NAtural Happiness PDF

Natural Happiness, Sensation, and Infancy in Rousseau's "Emile"
Author(s): Jeffrey A. Smith

Source: Polity, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Autumn, 2002), pp. 93-120
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Northeastern Political
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Polity * Volume XXXV, Number 1 * Fall 2002
Natural Happiness, Sensation, and

Infancy in Rousseau's Emile
Jeffrey A. Smith
St. John's College
At the beginning of the Emile, Rousseau defines human nature in teleological

terms, referring to it as a natural "direction, " "rule, " and "path" of development
over the course of the individual human life span. The hypothetical education of
Emile depicts man's development according to that direction. From infancy until
adolescence, nature's direction points Emile toward natural happiness-the equi-
librium between his original faculties or powers and his original desires. But those
original faculties of strength and sense are not identical to nature's direction, and
in fact their own capacities enable man to be diverted from his proper course of
development. Yet Rousseau's program of negative education, derived from
observing its "rule," keeps Emile on nature's path. Rearing him as an infant
"according to the human constitution" and by "the force of things" alone, negative
education inoculates Emile's soul against tyrannical pleasures and angry pas-
sions, and positively it conveys the salutary idea of necessity to his incipient under-
standing. Possessing that idea from early in his infancy, Emile will come to acquire
healthy passions for the natural pleasures-including his use of his natural free-
dom-and, eventually, for virtue. The principles underlying Emile's early education
also underpin important aspects of Rousseau's political thought.
Jeffrey A. Smith is Tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis, MD 21204. His e-mail
address is aloyplan@hotmail.com.
Until very recently, Jean-Jacques Rousseau has widely been regarded by political
theorists as that philosophic hero (or culprit, depending on one's cup of tea) who is
responsible for dethroning nature and installing will as the foundation of law and
right. According to a new view, however, Rousseau intends neither to discredit nor to
abandon human nature as the ontological foundation of normative principles.' The
vast discrepancy between those two interpretations is of course owed to the variety of
textual evidence one can muster from the writings of Rousseau, and which collection
one chooses to emphasize. By lights of the traditional interpretation of the Second Dis-
1. See Laurence D. Cooper, Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life (University Park, PA:
Penn State University Press, 1999). In fact, Cooper's interpretation has older roots in Rousseau scholarship.
For an account of Rousseau as a modified natural law theorist, for example, see Victor Goldschmidt, Anthro-
pologie et Politique: Les Principes du Systeme de Rousseau (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1974),
151, 242-43, 281-83; Robert DerathM, Rousseau et la science politique de son temps, 2nd ed. (Paris 1970),
151-71.
94 INFANCY IN ROUSSEAU'S EMILE
course, for example, Rousseau conceives of human nature as being largely malleabl
according to sociohistorical circumstance; so that, whereas for Rousseau the original
simplicity of human nature was once good for man, that nature's malleability has ren
dered its value ambiguous at best.2 In the Emile, however, Rousseau offers a very dif
ferent assessment of nature's normative significance, and that assessment provide
the basis for a fresh interpretation of his thought. But the interpretive emphasis on the
Emile has more to recommend it than its merely being new. Indeed, a consensus
seems to be emerging among Rousseau scholars that the Emile, more than any other
single text, offers the most complete presentation of Rousseau's "system of thought
and, thus, the guide to uncovering his philosophic intention. And in Letters Written
From the Mountain, Rousseau himself denies that what appears to be a practical
manual on child rearing is meant to be useful for rearing children. The Emile, he clar
ifies, offers "a new system of education the plan of which I present for the study of th
wise and not as a method for fathers and mothers."3
Rousseau's "true study" in the Emile "is that of the human condition" (E I 42)
and, in particular, of the teleological direction that he perceives within huma
nature. Rousseau seems to sponsor an idea of man's natural direction as early a
1753, when, in a letter to Charles Bordes, he explains that his "system of thought
is "the product of a sincere study of man's nature, of his faculties and of his desti-
nation."4 And while the Second Discourse (published in 1755) presents Rousseau's
appeal to nature and natural standards in terms of man's evolutionary origins
rather than his historical "destination," the Emile (1762) inquires into "nature" i
regard to the developmental ends of the individual human life span.
We are born with the use of our senses, and from our birth we are affected in
various ways by the objects surrounding us. As soon as we have, so to speak
consciousness of our sensations, we are disposed to seek or avoid the object
2. Developmentally adrift as well as morally ambiguous, "present human nature" can be considered
neither sacred nor indicative of the best sort of life to lead. Nature has become but a thingish melange that
man is morally free to evaluate (even to reorganize) in light of objectives and goods that he chooses for him
self. Human nature no longer harbors any normative implications. So goes the traditional interpretation of
Rousseau's account of nature. See Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicag
Press, 1953), 270-74; Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 11
12; Marc F Plattner, Rousseau's State of Nature (DeKalb: Northern Illinois Press, 1979), 37, 44, 46, 50; Jea
Starobinski, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction (Chicago: University of Chicago Pres
1988), 301-03; Ruth Grant, Hypocrisy and Integrity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 9.
3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres Completes, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond (Paris:
Gallimard, Bibliothbque de la Pldiade, 1959-1969), Vol. 3, 783. For an account of the importance of Emile in
Rousseau's system, see Arthur Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man (Chicago: The University of Chicag
Press, 1990), 7. For this paper I have used the following translation of the Emile: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Emile, or On Education, trans. A. Bloom (Basic Books, 1979). The citation form used is: (E, Book Number
Page Number).
4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Preface of a Letter to Charles Bordes," in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The
First and Second Discourses and Essay on the Origin of Languages, trans. V. Gourevitch (New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1986), 133, emphasis added.
Jeffrey A. Smith 95
which produce them, at first according to whether they are pleasant or unpleas-
ant to us, then according to the cohformity or lack of it that we find between us
and these objects, and finally according to the judgments we make about them
on the basis of the idea of happiness or of perfection given us by reason [this
emphasis added]. These dispositions are extended and strengthened as we
become more capable of using our senses and more enlightened; but con-
strained by our habits, they are more or less corrupted by our opinions. Before
this corruption they are what I call in us nature (E I 39).
The "material" of man's nature, being corruptible, must therefore be malleable, or

plastic; but in the Emile, Rousseau construes "nature" predominantly in terms of a
principle immanent within man's given material. Indeed, Rousseau's standard of
nature is referred to, variously, as "the aim of nature," "the method of nature,"
"nature's rule," "nature's path," "nature's art," as that which is "according to
nature" or even arranged by nature, and most tellingly, as "nature's direction," and
even once as "the original direction" of nature.5 Man's nature is likened to the direc-
tional growth of a plant which, "set free" from artificial constraint, will eventually
resume its original vertical course of development. Thus "nature," for Rousseau,
does not include all the varied habits that different environments inculcate, and that
nature's malleability makes possible. Since he holds that when "habit ceases ... the
natural returns," Rousseau's account of nature in the Emile is noteworthy less for its
suggestion of man's "almost infinite" malleability, than for its presentation of the
proper development of man's "original dispositions" toward their ideal destination.6
Limiting "the name nature ... to habits conformable to nature" (E I 39), Rousseau
shows what he means by hypothesizing how a child can be reared, and his mal-
leable material shaped, so as to conform to man's immanent, enduring, and teleo-
logical principle of development-the "rule of nature."
In this paper, I argue that Rousseau's program of "negative education," even in
its earliest applications during Emile's prelingual infancy, is conceived as a catalyst
for ideal human development, intended to usher man's nature along its "original
direction" throughout childhood, and toward its final destination or ultimate fulfill-
ment. I choose to focus on the rearing of Emile during his prelingual infancy-the
puerum infantem period of life, as Rousseau calls it-for two reasons. First, most
recent examinations of the text have emphasized Rousseau's presentation of the
adolescent Emile's romantic and moral development in Books IV and V, often
under-interpreting the stage of negative education in Books I-III as a merely pre-
ventative holding operation.7 Indeed, I do not know of any critical assessment of
5. For example: E 138; E 139; E 147; E 155; E 1182; E 1189; E II 124; EII 156; E IV 219. Cf. E II 108n.
6. Cf. E 1 62; Strauss, Natural Right and History, 271. For further discussion of Rousseau's understand-
ing of nature's malleability, see footnote 25 below.
7. Cf. Allan Bloom, "Introduction," in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education (trans. A.
Bloom, Basic Books, 1979), 3-28; Mary P Nichols, "Rousseau's Novel Education in the Emile," Political
Emile's negative education that attempts to explain how it inaugurates and facili-
tates Rousseau's attempt to "follow the path [nature] maps out" (E I 47). In addi-
tion, Rousseau repeatedly insists on the crucial importance of the earliest steps in
rearing during the puerum infantem period (E I 46-47, 48, 62, 63, 68; II 89, 93).
Emile's rearing during this period-in which he is introduced to the salutary "edu-
cation of things" but is prevented from learning too much about the wills of other
men-represents the beginning of the child's journey along "the road of true hap-
piness" (E II 80).8 By lights of Rousseau's teleological account of nature in Book I
(quoted above), that "road" culminates at the zenith of man's given potential, in a
way of living and choosing governed by a particular "idea of happiness or of per-
fection given us by reason." The development of right reason represents "the mas-
terpiece of a good education," which, "according to the natural progress," can even-
tually yield its beneficiary "the torch" necessary to "follow the path reason maps out
across the vast plain of ideas, a path which is so faint even to the best of eyes" (E II
89, 93). Right reason ultimately gives man an idea of a specific substantive happi-
ness-an idea "of perfection"--and that idea leads him to seek his fulfillment in a
pattern of worthy behavior or "virtue."' From "the happiness of natural man" Emile
shall eventually come to know the "happiness of the moral man," for which
nature's proper development, even from the first years of infancy, is an indispensa-
ble preparation (cf. E III 177; E IV 314).10 In the concluding section, I show how the
principles underlying Emile's negative education inform both Rousseau's "hypo-
thetical history" in the Second Discourse and his theory of the general will in On the
Social Contract.
Theory 13: 4 (November 1985: 533-55); Cooper, Rousseau, 100-01. For Rousseau's general account of neg-
ative education, see E II 93.
8. Cf. Melzer, Natural Goodness, 92-93. For Rousseau's account of the three educations that shape
man, see E 138-39.
9. This interpretation challenges the view that happiness for Rousseau ensues from "extent of exis-
tence," understood as "the view that through feeling as such, regardless of content-and not through
knowledge--one exists more and moves closer to being" (Melzer, Natural Goodness, 45). But Rousseau in
fact aims to educate man for worthiness more than for that sort of happiness, and he insists that conscience,
"although independent of reason, cannot... be developed without it" (E 167; cf. "Last Reply," in The First
and Second Discourses, 89). See also Cooper, Rousseau, 26, 31, 106-08, and John T. Scott, "The Theodicy
of the Second Discourse," American Political Science Review (September 1992: 700-01). For accounts of
Rousseau's programs of public education for virtue, see Carol Blum, Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 116-17; Lester G. Crocker, "Rousseau's soi-disant liberty," in
Rousseau and Liberty, ed. R. Wokler (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), 256-59; Pierre Has-
sner, "Rousseau and the Theory and Practice of International Relations," in The Legacy of Rousseau, ed. C.
Orwin and N. Tarcov (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 209, 212; Marc F Plattner, "Rousseau and
the Origins of Nationalism," in The Legacy of Rousseau, 185, 189, 193, 196.
10. Cf. E II 87: "Such is Iman's] nature. If the physical prospers, the moral is corrupted. The man who
did not know pain would know neither the tenderness of humanity nor the sweetness of commiseration.
His heart would be moved by nothing. He would not be sociable; he would be a monster among his kind."
Also E 167: "All wickedness comes from weakness. The child is wicked only because he is weak. Make him
strong; he will be good."
Jeffrey A. Smith 97
I. Natural Happiness and the Activity of the Original

Faculties
While it will alienate his student neither from self nor from body, nonetheless
Rousseau's plan for Emile's education will carefully proctor his ascent toward erotic
being. Neither will Emile disdain or trivialize what he is, nor will he, deliberately and
quixotically, cast about in quest of what he is not. Life and human nature may well
admit of many possibilities and afford any number of pursuits to those who can
imagine them or their transcendent qualities, or even foresee a so-called need for
them. "To live," though, one must learn "how to be ignorant" of such possibilities
(cf. E I 54; E III 204); one must be taught or made to follow the determined "rule"
or "path" nature charts for life and living. "Mothers, it is said, spoil their children. In
that they are doubtless wrong-but less wrong than you perhaps who deprave
them. The mother wants her child to be happy, happy now. In that she is right.
When she is mistaken about the means, she must be enlightened" (E I 37-38).
According to Rousseau, mothers intuit-and their motherliness validates-that
nature in general intends a child to be happy; at the very least, "living" means being,
or having been, "nothing but happy when a child."
Rousseau's "mothers" also rightly intuit that nature intends a child to experi-
ence happiness or well being exclusively as a present or immediate sentiment, a
feeling simply. Nature does not intend a child to seek happiness in acts of reflec-
tion, such as calculation, expectation or hope, or even mental acknowledgment. In
fact, Rousseau suggests that the human soul is positively allergic to foresight; hap-
piness only seems to be-and it is not-found in the mind's plannings and the
will's doings.
Foresight! Foresight, which takes us ceaselessly beyond ourselves and often

places us where we shall never arrive. This is the true source of all our miseries.
What madness for a fleeting being like man always to look far into a future
which comes so rarely and to neglect the present of which he is sure. It is a mad-
ness all the more destructive since it increases continuously with age; and old
men, always distrustful, full of foresight, and miserly, prefer to deny themselves
what is necessary today so as not to lack it a hundred years from now. Thus, we
are attached to everything, we cling to everything-times, places, men, things;
everything which is, everything which will be, is important to each of us. Our
individual persons are now only the least part of ourselves. (E I 82-83)
... Health, gaiety, well-being, contentment of mind are no longer anything
but visions. We no longer exist where we are; we only exist where we are not....
(E 183)
Over the course of life, the soul's actual or true happiness is determined, according
to Rousseau, by the configuring presence of "the active principle" inherent in
human nature."I That principle blossoms in youth as a sentiment of exuberance or

joy, at times even fearsome ecstasy; later in life the principle gradually undergoes a
withering but can nonetheless yield to receptive adults a feeling of calmness or con-
tentment (cf. E 1 67). Neither the child's joy nor the adult's contentment depend
upon possessing or employing the faculty of will, except indirectly-in the adult's
case-as a result of the decision not to act or "rebel against the hard law of neces-
sity," and instead to "draw your existence up within yourself" and to "remain in the
place which nature assigns to you in the chain of being" (E I 83). On the contrary,
for Rousseau both kinds of happiness require attunement to certain non-subjective
human phenomena, present along a particular "side" of human nature. This side of
human nature is its physical side, that is, the human condition of being embodied.
For Rousseau a good life thus consists, in some measure, of feelings of happiness
connected to immediate physical experience, resulting from operations of human
physical nature.'2
The Equilibrium Between Power and Desires
Rousseau does not harbor an "empty" or "thin" understanding of the goods that
human physical nature makes possible. Emile is neither forced nor meant to settle
for the hollow repose of just "being here," or even for the slightly thicker pleasure
of merely not being in pain; for Rousseau, happiness--whether a child's or an
adult's--is not comprised by a resignation to good-less goods. Though absence of
suffering or alleviation of need may indeed be the most frequent experience of hap-
piness, such "negative conditions" should not be mistaken for that certain relation
that engenders positive "enjoyment of our whole being."
Our unhappiness consists ... in the disproportion between our desires and
our faculties. A being endowed with senses whose faculties equaled his desires
would be an absolutely happy being.
In what, then, consists human wisdom or the road of true happiness? It is not
precisely in diminishing our desires, for if they were beneath our power, a part
of our faculties would remain idle, and we would not enjoy our whole being.
Neither is it in extending our faculties, for if, proportionate to them, our desires
were more extended, we would as a result only become unhappier. But it is in
diminishing the excess of the desires over the faculties and putting power and
will in perfect equality. It is only then that, with all the powers in action, the soul
will nevertheless remain peaceful and that man will be well ordered.
11. This does not mean that all happiness is physical in nature; it means that all the genera of happi-
ness depend upon, ensue from, or are prefigured by, the operation of this principle. Even the "happiness of
the moral man" depends upon the operation of this principle, for that operation engages the "reserve fac-
ulties" necessary to such happiness.
12. Cf. Melzer, Natural Goodness, 26.
Jeffrey A. Smith 99
It is thus that nature, which does everything for the best, constituted him in
the beginning. It gives him with immediacy only the desires necessary to his
preservation and the faculties sufficient to satisfy them. It put all the others, as it
were, in reserve in the depth of his soul, to be developed there when needed.
Only in this original state are power and desire in equilibrium. ... (E II 80)
The substantive enjoyment experienced by "a being endowed with senses whose
faculties equaled his desires" differs from the heady pleasure of doing one's will or
attaining (or pursuing) humanly posited ends, since happiness requires that certain
desires must be eschewed, and that other desires-born of needs felt in the "origi-
nal state"-should never be neglected. Enjoyment of one's whole being comes not
from doing one's will, then, so much as from according or proportioning one's
will-with or to man's "original nature." A rich happiness soon follows when,
throughout his childhood, man's desires are trained and his will habituated within
those tight boundaries which are set, even if by his subsequent intellectual and
moral development they are naturally expanded, by the first or original needs and
capabilities imparted by human nature as human physical constitution.'3
According to Rousseau, man's natural place is in an "equilibrium" between
human desires and available human power, understood narrowly by Rousseau as
power granted to an individual "immediately" by human nature-that is, as an indi-
vidual's "present" and "natural strength" that varies greatly across the human life
span (cf. E 11 83; E III 165; E 11 78). Thus man's proper place is in the equilibrium
between what he wants and what he alone can do, by virtue of only his own natu-
rally variable physical strength. He should not desire more than he can accomplish
by his own "arms" and the sweat of his brow (cf. E III 165).14
O man, draw your existence up within yourself, and you will no longer be mis-
erable. Remain in the place which nature assigns to you in the chain of being.
Nothing will be able to make you leave it. Do not rebel against the hard law of
necessity; and do not exhaust your strength by your will to resist that law-
strength which heaven gave you not for extending and prolonging your exis-
tence but only for preserving it as heaven pleases and for as long as heaven
pleases. Your freedom and your power extend only as far as your natural
strength, and not beyond. All the rest is only slavery, illusion, and deception. (E
II 83, emphases added)
13. Cf. Emile II 80: "In order not to pursue chimeras let us not forget what is appropriate to our situation.
Humanity has its place in the order of things; childhood has its in the order of human life. The man must be
considered in the man, and the child in the child. To assign each his place and settle him in it, to order the
human passions according to man's constitution is all that we can do for his well-being." Or Ill 162: "[Emile]
has come to the maturity of childhood. He has lived a child's life. He has not purchased his perfection at the
expense of his happiness; on the contrary, they have cooperated with each other. In acquiring all the reason
belonging to his age, he has been happy and free to the extent his constitution permits him."
14. Cf. Starobinski, Transparency and Obstruction, 230-31.
Establishing the equilibrium between desire and physical strength ensures that the
"faculties" necessary to exercise and to direct strength are not even partly diverted by
the will from that end which original nature or "human constitutional nature"
bestows upon man as his principle desire: namely, for the "preservation" of his life. It
is not that preservation itself is man's natural happiness-"I am not able to teach
living to one who thinks of nothing but how to keep himself from dying" (E I 53)-
but rather that the attempt to "extend and prolong" his existence (i. e., to do more
than preserve himself) can only make man unhappy. In being trained not to long for
more than he can accomplish by his own power, Emile neither exhausts himself, nor
endures the underlying anxiety, in the never-ending attempt to make his life a little bit
longer, or still more and more comfortable, more and more memorable, etc. But the
avoidance of such suffering is only one consequence of establishing man's proper
equilibrium; in fact, equilibrating power and desire gradually engenders a tangible
and quite rich experience of happiness, "the enjoyment of one's whole being."
Original Desires and Original Faculties: ". .. with all the powers in action"
Rousseau understands man's natural place to be a strict equilibrium between his

power and his desires. While man should not desire more than he can accomplish
by his own natural power, he should not desire less than he can do, either. To expe-
rience "true happiness," not only must the individual not desire more than his phys-
ical strength can accomplish, but he must positively desire activity in which all his
other "powers" (or faculties) are put "in action." If even one "part of our faculties"
were to "remain idle... we would not enjoy our whole being" (E II 80). Strict equi-
librium prevents man from suffering from insatiable desires, but it makes him
happy in causing him "to act...to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties,
of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence" (E I 42).
However, for Rousseau, the enjoyment of one's whole being is much more com-
plicated than the mere engagement of all the human faculties. Rousseau laments
the human capacity of foresight, for example, "which takes us ceaselessly beyond
ourselves and often places us where we shall never arrive. This is the true source of
all our miseries" (E II 82). Moreover, Rousseau carefully distinguishes between
"immediate" faculties "in the original state" and other faculties possessed by the
individual "in reserve in the depth of his soul," which are developed "when
needed," presumably when he is no longer able to reside in his original state. "Only
in this original state are power and desire in equilibrium," Rousseau clarifies; thus,
it is only when the original "desires necessary to his preservation" are in strict equi-
librium with the original "faculties sufficient to satisfy them," that "the soul will ...
remain peaceful and . . . man will be well ordered" (E II 80). Those original desires,
being "necessary to his preservation," ensue from man's natural needfulness. For
Rousseau, then, enjoyment of one's whole being emerges as the engagement of all
the original faculties in meeting those needs assigned "with immediacy" by human
Jeffrey A. Smith 101
physical nature.'5 But precisely which are those first faculties sufficient to satisfy nat-
ural needs, and to make man happy?
II. Natural Equilibrium and the Problematic Prospect of

Human Strength
For Rousseau, the very development of one of those first faculties, natural in itself,
threatens to disrupt man's proper equilibrium, by its own tendency to increase the
desires which it must rather equal for man to be happy. As his strength is augmented
in the course of his physical growth, a developing infant begins to feel a burgeoning
impulse which interests him in more than his preservation. The natural growth of
strength in itself, unassisted or unfigured by any communication of ideas, engenders
the human desire to extend one's being outward, to effect and to experience more
than the activity of its own maintenance or sentiment of its static existence.
In the state of weakness and insufficiency concern for our preservation con-
centrates us within ourselves. In the state of power and strength the desire to
extend our being takes us out of ourselves and causes us to leap as far as is pos-
sible. (E III 168)
The active principle common to both [a child and an old man] is developing
in the one and being extinguished in the other; the one is being formed, the
other destroyed; the one is tending toward life, the other toward death. The fail-
ing activity is concentrated in the old man's heart; in that of the child, it is super-
abundant and extends outward; he senses within himself, so to speak, enough
life to animate everything surrounding him. That he do or undo is a matter of no
importance; it suffices that he change the condition of things, and every change
is an action. If he seems to have more of an inclination to destroy, it not from
wickedness but because the action which gives shape is always slow and the
action which destroys, being more rapid, fits his vivacity better. (E I 67)
The human potential for strength represents both a great prospect and a great peril
for man's true happiness. On the one hand, the growth of strength is a prerequisite
for its being in equilibrium with the original desire for self-preservation, and thus for
the pleasant experience of engaging oneself in satisfying natural or basic needs.
Indeed, according to Rousseau, the infant screams and cries because, in the "first
15. Not only does Rousseau neglect to characterize the faculty of will as an original faculty, but the fact
that his training aims to direct the child's will toward certain activities and away from others also shows that
natural happiness consists only of the will's proper action, not the will's action in itself. For a good discus-
sion of the problematic relation of will and authority in Rousseau's thought, see Riley, "Rousseau's general
will," in Rousseau and Liberty, 8-11, 14, 20; see also Melzer, Natural Goodness, 92-93.
condition of... want and weakness," he "feels his needs and cannot satisfy them.
... In the imperfection of his organs he does not distinguish their diverse impres-
sions; all ills form for him only one sensation of pain" (E 1 65). The infant begins to
escape such pain, through his action and/or his understanding and endurance of it
only when his organs and his strength have developed past this "first condition,"
and are able to be controlled and directed by him to respond to the immediate tug
of the natural needs.
On the other hand, the gradual growth of his strength makes the infant desire
more than its mere exercise. Prior to understanding the finite state of his strength,
the infant primarily experiences the tumescence of his strength. While yet untutored
(or not tutored enough) by his own experiences of physical resistance, that very
growth gives him the feeling of a fantastical physical power; "he senses within him-
self, so to speak, enough life to animate everything surrounding him." His vivacity
naturally inclines him to act rapidly and repeatedly; he desires to cause an impossi-
bly great quantity of motion (E 1 67). But of course, the infant's desire for near-infi-
nite activity far exceeds his actual capacity for action, and he experiences, not the
happiness of proper equilibrium, but the restlessness of not being (physically) able
to do what he desires (E I 68).'6
Fortunately, according to Rousseau, this natural disequilibrium can be merely
temporary, depending upon whether an infant is raised in accordance with
"nature's rule.""17 It is crucial here to distinguish between nature's gradated bequest
of greater and greater amounts of strength (which could never be sufficient to his
early longings for near-infinite activity), and the things and events that the infant
experiences as his strength develops on "nature's path." The latter, not the former
keeps the infant on "the road of true happiness," by causing him to understand the
limits of his actual strength; following nature's rule or model, a good rearing wil
instill in the infant-prudently, via his own exertion alone--certain ideas necessary
for "diminishing the excess of his desires over his faculties." For example, nature
itself "exercises children constantly; it hardens their temperament by tests of all
sorts; it teaches them early what effort and pain are. ... The tests passed, the child
has gained strength; and as soon as he can make use of life, its principle becomes
sounder" (E I 47; cf. II 78). Following that example, a good rearing will "let [chil-
16. It might be objected that restlessness arises from the child's excess of strength (cf. E III 168), not
the insufficiency of his strength to desire. But according to Rousseau, "in growing, one gains strength,
becomes less restless, less fidgety, withdraws more into oneself" (E 168). The real source of restlessness in
children is found in their not having learned to limit desires to strength; thus Rousseau distinguishes
between calm children in the country, who have been habituated to limiting desires to strength, and agi
tated children raised in the city (E 11 92). This subject will presently be taken up in the main text.
17. Interestingly, the temporally or developmentally original state in human life is thus disequilibrium
between power and desires; as will be seen, the "original state" that Rousseau mentions does not refer to
the first moments or even the first stage of life, but to the first fulfillment or realization of the natural human
potential for equilibrium. In the Emile, man's nature is originally good in that it possesses an originally good
developmental direction.
dren] do more by themselves," thus allowing them to encounter physical resistance

to their strength; in this way "accustomed early to limiting their desires to their
strength, they will feel little the privation of what is not going to be in their power"(E
1 68, emphasis added; cf. E II 88).18 Thus, while the initial growth of an infant's
strength naturally thwarts ideal equilibrium by making him feel omnipotent, his
subsequent use of that strength can naturally establish it over time (and for the first
time), calibrating his expectations and desires to his physical ability by instilling in
him the idea of its true extent.
If this idea, and only this idea, could constitute the apex of his self-understand-
ing for a sufficient period of time, the infant would be headed down the develop-
mental "road of true happiness" (E 1I 80). But the use of his strength is only one pos-
sible source of the infant's knowledge; indeed, his exertions are able to yield him
the salubrious knowledge of his physical limits only because of the existence and
operation of his other original powers---his faculties of sense. But his senses can
yield the infant other ideas as well, dangerous not least because they are acquired
in advance of physical nature's solid lessons, well before he might otherwise form
the habit of limiting his desires to his strength.
III. Natural Equilibrium and the Problematic Prospect of

the Human Senses
According to Rousseau's teaching, the infant's natural capacity for sensation,

his potential for strength, represents both a prospect and a peril for his future
piness. His senses (and especially his faculty of touch) can be conducive to
equilibrium, as well as his eventual cognitive ability to navigate safely as a b
with "progressive movement" (E I 62), by enabling him first to grasp the imp
nate resistance, and eventually to foresee the dangers, of his physical environm
But while the proper adjusting of the infant's desire is thus paced by his (no
painful encounters with immovable things, the senses yield him feelings of ple
as well (E I 62, cf. I 47-48, II 87).
For Rousseau, the human capacity for sensing pleasure can be either ba
boon. For example, Rousseau insists that a child should neither be denied
allowed more than those pleasures which arise from the satisfaction of his n
needs. "As far as possible, grant [children] everything that can give them a
pleasure," but no farther: "your child ought to get a thing not because he asks
but because he needs it" (E II 89, cf. 11 85).~9 Indeed, these natural pleasur
18. Cf. James Miller, Rousseau: Dreamer of Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 19
175-76.
19. "One should distrust what they desire but are unable to do for themselves and others hav
for them." By doing for them, a new need is born in addition to natural need "or the need which
relief from need, but also of his body's vigorous exercise--constitute the fullest
extent of "the enjoyment of one's whole being" which is possible during the pre-
pubescent stages of human life.
But the human capacity for sensing pleasure allows man, even when he is
only an infant, to discover additional pleasures, beyond or outside or even con-
trary to those pleasures joined to natural need. These pleasures are outside nat-
ural need because their enjoyment depends upon what is outside his body-that
is, the very environment, and the particular things within it, which his senses use-
fully equip him to apprehend. But while the infant's sensual apprehension of out-
side resistance is good for the development of his proper equilibrium, his sensa-
tion of outside pleasures can disrupt it, even permanently. As Rousseau
understands it, such disruption in the infant can occur in two independent ways.
That disruption can occur at a very early point in life, should the infant come to
know the pleasure of commanding, or the joy of tyranny; and it can occur later
in childhood, should the infant acquire artificial tastes for the pleasures of habit.
In what follows, I analyze Rousseau's diagnosis and prescriptions regarding the
first danger that the infant encounters along "the road of true happiness," leav-
ing the second for a future essay.
From Early Sensations, to the Pleasure of Commanding
The infant is at risk of becoming tyrannical even at that early moment "when he
begins to know" things and their qualities, especially their distance and distinctness
from him, by means of his sensations. According to Rousseau, this mental devel-
opment in the infant occurs long before he is able to exert and test his strength, and
thus learn his physical limits. "The education of man begins at his birth; before
speaking, before understanding, he is already learning. Experience anticipates les-
sons. The moment he knows his nurse, he has already acquired a great deal" (E I
62). Because the senses always do teach much before they can teach the infant the
limits of his strength, it is essential for his future happiness that the manner of this
early learning be arranged so that his first sensations do not undermine physical
nature's subsequent lesson. For example, if the infant yet lacks the idea of extension
and still believes that everything he sees is at the end of his arms, then, according
to Rousseau, one should "take care ... to walk him often, to transport him from
one place to another, to make him feel change of place, in order to teach him to
judge distances." But "as soon as he is no longer abused by sense" and acquires this
idea, Rousseau insists that "the method must be changed." It is not that the infant
should never be carried again, at all; since he is yet unable to walk, carrying him will
only from the superabundance of life of which I have spoken" (and which was analyzed in the previous sec-
tion). This need "stems from nascent whim" (E II 86).
still be necessary. Rather, upon reaching that point in his mental development, he
should never again be carried "as he pleases"--that is, whenever he conveys, by cry
or gesture, merely the whim to be carried (E 1 64). But why not?
Because, after this point, his cries and gestures inform not only his caretakers;
after this point, they have also become a source of his own self-knowledge. His early
notion of extension and his realization that "there are things which are not us" pre-
pares the infant to understand that those other things can be affected or manipulated
by him; but this idea of the causality of his will can be acquired in better ways at the
later stages of infancy (i. e., through exertion of his strength alone), or in worse ways
even from "the earliest age."20 Worst of all, according to Rousseau, would be for the
infant to learn that he can manipulate things in his environment merely by speaking
his "natural language"--or rather, by screaming it. This lesson would set in motion
the process in which "whim succeeds need" as the infant's preoccupation.
Since the first condition of man is want and weakness, his first voices are
complaint and tears. The child feels his needs and cannot satisfy them. He
implores another's help by screams....
From these tears that we might think so little worthy of attention is born
man's first relation to all that surrounds him; here is formed the first link in that
long chain of which the social order is formed. (E 1 65).
The first tears of children are prayers. If one is not careful, they soon become
orders. Children begin by getting themselves assisted; they end by getting them-
selves served. Thus, from their own weakness, which in the first place is the
source of the feeling of their dependence, is subsequently born the idea of
empire and domination. But since this idea is excited less by their needs than by
our services, at this point moral effects whose immediate cause is not in nature
begin to make their appearance; and one sees already why it is important from
the earliest age to disentangle the secret intention which dictates the gesture or
the scream. (E I 66)
To respond to the infant's screams is not precisely to engender his idea of his will,
and thus his capacity for "intention"; according to Rousseau, he acquires that idea
and that capacity almost at once when he acquires the very idea of extension. But
at that point the infant does not know how to cause his will to happen. He learns
first by accident, from noticing others' responses to his cries of need; soon after, he
begins to use the first tool of his will-his voice. Thus the infant's cries, not the
20. At the beginning of Book II, Rousseau seems to suggest that the infant's use of his strength is the
catalyst for his self-consciousness (E II 78). But in Book I, as I show in Section III of the main text, Rousseau
suggests that the infant can acquire self-consciousness well before he is able to direct his strength. Thus, I
suggest the passage at the beginning of Book II should be interpreted as Rousseau's account of the ideal
catalyst for self-consciousness; this suggestion dovetails with Rousseau's general prescriptions in Book 1,
which aim to accustom the infant from "early on to limiting their desires to their strength" (E 1 68).
strength in his arms, can supply his first lessons regarding the extent of his will
causality, or in other words, regarding the extent of the "dominion" of his will.
Depending on how others respond to those cries, the infant's early sensations of
his environment may accustom him to a heady pleasure that is "not in nature," and
which he may well continue to desire even after he has learned the true extent o
his strength. Certainly, some of his cries must always be attended to, because the
relate to his feeling of natural need; therefore, "one must study their language and
signs with care... at an age at which they do not know how to dissimulate" in orde
to learn to "distinguish in their desires what comes immediately from nature an
what comes from opinion" (E 168). For Rousseau, nature's immediate impulsion o
an infant's desire is from his feeling of natural need itself; while the satisfaction of
these needs produces the natural pleasures, it is not the experience of the natura
pleasures that engenders the infant's desire. However, even an infant can come to
possess two other types of desire, owing precisely to his experience of their respec-
tive kinds of pleasure: one kind, attached to, and coeval with, his physical sensa
tions (thus resembling the natural pleasures);21 the other kind, arising but becom
ing detached from his physical sensations, related to his enduring ideas or opinion
about himself. At a particular early point when he cries and is responded to, he
learns that, quite literally, he can cause; he acquires the idea of his will. Once he has
learned that, he begins to learn from his cries how much he can cause; thus h
begins to acquire the idea of his power. If at that point his caretakers, neglecting to
distinguish his needful cries from his experiments with his voice, instead attend to
him whenever he expresses what appears to be discomfort, the infant will come t
consider them "as instruments" that he can "set in motion." Thereafter "it does not
require long experience to sense how pleasant it is to act with the hands of other
and to need only to stir one's tongue to make the universe move" (E I 67-68).
This pleasure is not experienced by the infant as an immediate sensation, on hi
tongue, skin, etc.; it is experienced as an idea or opinion which he forms of himself
arising from sensing his voice's control over his outside environment. It is the pleas
urable "idea" of his "empire and domination," the pleasure of understanding the
extent of his command (E 166). For Rousseau, it is important to distinguish between
the pleasure of commanding and the pleasures associated with vanity, or amour-
propre. The pleasure the infant derives from commanding is not the same thing as,
nor is it precipitated by, the pleasure of being important in his caretaker's eyes; quit
21. This kind of pleasure consists of the varied types of habits that the infant can acquire, such as the
taste for a particular kind of food. Though other kinds of food can sate natural need, in acquiring these taste
the infant acquires artificial needs or passions for specific means of sating natural needs. "It ought to b
sensed that just as pain is often a necessity, pleasure is sometimes a need" (E II 89n). Because acquiring
needs for the pleasures of habit also disrupts the child's proper equilibrium, Rousseau offers a suite of pre-
scriptions in Book II (especially regarding the training of the senses) in order to circumvent that dange
There is not room enough in the present essay to analyze those prescriptions in the depth they deserve.
the contrary, according to Rousseau, it is "dominion" that "awakens and flatters

amour-propre" (E I 68). The infant's early pleasure of acting "with the hands of
others" does not come from any reflection of himself that he sees (or imagines) in
the eyes of others. The pleasure of commanding is thus not the enjoyment of
authority per se. Rather, the infant's enjoyment of dominion consists merely of the
infant's believing that he only has to express his will to do his will, or rather, to have
it done. His pleasure consists of his primitive notion-not so wordy as this charac-
terization of it-that his cry of want is the prime cause or mover of everything, that
his desire or will is his power, that his "wishing makes it so." He enjoys, simply,
sensing his will to be all-powerful, sensing the irresistible strength of his will.22
Misery, Distorted Vanity, and Anger
In a number of ways, the infant's experience of this "alien" pleasure prepares him
for a miserable maturity. In becoming accustomed to the pleasure of commanding,
he necessarily acquires a desire that is contrary to his own use of his strength; his
new desire is "to act with the hands of others," and to "make the universe move" by
using his voice, merely and only. Once he has acquired this desire, his proper equi-
librium is technically put in jeopardy since, if he always succeeded in doing his will
merely by decreeing it, "a part of [his] faculties would remain idle," and he would
not enjoy his whole being. For Rousseau, however, that particular scenario is a seri-
ous possibility only during infancy; in fact, acquiring the desire to command always
does upset an adult's proper equilibrium, but it does so because-more realisti-
cally-that desire cannot be consistently satisfied. In Rousseau's French, the desire to
command is a fantaisie, best translated as "whim" or "caprice," though the native
connotation-a desire associated with imagining-better illuminates why "the man
of whims" can only be miserable. His reality, of course, will not be that "the universe
will move" whenever and because he decrees it, but rather that his desire to com-
mand will frequently be thwarted by the resistance of others.
If these ideas of dominion and tyranny make them miserable already in their
childhood, what will it be when they grow up and their relations with other men
begin to extend and multiply? Accustomed to seeing everything give way before
them, what a surprise on entering into the world to feel that everything resists
them and to find themselves crushed by the weight of this universe they thought
they moved at their pleasure! ... [C]ruel experiences soon teach them that they
know neither their situation nor their strength. (E I 88)
22. For another analysis of this stage of Emile's education, see Asher Horowitz, Rousseau: Nature and
History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 227-35. Horowitz's analysis differs importantly in its
denial of the possibility of the infant's awareness of crying as a sign in the puerum infantem stage, though
many of Horowitz's clarifications tacitly presume that the infant does understand the significance of his tears
from very early on.
Yet his habituated desire to command does not evaporate with the adult's realiza-
tion that he will not be able to command; and the enduring excess of that desire
over his individual power-his disequilibrium-results in either constant frustra
tion, disproportionate despondency, or restless obsequiousness (E II 87, 88; II 83-
84; II 86). In each case, his "unhappiness consists not in the privation of things but
in the need that is felt for them" (E II 81).
But the thwarting of the desire to command gives rise to yet another desire or pas-
sion that is inimical to the adult's future happiness, and also corrupting for his moral
development. Rousseau recognizes that, of course, even the infant cannot get every-
thing he commands all the time; "sooner or later powerlessness will force you, in
spite of yourself, to end up with a refusal" of one or some of his wishes (E II 87). But
the imperious infant, having been accustomed to believe "that at his command every-
thing is possible," understands another's refusal not in terms of necessity but rather
as "an act of rebellion." He goes from one extreme of imagining his caretakers to be
his "instruments," to the other extreme of seeing them, not as merely possessing
causal wills of their own, but as possessing wills insidiously opposed to his.
All reasons given him at an age when he is incapable of reasoning are to his
mind only pretexts. He sees ill will everywhere. The feeling of an alleged injus-
tice souring his nature, he develops hatred toward everyone; and, without ever
being grateful for helpfulness, he is indignant at every opposition. (E II 87)
His habit of commanding is not exactly the catalyst for the imperious infant'
amour-propre (though certainly that habit is its leaven); rather, it is resistance to hi
commands and desires that first stirs or inflects his vanity, in the specific context of
his feeling affronted or offended by others (E I 65-66).23 His resulting anger and
indignation impart the new desire or passion for avenging himself, which, becaus
he learns to imagine "ill will everywhere," is not likely to engender the happy con-
tentment of proper equilibrium during his maturity. Indeed, his obsequiousness
itself must be an inescapable torment for the adult who conceals suspicions of
intended wrongs and his vengeful desires beneath his apparently amicable accept-
ance of his place (and his limited power) in the established pecking order. Anger
warps his moral development as well. The imperious infant, in first sensing justic
and injustice exclusively in relation to his desires to command and others' vacillat
ing responses to them, will not be capable of conceiving (or, at least, embracing)
the true idea of justice as an older child, not even through the idea of his own util-
ity (cf. E II 97-99).24
23. Cf. Grant, Hypocrisy and Integrity, 157. For analyses of the proper development, and even the use-
fulness, of amour-propre, see Melzer, Natural Goodness, 70 n2; and especially Cooper, Rousseau, 99-100,
120-22, 126-27, 144, 146-47, 161-62.
24. Understanding justice through the idea of his own utility is only the beginning of Emile's education
regarding justice. In fact, Rousseau's discussion of justice in the Letter to D'Alembert implies that acquiring
IV. Negative Education: Ordering Man According to the

Human Constitution
But according to Rousseau, that corrupted evolution during infancy-from orig-

inal weakness and need, to imperiousness and whim, finally to incipient distortions
of vanity and anger--can be forestalled. The effort requires vigilance, promptness,
decisiveness, and of course, knowledge of the proper method. For Rousseau, that
method-negative education-is "according to nature" in that it is "according to
man's constitution."
In order not to pursue chimeras let us not forget what is appropriate to our situ-
ation. Humanity has its place in the order of things; childhood has its in the order
of human life. The man must be considered in the man, and the child in the
child. To assign each his place and settle him in it, to order the human passions
according to man's constitution is all that we can do for his well-being. The rest
depends on alien causes which are in no way in our power. (E 11 80)
Rousseau understands "man's constitution" to contain its own proper principle of

development; "nature" for Rousseau is not merely its malleable material, but is also
the "orderer" or "arranger" of its own material. "It is not man who orders [the
human passions]; it is nature itself. Your care is only to let it arrange its work" (E IV
219).25 And while "alien causes" that so often divert or even arrest nature's direc-
the true idea of justice will require meditation on sentiments as well as the enlightenment of self-interest.
"The heart of man is always right concerning that which has no personal relation to himself. In the quarrels
at which we are purely spectators, we immediately take the side of justice, and there is no act of vicious-
ness which does not give us a lively sentiment of indignation so long as we receive no profit from it. But
when our interest is involved, our sentiments are soon corrupted." In Letter to M. D'Alembert on the The-
atre, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Politics and the Arts, trans. A. Bloom (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1960), 24. Cf. E I 66, 67. See also the discussion of property and justice in Allan Bloom, "Rousseau's Critique
of Liberal Constitutionalism," in The Legacy of Rousseau, 151-56.
25. Rousseau's account of nature as its own arranger, proceeding according to its immanent "rule" or
"direction," undercuts the interpretation that holds that plasticity or malleability is at the core of Rousseau's
understanding of human nature (see, for example, Strauss, Natural Right and History, 270-74, esp. 271), as
well as the view that Emile's education represents but a willful and artificial construction or shaping of mal-
leable nature, rather than the realization of an order that Rousseau perceives within that nature (see Bloom,
"Rousseau's Critique. .. ," 158; and Richard Velkley, "The Tension in the Beautiful," 72; in The Legacy of
Rousseau). Indeed, in the formal definition of nature he offers in the Emile (E I 38, quoted in my introduc-
tion), Rousseau stresses that his concept of nature can only be understood in terms of the idea of assigned
or given (though not inviolable) limits. For Rousseau to define nature in that passage as "habits conforma-
ble to nature" is to imply that nature itself is not merely a principle of conformability or malleability present
in human beings. For if it were only malleability, "nature" would refer to those habits "conformable to con-
formability" or "malleable to malleability," which would make nonsensical Rousseau's further account of
nature in that passage as a set of corruptible original dispositions (including not merely physically immedi-
ate and sub-rational dispositions, but also the apparently latent disposition to choose one's ends on the basis
of right reason). Strauss is certainly right that Rousseau views man's nature as almost infinitely malleable, but
in the Emile malleability emerges as being the problem posed by man's almost unlimited ability to acquire
tional movement are "in no way in our power," a child's parent or governor can a
to avoid them: "the issue here is ... what we can do for our pupil by the choice
circumstances in which we put him" (E IV 219). One must try to make carefu
choices even during that stage of life when he cannot help himself, for the cries of
a helpless infant are not necessarily expressions of his needfulness, and "if he on
knows how to make you take care of him at his will, he has become your maste
All is lost" (E I 68). Care must be taken, in other words, regarding an infant's sen
sations of the environment surrounding him.
The main thing to do (but not the only thing) is to prevent the infant from expe-
riencing those sensations dangerous to his future happiness. This is not to say th
those sensations are always dangerous, but that they are harmful if experienced too
early in life. For Rousseau, delaying or postponing their experience is necessary
especially in order to control the development of the human imagination.26
As soon as [man's] potential faculties are put in action, imagination, the most activ
of all, is awakened and outstrips them. It is imagination which extends for us the
measure of the possible, whether for good or for bad, and which consequently
excites and nourishes the desires by the hope of satisfying them. (E II 80-1)
The real world has its limits; the imaginary world is infinite. Unable to
enlarge the one, let us restrict the other, for it is from the difference between th
two alone that are born all the pains which make us truly unhappy. Take away
strength, health, and good witness of oneself, all the goods of this life are in opin
ion; take away the pains of the body and the remorse of conscience, all our ill
are imaginary. (E II 81)
For example, if the infant's cries are always attended to, he will soon imagine hi
will to be his power and others to be his instruments; these false ideas engender
desires or passions for the pleasure of commanding, thus inaugurating his tou
artificial needs (i.e., passions and fears) through either immediate experience or the influence of opinion (cf
E I 62-63; E II 79-82). The malleability of human desire is a problem for Rousseau precisely because he
believes that human nature also makes possible its own special fulfillment-"each age, each condition of life,
has its suitable perfection, a sort of maturity proper to it" (E II 158)-which that malleability threatens by
making it possible to divert human development from its proper direction. In Rousseau's thought-for exam
ple, in his discussion in the Emile of how babies should be nourished (E 1 56-9; cf. SD 206-07)-the fact that
man is by nature malleable does not mean that nothing is by nature better or worse for man. For Rousseau
man's tastes and desires can be habituated in any number of ways (which will variously influence how man
reasons), but Rousseau still insists that some and not others cultivate "habits conformable to nature." Other
teleological characterizations of nature in the Emile can be found at E 1 38; E I 39; E I 47; E 1 55; E 11 82; E
89; E Il1 124; E Il1 156; E IV 219. Cf. E 11 108n. See also Cooper, Rousseau, 40-41. In general, Cooper offers a
measured, persuasive case that Rousseau does not abandon nature as a standard for his prescriptions.
26. For analyses of the proper mutual development of imagination and pity, see Mira Morgenstern
Rousseau and the Politics of Ambiguity (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1996), 63-72, 79;
Clifford Orwin, "Rousseau and the Discovery of Political Compassion," in The Legacy of Rousseau, 301-0
308; Bloom, "Introduction," in Emile, 17-20.
of the different stages of misery to follow. However, by controlling his sensations

of his outside environment, the infant's imagination can be restricted, his impe-
riousness prevented, and the development of his vanity delayed. He should never
be given what he cries for when it is his whim, but only when his feeling of nat-
ural need causes him to desire it.27 In this way he will not conceive a false idea
of his will's power, and he will become accustomed to desiring only the satis-
faction of physical need. Thus he does not acquire a taste for the capricious
tyranny of his will.
The careful pruning of the infant's sensations can also prevent the emergence of
anger, whether its source is resistance to his tyranny or his own "servitude" (E I
48).28 "Before the age of reason," he should never experience sensations that yield
him "any idea of moral beings or of social relations. .... Arrange it so that as long as
he is struck only by objects of sense, all his ideas stop at his sensations; arrange it
so that on all sides he perceive around him only the physical world" (E II 89; cf. E I
64). Lacking the idea that others possess and use power over him, the infant cannot
imagine "ill will everywhere" or even anywhere, and thus is not offended when his
will is thwarted. Thus, to prevent the premature development of vengefulness and
vanity, the infant would ideally be tricked into seeing any refusal of his will as a mere
thwarting by physical nature, or else tricked into being distracted from what one
wishes to deny him by interesting him in something else. "But it is of the utmost
importance that the child not perceive the intention to distract him, and that he
enjoy himself without believing that one is thinking of him" (E I 69).29 Similarly, the
infant should never be commanded or physically compelled to obey, lest he
become willful, vengeful, or fearful (E II 89, 91; cf. E I 60); yet neither should the
infant be reasoned with, since "the reason for duty cannot be grasped at their age"
but the reason for appearing obedient can (E II 90).30 In these ways the infant will
be prevented from conceiving false ideas regarding the capricious intentions of
everyone else, and so he will become neither rebellious, nor disingenuous, nor
vengeful. (On his suspicion of others' caprices, more below.)
27. Ideally one would "not let oneself be informed of their needs by their cries," but rather anticipate
their needs and meet them without incurring the risk contained in their early expressions of need (E I 69).
28. Anger need not arise on the basis of the infant's initial experience of dominion, though Rousseau
does emphasize that particular connection. Anger can arise as well exclusively on the basis of others' dom-
ination of the child. See, for example, E 148.
29. For varied commentaries on the use of "indirect rule" and deception in Rousseau's education of
Emile, see Shklar, Men and Citizens, 148-49; Starobinski, Transparency and Obstruction, 215-16; Carol
Blum, Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue, 67; Melzer, Natural Goodness, 92-93, 245-46; Patrick Riley,
"Rousseau's general will: freedom of a particular kind," in Rousseau and Liberty, 8-11, 14, 20.
30. In learning that others have "reasons" why he should not do what he wants to do, the infant dis-
covers for himself the utility of faking obedience or lying about disobedience; he learns how to get what he
wants while seeming to do what others want, thereby avoiding their punishments, or even receiving
rewards from them. The young child thus comes to acquire the habits, not of a good citizen, but of a care-
ful scoff-law, obeying rules when he must but breaking them whenever he can get away with it (E II 90-1).
Proper Sensations and the Salutary Idea of Necessity
Besides those sensations that must be avoided, there are others that must be
experienced. In general, according to Rousseau, "it is necessary that he feel his
weakness and not that he suffer from it" (E II 85). While the infant must never believe
that he encounters resistance from other wills, he should frequently encounter resist-
ance from physical things. While his perception of "only the physical world" pre-
vents the infant from conceiving ideas about himself and others that would make
him imperious and irascible, it suggests another idea to his mind which is salutary
for his future moral development. That idea is the idea of necessity.
Treat your pupil according to his age. At the outset put him in his place, and
hold him there so well that he no longer tries to leave it. Then, before knowing
what wisdom is, he will practice its most important lesson. Command him noth-
ing, whatever in the world it might be, absolutely nothing. Do not even allow
him to imagine that you might pretend to have any authority over him. Let him
know only that he is weak and that you are strong, that by his condition and
yours he is necessarily at your mercy. Let him know it, learn it, feel it. Let his
haughty head at an early date feel the harsh yoke which nature imposes on man,
the heavy yoke of necessity under which every finite being must bend. Let him
see this necessity in things, never in the caprice of men....
It is thus that you will make him patient, steady, resigned, calm, even when
he has not got what he wanted, for it is in the nature of man to endure patiently
the necessity of things but not the ill will of others. (E II 91)
I have already said that your child ought to get a thing not because he asks
for it but because he needs it, and do a thing not out of obedience but only out
of necessity. Thus the words obey and command will be proscribed from his lex-
icon, and even more so duty and obligation. But strength, necessity, impotence,
and constraint should play a great role in it. (E II 89)
According to Rousseau, the infant would ideally acquire the idea of necessity from
encountering physical things, never from interacting with others. Therefore, the
"spirit" of Rousseau's early rules "is to accord children more true freedom and less
dominion, to let them do more by themselves and to exact less from others" (E I
68). Most often unassisted and free to move about, the infant begins to learn what
he can do and what he cannot do by virtue of his strength alone.31 Regarding the
little that he can do, he learns the necessity of exerting a certain amount of strength
to do his will and realize its possibility; regarding all that he cannot do, he learns the
necessity of its impossibility. Thus either his "experience or impotence" regarding
31. This principle-that the infant should learn the extent of his dominion by use of his strength
alone-supplies a reason for rejecting swaddling and instead "leaving children's bodies and limbs
physical things suggests to him the idea of the permanence, constancy, or inflexi-
bility of his limited place (and of his will's limited dominion) in the world. And
though his "experience" might be said to undermine this idea--he will gradually
grow stronger, after all--there will always be a surplus of objects which the infant
cannot budge by himself. Thus his enduring "impotence" will especially serve "to
take the place of law for him," acquainting him from early on with the many things
which it will never be in his power to do (E II 85).32
Of course, it is not possible that the infant encounter only physical things, on his
own. He must often be aided by others, and therefore interact with them. There will
be times, for example, "when one wants to give" him something which he desires
but cannot attain on his own; there will be other times when he makes a direct
request or entreaty which one must verbally (i. e., be seen to) decline. Rousseau's
counsel regarding each case aims consistently to cultivate, or at least not under-
mine, the infant's sensual experience of the necessary and unalterable relations
between himself (and/or his caretakers) and physical things. Thus in the first case,
"when a child desires something that he sees and one wants to give it to him, it is
better to carry the child to the object than to bring the object to the child. He draws
from this practice a conclusion appropriate to his age, and there is no other means
to suggest it to him" (E I 66). That conclusion pertains, apparently, to the idea that
his own movement is necessary for the satisfaction of his desires, and it serves to
vaccinate his understanding against the impression that he "need only... stir [his]
tongue to make the universe move" according to his vacillating whim (E I 68). In
the second case, if possible, it is best to tell the child simply that "there is no more"
of what he desires; "no child has ever rebelled" against that response "unless he
believed that it was a lie" (E II 91, emphasis added). Steeped in such responses, the
infant understands only that the non-fulfillment of his desires is unavoidable, a con-
sequence of the necessity of (the lack of) things. That understanding is conducive
to cultivating his patience, whereas a different impression--such as the idea that his
desires could be met but were being deliberately refused, or opposed--would
anger him. He understands "there is no more" as an explanation stemming from
mere and simple necessity, rather than as a refusal by others based on their deci-
sions about what is good for him. Certainly, he must eventually learn to understand
what is good for him, but it is also good for him, and for that eventual understand-
ing, not to learn those "lessons" too early.
absolutely free, with the sole precaution of keeping them away from the danger of falls and putting all that
can wound them out of their reach." More often unaided, the child is less likely to develop whims, and "cries
only when he suffers. And that is a very great advantage, for then one knows exactly when he needs help"
owing to natural need. In the case of such a child, one does not have to discriminate between his cries; his
cries are always signs of need, and one "should not delay a moment" in aiding him (E 68).
32. On the similarity between Emile and the citizen of On the Social Contract, see Geraint Parry, "Think-
ing one's own thoughts: autonomy and the citizen," in Rousseau and Liberty, 108.
The hard cases arise when one must refuse the infant's desires but it is not pos-
sible, for whatever reason, to explain that "there is no more." In these instances,
since one's refusal cannot be blamed on the necessity of (the lack of) things, it is
impossible to avoid the appearance of a conflict of wills--that is, between the
infant's and his caretaker's. In these instances, one should first of all seem pained
by having to refuse the child; but above all, according to Rousseau, the best one can
do is to make all refusals take on the aspect of a thing-like necessity.
What you grant him, grant at his first word, without solicitation, without
prayers-above all, without conditions. Grant with pleasure; refuse only with
repugnance. But let all your refusals be irrevocable; let no importunity shake
you; let "no," once pronounced, be a wall of bronze against which the child will
have to exhaust his strength at most five or six times in order to abandon any fur-
ther attempts to overturn it. (E II 91)
The reason recommending the intransigence of refusal equally recommends grant-

ing the infant's other wishes "at his first word, without solicitation . . . above all,
without conditions" (cf. E II 86). He must not acquire the idea that he gets some-
thing merely because it is his will to get it, or merely because it is another's will that
he should get it. Similarly, if one must unfortunately show him that it is the will of
another that prevents him from getting what he wants, that will must be shown to
be immovable; he must not acquire the idea that he can manipulate other wills by
asserting his will more strongly-for example, by amplifying its expression, or the
expression of pain from his will's having been denied.
Rearing the Child for the Pleasures and Benefits of Natural Freedom
For Rousseau, the reason for suppressing the latter idea has nothing to do with
the cultivation of meekness in the infant. On the contrary, Rousseau does not wish
Emile to become servile. In fact, when recommending the intransigence of
refusals, Rousseau suggests that if his caretakers cannot be vigilantly intransigent-
if they give in even once to his willful screams-they should thereafter always give
in to the infant's will and desires, as if he were the universe's tyrant. In that case,
the progress of his soul's corruption might at least stop at imperiousness, and not
proceed to anger.
Besides, there is no middle point here: nothing must be demanded from him
at all, or he must be bent from the outset to the most perfect obedience. The
worst education is to leave him floating between his will and yours and to dis-
pute endlessly between you and him as to which of the two will be the
master. I would a hundred times prefer that it were always he. (E II 91,
emphasis added)
To bend the infant to the most perfect obedience is to subject him to the necessity
of things only (either actually or as it can be perceived by him), and when that is
impossible, to the intransigence of his caretaker's will. The necessity in things either
is, or seems to the child, to be permanent, unalterable by him or by anyone;
Rousseau prescribes the intransigence of refusal precisely in order to cultivate in the
infant the same impression of the constancy of his relation to his environment.
Thus, for Rousseau, it is worse for the caretaker's will to be inconstant than to seem
always to be the child's instrument, in that it is worse for the infant to acquire the
idea of the contingency of his relations to others, and of their refusals of his
desires.3 Comprehending that those relations could be different, it does not take
long for the child to become angry that they are not as he wants them, nor for him
to believe that others' refusals are arbitrary or capricious (E II 91n). Such a child
comes to want not to rule over others so much as to oppose or thwart their wills at
every turn, either for his own good exclusively or, worse, against theirs. For
Rousseau, the idea of justice can thus be distorted or even corrupted from early on
by the infant's perception of the vacillation of other wills.
However, by guiding him "by the laws of the possible and the impossible alone"
found in "the force of things" (E II 92), Rousseau's method begins to order the
infant's passions according to the "rule of nature," with eventual beneficial conse-
quences for his understanding and his use of his will. The human constitution itself
is the first influence in nature's ordering of man, facilitated by Rousseau's prescrip-
tion that "your child ought to get a thing not because he asks for it but because he
needs it" (E 11 89). By being habituated to getting what he wants only when he feels
natural need in his body, the infant begins to sense (thereafter, to imagine) that his
will is merely the servant of those needs. "The sphere" of the possible, which might
otherwise be explored by his will, is thus initially "contracted around him" by his
very idea of its narrow dominion, imparted to him through his habituation to need
and to the impossibility of getting more than he needs (E II 92). His soul ordered
according to the human constitution, he does not become imperious.
But the development of his constitution gradually yields him strength and the abil-
ity to expand the sphere of the possible (or contract the sphere of the impossible).
Therefore, Rousseau's method of rearing follows nature's lead in allowing children
"to jump, run, and shout when they wish. All their movements are needs of their
constitution seeking to strengthen itself" (E II 86, cf. E I 68). Thus external physical
nature and the infant's exertions of his natural strength make up the second influ-
ence in nature's ordering of man. On one hand, the infant's preponderant sensations
of physical impossibility reinforce his idea that there are necessary limits to his will.
Whereas "alien causes" that are not in nature (such as others' aiding him to over-
33. Even a spoiled and imperious child need not be given that idea. In fact, depending on how much
one arranges his experience with an eye to limiting his understanding of the sphere of the possible (cf. E II
92), his idea of his God-like authority might be rather harmless to his future moral development.
come physical resistance) may engender the idea of his empire, the resistance he
encounters in nature's physical realm prevents him from acquiring a passion for the
tyranny of his will.4 On the other hand, however, his success in moving some things
yields the infant the idea of what is physically possible for him to do; not knowing
the pleasure of commanding, doing what he can do by his strength alone is the only
pleasure he associates with his will. But the gradual growth of his strength naturally
expands the sphere of the possible, and the child's understanding of it. Able to do
more and more by himself, he more and more enjoys the pleasure of his own exer-
tion; in time he acquires a passion for that pleasure. That passion is not precisely for
getting what he wants; it is for getting, literally, "to do" what he wants, for doing on
his own what he can do, for being as self-sufficient as possible (cf. E II 84, 85).
Steeped since infancy in sense-impressions of the many (but gradually fewer) things
he simply cannot do, the child acquires a passion, not for the pleasure of com-
manding everything in his environment, but for his physical action within, and inde-
pendent navigation around, that environment. Raised by the negative method of
allowing him "well-regulated freedom"-freedom regulated especially by the laws of
the impossible and by his idea of necessity--the infant acquires a desire for his own
free action which prevents his moral development from veering toward imperious-
ness, at one extreme, or toward servility to others' opinions, at the other (E II 92).35,
V. From the Idea of Infancy, Toward Rousseau's Science of

Politics
If, as Rousseau says, the Emile is intended "for the study of the wise and not as
a method for mothers and fathers," how exactly is the work meant to be useful? In
particular, what may the wise learn from studying the negative education of the
young Emile?
34. It might be objected that Rousseau's "method of nature" is just as "alien" and unnatural as estab-
lished practices, especially since it does not prescribe strict adherence to the laws of the possible and the
impossible in raising the child, but instead encourages governors to realize that, "the sphere of both being
equally unknown to [the child], they can be expanded and contracted around him as one wants" (E II 92).
Thus, should he be tricked by others to see physical impossibility where it does not exist, his idea of his will's
narrow dominion would be just as "false" as if he were enabled to imagine that he could move the universe
merely by stirring his tongue. However, in exhorting governors to follow the rule or order of nature in their
determinations of his experience, Rousseau prescribes deception in the service of engendering, over time,
the child's understanding of his true place in nature's order. Even if his present idea of what it is impossible
for him to do is strictly false, it may nonetheless be true that the idea is good for his future development, not
least for his eventual understanding of the strictly true limits of his will's dominion.
35. It was suggested above that the infant's sensations of his will's dominion are not always dangerous,
but that they are harmful if experienced too early in life (e. g., through others' slavery to his first cries). It
should now be clear that "delaying such sensations" means allowing the infant to experience them gradu-
ally, through his use of his strength alone, and according to the natural growth of that strength. In this way
his sensations of his will's (limited) dominion do not become a source of torment, but a cause of his natu-
ral happiness. Acquiring the desire for free action on the basis of those sensations, his use of his will even-
tually engenders his natural vigor and puts "all the powers in action" (E II 80).
In The Government of Poland (1769)-written for aspiring Polish legislators-

Rousseau seems to provide a clue. Issuing numerous detailed proposals for reform
of Poland's economy, its military, and its civil service, Rousseau nonetheless
emphasizes that education is the "important topic" (GP IV 19), and expounds his
notions pertaining to "national education." But, in fact, another
neglected side of education is, in my opinion, the most important of all, not only
because it develops strong, healthy constitutions, but even more because of the
moral objective of education, which people either slight or try to accomplish by
means of a list of idle and pedantic precepts that are so much wasted breath. I
cannot repeat too often that good education must always be negative education.
Choke off the vices before they are born, and you will have done on behalf of
virtue all that needs doing. ... (GP IV 21)
It seems curious that, in a work otherwise brimming with extensive descriptions of

the minutiae of state-building, Rousseau should say very little in Poland about this
"most important" negative education. However, at several points in Poland, he
refers to On the Social Contract as providing the theoretical basis of certain pre-
scriptions for reform (e.g., GP VII 33; VII 38; VII 47; XV 110). In this light, it bears
suggesting that the first three books of the Emile may somehow underpin
Rousseau's prescriptions for negative education in Poland.36
This is not to suggest that Rousseau intends young Poles to be raised exactly as
Emile is raised. Intended "for the study of the wise," the Emile as a whole is best under-
stood as a primer about man's good, rather than as a recipe for it. It discloses nature's
desideratum for man by means of the heuristic of a specific and hypothetical rearing,
but it does not prescribe that rearing as a guarantor of what would be best in all times
and places (E Preface, 35; cf. E V 416). Thus, within the parameters of this paper, it may
be said that Emile's negative education reveals the importance of man's apprehension
of necessity to his independence and to his virtue. How that apprehension is brought
about is best determined by a Legislator who understands the limitations imposed by
given circumstances (OSC II xi, 75-76). But the general pattern-from necessity, to
independence and virtue--recurs in Rousseau's overtly political works.
In the "hypothetical history" of the Second Discourse, for example, Rousseau
ascribes man's loss of his original freedom and independence to the polluting of nat-
ural necessity by the proliferation of artificial passions. Because "his desires do not
exceed his Physical needs," (SD I 150), savage man was dependent only on "things"
(and their availability) in his environment-not on other men. And because the
36. In one of the Quatre lettres a M. le President de Malesherbes, Rousseau explains that "everything
I have been able to retain of the great truths...has been feebly scattered throughout my three principal writ-
ings, this first discourse, the one on inequality, and the treatise on education [Emile], which three works are
inseparable and together form a single whole" (12 January 1762; OC 1: 1136). Translation from V. Goure-
vitch, The First and Second Discourses, 297. And in a letter to Christophe Beaumont, Rousseau goes so far
as to indicate that the three works "explain themselves each by the others" (OC 1: 950-51).
earth's bounty was ready at hand for him, the savage's own power was more than
sufficient to meet his physically delimited desires; thus, in addition to being inde
pendent, he enjoyed the happiness of proper equilibrium. But over time-and owing,
as Rousseau wishes to depict it, to tragic accidents that induced resource scarcity-
the felicitous identity of his (physical) needs and his desires was superceded by man's
susceptibility to learn to desire more than his constitution naturally dictates.
Initially, accidents of the seasons engendered industry, invention and, not long
after, cooperation among men. Eventually, however, the super-sufficiency of their
new tools in meeting their still limited needs yielded to these men
a great deal of leisure which they used to acquire several sorts of conveniences
unknown to their Fathers; and that was the first yoke which, without thinking of
it, they imposed on themselves, and the first source of evils they prepared for
their Descendants; for not only did they, in this way, continue to weaken body
and soul, but since these conveniences, by becoming habitual, had almost
entirely ceased to be enjoyable, but at the same time had degenerated into true
needs, it became much more cruel to be deprived of them than to possess them
was sweet, and men were unhappy to lose them without being happy to pos-
sess them. (SD 11 174, emphasis added)
These passions for conveniences, though distinct from natural needs, are felt as if
they are true needs, and thus the internal impulsion of natural necessity was joined
in man's soul by the forceful currents of his acquired (or artificial) needs (cf. E II
151). This polluting of natural necessity had (and continues to have) disastrous con-
sequences for man's happiness and his independence. On the one hand, habitua-
tion to convenience cultivates the new desire not to use one's own powers in meet-
ing all of one's needs, thereby jeopardizing the very possibility of proper equilibrium
and the natural happiness it imparts. On the other hand, certain conveniences,
which were made possible "the moment one man needed the help of another," cul-
tivate the desire to exploit the powers of others. Whereas his original needs make
man dependent only on things, his acquired needs thus tend to leave him, if not
enslaved by other men's disingenuous machinations, then at least dependent on the
many services they provide (SD 11 177-78; cf. E II 85).
With the pollution of natural necessity it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for
the internal impulsions of man's nature to direct him toward what is good for him.
Even Emile enjoys "natural happiness" only during a limited stage in his develop-
ment (cf. III 177; IV 313-15), and Rousseau seems to imply that his hypothesized
youth will eventually acquire passions that exceed his natural needs, despite the best
preventative efforts (cf. E II 150-52; E I 50). However, as I have shown, Emile's natu-
ral happiness depends at least as much on his apprehension (and judgment) of
external physical necessity, as it does on the internal impulsion of natural needful
ness. That idea of necessity was conveyed to the infant Emile by the careful arrange-
ment of his experience of external resistance, but neither the impossibility of "re-rear-
ing" adults in that way, nor the seeming impossibility of rearing any child as Emile is
raised (cf. E I 50), entails the futility of all other arrangements of their experience.
The ideal republic of On the Social Contract aims, at least in part, to cultivate
man's apprehension of external necessity by giving to the laws "an inflexibility no
human force could ever conquer" (EII 85). To do so means to do more than "force
to be free" those who refuse to obey the dictates of the general will (OSC I vii, 55).
It means also, and chiefly, to cement those dictates, and to place "in the abstract"
both their source and especially their objects (OSC II vi, 66). The former is accom-
plished by according the sovereign people the legislative right merely to approve or
reject proposals, leaving the right to draft (thus, to amend) legislation to a Lycurgus-
like figure (OSC II vii, 69; cf. II vi, 67). The relative irreversibility or immutability of
expressions of the general will thus confers on them a thing-like necessity.
But if "dependence on men" is to become "dependence on things again" in
Rousseau's republic (E II 85), men's wills must also be separated from their particu-
lar (or personal) interests during their deliberations about public matters. Therefore,
the determination of the general will "should come from all to apply to all," such that
"in this institution everyone necessarily subjects himself to the conditions he imposes
on others" (OSC II iv 62, 63). While certainly the source of law must be "all"-rather
than one or a few-Rousseau's emphasis is on the common interest that ensues, evi-
dently, from the law's applying to all-that is, to each alike. Because the law applies
to all, each citizen finds it to be in his interest to vote, not according to caprice or self-
ish desire, but on the basis of a genuine assessment of the common good (OSC I viii,
56). More, each citizen does not tend to suspect others of unjustly manipulating the
law for private gain. Rather, each citizen understands himself and all others to be
dependent, not on particular men, but on an abstract "public person" whose dictates
are as incorruptible and incapable of injustice as their equal enforcement is unavoid-
able.37 Thus in sum, the universality of their application, the inevitability of their
enforcement, and their immutability impart to determinations of the general will the
character of necessary physical laws. Equal dependence on such "things" means no
man can become dependent on the particular private will of another. In part for this
reason, and in part also because its citizens enjoy certain definite liberties (OSC II iv,
62), in Rousseau's ideal republic "all of the advantages of the natural state would be
united with those of the civil state, and freedom which keeps man exempt from vices
would be joined to morality which raises him to virtue" (E II 85).38
37. Rousseau suggests that were the general will to favor or disfavor "any individual, determinate
object," say, in "a lawsuit where the interested private individuals constitute one party and the public the
other," its decision would be, for the disfavored party, "only a foreign, private will, showing injustice on this
occasion" (OSC II iv, 62, 63).
38. This quotation from the Emile is as opaque as it is brief. Perhaps the citizen is kept "exempt from
vices" through freedom because he retains and enjoys definite liberties derived from the principles of Emile's
negative education. Perhaps that freedom is "joined to morality" owing to the "quality of equity" which citi-
zens discern in laws that reflect "an admirable agreement between interest and justice" (OSC II iv, 63).
The citizen's ascent to virtue, however, may require parts in addition to his mere
independence from the wills of others. Indeed, as I have argued, the moral advan-
tages of the infant Emile's natural freedom stem from his free action in the midst of
his dependence on things, rather than from his independence from others simply.
Moreover, natural freedom is not the only kind of freedom for which Emile is reared.
He will also come to possess moral freedom, which Rousseau describes in the
Emile in terms that resemble his brief definition of the concept in On the Social Con-
tract.39 Similarly, Emile will enjoy two kinds of happiness over the course of his
development: the natural happiness of childhood and, later, "the happiness of the
moral man" (cf. III 177; IV 313-15).40 While Emile's moral happiness succeeds the
natural happiness of "almost only a physical being" (E III 187), the two sorts of hap-
piness are not independent of each other, nor are the educations that purpose their
respective realization. For Rousseau, the proper moral education requires the
proper negative education; for Emile to become moral man and experience moral
happiness, he must remain "only a physical being" throughout the early years of his
life, enjoying only natural happiness. In Rousseau's hypothesis of the best educa-
tion, then, the higher requires the lower; Emile's developmental completion
requires the gradual layering of developmental plateaus into a vital whole, each
higher attainment grounded on the lower, each lower attainment preserved in the
higher.41 The infant's naturally free experience of physical nature and its laws not
only prevents the corruption of the child's moral development. It is also instrumen-
tal in the positive development of moral sentiments (cf. E II 85, 87), and even bears
on the healthy development of man's vanity. But these are long-term effects that
depend as well on the proper cultivation of Emile's "reserve" faculties, including his
memory, imagination, and reason. And while their fruition is a longer part of a still
longer story, it may be expected that Rousseau relates his "romance of human
nature" in order to depict man as he ought to be-both "happier and especially
worthier of being so."42
39. Cf. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, trans. J. Masters, ed. R. Masters (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1978), 56. Cf. E 11 85; IV 292, 293, 314, 315, 315-16; V 471-75. See also Miller, Dreamer of
Democracy, 178-8 1.
40. For a persuasive analysis of moral happiness that distinguishes it from "what is commonly meant"
and from "what [Rousseau] commonly means" by happiness, see Cooper, Rousseau, 26-28, 31.
41. For Rousseau, "each age, each condition of life, has its suitable perfection, a sort of maturity proper
to it" (E 11158), and part of each age's perfection is that it enables the perfecting of future stages of life. Cf.
Cooper, Rousseau, 106-08.
42. The reference to the "romance of human nature" is from E V 416; the quotation on happiness and
worthiness is from the "Last Reply," in The First and Second Discourses, 89.

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Natural Happiness, Sensation, and Infancy in Rousseau's "Emile"

Author(s): Jeffrey A. Smith

Northeastern Political Science Association, The University of Chicago Press are

Natural Happiness, Sensation, and

At the beginning of the Emile, Rousseau defines human nature in teleological

The "material" of man's nature, being corruptible, must therefore be malleable, or

I. Natural Happiness and the Activity of the Original

Foresight! Foresight, which takes us ceaselessly beyond ourselves and often

human nature."I That principle blossoms in youth as a sentiment of exuberance or

The Equilibrium Between Power and Desires

Rousseau understands man's natural place to be a strict equilibrium between his

II. Natural Equilibrium and the Problematic Prospect of

dren] do more by themselves," thus allowing them to encounter physical resistance

III. Natural Equilibrium and the Problematic Prospect of

According to Rousseau's teaching, the infant's natural capacity for sensation,

From Early Sensations, to the Pleasure of Commanding

the contrary, according to Rousseau, it is "dominion" that "awakens and flatters

Misery, Distorted Vanity, and Anger

IV. Negative Education: Ordering Man According to the

But according to Rousseau, that corrupted evolution during infancy-from orig-

Rousseau understands "man's constitution" to contain its own proper principle of

of the different stages of misery to follow. However, by controlling his sensations

Proper Sensations and the Salutary Idea of Necessity

The reason recommending the intransigence of refusal equally recommends grant-

V. From the Idea of Infancy, Toward Rousseau's Science of

In The Government of Poland (1769)-written for aspiring Polish legislators-

It seems curious that, in a work otherwise brimming with extensive descriptions of

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