficulty in acquiring the ways
which are so new to them, and is it possible to accuse the ladies
of Paris of awkward and embarrassed manners or of ignorance of the
ways of society, because they have not acquired them in infancy!
This is the prejudice of men of the world, who know nothing of more
importance than this trifling science, and wrongly imagine that
you cannot begin to acquire it too soon.

On the other hand, it is quite true that we must not wait too long.
Any one who has spent the whole of his youth far from the great
world is all his life long awkward, constrained, out of place; his
manners will be heavy and clumsy, no amount of practice will get
rid of this, and he will only make himself more ridiculous by trying
to do so. There is a time for every kind of teaching and we ought
to recognise it, and each has its own dangers to be avoided. At this
age there are more dangers than at any other; but I do not expose
my pupil to them without safeguards.

When my method succeeds completely in attaining one object, and
when in avoiding one difficulty it also provides against another,
I then consider that it is a good method, and that I am on the
right track. This seems to be the case with regard to the expedient
suggested by me in the present case. If I desire to be stern and
cold towards my pupil, I shall lose his confidence, and he will soon
conceal himself from me. If I wish to be easy and complaisant, to
shut my eyes, what good does it do him to be under my care? I only
give my authority to his excesses, and relieve his conscience at
the expense of my own. If I introduce him into society with no
object but to teach him, he will learn more than I want. If I keep
him apart from society, what will he have learnt from me? Everything
perhaps, except the one art absolutely necessary to a civilised
man, the art of living among his fellow-men. If I try to attend to
this at a distance, it will be of no avail; he is only concerned
with the present. If I am content to supply him with amusement, he
will acquire habits of luxury and will learn nothing.

We will have none of this. My plan provides for everything. Your
heart, I say to the young man, requires a companion; let us go
in search of a fitting one; perhaps we shall not easily find such
a one, true worth is always rare, but we will be in no hurry, nor
will we be easily discouraged. No doubt there is such a one, and
we shall find her at last, or at least we shall find some one like
her. With an end so attractive to himself, I introduce him into
society. What more need I say? Have I not achieved my purpose?

By describing to him his future mistress, you may imagine whether
I shall gain a hearing, whether I shall succeed in making the
qualities he ought to love pleasing and dear to him, whether I shall
sway his feelings to seek or shun what is good or bad for him. I
shall be the stupidest of men if I fail to make him in love with he
knows not whom. No matter that the person I describe is imaginary,
it is enough to disgust him with those who might have attracted
him; it is enough if it is continually suggesting comparisons which
make him prefer his fancy to the real people he sees; and is not
love itself a fancy, a falsehood, an illusion? We are far more in
love with our own fancy than with the object of it. If we saw the
object of our affections as it is, there would be no such thing as
love. When we cease to love, the person we used to love remains
unchanged, but we no longer see with the same eyes; the magic veil
is drawn aside, and love disappears. But when I supply the object
of imagination, I have control over comparisons, and I am able
easily to prevent illusion with regard to realities.

For all that I would not mislead a young man by describing a model
of perfection which could never exist; but I would so choose the
faults of his mistress that they will suit him, that he will be
pleased by them, and they may serve to correct his own. Neither
would I lie to him and affirm that there really is such a person;
let him delight in the portrait, he will soon desire to find the
original. From desire to belief the transition is easy; it is a
matter of a little skilful description, which under more perceptible
features will give to this imaginary object an air of greater reality.
I would go so far as to give her a name; I would say, smiling. Let
us call your future mistress Sophy; Sophy is a name of good omen;
if it is not the name of the lady of your choice at least she will
be worthy of the name; we may honour her with it meanwhile. If
after all these details, without affirming or denying, we excuse
ourselves from giving an answer, his suspicions will become certainty;
he will think that his destined bride is purposely concealed from
him, and that he will see her in good time. If once he has arrived
at this conclusion and if the characteristics to be shown to him
have been well chosen, the rest is easy; there will be little risk
in exposing him to the world; protect him from his senses, and his
heart is safe.

But whether or no he personifies the model I have contrived to
make so attractive to him, this model, if well done, will attach
him none the less to everything that resembles itself, and will
give him as great a distaste for all that is unlike it as if Sophy
really existed. What a means to preserve his heart from the dangers
to which his appearance would expose him, to repress his senses
by means of his imagination, to rescue him from the hands of those
women who profess to educate young men, and make them pay so dear
for their teaching, and only teach a young man manners by making
him utterly shameless. Sophy is so modest? What would she think of
their advances! Sophy is so simple! How would she like their airs?
They are too far from his thoughts and his observations to be
dangerous.

Every one who deals with the control of children follows the same
prejudices and the same maxima, for their observation is at fault,
and their reflection still more so. A young man is led astray in
the first place neither by temperament nor by the senses, but by
popular opinion. If we were concerned with boys brought up in boarding
schools or girls in convents, I would show that this applies even
to them; for the first lessons they learn from each other, the only
lessons that bear fruit, are those of vice; and it is not nature
that corrupts them but example. But let us leave the boarders in
schools and convents to their bad morals; there is no cure for them.
I am dealing only with home training. Take a young man carefully
educated in his father's country house, and examine him when he
reaches Paris and makes his entrance into society; you will find
him thinking clearly about honest matters, and you will find his
will as wholesome as his reason. You will find scorn of vice and
disgust for debauchery; his face will betray his innocent horror at
the very mention of a prostitute. I maintain that no young man could
make up his mind to enter the gloomy abodes of these unfortunates
by himself, if indeed he were aware of their purpose and felt their
necessity.

See the same young man six months later, you will not know him;
from his bold conversation, his fashionable maxims, his easy air,
you would take him for another man, if his jests over his former
simplicity and his shame when any one recalls it did not show that
it is he indeed and that he is ashamed of himself. How greatly has
he changed in so short a time! What has brought about so sudden and
complete a change? His physical development? Would not that have
taken place in his father's house, and certainly he would not have
acquired these maxims and this tone at home? The first charms of
sense? On the contrary; those who are beginning to abandon themselves
to these pleasures are timid and anxious, they shun the light and
noise. The first pleasures are always mysterious, modesty gives
them their savour, and modesty conceals them; the first mistress
does not make a man bold but timid. Wholly absorbed in a situation
so novel to him, the young man retires into himself to enjoy it,
and trembles for fear it should escape him. If he is noisy he knows
neither passion nor love; however he may boast, he has not enjoyed.

These changes are merely the result of changed ideas. His heart is
the same, but his opinions have altered. His feelings, which change
more slowly, will at length yield to his opinions and it is then
that he is indeed corrupted. He has scarcely made his entrance
into society before he receives a second education quite unlike the
first, which teaches him to despise what he esteemed, and esteem
what he despised; he learns to consider the teaching of his parents
and masters as the jargon of pedants, and the duties they have
instilled into him as a childish morality, to be scorned now that
he is grown up. He thinks he is bound in honour to change his
conduct; he becomes forward without desire, and he talks foolishly
from false shame. He rails against morality before he has any taste
for vice, and prides himself on debauchery without knowing how to
set about it. I shall never forget the confession of a young officer
in the Swiss Guards, who was utterly sick of the noisy pleasures
of his comrades, but dared not refuse to take part in them lest he
should be laughed at. "I am getting used to it," he said, "as I am
getting used to taking snuff; the taste will come with practice;
it will not do to be a child for ever."

So a young man when he enters society must be preserved from vanity
rather than from sensibility; he succumbs rather to the tastes
of others than to his own, and self-love is responsible for more
libertines than love.

This being granted, I ask you. Is there any one on earth better
armed than my pupil against all that may attack his morals, his
sentiments, his principles; is there any one more able to resist the
flood? What seduction is there against which he is not forearmed?
If his desires attract him towards women, he fails to find what
he seeks, and his heart, already occupied, holds him back. If he
is disturbed and urged onward by his senses, where will he find
satisfaction? His horror of adultery and debauch keeps him at a
distance from prostitutes and married women, and the disorders of
youth may always be traced to one or other of these. A maiden may
be a coquette, but she will not be shameless, she will not fling
herself at the head of a young man who may marry her if he believes
in her virtue; besides she is always under supervision. Emile, too,
will not be left entirely to himself; both of them will be under
the guardianship of fear and shame, the constant companions of
a first passion; they will not proceed at once to misconduct, and
they will not have time to come to it gradually without hindrance.
If he behaves otherwise, he must have taken lessons from his comrades,
he must have learned from them to despise his self-control, and to
imitate their boldness. But there is no one in the whole world so
little given to imitation as Emile. What man is there who is so
little influenced by mockery as one who has no prejudices himself
and yields nothing to the prejudices of others. I have laboured
twenty years to arm him against mockery; they will not make him
their dupe in a day; for in his eyes ridicule is the argument of
fools, and nothing makes one less susceptible to raillery than to
be beyond the influence of prejudice. Instead of jests he must have
arguments, and while he is in this frame of mind, I am not afraid
that he will be carried away by young fools; conscience and truth
are on my side. If prejudice is to enter into the matter at all,
an affection of twenty years' standing counts for something; no one
will ever convince him that I have wearied him with vain lessons;
and in a heart so upright and so sensitive the voice of a tried and
trusted friend will soon efface the shouts of twenty libertines.
As it is therefore merely a question of showing him that he is
deceived, that while they pretend to treat him as a man they are
really treating him as a child, I shall choose to be always simple
but serious and plain in my arguments, so that he may feel that I
do indeed treat him as a man. I will say to him, You will see that
your welfare, in which my own is bound up, compels me to speak; I
can do nothing else. But why do these young men want to persuade
you? Because they desire to seduce you; they do not care for you,
they take no real interest in you; their only motive is a secret
spite because they see you are better than they; they want to
drag you down to their own level, and they only reproach you with
submitting to control that they may themselves control you. Do you
think you have anything to gain by this? Are they so much wiser
than I, is the affection of a day stronger than mine? To give any
weight to their jests they must give weight to their authority; and
by what experience do they support their maxima above ours? They
have only followed the example of other giddy youths, as they would
have you follow theirs. To escape from the so-called prejudices
of their fathers, they yield to those of their comrades. I cannot
see that they are any the better off; but I see that they lose two
things of value--the affection of their parents, whose advice is
that of tenderness and truth, and the wisdom of experience which
teaches us to judge by what we know; for their fathers have once
been young, but the young men have never been fathers.

But you think they are at least sincere in their foolish precepts.
Not so, dear Emile; they deceive themselves in order to deceive you;
they are not in agreement with themselves; their heart continually
revolts, and their very words often contradict themselves. This man
who mocks at everything good would be in despair if his wife held
the same views. Another extends his indifference to good morals even
to his future wife, or he sinks to such depths of infamy as to be
indifferent to his wife's conduct; but go a step further; speak to
him of his mother; is he willing to be treated as the child of an
adulteress and the son of a woman of bad character, is he ready
to assume the name of a family, to steal the patrimony of the true
heir, in a word will he bear being treated as a bastard? Which of
them will permit his daughter to be dishonoured as he dishonours
the daughter of another? There is not one of them who would not kill
you if you adopted in your conduct towards him all the principles
he tries to teach you. Thus they prove their inconsistency, and
we know they do not believe what they say. Here are reasons, dear
Emile; weigh their arguments if they have any, and compare them
with mine. If I wished to have recourse like them to scorn and
mockery, you would see that they lend themselves to ridicule as
much or more than myself. But I am not afraid of serious inquiry.
The triumph of mockers is soon over; truth endures, and their
foolish laughter dies away.

You do not think that Emile, at twenty, can possibly be docile. How
differently we think! I cannot understand how he could be docile
at ten, for what hold have I on him at that age? It took me fifteen
years of careful preparation to secure that hold. I was not educating
him, but preparing him for education. He is now sufficiently educated
to be docile; he recognises the voice of friendship and he knows
how to obey reason. It is true I allow him a show of freedom, but
he was never more completely under control, because he obeys of
his own free will. So long as I could not get the mastery over his
will, I retained my control over his person; I never left him for
a moment. Now I sometimes leave him to himself because I control
him continually. When I leave him I embrace him and I say with
confidence: Emile, I trust you to my friend, I leave you to his
honour; he will answer for you.

To corrupt healthy affections which have not been previously
depraved, to efface principles which are directly derived from our
own reasoning, is not the work of a moment. If any change takes
place during my absence, that absence will not be long, he will
never be able to conceal himself from me, so that I shall perceive
the danger before any harm comes of it, and I shall be in time to
provide a remedy. As we do not become depraved all at once, neither
do we learn to deceive all at once; and if ever there was a man
unskilled in the art of deception it is Emile, who has never had
any occasion for deceit.

By means of these precautions and others like them, I expect to
guard him so completely against strange sights and vulgar precepts
that I would rather see him in the worst company in Paris than alone
in his room or in a park left to all the restlessness of his age.
Whatever we may do, a young man's worst enemy is himself, and
this is an enemy we cannot avoid. Yet this is an enemy of our own
making, for, as I have said again and again, it is the imagination
which stirs the senses. Desire is not a physical need; it is not
true that it is a need at all. If no lascivious object had met our
eye, if no unclean thought had entered our mind, this so-called
need might never have made itself felt, and we should have remained
chaste, without temptation, effort, or merit. We do not know how
the blood of youth is stirred by certain situations and certain
sights, while the youth himself does not understand the cause of
his uneasiness-an uneasiness difficult to subdue and certain to
recur. For my own part, the more I consider this serious crisis
and its causes, immediate and remote, the more convinced I am that
a solitary brought up in some desert, apart from books, teaching,
and women, would die a virgin, however long he lived.

But we are not concerned with a savage of this sort. When we
educate a man among his fellow-men and for social life, we cannot,
and indeed we ought not to, bring him up in this wholesome ignorance,
and half knowledge is worse than none. The memory of things we have
observed, the ideas we have acquired, follow us into retirement
and people it, against our will, with images more seductive than
the things themselves, and these make solitude as fatal to those
who bring such ideas with them as it is wholesome for those who
have never left it.

Therefore, watch carefully over the young man; he can protect
himself from all other foes, but it is for you to protect him
against himself. Never leave him night or day, or at least share
his room; never let him go to bed till he is sleepy, and let him
rise as soon as he wakes. Distrust instinct as soon as you cease
to rely altogether upon it. Instinct was good while he acted under
its guidance only; now that he is in the midst of human institutions,
instinct is not to be trusted; it must not be destroyed, it must
be controlled, which is perhaps a more difficult matter. It would
be a dangerous matter if instinct taught your pupil to abuse his
senses; if once he acquires this dangerous habit he is ruined. From
that time forward, body and soul will be enervated; he will carry
to the grave the sad effects of this habit, the most fatal habit
which a young man can acquire. If you cannot attain to the mastery
of your passions, dear Emile, I pity you; but I shall not hesitate
for a moment, I will not permit the purposes of nature to be evaded.
If you must be a slave, I prefer to surrender you to a tyrant from
whom I may deliver you; whatever happens, I can free you more easily
from the slavery of women than from yourself.

Up to the age of twenty, the body is still growing and requires
all its strength; till that age continence is the law of nature,
and this law is rarely violated without injury to the constitution.
After twenty, continence is a moral duty; it is an important
duty, for it teaches us to control ourselves, to be masters of our
own appetites. But moral duties have their modifications, their
exceptions, their rules. When human weakness makes an alternative
inevitable, of two evils choose the least; in any case it is better
to commit a misdeed than to contract a vicious habit.

Remember, I am not talking of my pupil now, but of yours. His
passions, to which you have given way, are your master; yield to
them openly and without concealing his victory. If you are able
to show him it in its true light, he will be ashamed rather than
proud of it, and you will secure the right to guide him in his
wanderings, at least so as to avoid precipices. The disciple must
do nothing, not even evil, without the knowledge and consent of his
master; it is a hundredfold better that the tutor should approve
of a misdeed than that he should deceive himself or be deceived by
his pupil, and the wrong should be done without his knowledge. He
who thinks he must shut his eyes to one thing, must soon shut them
altogether; the first abuse which is permitted leads to others, and
this chain of consequences only ends in the complete overthrow of
all order and contempt for every law.

There is another mistake which I have already dealt with, a mistake
continually made by narrow-minded persons; they constantly affect
the dignity of a master, and wish to be regarded by their disciples
as perfect. This method is just the contrary of what should be
done. How is it that they fail to perceive that when they try to
strengthen their authority they are really destroying it; that to
gain a hearing one must put oneself in the place of our hearers,
and that to speak to the human heart, one must be a man. All these
perfect people neither touch nor persuade; people always say, "It
is easy for them to fight against passions they do not feel." Show
your pupil your own weaknesses if you want to cure his; let him
see in you struggles like his own; let him learn by your example
to master himself and let him not say like other young men, "These
old people, who are vexed because they are no longer young, want to
treat all young people as if they were old; and they make a crime
of our passions because their own passions are dead."

Montaigne tells us that he once asked Seigneur de Langey how often,
in his negotiations with Germany, he had got drunk in his king's
service. I would willingly ask the tutor of a certain young man
how often he has entered a house of ill-fame for his pupil's sake.
How often? I am wrong. If the first time has not cured the young
libertine of all desire to go there again, if he does not return
penitent and ashamed, if he does not shed torrents of tears upon
your bosom, leave him on the spot; either he is a monster or you
are a fool; you will never do him any good. But let us have done
with these last expedients, which are as distressing as they are
dangerous; our kind of education has no need of them.

What precautions we must take with a young man of good birth before
exposing him to the scandalous manners of our age! These precautions
are painful but necessary; negligence in this matter is the ruin of
all our young men; degeneracy is the result of youthful excesses,
and it is these excesses which make men what they are. Old and base
in their vices, their hearts are shrivelled, because their worn-out
bodies were corrupted at an early age; they have scarcely strength
to stir. The subtlety of their thoughts betrays a mind lacking in
substance; they are incapable of any great or noble feeling, they
have neither simplicity nor vigour; altogether abject and meanly
wicked, they are merely frivolous, deceitful, and false; they have
not even courage enough to be distinguished criminals. Such are
the despicable men produced by early debauchery; if there were but
one among them who knew how to be sober and temperate, to guard his
heart, his body, his morals from the contagion of bad example, at
the age of thirty he would crush all these insects, and would become
their master with far less trouble than it cost him to become master
of himself.

However little Emile owes to birth and fortune, he might be this
man if he chose; but he despises such people too much to condescend
to make them his slaves. Let us now watch him in their midst, as he
enters into society, not to claim the first place, but to acquaint
himself with it and to seek a helpmeet worthy of himself.

Whatever his rank or birth, whatever the society into which he
is introduced, his entrance into that society will be simple and
unaffected; God grant he may not be unlucky enough to shine in
society; the qualities which make a good impression at the first
glance are not his, he neither possesses them, nor desires to
possess them. He cares too little for the opinions of other people
to value their prejudices, and he is indifferent whether people
esteem him or not until they know him. His address is neither shy nor
conceited, but natural and sincere, he knows nothing of constraint
or concealment, and he is just the same among a group of people
as he is when he is alone. Will this make him rude, scornful, and
careless of others? On the contrary; if he were not heedless of
others when he lived alone, why should he be heedless of them now
that he is living among them? He does not prefer them to himself
in his manners, because he does not prefer them to himself in his
heart, but neither does he show them an indifference which he is far
from feeling; if he is unacquainted with the forms of politeness,
he is not unacquainted with the attentions dictated by humanity.
He cannot bear to see any one suffer; he will not give up his place
to another from mere external politeness, but he will willingly
yield it to him out of kindness if he sees that he is being neglected
and that this neglect hurts him; for it will be less disagreeable
to Emile to remain standing of his own accord than to see another
compelled to stand.

Although Emile has no very high opinion of people in general, he
does not show any scorn of them, because he pities them and is sorry
for them. As he cannot give them a taste for what is truly good, he
leaves them the imaginary good with which they are satisfied, lest
by robbing them of this he should leave them worse off than before.
So he neither argues nor contradicts; neither does he flatter nor
agree; he states his opinion without arguing with others, because
he loves liberty above all things, and freedom is one of the fairest
gifts of liberty.

He says little, for he is not anxious to attract attention; for the
same reason he only says what is to the point; who could induce him
to speak otherwise? Emile is too well informed to be a chatter-box.
A great flow of words comes either from a pretentious spirit, of
which I shall speak presently, or from the value laid upon trifles
which we foolishly think to be as important in the eyes of others
as in our own. He who knows enough of things to value them at
their true worth never says too much; for he can also judge of the
attention bestowed on him and the interest aroused by what he says.
People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who
know much say little. It is plain that an ignorant person thinks
everything he does know important, and he tells it to everybody.
But a well-educated man is not so ready to display his learning;
he would have too much to say, and he sees that there is much more
to be said, so he holds his peace.

Far from disregarding the ways of other people, Emile conforms to
them readily enough; not that he may appear to know all about them,
nor yet to affect the airs of a man of fashion, but on the contrary
for fear lest he should attract attention, and in order to pass
unnoticed; he is most at his ease when no one pays any attention
to him.

Although when he makes his entrance into society he knows nothing
of its customs, this does not make him shy or timid; if he keeps in
the background, it is not because he is embarrassed, but because,
if you want to see, you must not be seen; for he scarcely troubles
himself at all about what people think of him, and he is not the
least afraid of ridicule. Hence he is always quiet and self-possessed
and is not troubled with shyness. All he has to do is done as well
as he knows how to do it, whether people are looking at him or
not; and as he is always on the alert to observe other people, he
acquires their ways with an ease impossible to the slaves of other
people's opinions. We might say that he acquires the ways of society
just because he cares so little about them.

But do not make any mistake as to his bearing; it is not to be
compared with that of your young dandies. It is self-possessed, not
conceited; his manners are easy, not haughty; an insolent look is
the mark of a slave, there is nothing affected in independence. I
never saw a man of lofty soul who showed it in his bearing; this
affectation is more suited to vile and frivolous souls, who have
no other means of asserting themselves. I read somewhere that a
foreigner appeared one day in the presence of the famous Marcel,
who asked him what country he came from. "I am an Englishman,"
replied the stranger. "You are an Englishman!" replied the dancer,
"You come from that island where the citizens have a share in the
government, and form part of the sovereign power? [Footnote: As if
there were citizens who were not part of the city and had not, as
such, a share in sovereign power! But the French, who have thought
fit to usurp the honourable name of citizen which was formerly the
right of the members of the Gallic cities, have degraded the idea
till it has no longer any sort of meaning. A man who recently wrote
a number of silly criticisms on the "Nouvelle Heloise" added to
his signature the title "Citizen of Paimboeuf," and he thought it
a capital joke.] No, sir, that modest bearing, that timid glance,
that hesitating manner, proclaim only a slave adorned with the
title of an elector."

I cannot say whether this saying shows much knowledge of the true
relation between a man's character and his appearance. I have not
the honour of being a dancing master, and I should have thought just
the opposite. I should have said, "This Englishman is no courtier;
I never heard that courtiers have a timid bearing and a hesitating
manner. A man whose appearance is timid in the presence of a dancer
might not be timid in the House of Commons." Surely this M. Marcel
must take his fellow-countrymen for so many Romans.

He who loves desires to be loved, Emile loves his fellows and
desires to please them. Even more does he wish to please the women;
his age, his character, the object he has in view, all increase
this desire. I say his character, for this has a great effect; men
of good character are those who really adore women. They have not
the mocking jargon of gallantry like the rest, but their eagerness
is more genuinely tender, because it comes from the heart. In the
presence of a young woman, I could pick out a young man of character
and self-control from among a hundred thousand libertines. Consider
what Emile must be, with all the eagerness of early youth and so
many reasons for resistance! For in the presence of women
I think he will sometimes be shy and timid; but this shyness will
certainly not be displeasing, and the least foolish of them will
only too often find a way to enjoy it and augment it. Moreover, his
eagerness will take a different shape according to those he has to
do with. He will be more modest and respectful to married women,
more eager and tender towards young girls. He never loses sight of
his purpose, and it is always those who most recall it to him who
receive the greater share of his attentions.

No one could be more attentive to every consideration based upon
the laws of nature, and even on the laws of good society; but the
former are always preferred before the latter, and Emile will show
more respect to an elderly person in private life than to a young
magistrate of his own age. As he is generally one of the youngest
in the company, he will always be one of the most modest, not from
the vanity which apes humility, but from a natural feeling founded
upon reason. He will not have the effrontery of the young fop,
who speaks louder than the wise and interrupts the old in order to
amuse the company. He will never give any cause for the reply given
to Louis XV by an old gentleman who was asked whether he preferred
this century or the last: "Sire, I spent my youth in reverence
towards the old; I find myself compelled to spend my old age in
reverence towards the young."

His heart is tender and sensitive, but he cares nothing for the
weight of popular opinion, though he loves to give pleasure to
others; so he will care little to be thought a person of importance.
Hence he will be affectionate rather than polite, he will never be
pompous or affected, and he will be always more touched by a caress
than by much praise. For the same reasons he will never be careless
of his manners or his clothes; perhaps he will be rather particular
about his dress, not that he may show himself a man of taste, but
to make his appearance more pleasing; he will never require a gilt
frame, and he will never spoil his style by a display of wealth.

All this demands, as you see, no stock of precepts from me; it is
all the result of his early education. People make a great mystery
of the ways of society, as if, at the age when these ways are
acquired, we did not take to them quite naturally, and as if the
first laws of politeness were not to be found in a kindly heart.
True politeness consists in showing our goodwill towards men; it
shows its presence without any difficulty; those only who lack this
goodwill are compelled to reduce the outward signs of it to an art.

"The worst effect of artificial politeness is that it teaches
us how to dispense with the virtues it imitates. If our education
teaches us kindness and humanity, we shall be polite, or we shall
have no need of politeness.

"If we have not those qualities which display themselves gracefully
we shall have those which proclaim the honest man and the citizen;
we shall have no need for falsehood.

"Instead of seeking to please by artificiality, it will suffice
that we are kindly; instead of flattering the weaknesses of others
by falsehood, it will suffice to tolerate them.

"Those with whom we have to do will neither be puffed up nor
corrupted by such intercourse; they will only be grateful and will
be informed by it." [Footnote: Considerations sur les moeurs de ce
siecle, par M. Duclos.]

It seems to me that if any education is calculated to produce the
sort of politeness required by M. Duclos in this passage, it is
the education I have already described.

Yet I admit that with such different teaching Emile will not be just
like everybody else, and heaven preserve him from such a fate! But
where he is unlike other people, he will neither cause annoyance
nor will he be absurd; the difference will be perceptible but not
unpleasant. Emile will be, if you like, an agreeable foreigner. At
first his peculiarities will be excused with the phrase, "He will
learn." After a time people will get used to his ways, and seeing
that he does not change they will still make excuses for him and
say, "He is made that way."

He will not be feted as a charming man, but every one will like him
without knowing why; no one will praise his intellect, but every
one will be ready to make him the judge between men of intellect;
his own intelligence will be clear and limited, his mind will be
accurate, and his judgment sane. As he never runs after new ideas,
he cannot pride himself on his wit. I have convinced him that all
wholesome ideas, ideas which are really useful to mankind, were
among the earliest known, that in all times they have formed the
true bonds of society, and that there is nothing left for ambitious
minds but to seek distinction for themselves by means of ideas which
are injurious and fatal to mankind. This way of winning admiration
scarcely appeals to him; he knows how he ought to seek his
own happiness in life, and how he can contribute to the happiness
of others. The sphere of his knowledge is restricted to what is
profitable. His path is narrow and clearly defined; as he has no
temptation to leave it, he is lost in the crowd; he will neither
distinguish himself nor will he lose his way. Emile is a man
of common sense and he has no desire to be anything more; you may
try in vain to insult him by applying this phrase to him; he will
always consider it a title of honour.

Although from his wish to please he is no longer wholly indifferent
to the opinion of others, he only considers that opinion so far as
he himself is directly concerned, without troubling himself about
arbitrary values, which are subject to no law but that of fashion
or conventionality. He will have pride enough to wish to do well
in everything that he undertakes, and even to wish to do it better
than others; he will want to be the swiftest runner, the strongest
wrestler, the cleverest workman, the readiest in games of skill;
but he will not seek advantages which are not in themselves clear
gain, but need to be supported by the opinion of others, such as
to be thought wittier than another, a better speaker, more learned,
etc.; still less will he trouble himself with those which have
nothing to do with the man himself, such as higher birth, a greater
reputation for wealth, credit, or public estimation, or the impression
created by a showy exterior.

As he loves his fellows because they are like himself, he will
prefer him who is most like himself, because he will feel that he
is good; and as he will judge of this resemblance by similarity of
taste in morals, in all that belongs to a good character, he will
be delighted to win approval. He will not say to himself in so
many words, "I am delighted to gain approval," but "I am delighted
because they say I have done right; I am delighted because the men
who honour me are worthy of honour; while they judge so wisely, it
is a fine thing to win their respect."

As he studies men in their conduct in society, just as he formerly
studied them through their passions in history, he will often have
occasion to consider what it is that pleases or offends the human
heart. He is now busy with the philosophy of the principles of
taste, and this is the most suitable subject for his present study.

The further we seek our definitions of taste, the further we
go astray; taste is merely the power of judging what is pleasing
or displeasing to most people. Go beyond this, and you cannot say
what taste is. It does not follow that the men of taste are in the
majority; for though the majority judges wisely with regard to each
individual thing, there are few men who follow the judgment of the
majority in everything; and though the most general agreement in
taste constitutes good taste, there are few men of good taste just
as there are few beautiful people, although beauty consists in the
sum of the most usual features.

It must be observed that we are not here concerned with what we
like because it is serviceable, or hate because it is harmful to us.
Taste deals only with things that are indifferent to us, or which
affect at most our amusements, not those which relate to our needs;
taste is not required to judge of these, appetite only is sufficient.
It is this which makes mere decisions of taste so difficult and as
it seems so arbitrary; for beyond the instinct they follow there
appears to be no reason whatever for them. We must also make a
distinction between the laws of good taste in morals and its laws
in physical matters. In the latter the laws of taste appear to
be absolutely inexplicable. But it must be observed that there is
a moral element in everything which involves imitation.[Footnote:
This is demonstrated in an "Essay on the Origin of Languages"
which will be found in my collected works.] This is the explanation
of beauties which seem to be physical, but are not so in reality.
I may add that taste has local rules which make it dependent in
many respects on the country we are in, its manners, government,
institutions; it has other rules which depend upon age, sex, and
character, and it is in this sense that we must not dispute over
matters of taste.

Taste is natural to men; but all do not possess it in the same
degree, it is not developed to the same extent in every one; and
in every one it is liable to be modified by a variety of causes.
Such taste as we may possess depends on our native sensibility;
its cultivation and its form depend upon the society in which we
have lived. In the first place we must live in societies of many
different kinds, so as to compare much. In the next place, there
must be societies for amusement and idleness, for in business
relations, interest, not pleasure, is our rule. Lastly, there must
be societies in which people are fairly equal, where the tyranny of
public opinion may be moderate, where pleasure rather than vanity
is queen; where this is not so, fashion stifles taste, and we seek
what gives distinction rather than delight.

In the latter case it is no longer true that good taste is the taste
of the majority. Why is this? Because the purpose is different.
Then the crowd has no longer any opinion of its own, it only follows
the judgment of those who are supposed to know more about it; its
approval is bestowed not on what is good, but on what they have
already approved. At any time let every man have his own opinion,
and what is most pleasing in itself will always secure most votes.

Every beauty that is to be found in the works of man is imitated.
All the true models of taste are to be found in nature. The further
we get from the master, the worse are our pictures. Then it is
that we find our models in what we ourselves like, and the beauty
of fancy, subject to caprice and to authority, is nothing but what
is pleasing to our leaders.

Those leaders are the artists, the wealthy, and the great, and
they themselves follow the lead of self-interest or pride. Some
to display their wealth, others to profit by it, they seek eagerly
for new ways of spending it. This is how luxury acquires its power
and makes us love what is rare and costly; this so-called beauty
consists, not in following nature, but in disobeying her. Hence
luxury and bad taste are inseparable. Wherever taste is lavish, it
is bad.

Taste, good or bad, takes its shape especially in the intercourse
between the two sexes; the cultivation of taste is a necessary
consequence of this form of society. But when enjoyment is easily
obtained, and the desire to please becomes lukewarm, taste must
degenerate; and this is, in my opinion, one of the best reasons
why good taste implies good morals.

Consult the women's opinions in bodily matters, in all that concerns
the senses; consult the men in matters of morality and all that
concerns the understanding. When women are what they ought to be,
they will keep to what they can understand, and their judgment
will be right; but since they have set themselves up as judges of
literature, since they have begun to criticise books and to make them
with might and main, they are altogether astray. Authors who take
the advice of blue-stockings will always be ill-advised; gallants who
consult them about their clothes will always be absurdly dressed.
I shall presently have an opportunity of speaking of the real
talents of the female sex, the way to cultivate these talents,
and the matters in regard to which their decisions should receive
attention.

These are the elementary considerations which I shall lay down
as principles when I discuss with Emile this matter which is by
no means indifferent to him in his present inquiries. And to whom
should it be a matter of indifference? To know what people may
find pleasant or unpleasant is not only necessary to any one who
requires their help, it is still more necessary to any one who would
help them; you must please them if you would do them service; and
the art of writing is no idle pursuit if it is used to make men
hear the truth.

If in order to cultivate my pupil's taste, I were compelled to choose
between a country where this form of culture has not yet arisen
and those in which it has already degenerated, I would progress
backwards; I would begin his survey with the latter and end with the
former. My reason for this choice is, that taste becomes corrupted
through excessive delicacy, which makes it sensitive to things
which most men do not perceive; this delicacy leads to a spirit
of discussion, for the more subtle is our discrimination of things
the more things there are for us. This subtlety increases the
delicacy and decreases the uniformity of our touch. So there are as
many tastes as there are people. In disputes as to our preferences,
philosophy and knowledge are enlarged, and thus we learn to think.
It is only men accustomed to plenty of society who are capable of
very delicate observations, for these observations do not occur to
us till the last, and people who are unused to all sorts of society
exhaust their attention in the consideration of the more conspicuous
features. There is perhaps no civilised place upon earth where the
common taste is so bad as in Paris. Yet it is in this capital that
good taste is cultivated, and it seems that few books make any
impression in Europe whose authors have not studied in Paris. Those
who think it is enough to read our books are mistaken; there is
more to be learnt from the conversation of authors than from their
books; and it is not from the authors that we learn most. It is the
spirit of social life which develops a thinking mind, and carries
the eye as far as it can reach. If you have a spark of genius, go
and spend a year in Paris; you will soon be all that you are capable
of becoming, or you will never be good for anything at all.

One may learn to think in places where bad taste rules supreme;
but we must not think like those whose taste is bad, and it is very
difficult to avoid this if we spend much time among them. We must
use their efforts to perfect the machinery of judgment, but we
must be careful not to make the same use of it. I shall take care
not to polish Emile's judgment so far as to transform it, and when
he has acquired discernment enough to feel and compare the varied
tastes of men, I shall lead him to fix his own taste upon simpler
matters.

I will go still further in order to keep his taste pure and wholesome.
In the tumult of dissipation I shall find opportunities for useful
conversation with him; and while these conversations are always
about things in which he takes a delight, I shall take care to make
them as amusing as they are instructive. Now is the time to read
pleasant books; now is the time to teach him to analyse speech and
to appreciate all the beauties of eloquence and diction. It is a
small matter to learn languages, they are less useful than people
think; but the study of languages leads us on to that of grammar in
general. We must learn Latin if we would have a thorough knowledge
of French; these two languages must be studied and compared if we
would understand the rules of the art of speaking.

There is, moreover, a certain simplicity of taste which goes straight
to the heart; and this is only to be found in the classics. In
oratory, poetry, and every kind of literature, Emile will find the
classical authors as he found them in history, full of matter and
sober in their judgment. The authors of our own time, on the contrary,
say little and talk much. To take their judgment as our constant
law is not the way to form our own judgment. These differences of
taste make themselves felt in all that is left of classical times
and even on their tombs. Our monuments are covered with praises,
theirs recorded facts.

"Sta, viator; heroem calcas."

If I had found this epitaph on an ancient monument, I should at
once have guessed it was modern; for there is nothing so common
among us as heroes, but among the ancients they were rare. Instead
of saying a man was a hero, they would have said what he had done
to gain that name. With the epitaph of this hero compare that of
the effeminate Sardanapalus--

"Tarsus and Anchiales I built in a day, and now I am dead."

Which do you think says most? Our inflated monumental style is only
fit to trumpet forth the praises of pygmies. The ancients showed men
as they were, and it was plain that they were men indeed. Xenophon
did honour to the memory of some warriors who were slain by
treason during the retreat of the Ten Thousand. "They died," said
he, "without stain in war and in love." That is all, but think how
full was the heart of the author of this short and simple elegy.
Woe to him who fails to perceive its charm. The following words
were engraved on a tomb at Thermopylae--

"Go, Traveller, tell Sparta that here we fell in obedience to her
laws."

It is pretty clear that this was not the work of the Academy of
Inscriptions.

If I am not mistaken, the attention of my pupil, who sets so small
value upon words, will be directed in the first place to these
differences, and they will affect his choice in his reading. He
will be carried away by the manly eloquence of Demosthenes, and
will say, "This is an orator;" but when he reads Cicero, he will
say, "This is a lawyer."

Speaking generally Emile will have more taste for the books of the
ancients than for our own, just because they were the first, and
therefore the ancients are nearer to nature and their genius is
more distinct. Whatever La Motte and the Abbe Terrasson may say,
there is no real advance in human reason, for what we gain in one
direction we lose in another; for all minds start from the same
point, and as the time spent in learning what others have thought
is so much time lost in learning to think for ourselves, we have
more acquired knowledge and less vigour of mind. Our minds like our
arms are accustomed to use tools for everything, and to do nothing
for themselves. Fontenelle used to say that all these disputes as
to the ancients and the moderns came to this--Were the trees in
former times taller than they are now. If agriculture had changed,
it would be worth our while to ask this question.

After I have led Emile to the sources of pure literature, I will
also show him the channels into the reservoirs of modern compilers;
journals, translations, dictionaries, he shall cast a glance at
them all, and then leave them for ever. To amuse him he shall hear
the chatter of the academies; I will draw his attention to the fast
that every member of them is worth more by himself than he is as
a member of the society; he will then draw his own conclusions as
to the utility of these fine institutions.

I take him to the theatre to study taste, not morals; for in the
theatre above all taste is revealed to those who can think. Lay
aside precepts and morality, I should say; this is not the place
to study them. The stage is not made for truth; its object is to
flatter and amuse: there is no place where one can learn so completely
the art of pleasing and of interesting the human heart. The study
of plays leads to the study of poetry; both have the same end
in view. If he has the least glimmering of taste for poetry, how
eagerly will he study the languages of the poets, Greek, Latin,
and Italian! These studies will afford him unlimited amusement and
will be none the less valuable; they will be a delight to him at
an age and in circumstances when the heart finds so great a charm
in every kind of beauty which affects it. Picture to yourself on
the one hand Emile, on the other some young rascal from college,
reading the fourth book of the Aeneid, or Tibollus, or the Banquet
of Plato: what a difference between them! What stirs the heart of
Emile to its depths, makes not the least impression on the other!
Oh, good youth, stay, make a pause in your reading, you are too
deeply moved; I would have you find pleasure in the language of
love, but I would not have you carried away by it; be a wise man, but
be a good man too. If you are only one of these, you are nothing.
After this let him win fame or not in dead languages, in literature,
in poetry, I care little. He will be none the worse if he knows
nothing of them, and his education is not concerned with these mere
words.

My main object in teaching him to feel and love beauty of every
kind is to fix his affections and his taste on these, to prevent
the corruption of his natural appetites, lest he should have to
seek some day in the midst of his wealth for the means of happiness
which should be found close at hand. I have said elsewhere that
taste is only the art of being a connoisseur in matters of little
importance, and this is quite true; but since the charm of life
depends on a tissue of these matters of little importance, such
efforts are no small thing; through their means we learn how to
fill our life with the good things within our reach, with as much
truth as they may hold for us. I do not refer to the morally good
which depends on a good disposition of the heart, but only to that
which depends on the body, on real delight, apart from the prejudices
of public opinion.

The better to unfold my idea, allow me for a moment to leave Emile,
whose pure and wholesome heart cannot be taken as a rule for others,
and to seek in my own memory for an illustration better suited to
the reader and more in accordance with his own manners.

There are professions which seem to change a man's nature, to
recast, either for better or worse, the men who adopt them. A coward
becomes a brave man in the regiment of Navarre. It is not only in
the army that esprit de corps is acquired, and its effects are not
always for good. I have thought again and again with terror that
if I had the misfortune to fill a certain post I am thinking of in
a certain country, before to-morrow I should certainly be a tyrant,
an extortioner, a destroyer of the people, harmful to my king, and
a professed enemy of mankind, a foe to justice and every kind of
virtue.

In the same way, if I were rich, I should have done all that is
required to gain riches; I should therefore be insolent and degraded,
sensitive and feeling only on my own behalf, harsh and pitiless to
all besides, a scornful spectator of the sufferings of the lower
classes; for that is what I should call the poor, to make people
forget that I was once poor myself. Lastly I should make my fortune
a means to my own pleasures with which I should be wholly occupied;
and so far I should be just like other people.

But in one respect I should be very unlike them; I should be sensual
and voluptuous rather than proud and vain, and I should give myself
up to the luxury of comfort rather than to that of ostentation.
I should even be somewhat ashamed to make too great a show of
my wealth, and if I overwhelmed the envious with my pomp I should
always fancy I heard him saying, "Here is a rascal who is greatly
afraid lest we should take him for anything but what he is."

In the vast profusion of good things upon this earth I should seek
what I like best, and what I can best appropriate to myself.

To this end, the first use I should make of my wealth would be to
purchase leisure and freedom, to which I would add health, if it
were to be purchased; but health can only be bought by temperance,
and as there is no real pleasure without health, I should be
temperate from sensual motives.

I should also keep as close as possible to nature, to gratify the
senses given me by nature, being quite convinced that, the greater
her share in my pleasures, the more real I shall find them. In
the choice of models for imitation I shall always choose nature
as my pattern; in my appetites I will give her the preference; in
my tastes she shall always be consulted; in my food I will always
choose what most owes its charm to her, and what has passed through
the fewest possible hands on its way to table. I will be on my guard
against fraudulent shams; I will go out to meet pleasure. No cook
shall grow rich on my gross and foolish greediness; he shall not
poison me with fish which cost its weight in gold, my table shall
not be decked with fetid splendour or putrid flesh from far-off
lands. I will take any amount of trouble to gratify my sensibility,
since this trouble has a pleasure of its own, a pleasure more than
we expect. If I wished to taste a food from the ends of the earth,
I would go, like Apicius, in search of it, rather than send for
it; for the daintiest dishes always lack a charm which cannot be
brought along with them, a flavour which no cook can give them--the
air of the country where they are produced.

For the same reason I would not follow the example of those who are
never well off where they are, but are always setting the seasons
at nought, and confusing countries and their seasons; those who
seek winter in summer and summer in winter, and go to Italy to be
cold and to the north to be warm, do not consider that when they
think they are escaping from the severity of the seasons, they
are going to meet that severity in places where people are not
prepared for it. I shall stay in one place, or I shall adopt just
the opposite course; I should like to get all possible enjoyment
out of one season to discover what is peculiar to any given country.
I would have a variety of pleasures, and habits quite unlike one
another, but each according to nature; I would spend the summer at
Naples and the winter in St. Petersburg; sometimes I would breathe
the soft zephyr lying in the cool grottoes of Tarentum, and again
I would enjoy the illuminations of an ice palace, breathless and
wearied with the pleasures of the dance.

In the service of my table and the adornment of my dwelling I would
imitate in the simplest ornaments the variety of the seasons, and
draw from each its charm without anticipating its successor. There
is no taste but only difficulty to be found in thus disturbing the
order of nature; to snatch from her unwilling gifts, which she
yields regretfully, with her curse upon them; gifts which have
neither strength nor flavour, which can neither nourish the body
nor tickle the palate. Nothing is more insipid than forced fruits.
A wealthy man in Paris, with all his stoves and hot-houses, only
succeeds in getting all the year round poor fruit and poor vegetables
for his table at a very high price. If I had cherries in frost,
and golden melons in the depths of winter, what pleasure should I
find in them when my palate did not need moisture or refreshment.
Would the heavy chestnut be very pleasant in the heat of the
dog-days; should I prefer to have it hot from the stove, rather
than the gooseberry, the strawberry, the refreshing fruits which
the earth takes care to provide for me. A mantelpiece covered in
January with forced vegetation, with pale and scentless flowers,
is not winter adorned, but spring robbed of its beauty; we deprive
ourselves of the pleasure of seeking the first violet in the woods,
of noting the earliest buds, and exclaiming in a rapture of delight,
"Mortals, you are not forsaken, nature is living still."

To be well served I would have few servants; this has been said
before, but it is worth saying again. A tradesman gets more real
service from his one man than a duke from the ten gentlemen round
about him. It has often struck me when I am sitting at table with
my glass beside me that I can drink whenever I please; whereas, if
I were dining in state, twenty men would have to call for "Wine"
before I could quench my thirst. You may be sure that whatever is
done for you by other people is ill done. I would not send to the
shops, I would go myself; I would go so that my servants should
not make their own terms with the shopkeepers, and to get a better
choice and cheaper prices; I would go for the sake of pleasant
exercise and to get a glimpse of what was going on out of doors;
this is amusing and sometimes instructive; lastly I would go for
the sake of the walk; there is always something in that. A sedentary
life is the source of tedium; when we walk a good deal we are never
dull. A porter and footmen are poor interpreters, I should never
wish to have such people between the world and myself, nor would
I travel with all the fuss of a coach, as if I were afraid people
would speak to me. Shanks' mare is always ready; if she is tired
or ill, her owner is the first to know it; he need not be afraid
of being kept at home while his coachman is on the spree; on the
road he will not have to submit to all sorts of delays, nor will
he be consumed with impatience, nor compelled to stay in one place
a moment longer than he chooses. Lastly, since no one serves us so
well as we serve ourselves, had we the power of Alexander and the
wealth of Croesus we should accept no services from others, except
those we cannot perform for ourselves.

I would not live in a palace; for even in a palace I should only
occupy one room; every room which is common property belongs to
nobody, and the rooms of each of my servants would be as strange
to me as my neighbour's. The Orientals, although very voluptuous,
are lodged in plain and simply furnished dwellings. They consider
life as a journey, and their house as an inn. This reason scarcely
appeals to us rich people who propose to live for ever; but I should
find another reason which would have the same effect. It would seem
to me that if I settled myself in one place in the midst of such
splendour, I should banish myself from every other place, and
imprison myself, so to speak, in my palace. The world is a palace
fair enough for any one; and is not everything at the disposal of
the rich man when he seeks enjoyment? "Ubi bene, ibi patria," that
is his motto; his home is anywhere where money will carry him,
his country is anywhere where there is room for his strong-box,
as Philip considered as his own any place where a mule laden with
silver could enter. [Footnote: A stranger, splendidly clad, was asked
in Athens what country he belonged to. "I am one of the rich," was
his answer; and a very good answer in my opinion.] Why then should
we shut ourselves up within walls and gates as if we never meant
to leave them? If pestilence, war, or rebellion drive me from one
place, I go to another, and I find my hotel there before me. Why
should I build a mansion for myself when the world is already at my
disposal? Why should I be in such a hurry to live, to bring from
afar delights which I can find on the spot? It is impossible to
make a pleasant life for oneself when one is always at war with
oneself. Thus Empedocles reproached the men of Agrigentum with
heaping up pleasures as if they had but one day to live, and building
as if they would live for ever.

And what use have I for so large a dwelling, as I have so few people
to live in it, and still fewer goods to fill it? My furniture would
be as simple as my tastes; I would have neither picture-gallery
nor library, especially if I was fond of reading and knew something
about pictures. I should then know that such collections are never
complete, and that the lack of that which is wanting causes more
annoyance than if one had nothing at all. In this respect abundance
is the cause of want, as every collector knows to his cost. If you
are an expert, do not make a collection; if you know how to use
your cabinets, you will not have any to show.

Gambling is no sport for the rich, it is the resource of those
who have nothing to do; I shall be so busy with my pleasures that
I shall have no time to waste. I am poor and lonely and I never
play, unless it is a game of chess now and then, and that is more
than enough. If I were rich I would play even less, and for very
low stakes, so that I should not be disappointed myself, nor see
the disappointment of others. The wealthy man has no motive for
play, and the love of play will not degenerate into the passion
for gambling unless the disposition is evil. The rich man is always
more keenly aware of his losses than his gains, and as in games
where the stakes are not high the winnings are generally exhausted
in the long run, he will usually lose more than he gains, so that
if we reason rightly we shall scarcely take a great fancy to games
where the odds are against us. He who flatters his vanity so far
as to believe that Fortune favours him can seek her favour in more
exciting ways; and her favours are just as clearly shown when the
stakes are low as when they are high. The taste for play, the result
of greed and dullness, only lays hold of empty hearts and heads;
and I think I should have enough feeling and knowledge to dispense
with its help. Thinkers are seldom gamblers; gambling interrupts
the habit of thought and turns it towards barren combinations;
thus one good result, perhaps the only good result of the taste
for science, is that it deadens to some extent this vulgar passion;
people will prefer to try to discover the uses of play rather
than to devote themselves to it. I should argue with the gamblers
against gambling, and I should find more delight in scoffing at
their losses than in winning their money.

I should be the same in private life as in my social intercourse.
I should wish my fortune to bring comfort in its train, and never
to make people conscious of inequalities of wealth. Showy dress is
inconvenient in many ways. To preserve as much freedom as possible
among other men, I should like to be dressed in such a way that
I should not seem out of place among all classes, and should not
attract attention in any; so that without affectation or change I
might mingle with the crowd at the inn or with the nobility at the
Palais Royal. In this way I should be more than ever my own master,
and should be free to enjoy the pleasures of all sorts and conditions
of men. There are women, so they say, whose doors are closed to
embroidered cuffs, women who will only receive guests who wear lace
ruffles; I should spend my days elsewhere; though if these women
were young and pretty I might sometimes put on lace ruffles to
spend an evening or so in their company.

Mutual affection, similarity of tastes, suitability of character;
these are the only bonds between my companions and myself; among
them I would be a man, not a person of wealth; the charm of their
society should never be embittered by self-seeking. If my wealth
had not robbed me of all humanity, I would scatter my benefits and
my services broadcast, but I should want companions about me, not
courtiers, friends, not proteges; I should wish my friends to regard
me as their host, not their patron. Independence and equality would
leave to my relations with my friends the sincerity of goodwill;
while duty and self-seeking would have no place among us, and we
should know no law but that of pleasure and friendship.

Neither a friend nor a mistress can be bought. Women may be got
for money, but that road will never lead to love. Love is not only
not for sale; money strikes it dead. If a man pays, were he indeed
the most lovable of men, the mere fact of payment would prevent
any lasting affection. He will soon be paying for some one else,
or rather some one else will get his money; and in this double
connection based on self-seeking and debauchery, without love,
honour, or true pleasure, the woman is grasping, faithless, and
unhappy, and she is treated by the wretch to whom she gives her
money as she treats the fool who gives his money to her; she has
no love for either. It would be sweet to lie generous towards one
we love, if that did not make a bargain of love. I know only one
way of gratifying this desire with the woman one loves without
embittering love; it is to bestow our all upon her and to live at
her expense. It remains to be seen whether there is any woman with
regard to whom such conduct would not be unwise.

He who said, "Lais is mine, but I am not hers," was talking nonsense.
Possession which is not mutual is nothing at all; at most it is
the possession of the sex not of the individual. But where there
is no morality in love, why make such ado about the rest? Nothing
is so easy to find. A muleteer is in this respect as near to
happiness as a millionaire.

Oh, if we could thus trace out the unreasonableness of vice, how
often should we find that, when it has attained its object, it
discovers it is not what it seemed! Why is there this cruel haste
to corrupt innocence, to make, a victim of a young creature whom we
ought to protect, one who is dragged by this first false step into
a gulf of misery from which only death can release her? Brutality,
vanity, folly, error, and nothing more. This pleasure itself is
unnatural; it rests on popular opinion, and popular opinion at its
worst, since it depends on scorn of self. He who knows he is the
basest of men fears comparison with others, and would be the first
that he may be less hateful. See if those who are most greedy in
pursuit of such fancied pleasures are ever attractive young men--men
worthy of pleasing, men who might have some excuse if they were
hard to please. Not so; any one with good looks, merit, and feeling
has little fear of his mistress' experience; with well-placed
confidence he says to her, "You know what pleasure is, what is that
to me? my heart assures me that this is not so."

But an aged satyr, worn out with debauchery, with no charm, no
consideration, no thought for any but himself, with no shred of
honour, incapable and unworthy of finding favour in the eyes of any
woman who knows anything of men deserving of love, expects to make
up for all this with an innocent girl by trading on her inexperience
and stirring her emotions for the first time. His last hope is to
find favour as a novelty; no doubt this is the secret motive of
this desire; but he is mistaken, the horror he excites is just as
natural as the desires he wishes to arouse. He is also mistaken
in his foolish attempt; that very nature takes care to assert her
rights; every girl who sells herself is no longer a maid; she has
given herself to the man of her choice, and she is making the very
comparison he dreads. The pleasure purchased is imaginary, but none
the less hateful.

For my own part, however riches may change me, there is one matter
in which I shall never change. If I have neither morals nor virtue,
I shall not be wholly without taste, without sense, without delicacy;
and this will prevent me from spending my fortune in the pursuit
of empty dreams, from wasting my money and my strength in teaching
children to betray me and mock at me. If I were young, I would
seek the pleasures of youth; and as I would have them at their best
I would not seek them in the guise of a rich man. If I were at my
present age, it would be another matter; I would wisely confine
myself to the pleasures of my age; I would form tastes which I could
enjoy, and I would stifle those which could only cause suffering.
I would not go and offer my grey beard to the scornful jests of
young girls; I could never bear to sicken them with my disgusting
caresses, to furnish them at my expense with the most absurd
stories, to imagine them describing the vile pleasures of the old
ape, so as to avenge themselves for what they had endured. But if
habits unresisted had changed my former desires into needs, I would
perhaps satisfy those needs, but with shame and blushes. I would
distinguish between passion and necessity, I would find a suitable
mistress and would keep to her. I would not make a business of my
weakness, and above all I would only have one person aware of it.
Life has other pleasures when these fail us; by hastening in vain
after those that fly us, we deprive ourselves of those that remain.
Let our tastes change with our years, let us no more meddle with
age than with the seasons. We should be ourselves at all times,
instead of struggling against nature; such vain attempts exhaust
our strength and prevent the right use of life.

The lower classes are seldom dull, their life is full of activity;
if there is little variety in their amusements they do not recur
frequently; many days of labour teach them to enjoy their rare
holidays. Short intervals of leisure between long periods of labour
give a spice to the pleasures of their station. The chief curse of
the rich is dullness; in the midst of costly amusements, among so
many men striving to give them pleasure, they are devoured and slain
by dullness; their life is spent in fleeing from it and in being
overtaken by it; they are overwhelmed by the intolerable burden;
women more especially, who do not know how to work or play, are a
prey to tedium under the name of the vapours; with them it takes
the shape of a dreadful disease, which robs them of their reason
and even of their life. For my own part I know no more terrible
fate than that of a pretty woman in Paris, unless it is that of
the pretty manikin who devotes himself to her, who becomes idle
and effeminate like her, and so deprives himself twice over of his
manhood, while he prides himself on his successes and for their
sake endures the longest and dullest days which human being ever
put up with.

Proprieties, fashions, customs which depend on luxury and breeding,
confine the course of life within the limits of the most miserable
uniformity. The pleasure we desire to display to others is a pleasure
lost; we neither enjoy it ourselves, nor do others enjoy it.
[Footnote: Two ladies of fashion, who wished to seem to be enjoying
themselves greatly, decided never to go to bed before five o'clock
in the morning. In the depths of winter their servants spent the
night in the street waiting for them, and with great difficulty
kept themselves from freezing. One night, or rather one morning,
some one entered the room where these merry people spent their
hours without knowing how time passed. He found them quite alone;
each of them was asleep in her arm-chair.] Ridicule, which public
opinion dreads more than anything, is ever at hand to tyrannise,
and punish. It is only ceremony that makes us ridiculous; if we can
vary our place and our pleasures, to-day's impressions can efface
those of yesterday; in the mind of men they are as if they had
never been; but we enjoy ourselves for we throw ourselves into
every hour and everything. My only set rule would be this: wherever
I was I would pay no heed to anything else. I would take each day
as it came, as if there were neither yesterday nor to-morrow. As
I should be a man of the people, with the populace, I should be a
countryman in the fields; and if I spoke of farming, the peasant
should not laugh at my expense. I would not go and build a town
in the country nor erect the Tuileries at the door of my lodgings.
On some pleasant shady hill-side I would have a little cottage,
a white house with green shutters, and though a thatched roof is
the best all the year round, I would be grand enough to have, not
those gloomy slates, but tiles, because they look brighter and more
cheerful than thatch, and the houses in my own country are always
roofed with them, and so they would recall to me something of the
happy days of my youth. For my courtyard I would have a poultry-yard,
and for my stables a cowshed for the sake of the milk which I love.
My garden should be a kitchen-garden, and my park an orchard, like
the one described further on. The fruit would be free to those
who walked in the orchard, my gardener should neither count it nor
gather it; I would not, with greedy show, display before your eyes
superb espaliers which one scarcely dare touch. But this small
extravagance would not be costly, for I would choose my abode in
some remote province where silver is scarce and food plentiful,
where plenty and poverty have their seat.

There I would gather round me a company, select rather than numerous,
a band of friends who know what pleasure is, and how to enjoy it,
women who can leave their arm-chairs and betake themselves to outdoor
sports, women who can exchange the shuttle or the cards for the
fishing line or the bird-trap, the gleaner's rake or grape-gatherer's
basket. There all the pretensions of the town will be forgotten,
and we shall be villagers in a village; we shall find all sorts of
different sports and we shall hardly know how to choose the morrow's
occupation. Exercise and an active life will improve our digestion
and modify our tastes. Every meal will be a feast, where plenty will
be more pleasing than any delicacies. There are no such cooks in
the world as mirth, rural pursuits, and merry games; and the finest
made dishes are quite ridiculous in the eyes of people who have
been on foot since early dawn. Our meals will be served without
regard to order or elegance; we shall make our dining-room anywhere,
in the garden, on a boat, beneath a tree; sometimes at a distance
from the house on the banks of a running stream, on the fresh green
grass, among the clumps of willow and hazel; a long procession
of guests will carry the material for the feast with laughter and
singing; the turf will be our chairs and table, the banks of the
stream our side-board, and our dessert is hanging on the trees;
the dishes will be served in any order, appetite needs no ceremony;
each one of us, openly putting himself first, would gladly see
every one else do the same; from this warm-hearted and temperate
familiarity there would arise, without coarseness, pretence,
or constraint, a laughing conflict a hundredfold more delightful
than politeness, and more likely to cement our friendship. No
tedious flunkeys to listen to our words, to whisper criticisms on
our behaviour, to count every mouthful with greedy eyes, to amuse
themselves by keeping us waiting for our wine, to complain of the
length of our dinner. We will be our own servants, in order to be
our own masters. Time will fly unheeded, our meal will be an interval
of rest during the heat of the day. If some peasant comes our way,
returning from his work with his tools over his shoulder, I will
cheer his heart with kindly words, and a glass or two of good
wine, which will help him to bear his poverty more cheerfully; and
I too shall have the joy of feeling my heart stirred within me,
and I should say to myself--I too am a man.

If the inhabitants of the district assembled for some rustic feast,
I and my friends would be there among the first; if there were
marriages, more blessed than those of towns, celebrated near my
home, every one would know how I love to see people happy, and I
should be invited. I would take these good folks some gift as simple
as themselves, a gift which would be my share of the feast; and in
exchange I should obtain gifts beyond price, gifts so little known
among my equals, the gifts of freedom and true pleasure. I should
sup gaily at the head of their long table; I should join in the
chorus of some rustic song and I should dance in the barn more
merrily than at a ball in the Opera House.

"This is all very well so far," you will say, "but what about the
shooting! One must have some sport in the country." Just so; I only
wanted a farm, but I was wrong. I assume I am rich, I must keep
my pleasures to myself, I must be free to kill something; this is
quite another matter. I must have estates, woods, keepers, rents,
seignorial rights, particularly incense and holy water.

Well and good. But I shall have neighbours about my estate who are
jealous of their rights and anxious to encroach on those of others;
our keepers will quarrel, and possibly their masters will quarrel
too; this means altercations, disputes, ill-will, or law-suits at
the least; this in itself is not very pleasant. My tenants will not
enjoy finding my hares at work upon their corn, or my wild boars
among their beans. As they dare not kill the enemy, every one of
them will try to drive him from their fields; when the day has been
spent in cultivating the ground, they will be compelled to sit up
at night to watch it; they will have watch-dogs, drums, horns, and
bells; my sleep will be disturbed by their racket. Do what I will,
I cannot help thinking of the misery of these poor people, and
I cannot help blaming myself for it. If I had the honour of being
a prince, this would make little impression on me; but as I am a
self-made man who has only just come into his property, I am still
rather vulgar at heart.

That is not all; abundance of game attracts trespassers; I shall
soon have poachers to punish; I shall require prisons, gaolers,
guards, and galleys; all this strikes me as cruel. The wives of
those miserable creatures will besiege my door and disturb me with
their crying; they must either be driven away or roughly handled.
The poor people who are not poachers, whose harvest has been
destroyed by my game, will come next with their complaints. Some
people will be put to death for killing the game, the rest will
be punished for having spared it; what a choice of evils! On every
side I shall find nothing but misery and hear nothing but groans.
So far as I can see this must greatly disturb the pleasure of slaying
at one's ease heaps of partridges and hares which are tame enough
to run about one's feet.

If you would have pleasure without pain let there be no monopoly;
the more you leave it free to everybody, the purer will be your own
enjoyment. Therefore I should not do what I have just described,
but without change of tastes I would follow those which seem likely
to cause me least pain. I would fix my rustic abode in a district
where game is not preserved, and where I can have my sport without
hindrance. Game will be less plentiful, but there will be more
skill in finding it, and more pleasure in securing it. I remember
the start of delight with which my father watched the rise of his
first partridge and the rapture with which he found the hare he
had sought all day long. Yes, I declare, that alone with his dog,
carrying his own gun, cartridges, and game bag together with his
hare, he came home at nightfall, worn out with fatigue and torn to
pieces by brambles, but better pleased with his day's sport than
all your ordinary sportsmen, who on a good horse, with twenty guns
ready for them, merely take one gun after another, and shoot and
kill everything that comes their way, without skill, without glory,
and almost without exercise. The pleasure is none the less, and
the difficulties are removed; there is no estate to be preserved,
no poacher to be punished, and no wretches to be tormented; here are
solid grounds for preference. Whatever you do, you cannot torment
men for ever without experiencing some amount of discomfort; and
sooner or later the muttered curses of the people will spoil the
flavour of your game.

Again, monopoly destroys pleasure. Real pleasures are those which
we share with the crowd; we lose what we try to keep to ourselves
alone. If the walls I build round my park transform it into a
gloomy prison, I have only deprived myself, at great expense, of
the pleasure of a walk; I must now seek that pleasure at a distance.
The demon of property spoils everything he lays hands upon. A rich
man wants to be master everywhere, and he is never happy where he is;
he is continually driven to flee from himself. I shall therefore
continue to do in my prosperity what I did in my poverty.
Henceforward, richer in the wealth of others than I ever shall
be in my own wealth, I will take possession of everything in my
neighbourhood that takes my fancy; no conqueror is so determined as
I; I even usurp the rights of princes; I take possession of every
open place that pleases me, I give them names; this is my park,
chat is my terrace, and I am their owner; henceforward I wander
among them at will; I often return to maintain my proprietary rights;
I make what use I choose of the ground to walk upon, and you will
never convince me that the nominal owner of the property which I
have appropriated gets better value out of the money it yields him
than I do out of his land. No matter if I am interrupted by hedges
and ditches, I take my park on my back, and I carry it elsewhere;
there will be space enough for it near at hand, and I may plunder
my neighbours long enough before I outstay my welcome.

This is an attempt to show what is meant by good taste in the choice
of pleasant occupations for our leisure hours; this is the spirit
of enjoyment; all else is illusion, fancy, and foolish pride. He
who disobeys these rules, however rich he may be, will devour his
gold on a dung-hill, and will never know what it is to live.

You will say, no doubt, that such amusements lie within the reach
of all, that we need not be rich to enjoy them. That is the very
point I was coming to. Pleasure is ours when we want it; it is only
social prejudice which makes everything hard to obtain, and drives
pleasure before us. To be happy is a hundredfold easier than it
seems. If he really desires to enjoy himself the man of taste has
no need of riches; all he wants is to be free and to be his own
master. With health and daily bread we are rich enough, if we will
but get rid of our prejudices; this is the "Golden Mean" of Horace.
You folks with your strong-boxes may find some other use for your
wealth, for it cannot buy you pleasure. Emile knows this as well
as I, but his heart is purer and more healthy, so he will feel
it more strongly, and all that he has beheld in society will only
serve to confirm him in this opinion.

While our time is thus employed, we are ever on the look-out for
Sophy, and we have not yet found her. It was not desirable that
she should be found too easily, and I have taken care to look for
her where I knew we should not find her.

The time is come; we must now seek her in earnest, lest Emile should
mistake some one else for Sophy, and only discover his error when
it is too late. Then farewell Paris, far-famed Paris, with all your
noise and smoke and dirt, where the women have ceased to believe in
honour and the men in virtue. We are in search of love, happiness,
innocence; the further we go from Paris the better.

• About Jean Jacques Rousseau