THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

Rousseau’s Teleological Thought

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of the

School of Philosophy

Of The Catholic University of America

For the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Copyright

All Right Reserved

By

Colin David Pears

Washington, D.C.

2018
 Rousseau’s Teleological Thought

Colin David Pears, PhD

Director: Michael Rohlf, PhD

This dissertation examines Rousseau’s unique teleological thought, which involves both human
freedom and a unique conception of natural ends. I argue that despite his clear anti-teleological
positions on nature and human nature, Rousseau does not abandon teleology altogether; rather,
embedded in his philosophy is a discernable teleological system of thought entailing an
understanding of natural ends and the role they play in human affairs. My analysis takes
Rousseau’s declarations of consistency seriously, and attempts to resolve inherent tensions by
identifying a framework within his philosophy that accommodates apparently mutually exclusive
positions. Rousseau’s teleological thought, therefore, becomes a positive theme of analysis and
an entry point for understanding his system of philosophy. My analysis considers early works,
such as Institutions chimiques and his Encyclopédie articles on music, alongside his mature
thought in the Second Discourse, Emile, Letter to Voltaire, and the Reveries. In the process, I
connect Rousseau’s teleological views of man and nature with his cosmological thought,
showing that he develops a teleological account of the world and man’s station within it that
preserves a space for human freedom in the face of classical finality and modern determinism. I
conclude by showing that Rousseau views cosmological perfection as an ongoing harmonious
state of affairs (as opposed to a terminus), and that his conception of human nature, considered in
light of his notion of cosmological perfection, is necessary to his teleological understanding of
the world. The framework of man’s inevitable corruption expressed in the Second Discourse
must be understood as contributing to a greater end because the contingency of history is
positively necessary to the whole as a perfect state of affairs.
This dissertation by Colin David Pears fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral
degree in Philosophy approved by Michael Rohlf, PhD., as director, and by John McCarthy,
PhD., and Antón Barba-Kay, PhD., readers.

____________________________________
Michael Rohlf, PhD., Director

____________________________________
John McCarthy, PhD., Reader

____________________________________
Antón Barba-Kay, PhD., Reader

ii
 DEDICATION

To my family. To Christina, your love and support have reminded me how and for what reasons
I should persevere. Your willingness to sacrifice for my well-being has been more humbling
than you will ever know. To Chase, Cora, and Carter, your bright and shining faces and your
playful and loving affirmations have been an ever-present encouragement to me. And to my
parents, whose life-long support of my personal and intellectual endeavors I am only now able to
understand as a husband and parent still grateful for your love and reassurances.

iii
 EPIGRAPH

I would rather be able to say before God: I have done, without thinking of thee, the good which
is pleasing to thee, and my heart followed thy will without knowing it; than to say to him, as I
must do one day: Alas! I loved thee and have not ceased to offend thee; I have known thee and
have done nothing to please thee.
~ Rousseau, Letter to Voltaire, Pléiade IV, 1073

iv
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Chapter One: Before and After Vincennes 33

I. Rousseau’s Illumination 34
II. Before Vincennes 41
III. After Vincennes 69
IV. Conclusion 84

Chapter Two: Nature and Human Nature in the Second Discourse 85

I. Nature as Original 89
II. Nature as Historical Process 99
III. Nature as Particular Capacities and Faculties 121
IV. Nature as Normative 150
V. Nature as the Providential Totality of Being 159
VI. Conclusion 177

Chapter Three: Teleological Thought in Emile 179

I. Human Nature in Emile 184
II. Teleological Implications 205
III. The “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” 225
IV. Conclusion 254

Chapter Four: All Things Bright and Beautiful 255

I. Voltaire’s Poem on the Lisbon Disaster 259
II. Rousseau’s Letter to Voltaire 264

Bibliography 290

v
 ABBREVIATIONS

CW Collected Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 13 volumes. Translated by

Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, and Roger D. Masters. Hanover: University
of Dartmouth Press, 1990-

OC Oeuvres complètes. 24 vols. Edited by Raymond Trousson and Frederic S.

Eigeldinger, et. al. Geneva and Paris: Slatkine and Champion, 2012-

CC Correspondance complètes. 50 vols. Edited by Ralph Leigh. Geneva: Institut et

Musee Voltaire, 1965-99.

vi
 ACKNOWEDGEMENTS

The experience of researching and writing this dissertation has been one of intense learning, and
it is one for which I am especially grateful. As I bring this project to close, I would like to thank
those people who have been especially supportive, and without whom I may not have been able
to reach the final stages of this study. First and in particular, I would like to express my deepest
thanks to my director and committee chair, Professor Michael Rohlf, a thoughtful and insightful
scholar—his constructive feedback, persistent encouragement, and personal and professional
guidance made this project possible.
I would also like to thank my readers, Professor Antón Barba-Kay and Professor John
McCarthy, whose thoroughgoing and incisive critique from the proposal stage on helped shape
not only the dissertation but the way that I have come to think about research.
Throughout my research I have been grateful for the support of several other tremendous
scholars whose work and guidance have served as a model for how I ought to proceed in my
own. Professor Charles Butterworth graciously agreed to meet for coffee to talk about my
project and how the Rêveries played a role in understanding Rousseau’s philosophy. Professor
Heinrich Meier, from a very great distance, made helpful recommendations of which works to
consider. Professor Peter Shoemaker made helpful suggestions about how to approach the
secondary literature, and asked many questions that prompted my further research. And
Professor Herbert Hartmann generously read each of my chapters in rough draft, and took the
time to listen as I walked through the arguments I still had to make.
Behind every project of this kind there is a supporting cast of dedicated friends and
colleagues who give of themselves personally and professionally from beginning to end. Here I
find myself indebted to Dr. William “BJ” Buracker for his patience and encouragement—his
commitment to his scholarship and his family, his kindness and sympathy toward me during my
process, and his deep resolve to see others flourish have inspired me more often than he knows.
And to Ryann Craig, a dedicated scholar herself, who kept me accountable to my goals while
sharing a common space and furnishing it with ample motivation and sardonic humor. And to
the Reverend (and soon to be Dr.) Lisa Weaver, you have been an inspiration to me both as a
model of spirituality and kindness, and as an example of the commitment to study that reflects a

vii
life of learning and a desire to help others—It has been heartening to find that the “ethic of care”
of which we often speak is as much a part of your academic work as it is mine.
Finally, to my wife, Christina, whose suffering was greater than my own, my persistence
was your persistence—thank you for your love and patience, and for your ability to bring me
face to face with what really matters in life.

viii
Introduction

The argument of this dissertation is that Rousseau’s philosophy entails a fully developed

teleological position that re-envisions the world as a perfect but mutable state of affairs so as to

bring about the reconciliation of freedom and ends. This Rousseau is simultaneously more

moderate in his positions and more ambitious in his philosophic goals than the Rousseaus that

have emerged in previous interpretations. Unfortunately, this Rousseau has been hidden by

centuries of interpretation that have not fully transcended his Socratism, or his meticulous,

inductive pedagogy. The Rousseaus we know—typically either the individualist Rousseau of the

Second Discourse or the collectivist Rousseau of the Social Contract—are incomplete. The

Rousseau that emerges in this study is still the one who we have come to recognize as an icon of

the modern turn, but one who has a much more well thought out understanding of teleology than

is generally assumed by his readers, and especially those who focus mainly on the Second

Discourse or the Social Contract. This Rousseau, often eclipsed by the others, is the Rousseau

concerned with restoring the wholeness represented by the natural and pre-rational, pre-

discursive human state, who realizes the futility of a return to the natural state, and who instead

attempts to mitigate the corruptive forces inherent in civil society. This Rousseau still maintains

a strong conception of human freedom, but is nevertheless a teleological thinker whose thought

on these matters entails an understanding of natural disposition, if not a clear set of ends

orienting man toward ongoing perfection.

The starting point for this study is the recognition of Rousseau’s methodology, his

pedagogical style, and his esotericism. Rousseau’s writing is wrought with dichotomies and

tensions, apparent contradictions and inconsistencies. He even goes so far as to describe his

1
 2

public persona as “un homme à paradoxes” in his Letter to Beaumont.1 But all of these facets of

his writing are intentional if not fruitful, and read correctly are more like a Heraclitean invitation

to interrogate the logos rather than the man who points us toward it.2 To put it differently, the

tensions and apparent contradictions in Rousseau’s writing are part and parcel of his broad

heuristic, and they reaffirm rather than grate against his not infrequent claims to have a

consistent system of thought. This study uses Rousseau’s declaration of consistency as a

positive interpretive tool, and attempts to expose a cohesive, non-contradictory thread of

argument in his thought on freedom and ends. More specifically, it asks whether and in what

respect Rousseau’s philosophy can be considered teleological in light of his apparently anti-

teleological views of nature and human nature. If Rousseau is, in fact, opposed to the classical

notion of final causality, and if he does not abandon teleology altogether, then what is his

understanding of natural ends and the role they play in human affairs? By connecting

Rousseau’s teleological views of man and nature with his cosmological thought, it becomes

possible to establish a view of his teleology. In texts like the Second Discourse, Emile, the

Letter to Voltaire, and the Rêveries of the Solitary Walker, Rousseau develops a teleological

account of the world and man’s station within it that preserves a space for human freedom in the

face of both classical finality and modern determinism. For Rousseau, this is the best of all

possible worlds, and perfection is an ongoing state of affairs rather than a terminus to be reached

1
Rousseau, Letter to Beaumont, trans. Christopher Kelly, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, v.9
(Hanover: University Press of New England, 2001), 22. Citations to Rousseau’s writings will be from The Collected
Writings of Rousseau (henceforth CW) unless otherwise specified.
2
In fragment 50 by Hippolytus in his Refutation of All Heresies, Heraclitus is recorded as stating,
“Listening not to me but to the Logos, it is wise to agree that all things are one.” Similarly in fragment 2 recorded
by Sextus Empiricus in Adversus Mathematicos, Heraclitus explains, “Therefore it is necessary to follow the
common; but although the Logos is common the many live as though they had a private understanding.” Heraclitus’
challenge to his audience, whether stated implicitly or explicitly, is to seek the truth by interrogating what is most
fundamental and common to all human beings, the logos. Each of his examples reveals the common in the midst of
the contradictory. See Kirk, Raven and Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), 181-212; and also Richard D. McKirahan, Jr., Philosophy Before Socrates (Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing Company, 1994), 133-34.
 3

once and for all. Conceived as part of this state of affairs, man is nevertheless corrupted by his

natural development, but the resulting stratification of human types is not entropic but rather

contributes to a greater end, or to the perfection of world understood as a dynamic state of

affairs.

Now when we say that Rousseau has a teleology or that his philosophy entails a fully

developed teleological position, it is important to note that we mean something very different in

our use of the term “teleology” than what is meant by Aristotelian or Thomistic “teleology.” Let

us briefly consider these latter two so that Rousseau’s teleology may stand out more clearly in

contradistinction to them. Aristotle’s teleology, his understanding of causality, potentiality and

actuality, and ends and perfections, is apparent in nearly every aspect of his philosophy, the

defining feature of which is his notion of final cause. He describes four causes—material,

efficient, formal, and final—but unlike the modern conception of causes as causal events,

Aristotle talks of the four causes as different modes by which causation can be understood. The

material and efficient causes are straightforward; the material cause is that out of which

something comes to be, while the efficient cause is the causal event, or the immediate whence of

a thing’s coming to be, its initial and primary source of motion, immediately preceding it in time.

Formal and final causes, however, are intimately related to one another and are far more

complex.

According to Aristotle, the formal cause is that which specifies what a thing is and will

be in contradistinction to other things, and is the immediate source of a thing’s quiddity. Formal

causes inhere in natural things themselves as the proper aspects of their being. Formal cause is,

therefore, closely associated with nature, which Aristotle understands as the distinctive feature of

such things as have within themselves a principle of motion, not being separable from the things
 4

themselves, save conceptually.3 In natural things there is no more fundamental substratum of a

thing’s being upon which the form may be laid, but rather, the form is the essence of the thing

that passes from potentiality to actuality.

The final cause is the for-the-sake-of-which a thing comes to be.4 Aristotle, however,

makes an important distinction between two senses of “for-the-sake-of-which.” It is possible to

understand the “for-the-sake-of-which” of an action as either an aim (i.e., the goal of an action)

or a beneficiary (i.e., the for whom the action is done). This is important because it attests to the

bifurcation of formal and final causes in the world and draws attention to their collapse in the

unmoved mover of Metaphysics Λ. The unmoved mover is both the ultimate source of all

motion, and also the end of all motion, not in the sense of being a beneficiary of motion, but in

the sense of being the ultimate goal of all aims. All things begin in some sense from the

unmoved mover, and in another sense all things strive to return to the unmoved mover, as the full

actualization of being.

Here we see the sense in which formal and final causes are inextricably related, which

Aristotle makes explicit in the Physics when he says, “nature is a cause, a cause that operates for

a purpose.”5 That is, the form that inheres in a thing is the final cause, the thing’s natural end,

but possessed in potential rather than in actuality. Thus, by virtue of the formal cause, a thing is

always already oriented to its specific end. We see this as the intrinsic receptivity of a thing’s

specific becoming as tending toward some ends and not others, or rather, the intrinsic receptivity

of natural things toward their unique or particular actualization.6 Importantly, for Aristotle, the

formal and final causes inescapably determine the being of a natural thing, for matter is always
3
Aristotle, Physics, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, Inc., 2001), paraphrasing II.1,
193b1-b5.
4
Ibid., II.3 194b25-b30.
5
Ibid., II.8, 199a33.
6
For example, we recognize in this acorn the intrinsic potential for it to become a particular oak, while
simultaneously, we recognize the impossibility of it ever becoming a lion.
 5

predisposed toward a particular way of being insofar as it is always already in possession of

some form. Aristotle’s teleology is, therefore, elegant, but fixed.

It is well established on the basis of Aquinas’ own writings that his teleology derives

primarily from his understanding of Aristotle, and in this way so too does final cause become the

defining feature of his teleology as well. In his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, for

example, he writes:

…a twofold order is found in things. One kind is that of parts of a whole, that is, a group, among
themselves, as the parts of a house are mutually ordered to each other. The second order is that of
things to an end. This order is of greater importance than the first. For, as the Philosopher says in
the eleventh book of the Metaphysics [Metaphysics Λ], the order of the parts of an army among
themselves exists because of the order of the whole army to the commander.7

And in De veritate, he further confirms Aristotle’s influence when he argues that “what is

directed or inclined to an end acquires from the director or mover some form by which such an

inclination belongs to it.”8 Following Aristotle, Aquinas understands that a natural thing exists

en-formed in such a way that it naturally tends toward the end for which it is set. He writes, “he

who gave heaviness to the stone inclined it to be borne downward naturally. In this way, the one

who begets them is the mover in regard to heavy and light things, according to the Philosopher in

the eight book of the Physics.”9 Thus, it is through the bestowal of form that natural things are

inclined and tend toward their particular ends. For Aquinas, the inclination or tendency of

natural things toward their particular ends is, in effect, a striving. He explains, “to desire or to

have appetency is nothing else but to strive for something, to stretch [tendere], as it were, toward

something which is destined for oneself.”10 That toward which all natural objects strive is God.

Here lies the crucial difficulty for Aquinas and thus the crucial difference between his

teleology and Aristotle’s. Metaphysics Λ explains that the unmoved mover is an eternal

7
Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics (Chicago: Regnery, 1964), I.1.1.
8
Aquinas, Truth: Quaestiones disputatae de veritate (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1994), 22.1.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
 6

substance, and thereby that the cosmos has neither beginning nor end, but is an eternal function

of the unmoved mover.11 In this same motion, Aristotle identifies the unmoved mover as a first

and final cause. Christian theology, by contrast, asserts that God created the cosmos and

everything contained therein out of nothing; God remains eternal and immutable, but the cosmos

is no longer the necessary and natural participation of the lesser substances in the eternal as is the

case in Metaphysics Λ. Rather, the cosmos comes to rely upon God as a sustaining cause of

being, and only exists through God’s continual grace, which is to say that the existence of the

cosmos is not a natural or necessary participation in being.

Now in Aquinas’ teleology, all things still find their ultimate origin and completion in

God, but the path toward their natural end is problematic, and especially for man. In the Summa

theologiae, Aquinas explains that the achievement of our ultimate natural end, beatific vision of

God, is by means of particular and contingent goods, which is to say by means that are not

11
Cf., Aristotle, Metaphysics, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, Inc., 2001). Metaphysics
Λ, 6 bridges the gap between the reductive argument of substances and the explanation of the primary substance.
Although perishable substance and eternal/movable substance are changing, neither is capable of being an initial
cause of their own being. Aristotle writes in the second chapter, “everything changes from that which is potentially
to that which is actually… Therefore not only can a thing come to be, incidentally, out of that which is not, but also
all things come to be out of that which is, but is potentially, and is not actually” (Metaphysics Λ, 2, 1069b16-20). In
the sensible world, all things having material also must exist in a state of change measured on a range between
potentiality and actuality. But, because change is always the change of something that is actually A and potentially
B, all sensible substances always exist in an overlying, all-inclusive realm of actuality. Thus, change is a facet of
their existence that is prior to their sensible fluctuation. Aristotle explains that “since there were three kinds of
substance, two of them physical and one unmovable, regarding the latter we must assert that it is necessary that there
should be an eternal unmovable substance” (ibid., Λ, 6, 1071b 3-4). If substances are primary then some such
substance must remain unaffected by any other form of existence. By explaining the third substance as both eternal
and unmovable, Aristotle is asserting that neither substance itself, nor change, nor time can be thought to be
destructible or subject to change. That is, all things must originate from a level on which fundamental aspects of
being are permanent. Therefore, the primary substance must avoid any tension between potentiality and actuality,
and at the same time must also account for the sensible aspects of being. Aristotle explains: “Nothing, then, is
gained even if we suppose eternal substances, as the believers in the Forms do, unless there is to be in them some
principle which can cause change; nay, even this is not enough, nor is another substance besides the Forms enough;
for if it is not to act, there will be no movement. Further, even if it acts, this will not be enough, if its essence is
potency; for there will not be eternal movement, since that which is potentially may possibly not be. There must,
then, be such a principle [archê], whose very essence [ουςία] is actuality [energeia, i.e. action in itself]” (ibid., Λ, 6,
1071b 14-20). Metaphysics Λ, 6 segues from the reductive argument of sensible substances to the requirement of an
eternal unmovable substance, and culminates with the explanation of the primary substance that identifies it with the
primary mover as actuality is itself. In Metaphysics Λ, 7, the primary substance as primary mover is identified with
both first and final causes. For it is that which incites motion and that toward which all motion proceeds.
 7

necessarily good per se. In order for man to progress toward his ultimate natural end, he must

use his will and intellect to choose well the particular and contingent goods laid out before him,

eventually forming the habits that Aquinas understands to be virtues.12 But because the ultimate

end of man is beatitude, the vision of and participation in the eternal divine nature of God, man’s

self-developed habits are insufficient to it. That is, for Aquinas, even though man has a natural

tendency toward his end, his fundamental nature is insufficient to his end. He explains, the

“final and perfect beatitude can consist in nothing else than the vision of the divine essence.”13

This is connatural to God and God alone, which is to say that it is not connatural to man; man’s

form is incommensurate with this end. Here, Aquinas must have recourse to God’s grace in

order to satisfy man’s natural inclination for beatitude. Man requires that “some supernatural

form and perfection must be superadded to [him] whereby he may be ordered suitably to the

aforesaid end.”14 While Aquinas’ teleology is indebted to Aristotle, it stands apart from it. In his

conception, the existence of all beings in the world can only be explained in virtue of God as

both the sustaining and determining factor of any particular being. Consequently, the movement

of any being toward its natural end can only be explained through God’s grace.

Rousseau’s teleology is neither Aristotelian nor Thomistic in its makeup, even if

Rousseau does appear to appreciate certain elements of both. In fact, many of the claims that

Rousseau is a non- or anti-teleological philosopher are based on his denial, whether explicit or

implicit, of these two teleological paradigms. This much we concede. Let us consider Leo

Strauss, whose interpretation establishes Rousseau’s denial of classical and medieval teleology,

setting the stage for the subsequent acceptance of Rousseau as an anti-teleological philosopher.

12
Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 2 vols., ed. Mortimer J. Adler (Chicago:
William Benton, Publisher, 1988), I-II, q.1, a.8; q.10, a.2; q.14, a.1.
13
Ibid., I-II, q.3, a.8.
14
Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), III, 150, 5.
 8

Rousseau is of frequent interest to Strauss, but Strauss’ considered analysis of Rousseau is

presented in three significant statements: “On the intention of Rousseau” (1947), Natrual Right

and History (1953), and finally, Strauss’s “Seminar on Rousseau” given at the University of

Chicago in the fall of 1962. The first two presentations of Strauss’ interpretation of Rousseau

differ from one another in important respects, giving rise to questions of Strauss’ real meaning in

each of them, while the third, perhaps due to its breadth and depth, is often taken for a better

articulate his considered position.15 For our purposes at present, both Strauss’ consistency and

variation of interpretation in each presentation are important to consider.

Like other interpreters, Strauss understood the modern era as initiating a break with

classical philosophic paradigms. In very simple terms, classical philosophy consisted in an

inquiry into the natures of things as a means to understanding what were their natural ends and

hence what was, in fact, best for them. And this inquiry into the natures of things was

simultaneously a close study of the natural articulation of the whole, the cosmos. Strauss

explains the modern turn as a rejection of the sought-for-but-never-achieved ideals of ancient

philosophy. He understands Rousseau both in terms of the history of philosophy and also in

reaction to the modern turn. Or to put it differently, he sees Rousseau as trying to preserve

important aspects of the classical framework on the basis of modern foundations—in the most

general terms, that classical natural right is based on the notion that what is best for a thing is in

accord both with the thing’s nature and with the natural order of the cosmos.16

In order to appropriately place Rousseau in the history of the modern turn, Strauss relies

heavily on his interpretation of Machiavelli and Hobbes. And in his consideration of Rousseau,

15
Cf. Heinrich Meier, Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem, trans. Brainard (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), 66-69, 72; and Jonathan Marks, “Introduction” to Seminar in Political
Philosophy: Rousseeau (Chicago: Leo Strauss Center, 2014), v-vii.
16
Strauss, “On the Intention of Rousseau,” Social Research 14, no. 4 (1947): 487.
 9

he attributes much of the modern transition to Hobbes’s anti-teleological position. In Natural

Right and History, Strauss contends that Hobbes’s anti-teleological position has “its root in the

conviction that a teleological cosmology is impossible and in the feeling that a mechanistic

cosmology fails to satisfy the requirement of intelligibility.”17 He explains:

The predominant tradition had defined natural law with a view to the end or the perfection of man
as a rational and social animal. What Hobbes attempted to do on the basis of Machiavelli’s
fundamental objection to the utopian teaching of the tradition, although in opposition to
Machiavelli’s own solution, was to maintain the idea of natural law but to divorce it from the idea
of man’s perfection: only if natural law can be deduced from how men actually live, from the most
powerful force that actually determines all men, or most men most of the time, can it be effectual
or of practical value. The complete basis of natural law must be sought, not in the end of man, but
in his beginnings, in the prima naturae, or, rather, in the primum naturae.18

On Strauss’s understanding, the rejection of classical ideals leads to the rejection of the classical

conception of nature as a standard, and he argues that Rousseau accepted the anti-teleological

principles that develop out of Machiavelli and Hobbes.

This position is developed at length Strauss’ 1962 seminar on Rousseau. For example, in

the second session of the seminar, a student remarks, “I have been trying to figure out how some

of these considerations are related to the Hobbean rejection of teleology, and the so-called

epistemology of knowledge based on human construction.” Strauss responds at length with an

explanation of modern turn as it ran through Hobbes and Rousseau:

But a great change took place in this respect. For example, in the tradition, they made a
distinction between the essence of man and properties of man. The essence of man is rationality,
but the property of man is, for example, that he is the animal risibile, the animal which can
laugh… Now, in a loose way of speaking, you can say all things, [including] the essence of man,
[are properties], and forget about these subtle distinctions. I will read to you a passage from
Hobbes which is in a way an answer to your question “By philosophy is understood the
knowledge acquired by reasoning from the manner of the generation of anything to the properties,
[or from the properties] to some possible way of generation of the same, to the end to be able to
produce, as far as matter and human force permit, such effects as human life requires.”
So philosophy or science is knowledge of, has to do with, the properties of things, and in
particular of man. But this is here modified: not simply properties. By the way, in the Latin
translation of this text which Hobbes published some [inaudible word] years later, he replaces the
word “properties” by “effects.” That is very interesting. The properties are to be understood as
effects. What does this mean?... The key point is this: on the basis of Hobbes (and some other

17
Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 176.
18
Ibid., 179-80.
 10

men, of course: Galileo, Descartes, and the others, but Hobbes has a particularly neat formula), the
question of the property of a thing is replaced by the question of the genesis of that property.19

According to Strauss, while Machiavelli may have made the first attempt to ground thought in

the practical realities of day-to-day life, Hobbes initiates the line of thinking that collapses

teleological causes primarily into efficient cause alone. This takes place on the topic of man, for

when “the question of [the] property is replaced by the question of the genesis… the most

important subject, of course, is man the rational animal.”20 Strauss explains that Hobbes accepts

Aristotle’s definition of the man as rational, but rejects the notion that man is thereby a social

animal, preferring instead, and on the basis of the demand to “take men as they are,” to think that

man’s inclination toward self-preservation indicates his natural condition. Strauss continues,

“Rousseau says as it were to Hobbes, Look: what you say is absurd, because if man is truly pre-

social, he must be pre-rational; because reasoning, speech, this is man’s sociality. It is therefore

necessary on the Hobbean basis to abandon Hobbes and to go over to the view that man is by

nature not only pre-social but also pre-rational. That is Rousseau’s beginning.”21 For Strauss,

Rousseau’s advancing of Hobbes line of thinking is more than simply a deeper rethinking of

human nature, it is also an attack on the teleological concept of a defining or determining form.

For to follow the inquiry of human nature back in the way that Rousseau does is to question the

form of man, and thus forms as causal factors as such. Thus, according to Strauss, “the

distinction between potentiality and actuality loses its significance in connection with this new

development.”22

19
Strauss, Seminar in Political Philosophy: Rousseeau, session 2, 40-41. Strauss quotes Hobbes,
Leviathan, ch. 46, para. 1. Throughout the lecture transcript the editors reference Hobbes, Leviathan (Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing Co., 1994). See pages 453-54 for the above citation.
20
Ibid., 41.
21
Ibid., 39.
22
Ibid., 42.
 11

As Strauss continues his examination of Rousseau he finds more evidence of Rousseau’s

rejection of traditional teleological paradigms. For example, he makes much of Rousseau’s

explanation of the human transition from the original state to later states. Referring to the

Second Discourse, Strauss explains in the third session, “the transition… is not due to human

fault, but to necessity; to an accidental necessity—i.e. not the teleological necessity that man had

to develop, but something just happened, which could as well not have happened, and compelled

man to change his character, to become a rational animal.”23 Strauss, in fact, sees Rousseau as

continually affirming the role of chance or accidents throughout the Second Discourse, citing

different occasions of human development and the way that Rousseau marvels at the

“multiplicity of chances” that must have happened in order to bring about such developments.

He sees Rousseau as establishing a connection between history and chance, where the former is

understood as efficient causality amounting to a deterministic process and hence a manifest

necessity. And this combination, while Strauss calls it a natural necessity, is a non-teleological

necessity; that is, historical developments are natural necessities in the sense that they are

determined by the necessity of causal relations over time, but they are not determined on the

basis of a pre-established natural form dictating the end or perfection of those developments.24

Strauss also sees Rousseau constantly questioning teleological paradigms in his thought

and writing. This is an observation to which he frequently returns in the 1962 seminar. Three

brief examples will be helpful here. Early in the sixth session of the seminar, as Strauss’ begins

his examination of the Emile, he focuses on the way that Rousseau reconstrues natural education.

For Rousseau, natural education must correspond to the appropriate development of the student,

23
Ibid., 49.
24
Cf., ibid., 59, 66, 231. Other evidence that Strauss marshals in support of his interpretation of
Rousseau’s rejection of traditional teleology include Rousseau’s observations that there are apparently superfluous
faculties in man and that it is not necessarily good that certain faculties are perfected in him.
 12

which, as Strauss points out, is to say that “you must not regard childhood as a preparation for

adulthood.” A student in the seminar finds textual support for Rousseau’s position later in the

Emile, and this prompts Strauss to reiterate the point implicit in Rousseau’s argument (which he

seems to fear the class may have missed). Consider the following exchange:

Student: He turns much later in the book to: “Everything has its own maturity. We have seen such
things are a well-made man, but ah! A well-made child, that would be a rare thing indeed.”
Strauss: Yes, in other words, there is no peak. If we take the simple Aristotelian notion [Strauss
goes to the blackboard]: every being has an origin, a peak, and a decay. You can see it very clearly
in the case of animals; the case of man is a bit more complicated, but fundamentally there too.
And so you cannot possibly say the decline is in service of the peak. It comes too late for that, to
be in the service. But this is a preparation for the acme, for the peak. Childhood, babyhood, or
whatever stages are preparation. This is a common view of mankind, to some extent even today in
our corrupt age, but surely in former times there was no question. This Rousseau questions. And
what is the fundamental reason, why must he question it in some way or other, although he cannot
question it consistently?
Student: Perhaps because the sweetness of existence is the child’s pleasant—
Strauss: No, something more general. What does this imply, this simple schema?
Student: Development.
Strauss: Development everyone has.
Student: An end.
Strauss: End, end: a teleological view. And with a questioning of the teleological view, this has
to be questioned.25

Strauss makes a similar point in the seventh session when he appears to correct the translation of

the Emile being read, which allows him to draw a connection between the Emile and the Second

Discourse:

Mr. Reinken: “There comes a stage in life beyond which we progress backwards. I feel I have
reached this stage. I am, so to speak, returning to a past career. The approach of age makes us
recall the happy days of our childhood.”
Strauss: Yes, he says “of the first age,” and this has, of course, an ambiguity. While in the
immediate context it naturally refers to childhood, it can also mean something else: the first age of
the world, the childhood of the human race. Let us stop here. You remember this phrase, “the
first age,” occurs in this passage in the Second Discourse where he praises the state of the savages.
[Inaudible] This throws again light on the reason why Rousseau questions teleology. Maturity is
not simply, i.e. in every respect, superior to childhood, which I believe everyone would admit.
The question is only whether it is superior in the decisive respect, not in every respect. But this
way of thinking which Rousseau adopts leads eventually, of course, to the equality of ages,
babyhood all the way up to the last decrepitude of the man of 100.26

And in the eighth session, this time on the topic of Rousseau’s reference to providence and

perfection, Strauss summarizes how Rousseau implicitly calls teleology into question. He

25
Ibid., 124-25.
26
Ibid., 165-66. Cf., Emile, in CW 13, 276; and Second Discourse, in CW 2, 40.
 13

explains, “What [Rousseau] says is meant to throw doubt on the teleology; these doubts which

were expressed by his remarks about the superfluous faculties, by his assertion that the

perfection of man beyond the stage of savages was bad for the species, which is incompatible

with the teleology, because if the perfection of inlaid faculties is bad, then it cannot simply be a

providential order.”27

Strauss’s interpretation, especially in Natural Right and History and certain portions of

the 1962 Seminar on Rousseau, primarily emphasizes Rousseau’s adherence to the tradition of

thought begun by Machiavelli and Hobbes. In doing this, Strauss draws attention most

frequently to the ways in which Rousseau is at least questioning, if not wholly rejecting

Aristotelian and Thomistic teleology. We may add to this that, despite the significant overlap

with the 1962 Seminar on Rousseau, Natural Right and History appears to hold a more extreme

version of Strauss’ interpretation of Rousseau as an anti-teleological thinker. There we find him

maintain with greater force the consequences of Rousseau’s philosophy. For example, that by

exonerating nature and distinguishing human evils as social and historical, Rousseau empties

nature of its meaningfulness as an end or standard. That is, by separating man from nature,

Rousseau is able to preserve nature’s goodness, but he simultaneously makes original man

subhuman and places nature out of reach as an ideal. Strauss takes Rousseau’s implicit point to

be that, “if the state of nature is subhuman, it is absurd to go back to the state of nature in order

to find a norm for man.”28 According to Strauss, man becomes “almost infinitely perfectible” for

Rousseau because “there is no natural constitution of man to speak of: everything specifically

human is acquired or ultimately depends on artifice or convention.”29 Strauss explains:

27
Ibid., 187.
28
Ibid., 274.
29
Ibid., 271.
 14

The very indefiniteness of the state of nature as a goal of human aspiration made that state the
ideal vehicle of freedom. To have a reservation against society in the name of the state of nature
means to have a reservation against society without being either compelled or able to indicate the
way of life or the pursuit for the sake of which the reservation is made. The notion of a return to
the state of nature on the level of humanity was the ideal basis for claiming a freedom from society
which is not a freedom for something.30

From this standpoint, Strauss’s Rousseau is motivated by the desire to defend a genuine sense of

human freedom, even if this must be done at the expense of a sense of purposefulness or

meaning in human affairs: “Rousseau could not have maintained the notion of the state of nature

if the depreciation or ex-inanition of the state of nature which he unintentionally effected had not

been outweighed in his thought by a corresponding increase in the importance of independence

or freedom.”31 In the final analysis, Strauss understands Rousseau to hold a fundamentally anti-

teleological position through which he frees man from proscribed ends, but which results in

nature devoid of meaning and a human existence that cannot be understood as “pointing beyond

itself toward society” or any other substantial end.32

Strauss’ interpretation of Rousseau has been tremendously influential, paving the way for

subsequent interpreters who predominantly understand Rousseau an anti-teleological

30
Ibid., 294.
31
Ibid., 278.
32
Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 52. Both in
this text and in Natural Right and History it is apparent that for most men the good life will be to live in the context
of the society that Rousseau lays out in the Social Contract, where all live together under the dictates of the volonté
générale. However, in What is Political Philosophy, Strauss seems to recognize that what may be the case for most
men will not suffice for the rare few. He explains: “Since the concern with self-preservation compels man to enter
society, man ought to go back beyond self-preservation to the root of self-preservation. This root, the absolute
beginning, is the feeling of existence, the feeling of sweetness of mere existence. By giving himself to the sole
feeling of his present existence without any thought or care of the future, by thus living in blessed oblivion of every
care and fear, the individual senses the sweetness of all existence: he has returned to nature. It is the feeling of one’s
existence which gives rise to the desire for the preservation of one’s existence. This desire compels man to devote
himself entirely to action and thought, to a life of care and duty and misery, and therewith cuts him off from the bliss
which is buried in his depth of origin. Only very few men are capable of finding the way back to nature. The
tension between the desire for preservation of existence and the feeling of existence expresses itself therefore in the
insoluble antagonism between the large majority who in the best case will be good citizens and the minority of
solitary dreamers who are the salt of the earth. Rousseau left it at this antagonism” (ibid., 53). It is possible to take
Strauss to be leaving the door open to an alternate reading slightly more amenable to teleological interpretation. For
Rousseau, the sentiment of existence is not only a feeling of being witness to the order of nature, but being a part of
that order oneself. For the rare few, the transcendence of society in the direction of man’s earliest beginnings is
simultaneously a transcendence in the direction of man’s highest end as Rousseau understood it, namely as the deep
philosophic feeling and contemplation that he bound together in the word reverie.
 15

philosopher. If we examine only those interpreters who are willing to consider Rousseau’s

metaphysical thinking, we find the anti-teleological interpretation fairly well-defined. Marc

Plattner, for example, believes that Rousseau is forced to write esoterically because he

understood that his views on the state of nature did not accord with Christian doctrine.33 His

interpretation is meant to better understand the individualist-collectivist tension in Rousseau’s

work. To the extent that Plattner considers Rousseau’s teleology, he does so through a political

lens, and determines that “Rousseau follows not Epicurean physics but the mechanistic physics

of the moderns,” and he even finds that “the Second Discourse attributes more to matter than did

Descartes.”34 Plattner concludes that Rousseau’s understanding of nature and human nature

requires a modern mechanistic understanding of the world, and is therefore fundamentally

“incompatible with the traditional doctrine of faculties… which is bound up with a teleological

understanding of nature.”35 Man is merely a physical and historical being and his developments

are chance accidents of a mechanistic system that lack meaning or purpose.36

Roger Masters is both more open to a teleological reading of Rousseau and yet is still

fairly closed to the possibility of Rousseau’s having accepted any sort of final causality. He

disagrees with Plattner’s modern material determinist interpretation of Rousseau, instead

believing Rousseau to be equally on guard against dogmatic objections whether religious or

scientific. On Master’s understanding, Rousseau’s commitment to man’s freedom makes it

33
Plattner, Rousseau’s State of Nature (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1979), 31ff.
34
Ibid., 35 and 43.
35
Ibid., 50.
36
Ibid., 51. All of this pushes Plattner to deny that Rousseau was serious when he argues for man’s
spiritual freedom. Lee MacLean, following Strauss in other ways, takes issue with Plattner’s denial of Rousseau’s
position on freedom. But while MacLean believes freedom to be man’s specific difference, she ultimately takes no
issue with Plattner’s anti-teleological reading. Citing Rousseau’s claim in the Second Discourse that without
impetus man would have forever remained in the state of nature, MacLean writes in her chapter on “Free Will and
Human Development” that “Rousseau in this way indicates that nothing about man’s endowment for the faculties
points to an end or goal that would constitute his natural good or fruition” (The Free Animal: Rousseau on Free Will
and Human Nature [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013], 51).
 16

equally impossible for him to accept either a modern materialist account or a classical

teleological account of nature and human nature. Masters believes Rousseau to have an

organized metaphysical position, but he understands this position through the study of man’s

faculties. He explains that according to Rousseau, “only man has the potentiality of a degree of

freedom similar to that of God.” Therefore, in a peculiar way, man and God are self-limiting,

and “accidental material causation (extrinsic to the nature of the individual as an animal) was

necessary for man to become perfected and thus corrupted.”37 The high degree of human

freedom in Rousseau’s system means that it is possible for man to be out of sync with the order

of the cosmos, and thus similarly possible that “the perfection of the individual is inconsistent

with the perfection of the species.”38 While he recognizes the difficulties that Rousseau’s

apparent dualism entails, he points out that Rousseau sought to be metaphysically neutral. That

is, Rousseau did not want his system of thought to be fully dependent on a metaphysical system

that might possibly have “insoluble objections,” and thus he crafted his works so that the

metaphysical positions were, in Masters’s words, “detachable.” But this amounts to nothing

more than a rhetorical stance, and even if Rousseau’s metaphysical thinking is taken as Masters

explains it, on his reading, Rousseau still holds that “there is no end or telos.”39

Arthur Melzer seems to be the most circumspect of interpreters in the line of Strauss. On

the one hand, he echoes Masters’ by understanding Rousseau’s notion of man as an ends-

positing being, and he recognizes the metaphysical implications of Rousseau’s thought. He

writes, “each thing exists most fully precisely by ignoring the call of ‘order’—of ends and

essences—by remaining free and wild, by cleaving to its inner uniqueness and particularity, by

37
Roger Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 67-
68 n52.
38
Ibid., 62 n28.
39
Ibid.
 17

‘being itself.’… Each man, containing the source of his happiness and of his being within

himself, has no essential connection to anything outside him, whether social or metaphysical.”

On the other hand, Meltzer is not so quick as others to deny the teleological features of

Rousseau’s thought. He actually describes Rousseau’s doctrine as resting on a “new,

individualistic or Romantic or antiteleological teleology,” and he subsequently explains that

“Rousseau’s theory of self-love leads to a radical new kind of individualism, not merely political

but, as it were, ontological.” 40 But while these statements seem to recognize the appearance of

teleological themes in Rousseau’s work, Meltzer’s final analysis points the reader in a different

direction: “The classical doctrine of self-love is based on a teleological metaphysics that gives

meaning to the notion of degrees of being, but Rousseau, while rejecting teleology, makes no

systematic attempt to elaborate an alternative metaphysics that might account for such

phenomena.”41 Ultimately, Meltzer contends that Rousseau avoids making any metaphysical

claims in his philosophy (at least in his own name), and at bottom he understands Rousseau as an

anti-teleological thinker.

Now the merits of these interpretations should not be overlooked, nor should the textual

evidence on which they are based be marginalized. After all, it is Rousseau who first exonerates

nature by emphasizing the role that human beings play in their own free development, and who

then explains the transition from the natural to the civil state by reference to “the fortuitous

concatenation of several foreign causes.”42 Rousseau is both more emphatic about human

freedom as an element of our autonomous natures and more attentive to human history than

many philosophers, and in so doing he sets himself in opposition to Aristotelian and Thomistic

teleology. There is, then, good reason to read Rousseau as an anti-teleological philosopher, for

40
Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 42.
41
Ibid., 47.
42
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 42.
 18

in many respects he distinguishes himself from those philosophers, Aristotle and Aquinas in

particular, whose positions are obviously teleological, and thereby casts himself in the line of

early modern thinkers that include Machiavelli, Bacon, Descartes, and of course, Hobbes. Yet,

from the fact that Rousseau denies teleology in certain respects, it does not necessarily follow

that he rejects teleology completely. And even if he had completely rejected Aristotelian and

Thomistic teleology, it still would not follow that he eschewed teleology in every possible

formulation in his own thought. In fact, there appear to be several aspects of Aristotelian and

Thomistic teleology that profoundly influenced Rousseau’s thinking, and which he attempted to

preserve in his own thought.43

Strauss himself seems to have recognized this, though he pays attention to the possibility

of Rousseau’s teleological thought in varying degrees in his three significant treatments of

Rousseau. Even in Natural Right and History, the examination bearing only the slightest witness

to Rousseau’s teleological thinking, Strauss clearly recognizes Rousseau’s affinity for classical

models of excellence, and even concedes that “the state of nature tended to become for Rousseau

a positive standard.”44 And if Strauss’ willingness to consider Rousseau’s teleological thought is

attenuated in Natural Right and History, this is certainly not the case in “On the Intention of

Rousseau.” There Strauss is notably more willing to contend that Rousseau’s argument in the

43
For example, in the Physics, Aristotle asserts, “as a general proposition, the arts either, on the basis of
Nature, carry things further than Nature can, or they imitate Nature. If then, artificial processes are purposeful, so
are natural processes too; for the relation of antecedent to consequent is identical in art and in Nature” (II.8, 199a15-
a20). And later he distinguishes between natural and violent motions (IV.8, 215a1-a25 and V.6, 231a5-a10). This
basic position is very similar to what we see Rousseau propose with regard to education in the Emile (Emile, in CW
13, 162-63).
44
Strauss, Natural Right and History, 282; see also 252 where Strauss maintains: “The first crisis of
modernity occurred in the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau was not the first to feel that the modern
venture was a radical error and to seek the remedy in a return to classical thought… But Rousseau was not a
“reactionary.” He abandoned himself to modernity. One is tempted to say that only through thus accepting the fate
of modern man was he led back to antiquity. At any rate, his return to antiquity was, at the same time, an advance of
modernity. While appealing from Hobbes, Locke, or the Encyclopedists to Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch, he
jettisoned important elements of classical thought which his predecessors had still preserved.” On these and similar
occasions in Natural Right and History, Strauss shifts the focus from the way in which Rousseau differed from his
modern predecessors to the way in which he advanced the tradition of thought that they had initiated.
 19

First Discourse rests on a clearly teleological classical positon. He writes, “we must add an

important qualification. When Rousseau asserts that there is a natural incompatibility between

society and science, he understands ‘natural’ in the Aristotelian sense, and he means that genuine

science is incompatible with a healthy society.”45 Strauss’ point here is that the argument for the

incompatibility between science and society rests on the Aristotelian notion of forms and ends.

He expands upon this at some length in the final section of the article where he explains the

peculiar way in which Rousseau attempted to bring the ancient and modern modes of thinking

into harmony with one another:

In opposition to the Enlightenment [Rousseau] reasserts the crucial importance of the natural
inequality of men with regard to intellectual gifts. But he avoids the political consequences that
the classics drew from this principle, by appealing to another classical principle, namely, the
disproportion between the requirements of science and those of society: he denies that the
conclusion from the fact of natural inequality to the demand for political inequality is valid. The
disproportion between the requirements of science and those of society permits him to build a
fundamentally egalitarian politics on the admission, and even the emphatic assertion, of the natural
inequality of men in the most important respect. One is tempted to say that Rousseau was the first
to meet Plato’s and Aristotle’s challenge to democracy on the level of Plato’s and Aristotle’s
reflections, and that it is this fact that accounts for his unique position in the history of democratic
doctrine.

And he finally concludes:

[Rousseau] is thus led to replace the classical definition of man as the rational animal by the
definition of man as a free agent, or the idea of human perfection by that of human perfectibility…
All the serious difficulties with which the understanding of Rousseau’s teaching remains beset,
even if the principle suggested in this article is accepted, can be traced to the fact that he tried to
preserve the classical idea of philosophy on the basis of modern science.46

Strauss undoubtedly displays greater openness to Rousseau’s teleological thinking in “On the

Intention of Rousseau” than he does in Natural Right and History. In many ways, Strauss

appears to be much closer to the pure consideration of Rousseau’s thought in the former, whereas

in the latter he is more intent on examining the historical consequences of Rousseau’s thought,

which necessarily leads away from the best articulation of Rousseau’s philosophy.47

45
Strauss, “On the Intention of Rousseau,” 467.
46
Ibid., 486-87.
47
Cf., Meier, Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem, 67-68, 72.
 20

If there is still need for further confirmation that Strauss did, indeed, recognize the

possibility of Rousseau’s teleological thinking, the 1962 Seminar on Rousseau provides it. To

begin with, the occasions when Strauss focuses on the way Rousseau questions teleology shows

that he only means to say that Rousseau questions classical and medieval teleology and its

consequences, and not that he denies teleology altogether. Strauss rarely acknowledges this

distinction between proper teleology, that is Aristotelian or Thomistic teleology, and the version

of teleology that Rousseau might maintain, but it surfaces periodically and is clearly important

for Strauss’ interpretation. One clear indication of this distinction comes in the seventeenth

session of the seminar when Strauss asserts, “Now if we turn to the content of Rousseau’s

contemplation and of his understanding of nature, I think it goes through the book obscured more

than once, but still again and again noticeable: there is not an end, telos, proper. In this respect,

Rousseau agrees with the broad trend in modern thought, the rejection of teleology.”48 Put this

way, it appears as if Rousseau’s rejection of teleology can only be maintained on the basis of this

distinction, raising the question of what teleology Rousseau may hold if not a teleology “proper”

as Strauss contends.

Recognizing the need for a distinction between the teleology Rousseau may hold and the

teleology proper that he does not, we are better able to understand some of Strauss’ other

statements in the seminar. For example, on the heels of the exchange in the sixth session cited

above, Strauss reminds his students, “Only one thing we must keep in mind: that the teleology,

while still subsisting in Rousseau, is qualified, [as] we will find. If we do not see that we will

not understand him.”49 And in the seventh session, Strauss is very clear about the fact that when

Rousseau speaks of natural man in the strict sense, that “naturalness thus understood is indeed

48
Strauss, Seminar in Political Philosophy: Rousseeau, 484.
49
Ibid., 126.
 21

naturalness as an end, telos.”50 And in yet another exchange Strauss appears to grudgingly

accept that Rousseau holds “a kind” of telology:

Student: There is one more thing that has bothered me all the way through, in a way. How [do]
you reconcile the emphasis on every stage having its perfection kind of way of looking at things—
and all his great words: the child may be dead tomorrow, and so let him live today—with what is
quite obvious from the examples—a passage like this brings it out—that in fact there is a
teleology, the child becomes a man.
Strauss: Yes, a kind [of teleology]…51

On this last occasion, to be fair, Strauss has much to say that downplays the “kind of teleology”

that Rousseau may hold, but it is nevertheless clear that Strauss at least accepts that Rousseau

has a teleology of a sort, though he does not appear to have inquired into this. What kind of a

teleology Rousseau holds thus remains an open question, and this question sits at the heart of this

study.

It has become common among contemporary historians of thought to claim that the

modern turn was initiated by a decisive reconsideration of teleology in the thought of key early

modern philosophers and scientists like Machiavelli, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and

others.52 But the history of teleological thought is far more complex than this view would

suggest. While many early modern philosophers and scientists did indeed reject Aristotelian and

Thomistic teleology insofar as they rejected the explanatory value of the actualization of forms,

not all of them dispensed with the notion of final causality altogether, and many continued to

hold that final cause was still a necessary mode of understanding the world. In this way, figures

like Gassendi, Boyle, Fermat, Leibniz, and even Newton might be better understood as

attempting to reconcile in a modern metaphysics the tension between the premises of modern

50
Ibid., 164-65.
51
Ibid., 201; see also 277.
52
Cf., E.A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954),
98-99; Charles B. Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 5. To
some extent, even Strauss can be placed in this category.
 22

science and the demand to answer classical questions regarding the purposefulness of the

world.53

It may be more accurate to place Rousseau in this category rather than strictly in the

company of Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hobbes. After all, it is also Rousseau who

persistently gives the reader cause to doubt the account of nature and human nature that makes

no reference to ends; who has a nuanced understanding of probability and chance; who

frequently and consistently references nature’s beneficence and God’s providence in his

explanations of human life; who deifies nature and often expresses nature’s operations in the

context of its benevolent intentions; who explains nature as a dynamic condition whereby man is

faced with challenges which he must overcome for his own well-being; who contends that

natural and physical circumstances are responsible for a great portion of man’s ongoing

development; who makes human freedom insufficient to account for the development of civil

society by making original man a near brute; and who seems to constantly invite questions of

who or what is responsible for the long stretch of human history that he places between the state

of nature and the civil state.

Rousseau may, indeed, deny classical and medieval teleological models, but it is less

clear that his own philosophy is fundamentally anti-teleological. In fact, it seems as though

Rousseau meant for questions of physiodicy and teleology to occupy an important and ongoing

role in the consideration of his philosophy, and further, that he saw a pedagogical benefit in the

fact that some of these questions are subject to “insoluble objections.”54 There is, then, good

cause to consider the possibility of Rousseau’s teleological thought, and not to overlook the way
53
For more on the shift in teleological thinking in the early modern era, see Margaret J. Osler, “From
Immanent Natures to Nature as Artifice: The Reinterpretation of Final Causes in the Seventeenth-Century Natural
Philosophy,” in The Monist 79.3, “Causality Before Hume” (July 1996), 388-407.
54
By “physiodicy” I mean something parallel to “theodicy,” namely a justification of nature in view of the
actuality of evil, corruption, and suffering in the world. This term is frequently used in Rousseau literature to
indicate his explanation and justification of nature.
 23

we are drawn back into the consideration of nature and human nature from more overtly

teleological perspectives. This openness to a teleological interpretation is precisely what we see

in those interpretations that contrast with anti-teleological interpretations, and especially in the

work of Ernest Hunter Wright, Ernst Cassirer, Jeffrey Smith, and Jonathan Marks.55

55
Cf., E.H. Wright, The Meaning of Rousseau (London: Oxford University Press, 1929); Ernst Cassirer,
The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, trans. Peter Gay (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975); Jeffery A.
Smith, “Natural Happiness, Sensation, and Infancy in Rousseau’s Emile,” Polity, vol. 35, no. 1 (autumn 2002); and
Jonathan Marks, Perfection and Disharmony in the Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005). Ernest Hunter Wright is perhaps the earliest proponent of the teleological interpretation of
Rousseau. According to Wright, Rousseau’s conception of nature is twofold. On the one hand, it is a primordial
complex of vast and ongoing potential that marshals right for the individual and the species. He writes, “Nature is
right because nature is more than desire, because conscience and reason are its better part.… Nature is right again
because she has given man to know a certain liberty” (7-8). He explains that, by encompassing these aspects of
humanity, nature “implies perpetual change” in the individual, the cultivation of the human faculties, and the
development of the individual no less than the species toward its highest point. But the drive that nature manifests
wants for purpose if the end cannot be understood as well. Thus, nature is a positive standard by which the height of
the thing may be surmised and against which all attempts may be measured or judged on the other hand. By arguing
that nature is fundamentally good and elaborating on the components of human nature, Rousseau is suggesting this
twofold arrangement wherein nature is at once the formal and final cause of the thing. To say that something is
natural, for example “natural man,” is to say that it is good, but not to absolve the thing of the context wherein it is
good. “There is a vast difference between a natural man in the state of nature and a natural man in the civil state,”
he explains, “…for it really comes to saying that we are natural as long as we are true to our own nature” (8-10). For
Wright, then, the return to nature that so famously characterized Rousseau is nothing more than a striving for the
goodness represented in nature understood as an abstract positive standard.
Cassirer’s moderated genetic methodology yields an understanding of Rousseau that is generally in keeping
with Wright, but which unapologetically opens up and makes use of the Kantian view of Rousseau as a means to
exploring his teleological thought. Cassirer understands man, according to Rousseau, to be an ends-positing being,
but unlike anti-teleological interpreters, he sees man’s end-positing activity as the ultimate end toward which he is
oriented. The history of man following his exit from the state of nature, according to Cassirer, does not stop “until
[man] has devised for himself a new form of existence that is his own” (105). In fact, on Cassirer’s reading, the
history of man is a history of overcoming that culminates in this form of existence: “man must become his own
savior and, in the ethical sense, his own creator. In his present form society has inflicted the deepest wounds on
humanity; but society alone can and should heal these wounds. The burden of responsibility rests upon it from now
on” (76). Therefore, where Strauss and those that follow him see Rousseau as emptying nature of its meaning,
Cassirer and those that subscribe to the Kantian interpretation of Rousseau, for example Tracy Strong, see this as a
necessary step in man’s teleological development toward his fullest ethical, self-legislating freedom. For the sake of
comparison, see Kant, Conjectural Beginning of Human History, in On History, trans. Lewis White Beck (New
York: Macmillan, 1963).
The teleological interpretation of Rousseau comes to its highest point, however, in the work of Jeffrey
Smith and Jonathan Marks. Drawing a contrast between the Second Discourse and the Emile, Smith concedes some
ground to traditional interpretations by agreeing that the Second Discourse presents Rousseau’s appeal to nature in
terms that make it difficult to identify his teleological position therein. But he strongly contends that the Emile
presents a teleological account of nature and man, relating that “the teleological account of nature in Book I…
culminates at the zenith of man’s given potential, in a way of living and choosing governed by a particular ‘idea of
happiness of perfection given us by reason’” (96). Smith explains that “Rousseau’s ‘true study’ in the Emile ‘is that
of the human condition,’ and, in particular, of the teleological direction that he perceives within human nature” (94).
He uses his interpretation of the Emile to rediscover the teleological threads that are present in Rousseau’s other
texts, tracing these not only to Rousseau’s Letters Written from the Mountain and his Preface to the Letter to
Charles Bordes, but also back to the Second Discourse itself. He explains, “The ‘material’ of man’s nature, being
 24

The object of this dissertation is to explore what has been largely overlooked in Rousseau

scholarship as the result of the nearly wholesale acceptance of him as an anti-teleological

philosopher, and namely to ask what kind of teleology Rousseau can be said to hold. Our

position is not an outright denial of the anti-teleological interpretation, but rather it is a

moderation of it, and one that is aimed at discovering Rousseau’s teleology out of his positive

and negative thought on teleology more broadly. We find in Rousseau a subtly stated position

that accommodates positions that seem to be mutually exclusive. Starting with man, Rousseau

rejected the notion of fixed immanent forms that determine the way in which one moves toward

perfection, that is, the actualization of immanent forms. However, he replaced immanent forms

with a new concept of human nature that represented man’s natural form as a conglomeration of

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” (95). Read in light of the teleological teaching in the
Emile, the subtext of the hypothetical history given in the Second Discourse is that, “With the pollution of natural
necessity it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for the internal impulsions of nature to direct [man] toward what is
good for him” (118). Smith makes a number of interpretive gains for the teleological interpretation of Rousseau, not
the least of which is his argument that the principles at work in the Emile are those, even if differently employed,
that are at work in Rousseau’s other texts. His suggestion is, therefore, that Rousseau’s teleological thinking
underlies his moral and political thought, if not his entire system of philosophy.
Marks makes similarly impressive strides toward a more thoroughgoing teleological interpretation of
Rousseau. He confronts key figures in Rousseau scholarship who have advanced the anti-teleological interpretation,
and he raises questions regarding what must be forcibly denied in order to maintain certain positions. For example,
in considering the work of Strauss and Cassirer, Marks argues that “Rousseau’s thought, in fact, moderates the
extravagant hopes for social reform that he is thought to encourage,” first, by being reflectively pessimistic, and
second, by positioning nature such that it imposes limits on human freedom (51). Like Wright, Marks tries to
consider Rousseau’s works together as a subtle and carefully articulated whole. In so doing, and not surprisingly, he
finds “that the human good, in Rousseau’s view, comprises disparate and disharmonious elements.” But far from
seeing this as evidence of Rousseau’s pessimistic abandonment of teleology altogether, he recognizes in Rousseau’s
explanation of nature’s and man’s disunity that “the coexistence of these elements, not the unity gained when one
element or its apparent opposite is unreservedly embraced, is the end uniting Rousseau’s various models of human
happiness and projects of reform” (55). On Marks’s interpretation, Rousseau recognizes the difficulties of equating
the original and the natural, but he uses this as a provisional stepping off point for the consideration of what is
natural to man (15-16, 16n2, and 20ff.). In the midst of this, Marks believes that “Rousseau seeks not some
approximation of a natural beginning untouched by perfectibility, but a natural end or perfection for human beings”
(56). Marks understands that end or perfection as requiring a “delicate arrangement of conflicting goods” in the
ordering of man’s constitution and activity, from which he suggests that Rousseau’s oeuvre is a meditation on how
the “perfection of a naturally disharmonious being” is possible (ibid.). Like Smith, Marks makes important gains for
the teleological interpretation of Rousseau’s philosophy. His argument rests on the possibility that Rousseau has a
more robust understanding of natural ends than his arguments on the human faculties would lead a reader to believe.
Marks contents that a close consideration of Rousseau’s oeuvre shows that he thinks “our natural dispositions not
only do not exclude historical development but unfold, are extended and strengthened, in history,” and that
“Rousseau finally does urge us to think in this teleological way” (3).
 25

principles, faculties, and capacities amounting to his perfectibility. For Rousseau, perfectibility

implies that man is constantly and continuously developing, thus man’s natural form becomes

something malleable within certain limits imposed by nature itself. To the extent that man

responds to the demands of the environment, he is fully actualized in each moment of his

existence, and thus happy.

At the same time, because Rousseau understands man as in motion and actively

developing, and because he also understands nature as informing that development, he also

understands man with reference to his potential for becoming. And insofar as nature informs

man’s development, Rousseau understands nature as proposing ends and perfections. In order

for man to freely develop, though, the ends that nature proposes to him must be appropriate to

his development, and thus must shift with him as his natural form shifts. For Rousseau, then,

just as natural forms are malleable, so too final causes are mutable or progressive, continuously

drawing development into the future without terminating. At the level of the individual,

perfection is represented as the fully cultivated set of natural dispositions by which man lives

naturally and can be, not merely content, but truly happy. The corresponding perfection in the

world of man’s affairs is represented as the dynamic condition of his existence wherein a moving

harmony exists between man and the succession of ends that are continually proposed to him in

the form of challenges and obstacles to his desires. And at the cosmological level, finally,

perfection is represented as the conservation of a perfect and beneficent system, the natural order

of which is established on the basis of God’s wisdom and beneficence.

For Rousseau, the natural order is immediately available to us through our sense

experience and through common sense, which derives its ideas from pure sense experience

alone. We witness in the natural order a system of physical laws that is set up with the greatest
 26

economy to conserve the whole of the system and all of its parts. Such a system can only be

understood as the action of a first cause understood as an omnipotent and omnibeneficient God

who establishes the world and the natural order that sustains it. Thus, the natural order is

rigorous and pervasive, and because it is constituted and established as the result of God’s

perfect wisdom, beneficence, justice, and power, it neither requires Him to intervene nor could

his intervention improve the outcome of the perfect system. For the natural order to be the best

possible order, though, it must also be a moral order, for it is better that the good be freely

chosen than forcibly dictated. For the natural order to be a moral order, there must be parts

within the integrated whole that are also free and empowered to seek or resist the ends that are

proposed by and within the natural order. Man is such a free part; he is a physical being who is

also a spiritual being. Because man must be free, the universe cannot, therefore, be a

homogenous whole. The heterogeneous whole is good in two ways: it is physically good in

virtue of the natural order that conserves the whole and its parts, and it is morally good in virtue

of the fact that it affords man, a spiritually free part, the opportunity to pursue the good without

dictating to him that he must do so. In order that man may exercise his spiritual freedom, he is

created both perfect and imperfect; that is, he is perfectly constituted and yet insufficient and

incomplete. The exercise of man’s spiritual freedom is only possible because there is a

discrepancy between what he is and what he must become to remain in harmony with the natural

moral order.

Rousseau thus replaces the static immanent form in man with the notion of the peculiar

arrangement of man’s faculties, the conglomeration of which is his perfectibility; all at once,

man is guided by an innate sense of the rectitude of the natural order, but is free to consider and

decide upon courses of action as he see fit. While he is truly free, his nature (especially the
 27

dictates of his conscience) serves as a guide for his development, as does the natural environment

wherein the natural order is manifest to him. Yet, it is still not sufficient to ensure man’s genuine

freedom that Rousseau reject human nature conceived as a static immanent form. For, if the end

toward which one moves is fixed, in the sense of a terminus of natural development, then the end

of human development is still a foregone conclusion, and genuine human freedom is denigrated

at least to some extent. In order for Rousseau to make man truly free, the ends that are

represented and made manifest in the natural order cannot be static or fixed; the mutability of

man’s nature must be mirrored in the mutability of his ends in order to make perfectibility a

meaningful position. Perfectibility implies the possibility that man might develop for the better,

while his freedom suggests that it is possible that he may not. Nature, understood as the world

wherein the natural order is presented to man, constantly and continuously presents him with

opportunities for and challenges to his development—for the world, like man, is mutable and

ever-changing, even though, or perhaps because, the wise, just, and good providence that

governs the system is itself fixed. Therefore, because man is imperfect in the sense that he is

born and remains insufficient and incomplete, and because he has the ability to resist the voice of

his conscience (which is to say the ability to resist the moral order), evil is possible within the

system as the natural consequence of man’s freedom. Yet, the kinds of evil that are possible are

few. And in the final analysis, it is how man engages or fails to engage with the opportunities

and challenges in the world that determines the actualization of his self toward what is good. To

do so to the greatest extent is to live as a natural man regardless of the historical phase or

geographic locale wherein one exists.

There are, without doubt, important problems that the teleological interpretation of

Rousseau must face in order to arrive at a still more refined understanding of Rousseau’s
 28

philosophy. For one thing, the typical understanding of teleology that they advance tends to

sacrifice Rousseau’s insistence upon man’s freedom for some justification of natural ends—even

Marks admits at the outset of his book that the Rousseau who emerges in his interpretation is less

liberal than the individualistic Rousseau of more mainstream interpretations.56 Still more

problematic is the fact that scholars tended to approach Rousseau’s teleology through the lens of

teleology understood either through an ancient or early modern and materialistic model, neither

of which can do justice to the teleology that Rousseau employs. Marks, for example, whose

work is impressive, still seems to understand Rousseau as orienting man toward a terminus, even

despite the fact that he characterizes Rousseau’s explanation of nature as a dynamic state.

Scholars need to reconceive of teleology on new grounds, neither classical nor modern, in order

uncover the core of Rousseau’s thought here, and this interpretive task is still outstanding. The

present study aims to take on this task by considering the development of Rousseau’s

teleological thought over several of his works laid out across his intellectual formation. It is

guided by a demand to maintain the coherence and consistency of Rousseau’s philosophy

without denying any of the salient features of his thought, especially his obvious commitments to

human freedom and the guiding force of providential nature.

It is now possible to set down the plan of the following chapters.

The first chapter looks closely at Rousseau’s intellectual development and work leading

up to and following his illumination in 1749 in order to establish his clear and consistent

preoccupation with teleological issues and to identify the ground for his teleological thought.

First, we maintain the continuity of Rousseau’s thought before and after 1749 by understanding

his illumination on the road to Vincennes as the culmination of a long period of intellectual
56
Marks, Perfection and Disharmony, 1.
 29

struggle, which in many ways came to define his mature thought. Then, looking at his writings

on chemistry and music in particular, this chapter shows that during his early period of

intellectual development Rousseau was preoccupied with several issues of teleological

significance: questions about the premises of modern science and natural theology, tensions

between ancient and modern perspectives, and problems balancing forms and ends with a

recognition of modern science. These important elements demonstrate that the seeds of

Rousseau’s mature conceptions of teleology are present in at least a nascent form in his earlier

thought and writing, and with increasing intensity approaching his illumination. Finally, the

chapter tracks the movement of Rousseau’s teleological thought from its nascent form to its

mature conception by considering his thought on chemistry and music following the

illumination. These two areas of interest, and especially music, show that what was primarily a

preoccupation and struggle prior to 1749 is a firmly established teleological position thereafter,

and one that connects in an unexpected way with the other aspects of Rousseau’s thought. By

establishing this perspective on Rousseau’s intellectual development, this chapter lays the

groundwork for recognizing the elements of the teleological system present in Rousseau’s other

mature works.

The second chapter examines the Second Discourse, and asks whether Rousseau’s view

of nature and human nature in the Second Discourse can entail a teleological dimension without

disturbing the other important features of his argument. Rousseau pushes back against the

classical notion that understands man as directed by preset ends, but he is also reluctant to fully

subscribe to a more materialist explanation of human action. If we take Rousseau to be arguing

against the ends directing the individual (or even against classical causality broadly), should we

take him to be arguing against all ends ipso facto? And if a modern materialist conception is not
 30

meant to supplant the classical paradigm of the human being, then what should we take to be

Rousseau’s view of man? The tension between nature and history in the Second Discourse may

obscure another reading more consistent with Rousseau’s notion of teleology. If so, one must ask

of the Second Discourse whether it is possible that natural dispositions play an ongoing role in

human affairs and whether human faculties point to a form of perfection and happiness that

accords with Rousseau’s other philosophic works, especially the Emile.

The third chapter turns to a targeted reading of the Emile in order to continue answering

those questions opened up in our reading of the Second Discourse. How do we understand

Rousseau’s notion of teleology and how does it impact his understanding of human beings? The

Emile also treats nature and human nature, and Rousseau praises this text openly, for example, in

Dialogues I. But whereas the Second Discourse can give the impression that man’s completion is

radically individual and influenced only by historical and cultural forces, as Strauss and Meltzer

contend, key passages in the Emile offer a description of human nature, comparisons with the

development of plants, and an emphasis on nature as a positive standard that suggest a

teleological interpretation. These passages together with the “Profession of Faith” present a

clearly articulated teleological position that corresponds to and supports our interpretation of

Rousseau on nature and human nature in the Second Discourse, but which clarifies Rousseau’s

meaning and corrects possible misunderstandings. Though the “Profession of Faith” must be

measured against the fact that Rousseau places it in the mouth of a character, it may still

ameliorate the apparent tension between Rousseau’s views of nature and human nature on the

one hand, and of cosmology, providence, and perfection on the other. In sum, this chapter

assembles and analyzes passages from the Emile that continue to demonstrate Rousseau’s

teleological understanding of man and nature, and in so doing it continues to reveal the
 31

coherence of Rousseau’s thought across what appear to be works of disparate philosophic

positions.

The final chapter fully develops my interpretation of Rousseau’s teleology. After drawing

a connection between “The Profession of Faith” and the Letter to Voltaire, we will look at the

important synthesis demonstrated in the letter between Rousseau’s theodicy and physiodicy. The

Letter to Voltaire addresses the goodness of the natural order in relation to God’s providence,

and thus provides an excellent view of Rousseau’s notion of ends and perfections as an ongoing

and harmonious state of affairs (as opposed to a terminus). We will argue that because the letter

is meant to serve as a justification for the position that ours is the best of all possible worlds, it

shows how Rousseau understands the world as both purposeful or intentional, and supremely

good. The Letter to Voltaire is unique in working from top to bottom in the consideration of the

natural order, and so it reveals the way in which Rousseau’s broad teleological understanding of

the world registers on both the universal and particular levels by intersecting with his view of

human nature, and even the different natures he distinguishes. Here we will find that in the

Letter to Voltaire Rousseau’s broad teleological views intersect with his view of individual

human beings, and considered in light of his stratification of human natures, it suggests that there

are appropriate ends for each type of human being, which vary by many different factors, from

those impacting the species to those at the level of individual genius. Altogether, we will show

that Rousseau’s teleological conception of human nature, considered in light of his positions on

human types and cosmological perfection, is necessary to his broad teleological understanding of

the world; the framework of man’s inevitable corruption can now be understood as contributing

to a greater end because the contingency of history is positively necessary to the whole as a

perfect state of affairs.

 32

In these chapters I provide a close reading of Rousseau’s work in order to bring out the

various levels of his thought and reveal what I believe to be his thoroughgoing teleology. To

accomplish this close reading I make reference to many of the talented and insightful scholars

discussed above. While I do not always find their consideration of Rousseau’s teleology

convincing, their insight into so much of Rousseau’s thought cannot be praised highly enough.

With gratitude, I use the arguments and perspectives they advance to sharpen the understanding

of Rousseau necessary to see his thought in depth and clarity; in the process I try to correct many

of the problems inherent in both the anti-teleological and teleological positions. The subject of

Rousseau’s teleology is already controversial, and so to suggest not only that the anti-teleological

interpretation is inadequate, but also that the moderate cases for his teleology are still wanting,

runs the risk of being too bold. Nevertheless, I believe that this view of Rousseau’s teleological

thought accomplishes an important interpretive goal, namely to provide support for a coherent

and cohesive reading of the author’s oeuvre that opens a path to understanding his philosophy.
Chapter One: Rousseau’s Teleological Thought Before and After Vincennes

The present chapter has three principal goals. First, and most importantly, it will show that

during his early period of intellectual development Rousseau is preoccupied with several issues

of teleological significance—questions about the premises of modern science and natural

theology, tensions between ancient and modern perspectives, and problems balancing forms and

ends with a recognition of modern science. Turning to Rousseau’s early and relatively unstudied

texts, namely his work on chemistry and his musical writings prior to 1749, this chapter will

show that the seeds of Rousseau’s mature conceptions of teleology are present in at least a

nascent form in his earlier thought and writing, and with increasing intensity approaching his

illumination. Second, and more generally, this chapter aims to explain the continuity of

Rousseau’s life before and after 1749 by understanding his illumination on the road to Vincennes

as the culmination of a long period of intellectual struggle; because his struggle informs what he

gained after the illumination, Rousseau’s mature thought must be understood in light of this

intense struggle. Finally, this chapter will track the movement of Rousseau’s teleological

thought from its nascent form to its mature conception by considering his thought on chemistry

and music following the illumination. These two areas of interest, and especially music, show

that what was primarily a preoccupation and struggle prior to 1749 is a firmly established

teleological position thereafter. By establishing this perspective on Rousseau’s intellectual

development, this chapter lays the groundwork for recognizing the elements of the teleological

system present in Rousseau’s other mature works. In particular, by looking at Rousseau’s

thought on chemistry and music before and after 1749, we are able to see the way in which he is

struggling to come to terms with what appear to be the diametrically opposed elements of

33
 34

classical teleology and modern science, and we gain at least a provisional example of how he

reconciled these into his own distinct teleological system.

I. Rousseau’s Illumination

As Rousseau himself explains in the Third Walk of the Rêveries, there is a greater

continuity in Rousseau’s thought and writings, in fact in his philosophical life, than scholars

typically recognize. On this interpretation, Rousseau’s life exhibits a continuous and ongoing

struggle to “know the nature and the destination of [his] being.”1 This way of life makes peculiar

demands of anyone employed in the pursuit of knowledge, and so Rousseau can at all times be

observed moving between reason and sentiment, between doubt and affirmation, or between

polemics and withdrawal from society—all of which are, according to Rousseau, essential to

philosophic engagement. But never does Rousseau waiver from his philosophic mode of inquiry

and self-examination. In fact, despite the radical changes in self that he appears to convey in his

writings, both philosophic and autobiographical, Rousseau is clear about the fact that he finds

happiness in the activity of his philosophic way of life, not as an achievement, but precisely as an

ongoing pursuit.

Mainstream scholarship, however, tends to understand Rousseau’s life as divided

between a pre-philosophic era and the era of his sustained philosophic activity, defined by his

illumination on the road to Vincennes in 1749. While it is tempting to understand Rousseau’s

life in two halves, doing so unconditionally results in a serious interpretive misunderstanding.

Scholars who examine Rousseau’s early life and writings, many of whom are led back to these

by Rousseau’s Confessions and other autobiographical writings, tend to understand his mature
1
Rêveries, III, in CW 8, 18-19.
 35

thought as the consequence of a psychological profile developing from his earliest experiences,

which is to say not as a freely developed and articulated philosophical understanding.

Conversely, those scholars who focus primarily on the works published after 1749 overlook the

philosophic significance of Rousseau’s early thought, and tend to understand his philosophic

system as the product of the illumination alone. The former set of interpretations results in a

biographical or psychological reductionist understanding of Rousseau’s thought, while the latter

set results in an unbalanced understanding of his philosophy due to the limited scope of their

study. While Rousseau’s work can be divided by era, where his pre-philosophic writings are

objects of historical or psychological interest and his post-illumination work is the object of

political and philosophical interest, such a division foists an artificial framework onto Rousseau,

obscuring his philosophy as a whole and missing the importance of what happened both before

and after Vincennes.

One might here object that it is, in fact, Rousseau’s own accounts of his philosophic

development that appear to encourage the division of his life into eras before and after 1749,

especially the descriptions of his illumination. That the illumination experience was a pivotal one

for Rousseau is obvious from the fact that he felt the need to reference it in differing ways in

later writings.2 Scholars tend to accept it when Rousseau appears to be placing such great

emphasis on a seemingly transformative experience in intellectual and personal life.

Looking at the passage in his Letter to Malesherbes, where Rousseau’s description

captures not only the factual details of the experience but also his sentiments in the moment and

2
Major descriptions of Rousseau’s illumination experience occur in the Letter to Malesherbes of 1762, in
the Confessions, and in the Dialogues. The occurrence in the Dialogues presents the experience second hand
through one of Rousseau’s characters, thus creating an artificial distance from the experience in such a way that it
can serve in some capacity as an apology. In the Confessions, the account of the illumination experience is
tempered by Rousseau’s claim that the memory is then more distant than it had been even just a few years earlier.
The Letter to Malesherbes appears to be in many ways the fullest and most complete description of the illumination
experience. It is unfortunately beyond the scope of the present chapter to examine the variance of these
descriptions.
 36

following the experience, it is easy to understand why scholars have been so persuaded of a

division. This passage echoes the narrative found in the Third Walk of the Rêveries. Following

his decision to undertake a moral reform in his fortieth year, Rousseau says that a “fortunate

chance” happened to enlighten him.3 Interestingly, whereas in the Third Walk Rousseau fails to

mention his illumination experience, instead only vaguely referring to a “great revolution,” here

in the Letter to Malesherbes he downplays his early life and his moral reform to the point that the

illumination experience completely overshadows everything that came before. Immediately

notable here is the passion with which he recounts the experience, now thirteen years behind

him. He writes:

If anything has ever resembled a sudden inspiration, it is the motion that was caused in me by that
reading; suddenly I felt my mind dazzled by a thousand lights; crowds of lively ideas presented
themselves at the same time with a strength and a confusion that threw me into an inexpressible
perturbation; I feel my head seized by a dizziness similar to drunkenness. A violent palpitation
oppresses me, makes me sick to my stomach; not being able to breathe anymore while walking, I
let myself fall under one of the trees of the avenue, and I pass a half-hour there in such an agitation
that when I got up again I noticed the whole front of my coat soaked with tears without having felt
that I shed them.4

Clearly the original experience was powerful, but the experience appears to have hardly

diminished. It is almost as if Rousseau is transported back to the moment of the experience in

3
Malesherbes, in CW 5, 575. Two things are especially important to note here. First, the chance event
here is that he stumbled across the question proposed by the Academy of Dijon, which is to say not exactly
something supernatural or preordained. That this sort of event can be construed as an illuminating experience to
such an extent that it begins to be thought of as “revelatory” should raise questions about how Rousseau understands
the interrelation of the divine and the mundane or individual aspects of life. Still, it is important to note that
Rousseau does, in fact, restrain himself from calling this experience a “revelation.” Doing so would undercut the
importance of his preparatory activity before 1749.
Second, the Academy of Dijon posed the question “Has the restoration of the sciences and arts tended to
purify morals?” in October of 1749. Rousseau was thirty-eight years old when the question appeared in the Mercure
de France. In the narrative of the Letter to Malesherbes, however, Rousseau gives the impression that his moral
reform precedes the illumination, but was fruitless until he gained his pivotal insight. By contrast, the account given
in the Third Walk of the Rêveries fails to mention the illumination, but is true to the timeline. Rousseau may be
taking some artistic license here, describing the events that transpired as he neared his acme, but the effect is to
further suggest the continuity of his life. That is, factually speaking, if the illumination event happened in 1749,
then it preceded the moral reform that Rousseau undertook at age forty, possibly even prompting his moral reform as
is suggested in the Third Walk. But describing the moral reform as preceding the illumination further suggests that
such a mode of self-reflection is a precondition to the kind of philosophic insight that Rousseau gained in the
illumination experience.
4
Ibid.
 37

the retelling; he even reverts to the present tense in his description as if to close the distance

between what happened then and what power it holds over his life years later in the present

moment.

Equally powerful in Rousseau’s description is what he attributes to his illumination. In

the Letter to Malesherbes, the illumination experience becomes the centerpiece of Rousseau’s

intellectual and philosophic development. This presentation makes the event appear to be the

sole cause of Rousseau’s later thought. He explains:

Oh Sir, if I had ever been able to write a quarter of what I saw and felt under that tree, how clearly
I would have made all the contradictions of the social system seen, with what strength I would
have exposed all the abuses of our institutions, with what simplicity I would have demonstrated
that man is naturally good and that it is from these institutions alone that men become wicked.
Everything that I was able to retain of these crowds of great truths which illuminated me under
that tree in a quarter of an hour has been weakly scattered about in my three principle writings,
namely that first discourse, the one on inequality, and the treatise on education, which three works
are inseparable and together form the same whole.5

As if it were not enough to call the illumination “a singularly epoch-making moment in my life

and one that will always be present to me if I live eternally,”6 Rousseau then marks it as the

inspiration for and the cause of all the insights contained in the Discourse on the Arts and

Sciences, the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, and the Emile. Even these, he says, are

only a fraction of what he claims to have understood in that moment on the road to Vincennes.

In his sudden moment of inspiration he was exposed to an overwhelming arrangement of “great

truths” and “lively ideas,” as well as the ramifications of these in the world of lived experience.

Truly, the rhetorical description in the Letter to Malesherbes is a shining example of Rousseau’s

prose. By its beauty and passion, and through the set purpose for which it was written, it tempts

5
Ibid.
6
Ibid. This description raises questions about the one given in the Confessions, where Rousseau insists that
his memory of the experience is not as strong as it once was. Perhaps the Confessions, as an apologetic work of
autobiography, would risk too much by separating the main character from the audience as much as Rousseau was
actually separated from them by his philosophic insights. Still, even in that context Rousseau claims that “At that
moment of reading [the question posed by the Academy of Dijon] I saw another universe and I became another
man.” And only a few paragraphs later he claims that the feeling of the illumination maintained itself in him “to as
high a degree perhaps as it has ever been in the heart of any man.” Cf., Confessions, CW 5, 294-95.
 38

the reader to accept the most straightforward interpretation of the illumination experience, and in

the course of only a few paragraphs, Rousseau believably sets his entire philosophic endeavor

within the context of a sudden moment of inspiration.

Unfortunately, what is lost in this and other descriptions of the illumination is the fact

that all of Rousseau’s prior learning and experience, while not directly culminating in his

ultimate philosophic insight, are nevertheless the necessary precondition for his illumination.

That is, it is only because he had persevered in his struggle to attain some philosophic insight

that he gains the answer presented to him in the illumination; without severe and persistent

questioning there is no illumination. Therefore, when Rousseau intimates the continuity of his

philosophic way of life, he suggests that the illumination represents a culmination of a life spent

in pursuit of philosophic knowledge. Still, the passages where Rousseau suggests that continuity

are not the only indications that he has a more nuanced understanding of his illumination

experience than he appears to hold in the Letter to Malesherbes.

In the first note to his 1752 Final Reply, written when Rousseau claims to have still been

rapt by the experience of his illumination,7 he writes, “Before explaining myself, I meditated on

my subject at length and deeply, and I tried to consider all aspects of it,”8 pointing not to the

illumination but to his deliberate meditation as the source of his philosophic insight. In the 1763

Letter to Beaumont, Rousseau explains that he will use his “usual method” to reply to the

archbishop, giving the “history of my ideas as my only reply to my accusers.” For, he says, “I

cannot better justify all I have dared to say than by saying again everything I have thought.”9

But, when Rousseau turns to the history of his ideas, he turns to a time long preceding his

illumination. Not only does this place his illumination inside the chronology of his ongoing

7
See previous note.
8
Final Reply, in CW 2, 110 n*.
9
Letter to Beaumont, in CW 9, 51-52.
 39

study, it effectively attributes his mature insight to his lifelong study rather than to the

illumination alone. Finally, the Confessions, the autobiographical work wherein Rousseau

specifically claims to have been transformed by the illumination, shows that with ample support

from friends and benefactors, Rousseau became an intellectual titan, dedicating himself to the

study of mathematics and geometry, music, chemistry, biology, botany, physics, and astronomy

on the one hand, and to languages, history, economics, diplomacy, politics, sociology, and

philosophy on the other.10 Certainly, taken together these texts offer a considerably different

perspective on Rousseau’s philosophic development than does the Letter to Malsherbes.

The case for the continuity of Rousseau’s philosophic life is not meant to suggest that the

accounts of the illumination experience are chimerical, but rather to help define what the

illumination is for Rousseau’s philosophic development. In the process, the examination of the

illumination provides two important considerations for the study of his overarching philosophy

that are relevant to his teleological thought. First, understanding the illumination as anything

other than a culmination of his intellectual struggle would detract from the continuity of his life

expressed as his skeptical and zetetic philosophic way.11 This serves as a check against the

tendency to understand his mature philosophic thought as the consequence of the illumination

without any connection to the formation that was necessary to the illumination. Further, it

suggests to us that if teleology is fundamental to Rousseau’s philosophy, then it must appear at

least in some nascent form in his early thought.

10
Kelly, “Introduction,” CW 5, xxviii: “What is clear, although not dramatized so visibly, is that in the
years leading up this discovery Rousseau was engaged in an intensive intellectual development”; and “In the dozen
years before he wrote the First Discourse Rousseau had transformed himself from a failed apprentice and naïve
adventurer into someone with the intellectual resources to stun even an age that prided itself on its learning.” One
need only reflect on the message of the Fourth Walk to understand why Rousseau does not celebrate these
accomplishments more; certainly it is true that only fools aggrandize themselves, but more importantly, to
aggrandize himself would put Rousseau in violation of the dictates of his conscience. Cf., Rêveries, IV, in CW 8,
33-34; compare with his anecdotes of Fazy and Pleince thereafter.
11
On this point, consider Rêveries, III, in CW 8, 17ff.
 40

Second, and perhaps more important for the present study, recognizing Rousseau’s

illumination experience as the culmination of a long struggle makes manifest two qualities that

are critical to understanding Rousseau’s mature philosophy: prolonged struggle and clarity. In

his autobiographical writings, and especially in the accounts he gives in the proximity of his

descriptions of the illumination, Rousseau seems to suggest that his struggle was primarily

personal and social.12 Yet, as was noted above, the decade leading up to 1749 was a time of

intense intellectual development for Rousseau, and his early writings (those written before 1749)

demonstrate that his struggle was as intellectual and philosophical as it was personal and social.

Significantly, in Rousseau’s struggle there exist all the crucial elements of his mature philosophy

that erupt out of the “eureka” moment of his illumination. The illumination, as Rousseau

confirms, was in fact an unimaginable moment of sudden inspiration wherein all the various

objects of study and confusion and consternation almost instantly became clear in their natures

and associations. This philosophic clarity is what characterizes Rousseau’s life and work from

1749 until the end of his life, neither deviating from the mode of inquiry that he derived before

the illumination nor from the philosophical insight that he possessed after it. Struggle and clarity

are essential to one another here for understanding Rousseau’s philosophy.13 It is not possible to

fully appreciate the clarity that Rousseau gains in the illumination if his questions leading up to

12
For example, in the Letter to Malesherbes, Rousseau writes, “Soured by the injustices I had suffered, and
by those I had been the witness of, often afflicted by disorder where example and the force of things had dragged
me, I acquired a disdain for my century and my contemporaries and, feeling that in their midst I would not find a
situation that would satisfy my heart, little by little I detached it from the society of men” (CW 5, 575). And in Book
VII of the Confessions, it is Rousseau’s personal struggles that appear to set the stage for the description of his
illumination, including the account of his strange relationship with the Venetian courtesan, Zulietta (CW 5, 267-71),
and a downplayed account of having given up a child to a foundling home (CW 5, 287-89). Though, in the midst of
these personal accounts, and also prefacing the description of the illumination at the beginning of Book VIII, there
are references to Rousseau’s work both in chemistry and in music (CW 5, 287 and 292 respectively). See also
Christopher Kelly, “Rousseau’s Confessions” in The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001), 302-328. Kelly explains how Rousseau’s very personal account of his interaction with
Zulietta belies Rousseau’s preoccupation with the tension between nature and the world of lived experience. The
significance of Rousseau’s interest in chemistry and music will be developed in the following section.
13
The motif of struggle and clarity are also apparent in Rousseau’s mode of problematizing different
philosophical positions in his early writings. See below, note 35.
 41

the illumination are not sufficiently understood. The goal of the following sections is to begin to

discern some elements of Rousseau’s teleological thought from amongst his writings both before

and after Vincennes; from this it may be possible to discover a more refined teleological

framework in Rousseau’s more mature work.

II. Before Vincennes

As is the case with many of Rousseau’s later writings, his intellectual pursuits before

1749 appear to be externally motivated.14 His position as secretary to the French ambassador in

Venice encouraged him to gain a deeper knowledge of history and diplomacy; his employment

by certain families encouraged him to further his knowledge of political economy, music,

history, and the role of women; and even some of Rousseau’s interest in practical science may

have been motivated by the political drama in which he was marginally involved.15 In

consequence, Rousseau is often looked at as a mere dilettante in his areas of intellectual interest

when nothing could be further from the truth.

14
Just to cite a few examples, the First and Second Discourses were written in response to academic prize
competitions; the preface to Narcisse was an apologetic introduction for that work; the Discourse on Political
Economy and the original elements of his Dictionary of Music were articles for the Encyclopédie; both the
Confessions, which was the response to his publisher’s request, and the Dialogues were written for apologetic
purposes; his writings on Poland and Corsica were responses to requests by representatives of those countries; even
the posthumously published Lettres sur la botanique were written as instruction for the daughter of Mme. Delessert,
a Paris hostess. Interestingly, only a few works, notably the Social Contract and the Rêveries, appear to have been
developed independently of external influences. That some of his works were externally motivated should not
diminish the philosophical merits of the works themselves.
15
Rousseau’s failed attempt to develop “sympathetic ink” comes not long after he had run dangerously
close to participating in espionage during a time of civil and political unrest in Geneva. While at the residence of his
aunt and uncle Bernard, Rousseau appropriated several books and manuscripts, including one on the fortifications of
Geneva that was of particular strategic importance to Rousseau’s contacts in Chambéry. (See Confessions V, in CW
5, 181-183.) His ability to produce “sympathetic ink” is confirmed in anecdotes of his time serving as the secretary
to the French ambassador in Venice. Though he says the purpose of the ink was for magic tricks, the ability to
develop “invisible ink” must have been an incredible asset to a diplomatic secretary in a foreign land. (See Letters
Written from the Mountain, in CW 9, 175.)
 42

This is especially the case with Rousseau’s interest in the sciences. His intermittent and

seemingly disconnected courses of study and his apparent attack on science in the First

Discourse have predisposed many to write off his scientific interests.16 In fact, Rousseau’s

scientific writings are only now being reevaluated, the results of these reevaluations are

challenging the perception of him as a dilettante.17 The fruit of this reconsideration, though

recent, has been immense, raising questions about, among other things, the importance of his

scientific studies to his later philosophic work.18 At bottom, the reexamination of Rousseau’s

scientific work shows both his long-standing interest in science and that the breadth and depth of

his scientific knowledge rivaled any of those with whom he kept company in the société des gens

de lettres. In fact, it is because Rousseau has such a keen understanding of the sciences that he is

able to offer such an incisive critique of modernity in the First Discourse and the writings that

followed.

There are two areas of study in particular that are especially helpful for understanding

Rousseau’s teleological thought both before and after the illumination: chemistry and music.

Both areas of study were enduring interests for Rousseau, matched only by his interests in

16
For example, Institutions chimiques (a manuscript of more than 1200 pages) was not originally included
in Rousseau’s Oeuvres Complètes for having been perceived as of insignificant worth, and was only published after
having been rediscovered in the early twentieth century.
17
See: Mark Hulliung, The Autocritique of Enlightenment, Rousseau and the Philosophers (Cambridge,
MA: Havard University Press, 1994); Bruno Bernardi, La fabrique des concepts, researches sur l’invention
conceptuelle chez Rousseau (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2006); Bruno Bernardi and Bernadette Bensuade-Vincent,
“The Presence of Sciences in Rousseau’s Trajectory and Works,” in The Challenge of Rousseau (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013).
18
A few preliminary considerations are important here. First, in the eighteenth century science had
emerged as an interest in popular European culture and was widespread across divisions of class and status. Second,
Rousseau’s itinerant course of scientific study and the form of his scientific writings are typical of works in this
genre at the time. Third, there existed an amateur culture of scientific study, particularly in eighteenth century Paris,
and in comparison to the intellectuals in those circles, Rousseau was an obvious standout. See: Alan Morton, ed.,
“Science Lecturing in the Eighteenth Century,” special issue of British Journal for the History of Science 28 (1995),
Part I; Larry Stewart, The Rise of Public Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Bernadette
Bensuade-Vincent and Christine Blondel, eds., Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2008). For more on the importance of the sciences to Rousseau’s later work, see: Bruno Bernardi and
Bernadette Bensuade-Vincent, “The Presence of Sciences in Rousseau’s Trajectory and Works,” especially 67-75;
and Sally Howard Campbell and John Scott, “The Politic Argument of Rousseau’s Discourse on the Sciences and
Arts,” American Journal of Political Science 49, no. 4 (2005), 819-28.
 43

mathematics and botany. More importantly, though, Rousseau presents these two areas of study

as intertwined and especially prominent features of his life leading up to his illumination.19

Chemistry and music thus frame the struggle that preoccupied Rousseau in the years leading up

to 1749, as well as the clarity with which he developed his philosophic thought thereafter. It is

for these reasons that Rousseau’s intellectual involvement in these two areas must be adequately

understood as part of his overall intellectual and philosophic development.

II.1 Institutions chimiques—Chemistry was already a popular science before Rousseau’s

birth, and while it is possible that he had some exposure to medicine and alchemy as early as

1728, he cannot reliably be said to have firsthand experience of chemistry until the mid-1730s.20

But by 1737 it is clear that his interest in chemistry as a practical science had matured, even if

not to a principal study.21 By 1743, when Rousseau finds himself in Paris and connected with

the Dupin family, he is as familiar with the art and science of chemistry as many experts in the

field, and it is from this date that Rousseau begins his most formal study of chemistry.22

Reflecting on how he eventually came into the employ of the Dupin family, he writes, “M. de

Francueil was studying natural history and chemistry at that time and was making a collection. I

believe that he aspired to the Academy of Sciences: for that purpose he wanted to write a book,

19
See Confessions Book VII, in CW 5, 233-92.
20
In the Confessions, Rousseau notes with some condescension that Mme. de Warens had some
understanding of medicinal and alchemical work, which she had acquired from her father. Rousseau must have been
aware of this at the time, though his condescension suggests retrospection, and thus raises questions about the level
of his experience with Mme. de Warens’ chemical activities at that time (See CW 5, 42). Later Rousseau is more
obviously exposed to Mme. de Warens’ enterprises in Chambéry, wherein he would have gained greater
rudimentary knowledge of chemistry as a practical science (See CW 5, 170).
21
Ibid., 183. Rousseau had undertaken some formal study in physics and mathematics, and having seen
some chemical experiments performed, he attempted and failed in his first attempt to develop “sympathetic ink.”
22
Rousseau and M. de Francueil began taking a chemistry course with Guillaume-Fracnçois Rouelle in
March 1743. Guillaume François Rouelle (1703-1770) was a well-known French chemist and apothecary.
Chemistry courses were commonplace in Paris at this time, but Rouelle’s course was arguably the most outstanding.
It lasted three years and covered three kingdoms of nature, with a particular focus on the mineral. Notwithstanding
Rousseau’s absence during his brief diplomatic appointment in Venice, it can be assumed that he followed the
course to the end, either by his own presence or by virtue of Francueil’s notes.
 44

and he judged that I could be useful to him in this labor.”23 It is not simply because he had talent

as a writer that he was a valuable asset to Francueil, but also because, even before he began his

formal studies, he had already acquired a great understanding of chemistry.24 It is in this

atmosphere of full intellectual interest that, between 1743 and 1749, Rousseau (and Francueil)

set to writing the book on chemistry that became Institutions chimiques.25

The Institutions chimiques is essentially an unfinished draft of a textbook on the current

science of chemistry of the time. True to the genre at the time, Rousseau developed the text by

copying and compiling existing works on chemistry while at the same time commenting on and

critiquing his sources as he wrote. Rouelle is prominently featured in the manuscript, but it

draws from many other important sources including Stahl, Becher, Boerhaave, Junker, and

Sénac—thus reflecting the breadth of knowledge on the subject that Rousseau had acquired by

the time he penned this work.26 The purpose of the book is, therefore, to lead the reader through

a study of chemistry, much the same way that Rousseau had been led through the study of

mathematics by reading Bernard Lamy years earlier.27 Rousseau attempts to offer a

comprehensive overview of chemistry by providing a foundation of basic knowledge and then by

23
Ibid., 286.
24
Christopher Kelly convincingly suggests “there are reasons not to attribute too much importance to
Fracnueil’s role in the Institutions.” See “Rousseau’s Chemical Apprenticeship,” in Rousseau and the Dilemmas of
Modernity (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2016), 7 and passim. It appears that Rousseau believed the
Dupins, and especially Francueil, meant to benefit from his talent. He writes: “I always believed that I saw on that
occasion and many others that neither he nor Mme. Dupin cared to allow me to acquire a positive reputation in the
world, perhaps out of fear that when their books were seen it might be assumed that they had grafted their talents
onto mine” (CW 5, 286-87). As Kelly points out, Rousseau’s suspicions seem to be confirmed by the fact that the
original manuscript of Institutions chimiques is in Rousseau’s handwriting, and by the fact that the manuscript
remained in Rousseau’s possession, while his other work for the Dupin family remained with the family.
25
Institution chimiques, in OC, X.
26
Georg Ernst Stahl (1659-1734), German chemist, physician, and philosopher; Johann Joachim Becher
(1635-1682), German physician and alchemist; Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738), Dutch chemist, physician, and
botanist; Johann Junker or Juncker (1679-1759), German chemist and physician; Jean-Baptiste de Sénac (1693-
1770), French physician and chemist, served as the personal physician to Louis XV until his death.
27
Bernard Lamy, Élements des mathématiques ou Traité de la grandeur, 4th ed. (Paris: Witte, 1715), 1.
When Rousseau first arrived in Charmettes, he dedicated a great deal of time to learning the principles of
mathematics by reading Lamy’s book. Lamy’s rhetorical and pedagogical stance in the book is that of facilitator of
learning. He writes, “I will just serve as a guide.” See CW 5, 194 and 199.
 45

displaying for the reader the competing positions on particular issues. His practice is to

charitably lay out different positions without overtly settling disputes by giving his own position;

he then problematizes the various positions for the reader. But Rousseau tries to remain more

guide than instructor, at one point even writing “Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites,”

or “it is not for us to settle such great disputes among you,” referring readers to Voltaire’s

treatment of the Cartesians and Newtonians in his Lettres anglaises.28 Simply put, the

Institutitons chimiques is not a polemical essay on chemistry, but rather a study of the science

that attempts to remain unbiased so that the reader may develop a full, diligent, reasoned

understanding of it.

That the Institutions chimiques attempts to maintain a balanced perspective on the

competing positions in the field does not mean that Rousseau was uncritical. In fact, he carefully

analyzes and critiques the positions and arguments he reports as he draws from his various

sources. It has been observed that, merely in the activity of selecting sources and highlighting

their strengths and weaknesses, Rousseau was developing his personal views as he developed the

chapters.29 Yet, Rousseau is surprisingly balanced as he works through his own thought,

resisting the desire to ultimately resolve his questions; this reflects his pre-1749 stage of active

28
Institutions chimiques, 430, my translation. Compare with Voltaire, Lettres anglaises, Letter XIV.
29
See Bernardi and Bensuade-Vincent, “The Presence of Sciences in Rousseau’s Trajectory and Works,”
65; Kelly, “Rousseau’s Chemical Apprenticeship,” 8-9; and see also, Alexandra Cook, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and
botany (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2012), 47. Kelly initially suggests that the Institutions chimiques should be
considered because of its proximity to Rousseau’s illumination, believing that understanding Rousseau’s period of
struggle clarifies the philosophic insight he later gains. But against the idea that illumination marks a transition in
Rousseau’s life from struggle to clarity, Kelly deemphasizes the aspect of struggle in Rousseau’s early work and
instead focuses on the way his later views are foreshadowed by his positions in the Institutions. Specifically, Kelly
argues that Rousseau’s considerations of natural theology, or those that have clear teleological significance, are
disingenuous. He recognizes that the illumination was a time of genuine struggle for Rousseau, but it fails to
maintain this perspective in the analysis of the text by assuming that Rousseau’s later philosophic understanding
exists all along in the Institutions chimiques in some nascent form. Further, he uses a reading of Rousseau’s mature
works, uninformed by his intellectual struggle, to understand his intellectual struggle before the illumination.
Certainly, Kelly is correct to say in his conclusion that “the unfinished work gives us a glimpse into the sort of
question that preoccupied Rousseau shortly before the ‘illumination,’” and also “that Rousseau’s critique of
modernity did not spring from a void” (24). But he is too quick to assume that the answers to the questions are of
primary importance when in fact the questioning itself is the prefiguring element.
 46

intellectual development, as opposed to his post-1749 stage of philosophic clarity. Because this

is the case, the Institutions chimiques is of obvious importance for understanding the trajectory

of Rousseau’s thought leading up to the illumination—both insofar as it offers a window into the

nature of Rousseau’s period of questioning, and also insofar as his provisional answers to these

questions prefigure the path he will take in the future.

The Institutions chimiques is broken up into four books—“On the Elements of Bodies

and Their Composition,” “On Natural Instruments,” “On Artificial Instruments,” and “On

Operations”—and many shorter essays on specifically related topics are appended to the text.

Immediately apparent in book one, and throughout the remainder of the text, is Rousseau’s

reliance upon and critical examination of his sources. For example, he is highly complimentary

of Becher on the constitution and composition of natural bodies.30 But, following the analysis of

his position, Rousseau explains that Becher was confused by simple questions and subsequently

needed to have recourse to the supernatural (i.e., angels) for his explanations.31 Similarly, in his

treatment of Boerhaave on the weight of air, Rousseau treats the man and his work with

veneration, only to concede “I admit that I am not satisfied with that explanation.”32 And when

considering competing theories of phlogiston, Rousseau initially sides with Stahl’s theory. But

Rousseau moves on to cite Sénac’s observations against Stahl, and after considering the

problems Stahl’s account has explaining certain features of oxidation, Rousseau concludes that

neither Stahl’s nor Becher’s positions fare well under scrutiny.33 It is, of course, in this context

30
Institutions chimiques, 196. Rousseau writes: “Becher then enlightened by the torch of experiment,
dared to penetrate into the most secret routs of nature: his great intelligence, sustained by a truly philosophic genius
caused him to find the finest and most complete theory that had yet been imagined about the constitution and
compositions of natural bodies.”
31
Ibid., 198.
32
Ibid., 313.
33
Ibid., 429-30. Phlogiston is the nonexistent element once presumed to be released in the activity of
combustion. One of the key difficulties for theories of chemistry that assumed the existence of phlogiston was that
they could not account for the gain in weight in the process of calcination (now understood as oxidation).
 47

that Rousseau affirms that it is not his aim to resolve these theoretical conflicts,34 but he clearly

has no difficulty addressing great theoretical disputes and problematizing them as a means to

better understanding. In fact, if there is a discernable mode of inquiry in the Institutions

chimiques that can be attributed to Rousseau as he works through important questions, it is

problematization.35

What emerges in the manuscript in the context of the study of chemistry is an early

indication how Rousseau sought to integrate modern science with elements of classical

teleology. Rousseau does not limit his mode of inquiry specifically to questions of chemistry,

but rather seems to engage much larger philosophic questions in the same way. Book one begins

with a defense of the merits of chemistry where Rousseau establishes it as a science of a higher

order than typically thought. Whereas physics “considers bodies only by their motions, their

shapes, and by other similar modifications,” chemistry, according to Rousseau, examines matter

at its most basic level and means “to discover the reasons for the diverse modes and accidents

under which it presents itself to us.”36 Thus, chemistry is reconstrued in the first chapter of book

one as an essential study of nature. For, as Rousseau claims, “it is certain that if there is some

way to arrive at the true knowledge of nature, that is to say the bodies that compose it, it is by

means of the analysis and knowledge of the elements from which they are themselves formed

that one can arrive at it.”37 Yet in chapter two, in the context of a defense of chemistry against

philosophy, Rousseau makes clear that chemistry suffers from the lack of the “systematic spirit”

34
See note 28 above.
35
By “problematization” I do not mean the willful or frivolous undermining of a position for personal or
polemical advantage. Instead, Rousseau’s problematization here is a mode of inquiry that carefully and charitably
explicates one position before thoroughly analyzing it, examining its context and details, and finally, critically
reflecting on the whole. Further, Rousseau employs this mode in order to better understand the object of study, and
with the hope of eventually emerging from this process with a refined knowledge. In Institutions chimiques,
Rousseau repeats this process with each position and counter-position.
36
Ibid., 186.
37
Ibid.
 48

that is the cornerstone of philosophic investigation. Thus, as Kelly points out, “what is needed is

some combination of the systematic spirit of the philosophers and the concreteness of chemical

experiments. This combination would be ‘the true science of nature’ promised in the preceding

chapter.”38 Philosophy and science must together form a middle way of inquiry, where the

investigation of general laws of nature is corrected or mitigated by scientific evidence.

But the view is not so rosy at it first appears. In his biting critique of philosophy

Rousseau makes clear that in the history of the study, none has sufficiently taken into account the

reality of the observable world, concluding, “you will learn more about it in a quarter of an hour

in a chemist’s lab than in your whole life among the systems of philosophers.”39 Rousseau then

turns to an explication of the obstacles to chemical investigations, subsequently revealing that

there exists a fundamental gap between the basic principles of matter and what can be perceived

of them. Furthermore, Rousseau is explicit that in addition to our inability to know the principles

of matter, there are “an infinite number of combinations” of them, placing knowledge further out

of reach.40 In short, nature remains mysterious to human kind, veiled behind very real obstacles

to our understanding. Philosophy lacks an important groundedness in the real world, and at best,

chemistry can only gain access to effects of chemical interactions “formed by the concourse of

two or more principles which by means of their union no longer form anything but a single

whole.”41 There is an obvious motion from proposition to problematization in these passages

that is characteristic of the text as a whole. More importantly, Rousseau’s preoccupation with

38
Kelly, “Rousseau’s Chemical Apprenticeship,” 11.
39
Institutions chimiques, in OC X, 81.
40
Ibid., 210-11. “Unfortunately, these studies, if necessary, are at the same time very difficult, and that is
for three main reasons. The first is the infinite number of combinations that must be understood to know all natural
mixts. … The second reason is the difficulty, if not the impossibility of taking the nature of the fact, as a famous
author says, and seeing it proceed in the production of mixts: this forces us to appeal first to the spagyric art that
teaches us to dissolve mixts into their constituent parts, after which, by a new combination of these, we may imitate
and copy the operations of nature by reproducing similar mixts. … Finally, the third is the insufficiency of our
[sense] organs, which allow us to see neither the principles nor the mixts in their aggregate form.”
41
Ibid., 212.
 49

nature, not just matter per se but the driving principles of nature, is apparent in the first book, as

is the resonant skepticism that accompanies his natural philosophic disposition.

In some ways, book two is a recapitulation of the positive and negative positions just

outlined, but one that reopens the path to knowledge. Practically speaking, if the operations of

nature are not available to human beings at the level of the elements, then it may be possible to

turn to another venue for their examination. Thus book two, “On Natural Instruments,” chapter

one, “On the Mechanism of Nature,” shifts to a consideration of chemical processes on an

observable, which is to say global, scale. Rousseau opens up the experiential world via geology

and climatology as a sort of laboratory for learning the principles of nature. Notwithstanding the

obvious problems with exploring the letters writ large so as to understand better the smaller,42

Rousseau appears to be attempting to redeem the possibility of gaining knowledge of nature. In

nature, considered as broadly as the world around us, there is something evident to all those who

would observe it: what Rousseau calls “the magnificence of the spectacle of nature.”43

Unfortunately, those who observe the greatness or the majesty of nature do so without any real or

scientific understanding of the processes that are always unfolding all around. And, echoing his

critique of the philosophers from book one, those who have attempted to “embrace the general

system of the universe,”44 have done so without real scientific evidence. These systems are

unsupported by the observable scientific reality of the world. While again urging a marriage of

philosophic and scientific methods, Rousseau reaffirms the skeptical position that closed book

one: “Let us believe that with the most sublime speculations and the most marvelous discoveries

we shall never succeed in knowing the true theory of nature in an evident manner.”45 Here,

42
Cf., Plato, The Republic of Plato, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1991), 368 c-d.
43
Institutions chimiques, in OC X, 225.
44
Ibid.
45
Ibid.
 50

though, the oscillation between proposition and problematization yields a different

understanding. Philosophy and science conjoined are the only path toward certain knowledge of

nature, yet our ability to understand the essence of nature is restricted in very significant ways.

He has not abandoned the promise he set out in book one, to deliver on a “true science of

nature,”46 but he elaborates on what can be expected of this science. The realistic expectations

are philosophic; the science aims at an object that is ultimately beyond reach, and while a greater

certainty can be derived from the study, nothing deriving from this science will be beyond

question.

It is at this point in the text that Rousseau shifts into his most extended examination of

the tension between natural theology and modern science. Beginning with an appeal to common

sense in support of natural theology, he asserts, “An intelligent Being is the active principle of all

things. It is necessary to have renounced good sense to doubt this, and to give proofs for such a

clear truth is visibly to waste one’s time.”47 What is interesting about Rousseau’s position here

is that he set it up as the precondition for the possibility of natural science altogether. That is, it

is only because an intelligent being set up the cosmos in such a way that order inheres in the

world that there is the possibility to understand the order of nature. Rousseau explains,

“Doubtless this eternal Being could have produced and preserved the universe by the sole

cooperation of its power and its will, but it was worthier of its wisdom to establish general laws

in nature that never contradict themselves, and whose effect alone is sufficient for the

preservation of the world and all it contains.”48 Were the order of nature to depend on the power

46
Ibid., 186. Kelly suggests that Rousseau systematically retreats from his apparent natural theological
positions. See “Rousseau’s Chemical Apprenticeship,” especially 11, 13, and 15.
47
Ibid., 227-28. Bensuade-Vincent has suggested that Rousseau moves through three perspectives of
nature in this chapter: common sense, physics in general, and chemistry in particular. Apparently, this approach was
typical of chemical examinations at the time. See, “La Nature laboratoire,” in Rousseau et les Sciences (Paris:
L’Harmattan, 2003), 155-174.
48
Ibid.
 51

and will of the divine being, the ability to understand nature would be impossible, for to

understand nature in that case would be to know the mind of God. But, divinely imposed laws of

nature remain static in such a way that they can be explored, even if the laws of nature cannot be

understood completely.

In this first perspective, Rousseau suggests that rational natural theology is the foundation

of natural science, but there is a circularity to his reasoning of which he is well aware. Simply

put, Rousseau begins by asserting that common sense shows us that there is a intelligent being,

and then he explains that this intelligent being is source of all natural laws, but he then turns the

argument around on itself to say that the ordering laws of the universe are proof of an intelligent

being. There appears to be some irony at work when he writes, “Could one believe that it is

these very laws, and the faithlessness with which they are kept, that induces so many false minds

to fail to recognize the legislator? Matter obeys; thus no one commands. It is impossible to

lapse into atheism without making some of these bizarre arguments at every moment.”49 But

aware of the problem with his initial position in support of a rational natural theology, Rousseau

deftly undermines it in the following paragraph. He explains that it might be possible for all the

laws of nature to be reduced to a single principle of motion, what Rousseau calls “the universal

agent.” This principle of motion is the crucial element for understanding the activity and

operations of nature at any level, and insofar as that principle of motion can inhere in matter

itself, that is, if motion is granted to matter, then the ordered universe can arise from chaos given

sufficient time. On the basis of this competing view, then, it would no longer be possible to

assume a divine creator on the basis of the perceived order of nature; natural theology is

49
Ibid.
 52

possible, but no longer self-evident on the basis of common sense.50 But Rousseau’s

problematization here is not yet complete, and readers must be careful not to accept this position

too hastily and at the expense of his other arguments.

Natural theology emerges again in several places in chapter two, providing a balance to

the positions that Rousseau has apparently undermined earlier on. In the context of his

discussion of the hot and the cold, he writes:

It is by these admirable qualities that the author of nature maintains in a continuous motion: the
course of the sun, the direction of its rays, the clouds it lifts up, the winds it stirs up, and a
thousand other particular causes change at every moment the temperature of the air in all the
climates of the world. The degree of warmth is never the same in two successive instants in the
same place, and it is by that continuous succession that life and movements are preserved in all
things.51

Here the guiding force of nature is the motion that God set to work in the universe. This simple

motion permeates all existing things and keeps them active and in concert with one another, from

the very great to the very small. The relationship that each thing has with the next is purposive,

which confirms the great order of nature in the universe and all of its parts. Thus, it is God that

50
Following the passage in which he undermines natural religion, Rousseau closes this section by asserting:
“These observations are enough to show me the point from which my researches ought to begin; I shall not torment
myself in wishing to find out why the stars roll in their orbits, I shall not attempt either to relate the formation of
plants and animals to the principles of mechanics or hydrostatics, and I shall not imitate that insane chemist who
dared to undertake to make man by the operations of his art” (ibid., 229). He then reaffirms that the world of
experience is the appropriate place for students of nature to make their observations (ibid., 230). Kelly takes this as
evidence of Rousseau’s renunciation of both natural theology and materialistic science (cf., “Rousseau’s Chemical
Apprenticeship,” 15). Certainly Rousseau does suggest a specific starting point for study, but in light of his method
of problematizing his positions apparent throughout this text, his renunciation here seems to point toward a yet-to-
be-discovered middle way of study, namely the “true science of nature” mentioned in book one, chapter one.
51
Institution chimiques, 238. On this point, Kelly argues that Rousseau’s omission of the qualifying phrase
“most knowing” preceding “author of nature,” which appeared in Boerhaave’s text suggests that Rousseau is tacitly
moving away from the natural theological position he earlier endorsed (“Rousseau’s Chemical Apprenticeship,” 16).
While the change does place slightly more emphasis on motion than on the wisdom of the author of nature, this is
still an undeniably providential statement. Kelly makes several such arguments, openly suggesting that “Rousseau’s
most conventional statements follow his source closely, whereas his less conventional statements diverge,” and
implying that Rousseau’s statements for natural theology cannot be trusted. This is problematic in the same way as
his de-emphasis of Rousseau’s struggle (see note 29 above) because it assumes that Rousseau has already settled on
a position that he then attempts to communicate esoterically in the Institutions chimiques. This runs counter to the
understanding of Rousseau’s intellectual development prior to the illumination. Understanding the oscillation in the
text as Rousseau’s method of problematization in search of understanding is a much better reflection of the
circumstances of his pre-illumination thought and writing.
 53

set the sun just far enough from the earth to provide its inhabitants enough heat without being

destroyed by it.52 Rousseau closes the chapter and the book by explaining:

The terrestrial mass upon which we walk… is an unformed assemblage, and a sort of chaos of all
natural bodies. Thus, in attaching to earth properly speaking the idea that we have given to it, one
will easily know that nature does not offer to our eyes an idea that has all the homogeneity that
this idea assumes. It does not leave its instruments idle in this way, the decomposition of one
body is immediately followed by the conformation of another. It is from this infinite number of
combinations ceaselessly destroyed and begun again, that the harmony of this universe is born;
and it is so that nothing might be lacking in it, that nothing superfluous is found in it.53

Despite having undermined the account of natural theology based on common sense, on these

occasions Rousseau offers clearly providential accounts of the arrangement of the universe. This

is subtly indicated by his assertion of infinite combinations, but clearer in virtue of the purposive

description he offers of natural processes. Furthermore, in these instances Rousseau is at least

implying the end to which these arrangements are set. The universe is set up according to laws

that are the most befitting of the intelligent author of nature, and such that they operate with the

greatest economy while providing for the flourishing of all that which exists within the system.54

52
Institution chimiques, 247 and 274.
53
Institutions chimiques, 372. Bensuade-Vincent concedes that this passage must be taken as a
distinctively providential articulation (see, “La nature laboratoire,” in Rousseau et les Sciences, 166-68, and
166n19). Rousseau insists in several places in the Institutions chimiques that there are an infinite number of
combinations in infinite succession. In Essay on the Origin of Languages he explains that there are an infinite
number of linguistic sounds, and similarly, in his musical writings he asserts that there are an infinite number of
sounds (tones and microtones) available to the composer. It cannot be stressed enough how important this position
is to Rousseau’s cosmological understanding. This will be touched on again in a later chapter, but will need to be
subsequently developed in another study.
54
There are two occasions in the Institutions chimiques that offer perspective on Rousseau’s view of God,
both of which are important for the purposes of this study. In the first, Rousseau is discussing the infinite
divisibility of matter in the context of “material principles” (ibid., 185-208). At first he undermines the possibility
of infinite divisibility by showing that the position ultimately reduces to a denial that matter exists. He then
references Boerhaave’s position stating that the indivisibility of matter is founded in the basic elements by “the
creator God who does all things.” But in his typical problematizing manner, he concludes by asserting that “God
could cut each atom in two if he judged it appropriate.” The second occasion falls in Rousseau’s discussion of heat
(ibid., 232-298). Fire, by increasing heat, rarifies matter, thus changing its state; theoretically, fire has the potential
to effect (melt) “almost all bodies.” But Rousseau clarifies his position at the end: “If one could increase its degree
as one chooses, nothing would resist it, and if the final incineration is not a mystical figure of speech, it must not be
imagined that it would destroy and annihilate the world; but as numerous ancient philosophers believed, it will
change it into a mass of glass, unless God gives this avenging fire properties that this element does not have today.”
In these passages Rousseau is suggesting that while there are rational limits that God imposes on nature, he is free
from natural law and exists outside of the rational order of nature. This will become very important for
understanding the way in which Rousseau’s teleology spans his understanding of nature, human nature, and the
 54

The Institutions chimiques provides a new perspective on Rousseau’s struggles prior to

1749. Immediately apparent is his preoccupation with nature, that is, not just the knowledge of

natural operations but also, and more importantly, the fundamental understanding of what nature

itself is. Alongside this preoccupation with nature we find that Rousseau is concerned with

natural religion, revealed religion, and the foundations of natural science. As he works through

these areas of concern, Rousseau displays a struggle with competing accounts of nature that bear

on first causes and the perceivable order of nature. He appears to have certain leanings, but his

views here reflect a fairly balanced problematization of these competing accounts, and they show

a discontent with established ways of thinking on these issues. Thus, there are several passages

in the Institutions chimiques that seem to endorse natural religion and providence, and there are

many others where Rousseau drops references to the divine and replaces them with the

operations of chance over a sufficient period of time. There is strong support for empirical

science, and there are regular reminders of the limitations of human knowledge. If we

understand that Rousseau’s struggle with these issues prior to 1749 was real, and if we recognize

that his mode of problematization was as developmental for him as it was intended to be for his

readers, we see a philosophic thinker working through the most challenging aspects of what will

become his mature thought. Rousseau has not yet discovered the middle way between these

positions he urges throughout the Institutions chimiques, but he recognizes the importance of

each in its own way balanced against the flaws of each perspective. He must reconcile the

teleological and the scientific, but here he has not yet done so. Rousseau’s presentation of the

various positions is, therefore, one of philosophic skepticism, but one developed during a time

when he had yet to gain the clarity that characterizes his mature writings. In the Institutions,

cosmological framework. This will be touched on again in the final chapter in regard to Rousseau’s Letter to
Voltaire.
 55

despite the appearance of certain leanings, Rousseau does not appear to finally settle on a single

established position.

II.2 Writings on Music—Fortunately for us, there is something analogous going on in

Rousseau’s thought and writing on music that can shed light on the trajectory of his intellectual

development leading to the illumination, and therefore about the substance of his more mature

teleological thought thereafter. It may seem peculiar to expect some correspondence between

Rousseau’s thought on music and his thought on chemistry, but there are reasons to consider

these two intellectual pursuits together in this way. First of all, at the time Rousseau was writing,

music was considered a mathematical science and was a subject covered by the Royal Academy

of Sciences. Rousseau certainly would have seen a context for the comparison of these two

studies. More importantly, Rousseau presents chemistry and music as significantly intertwined

in the years leading up to his illumination (especially between 1742 and 1749), and this provides

good reason to consider them together in order to understand his formation before the

illumination.55 Finally, Rousseau himself draws a connection between his mature musical

thought and his post-illumination insight, suggesting that the same questions persisted in his

early musical thought as in his chemical writings.56 From this we may gather that Rousseau’s

struggle before the illumination was not limited to a particular area of study, but pertained to

abstract philosophic issues that manifested themselves in many if not all of his studies, including

chemistry and music. But because Rousseau’s understanding of music was perhaps even more

55
Confessions, Book VII, in CW 5, 233-92. Book VII is framed by Rousseau’s interest in music; it begins
with the description of his presentation on a new system of musical notation to the Paris Royal Academy of
Sciences, and concludes with an anecdote on how Rousseau was invited to contribute the articles on music to the
Encyclopédie. Throughout the text there are other explicit instances where Rousseau comes and goes from
chemistry and music. Even if there was no intentional connection between these two studies in Rousseau’s mind, it
is clear that in the period of time immediately before the illumination, music held an important command over his
interests in a way analogous to his interest in chemistry. Cf., 235-41, 242-47, and 285-292.
56
Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues (henceforth Dialogues), in CW 1, 21-22.
 56

advanced than was his understanding of chemistry, the former may offer a more developed

perspective on his intellectual development than the latter.

Rousseau’s musical development is similar in some regards to his development in

chemistry, though dating to an earlier age, and thus provides a prefatory point of analogy. He

offers accounts of having been moved by music in his childhood, and notably of his first

experience with Italian music at the age of sixteen.57 He appears to have had a passion for music

just as he had had a passion for other studies, but like his interest in chemistry, his early interest

in music also seems to have been influenced by practical demands. And again similar to his

development in chemistry, these practical demands eventually appear to give way to more

mature interest in and more formal studies of music. Leading up to 1733, Rousseau had been

primarily self-taught in music, notwithstanding brief periods of formal instruction in Annecy.58

He appears to have advanced his knowledge of music significantly by the time he travels to

Besançon to study with the Abbé Blanchard, recording in the Confessions that he had by then the

ability to “read music passably” and was then beginning to learn composition.59 And by the time

he returns to live with Mme. de Warens, Rousseau is at least a junior master; he has learned to

play several instruments, he is confident enough to take up the direction of the Mme. de Warens

musical performances, and he has become more accomplished at composition.60 While he was

aware of his limitations, Rousseau was obviously dedicated to increasing his knowledge and

57
For Rousseau’s early passionate response to music see Confessions, Book I, in CW 5, 10. At sixteen
Rousseau ran away from Geneva, eventually making his way to Piedmont, Italy, where he experienced his first, if
somewhat limited, taste of Italian music. See ibid., 60.
58
Rousseau did study music during his time in Annecy, first while staying with Mme. de Warens, then
while in the Lazarist seminary there, and yet again with the music master at the Cathedral at Annecy. Yet all of
these occasions appear to have been motivated at least in part by a reluctance to enter some other vocation, and at
one point, Rousseau even attempts to pass himself off as a composer and teacher of music before having gained any
real competency. Cf., ibid., 98-103, and 123-26.
59
Ibid., 174.
60
Among the instruments that Rousseau played were the flute, the violin, and the spinet. In 1737,
Rousseau published a song (his first publication) in the first edition of the Mercure de France.
 57

abilities in music. By the late 1730s it is clear that Rousseau’s amateurish interests in music

have finally given way to more serious consideration, prompting his real understanding and

reconsideration of the subject in turn.

This reconsideration of music becomes increasingly apparent in the years leading up to

1749, or more precisely, as Rousseau’s intellectual struggle moves toward the climax of his

illumination. In his early development (before 1737), Rousseau had somewhat orthodox musical

leanings, likely as the result of having been self-taught using the books available to him. In

particular, he seems to have embraced the mainstream musical theory of the time, and

particularly the theory of harmonics advanced by Jean-Phillip Rameau.61 But despite his

orthodox tendencies, Rousseau demonstrates an increasing willingness to think in an innovative

way about music. This innovative spirit may have initially been the result of practical matters;

Rousseau was then copying music as a means of supplementing his income, and as John Scott

points out, this “acquainted him with the difficulty of the ordinary system of musical notation.”62

But, Rousseau’s answer to this problem showed resonant and deep thinking on the nature of

music and how it could be best represented. He developed a new system of musical notation that

replaced the visual representations in traditional notation with numerical representations, thus

making it possible to render music accurately, with greater ease, and in less space than with the

old system; from Rousseau’s point of view, this system was arguably easier to learn.63 When

61
There are numerous references to Rameau throughout the Confessions, many of which clearly indicate
the impression that his books left on Rousseau. In particular, Rousseau made an extremely close study of Rameau’s
Treatise on Harmony, which he acquired in 1734, likely around the time of his return to Chambéry and when he was
studying chemistry more formally prior to his accident while trying to develop “sympathetic ink.” Rameau
famously advanced a system of musical thought that understood music in both practical and mathematical terms, and
solidified the study of music in a modern scientific framework. At the time, Rameau was to music as Newton was to
physics, having laid a systematic groundwork for music firmly based on Enlightenment principles.
62
John T. Scott, “Introduction,” in CW 7, xv.
63
In the “Preface” to his Plan Regarding New Signs for Music, Rousseau writes, “The System I propose
turns on two principal objects, the first to notate music and all its complexities in a simpler, more precise manner,
and in less volume, and without all that hindrance of lines and staffs, which never fails to be excessively
 58

Rousseau presents his new system of musical notation to the Royal Paris Academy of Science in

1742, he severally reiterates that his system is not meant to replace the traditional system. But

that he developed a system at all suggests that he is familiar with the intricacies and difficulties

of music as an art and science, and is already engaging with, if not rethinking, its foundations.64

There is further evidence of Rousseau’s reconsideration of music in his writings

immediately following his presentation to the Royal Academy as well. Rousseau’s orthodox

leanings are still present, particularly in his adherence to Rameau’s harmonic theory. In his

Dissertation on Modern Music, published in 1743 just before his appointment in Venice, he

writes, “It is not at all properly by sounds that we are touched; it is by the relationships they have

among themselves, and it is solely by the choice of these charming relationships that a beautiful

composition can move the heart by flattering the ear.”65 Yet, it is increasingly clear that

Rousseau is attempting to develop a new perspective on music, stretching beyond what he has

acquired in his early studies. In his Letter on Italian and French Opera, while expressing a

preference for French music and reiterating his support for Rameau’s harmonic theory, Rousseau

seems to imply that a lack of musical sophistication prevents Italian opera from having the same

touching effect on the soul as does the French.66 But in the midst of his statements he also makes

it abundantly clear that he is considering Italian music from a different perspective. He explains:

As for the Music, this is the main point. … The Italians have brought Music to the ultimate
point of perfection with respect to the end they proposed for themselves, which is that of arranging
and combining sounds with taste to make voices and instruments shine. In this sense one can say
that they have exhausted the beauties of the art; the ear is equally charmed by the variety, by the
elegance of their passages and by the agility of the organs which make them heard. As for me, I

inconvenient. The second, and this is the most important point, to make it easier to learn by diminishing the number
of signs and their combinations without however taking from them any of the variety of their expressions” (ibid., 1).
64
Cf., Confessions, Book VII, in CW 5, 239-40. Rousseau asserts that the select committee that reviewed
his plan failed to understand the merits of his system, and had not recognized the way in which his notations
provided a more accurate and adaptable representation of what was actually at work in music. He adds, rather
favorably of Rameau, that the only real and justifiable criticism he had received was related to the ease with which a
musician could read and intuit the direction of the music being performed.
65
Dissertation on Modern Music, in CW 7, 64.
66
Letter on Italian and French Music, in CW 7, 103-104, and 105.
 59

devour them every day with new eagerness and I do not believe that there is a man on earth so
little sensitive to beautiful sounds as to be able to hear without pleasure those who make this
admirable music heard.67

Clearly Rousseau had developed an appreciation for Italian music that set off a passion in him he

had not anticipated.68 He later conceded, “From Paris I had brought the prejudice they have in

that country against Italian music; but from nature I had also received that sensitivity of

discrimination against which prejudices do not prevail. Soon I had for that music the passion

which it inspires in anyone made to judge it.”69 More importantly, though, in a rudimentary way

Rousseau is here already touching on his mature conception of music by considering it in light of

“ends.” Italian music must be understood as reaching its perfection with regard to the end to

which it was set—to communicate through the voices and instruments. Rousseau is, therefore,

considering Italian music in light of its intended form. By contrast, he understands French music

as achieving its perfection insofar as it has a set purpose to move the audience, or “where it is

proposed to arouse the passions and touch the spectators.”70 These two conceptions of how

music attains its perfection—by its form and purpose—will help to inform Rousseau’s later

understanding of exactly what is music, or what is the nature of music.

67
Ibid., 102.
68
The Letter on French and Italian Music is the fruit of Rousseau’s second visit to Italy, and it seems that
whatever musical reconsideration had been set in motion before his arrival was further encouraged by his time spent
there. Despite having been heavily influenced by Rameau and the French style and understanding of music,
Rousseau delights in the Italian music (see CW 5, 263-4). After returning, he completes Les Muses galantes, which
bore a strong resemblance to Rameau’s Les Indes galantes, but introduced clearly Italian portions as if to experiment
with the power of that form. The opera was very well received (see Ibid., 280-81). Rameau, who had refused to
look at the opera beforehand, and expressed nothing but condescension for Rousseau as self-taught, accused
Rousseau of having plagiarized the best portions on the assumption that the work must have been by “a man
consummate in the art and the rest by an ignoramus.” Rameau’s attack on Rousseau brings the extent of Rousseau’s
reconsideration of music into fuller view. He recognizes the talent and innovative spirit in Rousseau’s work, and he
sees that there is an advanced understanding of music at work in Les Muses galantes; his reaction is one of jealousy
for a younger composer who was in the process of surpassing the master, both in his musical compositions and his
pursuit of the art form. Though he was quite disturbed by the episode, after this Rousseau is nevertheless free of
Rameau’s influence in a way that allows him a fuller reconsideration of music.
69
Confessions, Book VII, in CW 5, 263.
70
Letter on Italian and French Music, in CW 7, 104.
 60

The best examples of Rousseau’s reconsideration of music prior to 1749 occur in his

articles for the Encyclopédie written at Diderot’s invitation. Rousseau had been very musically

active between 1745 and 1748, but the genre of the Encyclopédie affords him the opportunity to

articulate his developing thought on a more fundamental level. In first three months at of 1748

he wrote hundreds of articles, mostly on musical topics, many of which show the same elements

of struggle that are present in Rousseau’s chemical thought. Most immediately obvious in these

articles is Rousseau’s broad grasp of the field of music. It is often remarked that the articles on

music show signs of technical weakness, but much of this can be attributed to the shift in

perspective in the articles away from the blatant technical sophistication of French music.71 In

shifting perspective, Rousseau’s articles demonstrate a mode of problematization similar to that

seen in the Institution chimiques. Furthermore, where this mode occurs most prevalently,

Rousseau appears to be struggling with issues that were or were to become of key importance in

his later thought.

In the article “Accompaniment,” the third article alphabetically but the first of

significance, Rousseau’s mode of problematization is obvious as he initiates his shift in

perspective. He begins with a straightforward definition of “accompaniment” as the “execution

of a complete harmony on some instrument,” guided by the fundamental bass, or that musical

element that anchors the harmony across the piece. But, using Italian music as a

counterexample, Rousseau suggests that the method of accompaniment he is describing is

unnecessary to a musician or a people with a cultivated or intuitive sense of music. From the

French sense of accompaniment comes nothing but “infinite difficulties,” of which “there are

71
Rameau’s criticism of Rousseau, which had always been particularly vicious, attributed his outlook on
music to a lack of technical mastery that was visible in the latter’s preference for Italian music. Cf., Rameau, Errors
on Music in the Encyclopedia, and Continuation of “Errors Music in the Encyclopedia” in CW 7, 222-50, and 251-
59.
 61

two principal ones: the first in the manner of figuring Basses; the second in the methods for

accompaniment.”72 As he then explores the way in which these principal difficulties may be

remedied, Rousseau shows an appreciation for both the science of music as well as for Rameau,

its leading scholar and perhaps its most acclaimed French composer.

Still he continues to problematize the issues. Regarding the issues of “figuring Basses”

that could be simplified, he explains: “This is what M. Rameau has endeavored to do with great

sagacity in his Dissertation on the different methods of accompaniment.”73 But after referring to

the simplicity of ancient music, and only a few paragraphs later, Rousseau undercuts the work he

has praised.74 Similarly, when treating the issues of method, Rousseau again praises Rameau,

asserting that “It is he who first made the Fundamental Bass known and who thereby revealed for

us the true foundation of an art in which everything appeared arbitrary.”75 Rousseau even

outlines the principles by which Rameau essentially grounds music in scientific understanding.

But on the heels of his outline he states that “With regard to the manner of accompanying with

intelligence, it depends more on practice and on taste than on any rules that can be given here.”76

He then criticizes Rameau’s positions on the importance of harmony, explaining that certain

chords would be “unbearable” if Rameau’s method were followed thoroughly and exactly, and

suggests an alternative perspective on what is the fundamental ground of music. Again Italian

music is his counter example:

The Italians have so little regard for noise; a third, a well-suited sixth, even a simple unison, when
good taste demands it, is more pleasing to them than all our din of parts and accompaniment; in a

72
“Accompaniment,” in Encyclodédie, vol. 1, eds. Diderot and D’Alembert (Paris: Briasson, et al., 1751),
75. All translations are my own.
73
Ibid. Rameau had proposed to reduce the representation of accompaniment signs to seven.
74
Ibid. “There is only one consummate practice in Music, a well-considered experience, the facility of
reading a line of Music at a single glance which may help; still the most skillful make a mistake even with this aid.
Can one wait to accompany until the ear be formed, until one knows how to read all music easily and rapidly, until
one can disentangle a score on reading at sight? But, even if one did, one would still have needed a practice in
fingering founded on principles of accompaniment other than those that have been given out by M. Rameau.”
75
Ibid., 75-76.
76
Ibid., 76.
 62

word, they want nothing to be heard in the accompaniment on the bass that might distract the ear
from the main subject, and they are of the opinion that attention vanishes when it is divided.77

In sum, the article on “Accompaniment” shows Rousseau’s appreciation for the science of music

that was at that time typified by Rameau’s work on the subject, specifically Rameau’s harmonic

theory. But at the same time, Rousseau is critical of the consequences of Rameau’s theory in

composition and practice. While he constantly refers the reader back to the principles that

Rameau’s science advanced, he expresses general skepticism about the physico-mathematical

system of understanding music, and he simultaneously suggests that experience and taste suffice

as well as can formal rules. This is without a doubt to call the current science of music into

question, but moreover, it is also to imply that the nature of music may be different than can be

recognized within the framework of the established scientific perspective of the time.

By no means does Rousseau abandon the importance of the science of music. In fact, it

is abundantly clear that Rousseau understands music in light of its most elemental components,

its natural and physical qualities. For example, in his article, “Sound,” Rousseau’s primary

objects are the modifications of sound in a musical context, which together constitute music:

tone, volume, and timbre. But, before beginning this discussion he sees it necessary to establish

the firm scientific foundation upon which music must be understood. He writes:

SOUND, in Music; When the agitation communicated to the air by a violently struck body reaches
our ear, she produces a sensation which is called Noise. But there is a kind of resonant and
appreciable noise which is called Sound. The nature of Sound is the object of research of the
physicist; the musician examines only the modifications, and it is according to this second idea
that we envision this article.78

The foundation of our understanding of music must be constructed on what can be known with

certainty about the elements of the physical world. And despite his claim that the article will

consider tone, volume, and timbre from the standpoint of the musician, he continues his

77
Ibid., 77.
78
“Sound,” in Encyclodédie, vol. 15, 345.
 63

explication from a more fundamental scientific standpoint. Before even beginning his discussion

of the three primary modifications, Rousseau explains the scientific basis for the understanding

of sound that necessarily informs the elements of music that he means to consider. He continues:

I first assume that the vehicle of Sound is nothing other than the air itself. Primarily because
the air is the only intermediary body whose existence is completely assured between the sounding
body and the auditory organ; because beings must not be multiplied without necessity; and
because the air suffices to explain the formation of Sound; and moreover, because experience
shows us that a sounding body does not render Sound in a place completely devoid of air. If one
absolutely wanted to imagine another fluid, one can easily apply to it everything we have said
about air here in this article.
The permanence of Sound can only be the result of the duration of the agitation of the air. As
long as this agitation lasts, the air is constantly impacting the auditory organ, and thus prolonging
the perception of Sound: but there is no simpler way to conceive of this duration than to assume
vibrations in the air that follow one another, and which thus renew in each instant the sensation of
Sound. Moreover, the agitation of the air, whatever kind it may be, can only be produced by a
similar motion in the parts of the sounding body. Now it is a fact that the parts of the sounding
body experience vibrations.79

It is only after this lengthy set of introductory remarks outlining sound from the scientific

perspective that Rousseau begins to examine tone, volume, and timbre, and throughout the

remainder of the article he continues to add notably scientific explanations regarding

mathematical ratios and the strength and speed of sound. Rousseau may have reservations about

Rameau’s positions on the primary elements of music, but this should not be mistaken for some

intent to abandon the scientific foundation of knowledge. At least in the case of music, it

appears that Rousseau is interested in plumbing the depth of the subject in order to find a more

suitable foundation than can be provided by Rameau’s harmonic theory. At the same time, it is

important to remember that Rousseau’s rethinking of foundations is happening in different ways

simultaneously.

Even in the article on sound, Rousseau is aware of more than merely scientific

considerations. For example, in the opening lines Rousseau distinguishes between “noise” and

“sound;” the former is the raw effect of agitated air and the latter is the effect of air resonantly

79
Ibid.
 64

and appreciably stirred. By making this distinction, Rousseau is simultaneously pointing

forward to the listening subject and back to the composer or performer—he is already indicating

that music can only be understood as meaningful expression, which is to say, in light of intent

and perception. Thus, the physical mechanics of sound in air are material to the understanding of

music, but the purposeful intention of sound and its perception by the listener are essential

components as well. While noise can be understood in a purely scientific context, sound must be

understood as having a purpose (which dictates the form), a material (insofar as sound is a

function of the mechanics of air), and an end (namely the meaningful expression experienced by

the listening subject). Rousseau’s articulations in “Sound” and other articles show that he is

seeking a more well-founded understanding of music that would retain scientific elements while

reincorporating teleological components: a middle way very similar to the middle way he sought

in Institutions chimiques.

All of these elements coalesce in their most dramatic form in Rousseau’s article,

“Music.” Like “Sound,” “Music” also begins with a broad implication of what constitutes the

subject. He explains, “MUSIC, s.f. Μουσικὴ. Music is the science of sounds, as they are able to

pleasantly affect the ear, or the art of arranging and managing sounds in such a way that their

consonance, their order, and their relative durations, result in pleasant sensations.”80 At the very

outset of this article, Rousseau recognizes the three primary elements necessary to understand

music: “the science of sounds,” the role of the artist in the arrangement and management of

sounds, and finally the effect on the listening subject. What follows immediately is a significant

reproduction of Chambers’ Cyclopaedia81, but one that includes more than just a simple

reiteration of that text. Here, for the first time, we see Rousseau elevate melody and song above

80
“Music” in Encyclodédie, vol. 10, 898.
81
All authors of the Encyclopédie were provided with the relevant passages from Chambers’ Cyclopaedia
prior to beginning their own work.
 65

harmony by connecting them with the understanding of music that connects the science with

both purpose and ends. He writes, “By melody one directs the succession of sounds in a way

that produces pleasant songs. … Harmony, properly so called, consists in knowing how to unite

with each of the sounds of a regular and melodious succession, two or more other sounds which,

striking the ear at the same time, pleasantly flatter the senses.”82 And interestingly, it is precisely

because melody, directed by an artist, is oriented toward the end that it is superior to harmony.

In the general flow of the article, this reordering of the elements appears to be nothing

more than the setup for broadening the discussion of music. Rousseau soon shifts from defining

the elements of music to the historical consideration of the term “music,” noting in particular that

the ancients “gave to this word a much broader meaning than what remains today.” He explains

the sense in which the ancients understood music, capturing dance, song, poetry, and “the

collection of all the sciences.” And, citing Pythagoras and Plato, he suggests that the entire

universe can be understood as music, or as the order of all things, again pointing toward the

importance of ends in understanding the subject.

This discussion of music, then, broadly defined as it was in ancient times, further

confirms, albeit implicitly, Rousseau’s understanding of music. These subtle assertions flow

seamlessly with the main point of this section. Music understood in the broad ancient sense

discloses the incredible power of this art in practice. Rousseau cites several historical references

to make his point. But whereas his modern references (Boyle, Morhoff, Kircher, Fr. Mersenne)83

indicate the physical power relating to the science of music, his ancient references (Plato,

82
Ibid. Melody becomes the defining feature of Rousseau’s understanding of music in his mature thought.
See, On the Principle of Melody, or Response to the “Errors in Music” and the article on “Melody” in The
Dictionary of Music, in CW 7, 260-70 and 421-22 respectively.
83
Robert Boyle (1627-1691), best known as a chemist, physicist, and an early philosopher of science,
Boyle also wrote on music and acoustics; Daniel Morhoff (1639-1691), German intellectual who served as a
professor of the University of Keil; Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), a German Jesuit scholar, who was also an
influential music theorist and mathematician; Fr. Martin Mersenne (1588-1648), a French mathematician whose
work touched on harmonics and musical theory.
 66

Aristotle, Athenaeus) point toward the tremendous power of music on the listening subject.

Regarding the ancient references he writes, “One can find no more effective way to impress upon

the spirit of men the principles of morality and the knowledge of their duty.”84 By contrast, he

explains “Music today appears to have been deprived of that degree of power and majesty, to the

point that it makes us doubt the truth of these facts, even though they are attested to by the most

judicious historians and the most serious philosophers of antiquity.”85 Thus, according to

Rousseau, the modern scientific understanding of music has led to a fundamental deficiency—at

least in France. While music can be understood in the narrow modern sense as the science of

resonant and appreciable sound (as opposed to the physics of noise), at bottom, music must be

understood as an important mode of expression with tremendous socio-emotional impact.86 It is

not possible to understand music through the narrow framework of the science of sound alone.

Instead, the entire scope of the subject must be grounded in the science of sound, but understood

in light of the purpose and effect. Rousseau’s science of music, as the amalgamation of scientific

and philosophic approaches, is again similar to the chemistry he proposes in Institutions

chimiques.

The remainder of the article on music opens up the differences between ancient and

modern music, and it represents more original content than the preceding sections that were, to a

certain extent, recapitulations of the Cyclopaedia. Rousseau has already set the ancient and

modern understandings of music in opposition to one another. Now, through the lens of

84
Ibid., 899.
85
Ibid.
86
That this goes beyond merely individual emotional impact is evidenced by some of his other examples.
Near the end of the article Rousseau includes plates containing examples of ancient and modern music for the
purpose of allowing readers to judge for themselves the music itself. And in the later version of the article presented
in the Dictionary of Music, Rousseau adds to this plate the “famous Ranz-des-Vaches, the air so cherished by the
Swiss that it was prohibited from being played to their troops under penalty of death because it excited in them the
ardent desire to return to their country” (in CW 7, 444-45). The point of the plates is to provide examples that reflect
both the nature of the music itself, as well as the cultural significance of the music.
 67

confronting modern bias, he explores whether ancient or modern music can have a claim to being

a superior form. He begins by enumerating the qualities of ancient music, and in so doing he

emphasizes the elegance and simplicity of their music. There is a reversal of values apparent

here that equates simplicity with perfection, and so in many ways, this represents Rousseau’s

first foray into the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. At the same time, in emphasizing

the simplicity of ancient music, he sets up a clear contrast with the obvious technical superiority

of modern French music. The superiority of modern music can only be established on the basis

of the science of sounds, though, and thus the stage is set for a problematization of this

dichotomy, and specifically the bias toward modern superiority. Rousseau writes:

We therefore prevail over them from this perspective, and this is an important point since it is
certain that harmony is the true foundation of melody and modulation. But do we not deceive
ourselves by pointing to this advantage? This is a doubt that one is very tempted to have when one
hears our modern opera. What! This chaos, this confusion of parts, this multitude of different
instruments that seem to insult each other, this fracas of accompaniments that stifle the voice
without supporting it; does all this make up the true beauty of Music? Is it from this that she
draws her strength and energy? That would require that the most harmonious Music was at the
same time the most touching. But the public has learned quite the opposite.87

In one motion he seems to restore the superiority of harmony, only in the next move to call the

success attributed to it into question, finally establishing that “the veritable empire of the heart

belongs to melody.”88 The development of modern music has lost touch with the element that

provides it with meaning, and thus much of modern music is more cacophony than symphony.

To put it differently, modern music is flawed because it advances harmony for its own sake,

consequently neglecting the other essential elements of music. The technical superiority of

modern music is undeniable, but modern music on the whole is crippled by the modern vanity of

the science of sound. Rousseau’s critique amounts to the observation that modern music is no

87
“Music” in Encyclodédie, vol. 10, 900-901.
88
Ibid., 901.
 68

longer in the service of musical expression, but embedded in this is his notion that technical

sophistication in music cannot suffice for an ordering end or telos.

Interestingly, Rousseau makes clear attempts to remain balanced regarding the Quarrel

between the Ancients and the Moderns. He recognizes that the problem is more fundamental

than this tension, and therefore also that the answer cannot be so simple as to declare allegiance

to the one or the other. He writes:

What do I conclude from all this? That the ancient music was more perfect than ours? Not at all.
On the contrary, I think that ours is without comparison more learned and pleasant; but I think the
Greek was more expressive and energetic. Ours is more consistent with the nature of song; theirs
is closer to declamation; they endeavored to stir the soul, and we want only to please the ear. In a
word, the very abuse that we do our music comes as the result of its richness; and perhaps without
the limits that the imperfections imposed on Greek music, would it not have produced all the
miraculous effects that are reported to us?89

The comparison between ancient and modern music is informative, but it takes aim at the wrong

issue. Rousseau can be critical of modern music in a way that is inappropriate to ancient music.

His contemporaries have at their disposal the knowledge of music and the technical

sophistication that should allow their music to be truly and completely superior, whereas the

ancient Greeks had real limitations to their art. It is for this reason that Rousseau had earlier

introduced the “Italians, our contemporaries,” as a more appropriate counterexample of positive

modern music—namely a music that does privilege melody over harmony, and which

understands the teleological depth of music as a mode of expression.90

His use of the contemporary example along with his mode of problematization suggest

that he is already becoming aware of the fact that the issue is not one of contest between the

music of different ages, nor can the resolution be any sort of return to a distant past. Here music

is a helpful case study for understanding Rousseau’s broader thought. In his mode of

89
Ibid., 902.
90
Ibid., 901. In Rousseau’s later writings on music, notwithstanding those that are edited versions of his
pre-illumination writings, he abandons ancient music as his positive standard, preferring Italian music instead.
 69

problematization he is honing in on the heart of the issue; what is really at stake in his analysis of

music, including his contrast between ancient and modern forms, is the nature of music itself.91

Even in these early stages, Rousseau’s answer to the question “what is music?” appears to

require an understanding of formal and final causes in addition to the modern scientific

understanding of sound, music’s material cause.92 At the very least, Rousseau is considering

music in a framework that takes seriously the modern scientific understanding of the subject, but

which seems to move toward the reconciliation of that narrow scientific perspective with broader

teleological understanding.

III. After Vincennes

The 1749 illumination on the road to Vincennes is frequently considered in light of the main

principle that Rousseau himself claims to have derived from his moment of clarity, namely that

man is naturally good. To be fair, Rousseau often references this main principle as the driving

idea behind all of his mature writings. For example, in the Letter to Beaumont he writes, “The

fundamental principle of morality about which I have reasoned in all my Writings and developed

in this last one with all the clarity of which I was capable, is that man is a naturally good

being.”93 This principle of morality is, without a doubt, an essential feature of Rousseau’s

91
Rameau’s latter attacks on Rousseau’s thought make this clear. Granted, because “Music” was not
published in the Encyclopédie until 1765, Rameau had Rousseau’s post-illumination writings at hand by the time he
wrote his critique of Rousseau’s articles on music, and these later works confirm this understanding of Rousseau’s
work on music. Nevertheless, when Rameau writes his Errors on Music in the Encyclopédie, he sees the shift
Rousseau has initiated in understanding the nature of music, and he traces this all the way back to the articles written
for the Encyclopédie prior to 1749. See Errors on Music in the Encyclopédie, in CW 7, 226.
92
Rousseau’s later writings on music also appear to add to these three main elements a more simultaneous
sentimental reaction that provides depth to the understanding of the music as a whole. It is difficult to thoroughly
distinguish this form of sentimental reaction from the notion of the effect on a listening subject that is apparent in
the Encyclopédie articles, and it may be a further clarification of these effects rather than an additional element.
93
Letter to Beaumont, in CW 9, 45.
 70

mature thought. But, this narrow read of the illumination experience results in the view that

Rousseau’s insight in that moment was limited to an understanding of man alone, to his nature

and the moral consequences thereof. As was noted above, Rousseau’s autobiographical accounts

of the illumination offer a different perspective on the content of his illumination experience.

Rousseau is particularly clear that in his illumination an entire system was opened up

before his mind’s eye, nearly all of which was lost in that fleeting moment besides what was

perhaps its most salient feature, man’s natural goodness. Nevertheless, this system lies behind

all of Rousseau’s thought after the illumination; just as it substantiates Rousseau’s principle of

morality, so too does it underlie the other aspects of his thought.94 But because his principle of

morality is the most salient feature of works like the Discourses and Emile, it can have the effect

of obscuring the other features of his system, if not the existence of the system itself. In this

regard, Rousseau’s later writings on chemistry and music hold even greater value for

understanding his mature philosophy. In these writings there is a view of Rousseau’s system that

is separate from but related to his principle of morality, and which brings to the forefront those

features that are easily obscured in his more prominent works. By pairing Rousseau’s

intellectual struggle with his philosophic clarity, and specifically by examining his later writings

on chemistry and music, his system is further revealed. Importantly, Rousseau’s writings on

chemistry (and later botany) and music after 1749 evince an established teleological position as

yet another salient feature of his philosophy, and which appears to dovetail with the undeniable

significance of Rousseau’s principle of morality.

III.1 Chemistry After 1749—Rousseau’s interest in chemistry begins to shift after 1749,

and because he wrote so little on the subject in the following years, there is much speculation

94
Cf., Letters to Malsherbes of January 2 and 26, 1762. It is the ecstasy of his communion with the whole
that Rousseau continues to seek as the highest form of happiness available to man. Compare with Rêveries, V, in
CW 8.
 71

about how committed he was to its study after the illumination. Most scholars agree that, while

Rousseau had been studying chemistry for many years, he only began to develop Institutions

chimiques in earnest after Rouelle’s course, and possibly as he was beginning to conduct his own

experiments with Francueil in 1747. His most intense study of chemistry would have been when

he was developing that manuscript, but unfortunately, it is difficult to know how long this period

lasted. Given the mode of inquiry that Rousseau exhibits in Institutions chimiques, there is good

reason to believe that a draft of the manuscript was complete before 1749, and that he continued

editing the text later, as he did with his other works. Scholars disagree, however, over when

Rousseau stopped his work on Institutions chimiques, some dating this to 1753 and others to

1757.95 All of this, of course, makes it difficult to glean from his interest in chemistry after 1749

the important features of his mature thought.

It is clear, however, that Rousseau maintained an interest in chemistry after the

illumination, and that he remained well aware of the field of study as he shifted away from it

over time. In 1753, Rousseau writes a letter to the Abbé Guillaume-Thomas-François Raynal

wherein he addresses the grave dangers of working and cooking with copper.96 The letter clearly

expresses Rousseau’s grasp of the chemistry related to this issue, as well as his knowledge of the

field of chemists, physicists, and medical doctors whose work focused on the study of copper

and its impact on the human body. As late as 1757, Rousseau was still negotiating with

d’Holbach over the translation of a German chemistry manuscript that Rousseau had agreed to

help publish.97 Even despite his shift, Rousseau remained aware of the cutting edge of the field

of chemistry. At the same time, it is also clear that Rousseau was losing his passion for
95
Bensuade-Vincent and Bernardi date the completion of the manuscript to 1753, while Marco Beretta
argues that Rousseau is still working on the manuscript as late as 1757. See Beretta, “Sensiblerie vs. Méchanisme.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau et la chemie,” in Corpus: Revue de philosophie 36 (1999), 103-122.
96
Letter to Abbé Guillaume-Thomas-François Raynal, subsequently published in the Mercure de France,
in CW 12, 119-121.
97
Confessions IX, in CW 5, 386-87.
 72

chemistry, and that it was coming to represent something different for him than it had before

1749. This is somewhat apparent in the cautionary language of the Letter to Raynal, but his

sentiments are present in other works as well. Rousseau is implicitly critical of chemistry in

Second Discourse and in minor works like his Dictionary of Botany98; he openly attacks

chemistry in the course of a discussion of education in the Emile99; and finally his sentiments on

chemistry are confirmed in the Rêveries when he concludes, “From all this sad and tiresome toil

much less knowledge than pride ordinarily results, and where is the most mediocre chemist who

does not think he has penetrated all the great operations of nature?”100 In many ways, it appears

that Rousseau comes to equate chemistry with the sort of study that was at its core a vain pursuit,

and perhaps worse, destructive to life itself.101

As Rousseau becomes increasingly hostile to chemistry as a vain and destructive science,

his passion for botany comes more and more to the forefront of his interests, culminating with

his testament to that science in the Rêveries and various minor works from his later life. Why

the study of botany appears to play such a significant role in Rousseau’s life is particularly

significant here because it offers insight into both Rousseau’s mature vision of science and his

mature philosophy more broadly. Regarding his mature vision of science, Rousseau’s botanical

writings contra other sciences show that he understands the way in which science must benefit

and not harm life. Physics inquires into the nature of bodies in the mineral realm merely for

profit and always to the detriment of those who pursue the study; chemistry and medicine would

tear natural bodies asunder or grind them up with mortar and pestle, thus detaching man from a

98
For example, consider Second Discourse, in CW 3, 77-78; and Dictionary of Botany, in CW 8, 93.
99
Emile, in CW 13, 329-30.
100
Rêveries, VII, in CW 8, 63.
101
Rousseau appears to have come to hold this view of chemistry and medicine in particular, as is
evidenced by Rêveries, VII. Alexandra Cook shares this view of Rousseau’s shift in feeling on chemistry. See
Cook, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Botany, 50-51.
 73

healthy respect for nature and life.102 The sanctity of natural life, as Rousseau understands it,

however, he finds honored in the study botany. More importantly, Rousseau recognizes a close

parallel between botany and philosophy. First, botany is the contemplation of an object that at

once combines pleasure and curiosity in such a way that the student is directed away from the

vanity inherent in the other sciences. To put this differently, the study of botany can overcome

amour-propre because, as Rousseau says, “Botany gathers together and recalls to my

imagination all the ideas which gratify it more.”103 Second, botany, like philosophy, considers

its objects in the fullness of their whole existence, which is to say both scientifically and

teleologically. Explaining how in his later life botany has filled a position more frequently

occupied by philosophic study, Rousseau writes:

It costs me neither expense nor trouble to wander at random from herb to herb and from plant to
plant to examine them, to compare their diverse characters, to take note of their similarities and
differences, in sum, to observe the ways plants are composed so as to follow the course and the
operation of these living machines, to seek—sometimes with success—their general laws as well
as the reason for and the end of their diverse structures, and to give myself up to the charm of
grateful admiration for the hand which lets me enjoy all of that.
Plants seem to have been sown profusely on the earth, like the stars in the sky, to invite man
to the study of nature by the attraction of pleasure and curiosity.104

Two things should be noted here. First, the middle way that Rousseau sought in his chemical

writings and began to grasp in his musical writings prior to 1749 appears well established in his

thinking on botany later in his career. Second, the relationship between botany and philosophy

offers a new perspective on Rousseau’s philosophy. Botany represents the marriage of modern

science and philosophy in such a way that formal and final causes are incorporated with material

science, and the implication is that the same is true of philosophy albeit in a far more

complicated way. It is because Rousseau sees this parallel that he is able to explain, for example,

102
Rêveries, VII, in CW 8, 62-63.
103
Ibid., 67-68.
104
Ibid., 64.
 74

“The study of nature detaches us from ourselves and raises us to its Author. It is in this sense

that one truly becomes a philosopher; thus natural history and botany have a use for wisdom and

virtue.”105 Both botany and philosophy orient the inquirer to the highest order of nature, but not

without a firm grasp of all that modern science can establish with certainty. Very generally,

then, the parallel that Rousseau draws between botany and philosophy suggests that there is a

metaphysical system behind the salient features of his post-illumination thought. More

specifically, the parallel suggests that the teleological elements of his scientific thought are

equally present and essential to his philosophic thought.

III.2 Music After 1749—Rousseau’s writings on music following the illumination provide

further evidence of the teleological elements of his mature philosophy. Because he commits so

much more time to music after the illumination than he does to chemistry, there is ample textual

evidence to consider. And because his musical thought prior to the illumination was in some

ways already more advanced than his thought on chemistry, his later work on music shows both

the continuation of what was begun before 1749 and the clarity of his teleological thought

thereafter. In general, Rousseau’s musical writings after the illumination strengthen the

teleological positions he began to cultivate early in 1749 when he was developing the articles for

the Encyclopédie, and suggest that the teleological elements of his musical thought are

significant features of his mature philosophy on the whole.

The Dictionary of Music provides the most direct connection between Rousseau’s pre-

and post-illumination thought on music.106 The Dictionary was initially based on the articles that

105
Letter to the Duchess of Portland, September 3, 1766, in CC XXX, 314.
106
Rousseau wrote many works relating to or referencing music after 1749, and many of these could be
considered here were it not for the consideration of space. All of Rousseau’s works on music after the illumination
furnish the same support as the Dictionary of Music. For example, in the Letter on French Music, the nature of
music is again the central theme. References to ancient music are hardly visible because the question of music has
become entirely contemporary. In this context, Rousseau also clarifies the role of music as a meaningful mode of
expression, and in particular, he emphasizes the emotive power of music on the listening subject. Even in Julie, ou
 75

Rousseau developed for the Encyclopédie. As he explains in the preface to the completed text,

he had rushed to complete the Encyclopédie articles in 1749, but was immediately unsatisfied

with his work, and resolved to recast the articles in their entirety.107 Rousseau worked on this

new draft off and on from 1749 until 1768, when it was finally published as the Dictionary of

Music. While much of what was presented in the Encyclopédie articles is preserved in the

Dictionary, the latter is no mere revision of his earlier work. Of the 904 articles in the

Dictionary, only 380 were previously written for Encyclopédie in 1749; of those 380, 214 were

substantially edited or added to, and 166 remained in their original form; 524 were entirely

original to the Dictionary.108 Moreover, the way in which Rousseau developed the Dictionary

shows that he was making a conscious effort to better articulate his musical theory in light of the

system discovered in the illumination. Both the changes to his original Encyclopédie articles and

the new articles written expressly for the Dictionary provide his work with a central focus on

music as an imitative mode of expression and signifying system only understood with reference

to its entire range of existence.

The articles in the Dictionary retain the importance of the science of sound that Rousseau

deftly established in the Encyclopédie. In fact, the emphasis on the science of sound is at one

and the same time buttressed while it is reaffirmed within Rousseau’s larger musical framework.

For example, the article on “Sound” discussed above remains largely in the same form in the

La Nouvelle Héloïse Rousseau takes the opportunity to emphasize the broad framework of music as a supremely
expressive mode of communication (see, Julie, Letter XLVIII, in CW 6). For the purposes of this chapter, the
Dictionary of Music suffices to demonstrate the themes that are evident in all of Rousseau’s later work on music.
107
Dictionary of Music, in CW 7, 366-67.
108
See, CW 7, xxxvi n112; and Thomas Webb Hunt, “The Dictionnaire de musique of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau” (Ph.D Dissertation, North Texas State University, 1967), appendix VII. Hunt’s analysis also details the
way in which the Encyclopédie articles were revised (i.e., truncated, expanded, and/or edited), though there are some
problems with his accounting. See note 113 below.
 76

Dictionary as it was in the Encyclopédie.109 The additions made to the Dictionary, however,

emphasize the fact that the science of sound must be understood in the context of music as a

powerful mode of expression with teleological depth. The new article on “Noise,” for example,

supports these aspects of music with even more clarity and force.110 Rousseau writes, “I do not

know if any property of air has been observed that can make us suspect that the agitation that

produces sound and that which produces prolonged noise are not of the same nature.”111 But if

the material nature of sound and noise are not sufficient to distinguish one from the other, then

what is it that distinguishes them? This question turns the reader outside of the mere science of

sound and to the fuller appreciation of music as a purposeful mode of expression. For the

agitation of air to rise to the level of sound, it must transmit with it the purposeful intention of an

author. But even this is not sufficient. Rousseau explains, “Play all the keys of a harpsichord at

the same time, you will produce a total sensation that will only be noise, and that will only

prolong its effect, by the resonance of its strings, like any other noise that the same strings would

make resonate.”112 It is not simply by purposefulness that noise becomes sound, but rather

through both the purposefulness and the achievement of its end: when sound communicates the

expression to the listening subject.

It is precisely these portions of the musical framework anterior and posterior to the

science of sound that Rousseau’s articles in the Dictionary of Music emphasize, all of which can

be subsumed under the “unity of melody.” In his article “Song,” Rousseau explains, “Song,

applied more particularly to our Music, is its melodious part, that which results from the duration

and the succession of Sounds, that on which all expression depends, and to which the rest is
109
The text of “Sound” was added to significantly in order to clarify points and enhance the explanatory
power of the examples in the plates.
110
“Noise” was not included in the Encyclopédie, though the distinction between noise and sound is present
in the original version of “Sound” dating to 1749.
111
“Noise” in Dictionnaire de musique, in OC V, 671.
112
Ibid., 672.
 77

subordinated.”113 But songs do not spring spontaneously from nature. In fact, according to

Rousseau, “The first expressions of nature have nothing melodious or sonorous about them.” He

explains, “Melodious and discernable Song is only a calm and artificial imitation of the accents

of the speaking or passionate Voice; one cries and one complains without singing, but one

imitates cries and complaints by singing, and as, of all imitations, the most interesting is that of

the human passions, of all the manners of imitating the most pleasant if Song.”114 Moreover, the

imitation of the object that the musician renders is tremendously powerful. In his article

“Imitation,” Rousseau explains:

Let all of nature be asleep, he who contemplates is not, and the Musician’s Art consists in
substituting for the imperceptible image of the object that the movements of its presence arouses
in the heart of the Contemplator. Not only will it agitate the sea, animate the flame of a blaze,
make rivers flow, rain fall, and torrents swell, but it will paint the horror of a frightful desert,
darken the walls of a subterranean prison, calm the tempest, make the air tranquil and serene, and
spread from the orchestra a new freshness over the groves. It will not represent these things
directly, but will arouse the same movements in the soul that are experienced by seeing them.115

Thus, music necessarily requires a musician as the formal cause of the song’s coming to be. The

musician’s art and power of the music itself rests on the unique ability of the former to imitate

his object, and the unique nature of the latter that allows the object to be meaningfully expressed

as a set of associated emotions. Rousseau is therefore able to assert in his article “Genius” that

“The Genius of the Musician submits the entire Universe to his Art. He paints every portrait by

Sounds; he makes silence itself speak; he renders ideas by feelings, feelings by accents; and the

passions he expresses, he arouses them in the bottom of hearts.”116 It is through the musician

that the mode of expression comes to be.

113
“Song,” in Dictionary of Music, in CW 7, 375. An article on “Song” appeared in the original text of the
Encyclopédie, and this entry was substantial. Rousseau cut down and rewrote this article significantly. This change
does not appear to have been correctly noted by Hunt, who only notes that there were additions to the original text.
114
Ibid.
115
“Imitaton,” ibid., 414. “Imitation” is original to the Dictionary.
116
“Genius,” ibid., 406. “Genius” is original to the Dictionary.
 78

This, of course, only explains the musical framework anterior to the science of sound.

Rousseau frequently reminds the reader that the framework extends past the science of sound.

For example, in “Noise,” when he is trying to distinguish between noise and sound, Rousseau is

very clear that music cannot achieve its end without purposefully impacting the listening subject.

He references deafening sounds like screaming voices and bells rung in too close proximity to

the listening subject, explaining that they are “impossible to appreciate.” He even uses music

itself as an example, relating that “The name noise is applied also, out of disdain, to disorienting

and confusing music, where one hears more din than harmony, and more clamors than song.

This is just noise. This opera makes a lot of Noise and little effect.117 Rousseau puts this more

succinctly in “Song” when he writes, “To invent new Songs belongs to the man of genius; to find

beautiful Songs belongs to the man of taste.”118 His point here as elsewhere in the Dictionary is

that the listening subject is equally a part of the musical framework as are the musician and the

science of sound; music’s end lies with the listener, and it cannot reach its end if the mode of

expression fails to impact the audience. Rousseau’s finest expression of this point comes in

“Unity of Melody.” Borrowing from his observations of Italian music, and parlaying this into a

statement on music and the arts in general119, Rousseau writes:

UNITY OF MELODY. All the fine Arts have some Unity of object, a source of pleasure they give to
the mind: for the attention divided settles nowhere, and when two objects occupy us, it is a proof
that neither of them satisfies us. In Music, there is a successive Unity that relates to the subject,
and by which all the parts, when well linked, compose a single whole whose ensemble and all of
whose relationships are perceived.
But there is another Unity of object, finer, more simultaneous, and from which—without it
being thought of—the Music’s energy and the strength of its expression arises.120

The unity of the subject is what the musician communicates in his composition and through his

arrangement of sound. The unity of object is what strikes the listener, moves the passions, and
117
“Noise” in Dictionnaire de musique, in OC V, 672.
118
“Song,” in Dictionary of Music, in CW 7, 375.
119
Compare the following passage to “Accompaniment” in the Encyclopédie, in CW 7, 203.
120
“Unity of Melody,” in Dictionary of Music, in CW 7, 476-77. “Unity of Melody” is original to the
Dictionary.
 79

impacts the soul. The positively perceived unity of object is what constitutes music’s true end.

The “Unity of Melody” subsumes both the unity of the subject and the unity of the object, as

well as the matter by which they are carried from beginning to end.

III.3 Music and Rousseau’s Mature Philosophy—Before the illumination, melody was

already at the core of Rousseau’s thought on music, but after 1749 melody, and more specifically

the unity of melody, becomes the defining expression of his mature understanding of the musical

framework. This is apparent in all of Rousseau’s musical work following the illumination; it is

the basis for his argument in the Letter on French Music, it is tested in the composition of Le

Devin du village121, it is further developed in On the Principle of Melody, and confirmed in the

Dictionary of Music. Interestingly, while Rousseau is working to clearly articulate his

conception of the unity of melody in some works, he is simultaneously working to ground his

musical principle in other works, and this marks a significant change in his thought prior to and

following the illumination. While the connection between music and language is not pronounced

in his Encyclopédie articles, it is an important feature of music in his later work. In fact, it is

music’s relation to language that substantiates Rousseau’s notion of it as an imitative mode of

expression. The earliest explicit and considered explanation of the relationship between

language and music comes in On the Principle of Melody. In this text Rousseau explains that

“every language must at its birth make up for less numerous articulations by more modified

sounds, at first putting inflections and accents in the place of words and syllables and singing all

the more as it spoke less.”122 The mechanics of emotional expression are first found in the

accent of languages, and accents are cultivated in inverse proportion to the communicative

121
Ibid., 479.
122
On the Principle of Melody, in CW 7, 261.
 80

capability of the language, carrying the burden of expression that the language cannot sustain in

virtue of its vocabulary and grammar. Rousseau explains:

When one has only a few words to render many ideas, one must necessarily give various meanings
to these words, combine them in various manners, give them various acceptations that tone alone
distinguishes, employ figurative turns, and as the difficulty of making oneself understood permits
saying only interesting things, one says them with fire by the very fact that that they are said with
difficulty; fervor, accent, gesture, everything animates discourses one must make felt rather than
understood. …the pathetic accent animated everything since, saying only important and necessary
things, nothing was said but with interest and warmth, and finally, from the effort of retaining
along with the verses the tone in which they were pronounced, there then emerged the first seed of
genuine Music, which is not so much the simple accent of speech as this same accent imitated.123

Here it becomes clear how the sonorous character of language develops, how music becomes

separated from language as an imitative abstraction of the emotional expression of language, and

thus, how music must be understood as grounded in language generally. This also explains the

way in which music is culturally related to language and how one music can be understood as

superior to another. Finally, and most importantly, On the Principle of Melody, by historically

referring music to language, represents Rousseau’s first sustained effort to explain how music

can be said to have the aims and ends of a mode of expression.

On the Principle of Melody is a draft that was never published, but what Rousseau wrote

therein was eventually repurposed for use in his other works. On the one hand, much of what

was written in On the Principle of Melody becomes a significant portion of the Examination of

Two Principles Advanced by M. Rameau. In this capacity, the explanations on the relationship

between language and music in On the Principle of Melody go a great distance toward locating

the source of music in a ground more fundamental than harmony. On the other hand, a great deal

of the text in On the Principle of Melody is repurposed for Rousseau’s Essay on the Origins of

Languages. Now, the Essay on the Origins of Language overlaps significantly with the First and

Second Discourses. In fact, Rousseau acknowledges in the draft preface to the Essay that it

123
Ibid., 261-62.
 81

began as a fragment from the Second Discourse.124 Even if the explicit connection is left aside,

the reader will find in the Essay a return to the ancients, the use of natural history as a foundation

for the argument, and even an elaboration on the human faculties of pity and self-perfection.

Much of scholarly analysis has been devoted to understanding the connection between these

works and what each can say about the others. However, relatively little attention has been paid

to the Essay in the musical context in which it was developed.125 Rousseau’s full title of the

work, Essay on the Origins of Language: in Which Melody and Musical Imitation are Treated,

and the obvious overlap between this text and On the Principle of Melody, are more than enough

to encourage anyone to place music near the center of the reading. The real value in doing so,

however, is not simply to gain a new perspective on the work. It is because, as Elizabeth Duchez

points out, the Essay marks “the point of juncture of two concurrent preoccupations: the one

concerning music and language, the other concerning society and language.”126 It should be

added that both of these concurrent preoccupations are sufficient avenues for the analysis of

Rousseau’s philosophy in general. Thus as John Scott explains, “The origin and the form of the

Essay show that it belongs to the philosophical project of the Second Discourse as well as to

Rousseau’s polemic with Rameau, and thus provides the best view of the links between

Rousseau’s musical theory and his philosophy as a whole.”127

124
Essay on the Origin of Languages, in CW 7, 289.
125
See, Claude Levi-Strauss, Anthropologie structurale deux (Paris: Plon, 1996); Jacques Derrida, Of
Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016); and Michael O’Dea, “How to Be Modern in
Music,” in Rousseau and the Dilemmas of Modernity, 104. Claude Levi-Strauss and Jacques Derrida were largely
responsible for returning the Essay to the forefront of Rousseau scholarship and for reestablishing the significance of
the musical context in which it was developed. It is worth noting in particular that Derrida recognizes the Essay as a
prime example of an “epoch” of Western metaphysics as a whole. O’Dea argues that the Essay should be considered
in the context of Rousseau’s musical thought, and calls the work “one of the densest products of a life in which
music was an abiding passion and a constant subject of reflection.”
126
Elizabeth Duchez, “Principe de la Mélodie et Origine des langues: Un brouillon inédit de Jean-Jacques
Rousseau sur l’origine de la mélodie,” Revue de musicology 60 (1974), 48.
127
John T. Scott, “Introduction,” in CW 7, xxvii.
 82

Considered in the context of his musical thought, the Essay on the Origin of Languages

offers a new perspective of Rousseau’s overarching philosophy. The Essay retells the story of

man first given in the Second Discourse, but opens up important variations in the historical

development of human beings that could not be made clear by the broad brush strokes of the

earlier Discourse. In the Essay, Rousseau is able to show in greater detail the variable impact of

“accidental” physical circumstances on human development. Language is a distinguishing

feature of humanity, but the circumstances of geography and culture play a more significant role

in distinguishing one language from the next than is apparent in the Discourse. As man acquires

self-consciousness and pity, thus becoming a moral and social creature, the geography and

climate are active elements shaping unique cultural features, and the variations of language are

reflections of these cultural differences. This organization also suggests that language impacts

the sentiments because the passions are influenced by the inherent emotional expression that

constitutes the fullness of it as a mode of communication. In an obvious sense, by establishing

the way in which the bonds of a community are manifest in the common language and music of

that culture, and by explaining in a new context how culture and society degenerate over time,

Rousseau is able to provide a strong justification for his critique of Rameau, and of French music

more generally. Simply put, they are the consequence of the social-cultural degeneration that

Rousseau details in the Essay. But more importantly, by developing the justification of his

musical thought in the context of the natural history of man, Rousseau returns to the issue he

raises only in the closing of On the Principle of Melody. Drawing a parallel between painting

and the science of color, he explains:

One is likewise mistaken in Music as soon as one takes for the first cause harmony and sounds,
which are actually only the instruments of the melody. Not that the melody in turn has this cause
in itself, but it derives it from the moral effects of which it is the image: namely, the cry of nature,
 83

accent, number, measure, and the pathetic and passionate tone which the agitation of the soul gives
to the human voice.128

Music, as the expression of the agitation of the soul, finds its first cause in the moral effects of

the soul of the musician. Then, in the final paragraph, he writes:

Let us therefore not think that the empire Music has over our passions is ever explained by
proportions and numbers. All these explanations are only nonsense and will never produce
anything but disbelievers because experience constantly belies them and because one cannot
discover in them any type of connection with the nature of man. The Principle and the rules are
only the material of the art; a more subtle metaphysics is needed in order to explain its great
effects.129

It is clear that in On the Principle of Melody and the Essay on the Origin of Languages Rousseau

recognizes that any justification of music as a meaningful mode of expression must begin with

an explication of the nature of man. On the Principle of Melody, however, suggests that the

justification of music’s great effects requires an even firmer metaphysical grounding, and the

Essay is merely one part of the grand articulation of the system that was disclosed to Rousseau in

the illumination experience. With this in mind, these post-illumination musical writings make

clear that, if music has the teleological structure that it does, and if music can be traced back to

its origins in human language, then the teleological structure apparent in music should be present

in language as well. To the extent that it is present, and to the extent that, by wedding the former

with the main thrust of his philosophical analysis, the Essay establishes a clear connection

between Rousseau’s musical thought and his philosophy in general, there is good reason to

inquire into his teleological thinking on human nature, and on nature itself, and finally, to think

with reference to the metaphysical system he witnessed as we read his philosophy.

128
On the Principle of Melody, in CW 7, 269.
129
Ibid., 269-70. The occasions when Rousseau uses the term metaphysics are rare, and rarer still are those
where he does not use the term disparagingly. This is one of those doubly rare usages. This strong statement shold
be kept in mind as we consider Rousseau’s other treatments of mathematics and probability. See Chapters 2 and 4
below.
 84

IV. Conclusion

Rousseau’s early writings on chemistry and music reveal an obvious preoccupation with

teleological issues. In Institutions chimiques, as he considers the premises of modern science

and natural theology, we see amidst the problematization of what appear to be diametrically

opposed positions that Rousseau is striving for some harmony of ancient and modern paradigms,

and especially a balancing of forms and ends with a recognition of modern scientific causal

explanation. This same motion toward a reconciliation of ancient and modern paradigms is

again apparent in Rousseau’s early writings on music. Thus, it is not simply the exploration of

teleological issues that is represented in these writings on chemistry and music, but rather the

seeds of Rousseau’s mature conceptions of teleology, still emerging from his problematization

and deep consideration of their possibility. Rousseau’s illumination sets this aspect of his

intellectual development in relief, for while the consistency of his philosophic way of life

remains intact, out of his experience on the road to Vincennes he gains clarity on how one can

have a teleological conception of the world that still accommodates the foundations of modern

science. Rousseau’s writings on music after 1749 provide an example of how there must be a

unity between the matter of an object and its end. But more importantly, Rousseau’s thought on

music evidences a clear connection with his philosophy in general, and thus the teleological

structure of music points to the need for, in Rousseau’s words, “a more subtle metaphysics” that

would account for these things in nature and in human nature. Such is the task Rousseau sets

himself in the Second Discourse.

Chapter Two: Nature and Human Nature in the Second Discourse

In the previous chapter it was argued that, if Rousseau is to be taken at his word, the illumination

on the road to Vincennes opened up an entire system to his philosophic vision. Despite the fact

that Rousseau often presents his principle of man’s natural goodness as the driving idea behind

all of his mature writings, the position of this study is that it is not merely his position on man’s

natural goodness, but rather his broader teleological vision of man and nature that characterizes

his thought after the illumination. These two ways of characterizing Rousseau’s philosophic

vision are interrelated. Rousseau places great emphasis on man’s sense and moral sense as the

innate human faculties or conduits through which the natural order of the world is made manifest

to human beings, and so there is an intersection between human nature and nature broadly

insofar as the order of nature is made discoverable through the natural principles or elements of

the human being. By showing that his broad philosophic system and his principle of morality are

fundamentally intertwined, Rousseau means for us to understand that his system is also a moral

system.

This is precisely what we see demonstrated in the relationship between Rousseau’s

musical writings and his more overtly philosophic writings, and in particular by the bridge that is

formed between On the Principle of Melody, On the Origin of Languages, and the Second

Discourse. In these closely connected works we see that when Rousseau calls for a “more subtle

metaphysics” he means for this to begin with an explication of nature and human nature, or

precisely the project that is underway immediately following the illumination and separate from

but related to his musical endeavors. In fact, when considering the Second Discourse in

particular we see that Rousseau’s principle of morality is an essential feature of his philosophic

85
 86

consideration of nature and human nature, and in many ways it is the lens through which his

grander system comes into view.

The aim of this chapter is to further uncover Rousseau’s teleological thought by

presenting an interpretation of the Second Discourse highlighting his extremely complex, subtle,

and teleological explication of nature and human nature. Such a teleological interpretation of the

Second Discourse is not without considerable objections.1 Still, it is our position that this

interpretation follows more directly from the clear preoccupation with teleological issues we see

in Rousseau’s early writings on chemistry and music, that it is more compatible with positions in

his mature philosophic writings, especially those in the Emile and the Letter to Voltaire, and

moreover, that it even reconciles or incorporates the ground of some of those objections.

In our interpretation of the Second Discourse we find that Rousseau has a far more

complex understanding of all that the term “nature” represents than he is typically given credit

1
Some of the possible objections to this interpretation were mentioned in the “Introduction” to this study.
Several, however, are of particular importance to the present chapter. The Second Discourse is the work wherein
Rousseau most acutely expresses his reservations about classical teleological models. To begin with, the primary
sense of nature that Rousseau references throughout the text is nature understood as original, pure, and good, which
is to say in contradistinction to the causal forces that corrupt human beings. To make this distinction is, therefore, to
say at least that natural forms are not the causal forces responsible for man’s subsequent development, if not that
they are altogether non-existent. To this we may add the fact that Rousseau pushes back against the biblical model
for understanding human development at the outset of the Second Discourse, and comes to rely heavily on a causal
model apparently driven by the coincidental occurrence of pivotal historic events (Cf., Discourse on the Origin of
Inequality [henceforth Second Discourse], in CW 2, 19, 42). In fact, even Rousseau’s explanation of human
development through the lens of “perfectibility” appears at first glance to take the form of modern causal science.
And as Strauss points out (see “Introduction”), Rousseau’s questioning of older teleological models is subtly born
out again and again throughout the text, and especially where he notes the accidental nature of the impetuses of
man’s development (Cf., ibid., 28-29, 33, and 42). Strauss, of course, sees this questioning of classical teleology
echoed in the Emile (see Strauss, Seminar in Political Philosophy: Rousseau, 186-87; and Emile, in CW 13, 294).
While it would be outside the scope of this chapter to explore all of the justifications for the anti-teleological reading
of Rousseau in detail, it suffices to say that in the chapter that follows we hope to show that Rousseau relies upon
more than one sense of nature in the Second Discourse, the majority of which do not detract, and even contribute to
a teleological reading of his philosophy. Further, we hope to show that as much as Rousseau does in fact question
teleological paradigms, he does not fully abandon teleological explanations of man and nature, but rather develops a
new teleological formulation of them that provides for man’s genuine freedom by affording him a mutable form in
human nature, and a shifting end toward which he is oriented. Read this way, Rousseau’s comments regarding the
role of providential nature, and even Providence itself, can be read together with the apparently disparate comments
on accidental causes, chance, and probability.
 87

for.2 Before Rousseau’s intellectual acme, the concept of nature had already become

controversial; at least one prominent thinker had criticized it as “ambiguous and equivocal” and

had proposed abandoning the concept entirely.3 Rousseau was aware of this controversy and he

was acutely sensitive to the problems inherent in the conceptualization of nature leading up to

and during the Enlightenment. In fact, in many ways it appears as if he intentionally capitalizes

on certain ambiguities in the Second Discourse through his methodological practice of saying

and unsaying, or problematizing his positions.4 While this creates the appearance of conflicting

accounts of nature, these conflicts actually serve a pedagogical purpose: they expose readers to

the various ways in which nature must be considered in order to progressively understand it. At

the forefront of the explication of nature in the Second Discourse is Rousseau’s characterization

of nature as original, pure, and good, which firmly establishes it as a positive standard and

2
The standard interpretation of Rousseau’s sense of nature limits him to no more than two conceptions of
nature, the first reflecting the natural world (nature understood as original) and the second reflecting the naturalness
of man in some variation of his condition (nature understood historically). For example, D.J. Allan writes,
“[Rousseau] speaks of Nature, not in an indefinite number of ways, but always in one of two very precise senses
which can be recognized by the context in which the word is used” (“Nature, Education, and Freedom According to
Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” in Philosophy, vol. 12, no. 46 [April 1937]: 191.) It is our position that Rousseau
represents nature in at least five different senses: nature as original, as historical, as particular capacities or faculties,
as normative, and as providential.
3
J. Christoph Sturmius, Philosophia eclectia, vol. 2 (Altdorf: Schönnerstaedt, 1689), 359, cited in Robert
Spaemann, A Robert Spaemann Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 22. Spaemann’s account of the
controversy surrounding the concept of nature and the way in which the concept was historically understood is
particularly insightful. Unfortunately, he fails to understand Rousseau’s thought on nature, ultimately explaining it
in only the single narrow sense of “nature as original” (31-32). This results in the mischaracterization of Rousseau’s
situation in the history of the concept of nature, but it does not undermine his explanation of the history of the
concept of nature on the whole.
4
This method is similar to what we see employed in the Institutions chimiques discussed in the previous
chapter. Throughout this chapter it is, therefore, very important to keep in mind the moral and pedagogical limits
Rousseau sets for himself. Because he recognizes the necessary relationship between truth and sentiment and
reason, and thus between moral character and action, Rousseau’s work must be read as a consistent reflection of his
commitment to truth. This commitment is manifested in various ways appropriate to the requirements of moral
truth, or more simply put, in keeping with the demands of his conscience. Rousseau’s work is, therefore, always
only an approximation of his philosophic understanding, but one congruent with his understanding of and
commitment to philosophic truth. On each occasion of his writing he is limited idiosyncratically by circumstance,
and universally by the philosophic truth and the moral truth to which he is witness. Practically speaking, this means
that Rousseau is forbidden from advancing a position that he believes to be completely and entirely false; at most, he
is permitted to advance positions that are adulterated versions of the truth, the discrepancies of which must serve a
moral purpose. Remembering this will help make sense of the apparently conflicting accounts of nature given in the
text.
 88

distinguishes what is natural and good from what is merely artificial and conventional, and

potentially evil and corruptive.

Simultaneously with his articulation of nature as original, however, Rousseau subtly and

persistently describes nature as a historical process in such a way that he can account for man’s

positive development. These subtle articulations allow Rousseau to express his more considered

view of nature as an almost symbiotic environment wherein a peculiar harmony is possible

throughout all the fluctuations and apparent contingencies of the world system; such a harmony

reconceives of final causes not as fixed termini toward which an object is drawn, but as moving

or active ends toward which man is perpetually oriented.5 These fundamental senses of nature

reveal tensions that inform the consideration of nature on every level. We thus find in human

nature both original and historical elements, we see that both senses of nature are important to an

understanding of nature’s normative function, and finally we discover that these senses of nature

must be reconciled in order to grasp Rousseau’s conception of nature as the providential totality

of being. Thus, in order to arrive at the complete sense in which Rousseau understands nature,

his account must be understood progressively and as ultimately pointing to or requiring a

teleological understanding of the world and of man. In what follows, we will consider

Rousseau’s treatment of nature in each of these senses—nature as original, historical, as

faculties, as normative, and as providential—drawing from each a clearer understanding of his

teleological thought.

5
We might add that Rousseau seems to portray man both as fully actualized in each moment or era of his
existence, and as in process toward an end that has not yet, nor can ever be achieved. Similarly, in his broad
cosmological teleology he understands the whole as perfect, but understands that perfection to entail an internal
imperfection that makes motion toward an end possible as in Plato’s Timaeus. What is apparent in man, then, is
mirrored in the cosmos and vice versa. This helps to make sense of the history that Rousseau gives in Part II of the
Second Discourse, namely the account of progressive human corruption. This chapter limits itself to positing the
possibility of a teleological interpretation. A subsequent study could examine the way in which the teleological
framework that Rousseau suggests is borne out in the history he provides.
 89

I. Nature as Original

Of all his writings, none announce Rousseau’s great moral principle so powerfully as the

First Discourse, the Second Discourse, and the Emile. In fact, Rousseau frequently emphasized

the commonality between the Discourses and the Emile, thereby deemphasizing the ways in

which these works differ from one another in scope or orientation.6 Considered in light of what

these works share, we see that by advancing the notion that man is naturally good, they shift the

understanding of man’s relationship with the world and with God by relocating the source of

human suffering. If human suffering is a necessary consequence of the metaphysical or

theological system, manifested as either original sin or some flaw in nature, then any attempt to

relieve man’s estate appears futile. But by exculpating God and nature, and by explaining

human suffering as the consequence of social development—much of which appears to be

contingent—Rousseau returns a sense of control to man.7 In other words, if the source of

suffering is located in human institutions over which we have some authority, then attempts to

alter the world and our experience of it have a reasonable expectation of success—exculpating

God and nature effectively asserts a ground for human agency.

If we look at what distinguishes these works, however, it is clear that while they

announce man’s natural goodness and depend upon this principle in one way or another, they

articulate the principle in slightly different ways. In the First Discourse, Rousseau’s moral

principle is present in, and in fact undergirds, his resolve to disabuse mankind of their admiration

of the studies that quicken the descent into social misery. Thus he writes:

6
Cf., Letter to Beaumont, in CW 9, 22, 28; Confessions IX, in CW 5, 341-42; Letter to Cramer, October 13,
1764, cited in Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man, 8.
7
From this standpoint, there is no denying the affinity that Rousseau has for the “preceptors of mankind”
like Bacon, Descartes, and Newton who aimed at the relief of man’s estate. Rousseau, however, is particularly
cautious about dangers presented by the unabashed and mass acceptance of science as a primary mode of thought.
 90

People, know once and for all that nature wanted to keep you from being harmed by science just
as a mother wrests a dangerous weapon from her child’s hands; that all the secrets she hides from
you are so many evils from which she protects you, and that the difficulty you find in educating
yourselves is not the least of her benefits. Men are perverse; they would be even worse if they had
the misfortune to be born learned.8

The First Discourse, then, does not appear to significantly justify man’s natural goodness.

Instead, based on that principle, it assumes man’s degradation, and argues against the

instruments of society that hasten man’s corruption. By contrast, the justification of man’s

natural goodness in the Emile is carried out somewhat indirectly by assuming that nature and

human nature can only be understood in light of man’s progress and development. Therefore,

the Emile can be understood as Rousseau’s attempt to examine corruptive social forces in the

context of a healthy or natural education. The epigraph of the book, taken from Seneca’s “On

Anger,” makes this clear at the outset: “We are sick with evils that can be cured; nature, having

brought us forth sound, itself helps us if we wish to be improved.”9 And, in the Dialogues,

Rousseau even has his finally contrite Frenchman explain, “The Emile, in particular—that book

which is much read, little understood, and ill-appreciated—is nothing but a treatise on the

original goodness of man, destined to show how vice and error, foreign to his constitution, enter

from outside and insensibly change him.”10

The Second Discourse is different from the First Discourse and the Emile considered in

regard to both method and content. Of these three works, the Second Discourse presents the

most direct and comprehensive justification of man’s natural goodness, and moreover, because it

attempts to provide the fundamental support for Rousseau’s moral principle, it is the single work

wherein nature and human nature are considered in their most abstract conceptions. It is

8
Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (henceforth First Discourse) in CW 2, 12.
9
“Sanabilibus aegrotamus malis; ipsaque nos in rectum genitos natura, si emendari velimus, iuvat.”
10
Dialogues, in CW 1, 213.
 91

primarily in the Second Discourse that Rousseau asks and answers the question: what is nature

and what is human nature?

Considered in the context of the Second Discourse in particular, Rousseau’s contention

that man is naturally good has tremendously important consequences. As was noted already,

when Rousseau exonerates God and nature and locates the cause of human suffering within the

realm of human affairs, he returns a genuine sense of human agency that had been largely absent

in classical and medieval frameworks. For agency is an illusion and relief of man’s estate

impossible if human suffering is the necessary consequence of a fixed and deterministic

metaphysical or theological framework. In order to return a sense of genuine agency to man,

Rousseau must, therefore, explain human suffering as the consequence of our own freely chosen

behavior; control of our estate and relief of our suffering depends on whether we maintain

responsibility for and play an active role in our own degeneracy. Thus, the corruptive forces of

society become the causes of human suffering, and while social development becomes the nexus

of human degeneration, human beings regain the possibility of controlling the flow of that

degeneracy. But, by showing that human corruption is not natural but societal, Rousseau draws a

tension between nature and artifice: between what is natural and good on the one hand, and what

is corruptive and evil on the other. Furthermore, as he establishes that what is human is

blameworthy, it becomes clear that society emerges out of and in contradistinction to what is

natural and good. Society, properly understood, is, therefore, historical; it must be understood as

the result of the train of developments for which man was largely responsible. Therefore, if

society as a degrading or corrupting force is historical, then too, the societal forces that corrupt

human beings are better understood as historical events or as unfolding in time. The tension

between nature and society is, in actuality, a tension between nature and history. At bottom,
 92

when society and history become responsible for human corruption, nature retreats—first from

the present society and then into the distant past—and ultimately becomes roughly identifiable

with what is original, primary, pure, and good.

The conception of nature as original established in this rhetorical motion is a readily

apparent feature of the Second Discourse. Consider, for example, the opening paragraphs of the

Preface to the Second Discourse. Rousseau begins by calling the reader’s attention to “The most

useful and least advanced of all human knowledge,” which he calls knowledge “of man.”11 But

in the note to this remark, and immediately in the next sentence referencing the Temple at

Delphi, Rousseau draws a connection between self-knowledge and knowledge of man.

Rousseau’s claim that “the inscription on the Temple of Delphi alone contained a Precept more

important and more difficult than all the thick Volumes of the Moralists” read in connection with

his note, suggests that self-knowledge is difficult to attain because it is continually obscured by

“foreign impressions” and the human tendency to “augment the external range of our being.”12

Therefore, this connection carries a twofold implication. On the one hand, the parallel Rousseau

draws between the self-knowledge and knowledge of man implies that the latter is obscured by

these same factors more broadly construed. On the other hand, Rousseau implies that knowledge

of man in the abstract must be gotten via knowledge of man in particular, or through self-

knowledge, which would here mean through Rousseau’s own philosophic introspection. He

asks:

For how can the source of inequality among men be known unless one begins by knowing men
themselves? And how will man manage to see himself as Nature formed him, through all the
changes that the sequence of times and things must have produced in his original constitution, and
to separate what he gets from his own stock from what circumstances and his progress have added
to or changed in his primitive state?13

11
Second Discourse, Preface, in CW 3, 12.
12
Ibid., note 2, in CW 3, 68.
13
Ibid., Preface, 12.
 93

Rousseau’s underlying point is that the origin of inequality cannot be known without first

knowing man as he existed naturally. Knowledge of natural man must be uncovered in a way

similar to the introspective movement that aims at knowledge of oneself. And because the

covering up of natural man, like the covering up of self, is the result of an ongoing process, the

discovery of nature seems to require a thorough historical desedimentation designed to return

man to a view of his original or natural self. Unfortunately, this desedimentation is impossible:

What is even crueler is that, as all the progress of the human Species continually moves it farther
away from its primitive state, the more new knowledge we accumulate, the more we deprive
ourselves of the means of acquiring the most important knowledge of all; so that it is, in a sense,
by dint of studying man that we have made ourselves incapable of knowing him.14

Thus, neither the direct historical approach nor the interior approach through self-understanding

can, on their own, unveil nature—something more is required. But the fact that the rediscovery

of nature is in some ways paradoxical does not undermine Rousseau’s aims here. Knowledge of

natural man and self-knowledge collapse into one another here, and both help to disclose the

importance of the natural as a fundamental ground. Therefore, even if nature cannot be gotten at

by a simple direct or interior investigation, we can orient ourselves to the discovery of nature

even in its retreat as we recognize the problem of knowing man as nature formed him. The

distinction between nature and history that falls out of this recognition is the precondition for

both the discovery of nature and the premise for the praise of nature as simply good.15 In both

cases Rousseau makes a sharp distinction between the natural and the historical.

Rousseau further illustrates the distinction between the natural and the historical with his

reference to the statue of Glaucus, “which time, sea, and storms had so disfigured that it looked

less like a God than a wild Beast.”16 This image shows Rousseau’s ability to deftly weave his

14
Ibid.
15
Jonathan Marks, Perfection and Disharmony, 22.
16
Second Discourse, Preface, in CW 3, 12. Commentators suggest that Rousseau draws his reference to the
statue from Plato’s Republic (611b-d), but the story of Glaucus is given at length in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which
 94

various philosophical positions into a single well-placed example, and it is certain that there are

many senses in which the image of Glaucus should be taken.17 But, on the most basic reading,

Rousseau means to elaborate on the tension between the natural and historical in the example of

the statue. Ovid’s account in his Metamorphoses describes Glaucus as a fisherman who

accidentally became immortal and who took to the sea with Oceanus and Tethys. Glaucus

developed aquatic features and was often depicted as clad in marine creatures. The Glaucus

referred to in Plato’s Republic is Glaucus the god, obscured over time by the progressive

covering of sea creatures until he nearly ceased to be recognizable in his original human form.

Drawing the comparison, Rousseau writes:

The human soul, altered in the bosom of society by a thousand continually renewed causes, by the
acquisition of a mass of knowledge and errors, by changes that occurred in the constitution of
Bodies, and by the continual impact of the passions, has, so to speak, changed its appearance to
the point of being unrecognizable; and, instead of a being acting always by fixed and invariable
Principles, instead of that Heavenly and majestic simplicity with which its Author had endowed it,
one no longer finds anything except the deformed contrast of passion which believes it reasons
and understanding in delirium.18

There is no doubt that Rousseau means more than just the most obvious level of comparison

here, but on that basic level, he nevertheless suggests that the natural must be sought beneath the

deformities that the combination of time and our human capacities have wrought on our given

constitution. Nature and human nature are successively veiled by history and man’s corruptive

effects on himself.

The distinction between nature and history here sets up a dichotomy between the idea of

nature as a positive standard, and the idea of historical process as both the sole source of human

ills and of the concealment of the good. By stressing the tension between nature and history, and

thereby affirming nature as original, this dichotomy is carried into the overarching framework of

Rousseau draws from in Part II of the Second Discourse. Rousseau may have meant for the reader to draw from
both these sources when considering this example.
17
Some of these will be discussed in the subsequent section.
18
Ibid.
 95

the text. In the Exordium, Rousseau emphasizes nature as the philosophic basis of the

examination at hand. He even admits that those others who have attempted to examine the

problem of human inequality and natural right have “all felt the necessity of going back as far as

the state of Nature,” even if “none of them has reached it.”19 Their flaws have been

methodological and unavoidable, for Rousseau has already made clear that nature retreats when

any attempt is made to seek it out. It is, therefore, necessary to “begin by setting all the facts

aside, for they do not affect the question,” and it is only in this way that one can avoid carrying

“over to the state of Nature ideas … acquired in society.”20 The interminable gap between the

natural and our present state can only be crossed by hazarding philosophic “conjectures, drawn

solely from the nature of man and the Beings that surround him.”21 Rousseau proposes to

speculate, or more properly, hypothesize on the basis of nature as it is divined through the

orientation of self-knowledge. He writes:

O Man, whatever Country you may come from, whatever your opinions may be, listen: here is
your history as I believed it to read, not in the Books of your Fellow-men, who are liars, but in
Nature, which never lies. Everything that comes from Nature will be true; there will be nothing
false except what I have involuntarily put in of my own. … It is, so to speak, the life of your
species that I am going to describe to you according to the qualities you received, which your
education and habits have been able to corrupt but have not been able to destroy.22

Careful to distinguish what he presents from mere opinion, what Rousseau offers is not

unfounded, but is rather a form of philosophic disclosure or intuitive wisdom.23 Insofar as he is

19
Ibid., Exordium, in CW 3, 18.
20
Ibid., 19.
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid., 19-20.
23
Cf., Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, bk. VI, chs. 6: “If, then, the states of mind by which we have truth
and are never deceived about things invaraiable or even variable are scientific knowledge (episteme), practical
wisdom, philosophic wisdom, and intuitive reason (nous), and it cannot be any of the three (i.e., practical wisdom,
scientific knowledge (episteme), or philosophic wisdom), the remaining alternative is that it is intuitive reason
(nous) that grasps first principles” (1141a, line 1-8); and, “Therefore, [philosophic] wisdom must plainly be the most
finished [precise] of the forms of knpwledge. It follows that the wise man must not only know what follows from
first principles, but must also possess truth about the first principles. Therefore [philosophic] wisdom must be
intuitive reason (nous) combined with scientific knowledge (episteme)—scientific knowledge (episteme) of the
highest objects which has received as it were its proper completion (reached its zeinith)” (1141a, lines 17-20).
Aristotle at least implies that nous has the character of intuitive wisdom insofar as it reaches out to first principles.
 96

philosophically engaged in an internal dialogue with himself as the primary means by which he

attempts to gain real self-knowledge, Rousseau is simultaneously oriented toward an

understanding of nature that can only be pointed to or intuited on the basis of that dialogue.

Thus, the philosophic interiority that the Preface establishes as the necessary precondition for the

discovery of nature, while not being able to disclose nature itself, does in fact indicate nature for

the philosopher. In this sense, Rousseau has a grasp of nature in its pure or original form, upon

which he grounds his examination of inequality. It is only because nature holds the status of

original, pure, and good that it can provide a basis upon which the subsequent developments of

mankind can be understood or contradistinguished. Ostensibly, then, the First Part of the Second

Discourse elaborates on natural man in the state of nature, namely as free from the generated and

acquired characteristics that define the corrupted man of society; it is the description of nature

and human nature as original. By contrast, the Second Part narrates human history and explains

how natural man’s historical development takes him from the natural to the social state, and how

this results in his altered constitution. There is a clear sense in which the entirety of the Second

Discourse is, therefore, framed by the conception of nature as original.

The conception of nature as original, pure, and good is the first and most apparent sense

of nature offered in the Second Discourse, and so it must be understood as only a starting point

for understanding Rousseau’s teaching on nature.24 Still, it is not surprising that most

commentators understand Rousseau’s conception of nature in the Second Discourse, if not within

his entire corpus, primarily on these grounds. That is, most commentators recognize and assert

the tension between nature and society or history as the determinative aspect of this text and of

his philosophy more broadly. Many commentators observe that Rousseau’s identification of the

24
It is well established that Rousseau presents his most important teachings using a layered approach
making it possible for him to tailor his message for multiple audiences simultaneously. See Strauss, “On the
Intention of Rousseau,” 455-87.
 97

natural and the original raises a number of problems, and they subsequently levy these against

Rousseau’s teaching or in order to advance some other position. Rousseau’s criticism of his

contemporaries was that, in their recasting of the state of nature, they had imbued natural man

with traits he only could have acquired from society: “All of them, finally, speaking continually

of need, avarice, oppression, desires, and pride, have carried over to the state of Nature ideas

they had acquired in society: they spoke about savage man and they depicted Civil man.”25

Unfortunately, what commentators see in Rousseau’s attempt to discern the pure state of nature

is the emptying out of nature as a positive standard.

For example, Jonathan Marks explains, “in the process of stripping human beings of the

social acquisitions that make them inhumane, Rousseau cannot avoid also stripping away reason

and language, which make them human.”26 Tracy Strong argues that “Nature is not even

developmentally related to civil society,” and he goes on to contend that in Rousseau’s

presentation, “a human being has no natural qualities.”27 Though his analysis is somewhat more

circumspect, Leo Strauss, too, holds this position in Natural Right and History. After examining

Rousseau’s position as a critique of Hobbes, Strauss concludes that for Rousseau “there is no

natural constitution so to speak of: everything specifically human is acquired or ultimately

depends on artifice or convention. Man is by nature almost entirely perfectible.”28

Commentators with perspectives as diverse as Strauss, Strong, Cassirer and Melzer all agree on

this point, namely that by separating nature as original from society and history, and by placing it

on the other side of an interminable gap, nature begins to lose its value as a standard. To say that

man in the state of nature bears no significant resemblance to civil man, or that the former is

25
Ibid., Exordium, in CW 3, 19.
26
Jonathan Marks, Perfection and Disharmony, 17.
27
Tracy Strong, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: the Politics of the Ordinary (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications, 1994), 45 and 158.
28
Strauss, Natural Right and History, 270.
 98

devoid of even the most basic human qualities, is to say that nature provides no support for

humanity, nor any normative standard for the good to which man would like to aspire. These

commentators have different reactions to this observation; Strauss and Melzer raise concerns

about the consequences of losing the meaningfulness of nature, even if that meaningfulness had

been a myth of sorts; Cassirer and Strong understand the emptying out of nature as the removal

of the fundamental obstacle to human development, where Rousseau undermines nature in order

to free man for his transcendent possibilities in a Kantian sense. At bottom, though, the way in

which they all understand nature as original means that nature has very little to tell human beings

about their current condition. And because these commentators fail to see beyond this initial

conception of nature as original, they find interpretive difficulties and insurmountable obstacles

where they need not find either. There are, then, many good reasons to doubt interpretations of

Rousseau’s physiodicy29 that, in the final analysis, understand nature as original and nothing

more. As we shall see, while the portrayal of nature as original serves a clear purpose, Rousseau

supplements this view in order to develop a more robust conception of nature and human nature.

II. Nature as Historical Process

As was argued above, nature conceived as original requires that one understand society

and, more fundamentally, history as in tension with nature; the societal forces that corrupt human

beings are, in fact, events that unfold over the expanse of time. But, as Marks explains, “If

29
As was noted in the Introduction, by “physiodicy” I mean something parallel to “theodicy,” namely a
justification of the goodness of nature in view of the actuality of evil, corruption, and suffering in the world. This
term is frequently used in Rousseau literature to indicate his explanation and justification of nature. The term
“physiodicy” is especially appropriate for this usage because Rousseau often joins his justification of nature with his
justifications of divine goodness and providence, despite understanding nature and God separately.
 99

nature is freed of responsibility for society, it must also be freed of responsibility for history.”30

Marks’ point is that it is hard to imagine that Rousseau could have held this position univocally.

To begin with, Rousseau is more attentive to the history of mankind than any thinker before him,

and in fact, it is he who places a long train of developments and accidents—a history—between

man in the state of nature and man in civil society. Furthermore, by placing original man on the

other side of an interminable gap, and by describing him as devoid of developed social qualities,

Rousseau suggests that society could not have been the product of human will alone—for being

closer to brute than man, natural man in simply incapable of advancing himself beyond or out of

the state of nature. Rousseau seems to precipitate the question of a physiodicy beyond merely

natura pura by inviting the reader to consider how man could have emerged from the state of

nature and what changes resulted in him therewith. Rousseau is acutely sensitive to man as

historical, and he carefully traces the consequences of each individual advance and each phase of

human development. To assume that he held to the simple identification of the natural and the

original is untenable. Not only would this assume that he was either unaware of or willing to

overlook the consequences of this conception of nature, it would also assume that he was able to

hold this position against his incisive view of man as a historical being. Rousseau was well

aware of the fact that the simple identification of nature with what is original, pure, and good

raises a number of difficulties, and he establishes it as a basis for the further consideration of

nature, but not as his final word. In fact, when considered closely, it is clear that in the Second

Discourse Rousseau advances another conception of nature—nature as a historical process—

together with the conception of nature as original, and meant these conceptions to inform one

another.

30
Marks, Perfection and Disharmony, 21.
 100

II.1 Rousseau’s Presentation of Nature as Historical—Returning to the Preface, it

appears that Rousseau introduces his conception of nature as historical process almost

immediately after having announced the conception of nature as original. In fact, it is in the

midst of pointing the reader back to the original conception of man that he suggests that nature

can be understood as historical. He writes:

It is easy to see that one must seek in these successive changes of the human constitution the first
origin of the differences distinguishing men—who, by common avowal, are naturally as equal
among themselves as were the animals of each species before various Physical causes had
introduced into certain species the varieties we notice. In effect, it is not conceivable that these
first changes, by whatever means they occurred, altered all at once and in the same way all
Individuals of the species; but some, being perfected or deteriorated and having acquired diverse
qualities, good or bad, which were not inherent in their Nature, the others remained longer in their
original state.31

By capitalizing “Physical” and “Nature” in this passage, Rousseau draws a tension between, and

thus intimates, two conceptions of nature: man’s internal constitution on the one hand, and the

physical world and its ordered system on the other.32 By setting the broad “Physical causes” in

opposition to “their Nature,” Rousseau ensures that “Physical causes” can only be understood in

the context of nature broadly, or what we might call the physical and historical world system.

While he reaffirms the conception of nature as original by confirming the need to seek man’s

original nature, Rousseau simultaneously relates that “Physical causes” are responsible for the

initial developments removing man from the natural state. Certainly, this is to say that what

impels man out of the state of nature is not his original constitution, and therefore, also that

nature understood as original is absolved of responsibility for man’s corruption. But at the same

time, by attributing man’s initial development to “Physical causes” rather than to his original

nature, Rousseau still makes nature, broadly understood, responsible for human development.

31
Second Discourse, Preface, in CW 3, 12.
32
Rousseau does not use the term “nature” to refer to the broad totality of nature in this section. To do so
would inevitably confuse the matter by making it possible to conflate the two senses of nature that he has in mind
here. He does use the term “nature” broadly in other places in the Second Discourse, for example, whenever he says
“author of nature” or “issued from nature.” The same case can be made for his explanation of how “Nature treats
[human beings] precisely as the Law of Sparta treated the Children of Citizens” (ibid., 21).
 101

He then distinguishes between the effects of the internal constitution of a species, which would

act simultaneously on all members, and those effects of nature considered in terms of external

physical causes, which would impact individuals disproportionately both geographically and

historically. What appears to be a confusing tension between competing senses of nature here

can be understood as Rousseau’s distinction between nature in the strictest sense as original, and

nature understood more broadly as historical process.33 Both senses are necessary to understand

man and how he moves into the successive phases of his historical development.

With this in mind, we can provide a deeper interpretation of Rousseau’s reference to the

statue of Glaucus in the preceding text. The statue of Glaucus is a sculpted image of a god who

was once a man, and like the mythical God who was often depicted as garbed in sea creatures,

now the statue, which “time, sea, and storms had so disfigured,” stands distorted and enshrouded

before our mind’s eye. One imagines a statue of Glaucus himself, clothed in sea creatures, and

the statue itself, presumably worn down by waves and tides, covered with shells and seaweed,

and marked by all sorts of damage. One does well to start by asking what is natural in the image

Rousseau presents the reader. As one seeks what is natural in the statue, one might wonder

which distortion of Glaucus was true to form and which was wrought by time and sea. On a

basic level, the image points the reader to the observation that the natural must be sought beneath

the deformities that the combination of time and our human capacities have wrought on our

given constitution. For on the one hand, there is a clear way in which the original image of

33
Nature as historical process is responsible for the basic inequality among men, but as Rousseau later
explains, this inequality is hardly an inequality at all. One individual in the state of nature is different from another,
but these differences are driven by each individual’s response to the environment, and the changes wrought in an
individual in the state of nature represent a constant movement in a relationship between man and his surroundings
that maintains balance. The subsequent differences between one individual and another are hardly an inequality
because these differences are not to the advantage on one individual over another, but are purely relational with
respect to the individual’s location and time. Each individual is adjusted to his locale, and neither gains any more
from this than the other. Thus, because individual relationships with the environment are unique, and because there
is no advantage one has over another in nature, nature is fundamentally just even in creating and being responsible
for differences between individuals.
 102

Glaucus on which the statue is modeled represents what is natural; before or underneath all the

deformities that time and sea have wrought, there is an original idea of Glaucus that informs the

statue in a meaningful way. But in light of Rousseau’s suggestion that nature as a historical

process is in some way responsible for man’s initial developments, the statue has new meaning.

And so on the other hand, by suggesting that it is time and sea that distort the statue of Glaucus,

Rousseau is in no small way suggesting that both the process and the deformities to which the

statue is subjected are no less natural than is the image on which it is based. In some ways one

might even consider the effects of time and sea more natural than the statue itself, which at best

can only be said to be crafted on the basis of an image of the original, which, as Rousseau says of

the state of original nature, may not have existed at all.

Rousseau seems to mean for the reader to extend the meaningful tension between what is

natural in the statue of Glaucus to the entirety of his physiodicy. For as soon as he introduces the

tension between nature as original and nature as historical in the context of the statue, he then

makes a similar observation about man’s original nature and the original state of nature. He

writes:

For it is no light undertaking to separate what is original from what is artificial in the present
Nature of man, and to know correctly a state which no longer exists, which perhaps never existed,
which probably never will exist, and about which it is nevertheless necessary to have precise
Notions in order to judge our present state correctly.34

Nature understood as original serves an informative purpose in two ways: insofar as it

distinguishes what is pure and good from what is merely artificial and potentially evil and

corruptive, and insofar as it, by contrasting with it, reveals the conception of nature as historical.

Yet, in the face of nature understood as historical, nature as original can only be an abstract ideal,

the object of “Aristotles and Plinys” or those philosophers who dare take on questions of nature

34
Ibid., 13.
 103

in their fullest—recall that it is in this context that Rousseau himself claims to have “hazarded

some conjectures.”35 Nature as original, pure, and good exists as an ideal limit, but not

practically speaking as a static or enduring phase of human existence. Still, the conception of

nature as original cannot be simply rejected in favor of nature as historical. Instead Rousseau

recognizes the value that nature as original holds for the philosophic study of man and nature,

and he maintains that conception in its proper place as an abstract ideal while at the same time

advancing the historical examination of man and nature.36

Now, due to the fact that detailed knowledge of nature as original exists as an abstract

ideal on the other side of the interminable gap between the original and our present state, it is

acquired only with great difficulty and on the basis of philosophical conjecturing. But that

abstract ideal knowledge of nature, “about which it is nevertheless necessary to have precise

Notions in order to judge our present state correctly,” can be reduced to Rousseau’s moral

principle on the natural goodness of man. Read from the standpoint of nature as original, then,

Part I of the Second Discourse elaborates on natural man in the state of nature, prior to any

societal corruption, free and content. Rousseau appears to describe a tranquil and mostly static

state of nature where man is at peace and in harmony with the world around him. On this

account, all of man’s needs are satisfied and the earth itself is described as place “abandoned to

its natural fertility.”37 The state of nature on this first read is positively idyllic. Considered in

this light, and especially if considered in contrast to the conjectural history of man’s

35
Ibid. The translation by Bush, Masters, Kelly, and Marshall given in CW 3 reads “ventured some
conjectures,” but here I follow the Gourevitch translation (The First and Second Discourses [New York: Harper and
Row Publishers, 1990]). Rousseau is aware of the significance and risk of his conjectural examination on man, and
so he means to intimate something more than merely having offered his ideas or perspectives. The Gourevitch
translation better captures this intimation.
36
It is worth noting that this is methodologically similar to what we see Rousseau do in his works on
chemistry and music.
37
Ibid., Part I, 20-21.
 104

development in Part II, the account of man and nature in Part I helps to substantiate the notion of

nature as original as the first account by which one should understand human history.

However, it would be a mistake to take at face value the suggestion that nature as original

is the principal account of man and nature, even if it is the first such account. Rousseau, in fact,

provides indications that the notion of nature as original must occupy a particular status in the

account of man and nature as a philosophic conjecture. For example, as Richard Velkley has

pointed out, Rousseau indicates that the state of nature is a conjectural postulation by his

repeated use of the verb “to see” in opening of Part I.38 As he first describes natural man,

Rousseau writes, “I see an animal less strong than some, less agile than others, but all things

considered, the most advantageously organized of all. I see him satisfying his hunger under an

oak, quenching his thirst at the first stream, finding his bed at the foot of the same tree that

furnished his meal; and therewith his needs are satisfied.”39 He reiterates this again as he begins

to consider man’s moral characteristics: “In every animal I see only an ingenious machine to

which nature has given senses in order to revitalize itself and guarantee itself… I perceive

precisely the same things in the human machine, with the difference that Nature alone does

everything in the operations of a Beast.”40 Rousseau sees natural man in his original state by

virtue of that noetic activity, peculiar to the philosopher, by which he can claim to reach back

across the interminable gap between original nature and the present. Acknowledging that

peculiar activity as it relates to the conception of nature as original serves to limit the conjectures

on man’s original state to abstract ideals, and it reminds the reader to resist the temptation to

understand them as relating to an actual historical phase of human development. Corresponding

38
Velkley, Being After Rousseau (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 41. Velkley calls this an
“imaginative construction,” and draws attention the role of imagination in philosophic endeavor and in the
development of natural man.
39
Second Discourse, Part I, in CW 3, 20; emphasis added.
40
Ibid., 25; emphasis added.
 105

to this limiting action, moreover, are subtle descriptive elements that post clearer and clearer

signs of nature as a historical process. That is, at the same time that Rousseau gives the limiting

indications of nature as original, he also provides increasing justification of nature, not as a static

original state, but as a dynamic condition of existence in the world. To think of nature as a

dynamic condition, then, is to think of it as preeminently active and perpetually in motion.41

Importantly, to think of nature as dynamic in this sense is also to understand man as free of a

limiting natural form that would determine the course of his development. For man to exist in a

constantly changing environment, such that he is able to adapt and develop on the basis of what

is presented to him in that environment, he must be free of a static natural form, or possessed of a

natural form conducive to his development, which is to say a form that is mutable.

This is apparent from the very first paragraph of Part I, where Rousseau explains that he

will not make any attempt to trace man’s history back to his pre-human or merely animal origins.

Citing Aristotle again, Rousseau claims that to “follow the successive developments” of man

back to their most rudimentary beginnings would require either a level of scientific knowledge

that was not available to him, or the kind of “supernatural knowledge” that could not be

substantiated. He explains, “On this subject I could form only vague and almost imaginary

conjectures.”42 This second reference to Aristotle here—the first was to justify the need for

conjecture—draws the reader’s attention to a distinction between formative or philosophic

conjectures, and those conjectures that, by depending too heavily on unreliable knowledge or

unfounded opinion, cannot support the study of man and nature that is at hand. By prohibiting

an evolutionary regress to man as animal, Rousseau again illustrates the fact that nature as

41
This is the view the Marks takes when he asserts “Rousseau’s considered view of nature depicts it as a
dynamic condition, in which an originally inadequate human nature is repeatedly made to adapt to to circumstances
that are difficult from the outset” (Perfection and Disharmony, 29). Marks does not appear to consider the
implications for Rousseau’s criticism of classical teleology.
42
Second Discourse, in CW 2, 20.
 106

original exists only as a philosophic conjecture inaccessible by historical or dogmatic means; an

understanding of nature as original, pure, and good cannot be sought by tracing man back to his

earliest roots in prehistory.

This observation has significant consequences for our interpretation. To begin with, it

means that Rousseau’s study here must be limited to formative philosophic conjectures

indicating nature in its various senses. But more importantly, if the original man in the static

idyllic state of nature is historically inaccessible, then it means that the natural man Rousseau

makes the object of his study in Part I must not be original man, but rather historical man traced

back as far as formative conjecture can allow—namely, back to the earliest moment of man’s

historical existence.43 Rousseau writes, “I shall suppose him to have been formed from all time

as I see him today: walking on two feet, using his hands as we do ours, directing his gaze on all

of Nature, and measuring the vast expanse of Heaven with his eyes.”44 The model of man

“formed from all time as I see him today” is as far back toward his original nature as we are

permitted to go. Using this as a starting point, Rousseau cuts off the analysis of original man in a

way that respects the interminable gap between nature as original and nature as historical, he

implies that the man he depicts is not original but historical, and yet he maintains the notion that

his historical model is no less the natural than the conjectured original. As he describes the

process by which he can discern natural man’s basic form, he confirms this where he writes:

“Stripping this Being, so constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he could have received and of

all the artificial faculties he could only have acquired by long progress—considering him, in a

43
It is important to carefully distinguish these terms. From the perspective of nature as original, “natural”
and “original” are nearly identical in meaning. But for Rousseau “natural” has a broader application than does
“original.” Historical man can be thought of as equally “natural” in comparison to original man, albeit in a very
different sense than original man is thought of as “natural.” See Wright, The Meaning of Rousseau, 8-10.
44
Ibid. The latter part of this passage reflects the organization of man’s faculties. This will be treated in
more detail in the next section.
 107

word, as he must have issued from the hands of Nature…”45 Simply put, to “issue from” is not

to “exist in,” but rather “to be in motion after having left” the static state of nature.46 Rousseau’s

phrasing here almost recalls man’s dismissal from the Garden of Eden, and though subtle, it

suggests that the natural man he describes is one that exists, not in the static state of nature, but

formed by nature and existing in the historical world as does contemporary man.

That Rousseau means to encourage the reader to think of natural man through the lens of

nature as a historical process is further evidenced by his descriptions of the state of nature in Part

I. What first had appeared to be a static and idyllic state begins to emerge as fraught with

environmental challenges on one kind or another. At first, the descriptions indicating the need

for a historical conception of nature are subtle, for example, when Rousseau is in the midst of

describing the tranquility of the state of nature at the beginning of Part I. He writes:

…I see an animal less strong than some, less agile than others, but all things considered, the most
advantageously organized of all. I see him satisfying his hunger under an oak, quenching his thirst
at the first stream, finding his bed at the foot of the same tree that furnished his meal; and
therewith his needs are satisfied.
The Earth, abandoned to its natural fertility (*a) and covered by immense forests never
mutilated by the Axe, offers at every step Storehouses and shelters to animals of all species.47

The description of natural man’s peaceful existence in a world of superabundance is here called

into question. What need has man or animal of “Storehouses and shelters” in a tranquil world of

plenty? Simply put, the reality of natural man’s existence in the world is different when

considered in the historical context than it is when considered from the standpoint of nature as

original. Rousseau explains:

45
Ibid.; emphasis added. The translation by Bush, Masters, Kelly, and Marshall given in CW 3 reads
“come from the hands of Nature.” Here I follow the Gourevitch translation and substitute “issued” as a more
reflective term for the context. Compare with Emile, in CW 13, 161.
46
This interpretation of Part I reveals a possible parallel with Part II. If we understand Rousseau to be
subtly advancing the natural historical perspective of human existence, we find the same points more explicitly
made at the beginning of Part II. See below, and Marks, “Perfection and Disharmony,” 28-32; and Velkley, Being
After Rousseau, 40-43.
47
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 20-21.
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Accustomed from infancy to the inclemencies of weather and the rigor of the seasons, trained in
fatigue, and forced, naked and without weapons, to defend their lives and their Prey against other
wild Beasts, or to escape by outrunning them, men develop a robust and almost unalterable
physique.48

The state of nature into which natural man is born is not tranquil at all. It is defined by harsh

weather and various difficult conditions, all of which perpetually shift as do the seasons. Man is

subjected to these conditions from infancy and with not even the least of protections. Moreover,

man is neither alone nor isolated in this wilderness, but either intentionally (when he is an

aggressor) or unintentionally (when he is prey himself) in contact with other animals. Man

himself is not the peaceful being described in the previous paragraphs, but a dangerous animal

who is prepared to contend with “other wild Beasts.” But fierce as man may be, the inconstancy

of the environment and its resonant dangers are an ever-present concern. Thus, Rousseau agrees

with others who have noted that “nothing is so timid as man in the state of Nature” when he is

confronted by a threat, real or merely perceived, “he is always trembling and ready to flee at the

least noise that strikes him, at the least movement he perceives.”49 Certainly, nature is conducive

to natural man’s existence, but at bottom man in the state of nature is “Alone, idle, and always

near danger.”50 If one recalls Rousseau’s statement made in the Preface, that “various Physical

causes” are responsible for natural man’s earliest developments, the careful consideration of Part

I reveals his description of those physical causes as they exist in the natural world.

Rousseau’s aim in recasting the state of nature is, of course, not to completely undermine

the conception of nature as original, pure, and good. Rather, his goal is to show that nature must

also be understood as a historical presence that is active in shaping natural man from his earliest

days, or as he “issued from the hands of Nature” itself. Rousseau is, in fact, very clear that man

is significantly impacted by the natural world around him. At the very beginning of Part I he
48
Ibid., 21.
49
Ibid.
50
Ibid., 25.
 109

explains that it is because of the hardships that man is forced to endure “from infancy” that he

comes to “develop a robust and almost unalterable physique.”51 The environment hardens man

such that he becomes a vigorous contender for survival within that environment. And just as he

clearly states in the Preface that “various Physical causes” are what shape all species, here he

unambiguously asserts that it is “Nature,” and not some other force, that renders or shapes

natural man into a healthy being. For, “Nature treats them precisely as the Law of Sparta treated

the Children of Citizens: it renders strong and robust those who are well constituted and makes

all the others perish.”52 For those who survive Nature’s culling, “Nakedness, lack of habitation,

and deprivation of all those useless things we believe so necessary are not, then, such a great

misfortune for these first men; nor, above all, are they such a great obstacle to their

preservation.”53 This is not only because only the fittest have survived, but because the fittest

have adapted to the unique demands of their environment. In fact, it is only in this context,

namely in the context of nature as historical process, that the human faculty of “perfectibility”

makes sense. Without yet delving into man’s natural capacities, it suffices to say that

perfectibility is at least initially dependent upon external physical causes insofar as they create

the circumstances by which man is able to refine himself.

While we are confining our analysis of the text primarily to Part I, it is important to note

a parallel between this section of Part I and the beginning section of Part II. In the opening

paragraphs of both sections, Rousseau appears to advance the historical perspective of nature,

and what was implicit in Part I becomes explicit in Part II. Rousseau’s point in both Part I and

Part II appears to be that while nature and man can be provisionally understood in the context of

original nature, any thoroughgoing understanding of nature and human nature must be

51
Ibid., 21.
52
Ibid.
53
Ibid., 24.
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understood as entailing a historical component. Consider, for example, Rousseau’s transition

from the original perspective to the historical perspective in Part II: “Such was the condition of

nascent man; such was the life of an animal limited at first to pure sensations and scarcely

profiting from the gifts Nature offered him, far from dreaming of wresting anything from it. But

difficulties soon arose; it was necessary to learn to conquer them.”54 Man may have a “nascent

condition” in an abstract sense, but he existed from his earliest origins in the dynamic condition

of nature nevertheless. Thus, as “difficulties soon arose,” man adapted to the new conditions of

his existence. In this context, “soon” seems to be slightly disingenuous given that the challenges

Rousseau describes, the same “Physical causes” already referenced in Part I, confront man

immediately and continually in his experience of the world. Nature presents man with

continuous challenges, and he responds to these as he must to survive. But because natural man

is endowed with the capacity to perfect himself, these challenges prompt man’s ongoing

development. Therefore, the dynamic condition of man’s existence is necessarily historical

insofar as it progresses over time and in relation to the varying relationship between man and his

environment. When Rousseau explains that “Differences of soil, Climate, and season could

force them to admit differences in their ways of life,” he can be interpreted as attributing both

inequality and the advances in human development to the march of progress that circumstances

make possible.55 Such circumstances are not present in the static state of nature. If Part I is read

as a reflection on nature as original, these aspects of nature and man’s existence therein are

diminished. But if Part I is read as a refection of nature as a historical process, it reveals that the

seeds of man’s historical development appear to be present from the very beginning of natural

man’s existence as he “issued from the hands of Nature.” For, already in Part I it is abundantly

54
Ibid., Part II, 43.
55
Ibid., 43-44.
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obvious that nature is a powerful shaping force over time. One can say that the man in the

throws of his development is not original man, and of course, this makes a great deal of sense

given that nature as original is meant to occupy the status of an abstract ideal. But Rousseau

does not mean for the reader to think that historical man as he is set forth in Part I is not also

natural man.56 Man gains from his environment by virtue of the historical relationship he has

with his surroundings, and conversely, nature as historical forms man successively throughout

the ages of his development.

II.2 Problems with the Historical Interpretation—The conception of nature as a historical

process has some important interpretive consequences. Whereas natural man (understood

through the lens of nature as original) helps to distinguish what is natural and good from what is

artificial and corruptive, but only as an abstract ideal cut off from the historical reality of man in

the world, natural man (understood through the lens of nature as historical process) establishes a

continuity by which the present realities of civil man’s condition can be better understood. But

recall, the distinction between nature as original and society and history, as was noted earlier,

makes it possible to distinguish between what is natural and good on the one hand, and what is

corruptive and evil on the other. In fact, in the first reading of nature, as Rousseau establishes

that what is human is blameworthy, he suggests that society emerged out of and in

contradistinction to what is natural and good. If all this is so, then the reconception of nature as a

historical process appears to undermine the overarching goodness of nature, if not man’s natural

goodness.

Considered from the standpoint of nature as original, the goodness of nature rests on the

fact that man’s natural attributions in the state of nature exist in such a way that his subsistence

and tranquility are ensured in perpetuity. Thus, in Part I, all of man’s needs are satisfied by “The
56
Again, it is important to recognize that historical man can be natural. See note 38 above.
 112

Earth, abandoned to its natural fertility,”57 and in Part II, “Man’s first sentiment was that of his

existence, his first care that of his preservation. The products of Earth furnished him with all the

necessary help; instinct led him to make use of them.”58 Missing from these passages, of course,

is any mention of perfectibility and of the way in which man must adapt to the demands of his

environment. These features of man’s existence within the world seem to conflict with what the

conception of nature as original suggests: as John Scott puts it, that “The order of nature,

including human nature, is found in our original or natural condition as physical beings

embedded unproblematically in the physical whole of nature.”59 Jonathan Marks observes, “By

leaving perfectibility out, Rousseau is able to portray a static natural condition in which an

adequate and unchanging human nature exists within an external nature that provides for all of

its needs.”60 But, there are serious problems involved with thinking of nature’s goodness from

this standpoint alone. Foremost among them, to say that the goodness of nature is only

observable in the context of nature as original is also to say that it does not exist in the real world

of human existence. For, Rousseau has already established that nature as original is meant as an

abstract ideal, “which no longer exists, which perhaps never existed, which probably never will

exist.”61 Thus, thinking of the goodness of nature and man’s natural goodness in this context

says very little about the possibility of goodness in the real, which is to say the historical world.

57
Ibid., 20-21.
58
Ibid., 43.
59
John Scott, “The Theodicy of the Second Discourse: the ‘Pure State of Nature’ and Rousseau’s Political
Thought,” American Political Science Review 86, no. 3 (1992), 706.
60
Marks, Perfection and Disharmony, 29.
61
Second Discourse, Preface, in CW 3, 13. See also Victor Gourevitch, “Rousseau’s Pure State of Nature,”
in Interpretation, vol. 16, no. 1 (1988): 41. Gourevitch writes, “Certainly nothing Rousseau says about man in the
animal state or condition permits us to conclude that he thinks that man in the ‘pure’ state of nature, man isolated,
speechless, and without artifice or moral relations of any kind, is a fact ‘given as real.’ He never goes beyond
positing and discussing man either in the ‘pure’ state of nature, and in what by analogy might be called the ‘pure
animal state’—‘the state of animality’—as an hypothesis or a conjecture.” Gourevitch also draws a connection
between Rousseau’s pure state of nature, as expressed in Part I of the Second Discourse, and his fundamental
principles (59).
 113

Unfortunately, the situation is more complicated when the goodness of nature and man’s

natural goodness are considered from the standpoint of nature as a historical process. That is, it

is more difficult to maintain nature’s goodness after having revealed the often forceful role that it

plays throughout man’s historical development. On the historical account, nature is responsible,

at least in the weak causal sense, for driving man out of his tranquil and original state (to the

extent that it existed). Recall that, according to Rousseau, men “are naturally as equal among

themselves as were the other animals of each species before various Physical causes had

introduced into certain species the varieties we notice.”62 And on this account, it is nature that

continually and perpetually presents man with all of the obstacles to his tranquility. From the

beginning, man is confronted with harsh changes of climate, insufficient instincts and a physical

constitution susceptible to disease, and a natural world full of dangerous animals and goods that

are difficult to attain.63 And this condition of human existence is not escaped as man shifts from

brute to social creature, for as Rousseau explains, “in all Nations of the world progress of the

Mind has been precisely proportioned to the needs that Peoples had received from Nature or to

those to which circumstances had subjected them, and consequently to the passions which

inclined them to provide for those needs.”64 There is a sense, then, in which nature is responsible

for everything man is subjected to, and hence also for all the subsequent changes that he

undergoes historically. And by revealing the ongoing negative effects of nature, this

interpretation seems to conflict with Rousseau’s moral principle establishing the goodness of

nature. If Rousseau is to be understood as consistent, nature must be established as good not just

when conceived as original but when conceived as historical as well.

62
Ibid., 12.
63
Ibid., 12, 21, 23, 43-44.
64
Ibid., 27.
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Here there are several alternative ways to reconcile this tension. If Rousseau is read as an

anti-teleological thinker, this problem is at least mitigated; for if no end need be sought as a

means to understanding the world, then nature is as it exists, and the Second Discourse can be

read as a merely scientific or descriptive exercise. But if such an interpretation suggested that

nature is ultimately responsible for human development, it would have the obvious effect of

diminishing the possibility of human agency and would then contradict Rousseau’s accounts of

human nature that emphasize man’s freedom. Simply put, this interpretation cannot adequately

account for the salient features of human life as Rousseau presents them. A more moderate anti-

teleological interpretation, namely one where Rousseau is understood as holding nature as a

necessary but not sufficient condition for man’s development, does not fare better. Such an

interpretation, even if it required some form of human agency to account for progress and

development, would still make nature merely materialistic, and by removing the end from nature,

it would empty it of any meaningfulness as a positive standard for human development. This

would then conflict with Rousseau’s account of nature’s fundamental goodness and its value as a

positive standard for man. The situation is again not improved in the case of a moderate

teleological interpretation where Rousseau is understood as holding a teleological materialist

system. For if nature is still made responsible for man’s inescapable suffering, without human

agency there is no morally positive goal to justify or redeem man’s suffering; by removing

positive ends, a moderate teleological account can only be understood as cruel and hence

malevolent.65 None of this squares with the philosophic endeavor that is the Second Discourse.66

65
See Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 108ff.
66
Rousseau, of course, neither meant for man to be conceived as an automaton nor for nature to be
understood as malevolent. He did mean for his physiodicy to be a justification of nature’s goodness and the
goodness of human nature. We have evidence of this throughout his writings, from his statements in Emile and in
the Letter to Beaumont that “the first movements of nature are always right” (Emile, in CW 13, 225 and Letter to
Beaumont, in CW 9, 28) to those in the Second Discourse that “it is above all in the consciousness of this freedom
that the spirituality of his soul is shown” (Second Discourse, in CW 3, 26). Furthermore, Rousseau is consistent in
 115

We might say, then, that in order to assert nature’s goodness in light of its tremendous

shaping power, Rousseau must reconcile nature as a historical process with his moral principle of

natural goodness without sacrificing the clear indications of nature’s role in man’s development,

without emptying nature of its meaningfulness as a positive standard, and without deemphasizing

man’s agency in the world and the extent to which man is responsible for his own suffering. We

might also say that we are in a much better position to provide a consistent interpretation of

Rousseau to the extent that this reconciliation can be accomplished in our interpretation. On our

reading of the Second Discourse, Rousseau intimates the need for and begins the process of

reconciliation in Part I when he asserts that “most” of our ills are of our own making. After an

exhausting list of the “extreme inequalities in our way of life,” he writes:

These are the fatal proofs that most of our ills are our own work, and that we would have avoided
almost all of them by preserving the simple, uniform, and solitary way of life prescribed to us by
Nature. If she destined us to be healthy, I almost dare affirm that the state of reflection is a state
contrary to Nature and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal.67

In this section of Part I, considered in the context of nature as original, the list of civil and

societal problems that precedes this statement makes clear that there are obvious and terrible

consequences of human development. But Rousseau is careful to preserve the conception of

nature as historical by clarifying that, not “all of our ills,” but “most of our ills are our own

work.” For there are ills, namely the “physical causes” Rousseau alluded to in the Preface, that

nature herself has set before man. The overt message of this passage, however, is that natural

man is enervated by the development into civil and social man, and especially by the excesses of

life that are more and more available to him as he increases his means. But, when he writes “we

the Second Discourse in attributing negatives effects to man. In Part I he writes, “for animal and man having been
treated equally by Nature, all the commodities of which man gives himself more than the animals he tames are so
many particular causes that make him degenerate more noticeably” (Ibid., 24). And in the passionate note *7,
Rousseau explains, “it is not without great difficulty that we have succeeded in making ourselves so unhappy,”
adding shortly thereafter that “men are wicked… however, man is naturally good” (Ibid., 74). If we deny statements
such as these we risk advancing a contrary and inconsistent interpretation of Rousseau’s thought.
67
Ibid., 23.
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would have avoided almost all of them by preserving the simple, uniform, and solitary way of

life prescribed to us by Nature,” Rousseau points out that, while nature may be responsible for

some of the ills that beset man, so too does she have an end in preserving the wellbeing of

mankind. For “Nature treats all the animals abandoned to its care with a partiality that seems to

show how jealous it is of this right.”68

This implication of nature’s end makes the tentative stance of the following sentence

stand out: “If she destined us to be healthy, I almost dare affirm that the state of reflection is a

state contrary to Nature and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal.” There is reason

to use tentative language when parsing out the complex responsibility for human suffering. But,

once it is established that nature has an end in preserving man’s wellbeing, it is harder to explain

the tentative language pertaining to that end. As Velkley has deftly explained,69 that Rousseau

feels compelled to say “I almost dare assert” suggests his reservation with the statement, though

the crux of his reservation is not immediately clear. There is an unstated premise in this

statement, namely that the state of reflection is an unhealthy state for man. But Rousseau’s

reservation cannot be about this premise given that he has affirmed it in so many other places

throughout the Second Discourse. Thus, Rousseau’s reservations must pertain either to the

antecedent, “If she destined us to be healthy,” or the consequent, “the state of reflection is a state

contrary to Nature.” The unstated premise that the state of reflection is an unhealthy state for

man is so widely affirmed that it would be difficult to say that Rousseau’s reservation here is in

68
Ibid., 24.
69
Velkley, Being After Rousseau, 43. Velkley goes on to show how Rousseau confirms the opposite
position with his references to primitive peoples: “The primitive peoples representing natural man’s good health are
present inhabitants of the earth. Plainly they are reflective and social beings; what is more, they are not strangers to
vice… The implication is clear: What is known about contemporary primitives establishes that absolute lack of
reflection is not a necessary condition for the natural man’s physical well-being.” Unfortunately, Velkley uses this
argument to deny the “teleological claim of the protasis,” but he fails to explain that Rousseau is only denying the
particular teleological claim regarding health. Rousseau, in fact, is careful to deny only this particular claim while
leaving open the possibility of other teleological claims.
 117

regard to the consequent. Rather, he means to question the antecedent, or the part of the sentence

where he makes a specific claim to nature’s end, that nature “destined us to be healthy.” That

nature may have an end in preserving the wellbeing of mankind does not necessarily coincide

with its having an end in making man healthy, or tranquil.

The implication of this passage bears a strong resemblance to another in the First

Discourse. There, Rousseau places a note below the Frontispiece reading, “Satyr, you do not

know it,” which he had taken from Plutarch’s Moralia. That note refers readers to another note

appended to the first sentence of the Second Part where Rousseau explains, “It was a ancient

tradition, passed from Egypt to Greece, that a God who was hostile to the tranquility of mankind

was the inventor of the sciences.”70 With these connected elements, the uninformed reader is

here presented with an image testifying to the charges levied against the arts and sciences, and

against philosophy in particular. But the same text presents attentive readers with something

different. Tracing the note of the Frontispiece, one finds that Prometheus continues beyond his

initial warning to say, “for it burns when one touches it, but it gives light and warmth and is an

instrument that serves every skill, assuming that one knows how to use it properly.”71 Thus, the

First Discourse suggests to attentive readers that a god hostile to the tranquility of man may not

necessarily be an enemy of mankind.

So too is the case with nature in the Second Discourse; to say that nature makes man

good is not necessarily to say that nature makes man healthy per se. When Rousseau writes, “If

she destined us to be healthy, I almost dare affirm that the state of reflection is a state contrary to

Nature and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal,” his hesitation is precise and

purposeful. He can do no more than “almost dare assert” this statement because he knows that

70
First Discourse, in CW 2, 12.
71
Plutarch, “How to Profit from One’s Enemies,” Moraila, 89f-90a.
 118

health and tranquility can themselves be understood as obstacles to man’s ultimate well-being at

both the individual and species levels. And because he knows the premise sustaining his

antecedent is unsound, he also knows that the state of reflection is not contrary to nature

understood as historical. Reflective man may be depraved, but this depravity is not the

consequence of the end to which nature is set. Nature has an end, and with respect to man it is

an end in consideration of his greatest possible well-being over time; the tranquility of health

easily achieved may conflict with the possibility of a greater good and a greater good for man.72

The second part of this reconciliation plays out in the historical reading of the Second

Discourse. In both the First and the Second Discourses, Rousseau gives many indications of the

fact that nature has tried to preserve man from dangers of his own making. For example, in the

First Discourse he writes, “nature wanted to keep you from being harmed by science just as a

mother wrests a dangerous weapon from her child’s hands;”73 at the beginning of Part II of the

Second Discourse he writes, “Nature had taken precautions to withhold this deadly secret from

us;”74 and in note *7 of the Second Discourse he writes, “[man’s] foolish pride and an

indefinable vain admiration for himself, makes him run avidly after all the miseries of which he

is susceptible, and which beneficent Nature had taken care to keep him from.”75 Yet, the

historical conception of nature quickly makes clear that these dangers are inevitable; the vague

description of “physical causes” like climate, geography, and natural disasters gives this

impression, but so too does Rousseau when he writes, “the lapse of time makes up for the slight

likelihood of events.”76 Therefore, nature’s attempts to prevent man from being harmed are not

72
Compare, Second Discourse, in CW 3, 21, 23, and 74; and Emile, in CW 13, 163, and 210-11; and Letter
to Voltaire, in CW 3, 116-17.
73
First Discourse, in CW 2, 12.
74
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 49.
75
Ibid., 74.
76
Ibid., 42. This passage, too, is entirely dependent on Rousseau’s understanding of probability theory and
infinity, and which dovetails with his overarching teleological system. See also, Letter to Philopolis.
 119

attempts to permanently or continually forestall his development, for Rousseau has already

asserted that no static state of nature ever existed in reality, and forestalling the inevitable

concourse of history is impossible. Rather, nature’s efforts are attempts to maintain a sort of

balance between man’s present constitution and demands of it that will stretch his abilities

without breaking him; these attempts protect man’s ongoing development.

The Second Discourse makes clear that nature continues to play a role in man’s existence

and development throughout all stages of his development from the pre-civil state to the savage

state, and finally in society. And by showing how man gains from his environmental challenges,

Rousseau is also saying that nature, as an historical force, forms man successively throughout

every stage of development. Thus, the descriptions of man as happy and healthy are not

necessarily those where he is living in a static tranquil state, but they are those where man is

living in response to the natural environment. Rousseau, in fact, describes man as happy in his

pre-civil, savage, and civil conditions, even if this happiness is not easily available or available to

all people in each state. Therefore, when he asserts that nature made man happy and good, he

does not mean only that original man had these qualities of existence, but that man is happy and

good wherever he is acting in response to his natural environment, and not in response to the

self-made ills stemming from amour propre. In that balance, man gains proportionately from his

environmental challenges, and the pains of his development are made positive or purposeful by

those gains. Man evolves and the natural environment changes, and these developments proceed

in concert with one another.

The system, understood this way, is harmonious and good. But when that balance is lost,

men become wicked despite having been made naturally good. Rousseau asks, “What then can

have depraved him to this extent, if not the changes that have befallen his constitution, the
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progress he has made, and the knowledge he has acquired?”77 While nature bears some

responsibility for having set all things in motion, man’s inclinations for himself remain the

necessary condition for his suffering. For when man’s inclinations are not reciprocal, when

amour propre is not kept in check by the circumstances of the environment, he acts only for

himself to the exclusion of nature and all others. The consequence is corrupt society, and “how

dearly Nature makes us pay for the scorn we have shown for its lessons.”78 Not despite but

because of all this, nature can be understood as good because there is a harmony that is possible

within the historical framework—not the harmony of a static original state, but rather the

dynamic and complex harmony of nature as a historical process. Nevertheless, nature

understood as a historical process, like nature understood as original, points toward a harmonious

state of affairs as the fundamental good toward which the system is oriented. But because the

harmonious natural state is dynamic and not static, that harmony can and will vary from one

place to another and from one time to another. There is, therefore, a discernable end in nature in

the historical conception, but it is not an end understood as a terminus. It is a positive and

harmonious balance between man and his environment that changes successively as the complex

reciprocal equation itself changes.79

77
Ibid., note *7, 74.
78
Ibid., 76.
79
Consider the occasions where Rousseau uses “Nature” in a personified sense (ibid., 14, 20, 21, 23, 24,
43, 74, 76). In these usages, he indicates that Nature does not simply aim at tranquility, but rather continually
presents man with challenges such that he could improve his natural well-being. A harmonious state of affairs
should not be confused with a tranquil state of affairs; it is, rather, a state wherein there are corresponding
purposeful outcomes for each intended action. Whether the purposeful outcomes are achieved or not depends on
man’s receptivity to his environment.
This notion of an end as a harmonious state of affairs may help to explain two of Rousseau’s peculiarities.
First, it clarifies his resistance to the possibility of qualitative changes in the human condition. If the world is
understood as a reciprocal and harmonious state of affairs, then even if change is possible within the system, those
changes are themselves reciprocally balanced within the system. The achievement of a Kantian ideal is not possible
in Rousseau’s conception of the world. Second, it clarifies his position that ours is always (i.e., in each era) the best
of all possible worlds. This will be dealt with at length in a later chapter.
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III. Nature as Particular Capacities and Faculties

To briefly summarize, from the standpoint of nature as original, nature can be thought of

as good because it distinguishes what is pure and good from what is merely artificial and

potentially evil and corruptive. And from the standpoint of nature as historical process, nature

can be thought of as good because it situates man in a positive and progressive developmental

relationship with the world wherein a perpetual harmony (or at least the approach to such a

harmony) is possible throughout seemingly constant fluctuations. These two conceptions of

nature and their juxtaposition inform Rousseau’s consideration of nature at the species level.

That is, throughout the Second Discourse, Rousseau is clear that nature, in the broadest senses,

interpenetrates each creature, instilling a species-level nature, in a narrower sense. As he

describes man’s peculiar way of being in the world, it becomes clear that nature, understood both

as original and as historical process, sets up his consideration of nature as a particular set of

capacities and faculties, or what we call human nature.

Human nature, however, is not easily grasped in all of its complexity. Perhaps

Rousseau’s most recognized critique of his contemporaries is, in fact, that they had been unable

to adequately conceptualize the state of nature; they tried to peer back into the earliest days of

man’s history, but because they saw it through the lens of man’s present degradation, they

inappropriately foisted upon natural man the corrupt qualities of civil man. Hence his famous

quote from Part I: “they spoke about savage man and they described Civil man.”80 But the lack

of historical vision that Rousseau criticizes here is not the source of the problem he identifies

regarding a clear vision of man’s natural state. Recall that the Preface began by explaining, “The

most useful and least advanced of all human knowledge seems to be that of man; and I dare say
80
Ibid., 19.
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that the inscription of the Temple of Delphi alone contained a Precept more important and more

difficult than all the thick Volumes of the Moralists.”81 In these opening lines, Rousseau links

the problem of understanding man’s natural state with the problem of self knowledge, making

the former a consequence of the latter. As was noted above, by linking the problem of man’s

natural state with the problem of self-knowledge, Rousseau identifies the difficulty of attaining

certain knowledge of self and nature; the objects retreat as they are pursued. But at the same

time, he reinforces that knowledge of these objects must be gotten at through philosophic

introspection and the retreat compensated for by philosophic conjecturing.

Immediately following his initial explanation of the intersection between self-knowledge

and knowledge of man’s natural state, he writes:

These researches, so difficult to conduct and so little thought of until now, are nevertheless the
only means we have left to remove a multitude of difficulties that hide from us knowledge of the
real foundations of human society. It is this ignorance of the Nature of man that throws so much
uncertainty and obscurity on the true definition of natural right: for the idea of right, says M.
Burlamaqui, and even more that of natural right are manifestly ideas relative to the Nature of man.
It is therefore from this very Nature of man, he continues, from his constitution and his state, that
the principles of that science must be deduced.82

Two things are made apparent in this passage. First, at stake in the inquiries into the origins of

inequality is the understanding of natural right. Second, and more importantly, because of the

intersection between self-knowledge and knowledge of man’s natural state, human nature is

necessarily the center of study. That is, because self-knowledge is available to the individual,

but because abstract knowledge of man’s natural state is ever-receding, knowledge of human

nature sits at the junction of the two; it is a conjectural bridge part way between the self-

knowledge and abstraction. Furthermore, because self-knowledge is always individual

knowledge, it is therefore always and necessarily historical knowledge of oneself, while

81
Ibid., 12.
82
Ibid., 13. Rousseau here refers to Jean Jacques Burlamaqui, Principes du Droit Naturel, I, I, §2 (Geneva:
Barillot & Fils, 1747), 2.
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knowledge of man’s natural state, by contrast, can only be an abstraction of what is gleaned from

self-knowledge. Thus, as a conjectural bridge between self-knowledge and man’s natural state,

knowledge of human nature joins the two conceptions of nature: as original and as historical

process. There is an order by which the elements of Rousseau’s study must be understood.

In order to reveal human nature in all of its complexity, Rousseau must establish a means

by which it can be understood. On the on hand, he sets up his description of nature such that the

conceptions of nature as original and as historical must be successively understood before one

can fully access Rousseau’s teaching on human nature. To do otherwise creates the appearance

of contradiction in Rousseau’s account by refusing attempts to place each component of human

nature in its proper place. On the other hand, he links self-knowledge with knowledge of human

nature so as to connect this third conceptualization of nature—nature as a set of faculties—with

the preceding conceptualizations. Simply stated, in order to accomplish his treatment of nature

in a single text, Rousseau layers his successive accounts of nature as original and as historical,

and weaves his explanation of human nature into these. Human nature can only be understood,

therefore, through the process of self-reflection, or more specifically philosophic introspection,

and in light of both the original and historical conceptions of nature.

Rousseau’s identification of the faculties and capacities that constitute human nature

comes in several key passages in the Second Discourse, and these are clarified and developed by

his subsequent descriptions and historical narratives of man and his engagement with the world.

His first explanations of human nature come in the Preface following his observation that right

and natural right are relative to human nature. He first explains:

But as long as we do not know natural man, we would try in vain to determine the Law he has
received or that which best suits his constitution. All that we can see very clearly concerning this
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Law is that, for it to be Law, not only must the will of him who is bound by it be able to submit to
it with knowledge; but also, for it to be natural, it must speak directly by Nature’s voice.83

Natural right is at stake in the inquiry into the origin of inequality, but neither the former nor the

latter are available before the conjectural bridge has been established. That is, in order to know

the law that nature has set for man, and in order to understand the circumstances of man’s

engagement in the world, one must first understand human nature. In lieu of this, all that can be

said of natural law regards the conditions of its existence; for it to be law, one must be able to

submit to it knowingly, and more importantly, it must speak immediately to the beholder with

the voice, which is to say the command, of nature. As Rousseau’s critiques make clear, other

explanations of natural law fall short of satisfying these demands. Focusing either too much on

the order of nature, as the ancients did, or on man’s capacity to recognize the law as such, as the

moderns did, previous explanations can only satisfy the demand that “the will of him who is

bound by it be able to submit to it with knowledge.” In order to satisfy the demand that the law

speak with the force of nature, previous explanations have been “obliged to make man a

Philosopher before making him a man.”84 Or as Rousseau explains:

So that all the definitions of these learned men, otherwise in perpetual contradiction to one
another, agree only in this, that it is impossible to understand the Law of Nature and consequently
to obey it without being a great reasoner and a profound Metaphysician: which means precisely
that men must have used, for the establishment of society, enlightenment which only develops
with great difficulty and in very few People in the midst of society itself.85

By maintaining such strong opposition to other explanations of nature and natural right,

Rousseau is setting himself up to satisfy both of the demands he has established. To do this he

must explain human nature in light of, or as an amalgamation of, nature both as original and as

historical, and he begins with an introspective act of self-discovery.

83
Ibid., 14.
84
Ibid., 15.
85
Ibid., 14.
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III.1 Human Nature from the Original Standpoint—Rousseau’s explanation of human

nature in the Preface is given in the context of nature understood as original, and thus follows the

order by which he presents the first and second conceptions of nature. Human nature is

expressed in terms of the “first and simplest operations of the human Soul,” and again carefully

indicating his introspective conjectural stance, Rousseau explains:

I believe I perceive in it two principles anterior to reason, of which one interests us ardently in our
well-being and our self-preservation, and the other inspires in us a natural repugnance to see any
sensitive Being perish or suffer, principally those like ourselves. It is from the conjunction and
combination of these two Principles, without the necessity of introducing that of sociability that all
the rules of natural right appear to flow: rules which reason is later forced to reestablish upon other
foundations when, by its successive developments, it has succeeded in stifling Nature.86

Here Rousseau distinguishes several elements of human nature while being careful to establish

the priority of each element without contradicting the foundation of his critique of earlier writers.

Man is a rational animal, but anterior to reason are two more fundamental elements, the first of

which results in man’s interest in both his well-being and his self-interest and the second of

which results in a natural repugnance at suffering.87 The former element is easily named, for

“self-interest” can be understood as resulting in both the desire for “well-being” and “self-

preservation.” Regarding self-interest, commentators almost exclusively understand “well-

being” and “self-preservation” as synonymous with one another, and they then treat self-interest

primarily as self-preservation. Rousseau, however, understood well-being and self-preservation

as distinct aspects of the principle of self-interest.88 While it first appears that man’s interest in

86
Ibid., 14-15.
87
For the purposes of explaining human nature, I am here treating self-interest and moral sense (pity) as
“elements” of human nature. It is especially important to recognize, however, that Rousseau is very careful to
express these not as elements but as “principles” of a single object, the soul. Rousseau does not necessarily accept
the dualist metaphysics that one finds in the “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar,” and to describe the key
features of human nature as elements in and of themselves is to suggest the existence of multiple substances.
Rousseau carefully avoids this problem here, just as he does by subtly disavowing his allegiance to the detail of the
“Profession of Faith” while at the same time maintaining his allegiance to its gist. This will be developed in more
detail in the following chapter.
88
Cf., Emile, in CW 13, 225: “Let us set down as an incontestable maxim that the first movements of nature
are always right. There is no original perversity in the human heart. There is not a single vice to be found in it
which cannot be said how and whence it entered. The sole passion natural to man is amour de soi or amour propre
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self-preservation is his most fundamental drive, Rousseau seems to present self-preservation as a

special circumstance of self-interest that is due to application, and later explains that “love of

well-being is the sole motive of human actions.”89 Circumstance initiates a bifurcation of self-

interest that allows the individual to assess how self-interest is best served, and while Rousseau

does state that there are legitimate cases in which man may give preference to himself, he is

careful not to suggest that the more primitive form of self-interest holds final say on all matters.

Self-interest is itself a complicated principal element of human nature.

The element that produces a natural repugnance at suffering is not as easily identified in

this context. In his other works, and especially the Emile, Rousseau more overtly identifies this

principle or element with “conscience.”90 Although it should be carefully noted that for

Rousseau, “conscience” appears to be what results at the genesis of reason by its combination

with moral sense.91 Here in the Second Discourse, however, he allows the sentiment of

repugnance at suffering to stand-in for the moral sense that parallels self-interest, referring to this

core aspect of the soul indirectly by naming it “pity.” Moral sense as an element of human

nature is already complicated, and by identifying it in this indirect manner, Rousseau obscures it

taken in an extended sense. This amour propre in itself or relative to us is good and useful; and since it has no
necessary relation to others, it is in this respect naturally neutral. It becomes good or bad only by the application
made of it and the relations given to it.” In this passage, Rousseau is emphasizing the original unity of man’s
interest in well-being and his interest in his self-preservation by distinguishing between amour propre in its
extended and non-extended senses, where the latter constitutes vanity or pride.
89
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 45. See also, Marks, Perfection and Disharmony, 35-36. This point will be
further developed in the next chapter.
90
Cf. Emile, in CW 13, 362ff.
91
Compare with Rousseau’s statement in the Letter to Beaumont, in CW 9, 28: “[L]ove of self is no longer
a simple passion. But it has two principles, namely the intelligent being and the sensitive being, the well-being of
which is not the same. The appetite of the senses conduces to the well-being of the body, and the love of order to
that of the soul. The latter love, developed and made active, bears the name of conscience. But conscience develops
and acts only with man’s understanding. It is only through this understanding that he attains a knowledge of order,
and it is only when he knows order that his conscience brings him to love it. Conscience is therefore null in the man
who has compared nothing and who has not seen his relationships. In that state, man knows only himself. He does
not see his well-being as opposed to or consistent with that of anyone. He neither hates nor loves anything.
Restricted to physical instinct alone, he is null, he is stupid. That is what I have shown in my Discourse on
Inequality.”
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just that much more.92 Here it appears that while Rousseau wants to identify some version of

“moral sense” as the element parallel to self-interest, he avoids any overt identification of moral

sense or conscience in order to preempt criticism along these lines. On the face of things, pity,

as the stand in for moral sense, is the sentiment of identification with objects in the world and

especially the creatures that exist in the world alongside the individual. But this is not, or not

yet, a rational identification.93 Rather, moral sense expresses itself as a natural repugnance at

suffering, which is to say both that the identification is made on the basis of sentience felt in the

beholder and discerned in the other, and that its expression is manifest in sentiment of pity.

More simply stated, man is naturally able to recognize the sentience of other creatures,

and this ability is not limited to those like himself; even animals must be admitted to the ranks of

natural right given that “they share something of our Nature through the sensitivity with which

they are endowed.”94 Recognizing the shared sentience between himself and the other, man is

indirectly attuned to the well-being of the other insofar as his reaction to the other’s suffering is a

real and felt repugnance. Thus, the sentiment of pity is not confined to the experience of

suffering or to the sight of the suffering other; already in the identification of sentience, man is in

some way potentially aware of the well-being of the other. Rousseau is clear that the expression

of man’s identification is one of feeling, but he goes on to explain that the feeling man

92
For more on this element of human nature, see Laurence Cooper, Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of
the Good Life, 80-95.
93
In the Emile, Rousseau further distinguishes between phases of man’s rationality. Here in the Second
Discourse he means to emphasize that the sentiment of pity does not require the formation of complex ideas; in the
Emile he makes clear that reason is always active in man, and that it is his most rudimentary faculty of identification
that facilitates pity by engaging conscience and reason. This will be more fully developed in the next chapter.
94
Ibid., 15. Marc Plattner argues that Rousseau follows Descartes in the Second Discourse by suggesting
that all human thought, as well as the faculties that contribute to it, can be understood mechanistically. He cites
certain passages of the text at expense of others, however, and similarly he cites certain works over others.
Ultimately, his explanation of Rousseau’s apparent inconsistencies depends on the assumption that Rousseau either
“changed his views after writing the Second Discourse” or that “he expressed himself differently in accordance with
the differing intentions” of his works. Neither of these options sufficiently explains Rousseau’s claims to be
consistent. See Rousseau’s State of Nature, 43. Peter Emberly also appears to hold the believe that Rousseau held a
sort of materialistic monism. See, “Rousseau versus the Savoyard Vicar,” Interpretation 14 (1986): 301ff.
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experiences reflects some moral obligation; moral sense is binding in a way that parallels the

binding nature of self-interest. Reflecting on the way in which natural right must be observed

both between man and man, and man and animal, Rousseau writes, “It seems, in effect, that if I

am obliged to do no harm to someone like me, it is less because he is a reasonable being than

because he is a sensitive being.”95 These most fundamental aspects of human nature must not be

thought of as merely unbound faculties; they are expressly moral faculties that connect man with

the good. This means that man exists in a moral context, though the extent of man’s moral

context may vary with the circumstances of his actions.96 Human beings have the capacity to

feel, and they feel both about their experience of self-interest and about their outward experience

of their moral sense. Moral sense, however, is the principle that facilitates what Rousseau calls

sentiment, and which together with self-interest constitutes conscience, or an internal self-

awareness accompanied by a sense of right.97 Moral sense must, therefore, be understood as a

95
Ibid.
96
Rousseau’s familiarity with Aristotle and Aquinas has been well-established in regard to his other
writings (See, Jean Starobinski, “The Motto Vitam impendere Vero and the Question of Lying,” in Cambridge
Companion to Rousseau [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001], 365-98). Though he is careful to
distinguish himself from classical and scholastic thinking in the Second Discourse, Rousseau here too shows a
familiarity with Aquinas, in particular Aquinas’s “Treatise on Action,” and especially I-II, q.6, a.1 on the nature of
voluntary action, and q.18, a.9 on whether an action can be indifferent. Rousseau appears to accept the position that
man always already exists in a moral context, not simply by virtue of his historical circumstance, but also in virtue
of his nature. That is, insofar as an action derives its goodness from both its object and its accidents, and insofar as
man acts voluntarily and with knowledge of an end, he acts by deliberately engaging himself toward a given end.
The moral context is necessarily attached to the freedom by which man directs himself toward his end.
97
There may also be other reasons why Rousseau chose to avoid the use of “conscience” here. The term
“conscience” exists from Medieval French and Latin. The French term at the time carried only the connotation of an
inner sense of self and one’s intentions, whereas the Latin conscientia carried the additional connotation of a moral
bearing or a sense of right. Given that Rousseau wanted to portray the latter quality, he may have felt that the
French conscience would have been an insufficient expression of his meaning. Pity, from the French of same time,
carries the connotation of compassion, and would have been the most appropriate stand in for the Latin conscientia.
Rousseau does, however use the term conscience in his other writings. Consider, for example, this passage from the
Moral Letters:
“Conscience, conscience, divine instinct, immortal and celestial voice, certain guide of a being that is
ignorant and limited but intelligent and free, infallible judge of good and bad, sublime emanation of eternal
substance who renders man like unto the Gods; it is you alone who makes the excellence of my nature.
“Without you I sense nothing in myself which elevates me above the beasts except for the sad privilege of
wandering from error to error with the help of an understanding without rule and a reason without principle” (Letters
morales, in OC IV, 1111, following Cooper’s translation in Rousseau, Nature, the Problem of the Good Life
(University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 1999).
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teleological element of human nature insofar as it is oriented to the natural order and natural

right.

When considered from the standpoint of nature as original, this depiction of human

nature gives the impression that each of these core principles can coexist with the others without

significant conflict. As Velkley points out, self-interest and moral sense can each be followed

unreflectively, and without any circumstance that might induce competition between them they

appear to harmonize.98 Furthermore, by making reason the faculty by which all comparison

becomes possible, and by making both self-interest and moral sense anterior to reason, Rousseau

is asserting that in their original state these elements of human nature function seamlessly. The

question of the status of each principle remains one of priority, and thus self-interest and moral

sense are given priority over reason. But, this priority can only be established on the basis of

what came first in human nature, or what was present in human nature in its original state, and

Rousseau has only just explained that the original state is one “which no longer exists, which

perhaps never existed, and which probably never will exist.”99 The priority Rousseau affords to

self-interest and moral sense is real and important; for insofar as man has these enduring natural

faculties, he is connected to nature in form, and so is oriented to an end insofar as he is ordered

to the truth of being. But this is only an abstract and philosophic priority. The standpoint of

nature as original reveals that man has original or fundamental principles, though he has never

existed in an original state.

III.2 Human Nature from the Historical Standpoint—Importantly, the version of man that

Rousseau eventually makes the object of his study is not original man, but man “formed from all

times as I see him today,” not in his original state, but “as he must have issued from the hands of

98
Velkley, Being After Rousseau, 39.
99
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 13.
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Nature.”100 In this version of man, all the elements of human nature—both those with

philosophic priority as well as reason and what follows—are already in motion, working in

concert with one another. The interplay of the elements of human nature, because it transpires in

time and with respect to circumstances, is, therefore, historical. The standpoint of nature as

historical process, therefore, reveals something very different about human nature than does the

original standpoint. Specifically, one finds that the various elements of human nature may not

harmonize as well as one might suppose from the depiction of them in the original standpoint.

Rousseau has already explained that all of the rules of natural right spring from the combination

and association of moral sense and self-interest in its various forms, and he has alluded to the

fact that reason, or the faculty by which the combination and association takes shape, “by its

successive developments,” finally succeeds in stifling or even smothering nature. Thus, when

Rousseau writes, “as long as man does not resist the inner impulse of commiseration, he will

never harm another man or even another sensitive being, except in the legitimate case where, his

preservation being concerned, he is obliged to give himself preference,”101 it is already obvious

that man does, in fact, resist his inner impulses even when self-preservation is not concerned.

Not only does self-preservation pose possible conflicts with moral sense, but so too does the

natural interest in well-being. Here one sees the genesis of amour propre and the first indication

of free will.102 When circumstances permit, man may prefer himself, either via his well-being or

merely via his self-preservation, to the demands he recognizes as issuing from his moral sense,

or, once moral sense and reason are engaged, his conscience.

100
Ibid., 20.
101
Ibid., 15
102
Rousseau returns to this idea in Part II where he explains that the “first stirring of pride” was produced
when man compared himself to others and began to realize his superiority (ibid., 44). Preferring himself to others,
despite the demands of moral sense, already suggests man’s ability to choose between the objects with which he is
presented.
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The narrative of Part I expands upon all this in two stages as Rousseau considers man in

his physical and metaphysical capacities. Man may not be visible in his original state, and thus

the original form of human nature may only be a conjecture, but in order to understand human

nature more thoroughly it suffices to see how each of the elements of human nature exists in

relation to the others and to nature more broadly. The depiction of human nature in Part I is, at

first glance, peculiar in some regards.103 Rousseau, for example, describes man fundamentally as

an animal:

Stripping the Being, so constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he could have received and of all
the artificial faculties he could only have acquired by long progress—considering him, in a word,
as he must have come from the hands of Nature—I see an animal less strong than some, less agile
than others, but all things considered, the most advantageously organized of all.104

Now it is certain that animals have self-interest, and Rousseau has already suggested that animals

possess some measure of moral sense, and so these elements of human nature cannot be the

“supernatural gifts” to which Rousseau refers. Presumably, he means that if man were stripped

of his freedom and his consciousness thereof (those moral and metaphysical elements that reveal

the “spirituality of his soul”), as well as advanced reason and perfectibility (aspects that are the

consequence his freedom), man resembles the other animals in the most fundamental respects:

self-interest and moral sense are permanent and unchanging elements that are common to all

sentient creatures. Interestingly, what is simultaneously revealed here is man’s distinct lack of

binding instinct when compared to other animals.105 In addition to self-interest and moral sense,

103
It could be objected here that this interpretation uses passages from Part I of the Second Discourse that
describe the state of nature as if they were meant to teach the reader about developed human nature. This is, in fact,
precisely what we are attempting to do here. As was discussed in the previous section, it is our position that
Rousseau begins to offer indications of nature as a historical process even in the midst of his description of the
nature as original, and thus even in the midst of his descriptions of nature in Part I.
104
Ibid., 20.
105
Rousseau has already begun to distinguish self-interest and moral sense from instinct (narrowly
conceived as innate, binding natural impulses) when he specifically refers to the former as “principles” and reserves
his use of the term “instinct” for more mechanical operations relating to basic subsistence. The above paragraph
reintroduces this in a new context, and that man lacks innate, binding instincts is confirmed in the very next
paragraph when Rousseau writes: “Men, dispersed among the animals, observe and imitate their industry, and
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those “principles anterior to reason,” animals have instincts to guide their actions in the world,

whereas man has no inherent internal guides besides those manifest in self-interest and the moral

thereby develop in themselves the instinct of the Beasts; with the advantage that whereas each species has only its
own proper instinct, man—perhaps having none that belong to him—appropriates them all to himself” (ibid., 21).
This lack of binding instinct may not mean that man is completely devoid of instinct altogether; it could, for
instance, be conceded that man has the instinct for procreation (though even this can be questioned given
Rousseau’s descriptions of it in the context of desire), and it is certain that man possesses those instincts that he
appropriates from animals as he sees fit. Nevertheless, Rousseau’s point here is that man does not posses instincts in
such a way that they serve as binding rules for his conduct. Importantly, the instincts man possesses are not
properly his, and while his spiritual freedom (his freedom to choose and his consciousness of this) is separate from
his lack of instinct, his lack of instinct makes it possible for him to freely appropriate and later freely abandon those
instincts that are not properly his own; innate, binding instinct of any kind might conflict with the appropriation of
new and foreign instincts. Of course, man has instincts, for what else could he contribute to or deviate from if not
instinct? But the way in which man has instinct is categorically different from the way in which instinct exists in
animals; in man, instincts are appropriated, and because they are not innate, they do not bind his actions.
It could be objected here that some of Rousseau’s statements suggest that man does indeed have innate
instincts. For instance, his statement that “man contributes to his operations by being a free agent” suggests that
man does, in fact, have instincts that form a foundation of inclinations to which he contributes (ibid., 26). But this
statement distinguishes man’s instincts as neither innate nor binding, and Rousseau’s statement later in the same
paragraph that “the Beast cannot deviate from the Rule that is prescribed to it even when it would be advantageous
for it to do so, and a man deviates from it often to his detriment,” suggests the opposite (ibid.). When Rousseau says
“man contributes to his operations by being a free agent,” he means that man contributes to what instinct suggests
without being bound by what these instincts suggest. That is, when man contributes to his operations, he may be
actively cultivating some such instinct (perhaps at the expense of some other instinct), or he may be deviating from
his instincts or even denying his instincts altogether. This is only possible for man because he is not beholden to
these instincts as “Rules” in the same way that animals are subject to them, and this is only the case for man because
his instincts are not properly in his nature.
There are several other passages that could present similar objections, and which must be understood in the
same way. For example, in a later paragraph he writes, “Nature committed [savage man] to instinct alone,” but
almost instantly corrects himself by adding that “[Nature] compensated [savage man] for the instinct he perhaps
lacks by faculties capable of substituting for it at first, and then of raising him far above Nature, will therefore begin
with purely animal functions” (ibid., 27). Just as Rousseau appears to be on the cusp of conceding instinct to man,
he instead clarifies and reasserts that man uses his other faculties to substitute for his lack of instinct. Thus, “to
perceive and to feel will be his first state, which he will have in common with animals,” but significantly, “to will
and not to will, to desire and fear, will be the first and almost only operations of his soul until new circumstances
cause new developments in it” (ibid.). In other words, man has sentience in common with other animals, but the
first operations of his soul reflect the engagement of his spiritual freedom. Man has needs as do all living creatures,
but needs are not identical to innate, binding instincts; the former are basic physical demands of life, whereas the
latter are compulsory rules for how to satisfy those needs. Rousseau is very clear that, unlike animals, man is
always “free to acquiesce or resist” when confronted by the impetus of Nature, or in other words, when confronted
by the pressure of his felt needs. For man, instincts are the tools to which Nature committed him.
Each of these passages must be understood in the context of Rousseau’s larger explanation of human
nature. Further, it must be kept close in mind that Rousseau is explicit that man, in contrast to animals, has perhaps
no instincts that belong to him (ibid., 21), and that man has the advantage of being able to appropriate animal
instincts through imitation and observation. To the extent that man has instincts, then, it is primarily because he
appropriates them as he sees fit, not because they are an innate part of his nature. For more on man’s lack of innate
instinct, see Velkley, Being After Rousseau, 43-45. Velkley explains that innate natural instinct, like human
freedom, is not without problems. But it is because instinct is insufficient that man has freedom: “Only the
insufficiency of instinct can explain the emergence in nature of a being without it; otherwise that emergence is
unintelligible” (ibid., 44). As Velkley argues, man’s lack of instinct and his freedom together help to explain how
perfectibility can be, in Rousseau’s words, an “almost unlimited” capacity.
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sense of pity, and even these do not bind man in way that animals are bound by their instincts.106

Rousseau explains:

Men, dispersed among the animals, observe and imitate their industry, and thereby develop in
themselves the instinct of the Beasts; with the advantage that whereas each species has only its
own proper instinct, man—perhaps having none that belongs to him—appropriates them all to
himself.107

Man is, therefore, the most advantageously organized creature because he is set up to profit from

the lack in his natural constitution, and the lack in man’s natural constitution directs the reader to

his “supernatural gifts,” or to the apparatus of man’s development.

III.3 Consequences of the Historical Understanding of Human Nature—Rousseau

appears to have been building to this realization of human nature throughout the Preface and Part

I of the text by subtly advancing a view of human nature that differs from that given from the

original standpoint. In the Preface, Rousseau suggested that man may prefer himself to what he

recognizes as right, thereby alluding to the fact that the elements of human nature may not

harmonize with one another.108 Then at the end of the first paragraph of Part I, he describes man

as “directing his gaze on all of Nature, and measuring the vast expanse of Heaven with his

eyes.”109 Implicit in both of these passages is the fact that man possesses imaginative

comparison and theoretical vision even in his earliest stages of development, both of which are

important for understanding human nature.110 Furthermore, we find in the Preface that moral

106
See note 87 above. Self-interest and moral sense (pity) are sometimes understood as natural instincts,
but by calling them “principles” of the soul, Rousseau appears to carefully distinguish these from “instincts,” a term
he applies to what appear to be more physical or mechanical operations of life (compare Second Discourse, in CW 3,
14-15 with 21 and 25-26; the latter two passages discuss instinct with specific reference to basic subsistence). By
distinguishing the “principles” from “instincts,” Rousseau is able to show the common ground that man shares with
animals while also reinforcing that man lacks binding instincts properly so called. Crucially, if we preserve the
distinction that Rousseau makes, man has self-interest and moral sense, but he lacks innate, binding instincts. As we
will discuss below, man’s distinct advantage over animals comes from his freedom and his ability to appropriate any
and all instincts from which he would benefit (ibid., 21).
107
Ibid., 21.
108
Ibid., 14-15.
109
Ibid., 20.
110
Cf., Velkley, Being After Rousseau, 41-42; and Marks, Perfection and Disharmony, 33-34.
 134

sense has the effect of transporting man outside of himself such that he can recognize the

sentiments of another sentient creature. Man sees the suffering of another creature and

understands that suffering through the lens of his own sentient existence. He has a felt

experience of that suffering other by virtue of the fact that he can identify with the other on that

rudimentary level. But this means that man understands himself as both like and unlike the

suffering creature; he is like that suffering creature insofar as he possesses the capacity to suffer

in the same way, and so he can imagine the depth of that suffering. Yet, self-interest prompts

him to see the distinction between himself the creature who suffers, and to carefully weigh the

sentiments he experiences when he confronts the other in the world. Man begins to discover

himself in the comparison he draws between himself and the other as the result of the tension

between moral sense and self-interest.111 Similarly, in Part I, when Rousseau describes man at

the beginning of his narrative as “directing his gaze on all of Nature, and measuring the vast

expanse of Heaven with his eyes,” he describes man engaging with conceptual objects outside of

himself.112 Altogether, this suggests that the version of man that is the object of his study

already possesses some measure of imaginative comparison and theoretical vision, and that he

already exists in the mode of comparison that distinguishes self and other. When read alongside

111
Compare with Essay on the Origin of Languages, in CW 7, 306: “How would I suffer in seeing
someone else suffer if I do not even know that he is suffering, if I do not know what he and I have in common? He
who has never reflected cannot be clement, or just, or pitying— no more than he can be wicked and vindictive. He
who imagines nothing feels only himself; he is alone in the midst of mankind.
Reflection is born of compared ideas, and it is the multiplicity of ideas that leads to their comparison. He
who sees only a single object has no comparison to make. He who sees from his childhood only a small number and
always the same ones still does not compare them, because the habit of seeing them deprives him of the attention
needed to examine them; but as a new object strikes us, we want to know it, we look for relations between it and
those we do know; it is in this way that we learn to consider what is before our eyes, and how what is foreign to us
leads us to examine what touches us.” See also, Velkley, Being After Rousseau, 39: “Each impulse by itself can be
followed unreflectively; when they compete, man for the first time becomes aware of himself. The individual sees
the suffering other as both like and unlike himself.”
112
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 20. Read from the standpoint of nature as original, this statement appears
to be nothing more than a claim that in the state of nature man opens his eyes and takes in the world. But considered
in light of Rousseau’s persistent intimations of nature as historical, this statement can be interpreted as having
deeper implications. Rousseau uses similar rhetorical devices in his “Fiction or Allegorical Fragment on
Revelation” (in CW 12, 165).
 135

Rousseau’s suggestions that man lacks fundamental instinct, it suggests that man is always

already rational to some extent insofar as the elements of human nature are always already

engaged with one another and with objects in the world.113 Neither nature nor human nature

exist in a static state.114

Consequently, the historical standpoint also teaches the reader that nature is always partly

responsible for human development. Nature impels man even as his faculties are gaining sway

in his life, and so it is not just the potential tension between the elements of human nature, but

also the natural circumstances of the environment that spur man’s development and advance the
113
Rousseau expands upon this significantly in the Emile explaining that neither nature nor human nature
exist in a static state; the world is in motion, and a child born into such a condition is similarly in motion. Reason is
engaged, even if only to the very limited extent possible at the stage of infancy. Cf., Emile, in CW 13, 189: “where
education begins with life, the child is at birth already a disciple, not of the governor, but of nature;” and 190: “I
repeat: the education of man begins at his birth; before speaking, before understanding, he is already learning.
Experience anticipates lessons;” and 412: “Man does not easily begin to think. But as soon as he begins, he never
stops. Whoever has thought will always think, and once the understanding is practiced at reflection, it can no longer
stay at rest.” Cf., Velkley, Being After Rousseau, 44: “Perfectibility is active from the start of human life qua human
(in the childhood of savages) and inescapable.”
114
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 13. See also, Natural Right and History, 271. Strauss writes, “Natural man
is premoral in every respect: he has no heart. Natural man is subhuman.” Strauss and many other commentators
often describe the natural man of the Second Discourse as amoral or premoral because he has no discernable civic
engagement in the earliest stages of his development. Their view of man as amoral or premoral is reinforced by
their tendency to interpret natural man on the basis of nature as original; if natural man is understood as perpetually
hanging behind a curtain of abstraction, then he will appear premoral for never having activated his moral capacities.
However, man can only be understood as premoral in an original state “which no longer exists, which perhaps never
existed, which probably never will exist.” Rousseau clearly acknowledges this perspective on natural man (Second
Discourse, in CW 3, 34), but he does not appear to hold this view himself, and he cautions the reader as much in his
critique of Hobbes’ conclusions (ibid., 35). Based on what has been argued thus far, man cannot be understood as
either amoral or premoral precisely because he does, in fact, have the natural capacity for good as the consequence
of his moral sense, and because this capacity is always engaged insofar as he acts voluntarily. Any engagement of
the elements of human nature constitutes a moral activity, and so man is by nature a moral creature; at most, it is
possible to say that natural man is more or less morally active as circumstances dictate. Here again, Rousseau seems
to show his familiarity with Aquinas’ “Treatise on Action.” Consider, for example, Aquinas’s explication of
voluntary action in I-II, q.6, a.1: “Whatever so acts or is moved by an intrinsic principle that it has some knowledge
of the end, has within itself a principle of its act, so that it not only acts, but acts for an end… Those things which
have a knowledge of the end are said to move themselves because there is in them a principle by which they not
only act but also act for an end. And consequently, since both are from an intrinsic principle, namely, that they act
and that they act for an end, the movements of such things are said to be voluntary, for the word voluntary implies
that their movements and acts are from their own inclination… Since man especially knows the end of his work, and
moves himself, in his acts especially is the voluntary to be found.” Now consider Aquinas’ explication of whether
an action can be morally indifferent in I-II, q.18, a.9: “A moral action, as stated above (a.3), derives its goodness not
only from its object, from which it takes its species, but also from the circumstances, which are its accidents, as it
were; just as something belongs to a man by reason of his individual accidents which does not belong to him by
reason of his species. And every individual action must have some circumstance that makes it good or bad, at least
in respect of the intention of the end… Consequently, every human action that proceeds from deliberate reason, if it
is to be considered in the individual, must be good or bad.”
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faculty of reason. Recall that when Rousseau claims that man is the “most advantageously

organized” of all animals, he then explains this advantage in terms of man’s lack of natural

instinct. This is an advantage for man because he has the natural ability, more than any other

animal, to live outside of himself, to compare himself to others, and to draw from his

identifications with all others in the “whole of Nature” what will best serve him in survival and

well-being. Man’s ability to draw from his experiences, however, is made possible by the ever-

changing demands of his environment. Natural man, as Rousseau explains, lives dispersed

among the animals, and like the animals, he is exposed to the various “Physical causes” in

nature, which “treats them precisely as the Law of Sparta treated Children of Citizens: it renders

strong and robust those who are well constituted and makes all others perish.”115 “But Savage

man, living dispersed among the animals and early finding himself in a position to measure

himself against them, soon makes the comparison.”116 The tension between man’s faculties is

the obvious apparatus by which he develops, but man’s development is still tied to his

engagement with the natural environment. For, just as the natural environment constantly and

continually presents man with new challenges, so too does it present him with new examples,

and thus new opportunities to gain in his capacities; man is always developing.

III.4 The Metaphysical and Moral Specific Difference of Man—As Rousseau turns to the

second part of Part I, the consideration of man’s “Metaphysical and Moral side,” he appears to

transition from subtle intimations to more explicit statements of his considered view of human

nature. He begins by reiterating and redeveloping his point on the advantageous organization of

man’s physical constitution, adding to it significantly in order to explain man’s spiritual

qualities. When discussing the physical aspects of man, Rousseau had explained that man’s

115
Ibid., 21.
116
Ibid., 22.
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advantage lay in a lack of inherent instincts and in the unique freedom that allows him to

appropriate those that would benefit him.117 Man observes and imitates, and with the elements

of his soul in motion he draws and gains from his experiences. Rousseau is even more explicit

about this circumstance of human nature in the second part of Part I, but now emphasizes man’s

freedom more so than his lack of instinct. He writes:

In every animal I see only an ingenious machine to which nature has given senses in order to
revitalize itself and guarantee itself, to a certain point, from all that tends to destroy or upset it. I
perceive precisely the same thing in the human machine, with the difference that Nature alone
does everything in the operations of the Beast, whereas man contributes to his operations by being
a free agent.118

The way in which man’s freedom distinguishes him from other animals, however, is peculiar.

After all, in the Preface, in the context of nature as original, Rousseau explained that self-interest

and moral sense had a certain priority over reason, and moreover, that animals share in this

organization of nature in such a way that they too participate in natural right.119 Now he goes

farther, explaining, “every animal has ideas, since it has senses; it even combines its ideas up to a

certain point, and in this regard man differs from a Beast only in degree.” 120 He even suggests

that there is good cause to think that “there is more difference between a given man and another

117
Ibid., 21.
118
Ibid., 26. Plattner also makes much of this passage in comparing Rousseau to Descartes. See
Rousseau’s State of Nature, 41-42, passim. Plattner fails to recognize that Rousseau’s statement here reiterates the
division he has made between man’s physical side and his metaphysical or moral side, and is a stepping off point for
his argument distinguishing man from beast. Further, in assuming that Rousseau holds a merely mechanistic view
of man and animals, Plattner neglects the earlier passage where Rousseau attributes natural right to animals (Second
Discourse, in CW 3, 15), as well as the following passage where he states explicitly that the difference between man
and animal is one of degree (ibid., 26).
119
Ibid., 15. Rousseau elevates self-interest and moral sense above reason by making them prior to reason,
and from the original standpoint, closer to pure nature than reason, which contributes to man’s degeneracy. In the
following paragraph he suggests that because animals “share something of our Nature through the sensitivity with
which they are endowed,” they participate in natural right to some extent.
120
Ibid., 26. Regarding man’s lack of instinct, it might be objected that by placing man and animal on a
continuum, and by clearly asserting the role instinct plays in animals, Rousseau is suggesting that man, too, is
endowed with instincts. But, as we have noted above, the common ground between man and animal lies foremost in
their mutual possession of self-interest and moral sense, and Rousseau describes the continuum between man and
animal in terms of the difference in their rationality.
It is also of note that Rousseau appears to again parallel Aquinas’ “Treatise on Action” here, specifically I-
II, q.6, a.3 where Aquinas contends that man and animal exist along a continuum regarding their rational abilities
insofar as they share an imperfect knowledge of their ends to different degrees, even if man is capable of refining his
rational understanding of his ends toward more perfect voluntary acts.
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than between a given man and a given beast.”121 The implication of Rousseau’s positions here

appears to be that the organization of internal elements, be it in human nature or the nature of the

animal, results in an analogous tension between self-interest and moral sense, and thus in some

level of rationality. If this is the case, man’s level of rationality may distinguish him from other

animals (just as it distinguishes one man from another), but his specific difference cannot be in

his rational being; it must be found in one’s nature, not in a faculty that varies by degree.

Rousseau writes:

Therefore it is not so much understanding which constitutes the distinction of man among the
animals as it is his being a free agent. Nature commands every animal, and the Beast obeys. Man
feels the same impetus, but he realizes that he is free to acquiesce or resist; and it above all in the
consciousness of this freedom that the spirituality of his soul is shown.122

Reason, or the intellectual capacity of man, is facilitated by the shortcoming in man’s

fundamental nature. At one and the same time, the shortcoming in man’s nature forces him to

live outside of himself and causes a tension between the fundamental elements of self-interest

and moral sense. The ideas that are generated by the senses, those that are generated by and for

man’s action of comparison, and finally those that constitute man’s imaginative, conceptual, or

theoretical vision, are all the material of reason. But there is enough in common between man

and animal for Rousseau to say that the differences between them are only differences of degree.

However, man does display something that cannot be so easily attributed to animals, namely a

“consciousness of this freedom.” The specific difference between man and animal is, therefore,

121
Ibid.
122
Ibid. Here Rousseau means “impetus” as “need,” not as “instinct.” The commands of nature are the
requirements of necessity; while man is free to deny or fulfill his needs as he sees fit and by whichever means he
chooses, animals are bound by instinct to fulfill nature’s requirements by specific means peculiar to each species.
This is subsequently confirmed several paragraphs later when Rousseau explains that the passions are derived from
our needs which he describes as “the simple impulsion of Nature” (ibid., 27). See above, note 105.
 139

not his capacity to reason, but rather his freedom to choose; it is as much his freedom to choose

as it is his great depth of self-awareness or his consciousness of this freedom.123

Rousseau describes man’s freedom and his consciousness of his freedom as spiritual

elements of his soul, and thus makes an important distinction. That is, he understands freedom

as a spiritual faculty, and affords it a status akin to the core principles of self-interest and moral

sense. Self-interest and moral sense are inherent natural faculties; man’s lack of instinct as well

as the tension between his inherent natural faculties force him outside of himself and into active

comparison with objects in the world.124 Reason is activated and progressively developed by the

constant requirement of man’s active comparison. But importantly, reason is for Rousseau the

activity of identifying similarities and differences and distinguishing which objects are congruent

with the demands of self-interest or moral sense.125 Reason is a fundamentally passive faculty

insofar as it does not choose a course of action, but merely represents possible objects to the

will.126 By contrast, choice of will is the free action of the soul in pursuit of some object. This

actualized choice of will is, in a sense, only possible insofar as the will is presented with a

choice. Still, man’s freedom as the potentiality of the will cannot be explained in this way. That

123
See Lee MacLean, The Free Animal. MacLean has argued this point extensively, claiming that “free will
is a distinctive natural potential within savage man” and that “the emergence of free will is a crucial moment in the
dynamic development of amour propre” (41). In her book she maintains first that “Rousseau’s account of the
consciousness of freedom that separates man from nature has a complexity and interest that suggests it is not merely
rhetorical,” and second, that “Rousseau sees perfectibility as a power that enables man to develop those faculties
which are latent in his nature” (12-13). MacLean places her argument directly in opposition to Plattner, who asserts
that Rousseau wrote disingenuously when he proposed freedom as man’s specific difference. Plattner believes that
Rousseau was forced to write in this way because “his teaching about the state of nature … conflicted with Christian
doctrine” (Rousseau’s State of Nature, 31). MacLean’s assessment of Plattner’s position is on the right track, but
unfortunately she does not appear to appreciate the importance of the role nature plays in man’s historcial
development, and thus she fails to see the teleological implications of the Second Discoruse (cf., The Free Animal,
33-39, 50-51 passim).
124
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 15 and 21-22.
125
Ibid., 27.
126
This reflects much of what is communicated about reason in the Emile. Reason is the generation of
ideas, and even the action of comparing these, but freedom and the ability to choose are separate from reason.
Rousseau’s strategy with respect to Emile’s education is to limit or preempt freedom while building rational skill,
thereby preparing his student to exercise his freedom to better effect at the appropriate time of nonage. Cf., Emile,
in CW 13, 224, 301 and 357.
 140

is, man’s freedom is not generated by the comparison of objects by reason; it cannot be

explained on the basis of desire’s manifestation of objects for consideration, nor can it be

explained as the consequence of the agreement of or tension between self-interest and moral

sense. Because freedom must retain autonomy in order to choose between objects presented to

it, it must be something necessarily separate from the activity of reason and the other elements of

human nature. By explaining freedom and man’s consciousness of his freedom as spiritual

qualities, Rousseau appears to be saying that freedom is a capacity coeval with the other core

elements of human nature, self-interest and moral sense, and like them, activated as man realizes

his engagement with the world.127

III.5 Perfectibility as a Conglomeration of Faculties—The spiritual status of freedom and

consciousness of freedom further distinguishes them as metaphysical elements of human nature.

At the same time, however, it sets up a difficult problem in Rousseau’s account: “For Physics

explains in some way the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power

of willing, or rather of choosing, and in the sentiment of this power are found only purely

spiritual acts about which the Laws of Mechanics explain nothing.”128 The metaphysical

elements of human nature also lie behind a veil, and much like the original form of the soul, they

are only conjecturally accessible. Rousseau can do no better than to point the reader to their

existence to the best of his ability. But his study of human nature and development need not end

here. Rousseau explains:

127
Asher Horowitz has articulated the counter-argument to this position in his article, “Rousseau’s
Historical Anthropology” (Review of Politics, vol. 52, no. 2 [1990]: 215-41). His position is that Rousseau had a
“dynamic and nonprovidential concept of nature” (220). According to Horowitz, the consequence of Rousseau’s
historical understanding of man is that all man’s developments must be understood as the result of his innate
qualities and the effects of historical accident. When Rousseau calls free agency a “spiritual quality,” Horowitz
claims that he does not mean it to be understood as “an original and transcendent endowment”; it is not “a
metaphysical foundation” but a “biological postulate" (223-24). Overall, this interpretation is very insightful, but it
does not pay sufficient attention to the subtleties of Rousseau’s historical explanation showing the goodness and
intentionality of nature.
128
Ibid.
 141

But if the difficulties surrounding all these questions should leave some room for dispute on this
difference between man and animal, there is another very specific quality that distinguishes them
and about which there can be no dispute: the faculty of self-perfection, a faculty which, with the
aid of circumstances, successively develops all the others, and resides among us as much in the
species as in the individual.129

If he cannot penetrate the metaphysical elements of human nature directly, he can still examine

the more available or observable “qualities” that distinguish man from the animals. Man’s

faculties may be debatable individually, but as a conglomerate in the form of perfectibility, there

is no doubt as to their action. The faculty of self-perfection is not, therefore, subject to the same

difficulties that one experiences when examining the metaphysical elements.130

Rousseau notes that perfectibility is observable both in the species and in the individual,

and that “with the aid of circumstances” it is responsible for the development of man’s nature as

a whole. Man’s faculty of self-perfection is a conglomeration of the other elements of human

nature that Rousseau has already identified, which, when brought together, mutually advance one

another when circumstances provide. Rousseau’s explanation of perfectibility, therefore, leaves

nothing out of his earlier arguments, but simply elevates the observation of these elements to a

level where their observation is generally agreed upon. He thus escapes the difficulty

surrounding man’s spiritual freedom without having to concede any ground in regard to his

earlier arguments.131 Furthermore, because perfectibility is responsible for successively

developing all the other elements of human nature, this shift in the explication of human nature

allows Rousseau to focus on how the elements of human nature are impacted by man’s

129
Ibid.
130
Cf., Allan Bloom, “Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” in History of Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1987), 564. Bloom explains that Rousseau shifts the focus of his account from freedom to
perfectibility because perfectibility is the “least questionable characteristic of man.” In this regard Bloom appears to
be like other interpreters who suggest Rousseau is sincere in his expressions of freedom and consciousness thereof
(Victor Goldschmidt and Roger Masters in particular), but Bloom follows Strauss in asserting that “man is
distinguished by having almost no nature at all, by being pure potentiality. There are no ends, only possibilities.”
131
This rhetorical move is a good example of Rousseau’s “metaphysical neutrality.” Rousseau is often
thought to be metaphysically neutral, and this is often taken to mean that he has no metaphysical stance whatsoever.
In fact, it appears that his metaphysical neutrality is more a rhetorical strategy than a lack of metaphysical position.
 142

development. Perfectibility, a uniquely historical capacity, is best understood as the observable

active engagement of human nature’s physical, metaphysical, and consequential elements. Man

is constantly and continuously sensing, experiencing the tension between self-interest and moral

sense, increasing his self-awareness, acting as a free agent, and holding his experiences in

memory to the best of his ability. Nature continually supplies man with the impetus, which is to

say the need, to engage the elements of his nature, and man, ever in motion, develops

accordingly. The corresponding relationship between man and nature is then mirrored in the

reciprocal relationships between the various elements of human nature. For example, Rousseau

explains:

Human understanding owes much to the Passions, which by common agreement also owe much to
it. It is by their activity that our reason is perfected; we seek to know only because we desire to
have pleasure; and it is impossible to conceive why one who had neither desires nor fears would
go to the trouble of reasoning. The Passions in turn derive their origins from our needs and their
progress from our knowledge. For one can desire or fear things only through the ideas one can
have of them by the simple impulsion of Nature.132

Though moral sense and, to some extent, self-interest remain fixed in this equation, self-interest

can be modified; what one desires or fears can change on the basis of the knowledge one has

about respective objects. And, of course, as man acquires more knowledge of his world, he

opens up the possibility of new desires and fears. But, Rousseau also reaffirms here that moral

sense, and the “simple impulsion of Nature,” cannot be modified by successive developments.

This returns the reader to the point made earlier in the Preface, that one can only resist or deny

moral sense, but that it continues to speak immediately with the voice of nature nevertheless.133

By perfectibility, then, Rousseau clearly aims at man’s quality of being malleable, or able to

adapt to the demands of his environment. Yet, because moral sense is an important component

of perfectibility, even man’s malleable nature is grounded. Together, the elements of human

132
Ibid., 27.
133
Ibid., 14. Rousseau, like Nietzsche later, seems unwilling to consider the more dangerous possibility
that one could annihilate the faculty of moral sense.
 143

nature as Rousseau describes them, being both immediate and unwavering, in the case of moral

sense, and malleable and developmental, in the cases of self-interest and reason, allow him to

live up to the demand he sets in the Preface that natural law be something that speaks

immediately with the voice of nature, while also being something that man can knowingly and

willingly submit himself to.

III.6 Consequences of Understanding Human Nature by Perfectibility—On Rousseau’s

account, human nature is well organized for man’s continuous development, but this is not meant

to suggest that man is free of difficulties. Perfectibility reveals the possibility of man’s

degeneration as much as it does the possibility of his positive growth. Rousseau writes:

It would be sad for us to be forced to agree that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the
source of all man’s misfortunes; that it is this faculty which, by dint of time, draws him out of that
original condition in which he would pass tranquil and innocent days; that it is this faculty which,
bringing to flower over the centuries his enlightenment and his errors, his vices and his virtues, in
the long run makes him the tyrant of himself and of Nature.134

This passage, as well as the following passages and notes *7, *8, and *9, represent a shift in

Rousseau’s argument wherein he uses some poetic license to transition away from the standpoint

of nature as original and toward the standpoint of nature as historical. As such these passages

reinforce that perfectibility is already always active in man, that man’s original state is illusory,

and that, while it would be in some sense preferable to think of man as being able to live through

“purely animal functions,” this is simply impossible.135 For, it is perfectibility that “draws [man]

out of that original condition,” which is to say, it is present from man’s earliest beginning, which

is to make man’s origins a conjecture or merely a point in the calculus of his development. But,

by developing the conception of nature as historical process, Rousseau has already shown how

nature can be understood as beneficial. Man gains proportionately from his environmental

challenges, and the pains of his development are made positive or purposeful by those gains.
134
Ibid., 26.
135
Cf. Velkley, Being After Rousseau, 44-46.
 144

Man evolves and the natural environment changes in concert with one another; perfectibility is

the mechanism by which this corresponding relationship between nature and human nature is

possible. What can Rousseau mean when he now blames perfectibility for all human ills if he

has already framed human development as a potential good?

At every turn, Rousseau affirms his position that nature makes man good, but that man

himself becomes wicked. Even from the historical standpoint, as Rousseau explains how nature

confronts man with challenges to his tranquility, he continues to resist the possibility that it is

nature and not man that is responsible for real human ills. Some of these occasions are subtler

than others, for example, when Rousseau questions whether nature had destined man to be

healthy or not.136 Other occasions are brutally direct, for example, when in note *7 on the

dangers of perfectibility he writes:

[Man’s] foolish pride and an indefinable vain admiration for himself, makes him run avidly after
all the miseries of which he is susceptible, and which beneficent Nature had taken care to keep
from him.
Men are wicked; sad and continual experience spares the need for proof. However, man is
naturally good; I believe I have demonstrated it.137

Rousseau’s indictment of perfectibility is accurate, but it is hardly specific, especially given the

way in which perfectibility appears to be the conglomeration of the elements of human nature.

Moral sense, or the “simple impulsion of Nature,” is the only faculty by which man has pure

moral understanding; this can be eliminated from consideration at the outset. On first reflection,

then, one might think that self-interest is to blame for man’s ills insofar as it is the only faculty

that can present objects of desire that conflict with moral sense. But, of course, it can only

present these objects, and Rousseau notes early on that there are “legitimate cases” in which

these objects should be preferred. Rousseau often seems to lay blame on reason, but neither can

136
Ibid., 23. See above note 66.
137
Ibid., 74.
 145

reason be solely blamed for man’s ills.138 Recall that Rousseau presents reason as a mostly

passive faculty of comparison. That is, reason can only generate and compare ideas, but not

choose from among the ideas that it treats. Furthermore, Rousseau does not uniformly present

reason’s higher capacities—its imaginative, conceptual, and theoretical abilities—as necessarily

negative features. This leaves only man’s freedom and his consciousness of that freedom, his

spiritual qualities, that can be culpable.

Rousseau has already alluded to this. He explains early in Part I that man is most

advantageously organized insofar as his lack of instinct allows him to appropriate from his

environment anything that will be to his benefit. Later in Part I, when he turns to the

“Metaphysical and Moral side” of man, he clarifies this advantage. Man is like the animals in

every respect but that of his notable lack of instinct. When considered from the standpoint of

man’s physical qualities, this appears to be nothing more than a basic lack. But when considered

from the standpoint of man’s metaphysical elements, further explanation is required in order to

explain man’s advantage. Rousseau writes:

I perceive precisely the same thing in the human machine, with the difference that Nature alone
does everything in the operations of the Beast, whereas man contributes to his operations by being
a free agent. The former chooses or rejects by instinct and the latter by an act of freedom, so that a
Beast cannot deviate from the Rule that is prescribed to it even when it would be advantageous for
it to do so, and a man deviates from it often to his detriment. Thus a Pigeon would die of hunger
near a basin filled with the best meats, and a Cat upon heaps of fruit or grain, although each could
very well nourish itself on the food it disdains if it made up its mind to try some. Thus dissolute
men abandon themselves to excesses which cause them fever and death, because the Mind
depraves the senses and because the will still speaks when Nature is silent.139

Lacking instinct, man is forced to live outside of himself, he generates ideas of external objects

and compares them for the sake of both his self-preservation and his well-being. But in order to

benefit from this lack of instinct, in order for him to transcend a mere comparative existence, he

must choose what he discerns to be most advantageous. Because “his will still speaks when

138
Ibid., 23. See above and note 65.
139
Ibid., 25-26. See note 97 above.
 146

Nature is silent,” man’s lack of instinct highlights the way in which he is free to choose. Man

has agency, not as a generated faculty, but from the very beginning in the same way he has self-

interest and moral sense; man’s spiritual capacity exists in place of instinct as the necessary

complement of self-interest and moral sense.

Unfortunately, man’s agency is a double-edged sword. While it allows him to

appropriate for his own good, so too does it make it possible for him to act against his best

interest. To a certain extent, reason is a part of man’s downfall insofar as it falsely or incorrectly

represents objects as desirable—this can be understood in Cartesian terms as a disparity between

man’s imaginative ability and his freedom to choose—but ultimate responsibility for man’s good

still falls on his capacity as a free agent. Rousseau can lay blame on perfectibility only to the

extent that it houses man’s freedom as much as any of the other elements of his nature, for it is

man’s capacity to act as a free agent that makes it possible for him to act well or badly.140 Thus,

when Rousseau explains regarding perfectibility that it “draws him out of that original condition”

and that it is the faculty by whose development “his enlightenment and his errors, his vices and

his virtues” eventually come to exist, two things are clear. First, man’s freedom is co-original

with self-interest and moral sense, and second, it is man’s spiritual qualities that determine the

extent of his goodness or wickedness. At bottom, Rousseau can only blame man’s freedom for

his ills; for if nature is responsible for awarding man his unique nature, then to blame

perfectibility, the conglomeration of man’s faculties, is to blame nature broadly, which Rousseau

never does. By contrast, blaming man’s spiritual quality of freedom for his ills is the only way

that Rousseau can maintain human accountability in an equation where nature itself appears

140
It is interesting to note here that many commentators recognize Rousseau’s turn to perfectibility as a
retreat from man’s spiritual qualities. But, it appears that perfectibility is merely Rousseau’s attempt to parry attacks
on his argument. It is often said that perfectibility is “metaphysically neutral,” but similarly, it is only apparently so,
and actually quite intertwined with the earlier phases of his argument.
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predominant; it is to say that nature made man good, at least in potential, and man himself veered

away from that good.

It now makes sense to ask a very important question. If Rousseau understands nature,

broadly speaking, as good, thus laying blame on man’s ills on his freely chosen way of being,

how can we understand human nature as good? And further, what potential does man have for

goodness and happiness in a world where his degeneration is certain? The answers to these

questions come from a reflection on what is gained in Rousseau’s consideration of human nature

in light of his two prior conceptions of nature more broadly. From the standpoint of nature as

original Rousseau reveals that man has inherent natural “principles” that are “anterior to reason,”

while the historical standpoint depicts the interaction between these elements of human nature.

At first the reader discovers how self-interest is bifurcated into the interest in self-preservation

and the interest in well-being, and how these elements can be in tension with man’s moral sense,

or the “simple impulsion of Nature.” Man is forced to live outside of himself, he generates and

compares the ideas that he generates, and he appropriates from his environment as he sees fit.

But the historical standpoint also reveals man’s quintessential spiritual qualities, his freedom and

his consciousness of his freedom, how these are coeval with the other elements of his nature, and

how they facilitate man’s choosing for his own self-perceived good.141 Importantly, Rousseau

explains that man’s fundamental lack of instinct is not an inadequacy, but rather the aspect of his

being that makes him “the most advantageously organized of all” the animals. Man’s nature is

good, and furthermore, the imbalance between man and the environment, between human nature

141
Here we contend that man’s consciousness of his freedom is coeval with the other core faculties of his
nature. It must be conceded, however, that man’s consciousness of his freedom is itself progressive. Therefore,
while it is our position that man’s spiritual elements are coeval with the core elements of self-interest and moral
sense, it is a fair point to assert that he begins with only a primitive sense of the way in which he is free.
 148

and nature, between man’s needs and desires and his ability to fulfill them, naturally aim at his

progressive development.

Still, man is free and self-conscious, and his spiritual qualities teach the reader something

very important about his nature and the appropriate objects of his desire. Man has malleable

faculties; his freedom and his consciousness thereof allow him to choose between compared

ideas and freely appropriate from the environment for his good. His freedom and its relation

with the other elements of his nature—especially the tension between self-interest and moral

sense, and the comparative action of reason—also opens up the possibility of his not choosing

well. In other words, just as nature opposes various obstacles and challenges to man, so too does

it propose various objects to him. Insofar as man has moral sense, that element of his nature that

speaks uniquely to what is right, and insofar as he has the freedom to choose between the objects

proposed, he has the ability to pursue those objects that he determines to be in his best interest.

But man’s action of choosing and learning constantly and continuously impact his self-interest,

thus shaping his desires and the trajectory of his development. Man’s desire for well-being,

particularly as it takes him away from the necessities of natural existence and focuses him on

objects that are merely pleasant, is a distinct danger to man’s goodness, his health, and his

happiness. For as man’s interests are drawn farther away from nature or from what naturally

builds him up, so too does he pervert his natural constitution, or what it is in him that is naturally

good. Man is free to choose those natural objects that build him up, but he is also free to choose

otherwise, and to the extent that he does choose otherwise than what nature itself proposes to

him, he is corrupted and made miserable. Rousseau’s descriptions of man, therefore, suggest
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that he is good to the extent that he shaped by necessity, and that he is only happy when he is

responding to natural demands or pursuing natural objects.142

Finally, it is clear that human nature is teleological in a way similar to the way that nature

itself is teleological. We noted above that sense and moral sense have a clear teleological aspect

insofar as they are oriented to natural order and natural right respectively. Further, we noted that

nature can be understood as teleological insofar as it aims at a natural dynamic harmony of

elements. The goodness of nature, or its ability to achieve its end, both requires and makes

possible human freedom and the possibility of human goodness. Human nature, therefore,

includes moral sense, which orients man to the good, and is organized on the whole in such a

way that man is oriented to the establishment of a harmony with the world around him. In other

words, nature’s end is achieved inasmuch as human freedom and goodness (among other goods)

are realized within the system. Therefore, human nature can be understood as teleological

insofar as it reflects man’s potential to exist in harmony with nature. If perfectibility were

merely man’s ability to be shaped by the environment, or to shape himself to suit the demands of

his environment, then adaptabilité almost certainly would have sufficed as a descriptive term;

adaptability does not imply progression, and what changes are made can just as easily be

reversed for the purposes of adaptation. By contrast, perfectibility indicates responsiveness to or

progression toward an end; in Rousseau’s usage it indicates the way in which all of man’s

faculties are always responding to the demands of the environment and to each other in order to

achieve and maintain that natural harmony with one another. Rousseau purposefully calls the

conglomeration of human nature “perfectibility” in order to indicate the fact that both nature and

human nature are aiming at some sort of perfection, or that they aim at an end, and he confirms

142
Cf., 26-27, and 74ff; the relationship between man and nature as a shaping force is discussed at length in
the next sections.
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this by carefully describing the way in which man, at any stage of his development, is good and

happy.

IV. Nature as Normative

Rousseau’s descriptions of man show that nature, or what is natural, becomes the

standard for what is good, while man’s happiness—real happiness, not mere pleasure—serves to

confirm his standing with respect to that standard.143 This is the sense in which Rousseau

understands nature as a positive standard, or as playing a normative role. As has been noted,

however, Rousseau advances competing notions of nature in the Second Discourse, and so it is

difficult to understand the sense in which nature can serve as a norm if no clearly primary sense

of nature can be established. The tendency is to use nature understood as original as a positive

standard, thereby dismissing or deemphasizing any other modes of nature apparent in Rousseau’s

treatment. But rather than using nature as original as a default standard, it is necessary to

consider the competing senses of nature together in order to arrive at the way in which nature can

be understood as normative. It is in this way that the preceding senses of nature clarify nature as

a normative standard.

Nature conceived of as original helps to establish a basic model by which the reader can

understand what is pure, good, and healthy. When nature and man are considered from this

standpoint, the static goodness of the natural world is emphasized. Recall, for example, in Part I,

Rousseau describes “The Earth, abandoned to its natural fertility and covered by immense
143
Cf. ibid., 74; the first paragraph is particularly helpful for understanding the contrast Rousseau
understands between substantive happiness and lesser pleasures; the former is in relation to the demands of nature,
whereas the latter are vain or the result of our individual or socio-cultural corruption. It is, unfortunately, outside of
Rousseau’s stated aims in the Second Discourse to consider happiness directly (ibid., 66-67); better indications of
Rousseau’s understanding of happiness come in the Emile, in CW 13, 210-11, and in the Fifth Walk of the Rêveries,
in CW 8.
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forests,” which in its superabundance seemingly obviates any competition for good and thus

provides for all of man’s needs.144 And in this environment, man lives a tranquil, peaceful, and

contented existence. Rousseau explains, “I see him satisfying his hunger under an oak,

quenching his thirst at the first Stream, finding his bed at the foot of the same tree that furnished

his meal; and therewith his needs are satisfied.”145 And later in the text he writes:

But without having recourse to the uncertain testimonies of History, who does not see that
everything seems to remove Savage man from the temptation and means of ceasing to be
savage?... His soul, agitated by nothing, is given over to the sole sentiment of its present existence
without any idea of the future, however near it may be, and his projects, as limited as his views,
barely extend to the end of the day.146

From the very beginning of Rousseau’s account of nature in the Second Discourse, then, he

reinforces the idea that nature is good and man is happy when he exists in a direct relationship to

it. But the account of nature as original is not without difficulties. The original standpoint

reveals man’s fundamental or inherent faculties, self-interest and moral sense. And, by making

these faculties natural and inherent, Rousseau is asserting that they abide in man in everything

that he does. The original standpoint suggests that the fulfillment of these drives is the end to

which man is set, but the activation and interaction of these faculties is necessarily historical—

their activation requires an ongoing engagement with the world. Therefore, if in the original

static state of nature these faculties are not active, and if man’s end lies in their fulfillment, it is

not clear how man can meet his end if he does not live historically. Yet paradoxically, to live

historically would be to move away from what is good. Thus, natural man appears pre-moral

when viewed from the original standpoint, while the historical standpoint paints original man’s

happiness or contentedness as chimerical.

144
Ibid., 21.
145
Ibid., 20.
146
Ibid., 28.
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This reveals another twofold difficulty. As it becomes clear that the conception of nature

as a static original state can only occupy the status of an abstract ideal, so too does it become

clear that man actually exists in a dynamic historical state. This has the effect of placing the

version of original man, that creature whose fundamental capacities are not yet engaged, on the

other side of the conceptual gap between abstraction and reality. On the one hand, even if one

leaves aside the fact that freedom and consciousness appear to be absent in original man in any

meaningful way, original man is still a creature whose most fundamental capacities, self-interest

and moral sense, are only latent.147 If indeed these capacities are those the fulfillment of which

is the measure of man’s end, then original man is in many ways subhuman or pre-human. If this

is the case, then it is absurd to think of nature understood as original as an appropriate normative

standard. And even if the standard that the original standpoint presents were not absurd, it would

still exist on the other side of an interminable gap. Rousseau noted in the Preface that man’s

original nature retreats from view as quickly as man cognizantly pursues it as an object.148

Therefore, insofar as nature as original presents a standard that is never fully accessible or

meaningful to man as he actually exists, this standpoint presents an incomplete understanding of

nature as normative.

Nature as historical process addresses some of these difficulties. The original standpoint

established that an equilibrium or harmony between man and nature is good, but this

understanding of man and nature cannot accurately depict his existence in the world. Therefore,

because the static state of nature is one “which no longer exists, which perhaps never existed,

which probably never will exist,” Rousseau must elaborate on and improve his explanation of

147
Original man’s fundamental capacities can be no more than latent until circumstances arise to make
them active. But this would represent a transition into a historical conception of man and nature, and so we would
no longer be treating original man, but rather natural historical man.
148
Ibid., 12.
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nature and man. As he transitions to the historical standpoint he is able to do this by showing the

elements of man’s nature in motion and in response to the environment. As was explained

above, nature presents man with obstacles and challenges, and man, preeminently free and

malleable, adjusts to the demands of his environment. And this is not mere adaptation; if it were,

then it could be explained by the laws of physics. Rather, nature’s orientation and man’s

development within his environment are teleological: the former because it strives for the

goodness and harmony of its parts, and the latter because it too is a striving toward that same

goodness and harmony carried out as a function of man’s spiritual freedom. All of this reveals a

harmony different from the equilibrium manifest in the original conception.149 The harmony

depicted in the historical conception is a moving harmony of the natural environment and all of

its elements. It is a harmony of elements that are interrelated, and importantly, between nature

broadly conceived and man, a spiritual entity, who is both in harmony with nature in the sense

that he is perfectly set up to live in response to his changing world, and at the same time, striving

for some future harmony with a yet undisclosed world. All of this is to say that the original

standpoint teaches that a harmony between nature and man is good, and represents abstractly the

possibility of man’s happiness; the historical standpoint elaborates on this point by showing how

that harmony exists in a state of flux in the actual world.

Just as these two conceptions of nature—nature as original and nature as historical—are

important for understanding human nature, so too they are important for understanding nature as

149
Cf., Cooper, Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life, 183-84. Cooper comes to a similar
conclusion when he writes: “The formal dimension of naturalness … is manifest in harmony, or what Rousseau calls
order. Everyone whom Rousseau calls natural enjoys a twofold harmony: an interior or psychic harmony, meaning
a lack of inner conflict and an equal balance between desires and faculties, and an exterior harmoniousness, a
harmonious disposition toward the rest of the world.” Note that Cooper stops short of claiming that a natural man is
in harmony with the world. It is difficult to reconcile these conclusions with Cooper’s earlier assertions, namely that
“nature, as Rousseau conceives it, is not teleological. It does not comprehend ends. Consequently, it does not
prescribe any particular way of life for human beings once they have departed from their original state” (xi).
Cooper, of course, does believe that Rousseau was intent on deriving prescriptive norms for human beings based on
his understanding of nature.
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normative. In thinking of nature as normative, Rousseau had no intention of bringing about a

return to nature in the sense of returning to man’s prehistoric, pre-civil state. But at the same

time, in thinking of nature as a dynamic state, he had to make sure that his normative standard

could accommodate the changes in that state while still remaining a meaningful and practical.

Once nature as original is recognized as a conceptual idea and functionally untethered from

nature as historical, it becomes clear that what is natural to man no longer means what is

original, but rather what is natural to man relative to his nature and his environment. Man is

happy when he is living in direct response to the demands of his natural environment, but

whenever he turns away from nature or from what naturally builds him up, which is to say,

whenever he sets an end for himself as a function of his vain self-interest (amour propre), he is

corrupted, he is not in harmony with the world, and he is made weak and miserable. This is true

for man in each stage of his development, from the savage to the civil state, because the standard

is universally true of man throughout his development. Nature is normative insofar as it provides

a moving or meaningful model of what is good that is subsequently true in each phase of man’s

existence.

This means, of course, that the first man can be good, but so too can man be good in any

historical phase. While the image of man’s goodness will appear different in each case, it will

still exist relative to the fulfillment of his nature and the appropriateness of his relationship to the

natural environment. Furthermore, this means that man must be in motion toward the natural

end to which he is set if he is to be considered good. This does not imply a movement toward a

terminus, but rather a constant adjustment or development with respect to an ever-changing

environment promising harmony. As Ernest Hunter Wright explained by likening the savage to

an infant, there is a way in which both infant and savage are obviously natural and good insofar
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as they exist in a pure and as yet uncorrupted state. But, neither infant nor savage can remain

natural by remaining as they are in that instant, for it is natural for the infant to grow up just as it

is natural for the savage to develop in the world. In this sense, as Wright explains “[what is

natural] implies perpetual change,” and therefore all men “may be natural at any point only as

they vary more or less with every point they reach. The natural man may live in any time or

place, but will vary with the time and place he lives in, just as the unnatural man may live in any

time except of course at the first moment of his being.”150 Nature does not want to draw man

back, but wants to support him in his striving to the extent that his striving is for the good.

Nature, too, is the measure of man’s success in this endeavor.

A more difficult question for Rousseau to answer, and one to which he dedicates

significant time, is how man fulfills his nature in the particular instances of his existence. While

it is fairly easy to understand how the savage or the infant can be good and happy by living in the

appropriate relationship with the world, what constitutes the goodness and the happiness of the

adult, the citizen, and the philosopher? And will these perfected images admit of any variation

150
Wright, The Meaning of Rousseau, 8. See also, Heinrich Meier, “The Discourse on Inequality,” in
Interpretation, vol.16, no. 2 (1988-89): 211-27. Meier makes a claim similar to Wright’s, though Meier understands
the achievement on the basis of being one’s authentic self as opposed to natural ends. He explains that “for the
solitary savage in the primitive state of nature a nondepraved existence was just as possible as it was for the Carib,
the Hottentot, or the American Indian living in savage society. In the civil state, a nondepraved existence is
attainable for the citoyen… a nondepraved existence is no less attainable for lovers… or for the philosopher… All
forms of nondepraved existence have this in common: they all allow—while unfolding faculties that vary
markedly—the actualization of identity. … This being oneself is different according to the measure of respective
capacities and circumstances, but it is not ‘lower’ or ‘higher’ and does not depend on the development in history of
‘all our faculties’” (226-27). It should also be noted here that Meier differs significantly with Marks on this point.
Marks supports a teleological reading of the Second Discourse, but he tends to understand Rousseau’s teleological
thought through the lens of what he calls “the savage pattern” or the “middling states” that Rousseau so frequently
praises. Marks places a great deal of emphasis on Rousseau’s praise of the savage civil state of Part II of the Second
Discourse, which he takes to point to a harmonization of man’s disparate faculties. Meier paints the praise as
something not unlike Socrates’ praise of the “city of pigs” in the Republic, and says of the same passage that it
“underlines the antiteleological conception of the Rousseauan reconstruction of history” (214). Marks rightly
identifies the teleological elements of the Second Discourse, but his understanding of Rousseau’s teleological
thought in the Second Discourse is too narrowly defined when it is confined to only the “middling states.” Meier’s
analysis of the Second Discourse is tremendously insightful, but he closed off to the possibility of a teleological
interpretation from the outset, and though he arrives at conclusions similar to Wright, his interpretation robs
Rousseau of the meaningfulness that Rousseau so desired to return to men in society. For Marks’ response to
Meier’s interpretation, see Perfection and Disharmony, 64-5.
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with respect to time and place? These are not just philosophical questions that Rousseau must

address, they are social and political as well. Man may not be naturally social or political, but

Rousseau’s explanation of nature and history would lead the reader to believe that even civil

developments can be natural insofar as his development is natural, and insofar as he cannot fulfill

his end without such development. If, as Wright poetically explains, “Round the naked germ of

our nature reason has now woven the vast and complicated web of culture that makes up the man

we now behold,”151 then Rousseau must show that there is a right use of man’s capacities, of

culture and science, that advances him toward his natural end, being in harmony with the world.

Rousseau’s philosophical explanations as well as his political solutions to this problem

reveal that, while man’s fulfillment of his nature is possible at any phase of his development,

there is truly nothing harder than to live in accordance with our nature. This is because the

normative ideal that nature presents to man is impossible to fully realize, if not because it

requires so much fortitude to remain true to nature, then because that ideal recedes into the future

as the result of harmony being a moving end. Still, that ideal is what man must set himself to,

and in so doing he can “return to nature.” That is, he can resist the tendency to make vain

comparisons, abandon prideful amour propre, and return focus to the things that are truly needful

and appropriate to the condition of his existence; this mode of living in relation to the present

natural world will be different for different type of human beings and will vary with both time

and place. But there is a hierarchy in Rousseau’s thought on this matter already apparent in the

First Discourse, wherein scientific or philosophic learning is only appropriate for the rare few,

and at least implicit in the Second Discourse.152 This is precisely the narrative of the Rêveries of

151
Ibid., 22.
152
Consider, for example, that in the First Discourse Rousseau intimates (and subsequently confirms) a
parallel between himself and Prometheus (First Discourse, in CW 2, 179), and that, in the Second Discourse, after
 157

the Solitary Walker, where Rousseau demonstrates the turning in on himself necessary to master

his impulses and remain grounded in the natural order as much as is possible. For the one who

will achieve nature’s end to the highest degree will not be the infant or the savage, nor even the

virtuous citizen, but as Wright points out, “he will have to be the best of philosophers.”153 Yet

the philosopher is not possible in the natural state, nor even in the intermediate savage state, but

only in the corrupt civil state in which Rousseau wrote. There is a teleological relationship

between nature and man, but this is a necessarily imperfect relationship where the latter

perpetually lags behind the former. But the system is self-balancing to the extent that the

philosopher can help correct the cultural maladies that encourage and perpetuate man’s

degeneration.154 By becoming an antidote for cultural maladies, the philosopher is, therefore, set

out in relief as he who lives most precisely in accord with the demands of nature, while all of the

rest of mankind sinks into its degradation. In a state of affairs where men can become corrupt, if

the state is not simply entropic, the stratification of mankind must result in a form that returns

balance to the system. All are content in the original state, and the philosopher need not exist in

the savage state, but in civil society, the philosopher is that systemic balance for the ill-health of

the culture. The philosopher is, therefore, a peculiar aberration even if he is the one in whom the

greatest natural fulfillment is possible, and not surprisingly, all of Rousseau’s political solutions

seek to increase the general well-being of mankind, while obviating the need for the philosopher.

On this reading of the Second Discourse, though, it is possible to say at least this much.

Speaking generally, it is clear that Rousseau uses his concept of nature as original to reveal the

way in which nature itself may serve as a positive standard of what is good. In this mode he

he dispenses with the humility of the Preface, he presents himself as uniquely able to peer back into the interior of
human nature (Second Discourse, in CW 3, 18-20).
153
Ibid., 10.
154
Cf., First Discourse, in CW 3, 19.
 158

establishes that what is good is the harmony or potential harmony between all the elements of

nature, including man. He then clarifies the normative role of nature by elaborating on the way

in which various elements of nature can be in harmony with one another, thus revealing that even

conflicts between given elements can serve the same overarching end. In this mode it becomes

clear that nature, as a normative measure of what is good in the world, is meaningful in each

instance and every historical phase. Rousseau’s account of human nature first allows him to

establish core aspects of human nature that, being inherent and necessarily connected to what is

right, already orient man toward a natural end. But his historical account liberates man from a

determinist framework, and subsequently allows him to explain virtue and vice and the variation

in human beings, while still maintaining that the fulfillment of man’s nature, and especially the

free fulfillment of self-interest and moral sense, is the measure of man’s end. For Rousseau,

forms and ends are in a natural relationship with one another, but the ends are dynamic moving

goals, and thus forms must be malleable in order to continuously correspond to the changing

ends and move toward their fulfillment. For human beings, the normative power of nature is

experienced in two ways. It is felt in the varying demands that the environment places upon

individuals in every time and place, and equally in the fact that natural law is inscribed in each

individual in the form of man’s core principles, pity and self-interest, but especially as the moral

sense of pity. Nature, as Rousseau says, presents a rule that can be freely chosen, but which also

speaks directly and immediately to each person and with regard to the unique equation that is

their individual nature. And further, nature is mirrored in human nature insofar as both aim at

the harmony of all their elements, and insofar as the autonomy of the telos in nature corresponds

in man to the freedom to seek that end.

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V. Nature as the Providential Totality of Being

That Rousseau understood nature in very broad terms, as the providential totality of being

wherein man resides, is evident in several of his works. It is perhaps most apparent in his more

theological works like the “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” in the Emile and in his

Letter on Providence. In those works, justifying nature and justifying God, though different

undertakings, frequently overlap in his efforts to explain the cosmological workings of the

universe and man’s relation to it. Rousseau’s broad and providential understanding of nature is

also at least implicit in his novels, his botanical writings, and in autobiographical works like the

Rêveries, where nature is so built up that it is almost deified in order to articulate the kind of

object that nature is for man.155 It would be easy, and perhaps warranted, to use these works as a

means of interpreting Rousseau on nature in its broadest sense, and such an interpretation could

begin by extrapolating on the fact that his physiodicy and theodicy are frequently intertwined in

his other works. However, even if other works are left aside, it is still possible to discern in the

Second Discourse subtle and infrequent indications of Rousseau’s understanding of nature as a

broad, ordered, and providential totality.

Unfortunately, looking at the Second Discourse alone, Rousseau’s indications of nature

in this sense seem at odds with his other stated positions. In order to understand Rousseau’s

considered view of nature in its grandest form, it is necessary to examine his remarks to this

effect alongside those passages that would seem to suggest the opposite understanding in the

hope of bringing these into harmony with one another. This reconciliation is not without

significant obstacles. To begin with, Rousseau’s simple initial proposition of nature as original

tends to obscure his complex understanding of nature as providential. Recall that by advancing
155
Rousseau’s meaning in these texts will be addressed in later chapters.
 160

the notion that man is naturally good, Rousseau effectively shifts the understanding of man’s

relationship with the world and with God, and ultimately relocates the source of human

suffering. That is, by exculpating God and nature, and by explaining human suffering as the

consequence of social development—much of which appears to be contingent—Rousseau

returns a sense of control to man in the world. Man’s suffering is no longer a necessary

consequence of a metaphysical or theological system. Moreover, if the source of suffering is

located in human institutions over which we have some authority, then attempts to alter the

world and our experience of it have a reasonable expectation of success—exculpating God and

nature effectively asserts a ground for human agency in the world. But, by showing that human

corruption is not natural but societal, Rousseau draws a tension between nature and artifice:

between what is natural and good on the one hand, and what is corruptive and evil on the other.

If what is human is blameworthy, then it becomes clear that society emerged out of and in

contradistinction to what is natural and good. Society thus becomes historical, as the train of

developments for which man is largely responsible, and the tension between nature and society is

clarified as a tension between nature and history.

Now Rousseau’s conception of nature as original has the positive impact of

distinguishing what is natural as what is original, primary, pure, and good, and this is a necessary

starting point for his larger project of explaining nature and man. But, at the same time, it

conditions the reader to resist his more developed conception of nature as a providential totality

in at least three important respects. First, nature understood as original suggests that man’s exit

from his natural state was not natural but accidental. That is, from the standpoint of nature as

original, natural man existed in a perfect environment in equilibrium with the static state of

nature. Nature in this context provides for all of man’s needs and results in no impetus to vacate
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that state. In that state, nature makes man good, his internal nature remains placid, and his

faculties are largely inactive; most importantly, original man appears incapable of exercising

either reason or freedom. Original nature, whether external or internal to man, cannot initiate

history. Second, and consequently, nature understood as original suggests that history is nothing

more than a degrading or corrupting force, or merely the chronology of damaging developments

for which man is largely responsible. Even if history is merely the account of man’s willful

degeneracy, insofar as it appears to be the vehicle for man’s degradation, it is difficult to

understand it as fundamentally good. Third and finally, the original standpoint suggests that

nature broadly conceived was or is good, but that it has been overcome or lost in the process of

man’s development. Even if man regains agency in the conception of nature as original, he only

regains the possibility of correcting his degeneracy. The corruptive forces of society are the

causes of human suffering, social development is the nexus of human degeneration, and it is not

clear that human beings can actually control the flow of that degeneracy. As was noted above,

when society and history become responsible for human corruption, nature retreats—first from

the present society and then into the distant past. Although this distinguishes nature as what is

original, primary, pure, and good, it relegates the ideal to the level of abstraction or conjecture by

separating what is natural from the rest, or the actuality, of being. In this conception, being lacks

continuity because what is good is separated from what is actual. These three consequences of

nature understood as original make Rousseau’s considered view of nature as a providential

totality difficult to access.

Rousseau appears to correct these problems throughout the Second Discourse in order to

leave a path open to the intrepid reader who has “the courage to begin again” to try and
 162

understand his meaning.156 Rousseau’s passages on perfectibility provide key examples here, for

it is often in passages related to man’s perfectibility that Rousseau brings the “straightest path”

interpretation into tension with the interpretation one will gather from “beating the bushes.”157

The straightforward message of Rousseau’s arguments surrounding perfectibility is that man’s

exit from the original state and his continued development are driven by chance, and not by some

teleological force. For example, when Rousseau first introduces perfectibility he remarks:

It would be sad for us to be forced to agree that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the
source of all man’s misfortunes; that it is this faculty which, by dint of time, draws him out of that
original condition in which he would pass tranquil and innocent days; that it is this faculty which,
bringing to flower over the centuries his enlightenment and his errors, his vices and his virtues, in
the long run makes him the tyrant of himself and of Nature.158

Leaving aside the question of why it would be “sad” if one were “forced” to conclude that

perfectibility is the source of all man’s ills, the obvious implication of this passage is that man

might have remained happy and tranquil were it not for his propensity for self-perfection. Nature

is only made responsible for man’s “original condition,” thus remaining blameless, while man’s

drive to adapt, coupled with some undetermined chance circumstances, leads to his initial

perversion. Rousseau says exactly as much as in his concluding remarks on perfectibility at the

end of Part I, adding “chance combination” and “accidents” to his explication:

After having shown that perfectibility, social virtues, and the other faculties that Natural man had
received in potentiality could never develop by themselves, that in order to develop they needed
the chance combination of several foreign causes which might never have arisen and without
which he would have remained eternally in his primitive condition, it remains for me to consider
and bring together the different accidents that were able to perfect human reason while
deteriorating the species, make a being evil while making him sociable, and from such a distant
origin finally bring man and the world to the point where we see them.159

156
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 16.
157
Ibid.
158
Ibid., 26. Emphasis added.
159
Ibid., 42. I have made a slight change to the translation here by following Gourevitch’s use of
“condition” over “constitution.” Emphasis added. Also of note are that Rousseau writes “fortuit de plusieurs causes
étrangeres” and “les différens hazards,” both of which admit of various translations, but which are generally
translated to mean “fortuitous” or “chance” causes in the former and “accidents” or “contingencies” in the latter,
thus preserving the distinction that Rousseau appears to make in the text. In the context of the original French text,
Rousseau does seem to distinguish the former from the latter in a way appropriate to the distinction expressed in the
translation of these terms as “chance” and “accidents” respectively. See below.
 163

The setup for Part II of the Discourse appears rather ominous here, given that man’s fall from his

original condition was caused by the “chance combination of several foreign causes” and has led

him to a state from which he may be irrecoverable.

Fortunately, in the midst of these statements Rousseau appears to provide some reasons

to question the straightforward message of the text. In the first passage, in the context of

blaming perfectibility for man’s ills, Rousseau writes, “it is this faculty which, by dint of time,

draws him out of that original condition in which he would pass tranquil and innocent days.”

Here we are tempted to ask whether or not perfectibility alone can move man out of his original

state without some external impetus of nature. As we have noted, Rousseau describes man in his

original state as contented, existing in a completely static harmony with his environment; how

then would this static harmony be broken if man exists in harmony with the world? From the

original standpoint man cannot exit the original state without prompting.160 But Rousseau hints

that there is more at work in this statement with his qualification, “by dint of time,” thereby

shifting from the original to the historical standpoint. From the historical standpoint, man exists

in a moving relationship with a changing world, the events of which stimulate his development.

And if the passage of time can impact that harmony of the original state, then it appears that

man’s origins were never static and that the notion of an original static state is chimerical.

Nature, either by the forces of needs or by the influence of “Physical causes,” is the impetus for

man’s development; in actuality, there is shared responsibility for man’s development, even if

160
It could be objected here that there are natural conditions that could prompt new developments in man,
for example, population growth. There is no question that these are, in fact, natural conditions that can result in
man’s development, but they imply a non-static state of nature and so they are not germane to the standpoint of
nature as original. That is, conceived from the standpoint of nature as an original static state, the population would
not increase but would remain at a stable level, perhaps even being kept in check by natural events. But to the
extent that population growth, could over time result in new demands and thus new developments in man, man is
conceived from the standpoint of nature as historical. Therefore, while there are natural circumstances that can
prompt developments in man, these circumstances imply the historical standpoint.
 164

man himself is responsible for his ills. With the recognition that some external cause is required

to prompt man’s development, the reader must then wonder about the circumstances of man’s

initial development. That is, if man would have passed “tranquil and innocent days” in his

original condition, what could have driven him to break the original harmony of that state?

Rousseau’s answer comes in the second passage where he relates that man’s exit from the

state of nature as well as his ongoing development are the result of “the chance combination of

several foreign causes which might never have arisen and without which he would have

remained eternally in his primitive state.” Rousseau offers a clue to his meaning here with the

paradoxical claim that the chance combination of events might never have arisen; for, given the

laws of probability, “chance” does not imply any significant likelihood that a desired

combination might never arise. In fact, the laws of probability suggest that precisely the

opposite is true, namely that it is simply inconceivable that the desired combination would not

eventually arise. Chance implies inevitability—Rousseau understood this, and so that he makes

human development appear to be contingent by attributing the circumstances of man’s

development to chance is neither convincing nor congruent with his understanding of the laws of

probability.161 Here, we are again encouraged to question the straightforward meaning of the

text. The account of human development based on chance cannot account for the possibility of it

never having occurred in a satisfactory way, and recognizing this we are forced to reconsider the

grounds for human development. In effect, by urging the consideration of the laws of probability

in juxtaposition with the insistence on the contingency of human development, Rousseau directs

the reader to an explanation that is prior to, outside of, and not driven by chance. That is, if the

161
Rousseau’s familiarity with the laws of probability is well established. References to it can be found in
Letter to Voltaire (CW 3, 117-18); Letter to Jacob Vernes (CC 5, 32-33); the “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard
Vicar” (in CW 13, 435-37); “Fiction or Allegorical Fragment on Revelation” (in CW 12, 165ff.); Letter to
Franquieres (in CW 8, 264ff.); Rêveries (in CW 8, 20-21).
 165

“chance combination of several foreign causes… might never have arisen,” and if the possibility

of man’s development never having happened is inconceivable on the grounds of probability,

then exactly what could have prevented or caused the concatenation of events Rousseau

describes? The implicit answer seems to be that if a desired event might never have arisen, but

did in fact arise, then not chance but some other cause must account for both the desired event’s

not having arisen and its eventually coming to pass.162

Rousseau continues with an almost imperceptible shift in his description by his use of the

term “accidents.” He explains, “it remains for me to consider and bring together the different

accidents that were able to perfect human reason while deteriorating the species, make a being

evil while making him sociable, and from such a distant origin bring man and the world to the

point where we see them.” Importantly, to call the concatenation of events necessary to man’s

development “accidents” is different than calling them “chance… causes.” “Chance” implies the

randomness with which these causes arbitrarily erupted. However, as was noted above,

Rousseau distinguishes between “chance” causes and “accidents” or “contingencies” in his use

of terms here, and he appears to mean “accidents” in the sense of indirect causes. That is, there

are indirect causes that contribute to or result in man’s development, perfecting him in one sense,

while opening the possibility of his suffering in another. Rousseau thus demonstrates a

familiarity with Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ argumentum ex contingentia, namely that, since it is

conceivable that, under different circumstances, things could exist differently or not at all, there

must be some necessary cause that accounts for the existence of things as they are.163 By

162
This is very similar to the position Rousseau takes in Institutions chimiques. Cf., “Rousseau’s
Teleological Thought Before and After Vincennes,” section II.1.
163
Cf., Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, q.2, a.3. Rousseau likely would have had exposure to Aristotle’s
and Aquinas’ argumentum ex contingentia though primary sources, and it is well documented that their positions
were in the mainstream during Rousseau’s lifetime. He would also have been exposed to this position by reading
Leibniz Monadology, wherein Rousseau also would have found support for the optimism he expresses in his Letter
to Voltaire. Leibniz writes in the Monadology: “It must be the case that the sufficient or ultimate reason is outside
 166

describing the circumstances of man’s existence and development as “accidents,” Rousseau

invites us to ask what these accidents are properties of, or what is the essence that grounds them?

Based on what can be gained from Rousseau’s description of “the chance combination of several

foreign causes,” the accidents he references cannot be the accidents of some chance cause if that

chance cause is itself a contingent or arbitrary event. The reader is left with two alternatives; the

indirect causes by which man is impelled are attributes of a system of nature characterized either

by a mechanical determinism or by providence. In either case, though, whether Rousseau truly

believes that man’s development is accidental in the sense of being a chance occurrence no

longer appears to be an open question.

Rousseau continues to clarify the grounds of his argument thus far as he closes Part I,

giving additional reasons to doubt the idea that man’s fate is dictated by chance. Despite the

power with which he conveys the original standpoint in the passage relating to perfectibility, he

emphasizes a different sort of contingency of events in the following paragraph. He explains:

I admit that as the events I have to describe could have happened in several ways, I can make
a choice only by conjectures. But besides the fact that these conjectures become reasons when
they are the most probable that one can draw from the nature of things, and the sole means that
one can have to discover the truth, the conclusions I want to deduce from mine will not thereby be
conjectural, since, on the principles I have established, one could not conceive of any other system
that would not provide me with the same results, and from which I could not draw the same
conclusions.164

Rousseau concedes that the historical events to which he attributes such importance, namely

those “physical causes” to which man responds, could have happened in very different ways than

the ones Rousseau describes. He chose certain circumstances and dwelt upon certain physical

causes because the conjectural path that he is obliged to follow also obliges him to make choices

in order to progress. He insists, however, that his conjectures are the most probable given the

of the sequence of series of this multiplicity of contingencies, however infinite it may be” (Monadology, in
Philosophical Essays, trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber [Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1989], 218.).
Rousseau himself references his exposure to Leibniz in several works, and prominently in the Confessions. Cf.,
Confessions, in CW 5, 199.
164
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 42.
 167

“nature of things,” and further that they are justified by the fact that there is no other path to be

followed.165 But more importantly, he claims that his conclusions are not conjectural at all

because he has established principles of nature and existence that indicate a system that cannot

be any other way. What then does it mean for certain events to be chance occurrences if they

occur within a system that is necessarily as Rousseau describes?

The implication is that historical events only appear to be chance occurrences from the

standpoint of the individual in history. That is, why a certain event affects the individual at this

place and time appears random when so many seemingly contingent things cause the intersection

between them. And, there is some truth to this individualized perspective, given the importance

in Rousseau’s description of human nature of human agency. Human beings are uniquely

sensitive to the fact that things could have been otherwise—that they were not otherwise appears

to be the cause for man’s present condition, while that they could be otherwise indicates man’s

role in his development. But Rousseau is making another related point in his assertion that his

conclusions cannot be otherwise than they are. For, whether this hurricane makes landfall here

or there, and whether this volcano erupts now or later, and of course, whether or not these

individuals will be affected by them, can all be viewed as determined by chance and

circumstance. But, that this or some other hurricane will make landfall, and that this volcano

will erupt, and that some individuals will be effected, is a resolute certainty. Thus, historical

events may be considered chance circumstances from the perspective of the individual, but when

165
The “nature of things” is an especially vague term; we take Rousseau to mean what is available to him
through his experience of the world and through his process of philosophic introspection from which he mounted
this account at the very beginning of the text. Rhetorically, it has the effect of grounding his claim in aspects of
human existence that all can agree upon.
 168

viewed categorically and historically and considered at the level of the system of nature, they are

certain and necessary consequences of the world system.166

Rousseau gestures at a more thoroughgoing explanation countermanding the argument

from chance in the immediately following paragraph by his additional references to probability:

This will excuse me from expanding my reflections concerning the way in which the lapse of
time compensates for the slight probability of events; concerning the surprising power of very
trivial causes when they act without interruption; concerning the impossibility, on the one hand,
for one to destroy certain hypotheses, although on the other one cannot give them the degree of
certainty of facts; concerning how, when two facts given as real are to be connected by a series of
intermediate facts which are unknown or considered as such, it is up to history, when it exists, to
present the facts that connect them; while it is up to Philosophy, when history is lacking, to
determine similar facts that might connect them; finally, concerning how, with reference to events,
similarity reduces the facts to a much smaller number of different classes than is imagined. It is
enough for me to offer these objects to the consideration of my Judges; it is enough for me to have
arranged it so that vulgar Readers would have no need to consider them.167

Probability was already present in the initial justification where Rousseau claims that his

“conjectures become reasons when they are the most probable.” It becomes far more

pronounced when he alludes to “the way in which the lapse of time compensates for the slight

probability of events” and “the surprising power of very trivial causes when they act without

interruption.”168 This allusion to laws of probability recalls to the reader what was well

established in Diderot’s twenty-first philosophical thought, an argument that Rousseau

considered frequently throughout his life and which he references more explicitly in his Letter to

Voltaire.169 Here it has the effect of affirming that what appear to be chance events in nature

166
Cf., Letter to Philopolis, in CW 3, 128: “Society is derived from the nature of the human race, not
immediately as you say but only, as I have proved, with the help of certain external circumstances that may or may
not happen, or at least occur sooner or later and consequently speed up or slow down the progress.”
167
Ibid., 42-43.
168
Cf. Marks, Perfection and Disharmony, 32: “Rousseau quietly warns the reader to disregard this
emphasis [on chance]… Rousseau suggests that it is the mark of the judicious reader of the Second Discourse to
have these matters in mind, but such a reader will hardly be impressed by the unlikely or accidental character of
events, since he has been warned that over vast periods of time, accidents will happen. Nature may make human
progress or regression take a long time, but it also makes it inevitable.” Marks suggests that beneath the more overt
argument from chance, Rousseau indicates that nature bears primary responsibility for man’s development, serving
as the mechanism of providence internal to the world.
169
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 117-18. Rousseau explains later in the Letter to Voltaire, “I remember what
has struck me most forcibly in my whole life, on the fortuitous arrangement of the universe, is the twenty-first
philosophical thought, where it is shown by the laws of analysis of chance that when the quantity of throws is
 169

relative to the individual, are resolute certainties relative to the laws of mathematics, the

cosmological standpoint, and thus to the philosopher. This again at least suggests the need to go

beyond an account based on chance in order to account for the initial impetus that set man in

motion.

In order to claim that Rousseau understands nature as providential and teleological, it is

not enough to simply argue that an account based on chance is insufficient to explain nature as

Rousseau understands it; nature may still be understood as deterministic and amoral, or as

nothing more than the mechanics of the laws of physics. But Rousseau takes up positions in the

aforementioned passages that make this interpretation difficult to maintain. Specifically, in the

process of his subtle undermining of the argument from probability, he openly contends that his

conclusions about nature rise above the level of mere conjectural claims, for he says, “on the

principles I have established, one could not conceive of any other system that would not provide

me with the same results, and from which I could not draw the same conclusions.”170 At the core

of the principles Rousseau establishes, and the one most relevant to the consideration of nature is

his moral principle that nature and all that ushers from the hands of nature is good. It would be

impossible to maintain this position on the basis of a mechanistic conception of nature.

Therefore, if nature is good, then historical events appear to be accidents of a providential world

system. In light of the subtle corrections Rousseau makes to the straightforward view of nature,

the text appears to suggest a different and more complex interpretation of his considered position

on nature broadly construed. And if each of his claims about nature and man are carefully

infinite, the difficulty of the event is more than sufficiently compensated for by the multiplicity of throws, and
consequently that the mind ought to be more astonished by the hypothetical continuation of chaos than by the real
birth of the universe.”
170
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 42.
 170

considered and honored, his view of nature takes on a more providential and teleological

character.

At the very least, it should be immediately apparent that for Rousseau, nature broadly

conceived and human nature are fundamentally good, and nature conceived as a shaping force in

man’s development is not incompatible with genuine human freedom. But Rousseau does not

leave nature at the point of being merely a shaping force; he gives many indications of nature’s

goodness and communicates an intentionality inherent and unmistakably present in nature

broadly construed. From his point of view, for example, “Nature treats all the animals

abandoned to its care with a partiality that seems to suggest how jealous it is of this right.”

While this could simply be a manner of speaking, it is also possible to take Rousseau to be

saying here that nature plays an active role in shaping all things in its care for the best, though

what is best is not so simple as it might first appear. Thus, “Nature treats them precisely as the

Law of Sparta treated the Children of Citizens.”171 At the same time, Rousseau suggests through

his use of the historical standpoint that human freedom is also an essential element and a

necessary condition for man’s development. And when he turns to man’s “Metaphysical and

Moral” side he is explicit that man is set apart from the animals by the spiritual capacities of his

soul, his freedom and his consciousness of that freedom.172 The senses, bifurcated self-interest,

and moral sense can account for reason, the passions, and a significant portion of the mechanics

of man’s development to the extent that nature plays a role in shaping man’s development. But

in order to explain the decisive outcomes that depend upon man himself, or on the interactions of

these elements, Rousseau requires a freedom coeval with man’s “original” faculties.

171
Ibid., 24.
172
Ibid., 25-26.
 171

We can see this all of this from another angle in the discussion of perfectibility. Recall

the comment Rousseau made that “It would be sad for us to be forced to agree that this

distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of all man’s misfortunes; that it is this

faculty which, by dint of time, draws him out of that original condition in which he would pass

tranquil and innocent days.”173 On a first reading, perfectibility appears to be explained by the

causal relationship man has with the world, or by the laws of physics. If the reader concludes

that man’s fall from his original state is due to chance circumstance and the necessary interaction

of perfectibility, then he accepts in some regard that man is the plaything of nature and chaos.

He may provisionally assume that man is endowed with free will, and thus be contented with the

belief that man has no purpose beyond that which he sets himself. But if there is no other

rational way to understand man’s fall from the original state than by the causal impact of chance

events, it appears that even freedom may be called into question, robbing man even of the

purposiveness that he sets for himself. Altogether, if one accepts Rousseau’s very basic position

that perfectibility, responding causally to chance circumstance, is responsible for man’s ills, then

man is on a sad and deterministic path indeed. For man, life can have no meaning if it is nothing

more than chaos and chance, and not even freedom is a sufficient substitute for the

purposefulness of man’s existence.

Rousseau, therefore, reminds the reader of his considered view of nature as good and man

as free in note *7, the very long note immediately appended to his statement that “It would be

sad for us to be forced to agree that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of

all man’s misfortunes.” The first read of Rousseau’s explanation of perfectibility allows this

faculty to stand in for freedom, about which there can be “some room for dispute.” Perfectibility

then appears to be explained by the causal relationship man has with the world, which introduces
173
Ibid., 26. Emphasis added.
 172

a sense of ambiguity regarding the culpability for man’s ills and whether it lies with nature or

man. Not wanting the intrepid reader to go astray, though, note *7 corrects the basic reading

sharply. The longer path through this note affirms that man is responsible for the extent of his

suffering, all of which appears to stem from his “foolish pride and an indefinable vain admiration

for himself.”174 Furthermore, not only is nature not responsible for man’s ills, she has “taken

care to keep from him” those things that might prompt his degeneration. In keeping with the

suggestions made from the historical standpoint, nature here is beneficent, and insofar as it aims

at the specific care of man to the extent that this is possible, nature is also intentional. Therefore,

not only the historical interpretation of nature and man in the main text, but also the long

narrative explanation in note *7 is compatible with the interpretation that understands nature as

good and intentional, or as providential.

Once the possibility of this providential interpretation is recognized as viable, we find

still clearer indications that this is Rousseau’s considered position on nature. Following his

discussion of the evolution of language, much of which intersects with his explanation of man’s

evolution and overlaps considerably with Essay on the Origins of Language, Rousseau writes:

Whatever these origins may be, from the little care taken by Nature to bring Men together
through mutual needs and to facilitate their use of speech, one at least sees how little it prepared
their sociability, and how little it contributed to everything men have done to establish Social
bonds. In fact, it is impossible to imagine why, in that primitive state, a man would sooner have
need of another man than a monkey or a Wolf of its fellow creature; nor, supposing this need,
what motive could induce the other to provide for it, nor even, in this last case, how they could
agree between them on the conditions.175

This passage, like many others, seems to suggest both nature’s intentionality and beneficience.

Nature only provides the barest of conditions necessary for man’s development, and whether the

conditions be benefits or obstacles, they hold the potential for man’s positive formation. Nature,

therefore, maintains its status as fundamentally good, while man’s freedom shoulders the

174
Ibid., 74.
175
Ibid., 34.
 173

responsibility for his suffering. While certain natural conditions may be necessary, a great deal

more must be accounted for in order to explain man’s sociability and civil being. This

explanation must remain internal to man, a part of human nature and not purely a function of

external nature. At the same time, Rousseau here affirms what we had wondered about on the

basis of his description of perfectibility; either the original state never exists as anything more

than an abstract ideal, or some external cause is required to prompt man’s development because

his “original nature,” as Rousseau describes it, is insufficient to the task of breaking the original

harmony.

Rousseau uses these observations as a ground for a critique of his contemporaries’

explanations of nature and man, and thus to bring out his considered view of nature as a

providential totality. He continues:

I know that we are repeatedly told that nothing would have been so miserable as man in that state;
and if it is true, as I believe I have proved, that only after many Centuries could man have had the
desire and opportunity to leave that state, it would be a Fault to find with Nature and not with him
who would have been so constituted by nature.176

Other philosophers, Hobbes and Locke in particular, contend that man is miserable in the state of

nature, and that the miseries that are the natural condition of man’s existence follow him

throughout the successive stages of his development, only being mitigated by his propensity to

develop stays against the condition of the natural state. On their view, man’s suffering is the

result of the imbalance between his constitution and the demands of his environment. Therefore,

man, being a naturally social creature, is least at home in the brutish state of nature. Were this

the case, nature would be to blame, not man “so constituted by nature,” for nature would have

made man ill-fitted to the state of nature and this would be the original source of his suffering.

176
Ibid.
 174

Rousseau understands nature’s role in man’s development differently. It is true that

nature creates an imbalance between man and the world, but this imbalance is the nexus of man’s

positive development. Rousseau explains:

But if I understand this term miserable, it is a word that has no meaning or only signifies a painful
privation and the suffering of the Body or soul. Now I would really like someone to explain to me
what type of misery there can be for a free being whose heart is at peace and whose body is
healthy? I ask which, Civil or natural life, is most liable to become unbearable to those who enjoy
it? We see around us practically no People who do not complain of their existence, even many
who deprive themselves of it insofar as they have the capacity; and the combination of divine and
human Laws hardly suffices to stop this disorder. I ask if anyone has ever heard it said that a
Savage in freedom even dreamed of complaining about life and killing himself. Let it then be
judged with less pride on which side genuine misery lies. Nothing, on the contrary, would have
been so miserable as Savage man dazzled by enlightenment, tormented by Passions, and reasoning
about a state different from his own.177

Rousseau’s rhetorical questions suggest that man is responsible for his suffering by becoming an

unnatural creature, or the sort of being that would act against his core principles and annihilate

his being. And his statement about the savage’s misery if subjected to modern conditions

suggests that a disproportionate imbalance between man and his environment is the context of

suffering. But implicit in this is that nature creates no such disproportionate imbalance. Just as

Rousseau has explained, nature only provides the barest of conditions necessary for man’s

development, and these are the means to man’s positive formation. But man does create a

significant imbalance between himself and nature broadly construed, and thus he is responsible

for the conditions by which suffering is possible. Not only does man stretch his imaginative

reason beyond the bounds of his current condition, but he then desires all that which does not

serve his natural interests. The natural imbalance between man and his environment should,

therefore, be considered natural, which is to say contributing to man’s positive development.

But the lion’s share of man’s self-directed development must be explained by reference to his

internal nature and his choices. By attributing to nature nothing more than the most basic

impetus for man’s development, Rousseau absolves it of responsibility for man’s suffering. And
177
Ibid.
 175

further, by subtly distinguishing between the natural imbalance which confronts man and makes

him healthy, and the self-created imbalance that results in man’s suffering, Rousseau again

points toward nature’s benevolence. The reality of man’s condition, true of nature and human

nature across all phases of development, is that there is a moving equilibrium between man and

the demands of his environment which ensures a measured progress of the development of

human faculties to the extent that man can remain focused on the natural objects that are

appropriate to the fulfillment of his end.

Despite the numerous references to nature’s intentionality and goodness both in the main

body of the text and in Rousseau’s extensive notes, there are no explicit references to nature as

providential in the Second Discourse save one. Rousseau writes:

It was by a very wise Providence that [man’s] potential faculties were to develop only with the
opportunities to exercise them, so that they were neither superfluous and burdensome, nor tardy
and useless when needed. He had, in instinct alone, everything necessary for him to live in the
state of Nature: he has, in cultivated reason, only what is necessary for him to live in society.178

In a straightforward reading of the text, this passage stands out. That is, when the Second

Discourse is understood as an anti-teleological text, where nature is only good in its original

form, where the world system is either deterministic or empty of meaning, where man’s freedom

is either chimerical or vain, and where there is hardly any serious mention of God’s role in man’s

development, a serious statement on providence seems a non-sequitur.179 But in the context of

our interpretation, such a statement on providence appears to be the culmination of Rousseau’s

178
Ibid.
179
There are references to God, gods, and other manner of divinity, but the only explicit and prolonged
reference to the Christian God suggests that theological arguments must be set aside for the purposes of this
investigation so that one may look to nature and nature alone. Rousseau writes in the Exordium, “Religion
commands us to believe that since God Himself took Men out of the state of Nature immediately after the creation,
they are unequal because He wanted them to be so; but it does not forbid us to form conjectures, drawn solely from
the nature of man and the Beings surrounding him, about what the human Race might have become if it had
remained abandoned to itself…
O Man, whatever Country you may come from, whatever your opinions may be, listen: here is your history
as I believed it to read, not in the Books of your Fellow-men, who are liars, but in Nature, which never lies” (Second
Discourse, in CW 3, 19).
 176

intimations of his considered position, or rather an affirmation of the train of subtle suggestions

that he makes from the historical standpoint throughout the text and the subsequent notes. We

find here, then, that the Second Discourse shares with many of Rousseau’s other works the

characteristic overlap between his theodicy and physiodicy, though he appears to go to great

lengths to make the Discourse appear otherwise. To say that a “very wise Providence” is

responsible for the way that man’s faculties develop over time is to affirm the role that nature

plays in shaping man, even if free will is an essential element in man’s development.

Furthermore, the reference to providence suggests a meaningfulness to man’s existence insofar

as the course of human development, if not preordained, is at least sanctioned by the divine. All

of this, then, gestures at the notion that ours is the best of all possible worlds, a position that

Rousseau only makes explicit in his later writings, but which was based on the understanding of

nature and its relation to man. We should not be surprised to find, then, that this passage on

providence lies at the center of the main text of the Discourse. Nor should we be surprised to

find that the passages referencing probability noted above lie at the center of the text when

considered inclusive of his extensive notes.180 Thus the straightest path through the text runs

through the explicit reference to providence, while the longer path meant for the intrepid reader

runs through the similar argument on the basis of the laws of probability.

It would be easy to dismiss the explicit reference to providence if one did not recognize

the demands of Rousseau’s moral mandate or if one failed to see the connection between it and

180
This connection seems to have eluded commentators. For example, Jonathan Marks, whose sole
purpose in Perfection and Disharmony is to suggest that there is at least a latent teleology in Rousseau’s work,
writes, “Perhaps Rousseau could have avoided the tension between his praise of a kind of progress and his praise of
origins by crediting nature with bringing about a measured progress in which an equilibrium between the
development of human faculties and needs is always maintained.” He references the above passage of the Second
Discourse where Rousseau recognizes the role of Providence, but then abruptly stops his analysis of this point. Cf.
Marks, Perfection and Disharmony, 102.
It is also interesting to note here that immediately following this passage, Rousseau raises questions about
whether man can be considered amoral or premoral. If nature is providential, if is it good and intentional, and if man
is free and ordered to an end, then man too must be moral. See above.
 177

his references to probability. But, recognizing that Rousseau forbids himself any breach of

moral truth, and given that there is an implicit connection between these passages and their

meaning, we can see that the providential account of nature given in the former is confirmed in

latter, even if the argument from the laws of probability invites a different level of consideration

of how and whether nature’s providence may exist in men’s lives. In sum, we may at least say

that there is good reason to think the longer road Rousseau suggests to the intrepid reader runs

through a more teleological consideration of man and nature, and ultimately arrives at a

considered understanding of nature as a providentially and teleolgocially ordered whole.

VI. Conclusion

It should now be apparent that Rousseau hints at his overall understanding of providential

nature where he treats nature either as historical or in the broadest, grandest, or most abstract

terms. In these places, even though man is often separated from nature broadly construed, nature

is ordered, intentional, and benevolent, but complex. It should also seem more apparent that his

unique understanding of natural ends is essential to understanding his overarching philosophy.

These things are fitted together in Rousseau’s philosophy in such a way that they explain the

complex interactions between nature and man. Though Rousseau’s meaning with regard to the

way man must live in relation to the world and to himself often appears to reduce to the truism

that he must be true to his nature,181 from this simple teaching several things are clear. Being

true to one’s nature is a relative act; man’s end varies with time and place, and with respect to the

orchestration of his internal nature to the extent that he has coordinated well his free

development. To the extent that man remains true to his nature, and even to the extent that he
181
Wright, The Meaning of Rousseau, 10.
 178

does not and incurs suffering, he seamlessly fits into the overarching system of nature without

sacrificing his unique features like freedom and consciousness. These features are, in fact,

necessary to the functioning of the equilibrium of the system insofar as it is a moral system

directed toward an end that is good. Through this conception of interrelated elements in flux, but

oriented to and acting with respect to an end, and dependent upon man’s free agency, Rousseau

presents the reader with a metaphysical system that can account for the purposefulness of

existence as well as the actuality of the moral and spiritual qualities that most represent the lived

experience of human beings.

Chapter Three: Teleological Thought in the Emile

In the previous chapter it was argued that, in the Second Discourse, Rousseau articulates five

different senses of nature. Nature is not only expressed as original, but also as historical, internal

to each individual, normative, and as the providential totality of all being. Each sense of nature

overlaps with the others to some extent, and together they are meant to motivate a deeper

consideration of nature through relations each aspect has with the others. Rousseau presents

neither a comprehensive statement on nature, nor even an ordered development of nature’s most

important features. But restraining himself from from a more doctrinal statement means

presenting the various threads of his consideration of nature on the loom, affording the reader the

opportunity to dialectically consider nature as it is successively confronted. Rousseau draws

tensions between nature as original and society as an historical development, between nature

understood as original and understood as historical, between nature broadly conceived as good

and man as species and as individual, between nature as historical force and as providential

totality, and so forth. The complexity of his treatment ultimately encourages the reader to

consider these different senses of nature in order to eventually understand the dynamic

interrelation of all the elements of nature and how this constitutes the condition of nature as a

whole. As was already noted, Rousseau’s treatment of the senses of nature, considered together,

ultimately directs the attentive reader to a teleological understanding of the world and of man.

It is often remarked that Rousseau, in not offering a comprehensive statement of his

philosophy, instead gave up his thought bit by bit and across his oeuvre in an unsystematic

presentation—and this is most often mistaken as the unintentional effect of inconsistent thought

179
 180

or writing.1 Many scholars have argued that the care with which Rousseau orchestrated his

writings invalidates this interpretation, and I believe that the preceding chapter on the Second

Discourse bears this out.2 Rousseau’s rhetorical style, including the structure of his arguments

and contradictions that make up his apparent obscurantism, is part of his overall method.3

Instead of transmitting to the reader a clear and distinct set of maxims or even a single argument

laying out a comprehensive position, he engages the reader in a dialectic that manifests his

system and all the nuances that brought Rousseau himself to a full understanding of it. His entire

oeuvre takes on this character. But, even if one accepts that Rousseau’s rhetorical style was

intentional, and further, even if one recognizes that his moral position forbade any real

dissembling, to extend the meaning of a single text to Rousseau’s philosophy risks

inappropriately overemphasizing a single treatment of his thought. In order to confirm our

interpretation of the Second Discourse and our understanding of Rousseau’s philosophy more

1
Rousseau was well aware of this perception of his work, and still without offering any comprehensive
statement of his philosophy, he often made attempts to reassert his consistency. For Rousseau’s recognition and
lamentation of the appearance of inconsistency, see Dialogues, in CW 1, 210; Social Contract II-4n** and II-5, in
CW 4, 148-51; Emile, in CW 13, 226; OC III, 71n, 105-106. For his claims to be consistent, see Letter to Beaumont,
in CW 9, 22, 26, 28, 38-39; Letter to Malsherbes, in CW 5, 574-77; Dialogues, in CW 1, 23, 131, 211-14. For his
articulation of his core principle, see Letter to Cramer, October 13, 1764; Letter to Malsherbes, in CW 5, 574-77;
Confessions, CW 5, 294-95; Dialogues, in CW 1, 131; Letter to Beaumont, in CW 9, 28, 39-40. For his claims to
have a system, see Second Letter to Bordes, in CW 2, 184-85; Confessions, in CW 5, 326, 341-42 (note the role of
chance); Dialogues, in CW 1, 22-23, 131, 212-14; Letter to Malsherbes, in CW 5, 574-77; Letter to Beaumont, in
CW 9, 39.
2
For more on Rousseau’s deliberate use of rhetorical devices, see Richard Velkley, Being After Rousseau;
Michael Davis, The Autobiography of Philosophy: Rousseau’s The Reveries of the Solitary Walker (Lanham, Md.:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1999); Victor Gourevitch, “Rousseau on Lying: A provisional Reading of the Fourth
Rêverie,” Berkshire Review 15 (1980): 93-107; Christopher Kelly, “Taking Readers as They Are: Rousseau’s Turn
from Discourses to Novels,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 33, no. 1 (1999): 85-101, and “Rousseau’s Chemical
Apprenticeship,” in Rousseau and the Dilemmas of Modernity, 3-28; Terrence E. Marshall, “Poetry and Praxis in
Rousseau’s Emile: Human Rights and the Sentiment of Humanity,” in Modern Enlightenment and the Rule of
Reason, ed. John McCarthy (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 187-212; Heinrich
Meier, “Einführender Essay,” in J.-J. Rousseau: Diskurs über die Ungleichheit (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1984), xxi-
lxxvii; Arthur Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man, especially “Introduction,” 1-12; Clifford Orwin, “Rousseau’s
Socratism,” Journal of Politics 60, no. 1 (1998): 174-87; Leo Strauss, “On the Intention of Rousseau,” 455-87.
3
In as much as he obstructs the way to an understanding of his thought, he also clears a path for those who
are fit to follow it, walking that path with them to the extent possible, speaking to their souls along the way, and
inviting them to see from his vantage. He does not merely cast himself in the role of “a God inimical to men’s
repose,” as he says in the First Discourse. He becomes that god in order to communicate the gravity of his
teachings and to accomplish the peculiar form of education suited to this task.
 181

generally, it remains for us to see if any of Rousseau’s other texts occasion similarly teleological

interpretations, notwithstanding the great differences between his varying works.

For this purpose the present chapter turns to the Emile, the work Rousseau openly praised

above all his other writings.4 The similarities and differences between the Emile and the Second

Discourse are instrumental for confirming our understanding of Rousseau’s thought. The most

obvious similarity between the Emile and the Second Discourse is in the philosophical content of

the works. That is, like the Second Discourse, the Emile considers nature and human nature

alongside one another. This is, of course, set in relief by the marked differences between the two

texts, the most pronounced of which stem from the fact that, while the Emile treats both nature

and human nature, it is simultaneously narrower and broader than the Second Discourse. On the

one hand, the Emile is narrower than the Second Discourse in that, while it treats nature and

human nature, Rousseau focuses specifically on one historical form of natural man. Rousseau

frequently reminds the reader that his Emile is “common” or “ordinary,” and that the goal of the

natural education he envisions is “to make a man fit for all conditions.”5 But these claims should

not be mistaken for the sort of methodological abstraction that dominates the Second Discourse.

In making Emile “common” he has made him into a test case for the species that will either

validate or invalidate his proposed education. And in stating that Emile will be a man fit for all

conditions, he means fit for all political or geographical conditions. For, “A man is not like a

tree planted in a country to remain there forever,”6 and in order to affirm his ideal natural

education, Rousseau must show that it is fit for all men, which is to say in any political, religious,

or geographical context. Nevertheless, in the Emile, Rousseau does designate a historical

4
See Confessions, in CW 5, 475; Dialogues, in CW 1, 23; and Letter to Beaumont, in CW 9, 46-47.
5
Emile, in CW 13, 178-79. Rousseau states in Book III that “Emile has a mind that is universal not by its
learning but by its faculty to acquire learning” (358). In Book IV he writes, “I have chosen Emile from among
ordinary minds in order to show what education can do for man” (401).
6
Ibid., 178.
 182

context; Emile is meant to be fit for any climate in Rousseau’s contemporary world. As Ernest

Hunter Wright explains, “Emile is meant to be the natural man of any place or situation in a civil

world and thus to have the education that should be common to all men.”7 Therefore, the Emile

is unlike the Second Discourse insofar as the latter aims to identify what is natural to man

abstractly, or with regard to any form of man at any time or place, whereas the former limits its

focus to a particular form of contemporary civil man, and then elaborates on how that specific

form of man can be most naturally formed. The Emile, then, offers a far deeper analysis of the

particular kind of man that Emile represents than would have been possible in the context of the

Second Discourse.

On the other hand, the Emile is perhaps one of Rousseau’s most deceptively broad works

of philosophy. It purports to be a study of education that was originally meant to be “only a

Monograph,” but which grew to become “a sort of opus, too big, doubtless, for what it contains,

but too small for the matter it treats.”8 There is no reason to doubt that this, in fact, was the way

in which Rousseau developed the text, and the early drafts of the Emile appear to confirm as

much.9 But, as multiple commentators have pointed out, the Emile touches upon, raises

important questions about, and makes surprising observations on such a wealth of topics that it

sits at the headwaters of several modern intellectual traditions, psychology and education

foremost among them.10 Allan Bloom famously noted that “It is a Phenomenology of Mind

posing as Dr. Spock,” and then explains, “the Emile is one of those rare total or synoptic books, a

7
Wright, The Meaning of Rousseau, 36.
8
Emile, in CW 13, 157.
9
See the Favre Manuscript of Emile, in CW 13, 3-154.
10
See, Broome, Rousseau: A Study of his Thought (London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd., 1963) v.
 183

book with which one can live and which becomes deeper as one becomes deeper, a book

comparable to the Republic, which it is meant to rival or supersede.”11

Because the scope of the Emile differs from that of the Second Discourse, so too does the

methodology. Whereas the Second Discourse proceeds conjecturally, and abstracts in order to

recognize and understand nature and human nature in general, the Emile narrows in on a single

instance of natural man in order to extrapolate on his interrelatedness and response to the

conditions of the contemporary world. Or to say it differently, whereas the Second Discourse

assumes that natural man can only be known by abstracting from original and historical nature,

the Emile assumes that natural man, or rather the natural man of the contemporary civil world,

can be known only through a close examination of his development and progress. Thus,

Rousseau writes that in order to judge Emile, “he would have to be seen fully formed: his

inclinations would have to have been observed, his progress seen, his development followed. In

a word, natural man would have to be known. I believe that one will have made a few steps in

these researches when one has read this writing.”12 At the same time, Rousseau was adamant

that the principles demonstrated in the Emile were the same as those he expressed throughout his

writings, and “with the greatest boldness not to say audacity” in the Second Discourse, and he

was somewhat incredulous when readers missed this fact.13

Now if, in order to understand Rousseau’s considered positions on nature and man in the

Second Discourse, it is necessary that we recognize his teleological thought therein, and if

Rousseau maintains that the same truths and principles at work in the Second Discourse are also

11
Allan Bloom, “Introduction,” in Emile, or on Education (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 3-4.
12
Emile, in CW 13, 165-66.
13
Confessions, in CW 5, 341-42. For an example of his incredulity, consider the Letter to Cramer of
October 13, 1764, where Rousseau writes the following, emphasizing the centrality of the principles that operate in
the Emile: “You say quite correctly that it is impossible to produce an Emile. But I cannot believe that you take the
book that carries this name for a true treatise on education. It is rather a philosophical work on this principle
advanced by the author in other writings that man is naturally good.”
 184

at work in the Emile, then we are justified in expecting some indication of his teleological

thought in the Emile to parallel what we have already seen in the Second Discourse. Generally

speaking, because the philosophic content of the Emile overlaps so significantly with the Second

Discourse, the Emile allows us to measure our understandings of nature and human nature

against one another, and thus determine whether our interpretation of the Second Discourse—

namely that it necessitates a teleological understanding of the world and of man—is accurate.

When the Emile in considered in way, several things jump into view. First, there are frequent

passages where Rousseau clarifies, confirms, or emphasizes crucial aspects of human nature

expressed in the Second Discourse. Second, much of what Rousseau has to say throughout the

text of the Emile has the same teleological implications that we find in the Second Discourse, the

expressions of which range from metaphorical to overt and explicit. Finally, the “Profession of

Faith of the Savoyard Vicar,” which is in many ways a central element of the text, stands out as a

key indication of Rousseau’s overarching teleology, even if it is not synonymous with his

philosophy per se. This chapter will explore each of these aspects of the text and the

implications they have for understanding Rousseau’s philosophy.

I. Human Nature in the Emile

The account of human nature that Rousseau gives in the Emile is complicated by the fact

that it is given in the context of and throughout a much larger schema of arguments on

Rousseau’s core positions. As a result, that account of human nature is far less direct than the

account given in the Second Discourse. The Emile is, at its core, an explication of natural man

and a defense of the position that he is “naturally good.” On the most general level, Rousseau
 185

proceeds by an examination of how an ordinary human being can be and remain both natural and

good in the context of the contemporary world. Over the course of several hundred pages he

communicates with gradually increasing directness and force the purpose of the education he

proposes, first with subtle references and intimations, then with frequent exhortations and

explicit statements.14 The clothing of this examination is the story of Emile’s development from

birth through the age of maturity, and the endeavor of his education is framed by an apparent

tension between individualism and collectivism dramatically offered in the first pages of Book I.

Yet, throughout all of this, the account of human nature given in the Emile bears an unmistakable

resemblance to and clearly supports what Rousseau communicates about human nature in the

Second Discourse.15

Very early in Book I, Rousseau describes a sharp distinction between the education of

nature and the education of men, where the former develops a man “entirely for himself” and the

latter makes man over as citizen, where “his value is determined by his relation to the whole,

which is the social body.”16 These two demands, one natural and the other civic, are inevitably

at odds with one another, and as Rousseau explains, “From these necessarily opposed objects

come two contrary forms of instruction—the one, public and common; the other, individual and

domestic.”17 Unfortunately, when this tension is reduced to the choice between the two forms of

education, “their harmony is impossible. Forced to combat nature or the social institutions, one

14
The earliest occasion of this is in the Preface. Rousseau prepares the earliest object of his education by
making a connection between childhood and human nature, both of which are unknown to man. Compare Emile, in
CW 13, 157, and Second Discourse, in CW 3, 12. I will note certain intimations, exhortations, and explicit
statements below.
15
Rousseau explains in the Preface to the Emile that what had originally been intended as a monograph
grew to become an “opus,” by which he meant a work of great length and magnitude (Emile, in CW 13, 157). As a
result, it is beyond the scope of this chapter to catalogue all the occasions whereupon Rousseau confirms or clarifies
positions previously announced in the Second Discourse. For our purposes here, it will have to suffice to draw
attention only to those occasions that best illustrate the way in which the two works are in dialogue with one another
by focusing on the way in which Rousseau develops his account of the elements of human nature in the Emile.
16
Ibid., 164.
17
Ibid., 165.
 186

must choose between making a man or a citizen, for one cannot make both at the same time.”18

The result is as bad for the community as it is for the individual:

Swept along in contrary routes by nature and by men, forced to divide ourselves between these
impulses, we follow a composite impulse which leads us to neither one goal nor the other. Thus,
in conflict and floating during the whole course of life, we end it without having been able to put
ourselves in harmony with ourselves and without having been good either for ourselves or for
others.19

This apparently irresolvable tension allows Rousseau to ask an especially informative

question. Civic education described in its vulgar form is at the expense of individual nature. But

the tension is not between natural education and civic education, it is rather between earlier and

later forms of civic education. For domestic education, as evidenced by Rousseau’s vehement

critique of early childhood care-giving, is not necessarily natural but practical, and pursued for

the ease of everyone but the child.20 Thus, in subtly considering “domestic education or the

education of nature,” Rousseau is led to ask “what will a man raised uniquely for himself

become for others?”21 If it is true that one must be oneself before it is possible to be something

for others—a citizen—then the education of nature provides the necessary ground for civic

education. The education that Rousseau proposes is just this education of nature, and because

domestic education is a poor stand-in for it, it represents a third educational option, and one

which has the potential to obviate the apparent tension between the individualist and collectivist

approaches to developing man and citizen.

Now, in order to answer this question of what a natural man will be for others, Rousseau

concedes that such a case must be seen “wholly formed.” But, as he notes just prior, “I am

18
Ibid., 163. It is in this context that Rousseau writes, “Good social institutions are those that best know
how to denature man, to take his absolute existence from him in order to give him a relative one and transport the I
into the common unity.” He means this statement as a reflection of what the best social institutions do when they
are committed solely to civic education. Rousseau’s own education produces a citizen arguably stronger and more
able to support the common unity, and significantly, it is not a denaturing of Emile.
19
Ibid., 165.
20
Cf., ibid., 167ff.
21
Ibid., 165.
 187

waiting to be shown this marvel so as to know whether he is a man or a citizen, or how he goes

about being both at the same time.”22 To Rousseau’s mind, such a man does not exist, or at least

he has not presented himself as such. But even if such a man were available to study, Rousseau

would only be able to judge what he is for others, but not the course of education that made him

natural in the midst of society. Thus, by saying “wholly formed,” Rousseau points out that in

order to understand natural man in the context of civil society, he must not only study the

product of a natural education but the course of that education itself: “his inclinations would

have to be observed, his progress seen, his development followed.”23 Rousseau’s only recourse

here is to form the natural man himself, and due to practical limitations, to form him by

imagination:

I have hence chosen to give myself an imaginary pupil, to hypothesize that I have the age, health,
kinds of knowledge, and all the talent suitable for working at his education, for conducting him
from the moment of his birth up to the one when, become a grown man, he will no longer have
need of any guide other than himself.24

By choosing this methodology, Rousseau possesses the child from birth, thus giving him the best

possible access, albeit conjectural access, to what he considers the true object of his study, “the

human condition.”25

I.1 Man’s Development from Birth—The need to trace Emile’s development from birth

turns out to be especially important, and provides the first obvious confirmations of our

interpretation of the Second Discourse.26 Just after posing his framing question about natural

22
Ibid., 164-65.
23
Ibid., 166.
24
Ibid., 177.
25
Ibid., 166.
26
Cf., Smith, “Natural Hapiness, Sensation, and Infancy in Rousseau’s Emile,” in Polity 35.1 (2002): 96:
Smith has argued that the negative education Rousseau describes in the Emile represents Rousseau’s attempt to
follow the path that nature maps out for man. Looking specifically at Emile’s pre-lingual formation from infancy
onward, he explains that “Emile’s rearing during this period—in which he is introduced to the salutary ‘education 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 happiness.’” And furthermore he contends that “By the lights of Rousseau’s
teleological account of nature in Book I, that ‘road’ culminates at the zenith of man’s given potential, in a way of
 188

man’s being for others, and immediately following his assertion that “Our true study is that of

the human condition,” Rousseau asserts that “We begin to instruct ourselves when we begin to

live.”27 Two things may be observed in Rousseau’s statement here: man’s dynamic condition

and his free agency. First, human development, so far as it is relevant to education, is set in

motion at birth. Certainly, human beings undergo a near continuous development across a

lifetime, but to the extent that man has some given nature, that nature is always active once it is

engaged in the dynamic relationship with the world and with itself. Here in the Emile, then,

Rousseau makes explicit something that he only subtly and abstractly indicated in the Second

Discourse. Recall that in the previous chapter it was noted that in the Second Discourse, from

the historical perspective, it is clear that the elements of human nature are always already

engaged with one another and with objects in the world.28 Here he confirms that neither nature

nor human nature exist in a static state; the world is in motion, and a child born into such a

condition is similarly in motion. Thus he writes, “where education begins with life, the child is

at birth already a disciple, not of the governor, but of nature.”29

Children develop progressively, beginning with merely a seed of what will become their

fully developed being. Thus, in terms of the education appropriate to the individual at each stage

living and choosing governed by a particular ‘idea of happiness or perfection given us by reason.’” Using the more
readily available teleological threads of the Emile, Smith concludes that “the principles underlying Emile’s negative
education inform both Rousseau’s ‘hypothetical history’ in the Second Discourse and his theory of the general will
in On the Social Contract.” See also, Cf., Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man, 92-93.
27
Ibid.
28
See Chapter Two, “Nature and Human Nature in the Second Discourse,” above 120ff.
29
Emile, in CW 13, 189. It could be objected here that Rousseau contradicts himself on this matter. For he
also explains in the same passage that the earliest period of human life is a time when a child is “capable of learning
but able to do nothing, knowing nothing,” and that “the movements and the cries of the child who has just been born
are purely mechanical effects, devoid of knowledge and of will” (ibid.). And at the close of Book I, Rousseau
appears to confirm this position when he concludes: “The first developments of childhood occur almost all at once.
The child learns to talk, to feed himself, to walk, at about the same time. This is, strictly speaking the first period of
life. Before it he is nothing more than he was in his mother’s womb. He has no sentiment, no idea; hardly does he
have sensations. He does not even sense his own existence” (ibid., 204). On both of these occasions, however,
Rousseau is speaking relatively, and he is acutely aware of the way that his use of terms can give the reader the
impression that he is in contradiction with himself (ibid., 234n*—Rousseau specifically adds this note to address the
problem). He remains firm in his original position, nevertheless.
 189

of development, the infant is almost nothing compared to the more able child. But this should

not diminish the fact that from birth, and perhaps even before birth, the individual is in motion

and under the tutelage of nature. Rousseau goes out of his way to reiterate this on the first

occasion when he writes, “I repeat: the education of man begins at his birth; before speaking,

before understanding, he is already learning. Experience anticipates lessons.”30 Something

similar is at work on the second occasion when Rousseau stops short of saying the infant has no

sensations. At birth an individual’s experience of the world and of himself is severely restricted,

and Rousseau explains that “Children’s first sensations are purely affective; they perceive only

pleasure and pain.”31 But it is that experience of the world, no matter how limited it appears in

comparison to the experience of more developed children, adolescents, and men, that facilitates

the first movements of the soul and hence its first developments. Birth is the moment of

activation of the elements of the soul, and though they come to maturity in their own time, the

soul is in motion from its first engagement with the world.32

Once the dynamic condition of human nature is properly understood, the account that

Rousseau gives of the elements of human nature becomes more transparent. He begins this with

a simple statement of the integral role of the senses in the development of man’s faculties:

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 to avoid the objects which produce them, at first according to whether they are
pleasant or unpleasant to us, then according to the conformity or lack of it that we find between us

30
Ibid., 190.
31
Ibid., 191.
32
See also, ibid., 412. Speaking of reason Rousseau writes: “Man does not easily begin to think. But as
soon as he begins, he never stops. Whoever has thought will always think, and once the understanding is practiced
at reflection, it can no longer stay at rest.” The Emile also suggests a further critique of those commentators on the
Second Discourse who argue that natural man, not distinguishing between natural man and original man in the state
of nature, is premoral. Rousseau’s argument in the Emile suggests that men are moral in a way similar to the way
they are rational. These faculties can be considered potential only in light of a static state that is only an abstraction
of man in his active state. To say that the static state never exists is to say that man’s moral and rational capacities
are always already active in some regard; they present themselves to our view in such a way that they appear to be
merely nascent qualities, and they are slow to manifest. Never do these moral or rational capacities exist as mere
potentialities, though they can be understood as in potential in comparison to their fully mature forms.
 190

and these objects, and finally according to the judgments we make about them on the basis of
happiness or of perfection given us by reason.33

The senses are presented as the initiating vehicle of man’s first developments, and as the basis of

his ongoing engagement with the world. The initial account of the senses becomes a springboard

for the accounts of freedom of will, reason, self-interest, and conscience, all of which continue to

reiterate much of what Rousseau states in the Second Discourse.

I.2 Free Agency and Human Will—In relation to the will, Rousseau makes clear in the

Emile that our earliest sense experience activates the will by presenting it with options for our

inclination; that is, with consciousness of our senses, “we are disposed to seek or avoid the

objects which produce them, first according to whether they are pleasant or unpleasant.” This is

a reiteration of a point that is made more generally and with respect to the evolution of man as a

species in the Second Discourse. There Rousseau writes, “to perceive and to feel will be his first

state… To will and not will, to desire and fear, will be the first and almost only operations of his

soul until new circumstances cause new developments in it.”34 But, the fact that Rousseau says

in the Emile that we are born with our senses suggest something more significant regarding

human free will and agency. The senses point to the will as a key factor in human development.

That is, if every child is born with the use of his senses, and if the senses are the first impetus by

which the will is activated, then the will is active to some extent from the first flush of life. Early

in Book I, when Rousseau writes, “We begin to instruct ourselves when we begin to live,” he

means to attract the reader’s attention to the role that each individual plays in his own

development from the beginning of and throughout his life.35

33
Emile, in CW 13, 163.
34
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 27.
35
Emile, in CW 13, 166.
 191

At the same time, Rousseau affirms the special status of the will that he suggests in the

Second Discourse, indicating that human agency is more significant than it is made to appear in

the context of sense experience alone. Recall that in the Second Discourse Rousseau explains

that man possesses a unique freedom and a consciousness of his freedom, and that in these along

with their accompanying sentiment “are found only purely spiritual acts about which the Laws of

Mechanics explain nothing.”36 Further, he indicates these spiritual elements of the soul have a

status different from but coeval with man’s fundamental principles anterior to reason. Like the

Second Discourse, the Emile echoes the notion that these elements represent the spiritual quality

of the soul, and in so doing Rousseau points to the goodness and intentionality of God and

nature.37 For example, he explains “At the same time that the author of nature gives children this

active principle, by allowing them little strength to indulge it, He takes care that it do them little

harm.”38 From birth, then, children have the quality of being free that allows them to take part in

their own development, but they are only able to exercise this capacity in a way that accords with

their stage of development; their freedom and hence the role they can play in their own affairs is

limited by the fact that they are, as Rousseau puts it, “enchained in imperfect and half-formed

organs.”39 Though the freedom of the will is present in children, the development of the body

facilitates the development of important aspects of the soul; this development is intentionally

slow so as to prevent the exercise of a faculty that could be turned away from the good before the

individual is in a position to understand the good. Thus, Rousseau writes much later, “The

supreme Being wanted to do honor to the human species in everything. While giving man

36
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 26.
37
The Emile provides a clear example of how Rousseau intertwines theodicy and physiodicy.
38
Ibid., 197.
39
Ibid., 189. See note 33 above.
 192

inclinations without limit, he gives him at the same time the law which regulates them, in order

that he may be free and in command of himself.”40

Interestingly, the Emile tends to assume the existence of free agency from birth, but there

appears to be little attempt on Rousseau’s part to directly justify or prove its existence. Instead,

Rousseau uses the story of Emile’s education to demonstrate that freedom is necessary in order

to explain human development. At first glance, the Emile appears to provide even less of a

justification for human freedom than does the Second Discourse, while in fact, by making

freedom necessary to Emile’s growth, the text offers a much more convincing though indirect

argument. Thus, freedom becomes a focal point of Emile’s education, and in the midst of

reiterating that “the education of man begins at birth,” Rousseau explains that, in considering his

pupil from his earliest condition, the governor must “Prepare from afar the reign of his freedom

and the use of his forces by leaving natural habit to his body, by putting him in the condition

always to be master of himself and in all things to do his will, as soon as he has one.”41 If the

end of this education is to produce, or rather to retain, a natural disposition, then it is not just

Emile’s exposure to the world that must be moderated but also his freedom. For this reason,

much of Emile’s early education is what Rousseau calls negative education: “It consists not at all

in teaching virtue or truth, but in securing the heart from vice and the mind from error.”42

Rousseau’s approach to education, as has already been suggested, is to “Observe nature and

follow the path it maps out for you.”43 Practically speaking, the course of education that

Rousseau prescribes shelters the pupil from vice and other corruptive influences to the extent

possible and until such time as he is prepared to confront them in a way appropriate to his

40
Ibid., 533.
41
Ibid., 191.
42
Ibid., 226.
43
Ibid., 172.
 193

fundamental development. This is done by controlling the environment on the one hand, and by

carefully regulating Emile’s use of his freedom on the other—for it is in the misapplication of

Emile’s will that he most risks becoming corrupted by the world around him.

I.3 Human Reason—Rousseau’s account of the senses also leads the reader into a deeper

consideration of human reason. As was noted above, we incline ourselves toward objects, “first

according to whether they are pleasant or unpleasant to us,” or on the basis of the most

rudimentary ideas generated from sense experience. These rudimentary ideas are themselves the

most basic exercise of reason. Recall in the Second Discourse that reason is activated by the

senses; when comparing man to animal, Rousseau asserts that insofar as we have senses, we

have ideas.44 In the Emile, Rousseau goes into greater detail regarding this notion. He explains,

for example, “The first faculties that are formed and perfected in us are the senses.” These are

the only human faculties that man possesses fully formed and perfected from birth. And because

they are the gateway to the activity of his other faculties, “They are, therefore, the first faculties

that ought to be cultivated… To exercise the senses is not only to make use of them, it is to learn

to judge well with them. It is to learn, so to speak, to sense.”45

The ideas formed from sense experience are the basis for a child’s earliest reasoning, but

they represent the start of his development toward the exercise of advanced reason. As we

acquire these rudimentary ideas of the world and retain them in memory, our knowledge base of

the world and of our experiences increases, and we are then in a position to incline ourselves

toward objects “according to the conformity or lack of it that we find between us and these

objects,” which is to say by the comparison of the objects of sense experience with the ideas of

the objects that we have retained from our previous experiences. This is precisely what

44
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 26.
45
Emile, in CW 13, 272.
 194

Rousseau means by emphasizing man’s mode of comparison in the Second Discourse.46 Here in

the Emile he makes this explicit where he explains: “Since everything which enters into the

human understanding comes there through the senses, man’s first reason is a reason of the

senses; this sensual reason serves as the basis of intellectual reason.”47 Certainly, there is a

general sense in which, as Rousseau says, “The consciousness of every sensation is a

proposition, a judgment. Therefore, as soon as one compares one sensation with another, one

reasons. The art of judging and the art of reasoning are exactly the same.”48 But, Rousseau

explains the development of human reason and distinguishes between its modes when he

describes “common sense”:

It remains for me to speak in the following books of the cultivation of a sort of sixth sense called
common sense, less because it is common to all men than because it results from the well-
regulated use of the other senses, and because it instructs us about the nature of things by the
conjunction of their appearances. This sixth sense has consequently no special organ. It resides
only in the brain, and its sensations, purely internal, are called perceptions or ideas. It is by the
number of these ideas that the extent of our knowledge is measured. It is their distinctness, their
clarity which constitutes the accuracy of the mind. It is the art of comparing them among
themselves that is called human reason. Thus, what I would call sensual or childish reason
consists in forming simple ideas by the conjunction of several sensations, and what I call
intellectual or human reason consists in forming complex ideas by the conjunction of several
simple ideas.49

Thus, at the very end of Rousseau’s long explication of the senses, he makes clear that, from this

chain of development leading from the senses to reason, we ultimately come to acquire

conceptions of happiness and perfection by which we are able to make our highest judgments

about the world and our place within it.50

Now the will must act in concert with reason in order to decide between the objects that it

presents in the form of ideas. But it is not only the will and reason that facilitate man’s

inclination toward some object; our natural passions, which Rousseau says are “very limited,”

46
See for example, Second Discourse, in CW 3, 22 and 25-26.
47
Emile, in CW 13, 264.
48
Ibid., 357.
49
Ibid., 301.
50
For the explication of the senses see, ibid., 272-301.
 195

and which he calls “the instruments of our freedom,” are also necessary to human activity and

hence development.51 Therefore, in the Emile one finds the same relationship between these

guiding principles of the soul (self-interest and moral sense) and its active elements (free will

and reason) as one does in the Second Discourse.52 In the Emile, however, Rousseau’s emphasis

on the interaction of these aspects of human nature is somewhat different, and is communicated

in such a way as to reveal natural man with greater detail.

I.4 Human Self-Interest—Turning first to self-interest, it will be recalled that in the

Second Discourse, even though he presents it as a single principle of the soul, he almost

immediately focuses on its bifurcation into “our well-being and our self-preservation.”53 Further,

he tends to emphasize the difference between self-interest in its natural form, amour de soi, and

self-interest in its degenerate form, amour-propre. In particular, he writes in note 12*:

Amour-propre and love of oneself, two passions very different in their Nature and effects,
must not be confused. Love of oneself is a natural sentiment which inclines every animal to watch
over its own preservation, and which, directed by reason and modified by pity, produces humanity
and virtue. Amour-propre is only a relative sentiment, artificial and born in Society, which
inclines each individual to have greater esteem for himself than for anyone else, inspires in men all
the harm they do to one another, and is the true source of honor.
This being well understood, I say that in our primitive state, in the genuine state of Nature,
amour-propre does not exist; for each particular man regarding himself as the sole Spectator to
observe him, as sole being in the universe to take an interest in him, and as the sole judge of his
own merit, it is not possible that a sentiment having its source in comparisons he is not capable of
making could spring up in his soul.54

It must be observed, however, that the distinctions Rousseau makes in the Second Discourse are

made in the context of distinguishing the original standpoint from the historical standpoint.

Amour-propre does not exist in the original state of nature, a state that Rousseau believes never

existed in the first place.55 To say that amour-propre does not exist in original man is, therefore,

not to say that amour-propre does not exist in natural man; in fact, it is not even to say that

51
Ibid., 362.
52
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 14-15 and 25-27.
53
Ibid., 15.
54
Ibid., 91.
55
Ibid., 13.
 196

amour-propre does not exist in natural man from birth. The distinction between original and

historical, which is necessary for the consideration of nature and human nature in the abstract, is

almost entirely dispensed with in the Emile, and Rousseau assumes from the outset that a child,

the newly born version of natural man, comes into existence in a state of natural dependency.56

Therefore, in the Emile, by contrast, Rousseau explicitly emphasizes the original oneness of self

interest, both insofar as it is made up of both amour de soi and amour-propre, and also insofar as

it encompasses the interest in our well-being and our self-preservation. He writes:

Let us set down as an incontestable maxim that the first movements of nature are always right.
There is no original perversity in the human heart. There is not a single vice to be found in it of
which it cannot be said how and whence it entered. The sole passion natural to man is amour de
soi or amour-propre taken in an extended sense. This amour-propre in itself or relative to us is
good and useful; and since it has no necessary relation to others, it is in this respect naturally
neutral. It becomes good or bad only by the application made of it and the relations given to it.57

The separation between amour de soi and amour-propre that Rousseau makes in the Second

Discourse is, then, a historical separation, or a distinction between man’s nature as it exists

before and after its corruption. The Emile teaches that prior to man’s corruption amour de soi

and amour-propre are essentially one or without tension. Amour de soi, or love of oneself, is the

natural passion that inclines the individual toward himself. But in its natural form, amour-propre

exists in an “extended” form, and directed outside of oneself, it does not produce the vanity that

characterizes the corrupt amour-propre Rousseau describes in the Second Discourse. He

explains, “A child’s first sentiment is to love himself; and the second, which is derived from the

first, is to love those who come near him, for in the state of weakness that he is in, he does not

recognize anyone except by the assistance and care he receives.”58 Amour-propre only becomes

a dangerous passion when, facilitated by reason, it enters into a comparative activity that is no

56
Emile, in CW 13, 216: “Children, even in the state of nature, enjoy only an imperfect freedom, similar to
that enjoyed by men in the civil state.”
57
Ibid., 225.
58
Ibid., 363.
 197

longer merely outward, or when it becomes an internal-external comparison between the

individual and those whom he encounters. While it was once a simply extended love, the

“amour-propre, which makes comparisons, is never content and never could be, because this

sentiment, preferring ourselves to others, also demands others prefer us to themselves, which is

impossible.”59 Rousseau explains that uncorrupted, self-love produces all the “gentle and

affectionate passions,” but in its corrupted form, “all the hateful and irascible passions are born

of amour-propre.”60

Rousseau’s explication of the unity of amour de soi and amour-propre in the Emile may

already suggest something about his more detailed understanding of well-being and self-

preservation. Namely, the negative effects of human nature are more narrowly confined by

circumstance than the Second Discourse appears to suggest, whereas the naturally good aspects

flow from one another without tension. Rousseau explains, for example, that the inclination

toward self-preservation, while it must take priority in certain situations, must not be prioritized

over well-being simply. On the one hand, he clearly asserts:

Every man must live. This argument, which is more or less weighty for a man to the extent he is
more or less humane, appears to me to be unanswerable for him who makes it relative to himself.
Since the aversion to dying is the strongest of all aversions that Nature gives us, it follows that it
permits everything to anyone who has no other possible means of living.61

But, on the other hand, he mitigates the simple priority that nature appears to grant self-

preservation by minimizing the circumstances wherein self-preservation would have full

command of one’s actions, and by emphasizing the practical dominance of our interest in well-

being. He explains:

It is believed that man has an intense love for his own preservation, and that is true. But it is not
seen that this love, in the way in which we feel it, is in large part the work of men. Naturally man
worries about his preservation only insofar as the means to it are in his power. As soon as these

59
Ibid., 364.
60
Ibid.
61
Ibid., 343.
 198

means escape him, he becomes calm and dies without tormenting himself uselessly. The first law
of resignation comes to us from nature.62

In other words, while it is the case that all men naturally have the desire to preserve themselves,

when it occurs naturally, this desire is only manifest when the means to one’s survival are

perceived to be within reach. By conforming to the environment, or more precisely to necessity,

natural man bears hardships and even death with grace. The desire for self-preservation, when it

is appropriately situated in human nature, may be present in every dire confrontation, but it is not

necessarily exercised. Even if it has priority in certain circumstances and under certain

conditions, it is not the primarily active aspect of self-interest. Rousseau alludes to this in the

Second Discourse, but the Emile is more thoroughgoing in its account.63 As was already noted,

from birth self-love inclines the child first to love himself, and then to love those who care for

him and attend to his needs. “A child is therefore naturally inclined to benevolence, because he

sees that everything approaching him is inclined to assist him, and from this observation he gets

the habit of a sentiment favorable to his species.”64 The natural atmosphere of childhood is as far

as can be imagined from the sort of circumstance that would set the desire for self-preservation

in motion. In fact, it is crucial to human development that self-preservation not be the foremost

demand in life; the desire for well-being naturally inspires curiosity in man, and thus, “The

innate desire for well-being and the impossibility of fully satisfying this desire make him

constantly seek for new means of contributing to it.”65

I.5 Moral Sense—Turning to the consideration of the man’s moral sense, or what

Rousseau calls pity in the Second Discourse, there is an obvious clarification in the Emile of the

62
Ibid., 213.
63
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 45. See also, Marks, Perfection and Disharmony, 35-36. Marks recognizes
in the Second Discourse Rousseau’s implication that the desire for “well-being may well be more fundamental than
interest in self-preservation” (36). He does not, however, appear to extend or confirm this interpretation by
reference to the Emile.
64
Emile, in CW 13, 364-65.
65
Ibid., 311.
 199

way in which this principle of the soul is related to the active elements of human nature. In the

Second Discourse Rousseau describes this principle of the soul as pity in order to reflect the

activation of the soul in the historical perspective. That is, pity signals the individual’s

identification with objects in the world, and especially with creatures that exist in the world

alongside that individual.66 When Rousseau indicates that pity expresses itself as a natural

repugnance at suffering, he means to show the reader that the identification with the other is

made on the basis of sentience felt in the beholder and discerned in the other, and that its

expression is manifest in sentiment. But expressed in the historical context, this is already a

jump into an advanced active state of human nature that confuses the principles and operations of

the soul. As was noted in the previous chapter, in the Second Discourse pity is not confined to

the experience of suffering or to the sight of the suffering other; already in the identification of

sentience, man is aware of the well-being of the other, and this necessarily indicates the

engagement of his other faculties.67

In the Emile, Rousseau is clearer about the interrelatedness of the various aspects of

human nature. Rather than identifying pity as the second principle of the soul anterior to reason,

he explicitly refers to conscience in order to distinguish the way in which the combination of

moral sense and reason elevate man’s love and understanding of the natural order. Conscience

can thus be understood in light of its divine character. For according to Rousseau, conscience

entails moral sense, the aspect of soul wherein God communicates what is right directly and

irrevocably to man: “And what God wants a man to do, he does not have told him by another

man. He tells him himself, He writes it in the depths of his heart.”68 Importantly, when moral

sense is considered as a sort of the innate recognition of natural order and what is good, it ceases

66
Repugnance at suffering implies a “being-with” as a necessary precondition for the experience of pity.
67
See, Chapter Two, “Nature and Human Nature in the Second Discourse,” 120ff.
68
Emile, in CW 13, 362.
 200

to be active in the way that pity appears to be in the Second Discourse.69 For man to be active

with respect to what is right, requires that his moral sense engage with reason in such a way as to

provide a moral dimension to the objects presented to the will. As Rousseau explains, “Reason

alone teaches us to know good and bad. Conscience, which makes us love the former and hate

the latter, although independent of reason, cannot therefore be developed without it.”70

I.6 Imagination—The Emile provides a detailed explanation of the emergence of pity, the

sentiment generated when the conscience becomes engaged with reason. It has already been

explained that sense experience sets reason in motion by the first generation of representative

ideas. Rousseau calls this the “sensual reason.” But reason, as a faculty of comparison, can also

postulate on the basis of the simple ideas it retains. This activity of the reason, along with the

imagination, is what makes the identification between self and other possible, and therefore, it is

in this context that the first movements of the imagination contribute to man’s moral existence.

The imagination, then, is natural and positive when it is awakened in due course and by

necessity, but potentially corruptive otherwise. Rousseau explains:

Nature’s instruction is late and slow; men’s is almost always premature. In the former case the
senses awaken the imagination; in the latter the imagination awakens the senses; it gives them a
precocious activity which cannot fail to enervate and weaken individuals first and in the long run
the species itself.71

The negative form of the imagination is what Rousseau makes more familiar to the reader of the

Second Discourse.72 The negative imagination is identified and warned against in the Emile as

well.73 But unlike the Second Discourse, the Emile balances this against clear indications of how

69
Cf., Cooper, Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life, 89ff.
70
Emile, in CW 13, 196. Rousseau’s anecdote in Book I about infants possessing an innate sense of
injustice is also revealing on this point (ibid., 195).
71
Ibid., 366.
72
Consider, for example, Rousseau’s uses of the term in the first and second parts of the Second Discourse,
recalling that these are made in the context of the distinction between the original and historical perspectives.
Imagination, or rather the negative form of imagination, is not present in a fully developed sense until after the
advent of metallurgy in Part II. Cf., Second Discourse, in CW 3, 26, 32, and 51.
73
Emile, in CW 13, 211, 275.
 201

the imagination can serve as a positive force in man’s development and in his engagement with

others. Rousseau explains, “The first sentiment of which a carefully raised young man is capable

is not love; it is friendship. The first act of his nascent imagination is to teach him that he has

fellows.”74 By virtue of having had the experience of pleasure and pain, the individual can

identify like responses to these experiences in others by imagining himself in their situation.

Witnessing their pleasure, the imagination can prompt envy; it can excite in us the desire to have

what the other possesses, as well as the feeling of having affronted amour-propre “in making us

feel that this man has no need of us.”75 But witnessing the other’s pains, “we see far better… the

identity of natures with theirs and the guarantees of their attachment to us.”76 When the

imagination places us in the position of one who suffers, all at once we feel the burden of the

other’s pain alongside the pleasure of not suffering as he does. For we cannot help but recognize

that we are not subject to the pains the other feels, and so we simultaneously feel a relief while

only suffering insofar as we suffer in the other’s experience. This form of the imagination,

therefore, shows us suffering and exempts us from it, and by running up against what in us is the

measure of right, it inspires in us only the desire to relieve the suffering of the other. Envy is

bitter because it reveals our lack, but pity recognizes our relative superiority and encourages

affection for our fellows. Rousseau explains:

Thus is born pity, the first relative sentiment which touches the human heart according to the order
of nature. To become sensitive and pitying, the child must know that there are beings like him
who suffer what he has suffered, who feel the pains he has felt, and that there are others whom he
ought to conceive of as able to feel them too. … We suffer only so much as we judge it suffers. It
is not in ourselves, it is in him that we suffer. Thus, no one becomes sensitive until his
imagination is animated and begins to transport him out of himself.77

74
Ibid., 371.
75
Ibid., 373.
76
Ibid.
77
ibid., 374.
 202

The Second Discourse collapses the entire moral operation of the soul into the designation “pity”

in order to accentuate the natural goodness of man, and in order to avoid an explication of

conscience that would leave more “room for dispute.” By contrast, the Emile expands upon this

operation in order to explain the comparative activity that manifests the sentiment of pity—this

activity is the early engagement of moral sense and reason, and transporting the individual

outside of himself, it inspires in us a sense of community and a feeling of affection for those we

deem like us.

The imagination also plays another important role in the Emile separate from the one it

plays in man’s moral existence. In the context of an important discussion of happiness,

Rousseau writes:

It is thus that nature, which does everything for the best, constituted him in the beginning. It gives
him with the 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 and man is not
unhappy. As soon as his potential faculties are put in action, imagination, the most active of all, is
awakened and outstrips them. It is imagination which extends for us the measure of the possible,
whether good or bad, and which consequently excites and nourishes the desires by hope of
satisfying them.78

Rousseau seems to exploit the ambiguity created by his use of “in the beginning” in this passage,

where the phrase can be understood to mean the beginning of the individual or of the species. In

either case, though, the implication is that, while man’s fundamental desires and faculties are

natural to him, it is only in their “original state” that his desires and his ability to satisfy them are

in balance. The ambiguity between the beginning of the individual and the beginning of the

species even seems to highlight this point; for it is more obvious that the child’s easily satisfied

desires are soon, and perhaps naturally replaced with desires for happiness that are not so easy to

achieve.

78
Ibid., 211.
 203

Altogether, the reader should here recall Rousseau’s thoughts in the Second Discourse on

the actual existence of the state of nature, and retain the same misgivings about the man’s

existence in an original, balanced, or static state.79 Rousseau hints that the static state of man’s

existence is chimerical by failing to say that man in this state is happy, instead only committing

that he is “not unhappy.” In the context of the discussion of happiness, this double negative has

the effect of implying that in a static state man can be neither happy nor unhappy, but contented

as was pre-civil man in the state of nature. This distinction raises questions about whether man’s

happiness depends on a static balance or something else. Here he introduces the imagination,

giving the first indication of the role it plays in the activity of human nature.80 Rousseau

explains that the imagination is the faculty that “extends for us the measure of the possible,”

which is to say that it overcomes the limits of the possible; as Rousseau says almost immediately

after, “The real world has limits; the imaginary world is infinite.”81 In overcoming the possible,

the imagination proposes new objects of desire, and “consequently excites and nourishes the

desires by the hope of satisfying them.” And because the imagination knows no limits in regard

to what it can propose as possible, it continues to lead us on in our desires by continually setting

our goals ahead of the mark that we reach: “When one believes that one has reached it, it

transforms and reveals itself in the distance ahead of us.”82

Importantly, in this first explanation of imagination in its most basic form, Rousseau is

somewhat ambivalent about whether this activity of the imagination is good or bad, thus

suggesting that it can be either. Now, as was noted above, the imagination is positive and natural

when it is developed according to its natural use. Here Rousseau explains that its basic function

79
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 13.
80
This is actually the second use of the term, but the first explanation of its function.
81
Emile, in CW 13, 211.
82
Ibid.
 204

is to propose new objects of desire and to “excite and nourish” the desires with hope of new and

actually possible ends. The impression that Rousseau gives of negative imagination in the

Second Discourse, reiterated in the Emile, suggests that the imagination becomes negative when

it begins to propose objects that are unnatural and unnecessary, and further, when it begins to

excite amour-propre in such a way that it inspires vanity and contempt for others.83 But the

Emile also suggests, however, that to the extent that the imagination can propose new objects of

desire that are natural and necessary to our development, it remains natural and positive. For, it

is the imagination that helps to orient man to the ends of his ongoing development by

continuously proposing new objects to him. Thus we see in the text frequent instruction to keep

the developing student in a relationship with nature and things; Rousseau does not mean to

forestall the imagination, but rather to keep it focused on only those objects that advance the

individual’s development toward his natural end.84 Acting on the passions at the same time and

in concert with reason and memory, these faculties become the engine by which man moves

toward all receding objects.85

On the one hand, the imagination, along with the will, represents the distinct possibility

of man’s corruption and degeneracy to the extent that it can propose objects and ends that would

“enervate and weaken individuals first and in the long run the species itself.”86 On the other

83
Compare Second Discourse, in CW 3, 51-52, and Emile, in CW 13, 364-66.
84
Ibid., 173, 214, 216-17, 305-306. Bloom argues that one goal of Rousseau’s education is to suppress the
imagination, apparently understanding the suppression of the imagination as part of Rousseau’s method of “negative
education” (“Introduction” to Emile or On Education, 7). This is clearly an oversimplification of Rousseau’s
thought on the matter, as indicated both by his positioning of the imagination as central to human development and
by his frequent exhortation to keep the pupil oriented to necessity. It should be noted that the Emile is itself an
exercise of the imagination, and Rousseau frequently reminds the reader of this fact (by no means an exhaustive list,
consider, ibid., 177, 275ff., 302-303, 383). For another take on “negative education,” see, Geraint Parry, “Emile:
Learning to be Men, Women, and Citizens,” in The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001), 252-56.
85
It should be noted that Rousseau avoids the term “perfectibility” throughout the Emile. He explains
man’s natural ability to perfect himself primarily by reference to imagination, reason, and memory. Consider,
Emile, in CW 13, 193, 211, 243, and 275.
86
Ibid., 366.
 205

hand, the imagination is necessary to man’s development; for, how else would man desire his

own, often painful, growth and development if not for the fact that the imagination proposes

objects ahead of him that he perceives to be better than his present condition even despite the

promise of their painful acquisition? Neither the species nor the individual are meant to remain

in a static state. For, as Rousseau says, “Each age, each condition of life, has a suitable

perfection, a sort of maturity proper to it,” and insofar as each age and condition of life is linked

to the next, it follows that the ends appropriate to man in each station are not static, but are

dynamic and anticipate his development. Thus, it is in this way that “the author of things

provides not only for the needs he gives us but also for those we give ourselves; and it is in order

to place desire always at the side of need that he causes our tastes to change and be modified

with our ways of life.”87

II. Teleological Implications

As in the Second Discourse, the account of human nature in the Emile announces some of

the teleological implications that we have already discussed. At the very least, the account of

human nature raises questions about nature itself and the relation between nature and man. For

example, why must man’s imagination propose new and newer objects of desire if nature itself is

monolithic, always holding the same end for man? The account of human nature, by

acknowledging man’s freedom while explaining that his perfection must be understood as

varying appropriately to his phase of development, suggests that nature must be understood as

proposing ends to man in advance of his development, and in a way according with nature as a

broad, ordered, and providential totality. The account of human nature is not the only indication
87
Ibid., 294.
 206

of Rousseau’s teleological thinking in the Emile. Outside of the account of human nature, and

excluding the “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar,” there are other important features of

the text that also and more directly indicate Rousseau’s teleological thought.

II.1 The 3 Forms of Education—Rousseau begins his explanation of education in Book I

by couching it in terms of the deficiency of man’s ability in comparison to his needs. He writes,

“We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born

stupid, we need judgment. Everything we do not have at birth and which we need when we are

grown is given us by education.”88 Thus, at the very beginning of the text we are reminded that,

while it may appear that man’s happiness consists in the balance of his desires and his ability to

satisfy them, man naturally enters into the world in a state inadequate to the fulfillment of even

his most basic needs.89 That natural man’s first natural state is one of being insufficient to his

needs could only be alluded to in the Second Discourse due to the fact that man was being

considered “formed from all time,” or as the abstracted version of a fully formed adult.90 Here in

the Emile Rousseau indicates that the state of insufficiency is natural, and that this natural

disproportion between power and need, which is to say this natural inequality, motivates man’s

development.

Education is immediately necessary for man at birth, and corresponding to the basic

needs he identifies—strength, aid, and judgment—there are consequently three forms of

education: from nature, from men, and from things. The education that comes from nature,

Rousseau explains, is the “internal development of our faculties and our organs.”91 This

88
Ibid., 162.
89
There are several occasions where Rousseau expresses the basic foundation of happiness as a state where
the individual has freedom and ability to satisfy his desires, or where he is self-sufficient and his needs do not
outstrip his strength. Consider for example, ibid., 216. It is the position of study that this is not his considered view
of happiness (ibid., 210-11).
90
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 20ff.
91
Emile, in CW 13, 162.
 207

indicates that there are innate human faculties and a given internal nature that is natural to man

from birth. But at the same time, Rousseau also explains that the education of nature, in this

context, includes the development of these faculties, thus indicating that our given nature is

meant to be in motion, propelled by its basic insufficiency. The education from things is the

education that man receives from his experience in the world, both from his engagements with

the inanimate objects and the animate creatures that inhabit the world. Thus, nature appears to

educate man in two ways; first by providing him a given nature that informs his development,

and then through his experience within the totality of nature.

Interestingly, the education of men, or “the use that we are taught to make” of our

development, occupies a peculiar elevated but limited status in Rousseau’s delineation here. On

the one hand, Rousseau is clear about the extent of man’s control over education, while on the

other hand, he seems to imply that through the education of men the possibility of control over

man’s development is increased. He explains:

Now, of these three different educations, the one coming from nature is in no way in our
control; that coming from things is in our control only in certain respects, that coming from men is
the only one of which we are truly the masters. Even of it we are the masters only by hypothesis.
For who can hope entirely to direct the speeches and the deeds of all those surrounding a child?
Therefore, when education becomes an art, it is almost impossible that it succeed, since the
conjunction of the elements necessary to its success is in no one’s control.92

Regarding man’s given nature, there is very little that can be done to alter it, for it exists in man

from birth, or before the education of men can have impact. But, by distinguishing the education

of nature from given nature, describing it instead as the internal development of our given nature,

Rousseau seems to imply that man can play a very limited role in the education of nature.

Regarding man’s engagement with the world, all that one can do to control its teaching is to

narrow or redirect the scope of the pupil’s experience; as such, only slightly greater control can

be exerted over the education of things. Finally, regarding the education of men, we are only
92
Ibid.
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“hypothetically,” but not practically in control. He concludes, “All that one can do by dint of

care is to come more or less close to the goal,” 93 and later explains:

Humanity has its place in the proper 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.94

Still, the education of men lies within our control to a certain extent, and Rousseau implies that it

is the means by which once can influence the education of nature and the education on things.

For these reasons it occupies a privileged status among the educations insofar as it has a shaping

capacity that is within our control. But at the same time, because the education of men can only

exert a limited extent of control over the other two forms of education, to some extent it governs

the means, but it does not establish the end of man’s education. Nature establishes and means to

develop man toward his natural end, the perfection of his natural dispositions in accord with the

demands of his natural environment.

Now, based on the fact that Rousseau describes man at birth as existing in a natural state

of insufficiency, we see that the end of education is to mitigate the disproportion between man’s

ability and his needs, or to aim at the provisionally understood form of happiness described as

the balance of his desires and his ability to satisfy them. To the extent that the course of

education is successful, man can be said to flourish. But, if man’s first natural state, the state of

his given nature, is a state of insufficiency, and if the end of education is to mitigate this

insufficiency, then there is a distinction between man’s given and cultivated natures. That is,

man’s given nature is a state of lack, whereas his cultivated nature, the nature resulting from

education, is one of at least partial fulfillment, and a state no less natural than man’s first state.

Furthermore, because Rousseau is clear about the important role that man plays in shaping his

93
ibid.
94
Ibid., 210. Note that this is the beginning of the passage on happiness discussed above.
 209

development, and because he is explicit in pointing out that the goal of the education of men “is

the very same as that of nature,” it is clear that man’s cultivated nature is not merely the result of

the unmitigated development of his given nature.95 Man’s cultivated nature, the natural end of

education taken in sum, requires both the education of men and the education of nature. All of

this implies that, for Rousseau, human nature consists first of a beginning state defined by its

lack or incompleteness, and also in an end or perfection, wherein the natural lack in man’s given

nature is fulfilled by his ongoing development and results in his cultivated nature.96 Simply put,

the distinction between man’s given nature and his cultivated nature reveals that Rousseau’s

understanding of nature and human nature is teleological.

II.2 The Comparison with Plants—Rousseau continues to explain and insinuate his

teleological position in the Emile by comparing man’s development with that of plants, and

through the metaphor of cultivation.97 The metaphor begins on very first page of the text, and

recurs frequently and almost uniformly throughout the Emile, ranging in purpose from

elucidation to exhortation.98 And the metaphor goes beyond the simple references to cultivation

that appear throughout the text; when Emile is first taught to understand and respect property, it

is with the help of Robert, the gardener; and the Savoyard Vicar describes himself, before he

95
Ibid., 163.
96
It is important to note here that insofar as the end of education is to mitigate the disproportion in man’s
given nature, and not simply to achieve fulfillment, man’s cultivated nature, his natural end, is better understood as a
moving end rather than a terminus. That is, man’s natural end is his development, and as a result he remains in a
permanent state of unfulfillment relative to his present state and condition. It is for this reason that Rousseau cannot
retain the provisional understanding of happiness as the balance of his desires and his ability to satisfy them,
preferring instead the more nuanced understanding of happiness as feeling the most pleasure while experiencing the
least pain in the midst of development (ibid., 210-11). This will be taken up again below.
97
Marks recognizes the significance of the metaphor of cultivation, but does not elaborate on its meaning.
See, Perfection and Disharmony, 41.
98
There are only two occasions when Rousseau deviates from this motif. On the first occasion he refers to
“The wise worker who directs the manufacture” (371). The reference is ostensibly to God, though the context is
slightly ambiguous, and could also imply the governor. The second occasion comes only several pages later when
Rousseau describes a governor as a “skillful master” who “begins to take on the true function of the observer and
philosopher who knows the art of sounding hearts while working to form them” (379). Both of these instances fall
in the context of Rousseau’s discussion of staving off puberty, the influence of which can be manipulated “without
risk of departing from nature’s law” (486).
 210

entered into the “priest’s trade,” as “destined to by my station to cultivate the earth.”99

Rousseau’s most powerful expression of this metaphor, however, falls in the first pages of Book

I in the midst of his explanation of the ends of education, and all later occurrences of this motif

appear meant to reiterate this meaning made clear at the outset of the text. In an attempt to

clarify given nature, he writes:

Nature, we are told, is only habit. What does that mean? Are there not habits contracted only
by force which never stifle nature? Such, for example, is the habit of the plants whose vertical
direction is interfered with. The plant, set free, keeps the inclination it was forced to take. But the
sap has not as a result changed its original direction, and if the plant continues to grow, its new
growth resumes the vertical direction. The case is the same for men’s inclinations. So long as one
remains in the same condition, the inclinations which result from habit and are the least natural to
us can be kept, but as soon as the situation changes, habit ceases and the natural returns.
Education is certainly only habit. Now are there not people who forget and lose their education?
Others who keep it? Where does this difference come from? If the name nature were limited to
the habits conformable to nature, we would spare ourselves this garble.100

The comparison of men and plants here provides a great deal of insight into the purpose of

education and its relation to Rousseau’s teleology. By setting up a relation between man, the

highest species, and plants, a species of perhaps the lowest order, their similarities are

highlighted. Like man, every plant has an internal or given nature that steers its growth and

development. And like man’s given nature, the given nature of the plant leaves the plant wanting

for those things that can sustain it; the education of nature here, too, aims at the plant’s

flourishing. The growth of the plant may be interfered with, however, as for example with vines

that are trained to grow horizontally before they are allowed to continue their vertical

development. Rousseau understands that this interference can be either good or bad, depending

on the purpose and extent of its application. The distinction between viniculture and topiary here

is revealing. Whereas the vine can be said to flourish when trained, there is a way in which the

topiary is obviously stunted, and for no other purpose than artificial aesthetic “fancy.”

99
Emile, in CW 13, 233 and 425.
100
Ibid., 163.
 211

Now, Rousseau is highly critical of the practice when it is carried out to ill effect,

especially as it pertains to men. He explains that, through education, “[Man] turns everything

upside down; he disfigures everything; he loves deformity, monsters. He wants nothing as

nature made it, not even man; for him, man must be trained like a school horse; man must be

fashioned in keeping with his fancy like a tree in his garden.”101 On the one hand, he also

recognizes education as necessary: “Were he not to do this, however, everything would go even

worse,” and “man abandoned to himself in the midst of other men from birth would be the most

disfigured of all.”102 Rousseau explains this by comparing man to “a shrub that chance has

caused to be born in the middle of a path.”103 The constant traffic of passers-by impedes the

natural growth of the plant, makes its flourishing impossible, and soon causes it to perish,

enervated, deformed, and one might say miserable. In man, were it not for education, the

constant contact with others would “stifle nature in him and put noting in its place.”104 On the

other hand, Rousseau understands that when education is carried out for the purpose of

supporting natural development, it is essential to the achievement of man’s natural end. That is,

if the natural end of the plant is its flourishing, then cultivation appears necessary in order for it

fulfill its potential, or to bring about its highest end. As Ernest Hunter Wright explains:

In one sense, every tree in the forest is altogether natural—in the sense that it has simply grown of
its own will, without interference. But in another sense no one of them is fully natural—in the
sense that every one of them is more or less impeded by untoward conditions from arriving at the
full development of its own nature to which it is evermore aspiring. Now we may take a given
tree and merely offer it every aid of space and soil and sunshine to fulfill its aspiration. It will be
an ampler tree through our art, but still an altogether natural one in that it has grown only in accord
with its own principle.105

Now, recall that Rousseau pointedly asks, “Are there not habits contracted only by force which

never stifle nature?” By asking this question he means to point out that the education of men,
101
Ibid., 161.
102
Ibid.
103
Ibid.
104
Ibid.
105
Wright, The Meaning of Rousseau, 8-9.
 212

conceived at its best and when its end is “the very same as that of nature,” advances the

individual farther than he could be if abandoned to himself.106 Nature, understood as the world

of our engagements, is relentless and unforgiving; as the Second Discourse explains, it develops

the individual by playing upon his insufficiency and by constantly exposing him to new

challenges and obstacles. It is only by the education of men that the education of nature and

things can be influenced, and if man’s natural end is, like the plant’s, to mitigate his

insufficiencies, to fulfill the greatest extent of his potential, and to flourish as much as is

possible, then the education of men is both necessary and natural to their perfection. The

education that Rousseau proposes in the Emile is precisely that education that does not stifle but

supports man’s natural development.

II.3 Spying out Given Nature—The comparison with plants, then, draws our attention to

several key factors in the text, all of which reflect Rousseau’s underlying teleological position. It

reiterates the distinction between one’s given and cultivated natures, but provides a new view of

how education, when conducted in accord with nature, facilitates man’s development toward his

natural end. In this way, the comparison with plants anticipates Rousseau’s discussion of how a

tutor must proceed with respect to a pupil. In Book I Rousseau announces the means to his

study, namely that he will choose “an imaginary pupil” in order that his natural man may be seen

“wholly formed,” which is to say not only in his mature state but across his entire

development.107 In choosing Emile, Rousseau intentionally chooses an ordinary pupil: “I have

chosen Emile from among ordinary minds in order to show what education can do for man.”108

106
As was noted in the Introduction, Rousseau appears to echo Aristotle here. Cf., Aristotle, Physics, II.8,
199a15-a20; IV.8, 215a1-a25; and V.6, 231a5-a10.
107
Emile, in CW 13, 165-66.
108
Ibid., 401. Jonathan Marks observes that in selecting a pupil, though Rousseau appears to merely
choose an ordinary child, he in fact does considerably more. That is, he narrows the field of choices to those who
are healthy and from the appropriate climate. Implicit in this, according to Marks, is that “Nature produces natures
that are unsuitable candidates for natural education. The governor accepts and rejects what nature gives according
 213

Emile has the more or less common features of health and ability, and so in this way he is a

stand-in for any possible pupil. But, Emile is no less an individual than any other possible pupil

will be, and so, his ordinariness notwithstanding, he nevertheless distinct. In order for Rousseau

to develop Emile in accord with what he explains at the outset of the text, that is, in order that he

retain and support Emile’s natural disposition, and conduct his education with the very same goal

of nature, he must know both nature’s aims and its limitations in Emile.

Regarding knowledge of Emile’s given nature, Rousseau is clear that great care must be

taken to discern it as early in the child’s development as possible. For, to accomplish the

education he proposes, it is necessary to “Observe nature and follow the path it maps out for

you.”109 Toward the end of Book I, when Rousseau begins to concretize the principle of his

education with four maxims for early childhood development, he explains that “The spirit of

these rules is to accord children more true freedom and less dominion.”110 Preserving children’s

freedom is important because it is by the unimpeded exercise of their natural physical abilities

that their overarching development is encouraged. He explains later, “The first faculties which

are formed and perfected in us are the senses. They are, therefore, the first faculties that ought to

be cultivated… To exercise the sense is not only to make use of them, it is to learn to judge well

with them.”111 But according children more of their natural freedom has the added advantage of

making their given nature more available to the observer, a point which is implicit in Rousseau’s

to a rule different from that by which empirical nature generally and our given natures specifically are governed
when left to themselves” (Perfection and Disharmony, 40). Marks recognizes that Rousseau’s choice can be
explained simply by observing that his selection mirrors the way that nature handles its creatures as “the Law of
Sparta treated the Children of Citizens,” but he instead explains Rousseau’s selection as an example of an external
standard by which he judges nature. Generally speaking, Marks’ take on Rousseau’s teleological thought is
insightful, but by insisting on “true nature” as the perfection by which man must be judged, Marks risks
undermining his own argument for Rousseau’s teleology.
109
Ibid., 172.
110
Ibid., 198.
111
Ibid., 272.
 214

early maxims, especially the fourth.112 Rousseau strengthens this point throughout the text. For

example, he explains: “One must know well the particular genius of the child in order to know

what moral diet suits him. Each mind has its own form, according to which it needs to be

governed; the success of one’s care depends on governing it by this form and not by another.”113

And later he instructs, “Leave nature to act for a long time before you get involved with acting in

its place, lest you impede its operations.”114 Given nature must be known in order to determine

how best it can be cultivated.

Once given nature is known, then it can be cultivated, or said another way, once given

nature reveals the end to which it is set, then it can be supported in its striving for that end. The

content of Emile’s education is, therefore, not the mere whim of the tutor, but dictated by nature

in both a broad and a specific sense. Broadly, education must conform with the demand that

nature sets regarding the development of man’s faculties in the context of his basic insufficiency.

And specifically, as Rousseau explains, “The choice [of education] depends on the genius

peculiar to each pupil, and the study of that genius depends on the occasions one offers each to

reveal himself.”115 The process of cultivation is, at least to some extent, the process of bringing

the objects of education in front of the pupil in such a way that he is able to “make the first steps

toward the object to which his genius leads him,” and it is carried out in such a way as to

“indicate to us the route which must be opened to him in order to assist Nature.”116 Read

alongside the Second Discourse, Rousseau appears to concede that given nature, while serving as

a compass for the individual’s development, is not necessarily capable of either guiding the

112
He writes, “One must study their language and their signs with care in order that, at an age which they
do not know how to dissimulate, one can distinguish in their desires what comes immediately from nature and what
comes from opinion” (ibid., 198).
113
Ibid., 227.
114
Ibid., 242.
115
Ibid., 340.
116
Ibid., 341.
 215

individual to his fullest natural end, or of resisting the corruptive forces present in the world of

experience. Education, the cultivation of the individual’s given nature, thus makes possible, or at

least more likely, the sort of flourishing that given nature does not always yield.117 This

education is only possible to the extent that the governor can “spy out” given nature and its true

end, and then judge the individual according to a standard of goodness that is derived by his

understanding of that end or perfection.118

Importantly, given nature not only informs of ends but also limits the possibilities and the

extent of the individual’s cultivated nature. The earliest discussion of the limits on human nature

and education, however, seems to say something altogether different. In Book I, following an

abstract example meant to identify the basic state of human nature at birth, Rousseau asserts:

Hence we know, or can know, the first point from which each of us starts in order to get to the
common level of understanding. But who knows the other limit? Each advances more or less
according to his genius, his taste, his needs, his talents, his zeal, and the occasions he has to devote
himself to them. I know of no philosopher who has yet been so bold as to say: this is the limit of
what man can attain and beyond which he cannot go. We do not know what our nature permits us
to be. None of us has measured the distance which can exist between one man and another.119

Nature, as given nature at birth, sets up the starting point from which a man may develop, and

the education of things and the education of men may shape his development over time, for as

“Plants are shaped by cultivation,” so are “men by education.”120 But man’s potential to develop

can only be understood within a certain context, or within reason.

Using Rousseau’s plant metaphor, there is a way in which no one can know the limits of

the growth of a tree, the reach of its limbs, the height of its tallest shoots, the strength of its trunk.

It may be even more difficult to determine the extent to which some tree may grow when it is

117
I say “not always” because Rousseau does make reference to occasions where cultivation is not
necessary for the individual’s fullest development. Such cases are exceedingly rare, and generally speaking, are
exemplified only in the cases of natural man in the original state of nature, and the philosopher.
118
Interestingly, this appears to require an act of the imagination that may only be possible in the case of
the philosopher.
119
Ibid., 190.
120
Ibid., 162.
 216

properly cultivated. Yet, there are natural limits within which the possibilities of the tree make

sense, and outside of which the tree would no longer be what it is. Thus, for example, Rousseau

explains with regard to one’s lifespan: “Although the furthest limit of human life can be pretty

nearly determined, as well as one’s probabilities at each age of approaching that limit, nothing is

more uncertain than the duration of each man’s life in particular.”121 Lifespan, or man’s

mortality, is perhaps the most general limit nature imposes. Other limits are far more specific

and concrete. In Book III, Rousseau describes the case of “a lackey who, seeing his master paint

and draw, took it into his head to be a painter and drawer.” Kindled in the man was a passion for

art, “which he will never put down for the rest of his life.” Rousseau’s description initially gives

the impression of admiration for the man’s dedication and resolve, but the meaning of his

example in this man contrasts with the first impression and is nonetheless clear:

Without lessons and without rules he set himself to drawing everything that came to hand. He
spent three whole years glued to his scribblings, without anything other than his work able to tear
him away from them and without ever losing heart at the small progress that his mediocre gifts
permitted him to make. … Finally, encouraged by his master and guided by an artist, he reached
the point of leaving the livery and living from his brush. Up to a certain limit perseverance takes
the place of talent. He has reached that limit and will never go beyond it.122

The lackey’s story becomes tragic in the context of his misspent energy and his undiscovered

natural genius. But more importantly, Rousseau’s anecdote refers the reader back to his

explanation of given nature, namely: “Each mind has its own form, according to which it needs

to be governed; the success of one’s care depends on governing it by its form and not by

another.”123 The story of the lackey provides an example of the way in which nature sets specific

and individual limits on what one can achieve, even with the greatest efforts of cultivation. The

gardener may shape a topiary into any object of fancy, an eagle or a salamander, but never will

the tree cease to be a tree; and similarly, though Rousseau might wish it, never will Emile be an

121
Ibid., 209.
122
Ibid., 348.
123
Ibid., 227.
 217

eagle or a salamander himself.124 The limits that nature sets against man’s nature are hard limits

beyond which he may not be pressed.

Thus, on the one hand, one might say that the world is full of possibilities for man, but on

the other hand, it is closed off to him in obvious and important respects. We can make some

observations on this basis. First, the limits that nature sets are as important as its indications of

man’s end. Nature’s limits serve as a bulwark against the possible missteps of an educator,

reminding him not only of what is possible but of what is natural and right. Cultivation by any

name is an art, and while education is an art that can leave man natural and at its best develop his

nature to the fullest extent possible, that art still requires a prophylactic against its becoming an

art that denatures man altogether.125 Second, nature informs education by indicating man’s

natural end, and also by setting both general and specific limits for man’s development. To the

extent that education presses closer and closer to those limits, all the more does nature resist the

effort. But to the extent that education conforms to nature’s rule, man’s progress toward his end

can be significantly augmented. The best education must, then, be “founded on the measure of

man’s faculties at his different ages and on the choice of occupations which suits these

faculties.”126 It is crucial that education not only conform to nature, but also that it assist and

support nature’s efforts to direct man toward his end.

Third, the explanation of nature’s limiting function shows that Rousseau distinguishes

nature and freedom, even if freedom is an important component in man’s given nature. Given

nature indicates man’s natural end, but Rousseau is clear both in the Emile and in the Second

Discourse that given nature is not always sufficient to the achievement of man’s highest end.

Certainly, nature provides man important education, both in the form of his natural faculties and

124
Ibid., 161 and 271.
125
See Wright, The Meaning of Rousseau, 9-10.
126
Ibid., 341.
 218

his peculiar genius, and also in the form of his experience in the world. Yet, man’s fullest

development is only facilitated by the third educational component, which subsequently makes

possible the confluence of the three forms. The education of man is free, but constrained by

nature, and at its best, it is oriented to man’s natural end. At the same time, freedom is, to be

sure, an important component of human nature, as was noted above, and Rousseau is very clear

that one aspect of Emile’s fulfilled potential is the cultivation of his freedom. But it is not

simply Emile’s freedom that constitutes his highest end. Thus we see that nature, in the form of

given nature and especially construed as man’s peculiar genius, both facilitates man’s freedom in

some ways while imposing limits upon and even impeding it in others.127 No doubt, freedom

occupies an important place in the schema of man’s development, but by distinguishing nature

and freedom as he does in the Emile, Rousseau shows that his understanding of nature is not

based on freedom as an end in itself, for to do so could still be consistent with a non-teleological

position as it would not prescribe an end per se. Instead, however, Rousseau bases his

understanding of nature on a standard of goodness that is derived from a more complex notion of

ends or perfections.128

127
Marks makes a similar observation. See, Perfection and Disharmony, 50.
128
As the plant metaphor makes clear, Rousseau distinguishes in man a fundamental nature whereby he is
oriented toward the objects appropriate to his existence. He subsequently reiterates this in order to distinguish
nature more clearly: “As soon as we have, so to speak, consciousness of our sensations, we are disposed to seek or
to avoid the objects which produce them, at first according to whether they are pleasant or unpleasant to us, then
according to the conformity 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 happiness or of perfection given us by reason” (Emile, in CW 13,
163). As he explains education in this context, it appears that he further distinguishes man’s given nature and his
perfected nature, or that which can be brought out of his given nature by natural education. The education that aims
at the perfect or natural man takes nature, broadly speaking, as the standard by which the whole endeavor of
education should be guided. That is, nature posits the end toward which education can strive, and simultaneously
sets limits on what can be achieved. Natural man, in the context of the Emile, is not original man, but man
preserved from birth such that his given nature can become his fully cultivated nature. Cf., Marks, Perfection and
Disharmony, 39ff.
Now there are clear Baconian and Cartesian elements in Rousseau’s thought here insofar as there is a clear
sense in which original nature is transcended. But there is also a critical difference between the former and the later.
For Rousseau, nature is never overcome, it never ceases to be the guide for healthy or appropriate development.
Rousseau’s description of given nature certainly pushes back against the classical notion of immanent forms by
making nature malleable and by making the end or perfection of human nature something of a moving end. At the
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II.4 Harmony and Happiness as Confirmations—If we consider what the Emile teaches

regarding Rousseau’s complex notion of ends and perfections, we find yet more confirmations of

Rousseau’s teleological thinking. In the previous chapter, we explained that in the Second

Discourse Rousseau uses the original standpoint to teach that a harmony between nature and man

is good, and this harmony represents abstractly the possibility of man’s happiness. Rousseau

elaborates on his basic or provisional explanation by reference to the historical standpoint in

order to show that the harmony he posits as an end actually exists in a state of flux in the real

world. The harmony depicted in the historical conception is, therefore, a moving harmony of the

natural environment and all of its elements. It is a harmony of elements that are interrelated, and

importantly, between nature broadly conceived and man, a spiritual entity, who is both in

harmony with nature in the sense that he is perfectly set up to live in response to his changing

world, and at the same time, striving for some future harmony with a yet undisclosed world.129

The Emile suggests the same notion of ends and perfections, and it expresses this notion

of ends and perfections both in abstract and concrete explanations. Abstractly, we see that

Rousseau reaffirms his notion of perfection as a moving harmony through his explanation of the

same time, Rousseau makes a clear attempt to preserve a teleological framework by maintaining nature as a positive
standard for man’s development, by positing nature as limiting force, and by explaining that nature itself is what
establishes the sought for end, namely the perfection of a certain set of dispositions. As was noted in the
Introduction, Rousseau seems particularly influenced by Aristotle here: “As a general proposition, the arts either, on
the basis of Nature, carry things further than Nature can, or they imitate Nature. If then, artificial processes are
purposeful, so are natural processes too; for the relation of antecedent to consequent is identical in art and in Nature”
(II.8, 199a15-a20). And Aristotle later distinguishes between natural and violent motions (IV.8, 215a1-a25 and V.6,
231a5-a10), or those appropriate and inappropriate to the perfection of an object by technê. By making both forms
and ends mutable, however, Rousseau suggests a far more complicated equation for perfection than does Aristotle.
This interpretation opposes those by Strauss, Cassirer, and Strong. In Natural Right and History, Strauss
famously argued that Rousseau had emptied out the concept of nature for the sake of freedom, but that the freedom
he reasserted was “not a freedom for something” (Natural Right and History, 294). For Strauss, this is a dangerous
prospect for human development, for the emptying out of nature leaves man with no objective standard by which he
can judge what is good, and thus removes the barriers that prevent man from becoming subhuman. Cassirer and
Strong also recognize the emptying out of nature, but they understand this as hopeful in a Kantian sense. Cassirer
explains, “man must become his own savior and, in the ethical sense, his own creator” (The Question of Rousseau,
76). Cassirer and Strong, then, see Rousseau’s emptying out of nature as the positioning of man as an end in himself
by virtue of his freedom. In this sense, by dispatching the classical sense of nature, man is freed to design himself
and his future as he sees fit, rationally, and ethically.
129
See Chapter Two, “Nature and Human Nature in the Second Discourse,” 119, 120ff, 148, 151.
 220

discrepancy between given and cultivated nature and the education that best facilitates man’s

development. He explains at the very outset of Book I that given nature is a predominant force

in man’s development. On the one hand, nature indicates the general ends to which the

individual is ordered by manifesting his insufficiency in the face of the world, and by

announcing the demand to mitigate the disproportion between his ability and his needs. In this

sense nature aims at the provisionally understood form of happiness described as the balance of

the individual’s desires and his ability to satisfy them. On the other hand, nature sets important

limits on man’s development, all of which are meant to co-indicate his natural ends and at least

forestall his corruption. Thus, Rousseau places a great deal of emphasis on man’s peculiar

genius throughout the text and frequently explains that “Each mind has its own form, according

to which it needs to be governed.”130 But at the same time, we are taught that nature is not

always sufficient to the task of developing man to his fullest potential, and that for man to reach

his fullest potential the natural education of men is required.

Further, we learn that man does not exist in a static state. For, “man in general is not

made to remain always in childhood. He leaves it at the time prescribed by nature; and this

moment of crisis, although rather short, has far-reaching influences.”131 Rousseau is, in fact,

especially clear about the dynamic condition of man’s existence, explaining, “Each age, each

condition of life, has its suitable perfection, a sort of maturity proper to it,” and often reiterates

that “needs change according to the situation of men.”132 Now because the best education of

men aims at the very same ends that are set by nature, Rousseau depends on spying out given

nature; for while he may know the abstract ends, he must still discern the peculiar forms

appropriate to the individual. He explains his method of education by showing how the order of

130
Emile, in CW 13, 227.
131
Ibid., 361.
132
Ibid., 301 and 355.
 221

his guidance changes in ways appropriate to his student’s condition. But his education is always

in respect of this individual’s natural ends:

But in thus making all the objects it is important for him to know pass before him, we put him in a
position to develop his taste and his talent, to make the first steps toward the object to which his
genius leads him, and to indicate to us the route which must be opened to him in order to assist
Nature.133

Consequently, Rousseau’s method of education, expressed earlier as a demand to “Observe

nature and follow the path it maps out for you,” is essentially “founded on the measure of man’s

faculties at his different ages.”134 It requires an abstract understanding of the good end proposed

by nature from the very first instant of life, as well as a recognition of and respect for the relative

ends appropriate to man in each phase and condition of his life. In sum, we may say that

Rousseau’s education conforms to the notion that man’s end or perfection is not static, but

relative to his age, environment, and many other specific conditions of his natural existence, or

that it is built on the recognition of perfection as a moving harmony of interrelated elements.

We see the same notion of ends and perfections born out in Rousseau’s account of the

relationship between the imagination and happiness. As was noted above, the account of the

imagination in the Emile surpasses the one found in the Second Discourse by providing a clearer

explanation of how it can serve a natural and positive purpose. Recall that Rousseau describes

the imagination as the faculty that “extends for us the measure of the possible.” It proposes new

objects of desire, and “consequently excites and nourishes the desires by the hope of satisfying

them.” This activity is unbounded and it continues to lead us on in our desires by continually

setting new and newer goals: “When one believes that one has reached it, it transforms and

reveals itself in the distance ahead of us.”135 Now, because each age and condition of life is

linked to the next, the ends appropriate to man in each station of his life are dynamic and
133
Ibid., 341.
134
Ibid., 172 and 341.
135
Ibid., 211.
 222

anticipate his development, thus drawing him into that development. The imagination is,

therefore, necessary to man’s development; it orients man to the ends of his ongoing

development by continuously proposing new objects to him, and serves as the engine by which

he moves toward his natural end.

This explanation of the imagination’s natural and positive function has important

implications for understanding happiness. In the opening pages of Book I, and on the basis on

man’s natural insufficiency, Rousseau implies happiness is the balance of man’s desires and his

ability to satisfy them, and it is through education in its three forms that this balance is achieved.

Recall that he explains that “We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally

unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgment. Everything we do not have at

birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education.”136 By not specifying a

more complicated notion of ends, Rousseau thus allows the reader to assume that he implicitly

communicates the happiness attained through education in the language of achievement, which is

to say fulfillment. This perspective on happiness is echoed in several discussions of man’s

freedom and the proportion of his needs and abilities.137 But the description of the imagination

suggests that happiness understood as a fulfillment is not possible for man. That is, by naturally

proposing to man new and newer objects, the imagination continually shifts the possibility of

fulfilling man’s desires into the future. In doing so, it guarantees his drive toward some

imagined end by perpetuating his, at least self-perceived, insufficiency or lack. If happiness is

understood as fulfillment, then happiness is preeminently elusive.

As was noted above, though, the first indications of imagination’s proper natural and

positive activity fall in a discussion of happiness wherein Rousseau subtly corrects the implicit

136
Ibid., 162.
137
See for example, ibid., 216.
 223

understanding of happiness as fulfillment, preferring instead the more nuanced understanding of

happiness more conducive to his understanding of perfection as a moving harmony. He begins

that discussion of happiness by flatly asserting, “We do not know what absolute happiness or

unhappiness is.” He continues:

Everything is mixed in this life; in it one tastes no pure sentiment; in it one does not stay two
moments in the same state. The affections of our souls, as well as the states of our bodies, are in
continual flux. The good and the bad are common to us all, but in different measures. The
happiest is he who suffers the least pain; the unhappiest is he who feels the least pleasure.138

Rousseau’s understanding of the dynamic condition of human existence is readily apparent here;

in fact, this is one of his clearest expressions of the fact that human life is a condition of

perpetual change. If such is the case, that is, if man’s condition is one of “continual flux,” then

bound by change, he is precluded from experiencing any enduring fulfillment. But, in the midst

of this statement Rousseau appears to propose an instructive dichotomy between the happiest and

unhappiest men; the former suffers the least pain, while the latter feels the least pressure. On

closer inspection, however, this dichotomy between the happiest and unhappiest men exposes a

false dichotomy in the nature of happiness, for suffering the least pain is not the opposite of

feeling the least pleasure. Regarding unhappiness, he elaborates:

Every feeling of pain is inseparable from the desire to be delivered from it; every idea of pleasure
is inseparable from the desire to enjoy it; every desire supposes privation, and all sensed privations
are painful. Our unhappiness consists, therefore, 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.139

Such is clearly not the case for man who, motivated by his perpetually perceived lack, is in a

position to always sense his privations. Rousseau contrasts his description of unhappiness with

his description happiness, explaining:

[Happiness] 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 all our being. Neither is it in
extending our faculties, for if, proportionate to them, our desires were more extended, we would as

138
Ibid., 210.
139
Ibid., 211.
 224

a result only become unhappier. But it is in diminishing the excess of our 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.140

The disproportion between our desires and the power of our faculties is necessary for the

activation of our whole being, and it is from the experience of our whole being that we derive the

feeling of happiness. Implicit in this, though, is that it is in their activity that we derive pleasure,

which is different than the achievement of their object. Certainly, an excess of desires over our

faculties for satisfying them creates a difficult imbalance in man that can foster his discontent.

But importantly, while such an excess is problematic, man need not equalize his desires and the

power of his faculties, but rather the power of his faculties and his will. Aligning man’s will

with his faculties allows him to derive pleasure from the activity he freely chooses, which is to

say that it allows him to be happy in the midst of, and even as the result of his natural state of

privation.

When Rousseau explains that the “happiest is he who suffers the least pain” and “the

unhappiest is he who feels the least pleasure,” he means for the reader to extrapolate that the

happiest man, in the midst of a perpetual state of lack, feels the most pleasure while experiencing

the least pain, and that the unhappiest man, in this same context, derives no pleasure while only

feeling the extent of his privation. This form of happiness, that is, the happiness from activity as

opposed to happiness from fulfillment, is the happiness that accords with perfection as a moving

harmony; it is the happiness that comes from the feeling of having all one’s powers active while

remaining in harmony with oneself and with the shifting demands of the world.141

140
Ibid.
141
Compare with the happiness that Rousseau describes in the Second, Third, and Fifth Walks of the
Rêveries (in CW 8). Marks remarks, “The model for human happiness is an arrangement of disharmonious tastes,
goods, and aims in such a way that the individual is not torn apart, not the natural grant or artificial imposition of
unity” (Perfection and Disharmony, 85). He is correct to deny that Rousseau intended an artificial unity as the
model of happiness, but he also denies that Rousseau aims at an internal harmony of elements. There is a way in
which man consists of a natural disharmony, and a way in which he is always in a state of disunion with the world;
 225

III. The “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar”

The “Profession of Faith” itself is a passage of tremendous importance for Rousseau

interpretations. In comparison to the entirety of Rousseau’s oeuvre, the “Profession of Faith”

comes closest to presenting a doctrinal statement of a metaphysical system, with only Julie’s

conversations on her deathbed presenting something remotely comparable. And not only does

the “Profession of Faith” resemble a doctrinal statement, rhetorically speaking, it is beautiful,

impassioned, and deliberate. The vicar presents his views simply and elegantly, they carry a

personal tenor both for the speaker and the listener, and his answers to difficult philosophical

questions are made to appear unproblematic and as if he spoke “directly by Nature’s voice.”142

Moreover, there are several occasions outside of the Emile where Rousseau appears to confirm

the positions in the “Profession of Faith.” In the Confessions, for example, when Rousseau

the discrepancy between given and cultivated nature indicates this. At the same time, Marks too narrowly
understands the function of the elements of human nature and their relation to nature broadly. As a result, he fails to
see that natural and positive disharmony can contribute man’s overall harmony with the world. He correctly
identifies the presence of Rousseau’s teleological thinking, but he seems to understand Rousseau’s conception of
ends and perfections as teleological in the limited sense of a terminus toward which all things aspire. Without
understanding the way in which Rousseau reconstrues nature, ends, and perfections as a moving harmony, though, it
is not possible to tie together nature and human nature in a meaningful way. Simply put, man’s natural disharmony
and his naturally disharmonious relationship with the world are the driving factors behind his positive development.
Man is not meant to be or to remain static, but to progress. He is thus always slightly out of step with the demands
of the world, and it is right that he be so; nature prescribes him activity, both as an individual who is meant to
develop from infancy to maturity, and as a species that contends with corruptive factors as it attempts to provide the
most good for the most people.
Marks does point out that many of Rousseau’s characters exemplify the appropriate arrangement of their
capacities in such a way that they achieve some kind of harmony, if not happiness per se. Much of this is, in fact,
born out in Emile himself as the test case of Rousseau’s education. Emile develops in ways appropriate to his age
and condition, he presents himself consistently and always in ways that are true to his nature, he is not influenced by
prejudices, and he remains constantly in conformity with necessity, which is to say the teaching that nature affords
him (Cf., Emile, in CW 13, 173, 214, 216-17, 305-306). And importantly, none of the earlier phases of his education
are effaced by the later phases. The result is that Emile is happy, or at least content, in all the conditions of his life
and even when life is the most challenging, the case that Rousseau explicitly presents in the sequel to this text, Emile
and Sophie. It is important to remember that Emile, like all men, is a being full of natural tensions, and who exists
in a tumultuous world to be sure. But these tensions, internal or between man and the world are not always
negative, and when they are natural they conform to the natural ends set for man as the dynamic being that he is. As
Allan Bloom explains, the “Emile is an experiment in restoring the harmony to that world by reordering the
emergence of man’s acquisitions in such a way as to avoid the imbalances created by them while allowing the full
actualization of of man’s potential” (“Introduction,” in Emile or On Education, 3).
142
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 14.
 226

explains that his important principles are expressed across his works, he draws special attention

the importance of the “Profession of Faith” in the Emile.143 And years later in the Rêveries he

writes, “The result of my painful seeking was approximately that which I have since set down in

the ‘Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar.’”144

It is not surprising that many commentators take the vicar for Rousseau’s mouthpiece and

the “Profession of Faith” for a statement of Rousseau’s own philosophic views, especially once

Rousseau’s references to this portion of the text are taken into consideration.145 Yet, there are

clear and important objections to any interpretation that assumes an identity between the

“Profession of Faith” and Rousseau’s own positions. First of all, the dramatic factors, for

example that the account is given by a character to a young philosopher, suggest Rousseau meant

to subtly distance his own views from those expressed in the “Profession of Faith.” More

importantly, there are ways in which the views expressed in the “Profession of Faith” are

incongruent with the views Rousseau expresses in the Emile and his other works. At the very

least, there is good reason to question the relation between the view expressed in the “Profession

of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” and the views that Rousseau expresses, sometimes openly and

sometimes surreptitiously, in his own name.146

143
Confessions, in CW 5, 341-42.
144
Rêveries, III, in CW 8, 22-23.
145
There are many interpretations that equate the views expressed in the “Profession of Faith” with
Rousseau’s own philosophic and metaphysical views. See for example, R. Grimsley, Rousseau and the Religious
Quest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973); P.M. Masson, La Profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard (Fribourg:
University of Freibourg Press, 1914); T. O’Hagan, Rousseau (London: Routledge, 2003); K.F. Roche, Rousseau,
Stoic and Romantic (London: Methuen, 1974); Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Wright, The
Meaning of Rousseau.
146
For those who question whether the “Profession of Faith” can be identified with Rousseau’s own views,
see, Bloom, “Introduction,” in Emile or On Education; Butterworth, “Interpretive Essay,” in The Reveries of the
Solitary Walker (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992); Joseph Cropsey, “The Human Vision of
Rousseau,” in Political Philosophy and the Issues of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977); Peter
Emberley, “Rousseau versus the Savoyard Vicar”; V. Gourevitch, “Rousseau on Providence,” in Review of
Metaphysics 53, no. 3 (March 2000); Clifford Orwin, “Humanity and Justice: The Problem of Compassion in the
Thought of Rousseau,” PhD Dissertation, Harvard, 1976. Roger Masters is also an important commentator on this
issue, though he is not easily fit into these two categories. See, Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau.
 227

Until now we have excluded the “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar,” focusing

instead on how the text outside of the vicar’s profession evinces Rousseau’s teleological thought.

This strategy was not meant to deemphasize the importance of the “Profession of Faith,” but

rather to examine what the profession communicates after having established the obvious

evidence of Rousseau’s teleological thought surrounding it. The “Profession of Faith of the

Savoyard Vicar” does, in fact, communicate a metaphysical position, and in so doing, it registers

a set of teleological assumptions that are relevant to the present study. But while we concede

that there is good reason to think that the vicar’s profession can say a great deal about

Rousseau’s own views, we also recognize that the ambiguity of the context wherein these views

are communicated, and the apparent incongruity between these views and Rousseau’s other

positions, raise questions about how the vicar’s profession should be understood in relation to

Rousseau’s philosophy in general.

This section will argue that the views expressed in the “Profession of Faith” are not

identical with, but are rather an approximation of Rousseau’s own views. That is, while there are

discrepancies between the mechanics of the vicar’s arguments and Rousseau’s, considered in

light of Rousseau’s moral mandate, we can establish some agreement between their fundamental

positions. To prove this, we will first consider the context wherein the profession is given and

grounds for doubting the identification of the profession with Rousseau’s own views. Then we

will consider the vicar’s positions and the grounds on which they rest in comparison to

Rousseau’s own views expressed elsewhere. Finally, we will argue that the places where the

“Profession of Faith” coincides with Rousseau’s own views reflects a version of the underlying

teleological assumptions already discussed.

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III.1 The Context of the “Profession of Faith”—Turning to the context wherein the

“Profession of Faith” is given, we find that there are several that we may consider when

beginning to evaluate the status and meaning of the vicar’s teaching. We will consider three of

them here. First of all, the “Profession of Faith” must be considered in the context of Rousseau’s

oeuvre. By this we do not yet mean to say in comparison to Rousseau’s philosophic views

expressed in his other works, but rather that all the elements presented in his oeuvre are subject

to the same moral and philosophical rules. In the Letter to Beaumont and the Rêveries Rousseau

establishes that there is a necessary relationship between truth and sentiment and reason.147 In

the Letter to Beaumont this grounds his apologetic claim that there exists a similar relation

between moral character and action, which subsequently serves as his defense against the

archbishop’s personal accusations. The Third and Fourth Walks of the Rêveries work to

substantiate the claims made in the Letter to Beaumont. In order to explain how his activity as a

philosopher is demanded of him as the result of his purchase on truth, the Third Walk establishes

that Rousseau’s purchase on truth was not achieved, but was naturally established, cultivated,

and refined over his entire life—much as the Emile teaches that education brings out what is best

in nature. The Fourth Walk then shows that there is an inescapable congruity to the truth in all

its forms, but that in order to be just, the philosopher is forced to rely on fable, if not also on

fiction. At the same time that the philosopher’s purchase on truth manifests a call to public

service, it also makes clear that truth must be communicated in a peculiar way. Altogether, this

means that the philosopher’s accounts abstract from the truth he knows in such a way that a truth

fit for others can be communicated; they contain a basic falsehood by necessity, but one that

leaves their congruence intact.

147
Notably, these texts explaining and justifying the moral mandate that Rousseau understands as the
necessary consequence of the connection between truth and sentiment and reason are same texts that specifically
reference the “Profession of Faith” itself.
 229

The “Profession of Faith” exists in Rousseau’s oeuvre in this context; by presenting it in

his name, even despite the fact that it is offered in the mouth of another character, Rousseau

makes the vicar’s speech subject to the moral mandate he expresses elsewhere in his oeuvre.

The “Profession of Faith” must, then, be understood as an abstraction of the truth, which may

contain certain falsehoods, but which remains congruent with the unadulterated moral and

philosophic truth Rousseau himself knows. As we examine the text of the “Profession of Faith”

itself, we must determine what in the vicar’s speech is truth congruent with the truth Rousseau

knows, and what can be understood as Rousseau’s necessary falsehood, fable, or fiction.

Now if we consider the “Profession of Faith” in the context of the specific references

Rousseau makes to it, especially in the Confessions and the Letter to Beaumont, it is undoubtedly

clear that he understands the profession as an important component of his corpus. And

significantly, much of what is argued in the “Profession of Faith” is, as Peter Emberley points

out, “indeed compatible with seminal ideas Rousseau expressed explicitly in such works as the

First Discourse, the Letter to D’Alembert, the Moral Letters, the Letter to Voltaire, and the

epistle dedicatories to other major works.”148 But, it is important to remember that in his most

explicit identifications with the “Profession of Faith,” Rousseau is careful to say that the views

expressed there are only an approximation of his own views.149 Whatever similarities may exist

between the vicar’s arguments and Rousseau’s, the passage in the Third Walk of the Rêveries,

the final and most authoritative statement of Rousseau’s views on the “Profession of Faith,”

confirms that the similarities are limited. Inquiring into the status of the “Profession of Faith,”

then, this must remain the next authoritative context or reference point by which it is judged.

This has the effect of breaking down the polarizing tendency to interpret the “Profession of

148
Emberley, “Rousseau versus the Savoyard Vicar,” 300.
149
Rêveries, III, in CW 8, 22-23.
 230

Faith” as either identical to or entirely dissimilar from Rousseau’s considered positions, at the

same time reminding us to seek both the similarities and the differences between the vicar’s

positions and Rousseau’s. By way of a general and provisional statement, we may say that the

“Profession of Faith” is and is not Rousseau’s. The task at hand is to see specifically how it is so

in each sense.

Looking at the context in which the “Profession of Faith” is presented within the Emile

itself, we see several features of the that text set it apart from the main text of the Emile, and

which serve to heighten the attentive reader’s wariness of the “Profession of Faith.” First of all,

we must consider the context of the placement of the “Profession of Faith” in the text of the

Emile. The profession is immediately preceded by an important discussion of the difficulty of

coming to understand the highest and most worthy objects of knowledge.150 Rousseau explains

that man is severely limited by his faculties in his ability to make the ascent to higher knowledge,

for to gain access to this knowledge he must either break free of the constraints of his senses, or

“make a gradual and slow climb from object to object, or, finally, clear the gap rapidly and

almost at a leap, by a giant step upward.”151 And even if this were possible, it is not clear that

Rousseau thinks that man can access any real or verifiable knowledge of God. The trap that

most men fall into in the process, and which Rousseau blames on the approach advocated by

Locke, is that they activate the imagination as a means of making the ascent. Using the example

of savage men he explains:

[G]eneralizing their ideas more and more, they were in a condition to ascend to a first cause, to
bring together the total system of beings under a single idea, and to give a sense to the word
substance, which is at bottom the greatest of abstractions. … And once the imagination has seen

150
Peter Emberley gives an account of the text of the Emile preceding the “Profession of Faith” in which he
attributes a great deal of significance to the discussion of imagination and the critique of Locke. See, “Rousseau
versus the Savoyard Vicar,” 305-308.
151
Emile, in CW 13, 412.
 231

God, it is very rare that the understanding conceives him. This is precisely the error to which
Locke’s order leads.152

According to Rousseau, from this perhaps faulty conception of substance, man is forced to admit

of many substances in order not to frame incompatible qualities in a single one. And from this,

through a series of deductions, man arrives at a basic form of metaphysical dualism. Rousseau

does not directly oppose these deductions, though he does use more tentative language and

arguments in earlier drafts of the Emile. He does, however, imply that there is a significant gap

between what man believes to know and what is the truth of the matter: “Now consider what a

distance still remains between the notion of two substances and that of the divine nature, between

the incomprehensible idea of the action of our soul on our body and the idea of the action of God

on all beings!”153 His position here on the value of imaginative metaphysical speculation, on the

knowabiltiy of God and his system, and on the psychological character of religious thought,

would seem to cast some aspersions on the “Profession of Faith.”

Second, it is important to consider why Rousseau places the “Profession of Faith” in the

mouth of the Savoyard Vicar. We have already noted that, by offering the profession as part of

the Emile, there is a sense in which the “Profession of Faith” is given in Rousseau’s name. But

we cannot escape the fact that he does not give it directly in his own voice. Even if Rousseau

claims only to have quoted or repeated the account given by the vicar, the vicar’s speech is still

separated from the rest of Rousseau’s writings by the fact that it is an account given by a

character. It is interesting to note here the similarities between the Vicar’s profession and

Julie’s, which is even more heavily veiled.154 That is, Julie’s profession comes in a series of

conversations carried out over the last few days of her life, and is the profession of a fictional

152
Ibid., 413-14.
153
Ibid., 414. Compare with the Favre Manuscript, ibid., 138-39.
154
Cf., Julie, in CW 6, Part VI, letter XI.
 232

character, the secondhand account of which is given by another fictional character to a third.

The circumstance of Julie’s profession is very similar to the circumstance of Plato’s Phaedo, but

centered on a virtuous matriarch.155 Both professions advance metaphysical perspectives, and

Rousseau was tentative about metaphysics: “Philosophy, having on these matters neither basis

nor limit, lacking primitive ideas and elementary principles, is only a sea of incertitude and

doubt, from which the metaphysician never extricates himself.”156 Rousseau himself reports

“insuperable obstacles” and “insoluble objections” in relation to the positions taken up in the

professions. By contrast, it is only when he speaks in his own name that he is willing to assert

that his arguments constitute real proofs of his positions. As Roger Masters contends, then, “the

literary device used” in the context of the professions “underlines the ‘insuperable obstacles’ and

‘insoluble objections’ to any metaphysical system.”157 We must observe, then, that there is a

distinction between the accounts that Rousseau gives in his own name and the status of the

“Profession of Faith,” given in the mouth of another character. This distinction appears precisely

to insulate Rousseau from certain arguments that he might not be willing to directly present.

Third, and similarly, it is important to consider the character of the vicar and his listener

and the complex relation this exchange has with the overarching narrative of the Emile. To

begin with, the vicar shares few of the characteristics that Emile’s governor does. He himself

appears to have been once destined to live an ordinary life, though the reference to cultivation in

his life story may hint at a greater purpose.158 By being thrust into the life of the clergy he

assumes a moral status that he cannot maintain. He is tempted by physical desires, and natural as

they may be, the result of his indiscretions is ultimately a disunity of his soul that leaves him lost
155
The Phaedo offers a secondhand account of Socrates’ dying accounts, given by another character to a
third. Due to the nature of dialogue, Plato triply veils his meaning in the Phaedo by this means; Rousseau appears to
do this much or more in Julie.
156
Letter to Vernes, February 18, 1758. Cited in Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, 56.
157
Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, 56.
158
Emile, in CW 13, 425.
 233

and struggling with his worldly life. The development of the vicar’s metaphysical and moral

outlook was meant to restore a sense of personal unity and contentedness with his place on earth,

which is to say that it was motivated by a desperate sense of discontent. The vicar’s speech is

delivered to the young Rousseau, “reduced to utter destitution” and wavering between vice and

indigence.159 Rousseau describes his state then as one where “evil was almost inevitable but was

not absolutely consummated.”160

If we bracket for the moment the fact that the young Rousseau is a young philosopher,

then we see that the vicar’s speech is meant to reorient a young and corrupt vagrant to a life of

noble pursuit, or at least away from the “almost inevitable” brink of evil. Emile, by contrast, is

described as healthy, strong, deliberate, and pure of heart. Throughout the text Rousseau

reinforces Emile’s self-sufficiency and fortitude, and notes frequently that his education is

grounded in necessity and utility. Now as we have already noted, the object of Rousseau’s

education of Emile is to maintain him as natural while simultaneously preparing him for life in

the contemporary world, which is to say for civic life. And although Rousseau suggests that the

“Profession of Faith” can serve as “an example of the way one can reason with one’s pupil in

order not to diverge from the method I have tried to establish,” it is not immediately clear what

utility there is for Emile in the “Profession of Faith.”161 Emberley has suggested that the

“Profession of Faith” was meant as a civic teaching for a general audience, and is subterfuge for

Rousseau’s own more controversial views.162 Emberley’s interpretation, of course, appears to

159
Ibid., 419-20.
160
Ibid., 421.
161
Ibid., 481.
162
Emberley, “Rousseau versus the Savoyard Vicar,” 301, 324-25. Emberley bases the claim that
Rousseau meant for the “Profession of Faith” to be merely instructive for corrupt Parisians on a narrow read of the
Fourth Walk of the Rêveries and a passage from the Confessions, Book XI. He shares with Strauss not simply the
belief that Rousseau writes for different audiences, but that his writings have markedly different meanings in each
context (Cf., Emberley, 299; and Strauss, Natural Right and History, 260-61, Persecution and the Art of Writing, 33
and 35, and “On the Intention of Rousseau”). We can concede this point to a certain extent. It is well documented,
 234

deny or at least downplay much of what Rousseau says about the “Profession of Faith” (for

example when he celebrates it as a close approximation to his own views), preferring instead a

minor statement on its utility. Masters has more convincingly argued that the “Profession of

Faith” serves the same purpose as the chapter on “Civil Religion” in the Social Contract.163 But

even if one accepts that a sense of natural religion is necessary for the natural man to be a good

citizen, it is still not clear that the form taken by the vicar is appropriate for Emile.164 Reading

the “Profession of Faith” it is important to consider the purpose it serves in the schema of

Rousseau’s thought, both on the micro and macro levels.

III.2 The Vicar vs. Rousseau—From these contexts and as we examine the “Profession of

Faith” we can begin to discern in it what is and what is not congruent with Rousseau’s own

for example, that Rousseau believed it salutary to discourage the general public from philosophic and scientific
pursuits, believing that these are better left to the natural preceptors of mankind. And we have said along with
Jonathan Marks, that Rousseau saw some salutary need to hide or obscure his teleological positions. But as we have
noted, Rousseau expressly forbids dissembling in such a way that whatever he says to any one audience must remain
congruent with the truth he knows from the philosophic perspective. Emberley’s assertion places Rousseau in
contradiction with his moral mandate.
163
Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, 56-57.
164
This may help to account for the fact that the “Profession of Faith” is only presented as an example.
Emile certainly does need some basis in natural religion in order to gain entry into the particular religion of citizens,
but it does not appear that he gets this instruction from the “Profession of Faith,” or even from a similar account.
Rather, it appears that the education surrounding his sexual development stands in for an explicit training in natural
religion. As Allan Bloom observes, Emile is never actually provided with the teaching the Savoyard Vicar proposes
to the young and corrupt Rousseau. Furthermore, Rousseau presents Emile with an explanation of his sexual
maturity with the very same character that the vicar presents Rousseau with the “Profession of Faith”
(“Introduction,” in Emile or On Education, 20). We might add to this that in Rousseau’s presentation to Emile the
place occupied in the vicar’s profession by God is held by Emile’s yet to be discovered beloved, who Rousseau
names Sophie! He writes, “Let us call your future beloved Sophie. The name Sophie augurs well. If the girl whom
you choose does not bear it, she will at least be worthy of bearing it” (Emile, in CW 13, 499).
At any rate, it far from clear that such a teaching in such a form would have the sort of effect on Emile that
Rousseau would have desired. Thus we may disagree with Lee MacLean and like commentators who argue that the
“Profession of Faith” is meant for Emile on the grounds that his “moral education would be incomplete without
contemplation of higher things” (Maclean, The Free Animal, 99). The “Profession of Faith” can only be a mere
example of the sort of teaching on natural religion that does not conflict with the method Rousseau has developed; it
would almost certainly have to be adapted to a form appropriate to the education of a natural man in the
contemporary world. This may further suggest, if it was not already apparent by the inclusion of the young
Rousseau in the account, that the “Profession of Faith” is fit only for certain types of human beings. On the one
hand, it is fit for the corrupt and suffering masses, and on the other hand, it is fit for the developing philosopher. In
the former case the “Profession of Faith” serves as a corrective and palliative instruction. In the latter case,
cushioned by the fact that “genius educates itself,” it serves as a platform by which the young philosopher can
recognize the abstract metaphysical truth from amongst the critically flawed metaphysical speculations that
announce it.
 235

views. The “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” has two main parts: one philosophical,

the other polemical. In the first part the vicar gives an account of his philosophic position by

explaining his account of man, metaphysics, and finally the nature of the soul. The second part,

based on the ground established in the first, develops a polemic against revealed religion and

against Christianity in particular.165 All of this is almost shrouded by the personal nature of the

vicar’s speech, for it is both the account of personal discovery and an account given to a specific

individual in a unique condition. The young Rousseau is presented, at least initially, in very

humble form as destitute and in genuine need both practically and spiritually. For these reasons

and others, the “Profession of Faith” welcomes the reader by presenting its characters from an

unassuming and almost everyman perspective. But despite the fact that the account is highly

personalized and accessible narrative, the principles at work in the account are still visible, and

they make possible a comparison between the vicar’s position and what we know of Rousseau’s

own views expressed outside the “Profession of Faith.”

At the very beginning of his speech, the vicar makes a simple request of the young

Rousseau. He explains that what he is about to say comes from his love of the truth, and as such

what he presents is less an argument than what he has come to know, as he puts it, “in the

simplicity of my heart.”166 He asks of Rousseau that he temporarily suspend his judgment and

measure what he hears, then, by his heart, or by his conscience. Thus the vicar begins by

elevating conscience over reason and by establishing that conscience is the appropriate judge of

truth. For, “conscience persists in following the order of nature against all laws of men.”167 This

elevation of the conscience, revealed to the vicar by experience, is an important starting point.
165
Masters elaborates on the structure of the “Profession of Faith,” observing that it follows the same
structure as works like the Discourses that are explicitly given in Rousseau’s name. From this he suggests that the
“Profession of Faith” is, in fact, given to a general audience, but with a clearly attenuated status. See Masters, The
Polticial Philosophy of Rousseau, 57-58 and 58n15.
166
Emile, in CW 13, 425.
167
Ibid., 426.
 236

The vicar explains how, as the result of the fact that he assumed a moral status that he could not

maintain, he had been reduced to a state of doubt. He hints at the fact that this state of doubt and

his suffering in it was not entirely for naught, for his present condition is the result of his early

missteps; and he observes a parallel between his state of doubt then and the young Rousseau’s.

He is sincere when he relates, “A few such experiences lead a reflective mind a long way.”168

But the vicar is adamant that doubt is not a state appropriate to the human mind. Referencing

Descartes, he objects, “This state is hardly made to last. It is disturbing and painful. … Doubt

about the things it is important for us to know is too violent a state for the human mind, which

does not hold out in this state for long.”169 His state of doubt did, however, produce one of his

early and important observations. Finding no relief from his doubt either in theology or in books

of philosophy, the vicar finally says:

I comprehended that the insufficiency of the human mind is the first cause of this prodigious
diversity of sentiments and that pride is the second. We do not have the measurements of this
immense machine; we can not calculate its relations; we know neither its first nor its final cause.
We do not know ourselves; we know neither our nature nor our active principle. We hardly know
if man is a simple or a compound being. Impenetrable mysteries surround us on all sides; they are
above the region accessible to the senses. We believe we posses intelligence for piercing these
mysteries, but all we have is imagination.170

The vicar does not wholly deny that man is rational, but insists that his reason is insufficient to

the task of understanding the most distant objects. For, as he says, “We are a small part of a

great whole whose limits escape us and whose Author delivers us to our mad disputes; but we

are vain enough to want to decide what this whole is in itself and what we are in relation to it.”171

The vicar thereby reduces the basis on which human judgment of the truth is possible to

conscience alone.

168
Ibid.
169
Ibid., 426-27. See also, Henri Gouhier, Les Méditations Métaphysiques de Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(Paris: Vrin, 1970), especially “Ce que le Vicaire doit à Descartes,” 49ff.
170
Ibid., 427-28.
171
Ibid., 428.
 237

Already we can observe some important similarities and differences between Rousseau

and the vicar. Rousseau too elevates the conscience, giving it priority over reason. In the

Second Discourse, “pity” holds the preeminent place, being the sentiment most closely

associated with the kind of moral sense that exists as a principle anterior to reason.172 And in the

Letter to Beaumont, and the Rêveries, Rousseau goes to great lengths to establish that it is only

through our conscience that we have experience or sentiment of the truth, and further that reason

must be brought to accord with what we know by virtue of our conscience.173 Rousseau

contends in his own name that man has this enduring natural faculty by which he knows and

loves the good, and as a result he is connected to nature in form, and oriented toward an end

insofar as he is ordered to the truth of being through his conscience. Neither does Rousseau deny

that man is a rational creature. As we noted in reading the Second Discourse, Rousseau

sometimes appears to say that man is not naturally rational and that his rationality is a late

development. But in both the Second Discourse and the Emile, it is clear that man is born into a

state of active development, that his reason is initiated immediately at birth with the activation of

the senses. We may add, as Rousseau does himself, that reason only exists in a very basic and

rudimentary way during infancy and childhood, but it is always present in man in some way, and

it develops progressively from its rudimentary form to its complex form, or from sensual reason

172
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 14-15. See above, 126ff.
173
Cf., Letter to Beaumont, in CW 9, 28: “[L]ove of self is no longer a simple passion. But it has two
principles, namely the intelligent being and the sensitive being, the well-being of which is not the same. The
appetite of the senses conduces to the well-being of the body, and the love of order to that of the soul. The latter
love, developed and made active, bears the name of conscience. But conscience develops and acts only with man’s
understanding. It is only through this understanding that he attains a knowledge of order, and it is only when he
knows order that his conscience brings him to love it. Conscience is therefore null in the man who has compared
nothing and who has not seen his relationships. In that state, man knows only himself. He does not see his well-
being as opposed to or consistent with that of anyone. He neither hates nor loves anything. Restricted to physical
instinct alone, he is null, he is stupid. That is what I have shown in my Discourse on Inequality.”
 238

to intellectual reason, wherein it gains the ability to form “complex ideas by the conjunction of

several simple ideas.”174

Rousseau does appear to differ from the vicar here in two important respects, though. In

the Third Walk of the Rêveries, Rousseau communicates a continuity to his life that was based

on the awakening of the first principles of philosophy in his early life. There he describes his

drive toward self-inquiry and his preoccupation with seeking “the nature and the destination” of

his being.175 He further relates, “According to this principle, which has always been my own, I

have sought frequently and for a long time to know the genuine end of my life in order to direct

its use,” explaining that he has been conducted by this principle and this drive throughout his

entire life.176 Though Rousseau is careful about the expression of his philosophic way of life, it

is clear that he understands his way of life as fundamentally skeptical and zetetic. We might say,

then, that Rousseau is somewhat less adamant than the vicar about the appropriateness of the

state of doubt for human beings; he seems to believe, as did Descartes, that doubt was not

appropriate for all human beings, but only for those who had the natural disposition of the

philosopher.177 We may deduce from this as well that, while the vicar’s statements reflect

Rousseau’s belief that man may not understand in detail the workings of the whole wherein he

exists, for he cannot know the mind of God, Rousseau is, by contrast, somewhat more optimistic

about the potential of reason to understand important truths, provided it is constrained within

appropriate limits and guided by conscience.

174
Emile, in CW 13, 301.
175
Rêveries, III, in CW 8, 18-19
176
Ibid.
177
Descartes, Discourse on Method, Part II, ¶3-4. Notably, Descartes seems to imply that the philosopher
is one who has both good sense and good character.
 239

Returning to the “Profession of Faith,” from the ground of the “inner light” of his

conscience, we find that the vicar’s speech progresses in a way similar again to Descartes.178 He

begins to examine his own nature by asking “But who am I?” He discovers in answer to his

question, “I exist, and I have senses by which I am affected. This is the first truth that strikes me

and to which I am forced to acquiesce.”179 The vicar, unlike Descartes, however, finds his senses

and affect at the bottom of his self-deduction. But from this follows another question and the

first of a new kind of doubt, from which he cannot immediately escape:

Do I have a particular sentiment of my existence, or do I sense it only through my sensations?

This is my first doubt, which it is for the present impossible for me to resolve; for as I am
continually affected by my sensations, whether immediately or by memory, how can I know
whether the sentiment of the I is something outside these same sensations and whether it can be
independent of them?180

Masters explains the significance of the vicar’s question at length. The vicar is here concerned

with the simplest mental act distinguishable from the passive sense experience that he points to

as the basis of his experience in the world. A sense of self cannot be a composite of sense

experience or else the distinction between natural and unnatural sentiments becomes impossible,

and with it the possibility of developing or educating a natural man. To put this differently, the

inability to distinguish natural and unnatural sentiments would mean that only one’s given nature

could be considered natural, and more importantly, that all cultivated natures are equally

artificial; all education would then be meaningless, founded on nothing more than opinion.181

But the vicar works around this difficulty. From his sense experience and his inability to control

it, he determines that there must exist a world outside of himself, which he understands as made

up of matter and bodies. As these objects are severally presented to him, the vicar finds that he

178
Cf., O’Hagan, Rousseau, 83-86.
179
Emile, in CW 13, 429.
180
Ibid.
181
Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, 60.
 240

has the “faculty of comparing them,” which he understands as “as an active force which I did not

before know I had.”182 He explains:

To perceive is to sense; to compare is to judge. Judging and sensing are not the same thing. By
sensation, objects are presented to me separated, isolated, such as they are in nature. By
comparison I move them, I transport them, and so to speak, I superimpose them on one another in
order to pronounce on their difference or their likeness and generally on all their relations.
According to me, the distinctive faculty of the active or intelligent being is to be able to give a
sense to the word is.183

The vicar’s description of his faculty of judging answers the question of whether he has a sense

of his existence independent of sense experience, and it echoes what Rousseau has said regarding

judgment throughout the Emile.184 More importantly, in his active faculty of judgment and in

the fact that this faculty represents the possibility of falling into error, the vicar makes several

crucial steps. He determines that he is “not simply a sensitive and passive being but an active

and intelligent being.”185 And because he is fallible, and because he can trace that fallibility to

his active faculty, he is confirmed in his position that he is best served by operating primarily in

sentiment, by which he means to say that his physical senses and his conscience are less likely to

deceive him than is his reason. His reason confirms this orientation, and thus his return to sense

experience and conscience carries him outside of himself. For, he explains, “Having, so to

speak, made certain of myself, I begin to look outside of myself.”186 Thus, the vicar’s self-

exploration, his study of human nature, merges with and begins to transform into a metaphysical

deduction.

Through the senses the vicar next considers the fundamental properties of matter, and he

claims that all the “essential properties of matter” are deducible from “the sensible qualities” that

make him perceive it. His first observation is of matter sometimes in motion and sometimes at
182
Emile, in CW 13, 430.
183
Ibid.
184
Ibid., 272: They are, therefore, the first faculties that ought to be cultivated… To exercise the senses is
not only to make use of them, it is to learn to judge well with them. It is to learn, so to speak, to sense.”
185
Ibid., 431.
186
Ibid., 432.
 241

rest, but with no other perceptible difference in the matter of the object itself. Noting that

“motion, since it is an action, is the effect of a cause of which rest is only an absence,” he

deduces that “when nothing acts on matter, it does not move, and thus posits that matter, being

neutral to rest and motion, its natural state is to be at rest.”187 Here it appears as if the vicar has

again dispatched any materialist objections (he had already begun to do this when he showed that

there exist objects separate from his experience of them in the senses). If motion is inherent in

matter, or said differently, if matter can move spontaneously, then again man’s active capacity,

his freedom of thought or judgment, would come back into question, reversing or opening up the

question of whether he has a sense of his existence independent of sense experience, and

subjecting him to a mechanistic account of existence. However, by saying that matter is neutral

to motion, and more importantly, by denying that motion is natural to matter (Rousseau’s note

emphasizes the importance of this aspect), the vicar eliminates any possibility of man’s active

principle being reduced to the properties of matter.188 Significantly, the vicar’s position on

matter and motion already at this point implies a metaphysical dualism insofar as man, as a free

and active being, must have some such substance besides his material substance that can explain

his spiritual existence. But all of this first necessitates an account of motion, which the vicar

begins to provide in a somewhat classical framework.

In motion he explains that he perceives two kinds: “communicated motion and

spontaneous or voluntary motion. In the first the cause of motion is external to the body moved;

and in the second it is within it.”189 This distinction between these two forms of motion, in

connection with the assertion that matter is neutral to motion, implies that while matter may be

acted upon through communicated motion, spontaneous motion can only be initiated by and thus

187
Ibid.
188
See Masters, The Political Thought of Rousseau, 62.
189
Emile, in CW 13, 432.
 242

requires some other active substance. The vicar draws this out through a refection on his own

ability to move spontaneously, by which he is able to trace his own motion to no more

“immediate cause than my will.”190 This idea is extendable to all of matter, which the vicar,

while calling “scattered and dead,” still recognizes as both in motion and subject to regular,

uniform, and constant laws.191 And here emerges the metaphysical import of the vicar’s

deduction. Though he cannot claim to know the first causes of the universe, he can say that “the

first causes of motion are not in matter.” That is:

[Matter] receives motion and communicates it, but it does not produce it. The more I observe the
action and the reaction of the forces of nature acting on one another, the more I find that one must
always go back from effects to effects to will as first cause; for to suppose an infinite regress of
causes is to suppose no cause at all. … Inanimate bodies act only my motion, and there is no true
action without will. This is my first principle. I believe therefore that a will moves the universe
and animates nature. This is my first dogma, or my first article of faith.192

Thus we see that the vicar’s examination of matter and motion has lead him to identify an active

will as the first cause of motion. He is careful to maintain his earlier position that man is

fundamentally incapable of understanding the details of the arrangement of the universe, and he

reiterates that the will that moves the universe is known to him only by its acts, and not by its

nature, which is to say by his experience of the world conforming to his conscience rather than

primarily by the power of his reason. The vicar even pauses his overall explanation in order to

emphasize the fact that “General and abstract ideas are the source of men’s greatest errors” and

to reaffirm that it is more important that what he says conforms to the sense imparted by the

heart: “Far from being able to imagine any order in the fortuitous concurrence of elements, I am

not even able to imagine their conflict, and the chaos of the universe is more inconceivable to me

than is its harmony.”193 But it appears that the senses are capable of carrying him even farther,

190
Ibid.
191
Ibid., 433.
192
Ibid., 433-34.
193
Ibid., 434-35.
 243

for, “If moved matter shows me a will, matter moved according to certain laws shows me an

intelligence. This is my second article of faith.”194 Thus, from the starting point of his

examination of matter, the vicar is led to the belief that an intelligent will is the beginning and

end of all things.

Now, from this metaphysical point of view the vicar is initially very clear about his

ability to know the purpose to which the system is set. He writes, “I judge that there is an order

in the world although I do not know its end; to judge that there is this order it suffices for me to

compare the parts themselves, to study their concurrences and their relations, to note their

harmony.”195 He compares his understanding of the fact that the universe has a set purpose to

the experience of seeing the workings of a watch while not having a conception of its use. It is

by the observance of the regularity of causes and effects that the system is visible, and by

knowing his own will he recognizes the existence of will and set purpose in the workings of the

system. Of the man who sees the watch the vicar says:

“I do not know,” he would say, “what the whole is good for, but I do see that each piece is made
for the others; I admire the workman in the details of his work; and I am quite sure that all these
wheels are moving in harmony only for a common end which it is impossible for me to
perceive.”196

Yet, if reason is incapable to know the ends in detail, there is another means by which man may

be more familiar with them. The vicar suggests, “Let us compare the particular ends, the means,

the ordered relations of every kind. Then let us listen to our inner sentiment.”197 From this

activity, an action that brings reason under the guidance of conscience, man can have some

notion of the ends that operate within the system. But according to the vicar, there are

limitations to what a man may know even by this means. For, as he relates regarding Nieuventit,

194
Ibid., 435.
195
Ibid.
196
Ibid., 436.
197
Ibid.
 244

“as soon as one wishes to enter into the details, the greatest wonder—the harmony and accord of

the whole—is overlooked.”198 And according to the vicar, this is part of the providence of the

intelligent will that set the system in motion. For, “It was not satisfied with establishing order. It

took certain measures so that nothing could disturb that order.”199 In some sense, it is incumbent

on man to listen to his conscience in order to gain and maintain some sense of the ends to which

the universe is set, but the system, in ordering its parts as it has, resists man’s attempts to

rationally understand the details of its order.

Unfortunately, it appears that the vicar’s metaphysical speculations begin to posit a

mechanics and a set of ends that are fundamentally questionable. Regarding the mechanics of

the vicar’s account, his position on matter and motion, considered in light of his understanding of

man as a free and active being, necessitates some sort of metaphysical dualism by requiring

multiple substances in order to account for all the aspects of man’s existence. This dualist

metaphysics is more obvious in his subsequent arguments. From his metaphysical thought, the

vicar returns to his conception of man:

In meditating on the nature of man, I believed I discovered in it two distinct principles; one of
which raised him to the study of the eternal truths, to the love of justice and moral beauty, and to
the regions of the intellectual world whose contemplation is the wise man’s delight; while the
other took him basely into himself, subjected him to the empire of the senses and to the passions
which are their ministers, and by means of these hindered all that the sentiment of the former
inspired in him. In sensing myself carried away and caught up in the combat of these two contrary
motions, I said to myself, “No, man is not one…”
Young man, listen with confidence; I shall always be of good faith. If conscience is the work
of prejudices, I am doubtless wrong, and there is no demonstrable morality. But if to prefer
oneself to everything is an inclination natural to man, and if nevertheless the first sentiment of
justice is innate in the human heart, let him who regards man as a simple being overcome these
contradictions, and I shall no longer acknowledge more than one substance.200

There are obvious agreements between the vicar’s position here and Rousseau’s views expressed

in the Second Discourse, namely the agreement on the two principles natural to man. But the

198
Ibid., 437, and n47. Bernard Nieuwentyt (1654-1718), a Dutch Doctor who wrote a book entitled The
Existence of God Demonstrated by the Wonders of Nature.
199
Ibid.
200
Ibid., 440.
 245

vicar here maintains a dualist understanding of the soul that is the basis for the “insuperable

obstacles” and “insoluble objections” of which Rousseau was acutely aware. In fact, it is

precisely on the issue of metaphysical dualism that Rousseau seems to have had the strongest

reservations.201 Notably, in the Favre Manuscript of the Emile, Rousseau’s perspective on the

question of substance is more skeptical. After accounting for the materialist and anti-materialist

positions, Rousseau observes as a matter of fact that “Each of these two hypotheses serves as an

objection to the other,” and he resists the pressure to form a conclusion.202 And the evidence of

Rousseau’s skepticism here goes outside the Emile. In the context of his own profession of faith,

Rousseau explains Descartes’s view of substance in the Moral Letters by saying:

[F]inding in himself very distinct properties which also seemed to belong to two different
substances, he first applied himself to know these two substances well and, setting aside
everything that was not clearly and necessarily contained in their idea, he defined one as extended
substance and the other as substance that thinks. Definitions all the more wise since they left the
obscure question of the two substances as it were undecided, and since it did not absolutely follow
that extension and thought were not able to unite and penetrate into an identical substance.203

201
Cf., Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, 54-74. Masters contends that Rousseau does, in
fact, maintain a dualist metaphysics, and that this dualism underlies many of Rousseau’s other works, particularly
those that deliver his political teaching. At the same time, Masters insists that Rousseau’s metaphysics is not
teleological, for “there is no natural end or telos” (62). While it is difficult to understand how Masters can hold
these two positions simultaneously, it seems to be permissible on the basis of his belief that man’s freedom is the
defining feature of his being. If this is the case, then Rousseau’s dualism aims only at human nature and does not
require any sense of ends orienting man to a perfection beyond his own freedom. Finally, Masters describes
Rousseau’s metaphysics as “detachable,” by which he means that the dualist metaphysics that he sees as underlying
all of Rousseau’s work can be detached from the rest of his thought because the metaphysics itself is not necessary
to demonstrate the truth of his principles. This interpretation of Rousseau’s metaphysical thought is insightful, but it
takes seriously neither his underlying teleological thought, nor his commitment to his philosophic, which is to say
skeptical and zetetic, way of life.
202
Favre Manuscript of Emile, in CW 13, 138. Cf., Kelly, “Introduction” to Emile, in CW 13, xxx; and
John S. Spink, “Introduction” to Emile, in OC IV, lxxi-lxxii, and lxxix-lxxx.
203
Moral Letters, in CW 12, 178. Kelly suggests that Rousseau simply does not allow himself to be
swayed toward the acceptance of a dualist positon by his conscience or his moral sense (“Introduction,” in CW 13,
xxx). Kelly’s suggestion is, then, that one can suspend moral sense. But, this does not cohere with what Rousseau
himself teaches about the priority of the conscience; it can at least be stated with certainty that Rousseau could not
assert a rational skeptical position over and against the demands of his conscience. It is more likely that Rousseau
found nothing in the dualist positon that his moral sense demanded that he accept, and thus that his skepticism with
regard to materialism or anti-materialism was permitted by his moral sense, even if the permission was on the basis
of its silence on this matter.
Lee Maclean suggests, on the basis of Rousseau’s Letters and especially his to Letter to Jacob Vernes, that
Rousseau does eventually arrive at a dualist conception of man (The Free Animal, 102ff.). The context of the
passages she cites do not appear to support her position. The context of her citation in the Letter to Jacob Vernes,
for example, is one where Rousseau presents his argument with materialists, and his description seems rather to
highlight the point he makes in the Favre Manuscript that each side can serve as an objection against the other.
 246

If we follow the vicar’s metaphysical speculation even farther, we see that as his

metaphysical dualism emerges, so too does his belief that all things are oriented toward an end

which is a reckoning of our accounts in the world. The vicar explains that “The principle of

every action is in the will of a free being,” and from this he derives his third article of faith:

“Man is therefore free in his actions and as such is animated by an immaterial substance. This is

my third article of faith.”204 He then begins to account for man’s suffering in the world as the

result of his poorly used faculties: “It is the abuse of our faculties which makes us unhappy and

wicked.”205 But from this the vicar claims that “Death is the remedy for the evils you do to

yourselves; nature did not want you to suffer forever.” He comes to believe providence has

ordered it so that the soul will survive the body, for “man lives only halfway during his life, and

the life of the soul begins only with the death of the body.”206 That is, the soul is constrained by

the body during a man’s life, and cannot be free to exist at its highest until it breaks free of those

bonds. The vicar has already construed the principles of physical substance, namely those

related to the passions and self-interest, as fundamentally negative.

The dualism that he maintains thus allows him break his soul in two. On the one side, he

captures in physical substance all of his personal feelings of desire, which he sees as responsible

for the misdeeds and shame of his moral failures. On the other side, he finds in his spiritual

substance “the love of justice and moral beauty” and everything good to which he prefers to be

drawn. But in breaking his soul in two, he initiates a preoccupation with a life in which he is no

longer burdened by what he feels to be the tyrannical voice of physical desire. Thus, it appears

that the vicar understands the universe, and particularly man in the universe, as oriented toward

204
Emile, in CW 13, 442.
205
Ibid., 443.
206
Ibid., 445.
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an afterlife as the end of existence. His view of restoring the unity of his soul amounts to its

escape from physical life so that its divine essence can exist at its purest.

III.3 Rousseau’s View and his Judgment of the Vicar’s Metaphysics—This view of ends

may be the result of the positons that the vicar has advanced thus far, but it is not the view of

ends that Rousseau accepts. It is possible that Rousseau withholds his considered teleological

views of progress and ends for political reasons.207 Rousseau believes that a conservative

prejudice against progress is necessary and even desirable because nature seems to admit of a

stratification of human beings, and while people may be equal in some respects in potential, they

are not equal in the exercise of their faculties. Expressing teleological views, then, would open

the door for those ambitious ideologues and moralists who would attempt to coopt power and

authority by recourse to a higher, which is to say divine law. In the “Profession of Faith,”

however, we see Rousseau allow exactly this sort of teleological view to be expressed ostensibly

for a general audience. The teleology expressed in the “Profession of Faith” is, however, the

207
Rousseau believes that a conservative prejudice against progress is necessary and even desirable. One
need only revisit the First Discourse and the Replies to remember Rousseau’s passion for this observation. As
Jonathan Marks points out, “The true villains of the First Discourse are not the arts, the sciences, or philosophy, nor
do the advances in or consequent to them have to harm societies. Rather, it is the widespread taste for and pursuit of
such learning and brilliance that must be vigorously attacked” (Perfection and Disharmony, 107). What the First
Discourse intimates and what the Second Discourse explains is that progress is only positive when it is constrained
by its utility, and measured with respect to man’s natural end. Exceedingly few are able to rationally perceive or
even morally intuit the appropriate bounds of progress, and so while there may exist “Preceptors of Mankind,” the
arts and sciences cannot be cast out among all of mankind without risking the degeneracy of those unfitted to their
use. Therefore, just as man’s ability to achieve his natural end is relative to his time and place, so too is it relative to
his nature. Said differently, there is a natural stratification of mankind of which one must be ever mindful when
considering the impact of an obsession with progress.
Furthermore, Rousseau’s explanation of the way in which nature is the impetus for inequality seems to
admit of a natural stratification of human beings. He is very clear about the fact that, while human beings may be
equal in some respect in potential, they are in no way equal in the exercise of their faculties in the real world. Thus
it may be that “there is more difference between a given man and another than between a given man and a given
beast” (Second Discourse, in CW 3, 26). Still, as Arthur Melzer observes, “alongside the modern, voluntaristic
strain in Rousseau’s thought, emphasizing freedom, consent, and popular sovereignty, there is a pervasive Platonic
strain, recognizing the need for an absolute rule of wisdom” (Natural Goodness of Man, 232). Considering that the
vast majority of human beings are more like the satyr of the frontispiece of the First Discourse than they are like the
natural man or Prometheus of that image, it is easy to see how Rousseau agreed with Hobbes that the greatest danger
to political stability comes from “ambitious ideologues who escape and subvert the law through the appeal to some
higher law” (ibid., 125).
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consequence of a natural theology that Rousseau believes resists the sorts of ideologues with

which he was concerned. Rousseau believed that a well justified natural theology was precisely

what was needed to better justify and thus close off challenges to the law. Therefore, if the

consequence of the natural theology he intended was that it tended toward a dualist metaphysics

and a conception of ends that oriented people to the afterlife as the atonement for life in this

world, and if his moral sense made no objection to these unintended consequences, then he may

well have allowed them. Nevertheless, his allowance is not an indication of his acceptance of the

vicar’s conception of ends as a terminus. As we have shown, Rousseau understood a far more

nuanced conception of ends, and even and especially in the Emile he expresses this conception of

ends as a moving harmony in which man is involved from his birth.

Rousseau appears to give the attentive reader cause to doubt at least some of the positions

advanced in the “Profession of Faith.” Throughout the Emile Rousseau frequently notes that

genius educates itself. As was noted earlier, there is a double meaning to these statements. On

the one hand they emphasize a sense of autonomy in given nature, but on the other hand they

gesture at the rare Socratic soul who will emerge from the cave on its own. Rousseau only

makes this second meaning explicit once in Book I: “Only ordinary men need to be raised, their

education ought to serve as an example only for that of their kind. The others raise themselves in

spite of what one does.”208 Emile is, of course, an ordinary man, but Rousseau himself is not.

The Confessions and the Third Walk of the Rêveries provide us with accounts of the education of

a genius in the example of Rousseau himself. The “Profession of Faith,” by contrast, is not the

education of a genius, but it is a proposal given to one. We are, therefore, obliged to take it

seriously when Rousseau passes judgment on the “Profession of Faith.”

208
Ibid., 178.
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As was noted above, Rousseau passes judgment on the profession implicitly by offering it

in his name, even if in the mouth of another character. This suggests that, on the whole, the

“Profession of Faith” does not violate the moral mandate that Rousseau takes to be sacred in his

way of life as a philosopher. But this is, of course, only a very general acceptance of the

profession that in no way indicates what is and what is not congruent with Rousseau’s own

views. For this we need to look at his explicit references. We find a powerful one in his

admission in the Third Walk of the Rêveries where Rousseau asserts, “The result of my painful

seeking was approximately that which I have since set down in the ‘Profession of Faith of the

Savoyard Vicar.’”209 But again, that the “Profession of Faith” is an approximation of Rousseau’s

own views leave us no closer to a clear indication of how the vicar’s and Rousseau’s views align.

Book I of the Emile, however, gives one specific indication of his agreement with the vicar’s

position. He writes:

Of all the attributes of the all-powerful divinity, goodness is it the one without which one can least
conceive it. All peoples who have recognized two principles have always regarded the bad as
inferior to the good; if they had done otherwise, they would have been supposing something
absurd.”210

At the very least, from this we can interpret Rousseau as in agreement with the vicar on the

goodness of God, even if God’s existence as an intelligent will must ultimately be taken on faith

as the vicar admits in his speech. But, Rousseau gives the reader an even clearer judgment of the

“Profession of Faith” right in the midst of the vicar’s speech. Remembering his reaction to what

he had heard, he writes:

The good priest had spoken with vehemence. He was moved, and so was I. I believed I was
hearing the divine Orpheus sing the first hymns and teaching men the worship of the Gods.
Nevertheless I saw a multitude of objections to make to him. I did not make any of them, because
they were less solid than disconcerting, and persuasiveness was on his side. To the extent that he
spoke to me according to his conscience, mine seemed to confirm what he had said.211

209
Rêveries, III, in CW 8, 22-23.
210
Emile, in CW 13, 196.
211
Ibid., 458.
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Here we have the rare opportunity to peer into the mind of the young philosopher. The young

Rousseau was moved by the passion with which the vicar had presented him with his profession,

and he compares the vicar to Orpheus as he sings and teaches men to worship the gods, the

image of which is the frontispiece for the profession. As a metaphor for comparison, the image

of Orpheus is particularly rich, and worthy of its own study. For our purposes it is important to

note, though, that Orpheus had a strong negative connotation in the Greek traditions with which

Rousseau was familiar, and especially in Plato who portrays him as cowardly.212 And

furthermore, the religion Orpheus taught claimed that the body was the prison of the soul, and

claimed that death was to be desired. Rousseau seems to subtly imply that the vicar is cowardly

for not persevering in doubt, particularly as it resulted in his orientation to the afterlife as

atonement for life in this world.

Rousseau is also very clear and direct that he saw “a multitude of objections” that he

could make to the vicar, but he restrains himself from doing so. His restraint on this occasion is

especially helpful for understanding the relation between the vicar’s position and Rousseau’s

own views. His objections, he says, “are less solid than disconcerting.” That his objections were

“less solid” suggests that the counter positions that they entail were also subject to the same

“insuperable obstacles” and “insoluble objections” that Rousseau recognized in the vicar’s

position. That his objections were “disconcerting” suggests that these objections raised issues

that were likely to return the vicar to the state of perplexity he said was “too violent a state for

the human mind.” That his objections were “less solid than disconcerting” suggests that he

already was weighing his actions on the basis of his moral mandate. That is, recognizing that his

objections were equally suspect and that they would only serve to unsettle the soul of an

212
Plato, Symposium 179b-e (specifically the comparison of Alcestis and Orpheus), and Republic 364a-
365a (specifically the negative context of religious sects and especially those associated with Orpheus).
 251

otherwise good man, even the young and corrupt Rousseau would not allow himself to voice

them. To register his objections would be to violate his commitment to his conscience that

understands that all truth must also be moral truth.213

Finally, Rousseau explains that “persuasiveness” was on the vicar’s side, for “To the

extent that he spoke to me according to his conscience, mine seemed to confirm what he had told

me.” Rousseau fundamentally agrees with the vicar that the ultimate test of right is the

agreement of the conscience, and so not rational arguments but only the affirmation given by the

conscience can be persuasive.214 Rousseau communicates to the reader, then, that the vicar’s

account, notwithstanding the problematic arguments and secondary consequences it carries, is in

fundamental agreement with moral sense. If we subtract from the “Profession of Faith” the

vicar’s metaphysical dualism and his conception of the afterlife as a natural end, we are left with

a better approximation of Rousseau’s views. We then find an account of man that emphasizes

his natural moral sense while retaining his rational existence within the parameters set by that

moral sense; we see a system of the universe where all things are ordered in harmony to a

common end while still retaining a space for human freedom; and we discover behind this

system the intelligent will which moves the universe and orders all things, which we know as

providence and goodness, or as God.215 Rousseau places distance between himself and the vicar

213
In the Fourth Walk of the Rêveries, in the course of his discussion of lying, Rousseau explains that while
the philosopher’s purchase on the truth manifests a call to public service, it also demands a pedagogy. The
philosopher’s understanding of moral truth makes clear to him that truth be communicated in a peculiar way to other
people. In public, truth is owed as moral truth, which is always just. This means that, in order to be just, the
philosopher is forced to rely on fable, if not also on fiction. It also means that what Rousseau had communicated in
his writings could only ever be an approximation of his real philosophic understanding of the truth. Rousseau’s
previous accounts are an abstraction of this truth; they contain a basic falsehood by necessity, but one that leaves
their congruity intact. In the final analysis, being truthful means to be resolutely committed to the truth in one’s
personal reflections, and to speak that truth as an appropriate reflection of what one gains in that pursuit.
214
Cf., Cooper, Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life, 84. Cooper contends that Rousseau’s
explanations of conscience cross all divisions of character and works uniformly and unproblematically.
215
Cf., Emile, in CW 13, 434: “Inanimate bodies act only by motion, and there is no true action without
will. This is my first principle. I believe that a will moves the universe and animates nature.”; and 435-36: “Far
from being able to imagine any order in the fortuitious concurance of elements, I am not even able to imagine their
 252

because he does not want to commit to metaphysical positions he knows to be flawed, especially

metaphysical dualism. To commit to some such position would put him in violation of his

commitments to philosophy as a skeptic and zetetic practice. Yet, to the extent that they conform

with the real measure of truth—one’s inner moral sense—the vicar’s metaphysical speculations

are acceptable. Thus, by presenting the “Profession of Faith” as he does, Rousseau does, in fact,

maintain the teleological positions that underlie the vicar’s account. This is only possible

because Rousseau, like the vicar, makes conscience the ultimate measure of truth. Thus, the

mechanics of the vicar’s account can be jettisoned without undermining the general implications

of his account. Rousseau, who always wants to restrain himself from accepting unreasonable

premises, especially when doing so is not dictated by moral sense, is able to disavow the vicar’s

rational arguments without subsequently being forced to deny his sustaining principles or his

articles of faith.

If we return, finally, to the consideration of the purpose of the “Profession of Faith” both

in the Emile and in the schema of Rousseau’s oeuvre, we are now able to make some

observations. To begin with, the “Profession of Faith” has an obvious political value as

Emberley points out. And further, this political value is there for both Emile and for the general

public. Relative to Emile, the “Profession of Faith” is an example of how one might derive

natural religion in a way that does not conflict with the methods Rousseau presents, which is to

conflict, and the chaos of the universe is more inconceivable to me than is its harmony… If moved matter shows me
a will, matter moved according to certain laws shows me an intelligence. This is my second article of faith… I
judge that there is an order in the world although I do not know its end; to judge that there is this order it suffices for
me to compare the parts in themselves, to study their concurances and their relations, to note their harmony. I do not
know why the universe exists, but that does not prevent me from seeing how it is modified, or from perceiving the
intimate correspondence by which the beings that compose it lend each other mutual assistance. I am like a man
who saw a watch opened for the first time and, although he did not know the machine’s use and had not seen the
dial, was not prevented from admiring the work. ‘I do not know,’ he would say, ‘what the whole is good for, but I
do see that each piece is made for the others; I admire the workman in the details of his work; and I am quite sure
that all these wheels are moveing in harmony only for a common end which it is impossible for me to perceive.”
Rousseau’s conception of the universe and the way in which it is ordered is developed in the next chapter.
Compare this with Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, 67n52.
 253

say that natural religion can be derived from experience, by reason, and with respect to

conscience. Rousseau means for natural religion to serve as the foundation for the civil religion

that Emile will eventually accept. It is for this reason that Rousseau says, “If [Emile] must have

another religion, I no longer have the right to be his guide in that. It is up to him alone to choose

it.”216 The “Profession of Faith” provides a natural religion for a general audience as well, but

for them natural religion is meant to reform at least their civil corruption by proposing a faith

that is, as Emberley rightly points out, “less demanding and less inclined to promote hypocrisy

than revealed religion, [and] that assures some moral response to the commercial society and its

misery.”217 Rousseau does, indeed, appear to emphasize the political value of the “Profession of

Faith” by announcing it to the “dear fellow citizen,” whereas the Emile as a whole is directed

toward natural educators, parents before citizens, and so that “education be suitable for man and

well adapted to the human heart.”218 But Emberley and others are too quick to formally separate

the “Profession of Faith” from Rousseau’s own views. The fact still remains, as we noted at the

outset, that by presenting the “Profession of Faith” in his oeuvre Rousseau makes it subject to the

same moral mandate he respects in all of his works, from those explicitly in his name like the

Discourses to those like Julie that are clearly fictional. And insofar as the “Profession of Faith”

serves a purpose in Rousseau’s oeuvre more broadly, it is that it allows him to present a perhaps

more readily acceptable version of his metaphysical thought without being forced to maintain all

of the metaphysical speculations that might typically contribute to such a position. Thus,

Rousseau can present the ends of that metaphysical reasoning while at the same time disavowing

its mechanics, thus seeking the justification for its metaphysical position on other grounds. At

216
Emile, in CW 13, 482.
217
Emberley, “Rousseau versus the Savoyard Vicar,” 324.
218
Emile, in CW 13, 423, 157-59.
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the very least, this has the effect of bringing Rousseau’s consideration of ends to the fore, and it

shows us that he does in fact maintain a teleological outlook of the world.

IV. Conclusion

At this point I believe that I have shown significant evidence of Rousseau’s teleological

thought in the Emile. To begin with, it should now be clear that the Emile offers an account of

human nature that maintains and even advances the teleological underpinnings evident in the

Second Discourse. Further, the account of human nature is not the sole account in the Emile that

registers Rousseau’s teleology; there are, in fact, several important passages and arguments in

the text that express, either metaphorically or explicitly, Rousseau’s unique conception of ends

and perfections as a moving harmony. Finally, it has been shown how the “Profession of Faith”

fits into Rousseau’s schema of thought, and what in it can be understood as aligned with

Rousseau’s own views. Because there is a significant overlap between the content of the Emile

and the Second Discourse, our interpretation of the Second Discourse is confirmed by our

interpretation of the Emile, for we have found them largely in agreement. And importantly,

because of its difference in scope and focus, the Emile adds significantly to our understanding of

Rousseau’s views on nature, human nature, and the ends to which they are set. In sum, we have

found that Rousseau articulates his teleological thought subtly and carefully, but consistently and

coherently across these works. It now remains for us to provide a final and broad view of how

his teleological thought entails a system of natural and cosmological perfection understood as an

ongoing harmonious state of affairs that spans all levels of being, universal and particular. This

will be the subject taken up in the next and final chapter.

Chapter Four: All Things Bright and Beautiful

In previous chapters we have examined several different indications of Rousseau’s teleological

thought. Institutions chimiques and the early writings on music reveal Rousseau’s preoccupation

with issues of teleological concern from the earliest period of his intellectual development

throughout his mature writings. The Second Discourse and the Emile further evidence

Rousseau’s refined teleological thought at work in his accounts of nature and human nature.

And in the last chapter we attempted to explain the way in which it is possible to recognize in the

“Profession of Faith” what is and what is not congruent with Rousseau’s own teleological views.

We have also argued that, the Letter to Beaumont and the Rêveries show that Rousseau’s moral

thought was developed on the basis of his understanding of the purposefulness of the world, and

the obligations attendant upon one who recognized both the singular character of the factual and

the moral truth. And further we have argued that, because Rousseau carefully displayed the

continuity of his philosophic way of life in his autobiographical writings like his Confessions and

Rêveries, his teleological thought can be identified as a feature of his overarching philosophy.

This account does present certain difficulties, nevertheless. For instance, Rousseau does not

provide a direct, concise, doctrinal statement of his overarching philosophy, and the closest

approximations come only from his characters. These characters, the Savoyard Vicar and Julie,

do offer metaphysical statements of a sort, but any attempt to strictly identify their positions with

Rousseau’s own view are subject to obvious objections. To overcome this difficulty, we have

argued that it is possible to discern the teleological position at work within Rousseau’s system by

carefully considering the many indications of that system within his writings, including those

indications that are delivered in the mouths of his characters. This has required that we work

from the particular instances where Rousseau’s teleology is available to the reader toward a

255
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general understanding of his teleology. And so, as we have considered human nature in the

Second Discourse as well as in the Emile, our analyses explained nature and human nature as a

means of identifying the structure of Rousseau’s broader teleological understanding.

In the course of this consideration, the basic structure of Rousseau’s teleological thought

has emerged. In our analysis of the Second Discourse and the Emile in particular, we have

shown that the teleological account that Rousseau gives of nature and human nature reconceives

ends and perfections along new lines—ends are no longer fixed or static ideals toward which one

is drawn, but are rather defined in and through the dynamic relation between the object to be

perfected and what is required of that object by nature. Nature shapes both the individual and the

species by proposing newer and newer conditions informing man’s development. Man can be

understood as perfectly constituted insofar as he is uniquely set up to continually perfect himself

in relation to the requirements of nature, and insofar as he is free and able to play an active role

in his own development. Rousseau thus understands ends and perfections through the moving

harmony that is providential nature, and in doing so he maintains a teleological account of man

and nature that preserves a space for genuine human freedom. For in Rousseau’s teleological

conception of the world, freedom is essential to the development of the parts and the harmony

they have in the whole.

In conclusion, it remains for us to offer a broad view of Rousseau’s teleological thought

by explaining the how his cosmological perfection is constituted. In this chapter, then, we will

examine Rousseau’s teleology in the opposite direction, so to speak, by looking closely at the

defense of optimism and the account of providence given in the Letter to Voltaire. In the letter

we find an important view of Rousseau’s teleological thought in the synthesis of his theodicy and

physiodicy. That is, because it addresses the goodness of the natural order in relation to God’s
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providence, the Letter to Voltaire provides an excellent view of his notion of ends and

perfections as an ongoing state of affairs. And because this is meant to serve as a justification

for the position that ours is the best of all possible worlds, the letter shows how Rousseau

understands the world as both purposeful or intentional, and supremely good. Furthermore, the

Letter to Voltaire is somewhat unique in working from top to bottom in the consideration of the

world, and so it also reveals the way in which Rousseau’s broad teleological understanding of the

world registers on both the universal and particular levels by intersecting with his view of human

nature, and even the different natures he distinguishes. In other words, in the Letter to Voltaire

Rousseau’s broad teleological views intersect with his view of individual human beings, and

considered in light of his stratification of human natures, it suggests that there are appropriate

ends for each type of human being, which vary by many different factors, from those impacting

the species to those at the level of individual genius.

The Letter to Voltaire of August 18, 1756 is a particularly important writing for

understanding Rousseau’s teleological thought and its far-reaching implications. First, as Victor

Gourevitch has pointed out, while it is important that Rousseau presents the letter from the

alleged perspective of everyman, he intimates the moral and intellectual depth of his articulations

when he says he writes in “the tone of a friend of truth who speaks to a Philosopher.”1 The letter

is unique in that it presents us a rare occasion when Rousseau was responding substantially to a

peer whom he believed to have the intellectual capacity to understand the full weight of his

arguments.2 Second, the letter was written in the mid-1750s, and therefore, immediately

following the publication of the Second Discourse and while he was engaged with the

1
Letter to Voltaire of August 18, 1756, in CW 3, 108. Henceforth, Letter to Voltaire.
2
Gourevitch, “Rousseau on Providence,” in Review of Metaphysics 53 (2000): 566. Though I differ with
Gourevitch in my analysis of the Letter to Voltaire as well as on the conclusions I believe one can draw from it, his
treatment of this text is especially insightful and this section is indebted to his analysis, which has served as an
ordering guide for this chapter.
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development of the Essay on the Origin of Languages. The letter contains a crisp polemic based

upon Rousseau’s teleology, not late in his life, but in the height of post-illumination activity.

The Letter to Voltaire thus shows that Rousseau’s teleological conceptions were already well

established at this point, and because their presentation in the letter coheres with the other

articulations of his teleology, the letter lends credence to the position that his teleological thought

is a primary and consistent facet of his overarching philosophy.

Finally, and perhaps most important for our purposes here, the letter presents a defense of

optimism that has several clear teleological implications; Rousseau’s defense of optimism

reveals all at once the core of his teleology and how it must be distinguished from other

problematic presentations such as the “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” and Julie’s

thoughts and confessions on her deathbed.3 At the same time, as the letter considers the natural

and providential order of the universe, like the Second Discourse and the Essay on the Origin of

Languages, it cannot help but also consider man’s place within the whole, but by doing so in the

context of a more teleologically significant issue—optimism—the Letter to Voltaire brings to the

fore a more detailed view of Rousseau’s teleology.

Rousseau had been in somewhat regular correspondence with Voltaire following the

publication of the Second Discourse, but his 1756 letter was crafted in response to a booklet of

Voltaire’s poetry Rousseau had received earlier that year. The booklet contained two of

Voltaire’s poems, his Poem on Natural Law (1751-52) and his Poem on the Lisbon Disaster

(1755). Rousseau looked relatively favorably on the Poem on Natural Law, which he describes

as a “catechism of Man” that could be “a sort of civil profession of faith” or a “catechism of the

Citizen,” but he took issue with the Poem on the Lisbon Disaster, which he found distinctly at

3
“Optimism” is here meant in the original sense of the term—that ours is the best of all possible worlds—
and not in these contemporary sense—that things can and do get progressively better over time.
 259

odds with Voltaire’s earlier poem.4 Voltaire had written the latter poem in response to the

devastating earthquake that hit Lisbon, Portugal on All Saints Day in 1755, and which, including

the aftermath, brought about an estimated loss of one-hundred-thousand lives. Though Voltaire

writes with an emotional sincerity unlike the irony and sardonic wit seen in his other works, he

used his Poem on the Lisbon Disaster as an occasion to attack the optimism expressed in the

writings of Leibniz and Pope.5 It will be helpful to briefly consider the basic structure and

argument of Voltaire’s poem before examining Rousseau’s response.

I. Voltaire’s Poem on the Lisbon Disaster

Voltaire’s poem proceeds on two complementary levels. The verse of the poem itself

offers a moral and theological consideration of divine providence in light of the 1755 disaster in

Lisbon. The verse is accompanied by a prose Preface and several substantial notes wherein he

4
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 120.
5
The term “optimism” was mockingly coined in 1737 in response to Leibniz’s arguments in Theodicy,
published in 1710, Mondaology, published in 1714, and “Metaphysics Summarized,” which was only privately
circulated. Leibniz contends in his Theodicy that ours is “the best world possible” and reiterates in “Metaphysics
Summarized” that “that which exists, therefore, is that which is most perfect, since perfection is nothing other than
the quantity of reality.” Pope later synthesized Leibniz’s positon asserting in his Essay on Man that “whatever is, is
right.” The typical French translation of this position, “Tout est bien” or “All is good,” is the iteration Voltaire uses
in his poem.
It is difficult to express the then contemporary significance of the debate surrounding optimism, suffice it to
say that the debate had attracted major thinkers already for the better part of a century before Voltaire’s poem
emerged. Though, it could be said that the issue was reaching a fever pitch by the mid-1750s, with Pope’s thesis the
topic of the 1755 Prize competition proposed by the Royal Academy of Berlin. The issue itself is related to the
problem of the existence of evil in the world and, therefore, to the belief that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and
omnibenevolent. Locke had taken this issue up in the late seventeenth century in “The Reasonableness of
Christianity,” followed by Leibniz in Theodicy and Monadology and other writings, and Pope in his Essay on Man.
Theologians had taken issue with Leibniz’s position that this is the best of all possible worlds in particular because it
undermined Christian theology by creating grounds for an argument for limitations on the divine and by diminishing
the importance of original sin. Still many others weighed in. Bayle had resorted to a two-principle form of
Manicheism in his considerations, and many of the encyclopedists including Diderot, Maupertuis, and Voltaire
himself, expressed the view that the evils of this world outnumber the goods, suggesting an atheistic and progress-
driven hope for the future over and above any sort of theistically based hope. Rousseau was familiar with this issue
and with its contributors; for example, he makes references to Maupertuis in the Second Discourse (note 7*, in CW
3, 74), and he shows his familiarity with Crouzas’s arguments against Pope in both his Letter to François de Conzié,
January 17, 1742 (in CC I, 132-39), and in Julie (in CW 6, 214).
 260

presents more philosophic and scientific objections to optimism. The verse and prose together

may be taken, therefore, to represent Voltaire’s thoroughgoing critique of Leibniz’s view taken

up by Pope, that this is the best of all possible worlds, and hence, that tout est bien. Interestingly,

in the Preface to the poem Voltaire seems to want to avoid an outright conflict with proponents

of optimism, Leibniz, Shaftsbury, Bolingbroke, and especially Pope, with whose work he had

been familiar at least since the publication of the Rape of the Lock. The Preface asserts that

Voltaire’s main point of contention with optimism is with the consequences of what might be

considered a vulgar interpretation of its main tenet, tout est bien: “‘All is well,’ taken in an

absolute sense and without any hope for a future life, is nothing but an insult to the suffering in

our life.”6 Yet, Voltaire’s claims in the Preface are given in the context of the figures he praises

disingenuously, and he proceeds to cite Bayle as the model of his thinking on providence. It is

therefore impossible to avoid associating Voltaire’s arguments with an assault on the main

optimist thinkers, and even if he does profess only a desire to restore a place for hope, the last

word of his poem, we see a reconstrual of this aim that reveals his true and critical intentions.

After the opening description of the Lisbon disaster and the devastation that followed, the

poem questions how such suffering is possible if, indeed, a divine providence guides the world,

and the optimist maxim, tout est bien, is true. Voltaire can only cite with certainty the evils that

man experiences in this life, but nothing evincing providence. His description of man’s estate,

then, shifts to the assertion that the world is nothing but suffering and strife, and that nothing is

more certain than that there is evil on the earth.7 But in order to accomplish his rhetorical aims,

it is not enough to simply point to the existence of evil. In order to refute the optimist position,

6
Voltaire, “Preface” to Poem on the Lisbon Disaster, ¶8. A translation can be found in, Candide and
Related Texts (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000), 98. The translations herein will follow Gourevitch. Rousseau, in fact,
appears to have agreed with Voltaire on the dangers of a vulgar sort of optimism that might encourage fatalism.
See, Letter to Philopolis, in CW 3, 129-30.
7
Ibid., ln. 126: “Ill le faut avouer, le mal est sur la terre.”
 261

and in order to restore his this-worldly version of hope in progress, Voltaire must first identify

the origin and the underlying cause of evil in the world.

He identifies five major positions: (1) the two-principle or Manicheism understanding of

evil advanced by Bayle, (2) the view of evil as divine punishment for either original or individual

sin, (3) the view of evil as a trial in this world for one’s placement in the next, (4) the view that

evil is a necessary consequence of divinely imposed natural law, and (5) the view that evil is a

necessary consequence of material existence. Voltaire’s rhetorical product of the verse of the

poem amounts to a less than subtle omission of nearly all of these alternatives. First, and despite

the fact that Voltaire has already credited Bayle with being the model of this thought in the

poem, he appears to dismiss the Manicheism he identifies initially. This, then, leaves only the

four remaining possibilities open for consideration. The remaining four possibilities, as

Gourevitch explains, break down into two classes: (a) “evils due to human failure or sin, what at

the time was called ‘moral evil(s)’; and (b) evils due to the constraints on the parts of wholes

because they are parts, what Leibniz called ‘metaphysical evil(s),’ and Newton’s spokesman

Samuel Clark referred to by the traditional name of ‘evil(s) of imperfection.”8

Of these latter alternatives, Voltaire only seriously considers the second class, or the

views that understand evil as metaphysical or the result of inherent imperfection. Among these

last alternatives, he quickly passes over the view that evil is the result of material necessity, not

rejecting it but leaving it a viable alternative explanation—in a note to his Poem on Natural Law,

he had already defended Locke by insisting on the possibility of metaphysical monism, and thus

that matter imposes no limitations on intelligence. Ultimately Voltaire comes to focus only on

the view that evil is the result of nature’s inexorable laws as established by God’s divine will.

8
Gourevtich, “Rousseau on Providence,” 571.
 262

This reduction allows Voltaire to develop his attack on optimism from two positions. As

the necessary consequence of natural law understood in the context of the whole with imperfect

parts, evil is relegated to the level of being an accommodation required of the parts for the

maintenance of the good of the whole, where the good of any part is, therefore, at the expense of

some other part or parts. On a moral and theological level, Voltaire objects that this

understanding of the world is fundamentally unjust insofar as it visits evil upon those who are

undeserving of it. Man’s only consolation for his suffering is knowledge of the necessity of

nature and the promise of other people’s benefit from his suffering, neither of which, Voltaire

suggests, is much consolation at all. The moral objections further suggest that God is indifferent

to man’s suffering or worse, malevolent.9 On a philosophic level, in his notes to the verse,

Voltaire objects that there are indifferent phenomena and that “all bodies are not necessary to the

order and conservation of the universe.”10 Evil cannot be the result of natural law if all the parts

of the universe do not strictly conform to laws ordering the whole, and similarly, tout est bien

cannot be maintained if the providential order of the universe does not extend to the particular

and individual parts of the whole.

Confident that he has dispatched the optimist account of evil, Voltaire returns finally to

Bayle, apparently advocating for a doubt that would destroy dogmatic arguments and replace

them with scientifically driven inquiry. For, at bottom, Voltaire’s primary objective in the Poem

on the Lisbon Disaster is to restore man’s hope by opening up a space for human initiative in the

world, that is, by establishing some basis for man’s control over the sphere of his activity. On

the face of things, Bayle can serve as a model for Voltaire precisely because he advocated for

9
Rousseau says as much of Voltaire’s beliefs in Confessions, Book IX, in CW 5, 360: “While always
appearing to believe in God, Voltaire really never believed in anything but the devil; since his so-called God is
nothing but a maleficent being who according to him takes pleasure only in harming.”
10
Voltaire, Poem on the Lisbon Disaster, note 1. It is in this context that Voltaire cites Crouzas, Newton,
and Clarke.
 263

scientific doubt, and focused his attention on causal explanations that enhanced man’s control,

but without denying providence. Similarly, in the poem Voltaire does not deny providence, but

asserts a level of indeterminacy in nature. He does not deny God, but positions the existence of

evil in the world in such a way as to either limit God’s power or his will.

But, in light of the fact that Bayle advanced a modern Manicheism to account for the

problem of evil, which Voltaire denies by exclusion, not to mention the fact that he argued

against the sort of purely mechanistic physics which Voltaire advocates, it would appear that

Voltaire’s positioning of Bayle as a model serves another purpose. As Gourevitch points out,

Bayle provides a model wherein “the evils of life are proof—or at least very strong evidence—

that an evil principle inheres in the very nature of things.”11 While for Bayle, this position

reflects his modern Manichean position, for Voltaire it amounts to a veiled attack on providence

altogether, his assurances to the contrary notwithstanding.12 As Gourevitch explains:

For by ignoring evils that might be due to human failures properly so called—moral evils—but
especially by arguing both that there are no theoretical reasons why God cannot intervene in the
course of nature and that there are strong moral reasons why He should intervene in at least to the
point of sparing the innocent, Voltaire leaves his reader under the impression that God is
indifferent, arbitrary, even malicious.13

At the same time, by presenting Bayle as a model, even after having denied the Manichean

position associated with him, Voltaire seems to suggest the materialist alternative he passed over

earlier, namely the view that evil is the result of material necessity. In either case, the hope that

Voltaire desires to restore is precisely not a hope for some reprieve on the basis of the goodness

or the justice inherent in nature, but rather a hope purely on the basis of man’s ability to

progressively improve his estate. Without openly denying God or providence, then, Voltaire

presents a subversive teaching that would replace both with the modern scientific project of

11
Gourevtich, “Rousseau on Providence,” 577.
12
Voltaire, Poem on the Lisbon Disaster, ln. 222.
13
Gourevitch, “Rousseau on Providence,” 577.
 264

progress, while leaving no objective standard by which that progress could be judged morally or

philosophically.

II. Rousseau’s Letter to Voltaire

As was noted above, Rousseau and Voltaire had been in somewhat regular

correspondence following the publication of the Second Discourse in 1755. But their

relationship was already strained. Rousseau had sent Voltaire a copy of the text, and after an

apparently cursory reading Voltaire responded derisively in a letter saying, “Never has so much

intelligence been used in seeking to make us so stupid.”14 Exploiting the French word “bêtes,”

which can be use to mean “beasts,” Voltaire puns on the adjectival form meaning “stupid,” and

thus gestures at Rousseau’s intellectual prowess while at the same time disparaging his work.

Rousseau was perfectly aware of Voltaire’s mocking condescension, but he maintains a

respectful disposition and restrained himself from any ad hominem formulations, responding

after only a few weeks, “You see that I do not aspire to reestablish us in our stupidity.”15

As we have seen, Rousseau was admittedly motivated by spite on certain occasions, for

example in the case of his exchanges with Rameau, but he only permitted himself to act out of

spite when his actions could be morally justified otherwise. Whether motivated by spite or not,

14
Letter from Voltaire to Rousseau of August 30, 1755, in CW 3, 102.
15
Letter from Rousseau to Voltaire of September 10, 1755, in CW 3, 105. Rousseau uses the term “bêtise”
in order to show beyond a doubt that he had understood Voltaire’s earlier quip. The letter is written with a
respectful and even deferential tone, though Rousseau does permit himself one very subtly ironic complement in the
midst of his effusive introductory paragraph: “And you who know how to portray virtues and freedom so well, teach
us to cherish them within our walls as we do in your Writings. All that comes near you ought to learn from you the
path to glory.” The irony of Rousseau’s praise is all the more pronounced for anyone familiar with the First
Discourse: “Every Artist wants to be applauded. The praises of his contemporaries are the most precious part of his
reward. What will he do to obtain praise… He will lower his genius to the level of his time, and will prefer to
compose ordinary works which are admired during his lifetime instead of marvels which would not be admired until
long after his death” (First Discourse, in CW 2, 15).
 265

the occasion to pay Voltaire back presented itself a year later with the arrival of Voltaire’s

poems. The Letter to Voltaire of August 18, 1756 maintains a respectful tone without being

effusive. Even before beginning the argument, Rousseau gives the impression of an equal in his

initial rhetoric and presentation, but more still, he affords Voltaire the respect of a genuine

critique which Voltaire himself had not previously afforded Rousseau. Rousseau’s basic aim in

the letter is to defend optimism in its original form—that this is the best of all possible worlds,

and hence that whatever is, is right—against Voltaire’s assaults. From the very beginning,

Rousseau’s objection to Voltaire proceeds on both moral and philosophic grounds; the moral

grounding for his argument is placed in the forefront of the letter, but it leads to the deeper

philosophic considerations that Rousseau develops throughout the letter.16

Rousseau’s moral argument is based on his understanding that truth is not merely factual

but also moral. As is indicated in the Rêveries, Rousseau understands that justice and moral truth

are one, and therefore, wherever the truth is owed, what is owed is always the good.17 The

obligation that one feels as the appropriate sentiment of conscience falls uniquely on each

individual insofar as each individual has a natural relation to the moral truth. Such is the basis of

Rousseau’s moral mandate; because of this naturally established commitment to truth, and

because moral truth is owed to all, Rousseau could not have acted any differently in speaking the

moral truth at large. Though he can only enforce this moral mandate in his own life, he

recognizes that in public truth is always owed as moral truth, and this is precisely the claim he

makes against Voltaire.

16
The Letter to Voltaire can be broken up into primary sections as follows: laudatory introduction (¶1), aim
of the letter (¶2), framing moral objection (¶3-6), criticism of Voltiare’s positions (¶7-19), explanation of providence
(¶20-28), conclusions (¶29-36).
17
See Rêveries, IV, in CW 8.
 266

Rousseau says that he offers his critique in “the tone of a friend of truth speaking to a

Philosopher,” a statement that already sheds light on the orientation of his arguments.18 By

portraying himself as a mere “friend of truth” and not as a philosopher, Rousseau appears to

show deference to Voltaire, while actually intimating the real superiority that he holds in that

relationship. For Rousseau, the title “friend of truth” indicates his focus on the moral impact of

his sentiments, which he maintains time and again are practically, if not also theoretically,

superior to reason. Furthermore, because the truth speaks to man unwaveringly through the

sentiment of his conscience, the “friend of truth,” responding to the sentiments of his conscience,

speaks “directly by Nature’s voice.”19 Thus, even as Rousseau takes on the humble appearance

of an ordinary man here and throughout the text, he subtly establishes himself as the master

insofar as he has a purchase on the truth appropriate to genuine philosophy.20

Rousseau believes all people are individually accountable to their moral sense, and he

holds Voltaire to this measure, implying that the thrust of his poem is cruel. He writes, “This

optimism which you find so cruel yet consoles me amid the very pains which you depict as

unbearable. Pope’s poem allays my evils and inclines me to patience, yours embitters my

suffering, incites me to grumble, and, by depriving me of everything but a shaken hope, reduces

me to despair.”21 Voltaire’s poem leaves the reader questioning the goodness of God and the

laws of nature, doubtful of anything more than conventional justice, and feeling fundamentally

18
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 108.
19
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 14. The commitment that Rousseau feels for the truth is, therefore, what
drives him to report to the public as he does. He thus delivers upon his commitment to the truth, to God, and to the
public, by delivering the truth as it has been made accessible to him. Such is the demand and the benefit of
Rousseau’s unique religion, and such is the obligation imposed on the “friend of truth.”
20
In addition to his statement that he is merely a “friend of truth,” Rousseau also disingenuously claims he
may not be able to understand Crouzas and that Voltaire’s scientific demonstrations are beyond his grasp (Letter to
Voltaire, in CW 3, 112 and 114). Gourevitch notes that in an earlier draft of the letter Rousseau refers to Crouzas
explaining: “An ordinary geometer, a poor reasoner, a rigid and pedantic mind, an obscure and careless writer, this
man acquired, I know not how, a modest reputation he would have soon lost if people had troubled to read him” (OC
4, 1064; see Gourevitch, “Rousseau on Providence,” 581).
21
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 109.
 267

forsaken in a cruel world. Rousseau asks, “Now what does your poem tell me? ‘Suffer forever,

unhappy man. If there is a God who has created you, no doubt he is omnipotent; he could have

prevented all your evils: hence do not hope that they will ever end; for there is no understanding

why you exist if not to suffer and die.’”22 The basis of Rousseau’s initial moral complaint is,

therefore, that Voltaire has presented his poem in a way that is inappropriate to the demands of

the moral truth.23 The image of the world he presents is not morally true, and worse, by

presenting it as he did, Voltaire makes the evils that we must experience more painful than they

would have been otherwise: “there is inhumanity in troubling peaceful souls, and afflicting men

to no purpose, when what one is trying to teach them is neither certain nor useful.”24

But Rousseau is well aware that to say that Voltaire’s poem fails to conform to the

demands of the moral truth is not to say that it is factually or philosophically wrong. In fact, we

might even say that this underscores the significant agreement between Rousseau and Voltaire

on some of the points at issue; for example, their mutual objection to necessitarian physics, or

their positions on the possibility or necessity of an afterlife. Still Rousseau and Voltaire are not

in full agreement philosophically, and thus, as he carries out his moral critique, Rousseau

simultaneously builds a philosophic defense of optimism to meet Voltaire’s attack. The moral

and philosophic critiques are mutually supportive insofar as Rousseau’s conscience reveals to

him that there is an inadequacy in Voltaire’s poem, on the one hand, and his reason works to

identify and thus substantiate his moral sense, on the other.

Now, Rousseau’s moral objection to Voltaire is largely delivered from the perspective of

everyman. Whereas Voltaire’s poem speaks about the goods and evils of this life from the

22
Ibid.
23
Rousseau makes the same claim against him again many years later in the Fourth Walk of the Rêveries
when he critiques Voltaire’s Fable of the Bees. See Rêveries, IV, in CW 8.
24
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 118.
 268

perspective of privilege and power and all that can be lost in the midst of the evils of the world,

Rousseau speaks about these same goods and evils from the perspective of a common man who

has little to hope for in this world. It is from this perspective that he initiates his philosophic

objections, and thus we see a tension between the ordinary conception of things and Rousseau’s.

More specifically, the everyman perspective allows the common reader to maintain the hope of

providence and an afterlife, while Rousseau’s philosophic perspective would seem to indicate

that if, in fact, tout est bien, then the need for an afterlife as recompense for our suffering in this

world is unnecessary, to say the least.25 This tension between the ordinary and the philosophic

perspectives indicates that Rousseau remains faithful to the demands of his moral mandate

throughout the letter by preserving, at worst, a benign fiction for some readers while suggesting

his more thoroughgoing teleological understanding of providence to others.

25
Compare to the Emile, in CW 13, 161 and 425ff. Rousseau opens the text as a whole with a basic
reformulation of the optimist mantra tout est bien when he writes, “Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the
author of things” (161), but as we noted in the previous chapter, the notion of an ordering end in the form of an
afterlife appears to be an aspect of the “Profession of Faith” that is fundamentally incongruent with Rousseau’s
teleological thought expressed elsewhere. In the Letter to Philopolis, for example, Rousseau openly criticizes the
vulgar conception of optimism in favor of a more refined understanding. He writes: “But, Sir, if everything is good
as it is, everything was good as it was before there were Governments and Laws. It was therefore at least
superfluous to establish them, and then Jean-Jacques would have had an easy time of it against Philopolis with your
system. If everything is good as it is in the manner in which you understand, what good is it to correct our vices,
cure our ills, rectify our errors?... Let everything go as it may, so that everything always goes well. If everything is
the best it can be, you should blame any action whatsoever. For every action necessarily produces some change in
the state of things at the moment it occurs; therefore one cannot touch anything without doing evil, and the most
perfect Quietism is the only virtue that remains for man” (Letter to Philopolis, in CW 3, 129-30). The problem with
Bonet’s argument on optimism as Rousseau critiques it, is that it relies on a conception of the perfection of nature as
fixed. That is, it correctly assumes tout est bien, but fails to recognize that tout est bien in each successive moment
of history. Without this second part, the optimist position can be accused of encouraging fatalism. Rousseau’s
optimism relies on another conception of ends that allows for change within the system without undermining its
fundamental goodness. Rousseau, of course, does not openly deny the possibility of the afterlife. In fact, both in the
“Profession of Faith” and in the Letter to Voltaire he posits the afterlife as a possibility. And there are occasions
where Rousseau clearly asserts that he himself believes in the afterlife “without being unaware that reason can doubt
it” (Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 117). Rousseau appears to have been somewhat open to variations in his
understanding of the afterlife, as is shown by the exchange that Julie has with the priest in Part VI, letter XI (Julie, in
CW 6, especially 598). All the same, these various instances where Rousseau appears to be open to or to believe in
the afterlife, can be attributed to his commitment to moral truth. And regardless, it is still clear that any conception
of the afterlife is at least not fundamentally necessary to, if not simply incompatible with, his teleological conception
of the world.
 269

We see the first step of his transition from the ordinary to the philosophic in his

explanation of evil. Rousseau first draws a subtle distinction between the evils that appear to be

Voltaire’s focus, the evils that attend upon privilege, and those over which we have no control.

He does not deny that evil exists in the world, but he questions Voltaire’s understanding of the

evils by which man suffers. He accepts that evil in the world is a necessary consequence of

nature’s inexorable laws, or that there are evils of imperfection. But in the face of this position

he asserts that “most of our physical ills are still our own work.”26 Much as he has explained in

the First and Second Discourses, much of man’s suffering is the result of the dependency he

builds up that makes possible the pain he feels at being deprived of ease. As for the unavoidable

evils of life such as death, which he says “is an evil almost solely because of the preparations one

makes preceding it,” they are inescapable and could be born with greater ease if it were not for

man’s constant attendance to them.27 He explains, “There are some events which often strike us

more or less according to the perspective under which one considers them, and which lose much

of the horror that they inspire at first glance, when one wants to examine them more closely.”28

Man is more able to bear his suffering and even his death with greater ease with the knowledge

that these cannot be helped than he can when he believes his suffering to be an act of will.29

26
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 110.
27
Ibid., 109-10.
28
Ibid., 110.
29
Compare with Rêveries, VIII, in CW 8, 72: “In all the evils which befall us, we look more to the intention
than to the effect. A shingle falling off a roof can injure us more, but does not grieve us as much as a stone thrown
on purpose by a malevolent hand. The blow sometimes goes astray, but the intention never misses its mark.
Material suffering is what we feel least in the blows of fortune; and when the unfortunate do not know whom to
blame for their misfortunes, they blame fate which they personify and to which they ascribe eyes and an intelligence
to torment them intentionally… The wise man, who sees only the blows of blind necessity in all the misfortunes
which befall him, does not have this insane agitation. He cries out in his suffering, but without being carried away,
without anger. He feels only the material blow of the evil to which he is prey, and the beatings he receives injure his
body in vain—not one reaches his heart” (Compare with the accounts of actual injury in Rêveries, II, in CW 8, 11-
16).; and Julie, in CW 6, 468: “It seemed to me that the most essential part of a child’s education, that which is never
treated in the most carefully conceived educations, is to make him clearly appreciate his misery, his frailty, his
dependency, and, as my husband told you, the heavy yoke of necessity which nature imposes on man; and this, not
only so he will be aware of what we do to lighten his yoke, but above all so he will learn early in what rank
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Most evils, understood from the common perspective, are born of human vice and dependency;

from a more philosophic perspective, one might say they are “imagined,” meaning by this all the

richness of the term in Rousseau’s usage. Furthermore, “in the ordinary course of things, of

whatever ills might be spread over human life, it is all things considered not a bad present; and if

it is not always bad to die, it is quite rarely so to live.”30 Thus according to Rousseau, life is

generally good, and it is only from the perspective of privilege that “comparing what is good and

bad” one can “forget the sweet sentiment of existence” that is so available to the common man.31

Rousseau’s basic account of physical evil given in the ordinary perspective sets up his

subsequent arguments. He has already set sentiment and reason in opposition to one another at

the beginning of the letter when he asked, “In this strange tension which reigns between what

you establish and what I experience… tell me which of the two is deceiving itself, sentiment or

reason?”32 He now questions what reason can establish in the face of and in opposition to

common experience: “Our different manners of thinking on all these matters teach me why

several of your proofs are so little conclusive for me. For I am not unaware how much more

readily human reason grasps the mold of our opinions than that of the truth.”33 And where

Voltaire had contended on rational grounds that there are phenomena indifferent to the natural

order and, as Rousseau puts it, that “nature is subject to no precise measure or precise form,”

Rousseau argues that our common experience of the world teaches us something entirely

providence has placed him, so he will not raise himself beyond his reach, and so nothing human will seem foreign to
him”; and Letter to Beaumont, in CW 9, 31n**: “To resist a useless and arbitrary prohibition is a natural inclination,
but one that, far from being vicious in itself, conforms with the order of things and the good constitution of man,
since he would be incapable of preserving himself if he did no have a very lively love of himself and of the
preservation of all his rights just as he has received them from nature.”
30
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 112.
31
Ibid., 111, replacing “feeling” with “sentiment.”
32
Ibid., 109. Following Gourevitch’s translation.
33
Ibid., 112.
 271

different.34 To begin with, the basic sense experience of cause and effect informs our common

sense impression of the world and suggests to us, not just an order, but a pervasive and rigorous

order in nature. Rousseau explains: “Far from thinking that nature is not subject to the precision

of quantities and forms, I believe quite to the contrary that she alone strictly follows this

precision, because she alone knows how to compare exactly the ends and the means, and to

measure the force of the resistance.”35 Rousseau, therefore, rejects the possibility that there are

indifferent phenomena in the world and with it Voltaire’s contention that “all bodies are not

necessary to the order and conservation of the universe.”36 Voltaire’s attempt to open up a space

for human initiative by appealing to morally inconsequential physical events is thus closed off,

for there are no events that fall outside of the natural order. Human freedom must be grounded

on something else.

Moreover, by denying that there are gaps in the natural order, Rousseau closes off one

possible explanation of evil. And whereas Voltaire had exploited our flawed rational grasp of

the world with examples “more ingenious than convincing,” Rousseau attributes any perceived

inconsistency within the natural order to man’s natural limitations. He explains first that we

cannot have rational recourse to an understanding of the whole, “for these proofs depend on a

perfect knowledge of the constitution of the world and of the purpose of the Author, and this

knowledge is incontestably above human intelligence.”37 And he continues on to say, “in

whatever manner one envisages things, if all events do not have tangible effects, it seems to me

incontestable that all have some real ones, of which the human mind easily loses the thread, but

34
Ibid.
35
Ibid. Compare with the Emile, in CW 13, 429ff.
36
Voltaire, Poem on the Lisbon Disaster, note 1.
37
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 114. Compare with Emile, in CW 13, 428: “We are a small part of a great
whole whose limits escape us and whose Author delivers us to our mad disputes; but we are vain enough to want to
decide what this whole is in itself and what we are in relation to it.”
 272

which are never confused by nature.”38 Thus as Rousseau brings increasing intellectual weight

to his objections, he shows that everything from the most rudimentary observation of weights

and measures to the sweep of heavenly bodies through their ellipses betrays the eternal order of

the universe.

Importantly, our experience of the world does not only point to the natural order, but also

to the providence of its author. Implicit in Rousseau’s account of the pervasive natural order of

the world is a sense of its purposefulness on all levels. The order of the whole is available to us

on the basis of our sense experience and our common sense, or what Rousseau calls in the Emile

sensual reason,39 which draws its ideas directly from the senses. Together, our sense experience

and our common sense suggest that the order man recognizes as inherent in the world cannot be

merely accidental, but must have a purposeful, which is to say intelligent first cause.40

Rousseau’s argument from the “ordinary course of things” already points to some form of

providence insofar as the coherence of the whole and its parts manifests necessary relations and

operations that sustain that order.41 This account of providence, however, cannot adequately

serve as a defense of optimism. Rousseau has accounted for moral evil, and in the process he has

suggested that physical evil is minimal but often accentuated by our refusal to view it as

necessary. In order to maintain that ours is the best of all possible worlds and that tout est bien,

however, he must explain providence and natural order in such a way that God remains
38
Ibid.
39
Emile, in CW 13, 301.
40
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 118: “[L]et someone come tell me that, from a fortuitous throw of letters the
Henriade was composed, I would deny it without hesitation; it is more possible for chance to bring it about than for
my mind to believe it, and I feel that there is a point where moral impossibilities are for me equivalent to a physical
certainty.” Compare with the Emile, in CW 13, 433: “Therefore there is some cause of its motions external to it, one
which I do not perceive. But inner persuasion makes this cause so evident to my senses that I cannot see the sun
rotate without imagining a force that pushes it; or if the earth turns, I believe I sense a hand that makes it turn.”
41
Ibid., 112-13. Rousseau explains in the context of his causal account: “[A]pparent irregularities
undoubtedly come from some laws unknown to us and that nature follows quite as faithfully as those which are
known to us; by some agent that we do not perceive, and of which the obstacle or the cooperation has fixed
measures in all its operations: otherwise it would be necessary to say flatly that there are some actions without a
principle and some effects without a cause; which is repugnant to all philosophy.”
 273

unlimited, which is to say omnipotent and omnibeneficient.42 In other words, Rousseau must

explain the appearance of metaphysical evil without denying the greatness of God. In order to

42
Both Masters and Gourevitch contend that Rousseau understands God’s power as limited, but they
express God’s limited power too strongly. Gourevitch suggests that Rousseau limits God’s power because doing so
“alone frees us from dependence on another’s will, and so makes us rather bear those ills we have.” Therefore,
Gourevitch argues that “Rousseau depersonalizes even God by denying Him omnipotence and subordinating Him to
impersonal necessity” (Gourevitch, “Rousseau on Providence,” 580 and 582). He emphasizes the occasions when
Rousseau refers to God as “powerful” but not as “all-powerful.” Certainly, Rousseau does on occasion refer to God
as powerful, but this never appears to be to the exclusion of his omnipotence. Gourevitch then argues that
Rousseau’s God is not omnipotent on the basis on paragraphs 6 and 27 of the Letter to Voltaire. However,
paragraph 6 merely asks the rhetorical question of Voltaire, “If perplexity concerning the origin evil forces you to
alter one of the perfections of God, why do you wish to justify his power at the expense of his goodness? If it is
necessary to choose between two errors, I like the first one even better.” This does not indicate that Rousseau has
altered his account of God’s perfections himself. In fact, one might argue that by casting both alternatives as
“errors,” Rousseau is in effect saying that to limit God in either way is a mistake. The statement Gourevitch cites in
paragraph 27 comes in the context of his explanation of how man falsely comes to think there is a tension between
universal and particular providence, which he subsequently corrects in the following paragraphs (see below).
Besides simply reinterpreting the passages Gourevitch cites, we might object by saying that if God’s will is good,
then there is no reason to think that we would need to escape it. Rather, it is in misunderstanding the will of God
that men falsely believe he oppresses them with the evils they experience.
In the context of his account of Rousseau’s metaphysics, Masters argues that Rousseau’s God is limited for
different reasons. He explains, “God, the active cause of motion, form, and change in matter, is purely good but not
omnipotent; God cannot destroy matter, but has ‘full power’ to organize or order it… Man is a ‘mixed being,’ a
material body endowed with will and soul; although the human species can be described in terms of its unique
degree of perfectibility, this faculty is in turn derived from man’s active will or capacity for spontaneous motion.
While other animals may be capable of spontaneous motion, only man has the potentiality of a degree of freedom
similar to that of God. But perfection of the human species beyond the merely animal condition simultaneously
produces evil, because man’s spiritual or ‘active’ attribute, when fully realized, is corrupted by his bodily nature.
God is impotent to prevent this” (Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, 67n52). Masters does not
recognize that universal and particular providence are congruent in Rousseau’s understanding, nor that man’s perfect
constitution, specifically his freedom, contributes to the perfection of the whole.
In response to both Masters and Gourevtich, we can concede that, for Rousseau, God’s power is limited,
but this we would concede on somewhat different grounds. All things are within God’s power, and he perpetually
remains the ordering cause of the system of the universe (Letter to Voltaire, 114, para. 20), “which produces,
conserves, and perpetuates all the thinking and feeling beings” (ibid., 114, para. 21). But to the extent that he is
perfect, he is wise, just, and good, as Rousseau reiterates when he “restores these different questions to their
common principle” (ibid., 117). Consequently, God will not violate the established perfect order; this reflects God’s
will, not his power. God is self-limiting insofar as his omnipotence is limited by his omnibeneficience. If we
consider this from another angle we might say that God’s power is only limited by unwillingness to violate the law
of contradiction, and insofar as the natural order is perfect, to act against it would put God in contradiction with
himself. Rousseau does appear to be very cautious about the suggestion of God’s omnitpotence. This may be
because, in his view, God’s omnipotence amounts to a merely theoretical, but not a practical or actual omnipotence
(miracles are not possible for Rousseau). It may also be because blithely asserting God’s omnipotence without
balancing it against his omnibeneficience, can result in the false perception of his malevolence. Hence his
characterization of Voltaire’s position early in the letter (ibid., 109). All the same, once the one removes the false
tension between the universal and particular forms of providence, and once one understands the way in which the
imperfection of the parts contributes to the perfection of the whole, there is no reason to think that God’s
omnipotence is inconsistent with the natural order. Rather, the inviolability of the natural order suggests God’s
perfection. Rousseau’s characterization of Pope and Liebniz, that “Of all the economies possible, he has chosen the
one which combined the least bad with the most good… if he has not done better, it is that he could not do better,”
can be read as an admission of God’s limited power, or alternatively, as a statement that God has established the
most perfect natural order possible (ibid.).
 274

accomplish this, he shifts away from the focused criticism of Voltaire’s poem to his more

developed position, and he introduces providence with greater clarity and resolve.

Rousseau begins his account of providence by crediting Voltaire with an important

observation. Voltaire had attacked the optimist position that there exists a chain of beings when

he argued that “all bodies are not necessary to the order and conservation of the universe, and all

events are not essential to the series of events.” He continues in that note to explain that “The

chain is not an absolute plenum,” and thus:

Man can therefore not be said necessarily to occupy one of the links that are joined one to another
in an uninterrupted progression. Everything is linked [enchainé] means only that everything is
orderly [arrangé]. God is the cause and master of this order [arrangement].43

Voltaire’s aim in this passage is to undermine the optimist position that the world is arranged

such that all that is is good. He begins by attacking the continuity of the natural order, arguing

that it does not extend to all beings within the system, so that he can then assert that the evils we

experience in the world are not merely evils of imperfection. That is, evil cannot be the result of

natural law if all the parts of the universe do not strictly conform to laws ordering the whole. He

then attempts to further separate man from the divine order so that he can maintain that God’s

providence does not extend to the individual due either to His design or His will, for tout est bien

cannot be maintained if God’s providence does not extend to individuals. Rousseau recognizes a

fallacy in this thinking, which he attributes equally to “the Priests and the Devout” and to the

“Philosophers,” by which he means the philosophes. The former attribute all particular events to

God’s providence “which would equally occur without it” simply by virtue of the established

order of things. The latter cite particular events as evidence of general truths; more specifically,

they use the occurrence of particular evils as evidence of the general evil that the optimist denies,

and thus they deny God’s providence.

43
Voltaire, Poem on the Lisbon Disaster, note 1.
 275

Rousseau concedes that there is evil in the world, but he maintains that these evils can

only be understood in the context of the teleological and providential whole. He thus turns

Voltaire’s argument on its ear: “you have made a very fitting correction in Pope’s system, by

observing that there is no proportional gradation between the creatures and the Creator, and that,

if the chain of created beings leads to God, it is because he holds it, and not because he

terminates it.”44 For Rousseau, God is a first cause insofar as he established nature and the order

that reigns eternally therein. But, here we see him suggest a new way of understanding how God

governs the whole. For, to defend the optimist position that this is the best of all possible worlds

is to claim that this is the best of all possible worlds at each and every moment, not in

anticipation of some end. God can be understood as a final cause insofar as the activity of the

physical universe accords with the form that he establishes in the natural order, but with regard

to man as a spiritually free being, God is better understood as a sustaining cause as opposed to a

terminus. That is, if man is ordered to God as a final cause this ordering could be understood as

contradicting and thus countermanding his freedom. But as a sustaining cause of man’s spiritual

freedom, God can be understood as providentially fostering man’s development by directing him

toward a harmony with the natural order.

Rousseau understands the system as a whole to be fundamentally good. But the system

of the universe itself cannot be properly understood “without distinguishing carefully particular

evil, whose existence no Philosopher has ever denied, from the general evil that the optimist

denies.”45 He continues:

It is not a question of knowing whether each one of us suffers or not; but whether it be good that
the universe exists, and whether our ills be inevitable in the construction of the universe. Thus the
addition of an article would render, it seems, the proposition more exact; and in place of

44
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 114.
45
Ibid., 115.
 276

Everything is good, it would be more worthwhile to say: The whole is good, or Everything is good
for the whole.46

When he objects to Voltaire’s notion that the universe is discontinuous, he explains that nature is

organized by a set of rigorous and pervasive laws that constitute its order. Now, alongside this

he claims that the whole of nature is organized for the good. Thus, he attaches the

purposefulness of the system to the intention that it be good. From the moral perspective by

which he derives his understanding of the system he explains that the good of the whole is

constituted on the basis of the fact that “Of all the economies possible, [God] has chosen the one

which combined the least bad with the most good, or (to say the same thing more bluntly, if it is

necessary) if he has not done better, it is that he could not do better.”47 Just as Rousseau had

contended in Institutions chimiques, he argues that God sets up the system of the universe

according to laws that operate with the greatest economy while making possible the flourishing

of all that which exists within the system. But neither here nor there does he mean to imply that

God has been limited in his ability to produce the best of all possible worlds. Rather, he cannot

do better because he has, in fact, established the best of all possible worlds. Recall his statement

in the Institutions chemiques: “Doubtless this eternal Being could have produced and preserved

the universe by the sole cooperation of its power and its will, but it was worthier of its wisdom to

establish general laws in nature that never contradict themselves, and whose effect alone is

sufficient for the preservation of the world and all it contains.”48

Because Rousseau recognizes that we are misled in our understanding of the whole as the

result of our limited perspective and particularly by our perspective on our own suffering, he

explains God’s providence and the whole from that point of view. The natural order, according

46
Ibid.
47
Ibid., 109.
48
Institutions chimiques, in OC, vol. X, 227-28.
 277

to Rousseau, is immediately available to us by way of our senses and our innate moral sense, and

so it is discernable in everything from the most basic examples of material causality to the

motions of the heavenly bodies. But although there is a clear and undeniable natural order to the

system as a whole, our experience of the world is that of a mere part. The rational principles are

beyond man’s grasp, particularly as his vanity and imagination become more and more involved

in his attempts to understand the whole. But even if man cannot gain access to the principles of

the system through the use of his reason, the natural order and God’s providence are still

available to him. He takes the example of a man questioning God’s providence and its care of

him as an individual. The individual rightly assumes that he is dearer to God than the material

system of the universe, but mistakes the material system of the universe as something separate

from the moral system that it sustains. Rousseau explains:

Undoubtedly this material universe ought not be dearer to its Author that a single thinking and
feeling being. But the system of this universe which produces, conserves, and perpetuates all the
thinking and feeling beings ought to be dearer to him than a single one of these beings; he can
therefore, despite all his goodness, or rather through his very goodness, sacrifice something of the
happiness of individuals to the conservation of the whole. I believe, I hope, I am worth more in
the eyes of God than the land of a planet; but if the planets are inhabited, as is probable, why
would I be worth more in his eyes than all the inhabitants of Saturn? … it would seem that, even
for God himself, conserving the universe is a moral issue.49

Here we see that the moral grounds on which Rousseau bases his objections to Voltaire’s poem

become the ground on which he explains the natural order and God’s providence. Moral sense

explains the clear priority by which God himself can prefer beings in the natural order, for the

conservation of the universe is for God “a moral issue.”50 While a thinking and feeling being is

inherently to be preferred over innate matter, the system is set up for the good of the whole, and

49
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 114-15. Following Gourevitch’s translation after the ellipsis.
50
Compare with Essay on the Origin of Languages, in CW 7, 310: “He who willed that man be sociable
touched his finger to the axis of the globe and inclined it at an angle to the axis of the universe. With this slight
movement I see the face of the earth change and the vocation of mankind decided: I hear from afar the joyous cries
of a senseless multitude; I see Palaces and Towns raised; I see the arts, laws, commerce born; I see peoples forming,
extending, dissolving, succeeding one another like the waves of the sea: I see men gathered together at a few
dwelling places in order to devour each other there, to make a frightful desert of the rest of the world; a worthy
monument to social union and the usefulness of the arts.”
 278

God must prefer the greatest good to the good of the individual. Though it is not explicitly

mentioned in the Letter to Voltaire, this illustration of the moral depth of the natural order brings

the importance of the conscience to the fore of his argument and thus allows him to explain that,

“The true principles of optimism can be drawn neither from the properties of matter, nor from

the mechanics of the universe, but only by inference from the perfections of God who presides

over everything.”51 The inference of God’s perfections is not a simple rational operation, but

rather it is an inference possible only when reason submits to and attempts to substantiate the

moral truth to which conscience univocally attests.

Still, this example is only meant to be provisional, as is suggested by its rather

hyperbolic appearance; it highlights the way in which moral sense, and therefore, conscience are

essential to our ability to understand God’s providence and the workings of the natural order.

Rousseau has already suggested, first by his references to the “ordinary course of things” and

then by his allusion to the primacy of sense experience, that we may trust in our basic experience

of the world. Now, as he explains that the natural order is, in fact, a moral order, he suggests that

we have even more reason to trust what we know of the world through our experience of it, and

particularly thought our moral experience of it. The example is provisional, though, because it

points only to God’s providence with respect to the whole natural order. Our moral sense,

however, teaches us the moral and spiritual value of the individual (and thereby each and every

individual) by the very first voice of conscience. Recalling Rousseau’s consideration of man as a

moral creature, we might go further to say that man’s moral and spiritual value is only a

possibility because he knows the moral truth and because he is immanently free.52

51
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 115.
52
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 34-35.
 279

Rousseau’s illustration, however, has the effect of diminishing the moral value of the

individual in a way that is inconsistent with what our conscience teaches us regarding God’s

providence. That is, it gives the impression that the individual’s moral value is not recognized in

comparison to the moral value of the system or even in comparison to the moral value of several

such individuals. He writes, “It would seem that in the eyes of the Lord of the universe

particular events here below are nothing, that his Providence is exclusively universal, that he

leaves it at preserving genre and species, and at presiding over the whole, without worrying

about how each individual spends this short life.”53 The providential natural order can be

understood as good in a certain respect insofar as it ordered in such a way as to conserve its

parts, but this cannot distinguish the natural order as a moral order. And to be fair, as John Scott

points out, “The Core of Rousseau’s theodicy is his conception that we are by nature physical

beings embedded unproblematically in the physical whole of nature.”54 But, man is not merely a

physical being, he is a thinking and feeling being, by which Rousseau means to draw our

attention to the fact that he is moral, rational, and free. For the natural order to be

simultaneously a moral order, Rousseau must show how it is good in respect of those thinking

and feeling beings who are both moral and free. In Rousseau’s understanding of God’s

providence, the system is, in fact, moral and good only insofar as man is free and capable of

pursuing the ends proposed by nature. Providence as merely universal providence fails to cohere

with our moral sense of God; providence must also be particular in some way.

As quickly as Rousseau sets up his provisional position, he then corrects it, thereby

showing that the tension between the moral value of the whole and the moral value of the

individual, which is actually a tension between universal and particular providence, is only an

53
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 116. This position is subsequently corrected in the following paragraphs.
54
John T. Scott, “The Theodicy of the Second Discourse: The ‘Pure State of Nature’ and Rousseau’s
Political Thought,” 697.
 280

apparent tension. The system of the universe is, in fact, set up to do exactly what Rousseau

describes here as the exercise of universal providence; once established, the natural order

conserves the existence and goodness of the whole. This is confirmed when Rousseau asserts

with emphasis that “Commorandi enim Natura diversorium nobis non habitandi dedit,” or

“Nature has willed that we be on earth as guests in passage, not as inhabitants.”55 Importantly,

the good of the whole is not necessarily at the expense of the individual in the way that

Rousseau’s provisional example suggests, for the providence that establishes the natural moral

order of the whole does so with a view to the needs of the individual parts of the whole. Thus,

the perceived tension between universal and particular providence is, to a certain extent, a moot

point. Men find themselves in this quandary, as Rousseau himself points out, because people

have “always reasoned so badly on Providence that the absurd things that have been spoken

about it have gravely confused all the corollaries.”56 He explains:

To think rightly in this respect, it seems that things ought to be considered relatively in the
physical order, and absolutely in the moral order: with the result that the greatest idea I can give
myself of Providence is that each material being be disposed the best way possible in relation to
the whole, and each intelligent and sensitive being the best way possible in relation to himself;
which signifies in other terms that for whomever feels his existence, it is worth more to exist than
not exist. But it is necessary to apply this rule to the total duration of each sensitive being, and not
to several particular instances of its duration, such as human life.57

God’s providence is universal insofar as it establishes the natural moral order; recall, “Of all the

economies possible, he has chosen the one which combined the least bad with the most good, or

(to say the same thing more bluntly, if it is necessary) if he has not done better, it is that he could

not do better.”58 And because God’s providence extends into the world through the

establishment of the natural order, his providence permeates it in its entirety, which is to say at

all levels down to the particular. This is particular providence, but not in the way that it is

55
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 116.
56
Ibid., 115-16.
57
Ibid., 117.
58
Ibid., 109.
 281

typically conceived. God could, but does not need to intervene in the natural moral order

because in his wisdom he has established a natural moral order whose laws are sufficient for the

preservation of the good of the world and all that it contains, from the universal level down to the

particular.59 God’s providence in the case of the thinking feeling individual is manifest in the

individual’s constitution, that is, in the providential arrangement of the individual’s given nature

relative to itself, which is to say relative to the individual’s own development and happiness.

Rousseau asserts in the Second Discourse, and he reiterates here, that man is “the most

advantageously organized” of all creatures.60 Through his senses he grasps the world of

experience, through moral sense he is oriented to the natural moral order, and by virtue of his

multifaceted nature (i.e., his self-interest, his reason, his freedom, and his imagination) he is also

autonomous within the system of nature, free to acquiesce or resist when confronted by the

demands of the natural moral order. In a sense, the part completes the whole as the whole

completes the part, namely by providing a moral dimension to an otherwise material system, or

said differently, by creating the possibility for the fulfillment of moral ends.61

It is this understanding of God’s providence, not only as instantiating the order of nature

but also sustaining it, not only underlying but also perpetually infused in the natural moral order,

59
Gourevitch argues on the basis of paragraphs 21 and 22 that “Even if all things do, somehow, cohere and
constitute a whole, it can, manifestly, not be a homogenous whole. It is made up of disparate parts. The good of
one part or kind or species differs from the good of another, and hence from the good of the whole. The goods of
the various parts of kinds or species are not compossible; nor even are the goods of all members of our kind. There
are, then, ‘evils’ inherent in the very ‘system’ or ‘constitution’ of the universe. God could, then, not do better,
because of the nature(s) of things. The best world possible is not good without qualification. Evils cannot cease”
(Gourevitch, “Rousseau on Providence,” 582-84). First of all, the evils that Gourevitch references here fall into the
category of physical evil, which Rousseau explains as evils of perception. If physical evils are primarily evils of
perception, then the good of the system remains intact in spite of them, and it therefore does not follow that they
constitute evidence of God’s limited power. If moral evil and evils of perception are the consequence of man’s
freedom, then the system as a whole can, in fact, be understood as good without qualification, especially if the
imperfection of parts (e.g., man’s capacity to become corrupt as the result of his freedom) within the system are
understood as necessary to the perfection of the whole.
60
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 20.
61
In the Timaeus, Plato describes a system where the imperfection of the parts is necessary to the
perfection of the whole. Cf., Colin David Pears, “Congruency and Evil in Plato’s Timaeus,” in Review of
Metaphysics 69.3 (2015), 93-113.
 282

that informs Rousseau’s view of evil. He has already prioritized thinking and feeling being

above the merely material world, and he suggests that thinking and feeling beings are an

essential part of the whole. As he explains at the outset of the letter, “I do not see that one can

seek the source of moral evil other than in man free, perfected, thereby corrupted.”62 Note the

order of the terms in Rousseau’s statement here. Here he alludes to the fact that man, insofar as

he is a free and moral being, is perfectly constituted. For it is only in his freedom that he is

constituted to seek the ends proposed to him within the moral order. To the extent that he

develops and becomes a virtuous individual, he fulfills his natural ends as they are proposed to

him by the natural order, and he is happy in a way that accords with perfection understood as a

moving harmony. With the possibility of freely fulfilling his natural end, though, man also

retains the possibility of his own corruption. For the perfect being is oriented to a natural moral

end, free to pursue that end, and imperfect or deficient in such a way that his ongoing

development toward the harmony that is his natural end is possible. The perfect, yet deficient

condition of his existence makes possible the fulfillment of the system. Therefore, like the

optimists, Rousseau denies general or metaphysical evil and admits only moral and physical evil,

our experience of which is the result of our position and disposition within the ordered and

providential system. In sum, moral and physical evils are either evils of our own making or evils

of perception; the evils man experiences are inconsistent with, and therefore, cannot be the

actions of an omnipotent God.63

62
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 109.
63
See Second Discourse, in CW 3, 23: “these are the fatal proofs that most of our ills are our own work”;
and Confessions, in CW 5, 326: “Madmen, who moan ceaselessly about nature, learn that all your ills come to you
from yourselves”; and Emile, in CW 13, 173: “Our greatest ills come to us from ourselves.”; and 213: “Our moral
ills are all matters of opinion, except for a single one—crime; and this ill depends on us. Our physical ills are
themselves destroyed or they destroy us. Time or death is our remedy. But we suffer more the less we know how to
suffer.”
 283

But while denying general evil, Rousseau understands moral and physical evil as

necessary consequences of the providential system. For, insofar as man is free, he is free to

create and experience particular evil. The experience of moral and physical evil is, then, a

consequence of our freedom, and our freedom is necessary to the goodness of a system that is a

reflection of the goodness of God. Such is the natural moral order conceived as a perfect state of

affairs wherein the good is always a possibility for man.

Rousseau closes the Letter to Voltaire with a return to the everyman perspective while

simultaneously demonstrating the superiority of the “friend of truth.” After having reduced the

questions and difficulties surrounding God’s providence to a “common principle,” namely the

existence of God himself, Rousseau cedes that neither he nor Voltaire are in the position of

denying God, and he adds, “in reading the collection of your works, the greater part offer me the

greatest, most gentle, most consoling ideas of the Divinity, and I much prefer a Christian after

your fashion than after that of the Sorbonne.”64 But Rousseau’s suggestion that neither he nor

Voltaire are in the position of denying God is not exactly to say that they both attest to God’s

existence, and still less is it to say that they both attest to God’s existence in the same way. And

this is precisely Rousseau’s point. He faults Voltaire for not having more cautiously and

conservatively considered the objects of his reason. For, on the one hand, human reason more

readily “grasps the mold of our opinions than that of the truth,” and on the other, skepticism

ought not to yield certainties: “In general it seems that the Skeptics forget themselves a little as

soon as they take up a dogmatic tone, and that they ought to use the term to demonstrate more

64
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 117.
 284

soberly than anyone.”65 Skepticism, carried out appropriately as a rational endeavor of the mind,

leaves the scales in balance, so to speak.66

Regarding his own position, then, Rousseau explains that, although reason cannot

authoritatively pronounce the existence of God, he finds in himself a firm basis for his belief

nevertheless. He writes:

As for me, I naively admit to you that neither pro nor con seems to me demonstrated on this point
by the lights of reason, and that if the Theist bases his sentiments only on probabilities, the
Atheist, even less precise, seems to me only to base his own on some contrary possibilities.
Moreover, the objections, on both sides, are always insoluble because they take in some things of
which men have no genuine idea at all. I agree to all that, and yet I believe in God quite as
strongly as I believe in any other truth, because to believe and not to believe are the things which
depend least on me, because the state of doubt is a state too violent for my soul, because when my
reason waivers, my faith cannot for long remain in suspense, and is determined without it, that at
least a thousand subjects of preference entice me from the most consoling side and join the weight
of hope to the equilibrium of reason.67

Here Rousseau maintains the ordinary perspective through his humility, and his claim that the

state of doubt is too violent his soul, but at the same time, he opens up the perspective of the

“friend of truth.”68 Such a man is not indifferent to reason, but is able to use reason according to

its power and thus place it in the correct relation to sentiment.

As we have noted, Rousseau’s philosophic way is fundamentally skeptical and zetetic; he

relates in the Third Walk of the Rêveries, from his earliest days he sought “to know the nature

and the destination of [his] being,” and this continues uninterrupted across his entire life.69 The

defining feature of his philosophic way is the activity of his reason in relation to the dictates of

65
Ibid., 112 and 114.
66
The characters in Julie are interesting points of comparison on this matter. Consider the exchange
between Julie and St. Preux on the possibility of God’s interference in the natural order in Part VI, letters VI and VII
(Julie, in CW 6, 545-64, especially 552 and 562). Gourevitch takes these passages to indicate Rousseau’s belief in
God’s limited power. In fact, a better interpretation on these passages, especially St. Preux’s response to Julie,
would be to say that in sum they maintain that it would be wholly unnecessary, perhaps even contradicting the
notion of the divinity, for God to intervene in an already perfectly constituted system.
67
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 117.
68
It is doubtful that Rousseau is serious when he contends that the state of doubt is too violent for his soul,
and especially in light of the clear rhetorical and moral utility in Rousseau’s maintaining the fictional appearance of
being a merely common man. Compare these statements with the continuity of his philosophic life described in
Rêveries, III, CW 8.
69
Rêveries, III, CW 8, 18-19.
 285

his conscience. For Rousseau philosophy is an active practice that constantly and continuously

builds upon itself, restraining itself from conclusions except insofar as it is guided by moral

sense, which never fails.70 From the purely rational perspective, man cannot decide upon matters

that are inherently beyond the grasp of his reason; for he will find that “the objections, on both

sides, are always insoluble.” By contrast, moral sense, which is the basis of the faith Rousseau

describes, speaks univocally and without any regard for what reason may or may not suggest;

thus “to believe and not to believe are the things which depend least on me.” From this

perspective, the world presents itself to Rousseau as undeniably good, reaffirming that there is

cause for hope, and tipping the scales of reason by adding the weight of moral truth.71

Throughout the letter, here in this passage showing the relation between moral sense and

reason, and in the paragraph omitted from the version of the letter he sent to Voltaire, Rousseau

makes an important distinction between being convinced and being persuaded. Here he explains

in regard to the existence of God, “the objections, on both sides, are always insoluble,” and

therefore, there is no possibility of deciding on the issue one way or the other without the aid of

moral sense. And in the omitted paragraph in regard to Diderot’s twenty-first philosophical

thought and the probability of the universe being created out of chaos, he writes, “there is this

70
Cf., Letter to Beaumont, in CW 9, 39-40; and Rêveries, IV, CW 8, 31. Rousseau points out in various
places that reason errs, but because sentiment is a necessary reflection of one’s purchase on the truth, it is unerring.
71
Rousseau gives a fictional account this experience in his “Fiction or Allegorical Fragment on
Revelation.” After considering the mechanics of the universe and still finding himself unable to rationally account
for the intricacies of the natural order, Rousseau says of the main character, “all at once a ray of light happened to
strike his mind and to unveil for him those sublime truths that it does not belong to man to know by himself and that
human reason serves to confirm without serving to discover them” (in CW 12, 167). It is also interesting to note
here that Rousseau uses both Julie and M. de Wolmar to suggest that both a refined Epicureanism and a refined
skepticism can be compatible with a belief in God and virtuous life. For our purposes, M. de Wolmar provides a
helpful example. At one point, Rousseau has St. Preux explain that M. de Wolmar, “forced into impiety, became
and atheist,” but later by plunging himself “into the dark recesses of metaphysics,” he made a partial recovery when
he “ceased being an atheist only to become a skeptic” (Julie, in CW 6, 482-83). Interestingly, St. Preux’s narrative
suggests that it was not the failure of his reason, but the permanent trauma to his sentiment that prevented him from
attaining a healthy faith in God. And later, St. Preux tells of how M. de Wolmar persistently avoided conceding that
the existence of evil in world can be attributed to a deficiency in God (ibid., 487).
 286

difference between these two opposed positions, that, while both the one and the other seem

equally convincing to me, the last alone persuades me.”72

For Rousseau, as both Kelly and Gourevitch point out, to convince is the activity or

domain of reason, but reason at its best is unbiased in the sense that it examines pros and cons

objectively and dispassionately.73 It is for this reason that Rousseau himself claims in reference

to the existence of God that “neither pro nor con seems demonstrated to me on this point.” To

persuade, by contrast, is not merely to demonstrate, but to demonstrate with moral certainty.

Therefore, moral sense has priority over reason insofar as reason is incapable of facilitating a

decision without the addition of perspective. While it is possible to decide poorly, as when

reason “grasps the mold of our opinions,” reason is at its best when it is guided and confirmed by

the truth made manifest by moral sense, or in the activity of conscience. Rousseau concedes that

this is in some ways a prejudice, just as he had the Savoyard Vicar concede as much to the young

and corrupt Rousseau. But, the univocal voice of nature found in moral sense justifies this

prejudice, and it is in the moral authority one finds in conscience as a result that reveals the

superiority of the “friend of truth.” This is the defining point of departure between Rousseau and

Voltaire.74

The Letter to Voltaire is perhaps the best and most straightforward statement of

Rousseau’s moral and metaphysical thinking, and it would require far more than this first pass at

an analysis to derive his metaphysics proper.75 Still, in this analysis and by reading the letter

72
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 118.
73
See Kelly, “To Persuade Without Convincing: The Language of Rousseau’s Legislator,” in American
Journal of Political Science 31 (1987): 321-35; and Gourevitch, “Rousseau on Providence,” 598-99 and 598n66.
Gourevitch notes, “Traditionally, to persuade is to move to action; to convince is to demonstrate or to prove;
persuasion is properly the province of rhetoric; demonstration is properly the province of philosophy or science.”
74
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 118.
75
The “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” is most often afforded this honor. However, Masters,
while spending an great deal of time and energy on the “Profession of Faith,” also recognizes the Letter to Voltaire
 287

with a mind to Rousseau’s other works, we can see in his defense of optimism and in his account

of God’s providence several important indications of his broad and teleological philosophy. An

omnipotent and omnibeneficient God established the world and the natural order that sustains

it.76 The natural order is immediately available to us through our sense experience and through

common sense, which derives its ideas from pure sense experience alone.77 The natural order

considered in its most basic manifestation is a system of physical laws that is set up with the

greatest economy to conserve the whole of the system and all of its parts.78 The natural order is

rigorous and pervasive, and because it is instantiated as the result of God’s perfect wisdom,

beneficence, justice, and power, neither does it require Him to intervene nor could his

intervention improve the outcome of the perfect system.79 This is one aspect in which this world

is the best of all possible worlds. At the same time, the natural order is also moral order, for it is

better that the good be freely chosen than dictated. For the natural order to be a moral order,

there must be parts within the integrated whole that are also free and empowered to seek or resist

as the “most complete statement of Rousseau’s own metaphysical position” (Masters, The Political Philosophy of
Rousseau, 68).
76
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 109: “The eternal and beneficent Being who governs you…”; and 117: “If
God exists, he is perfect; if he is perfect, he is wise, powerful, and just…”
77
Emile, in CW 13, 264: “Since everything which enters into the human understanding comes there through
the senses, man’s first reason is a reason of the senses; this sensual reason serves as the basis of intellectual reason.”;
and 301: “It remains for me to speak in the following books of the cultivation of a sort of sixth sense called common
sense, less because it is common to all men than because it results from the well-regulated use of the other senses,
and because it instructs us about the nature of things by the conjunction of their appearances. This sixth sense has
consequently no special organ. It resides only in the brain, and its sensations, purely internal, are called perceptions
or ideas. It is by the number of these ideas that the extent of our knowledge is measured. It is their distinctness,
their clarity which constitutes the accuracy of the mind. It is the art of comparing them among themselves that is
called human reason. Thus, what I would call sensual or childish reason consists in forming simple ideas by the
conjunction of several sensations, and what I call intellectual or human reason consists in forming complex ideas by
the conjunction of several simple ideas.”
78
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 109: “Of all the economies possible…”; and 112: “Far from thinking that
nature is not subject to the precision of quantities, I believe quite to the contrary that she alone strictly follows this
precision, because she alone knows how to compare exactly the ends and the means, and to measure the force of
resistance.”; and 113: “Every event seems to me necessarily to have some effect, whether moral or physical, or
composed of the two, but which are not always perceived, because the connection of events is even more difficult to
follow than that of men.”
79
Institutions chimiques, in OC, vol. X, 227-28: “Doubtless this eternal Being could have produced and
preserved the universe by the sole cooperation of its power and its will, but it was worthier of its wisdom to establish
general laws in nature that never contradict themselves, and whose effect alone is sufficient for the preservation of
the world and all it contains.”
 288

the ends that are proposed by and within the natural order. Man is such a free part; he is a

physical being who is also a spiritual being.80 Because man is free, the universe is, therefore, not

a homogenous whole; a purely materialist or mechanistic account of the universe would fail to

account for man’s spiritual freedom and the spontaneous activity that he is capable of on account

of his spiritual freedom.81 The heterogeneous whole is good in two ways: it is physically good in

virtue of the natural order that conserves the whole and its part, and it is morally good in virtue

of the fact that it affords man, a spiritually free part, the opportunity to pursue the good without

dictating to him that he must do so. Man has only his conscience to continually present him with

a clear indication of the good, and in this way he is morally oriented to the natural ends proposed

by the natural moral order. In order that man may exercise his spiritual freedom, he is created

both perfect and imperfect; that is, he is perfectly constituted and yet insufficient and

incomplete.82 The exercise of man’s spiritual freedom is only possible because there is a

discrepancy between what he is and what he must become to remain in harmony with the natural

moral order.83 Because man is imperfect in the sense that he is born and remains insufficient and

incomplete, and because he has the ability to resist the voice of his conscience (which is to say

the ability to resist the moral order), evil is possible within the system as the natural consequence
80
In the final analysis, Rousseau remains undecided on the issue of dualism, even if a dualist account of the
soul does appear to support his metaphysical positions.
81
Second Discourse, in CW 3, 26: “For Physics explains in some way the mechanism of the senses and the
formation of ideas; but the power of willing, or rather of choosing, and in the sentiment of this power are found only
purely spiritual acts about which the Laws of Mechanics explain nothing.” It is helpful to note here that this is also
the basis of the claim for certainty in regard to the senses and the ideas that are formed on their basis by sensual
reason or common sense.
82
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 109: “man free, perfected, and thereby corrupted…”; and Second Discourse,
in CW 3, 25: “I see an animal less strong than some, less agile than others, but all things considered the most
advantageously organized of all.”; and Emile, in CW 13, 162: “Everything we do not have at our birth and which we
need when we are grown is given us by education. This education comes to us from nature or from men or from
things.”
83
Emile, in CW 13, 163: regarding the aim of the education of men, Rousseau writes, “What is that goal? It
is the very same as that of nature.” As we noted in the previous chapter, the end of education is to mitigate the
disproportion in man’s given nature and his cultivated nature. It does not achieve fulfillment, but is constantly
necessary to man’s development. Said differently, man’s natural end is his development, and as a result he remains
in a permanent state of unfulfillment relative to his present state and condition. Yet, to the extent that he is active
relative to the demands of his environment, he is fulfilling his natural end.
 289

of man’s freedom. Yet, the kinds of evil that are possible are very narrow. Insofar as man resists

the natural moral order and decides against his conscience, moral evil is possible.84 And insofar

as man attributes more to the physical demands of the system than he need to, physical or

perceived evil is possible. Both forms of evil are the result of man’s own activity, and not

directly a manifestation of God’s will. God’s providence extends to the whole insofar as it is

conserved; it extends to individual both insofar as all men are perfectly constituted and also

insofar as each has a unique and peculiar form of genius with which he is endowed from birth.85

The moral good of the system as a whole depends on man having the freedom to choose the

good, and therefore, the imperfection of man contributes to the perfection of the whole. His

choice of action determines both his moral character and his happiness, but not the character of

the natural moral order. The system eternally reflects God’s wisdom, justice, power, and

goodness—Rousseau’s system is a beautiful system.

84
Moral evil can also be viewed as necessity in the context of the system as a whole in virtue of the fact
that man’s freedom is necessary to the good of the whole. This view of moral evil would be the farthest extent that
optimism could be pushed in the direction of vulgar optimism without becoming so itself.
85
Letter to Voltaire, in CW 3, 116: “The greatest idea that I can give myself of Providence is that each
material being be disposed the best way possible in relation to the whole, and each intelligent and sensitive being the
best way possible relative to himself.”; and Emile, in CW 13, 227: “One must know well the particular genius of the
child in order to know what moral diet suits him. Each mind has its own form.”; and 533: “The supreme Being
wanted to do honor to the human species in everything. While giving man inclinations without limit, he gives him
at the same time the law which regulates them, in order that he may be free and in command of himself.”
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