Rousseau Arts Sciences

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau, DISCOURS OF SCIENCES AND ARTS, in Complete Collection of Works, Geneva, 1780-1789, vol. 7,
in-4°, online edition www.rousseauonline.ch, version of October 7, 2012.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
SPEECH OF SCIENCE AND ARTS
in Complete Collection of Works, Geneva, 1780-1789, vol. 7, in-4°
online edition www.rousseauonline.ch

version of October 7, 2012
http://www.rousseauonline.ch/Text/discours-des-sciences-et-des-arts.php
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
DISCOURSE OF SCIENCE AND

ARTS
SPEECH
WHO WON THE AWARD
AT THE ACADEMY
OF DIJON,
IN THE YEAR 1750.
ON THIS PROPOSED QUESTION
BY THE SAME ACADEMY:
IF THE RESTORATION OF
SCIENCES
AND THE ARTS
CONTRIBUTED
TO PURIFY
THE WALLS.
[1749, October 1750 - March 1750; Geneva, November 1750; THE

manuscript of 1st Discourse disappeared during the
19th century; copy of the original edition, Société J.-J.
Rousseau, Ms. R. 89. Publication, Geneva (Paris) January 1751;
&vs. V. the Pléiade edition pp. 1853 ff.; critical edition published
by George R: Havens, 1946; the Pleiade edition, t. III, pp. 3-
30.== du Peyrou/Moultou 1780-89 quarto edition, t. VII, pp.
23-60. Publication, the Duchesne edition, 1764(?); the Peyrou
edition, 1781. Melanges t. II.(1781)]REPORT.[1. OBSERVATIONS
ON THE SPEECH WHICH WON THE PRIZE OF THE ACADEMY
OF DIJON IN THE YEAR 1750, ON THIS QUESTION PROPOSED
BY THE SAME ACADEMY. [anonymous (Raynal); Mercury of
France, June 1751.] 2. LETTER TO M. LABBÉ RAYNAL. [Rousseau;

Mercure de France, June 1751.] 3. SPEECH BY M. LE ROI,
PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AT THE COLLEGE OF CARDINAL LE
MOINE, DELIVERED ON AUGUST 12, 1751, IN THE SORBONNE
SCHOOLS, IN THE PRESENCE OF MM. OF PARLIAMENT, TO
OCCASION OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF AWARDS FOUNDED IN
THE UNIVERSITY. [The King.] 4. RESPONSE TO THE SPEECH

WHICH WAS AWARDED THE DIJON ACADEMY PRIZE, BY THE KING
OF POLAND. [Stanislas Leszczynski (Father Joseph de

Menoux), Mercure de France, September 1751.]5.
JJ ROUSSEAU'S OBSERVATIONS ON THE REPLY TO HIS SPEECH.
[Rousseau, pamphlet, October 1751.] 6.
REFUTATION OF THE OBSERVATIONS of Mr. JJ ROUSSEAU of
GENEVA, ON A REPLY WHICH WAS MADE TO HIS

SPEECH IN THE MERCURY OF SEPTEMBER 1751.7.
REFUTATION OF THE SPEECH WHICH WON THE PRIZE OF

THE ACADEMY OF DIJON IN THE YEAR 1750, READ AT A
SESSION OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NANCY, BY M. GAUTIER,
CANON REGULAR & PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS & HISTORY.
[Gautier, Mercure de France, October 1751.]8.
LETTER FROM JJ ROUSSEAU TO M. GRIMM (Reply to M.
Gautier). [Rousseau, pamphlet, October 1751.] 9.
OBSERVATIONS OF M. EVEN M. GAUTIER ON THE LETTER FROM
MM ROUSSEAU TO M. GRIMM. 10. SPEECH ON
ADVANTAGES OF SCIENCE AND ARTS, PRONOUNCED IN
THE PUBLIC ASSEMBLY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES &
BELLES-LETTRES of LYON, JUNE 22, 1751. [Bordes, Mercure de
France, June 1751, December 1751 (M.de F.).]11. LAST RESPONSE

FROM JJ ROUSSEAU [ON BOARD]. [Rousseau, April 1752.]
12. REFUTATION OF THE SPEECH WHICH WON THE PRIZE AT
THE ACADEMY OF DIJON IN 1750, BY AN ACADEMICIAN OF
DIJON WHO REFUSED HIS SUFFRAGE. [Le Cat, spring 1752.] 13.
LETTER FROM JJ ROUSSEAU ON A NEW REFUTATION OF
HIS SPEECH BY LE CAT. [Rousseau,
pamphlet, May 1752.] 14. OBSERVATIONS OF M. LE CAT,
PERPETUAL SECRETARY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF
ROUEN, ON THE DISAVOYMENT OF THE ACADEMY OF DIJON,
BY THE AUTHOR OF THE REFUTATION OF THE SPEECH OF THE
CITIZEN OF GENEVA, &c. [The Cat, August 1752, V.#5.]15.
DISCLAIMER OF THE ACADEMY OF DIJON, ON THE
SUBJECT OF THE REFUTATION FALSELY ATTRIBUTED TO ONE OF
ITS MEMBERS, DRAWN FROM MERCURE DE FRANCE,
August 1752.16. PREFACE OF A SECOND LETTER TO BORDES. [Rousseau, fall 1753;
publication, Streckeisen-Moultou, unpublished works
and correspondence, 1861.] 17. SECOND DISCOURSE ON THE
ADVANTAGES OF SCIENCE AND THE ARTS. [Bordes, August
1752 - spring 1753.]18. PREFACE OF NARCISSUS. [Rousseau,

1753.]]
[23]
SPEECH WHICH WON THE PRIZE AT THE ACADEMY OF

DIJON, IN THE YEAR 1750.
ON THIS QUESTION PROPOSED BY THE SAME ACADEMY: IF THE
RESTORATION OF SCIENCE & ARTS HAS CONTRIBUTED TO
PURIFYING THE WALLS.
I am a barbarian here because I do not understand them.

Ovid.
[24]
WARNING
What is fame? Here is the unfortunate work to which I owe mine. It is certain that this Piece, which won me a
prize and made a name for me, is at best mediocre, and I dare add that it is one of the least of all this
Collection. What an abyss of misery the Author would not have avoided, if this first Writing had been received
only as it deserved to be! But it was necessary that a favor which was at first unjust should gradually dull a
rigor which is even more so.
[25]
PREFACE
Here is one of the great & beautiful questions that have ever been debated. It is not a
question in this Discourse of those metaphysical subtleties which have won over all parts of
Literature, and from which the Academic Programs are not always exempt; but it is one of those
truths which are linked to the happiness of the human race.
I foresee that I will be forgiven with difficulty for the course I dared to take. Colliding head-
on with everything that men admire today, I can only expect universal blame; & it is not for
having been honored with the approval of a few Sages that I must rely on that of the Public: so
my decision is taken; I don't care to please either Fine Minds or Fashionable People. There will
always be men made to be subjugated by the opinions of their century, their country, and their
society: such is the case today of the strong mind and the philosopher, who, for the same
reason, would have been only a fanatic of the League time. One must not write for such Readers,
when one wishes to live beyond one's century.
[26] One more word, and I'll finish. Counting little on the honor I have received, I have,
since sending it, recast and augmented this Discourse, to the point of making it, in some way,
another Work; today, I thought myself obliged to restore it to the state in which it was crowned. I
have only thrown in a few notes & left two additions easy to recognize, & which the Academy
would perhaps not approve. I thought fairness; respect and gratitude demanded this warning of
me.
[27]
SPEECH
Misled by the appearance of the right.
Has the re-establishment of Sciences & Arts contributed to purifying or corrupting the
walls? This is what is to be examined. What side should I take in this question? The one,
gentlemen, that suits an honest man who does nothing, and who esteems him no less.
It will be difficult, I feel, to appropriate what I have to say to the Tribunal where I appear.
How dare to blame the sciences before one of the most learned companies in Europe, to
praise ignorance in a famous academy, and to reconcile contempt for study with respect for
true scholars? I have seen these annoyances; & they did not put me off. It is not Science
that I mistreat, I said to myself; it is virtue that I defend before virtuous men. Honesty is even
dearer to good people than erudition to learned men. What then am I to fear? The lights of
the Assembly who listens to me? I admit it; but it is for the constitution of the discourse, and
not for the sentiment of the speaker. Equitable Sovereigns never hesitated to condemn
themselves in dubious discussions; & the most advantageous position in good law, is to
have to defend itself against an honest & enlightened party, judged in its own cause.
To this motive which encourages me there is added another which determines me [28]: it is
that after having supported, according to my natural light, the party of truth; whatever my success,
there is a prize I cannot miss: I will find it in the depths of my heart.
FIRST PART
It is a great and beautiful spectacle to see man come out of nothingness in some way
by his own efforts; to dissipate, by the light of reason, the darkness in which nature had
enveloped it; rise above himself; soar by the spirit into the regions
heavenly; to traverse with giant steps like the Sun, the vast expanse of the Universe; &, what is
still greater and more difficult, to return to oneself to study man there & to know his nature, his
duties & his end. All these marvels have been renewed for a few Generations.
Europe had fallen back into the barbarism of the first ages. The peoples of this part of the
world today so enlightened lived, a few centuries ago, in a state worse than ignorance.
I don't know what scientific jargon, even more despicable than ignorance, has usurped the name
of knowledge, and opposed an almost invincible obstacle to its return. A revolution was needed to
bring men back to common sense; at last she came to the side from which one would least expect
her. It was the stupid Muslim, it was the eternal scourge of Letters that brought them back to life
among us. The fall of the Throne of Constantine carried into Italy the remains of ancient Greece.
France in turn enriched itself with these precious spoils. Soon [29] the Sciences followed the
Letters; to the Art of describing was joined the art of thinking; a gradation which seems strange,
and which is only too natural; and one began to feel the principal advantage of the commerce of
the muses, that of making men more sociable by inspiring them with the desire to please one
another by works worthy of their mutual approval.
The mind has its needs, as does the body. These are the foundations of society, the others
give them their approval. While the Government and the laws provide for the safety and well-being
of the assembled men; Sciences, Letters & Arts, less despotic & more powerful perhaps, spread
garlands of flowers on the iron chains with which they are loaded, stifle in them the feeling of this
original freedom for which they seem to have been born, their make their slavery loved & form
what are called civilized peoples. Need lifted the Thrones; the Sciences and the Arts have
strengthened them. Powers of the Earth, love talents and protect those who cultivate them. For
besides the fact that they thus nourish them in this ladylike littleness so proper to servitude, they
know very well that all the needs that the People give themselves are so many chains which they
take care of. Alexander, wanting to maintain the Ichthyophages in his dependence, compelled
them to give up fishing & to feed on foods common to other Peoples; and the savages of America
who go about naked and who live only on the product of their hunting, have never been able to be
tamed. Indeed, what yoke would one impose on men who need nothing?] Civilized peoples,
cultivate them: Happy slaves, you owe them this delicate and fine taste of which [30] you prick
yourselves; this softness of character & this urbanity of walls which make commerce among you
so binding & so easy; in a word, the appearances of all the virtues without having any.
It is by this kind of politeness, all the more amiable as it affects less to show off, that Athens
and Rome once distinguished themselves in the days so vaunted of their magnificence and their
brilliance: it is by it, no doubt, that our century and our Nation will prevail over all times and over
all Peoples. A philosophic tone without pedantry, natural yet considerate manners, equally far
removed from Tudesque rusticity and ultramontane pantomime: these are the fruits of a taste
acquired by good studies and perfected in worldly commerce.
How sweet it would be to live among us, if the outward countenance were always the image
of the dispositions of the heart; if decency were virtue; if our maxims served us as a rule; if true
Philosophy were inseparable from the title of Philosopher! But so many qualities too rarely go
together, and virtue hardly walks with such great pomp. The wealth of
finery can announce an opulent man, and its elegance a man of taste; the healthy & robust man can be recognized
by other marks; it is under the rustic dress of a Plowman, and not under the gilding of a Courtier, that one will find
strength and vigor of body. Adornment is no less foreign to virtue, which is strength and soul vigor. The good man is
an Athlete who likes to fight naked: he despises all these vile ornaments that would get in the way [31]
the use of his strengths, & most of which have been invented only to hide some deformity.
Before Art had fashioned our manners & taught our passions to speak an elaborate language, our walls were
rustic, but natural; & the difference of the processes announces at the first glance that of the characters. Human
nature, at bottom, was no better; but men found their security in the ease of penetrating each other reciprocally, and
this advantage, the value of which we no longer feel, spared them many vices.
Today, when more subtle research and finer taste have reduced the Art of Pleasing to principles, a base and
deceptive uniformity reigns within our walls, and all minds seem to have been cast into the same mould: politeness
constantly demands, propriety orders; one constantly follows customs, never one's own genius. We no longer dare
to appear what we are; & in this perpetual constraint, the men who form this herd called society, placed in the same
circumstances, will all do the same things if more powerful motives do not divert them. One will therefore never really
know with whom one is dealing: it will therefore be necessary, in order to know one's friend, to wait for the great
occasions, that is to say, to wait until it is too late, since it is for these very occasions that it would have been
essential to know.
What procession of vices will not accompany this uncertainty? More sincere friendships; more real esteem;
more trust based. Suspicions, umbrage, fears, coldness, reserve, hatred, betrayal, will ceaselessly [32] hide under
this uniform and perfidious veil of politeness, under this vaunted urbanity that we owe to the lights of our century. .
We will no longer profane the name of the Master of the Universe by swearing, but we will insult him by blasphemies,
without our scrupulous ears being offended. We will not boast of our own merit, but we will lower that of others; we
will not insult our enemy coarsely, but we will slander him with skill. National hatreds will die out, but it will be with
the love of the Fatherland. For despised ignorance, a dangerous Pyrrhonism will be substituted. There will be
proscribed excesses, dishonored vices, but others will be decorated with the name of virtues; it will be necessary
either to have them or to affect them. Who will boast of the sobriety of the Sages of the time, I see in it, for me, only
a refinement of intemperance as unworthy of my praise as their artful simplicity.* [*I like, says Montagne, to contest
& discourse; but it is with few men & for me. Because to serve as a spectacle for the Great & to show off your wit &
your cackle at will, I found that it is a very unseemly job for a man of honor.
. It is that of all our fine minds, except one.]

Such is the purity that our walls have acquired. This is how we became Good People. It is up to Letters,
Sciences and Arts to claim what belongs to them in such a salutary work. I will only add a reflection; it is only an
Inhabitant of some distant lands who would seek to form an idea of the European walls on the state of the Sciences
among us, on the perfection of our Arts, on the propriety of our Spectacles, on the politeness of our manners, on the
affability of our speeches , on our proofs [33]
perpetual benevolence, & on this tumultuous contest of men of all ages & all
a state which seems eager from sunrise to sunset to oblige each other reciprocally; it is that this
Stranger, I say, would guess from our walls exactly the opposite of what they are.
Where there is no effect, there is no cause to seek: but here the effect is certain, the real
depravity, and our souls have been corrupted as our Sciences and our Arts have advanced to
perfection. Will it be said that this is a particular misfortune at our age? No, gentlemen; the evils
caused by our vain curiosity are as old as the world. The daily rise and fall of the waters of the
ocean have not been more regularly subject to the course of the Star which lights us during the
night, than the fate of the walls and of probity has progressed in the Sciences and the Arts. Virtue
has been seen to flee as their light rises on our horizon, and the same phenomenon has been
observed at all times and in all places.
Look at Egypt, that first school of the Universe, that fertile climate under a sky of bronze, that
famous country from which Sesostris once set out to conquer the World. She becomes the mother
of Philosophy & the Fine Arts, & soon after, the conquest of Cambyses, then that of the Greeks,
Romans, Arabs, & finally the Turks.
Look at Greece, once peopled with Heroes who conquered Asia twice, once before Troy, and
the other in their own homes. The nascent Letters had not yet brought [34] corruption into the
hearts of its Inhabitants; but the progress of the Arts, the dissolution of the walls, and the yoke of
the Macedonian, followed each other closely; and Greece, always learned, always voluptuous, and
always a slave, experienced more in its revolutions than changes of masters. All the eloquence of
Demosthenes could never revive a body that luxury and the arts had enervated.
It was at the time of the Ennius and the Terences that Rome, founded by a Shepherd, and
illustrated by Plowmen, began to degenerate. But after the Ovids, the Catulles, the Martials, and
that host of obscene Authors whose names alone alarm modesty, Rome, formerly the Temple of
Virtue, becomes the Theater of Crime, the reproach of Nations, and the plaything of barbarians.
This Capital of the World finally falls under the yoke it had imposed on so many Peoples, and the
day of its fall was the day before that when one of the Citizens was given the title of Arbiter of Good Taste.
What shall I say of this Metropolis of the Empire of the East, which by its position seemed to
be the home of the whole world, of this asylum of the Sciences and the Arts proscribed from the
rest of Europe, smaller perhaps by wisdom than by barbarism? All that debauchery and corruption
have is most shameful; betrayals, assassinations & blacker poisons; the contest of all the most
atrocious crimes; this is what forms the fabric of the History of Constantinople; here is the pure
source from which emanated to us the Lights of which our century is glorified.
But why look in remote times for proofs of a truth of which we have surviving testimonies [35]
under our eyes. There is an immense country in Asia where Honored Letters lead to the highest
dignities of the State. If the Sciences purified the walls, if they taught men to shed their blood for
the Fatherland, if they animated courage; the Peoples of China should be wise, free & invincible.
But if there is no vice which dominates them, no crime which is not familiar to them; if the lights of
the Ministers, nor the so-called wisdom of the Laws, nor the multitude of the Inhabitants of this vast
Empire, could not protect it from the yoke of ignorant & coarse Tartarus, of what use have all its
Learned? What fruit has he drawn from the honors with which they are heaped? would it be to be
populated by slaves &
wicked?
Let us oppose to these paintings that of the walls of the small number of Peoples who, preserved
from this contagion of vain knowledge, have by their virtues made their own happiness and the
example of other Nations. Such were the first Persians, a singular Nation among whom one learned
virtue as among us one learns Science; who subjugated Asia with so much ease, and who alone had
this glory that the history of its institutions passed for a Romance of Philosophy: such were the
Scythians, of whom we have been left with such magnificent eulogies: such as the Germans, whose
pen , tired of tracing the crimes and the darkness of an educated, opulent and voluptuous People,
relieved himself by painting simplicity, innocence and virtues. Such had been Rome itself, in the
times of its poverty and its ignorance. Such, finally, has shown itself down to our days, this rustic
nation so much vaunted for its courage which [36] adversity could not bring down, and for its fidelity
which example could not corrupt. name the vices that we have so much difficulty in repressing, of
those savages of America whose simple and natural polity Montagne does not hesitate to prefer, not
only to the Laws of Plato, but even to everything that Philosophy will ever be able to imagine. more
perfect for the government of the Peoples. He cites a number of striking examples for those who
know how to admire them: but what! he said, they don't wear breeches.!]
It is not out of stupidity that these have preferred other exercises to those of the mind. They
were not unaware that in other countries idle men spent their lives in disputing over the sovereign
good, vice and virtue, and that proud reasoners, giving themselves the highest praises, confounded
the other Peoples under the name contemptuous of barbarians; but they have considered their walls
& learned to disdain their doctrine. do not even dope? What did the Romans think of medicine when
they banished it from their Republic? And when a remnant of humanity led the Spaniards to forbid
their Lawyers from entering America, what idea were they to have of Jurisprudence? Wouldn't one
say that they believed that by this single Act they repaired all the evils they had done to these
unfortunate Indians.]
Am I forgetting that it was in the very bosom of Greece that this City was seen to rise, as famous
for its happy ignorance as for the wisdom of its Laws, this Republic of demigods rather than of men?
so much did their virtues seem superior to humanity? O Sparta! eternal reproach of a [37] vain
doctrine! While the vices led by the fine arts were introduced together in Athens, while a Tyrant was
gathering there with so much care the works of the Prince of Poets, you drove from your walls the
Arts and the Artists, the Sciences and the Learned.
The event marked this difference. Athens became the abode of politeness and good taste, the
country of orators and philosophers. The elegance of the buildings corresponded to that of the
language. On all sides one saw marble and canvas animated by the hands of the most skilful
masters. It is from Athens that came these surprising works which will serve as models in all the
corrupt ages. The Table of Lacedaemon is less brilliant. There, said other peoples, men are born
virtuous, and the very air of the country seems to inspire virtue. All that remains of its inhabitants is
the memory of their heroic deeds. Would such monuments be worth less to us than the curious
marbles that Athens has left us?
A few sages, it is true, have resisted the general torrent & have protected themselves from vice
in the abode of the Muses. But let us listen to the judgment that the first and most unfortunate among
they carried scholars and artists of their time.

"I have examined, he says, the Poets, & I regard them as people whose talent imposes on
themselves & on others, who give themselves out as wise, who are taken for such, & who are
nothing less."
“From Poets, continues Socrates, I have passed to Artists. No one was more ignorant of the
arts than I; no one was more convinced that Artists possessed very beautiful [38] secrets.
However, I realized that their condition is no better than that of the Poets and that they are both
in the same prejudice. Because the most skilful among them excel in their Game, they regard
themselves as the wisest of men. This presumption has completely tarnished their knowledge in
my eyes: so that putting myself in the place of the Oracle, and asking me what I would like best
to be, what I am or what they are, to know what they are learned one knows that I know nothing;
I replied to myself & to God: I want to remain what I am.”
“We do not know, neither the Sophists, nor the Poets, nor the Orators, nor the Artists, nor I,
what is the true, the good and the beautiful. But there is this difference between us, that although
these people know nothing, all believe they know something, whereas I, if I know nothing, at least
I am not in doubt. So that all this superiority of wisdom which is granted to me by the Oracle, is
reduced only to being well convinced that I do not know what I am not doing.
Here, then, is the wisest of men at the Judgment of the Gods, and the most learned of
Athenians in the opinion of all Greece, Socrates, praising ignorance! Do we believe that, if he
were to rise again among us, our Scholars and our Artists would make him change his mind? No,
Gentlemen: this just man would continue to despise our vain Sciences; he would not help to swell
this crowd of books with which we are inundated from all sides, and would leave, as he did, for all
[39] precept to his disciples and our nephews, only the example and the memory of his virtue. It
is thus that it is beautiful to instruct men!
Socrates had begun in Athens, the old Cato continued in Rome, to rage against those artful
and subtle Greeks who seduced virtue and softened the courage of his fellow citizens. But the
Sciences, the Arts and the dialectic still prevailed: Rome was filled with Philosophers and Orators;
military discipline was neglected, agriculture was despised, sects were embraced, and the
fatherland was forgotten. To the sacred names of liberty, disinterestedness, obedience to the
laws, succeeded the names of Epicurus, Zeno, Arcesilaus. Since the Learned began to appear
among us, said their own Philosophers, the Good People have been eclipsed. Until then the
Romans were content to practice virtue; all was lost when they began to study it.
O Frabricius! What would your great soul have thought if, to your misfortune, recalled to life,
you had seen the pompous face of this Rome saved by your arm, and which your respectable
name had more illustrious than all its conquests? "Gods! Would you have said, what has become
of those thatched roofs and those rustic hearths where moderation and virtue once dwelt? What
fatal splendor succeeded Roman simplicity? What is this foreign language? What are these girlish
walls? What do these statues, these paintings, these buildings signify? Fools! what have you
done? You Masters of Nations, you have become the slaves of the frivolous men you have
conquered! Do Rhetoricians [40] govern you? It's for
to enrich Architects, Painters, Statuaries & Histrions, whom you have sprinkled with your blood
Greece & Asia? The spoils of Carthage fall prey to a Pied Piper!
Romans, hasten to overthrow these amphitheatres; break these marbles, bridle these paintings;
drive out those slaves who subjugate you, and whose fatal arts corrupt you. Let other hands shine
with vain talents; the only talent worthy of Rome is that of conquering the world and making virtue
reign there. When Cyneas took our Senate for an assembly of Kings, he was dazzled neither by a
vain pomp nor by a sought-after elegance. He did not hear that frivolous eloquence, the study and
the charm of futile men. What is Cyneas experiencing that is so majestic? O Citizens! He lives a
spectacle that your wealth or all your arts will never give; the most beautiful spectacle that has ever
set out under Heaven, the assembly of two hundred virtuous men, worthy of commanding in Rome,
and of governing the earth.
But let us cross the distance of places & times, & see what happened in our countries & under
our eyes; or rather, let us discard odious paintings which would offend our delicacy, and spare
ourselves the trouble of repeating the same things, under other names. It was not in vain that I
evoked the ghosts of Fabricius; & what did I make this great man say, that I could have put in the
mouth of Louis XII or Henri IV? Among us, it is true, Socrates would not have drunk hemlock; but
he would have drunk, in an even more bitter cup, insulting mockery and contempt a hundred times
worse than death.
[41] This is how luxury, dissolution and slavery have always been the punishment for the proud
efforts we have made to emerge from the happy ignorance in which eternal wisdom has placed us.
The thick veil with which she covered all her operations seemed to warn us enough that she had
not destined us for vain research. But is there any of its lessons that we have been able to take
advantage of, or that we have neglected with impunity? Peoples, know then that nature wanted to
preserve you from science, as a mother snatches a dangerous weapon from the hands of her child;
that all the secrets it hides from you are so many evils from which it protects you, and that the
trouble you find in learning is not the least of its benefits. Men are perverse; they would be worse
still, if they had had the misfortune to be born scholars.
How humiliating these reflections are for humanity! how our pride must be mortified! What!
probity would be the daughter of ignorance? Are science & virtue incompatible? What consequences
would we not draw from these prejudices? But, to reconcile these apparent contrarieties, it is only
necessary to examine closely the vanity and the nothingness of these proud titles which dazzle us,
and which we give so gratuitously to human knowledge. Let us therefore consider the Sciences and
the Arts in themselves. Let us see what must result from their progress, and let us no longer hesitate
to agree on all the points where our reasonings will find themselves in agreement with historical
inductions.
[42]
SECOND PART
It was an ancient tradition passed from Egypt to Greece, that a God enemy of the rest of men
was the inventor of the sciences.* [*The allegory of the fable of Prometheus is easily seen; & it
does not appear that the Greeks who are nailed to the Caucasus hardly think of it more favorably
than the Egyptians of their God Teuthus. “The Satyr, says an old fable, wanted to kiss & embrace
fire the first time he saw it; but Prometheus cried to him, Satyr, you will weep for the beard of your
chin, for it burns when touched.” This is the subject of the frontispiece.] What opinion, then, should
the Egyptians themselves, among whom they were born, have had of them? It is that they saw
closely the sources which had produced them. Indeed, whether one leafs through the annals of
the world, or whether one supplements uncertain chronicles with philosophical research, one will
not find in human knowledge an origin which corresponds to the idea which one likes to form of it.
Astronomy was born of superstition; Eloquence, ambition, hatred, flattery, lies; Geometry, from
varicose veins; Physics, of a vain curiosity; all, and morality itself, from human pride. The Sciences
and the Arts therefore owe their birth to our vices: we would be less in doubt about their
advantages, if they owed it to our virtues.
The defect of their origin is only too traced to us in their objects. What would we do with the
arts without the luxury that nourishes them? Without the injustices of men, of what use would
Jurisprudence be? What would become of History if there were neither [43] Tyrants, nor Wars,
nor Conspirators? Who would want, in a word, to pass his life in sterile contemplation, if each one,
consulting only the duties of man and the needs of nature, had time only for the Fatherland, for
the unfortunate, and for his friends? Are we then made to die tied to the edge of the well where
the truth has withdrawn? This reflection alone should discourage from the first steps any man who
would seriously seek to educate himself by the study of Philosophy.
What dangers! what false paths in the investigation of the Sciences? By how many errors, a
thousand times more dangerous than the truth is useful, must one not pass to arrive there? The
disadvantage is visible; for the false is susceptible of an infinity of combinations; but the truth has
only one way of being. Who is it, moreover, who is sincerely looking for her? even with the best
will, by what marks are we sure to recognize it?
In this crowd of different feelings, what will be our criterion to judge it well?* [*The less one knows, the more one
thinks one knows. Did the Peripatetics doubt anything? Didn't Descartes build the Universe with cubes &
whirlpools? And is there even today, in Europe, such a slender physicist, who does not boldly explain this profound
mystery of electricity, which will perhaps forever cause the despair of true Philosophers?]
And, what is most difficult, if by luck we find it at the end, which of us will know how to make good
use of it?
If our sciences are vain in the object they propose, they are even more dangerous in the
effects they produce. Born in leisure, they nourish it in their turn; [44] & the irreparable loss of
time is the first harm it necessarily causes to society. In politics, as in morals, it is a great evil not
to do good; & any useless citizen can be regarded as a pernicious man. Answer me then,
illustrious philosophers, you by whom we know the reasons why bodies are drawn into the void;
what are, in the revolutions of the planets, the ratios of the areas traversed in equal times; which
curves have conjugate points, inflection & redemption points; how man sees everything in God;
how blade & bodies correspond without communication, as would two clocks; which stars can be
inhabited; which insects reproduce in an extraordinary way? Answer me, I say, you from whom
we have received so much sublime knowledge; if you had never taught us anything of these
things, would we be less numerous, less well governed, less formidable, less flourishing, or more
perverse? Come back to the importance of your productions; and if the work of the most
enlightened of our scholars and our best citizens procures us so little use, tell us what we must
think of this crowd of obscure writers and idle scholars who devour the substance of the state to
no avail.
What am I saying, idlers? & would to God they indeed were! The walls would be healthier
and society more peaceful. But these vain and futile declaimers go in all directions, armed with
their fatal paradoxes; undermining the foundations of faith, and annihilating virtue. They smile
disdainfully at [45] these old words of Fatherland and Religion, and devote their talents and their
Philosophy to destroying and debasing all that is sacred among men. Not that deep down they
hate neither virtue nor our dogmas; it is public opinion that they are enemies of; & to bring them
back to the foot of the altars, it would suffice to relegate them among the Atheists. O fury to
distinguish yourself, what can you not?
The abuse of time is a great evil. Other still worse evils follow Letters and the Arts. Such is
luxury, born like them of leisure and the vanity of men. Luxury rarely goes without the sciences
and the arts, and they never go without it. I know that our Philosophy, always fruitful in singular
maxims, claims, against the experience of all the centuries, that luxury makes the splendor of
States: but after having forgotten the necessity of sumptuary laws, will it still dare to deny that
good walls are essential to the duration of Empires, and that luxury is not diametrically opposed
to good walls? Let luxury be a sure sign of wealth; let it serve even if we want to multiply them:
what should we conclude from this paradox so worthy of being created in our day? & what will
become of virtue, when it is necessary to get rich at any price whatsoever? The old Politicians
spoke incessantly of walls and of virtue; ours speak only of commerce and money. Someone will
tell you that a man is worth in such a country the sum that would be sold in Algiers; another, by
following this calculation, will find countries where a man is worth nothing, and others where he is
worth less than nothing. They value men like herds of cattle. According to them, a man is worth
to the State only the consumption [46] that he makes there.
Thus a Sybarite would have been worth thirty Lacedaemonians. Guess which of these
two Republics, Sparta or Sybaris, was subjugated by a handful of peasants, and who made Asia
tremble.
The Monarchy of Cyrus was conquered with thirty thousand men by a Prince poorer than the
least of the Satraps of Persia; & the Scythians, the most miserable of all Peoples, resisted the most
powerful Monarchs in the Universe. Two famous Republics disputed the Empire of the World; one
was very rich, the other had nothing, and it was the latter that destroyed the other. The Roman
Empire in its turn, after having swallowed up all the riches of the Universe, fell prey to people who
did not even know what wealth was. The Franks conquered Gaul, the Saxons England without other
treasures than their bravery and their poverty. A troop of poor Montagnards whose all greed was
limited to a few sheepskins, after having tamed Austrian pride, crushed this opulent and formidable
House of Burgundy which made the Potentates of Europe tremble. Finally all the power and all the
wisdom of the heir of Charles-Quint, supported by all the treasures of the Indies, came to break
against a handful of herring fishermen. May our politicians deign to suspend their calculations to
reflect on these examples, and may they learn once that we have everything with money except
walls and Citizens.
So what exactly is this question of luxury all about? To know which is more important for Empires
to be, brilliant and momentary, or virtuous and durable. I say brilliant, [47]
but with what brilliance? The taste for pomp is hardly associated in the same souls with that of
honesty. No, it is not possible that minds degraded by a multitude of futile cares should ever rise to
anything great; and when they had the strength to do so, their courage would fail them.
Every Artist wants to be applauded. The praise of his contemporaries is the most precious part
of his awards. What, then, will he do to obtain them, if he has the misfortune to be born among a
People & in times when the Savants, who have become fashionable, have put a frivolous youth in a
position to set the tone; where men have sacrificed their taste to the Tyrants of their freedom;* [*I am
far from thinking that this ascendancy of women is an evil in itself. It is a present that nature gave
them for the happiness of the human race: better directed, it could produce as much good as it does
harm today. We do not sufficiently feel what advantages would arise in society from a better education
given to that half of the human race which governs the other. Men will always be what women please:
if you want them to become great and virtuous, teach women what ladylike greatness and virtue are.
The reflections that this subject furnishes, and that Plato once made, would very much deserve to be
better developed by a pen worthy of describing from such a master and defending such a great
cause.] where, one of the sexes daring to approve only what is proportionate to the pusillanimity of
the other, masterpieces of dramatic poetry are dropped, and prodigies of harmony are rejected?
What will he do, gentlemen? He will lower his genius to the level of his century, and will prefer to
compose common works that one admires during his life, than marvels that one would only admire
long after his death. Tell us, famous Arouet, how many male and strong beauties you have sacrificed
[48] to our false delicacy! & how much the spirit of gallantry, so fertile in small things, has cost you great things!
It is thus that the dissolution of walls, a necessary consequence of luxury, leads in its turn to the
corruption of taste. That if by chance, among men extraordinary in their talents, there is found
someone who has firmness of soul and who refuses to lend himself to the genius of his century and
to degrade by puerile productions, woe to him! He will die in need and in oblivion. What is this a
prognosis that I make and not an experience that I report!
Carl, Peter; the moment has come when this brush, destined to increase the majesty of our Temples,
by sublime and holy images, will fall from your hands, or will be prostituted to adorn the panels of a
vis-à-vis with lascivious paintings. And you, rival of Praxiteles & Phidias; you whose chisel would
have used them to make them gods capable of excusing their idolatry in our eyes; inimitable Pigal,
your hand will resolve to swallow the belly of a hoard, or it will have to quit idle.
One cannot reflect on the walls without delighting to recall the image of the simplicity of the first
times. It is a beautiful shore, adorned with the hands of nature alone, towards which we constantly
turn our eyes, and from which we feel we are moving away with regret. When innocent and virtuous
men liked to have the gods as witnesses of their actions, they lived together in the same huts; but
soon becoming wicked, they grew weary of these inconvenient spectators, and relegated them to
magnificent temples. [49] They finally drove them out to establish themselves there, or at least the
Temples of the Gods were no longer distinguished from the houses of the citizens. It was then the
height of depravity; and the vices were never pushed further than when they were seen, so to speak,
supported, at the entrance to the Palaces of the Great, on marble columns, and engraved on
Corinthian capitals.
While the conveniences of life multiply, the arts are perfected and luxury spreads; true courage
becomes enervated, military virtues vanish, and it is still the work of the sciences and of all those
arts which are exercised in the shadow of the cabinet. When the Goths ravaged Greece, all the
libraries were saved from the fire only by this opinion sown by one of them, that the enemies should
be left with furniture so suitable to divert them from military exercise and to amuse them with idle
and sedentary occupations. .
Charles VIII saw himself as master of Tuscany and the Kingdom of Naples without having almost
drawn the sword; & all his Court attributed this unexpected facility to the fact that the Princes &
Nobility of Italy had more fun making themselves ingenious & learned, than they exerted themselves
to become vigorous & warriors. Indeed, says the man of sense who relates these two traits, all the
examples teach us that in this martial police and in all those which are similar to it, the study of the
sciences is much more likely to soften and effeminate courage than to strengthen it and strengthen it. animate.
The Romans admitted that military virtue was extinguished among them, as they began to know
themselves [50] in paintings, in engravings, in vases of goldsmithery, and in cultivating the fine arts;
& as if this famous country were destined to serve unceasingly as an example to other peoples, the
rise of the Medici and the re-establishment of Letters have once again brought down and perhaps
forever this warlike reputation that Italy seemed to have recovered a few centuries ago.
The ancient Republics of Greece, with that wisdom which shone in most of their institutions,
had forbidden their Citizens all those tranquil and sedentary trades which, by weakening and
corrupting the body, immediately enervate the vigor of the soul. How, in fact, do you think that the
hunger, the thirst, the fatigue, the dangers and the death of men who are overwhelmed by the
slightest need and repulsed by the slightest pain can be envisaged? With what courage will the
soldiers endure excessive labors of which they are unaccustomed? With what ardor will they make
forced marches under officers who have not even been forced to travel on horseback? Let no one
object to me the renowned valor of all these modern warriors so
skillfully disciplined. They boast to me of their bravery on a day of battle, but they do not tell me how they bear the excess of work,
how they resist the rigors of the seasons and the bad weather of the air. It only takes a little sunshine or snow, it only takes the
deprivation of a few superfluities to melt and destroy in a few days the best of our armies. Fearless warriors, suffer once the truth
you so seldom hear. You are brave, I know it; you would have triumphed with Hannibal at Cannes & at [51] Trasimene; Caesar
with you would have crossed the Rubicon, and enslaved his country; but it was not with you that the first would have crossed the
Alps, and that the other would have been vain for your ancestors.
Fighting does not always make war successful, and for Generals there is a higher art than winning battles. Such a man runs
into the fire with intrepidity, who does not fail to be a very bad officer: even in the soldier, a little more strength and vigor would
perhaps be more necessary than so much bravery which does not guarantee him death; and what does it matter to the State that
its troops perish by fever and cold, or by the sword of the enemy?
If the culture of science is detrimental to warlike qualities, it is even more so to moral qualities. It is from our earliest years
that an insane education adorns our minds and corrupts our judgment. I see on all sides immense establishments, where young
people are educated at great expense to teach them everything except their duties. Your children will not know their own language,
but they will speak others which are not in use anywhere: they will know how to compose Verses which they will hardly be able to
understand: without knowing how to disentangle error from truth, they will possess the art of making them unrecognizable to
others by specious arguments: but these words of magnanimity, of equity, of temperance, of humanity, of courage, they will not
know what they are; this sweet name of Fatherland will never strike their ears; & if they hear about God, it will be less to fear him
than to be afraid of him.* [*Think. Philosoph.]
I would like so much, said a Sage, that my schoolboy [52] had passed the time in a Tennis court, at least the body would be more
disposed to it. I know that children must be kept busy, and that leisure is for them the danger most to be feared. What should they
gifted to learn? This is certainly a good question! Let them learn what they must do when they are men,* [*Such was the education
of the Spartans, according to the greatest of their Kings. It is, says Montagne, something worthy of very great consideration, that
in this
excellent font of Lycurgus, & indeed monstrous in its perfection, yet so careful of the food of the children,
as of his main charge, and even at the lodge of the Muses, there is so little mention of the doctrine: as if this generous
disdaining any other yoke, we had to provide, instead of our Masters of Science, only Masters of Valor,
prudence & justice.
Let us now see how the same Author speaks of the ancient Persians. Plato, he says, relates that the eldest son of their
royal succession was thus nourished. After his birth, he was given, not to women, but to Eunuchs of the first
authority near the King, because of their virtue. These took charge of making his body beautiful & healthy, & after seven years, the
had to ride horses & go hunting. When he had reached the fourteenth, they placed him in the hands of four:
the wisest, the most just, the most temperate, the most valiant of the Nation. The first taught him Religion: the second to be
always true, the third to overcome his greed, the fourth to fear nothing. All, I might add, to make it good, none to
make scholar.
Astyages, in Xenophon, asks Cyrus to account his last lesson: it is, he says, that in our school a big boy
having a small saye, gave it to one of his smaller companions, & took off his larger saye. OUR
Although the preceptor had judged this difference, I judged that things had to be left in this state, and that both seemed to be
better accommodated at this point. Whereupon he showed me that I had done wrong: for I had stopped to consider propriety; & he
it was necessary first to have provided for justice, which wanted that no one should be forced in what belonged to him. And said he was punished for it,
as we are punished in our villages for having forgotten the first aorist of in genere . My Regent would give me a fine harangue,
demonstrativo, before he persuaded me that his school is worth that one.]
& not what they must forget.

Our gardens are adorned with statues & our Galleries with paintings. What would you think
these masterpieces of art on display for public admiration represent? Defenders of the Fatherland?
or those still greater men who have enriched it by their virtues? No. They are images of all the
wanderings of the heart and reason, carefully drawn from ancient Mythology, and early presented
to the curiosity of our children; no doubt so that they have before their eyes models of bad deeds,
even before they know how to read.
[53] From where do all these abuses arise, if not from the disastrous inequality introduced
between men by the distinction of talents and by the debasement of virtues? This is the most
obvious effect of all our studies, and the most dangerous of all their consequences. We no longer
ask a man if he has probity, but if he has talents; nor dun Delivered if it is useful, but if it is well
written. Rewards are lavished on the beautiful mind, and virtue remains without honours. There
are a thousand prizes for fine speeches, none for fine deeds. Tell me, however, if the glory
attached to the best of the speeches that will be crowned in this Academy, is comparable to the
merit of having founded it, the prize?
The sage does not run after fortune; but he is not insensitive to glory, and when he sees it so
badly distributed, his virtue, which a little emulation would have animated and rendered
advantageous to society, falls into languor, and dies away in [54] misery and oblivion. This is what,
in the long run, must produce everywhere the preference for pleasant talents over useful talents,
and what experience has confirmed only too well since the renewal of the sciences and the arts.
We have physicists, geometers, chemists, astronomers, poets, musicians, painters; we no longer
have citizens; or if there are still some left, dispersed in our abandoned countryside, they perish
there destitute and despised. Such is the state in which we are reduced, such are the feelings that
those who give us bread and who give milk to our children obtain from us.
I admit it however; the evil is not as great as it could have become. Eternal foresight, by
placing salutary simple plants alongside various harmful plants, and in the substance of several
malevolent animals the remedy for their wounds, has taught the Sovereigns, who are its ministers,
to imitate its wisdom. It is by his example that from the very bosom of the sciences and the arts,
sources of a thousand irregularities, this great Monarch whose glory will only acquire from age to
age a new brilliance, drew these famous societies charged at the same time with the dangerous
deposit of human knowledge, & of the sacred deposit of the walls, by the attention they have to
maintain in them all the purity, & to require it in the members they receive.
These wise institutions, strengthened by his august successor, and imitated by all the Kings
of Europe, will at least serve as a brake on men of letters, who all aspire to the honor of being
admitted to the Academies, will watch over themselves, [55] and will try to make them worthy by
useful works and irreproachable walls. Those of these Companies, which for the prizes with which
they honor the literary merit will make a choice of subjects appropriate to revive the love of virtue
in the hearts of the Citizens, will show that this love reigns among them, & will give to the People
this pleasure so rare & so pleasant to see learned societies devoting themselves to pouring on the
human-kind, not only pleasant lights, but also Instructions
beneficial.
So let no one oppose me with an objection which for me is only a new proof.
So much care shows only too well the need to take it, and we do not seek remedies for evils that do not exist.
Why must these still bear, by their insufficiency, the character of ordinary remedies? So many establishments
made for the benefit of scholars are all the more capable of imposing on the objects of the sciences, and of
turning minds to their culture. It seems, from the precautions taken, that there are too many Plowmen and that
there is a fear of lacking Philosophers. I do not want to hazard here a comparison of agriculture and
philosophy: we would not support it. I will only ask, what is Philosophy? What do the writings of the most
famous philosophers contain? What are the lessons of these friends of wisdom? To hear them, wouldn't one
take them for a troop of charlatans shouting, each on his side in a public square; Come to me, is it I alone
who does not deceive? One claims that there is no body & that everything is in representation. The other, that
there is no other substance [56] than matter, nor any other God than the world. He argues that there are
neither virtues nor vices, and that moral good and evil are chimeras. That one, that men are wolves & can
devour each other with a clear conscience. O great Philosophers! Why don't you reserve these profitable
Lessons for your friends and your children; you would soon receive the price, and we would not be afraid to
find in ours one of your followers.
Here, then, are the marvelous men to whom the esteem of their contemporaries was lavished during
their lifetime, and immortality reserved after their death! These are the wise maxims which we have both
received, and which we transmit from age to age to our descendants. Paganism, delivered to all the
aberrations of human reason, has it left to posterity anything that can be compared to the shameful monuments
prepared for it by the printing press, under the reign of the Gospel?
The impious writings of the Leucippes and the Diagoras perished with them. The art of eternalizing the
extravagances of the human mind had not yet been invented. But, thanks to the typographical characters*
[*To consider the frightful disorders that the printing press has already caused in Europe, to judge of the future
by the progress that evil is making from one day to the next, one can easily foresee that the Sovereigns will
not be long in coming take as much care to banish this terrible art from their states as they took to introduce
it. Sultan Achmet, yielding to the importunities of some pretended people of taste, had consented to establish
a printing press in Constantinople. But no sooner was the press in the process than they were forced to
destroy it and throw the instruments into a well. It is said that the Caliph Omar, consulted on what should be
done with the library of Alexandria, replied in these terms. If the Books of this library contain things opposed
to the Alcoran, they are bad, and they must be burned. If they only contain the doctrine of the Alcoran, burn
them again: they are superfluous. Our Savans have cited this reasoning as the height of absurdity. However,
suppose Gregory the Great in the place of Omar, and the Gospel in the place of the Alcoran, the library would
still have been burned down, and this would perhaps be the finest feature of the life of this illustrious Pontiff.
in fact, the dangerous reveries of Hobbes and Spinosa will remain forever. Come on, famous writings [57] of
which the ignorance and rusticity of our fathers would not have been capable; Accompany our descendants
to these even more dangerous works from which breathes the corruption of the walls of our century, and carry
together to the centuries to come a faithful history of the progress and the advantages of our sciences and
our arts. If they read you, you will leave them no perplexity on the question we are discussing today; & unless
they are more foolish than we are, they will raise their hands to Heaven, & will say in the bitterness of their heart "Almighty
in your hands the Spirits, deliver us from the Lights and the disastrous arts of our Fathers, and restore to
us ignorance, innocence and poverty, the only goods which can make our happiness and which are
precious before you.
But if the progress of the sciences and the arts has added nothing to our happiness; if it has corrupted
our walls, and if the corruption of the walls has affected the purity of taste, what shall we think of this crowd
of elementary Authors who set aside Temple of the Muses the difficulties which defended its approach,
and which nature had spread there? as a test of the strength of those who would be tempted to know?
What [58] shall we think of these Compilers of works who have indiscreetly broken down the door of the
Sciences & introduced into their Sanctuary a populace unworthy of approaching it; while it would be to be
hoped that all those who could not advance far from the career of Letters, had been put off from the start,
and had thrown themselves into Arts useful to society? Someone who will be a bad versifier all his life, a
subaltern geometer, would perhaps have become a great fabricator. No masters were needed for those
whom nature intended to make disciples. The Verulams, the Descartes and the Newtons, these Preceptors
of the Human Kind, did not have any themselves, and what guides would have led them as far as their
vast genius carried them? Ordinary Masters could only have narrowed their understanding by restricting it
within the narrow capacity of their own: It was through the first obstacles that they learned to make efforts,
and that they exercised themselves to cross the immense space which they traversed. If a few men must
be allowed to devote themselves to the study of the Sciences and the Arts, which only those who will feel
compelled to walk alone in their footsteps, and to get ahead of them: It is to this small number that it
belongs to erect monuments to the glory of the human spirit. But if nothing is to be above their genius,
nothing must be above their hopes. This is the only encouragement they need. The soul is imperceptibly
proportioned to the objects that occupy it, and it is great occasions that make great men. The Prince of
Eloquence was Consul of Rome, and perhaps the greatest of Philosophers, Chancellor of England. Do we
believe that if one [59] had only occupied a chair in some University, and that the other had only obtained
a modest pension from the Academy; Do you think, I say, that their works do not show their condition? Let
Kings therefore not disdain to admit into their councils the people most capable of advising them well: let
them renounce this old prejudice invented by the pride of the Great, that the art of leading Peoples is more
difficult than that of enlightening them: as if It was easier to induce men to do good of their own free will
than to compel them to do so by force. May scholars of the first order find honorable asylums in their
Courts. That they obtain there the only worthy reward two; that of contributing by their credit to the
happiness of the Peoples to whom they will have taught wisdom. It is only then that we will see what virtue,
science and authority, animated by noble emulation and working in concert for the happiness of the human
race, can do. But as long as the mighty is alone on one side; the light and wisdom of another alone; the
scholars will rarely think of great things, the Princes will more rarely do beautiful things, and the People will
continue to be vile, corrupt and unhappy.
For us, vulgar men, to whom Heaven has not bestowed such great talents & whom it does not intend
for so much glory, we remain in our obscurity. Let us not run after a reputation which would escape us,
and which, in the present state of things, would never give us back what it would have cost us, when we
had all the titles to obtain it. What's the point
seek our happiness in the opinion of others if we can find it in ourselves?

Let others instruct [60] the Peoples in their duties, and confine ourselves to fulfilling ours well, we do
not need to know more.
O virtue! Sublime science of simple souls, do you need so much trouble and apparatus to know
you? Are not your principles engraved in all hearts, and is it not enough to learn your Laws to return
to oneself and listen to the voice of one's conscience in the silence of the passions? This is the true
Philosophy, let us know how to be satisfied with it; & without envying the glory of these famous men
who immortalize in the Republic of Letters; let us try to put between them and ourselves that glorious
distinction which was once noticed between two great Peoples; that one knew how to say well, and
the other to do well.
END.
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in Complete Collection of Works, Geneva, 1780-1789, vol. 7, in-4°

online edition www.rousseauonline.ch

DISCOURSE OF SCIENCE AND

[1749, October 1750 - March 1750; Geneva, November 1750; THE

France, June 1751.] 2. LETTER TO M. LABBÉ RAYNAL. [Rousseau;

THE UNIVERSITY. [The King.] 4. RESPONSE TO THE SPEECH

OF POLAND. [Stanislas Leszczynski (Father Joseph de

GENEVA, ON A REPLY WHICH WAS MADE TO HIS

REFUTATION OF THE SPEECH WHICH WON THE PRIZE OF

France, June 1751, December 1751 (M.de F.).]11. LAST RESPONSE

1752 - spring 1753.]18. PREFACE OF NARCISSUS. [Rousseau,

SPEECH WHICH WON THE PRIZE AT THE ACADEMY OF

I am a barbarian here because I do not understand them.

Misled by the appearance of the right.

. It is that of all our fine minds, except one.]

they carried scholars and artists of their time.

& not what they must forget.

seek our happiness in the opinion of others if we can find it in ourselves?

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