cle, and was reading a copy of the Mercure de France11 when his eyes suddenly fell upon an announcement that the Academy of Dijon was offering a prize for the best discussion on the subject whether the reestablishment of the arts and sciences had contributed to improve les mœurs, which in this case we may translate by morals. 12 The announcement threw him, so he says, into a fever of excitement and in a kind of trance, oblivious of his surroundings, he sank down under a tree and began his impassioned answer, writing then and there his famous apostrophe to Fabricius. At this time Rousseau and Diderot were bound by ties of closest intimacy. Some years later, in 1755, their friendship began to cool, and not long after, ended in a noisy and undignified rupture which was followed by a long train of bitter recriminations. Those who follow with eagerness the chronique scandaleuse of literary history will find that the details of this somewhat unseemly quarrel have been quite fully recorded by scholars. We are interested in but a single phase of that dispute. The report was later scattered by 11 Rousseau. Euvres, Hachette. 1905, Vol. VIII, p. 249. (For a fuller discussion of this question cf. Note 1, on the text, and the first Lettre à M. de Malesherbes here printed.) 12 It is worthy of remark that up to a certain point at least Rousseau accepted the eighteenth century ideas of progress and human perfectibility. It is interesting to note that in the Confessions he gives the subject of his discourse as follows: "Si le progrès des sciences et des arts a contribué à corrompre ou à épurer les mœurs." Human perfectibility he insists upon with special emphasis in the note on the Second Discourse, Vol. I, p. 142, cf. also Dreyfus-Brisac Du Contrat Social, 1896. Introduction. been due rather ha traordina that his ment's r The the out as a mous le necessar even of as and ther th answer the ed 13 Did oires, B 14 Du 167, 168 15 partisans of Diderot,13 in particular by Marmontel, that on Rousseau's arrival at Vincennes he was inclined to take the affirmative side of the question proposed by the Academy, and that it was only on Diderot's instance that he was induced to answer in the negative. For various reasons that report no longer deserves very serious consideration.1 It seems to indicate, however, that at this time and on this point Rousseau and Diderot were in entire agreement, and we shall find further testimony to this agreement when we remember that it was Diderot who later had Rousseau's discourse published, and that he was overjoyed at its success. Much of the confusion on this point has been due to a fundamental misconception. It has been rather hastily assumed that there was something extraordinarily startling in Rousseau's negative, and that his attitude must therefore be explained. A moment's reflection will show that such was not the case. The theme was not of his choosing. It had been put out as a subject for discussion by one of the most famous learned societies of France and it is therefore necessary to accept the fact that in certain quarters even of the French intellectual world it was regarded as an open question. It should be remembered further that if it was possible that the question could be answered in the negative by Diderot, who was already the editor of the Encyclopédie and, therefore, the 13 Diderot. Euvres. 1875, Vol. III, p. 98. Marmontel. Mémoires, Bk. VII; Morellet. Mémoires, Chap. V. 14 Ducros. J.-J. Rousseau, de Genève à l'Hermitage, 1908, pp.. 167, 168. 15 Rousseau, Vol. VIII, p. 258. avowed champion of the scientific and artistic progress of his age, it was more reasonable and natural that Rousseau, from the first always more or less of an alien to the thought and especially the feeling of his time,16 should so have answered it. In assigning to this discourse its proper place in the body of Rousseau's work two points should be carefully considered. In the first place we should note exactly the scope of the question under discussion. He himself takes pains to call our attention to this. The question is not whether the arts and sciences are in themselves desirable. Rousseau is willing to admit that “si les intelligences célestes cultivaient les sciences il n'en resulterait que de bien; j'en dis autant des grands hommes qui sont faits pour guider les autres." Neither is it a question whether the arts and sciences are necessary to mankind at a certain stage in their history. He concedes, somewhat grudgingly to be sure, that the arts are necessary to us now as crutches are necessary for the old and decrepit.18 The question to be discussed was whether in the ages marked by the discoveries and ever-widening applications of the arts and sciences there had not been a loss in moral fibre and individual character. Rousseau proclaimed in his first discourse, perhaps with a too evident satisfaction, that this moral deterioration had followed in the wake of the advancement of the arts. This fundamental conception provides him with the starting point of his system. In the second place we should remember that the form of 16 Ducros. Op. cit. 1908, pp. 149-167. 17 Euvres, Réponse à M. Bordes, I, p. 48. 18 Euvres, Lettre à M. Philopolis, I, p. 154. expressi frankly by an ac essay wa that not fully rea discours century present his side putant t possible. sentially doubtles! Quite po and led ready a pictures the less he was 1 to assun turn ba again, u we catc self wh spirit el system would 1 bliss we To jt expression in the discourse was not entirely of his choosing and that he was presenting his paper as a frankly ex parte statement in a competition organized by an academy. In such a competition a dispassionate essay was not to be expected, and it is a curious fact that not even critics friendly to Rousseau should have fully realized the ethics of his position. The ethics of discourse-writing, a favorite amusement of eighteenth century lettrés, was much the same as the ethics of present day intercollegiate debating. Having chosen his side of an open question it was the duty of the disputant to present it as strongly and convincingly as possible. The form, to be sure, suited Rousseau's essentially one-sided temperament, and his heart was doubtless in his work. La nuance was never his affair. Quite possibly too, a sudden celebrity turned his head and led him at times to renchérir upon what was already a paradox and to draw grotesquely flattering pictures of primitive man. If amusing, it was none the less premature to say of him, as did Voltaire, that he was merely vaunting le bonheur à quatre pattes, or to assume that he advocated that we should suddenly turn back the hands of the clock and run, content again, upon all fours. It is likewise unfair to hold that we catch Rousseau in flagrant contradiction of himself when we later find him with much expense of spirit elaborating a careful state and advocating a new system of education, neither of which institutions would be necessary if this stage of purely primitive bliss were his final aim and end. To judge properly Rousseau's position we must con sider his work as a whole. The fundamental unity of his purpose will be apparent if we look upon his philosophy, as does M. Émile Boutroux,19 as presenting a mythical history of humanity as it passes through its three successive stages. The first stage is the state of nature in which man lives out his individual life in the light of his instinct, following his impulses, which Rousseau believed to be fundamentally good and right, and guided only by his sentiment. His intelligence is as yet undeveloped and entirely subordinate to sentiment and conscience. This stage, however, is in its nature transitory, and once passed, cannot be recalled, and if Rousseau painted this way of life in attractive colors, it was, as we shall see from the Émile and the Contrat Social, by no means his purpose to bring it again into being. For in this state of nature the individual, though free, enjoys but a precarious existence and is soon constrained to combat the forces which threaten his life. To increase his power of resisting these hostile forces he now joins with his fellows and begins to develop his natural resources. At this point he from necessity passes over into the second stage which we may designate as the social state. In entering upon this second state man's primary end was to defend himself and to increase his power of resistance. This he did largely through the development of the arts and sciences. But he soon came to seek power and preeminence for their own sakes, for 19 Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, Vol. XX, pp. 265-274. To M. Boutroux's excellent study I am much indebted. got his the kind conseque proper a velopme itself, th est of s but mer and indi ment ar natural in his perverte enters u the state other w ences w enlargin man ma be trans tect life of the i ideal co alien p to degr |