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Robert Lucien Wokler (1942-2006)
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1971
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Robert Lucien Wokler was born in Auch, near Toulouse, in 1942 and died of cancer in 2006, aged 63.
He was a leading interpreter of 18th century political thought, especially the political thought of J-J. Rousseau. Cosmopolitan by background and inclination, his academic carreer principally took place at universities in Britain. His singular contribution to scholarship lay in demonstrating how the political thought of the Enlightenment was connected to developments in anthropology, linguistics and music. His writings skillfully combined erudition and insight with a deep sympathy for the intellectual culture and the people about which he wrote. He saw in the Enlightenment a profound reaction to experiences of religiously-inspired violence, experiences all too similar to the events of his own time (he was an outspoken advocate for intervention against genocide in Bosnia). He believed that the Enlightenment's calls for toleration and personal freedom, and its opposition to sectarianism and fanaticism, remained urgently relevant in his own time.
Robert Wokler
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ROUSSEAU ON SOCIETY,
POLITICS, MUSIC AND LANGUAGE
An Histotical Interpre.tation
of His E~ly Writings
ROBER!' WOKLER
Garland
•
Publishing,
Inc., New York & London
1987
�Copyright © 1987 by Robert Wokler
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data
Wokler, Robert, 1942Social thought of J.J. Rousseau.
(Political theory and political philosophy)
Originally presented as the author's thesis under
title: Rousseau on society, politics, music, and language.
Bibliography: p.
1 Rousseau, Jean.Jacques, 1712-1778-Contributions
in political science. 2. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques,
1712-1778-Contributions in sociology. I. Title.
II. Series.
JC179.R9W65 1987
301'.092'4
86-26955
ISBN 0-8240-0832-4
All volumes in this series are printed
on acid-free, 250-year-life paper.
Printed in the United States of America.
�ABSTRACT
This study is focused upon a variety of specific
problems
which I believe the early writings of Rousseau were designed to solve.
Most of the works that are discussed here were drafted by Rousseau
between 1750 and 1756, and I shall argue that a proper grasp of this
fact about their temporal proximity is important to an understanding
of the conceptual relations
which underlie them.
I hope to show that
any accurate account of Rousseau's meaning must incorporate
a careful
examination of the context in which his ideas were developed, and I
shall therefore be concerned very largely with the manner in which his
writings were conceived as replies to arguments that were produced by
other thinkers.
The first chapter is devoted to an account of some mistaken
interpretations
of Rousseau's meaning.
We often confuse our own
beliefs about the contemporary significance
of certain ideas with the
sense which their authors originally
intended they should have, and in
this chapter I consider a number of misconceptions of that kind, as
well as some mistaken correctives
to them, which have appeared in
Rousseau studies.
The views of C.E. Vaughan and Robert Derathe, in
particular,
are discussed with reference to these problems.
The second chapter is concerned with the influence of Diderot
upon Rousseau and especially
with the intellectual
debt which Rousseau
owed to Diderot's
article
'Droit natur,el'.
The 'Economie politique'
and the Manuscrit de Geneve are shown to exhibit the influence of
Diderot in two quite different
ways, and the conceptions of the
'volonte generale'
of the two figures are compared in the light of the
differences
between their accounts of the natural society of mankind.
In the third chapter the arguments of the Discours sur l'inegalite
are examined in connection with the ideas of several other figures from
whomRousseau drew some inspiration
or against whom he raised some
objections in that work.
The chapter opens with a challenge to the
thesis that the second Discours bears the stamp of Diderot's
influence,
and it continues with several sections,
which are concerned with the
historical,
anthropological,
linguistic,
and political
views of Buffon,
Condillac, and Hobbes and Locke, respectively,
while two final sections
describe Rousseau's account of the transformation
of natural into social
man.
The fourth chapter compares a number of ideas about the nature
and origin of music which were put forward by Rameau and Rousseau.
It traces the course of their controversy about this subject through
the writings of both thinkers,
and in the case of Rousseau it is
addressed especially
to his articles
on music in the Encyclopedie,
his
Lettre sur la musique fran~oise,
his Examen de deux orincipes,
and his
Essai sur l'origine
des langues.
It also attempts to establish
that
the Discours sur l'inegalite
at first contained a section about the
genesis of music which Rousseau eventually incorporated
in the Essai
sur l'origine
des langues.
The chapter, moreover, offers an interpretation of the place of music and language in the general context of
Rousseau's social theory, and it provides a critique
of several accounts
�of tbe historical
relation
which have neglected that
between the Essai and the second Discours
common feature of their meaning.
The final chapter is concerned with the Discours sur les sciences
et les arts and with the writings which Rousseau produced between 1751
and 1753 in defence of that text against its critics.
I argue there
that while the first Discours is the most shallow and least original
of all of Rousseau's major works, the controversy which followed its
publication
helped him to focus his ideas about culture and society
much more sharply than he had done before.
I try to show that
Rousseau's replies to the detractors
of the Premier Discours constitute
a refinement of his views along the paths which he was then to pursue
further in the Discours sur l'inegalite
and the Essai sur l'origine
des
langues, and I conclude with some reflections
about the systematic nature
of his early social theory as it was developed in the period between
his composition of the first and second Discours.
The appendix consists of an annotated
script on the origins of music and language
chapter IV.
transcription
of the manudiscussed at length in
�CONTENTS
and Signs
V
The Meaning of Rousseau
l
Abbreviations
I
II
III
The Contribution of Diderot's
An Influence in Two Forms
The Discours
IV
V
sur l'inegalite
Political
and its
Thought:
Sources
42
101
The Controversy with Rameau and the Genesis
of the Essai sur l'origine
des langues
235
The Critique of Culture and Society
in Rousseau's Early Writings
379
Appendix
435
Bibliography
S02
�ABBREVIATIONS
ANDSIGNS
Annalcs
Annales de la Societe
Archives
Archives de philosophie
sociologie
juridique.
Assezat-Tourneux
Oeuvres completes de Diderot.
Jules
Ass€zat and Maurice Tourneux eds.
20 vols.
Paris 1875-77.
BN
Bibliotheque
Nationale,
Jean-Jacques
du droit
Rousseau.
et de
Paris.
Correspondance
complete
Correspondance complete de Jean Jacques
Rousseau.
R.A. Leigh ed.
Gen~ve 1965-71,
Banbury 1972-.
Correspondance
generale
Correspondance generale de J.-J.
Th€ophile Dufour (and Pierre-Paul
20 vols.
Paris 1924-34.
Correspondance
litteraire
Correspondance litteraire,
philosophique
et
critique.
MauriceTourneux ed.
16 vols.
Paris 1877-82.
Rousseau.
Plan) eds.
CTWR
Jean-Philippe
Rameau.
Complete Theoretical
Writings.
Erwin R. Jacobi ed.
6 vols.
N.p. 1967-72.
Derathe
Robert Derathe.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau et
la science politique
de son temps.
Pari~ 1950 and 1970.
Dufour
Theophile Dufour.
Recherches bibliographiques
sur les oeuvres imprim€es de J.-J. Rousseau.
2 vols.
Paris 1925.
Encyclopedie
Encyclopedie,
OU Dictionnaire
raisonne
des sciences,
des arts et des m€tiers.
35 vols.
Paris 1751-80.
Essai sur l'origine
langues
des
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues.
Charles Porset ed.
Second
edition.
Bordeaux 1970.
Geneve
Bibliotheque
Geneve.
publique
et universitaire
Havens
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau.
Discours sur les
George R. Havens ed.
Sciences et les Arts.
New York 1946 and 1966.
Jansen
Albert Jansen.
als Musiker.
Jean-Jacques
Berlin 1884.
Rousseau
de
�La\IDay
Jean-Jacques Rous3eau.
Oeuvres completes.
Michel Launay ed.
Paris 1967-.
Lough
John Lough.
Essa7s 011 the
of ~iderot and D'Alembert.
Moultou-Du Peyrou
Collection
complete des Oeuvres de
J,J. Rousseau.
Paul Moultou and
Pierre-Alexandre
Du Peyrou eds.
17 vols.
in-4to.
Geneve 1782(1780)-89-
Neud,atel
Bibliotheque
o.c.
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau.
Oeuvres completes.
Bernard Gagnebin, Marcel Raymond,
et al. eds.
Paris 1959-.
OPB
Oeuvres philosophiques
de Buffon.
Jean Piveteau ed.
Paris 1954.
OPC
Oeuvres philosophiques
de Condillac.
Georges Le Roy ed.
3 vols.
Paris
de la Ville
'Encyclopedie'
London 1968.
de Neuchatel,
1947-51.
Pichois-Pintard
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau entre Socrate et
Caton.
Textes 5nedits de Jean-Jacques
Rousseau (1750-~753).
Claude Pichois
and Rene Pintard eds.
Paris 1972.
PMLA
Publications
Association
Proust
Jacques Proust.
Second edition.
RHLF
Revue d'Histoire
Streckeisen-Moultou
Oeuvres et correspondance
J. J. R0usPeau.
Georges
Streckeisen-Moul tou ed.
of the Modern Language
of America.
Diderot et 'l'Ency~lopedie'.
Paris 1967.
litteraire
de la France.
inedites
Paris
de
1861.
SVEC
Studies on Voltaire
century.
and the eighteenth
Vaughan
The Political
Writings of Jean Jacques
Rousseau.
C.E. Vaughan ed.
2 vols.
Cambridge 1915 and Oxford 1962.
[ ]
Intercalations.
< >
Deletions.
�
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<strong>Title: </strong>Rousseau on Society, Politics, Music and Language - An Interpretation of His Early Writings<br /><strong><br /></strong>
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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<strong>Abstract:</strong> This study is focused upon a variety of specific problems which I believe the early writings of Rousseau were designed to solve. Most of the works that are discussed here were drafted by Rousseau between 1750 and 1756, and I shall argue that a proper grasp of this fact about their temporal proximity is important to an understanding of the conceptual relations which underlie them. I hope to show that any accurate account of Rousseau's meaning must incorporate a careful examination of the context in which his ideas were developed, and I shall therefore be concerned very largely with the manner in which his writings were conceived as replies to arguments that were produced by other thinkers. The first chapter is devoted to an account of some mistaken interpretations of Rousseau's meaning. We often confuse our own beliefs about the contemporary significance of certain ideas with the sense which their authors originally intended they should have, and in this chapter I consider a number of misconceptions of that kind, as well as some mistaken correctives to them, which have appeared in Rousseau studies. The views of C.E. Vaughan and Robert Derathe, in particular, are discussed with reference to these problems. The second chapter is concerned with the influence of Diderot upon Rousseau and especially with the intellectual debt which Rousseau owed to Diderot's article 'Droit naturel'. The 'Economie politique' and the Manuscrit de Geneve are shown to exhibit the influence of Diderot in two quite different ways, and the conceptions of the 'volonté generale' of the two figures are compared in the light of the differences between their accounts of the natural society of mankind. In the third chapter the arguments of the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> are examined in connection with the ideas of several other figures from whom Rousseau drew some inspiration or against whom he raised some objections in that work. The chapter opens with a challenge to the thesis that the second Discours bears the stamp of Diderot's influence, and it continues with several sections, which are concerned with the historical, anthropological, linguistic, and political views of Buffon, Condillac, and Hobbes and Locke, respectively, while two final sections describe Rousseau's account of the transformation of natural into social man. The fourth chapter compares a number of ideas about the nature and origin of music which were put forward by Rameau and Rousseau. It traces the course of their controversy about this subject through the writings of both thinkers, and in the case of Rousseau it is addressed especially to his articles on music in the <em>Encyclopedie</em>, his <em>Lettre sur la musique françoise</em>, his <em>Examen de deux principes</em>, and his <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. It also attempts to establish that the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> at first contained a section about the genesis of music which Rousseau eventually incorporated in the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. The chapter, moreover, offers an interpretation of the place of music and language in the general context of Rousseau's social theory, and it provides a critique of several accounts of tbe historical relation between the <em>Essai</em> and the second <em>Discours</em> which have neglected that common feature of their meaning. The final chapter is concerned with the <em>Discours sur les sciences et les arts</em> and with the writings which Rousseau produced between 1751 and 1753 in defence of that text against its critics. I argue there that while the first <em>Discours</em> is the most shallow and least original of all of Rousseau's major works, the controversy which followed its publication helped him to focus his ideas about culture and society much more sharply than he had done before. I try to show that Rousseau's replies to the detractors of the <em>Premier Discours</em> constitute a refinement of his views along the paths which he was then to pursue further in the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> and the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>, and I conclude with some reflections about the systematic nature of his early social theory as it was developed in the period between his composition of the first and second <em>Discours</em>. The appendix consists of an annotated transcription of the manuscript on the origins of music and language discussed at length in chapter IV.
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<a href="http://s127526803.onlinehome.us/wokler/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Robert Wokler</a>
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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pp. i-v
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Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews
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Text
I
THE MEANING
OF ROUSSEAU
Great j~eas are more often well-received
understood,
and the reputations
In political
them justice.
that are reputedly
resemblance
which their
and social
to have been made by political
called
especially,theories
do not bear a true
to their
theorists
subject
which are thought
of distinction
are seldom
those which they had it in mind to make,
Together
attention
enjoy seldom do
of those men who are supposed to have con-
ceived them, and the contributions
quite like
authors
thought,
profound too frequently
to the ideas
than they are properly
with other
of his readers
important
"precede
thinkers,
Rousseau comes to the
de son nom".
1
But he has been
upon to answer to more names than most of the major political
theorists
have had to do, and far too many of his readers
neglected
to look beyond the
up positions
discovered
de Maistre,
on either
the location
1
renommee1 he has acquired
side of him, that
of his own.
is,
have
- have·taken
even before
they have
If we are to believe
Joseph l
for example, then it is the primitivism
thought which we must see as its
Bertrand de Jouvenel,
most central
of Rousseau's
2
feature,
while for'
on the other hand, lie was a pessimistic
1.
The reference is from a poem by
"Il arrive ce jongleur de Boheme, il
am indebted to Sir Isaiah Berlin for
not been able to locate its original
Marmontel on Gluck which begins
arrive precede de son nom11•
I
recounting it to me, but I have
source.
2.
See especially
his Soirees de Saint-Petersbourg
in the Paris~60
edition, pp. 54, 65, and 213-214.
Cf. Irving Babbit, Rousseau and
Romanticism (New York 1919), pp. 79-80.
'nlis conception of Rousseau's
social theory has, however, been much criticised
by, among others,
Arthur Lovejoy in 'The Supposed Primitivism of Rousseau's Discourse on
Inequality',
Modern Philology, XXI (1923), pp. 165-186.
1
<
�.
.
evo l utionist.
instead
3
Yet if we follow Jacob Talmon we shall
to Rousseau's
to proceed
along these
democracy, 4 whereas Carole Pateman
totalitarian
would lead us to his theory
have to turn
of participation.
paths or prefer
5
And whether we choose
as an alternative
those that
point
to his collectivism,
his individualism,
his conservatism,
or his
6
liberalism,
we shall find that not a s~ngle one of them will take us
3.
See 'Rousseau the Pessimistic
Evolutionist',
Yale French Studies,
XXVIII (1961-62), pp. 83-96.
Cf. Henry Vyverberg, Historical
Pessimism
in the French Enlightenment (Cambridge, Mass. 1958), pp. 57-61, and
Lionel Gossman, 'Time and history in Rousseau', SVEC, XXX (1964), p. 340.
4.
See The Origins of Totalitarian
Democracy (London 1952), p. 43.
This argument was put foI'Ward for the first time, I believe, by Robert
Nisbet in his 'Rousseau and Totalitarianism',
Journal of Politics,
V (1943), pp.·93-114,
and it has since become probably the most fashionable of all the prevailing
interpretations
of Rousseau's political
thought.
Cf. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London
1946), p. 711; Lester G. Crocker, An Age of Crisis:
Man and World in
Eighteenth Century French Thought (Baltimore 1959), p. 464, and
1
Rousseau et la voie du totalitarisme)
in Rousseau et la philosophie
politique
(Paris 1965), pp. 99-136; and Sergio Cotta, 'La position du
probleme de la politique
chez Rousseau~ in Etudes sur le 'Contrat social'
de Jean-Jacques
Rousseau (Paris 1964), p. 187.
John W. Chapman,
however, remarks (Rousseau - Totalitarian
or Liberal? [New York 1956],
p. 85) that "Rousseau, far from being a totalitarian,
is not even a
majoritarian
democrat".
And Peter Gay, R. A. Leigh, and Quentin Skinner,
among many recent scholars,
have also attacked this interpretation.
See Gay, The Party of Humanity: Studies in the French Enlightenment
(Princeton 1964), p. 286, note 6; Leigh, 'Libert~ et autorite
dans le
Contrat social~ in Jean-Jacques Rousseau et son oeuvre (Paris 1964),
pp. 249-264;
and Skinner, 'Meaning and Understanding in the History of
Ideas',
History and Theory, VIII (1969), p. 23.
5.
See Participation
and Democratic Theory (Cambridge 1970), p. 22:
"Rousseau might he called the theorist
par excellence of participation,"
6.
On Rousseau's collectivism
and individualism,
see notes 21, 32, and
42 below.
On his conservatism,
see, for instance,
Iring Fetscher,
Rousseaus politische
Philosophie.
Zur Geschichte des demokratischen
Freiheitsbegriffs
(Neuweid 1960), and the following passage from Joan
McDonald, Rousseau and the French Revolution, 1762-1791 (London 1965),
p. 37: 11:Essentially,
Rousseau was a conservative ... looJr..ing to the
past rather than to the future."
On his liberalism,
see Otto Vossler,
Rousseaus Freiheitslehre
(Gottingen 1963), or Chapman, p. 92: "Our
contention is that although Rousseau's political
theory differs ... from
that of classical
liberalism,
his theory of the general will is remarkably
similar to the modern liberal
doctrine of the de.liberative
state."
For
John Plamenat::: (Man and Society, 2 vols. [London 1963], I, p. 436),
however, it is clear that "we must not call Rousseau a liberal
because
others have called him a totalitarian".
And still
many more doctrines
than these, literary
and psychological
as well as political,
have also
been ascribed to Rousseau's social theory.
See, for example, his
romanticism as described by Babbitt or his sadism as described by William
Blanchard (Rousseau and the Spirit of Revolt [Ann Arbor 1967], pp. 155 ff.).
2
�directly
to Rousseau.
attached
hardly
the relevance
For the doctrines
ever appear in any of the pages of hi$ works, and
of his thought
him is commonly established
which he intended
to the social
only through
his ideas
The principal
to have.
of later
to him a more varied
collection
held at once, for it will
that the doctrines
maladjustments
indeed,
theories
a neglect
that
came after
of the meaning
7
mistake which we commit when we look at Rous$eau 1 s
meaning in the light
inconsistent.
to which his name has been
theories
is not so much that
of ideas
be of no great
with which we associate
Did he not,
after
of his own nature
should we expect
all,
than he could possibly
have
matter
of view
from this
point
his works may all
project
theory
be
"the contradictions
upon the society
a systematic
of ascribing
about him 11? 8
from a writer
and
Why,
who 11could
never make up -his mind whether man was made better or worse, happier
9
more miserable"
by society?
For Rousseau, we are told, was
or
one of the most ill-adjusted
... natures who have left
a record of their predicament.
He was a bundle of
contradictions,
a recluse and anarchist ... given to
reverie,
in revolt against ... conventions,
sentimental
and lacrimose,
abjectly
self-conscious
and ... the
preacher of discipline
and the submergence of the
individual
in the collective
entity.
7.
My aim is not, of course, to deny that Rousseau's political
writings
have had some influence upon theorists
who came after him.
Indeed, the
influence which his works did in fact exercise upon his readers,
or upon
men who may have called themselves his followers,
does not depend upon
whether the meaning of his arguments was correctly
understood.
In her
Rousseau and the French Revolution (p. 94), McDonald, for instance,
contends that Rousseau di4 not have much influence upon the revolutionary
figures who referred to him because they fundamentally misinterpreted
his
meaning.
But the fact that Rousseau's followers may not really have
grasped the sense which he intended his statements to have is rather like
the fact that the busts which were installed
to honour him in the Assemblee
Nationale did not sufficiently
resemble him, and to consider his influence
in this matter one wants to know not so much why the busts were of poor
quality but why, rather,
they were put there at all.
If it is true,
moreover, that Rousseau's historical
influence may sometimes have little
connection with the sense of his theory, then his supposed contemporary
relevance will often be still
less dependant on his meaning.
8.
George Sabine,
1963),
9.
p.
A History
of Political
577.
Talmon, p. 38.
3
Theory,
third
edition
(London
�Hence "the secret
was the envious
of this
dual personality
dream of the tonnented
derive
Rousseau's
tions,
it will
meaning,
be quite
then,
was that
paranoiac"
which appear to be incompatible
with the rest
of a writer
know his own mind.
The real
apparent
mistake
significance
lO
If we are to
from a study of any one of his reputa-
in order for us to account
who did not clearly
the disciplinarian
for those
ideas
as if they were the views
11
which we make when we confuse Rousseau's
with his intended
meaning is that
of ascribing
to his words a sense which they could not possibly
have had, as if he
in some way anticipated,
claims that
or discovered,
or implied
we know
10.
Ibid., pp. 38-39.
For other general accounts of Rousseau's contradictions see, for instance,
John Morley, Rousseau, 2 vols. (London 1873),
II, p. 119, and Albert Schinz, 'La Question du Contrat social',
RHLF, XIX
{1912), pp. 741-790.
11.
Other explanations
that might accowit for the apparent inconsistencies within a theory have also been advanced.
C. B. Macpherson, for
instance,
suggests (see The Political
Theory of Possessive Individualism:
Hobbes to Locke [Oxford 1962), pp. 4-8) that we should bear in mind the
social assumptions which may be only implicit in a writer's
theory but
which could lend some coherence to propositions
that otherwise do not hold
together.
Leo Strauss,
on the other hand, supposes (see Persecution
and
the Art of Writing [Glencoe 1952], pp. 24-32) that great thinkers are
rarely inconsistent
except on those occasions when they might be persecuted and hence obliged to conceal their true opinions.
And whereas for
Macpherson we may implant a set of assumptions into a writer's
theory in
order to make it properly coherent, for Strauss we might instead discover
the true meaning of that theory by somehow focusing upon those of its
elements which the censor could not see.
It seems to me rather more
plausible,
however, to suppose that a writer may change his mind, or
forget a point that he once maintained,
in the course of developing a
theory which is expressed in several works that might span, sometimes, a
quite considerable
number of years.
In the next chapter I hope to show
that Rousseau did in fact change his mind about some rather central concepts in his theory within the space of a very short time.
But we could
even suppose, as James Mill informs us (Commerce Defended, second edition
[London 1808), p. 1), that Rousseau's inconsistencies
were deliberately
introduced into his theory in order to deceive his readers:
"Rousseau
confessed to Mr. Hume, and Mr. Hume repeated the conversation
to
Mr. Burke, that the secret of which he availed himself in his writings to
excite the attention
of mankind, was the employment of paradoxes.
When
a proposition
is so expressed as to bear the appearance of absurdity,
but
by certain reasonings and explanations
is made to assume the semblance of
truth, the inexperienced
hearers are, in general, wonderfully delighted,
give credit to the author for the highest ingenuity,
and congratulate
themselves on a surprising
discovery."
�to be true
or false
today.
12
We are sometimes told,
for example, that
nearly two hundred years after his death, Rousseau
has come of age, as the times and problems of
organized societies
have ... developed in ways that
[be] often anticipated. 13
And from this
it appears
to follow that
implicit
in Rousseau's political
main problem of twentieth-century
life.J.I+
It may, of course,
provide many of Rousseau's
him in high or low esteem.
thought is the
political
be the case that
interpreters
15
these
supposed anticipations
with their
But his social
reasons
·for holding
theory was not actually
12.
See Skinner, 'Meaning and Understanding' • p. 11: "The tendency to
search for approximations to the ideal type yields a form of non-history
which is almost entirely
given over to pointing out earlier
'anticipations'
of later doctrines,
and to crediting
each writer in
terms of this clairvoyance."
Skinner's numerous references
in his
article
are a useful reminder of the extent to which this mistake is a
feature of our histories
of political
and social thought.
Cf. Judith
Shklar, Men and Citizens:
A Stud of Rousseau's·social
Theor
(Cambridge 1969 , pp. 218-219,
For E. H. Carr What is History?
[London 1962], p. 31), however, this is not a mistake, but clearly the
best method for the historian
to adopt:
"Great history is written precisely when the historian's
vision of the past is illuminated
by insights
into the problems of the present."
13.
Mario Einaudi, The Early Rousseau (Ithaca 1967), p. 2.
For a
general, and in my view quite superficial,
interpretation
of Rousseau's
contemporary significance,
see Charles H. Dobinson, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau: his thought and its relevance today (London 1969).
In his
Rousseau: An Introduction
to.his Political
Philosophy (London 1973),
pp. 138-148, John C. Hall has drawn a few, perhaps more useful, contrasts
between the views of Rousseau and certain recent contributions
to political theory.
14.
Alfred Cobban, Rousseau and the Modern State, second edition
(London 1964), p. 170,
15.
Compare, for instance,
Michel Launay with Jules Lemaitre on this
~oint.
According to Launay (Jean-Jacsues
Rousseau et son temps,
lParis 1969], p. 11), "Ce qui fait touJours la grandeur de Rousseau,
c'est le rnepris de l'argent",
while Lemaitre (Jean-Jacques Rousseau
[Paris c.1905], p. 1) rernarks,."Quand je prornis de parler de
Jean-Jacques,
je me proposais d'etudier
surtout en lui le pere de
quelques-unes des plus fortes erreurs du XVIII 8 et du xrxe siecle".
5
�conceived to imply what might be true about a world that was unknown
to him, and if he bad in fact
doubt have made every effort
comes to be attached
material
that
our mistakes he would no
to correct
them.
The significance
that
to the meaning of his works depends upon the
readers
at different
and when they are looking
present
anticipated
discontents,
either
times are looking to find in them,
for the underlying
or alternatively
sources
for some solutions
study of what Rousseau may have come to mean in their
of their
to them, the
world has already
been confused with the study of the sense of his ideas.
A failure
to distinguish
arguments and their
striking
feature
introduction
primarily
relevance
to later
17
and with its
was writing.
16
the most
For in the
Writings of Rousseau Vaughan was
concerned with what he called
theory
is, I t~
theories
of the work of C. E. Vaughan.
to his Political
Rousseau's
self
between the meaning of'Rousseau's
affinity
the ''heart
and soul" of
to the age in which he him-
Let us look, he proclaimed,
to
the debt which the world owes to Rousseau .... the
glory which nothing can take from him. 18
And according
achievement
provided
to Vaughan, the significance
as a work of political
a response
Whereas the social
to Locke's
contract
of this
and social
"charter
theory - its
thought - is that
of individualism
11
19
•
The Political
Writin s of Jean Jae ues Rousseau, edited
original MSS. & authentic editions,
2 vols.
Cambridge 1915).
See ibid.,
18.
Ibid.,
p. 117.
19.
Ibid.,
p. 48.
I,
it
of Locke, wrote Vaughan,
16.
17.
major
p. 111.
6
from the
�is expressly devised to preserve and confirm the
rights of the individual,
that of Rousseau ends,
and is intended to end, in their destruction .... for
the sake of a greater and higher bencfit. 20
The political
claims of Rousseau must thus be understood
"an extreme form of collectivism".
been collectivist
writings,
in every possible
To be sure,
respect,
they may not have
and some of Rousseau's
Vaughan reminds us, will perhaps appear to be no less
individualist
than were the works of Locke himself.
strike out the
first few pages
'individualism'
nothing better
But
Discours sur l'inegalite
with the
of the Contrat social, and the
of Rousseau will be seen to be
than a myth. 22
Vaughan, it should be noted,
doctrine
21
as constituting
which be had located
was quite
in at least.some
generally
sympathetic
to the
of the pages of Rousseau,
23
20.
Ibid,
21:
Ibid.
By 'collectivism'
Vaughan means the doctrine that all rights
and duties are creations
of the State and that both the freedom and the
humanity of man are ip some sense constituted
by his membership of it.
By 'individualism'•
on the other hand, he means thE1 doctrine that (ibid.,
p. 40) "the State is ... wholly external" to the moral life of man so that
its activity,
"beyond the bare protection
of life and property,
is regarded
with the bitterest
suspicion".
Vaughan, who was not by training
a
political
theorist,
borrowed these distinctions
from the English
Idealists,
and in particular
from Bernard Bosanquet, to whom Vaughan's own
interpretation
of Rousseau is also much indebted.
See Bosanquet's The
'Philosophical
Theory of the State (London 1899), chs. iv-v, especially
pp. 84-102,
Bosanquet exercised a considerable
influence on French
interpreters
of Rousseau's politics
as well.
In 1912 he published an
article,
'Les idees politiques
de Rousseau', in the Revue de metaphysique
et de morale, XX, pp. 321-340;
six years later the same journal published
two now celebrated
articles
by Emile Durkheim which were drawn, at least
in part, from the work of Bosanquet.
See 1 Le Contrat social de Rousseau',
Revue, XXV(1918), pp. 1-23 and 129-161.
-Bosanquet, however, might well
have aescribed the theory which Vaughan so readily attached to Rousseau as
a form of "uncritical
collectivism".
See The Philosophical
Theory of the
~.
p. 70.
22.
Vaughan, I, p. 1.
See also p. 111: "So far from being the charter
of individualism,
the Contrat social is a defiant statement of the
collectivist
ideal."
23.
Vaughan's work on Rousseau was, after all, largely completed before
the outbreak of the First World War, at a time when political
theorists
were not so much concerned with the practical
outcomes of doctrines as they
wer,e to be a short while later.
In an epilogue to The Political
Writings
of·Rousseau which was added after the beginning of the War, Vaughan
addressed hifflself to the new critics
of collectivism.
It was not, he
7
�but he believed
that
have been still
more substantial
the real
trine,
Rousseau's
implications
that
still
contract',
alist
could not properly
of society
as the 'state
conception
a number of
and th6 'social
rightly
in an individu-
had been held by Locke.
•swept away' the assumption
had been the •corner-stone'
individualist
doc-
way into the pages of
of nature'
of the kind that
And since Rousseau correctly
could well
collectivist
incorporate
for example, which could only figure
theory
law that
For a true
had somehow found their
Rousseau - such concepts
to collectivism
if only he had managed to recognise
of his thought.
Vaughan supposed,
concepts
contribution
of Locke's
of a social
contract
of a natural
24
philosophy,
the
which he nonetheless
wrote {II, pp. 522 and 526), Rousseau's theory of the general will but
rather Fichte 1 s theory of the 'absolute
State' that lay at the heartof
German policy:
"In the civic ideal of Rousseau, we have the guarantee
of a Law... imposed not from above but by-the 'general will',
freely
expressing itself,
of the conununity at large .... With Fichte, the
sacrifice
of the individual 1 to exalt the State whatever be the nature
of the ends which it pursues .... Such is the conflict between the ideals
of Rousseau and of Fichte."
After the publication
of The Metaphysical
Theory of the State by Leonard Hobhouse (London 1918), Bosanquet also
felt impelled to defend his work from some misguided charges which had
been provoked by the War, and in the preface to the third edition of
The Philosophical
Theory of the State (London 1920), pp. xi-xii,
he
remarked that "criticism,
suggested by historical
events, has attacked
the writer's
views ... as attributing
... a fictitious
sovereignty to the
State .... it has ... become difficult,
.. to bear steadily
in mind that the
original
intention
of the book was neither to magnify the State nor to
decry it, but to explain how its functions flow from its nature".
Political
theories,
which in times of peace are held to have no practical
utility,
are frequently
discredited
by wars and revolution,
and
'collectivism'
is but one of many doctrines that have gone entirely
out
of fashion.
According to J. H. Burns ('Du cote de chez Vaughan:
Rousseau Revisited',
Political
Studies, XII (1964), p. 230) the theory
which Vaughan attached so happily to Rousseau ''belongs to the autwnn of
English Idealism".
24.
See Vaughan, I, p. 16. The putative individualism
of I.ocke and the
extent to which bis theory is in fact based upon a concept of the
natural law, are not in question here.
But misconceived interpretations
of a theory are often just as much mistaken about the arguments against
which it is supposed to have been levelled as they are wrong about its
own meaning.
For some widely varied recent accounts of Locke's individualism and his conception of the natural law, see.especially
the
following works: Hans Aarsleff,
'The state of nature and the nature of
man in Locke', in John W. Yelton, ed., John Locke: Problems and
Perspectives
(Cambridge 1969), pp. 99-136;
John Dunn, The Political
Thou ht of John Locke: An Historical
Account of the Two Treatises
of
Government Cambridge 1969);
Macpherson, The Political
Theory of
Possessive Individualism,
eh. v; Massimo Salvadori,
ed.,
Locke and
8
�retained
could· not continue,
Vaughan imagined,
• h it• was in
• f act d esigne.
•
d 25
f or wh ic
natural
law, the social
binding
force
Without the sanction
of a
in his view, would have no morally
and could not therefore
for men's political
shewing",
contract,
to serve the purpose
rights
provide any real foundation
26
and duties.
"Thus on Rousseau's own
Vaughan continued,
the Contract and the state of nature are only
disturbing
elements in his theory .... There
was nothing to gain, and everything to lose,
by their importation. 27
If,
therefore,
standing
we choose to adopt this
of Rousseau's
consideration
social
social
works to the 'natural
law',
contract'
theory will
not only the Discours
pages of the Contrat
perspective,
require
our proper underthat
sur l'inegal.ite
but also every reference
the 'state
of nature',
we delete
from
and the opening
in the remaining
and the
'social
too.
Liberty:
Selections from the Works of John Locke (London 1960), preface;
Martin Seliger,'Locke's
Natural Law and the Foundation of Politics',
Journal of the History of Ideas, XXIV (1963), pp. 337-354; Raghuveer
Singh, 'John Locke and the Theory of Natural Law'• Political
Studies,
IX (1961), pp. 105-118; Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago 1953),
pp. 202-251; W. von Leyden, 'John Locke and Natural Law', Philosophy,
XXXI (1956), pp. 23-35; and Yelton, 'Locke on the Law of Nature',
Philosophical
Review, LXVII (1958), pp. 477-498.
25.
Vaughan actually suggested that Rousseau ~as himself' aware of this
particular
dilemma.
For Rousseau, he supposed (I, pp. 441-442), chose
to delete from the final. version of the Contrat that chapter of his first
draft in which he had attacked the theory of natural law most fiercely,
since this would, in the end, be "fatally
relevant" to his argument:
"He
became aware that, in refuting the idea of natural law, he had unwittingly
made a deadly breach in the binding force of the Contract; and ... haviDg
no other principle
to put in place of the Contract as the foundation of
civil society, he felt that his only course was to silence the battery
which he had incautiously
unmasked against it:
in one word, to strike out
the refutation,
and to let the Social Contract stand."
See also eh. II,
note 146.
26.
"It is", Vaughan observed (I, pp. 42 and 43), "to provide a foundation of Right for the State that he bas recourse ·to the Contract .... But
we have it from Rousseau's own lips that, at the time when the Contract
is made, man is entirely
lacking in all that constitutes
the mor.al sense.
And that can only mean that he is incapable of recognising
any moral
obligation.
The moral sanction, therefore,
falls to the ground".
27.
Ibid.,
p. 44.
Italics
mine.
9
�Now Vaughan's account of Rousseau's
equally
requires
that
collectivism,
we add to his works no less
moreover,
than we subtract
from them.
Strike out the state of nature and the Contract from
the opening pages of the treatise.
Replace them by
the idea of a gradual growth from barbarism to what
may fairly be called the 1 civil state'.
Admit that
the discipline
which slowly brought men to that
state was, in its earlier stages, largely a discipline
of force .... Make these changes in Rousseau's argument,
and its inconsistencies,
its other inherent blemishes,
will have largely disappeared.
He would no longer
have been hampered by the necessity of basing a
collectivist
structure
upon a foundation of
individualism .... But to have recast ·his argument in
this fashion would have been to accept the idea of
progress.
And, sadly,
the idea of progress
thought. 28
We shall,
in short,
if we recognise
make much sense,
to political
corrections
of Vaughan.
of progress
we shall
and social
doctrine
29
if we keep constantly
thought
in fact,
are provided
interpretation
have intended
which lacks sense until
its
only
since Rousseau failed
without which bis doctrine
and improvements that
he could not,
Indeed,
collectivism
only be able to understand
It must follow from this
that
to his way of
have some grasp of Rousseau's
it as that
to develop a theory
was wholly alien
could not
his contribution
at hand the
by Vaughan.
of Rousseau's
what he meant.
subsequent
meaning
For a
significance
is
28.
Ibid., p. 115.
Italics
mine.
There have been few contributions
to Rousseau studies that are more remarkable than this paragraph.
To
my knowledge only Albert Schinz (see note 102 below and note 114 in
eh. II) can match Vaughan at his best.
29.
Of course doctrines,
whatever they might be, are never produceu
by a single writer,
nor are they ever held consistently
in any single
work.
The virtue of an invariably
orthodox position,
if it were
actually possible to maintain one, must in any case be like the strength
of a consistent
pudding.
Vaughan, however, remarks upon Rousseau's
'doctrine'
or 'doctrines'
without hesitation.
See,for example, I,
pp. 20 and 21, and II, p. 522.
�known can have no meaning for its
reference
author,
which Vaughan makes to the intended
statements,
30
their
only in the light
interest
meaning, on his account,
of what he and others
in them.
We can at least,
in his own day.
he in fact
For since
consistent,
it is at least
have to interpret
original
rather
purpose
might perceive
have been intended
correctly
to be of
of Vaughan,
construed
clear
by any writer
that he could not have been well
31
If Vaughan is to be our guide we
writings,
or in the context
of their
of the significance
not with respect
first
appearance,
they have acquired
uses to which they have been put by other,
later,
32
which has come to exercise
at least
to their
but
and the
figures.
In 1950 Robert Derathe produced an account of Rousseau's
cal theory
and what
his meaning was not everywhere
Rousseau's
in the light
could be fixed
works were so poorly
in any case,
.
.
und erstoo d b y h is
contemporaries.
shall
sense of Rousseau's
he did not mean what he intended,
meant could not strictly
Vaughan, and since,
the occasional
with the assistance
now make some sense of why Rousseau's
before
and despite
politi-
as .much influence
30.
See, for instance,
ibid.,
I, pp. 70-71.
Vaughan has much to
say about Rousseau's mental states in general.
Thus he tells us
(ibid.,
p. 77) that "two strands of thought, the abstract
and the concrete, lie side by side in his mind, for ever crossing each other, yet
never completely interwoven" and (ibid.,
p. 91) that "what Rousseau
professes to seek in the civil religion is a living faith,
a faith that
shall issue not in words, but in deeds".
31.
This was certainly
apparent to Rousseau as well.
See, for
instance,
the following passage :from 1MonPortrait'
(Neuchatel Ms R 42:
ancienne cote 7866), O.C.I, p. 1121: "Je vois que les gens qui vivent
le plus intimement avec moi ne me connoissent pas, et qu'ils
attribuent
la pluspart
de mes actions ... a de tout autres motifs que
ceux qui les ont produites.
Cela m'a fait penser que la pluspart des
caracteres
et des portraits
qu'on trouve dans les historiens
ne sont
que·des chimeres qu'avec de l 1esprit un auteur rend aisement
vraisemblables. 11
32.
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau et la science politique
de son temps
(Paris 1950).
Derathe has occupied a prominent and, to be sure,
probably the most commanding, position among interpreters
of Rousseau's
11
�upon Rousseau studies
since that
in the period before.
In fact,
time as Vaughan's commentary had done
one of the central
Derathe puts forward in his work is designed
which lies
at the heart
had been founded securely
tion
that
of that
fact.
set forth
the collectivist
upon a single
of the concept of a natural
not always perceive
to correct
of the interpretation
For it was Vaughan's belief
arguments that
principle
a misconception
by Vaughan.
doctrine
- namely, his rejec-
law 33 - even if Rousseau himself
what were, to Vaughan, the unavoidable
For Derathe,
of Rousseau
however, those implications
did
implications
are unfounded,
political
thought since the publication
of this work.
In the second
edition of his Rousseau and the'Modern State published thirty years after
the first
(1934), Cobban remarked (p. 76) that athe view, which I
formerly shared with Vaughan and many others, that Rousseau rejected the
idea of Natural Law, has been shown by M. Derathe to be untenable".
Cf. Burns, 'Du cote de chez Vaughan', pp. 229-234.
And on the strength
of the praise ~hich Cobban, Burns, and others have lavished upon Derathe's
study, the work was reissued in 1970 without even the slightest
textual
alteration.
"Cette appreciation",
remarked the editor (p. vi), "justifie
la reedition
de 1 1 ouvrage sous sa forme primitive".
Derathe's standing
as the most distinguished
living interpreter
of Ro.usseau's political
writings has been equally confirmed by his fine introductions
and notes
to the Discours sur 1 1 economie politigue,
the two versions of the Contrat
social, and a collection
of 'Fragments politiques'
for O.C.III.
Just
the same, Vaughan's reputation,
especially
in the period before the
appearance of Derathe's study, should not be underestimated.
The
Political
Writings of Rousseau is still
an indispensable
work of reference, even now after the appearance of the more comprehensive edition in
O.C.III, and it was itself reprinted
in Oxford in 1962.
Certainly the
faults in Vaughan's interpretation
of Rousseau's writings are seldom
repeated in the annotations
which he provides to them, and there are
perhaps even fewer mistakes in his ~ranscription
o! t.he texts and their variants than can be fotmd in O.C.III.
Then, too, Vaughan's own edition of
the Contrat social (Manchester 1918) has been widely available
for the
past fifty years and has been reprinted more often (in 1926, 1947, 1955,
and 1962) than any other French edition of that work - apart, of course,
from what in my view remains the best of them all, that of Georges
Beaulavon, which was published five times in Paris between 1903 and 1938.
Vaughan's account, moreover, of the collectivist
doctrine of Rousseau has
also had, in its time, a number of adherents.
See, for instance,
J. W.
Gough, The Social Contract:
A Critical
Study of its Development, second
edition (Oxford 1957), p. 173: 0 The ultimate significance
of Rousseau in
the history of political
thought is as a precursor of a collectivist
attitude
to man's place in society rather than as a vindicator
of individual liberty. 11
33.
See Vaughan, I, p. 17: "The argument is a striking
proof of
Rousseau's originality.
The idea of natural Law had held the field
since the days of the Roman Jurists.
With the political
philosophers
12
of
�since
Rousseau never actually
law.
abandoned an assumption
of the natural
On the contrary,
Tous les efforts
systeme politique
droit naturel.34
So far from their
political
a trouver
a 1 1 ideal
de Rousseau tendent
qui reste conforme
repudiating
the na~ural
un
du
law tradition,
Rousseau's
writings
contiennent
une multitude d 1 allusions
aux theories
soutenues par les jurisconsultes.
En realite
c'est dans ... les traites
de droit naturel,
que
Rousseau a ~uise l'essentiel
de son erudition
politique. 3
Pour lui, cornme pour Locke ou Pufendorf, la loi
civile ne doit rien commander qui soit contraire
la loi naturelle,36
According to Derathe
this
truth
are as crucial
as were the implications
if the obligation
contract
the
consequences
for an understanding
of its
opposite
of men to respect
cannot require
which they enjoy under that
law.
according
of natural
that
should be drawn from
of Rousseau's
the provisions
is founded upon a principle
of the contract
that
men entirely
It is clear,
a
politics
to Vaughan.
For
of the social
37
law,
then the terms
renounce
therefore,
the rights
that
more recent times, it had been a commonplace since the days of Hooker
and Grotius .... The authority
of Locke had given it a new sanction.
And
even apart from the almost unbroken tradition
in its favour, there was
much in it that could not but appeal strongly to the spirit
of Rousseau.
It is therefore
the clearest
proof both of his speculative
genius and of
his intellectual
honesty that he should have decisively
rejected
it."
Vaughan does not stand alone among Rousseau's interpreters
in holding to
this view, for Beaulavon, Gough, and Jean Starobinski,
among others,
have also stated that Rousseau rejected
the concept of a natural law in
his political
theory.
See Beaulavon, 'La Question du Contrat social.
Une fausse solution',
RHLF, XX (1913), p. 597; Gough, The Social
Contract, p. 166; and Starobinski,
'Langage, nature et societe selon
Rousseau', in Le Langage: Actes du XIIIe Congres des societes
de
philosophie
de langue fran~aise
(Neuchatel 1966), I, p. 146.
34.
35.
Derathe, p. 171.
Ibid., p. 27.
36.
Ibid., p. 165.
37.
See ibid., p. 159: "Ainsi, 1 1 obligation
de respecter
le pacte a
son unique fondement dans la loi naturelle
et dans le devoir de tenir
ses engagements."
13
�1 1
1 alienation
totale de cha~ue associe avec tous ses
droits a toute la conununaute' n'aboutit
pas dans la
doctrine de Rousseau a la suppression des droits
38
naturels de l'individu.
Hence Vaughan and his followers
belief
that
for Rousseau the liberty
nature was absolutely
in reply
Lo ck e ' s d.iscip• l es,
theory,
40
entirely
we are told,
to
politics
of that
of his thought.
is misconceived,
assumption.
the work of one of
of his thought. 41
feature
implies
the
rediscovery
not only that
is mistaken but even that
of his acceptance
which was outlined
of
.,_
of natur al l aw wh.ic h h e ui·ew
Hence inasmuch as Rousseau's
the individualism
together
upon a false
is actually
supposed to have been founded on a rejection
the fact
joined
who have followed Deratbe
law in Rousseau's
account of his thought
in the state
of individualism"
remained a constant
For some scholars
the truth.
"charter
•
an d t h e conception
from Locke and others
natural
in their
The claim that Rousseau propounded a collectivist
since it is built
political
of individuals
when men collectively
to Locke's
Derathe contends,
Rousseau's
lost
39
form the sovereign.
doctrine
are seen to have been mistaken
of
Vaughan's
it is the opposite
of
of collectivism
was
doctrine
of the natural
law, then
law will permit us to look anew at
This,
in essence,
is the argument
a few years ago by J. H. Burns:
If natural law and the contract have indeed a central
place .•. Rousseau's individualism
is to be regarded,
not as an early phase lingering on to complicate and.
38.
Ibid.,
p. 228.
39.
See ibid.,
p. 348.
See ibid., p. 116: WQuoiqu 1il en soit, il est clair que Rousseau
a commence par etre le disciple de Locke."
Vaughan also remarked
(I, p. 2) that Rousseau "began as the pupil of Locke", but in his view
all trace of Locke's influence had vanished by the time Rousseau wrote
the Contrat social.
40.
See Derathe, p. 342.
To be sure, Derathe does not suggest that
Locke's influence was preponderant since (p. 120) 1i1a pensee politique
de Rousseau est issue de la rencontre de deux courants contraires,
l 1un
individualiste,
l'autre
etatiste"
(following Hobbes).
Unlike Vaughan,
however, Derathe believes that Rousseau's writings are consistent
and
that the influence of Locke's ideas upon them was continuous.
41.
�obscure the essential
collectivism
thought, but as an intrinsic
part
pretation
of man and society. 4 2
And while Derathe himself
directly
to Rousseau,
concept of authority,
never attaches
of his mature
of his inter-
the term 'individualism'
he does, in his discussion
refer
of Rousseau's
to the
principe individualiste
que Rousseau emprunte
Locke, Pufendorf et Burlamaqui, et qu'il herite
de la tradition
du droit nature1.43
Now the account of Rousseau's
conception
a
of the natural
law that
Derathe puts forward is based upon his reading
that
had apparently
escaped the attention
of a number· of passages
44
By connecting
of Vaughan.
42.
'Du cote de chez Vaughan', p. 233.
The same view is also held by
Cobban (Rousseau and the Modern State, p. 69), for whom Derathe "shows
clearly that Rousseau's conception of natural man gave an individualist
bent to the whole development of his thought".
43.
Derathe, pp. 180-181.
c~. p. 119: "Des traces d'individualisme
subsistentmeme
dans le C6ntrat social ou 1 1 on retrouve en particulier
l'idee si chere a Locke que seul le consentement de ceux ·qui s 1y
soumettent peut rendre legitime 1 1 autorite
politique."
On the individualist and collectivist
interpreters
of Rousseau, see also Gay, The Party
of Humanity, pp. 211-238.
~4.
Deratbe (see pp. 157-159) cites six passages which are drawn from
different
sources:
the Nouvelle Heloise, Emile, the Lettres de la
montagne, the Considerations
sur le gouvernement de Pologne, and a
letter
which Rousseau addressed to some unknown lawyers in 1758.
Much
the most important of these is the following paragraph from the sixth
Lettre de la montagne (O.C.III,
p. 807): "Mais par cette condition de
la libert~,
qui en renferme d 1 autres, toutes sortes d 1 engagemens ne sont
pas valides,
memes devant les Tribunaux hwnains.
Ainsi pour determiner
celui-ci
l'on doit en expliquer la nature, on doit en trouver l'usage et
la fin, on doit prouver qu'il est convenable a des hommes, et qu'il n'a
rien de contraire
aux Loix naturelles:
car il--n I est plus permis
d 1 enfreindre
les Loix naturelles
par 1e·contract·social,
qu'il n'est permis d 1 enfreindre
les Loix positives
par les Contracts des particuliers,
et ce n'est que par ces Loix-memes qu'exis:te la liberte
qui donne force
a 1 1 engagement."
For his.part,
Vaughan did not entirely
overlook this
passage since, in his own edition of the work, he noted (II, p. 200, note 2)
that the paragraph does not appear in the original rough draft manuscript
of the fifth to ninth Lettres (Neuchatel Ms R 16: ancienne cote 7840,
pp. 12-55).
And the fact that Rousseau added his remarks on the natural
law at some stage after he completed this draft copy of the Lettres is a
matter of interest
in itself,
though it is one which has escaped the
attention,
on this occasion, of Deratbe.
Nonetheless,
it remains somewhat surprising
that Vaughan made no attempt to consider how this passage
might be reconciled
to his interpretation
of Rousseau's theory.
15
�these
passages,
moreover,
that
comprises
at least
own works were forged,
to a literature
a part
establish
Derathe has made a most important
contribution
For be has undertaken
to
the meaning of Rousseau in a way that Vaughan entirely
to do, that
is,
by focusing
carefully
Rousseau's
works.
his study,
Derathe 1 s interpretation
mentally
mistaken
the counterpart
confuses
Yet despite
perspective
that
an account of Rousseau's
Derathe,
laws of nature
sources
on the other
In the view of the natural
the
Vaughan had made.
failed
context
that
of
underlies
by a funda-
theory which is,
in fact,
For Derathe
with a study of his meaning,
to Rousseau a theory
which it was his intention
considers
is marked, I think,
of Rousseau's
of the mistake
as yet have adopted,
upon an intellectual
the obvious scholarship
and whereas Vaughan attributed
theory
about law
of the background upon which Rousseau's
• po 1·itic' al i'd eas. 45
stu dyo f h is
tote h
of speculation
which he could not
hand, attributes
to him a
to refute.
law philosophers
were moral principles
whom Derathe
which applied
to
45.
Derathe is not the first among Rousseau scholars to have looked
closely upon his theory in the context of the natural law tradition,
even if his treatment of the subject is the most comprehensive which bas
appeared to date.
In this century alone at least three other important studies of Rousseau's place among the theorists
of natural law
appeared before the publication
of Rousseau et la science politique,
and
Derathe in fact acknowledges a certain debt to each of them.
See Jean
Morel, 'Recherches sur les sources du Discours de l 1 inegalite 1 ,
Annales, V (1909), pp. 160-179;
Rene Hubert, Rousseau et l'Encyclopedie:
Essai sur la formation des idees politiques
de Rousseau, 1742-1756
(Paris 1928); and Paul-L. Leon, 1Rousseau et les fondements de 1 1 Etat
moderne', Archives, III-IV (1934), pp. 205-238.
(Hubert also devotes a
number of pages to the theory of natural law at the time of Rousseau in
his Sciences aociales dans l 'Encyclopedie
[Lille a.nd Paris 1923] - see
especially
pp. 166-190, 191-219, 250-269, and 285-316,)
Derathe's
account of the natural law has profited most of all, however, from a
study which is more concerned with Rousseau's use of the concept than
wi~h its origins.
This is the interpretation
by Franz Haymann that was
translated
from the original
German and appeared in the Annales, XXX
(1943-1945),
pp. 65-110, under the title
'La loi naturelle
dans la
philosophie politique
de Rousseau'.
Derathe's selection
of quotations
from Rousseau, as well as his general conclusions about Rousseau's
meaning, are very similar to those of Haymann, a fact which he acknowledges himself (seep.
151, note 3).
Haymann1 s article,
it should be
noted, was also conceived,in
large measure, as a critique
of Vaughan.
16
�men as members of the society
statutes
promulgated
by any particular
6
civil
They were not specific
power, but rather
7
rules prescribed
of their
of mankind."'
by God"' to all men in the state
collllDOntraits.
of nature
general
in virtue
Thus
toute la theorie du droit naturel repose sur
l'affirmation
qu'il existe independamment des lois
civiles et anterieurement A toutes les conventions
humaines, un ordre moral universe.l, une regle de
justice
immual>le, la I loi naturelle 1 , a laquelle
tout homme est tenu de se conformer dans ses
rapports avec ses semblables. 4 8
According to the theorists
as the precursors
sociability
of the natural
of Rousseau it was the essential
of each man in the state
his acceptance
law whomDerathe describes
of such a law.
rationality
and
of nature which made possibl.e
Hence for Grotius,
Ius naturale est dicta't'Um rectae rationis
indicans,
actui a.licui, ex ejus convenientia am: disconvenientia
cum ipsa natura rationali,
inesse moralem turpitudinem
aut necessitatem
moralem, ac consequenter ah auctore
naTI1rae Deo talem actum aut vete.ri aut praecipi. 49
For Locke,
The State of Nature has a Law of Nature to govern it
which obliges every one: And Reason ... is that Law.~0
46.
Strictly,
for both Grotius and Pufendorf the state of nature is
one of socialitas
only rather than societas,
though it is marked by a
desiderium societatis
or an annetitus societatis.
See, for instance,
Grotius 1s De jure belli ac pacis (Amsterdam 1611-6,reprinted Washington
1913), Prolegomena, p. 2.
In the translation
by Jean Barbeyt>ac which
would have been the most familiar version to Rousseau, the appetiti.ls
societatis
is described as "une certaine inclination
a vivre avec ses
semblabl.es ... dans une comnnmaute de vie aussi bien reglee que ses
lumieres le lui suggerent".
Cf. Derathe, pp. 142-143.
47.
Sometimes, however, they were prescribed in virtue of His.Being
(the sanctitas
divina) rather than His Will (the voluntas divina).
And
Grotius believed (see De jure belli ac ~acis, I, c.i, §l.O, p. 4) that
there must be a natural law even if - per imoossibile - God was unjust
or did not exist.
Cf. Christian Thomasius, Fundamenta juris naturae et
gentium (Halle and Leipzig 1705•), I, c.v.
Derathe,
p. 151.
De jure belli
See a1so p. 390.
ac pacis,
I, c.i,
§10, p. ~.
SO. Second Treatise of Civil Government, c.ii,
S6, in Peter Laslett's
edition of the Two Treatises
(Cambridge 1960), p. 289.
17
�.Andfor Pufendorf,
Cum enim status naturalis
hominis usum rationis
includat,
non potest quoque aut debet ah eo
separari obligatio,
quam ratio
subinde ostentat.
But there
could be no such natural
Rousseau since,
following
51
law in the political
for him, men in the state
of nature
theory
of
were incapable
of
a moral rule.
Les hommes dans cet etat n'ayant entre eux aucune
sorte de relation
morale, ni de devoirs connus,
ne pouvoient etre ni bons ni mechans, et n'avoient
ni vices ni vertus.52
It was in society
permanent
obligations
alone,
and binding,
under law.
when the relations
that
53
between men were made
they could recognise
Thus it followed
and perform their
for Rousseau that
les notions de la Loi naturelle,
qu'il faudroit
plustot appeller la loi de raison, ne commencent
a se developper que quand le developpement
anterieur
des passions rend impuissans tous ses
preceptes.
Par ou l 1 on voit que ce pretendu
traitte
social dicte par la nature est une
veritable
chimere.54
51.
De jure naturae et gentiuro (Amsterdam 1688, reprinted
1934), II, c.ii,
§9, p. 118.
52,
Discours sur l 1 inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 152.
Oxford
53.
Derathe himself remarks (p. 244) that for Rousseau "c'est
seulement avec la vie sociale que commence la vie morale".
54.
Contrat social (Manuscrit de Geneve), I.ii,
O.C.III,
p. 284.
According to Vaughan ll, p. 42, note 4) Rousseau's "pretendu traitte
social 11 in this passage refers directly
to the natural law.
For
Haymann ('La loi naturelle
chez Rousseau', p. 87) it refers to the
"societe generale du genre humain", that is, to the subject of the
whole chapter in which the passage appears, while Derathe believes
(seep.
155, note 2) that it refers directly
to the "sociabilite
naturelle"
which Pufendorf and Diderot had described.
Rousseau's
exact reference here is admittedly not entirely
clear, and Vaughan's
interpretation
- which would, incidentally,
include the o~hers too seems in this context to be no less accUI'ate than they are.
But even
if Derathe is correct to suppose that Rousseau generally accepts a
concept of the natural law while rejecting
any principle
of sociability in the natural state, he must surely be mist_aken to desc1:ibe
Rousseau's concept as if it were derived from the natural law philosophers.
For the fact that Rousseau speaks of a "pretendu traitte
social" at all points precisely
to the difference
between his theory
and the others.
18
�The mistake which had been made J::y the philosophers
law was to suppose that
feature
of the state
all
the social
of nature
attributes
of natural
of men must be a
too.
Les Philosophes qui ont examine les fondemens de la
societe,
ont tous senti la necessite
de remonter
jusqu'a 1 1 etat de Nature, mais aucwi d'eux n'y est
arrive.
Les uns .... ont parle du Droit Naturel que
chacun a de conserver ce qui lui appartient,
sans
expliquer ce qu 1 ils entendoient par appartenir ...•
tous ... ont transporte
a l 1 etat de Nature, des
idees qu 1 ils av0ient prises dans la societe;
Ils
parloient
de 1 1Hom.~eSauvage et ils peignoient
1 1 homme Civi1.55
In Rousseau's
civil
state
auparavant
view it was only man's passage
which,
11 ,
donnant
11
a ses
actions
from the natural
la moralite
qui leur
to the
manquoit
55 bestowed upon his conduct a sense of duty under law.
Indeed, as we could do no more than speculate
of mankind it
was impossible
about the natural
condition
for us to have any knowledge at all
the law which Locke and others
had supposed was prescribed
to every man
by Nature.
Connoissant si peu la Nature et s'accordant
si mal
sur le sens du rnot Loi, il seroit bien difficile
de convenir d 1 une bonne definition
de la Loi
naturelle .... tant que nous ne connoitrons point
1 1 hornrnenaturel,
c 1est en vain que nous voudrons
determiner la Loi qu'il a re~ue ou celle qui
convient le mieux a sa constitution.57
For Rousseau,
but not for his precursors,
Dans 1 1.independance de l' etat de nature,
ne savent pas ce qu'est une loi.58
Nevertheless,
Derathe continues,
if in that
as Derathe admits,
les hommes
case
la loi naturelle ... ne saurait etre anterieure
au:x
lois civiles ... cela n'empeche pas qu 1 elle leur
soit superieure,59
55.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
56.
Contrat social,
57.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
58.
Derathe,
p. 155,
59.
Ibid,
I.viii,
O.C.III,
ibid.,
p. 132.
p. 364.
ibid.,
p. 125.
19
about
�And the distinction
"droit
naturel
proprement
entierement
r
which Rousseau draws between an apparently
raisonne"
dit
1160
celles
still
and an ostensibly
allows that
de l'ecole
see,
however, why Derathe
tion
of thought
distinction
his conclusions
du droit
should tie
distinction
I
11•
in which it has no proper place,
between two kinds of natural
is in fact
law as Derathe describes
raisonne"
nature1
incompatible
it.
droit
11
naturel
"rejoignent
61
It is di:f:ficult
Rousseau on this
I has found among the works of Grotius,
I
anterior
superior
point
since
to
to a tradi-
Rousseau's
law is not one which Derathe
Locke, or Pufendorf.
with their
conception
This
of the natural
For on the one hand the "droit
cannot be enjoyed by men in their
natural
state,
naturel
and on the
other the "droit naturel proprement dit 11 is not a morµ right at all..
l,
It thus seems odd that Derathe should look particularly
upon these
differences
between Rousseau and his precursors
• f und ament al simi
• ·1 ari.; ty.
ahout t b ell'
62
60.
Manuscrit
O.C.III,
61,
Ibid.,
de Geneve,
II.iv,
to buttress
p. 329.
an argument
See Derathe,
p, 167.
p. 165.
62.
In an appendix (p. 393) to his study Derathe also acknowledges the
importance of these differences:
"Sur un point essentiel
toutefois
Rousseau s'ecarte
de la theorie des jurisconsultes.
Ceux-ci insistent
sur le caractere
rationnel
du droit naturel.
Rousseau ad.met au contraire
qu'il y a un droit naturel d'origine
instinctive."
Certainly the
distinction
is of some consequence in Rousseau's thought, and while the
passage in which it appears in the Manuscrit de Geneve was not reproduced
in the final version of the Contrat, it can at least be found again,
though in a slightly
different
formulation,
in the Discours sur
l'inegalite
(see O.C.III, pp. 125-126).
Despite Derathe 1 s conclusions,
moreover, it seems to me quite clear that Rousseau's.aim
here was to
distinguish
two kinds of natural law, and in both passages it is the
discontinuity
rather than the similarity
between the laws which is most
crucial.
Thus in the Manuscrit de Geneve (O.C.III,
p. 329) Rousseau
speaks of "les regles du droit naturel raisonne 11 which is "different
du
droit naturel proprement dit, qui n'est fonde que sur un sentiment vrai
mais tres vague et souvent etouffe par l 1 amour de nous-memes", and in the
Discours sur 1 1 inegalite
(p, 126) he w:r,.ites of the "regles du droit
naturel ... que la raison est ensuite forcee de retablir
sur d 1 autres
fondemens, quand parses
developpemens successifs
elle est venue a bout
d'etouffer
la Nature".
Derathe 1 s attempt, therefore,
to connect a
superior to an anterior
natural law in Rousseaurs theory, or, as he
remarks elsewhere (seep.
168 and also his notes to the Manuscrit de
Geneve in O.C.III, pp. 1424-1425), a law which subsists
in civil society
and exists in the state of nature, seems to me misconceived.
It is true
20
�By transforming
losophers
of natural
to hold consistently
forgets
the discrepancies
between Rousseau and the phi-
law into affinities,
to his claim.
his own distinction
law when he remarks that
Derathe is,
Thus, for instance,
between a superior
I think,
unable
he sometimes
and an anterior
natural
for Rousseau
cette loi primitive
doit etre anterieure
social et a l'etablissement
des societes
au contrat
civiles. 63
that similar distinctions
between two kinds of natural law had been drawn
by other writers before Rousseau.
In the Prodromus jurisprudentiae
gentium communis (Stralsund
1671 - see V, §§5-9) of David Mevius, for
instance,
we shall find the jus naturale secundarium vel voluntarium
(which includes international
law) distinguished
from the jus naturale
primaevum (which applies to the state of nature only).
And Gottfried
~chenwall, in his Prolegomena juris naturalis
in usum auditorum
(Gottingen 1758 - see §§82-97) contends that the jus mere naturale and the
jus sociale naturale were to be divided just insofar as the state of
nature and the state of society required different
laws.
Cf. Otto ¥On
Gierke, Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht,
4 vols. (Berlin 1868-1913) IV,
pp. 384-385, note 19.
Leon (see 'Rousseau et les fondements de l'Etat
IDOderne', p. 232), finally,
believes that Rousseau's distinction
has to do
with the difference
between a natural law secundum motus sensualitatis
and
a natural law secundum motus rationis,
though to my knowledge he does not,
as Derathe suggests,
draw this distinction
from a~y medieval work.
In
any event, if there is a real connection between the ideas of Rousseau
and those of Mevius or Achenwall - neither of whom are mentioned anywhere
in Rousseau's works - this has still
to be established.
Indeed,
Rousseau's distinction
between two kinds of natural law has not been
connected by Derathe to any of the works from which Rousseau is alleged
to have drawn his theory.
The only source from which he might conceivably have borrowed this distinction
is a passage in Burlamaqui's Principes
du droit naturel (Geneve 1747 - see II, c.iv, §24, pp. 203-204).
In this
passage Burlamaqui divides the natural law into the 'droit naturel primitif
ou premier',
which stems directly
from God, and the 'droit naturel second',
which, like the jus gentium, presupposes a community of men.
And while
the distinction
which Rousseau himself draws is between a natural impulse
and a moral obligation
rather than a duty to God and a duty to other men,
he does nonetheless
refer directly
to Burlamaqui in the Discours sur
l'inegalite
a few paragraphs before he makes his remarks upon the rules of
natural law (see O.C.III,
p. 124).
Cf. Leon, 'Le Probleme du Contrat
social chez Rousseau', Archives, III-IV (1935), pp. 180 and 185.
Derathe
seems to have overlooked the possible connection between Rousseau and
Burlamaqui on this point, since he wrongly supposes (p. 395) that the
passage in which Burlamaqui's distinction
is made did not appear in print
until the posthumous publication
of his Elements du droit naturel in 1775.
In any case, writes Derathe (p. 89), "L'influence
de Burlamaqui sur
Rousseau se reduit,
somme toute, a fort peu de ch~se".
63.
Ibid.,
p. 160.
21
�Rousseau I s distinction
And he forgets
liberty
of men when he states
between the natural
and the civil
that
la liberte
est un droit naturel de 1 1 homme, et
il est de l'essence
d'un tel droit d'etre
inalienable,64
For we cannot understand
his view the natural
the meaning of Rousseau if we imagine that
independence
of men was like
Ces deux choses sont si differentes
elles s 1 excluent mutuellement.65
The social
contract
required
that
their
in
moral freedom.
que meme
the one liberty
be renounced
in order
• d66 sot hat
f or t h e ot her to b e gaine
plus ces forces naturelles
sont mortes et aneanties,
plus les acquises sont grandes et durables.67
The mistake
the references
made by Derathe and his followers
to natural
law in Rousseau's
the same use of the concept
natural
law philosophers
of Rousseau's
64.
Ibid,•
doctrine
p.
372.
is to suppose that
works commit him to much
as can be found in the theories
before
implied
him. 68
nothing
of the
Hence whereas the significance
less,
for Vaughan, than a
See also p, 171.
65.
Lettres de la montagne, Huitieme Lettre,
O.C.III, p. 841.
Burns
still
argues ('Du cote de chez Vaughan', p, 234), nevertheless,
that for
Rousseau "there is a qualitative
continuity
between 'independence'
and
'liberty':
the actual freedom of the citizen is the unfolding of what
was potentially
present in the independence of the natural man".
66.
See the Contrat
67.
Ibid.,
II.
vii,
social,
I.viii,
O,C.III,
pp. 364-365.
p. 382.
68.
For Cob.ban (Rousseau and the Modern State, p. 69), "Rousseau was
merely borrowing an idea which was a commonplace of the Natural Law
jurists,
and employing it in exactly the same sense".
I have, of course,
accepted here what .is at least not obviously the case - that the natural
law precursors
of Rousseau whom Derathe considers all share the same
interpretation
of that concept.
Yet Pufendorf himself remarks (De jure
naturae et gentium, II, c.iii,
§19, p. 148) that he cannot subscribe
entirely
to the idea of Grotius:
"Neque enim adstipulari
possumus Grotio,
22
�"revoJ.ution
in political
speculation",
•
•
trut h abo ut Rousseau is
quite
original
69
for Derathe the inescapable
.
70
t h e opposite.
he might seem, can break entirely
No writer,
with the past,
however
and, Derathe
insists,
Il subsiste toujours dans la doctrine de tout
novateur des elements traditionnels
qu'il n 1 a
pas reussi a eliminer.
Il en est ainsi chez
Rousseau. 71
Rousseau's
osophical
poJ.itical
school of natural
thought
thus belongs
essentially
to the phiJ.-
law from which he is said to have drawn so
qui in prolegomenis autumat, jura naturalia
locum aliquem habitura,
etiamsi daremus, quod sine surmno sceleri dari nequit, non esse Deum, aut
non curari ah eo ne tia humana. 11 And in his First Treatise
(c.vi,
50-Sl, p. 195 Locke contends that the claim, advanced by Grotius
and endorsed by Filmer, that generatione jus acquiritur
parentibus
in
liberos provides no true principle
of authority.
69.
Vaughan, I, p. 41,
70,
Bernard Bosanquet, in his discussion of the concept of 1right 1
(The Philosophical
Theory of the State, first edition,
pp, 70-71), remarks
upon a distinction
between Jeremy Bentham and Herbert Spencer which is
very much like that which I have been trying to draw here between Vaughan
and Derathe on Rousseau's concept of the 1 droit naturel 1 ••
In the
following passage Bentham may be replaced for my purpose by Vaughan,
and Spencer by Derathe:
"Bentham, seeing clearly that the claims of the
actuaJ. individual,
taken as he happens to be, are casual and unregulated,
fulminates against the idea of natural right as representing
those
claims.
Right is for him a creation of the State, and there can be no
right which is not constituted
by law.
And the truth of the contention
seems obvious.
How, in fact, could individual
claims or wishes constitute a right,
except as in some way ratified
by a more general
recognition?
But to Mr, Herbert Spencer the contrary proposition
is
absolutely convincing,
and, indeed, on their common premises, with equal
reason.
It is ridiculous,
he points out, to think of a people as
creating rights,
which it had not before, by the process of creating a
government in order to create them.
It is absurd to treat an individual
as having a share of rights qua member of the people, while in his
private capacity he has no rights at all."
Bosanquet 1 s interpretation
of the concept of 1 right 1 has, to be sure, more in commonwith Rousseau's
1 droit
naturel'
than have the accounts of either Vaughan or Derathe:
"If it is a plain ~act that 1 a right'
can only be recognised by a society,
it is no less plain that it can only be real in an individual.
If
individual claims, apart from social adjustment, are arbitrary,
yet
social recognitions,
apart from individual
qualities
and relations,
are
meaningless.
As long as the self and the law are alien and hostile,
it is hopeless to do more than choose at random in which of the two we
are to J.ocate the essence of right."
71,
Derathe,
p. 377,
23
�• i"d eas. 72
many of his
Indeed,
be much doubt of Rousseau's
between his work and that
at first
end. 73
describes
intellectual
as "bien probable"
since
In this
ne l'a
One of the connections
for instance,
fashion,
could not object
Derathe's
to this
le debiteur
corrections
conclusions
interpretation
of
et le
theories
to him.
that
if we establish
devised
If,
to Vaughan still
before
a proper
which may not,
on the one hand, this
while on the other
sources,
in both case it nonetheless
of his ideas,
Rousseau I s meaning
did not anticipate
and social
what bad been said before
thought.
of
between his
in fact,
connection
have
has to do
hand it has to do with the
remains
f'rom what he says. 75
what his collectivist
to make of his political
lead him
understanding
a connection
with the implications,
repeat
in the
about the meaning of Rousseau's
with Vaughan in supposing
and other
whi eh divorces
which Derathe
becomes "incontestable"
cru lui-meme,
Rousseau can only be achieved
been apparent
cannot really
law philosophers.
to make some similar
For he joins
debt.
there
he remained,
plus qu'il
disciple74
of the natural
opinion,
of his precursors,
And Rousseau himself
his thought
theory
in Derathe's
followers
thought,
a connection
Yet Rousseau
would some day choose
nor at the same time did he
him by the philosophers
of natural
law.
72.
See ibid.,
p. 165.
Cf. Burns, 'Du cote de chez Vaughan', p. 232:
"Derathe shows convincingly that Rousseau, however original
and personal
his use of the conceptual equipment of the natural-law
school, belongs
essentially
to that school."
73.
case,
74.
See Derathe, pp. 205-206,
The supposed connection
between Rousseau and Montesquieu.
Ibid.,
p. 379.
Italics
is,
in this
mine.
75,
Schinz (see 'Encore la question du Contrat social',
RHLF, XXI (1914),
p. 195), whose own interpretation
requires this distinction,
does not
hesitate
to recommend it as a rule:
"Certes soyons fideles au texte, mais
reservons notre jugement pour 1 1 interpreter;
certes respectons
les mots,
mais cherchons-en attentivement
l'esprit."
24
�On the contrary,
what he actually
oppose his own conception
forward a political
prevailed
as evidence
fact observes
1
droit
of the natural
their
law to theirs,
which was distinct
views,
to
and to put
from the doctrines
that
in his own day.
In a passage
cites
theory
did was to attack
naturel'
from the Discours
of Rousseau's
that
we shall
sur l'inegalite
which Derathe
debt to his precursors,
only understand
Rousseau in
the concept of the
by
laissant ... tous les livres scientifiques
qui ne nous
apprennent qu'a voir les hommes tels qu'ils se sont
f'aits.
76
Such disrespect
other places
stance,
for the authority
too.
In the Lettre
of books is shown by him in many
a Christoohe
de Beaumont, for in-
he vr.rites,
J'ai cherche la verite dans les Livres;
je n'y ai
trouve que le mensonge et l'erreur.
J'ai consulte
les Auteurs;
je n'ai trouve que de~ Charlata1:?. 77
We should not be surprised,
therefore,
to learn
his own account of law would be entirely
'droit
76.
naturel'
O.C.III,
which he introduced
new.
that
78
in the Discours
Rousseau believed
And the concept
of the
was to be based
p. 125.
77.
O.C.IV, p. 967.
The same opinion is shared, moreover, by both
the tutor and the Vicaire savoyard in Emile.
Cf. Livre III, O.C.IV,
p. 454: "Je hais les livres;
ils n'apprennent
qu'a parler..de ce qu'on
ne sait pas."
And Livre IV, ibid., p. 568: "Je consultai
les philosophes, je feuilletai
leurs livres,
j'examinai
leurs diverses opinions.
Je les trouvai tous fiers,
affinnatifs,
dogmatiques ... n'ignorant
rien,
ne prouvant rien, se moquant les uns des autres,
et ce point, commun a
tous, me parut le seul sur lequel ils ont tous raison."
This distrust
of specious learning was not uncommon, of course, in the age which followed
that of Descartes.
In Emile again (Livre IV, ibid.,
p. 567) Rousseau
has the Vicaire remark that he was moved by "ces dispositions
... de doute
que Descartes exige pour la recherche de la veri te".
78.
See ibid.,
Livre V, p. 842:
tion de la loi est encore a faire."
"Ce sujet
25
est tout
neuf:
la defini-
�upon some principles,
sans qu'il soit necessaire
79
de la sociabilite,
that
were distinct
natural
d'y faire
entrer
celui
from those which were held by the philosophers
of
law.
Rousseau sometimes feared
too bold,
too revolutionary,
suggested
that
his Institutions
apprehensive
this
about this,
his own political
ideas might seem
for his day, and in his Confessions
was at least
politiques
that
one reason
for publication.
he reflects,
that
he
why he had not completed
80
He had been so
he could not even dare to let
the work be seen by any of his friends.
Je n'avois voulu communiquer rnon projet a
personne, pas meme a Diderot.
Je craignois
qu'il ne parut trop hardi pour le siecle et
le pays OU j'ecrivois.81
79.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 126.
Rousseau's new
principles
were 'l'amour de soi-rneme' and 'la pitie';
in the Discours
these took the place of the ideas of natural reason and sociability
to
which the philosophers
of natural law had all adhered.
I shall discuss
these principles
in more detail in eh. III (see e5pecially
pp. 196-200).
For Rousseau's own account of them µi. the Discours, see O.C.III, pp. 125-126,
154, and 219-220.
Cf. the notes of Starobinski
in ibid., pp. 1298-1299
and 1376.
80.
This was not, of course, his only reason.
In his Confessions (see
O.C.I, p. 516) Rousseau also remarks that the task of completing the
Institutions
politiques
eventually became too daunting and that, after
saving those sections which were later to form most of the Contrat social,
he burnt the rest.
81.
Ibid., p. 405.
On this subject see George Havens, 'Diderot,
Rousseau, and the Discours sur l'inegalite',
Diderot Studies, III (1961),
pp. 226-227.
With respect to Rousseau's own conception of the novelty
of his ideas, see his letter
to the Prince of Wurtemburg of 10 November
1763 (Correspondance complete, XVIII, p. 124) in which he proclaims,
"Dans une route toute nouvelle il ne faut pas chercher des chemins battus,
et jarnais entreprise
extraordinaire
et difficile
ne s'executera
par des
moyens aises et communs.... ce ne sent peut-etre
ici que les delires d'un
fievreux.
La comparaison de ce qui est ace qui doit etre m'a donne
l'esprit
romanesque et rn'a toujours jete loin de tout ce qui se fait".
In my view, Fetscher (see 'Rousseau, auteur d'intention
conservatrice
et
d'action
revolutionnaire',
in Rousseau et la philosophie
politique,
pp. 51-75) misunderstands
Rousseau's intention
on this point.
26
�And notwithstanding
originality
of his thought
and to his critics
the arts
whatever
alike,
and sciences
of the philosophy
were "completely
and long before
"poverty,
. Bicetre.
liberty,
clear,
from the moment that
appeared.
83
visionary
82
his Premier
Discours
on
him as the Newton
Boswell wrote that
he had ideas which
for a man in his position
books were banned in Paris
incarcerated
at the lunatic
11 ,
84
and Geneva the
it would be wise to have the philosopher
and truth"
friends
Kant described
and ... unsuitable
his seditious
both to his
the
of
asylum of
85
Despite
qu'il
was unmistakably
of ethics,
King of France thought
he might have been able to conceal,
ne l'a
the debt which Rousseau owed to his precursors
cru lui-meme",
I think
that
Derathe
"plus
would have provided
a
82.
The Discours sur les sciences et les arts may, perhaps, have been
the least original
of Rousseau's major works, but it was probably more
widely read, and was certainly
more widely challenged - by a range of
critics
from the mathematician Gautier to King Stanislas
of Poland - than
any of his other works.
from the moment that he became known to the
world of European letters,
Rousseau was praised or blamed for holding to
ideas that had not been heard of, or at any rate not listened
to, much
before.
83.
See the 'Benerkungen zu den Beobachtungen' in Kant's gesammelte
Schriften (Berlin 1902-), XX, pp. 58-59:
"Rousseau entdekte zu allererst
unter der Mannigfaltigkeit
der Menschlichen angenommenen Gestalten die
tief verborgene Natur desselben und das verstekte
Gesetz nach welchem die
Vorsehung durch seine Beobachtungen gerechtfertigt
wird .... Nach Newton
und Rousseau ist Gott gerechtfertigt
und nunmehr ist Popen.s Lehrsatz
wahr."
Cf. Ernst Cassirer,
Rousseau, Kant, Goethe (Princeton
1945),
pp. 1-60, and 'Das Problem Jean Jacques Rousseau',
Archiv fur Geschichte
der Philosophie,
XLI (1932), pp. 177-213 and 479-513, poblished in an
English edition as The Question of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, with an introduction, translation,
and notes by Gay (New York 1954).
Cassirer,
like
Vaughan, interprets
Rousseau in the light of his subsequent significance,
but the perspective
of a Kantian ethic which he employs has much more to
commend it - for it comes closer to Rousseau's meaning - than the perspective of collectivism.
84.
Boswell to Alexandre Deleyre, 15 October 1766.
See Boswell on the
Grand Tour: Italy,
Corsica, and France, 1765-1766, edited by Frank Brady
and Frederick Pottle (London 1955), p. 317.
85.
This is noted by the Marquis d'Argenson in his
1753 (see d'Argenson's
Journal et memoires, 9 vols.
p. 457): "Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, de Geneve ... dit que
doivent faire ces trois voeux: pauvrete,
liberte
et
indispose le gouvernement contre lui ... le Roi a dit
le faire enfermer a Bicetre .... L' on craint
ces sortes
27
journal on 16 April
[Paris 1859-67], VII,
les gens de lettres
verite.
Cela a
qu'il ferait bien de
de philosophes
libres."
�more accurate
closely
interpretation
at Rousseau's
For Rousseau rarely
it is to correct
of his raeaning if onl,.v he had looked more
own statements
refers
their
to Grotius,
errors.
about the creditors
of his ideas.
Locke, or Pufendorf
About Grotius,
he writes,
except when
for instance,
that
sa plus constante maniere de raisonner est d'etablir
toujours le droit par le fait.
On pourroit employer
une methode plus conse~uente, mais non pas plus
favorable aux Tirans. 8
On Locke, he exclaims,
Je trouve dans le Gouvernement Civil de Locke une
objection que me paroit trop specieuse pour qu'il
me soit permis de la dissimuler. 87
And Pufendorf
dit que tout de meme qu'on transfere
son bien a
autrui par des conventions et des Contracts,
on
86.
Contrat social,
I.ii,
O.C.III,
p. 353.
See also the other
references
to Grotius in the Contrat social (ibid.,
pp.355, 356, 358,
359, 370, and 436) and the critique
which appears in one of Rousseau's
fragments on war (ibid.,
p. 615).
87.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
ibid.,
p. 214.
The whole of the next
five pages is devoted to a critique
of Locke's claim in c. vii, §§79-80
(pp. 337-338) of the Second Treatise that 11tb.e end of conjunction
between
Male and Female 11 is 11not barely Procreation,
but the continuation
of the
Species".
It is true, on the other hand, that in his sixth Lettre de la
montagne (O.C.III,
p. 812) Rousseau notes that Locke, in the company of
Althusius,
Sidney, the abbe de Saint-Pierre,
and Montesquieu, had dealt
with the same matters of abstract
political
thought as he himself had
done and that "Locke en particulier
les a traitees
exactement dans les
memes principes
que moi".
But Rous~eau does not provide a single clue
in this passage as to what might be the actual connection between Locke's
principles
and his own, and he seems to have in mind not so much the substance .of Iocke' s theory as the circumstances
of his life.
For by the time
Rousseau wrote these lines in 1764 he had been driven into exile from
several cities
in two countries,
and the writers to whom he refers had all
been criticised,
persecuted,
or exiled for their political
ideas.
Thus
in the same passege he observes that "l 'infortune
Sydnei pensoi t colD!De
moi, mais il agissoit;
c'est pour son fait et non pour son Livre qu'il
eut l'honneur de verser son sang.
Althusius en Allemagne s'attira
des
ennemis, mais on ne s'avisa pas de le poursuivre criminellement".
28
�peut aussi se depouiller
de quelqu'un.
C'est-la
raisonnement.88
The intellectual
he felt
de sa liberte
en faveur
... un fort mauvais
debt which Rousseau owed, in short,
was not one which
he ought to pay.
Vaughan and Derathe,
meaning of Rousseau,
attach
his ideas
in my view, are thus mistaken
and they are both mistaken
to other
claims
that
about the
because
he never really
they falsely
shared.
The
one looks at his writings
in the light
of the significance
which they
acquired
in the light
of the philosophies
which had
later,
prevailed
lished
the other
before,
as if the sense of his contentions
by focusing
reference
upon his influence
specifically
not conceived
and by looking
for a context
either
to what he said.
to anticipate
too near,
ideas
we shall
statements
actually
the present
is that
or to reflect
in order to understand
have to take account
89
theory
was
the past,
to be his own.
of the sense that
should have in the particular
made.
Yet Rousseau's
than with
both Vaughan and Derathe have passed by
the meaning which he considered
then,
rather
on the one hand, and too far on the other,
of his thought,
My argument,
or sources
could be estab-
The distinction
that
contexts
Rousseau's
he intended
his
in which they were
is sometimes drawn between what
88.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
ibid., p. 183.
See also the eighth
Lettre ·de la montagne, ibid., p. 844.
Why, indeed, should Rousseau
have thought more highly of Pufendorf than Leibniz had done?
And
Leibniz, who knew Pufendorf better,
did not think highly of him at all.
See the 'Epistolae
ad Henricurn Kestnerum' in Leibniz's
Opera omnia,
6 vols. (Geneve 1768), IV.iii,
p. 261: "Vir parurn Jurisconsultus,
&
minim~ Philosophus."
89.
On this point I am convinced that Peter Winch is entirely
correct
when he states (The Idea of a Social Science [London 1958], p. 107) that
"ideas cannot be torn out of their context ... the relation
between idea
and context is an internal
one".
Cf. H. P. Grice, 'Meaning',
Philosophical
Review, LXVI (1957), p. 387.
29
�a man says and why he is saying it - if that
distinction
between what in fact
is supposed to be a
he means by his statement
and what
perhaps he may have intended in the making of it - seems to me
90
fallacious.
There is, of course, much that could help to explain
why a belief
an interpreter
distinctions
is expressed
of its
in a particular
way at a certain
meaning will not be obliged
to know, and some
between the sense of an idea and the reasons
• h t b ea d vance d are obvious
'
1y b ot h correct
it• mig
time which
for which
• d'ispens abl e. 91
an d in
90.
See Alan Ryan, 'Locke and the Dictatorship
of the Bourgeoisie',
Political
Studies, XIII (1965), p. 219.
In a similar
vein J. W. N.
Watkins remarks (Hobbes's System of Ideas [London 1965), pp. 22-23)
that an idea "transcends"
the "thinking which went into it .... It has
infinitely
many logical consequences, only a finite number of which
can have been consciously thought of by its author".
Plamenatz (Man
and Society, I, p. ix) also distinguishes
"what a man is saying" from
"why he is sa}•ing it", but to be fair the 'why' he has in mind is not
the intention
expressed in a statement but "the conditions
in which it
was produced".
Cf. too John Dunn, 'The Identity of the History of
Ideas',
Philosophy, XLIII (1968), p. 92.
I am, however, unable to
follow Skinner, whose ideas I otherwise share, and indeed adopt in
this section,
when he suggests ('Meaning and Understanding',
pp. 31 and
45-47) that in order to understand any statement·whlch
was made in the
past, we shall have to add to our grasp of what was said some further
grasp of "how what was said was meant".
If a writer's
meaning is not
expressed in his statement then the sense of what he does say must
either be confused or hypocritical,
and in such a case our interpretation of his remarks will provide us with an incorrect
impression of
what he in fact believes,
denies, prefers,
or would like us to do.
We
can only attempt to correct our misunderstanding
of a statement that is
unclear or insincere
by looking even more closely at the contextual place
it occupies among the other statements of its author, so that we shall
not be able to grasp what is or was said by any speaker unless we have an
understanding
of what his statement means.
And to know what a statement
means we must have some idea of how its terms are used, and therefore
some comprehension of the sense which the author intends to express.
The meaning of a statement is not something that is added to its terms
by the manner in which they might be used.
It is the sense of those
terms in their appropriate
use, apart from which it would he incorrect
to
describe them at all as comprising the elements of a statement.
Cf.
L. J. Cohen, 'Do Illocutionary
Forces Exist?',
Philosophical
Quarterly,
XIV (1964), pp. 118-137.
point clear Grice (see 'Meaning', p. 3B6) would have
between the primary and secondary intentions
of a speaker - that is, between his aim to produce an effect in his
audience and his aim to have "this effect ... lead to a further effect".
The speaker's
meaning, we are told, can be attached only to his primary
intention.
(Cf. also Grice's 1 Utterer's
Meaning, Sentence-Meaning,
and Word-Meaning', Foundations of Language IV, (1968), pp. 225-242,
91.
To make this
us draw a distinction
30
�In his Confessions,
for instance,
Rousseau remarks that
des divers.ouvrages
que j'avois
sur le chantier,
celui ... qui devoit selon moi mettre le sceau a ma
92
reputation
etoit mes Institutions
politiques.
Yet if he intended
should possess
all his writings,
he was certainly
that
qualities
the work which was to become the Contrat
that
would make it the most highly
then for the period
to fail
of his own lifetime,
in his purpose.
93
Thus insofar
social
esteemed of
at any rate,
as he may
reprinted
in J. R. Searle, ed., The Philosophy of Language [London 1971],
pp. 54-70.)
I have in mind here some distinction
of this kind too,
bet\7een, let us say, the intentions
which are expressed by Rousseau in a
statement and the intentions
which might accompany that statement when it
is made.
One should certainly
keep apart the sense in which Rousseau
intended to refute or elucidate
a proposition
from the sense in which he
intended robe honoured for having done this task well, even if the first
intention does not really seem to take the form, which Grice would
perhaps ascribe to it, of a design to induce an effect in an audience.
In any event, we must put aside from Rousseau's meaning those of his
purposes which can only count as his reasons for making statements,
and
if we disregard these aims, then we shall obviously have no place left
for any of his motives, whether caused by. his poor health, commanded to
him by God, or forced upon him by his class, which might account for his
true virtues or afflictions
but never for the sense of what he said.
Even if we suppose, for instance,
that his beliefs were somehow affected
by a mental illness,
we might then investigate
the cause of this disease
but not its effect upon the meaning of his ideas.
Some of the least
illuminating
accounts of the sense of Rousseau's theoretical
remarks have
been invented by his medical inte~preters.
See, in particular,
Paul
Mobius, J. J. Rousseau's Krankhei tsgeschichte
( Leipzig 1889);
Suzanne
Elosu, La maladie de Jean-Jacques
Rousseau (Paris 1928);
Rene Laforgue,
Jean Jacques Rousseau:
Eine psychoanalytische
Studie (i-lien 1930); and
Crocker, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau:
The Quest (1712-1758) (New York 1968),
pp. 13-15.
92.
o.c.I,
p. 404.
D'Alembert, in a letter
to Rousseau of 10 February
1761 (Correspondance complete, VIII, p. 76), uses the same E:xpression but
with reference to La Nouvelle Heloise:
"Cette eloquence du coeur, cette
chaleur, cette vie, qui fait le caractere
de vos ouvrages, brille
Surtout dans celui-ci,
qui doit, ce me semble, mettre le sceau a votre
reputation."
93.
See Daniel Mornet, 'L'influence
de J.-J. Rousseau au XVIIIe
siecle',
Annales, VIII (1912), p. 44: "On a repete volontiers ... que
toutes les fureurs de la Revolution grondaient deja dans le Contrat
social.
Elles y etaient peut-etre,
mais le XVIIIe siecle ne les a
point vues.
De ce livre redoutable,
c'est a peine si l'on parle avant
1789."
Cf. Mornet, 'Les enseignements des bibliotheques
privees
(1750-1780)',
RHLF, XVII (1910), pp. 465-468;
Eugene Ritter,
'La
condamnation du Contrat social et d'Emile prononcee par le Conseil de
Geneve', Annales, XI (1916-1917),
pp. 201-208;
David Williams, 'The
Influence of Rousseau on Political
Opinion, 1760-95 1 , English Historical
~.
XLVIII (1933), pp. 414-430;
Derathe, 'Les refutations
du
31
�have misjudged
the effect
it could properly
be said that
meaning would be grasped
might be responsible
his statements
with respect
them that
self
which his work was to have upon his readers,
or understood.
for misdirecting
might be unclear,
to what they claim,
their
real
gave to them.
94
meaning altogether
95
his beliets.
tion
just
of unwarranted
theory
statements
employs.
beliefs,
to say of
from the sense which he himRousseau's
intended
them of their
the grounds for
the sense which he attached
and in this
therefore
to his own
way we make impossible
In order to interpret
to do in the particular
that
subsequently
his
formulations
he
between the meaning of his works
may have come to be placed
have to take some care that
does not differ
the
have to take account of what his
And to avoid a confusion
and the significance
to his ideas
it could not be correct
what it means.
we shall
them, we shall
or indeed mistaken
as if we were to put aside
are designed
96
however much
come to look upon it as nothing more than a collec-
task of understanding
social
or inconsistent,
he made we deprive
If we neglect
we thereby
his interpreters,
For whenever we divorce
that
as to how his
But however much Rousseau
meaning is distinct
sense from the statements
theory
he was under an illusion
upon
the sense which we ascribe
from the appropriate
expressed
intentions
Contrat social au XVIIIe siecle',
Annales, XXXII (1950-1952), pp. 7-54;
Louis Trenard, 'La diffusion
du Contrat social,
1762-1832 1 , in Etudes
sur le 'Contrat social',
pp. 425-458;
and John Lough, 'The earliest
refutation
of Rousseau's Contrat social',
French Studies, XXIII (1969),
pp. 23-34.
94.
See Skinner, 'Meaning and Understanding' , p. 28: "No agent
can ... be said to have meant ... something which he could never be brought
to accept as a correct description
of what he had meant."
Cf. A. J.
Ayer, 'Meaning and Intentionality',
in Metaphysics and CommonSense
(London 1969), p. 39: "There can be no general answer to the question
what do words, or sentences,
mean, for the very good reason that
they do not all mean the same."
95.
See Stuart
Hampshire,
96.
See Dunn, 'The Identity
Thought and Action (London 1959), p. 140.
of the History
32
of Ideas',
p. 93.
�that
we impute to him.
letters
As Rousseau himself
put this
point
in one of his
to Voltaire,
Je sais La distinction
qu'il faut faire entre les intentions
d'un Auteur, et les consequences qui peuvent se tirer
de sa
97
doctrine.
Now if it
identical
is true
that
the meaning of Rousseau's
with the sense which he intended
ought to follow
the natural
Any account
does not point
be a refutation
an adequate
specifically
concepts
of that
the arguments
be included
to the sense
of some other
or at least
questions
must also
of his conception
understanding
those problems
they should have,
his avowed aim to refute
law philosophers
his theory.
Rousseau,
that
is designed
had it
find
correctly
if his own answers
us with
solutions
in
only to
in mind to solve.
which for him were posed in the writings
to
provide
what he supposed might be solutions,
which he himself
must be understood
law which
therefore,
We shall
then it
made by
of the natural
cannot,
is
in the meaning of
in which it
theory.
statements
And the
of other
thinkers
are to be made clear.
If you cannot tell what a proposition
means unless
you know what question it is meant to answer, you
will mistake its meaning if you make a mistake
about that question. 98
To the extent
particular
that
extent
that
problems
Rousseau's
ideas
which other
our own comprehension
were conceived
writers
brought
as answers to
to his
attention
of his meaning must therefore
- to
include
97. Correspondance complete, IV, p. 38. The distinction
in English between
'meaning' in the sense of signification
(to mean that) and 'meaning'
in the sense of intention
(to mean to) does not permit us to dispense
with the intended sense of an author's
statement,
since it is the referential
meaning that which will be incorporated
in his own particular
formulation
of the statement.
In French there is no distinction
at all between the
questions 'Que signifie
ce met?' and 'Que veut dire ce met?'.
Of course
a word has no intention
of its own, but neither has it any meaning, and
there is no answer to the question
'Que signifie
un mot?'.
To know the
meaning of this or that particular
word, however, it is indispensable
to
have some grasp of how it is used in its appropriate
context.
See J.L.
Austin, 'The Meaning of a Word', in his Philosophical
Papers (Oxford 1961),
pp. 23-43.
98.
R.G. Collingwood,
An Autobiography
33
(London 1939),
p. 33.
�some grasp of how he interpreted
taken,
I think,
larly
to whom he refers
place
directly
in the intellectual
where his own ideas
with those
other
works.
Derathe
is mis-
about the debt which Rousseau owed to his precursors,
but the figures
have their
these
that
in his writings
context
are most sharply
came before
him, it
do still
of his theory.
and deliberately
is precisely
that
Particucontrasted
distinction
which
• centra l to h"is meaning.
•
99
is
In this
those
study of Rousseau I shall
features
of his social
to his intellectual
that
an account
a careful
precursors,
of Rousseau's
places
and the precise
rest
lar
over many years,
works. 100
above all
with
some reference
aim will
meaning cannot properly
be to show
be divorced
from
in which his ideas were developed.
Of
of Rousseau's
theory,
do not all
meaning of each of these
in the same fashion
objects
which incorporate
a~d my principal
study of the context
course the elements
several
thought
be concerned
as the distinction
articulated
as they were in
share a single
elements
differs
context,
from the
between each of the particu-
which Rousseau had in mind when he composed his various
Comprehensive
indeed been ascribed
social
doctrines
of one kind or another
to Rousseau far more often
have
than the meaning of
99.
See Shklar, Men and Citizens,
p. 221: "The first
question one
might well ask in considering
a political
theorist's
public biography
is ... against whom did he write?
Political
theory is inherently
contentious and persuasive.
Most great political
theorists
have a special
bete noire, as Locke has his Filmer and Bentham his Blackstone."
100.
Naturally the Lettre sur les spectacles,
for instance,
is
recognisably
by the same author as the Lettres de la montagne.
But
unless the first text is understood as a critique
of another essay by
d'Alcmbert, and the second as a reply to a critique
of Rousseau's own
views by Tronchin, it will be impossible to grasp the specific meaning
which Rousseau ~ntended to impart to either work.
34
�his ideas has been established,
theme of all
101
but what is thought
his works is very commonly a single
his writings
never managed to present
to suppose that
form the elements
in a specific
text,
the theme of a particular
102
• to imp
• 1y t he meaning
•
of t he next.
h im
nected to each other
grand design,
the essence
see that
as fragments
and unless
it has disappeared
speak of the comprehensive
social
theory
which he
then so too is it a mistake
work was always intended
Rousseau's
ideas
elaboration
to argue that
was not yet expressed,
from others,
that
moreover,
of a theory
in a methodical
we are prepared
of his theory
system of ideas
If it is a mistake,
cannot be found in any one of them.
to imagine that
to be the central
by
are not conof some
in certain
works
and at the same time
it cannot be correct
for us to
of Rousseau.
101.
According to Gustave Lanson (see 'L'Unite de la pensee de JeanJacques Rouss-eau', Annales, VIII (1912), p. 29) the systematic theory of
Rousseau can be grasped as an expression of his "vie interieure".
Thus
(p. 9) "toutes ou presque toutes ses pensees ... sont, a l'origine,
l'expression
d'un malaise sentimental;
ses doctrines
les plus abstraites
sont les prolongements de ses emotions, qui elles-memes sont des
reactions
contre des realites
dont il est froisse OU blesse".
Nevertheless,
Lanson admits (p. 29), "Il est vrai que Rousseau ne fait pas
d'ordinaire
la synthese, et qu'il ne nous laisse pas toujours le sangfroid necessaire
pour la faire".
For Ernest Wright (The Meaning of
Rousseau [London 1929], p. 7), on the other hand, the central concept
which prevails throughout Rousseau's thought is that "Nature is right.
If we will take the words as Rousseau meant them, we shall have a key to
all he has to say".
The chapters of Wright's study, therefore,
are
quite predictably
entitled
'The Natural Man', 'The Natural Education',
'The Natural Society',
etc.
But at the same time Wright himself admits
(p. 30) that "what we have now put together is not to be found intact at
any given place in Rousseau's work".
102.
Among the interpreters
of Rousseau's though.t who have undertaken
to establish
a 'chronologie
logique' of all his works, Schinz, in my
view, has no equal.
Impressed, for instance,
by the statement "on
n'en sait rien" which appears in Livre I, eh. ii of the Manuscrit de
Geneve (O.C.III,
p. 289) after the lines, "L'homme est ne libre,
et
cependant partout il est dans les fers .... Comment ce changement s'est-il
fait?",
Schinz argues ('La Question du Contrat social',
p.· 760) that the
Manuscrit must have been composed before the Discours sur l'inegalite,
because after he had written that work Rousseau would have known the
answer to his question.
The fact that in the Contrat social,
I.i
(O.C.III, p. 351). he asked the same question and again professed the
same ignorance, must therefore
have been an oversight since, according
to Schinz, Rousseau could by then have consulted the Discours for an
answer.
The mistake in this argument is clearly explained by Beaulavon
( 1 La Question
du Contrat social.
Une fausse solution' , p. 591): "Quand
35
�I should like,
between Rousseau's
shall
therefore,
ideas
as I perceive
the real
connections
them, and for that
reason
I
be concerned
here not with some overriding
theory that could be
103
to his political
writings generally,
nor with the
ascribed
supposedly
tional
shared
characteristics
104
writings,
features
which I believe
writings.
105
during the period
of all
his philosophical
or indeed with any collection
which we might draw out a single
e~rly
to consider
were common to a large
In the years
roughly
theme or topic,
or educa-
of his works from
but rather
proportion
with some
of his
between 1750 and 1756 - that
deJ.imi ted by the composition
is,
of his Discours
Rousseau ... d~clare 'ignorer'
dans le Contrat ce qu'il a developpe dans
1 1 Inegalite,
cela ne prouve sans doute ni qu'il ait oublie, ni qu'il
ait change, mais seulement qu'il se place sur un autre terrain.
La
valeur de toutes ces pretendues preuves est done toujours subordonee a
1 1 acceptation
prealab) e du s:rsteme propose. II
See also ibid.,
pp. 599.:.591.
The final text, of course, does not read "on n'en sait
rien" but rather "j e 1 1 ignore", and so far from this proving that
Rousseau neglected to strike out the sentence from his revised account
the slight change of terms shows only that he paid renewed attention
to
it.
Cf. Pierre-Maurice
Masson, 'Questions de chronologie rousseauiste 1 , Annales, IX (1913), pp. 50-51.
103.
The most substantial
attempts in recent years to provide an
interpretation
of this kind are those of Fetscher (Rousseaus politische
Philosophie);
Roger Masters (The Political
Philosophy of Rousseau
[Princeton 1968)); Launay (Jean-Jae ues Rousseau:
Ecrivain politique
(1712-1762) [Cannes and Grenoble 1971))1 and Bronistaw Baczko Rousseau.
Solitude et communaute [Paris 1974)).
104.
With regard to his philosophical
writings as a whole, see, for
instance,
Pierre Burgelin, La philosophie
de l'existence
de J.-J.
Rousseau (Paris 1952); Jacques-Fran~ois
Thomas, Le pelagianisme
de
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau (Paris 1956);
and R. J. Howells, 'The Metaphysic
of nature:
basic values and their application
in the social philosophy
of Rousseau', SVEC, LX (1968), pp. 109-200.
With regard to his educational writings,
~ee especially
William Boyd, The Educational Theory of
Rousseau (London 1911), and Jean Chateau, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau:
Sa
philosophie
de l'education
(Paris 1962).
! ~05.
The best work devoted to a systematic treatment of Rousseau•s
early writings is still,
in my view, Hubert's Rousseau et
l'Encyclope<lie.
Einaudi's
The Early Rousseau is also very useful on
some topics, and while it is not so rigorous in construction
or so
perceptive
in detail as the study by Hubert it provides information
about a larger number of Rousseau's writings.
See also Louis Ducros,
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. De Geneve a !'Hermitage
(1712-1757) (Paris 1908);
Crocker, Rousseau:
The Quest;
and Launay, Rousseau:
Ecrivain politique.
,,..
36
�sur les sciences
et les arts
and the first
- Rousseau produced several
by a certain
figure
quite
style
principal
·of matters
rarity
and I shall
to other
genesis
will thus be devoted,
since
on these
matters
society
that
in most of his
developed a number of accounts
and nature
argue that
of our social
these
of culture
accounts
of
and political
bear a marked simi-
for example,
I believe
that
to a study of Rousseau's
of his early
the connection
forms a central
which he conceived
Some of these
and language.
about music in the context
politics,
both
ideas which he propounded at the same time about the
and character
reflections
to each other
ideas
J
social
which might today appear to be
works he actually
what he took to be the origin
conventions,
are related
I hope to show that
and discrete.
early
that
of his Contrat
of argument and by some substantive
in his treatment
separate
essays
draft
part
in that
early
writings
about
between his reflections
of the theory
short
pages
about culture
but very fruitful
and
period
of
his life.
My scope of reference,
abrupt rise
prize
to public
acclaim
essay to his equally
•
t he society
then,
will
following
abrupt
break,
span the time from Rousseau's
the appearance
some six years
• wh"ic h t h"is ace l aim
• was initially
• • •
in
while the period
which I shall
graphical
it is essentially
unity,
of his first
later,
with
rea 1·ize. d 106
And
cover is also marked by a certain
the conceptual
works which he produced in those years
coherence
bio-
of the
that will be my concern here.
107
See eh. II, pp. 80-81.
107,
For this reason I do not propose to take account of Rousseau's
writings in strict
chronological
order, and I shall in fact turn to the
first of bis major works, that is, the Discours sur les sciences et les
arts, only in my final chapter (see pp. 381-403 below).
I mean to
show that this is the one work which touches at least superficially
upon most of the problems that the others treat in depth, and I hope,
therefore,
that a discussion
of the essay which actually heralded his
social theory may also serve to introduce a general assessment of its
meaning.
In any case the point of establishing
the appropriate
106.
37
�Yet the very fact
around the early
understanding
their
that most of these
or mid-1750s seems to me of great
of the theoretical
temporal
proximity
in the form of their
Rousseau's
teristic
early
writings
of those texts
produced in different
to imagine that
relations
affinities
exposition
his views can be related
and acquired
Perhaps
finally,
his ideas
he constructed
system.
helps to
and I shall
central
maintain
ideas
theme that
to each other
of
be
in short,
only when they
between subjects
which are
set by nothing more than the special
and very general
of this
The first
points
is that
the intellectual
If the propositions
as the implications
ought to be made,
approach to an understanding
should not be confused with their
a deductive
tions,
two brief
meaning.
For
competence of his interpreters.
by way of a defence
Rousseau's
them.
It is a mistake,
the limits
found in his works are too often
to an
in a way which is not charac-
of his life.
since
underlie
the most prominent
are conjoined
periods
importance
setting
as well,
around a supposedly
apply to the same subject,
interests
that
in a common historical
supply them with conceptual
that
works were composed by Rousseau
consistency
of a theory
or entailments
then most of the major contributions
of
coherence
as elements
have necessarily
of other
to our social
of
of
to
proposithought
contexts for a study of Rousseau's writings must surely remain distinct
from that of recounting the temporal sequence in which they were first
published or conceived.
We must have a grasp of the relevant
circum7
stances surrounding each of Rousseau's works, since these circumstances
figure among his reasons for composing those works at a specific
time
in a particular
way and to that extent constitute
an aspect of the
sense or purpose which he gave to them.
To have a sense of the
occasion of ideas, however, does not demand that we regard them as
events.
Often we mistake the meaning of ideas because we hold to false
assumptions about the way in which the pattern of their development
must follow the sequence of their composition;
a few scholars are
sometimes so tra..~sfi..xed by such assumptions that they even attempt to
infer the dates around which a text must have been composed from
premises about its logical compatibility
with other works by the same
author (see, for instance,
note 102 above and eh. II, notes 73 and 104).
Of. Collingwood, The Idea of Historn (Oxford 1946), pp. 282-302,
and Maurice Mandelbaum, 'A Note on istory as Narrative',
History and
Theory, VI (1967), pp. 413-419.
38
�could not really
that
be described
Rousseau's
early
the sense that
distinct
theory
writings
the proposed
conceptual
and follow
as proper
solutions
are certainly
coherence
which they offer
upon a broadly
throughout,
commonbase
and that
only in small measure to his philosophical
ders,
and oversights.
the facts
early
that
the affiliated
writings
every case,
ultimately
different
principles
the related
arguments
be distinguished
problem,
because
and that
the ideas
of just
expressed
one plot
which he set forth
a solution
it impossible
works as if they constitute
to certain
that
actually
changed his mind in the course of developing
even within
interpretations
his early
generale',
writings
it will
still
ways in which both were conceived
set for him by Diderot,
inconsistency
to us.
conceptual
imagine that
all
relations
historical
to a particular
and hence their
unless
39
so
these
of the
problem
of the differ-
meaning,
will
not
for the same reason
entailments
require
Rousseau
we view the
and it is as much a mistake
relations
for
two inconsistent
problem the nature
must involve
the parts
to take account
contend that
Ideas are not incoherent
that they are inconsistent,
that all
in response
of this
ence between the interpretations,
be apparent
be necessary
and I shall
in the light
find
with
his views,
Yet in order to understand
of one concept.
two interpretations
ideas,
I mean to show that
we shall
to a
for us to match
instance
that
must still
and elaborations
With regard
of the 'volonte
to
to the same plan in
each proposes
render
in his early
or puzzle.
blun-
which he adopted in his
the refinements
which he compounded his theory
is so
Most of it is due, rather,
can never be reduced with accuracy
that
of his
this
can be attributed
obscurities,
in
to some quite
But the elements
shared method.
not consistent
I believe
at all.
do ha,e a theoretical
problems are fixed
a substantially
theories
to suppose
as it is to
unbroken continuities.
�The second and associated
any attempt
to establish
point
the theoretical
work at the expense of historical
appropriate
contexts.
conceptions
controversies
with other
were generated
in which his observations
is central
associations
spurious
and misconceived,
thought
should have no other
lishing
his precise
they purport
theory
their
to their
of Rousseau's
had
Diderot,
meaning.
and others
will
be
then be unable to find their
all
interpreters
Of course
of Rousseau's
in his work but that
interest
that
work the
of estab-
which I put here upon the
is not intended
to preclude
My claim on behalf
other
it should serve as their
with the precise
might
of an historical
it should dominate or supersede
to be concerned
all
foundation
other
insofar
as
sense of his ideas.
between the academic or even practical
and competence of those who turn to a study of his social
make any division
of labour
between them inappropriate
to
task.
My treatment
of Rousseau's
cerned with only a part
life,
claims
upon the ways in which his theory
extent the differences
interests
that
approach
is not that
the sense
them in the wrong place.
or profound.
methods but only that
To that
nature
meaning, and the stress
which focus instead
perspective
argue that
than incidental
and we shall
it would be absurd to maintain
have been mistaken
in polemical
to challenge
which we draw between his ideas
need for an historical
its
even some of Rousseau's
and I shall
the polemical
meaning because we have located
studies
in reconstructing
Hobbes, Locke, Rameau, Buffon,
rather
from
of Rousseau's
and amplified
were designed
been made by, for instance,
Unless we recognise
precision
thinkers,
we should refrain
coherence
I mean to show that
most abstract
and Co~dillac,
is that
thought
here will
therefore
of what he wrote in a limited
but it is not my aim to subtract
40
that
period
be conof his
part from the meaning of
�his ideas
of something less
appreciation
I hope, on the contrary,
in general.
of his other
writings,
some features
tinguished
from the doctrines
The social
"the dispassionate
criticism
may reasonably
108.
thought
of Rousseau is,
which a philosophy
108
Experience
41
to make
might be disreputations
I think,
without
and it is that
which I should like
Michael Oakeshott,
these
with which his several
expect",
be added to an
and I should simply like
of his meaning so that
encumbered him.
but only that kind,
an interpretation
than the whole of his work can still
more clear
be feared
that
have
worthy of
a reputation
to
kind of criticism,
to claim here on his behalf.
and its
Modes (Cambridge 1933), p. 7.
�
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<strong>Title: </strong>Rousseau on Society, Politics, Music and Language - An Interpretation of His Early Writings<br /><strong><br /></strong>
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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<strong>Abstract:</strong> This study is focused upon a variety of specific problems which I believe the early writings of Rousseau were designed to solve. Most of the works that are discussed here were drafted by Rousseau between 1750 and 1756, and I shall argue that a proper grasp of this fact about their temporal proximity is important to an understanding of the conceptual relations which underlie them. I hope to show that any accurate account of Rousseau's meaning must incorporate a careful examination of the context in which his ideas were developed, and I shall therefore be concerned very largely with the manner in which his writings were conceived as replies to arguments that were produced by other thinkers. The first chapter is devoted to an account of some mistaken interpretations of Rousseau's meaning. We often confuse our own beliefs about the contemporary significance of certain ideas with the sense which their authors originally intended they should have, and in this chapter I consider a number of misconceptions of that kind, as well as some mistaken correctives to them, which have appeared in Rousseau studies. The views of C.E. Vaughan and Robert Derathe, in particular, are discussed with reference to these problems. The second chapter is concerned with the influence of Diderot upon Rousseau and especially with the intellectual debt which Rousseau owed to Diderot's article 'Droit naturel'. The 'Economie politique' and the Manuscrit de Geneve are shown to exhibit the influence of Diderot in two quite different ways, and the conceptions of the 'volonté generale' of the two figures are compared in the light of the differences between their accounts of the natural society of mankind. In the third chapter the arguments of the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> are examined in connection with the ideas of several other figures from whom Rousseau drew some inspiration or against whom he raised some objections in that work. The chapter opens with a challenge to the thesis that the second Discours bears the stamp of Diderot's influence, and it continues with several sections, which are concerned with the historical, anthropological, linguistic, and political views of Buffon, Condillac, and Hobbes and Locke, respectively, while two final sections describe Rousseau's account of the transformation of natural into social man. The fourth chapter compares a number of ideas about the nature and origin of music which were put forward by Rameau and Rousseau. It traces the course of their controversy about this subject through the writings of both thinkers, and in the case of Rousseau it is addressed especially to his articles on music in the <em>Encyclopedie</em>, his <em>Lettre sur la musique françoise</em>, his <em>Examen de deux principes</em>, and his <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. It also attempts to establish that the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> at first contained a section about the genesis of music which Rousseau eventually incorporated in the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. The chapter, moreover, offers an interpretation of the place of music and language in the general context of Rousseau's social theory, and it provides a critique of several accounts of tbe historical relation between the <em>Essai</em> and the second <em>Discours</em> which have neglected that common feature of their meaning. The final chapter is concerned with the <em>Discours sur les sciences et les arts</em> and with the writings which Rousseau produced between 1751 and 1753 in defence of that text against its critics. I argue there that while the first <em>Discours</em> is the most shallow and least original of all of Rousseau's major works, the controversy which followed its publication helped him to focus his ideas about culture and society much more sharply than he had done before. I try to show that Rousseau's replies to the detractors of the <em>Premier Discours</em> constitute a refinement of his views along the paths which he was then to pursue further in the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> and the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>, and I conclude with some reflections about the systematic nature of his early social theory as it was developed in the period between his composition of the first and second <em>Discours</em>. The appendix consists of an annotated transcription of the manuscript on the origins of music and language discussed at length in chapter IV.
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Chapter 1: The Meaning of Rousseau
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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An account of the resource
pp. 1-41.
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IHA/Wokler/637
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Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews
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Rousseau
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Text
II
THE CONTRIBUTION
OF Dil)EBOT'S l'OLITICALTHOUGHT:AN INFLUEIICEnr TWOFORMS
The contribution
of the Encyclopedie
ments.
editing
tury,
1
that was made by Diderot toward the publication
is widely acclaimed to be the greatest
For twenty years of his life
that most important
and there
literary
he was engaged in the task of
enterprise
and energy.
which together
form twelve of the thirty-five
and corrected
hi-s colleagues,
of the eighteenth
has never been any doubt but that he was an editor
enormous skill
he revised
of his achieve-
and after
been, in any case,
He personally
selected
cenof
many of the plates
volumes that were printed,
a vast number of essays which were submitted
the chevalier
its most prolific
2
by
de Jaucourt
single
be may well have
3
contributor.
Yet the
1.
See, for instance, Franco Venturi, Jeunesse de Diderot (1713-1753),
traduit de l'italien
par J. Bertrand (Paris 1939), p. 8: "Le chefd'0euvre de Diderot existe ... son titre a donne SOD nom a une ecole et a
une epoque: l'Encyclopedie."
Cf. Jacques Proust, Diderot et
'l'.Encyclopedie',
second edition (Paris 1967), p. 508: "L'Encyclopedie ...
a ~t~ le lieu decisif de son enrichissement
et de son affermissement."
2.
Reamur in fact charged that his own plates for the Academie royale
des sciences had been stolen by Diderot, but an official
enquiry conducted by the Academy did not confirm this.
See Arthur Wilson, Diderot:
The Testing Years, 1713-1759 (New York 195J), pp. 241-243, and Proust.
pp, 54, 69, and 203,
3.
On Jaucourt, whose 17,000 articles
comprise more than one-fourth of
the entire text, see Richard N. Schwab, 'The Extent of the Chevalier de
Jaucourt's
contribution
to Diderot's Encyclopedie',
Modern Language Notes,
LXXII (1957), pp. 507-508, and Schwab and W. E. Rex, 'Inventory of
Diderot's Encyclopedie',
VI, SVEC, XCIII (1972), pp. 108-191.
The fu11
extent of Diderot's own contribution,
however, even putting aside all
problems about his debt to other writers,
cannot be established
with any
accuracy.
For we have only fragmentary evidence as to which of the
unsigned articles
that have been ascribed to him by his editors are actually his own, and it is certainly
a mistake to suppose that they were all
composed by him.
At the same time, while it is clear that Diderot did
revise many of the articles
which his colleagues submitted to him (see,
for instance,
Proust, p. 151)', it is not possible to ascertain
how often
or how much he did so.
It has been possible in some cases, however, to
prove that essays·which were once supposed to be by Diderot were, in
fact, composed by others.
The articles
'Pretre'
and 'Representans',
for example, both of which are included in the standard (Assezat-Tourneux)
�articles
not,
of the Encyclopedie
I think,
be counted among his best work.
the mark of his ecumenical
of his original
other
writers
striking
that have been credited
and creative
breadth
of learning
thought,
which is displayed
to Diderot
should
For while they bear
they
show little
and the intellectual
trace
debt to
in them is very commonly their
most
feature.
Il ne faut pas surestimer l'originalite
de la pensee
qui s•exprim.e daDS.. ,(ses] articles
de l'Encyclopedie.
Dans le domaine de l'histoire
des idees comme dans le
domaine de la technologie l'Encyclopedie
est d'abord
un inventaire
des connaissances acquises.4
In the Encyclopedie
Bayle and Fontenelle,
compositions
Diderot borrowed freely
5
for instance,
many passages
that
from the writings
and he incorporated
of both
into his own
he took from the abbe Gabriel
Girard.
6
edition of Diderot's
complete writings,
have been shown to be the work
of d'Holbach.
See Herbert Dieckmann, 'L'Encyclopedie
et le fends
Vandeul', RHLF, LI (1951), p. 332; Proust, pp. 120, 432, and 540;
and Iough, Essays on-the 'Encyclopedie• of Diderot and d'Alembert (London
1968), pp. 121, 135-137, and 226.
Paul Verni~re ~ould, I think, have
been well-advised
to take some note of this research since, as recently
as 1963, in his edition of Diderot 1 s Oeuvres politiques,
he included the
essay 'Representans'
among his selections.
For the best list published
to date of the articles
which were composed, or may have been composed,
by Diderot, see Lough, 'The Problem of the unsigned articles
in the
Encyclopedie', SVEC, XXXII (1965), pp. 327-390; Proust, e.nnexe II,
pp. 532-540; and Schwab and Rex, pp. 64-96.
4.
Proust,
p. 238.
s. The articles 'Brachmanes' and 'Machiavelisme', for instance, contain
passages which were drawn directly
from Bayle's Dictionnaire
(see ibid.,
pp. 238-239, 550, and 554-555), while the articles
'Acier',
1Antediluvienne
1 , 1 Leibnizianisme
1 , and 'Malebranchisme'
all show the
direct influence of Fontenelle
(see ibid., ·pp. 217, note 102, 550, 554,
and SSS).
Diderot 1 s debts, moreover, to Louis Le Comte (see ibid.,
p. 551), Ephraim Chambers (see R. Loyalty Cru, Diderot as a Disciple of
:&lglish Thoue.~t [New York 1913], pp. 257-270) end ClaudeBui'fier
(see
Pierre Hermand, Les idees morales de Diderot tParis 1923], pp. 231-232),
among others, have also been noted.
6.
More than forty of Diderot's
articles
in the first three volumes of
the Encyclopedie alone are either identical
with, or alternatively
based
upon, the definitions
which had appeared in Girard's Synonyn;es fran~ois
(first published in Paris in 1736).
Diderot often cited his source,
but not always.
The articles
'Augmenter, aggrandir'
and 'Bernes,
termes, 1im.ites',
for instance,
were copied from Girard without acknowledgement.
See Dieckmann, Inventaire
du fonds Vandeul et inedits de
Diderot (Geneve and Lille 1951), pp. 43-45, and Proust, pp. 152 and
557-565.
43
�Most important
supplied,
largely
of all,
perhaps,
and which were later
drawn directly
Brucker.
7
1
article
writings
Eclectisme
1
of his political
and were in-fact
thinkers.
'Autorite
that
of Diderot
are,
of Jacob
in short,
that
the
even the
is not his own.
contribution
in particular,
were very
philosophiae
so much so, indeed,
1s
which he
separately,
critica
which bears his signature
essays
essays
for the Encyclopedie
and annotator,
Now what is true
true
to be published
from the Historia
Diderot's
work of a publicist
the philosophical
8
as a whole is also
for they too were drawn,
always said to be <iI'awn, from the work of other
With respect
politique',
Father
to his most widely known article,
Guillaurne-Fran~ois
it was taken from a seditious
Be:rthier
the
first
work on the power of British
charged
kings,
9
7. The Historia critica
philosophiae
a mundi incunahulis
ad nostram
usque aetatem deducta was published in Leipzig ~n five volumes from
1742 to 1744, and a supplementary volume appeared in 1767. Diderot
first came across this work which "il devait si ·bien piller"
in 1750
when he borrowed it from the Bibliotheque du roi (Proust, p. 154),
As
early as 1760, in L'Annee litteraire,
Elie Freron pointed to this source
of so many of Diderot's
philosophical
essays for the Encyclopedie (see
ibid.,
p. 255), but in 1769 all of these articles,
together with some
others by different
contributors,
were republished
in London under
Diderot's
name as the Histoire generale des dogmes et opinions philosophiques depuis les plus anciens temps jusqu'a nos jours.
See Cru,
pp. 257, 270-278 and 282, note 26, and Proust, pp. 122, 244-258, 264-267,
273-281, 297-300, and 550-557.
8.
Most of it is taken from Brucker's Historia
At the beginning of the article
(Encyclopedie,
V
Diderot did at least make one contribution
of his
he wrote, "est un philosophe qui foulant awe pies
de lui.-meme".
(see Proust, pp. 551-552).
(1755), p~·210), however,
own: "L'eclectique",
le prejuge ... ose penser
9.
See the Journal de Trevoux of March 1752, p. 458, note:
"Ces
principes
paroissent
empruntes d I un li vre inti tule:
Trai te du ?ouvoir
des Rois de la Grande-Bretagne,
tradui t de 1 1 anglois en 1714. & refute
en Angleterre meme, comme autorisant
la revolte & la trahison."
In the
errata (p. xvi) to the third volume of the Encyclopedie (published in
1753), however, the editors replied that "l'ouvrage anglois d'ou on a
pretendu que cet.article
avoit ete tire, n'a jamais ete ni lu, ni
ni connu par l'auteur".
Cf. Proust, p. 345; Verniere, pp. 5-6 and 10,
note l; and Lough, Essays, pp. 429-433.
vu,
�d'Alembert
(or perhaps Diderot
himself)
replied
taken from an innocuous work about the rights
and recently
it has been identified
it was actually
of Spanish queens,
as yet another article
11
But according
Synonymes frangois.
drawn from Girard's
his interpreters
that
the
principal
sources
10
which was
to many of
upon which Diderot relied
in his
10.
See the Encyclopedie,
III, p. xvi (errata):
"Nous n'avons pretendu
dans notre article
AUTORITEque commenter & developper ce passage, tire
d'un ouvrage imprime par ordre de Louis XIV. & qui a pour titre,
traite
des droits de la reine sur differens
etats de la monarchie d'Espagne,
part. I., p. 169, edit. de 1667 in-12.
'Que la loi fondamentale de
l'etat
forine une liaison reciproque & eternelle
entre le prince & ses
descendans, d 1 une part, & les sujets & leurs descendans, de 1 1 autre, par
une espece de contrat. '"
There is, however, no mention of this passage
in the 'Autorite politique'
itself,
and in any event it was probably known
to the editors of the Encyclopedie only through a secondary and much more
contemporary source, the 1Remontrances 1 of the Paris Parlement of 9 April
1753, in which it is noted, together with its original
source, in
exactly the same terms as appear in the errata (see Lough, p. 436).
I
half suspect that Diderot and d'Alembert intended this reference,
in connection with that of Berthier,
to be something of a pun on the 'coin du
roi' and the 'coin de la reine' which had already come to be distinguished
in the Querelle des Bouffons.
11.
See note 6 above.
The first six paragraphs of the 'Autorite
politique'
are generally drawn from Girard's article
'Autorite,
pouvoir,
puissance',and
they include, though with some textual variations,
Girard's
own account of Romans xiii.1.
Indeed, one of Diderot's
other articles
on authority
('Autorite,
pouvoir, puissance,
empire') opens with three
sentences which are more or less copied, with acknowledgements, from a
second article
by Girard ('Autorite,
pouvoir, empire') and ends with a
shortened but uncredited·account
of the first article
(a confusion of
terms which was to catch the attention
of Nicolas Beauzee in his own edition([Paris
1769], I, p. 363) of the Synonymes frangois).
As to the
rest of the 'Autorite politique'
itself,
nearly a third is taken up by
two lengthy quotations
from the Memoires of the due de Sully (first
published in 1638), the seventh paragraph, on hereditary
monarchy, may have
been inspired by Barbeyrac (according to Derathe, p. 259, note 5), and
several passages have been attributed
to the influence of Grotius, Locke,
and Pufendorf.
See Derathe, p. 81 and note 4; Proust, p. 345; and
Lough, pp. 437-439.
Verniere (pp. 10-14), on the other hand, appears to
have overlooked the connection between Diderot and Girard, and, taking
the accusation by Berthier quite seriously,
points instead to certain
passages in the Traite du pouvoir des rois.
This, I ~hink, is a mistake,
1
as are the references
to a 'refutation'
of Bossuet and a 1recollection
of Pascal which Verniere also locates in the article.
See too Proust,
p. 560, and Lough, ·pp. 427-429.
45
�political
essays
losophers
of natural
the precursors
for the Encyclopedie
Discours
tous deux l'influence
other
of the same phi-
law that have come to be so frequently
of Rousseau.
with Rousseau's
were the ideas
Diderot's
sur l'inegalite,
de Pu.fendorf",
'Autorite
cited
politique',
show just
as
together
how much "subissent
wrote Jean Morel in 1909.
In
works, he continued
ils s'inspirent
l'un et l'autre
de Locke ou de Barbeyrac,
editeur de Pufendorf.
Ces auteurs sont la source des
idees politiques
de l'Encyclopedie,
(puisque Diderot les
defend comme telles).i2
More recently,
Robert Derathe has also pointed
be'tween Diderot
and the theorists
of natural
to such a connection
law, for certainly,
he
remarks,
les articles
de Diderot publies dans les premiers
volumes de l'Encyclopedie
sont en partie inspires
par Pu.fendorf et Barbeyrac.13
And if,
for the most learned
be no decisive
proof that
natural
law philosophers
quence,
Jacques
Pufendorf
Proust
to refer
de la nature')
from Burlamaqui's
especially,
Proust
interpreters
he ever came across
first-hand,
tells
familiar
this
is not a matter
in his article
with Burlamaqui,
by Boucher d'Argis
major works. 14
today,
the writings
us, since he certainly
to him directly
would have been quite
('Droit
of Diderot's
may
of the
of any conse-
knew enough of
'Citoyen',
too,
through
which was faithfully
On the ·principle
there
of natural
and he
an article
copied
sociability,
writes,
12.
'Recherches sur les sources du Discours de l'inegalite',
Morel refers to a page from the Apologie de l'abb~ de Prades
however, Diderot makes no reference to any of these writers.
pp. 142-143.
on which,
13,
Derathe, p. 81 and note 4.
Cf. pp. 32-33, 259, notes,
and 383,
and Havens, 'Diderot,
Rousseau, and the Discours sur l'inegalite',
p. 250.
14.
See Proust, pp. 345-347, 384-386, and 422-424.
Cf. note 40 below.
46
�Diderot a pu l'emprunter
a Arietote auaei bien qu'a
Grotius, Pufendorf, Locke, Burlamaqui, Montesquieu. 15
Clearly
the references
the social
contract
Encyclopedie
philosophers.
will
to the 'droit
naturel',
which are included
be entirely
familiar
the state
in Diderot's
to readers
of nature,
articles
and
for the
of the natural
law
16
15.
Ibid., p. 408.
But in this list Montesquieu does not really count
for much, according to Proust, since (ibid. , p. 349) "on ne peut ... dire que
Montesquieu a ete pour Diderot un veritable
initiateur,
en ce qui concerne
les principes de la philosophie politique".
On the connection,
however
slight, between the works of Montesquieu and the articles
of Diderot for
the Encyclopedie,
see ibid., pp. 347-350, 463-465, and 469-474.
16.
Compare, for example,
the following
passages:
"Qu'on examine bien, & on la fera
toujours remonter a l'une de ces
deux sources:
ou la force & la
violence de celui qui s'en est
empare, ou le consentement de
ceux qui s'y sont soumis par un
contrat."
"Modwnadquircndi imperii violentum
vocare solent occupationem .... Igitur
talis demum occupatio ad comparandum
imperium facit,
quae justam praesupponit invasionis
causam, & consensu
sujectorum, pactoque subsequente
fi.rmatur."
Diderot, 'Autorite politique',
Encyclopedie, I ( 1751), p. 898.
Pufendorf, De jure naturae et gentium,
VII, c. vii, §3, pp. 742-743.
"Le prince tient de ses sujets
memes 1 1autorite
qu'il a sur
eux .... Les lois de la nature & de
l'etat sont les conditions
sous
lesquelles
ils se sont soumis, ou
sont censes s'etre
soumis a son
gouvernement.
L'une de ces
conditions est que n'ayant de
pouvoir & d'autorite
sur eux que
par leur choix & de lel.ll' consentement, il ne peut jamais employer
cette autorite
pour casser l'acte
ou le-contrat
par lequel elle lui
a ete deferee. II
"Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins,
if tbe Law be transgressed
to
another's
harm.
And whosoever in
Authority exceeds the Power given
him by the Law, and makes use of the
Force he has under his Command, to
compass that upon the Subject, which
the Law allows not, ceases in that
to be a Magistrate,
and acting without
Authority, may be opposed, as any
other Man, who by force invades the
Right of another."
Ibid.
Locke, Second Treatise of Government,
c. xviii,
§202, pp. 418-419,
"La puissance
"Jamais aucun peuple n'a eu intention de
se soumettre a un Souverain, jusqu' A ne
pouvoir jamais lui resister .... Si done
un peuple a toujours le droit de
qui vient du consentement des peuples, suppose
necessairement des conditions qui
en rendent l'usage legitime,
utile
47
�Indeed,
self
we have only to turn
pointing
to the Neveu de Rameau to find Diderot
him-
to his precursors:
J'ai etudie les loix, et je suis verse dans le droit.
-.Si Puffendorf et Grotius revenoient au monde, ils
mourroient de faim, contre une borne.17
If it is true,
therefore,
that
the writings
of Grotius
and Pufendorf
were, in the mid-eighteenth
century, the classics
of the natural law
18
tradition,
then it was Diderot, far more than Rousseau, who was "le
debi teur
et le disciple
always critical
little
rate,
1119of t-hat school.
of the philosophers
more than a gloss
of natural
upon their
and social
thought.
law
20
Diderot
provided
works, and in the _Encyclopedie,
he did not make a contribution
of political
for while Rousseau was almost
of great
significance
at any
to the history
21
a la
societe ... & qui la fixent &
la restraignent
entre des
limites:
car l'homme ne doit ni
ne peut se donner entierement
&
sans reserve a un autre homme."
resister
a la tyrannie manifeste d'un
Prince, meme absolu, a plus forte
raison aura-t-il
le meme pouvoir a
l'egard d'un Prince qui n'a qu'une
Souverainete restreinte
& limitee."
Ibid.
Burlamaqui, Principes du droit
politique
(Geneve 1751), I? Seconde
Partie,
c. vi., §§24 and 27, pp. 175
and 176-177.
The similarity
between the texts of Diderot and Pufendorf is noted by Lough
(p. 438), though Lough joins with Proust_and differs
from Derathe in supposing
(p. 439) that Diderot's
debt to the natural law philosophers
was only secondhand, since "a careful comparison of the text of his article
with the writings
of Locke, Grotius, and Pufendorf ... does not reveal a single passage which he
could be said to owe directly
to any one of these writers".
Cf. note 11 above.
17.
Le Neveu de Rameau, ed. Jean Fab-re (GeneYe and I.ill'e
18.
See Morel,
'Sources
du Discours
de l'inegalite',
.1950), p. 91.
p. 160.
19.
Derathe, p. 379.
Some of Diderot's
interpreters
(see, for instance,
Anthony Strugnell,
Diderot's
Politics
[The Hague 1973], p. 189) ~aintain
that
he adhered to a theory of natural law in his later as well as in his early
writings.
20.
See eh. I, pp. 18-21.
21.
Diderot's
articles
for the Encyclopedie do not, of course, constitute
the
whole of his work in political
and social thought.
His Principes de politique
des souverains,
as well as his two commentaries upon Russian institutions,
the
Entretiens
avec Catherine II and the Observations sur le Nakaz, all of which,
48
�Some of Diderot's
a contribution
Rousseau,
think
of considerable
and there
cannot be properly
political
ideas
writings
and
social
other
peaks at a great
that
different
very closely,
concepts
thought
that
like
elements
of their
backgrounds
the nature
of their
explain
connection
of our poli t-
our ascent
from
hold the peaks together
and to the foothills
case we shall
of Rousseau's
the connection
I should
of their
to examine here.
who engraved many of the slopes
clearly,
and
standard
peaks in the history
Before I turn directly,
in my view, establish
which I
we should descend
which have made even the foothills
so treacherous.
politics
of
Sometimes, rather,
distance.
it was Diderot
writings
and it is this
we must not always attempt
actually
make
a nwnber of their
I should like
lead up to each of them, and in this
show, that
to the political
except as an interpretation
the most prominent
ical
nevertheless,
For while the intellectual
linked
political
did,
of Rousseau's
may well have been quite
If ~,e wish to scale
to the valleys
elements
understood
work.
were in fact
between their
importance
are certain
development of that
that
work for the Encyclopedie
I mean to
and caverns
own theory
often
between Rousseau and Diderot
and personalities
intellectual
seem
however, to the works which,
to pass a very bri.ef glance
arn concerned here with the political
find,
over some of the
which might help to
relationship.
thought
most
of Diderot
For although
I
and Rousseau,
it
were written in 1773 and 1774, are proof of the importance that he attached
to political
theory even in his later years.
See Verniere's
edition of
these works in his Diderot:
Oeuvres politiques.
In my view, however, the
most eigni:ficant
of Diderot 1 s writings in social theory are, on the one
hand, his Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville,
written between 1771 and
1773, and, on the other, his contribution,
made principally
between 1765 and
1780, to the abbe Raynal's Histoire philosophique
et politique
des Deux Indes.
The best edition of the Supplement is by Dieckmann (Geneve and Lille 1951).
S~e also eh. III, pp. 113-117 below.
With regard to the Histoire des Deux
Indes, see especially
Michele Duchet, 'Diderot collaborateur
de Raynal:
A
propos des "Fragments imprimes" du Fonds Vandeul', RHLF, LX (1960),
pp. 531-556, and Yves Benot, Diderot, de 1 1 atheisme a l'anticolonialisme
(Paris 1970), chs. x-xii.
49
�was not their
Diderot
from Paris
and were therefore
by origin
them
.
relatively
.
prerogative.
young to acquire
careers,
some poverty,
and both,
earning
their
at some distance
men of the provinces
and as a consequence
at a time when enlightenment
or at best b ourgeois,
1iterary
brought
in an age
• 1y und'ispute d . 23
cul ture was entire
•
• •
of Parisian
h e dominance
- this
which initially
and Rousseau were both born and educated
were sons of artisans
private
on politics
22
together.
went
h
writings
none too secure
was still
24
largely
financially
an aristocratic,
Both had come to Paris
a more worldy education
nonetheless,
incomes either
spent their
Both
while still
and to embark upon
early
days there
through translations
in
or from
tuition.
22.
If it was their political
ideas which, in some sense, drew Marx and
Engels to both Paris and each other, then perhaps it could be said that it
was Paris which drew Diderot and Rousseau both to each other and to their
respective
political
ideas.
23.
Denis Diderot was born in Langres in 1713.
His father was a master
cutler,
his mother the daughter of a merchant tanner.
Rousseau was born
in Geneva in 1712, and his father was a third-generation
watchmaker, his
mother the daughter of a watchmaker too.
The best account of Diderot's
early life and works is still,
in my opinion, Venturi's
Jeunesse de Diderot.
Wilson's Diderot: The Testing Years is also very useful and provides even
more biographical
information,
though its treatment of Diderot's
wTitings
is less substantial.
~ have also
consulted the following works: Morley,
Diderot and the Encyclopaedists,
2 vols. (London 1878);
Andre Billy, Vie
de Diderot (Paris 1932); and Crocker, Diderot:
The Embattled Philosopher,
second edition (New York 1966).
The study of Rousseau's early life
should always begin with the Confessions and end with the excellent
notes
to the same work by Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond in O.C.I.
The
notes and appendices to the first few volumes of the Correspondance complete
are equally important,
while the most widely available
general biographies
are those of Jean Guehenno (originally
published under the title
Jean-Jac ues 3 vols. [Paris 1948-52)) and Crocker {Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
2 vols.
New York 1968 and 1973) ).
24.
With respect to the class origins o:f the Encyclopedistes
in particular,
see Hubert, Les sciences sociales dans l'Encyclopedie,
pp. 15-22; Albert
Soboul, 'L'Encyclopedie
et le mouvement encyclopedique',
La Pensee, XXXIX
(1951), pp. 41-51;
Proust, pp. 9-43;
Daniel Roche 'Encyclopedistes
et
academiciens',
in Livre et societe dens la France du XVIIle siecle,
II (Paris
and The Hague 1970), pp. 73-92; and Eric Walter,'Sur
!'intelligentsia
des
lumieres',
Dix-huitieme siecle,
V (1973), pp. 173-201.
1
50
�Similarities
they do not,
connection
on their
sort
between Diderot
almost equally
say, or Condillac,
Turgot,
coupled with their
close
of course,
highly
superficial,
any insights
at all
into
respective
as the two thinkers
from their
are,
own, provide
between their
of resemblance
insofar
of this
political
ideas.
were both so very different
contemporaries
Mably, Helvetius,
birthdates
•
1·ity, 26 an d coup 1e,d
sentimenta
the possible
But these
and Rousseau are important,
prominent
points
I think,
just
in background
- from d'Alembert,
and d'Holbach. 25
and their
and
common, quite
For
lachrymose,
• h t h"eir mutu al de 1·ig h tin •
too, wit
conver-
27 an,d f or t hat matter, penurious
•
• •
fr. ien d sip,
h.
•
sation,
an d intimate
28
women - to say nothing as yet of the remarkably similar intellectual
interests
elements
which they shared
help to explain
ions in the late
even before
their
first
meeting - these
why they should have become such constant
1740s and early
compan-
1750s. 29
25. D'Alembert was the illegitimate
son of the celebrated
Mmede Tencin,
Condillac and Mably were both sons of the vicomte de Mably, Turgot was a
son of the prevot des marchands of Paris, Helvetius was a son of the chief
physician to Queen Marie Leczinska, and baron d'Holbach was the most
prosperous philosophe of all.
Of'course these differences
must not be
exaggerated,
since d'Alembert,
for instance,
drew few advantages in his
lifetime from the circumstances
of his birth.
Reference to the artisan
occupations of Rousseau's and Diderot 1 s fathers,
moreover, should never
obscure the fact that the latter was a man of much more substantial
property.
26.
See Rousseau,
27.
See ibid.,
C6nfessions,
o.c.I,
p. 350.
p. 369.
28. Anne-Toinette Champion was perhaps not quite so poor as Therese
Levasseur, but she too had no property of her own, and Diderot, fearin&
that a small annuity might be lost if his father discovered that he had
married beneath his station,
kept the marriage a secret from his parents.
In his Confessions (pp. 346-347), Rousseau drew the following comparison
between their wives: "Il avoit une Nannette ainsi que j'avois
une Therese;
c 1 etoit entre nous une conformite de plus.
Mais la difference
etoit que
ma Therese aussi bien de figure que sa Nannette, avoit une humeur douce
et un caractere
aimable, fait pour attacher un honnete homme, au lieu que
la sienne, pigrieche
et harangere, ne montroit rien aux yeux des autres
qui put rachetter
la mauvaise education."
29.
See ibid.,
pp. 287-288: "Il me parloit ... de ses projets d'ouvrages.
Cela forma bientot entre nous des liaisons
plus intimes qui ont dure quinze
ans, et qui probablement dureroient
encore si malheureusement,
et bien par
sa faute, je n'euse ete jette dans son meme metier."
Cf. Fabre, 'Deux
freres·ennemis:
Diderot et Jean-Jacques',
Diderot Studies,
III (1961),
pp. 158-159.
51
�For a time,
~as imprisoned
indeed,
at Vincennes
sur les aveugles,
later,
they were the best of friends.
asking
in 1749 after
Rousseau visited
that
he be interned
•
not have to en dure t h e separation.
too - that
Diderot,
is,
up the most important
regret
children
Of course
possible
theirs
exception
of public
saw to that,
rather
too clever
34
relief.
to
the four men making
during
period. 31
this
most intimate
secrets
33
cosmopolitan
friendship.
Rousseau really
His paranoia
and in this
he had abandoned all
his
32
was not an everlasting
among the philosophes.
their
Condillac
for which Rousseau was to have considerable
of Duclos,
easily
figures
and confided
he should
a f ew years ear 1·ier,
to Rousseau,
became widely known that
to the rolls
so that
Rousseau introduced
d'Alembert
together
- a practice
when it later
.
It was Just
of his Lettre
even, so he claimed
with Diderot
group of Enlightenment
They dined and caroused
to each other
together
in the mid-1740s - that
who in turn introduced
the publication
him almost daily,
30
When Diderot
had no lifelong
and unbearable
case a certain
manner, on the part
With the
friends
self-righteousness
facile
urbanity,
of Diderot,
a
was perhaps
30.
See the Confessions,
O.C.I, -p. 348: "J'ecrivis
a Mad8 de· Pompadour
pour la conjurer de le faire relacher ou d'obtenir
qu'on m'enferrnat avec
lui."
If such a letter
was ever sent to Mmede Pompadour, it has since
been lost.
31.
See ibid.,
p. 347.
32.
See ibid.,
pp. ~44-345.
Diderot, however, did not refer anywhere
to Rousseau's abandoned children.
It was Voltaire who, in his 'Sentiment
des citoyens',
wounded Rousseau most deeply on this point.
See ibid.,
pp. 632, 1Q16-l422, and 1595, note 4;
33.
See eh. IV, note 344.
34.
How, indeed, could anyone have suffered the company, for more than
ten years, of the author of these lines (Confessions,
O.C.I, p. 5)?:
"Je forrne une entreprise
qui n'eut jamais d'exemple~ et dont l'execution
n' aura point d' imi tateur.
Je veux montrer a mes semblables un hommedans
toute la verite de la nature;
et cet homme, ce sera moi.
Moi seul.
Je
sens mon coeur et je connois les hommes.
Jene suis fait comme aucun de
ceux que j'ai vus; j'ose croire n'etre fait comme aucun de ceux qui
existent."
52
�also to blame.
quickly,
35
and after
careers
diverged.
intimate
friends,
Both had a serious
In any event their
mutual disenchantment
the mid-1750s their
Nonetheless,
and this
interest
affection
hardened
died and their
for more than ten years
the two were
not only as companions but also as colleagues.
during that
period
in the natural
sciences,
36
both then began to write what later proved to be highly successful
37
novels,
and both were then deeply interested
in contemporary music
35.
Guehenno (see Jean-Jacques,
I, pp. 22~-229) provides a fine account
of this feature of Diderot's
character.
His exasperation
with Rousseau
is best described,
perhaps, in a note which is appended to his Essai sur
les regnes de Claude et de Neron (see Assezat-Tourneux,
III, pp. 196-198),
in the Memoires of Jean-fran~ois
Marmontel (see the 1818-20 Paris edition
of his Oeuvres completes, II, pp. 1-11), and in Les pseudo-memoires de
Mmed'Epinay. Histoire de Madame de Montbrillant
(ed. Georges Roth, 3 vols.
[Paris 1951], III, pp. 257-258 and 585-593).
Cf. frederika
MacDonald,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: a new criticism,
2 vols. (London 1906); Fabre,
'Deux freres ennemis', pp. 155-213; and John Pappas and Roth, 'Les
''Tablettes"
de Diderot',
Diderot Studies, III (1961), pp. 309-320.
36.
See the Confessions,
O.C.I, p. 342, and the following passage from
Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques,
in ibid.,
p. 834: "Il a suivi jadis un
cours de chymie, rien n'est plus certain.
Or vous comprenez bien ce que
c'est ... qu'un homme qui n'est ni Medecin ni Apothicaire et qui neanmoins
suit des cours de chymie et cultive la botanique!"
In 1747 Rousseau
attended a course of lectures
given by the distinguished
chemist,
Guillaume-Fran~ois
Rouelle, and from his notes produced a manuscript,
which was never finished,
of twelve hundred pages entitled
the Institutions
chymiques.
This was first published with a commentary by Maurice Gautier
in the Annales, XII (1918-19) and XIII (1920-21), and Starobinski
(see
Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
La transparence
et l'obstacle
[Paris 1957],
pp. 317-325) has considered its place among Rousseau's other writings in a
most imaginative and suggestive manner.
Rousseau's letters
on botanical
subjects to Antoine Gouan and Mmes de la Tour and Delessert
(see his
Lettres sur la botanique in the edition by Gagnebin [Paris 1962]), however,
date from a later period.
Diderot also attended the lectures
given by
Rouelle, a.ndmany of his early writings were devoted, at least in part, to
ideas both iri and about the natural sciences.
See, for example, his
Lettre sur les aveugles of 1749 (the best edition is by Robert Niklaus
[G-en~ve and Lille 1951]) and his Interpretation
de la nature of 1753
(in Diderot:
Oeuvres philosophiques,
edited by Verni~re [Paris 195~ ).
The most extensive account of Diderot's
ideas on the natural sciences is
provided by Jacques Roger in his Sciences de la vie dans la pensee
fran9aise du XVIIIe siecle (Paris 1963), pp. 585-682.
37.
Diderot's
Bijoux indiscrets,
completed apparently in a fortnight,
appeared in 1748.
Rousseau at least began his work for La Nouvelle
Heloise in 1756.
53
�and especially
opera.
38
Finally,
and for my purposes
both were then engaged in writing
Now the general
was Diderot
Rousseau,
effect
of a writer
upon one so easily
articles
friendship
as he himself
attempts
many of Diderot's
Yet when he later
to see these
to discredit
with great
which had once occasioned
bitter.
their
of a theory
from the motives
author,
and fidelity
but it
is occasionally
positions
which may animate his particular
problems which real
his attention.
originality,
delight
of those sentiments
And it seems to me beyond doubt that
to focus even his most abstract
and· esoteric
and imagined intimacies
Diderot
effectively
for the novel and pungent phrase,
even his philosophical
interests
arguments,
and dis-
theoretical
upon c~rtain
or antagonisms
stimulated
of
Rousseau sometimes came
may not have been a political
but he quite
came, I hope
to deduce the substance
that
emphases.
as
when the affection
the utmo.st importance
of a writer
we take notice
disavowed that
in his work jaded and grew
of course,
of its
critical
Arguments and propo-
determination
appearance
We should never attempt,
as was
very insertions
him.
which Rousseau adopted out of devotion
to show, to be contradicted
to distrust
as
When Rousseau loved his friend,
acknowledges,
he came retrospectively
cunning and deliberate
and incisive
moved from veneration
•
h"is own wr i ting.
.
39
into
•
suggestions
for the Encyclopedie.
so ebullient
should not be underestimated.
he incorporated,
sitions
political
most significantly,
brought
theorist
one who was.
and for dramatic
he made a profound,
to
of great
With a
emphasis in
but not constant,
38.
See the Confessions,
O.C.I, p. 287: "Il aimoit la musique;
il en
savoit la theorie;
nous en parlions ensemble."
Diderot•s Memoires sur
differens
sujets de rnathematigues, which have to do, in some measure,
with matters of a~~ustics,
were published in 1748.
There is.to my
knowledge, however, no evidence to suggest that Diderot played any part,
as Wilson claims (Diderot:
The Testing Years, p. 89), in the composition
of d'Alembert 1 s Elemens de musique suivant les principes
de M. Rameau.
I shall be turning to Rousseau's writings about music in eh. IV.
39.
See eh. III,
note 6.
54
�impression
on his sometime friend.
In the Encyclopedie
to political
fifth
thought
volume, entitled
stems rather
Rousseau's
is probably
'Droit
more, I think,
writings
in the context
the most notable
the article,
naturel•.
40
political
contributions
which he produced for the
Its
from the impression
than from any remarkable
of Diderot's
of Diderot's
importance
that
features
historically
it made upon
of its
own, but
theory alone it ought still
to
40.
The article
appears on pp. 115-116 of the fifth volume, which was
published in 1755.
It was reprinted
in Assezat-Tourneux,
XIV,
pp. 296-301 and is most readily available today in Vaughan, I, pp. 429-433,
and Verniere, pp. 29-35.
The text is included by Vaughan, and indeed is
the only work not by Rousseau which is reprinted
in his study, for the same
reason that I am concerned with it here, that is, because it undoubtedly
had a great influence upon Rousseau's own writings.
Some scholars (see
note 114 below), impressed by the marked similarity
between certain
passages in the 'Droit naturel'
and Rousseau's Manuscrit de Geneve, have
even.suggested that Rousseau could have been the author of at least those
sections of the article
as well, but this claim, I hope to show, rests upon
a misreading of both works.
There is, in my view, no reason whatever to
doubt that Diderot was the author of the 'Droit naturel',
particularly
since the work is marked by the asterisk
which he himself employed to
designate certain articles
as his own.
It has been shown that other
articles
which do not bear his mark, including,
for example, the 'Autorite
politique',
must also have been written by him, and no evidence has ever
been uncovered which might suggest that any article
which was signed by
him was in fact put together by someone else.
This fact should not, of
course, obscure the real debt that Diderot may have owed to other writers
in his composition of the 'Droit naturel'.
Both Frances Montgomery and
Leland Thielemann, for instance,
have claimed that the article
was
inspired by a chapter in Buffier's
Cours de sciences sur des principes
nouveaux & simples.
Thus, writes Thielemann ('Diderot
and Hobbes',
Diderot Studies, II (1952), p. 249), 11lts central theme of the 'volonte
generale' vras the same as Buffier's
concept of the 'inclination
generale',
which was manifest in the judgments that were common to all men".
(Cf.
ibid., p. 272, note 153; Montgomery, La vie et l'oeuvre du Pere Bu.ffier
[Paris 1930], p. 193; and Proust, p. 159, note 180.
Buffier's
Cours de
sciences was first published in Paris in 1732, and the relevant passages
appear in columns 1087-1088 and 1555-1560.)
There is some truth in this
suggestion, and it is certainly
clear that in the Encyclopedie Diderot
borrowed frequently
from Buffier's
work, though in this case he does not
seem to have followed the text with anything like the fidelity
he showed
to Girard, Brucker, and Buffier himself elsewhere.
Some questions have
also been raised about the possible connection between Diderot's
essay
and another article
by Boucher d'Argis, entitled
'Droit de la nature, ou
droit naturel',
which also appeared in the fifth volume of the
Encyclopedie.
Both Hubert (Rousseau et l'Encyclopedie,
p. 28) and
55
�rank as his most thoughtful
so, in my view, largely
treatment
and si.gni£icant
because it is Diderot's
of the subject,
theorists
in general.
generation
problems,
doubts as to whether such overriding
than his more celebrated
attempted
coherent
that
to establish
metaphysic
a political
of man.
one £inds his account
liberty,
colleagues
theory
both before
and after
that would rest
Thus it is in his article
of obligation,
will,
not
of man
or two, many political
matters
are at all relevant to questions about the character of political
41
systems,
but Diderot, certainly,
was never so discriminating.
less
is
abstract
of government as about the nature
In the last
have expressed
And this
most highly
having to do with some central
so much about the institutions
and society
achievement.
and of the moral sense of man - in essence,
him, he
upon a
'Droit
and duty,
No
naturel'
of human
his discussion
of
Derathe (p. 58, note 4) have suggested that Diderot must have been dissatisfied
with Boucher's article
and thus conceived his own 'Droit naturel'
to be a reply.
But this is not entirely
clear, since Boucher's 'Droit de
la nature' was based upon the work of Burlamaqui (see note 14 above) with
whom Diderot, according to both Hubert and Derathe, should have been in
agreement.
For Proust (p. 386), "C'est ... surtout comme philosophe,
et
non comme politique
ou comrne juriste,
que Diderot trouve a redire a
1 1article
de Boucher d'Argis".
See also ibid., pp. 384-386.
41.
Doubts of this kind have been expressed more often in Oxford, I
think, than anywhere else.
T. D. Weldon, for instance,
remarks that "to
claim for a statement that it asserts a political
principle
is to claim
for it exemption from questioning in a particular
context.
Linguistically
such claims are often made by employing such words as 'intuition',
'self-evident',
'obviously',
etc.
These function as stop signs, in the
same sort of way as 'Keep off the grass' notices" ('Political
Principles',
in Laslett,
ed., Philosophy, Politics
and Society, First Series
[Oxford 1963], p. 34).
Cf. Brian Barry, Political
Argument (London 1965),
p. 36: "To ask of someone, 'What are his political
principles?'
is not to
ask for the irreducible,
ultimate considerations
that weigh with him; but
to ask for indications
of the line he would take on any of a great number
of possible issues."
Barry, to be fair, has his own reservations
about
Weldon (see ibid.,
p. 290, note 2), but both are concerned with principles
of a quite different
kind from those which are expressed in the political
theories of Diderot and Rousseau.
'Keep off the grass' notices,
in
particular,
serve nothing like the same purpose as the political
concepts
of either the philosophes or their critics
were intended to do, and even
Weldon's mockery of Rousseau's principles
('Political
Principles',
p. 32)
is conceived in a language with peculiarities
of its own: "Recalcitrants
either conceal their preferences
or end by being forced to be free in
WormwoodScrubbs or Broadmoor."
56
�the nature
significant
of mankind, let
of the concepts
essay is expressed
us say, rather
than of men.
which Diderot ascribes
by the phrase
'volonte
42
And the most
to mankind in his
generale'.
C'est a la volonte generale que l'individu
doit
s'adresser
pous savoir jusqu'ou il doit etre
homrne, citoyen, sujet, pere, enfant, & quand il
lui convient de vivre ou de mourir.
C'est a
elle a fixer les limites de tousles
devoirs.43
42.
In the 'Droit naturel'
Diderot frequently
employs such terms as
'l'humanite',
'l'espece
humaine', and especially
'le genre humain'.
Hence when Rousseau devotes a chapter of his Manuscrit de Geneve to a
refutation
of the 'Droit naturel'
he gives as its title,
'De la societe
generale du genre humain 1 (see note 109 below).
43.
Encyclopedie,
V, p. 116.
The importance of the 1 volonte generale'
as a concept in Diderot's political
thought should not be underestimated.
He invokes it at least a half-dozen times in the 1 Droit naturel',
and he
refers to it again in the articles
'Grecs (philosophie des)' and
'Legislateur'.
In 'Grecs' (Encyclopedie,
VII (1757), p. 908) he proclaims, "Les lois, les lois; voila la seule barriere
qu'on puisse eiever
contre les passions des hoJ111nes:c'est la volonte generale qu'il faut
opposer awe volontes particulieres;
& sans un glaive qui se meuve
egalement sur la surface d'un peuple, & qui tranche ou fasse baisser les
tetes audacieuses qui s'elevent,
le foible demeure expose a l'injure
du
plus fort".
(Cf. ibid.,
p. 909: "On s 1 adressa d'une voix generale a
Solon, & il fut charge d'arreter
l'etat
sur le penchant de sa ruine.")
In the 'Legislateur'
(Encyclopedie,
IX (1765), p. 358) he remarks, "Si
le peuple ou regne cet esprit de corranunaute ne regrette
point d'avoir
soumis sa volonte a la volonte generale, voyez DROITNATUREL; s'il ne
sent point le poids de la loi, il sent encore moins celui des impots;
il paie peu, il paie avec joie".
And again (ibid.,
p. 361):
"Si le
legislateur
ne respecte nine consulte la volonte generale;
s'il fait
sentir son pouvoir plus que celui de la loi ... alors l 1 esprit de corranunaute
disparoit."
Diderot's
use of the expression in 'Grecs' is particularly
striking,
since he took so much of that work directly
from Brucker's
Historia critica
philosophiae.
But while the paragraph in which the
'volonte generale'
appears is opened with a sentence that is adapted from
Brucker's text, and while Diderot returns at the end of the same paragraph to the commentary of the Historia (I, p. 434), the section on
primitive Greece which incorporates
his reference to the 'volonte
generale' has no counterpart
at all in Brucker.
(It should be noted here
that some eighteenth-century
scholars have ascribed the article
'Legislateur'
to Saint.-Larnbert, since it is reproduced in his collected
works.
See, in particular,
Dieckmann, 'The sixth volume of SaintLarnbert's works', Romanic Review, XLII (1951), p. 112, note 7; Proust,
p. 538; and Lough, The 'Encyclopedie'
(London 1971), pp. 304-309.
In
the light of these references
to the •volonte generale',
however, I think
it is more likely that the article
was produced by Diderot than by
Saint-Lambert,
particularly
since the first passage includes a note which
refers the reader to the 'Droit naturel 1 •
Certainly the appearance of
the 'Legislateur'
among the published writings of Saint-Lambert cannot be
accepted as sufficient
proof that the essay was composed by him.
The
57
�Now the term 'volonte
in the article
other
writers
.
certainly
of the 'Droit
first
for the Encyclopedie.
•
of b ot h Ma l eb ranc h e an d Montesquieu,
naturel'
appearance
It can be
44 an
• d b e f ore
it may well have been employed by
too.
Latin expressions of a quite similar kind had
,
45
been developed by SUarez, Hobbes, and Pufendorf,
and there
has been wide speculation
original
does not make its
which Diderot prepared
f oun d in
• t h e writings
• •
the publication
generale'
source
of
and much disagreement
the concept that
among scholars
was to figure
as to the
so prominently
in the
article
'Philosophe'
(see note 96 below) has appeared in various editions
of the complete works of Ohev:rier, Voltaire,
Helvetius,
and Diderot, as
well as with the writings of its true author, Dumarsais, and, in my view,
the other articles
of Saint-Lambert,
most of which pertain to morals and
manners rather than to politics,
do not provide any convincing reasons for
supposing that he was responsible
for the 'Legislateur'
too.
If I am
mistaken here, and Saint-Lambert's
authorship is finally
confirmed, then
it should at least remain apparent that the references
to the 'volonte
generale'
in the 'Legislateur'
are drawn £rom Diderot.)
4~.
For Malebranche, see De la Recherche de la verite (first
published in
1674-75), V.i.
In the Paris 1958-70 edition of his Oeuvres completes the
following passage appears iri II, p. 131: "La volonte de Dieu qui fait
l'ordre
de la grace, est done ajoutee a la volonte qui fait l'ordre
de la
nature pour la reparer,
& non pas pour la changer.
Il n'y a dans Dieu que
ces deux volontez generales;
& tout ce qu'il y a dans la terre de regle
depend de l'une ou de l'autre
de ces volontez. 11 For Montesquieu, see
De l'Esprit
des loix {first published in 1748}, XI.vi.
In Andre Masson's
edition of his Oeuvres completes, 3 vols.
{Paris 1950-55), the most
important of Montesquieu's references
to the 'volonte generale'
appears in
I.i, p. 210: "Les deux autres pouvoirs pourroient plutot etre donnes a
des magistrats
ou a des corps permanens;
parce qu'ils ne s'exercent
sur
aucun particulier;
n'etant,
l'un, que la volonte generale de l'etat;
&
l'autre,
que l'execution
de cette volonte generale."
In the same chapter
(p. 209) Montesquieu also refers to the "volontes generales"
of the legislative "corps de magistrature",
and in XIX.iv (p. 412}, and again in the
Considerations
sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains (see, for example,
I. iii, pp. 507 and 519) he comments upon the "esprit general" of a nation.
45.
F~r Suarez, see De legibus, ac Deo legislatore
of 1612, reprinted
from the original
edition as Selections from Three Works of Francisco
Suarez (Oxford 1944}, III, c. ii, §4, p. 202: "Alio ergo modo consideranda
est hominurn multitude,
quatenus speciali
voluntate,
seu comrnuni consensu in
unum corpus politicurn congregantur uno societatis
vinculo,
& ut mutuo se
iuvent in ordine ad unum finem politicum,
quomodo efficiunt
unum corpus
mysticurn, quod moraliter
dici potest per se unurn."
For Hobbes, see
De cive in the Molesworth edition of his Latin Opera {London, 1839-45), II,
p. 213: "Quoniam igitur
conspiratio
plurium voluntatem ad eundem finem
non sufficit
ad conservationem pacis et defensionem stabilem,
requiritur
ut
circa ea, quae ad pacem et defensionem sunt necessaria,
una omnium sit
voluntas."
Cf. Hobbes I s Philosophical
Rudiments in the Iifuleswortb edition
58
�46
f it.f h volume o f t he Encyc 1ope~d·ie.
to suggest
that
either
sion in one of its
provide
is,
however, no evidence
Diderot or Rousseau took any notice
earlier
an exhaustive
But there
formulations,
of the expres-
and it is not my aim here to
account of the emergence of a phrase.
What I
of his English Works, II, p. 69: "Union thus made, is called a city or
civil society;
and also a civil person.
For when there is one will of
all men, it is to be esteemed for one person;
and by the word one, it is
to be known and distinguished
from all particular
men, as having its own
rights and properties .... A city therefore ... is ~ person, whose will, by
the compact of many men, is to be received for the wil.l of them all."
See also Human Nature (English Works, IV), p. 70, and De corpore politico
(in ibid.),
p. 122.
Howard Warrender (The Political
Philosophy of
Hobbes: His Theory of Obligation
[Oxford 1957], p. 130) writes that
"Hobbes is led to make statements which give to the sovereign the aspect
qf a General Will", but for F. C. Hood (The Divine Politics
of Thomas
Hobbes [Oxford 1964-], p. 136) the "will of a civiJ. person which is to be
held to be the will o'f aJ.l 11, according to Hobbes, "is cleerzy a. fiction".
For Pufendorf, see De jure naturae et gentium, VII, c.ii,
§11, p. 669:
"Equidem qui inter se convenerunt de conferendo in aliquem imperio,
intelliguntur
quoque in id consensisse,
ut omnes suam voluntatem isti
subijciant,
seu ut istius voluntas voluntatem omnium in gerenda republ.
repraesentet."
Cf. ibid., VII, c.ii,
§4, p. 662.
46.
The most comprehensive historical
accounts of the concept are those
of Charles W.Hendel,.Jean-Jacoues
Rousse~.u: 1.bralist,
2 vols. (London 1934),
I, pp. 92-122, and Leon, 'L'Idee de volonte generale chez Jean-Jacques
Rousseau et ses antecedents historiques',
Archives, III-IV (1936),
pp. 148-200.
Yet while both Hendel and Leon make scholarly
contributions
of some importance, they each tend to draw connections between Rousseau and
his precursors which are not warranted by the evidence they provide.
Hendel, in particular,
seems to believe that almost every idea of
sovereignty which was expressed before the time of Rousseau may be translated as a concept of the 'general will',
and his claim (p. 100), for
instance,
that "the genealogy of the general will begins with Jean Bodin"
is in no way-substantiated
by his references
to the Six lin·es
de la
Republique.
Hendel also states (p. 102) that the concept "was tal~en up by
... J. V. Gravina", but the two chapters which he cites from Gravina's
Opera seu originum juris civil.is include no mention of anything like the
1 volont€
g€n~rale'.
The closest approximation to an idea of the 'volonte
generale'
that I have been able to find in Gravina is, in fact, printed in
a chapter (II.xviii
of the 1737 Leipzig edition, p. 160) to which Hendel
does not refer:
"Hine ex placida,
& inermi, armata prodiit,
& imperiosa
sapientia:
cujus vi libertas
nostra minime praeciditur;
quoniam eo
potestas extitit
e confusis omnium viribus:
& lex universorum complexa
voluntates,
rationem singulorum, & potestatem in se conditas perpetuo
conservat."
In any event we have no proof that either Diderot or
Rousseau had ~ver read this work.
Leon, on the other hand, claims that
Hendel even makes too much of Montesquieu's debt to Gravina (seep.
174-,
note 4-), though in this case it is at least clear that Montesquieu knew
something of Gravina's thought.
Yet Leon, at the same time, traces the
'volonte generale'
to Plato, St. Augustine, Duns Scotus, and almost everyone else as well, and his account remains superior to Hendel's only
because he does not, as Hendel has done, re-name all the ideas which must
allegedly have led up to Rousseau as concepts of the 'volonte generale'
itself.
59
�think
is quite
in Rousseau's
tributed
clear,
work for the first
to the fifth
to Diderot
on the other
as its
hand, is that
the expression
time in an article
volume of the Encyclopedie
appeared
which he also
con-
and in which he pointed
author.
Le corps politique
est ... un etre moral qui a une
volonte;
et cette volonte generale, qui tend
toujours a la conservation
et au bien-etre
du
tout et de chaque partie,
et qui est la source
des lois, est pour tousles
membres de l'etat ... la
regle du juste et de l'injuste
.... Voy. au mot
DROIT, la source de ~e grand et lumineux principe,
dont cet article
est le developpement. 4 7
If the phrase,
be traced
he first
therefore,
clearly
which Diderot
to any other
used the expression
writer,
employed in his article
the debt that
is one which he publicly
cannot
Rousseau owed when
acknowledged. 48
47.
Rousseau, Discours sur l'economie politigue,
O.C.III,
p. 245.
In
the EncycloDedie the 1 Economie politique'
appears on pp. 337-349 of vol. V
under the title
'ECONOMIEou OECONOMIE'. It was first published separately in Geneva in 1758 asthe
Discours sur l'Oeconomie politigue,
though
in a letter
to Rousseau of 7 September 1756 (see the Correspondance
complete, IV, p. 99) Condillac gives the impression that it had already
then been reprinted.
48.
Rousseau refers to the 'Droit naturel'
in a second passage of this
article
as well (O.C.III,
p. 247):
"C'est ainsi que les homnies 3.es plus
corrompus rendent toujours quelque sorte d'hommage a la foi publique:
c'est ainsi (comme on 1 1 a remarque a l'article
DROIT) que les brigands
memes, qui sont les ennemis de la vertu dans la grande societe,
en adorent
le simulacre dans leurs cavernes."
He does, however, also refer to two
other articles,
the 'Politique'
(which is probably by Diderot) and the
'Souverainete'
(which is by Jaucourt),
and it may seem unlikely that by
1755 Rousseau should have known the substance of some articles
by other
authors that were only to appear in print much later.
On the other hand,
Diderot's
scheme of cross-references
had already been applied to articles
which were to be published in the later volumes of the Encyclopedie,
and
it might be supposed, therefore,
that the references
to other essays
which are included in Rousseau's 'Economie politique'
could perhaps have
been added by the editor himself.
Both Vaughan (I, pp. 425-426) and
Derathe (0.C.III,
pp. 1394-1395, note 2) are, indeed, led to wonder why
Diderot should never have claimed the 1volonte generale'
as his own idea,
and because of his neglect of this matter they regard it as at least
conceivable that Rousseau, rather than Diderot, introduced the concept
to the other.
Now it might be that this suggestion is correct,
even
though there is no evidence at all, so far as I know, that lends any support to it.
But certainly
it is a mistake to suppose that it must be
true on the grounds that Diderot, with respect to the 'volonte generale',
60
�In this
chapter
and extent
repaid
I shall
of that particular
debt,
and I shall
try to show how Rousseau
it in more than one way.
In the 'Droit
firstly,
be concerned with some problems about the nature
naturel'
to a principle
the
of morality
well as in the socia·l world.
expression
'volonte
which is inherent
It is not a specilically
generale'
refers,
in the natural
political
as
concept.
simply remained silent about Rousseau's debt to him.
In the eighteenth
century, after all, no great importance was attached to this concept in
Rousseau's thought, and Diderot could not have had much occasion to claim an
insignificant
idea as his own.
It is, in any case, perfectly
clear that
Rousseau did acknowledge his debt to Diderot, since his reference
to the
'Droit naturel'
on the occasion of his first use of the expression is already
to be found in the rough draft of the article
which he later submitted to the
Encyclopedie.
This version appears on p. 74.ii of a notebook which is
presently in the Rousseau archives at Neuchatel (Ms R 16).
The text reads
as follows, with the final version, of course, being that cited on p. 60
above: "<Le corps politique>
<(Un peuple entier)> <n'est pas seulement un
corps organique et vivant> Le corps politique
est <encore> done aussi un Etre
moral qui a une volonte, et cette volonte <collective
OU generale
est>
[generale) qui tend toujours (au bien etre] a la conservation
<de tout individu collectif>
{du tout et de chaque partie] est-<par raport> pour tous ses
membres par raport a eux <memes> et a lui la regle du juste et de l'injuste
(voyez droit) ce qui pour le dire en passant montre avec combien de lurnieres
tous nos ecrivains
ont traitte
de vol <l><a subtilite><[exercice]>
[la subtilite]
prescrite
aux enfans de Lacedemone pour <avoir de quoi se nourrir>
[gagner leur <propre> [frugal] repas] comme si <l'on pouvoit jamais qual>
tout ce <que les (?) permis(?) pou> qu'ordonnent les Loix <qui> pouvoi<ent>t
ne pas etre legitime <entre les Citoyens>."
The passage is particularly
significant,
not only because it shows that Rousseau had the article
~Droit
naturel'
in mind already at this time, but also because it suggests that be
hesitated
to employ the concept on the first occasion that he refers to it.
Thus the expression
'volonte generale'
only appears in Rousseau's text after
he deletes a reference to the 'volonte collective
ou generale'.
The notebook in which this passage figures contains several other important
manuscript fragments from the 'Economie politique'
and Rousseau's political
writings generally,
and many of these fragments have been printed several
times elsewhere (see especially
the Edmond Dreyfus-Brisac
edition of the
Contrat social [Paris 1896], pp. 316-320; J,-L. Windenberger, La Republique
confederative
des petits etats [Paris 1900), pp. 274-287;
Vaughan, I,
pp. 274-280, 308-322, 514-516;
Dufour, II, pp. 119-127; and O.C,III,
pp. 474-492, 507, 525-549, and 555-560).
But this particular,
and in my
view quite central,
passage was published for the first time only in 1971
(see the Paris edition of Rousseau's Oeuvres completes edited by Launay, II,
pp. 294-295) in a transcription
which, however, is neither complete nor
exact.
(I should, nevertheless,
like to express my apologies here to
Messieurs Launay and Jacques Mayor for having overlooked their work in an
earlier version of this chapter which appeared under the title
'The
Influence of Diderot on the political
theory of Rousseau:
two aspects of a
relationship 1 , in SVEC, CXXX:11 ( 1975), pp, 55-112.)
61
�Mais, me direz-vous,
OU est le depot de cette
volonte
generale?
Ou pourrai-je
la consulter? ... Dans les
principes du droit ecrit de toutes les nations
policees;,
dans les actions sociales des peuples
sauvages & barbares ... &rneme dans l'indignation
& le
ressentiment,
ces deux passions que la nature semble
avoir placees jusque dans les animaux pour suppleer
au defaut des lois sociales. 49
Since the task of the philosopher,
principle
since
of right
the 'volonte
follows
that
'volonte
and justice
generale'
at least
generale'
sible
their
for eniroaJs
in fact
this
dispositions,
to communicate their
conventional
52
principle,
51 it
of the
For the true virtues
moral standards
and, indeed,
sentiments
the
o:f mankind, SO and
for a consideration
of nature.
when their
is to establish
society
supplies
must be the state
natural
Diderot,
in the natural
one proper context
of men can only he attained
approximate
writes
if it were pos-
to men, then
49.
Encyclopedie,
V, p. 116.
Cf. the Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville
(Dieckmann edition),
p. 28: "Veux-tu savoir en tout temps et en tout lieu ce
qui est bon et mauvais?
attache toi a la nature des choses et des actions ....
Tues en delir.e, si tu crois qu'il y ait rien, soit en haut soit en bas dans
l'univers
qui puisse ajouter ou retrancher°7ux
loix de la nature."
It should
he noted, too, that the sent~nts
of men and animals which take the place of
social laws are rather more benign according to Rousseau.
For he points, not
to "l 'indignation
et le ressentiment"
of creatures
in their original
state, but
rather to "l'amour de soi-meme" and "la pitie",
dispositions
which are so
natural "que les Betes memes en donnent ... des signes sensibles"
(Discours sur
l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 154).
50.
See the Encyclopedie,
V, pp. 115-116:
"Le phllosophe interroge dit,
le droit est le fondement ou la raison
remiere de la justice.
Mais
qu'est-ce
que la justice? ... si nous otons
l'individu
le droit de decider
de la nature du juste & de l'injuste,
ou porterons-nous
cette grande question?
ou? devant le genre humain: c'est a lui seul qu'il appartient
de la decider,
parce que le bien de tous est la seule passion qu'il ait."
See also Norman
Suckli~g, 'Diderot's
Politics',
Diderot Studies, XVI (1973), pp. 278-279.
51.
See the Encyclopedie,
V, p. 116: "La volonte generale est dans chaque
individu un acte pur de l'entendement
qui raisonne dans le silence des
passions sur ce que l 1 horrane peut exiger de son semblable, & sur ce que son
semblable est en droit d'exiger de lui."
52.
The connection between men's moral standards and their natural dispositions
provid~s a recurrent
theme in Diderot's work, particularly
in the
Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville
about which I shall have more to say in
the next chapter.
It is discussed in the Neveu de Rameau too, as for
example in the following passage (p. 90): "S'il est destine a devenir un
homme de bien, je n'y nu.irai pas.
Mais si la molecule vouloit qu'il fut un
vaurien comme son pere, les peines que j'aurois
prises,
pour en faire un
homme honnete lui seroient tres nuisibles;
l'education
croisant sans cesse
62
�la cause du droit
devant l'humanite,
Following
'volonte
from this,
generale'
•
t h ieves
secondly,
in a variety
as the natural
of different
inclinations
under the rubric
cept, as Diderot
construes
presupposed
It applies
it,
in the patterns
are prescribed
equally,
men do as a rule,
Such disparate
ways.
conventions
that
both to principles
is,
to the statutes
to our habits
and to other
ever need to be distinguished
meanings can strictly
that
are
principles
enact.
and our obligations,
of the concept,
in Diderot's
• a 11
is
which governments
and to what they ought to do as their
:formulations
account,
of
For the con-
of the new expression.
refers
of a
in a number of distinct
of men, the tacit
of our behaviour
according
Now the different
of its
a concep~ion
54 d h l
•
t
an d b ar b arians,
an t e ega l c odes of compl ex sates,
thus introduced
that
Diderot proposes
which is at once realized
forms and expressed
evidence
naturel ne se plaideroit
plus ~armais par-devant l'animalite.5
to what
duty.
i'inally,
so that
do not
no single
one
be held to exclude any of the others.
Cette consideration
de la volonte generale de 1 1 espece
& du desir commun, est la regle de la conduite relative
d'un particulier
a un particulier dans la meme societe;
d'un particulier
envers la societe dont il est membre,
& de la societe dont il est membre, envers les autres
societes .... la soumission a la volonte generale est le
lien de toutes les societes,
sans en excepter celles
qui sont formees par le crime.SS
la pente de la molecule, il seroit tire cotrnnepar deux forces contraires,
et marcheroit tout de guingois, dans le chemin de la vie."
53.
Encyclo?edie,
V, p. 116.
See also Hendel, Rousseau:
Moralist,
I,
p. 107, and Leon, 'Rousseau et les fondements de l'Etat moderne', p. 215.
54.
'With respect to thieves,
see the Encyclopedie, V, p. 116: "Helas,
la vertu est si belle, que les voleurs en respectent
l'image dans le fond
meme de leurs cavernes!"
It is in fact to this sentence that Rousseau
points in his second reference to the 'Droit naturel'
(see note 48 above).
With respect to barbarians,
see the passage cited for note 49 above.
Diderot a.lso writes (ibid. ) that the I volonte generale' may be expressed
"dans les conventions tacites
des ennemis du genre humain entr'eux".
SS.
Ibid.
63
�The significance
of the idea,
of this
is that
consistent,
point,
Diderot's
in due course,
On the whole, Diderot
in connection
'volonte
generale'
with a properly
supposes that
when individual
recognise
their
As a rule
of conduct it is thus accessible
no special
it.
enterprise
will
interests
at all
suffice.
follows
that
at least
potentially
It is these
view, central
of all,
compatible
to Diderot's
will
56
come to
but as reciprocal.
as achieved
generale',
mode of their
in short,
with
through COllllllon
is presented
expression,
as the sum of particular
of the 'volonte
generale'
of
and it therefore
in every case with the 'volonte
conception.
•
be attained
opposed to the group sentiments
conceived
1
to each of us, and it requires
interest
The 'volonte
features
particuliere
for men to act in accordance
of private
as the correct
the will
generale'
not as conflicting
not as a will which is categorically
men but rather
'volonte
men, as members of any group whatever,
assembly as a precondition
Any conception
account
may come to be
realized
the 'volonte
correctly
separate
with Rousseau's
which are,
And if such is the case,
wills,
is
generale'.
in my
then I
56.
The 'volonte generale'
is not, of course, identical
with the
'volonte particuliere'
in Diderot's account.
For, as he remarks (ibid.),
"Les volontes -particulieres
sont suspectes;
elles peuvent etre bonnes ou
mechantes, mais la volonte generale est toujours bonne", and he refers to
this difference
twice again in the 'Droit naturel'
(see ibid.) and once more
in the article
'Grecs' (see note 43 above).
But the 'volonte generale'
of
a group, according to Diderot, is nothing more than the mutual bonds that tie
each member to the rest.
And while for Rousseau all those ties together
fonn only the sum of particular
interests
with respect to the 'volonte
generale'
of a state (see the passage from the Contrat social cited in note
72 below), for Diderot it is the ties between the communities in a state
which collectively
form the interest
of the whole: "Dans la legislation
tout est lie, tout depend l'un de l'autre,
l'effet
d'une bonne loi s'etend
sur mille objets etrangers a cette loi:
un bien procure un bien, 1 1 effet
reagit sur la cause, l'ordre general maintient toutes les parties,
& chacune
influe sur l'autre
& sur l'ordre general.
L'esprit
de communaute, repandu
dans le tout, fortifie,
lie & vivifie le tout" ('Legislateur',
Encyclopedie,
IX, p. 358 - with regard to Diderot's authorship of this article,
see note
43 above) .
Cf. Antoine Adam, 'Rousseau et Diderot' , Revue des science·s
humaines, LIII (1949), p. 30, -and Proust, p. 389.
64
�think
there
can be little
most of his political
quite
un1ike·
doubt but that
works, an interpretation
the account devised
the Manuscrit
or,
between Rousseau's
indeed,
own theory
within
their
only as a consequence
the state
corporate
a sovereign,
society
capacity,
and never,
social
and that
firstly,
that
is,
certainly,
We have only to turn to
57
generale'
can be
compact and not at all
to the will
to citizens
Lettre
to see the contrast
the 'volonte
of the social
in
of the idea which is
of his precursor.
It refers
of nature.
at least
book of Emile, or the sixth
the Contrat
According to Rousseau,
realized
by Diderot.
de Geneve, or the fifth
de la montagne,
Rousseau proposes,
of individuals
constituted
to the inhabitants
in
as members of
of any natural
of mankind.
Il y a ... dans 1 1 Etat une force commune qui le soutient,
une volonte generale qui dirige cette force et c'est
l'application
de 1 1 une a l'autre
qui constitue
la
souverainete.
Par ou l'on voit que le souverain n'est
par sa nature qu'une personne morale, qu'il n'a qu'une
existence abstraite
et collective,
et que 1 1 idee qu'on
attache ace mot ne peut etre unie a celle d'un simple
individu.58
The distinction
human behaviour,
between what is natural
and what is conventional
in
between what men pursue from impulse and what they
57.
In the Manuscrit de Geneve, Rousseau considers the 'volonte generale'
at greatest
length in Livre I, eh. iv and Livre II, eh. iv (O.C.III,
pp. 294-297 and 326-330).
For his discussion
of the concept in Livre V of
Emile, see especially
0.C.IV, pp. 841-846.
For the appropriate
passage in
the sixth Lettre de la montagne, see 0.C.III,
pp. 807-808.
In the Contrat
social itself
(printed in ibid., pp. 347-470) the concept of course figures
prominently throughout the text, but perhaps the most important passages
appear in Livre I, eh. vii;
Livre II, chs. i, iii, vi; and Livre IV, chs. i
and ii.
Among the interpretations
of the 'volonte generale'
in Rousseau
which I have seen, perhaps that of Beaulavon in the introduction
and notes to
his edition of the Contrat social (see eh. I, note 32) is still
my favourite.
But I am also indebted, at least in part, to Hubert (Rousseau et
l'Encyclopedie
, pp. 27-52), Leon ('L'Idee
de volonte g€n€rale'),
and
Plamenatz (Man and Society, I, pp. 391-418), and I am broadly in agreement,
too, with the accounts of the connection between Rousseau's and Diderot's
ideas which are provided by Proust (pp. 359-399) and Einaudi (The Early
Rousseau, pp. 172-185).
Cf. Contrat social,
58.
Manuscrit de Geneve, I.iv,
O.C.III, pp. 294-295.
I.viand
II.i (ibid.,
pp. 361-362 and 368).
65
�perform from duty,
and it is clear
refers
that
exclusively
in their
is drawn no less
political
sharply
by Rousseau than by Kant, 59
for Rousseau the concept of the
'volonte
generale'
to the sphere of moral conduct as it applies
to men
associations.
Ce passage de l'etat
de nature a l'etat
social produit
dans 1 1 homme un changement tres remarquable, en substituant
dans sa conduite la justice a l'instinct,
et
donnant a ses actions des rapports moraux qu 1elles
n'avoient
point auparavant.
C'est alors seulement que
la voix du devoir succedant a l'impulsion
physique et
le droit a l'appetit,
l 1 homme qui jusques la n'avoit
regarde que lui meme se voit force d'agir sur d'autres
principes
et de consulter
sa raison avant d'ecouter
ses
penchans.60
Hence the 'volonte
sovereign,
will
can only arise
therefore,
for all
entre
generale',
of course,
creatures
Secondly,
established
civil
state.
of nature,
de relation
morale,
generale'
Rousseau remarks,
connus 11 , 61 are
ni de devoirs
be imprecise
in his own account
holds firmly,
social,
to the view that
political
generale',
situation
there
de la montagne,
is always an appropriate
however difficult
•
•
accor d ing
to its
ru.1 es. 62
through
must be expressed.
of what the concept means, he nonetheless
and Lettre
"n'ayant
of agreement· and consent
while Rousseau may often
Emile,
It
have no place whatever in the animal realm,
into those relations
which the 'volonte
as the voice of a popular
in a properly
in the state
eux aucune sorte
unable to enter
construed
in practice
Rousseau
in the Contrat
for every
and unique
'volonte
it might be for men to act
•
sometimes
suggests
59.
See, for example, §§43-46 of Das offentliche
gesanunelte Schriften,
VI, pp. 311-315.
Recht,
tath
we grasp
.
its
in Kant's
60.
Manuscrit de Geneve, I.iii,
O.C.III, p. 292.
The two paragraphs of
the Man~scrit which are opened by this passage also form most of Livre I,
eh. viii of the Contrat social (ibid.,
pp. 364-365).
61.
Discours
sur 1 1 inegalite,
ibid.,
p. 152.
62.
See the Contrat social,
II.vi,
ibid.,
p. 380: "De lui-meme le peuple
veut toujours le bien, mais de lui-meme il ne le voit pas toujours.
La
volonte generale est toujours droite,
mais le jugement qui la guide n'est
66
�meaning only through
times he implies
which give rise
that
we know it rather
to those
laws,
64
on the one hand, and to perceive
were to understand
of the laws which it enacts, 63 and some-
the content
the 'volonte
through the public
as if to recognise
how these
generale'
are achieved,
of what might be called
ch aracter
65
of t h e ' vo 1 onte' genera
stems,
' ' 1e '
that
a proper
time can only,
yield
the political
system of legislation
laws of a right
accomplishments,
on the other,
in the same way.
confusion
belief
its
deliberations
effects
And this
with the moral
• , f rom Rousseau ' s
I think
will always,
and at the same
kind.
Il s'ensuit
de ce qui precede que la volonte generale
est toujours droite et tend toujours a l'utilite
publique. 66
pas toujours eclaire."
Cf. Manuscri t de Geneve, I. vii (ibid. , p. 311), and
also the following passage from the Contrat social, IV.i, ibid., p. 438:
"Quand l'Etat
pres de sa ruine ne subsiste plus que par une forme illusoire
et vaine ... la volonte generale devient muette .... S'ensuit-il
de-la que la
volonte generale soit aneantie ou corrompue?
Non, elle est toujours constante,
inalterab~e
et pure;
mais elle est subordonnee a d'autres
qui l'emportent
sur
elle."
63.
See, for instance,
the following passage from Emile, Livre V,
p. 842: "Puisque rien n'oblige les sujets que la volonte generale,
rechercherons comment se manifeste cette volonte, a quels signes on
de la reconnoitre,
ce que c'est qu'une loi, et quels sont les vrais
de la loi?"
Cf. Contrat social,
II.vi
(O.C.III,
p. 379).
64.
See the Contrat social,
II.iii,
ibid., p. 371:
suffisamrnent informe delibere,
les Citoyens n'avoient
eux, du ·grand nombre de petites
differences
resulteroit
generale, et la deliberation
seroit toujours bonne."
O.C.IV,
nous
est sur
caracteres
"Si, quand le peuple
aucune corranunication entre
toujours la volonte
65.
In the Manuscri t de Geneve, II.iv (ibid. , p. 327) Rousseau writes, "La
matiere et la forrne des Loix sont ce qui constitue
leur nature;
la forme est
dans l'autorite
qui statue;
la matiere est dans la chose statuee".
66.
Contrat social,
II.iii,
ibid.,
p. 371.
G. D. H. Cole was of course
mistaken when, in his edition of The Social Contract and Discourses (first
published in London in 1913), he translated
'droite'
in this passage as 'right',
particularly
since Rousseau continues immediately with "il ne s'ensuit
pas que
les deliberations
du peuple aient toujours la meme rectitude".
Thus the
editors of the latest version of Cole's text (London 1973) have replaced
'right'
with 'upright',
while Maurice Cranston, in his own recent edition of
1 droite 1 as 'rightful'.
The Social Contract (London 1968) translates
Cf.
Contrat social,
II.iv (O.C.III,
p. 373), and the passages cited in note 62
above.
67
�The 'volonte
a single
generale'
cannot ever be arbitrary,
member of the sovereign,
to be a proper
'volonte
cannot ever harm even
because in such a case it would cease
generale'.
La puissance Souveraine n'a nul besoin
les sujets,
parce qu'il est impossible
veuille nuire a tous ses membres .... Le
cela seul qu'il est, est toujours tout
etre. 67
There is,
concept,
to be sure,
but,it
attributed
much that
is just
for this
to the expression
while Diderot finds
the 'volonte
may appear tautological
reason,
we have it at all.
Rousseau finds
that
And whereas for Diderot
tut ions could in fact
but rather
that
the meanings
by Diderot are excluded by Rousseau.
in every one of our institutions,
conjoin
I think,
about such a
proof almost everywhere of the practical
generale',
Rousseau's
de garant envers
que le corps
Souverain, par
ce qu'il doit
secure
'volonte
excludes
generale',
of
it is already
presupposed
view none of those
insti-
68
thirdly,
particular
reality
we can never be sure when
in Rousseau's
it for long.
For
does not assimilate
or
wills.
Chaque individu peut comme homme avoir une volonte
particuliere
contraire
ou dissemblable a la volonte
generale qu'il a comme Citoyen.
Son interet
particulier
peut lui parler tout autrement que
l'interet
commun.69
67.
Contrat social,
I.vii,
ibid., p. 363.
Cf. Emile, Livre V, O.C.IV,
p. 841: "Un particulier
ne sauroit etre leze directement par le souverain
qu'ils ne le soient tous, ce qui ne se peut, puisque ce seroit vouloir se
faire du mal a soi-meme.
Ainsi le contract social n'a jamais besoin
d'autre garant que la force publique."
The same point is made by l<ant in
Das offentliche
Recht, §46, p. 313: "Die gesetzgebende Gewalt kann nur dem
vereinigten
Willen des Volkes zukomrnen. Denn da von ihr alles Recht
ausgehen soll, so mua sie durch ihr Gesetz schlechterdings
niemand unrecht
thun konnen."
68.
See the Contrat social,
III.xi,
O.C.III, p. 424: "Le corps politique,
aussi-bien
que le corps de l'homme, commence a mourir des Sd naissance et
porte en lui-meme les causes de sa destruction."
69.
Contret social,
I.vii,
ibid., p. 363.
Cf. Contrat social,
II.i,
ibid.,
p. 368: "S'il n'est pas impossible qu'une volonte particuliere
s'accorde sur
68
�Thus while a collection
Rousseau calls
of particular
the 'volonte
ance by each citizen
engender the 'volonte
wills
de tous',
only a consideration
of what is truly
generale'
may produce a sum which
and accept-
in the common interest
could
itself.
Il y a souvent bien de la difference
entre la volonte
de tous et la volonte generale;
celle-ci
ne regarde
qu'a l'interet
commun, l'autre
regarde a l'interet
prive, et n'est qu'une somme de volontes particulieres.
70
quelque point avec la volonte generale;
il est impossible au moins que cet
accord soit durable et constant.;
car la volonte particuliere
tend par sa
nature aux preferences,
et la volonte generale a l'egalite."
In the
Contrat social
Rousseau develops this theme again in Livre II, eh. vi and
especially
in Livre III, eh. ii (ibid.,
pp. 380 and 400-402).
In Emile,
Livre V (O.C.-IV, p. 843), he writes, "L'essence de la souverainete
consistant dens la volonte generale, on ne voit point non plus COTmDent
on peut
s'assurer
qu'une volonte particuliere
sera toujours d'accord avec cette
volonte generale.
On doit bien plustot presumer qu'elle
y sera souvent
contraire;
car l 1 interest
prive tend toujours aux preferences
et l'interest
public a l'egalite".
See also the Manuscr.it de Geneve, I.iv (O.C.III,
pp. 295-296) and the sixth Lettre de la montagne (ibid.,
p. 808).
An
account of this theme in Rousseau's work is developed by Hans Barth in his
'Volonte generale et volonte particuliere
chez J.-J. Rousseau', in Rousseau
et la philosophie
politique,
pp. 35-50;
Contrat social,
II.iii,
O.C.III, p. 371.
Cf. Manuscrit de Geneve,
I.iv, ibid.,
pp. 296-297:
"La volonte generale est rarement celle de tous,
et la force publique est toujours moindre que la sol!mle des forces particulieres."
It is true, however, that Rousseau does not maintain this
distinction
consistently
even in those works which together,
in my view,
stand somewhat apart from his 'Economie politique'.
For in the Contrat
social,
IV.i (ibid.,
p. 438), he also writes, "Quand le noeud social
commence a se relacher et 1 1 Etat a s'affoiblir
... l'interet
comrnun s'altere
et trouve des opposans ... la volonte generale n'est plus la volonte de
tous ... et le meilleur avis ne passe point sans disputes".
In the sixth
Lettre de la montagne (ibid.,
p. 807), furthermore,
he remarks that "la
volont~ de tous est ... la regle supreme, et cette regle generale et personifiee est ce que j'appelle
le Souverain".
For Derathe (ibid.,
p. 1456) it
therefore
follows that the 'volonte generale' must be the same, at least in
principle,
as the 'volonte de tous',
"sans quoi on ne comprend plus comment,
en obeissant a la volonte generale, les citoyens obeissent
a 1 leur propre
volonte!".
And the distinction
between the 1volonte de tous' conceived
as the sum of particular
wills, on the one hand, and the 'volonte generale'
as the sum of their differences,
on the other, "if we take it literally",
according to Plarnenatz (Man and Society, I, p. 393), "is sheer nonsense".
But if the 'volonte de tous' is meant to express the total of men's private
interests
as distinct
from the collective
interest
which they all share,
then the opposition between the 'volonte de tous' and the 'volonte
generale'
seems to me quite central to Rousseau's theory, and his failure
to maintain that distinction
throughout the Contrat social is, in my view,
one of the more important defects
of the work.
Bosanquet,
Vlho
accepts and in fact elaborates
this distinction
between two kinds of will,
70.
69
�Rousseau even suggests,
between the general
for the 'volonte
from time to time,
and the particular
generale'
that a permanent opposition
wills
to be realized
ot a community is necessary
at all.
For
1 1accord de tousles
interets
se forrne par opposition
de chacun.
S'il n'y avoit point d'interets
differens,
a peine sentiroit-on l'interet commun qui
ne "trouveroit jamais d'obstacl~.71
a celui
The will
of all
to the 'volonte
Rousseau its
but one, so far from it being the closest
generale'
could in practice
most extreme perversion.
out of shared private
political
that
association,
interests,
but a faction.
be attained,
For it establishes
and irmakes
approximation
is for
consensus
out of the state,
only
not a
72
even suggests (quite incorrrectly,
I think) that Rousseau's suspicion of
representative
institutions
and his preference for unanimity in legislation
were based upon a neglect of the fundamental difference
between the two
concepts which he had himself introduced.
For a 'real'
general will, as
Bosanquet understands it (see The Philosophical
Theory of the State, first
edition,
eh. v, especially
pp. 111-117), must always be in the common
interest
though it may not be perceived by everyone to be so, and a delegated authority
aloof from prejudice and special pleading could be supposed
to serve equally to the best advantage of all men.
A useful interpretation
of the 1 volonte de tous' as compared to the 'volonte generale'
in Rousseau's
thought can be found in Beaulavon's thoroughly admirable ed~tion of tbe
Contrat social, on pp. 31-35 and 162-163, notes, in the 1914 text.
Barry
('The Public Interest',
Proceedin s of the Aristotelian
Societ , supplementary volume XXXVIII (1964 , pp. 1-18), moreover, argues that the
distinction
forms an important element in what we understand to be the meaning of a public interest.
71.
Contrat social,
II.iii,
O.C.III, p. 371, note.
These lines appear
in a note devoted to a commentary upon a passage from d'Argenson's
Considerations
SUI' le gouvernernent ancien et present
de la France.
D'Argenson's work was first published in Amsterdam in 1765, but copies of
the manuscript (under the title
Traite des interets
de la France avec ses
voisins) had been in circulation
for several years before that and Rousseau
probably added his note to the Contrat social at the beginning of 1762.
The passage from which Rousseau quotes is to be found in the Considerations
on pp. 26-27 of the published text:
"Chaque interet a des principes
differens;
l'accord
de deux interets
particuliers
se fome par une raison
opposee a celui d'un tiers."
In Rousseau's note "par une raison opposee"
appears as "par opposition".
Cf. O.C.III, pp. 1436 and 1456.
72.
See the Contrat social,
des brigues,
des associations
de chacune de ces associations
et particuliere
par rapport
a
II.iii,
ibid., p. 371: "Quand il se fait
partielles
aux depends de la grande, la volonte
devient generale par rapport a ses rnembres,
l'Etat."
70
�Now if this
summary account of the phrase
the works of both Diderot
that
the predominant
recapitulated,
and Rousseau is correct,
features
are actually
of Diderot's
contradicted,
co11DDon
use of the same expression.
his article
'Economie politique'
which at once differs
accounts
and at the same time resembles
nature1
1
•
rather,
sharply
closely
in
it should be clear
in Rousseau's
one will
from all
Diderot's
For in the 'Economie politique'
not
most
find that
Rousseau employs a concept
generale'
in the 'Droit
generale'
concept are certainly
Nonetheless,
'volonte
73
'volonte
in
of the
his subsequent
own exposition
Rousseau
73.
The conceptual similarity
between the articles
of Diderot and Rousseau
nas often be~n described before, most notably by Hubert in Rousseau et
l'Encyclopedie
(see especially
pp. 26-29).
According to Hendel (Rousseau:
Moralist,
I, p. 98), moreover, the two works are in fact "companion-pieces",
while for Derathe (O.C.III,
p. lxxiii)
they are proof that "a l'epoque de la
preparation
du tome V de l'Encyclopedie,
pendant les annees 1754-1755, la
collaboration
entre Rousseau et Diderot est tres etroite
et leur amitie sans
nuages".
But in the absence of any clear testimony as to when the
'Economie politique'
was produced, and in the light of its apparent inconsistency with Rousseau's other work, there has been much speculation
and
wide disagreement abGut the possible dates of its composition.
For Lanson
('L I Unite de la pen see de Rousseau 1 , pp. 15-16) , Rousseau must have begun to
work on the article
just before or around 1750, at the time, that is, when
he was most under the influence of the Encyclopedistes,
while Hubert
(Rousseau et l'Encyclopedie,
pp. 51-6€), whose arguments are generally based
securely upon the evidence of Rousseau's texts, supposes that the work was
conceived in 1753 and written early in 1754, before the Discours sur
1 1 inegalite
(with which he agrees it is incompatible)
was finished and even
before Diderot had put together his 'Droit naturel'.
Now the suggestion
that an essay which stands apart from Rousseau's other writings should have
been composed some time before them is of course quite tempting, but the
conclusion,
therefore,
that Rousseau refers to a piece which Diderot had
not yet drafted,
is altogether
an unhappy one.
It may be the case that
DiderotJ.s ideas in his article
were more largely drawn from Rousseau's work
than they were adopted in it, though to suppose that the discrepancy between
the 1 Economie politique'
and Rousseau's other writings must be explained in
this fashion is certainly
a mistake.
For if our chronology of Rousseau's
works is made to depend upon this or that conception of their logical
coherence, then we shall have to rearrange our account of the dates on which
they were all conceived.
We shall have to suppose, for instance,
that the
'Preface de Narcisse'
of 1753 was also composed after the 'Economie
politique'
because it contains elements, missing from the article,
that
resemble certain features of Rousseau's later thought.
And we shall be led
to believe that those passages of the sixth Lettre de la montagne which
would not have been out of place in the 'Economie politique'
(see note 70
above) were in fact formulated more than ten years before the work in which
they appeared was published (1764).
The political
thought of Rousseau does
not develop as the unfolding of a single theme, nor even as the unfolding
of two themes divided by a 'rupture epistemologique'.
And until new
71
�neglects
to provide
convention,
generale'
just
those
impulse and duty,
that
lie
at the root
conceptual
distinctions
and hence 'volonte
between nature
particuliere'
of his subsequent
revision
and
and 'volonte
of Diderot's
account.
The 'volonte
politique',
contrary,
generale',
as Rousseau describes
does not stand opposed to all
identical
with the collective
it in the 'Economie
particular
expression
wills
but is,
of these
wills,
on the
Thus~
he writes,
Voule2-vous que la volonte generale soit accomplie?
faites que toutes les volontes particulieres
s'y
rapportent;
et comme la vertu n'est que cette
conformite de la volonte particuliere
a la generale,
pour dire la meme chose en un mot, faites regner la
vertu, 74
Every man, he continues,
est conforme en tout
therefore,
a la
is virtuous
volonte
,
only when "sa volonte
,
,
generale
must be the "organe salutaire
evidence about the 'Economie poli tique'
most reliable
chronological
guide should
of its arguments may be incompatible
in
developed both earlier
and later in his
that we do have it appears to have been
1754.
II
,
75
so that
de la volonte
particuliere
the rule
of law,
de tous". 76
is found it seems to me that our
be the date of its publication.
Some
certain ways with ideas that Rousseau
other works, but on the information
composed by Rousseau around the end of
74.
O.C.III,
p. 252.
It is true, however, that Rousseau's meaning in the
'Economie politique'
is not entirely
clear on this point, for he also writes
(ibid.,
pp. 247-248) that "la premiere et la plus importante maxime du
gouvernement legitime ... est ... de suivre en tout la volonte generale;
mais
pour la suivre il faut la connoitre,
et sur-tout
la bien distinguer
de la
volonte particuliere
en commengant par soi-meme; distinction
toujours fort
difficile
a faire, et pour laquelle il n'appartient qu'a la plus sublime
vertu de donner de suffisantes
lumieres".
75.
Ibid., p. 254.
76.
Ibid., p. 248.
See also Hubert, Rousseau et l'Enc clo edie, p. 109,
With respect to the 'Economie politique',
Leon 'Rousseau et l'Etat moderne',
p. 225) remarks that "le sens du terme de 'volonte generale' .... est loin, a
cette epoque, d'etre clair pour Rousseau lui-meme: il se confond avec celui
de 'volonte de tous' tout en s'opposant
a la 'volonte particuliere'.
L'article
Economie Politique
a surtout l'irnportance
de la decouverte d'une
veritable
communaute spontanee et naturelle
a la base de tout societe 11 •
72
�It is only in the 'Economie politique',
Diderot
in ascribing
whole natural
immediately
remarks that
a moral principle
society
after
of mankind.
his first
the 'volonte
laws of individual
states
moreover,
of the 'volonte
generale'
to the 'Droit
pertains
he follows
generale'
For in the paragraph
reference
that
to the
which appears
naturel
1,
Rousseau
not only to the established
but also to the relations
between men in all
states.
Car alors la grande ville du monde
politique
dont la loi de nature est
volonte generale, et dont les etats
ne sont que des membres individuels.
The 'genre
the ultimate
devient le corps
toujours la
et peuples divers
77
humain',
which in Diderot's cosmopolitan account serves as
, , ,
, 78
judge of the 'volonte generale,
does not in fact have an
exact counterpart
in the 'Economie politique',
but in his article
Rousseau does draw a connection between the 'volonte generale'and
the
79
'grande famille 1 ,
or alternatively
the 1 grande societe•~ 80 of men
77.
O.C.III, p. 245.
With reference to this passage, Hubert (p. 59)
remarks that "en 1756 il ne sera plus question de la grande vill~ du monde,
cette denomination metaphysique de la societe generale du genre humain, non
plus que d'une loi de nature qui serait de sa propre essence volonte
generale •... Plus tard, Rousseau deviendra si completement oppose a l'idee de
societe generale,
que bien loin d'admettre que les besoins mutuels ... unissent
les hommes, il repetera a maintes reprises qu 1 ils les divisent
plutot qu'ils
ne les rapprochent.
En fait, a l 1 epoque de l'Economie politique
sa pensee
n'est pas encore absolument degagee de l'influence
des encyclopedistes:
l'article
appartient
a une phase de transition".
Hubert' s interpretation
of this point seems to me entirely
correct.
78.
See the passage
79.
See, for instance,
from the 'Droit
O.C.III,
naturel'
cited
in note 50 above.
pp. 241 and 242.
80.
See ihid.,·p.
248: "Cherchez les motifs qui ont porte les hommes unis
par leurs besoins mutuels dans la grande societe,
a s'unir plus etroitement
par des societes civiles;
vous n 1 en trouverez point d'autre que celui
d'assurer
les biens, la vie, et la liherte de chaque memhre par la protection
de tous."
Derathe (see ibid., pp. 1395-1396) remarks upon the similarity
of
this passage to the theme of c. ix, §123 of Locke's Second Treatise.
See
also O.C.III, p. 246;
Leon, 'Rousseau et l'Etat moderne', pp. 225-226;
and
Launay, Rousseau:
Ecrivain politique,
pp. 221-222.
In the Manuscrit de
Geneve Rousseau frequently
employs the term 'societe generale' (see, for
instance,
O.C.III, p. 282, and the passages cited in note 141 below), but his
references
to the expression in that work are almost always introduced by way
of objection
to Diderot's concept.
73
�throughout
the world.
And it is in this
writings,
that
he refers
to the
according
to which the moral standards
1
volonte
work, but not elsewhere
generale'
in his
as a universal
of every society
rule
may be assessed.
De ces memes distinctions
appliquees a chaque societe
politique
et a ses membres, decoulent les regles les
plus universelles
et les plus sures sur lesquelles
on
puisse juger d'un bon ou d 1 un mauvais gouvernement,
et en general, de la moralite de toutes les actions
humaines. 81
The 'Economie politique'
political
organic
writings
should also be distinguished
from the later
of Rousseau because of its more concentrated
metaphors with respect
"le corps politique",
to the institutions
use of
of the state.
Thus
he observes,
peut etre considere COlllIDe
un corps organise, vivant, et
semblable a celui de l'homme.
Le pouvoir souverain
represente
la tete;
les lois et les coutumes sont le
cerveau, principe des nerfs et siege de l'entendement,
de la volonte, et des sens, dont les juges et magistrats
sont les organes;
le commerce, l'industrie,
et
l'agriculture,
sont la bouche et l'estomac qui preparent
la subsistance
commune; les finances publiques sont le
sang qu'une sage economie, en faisant les fonctions du
coeur, renvoye distribuer
par tout le corps la nourriture et la vie;
les citoyens sont le corps et les
membres qui font mouvoir, vivre, et travailler
la machine,
et qu'on ne sauroit blesser en aucune partie,
qu'aussitot l'impression
douloureuse ne s'en porte au cerveau, si
l'animal est dans un etat de sante.82
81.
O.C.III,
p. 245,
82.
Ibid., p. 244.
According to Vaughan, this passage affords clear proof
that Rousseau adopted an organic theory of the state.
Thus, writes Vaughan
(on p. xxviii of the introduction
to his own edition of the -Contrat social),
"The idea of the State, as an organism, dominates the whole of the Contrat
social;
but the word itself
is never used, and the analogy between the State
and an organised body is never explicitly
brought forward.
Both omissions
are made good in the Economie politique,
where the analogy is drawn out to
the minutest detail".
Again, in his introduction
to the Political
Writings
of Rousseau (I, pp. 57-58), he remarks that "the analogy between the animal
and the socia.l organism, so elaborately
worked out in the Economie politique,
is conspicuous by its absence from the Contrat social.
But its spirit
dominates the whole treatise".
For Derath~ (Rousseau et la science
politique,
p. 410), on the other hand, "Tout au contraire
de ce qu'affirme
... Vaughan, l'analogie
entre le corps politi~ue
et le corps humain reapparait
a plus d'une reprise dans le Contrat social Lsee note 83 below], mais elle n'y
joue qu'un role episodique, et ne consti tue nullement l' idee directrice ... du
traite".
And Derathe (O.C.III,
p. 1393) points to the use of the term
74
�It is true
that
occasional
parallel
l 1homme'.
in some of his other writings
between the 'corps politique'
But the conception
found in the Contrat
legally
prescribed
social,
of a 'corps
83
and publicly
84
a 'personne
morale',
his article
for the Encyclopedie,
politique'
terminology
Rousseau also draws an
is devised
politique'
for instance,
refers
acknowledged authority,
and not to any organic
de
which can be
clearly
that
to a
is,
COllllllunityof men.
to
In
however, the metaphor of the 'corps
in the relative
whose purpose
and the 'corps
elesewhere
absence of just
is,
at least
that
in part,
contractual
to underscore
'machine' in this passage from the 'Economie politique'
as evidence that
Rousseau never·, in fact, adhered to any properly organic conception of the
state:
"En realite,
'machine' et 'corps organise'
sont de simples comparaisons dont Rousseau se sert indifferemment pour faire comprendre le
fonctionnement de l'Etat."
Of course a feature that is "conspicuous,by
its
absence" from a work (even if Vaughan is mistaken to suppose that it is
entirely
absent) does not generally I dominate 1• its spirit,
and Derathe is, I
think, quite correct in his claim (Rousseau et la science politique,
p. 411)
that Rousseau was generally sceptical
of any truly organic conception of the
state ( see note 86 below).
But at the same time it seems to me that
Derathe overlooks th~ particular
significance
of this passage from Rousseau's
article,
for it provides a far more detailed account of the living 'corps
politique'
than can be found in any other writing by Rousseau, and it also
appears, I hope I have shown, among some other features of an essay that have
few counterparts
in Rousseau's work else.;-here.
Cf. Hubert, Rousseau et
l'Encyclopedie,
p. 63, and Leon, 'Le Probleme du Contrat social-',
p. 189.
Derath~ (p. 412) also points to the similarity
between this passage and the
first paragraph of the introduction
to Hobbes's Leviathan (English Works,
III, pp. ix-x), and while it is not entirely
clear that Rousseau ever came
across the works of Hobbes first-hand,
and while at the same time it is
certainly
clear that Hobbes did not him~elf adhere to any organic conception
of the state,
I am inclined,
nonetheless,
to agree with Derathe that
Rousseau's passage was ~nspired by the Leviathan.
83.
See Livre II, eh.iv, O.C.III, p. 372: "Commela nature donne a
chaque homme un pouvoir absolu sur tous se~ membres, le ·pacte social donne
au corps politique
un pouvoir absolu sur tousles
siens."
Cf. the passage
in Livre III. eh, xi cited in note 68 above, and Livre III, ch,i (ibid.,
p. 396).
The sign11'icance of these passages, and others like them in
Rousseau's work, is considered at some length by Achille Mestre in 'La
notion de personnalite
morale chez Rousseau', Revue du droit public et de
la science politique
en France et a l'etranger,
XVIII (1902), pp. 447-468.
84.
See, for instance,
Livre I, eh. vi, O.C.III, p. 361: "A l'instant,
au lieu de la personne particuliere
de chaque contractant,
cet acte
d'association
produit un corps moral et collectif
compose d'autant
de
membres que l'assemblee
a de voix."
Cf. Livre II, eh.iv (ibid.,
p. 372),
and the Manuscrit de Geneve, I.iv (ibid.,
pp. 294-295 - the passage cited
on p. 65 above>.
See also Mestre, 'La notion de personnalite
morale',
pp. 450-453 and 464-467, and Derathe, Rousseau et la science nolitique,
pp. 397-410, and O.C.III, p. 1446, note 5.
75
�•
1 an d conventiona
•
l character
t he optiona
Rousseau often 'counsels
writings,
86
against
• 1 l'fi e. 85
of po 1·itica
the use of such metaphors
and nowhere do they appear so prominently
To be sure,
in his other
as in toe
'Economie
poli tique'.
I do not,
conceived
of course,
wish to imply that
by Rousseau in this
views that
he expressed
which figure
the Hanuscrit
essay are altogether
in his other works.
in the 'Economie politique'
de Geneve,
87
the arguments
which were
incompatible
Indeed,
a number of passages
wer-e also incorporated
and even certain
with the
elements of his first
by him in
account
85.
The only explicit
reference to the social contract which appears in
the 'Economie·politique'
has to do with the institution
of property (O.C,III,
pp. 269-270):
"Le fondement du pacte social est la propriete,
et sa premiere
condition,
que chacun soit maintenu dans la paisi.ble jouissance
de ce qui
lui appartient."
Vaughan (I, p. 230, note 6), however, notes two other
passages in which some conception of the social contract is implied.
The
first
(O.C.III,
p. 248) has already been cited here in another context (see
note 80 above);
the second (ibid.,
p. 256) is a reference
to what Rousseau
calls the "conventions fondamentales" of men in society.
86.
See, for instance,
this passage from an unfinished work which Rousseau
originally
entitled
'Que l'Etat
de guerre nait de l'etat
social'
(ibid.,
p. 606):
"La difference de l'art bumain a l'ouvrage de la nature se fait
sentir dans ses effets,
les citoyens ont beau s'appeler
membres de l'etat,
ils ne sauroient
s'unir a lui comme de vrais membres le sont au corps;
il
est impossible de faire que chacun d'eux n'ait pas une existence
individuelle
et separee, par laquelle il peut seul suffire a sa propre conservation;
les
ner.fs sont mains sensibles,
les muscles ant moins de vigueur, tousles
liens
soot plus laches, le moindre accident peut tout desunir."
According to
Vaughan (I, pp. 283-284) the 'Etat de guerre' was probably composed in connection with the Princi es du droit de la
erre (to which Rousseau refers in
a letter
to Marc-Michel Rey of 9 March 1758 , while the Principes were most
likely designed, in turn, to figure as one of the sections of his
Institutions
politiques.
that he ultimately
abandoned.
On this interpretation
both Vaughan and Derathe (p. 56) contend that the fragment dates from around
1753-55, but in the view of Sven Stelling-Michaud
(see O.C.III,
pp. cxlvi-cli)
it was probably written between 1756 and 1758, around the time Rousseau
completed his Projet de paix perpetuelle
and Polysynodie, both commentaries
on the works of the abbe de Saint-Pierre.
87.
The whole section on the relation between the state and the family, for
instance,
beginning with the second paragraph of the 'Economie politique',
is reproduced,
with a few variations,
in Livre I, ch.v of the Manuscrit
(cf. O.C.III,
pp. 241-244 and pp. 298-300).
A.shorter passage on the rule
of law (which, somewhat against the thread of my argument, however, includes
Rousseau's reference to the 'volonte de tous ' cited on p. 72 above) is
also repeated in the Manuscrit, I.vii (cf, ibid., pp. 248 and 310).
And
both Vaughan and Derathe note still
other passages or phrases from the
'Economie politique'
which have their counterpart
in the later work.
See,
among these, Vaughan, I, p. 238, note 2, and O.C.III, p. 1418, note (a) to
p. 299 of text.
See also Leon, 'Rousseau et l'Etat moderne', p. 224,
note 1, and 'L'Idee de volonte generale~ p. 185, note 7.
76
�of the 'volonte
But despite
the features
and Rousseau's
for its
generale'
other
comparative
the conventional,
that
or endorsed
the article,
I think,
of those distinctions
between the realm of organic
89
men - which are all
between the social
so sharply
In none of his other
between the natural
repeated
elsewhere.
88
are shared between the 'Economie politique'
writings,
neglect
moral prescription,
elsewhere.
were later
and the civil
is still
noteworthy
between the natural
necessity
and the political
and the realm of
institutions
drawn by Rousseau in his political
writings
state
and
is the conceptual
of
thought
boundary
of men so ill-defined.
88.
Compare, for example, the following passages:
(a) "La premiere et la
plus importante maxime du gouvernement legitime OU populaire,
c'est-a-dire
de celui qui a pour objet le bien du peuple, est ... de suivre en tout la
volonte generale" ('Economie politique',
O.C.III, p. 247 - see note 74 above);
"La prerniere et la plus importante consequence des principes
ci-devant
etablis est que la volonte generale peut seule diriger les forces de l'Etat
selon la fin de son institution,
qui est le bien commun" (Contrat social,
II.i,
ibid., P~ 368).
(b) "Je conclus ... que ... le premier devoir du
legislateur
est de conformer les lois a la volonte generale" ('Economie
politique',
ibid,, p. 250);
"La volonte generale est toujours droite, mais
le jugement qui la guide n'est pas toujours eclaire .... Voila d'ou nait la
necessite
d'un Legislateur"
(Contrat social,
II.vi;
ibid., p. 380 - see note
62 above).
89.
Only in the 'Economie politique'
(ibid.,
p. 263) does Rousseau suppose,
for instance,
that "le droit de propriete
est le plus sacre de tousles
droits des citoyens,
et plus important a certains
egards que la liberte
meme".
Only in this work does he state· (ibid.)
that "la propriete
est le
vrai fondement de la societe civile,
et le vrai garant des engagemens des
citoyens".
For in the Contrat social (I.i,
ibid., p. 352) it is not
property but "l'ordre
social" which is "un droit sacre, qui sert de base a
tousles
autres",
and there (I.ix,
ibid., p. 367) it is the community itself
which alone changes "l'usurpation
en un veritable
droit, et la jouissance
en propriete".
See too Vaughan, I, pp. 104-110.
Rousseau's claims with
regard to property in the 'Economie politique'
are also directly
opposed,
moreover, to his position
in the Discours sur l'inegalite,
since in that
work he contends (O.C.III,
p. 164) that "vous etes perdus, si vous oubliez
que les fruits
sont a tous, et que la Terre n'est a personne".
Derathe
(see ibid.,
pp. lxxv-lxxvi
and 1402-1403) notes these distinctions,
but he
and Launay (see Rousseau: Ecrivain politique,
p. 223) still
argue that the
'Economie politique'
is not fundamentally different
in conception from the
political
ideas which Rousseau sets forth elsewhere.
In my view, however,
it is particularly
striking
that Rousseau's account of property in the
'Economie politique'
should be so distinct
from his remarks in his other
writings.
And if we recognise (as most Rousseau scholars do) the similarity between this account and that of Locke, we should also bear in mind
its connection with the following account that appears in the article
'Propriete
(Droit naturel & politique)',
(Encyclopedie,
XIII (1765), p. 491):
"Une des principales
vues des homrnes en formant des societes civiles,
a ete
de s'assurer
la possession tranquille
des avantages qu'ils avoient acquis,
ou qu'ils pouvoient acquerir;
ils ont voulu que personne ne put les troubler
dans la jouissance de leurs biens. 11 This article,
though unsigned, is most
likely by Diderot.
See also eh. III, note 193.
77
�When the 'Economie politique'
1758,
90
deleted
Rousseau's
first
reference
from the text. 91
longer accepted
is perhaps
at least
implied
was reissued
to the article
And the possibility
by his complaint,
and additions
Rousseau never in fact
forward
influence
made in a letter
into his writings
discourse,
article
neither
repudiated
time,
of which were really
that
he no
expressed
to Jacob Vernes,
to make those
he would have liked.
though he did insist,
that
to incorporate
for the Encyclopedie
was
92
any of the argwnents which he had put
when he had been under Diderot's
expressions
to employ a borrowed style
in his own taste.
is not included
his first
both in the
some of his friend's
and had been persuaded
do not wish to suggest
naturel'
by this
by his publisher
and in one of his letters,
he had agreed
that,
to his essay that
in the 'Economie politique',
Confessions
'Droit
work in
some of the views which he had earlier
that he had been denied any opportunity
corrections
as a separate
account
in these
93
But his
accusations,
of the 'volonte
of
and I
generale'
90.
See note 47 above.
91.
See Vaughan, I, p. 242, note 2. It must nevertheless
be admitted
that this change was not made upon his instructions.
The second reference
(see note 48 above), moreover, was deleted from the Lioul tou-Du :Peyrou edition
of Rousseau's Oeuvres completes, and, according to Vaughan (I, p. 244,
note 1), it was not reinstated
in any other edition before his own. At the
same time, the text of Moultou-Du Peyrou includes an important passage and
several minor variants
(see O.C.III, pp. 1390-1392) which had not
appeared in the previoµs versions of the 'Economie politique'.
92.
See Rousseau's letter
of 4 July 1758 in the Correspondance complete,
V, p. 106: "J'ai receu l'exemplaire
de M. DuVillard, je vous prie de l'en
remercier .... Il a eu tort d'imprimer cet article
sans m'en rien dire; il a
laisse des fautes que j'aurois
otees, et il n'a pas fait des corrections
et
additions que je lui aurois donnees."
Cf. the letter
to Vernes of 22
October 1758 (ibid.,
pp. 183-186).
In an earlier
letter
to Vernes of 28
March 1756 (ibid.,
III, p. 308), however, Rousseau made no mention of any
faults in the article:
"Vous etes content de l'article
Economie, je le
crois bien, mon coeur l'a dicte et le votre l'a lu."
The letter
in which
Vernes suggested to Rousseau that he should have the work published separately (ibid., V, p. 88) was probably written in May 1758. See also the
letters
of 21 March and 8 April 1765 (ibid.,
XXIV, pp. 272-273, and XXV,
no. 4261) which the Genevan bookseller
Fran~ois Grasset addressed to
Rousseau, asking if he would like to make any changes for yet another edition
of the text (Rousseau's replies
have not survived, but I am most grateful
to
Professor Leigh for inviting
me to see these letters
before their publication);
and Ronald Rosbottom and Launay, 'Autour de 1 1 article
'Economie politique'
de l'Encyclopedie',
in Launay, ed., Jean-Jacques Rousseau et son temps
(Paris 1969), pp. 105-112.
93.
See eh. III, note 6.
78
�was actually
analysis
formulated
by Diderot.
of the expression
politique'
like
to which he aclmowledged his
generale'
express
a very different
94
decided
as a gesture
at first
instead
Rousseau came to
Already
in 1755 he
that
be could no
claiming
he installed
Diderot
himself
a country
retreat
at l'Ermitage
of civilised
which had
of 1756, accompanied
soon came to see Rousseau's
near the
move from Paris
men, and before
end of that year he complained bitterly
of the writer
him to prefer
"Pour etre
to friendship,
of the
to his homeland in
and in the spring
of contempt for the society
solitude
of the 'volonte
that
work.
to return
to accept
to him by Mmed'Epinay,
of Hontmorency.
in the essay
complacency and scepticism
He planned
by Therese and her mother,
forest
of Diderot's
with many of his friends,
Encyc l ope'd' istes.
been offered
the two accounts
in the Encyclopedie
opinion
the intellectual
but finally
the
view and at the same time
proposed by Diderot
while a£ter
longer tolerate
95
that
debt.
had appeared together
had begun to quarrel
Geneva
from his later
the interpretation
It was only a short
is just
which Rousseau submits in the 'Economie
is at once distinct
significantly
My contention
whose conceit
tranquille",
the
had led
he remarked
in Le Fils naturel,
94,
See the Confessions,
O,C.I, p. 392: "La frequentation
des Encyclopedistes loin d'ebranler
ma foi l'avoit
affemie
par mon aversion naturelle
pour la dispute et pour les partis.
L'etude de l'homme et de l'univers
m'avoit montre par tout les causes finales et l'intelligence
qui les
dirigeoit.
La lecture de la Bible et surtout de l'Evangile a laquelle je
m'appliquois
depuis quelques annees m'avoit fait mepriser les basses et sotes
interpretations
que donnoient a Jesus-Christ
les gens les moins dignes de
l'entendre."
95,
See ibid., p. 393,
One reason why Rousseau changed his mind was that
in 1755 Voltaire moved very near to Geneva at les Delices.
It was from
there tnat on 30 August 1755, after receiving a copy of the Discours sur
l 1 inegalite,
be wrote to Rousseau (Correspondance complete, III, p. 156),
"J'ai re'i'l, Monsieur, votre nouvau livre contre le genre humain".
Thus,
Rousseau reflected
(Confessions,
O.C.I, p. 396), "Je compris que cet homme y
feroit revolution,
que j'irois
retrouver
dans ma patrie le ton, les airs, les
moeurs qui me chassoient de Paris;
qu'il me faudroit batailler
sans cesse,
et que je n'aurois
d'autre choix dans ma conduite que celui d'etre un pedant
insupportable,
ou un lache et mauvais citoyen".
79
�il faut avoir l'approbation
de son coeur, et peut-etre
celle des hommes.
Vous n'obtiendrez
point celle-ci,
et vous n'emporterez
point la premiere, si vous quittez
le poste qui vous est marque .... Vous, renoncer a la
societe!
J'en appelle a votre coeur;
interrogez-le;
et il vous dira que l'homme de bien est dans la societe,
et qu'il n'y a que le mechant qui soit seui. 96
And while Rousseau was clearly
to reflect
tant
that
his departure
change in his life.
he wrote in a letter
wounded by these
from Paris
"Je n'ai
to Malesherbes,
at this
lines, 97 later
time marked a very impor-
commence de vivre
pointing
he was also
que Le 9 Avril 1756 11 , 98
to the very day of his depar-
ture.
J'eto{s vraiment transforme .... Je n'etois
plus cet
homme timide et plustot honteux que modeste, qui
n'osoit
ni se presenter
ni parler .... Audacieux, fier,
intrepide,
je portois par tout une assurance a•autant
plus ferme qu'elle
etoit simple et residoit
dans mon
ame plus que dans mon maintien .... Ce changement
commem;a sitot que j'eus quitte Paris, et que le spectacle des vices de cette grande Ville cessa de nourrir
l'indignation
qu'il m'avoit inspiree.99
96.
Assezat-Tourneux,
VII, pp. 65-66.
It has even been suggested by
Blandine McLaughlin ('A New Look at Diderot•s Fils naturel',
Diderot Studies,
X, (1968), pp. 109-119) that the entire dialogue between Constance and Dorval
in Act IV, scene iii of Le Fils naturel was conceived by Diderot to portray
the difference
between his own ideas about friendship,
on the one band, and
the views of Rousseau on the other. • Cf. the article
'Independance'
(Encyclopedie,
VIII (1765), p. 671), which is unsigned but was most probably
composed by Diderot:
"Lapierre
philosophale
de l'orgueil
humain; la
chimere apres laquelle
l'amour-propre
court en aveugle ... c•est l'independance
•••• L'ame depend du corps;
le corps depend de 1 1ame, & de tousles
objets
exterieurs:
comment l'homme, c'est-a-dire
l'assemblage
de deux parties
si
subordonnees, seroit-il-lui-meme
independant?
La societe pour laquelle nous
sommes nes nous donne des lois a suivre, des devoirs a remplir;
quel que
soit le rang que nous y tenions,
la dependance est toujours notre apanage."
And one has only to turn to the article
'Philosophe'
(ibid,,
XII (1765),
p. 510), which is .included in Assezat-Tourneux but is in fact by Dumarsais,
to see how widely shared was this view among the Encyclopedistes:
"L'homme
n'est point un monstre qui ne doive vivre que dans les abimes de lamer,
ou
dans le fond d'une foret:
les seules necessites
de la vie lui rendent le
commerce des autres necessaire;
& dans quelqu'etat
ou il puisse se trouver,
ses besoins & le bien etre l'engagent
a vivre en societe,
Ainsi la raison
exige de lui qu'il connoisse,
qu'il etudie, & qu'il travaille
a acquerir les
qualites
sociables. 11 See also Gay, The Enlightenment:
An Interpretation,
2 vols. (New York 1966 and 1969), I, pp. 195-196.
97,
See the Confessions,
98.
Correspondance
p. 403.
99.
Ibid,,
O.C.I,
complete,
p. 455.
X, p. 52.
pp. 416-417.
80
See also the Confessions,
0.C~I,
�It was in this
sense that
Encyclope;d.istes
•
ll ectual
as a k"in d o f inte
from the formidable
.
h is escape.
101
presence
ideas from the theory
endorsed just
that
Diderot
•
•
emancipation,
above all,
he was prepared,
t as.k
draft
103
100.
after
his
his own political
had
as 1743 he had planned to compose a major study in
that
the Institutions
of all
Here, in his new
his writings,
to devote the whole of his life
It was thus in the spring
social,
politiques.
work, and it was only at
• 102
to pro d uce it.
it should be the finest
so he claimed,
of the Contrat
u-,·,a.uuscri• t
he had now made
in the Encyclopedie.
h e b egan in
• earnest
home, he resolved
that
to disengage
Yet by 1756 he had not got very far with this
tath
lOO an d it• was
had put forward and he himself
thought which was to be called
•
l 'E rmitage
from the company of the
work to which he turned
Rousseau attempted
one year before
From as early
political
of Diderot,
For in the first
at 1 1 Ermitage,
arrival
he saw his withdrawal
of 1756 that
about half
and
to the
Rousseau began his first
of which has survived
as the
de Gene"e.
'
104
See Hubert,
Rousseau et l'Encyclopedie,
pp. 120-121.
101.
See the Confessions
, 0. C. I, pp. 455-456:
"J' aimois tendrement Diderot,
je l'estimois
sincerement .... Mais excede de son infatigable
obstination
a me
contrarier
eternellement
sur mes gouts, mes penchans, 111amaniere de vivre,
sur tout ce qui n'interessoit
que moi seul;
revolte de voir un homme plus
jeune que moi vouloir a toute force me gouverner comme un enfant:;
rebute de
sa facilite
a promettre et de sa negligence a tenir ... j'avois deja le coeur
plein de ses tort-s multiplies.
II
102.
See ibid., pp. 404-405:
"Apres quelques jours livres a mon delire
champetre je songeai a ranger mes paperasses et a regler mes occupations ....
Des divers ouvrages que j'avois
sur le chantier,
celui que je rneditois depuis
plus longtems ... etoit mes Institutions
politiques.
Il y avoit treize a
quatorze ans que j'en avois conceu la premiere idee, lorsqu 1 etant a Venise
j'avois eu quelqu'occasion
de remarquer les defauts de ce Gouvernement si
vante .... Quoiqu'il y eut deja cinq ou six ans que je travaillois
a cet ouvrage,
il n'etoit
encore guere avance.
Les livres de cette espece demandent: de la
meditation, du loisir,
de la tranquillite.
De plus, je faisois
celui-la,
commeon dit en bonne fortune,
et je n'avois voulu communiquer mon projet a
personne, pas meme a Diderot."
See also eh. V, p. 423.
103,
See ibid,,
p. 404.
Cf. also eh. I, pp. 26 and 31.
There has been as much disagreement as to the possible dates on which
Rousseau composed the several sections of the Manuscrit as there has been
about the chronology of the 'Econornie politique'
(see note 73 above).
104.
81
�And it was then,
'Droit
naturel'
in this
composition,
that he addressed
in a manner which was altogether
which he had employed in the 'Economie politique'.
which he had earlier
appraisal,
adopted were now subjected
and while I have so far tried
upon him in terms of some concepts
should like
next to consider
made by an exacting
One aspect
that
himself
different
from that
For the arguments
to a much more severe
to examine Diderot's
borrowed by a syrnpathetic
influence
to the
influence
reader,
I
in terms of some objections
critic.
of the 'Droit
naturel'
which I think
must have
According to Schinz ('La Question du Contrat social',
p. 773) the ~,.a.nuscrit
is "une oeuvre purement encyclopedique,
ou 'philosophique'",
and like the
'Economie politique',
therefore,
it must have been written before the
Discours sur l'inegalite,
in this case, he supposes, between 1749 and 1752.
For Beaulavon ('La Question du Contrat social.
Une fausse solution',
p.
592), on the other hand, "le plus simple est d 1 admettre que le Ms. a ete
redige vers l'epoque du voyage a Geneve, vers 1754-1755 11 , whilefor
Derathe
(O.C.II!,
p. lxxxiv) "il a du en>e compose pendant les annees 1758-1760",
though he agrees that certain parts of the work, such as Livre I, eh. v,
must have been completed some years earlier,
insofar as they incorporate
passages drawn from the 'Economie politique'.
In the view of Alexis
Bertrand ('Le texte primitif
du Contrat social',
Seances et travaux de
l'Academie des sciences morales et politiques
{Institut
de France], CXXXV
(1891), p. 851), however, the connection between these passages actually
suggests that 11le manuscrit de Geneve est certainement
anterieur
a l'annee
1756 puisque plusieurs
pages du Discours sur l'Economie politique
en ont
ete extraites
textuellement".
Most scholars,
nevertheless,
have followed
Rousseau's commentary in the Confessions, and it is now widely accepted
that the bulk of the Manuscrit, including its second chapter, was written
around 1756.
Cf. Masson, 'Questions de chronologie rousseauiste',
P• 55; Hubert, Rousseau et l 1 Encyclopedie, pp. 59-50; and Leon, 1 L 1 Idee
de volonte generale',
p. 199, note 2. So far as I know, only Schinz (see
'La Question du Contrat social',
p. 743) among Rousseau's interpreters
is committed to the view that at l'Ermitage he began to work upon his
final version of the Contre.t social.
Rousseau appears to have intended the
Manuscrit for publication,
since the copy which survives contains few
corrections
and is written in his finest hand. It may even be that he
submitted a final draft of this work to his publisher in either 1760 or
1761, but it was never in fact printed in his lifetime
(see Rousseau's
letters
to Rey of 9 August and 23 December 1761 in the Correspondance
comolete, IX, pp. 90-91 and 346; O,C.III, pp. lxxxii-lxxxiii;
and Vaughan,
I, p. 435, note 1).
When it was finally donated to the Bibliotheque
de
Geneve in 1882 by the widow of Georges Streckeisen-Moultou,
only haif the
work remained, the rest having been torn away some time before, possibly
by Rousseau himself.
It was first published (in French) as an appendix to
Aleksandr Sernenovich Alekseev's Sv1az/ politichesko1
doktriny Zh. Zh.
Russo s gosudarstvennym bytom Zhenevy, (Moskva 1887).
See also Louis-John
Courtois,
'Chronologie critique
de la vie et des oeuvres de Jean-Jacques
Rousseau', Annales, XV (1923), p. 86, notes.
82
�led Rousseau to reconsider
theatrical
charac~er
thetical
dialogue
raisonneur
really
105
and then suppressed.
with the questions
adds,
"il
Diderot
is no more generous
within
faudroit
difficult
that
he raises,
to see how these
•
then,
106
To be sure,
attentively
of the
the truth,
traite
comme
to see how such a stringent
account,
upon
the conclusions
d'homme, doit etre
of Diderot's
is not
than to the unfortunate
it is certainly
tone might
not
remarks could have made a deep impression
For he was, as we are continually
reminded,
to the calumny of a cax>eless word, all
too easily
effrontery
of apparently
disguised
11
him
Diderot,
the raisonneur
Any man who chooses to ignore
to the substance
'Rousseau.
the relentless
they must see that
Now while it may be difficult
remarks.
not to reproach
For if only men reflect
renon~ant a la qualite
un etre denature.107
contribute
and a
with abusive
sans lui repondre
to his readers
he enjoins,
argument are obvious,
of justice
1 1 etouffer
the article.
what has been said,
If in fact
of a hypo-
with exclamations
the reader
to his views, must, writes
Diderot
raisonneur
a philosophe
and, now and again,
who in vain implores
obstinately
concerned
form is that
and it is charged with caricature,
and exasperation,
be dismissed
time is the peculiar
Its general
of the work.
Thu~ the raisonneur,
for holding
meaning at this
between two protagonists,
violent,
of intolerance
its
behind tbe.fa~ade
all
upon
too susceptible
led to find personal
lofty
abstraction.
108
105.
See the Encyclopedie,
V, pp. 115 and 116: "Mais quels reproches
pourrons-nous faire~
l'homme tourmente par des passions si violentes,
que la
vie meme lui devient un poids onereu:x:... ? .... Que repondrons-nous
done a
notre raisonneur violent,
avant que de l'etouffer?"
106.
Ibid.,
107.
Ibid.
p. 116.
108.
See, for instance,
the following passage in.the Confessions,
O.C.I,
pp. 492-493:
"Grimm.... forma le projet de renverser ma reputation
de fond en
combie, et de m1 en faire une toute opposee sans se compromettre, en
commen~ant par elever auteur de moi un edifice de tenebres qu'il me fut
83
�And there
social
can be no doubt but that
he devoted a number of pages to a direct
The title
'Droi t naturel'.
chapter
of the Manuscrit
and, even more,
a point
an earlier
naturellement
which he finally
('De la societe
crossed
de societe
argument now was that
a chimerical
selected
generale
earlier
work.
of the Contret
of the article
for the second
du genre humain'),l0
of that
title
les homrnes'), refer
Indeed,
('Qu'il
quite
9
n'y
clearly
Rousseau's
the concept of a moral 'droit
notion which could not be established
•
natura 1 society
version
refutation
out version
entre
to the dominant theme of Diderot's
principal
in his canuscript
naturel'
with reference
is
to any
o f mank.in,d llO an d near 1y every 1·ine of h"is c hapter
impossible de percer pour eclairer
ses manoeuvres et pour le demasquer.
Cette entreprise
etoit difficile
en ce qu'il en falloit
pallier
l'iniquite
aux yeux de ceux qui devoient y concourir .... Je sentis les premiers effets
de ce systeme par les sourdes accusations de la cotterie
holbachique,
sans
qu'il me fut possible de savoir ni de conjecturer
meme en quoi consistoient
ces accusations."
Rousseau was certainly
troubled too by the apparently
menacing remarks contained in Diderot's article.
As late as 1770, in his
letter to Claude de Saint-Germain (Correspondance generale, XIX, p. 237), he
wrote,"Si jamais pareille
contradiction,
pareille
absurdite,
pareille
extravagance pouvoit reellement trouver foi dans l'esprit
d'un homme, oui,
j'ose le dire sans crainte,
il faudroit etouffer cet homme-la 11 • And on the
very last page of his Confessions.
(O.C.I, p. 656) he noted, even more
bitterly,
"Quiconque, meme sans avoir lu mes ecrits,
examinera parses
propres yeux mon naturel,
mon caractere,
mes moeurs, mes penchans, mes
plaisirs,
mes habitudes et pourra me croire un malhonnete homme, est luimeme un homme a etouffer".
Cf. Vaughan, I, pp. 427-428.
But whatever may
have been Rousseau's impression of Diderot several years after their separation, in 1756 their break was not yet final, and they were still
to regard
each other as friends,
even if no longer as companions, for some time to
come.
I cannot agree with Vaughan, therefor-e, that at the time Rousseau
composed bis second chapter of the Manuscrit he replied to Diderot as the
victim of a personal attack.
109.
Both Leon ('Le Probleme du Contrat social',
p. 192) and Derathe.
(O.C.III,
p. 1411) have suggested that these words were inspired by Bossuet,
since Livre I, art.ii
of the Politique tiree de l'Ecriture
sainte is
entitled
'De la societe generale du genre humain naist la soci~t~ civile'.
A fragment from Neuchatel Ms R 30 (ancienne cote: 7854) indicates
that
Rousseau had also proposed, as a title for this chapter,
'Du droit naturel
et de la societe generale'
(see O.C.III, p. 481).
Cf. Leon, 'Rousseau et
l 1Etat moderne', p. 230.
llO.
See eh. I, note 54 above and notes 133 and 141 below.
According to
Derathe (Rousseau et la science politique,
p. 145) this part of the
Manuscrit refers directly
to Pu£endorf as well as to Diderot:
"Il nous
parait infiniment probable, pour ne pas dire certain,
qu'en redigeant ce
chapitre,
Rousseau qui avait lu le Droit de la nature et des gens, avait
egalement sous les yeux ou presents!
l'esprit
les textes de Pu£endorf ....
Les expressions memes de Pufendorf ('cette
bienveillance
universelle')
ou
84
�contains
an explicit
The philosophe,
contradiction
Rousseau
of one or another
of Diderot
1
s views.
wrote,
me renverra par devant le genre humain ... parce que le
plus grand bien de tous est la ~eule passion qu'il
ait.
C'est, me dira-t-il,
a la volonte generale que
l'individu
doit s'addresser
pour savoir jusqu'ou il
doit etre homme, Citoyen, Sujet, Pere, enfant, et
quand.il lui convient de vivre et de mourir.
"Je
vois bien la, je l'avoiie, la regle que je puis consulter;
mais je ne vois pas encore", dira notre
homme independant,
"la raison qui doit m'assujetir
a
cette regle.
Il ne s'agit pas de m'apprendre ce que
c'est que justice;
il s'agit de me montrer quel
interest
j'ai d'etre juste. 11 111
It is in this
violent
fashion
that
to the invectives
Rousseau replied
hurled against
on behalf
of the raisonneur
him by the philosophe
in Diderot's
article.
"Je sens que je porte l 1 epouvante et le trouble au
milieu de 1 1 espece humaine", dit l'homme independant
que le sage etouffe;
''mais il faut que je sois
malheureux, ou que je fasse le malheur des autres,
et personne ne m'est plus cher que moi."
"C'est
vainement", pourra-t-il
ajouter,
"que je voudrois
concilier
rnon interest
avec celui d'autrui;
tout ce
que vous me dites des avantages de la loi sociale
pourroit etre bon, si tandis que je l'observerois
scrupuleusement
envers les autres, j'etois
sur qu'ils
l'observeroient
tous envers moi; mais quelle surete
pouvez-vous me donner la-dessus? 11112
Hence the account
fronted
of the 'volonte
his hypothetical
raisonneur
generale'
with which Diderot
now seemed quite
had con-
unconvincing
to
Rousseau.
des expressions voisines ('identite
de nature')
se retrouvent
en effet dans
le chapitre du Manuscrit de Geneve, sans que Diderot les ait employees."
Any
connection between Rousseau and Pufendorf which may be apparent in the
Manuscrit is certainly
remote, however, by comparison with the connection
between Rousseau and Diderot.
The second chapter of that work could conceivably be interpreted
as a critique
of Pufendorf, though only insofar as
Diderot had himself adopted the views of Pufendorf
(see pp. 45-48
above) in the essay against which Rousseau now directed his attack.
Cf.
Hubert, Rousseau et l'Encyclopedie,
p. 103, note 1, and Havens, 'Diderot,
Rousseau, and the Discours sur l'inegalite',
pp. 247-249.
111.
112.
O.C.III,
O.C.III,
p. 286.
Cf, 'Droit
pp. 284-285.
naturel',
Cf, 'Droit
85
Encyclopedie,
naturel',
V, p. 116.
Encyclopedie,
V, p. 116.
�En effet que la volonte generale soit dans chaque
individu un acte pur de l'entendement qui raisonne
dans le silence des passions sur ce que l'homme peut
exiger ·de son semblable, et sur ce que son semblable
est en droit d'exiger de lui, nul n'en disconviendra:
Mais ou est l'homme qui puisse ainsi se separer de
lui meme... peut on le forcer de regarder ainsi l'espece
en general pour s'imposer,
a lui, des devoirs dont il
ne voit point la liaison avec sa ccnstitution
particuliere?
Les objections precedentes ne subsistentelles pas toujours,
et ne reste-t-il
pas encore a voir
comment son interest
personnel exige qu'il se soumette
a la volonte generale?ll 3
A proper interpretation
must therefore
chapter
was designed
scholars
other,
include
114
previously
some consideration
to refute
are agreed that
the nature
O.C.III,
p. 286.
of the sense in which his second
naturel'
objections
of Diderot.
for instance,
But while most
to be a critique
to a composition
I think, been generally
was conceived
•
h a d b een made against
meaning in the Manuscrit
the one work was intended
Paul Leon, and Roger Masters,
113.
the 'Droit
of Rousseau's
admired has,
of the Manuscrit
of Rousseau's
misunderstood.
have suggested
of the
which he had
C.E. Vaughan,
that
this
by Rousseau as a z<eply to an attack
h.im by D"d
i erot. llS
Cf. 'Droit
naturel',
Thus we are told
Encyclopedie,
that
chapter
which
Rousseau
V, p. 116.
114. A few writers,
however, too much impressed by the fact that these
passages in the Manuscrit contain sentences which are identical
with others
in the 'Droit naturel',
have supposed that the two works are id~ntical
in
substance too.
Indeed, Schinz made this confusion the central feature of
his interpretation
of Rousseau's thought.
For pointing to the 'Droit
naturel'
he wrote ( 1 La Question du Contrat social•,
p. 772), "Tout cela ne
sent pas seulement quelques pensees rappelant le Contrat social de Rousseau,
c'est le Contrat social meme en resume. Cela est evident, on ne nous
demandera pas de le demontrer .... Lequel des deux hommes de Rousseau ou de
Diderot, a traite
le sujet ainsi le premier; lequel des deux ecrits,
le
Contrat social de Geneve ou l'article
Droit naturel,
a la priorite
sur
l'autre?
nous ne sommes pas pour le moment pr>et a repondre.
Mais peu
importe la reponse: l'auteur
de !'article
de l'Encyclopedie
pensait comme
Rousseau, et Rousseau pensait comme l'auteur
de l'article
de l'Encyclopedie:
- .quod erat demonstrandum!".
Despite the efforts of Masson, Beaulavon,
Vaughan, and others, this misconception was not finally put to rest until
the publication
of Hubert's Rousseau et l'Encyclopedie
in 1928 (see
pp. 31-64}.
llS.
See Vaughan, I, pp. 424 and 427-428; Leon, 'Rousseau et l'Etat
moderne', pp. 214, note 2, and 218; and Masters, The Political
Philosophy
of Rousseau, pp. 262-265.
Though none of these writers makes the claim,
it has sometimes been said that Diderot's vituperative
letter,
ostensibly
addressed to Paul Landois, of 29 June 1756 (see Assezat-Tourneux,
XIX,
pp. 432-438, and McLaughlin, 'A New Look at Diderot's Fils naturel',
pp. 110
and 118-119) was in fact meant for Rousseau and thus shows the contempt
86
�must have understood the hypothetical
raisonneur violent to refer to him
116
personally,
so that Diderot 1 s hostility
toward this figure should,
according
malevolence
to such an account,
haye been interpreted
of a newly estranged
friend.
Rousseau,
now dismayed by the affront,
Manuscrit
in response
to a direct
by Rousseau as the
It would therefore
devised
challenge
his chapter
that
follow
that
of the
had been made by his
former colleague.
I cannot accept,
Manuscrit
however,
that
is in any sense at all
Rousseau had no reason
the critique
the expression
to suppose that
in this
work rather
than its
but his own reply
of self-vindication.
faults
nature!'
of the arguments
The theatrical
in the
injury.
For
was intended
that
sharp tone or aggressive
by 1756, he was to find unacceptable.
poor case may have made its
of a felt
the 'Droit
to malign him, and it was the substance
tained
of Diderot
were constyle
which,
representation
appear more glaring
of a
in his judgment,
in a similar genre rather took the form of parody than
117
There is a kind of narrative
plot in both
Diderot's
essay and Rousseau's
overlook,
for their
supposition
rejoinder
that
to Rousseau is at once unnecessary
which Vaughan, Leon, and Masters
the raisonneur
and misleading.
violent
refers
directly
There is not a line
in
which Diderot felt toward his former bosom companion even before he produced
Le Fils naturel
(see pp. 79-80 above) and very nearly at the same time that
Rousseau was engaged in refuting
the 'Droit naturel'.
But while this letter
shows Diderot to be a master of the art of personal abuse in precisely
the
period that Rousseau is alleged to have seen himself as the victim of such
abuse, there is insufficient
evidence to prove that Diderot had Rousseau in
mind when he composed it.
116.
See especially
Vaughan, I, p. 424: "So far ... as Diderot accepts the
idea of Natural Law... he must be regarded as arguing in conscious opposition
to Rousseau.
Rousseau, on his side, good-humouredly accepts the position,
and fits the cap of the 'violent
reasoner'
without demur upon his o,m head;
rejecting
the arguments of Diderot, but setting other, and far more ccgent,
arguments against individualist
anarchy triumphantly
in their place.
In
later years ... he became convinced ... that the main fire of the argument was
directed not only against
his opinions, but even against his character;
that
he was himself the red-handed anarchist
whom Diderot desired to 'stifle',
the
'enemy of the human race',
who was to be hunted down 'like a wild beast'."
117.
See the following passage (0.C.III,
p. 285), for example:
"Que repondre
de solide a de pareils
discours si l'on ne veut amener la Religion a l'aide de
la morale, et faire intervenir
immediatement la volonte de Dieu pour lier la
societe des hommes.
Mais les notions sublimes du Dieu des sages, les douces
loix de la fraternite
qu'il nous impose, les vertus sociales
des ames pures,
87
�Rousseau's
works which Diderot
statements
that
could ever have taken as a model for the
were made by his artificial
Diderot was later
to turn against
than he showed in this
period,
antagonist,
his friend
and even though
with a good deal more venom
he never displayed
so great
a malice
as to
lead him to render Rousseau's tediously repetitive
exclamations of his
118
virtue
in terms of what the raisonneur proclaims:
"'Je sens que je
porte
& le trouble
l'epouvante
was Rousseau's
own paranoia,
phrase and others
like
au milieu
moreover,
de l'espece
humaine
111 •
119
ever to lead him to construe
it as a caricature
of his own beliefs
Neither
this
- beliefs
• h were of ten ri 'd'icu 1e d as naive
- 120 b qt cou ld har dl y b e descr ih ed as
wh ic
vicious.
Clearly
whatever may be thought
of the relation
and Rousseau around 1755, no such malice or paranoia
either
writer
into accepting
the interpretation
between Diderot
could have confused
provided
by Vaughan, Leon,
and Masters.
In his second chapter
that
the raisonneur
dissents
violent
from Diderot's
Diderot maligned
a theory
of the Manuscrit
with Diderot
and opposed,
though he also
must be challenged
alternative
him but rather
whose proper
Rousseau agrees
refutation
claims,
that
and his complaint
be provided
be therefore
is not that
an inadequate
failed
account
of
to grasp.
Quand il faudroit
consulter
la volonte generale sur un
acte particulier,
combien de fois n'arriveroit-il
pas a un homme bien intentionne ... de ne suivre que son
penchant en pensant obeir a la loi?
Que fera-t-il
qui sont le vrai culte qu'il veut de nous, echaperont toujours a la multitude.
On lui fera toujours des Dieux insenses comme elle, auxquels elle sacrifiera
de legeres
comodit~s pour se livrer en leur honneur a mille passions horribles
et destructives.
La terre entiere regorgeroit
de sang et le genre humain
periroit
bientot si la Philosophie
et les loix ne retenoient
les fureurs du
fanatisme,
et si la voix des ho1IDT1es
n'etait
plus forte que celle des Dieux."
118.
Reflecting
upon his arrival. at 1 1Ermitage, Rousseau exclaimed
(Confessions,
O.C.I, p. 416), "Jusques la j'avois
ete bon; des lors je devins
vertueu.ic. ou du moins enivre de la vertu".
• His virtl,le was so great, indeed,
that it eventually
turned his bead.
119.
Encyclopedie,
V, p. 115.
120.
Among al.l such interpretations
of Rousseau's thought this passage
(Correspondance complete, III, p. 157) from Voltaire's
letter
of 30 August 1755
remains the most celebrated:
"On n'a jamais tant employe d'esprit
a vouloir
nous rend.re Betes.
Il prend envie de marcher a quatre pattes quand on lit
88
�done pour se garantir
de 1 1erreur?
Ecoutera-t-il
la
voix interieure?
Mais cette voix n'est ... formee que
par l'habitude
de juger ... dans le sein de la societe
et selon ses loix, elle ne peut done servir ales
etablir .... quoiqu'il
n'y ait point de societe naturelle
et generale entre les hommes... effor~ons nous de tirer
du mal meme le remede qui doit le guerir .... Que notre
violent interlocuteur
.... voye dans une meilleure constitution
de choses le prix des bonnes actions .... ne
doutons point qu'avec une ame forte ... cet ennemi du
genre humain n'abjure
enfin sa haine avec ses erreurs
... qu'il ne devienne bon, vertueux ... et ... le plus ferme
appui d'une societe bien ordonnee.121
The 'violent
according
interlocuteur'
to Rousseau,
And neither
beliefs
should therefore
but not for the reasons
in the 'Droit
naturel'
of Rousseau himself
Whom, then,
raisonneur
did Diderot
violent,
his defence?
be dissuaded
ascribed
that
Hobbes, or at any rate
there
supposed.
de Geneve are th~
figure.
mean to condemn in his portrait
and why did Rousseau go at least
I think
Diderot
nor in the Manuscrit
to this
from his views,
can be little
part
doubt but that
Hobbes as Diderot-understood
of the
of the way toward
the raisonneur
him. 122
is
In his
• vo l ume VIII of t he Encyc 1ope'd' ie, 123
artic• l e 'Hobb'isme ' , wh"ic h appeare d in
votre ouvrage.
Cependant comme il y a plus de Soixante ans que j'en ay perdu
l'habitude,
je sens malheureusement qu'il m'est impossible de la reprendre.
Et je laisse cette allure naturelle
a ceux qui en sont plus dignes, que vous
Et moy."
See also note 95 above.
121.
O.C.III,
pp. 287-289.
122.
See Thielemann, 'Diderot and Hobbes', pp. 248-249:
"Diderot proposes
to show what philosophy can ... reply to this violent reasoner before stifling
him.... Fundamentally the 'Droit naturel'
article
represented
a return to Cicero,
and a confutation
of Hobbes."
Cf. Thielemann, 'Thomas Hobbes dans
l'Encyclopedie',
RHLF, LI (1951), p. 338.
123.
The eighth volume of the Encyclopedie was published in 1765, but the
references to Rousseau in 'Hobbisme' pertain to the Discours sur les sciences
et les arts, and they suggest that Diderot probably composed his article
not
long after the appearance of Rousseau's work in 1751.
(It should perhaps be
noted here that on this occasion Diderot seemed quite prepared to dissociate
his own ideas from those of an essay whose central theme, it would later be
claimed, had been devised by him [see eh. V, pp. 400-403]).
'Hobbisme'
was certainly
completed, in any case, some time before the publication
of the
Discours sur l'inegalite
in 1755, since Rousseau showed his familiarity
with
Diderot's text quite clearly in that work (see note 128 below).
Like nearly
all of Diderot's
philosophical
contributions
to the Encyclopedie,
the article
was in fact drawn directly
from Brucker's Historia critica
philosophiae
(see note 7 above).
Indeed, Diderot remained so faithful
to Brucker's text
that he even transcribed
its Latin mistakes into French.
Thus, for example,
a passage in Hobbes's De homine (Opera, III, p. 102) which Brucker had
89
�Diderot
described
Rousseau as "eloquent
Hobbes, on the other
section
& pathetique",
124
hand, as "sec" and "austere".
of the article
in fact
consists
Hobbes and Rousseau in which Diderot
but he depicted
of an extended
contended
The closing
contrast
between
that
la philosophie
de M. Rousseau de Geneve, est presque
l'inverse
de celle de Hobbes.
L'un croit l'homme
de la nature bon, & l'autre
le croit mechant.
Selon
le philosophe de Geneve, l'etat
de nature est un etat
de paix;
selon le philosophe de Malmesbury, c'est un
etat de guerre.125
And while the arguments
like
those expressed
which he attached
that
Diderot
attributed
by the raisonneur
to Hobbes are very much
of his other
work, 126 the beliefs
to Rousseau here are of an altogether
different
kind.
rendered incorrectly
appeared with the same error in the article.
Hobbes
had written "At lex naturalis
praeceptum est sive regul.a generalis
ratione
excogitata,
qua unusquisque id, quod ad damnum suum sibi tendere videbitur,
facere prohibetur",
while Brucker's version (Historia,
V, p. 194) read "Lex
naturalis
est regul.a generalis
ratione excogitata,
qua unusquisque,
id quod
ad damnurn suum sibi tendere videbitur,
facere poterit".
In 'Hobbisme'
(Encyclopedie,
VIII, p. 239), therefore,
Diderot wrote, "La loi naturelle
est une regle generaJ.e dictee par la raison en consequence de laquelle on a la
liberte
de faire ce que l'on reconnoit contraire
a son propre interet".
See Thielemann, 'Thomas Hobbes dans l'Encyclopedie',
p. 345, and Proust,
.P• 342, note 7.
It does not, of course, follow from this that Diderot's
knowledge of Hobbes depended entirely
upon his reading of Brucker's work.
Even before 1750, when it seems that he first came across the Historia,
he
must have been acquainted with .Hobbes through the writings of both Bayle and
Shaftesbury,
and in the summer of 1747 he in fact borrowed a French translation of De cive from the Bibliotheque
du roi.
Nonetheless almost the
whole of his article
'Hobbisme', apart from the paragraph on Rousseau, was
clearly taken from Brucker's work.
See Venturi, Jeunesse de Diderot,
pp. 350 and 353; Thielemann, 'Diderot and Hobbes', pp. 221-223; Proust,
p. 343; and Ian Wilson, The Influence of Hobbes and Locke in the shaping of
the concept of sovereignty
in eighteenth
century France, SVEC, CI (1973),
p. 119.
124.
Encyclopedie,
VIII,p.
241.
125.
Ibid., pp. 240-241.
Cf. the rather similar contrast between
Helvetius and Rousseau which Diderot drew in his Refutation de 'L'Homrne'
(Assezat-Tourneux,
II, pp. 316-317).
126.
See, for instance,
the Encyclopedie,
VIII, p. 239: "De-la, guerre de
chacun centre chacun, tant qu'il n'y aura aucune puissance coactive.
De-la
une infinite
de malheurs au milieu desque+s nulle securite
que par une
preeminence d'esprit
& de corps;
nul lieu a 1 1 industrie,
nulle recompense
attachee au travail,
point d'agriculture,
point d'arts,
point de societe;
mais
crainte perpetuelle
d'une mort violente.
De la guerre de chacun centre chacun,
il s'ensuit
encore que tout est abandonnee a la fraude & a la force, qu'il n•y
a rien de propre a personne; aucune possession reelle,
nulle injustice."
90
�The identification
of natural
thought of Hobbes was, for Diderot,
this
"t •
l.
manner implied
127
right
A right
at all,
rights
that
utterly
no person
divorced
and to suppose that
which were not prescribed
men in such a state
the case.
128
nature!',
allied
were vicious
His own conception,
right
a mistake,
since
in the political
a right
conceived
was under any obligation
from duty,
he believed,
men in the state
was not a moral
enjoyed
in his view, that
and immoral, which in fact
therefore,
as an alternative
of a morally
of a universal
to the theory
in
to respect
of nature
by law was to suppose,
as it was to the rule
was propounded largely
with liberty
could not be
binding
'volonte
'droit
generale',
which he ascribed
to Hobbes.
Yet at the same time that
the Hobbesian account
Diderot
of immoral natural
notion of immoral social
rejected
wha~ he imagined to be
man, he also repudiated
man which he attached
to the theory
the
ot Rousseau.
127,
See ibid.:
"La nature a donne a tousle
droit a tout, meme avec offense
d'un autre;
car on ne doit a personne autant qu'a soi .... Dans l'etat
de
nature, tous ayant droit a tout, sans en excepter la vie de son semblable,
tant que les hommes conserveront
ce droit, nulle surete meme pour le plus
fort. 11
128,
See ibid.,
p. 241: "Sa defi.lition
du mechant me paroit sublime.
Le
mechant de Hobbes est un enfant robuste:
malus est puer robustus,
En effet,
la mechancete est d'autant
plus grande que la raison est foible,
& que les
passions sont fortes.
Supposez qu'un enfant eut a six semaines l'imbecillite
de jugement de son age, & les passions & la force d'un homme de quarante ans,
il est certain qu 1 il frappera son pere, qu'il violera sa mere, qu'il
etranglera
sa nourrice,
& qu'il n'y aura nulle securite pour tout ce qui
l'approchera,
Done la definition
d'Hobbes est fausee, ou l'homme devient bon
a mesure qu'il s'instruit,"
Cf. Hobbes, De cive, Opera, II, p. 148.
I thus
find it difficult
to understand why Thielemann ('Diderot and Hobbes', p. 229)
should claim about the article
'Hobbisme' that "compared with other
eighteenth-century
judgments of Hobbes, it seems ... conspicuously
eulogistic".
In a passage which appears in the biscours sur l 1 inegalite
(O.C.III,
p. i53)
Rousseau repeated Diderot' s critique
of Hobbes in very much the same words:
"Le mechant, dit-il,
est un Enfant robuste;
Il reste a savoir si 1 1 Homme
Sauvage est un Enfant robuste;
Quand on le lui accorderoit,
qu'en
conclueroit-il?
Que si, quand il est robuste, cet homme etoit aussi dependant des autres que quand il est foible,
il n'y a sorte d'exces auxquels il
ne se portat,
qu'il ne battit
sa Mere lorsqu'elle
~arderoit
trop a lui donner
la mamelle, qu'il n'etranglat
un de ses jeunes freres,
lorsqu'il
en seroit
incommode, qu'il ne mordit la jambe a l'autre
lorsqu'il
en seroit heurte ou
trouble;
mais ce sont deux suppositions
contradictoires
dans l'etat
de
Nature qu'etre robuste et dependant;
L'Homme est foible quand il est dependant, et il est emancipe avant que d'etre robuste. 11 See also eh. III,
note 175.
91
�Thus in 'Hobblsme',
he remarked,
Ce sont les lois & la formation de la societe qui ont
rendu 1 1 bomme meilleur,
si l'on en croit Hobbes; &
qui l'ont deprave, si l'on eo croit M. Rousseau.
L'un .... voyoit le trone ebranle, ses citoyens armes
les uns centre les autres, & sa patrie inondee de sang
par les fureurs du fanatisme presbyterien .... l'autre
... voyoit des hommes verses dans toutes les connoissances,
se dechirer,
se hair, se livrer a leurs
passions ... & se conduire d'une maniere peu conforme
aux lumieres qu'ils avoient acquises,
& il meprisa la
science & les savans.
Ils furent outres tousles
deux.
Entre le systeme de l'un & de l'autre,
il yen
a un autre qui peut-etre
est le vrai:
c'est que,
quoique l'etat
de l 1 espece bumaine soit dans une
vicissitude
perpetuelle,
sa bonte & sa rnechancete sont
les memes; son bonheur & son malheur circonscrits
par
des limites qu 1 elle ne peut franchir.
Tousles
avantages artificiels
se compensent par des maux; tous
les maux naturels par des biens.129
It is of course
clear
from this
passage
that
•
meaning
of Hobb es an d Rousseau a 1·k
i e. i 3o
note here is that
sistent,
if the articles
it follows
challenge,
that
'Droit
Diderot misinterpreted
But what is more important
naturel'
the two works together
both to the claim that man is naturally
tote b
•
view
tath
129.
Encyclopedie,
b ea l ways b ecomes so in
• society.
•
VIII,
the
and
1
to
Hobbisme' are con-
take the form of a
vicious,
131
Virtue
and equally
and vice are
p. 241.
130.
There could be no vice in the state of nature according to Hobbes, and
no virtue in that state according to Rousseau,
Thus, remarks Hobbes
(Leviathan, English Works, III, p. 115),. "To this war of every man, against
every man, this also is consequent;
that nothing can be unjust.
The notions
of right and wrong, justice and injustice
have there no place".
And in the
Discours sur l'inegalite
(O.C.III, p. 152) Rousseau writes, "Il paroit d'abord
que les hommes dans cet etat n'ayant entre eux aucune sorte de relation
morale, ni de deyoirs connus, ne pouvoient·etre•ni
bons ni mechans, et
n'avoient
ni vices ni vertus".
,
131.
See also, for instance,
the Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville,
p. 53: "Nous n'apportons
en naissant qu'une si1nilitude d'organisation
avec
d'autres
etres, les memes besoins, de l'attrait
vers les memes plaisirs,
une
aversion commune pour les rnemes peines, ce qui constitue
l'homme ce qu'il
est, et doit fonder la morale qui lui convient."
In the manuscript of this
work which was produced by Jacques-Andre Naigeon and which incorporates
a
number of Diderot 1 s revisions,
there also appears the following line (ibid.,
p. 55): "Vices et ,vertus, tout est egalernent dans la nature,"
Cf. the
passage from the Neveu de Rameau cited in note 52 above.
92
�at once natural
and social,
cannot be distinguished
and the moral attributes
sharply
in terms of the particular
under which men happen to live.
critique
to the 'volonte
of the raisonneur
generale'
violent,
that moral standard
which is neither
Diderot's
errors
discussion
in society.
feature
of the 'volonte
generale'
Diderot were no less mistaken
naturel'
had assailed
but the objections
and while
both his own
made was conceived
The raisonneur
that
was in
of the Manuscrit
kind,
together.
and
132
reply which he himself
of Hobbes and Diderot
could indeed be challenged,
similar
as
of nature,
of the 'Droit
of an altogether
and those of Hobbes, the
as a refutation
once again appears
For in his second chapter
he put forward a dialectic
the
double refutation
adopt in the state
abandoned nor transcended
this
of this
generale'
which men already
obvious to Rousseau.
manner that
which Diderot employs in his rebuttal
the 'volonte
Now it seems to me that
cicumstances
with the arguments per-
For in the light
of the two philosophers,
fact
It is then in this
of Hobbes and Rousseau is associated
taining
of human conduct
violent
had been raised
than were the views against
by
which they had
been addressed.
According to Rousseau,
nature
men already
standards,
so that
could be discredited
in·the
'societe
be false
shared a common interest
the purely
their
egoistical
in the light
generale
realization
But this,
the liberty
of any generally
which prevailed
for Rousseau, must
which all
men enjoy
agreed objectives.
Il est certain que le mot de genre humain n'offre a
l'esprit
qu'une idee purement collective
qui ne
suppose aucune union reelle entre les individus qui
le constituent .... Il est faux que dans l'etat
d'independance,
la raison nous porte a concourir au
bien commun par la vue de notre propre interest;
132.
See note 49 above.
93
of
arguments of the raisonneur
of those moral rules
of nature
in the state
and adhered to universal
du genre humain'.
since in the state
precludes
Diderot had supposed that
�loin que l'interest
particulier
s'allie
au bien
general, ils s'excluent
l'un l'autre
dans l'ordre
naturel des choses, et les loix ~ociales sont un
joug que chacun veut bien imposer aux autres,
mais non pas s'en charger lui meme.133
The raisonneur,
Rousseau
believed,
had correctly
naturel'
not with moral duty but with perfect
followed
that
common goal
even if men in the natural
there
identified
licence,
state
from which it
might wish to pursue a
would have to be as many conceptions
there
were individuals
in that
state.
arise
from the attempt
to make all
the 'droit
Conflict
of such a goal as
and anarchy alone would
men accede to any single
one of its
formulations.
"C'est vainement", pourra-t-il
ajouter,
"que je
voudrois concilier
mon interest
avec celui d'autrui;
tout ce que vous me dites des avantages de ia loi
sociale pourroit etre bon, si tandis que je
l'observerois
scrupuleusement envers les autres,
j'etois
sur qu'ils l'observeroient
tous envers moi;
mais quelle surete pouvez-vous me donner la-dessus,
et ma situ~tion
peut-elle
etre pire que de me voir
expose a tousles
maux que les plus forts voudront
me faire,
sans oser me dedomager sur les foibles? 11134
A true
'volonte
is already
generale'
recognised
can be established
by a community, when obedience
at once mandatory and habitual,
at l east,
•
• some sense,
t ions
as in
society
is the expression
properly
constituted
only when political
state
to a general
and when men come to accept
•
d 135
se lf ~impose.
of a 'volonte
generale'
can the conception
authority
their
rule
is
obliga-
Only in poli tica·1
possible,
and only in a
of a moral right
for all
men
have any application,
But if Diderot
according
133.
to Rousseau,
O.C.III,
had misconceived
the meaning of the 'droit
Hobbes had equally
failed
naturel',
to grasp the manner in
pp. 283 and 284.
134.
Ibid.,
p. 285.
See Hubert, Rousseau et l'Encyclopedie,
p. sq:
"Si leurs besoins rapprocb.ent les hommes, ce n 1 est pas qu'ils £assent
naitre entre eux un sentiment de bienveillance
universelle,
Tout au
contraire
- et ici Rousseau incline manifestement dans le sens de Hobbes
et suit l'inspiration
de sa philosophie
de l'histoire
politique
- les besoins
des hommes ne les rapprocbent qu'a proportion que leurs passions les
divisent."
135.
cited
See the passages from the Manuscrit
for notes 58 and 67 above.
94-
de Geneve and the Contrat
social
�which the 'droit
that
liberty
of natural
naturel'
itself
rights
engendered conflict
between men and that the exercise
•
136
Antagonism thus arose,
produced a state of war.
in his view, out of each man's efforts
others
all
when in fact actual
men.
confused
137
supposed that
to establish
power was distributed
Rousseau insisted,
the state
For Hobbes had imagined
could be expressed.
of nature
however, that
with a state
the hostilities
of corrupt
his superiority
almost equally
in this
of civil
society
account
strife
over
between
Hobbes had
and had wrongly
were a universal
feature
of mankind.
L'erreur de Hobbes n'est
l'etat
de guerre entre
devenus sociables mais
naturel a l'espece,
et
cause aux vices dont il
For Rousseau it was nothing
is,
conflicts
duced a state
over authority
of war,
led only to their
139
other
than political
and conflicts
since
benevolence
done pas d'avoir etabli
les hommes independans et
d'avoir suppose cet etat
de l'avoir
donne pour
est l'effet.138
the passions
and pity
and social
over property,
discord,
which truly
of men in the natural
for each other.
140
that
pro-
state
While Hobbes,
136.
On this point see especially
the following passage from the Discours
sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 153: "Hobbes a tres bien vu le defaut de toutes
les d~finitions
modernes du droit Naturel:
mais les consequences qu'il tire
de la sienne montrent qu'il la prend dans un sens, qui n'est pas moins faux.
En raisonnant
sur les principes
qu'il etablit,
cet Auteur devoit dire que
l'etat
de Nature etant celui ou le soin de notre conservation
est le moins
prejudiciable
a celle d'autrui, cet etat·etoit par consequent le plus propre
a la Paix, et le plus convenable au Genre-hwnain.
It dit precisement le
contraire."
See also eh. III, pp. 188-190.
137,
See the Leviathan, English Works, III, p. 111: "From -this equality
of ability,
ariseth equality of hope in the attaining
of our ends.
And
therefore
if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless
they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies."
Cf. De cive, Opera, II, pp. 165-166.
138.
0.C.III,
p. 288.
See also the following passage from the 'Etat de
guerre',
ibid., p. 611: "L'erreur de Hobbes et des philosophes est de
confondre l'homme naturel avec les hommes qu'ils
ont sous les yeux, et de
transporter
dans un systeme un etre qui ne peut suhsister
que dans un autre."
139.
See especially
the Discours
140,
See note 49 above.
sur l'inegalite,
95
ibid.,
pp. 176-177.
�therefore,
had properly
explanation
of how men exercised
It is in this
chapter
fashion,
of Rousseau's
duty nor conflict
The 'droit
identified
erroneous
in Diderot's
supposition
attributes
that one ought to assess
in short,
for both arise
his
from which all
the second
is that
neither
in society
account is a chimerical
alone.
concept because
authority
is absent,
in Hobbes's theory is founded upon an equally
that the exercise
Hobbes and Diderot derive
from their
with liberty,
was incorrect.
The argument,
a moral rule to a state
among men.
naturel'
I think,
Manuscrit.
while the account of right
naturel'
that liberty
can be found in nature,
naturel'
it ascribes
the 'droit
understanding
of men, and for this
of liberty
tbeir
entails
accounts
of the social
disorder
of the 'droit
rather
reason the theories
civil
than the natural
of·both
writers
are
misconceived.
Nous concevons la societe generale d' apres nos
societes particulieres
.... Par OU l'on voit ce
qu'il faut penser de ces pretendus Cosmopolites,
qui justifiant
leur amour pour la patrie par
leur amour pour le genre humain, se vantent
d'aimer tout le monde pour avoir droit de n'aimer
personne.141
The 'droit
naturel'
in Rousseau's
on the other hand, a liberty
state
of nature,
civil
state
he believed,
incompatible
authority
with duty.
it could have no clear
it could be realized
under the legitimate
own theory is neither
as a right
a moral rule
nor,
For while in the
moral content,
bound together
in the
with obligations
of a sovereign.
141.
O,C.III, p. 287.
In Livre II, eh, iv of the Manuscrit (ibid.,
p. 329)
Rousseau also remarks, in this case about the concept of virtue,
"Etendez
cette maxime a la societe generale dont l'Etat nous donne l'idee".
Cf. the
following fragment from Neuchatel Ms R 16 (ibid.,
pp. 487-488):
"La grande
societe n'a pu s'etablir
sur le modele de la famille parce qu'etant composee
d'une multitude de familles qui avant l'association
n'avoient aucune regle
commune leur exemple n'en pouvoit point fournir a l'etat.
Au contraire
l'etat
s'il est bien gouverne doit donner dans toutes les familles des regl~s
COIIUDUnes
et pourvoir d'une maniere unifonoe a l'autorite
du pere, a
l'obeissance
des serviteurs
et a l'education
des enfans."
With regard to
this point Leon remarks ('Le Probleme du Contrat social',
p. 191), "Un
cosmopolitisme abstrait
fonde soit sur la volonte divine, soit sur l'identite
de l'espece d'une part, et le retablissement
de la hierarchie
treditionnelle
dans le gout d'un Pufendorf ou d'un Burlamaqui d'autre part, tels sont les
deux points sur lesquels s'exercera
la critique de Rousseau".
96
�Dans 1 1 un et l'autre
cas, l'homrne est libre:
ou bien
aucun devoir ne s'oppose a son vouloir,
ou bien il n'a
d'autre volonte que de faire son devoir.1 42
The natural
rights
of men were not merely renounced
transformed
by the social
in the state
but rather
contract,
Rousseau in connection
moral rights
and they were not suppressed
realized
. .
moral rig. h ts of every citizen.
in any natural
society
forever
anew in the form of the political
143
What was of crucial
with Diderot's
could be established
formed by the agreement
but were in fact
of their
essay,
importance
however, was that
only in those communities
members.
and
for
such
that
were
They were never to be found
of mankind.
Par de nouvelles associations,
corrigeons ... le defaut
de l'association
generale.
Que notre violent interlocuteur juge lui meme du succes.
Montrons lui dans
l'art
perfectionne
la reparation
des maux que l'art
counnence fit a la nature:
Montrons lui toute la
misere de l'etat
qu'il croyoit heureux, tout le faux
du raisonnement qu'il croyoit solide.144
The second chapter
of the influence
which
of the Manuscrit
Diderot
exercised
thus provides
upon Rousseau's
142.
Bertrand de Jouvenel,
'Essai sur la politique
edition of the Contrat social (Geneve 19~7), p. 95.
clear
testimony
political
de Rousseau',
and
in his
143.
See the Contrat social,
I.viii
(O.C.III,
pp. 364-365):
"Ce que
l'hornrne perd par le con~ract social,
c'est sa liberte
naturelle
et un droit
illimite
a tout ce qui le tente et qu'il peut atteindre;
ce qu'il gagne,
c'est la liberte
civile et la propriete
de tout ce qu'il possede.
Pour ne
pas se tromper dans ces compensations,
il faut bien distinguer
la liberte
naturelle
qui n'a pour bornes que les forces de l'individu,
de la liberte
civile qui est limitee par la volonte generale .... On pourroit
sur ce qui
precede ajouter a l'acquis
de l'etat
civil la liberte morale, qui seule rend
1 1hornme vraiment maitre de lui;
car l'impulsion
du seul appetit est
esclavage,
et l'obeissance
a la loi qu'on s'est prescritte est liberte."
This passage first appeared in an almost identical
form, but without the
final parag:caph on moral liberty,
in the 'Manuscrit, I.iii
(ibid.,
pp. 292-293).
At the same time, a passage in the Manuscrit (ibid.,
p. 289) which expressed
an altogether
similar view was not reproduced by Rousseau in the final version
of the Contrat:
"Sitot que les besoins de l'hornme passent ses facultes
et
que les objets de ses desirs s'etendent
et se multiplient,
il faut qu'il reste
eternellement
malheureux, ou qu'il cherche a se donner un nouvel etre duquel
il tire les ressources
qu'il ne trouve plus en lui-meme."
See also pp. 65-66
above,and Leon, 'L'Idee de volonte generale',
pp. 189-190.
144.
O.C.III,
p.
288.
See also pp. 88-89 above.
97
�social
properly
thought.
For this
chapter,
as a polemic against
forms an integral
part
the essay
of the theory
then the manner in which its
Diderot will
in my view, can only be understood
'Droit
naturel•,
that was advanced
ideas were conceived
have to be considered
carefully
145 and if it
by Rousseau 146
as a critique
in any interpretation
of
of his
145.
It has been suggested that after the collapse· of their friendship
Diderot himself became dissatisfied
with Rousseau's essay for the Encyclopedie
and therefore
wrote another article,
under the title
'OEconomie politique',
as
a rejoinder.
Thus Rousseau's reply to Diderot in the Manuscrit might have
had its counterpart
in Diderot's work as well.
The 'OEconomie politique',
which was printed in the Encyclopedie, XI (1765), pp. 366-383, is signed by
Antoine-Nicolas
Boulanger (who died in 1759), but in a letter
to Etienne-Noel
Damilaville of 19 October 1760 Diderot wrote, "Que ma boulangerie
se fasse,
je vous en prie", and it is at least con·ceivable that these words refer specifically
to this article
(though more likely they pertain to the article
'Vingtieme' - see Diderot's Correspopdance, ed. Roth and Jean Varloot, 16 vols.
(Paris 1955-70), III, p. 161; Havens, 'Diderot,
Rousseau, and the Discours
sur l'inegalite',
p. 254, note 2; and Lough, The 'Encyclopedie',
pp. 53 and
310).
Nevertheless,
whether the 1 0Economie politique'
was in fact composed
by Diderot or - what is more probable - commissioned by him, it does ·not
appear to have been designed as a refutation
of Rousseau.
It includes passages on the 'genre humain' which are faintly reminiscent
of statements made
by Diderot, but it also places emphasis on certain matters, such as theocratic
government, which do not figure in the 'Droit naturel'
or the 'Economie
politique',
and it contains no specific
references-to
either work.
Its connection with Rousseau's article
is thus quite as tenuous as is the connection
between Diderot's
own 'Droit naturel'
and the 'Droit de la nature' of Boucher
d'Argis (see note 40 above).
In the fifth volume of the Encyclopedie,
at
any rate, Diderot lavished even more praise upon Rousseau than Rousseau on
Diderot.
For in the article
'Encyclopedie'
he wrote (p. 646), 110 Rousseau,
mon cher & digne arni, je n'ai jamais eu la force de me refuser a ta louange:
j'en ai senti croitre mon gout pour la verite,
& mon amour pour la vertu".
146.
To be sure, the chapter was not incorporated
in the final version of
the Contrat social,
and some scholars,
including Schinz (see 'La Question du
Contrat social',
pp. 753-757), have suggested that it was deleted by Rousseau
because he came to see its argmnents as incompatible with the general
principles
of his theory.
For Vaughan (I, pp. 441-442), on the other hand,
"Rousseau suppressed the peccant chapter, not because it was irrelevant,
but
because it vras fatally
relevant,
to his argument; because he became aware that,
in refuting
the idea of natural law, he had um·li ttingly n:ade a deadly breach
in the binding force of the Contract;
and because, having no other principle
to put in place of the Contract as the foundation of civil society,
he felt
that his only course was to silence the battery which he had incautiously
unmasked against it:
in one word, to strike out the refutation,
and to let
the Social Contract stand".
See also eh. I, notes 25 and 33.
Most of
Rousseau's interpreters,
however, believe that the chapter is compatible in
substance with the Contrat social, and they suggest that he removed it from
the final version qnly because, by around 1760, he must have seen that its
style·and
form made it unsuitable
for publication.
Two main reasons are
generally cited in support of this claim.
Firstly,
the chapter is somewhat
carelessly
constructed
around a set of quotations ascribed to an anonymous
98
�His discussion
thought.
of the 'genre
was put forward as a direct
reproduced
in close
detail
refutation
of Diderot's
both the elements
which had been composed by the editor
drawn from that
tion,
cannot,
therefore,
intended
dialectical
and it
of the article
Passages
format was adopted and then turned
supply an explanation
which overlooks
these
features
of the meaning which Rousseau
to express.
I have also tried
produced this
of the essay
developed
to show that
'Droit
certain
works.
seems to reflect
which Rousseau cited
the 'Droit
naturel'
Rousseau's
social
account
contentions
that
writings
that
is,
as hi"s source.
he elaborated
of the 'volonte
It follows
upon two quite
he
previously
generale',
the arguments employed by Diderot
has some bearing
thought,
in his
with the theory
His earliest
Rousseau
the principal
themes which had not appeared
later
in his other
accepted
while before
In the 'Economie politique',
naturel'.
were inconsistent
in particular,
only a short
work he had very largely
and which, indeed,
article
and style
naturel'
by Rousseau in his own exposi-
Any study of the Manuscrit
out.
account,
of the Encyclopedie.
essay were intercalated
and even Diderot's
inside
humain' and the 'droit
in the
from this
distinct
and whether we focus upon his first
aspects
that
of
reference
figure in an essay whose title
is not even mentioned by Rousseau, and its
literary
quality suffers from this fact.
It is.certainly
inferior
in style
to most of the works of Rousseau that were published in his lifetime,
and it
would hardly be surprising
if he took out this section,
along with other
sections too, from a composition which he hoped would be the best of all his
writings (see the passage from the Confessions cited in eh. I, J>• 31;
Beaulavon, 'La Question du Contrat social.
Une fausse solution',
pp. 592-593
and Laun~y, 'L'Art de l'ecrivain
dans le Contrat social',
in Jean-Jacques
Rousseau et son temps, especially
p. 138).
Secondly, the chapter is so
clearly a polemic against Diderot that Rousseau might have thought it out of
place in a work published some years after their quarrel was at its height,
and particularly
out of place in a general treatise
on a subject about which
Diderot was not an acknowledged authority
(see Beaulavon, p. 593; Hubert,
Rousseau et l'Encyclopedie,
pp. 118-119; Derathe, O.C.III, p. lxxxviii;
and
Einaudi, The Early Rousseau, p. 174, note 12).
These arguments ar-~ much
more plausible,
in my view, than are those which point to any fundamental
inconsistencies
between the Manuscrit and the Contrat social.
Indeed, some
reference to Rousseau's unpublished works, and, when they have survived, even
to deleted sections of those unpublished works, may help more to clarify his
meaning than to portray its inconsistencies.
I shall elaborate
this point
with respect to the Essai sur l'origine
des langues in eh. IV.
99
�to the concept of the 'volonte
subsequent
consider
critique
generale',
of the notion
of a moral 'droit
the sense in which his statements
work of Diderot.
have their
place
Even the most abstract
in the context
thought
of Diderot,
figure
naturel',
we must
of Rousseau's
ideas
appreciation
thus
of the
And both the acknowledged debt
challenge
as central
upon his
form a commentary upon the
of his unsettled
claims made by his sometime friend.
which he owed, and the express
or alternatively
which he made, to the political
elements
100
in his own theory.
�
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<strong>Title: </strong>Rousseau on Society, Politics, Music and Language - An Interpretation of His Early Writings<br /><strong><br /></strong>
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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<strong>Abstract:</strong> This study is focused upon a variety of specific problems which I believe the early writings of Rousseau were designed to solve. Most of the works that are discussed here were drafted by Rousseau between 1750 and 1756, and I shall argue that a proper grasp of this fact about their temporal proximity is important to an understanding of the conceptual relations which underlie them. I hope to show that any accurate account of Rousseau's meaning must incorporate a careful examination of the context in which his ideas were developed, and I shall therefore be concerned very largely with the manner in which his writings were conceived as replies to arguments that were produced by other thinkers. The first chapter is devoted to an account of some mistaken interpretations of Rousseau's meaning. We often confuse our own beliefs about the contemporary significance of certain ideas with the sense which their authors originally intended they should have, and in this chapter I consider a number of misconceptions of that kind, as well as some mistaken correctives to them, which have appeared in Rousseau studies. The views of C.E. Vaughan and Robert Derathe, in particular, are discussed with reference to these problems. The second chapter is concerned with the influence of Diderot upon Rousseau and especially with the intellectual debt which Rousseau owed to Diderot's article 'Droit naturel'. The 'Economie politique' and the Manuscrit de Geneve are shown to exhibit the influence of Diderot in two quite different ways, and the conceptions of the 'volonté generale' of the two figures are compared in the light of the differences between their accounts of the natural society of mankind. In the third chapter the arguments of the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> are examined in connection with the ideas of several other figures from whom Rousseau drew some inspiration or against whom he raised some objections in that work. The chapter opens with a challenge to the thesis that the second Discours bears the stamp of Diderot's influence, and it continues with several sections, which are concerned with the historical, anthropological, linguistic, and political views of Buffon, Condillac, and Hobbes and Locke, respectively, while two final sections describe Rousseau's account of the transformation of natural into social man. The fourth chapter compares a number of ideas about the nature and origin of music which were put forward by Rameau and Rousseau. It traces the course of their controversy about this subject through the writings of both thinkers, and in the case of Rousseau it is addressed especially to his articles on music in the <em>Encyclopedie</em>, his <em>Lettre sur la musique françoise</em>, his <em>Examen de deux principes</em>, and his <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. It also attempts to establish that the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> at first contained a section about the genesis of music which Rousseau eventually incorporated in the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. The chapter, moreover, offers an interpretation of the place of music and language in the general context of Rousseau's social theory, and it provides a critique of several accounts of tbe historical relation between the <em>Essai</em> and the second <em>Discours</em> which have neglected that common feature of their meaning. The final chapter is concerned with the <em>Discours sur les sciences et les arts</em> and with the writings which Rousseau produced between 1751 and 1753 in defence of that text against its critics. I argue there that while the first <em>Discours</em> is the most shallow and least original of all of Rousseau's major works, the controversy which followed its publication helped him to focus his ideas about culture and society much more sharply than he had done before. I try to show that Rousseau's replies to the detractors of the <em>Premier Discours</em> constitute a refinement of his views along the paths which he was then to pursue further in the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> and the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>, and I conclude with some reflections about the systematic nature of his early social theory as it was developed in the period between his composition of the first and second <em>Discours</em>. The appendix consists of an annotated transcription of the manuscript on the origins of music and language discussed at length in chapter IV.
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Chapter 2: The Contribution of Diderot's Political Thought: An Influence in Two Forms
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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pp. 42-100.
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Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews
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Diderot
Rousseau
-
https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/intellectualhistory/files/original/3d07d7ba9db4b048c4496d7cca1066df.pdf
61406791d57a0d4d17ebaafa919e4524
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Text
III
THE DISCOURSSUR L'INEGALITE ANDITS SOURCES
Among all
the early
the most important
account
Discours
works of Rousseau in political
is certainly
of both the genesis
the Discours
and nature
is at once more detailed
found in any of his other
writings
and social
sur l'inegalite.
of society
For the
which he elaborated
and more coherent
of the period
1
than that
thought
in the
which can be
from 1750 to 1756, and in
1.
There are no problems about establishing
the date~ around which Rousseau
composed the Discours that are anything like the difficulties
of ascertaining
when he wrote the 'Economie politique'
and Manuscrit de Geneve (see eh. II,
notes 73 and 104).
In llovember 1753 the Mercure de Frc...'lce published a
notice for the Academie de Dijon about an essay competition on the subject,
'Quelle est la source de l'inegalite
parmi les hommes, & si elle est
autorisee
par la loi naturelle'.
Rousseau remarks in his Confessions
(O.C.I, p. 388) that he was very much impressed by·this choice of topic and
began almost immediately to work upon the Discours.
The essay was completed
in about four months, and by 1 April 1754 it was submitted as an anonymous
entry to the Academy.
It is clear, however, that Rousseau was known to be
the author of the Discours before the prize was announced on 19 July (see
Roger Tisserand,
Les concurrents
de J.-J. Rousseau a l'Academie de D~jon our
le prix de 1754 [Paris 1936 pp. 13-14), and this may help to explain why a
work that was far superior to the first essay with which he had obtained the
Dijon prize before was eliminated from the competition.
Already by June
1754 Rousseau apparently knew that his entry would not be successful,
and he
then began to make preparations
for its publication
in Paris (see the
Correspondance complete, II, pp. 267-269).
On 12 June he completed his
dedication to the Republic of Geneva (see O.C.I, p. 392, and O.C.III,
p. 121),
and in that summer he met Rey, a publisher
from Amsterdam but of Genevan
birth, to whom he finally decided to entrust his manuscript (see the
Correspondance complete, III, pp. 128-130).
During the winter of 1754-55
he corrected the proofs which were sent to him by Rey, and as late as 29 May
1755 he complained about the long delay in publication.
The work was nevertheless ready some time in April, and to Rousseau's distress
a single copy
had been circulated
in Paris before the presentation
volume could be sent to
the Petit Conseil in Geneva (see ibid., pp. 125 and 129).
On 12 May,
Malesherbes, the directeur
de la librairie,
advised Rey to send one hundred
copies of the Discours to a Paris bookseller
(ibid.,
pp. 126 ), and on 18 June
the work was at last submitted to the Petit Conseil (see ibid.,
pp. 132-134).
Cf. Courtois,
'Chronologie critique
de Rousseau', pp. 76-83, and O.C.III,
pp. lxx-lxxi and 1860-1861.
Both the Academy's manuscript of the Discours
as well as the manuscript from which the first published edition was made are
101
�some respects
it provides
even than that
of the Contrat
between the innocent
figures
natural
prize
state
form, and it
the moral and political
length.
of society
social
in so many of Rousseau's
in such a striking
greatest
a theory
effects
which is more systematic
itself.
The fundamental
and the corrupt
other
writings
is in this
of social
text
society
of men which
is nowhere else described
that
inequality
his conception
is set forth
of
at
the essay was not in fact awarded the
2
for which Rousseau composed it,
but its significance
among his
contributions
Voltaire,
To be sure,
to social
for instance,
thought
has always been apparent
denounced it as an attack
the next century
4,
Engels praised
it because
and in our own day Levi-Str&uss
to its
readers.
upon mankind almost as
soon as he had read the copy which Rousseau presented
Marx,
contrast
to him, 3 while in
in his view it anticipated
has stated
that
it
is a work of
now lost, though a few fragments from earlier
drafts have survived (see
especially
notes 199 an<l 237 below).
It has also been suggested that
Rousseaumoyhnve originally
prepared the Discours, not only as an entry for
the Dijon competition,
but equally as a reply to one of the critics
of his
Discours sur les sciences et les arts.
The preface of Rousseau's second
letter
to Charles Borde (see O.C.III,
pp. 103-107) was written at about
the same tine that he began the Discours sur l'inegalite,
and as the text
of that letter
was never completed, it is possible that Rousseau intended his
prize essay to supplant it.
For in another letter which he wrote to
Mmede Crequi, probably in November 1753, he remarked (Correspondance comolete,
II, p. 232), "Le Discours de M. Bordes, tout bien pese restera
sans r~ponse ....
J'aurai
peut etre occasion de mieux developper mes idees sans repondre
directement".
See also Havens, 'The road to Rousseau's Discours sur
l'inegalite•~
Yale French Studies, XL (1968), pp. 29-30, and eh. V, P• 430.
2.
The register
of the Academy (see the Correspondance complete, II, p. 345)
indicates
that its members did not even hear the text read out to them, as was
the case for most of the other entries,
"a cause de sa Longueur Et de sa
mauvaise tradition&".
With regard to the deliberations
of the Academy on
this occasion, see Tisserand,
Les concurrents
a l'Academie de Dijon, pp. 23-30.
3.
See Voltaire's
letter
to Rousseau of 30 August 1755 cited in eh. II,
note 95, and Havens, Volta.ire's
r.iargiJ'l.alia on the uages of Rousseau
(Columbus 1933), pp. 4-28.
4.
See Anti-Diihring in Marx-Engels Werke, 39 vols. in 41 (Berlin 1960-68),
XX, pp. 130-131:
"Rousseau sieht also in der Entstehung der Ungleichheit
einen Fortschritt.
Aber dieser Fortschritt
war antagonistisch,
er war zugleich
ein Riickschritt .... Wir haben hier also schon bei Rousseau nicht nur einen
Gedankengang, d~r dem in Marx' 'Kapital'
verfolgten
auf ein Haar gleicht,
sondern
auch im einzelnen eine ganze Reihe derselben dialektischen
Wendungen, deren
102
�supreme value because
it inaugurated
Yet whereas the prominence
has never been in doubt,
hand, has frequently
something
most profound
the extent
of its
of a paradox that
thinkers,
when he was at his best.
appears
to invite
suspicions
references
pertaining
de
Rousseau's
other
supplied
such a wide range of sources
fables
travel
diaries
again,
moreover,
It is
to show the deepest
imprint
as if Rousseau was really
Nevertheless,
kind,
since
it contains
alike
of
not quite
the Discours
and modern authors
with passages
- from essays
and treatises
to scientific
studies
was he to display
measure of his learning
on the other
at least
more
than any of
None of the works which h~ had produced
writings.
is so abundantly
originality,
thought
a work acknowledged to be among his
of this
to ancient
in Rousseau's
by his interpreters.
should also be understood
himself
philosophical
of the Discours
been questioned
his many debts to other
before
'sciences
5
l'homme•.
perhaps
our contemporary
and citations
on morals,
for instance,
on law, from personal
and historical
the breadth
in so much scholarly
drawn from
memoirs and
reviews
of his reading
detail.
to
- and never
and the
In the light
of
Marx sich bedient:
Prozesse, die ihrer liatur nach antagonistisch
sind, einen
Widerspruch in sich enthalten,
Umschlagen eines Extrems in sein Gegenteil,
endlich als Kern des Ganzen die Negation der Negation."
See also
Starobinski,
La transparence
et l'obstacle,
pp. 33-34; Galvano Della Volpe,
Rousseau e Marx, fourth edition
(Roma 1964), pp. 121-132;
and Lucio Colleti,
Ideologia e societa,
third edition (Bari 1972), pp. 255-262.
5.
See 'Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, fondateur des sciences de l'homme', in
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Neuchatel 1962), p. 240: "Rousseau ne s'est pas borne
~ pr€voir l'ethnologie:
il l'a fondee.
D'abord de fa~on pratique,
en
ecrivant·ce
Discours sur l'ori
ine et les fondements de l'ine alite ..• qui
pose le probleme des rapports entre la nature et la culture,
et o l'on peut
voir le premier traite
d'ethnologie
generale;
et ensuite, -sur le plan
theorique,
en distinguant,
avec une clarte et une concision admirables,
l'objet
propre de l'ethnologue
de celui du moraliste et de l'historien."
See
also Levi-Strauss;
Tristes Tropiques (Paris 1955), p. 423, and Le Totemisme
aujourd'hui
(Paris 1962), pp. 142-146; and Jacques Derrida, 'La violence de
la lettre:
de Levi~Strauss a Rousseau', in De la grammatologie (Paris 1967),
pp. 149-202.
103
�these
references
l'inegalite
therefore,
was really
laborious
rather
alone,
exegesis
it might appear that
the Discours
composed, in a scissors-and-paste
of ~repositions
than as the truly
first
unorthodox
set forth
and boldly
fashion,
by other
original
sur
as a
thinkers
work that
he
planned.
The suggestion,
however, that
original
of Rousseau's
requires
that
serve equally
all
these
nality
early
writings
texts.
For it
is patently
less
its
is an entirely
that
its
ideas
of its
ideas
matter
that
to some degree,
than repeats
a proper
to their
by the persons
is emphatically
the extent
of its
the fact
of the thinkers
consists
of critical
study of its
sources
ideas
authors,
were constructed
and implications,
either
Like every
thinker
great
but because
in part
required
to show
instead
may itself
of
be judged,
from
he considers.
Insofar
devoted to
Rousseau's
we should then have a better
conceived
grasp
views whose premises
he believed
alwe.ys marc.1-ied :into battle
104
us
should enhance our understanding
or collectively,
wards, and the work which forms the best
so
whom be cites.
commentaries
around other
Rousseau
that
his work, but
not because we should then be able to ascribe
true
with
does provide
polemical
novelty
from
the origi-
inversely
by the sense in which Rousseau departs
the doctrines
actually
meaning,
of how those
Of course
from the evidence
devised
so much of the Discours
texts
- varies
form in which he conceived
were originally
as the Discours
other
profundity
upon which it draws.
different
in design
which it contains
not the case that
are mentioned by Rousseau in the Discours
that
rather
if it
to which he borrowed his ideas
with a grasp of the particular
at least
conviction
as proof of the extent
the number of sources
imitative
carry
of the references
of his work - still
Indeed,
can hardly
is also the least
we make our tabulation
other
many authors
the most important
of all
to be false.
back-
his early
�battles
VTas fought
over the widest possible
terrain
which it was his aim
to leave behind.
In this
chapter
I shall
Discours
sur l'inegalite
attempts
to depart
here I shall
thought
first,
however,
And in accordance
it squarely
The fact
to challenge
what I believe
that
thought
Rousseau in the Discours
men were such intimate
is hardly
friends
the essay,
but also because
on several
occasions,
a part
influence
have attempted
of Diderot
aim
the meaning of his
of the various
- that
is,
arguments
I should like
mis-
the claim that
of Diderot.
to draw a close
and the philosophy
surprising,
of the
of Rousseau's
to be the most prevalent
of the Discours
some scholars
sources
with my general
to modify or refute.
the markings of the strong
between the social
played
in the context
which he intended
about the genesis
the work bears
actually
from the perspective
try to show that we can only understand
thinkers
conception
especially
from them.
if we place
of other
be concerned v1ith the principal
connection
expounded by
not only because the two
at the time Rousseau was engaged in writing
he himself
later
admitted
though by then with regret
in the composition
- and indeed repeated
- that
of his work. 6
Diderot
had
Arr.ied parti'cularly
6.
Rousseau makes this claim a number of times in the form of a progressively more bitter
charge against the textual in:::isions of his erstwhile
friend rather than as an acknowledgement of their collaboration.
In a
passage of the Discours (0.C.III,
p. 156) he had written, "Il n'y a plus que
les dangers de la societe entiere qui troublent
le sommeil tranquille
du
Philosophe, et qui l'arrachent
de son lit.
On peut impunement egorger son
semblable sous sa fenestre;
il n'a qu'a mettre ses mains sur ses oreilles
et s'argumenter
un peu, pour empecher la Nature qui se revolte en lui, de
l'identifier
avec celui qu'on assassine.
L'homme Sauvage n'a point cet
admirable talent".
And in a note in his Confessions (O.C.I, p. 389) he
remarked that these lines were suggested to him by Diderot:
"Le morceau du
philosophe qui s'argumente en se bouchant les oreilles
pour s'endurcir
nux
plaintes d'un malhet:reux est de sa fa<;:on, et il m'en avoit fourni d'autres
plus forts encore que je ne pus me resoudre a employer."
The accusation
was repeated twice in still
stronger terms in his letter
to Saint-Germain of
26 February 1770.
Thus the same lines "qu' il m'y fit inserer presque
105
�with this
testimony,
had no difficulty
of the Discours
passage
therefore,
in locating
a number of Rousseau's
what they believe
among a collection
which had appeared
of 1752, for instance,
of Diderot's
in his Suite
has been described
interpreters
have
to be the major sources
own texts.
de l'apologie
7
Thus a
de l'abbe
as "very similar
de Prades
to Rousseau's
malgre moi" were now depicted as "de lui tout entier.
11 est certain que
M. Diderot abusa toujours de ma confiance et de ma facilite
pour donner a
mes ecrits un ton dur et un air noir, qu'ils n'eurent plus sitot qu'il
cessa de me diriger et que je fus livre tout a·fait
a moi-meme"
(Correspondance generale,
XIX, pp. 246 and 252).
Yet on each of these
occasions
Rousseau's complaint was made in a passage that had been appended
to the text.
The text of the Confessions,
for instance,
states only that
"ses conseils me furent le plus utiles",
while in the note Rousseau wrote
"le morceau ... est de sa fac;on".
And because that note is placed, exceptionally,
in the margin rather than at the bottom of the page (in the
original
Paris manuscript of the Confessions,
Bibliotheque
du Palais-Bourbon,
Ms. 1457), it appears to have been added after the work was finished.
Morel
('Recherches
sur les sources du Discours de l'in6galite',
p. 124) has pointed
to the change in Rousseau's position from one passage to the next:
"Notons
la progression
de ces notes:
Rousseau glisse du conseil au conseil perfide,
du conseil perfide a l'insertion
de morceaux entiers.
Ce sont d'abord de
'simples impulsions',
puis 'quelques norceaux' qui ne sont pas designes;
enfin l'idee arrive a la precision:
'le morceau du philosophe qui
s'argumente est de lui tout entier'."
Cf. Starobinski,
O.C.III, pp. 1332-1334.
Since Rousseau's attitude
toward his one-time colleague,
therefoPe,
becru~e
progressively
more severe, the extent to which Diderot had actuaily
exercised
an influence upon his formulation of this passage is not entirely
clear.
At
the same time, however, Diderot's
hand is sometimes quite apparent in works
which were not in fact his own, as for example in certain passages of the
Memoires de Mmed'Epinay, and it would not be too surprising
if the lines
about which Rousseau complained were in fact the work of his former friend.
See MacDonald, Rousseau:
a new criticism,
I, pp. 86-95; Masson, 'Mme
d'Epinay, Jean-Jacques ... et Diderot chez Mlle Quinault',
Annales, IX (L9l3),
pp. 4 and 19ff; and the Histoire de Madame de Montbrillant,
I, pp. xxi-xxiii.
Note also the following statement made by Diderot in a letter
to M, Berryer,
lieutenant
Reneral de nolice,on
10 August 1749, in Diderot 1 s Correspondance,
I, p. 86: 1111 y a dans les Observations de l'abbe Desfontaines plusieurs
morceaux de ma fa9on.
J'ai prete ma plume. et donne mon terns a tous ceux qui
en ont eu besoin.pour
des choses utiles. 11 See also eh. IV. note 117.
7.
According to Assezat-Tourneux
(IV, pp. 100-104), for instance,
Rousseau•·s avowal that Diderot had drafted some of the more fitful
passages
of the Discours must be interpreted
to mean that he had been responsible,
not
only for the particular
remarks Rousseau ascribes to him, but also for a
whole section of the work which surrounds them.
Without any justification
at all the editors therefore
include among their selections
from Diderot' s
own writings a number of paragraphs from O.C.III, pp. 154-157, under the
title,
'Morceau de Diderot insere dans le Discours sur l'inegalite•.
106
�•
•
of inequality
emphasis ... on the ... results
Discours
a section
is sometimes said
of the Pensees
composed in 1753.
" , 8 while
to recapitulate,
the whole of the
in more substantial
sur l'interpretation
de la nature
terms,
which Diderot
9
Rousseau est encore fortement influence par les
idees de Diderot au moment ou il ecrit son second
discours .... On a pu dire, non sans raison,
que
l'histoire
de l'homrne telle que Rousseau la
traitait
dans sa recherche sur l'origine
de
l'inegalite
est deja tout entiere en gerrne dans
la conclusion des Pensees sur 1 1 Interpretation
de la Nature.lo
Even the translation
of a book by Shaftesbury
by 1745 is occasionally
in the Essai
cited
sur le merite
asked the same question
that
as a major source
et la vertu,
Diderot
had completed
of Rousseau's
it has been maintained,
as would be posed by "Rousseau nearly
work.
For
Diderot
a decade
8.
Havens, 'Diderot,
Rousseau, and the Discours sur l'inegalite',
pp. 242-243.
The passage to which Havens refers appears in Ass~zat-Tourneu:<,
I, pp. 466-467:
"Voila les hommes arretes
les uns a cote des autres,
plutot
en troupeau qu'en societe,
par l'attrait
de leur utilite
propre ...
qu'arrivera-t-il?
C'est que, n'etant
encore enchaines par aucune loi,
animes tous par des passions violentes,
cherchant tous a s'approprier
les
avantages communs de la reunion ... les faibles
seront les victimes des plus
forts;
les plus forts pourront a leur tour etre surpris et immoles par les
faibles;
et que bientot cette inegalite
de talents,
de forces, etc., detruira
entre les hommes le commencement de lien que leur utilite
propre ... leur [nvait]
suggere pour leur conservation
reciproque.
Mais comment remedieront-ils
a
ce terrible
inconvenient? ... ils sentiront
le peril et la barbarie de ce droit
fonde sur l'inegalite
des talents ... et ils feront entre eux des conventions
qui repareront
l'inegalite
naturelle,
OU qui en previendront
les suites
facheuses:
quelque autorite
sera chargee de veiller
a l'accomplissement des
conventions et a leur duree;
alors les hommes ne seront plus un trou~eau,
mais une societe policee;
ce ne seront plus des sauvages indisciplines
et
vagabonds, ce seront des hommes, ainsi que nous les voyons, renfermes dans des
villes,
et soumis a des gouvernements."
See also note 18 and the passages
from the Discours sur l'inegalite
(O.C.III,
pp. 175-177) discussed on pp.190-192
below, and Proust, pp. 369-371.
For an account of the connection between
Diderot and the abbe de Prades, see Venturi, Jeunesse de Diderot, pp. 192-236,
and Wilson, Diderot:
The Testing Years, pp. 154-172.
9.
In 1754 the work was published in a number of editions,
but a few copies
had been printed in the year before as well.
See Dieckmann, 'The First
Edition of Diderot's
Pensees sur l'interpretation
de la nature',
Isis,
XLVI
(1955), pp. 251-267.
10.
Venturi,
Jeunesse
de Diderot,
pp. 331-332.
107
�later
at the beginning
of his Discours":
"Ou prendre la nature? Ou? dans l'etat
originel
des creatures;
dans l'homme, dont une education
vicieuse n'aura point altere les affections" ....
Thus Diderot and Rousseau both implicitly
attack
"le peche originel,"
yet in a sense present a
new doctrine of "la chute," not unlike the old
belief of orthodox theology.11
Above all
•
Discours,
'
'
• 11 e. 12
stan d s t he Supplement
au Voyage d e Bougainvi
h owever,
It is there
in its
the works of Diderot which have been compared to the
that
Diderot's
most comprehensive
Discours
upon-corrupt
form, and it
is there
for Rousseau - that
is drawn most sharply.
natives
own attack
of Tahiti
ought really
we should,
his description
Thus, for instance,
in the Supplement,
to excite
13
is set out
too - as it is in the
of man in the natw.·al
in his observations
he remarks that
our admiration.
society
their
state
on the
mode of life
We do not appreciate
as much as
he states,
les usages d'un peuple assez sage pour s'etre
arrete de lui-meme a la mediocrite,
OU assez
heureux pour habiter un climat dont la
fertilite
lui assurait
un long engourdissement,
assez actif pour s'etre
mis a l'abri
des besoins
absolus de la vie, et ass'ez indolent pour que
11.
Havens, 'Diderot,
Rousseau, and the Discours sur l'inegalite',
p. 237.
The passage appears in Assezat-Tourneux,
I, pp. 108-109.
Presumably
Diderot's
footnotes to this work provide a better guide to his ideas than
can be found in the adapted text of Shaftesbury's
Inouiry concerning Virtue
and Merit.
It is in one of these notes (ibid.,
p. 29, note 2), though not
in the text itself,
that Diderot refers to "l'homme dans l'etat
de pure
nature", but in my view Havens has failed to show that either the text or the
notes had any major influence upon the social thought of Rousseau.
12.
See eh. II,
note 21.
13.
See, for instance,
the following passage which appears on pp. 59-60 of
the Supplement:
"Voulez vous s9avoir l'histoire
abregee de presque toute
notre misere?
La voici.
Il existait
un homme naturel;
on a introduit
au
dedans de cet homme, un homrne artificicl,
et il s'est eleve dans la caverne
une guerre civile qui dure toute la vie.
Tantot l'homrne naturel est le
plus fort;
tantot il est terrasse
par l'hommc moral et artificiel;
et dans
l'un et l'autre
cas, le triste
monstre est tiraille,
tenaille,
tourmente,
etendu sur la roue, sanscesse
gemissant, sans cesse malheurcux, soit qu'un
faux enthousiasme de gloire le transporte
et l'enivre,
ou qu'une fausse
ignomignie le courbe et l'abatte."
108
�son innocence, son repos et sa felicite
n'eussent
rien a redouter d'un progres trop rapide de ses
lumieres.
Rien n'y etait mal par l'opinion
ou
par la loi que ce qui etait r.:aJ. de sa nature.
Les travaux et les recoltes
s'z_faisaient
en
commun.... La passion de l'amour reduite a un
simple appetit physique n'y produisait
aucun de
nos desordres.
L'isle entiere offrait
l'image
d'une seule famille nombreuse. 14
The resemblance
between this
view of primitive
• h is
• deve l ope d in
• t h e D"
wh ic
iscours 15 has,
some scholars
that
that
in their
Diderot may actually
substantial
then,
part
it follows
opinion
that
had merely outlined
• f act,
in
and the account
seeme d so stri "k"ing t o
it could only be explained
have produced,
of Rousseau's
society
work.
rather
than just
inspired,
According to this
the Supplement completes
if we allow
a
interpretation,
the picture
that
Rousseau
in the Discours.
Plus exactement encore, Diderot vase servir de
l'exemple de Tahiti pour verifier,
localiser
et
rendre plus reelle la reconstruction
hypothetique
des premiers temps qui se trouve dans le second
Discours.
Les ressernblances sont telles,
comme
on pourra le voir par une comparaison des deux
textes,
que la question de la collaboration
de
Diderot au Discours de l'inegalite
se pose a
nouveau. 16
Several
studies
which Diderot
tion of the Discours
that
this
produced both before
are therefore
and after
the publica-
said to confirm the claim of Rousseau
work "fut plus du gout de Diderot
14.
Ibid.,
15.
cited
Cf. the passage from the Discours
on p. 208 below.
que tous mes autres
Ecrits
11
•
17
p. 51.
16.
Gilbert Chinard, in the introduction
(Paris and Baltimore 1935), pp. 51-52.
sur l'inegalite
to his edition
(O.C.III,
pp. 170-171:
of the Supplement
17.
Confessions,
O.C.I, p. 389.
See also note 6 above and Havens,
'Diderot,
Rousseau, and the Discours sur l'inegalite',
pp. 259-262.
For
Morel (see the 'Recherches sur les sources du Discours de l'inegalite',
p. 119), Diderot is one of the two writers - together with Condillac - who
exercised the strongest
influence upon Rousseau's thought at this time.
109
�Yet despite
these
observations
the
Rousseau in his essay cannot really
offspring
of propositions
the intellectual
of course,
sions~
one in general
to confirm
Rousseau was correct
approval.
in fact
it
there
to doubt that
should equally
when he maintained
the central
of the Apologie de l'abbe
the Discours,
since
of men which Diderot
the brief
correspond
account
roughly
writings,
of social
and colleague
seems to me clear
features
some of Diderot's
the distinction
inequality
that
the Discours
that
for instance,
expresnever
but that
met with his
of the Discours
It is true
de Prades,
that
sur l'inegalite.
be no question
that
makes in this
to some ideas
and though
and while Diderot himself
drawn from any of his writings.
anticipate
it
by
as the theoretical
in the Discours
in the text,
Nevertheless,
elements
society
repaid
no reason
incorporated
troubled
be described
were developed
debt which Rousseau owed to his friend
debt was not properly
There is,
that
advanced in Diderot's
may have been a substantial
this
ideas
are not
certain
appear to
between a herd and a
work, and at the same time
which he provides
are expressed
there,
in Rousseau's
both
text. 18
18.
Two passages in the Apologia are thought to be of special significance
in connection with Rousseau.
One of these is cited in note B above.
The
second appears in Assezat-Tourneux,
I, pp. 454-455:
"L 1 etat de nature n'est
point celui d'Adam avant sa chute;
cet etat nomentane doit etre l'objet
de
notre foi, et non celui de notre raisonnement.
Il s'agit,
entre les
philosophes,
de la condition actuelle
de ses descendants,
consideres en
troupeau et non en societe ... condition qui dure plus ou moins, selon Tes
occasions que les hommes peuvent avoir de se policer,
et de passer, de
l'etat
de troupeau a l'etat
de societe.
J'entends
par l'etat
de troupeau,
celui sous lequel les hommes rapproch&s par l'instigation
simple de la
nature, cormne les singes, les cerfs, les corneilles,
etc., n'ont forme
aucunes conventions qui les assujettissent
a des devoirs, ni constitue
d'autorite
qui contraigne
a l'accomplissement des conventions."
Cf. the
following passage in the Discours sur l'inegalite,O.C.III,
pp. 166-167:
"Il
se trouva en etat de distinguer
les occasions rares ou l.'interet
commun
devoit le faire compter sur l 1 assistance
de ses semblables .... il s'unissoit
avec eux en troupeau, ou tout au plus par quelque sorte d'association
libre
qui n'obligeoit
personne, et qui ne durojt qu'autant
que le besoin passager
qui l'avoit
formee .... Il est aise de comprendre qu'un pareil commerce
n'exigeoit
pas un langage beaucoup plus rafine,
que celui des Corneilles
ou
des Singes, qui s'attroupent
a peu pres de meme." At least Rousseau's
reference to 'Corneilles'
and 'Singes' in these lines does seem to be drawn
from Diderot.
Another passage in the Discours (O.C.III,
pp. 175-177 - see
pp. 190-192 belo~) corresponds very roughly to that section of the Apologie
which is considered in no~.e B.
110
�But these
les arts
ideas
can also be found in the Discours
which Rousseau had completed more than two years before
19
Apologie was published,
Rousseau on these
Indeed,
sur les sciences
apart
conceivably
points
and the debt,
have owed to Rousseau,
the
however slight,
thus seems more clear
from those features
et
of Diderot to
20
than the reverse.
of the Apologie that
Diderot
the work is incompatible
might
in substance
with the essay which it is said to have inspired.
For it provides
interpretation
contract
had already
of the natural
set forth
law and of the social
in his article
• f act repu d'iate d rat h er tan
h
in
1
Autorite
politique'
an
which Diderot
and which was
21
• t he secon d D"
a dopte d by Rousseau in
iscours.
The Discours sur les sciences et les arts was composed by Rousseau in
the period between October 1749 and March 1750.
It was first published in
Paris in January 1751 (see eh. V, note 4).
The passage on the· herd of men
appears in O.C.III, p. 8: "On n'ose plus paroitre
ce qu'on est;
et dans
cette contrainte
perpetuelle,
les hommes qui ferment ce troupeau qu'on
appelle societe,
places dans les memes circonstances,
feront tousles
memes
choses sides motifs plus puissans ne les en detournent."
The passage on
inequality
appears in_ O.C.III, p. 25 and is discussed here in eh. V,
pp. 389-390.
19.
20.
The extent of Diderot's
influence upon the first Discours of Rousseau
will be conside~ed in eh. V (see pp. 400-403).
Whatever we conceive the
nature of that influence to be, however, there is not the slightest
evidence
to suggest that Rousseau's references to inequality
and to a herd of men in
this work were inspired by the ideas of his friend.
21.
With regard to Diderot 1 s descriptions
of natural law in the Apologie,
see especially
Assezat-Tourneux,
I, p. 471:
"Les elements de la loi
naturelle,
dont les premieres traces s'impriment dans l'ame de tres-bonne
heure, deviennent de jour en jour plus profondes, se rendent ineffa~ables,
tourmentent le mechant au-dedans de lui-meme, consolent l'homme vertueux,
et servent d'exemple aux legislateurs."
With regard to Diderot's
conception of the social contract in this work, see, in particular,
note 8 above
and Assezat-Tourneux,
I, p. 469: "Il est tres-douteux
que le parlement
soit content qu'-on ait traite les maximes suivantes de seditieuses;
savoir:
'Que les lois de la nature et de l'Etat
sont les conditions
sous lesquelles ·les sujets se sont soumis, ou sont censes s 1etre ~oumis au gouvernement de leur prince .... Qu'un prince ne peut jamais employer l'autorite
qu'il tient d'eux, pour casser le contrat par lequel elle lui a ete
deferee ... I Car, qu'est-ce
qu'un parlement, sinon un corps charge du depot
sacre du contrat reel ou suppose, par lequel les peuples se sont soumis ou
sont cens€s d 1 ~tre soumis au gouverneme1,t de leur prince?"
The quotation
cited in this passage follows very closely the text of some remarks on the
same subject in Diderot 1 s own 1 Autorite politique,.
(see eh. II, note 16).
With respect to Rousseau's critique
of natural law in the second Discours,
see especially
eh. I, pp. 18-19.
111
�Thus the similarity
Discours
and Apologie,
ancy between their
designed
between their
respectively,
accounts,
conventions
civilised
these
world.
other,
insofar
is,
natural
of war, since
22
In my view, even their
as the Discours
and moral,
23
of a peaceful
explanations
for their
the effects
of the natural
If we turn
de la nature,
central
theme the contention
race depen ds upon th e progress
of Rousseau's
•
tation
work, on the other
•
25
o f t h.is point.
that
•
of science
See pp. 189-192 below.
23.
See pp. 182-193 below.
than their
connection
with each
of moral inequalities
variations
between men.
moreover,
we shall
find
the improvement of the human
•
•
an d invention,
24 wh ereas much
band, is devoted precisely
So too in the Essai
22.
in
two kinds of inequality,
as if they were the consequences
as its
and
of inequality
difference
which have no real
to the Interyretation
to establish
while Diderot maintained
delineates
while the Apologie describes
conventions
Rousseau under-
hoax intended
for the creation
two works are more remarkable
likeness,
that
state
over the poor,
they were a prerequisite
in the
of the political
to be an ingenious
the supremacy of the rich
of inequality
is far outweighed by the discrep-
for instance,
to overcome a hypothetical
stood these
that
conceptions
sur le merite
to a refuet la vertu,
24.
See, for example, the following passages:
"Je me represente
la vaste
enceinte des sciences,
comme un grand terrain parseme de places obscures et
de places eclairees.
Nos travaux doivent avoir pour but, ou d'etendre
les
limites des places eclairees,
ou de multiplier
sur le terrain
les centres
de lumieres.
L'un appartient
au genie qui cree;
l'autre
a la sagacfte
qui perfectionne 11 (Assezat-Tourneux,
II, p. 17);
"Les experiences doivent
etre repetees pour le detail des circonstances
et pour la connaissance des
limites.
Il faut les transporter
a des objets differents, les compliquer,
les combiner de toutes les manieres possibles 11 (ibid.,
p. 41); "Lorsque je
trouve les hommes incertains
sur les premiers principes
de la m€decine et
de l'agriculture,
sur les propri~t~s
des substances les plus col:!D!unes, sur la
connaissance des maladies dont ils sont afflig€s,
sur la taille
des arbres,
sur la forme de la charrue, la terre ne me parait habit€e que d'hier"
(ibid.,
p. 60).
25.
See, in particular,
the passage in O.C.III,
pp. 170-171 cited
on
p. 208 below.
~ith respect to the Interpretation
de la nature, Proust
remarks (p. 387) that for Diderot, in contrast with Rousseau, "le perfectionnement de l' individu et celui de l' espece sont inseparables".
112
�finally,
the natural
happily
together
men whom Dide~ot portrays
in society,
26
ideas
that
of mankind.
were developed
in these
have much in common with each other,
believe,
account
Diderot's
article
~ith the social
'Droit
theory
naturel',
duced before
himself
it cannot be traced
at the time that
clearly
are actually
that
date,
from Diderot's
in that
are never introduced
of the civil
terms elsewhere.
that the virtues
state
1
in
in conflict
which
had pro-
because Rousseau
whereas the principal
incompatible
with Diderot's
ideas
Rousseau produced his work.
in substance
enactments
appears
Diderot
to his influence
The Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville,
text
that
those few concepts
and the writings
had propounded them at an earlier
arguments of the Discours
They are consistent,
of human progress
In short,
thus
anticipate
but they are essentially
of Rousseau.
are shared between the Discours
works of Diderot
they do not generally
in the Discours.
society
While most of the
early
the views which were expressed
with the cosmopolitan
only to live
though for Rousseau it was in fact
which had produced the misfortunes
principal
are destined
early
writings,
however, is rather
since
to the inventions
law whose benefits
In the Supplement,
the savages he describes
of science
he proclaims
on the contrary,
of human conduct which are characteristic
do not in fact
improve with the progress
society
of the Tahitians
which he portrays
quality
to the debased cultures
of civilised
different
or the
in such fulsome
Diderot
contends
of the natural
of mankind, and the primitive
is actually
men.
superior
in moral
But while the Supplement
26.
See, for instance,
the following passage in Assezat-Tourneux,
I, p. 99:
"Quel malheur n'est-ce
pas pour une creature destinee·a
la societe plus
particulierement
qu'aucune autre, d'etre denuee de ces penchants qui la
porteraient
au bien et a l'interet
general de son espece! car il faut convenir
qu'il n'y en a point de plus ennemie de la solitude que l'homrne dans son etat
naturel .... L'homme insociable,
ou celui qui s'exile
volontairement
du monde,
et qui, rompant tout commerce avec la societe,
en abjure entierement
les
devoirs, doit etre sombre, triste,
chagrin, et mal constitue. 11 See also ibid.,
pp. 24-25, and Proust, pp. 359-360.
There is a striking
similarity
between
these lines in the Essai and that passage in Le Fils naturel
(see eh. 11,
p. BO) about which Rousseau was to feel such deep distress.
113
�appears,
in some respects,
of Diderot
laid
1
s other
to he more like
works, the reason
the foundation
for Rousseau's
after
for this
theory,
written
some seventeen
Diderot
would have had ample opportunity
inclination
years
which separate
them, and also
Rousseau could have turned
as a source
The resemblance
close
rather
one.
of Rousseau,
in the social
to this
it
was
of course,
not too much
but certainly
in
than inequality
theory
that
the arguments
that
Diderot
is difficult
of
espoused
to imagine how
work, or even to a vague and rough
of inspiration.
between the two essays,
For in the Supplement it
which he depicts
ideas
the text
By then,
- though perhaps
in view of the fact
at the time the two men were friends,
of it,
if only because
its
in which the two works were composed and of the years
the Supplement do not figure
sketch
than is any one
cannot be that
the Discours.
- to draw upon the precepts
view of the order
the Discours
that Diderot
has primarily
in any case,
is the institution
is not a very
of matrimony
condemns, and the moral corruption
to do with sexual
conduct.
Comment est-il
arrive qu'un acte ... auquel la nature
nous invite par l'attrait
le plus puissant;
que le
plus grand, le plus doux, le plus innocent des
plaisirs
soit devenu la source la plus feconde de
notre depravation
et de nos maux! ... C'est par la
tyrannie de l'homme qui a converti la possession de
la femme en une propriete.
Par les moeurs et les
usages qui ont surcharge de conditions l'union
conjugale.
Par les loix civiles
qui ont assujetti
le mariage a une infinite
de formalites. 27
In the Discours,
on the other
hand, Rousseau devotes
only a few lines
to
27.
Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville,
p. 58.
In his introduction
(p. lxxix) Dieckmann makes clear the distinction
between Diderot and Rousseau
on this point:
"Le probleme des rapports amoureux constitue
le theme central
.du Supplement, tandis que dans le Discours il n' est qu '~ exemple de la perte
du bonheur de l'etat
de nature.
Rousseau ne consacre ace probleme que
quelques pages, et il ne s'abandonne point, comme le fait Diderot, a une
evocation voluptueuse du bonheur des sens."
See also ibid.,
PP• lxxxiv-lxxxv.
114
�these matters,
certainly
28 and problems about sexual behaviour
not fundamental
to his work.
mankind which forms the central
place in the Supplement,
between the primitive
evolutionary
perspective,
to be found in different
fashioned
the contrast
to France only insofar
parts
for either
from some first-hand
one mode of life
observations.
has no
draws there
lacks
of the Tahitians
merits,
an
pro-
as the two cultures
of the world at the same time.
to compare their
of
moreover,
which Diderot
society
are
history
communities of men clearly
and the natural
is in a position
which he displays
The hypothetical
theme of the Discours,
and civilised
vides a moral alternative
traveller
since
in society
are
Thus the
and the preference
or the other
can be
29
28.
See the passage from O.C.III, pp. 157-158 cited ~n note 146 below. With
regard to sexual conduct, Rousseau maintains that there is a dichotomy between
the physical and moral aspects of love, that is, between the natural attraction which persons of the opposite sex feel for each other generally,
on the
one hand, and the artificial
sentiment which prompts them to select their
partners in accordance with socially prescribed
standards of beauty or merit,
on the other.
This argument certainly
occupies an appropriate
place in the
context of a theory about the fundamental difference
between men's natural and
moral attributes,
but there is no reason to suppose that Rousseau borrowed it
from Diderot.
As several scholars have noted (see, for instance,
Otis
Fellows, 'Buffon and Rousseau:
Aspects of a Relationship',
PMLA, LXXV(1960),
p. 193), it may actually have been derived by Rousseau from a passage in
Buffon's Histoire naturelle
(see OPB, pp. 340-341).
29.
Of course in the Discours Rousseau himself refers to the accounts of
primitive
society which had appeared in the writings of seventeenthand
eighteenth-century
travellers.
Thus, for instance,
he remarks (O.C.III,
pp. 140-141), "Tel est l'etat
animal en general, et c 1 est aussi, selon le
rapport des Voyageurs, celui de la plupart des Peuples Sauvages •••• les
Hottentots
du Cap de Bonne Esperance ... les Sauvages de l 1Amerique ••. toutes ces
Nations Barbares".
In his notes to the Discours (especially
viand x)
Rousseau actually comments at some length upon the works of such contemporary
travellers
as Francisco Coreal, Peter Kolb, and Charles-Marie de La Condamine,
with whose writings he was probably best acquainted through the accounts of
them provided by the abbe Prevost in his massive contribution
to the Histoire
enerale des vo a es, 20 vols.
(Paris 1746-89).
Hence Rousseau's transcription
see O.C.III, p. 200), for example, of the report made by Kolb on
the Hottentot communities of the Cape of Good Hope is clearly taken directly
from the Histoire generale, V (1748), pp. 155-157, while the remarks about
the opossum which he added to ~he Moultou-Du Peyrou edition of his text (see
O.C.III, p. 140) appear to be drawn substantially
from the Histoire generale,
XII (1754), pp. 637-638.
Starobinski's
observations
on these notes, and on
Rouss~au's references
to travellers'
tales in general (see O.C.III, pp. 1309,
1314-1315, 1360-1361, 1363, and 1368-1374), form an altogether
excellent study
115
�Diderot ... discute le probleme de l'homme dans
l 1etat de nature et l'etat
de civilisation
par
une serie d'antitheses
entre des donnees fixes
et presque stables .... Tahiti vient d'etre
decouvert;
l'ile
existe a quelques milliers
de lieues de Paris.
Cette absence d'une conception historique
et dialectique
explique le
fait que Diderot ne pose pas la question de
l'origine
du malaise dans la societe rnais qu'il
constate seulement le malaise.
Sa perspective
principale
dans le Supplement exclut l'histoire.
30
of this subject.
But I do not think Rousseau believed that these works provide a true account of man in the state of nature.
For the natural state
which he depicted was a hypothetical
construction
located in an imaginary
past (see the passage from the Discours, ibid., pp. 132-133 cited on p. 226
below), and his main reason for citing the accounts of voyagers was, in my
view, to remind his readers of the great variety of human traits
which could
be found in different
cultures throughout the world.
The mistake of most
philosophers
who had remarked upon the nature of mankind was to suppose that
individuals
were universally
the same, while according to Rousseau the
diversity
of social institutions
everywhere had effectively
led to the
development of distinct
kinds of men.
Insofar as the natural creatures whom
he described were entirely
dissimilar
to men in society,
Rousseau's hypothesis could therefore be made to seem plausible only in the light of the real
differences
which prevailed
between diverse cultures.
Those illustrations
provided by voyager::: of what vrere, in fact, actuc.l variations
in the
character of men, might thus lend some encouragement to speculation
about
what must, in the past, have been a still
greater disparity.
It is, in my
view, for something like this reason, at any rate, that Rousseau makes the
following statement in note x of the Discours (ibid. , pp. 212-213) : "La
Philosophic
ne voyage point, aussi celle de chaque Peuple est-elle
peu propre
pour un autre .... On n'ouvre pas un livre de voyages ou l'on ne trouve des
descriptions
de caracteres
et de moeurs; mais on est tout etonne d'y voir
que ces gens qui ont tant decrit de choses, n'ont dit que ce que chacun
savoit deja, n'ont SU apper~evoir a l'autre
bout du monde que ce qu'il n'eut
tenu qu'a eux de remarquer sans sortir de leur rue, et que ces traits
vrais
qui distinguent
les Nations, et qui frapent les yeux faits pour voir, ont
presque toujours echape aux leurs.
De-la est venu ce bel adage de morale,
si robattu par la tourbe Philosophesque,
que les hommes sont par tout les
memes, qu'ayant par tout les memes passions et les memes vices, il est asses
inutile de chercher a caracteriser
les differens
Peuples."
Much the same
point is made again in that section of the fifth book of Emile (O.C.IV,
p. 826) which Rousseau entitled
'Des voyages'.
See also Chinard,
L'Ameri ue et le reve exoti ue dans la litterature
fran aise au XVIIe et au
XVIIIe siecle (Paris 1913), pp. 341- 65, and Georges Fire, 'Jean-Jacques
Rousseau et les relations
de voyages', RHLF, LVI (1956), pp. 355-378.
Other
noteworthy accounts of the significance
which was attached to journeys to
exotic nations in eighteenth-century
thought can be found in Paul Hazard,
La crise de la conscience europeenne (1680-1715),
3 vols. (Paris 1935), I,
pp. 6-37, and Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire
au siecle des lumieres
(Paris 1971), pp. 25-226.
30.
Dieckmann, introduction
to the Supplement, pp. lxxxviii-lxxxix.
116
�The discrepancies
striking,
therefore,
were possible
his later
between the Supp1ement and the Discours
as the features
that
Diderot
work some years
which they share,
had already
before
conceived
Tahiti
It is true
but that
that
reference
Diderot
appears
appended to the text
whom he then admired.
the principal
of
were
1750s.
passage
and in which Rousseau points
ideas
those ideas
is mentioned once in Rousseau's
only in a short
as
and even if it
was discovered,
not to be adopted by his companion of the early
are just
essay,
of a note which is
to several
thinkers
Thus, he remarks,
Supposons un Montesquieu, un Buffon, un Diderot,
un Duclos, un d'Alembert, un Condillac,
ou des
hommes de cette trempe voyageant pour instruire
leurs compatriotes ... supposons que ces nouveaux
Hercules, de retour de ces courses memorables,
fissent
ensuite a loisir
l'Histoire
naturelle
Morale et Politique
de ce qu'ils auroient vu,
nous verrions nous memes sortir un monde nouveau
de dessous leur plume et nous apprendrions ainsi
a connoitre le notre. 31
The name of Diderot may have been included
figures
in return
for a similar
compliment which had been paid to him
in the Interpretation
de la nature,
certainly
importance.
of no great
32
but in any case the citation
And while in the
and the Manuscrit
de Geneve an intellectual
works is in fact
acknowledged by Rousseau,
31.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
by Rousseau among these
1
is
Economie politique'
debt to one of Diderot's
33
his passing
note x, O.C.III,
mention of a
pp. 213-214.
32.
See Assezat-Tourneux,
II, p. 52: "Vous, qui prenez le titre de
philosophes ou de beaux esprits,
et qui ne rougissez point de ressembler a
ces insectes importuns qui passent les instants
de leur existence ephemere
a troubler l'homme dans ses travaux et dans son repos, quel est votre
but? ... Malgre vous, les noms des Duclos, des D'Alembert et des Rousseau;
des de Voltaire,
des Maupertuis et des Montesquieu;
des de Buffon et des
Daubenton, seront en honneur parmi nous et chez nos neveux."
See also
Havens, 'Diderot,
Rousseau, and the Discours sur l'inegalite',
pp. 256-258.
33.
See eh. II, pp. 60-61 and 84-86.
117
�distinguished
colleague
to a specific
source of his ideas.
For all
in the Discours
these reasons
I believe
does not constitute
that
the influence
a reference
of Diderot
is
far more apparent in some of Rousseau's other writings than it is in the
34
Discours,
so that the claim that the central theme of this work can be
traced
to postulates
opinion,
which Diderot had conceived
have much historical
Diderot discussed
were certainly
Discours.
their
still
views at length
friends
Of course
i·t .
35
quite
when they were friends,
of their
unlike
that
and we know that
of the text
and accepted
of Rousseau's
detailed
it is a mistake
clearly
moreover - and
borrowed some
his
of 1754 he both sought
some of his corrections
argument in the Discours
references
and in view of the extensive
he makes there,
and they
when Rousseau was preparing
of any work which Diderot
of Rousseau's
friendship,
- each of the two writers
But the substance
the light
essay,
approval
in my
Of course Rousseau and
essay at the end of 1753 and the beginning
Diderot's
does not,
at the time Rousseau composed his second
in the period
indeed even beyond that
ideas from the other,
foundation.
first
is
had produced before,
to other
commentaries
to suppose that
authors
on other
to
and in
in his
writings
an unattributed
which
and
unclaimed debt to an unspecified
work by a man who did not share his
36
views then
mark~ the most profound of all the influences·underlying
composition.
for inspiration,
which he cites
In the Discours
sur l'inegalite
and I should like
himself
of his social
Rousseau turned
next to consider
theory
in that
his
elsewhere
the main sources
essay.
34.
Even Havens remarks ('Diderot,
Rousseau, and the Discours sur l'inegalite',
p. 243) that "we can be sure only of the interesting
resemblances of the two
authors, Diderot and Rousseau, at this point.
To speak confidently
of
influence in either direction
would be dangerous".
35.
See note 6 above.
36.
Though if we are to believe Rousseau (see the passage from the
Confessions, O.C.I, p. 389, cited on p. 109 above), the second Discours
more to Diderot's
liking than any of Rousseau's other works.
118
was
�The competitors
consider
for the Dijon prize
the subject,
hommes, & si elle
to Rousseau,
answere d
37
'Quelle
the second part
of this
question
Yet according
could not in fact
natural
law
societies
be
made between t he 1aws wh"ic h
was f"irst
from Nature and those moral rules
in the diverse
to
parmi les
par la loi naturelle'.
•
•
un 1ess a d"istinction
prevail
required
est la source de l'inegalite
est• autorisee
mankind had received
of 1754 were all
of men,
which happened to
All the definitions
of the
qu'on trouve dans les Livres, outre le defaut de
n'etre point uniformes, ont-elles
encore celui
d'etre tirees de plusieurs
Connoissances que les
hommes n'ont point naturellement,
et des avantages
dont ils ne peuvent concevoir l'idee qu'apres etre
sortis de l'Etat
de Nature .... tant que nous ne
connoitrons point l'homme naturel,
c'est en vain
que nous voudrons determiner la Loi qu'il a re~ue
38
ou celle qui convient le mieux a sa constitution.
The supposition
effects
that
of natural
reference
human inequalities
to any of the social
to be explained.
butes or relative
understand
its
was necessary
skills
for its
distinctions
of precisely
positions
of inequality,
sources.
between per-
such distinctions
which had
Hence in order to locate
which in society
attri-
communities while seeking
we should only succeed
traits
with
existed
of men in their
to examine the natural
and talents
that
If we were to look upon the different
the genesis
effects
to the
law was one which could not be substantiated
sons, for it was the origin
still
might be attributable
of men quite
these
apart
to
in confusing
sources
it
from the
they might have come or been required
37.
Since the full title
of Rousseau's text - that is, the Discours sur
l'origine
et les fondemens de l'inegalite
parmi les hornmes - incorporates
only the first part of the question,
it has even been suggested (see, for•
instance,
Burgelin, La philosophie
de l 1 existence de Rousseau, p. 509) that
Rousseau deleted the second part from consideration.
38.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
the Discours cited in eh. I, p. 19.
119
p. 125.
Cf. the passages
from
�to possess.
A study of the nature
to an account of inequality,
problem that
of mankind, then,
and it was with this
Rousseau began the preface
was indispensable
conception
of the
of his work.
La plus utile et la moins avancee de toutes les
connoissances humaines me paroit etre celle de
l'homme .... je regarde le sujet de ce Discours
comme une des questions les plus interessante$
que la Philosophie puisse proposer, et
malheureusement pour nous comme une des plus
epineuses que les Philosophes puissent resoudre:
Car comment connoitre la source de l'inegalite
paI'llli les hommes, si 1.1 on ne commence par les
connoitre eux memes? et coDDJlentl'homme
viendra-t-il
a bout de se voir tel que l'a forme
la Nature, a travers tousles
changemens que la
succession des terns et des choses a du produire
dans sa constitution
originelle?
39
The whole of the development of man from the natural
state
was thus conceived
contemporaries,
to recount
at least
the history
of his essay, 40
by Rousseau to be the subject
arrd if that might have seemed too bold an undertaking
he could refer
to the social
even to his own
to other writers
who had attempted
of the human race in what he supposed was a quite
. ·1 ar way. 41
s.imi
Among these
39.
Discours
writers
Buffon
sur l'inegalite,
42
is clearly
O.C.III,
the most prominent
of all,
p. 122.
40.
See, for instance,
ibid., p. 133: "0 Homme, de quelque Contree que tu
sois, quelles que soient tes opinions, ecoute;
voici ton histoire
telle
que j 'ai cru la lire,
non dans les Livres de tes semblables qui sont menteurs,
mais dans la Nature qui ne ment jamais."
41.
Apart from the works of Buffon and Condillac which are considered here,
the Essai de philosophie
morale of Maupertuis (first
puhlisbed in Berlin in
1749) and the Observations sur 1 1 histoire
naturelle
of Jacques Gautier
d'Agoty (which appeared in Paris between 1752 and 1755) a.re also cited by
Rousseau (see O.C.III,
pp. 201, 202, and 1364).
He refers at great length,
moreover, to several texts about primitive
society that were produced by
travellers
and missionaries
(see note 29 above), and he paints to a number of
classical
writers,
such as Herodotus and Isocrates
(see pp. 195 and 222) as
well.
This is not to mention, of course, the works of Hobbes, Locke,
Pufendorf, and the natural philosophers
whom he attacks.
42,
Rousseau first met Buffon at the home of MmeDupin in 1742, and their
last encounter was in 1770 at Buffon's home in Montbard, when, it would later
be said (see Marie-Jean Herault de Sechelles,
'Visite a Buffon'
!September 1785], in his Oeuvres litteraires,
ed, Emile Dard [Paris 1907),
120
�His contributions
to social
any other
ment~oned in the Discours,
thinker
cussed by Rousseau before
theory
receive
more attention
any of the rest. 43
and, indeed,
than those of
they are dis-
For in the only note which
he added to his opening remarks about the need for a proper
study of the
p. 13) that "Rousseau se mit a genoux et baisa le seuil de la porte" in
homage to the greatness
of his host.
They did not meet often in the intervening years, however (apart from on those rare occasions,
such as at the
time of d'Alembert's
election
to the Academie fran~aise
in 1754, when they
dined together),
but they did maintain some contact then, either through
direct correspondence
or in the form of messages transmitted
by mutual
friends.
Thus when in December 1764, for instance,
Rousseau learnt from
his bookseller,
Panckoucke, that Buffon had spoken well of him at length one
evening, he replied (Correspondance generale,
XII, p. 156), "Je suis sensible
aux bontes de M. de Buffon, ~ proportion
du respect et de l'estime
que j'ai
pour lui ••• il y a des ames dont la bienveillance
mutuelle n'a pas besoin d'une
correspondance
expresse pour se nourrir,
et j'ai ose me placer avec lui dans
cette classe-la".
To be sure, after Rousseau's death and the publication
of
his Confessions,
Buffon is reported to have said (see Herault de Sechelles,
p. 24) that while he had respected the man before, "lorsque j'~i vu ses
Confessions,
j'ai cesse de l'estimer.
Son ame m'a revolte ... apres sa mort,
j'ai commence a le mesestimer".
But at least until the early 178Os it is
clear that Buffon had considerable
admiration - and while Rousseau was alive
- much concern for the wayward philosophe.
On one occasion he encouraged
him to make at least some effort to come to terms with Volta:i.re (see
Rousseau's letter
to Du Peyrou of 31 January 1765 in the Correspondance
generale,
XII, p. 272), and around the time of Rousseau's flight
from
Motiers in October of that year he wrote (ibid.,
XIV, p. 196), "Vous avez
ete La victime de votre amour pour la verite et meme de votre amour
patriotique
... je vous aime monsieur je vous admire et je vous plains de tout
mon coeur".
Rousseau, on the other hand, never wavered at all in his
respect for Buffon.
"Si tousles
hommes etoient des ... Buffons", he remarked
in a letter
to Freron (Correspondance
complete, II, p. 243) in 1753, "je
desirerois
ardemment qu'ils
cultivassent
tousles
Sciences afin que le genre
humain ne fut qu'une Societe de Sages".
"He attempted to keep abreast of
each successive
tome of the Histoire naturelle
as soon as it appeared"
(Fellows, 'Buffon and Rousseau',
p. 188), and when Buffon offered him a gift
of all the volumes that had been printed thus far, Rousseau wrote to Du Peyrou
in 1765 (Correspondance generale,
XII, p. 325), "Je suis tres flate du Cadeau
qu'il veut bien me faire,
mais j'aime trop son ouvrage pour m'etre contente
de la marche plus tardive de l'in douze".
Soon after the publication
of the
Discours, the similarity
between the work of Rousseau and Buffon was already
noted by Formey (in his Bibliotheque
impartiale,
pour les mois de juillet
et
aout 1756 - see Starobinski,
'Rousseau et Buffon', appended to the second
edition of La transparence
et l 1 obstacle
[Paris 1971], p. 383):
"M. Rousseau
est assez dans son genre ce que M. de Buffon est dans le sien;
il manie les
hommes comme ce Philosophe manie la Nature et l'Univers;
il fait des
hypotheses sur la Societe comme l'Academicien
en fait sur les Globes de
l'Univers et l'origine
des Planetes."
43,
This is with the exception,
however, of an historical
illustration
drawn from Herodotus which appears in note i of the Discours (see O.C.III,
p, 195) and is connected with some remarks about the rule of law that figure
in the dedication
of Rousseau's work.
121
�nature
of mankind, he in fact
respect,
pas",
to a passage
refers
in Buffon's
directly,
Histoire
with great
approval
and
"Des mon premier
naturelle.
he proclaims,
je m'appuye avec confiance sur une de ces autorites
respectahles
pour les Philosophes,
parce qu'elles
viennent d'une raison solide et sublime qu'eux seu.ls
savent trouver et sentir.
"Quelque interet
que
nous ayons a nous connoitre nous-memes, je ne sais
si nous ne connoissons pas mieux tout ce qui n'est
pas nous,
Pourvus par la Nature, d'organes uniquement destines a notre conservation,
nous ne les
employons qu'a recevoir les impressions etrangeres,
nous ne cherchons qu'a nous repandre au dehors, et a
exister hers de nous .... Comment degager notre Arne...
de toutes les illusions
de notre Esprit?
Nous
avops perdu l'hahitude
de l'employer ... le coeur,
l'Esprit,
le sens, tout a travaille
centre elle 11 • 44
The profundity
of Buffon's
observations
on the nature
• actua 11y ac know1 e dge d sever al times
•
• t he
man is
in
is so, I think
because Rousseau conceived
with Buffon the belief
that
a study of our history
as well,
naturelle
44.
cited
first
OPB,
a proper
o·iscours,
the subject
form which Buffon had also adopted as his own.
and development of
For Rousseau shared
those parts
which deal with mankind as a species,
an d t h.is
of his essay in a
study of our nature
and like
45
46
must incorporate
of Buffon's
Histoire
the second Discours
was
Discours sur l'inegalite,
note ii, O.C.III, pp. 195-196.
The passage
by Rousseau appears in the last section of the second volume (in the
edition)
of Buffon's Histoire naturelle,
generale et particuliere
(see
p. 293).
45.
See especially
notes iv and vii (O.C.III,
pp. 198 and 201), which are
devoted entirely
to a discussion of certain passages in Buffon's work on the
connection between the human race, on the one hand, and different
species of
animal and vegetable life,
on the other.
Rousseau was particularly
impressed by the claim Buffoo had made that mankind consumed the vegetable
resources of Nature to a far greater extent than could be replenished
through
cultivation.
In Rousseau's judgment it followed from this that the growth
of agriculture
must eventually endanger the forests of the world, and with
them all those creatures
which depended upon the nourishment provided by
trees.
See also Morel, 'Recherches sur les sources du Discours de
l'inegalite•,
pp. 180-181, and Masters, The Political
Philosophy of Rousseau,
pp. 122-125.
In the first
4to edition of this I!!B.Ssive work the finaJ. sections
of vols. II (pp. 427-603) and III (pp. 305-530), both of which bear the subtitle
'Histoire
naturelle
de l'homme', as well as the initial
section of
46,
122
�designed
origins
by Rousseau to provide
nothing
features
the shared
inclinations
have served to unite
fundamental
now.
of the
natural
the course
insofar
of reason,
of human history,
and
from
together
ensured
which was a universal
as new societies
so that
by
human
arose,
the moral traits
which were
in
of individuals
change and alteration
diversified,
and were transformed,
n'y a eu originairement
race had since
For
have been developed
to continuous
while "il
espece d'hommes", our entire
dispositions
must themselves
been subjected
Hence, Buffon remarked,
held societies
however, the social
of our species
had of necessity
which would always
for each man to have a grasp of those
47
which joined him to his neighbours.
and duties
both Buffon and Rousseau,
characteristic
which still
of men was both prescribed
made it possible
rights
distinctive
times have been the same,
and common purposes
bonds and ties
law, and the faculty
attribute,
the
men in the past could not be distinguished
The sociability
specific
law philosophers
of mankind as a whole must at all
so that
just
than an account
of the human race.
According to the natural
those
less
qu'une
undergone a great
seule
variety
of changes
par l'influence
du climat, par la difference
de la
nourriture,
par celle de la maniere de vivre ... &
aussi par le melange varie a l'infini
des individus
vol. IV (pp. 1-110) entitled
'Discours sur la nature des animaux', are
devoted specifically
to the study of man, while a few other volumes which
appeared several years after the Discours sur l'inegalite
also treat the
same subject at some length.
Copies of the first four volumes (the last
printed in 1753, the others in 1749) were certainly
in Rousseau's hands at
the time he was engaged in writing his essay, though despite the remarks
which he made later to Du Peyrou (see note 42 above) his references
to the
text indicate
that
he consulted the 12mo edition
in \,hich the equivalent tomes were all produced in 1752-53.
The whole of the Histoire
naturelle
was originally
published in forty-four
volumes in Paris between
1749 and 1804.
Buffon had a number of collaborators
in this enterprise,
and the later tomes were not written by him at all, in fact, but by the
comte de Lacepede.
47.
See eh. I, pp. 16-18.
123
---
-
---
�plus ou moins ressemblans ... ces alterations
... sont
... devenues varietes
de l'espece ... elles se sont
perpetuees &... elles se perpetuent de generation
en generation,
comme les difformites
OU les maladies
des peres & meres passent a leurs enfans. 48
So too for Rousseau,
as the numbers of men proliferated
came to occupy a constantly
between the soil,
fronted
in their
climate,
various
number of distinct
and our species
expanding area of the globe,
and seasons which individuals
settlements
must have driven
the differences
would have con-
them to live
in a
ways.
Des annees steriles,
des hyvers longs et rudes,
des Etes brulans ... exigerent d'eux une nouvelle
industrie.
Le long de lamer,
et des Rivieres
ils ... devinrent pecheurs .... Dans les forets ils
... devinrent Chasseurs et Guerriers;
Dans les
Pays froids ils se couvrirent des peaux des
betes qu'ils avoient tuees. 4 9
Now if it was the case that,
its
separate
gressively
that
through the cwnulative
communities to new environments,
transformed,
the qualities
then it
followed,
which were originally
social
those traits
roles.
the human race had been pro-
man's natural
We distinguish
of
for Buffon and Rousseau together,
be the same as those which he had gradually
various
adaptation
acquired
so little,
endowc.ent could not
in accordance
with his
wrote Buffon, between
which Nature has bestowed upon us, on the one hand, and those
which we owe to education,
imitation,
it would not be surprising
if we were entirely
when confronted
art,
and example,
on the other,
unable to recognise
by the image of a savage in his original
state.
Un sauvage absolument sauvage ... [seroit]
un spectacle
curieux pour un philosophe,
il pourroit en observant
son sauvage, evaluer au juste la force des appetits
de la Nature ... il en distingueroit
tousles
mouvemens
naturels,
& peut-etre y reconnoitroit-il
plus de
douceur, de tranquillite
& de calme que dans la
sienne, peut-etre
verroit-il
clairement que la vertu
48.
OPB, p. 313.
49.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
124
p. 165.
that
ourselves
�appartient
a l'homme sauvage plus qu'a l'homme
civilise.
& que le vice
n' a pris naissance
que dans la societe.50
Equally
for Rousseau,
though he did not share
human race might be more virtuous
form, it was nonetheless
ensured
also
the metamorphosis
in its
true
that
Buffon 1 s view that
natural
than in its
the development
the
civilised
of society
had
of man.
Gardens nous ... de confondre l'homme Sauvage
avec les hommes, que nous avons sous les
yeux .... En devenant sociable et Esclave, il
devient foible,
craintif,
rampant, et sa
maniere de vivre molle et effeminee acheve
d'enerver
a la fois sa force et son
courage.51
Buffon supposed that
of all
the types of creatures
the world mankind alone had the capacity
habits
this
and dispositions
idea in particular
to grasp and just
his theory
this
and that
man was specially
gifted,
endowed with faculties
of human nature,
too,
of natural
which was to figure
While every other
with a pattern
It was
law had failed
centrally
species
in both
was compelled
which had been prescribed
the two thinkers
believed,
he could employ in several
Buffon observed,
its
and environments.
which the philosophers
of Rousseau.
to behave in conformity
to change and to adapt
to new circumstances
idea,
which inhabited
was in fact
its
for it,
in having been
ways.
The flexibility
most conspicuous
feature.
Des que l'Homme a commence a changer de ciel ... sa
nature a subi des alte~ations
.... il y a plus de
force, plus d'etendue,
plus de flexibilite
dans
la nature de l'homme que dans celle de tousles
autres etres.52
50.
'Histoire
naturelle
de l'homme', in the first
edition of the Histoire
naturelle,
III, pp. 492-493.
This passage, and all other references
to the
original
text here, do not appear in OPB.
51.
Discours
52.
OPB, p.
sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
394.
125
p. 139.
�In view of man's native
forms of life
it
also followed
in the sense that
make himself
ability
to adopt continuously
for Buffon that
from all
the rest.
each person could escape from "cette
des animaux" which, for beasts,
est trace
our species
every member of it was sufficiently
distinct
dans 1 1 espece entiere
11 •
53
was unique
resourceful
Hence, according
uniformite
ensured
changing
that
to Buffon,
dans tousles
"l'ordre
to
ouvrages
de leurs
Much the same opinion
actions
on this
point was adopted by Rousseau as well.
La Nature comrnande a tout animal, et la Bete obeit.
L'homme eprouve la meme impression, mais il se
reconnoit libre d'acquiescer,
ou de resister;
et
c'est surtout dans la conscience,
de cette liberte
que se montre la spiritualite
de son ame.54
For both thinkers,
possessed
species
a particular
then,
it was apparent
set of genetic
alone and that
the pattern
traits
that
all
other
which were collllllonto their
of behaviour
of every breed of life
apart
from our own was practically
identical
from one generation
next. 55
The attributes
of the human race, however, had in their
modified by a great
inhabitants
each other
of our separate
of local
practices
communities
and customs,
had become distinct
at any one time and also from the earliest
It was therefore
that
variety
precisely
an understanding
because
the qualities
of man's nature
creatures
to the
view been
so that
the
both from
examples of mankind.
of humanity had changed
must be based upon a study of his
past.
53.
Ibid. , p. 297.
54.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
pp. 141-142.
55.
Buffon, however (see especially
the passage from the Histoire
naturelle
cited in note 59 below), allowed a certain exception to this
rule insofar as he maintained that both the physical and behavioural
characteristics
of domesticated
creatures
had been subjected to some change
through human manipulation.
126
�Yet if it is true that
at least
nature,
a part
this
in the Discours
of his inspiration
fact
for an historical
must not be taken to imply that
agreed as to which characteristics
original
members of our race.
opposed with regard
modern man.
Indeed,
to two quite
of our spiritual
points
our ancestors
that
men must all
life,
have lived
Rousseau insisted
apart
of our race
century,
56
number of
theories
which had been
• h.is H.istoire•
an d in
remarkable
in the state
in their
formulated
And
of nature
and rudimentary
original
condition
and alone.
Buffon was acquainted
about
form must
species.
some primitive
that
in the
and which for him suggested
that
from one another
There can be no doubt but that
the substantial
extent
our physical
to other
secondly,
of
it was only our
to a significant
and moral evolution
must have adopted at least
forms of social
that
of change which was no less
opinion,
to the
about the progenitors
firstly,
mankind might once have been affiliated
whereas it was Buffon's
be ascribed
were
views were fundamentally
Rousseau retorted
also have undergone a history
that
crucial
which had been modified
course of our development,
than that
their
account of human
the two figures
could properly
For while Buffon maintained,
moral attributes
Rousseau drew from Buffon
the physical
with many of
transformation
by the mid-eighteenth
•
nature 11e h e lavis• h ed much praise
upon t he
56.
For an account of at least some of the evolutionary
theories with which
Buffon would have been familiar,
see especially
Jean Rostand, L'evolution
des
especes:
Histoire des idees transformistes
~Paris n.d. [1932]), pp. 18-48;
Emile Guy€not, Les sciences de la vie au XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles:
L'idee
d'evolution
(Paris 1941), pp. 209-401;
Roger, Les sciences de la vie,
pp. 325-526 and 585-748; and Bentley Glass et al., eds., Forerunners of Darwin
1745-1859, second edition (Baltimore 1968),chs":° ii-vi.
While most of the
historians
in this list envisage a connection between Enlightenment and later
accounts of the evolution of species, Roger, however, who is the most learned
but equally the most sceptical
of modern authorities
on this subject, maintains that none of the supposed precursors
of Lamarck or Darwin in the
eighteenth century actually believed that the development of new life-form5
was due to the progressive
transformation
of more primitive
forms.
This
subject is a difficult
and complex one which happily does not need to be
considered at any length here.
Readers with an interest
in the theories of
the genesis of species which were conceived in the century of Buffon and
Rousseau could do no better than to turn first to the survey of baron Georges
Cuvier in the third and fourth volumes of his Histoire des sciences naturelles
127
�most important
that
and most popular
~
the Venus
physique
is,
prepared
to accept
of
contribution
z,,aupertuis..
•
transmitte
57
the claim of Maupertuis
between types of men throughout
the cumulative
to the subject
effect
and others
d over many generations,
•
altogether.
especially
of acquired
possess
traits
at first,
He acknowledged that
certain
creatures
. particu
. l ar. 59
came1 in
regard
in terms of
t hese d.ff
i er-
between man and
kinds of animals -
- had acquired
which the members of their
and in this
the differences
characteristics
58 he never a 11owed tat
h
a number of domesticated
and material
that
the world might be explicable
of the inheritance
species
bodily
shapes
as a whole did not
he coTIDDiserated upon the fate
At the same time,
time,
But whereas Buffon was
ences could be so profound as to blur the distinction
beast
at this
of the
however, it was also his view
(first published in Paris in five volumes between 1841 and 1845).
For
Cuvier's work, appearing as it did in the period between Lamarck and Darwin,
is relieved of the burden which a knowledge of the outcome of this history
has brought to all its later interpreters,
and that fact, together with the
author's brilliant
mastery of French prose, has made his account of an
otherwise most weighty subject a delight to read.
See also note 134 below.
57.
See especially
OPB, p. 285.
The Venus physique was first published
in 1745; its immediate success is attested
by the fact that it appeared in
five further editions over the next six years.
With regard to both the
general popularity
of natural history in the mid-eighteenth
century and also
the acclaim with which Buffon's work in particular
was greeted,
see Mornet,
Les sciences de la nature en France, au XVIIIe siecle (Paris 1911),
pp. 173-191 and 213-236.
58.
Strictly
speaking, Maupertuis supposed that the appearance of novel
traits
among the members of any species couJ.d be attributed
to the effects
of natural phenomena, artificial
breeding, or even cbance, and that insofar as
these traits
were transmitted
to offspring
and their progeny they constituted
the distinguishing
features of new species.
But more often than not such
traits
- such as albinism among blacks, for instance - were just resurgent
characteristics
of the ancestral
species which, according to Maupertuis, had
somehow come to be suppressed.
For two quite distinct
views of Maupertuis's
contribution
to the history of evolutionary
theory, see Roger, Les sciences
de la vie, pp. 468-487, and Glass, 'Maupertuis,
Pioneer of Genetics and
Evolution',
in Forerunners of Darwin, pp. 51-83.
59.
See the Histoire naturelle,
XI (published in 1764), pp. 228-229:
"Si
l'on reflechit
sur les difformites
[du chameau] ... on ne pourra douter que
sa nature n'ait ete considerablement
alteree par la contrainte
de l'esclavage
& par la continuite
des travaux.
Le charneau est plus anciennement, plus
completement & plus laborieusement
esclave qu'aucun des autres animaux
domestiques ... dans les autres especes d'animaux domestiques ... on trouve
encore des individus dans leur etat de nature ... que l'homme ne s'est pas
soumis: au lieu que dans le chameau l'espece
entiere est esclave."
In
128
�that
there
others
were certain
because
which were nobler
they did not breed with animals
from which it
unique.
species
followed
that
their
Hence about such species
remarked that
they were constant,
.
61
degra dation.
the most perfect
of them all
any of the lower orders
inasmuch as from time to time,
se ranger
things
and creatures
it possible
the most perfect
the true
"l'etre
the human race was
it bore the least
point
resemblance
to
Buffon was inconsistent,
for instance
in the essay which serves
"peut-etre
of the natural
to descend,
naturelle,
pour l'homme ... qu'il
des animaux
11
world,
•
63
by almost
of Nature
in the subtle
every change of movement, form, and generation,
doit
If we survey all
he observed
as
he also
humiliante
in this
imperceptible
being to the most amorphous matter,
magnificence
of
le plus noble de la
for Buffon that
on this
lui-meme dans la classe
find
and beyond any suspicion
to the whole of his Histoire
remarked upon the fact
Buffon
of beasts.
Now it might appear that
the introduction
and
for example,
invariable,
and that
sort, 60
of a different
as the lion,
clear
form than
were more distinctive
Since man was by nature
~
• '' , 62 it was therefore
creation
shall
traits
in their
until
text,
degrees,
the
we
from
we recognise
nuances which it brings
and to "les
to
successions
Buffon's judgment, moreover, the very misfortunes
of the camel served equally
as blessings
for mankind.
For "on ne pourra s'empecher de le reconnoitre",
he continued (ibid.,
pp. 239-240), "pour la plus utile & la plus precieuse
de toutes les creaturessubordon..~ees
a l'homme: l'or & la soie ne sent pas
les vraies richesses
de l'Orient;
c'est le chameau qui est le tresor de
l'Asie,
il vaut mieux que l'elephant".
See also Roger, Les sciences de la
vie, p. 569.
60.
According to Buffon (see OPB, p. 378) the horse was not a very noble
species insofar as it could mate with the ass to produce the mule, while the
dog was less noble still
because it was so much related to the wolf, fox,
and jackal "qu'on peut regarder comme des branches degenerees de la meme
famille".
In general,
~,e, continued,
the inferior
species such as rabbits,
weasels, and rats have so many collateral
branches that we can no longer
-recognise the characteristic
stock and pedigree of these "familles
devenues
trop nombreuses".
61.
See ibid.
62.
Ibid.
63.
Ibid.,
p. 10.
129
�d e toute
'
espece
In fact,
Buffon consistently
traits
On the contrary,
the absolute
discontinuity
the most vital
sharply
feature
like
of colour,
race were variations
related
together.
all
species
could ever be taken to imply
developed
from some other
the evidence
pointed,
between man and beast.
which characterized
height,
hair,
of a quite
in his view, to
For one thing,
each species
since
was the more or
and facial
different
traits
sort
within
the human
from those which set
Men and women of every type could be joined
children,
union between man and beast.
hut it was impossible
Secondly,
such variations
between the members of our race were due, he claimed,
rather
animal
reproductive
capacity of its members to engender
65
themselves,
it was clear for Buffon that the dis-
apart. 66
to procreate
from a single
the variations
delimited
only creatures
tinctions
denied that
among individuals
the human race had actually
species.
less
64
however,
between physical
that
II
stock which had been suffered
than to the improvement or refinement
to form a fertile
as did exist
to the degeneration
by some human communities
of any animal traits.
67
64.
Ibid.
See also the passage from the fourteenth
volume of the Histoire
naturelle,
published in 1766, in which Buffon points (OPB, p. 401) to the
"changement des espe.ces memes... cette degeneration ... de tout temps
immemoriale, qui paroit s'etre
faite dans chaque famille,
ou ... dans chacun
des genres sous lesquels on peut comprendre les especes voisines & peu
differentes
entr'elles".
65.
Hence Buffon defines a species
"une succession constante d 1 individus
66.
See ibid., pp. 356 and 394.
(ibid.,
p. 356) as nothing other
semblables ... qui se reproduisent".
than
67.
See, for instance,
ibid., p. 394.
Buffon believed that nearly all
variations
within animal spec.ies (apart, perhaps, from some types of American
deer and skunk - see ibid.,
p. 412) were degenerate forms of the original
breed of those species,
and in his Histoire naturelle
he devoted the longest
section of vol. XIV to an account of this subject under the title
'De la
degeneration
des animaux'.
Equally, the physical differences
which had
arisen within mankind - while they were relatively
insignificant
by comparison
with the divergencies
between related animals - were to be understood,
in
Buffon's view, as various distortions
of the common source from which all men
were patterned.
His disagreement with Maupertuis's
account of albinism
within the black race (see note 58 above) is partly based upon this conviction
that corporeal changes to living organisms generally
produce inferior
specimens.
For whereas Maupertuis supposed that black albinos showed a reversion
130
�Insofar
view,
as the ancestral
68
the fact
be darkened
that
species.
the fundamental
in certain
might be a natural
race of man could only have been white,
cases
acquired
effects
characteristic
of climate,
alteration
69
71
race,
fait
nor one that
if it were supposed that,
suggest
development,
subir
in virtue
which existed
family
within
than the genetic
other
prototypes
of apes.
more primitive
peoples
through
70
as an
the
was neither
in the required
of their
our species
there
while it was "la plus· grande
a l'homme 11 ,
had occurred
for Buffon that
from any.primordial
and other
almost exclusively
monkey~ were in some sense a degenerate
inconceivable
to him that
the brown hue of most African
and this
ait
of men's skin had come to
between ourselves
which arose
que le ciel
found change
did not at all
continuity
For he regarded
colour
in his
anatomical
Thirdly,
sequence.
similarity
form of man,
could itself
those
a pro.:
72
Even
to our
it was
have descended
hybrid
variations
species
were for the most part less fertile
74
73
from which they issued,
and it was therefore
to the original
colour type of man, Buffon argued (Histoire
natur~lle,
III,
pp. 502-503) that "ces Negres blc:.ncs sont des Negres degenerez de leur race",
the members of which had themselves already undergone a natur~l deterioration
of skin colour.
Largely because of his views about the flexibility
of human
nature (seep.
125 above), however, Buffon believed that mankind, unlike all
other species,
had the power to make its history follow a progressive
course.
Thus, in one of the later volumes of his work, for instance,
he exclaimed
(OPB, p. 196), "Qui sait jusqu'a quel point l 1 homme pourroit
perfec:tionner
sa nature, soit au moral, soit au physique?".
68.
It was Buffon's contention
(see the Histoire naturelle,
III, p. 502,
for example) that "le blanc paroit ... etre la couleur prlmitive
de la Nature".
69.
See OPB, p. 395: "La couleur de la peau, des cheveux & des yeux, varie
par la seule influence du climat."
Buffon supposed (see the Histoire
naturelle,
III, p. 483) that the transformation
of white men into black could
be achieved after "plusieurs
siccles
& une succession d'un grand nornbre de
generations",
simply by transporting
persons from the north to the equator,
though he also added that this development might prove more likely to succeed
if a suitably tropical
diet and style of life were adopted as well.
70.
OPB, p. 395.
71.
See ibid.
72.
See ibid.,
pp. 354-355:
"Dans ce point de vue .... on pourra dire ... que
le singe est de la famille de l'homme, que c'est un homme degenere."
73.
352.
Buffon uses this
term frequently.
See, for instance,
ibid,,
pp. 31 and
74.
In the earlier
tomes of the Histoire naturelle
(see ibid.,
pp. 236 and
356, for exc1mple) Buffon argued that hybz,ids were altogether
infertile.
131
�difficult
to imagine how any hybrid creatures
could have engendered the human race.
no evidence
of intermediate
so now, for instance,
have been so,~
altogether
finally,
• h d i d not exist
•
wh ic
0
together
was no trace
obvious for Buffon that
there
was, fourthly,
even between those animal
to the horse and ass,
with regard
unable to join
if there
at all,
there
to produce hybrid offspring,
with regard
fortiori,
To be sure,
species
forms which had the capacity
between the apes and man
and if this
75
was
it must also
to men and monkeys, who were
to beget progeny of a hybrid kind.
in Nature of intermediate
species,
could never have been any new species
•
at t h e time
of t h e creation•
it was
either
• matter. 76
of a 11 1·iving
The history of each kind of animal and plant was as long as that of every
77
other,
and since it followed from this that man was as old as the
brutes,
he could not have descended from them.
Despite
Buffon's
claims,
which mark the succession
then,
78
about the imperoeptible
of species,
there
race to any of the lower forms of life.
nuances
were none which connected
He acknowledged that
our
such nuances
Later (see especially
the passages cited in Roger, Les sciences de la vie,
p. 572) he maintained instead that they were less fertile,
since they were
sufficiently
potent to conceive in "certaines
circonstances".
Thus while in
1749 he described a hybrid (OPB, p. 236) as a creature which "ne produiroit
rien", by 1766 he came to the opinion (see ibid.,
p. 403) that all hybrids
apart from mules were actually progenitive,
and ten years later (see the
Histoire naturelle,
supplementary volume III, p. 20) he remarked upon the
fecundity of mules as well.
75.
See OPB, pp. 353 and 357.
76.
See ibid., pp. 35 and 355.
Buffon was not in fact consistent
on this
point, however, since he eventually maintained (see ibid., p. 170) that certain
species, and especially
terrestrial
animals, "n'ont pu naitre & se multiplier
que dans des temps posterieurs
& plus voisins du notre".
77.
See ibid.,
p. 31 and the passage cited for note 84 below.
Here again
Buffon subsequently changed his mind in the light of evidence that some
organisms, such as the mastodon, had become extinct
(see ibid., pp. 116,
125-126, and 170).
78.
Some of the points in this paragraph are inspired by Lovejoy's excellent
account of 1 Buffon and the Problem of Species' in forerunners
of Darwin
(see especially
pp. 98-99).
132
�were not really
equal
other
were certainly
creatures
Indeed even those
members of other
in every case,
features
species
79
and those which set men apart
the widest
which established
were fundamentally
descent
:from a common ancestor
Creator.
We might conjecture,
between groups of species,
but rather
and most perceptible
family
of all. 80
resemblances
between
due not to some process
to the grace
Burfon remarked,
from
of
and wisdom of their
upon the apparent
relation
and we might suppose that
si ces familles existoient
en effet,
elles n'auroient
pu se former que par le melange, la variation
succes81
sive & la degeneration
des especes originaires.
If we were to adopt this
h
tat
point
of view, moreover,
we might perhaps
• of t h e same f arni·1 y as roan, 82 an d we mig
• ht ten
h
k
t h e money
is
conceive
the possibility
that
sterns :from some connnon source,
ultimately
to a single
every family,
and that
all
imagine
even
both animal and vegetable,
creatures
organism which, with the passage
owe their
origin
of time,
has pro-
"en se perfectionnant
& en degenerant, toutes les races des autl"es
83
animaux 11 •
In fact, however, we have all been spared such speculative
duced,
ordeals
by the sure knowledge brought
to us through
revelation.
For
il est certain,
par la revelation,
que tousles
anirnaux
ont egalernent participe
a la grace de la creation,
que
les deux premiers de chaque espece & de toutes les
especes sont sortis tout forines des mains du Createur,
& l'on doit croire qu'ils
etoient tels alors, a peu
pres, qu'ils nous sont aujourd'hui
representes
par leurs
descendans. 84
79.
See OPB, p. 355.
80.
According to Buffon (see ibid.,
whole genus as well as a species.
81.
Ibid.,
82.
See the passage
83.
Ibid.,
p. 401) the human race constitutes
a
p. 354.
:from OPB cited
in note 72 above.
p. 355.
84.
Ibid.
In view of Buffon's numerous other statements about the
and the fixity of species,
there is no good reason, in my opinion, to
that his remarks about revelation
here are either ironical
(as Samuel
maintained in his Evolution,
Old and New [London 1879]) or inspired by
133
Creation
suppose
Butler
his
�These lines
appeared
which was published
in the fourth
in 1753, and later
• h"is I nterpretation
'
•
mock t h em in
the subsequent
in the same year Diderot
d e l a nature. 85
naturelle
was to
But while in some of
tomes of his work Buffon came to modify a number of his
ideas
about the genesis
these
remarks about the evolution
cation
volume of the Histoire
of his greatest
of matter
work - that
and the
earth 86 he never repudiated
of species.
is,
Both at the time of the publi-
the Epoques de la nature - in the
fear of ecclesiastical
censure (as claimed by Alfred Giard in his Controverses
transformistes
[Paris 1904)).
·It is true that in 1750 Buffon was attacked in
the Jansenist
journal,
Nouvelles ecclesiastiques,
for having established
too
close a link in his theory between the human race and animal species and for
having forgotten
that God created man in His own image.
In the following
year, moreover, it even transpired
that a small number of his claims - none
of them pertaining
to evolution,
however - were declared "reprehensibles"
and
"contraires
a la croyance de l'Eglise" by the Paris faculte de Theologie.
·But Buffon was quick to satisfy
his critics
in the Faculty (see OPB,
pp. 106-109) and never incurred its public disapprobation
again, while so far
from believing that our race was just the most advanced among animal species,
he always attacked the 'nomenclateurs'
(particularly
Linnaeus) for allowing
just such ridiculous
classifications
to find a place in their systems.
According to Buffon it may have been the forces of Nature rather than the
powers of God which had exercised the active role ~n our history since the
Creation, but "plus j'ai penetre dans le sein de la Nature", he wrote (OPB,
p. 126), "plus j'ai admire & profondement respecte son Auteur".
Butler and
Giard have misunderstood Buffon's references
to the Deity because they hav.e
been too much concerned to establish
Buffon's title
among the precursors
of
Darwin.
85.
See the following passage in Assezat-Tourneux,
II, pp. 57-58:
"Si la
foi ne nous apprenait que les animaux sont sortis des mains du Createur tels
que nous les voyons;
et s'il etait permis d'avoir la moindre incertitude
sur
leur commencement et sur leur fin, le philosophe abandonne a ses conjectures
ne pourrait-il
pas soupgonner que l'animalite
avait de toute eternite
ses
elements particuliers,
epars et confondus dans la masse de la rnatiere;
qu'il
est arrive a ces elements de se reunir, parce qu 1·il etait possible que cela
se fit;
que l'embryon foI'!De de ces elements a passe par une infinite
d'organisations
et de developpe~ents ... qu'il s'est ecoule des millions d'annees
entre chacun de ces developpements;
qu'il a peut-etre
encore d'autres
developpements a subir et d'autres
accroissements
a prendre, qui nous sont
inconnus ... ?
La religion
nous epargne bien des ecarts. et bien des travaux.n
86.
Perhaps the most striking
change in Buffon's theory is marked by the
fact that between 1749 and 1778 he felt it necessary to increase his view of
the number of epochs which had occurred in the history of the world from one
to seven.
Cf. his 'Histoire
et theorie de la terre'
(OPB, pp. 45-64), on the
one band, and Epoques de la nature (ibid.,
pp. 117-196), on the other.
Of
course seven epochs could be made as much compatible with Scripture as the
more usual one (that is, from the time of the Creation) or two (the same, that
is, divided by the Deluge).
134
�year of Rousseau's
death,
and at the time Rousseau consulted
volumes of his study while preparing
Buffon held fast
to the claim that
the Discours
no species
the initial
sur l'inegalite,
could give rise
to any
other.
Quoiqu'on ne puisse ... pas demontrer que la
production d'une espece par la degeneration
soit une chose impossible a la Nature, le
nombre des probabilites
contraires
est si
enorme, que philoso~hiquement
meme on n'en
peut guere douter. 87
It was therefore
always clear
for Buffon that
les especes dans les animaux soient toutes
separees par un intervalle
que la Nature ne
peut franchir. 88
For Rousseau,
on the other
types of men throughout
marked similarity
apes,
justified
features
environments,
87.
Ibid.,p.
the world,
other
sorts
appropriate
it followed
that
there
types and certain
different
of creatures
to their
diversity
between
and, even more significantly,
between some of these
our forming a quite
acknowledged that
bodily
hand, the apparent
conclusion.
had developed
needs and functions
was no prima facie
the
species
of
Since it was
and transmitted
in disparate
reason
for supposing
357.
88.
Ibid., p. 359.
Buffon's general view of the fixity of species is also
made absolutely
clear in the following passage from ibid., p. 38: "L'empreinte
de chaque espece est un type dont les principaux traits
sont graves en
caracteres
ineffa~ables
& permanens a jamais. 11 While some modern authorities
on th.e subject (for instance Guyenot in his Sciences de la vie - see p. 401)
still
argue that Buffon was a major precursor of our contemporary theory of
evolution,
most (like Roger - see his Sciences de la vie, p. 577, and J. S.
Wilkie ~ see 'The Idea of Evolution in the Writings of Buffon', Annals of
Science, XII (1956), p. 255) contend that he was not, though a few (such as
Rostand - see L'evolution
des especes, p. 61) adopt something of an intermediate position.
In my view, most of the evidence put forward to prove that
he believed in the transformation
of species is now discredited.
It has been
shown that the ostensibly
evolutionary
remarks in some of his volumes on birds
were produced by other writers and do not really tell us much about his own
views, and a study of the full context of the passage from the Histoire
naturelle
cited in note 64 above, moreover, confirms that even in this account
of evolution Buffon only had intra-specific
changes in mind, and not changes
from one species to another.
135
�that
the physical
variations
between men were necessarily
in kind from those which set species
we recognised
corporeal
traits
our height,
utable
that
a great
to the discrepancies
styles
of the globe,
of life
and texture
which prevailed
recounted
us say,
by, let
Herodotus
these
of the greater
which must have prevailed
in the past,
in the ways and patterns
throughout
of existence
89
parts
variations,
too much trust
and Ctesias,
from them some conception
and look alike
forms of nourishment,
adopted by men, might have undergone a history
Even if we did not place
or
- might be attrib-
in widely separated
change as well?
If
for instance,
of our hair
between the climate,
apart.
between our
of our skin,
then why should we not allow that
the institutions
animals
number of the differences
- such as the colour
or the extent
and general
of related
distinct
like
of
in the tales
we might still
multiplicity
draw
of human types
when men were not yet settled
which now made them both
behave
the world.
On en peut du moins tirer
cette opinion tres
vraisemblable,
que si l'on avoit pu faire de
bonnes observations
dans ces terns anciens ou
les peuples divers suivoient
des manieres de
vivre plus differentes
entre elles qu'ils ne
font aujourd'hui,
on y auroit aussi remarque
dans la figure et l'habitude
du corps, des
varietes
beaucoup plus frapantes.90
In the Discours
difficult
to trace
Rousseau admits t-hat it would be extremely
the course
of the various
metamorphoses through
89.
A Greek physician and historian
of the early 4th century B.C. whose
principal
work, Persica,
provided an account of Babylon and the Persian
Empire up to the year 398 B.C.
90.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
note x, O.C.III, p. 208.
Most of
Rousseau's remarks on this page about the physical variations
between men
are inspired by the section in the third volume of Buffon's Histoire
naturelle
(pp. 371-530) entitled
'Varietes
dans l'espece
humaine' (see
also OPB, pp. 312-313).
136
�which our physical
tive
form would have passed,
anatomy was still
most vague conjectures
prepared
so rudimentary
about this
for the study of compara-
that
we could only make the
subject.
Thus while he was
to advance ryypotheses about the causes which must have
brought
about the moral transformation
speculate
upon the differences
of mankind he hesitated
between bodily
have marked our development from a natural
And since
our knowledge about these
remarked that
traits
which must also
to a civilised
condition.
changes was too uncertain
in his work he would suppose that
our race had much the same shape and physical
to
he
the progenitors
attributes
of
as we have
today.
Jene pourrois former sur ce sujet que des conjectures vagues, et presque imeginaires:
L'Anatomie
comparee a fait encore trop peu de progres, les
observations
des Naturalistes
sont encore trop
incertaines,
pour qu'on puisse etablir
sur de
pareils
fondemens la baze d'un raisonnement solide;
ainsi, sans avoir recours aux connoissances
surnaturelles
que nous avons sur ce point, et sans
avoir egard aux changemens qui ont du survenir dans
la conformation,
tant interieure
qu'exterieure
de
l'homme, a mesure qu'il appliquoit
ses membres a de
nouveaux usages, et qu'il se nourrissoit
de nouveaux alimens, je le supposerai conforme de tous
temps, comme je le vois aujourd'hui,
marchant a
deux pieds, se servant de ses mains comme nous
faisons des notres.91
Yet in this
similarities
passage
Rousseau is rather
between modern and primitive
only to the congruence
resultant
ambiguous about the corporeal
flexibility
man, and he actually
between the structure
With regard
allows that
we must always have been rather
posture
and free
of our limbs and the
of use to which men at all
put them.
to our feet
times might have
and our hands,
to grasp and manipulate
points
that
is,
Rousseau
as we are now - upright
the things
necessary
for our
survival.
91.
ibid.,
Discours sur l'inegalite,
pp. 196-198.
O.C.III,
137
p. 134.
See also
in
note iii,
�We must not overlook
his reluctance
which still
the fact,
to conjecture
refer
cussion
he states
Rousseau here displays
ont
development
du survenir
while earlier
successifs"
dans la
in the same
which have affected
Embryon de l'espece".
·shape and appearance
over the course
Indeed at other points
to hazard some guesses
might have come to be modified
of our history.
a la
changemens arrives
In the preface
constitution
of our development,
adding that
about new varieties
within
Some of the organic
as to how our
in certain
he reflects
des Corps" ·throughout
just
as physical
each animal species
l'oiiie
et l'odorat
and more subtle
for instance,
telescope. 94
92.
differences
are embodied in our senses
powerful
Ibid.,
the
in the Discours
causes
between primitive
rather
ways
upon "les
the stages
had brought
so too it
dans ces changemens successifs
de la constitution
humaine qu'il faut cbercher la premiere origine
differences
qui distinguent
les hommes.92
"la veue,
any dis-
of the human body and have drawn us away from the
Rousseau seems much more eager
sure,
in terms
he means to leave out of his account
of the "developpemens
"organisation"
"premier
de l'homme",
that
that
about our physical
to the "changemens qui
conformation ... exterieure
paragraph
too,
is
des
and modern man, to be
than our appearance,
so that
1193 of the savage must have been at once
than our own faculties,
and even now Hottentots,
can see as far with the naked eye as Europeans
There are many further
distinctions
of this
with a
kind,
moreover,
pp. 122 and 123.
93.
Ibid.,
p. 140.
Rousseau allowed that
animals.
Following Buffon, however (see ibid. and OPB, p. 325),
our sense of touch was more refined than that of
94.
See the Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 141.
In the Discours
Rousseau generally
adopts the view that Hottentots
are physically
more
supple and agile than Europeans, with faculties
and senses which are far more
acute than our own.
His main source for these observations
is Kolb's Caput
138
�which are conspicuous
enough in our external
while Rousseau regarded
world there
alone.
Thus
the claims made about pygmies as only a "fable"
or at best an "exageration",
and Greenlanders
features
the evidence of diminutive
in his own day suggested
are, by contrast,
to him that
Laplanders
somewhere in the
or might once have been, nations
of giants.
Il y a eu et il y a peut-etre
encore des Nations
d'hommes d'une taille
gigantesque.95
Domesticated
powerful,
creatures,
in his view, are ~ot only less vigorous,
and less robust
roam free in their
than the members of their
original
And since the earliest
habitats;
transfigured
breeding?
which still
96
as well.
of our own race must al.so have
97
purement animales 11 ,
then why should we
like
species
It was actually
we had come to be
of animals subjected
the belief
to artificial
of some philosophers,
Rousseau
"il y a plus de difference
de tel homme A tel homme que
98
homme a telle bete",
an observation which the reports of
remarked,
de tel
they are shorter
in the course of our civilisation
rather
species
representatives
been marked "par les fonctions
not accept that
less
that
Bonae Spei hodiernum of 1719 with which he was acquainted through the
commentary of Prevost in the fifth volume of the Histoire generale des
voyages, and in his additions to the text (see notes viand xvi, O.C.III,
pp. 200 and 221) he quotes two passages - indicating
his precise reference which he drew from that volume of the Histoire generale.
Weknow that
Rousseau took some care to marshal his evidence about Hottentots,
since
Neuchatel Ms R is (ancienne cote 7842 - see pp. 7r-8r) contains several long
and neatly transcribed
passages about them which he copied from Prevost's
work, including two paragraphs (from pp. 144 and 174 of the fifth volume)
that he did not incorporate
in the Discours sur l'inegalite.
95.
Ibid., note x, p. 208.
Rousseau's speculations
about pygmies and
giants here are, of course, belied by the facts that pygmies exist and giants
do not.
Some of our best speculative
histories
of the human race are, alas,
diminished in stature when confronted by facts such as these.
See ibid., p. 139.
97.
Ibid., p. 143.
Note x, which deals principally
and which is discussed below, is introduced just after
text.
96.
98.
Ibid.,
p. 141.
139
with the orang-utan
these words in the
�travellers
tended to confirm,
insofar
having many of the attributes
in their
natural
that
as they described
were characteristic
its
but the distinction
for this
animals
reason
and beasts
between primitive
even greater
of burden.
us we have only fashioned
state,
a steeper
made our senses
in modern society
degenerate
fattened,
who are equally
and civilised
than the difference
In fact
for as we have bred livestock
thereby
creatures
selon le rapport
des Peuples
the taming of our race has produced victims
agents,
partly
of all
state.
L'etat animal en general ... est aussi,
des Voyageurs, [l'etat]
de la plupart
Sauvages.99
Certainly
savages as
between wild
by making other
path of decline
to satisfy
creatures
kind but only pets,
any longer
serve
from our natural
our needs we have also
more dull and our constitutions
we are hardly
man is
more frail,
even animals
broken in by ourselves
and
of a certain
- weak, docile,
and fleeced.
En devenant sociable et Esclave, [l'homme) devient foible,
craintif,
rampant, et sa maniere de vivre molle et
effeminee acheve d'enerver a la fois sa force et son
courage.
Ajoutons qu'entre les conditions
Sauvage et
Domestique la difference
d'homme a homme doit etre plus
grande encore que celle de bete a bete;
car l'animal,
et
l'homme ayant ete traites
egalement par la Nature, toutes
les commodites que l'hollDDe se donne de plus qu'aux animaux
qu'il apprivoise,
sont autant de causes particulieres
qui
le font degenerer plus sensiblement.100
Rousseau's
account
form of domestication
points
argument in the Discours
'l'homme civil'
99.
100.
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
of the civilisation
of humanity as a self-imposed
to one of the most original
sur l'inegalite.
were in his view distinguished
pp. 140-141.
p. 139.
140
elements
For 'l'homme sauvage'
not only by their
of his
and
social
�characteristics
case that
but also by their
the difference
divergence
traits,
for him that
mankind apart
the physical
from all
other
had so much to learn
throughout
for us to make judgments
subject
about the several
the world,
and faculties
might in fact
on this
than the
of the same species,
properties
creatures
and sharp than most commentators
scattered
and if it was the
between them is even greater
between wild and tamed animals
followed
still
bodily
which set
be less
precise
had supposed.
types
Rousseau insisted,
about the inherent
then it
We
of men which were
that
qualities
it was absurd
of every member
of our speci~s.
Nous ne connoissons point les Peuples des Indes
Orientales,
frequentees
uniquement par des
Europeens plus curieux de remplir leurs bourses
que leurs tetes.
L'Afrique entiere et ses nombreux habitans,
aussi singuliers
par leur
caractere
que par leur couleur, sont encore a
examiner;
toute la terre est couverte de Nations
dont nous ne connoissons que les noms, et nous
nous melons de juger le genre-humain!lOl
Until we had more reliable
of beasts
which were reported
only be uncertain
divided
evidence
about the anatomy and mode of life
by travellers
to resemble
in our judgments about the natural
man, we could
qualities
which
the human fr>0m the animal realms.
Je dis que quand de pareils
Observateurs affirmeront
d'un tel Animal que c'est un homme, et d'un autre que
c'est une bete, il faudra les en croire;
mais ce
seroit une grande simplicite
de s'en rapporter
la
dessus a des voyageurs grossiers,
sur lesquels on
seroit quelquefois
tente de faire la meme question
qu'ils
se melent de resoudre sur d'autres
animaux.102
According
constitution
to Rousseau at least
similar
some of the creatures
to our own were quite
101.
Ibid.,
note x, p. 213.
102.
Ibid.,
p. 214.
141
possibly
varieties
which had a
of the
�human race itself.
occasion
It was the opinion
to observe the great
be classified
firstly,
apes that
as savage men, and that
because the conformity
close
enough, and, secondly,
race,
they were speechless.
be explained
physical
these
for two principal
between their
because unlike
reasons:
features
and ours was not
the members of the human
of the development
with an unalterable
who had had
animals could not really
Yet for Rousseau these
as a consequence
had not endowed us all
of most travellers
distinctions
might
of mankind, for Nature
and universally
identical
form, nor had we always been - as we are now - instructed
the use of language.
persons
The bodily
in the civilised
traits
world could not be cited
appearance
and behaviour
that
were grounds for surmising
there
resembled
of men at all
us in form were actually
a primitive
and linguistic
times,
that
in
achievements
as evidence
of
of the
and Ro~sseau believed
a number of the animals which
members of our race still
living
in
and savage state.
Toutes ces observations
sur les varietes
que mille
causes peuvent produire et ont produit en effet
dans l'Espece humaine, me font douter si divers
animaux semblables aux hommes, pris par les voyageurs pour des Betes sans beaucoup d'examen, ou a
cause de quelques differences
qu'ils remarquoient
dans la conformation exterieure,
ou seulement
parce que ces Animaux ne parloient
pas, ne seroient
point en effet de veritables
hommes Sauvages, dont
la race dispersee
anciennement dans les bois n'avoit
eu occasion de developper aucune de ses facultes
v~rtuelles,
n'avoit acquis aucun degre de perfection, et se trouvoit encore dans l'etat
primitif
de
Nature.103
In his speculations
focused his attention
as an orang-utan.
century
103.
African
Ibid.,
about this
part5cularly
subject
in the Discours
upon the creature
Drawing at length
p. 208.
142
which he described
upon the sixteenth-
voyages of Andrew Battel,
Olfert
Rousseau
and seventeenth-
Dapper, and Girolamo
�Merolla as recounted
in the Histoire
forward the hypothesis
described
by these
that
orang-utans
les Babouins'",
111
,
true
that
striking
"'son
des voyages,
104
105
and which had been taken to be of the
might really
"'tiennent
be men.
cornrne le milieu
entre
l'espece
ressernbloit
exacte
avec l'hornme'"·
a celui
humaine et
by the extent
were agreed about the animal's
"'ressemblance
aux
Others had imagined only
but Rousseau was too much impressed
visage
he put
Congolese animal which had been
grands Animaux qu'on nomme Orangs-Outang
which his authorities
and its
the large
travellers,
same family as '"ces
Indes Orientales
that
generale
"'visage
to
humain'"
For if it was
d'un hornme'" - if the beast
104.
Each of these figures is cited in a long passage from the Histoire
generale des voyages, V, pp. 87-89, that Rousseau quotes almost in full
in note x of the Discours (see O.C.III,
pp. 209-210).
On some unknown
date between 1748 and 1754 he had already copied that passage in a notebook of readings that contains a selection
of extracts
from Prevost's
text, and like most citations
of this kind which he incorporated
in his
published works it is crossed out in the manuscript (see Neuchatel
Ms R 18, pp. 6r-6v, and note 94 above).
Prevost's
authorities
in the
same passage include not only Battel,
Dapper, and Merolla, but also
Filippo Pigafetta,
who had provided an account of the late-sixteenthcentury voyage to the Congo of Duarte Lopes which is not mentioned in the
Discours sur l'inegalite.
But Rousseau refers again to Battel,
Dapper,
and Merolla in a later passage of note x (see O.C.III,
p. 211), adding
there the name of Samuel Purchas, who had rendered an account of the
travels of Battel in his Purchas his Pilgrimage,
first
published in 1613.
See also Pire, 'Rousseau et les relations
de voyages',
pp. 357-358, 368,
and 372.
105.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
note x, O.C.III,
p. 209.
'Orang-utan'
is originally
a Malay term meaning 'man of the woods', and it is now
applied exclusively
to one species of anthropoid ape (Pongo pygmaeus)
found in Borneo and Sumatra only.
In European letters,
however, the word
was first
employed (by Nicolaas Tulp in his Observationum medicarum of 1641)
in connection with the African chimpanzee, and until approximately
the end
of the eighteenth
century these two species,
and many other great apes both real and fictitious
- as well, were regularly
assimilated
under the
generic name •orang-utan'.
Thus Edward Tyson, for instance,
described the
anatomy of a chimpanzee in his Orang-Outang of 1699; Buffon admitted, in
a supplement to his Histoire naturelle,
that the creature which he had
earlier
depicted as an orang-utan was not of that species at all;
and
when Thomas Savage and Jeffries
Wymandiscovered the gorilla
in the midnineteenth
century they called the animal 1 a New Species of Orang'.
I
have discussed some of these confusions about the term in an article
on
'Tyson and Buffon on the orang-utan'
which will appear shortly in SVEC.
143
�was in so many respects
feel
so certain
apparent
that
stupidity
proof that
"'si
it was not in fact
observations
conclusions
that
this
why should we
all?
Its
could not be taken as
from our own, since
in their
would not have been any wiser,
the commentators
of the orang-utan
had been too cursory
and too hasty
animal was unrelated
nor
And Rousseau maintained
how to speak.
so far as he could tell,
in their
surely
species
our ancestors
would they as yet have learnt
that,
human after
and lack of language
it was of a different
most savage state
a l'homme 111106-
semblablc
in forming their
to man.
On ne voit point dans ces passages les raisons sur
lcsquelles
les Auteurs se fondent pour refuser aux
Animaux en question le nom d'hommes Sauvages, mais
il est aise de conjecturer
que c'est a cause de
leur stupidite,
et aussi parce qu'ils ne parloient
pas; raisons foibles pour ceux qui savent que
quoique l'organe de la parole soit naturel a
l'bol!ll!le, la parole elle meme ne lui est pourtant
pas naturelle,
et qui connoissent jusqu'a quel point
sa perfectibilite
peut avoir eleve l'homme Civil
au-dessus de son etat originel.
Le petit uombre de
lignes que contiennent ces descriptions
nous peut
faire juger combien ces Animaux ont ete mal observes
et avec quels prejuges ils ont ete vus.lO?
It was thus sheer prejudice
to claim,
for instance,
were deformed or monstrous
creatures,
since
their
and their
offspring
matings were fertile
selves. 108
species
Bu:ffon could decree
on the grounds that
from the sexual
Rousseau this
there
that
unlike
that
all
true monsters
as prolific
could be no hybrid
which had still
106.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
107.
Ibid. , p. 210.
108.
See ibid.
109.
See pp. 129-132 above.
as them-
ours was the most noble of all
progeny resulting
union of a man or woman with any beast,
was a matter
orang-utans
to be ascertained.
note x, O.C.111,
144
109
but for
We could
pp. 209 and 210.
�only establish
orang-utans
by experiment
whether matings
between ourselves
and
might prove fruitful.
Il y auroit ... un moyen par lequel, si !'Orang-Outang
ou d'autres
etoient de l'espece
humaine, les observateurs les plus grossiers
pourroient
s'en assurer
meme avec demonstration;
mais outre qu'une seule
generation
ne suffiroit
pas pour cette experience,
elle doit passer pour impraticable,
parcequ'il
faudroit
que ce qui n'est qu'une supposition
fut
demontre vrai, avant que l'epreuve
qui devroit constater
le fait,
put etre tentee innocemment.110
Because we are not naturally
the domestication
within
of both man and beast
the affected
condition
as proof
species,
or its
inexact
Nature had formed a great
the human race.
The fact
that
from animals
that
appeared
before
believed
was at least
the orang-utan
trayed
scala
there
is actually
the ape as inferior
naturae
envisaged
that
an ostensible
to ourselves,
it was properly
of beasts
as divine,
situated
and
and assumed new figures,
genetically
which we
and Rousseau
case for supposing
After
occupying
the level
to us
creature
did not set us apart
a kind of man.
which was beneath
between the spheres
resemblance
bet~een
we came to be civilised,
the same creature
confirm that
gulf
changes
the mute
to have only the characteristics
must have possessed
that
either
physical
we had adopted
both in our speech and in our bodies,
and because
had produced physical
we could not regard
of the orang-utan
that
endowed with language,
all,
and further
only within
though we por-
a place
of humanity,
that
in the
the Ancients
research
might
our species,
that
is,
and gods.
110.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
note x, O.C.III,
p. 211.
In his long
quotation from the Histoire generale des voyages, however (see ibid.,
p. 209 and note 104 above), Rousseau incorporates
Dapper's rejection
of
the claim that orang-utans
are the products of matings between women and
monkeys, an idea which Dapper decried as a "'chimere que les Negres
memes rejettent'".
145
�Nos voyageurs font sans fagon des betes sous les
noms de Pcnr,os, de MandriJ 1s, d 'Orang-Outang, de
ces memes etr·es dont sous les noms de Satyres, de
Faunes, de Silvains,
les /mciens faisoient
des
Divinites.
Peut-etre
apres des recherches plus
exactes trouvera-t-on
que ce ne sont ni des betes
ni des dieux, mais des bommes. 111
The monkey, however,
for reasons
which are unclear
animal lacked
shared
could not be accorded
the attribute
the same status
- Rousseau was convinced
of perfectibility
that
-
this
which the orang-utan
with o.ther men.
Il est bien demontre que le Singe
variete de l'homme; non-seulement
est prive de la faculte de parler,
parcequ'on est sur que son espece
celle de se perfectionner
qui est
specifique
de l'espece
humaine.112
But he remained
adamant that
type of man until
the naturalist
reply
since
we have reliable
Charles
to the Discours
October
the orang-utan
Bonnet attacked
the orang-utan
should be counted
to the contrary,
his views on this
which was printed
1755, Rousseau repeated
prove that
evidence
n'est pas une
parcequ'il
mais surtout
n'a point
le caractere
his point
as a
and when
subject
in the Mercure de France
and challenged
could not be regarded
his critic
in a
in
to
as one of the varieties
of the human race.
111.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
note x, O.C.III,
p. 211.
The words
"que ce ne sont ni des betes ni des dieux, mais des hommes" at the end
of this passage are an addition to the text which first
appeared in 1782
in M0ultou-Du Peyrou.
The original
version reads simply "que ce sont
des hommes".
Tyson had already suggested in his Orang-Outang (preface,
p. iii) that the "great Agreement" between this animal and man could
account for the ancient mythology that there really were "several sorts
of Men" in the world, and in a number of essays which he appended to his
text he developed the thesis (see especially
A Philological
Essay concerning the Pygmies, p. 2) that there actually had been such animals as the
Ancients called pygmies, cynocephali,
satyrs,
and sphinges, and that
these creatures
were in fact only apes, monkeys, and orang-utans.
112.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
note x, O.C.III,
p. 211.
For an
account of the concept of perfectibility
in the Discours, see pp. 204-209
below.
146
�Que le singe soit une Bete, je le crois,
et j'en ai
dit lu raison;
que l'Orang-Outang
c~ soit une uussi,
voila ce que vous avez la bonte de m'apprendre,
et
j'avoue qu'apres les faits que j'ai cites,
la preuve
de celui la me sembloit difficile.
Vous philosophez
trop bien pour prononcer la dessus aussi legerement
que nos voyageurs qui s'exposent
quelquefois
sans
beaucoup de fa~ons a mettre leurs semblables au rang
des betes.
Vous obligerez
done surement le public,
et vous instruirez
meme les naturalistes
en nous
apprenant les moyens que vous avez employez pour
decider cette question.113
Of course
Buffon also
species
were transfigured
effects
of artificial
explained
through
breeding,
the diversity
115
that
But just
114
for this
of the orang-utan
naturelle,
types
reason
within
the human race
from our original
it was inconceivable
from the apes,
in the fourteenth
he put forward this
and the cumulative
and as we have seen already
of some peoples
mankind might have descended
account
tha~ the members of animal
domestication
of physical
terms of the degeneration
stock.
recognised
he
in
white
in his view
and in 1766, in his
volume of the Histoire
claim in what he supposed to be the
113.
'Lettre
a Philopolis',
ibid.,
pp. 234-235.
Bonnet had signed
his article
'Philopolis,
Citoyen d~ Geneve', and it seems (see the
Correspondance complete, III, p. 155) that Rousseau discovered the
identity
of its author only after he had completed his rejoinder.
The
remark to which this passage is addressed appears in O.C.III,
p. 1384:
"L'homme sauvage de M. Rousseau, cet homme qu'il cherit avec tant de
complaisance,
n'est point du tout l'homme que DIEU a voulu faire:
mais
Dieu a fait des orang-outangs
et des singes qui ne sont pas hommes."
See also Bonnet's Contemnlation de la Nature (first
published in 1764)
in the revised edition incorporated
in his Oeuvres d'Histoire
naturelle
et de Philosophie,
8 vols. (Neuchatel 1779-1783), IV,ii,
pp. 475-479.
Rousseau's 'Lettre
a Philopolis' was not printed in his lifetime;
it
first
appeared in Moultou-Du Peyrou.
114.
See pp. 129-130 above.
It should be borne in mind here that the
two main passages,
in notes 59 and 67 above, which I have cited as evidence of this feature of Buffon's theory, were first
published in 1764
and 1766 respectively.
It would be incorrect
to suppose that Rousseau
used the Histoire
naturelle
as a source for his thesis about the physical
effects
of domestication
upon animals, since Buffon advanced the idea
himself only a decade or so after the publication
of the Discours.
115.
Seep.
131 and note
68 above.
147
�strongest
possible
insufficiently
traits,
similar
but rather
traits
fashion
to man in their
that
brain,
like
to think
For Buffon contended
that
or to speak.
over this
between man and the ape,
structure
Could there
animal,
in each case?
vertebrae,
Buffon proclaimed,
kidneys,
their
possessed
on the other,
that
evidence
the similarity
of
of anatomical
did not produce the same
nearly
all
were much the same as those
we were entirely
which were
were unable either
Apart from some minor differences
and bladder,
a
proof of the discontinuity
between our species
was no doubt but that
appropriate
orang-utans
creatures
any surer
were
the same organs and
be any more reliable
than the fact
and organization
orang-utans
organs and bodily
to make them serve
those of men, and yet these
our superiority
there
physical
on the one hand, and organs of speech,
exactly
ribs,
not that
even when they possessed
they lacked the capacity
human functions.
effects
by demonstrating,
between our
our bodily
of orang-utans,
distinct
features,
and yet
and unrelated.
Toutes les autres parties
du corps, de la tete &
des membres, tant exterieures
qu'interieures,
sont
si parfaitement
semblables a celles de l'homme,
qu'on ne peut les comparer sans admiration,
& sans
etre etonne que d'une conformation si pareille
&
d'une organisation
qui est absolument la meme, il
n'en resulte pas les memes effets.
Par exemple,
la langue & tousles
organes de la voix sont les
memes que dans l'homme, & cependant !'orang-outang
ne parle pas;
le cerveau est absolument de la
meme forme & de la meme proportion,
& il ne pense
pas:
y a-t-il
une preuve plus evidente que la
matiere seule, quoique parfaitement
organisee,
ne
peut produire ni la pensee ni la parole qui en est
le signe, a moins qu'elle
ne soit animee par un
principe superieur?ll6
Buffon drew this
116.
Histoirc
argument directly
naturelle,
from Edward Tyson's
XIV, p. 61.
148
Orang-Outang
�of 1699, and Tyson, in turn,
had borrowed it
from Claude Perrault's
Suite des Memoires pour servir a l'histoire
naturelle
des animaux of
117
1676.
In essence it constituted
a particular
application
in the
Enlightenment
shared
of the general
certain
nonetheless
traits,
material
set apart
Cartesian
properties
claim that
with all
from them by virtue
and in Buffon's
case it
humanity was distinguished
Nature ne peut franchir".
other
man - while he
creatures
- was
of his unique spiritual
formed the nub of his conviction
from the beasts
"par un intervalle
that
que la
118
S'fl y avoit un degre par lequel on put descendre
de la nature humaine a celle des animaux, si
l'essence
de cette nature consistoit
en entier
dans la forme du corps & dependoit de son o~ganisation,
ce singe 119 se trouveroit
plus pres de
l'homme que d'aucun animal ... mais ... l'intervalle
qui l'en separe reellement ... est ... immense; & la
ressemblance de la forme, la conformite de
l'organisation,
les mouvemens d'imitation
qui
paroissent
resulter
de ces similitudes,
nine le
rapprochent de la nature de l'homme, ni meme ne
l'elevent
au-dessus de celle des animaux.120
Rousseau,
utan was really
however,
a member of our species,
between us and this
superior,
had no difficulty
creature
nor was language,
in supposing
since
did not imply that
that
the physical
the orangdifferences
we were naturally
in his view, a sign of any higher
which distinguished
the human race from every other
He nowhere inferred
from the skin colour
faculty
type of animal.
of Europeans
that
all
men must
117.
See 0ran§-0utang,
p. 55, and the Suite des Memoires (Paris 1676),
p. 126.
The Memoires were first published in 1671, and the Suite des
Memoires was later bound and paginated consecutively
with the text.
118.
Seep.
135 above.
119.
120.
That is,
Histoire
the orang-utan.
naturelle,
XIV, pp. 70-71.
149
�originally
have to confront
that
the thesis
apes might represent
beyond that
of the Negro.
Rousseau joined
day learn
a stage
122
had quite
explicitly
traits
in the physical
in believing
123
regard
he did not even
Buffon had rejected
With regard
to make use of their
virtuelles".
and in this
- that
La Mettrie
"facultes
physical
121
have been white,
that
degeneration
to language,
orang-utans
might some
their
In his L'Homme machine of 1747 La Mettrie
maintained
that
the similarity
between the
of humans and apes was so striking
that
to master a language
like
men about town.
of us, perfect
of man
moreover,
vocal organs and to develop
reason why apes could not be taught
the rest
- to the effect
little
there
was no
and become,
de la structure
& des operations du
Singe est telle,
que je ne doute presque point, si
on exer9oit
parfaitement
cet Animal, qu'on ne vint
enfin a bout de lui apprendr>e a prononcer, & par
consequent a savoir une langue.
Alers ce ne
seroit plus ni un HommeSauvage, ni un Hommemanque:
ce seroit un Hommeparfait,
un petit Hommede Ville.12
La similitude
4
121.
In fact, if anything, the black man was more like the natural
savage for Rousseau than was the white man.
Thus, he remarked in an
addition to the Moultou-Du Peyrou text of the Discours (0.C.III,
p. 137,
note), "Les Negres et les Sauvages se mettent si peu en peine des betes
feroces qu'ils
peuvent rencontrer
dans les bois.
Les Caraibes de
Venezuela vivent entr'autres,
a cet egard, dans ·1a plus profonde securite
et sans le moindre inconvenient".
The only work, to my knowledge, which
deals at any length with the subject of Rousseau's reflections
about
black men is Mercer Cook's 'Jean-Jacques
Rousseau and the Negro', in the
Journal of Negro History,
XXI (1936), pp. 294-303.
Cook (seep.
302)
makes the interesting
point, too seldom remembered, that Thomas Day's
poem The dying Negro of 1773 was dedicated to Rousseau.
122.
Seep.
131 above.
123.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
note x, 0.C.III,
p. 208 (seep.
142 above).
124.
L'Hommemachine, edited by Aram Vartanian (Princeton
1960), p. 162.
For La Mettri.e apes, like the deaf, could be taught to speak simply by
imitating the bodily movements that were necessary to pronounce words.
"Pourquoi. .. 1 'education
des Singes seroi t-elle
impossible?",
he asked
(ibid.,
p. 161).
"Pourquoi ne pourroit-il
enfin, a force de soins,
imiter, a l'exemple des sourds, les mouvemens necessaires
pour prononcer?
Je n'ose decider si les organes de la parole du Singe ne peuvent, quoi
150
�According
to Rousseau,
attributable,
quite
indeed,
the mute condition
not even so much to their
deliberate
des singes",
and perfectly
he later
and since
his account
statements
tions
since
Rousseau.probably
of this
who disagreed
capacities
came to be available
to be undertaken,
scientists
126
recognised
theorists
orang-utan,
was drawn from the
amongst themselves,
his reflec-
with a little
the 1770s that
scepticism
a sufficient
number of
in Europe for detailed
and reliable
and it was not until
came to agree that
of ape which was different
of Rousseau's
behaviour
must be treated
live
death that
was "la ruse
never saw a true
creature's
It was not until
studies
For it
ne veulent pas parler,
de peur qu'on ne les
and reserve.
specimens
choice.
as to their
remarked,
of observers
about its
lack of training,
rational
qui, disent les negres,
quoiqu'ils
le puissent,
fasse travailler.125
Of course
of apes might be
after
Rousseau's
it was definitely
from the chimpanzee.
But the importance
comments about the humanity of the orang-utan
in his own day.
of the origin
His views were challenged
of language,
for instance
a species
was well-
by other
by Herder who, in
his Abhandlung i.i.ber den Ursorung der Sprache of 1772, maintained
that
qu'on fasse, rien articuler;
mais cette impossibilite
absoliie me surprendroit,
a cause de la grande Analogie du Singe & de l'Homme, & qu'il
n'est point d'Animal connu jusqu'a present,
dont le dedans & le dehors
lui ressemblent.d'une
maniere si frappante."
It must be allowed here
that La Mettrie does not refer specifically
to the orang-utan but rather
to monkeys in general;
Rousseau was more discriminating
in his
ascription
of a human status to some of the great apes.
125.
Rousseau to Hume, 29 March 1766, Corresoondance generale,
XV,
p. 128.
The suggestion that apes remain silent for good reasons of
their own - especially
to avoid work ~nd enslavement - appeared at least
as early as 1623 in Richard Jobson's The Golden Trade.
126.
See especially
Arnout Vosmaer, 'Description
de l'Orang-Outang'
{Amsterdam 1778);
Buffon, 'Addition a l'article
des Orangs-outangs',
Histoire naturelle,
supplement VII (1789), pp. 1-29; and Petrus Camper,
'De l'orang-outang,
et de quelques autres especes de singes',
in Camper's
Oeuvres (Paris 1803), I, pp. 5-196.
151
�while orang-utans
imitate
might ape our behaviour
they could never really
it.
Der Affe affet immer nach, aber nachgeahmt hat er
nie .... welcher Ourang-Outang ... hat je mit allen
Menschlichen Sprachwerkzeugen ein Einziges Menschliches Wort gesprochen?l 27
There were also
Friedrich
anthropological
critics,
Blumenbach who, in his De generis
1775, dismissed Rousseau's ideas
and anatomy. 128
Yet Rousseau's
defenders,
too,
moreover,
humani varietate
as ill-informed
perspective
and the most impassioned
and Progress
In the initial
praise
in the previous
upon Rousseau,
year,
insisting
that
in both natural
endorsement
of the first
work published
nativa
of orang-utans
Lord Monboddo in the second edition
of Language in 1774.
such as Johann
of
history
had its
of all
came from
volume of his Origin
edition
Monboddo had already
of this
lavished
he was very happy to find
that
his
his
notions,
both with respect to the original
state of human
nature, and the origin of language, agree so
perfectly
with the notions of an author of so
much genius, and original
thought, as well as
learning.129
But in 1773 he had cited
•
ties
Buffon and Rousseau together
about t he orang-utan,
130
an d. it was on l y a f ter
among his authorisome o f his f.rien d s
127.
Herders sammtliche Werke, 33 vols. (Berlin 1877-1913), V, pp. 44-45.
These remarks figure in a paragraph which begins with the following words:
"Die ganze Rousseausche Hypothese von Ungleichhei t der Menschen ist,
bekannter Weise, auf solche Falle der Abartung gebauet. 11
128.
p. 36.
See Blumenbach,
De generis
humani varietate
nativa
(Gottingen
1775),
129.
Of the Origin and Progress of Language, first edition,
I (Edinburgh
1773), I.xi, p. 141, note.
This mammoth work appeared in six volumes
between 1773 and 1792.
130.
See ibid.,
I.xiv,
pp. 174-176.
152
�drew his attention
opinion
to the fact
from Rousseau's
question
in earnest.
two additional
subject
clearly
Buffon held quite
and his own that
He prepared
chapters
of ninety
of the orang-utan,
distinction
that
a different
Monboddo approached
a new version
pages devoted
the
of his text,
exclusively
in which he commented at length
adding
to the
upon the
between the views of Buffon and Rousseau and showed
that
it was to Rousseau's
thesis
that
he subscribed
himself.
The Orang Outang is an animal of the human form,
inside as well as outside .... he has the sentiments and affections
peculiar to our species,
suc~_as the sense of modesty, of honour, and of
justice;
and likewise an attachment of love and
friendship
to one individual .... It is from these
facts that we are to judge, whether or not the
Orang Outang belongs to our species.
Mr Buffon
has decided that he does not.
Mr Rousseau
inclines
to a different
opinion .... I hold the
Orang Outang to be of our species. 131
Monboddo connected
to a number of other
his own account
claims
of the humanity of orang-utans
about men with tails,
on these
subjects
were regarded
response
to his work throughout
as so extravagant
his lifetime
and his reflections
that
was that
the most common
132
of ridicule.
131.
Of the Origin and Progress of Language, second edition,
I C&iinburgh
1774),
II.iv,
pp. 289-290 and 311.
The essential
point for Monboddo,
as for Rousseau, was that men in the natural state could not have had the
use of speech, so that Buffon's refusal to regard orang-utans
as human on
the grounds (ibid.,
p. 294) that they "have not invented a language" was
misconceived.
If Buffon were correct,
wrote Monboddo (ibid.,
p. 297),
"I believe it will be very difficult
... to draw the line betwixt the Orang
Outang and the dumb persons among us".
And like both La Mettrie and
Rousseau before him he saw no reason to doubt that (ibid.,
p. 299) "Orang
Outangs ... have at least the capacity of learning to speak by imitation".
It should be noted here, however, that Rousseau did not share Monboddo's
views about the natural affections
common to both man and the orang-utan.
The persons who directed Monboddo to a reappraisal
of Buffon 1 s ideas were
Lord Lyttelton
and Sir John Pringle.
See also Lovejoy, 'Monboddo and
Rousseau', Modern Philology,
XXX(1932-33), pp. 281-289.
132.
"Other people have
observed Dr. Johnson, for
Hill and L. F. Powell, V,
some months after the first
but Monboddo is as jealous
strange notions;
but they conceal them",
instance (Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. G. B.
The Tour to the Hebrides [Oxford 1950], p. 111),
printing:
"If they have tails,
they hide them;
of his tail as a squirrel. "
153
�Rousseau's
critics,
falsely
views, to be sure,
were also treated
and in the 1760s he suffered
ascribed
to him signed
very important
his thesis
points,
however,
the indignity
'ROUSSEAU,jusqu'a
a present,
& Citoyen de Geneve, mais
civilise,
comments in note x of the Discours
-
by his
of having a letter
ce jour homme
133
ORANG-OUTANG'
should be remembered with regard
about the humanity of orang-utans.
haps the boldest
with derision
For, firstly,
form one of the earliest
set of conjectures
about the physical
Two
to
his
- and per-
transformation
of the human race in an age when most arguments about the chain of
being still
.
species.
134
rested
fundamentally
And, secondly,
upon a belief
in the fixity
of
.
though Rousseau could not have known this
133.
See the Correspondance complete, XII, appendice 286, pp. 301-306.
See also ibid.,
pp. 150-151 and 225-227, and ibid., XVII, pp. 107-108 and
130.
134.
Like most disputes about the meaning of Rousseau's thought, the
controversy as to whether or not he believed in the biological
evolution
of species has been long and sharp and is today still
unresolved.
Widely
varied accounts of his views on the continuity
of species appear in most
of the works cited in notes 56 and 57 above taken together,
as well as in
more recent commentaries, such as Starobinski's
'Rousseau et Buffon' and
Victor Goldschmidt's
Anthropologie et politique.
Les principes
du
systeme de Rousseau (Paris 1974).
According to Goldschmidt (p. 243),
whose massive composition of eight hundred pages is devoted almost entirely
to the Discours sur l'inegalite,
"Rousseau, aussi bien que Buffon ... comptent assur~ment parmi les 'fixistes'"·
In Starobinski's
judgment, on the
other hand, the same text shows (O.C.III,
p. 1369) that "Rousseau semble
vouloir admettre un transformisme limite,
intervenant
au sein d'une espece
donnee", or, alternatively
('Rousseau et Buffon', p. 385), that for
Rousseau "l'homme devient ... un exemple particulierement
eloquent du transformisme restreint".
No doubt the passages which I have considered here
- both about the physical effects of domestication
upon humanity, and
about the connection between our species and the orang-utan - can be
interpreted
in several ways.
I hope, however, that I have at least made
clear how Rousseau conceived it was possible for some members of our race
to have acquired physical attributes
with which they had not been naturally
endowed, and why, furthermore,
he believed that we possessed no attributes
of any kind - either physical or spiritual
- which warranted our excluding
the orang-utan from consideration
as one of the varieties
of man.
He was
convinced that there was much empirical research which had still
to be
undertaken on this subject,
and he believed,
in short, that the commonly
accepted divisions
between mankind and this ape were founded upon prejudice
alone.
For discussions
of the generally more 'fixiste'
contributions
to
eighteenth-century
evolutionary
theory, see especially
- in addition to the
references
cited in notes 56 and 57 above - Lovejoy, 'Some EighteenthCentury Evolutionists',
Popular Science Monthly, LXV (1904), pp. 238-251
154
�himself,
state
his portrait
of nature
century
of the orang-utan
is drawn with the greatest
descriptions
of its
have we come to learn
ties
and no fixed
•
primates,
abode,
is the least
status
Discours
could perhaps
that
'hor.mie sauvage'
been perceived,
and least
more closely
A fierce
of Rousseau's
sketch
have been avoided
of speculative
empirical-primatology
few decades
settled
of primitive
man in the
anthropology,
this
And if
an orang-utan.
transformation
ascribed
place,
of our species,
to the original
in the course
were even more perceptible
that
had
not only
but in the history
on the one hand, our habits
must have been modified
and the fact
dispute
if it had been recognised
they in accord as to whether our moral and social
ing to Rousseau,
•
native
of
as well.
of the physical
could be properly
of the
and protracted
If Buffon and Rousseau did not agree about the extent
direction
family
than does any
Rousseau would now occupy a prominent
in the history
eighteenth-
it• rese mblest h e so 1·itary
world.
was truly
of all
with no permanent
social
in the Discours
in the natural
about the factual
his
the orang-utan,
135 an d in
• t hese respects
creature
accuracy
Only in the past
behaviour.
that
which Rousseau depicts
other
as a kind of savage in the
this
neither
For accord-
race of man.
and qualities
of our development
that
were
characteristics
of mind
in ways which
than the changes to our external
was so implied
and
every individual
features,
in the
and 323-340;
Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Mass. 1936),
chs. vi-x;
and Georges Gusdorf, Les sciences humaines et la pensee
occidentale,
V (Dieu, la nature,
l'homme au si~cle des lumi~res [Paris 1972)),
11, chs. ii-iv.
For a broader treatment of the debates about the orangutan in the Enlightenment,
see Franck Tinland, L'Homme sauvage (Paris 1968),
eh. iii.
135.
This point is well-established
from long and thorough first-hand
observations
in John MacKinnon's 'The Behaviour and Ecology of Wild Orangutans',
Animal Behaviour, XXII (1974), pp. 3-74.
See also Barbara
Harri.son, Orang-utan ( London 1962).
155
�state
of nature
moral traits
must have lived
of man in society
apart
from all
must not be attributed
Since the
were formed by the alliances
bound each person to the company of others,
argued,
the rest.
to savages
whict1
then those qualities,
in their
original
he
state.
Concluons qu'errant
dans les forets sans industrie,
sans parole, sans domicile, sans guerre, et sans
liaisons,
sans nul besoin de ses semblables, comme
sans nul desir de leur nuire, peut-etre meme sans
jamais en reconnoitre
aucun individuellement,
l'homme Sauvage sujet a peu de passions, et se
suffisant
a lui meme,"n 1 avoit que136les sentimens et
les lumieres propres a cet etat.
Rousseau contended
ties
that
there
in the world which men inhabited
would then have had no settled
fixed
dwellings
sexual
after
we must always have lived
about the state
form of life
partly
at all
ideas
casual matings.
in families
which pertain
of nature,
and protect
one another
only to society
-
to remain with
Thinkers
of some sort
for they falsely
because they
- no huts or similar
they would have had no inclination
partners
of transposing
at first,
in which they might shelter
but mostly because
their
could not even have been any family
who imagined that
committed the fallacy
in their
reflections
assumed that
la famille rassemblee dans une meme habitation,
et
ses membres gardant entre ewe une union aussi intime
et aussi permanente que parmi nous, ou tant
d'interets
communs les reunissent;
au lieu que dans
cet etat primitif,
n'ayant ni Maison, ni Cabanes, ni
propriete
d'aucune espece, chacun se logeoit au
hazard ... les males, et les femelles s'unissoient
fortuitement
selon la rencontre,
l'occasion,
et le
desir, sans que la parole fut un interprete
fort
necessaire
des choses qu'ils avoient a se dire:
Ils
se quittoient
avec la meme facilite.137
136.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, pp. 159-160.
See also the passage on p. 138 in which Rousseau speaks of "la maniere de vivre simple,
uniforme, et solitaire
qui nous etoit prescrite
par la Nature".
137.
Ibid., pp. 146-147.
This passage figures in connection with
Rousseau's critique
of the linguistic
theory of Condillac (see pp. 163-164
below).
156
�Thus, in Rousseau's
the rule
before
view, speechless
nuptial
men and women brought
their
individual
them initially
mates,
species
so too there
to become attached
of their
of pregnancy
animals
offspring,
and though copulation
to ensure
the survival
do not make spouses
to any particular
of
was only to satisfy
lead to the institution
would have been no reason
women formed .couples at all,
ception
of enough children
as other
that
passions,
it did not in itself
For just
If the instincts
together
and undiscriminating
of the human race,
alone must have been
vows became our rite.
must have Jed to the birth
families.
fornication
of
of their
for the male of our
female.
And if men and
they did so only at the time of the conand certainly
not throughout
the period
and beyond.
On ne voit pas que le Chien, le Chat, l'Ours, ni le
Loup reconnoissent
leur femelle mieux que le Cheval,
le Belier,
le Taureau, le Cerf ni tousles
autres
animaux Quadrupedes ne reconnoissent
la_leur .... Si
telle femme est indifferente
a l'homme pendant [les
neuf mois de la grossesse) ... pourquoi la secourra-til apres l'accouchement?
pourquoi lui aidera-t-il
a
elever un Enfant qu'il ne sait pas seulement lui
appartenir,
et dont il n'a resolu ni prevu la
naissance? ... L'appetit
satisfait,
l'homme n'a plus
besoin de telle femme, ni la femme de tel homme.138
138.
Ibid.,
note xii, pp. 216 and 217.
Note xii of the Discours is
devoted entirely
to a refutation
of the following claims in Locke's Second
Treatise,
c. vii, §§ 79 and 80, pp. 337-338:
"The end of conjunction
between Male and Female, being not barely Procreation,
but the continuation
of the Species, this conjunction ... ought to last, even after Procreation,
so long as is necessary to the nourishment and support of the young Ones-....
one cannot but admire the Wisdom of the great Creatour, ,:ho having given to
Man foresight
and an Ability to lay up for the future ... hath made it
necessary,
that Society of Man and Wife should be more lasting,
than of Male
and Female amongst other Cr·eatures."
See also eh. I, note 87.
Rousseau
never cites Locke's works in their English editions
(see note 175 below),
and the text of these two chapters of the Second Treatise - which he quotes in
full (see O.C.III,
pp. 214-215) - is taken from the French translation
by
David Mazel, first
published in Amsterdam in 1691 and reprinted
several
times in the course of the eighteenth
century.
It should be noted here
that Rousseau's conception of the family in the Discours is somewhat ambiguous, since he also remarks there (p. 182) that "par la Loi de Nature, le
157
�Buffon,
at least
state
on the other
some social
of nature
perfectly
bonds,
hand, held that
insofar
as all
men must always have had
the forces
combined to make them fraternal,
sociable
creatures.
The family
must in his judgment have constituted
unit
within
the
affectionate,
itself,
a kind of natural
and
to be sure,
society.
Tout a concouru a rendre l'hornme sociable;
car
quoique les grandes societes,
les societes
policees,
dependent certainement
de l'usage
&
quelquefois
de l'abus_qu'il
a fait de sa raison,
elles ant sans doute ete precedees par de
petites
societes,
qui ne dependoient,
pour ainsi
dire, que de la Nat~~e.
Une famille est une
1
societe naturelle.
The progressive
produced
growth of social
substantial
was not possible
tions
to abstract
which had served
impulse
original
changes
to fom
close
condition,
bonds of intimacy
institutions,
he believed,
in the moral traits
entirely
to bring
relationships
of men, 140 but it
from human nature
individuals
must have
together.
was denied to persons
those
inclina-
If even the
in their
then how could they ever have come to form the
upon which all
societies
fundamentally
depend?
Pere n'est le maitre de l'Enfant
qu'aussi
longtems que son secours lui est
necessaire,
qu'audela
de ce terme ils deviennent egaux, et qu'alors
le
fils parfaitement
independant du Pere, ne lui doit que du respect,
et non
de l'obeissance".
It is true that this passage appears in a quite different context in the argument, but while it does not necessarily
contradict
the points raised in the objection
to Locke it can be reconciled
with them, in my view, only by an uncomfortably
long stretch
of the
imagination.
In the Contrat social (I.ii,
ibid.,
p. 352), moreover,
Rousseau states that "la plus ancienne de toutes les societes
et la seule
naturelle
est celle de la famille",
and this proposition
looks perilously
close to the thesis which, in the Discours, Rousseau sets out to overturn.
Some of these problems are considered by Masters in The Political
Philosophy of Rousseau (see pp. 125-132).
139.
OPB, p. 346.
See ibid.,
p. 374: "Nous voyons qu'on descend par degres assez
insensibles
des nations les plus eclairees,
les plus polies,
a des peuples
moins industrieu.x,
de ceux-ci a d'autres
plus grossiers ... de ces hommes
grossiers
aux sauvages, qui ne se ressemblent
pas tous, mais chez lesquels
on trouve autant de nuances differentes
que parmi les peuples polices."
140.
158
�Indeed Buffon was quite
to form social
must already
convinced that
and !ar.u.lygroups
but also their
have marked the earliest
In the seventh
it was not only the tendency
and those of Rousseau.
to this
which
stage of our evolution.
volume of his Histoire
1758, Buffon turned directly
very existence
naturelle,
distinction
"Nous ne supposerons
published
in
between his own ideas
pas avec un Philosophe",
he wrote,
l'un des plus fiers censeurs de notre humanite * ,
qu'il y a une plus grande distance de l'homme en
pure nature au Sauvage, que du sauvage a nous ....
l'etat
de pure nature est un etat connu; c'est le
Sauvage vivant dans le desert, mais vivan~ en
famille, connoissant ses enfans, connu d'eux,
usant de la parole & se faisant entendre.1 41
Hence despite
his belief
profound social
affairs
evolution,
Buffon supposed that
in the past could never have resembled
other creatures
more than it approximated
communities today.
between the natural
crepancies
original
the conduct of human
the behaviour
the life
Rousseau, however, conceived
the
differences
man to be just
as great
between mankind and all
animal species,
so that
we could not have possessed
which we later
surmised that
was, in some sense,
acquired
defective
in his nature
*•
as the disin our
any of the attributes
in society.
a man who lacked these
of any
of men in civilised
and the social
state
dispositions
part,
that the members of our race had undergone a
Buffon,
attributes
- that
and
for his
and dispositions
is,
like
an animal.
H. Rousseau.
141.
0PB, pp. 373 and 374.
Rousseau was certainly
aware of Buffon's
reference to him in the Histoire naturelle,
though he appears to have
been under a misapprehension as to its precise location in the text (see
the Correspondance complete, >CV,pp. 301-303).
159
�"On est
hors de soi",
he remarked,
des que l'on n'est occupe que des sensations
actuelles .... Cet etat oil nous rie nous trouvons
que par instans,
est l'etat
habituel des animaux;
prives d'idees
& pourvGs de sensations,
ils ne
savent p1int qu'ils
existent,
mais ils le
42
sentent.
Yet Rousseau,
Sauvage vit
in turn,
believed
en lui-meme",be
that
quite
the opposite
was true.
"Le
wrote.
L'homme sociable toujours hors de lui ne sait vivre
que dans l'opinion
des autres,
et c'est,
pour ainsi
dire, de leur seul jugement qu'il tire le sentiment
de sa propre existence. 143
Thus while Rousseau drew upon Buffon's
mankind as a species,
he did not share
the members of our species
this
regard,
at least,
were necessarily
Buffon had adopted
claim which formed the cornerstone
And just
as Rousseau challenged
other
creatures,
so, too,
essence,
were superior
then,
the principal
barriers
trait
to the ties
Rousseau's
that
sociable
description
of
that
by nature.
In
what was for Rousseau a
of the natural
that
law philosophy.
men must always have
which now set them apart
he rejected
have been marked by a spiritual
bonds that
the thesis
characteristics
account
with him the conviction
mistaken
had the same physical
historical
from all
the claim that
they must always
which inclined
them to form social
which held animals
of the original
Buffon had constructed
together.
In
savage overturned
between man and beast,
and
142.
OPB, p. 333.
143.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
p. 193.
These words also
appear in the intermediate
draft of the passage from the Discours recently
transcribed
by Launay (see notes 237 and 238 below).
The contrast
between Buffon's account of the mindless animal as ''hors de soi" and
Rousseau's conception of the sociable man as "hers de lui" is discussed by
Starobinski
in his 'Rousseau et Buffon', pp. 388~389.
160
�on pourra done dire que Rousseau, pour peindre
l'homme de la nature, animalise ... l'homme
qu'avait
decrit Buffon. 14 4
Perhaps
the main reason
which Buffon put forward
to animals
that
our superiority
ability
to enunciate
ideas which animals
to conceive.
The faculty
from all
creatures
other
was the fact
to account
for
we were endowed with an
did not even have the capacity
of speech,
for Buffon,
in the natural
world.
distinguished
mankind
L'homme rend par un signe exterieur
ce qui se passe
au dedans de lui, il communique sa pensee par la
parqle, ce signe est commun a toute l'espece
humaine;
l'hornme sauvage parle cornme 1 1 hornme police,
& tous
deux parlent naturellernent,
& parlent pour se faire
entendre:
aucun des anirnaux n'a ce signe de la
pensee .... C'est ... parce qu'une langue sµppose une
suite de pensees, que les animaux n'en ont aucune ...
ils sont incapables de fomer cette association
d'idees,
qui seule peut produire la reflexion,
dans
laquelle
cependant consiste l'essence
de la pensee.1 4 5
The -brutes might be joined
together
but only men had the facility
through language
expressed
that
• h made 1·t d"is t· inct
wh1c
144.
Starobinski,
145.
OPB, p. 296.
to achieve
shared
common impulses,
a common purpose,
the aims which men pursued
and understood.
Buffon the faculty
by their
by choice
Human conduct possessed
and it was
were both
a moral character
146
fr om anima
' 1 b e haviour,
•
an d accor d'ing to
of speech was a prerequisite
'Rousseau
et Buffon',
of moral life.
This
p. 387.
146.
It was only with regard to "les passions de l'homme", Buffon reflected in the fourth volume of his Histoire naturelle
( OPB, p. 340), that we
could differentiate
"le physique & le moral".
It should not be supposed,
however, that Buffon regarded the moral aspect of behaviour as necessarily
superior in all respects
to mere physical impulse.
On the contrary these
very remarks introduce some paragraphs about the distinction
between the
physical and moral aspects of love which advance a thesis about the healthy
161
�was clearly
the case insofar
sense that
as we perform
have the ability
to act in~
morally
been perceived
responsible
by other
Aristotle,
between language
writers
actually
the art
of public
collectively
was the sole
politicians
thing
fact
like
concerned
this
adopted,
• •
d 1st1ngue
instrument
Buffon,
had also pointed
an d on h"is account
l I h omme entre
of social
between man-
•
po 1·1t1cs
was
goals
Slaves might be compelled,
to fulfil
their
of authority
that
with the attainment
in part,
it
to the hunan
about the best
obligations,
which men
but citizens
and language
could be employed by
of the good life.
view was held by many other
at least
and, to be sure,
themes in the history
discourse
pursue.
could only be counselled,
and raorals had certainly
to the moral distinction
147
• d an d a 11 ot h er species,
•
k in
should
before
for example,
of speech as central
in order
way.
one of the more recurrent
thought.
and we must
to use words and to make promises
Now the connection
faculty
in the same
we abide by our word or keep to our promises,
therefore
provides
our duties
thinkers,
by Rousseau himself.
too,
Someand was in
"La parole
•
" , 148 he remar k e d in
• h.is Es sai • sur
les animaux
state of the former and the corruption
of the latter
that is remarkably
similar to the view adopted by Rousseau in the Discours sur l'inegalite
(see note 28 above) and which I believe had a substantial
influence
upon
the development of his own ideas on this subject.
See especially
the
following passage (O.C.III,
pp. 157-158):
"Commenc;ons par distinguer
le
moral du Physique dans le sentiment de l'amour.
Le Physique est ce desir
general qui porte un sexe
s'unir
l'autre;
Le moral est ce qui
determine cede.sir
et le fixe sur un seul· objet exclusivement .... Or il est
facile de voir que le moral de l'amour est un sentiment factice;
ne de
l'usage de la societe .... Ce sentiment etant fonde sur certaines
notions du
merite ou de la beaute qu'un Sauvage n 1 est point en etat d 1 avoir, et sur
des comparaisons qu'il n'est point en etat de faire,
doit etre presque nul
pour lui .... il ecoute uniquement le temperament qu'il a re~u de la Nature,
et non le gout qu'il n'a pu acquerir,
et toute femme est bonne pour lui."
It should be noted here that for Rousseau the morals and manners of people
could have an effect upon their physical development, a point which he
made about the general consequences of our self-imposed
domestication
and
which he sometimes invoked (see, for instance,
Emile, Livre IV, O.C.IV,
p. 495, note) in criticism
of Buffon's theory. ---
a
147.
See The Politics
a
of Aristotle,
ed. Ernest
Barker
(Oxford 1946),
I. ii , § § 11- 12 , p . 6 .
148.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues,
work in the context of Rousseau's early
next chapter.
162
eh. i, p. 27.
The place of this
social theory is considered
in the
�l'origine
des langues,
persuaded
to adopt rules
it was still
and if in the past men might have been
the case that
promoted their
true
they could be required
interests
of language
the faculty
to do so. 150
however, it was a mistake
directly
to the nature
of speech might be indispensable
of each person,
it was not in our original
in society
the rules
that
to obey laws which
only if they had agreed
According to Rousseau,
our notion
advantage 149
which did not serve to their
to connect
of mankind.
For while
to the moral character
state
but once again only
of moral conduct could be prescribed.
Men were in need of human company not only for the purpose
mitting
their
ideas but also very much in order to conceive
if in the state
fulfil
their
would already
undertakings
their
of nature
obligations
they were able to perform their
then in a quite
have achieved
before
neighbours.
have taught
their
In established
children
place
the art
and -we cannot infer
in a domestic
setting
inexplicable
the main objective
they had even learnt
language to some individuals
before,
of trans-
households
how to speak,
presupposes
from the exchanges
that
and
collective
and recognise
mothers would no doubt
but the teaching
that
duties
manner they
of their
to identify
them, and
others
of a
have learnt
it
of words which take
we must always -have been masters
of
of conversation.
Les Hemmes n'ayant nulle correspondance entre eux,
ni aucun besoin d'en avoir, on ne con~oit ni la
necessite
de cette invention,
ni sa possibilite,
si elle ne fut pas indispensable.
Je dirois
bien, comme beaucoup d'autres,
que les Langues
149.
See the passages from the Discours sur l'inegalite,
pp. 164 and 177 cited on pp. 189 and 192 below.
O.C.III,
150.
See, for instance,
the following passage from the Contrat social,
I.i, O.C.III, p. 352: "L'ordre social est un droit sacre, qui sert de
base a tousles
autres.
Cependant ce droit ne vient point de la nature;
il est done fonde sur des conventions."
163
�sont nees dans le commerce domestique des Peres,
des Meres, et des Enfans:
mais ... ce seroit
commettre la faute de ceux qui raisonnant sur
l'Etat
de Nature, y transportent
les idees
prises dans la Societe .... car de dire que la
Mere dicte a l'Enfant les mots, dont il devra se
servir pour lui demander telle,
ou telle chose,
cela montre bien comment on enseigne des Langues
deja formees, mais cela n'apprend point comment
elles se forment.151
In the state
tational
language
verbal
proficiency
of nature,
of any kind,
cate,
through
so that
the first
of fear
could be no represen-
and we could not have attained
of our linguistic
men would have come to articulate
passing
there
in the world in which we must have lived
embarked upon the long history
fact
for Rousseau,
a period
our earliest
savages,
their
before
apprenticeship.
thoughts
we
In
only after
in which they had no ideas a~ all
languages,
our
and the only natural
to connnuniidiom of
must have been the cry of impulse - the vocalization
or of danger~ for instance
- elicited
by instinct
alone.
Le premier langage de 1 1 homme, le langage le plus
universe!,
le plus energique, et le seul dont il
eut besoin, avant qu'il fallut persuader des hommes
assembles, est le cri de la Nature.
Commece cri
n'etoit
arrache que par une sorte d'instinct
dans
les occasions pressantes,
pour implorer du secours
dans les grands dangers, ou du soulagement dans les
maux violens,
il n'etoit
pas d'un grand usage dans
le cours ordinaire
de la vie.152
151.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, pp. 146-147.
For Monboddo who was almost as much indebted to Rousseau's theory of language as to
his views on orang-utans - the truth of the thesis that men do not by
nature have a command of the art of speech was equally damaging to the
philosophy of Buffon.
"If ... language be not essential
to man's nature",
he reflected
(Of the Origin and Progress of Language, I, second edition,
II.iv,
p. 297), "it follows ... that there was a time when men did not
speak".
He believed,
therefore
(ibid.,
pp. 294-295), that Buffon's
speculations
on the subject were "most wild and extravagant",
plainly
showing that "however much Mr Buffon may have studied facts of natw-al
history,
he has not considered language as a philosopher".
152.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
p. 148. Cf. Emile, Livre I,
O.C.IV, p. 286: "Commele premier etat de l'homme est la misere et la
foiblesse,
ses premieres voix sont la plainte et les pleurs.
L'enfant
sent ses besoins et ne les peut satisfaire,
il implore le secours
d'autrui
par des cris. 11
164
�Insofar
as language was a prerequisite
Rousseau maintained
institution
that
it could be understood
Like every other
which those
social
of development and change,
and its
by those who perceived
of a natural
human faculty
Now the most important
in the Discours
ideas signified
institution
therefore,
only as a social
through which men conveyed ideas that
the very obligations
construed
of moral conduct,
arose together
with
and expressed.
it must have undergone a history
fundamental
character
was mis-
it to be the outward manifestation
of speech.
source of Rousseau's
was undoubtedly
the philosophy
ideas about language
of Condillac.
153
In
153.
Rousseau first met the abbe de Condillac in the spring of 1740
when he was engaged as tutor to the sons of his elder brother, Jean
Bonnot de Mably (Condillac's
other brother, Gabriel, was the distinguished
political
thinker),
the prevot-general
du Lyonnais.
Condillac had lived
in the home of Mably from 1727 onwards, and Rousseau must have seen him
almost daily throughout the year that he remained at this post.
The two
writers did not then come to know each other well, however, largely
because Condillac was extremely shy.
His timidity was so great, indeed,
that according to Rousseau even his own family supposed he might be
mentally retarded.
Thus, Rousseau reflected
in 'Emile, Livre II (O.C.IV,
p. 343), "J'ai
dans un age asses avance un ho11D11e
qui m'honoroit de son
amitie passer dans sa familie et chez ses amis pour en esprit borne.
Cette excellente
tete se meurissoit
en silence.
Tout a coup il s'est
montre philosophe,
et je ne doute pas que la posterite
ne lui marque une
place honorable et distinguee
parmi les meilleurs raisoneurs
et les plus
profonds metaphysiciens
de son siecle".
They were to meet again upon
Rousseau's return to Lyon in 1742, and in 1745, when Condillac was in
Paris and working on his Essai, they dined frequently
with Diderot at the
Hotel du Panier Fleuri (see the Confessions,
O.C.I, pp. 280 and 347).
It
was Rousseau who, in fact, brought Condillac and Diderot together,
and
Diderot, for his part, was so impressed with the abbe's talents that he
undertook to find a publisher for the Essai.
Rousseau and Condillac were
never to be really close companions, though they both had, throughout their
lives, a great respect for one another. They may have corresponded from
time to time during the years (1758-67) that Condillac was tutor to
Prince Ferdinand of Parma, and in 1776, when Rousseau was barred from
leaving the manuscript of his Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques at the alt~
of
Notre Dame, he decided to entrust it to Condillac instead.
''Je venois
d'apprendre",
he remarked later in an appendix to that work (O.C.I,
p. 981), "qu'un homme de lettres
de ma plus ancienne connoissance avec
iequel j'avois
eu quelque liaison,
que je n•a~ois point cesse d'estimer,
et qui passoit une grande partie de l'annee a la Campagne, etoit a Paris
depuis peu de jours.
Je regardai la nouvelle de son retour co1111ne
une
direction
de la providence,
qui m'indiquoit
le vrai depositaire
demon
Manuscrit .... Je lui porte mon manuscrit, et je [le] lui remets avec un
transport
de joye .... Sans savoir encore de quoi il s'agissoit,
il me dit
vu
165
�the Essai
sur l'origine
had also argued that
conditions
that
of life
des connoissances
our faculty
changed,
humaines of 1746 Condillac
of speech must have developed
and like
Rousseau he claimed in this
we could only have come to know how to articulate
in the course
of our having managed to acquire
believed
our ideas
that
it followed
ideas,
so that
sive gestures
the earliest
and actions
Since Condillac
by primitive
such men -would have been similarly
employ the kinds of utterances
through
languages
rather
work
our thoughts
them.
could not have been conceived
for him that
as our
which we enunciated
men
unable to
those
would have been formed of impul-
than discursive
speech.
Ces langages ne se succederent pas brusquement: ils
furent long-temps meles ensemble, et la parole ne
prevalut que fort tard .... Premierement, quand les
hommes conunencerent a articuler
des sons, la rudesse
des organes ne leur permit pas.de le faire par des
inflexions
aussi foibles que les notres .... notre
esprit est fort exerce par le grand nombre d'idees
que nous avons acquises,
et par l'habitude
ou nous
sommes de les lier a des sons.
Voila ce qui
manquoit aux homrnes qui eurent les premiers l'usage
de la parole.
Leur esprit etoit dans toute sa
grossierete;
les notions aujourd 1hui les plus
communes etoient nouvelles pour eux.154
en le recevant qu'il ne feroit qu'un bon et honnete usage demon depot.
L'opinion que j'avois
de lui me rendoit cette assurance tres superflue".
A short while after this meeting, however, Condillac proposed a number of
improvements to the text, and Rousseau, who had expected that his work
would make a more profound impression,
was annoyed.
Thus, he wrote
(ibid.,
p. 982), "Depuis lors j'ai cesse d'aller
chez lui.
Il m'a fait
deux ou trois visites
que nous avons eu bien de la peine a remplir de
quelques mots indifferens,
moi n'ayant plus rien a lui dire, et lui ne
voulant me rien dire du tout".
Condillac did, nonet,heless,
keep his
promise that he would not release the manuscript for publication
(see
ibid. and p. 1753).
And while the text of Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques
may not have been much to his liking he had at least expressed an interest
in some of Rousseau's earlier
works.
Thus Narcisse was first printed
with his note of approval in 1753, and in a letter
to Rousseau of 1756
(see the Correspondance complete, IV, p. 99 and eh. II, p. 60) he enquired
about the republication
of the article
'Economie politique'.
154.
Essai sur l'origine
des connoissances humaines, II.i.2,
§13, OPC,
I, p. 63.
See also the following passage from Condillac's
Cours d'etudes
du Prince de Parme of 1775, II. i. 2, ibid., p. 434: "Les sauvages ont peu
166
�It was equally
that
his view, moreover,
language
in its
original
as it was to be for Rousseau later,
form could not have served to communi-
cate ideas
but only to express
individuals
as they came into
the unreflective
occasional
passions
contact
of
with each other.
Ainsi, par le seul instinct,
ces hommes se demandoient et se pretoient
des secours.
Je dis par
le seul instinct,
car la reflexion
n'y pouvoit
enc9re avoir part.155
It is true
the genesis
initially
that
of language
a gift
on the other,
and practice
accepted
Condillac
- stating,
that
after
intelligible
it was a skill
the Deluge
156
mastered
than Condillac
any coherent
Condillac's
adopt the description
had set forth.
of
it was
by men through
- neither
of which was really
to explain
how mankind might have
set of linguistic
For in the Essai
rules
as I shall
view of the origin
of its
experiment
But though Rousseau found it
speech - though he did not,
moment, support
two accounts
on the one hand, that
by Rousseau in the Discours.
come to establish
provided
which God must have bestowed upon Adam and Eve, and,
much more difficult
clearly
in the Essai
of
try to show in a
of language
primordial
Condillac
or patterns
- he did
form which Condillac
had envisaged
the basic
de besoins, done ils observent peu; done ils ont peu d'idees .... leurs
langues ne sont pas propres a rendre les connoissances
que nous avons
sur ces differens
objets.
Assez parfaites
pour eux, puisqu'elles
suffisent
a leurs besoins, elles seroient imparfaites pour nous, parce
qu'elles
manqu~nt d'expressions
pour rendre le plus grand nombre de nos
idees."
155.
I,
p.
Essai
sur l'origine
des connoissances
humaines,
II.i.1,
§2, OPC,
61.
156.
The first
thesis,
it should be noted, occupies only two sentences
in the Essai (see ibid.,
II.i,
p. 60), and it is hard to avoid the
suspicion that Condillac,
an ordained priest and usually rather conservative on matters of religion,
advanced the idea only in order to seem more
orthodox in his speculations
than he was.
The second thesis appears in
the same paragraph as the first,
and it serves to introduce Condillac's
general ideas about the nature and origin of language in that work.
167
�features
of our earliest
for the expressions
language
that
figure
in terms which served as a model
in the Discours
Thus Rousseau's
comments, in particular,
in the Discours
appeared
upon the "cri
some nine years after
in the Essai about the natural
sur l'inegalite.
de la Nature"
Condillac's
remarks
signs
ou les cris que la nature a etablis pour les
sentimens de joie, de crainte,
de douleur,
etc .... Quant aux cris naturels,
cet ho1111ne
les
formera aussitot
qu'il eprouvera les sentimens
auxquels ils sont affectes;
mais ils ne
seront pas, des la premiere fois, des signes a
son egard, puisqu'au lieu de lui reveiller
des
perceptions,
ils n'en seront que des suites.15 7
In all
language
theory
these
respects,
which Condillac
of Rousseau.
had developed
This intellectual
acknowledged and made explicit
"Qu'il
me soit
l 1 origine
therefore,
the approach to the study of
in the 1740s anticipated
debt,
in the text
permis de considerer
moreover,
was certainly
of the Discours
un instant
the
itself.
les embarras de
des Langues", wrote Rousseau.
Je pourrois me contenter de citer ou de repeter
ici les recherches que Mr. l'Abbe de Condillac a
faites sur cette matiere, qui toutes confirment
pleinement mon sentiment, et quil peut-etre,
m'en ont donne la premiere idee. SE
157.
Ibid.,
I. ii. 4, §§35 and 38, p. 19.
"Les cris naturels"
were a
feature of what Condillac called the "langage d'action",
and this
language, he believed,
was common to animals as well as men.
He was
convinced that animals were marked by a degree of intelligence
which
made it possible for them both to have thoughts and to transmit them to
other members of their species, and in this regard he disagreed sharply
with Buffon, who had supposed (seep.
161 above) that animals could have
no thoughts at all.
Condillac,
in fact, devoted much of his Traite des
animaux to a critique
of Buffon's conception of the difference
between
animal and human traits
(see especially
section II.iv in OPC; I,
pp. 360-362).
The best available treatment of this subject,
to my
knowledge, is still
that of Georges Le Roy in La psychologie de Condillac
(Paris 1937), pp. 188-203.
158.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 146.
168
�Yet despite
reflections
this
tribute
about language
Condillac
to the thinker
in the Discours,
had not been entirely
he had supposed that
the impulses
the first
of men before
he had also
consistent
Rousseau believed
in his theory.
the elements
our thoughts
them to "des signes
by attaching
In fact
but for all
other
creatures
animaux of 1755, that
•
sent 1 es signes
thoughts,
require
since
from their
cribed
sensations
as "la liaison
through
It was, indeed,
from speech that
159.
Essai
p. 61.
et les actions
from this
11
,
161
that
then,
to other
men did ,not
to conceive
which Condillac
and these
impressions
of gestures
because thought
men were able to formulate
sur 1 1 origine
du corps
their
of the world were drawn directly
a variety
precisely
des
.
l1ke
ourselves,
at least
a mental process
des idees
we
not only for mankind
symbols in order
impressions
that
added in his Traite
apparent
It fallowed
been communicated through
signs.
thoughts
and
which we devised
and ideas
160 and animals~
.
II
any linguistic
theiv
the case,
inarticules
~
pensees,
species.
of signs
Condillac
cris
to make their
members of their
originally
"les
d e 1 eurs
had a capacity
too,
159
must have been
number of concepts
it was necessarily
were invari-
arbitraires",
by the multiplication
to give voic~ to the increasing
ideas,
we must have articulafed
of speech and manners of speaking
acquired.
For while
of every language
In the beginning
and enriched
that
spoken lanuuage must have expressed
ably a sign of thought.
developed
his
it could convey the sense of their
imagined that
our figures
who had inspired
des connoissances
des-
could have
as well as vocal
could be detached
a set of terms for the
humaines,
II.ii.l,
§6, OPC,
I,
160.
Traite
des animaux,
161.
See, for instance,
humaines, I.ii.11,
§107,
II.iv,
ibid.,
p. 361.
the Essai sur 1 1 origine
ibid., p. 36.
169
des connoissances
�.
.
of d e 1ineating
purpose
t heir.
endowed with an ability
and Condillac
fashion
to classify
that
have conceived
fire,
water,
our senses.
After
162
of specific
employ signs
to define
verbs as well,
- of a tree,
- because these
we had labelled
proceed
upon the simpler
in order
and adverbs,
to designate
and,
thoughts.
say, or of
dire·ctly
such ideas by attaching
and thus would have learnt
adjectives
in a cumulative
names to different
our complex ideas
and the like
concepts
of his experience,
was developed
words to them we must have come to reflect
of our generic
Thus every man had been
the objects
language
through the allocation
We must first
fruit,
believed
.
.
impressions.
from
distinct
properties
progressively
to
in due course,
our actions.
La langue fut long-temps sans avoir d'autres
mots que
les noms qu'on avoit donnes aux objets sensibles,
tels que ceux d'arbre,
fruit,
eau, feu, et autres,
dont on avoit plussouventoccasion
de parler.
Les
notions complexes des substances etant connues les
premieres,
puisqu'elles
viennent immediatement des
sens, devoient etre les premieres a avoir des noms ....
On distingua
ensuite,
mais peu-a-peu, les differentes
qualites
sensibles
des objets;
on remarqua les circonstances ou ils pouvoient se trouver,
et l'on fit
des mots pour exprimer to•Jtes ces chases:
ce furent
les adj ectif•s et les adverbes .... En se faisant
une
habitude de se communiquer ces sortes d'idees par des
actions,
les hommes s'accoutumerent
ales
determiner,
et des-lors
ils commencerent a trouver plus de facilite
ales
attacher
a d'autres signes.
Les noms qu'ils
choisirent
pour cet effet,
sont ceux qu'on appela
verbes.1 63
Now it would certainly
Condillac's
linguistic
be a mistake
theory
to regard
the whole of
in the way which I have outlined
here.
162.
It was thus a mistake on the part of some philosophers,
Condillac
observed later (Cours d'etudes,
II.i.2,
ibid.,
p. 432), to suppose that
"les noms de la langue primitive
exprimoient la nature meme des choses".
On the contrary,
such names "representoient
les chases ... d'apres des
apparences,
des opinions, des prejuges,
des erreurs;
mais ces apparences,
ces opinions,
ces prejuges,
ces erreurs etoient communes a tous ceux qui
travailloient
a la meme langue et c'est pourquoi ils s'entendoient".
163.
Essai sur 1 1 origine
83, ibid.,
p. 83.
des connoissances
170
humaines,
II.i.9,
§§82 and
�For one thing,
he occasionally
of some sort
even before
a vocabulary
of appropriate
argued
that
we must have had a language
we had any concepts
signs
to express,
language
interconnected,
without
and thought
artificial
signs
, d.1er successivement
•
etu
all
the parts
toutes
of Condillac's
sketch
not only partial
upon it.
166
related,
There are many subtle
indeed,
our notions
and intricate
render
if too much weight
nevertheless,
et ...
. h t examine
.
as we m1g
which would undoubtedly
but even misleading
I believe,
and,
he always
terms to "decomposer,
l es 1• d'ees II , 165 Just
.
philosophy
For another,
we could not decipher
and referential
of a watch.
facets
be placed
were closely
in such a way that
without
we could not have had a distinct
1.d ea o f wh at 1·t was th at we were th· 1nk'ing. 164
held that
since
that
it
this
were to
is correct
164.
See especially
the following passage in La Logique (first
published
in 1780), II.ii,
OPC, II, p. 396: "Il falloit
que les elemens d'un langage
quelconque, prepares d'avance,
precedassent
nos idees;
parce que, sans des
signes de quelque espece, il nous seroit impossjble d'enaly~er nos pensees, pour
nous rendre compte de ce que nous pensons, c'est-a-dire,
pour le voir d'une
maniere distincte."
It should be noted here, however, that in this passage
Condillac supposes language to be a precondition
of our forming ideas
rather than of our having thoughts - an extremely important distinction
in
his philosophy.
165.
Cours d 1 etudes,
p. 410, and the Essai
§66, ibid.,
p. 26.
II.i.4,
OPC, I, p. 437.
See also ibid.,
sur l'origine
des connoissances
humaines,
I.i.1,
I.ii.7,
166.
Fuller,
but divergent,
accounts of Condillac's
philosophy of
language can be found in the following works and essays published
over the
past few years:
Ulrich Ricken, 'Condillacs
'liaison
des idees' und die
1
clarte'
des Franzosischen',
Die Neueren Sprachen, XII (1964), pp. 552-567;
Jean Mosconi, 'Regards sur la th~orie du devenir de l'entendement',
Cahiers pour l 'Analyse, IV ( 1966), pp. 51-88;
Roger Lefevre, 'Condillac,
maicre du langage',
Revue internationale
de philosophie
LXXXII (1967),
pp. 393-406;
Isabel Knight, The Geometric Spirit.
Condillac and the French
Enlightenment
(New Haven and London 1968), eh. vi;
Ellen McNiven Hine,
'Condillac
and the problem of language',
SVEC, CVI (1973), pp. 21-62;
Derrida,
'L'archeologie
du frivole',
introduction
to Condillac's
Essai sur
1 1 origine des connoissances
humaines (Auvers 1973);
and Aarsleff,
'Condillac's
Speechless
Statue',
Studia leibnitiana,
supplementary
volume XV (1975 - I am grateful
to Professor
Aarsleff
for providing me with
a copy of this article
prior to its publication).
Most of these works
deal in some measure with the subject of Condillac's
sources,
though in my
view much work remains to be done in this field,
and a reassessment
of the
influence
of Locke - about which the most substantial
account seems still
to be that of Le Roy in La osychologie
de Condillac - is long overdue.
With regard to the influence
that was exercised
by Condillac's
linguistic
171
�to portray
Condillac
and thought
as having always upheld the view that
can be distinguished
in principle,
it might be for us to have a proper
of markers and labels
guistic
there
sy111bolsplainly
refer
this
to something else
aspect
was a fundamental
of signs
itself
theory
that
the use
sense in which our linThe concept
presupposes
which is not language,
of Condillac's
however difficult
grasp of our ideas without
denoted thos<':: ideas.
language as a collection
since
language
that
of a
these
signs
and it was precisely
Rousseau challenged
in the
Discours.
According
from speech,
impressions
conceived.
to Rousseau it was impossible
since
the words that
a.re identical
course do not merely refer
penser
pour trouver
l'art
men employ to articulate
with the terms in which their
The statements
if it is the case that
to set thought
that
individuals
to their
thoughts
formulate
but express
apart
their
thoughts
in their
"les Hommes... ont eu ... besoin ... de savoir
de la parole",
could not have formed composite
unless
dis-
them, and
it is equally
true
men I' ont eu beso i n de 1a paro 1e pour appren dr e a' penser '' 167
listed
are
images of the kind Condillac
at the same time we also had a set of locutions
that
all
We
had
which
theory in the Enlightenment we now have a masterly essay by Aarsleff on
the debate in the Berlin Akademie der Wissenschaften
(see 'The Tradition
of Condillac',
in Studies in the Histor
of Lin uistics,
ed. Dell Hymes
[Bloomington and London 1974 , pp. 93-156) to add to Venturi's
more
narrow account of the connection with Diderot (see his Jeunesse de
Diderot, pp. 247-282).
167.
.Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 147.
It is true that in
the Essai sur l'ori
ine des connoissances humaines (I.ii.5,
§49, OPC, I,
p. 22 Condillac had made an apparently
similar point even in much the
same terms:
"Combien ... n'a-t-il
pas fallu de reflexions
pour former les
langues, et de quel secours ces langu~s ne sont-elles
pas a la reflexion!"
But in this passage he also puts forward the view - which Rousseau's
remarks were designed to oppose - that our ability
to employ linguistic
signs must be firmly grounded in our capacity to reflect
upon their meaning and to attach them to ideas which we have already formed without
them: "On ne sauroit se servir des signes d'institution,
si l'on n'etoit
pas deja capable d'assez de reflexion
pour les choisir et pour y attacher
des idees."
172
�specified
that
the properties
of things,
for such images are abstractions
we can comprehend only through
No one could possibly
instance,
unless
particular
trees,
mistaken
have had a general
he first
that
which we derive
have had to be well-versed
metaphysics,
he remarked,
of the essence
impression
had some notion
and in Rousseau's
in his belief
plex ideas
the use of descriptive
as providing
glossary
of signs
of
of natural
to corn-
We should
history
and
we could have had any understanding
of the compound substances
regarded
signs
from our senses.
in the languages
for
had been qaite
representational
immediately
before
of a tree,
of the characteristics
view Condillac
we attach
names.
the most fundamental
which Condillac
had
terms of reference
in our
and symbols.
Pour ranger les etres sous des denominations communes, et generiques,
il en falloit
connoitre les
proprietes
et les dif~erences;
il falloit
des
observations,
et des definitions,
c'est-a-dire,
de l'Histoire
Naturelle
et de la Metaphysique,
beaucoup plus que les hommes de ce terns-la n'en
pouvoient avoir .... les idees generales ne peuvent
s'introduire
dans l'Esprit
qu'a l'aide des mots,
et l'entendement
ne les saisit
que par des
propositions .... Essayez de vous tracer l'image
d'un arbre en general,
jamais vous n'en viendrez
a bout, malgre vous il faudra le voir petit OU
grand, rare ou touffu, clair ou fonce, et s'il
dependoit de vous de n'y voir que ce qui se trouve
en tout arbre, cette image ne ressembleroit
plus
a un arbre.
Les etres purement abstraits
se
voyent de ~eme, ou ne se con~oivent que par le
discours. 168
Condillac,
in turn,
in his Cours d'etudes
du Prince
his answer in two way~.
need for persons
replied
he maintained
to have a mastery
in order
168.
sur l'inegalite,
critique
of his philosophy
de Parine of 1775, and he set forth
Firstly,
and metaphysics
Discours
to this
of subjects
that
like
there
natural
to have a command of language,
O.C.III,
173
pp. 149-150.
since
was no
history
it was
�perfectly
without
clear
~hat children
such knowledge.
Rousseau had laboured
true
that
rate
words that
could achieve
In any case,
he claimed,
under a misapprehension,
the verbal
symbols of socially
designate
the properties
would not have been necessary
their
users'
figures
competence
secondly,
since
that
while it was
advanced cultures
and attributes
for the utterances
have had the same sense and reference
would the earliest
linguistic
incorpo-
of things
it
of our ancestors
to
as statements
have today,
nor
of speech have had to be grounded upon
knowledge of the properties
of things.
Une pareille
opinion, de la part de [M. Rousseau],
aussi profond qu'eloquent,
ne peut etre qu'une
inadvertance.
En effet,
il exige dans les homrnes,
qu'on suppose avoir fait une langue, beaucoup plus
de connoissances
qu'il ne leur en falloit;
car
s'il eut ete necessaire
qu'ils
eussent assez connu
l'histoire
naturelle
et la metaphysique,
pour
determiner les proprietes
des choses, pour en marquer les differences,
et pour en donner des
definitions;
il me semble qu'aujourd'hui
les enfans
ne pourroient
apprendre a parler qu'autant
qu'ils
sauroient
assez d'histoire
naturelle
et de metaphysique .... Or le langage d'un enfant est l'image
de la langue primitive,
qui, dans son origine,
a du
etre tres-grossiere
et tres-bornee .... Voila sans
doute a quoi M. Rousseau n'a pas fait attention.
Ila
vu tout ce qu'il falloit
pour faire une langue
ou il put developper son genie comme dans la notre;
et il a juge avec raison qu'elle n'a pu etre
l'ouvrage
des hommes qui ont les premiers prononce
des sons articules.
Mais pour faire une langue
imparfaite ... je crois qu'il n'etoit
point necessaire de connoitre les proprietes
des choses.169
Now if Rousseau had had an opportunity
rejoinder
first
to this
point
distinction
169.
he might well have argued that
was unconvincing
since
it
failed
- upon which he had already
sur l'inegalite
the part
reply
- between the learning
of children
Cours d'etudes
to put forward
and the construction
du Prince
Condillac's
to take account
of the
commented in the Discours
of an established
language
of an unprecedented
de Parme, II.i.2,
174
his own
note,
on
language
OPC, I, p. 433.
�by
primeval
men.
He would certainly
Condillac's
attempt
differences
between linguistic
kind.
language
substances
insofar
unreflective
abstract
natural
ideas,
the first
rather
of mental
matter
savages
would not
categories
of the origin
it appeared
our first
with Rousseau,
while rejecting
reason
speech as exclamatory
is discussed
propositions
unbroken continuity
it was impossible
presupposed
as
accepting
Yet the most
between language
in the text
that
to ideas
that
connection
through
of the Discours
sur
that
were elicited
from
in conjunction
with
which they were voiced.
the earliest
figures
of
which were no more than an outward
and fears.
And whereas Condillac
between such utterances
of civilised
whether
language, since
supposed
On his interpretation,
language
the relation
had
and the dis-
man, for Rousseau that
was misconceived.
to decide
and
the terms of our first
Rousseau regarded
utterances
but
they must have been the expression
and practices
of our passions
a clear
of
utterances
the second.
which could only have arisen
It is for this
and
to be
for his part,
of the relation
On the contrary
rules
.
of reciproca
and an advanced
on the one hand, and as complex and
Rousseau believed
activities
manifestation
account
characterized
account
the linguistic
thought
Condillac's
could not have referred
our sensations.
perceived
as it
claims
itself.
languages
because
to
of the
in his view, was not Condillac 's 'inconsistency
and this
l'inegalite
of a primitive
At the very least
cries,
his incorrect
thought,
cursive
that
on the other,
of these
problem,
practices
the world in terms of generic
must be mistaken.
inconsistent,
moreover,
on the strength
view it was just
have perceived
propertyless
basic
~o defend his thesis
For in Rousseau's
initially
have objected,
presupposed
thought
then,
or
between them was one
l entai . 1ment. 170
170.
On this
pp. 1323-1324,
point see especially
the remarks of Starobinski
in O.C.III,
and the following passage from Mosconi's 'Regards sur la
175
�There is one further
point
in his account of language
damaging to his case.
as well which Condillac
and which Rousseau regarded
For the claim that
devised by individuals
in order
language
to clarify
and convey ideas
around a false
presumption,
had in mind was built
saw it,
since men would have had no reason to entertain
in their
social
institution
conventions
that
original
condition.
- it was just
similar
necessary
it was also a manufactured
we already
insofar
as Rousseau
any ideas
as our linguistic
were
company -
to have formed
any kind of vernacular
which had to be learnt
at
was a
rules
us to one another's
speech.
through practice;
system of communication based upon the fact
shared a set of terms with an intelligible
We could have no glossaries
which they
because language
for men in isolation
to inaugurate
Language was not only an art
that
It was just
to those which tied
it would. have been impossible
the agreements
as centrally
was originally
already
all
had overlooked
of words, in short,
unless
meaning.
we first
had a
common frame of reference.
Quand on comprendroit com~ent lessons
de la voix
ont ete pris pour les interpretes
conventionnels
de nos idees, il resteroit
toujours a s9avoir quels
ont pu etre les interpretes
memes de cette convention pour les idees qui, n'ayant point un objet
sensible,
ne pouvoient s'indiquer
ni par le geste,
ni par la voix, de sorte qu'a peine peut-on former
des conjectures
supportables
sur la naissance de cet
Art de communiquer ses pensees, et d'etablir
un
commerce entre les Esprits.171
Yet if language
if society
was required
was required
for the formation
for the invention
of language,
of our ideas,
and
it was equally
theorie de l'entendement',
p. 67: "Chez [Condillac),
le langage surgit sur
le fond d'une necessite
comrnandee par le systeme de l'entendement .... avant
le langage, les homrnes avaient assez acquis pour pouvoir l'inventer,
mais
pas assez pour continuer a progresser
sans son aide.
Chez Rousseau au
contraire,
le langage surgit sur le fond d'une impossibilite:
il y a un
cercle des origines,
qui n'est brise que par des evenements fortuits."
171.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
pp. 147-148.
176
�true
that
language
was a precondition
For how could men have created
variety
of linguistic
and other
force?
their
of signs,
a state
ties
- through
had imagined
promises,
that
neighbours
to institute
were, in his judgment,
have joined men together
both conceptual
was as much a prerequisite
alone.
Condillac's
the foundation
philosophy
based upon an erroneous
the shaping
of language
of language,
as language
erroneous
between the nature
as his distinction
of the signs
and since
of society,
of language
we employ to express
and this
society
he was
to human means
was thus
necessary
on the one hand, and the conditions
on the other,
The
in aosociations
between the conditions
for the moulding of society~
vocabu-
at all.
institution
of the origin
dichotomy
binding
how men in such
and linguistic,
of either
a
commitments,
and adopt a shared
should ever have come to have any neighbours
unable to attribute
through
in a savage state
but for Rousseau it was inconceivable
chains which must originally
nature
except
of society.
which they imbued with an artificially
would have come progressively
lary
social
undertakings
speech acts
Condillac
for the establishment
for
required
dichoton;y was as
of our thoughts
and the
them.
La maniere dont ce Philosophe resout les difficultes
qu'il se fait a lui-meme sur l'origine
des signes
institues,
montrant qu'il a suppose ce que je,mets
en question,
savoir une sorte de societe deja etablie
entre les inventeurs
du langage, je crois en renvoyant
a ses reflexions
devoir y joindre les miennes .... Quant
a moi, effraye des difficultes qui se multiplient, et
convaincu de l'impossibilite
presque demontree que les
Langues ayent pu naitre,
et s'etablir
par des moyens
purement humains, je laisse a qui voudra l'entreprendre, la discussion
de ce difficile
Probleme,
lequel a ete le plus necessaire,
de la Societe deja
liee, a l'institution
des Langues, OU des Langues deja
inventees,
a l'etablissement
de la Societe. 172
172.
Ibid., pp .. 146 and 151.
The fact that the first
language could
not have been devised by any human agency according to Rousseau's account
led some eighteenth-century
commentators to regard his arguments in the
177
�It was in this
fashion
that
interlocking
features
and society,
were conceived
significant
philosophy
claim in the Discours
of the essence und origin
and profound
of Condillac.
Rousseau's
as a critique
critique
of thought,
- in my opinion
in the Enlightenment
about the
language,
as the most
- of the
173
Discours as proof that both our faculty and use of speech must have been
bestowed upon us as a gift from God.
This thesis was advanced, for
instance,
by Beauzee and Jacques-Philippe-Augustin
Douchet who, in their
article
'Langue' for the Encyclopedie,
quote nearly the whole of Rousseau's
long passage on language from the Discours (on the question of their
authorship
of this essay, see Sylvain Auroux, L''Encyclopedie':
"grammaire"
et 11langue" au XVIIIe siecle
[Paris 1973), pp. 49-50).
Hence, these two
scholars reflect
(Encyclop~die,
IX, pp. 252-253), "Le philosophe de Geneve a
bien senti ... que 1 1 €tablissement
de la societe & l'institution
du langage se
supposoient respectivement,
puisqu'il
regarde comme un probleme difficile,
de discuter
leguel des deux a ete pour l'autre
d'une necessite
antecedente
plus considerable .... Ayant vu d'une maniere demonstrative
que les langues ne
peuvent tenir a l'hypothese
de l'homme ne sauvage, ni s'etre
etablies
par
des moyens purement humains;
que ne concluoit-il
la meme chose de ·la
societe? que n'abandonnoit-il
entierement
son hypothese, comme aussi incapable d'expliquer
l'un que l'autre? ... toute langue suppose une societe
preexistente
.... D'autre part une societe form€e par les moyens humains ...
presuppose un moyen de communication pour fixer d'abord les devoirs
respectifs
des associes .... Que suit-il
de-la? que si l'on s'obstine
a
vouloir fonder la premiere langue & la premiere societe par des voies
humaines, il faut admettre l'~ternite
du monde & des generations
humaines,
& renoncer par consequent a une premiere societe & a une premiere langue
proprement dites:
sentiment absurde en soi .... c'est done Dieu lui-meme qui
non-content
de donner aux deux premiers individus
du genre humain la precieuse faculte de parler,
la mit encore aussi-tot
en plein exercice,
en leur
inspirant
immediatement l'envie
& 1 1 art d'imaginer les mots & les tours
necessaires
aux besoins de la societe naissante".
For his part Monboddo
regarded Rousseau's problem about the connection between language and
society as perfectly
soluble on the grounds (Of the Origin and Progress of
Language, I, first
edition,
II.ix,
p. 279) that animals form societies
and
"carry on in ... common business,
without the use of speech".
Employing
illustrations
drawn from the supposed community life of beavers and seacats, Monboddo thus concluded (ibid.,
p. 290) that he had "removed Mon.s.
Rousseau's chief difficulty
concerning the invention of language, by shewing that society ... which he judges rightly
to be necessary for the
invention of language, may exist without language".
173.
The two most perceptive
interpretations
of Rousseau's arguments on
these subjects which I have seen are offered,
on the one hand, by
Starobinski
(see his 'Rousseau et l'origine
des langues',
in Europaische
Aufklarun.
Herbert Dieckmann zum 60. Geburtsta
[Miinchen 1967], pp. 282
and 284-287 this essay has been reprinted
in the second edition of La
transparence
et l'obstacle]),
and, on the other, by Derrida (in 'Lalinguistique
de Rousseau', Revue internationale
de philosophie,
LXXXII
(1967), pp. 448-452).
178
�The principal
Condillac,
in Rousseau's
formed traits
different
which had been made ny both Buffon and
view, was to confuse
with the natural
in nature
believed,
acquired
that
in the course
possessed
a certain
ingenuity,
which we had come to espouse,
that
174
fulfilment
of those
endowed.
For Rousseau,
natural
capacities
and the social
the differences
ment that
the discrepancies
rules
faculties
from all
of conduct
our intrinsic
and sciences
only as the
between the
other
creatures
in society.
our history
human qualities.
than
and it was his judg-
Our behaviour
and patterns
insofar
Yet those
features
and of the corruption
throughout
institutions
could have prescribed
they marked the extent
faculties
must have
of man were even more profound
evolution.
On the con"rary,
they showed that
degraded
could be understood
could not have been implicit
of our original
even the arts
between animal and human traits,
set us apart
various
maintained,
st:ate.
however,
qualities
path of our historical
adopted
the social
of our
with which we must have been initially
none of our original
did in fact
our ancestors
so that
and, indeed,
we had come to cultivate,
which we had
were the products
They imagined that
natural
and they each
and skills
of our development
In their
the human race was
animal species,
the attributes
predispositions.
of mankind.
supposed that
to every other
moreover,
some of our socially
characteristics
ways the two writers
superior
innate
mistake
the
of life
as we had
rules,
he
of our natural
of the transformation
of our nature,
we had actually
debased
and
and
Since Buffon and Condillac,
174.
With regard to Buffon, see, for instance,
the following passage in
OPB, pp. 371-372:
"Le fondement de toute science n'est-il
pas dans la
comparaison que l'esprit
humain fait faire des objets semblables &
differens,
de leurs proprietes
analogues ou contraires,
& de toutes leurs
qualites
relatives?"
For Condillac, see especially
this remark in his
Cours d'etudes
du Prince de Parme, II.i.l,
OPC, I, p. 431: "L'homme,
lorsqu'il
cree les arts, ne fait qu'avancer
dans la route que la nature
lui a ouverte,
et faire avec regle, a mesure qu'il avance, ce qu'il
faisoit
auparavant par une suite de sa conformation."
179
�for their
all,
part-,
could not accept
it was impossible
that mankind had been transformed
at
for them to see that we had made ourselves
corrupt.
The tribute
which Rousseau paid to these
tempered with some re~ervations.
but what he understood
to be the implications
figure,
their
to his theory.
sur l'inegalite,
and Condillac
views,
the challenge
together
and in this
and, in fact,
was counterbalanced
work, to be sure,
most of his attack.
Rousseau developed
critique
Just
of these
both later
had not
came to raise
the same, in the Discours
by his praise
it was against
For the central
and political
doctrines
Buffon
of their
two other
of a far more serious
in his essay were conceived,
of the social
ideas
ideas,
which Rousseau assembled against
phers who had committed a mistake
levelled
was thus
He adopted a number of their
been drawn by either
own obj~ctions
two writers
philoso-
kind that
arguments
above all,
he
which
as a
of Hobbes and Locke. 175
175.
In the Discours Rousseau specifically
mentions Locke in four passages, of which the two most important - in O.C.III, pp. 170 and 214-218
- are discussed in note 138 above and on pp. 190-191 and 194-195 below (the
others appear in O.C.III,
pp. 182 and 183, note).
There is also a comment
upon one of Locke 1 s political
statements in a fragment of the Discours first
transcribed
by Leigh (see note 199 below).
Rousseau quotes both the
Second Treatise and the Essay concerning Human Understanding,
though each
of his references
is taken from a French translation,
and I believe that
nowhere in his writings is there any citation
of Locke's works in.their
English editions.
It is clear from a number of Rousseau's other texts
(see the Confessions,
O.C.I, p. 237, and Le Verger de Madame de Warens,
O.C.II, p. 1128) that he was already familiar with some of Locke's ideas
as early as 1739, and there is evidence that they exercised a substantial
influence upon the formation of his thought, particularly
upon his views
about education in Emile (on this important subject see especially
Peter D.
Jimack, La Genese et-ra-redaction
de l''Emile'
de J.-J. Rousseau, SVEC,
XIII (1960), eh. xii).
With respect to Hobbes, on the other hand, the
references
in the Discours are at once more critical
and less precise.
For
while in several passages Rousseau attacks the Hobbesian account of natural
conflict
between men (see especially
the remarks in O.C.III,
pp. 136 and
153 cited in eh. II, note 128 and on pp. 190-191 below) he does not point
directly
to any one of the writings in which this account appears, and in
my view it is quite conceivable that he had no real first-hand
acquaintance
with the works of Hobbes.
So far as I know, there was no French edition
of the Leviathan available
in the eighteenth
centi.µ'y, while most (though not
all) of the Latin and French editions of De cive had been out of print for
about one hundred years before Rousseau began to write the Discours.
180
�Now there
a close
is one respect,
resemblance
in which Rousseau's
to the major writings
for the Leviathan
incorporates
while the Second Treatise
Discours
perhaps,
sur l'inegalite
a list
is divided
of both Hobbes and Locke,
into nineteen
nineteen
Apart from this,
however,
have very little
in common with the social
It was Rousseau's
ferent
ways, provided
were quite
misconceived
generally
and the
explanatory
which appear
thought
notes.
in the Discours
of either
of man's depravity
figure.
dif-
in terms which
though at the same time they had both
significance
of their
ideas.
On the one hand
how men in the past must have agreed to form those
but on the other
each man's duty to make just
governments,
chapters
Hobbes and Locke had, in their
which had been responsible
the human race,
individuals
that
an account
correct,
the true
they had explained
institutions
the arguments
contention
laws of nature 176
of nineteen
incorporates
work bears
hand they had supposed that
those
might have established
for the moral corruption
agreements.
the despotic
and yet they had surmised
that
of
it was
They had shown how
authority
every person
of present
ought to abide
Starobinski
(see O.C.III,
p. 1308) indicates
some sections from bpth of
these works which Rousseau might have had in mind, but no explicit
reference to either text is included anywhere among his writings.
And while
it is true, as Derathe remarks (seep.
103, note 1), that a passage in
Livre I of Emile (see O.C.IV, p. 288) alludes to the preface of De cive
(see Hobbes, Opera, II, p. 148), it is equally apparent that Rousseau
obtained this reference
through the mediation of Diderot.
(In De cive
Hobbes had written "Ita ut vir malus idem fere sit, quod puer robustus,
vel vir animo puerili",
in the article
'Hobbisme' [see eh. II, note 128)
Diderot maintained that "le mechant de Hobbes est un enfant robuste",
and
in Emile Rousseau states that "Hobbes appelloit
le mechant un enfant
robuste\'.
The reference
in Emile, therefore
does not prove that Rousseau
must have been familiar
with the text of De cive itself,
and in any case
it does not stand alone in Rousseau's writings - as Derathe contends since much the same terms also figure
in the Di scours [ see eh. I I,
note 128)).
Diderot had certainly
seen a copy of De cive, but it is possible that Rousseau drew his own account of Hobbes's social theory from
secondary sources - from Bayle, Shaftesbury,and
Brucker, perhaps, and from
Diderot himself.
176.
See the Leviathan,
English Works, III, pp. 117-144.
It must be
acknowledged here, however, that Hobbes added a twentieth law of nature in
his 'Review, and Conclusion'
(see ibid.,
p. 703).
181
�by the decrees
generally
source
of such governments.
upon the social
of all
and political
our misfortunes,
ments as the only solutions
very misfortunes.
had located
commending its
effects
In the Discours
of inequality
which could enable
source
to Rousseau,
to all
their
their
attention
which were the
these
arrange-
us to overcome those
in fact,
of inequality
Hobbes and Locke
only for the purpose
of
readers.
Rousseau maintained
that
there
must be two kinds
among men,
l'une que j'appelle
qu'elle
est etablie
qu'on peut appeller
parce qu'elle ... est
par le consentement
It was his view, moreover,
be distinguished
any authority
or courage,
arrangements
but they had described
According
the true
They had focused
naturelle
ou Phisique, parce
par la Nature .... L'autre
inegalite
morale, ou politique,
etablie,
ou du moins auforisee
des Hornrnes.177
that
our natural
from our moral differences.
to command the rest
and while the rule
over the wise,
been prescribed
in virtue
must always
No group of persons
of their
greater
of the young over the old,
may have been established
by Nature.
inequalities
by consent,
For "l'inegalite
morale",
it
Discours
178.
Ibid.,
sur 1 1 inegalite,
O.C.III,
pp. 193-194.
182
p. 131.
strength
or of fools
could not have
he remarked,
autorisee
par le seul droit positif,
est contraire
au Droit Naturel,
toutes les fois qu'elle ne concourt pas en meme proportion
avec l'inegalite
Physique;
distinction
qui determine suffisamrnent
ce qu '.on doi t penser a cet egard de la sorte
d'inegalite
qui regne parmi tousles
Peuples
polices;
puisqu'il
est manifestement contre la
Loi de Nature, de quelque maniere qu'on la
definisse,
qu'un enfant commande a un vieillard,
qu'un imbecille
conduise un homme sage, et qu'une
poignee de gens regorge de superfluites,
tandis
que la multitude affamec manque du necessaire.178
177.
had
�The moral and political
were, therefore,
natural
traits
which had been assumed by mankind
never to be justified
that
one individual
divisions
with reference
marked the mental
and the next.
and bodily
If the opposite
were true,
then the
obligation
to obey, and men would somehow command the respect
neighbours
for the same reason
which set
society
apart
could only have been formed by their
produced
inequalities
which were enjoined
the modes of life
that
and uniformity
savage world.
by man.
of behaviour
And if we perceived
between men in society
The prodigious
Rousseau believed,
state
The
so that
by persons
in
the
into
those
diversity
of
in the civil
wit~ the relative
which would have prevailed
simin the
how immense were the distinctions
and how insignificant
between them in the natural
of their
from one another
agreement,
had come to be adopted
an
179
fears.
by Nature must have been transformed
must be contrasted,
plicity
create
they arouse their
the members of our species
inequalities
state
might itself
between
and exercise
that
force
variations
possession
rules
of superior
to any of the
were the differences
we could not fail
to notice,
equally,
comhien la difference
d'homme a homme doit etre
moindre dans l'etat
de Nature que dans celui de
societe,
et comhien l'inegalite
naturelle
doit
augmenter dans l'espece
humaine par l'inegalite
180
d'institution.
Rousseau actually
as an account
just
this
sort.
conceived
the central
theme of the Discours
of how mankind might have undergone a transformation
"Apres avoir
prouve",
of
he wrote,
179.
See ibid.,
p. 132: "De quoj_ s'agit-il.
.. precisement dans ce Discow:o?
De marquer dans le progres des choses, le moment ou le Droit succedant a
la Violence, la Nature fut soumise a la Loi."
Cf. also the following
passage from the Contrat social,
I.iii,
ibid.,
p. 355:
"Convenons ... que
force ne fait pas droit,
et qu'on n'est oblige d'obeir qu'aux puissances
legitimes."
180.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
ibid.,
pp. 160-161.
183
�que l'Inegalite
est a peine sensible dans l'etat
de
Natur~, et que son influence y est presque nulle, il
me reste a montrer son origine,
et ses progres dans
les developpemens successifs
de l'Esprit
humain. 181
Since in the state
and infrequent
that
contact
the original
men could have had no more than casual
with each other,
disparities
of any consequence
established,
of nature
it followed,
between individuals
at all.
The inequalities
in his view,
could not have been
which men had themselves
however, formed the most fundamental
characteristics
of
each community.
Il suit de cet expose que l'inegalite
etant presque
nulle dans l'Etat
de Nature, tire sa force et son
accrois~ement du developpement de nos facultes
et
des progres de !'Esprit
humain, et devient enfin
stable et legitime par l'etablissement
de la
propriete
et des Loix.182
The natural
himself,
man had neither
nor,
at the same time,
with the birth
timidity
of social
had been prescribed
bound together
by Nature,
permanently
relations
that
to those differences
they had in their
by relations
between them which
history
come to be
and command,
and striking
feature
life.
Hobbes and Locke, on the other
of nature
were all
and they had both imagined that
•
would be appre hensive
Thus while
of subservience
formed the most conspicuous
of every form of social
men in the state
his weakness became
a menace to his neighbours.
importance
like
any wish to hurt them, and it was only
institutions
or his strength
men did not attach
and these
any need for the company of creatures
hand, had wrongly supposed that
roughly
largely
equal in thei.r powers,
for this
of h"is neig• hb ours. 183
reason
"From this
every individual
equality
of
181.
Ibid.,
p. 162.
182.
Ibid., p. 193.
183.
It is, of course, true that Locke distinguished
the state of nature
from the state of war (see the Second Treatise,
c. iii,
§19, pp. 298-299).
184
�ability",
Hobbes proclaimed,
ing of our ends".
"ariseth
equality
of hope in the attain-
184
It followeth,
that in such a condition,
every man
has a right to every thing;
even to one another's
body.
And therefore,
as long as this natural
right of every man to every thing endureth, there
can be no security
to any man. 185
Thus men of similar
at their
peril,
he observed,
In effect
natural
flict
capacities
for "without
the equality
and antagonism
their
condition
of men, conjoined
ensured
only
a common power to keep them all
"they are in that
vanity,
regulate
could pursue the same objectives
only that
in a state
which is called
with their
in awe",
186
war".
mutual fear
they would remain in ceaseless
which had no enforceable
and
con-
laws to
affairs.
If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies;
and in the way to their end, which is principally
their own conservation ... endeavour to destroy,
or
subdue one another .... in the nature of man, we find
three principal
causes of quarrel.
First,
competition;
secondly, diffidence;
thirdly,
glory.
The
first,
maketh men invade for gain;
the second, for
187
safety;
end the third, for reputation.
But there was no natural authority
which could protect a man from any
infringement of those rights which he originally
enjoyed, and thus, Locke
observed (ibid.,
p. 300), "one great reason of Mens putting themselves
into Society, and quitting
the State of Nature", was "to avoid this State
of W13,r(wherein there is no appeal but to Heaven)".
This feature of
Locke's theory bas been discussed at great length by his interpreters.
184.
·Leviathan, English Works, II I, p. 111.
p. 162.
See also eh. II, p. 95.
Cf. De cive,
Opera,
185.
Leviathan,
pp. 164-165.
II,
Works, III,
p. 117.
Cf. De cive,
Opera, II,
186.
Leviathan, English Works, III,
pp. 165-166.
187.
Leviathan, English Works, III,
Opera, II, pp. 161 and 163.
p. 113.
Cf. De cive,
Opera,
English
185
pp. 111 and 112.
Cf. De cive,
II,
�In order
therefore
to maintain
a sovereign
judge or 'mortal
each person
from the next,
cious
effects
of equality
the whole multitude
that
there
without
condition
god' with absolute
so that,
according
188
to the Leviathan.
in the natural
uncertain
an organized
authority
the subjection
For Locke, too,
state
and insecure.
political
to protect
to Hobbes, the perni-
may be overcome through
lack of a common superior
of property
the peace men must institute
of
it was the
which made the tenure
He believed,
like
system mankind must live
Hobbes,
in a
of equality,
wherein all the Power and Jurisdiction
is reciprocal,
no one having more than another:
there being nothing
more evident,
than that Creatures of the same species
and rank promiscuously
born to all the same advantages
of Nature, and the use of the same faculties,
should
also be equal one amongst another without Subordination or Subjection. 189
It
was his view that
men are able to preserve
only when they "make one Body Politick"
the government which they establish
just
as Hobbes had argued that
enforce
property
a state
secure
of peace,
their
through
only if it were constantly
compact. 190
a social
an artificial
entrusted
property
and abide by the enactments
sovereign
so Locke supposed that
power to which they willingly
rightful
men could make their
defended
by a predominant
the responsibility
for its
The great and chief end ... of Mens uniting into
Commonwealths, and putting themselves under
Government, is the Preservation
of .heir Property.
To which in the state of Nature there are many
things wanting .... The inconveniencies,
that they
189.
Second Treatise,
190.
See ibid.,
c. viii,
English
Works, III,
p. 158.
c. 2, §4, p. 287.
§§95-96,
pp. 348-350.
186
And
was required
care.
188.
See the Leviathan,
Opera, II, pp. 215-216.
of
Cf. De cive,
to
�are therein
exposed to, by the irregular
and
uncertain
exercise
of the Power every Man has of
punishing the transgressions
of others,
make
them take Sanctuary under the establish'd
Laws
of Government, and therein
seek the preservation
of their Prooerty.191
The two writers
were unable
contended
dangers
thus
to obtain
that
claims,
since
it
is clear
in the light
those determinate
to contradict
these
of his own theory
the superior
authori-
the antagonisms
of nature
relations
should
even seek protection
men must have developed
and their
politically
as legitimate
just
According
powers which they
inferior
created
all
did nonetheless
which form the differences
For the civil
time in human history
men at odds with their
of both thinkers
society.
and command.
of inequality
from the works of either
might have established
the first
lives
which sat
to discover
made some persons
their
account
by Hobbes and Locke must have reinforced
described
subservience
the
of men.
designed
and fixed
between men in corrupt
equality
partly
but the ideas
how individuals
and each
Rousseau's
why men in the state
explain
neighbours,
state
must always be formed to reduce
It was impossible
from one another,
in the natural
that
was at least
of overcome all
neighbours.
protect
from their
authority
which had been conceived
instead
that
individuals
which accompany the unfettered
in the Discours
figure
that
protection
a civil
Now I think
ties
both held
to others
and for
bonds between them of
to Rousseau,
their
possessions
social
then,
obligations
from each other,
it
was true
so as to
but since
191.
Ibid.,
c. ix, §§124 and 127, pp. 368-370.
Locke's account of
property has been discussed
at greater
length than practically
any
other feature of his social thought.
Perhaps the most important and certainly
the most often criticised
- of the more recent interpretations
is that of Macpherson, for whom Locke's theory "provides a
moral foundation
for bourgeois appropriation"
(see The Political
Theory
of Possessive
Individualism,
pp. 197-221).
187
�they could not have been at war nor at th~ samP time owned any property
in their
natural
state,
it was inconceivable
they should originally
have felt
the need for safeguards
distrust,
in his view, could not have prompted the behaviour
earliest
savages,
made men vicious
of persons
and the feelings
in the civilised
who lived
particular,
of this
that
alone.
kind.
of ambition
Sentiments
of envy or
of the
and insecurity
world formed no part
We must not conclude,
which
of the character
with Hobbes in
Rousseau reflected,
que_pour n'avoir aucune idee de la bonte, l'homme
soit naturellement
mechant, qu'il soit vicieux
parce qu'il ne connoit pas la vertu ... ni qu'en
vertu du droit qu'il s'attribue
avec raison aux
choses dont il a hesoin, il s'imagine follement
etre le seul proprietaire
de tout l'Univers ....
Hobbes n'a pas vu que la meme cause qui empeche
les Sauvages d'user de leur raison ... les empeche
en meme terns d'abuser de leurs facultes ... de
sorte qu'on pourroit dire que les Sauvages ne
sont pas mechans precisement,
parce qu'ils ne
savent pas ce que c'est qu'etre bons.192
"The social
contracts
which figure
Locke must therefore
been corrupted
in the theories
have been formed by individuals
by society,
and the purpose
have been to make each person recognise
of inequality
that
were, in fact,
Rousseau actually
believed
to land must have constituted
obligation,
though insofar
have formulated
other
fixed
individuals
of both Hobbes and
principles
conceptions,
of these
that
the idea of an exclusive
as men in their
of any kind,
192.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
eh. II, notes 128 and 136.
natural
have arisen
O.C.III,
principle
state
such an idea,
in communities.
188
must
to Nature.
the most fundamental
had begun to settle
contracts
his duty to comply with rules
contrary
must clearly
who had alr~ady
right
of
could not
like
all
our
some time after
No claims
pp. 153-154.
of
See also
�ownership could have been expressed
linguistic
indeed,
rules
of social
the calamitous
a variety
of other
life
had already
institution
ideas
by men until
been established,
of private
property
which we must have previously
upon a whole range of conventions
a long period
or understood
that
the
and,
depended upon
accepted
and
could only have evolved over
of time in human history.
Le premier qui ayant enclos un terrain,
s'avisa
de
dire, ceci est a rnoi, et trouva des gens asses
sirnples pour le croire,
fut le vrai fondateur de
la societe civile.
Que de crimes, de guerres, de
meurtres,
que de rniseres et d'horreurs,
n'eut point
epargnes au Genre-humain celui qui ... eut crie a ses
semblables.
Gardez-vous d'ecouter
cet irnposteur;
Vous etes perdus, si vous oubliez que les fruits
sont a tous, et que la Terre n'est a personne:
Mais ... cette idee de propriete,
dependant de beaucoup d'idees anterieures
qui n'ont pu naitre que
successivernent,
ne se rorrna pas tout d'un coup
dans l'esprit
hurnain: Il falut faire bien des
progres, acquerir bien de l'industrie
et des
lumieres, les transrnettre
et les augmenter d'age en
age, avant que d'arriver
ace dernier terrne de
l'etat
de Nature. 193
If civil
expression
relations
ation
society,
moreover,
of our property
which gave rise
of property
was initially
relations,
to war.
by individuals,
formed as a political
it must also
have been these
For with the continuous
and with its
extension
appropri-
and then
193.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 164.
Voltaire was not
at all pleased when he read this passage, and in the margin of his own
copy of the Discours he added the following remarks (Havens, Voltaire's
Mar inalia on the pages of Rousseau, p. 15): "Quoy celui qui a plant6,
9 et enclos na pas droit au fruit de ses peines.
seme,
quoy cet homme
injuste ce voleur aurait ete le bienfaicteur
du genre humain! voyla la
philosophie d'un gueux qui voudrait que les riches fussent volez par
les pauvres."
Rousseau's account of property here is clearly incompatible with the views which he set forth in the 'Economie politique'
(see eh. II, note 89), but it is consistent
with ~~st of the ideas that
he developed on this subject both before and after his composition of
the Discours (see, for instance,
the passage from his 'Derniere reponse'
to Borde's Discours sur les avantages des sciences et des arts cited in
eh. V, p. 421, on the one hand, and the Contrat social,
I.ix, O.C.III,
pp. 365-367, on the other).
See also Goldschmidt, Anthropologie et
politique,
pp. 495-535.
189
�transmission
there
through
inheritances
from one generation
must have come a time when no further
for persons
to acquire
at all.
At that
the earth
had already
the rest,
the poor had no alternative
the rich
plunder
or the usurpers
of their
unclaimed
stage,
been sequestered
to the next,
land remained
when the fruits
of
by some men at the expense of
but to become the lackeys
property,
so that
servitude
of
and
thus arose at the same time.
Quand les heritages
se furent accrus en nombre et
en etendiie au point de couvrir le sol entier ...
les uns ne purent plus s'aggrandir
qu'aux depends
des autres,
et les surnumeraires
que la foiblesse
OU l 1 indolence
avoient empechcs d'en acquerir a
leur tour, devenus pauvres sans avoir rien perdu ...
furent obliges de recevior OU de ravir leur subsistance de la main des riches,
et de la commencerent
a naitre ... la domination et la ~ervitude, ou la
violence et les rapines .... c'est ainsi que les
usurpations
des riches,
les Brigandages des
Pauvres ... rendirent
les hommes avares, ambitieux,
et mechans.
Il s'elevoit
entre le droi~ du plus
fort et le droit du premier occupant un conflict
perpetuel .... La Societe naissante
fit place au plus
horrible etat de guerre.194
Just
as Locke had been mistaken,
have established
social
rights
institutions,
relations
of ownership
mistranslation
to suppose that
before
On this
point
of a passage
ing - Locke had been right
men could
they had created
so too Hobbes had failed
which men formed in their
cause of war.
there
therefore,
to see that
any other
the property
communities must be the principal
at least
- Rousseau remarks in a
from the Essay concerning
to maintain
that
there
Human Understand-
can be no injury
is no-property.
Hobbes pretend que l'homme est naturellement
intrepide,
et ne cherche qu'a attaquer,
et combattre .... circonstances rares dans l' 6tat de J:nture, ou toutes choses
194.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
190
pp. 175-176.
where
�marchent d'une maniere si uniforme, et ou la face
de la Terre n'est point sujette
aces changemens
brusques et continuels,
qu'y causent les passions,
et l'inconstance
des Peuples reunis .... c'est faute
d'avoir suffisamment distingue
les idees, et
remarque combien ces Peuples etoient deja loin du
premier etat de Nature, que plusieurs
se sont
hates de conclure que l'homme est naturellement
cruel et qu'il a besoin de police pour l'adoucir,
tandis que rien n'est si doux que lui dans son
etat primitif .... selon l'axiome du sage Locke, il
ne sauroit~
avoir d'injure,
ou il n'y a point de
propriete.l
5
In Rousseau's
contract
secure
view, then,
which was devised
it followed
by men in order
must have been a hoax perpetrated
upon the poor.
Its
security
of every man, but its
establish
the order necessary
acquired
expense of the liberty
Such an agreement
property
of nature,
in society
to the defence
real
of the rest
on the
by the rich
plausible
of the weak and the
the estates
use of their
of those
who
own land at the
to gain the same entitlem·ents.
would have bound each person
in order
but,
aim would have been to re-
to preserve
the exclusive
in exchange for the legitimate
so that
the social
terms might have seemed superficially
because they would have referred
had earlier
that
to make their
could not have been formed in the state
contrary,
already,
from this
possession
to maintain
the peace
only of what he owned
to comply with its
terms the great
majority
195.
Ibid., pp. 136 and 170.
In Locke's Essay, first published in
London in 1690, the passage appears in Book IV, eh. 3, §18, and reads
as follows:
"'Where there is no property,
there is no injustice',
is
a proposition
as certain as any demonstration
in Euclid."
The
standard French translation
of the Essay in the eighteenth
century
was by Pierre Coste, first printed in Amsterdam in 1690 under the
title Essai philosophique
concernant l'entendement
humain.
The text
is correctly
rendered by Coste as '"Il ne sauroit y avoir de l'injustice
ou il n'y a point de propriete'"·
See also the following passage from
Rousseau's 'Etat de guerre',
O.C.III,
p. 610: "Mettons un moment ces
idees en opposi~ion avec l'horrible
sisteme de Hobbes; et nous trouverons, tout au rebours de son absurde doctrine,
que bien loin que
l'etat
de guerre soit naturel a l'homme, la guerre est nee de la
paix, ou du moins des precautions
que les hommes ont prises pour
s 1assurer une paix durable."
191
�of men must have obtafoed
of repudiating
property
all
their
protection
rights
fro!" their
neighJ,curs
to share the wealth
by the act
which men of
enjoyed.
Il n'est pas possible que les hommes n 1 ayent fait
enfin des reflexions
sur une situation
aussi
miserable .... Les riches surtout durent bientot
sentir combien leur etoit desavantageuse une
guerre perpetuelle
dont ils faisoient
seuls tous
les fraix, et dans laquelle le risque de la vie
etoit commun, et celui des biens,. particulier
....
le riche presse par la necessite,
con~ut enfin le
projet le plus reflechi
qui soit jamais entre dans
l'esprit
humain .... apres avoir expose a ses voisins
l'~orreur
d'une situation
qui les armoit tousles
uns contre les autres ... il inventa aisement des
raisons specieuses pour les amener a son but.
11
Unissons-11ous", leur dit-il,
"pour garantir
de
l'oppression
les foibles ... et assurer a chacun la
possession de ce qui lui appartient:
Instituons
des reglemens de Justice et de paix auxquels tous
soient obliges de se conformer" .... Il en falut
beaucoup moins que l'equivalent
de ce Discours
pour entrainer
des hommes grossiers,
faciles
a
seduire .... Tous coururent au devant de leurs fers
croyant assurer leur liberte.196
Thus the political
authorities
which had been prescribed
Hobbes and Locke served the purpose of establishing
of the differences
between men in society.
of nature,
tions
between individuals
Rousseau,
in short,
as solutions
the cause.
for their
true
effect
more durable
that men were equal in the
was to make the social
and persistent.
both Hobbes and Locke had conceived
to some problems of which those solutions
197
They had detected
recognition
They could not solve any
problems which arose from the supposed fact
state
a legal
by
distinc-
According to
their
ideas
were in fact
a way in which men might plausibly
196.
Discours sur l'inegalitc,
O.C.III,
passage from Diderot's
Suite de l'apologie
in note 8 above.
197.
See the passage from the Discours
p. 184 cited on p. 225 below.
192
pp. 176-177.
Cf. the
de l'abbe de Prades cited
sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
�have come to accept
all
explained
obligation~
why any person
They had confused
duty,
their
under law, but they had not at
ought to have made such a commitment.
a description
of man's past with a statement
and more than any of Rousseau's
tingly
contemporaries
provided an account of what he understood
For it was his view that
moral inequality.
they had unwit-
to be the origins
of humanity could only be explained
of some kind of social
compact that
of property
thinkers
had in their
have come to sacrifice
but our permanent
separate
our natural
enslavement
to be depraved
of their
extolled
in society,
rights
the disproportionate
by Hobbes.
liberty
in terms
in the form of an agree-
ways recounted
had thus shown how our ancestors
to the usurpation
enshrined
which Locke had applauded
ment to uphold the peace and order
of
the misery and servitude
which mark the history
shares
of his
The two
how we might in fact
in exchange for nothing
so that
Hobbes and Locke
might once have willingly
submitted
by the men among them who had come
by the vice of ambition.
Telle fut, OU dut etre l'origine
de la Societe et
des Loix, qui donnerent de nouvelles entraves au
foible et de nouvelles forces au riche, detruisirent
sans retour la liberte
naturelle,
fixerent
pour
jamais la Loi de la propriete
et de l'inegalite,
d'une adroite usurpation
firent un droit irrevocable,
et pour le profit de quelques ambitieux assujetirent
desormais tout le Genre-humain au travail,
a la
SeI'\vitude et a la misere.198
Of course
Rousseau did not entirely
between Hobbes and Locke, and in a fragment
of the Discours
actually
records
198.
that
he chose to leave
commented upon a section
one of the most striking
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
con£late
the differences
of a passage
£rom a section
out of the published
from the Second Treatise
distinctions
O.C.III,
193
between their
p. 178.
text
he
which
respective
�political
ideas.
199
For the most part,
in the Discours points
to the similarities
and Locke and to the common mistake
committed.
The two figures
their
as Rousseau understood
ideas,
misconceived
hypothesis
They imagined that
authority
left
that for this
should form a civil
against
between the claims
which he believed
had overlooked
in the natural
the true
state
features
of Hobbes
both writers
significance
had
of
it was to the advantage
power which tould
a
of human nature.
the lack of any recognised
exposed to the aggression
every act of violence.
argument
them, because each had adopted
about the essential
each person
reason
however, Rousseau's
of all
of the next,
men that
so
they
defend the whole community
For Rousseau,
however,
it was only
199.
The fragment, which is neither a first
draft nor in Rousseau's
own hand (though it contains corrections
which he added himself),
appears in BN Ms fr. 12760, p. 615r and v.
It was initially
transcribed and annotated by Leigh on pp. 62-63 and 71-77 of his 'Manuscrits
disparus de J.-J.
Rousseau', Annales, XXXIV(1956-58), and its original
place in the text can be established
exactly since it incorporates
several lines that figure in the final version (see O.C.III,
pp. 187-188
and 1356-1358,aud 'Manuscrits disparus',
p. 73).
The reference
to
Locke appears in the context of the following remarks about tyrannical
government (O.C.III,
p. 1357):
"Qu'y a-t-il ... de plus necessaire
a
l'Etat qu'un Chef intrepide
et prudent, toujours prompt a penetrer les
projets des voisins suspects,
et a faire tete a l'ennemi declare?
Mais si ce Chef preferant
son interet
au notre est tente de nous
opprimer lui meme en parlant toujours de nous deffendre,
qui protegera
l'Etat contre son Protectcur
quand il en deviendra le Tyran, et
qu'aurons nous gagne qu'un ennemi de plus, au quel il ne nous sera
meme pas permis de resister?
N'est-ce pas, dit le sage Locke, comrne
si, pour garantir
une Basse cour du Renard, on la mettoit sous la
protection
du Loup?"
These words clearly pertain to the paragraph
in Locke's Second Treatise
(c. vii, §93, p. 346) in which he decries
any justification
of absolute monarchy on the grounds that men cannot
be "so foolish that -chey take care to avoid what Mischiefs may be done
them by Pole-Cats,
or Foxes, but are content ... to be devoured by Lions".
Most commentators have observed that the substance of this whole --paragraph contrasts
sharply with the absolutist
philosophy of Hobbes,
while Laslett has suggested (see ibid.,
p. 346, note) that it was
actually conceived to challenge the ideas of Filmer.
Locke's
remarks may perhaps be read as a critique
of both of these thinkers,
though in my view his terms "foxes" and "Lions" refer directly
to
"la golpe et il lione [la volpeeil
leoneJ"which
the prince must
know how to imitate,
according to Machiavelli
in the eighteenth
chapter of 11 Principe.
194
�in society
another,
that
since
men could even feel
t_he property
the need to be secure
relations
which gave rise
not have been a feature
of their
no original
to envy or to fear
inclination
by attributing
these
and Locke together
acquired
natural
traits
state.
men must have already
neighbours,
to mankind at all
formed those
them dependant· upon and later
to war could
Individuals
their
had wrongly supposed that
had
and
times
in the state
institutions
antagonistic
from one
Hobbes
of nature
which first
made
toward each other.
Le raisonnement de Locke tombe ... en ruine, et toute
la Dialectique
de ce Philosophe ne l'a pas garanti
de la faute que Hobbes et d'autres
ont commise.
Ils avoient a expliquer u.n fait de l'Etat
de Nature,
c'est-a-dire,
d'un etat ou les hommes vivoient
isoles ... et ils n'ont pas songe a se transporter
au-dela des Siecles de Societe,
c'est-a-dire,
de
ces terns ou les hommes ont toujours une raison de
demeurer pres les uns des autres.200
Hobbes and Locke, therefore,
had neglected
to abstract
of his nature,
still
further
the one side,
cordial
even before
persons
the social
and in Rousseau's
than Buffon and Condillac,
qualities
of man from their
judgment their
accounts
For whereas Buffon and Condillac,
had only attached
a gregarious
to our natural
had imagined that
they had come together.
social
study
were in fact
from the truth.
means of communication
Locke, in turn,
no less
tendency
on
or a
faculties,
Hobbes and
men were quarrelsome
and combative
Rous·seau was convinced
that
who had never kept company could not have had any reason
to
200.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
note xii, O.C.III,
p. 218.
In his
review of the Discours published in the Correspondance litteraire
(II[3J,
p. 54) of 15 July 1755 Grimm drew attention
to this feature
of Rousseau's argument, though he referred
to Hobbes and Pufendorf
rather than to Hobbes and Locke: "Le citoyen de Geneve reproche avec
raison a tousles
philosophes
qui ont medite sur cet important objet
de ne s'etre
pas forrne une idee bien distincte
de l'etat
de nature,
de
l'avoir
toujours confondu avec l'etat
civil,
et d'avoir transporte
sans cesse a l'etat
de nature des idees qu'ils
avaient prises dans la
societe.
Hobbes et Puffendorf
sont singulierement
dans ce cas."
195
�f
drive
each other
proposed nothing
authorized
apart,
less
and in his view Hobbes and Locke had both
than that
our most fatal
vices
should be
by law.
In the Discours
Rousseau remarked that
two traits
nature.
On the one hand he must always have been impelled
to preserve
institutions
of other
of sociability,
envisaged,
corrupt,
before
such as the natural
Thus meditating
of the human spirit,
in the state
by a
compassion
No fundamental
law philosophers
Rousseau contended,
upon the first
of
his social
he must have felt
members of his species.
could be ascribed,
of our race.
operations
and, equally,
made him morally
for the suffering
principle
his life,
creatures
man must have
possessed
desire
in common with all
primitive
to the progenitors
and most simple
he wrote,
j'y crois appercevoir deux principes
anterieurs
a
la raison, dont l'un nous interesse
ardemment a
notre bien-etre
et a la conservation
de nous memes,
et l'autre
nous inspire une repugnance naturelle
a
voir perir ou souffrir
tout etre sensible et
principalement
nos semblables.
C'est du concours
et de la combinaison que notre esprit est en etat
de faire de ces deux Principes,
sans qu'il soit
necessaire
d'y faire entrer celui de la sociabilite,
que me paroissent
decouler toutes les regles
du droit naturel;
regles que la raison est
ensuite forcee de retablir
sur d'autres
fondemens,
quand parses
developpemens successifs
elle est
venue a bout d'etouffer
la Nature.201
201.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, pp. 125-126.
See also eh. I,
pp. 25-26.
It should be noted here that by the time Rousseau composed
the fourth book of Emile he was convinced that the two most fundamental
characteristics
of mankind described in the Discours could be reduced to
only one, that is, self-love.
For in the natural constitution
of
humanity, Rousseau contended in the later work (O.C.IV, p. 491), 'l'amour
de soi' must have come before, and must have given rise to, all our other
196
�It was Rousseau's
ignored
by Hobbes in particular,
conceived
into
impression
conflict
lives,
of the first.
in the state
compassionate
to the next,
take advantage
for oneself,
as Hobbes supposed,
a pitiless
just
into
recognise
men in their
and, indeed,
pertained
entirely
men came
their
own
could be both
For Rousseau,
for security
however,
at the expense of
and contempt which together
state,
to
in order to care properly
Hobbes, for his part,
natural
but to
and, at the same time,
when he could.
vanity
enemies.
like
all
had failed
other
transto
undomesti-
were moved by compassion as well as by self-interest,
the concept
to a quite
of self-preservation
factitious
feeling,
debased form of love of oneself
only have acquired
to preserve
he had no choice
attack
desire
that
form strangers
creatures,
he had had a·mis-
no individual
to have concern for others
since
that
efforts
had been
Since each man sought to make himself
of his neighbour
any person creates
cated
in their
on guard against
it was necessary
because
traits
He had imagined that
of nature
and secure.
remain constantly
the second of these
largely
with each other
so that
superior
view that
which he had advanced
Rousseau believed
- which individuals
- to an
could
in society.
passions:
"La source de nos passions,
l'origine
et le principe de
toutes les autres,
la seule qui nait avec l'homme et ne le quitte
jamais tant qu'il vit est l'amour de soi;
passion primitive,
innee,
anterieure
a toute autre et dont toutes les autres ne sont en un sens
que des modifications .... la pluspart de ces modifications
ont des
causes etrangeres
sans lesquelles
elles n'auroient
jamais lieu, et ces
memes modifications
loin de nous etre avantageuses
nous sont nuisibles,
elles changent le premier objet et vont contre leur principe;
c'est
alors que l'homme se trouve hors de la nature et se met en contradiction
avec soi.
L'amour de soi-meme est toujours bon et toujours conforme a
l'ordre."
See also Emile, Livre II, ibid.,
p. 322, and the Lettre a
Christophe de Beaumont, ibid.,
p. 936.
Among the most perceptive
recent commentaries about this subject are those of Masters (see The
Political
Philosophy of Rousseau, pp. 136-146) and Goldschmidt
(s~
his Anthropologie et politique,
pp. 311-356).
With regard to
Rousseau's conception of pity, in particular,
see also eh. IV, note
242.
197
�Il y a ... un ... Principe que Hobbes r.'a p=int ~pper~u
et qui, ayant ete donne a l'homme pour adoucir, en
certaines
circonstances,
la ferocite
de son amour
propre, ou le desir de se conserver avant la naisoance de cet amour, tempere 1 1 ardeur qu' il a pour
son bien-etre
par une repugnance innee a voir
souffrir
son semblable .... Je parle de la Pitie,
disposition
convenable a des etres aussi foibles,
et sujets a autant de maux que nous le sommes;
vertu d'autant
plus universelle
et d'autant
plus
utile a l 1 homme, qu'elle
precede en lui l'usage de
toute reflexion,
et si Naturelle
que les Betes memes
en donnent quelquesfois
des signes sensibles.202
Rousseau was quite
he devoted
one of his nineteen
distinction
impels
that
insistent
between 'l'amour
notes
the vanity
attempt
maintained
in their
that
that
is,
and
I
the self-love
which
l "amour propre
1,
to their
of self-love
and was a true mark of their
when it was also
conjoined
with the natural
feeling
it,
of vanity,
were initially
have figured
desires
however,
and others
all
sentiment
of pity,
he
203
Our
and our sense of honour which arose
and affected
among the spontaneous
which impelled
all
emotions.
and unreflective
men at first
passions
and they could only have been formed in connection
social
bonds that
selves
as they learnt
202.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
must have come to force
to suppress
O.C.III,
and
to care for both themselves
state,
progressively
from
They could not
whom they might have chanced to meet in their
our ancestors
men
humanity;
•
.
sign
of t h eir• mora 1 virtue.
contrived
to
Rousseau
must have inspired
condition
• h t even b ea
it• mig
alone
neighbours.
seminal
asserte, d
of the
the members of our species
superior
the sentiment
in the Discours • and
to an account
own survival,
which drives
to make themselves
point
entirely
de soi-meme',
every animal to seek its
is,
about this
that
original
with the
upon them-
compassion
p. 154.
203.
Hence, observes Starobinski
{O.C.III, p. 1298), for Rousseau
"l'amour de soi et la pitie sent les mouvements spontanes de la
sensibili te qui fondent la morale naturelle".
198
�which had earlier
been characteristic
of their
nature.
Il ne taut pas confondre l'Amour propre et l'Amour
de soi-meme;
deux passions tres differentes
par
leur nature et par leurs effets.
L 1 Amour de soimeme est un sentiment naturel qui porte tout animal
a veiller
a sa propre conservation
et qui, dirige
dans l 1 homme par la raison et n,udifie par la pi tie,
produit l'humanite
et la vertu.
L'Amour propre
n'est qu'un sentiment relatif,
factice,
et ne dans
la societe,
qui porte chaque individu a faire plus
de cas de soi que de tout autre, qui inspire
aux
hommes tousles
maux qu'ils
se font mutuellement,
et qui est la veritable
source de l 1 honneur.
Ceci
bien entendu, je dis que dans notre etat primitif,
dans le·veritable
etat de nature, l'Amour propre
n'existe
pas.204
204.
Discours sur l 1 inegalite,
note xv, O.C.III,
p .. 219.
See also
Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques, O.C.I, p. 669.
In his critical
edition
(seep.
165, note) of La 'Profession
de foi du Vicaire savoyard' de
Rousseau (Fribourg and Paris 1914) Masson cites a number of sources
from which Rousseau might have drawn these terms and the distinction
he makes between them.
The most important is probably the following
passage from Marie Huber 1 s Lettres sur la religion
essentielle
a
1 1 homme (Londres 1739 edition),
lettre
xxx, p. 102: "Ici paroit
assez sensiblement
la difference
de l 1 Amour-Propre ou de l'Amour Faux,
a l 1 Amour de Soi-meme bien entendu.
C'est que celui-ci,
en s'appliquant
a la recherche du Bien meme, ne pretend en exclure personne, parce que
ce Bien est de nature a pouvoir se partager
sans concurrence;
au lieu
que celui-la
meconnoissant le vrai Bien, n'est satisfait
que lorsqu 1 il
se flatte
d'une distinction
particuliere."
Cf. also Jacques Abbadie,
L'Art de se connoitre
soi-meme (Rotterdam 1692), p. 263.
It should be
noted here, however, that the distinction
Rousseau adopted between
'1 1 amour de soi-meme' and 'l'amour propre' was not widely accepted by
Enlightenment
thinkers.
Condillac,
for instance,
put forward an
altogether
different
view of 'l'amour propre' in his Traite des animaux
(II.viii,
OPC, I, p. 372), claiming that it is a passion which is
undoubtedly common to the members of all animal species and that "c'est
de lui que naissent
tousles
autres penchans .... Le premier objet de
l'amour-propre
est ... d'ecarter
tout sentiment desagreable;
et c'est
par-la qu'il tend a la conservation
de l'individu".
In Neuchatel Ms
R 18, p. 14r (O.C.III,
p. 1376), moreover, Rousseau himself transcribed
a passage from Vauvenargues's
Introduction
a la connoissance de l'esprit
humain (first
published in Paris in 1746) in which the two terms are
employed in a sense that is very much opposed to that of his own theory:
"Avec l 1 amour de nous-memes ... on peut chercher hors de soi son bonheur;
on peut s'aimer hors de soi plus que son existence
propre;
on n'est
point a soi-meme son unique objet.
L'amour-propre,
au contraire,
subordonne tout a ses· commodites et a son bien-etre,
il est a lui-meme son
seul objet et sa seule fin."
Almost exactly the same words, copied
from the text of Vauvenargues, appear in the abbe Claude Yvon's article
'Amour des sciences et des lettres'
in the Encyclopedie,
I, p. 371.
199
�Rousseau therefore
relations
believed
with each other
that
even when individuals
they
would at least
toward sympathy rather
than belligerence
they did meet, so that
in this
men must have been like
those
found in the state
of nature.
ness shown to their
offspring
regard
have been inclined
on those few occasions
the original
of all
had no fixed
when
dispositions
the creatures
of
which were to be
for even if we disregard
the tender-
by mothers of every type of animal,
Rousseau reflected,
on observe tousles
jours la repugnance qu'ont les
Chevaux a fouler aux pieds un Corps vivant;
Un
animal ne passe point sans inquietude aupres d'un
animal mort de son Espece:
11 yen a meme qui
leu.r donnent une sorte de sepulture;
Et les
tristes
mugissemens du Betail entrant dans une
Boucherie, annoncent l'impression
qu'il re9oit de
l'horrible
spectacle
qui le frappe.205
Self-love
anq compassion
together,
view, must once have-been
the natural
shared
then,
by men with all
which,
the other
in his
beasts
of
world.
While the human race was in these
animal species
unique capacity
Rousseau also
to change its
marked by the same passions
various
were feelings
forms of our response
supposed,
every other
mankind had a
We must always have been
and desires
to these
knowledge and assume modes of life
like
however, that
nature.
powers which lay beyond our control,
respects
as other
desires
creatures,
but the
were not prescribed
by
and we alone were able to acquire
that
les hommes n'ont point naturellement,
et ... dont
ils ne peuvent concevoir l'idee
qu'apres etre
sortis de l'Etat
de Nature.205
205.
Discours
206.
Ibid.,
p. 139) cited
su.r l'inegalite,
p. 125.
See also
on p. 125 above.
O.C.III,
p. 154.
the passage
200
from the Discours
(ibid.,
�For while Nature must have given rise
and to their
patterns
of behaviour,
both to the impulses
we received
the same impulses
were free to choose the manner in which we would satisfy
them.
Every type of beast
more than an ingenious
instinct
equally
of the human machine,
free agents
and hence play a part
which we perform.
habits
of all
- at least
virtue
from man, wrote Rousseau,
means of self-preservation.
is nothing
the
The same is
he continued,
except
in the calculation
that
we are
of the deeds
whereas Nature alone governs the movements and
other
creatures
to some extent,
of their
but
or overcome
machine to which Nature has provided
and appropriate
true
apart
of animals
liberty;
in the wild.
and often
animals,
Thus men act as they do
even to their
on the other
disadvantage
- in
hand, always do what
they must.
Jene vois dans tout animal qu'une machine ingenieuse, a qui la nature a donne des sens pour se
remonter elle meme, et pour se garantir,
jusqu'a
uncertain
point, de tout ce qui tend a la detruire,
OU a la deranger.
J'apper~ois
precisement les memes
choses dans la machine humaine, avec cette difference
que la Nature seule fait tout dans les operations de
la Bete, au-lieu que l'homme concourt aux siennes, en
qualite d'agent libre.
L'un choisit ou rejette
par
instinct,
et l'autre
par un acte de liberte;
ce qui
fait que la Bete ne peut s'ecarter
de la Regle qui
lui est prescrite,
meme quand il lui seroit avantageux de le faire,
et que l'homme s'en ecarte souvent
a son prejudice.207
207.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
p. 141.
According to Rousseau,
therefore,
men are free insofar as the actions which they perform are
deliberate
rather than compulsive.
This is a point which he makes
perhaps most clearly in the Contrat social,
III. i, ibid.,
p. 395: "Toute
action libre a deux causes qui concourent a la produire,
l'une morale,
savoir la volonte qui determine l'acte,
l'autre
physique, savoir la
puissance qui 1 1 execute.
Quand je marche vers un objet, il faut
premierement que j'y veuille aller;
en second lieu, que mes pieds m'y
portent."
For Hobbes, on the other hand (Levic.tha."l, Fnr,lish Worl~:1, III,
p. 197), "'.'/hen the words free, and liberty,
are upplicd to any th.11,
but
bodies, they are abused;
for that which is not subject to motion, is
not subject to impediment .... from the use of the word free-will,
no
201
�It was because men in their
selves
distinct
from other
endowed with any specific
them apart
from all
natural
animals
- rather
attributes
the rest
- that,
ations
beneath
all
would have received;
artificial
course
than because
faculties
according
the human
man all
observed,
the trappings
"tel
to Rousseau,
over every other
the supernatural
qualities
gifts
type of
possessed
which later
if v,e could denude our specieo
which we must have acquired
of our development;
they were
have set
If we could uncover the essential
our progenitors
~ere able to make them-
which might originally
race must always have had an advantage
creature.
state
if,
in short,
of civilisation
qu 1 il a du sortir
during
by
gener-
of all
the
the long
we could take away from
and consider
him, Rousseau
des mains de la Nature",
we should
find
liberty
can be inferred of the will, desire,
or inclination,
but the
liberty
of the man; which consisteth
in this, that he finds no stop,
in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination
to do".
The
movements of objects and the actions of men all "proceed from necessity",
Hobbes continued (ibid.,
p. 198), .so that in his view there could be no
constraint
upon the human will, but only upon the physical motion of
men's bodies.
Hobbes would have argued that Rousseau was fundamentally
mistaken in his account of liberty,
since his supposition
that creatures
were not free when they were subject to the will of Nature could only
have been founded upon a confusion between the determinate
cause of
their actions,
on the one hand, and an external
impediment which might
be placed in their way, on the other.
In the judgment of Hobbes, that
is, everything must happen of necessity
and does so in conformity with
the will of God or the dictates
of Nature, but necessity
is not itself
incompatible
with freedom.
The motion of a freely falling
object
might be determined by the laws of gravitation,
but its freedom was
lost only when it hit the earth.
Rousseau, however, believed that
Nature could exercise an internal
constraint
upon animal behaviour,
insofar as "l'impulsion
du seul appetit est esclavage",
and only
"l'obeissance
a la loi qu'on s'est prescritte est liberte" (Contrat
social,
I.viii,
0.C.III,
p. 365).
So far as I know, Rousseau does
not refer anywhere to the difference
between his own account of liberty
and that of Hobbes, but it is possible that he had the social theory
of Hobbes in mind when he drafted the fcllowing lines of the Contrat
social,
III.ix
(ibid.,
p. 420,' note):
"Un peu d'agitation
donne du
ressort
aux ames, et ce qui fait vraiment prosperer
l'espece
est moins
la paix que la liberte."
See also the passages from the Manuscrit de
Geneve, I.iii,
ibid.,
pp. 292-293, and the Contrat social,
I.viii,
ibid.,
pp. 364-365, cited in eh. II, note 143.
202
�un animal moins fort que les uns, moins agile que
les autres,
mais a tout prendre,
organize le plus
avantageusement
de tous.208
In their
original
state
were more dextrous
our ancestors
and adroit
the female of our species
arms
would have perceived
than other
was able
plus
de facili
•
animaux
11
man must always have been able to decide
state
of nature,
was able
how he could best
to live
con£ront
gather
210
te
as
in her
nourrir
Most important
que
of all~
even in the
with each situation.
or in a cave;
fruit;
they
and insofar
a le
for himself,
contend
both in the forest
prey or, alternatively,
209
to move about with a child
she must have had "beaucoup
1
t l es f eme11 es d e p l usieurs
•
non
creatures,
that
He
he could hunt for
and he could select
either
to
from danger.
or flee
A l'egard
des animaux qui ont reellement
plus de
force qu'il n'a d'adresse,
il est vis a vis d'eux
dans le cas des autres especes plus foibles,
qui
ne laissent
pas de subsister;
avec cet avantage
pour l'homme, que non moins dispos qu'eux a la
course, et trouvant
sur les arbres un refuge
presque assure;
il a par tout le prendre et le
laisser
dans la rencontre,
et le choix de la
fuite ou du combat.211
While other
creatures
which prevailed
bound by the
determine
208.
were not subject
between men in society,
commands of Nature.
in what fashion,
Discours
and,
sur l'inegalite,
209.
See ibid.,
p. 136:
animaux, et se trouvant de
eux, il en fait bientot
la
plus en adresse,
qu'ils
ne
plus craindre."
210.
Ibid.,
p. 137.
211.
Ibid.,
pp.
to the kind of fixed
they were all,
Man alone possessed
indeed,
O.C.III,
whether
or not,
203
nevertheless,
the liberty
to
he would comply
pp. 134-135.
"L'homme Sauvage vivant
bonne heure dans le cas
comparaison,
et sentant
le surpassent
en force,
136-137.
relations
disperse
parmi les
de se mesurer avec
qu'il les surpasse
il apprend a ne les
�with these
comm,:mJs, and for Rousseau it
consciousness
of·this
liberty
\.IC::S
p-:irticularly
that
"la spiritualite
belief,
moreover,
in man's
de son ame11212
is displayed.
It was also
Rousseau's
must always have been distinct
that
the human race
among animal species
in yet another
way, for only mankind possessed
Insofar
as all
response
individuals
were free
to the impulsions
develop their
condition
behaviour
the attribute
of Nature they must have been able to
in a cumulative
qualities
adopted habits
but also
which no other
character,
and in Rousseau's
history
of change.
is already
and after
habits
view, to be sure,
however,
After
creatures
a thousand
and patterns
is capable
among animals,
years
Rousseau suggested,
to humanity's
feature
that
of his
it was precisely
more perfect
rather
the whole of its
of life
as the first
primitive
maturity,
is marked by che
and he is also
in effect,
civilised
state
from man
generation.
and thus impair
are just
of its
species
his faculties,
steps
than
they could undergo a
habits
in having what is,
to make retrograde
it would have
a few months every animal apart
of improving
moreover,
Once having
a permanent
stamped with the characteristic
same instincts
reverted
from other
in his original
not only to change
could share,
men were able to make themselves
merely different
ciles,
way, so that
to improve them.
animals
been in his power to make those
capacity
to choose the manner of their
each person must have had the capacity
his essential
because
of perfectibility.
through
Man,
alone
the same
his nature.
persons
who have
their
having lost
Imbe-
212.
Ibid.,
p. 142 (seep.
126 above).
Rousseau thought, apparently, that it was partly because men had resisted
the commands of
Nature that they came to invent and adopt other rules instead.
204
�the mental skills
bility.213
perfect,
they had earlier
Since other
creatures
it was not in their
ing attributes
acquired
in virtue
of their
perfecti-
were unable to make themselves more
power to malce thmnselves worse by forfeit-
which they had never possessed.
Quand les difficultes
qui environnent toutes ces
questions,
laisseroient
quelque lieu de disputer
sur cette difference
de l'ho11111eet de l'animal,
il y a une autre qualite tres specifique qui les
distingue,
et sur laquelle il ne peut y avoir de
contestation,
c'est la faculte de se perfectionner;
facu.lte qui, 1 l'aide des circonstances,
developpe successivement toutes les autres, et
reside parmi nous tant dans l'espece,
que dans
l'individu,
au lieu qu'un animal est, au bout de
quelques mois, ce qu'il sera toute sa vie, et son
espece, au bout de mill• ans, ce qu'elle etoit la
premiere annee de ces mille ans.
Pourquo11.'homme
seul est il sujet 1 devenir imbecile?
N'est ce
point qu'il retourne ainsi dans son etat primitif,
et q~e, tandis que la Bite, qui n'a rien acquis et
qui n'a rien non plus 1 perdre, reste toujours avec
son instinct,
l'homme reperdant par la vieillesse
ou d'aui:res accidens, tout ce que sa perfectibilite
lui avoit fait acquerir, retombe ainsi plus bas que
la Bite mime?2l4
213.
This claim seems rather si:range in the light of Rousseau's general
perspective of human nature in the Discours.
Imbeciles are clearly not
civilised
men who have recovered the pristJ.ne faculties
of their savage
state through age or infirmity;
they are persons whose mental disabilities make them even more frail than the rest of us.
Rousseau's contention
about the course of imbecility here is somewhat similar to that of
Maupertu.is about the retrogressive
path of black albinism which had already
been challenged by Buffon (see notes 58 and 67 above).
214.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 142.
With regard to the
genesis of the term 'perfectibilite'
Starobinski makes the following
observation (O.C.III,
pp. 1317-1318):
"L• mot perfectibilite
est un
neologism• savant.
Ce mot ne figure pas dans le Dictionnaire de Trevoux
avant 1771; il n'existe
pas dans la quatrieme edition du Dictionnaire de
l'Academie (1740, sic 1762). Il apparait clans lacinquieme edition de ce dictionnaire, 1798, dans le sens ~ue lui donne Rousseau .... Antoine Charma, a la
page 68 de son etude sur Condorcet, rapporte que le mot etait utilise
dans la conversation par Turgot des 1750.
Il apparait clans l'ordinaire
de fevrier l 755 de la Corres:rndance litteraire."
The passage from the
Correspondance lit~eraire,
I 2), to which Starobinski refers here appeared
in the issue of 15 February 1755 and reads as follows (p. 492): "L'homme
constitue une espece d'etre tres-singulier
et tout 1 fait different
de ce
que nous voyons de vivant et d'inanime dans a nature.
Le principal
205
�Rousseau supposed that
it was through
we must have come to form our particular
persons
followed
could transmit
that
these
traits
the exercise
social
of our liberty
traits,
from one generation
the whole of our species
so that
that
because
to the next it
had been able to make its
caractere
qui le distingue
de toutes les autres creatures
de l'univers,
c'est la perfectibilite
ou la faculte qu'il a re9ue de se rendre plus
parfait,
faculte qui opere sans cesse les plus etonnantes revolutions,
et dans son etre et dans toute la nature.
Toutes les autres especes
d'animaux ont conserve le meme degre de perfection
ou elles etaient
depuis que nous savons leur histoire .... L'homme seul par sa nature est
fait pour eprouver les differences
les plus sensibles
et pour passer par
des changements successifs
et continuels,
suivant lesquels il peut ou
approcher de la perfection
que son espece comporte, ou s'en eloigner
j usqu' a se degrader .... Quand on ref le chit se1>ieusement sur l' homme et
sur sa deplorable
destinee confirmee par l'histoire
de tant de siecles,
on est tente de croire que le don de se perfectionner
qu'il a re~u de
la nature lui a ete plus funeste qu 'utile."
With respect to these
lines Starobinski
remarks (0.C.III,
p. 1318) that "a la date ou le
texte de Grimm (ou de Diderot?) est publie, le manuscrit du Disccurs
est depuis longtemps entre les mains de Rey".
Since none of Rousseau's
corrections
to the proofs have any bearing upon his use of the term
1
perfectibilite',
it is therefore
certain,
writes Starobinski
(ibid.),
"que Rousseau n'a pas ete influence par la publication
de Grimm.
L'inverse
est infiniment
plus probable:
Grimm aurait eu communication
du manuscrit de Rousseau, ou aurait adopte ces idees a son contact.
Diderot, pour sa part, peut avoir servi d'intermediaire,
ou peut-etre
est-il
l'inspirateur
commun de Grimm et de Rousseau".
Whatever might
have been the source for Rousseau's use of the word, his idea of
1
perfectibilite'
was certainly
attacked at length by his eighteenthcentury critics.
Jean de Castillon,
for instance,
in the most
substantial
of the early replies
to the Discours, charged Rousseau
(Discours sur l'ine alite
armi les hommes.
Pour servir de re onse
au Discours que M. Rousseau a publie sur le meme sujet
Amsterdam 1756),
p. 46) with having failed to see that "la faculte de se perfectionner
...
est commune a l'homme & a la bete".
According to Castillon
(pp. 49-50)
the specific
perfectibility
of man was attributable
to his natural
endowments of reason and language, and it was certainly
not the case,
as Rousseau had supposed, that our exercise of this faculty produced
our errors and vices as well as our virtues and enlightenment:
"LA
PERFECTIBILITE fait eclore les lumieres & les vertus de l'homme: mais
elle ne fait point naitre ses erreurs & ses vices:
elle ne le rend
point sujet a l'imbecillite."
For Herder, moreover, the concept of
perfectibility
which Rousseau had attached to human nature was as
superfluous
as the concept of reason, which he had tried to divorce
from savage man, was indispensable.
Thus, wrote Herder in his
Abhandlung iiber den Ursprung der Sprache (Herders sammtliche Werke,
V, p. 44), "Sein Phantom, der Naturmensch;
dieses entartete
Geschopf,
das er auf der einen Seite mit der Vernunftfahigkeit
abspeiset,
wird
auf der andern mit der Perfectibilitat
und zwar mit ihr als
Char>aktercie,cnac.l:mft, w1d zwar mit ihr- in so ho hem Grade belehnet,
daB er dadurch von allen Thiergattungen
lernen konne - und was hat
nun Rousseau ihm nicht zugestanden!
Mehr, als wir wollen und
brauchen!".
206
�departure
first
from the state
have shared
nevertheless
liberty
of nature.
the same faculties
have been distinct
and perfectibility
behaviour
these
evolution
of the human race.
Of course
not ensure
that
inchoate
215
In his view, then,
as other
And while his
could not have been manifest
in his original
qualities
had made possible
the perfectibility
attribute
of that
individuals
must have made when they adopted
only that
there
the historical
of men in their
they would become more perfect
and institutions
but he must
in his potentialities.
development
of life
animals,
man must at
original
creatures,
depended upon the actual
in society.
could be cumulative
their
state
for the real
choices
various
which
patterns
Human perfectibility
ensured
change in one direction
or another,
and it was as much compatible
with the history
of man's degradation
it would have been compatible
with the history
of his progress.
According
to Rousseau,
use of those traits
in fact,
in the course
'pitie'
and 'amour de soi-meme'
Perhaps
termed "la Societe
conditions
other
creatures,
of his advance he had come to suppress
the state
naissante"
for our happiness,
his
and had thus
brought
about his own
of primitive
society
which Rousseau
would have offered
since
in that
still
as
his freedom in his
which he had in common with all
so that
corruption.
man had misapplied
did
the best
possible
propertyless
world
215.
Some of Rousseau's interpreters
(see especially
Strauss,
Natural Right and History, pp. 265-266, and Masters, The Political
Philosophy of Rousseau, pp. 69-72) have suggested that he conceived
the idea of perfectibility
to replace rather than to supplement his
view of natural liberty,
largely in order to avoid the dualistic
metaphysics which his concept of an exclusively
human form of freedom might appear to entail.
This interpretation
seems to me quite
wrong.
Rousseau believed each man was perfectible
only insofar as
he was free, and at the same time he supposed that the historical
perfectibility
of the human race as a whole depended upon the liberty
of all persons both to alter their nature and to transmit the changes
they have made - in the form of social habits - to their progeny in a
cumulative fashion.
207
�we could have exercised
our nature
progress
rather
our faculties
than distorted
in ways which might have bettered
Every element of the subsequent
it.
of mankind, however, has produced the apparent
the individual
perfection
only at the true cost of the decrepitude
of
of our species.
Il faut remarquer que la Societe commencee et les
relations
deja ctablies
entre les hommes, exigeoient
en eux des qualites
differentes
de celles qu'ils
tenoient de leur constitution
primitive ..• la Societe
naissante .... etoit ... le meilleur
[etat] a l'homme ... .
le Genre-humain etoit fait pour y rester toujours .. .
et ... tous les progres ulterieurs
ont ete en apparence autant de pas vers la perfection
de l'individu,
et en effet vers la decrepitude de l'espece.216
The social
debased rather
relations
which men formed with one another
than improved their
progressively
less
progressively
more dependant
improvement,
the liberty
the contrary,
compulsions
that
all
dependant
that
is,
habits,
for just
had never been devoted to the task
we had in society
elected
Rousseau regarded
our perfectibility
for self-
of increasing
state
to become slaves
we imposed upon ourselves.
made themselves
Our capacity
which we must have enjoyed in our natural
that
as they had grown
upon Nature they had equally
upon other men.
had actually
since,
to new
It was for this
as the principal
on
reason
source of
our misfortunes.
Cette faculte distinctive,
et presque illimitee,
est la source de tousles
malheurs de l'homme ...
c'est elle qui le tire,
a force de terns, de cette
condition originaire,
dans laquelle il couleroit
216.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O,C.III,
pp. 170-171.
See also p. 231
below.
The real consequence of man's perfectibility
has therefore
been
his fall, notes Starobinski
(La transparence
et l'obstacle,
pp. 12-13):
"Paree que l'homme est perfectible,
il n'a cess~ d'ajouter
ses inventions
aux dons de la nature.
Et des lors l 1 histoire
universelle,
alourdie du
poids sans cesse croissant
de nos artifices
et de notre orgueil,
prend
l'allure
d'une chute acceleree
dans la corruption .... Le mythe de la chute
ne precede done pas l'existence
terrestre;
Rousseau transporte
le mythe
religieux
dans l'histoire
elle-meme."
208
�des jours tranquilles,
et innocens ... c'est elle,
qui fai~ant cclorc avec les siccles
ses lumieres
et ses erreurs,
ses vices et ses vertus,
le rend
la longue le tiran de lui-meme, et de la
Nature.21?
a
This faculty
had, in effect,
natural
into
our moral differences
crucial
role
in the development
If Nature
created
between men, according
that
must initially
nation
made possible
the transformation
and had therefore
of social
the first
significant
it was chance,
have drawn them together.
of fortuitous
events
all
believed,
would have remained
innocence
and isolation.
the most
inequality.
and least
to Rousseau,
played
of our
distinctions
on the other
Without the concate-
the members of the human race,
eternally
hand,
in their
original
he
condition
of
Apres avoir montre que la perfectibilite,
les vertus
sociales,
et les autres facultes
que l'homme Naturel
avoit re~ues en puissance, ne pouvoient jamais se
developper d'elles
memes, qu'elles
avoient besoin
pour cela du concours fortuit
de plusieurs
causes
etrangeres
qui pouvoient ne jamais naitre,
et sans
lesquelles
il fut demeure ~ternellement
dans sa constitution
primitive;
il me reste a considerer
et a
rapprocher
les differens
hazards qui ont pu perfectionner la raison humaine, en deteriorant
l'espece,
rendre un etre mechant en le rendant sociable,
et
d'un terme si eloigne amener enfin l'homme et le
monde au point ou nous les voyons. 218
217.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
0.C.III,
p. 142.
218.
Ibid.,
p. 162.
There is a certain
superficial
similarity
between
Rousseau's argument here and Machiavelli's
contention,
in his Discorsi,
I.ii,
that the first
associations
of men were formed by chance.
But
while Rousseau drew much inspiration
from the thought of Machiavelli
particularly
in the Contrat social - there is no reason to suppose that he
borrowed this thesis from the Discorsi.
For Machiavelli's
essential
point
there is that the genesis of our different
forms of government - rather
than of society itself
- is attributable
to chance.
Though like Rousseau
he believed
(Discorsi,
I.ii,
in Opere complete, ed. Sergio Bertelli
and
Franco Gaeta, 8 vols.,
[Milano 1960-65), I, p. 131) that "nel principio
del
mondo, sendo gli abitatori
radi, vissono un tempo dispersi
a similitudine
delle bestie",
he also held to the quite different
supposition
that men
must have gathered together in the first
instance in order to defend themselves against the attacks of other men.
209
�It was, of course,
circumstances
impossible,
and we could only speculate
such as floods
or earthquakes
might once have brought
congregations.
not attempt
that
to specify
the nature
events,
he insisted
unpremeditated
to the first
earliest
forms of social
accident
rather
languages
life
than by choice
arose,
or trace
he suggested,
to communicate in these
his hypothesis,
human groups,
Such occur-
men would have been obliged
though he pointed
that
disasters,
proximity.
employed by individuals
might support
great
catastrophes
away from the great
Perhaps
In any case,
of our earliest
any other
thus created
than before.
in the form of devices
or authorities
indeed,
of the earth
and in the islands
to meet more often
given rise
or,
the exact
about how natural
men into territorial
could have torn parts
continents,
forced
to determine
which must have led to the formation
communities,
rences
he added,
219 and though he did
the possible
happenings
to no evidence
course of these
of this
kind must have
and he was adamant that
our
would have had to be established
by
or design.
J'avoue que les evenemens que j'ai a decrire ayant
pu arriver
de plusieurs
manieres, je ne puis me
determiner sur le choix que par des conjectures ....
De grandes inondations
ou des tremblemens de terre
environnerent
d'eaux ou de precipices
des Cantons
habites;
Des revolutions
du Globe detacherent
et
couperent en Iles des portions du Continent.
On
con~oit qu'entre des hommes ainsi rapproches,
et
forces de vivre ensemble, il dut se former un
Idiome commun plutot qu'entre
ceux qui erroient
librement dans les forets de la Terre ferme.
Ainsi il est tres possible ... que la Societe et les
langues ont pris naissance dans les Iles, et s'y
sent perfectionnees
avant que d'etre connues dans
le Continent. 220
219.
It may be true, as Starobinski
has maintained (O.C.III,
p. 1344),
that "Rousseau etait un adepte convaincu des theories geologiques de
Buffon".
But Buffon's geological
theories are not mentioned in the
Discours, and while they incorporate
speculations
about natural accidents
and catastrophes
they have no direct bearing - as is the case with respect
to Rousseau's conjectures
- upon the author's
view of the genesis of society.
220.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
pp. 162 and 168-169.
There are
210
�Whatever might have been the actual
Rousseau was convinced,
brought
forces
nevertheless,
about the development
which originally
cal with those
history
that
of social
of these
they could hardly
inequality
itself,
events,
have
since
the
drew men together
~.'hich must later
could not have been identi221
have driven them apart.
The
at least two other notable passages in Rousseau's writings
in which he
makes much the same point to the effect that natural accidents
must have
been responsible
for bringing men together in their earliest
societies.
One of these passages figures in the Essai sur l'origine
des langue3,
eh. ix, p. 113:
"Les associations
d'hommes sont en grande partie l'ouvrage
des accidens de la nature,
les deluges particuliers,
les mers extravasees,
les eruptions
des volcans, les grands tremblemens de terre,
les incendies
allumes par la foudre et qui detruisoient
les forets,
tout ce qui dut
effrayer
et disperser
les sauvages habitans d'un pays dut ensuite les rassembler pour reparer en commun les pertes communes."
The second was
published for the first
time in Streckeisen-Moultou,
pp. 258-259:
"D'autres
causes, plus fortuites
en apparence,
ont concouru a disperser
les hommes
inegalement dans des lieux, ales
rassembler par pelotons dans d'autres,
et
a resserrer
ou a relacher
les liens des peuples selon les accidents
qui les
ont reunis ou •separes.
Des tremblemen.ts de terre,
des volcans, des
embrasements, des inondations,
des deluges, changeant tout a coup, avec la
face de la terre,
le cours que prenaient
les societes
humaines, les ont
combinees d'une maniere nouvelle,
et ces combinaisons,
dont les premieres
causes etaient
physiques .et naturelles,
sont devenues, par fruit du temps,
les causes morales qui changent l'etat
des choses, ont produit des guerres,
des emigrations,
des conquetes,
enfin des revolutions
qui remplissent
l'histoire
et dont on a fait l'ouvrage
des hommes sans remonter ace qui
les a fait agir ainsi.
Il ne faut pas douter que ces grands accidents
de
la nature ne fussent plus frequ·ents dans les premiers temps."
Cf. 0. C. III,
p. 533,
This passage originally
appeared in a manuscript discovered in the
mid-nineteenth
century by Streckeisen-Moultou
among the texts which he
inherited,
through his wife, from Paul Moultou, to whom Rousseau had left
some of his papers in 1778 shortly before his death (most of the rest having
already been entrusted
to Pierre-Alexandre
Du Peyrou in 1765 - see eh. IV,
note 147).
The manuscript of the fragment printed by Streckeisen-Moultou
has been lost, and we can only speculate
about its original
place in
Rousseau's writings.
It may once have figured in a draft of the Discours
or the Essai, but I suspect that Rousseau never really planned to incorporate it in either of these works.
Derathe, nevertheless
(O.C.III,
p. 1533), regards it as "manifestement
en·relation
avec le chapitre
IX de
l'Essai";
Streckeisen-Moultou,
for his part, took it to be a fragment of
thelnstitutions
politiques.
221.
See the passage from the Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. ii,
p. 43 cited
in eh. IV, p. 329.
In the Essai (eh. ix, p. 113), however,
Rousseau did observe that once men have been brought into proximity with
one another the effect of further
natural catastrophes
can only be to
scatter
them: "Depuis que les societes
sont etablies
ces grands accidens
ont cesse et sont devenus plus rares:
il semble que cela doit encore etre;
les memes malheurs qui rassemblerent
les hommes epars disperseroient
ceux
qui sont reunis."
211
�moral distinctions
that
prevailed
were developed
from the time that
men began to live
they must, even in the first
another,
instance,
According
alone.
When, in their
to Rousseau,
to confront
the same persons
some notice
of those traits
next.
consequence
in fact,
morality
ceive,
or most agile,
whereas before
differences
equally,
his character,
his abilities
to others
the effects
in the light
Each man,
so the.t
he must have
and their
impressions
judgments
some significance
of their
- that
natural
were the most strong,
all
of
in Rousseau's
came to value certain
to the vari-
view, it was the manner
characteristics
above the
which they formed about each other's
and the demands which they began to make in the light
presumptions
of
He must have begun to compare himself
so that,
- it was the expectations
of the
of qualities
became more settled
of his conduct,
and shortcomings.
he perceived,
from the
which men were
upon what he took to be their
appraisals
in which our ancestors
actions
one individual
of his own behaviour,
and at the same time to attach
that
their
they must have begun to per-
himself
as typical
dependant
their
to identifv
which were due to Nature.
with his neighbours
grown increasingly
ations
constitution
recognised
arose
men came repeatedly
to recognise
and, in general,
must have come to identify
as his relations
tion
which distinguished
they could only have felt,
in their
which others
setrlements,
of
every day, they must have begun to take
They must have come gradually
strongest
rest
primitive
distinctions
have been chosen and
only from the way in which savages must have undertalten
neighbours.
formed
in company with one
and could not have been a direct
espoused by individuals
proximity
were, of necessity,
and while these
than by Nature or by chance,
by men rather
their
in society
together
must have brought
differences
into moral traits.
or handsome, or eloquent
212
of their
about the transformaThose persons
- or who proved,
say,
who
to
�be the best
dancers
- must have come to be admired above the others,
for it was to such traits
attached
our first
preference.
ideas
appeared
distribution
of public
in his identification
upon the talents
of
of
in daily
and the scale
to envy or to despise
contact
that
must also
between them.
in social
have been
In fact
with whom he was forced
through.making
of preferences
of our natural
those
from our own, and the
then,
the persons
and Rousseau supposed
disintegration
feelings
which savage man must have detected
to discriminate
could only have identified
parisons
we would have
esteem began to set us apart
of his neighbours,
invoked by him in order
kind,
that
and our first
our attention
to be distinct
The same features
chance to live
and beauty
We must have come either
men whose qualities
hierarchies.
as these
around us and must also have wished to be admired fo~
our own skills.
this
of merit
We must have turned
the individuals
unequal
and capacities
discriminations
it was in virtue
and innocence
by
of just
of such com-
to which 'they gave rise
happiness
he
that
the
was ensured.
On s'accoutume a considerer
differens
objets,
et a
faire des comparaisons;
on acquiert
insensiblement
des idees de merite et de beaute qui produisent
des
sentimens de preference .... Chacun commen~a a
regarder
les autres et a vouloir etre regarde soimeme, et l'estime
publique eut un prix.
Celui qui
chantoit
ou dansoit le mieux;
le plus beau, le plus
fort,
le plus adroit ou le plus eloquent devint le
plus considere,
et ce fut la le premier pas vers
l '·inegali te, et vers le vice en meme terns: de ces
premieres preferences
naquirent
d'un cote la vanite
et le mepris, de l'autre
la honte et l'envie;
et la
fermentation
causee par ces nouveaux levains produisit enfin des composes funestes au bonheur et a
222
l'innocence.
Now the various
222.
Discours
human traits
sur l'inegalite,
that
O.C.III,
213
were esteemed by primitive
pp. 169-170.
men
�could not have made their
forefathers
strongest
appearance
must have recognised
before
all
those
they discovered
at the same time.
individuals
among them who were
which ones were best
able to sing or
dance, 223 and they could only have come to be impressed
eloquent
of their
neighbours
after
tions
of a language. 224
order
in which our moral traits
they had already
in the Discours
of their
to be more worthy of respect
capacities
was nevertheless
importance
firmly
to their
the establishment
dexterity
of their
that
institutions.
foolish
enough to believe
of civil
of private
of land,
society.
it
than others.
225
He
as soon as men began to attach
claimed
have embarked upon
In particular,
which were the ~ttributes
a piece
and, indeed,
should have found some
they must thereby
social
the introduction
man who enclosed
founder
why persons
and at the same time the source
made possible
real
differences
and eloquence
ancestors,
others
convinced
vague about the
developed,
is far from obvious
by the most
formed the conven-
Rousseau was undoubtedly
were first
Our savage
the
of a few of our
of admiration
property.
of the rest,
For the first
it as his own, and persuaded
him, Rousseau contended, 226 was the
This person,
that
is,
must have
223.
See ibid.,
p. 169: "On s'accouturna a s'assembler
devant les Cabanes
ou autour d'un grand Arbre:
le chant et la danse, vrais enfans de l'amour
et du loisir,
devinrent
l'amusement ou plutot l'occupation
des hommes et
des femmes oisifs
et attroupes."
Cf. the passage from th,e Essai sur
l'origine
des langues, eh. ix, p. 123 cited
in eh. IV, p. 331.
With
respect to Rousseau's general views about the place of song and dance in
primitive
society,
see Starobinski,
La transparence
et l'obstacle,
pp. 114-120.
224.
Other Enlightenment
thinkers
adopted a quite different
view of th.e
genesis of eloquence.
D'Alembert, for instance,
maintained
(Discours
preliminaire,
Encyclopedie,
I, p .. x) that the quality was a gift bestowed
upon individuals
by Nature:
"Les hommes en se communiquant leurs idees,
cherchent aussi a se communiquer leurs passions.
C'est par l'eloquence
qu'ils y parviennent .... [La Nature) seule peut creer un homme eloquent."
225.
To be sure, Rousseau did not believe that his conjectures
about the
origins of our moral conduct must be correct in every detail
(see
pp. 225-228 below).
226.
See the passage
from O.C.III,
p. 164 discussed
214
on pp.
188-189 above.
�applied
his dexterity
upon the soil
bours and in such a fashion
most fundamental
of all
and his eloquence
produced as an accepted
the determinate
relations
upon his neighinstitution
the
which bound men to
one another.
In fact
land there
property
even before
must already
in persons
the establishment
have been, in Rousseau's
led by individuals
family groups.
in the earliest
between men and women that
matings
to the offspring
of sexual
both the bonds within
marked one family
rated
the first
accidents
that
revolutions
of nature,
couplings
each family unit
from the next - all
revolutionary
ties
which ensued
and such ties,
extended
must have constituted
and the distinctions
that
of which collectively
epoch in human development,
had previously
in the history
communal life
than those
as well,
in
of the
must have created
were more lasting
in the state
divisions
The forced
societies
property
view, a kind of
which was formed by the first
members of our race into
from casual
of private
brought men together
inaugujust
comprised
as the
the first
of Nature.
Ce fut-la l'epoque d'une prem1ere revolution
qui
forma l'etablissement
et la distinction
des
familles,
et qui introduisit
une sorte de propriete;
d'ou peut-etre
naguirent deja bien des
querelles
et des Combats. 227
Yet according
rather
than in persons
to satisfy
things
to Rousseau it must have been private
the desires
as their
- it must have been the cultivation
of individuals
neighbours
launched mankind upon its
227.
Discours
property
to possess
but substantially
path of toil,
sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
215
in land,
of the earth
not only the same
more as well - which truly
misery,
slavery,
p. 167.
and conflict.
�Des qu'on s'apper~ut
qu'il etoit utile a un seul
d'~voir des provision~ pour deux, l'egalite
di~parut, la propriete
s'introduisit,
le travail
devint necessaire,
et les vastes forets se
changerent en des Campagnes riantes
qu'il falut
arroser de la sueur des hommes, et dans lesquelles on vit bientot l'esclavage
et la misere
germer et croitre
avec les moissons. 228
After
the arts
the establishment
of metallurgy
and agriculture
to enhance the productivity
the moral differences
not.
Thesa two arts,
of proprietary
and ruined
mankind - and according
of the greater
political
control
- a revolution
to Rousseau,
abundance
wheat in the European world that
and those
must have produced
in our moral development
of iron
so as
the second great
indeed,
and the greater
entrenched
who did
which both civilised
the institutions
were more deeply
moreover,
and at the same time increase
between the men who owned it
to be sure,
in land,
must have been developed
of the soil
revolution
because
rights
it was largely
fertility
of government
there
of
and
than anywhere else.
La Metallurgie
et l'agriculture
furent les deux
arts dont l'invention
produisit
cette grande
revolution.
Pour le Poete, c'est l'or et
l'argent,
mais pour le Philosophe ce sont le fer
et le bled qui ont civilise
les hommes, et perdu
le Genre-humain ... l'une des meilleures
raisons
peut-etre
pourquoi !'Europe a ete, sinon plutot,
du moins plus constamment, et mieux policee que
les autres parties
du monde, c'est qu'elle
est a
la fois la plus abondante en fer et la plus
fertile
en bled.2 2 9
228.
Ibid.,
p. 171.
229.
Ibid.,
pp. 171-172.
Two notable,
but rather divergent,
accounts of
the significance
of metallurgy
and agriculture
in the argument of the
Discours are provided by Masters (see The Political
Philosophy of Rousseau,
pp. 175-177) and Goldschmidt (see his Anthropologie
et politique,
pp. 474-484).
With regard to the importance in the text of these two
revolutions
see especially
Duchet's contribution
to the article,
which she
wrote jointly
with Launay, entitled
'Syncbronie et diachronie:
l'Essai
sur
l'origine
des langues et le second Discours',
Revue internationale
de
philosophie,
LXXXII (1967), pp. 434-435;
Duchet, Anthropologie
et histoire,
pp. 339-357;
and eh. IV, pp. 356-357.
216
�It followed
from this
inheritances
tion
when the transfer
of ownership
the land,
except
no person
at the expense
society
must have given rise
conflict
only by contracting
scribed
by law and enforced
could continue
of others.
in society
petuation
irrevocable
made their
to maintain
by police
an armistice
powers.
entirely
their
claims
lives
the
upon the
individuals
from others
usurpation
for such
of their
and eloquent
secure
adroite
which was pre-
in the per-
firent
un droit
•
devised
by men all
tinctions
"plus
particuliers
forms of government
owe their
origin,
ou moins grandes
when any single
attributes
formed when several
regarded
must initially
qui se trouverent
11 •
231
as worthy of respect,
men were jointly
entre
have been
to the disles
A monarchy must have
man was recognised
to be pre-eminent
an aristocracy
held to be superior
while democracy was instituted
men in society
that
Rousseau reflected,
au moment de l'Institution
been established
others,
wealth
of civil
In exchange
protection
the dextrous
of a hoax which "d'une
230
11
The different
in those
so that
his
Thus the state
poor members of our race must have renounced
of the rich,
to increase
to war, and men came to avoid incessant
a regime of peace and for the custodial
property
through
and the grm7th in the numbers of men led to the occupa-
of all
property
that
to the
when the inequalities
were not yet so considerable
was
between
as to make them entirely
corrupt.
Un homme etoit-il
eminent en pouvoir, en vertu, en
richesses,
ou en credit?
il fut seul elu Magistrat,
et l'Etat
devint Monarchique;
si plusieurs
a peu
pres egaux antre-eux
1 1 emportoient
sur tousles
230.
231.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
Ibid. , p. 186.
O.C.III,
217
p. 178 '(seep.
193 above).
�autres,
ils furent elus conjointement,
et l'on eut
unc l',:::-is~ocratie;
Ceux dont }a fortune Qu les
talens etoient moins disproportionnes,
et qui
s'etoient
le moins eloignes de l'Etat de Nature,
garderent en commun l'Admin~atration
supreme, et
formerent une Democratie. 23
Since all
these
forms of government,
however, were devised
legitimate
and give authority
qualities,
they must in every case have followed
of development.
perhaps
which set men apart
sively
significant,
still
extended
despotism,
on the other.
that
absolute
that
first
descendants
rule
were owned - by the political
epoch of inequality
the creation
the strong
of the legal
potentates
over the poor,
of slaves
of the day.
Ibid.
218
of ownerof
If the
of property
the second was marked by
stage
masters.
rights
- the very chattels
and the rule
of
was characterized
in place of alJ legitimate
by their
then,
into the subjects
of the state
over the weak, while the third
by the domination
some limited
held in thrall
jurisdiction
controls
subordination,
with the objective
was formed by the establishment
of the rich
the sway of arbitrary
232.
come together
had become transformed
objects
had become
paradox of human history,
for themselves
and the actual
and the authority
who governed and at
between men in society
whereas men must have originally
their
They must have progres-
on the one hand, and complete
to secure
have
of the many who were bound to
relations
It was an essential
of framing rules
ship,
inequality.
the obligations
or
and must therefore
of the few persons
the predominant
absolute
much the same pattern
of wealth or standing
more conspicuous
the authority
the same time increased
just
gradations
the growth of social
obey, until
which formed our moral
They must have served to make the incipient,
even already
accelerated
to the divisions
in order to
by
powers,
The governments
and
which
�at first
had been instituted
by the consent
have given way to irresponsible
ion of state
to their
officials
subjects
and tyrannical
must in due course
that
have succumbed to revolutionary
masters
crises
of their
whose disingenuous
adopt still
further
eloquence
principles
preserve
Civil
change,
political
force,
and the domin-
have become so burdensome
they could no longer
they had been empowered to maintain.
periodic
of men must eventually
society
the peace which
must therefore
and men must have escaped
the
development
only by turning
to new
persuaded
them once again
to
and practices
of slavery.
Si nous suivons le progres de l'inegalite
dans ces
differentes
revolutions,
nous trouverons
que
l'etablissement
de la Loi et du Droit de propriete
fut son premier terrne;
l'institution
de la
Magistrature
le second;
que le troisieme
et
dernier fut le changement du pouvoir legitime en
pouvoir arbitraire;
en sorte que l'etat
de riche
et de pauvre fut autorise
par la premiere Epoque,
celui de puissant
et de foible par la seconde, et
par la troisieme
celui de Maitre et d'Esclave,
qui
est le dernier degre de l'inegalite,
et le terme
auquel aboutissent
enfin tousles
autres,
jusqu'a
ce que de nouvelles revolutions
dissolvent
tout a
fait le Gouvernement, ou le rapprochent
de
l'institution
legitime .... C'est du sein de ce
desordre et de ces revolutions
que le Despotisme
elevant par degres sa tete hideuse ... parviendroit
enfin a fouler aux pieds les Loix et le Peup~e et
a s'etablir sur les ruines de la Republique. 33
233.
Ibid.,
pp. 187 and 190-191.
There is only a superficial
similarity
between the cycle of constitutions
portrayed by Rousseau in these passages
and the classical
and nee-classical
typologies
- of monarchy, aristocracy,
democracy, and their perversions
- depicted by Plato, Aristotle,
Polybius,
Machiavelli,
and many other figures.
Cormnentators have frequently
drawn
a parallel
between Rousseau's scheme and that of Machiavelli
in the
Discorsi,
I.ii,
in particular,
but in my view there is no close resemblance
between the ideas of the two thinkers
on this subject.
for in Rousseau's
account the degenerative
course of constitutional
changes must have followed
a continually
worsening path whose initial
step was itself
already one of
moral debasement, whereas ac·cording to Machiavelli
the descent was from the
best constitutions
to the worst and included both peaks and troughs,
while
the. transitions
he described were principally
from virtuous administrations
of one kind or another to vicious regimes of the same outward type.
And
though it was Machiavelli's
belief that constitutional
democracy must
219
�Thus the social
lished
contracts
in order to secure
a few must in this
their
authors
oppression
fashion
that
in their
ineluctably
political
stage
so that
have served as our point
the final
natural
strangers
sharply
world our feelings
generous
which nothing
product
superior
of an excess
populations
like that
This new state
physical
from our original
- the
state,
force
which must
of equality,
alone should
for whilst
in the
must have been pure and our reactions
from political
of corruption
nisms but none of the safeguards
to
of our development - could only
of departure.
and benevolent,
apart
powers in
term of inequality
of moral equality
however, in which the only law is that
differs
have
The decay which followed
of artificially
the circle
bring us back to a condition
prevail,
and they must thereby
associations.
which completes
forms of
those bonds which held individuals
from the establishment
those powers,
which
they could not be endured
had once been citizens,
of all
for at least
They must have created
that
estab-
those divisions
must in due course have provoked the subjugated
overthrow
last
have produced just
of such scope and severity
forced the dissolution
society
peace for all men and property
meant to overcome.
by the vassals
together
which would have been initially
the equality
to
of men in a world from
authority
has been removed is the
- a state
in which all
and constraints
of social
the antagolife
have
managed to survive.
generally have arisen as a corrective
to tyranny before giving way, in
turn, to a state of licence followed by the reihtroduction
of monarchy,
Rousseau, for his part, was convinced that democracy must have been the
form of government adopted by men who were the least corrupted by
society and that the sequel to tyranny was not popular government at all
but rather anarchy and a reversion
to the right of the stronger.
For a
further discussion
of these features of the thought of Machiavelli and
Rousseau see the remarks of Starobinski
in O.C.III,
p. 1359.
220
�C'est ici le dernier terme de l'inegalite,
et le
point extreme qui ferme le Cercle et touche au
point d'ou nous sommes partis:
C'est ici que
tousles
particuliers
redeviennent
egaux parce
qu'ils
ne sont rien .... C'est ici que tout se
ramene a la se~le Loi du plus fort, et par consequent a un nouvel Etat de Nature different
de
celui par lequel nous avons commence, en ce que
l'un etoit l'Etat
de Nature dans sa purete, et
que ce dernier est le fruit d'un exces de
corruption. 234
Rousseau's
ultimate
remarks about the order of events
degradation
the essay he offered
features
no hypotheses
his readers
stage of human corruption
tively,
still
last
of his argument in the Discours.
as to how revolutionary
epoch to the next might actually
he did not let
he expected
further
it
decay;
had been realized
fact
that
attenuated
version
text
to explain
to pursue lines
while others
are at least
of the Discours
of the work that
change from
the final
or whether,
had undergone
than the unstable
omissions
of enquiry
partly
are
which
due to the
is a much shortened
he originally
alterna-
whether or why the
Some of these
simply to his failure
the final
already
should be any ·more durable
phases which must have come before.
he had opened himself,
that
our governments
and he neglected
In
have been achieved;
know whether he believed
to come after
term of inequality
attributable
to this
of our rpce seem a good deal more perfunctory
than most of the other
one political
leading
and
conceived 235 - a
234.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
p. 191.
In Anti-Diihring
(Marx-Engels Werke, XX, p. 130) Engels commented about this section of
the Discours that "so schlagt die Ungleichheit
wieder um in Gleichheit,
aber nicht in die alte naturwii.chsige Gleichheit
der sprachlosen
Urmenschen, sondern in die hohere des Gesellschaftsvertrags.
Die
Unterdriicker werden unterdriickt.
Es ist Negation der Negation".
235.
Hence, observes Leigh in his 'Manuscrits disparus'
(p. 62), the
original draft of the Discours must have been "beaucoup plus ample que
la version definitive".
See also eh. IV, pp. 310-326.
221
�version
tions
from which not only points
of his initial
of detail
but,
indeed,
study were withdrawn for a variety
There is ample evidence
that
Rousseau deleted
whole secof reasons.
a fragment
on the ori-
gins of music which he later
Essai sur 1 1origine
in conjunction
reconstituted
in two chapters of his
236
des langue~,
and we also know, moreover, that
with the passages
under discussion
here he at first
the depths of inequality
religious
superstition
priests,
whom he vilified
ministres
11
V•
•ved,
236.
237
•
from the end of his study which are
planned to intro~uce
an account of
into which men must hove been driven by their
and the idolatrous
faith
as "ennemis mortels
Two fragmentary
drafts
of this
propagated
by their
des Loix et de leurs
account have in fact
sur-
and wh•le
.
most of what th ey con t ain
• does no t appear in
• th e
See eh. IV, pp. 294-326.
237.
The earliest
(Geneve Ms fr. 228, pp. 39r-40v),
initially
printed
in Streckeisen-Moultou
(see pp. 345-346), was first transcribed
with all
its variants by Leigh in his 'Manuscrits disparus'
(see pp. 68-71);
it
also appears, with the principal
variants only, in O.C.III,
pp. 224-225
and 1377-1379.
The second or intermediate
draft (Neuchatel Ms Rn.a.
9,
f. 1 [pp. 59-60)) is not in Rousseau's own hand, but like the other major
surviving fragment of the Discours (see note 199 above) it contains corrections which he added himself.
Since it includes a paragraph that
later figured in the published text, moreover, this draft provides a
better clue than does the first of the place in the argument at which
Rousseau might originally
have intended to develop his ideas on religion.
(In this regard it is a matter of some interest
that the fragment appears
at a point in the text which comes after, and is not immediately connected
with, the only two other passages of the Discours (see O.C.III, pp. 127
and 186) in which Rousseau mentions the subject of religion.)
Not enough
evidence has been uncovered yet, however, to enable scholars to establish
its exact location in the earlier
formats of the Discours, because
Rousseau only incorporated
the concluding paragraph from the second draft
in the final version of his work,
I believe,
nevertheless,
that one
passage which figures in both the first and intermediate
manuscripts may
have been an earlier
draft of the statement in O.C.III,
p. 191, about "le
dernier terme de l'inegalite"
and "un nouvel Etat de Nature ... [qui] est le
fruit d'un exces de corruption"
reproduced above, and it is largely for
this reason that I think it appropriat~
to comment upon the fragment here
in conjunction with that passage.
The second draft was initially
transcribed by Launay as part of his contribution
to 'Synchronie et diachronie'
(see pp. 423-428) where it appears together with the first-draft
and
definitive
versions;
it is reprinted,
without a few minor variants,
in
vol. II of the Launay edition of Rousseau's Oeuvres completes (see
pp. 264-267).
The following passage (taken from 'Synchronie et diachronie',
222
�published
text
a number of their
some of the gaps that
prising,
to be sure,
Discours
to offer
practices
remain in the final
that
Rousseau
an interpretation
and beliefs
elements
should
may actually
version.
help to fill
It is hardly
have aimed initially
of the origins
in
sur-
in the
of our religious
which would complement his theory
of the genesis
pp. 424-426) is an excerpt from the second draft, beginning with the
sentence which I read as an earlier
variant of the passage noted above,
and ending with the first
sentence which was also adopted in the final
11
text:
Je ne m'areterai
point a montrer combien cette orgueilleuse
curiosite
engendra de folies
et de crimes, combien elle erigea d'Idoles
et inspira
de fanatiques:
Je me contenterai
de remarquer qu 1 elle produisit une nouvelle sorte d'inegalite,
qui, sans etre etablie
par la
Nature ni meme par la convention,
mais seulement par des opinions chimeriques,
fut
la fois la moins raisonnable
et la plus dangereuse de
toutes.
Il s'eleva
une espece d'hommes singuliers
qui se portant pour
interpretes
des choses incomprehensibles
et pour Ministres
de la <verite>
[divinite]
sans son ordre, et sans son aveu pretendirent
assujetir
le
Genre Humain a leurs decisions.
Substituant
adroitement
des Dieux de
leur fa~on au veritable
qui ne convenoit pas a leurs veiies, et leurs
maximes absurdes et interessees
a celles de la droitte raison, ils
detournerent
insensiblement
les Peuples des devoirs de l 1humanite et des
regles de la morale dont ils ne disposoient
pas
leur gre, pour les
assujetir
a des pratiques indifferentes
OU criminelles,
et a des peines
et des recompenses arbitraires
dont ils etoient
seuls les dispensateurs
et les juges.
Ennemis mortels des Loix et de leurs ministres,
toujours
prets a autoriser
les usurpations
injustes
du magistrat
supreme pour
usurper plus aisement eux memes [son] autorite
legitime,
ils faisoient
en
sorte en parlant toujours de droits spirituels,
que les biens, la vie, et la
liberte
du Citoyen n 1 etoient
en surete qu'autant
qu'il se mett<roit>[oit]
a leur discretion;
Leur pouvoir etoit d'autant
plus redoutable
que
s'instituant
sans honte seuls juges en leur propre cause, et ne souffrant
aucune mesure commune des differences
qu'ils
mettoient
entre eux et les
autres hommes, ils bouleversoient
et aneantissoient
tousles
droits
humains sans qu'on put jamais leur prouver qu'ils
excedoient
les leurs.
Enfin, a ne juger des choses que par leur cours naturel,
si le Ciel n'eut
parle lui-meme, si la voix de Dieu n'eut instruit
les hommes de la
Religion qu'ils
avoient a suivre,
si sa parole n'eut fixe par la
Revelation
les bornes sacrees des deux pouvoirs,
on ne scait jusqu'ou des
Pretres
Idolatres
et ambitieux dominant sur les Peuples par la superstition,
et sur les Chefs par la terreur
n'eussent
point porte leurs attentats
et
les miseres du Genre humain: Mais c'est asses m'areter
sur cette cause
particuliere,
tandis qu'il m'en reste tant d'autres
a developper.
RAPPELLONSnous
quel point 1 1 esprit
de la societe
attire
et change nos
inclinations
naturelles.
L'homme sauvage et l'homme police different
tellernent
a cet egard que l'etat qui fait le bonheur supreme de l'un
redui.roit
1 1 autre au desespoir."
The last sentence in this passage is
clearly an earlier
draft of another sentence which appears in O.C.III,
p. 192.
From that point until its end the manuscript fragment continues
in much the same terms as the published text up to the conclusion of the
first
paragraph on p. 193.
In his 'Manuscrits
disparus'
(see pp. 63-67)
Leigh remarks upon the fact that Rousseau's reflections
here provide a
a
a
a
223
�of our politic~l
relations,
wished to develop that
as to provide
dernier
and I suspect
theme at this
a comprehensive
terme de l'inegalite"
In any case it
one of these
Discours
that
is perfectly
fragments
manufacture
reputation
like
to please
I have just
themselves.
copy of the
which must have
was set in motion
and began to seek the company
by their
neighbours,
value which they placed
in society,
the moral inequality
both in
For with the cultivation
and be respected
standing
passions
presented.
appears
and in the published
became sociable
of the artificial
and their
disseminated
of the meaning of "le
from a remark that
our natural
have
of the argument so
for Rousseau the cycle of constitutions
creatures
desire
he may at first
stage
in the passage
on religion
as soon as our ancestors
their
explanation
clear
led to the debasement of all
of other
late
that
that
with the
upon their
they must thereby
was the essence
of
of all
also
have
forms
of government and the bane of our common humanity.
L'homme sociable toujours hors de lui ne sait vivre
que dans l'opinion
des autres .... Il n 1 est pas de
mon sujet de montrer comment d'une telle disposition nait tant d'indifference
pour le bien et le
mal ••. comment tout se reduisant
aux apparences,
tout devient factice
et joiie .... Il me suffit
treatment of the origin of religion
and the role of the priesthood which
is conspicuously
absent from the final version of the Discours.
According to Leigh Rousseau may have decided to delete the passage because at
the time that he composed it he was subjecting
his ideas on religion
to
the same scrutiny and reappraisal
as all the other features of his philosophy which until then had shown the influence of Diderot and the
'coterie
holbachique 1 • Yet while there is no doubt but that the vehemence
of tone and substance of his observations
on religion
and the priesthood
are more in keeping with the views of the Encyclonedistes
than are most
of his later statements on the subject,
and while it might even be the
case that the passage was inspired by some suggestions
put forward by
Diderot in particular,
there is no reason to suppose that Diderot may
actually
have been its author.
For as Starobinski
rightly
comments
(see 0.C.III,
p. 1378), the many variants
in the first
draft of this passage show how hard Rousseau himself laboured to find the right words to
express a thesis which - for whatever reason - he chose to leave out of
his final text.
224
�d'avoir prouve que ce n'est point-la
l'etat
originel de l'homme, et que c:- 1 e!':t le seul esprit de la
Societe et l'inegalite
qu'elle
engendre, qui changent et alterent
ainsi toutes nos inclinations
238
naturelles.
The great
gress
tragedy
of civilisation,
of our governments
power and wanton rule
have sought
is that
the historical
was bound to give rise
to just
that
of the strongest
which all
civilised
by establishing
the rules
of their
to prevent
constitution.s.
then,
For "le Pouvoir
Arbitraire",
proarbitrary
persons
political
Rousseau concluded,
est ... la corruption,
le terme extreme [des
Gouvernemens] ... qui les ramene enfin a la
seule Loi du plus fort dont ils furent
d'abord le remede, 239
Rousseau conceived
of the origins
provide
of moral inequality.
not so much a history
and his description
evidence
about the social
the conditions
present
degradation
life
lish
His arguments
of primitive
the connections
The true
investigation
facts
led to the
about the pri-
were in any case no longer
between events
that
by as much
men as he was able to
which he supposed had necessarily
and while we must undertake
to
of human nature,
and philosophical
of our species.
account
were designed
- though it was buttressed
a conjectural
meval world of our ancestors
he thought,
as a speculative
of mankind as a theory
of the past
amass - was essentially
into
his second Discours
historical
accessible,
research
to estab-
can be known for certain,
238.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 193·(see also p. 160 above).
Almost exactly the same terms conclude the fragment from Neuchatel
Ms Rn.a.
9 cited in note 237 above (see Launay, 'Synchronie et
diachronie',
pp. 427-428).
239.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III~
225
p. 184.
�a la
"c'est
les faits
traits
a son
Philosophie
semblables
defaut",
qui peuvent
he claimed,
les lier
of humanity could be uncovered
11
•
240
them from the contemporary
tures
so that
the citizen
began his enquiry
followed
that
of events,
the hypothetical
sketches
variety
of ways, but the principles
tures
state
of the world
that
the circumin a
he deduced from his conjec-
system of ideas which he was convinced
or refuted
it
it actually
might have come to pass historically
formed a coherent
not be challenged
he maintained,
He allowed
that
from
of the past owed little
of the formation
which had been advanced by scientists.
fea-
Since Rousseau
of man's current
and instead,
he portrayed
and superfluous
man must be derived
reconstruction
stances
in his view,
man from the savage.
from the perspective
his postulated
to any chronicle
resembled
the natural
and not the civilised
The fundamental
and made clear,
only if we abstracted
of our conduct,
"de determiner
could
philosophically.
Commenc;ons... par ecarter tousles
faits,
car ils ne
touchent point a la question.
11 ne faut pas
prendre les Recherches, dans lesquelles
on peut
entrer sur ce Sujet, pour des verites
historiques,
mais seulement pour des raisonnemens hypothetiques
et conditionnels;
plus propres a eclaircir
la
Nature des choses qu'a montrer la veritable
origine,
et semblables a ceux que font tousles
jours nos
Physiciens sur la formation du Monde.... J'avoue que
les evenemens que j'ai a decrire ayant pu arriver
de plusieurs ~anicrea, je ne puis me determiner sur
le choix que par des conjectures;
mais outre que
ces conjectures
deviennent des raisons,
quands elles
sont les plus probables qu'on puisse tirer de ln
nature des choses et les seuls moyens qu'on puisse
avoir de decouvrir la verite,
les consequences que
je veux deduire des miennes ne seront point pour
cela conjecturales,
puisque, sur les principes
que
je viens d'etablir,
on ne sauroit former aucun autre
systeme qui ne me fournisse
les memes resultat$
et
dont je ne puisse tirer
les memes conclusions. 241
Ibid., p.
241.
Ibid., pp.
of these passages
1755, l'allusion
240.
163.
and 162.
Starobinski
suggests about the first
that (O.C.III,
p. 1303) "pour le lecteur franc;ais de
concerne la Theorie de la Terre de Buffon, et sans doute
132-133
226
�Rousseau's
all
principal
the moral attributes
believed
altered
that
so that
from any ideas
times,
relations
our standards
or faculties
but rather
To those
who claimed
bute of man Rousseau replied
ways in disparate
that
been forced
ation
that
that
conventions
to live
differences
distribution
of behaviour
were derived,
of the particular
attri-
words can have no meaning apart
which are established
those
in a variety
commentators
were essentially
and injurious
selfish
writers
or aggressive
under rules
who argued that
- were all
that
prescribed
of
who insisted
to the welfare
between us - or the inequalities
of our property
place
to occupy among our neighbours.
in company with one another
to those
not
in every person
they could only have become so after
which were oppressive
And in opposition
conduct
He
speech ,nust be a natural
Against
cultures.
that
of right
times,
the members of our species
Rousseau retorted
in society.
changed our patterns
from our perception
at different
from the linguistic
was to show that
which Nature had implanted
which we happened,
theorists
work, then,
of men must be acquired
as our social
too,
at all
aim in this
they had
of associ-
of most men.
the fundamental
prevailed
by Nature,
in the
Rousseau
aussi l'Essai
de Cosmologie de Maupertuis".
See also the passage from
the Discours, ibid.,
p. 133 cited in note 40 above, and my own remarks
about this aspect of Rousseau's argument in note 29 above.
Many of
Rousseau's interpreters
have claimed that the 'facts'
which he intended
to put aside and disregard
were those recounted in the Bible, and particularly in the Book of Genesis, rather than real historical
facts (see,
for instance;
Morel, 'Recherches sur les sources du Discours de l'inegalite',
pp. 135-137;
Hubert, Rousseau et l'Encyclopedie,
pp. 88-89;
Henri Grange,
'L'Essai
sur l'origine
des langues dans ses rapports avec le Discours sur
l'origine
de l'inegalite•,
Annales historioues
de la Revolution franxaise,
XXXIX (1967),
pp. 292-293;
and Masters, The Political
Philosophy of
Rousseau, p. 118).
I think, however, that these claims are quite mistaken,
since they depend largely upon the supposition
that Rousseau failed to say
precisely
what he meant and actually
wrote something that has an altogether
different
sense.
Insofar as he believed that the natural man which he
had constructed
was a fictitious
rather than real figure,
it seems perfectly plain that he should also point to the abstract,
as opposed to
empirical,
character
of his argument as a whole.
227
�held that
created
the only significant
artificially
made its
first
and that
appearance
composed as an indictment
distinctions
between persons
were
the institution
of property
must have
in society.
The Discours,
of the social
relations
adopted by mankind, and Rousseau's
state
world from which the corrupt
been removed.
He allowed that
there
man, but it was only with reference
able to provide
a theory
tion
innocence
of perfect
and probably
proper
never will
understanding
and sorry
state
no longer
was constructed
features
to such a figure
- perhaps
- it was nonetheless
necessary
character
that
had
natural
we were
And though a condi-
existed
of its
of society
had never been a truly
of our moral change.
was
which had been
of nature
as a fictitious
in short,
in order
never did exist,
to have a
to judge the very real
in which humanity now found itself.
Ce n'est pas une legere entreprise
de demeler ce
qu'il y a d'originaire
et d'artificiel
dans la
Nature actuelle
de l'homme, et de bien connoitre
un Etat qui n'existe
plus, qui n'a peut-etre
point existe,
qui probablement n'existera
jamais,
et dont il est pourtant necessaire
d'avoir des
Notions justes pour bien juger de notre etat
present,2 42
242.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
p. 123.
Cf. the following
passage from the Lettre a Christophe de Beaumont, O.C.IV, p. 952:
"L'homme sauvage errant seul dans les bois .... n'existe
pas, direz-vous;
soit.
Mais il peut exister par supposition."
For an admirable statement of the anthropological
significance
of Rousseau's abstract
savage
man, see Levi-Strauss,
Tristes Tropiques, p. 423.
The idea of a fictitious state of nature was, of course, equally prominent in the thought
of most of the natural law philosophers.
But whereas in the writings of
Grotius, Pufendorf, and Locke, for instance,
it figured as a juridical
fiction
and pertained
to a world that was much like our own apart from
its lack of a legal sovereign,
in the social theory of Rousseau, on the
other hand, the concept was a fiction
about the past which he required
for an explanation
of our real moral development.
Some writers,
such
as Strauss,
for example (see Natural Right and History, p. 267, note 32),
have even suggested that Rousseau did not regard his state of nature as
a fiction at all but supposed instead that it was as much a fact of
history as were the forms of contemporary despotism.
On this interpretation,
only the intermediate
stages between the natural and the despotic
phases were meant to be hypothetical.
That view, .however, seems to me
entirely
inconsistent
with Rousseau's own remarks.
228
�Now if the state
that
there
nature
will
of nature
be no point
it
in our attempting
humaine ne retrograde
end of his life
is a fiction,
pas",
in the last
follows,
to return
of course,
to it.
"La
Rousseau was to lament near the
of his major autobiographical
works.
Jamais on ne remonte vers les terns d'innocence
et
d'egalite
quand une fois on s'en est eloigne. 243
Even before
over,
he had already
his first
people
Discours
made it
its
original
u.~iversities,
he proclaimed
the
clear
in his
et les arts
by civilisation
innocence.
academies,
'Reponse'
sur l'inegalite,
that
embellishments
to King Stanislas
would be gained to benefit
a state
of
he supposed a
If we were to destroy
and other
more-
critic
could never be expected
only plunge the whole of Europe into
nothing
Discours
to the most illustrious
sur les sciences
once corrupted
recover
ies,
he had begun to draft
all
to
the librar-
of our culture,
of Poland,
of barbarism
we would
from which
the morals and manners of humanity.
Gardens-nous [de) conclure qu'il faille
aujourd'hui
bruler toutes les Bibliotheques
et detruire
les
Universites
et les Academies.
Nous ne ferions que
replonger l'Europe dans la Barbarie, et les moeurs
n'y gagneroient
rien.
C'est avec douleur que je
vais prononcer une grande et fatale verite .... on
n'a jamais vu de peuple une fois corrompu, revenir
a la vertu .... leurs coeurs une fois gates le seront
tOUJOurs; il n'y a plus de remede, a moins de quelque grande revolution
presque aussi a craindre que
le mal qu'elle pourroit guerir, et qu'il est
blamable de desirer et impossible de prevoir. 244
Rousseau made much the same point,
of his second Discours.
243.
Perhaps
too,
there
Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques,
244.
'Observations
Discours'
['Reponse
was first published
eh. V, pp. 415-417.
in the most often-quoted
were persons
O.C.I,
note
among us who could
p. 935.
de Rousseau.
Sur la Reponse qui a ete faite a son
au roi de Pologne'],
O.C.III,
pp. 55-56.
This text
around October 1751 (see eh. V, p. 411).
See also
229
�detach
themselves
by returning
from the miseries
to the forest,
from the baneful
trappings
of contemporary
could thus rescue
of their
their
lay within
he hinted
the fabric
laws, our fidelity
might bring
that
the sole possible
of society,
to its
officers,
life
pristine
own degraded souls.
were such men in the world Rousseau was certainly
For his part
social
and,
qualities
If there
not one of them.
salvation
for man~ind
in which only our respect
and our love of all
its
for its
members,
some hope of change.
0 vous ... qui pouvez laisser
au milieu des Villes
vos£unestes
acquisitions,
vos esprits
inquiets,
vos coeurs corrompus et vos desirs effrenez;
reprenez, puisqu'il
depend de vous, votre antique
et premiere innocence;
allez dans les bois
perdre la vue et la memoire des crimes de vos
contemporains .... Quant aux hommes semblables a
moi dont les passions ont detruit pour toujours
l'originelle
simplicite,
qui ne peuvent plus se
nourrir d'herbe et de gland, ni se passer de Loix
et de Chefs .... Ceux, en un mot, qui sont convaincus que la voix divine appella tout le Genrehumain aux lumieres et au bonheur des celestes
Intelligences
... ils respecteront
les sacres liens
des Societes dont ils sent les membres; ils
aimeront leurs semblables et les serviront
de
tout leur pouvoir;
Ils obeiront scrupuleusement
aux Loix, et aux hommes qui en sont les Auteurs
et les Ministres. 245
It is true
taste
rustic
that
for cosmopolitan
life
and country
Rousseau frequently
affairs,
expressed
end it is also true
a profound disthat
folk more than did most of his contemporaries,
But noble savages were not to be found in any shepherd's
village
fair,
would probably
solitary
and if the state
look more like
hunters.
245.
Discours
of nature
pastures
could be made real
a dense woodland sparsely
No man of the Enlightenment
tor to the Encyclopedie
he admired
- still
at all
populated
less
note ix, O.C.III,
230
p. 207.
it
by
a contribu-
- could ever hope to make-his home there.
sur l'inegalite,
or
�Even that
form of primitive
society
"1 1 epoque la plus heur euse,
even the state
civilised
f ait.
durable"
pour y rester
that
fictitious,
was imaginary
some elements
been compassionate
for our species
and a present
Such a state,
that
In primitive
and kind
was real,
society
and, on the whole,
•
tions
• h , t here f ore,
an d h a d no wis
notice
of their
different
ments of vanity
which were fatal
ever lived
to their
provide
and a past
249
rela-
• hb ours. 247
neig
upon their
248
had been lost
with shame and
character
If men had
advan-
could never be
from the present
to generations
some
moral senti-
have been to their
which was abstracted
appropriate
to do harm,
and their
and innocence.
it would perhaps
the moral principles
have
have begun to take
effects
but a world that
contained
by property
on the one hand, together
happiness
in such a state
unlikely
and talents,
must have produced
tage to remain there,
recovered,
aptitudes
and it
any of t heir•
they must already
and contempt,
envy, on the other,
• •
to inJure
to be sure,
men must still
they could not yet have been bound together
however,
que
somewhere between a
since
At the same time,
-
.
,,246 - was one wh.ic h
touJours
for it was located
of both.
in
des Sauvages ... semble confirmer
man could never hope to recover.
was not entirely
past
et la plus
which "l'exemple
. etoit
,, •
1 e Genre- h umain
which must have arisen
did not
of men who were
to come.
Rousseau employed some of the political
been prescribed
imperatives
by Hobbes and Locke in his own discussion
246.
Ibid.,
247.
See pp. 190-191 above.
that
had
of the
p. 171 (see pp. 207-208 above).
248.
See the passage
pp. 169-170 discussed
from the Discours sur l'inegalite,
on pp. 212-213 above.
249.
See the passage from the Discours
discussed on pp. 207-208 above.
231
sur 1 1 inegalite,
O,C.Ill,
O.C.111,
p. 171
�origins
of inequality.
quite
accurate
our past
For he believed
account,
not of our true
as it must have been,
in the theories
entered
into
Yet since
agreements
the social
ceivable
that
collectively
institutions,
Man must haye applied
city
for change,
the mistakes
and if,
The political
make our inequalities
that
con-
and might
distinct
of self-improvement
he was perfectible
that
kind.
in such a way
his capa-
by nature,
then
be corrected
had been introduced
could be transformed
into
under law, and in the Contrat
his attention
corrupt.
at least
form agreements,
authorities
legitimate
would make us equal
was to turn
it was still
which he had committed could in principle
and overcome.
of
which figured
but he could not have destroyed
indeed,
a
how men could have
of an altogether
his faculty
his freedom,
but rather
contracts
to explain
provided
had depraved mankind were
might i~ future
establish
as to restrict
that
upon themselves
persons
ideas
which had made them morally
conventions
imposed by individuals
helped
their
obligations,
and the social
of both thinkers
those
that
to
authorities
social
Rousseau
upon the manner in which such institutions
might be established.
In the Discours
cal associations
maintenance
sur l'inegalite
of those
moral differences
In the Contrat
argue that
the associations
principle
irrelevant
at all
that
which men must have formed were responsible
another.
account
Rousseau claimed
of these
social,
set them apart
on the other
that
in law and insignificant
and should
instead
would render
their
in social
life.
from one
natural
to
take no
substitute
Au lieu de detruire
l'egalite
naturelle,
le pacte
fondamental substitue
au contraire
une egalite
morale et legitime ace que la nature avoit pu
232
for the
hand, he was later
which they ought to form should
differences
of moral equality
that
the politi-
a
variations
�mettre d'inegalite
physique entre les hommes, et
que, pcuv~nt ctre inegaux en force OU en genie,
ils deviennent tous egaux par convention et de
droi t. 2-50
The supposed
he maintained
function
legal
equality
there,
of men under our present
is nothing
is to preserve
and power of the rich,
but a sham and an illusion.
the misery
so that
constitutions,
Its
of the poor and the arrogated
our systems
only
wealth
of law are now always
utiles
a ceux qui possedent et nuisibles a ceux
qui n'ont rien:
D'ou il suit que
l'etat
social n'est avantageux aux hommes
qu '.autant qu 'ils ont tous quelque chose
et qu'aucun d'eux n'a rien de trop,251
The social
contract
to which we ought to adhere,
devised
by men who have no wish to secure
through
deceit
als together
command.
persons,
to live
and subterfuge,
in relations
Such equality
not to retain
and its
of equality
any particular
purpose
rather
under the same conditions
must be
advantage
must be to bind individuthan of subservience
could only be achieved
what they already
however,
by an agreement
owned, but,
and
between
on the contrary,
and to enjoy the same political
rights.
Le pacte social etablit
entre les citoyens une telle
egalite
qu'ils
s'engagent
tous sous les memes conditions,
et doivent jouir tous des memes droits.
Ainsi
par la nature du pacte, tout acte de souverainete,
c'est-a-dire
tout acte authentique
de la volonte
generale,
oblige OU favorise
egalement tousles
Citoy~ns, ensorte que le Souvera1n connoit seulement
le corps de la nation et ne distingue
aucun de ceux
qui la composent.252
250.
251.
Contrat social,
Ibid.,
note.
I.ix,
O.C.III,
p. 367.
252.
Ibid.,
II.iv,
O.C.III,
p. 374.
Cf. the following passage from
the Contrat social,
II. xi, ibid.,
p. 391: "Si 1 1 on recherche en quoi
consiste precisement
le plus grand bien de tous, qui doit etre la fin de
tout sisteme de legislation,
on trouvera qu'il se reduit aces deux
objets principaux,
la liberte,
et l'egalite,
Laliberte,
parce que toute
233
�Hence whereas every one of us has the capacity
for Rousseau it
interests
is only if we come to attach
which we share
begin to make ourselves
To achieve
tures
this
come to conceive
required
significance
in common with our neighbours
better
instead
aim would require
of our current
to improve his nature,
states,
to those
that
of worse than other
the reconstitution
we can
creatures.
of the struc-
and both the manner in which we might
such a programme, as well as the terms which might be
to inaugurate
and sustain
it,
which Rousseau was to turn his attention
form the central
in the Contrat
problems
to
social.
dependance particuliere
est autant de force otee au corps de l'Etat;
]_' egalite ') parce que la liberte
ne peut subsister
sans elle. II
On the
subject of equality
in both the second Discours and the Contrat social see
especially
Raymond Polin, La politiaue
de la solitude.
Essai sur la
Philosophie
politigue
de Rousseau (Paris 1971), pp. 107-134.
234
�
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<strong>Title: </strong>Rousseau on Society, Politics, Music and Language - An Interpretation of His Early Writings<br /><strong><br /></strong>
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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<strong>Abstract:</strong> This study is focused upon a variety of specific problems which I believe the early writings of Rousseau were designed to solve. Most of the works that are discussed here were drafted by Rousseau between 1750 and 1756, and I shall argue that a proper grasp of this fact about their temporal proximity is important to an understanding of the conceptual relations which underlie them. I hope to show that any accurate account of Rousseau's meaning must incorporate a careful examination of the context in which his ideas were developed, and I shall therefore be concerned very largely with the manner in which his writings were conceived as replies to arguments that were produced by other thinkers. The first chapter is devoted to an account of some mistaken interpretations of Rousseau's meaning. We often confuse our own beliefs about the contemporary significance of certain ideas with the sense which their authors originally intended they should have, and in this chapter I consider a number of misconceptions of that kind, as well as some mistaken correctives to them, which have appeared in Rousseau studies. The views of C.E. Vaughan and Robert Derathe, in particular, are discussed with reference to these problems. The second chapter is concerned with the influence of Diderot upon Rousseau and especially with the intellectual debt which Rousseau owed to Diderot's article 'Droit naturel'. The 'Economie politique' and the Manuscrit de Geneve are shown to exhibit the influence of Diderot in two quite different ways, and the conceptions of the 'volonté generale' of the two figures are compared in the light of the differences between their accounts of the natural society of mankind. In the third chapter the arguments of the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> are examined in connection with the ideas of several other figures from whom Rousseau drew some inspiration or against whom he raised some objections in that work. The chapter opens with a challenge to the thesis that the second Discours bears the stamp of Diderot's influence, and it continues with several sections, which are concerned with the historical, anthropological, linguistic, and political views of Buffon, Condillac, and Hobbes and Locke, respectively, while two final sections describe Rousseau's account of the transformation of natural into social man. The fourth chapter compares a number of ideas about the nature and origin of music which were put forward by Rameau and Rousseau. It traces the course of their controversy about this subject through the writings of both thinkers, and in the case of Rousseau it is addressed especially to his articles on music in the <em>Encyclopedie</em>, his <em>Lettre sur la musique françoise</em>, his <em>Examen de deux principes</em>, and his <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. It also attempts to establish that the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> at first contained a section about the genesis of music which Rousseau eventually incorporated in the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. The chapter, moreover, offers an interpretation of the place of music and language in the general context of Rousseau's social theory, and it provides a critique of several accounts of tbe historical relation between the <em>Essai</em> and the second <em>Discours</em> which have neglected that common feature of their meaning. The final chapter is concerned with the <em>Discours sur les sciences et les arts</em> and with the writings which Rousseau produced between 1751 and 1753 in defence of that text against its critics. I argue there that while the first <em>Discours</em> is the most shallow and least original of all of Rousseau's major works, the controversy which followed its publication helped him to focus his ideas about culture and society much more sharply than he had done before. I try to show that Rousseau's replies to the detractors of the <em>Premier Discours</em> constitute a refinement of his views along the paths which he was then to pursue further in the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> and the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>, and I conclude with some reflections about the systematic nature of his early social theory as it was developed in the period between his composition of the first and second <em>Discours</em>. The appendix consists of an annotated transcription of the manuscript on the origins of music and language discussed at length in chapter IV.
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Chapter 3: The <em>Discourse sur l'inégalité</em> and its Sources
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pp. 101-234.
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Pufendorf
Rousseau
-
https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/intellectualhistory/files/original/60d89e6f89ec1f8586f25aa9948ee418.pdf
a5f1a4c15da09201a8453a69aa4237d4
PDF Text
Text
IV
ANDTHE GENESIS
THE CONTROVCRSY
WITHRAMEAU
or
THE ESSAI SUR L'ORIGINC DCS LANGUES
Rousseau believed
own character
quite
mankind was by nature
his proof was often
and in his own lifetime
virtue
few who could tolerate
held to be ingenious
2
admiration
for friendship,
of his day there
were
his company for long.
fait pour etre le meilleur ami qui fut
mais celui qui devoit me repondre est
a venir.l
For while his literary
mistaken,
certain,
He professed
could expect.
figures
his
came to be
to be less
love for humanity and a deep respect
and yet among the major intellectual
J'etois
jamais,
encore
thought
he did not command the universal
a man of his great
to have a great
good and that
But while his belief
was proof of this.
widely shared,
which he felt
that
attacks
upon polite
even by individuals
the contempt for civility
were sometimes
who found his ideas
which he displayed
conduct was generally
regarded
sullen
and conspicuously
or too earnest
society
as offensive.
in his
He was either
out of place
to be
too
in the salon,
1.
'Mon Portrait',
O.C.I, p. 1124.
Cf. the Confessions,
O.C.I, p. 426:
"Comment se pouvoit-il
qu'avec une ame naturellement
expansive, pour qui
aimer, je n'eusse pas trouve jusqu'alors
un ami tout a moi,
vivre c'etoit
un veritable
arni, rnoi qui me sentois si bien fait pour l 1 etre? 11
2.
See, for example, the following note which appears in d 1 Alembert's
Discours preliminaire
to the Encyclopedie,
I, p. xxxiii:
"M. Rousseau de
Geneve, auteur de la partie de l'Encyclopedie
qui concerne la Musique, &
dont nous esperons que le Public sera tres-satisfait,
a compose un Discours
fort eloquent, pour prouver que le retablissement
des Sciences & des Arts a
corrompu les rnoeurs.
Ce discours a ete couronne en 1750 par l'Academie de
Dijon avec les plus grands eloges;
il a ete imprime a Paris au commencement de cette annee 1751, &a fait beaucoup d'honneur a son Auteur."
235
�he always showed an unacceptable
mistrust
solitary
sophistication
of others,
were devoted to the pursuit
and in an age when men of good taste
cosmopolitan
of the eloquence
he both chose and was driven
of
to become a
figure.
La protestation
de Rousseau, dirigee contre l'essence
meme de la societe contemporaine,
est d'une telle
envergure qu'elle
ne peut soutenir sa validite
que si
elle est l'expression
d'un homme qui s'est exclu luimeme de la societe. 3
In many respects,
than the ideas,
demnation.
to be sure,
of his contemporaries
The attacks
that
for example, or against
to mention the charges
co~cerned
generally
soprical
beliefs
either
was for no other
graces
reason
which he lacked.
length
Starobinski,
Hume - were more
than their
against
philoin their
of humanity'
the reputations
himself.
however,
to suggest
is,
that
Rousseau was
in his day who possessed
For the one figure
- that
- not
They paid no respect
than to conspire
only of those writers
to seek the pleasures
3.
affections.
con-
Voltaire,
and Helvetius
and if they formed a 'party
and pious men like
at greatest
against
personal.misconduct
in their
It would be incorrect,
critical
Grimm, d'Holbach,
more
his sharpest
These men, in his view, were irresolute
and unreliable
of honest
which excited
which he levelled
with their
mistakes.
of life,
in the 1760s he made against
Diderot,
to God or to Nature,
that
it was the style
the social
whose ideas
Rameau - was also manifestly
of polite
La transparence
society.
4
Rameau, like
et l'obstacle,
he discussed
disinclined
Rousseau,
p. 44.
4.
It must have been in the autumn of 1734, about one year after the
first performance of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, that Rousseau b~came
interested
in his work.
For in a passage of his Confessions (O.C.I,
p. 184) that recalls
an event which occurred in September of that year,
Rousseau remarks that "les Opera de Rameau commen9oient a faire du bruit
et releverent
ses ouvrages theoriques
que leur obscurite
laissoit
a la
portee de peu de gens.
Par hazard, j'entendis
parler de son traite
de
236
�preferred
to live
for conversation
so disda.in1'ul
alone,
and like
nor any great
Rousseau, too,
respect
he had neither
for men of wit.
of human company, it was said,
talent
Indeed he was
that when he ohut his
l'harmonie,
et je n'eus point de repos que je n'eusse acquis ce livre".
(Rameau's Traite de l'harmonie reduite a ses principes
naturels was first
published in 1722.)
The.re. is no record, however, of any meeting between
the two figures until shortly after Rousseau presented his Projet
concernant de nouveaux signes pour la musique to the French Academie des
sciences in 1742.
In its learned report the investigating
panel of the
Academie found that Rousseau's sy~tem was neither new nor useful for the
study of instrumental
music (see the Correspondance comolete, I,
appendice 4~, pp." 317-322), but Rousseau, dissatisfied
with these objections, turned to Rameau for a second opinion.
Rameau replied,
quite
sympathetically,
that it was C'lL"ilbersome
in technical detail,
and "ousseau,
for reasons which are not entirely
clear, seemed much more satisfied
with
this criticism
than the first.
Thus, he wrote (Confessions,
O.C.I,
pp. 285-286), "La seule objection solide qu'il y eut a faire a mon
Systeme y fut faite par Rameau.... L 1 objection me parut sans replique,
et
j'en convins a l'instant:
quoiqu'elle
soit simple et frappante,
il n'y a
qu'une grande pratique de l'art
qui puisse la suggerer, et il n'est pas
etonnant qu'elle
ne soit venue a aucun Academicien".
(Rousseau allowed
his Projet to be published under the title
Dissertation
sur la musique
moderne in 1743, but in his Dictionnaire
de musique [see the article
'Caracteres
de musique'] he later admitted that his ideas in this work
were empty speculations,
rightly
ignored by the public.
Near the end of
his life,
nevertheless,
in his Lettre a M. Burney sur la musique, he
attempted yet again to vindicate
his notational
scheme.)
His most
celebrated meeting with Rameau occurred in 1745 and was far less cordial
than the first.
Some time between 9 July and 14 September he was
invited to present his operatic ballet,
Les Muses galantes,
at the home
of a distinguished
patron of the arts, Alexandre-Jean-Joseph
Le Riche de
La Poupliniere,
and Rameau, who was then the music master of Mmede La
Poupliniere,
reluctantly
agreed to attend the performance.
The music
was so uneven in quality,
however, that Rameau (see the Confessions,
O.C.I, pp. 333-334) was soon enraged by what he heard:
"[Il] commen~a
des l'ouverture
a faire entendre parses eloges outres qu'elle ne pouvoit
etre de moi .... Il m'apostropha avec une brutalite
qui scandalisa
tout le
monde, soutenant qu' une part ie de ce qu' il venoi t d I entendre etoi t d 'un
honune consomme dans l'art
et le reste d'un ignorant qui ne savoit pas
meme la musique."
Cf. Rousseau's 'Fragment biographique',
ibid.,
p. 1119.
Ten years later,
Rameau, in a work (Erreurs sur la musique dans
l'Encyclopedie,
CTWR,V, pp. 217-218) devoted to an attack upon the
musical ideas of Rousseau, recalled his assessment of Les Muses galantes,
and for good measure he then added that its best features could not have
been composed by Rousseau at all:
"Il y a dix ou douze ans qu'un
Particulier
fit executer chez M.*** un Ballet de sa composition,
qui
depuis fut presente a l'Opera,
&refuse: je fus frappe d'y trouver de
tres--beaux airs de Violon dans un gout absolwne.nt I'talieni
.&en meme tems
tout ce qu'il y a de plus mauvais en Musique Fran~oise tant vocale
237
�harpsichord
there
was no one at home. 5
He was, again like Rousseau,
of the mo~ives of his critics,
suspicious
and he was equally
exasper-
ated when the meaning of his ideas was not immediately
perceived
others.
a great
Yet unlike
following
Rousseau, Rameau readily
among French men of letters
any intimate
friends.
just
thoir
exciting
apart
to make up for the absence of
His ideas were not always interpreted
but they were nonetheless
Rousseau lived
received
with much acclaim.
correctly,
And while
from other men and too often managed to incur
contempt or pity,
the admiration
Rameau was eci.nently
successful
in
of most of his contemporaries.
In 1748 and 1749 six of his opern-balleto
accomplishment
attracted
by
which no other
were performed in Paris,
composer had ever achieved before.
6
an
The
& je fis a l'Auteur quelques
qu'instrumentale
.... Ce contraste me surprit,
questions,
ausquellcs
il repondit si mal, que je vis bien, comme je
1 1avois deja con~u, qu'il n'avoit fait que la Musique Fran~oise, & avoit
pille l 1 Italienne."
See also 0.C.I, pp. 1408-1409 and 1839; CTWR,IV,
pp. 15-18; Correspondance complete, II, appendix 95, pp. 338-340;
and
Georges Cucuel, La Poupliniere et la rnusique de chambre au xvrrre siecle
(Paris 1913) pp. 118-125.
According to Rousseau (see 0.C.I, p. 334)
Les Muses galantes
received a favourable reception on its first public
performance, but it was seldom staged thereafter,
and most of the score
was eventually lost.
In the foreword to the libretto
(0.C.II,
p. 1051),
however, Rousseau shows that he came to share at least some of Rameau's
misgivings about the work: "Cet ouvrage est si mediocre en son genre,
et le genre en est si mauvais, que pour comprendre comment il m'a pu
plaire,
il faut sentir toute la force de l'habitude
et des prejuges ....
Ce fut ... sur l'execution
de quelques morceaux ... que M. Rameau qui les
entendit con~ut contre moi cette violente haine dont il n'a cesse de
donner des marques jusqu'a. sa mort."
5. See
Piron a
Philiope
p. 514.
edition],
grassier
Alexis Piron to Hughes Maret, 18 May 1765, in the Lettres d'Alexis
M. Maret (Lyon 1860), p. 6, cited in Cuthbert Girdlestone,
JeanRameau: His Life and Work, second edition (New York 1969)-,-Charles Colle once remarked (Journal et memoires [Paris 1868
II, p. 375) that Rameau was "le mortel le plus impoli, le plus
et le plus insociable
de son temps".
6. These were Les Fetes d'Hebe, Zais,
Platee, and Nais (see Girdlestone~meau,
238
Les Fetes de l'Hymen, Pyemalion,
p. 492).
�predominance
of his works on the stage
be so much envied that
least
Mmede Pompadour, who objected
as much as to his music, was able to secure
no public
appearance
for this
ought to be encouraged
rather
at Rameau's expense,
need for it at all
than any loss
The theoretical
indicates
See ibid.,
there
should be
year. 7
in any single
was that younger composers
the fact
the true strength
that
there
was a
of his popular
esteem
of it.
works of Rameau, moreover~ were almost
known by his contemporaries
7.
prohibition
to
to his manner at
that
of more than two of his operas
But while the pretext
felt
of the Opera came, in fact,
as his operas were attended
as widely
by them, 8
It
p. 483.
8.
Both his Traite de l'harmonie of 1722 and his Generation harmonioue
of 1737 had attracted
much attention
even before the philosophes began
to endorse his ideas in the late 1740s, The Jesuit Father Louis-Bertrand
Castel, for instance,
expressed the deepest admiration for Rameau in a
long review of the Trait~ which was published in two issues of the Journal
de Trevoux in 1722, and in the following year an equally favourable reception was accorded to the same work in the Neue Zei tungen von Gelehrten
Sachen printed in Leipzig (see CTWR,I, pp. xxviii-xlix,
and CTWR,VI,
pp. 3-7).
In the mid-1730s Castel was to take issue with at least some
of Rameau's theoretical
ideas and entered into public dispute with him in
the pages of the Journal de Trevoux (see CTWR,III, pp. xv-xviii,
and
CTWR,VI, pp. 67-102).
This dispute in some ways foreshadowed the later
controversy between Rameau and d'Alembert (see especially
pp, 278-282
below), and it al.ready displayed his capacity to treat the occasional
objections
of admirers with a riposte of incredulity
and contempt.
But
the strength of his standing as the leading theorist
of his day is shown
most clearly by the widespread praise with which his Generation harmonique
was greeted in a report of the Academie des sciences and in many of the
contemporary journals (see CTWR,III, pp. xviii-xxix,
and CTWR,VI, pp.
105-137 and 148-179).
In CTWR,VI, Erwin Jacobi incorporates
an excellent
col.lectlon of documents, originally
printed between 1723 and 1762, pertaining to the reception
of Rameau's theoretical
ideas on music.
Jacobi himself
also provides a very useful account (see ibid,,
epilogue, pp. xlviii-lxviii)
of the influence exercised by the thought of Rameau in the period immediately
after his dea~h.
Against all this evidence, however, Rousseau reminds us
('Musique',
Encyclopedie,
X (1765), p. 902) that the theoretical
writings
of Rameau "ont fait une grande fortune sans avoir ete lus de personne".
239
�is true
that
complained
belief
that
in the 1730s and 1740s some supporters
that
Rameau was too much of a 'musicien
music should always express
held by a few critics
distasteful
turn of the mid~century
But despite
from 1750, it has been said,
9.
See,
Villatte
Rameau' s
of Music
in logic
intermittent
Rameau's reputation
composer towered over that
cerebra1
1,
9 and his
ideas 10 was
sound philosophical
to be both mistaken
to the ear.
of Lully• had
and, when practised,
opposition,
both as a theorist
of any other man in France. 11
by the
and
The period
"marks the climax in his fame 11 • 12
Diderot,
for example, the remarks attributed
to Fran~ois Cartaud de la
in Girdlestone,
Rameau, p. 483, and to an anonymous critic
of
opera Dardanus in Alfred Oliver, The Encyc·lopedists as Cri ties
(New York 1947), p.20, note 79.
10. See the following passages in his Generation harmonique, CTWR,III,
pp. 29 and 53: "La Musique est une Science Phisicomathematique,
le Son
en est l'objet
Phisique,
& les rapports trouves entre differens
Sons en
font l'objet
Mathematique; sa fin est de plaire,
& d'exciter
en nous
diverses passions .... Le jugement de 1 1 0reille
est toujours fonde, &
tout obscur qu'il est sans le secours de la raison, il ajoute cependant
aux lumieres de celle--ci,
quand une fois elle nous a developpe les causes
de ce jugement: c'est pour nous une double confirmation
de voir ainsi
la Raison & l'Oreille
s'accorder
ensemble."
11. Oliver (The Encyclopedists
as Critics of Music, p. 19), however,
suggests that while Rameau was, by 1750, uthe outstanding composer of
the opera in France, he never enjoyed the popularity
of Lulli".
Insofar
as no figure in the history of French opera was ever so dominant as Lully
had been in the late seventeenth century, the truth of this claim must be
allowed.
Nonetheless,
Rameau, like Lully, also enjoyed the patronage of
the Court, and in his own lifetime his ~orks (especially
Castor et
Pollux and Les Fetes d'Hebe) were performed more frequently
than the
revived operas of Lully.
In this context it should perhaps be noted
that whereas the 1752~54 season of 'Les Bouffons' began at the Paris
Opera with a production of Pergolesi's
La Serva padrona on the same
programme as Lully's Acis et Galatee, it was effectively
brought to an
end when Rameau's Platee replaced Lee's I Viaggiatori
on the same
stage.
After the disappearance
from the capital of 'Les Bouffons'
Rameau's dramatic works were again performed frequently
at the Opera,
and while his stature as a theorist
~dme progressively
to be undermined
in the late 1750s, his operas continued to command the highest respect
until the mid-1770s when, together with the works of Lully still
performed then, they succumbed to the interest
excited by the operas of
Gluck.
12.
Girdlestone,
Rameau, p. 493.
240
�in that
year,
d 1 Alembert,
greatest
helped him to draft
in the following
proclaimed
that
he was one of the
14
• a wor k whi c h was printe
•
d in
•
men of t he Enlig• h tenment,
an d in
1752 Grimm proved so unctuous
who clearly
that
year,
one of his works on harmony, 13
in his praise
that
an anonymous reviewer,
stood among Rameau's supporters
too,
felt
not everyone had come to share Grimm's adoration
But apart,
perhaps,
from d'Al-embert's
obliged
to remark
of the master. 15
Elemens de musique of 1752, 16
13. The Demonstration du principe de 1 1harmonie (see Girdle.stone, Rameau,
pp. 495 and 522). See also Diderot's
remarks on Rameau in his 'Principes
generaux d'acoustique'
of 1748 and the commentary by Raynal reprinted
in
CTWR,III, pp. xl-xli.
Encyclopedie,
14. See the following passage in the Di.scours preliminaire,
I, pp. xxxii-xxxiii:
"Les Franc;ois paroissent
enfin persuades que Lulli
avoit laisse dans (la Musique] beaucoup.a faire.
M. RAMEAU,en poussant
la pratique de son Art a un si haut degre de perfection,
est devenu tout
ensemble le modele & l'objet
de la jalousie
d'un grand nombre d'Artistes
....
Mais ce qui le distingue
plus particulierement,
c'est d'avoir reflechi
avec beaucoup de succes sur la theorie de ce rneme Art; d'avoir su trouver
dans la Basse fondamentale le principe de 1 1harmonie & de la melodie;
d'avoir reduit par ce rnoyen a des lois plus certaines
& plus simples, une
science livree avant lui a des regles arbitraires
ou dictees par une
experience aveugle.
Je saisis avec empressement l'occasion
de celebrer
cet Artiste philosophe,
dans un di.scours destine principalement
a l'eloge
des grands Hommes."
15. See Grimrn's Lettre sur 10mphale', in Denise Launay, ed., La Querelle
des Bouffons, 3 vols. (Geneve 1973), I, pp. 1-54. This work appeared
several months before the arrival
in Paris, in August 1752, of the Italian
company of 'Les Bouffons', but it nonetheless raised some of the questions,
particularly
about the nature of Italian music, which were to figure in the
controversy that ensued.
In his Lettre Grimm regarded the opera Omphale
by Andre-Cardinal
Destouches most unfavourably in the light of several
operas by Rameau.
The review appears in the Mercure de France of March
1752, p. 139, and it may have been composed by Raynal, the putative author
(though not for all scholars)
of the Remarques au sujet de la Lettre de
M. Grimm sur 'Omphale' (see La Querelle des Boltffons, I, pp. 55-80).
16. D'Alembert's
work (see Girdle.stone,
Rameau, p. 493) was in fact
designed to do Rameau "the honour of presenting
his theories
in an easily
intelligible
form", since Rameau's turgid prose often made his ideas
appear dull and obscure, even to his most ardent admirers.
The text was
241
�the highest
tribute
For in a nwnber of publications
pen of Rousseau.
particularly
in his contributions
Rousseau displayed
generally
a great
deep respect
'Now the fact
some length
which was paid to Rameau came, in my view, from the
familiarity
for his authority
that
is not at all
was more devoted
on the subject
about music, and
to the Encyclopedie,
with Rameau's works and a
as a theorist.
be should have examined the ideas
surprising,
since
his life
throughout
to the study of music and its
theory
of Rameau at
Rousseau
than to any other
subject.
J.J. etoit ne pour la Musique; non pour y
payer de sa personne dans l'execution,
mais
pour en hater les progres et y faire des
decouvertes.
Ses idees datis l'art
et sur
l'art
sont feconds, intarissables,17
Before he came to Paris in 1742 he had decided that he would make music
.
18
his career,
and the first work which he produced in order to secure
therefore
entitled
Elemens de musioue, theorique et pratique,
suivant
les princioes
de M. Rameau, eclaircis,
developpes et simolifies
oar
M. d'Alembert,
and it was generously praised by most of its reviewers,
though d'Alembert did engage in a protracted
dispute with one, JeanLaurent de Bethizy (see CTWR,III, pp. li-lvii,
and CTWR, VI, pp. 227293). Rameau was flattered
by this tribute to his ideas (see his letter
in the Mercure de France of May 1752, reprinted
in CTWR,VI, pp. 237238), and he later charged d'Alembert with inconsistency
when the editor
of the Encyclopedie began to challenge certain features of his theory
(see pp. 2$0-281 below and especially
the exchanges between Rameau and
d'Alembert in CTWR,V, pp. 346-349 and 367-368).
D'Alembert also made
some editorial
changes to Rousseau's articles
for the Encyclopedie
about which Rousseau was at first quite content, though toward the end
of his life he accused his former colleague of plagiarism
(see note 117
below).
17.
Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques, O.C.I, p. 872. See also the following passage in the Confessions,
ibid,
pp. 180-181: "Je parle de la
musique.
Il faut assurement que je sois ne pour cet art, puisque j'ai
commence de l'aimer des mon enfance, et qu'il est le seul que j 1 aye eime
constamment dans tousles
terns."
18.
dans la
je crus
devenir
attirer
a chercher follement ma fortune
See ibid.,
p. 207: "Je m'obstinois
musique, et sentant
naitre
des idees et des chants dans ma tete,
qu'aussitot
que je serois en etat d'en tirer parti j 1 allois
un homme celebre,
un Orphee moderne dont lessons
devoient
tout l'argent
du Perou."
See also eh. II, note 38.
242
�his reputation
musique.
19
remarkable
was the Projet
His Lettre
contribution
to d'Alembert,
''tant
Le Devin du village
Rameau himself.
19.
21
concernant
de nouveaux signes
sur la musique franxoise
to the Querelle
combattue
of 1753 formed the most
des Bouffons and was, according
et si peu refutee
11
,
20
while his
and Pygmalion were almost as successful
His articles
pour la
for the Encyclopedie,
colilpositions
as those of
moreover,
when
See note 4 above.
20. See d'Alembert's
De la liberte
de la musique in La Querelle des
Bouffons, III, p. 2203. Some eighteenth-century
scholars have suggested
that Grimm's Petit prophete de Boehmischbroda was the first
important
work devoted to the Querelle des Bouffons.
But while it is true that
it is,
the Petit prophete appeared almost one year before the Lettre,
in my view, equally clear that Rousseau's more polemical and less
satirical
work attracted
both greater support, on the one hand, and most
of the refutations,
on the other.
Louisette Richebourg [Reichenburg],
in her Contribution
a l'histoire de la 'Querelle des Bouffons' (Paris
replies
to Grimm
and Philadelphia
1937), pp. 38-84, counts twenty-five
and thirty-two
to Rousseau.
See also Dufour, I, pp. 36-42, Servando
Sacaluga, 'Diderot,
Rousseau, et la querelle musicale de 1752',
Diderot Studies, X (1968), pp. 133-173, and the list from the second
(Paris 1757) edition of the Histoire du Theatre de l'Academie royale de
musique en France by Louis Travenol and Jacques Bernard Durey de Noinville,
reprinted
in La Querelle des Bouffons, III, pp. 2285-2293.
21. Le Devin du village was first performed at Fontainebleau
on 18
October, 1752, in the presence of the King. The work is quite clearly
of a mediocre standard,
but the King, nonetheless,
was so impressed by
its pastoral
melodies that he insisted
upon a second performance which
took place the following week.
It was again produced for his beijefit
in March 1753, at which time Mmede Pompadour herself played one of the
leading roles.
When it opened at the Paris Opera in the same month it
was an immediate success, and it remained popular, and was staged
frequently,
until the 1830s with periodic revivals
since then (see O.C.II,
pp. 1884-1885).
The first public performance of Pygmalion, in March 1772,
was also at the Opera, though it was initially
staged before a private
audience in Lyon in 1770. Rousseau had entrusted
the composition of its
score to Horace Coignet, but some of its musical passages,
and of course
the whole of its libretto,
were his own work (see ibid.,
pp. 1926-1928).
The best general study of Rousseau's music is Albert Jansen's Jean-Jacques
Rousseau als Musiker (Berlin 1884).
See also Adolphe Adam, 'Rousseau
musicien',
in Adam, Souvenirs d'un musicien (Paris 1857), pp. 177-215;
243
�they were later
revised
and reissued
were to form one of the longest
duced a number of other
1748 Diderot
of his writings,
works on musical
must have been sufficiently
of the subject,
as his Dictionnaire
topics
of the Encyclopedie,
he entrusted
and, indeed,
as well. 22
impressed
for it was toward the end of this
his friend
de musique,
he proAlready by
by Rousseau's
year that,
knowledge
as editor
with the task of preparing
. 23
t h e artic. l es on music,
Jules Carlez, Grimm et la musique de son temps (Caen 1882);
Arthur
Pougin, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau:
Musicien (Paris 1901);
Julien Tiersot,
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau (Paris 1912);
Samuel Baud-Bovy, 'Rousseau musicien•~
in Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Neuchatel 1962), pp. 51-66;
and O.C.I,
pp. 1316-1318.
In this chapter I shall be considering only two of Rousseau's
22,
manuscripts and five of his published writings on music in any detail:
the Neuchatel Ms R 60 and Ms R 69, the Lettre a M. Grimm sur 'Omphale',
the Lettre sur la musique fran9oise,
the Examen de deux principes,
·the
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, and the Dictionnaire
de musique.
Apart
from the Projet concernant de nouveaux signes pour la musique, the
Dissertation
sur la musique moderne, the Lettre d'un symphoniste, the
Observations sur l''Alceste'
de Gluck, and the Lettre a M. Burney sur la
musique, all of which I mention only in passing,_Rousseau
also wrote a
substantial
number of other essays about music to which I make no reference
here.
So far as I am aware, however, none of Rousseau's finished works
on this subject,
apart from the Essai sur l 1 origine des langues and an
English translation
of most of the Lettre sur la musi ue fran oise (see
Oliver Strunk, ed., Source Readings in Music History
New York 1950],
pp. 636-654),
has ever been produced in an annotated edition.
Since the
forthcoming fifth volume of O.C. should include most of them I suspect
that Rousseau scholarship
will be profoundly affected by its publication.
In the past few years the Essai has attracted
much attention
as a work
in philosophical
anthropology,
and I believe that in the next decade or
so the Dictionnaire
de musique may become as much a focus of Rousseau
studies as are the Contrat social and Emile today.
23.
See the Confessions,
O.C.I, 347-348.
Rameau, however, later
claimed that he had declined the undertaking and thus implied quite
clearly that it had been offered to him first.
Rousseau's errors might
still
have been avoided, he remarked, if only the editors had sent him
the manuscripts before releasing
them to their printers
(see the Reponse
de M. Rameau a MM. les editeurs de l'Encyclopedie,
CTWR,V,
pp. 360-361).
In any case Rousseau was not solely responsible- for the
244
�Rousseau fulfillad
his undertaking
zealously.
1749 he had completed more than two hundred essays
most of which were faithful
article
'Basse
fondamentale'?
of the most important
to the teaching
for instance,
of Rameau's conceptual
By the spring
of various
of
lengths,
of Rameau.
Thus in his
he provided
a full
account
discoveries.
BASSEFONDAMENTALE,
est celle qui n'est formee que
des sons fondamentaux de l'harmorrie;
de-sorte
qu'au-dessous
de chaque accord, elle fait entendre
le vrai son fondamental de cet accord;
par ou l'on
voit qu 1elle ne peut avoir d'autre contexture que
celle de la succession fondamentale de 1 1harmonie.
Pour bien entendre ceci, il faut savoir que tout
accord, quoique compose de plusieurs
sons, n'en a
qu'un qui soit fondamental: savoir celui qui a
produit cet accord, & qui lui sert de base .... M. Rameau
a fait voir dans son traite
de l'Harmonie, que
que
plusieurs
de ces pretendus accords n'etoient
des renversemens
d I un seul. 24
His observations
on the phenomenon of dissonance,
moreover,
were
contributions
on music in the Encyclopedie.
Cahusac, Diderot,
Jaucourt,
and d'Alembert each produced numerous or substantial
essays
seventeen volumes, while the most
on this subject for the first
frequent contributor
to the supplement was Frederic de Castillon.
A comprehensive list of the articles
on music and their authors in
the Encyclopedie can be found in Oliver, The Encyclopedists
as Critics
of Music, pp. 171-188.
24. Encyclopedie,
II (1751), p. 119.
In the Dictionnaire
de musique
(Paris 1768), pp. 43-44, the second part of this passage was changed
so as to make Rousseau's debt to Rameau even more explicit:
"Pour
bien entendre ceci, il faut savoir que, selon le systeme de M. Rameau
que j'ai suivi dans cet Ouvrage, tout Accord, quoique forme de plusieurs
Sons, n'en a qu'un qui lui soit fondamental; savoir, celui qui a produit
cet Accord & qui lui sert de Basse dans l'ordre
direct & naturel."
Rameau believed that if one took the sound produced by the total length
of a vibrating
string to be the fundamental root of a chord, then the
second and third harmonics, together with this root, would provide
the chord's major triad.
Vibrating strings of lengths which form perfect
245
�conceived,
he wrote, nsans s'ecarter
pour le fond des principes
do
M. Rameau11 , 25 and he also acknowledged his debt to Rameau's description
of the proper
techniques
of musical
accompaniment.
de nouveaux
C'est a M. Rameau, qui par l'invention
signes & la perfection
du doigter, nous a aussi
indique les moyens de faciliter
l'accompagnement;
c'est a lui, dis-je,
que nous sommes redevables
d'une methode nouvelle, qui garantit des
inconveniens de toutes celles qu'on avoit suivies
jusqu'a present.
C'est lui qui le premier a fait
connoitre la basse fondamentale, & qui par-la nous
a decouvert les veritables
~gndemens d'un art ou
tout paroissoit
arbitraire.
Now despite
these
and many other
favourable
works, Rameau was dismayed by the articles
In 1755, several
months after
the publication
references
to his
on music in th.e Encyclopedie.
of the fourth
volume, the
arithmetical
multiples or divisions
of the first would also yield the
chord's minor triads, and if one conjoined the upper and lower harmonics
all the c{1ordal relations
of the I basse fondacentale'
- tonic, dominant,
subdominant, and their derivatives
- could be expressed. This, in essence,
was his theory of the fundamental tone (see, for instance,
his
Generation harmonique, CTWR,III, pp. 52-66).
See also Matthew
Shirlaw, The Theory of Harmony, second edition (DeKalb 1955), pp. 98-130,
and Jacques Chailley,
'Rameau et la theorie musicale',
Revue musicale,
CCLX(1965), pp. 87-90.
25,
'Dissonance',
Encyclopedie,
IV (1754),
p. 1050.
26, 'Accompagnement', Encyclopedie,
I, pp. 75-76.
Rousseau's assessment of Rameau as a composer, however, was somewhat less flattering.
See especially
the following passage in his Lettre a M. Grimm au sujet
des remarques ajoutees a sa lettre sur '0mphale', La Querelle des Bouffons,
I, pp. 111-115:
"Il faut reconnoitre
dans M. Rameau un tres-grand talent,
beaucoup de feu, une tete bien sonnante, une grande connoissance des
renversemens harmoniques & de toutes les choses d'effet;
beaucoup d'art
pour s'approprier,
denaturer,
orner, embellir les idees d'autrui,
&
retourner les siennes;
assez peu de facilite
pour en inventer de
nouvelles;
plus d'habilete
que de fecondite,
plus de s~avoir que de
genie: OU du moins un genie etouffe par trop de s~avoir;
mais toujours
de la force & de !'elegance,
& tres-souvent
du beau chant.
Son recitatif
est moins naturel,
mais beaucoup plus varie que celui de Lulli .... Il est
le premier qui ait fait des symphonies & des accompagnemens travailles,
&
il en a abuse .... Je dis que M. Rameau a abuse de cet 0rchestre tel quel.
Ila rendu ses accompagnemens si confus, si charges, si frequens, que la
tete a peine a tenir au tintamarrc continue! des divers instrumens, pendant
246
�ageing composer assembled what remained of his always doubtful
talents
in a virulent
entitled
the Erreurs
year there
appeared
the Encyclopedie
immediately
27
Rousseau was already
the celebrated
the fact
Diderot
artist
could really
that
be its
Rameau had elected
among the
whose patience
to be
with
came to his
maligned a writer
We are unable to believe,
author
the 1760s when
foreword to volume
by 1756, nonetheless
to whom the Erreurs
about
for his attacks,
and in their
Rameau had unwisely
his works.
into
generally
of
almost
These exchanges
to continue
and d'Alembert,
under strain
he retorted
The reason
understood,
and argued that
had always praised
In the next
and when the editors
editeurs,
and in 1764 he died,
was not immediately
attributed
a MM. les
behalf
Rameau began to lose favour
VI of the Encyclopedie
that
on Rousseau's
of Rousseau were, in fact,
philosophes,
whicq he
contributions
his Suite des 'Erreurs',
replied
the disheartened
assistance
upon Rousseau's
sur la musique dans l'Encyclopedie,
with a Reponse
the articles
sure,
attack
literary
who
they remarked,
sur la musique has been
- a pretence
to leave his text
made possible
only by
unsigned.
l'execution
de ses Opera .• ,,je pense que personne n'a mieux que lui saisi
mais
l 'esprit
des details,
personn e n' a mieux sgu 1' art des contrastes;
en meme terns personne n'a moins s~u donner a ses Opera cette unite si
sgavante & si desiree,
& il est peut-etre
le seul au monde qui n'ait pu
venir a bout de faire un bon ouvrage de plusieurs
beaux morceaux fort
bien arranges."
Grimm's Lettre sur 1 0mphale 1 (see note 15 above)
appeared in February 1752, and Rousseau's Lettre a M. Grimm sur 'Omphale'
was first published,
anonymously, in April of the same year,
See also
Jansen,
Rousseau als Musiker, pp. 128-157;
Paul-Marie Masson, 'Les
idees de Rousseau sur la musique', Revue musicale, S,I.M,, VIII.vi (1912),
p.8; Masson, 'La Lettre sur Omphale (1752)', Revue de musicologie,
XXIV
(1945), pp. 1-19; and Oliver, The Encyclopedists
as Critics of Music,
pp. 106-108,
27.
All the works in which Rameau attacked the Encyclopedie are included
in·CTWR, IV (see pp. 265-280 and 313-324), and CTWR,V (see pp. 195-261,
309-361, and 369-385).
For accounts of the controversy between Rameau
and the philosophes,
see Oliver, The Encyclopedists
as Critics of Music,
especially
pp. 101-112, and Eve Kisch, 'Rameau and Rousseau', Music and
Letters,
XXII (1941), pp. 106-114.
See also note 16 above and pp. 277-282
below,
247
�Tout nous empeche de le croire, .. la maniere peu
dont on trai te dam, cette brochur-e
M. Rousseau, qui a souvent nomme avec eloges le
musicien dont nous parions,
& qui ne lui a jamais
ma.nque d'egards,
meme dans le petit nombre
ou il a cru pouvoir le combattre. 28
d'endroits
rneSUl'ee
Yet the central
reason
for Rameau's complaints
For while Rousseau had adopted the technical
with enthusiasm,
he had not accepted
which they were derived.
of Rameau's ideas,
supposition
that
of musical
number of critical
acknowledged
clear.
of his theory
principles
from
doubts about the scope and
and he had disagreed
must be fixed
and constant
I
1,
i'or instance,
Accompagnement
observations
the importance
had developed,
to his account
with Rameau's
rules
for every form
but be denied that
an intelligent
custom and taste
Rousseau
they could prescribe
accompaniment,
than upon any technical
added a
of Rameau's theory.
of most of the harmonic rules
accompaniment must be appropriate
of providing
innovations
quite
expression.
In his article
musical
there
I think,
the philosophical
He had expressed
application
is,
precepts
which Rameau
which kinds of
in every case.
he wrote,
He
The manner
depends more upon
which might be ascribed
to it.
Quoiquo suivant les principes
de M. Rameau il faille
toucher
tousles
sons de chaque accord, il ne faut pas toujours
prendre cette regle a la lettre.
Il y a des accords qui
seroient
insupportables
avec tout ce remplissage .... En general
on doit penser en accompagnant, que quand M. Rameau veut
qu'on remplisse tousles
accords, il a bien plus d'egard
a la facilite du doigter
a son systerne particulier
d'accompagnement, qu'a la purete de l'harmonie.29
&
28. CTWR,V, p. 290. See also the passage from Neuchatel Ms R 16
cited in note 234 below. Rameau's authorship of the Erreurs sur la
musique was never really in doubt; it had already been confirmed at
least as early as January 1756 in the Mercure de France (see CTWR,V,
p. xxxix).
In his 'Fragment biographique'
- which was probably
composed around this period as well - Rousseau turned the anonymity
of Rameau to his own advantage with prickly sarcasm, reflecting
(O.C.I, p. 1119) about the author of the Erreurs that in the work,
"pour le tourner en ridicule
on affecte de le faire incessamment
loii.er par lui meme".
29. Encyclopedie,
I, p. 76.
248
�One must always adapt the sound of the accompaniment
of the music,
30
in character,
and since
the music of different
it therefore
followed
for example,
ought to be provided
arrangement.
For French music,
be sustained
so that
and graceful
that
the harmony may be filled
constructed
out.
tion
of
steady
or
entirely
to Rameau, however,
misconceived,
be universally
tion that
"il
remplissage",
embellishments
music,
all
the notes
round the melodic
and there
since
the same.
must be no addi-
to obscure
the sober and
these
objections
to his theory
the harmonic structures
In answer,
y a des accords
he replied
therefore,
qui seroient
of our music must
to Rousseau's
insupportables
permit
hand, insisted
accompaniment
differences
that
to each example.
some discretion
conten-
avec tout
ce
il
the forms of accompaniment must vary in
with the prevailing
which applied
were
that
Whereas Rousseau claimed that
on the other
theme
music the bass·
un accord n'est tel qu'avec tout son remplissage,
doit etre complet selon la definition .... s'il est
Accord il est done supportable.3 2
accordance
must
31
flow of the tune.
According
was distinct
forms of harmonic
But for Italian
of .each chord should be played silllply,
trills
separate
Rousseau remarked,
line
either
nations
French and Italian
with quite
arpeggios
to the character
there
in musical
style,
Rameau,
could be only one harmonic rule
For even if we must in all
cases
as to the manner in which the harmony of an
is rendered,
it was still
perfectly
clear,
he argued,
30.
See ibid.:
"11 faut toujours proportionner
le bruit au caractere
de la Musique, & a celui des instrumens ou des voix qu'on a a accompagner
.... en un mot, on a toujours attention
que l'accompagnement,
qui n'est
fait que pour soutenir
& embellir le chant, ne le gate & ne le couvre
pas."
See ibid.,
p. 77.
31.
32.
Erreurs
sur la musique,
CTWR,V, p. 203.
249
�that
the 'corps
sonore'
turn marked by its
of every accompaniment was unique and was in
own appropriate
'son fondamental'.
Le son fondamental de ce corps sonore domine tellement
sur ses harmoniques, qu'a peine ceux-ci se distinguent
avec lui:
done on ne s~auroit trop multiplier
lessons
de la Basse. 33
And while untrained
suppose themselves
11
Accompagnateurs
and uncritical
entirely
free
becomes not only useless,
to choose their
but pernicious,
of musical
expression
and in his view it was this
intervals,
'Dissonance',
such a choice
is made at the
ordonee par la Nature meme11 •
must incorporate
fact,
34
the same harmonic
more than any other,
Thus, in his critique
to grasp.
Rousseau had failed
chords,
when it
expense of the "compleement de l'harmonie
All the varieties
sans Methode" might
which
of the article
he exclaimed,
On s~ait bien que chaque Art, chaque Science a ses
proprietes
particulieres.
Mais ne pourroient-elles
pas dependre, toutes,
d'un meme principe?
Y a-t il
deux principes
dans la Nature? 35
Rousseau,
for his part,
musique fran9oise
that
a clear
than the harmonic structures
a unique and universal
be proclaimed
the intonation
vocal line,
in that
had argued at length
melodic line
built
principle
33.
Ibid.,
p. 208.
34.
Ibid.,
p. 206.
was musically
around it,
work, an inescapably
sur la
more important
and so far from there
of harmony in Nature,
of more than one note,
at a time.
in the Lettre
artificial
or the expression
there
quality
being
was always,
produced by
of more than one
For whatever harmony might be produced by an
35.
Ibid., p. 257.
Rameau referred to this passage again in his
Re onse a MM. les editeurs de 1 1Enc clo edie, though there (see ibid.,
p. 356 he changed the terms slightly.
See also ibid.,
pp. 359-360:
"Jene dois mes decouvertes en Musique qu'aux loix de la Nature, dont
le corps sonorc nous presente un modele, & dont !'observation
est en
merne terns si simple & si lumineuse qu'aujourd'hui
le Musicien, d'accord
avec le Geometre, m'ecoute, m'entend & m'imite."
250
�ensemble of voices
each singing
a fine
tune,
l'effet
de ces beaux chants s'evanouit
aussitot
qu'ils
se font entendre a la fois, & il ne reste que celui
d'une suite d'accord,
qui, quoiqu'on puisse dire, est
toujours froide quand la melodie ne l'anime pas ... il
est impossible a l'oreille
de se preter au meme instant
a plusieurs melodies, & que l'une effagant l'impression
de l'autr~~
il ne resulte
du tout que de la confusion &
du bruit.
In place
of Rameau1 s conception
underlay
all
own rule
of the unity
forms of
approximated
natural
become interesting,
it was intended
parts
music,
Rousseau
or singularity
he remarked,
should
and the bass,
embellish
forward
his
of those
of its
the sentiments
who hear it,
central
theme more lively;
but not leave
it suffocated
by a uniform and simple though imperceptible
should guide both the performer
which
For a work of music to
the expression
it,
structure
of melody which he thought
in the hearts
must fortify
put
for it to arouse
harmony should only serve to make that
paniment
therefore
song most closely.
to excite
together
of a uniform harmonic
and the listener
to a full
which
all
its
theme.
The
the accomor disfigured;
progression,
appreciation
of the melody.
Il faut, en un mot, que le tout ensemble ne porte a la
fois qu'une melodie a l'oreille
& qu'une idee a l'esprit.
Cette unite de melodie me paroit une regle indispensable
& non moins importante en Musique, que l'unite
d'action
car elle est fondee sur le meme
dans une Tragedie;
principe,
& dirigee vers le meme objet,3 7
Now it is true
la musique frangoise,
thesis
36.
that
Lettre
that
by 1753, when Rousseau composed his Lettre
he had not yet entirely
the principle
abandoned Rameau's central
of harmony was a fixed
sur la musique franxoise,
sur
La Querelle
and constant
rule
des Bouffons,
of
I, p. 707.
37.
Ibid., p. 708.
See also ibid., pp. 712, 719, and 729-730 and the
'Unite de melodie' in the Dictionnaire
de musique
passage from the article
cited on p. 259 below.
Freron, in a critique
of the Lettre published
anonymously in Geneva in 1754, charged (see his Lettres sur la musique
franGoise,
La Querelle des Bouffons, I, p. 786) that the notion of the
unity of melody was a commonplace derived initially
from Horace, while
Rameau, in his Erreurs sur la musique ( see p. 269 below), deer.Led the idea.
as "une chimerc".
251
�Nature.
In his .Fasai sur l'origine
principes
- texts
ing
des langues
which were both initially
two years 38 - he was to argue that
vocal music could be described
schemes were artificial
corruptions
drafted
just
as truly
and &amen de deux
only in the follow-
certain
natural
kinds of melodic
and that
in the context
ruJ.es that
Lettre
of a theory
which still
40
the systematic
Nonetheless,
Rousseau did put forward a claim about the connection
melodic and harmonic music which he was to elaborate
differed
influence
between nations,
this
that
insofar
difference
in the
between
in his subsequent
as the patterns
was attributable
of melody, which in turn expressed
view
t here it•
allows that
govern harmony are drawn from Nature.
works - a claim to the effect
harmonic
of these kinds;3 9 but while this
• in
• some respec t s area
l
dy f ores ha dowed in
• t he Lettre,
is
figures
all
th~ national
of harmony
to the
variations
between forms of language.
L'harmonie ayant son principe dans la nature, est la meme
pour toutes les Nations, ou si elle a quelques differences,
elles sont introduites
par celles de la melodie;
ainsi,
c'est de la melodie seulement qu'il faut tirer le caractere
particulier
d'une Musique Nationnale;
d'autant plus que ce
caractere
etant principalement
donne par la langue, le chant
proprement dit doit ressentir
sa plus grande influence. 4 1
38.
39.
See pp. 289 and 294-326 below.
See pp. 289-293 and 326-342 below.
40.
See especially
the following passage (La Querelle des Bouffons, I,
pp. 677-678) in which Rousseau remarks upon the way that a musical
language which was deficient
in melodic inflexiono must have become transformed into a harmonic system lacking all sense:
"Commeune telle Musique
d'y suppleer par des
seroit denuee de toute melodie agreable, on tacheroit
beautes factices
& peu naturelles;
on la chargeroit
de modulations
& regulieres,
mais froides,
sans graces & sans expression ....
frequentes
La Musique avec toute cette maussade parure resteroit
languissante
& sans
expression,
& ses images, denuees de force & d'energie,
peindroient
peu
d'objets
en beaucoup de notes, comrnes ces ecritures
gothiques,
dont les
& de lettres figurees, ne contiennent que deux ou
lignes remplies de traits
Cf.
trois mots, & qui renferment tres-peu de sens en un grand espace."
the passages from the Essai sur l'origine
des langues discussed on
pp. 339-342 below.
Lettre sur la musique fran9oise,
See also the passage from p. 681 cited
41.
252
La Querelle des Bouffons,
in note 267 below.
I, p. 676.
�Some languages,
appropriate
Rousseau contended
to music than were others,
have any musical
attributes
marked, for instance,
or, on the other,
syllables,
joined
by an excess
to an insipid
to construct
kind,
or mute and nasal
agreeable
could only be
expression
speed. 42
at full
which
Since it
tunes which might be sung
composers in nations
instead,
which were
of speech,
speech would be obliged
harmonic arrangements
to extract
measured figures
did not
on the one hand,
and monotonous form of musical
of this
by such defective
vowels,
of consonants,
were more
tongues
Those languages
when sung slowly and coarse
would be impossible
in languages
while certain
by a lack of sonorous
or imprecisely
must be dull
at all.
in the Lettre,
which were characterized
to turn their
attention
and even then they would often
a melodic theme from the strident
noise
of their
to
be unable
accompani-
ment.
L1 impossibilite
d'inventer
des chants agreables obligeroit les Compositeurs a tourner tous leurs soins du
cote de l'harmonie,
& fa~te. de beautes reelles,
ils y
introduiroient
des beautes de convention,
qui n'auroient presque d'autre merite que la difficulte
vaincue;
au lieu d'une bonne Musique, ils imagineroient
une
Musique s~avante;
pour suppleer au chant, ils multiplieroient
les accompag(ne]mens .... Pour oter 1 1 insipidite,
ils augmenteroient
la confusion;
ils croiroient
faire
de la Musique & ils ne feroient
que du bruit .... Partout
ou ils verroient
des notes ils trouveroient
du chant,
attendu qu'en effet leur chant ne seroit que des notes.
Voces, praetereaque
nihil.43
In the Lettre
language
in particular
insusceptible
Rousseau's
suffered
to a properly
bray which was characteristic
42.
43.
principal
from just
musical
claim was that
these
exposition.
faults
the French
and was therefore
The continual
bark and
of French songs could not be suffered
See ibid.,
pp. 676-677.
Ibid., pp. 678-680.
253
by
�anyone who was unprepared
harmonies
of French accompaniment fell
notes.
a deluge of tedious
not
for the ordeal,
proper airs
at all,
The airs
and its
while the brusque and heavy
upon the ears of listeners
of French opera,
moreover,
was misconceived
recitative
as
were
as well. 44
Thus, Rousseau concluded,
les Fran~ois n'ont
avoir;
ou que si
tant pis pour eux.
Against
all
point de Musique & n 1 en peuvent
jamais ils en ont une, ce sera
45
the calamities
which made French prose so intractable
as music Rousseau juxtaposed
the virtues
ions of the Italian
were more soft
modulations
language
more precise
constant,than
their
and sonorous,
equivalents
of Italian.
and gentle,
For the inflexhe argued,
and the tempo of its
its
speech more
in French.
S'il y a en Europe une langue propre a la Musique,
c 1 est certainemcnt
l'Italienne;
car cette langue
est douce, sonore, harmonieuse, & accentuee plus
qu'aucune autre, & ces quatre qualites
sont precisement les plus convenables au chant. 46
These,
tion
then,
that
were the reasons
the Italian
language
Rousseau cited
was musically
in support
superior
of his contento French.
44.
It was one of Rousseau's central postulates
in this work (see
pp. 743-749) that French composers of opera since Lully had come to
a theatrical
technique of declamatory recitative
and a drawling and
nous form of aria, both of which were inappropriate
to any kind of
performance.
45.
Ibid.,
ibid.,
develop
monotomusical
pp. 763-764.
46.
Ibid., p. 689.
In the Essai sur l'origine
des langues (see the
passage from the seventh chapter cited on p. 338 below), however, Rousseau
later drew a somewhat different
dichotomy between the musical attributes
of the two languages.
For there he asserted that Italian
was just like
French and all other modern European languages in the sense that it lacked
determinate musical accents which would give its words an exact and constant tone and character when sung.
And while Italian
speech might lend
itself
to music more readily than other tongues, it was not in fact,~
maintained, a musical language.
Even in the Lettre, moreover, Rousseau
acknowledged that Italian
composers still
sometimes employed the gothic
harmonies which had been the most characteristic
style of the baroque idiom
in both France and Italy before the period beginning around the turn of the
(see La
eighteenth century when Corelli,
Bononcini, Vinci, and Pergolesi
Querelle des Bouffons, I, p. 717, note) had introduced compositions ofa
254
�Now the technical
and in particular
to the Querelle
Rousseau,
those
elaboration
features
of this
argument in the Lettre,
of the work that
des Bouffons which had occasioned
need not detain
us here. 47
are expressly
its
It is true that
composition
the text
joined
by
forms
truly musical kind.
These cumbersome harmonies, according to Rousseau,
remained prevalent
in French music, and (ibid.,
p. 718) "depuis meme que
les Italiens
ont rendu l'harmonie plus pure, plus simple, & donne tous
de la melodie, je ne nie pas qu'il ne soit
leurs soins a la perfection
encore demeure parmi eux quelques legeres traces des fugues & desseins
gothiques,
& quelques fois de doubles & triples melodies" (in this connection see also the passage from the eighteenth
chapter of the Essai
cited on p. 340 below).
It would be a mistake, however, Rousseau concluded in the Lettre (La Querelle des Bouffons, I, p. 764, note), for French
composers to imitate their Italian
colleagues:
"J'aimerois
mieux que
nous gardassions
notre maussade & ridicule
chant, que d'associer
encore
plus ridiculement
la melodie Italienne
a la langue Fran~oise."
See
also note 54 below,
47.
In his Lettre (see especially
La Querelle des Bouffons, I, p. 722)
Rousseau refers directly
to La Serva padrona by Pergolesi,
an excellent
example of opera buffa first produced in Naples in 1733 and already
staged in Paris at the Comedie Italienne
in 1746, whose renewed performance at the Opera by the company of Eustachio Bambini was much acclaimed
and in fact constituted
the musical inauguration
of the Querelle.
Rousseau also calls attention
in the text to Grimm's Peti:tprophete
de
Boehmischbroda (see ibid., p. 749 and note 20 above), which was the most
important literary
contribution
to the Querelle before his own,
But in
addition to these citations
the Lettre contains many other passages which
deal specifically
with the music around which the controversy was shaped.
It includes comments upon at least four more operas (Il Maestro di musica
and Il Tracollo which were principally
by Pergolesi,
and La Bohemienne
[La Zingara] and La Femme orgueilleuse
[La Donna superba] by Rinaldo di
Capua) which were staged by 'Les Bouffons'; it mentions three further
composers (Leo, Niccolo Jommelli, and Gioacchino Cocchi) and one librettist (Metastasio)
whose intermezzi were performed during their season in
Nicola
Paris; and it refers to a whole host of still
other composers(~
Antonio Porpora, Baldassare Galuppi, Davide Perez,and Domenico Terradellas)
whose music had been made to serve as overtures or pasticci
or who, more
indirectly
still,
had just helped to inspire the contemporary style of
opera buffa (see ibid.,
pp. 699-705 and 710-711).
Rousseau's profound
knowledge of this quite generally
slight form of opera stemmed from the
fascination
which he had felt for it during his stay in Venice in 1743- 114
(see note 56 below).
While the 'Bouffon' season was in progress he prepared a collection
of Italian
songs under the title
'Canzoni di batello'
as well as an edition of La Serva padrona (see Dufour, I, pp. 42 and
269-270), and his own opera, Le Devin du village,
moreover, it3clf first
staged during that season, was described by some of his critics
(notably
Freron) as substantially
plagiarized
from the music which he had heard in
Italy before.
This charge, it should be noted here, was first made with
regard to Le Devin in 1753 (see the Correspondance complete, II, pp. 329
and 333), that is, two years before Rameau made the same claim (see note 4
above) about Les Muses galantes.
For an account of the operas performed
255
�Rousseau's
principal
contribution
most striking
features
Indeed,
it has been my central
since
cannot be understood
way which we have to establish
of locating
gave rise
their
dispute, 48 and many of its
to that
place
thesis
in this
in the specific
if I were now to depart
views expressed
polemical
des Bouffons,
each of them in that
superfluous
context
and even false
Some of his ideas
and an attempt
alone will
assumptions
in the Lettre
were to be further
and which have no direct
and these
moreover,
which
and incorrect
in my
in certain
about their
about the lamentable
connection
cases lead us to make
intended
meaning.
state
of French
song, on
in works which he produced later
49
with the Querelle des Bouffons,
just
because the setting
Other ideas which appear in the
should be examined not only in the light
that
the sense of
developed
them has been changed.
with writings
But the
charms of Italian
arguments of 1752-54 about the meri ta of Italian
conjunction
is that
controversies
to determine
ideas need not prove unintelligible
which surrounds
the only
were not concerned exclusively
music, on the one hand, and the irresistible
the other,
study that
from that position.
by Rousseau in the Lettre
with the Querelle
in any other way.
the exact meaning of his ideas
to them, I should be both inconsistent
interpretation
Lettre,
properly
of the various
opera buff a but also in
Rousseau had produced even before,
and in
by 'Les Bouffons' in 1752-54, see especially
Travenol and Durey de
Noinville,
Histoire du Theatre de l'Academie royale de musique, part one,
pp. 273-320, and the list appended to part two, reprinted
in La Querelle
des Bouffons, III, pp. 2294-2300; Lionel de La Laurencie, 'La Grande
saison italienne
de 1752: Les Bouffons', Revue musicale, S.I.M., VIII.vi
and vii (1912), pp. 18-33 and 13-22; and the commentaries of Donald
Grout and Eugene Borrel in Roland-Manuel, ed., Histoire de la musique
(Paris 1960-63), II, pp. 5-13 and 26-39.
48.
It is not Rousseau's only contribution,
however.
See also his
bitterly
satirical
Lettre d'un symphoniste (La Querelle des Bouffons, I,
pp. 648-664) in which he suggests that the poor per~·or=ncc of soce oi' the
operas was due to a conspiracy on the part of the orchestra of the
Academie de musique.
49.
See, for example, the letter of Saint-Preux to Julie in La Nouvelle
Heloise,
O.C.II, pp. 131-135.
256
�order to establish
the significance
of these
ideas we must first
a grasp of the manner in which they were elaborated,
alternatively,
conceived
pounded in earlier
have discussed
as departures,
here must,
had been the point
from claims which he had pro-
it seems to me, be considered
and both help to make clear
account of music that
or
extended,
The dominant themes of the Lettre
works.
the sense in which that
is still
have
more critical
which I
in this
fashion,
essay sets
forth
of Rameau's theory
an
than
of view adopted by Rousseau in his articles
for the
Encyclopedie.
The first
of these
themes,
.music the melodic subject
harmonic accompaniment,
that
is,
Rousseau's
should always take precedence
does not figure
four volumes of the Encyclopedie
in his Erreurs
sur la musique.
taken no account
In these
matter
to the Encyclopedie
contrary
to that
between melody and
he had considered
which eventually
Encyclopedie,
he had actually
appeared
maintained
in his .article
in 1765 in the tenth
the
his musical
which he was to uphold in his Lettre
Thus, for instance,
musique fransoise.
printed
Rousseau had in
in 1748 and 1749 when he was engaged in preparing
contributions
quite
articles
that
in
which Rameau decried
of the problem of the relation
harmony, and on the very few occasions
that
over its
in any of the articles
in the initial
fact
contention
a position
sur la
'Melodie',
volume of the
he had argued that
comrne la c9nstitution
de nos chants depend entierement de 1 1 harmonie, la melodie ne fait pas une partie
considerable
de notre musique.SO
Rousseau predictably
left
out this
remark about the relative
cance of melody as compared to harmony in the article
insignifi-
on the same subject
X, p. 320.
There is no evidence at all to suggest
50.
Encyclopedie,
that Rousseau had only French music in mind here, even though, if this were
the case, his contention would then be in closer accord with his later
perspective.
�which he later
final
text
tention
composed for the Dictionnaire
he reiterated,
he had first
in still
proposed
que par la melodie,
peint
stronger
de musique,
terms,
in the Lettre.
& tire
d'elle
and in his
the opposite
con-
For "si la Musique ne
toute
sa force",
he proclaimed
in the Dictionnaire,
il s'ensuit
que toute Musique qui ne chante pas,
quelque harmonieuse qu'elle puisse etre, n'est point
une Musique imitative,&,
ne pouvant ni toucher ni
peindre avec ses beaux Accords, lasse bientot les
oreilles,
& laisse toujours le coeur froid. 51
Of course
scanty
statements
about this ,matter
we should be careful
of the distinction
article
on 'Harmonie'
between 1749 and
in his perspective
was to be his later
musique fran~oise,
derived
position,
'Melodie',
52
on the other
essentially
denied in that
he had already
while in a passage
from harmony,
work.
provided
hand, be still
53
are so
to avoid exaggerating
The problem is indeed made more obscure by the fact
original
51.
Rousseau's
in the Encyclopedie,
the importance
1753.
since
in his
a hint of what
of the Lettre
asserted
a contention
that
that
sur la
music was
which he generally
54
• •
But d esp1•te t h ese a.."lds t 1'11 other comp1 ex1t1es,
Dictionnaire
de musique,
p. 275.
52.
See the following remark in the Encyclopedie,
VIII, p. 50: "Un dictionnaire
de mots elegans n'est pas une harangue, ni un recueil d 1 accords
harmonieux une piece de musique .. Il faut un sens, il faut de la liaison
dans la Musique, comme dans le langage;
mais ou p~endra-t-on
tout cela,
si ce n •.est dans les idees memes que le sujet doit fournir?"
The text of
this statement was later modified slightly
by Rousseau in his Dictionnaire
de musique (.seep. 237).
Cf. also the passage from the Essai sur l'origine
langues~ eh. xiiii,
cited on p. 342 below.
53.
nait
Hence, he wrote (La Querelle
immediatement de l'harmonie".
des Bouffons,
I, p. 675),
"Le chant ...
54.
Of particular
significance
in this context is Rousseau's account of
measure in the Lettre.
For in his view the fundamental components of every
kind of music included not only harmony and melody but measure as well, and
it was in fact the case, he claimed (ibid.),
that "le chant tire son principal caractere
de la mesure".
Measure provided the structure
of song, he
continued (see ibid.,
p. 680), bearing the same relation
to melody as syntax
does to speech, while earlier,
in his article
'Mesure' for the tenth volume
of the Encyclopedie he had even suggested that harmony and melody stood
258
�it remains perfectly
clear
that
Rousseau's
stance
with regard
primacy of melody over harmony was to be consistently
Dictionnaire
de musique which,
comprehensive
definitive
Dictionnaire,
'Unite
entitled
and most
as his
in music,
The first
the parts
of a composition
more immediately
and the force
continues,
perceptible,
of its
proceeds
displays
whole.
between
article
that
There are two kinds
to harmony,
in sequence and, joining
the relations
all
between
The second is more pure and
and from it stems the energy of the music
terms and phrases.
is attributable
only a succession
view.
one of which pertains
together,
them in the form of an integral
of the relation
and it is in this
of his later
he remarks here,
to melody.
Rousseau devoted a whole article,
expression,
statement
the other
creative
his final
we must regard
to a treatment
of musical
we find the fullest
and there
subject,
to be sure,
de melodie',
two facets
of unity
on this
it contains
upheld in the
position.
In.the
these
reflections
since
to the
to the fact
This difference,
that
the first
Rousseau
kind of unity
of chords while the second is a procession
can be no doubt but that
in his view the
latter
is
of song,
is more
and vital.
Le plaisir
de l'Harmonie n'est qu'un plaisir
de pure
sensation,
& la jouissance des sens est toujours
courte, la satiete
& l'ennui la suivent de pres:
mais le plaisir
de la Melodie & du Chant, est un
plaisir
d'interet
& de sentiment qui parle au coeur,
& que l'Artiste
peut toujours soutenir & renouveller
a force de genie.SS
together as the intoned substance of music, whereas measure constituted
its form.
Thus he remarked (p. 410), "Le chant ne consiste pas seulement dans l'intonation,
mais aussi dans la mesure, &... l'un [n'est] pas
moins naturel que l'autre".
This perspective
was to have some bearing
upon his argument in the Essai sur l'origine
des langues (see pp. 328
and 335 below), and of course it figures
clearly
in his proposition
of the Lettre (see pp. 253-254 above) that the measured speech of the
Italian
language made it more suitable
to musical expression than was
French.
My account here of the primacy of melody over harmony in
Rousseau's theory after 1753 must thus be taken in connection with his
claims about the importance of measure too. See also the appendix, note ~55.
'Unite
the passages
de melodie',
Dictionnaire
de musique, pp. 536-537.
Cf. also
from the Lettre sur la musique fran9oise cited on p. 251
259
�In the same article,
moreover,
Rousseau explained
that
his appreciation
of the predominance
of melody over harmony in music had actually been
56
by the operas which he had heard in Venice
while he had been
inspired
stationed
there
established
just
some ten years
had been designed
as Le Devin du village,
his attempt
the
'Maitres
cation
central
direct
so that
but only confirmed
'Les Bouffons'
he added,
in 1743-44,
to realize
de l'Art'
challenge
later.
The Lettre
to elaborate
composed a short
But in its
performances
of
sur la musique frangoise,
the foundations
of that
while earlier,
principle,
had formed
and it was now, he concluded,
to judge whether
here,
could not have been
for him by the Paris
it in practice,
of it proper. 57
importance
the principle
the rule
theoretical
he maintained
that
was correct
formulation,
for
and his appliwhich is of
it had been put forward as a
to the views of Rameau.
above, and from the Examen de deux principes,
the article
'Harmonie',
the Observations
sur l''Alceste'
de Gluck cited on pp. 292-293 below.
and
56.
See 'Unite de melodie',
Dictionnaire
de musique, p. 536.
In the
Lettre (see La Querelle des Bouffons, I, pp. 699-701) Rousseau had already
recalled
an experience in Venice which confirmed the superiority
of French
over Italian
song, at least to his own satisfaction.
In his Confessions,
moreover, he later devoted a few pages to the delights of Venetian song, for
which, he claimed (O.C.I, p. 314), "j'eus bientot ... la passion qu'elle
inspire a ceux qui sonl faits pour en juger", despite his having come to
Venice with a characteristically
French prejudice
against Italian
music.
Madeleine Ellis,
in her Rousseau's Venetian Story (Baltimore 1966), p. 125,
rightly notes that he was apparently
unimpressed by the sculpture
and painting which were then flourishing
in the city and which so many of its other
distinguished
visitors
at the time, such as Charles de Brosses, commended at
length.
But during his stay there as secretary
to the Ambassador he was,
nevertheless,
deeply moved by at least one further feature of the city, i.e.,
the despotic nature of its ostensibly
republican
institutions
(see eh. V,
pp. 423-424).
If it is true, therefore,
as I mean to show (see pp. 346-378
below), that Rousseau's musical and social thought are conceptually
conjoined, it is also the case that both are historically
connected as two
aspects of his first-hand
reflections
about Venetian life.
57.
See the Dictionnaire
de musique,
260
p. 539.
�M. Rameau, pour prouver que l'energic
de la Musique
vient toute de 1 1 Hai'lllonie .... n I a pa:, vu qu' il prouvoi t
tout le contraire
de ce qu'il vouloit prouver;
car
dans tousles
exemples qu'il donne, l'Accompagnement
de la Basse ne sert qu'a determiner le Chant ....
l 1 Harmonie n'agit ... qu'en determinant la Melodie a
etre telle ou telle,
& c'est purement comme Melodie
que l'intervalle
a differentes
expressions
selon le
lieu du Mode ou il est employe. 58
It is perhaps
porated
the great
odd that
in the supplement
'Unite
the article
to the Encyclopedie
hulk of Rousseau's
to his original
emendations
59
de musique.
never to know anything
about the article,
even adduce from the Lettre
designed
specifically
that
to challenge
Rousseau's
included
essays
that
he
Rameau, however, who was
and who in 1753 could not
concept of melody had been
him, nonetheless
the sense in wbich the idea elaborated
was not incor-
which otherwise
compiled for the Dictionnaire
at all
de melodie'
in this
immediately
perceived
work was actually
opposed
58.
Ibid., p. 538.
See also the Lettre a M. Burney sur la musique,
Moultou-Du Peyrou, VIII, p. 551.
Marie-Elisabeth
Duchez, in her important
essay, 'Principe de la melodie et Origine des langues',
Revue de musicologie, LX (1974), argues (seep.
58) that Rousseau's technical
principle
of the 'unite de melodie' was the counterpart
in his theory to the
principle
of the 'hasse fondamentale'
in the work of Rameau.
Duchez's
article,
which complements much of the material treated in this chapter, is
further considered below (see especially
pp. 298-299 and 312, and notes 133
and 221).
In an excellent
discussion,
moreover, of 'Taste, Style, and
Ideology in Eighteenth-Century
Music', published in Earl Wasserman, ed.,
As ects of the Ei hteenth Centur
(Baltimore and London 1965), Edward
Lowinsky (see pp. 190-192 concentrates
upon the article
'Unite de melodie'
as the most striking
essay in the Dictionnaire
de musique.
Lowinsky 1 s
study is a learned piece of musicological
research,
and where it deals with
Rousseau's ideas it is, for the most part, highly illuminating.
There is
no evidence, however, to support its claim (p. 194) that Rousseau composed
Le Devin du village shortly after the performance of La Serva padrona - at
the Op~ra in August 1752 - which initiated
the Querelle des Bouffons.
In
his Confessions (see O.C.I, pp. 374-375) Rousseau remarks that while his
work drew much inspiration
from Italian opere buffe (which he had heard
during his stay in Italy),
he was anxious about the reception
it would have
in Paris since there no one would be accustomed to that genre and it would
appear to he in an entirely
new style.
On t~e evidence which we do have
(see the Correspondance complete, II, pp. 185-186), Le Devin du village was
probably composed in the spring, most likely in April, of 1752.
59.
A list of Rousseau 1 s additions
appears
as Critics of Music (see note 23 above).
261
in Oliver,
The Encyclopedists
�to his own theory.
the thesis
about the relation
had set forth,
after
He promptly
Observations
between melody and harmony which Rousseau
and in April
the Lettre
appeared,
sur notre
embarked upon the task of overturning
1754, just
his reply
instinct
slightly
more than four months
was published
pour la musique.
under the title
Here, in the text
des Bouffons, 60
which forms his own main contribution
to the Querelle
Rameau argued that
dependant upon rather
melody was in fact
to harmony and that
the natural
essentially
from, and not just
derived
sentiments
On·fait sonner ... l'Harmonie
est produite,
pour qu'elle
sentiment dont il doit etre
des paroles:
sentiment qui
prevention,
qui voudra bien
de la Nature. 61
In his Erreurs
of musical
confusion
expression
were
adorned by, a harmonic base.
avant la Melodie qui en
inspire au Chanteur le
affecte independamment
frappera tout homrne sans
se livrer aux purs effets
sur la musique of the following
again to Rousseau's
than superior
of priorities,
year,
moreover,
exclaiming
he turned
that
pour un Partisan de la Melodie c'est bien mal prendre
sa bisque que de s'inscrire
contre la plenitude de
l'harmonie en genera1. 62
And in both works, as I shall
try to show,
63
Rameau set out to rebut
the
to the Querelle in the
60.
There is, to be sure, no direct reference
Observations.
Thus one reviewer of Rameau's work observed (in the journal
Annonces, affiches
et avis divers, reprinted
in CTWR,VI, p. 307) that
while all the defenders of French music had waited impatiently
for Rameau
to produce a decisive reply to Rousseau's Lettre,
and while his energetic
rejoinder
did in fact ensure that "notre Musique ... est vengee" • it
was still
the case, however, that "il s'explique ... indirectement,
dans ses
Observations".
Yet despite this lacuna the second half of the text (which
appears in CTWR,III, pp. 257-330) is devoted almost entirely
to a critique
of the mistakes that Rousseau had committed in the Lettre.
For accounts
of the reception
of the Observations in 1754-55, see CWTR,III,
pp. lxviii-lxxiv,
and CTWR,VI, pp. 305-326.
61.
CTWR,III,
p. 316.
62.
CTWR,V, p. 213.
63.
See pp. 267-271 below.
262
�principle
which he
associated
contended
with the articles
with the Lettre
is,
France,
this
the claim that
at length
It is true that
in different
article
nations,
is much superior
in the passage
tion between the modes of accompaniment that
figure
that
in particular.
in the Lettre
text,
there
his thesis
received
the Italian
a sketchy
crucial
treatment
divide
and his remarks in the later
while in 1749 Rousseau had only maintained
contrast
between the music appropriate
nations,
by 1753 he had placed
had declared
he drew a distinc-
best suited
in my view, a quite
in the Encyclopedie
64
of the
But while the dichotomy which was to
may have already
remains,
time in
of music which pre-
between the styles
and especially
of
Rousseau had earlier
'Accompagnement' which I have noted above
and French styles
to that
by Rousseau for the first
in the Encyclopedie
remarked upon the discrepancies
vailed
sur la musique fran5oise,
the music of Italy
was also set forth
work.
he
Rousseau had composed for the Cncyclopedie.
The second main theme of the Lettre
that
at the same time that
that
that
there
between
work.
For
was an essential
to the languages
contrast
in
of these
two
upon the same scale
and
his preference.
This change in Rousseau's
view seems to me attested
by the fact
that
in an unfinished
essay which he probably drafted in 1750 or
65
1751
and in which he treated the relative
musical merits of the two
64.
See note 31 above.
Neuchatei Ms R 69 (ancienne cote 7881d).
The text of this frag65.
ment, which includes many excisions and additions
that are difficult
to
decipher, appears as an appendix in Jansen (see pp. 455-463), though in
a version that contains mistakes, is in modern orthography,
and leaves
out the variants.
Jansen (seep.
146) remarks that it was probably
drafted by Rousseau on the suggestion of Grimm in the winter of 1750,
and he therefore
provides it with the title
'Schreiben an Grimm uber das
Franzosische und Italienische
Musik-Drama'.
Dufour (see II, p. 183)
accepts that the work is addressed to Grinon, while Tiersot (Rousseau,
p. 112) and Courtois ('Chronologie
critique
de Rousseau', pp. 60-61)
accept Jansen's approximate date as well, but no arguments are put forward by any of these figures to establish
the date or addressee.
The
263
�languages
in some detail,
he argued that
There was a sense,
he declared,
was more universal
than that
each had its
separate
in which the appeal of Italian
of French,
speech and song was in the first
since
the connection
virtues.
music
between
case not so exact and limited
as in
the second,
d'ou il suit que quand on adrnettroit
ce caractere
particulier
dans la musique [Italienne] 66 elle
seroit toujours preferable
a [la notre]67 comme
plaisant
plus universellement.68
But though the music of Italy
hearts
than that
of France,
might bring greater
this
pleasure
was not the only criterion
to more
by which
work was certainly
not intended by Rousseau to be a missive letter
to
Grimm, for while at first
he speaks of it as 'ma lettre'
(p. lr) he
concludes with a reference to 'cet article'
(p. 7v), and there is, to
be sure, no specific
mention of Grimm in the text.
But despite the
absence of any convincing internal
clues I am inclined to accept
Jansen's suppositions
about it, and this for two reasons.
Firstly,
it
contains a passage that appears to be directed at least partly to Grimm.
Rou~seau remarks (p. lr) that "je vais ... vous parler des spectacles
d'italie
a vous qui avez [deja) ... si hien juges ... ceux de france".
Now
it is quite likely that this sentence pertains,
inter alia, to some
remarks about the French operatic stage which Grimm made in an article
he contributed
to the Stuttgart
Beitrage zur Historic und Aufnahme des
Theaters around 1750 (see Jansen, p. 138).
We know from the Lettre sur
'Omphale' (see La Querelle des Bouffons, I, p. 7) that Grimm was much
inspired by French opera, and particularly
that of Rameau, upon his
arrival
in Paris in the winter of 1748-49, and his praise,
in the same
work, of one of Rousseau's still
unpublished articles
for the
Encyclopedie (see ibid.,
p. 12, note) suggests that both writers were in
close accord about their views on music in this period.
Secondly, the
text is substantially
consistent
with Rousseau's articles
in the
Encyclopedie but it does not constitute
a draft for any one of them; on
the other hand, its argument pertaining
to the relative
merits of French
and Italian music is quite unlike the view expressed in his Lettre a
M. Grimm sur 'Omphale' and Lettre sur la musique fran9oise,
insofar as he
here contrasts
French tragedie lyrique quite favourably with Italian
opera~
whereas in those works he states his preference for opera
buffa.
It is therefore more probable that the fragment was written in
the period between 1749 and 1752 than at any other time before or after.
66.
<fran9oise et dans>
67.
<la frangoise>
68.
Neuchatel
Ms R 69, p. Sv.
Cf. Jansen,
264
p. 460.
�the two styles
should be judged.
French opera,
Rousseau continued,
emotions,
we must allow that
different
effect.
For since
French music and especially
were more successful
each genre was best
suited
in stirring
to produce
our
a
La musique Italienne
me plait souverainement mais elle
ne me plait que parce
ne me touche point, la fran9oise
qu'elle
me touche.
Les fredons,
les passages,
les
traits,
les roulemens de la premiere, font briller
l'organe
et [charmer]69 l'oreille
mais lessons
seduisans de la seconde vont droiJ au coeur, si la
musique est faitte
pour plaire
[seulement],
donons la
palme a l'italie,
mais si elle doit encore emouvoir
tenons en a la notre, et 70 sur tout quand il est
71
question de l'opera
ou l'on se propose [d'exciterJ
les passions et 72d[e toucherJ72 le spectateur.
73
Now in this
article
text
Rousseau is somewhat inconsistent
'Accompagnement'
in each of those
sur la musique fran9oise,
two works he draws attention
between the Italian
the advantages
and the Lettre
language
of a loose
69.
<enchantent>
70.
<combien>
71.
<toujours
72.
d<'agiter>
and its
bond.
74
with both his
since
to the apt conformity
music whereas here he remarks
But the point
upon
which I wish to
d'emouvoir>
73.
Neuchatel Ms R 69, pp. 5v-6r.
Cf. Jansen, p. 461.
See also the
passage from Rousseau's article
'Choeur' in the Encyclopedie discussed
in note 100 below.
74.
Jansen (p. 151) sees the fragment in terms of an inner conflict
in
the views Rousseau held about Rameau around 1750, and he argues that
Rousseau's musical theory became progressively
more critical
of Rameau's
claims between 1749 and 1752: "Im Jahre 1750, wo das vorhin besprochene
Manuscript entstand,
sehen wir Rousseau in einer inneren Gahrung, wie
sie mangelhafte Kenntniss und noch weit mehr unklare ·und widerspruchsvolle Gedanken verursachen.
Der Conflict mit den Theorien Rameau's,
den er bereits
in den Artikeln fur die Encyclopedie Ausdruck verlieh,
steigerte
sich aber van 1750 bis 1752 mehr und mehr, und in Folge dessen
musste auch sein Urtheil uber die Art und Kunst der Composition bis 1752
grosse und rasche Wandelungen erfahren."
265
�emphasise
in the present
context
is that
faults
of French music in any general
lished
the deficiencies
Rousseau did not decry the
way until
he had first
of the French language,
so that
of 1753 which he levelled
against
was in fact
only by the development,
made possible
of his ideas
about the central
.
. l expression.
musica
the relative
75
merits
the thesis
to set out later.
developed
it clarifies
rather
approximation
sentiments
enunciated
adopted the position
that
the French style
than "une espece de chant mele de cris"
and their
aria.
accompaniment that
But the first
musique fransoise
observations
between the
By 1752 Rousseau had
was no more
which so confused
the lyrics
it could not even be distinguished
work in which Rousseau treated
between music and language
in detail
of the following
in the Encyclopedie
was in fact
year,
of
to French because
of recitative
77
a M. Grimm
made by the author
is superior
76
which he was
of the Lettre
the many distinctions
by the performers.
of
to his fully
a contention
recitative
about
merely a hint
between music and language
than obscures
in
remarks in the Encyclopedie
in which he develops
Italian
occupies
accompaniment provide
A much closer
to Grimm that
from 1749 onwards,
which language
view can be found in those passages
sur 'Omphale'
a reply
Rousseau's
on the connection
the attack
the music of his adopted nation
place
of Italian
estab-
the relation
the Lettre
and it was here that
about the difference
from
sur la
his
between French
75.
For Jansen (seep.
148) this change may be explained partly just
prejudice
in
as a consequence of Rousseau's abandorunent of his earlier
favoW' of French music.
76.
See the Lettre a M. Grimm sur 1 0mphale 1 , La Querelle des Bouffons,
I, p. 92.
Cf. the Remarques au sujet de Grimm sur 'Omphale', in ibid.,
pp. 61-62.
The author of the Remarques may have been Rayoal (see note
15 above), but not all scholars are agreed about this.
77.
Lettre
a M. Grimm sur
'Omphale',
266
ibid.,
p. 104.
�and Italian
music came to be transformed
French language
was far less
In the concluding
particularly
section
suitably
into an argument that
adapted to musical
of the Lettre,
upon a passage
opera Armide which by repute
the lyrics
in the Lettre
over, was subsequently
and in more abstract
relation
and musical
His thesis
greater
at still
not so much with the connection
nature
more-
of opera,
length
between
but with the general
between speech and song.
I shall
be turning
moment I should like
have been incensed
fran9oise,
either
plot,
suited
most mature form in his Essai
a work which deals
terms,
that
between music and language,
to be put in its
des langues,
the linguistic
cadences
nor the sense of the theatrical
about the relat.ion
sur l'origine
Franr;ois 1178 but
du vrai recitatif
which, in his view, was marked only by insipid
neither
expression.
Rousseau indeed commented
of Lully's
was "le modele le plus parfait
the
since
against
against
to suggest
and theorist
only that
by the views expressed
the two main contentions
his own conception
the national
exponent,
to the Essai later
style
on the other.
For the
in 1753 Rameau could not but
in the Lettre
of that
sur la musigue
work were directed
of harmony, on the one hand, or
The man who was both the foremost
outspoken champion of these
victim
chapter.
of opera of which he was then the leading
of France at the time,
as the intended
in this
as well as the most dedicated
undeniable
of the first
composer
facts,
and
must have seen himself
charge and equally
as the successor
78.
Lettre sur la musique fran9oise,
ibid., p. 751.
Rousseau's
remarks upon the celebrated monologue 'Enfin il est en ma puissance'
of the heroine in Act II of Armide appear on pp. 751-753.
In his
Nouveau systeme de musique theorique of 1726 (see CTWR,II, pp. 51
and 90-100) Rameau himself had dealt at length with this passage,
claiming that it illustrated
"la plus parfaite
distribution
qu'on
puisse imaginer" of his own rules of harmonic modulation.
Rousseau's
critique
of the monologue in the Lettre was thus prefaced with the
charge that the acclamation by Rameau "devient une veritable
satyre",
whil~ Rameau, for his part, retorted
(in 1760 in his Code de musique
pratigue,
CTWR,IV, p. 193, note) that "il faut etre bien peu sensible
aux effets de l'harmonie ... pour avoir ose critiquer
ce Monologue".
See also notes 94 and 104 below.
267
�to the culprit
named in the second.
twenty months that
followed
produced two works,
the claims
the publication
the Observations
musique and the Erreurs
refute
In any event,
of the Lettre,
sur notre
sur la musique,
over the next
instinct
Rameau
pour la
in which he attempted
Rousseau had made, both about the relation
melody and harmony and about the distinction
to
between
between French and Italian
music.
The first
with greater
notion
of these
severity
claims was quite
than the second,
of the primacy of a melodic
ment was, in his view, nothing
truth.
because
theme over its
less
than a sheer
for it was the harmonic structure
melodic
ment that
text
his Observations
repeating
it
in his Erreurs
moreover,
line
and which inspired
the composer had intended
the lyrical
pretend
probably
treated
- even,
that
is,
~y Rameau
Rousseau's
harmonic accompaniinversion
Melody was not the source but the product
retorted,
to its
clearly
of the
of harmony, he
of a song which gave rise
the singer
to portray
to convey, even without
"independamment
the sentireference
des paroles".
79
to
In
Rameau placed
great stress upon this argument by
80
ways,
and he put forward the same case again
in several
sur la musique of the following
he charged that
year.
79.
Observations
sur notre
See also p. 262 above.
See for instance,
81.
See the Erreurs
In the Erreurs,
anyone who supposed the opposite
to have a sure grasp of the principles
80.
81
ibid.,
instinct
pour la musique,
pp. 260, 271-272,
sur la musique,
268
of music,
could not
since
CTWR,III,
p. 316.
and 317.
CTWR,V, especially
pp. 220 and 229.
�tant qu'on ne considerera
que la Melodie comme
principal
moteur des effets de Musique, on ne
fera pas de grands progres dans cet Art. 82
And the concept
had suggested
rule
of the 'unite
was more central
was now decried
de melodie'
to musical
which Rousseau in the Lettre
expression
by Rameau as "une chilnere"
dont 1 1 effet n'a que de foibles attraits
Musique sans le secours de l'harmonie.83
Already
than any harmonic
in his earlier
of 1722 and the Generation
works,
for instance
en
the Traite
de l'harmonie
harmonique of 1737, 84 Rameau had insisted
that
the melodic phrases of our music were derived invariably
from a harmonic
85
base,
and as he developed his theory of the 'basse fondamentale'
in the
82.
Ibid. , p. 219.
83.
Ibid. , p. 214.
Cf. the passages from the Lettre cited for note 37
above.
In his highly partisan
defense of Rousseau against the charges
levelled by Rameau, Jansen (pp. 234-235) suggests that these principles
of
harmony were conceived by a man who had no philosophical
understanding:
"Von dem Unterschiede zwischen Harmonie und Musik hat Rameau niemals eine
Ahnung gehabt, und wenn er in seinem sehr schlechten Genre gelegentlich
schone Einzelheiten
hervorbrachte,
so geschah es, ohne dass er sich seines
Verdienstes bewusst war.
Nach seinen Principien
braucht der Componist
gar kein Genie und nur die Wissenschaft der Accorde.
Rameau gleicht
einem Maurer oder Zimmermann, der iiber die Bearbeitung von Steinen und
Brettern philosophierend,
uns fur die Beurtheilung der Schonheit eines
Bauwerkes zu befiihigen glaubt . "
see especially
the follow84.
With regard to the Traite de l'harmonie,
ing passage in CTWR,I, p. 31: "On divise ordinairement
la Musique en
Harmonie & en Melodie, quoique celle-cy ne soit qu'une partie de l'autre,
& qu'il suffise de connoitre l'Harmonie, pour etre parfaitement
instruit
de toutes les proprietez
de la Musique."
Cf. also ibid.,
pp. 168-169.
With regard to the Generation harmonique, see, for example, CTWR,III,
p. 45.
85.
The principle
that harmony gives rise to melody is, in my view,
central to all of Rameau's writings about music.
It should be noted,
however, that his conception of harmonic structure
was established
from
his account of the resonance of one note alone, and not• as some commem;ators have supposed, from the divisions of the octave (see, for ir..stonce, the
Traite de l'harmonie,
CTWR,I, p. 40),
See also Girdlestone,
Rameau,
pp. 520-523.
The best account of Rameau's theory of harmony in its
application
to his own music is provided by Masson in his splendid L'Opera
de Rameau (Paris 1930), pp. 464-498.
According to Masson (p. 466),
Rameau believed that "!'expression
de la melodie ne vient pas de la simple
succession de notes plus ou moins elevees, mais bien de l'harmonie
originale
que la melodie implique et qui, inconsciemment, lui a donne
naissance".
269
�years leading
to the publication
of the Encyclopedie
to believe
that
other mathematical
principles
of harmony which he had discovered.
of 66, he felt
proclaim,
sufficiently
which applied
du principe
were drawn, in the first
to the resonance
came
were also governed by the
By 1750, at the age
about the truth
confident
in his Demonstration
of every science
sciences
he in fact
of his belief
de l'harmonie,
instance,
of a 'corps
that
to
the laws
from the rules
sonore'.
C'est dans la Musique que la nature semble nous assigner
le principe Phisique de ces premieres notions purement
Mathematiques sur lesquelles
roulent toutes les Sciences,
je veux dire, les proportions,
Harmonique, Arithmetique
& Geometrique, d'ou suivent les progressions de meme
genre, & qui se manifestent au premier instant que
resonne un corps sonore. 86
Using arguments which owed much to Pythagorean
Rameau in his later
years put forward the claim that musical
served as a model for all
of Nature.
physical
the relations
Music, he contended,
that acoustics
and aesthetics
and artistic
principles.
material
which prevailed
was at once a science
- that
fixed
intervals
and an art,
is to say, the studies
- must ultimately
so
of its
be reduced to the same
in 1754
in his view that the harmonic proportions
of music which he had explained
87
in the world
And by the time he produced his Observations
Rameau was quite
progressions
metaphysics,
showed that
this
and
subject
86.
CTWR,III, pp. 157-158.
Rameau might have drawn some inspiration
1
for this passage from the first proposition,
entitled
Il n'y a quasi
nul art, nulle science, ou profession,
a qui l'harmonie ... ne puisse
seruir',
in the eighth book of the third volume of Marin Mersenne's
Harmonic universelle
(first
published in Paris in 1636). That work and even more - Gioseffo Zarlino's
Istitutioni
harmoniche of 1558 comprise
the principal
modern sources from which Rameau developed his theory of
harmony. See also Lionel Gossman, 'Time and history in Rousseau',
pp. 320-322.
87.
In his Generation harmonique of 1737 and again in his Nouvelles
Reflexions sur le principe sonore of 1760, for instance (see CTWR,III,
p. 38, and CTWR,IV, pp. 213 and 255-258), Rameau commented favourably
upon the application
of the laws of harmony, by Pythagoras, both to
music, on the one hand, and to planetary motion, on the other.
It is
true, however, that in his Observations (see CTWR,III, pp. 274-277) he
also objected to a number of ideas pertaining to the divisions of the
octave which had been attributed
to Pythagoras.
Chailley ends his
interesting
but for the most part technical article
on 'Rameau et la
theorie musicale' with the remark (p. 95) that Rameau was the only real
musical theorist
after "le fabuleux Pythagore".
See also note 121 below.
270
�was the mother of all
plus
11
the arts
and sciences.
"Ne l 'abandonnons ...
he exclaimed,
,
cette mere des Sciences & des Arts, examinons-la
bien, & tachons desormais de ne plus nous lais[ser]
conduire que par elle.
Le Principe dont il s'agit,
est non-seulement celui de tousles
Arts de gout ...
il l'est
encore de toutes les Sciences soumises au
calcul:
ce qu'on ne peut nier, sans nier en meme
terns que ces Sciences ne soient fondees sur les
proportions
& progressions,
dont la Nature nous fait
part dans le Phenomene du Corps sonore, avec des
circonstances
si marquees, qu'il est impossible de
& comment le nier! puisque
se refuser a !'evidence:
point de proportions,
point de Geometrie. 88
The rules
which applied
out the world,
subjects.
and, equally,
therefore,
must be identical
they must be fundamental
their
principles
in a systematic
to Rameau, the most important
devote his talents.
enterprise
principal
claims
answered by Rameau in a much more indirect
almost entirely
overlooked
musical
texts
the crucial
merits
though as an operatic
intervals
in the Lettre
and elusive
points
was,
of tempo to express
was
fashion
that
Rousseau had made about
composer Rameau was often
and variations
qualities
fashion
and
to which man could
of the French and Italian
• 1i•b retti, • 90 as at heorist•
o f his
the tonal
other
89
The second of Rousseau's
the relative
to all
through-
For the harmonic laws of Nature were at once musical
cosmic, and to define
according
to music,
languages.
ingenio~s
in his use of
or to add emphasis to the
he never pai• d much attention•
of speech and in fact
For
often
appeared
to
to have little
88.
CTWR,III, pp. 264-265.
These remarks may have been inspired,
in part,
by the following passage from Jean Adam Serre's Essais sur les principes
de
reel des choses, l'Harmonie,
l'harmonie (Paris 1753), p. 28: "Dans l'ordre
Fille de la Nature meme, est la Mere de tousles
Sons que peut employer la
On the connection between the musical doctrines
of Rameau and
Melodie. 11
Serre, see the appendix, note aa.
See also the passage from Rameau's
Generation harmonique cited innote
10 above.
89.
See note 138 below.
90.
See, for instance,
sixths in the recitative
use of minor sevenths in
variations
in Hippolyte,
Rameau, pp. 136-142 and
the illustrations
of Rameau's employment of major
of Hippolyte et Aricie and Les Indes galantes,
his
Castor et Pollux and Zoroastre,
and his rhythmic
Dardanus, and Castor, cited by Masson (L'Opera de
146-148).
Masson, however, also comments at length
271
�patience
for the suggestion
that
be mediated in some respects
91
attached.
bearing
No perspective
the sentiments
of songs conceived
distinction
between national
differences
seems to have stirred
own fashion
Rameau did object
to French,
Firstly,
styles
him very little,
to Rousseau's
thesis
he pointed
particular
shift
perfectly
justified
technical
him.
in the Erreurs
he charged,
had been unable to appreciate
of recitative
of the place
Rousseau
because
the artificial
(ibid.,
pp. 106-116)
a mis en musique".
91.
to several
•
noting,
too,
3ppar-
that
of the
of its
'basse
a
indeniable
the passage
that
94
to
Rousseau
of his naive view
expression.
In the Lettre
• • 11 erie• " 95
criai
up and drawn out so as to suit
e.cconpe.niment;
upon "cette
en Grand"
and the French
as an " extravagante
swollen
fonda-
which had been ascribed
because
by measure in musical
See, for instance,
Italian
sur la musique,
largely
were too often
pace
92
in virtue
faults
•
•
h a d deerie• d f renc h recitative
the lyrics
music was
French music in general,
in particular,
occupied
that
on the whole, Lully "pensoit
and did not commit the petty
style
But in his
to the subdominant mode about which Rousseau had
and commenting that,
Secondly,
if at all.
in detail
• Rousseau ' s stu dyo f ~•
A "d
1n
mentale'
Rousseau's
in two ways.
• •
ent contra dict1ons
93
so that
of music in terms of linguistic
and he set down his reply
complained was in fact
were
as poems had any real
form and structure,
in the Observations,
chordal
in music might
by the words to which the notes
upon his view of musical
superior
expressed
Italian
recitative,
faiblesse
on
des poemes (que Rameau]
from the Observations
cited
on p. 268
above.
92.
See the remarks,
for example,
in CTWR,III,
See ibid.,
pp. 305-307.
Cf. the Lettre
Querelle des Bouffons, I, pp. 754-755.
93.
p. 324.
sur la musique francoise,
La
94.
Observations sur notre instinct
pour la musique, CTWR,III, p. 305.
Much of this text, Rameau himself admitted (ibid.,
p. 301), was conceived to
"rendre a Lulli la justice qui lui est due" after Rousseau's unwarranted
attack.
95.
Lettre
pp. 744-745.
La Querelle
sur la musique fran9oise,
272
des Bouffons,
I,
�the other
hand, he had depicted
which were more appropriate
as sung in clearly
measured tones
to the tempo of speech and r,hich helped to
place due emphasis upon the meaning of the plot. 96
maintained
that,
in this
distinction,
to be seduced by a crude notion
the subtle
really
progressions
Rousseau had allowed
of harmonic accompaniment,
of pace and tempo. 97
variety
Rameau observed,
that
of the listener
lavished
reason,
98
at all,
upon the Italian
he sometimes preferred
clear
little
than his reply
of different
and in an obscure
also because
it
In any event
a lighter,
of this
had expressed
in the Lettre
not on~y because
is
it pays
or again because
Rameau argued that
it
deals
of technical
at length
detail,
but
In the
the views which Rousseau
about national
styles
of accompaniment
• t he Encyc 1ope d.ie, lOO
in
pp. 746-748.
See the Erreurs
99.
See ibid.,
Erreurs appears
touch. 99
second theme of the Lettre
97.
See the Erreurs sur la musique, CTWR,V, p. 210.
discussion of Rousseau's idea of measure in the Lettre
98.
for no good
sometimes a heavier,
•
d some remar k s he h ad made earlier•
contra d icte
See ibid.,
style
the atten-
since,
changes from one work to the next.
that
96.
for its
Rousseau had drawn between the musical
languages,
Observations,
he
which he had
was inconsistent
way only with some matters
is,
that
it was most odd,
it does not attract
to the first,
heed to the distinction
qualities
instead
while the praise
style
Now Rameau's treatment
less
claiming
Rousseau should have admired a certain
of accompaniment on the grounds that
tion
himself
of measure which took no account·of
ought to have commended French recitative
greater
But Rameau
sur la musique,
For a brief
see note 54 above.
CTWR,V, p. 212.
pp. 210-211. Rameau s treatment
on pp. 205-219.
1
of the Lettre
in the
100.
See the Observations
sur notre instinct
pour la musique, CTWR, III,
pp. 328-329.
Rameau noticed a discrepancy between Rousseau's complaint
in the Lettre (see La Querelle des Bouffons, I, p. 715) that French choirs
273
�while in the Erreurs
sur la musique - perhaps because his hostility
turn
to Rousseau had by then taken a more violent
with having made the same mistake
Of course
criticisms
other
he felt
that
is largely
extent
but in his later
to challenge
not at all
habit
his impatience
exasperation
In the Lettre
to some features
to any composition
with
whenever
I think
Rousseau had, after
of Lully's
the
had been designed
all,
opera Armide and
And even if he had mentioned
by Rameau.
of tragedie
lyrique
that
he would in any case have had to take note of the fact
Rameau waste h
it
Rameau exaggerated
sur la musique franyoise
his own works.
specifically
to even the mildest
or opposed.
of mind that
Rameau as an exponent of the French style
deplored,
years
his views had been challenged
to which the Lettre
objected
sharply
assumed the form of a most fierce
because of this
101
both places.
Rameau had always reacted
of his theory,
thinkers
in
- he charged him
,,
composer of a success f ul opera bouffon
too.
102
he
that
Rousseau
only made noise and his previous contention ('Choeur',
Encyclopedie,
III
(1753), p. 362) that "un beau choeur est le chef-d'oeuvre
d'un habile
compositeur.
Les Fran9ois passent pour reussir mieux dans cette partie
qu'aucune autre nation de l'Europe".
By pointing to this contrast
Rameau showed his own awareness of the fact that Rousseau's hostility
to
French music is absent from his initial
contribution
to the Encyclopedie.
In connection with Neuchatel Ms R 69 (see especially
the passage cited
for note 73 above) I have tried to show that Rousseau maintained a
substantially
favourable impression of French music until at least 1750
or 1751.
Rameau's attention
to the article
'Choeur' might have been
drawn at first not so much by the observations
of Rousseau as by the
following remark of Cahusac which was added to Rousseau's text:
"M. Rameau a pousse cette partie aussi loin qu'il semble qu'elle puisse
1 1 etre:
presque tous ses choeurs sont beaux, & il en a beaucoup qui sont
sublimes."
101.
In the Erreurs sur la musique,
CTWR,V, pp. 205 and 210.
see, for instance,
his comments in
in 1745, became
102.
This opera, Platee, first staged at Versailles
particularly
popular after a performance at the Paris Opera on 21 February
1754 which effectively
marked the end of the season of 'Les Bouffons'
(see note 11 above).
In 1745 Rameau had also produced a comic operatic
ballet,
La Princesse de Navarre, and around 1760 he was later to compose
another lyrical
comic opera, Les Paladins.
274
�was certainly
clear
in the Lettre
that
French music was due to a difference
the talents
of composers,
was personally
to Rousseau's
at fault
remarks
must be stressed
times in that
of Lully
104
in the Lettre
in order
directly
to object
did not,
in the Lettre,
theory.
Indeed,
between their
even after
Rousseau replied
acclaimed
had advanced before. 106
justification
the genius
With regard
theory,
moreover,
104.
See ibid.,
pp. 751-752
merely to his appraisal
105,
See ibid.,
pp. 726-731.
Despite
certain
the widening
from 1749 to 1753, Rousseau
critique
of Rameau's
to Rameau's attacks
of the master
of the replies
des Bouffons,
and notes
it
to Rameau only three
in
and acknowledged
whether or not there
in La Querelle
than
no French musician
103
on music owed to those
Nevertheless,
for the severity
103.
See the passage
note 46 above.
ideas
propound any general
the immense debt which his own ideas
cient
105
over
rather
to agree with his claim that
human sentiments.
gulf which had developed
often
of his work.
about musical
he refers
and once actually
chords evoke particular
1755, he still
sense at least
for the defects
twice
of Italian
between the languages
and in that
here that
text,
the superiority
that
Rameau
is suffi-
which Rameau made
I, p. 764 cited
in
78 and 94 above.
See, for instance,
the following passage from Rousseau's article
'Systeme' in the Dictionnaire
de musique, p. 474:
"Jusqu'a notre siecle
l'Harmonie, nee successivement
& comme par hasard, n'a eu que des regles
eparses, etablies
par l'oreille,
confirmees par l'usage,
& qui paroissoient absolument arbitraires.
M. Rameau est le premier qui, par le
a ces regles ....
Systeme de la Basse-fondamentale,
a donne des principes
It should be
ce Dictionnaire
a ete compose ... [sur son Systeme]."
noted here that this tribute
to Rameau appears in roughly the same form
in the fourth supplementary volume to the Encyclopedie already published
in 1767, though there had been no mention of Rameau in Rousseau's initial
article
'Systeme' for the fifteenth
volume of the Encyclopedie printed
Most of Rousseau's essay in the Dictionnaire
- the longest in
in 1765.
the entire work - is nevertheless
devoted to the musical theory of
Tartini rather than to that of Rameau.
Tartini's
Trattato
di musica
secondo la vera scienza dell'armonia,
first
published in Padua in 1754,
was much admired by Rousseau, and in his preface to the Dictionnaire
(seep.
ix) he even claimed that, between the two, the system of Tartini
was the better.
But since Rousseau seldom re:rerrc;:l to T.:irt1ni before
106.
275
�to Rousseau's
work in 1754 and 1755, I hope that
sur la musique fransoise
two main themes of the Lettre
by Rameau to the philosophical
perspective
Encyclopedie
troubled
and Erreurs
applies
claim,
to the Encyclopedie
rules
of different
nations.
different
problems
different
way.
How, indeed,
that
be derived
could the pattern
chapter,
of Rousseau's
107
musical
expression
voice?
Neither
that
to the music
per-
between the musical
ideas
more to their
from Rameau's point
the physical
scale
alone be regarded
than the impulsive
really
resonance
of a vibrat-
number of songs born
as well as Rousseau's
of Rousseau,
was appropriate
to the
as more fundamental
to
sounds produced by the human
addressed
and both Rameau's failure
part
that
in a
of view, could the
And how, from the perspective
a single
some
the same problems
from any one of an ~nfinite
of just
figure
having raised
having treated
explained
of some instruments
only a secondary
of Rameau which
made by Rameau actually
the divergencies
than to their
of fancy and imagination?
language,
in this
charges
is attributable
principles
the other,
objection
sur la musique fran9oise.
of the two thinkers
tuning
For in his Observations
alone is the critique
earlier
The other
It may be argued that
ing string
him.
in the
of harmonic accompaniment are appropriate
to the .Lettre
constant
were connected
of the articles
sur la musique the only serious
which I have considered
different
tain
which had already
directly
I have shown bow the
himself
to discuss
belief
of the subject,
that
left
to the main concern of
the musical
place
harmonic progressions
each thinker
of
formed
with a general
the 1760s, and since his remarks about Tartini's
theory are all of a
technical
rather than philosophical
nature,
I shall treat them only in
passing here (see note 200 below and the appendix, note~).
107.
above.
See the passage
from the article
276
'Accompagnement'
cited
in note 31
�theory
of music which more or less
other regarded
as central.
excluded
the features
that
the
108
By 1755 the confrontation
which had arisen
between the views of
Rameau and Rousseau was in any case matched by the estrangement
composer from several
and d'Alembert,
Iigures,
of the other
who only three
years
agreement about both _the profundity
earlier
especially
Diderot,
of his theory
and the magnificence
This break between Rameau and his followers
due, of course,
to their
reflected
des Bouffons.
Thus, for instance,
upon the preference
when Diderot
of the Encyclopedistes
their
earlier
in his Neveu de Rameau, that
in the operas
in favour
109
claiming,
of the master
in
later
for Italian
prejudice
Rarneau's music had been overcome by 'Les Bouffons•,
else
was partly
having espoused the cause of the Italians
French opera he remarked that
little
Grimm,
had been in general
of his music.
the Querelle
of the
there
over
of
too,
was
but
l'harmonie,
des bouts de chants, des idees decousues,
du fracas,
des vols, des triornphes, des lances, des
a perte
gloires,
des rnurrnures, deG victoires
d'haleine. 110
The break after
the publication
musique was no doubt also
of the Observations
due in part
and Erreurs
to the annoyance felt
sur la
by Diderot
108.
Colm Kiernan, in an otherwise very thin essay on 'Rousseau and
Music in the French Enlightenment',
French Studies, XXVI (1972), makes
the interesting
suggestion
(seep.
156) that while Rameau may have
regarded music as a physical science,
Rousseau seems to have believed
that it was linked to the life sciences.
109.
See Diderot's
'Pantomime dramatique'
of 1769 in Assezat-Tourneux,
VIII, p. 458.
In 1753 Diderot also contributed
three anonymous pamphlets
de l'Opera
to the Querelle itself,
entitled
Arret rendu a l'amphitheatre
(this work is sometimes ascribed to d'Holbach),
Au petit Prophete de
Boesmischbroda, and Les Trois chapitres,
ou la vision de la nuit du mardirespectively
(see La Querelle des Bouffons, I, pp. 277-289, 413-427,
~•
and 491-511).
110.
Le Neveu de Rameau, p. 6.
1761-62.
Diderot
277
drafted
most of the Neveu in
�and his friends
at Rameau's lack of gratitude
and praise,
assistance
alone by the editors
Rousseau,
a complaint
Particularly
Rameau after
articles
charges
against
the musical
d'Alembert
their
attempted
it was the thematic
work.
113
is that
numerically
complex relations
of a 'corps
sonore'
lines
rather
geometre",
objected
proofs,
the most striking
despite
the fact
which he had perceived
of geometry.
d'Alembert,
cet abus ridicule
in
than the form of
with "un f aux air.
could never be established
to the propositions
two main
Rameau had
The second is that
to endow his speculations
as if they were geometrical
contre
levelled
of harmony at the expense of melody and had
the importance
of any musical
with
in 1757 in the
accompaniment which for most men constituted
feature
applied
The first
of
In his
system of Rameau which had not figured
his Elemens Ae musique of 1752.
that
the clash
grounds as well.
and 'Gamme' which appeared
volume of the Encyclopedie,
not understood
moreover,
on theoretical
seventh
exaggerated
111
in the case of d'Alembert,
'Fondamental'
of Rousseau
but equally on behalf
112
toget her by Gr1.mm.
•
an d D'd
i erot
1755 was forged
generous
made not only on behalf
of the Encyclopedie,
d 'Al embert,
for their
Rameau had
'f' 1.que,,114
.
scienti
that
the
in the resonance
with the certainty
"Je crois
"on me pardonnera
qu'en qualite
de protester
de la Geometrie dano la Musique".
that
de
...
115
111.
See note 28 above.
112.
See the Correspondance litteraire
of 15 November 1755, II(3), p. 129,
and 15 January 1762, IV{5), p. 20 .
.113.
See especially
'Fondamental',
Encyclopedie,
VII, p. 61.
114.
Ibid., p. 62.
In his Suite de la 'Reponse' a M. d'Alembert of 1761
Rameau took great objection
to these words, retorting
(CTWR, V, p. 384)
that "je suis le seul qui ait ecrit scientifiquement,
bien ou mal, de la
Musique, except€ quelques Sectateurs
de mes Principes".
See also
d'Alembert's
'Discours preliminaire'
to his second edition of the Elemens
de musique, CTWR,VI, p. 474, and the anonymous letter
- probably Rameau's
- in the Mercure de France of April 1762, ibid., p. 453.
115.
'Fondamental',
Encyclopedie,
VII, p. 62.
See also 'Gamme', ibid.,
p. 465.
278
�Each of these
two contentions
Rousseau's
own views,
the first
d'Alembert
himself
of Italian
music which had already
remarked,
because
the article
figured
'Musique'
t he Encyclope ~d·ie. 117
of the melodic
virtues
116
renewed in a postscript
which Rousseau prepared
In any case after
as
both in the article
•
f ran~oise,
'
sur l a musique
it was to be more or less
to
it could be shown to stem,
from the account
'Accompagnement ' an d in
• t he Lettre
second because
was in some sense connected
for the tenth
t he
to
volume of
1757, Rameau, with a new
116.
See 'Fondamental',
ibid.,
p. 61.
Even before Rousseau several
other eighteenth-century
critics
of Rameau had also decried his emphasis
upon harmony over melody, and on this point d'Alembert might have turned
elsewhere for inspiration.
Perhaps the earliest
figure of distinction
to have made the charge is Johann Mattheson, whose influence
upon
musicology in Germany almost equalled that of Rameau in France in the
same period (see his Critica musica, 2 vols. [Hamburg 1722-25], II,
pp. 7-11).
The most important of the early French critics
of Rameau in
this context is probably Castel in the Journal de Trevoux (see note 8
above and CTWR,VI, pp. 78-79).
With regard to d'Alembert's
own
preference for Italian
over French music, which was never so categorical
in substance nor so vehement in tone as that of Rousseau, see especially
his De la liberte
de la musique, La Querelle des Bouffons, III,
pp. 2201-2282, and Pappas, 'D'Alembert et la querelle
des bouffons',
RHLF, LXV (1965), pp. 479-484.
In the light principally
of some
unpublished sources Pappas even claims that d'Alembert really disliked
Italian music, but he overstates
his case, and a few of his contentions,
for instance his remark that d'Alembert is the author of the Reflexions
sur la musique en general of 1754, have little
or no evidence to support
them.
117.
After a somewhat deprecatory
mention of the works of Rameau (see
note 8 above) the text reads as follows (Encyclopedie,
:{, p. 902): "Nous
avons encore plus recemment des principes
d'acoustique
d'un geometre,
qui nous montrent jusqu'a quel point pourroit aller la Geometrie dans de
bonnes mains, pour l'invention
& la solution des plus difficiles
theoremes de la musique speculative."
I take this passage to refer to
the first
edition of d'Alembert 1 s Elemens de musique,\·:it.~ the emphasis
upon "de bonnes mains" to contrast
his geometrical
talents
with those of
Rameau, since at the same point in the text of the Dictionnaire
de
musique Rousseau remarks (pp. 316-317) that it is no longer necessary to
read the works of Rameau "depuis que M. d'Alembert a pris la peine
d'expliquer
au Public le systeme de la Basse-fondamentale,
la seule chose
utile & intelligible
qu'on trouve dans les ecrits
de ce Musicien".
It
I
is of course possible
that the addition to the article
Musique 1 , which
must have been made some years after the rest of the work was completed,
is by d'Alembert himself,
since in a letter
of 26 June 1751 Rousseau edmitted that d'Alembert had alre&dy proposed a few, apparently
only very
minor, editorial
changes to his essays for the Encyclopedie which he had
279
�grievance
against
d'Alembert
the Encyclopedie,
for his adoption
In a number of essays
replied
to d'Alembert's
to be sure,
of the hostile
objections
had both betrayed
in still
Rousseau's
stance
with
of Rousseau. 118
less
fiercer
direct
and misrepresented
the two main points
bitterly
between 1760 and 1762 he
which appeared
employed in 1754-55 against
D'Alembert
remonstrated
terms than he had
attack.
him, he lamented,
made by the renegade
disciple,
that
and,
is,
been happy to accept (see the Correspondance complete, II, pp. 159-162).
By the 1770s, however, after Rousseau had come to be convinced that his
erstwhile
friend was a frequent and leading conspirator
against him, he
saw d'Alembert's
connection with his musical writings in a very different
light.
In a note to the first
dialogue of Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques
(possibly added around 1774 rather than in 1772 when this part of the
work was first
drafted),
he hinted that the 1768 edition of d'Alembert's
Elemens de musigue had incorporated
a number of "augmentations"
following
the publication
of his Dictionnaire
de musique (see O.C.I, p. 680).
In
notes to the twelfth book of the Confessions and to his copy of a letter
originally
dated 23 November 1770 (both, however, probably appended even
after the addition to Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques) he went on to suggest
that the Elemens de musique had always included "beaucoup de choses"
(O.C,I, p. 608) or even "beaucoup d'articles
tout entiers de ceux que
(Correspondance generale,
XX,
j'avois
faits en 1749 pour l'Encyclop~die"
p. 17), implying,moreover,
that d'Alembert might also have played a part
in the plagiarisms
which he had detected in Jacques Lacombe's
Dictionnaire
des beaux-arts,
published in the same year (1752) as the
In a letter
printed in the
first
edition of the El~mens de musique.
Mecure de France in October 1780 d'Alembert,
who then knew only of the
remark in Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques, protested
that the 1768 edition
of his work was identical
with the revised version of 1762 that had
appeared some years before the publication
of the Dictionnaire
de
And
musique, in which, to be sure, his own text is actually mentioned.
of the ·same year, Madame de La
in the final issue of L' Annee li tteraire
one of Rousseau's most ardent and indefatigable
Tour de Franqueville,
admirers, replied on his behalf - quite wrongly as it turned out - that
d'Alembert had misinterpreted
the remarks which he had found offensive
(for this exchange see Moultou-Du Peyrou, XV, pp. 544-554).
The whole
episode bears a striking
similarity
in its development to the
progressive
intensification
of Rousseau's charges, also produced in a
series of notes which he added to his writings in the 1770s, against the
influence of Diderot in connection with the composition of the Discours
sur l'inegalite
(see eh. III, note 6).
118. See especially
Rameau's Lettre a M, d'Alembert of 1760, CTWR, IV,
p. 268.
This text was produced at the same time as, and partly in
connection with, the Code de musique pratique
(see ibid.,
pp. xlii-xliii).
280
�about melody on the one hand and geometry on the other,
wrong.
eluded,
at all
119
Indeed everything
was hopelessly
about d'Alembert's
mistaken,
since
were each
critique,
he con-
it was founded upon nothing
except
futilites,
subtilites,
faux fuyans, subterfuges,
centre verites,
citations
falsifiees.
Depuis
quand le Philosophe ne sacrifie-t-il
plus ses
opinions a la verite?
Ne doit-il
pas se taire
quand la Nature parle? 120
For his part
d'Alembert
.three essay~_published
which he incorporated
121
1752.
Some years
elaborated
his critique
in the Mercure de France
in a new edition
after
of Rameau's claims
in 1761-62,
in
two of
of his Elemens de musique in
Rameau's death,
moreover,
he even allowed
119.
Rameau produced at least nine (and, if one counts two anonymous
essays which were almost certainly
by him, eleven) replies
to the
articles
'Fondamental'
and 'Gamme' and the three main additional
texts
in which d'Alembert developed his cr'itique
(see CTWR, IV, pp. 265-280
and 313-324;
CTWR,V, pp. 369-385;
CTWR,VI, pp. 440-455 and
507-514; and note 121 below).
The majority of these works first
appeared as essays in the Mercure de France, and some were no more than
a few paragraphs long.
The most important,
apart from the Lettre a
M. d'Alembert,
is the Controverse sur le meme sujet published in 1762
in conjunction
with the Origine des sciences.
For Rameau's accusation
of betrayal
see especially
the Lettre a M. d'Alembert,
CTWR, IV, p. 270,
and the Suite de la 1 Reponse 1 a M. d'Alembert,
CTWR, V, p. 385; for
his charge of misrepresentation
see the Controverse sur le meme sujet,
CTWR,IV, p. 322 and the even sharper but earlier
rebuke in the Reponse
a MM.les editeurs de l'Encyclopedie, CTWR,V, pp. 345-346; for his
reminder of "la supfrioritf
de l'harmonie"
over melody in music see the
CTWR, IV, pp. 277-280;
for his renewed claim
Lettre a M. d'Alembert,
about the connection between music and geometry see ibid.,
pp. 270-271,
the Suite de la 'Reponse' a M. d'Alembert,, CTWR,V, pp. 382-383, and
again the Rfponse a MM. les fditeurs,
ibid.,
pp. 359-360.
CTWR, IV, p. 326.
120.
Observations
sur l''Origine
des Sciences',
In this text, which Rameau intended to serve as an appendix to the
Controverse sur le meme sujet and the Origine des sciences (the lot
then to be joined to the Code de musigue pratique),
he does not mention
d'Alembert by name, but his reference
to "le Geometre" leaves no room
for doubt.
121.
The 'Discours preliminaire'
and the Reponse a M. Rameau (see
CTWR,VI, pp. 460-488).
The third and shortest
of these works, the
Lettre a M. Rameau (see CTWR,V, pp. 367-368), appeared first.
D'Alembert's central
aim in all three was not so much to discredit
281
�himself
to engage in some gentle
he had earlier
regarded
mockery of the ideas
as one of the leading
figur~s
of the m,,n whom
of the
Enlightenment.
De cette resonnance du corps sonore ... Rameau a tachc
de deduire toute la theorie de la musique.
Il
expliqua assez bien quelques-uns des faits connus;
il reussit
moins a quelques autres;
:il voulut meme
en expliquer qui se refusoient
entierement a son
principe;
il finit par vouloir trouver dans les
proportions
musicales toute la geometric, dans les
modes majeur et mineur les deux sexes des animaux,
enfin la Trinite dans la triple rcsonnance du corps
sonore. 12
The most extensive
•
sur la musique,
reply
to Rameau's Observations
and Erreurs
however, was put forward by Rousseau h"imse lf . 123
By
Rameau's theory further,
but rather to simplify it and to distil
from it
that part which was both true and cogent.
"Le langage des sciences",
he· remarked (Reponse a M. Rameau, CTWR,VI, p. 482), "doit etre plus
simple, plus clair & plus pr~cis".
There was no need or justification
for one of Rameau's demonstrations
of the origin of the minor mode, and
d'Alembert accordingly proposed to delete it from his new edition of the
Elemens de musique (see the 'Discours preliminaire',
ibid., pp. 464-465).
There was no evidence, too, for Rameau's supposition
that harmony was a
feature of ancient music, though melody must certainly
have been a
feature of every musical form ( see ibid. , p. 461).
Above all, Rameau' s
complicated account of the 'proportions
geometriqucs'
which he believed
to be derived from the resonance of a 'corps sonore' was, for d'Alembert
(ibid.,
p. 465), "tout-a-fait
inutile,
&... tout-a-fait
illusoire
dans la
theorie de la Musique".
In his attacks d'Alembert nevertheless
continued to acknowledge Rameau's stature as the first great musical
theorist.
"La gloire· du savant Artiste",
he wrote (ibid.,
p. 468),
"n'a rien a craind:re;
il aura toujours l'avantage
d'avoir le premier
ren~u la Musique une science digne d'occuper les Philosophes".
A decade
earlier,
in one of his exchanges with Bethizy (see CTWR,VI, p. 257 and
note 16 above), he had even admitted that the first edition of his Elemens
de mu~ique had won the approval of Rameau and had benefited from his help,
a point which Rameau turned to his own advantage (see the Rlponse a
~n~.les editeurs,
CTWR,V, pp. 346-347).
122.
'Reflcxions
sur la theorie de la musique', in Charles Henry, ed.,
Oeuvres et correspondances
inedites de d'Alembert (Paris 1887), p. 138
( the passage also appears in CTWR,VI• p. xxxi v) .
The work was
originally
prepared for a meeting of the Academie des sciences in
May 1777 and was subsequently revised and expanded by d'Alembert,
who ma)
have had in mind here this remark about the resonance of a 'corps sonore'
in Rameau's Lettre aux philosophes published in the Journal de Trevoux in
August 1762 (CTWR, VI, p. 510):
"Ne croiroit-on
pas reconnoitre
ici une
image vivante de quelques attributs
de la Divinite?"
123.
The fact that d'Alembert's
objections
to Rameau in the period from
1757 to 1762 were conceived largely as replies
to both of these works, or
282
�1755 Rousseau was already
fame.
His Discours
at the heieht
sur les
science"
of both his powers and his
et les arts
had won for him not
only the prize
of the Academie de Dijon in 1750 but also
of established
and aspiring
opera Le Devin du Village
and commercial
success
men of letters
which,
but for his own misgivings,
sur la musique fran9oise
more replies
that
f rom t he K'ing of Franee. 124
of the following
the whole of his lifetime,
would later
His
would have
be said
His
year had elicited
in the space of four months than any of his other
were to do throughout
ing all
Europe.
of 1752 had been an immediate theatrical
•
d an off er of a pension
•
occasione
Lettre
throughout
the interest
125
about the seditious
works
and notv1ithstandeffects
of his
at least to the Erreurs sur la musique, seems clear from their preoccupation with Rameau 1 s account in that text (see CTWR,V, pp. 254-260) of the
affinity
between geometry and music.
This aspect of Rameau's theory had
already been decried in the foreword to the sixth volume of the
Encyclopedie where the Erreurs is specifically
mentioned as the appropriate reference
(see ibid.,
p. 290, note b), and Rameau 1 s attempt to
show that he had held the same view as early as 1737 in his Generation
harmonique was somewhat disingenuous,
since in that text he had treated
harmonic intervals
as 'proportions
Arithmetiques 1 but not as 1 proportions
geometriques 1 (see, for instance,
CTHR, III, pp. 33 and 71, and CTWR, v,
p. 384, note g).
It is true, however, that d'Alembert did not focus his
critique
of Rameau exclusively
upon the Erreurs sur la musique and the
writings which followed it, for he also addressed himself to the
Demonstration du principe de l'harmonie
of 1750 and especially
to the
title
of that work which, he complained, had been added after the book
had won.the approval of the Academie des sciences in 1749.
"Cette
VII, p.,465),
"n 1 a
compagnie", he remarked ('Gamme', Encyclopedie,
jamais pretendu approuver le systeme de Musique de M. Rameau, comme
renfermant une science demontree" (see also the 'Discours preliminaire'
to his 1762 edition of the Elemens de musique, CTWR,VI, p. 467, note).
124.
See the Confessions,
O.C.I, pp. 379-381,and Leigh, 'Rousseau
English Pension',
in Studies in Ei hteenth-Century
French Literature
presented to Robert Niklaus (Exeter 1975 , pp. 110-112.
1
s
125.
See La Querelle des Bouffons, I, pp. xxvii-xxviii,
and the other
works cited in note 20 above.
Rameau1 s Observations
sur notre instinct
pour la musique appeared just over four months a.fter the Lettre and was nearly
the last of the replies
printed during the Querelle des Bouffons itself,
but in fact the controversy
apout Rousseau 1 s book continued for much
longer.
D'Alembert produced his De la liberte
de la musique in 1760;
John Gregory came to Rousseau's defence in his Comparative View of the
State and Faculties
of Man with those of the Animal World in 1765
{published in London - see pp. 93-94 and especially
107), promptly sending
283
�writings
or the revolutionary
ance of this
in fact
book during
stimulated
the thoughts
intentions
a politically
so much public
but for his intervention
dangerous
interest
of men were immediately
music, and the French Revolution
underlying
turned
that,
them the appear-
crisis
for the King
according
to Rousseau,
away from politics
to
of 1753 which would have occurred
was thus averted.
C'etoit
Je terns de la grande querelle du Parlement
et du Clerge.
Le Parlement venoit d'etre exile;
la fermentation
etoit au comble; tout mena~oit
d'un prochain soulevement.
La Brochure parut;
a
l'instant
toutes les autres querelles
furent
oubliees;
on ne songea qu'au peril de la musique
fran~oise,
et il n'y eut plus de soulevement que
contre moi.
Il fut tel que la Nation n'en est
jamais b5en revenue .... Quand on lira que cette
brochure a peut-etre
empeche une revolution
dans
l'Etat,
on croira rever.
C'est pourtant une
verite bien reelle.126
Rousseau a copy accompanied by an effusive declaration
of bis love (see the
Corres ondance enerale,
XV, pp. 43-44);
and in 1780 Mmede la Tour de
Franqueville
pernaps in collabovation
with the violinist
Pierre Gavinies)
assailed Jean-Benjamin de La Borde' s critical
account, not onl:,• of the
Lettre in particular
but also of Rousseau's ideas on ~usic generally
(in
his Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, 4 vols.
[Paris 1780)),
with a whole series of charges and invectives
whose sense of urgency and
strength of tone might have surprised Rousseau himself (for this attack,
and Du Peyrou 1 s own sympathetic acknowledgments, see especially
Moultou-Du
Peyrou, XV, pp. 487-543 and 560-609).
See also note 131 below.
126.
Confessions,
O.C.I, p. 384.
See too note 127 below.
In this
passage Rousseau also remarks that the Lettre caused such outrage at the
Court that "on ne balarn;oi t qu' entre la Bastille
et l' exil, et la lettre
de cachet alloit
etre expediee, si M. de Voyer [probably the nephew of the
Marquis d'Argenson - see the Correspondance complete, II, p. 237) n'en eut
fait sentir le ridicule".
D'Argenson confirms this statement in his
Journal et memoires, VIII, p. 180, adding, rather mysteriously,
that the
lettre
de cachet was circumvented by "de triste.s artistes".
Actually,
Rousseau's text continues (see O.C.I, p. 385), the orchestra of the Paris
Opera plotted to murder him, while the free pass which had been his
perquisite
for Le Devin du village was revoked.
Other conunentators (see
especially
the passages from Palissot,
d'Argenson, Grimm, and an anonymous correspondent
of Joseph d'Hemery cited in the Correspondance
complete, II, pp. 234, 324, 325, and 330) note only that Rousseau was
badly treated when he next attended a performance at the Opera and that
he was hanged in effigy by the orchestra,
while Grimm reflected
(ibid.,
p. 325) that "il aurait ete singulier
de voir ... Rousseau exile pour avoir
284
�Rousseau no doubt exaggerated
had been stirred
•
f ran9oise,
by the appearance
127 b
ut it• waste h
the
importance
of the Lettre
of the fuss
which
sur la musique
•
on1 y one o f h.is wor k s upon which
nearly
dit du mal de la musique fran<;aise.
apres avoir traite
impunement les
matieres de politique
les plus delicates".
In any case the fact that
the Court may have re~cted sharply ~o the Lettr 7 sur la musique fran9oise
suggests that we should attach at least some very mild reservations
to
the thesis of Sacaluga (see 'Diderot,
Rousseau, et la querelle
musicale
de 1752', p. 163) that the appearance of this work provided just the kind
of diversion
which had been sought by the politically
beleaguered
French
monarchy of 1753.
Sacaluga's
generally
commendable essay, however,
remains, so far as I know, the only study in which this important passage
of the Confessions
is treated
as a subject worthy of historical
research
(but see note 127 below).
The events to which Rousseau refers
in his
exile ... tout mena<_;:oitd'un
assertion
that "le Parlement venoit d'etre
prochain soulevement" are not really those which directly
followed the
exile and dispersion
of the magistrates
of the Paris Parlement,
for that
prolonged state of affairs,
dating from 9 May 1753 to 1 September 1754,
caused no particular
crisis
around 22 November 1753 when the Lettre sur la
musique fran9oise
was published
(see the Correspondance
compl~te, II,
p. 233).
In fact the survival
in Paris of the Grand'Chambre or Central
Court of the Parlement after May 1753 provided the King with the pretence
that the Parlement had suffered
no dissolution
at all, and it was only on
8 November 1753,when the Crown issued lettres
de cachet to the councillors
of the Grand'Chambre itself,
that the "fermentation"
of which Rousseau
speaks began in earnest.
For several months after the exile of the
Parlement the King had encountered
increasing
resistance
to his will on
the part of the Grand'Chambre (and also several lower courts then still
in session)
but his dissolution
of this assembly was immediately understood as an attempt to suppress the Parlement itself
and was thus regarded
as a critical
escalation
of the dispute.
On 11 November a new court of
justice,
the Chambre royale,
was established
to replace the Parlement,
but
of the prevot de Paris - promptly
the Chatelet - that is, the tribunal
refused to recognise
its authority,
and the King replied
by suspending
this body as well.
Other tribunals
(for instance
the Cour des aides)
quickly followed suit in resisting
the Chambre royale,
so that by the time
of France was on
the Lettre sur la musique fran<;oise appeared the capital
the verge of anarchy and, wrote d'Argenson (Journal et memoires, VIII,
For an account
p. 184), "On a a craindre ... un soulevement dans Paris".
of these developments see, in addition
to vol. VIII of d'Argenson's
Chronique de la
Journal et memoires, Scu;:ond-Jean-Fran<;ois Barbier's
regence et du regne de Louis XV, 8 vols.
(Paris
1857), V, pp. 431-455,
and Ernest Glasson's
Le parlement de Paris, 2 vols.
(Paris
1901), II,
pp. 195-205.
Of course Rousseau flattered
himself in supposing that his
work brought an end to the crisis,
since it continued in much the same
fashion - and in 1754, indeed, affected
many provincial
parlements
which
had not been in conflict
with the Crown during the previous year - until
the return of Paris magistrates
in September.
127.
"Il y a grand bruit contre ... Rousseau", wrote d'Argenson (Journal
et memoires, VIII, p. 179) just after the Lettre was printed,
and the
work created "une foule d'ennemis"
for its author, added Palissot
(Correspondance
complete, II, p. 234).
But while none of Rousseau's
285
�all
the leading
in their
'party
figures
enthusiasm,
of humanity'
religion,
of the Enlightenment
and agains-t
publication,
of tradition,
authority,
as well as of French music - concentrated
aroused
before
such passionate
and no other
In an age when disputes
and often
which most of the critic::::
- the defenders
No work of the Enlightenment
so quickly
at the time 1,1cre agreed
Helvetius's
convictions
work at all
about culture
in the same way, as did quarrels
and
attack.
De l'esprit
immediately
proved quite
and taste
their
of the
of 1758
upon its
so controversial.
divided
men as much,
about justice
and law, 128
contemporaries
disputed these facts,
only Grimm shared his view that the
occasion was so momentous as to distract
men from the immediate political
crisis
of the day.
"Il est difficile
de prevoir comment cette querclle
finira",
he observed in a passage of the Correspondance litteraire
(I [2],
pp. 313-314), 11et le public en est bien plus intrigu€
que de la Chambre
royale et de ses procedures .... Il faut attendre
que les esprits
soient
calmes, et qu'on soit revenu de la chaleur et de l'emportement
que
M. Rousseau a excites par sa Lettre".
This judgment most probably
stemmed in part from his general conviction
(ibid.,
pp. 258-259) that the
whole of the Querelle des Bouffons was far more captivating
for Parisians
than the exile and "les brouilleries
du Parlement ... avec la cour", a
subject in which the public took only a fleeting
interest
and which "n'a
jamais pu obtenir la trentieme partie de l'attention
qu'on a donnee a la
revolution
arrivee dans la musique".
Sacaluga,
;,1oreover (eee 'Diderot,
Rousseau, et la querelle musicale de 1752', p. 164), even attributes
to
Grimm the following statement about the publication
of the Lettre,
remarking, though without providing a precise reference,
that it appears
in the Correspondance litteraire
of 1753: "Sans cet evenement, les
esprits
oisifs
et tranquilles
se seraient
sans doute occupes des
differends
du Parlement et du clerge,
et ... le fanatisme,
qui echauffe si
aisement les tetes,
aurait pu avoir des suites funestes."
Neither this
statement nor another which, on the same page, he claims to have discovered in the Correspondance litteraire
of 1753 is to be found there
(the second appears in 1754), and I have searched at length but in vain
through all the passages of that journal in which I thought it might
conceivably be found.
Clearly if Grimm did make the statement before
the late 1760s, when Rousseau's passage about the Lettre in his
Confessions must have been drafted,
then that passage would most likely
have been drawn from Grimm.
The best detailed
accounts of the
reactions
to the Lettre sur la musique fran9oise
are those of Jansen,
pp. 207-231, and Richebourg, Contribution
a
l'histoire
de la 'Querelle
des Bouffons 1 •
128.
Thus, remarks Mercier (in his Tableau de Paris, 12 vols.
[Amsterdam 1783-88 edition),
VII, p. 269), echoing the sentiments
of
Grimm (in the passage from the Correspondence litteraire,
I,
pp. 258-259 cited in note 127 above), "Ah, combien le gouvernement doit
cherir l'opera!
Les factions
theatrales
font disparoitre
toutes les
autres factions".
See also note 131 below.
For the benefit of the
many contemporary scholars who have been too much impressed by the evidence for Mornet's claims (see eh. I, note 93) that Rousseau's writings,
286
�the Lettre
political
sur la musique franioise
tract,
129
author as the leader
its
reception
of a party.
wa~ promptly recognised
as a political
cv~nt,
130
as a
and its
131
narticu 1 arl,v the C::mtrat social., received onlv scr,nt, attcr"'.ion
in France in the years leading to the Revolution,
it should pPrhaps be
noted here that his works were in fact to be found in twenty-five
of
twenty-nine documented libraries
owned by magistrates
of the prerevolutionary
Paris Parlement (see Fran~ois Bluche, Les m~,i~~rats du
parlcment de Paris au XVIIIe siecle fBesan9on 1960], p. 356). Eighteen
libraries
contained collections
of his writings (presumably including the
Contrat social) - a larger proportion than that in which could be found
~lontesquieu's L'Esprit des loix - and five (sec ibid.,
p. 293) possessed
separate editions of the Dictionnaire
de musiquc.
129.
See, for instance,
the following passage from Jacques Cazotte's
Observations sur la Lettre de Rousseau (probably published in December
1753), La Querelle des Bouffons, II, pp. 844-81;5: "On vnut aujourd'hui
violer nos sentimens & nos gouts actuels.
Une cabale de gens ignores
la plupart pour le talent,
ou ruines de reputation
litterairt-,
d'enthousiastes,
de factieux,
de furicux, (en musique) l'ont e'1trepris.
C'est une conjuration
en forrne: J'y vois Catilina.
raut-il
que j'aye
le chagrin d'y rencontrer
Cesar!"
Even before the publicatio'1
of the
Lettre Cazotte had described the Querelle des Bouffons as constituted
by
(La Guerre de l'opera,
ibid.,
I, 321) "des intri1c;ue~, des brigues, des
factions,
des cabales, des hauts, des bas, des revolutions
€:tonnantes",
while Jean-Baptiste
Jourdan had complained (see Le CorrectP.ur des
bouffons, ibid., p. 196) of the dispute's
fanaticism,
and the most
verbose of Rousseau's critics
(a M. de Rochemont) insisted
upon calling
his work the Reflexions d'un patriote
(see ibid.,
III, pp. 2025-2174).
There is an interesting
- albeit brief - account of the political
character
of four works which were opposed to Rousseau's Lettre in Charles Paul,
'Music and Ideology:
Rameau, Rousseau, and 1789 1 , Journal of the Historv
of Ideas, XXXII (1971), pp. 397-398.
130.
Rousseau himself makes this claim in the Confessions,
0.C.I,
p. 384.
In a slightly
embellished paraphrase of the same pa~sage
Lady Sydney Morgan later made the following observation
( Fra1,ce [London
1817), II.vii,
pp. 127-128):
"Paris soon divided into two formidable
musical factions,
which ... were not without their political
colour.
The
privileged
class cried out against innovation,
even in crotchets
and
quavers; and the noble and the rich, the women and the court, clung to
the monotonous discords of Lulli, Rameau, and Mondonville, as belonging
to the ancient and established
order of things;
while the musical
connoisseurs and amateurs, the men of talent,
genius, and letters,
were
enthusiastic
for nature, taste,
and Italian music."
131.
This perspective
of the Lettre has in fact dominated much of the
historiography
of the Querelle des Bouffons since the eighteenth
century
and - what is not at all strange - it has come to the fore most often in
periods of political
turmoil.
Thus at roughly the same time during the
Second World War that Nisbet discovered Rousseau's totalitarianism
(see
eh. I, note 4), ?!oel Boyer, in La inI"!rre der:; botd:fonc et la ::msioue
fran9aise (Paris 1945),denounced his musical ideas as alien and aecadent
anarchic barbarism (see especially
the dedication
and pp. 11 and 164),
while Jean Gaudefroy-Demombynes, in his Jugements allemands sur la
musigue frangaise au XVIIIe siecle (Paris 1940), hailed the~e same ideas
(p. 202) as heralding "un communisme ideal" and "la liberation
de
1 1 egoisme capitaliste".
Boyer's political
interest
in his diatribe
287
�By 1755, moreover,
stantial
and profound
sur l'inegalite,
contained
That this
his early
of a general
or section
should have been the case is hardly
Rousseau's
major writings
of music,
before
and I shall
presently
moment I only wish to emphasise
writer
had come to their
to describe
set himself
.
deta1l.
full
134
the task of elaborating
Above all,
had at first
of music in
of social
institutions.
surprising,
nearly
within
since
every one of
or turned
this
talents
that
as a
by then begun
culture,
and in his later
and its
But for the
He had already
133
around the
fragment
as a whole.
language,
apart
and society
writings
system at length
Rousseau had become one of the leading
to the Encyclopedie,
135
he
sur la
and most
and it was incon-
a man who had always found it difficult
h"1s 1.d eas in
• print,
•
•
de f en d1ng
as
and in
by the autumn of 1755 when the Erreurs
renowned of the contributors
that
his Discours
132
by 1755 Rousseau's
that
system of ideas,
musique was published,
ceivable
writings
art,
is,
later,
discuss
fruition.
his views on music,
forming a coherent
et les arts
1755 fell
in the corpus of Rousseau's
the most sub-
on the development
study of the origins
sur les sciences
completed
works, that
an essay which, as he declared
from the Discours
fate
of all
a long fragment
the context
subject
Rousseau had already
to refrain
an d who ha d managed to reply
from
to a
against Rousseau is particularly
clear from his concluding remark (p. 166)
that "la restauration
musicale fran~aise accomplie peut bien prefigurer
d'autres
restaurations".
A splendid account of the parallels
between
the historical
interpretations
of Rousseau's influence on the musical
revolution
of 1752-54, on the one hand, and the political
revolution
of
1789, on the other, is supplied by Paul in his 'Music and Ideology'.
132.
See pp. 303-305 below.
133.
See especially
the 'Preface d'une seconde lettre
a Bordes', O.C.III,
p. 105, the 'Fragment biographique 1 , O.C.I, p. 1115, and eh. V, pp. 430-431.
As Duchez has rightly
noted (see her 'Principe
de la melodie et Origine des
langues',
p. 49), Rousseau's reference in his 'Fragment biographique'
to
"le vrai Systeme" - which had been attached to his ideas and which he ascribed
to Nature - is particularly
important,
on the one hand because it shows that
he regarded that system as having been formulated in his early polemical
writings,
and on the other because it appears in an incomplete opuscule that
deals principally
with Rameau's Erreurs sur la musique.
134.
O.C.I,
See, for instance,
pp. 934-935 cited
the passage from Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques,
in eh. V, pp. 431-432.
In April 1752, for instance,
in connection with the controversy
135.
about the Discours sur les sciences et les arts, Rousseau had remarked
( 'Derniere reponse',
0. C. III, p. 96), "Je pose la plume pour ne la plus
288
�mathematician,
a surgeon,
when they had attacked
slight
that
an old friend,
him on a subject
command - should not at least
the greatest
against
composer and musical
only a short
musique,
that
theorist
he composed the first
entitled
of Rameau's theory
rules
which figured
have universal
were mistaken,
in that
theory
application.
of his rejoinder.
sur la
137
In
the Examen de deux principes
the philosophical
largely
could not,
In reply
in 1755, and thus
of Rameau's Erreurs
draft
avances par M. Rameau, he argued that
tions
the charges
of France had hurled
it was still
the appearance
work, which he eventually
to rebut
but
which he knew best.
Rousseau himself,
while after
136 -
and a stranger
of which he had at first
attempt
his views on the very matter
According,to
this
a king,
presupposi-
because
as their
to the thesis
the set of
author
that
imagined,
the general
reprendre dans cette trop longue dispute".
In May, however, he returned
to the same subject in his 'Lettre
a Lecat', and more than a year later
he came back to it again in his 'Preface d'une seconde lettre
a Bordes'.
136.
See eh. V, pp. 404-428.
137.
See the following passage from the foreword of the Examen de deux
principes,
CTWR,V, p. 266: "Je jettai
cet Ecrit sur le papier en 1755,
lorsque parut la Brochure de M. Rameau, & apres avoir declare publiquement, sur la grande querelle que j'avois
eue ~ soutenir,
que je ne
repondrois plus~ mes adversaires."
The first
edition of the published
text appeared in 1781 in three distinct
versions:
Moultou-Du Peyrou,
VIII (in the 4to edition which I have consulted - 8vo and 12mo formats of
the collection
were printed at the same time);
a separate issue of
Moultou-Du Peyrou, XVI in the 8vo edition,
produced with the half-title
Traites sur la musique;
and vol. III of the Oeuvres posthumes de JeanJacques Rousseau, 12 vols. (Geneve 1781-83).
All three editions
share
the same publishers,
printers,
and presses,
and the difficulty
of ascertaining exactly which one appeared first
is as great as that which
surroQnds the identification
and ordering of three similar editions of
the first
six books of the Confessions (see Dufour, II, pp. 21 and 24-27,
and O.C.I., pp. 1889-1894).
The Examen de deux principes
has not yet
been published in O.C., and I have therefore
consulted that version of
the first
edition which is reproduced in CTWR,V.
Perhaps it should be
noted here that the Examen figures in this collection
of the works of
Rameau for much the same reason that Diderot's
article
'Droit naturel'
is incorporated
by Vaughan in an edition of the writings of Rousseau
(see eh. II, note 40).
Th~ meaning of most works in the history
of ideas could be made more clear if they were printed in editions which
included the writin~s that their authors intended to challenge or refute.
See also note 144 below.
289
�laws of harmonic progression
Rousseau maintained
that
Rameau was only limited
'basse
fondamentale',
gave rise,
was just
principles
the particular
in scope.
were, for the most part,
He allowed
the features
Greeks,
chords instead
for instance,
of octaves,
that
structures
technically
with regard to a number of musical
elucidate
throughout
the world, 138
scheme which had been adduced by
and of the chordal
modern and Western nations,
ancient
must be identical
the principles
to which the 'basse'
correct,
which mark the scales
139 whose scales,
but that
forms and not all.
but they do not explain
These
of certain
the music of the
divided
formed hannonic patterns
of the
into tetra-
which were different
138. This idea, already foreshadowed in many of Rameau's earlier
writings (see, for instance,
the passage from his Demonstration du
principe de l'harmonie cited on p. 270 above), had begun to figure with
special prominence in his thought following his attempt in the Erreurs
sur la musique to join his rules of harmonic progression
together with
the principles
of geometry (see especially
note 123 above).
Its most
extreme formulations were to come later,
however, as in this passage from
CTWR,V, pp. 355-356:
his Reponse a MM. les editeurs de l'Encyclopedie,
''Tel est le pouvoir pr~dominant de la proportion
geometrique dans la
Musique, tel il est, dit-on, dans l'Architecture,
& tel il doit etre, si
je ne me trompe, dans bien d'autres
Sciences."
139. In his Dictionnaire
de musique (see the passage from the article
'Harmomie' cited in note 257 below) Rousseau later remarked that "de tous
les peuples de la terre ... les Europeens sont les seuls qui aient une
harmonie, des Accords, & qui trouvent ce melange agreable".
In the appendix
to this work, moreover, he incorporated
some examples of ancient musical
notation as evidence of the variety of tonal systems which had been
devised by men in different
cultures.
Drawing upon a number of authorities
(see the article
'Musique',
Dictionnaire
de musique, p. 314) he also
provided
illustrations
of Persian and American Indian tunes, and the
few bars of the 'Air Chinois' which he drew from Father Jean-Baptiste
Du Halde's Description
de la Chine (4 vols. [Paris 1735] - see III,
p. 267) were eventually to figure in the scores of Weber's overture to
Turandot and Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphoses of Themes by Weber.
(Rousseau must have drawn this musical fragment directly
from Du Halde
rather than from the transcription
in the Histoire generale des voyages,
VI (1748), pp. 280-281, since his copy, though transposed up a third,
is more faithful
to the original.)
According to Rameau, on the other
hand, Greek and Chinese music were in some sense unnatural
and defective.
See especially
the following passage in his Nouvelles Reflexions sur
le principe sonore (published in 1760 in conjunction
with the Code
de musique prati~ue),
CTWR,IV, pp. 216-217: "On ne croira jama'Is"
qu'on ait donn~ a la Musique toutes les grandes prerogatives
dont les
Grecs & les Chinois l 'enrichissent,
sans en avoir auparavant goute les
charmes; mais ... comment ont-ils
pules
gouter ces charmes, avec tant de
faux rapports pour des consonances & pour les degres naturels qui servent
290
�from our own.
'!he 'basse
Rameau's system,
varieties
he proclaimed,
as it had been conceived
was truly
fundamental
could only be appreciated
trained in the appropriate
men were quite
way.
and
who had been
Thus even in our own society
most
unable to fathom a.nd enjoy the harmonic configura-
which the theory described,
account neither
by persons
in
only to those
of music which had come to be adopted by convention,
the convention
tions
fondamentale'
for the origin
phenomenon of dissonance.
followed for Rousseau that
140
and, in any case,
Rameau's ideas
of the minor mode nor for the
In the light
of these
the 'baaae fondamentale'
facts
it
could not have been
derived from Nature.
Si la longue routine de nos successions harmoniques
guide l'honune exerce & le Compositeur de profession;
quel fut le guide de ces ignorans, qui n'avoient
jamais entendu d'harmonie, dans ces chants que la
nature a dictes long-tems avant l'invention
de l'Art?
Avoient-ils
done un sentiment d'harmonie anterieur
a l'experience;
& si quelqu'un leur eut fait
entendre la Basse-fondamentale
de l'air
qu'ils
avoient compose, pense-t-on qu'aucun d'eux eut
reconnu-1! son guide, & qu'il eut trouve le moindre
rapport entre cette Basse & cet air? ... Les Grecs
n'ont reconnu pour consonnances que celles que nous
appellons consonnances parfaites;
ils ont rejette
de ce nombre les tierces & les sixtes .... Qu1 on pense
maintenant quelles notions d'ha.rmonie on peut avoir,
& quels modes harmoniques on peut etablir,
en bannissant les tierces
& les sixtes du nombre des
consonnances!1 4 l
de l'un des termes de ces consonances a l'autre? ... Il faut ... que
la Musique ai t ete entendue dans une certaine perfection ... & qu' apparemment on ne se soit jamais avise de l'eprouver
dans l'ordre de faux
rapports dont tousles
systemes anciens sont composes."
At the same time
Rameau, unlike Rousseau, still believed that the scales of Greek and Chinese
music resembled our own in principle,
and while the abbe Pierre-Joseph
Roussier
later took issue with his perspective
of the Chinese scale in particular,
Charles Burney, in his General History of Music (first
published in 4 vols.
between 1776 and 1789) disagreed and reverted to Rameau's stance (see the
2 vol. London 1935 edition,
I, pp. 45-46).
140.
See the Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 279.
141.
Ibid., pp. 271-272.
With two very minor modifications
che second
part of this passage was later incorporated by Rousseau in the~~
l'origine
des langues, eh. xviii, p. 183 (see the appendix, note 238).
~ passer
291
�In the Examen de deux principes
Rameau was mistaken
to suppose that
of music was constructed
both expressed
and excited
our natural
in painting,
passions
to its
so that
harmony should serve only to embellish
intonations
claimed that
the melodic line
upon a harmonic base.
and stood in much the same relation
design to colours
Rousseau also
in every form
Melody, he argued,
in a tonal
language
accompaniment as did
the conventions
rather
of our
than determine
the
of the human voice.
M. Rameau, pour comparer la melodie a l'hannonie,
commence par depouiller
la premiere de tout ce
qui lui etant propre, ne peut convenir a l'autre:
il ne considere pas la melodie comme un chant, mais
comme un remplissage;
il dit que ce remplissage
na!t de l'harmonie,
& il a raison .... les accens de
car ils sont
la voix passent jusqu'a l'arne;
l'expression
naturelle
des passions,
& en les
peignant,
ils les excitent.
C'est par eux que la
Musique devient oratoire,
eloquente,
imitative,
ils
en forment le langage .... La melodie est dans la
Musique ce qu'est le dessein dans la Peinture,
l'harmonie n'y fait que l'effet
des couleurs.
C'est par le chant, non par les accords que lessons
ont de l'expression,
du feu, de la vie;
c'est le
chant seul qui leur donne les effets moraux qui font
de la Musique. 142
toute l'energie
See also the Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, pp. 272-273;
the appendix,
notes~ and _s; and the passage from both the Essai sur l'origine
des
langues, eh. xiiii
and the article
'Harmonie' in theDictionnairede
musique
cited on pp. 345-346 below.
CTWR,V, pp. 275 and 277.
The claim
142.
Examen de deux principes,
that harmony is secondary to melody had already appeared as a central
(see pp. 250-252 above),
theme of Rousseau's Lettre sur la musique fran,oise
and it was to be reiterated
often in his later works as well.
It also
occupies an important place in the section of the Neuchatel Ms R 60 which
of the Essai sur l'origine
des langues (see
he incorporated
in eh. xviiii
the passages cited on pp. 339-340 below and the appendix, pp. 458 and
460-461), including the fragment which originally
formed a part of the
(see note 257 below and the appendix, notes
Discours sur l'inegalite
369-398).
For the most important elaborations
of this point in his writings after the Essai sur l'origine
des langues see especially
the passages
from the articles
'M€lodie' and 'Harmonie' in the Dictionnaire
de musique
cited on p. 258 above and in note 257 below), together with the following
statement drawn from the article
'Harmonie' (Dictionnaire
de musique,
292
�For Rousseau,
then,
the theory
of Rameau was fundamentally
conceived.
In his reply
Encyclopedie
he once again paid tribute
nical
which were contained
detail
to the criticisms
in that
of his articles
in their
application.
his vie,,v, were manifold,
complex,
On the contrary
and, above all,
of tech-
but he did not agree the.t
the laws of music which Rameau had adduced were either
or universal
for the
to the many subtleties
theory,
mis-
fixed,
those
different
or constant,
laws,
in
from one
p. 242) as well:
"M. Rameau pretend ... que l 'Harmonie est la source des
plus grandes beautes de la Musique; mais ce sentiment est contredit
par
grands effets de la Musique ont
les faits & par la raison .... tousles
cesse ... depuis l'invention
du Contre-point."
Note too the following
remarks from the Observations
sur l''Alceste'
de Gluck (probably drafted
around the beginning of 1775), Moultou-Du Peyrou, VIII, pp. 565-566: "Il
importe ici de remarquer ... que l'harmonie par elle-meme, ne pouvant
parler qu'a l'oreille
& n'imitant
rien, ne peut avoir que de tresfoibles effets.
Quand elle entre avec succes dans la Musique imitales accens melodieux .... C'est
tive, ce n'est jamais qu'en ... renfor~ant
par les .accens de la melodie, c'est par la cadence du rhythme que la
Musique, imitant les inflexions
que donnent les passions a la voix
jusqu'au coeur & l'emouvoir par des sentimens;
humaine, peut penetrer
au lieu que la seule harmonie n'imitant
rien, ne peut donner qu'un
plaisir
de sensation .... le dessin par lui-meme peut, sans coloris,
nous
representer
des objets attendrissans,
& la melodje imitative
peut de meme
nous emouvoir seule, sans le secours des accords."
On the extent of
Gluck's admiration for Rousseau, and especially
for his views about the
place of melody in music, see his letter
to the Mercure de France of
February 1773, as transcribed
and annotated, with supporting documents,in
the Collected Correspondence and Papers of Gluck (London 1962),
pp. 30-44.
(The editors of this remarkable collection,
which was prepared over a period of forty-eight
years, overcame the difficulty
of
which were originally
composed in French,
presenting
Gluck 1 s letters,
German, and Italian,
by having them all translated
into English.)
Among the most noteworthy commentaries upon Rousseau's conception of
the primacy of melody over harmony in music, see Masson, 'Les idees de
Oliver,
Rousseau sur la musique', vi, pp. 3-8, and vii, pp. 24-26;
The Encyclopedists
as Critics
of Music, pp. 42-44 and 66; Eric Taylor,
'Rousseau's
Conception of Music', Music and Letters,
XXX(1949),
pp. 236-241;
Georges Snyders, Le gout musical en France aux xvrre et
XVIIIe siecles
(Paris 1968), pp. 122-124;
and Duchez, 'Principe
de la
With respect to Rousseau's
melodie et Origine des langues',
pp. 56-60.
remarks on the connection between melody in music and design in
painting,
see the appendix, note w, and the follo1·:ing statement in the
p. 149, which closely follows
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xiii,
the text of the Examen de cleux principes
provided above:
"La melodie
fait precisement clans la musique ce que fait le dessein clans la peinture;
c'est elle qui marque les traits
et les figures dont les accords
et lessons
ne sont que les couleurs."
293
�culture
lieved
and one period
that
Together with d'Alembert
he be-
Rameau had mistaken music for geometry and metaphysics
as a consequence,
fact,
to the next.
had failed
were incompatible
to provide an accurate
account
and,
of what, in
systems of music which had been devised by men.
Toute sa generation harmonique se borne a des
progressions
d'accords parfaits
majeurs; on
n'y comprend plus rien, si-tot qu'il s'agit du
mode mineur & de la dissonance; & les vertus
des nombres de Pythagore ne sont pas plus
tenebreuses que les proprietes
physiques qu'il
pretend donner a de simples rapports .... J'avois
a montrer que son systeme harmonique est
insuffisant,
mal prouve, fonde sur une fausse
experience .... J'ai dit mes raisons, M. Rameau
a dit ou dira les siennes;
le Public nous
jugera.1 43
The rules
theory
of harmony which Rameau bad defined,
did not appear in print,
when it was published
in the early
•
script
to the Erreurs
of that
•
•
o f th e o·ictionnaire
sur la musique
work, his Examen de deux
however, until
some years
after
his
with a foreword which he must have added
1760s, at roughly the same time that
the essay for a period
143.
his reply
a few months of the publication
principes
death,
formed a
about chords but not about musical expression.
While Rousseau formulated
within
in short,
144
de musique.
•
of perhaps six years,
Examen de deux principes,
he compiled his manu-
Rousseau had thus put aside
and when in the 1760s he
CTWR,V, pp. 283 and 285.
144.
Already in his 'Fragment biographique',
probably drafted around
1755-56, Rousseau announced (see 0.C.I, p. 1119) that he would treat the
questions raised in the Er~eurs sur la musique in his own Dictionnaire
de
musique.
And the foreword of the Examen (CTWR,V, p. 266) includes this
remark immediately following the passage cited in note 137 above:
"Content ... d'avoir fait note de mes observations
sur l'Ecrit
de M. Rameau,
je ne les publiai point; & je ne les joins maintenant ici145, que parce
u'elles
servent a l'eclaircissement
de uel ues Articles demon Dictionnaire, o la forme de l'Ouvrage ne me oermettoit oas d'entrer
dans de olus
longues discussions."
With regard to Rousseau's work on the Dictionnaire
de musique during the early 1760s see especially
the Confessions,
0.C.I,
pp. 607, 622, and 1589, and his letters
of 5 June 1763 and 30 December 1764
294
�returned
to it he in fact
critique
of Rameau which he had originally
the style
too hastily
made a number of important
and sometimes the substance
constructed,
indeed,
Examen de deux principes,
•
tion
of h"is papers
He modified
prepared.
of several
passages
that
and he withdrew a number of fragments
146 fro
• •
•
two 1ong sections
m t he de f"initive
Rousseau,
changes to the
produced three
arrangement
he had
and
of his wor.k
notebook versions
of the
which are all
now to be found in the collec147
1odge d in
• t he municipal
• •
11"brary of Neuch-ate. l
to his publisher,
Nicolas-Bonaventure
Duchesne (Correspondance complete,
XVI, p. 284, and XXII, pp. 326-327).
The manuscript of the Dictionnaire
de musique was finished by about the beginning of 1765, but its publication was delayed until the end of 1767.
It is even probable that
Rousseau had completed his revision of the Examen de deux principes,
including its new foreword, by the autumn of 1761, in which case it would
have figured with the Essai sur l'ori
ine des lan ues among his
manuscripts that were then, he reflected
later
Confessions,
O.C.I,
p. 560), "tous en etat de paroitre".
By January 1765, in any case, he
prepared a list of all his writings which he wished to incorporate
in a
collected
edition (see the Correspondance complete, XXIII, pp. 181-182),
and the Examen de deux principes
(under the title
Reponse a M. Rameau)
is specifically
mentioned in that list,
again in connection with the
Essai sur l'origine
des langues.
I believe that all the musical works
which in 1765 Rousseau proposed should be bound together,
had in fact
been ready for publication
in the autumn of 1761.
It is most unlikely
that Rousseau made any alteration
to the Examen de deux principes
after
1765, and indeed by the end of that year all three manuscript versions of
the text were probably in the hands of Du Peyrou (but see note 216 below).
145.
Neuchatel
Dictionnaire>.
Ms R 58 (ancie~ne
cote 7877a),
p. lv:
<ace
146.
Apart from the section discussed in this chapter the first draft
of the Examen de deux principes
contains a passage of four folio sides
(see the appendix, fragment C) which Rousseau apparently did not incorporate in any of his later writings.
The shorter passages that he deleted
are provided in the appendix as note 1 (this covers many extracts
of
varying lengths) and fragments~-~
and_£-§_.
147.
In 1765 Rousseau entrusted
some of his papers to Du Peyrou, and
in 1778 he gave much of the rest to Moultou.
Most of these manuscripts,
together with others which he retained until his death, were donated to
the Bibliotheque
de la Ville de Neuchatel.
Several were published in
1781 and 1782 in Moultou-Du Peyrou, others (principally
the second part
of the Confessions)
appeared in the supplement of 1789, and still
more
were printed in various nineteenthand twentieth-century
collections
of
his works, among which the most important are those of Streckeisen-Moultou,
Jansen, and Vaughan.
?.'.any of these manuscripts
- and particularly
those
concerned with music - have never been published at all.
295
�The last
of these
148
manuscripts
is written
in his finest
hand and is
with the published text that was, most likely,
taken from
The secon d version
• 149 is
• very simi
• ·1 ar tote h t h'ir, d t houg h it•
identical
•
it.
includes
dratf
a quite
number of corrections
written
the foreword,
work than of the initial
the reply
in 1755 can be properly
identified
manuscripts
of his works the original
is certainly
principes
subsequently
testimony
version
deleted,
that
text
it also
about the genesis
of his ideas.
148.
Neuchatel
Ms R 59 (ancienne
149.
Neuchatel
Ms R 58.
See Dufour,
in the later
that
provides
This section
cote 7877b).
II,
as the
For while it con-
some passages
of which one in particular
to Rameau
of the Examen de deux
which was to figure
includes
of the
have not yet appeared
one of the most important.
the bulk of the material
and published
151
so that
Now among his surviving
in any edition
have been
to the date of composition
draft,
one
copy. lSO
however, and must therefore
at a time which is closer
which Rousseau conceived
152
.
.
f irst
version.
tains
and at least
•
of a paragrap h whic• h was de l ete d f rom t he pu bl' ication
It also includes
final
substantial
draft
were
some striking
comprises
See Dufour,
II,
p. 179.
p. 179.
150.
This crossed out passage appears in the manuscript on p. 14v, a
page which is in a generally disorganized
state,
since it is appended to
the concluding sheet as an intercalation
to an earlier
page and itself
contains deletions
and intercalations
plus a marginal note indicating
that the text should in fact be transferred
to the beginning of the essay.
151.
Because the handwriting of the foreword appears in a style and ink
which are indistinguishable
from those of the rest of the text I presume
that it is not a later addition.
And because, in any case, it seems to
me unlikely that Rousseau would have returned to this work on three
separate occasions over a period of about six years, and then only to
produce two principal
variants,
my guess i~ that the second version was
written at approximately the same time as the third.
152.
Neuchatel
pp. 179-180.
Ms R 60 (ancienne
cote 7877c).
296
See Dufour,
II,
�ten folio
sheets
manuscript
origins
later
- indeed,
nearly
- in the form of a long and elaborate
half
the total
cormnentary about the
of melody which Rousseau added to a paragraph
to include
central
passage
and longest
also because
title
153
altogether
in the final
of the manuscript,
and, to be sure,
In 1755, that
not only because
its
for his reply
he called
and it was only when he later
he also changed the title
. .
156
principes.
The text
It constitutes,
acknowledged
selected
is,
154
the most profound,
Rousseau himself
which he initially
musique.
text.
that
part
in fact,
it
the
is the middle
of the work, but
significance
in the
to the Erreurs
it Du Principe
withdrew these
he was
sur la
de la Melodie, 155
pages about melody that
of his work to the Examen de deux
which he prepared
for publication
was thus a
153.
Pp. 8r-17r, recto sides only, apart from two short intercalations
on pp. 10v and 14v.
The section is marked off in the appendix by notes
181 and 430.
154.
Cf., in the
concludes with note
the Examen de deux
the sections which
essay, the passage
below.
appendix, p. 447, the paragraph of the Ms R 60 which
176, and the final version of the same paragraph in
principes,
CTWR,V, p. 273.
Together with most of
Rousseau incorporated
in his later drafts of this
See also pp. 320-322
in the Ms R 60 is cr?ssed out.
155.
Its full title,
in fact,
aux erreurs sur la Musique.
is Du Principe
de la Melodie ou Reponse
156.
It is not entirely
clear why Rousseau did make this change, since
he retained several passages about the principle
of melody in the Examen
de deux principes
(see especially
p. 292 above).
My impression,
however,
is that he had intended the title
to refer primarily
to the section which
he later deleted,
so that when he transposed part of that section and
incorporated
it in the Essai sur l'origine
des langues he also transposed
the original
title
of the Examen and adopted it as the subtitle
of the
later work.
Du Principe de la Melodie, that is, became the Essai sur
l'origine
des Langues, o~ il est parl€ de la melodie et de l'imitation
musicale.
I suspect that the central
section of Du Principe de la
Melodie would have been uncovered long ago if Rousseau had retained his
original
title
in the final version of his reply to Rameau, though
scholars have only themselves to blame for missing the clue about the
genesis of the Essai sur l'origine
des langues which is provided by
Rousseau himself in the first
edition of Emile.
For in the fourth book
of this work, in connection with a point about the moral quality of imitation and the moral aspect of matters of taste,
Rousseau reminds his
readers (0.C.IV, p. 672, note) that "cela est prouve dans un essai sur le
principe de la melodie qu'on trouvera dans le recueil
de mes ecrits".
297
�much abbreviated
it is,
I think,
his earliest
attract
version
because Rousseau deleted
draft
that
t he attention•
The full
of the work he had originally
text
his reply
. deserves
1t
of Du Principe
Ms R 60, is here transcribed
section
the most prominent
to Rameau has only just
fr om h"is interpreters.
•
de la Melodie,
for the first
of the work has recently
conceived,
time,
been printed
passage
and
of
begun to
157
or the Neuchatel
though the central
twice - indeed twice in
The earliest
draft of Emile does not contain this reference
in any form,
the second draft contains the crossed out remark "j'explique
cela dans
un autre ecrit" in the main body of the text, while two later manuscripts
des
contain a note which refers instead to the "essai sur l'origine
langues" (for these comparisons see especially
O.C.IV, pp. 1288, 1618,
and 1853-1863).
No doubt the manuscript references
to the Essai have
led scholars to regard the note in Emile as a citation
of the subtitle
of
that text, but the fact that the precise words which are employed more
closely fit the title
of the first draft of the Examen de deux principes
ought to have received attention.
The same clue, moreover, appears in
Courtois's
'Chronologie critique
de Rousseau' (cf. pp. 77, note 1 and
p. 84).
Jansen (seep.
246) lost the scent (though he was to pick it up
again in another context only to lose it once more - see note 232 below)
by focusing his attention,
not on the transposed title
of the first draft,
but rather on its subtitle,
that is, the Reponse aux Erreurs sur la
musique, which Rousseau retained with only slight modification,
in the
final version of the Examen de deux principes
Avances par M. Rameau, dans
sa Brochure intitulee:
Erreurs sur la musi ue, dans l'Enc clo edie.
In
th the ~irst and published versions of this work Rousseau is at least
quite explicit
(cf. the appendix, p. 441 and CTWR,V, p. 268) as to why
the Examen de deux principes
serves as a suitable title:
"Je remarque,
dans lea erreu.rs sur la Musique, deux de ces principes
importans.
Le
&, qui pis est, dans
premier qui a guide M. Rameau dans tous ses ecrits,
est !'unique fondement de l'Art,
que
toute sa Musique, est que l'harmonie
la rnelodie en derive, & que tousles
grands effets de la Musique naissent
de la seule harrnonie.
L'autre principe,
nouvellernent avance par M. Rameau,
& qu'il me reproche de n'avoir pas ajoute a ma definition
de l'accompagnernent, est que cet accompagnement represente
le corps sonore.
J'examinerai
separernent ces deux principes. "
See also note 22 5 below.
157.
Apart from the already published studies of Duchez and cy omi,
Charles Porset has now prepared another essay which deals with the text of
Du principe de la Melodie in some detail;
this work is due to appear in
'L''inquietante
etrangete'
de l'Essai
sur
SVEC in 1976 under the title
l'origine
des langues.
Rousseau et ses exegetes'.
I am most grateful
to M. Porset for providing me with an advance copy of this important
contribution
to our understanding
of both the Essai itself
and the historiography of the interpretations
placed upon it.---
298
�the same year
(1974) - first
Essai sur l'origine
tion,
in my own 'Rameau, Rousseau,
des langues'
and then in Marie-Elisabeth
et Origine
des langues'.
produced without
the other,
central
the author's
recur
Duchez's
In these
'Principe
two studies,
159
five
which Rousseau deleted
is an adaptade la melodie
each of which was
the whole of eh. xviiii
of the Essai
my own essay,
I argued that,
on
of the ten pages in the
from the Examen de deux
with only minor changes,
moreover,
chapter
knowledge of the work in progress
it has been shown that
fragment
principes
158
of which this
and the
as part
sur l'origine
of eh. xviii
des langues.
with only two remotely
and
In
possible
158.
See note 58 above and the appendix, note 1.
Before the appearance of these two studies only Jansen and Dufour, so far as I know, had
The two fragments
ever cited any passages from the Neuchatel Ms R 60.
which Jansen provides (see the appendix, notes 2 and 954), however, are
drawn only from the first and last pages of the manuscript,
and he gives
no indication
that he was ever aware of the connection between the
Ms R 60 and the Essai sur l'origine
des langues.
Dufour, for his part,
points to the location of Jansen's two fragments in the text of the
Ms R 60 and adds the following general remark (II; p. 180) about the
relation
between the manuscript and the Examen de deux princioes:
Par cons€quent Rousseau
"Nombreux passages developpes demeures in€dits.
He establishes,
morene les a pas pris dans sa r€daction d€finitive."
passages rendered by
over (see II, p. 184), that ten of the thirteen
Jansen in connection with the Ms R 50 are actually
fragments which figure
in another manuscript (Neuchatel Ms R 72: ancienne cote 7881g), though
this is hardly a remarkable discovery since Dufour himself was responsible
for separating
the two sets of papers, which he did in order to join the
Ms R 60 together with the later drafts of the Examen de deux principes
(that is, the Mss R 58 and 59 - for the location of the· thirteenth
fragment see note 234 below).
Dufour's attempt to place the Neuchatel
manuscripts of Rousseau in better order sometimes suffered from the
defects of its virtues,
insofar as it led him to attach a number of
first~draft
fragments to their later transcriptions
at the cost of their
dislocation
from other fragments of the same kind which he overlooked (in
this context see especially
the appendix, notes 295 and 369).
It has
also led to some more minor difficulties
about establishing
the proper
sequence of the last two pages of the Ms R 60, which Dufour joined
together with sealing wax and appended to the rest of the text.
In her
study Duchez adopts one pagination
sequence while I have preferred
another (which now appears to be in force at Neuchatel),
so that the
folio sheet which she renders as 26r is cited here as 25r.
159.
Neuchatel
J:ls
R 60, pp. llr-15r.
299
�•
exceptions,
160 h
' my Ju
• dgment, t he f.irst
t ose pages were, in
Rousseau's
writings
Essai,
to have been incorporated
and I maintained
that
they occupy in both texts
des langues
was first
o f Rameau , s Erreurs
in the text
in view of the prominent
they suggested
conceived
that
• any of
in
of the
position
which
the Essai sur l'origine
by Rousseau largely
as a refutation
.
161
sur l a musique.
160. See svro, CXVII (1974), p. 200, and SVEC, CXXXII (1975), p. 112.
The two passages which I cited appear in the articies
'Harmonie' and
'Opera' in the Dictionnaire
de musioue, and they also figure in both the
Essai sur l'origine
des langues and the third and fourth supplementary
volumes of the Encyclop~die.
Since, however, these supplements were
first printed in 1777, that is, a decade after the publication
of the
Dictionnaire
de musioue, and since there is no evidence that the passages
which are transposed between the Essai and the Dictionnaire
were drafted
at any time before the early 1760s when Rousseau was engaged in preparing
both texts (see note 144 above and note 196 below), it seemed to me
unlikely that their composition would have predated Rousseau's work on
the Ms R 60 in 1755.
In fact a comparison of the nineteen variants
between the passages (most of them in the article
'Harmonie') now
suggests to me that they were probably written for the Essai first and
then incorporated
in the Dictionnaire.
The fragment from 'Harmonie' is
specified in note 266below.
The passage from 'Opera', Dictionnaire
de
musique, pp. 349-350 (cf. the Essai sur l'origine.des
langues, eh. xvi,
pp. 175-177), reads as follows:
"C'est un des grands avantages du
Musicien de pouvoir peindre les choses qu'on ne sauroit entendre, tandis
qu'il est impossible au Peintre de peindre celles qu'on ne sauroit voir;
& le plus grand prodige d'un Art qui n'a d'activite
que parses
mouvemens,
est d'en pouvoir former jusqu'a l'image du repos.
Le sommeil, le cal.me
de la nuit, la solitude
& le silence meme entrent dans le nombre des
tableaux de la musique.
Quelquefois le bruit produit l'effet
du silence,
& le silence l'effet
du bruit;
comme quand un homme s'endort
a une
lecture egale & monotone, & s'eveille
a l'instant qu'on se tait; & il
en est de meme pour d'autres
effets.
Mais l'art
a des substitutions
plus fertiies
& bien plus fines que celles-ci;
il sait exciter par un sens
des emotions semblables a celles qu'on peut exciter par un autre;
&,
comme le rapport ne peut etre sensible que l'impression
ne soit forte, la
peinture,
denuee de cette force, rend difficilement
a la Musique les
imitations
que celle-ci
tire d'elle.
Que toute la Nature soit endormie,
celui qui la contemple ne dort pas, & l'art
du musicien consiste a substituer
a l'image insensible
de l'objet,
celle des mouvemens que sa
presence excite dans l'esprit
du Spectateur .... Non-seulement il agitera
lamer a son gre, excitera les flammes d 1un incendie.
fera couler les
ruisseaux,
tomber la pluie & grossir les torrens;
mais il augmentera
l'horreur
d'un dese~t affreux,
rembrunira les murs d 1 une prison souterraine, calmera 1 1 orage, rendra l'air
tranquille,
le Ciel serein,
&
repandra, de l'Orchestre,
une fraicheur
nouvelle sur les boccages."
With
regard to the substance of this passage on the relation
between music and
painting,
see the appendix, note w.
161.
See pp. 200-201.
300
�My reason
challenge
for advancing
the contention,
interpreters,
that
encies
et les arts.
which required
Discours
162.
1
assessments
chronologie
that
intellectual
See H~ndel, Rousseau:
either
must originally
at the time that
he
were, in my judgment,
of a number of putative
logique',
the composition
in Rousseau's
des langues
Such claims
between the Essai and the Discours
an unwarranted
to
et l e succes' 11163 of h.is D.1.scours
•
la re'd action
based upon some false
was, in part,
• f or t he Encyclopc'd' ie, 162 or,
on music
•
his articles
"entre
sur les sciences
sur l'origine
by him around 1749-50,
was also preparing
•
al ternatively,
hypothesis
put forward by a number of Rousseau's
the Essai
have been drafted
this
sur l'inegalite,
inferred
from these
of the Essai predate
development. 164
Moralist,-!,
inconsistand upon
assessments,
the second
The sequence
p. 66.
163,
Lanson, 'L'Unite de la pensee de Rousseau', p. 5.
This essay
was published in 1912, but Lanson had already adopted his stance in
1900 in his article
on Rousseau for La Grande Encyclopedie (see
vol. XXVIII, p. 1062).
In the light,
however, of Pierre-Maurice
Masson's criticisms
of his supposition
(see 'Questions de chronologie
rousseauiste',
pp. 45-49), and particularly
after taking note of Masson's
transcription
of the rough draft preface to the Essai cited below,
Lanson changed his mind (see his review of the twomajor works on
Rousseau by Masson, i.e.,
La 1 Prof~ssion de foi du Vicaire savoyard' and
La religion
de Rousseau, in RHLF, XXIV (1917), p. 325).
Even earlier
Henri Beaudouin had maintained that Rousseau must have composed the
Essai after the first
Discours but before the second (see La Vie et les
oeuvres de Rousseau [Paris 1891], I, p. 323), while Vaughan later contended (I, p. 10, note 2) that the Essai "may have preceded the second,
if not also the first,
Discourse".
--164.
The controversy about the date of composition of the Essai was
inaugurated by Alfred Espinas in a collection
of three artic'iesTof
which the last was a reply to a critique
of the first two by Edmond
I
Dreyfus-Brisac)
entitled
Le "Systeme" de J .-J. Rousseau' and published
in the Revue internationale
de l'enseignement,
XXX-XXXI(1895-96) (see
XXX, pp. 344-352 and 435 - Espinas's work was preceded by that of
Beaudouin cited in note 163 above, but the earlier
text remained, on
this matter, largely ignored until the 1960s).
According to Espinas
the Essai must have been drafted by Rousseau after he had completed the
Discourssur
l'inegalite,
since though it incorporates
a number of
features which are drawn from that work it also contains some which are
quite new (such as the proposition
that society is natural to man) and
still
others (including,
paradoxically,
the thesis that the state of
nature is one of conflict
and brutality)
which he had delineated
only in
301
�which was stipulated
by this
seemed to me without
foundation,
same opinion.
But my trust
conjectural
ordering
and on that
point
in the evidence
the Ms R 60 could not have been drafted
before
of his early
I am still
which established
1755 also
works
of the
that
led me to
a brief and rudimentary way before.
Without disputing Espinas's claim
that the Essai was in some aspects incompatible with the Discours sur
l'inegalite,
Lanson retorted
(see 'L'Unite de la pensee de Rousseau',
pp. 4-5) that it was in fact the Essai which had been produced first,
since in tone and substance it was rather like Condillac's
Essai sur
l'origine
des connaissances
humaines of 1746 and Diderot's
Lettre sur
les sourds et muets of 1751, while its original title,
which Lanson
rendered as the Essai sur le principe de la melodie, established
that it
was a reply to Rameau's D~monstration du principe de l'harmonie of 1750.
(It is interesting
to note that even if the elements of this presumptive
rebuttal
of Espinas had been correct - for nearly all of them which pertain exclusively
to Rousseau are actually false - they would have been
perfectly
consistent
with the thesis they were intended to refute.
For
my part, in 'Rameau, Rousseau, and the Essai sur l'origine
des langues'
[seep.
202, note 51), I drew attention
to the fact that the chronological perspective
of the genesis of the Essai which I had adopted involved
a kind of reversion
to the view of Espinas.
My position has now changed
somewhat, but at no time did I adopt any part of the approach outlined
by Espinas, and the fact that we held similar views about the temporal
connection between the Essai and the second Discours is quite fortuitous.)
The·dispute
about the chronology of the Essai in terms of its consistency with the Discours sur l'inegalite
continues without respite
to this
day.
According to Launay (Rousseau:
Ecrivain politique,
pp. 207-208),
Duchet's attempt (on which he had earlier
collaborated
- see note 289
below) to "harmoniser la chronologie des premiers temps proposee par le
Discours ... avec celle que nous off!"e l'Essai ... nous paraissent
tres
ingenieux ... mais non ... convaincants.
Nous conservons l'impression
que
l'Essai,
dans sa conception generale,
est anterieur
au Discours".
Duchet replies
that she is unconvinced by this challenge and still
holds
the view (Anthropologie
et histoire,
p. 324) that "l'Essai
comble les
lacunes du Second Discours" and that the Essai is also clearly the later
work.
Polin's gentle intimations,
moreover, that the Essai may have been
produced before the Discours (see La politique
de la soI'Itude,
pp. 263-264, 270, and 274) receive short shrift from Porset (in his
forthcoming 'L"inquietante
etrangete'
de l'Essai 1 ).
And Starobinski's
now self-avowed "hypothese imprudente" that a certain passage in the
Essai might justify
our supposition
that this work is the earlier
of the
twotexts
(see note 242 below) has been pilloried
by nearly every commentator on the subject since it first appeared in print more than ten years
ago.
Is it not now time, I wonder, for scholars to spare that particular
mistaken conjecture
any further ignominious attention
and to let it rest
henceforth quietly in peace?
At least I am confident that all the
living scholars I have mentioned in this note would agree that a philosophical case about the coherence of two works is an insufficient
and
unreliable
base upon which to construct an argument about the temporal
order of their composition.
Several have already joined their claims
about the meaning of the Essai sur l'origine
des langues to historical
302
�believe
that
the central
by Rousseau after
and with regard
section
the publication
to this
of that
work was initially
of Rameau1 s Erreurs
conceived
sur la musique,
I arn now very much in doubt.
matter
Rousseau himself,
passage
hesitant
to be sure, in a well-known and often-quoted
•
• papers, 165 ha d a lr ea dy given
f rom h is
me some reason to b e
in my suggestion.
a preface
one volume
designed
166
For in this
to introduce
- he states
that
passage - a rough draft
a collection
of three
the Essai sur l'origine
of
works in
des langues
accounts of its genesis and place in Rousseau's writings;
I am indebted
to their research and hope only that this contribution
may be added to
For other reviews of the debate about the chronology of the
their own.
Essai see Derrida, De la grammatologie, pp. 272-278;
Antonio Verri, Origine
delle lingue e civilta
in Rousseau, second edition (Ravenna 1972),
pp. 13-23; and especially
Porset, 'L''inquietante
etrangete'
de l'Essai'.
Later in this chapter (see pp. 349-372 below) I shall consider som_e
__
propositions
put forward by Espinas, Leon, Derrida, Grange, Duchet,
Launay, Polin, and Goldschmidt about the conceptual ties between the
second Discours and those parts of the Essai which must have been
composed afterwards.
165.
Neuchatel Ms R 91 (ancienne cote 7887), pp. 103v-105v.
The
passage was first transcribed,
incorrectly
and with elisions,
by Jansen
(see pp. 472-473).
It then appeared in Pierre-Maurice
Masson 1 s
'Questions de chronologie rousseauiste',
pp. 48-49; Porset's
foreword
to his edition of the Essai sur 1 1 origine des langues, pp. 11-12; my
'Rameau, Rousseau, and the Essai sur l'origine
des langues',
p. 201, note
51; and Duchez's 'Principe de la m€lodie et Origine des langues',
p. SO.
Many commentaries have been devoted to this text, and it will be
reprinted
again in Porset's
'L''inquietante
etrangete 1 de l'Essai
sur
1 1 origine des langues'.
Apart from the Essai the two works which Rousseau planned to have
166.
published together are~Imitation
theatrale
and the Levite d'Eohreim.
His project was not realized,
however, and only the Imitation
th€~trale,
including a slightly
revised version of the relevant part of the manuscript preface,
was published in his lifetime
(1764),
The section
which pertains
to the Levite d'Ephraim, moreover, was first published in
O.C.II, pp. 1205-1206,
Masson ('Questions
de chronologie rousseauiste',
p. 48 and note 2) regarded the preface as dating very probably "aux
environs de 1763 11, since in the Ms R 91 it is sandwiched between copies
of letters
which Rousseau drafted on 19 (not 16) February and 7 July 1763.
It is in fact possible to date the composition of this preface somewhat
more exactly,
for in a letter
to Duchesne of 5 June 1763 Rousseau undertook to send his publisher the text of the Imitation theatrale
as soon as
it was finished,
proposing (Correspondance complete, XVI, p. 284) that it
should be printed "soit tout seul, soit avec d'autres morceaux pour en
faire un volume 11•
After Duchesne' s partner Pierre Guy reminded him of
303
�was~
first
returned
so that
after
a fragment
when he later
of the Discours
composed his reply
the Essai was apparently
the appearance
sur l'inegalite
of the attack
to which he
to the Erreurs
sur la musique,
not commenced but only revised
levelled
against
just
him by Rameau:
Le second morceau 167 l6 8 [ne fut] aussi [d'abord) qu•un 168
que 169 j'en retranfragment du discours sur l'inegalite
chai cornme trop long et hers de place.
J [ e) 170 171 [ le
73
repris]l71
a l'occasion desl72 Erreurs 1 [de M. Rameau) 173
sur la musique 174titre
[aux deux mots pres que j'ai
retranchesl
parfaitement
rempli par l'ouvrage qui le
porte 17 S,17 4 •
cependa~t 176 retenu par le ridicule
de
disserter
sur les langues quand on en sait a peine une
et d'ailleur
peu content de 177ce [morceau] 177 j'avois
resolu de le supprimer comme178 indigne de l'attention
du
this suggestion on 20 June and 12 July, he replied,
in both July and August,
alone, and
that he would very shortly be submitting the Imitation theatrale
we know that by September he had in fact accomplished that task (see ibid.,
p. 320; XVII, pp. 41, 67, 167, 175, 245, and 276; and Dufour, I,
pp. 193-194).
It is likely that Rousseau's intimation
of 5 June that the
text might be published in conjunction with "d'autres
morceaux" predates the
composition of his preface, and as he did not refer to this idea again when
Guy drew his attention
to it I think it is also likely that he had abandoned
it before he drafted the next entry in his notebook on 7 July.
On this
interpretation
the preface was written in June or July 1763 and, indeed,
probably quite early in June.
By January 1765 (see the Correspondance
complete, XXIII, pp. 181-182, and note 144 above) Rousseau had clearly
decided that the Imitation
theatrale
and Levite d'Ephraim should be published
with the Discours sur les sciences et les arts in a volume of his collected
works incorporating
most of his writings about art as well as his operas and
plays, and he then envisaged that the Essai sur l'origine
des langues, on the
other hand, should appear together with his studies on music.
167.
The Essai sur l' origine des langues.
168.
P. 104r: <n'est> aussi <qu 'un>,
<et>
169.
J<'a>
170.
<l'achevai>
171.
<du>
172.
173.
<de M. Rameau>
174.
Variant added top.
103v: <C'est le> titre
[en Stant les deux mots
qui le suivent est le] titre
<d'un ouvrage de> [qui(?)]
[parfaitement)
rempli
par l'ouvrage
qui le porte.
175.
porte <[en otant les)> <aux deux mots pres dans l'Encyclopedie
qu'il
<[en]> faut Ster> <[qu'il
faut retrancher]>
je>
176.
cependant <peu content de cet ecrit,
177,
ce<t ecrit>
178.
comme <peu>
304
�179 Mais 180 181 un magistrat
public.
(illustre 182 J183 , 181
gui cultjve
et protege les JettreslS!.
[en185] c. pcm:;e plus
favorablement
que moi, 186 [j~] soumets [donc]lBG avec
plaisir,
comme on peut bien croire mon jugement au sien
(ecritsJ 18 A
[et) j'essaye 187 a la faveur des deux autres
de faire passer celui-ci
que je n'eusse 189 peut etre
ose190 risquer
seul.
Now the remark here about the tie
Discours
is not utterly
irreconcilable
Essai
was first
drafted
still
amending the Discours
between the Essai
with the contention
by Rousseau in 1755, since
- as well as correcting
year, 191 and it would only have been at a r·elatively
composition
of this
work that
long et hors de place",
suggest
text
that
he made any substantial
of the Discours
the early
fragment
spring
rather
after
that
he was
the proofs
- in that
late
stage
he submitted
in his
was there
hand we have no evidence
alterations
the
we know that
he could be sure the Essai
On the other
and the second
"trop
to
to the main body of the
it to the Academie de Dijon in
of 1754, and since
his projected
preface refers to a
192
than a note or supplement,
and since a section which
179,
<Cep>
180,
Mais <l'ayant montre a>
181,
Malesherbes - see note 196 below.
182.
illustre
<et>
183.
<eclaire>
184.
lettres
<il en>
185.
en <ayant desire de le voir>
186.
<et> soumet<tant> <(done]>
187.
j'essaye
<de faire passer ici>
188.
<ecrits> <ecrits>
189,
n'eusse <ose>
190,
<ose>
191.
Thus, for instance,
through a letter
to Rey of about 5 February 1755
(see the Correspondance complete, III, pp. 97-98), Rousseau made a number of
additions
to the text of tne Discours which we are now no longer able to
identify.
His letter
of 23 February (see ibid.,
p. 102), moreover, includes
a change to two lines of note i.
See also eh. III, note 1.
192.
This is a point which Rousseau scholars,
including
several who were
and are familiar
with the text of the projected
preface,
have frequently
forgotten.
Thus Masson himself,
for instance,
after providing a transcription of the passage, remarks ('Questions
de chronologie
rousseauiste',
p. 49)
that the "Essai sur les langues a done ete primitivement
en 1754 une longue
note du second Discours".
Courtois assents to this suggestion
in his
'Chronologie critique
de Rousseau', p. 77, note 1, while Hendel adds
(Rousseau:
Moralist,
I, p. 67) that "the essay seems to have been intended
as a Hate to be put into an Appendix for the Discourse".
Despite the doubts
raisea15y Leign about this point of view (see his 'Manuscrits
disparus' ~
p. 63, note 1), moreover, both Derrida (see De la ~tologie,1
p. 274/ and
Angele Kremer-Marietti
(see the introduction
- entiil
Rou8seau ou la double
origine et son rapport au systeme lan~e-musigue-politigue'
- to her own
edition of the Essai [Paris 1974], p. 5) have recently
adopted it once again,
305
�he regarded
as too long for the Discours
some time to prepare,
that
the Essai,
to become a part
interpreters
first
authority
some fairly
of the Essai,
that
193 aside
conceived
extensive
was initially
is the position
in 1749-50,
that
there
to support
were intended
recollection
their
to unsettle
Ms R 60 very clearly
establishes
thesis
drafts
the accuracy
in the Discours,
of
whereas the
between the Essai and the
in the late
seems, to me beyond dispute,
too.
his statement
the tie
between these
my earlier
to corroborate
almost certainly
connection
had the
hut I believed
a work whose original
historical
was
de preface',
Examen de deux principes,
prepared
the text
scholars
to challenge
in his 'Projet
of the Essai
which was
composed by him in
them I admit that
we did not yet have any evidence
about the place
passage
adopted by most of Rousseau's
and though these
It was not my aim, of course,
Rousseau's
from his remark
from those who have held that
of the preface
observations
have taken him
it would seem far more likely
or rather
At any rate
1754.
must itself
version
autumn of 1755. 194
two texts
Rousseau
The close
seemed, and inaeed
not only because the Ms R 60 contains
of each of them, or again because a note in Emile refers
them interchangeably,
have been revised
still
195 but also because the two essays
and put in something
like
their
final
to
appear to
form by
Rousseau at about the same time, 196 and because they were both first
193,
The most comprehensive (though not quite complete) list prepared
thus far of the adherents to this claim, including a summary of the
etrangete de
argument in each case, appears in Porset's
'L"inquietante
l'Essai'.
194.
See note 137 above.
195.
See note
196,
That is,
later reflected
Dictionnaire
de
156 above.
in the autumn of 1761, since it is then, as Rousseau
in his Confessions (O.C.I, p. 560) in a passage about the
musiQue, that "j'avois
quelques autres ecrits de moindre
306
�
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<strong>Title: </strong>Rousseau on Society, Politics, Music and Language - An Interpretation of His Early Writings<br /><strong><br /></strong>
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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<strong>Abstract:</strong> This study is focused upon a variety of specific problems which I believe the early writings of Rousseau were designed to solve. Most of the works that are discussed here were drafted by Rousseau between 1750 and 1756, and I shall argue that a proper grasp of this fact about their temporal proximity is important to an understanding of the conceptual relations which underlie them. I hope to show that any accurate account of Rousseau's meaning must incorporate a careful examination of the context in which his ideas were developed, and I shall therefore be concerned very largely with the manner in which his writings were conceived as replies to arguments that were produced by other thinkers. The first chapter is devoted to an account of some mistaken interpretations of Rousseau's meaning. We often confuse our own beliefs about the contemporary significance of certain ideas with the sense which their authors originally intended they should have, and in this chapter I consider a number of misconceptions of that kind, as well as some mistaken correctives to them, which have appeared in Rousseau studies. The views of C.E. Vaughan and Robert Derathe, in particular, are discussed with reference to these problems. The second chapter is concerned with the influence of Diderot upon Rousseau and especially with the intellectual debt which Rousseau owed to Diderot's article 'Droit naturel'. The 'Economie politique' and the Manuscrit de Geneve are shown to exhibit the influence of Diderot in two quite different ways, and the conceptions of the 'volonté generale' of the two figures are compared in the light of the differences between their accounts of the natural society of mankind. In the third chapter the arguments of the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> are examined in connection with the ideas of several other figures from whom Rousseau drew some inspiration or against whom he raised some objections in that work. The chapter opens with a challenge to the thesis that the second Discours bears the stamp of Diderot's influence, and it continues with several sections, which are concerned with the historical, anthropological, linguistic, and political views of Buffon, Condillac, and Hobbes and Locke, respectively, while two final sections describe Rousseau's account of the transformation of natural into social man. The fourth chapter compares a number of ideas about the nature and origin of music which were put forward by Rameau and Rousseau. It traces the course of their controversy about this subject through the writings of both thinkers, and in the case of Rousseau it is addressed especially to his articles on music in the <em>Encyclopedie</em>, his <em>Lettre sur la musique françoise</em>, his <em>Examen de deux principes</em>, and his <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. It also attempts to establish that the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> at first contained a section about the genesis of music which Rousseau eventually incorporated in the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. The chapter, moreover, offers an interpretation of the place of music and language in the general context of Rousseau's social theory, and it provides a critique of several accounts of tbe historical relation between the <em>Essai</em> and the second <em>Discours</em> which have neglected that common feature of their meaning. The final chapter is concerned with the <em>Discours sur les sciences et les arts</em> and with the writings which Rousseau produced between 1751 and 1753 in defence of that text against its critics. I argue there that while the first <em>Discours</em> is the most shallow and least original of all of Rousseau's major works, the controversy which followed its publication helped him to focus his ideas about culture and society much more sharply than he had done before. I try to show that Rousseau's replies to the detractors of the <em>Premier Discours</em> constitute a refinement of his views along the paths which he was then to pursue further in the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> and the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>, and I conclude with some reflections about the systematic nature of his early social theory as it was developed in the period between his composition of the first and second <em>Discours</em>. The appendix consists of an annotated transcription of the manuscript on the origins of music and language discussed at length in chapter IV.
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<a href="http://s127526803.onlinehome.us/wokler/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Robert Wokler</a>
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Chapter 4: The Controversy with Rameau and the Genesis of the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em> (part 1)
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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pp. 235-306.
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IHA/Wokler/634
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Part 2.
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Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews
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Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London
Diderot
Rousseau
-
https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/intellectualhistory/files/original/463c5f52a5860f9e04a5c61fee009b39.pdf
e7c96b25a5ce0eb24ba036c40225967d
PDF Text
Text
published
works devoted
deny that
• l y as h e wise
• h d 197 - in a volume of his
- precise
198
to his writings
on music.
In my article
I did not
together
there might be an historical
link
between the Essai
and the
et que je me proposois
de donner
importance,
tous en etat de paroitre
soit avec mon recueil
general si je l'entreencore, soit separement,
prenois jamais.
Le principal
de ces ecrits
dont la pluspart
sont
encore en manuscrit dans les mains de Du Peyrou, etoit un Essai sur
l'origine
des langues que je fis lire a M. de Malesherbes et au
Chevalier de Lorenzy, qui m'en dit du bien".
See also notes 144 and
181 above.
Most of Rousseau's letters
to Orlando de Lorenzy have been
lost, and the surviving
letters
which Lorenzy sent to Rousseau during
this period do not mention the Essai.
The relevant
exchange with
Malesherbes,
on the other hand, is intact.
On 25 September 1761
Rousseau asked him for his opinion of the work - a copy of which had
been brought to him by the Duchesse de Luxembourg - noting (Correspondance
complete, IX, p. 131) that while "ce barbouillage"
really ought not to
be published
separately,
"toutefois
je souhaiterois
qu'il put etre donne
a part a cause de ce Rameau qui continue a me tarabuster vilainement et
qui cherche l'honneur
d'une reponsedirecte
qu•assurement
je ne lui ferai
pas".
On 25 October Malesherbes replied
that he had not yet had an
opportunity
to read the essay with the care which it required,
but he
still
observed politely
(ibid.,
p. 205) that it should be printed
separately
since the collection
of Rousseau's works in which it would
otherwise appear was not due for some time, and "il n'est pas juste de
faire attendre
Si longtems au public un morceau utile et interessant".
On 18 November Malesherbes returned the manuscript,
reiterating
(ibid.,
p. 251) that "je crois que vous feries grand tort au public de l'en
priver ou d'attendre
!'Edition
entiere
de vos oeuvres pour le donner".
On this occasion,
moreover, he excused his failure
to provide any
detailed
comments with the reflection
that the work was "par mille
Nevertheless,
he continued,
he
raisons ... au dessus de ma portee".
admired the essay just as much as he did all of Rousseau's other writings:
"Je me contente de vous assurer que l'ouvrage
entier m'a fait le meme
plaisir
que tout ce qui Sort de votre plume."
On 20 November Rousseau,
then preoccupied
with several problems in connection with the publication
of Emile, concluded about the Essai (ibid.,
p. 253) that "dans le profond
j~puis
m'occuper que du Soin de la
sentiment demon etourderie,
reparer".
For some speculations
about Rousseau's purpose in addressing
his text to Malesherbes,
see Porset,
'L"inquietante
etrangete'
de
~•Essai'.
See too note 200 below.
197.
See note 144 above.
Rousseau's letter
to Malesherbes of
25 September 1761 (see note 196 above) makes io quite clear that he then
still
regarded the Essai principally
in terms of his dispute with Rameau,
and, indeed, largely
as a reply to the Erreurs sur la musique and the
other attacks
which Rameau had later directed
against
him.
198.
The first
edition
of the Essai sur l'origine
des langues was
versions which have precisely
the
produced in 1781 in three different
same format - and were incorporated
in the same tomes - as the three
versions of the original
edition of the Examen de deux principes
(see
note 137 above) .
307
�Discours,
will
while some of
again be here,
them.
But I believed
'III'J
remarks,
that most of Rousseau's
passage
of the connection
principes.
between the~
most of the Discours
for this
view might be drawn from the facts
cites
that
he bad only just
some additional
of which were published
.
200
bulk of t he Discours.
begun
support
while in the Essai alone he
the second by the abbe Jean Terrasson
- all
by
in both the Ms R 60 and
two other works - one by Duclos from which he claims
much inspiration,
passing
to an abandoned
and the Examen de deux
to write
to a work by Tartini,
between
had placed
preface
of 1754, I suggested that one year later
199
the Essai.
And I imagined that at least
the Essai he alludes
as they
the much more substantial
Thus whereas Rousseau had finished
the spring
relations
interpreters
in a short
and at the same time had neglected
evidence
were devoted,
to an account of the conceptual
too much weight upon a single
project
moreover,
in 1754 after
that
to have drawn
he mentions
in
he had completed the
199. Seep. 202, note 51.
200. In a paragraph of the Ms R 60 that Rousseau deleted from the Examen
de deux principes
he mentions Tartini's
account of the origins of the
minor mode and of the phenomenon of dissonance in music, and he later
developed the theme of this paragraph in a note which he appended to eh.
xviiii
of the Essai (see the appendix, p. 480 and notes 360 and ,gg_).
The text he must have had in mind is clearly the Trattato di musica,
first published in 1754 (see note 106 above), though the 'approvazione'
is dated 1 February 1753.
The text by Duclos is his Remarques sur la
grammaire generale et raisonnee,
which appeared in Paris in 1754. In cb.
xx, in his concluding pare.graphs of the Essai (see p. 377 and note 344 below),
Rousseau refers to a passage in this work which had inspired,
he maintains,
his own "reflexions
superficielles",
by which he may have meant either
his observations
in eh. xx alone or, more probably, the whole of the
Essai.
I shall return to the question of the influence of Duclos's ideas
later in this chapter, but for the moment I should like to note only that
this reference,
and three others in chs. v and vii of the Essai (see
pp. 65, 77, and 83), suggest that at least these passages weredrafted
by Rousseau after he had completed most of the Discours sur l'inegalite.
If the Essai was itself
generally inspired by Duclos's Remarques,
moreover, it is hard to see how Rousseau could have got very far with
his text by February 1754, when much the greater part of the Discours
would already have been finished.
Thus the citations
of the
Remarques in the Essai, states Derrida (De la grammatologie, p. 243),
"n'ont ••• pas pu etre anterieures
a la publication du second Discours", a
point which I would still
regard as correct, but only with regard to the
composition, and not the publication,
of the Discours.
The work by
Terrasson is La philosophie applicable a tousles
objets de l'esprit
et
de la raison,
which appeared posthumously, also in Paris, in December
308
�I was convinced,
too,
could not be the fragment
projected
preface
Rameau (whose ideas
Erreurs
of that
the central
have been intended
are specifically
portion
section
of the Ms R 60
to which Rousseau draws attention
because such a hypothesis
fragment must originally
passages
that
would require
to refute
discredited
of the manuscript
sur la musique had been conceived.
201
in his
that
this
the views of
in at least
five
) even before "Rameau's
Since most of the
1754, though the 'approbation'
is dated 31 March. In a note to eh. xii
(p. 143) of the Essai Rousseau quotes a passage of several lines about
Greek music from pp. 179-180 of La philosophie.
(I am grateful
to
Professor Starobinski
for bringing this passage to my attention,
particularly since, as he explained to me in the same letter,
he did not share
the view which I held then that Rousseau had only just begun to draft
the Essai in 1755.)
It would of course be quite incorrect
- and it
was never in fact my intention
- to attempt to fix the dates of
composition of the Essai in the light of these references
alone, a
point which has beenwisely
made by Porset with regard to the Duclos
passages in particular
(see his 'Note a l'usage des grammairiens.
Rousseau dans Duclos', Colloque Duclos, Universite de Haute Bretagne
1973, forthcoming).
In any case whether the Essai was first drafted
in 1754 or 1755, we have good reason to believe that at least some
sections of the work - for instance,
eh. xx, in which there appears an
elliptical
reference to d'Alembert's
De la liberte
de la musique - must
have been composed by Rousseau after 1760, probably, again, in the
autumn of 1761. Masson, finally
(see 'Questions de chronologie
rousseauiste 1 , pp. 47-49), has noticed that several additions and
revisions
to the final manuscript of the Essai (Neuchatel Ms R 11:
ancienne cote 7835) are in a different
ink and style of handwriting from
the rest of the text, and he speculates
that while the work would, for
the most part, have been completed around the time of Rousseau's exchange
of letters
with Malesherbes, these alterations,
as well as the division
of the work into chapters which Rousseau indicates
in the margins, were
most probably added in 1763 when he turned to his projected preface of
the Essai (see note 166 above).
201. Two of these passages - one about Greek harmony, the other about the
general relation
between harmonic and melodic music - were incorporated
by
Rousseau in the Examen de deux principes
(see the appendix, notes 238 and
265), and I still
believe that they were drafted for the first time after
the appearance of Rameau's Erreurs sur la musique,
The three other passages
read as follows (see the appendix, pp. 448-449. and 462): ( 1) "Recherchons,
s'il y a moien, la veritable
origine de la melodie, et voyons si l'idee
que M. Rameau en a con~ue s'accorde a celle que nous fournit l'exacte
observation des faits";
(2) "C'est une observation tres judicieuse
de
M. Rameau que le son differe du bruit, en ce que le premier est appreciable
et que le second ne l'est pas: ce qui n'empeche point que le bruit ne
soit que du son modifie comme on peut s'en convaincre avec un peu de
reflexion";
(3) "Tout cet historique
est appuye sur des faits et fournit .. ,
des conclusions directement contraires
au Sisteme de M. Rameau". See also
pp. 320-322 below· and the appendix, note i·
309
�Ms R 60 is undoubtedly
not seem possible
rejoinder
it~
a reply
possible
that
which had not yet been made.
he had at first
of Rameau in the Discours,
with a subject
insofar
- that
is,
the origins
Rousseau does not consider
its
initial
figured
place there
in that
language
the text.
according
I intimated
preface
than of eh. xviiii,
long note on this
that
of the manuscript
to Rousseau,
on the origins
a digression
of
from
to which Rousseau refers
of eh. ix of the
in genera1, 203 rather
of society
which is concerned
with music, and I concluded
with the observation
may have been incorporated
it did not form the section
deals
for it could only have
could have formed a draft
matter
unlikely,
it was hard to see where
the fragment
the origins
of
of melody in music - which
might have been,
which describes
of the Discours
part
work as an appendix to the section
in his projected
Essai,
I thought this
in the Discours,
which is itself,
202
the ideas
even in advance of the publication
as the central
a
I allowed that
planned to challenge
but I remarked that
Rameau's own critique,
and I added that
sur la musique it did
in 1754 Rousseau could have drafted
to me that
to an attack
to the Erreurs
that
my
whatever fragment
by Rousseau in the Essai,
of the Ms R 60 that
I had uncovered
and
transcribed.
I no longer
the
publication
of another
hold these
twice
important
in
views for three
the
fragment
Discours 204 now persuades
past
twenty
main reasons.
years
which Rousseau
me much more clearly
Firstly,
of two drafts
deleted
from
than before
that
the
he
202.
See the Discours sur 1 1 inegalite,
O.C.III,
p. 146, and eh. III,
168,
The brie:f remark in the Discours (0. C. III, p. 171) about
"quelques grossiers
instrumens de Musique" of primitive
men could hardly
have served as a suitable
introduction
to the passage.
203,
This is a thesis which has occasionally
been advanced by Rousseau
scholars,
perhaps most notably by Derrida and Duchet (see pp. 356-359
below), who have attempted to locate in the Discours the original place
of certain features of eh. ix (and eh. x) of the Essai.
Much the same
contention - but based particularly
upon a mistaken reading of the
'Projet de preface'
- has been put forward recently by Goldschmidt (see
note 218 below) .
204.
See eh. III, pp. 221-224.
310
p.
�originally
conceived
of subjects
than is actually
fragment deals
and the role
of inequality
religion
his work to be a treatment
in
des grandes
at length
with the place
of hypocritical
idolatrous
Rousseau's
Rousseau initially
account
planned
That
spiritual
laws
in the development
to Ralph Leigh its
of the formation
treatment
of society
to examine the significance
in the context
fills
language,
is it not conceivable
the origins
metallurgy,
agriculture,
that
of music too?
"une
of religious
of
war, government,
and
in the same work he intended
Does not a chapter
with the songs of enslaved
or subjugated
of
But if
of an argument about the genesis
and property,
which deals
of arbitrary
tex~.
or "un trou beant 11205 in the Discours.
morality,
discuss
in the published
priests
among men, and according
lacunes"
superstition
considered
of a far wider range
to
of an essay
peoples
206
and
' ent1t• l e d 'C omment l a mus1que
•
' '' 1207 a l so h ave a
• h is
wh 1c
a d'egenere
proper place
in a text
about the general
• d e, an d corruption•
d ecrep1tu
doubt about the striking
208
o f t h e h uman race. ?
similarity
the Discours
and that
part
incorporated
in his Essai
believe
that
we should accept
nection
between the two works,
causes of the deterioration,
There can be no
between the form and substance
of
of the Ms R 60 which Rousseau later
sur l'origine
des langues,
his testimony
209
and I now
about the historical
so long as this
is not contradicted
conby
205.
'Manuscrits disparus',
p. 63.
"Nous savons ... que le texte primitif
de l'Inegalite
a du etre beaucoup plus etendu que la version definitive",
writes Leigh on the same page, adding that the two fragments which he transcribed (the second is considered here in eh. III, pp. 193-194) might have been
removed from the published version of the Discours partly for the same reasons
that Rousseau withdrew his draft of the Essa1, that is, because - as he
states in the preface - it would have been too long and out of place there.
206,
See the appendix, pp. 457-458, the Essai sur l'origine
des langues,
eh, xviiii,
pp. 189-191, and pp. 334-336 below.
207.
This is the title
of eh. xviiii
of the Essai.
In the Ms R 11 these
titles
are intercalated
in the margins together with the Roman numerals
which mark the divisions
into chapters.
All the headings were very likely
added to the manuscript in 1763 ( see note 200 above).
208.
In the Discours sur l'inegalite
Rousseau recounts the course of the
misfortunes
of mankind which must have produced our 'deterioration'
(O.C.III,
p. 162), "decrepitude"
(ibid.,
p. 171), and "corruption"
(ibid.,
p. 191),
209.
See also p. 347 below.
311
�any new information
Secondly,
which might arise.
I am now persuaded,
•
210
Duchez and Porset
that
the fragment
preface~
his projected
too, by the arguments of both
to which Rousseau refers
be the central
section
in
of the Ms R 60,
since
his remark pertains
to an extract which was "repris"
and even
211
"achev[e}"
at the time that he formulated his reply to the Erreurs
sur la musique.
in fact
be able to identify
from the rest
draft
If we proceed
of that
pourrait
Porset
wisely,
tation
required
the central
that
section
in the manuscript
and this
such a statement
to which Rousseau's
for several
reasons.
of the published
he had already
feel
rien!
ill
version
detailed
crucial
sur la musique. 213
objections
to its
later
and conspicuous
a place
212 observes
Now aside
is no passage
reflection
that
the digression,
part
from
anywhere at all
might apply,
of the text
and which constitutes
of the Examen de deux principes,
The citations
theory
composed
at ease if my interpre-
could only have been commenced by Rousseau after
Erreurs
11 ,
must be false.
For one thing
and after
a more finished
"On imagine mal ce que
of the Ms R 60 there
which comes both before
a draft
version
qui ne reprendrait
and I should certainly
we should
in the Ms R 60 which is distinct
sur l'inegalite.
une 'reprise'
recollection
as it constitutes
whose original
of the Discours
etre
a passage
work insofar
of a discussion
as part
from Rousseau's
he had read the
of Rameau's work, and the
which encompass them, occupy so
there
that
it would be utterly
210.
See Duchez's 'Principe
de la melodie et Origine des langues',
pp. 50-51, and Porset 1 s 'L' 'inquietante
etre.ngete'
de l'Essai'.
211.
See note 171 above.
212.
'L''inquietante
etrangete'
de l'Essai'.
213.
This was of course my earlier
view in connection with the central
section too (seep.
309 and note 201 above), but I think the same claim
with respect to the first draft of the Exarnen alone is not contentious.
312
�implausible
to suppose that
had been drafted
earlier.
which might suggest
before
prior
to its
figure
Rameau devised
his Erreurs
Rousseau had access
publication.
The section
as the fragment
noted in the projected
passage
which is transcribed
may also be excluded
have figured
no account
214
lations
at any point
and scarcely
in the appendix
about the vibrations
neither
any trace
of an historical
it contains
of a 'corps
essay
be
which is
and the long
as fragment~,
work, the first
on so many of our other
the second because
that
in short,
section
in that
• t he n·iscours
wh"ic h in
of that
sur l'inegalite
Both this
on the grounds
sur la musique
to any draft
could not,
of the Discours
preface.
at all
of the Ms R 60 which was to
in the Examen de deux principes
regarded
•
music
In any case we have no evidence
that
1755, or that
they were merely added to remarks which
moreover,
could conceivably
because
it contains
development
of
• ht have para 11 ele d Rousseau ' s specumig
social
nothing
practices
and institutions,
but some technical
sonore•. 215
remarks
In fact whatever might
Perhaps the paragraphs about untrained
and uncorrupted musicians
that figure in the appendix on pp. 444-445 and 477 (and which constitute
rough drafts of the Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, pp. 271 and 283,
respectively)
might be held to raise some doubts about this statement.
But both of those passages really pertain only to the distinction
between
our enjoyment of a natural melodic line, on the one hand, and an artificial harmonic accompaniment, on the other, and neither offers any sketch
of the transfiguration
of primitive
melody into modern harmony.
It is
worth noting here that the two paragraphs about the difference
between
Greek and modern music which immediately follow the first
of these
passages in the Examen de deux principes
have no place in the analogous
part of the Ms R 60.
The first
paragraph (see the appendix, note 136)
is actually missing altogether
from the manuscript,
while the second (see
from the
note 141 above and the appendix note 238) is a transposition
central section which does provide a history of music.
214.
215.
Since there is no direct reference
to the Erreurs sur la rnusique,
nor even any mention of Rameau, in fragment C, it is difficult
to imagine
where Rousseau had intended the passage to fit in his text.
It is
indeed possible that the fragment forms a draft of a quite separate essay
that he abandoned, for while there are a number of remarks in a few
articles
in the Dictionnaire
de musique which might have drawn some
inspiration
from it I believe that it does not constitute
the original
version of any extended piece in that work, and I have been unable to
313
�have been the initial
place
of fragment£
Ms R 60, Rousseau must eventually
actually
deleted
it from his later
The connection
text
there,
inappropriate
clearly
in the light
versions
of Rousseau's
however,
- which mark the other
it
11 ,
and Du Peyrou,
it himself,
portion
who then returned
in this
that
text
is
it is "totalement
to Du Peyrou in 1765,
he might redraft
Yet the digression
part,
contains
and its
of the Essai sur l'origine
than is the conformity
these
Indeed the manuscript
to Rousseau so that
opinion.
handwriting
of the
in the manuscript
form.
state
it
alone.
the major fragments
per page than does any other
to the published
is more precise
original
passage
cramped and hurried
- that
section
of
from the number of deletions
216 Rousseau remarked in a letter
far fewer alterations
resemblance
and all
in such a chaotic
concurred
he
from the Ms R 60,
is drawn to that
is obvious,
appear only in their
indechiffrab1e
too,
commentary upon the degeneration
from the often
the central
for the most part
section,
of the Examen and the published
the theme of the digression
and amendments, and also
Ms R 60 except
the central
of the Examen de deux principes.
draft
once again our attention
Most decisively,
passages
for like
it was
on the other hand, can only be established
music which comprises
so that
of the
have formed the view that
between the first
of the Discours,
in the context
between the first
des langues
and final
find a later draft elsewhere in Rousseau's papers.
Its arguments about
relethe resonance of a 'corps sonore' - though they are not strictly
- do apply at least indirectly
to several of
vant to this discussion
Rameau's theoretical
writings,
among which the Demonstration du principe
de l'harmonie may well have been the main composition Rousseau had in
mind,
216. Rousseau to Du Peyrou, 25 November 1765, Correspondance gencrale,
XIV, p. 296. In his letter
to Rousseau of 7 January 1766 (ibid.,
XV,
p.11) Du Peyrou describes the manuscript as "presque indechiffrable".
Both letters
refer to the text as the 'Reponse a Rameau', the title
314
�versions
of the Examen de deux principes.
Only this
in the hand which Rousseau employed to transcribe
drafts
of his works, and whereas the remaining
patently
prise
in their
earliest
construction
intermediate
elements
projected
remark,
it alone can be described
the fragment
simply because no versions
are to be found anywhere in the Ms R 60.
between their
subject
matter
as a re-
As both Duchez
of which Rousseau speaks in his
could not have been e draft
preface
the Essai quite
finally,
and later
of the essay are
of a commentary which he had al.ready penned before.
and Porset
ties
segment is written
of chs.
at all
ix and x of
of these
Thus despite
and the central
chapters
the similari-
theme of the Discours
which had ~l.ready been attached to the Examen de deux urincipes
(see
note 144 above).
Toward the end of 1765 Rousseau - who had been forced
to flee from his home at Motiers in September and then remained uprooted
and in almost constant agitation
until his arrival
in England in January
1766 - was in frequent contact with Du Peyrou about the books and papers
which he had earlier
entrusted
to him. He was at the time trying to
gather together the evidence for his Confessions (see ibid.,
XIV, p. 350)
and also had it in mind then to prepare a catalogue for a collected
edition of his works (see ibid.,
p. 224), two tasks which he could
hardly undertake without access to his papers.
In his letter
of 25
November, moreover (ibid.,
pp. 295-296), he states that "il y a des
manuscrits ... que personne ne pourroit debrouiller
que moi. Il faudra
me les envoyer aussi afin que je les mette au net et que je vous les
renvoye lisibles".
Since these words are followed by the reference
to
the Ms R 60 cited above, and since we know that Rousseau had al.ready
completed the two works of which the manuscript forms a draft (see
notes 144 and 196 above), the passage suggests that in 1765 he might
have wished to prepare a new version - and not just a clean copy - of
his text.
But it points more clearly still
to the general agitation
of a writer,
literally
unsettled
by attacks from all quarters,
who
had been separated from his papers and was determined to put them in
order· and ensure that they survive intact "de peur d 'en perdre la
trace" (ibid.,
XV, p.2).
In any case Du Peyrou sent his friend the
books and packets of maruscripts which had been requested,
adding his
hopes that they "peut-etre
vous feroient plaisir
dans l'occasion"
(ibid.,
XIV, p. 355).
On 27 January 1766 Rousseau, now more safely ensconced
in London, replied that "je mettrai au net tout ce qui aura besoin de
1 1etre pour vous etre envoye quand j'en trouverai
l'occasion"
(ibid.,
XV, p. 31). Yet there is no evidence that he ever turned to the Ms R 60
again, even though it probably remained in his hands for the next
twelve years.
See also ibid.,
XIV, pp. 278-279 and 356, and XV,
pp. 12-13 and 58,
315
�- similarities
which have led one distinguished
Rousseau scholar 217
to remark that
the Essai
of society
history
inside
of language,
a history
composition
In fact
after
incorporates
while the Discours
of society
two chapters
he had finished
includes
a history
- no link between their
of the Discours
these
a history
is established
origin
by the 'Projet
were almost certainly
written
the Ms R 60, and my guess is that
within
a
of language
and the
de preface•.
218
by Rousseau
they were
composed in 1750 or 1751. 219
I have,
of the Essai
217.
then,
adopted
sur l'origine
Starobinski
- seep.
a different
des langues
position
from that
about the genesis
which I put forward
349 below,
This mistake underlies
several accounts of the connection between
the Essai and the Discours.
It figures most recently
in Goldschmidt's
Anthropologie et politique
in which he makes the following claim
(pp. 434-435): "L'anterioI'ite
du chapitre
IX par rapport au Discours
ne saurait etre mise en question, a partir du Projet de preface .... Ce
Projet ••• ne donne pour posterieurs
au Discours que les textes ajoutes
plus tard pour repondre a Rameau (ce qui, assurement, ne peut s'entendre
du chapitre IX) et decrit globalement l'Essai
comme n'etant
'd'abord
qu'un fragment du Discours sur l'inegalite
que j'en retranchai
comme
trop long et hors de place' (ce qui doit s'entendre,
pour l'essentiel,
du chapitre
IX, et en affirme l'anteriorite,
au moins par rapport a la
version definitive
du Discours ). " Goldschmidt' s error here has already
been corrected by Porset in his 'L''inquietante
etrangete•
de 1 1Essai'.
See also note 164 above and pp. 349-372 below.
--218.
219.
I confess that this is almost sheer conjecture
- based principally
upon Rousseau's remark in his Confessions to the effect that the work
was finished by the autumn of 1761 (see notes 144 and 196 above), from
which I surmise that most of the text was written around that period or
shortly before, apart, of course, from those passages which we know he
drafted in 1754 and 1755,
A similar conclusion follows from the dating
of the fragment about the art of writing,
which contains a reference to
the Essai, in Neuchatel Ms R 19 (see notes 264 and 341 below).
There
are also some observations
on the concept of pity in eh. ix of the Essai
that appear in much the same terms in the fourth book of Emile (see note
242 below), but while the passage in question there was most likely composed in 1760 when Rousseau was engaged in preparing his final version
of Emile (for it does not figure in the earlier' manuscripts)
we have no
reliable
information
that would establish
in which of the two works it
figured first
(see too note 238 below).
I know of no evidence at all
to suggest that Rousseau drafted any part of the Essai in the years between 1755 and 1760, and there is at least one reference
(to an idea of
d'Alembert in eh. xx) which probably dates from 1760 (see note 200 above).
316
�in my article,
firstly
on the grounds that
Discours which Rousseau describes
have been a draft
regrettable
that
all
rightful
is not lost.
nis ideas
about the corruption
in the mid-1750s,
early
For provided
versions
it is possible
that
in 1754, once when he drafted
medio.
If that
his fragment
Yet I believe
to be a quite
which there
is no supporting
final
version
style
of handwriting
of less
some six years
version
of Du Principe
of the Essai,
second draft
unnecessary
text
of the
hypothesis
for
and it seems to me
only to produce his
In any event,
judging
from the
which mark the
and comparing that
of the Ms R 60 and with the final
I am convinced thot the digression
the second draft
317
in
to the same reflections
de la Melodie,
of a work - or rather
dates
of the digres-
to the original
than two years,
later.
drafts
and the number of corrections
passage both with the rest
of the Discours
to Rameau in the autumn
at all,
Rousseau would have turned
times in a period
sec-
or even more occasions
were the case then any surviving
three
in that
formulated
his reply
evidence
if
Rousseau actually
Discours.
passage
of passages
that
sur l'inegalite
be additions
central
the justifications
of the Discours
sion in the Ms R 60 might just
improbable that
location.
times again on some unspecified
this
had
i!' it
writings
it follows
of music on three
once when he prepared
of 1755, and once or several
since
real
that
then I think
must once have formed a part
Of course
intact,
knowledge of its
rough draft
itself.
Now it is
place in Rousseau's
are correct,
are any earlier
of the Ms R 60, and secondly
has not survived
by our certain
for my second reason
tion these
section
of the second
might conceivably
it was so of necessity.
about its
could be superseded
there
that
the fragment
our speculations
Nevertheless,
in his preface
of the central
because I now believe
the fragment
manuscript
comprises
of two chapters
the
of
�a work - which Rousseau formulated
view, therefore,
any sketch
on three
or brouillon
occasions
of that
only.
section
of the
Ms R 60 which may still
be uncovered
initially
to which he
of the Discours sur l'inegalite
220
preface.
And my third main reason for
refers
in his projected
from my previous
from the Discours
here that
these
portions
version
•
I
judgment,
substantive
conceived
the Essai as a part
Examen de deux principes,
preface
all.
It is my thesis
in the Ms R 60 constitute
time supplied
,
manuscript.
221
of his claim that
of the Discours
section
and
a transcription
of
in which
They provide,
in my
he initially
which he then extended
of the first
and they thus show that
works before
such drafts
he reconstituted
draft
of the
the Essai passed
it as the foundation
study.
The evidence
jected
after
three
them from the passages
confirmation
to form the central
two other
at least
of both the Essai and Discours,
which distinguish
in Rousseau s later
of a separate
survived
I have for the first
the variants
and revised
is that
of the digression
of the original
they recur
stance
have in fact
drafts
in the appendix
through
to have figured
in the fragment
departing
all
is very likely
In my
which corroborates
Rousseau's
goes a long way to establishing
rema~k in his prothe dates
and early
220.
It is possible that in addition to the three portions of this
fragment which I have incorporated
in the appendix there are others among
the manuscripts at Neuchatel that I have overlooked.
There may even be
some more substantial
portions - or perhaps related passages from a
different
source - in the lost collection
of Rousseau's notebooks (dating
from 1754) which once belonged to the abbe Gabriel Brizard, or among the
missing papers of Joseph Lakanal which are known to have included several
adjuncts to Rousseau's writings about music (see Leigh, 'Manuscrits
disparus',
pp. 47-57).
221.
See the appendix, notes 188, 295, and 369.
A short selection
of
the variants from the first draft, and one of the twenty-eight
from the
third, have already been transcribed
in the notes (on pp. 62 and 75) of
Duchez's 'Principe
de la melodie et Origine des langues',
though she
nowhere suggests that these drafts might have formed part of the fragment
from Rousseau's Discours sur l'inegalite.
The fact that they are now to
be found in different
manuscripts in the Neuchatel archives is due to some
oversights
of Dufour in his efforts
to place the Rousseau papers there in
a more coherent order (see note 158 above).
318
�course of composition
this
For these
as well.
also facts
of the Essai,
about its
facts
meaning;
but it does a great
about the genesis
they indicate
of that
as they do about the time of their
they demonstrate
that
only if we take note of his reasons
philosophical
the points
appropriate
substance
-
them precisely
as
In order to fathom the
of his views in the Essai we must understand
two chapters
merely to make clear
of that
work in drafts
and the Examen de deux principes
interpret
chapters
- naturally
of the Essai - in a manner that
to express
intended
second Discours
these
and
of music and language
occasions.
vey, and while I have so far attempted
set forth
conception,
for formulating
which they were historically
originally
are
we can have a sure grasp of the sense of his
case about the degeneration
he did on certain
text
as much about the nature
of his arguments
ideas - in this
deal more than
I shall
in connection
draws upon this
and conthat
he
of both the
next try to
also with the rest
perspective
of their
origin.
·r think
brief
it would first
be appropriate,
word here about the bearing
our understanding
l'inegalite,
of the genesis
to supplement
fragment of the Discours
the earlier
I previously
manuscript
which this
equally
testimony
this
confirms
as quite
establishes
that
some conunents about Rameau's theory
is,
more than a year prior
222.
that
sur
in the preceding
the Essai was once a
Rousseau first
devised
about music.
Indeed - though
222
- I now see that the
improbable
the Discours
too.
to the publication
musique, Rousseau had already
subject
which shows that
a
might have upon
and meaning of the Discours
work to embrace a section
regarded
material
my remarks on that
For the same evidence
chapter.
however, to include
drafted
See pp. 309-310 above.
319
initially
By the spring
of 1754, that
of the Erreurs
an account
contained
sur la
of the manner in which
�the natural
corrupt
melodies
of primitive
men must have degenerated
harmonies of modern culture,
and it is clear
into the
from the explicit
re=erence to Rameau which appears in one of the surviving passages of
.
223
this account
that Rousseau had planned his own attack of at least a
few =eatures
challenged
of the master's
him,
musical doctrines
The critique
in that
between euphonic sound and atonal
even before
Rameau had
passage of Rameau's distinction
noise in fact
pertains
directly
to
some observations
in his Demonstration du principe de l'harmonie of
224
.
175C,
and we are therefore
able to ascertain
that the Discours sur
l'inegalite
text,
was originally
whose very title,
intended
to be sure,
to incorporate
Rousseau must certainly
in mind when he termed the Ms R 60 Du Principe
If we suppose,
moreover,
that
a refutation
in its
first
of this
have had
de la Melodie. 225
draft
version
the
passage
was prefixed by much the same material which comes before it in
226
the Ms R 60,
then it would appear that Rousseau's initial
aim in his
section
on music in the Discours was to oppose the general
Rameau had advanced in the Demonstration
In that
work Rameau had rehearsed
upheld on many occasions
about the origin
a proposition,
thesis
that
of melody,
which he had already
before, 227 that melody, together
with every
223.
See the appendix, note 188.
224.
See the appendix, note i.
225.
:he resemblance between the titles
of Rarneau's printed work and
Rousseau's manuscript was first noticed in 1912 by Lanson in his 'L'Unite
de la pensee de Rousseau' (see notes 163 and 164 above), though Lanson
later abandoned his view that the Essai sur l'ori~ine
des langues might
initially
have been conceived as a reply to the Demonstration following
the publication
of Masson's evidence that at first the Essai had actually
been a part of the second Discours.
It is a curious fact that Rousseau's
remark in his projected preface (seep.
304 above) about the similarity
("aux deux mots pres que j'ai retranches")
between the titles
of Rameau's
Erreurs sur la musique dans l'Encyclopedie
and his own Erreurs de
M. Rameau sur la musique applies equally to the relation
between these
other titles.
226.
See the appendix, pp. 447-448 from note 177.
227.
See pp. 269-270 above,
320
�one of our harmonic modes and intervals,
nance of a 'corps
generateur
sonore'
was engendered
or 'son fondamental'.
& ordonnateur
de toute
by the reso-
"Ce principe
la Musique",
unique,
he wrote,
ne resonne pas plutot qu'il engendre en meme terns
d'ou naissent
toutes les proportions
continues,
l'harrnonie,
la Melodie, les Modes, les Genres, &
jusqu'aux moindres regles necessaires
la
pratique.228
a
Thus in the Demonstration
which he regarded
rise
everywhere
as universally
Rousseau,
true
"premiers
own physical
for his part,
introduced
he continued,
gives
of harmony and the progressions
principes
principles
a canon of music
and which,
to both the proportions
of melody, with these
having their
he yet again presented
Mathematiques",
in turn,
grounded "dans la nature
the central
section
11
•
229
of the Ms R 60
with the remark that
la Melodie ... pur ouvrage de la nature ne doit ... son
origine a l'harmonie,
ouvrage et production de
l'art.230
It was therefore
necessary
to disentangle
the relation
and harmonic music which Rameau had confused
and to locate
source of melody, not in the light
of the composer's
rather
themselves.
with reference
to the facts
between melodic
the natural
speculations,
but
Recherchons, s'il y a moien, la veritable
origine
de la melodie, et voyons si l'idee
que M. Rameau
en a congue s'accorde
celle que nous fournit
l'exacte
observation
des faits.2 31
a
Demonstration du :erinci:ee
228.
also pp. 184 and 196.
Ibid., p. 197.
229.
de l'harmonie,
230.
See the appendix,
231.
See note 201 above and the appendix,
CTWR,III,
p. 447.
321
p. 448.
p. 176.
See
�This is the task which Rousseau undertook,
begin his passage
on the degeneration
if my suppositions
about the genesis
same words, or others
the Discours
like
all
the postulates
the surviving
I have put rorward
evidence,
of the origin
a critique
of Rameau which was first
est draft
entitled
before,
sur l'inegalite
of a reply
comprises
that
dealt
that
to the Erreurs
of
preface.
of
if
for
warranted
by
Rousseau's
the third
version
of
in 1754 as a section
with the Demonstration
was promptly struck
form it was in 1755 made part
du
out of the
of the earli-
sur la musique, which Rousseau later
In 1761, or perhaps
it was withdrawn from the definitive
Examen, only to be incorporated
comprehensive
then the
chapters
complex affair.
formulated
the Examen de deux principes,
finally,
And
in his projected
then it follows
That section
in an adapted
are correct,
here are actually
of music there
de l'harmonie.
Discours,and
text
and nineteenth
to have been a fairly
discussion
Rrincipe
of that
to which he refers
manuscript
of the Discours
of music, in the Ms R 60,
of the eighteenth
the Essai seems, then,
the words which
them, must also have begun the fragment
sur l'inegalite
The composition
and these
version
just
of the
again at about the same time in a more
essay on the origins
of both music and language, 232
232,
It is perhaps appropriate
at this point to contrast these speculations about the genesis of the Essai with those put forward by Jansen
more than ninety years ago,
For until the 1970s Jansen was undoubtedly
the best-informed
of all scholars about the contents of Rousseau's
musical manuscripts,
and he may still
be -granted pride of place insofar
as the discovery and initial
publication
of the projected preface to the
Essai, as well as the first transcription
of any passage in the Ms R 60,
were'""""allachieved by him (see notes 158 and 165 above).
In his study
Jansen took account of Rousseau's remark that the Essai had originally
been a fragment of the second Discours (though for no good reason he
described it as a set of chapters which Rousseau had written in 1753),
and he observed, too, that the later work was conceived as a critique
o~
Rameau which, in the light of the correspondence with Malesherbes (see
note 196 above)~ must have been completed around 1760-61.
But because
he imagined that the fragment was devoted to a discussion
of the origin
of language alone it never occurred to him that it might also be concerned
with music, and he therefore
took no notice of the fact that when Rousseau
speaks of the original
version of the Essai in his projected preface he
322
�The main point
the surviving
first-draft
Ms R 60 show that
to include
fragments
Rousseau
a lengthy
was designed
which I wish to stress
to challenge
We know from his Confessions
put his
his
ideas
mitting
views in proper
order
planned
on the genesis
certain
that
features
is that
section
of the
the second Discours
of melody in music which
of the theory
Rousseau often
and that
in many ways, sometimes
however,
of the central
originally
passage
here,
struggled
he refashioned
through
several
of Rameau.
hard to
and reconstituted
works,
before
sub-
them to print.
Mes idees s'arrangent
dans ma tete avec la plus incroyable difficulte.
Elles y circulent
sourdement;
elles
jusqu'a m'emouvoir, m'echauffer,
me donner
y fermentent
des palpitations,
et au milieu de toute cette emotion je
ne vois rien nettement;
je ne saurois ecrire un seul
mot, il faut que j'attende.
Insensiblement
ce grand
mouvement s'appaise,
ce cahos se debrouille;
chaque
chose vient se mettre a sa place, mais lentement et apres
une longue et confuse agitation .... Mes manuscrits
ratures,
barbouilles,
m~les, iDdechiffrables
attestent
la peine
qu'ils
m'ont Coutee.
11 n'y en a pas un qu 1 i1 ne
quatre ou cinq fois avant de le
m'ait fallu transcr¼re
donner a la presse.L 33
points to the same fragment which he reformulated
in his first
draft of the
Examen de deux!)rincipes.
The account of the development of the Essai that
Jansen offers,
then, is rather odd, and this for three reasons:
firstly,
because he overlooks the intermediate
draft of the fragment which shows the
connection
of the Essai to Rameau's ideas most clearly;
secondly,
because
he stipulates
that since the work was largely written around 1760 it must
have been devised as a reply to the Code de musique pratique
which appeared
in that year;
and thirdly,
because he supposes that when Rousseau prepared
his final version he was reminded of his earlier
reflections
about language,
and - perceiving
that these would now be relevant
to a critique
of Rameau he then added to the fragment some new sections
about music, in this way
completing his essay on both subjects,
Thus, writes Jansen (p. 255), the
"ganze Reihe von Capiteln"
of Rousseau's
second Discours or, alternatively,
his "Aufzeichnungen
von 1753" - pertaining
to the "Ursprung der Sprachen" had been "zu ausgedehnt"
for that work, and Rousseau therefore
left it
"unbenutzt".
When Rameau "auskramte" his ideas about harmony in the Code
de musique pratique
of 1760, Rousseau was "erinnert"
of his fragment:
"Er
uberarbeitete
sie, fiigte einige Abschnitte
iiber die Tonkunst hinzu und
betitelte
das Ganze:
'Essai sur le principe
de la melodie',
oder sich
des langues ou il est parle
nachher genauer fassend:
'Essai sur l'origine
de la melodie et de l'imitation
musicale',"
233.
Confessions,
O.C.I, pp. 113-114.
Rousseau also comments here that
the order which stems from the confusion of his thoughts and papers resembles
the course followed by an Italian
opera, in which, from a general "desordre
desagreable .... peu a peu tout s 'arrange".
323
�The passage
morals,
about melody - conceived
developed
as part
of an essay on language
initially
as part
of a study of music,
- must surely
he had in mind when making these
among the manuscripts
But if that
proved in the end to be too long and out of place
had clearly
filled
For even in its
beginning.
tion
an appropriate
of Rousseau's
pleasures,
general
customs,
progress
in his writings
The birth
and development
of art
the world of social
rigidly
artificial
duties
that
and culture,
standards
the speechless
striking
artificial
of the practices,
mark the illusory
of man, of which the fullest
is,
sur l'inegalite.
comprise a crucial
of taste
in Rousseau's
theory,
system to that
relations
that
undertakings
the
of the fixed
whose true
and
If in society
are maintained
on the other
through
purpose they do not
hand, the same men are
which have never had any meaning at all
vocal content.
The abstract
tones of the modern scale
which, according
to
which we must have come to accept
a parallel
to music,
element
which in turn form a counterpart
example among human artifacts
and culture
together
so that,
by harmonic relations
because they lack all
apart
in the
which we have come to adopt in the other.
and now-silent
it
it encompasses an illustra-
decadence
institutions,
comprehend, with regard
captivated
all
of music, that
men are bound by hierarchical
once-verbal
place there
can be found in the Discours
in the one sphere constitute
binding
version
passage
in the Discours,
argument about the origins
and the real
exposition
in the evolution
final
and values
of society
and assigned
on
and completed as part
have figured
reflections.
of a thesis
intervals
provide
of the cleavages
to Rousseau,
divide
persons
that
set
a particularly
in both society
senselessly
into
groups.
In the previous
second Discours
views of Buffon,
chapter
I tried
was formed largely
the linguistic
to show how the printed
as a confutation
ideas
324
of Condillac,
text
of the
of the anthropological
and the speculations
�about war and property
set forth
I hope I have now established
first
to challenge
exponent
that
the philosophy
the work was also
section
writings
doctrines
of the Ms R 60 ties
of Rousseau - the Discours
de deux principes,
and the Essai
conceived
at
of Rameau, who was the foremost
of the most advanced musical
The central
lished
by Hobbes and Locke, respectively.
together
of Rousseau's
three
sur l'inegalite,
sur l'origine
day.
of the pubthe Examen
des langues - all
of
which were designed initially
ro include a critique
of Rameau's
234
theory.
That critique
survived as a dominant feature of the
'234.
The t,hirteenth
fragment connected by Jansen (see pp. 466-467 and
note 158 above) to the Ms R 60 also contains a rebuttal
of Rameau's claims,
but it could not have formed a part of the Discours since it includes a
reference
to the Erreurs sur la musique which was composed and published
later.
I believe,
however, that Jansen was right in his guess that
Rousseau conceived the passage at the time he was engaged in drafting
the
Ms R 60 (though it is not incorporated
anywhere in the text),
and it is a
curious fact, which indirectly
supports my argument here about the place
of Rousseau's musica.l ideas in the context of his social theory, that the
with first-draft
secnotebook in which it appears is fill.ed principally
tions of his political
writings,
in particular,
of the Lettres de lamontagne
and the article
'Economie politique'.
The passage (Neuchatel ~$ R 16,
p. 69.ii) reads as follows:
"j'ai par tout fait usage du systeme de
~l. Rameau, je l'ai
partout nomme avec eloge / J'ai fait des objections,
sans doute, <M. Rameau <[et)> faloit-il
sacrifier
le bien de l'art
a> [le
bien de l'art
l'exigeoit,
M. Rameau <se croit> (veut-il)
qu'on le croye
inf'aillible
ou <et> faut-il]
adopter jusqu'a sez erreu=-s.
<Mais> [si) je
egards qu'on pourroit avoir
les ai <faites>
[relevees c'est)
avec tousles
pour le plus grand h: 235 et sur lesquels M. Rameau m'a rendu plus de
qu'a lui meme s'il les attendoit
de ma part. / Quelles sont done
justice
de M. Rameau <pretend> [et) quels honneurs peuvent
les etranges pretentions
<done> le satisfaire
s'il n'est pas content de ceux qu<e>[i) <M. d'Alembert
(?)]> [lui sont rendus comme a
et moi lui rendons a l'envi> <[les editeurs
l' envi] dans l'Encyc.lopedie
<ou son art n 'occu> <ne d> <n 'occupe qu 'un des
derniers> <il> ignore-t-il
que son art n'.y tient qu'un des derniers rangs,
et qu'il <n'a>· [n'y tient lui meme] le premier <n'> dans son art que par
<ce que> [la defiance ou] ses precedes envers moi m'ont mis <en garde>
deference de M. d'Alembert et la
contre·mon propre avis, par l'extreme
mienne pour le gout de la nation, enfin parce que l'Encyclopedie
est faite
en france:
<q>[Q]ue M. Rameau [sache] que par tout ailleurs
<il n'est pas>
pas]> [seroit
[son nom) meme <nomme><[n'y seroit pas) <[n'y paroitroit
oublie] et que l'ouvrage
n'en vaudroit <pas moins> <que mieux> pas moins,"
See also the passage from the foreword to vol. VI of the Encyclopedie
(reprinted
in CTWR,V, p. 290) discussed on pp. 247-248 above.
235.
Abbreviation
for
'homme'.
325
�Examen and the Essai,
and this
fact
planned to have the two studies
of his collected
language
works.
was actually
the origins
appear together
constructed
236
about
which he with-
to emphasise here is that
of the same rejoinder
to
sur la musique of 1755, and which came subsequently
only later
sets
of objections
versions
of a reply,
of 1750, that
principe
de l'harmonie
Discours
sur l'inegalite.
substance
arguments
and the title
What I have tried
to comprise two distinct
themselves
in the same volume
of the Examen were to serve as the founda-
works, which once formed part
Rameau's Erreurs
why Rousseau
round his earlier
of music, and both the text
tion of the Essai.
explains
Indeed his account of the development of
drew from his rough draft
these
partly
to his views,
are
to the Demonstration
initially
figured
du
in the
I shall now turn to a closer study of the
of the argument as it appears
in the Essai
sur l'origine
des langues.
The account
concerned,
of music that
above all,
speech which underlies
animal behaviour,
of linguistic
institutions
with its
Rousseau develops
properties
the fundamental
and the enunciation
signs,
he maintains,
in the Essai
as a language.
difference
It is
between human and
of our thoughts
constitutes
in the form
the first
of the
which drew men together.
La parole distingue
l'homme entre les animaux: le
langage distingue
les nations entre elles;
on ne
connoit d'ou est un homme qu'apres qu'il a parle
.... Sitot qu'un homme fut reconnu par un autre
pour un ~re sentant pensant et semblable a lui,
le desir ou le besoin de lui communiquer ses
sentimens et ses pensees lui en fit chercher les
236.
See note 156 above.
326
is
�moyens.
Ces moyens ne peuvent se tirer que des
sens, les sculs instrumen!; par lesquels un homme
puisse agir sur un autre.
Voila done !'institution des signes sensibles
pour exprimer la
pensee. 237
Yet the expression
of our sentiments
the intonations
of our speech,
phrases,
and accents
tones,
some sense
or purpose
Each person's
W?Ythat
snarling
the first
cadences
figures
which would have been required
upon the vocal sounds that
threats
sentiments
articulations
through
upon
for only music could supply those
or cries
to bestow
were produced
of rage were vociferated
depended mainly upon his use of the tongue and palate,
his more tender
all
must have depended initially
were softened
by the glottis.
by men.
in a
while
In general
of the human race were shaped from the
which men voiced their
passions,
so that
the syllabic
of both speech and song have a common origin.
Avec les premieres voix se formerent les-premieres
articulations
ou les premiers sons, selon le genre
de la passion qui dictoit
les uns ou les autres.
La colere arrache des cris mena~ans que la langue
et le palais articulent;
mais la voix de la
tendresse
est plus deuce, c'est la glote qui la
modifie, et cette voix devient un son.
Seulement
les accens en sont plus frequens ou plus rares,
J.es inflexions
plus ou moins aigiies selon le
sentiment qui s'y joint,
Ainsi la cadence et les
sons naissent
avec les sillabes,
la passion fait
parler tousles
organes, et pare la voix de tout
leur eclat:
ainsi les vers les chants la parole
ont une origine commune.238
237.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. i, p. 27.
The suggestion
in
this passage that speech must have initially
consisted
of verbal signs
through which the thoughts of men might be expressed seems to be a departure
from Rousseau's stand against the views of Condillac in the Discours sur
l'inegalite
to the effect that speech must also have been necessary for t~e
very fc~mation of our thoughts (see eh. III, pp. 169-175 and especially
the
passage from the Discours, O.C.III,
p. 147 cited on p. 172).
Derrida (see
De la grammatologie,
pp. 327-328) has argued forcefully
that in this passage
speech, which is universally
natural to man, is set apart from language,
which is specific
to nations,
but the apparent - albeit minor - inconsistency
with the Discours remains, insofar as it is speech to which Rousseau refers
there too.
238.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. x11, p. 139,
The distinction
between verse, song, ana speech to which Rousseau alludes in the concluding
line of this passage bears a striking
similarity
to his tripartite
division
327
�According to Rousseau,
therefore,
had a rhythmic and melodic character.
rather
than prose,
sung rather
came to be attached
to their
cal forms in which these
the first
languages
must have
They must have been poetic
than spoken,
and the significance
that
terms must have depended upon the musi-
were constructed.
les premieres harangues,
Les premieres histoires,
les premieres loix furent en vers;
la poesie fut
trouvee avant la prose .... Il en fut de meme de la
musique;
il n'y eut point d'aborq d'autre musique
que la melodie, ni d!autre melodie que le son
varie de la parole, les accens formoient le chant,
les quantites
formoient la mesure, et l'on parloit
autant par lessons
et par le rhythme gue par les
articulations
et les voix.
Dire et chanter ...
eurent la meme source.239
Primitive
expressions,
that
is~ must have derived
their
meaning from
between types of utterance
in the following remarks in Emile, Livre II,
O.C.IV, p. 404: "L'homme a trois sortes de voix;
savoir, la voix parlante
ou articulee,
la voix chantante ou melodieuse, et la voix pathetigue
ou
accentuee,
qui sert de langage aux passions et qui anime le chant et la
parole."
Since these reflections
already figure in the first extensive
draft, that is, the Manuscrit Favre, of Emile (see ibid.,
p. 149), and
since that text was for the most part compiled in the early months of 1759
(see ibid.,
p. lxxv, and Jimack, La Genese et la redaction de l''Emile',
pp. 38-39), and since, finally,
it appears that most of the Essai, apart
from chs. xviii and xviiii,
were composed after 1760 (see notes 196 and 219
above), I rather suspect that the passage in Emile antedates
that of the
Essai.
But Rousseau's quadruplex distinction
- in his article
'Voix' for
the Dictionnaire
de musique (see pp. 539-540) - was almost certainly
formulated later.
For that account of the differences
between 'un simple Son',
'un son articule',
'le Chant', and 'la declamation',
does not figure in any
of his contributions
to the Encyclopedie.
In fact the terms are taken
directly,
a§_Rousseau acknowledges, from Duclos's article
'Declamation des
anciens'
( see the Encyclopedie,
IV ( 1754), p. 687), where they figure in the
context of a commentary upon Denis Dodart's Memoire sur les causes de la
voix de l'homme et de ses differens
tons (see the Histoire de l'Academie·
Royale des Sciences.
Annee 1700 [Paris 1703), pp. 238-287).
Commenting upon
239.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xii, p. 1~1.
a passage from the first book of Strabo's Geographica (for which his immediate source was almost certainly
Father Bernard Lamy's La Rhetorique ou
l'art
de parler - see the fourth edition
[Paris 1701), I.xix, p. 108),
Rousseau adds here that "Dire et chanter .... ne furent d'abord que la meme
chose".
The propositions
that music and language have a common source,
and that poetic speech was developed before prose, can both be found in
several classical
writings.
They also figure prominently in the linguistic theories of the three perhaps best-known authorities
on this subject
328
�out of noise. 240
the chants which made utterances
Rousseau believed,
rather
than their
instance,
rather
have given rise
moreover,
practical
that
it was the passions
needs - their
than their
love and their
hunger and thirst
to language.
hatred,
for
- which must originally
11
1 1 origine
For
of men
des langues",
he writes,
n'est point due aux premiers besoins des hommes;
il seroit absurde que de la cause qui les ecarte
vint le moyen qui les unit.
D'ou peut done
venir cette origine?
Des besoins rnoraux, des
passions.
Toutes les passions rapprochent
les
hommes que la necessite
de chercher a vivre force
a se fuir.
Ce n'est ni la faim ni la soif, mais
l'amour la haine la pitie la colere qui leur ont
arrache les premieres voix.241
Thus before
harangue
men came to communicate ideas,
their
neighbours
dispositions
in an impulsive
which they all
must have been exuberant
to secure
in order
could only have expressed,
and before
shared.
a personal
manner, those
The vocal
and benign,
242
they began to
gestures
and since,
advantage,
sentiments
they
and
which they made
in their
earliest
in the eighteenth
century,
that is, Vico, Monboddo, and Herder.
(See
especially
the third (1744) edition of Vico's Scienza nuova, paragraphs
459-463; Monboddo's Of the Origin and Progress of Language, VI (1792),
II.iv,
pp. 136-137, and II.v, pp. 154-169;
and Herder's 1767 fragment
'Von den Lebensaltern
einer Sprache' and his 1772 Abhandlung uber den
Ursprung der Sprache, in Herders sammtliche Werke, I, pp. 151-155, and V,
pp. 57-59.)
But there is no evidence that Rousseau ever saw the work of
Vico - despite a fulsome academic controversy about this matter - and
though Monboddo and Herder were both well-acquainted
with the Discours
sur l'inegalite
(see eh. Ill, pp. 151-153 and notes 151, 172, and 214)
neither made any reference
at all to the Essai sur 1 1origine des langues.
As my concern here is not with conceptual parallels
but rather with the
affinities
between arguments in writings which are historically
related,
I shall have little
to say in connection with the Essai about the otherwise extremely important ideas of Vico, Monboddo, and Herder.
240.
See the Essai sur l'origine
the appendix, p. 448 and note i·
241,
Essai
sur l'origine
des langues,
des langues,
eh. ii,
eh. xiiii,
p. 161, and
p. 43.
242.
It is true, however, that according to Rousseau in the Essai men
are not naturally
inclined to show compassion to other creatvres
like
themselves.
Our sentiment of pity, he argues there, is displayed in the
ways that we identify
with the suffering
of others,
and he describes
it as
329
�societies,
they had not yet come to recognise
they must, in short,
their
separate
interests
have been enchanting.
a feeling of empathy for which, even at first,
we required a socially
formed and well-developed
sense of judgment and imagination.
Thus he
reflects,
in a well-known passage of the text (eh. ix, p. 93), "Les
La
affections
sociales ne se developent en nous qu'avec nos lumieres.
pitie,
bien que naturelle
au coeur de l'homme resteroit
eternellement
inactive sans l'imagination
qui la met en jeu.
Comment nous laissons
En nous transportant
hors de nous-memes;
en
nous emouvoir a la pitie?
souffrant.
Nous ne souffrons qu'autant
que
nous identifiant
avec l'etre
nous jugeons qu'il souffre;
ce n'est pas dans nous c'est dans lui que
nous souffrons.
Qu'on songe combien ce transport
suppose de connoissances acquises!
Comment imaginerois-je
des maux dont je n'ai nulle
idee?
Comment souffrirois-je
en voyant souffrir
un autre si je ne sais
si j'ignore
ce qu'il y a de commun entre lui et
pas meme qu'il souffre,
moi?
Celui qui n 'a jamais reflechi
ne peut etre ni clement ni juste ni
Celui
pitoyable:
il ne peut pas non plus etre mechant et vindicatif.
il est seul au milieu du genre
qui n'imagine rien ne sent que lui-meme;
humain".
As Starobinski
has observed (see O.C.III, pp. 1330-1331) this
passage does seem somewhat inconsistent
with the account of pity which is
(see eh. III, pp. 196-200).
set forth in the Discours ~ur l'inegalite
But Rousseau does not claim, in the Essai, that the compassion which men
feel for one another is due only to the social relations
that they form,
since the sentiment of pity, he remarks, is "naturelle
au coeur de l'homme".
His argument, rather,
is that this sentiment cannot be manifested and
between themselves and
developed until men ~ecognise the similarities
other creatures,
and for this reason I think that Starobinski
is mistaken
to suggest that in the Essai "Rousseau ... parait ... enclin a soutenir l'idee
hobbienne de la guerre de tous contre tous".
It is, says Rousseau, "la
crainte
et la foiblesse"
(eh. ix, p. 93) which bring men into conflict,
and not, as Hobbes had maintained (see eh. III, p. 185), competition,
diffidence,
and glory.
In view of the inconsistency
between the Essai
als_o__
and the Discours with regard to the concept of pity Starobinski
speculates
that the chapter of the Essai in which the passage appears if not the whole text - might have been drafted before the other work.
But since Rousseau later incorporated
almost exactly the same terms in the
fourth book of Emile (see O.C.IV, pp. 505-506 and 1467) the passage - if
it implies anything at all about the order in which he produced his works
composition (see Derrida, De
- suggests that the Discours is the earlier
la grammatologie,
pp. 243-272;
Porset, Essai sur l'origine
des langue's,"
and Goldschmidt, Anthropologie et politique,
'Rem~rque', pp. 16-24;
pp. 331-356).
In a review of the second Porset edition of the Essai sur
l'origine
des langues (see the Annales, XXXVIII (1969-71), p. 397)
Starobinski
has quite recently acknowledged that his earlier
statement was
an "hypothese irnprudente".
And in any case, whether pity is a natural or
social sentiment according to Rousseau, it seems quite clear that, in his
view, an individual
could only have expressed this sentiment after he had
whic~ were very much
come to recognise that all other men possessed traits
like his own.
330
�Dans cet age heureux ou rien ne marquoit les heures,
ales
compter; le terns n'avoit
d'autre
rien n'obligeoit
les
mesure que l'amusement et l'ennui .... La se firent
premieres fetes,
les pieds bondissoient
de joye, le
plus, la voix l'accompagnoit
geste empresse ne suffisoit
et le desir confondus
d'accens passionnes,
le plaisir
ensemble se faisoient
sentir
a la fois.
La fut enfin
le vrai berceau des peuples, et du pur cristal
des fontaines sortirent
les premiers feux de l'amour. 243
It was also
Rousseau's
were formed from a variety
remained
musical
the climate
for
however,
of intonated
long.
satisfied
In the southern
inclinations
and desires
on the other
by Nature,
that
hand,
that
gestures
was mild and the land fertile,
were largely
persons,
view,
while
our first
they could not all
regions
of the world,
have
where
the needs of men and women
and it was only in order
they began to sing
who were later
languages
driven
to convey their
to one another.
by fortuitous
Those
events 244
243.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. ix, p. 123.
If the fragment
of the Discours sur l' inegali te from which the Essai was developed had formed
a draft of eh. ix (see pp. 315-316 above and 349-372 belov1) one might be
tempted to connect this passage to the paragraph in the Discours (O.C.III,
pp. 170-171) where Rousseau describes
the state of primitive
society that
a l'homme" and in which "le Genre-humain etoit
must have been "le meilleur
fait pour ... rester
toujours".
It should in any case be noted here that
in his article
'Chant' for the Dictionnaire
de musique (pp. 83-84) Rousseau
later remarked that men do not chant by nature,
since true savages, mutes,
and infants are all marked by their lack of song:
"Le Chant ne semble pas
naturel a l'homme.
Quoique les Sauvages de l'Amerique chantent,
parce
Les Muets ne chantent
qu'ils parlent,
le vrai Sauvage ne chanta jamais.
point;
ils ne forment que des voix sans permanence, des mugissemens sourds
& ne chantent
que le besoin leur arrache .... Les enfans crient,
pleurent,
point.
Les premieres expressions
de la nature n'ont rien en eux de meloThe same point with regard to the cries of children
dieux ni de sonore."
also appears in Emile, Livre II, O.C.IV, p. 404.
Rousseau's concession
to the chants of American Indians is based upon Mersenne's account - which
is in turn drawn from the work of Jean de Lery - of 'Trois Chansons des
Ameriquains'
in his Harmonie universelle
(see II.ii,
p. 148 of the 1963
Paris reprint
of the 1636 edition).
In plate N of the Dictionnaire
de
musique a transcription
of these three, allegedly
Brasilian,
tunes is misdescribed as a 'Chanson des Sauvages du Canada'.
See also Derrida, De la
grammatologie,
pp. 281-284.
244.
See the passage from the Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. ix,
p. 113, cited in eh. III, note 220.
Rousseau suggests in the Essai that,
aside from natural
catastrophes
such as floods,
earthquakes,
and volcanic
eruptions,
still
more cosmic phenomena, including
perhaps even divine
intervention,
may also have played some initial
part in bringing men
together.
Hence, he writes (eh. ix, p. 109), "Celui qui voulut que l'homme
fut sociable
toucha du doigt l'axe du globe et l'inclina
sur l'axe de
l'univers.
Ace leger mouvement je vois changer la face de la terre et
331
�to live
in northern
to survive
according
of terms
to sing.
and poor soil
to Rousseau
with
any opportunity
pleasures.
had always to contend with Nature in order
and must, as a consequence,
they had learnt
climate
areas
have begun to work even before
The effect
upon their
would certainly
speech of a harsh
have been considerable,
they were very soon obliged
which they could communicate their
to devise
The linguistic
a language
rules
to construct
a set
needs and had hardly
for the expression
of the first
245 for
inhabitants
of their
of the north
decider la vocation du genre humain ... je vois edifier
les Palais et les
Villes;
je vois naitre les arts les loix le commerce; je vois les
se dissoudre ... je vois les hommes rassembles
peuples se former, s'etandre,
sur quelques points de leur demeure pour s'y devorer mutuellement et faire
un affreux desert du reste du monde digne monument de l'union sociale et de
l'utilite
des arts".
Grange (see 'L'Essai sur l'origine
des langues dans
ses rapports avec le Discours sur l'in~galit€',
pp. 301-303) has rightly
observed that the first part of this passage must have been inspired by
some remarks about "l'axe de la terre" which God "inclina quelque peu vers
les etoiles
du nord" that appear in the third volume of the abbe Antoine
Pluche's Le Spectacle de la nature of 1735.
245.
The influence of climate upon the nature of language constitutes
the dominant theme of chs. viii-xi
of the Essai sur l'origine
des langues.
The subject attracted
the attention
of many prominent Enlightenment
thinkers,
from whose writings Rousseau undoubtedly drew some of his own
inspiration
too (see especially
the references
cited in the appendix,
note h).
His principal
sources may well have been that section of the
abbe Jean-Bapciste
Dubos's Reflexions critiques
sur la poesie et sur la
peinture (first
published in 1719) entitled
'Le pouvoir de l'air
sur le
corps humain prouve par le caractere
des Nations' (see the 1733 Paris
edition,
II.xv,
pp. 251-276) and the following passage from Lamy's La
Rhetorique ou l'art
de parler,
I.xv, pp. 81-82:
"La difference
du temperament & des climats fait qu'on ne prononce pas de la meme maniere.
Ainsi ceux memes qui avoient dans le commencement le meme langage avant
leur separation,
purent dans la suite prononcer si differellDTlent les memes
mots, qu'ils ne parurent plus les memes.... C'est ainsi qu'il y e~t sur la
terre autant de differentes
langues que de contrees .... Chaque peuple a ses
manieres de prononcer, selon la qualite•du
climat.
Ceux du Nort sont
portez a se servir de mots composez de consones fortes,
qui se prononcent
du fond du gosier. 11 Monboddo was later to make a point very similar to
that of Rousseau about the distinction
between the first southern and
northern languages when he remarked (Of the Origin and Progress of
Language, VI, II. iv, pp. 137-138) "that language and the race of men came
from the south and east.
Now, the people there are much more musical
than in the north and west, where they appear to have almost quiti! lost
those musical talents,
which they brought with them from the south and
east:
And the further north they have gone, the more they have lost of
those talents".
332
�were thus established
aid possible,
but the common ventures
embark through
sense forced
features
so as to make their
the articulation
without
and use of signs
the assistance
terrain
undertakings
and mutual
upon which they were enabled
upon them by the severity
of an inhospitable
joint
were themselves
of the elements
that
to
in a
and by the
allowed no person
to survive
of his neighbours.
Forces de s'approvisioner
pourl'hivervoila
les habitans
dans le cas de s'entre
aider, les voila contraints
entre eux quelque sorte de convention.
d'etablir
Quand les courses deviennent impossibles
et que la
l'ennui les lie autant
rigueur du froid les arrete,
que le besoin.
Les Lapons ensevelis
dans leurs
glaces, les Esquimaux le plus sauvage de tousles
dans leurs cavernes et
peuples se rassemblent l'hiver
l'ete
ne se connoissent plus.
Augmentez d'un degre
leur developement et leur lumieres, les voila reunis
pour toujours. 246
Our original
languages,
of southern
peoples
affections,
but the languages
which subsequently
to the constraints
to the character
roundings,
of men.
our needs were developed
in an inclement
and ungenerous
our passions.
While in the south,
rather,
overheard
inevitably
languages
and were enlivened
become either
246.
- the dulcet
have been confronted
which,
Essai
were born of the musical
whose speech and song expressed
produced as a response
external
then,
by sonorous
monotonous,
sur l'origine
imposed by a Nature that
in bountiful
was
sur-
in the other,
it was our needs which gave rise
therefore,
of love,
by men who cried
in the north
one would
out for help.
And
must, in the other
modulations
region,
or shrill.
des langues,
to
one might have heard - or
were formed of gentle
tones,
333
own natural
in the north were
from our passions;
melodies
or gruff,
arose
In the one case,
world,
in the one region,
their
ebullience
eh. ix, pp. 113-115.
have
�Dans les climats meridionaux ou la nature est
pi'odigue les besoins naissent des passions,
dans les pays froids· ou elle est avare les
passions naissent des besoins,
et les langues,
tristes
filles
de la necessite
se sentent de
leur dure origine .... dans ces lieux ou la
et
terre ne donne rien qu'a force de travail
ou la source de la vie semble etre plus dans
les bras que dans le coeur .... le premier rnot
ne fut pas ... aimez-moi, mais, aidez-moi ....
Voila selon mon opinion les causes physiques
caracterles plus generales de la difference
istique des primitives
langues.
Celles du
midi durent etre vi ves, sonores, accentuees,
eloquentes,
et souvent obscures a force
d'energie:
celles du Nord du.rent etre sourdes
rudes, articulees,
criardes,
monotones,
claires
a force de mots
plustot que par une
47
bollT)e construction.2
Now this
distinction
of the world is central
development
directly,
between the northern
to Rousseau's
theory.
and southern
cultures
For the historical
of both our language and our music could be attributed
in his view, to the manner in which the peoples
must have attacked
and, in due course,
overrun,
of the north
the settlements
of the
247.
Ibid.,
eh. x, pp. 129 and· 131, and eh. xi, p. 135.
For a discussion of these remarks see Derrida, De la grammatologie, pp. 318-322.
In his Lettre sur la musique fran9oise
(La Querelle des Bouffons, I,
pp. 735-736) Rousseau treats modern Italian
as if it were the contemporary language of love, and he describes
it in terms that are similar to
those which he attaches here to the original
southern tongues:
"C'est
le langage de l'amour ... vif, bouillant,
entrecoupe,
& tel qu'il convient
aux passions impetueuses,"
He was, in any case, not the only writer in
the eighteenth
century to draw a distinction
between the industrious
labourers of the north, on the one hand, and the frolicsome peoples of
the south, on the other.
Much the same point can be found, for instance,
in Diderot's
(or Saint-Lambert's)
article
'Legislateur'
(see the
Encyclopedie,
IX, pp. 357-358, and eh. II, note 43).
In his Esprit des
loix, Livre XIV, eh. ii, moreover (Oeuvres completes, I.i, p. 308),
Montesquieu had also made a similar observation:
"Dans les pays froids,
on aura peu de sensibilite
pour les plaisirs;
elle sera plus grande dans
les pays temperes;
dans les pays chauds, elle sera extreme."
According
to Montesquieu, however (Esprit des loix, XXIV.v, Oeuvres completes,
I.ii,
p. 86), if the peoples of the north were less susceptible
to
pleasures
they were at the same time less likely to be ruled by others:
"C'est que les peuples du nord ont & auront toujours un esprit
& de liberte,
que n'ont pas les peuples du midi;
& qu'une
d'independance
religion
qui n'a point de chef visible,
convient mieux a l'independance
du climat, que celle qui en a un."
See also the passage from the Discours
sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
pp. 143-144 cited on p. 358 below.
334
�south.
In a passage
the Ms R 60 he remarks
ticular
south,
that
already
that
and desire,
guttural
since
taken precedence
those
languages
over the rhythmic
thundering,
but not to soften
and the peoples
whom they conquered
piercing
chants.
distinct
the captive
slackened
transformed
murmurs, all
nal vernacular
have
which had
These men
before.
could only employ protracted
of their
were soon obliged
to make the tones
consonants,
to imitate
of northern
of shouts
into dialects
the sweetness,
measure,
and cries,
of drawling
and grace
their
speech more
of the south must actually
language
it
intonations
the sharpness
interlocutors
the pace of this
progressively
droning
In order
world the
men must eventually
and melodic
vowels to offset
in parof the
of the Mediterranean
voices
of
had been born of passion
of human sentiments
nasal
invasions,
civilisations
that
speech of northern
served for the expression
with harsh,
of the ancient
with the conquest
and staccato
in the middle section
it was the barbarian
of the Roman remnants
which destroyed
figures
have
and as they
croaks
and
of their
origi-
songs came to be lost.
qui detruisit
les progres
Enfin arriva la catastrophe
de l'esprit
humain .... L'Europe, inondee de barbares
et asservie par des ignorans perdit ... la langue
harmonieuse perfectionnee.
Ces hommes grossiers
que
le nerd avoit engendres accoutumerent
insensiblement
toutes les oreilles
a la rudesse de leur organe ....
Toutes leurs articulations
etant ~ussi apres que leurs
voix etoient nazales et sourdes, ils ne pouvoient
donner qu'une sorte d'eclat
a leur chant, qui etoit
de renforcer
le son des voyelles pour couvrir
l'abondance
et la durete des consones.
Ce chant
bruyant ... obligea ... les peuples subjugues qui les
imiterent
de ralentir
tousles
sons pour les faire
entendre.
L'articulation
penible et lessons
renforces
concoururent
egalement a chasser de la melodie tout
sentiment de mesure et de rhythme .... Le chant ne fut
bientot plus qu'une suite ennuyeuse et lente de sons
trainans
et cries,
sans douceur, sans mesure, et sans
grace.248
248.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xviiii,
pp. 189-191.
Cf. the
appendix, pp. 457-458.
In the paragraph which precedes this passage
335
�The mellifluous
crushed
languages
by the clamour of those
had the facility
their
meaning,
once figured
and, as Rousseau observed
sur l'inegalite
expressions
came in this
have been
could not sing or no longer
Men began to chatter
in the Discours
ment of primitive
who either
to do so, and as a consequence
speech were set apart.
all
of men must therefore
our music and our
while their
songs lost
in terms which probably
itself,
the semantic
way to be divorced
ele-
from
music.
La melodie commen~ant a n'etre plus si adherente au
discours prit insensiblement
une existence
a part,
et la musique devint plus independante des paroles.
Alors aussi cesserent
peu a peu ces prodiges qu'elle
n'etoit
que l'accent
et
avoit produits lorsqu'elle
l'harmonie de la poesie, et qu'elle
lui donnoit sur
les passions cet empire que la parole n'exer9a plus
dans la suite que sur la raison. 249
According
to Rousseau,
in fact,
between our melody and diction
and on the other.
it must have been just
that
produced,
this
division
on the one hand, harmony,
prose.
As the communities
in which men lived
grew larger
and their
Rousseau makes clear that it is principally
classical
Latin, already less
musical than ancient Greek, which suffered this fate.
To be sure,
several other Enlightenment thinkers had already advanced that claim before
him.
Condillac,
for instance,
in his Essai sur l'origine
des connoissances
humaines (II.i.5,
§56, OPC, I, pp. 76-77), had stated that "le climat n'a
pas permis aux peuples froids et flegmatiques
du Nord de conserver les
accens et la quantite
que la necessite
avoit introduits
dans la prosodie a
la naissance des langues.
Quand ces barbares eurent inonde l'empire remain
et qu'ils
en eurent conquis toute la partie occidentale,
le latin,
confondu
avec leurs idiomes, perdit son caractere.
Voila d'ou nous vient le defaut
d'accent que nous regardons comme la principale
beaute de notre prononciation:
cette origine ne previent pas en sa faveur".
249.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xviiii,
p. 189.
See also the
appendix, pp. 456-457 and notes 295-307.
My reasons for regarding this
passage as originally
a part of that fragment of the Discours sur
l'inegalite
to which Rousseau refers in his 'Projet de preface'
are offered
on pp. 316-318 above.
336
�cares
and aspirations
to per=orm a constantly
each other
A vocabulary
developed
of responsibilities
so that
of verbs alone,
artificial
charm.
heart
multiplied,
250
and their
meanings just
were replaced
must have called
increasing
their
tasks.
must have been
neighbours
by the force
vocal sounds came to be endowed with
insofar
as they were deprived
came to be supplanted
by instructions
by ideas,
more clear
of their
impulses
initial
of the
of the mind, and men began to
as they employed an idiom of discourse
but also more exacting,
upon
number of specific
and obligations
men could subjugate
Sentiments
languish
individuals
and precise,
that
was more exact
yet at the same time
more hollow and cold.
A mesure que les besoins croissent que les affaires
le langage
s'embrouillent
que les lumieres s'etendent
change de caractere;
il devient plus juste et moins
passionne;
il substitiie aux sentimens les idees, il
ne parle plus au coeur mais a la raison.
Par-la-meme
l'accent
s'eteint
l'articulation
s'eten9,
la langue
devient plus exacte plus claire,
mais plus trainante
plus sourde et plus froide.251
With the emergence of prose,
Men who followed
in effect,
the same moral rules
languages
were equally
became prosaic.
required
to adopt
250.
In eh. ix of the Essai (see the remarks from pp. 105 and 107 cited
on p. 356 below) Rousseau argues that mankind must have passed through
three main epochs, each of which was centred largely round a different
occupation.
Only in the third of these epochs, characterized
by the
agricultural
labour of man in civil society, did it become possible to
form a true vocabulary of moral terms, for our concepts of duty and obligation, in Rousseau's view, must originally
have been developed in connection with the ownership of land (see the passage from the Discours sur
l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 164 cited in eh. III, p. 189).
Agricultural
peoples, then, could be subjugated by the verb, in the sense that all
individuals.in
an agrarian society might be bound by the promises they
had made to respect the property of others.
They would therefore
be
tied to keep to their word and in bondage to the "illocutionary
force",
as J. L. Austin described it (see How to do things with Words [Oxford
1962), pp. 115-116 and 145 ), of their own utterances.
251.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. v, p. 55.
Inspired largely
by the physical and anatomical researches of Dodart (see note 238 above),
Rousseau drew a fuller and more general distinction
between 'la Voix de
1Vou:• for
parole' and 'la Voix d~ Chant' in his article
the Dictiormaire
de musique (see especially
pp. 540-543).
337
�the same conventions
to their
social
obligations
become increasingly
believed
that
in their
grammar, and as they grew accustomed
their manner of speaking must also have
monotonous and dull.
Rouaseau, indeed,
the contemporary languages of central
Europe were still
marked very clearly
and northern
by the influence
of barbaric
prose.
Le fran9ois, l'Anglois, l'Allemand sont le langage
prive des hommes qui s'entre aident, qui raisonnent
entre ewe de sang-froid,
ou de gens emportes qui
se fachent. 252
Even modern Italian,
he claimed - though it remained more amenable
to musical constructions
suffered
than most of the European tongues - had
much the same fate.
Les langues modernes de l'Europe sont toutes du plus
au moins dans le memecas: Je n'en excepte pas meme
l'italienne.
La langue italienne
non plus que la
fran9oise n'est point par elle-meme une langue
musicale.
La difference
est seuleme·nt que l 'une
se prete a la musique, et que l'autre
ne s'y prete
pas.253
The speech of men was thus transformed
had been lost,
our earliest
deprived
rise
its passionate
inflexions
and at the same time the vocal cadences through which
enthusiasms
of their
and affections
significance.
to song were ·stifled,
relations
until
had been enunciated
The sentiments
repressed,
of men changed under the
were
which had once given
and forgotten
as the' social
bondage of barbarian
rule and
Ibid., eh. xi, p. 135.
The idea that such languages might
252.
nonetheless
retain a musical character,
each in its appropriate
way, ~as
treated with derision by Rousseau already in his 'Fragment biographique'
(see O.C.I, p. 1117).
It should be
253.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues. eh. vii, p. 81.
noted that Rousseau here departs somewhat from the position about the
Italian
language which he had upheld in his Lettre sur la musique fran9oise
(seep.
254 and note 46 above).
338
�agricultural
labour,
and primitive
melodies
view, moreover,
could only have occurred
form of music was complete.
give a melodic
character
to wonder whether
directly
which marked at least
emitting
our cries
natural
corruption
of a different
intonations
to focus our attention
that
execution
of several
a noise
devised
sounds produced
We must
upon the consonance
we employed when
that
chords,
that
for
the simultaneous
which could be more agree-
which was made by the articulation
Our first
to
they began
and harmony came to be fabricated
discovered
the other.
that
of the human voice.
time when some individuals
one after
of the earliest
kind could be obtained
the first
able than that
of harmonic
men had ceased
propensities
a few of the pitches
and calls,
the invention
For it was only after
satisfactions
by chance alone,
that
when this
to their
from the senseless
have begun,
disjointed
o f our new1y-acquire. d prose. 254
It was Rousseau's
intervals
into
and drab to hear as the humdrum
sounds which must have been as dull
•
rever b erations
were turned
of the same tones
is,
must have been
by accident.
Le chant ainsi depouille
de toute melodie et consistant uniquement dans la force et la duree des sons dut
suggerer enfin les moyens de le rendre plus sonore
des consonances.
Plusieurs
voix
encore a l'aide
des sons d'une duree
trainant
sans cesse a l'unisson
illimitee
trouverent
par hazard quelques accords qui
renfor9ant
le bruit le leur firent
paroitre
agreable;
et ainsi commen9a la pratique
du discant et du
contrepoint.255
X, p. 901, Rousseau
254.
In his article
'Musique' for the Encyclopedie,
had already distinguished
ancient from modern music largely in terms of
the connection to poetry that had once been the central
feature of musical expression
but had now been lost:
"Le grand vice de notre mesure,
un peu celui de la langue, est de n'avoir pas assez de
qui est peut-etre
rapport aux paroles .... L'ancienne musique, toujours attachee a la Poesie,
la suivoit pas a pas, en exprimoit exactement le nombre & la mesure, &
ne s'appliquoit
qu'a lui donner plus d'eclat
& de majeste."
A study by
Duchez of 'Rousseau et "nos anciennes musiques"' which promises to be of
great importance was due to appear at the end of 1975 in the Revue de
musicologie;
I have not yet had an opportunity
to see this article.
255.
Essai sur l'origine
appendix, p. 458.
des langues,
339
eh. xviiii,
p. 193.
Cf. the
�Since these
ment, however,
manufactured
it was clear
noises
for Rousseau that
of Western music were a barbarous
entirely
emasculated
our first
language.
all
and gothic
the melodic
"On sait
And just
earliest
as poetry
adds in another
l'inegalite
vivid
planted
original
was lost
passage
by the lifeless
melodies
harmony, he
of concordant
modes and scales
maintains,
was governed
intervals
which
had served
substance
its
sur
naturally
speechless
of harmony.
of our
so too - he
in the Discours
of all
as
une invention
gave way to prose,
when it was rendered
had been inspired
that
as the semantic
which once figured
qualities
innovation
harmonie est
- our music came to be deprived
and spirited
from human senti-
the harmonic
expressions
que notre
.
,. 256 h e l aments.
got h ique,
locutions
were divorced
and sup-
For while our
by our own moral impetuosity,
only by the physical
principles
vibrations.
La melodie etant oubliee et l'attention
du musicien
s'etant
tournee entierement
vers l'har,nonie,
tout
les
se dirigea peu a peu sur ce nouvel objet;
genres, les modes, la gamme, tout re9ut des faces
nouvelles;
ce furent les successions
harmoniques
la marche des parties .... l'accent
qui reglerent
oral en ait souffert,
et ... la musique ait perdu pour
nous presque toute son energie.
Voila comment le
chant devint par degres un art entierement
separe de
la parole dont il tire son origine,
comment les
harmoniques des sons firent
oublier les inflexions
de la voix, et comment enfin, bornee a l'effet
purement phisique du concours des vibrations,
la musique
avoit
se trouva privee des effets morau.x qu'elle
produits quand elle etoit doublement la voix de la
nature.25 7
256.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xviii,
p. 181.
Cf. the
following remarks from Neuchatel Ms R 72, p. 27: "<L'> [notre] harmonie
est une invention gothique et barbare."
These very words were also
incorporated
by Rousseau in his article
'Harmonie' for the Dictionnaire
de musique (see note 257 below).
See also the Lettre sur la musique
fran9oise,
La Querelle des Bouffons, I, p. 716.
257.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xviiii,
p. 195. Cf. the
appendix, pp. 460-451.
This passage concludes eh. xvi iii of the Essai;
340
�It was impossible
patterns
of their
made acquainted
underlay
way.
asserts
with its
rules,
of gothic
were derived
in order
to be aroused
so that
alone,
unless
they were first
the laws of resonance
harmony had to be learnt
from the natural
now came to occupy a place
deliberations
dictionary
Rousseau,
from them could be appreciated
Music which was divorced
once expressed
tual
music,
the structure
chords that
for men to comprehend the new and artificial
to be certain
in the sphere
of the feelings
in him by arrangements
before
the
in the proper
impulses
and each person was obliged
~hich
that
it had
of intellecto consult
that
a
were supposed
of harmonic chords.
however - the variin the rough draft of the Discours sur l'inegalite,
ants of which are provided in the appendix, notes 369-397 - it continues
as in the Ms R 60 (at least up to note 417).
See also the Essai,
eh. xvii, p. 179, the passage from the Lettre sur la musiquefran9oise
cited in note 40 above, and the following passage from the article
'Harmonie' in Rousseau's Dictionnaire
de musique (pp. 241-242):
"Quand
on songe que, de tousles
peuples de la terre,
qui tous ont une Musique
& un Chant, les Europeens sont les seuls qui aient une harmonie, des
Accords, & qui trouvent ce melange agreable;
quand on songe que le monde
a dure tant de siecles,
sans que de toutes les Nations qui ont cultive
les Beaux-Arts, aucune ait connu cette harmonie;
qu'aucun animal,
qu'aucun oiseau, qu'aucun etre dans la Nature ne produit d'autre
Accord
que l'Unisson,
ni d'autre
Musique que la Melodie;
que les langues
orientales,
si sonores, si musicales;
que les oreilles
Grecques, si
delicates,
si sensibles,
exercees avec tant d'Art, n'ont jamais guide ces
peuples voluptueux & passionnes vers notre Harmonie; que, sans elle,
leur Musique avoit des effets si prodigieux;
qu'avec elle la notre en a
de si foibles;
qu'enfin
il etoit reserve a des Peuples du Nord, dont les
sont plus touches de l'eclat
& du bruit des voix,
organes durs & grossiers
que de la douceur des accens & de la Melodie des inflexions,
de faire
cette grand decouverte & de la donner pour principe a toutes les regles
de l'Art;
quand, dis-je,
on fait attention
a tout cela, il est bien
difficile
den~ pas soup~onner que toute notre Harmonie n'est qu'une
invention gothique & barbare dont nous ne nous fussions jamais avises,
si nous eussions ete plus sensibles
aux veritables
beautes de l'Art,
&a
la Musique vraiement naturelle."
For slightly
different
interpretations
of some of these (and a few other) passages in Rousseau's work about the
corrupt character
of harmony, see especially
Derrida, De la grammatologie,
pp. 301-304, and Verri, Origine delle lingue in Rousseau, pp. 126-131.
341
�Les plus beaux chants a netre gre toucheront toujours
mediocrement une oreille
qui n'y sera point accoutumee~
25
c'est une langue dont il faut avoir le Dictionnaire.
Melody had lost
its
intervalles
substitue
fut
strength,
With analytical
the full
corruption
had in fact
a la
finesse
dictionaries
that
des inflexions
their
original
abstracted
together.
In the one case our chants
was predominantly
ancient
apart
from the inflexions
harmonies,
rather
and a system
meaning and passion
of language
had been transformed,
and music
through
into a kind of music which
than vocal.
of speech - insofar
Thus while
which stood
as in classical
times
. modern Europe are
. . d260 - we in
were always conJoine
to tune our instruments
come to regard
of intervals
of no pure instrumentation
music had consisted
melody an d poetry
forced
instrumental
259
from the human voice which
been the sole medium of expression
of speechless
des
from speech and music from song
had earlier
the contrivance
11 •
For a mode of discourse
had each lost
come to be completely
and "le calcul
and the calculation
of both language
been accomplished.
of intonations
had also
Rousseau remarks,
by harmonic consonances
as the only constructions
that
which we have
are musically
correct.
258.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xiiii,
p. 155.
Cf. the
following passage from among the fragments about the history of morals
p. 558:
in Neuchatel Ms R 44 (ancienne cote 7868), p. 3, O.C.III,
"Chaque etat, chaque profession
a son dictionnaire
particulier
pour
exprimer en termes decens les vices qui leur sont propres."
259.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xviiii,
p. 187.
Cf. the
appendix, pp. 455-456.
In the Essai the word 'inflexions'
replaces the
original
'intonations'
of the Ms"""if60. As Derrida has observed (see
De la grammatologie,
p. 354) Rousseau speaks in the Reveries (O.C.I,
p. 1047) of the necessity
to conduct life itself
at an even pace, without
jumps or intervals:
"Il n'y faut ni un repos absolu ni trop d'agitation,
mais un mouvement uniforme et modere qui n'ait ni secousses ni intervalles."
See the following passage from the Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,
V, pp. 275-276:
"La raison pourquoi les anciens n'avoient
point de
Musique purement instrumentale,
c'est qu'ils
n'avoient
pas l'idee d'un
chant sans mesure, ni d'une autre mesure que celle de la Poesie."
This
is one of the few passages of the Examen which do not appear in the
Ms R 60.
260.
342
�Tousles
peuples qui ont des instrumens a cordes sont
forces de les accorder par des consonances, mais cPux
qui n'en ont pas ont dans leurs chants des inflexions
que nous nommons fausses parce qu'elles
n'entrent
pas
dans not:re sisteme et que nous ne pouvons les noter. 261
In the second case our speech,
to be delineated
in script
the decomposition
language.
into
d'ecrire
The art
of writing
contrary,
writing
its
connected
parts
tonal
spoiled
later
from those
of speech,
the medium of the prevailing
of the inspired
our language
tones
to such a great
on the
and was from the
As it developed
force
he continues.
what we say;
It arose
utterances.
263
de parler",
represent
speech.
than in virtue
dominates
from
Rousseau observes,
a celui
for the expressive
be communicated through
assembled
of an already
with needs which were different
own exactitude
words rather
point
does not truly
destroys
had come
la voix parlante
en uncertain
elementaires
soit vocales,
avec lesquelles
on puisse former
toutes les sillabes
imaginables.262
ne tient
to our earliest
Now it
elementary
prose,
characters
For our own manner of writing,
Yet "l'art
rise
through
by alphabetical
its
est de decomposer
nombre de parties
soit articulees,
tousles
mots et
start
reformulated
that
it
substituted
and it
came to
definitions
of
adopted
extent
gave
that
by writers.
we no longer
even speak but only read aloud to one another.
L'ecriture,
qui semble devoir fixer la langue est
precisement
ce qui l'altere;
elle ... substitue
l'exactitude
a l'expression.
L'on rend ses
sentimens quand on parle et ses idees quand on
261.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xviii,
p. 181.
See also the
Lettre sur la musique fran9oise,
La Querelle des Bouffons, I, pp. 681 and
685-686.
262.
Essa i sur 1' origine
263.
Ibid.,
des langues,
p. 61.
343
eh. v, p .. 5 7.
�ecrit.
En ecrivant on est force de prendre tous
les mots dans l'acception
commune; mais celui
qui parle varie les acceptions par les tons, il
les determine comme il lui plait .... On ecrit les
voix et non pas lessons:
or dans une langue
accentiiee ce sont lessons,
les accens, les
inflexions
de toute espece qui font la plus grande
energie du langage, et rendent une phrase,
d'ailleurs
commune, propre seulement au lieu ou
elle est.
Les moyens qu'on prend pour suppleer
a celui-la etendent, allol1€:ent la lnngue ecrite,
et passant des livres dans le discours enervent
la parole meme. En disant tout comme on
l'ecriroit
on ne fait plus que lire en parlant.264
Hence with the invention
tal
of writing
and the fabrication
of instrumen-
sounds we had removed the need for any human voice in the
production
of both language
means of self-expression
and music and had thereby
almost utterly
made our natural
redundant.
264.
Ibid.,·pp.
67-69.
These remarks, foreshadowed to a large extent
by some of the arguments in Plato's Phaedrus, are elaborated
further in
a fragment of Neuchatel Ms R 19 (ancienne cote 7843), pp. l4r and 15r,
which is printed in O.C.II, in connection with Rousseau's notes on
'Prononciation'
that figure on pp. 13v and 14v of the same manuscript.
See especially
the following passages (O.C.II, pp. 1249-1251) which I
have corrected
slightly
in accordance with the manuscript text, though
without here noting the many variants:
"Les langues sont faites pour
etre parlees,
l'ecriture
ne sert que de supplement a la parole .... Plus
l'art
d'ecrire
se perfectionne
plus celui de parler est neglige .... la
langue en se perfectionnant
dans les livres s'altere
dans le discours.
Elle est plus claire quand on ecrit et plus sourde quand on parle, la
sintaxe s'epure et l'harmonie se perd, la langue fran~oise devient de
jour en jour plus philosophique
et moins eloquente bientot elle ne sera
plus bonne qu'a lire et tout son prix sera dans les bibliotheques .... Il
est singulier
qu'a mesure que les lettres
se cultivent
que les arts se
multiplient
que les liens de la societe generale se resserrent,
la
langue se perfectionne
tant par l'ecr~ture
et si peu par la parole,
pourquoi les hommes en se rapprochant sont ils si soigneux de bien dire,
de l'art
de parler A distance,
et si peu de l'art
de parler de vive
voix?
C1 est que le discours prononce se noye au milieu de tant de parleurs et gue la celebrite
ne s'acquiert
que par les livres."
Much the
same point of view, moreover, is expressed in the notes on 'Prononciation'.
Thus, for instance,
Rousseau states there (O.C.II, p. 1252) that
"l'ecriture
n'est que la representation
de la parole, il est bizarre
qu'on donne plus de soins a determiner l'image que l'objet".
The main
fragment contains an imprecise reference to the final chapter of the
Essai sur l'origine
des langues (see note 341 below), and since it is
preceded in the manuscript by copies of letters
which Rousseau penned in
February and March 1761 (see Dufour, II, pp. 139-140) it suggests that
the text of the Essai may already have been finished by the spring of
that year (see also note 219 above).
The most comprehensive treatment of
344
�It was in this
to the theory
£ashion
that
of Rameau.
only through
These rules
ed all
by Nature were, in his view, estab-
the degenerate
conventions
of music were thus limited
nothing more than the insipid
their
resembled
the manufactured
relations
between one person and the next.
and since
their
scales
which rather
in society,
governed
The Greeks,
for instance,
were formed from tetrachords
unfamiliar
shared
the prejudices
- or even to recognise
throughout
instead
with the sounds which we associate
•
• h s. 265
•
minor
t h'ir ds or maJor
sixt
and constant
and they reflected
the
no harmonic system of the kind which was now prevalent,
they were quite
already
that,
race.
of men who had construct-
intervals
hierarchies
of a barbaric
in scope,
sensibilities
chords round artificial
had absolutely
his objections
laws of harmony which Rameau
The universal
·had supposed to be prescribed
lished
Rousseau elaborated
Indeed,
only those persons
of octaves
with
who
of Rameau could ever come to appreciate
- the harmonies
which he believed
were fixed
the world.
M. Rameau pretend que les dessus d'une certaine
simplicite
suggerent naturellement
leurs basses
et qu'un hornme ayant l'oreille
juste et non
exercee entonnera naturellement
cette basse.
C'est la un prejuge de musicien, dementi par
toute experience.
Non seulement celui qui
Rousseau's general distinction
between spoken and written languages is
provided by Derrida in his De la grammatologie (see especially
pp. 321-326).
This work also includes a useful chapter in which
Rousseau's account of writing is distinguished
from the theories
of some
Warburton
of his most immediate precursors
on the subject (in particular
and Condillac - see pp. 384-388 and 398-407).
265.
See the following reflections
from the Essai sur l'origine
des
langues, eh. xviii,
pp. 181 and 183: "Le sisteme des Grecs n'avoit
pour fixer
absolument d'harmonique dans notre sens que ce qu'il faloit
l'accord
des instrumens sur des consonances parfaites .... Les Grecs divicomme nous divisons
notre clavier
soient leur Diagramme par te~racordes
par octaves."
See also the passage from the Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 271 cited on p. 291 above which is reiterated
on p. 183 of
the ·Essai, and the article
'Intervalle,
en Musi ue' that Rousseau had
earlier prepared for the Encyclopedie,
VIII 1765 , p. 839.
345
�n'aura jamais entendu ni basse ni harmonie ne
trouvera de lui-meme ni cette harmonie ni. cette
basse, mais meme elles lui deplairont
si on les
lui fait entendre,
et il aimera beaucoup mieux
le simple unisson.266
The laws of music,
like
the canons of language
too,
were established
not by Nature but by men, and for Rousseau it was clear
must differ
quite
they were produced.
Rousseau's
a part
as much as did the various
267
account
hand he believed
that
social
theory.
men had first
of music that
in society,
devised
factions
of a useful
recognised
acknowledged
natural
partly
of their
for the reason
kind,
to be legitimate
to be proper
inclinations.
social
languages
and like
life.
it
were, in fact,
of prose
that
needs
the principles
fabricated
in accord-
Music had become
could.provide
the institutions
the contrived
forms
also
to communicate their
he regarded
that
in which
to be sure,
they had come to adopt as similarly
ance with the patterns
instrumental
on the other
they
For whereas on the one
were devoid of melody and cadence in order
and aspirations
communities
of music in the Essai,
of his more general
that
harmonies
entirely
We had bound ourselves
some satis-
which we
which we.
opposed to all
to permanent
our
relations
266.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xiiii,
p. 157.
These lines
appear, with minor changes, in the article
'Harmonie' for the Dictionnaire
de musique, p. 241 (see also note 160 above),
267.
Already in his Lettre sur la musique fran9oise
(La Querelle des
Bouffons, p. 681), Rousseau had asserted
that "toute Musique Nationnale
tire son principal
caractere
de la langue qui lui est propre, &... c'est
principalement
la prosodie de la langue qui constitue
ce caract:ere".
This was certainly
not an uncommon belief among the major thinkers of the
Enlightenment.
Perhaps the most forthright
statement of all with regard
to the variations
between languages in particular
appears in Lamy's La
I. xvi, p. 89:
"La nature agi t de la meme
Rhetorique ou l 'art de parler,
maniere en tousles
hommes; les peuples ayant done differens
langages,
de leur
c'est une marque assuree que le langage n'est point l'ouvrage
nature, mais de leur liberte .... Ce n'est done point: la nature que nous
quels termes on doit employer.
devons consulter
pour apprendre d'elle
L'usage est le maitre & l'arbitre
souverain des langues."
346
�with our neighbours,
but we had become equally
prescribed
of senseless
rigid
intervals
application
of both sets
the moral degradation
that
our faculties
trait,
view, then,
had been debased by our aesthetic
our music was to be linked
directly
to form artificial
so that
and linguistic,
the development
to the history
languages
of
of our morals.
was a distinctively
and the manner in which we had come to be tied
terms and to dominant tones,
respectively,
creatures
was prescribed
whose mode of life
more
could only have increased
It was Rousseau's
conventions,
by the
and the progressively
of rules
of mankind.
as well as our political,
The capacity
tones,
encaptivated
human
to despotic
set us off from all
other
by Nature alone.
La langue de convention
n'appartient
qu'a l'homme.
Voila pourquoi l'homme fait des progres soit en
bien soit en mal, et pourquoi les animaux n'en font
point.268
For Rousseau,
victims
of the institutions
sur l'inegalite
a collection
men are at once the authors
which he describes
and the Essai
one work he argues
that
therefore,
that
individuals
of "relations
they had gradually
morales"
but in both cases
have produced
a similar
are described,
come to be suppressed
Discours
tions
268.
effect.
and the Essai
in both the Discours
des langues.
enslaven
while in the other
he maintains
by a "calcul
the imposition
of these
by the constraints
two texts,
of social
are to be understood
sur l'origine
des langues,
347
rules
must
and benevolent
Thus our exuberant
in each of these
by
des
life,
as speculative
of the way in which meri must have made themselves
Essai
In the
had become willingly
become enthralled
intervalles",
inclinations
sur l'origine
and the
eh. i, p. 39.
as having
and both the
reconstruccorrupt.
�Now the conceptual
have been subjected
to
relations
critical
on many occ-asions before.
bear the title
269
langues'
who since
scrutiny
Porset
the late-nineteenth
etrangete'
in which this
matter
Porset ' s 1·ist
- t houg h remar k a bl y full
Most of these
scholars,
the theoretical
links
the chronological
feature
Rousseau's
writings
composition.
in detail
dates
moreover,
already,
269.
either
that
partly
partly,
is
twenty-five
differences
at length
have supplemented
built
authors
attempt
works
or in passing,
and
their
accounts
270
of
about
and it
is a
about the plac~ of the Essai
in
about the meaning of the text
because I believe
too,
des
• by no means e xh austive.
•
- is
of the controversy
- as I shall
controversy
sur l'origine
have produced over thirty
been conjoined to disagreements
271
I do not propose, however,
here,
which will
between the two works with speculations
because Porset
summary of the major contributions
because
de l'Essai
sequence in which they were produced,
noteworthy
have so often
is discussed
interpreters
article
comments upon at least
century
and the Essai
by Rousseau's
In a still-unpublished
'L' 'inquietante
Charles
between the Discours
about its
dates
to examine that
I have said
dispute
enough about
has provided
in his essay,
of
an excellent
and, above all,
to show in a moment - the whole of the
upon a fundamentally
mistaken
premise.
See note 157 above.
270.
Perhaps the most important of the contributions
which receive no
mention in Porset's
study are those of Leon (in his 'Rousseau et l'Etat
moderne') and Starobinski
(in his 'Rousseau et l'origine
des langues')
discussed below.
It must be stressed here, however, that these works
were not overlooked by Porset;
they are left out of his account because
it deals exclusively
with writings which incorporate
conjectures
about
the dates of composition of the Essai or about its temporal order with
respect to the Discours.
One rather curious feature about the matter of
their substantive
ties is the fact that Morel, who includes a section of
eleven pages under the heading 'L'Essai sur l'origine
des langues' in
his 'Recherches sur les sources du Discours de l'inegalite',
and who is
cited by Leon as having considered ~he influence
of Condillac upon the
Essai, actually makes not the slightest
reference
or allusion
to the
work and apparently knew nothing at all about its contents.
271.
See especially
note 164 above.
348
�In an essay on 'Rousseau
Starobinski
et l'origine
des langues'
has remarked upon what is perhaps
the similarities
Jean
the most striking
For they are,
between the two texts.
of all
he writes,
Textes complementaires,
parfois legerement dissonants, mais qui proposent au lecteur une meme
histoir•e sous une double version:
le Discours de
l'inegalite
insere une histoire
du langage a
l'interieur
d'une histoire
de la societe;
inversement, l'Essai
sur l'ori~ine
des langues introduit
une histoire
de la societ~ ~ l'interieur
d'une
histoire
du langage.272
These observations
is absolutely
seem to me an eloquent
clear
from the scholar
Discours
that
and perfectly
correct,
who has already
version
writings.
It would certainly
of the Essai in the same collection
be foolish
but I believe,
misleading.
For while it is true
also
the propositions
about that
are either
conceptually
or historically
different
social
bear an undeniable
a kind of history
stages,
account of the genesis
not larger
number of the ideas
'Rousseau
et l'origine
subject
in that
in the two works
There is a
in the work - in which
349
of mankind through
which he makes there
that
Discours.
same chapter
des langues',
of the
in the Essai it does
of the development
in the
of Rousseau's
rather
subject
to the arguments
of society
for the
if is potentially
subject
and many of the claims
resemblance
of
claim
intertwined.
in the Essai - indeed the longest
Rousseau provides
edition
Starobinski's
the central
secondary
that
272.
that
forms an important
not follow
chapter
to treat
nonetheless,
that
which
as we might well expect
and who is now responsible
here lightly,
Discours
of a fact
produced much the finest
has ever appeared
forthcoming
statement
p. 281.
figure
in his
But an equal if
bear no resemblance
�at all
to his views in the Discours,
of establishing
any exact correlation
ing to some commentators
langues
meridionales',
main postulates
and subtle
is altogether
be found in that
of the life
text.
the portrait
and nature
of the ~avage state
Rousseau refers
to the Essai as at first
views.
one hand located
two passages
Goldschmidt,
chapter
- so patently
essential
The
many others
besides,
between the substance
stance
of the ninth
show that
the Essai
in the context
that
by the final
has on the
he believes
- consisting
manuscript.
version
the same
of the Discours
author.
both of these
writers,
chapter
of the Essai.
includes
an account
of an essay on language,
a treatment
that
or that
350
and the sub-
This chapter
really
of the development
just
and
by the resemblance
of the main theme of the Discours
of the same theory
might
of an argument from which it
have been too much impressed
demonstrate
of the
of these
hand, has no doubt but that
problem here is that
it does not thereby
of
de preface'
to'both
in the original
in the details
within
chapter
a fragment
for instance,
Derrida,
contradicted
a study of language
elements
'Projet
comprising
at which the fragment
expunged by its
it is
in that
in his
in the Discours
on the other
- cannot be invoked to fill
was deliberately
depicted
that
of eh. ix - had appeared
principally
men than can
interpreters
has been accommodated equally
once have marked the point
Victor
The fact
Thus Jacques
with the
the two works are opposed but even
the other.
conflicting
of primitive
des
a more rich
provides
According to different
Accord-
'formation
in substance
and it actually
~hat one rebuts
moreover,
the difficulty
entitled
compatible
the Essai which proves not only that
Discours,
lies
between the two works.
eh. ix of the Essai,
of the Discours,
portrait
precisely
and therein
as the Discours
of the genesis
does
of society
contains
of society.
the two works form different
one is a refutation
of the other.
But
�The chapter
forms no part
Rousseau refers,
seded by, a quite
several
years
the attempts
historical
improves upon, nor still
separate
work which he had already
he turned
to relate
to it,
or contrast
-who knew nothing
saw perfectly
material
century
of Rousseau's
well that
- Alfred
preface
sur l'inegalite.
there
and happy.
chapter
a kind of natural
he depicts
of the Essai
society
the intervention
- and a few others
the Discours
on this
reading
sur l'origine
by families,
while
as having lived
of contracts.
of lesser
importance
that
a critique
the presocial
des langues,
351
state
273
that
state
apart
saw it,
as
works.
from
only
of these
too - it
are incompatible
,
in the Discours
entirely
In the light
constitutes
11
of man as
the original
being formed, as Espinas
and the Essai
in the Discours,
Essai
savages
his
has to do with the fact
Rousseau portrays
inhabited
with families
d'abrutissement
condition
for
Rousseau
and even regards
the natural
state
and that
in eh. ix of the Essai
The second reason
the earliest
one another,
273.
he describes
judgrnent
about the natural
as one of misery in an "etat
in the Discours
innocent
is that
-
Espinas
to the same
and the Essai are inconsistent,
man as "un animal feroce"
mode of life
pertains
the arguments
fixed
but who nevertheless
In Espinas's
speaks of primitive
forward
a proper
by a scholar
The first
the Essai
all
have been
were actually
two main reasons.
that
nearly
dispute
eh. ix of the Essai
of man in the Discours
tions
that
they have lacked
projected
could be no doubt but that
through
published
it to the Discours
terms in this
as the Discours
in this
is super-
foundation.
at the end of the nineteenth
whereas
to which
less
and I believe
wide of the mark because
Most of the crucial
there
of the Discours
it neither
before
philosophically
of the fragment
distinc-
seemed to follow
Indeed since
of the thesis,
put
must have been the
eh. ix, pp. 93 and 103.
�happiest
of all
for man, Espinas
was convinced
of the two works, and he argued that
it dates
that
it is the later
from the period
when Rousseau was engaged in preparing
other
'Economie politique'
de Geneve, which show a simi-
and the Manuscrit
o·iscours.
• h t he
1ar b rea k wit
Almost precisely
have recently
Ecrivain
Espinas
actually
the same features
produced later.
the
of the Essai and the Discours
by Michel Launay in his Rousseau:
though for him the two points
show that
notably
274
been contrasted
politique,
texts,
1754-56
it is the Discours
"Sur deux points
elaborated
by
which must have been
au moins",
Launay,
observes
l'Essai
apparait comme acceptant encore des idees
re~ues qui seront critiquees
radicalement
dans le
Discours.
He claims,
firstly,
"sanguinaire"
in the Essai the terms "feroce"
as well as "pacifique"
to our natural
state,
from his theory
"mechancete"
that
and "craintif"
while in the Discours
every vestige
275
referring
"bonte
Espinas,
is based upon the discrepancy
and familial
11
life
and the unnatural
insists
•
of man as recounted
character
to the claim that
in the Essai,
about the connection
the argument of the ninth
chapter
See Rousseau:
Ecrivain
instead
like
to our
that
352
of
sociable
on the one hand,
upon which Rousseau
perspective
between the two works amounts
which figure
of the Essai are transcended
politique,
away
is some
And the general
and contradictions
274.
See 'Le "Systeme" de Rousseau',
above.
275.
moreover,
of family relationships
the obscurities
attached
between the naturally
in the Discours , on the other.
which Launay adopts
there
consistently
His second claim,
original
are all
Rousseau has cleared
of the idea that
in human nature,
and
pp. 344-349.
in
by the
See also note 164
pp. 209 and 210.
�more coherent
propositions
l'inegalite",
he concludes,
rend coherentes,
encore confuses
of the Discours.
en les radicalisant,
dans l'Essai.276
In 1971, in the same year that
des position:;
Launay's
work was printed,
Polin also produced a major study of the social
which again these
case the writer
points
at least
que Rousseau ne se fixe
Polin,
nevertheless,
cautions
theory
are described,
of distinction
sur
For "le Discours
Raymond
of Rousseau in
though in this
us to be wary of comparisons,
"parce
pas le meme but dans les deux oeuvres". 277
shows little
hesitation
in finding
the argument of
the ninth
chapter of the Essai "beaucoup plus sommaire" and "beaucoup
278 h
•
•
•
moins
novateur' •
tan tath
of t h e Discours,
and h e envisages
t h e text
as resembling
the first
two Discours
of Rousseau's
it does the second and as containing
•
h.ically
fro m t he p hilosop
The most recent
of all
two works, finally,
politioue
points
•
•
more inventive
these
appears
accounts
of the ninth
about the natural
years earlier
Espinas
the Discours
- but like
ferocity
had treated
than
which were to disappear
D"
iscours
, 1·ite., 279
sur l'. inega
of the discrepancies
in Goldschmidt's
de Rousseau of 1974.
the same two aspects
elements
more closely
between the
massive Anthropologie
et
Goldschmidt comments yet again upon
chapter
of the Essai - that
and sociability
as contradictory
Launay and Polin he regards
is the
of man which eighty
with the ideas
the Discours
of
as
276.
Ibid.,
p. 211.
Lanson, too (see note 164 above), had earlier
accepted most of Espinas's philosophical
views about the contradictions
between the two works, while reversing the temporal order proposed in
the historical
claims.
278.
La politique
de la solitude,
Ibid. , p. 264.
279.
See ibid.,
277.
p. 262.
pp. 263, 264~ and 270.
353
�the later
work.
For Goldschmidt
it must be the case either
that
the Essai is a refutation
of the Discours or that the Discours supersees
d
t h e Essai.. 280
And a rather odd interpretation
of the 'Projet
,
' , 281 conJoine
• . d wit
• h an even stranger
d e preface
.
presumption
work to which Rousseau "ne cesse de se referer"
could only have been
composed after
Goldschmidt
elaboree,
another
in no doubt at all.
plus coherente
other,
and less
•
au Discours
Against
this
of the Discours
to suppose that
certain
perspective
Rousseau's
interpreters
Here, too,
we find some fairly
theme.
elements
account
the Discours
of a single
of language
of all
our social
of the genetic
society
furnishes
280.
leave
he reflects.
elaborate,
less
later
than the
te du chapi tre
•
•
mise
en question·
,1
IX par
. 282
between the arguments
stand an equal if not larger
the works as perfectly
wide variations
number of
consistent.
and disagreements
Paul Leon and Henri Grange, for instance,
opposed positions
and Essai
theory.
incorporate
which in the Essai
institutions
coherent
sharing
a crucially
pour la solution
important
example
the Essai
du probleme social
p. 434.
281.
282.
Anthropologie
pp. 434-435.
the
to be the first
interpretation
Anthropologie et politique,
See note 218 above.
et politique,
that
approach which marks his study of
On this
the
and complementary
Rousseau takes
provides
generally.
"un enseignement
while still
Leon, on the one hand, contends
and evolutionary
and politics
"l 'anterior·i
a
expose une pensee plus
the less
of the tensions
who regard
take up almost diametrically
view that
that
ne saural. • t etre
and the Essai
around a central
"Le Discours
finally
mellow work could have been drafted
it is therefore
rappo.rt
a publier",
tant
et plus mure que l'Essai",
Since it would be absurd
coherent,
hesite
"qu'il
h
tat
et
�, l ement par l', evo 1ution
.
d omine
. , ega
• .
po 1 1tique
and according
of other,
prose,
to Leon it joins
more traditional,
including,
Condillac.
first
slowly
and the Essai
as convergent
precisely
chapter
l'autorite
references
said,
ters
of language,
tath
Focusing
in this
have been sadly
- he thus concludes
283.
'Rousseau
284.
See eh. III,
285.
See 'Rousseau
that
et l'Etat
to
Rousseau's
was in each
He points
to the pasremarks
that
avec les monumens
of the Bible
constitutes
to Con d l.• 11 ac
but rather
a veritable
to
only by
state
of
mainly upon the numerous Biblical
of the Essai
neglected
and society
world from one populated
his attention
chapter
they show that
Rousseau
•
' so b.Jections
•
to one that
rejec-
of the Discours
in which ~ousseau
the authority
children
were each intended,
285
de l'Ecriture
extend the view of a post-diluvian
nature.
of
and Rousseau's
the ideas
because
of the Essai
are not meant to challenge
284
with Scripture.
•
" , 286 an d h e maintains
•
•
antiques
287
claims
have been devised
of both language
de concilier
two inarticulate
the Deluge,
with Scripture,
to be reconciled
sage in the ninth
aise
after
hand, regards
of the development
est
of speech and
orthodox
of the Bible as weli.
on the other
"il
, 283
a critique
of the origin
views must therefore
the authority
work intended
two sketches
to be compatible
Grange,
account
the religiously
by two children
of both of these
challenge
in providing
"
bestowed by God to Adam and Eve, and second as a skill
Leon believes,
tion
•
•
•
institutions
views of the development
For Condillac's
learnt
½he Discours
especially,
as a gift
d I autres
- references
which,
by most of Rousseau's
the two works really
moderne',
it must be
modern interpre-
comprise
the
p. 204.
p. 167.
et l'Etat
moderne',
p. 201.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. ix, p. 103.
This passage
is noted by Grange in his 'L'Essai sur l'origine
des langues dans ses
rapports avec le Discours sur l'inegalite'
on p. 293.
286'.
287.
See ibid.
355
�interconnected
elements
les descendants
of a rational
de Noe aux premiers
theodicy.
"C'est
hommes du second
en assirnilant
Discours",
he
writes,
vient se raccorder
que la trame du recit rousseauiste
a celle de la Genese .... Rousseau reintroduit dans
l'histoire
de l'humanite un deluge, voire un Paradis
terrestre,
et nous montre en filigrane,
dans le
deroulement des evenements, l'accomplissement
d'un plan
prevu de toute eternite.
La construction
est ingenieuse,
mais cette ingeniosite
ne doit pas nous faire douter de
la sincerite
de son auteur.288
Michele Duchet, moreover,
a conclusion
was published
similar
to that
pursues
of Leon and Grange.
while
she has reaffirmed
the several
that
portrays
in eh. ix of the Essai actually
which he describes
forms of livelihood,
fill
in the Discours.
upon the following
speaks of the three
its
epochs in our social
contends
particularly
different
In an article
in 1967 and on which Launay collaborated
has now rejected
periods
an altogether
central
path to
that
too - though he
289
thesis
development
that
- Duchet
Rousseau
in the gaps between the
She focuses
her attention
remarks in the Essai where Rousseau
most important
epochs,
based mainly upon different
through which the human race has passed:
Des trois manieres de vivre possible a l'homme,
savoir la chasse, le soin des troupeaux et
l'agriculture
.... se raportent
les trois etats de
l'homme considere par raport a la societe.
Le
sauvage est chasseur, le barbare est berger,
l'homme civil est laboureur.290
288.
Ibid.,
pp. 294 and 307.
289.
Launay's contribution
to the article
'Synchronie et diachronie'
consists mainly of a transcription
of a fragment of the Discours sur
l'inegalite
which I hav€ discussed already (see eh. Ill, notes 143, 237, and
238).
His objections
to Duchet's claims about the compatibility
of the
Discours with the Essai are incorporated
in his Rousseau:
Ecrivain
politique,
pp. 207-208, while her rejoinder
appears in her Anthropologie
et histoire,
pp. 322-326.
See also note 164 above.
290.
Essai sur l'origine
also note 250 above.
des langues,
356
eh. ix, pp. 105 and 107.
See
�According
that
to Duchet this
accompany it,
passage,
provide
between the establishment
• h in
• t he D.iscours
wh 1c
delimited
and the details
a fuller
picture
of families
II
292
revolutions.
of the transitional
and the formation
• d escri • be d on l y
is
by two great
of the exposition
phase
of societies
rapi • dement ..291
tres'
as
Thus, Duchet observes,
La chronologie
de l 1 Essai comble les vides de
celle
du Discours, elle ne la contredit
pas:
la prehistoire
du langage se situe tout entiere
entre les deux "revolutions"
dont parle le
Discours.
En retard sur la premiere, mais en
avance sur la seconde, elle a son propre cycle
de revolutions.293
In short,
on this
interpretation,
the ninth
develops
a certain number of ideas
294
d 1 approfondir 11 •
Derrida
also published
supplying
enhances
and refines
lines
he will
influence
fact
291.
occupies
path
in our social
the abbreviated
version
in the Discours
"avait
next proceed
chapter,
in his De la grammatologie,
the Essai
development
as
which
of the Discours,
with which he supposes
for one thing,
upon a long digression
in the formation
his attention
neglige
Derrida
the very
of the Essai might once have been merged.
of his eighth
'Synchronie
along this
of the Essai
For whereas Duchet only regards
chapter
of climate
which the Discours
of the stages
two passages
of the ninth
the last
that
in 1967.
an account
identifies
text
goes even further
chapter
throughout
et diachronie',
Rousseau states
with regard
of societies,
the following
In
to the
a subject
three
which in
chapters.
p. 434.
292.
In the _Discours sur 1 inegali te Rousseau is quite explicit
in his
reference
to these two revolutions,
of which the first
is marked by the
establishment
of families and the second by the introduction
of metallurgy
and agriculture
(see O.C.III·, pp. 167 and 171, and eh. III, pp. 215-216).
293.
'Synchronie et diachronie',
pp. 434-435.
1
294.
Anthropologie
et histoire,
p. 324.
357
�Le genre humain nc dans les pays chauds s'etend
dell
daus les pays froids .... Tachons de suivre
dans nos recherches l'ordre
meme de la nature.
J'entre
dans une longue digression
sur un sujet
si rebattu qu'il en est trivial,
mais auquel il
faut toujours revenir malgre qu'on en ait pour
humc.ines. 295
trouver 1 'origine des inshtutions
We might well imagine,
connected
suggests
claims
as a note to that
that
the peoples
Derrida,
point
that
this
in the Discours
passage
was initially
at which Rousseau
of the north are generally
more industrious
than those of the south,
comme si la Nature vouloit ainsi egaliser
les choses,
qu'elle refuse a
en donnant aux Esprits la fertilite
la Terre. 296
Alternatively,
after
genesis
there
interrupting
is another
his readers
in the Discours
his argument to consider
of languages,
about the parental
place
and after
teaching
to consider
dispensing
of our first
where Rousseau,
Condillac's
account
with one false
figures
of speech,
of the
supposition
297
invites
a second ·problem.
vaincue:
Supposons cette premiere difficulte
Franchissons
pour un moment l'espace
immense
qui dut se trouver entre le pur etat de Nature
et le besoin des Langues;
et cherchons, en
les supposant necessaires,
comment elles
purent commencer a s'etablir.298
The account
forward
295.
of the genesis
of our social
in the Essai might equally
Essai
sur l'origine
attributes
which Rousseau puts
have been intended,
des langues,
eh. viii,
in Derrida's
p. 89.
O.C.III,
p. 144.
See also note 247
296.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
suggestion that the two passages form a conceivable
above.
Derrida's
"jointure
precise"
between the Essai and the Discours is developed in
De la gramrnatologie, pp. 313~31_4___ _
297.
298.
The passage is cited in eh. III, pp. 163-164.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 147.
358
�299
•
view,
•
to appear at t h'is point
filling
in "l'espace
text.
On such a reading
some part
of it,
work, fonning
raised
stance,
in the final
then,
is that
main concerns
and to consider,
in detail,
He makes abundantly
301
• •
Joins
clear
larger
the Essai provides
compatible.
a refutation
in his study that
to these
array
and three
eight
the pure state
corruption.
300
the two works as
view - such
of views,
that
the Discours
find ourselves
major arguments
that
they are
to Espinas the Essai constitutes
in the ~erdict
puts forward a more coherent
three
confronted
and the Essai are conceptu-
of the thesis
the~.
outlined
alone among a much
with at least
in support
of the Discours,
• h •• 302
to be "plus rice.
we therefore
Discours
of Goldschmidt
it is the
while for Launay and Polin the
and profound exposition
in the ~•s
ninth
chapter,
299.
See De la grammatologie,
300.
See il>id., pp. 358 and 360.
See, for instance,
ibid., pp. 268, 329, and 360.
Ibid., p. 356,
302.
of nature
of its
he regards
commentaries
which contradicts
301.
Oerrida's
who take the opposite
That is to say, according
of the theory
long
a more comprehensive
only the very beginning
Discours
aspects
have been "trop
regard the Essai as "plus sommaire", Derrida
in favour of the postulate
divergent,
treat-
than can be found in the Discours,
are to depict
corpus of interpretations
by a most confusing
ally
an extended
of the Discours.
t he camp of t hose wh o hold t he text
With reference
or at least
from the main body of Rousseau's
version
and whereas scholars
as Polin - generally
. .
propositions
of the~.
have constituted
naissante"
where Rousseau's
consistent,
chapter
in a digression
of "la societe
portrait
the ninth
a fragment which would thus clearly
et hors de place"
general
.
its
immense" which is passed over in the published
would originally
ment of a point
o·lscours,
of t h e
pp. 329-330.
359
of some
while at
�the same time rejecting
two works to bear:
Essai
in turn,
theodicy,
understand
the theory
of the ninth
and enriching
of society
connections
between them?
My own. opinion
and parallels
I believe
that
that
actually
is that
chapter
provide
us with a proper
revolves
ar-e, for the most part,
approaches
around dichotomies
illusory
introduces
rather
which are then employed to solve
inconsequential
problems,
so that
sure,
and the Essai
have fabricated
some very attractive
the juxtapositions
seem to me remarkable
historical
and Derrida,
of the Discours
preface
in all
work, since,
of the relation
There are,
these
those
accounts,
thought
in this
for instance,
to be
of Duchet and Derrida
scholarship
of Rousseau.
controversy
which
and some of
-
which underlies
which they shed upon particular
aspects
Yet most of the
are simply false.
are mistaken
to suppose that
the
upon which Rousseau comments in his projected
to the Essai must have included
the later
303.
and linguistic
those
for themselves.
both for the meticulous
speculations
Goldschmidt
fragment
are less
- especially
them and for the illumination
of the social
some rather
than those of the perspectives
features
of ideas
comparisons
in the end the conundrums and
which they seek to explain
his interpreters
than real.
specious
contrasts
between the Discours
dispute?
grasp of the
and unwarranted
ambiguities
of the
works about
two most striking
the clash
each of these
and Duchet and
are we to make of this
of Rousseau's
the genesis
Grange sees
some ideas of which the Discours
What, then,
accounts
Leon holds the
of Scripture,
of a rational
only a sketch.
Do any of these
critique
side
aspects
as completing
provides
On the opposite
interconnected
them as correlative
Derrida,
others.
a draft
as we have seen already,
See pp. 310-326 above.
360
of the ninth
303
that
chapter
fragment
of
was to
�form the central
section
only in the eighteenth
Goldschmidt,
tain
that
before
of the Ms R 60 which came to be incorporated
and nineteenth
Launay, and Polin,
the ninth
chapter
moreover,
possibly
on this
some six years
The e.ssociations
been made by these
tion as well.
account
of the~.
course,
the evidence
it was drafted
appear to lack a solid
citations
later,
and allusions
conceptual
no passages
faith
at all
in that
text
apart,
of
that
his
of the piece
be made without
chapter
is entirely
in Scripture,
at the beginning
founda-
in his
in the ninth
of the Discours
upon Rousseau's
of the past will
vrhich have
is most perceptive
There are practically
from the observations
reconstruction
that
as all
:iJ:l the two texts
the ideas
but his interpretation
which have any bearing
when they main-
304
between
scholars
insofar
indicates
Grange, for instance,
unconvincing.
are in error
was ready,
point
later.
of the Biblical
of the Essai.
could only have been composed some time
the bulk of the Discours
which has survived
chapters
reference
to the word
and work of God.
Il est evident, par la lecture des Livres Sacres,
que le premier Hommeayant re9u immediatement de
Dieu des lumieres et des Preceptes,
n'etoit
point
lui-meme dans ... le pur etat de Nature .... La
Religion nous ordonne de croire que Dieu lui-meme
ayant tire·les
Hommesde l'etat
de Nature, ils
sont inegaux parce qu'il a voulu qu'ils le fussent;
mais elle ne nous defend pas de former des
conjectures
tirees
de la seule nature de le homme.305
If Grange had taken stock
in which Rousseau reflects
religious
304.
superstition
of their
sur l'inegalite,
See eh. III,
passage
upon the idolatry
followers
See pp. 315-316 and especially
305.
Discours
pp. 222-224.
306.
of the manuscript
306
of the Discours
of priests
and the
would he still
have
note 219 above.
O.C.III,
note 237.
361
pp. 132-133.
See also eh. III,
�wished to claim that
the tract,
admits is "ingenieuse"
Rousseau's
belief
certainly
on his reading,
to view the Discours
theory
but the social
of language
philosophy
elements,
Discours
were conceived
disregard
text
it,
a critique
of some quite
to criticise
theory
in that
Rousseau's
the arguments
rather
than just
propositions
work -
where the authority
his case?
Does this
of the
to
in that.
of the Bible is
invoked frequently
to sustain
least
the cases put forward in each -work might be
that
in
different
at all
that
Scripture
how are we to conjoin
suggest
of
nor even any mention of his name.
Leon's claims
with his views in the Essai,
hand, is
of a study of society,
of Condillac
to any of his ideas,
to express
and the linguistic
both consist
And even if we do not dispute
designed
as incorporating
in the context
and we find no refutation
no challenge
was really
of the Essai,
which it is encased there,
of which he already
Leon, on the other
in the Bible?
right
Condillac's
the construction
distinction
not at
different?
For his part
presumption
the actual
that
Derrida
the ninth
evidence
mean that
the Discours
to support
• a dd"ition
•
fr agments in
which the first
tote h
can be investigated
manuscript
at all
in Rousseau's
307.
initially
chapter
trace
In fact,
either.
upon the
however,
there
within
is not the
it would
two very long and major
•
minor
ones tath
- through
have survive,
• d 3o7 of
the Ms R 60 and the Essai
while the second has vanished,
or a supporting
papers,
largely
If it were true
contained
in detail,
of the Essai.
See eh. III,
his arguments
of the Essai may be located
this
has had a history
without
ninth
chapter
corpus of the Discours.
slightest
- that
constructs
appearing
document or reference
only in its
If a scholar
pp. 193-194 and 221-224.
362
final
anywhere
form as the
ever manages to uncover a
�rough draft
of this
will
be a most important
is no reason
would also prove to be a part
script
In any event - since
Discours.
there
nature"
c.h
that
but there
Rousseau studies;
that
chapter
is a "transition"
in the Discours
to believe
of the original
it is allowed
that
in
such a manu-
version
of the
in De la grammatologie
between Rousseau's
and his interest
discovery
focus upon "la pure
in "la societe
naissante"
in
• of t he Essai • 308 - why is
• Derri "da so determine
• d to t· in d a home
ix
for the second work in the confines
Duchet's
some points
proposal
much the same reasons
that
that
together
regard
all
as fragments
his writings
of Derrida,
drawn from a quite
could ultimately
of one monumental treatise,
its
to eh. vi of the first
Rousseau makes the following
d'appI"ofondir"
since,
to put forward a composite
eh. ix of the Essai as filling
in a preface
neglige
between
for
it must be
gaps which we suppose are evident
by elements
If it were possible
the lacunae
circumspection,
apply to the account
the theoretical
of Rousseau so that
fills
Rousseau "avait
with the greatest
one work cannot be bridged
study.
the chapter
which in the Discours
should also be treated
emphasised
that
of the first?
proper
in
different
social
theory
be weaved
then why should we not
place,
book of the Contrat
remarks about the natural
for instance,
social,
state
where
of man?
Je suppose les hommes parvenus ace point ou les
obstacles
qui nuisent a leur conservation
dans
l'etat
de nature, l'emportent
par leur resistance
sur les forces que chaque individu peut employer
pour se maintenir dans cet etat.
Alors cet etat
primitif
ne peut plus subsister,
et le genre
humain periroit
s'il ne changeoit sa maniere
d'etre. 309
Would it not be conceivable,
Duchet, for us to regard
if we follow
the ninth
308.
See De la grammatologie,
309.
Contrat
social,
I.vi,
chapter
the approach of Derrida
as explaining
p. 360.
O.C.III,
363
p. 360.
in.detail
and
what
�Rousseau means by his cryptic
"ce point"
this
intercalation
passage?
virtue
At least
in its
dates
favour,
preparing
the Essai
the interval
to a text
at about the same time rather
which Rousseau may have been
than to one which he had corn-
pleted
a few years before.
Of course this
little
to commend it
- as would be th~ case,
refer
to the Discours
in fact
to elucidate
the Essai and the Contrat
times,
inspired
perspectives.
And that
juxtaposition
the passage
are distinct
by different
between the
- in the example - we suppose to
of works that
by joining
i.!1
would have one clear
for it would diminish
of composition
be related,
that
and "sa maniere d'etre"
has very
too,
- quite
if we were to
simply because
works, produced at different
problems,
containing
is precisely
my point
different
against
theoretical
Derrida
and
Duchet too.
Above all,
Espinas,
regard
and later
chapter
and the Essai as theoretically
arbitrary
or fallacious.
and "sanguinaires",
portrays
310
as an "etat
remarks upon the "ferocite"
the earliest
d'abrutissement"
that
seem
in the ninth
men as "feroces",
in which they live
to the original
as weJ.l, and in that
and "grossierete
who
and even an "etat
the term "feroce"
sur l'inegalite
proposed by
inconsistent,
It is true
and the condition
But he attaches
in the Discours
initially
every one of the scholars
of the Essai Rousseau describes
"violens",
guerre".
dichotomies
adopted by nearly
the Discours
to me either
he there
the conceptual
de
savage
work he also
des premiers
ages" when
each man must have been surrounded by enemies and was· "toujours
311
voisin du danger 11 •
In the Discours he maintains that the
310.
Essai
311.
Discours
sur l'origine
des langues,
sur l'inegalit6,
O.C.III,
168.
364
eh. ix, pp. 95, 97, and 103.
pp. 136, 137, 140, 160, and
�inhabitants
of the natural
•
et n •avoient
state
"ne pouvoient
etre
ni bons ni mechans,
312
• t he nint
• h c hapter
n1' vertus " ,
an d in
•
ni• vices
Essai he claims that
at first
of t he
a person ruled only by the laws of
llatu.re "ne peut etre ni clement ni juste ni pitoyable:
il ne peut pas
313
Where is the contradiction
non plus etre mechant et vindicatif".
In both works it is perfectly
between these passages?
clear
that
111enin
the beginning must, for Rousseau, have been "plutot farouches
314
Yet Polin, for instance,
suggests that the
que mechans 11 •
creatures
depicted
"sont decrits
natural
a la
fa<;on de Hobbes",
is sharply
of war of all
political
critical
against
escapes
all.
of gain,
in the Essai,
safety,
mistaken
que l'homme est naturellement
312.
Ibid.,
for this
316 ·that
thesis
in both works.
in the
of a state
supposed
There is no mention of Hobbes or his
that are said to make them cruel
contradicted
developed
nor is there
in the other.
in his assertion
intrepide,
a parallel
which are held to
and reputation
in the one theory and "la crainte
Rousseau was actually
of the Essai
whereas the account of man's
The justification
me altogether.
between the pursuit
et combattre",
315
chapter
of the Hobbesian perspective
ideas at any point
make men quarrel
of the ninth
which Rousseau subsequently
condition
Discours
cleavage
at the start
et la foiblesse"
While in the Discours
that
"Hobbes pretend
et ne cherche qu'a attaquer,
imputed to him, even on Polio's
For in .the Discours,
that
is,
reading,
is
Rousseau
p. 152.
313.
·Essai sur l 'origine des langues, eh. ix, p. 93_. It must be
allowed that the terms "ni pitoyable" in this passage are somewhat difficult to reconcile
with Rousseau's conception of pity in the Discours sur
l'inegalite
(see ~ote 242 above).
314.
Discours
sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III,
p. 157.
La politique
de la solitude,
p. 263.
316.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, p. 136.
pp. 190-191 and note 195.
315.
365
See also eh. III,
�maintains
that men are not naturally
of the~
ninth chapter
among the first
he argues that
at all,
and in the
such conflict
as did prevail
members of our race must have been inspired
Whereas Hobbes, moreover,
and "horrible"
aggressive
speaks of the state
that no calamities
by fear.
of war as so ''miserable"
in political
society
could be worse,
for Rousseau, in both the Discours and the Essai together,
social
life
of man which constitutes
come to renounce their
primitive
necessite
les travaux,
l'esclavage,
318
Is there
social".
the Essai?
liberty,
work, was "le siecle
d'or".
be counted among its
features
"pour s'imposer
Though
sans
inseparables
de l'etat
here between the Discours and
of man, Rousseau reflects
state
I
how men could ever have
les miseres
any inconsistency
The original
misere". 317
"la veritable
cannot imagine, Rousseau remarks in the Essai,
it is the
violence
in the latter
and bloodshed
it was populated
must
by men who were also
marked by "des coeurs ... tendres" and by "tant d'amour pour leur
319
famille".
And since savages there would have met each other only
rarely
it must have been a state
la terre etoit en paix". 320
It is. equally
difference
misleading
savage described
that
319.
320.
in the Discours.
which Rousseau delineates
isolation
Espinas and his followers
Rousseau recounts
des familles"
that
must have transpired
of the
have all
"l'etablissement
not in the state
Discours sur l'ine5alite,
O.C.III, p. 152.
Essai Sur l'ori5ine
des lan5ues, eh. ix,
p. 109.
Ibid., p. 95.
Ibid., p. 97.
366
"toute
emphasis upon the
of the Essai and the natural
in 'the Discours
et la distinction
317.
318.
to place special
between the family relationships
in the ninth chapter
noticed
of war in which, in reality,
�of nature
itself
but at the time of the first
men's departure
from that
state
and their
revolution
entry
which marked
into "ce nouvel
,
" , 321 w.hereas
etat
"les premiers
• the Essai he identi
•
"f" ies the f amily
.
.
. h
in
directly
wit
tems". 322 Even if we allow, however, that the terms
"les premiers
tems" in the one work were intended
to the natural
state
have been at pains
Rousseau's
sharp.
dispersed
without
depicted
to refer
precisely
in the other - a presumption
which I
to challenge
interpreters
here - the contrast
some of
have drawn between these two texts
For in both cases Rousseau emphasises
and must have lived essentially
fixed
that
settlements
at all.
is far too
that man were originally
apart
from one another
Thus while in the Discours the
savage is described as fending for himself, "seul", "solitaire",
323
"sans liaisons",
in the Essai the pri1J1ordial representatives
our race are seen to have been "epars",
with the individual
at first
Rousseau generally
refers
hommes' in the ninth
of
and "disperses",
"abandonne seul". 324
to 'l'homme'
chapter
"separes",
and
The fact
in the Discours
and to
that
'les
of the Essai might be thought to lend
drawn by Espinas,
some weight to the distinctions
Launay, Polin,
that
and
Goldschmidt,
but on the other hand we must not forget
the men
portrayed
pas eux-memes" in their
"ne se connoissoient
325
du monde".
It is quite eIToneous, on the part of
in the Essai
''vaste desert
Launay, for example, to maintain
that
Rousseau's
Discours repudiate
the thesis
of the Essai that
ties
"a
'naturelle'
of a man tend
rendre
arguments in the
the original
la sociabilite".
326
family
For
321.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
O.C.III, pp. 167 and 168.
322.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. ix, p. 91.
323.
O.C.III, pp. 140, 160, and 168.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
324.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. ix, pp. 91, 93, 95, 101,
10~, and 109.
325.
Ibid., pp. 95 and 103.
326.
Rousseau:
Ecrivain politique,
p. 211.
367
�Rousseau insists
often
enough in his ninth
in the beginning
have been drawn together
or communal inclinations.
corporate,
idee de fraternite
chapter
"Ils
sociales",
men could not
by any gregarious,
n'etoient
commune", he contends.
sign of any "affections
that
lies
own members rather
says Rousseau,
Incest,
that
sociability
brought
about its
is,
but no social
11
. 327
activities
in associations
with other
ensured
the survival
There
bonds, and a
through the sexual
than extended
families.
showed no
and the needs of each person,
family would have been perpetuated
its
par aucune
Our ancestors
"l oin
• de l e rapproc her d e ses sembl abl es l' en 'le oignoient
•
•
must have been blood ties,
or
of our species
of
before
ruin.
Il y avoit des familles,
mais il n'y avoit point
de Nations;
il y avoit des langues domestiques,
mais il n'y avoit point de langues populaires ....
Chaque famille se su£fisoit
a elle-meme et se
perpetuoit
par son seul sang.
Les enfans nes des
memes parens croissoient
ensemble ... le penchant
naturel suffisolt
pour les unir, l'instinct
tenoit
lieu de passion, l'babitude
tenoit lieu de preference, on devenoit maris et femmes sans avoir
cesse d'etre frere et so'eur.328
This is not precisely
the same argument that
Discours,
but neither
contradicted
to be sure,
the real
connections
contrasts
sur l'origine
to deny the importance
which these
scholars
forward in each work.
327.
328.
Essai sur l'origine
Ibid., p. 125.
controversy,
then,
have in
between the Discours
des langues.
of all
Of course
the similarities
have drawn between the arguments
Indeed to the list
we might even add a few further
or is
which refutes
work.
of this
and the Essai
would be foolish
in that
on both sides
my view misinterpreted
l'inegalite
is it a thesis
by any propositions
The advocates
Rousseau employs in the
analogies
des langues,
368
sur
it
and
put
I have thus far considered
and differences
between the
eh. ix, pp. 91, 93, and 95.
�Discours
and the ninth
for instance
maintains
chapter
the fact
that
that,
on the one hand, Rousseau in both cases
our earliest
societies
329
resu 1to f natura 1 acci 'd ents,
the Discours
he depicts
t he Essai • he portrays
ties
and contrasts
to correlations
beginning
thereby
the original
t h e f' irst
social
follow that
chapter
whereas in
But similari-
one theory.
In the first
as the only
to those he employs at the
of the Essai,
331
but it does not
social
are on this
point
In the second book of Emile he states
pas naturel
les premiers
proposition
•
in
works are not equivalent
the Essai and the Contrat
intertwined.
Essai "on trouve
330
Rousseau speaks of the family
"le gout de la viande n'est
neither
within
in terms which are similar
of the ninth
conceptually
in different
as a
t h e f act tath
savage as a herbivore
•
men as carnivorous.
and inconsistencies
society
must have been established
an d , on t h e ot her,
between ideas
book of the Contrat
natural
of the Essai which are worthy of note,
barbares
is a refutation
a l'hOllDlle"332
voraces
whereas in the
et carnaciers
of the other.
that
11 ,
333
but
Ideas which
resemble
one another
cannot be taken to hold together
as elements
of a
coherent
theory
because they are advanced by the same author,
nor
just
are contradictions
formed by disparate
elements
of distinct
theories
which he propounds.
O.C.III,
329.
Cf. the passages from the Discours sur l'inegalite,
pp. 168-169 and the Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. ix, p. 113,
cited in eh. III, pp. 210-211.
330.
Cf. the Discours sur l'inegalite,
and the Essai sur l'origine
des langues,
331.
Cf. the Contrat
l'origine
des langues,
note v, O.C.III,
pp. 198-199,
eh. ix, pp. 99 and 103.
social,
I.ii,
O.C.III,
eh. ix, p. 91.
332.
Emile, Livre II,
333.
Essai sur l'origine
p. 352, and the Essai sur
O.C.IV, p. 411.
des langues,
369
eh. ix, p. 99.
�Each of the interpretations
more or less misleading
account
Discours
and the Essai because
sections
from the Discours
from the ninth
chapter
chapter
was actually
completed,
of the Essai.
drafted
nor
upon connections
their
author
instance
through
in turn,
refer
with selected
before.
the Discours
to the earlier
a philosophical
had been
work.
It
from those
an elaboration
of
to
between them can only be focused
which Rousseau simply
We can only establish
conceptual
between arguments which were at least
of the same system of ideas,
we can only determine
that
work, and any attempt
or the lack of connections
to form parts
requires
It is neither
from that
in mind to make.
passages
of t~e development of society,
theory
bonds or breaks
and contradictions
a
between the
But, as we have seen,
some time after
a departure
theoretical
never had it
ties
to a set of problems which are different
Rousseau had treated
the Discours
here provides
in every case it has been assumed that
must be juxtaposed
a new and separate
and it pertains
locate
of the conceptual
and it does not at all
constitutes
that
I have discussed
the relevant
facts
intended
investigation
by
and in any
about this
matter
study of the meaning of his statements
an historical
ties
of their
place
which,
in the
corpus of his wx:-itings.
In fact
we do have historical
between the Discours
link
and the Essai,
about the connection
but that
evidence
formed, not by eh. ix, but by chs. xviii
work.
It is to the Ms R 60 that
became of the fragment
his projected
linguistic
structure
well,
evidence
and musical
The arguments
decline
to the Discours
and the eighteenth
that
and xviiii,
to a
of the later
we must turn if we wish to see what
of the Discours
preface.
points
of which
is in fact
370
in
in the Ms R 60 about our
bear a resemblance
and nineteenth
Rousseau speaks
of substance
a historical
chapters
relation
and
as
of the Essai which
�incorporate
a reconstituted
be understood
Discours
version
as having been conceived
but even as a very part
of our music and language
the context
of a general
than all
work.
the bridges
mentators
who have addressed
the later
text.
of the degeneration
and the Essai
that
themselves
attention
of scholars
away from comparisons
formation
of society
which Rousseau produced
research
and language,
other,
into
of morals,
the connections
, 1·ite., 335
1 ,.inega
together
For in Rousseau's
have been a substantial
section
and they
by these
and
com-
chapter
of
to Rousseau studies
of helping
of two accounts
at different
between a perspective
on the one hand, and a view of society
which he propounded
in
which is more clear
only to the ninth
is one contribution
the fate
appropriate
have been constructed
which I might hope to make here it would be that
further
They recount
in terms which are perfectly
theory
If there
not only at the same time as the
of that
form a bond between the Discours
fitting
arguments 334 are thus to
of these
when he drafted
formulation
of the Discours,
to turn the
of the
times to some
of music
and morals,
the Discours
on the
sur
of what must at first
and of what became the
334.
It should perhaps be noted here that aside from those passages in
the central
section of the Ms R 60 which came to figure in the Essai sur
l'origine
des langues there are a few others which are echoed elsewhere
in Rousseau's writings.
Thus, for instance,
a number of phrases among
the remarks about Hector, Andromache, and Astyanax that appear in the
appendix on p. 463 are repeated in Emile, Livre I, O.C.IV, p. 283.
But
the resemblance between the passages is not generally
so close as to
prove that the text of the Ms R 60 constitutes
a draft of Emile, and in
cases of this kind, since it did not seem to me correct to describe the
differences
as variants,
I have left them out of the appendix.
335.
Some of the interpreters
of the social philosophy of the Essai,
most notably Derrida (see especially
pp. 298-309 of De la grammatciiogie)
and Verri (see his Origine delle lingue in Rousseau, pp. 123-132), have
already addressed themselves to some important issues about the connection between the ninth chapter and those chapters which deal with the
nature and origins of music.
But the task of correlating
Rousseau's
reflections
on that subject with his ideas in the Discours has been very
seldom undertaken by any scholars.
371
�•
crowning
c hapters
critique
o f t h e largest
of the musical
There are,
chapters
philosophy
moreover,
affinities
which I believe
between Rousseau's
join
the ninth
chapter
as in the Essai he insists
l aw.
our principles
337
consent,
of their
communities
If there
individuals
our thoughts
scope.
establish
theoretical
than those
For just
of harmony could not have
so too in the Manuscrit
his chief
all
their
their
duties
were unavoidably
as diverse
in which they must in fact
society
musical
by
speech and song, together
with the
in form as
have been proof men throughout
Rarneau's scheme of harmony would truly
equally.
apply
We should then be able to communicate
language
and at the same time appreciate
to which each of us was accustomed already,
of speech and song together
Yet such a society
in the Manuscrit,
claim is
could never be deduced from natural
were some kind of natural
in a universal
combinations
the rules
of their
conduct,
the world then perhaps
that
our rules
for its
the
of the Manuscrit
are more close
they must also have established
the disparate
tonal
that
place.
which associate
of the Essai to the Discours.
of obligation
and the patterns
standards
to all
a central
In the same way that men had come to adopt all
conventions
duced.
features
actually
ideas
that
by Nature,
been prescribed
that
of Rameau occupies
some striking
• 336 h.is
E
of t h e ~•
part
on music in the Essai to the second chapter
de Geneve - features
that
• 1
singe
would be general
could never exist,
establishment
so
in their
Rousseau reflects
and survival
must depend upon
336.
Of course most of the eight chapters on music in the Essai must
have been drafted - like the rest of the work - after Rousseau had
completed the Discours.
As Porset notes in his 'L''inquietante
etrangete'
de l'Essai'
these chapters constitute
nearly a third of the
entire text.
I should like to take this opportunity
to pay a tribute
to that excellent
essay of Monsieur Porset;
my remarks here about the
putative ties between the Discours and the Essai have profited much from
his .work.
--337.
See the passages
pp. 93-94.
from the Manuscrit
372
de Geneve cited
in eh. II,
�the willingness
of every person
to accept
the paramount duty of caring
for the human race as a whole even at the expense of meeting his own
particular
needs,
in adopting
and men in that
either
would have no real
or linguistic
political
always serve to their
condition
interest
maxims which might not
best advantage,
ailleurs
que dans
Si la societe generale existoit
les sistemes des Philosophes,
elle seroit ... un Etre
moral qui aurait des qualites propres et distinctes
de celles des Etres particuliers
qui la constituent
.... Il y auroit une langue universelle
que la
nature apprendroit
a tousles hommes, et qui seroit
le premier instrument de leur mutuelle communication:
Il Y. auroit une sorte de sensorium commun qui
serviroit
a la correspondance de toutes les parties
.... Mais ou est l'homme qui puisse ainsi se separer
de lui meme et si le soin de sa propre conservation
est le premier precepte de la nature, peut oh le
forcer de regarder ainsi l'espece
en general pour
s'imposer,
a lui, des devoirs dont il ne voit point
la liaison avec sa constitution
particuliere?
Les
objections
precedentes ne subsistent-elles
pas
toujours? 33B
Most of the arguments
chapters
that
of some aspects
developed
in the following
had levelled
against
set forth
of Rameau's musical
year as a reply
Encyclopedie.
de Geneve, on the other
'Droit
in volume five.
Manuscrit
tions
that
of other
naturel'
theory
that
he had written
designed
sections
of the
completed
by
the
again in the Encylopedie,
of the Essai and the
by Rameau and Diderot,
in part,
as refuta-
respectively,
pp. 284 and 286
338.
Manuscrit de Geneve, O.C.III,
'Time and history in Rousseau', pp. 323-325.
373
for the
to contradict
we can date were produced, at least
compositions
which Rameau
The second chapter
had appeared,
Thus the earliest
and were then
to an attack
hand, was probably
Rousseau in 1756, and it was certainly
article
and nineteenth
by Rousseau in 1754 as
a number of the articles
four volumes of"the
Manuscrit
the eighteenth
of the Essai were initially
a critique
first
constitute
and
See also Gossman,
�in order to understand
the meaning of Rousseau's
we must, as I have tried
notice
of these
circumstances
The relation
indeed,
discussed
in the final
langues
to show throughout
study,
and political
take some
conventions
is,
of the~
itself.
For
of his work, which he entitled
'Rapport
by Rousseau in the text
aux gouvernemens',
come to be separated
in both works
under which they were conceived.
between our musical
chapter
this
ideas
he maintains
that
from music are inimical
languages
des
which have
to freedom.
a la liberte;
ce sont
Il y a des langues favorables
les langues sonores, prosodiques,
harmonieuses, dont
on distingue
le discours de f.ort loin.
Les notres
sont faites pour le bourdonement des Divans .... Or je
dis que toute langue avec laquelle on ne peut pas se
faire entendre au peuple assemble est une langue
servile;
il est impossible qu'un peuple demeure
libre et qu'il parle cette langue-la.339
A prosaic
rhetoric
thus inspired
was made hollow by its
men.
The languages
discourse
at close
servile
manners,
and speech which
lack of tone and rhythm also made for hollow
of modern Europe have become suitable
quarters,
in the guise of an ineffectual
only for
chatter
339.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xx, pp. 199 and 201.
D'Alembert raised the question of the link between political
liberty and
music in the very title
of his De la liberte
de la musique, a work which
Rousseau had almost certainly
read when he prepared this chapter of the
Essai (seep.
201 of the text and note 200 above).
For the most importantof
d'Alembert's
remarks about the subject see the following passage
in La Querelle des Bouffons, III, pp. 2216-2217:
"Je m'etonne ... que
dans un siecle ou tant de plumes se sont exercees sur la liberte
du
commerce, sur la liberte
des mariages, sur la liberte
de la presse, sur
la liberte
des toiles peintes,
personne n'ait encore ecrit sur LA LIBERT€
DE LA MUSIQUE. ftre esclaves dans nos divertissemens,
ce seroit,
pour
employer 1 1 expression d I un Ecri vain Philosophe,
degenerer 1;.on-seulement de
la liberte,
mais de la servitude
meme.
'Vous avez la vue bien courte,
repondent nos grands Politiques;
toutes les libertes
se tiennent,
& sont
egal.ement dangereuse~.
Laliberte
de la Musigue suppose celle de sentir,
la liberte
de sentir entraine celle de penser, la liberte
de penser celle
d'agir,
& la liberte d'agir est la ruine des Etats.
Conservons done
l'Opera tel qu'il est, si nous avons envie de conserver le Royaume; &
mettons un frein a la licence de chanter, si nous ne voulons pas que celle
de parler la suive bientot'."
374
�of persons
who can now only murmur feebly
which lack
inflexion,
and therefore
spirit
as our speech has come to be deprived
lost
all
its
tracted
expressive
but faint
character
mutterings
or purpose.
are also
and stifling
still.
public
34
°
can do little
preach
tions
manifestation,
distinguishable
aspect
according
when the people
delivered
become the sole
it has
into
apart
delivered
to say themselves
from shout and
as unmeasured
and unintelligible.
The proclama-
of our priests
and secular
languages
is more oppressive
but have nothing
oratory
unremitting
from silence.
and make us numb, and tortuous
form. of popular
of
utterances
and their
are assembled
by both religious
the pro-
- emptied of
to Rousseau,
and the supplications
abuse our sensibilities
traits
of our contemporary
pronouncements,
are at once intemperate
Hence
who have no strength
form of discourse
For men who govern others
of our rulers
sermons,
of individuals
is the private
else
musical
devoid of sounds altogether,
to them, and their
speeches,
of its
too.
and has been transformed
their
hum is hardly
But if this
and passion
with voices
For such men the most appropriate
the most quiet;
melody - is almost
their
force
to one another
continually
harangues
charlatans,
and
have
in the modern world.
Quels discours restent
done a faire au peuple
assemble?
Des sermons.
Et qu'importe a
ceux qui les font de persuader le peuple,
puisque ce n 1 est pas lui qui nomme awc
se tourmentent
benefices? ... Nos predicateurs
se mettent en sueur dans les Temples, sans
Apres
qu'on sache rien de ce qu'ils
ont dit.
s'etre
epuises a crier pendant une heure, ils
Assurement
sortent de la chaire a demi-marts.
ce n'etoit
pas la peine de prendre tant de
fatigue .... Qu'on suppose un homme harangant en
340.
in eh.
Double
Modern
The important distinction
between private and public communication
xx of the Essai has already been noted by Barbara Guetti in 'The
Voice of Nature:
Rousseau's Essai sur l'origine
des langues',
Language Notes, LXXXIV(1969), p. 865.
375
�fran9ois le peuple de Paris dans la plccc de Vendosme.
Qu'il crie a pleine tete, on entendra qu'il crie,
on ne distinguera
pas un mot .... Siles
charlatans
des places abondent moins en France qu'en Italie,
ce
n'est pas qu'en France ils soient rnoins ecoutes,
c'est seulement qu'on ne les entend pas si bien.341
The private
and public
portrait
of the utterly
fallen.
Conversation
become barren,
even these
states
have correctly
authority
without
political
come to understand
arranging
any popular
the attention
that
their
form the vocal intonations
latest
pleasures
our original
they might still
have been reconstituted
man-
auditors
that
In
are no longer
the rulers
of modern
they can maintain
meetings
of their
which they might exchange with each other
few thoughts
has
from the pulpit.
forms of rhetoric
places,
have
discourse
in bringing
and recitations
perverted
They have only to direct
things
succeeded
to keep us ip our allotted
necessary
into which our societies
has become covert,
by diatribes
an accurate
thus provide
up to date only by becoming the speechless
of those who rule
since
of language
degraded state
and we have all
ner of speaking
fact
faces
or assemblies
subjects
their
at all.
to the many
and away from the
wish to communicate,
so that
which once expressed
as the terms that
in
our
denote our trades,
Whereas the words 'aimez-moi' must in the past have been superseded
342
now all that we say to each other is 'donnez de
'aidez-moi 1 ,
by
l'argent'.
341.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xx, pp. 197 and 199-201. Cf.
the following passage from Neuchatel Ms R 19 (O.C.II, p. 1250), which
contains an elliptical
reference to this chapter of the Essai:
"La
raison de cet abus est comrne je l 1 ai dit ailleur
dans la forme qu'on[tJ
pris les gouvernemens et qui fait qu'on n'a plus rien a dire au peuple
que les choses du monde qui le touchent le moins et qu'il se soucie le
rnoins d'entendre.
Des sermons des discours academiques.
quand on n'a
rien oui de tout cela le public n'a pas perdu grand chose et souvent
l'orateur
y a beaucoup gagne."
342.
See the passage from the Essai sur l'origine
p. 131 cited on p. 334 above.
376
des langues,
eh. x,
�Les societes ont pris leur derniere formes;
on n'y
change plus rien qu'avec du canon ec des ecus, et
comme on n'a plus rien a dire au peuple sinon,
donnez de l'argent,
on le dit avec des placards au
coin des riies ou des soldats dans les maisons;
il
ne faut assembler persone pour cela:
au contraire,
il faut tenir les sujets epars;
c'est la premiere
maxime de la politique
moderne.343
In his last
two paragraphs
Rousseau refers
Remarques sur la grammaire generale
provides
perhaps
the most conclusive
the Essai was conceived
to a passage
from the
of Duclos which, in my view,
testimony
as a work in social
of the sense in which
theory.
superficielles,
mais qui
Je finirai
ces reflexions
peuvent en faire naitre de plus profondes, par le
passage qui me les a suggerees.
'Ce seroit la
matiere d'un examen asses philosophique,
que
d'observer
dans le fait et de montrer par des
exemples combien le caractere
les moeurs et les
int~rets
d'un peuple influent sur sa Langue. • 344
343.
Ibid.,
eh. xx, pp. 197-199.
344.
Ibid., p. 201.
In Duclos's Remarques sur la gramrnaire generale
et raisonnee the passage appears on p. 9 of the edition incorporated
in
the ninth volume of his Oeuvres completes, 10 vols. (Paris 1~06).
The
work - itself
a commentary, in this case upon the seventeenth-century
Port-Royal Grammaire of Antoine Arnauld and Claude Lancelot - was first
published in 1754 (seep.
308 and note 200 above).
It was quite widely
read in the eighteenth
century (already in 1754, in fact, there appeared
a reply by the abbe Guillaume-Marie Du Breil de Pontbriand,
and by 1788
it had been reprinted
in four further editions),
and its attack upon any
conception of universal
linguistic
rules was clearly recognised to be one
of its central features,
Thus in his text (p. 38) Duclos .had stated,
for instance,
that "c'est un peuple en corps qui fait une langue;
c'est
par le concours d'une infinite
de besoins, d'idees et de causes fisiques
et morales, variees et combinees durant une succession de siecles,
sans
qu'il soit possible de reconoitre
l'epoque des changemens, des alterations
ou des progres,
Souvent le caprice decide;
quelquefois
c'est la metafisique la plus subtile qui echape a la reflexion
et a la conoissance de
ceus meme qui en sont les auteurs.
Un peuple est done le maitre absolu
de la langue parlee, et c'est un empire qu'il exerce sans s'en apercevoir".
It must be acknowledged that Rousseau might have drawn some inspiration
for his remarks in the concluding paragraphs of the Essai from a number
of other works as. well, since several writers whose ideas were certainly
familiar to him had argued, in a more or less similar fashion, that our
languages expressed our needs and that these needs varied from one
society to the next.
The point is quite explicitly
made in the Essai
377
�For Rousseau,
matical
then,
to specify
communities throughout
conceived
in order to establish
over the rest.
which arose between them in society
in the divisions
men, on the one hand, and their
specious
virtues
neighbours,
which together
and the precepts
of right
and new satisfactions
and
and the divisions
also ca~e to have their
octaves.
taste
the world.
the supremacy of
from each other,
of their
by rules
which
Thus when speech and song were set
so too men came to be divided
now fixed
their
which they employed to make them docile
were all
some individuals
point
and musical vocabu-
through which men sought to please
like the languages
apart
with our acquired
and make secure those values
we had come to favour in our various
compliant,
our harmonic and gram-
and both our political
were designed
The languages
that
were developed in accordance
conventions
needs and inclinations,
laries
it was clear
The artificial
duties,
prescribed
conduct,
counterpleasures
on the other,
the standards
were
of good
and by common consent
came to occupy their
of
our new
proper place.
ine des connoissances humaines of Condillac (see II.i.15,
§143,
sur l'ori
OPC, I, p. 98 , for example, a text to which Rousseau devoted some space
in his treatment of language in the Discours sur l'inegalite,
and it is,
in my view, rather curious that there is no mention of Condillac's
name
at all in the Essai.
As for Rousseau's connections with Duclos it is
clear that each had considerable admiration for the other which was
maintained - surprisingly
in the case of Rousseau - over a period of many
years.
Le Devin du village was dedicated to Duclos, the Nouvelle
Heloise was entrusted
to his care, and the Confessions were produced with
his encouragement {but see the note which Rousseau added after he had
completed the manuscript,
in O.C.I, p. 290).
When, in the 1750s,
Rousseau was disenchanted with many of his friends,
"Duclos seul", he
later reminisced (ibid.,
p. 387), "parut meme augmenter d'amitie pour
moi", and toward the end of the next decade he reflected
(Correspondance
generale,
XIX, p. 141) that "ce n'est pas un ami chaud, mais c'est
un
hOllUlledroit qui ne vous 'trompera pas, et qui n'insultera
pas ma memoire,
parcequ'il
m'a bien connu et qu'il est juste".
Cf. Duclos's letter
to
Rousseau of 17 December 1762 (Correspondance complete, XIV, p. 206):
"Vous etes du tres petit nombre d'homes que j'aime le mieux et avec qui
je voudrois vivre pour la Surete et pour l'agrement."
See also C.C.I,
pp. 1439-1440;
Paul Dimoff, 'Les relations
de J.-J. Rousseau et de
Duclos apropos de quelques lettres
inedites',
Mercvre de France, CLXXVIII
(1925), pp. 5-19; Paul Meister, Charles Duclos (Gen~ve 1956), pp. 34-47,
79-88, and 197-198;
Derrida, De la grammatologie, pp. 239-243 and 324;
and Jacques Brengues, Charles Duclos ou l'obsession
de la vertu (SaintBrieuc 1971), pp. 91-104, 130-138, and 150-155.
378
�
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<strong>Title: </strong>Rousseau on Society, Politics, Music and Language - An Interpretation of His Early Writings<br /><strong><br /></strong>
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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An account of the resource
<strong>Abstract:</strong> This study is focused upon a variety of specific problems which I believe the early writings of Rousseau were designed to solve. Most of the works that are discussed here were drafted by Rousseau between 1750 and 1756, and I shall argue that a proper grasp of this fact about their temporal proximity is important to an understanding of the conceptual relations which underlie them. I hope to show that any accurate account of Rousseau's meaning must incorporate a careful examination of the context in which his ideas were developed, and I shall therefore be concerned very largely with the manner in which his writings were conceived as replies to arguments that were produced by other thinkers. The first chapter is devoted to an account of some mistaken interpretations of Rousseau's meaning. We often confuse our own beliefs about the contemporary significance of certain ideas with the sense which their authors originally intended they should have, and in this chapter I consider a number of misconceptions of that kind, as well as some mistaken correctives to them, which have appeared in Rousseau studies. The views of C.E. Vaughan and Robert Derathe, in particular, are discussed with reference to these problems. The second chapter is concerned with the influence of Diderot upon Rousseau and especially with the intellectual debt which Rousseau owed to Diderot's article 'Droit naturel'. The 'Economie politique' and the Manuscrit de Geneve are shown to exhibit the influence of Diderot in two quite different ways, and the conceptions of the 'volonté generale' of the two figures are compared in the light of the differences between their accounts of the natural society of mankind. In the third chapter the arguments of the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> are examined in connection with the ideas of several other figures from whom Rousseau drew some inspiration or against whom he raised some objections in that work. The chapter opens with a challenge to the thesis that the second Discours bears the stamp of Diderot's influence, and it continues with several sections, which are concerned with the historical, anthropological, linguistic, and political views of Buffon, Condillac, and Hobbes and Locke, respectively, while two final sections describe Rousseau's account of the transformation of natural into social man. The fourth chapter compares a number of ideas about the nature and origin of music which were put forward by Rameau and Rousseau. It traces the course of their controversy about this subject through the writings of both thinkers, and in the case of Rousseau it is addressed especially to his articles on music in the <em>Encyclopedie</em>, his <em>Lettre sur la musique françoise</em>, his <em>Examen de deux principes</em>, and his <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. It also attempts to establish that the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> at first contained a section about the genesis of music which Rousseau eventually incorporated in the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. The chapter, moreover, offers an interpretation of the place of music and language in the general context of Rousseau's social theory, and it provides a critique of several accounts of tbe historical relation between the <em>Essai</em> and the second <em>Discours</em> which have neglected that common feature of their meaning. The final chapter is concerned with the <em>Discours sur les sciences et les arts</em> and with the writings which Rousseau produced between 1751 and 1753 in defence of that text against its critics. I argue there that while the first <em>Discours</em> is the most shallow and least original of all of Rousseau's major works, the controversy which followed its publication helped him to focus his ideas about culture and society much more sharply than he had done before. I try to show that Rousseau's replies to the detractors of the <em>Premier Discours</em> constitute a refinement of his views along the paths which he was then to pursue further in the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> and the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>, and I conclude with some reflections about the systematic nature of his early social theory as it was developed in the period between his composition of the first and second <em>Discours</em>. The appendix consists of an annotated transcription of the manuscript on the origins of music and language discussed at length in chapter IV.
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Chapter 4: The Controversy with Rameau and the Genesis of the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em> (part 2)
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pp. 307-378
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Part 1.
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Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews
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Diderot
Rousseau
-
https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/intellectualhistory/files/original/b0271b4e4d588617723a33ded314fb8f.pdf
b0c16b13e4c353b3e0578d42b4a0a64e
PDF Text
Text
V
THE CRITIQUEor CULTURE
ANDSOCIETY
IN ROUSSEAU'S
EARLYWRITINGS
Throughout this
writings
fact
to elaborate
in our understanding
that Rousseau's
of these
lenge to several
adopted
thought.
sections
of society
have made men miserable
Rousseau formulated
notable
these
seventeenth-century
figures
a chal-
and foundations
for all
secondly,
development
and my accounts
that
as identical
particularly
des langues,
on the other,
have
the dual sense in which he believed
and the perfection
and corrupt.
ideas
of culture,
My third
as refutations
theorists,
and Locke, as well as in a series
leading
comprise
on the one hand, and the musical
sur l 1origine
been put forward to portray
and multi-
in which such institutions
of our historical
sur l'inegalite,
of the Essai
the ev.olution
on the genesis
It has also been my contention,
with the path of our moral degradation,
and
of law, property,
and conventions
doctrines
I have argued
to a number of abstract
as having much the same nature
Rousseau saw the course
of the Discours
Firstly,
of history
from 1750 to 1756 were con-
his essays
practices
metaphysical
times.
of view and have in
about the essence
- so that
the early
about the place
correctives
- especially
music, and language
men at all
theses
of his social
as historical
claims
were depicted
four.main
to interpret
point
major works in the period
largely
universal
plicity
I have attempted
of Rousseau from an historical
tried
ceived
study
including,
of polemical
of the eighteenth-century
379
thesis
that
respectively,
has been that
of the views of some
above all,
controversies
Enlightenment,
Hobbes
with
among whom
�Rameau, Buffon,
Fourthly,
Condillac,
and Diderot
historical
arguments
directly
to the substance
pertain
rather
I have here stressed
tions
if we locate
formulated
that
Neither
understanding
contexts
of the others.
about historical
and
of his works.
in which they were
of various
or rebut,
thinkers
and insofar
indispensable
But I think
I have said
method and about the philosophical
who accept
mistaken
assumptions
with regard
between views propounded by different
writers.
do I wish to pursue here what might well appear to be an
of my claims,
even though there
philosophy
problems which arise
the diversity
of cultures,
moral debasement of all
with regard
to the first
are some difficult
two
and important
from his having held to a belief
con-
both in
on the one hand, and in the invariable
civilisations,
on the other.
I should
like
to conclude my study with some remarks about what I take to
be the philosophical
propose
- and specifi-
two claims seem to me quite
in Rousseau's
instead
refer
theory - while the third
to amend, elaborate,
inconsistency
ceptual
theory
with the arguments
explanation
relations
two of my points
social
that
them in the precise
made by scholars
to the actual
them in just
we can only grasp the sense of his specula-
is the case my last
enough already
errors
within
and in connection
for any adequate
the first
to our own historical
which they were designed
as that
that
of Rousseau's
to his idea of history
fourth
if we locate
grasp
settings.
Now it should be apparent
cally
the most important.
I have sought to show that we can only have a proper
of the meaning of Rousseau's
these
~ere
coherence
to show how these
Rousseau's
conception
his reflections
of his early
points,
of history,
on the decadence
social
thought,
focused both within
help to clarify
of culture
380
and I
and about
the manner in which
and society
were formed
�in the period
l'inegalite
leading
and the Essai
fore to end this
Rousseau's
social
a treatise
genesis
work with a brief
that
upon that
theory
is,
l mean there-
in the course
of
sur les sciences
et
of the controversy
Rousseau came to form the system-
of which the two main components soon proved to be
on the origins
of inequality
and an exposition
of the
of music and language.
struck
on reading
Rousseau remarked that
the notice
question
'Si le retablissement
1
les moeurs'.
univers
et je devins
un autre
to catch his breath,
vision
- about the natural
of our social
leading
recapture
ideas
for the best
2
lecture
he wrote.
moved practically
faint
a
je vis un autre
He had stopped
to delirium
- which had kindled
of his ·principal
on the
& des Arts a contribue
de cette
homme",
essay
by
by a fiery
goodness of humanity and the evil
order
more than its
a prize
des Sciences
"A l 'instant
a tree
he had been thunder-
of the Academie de Dijon in the Mercure
de France of October 1749, proposing
tions
sur
of the earliest
the Discours
composition
In his Confessions
epurer
des langues.
account
and l hope to show that
which centred
of the Discours
sur l'origine
major writings,
les arts,
atic
to his composition
contradic-
in his mind most of the
works, even though he was never to
shadow or penumbra.
Si jamais quelque chose a ressemble a une inspiration Subite, c'est Le mouvem[en]t qui Se fit en
moi a cette Lecture:
Tout a coup je me Sens
l'esprit
ebloui de mille Lumieres ... je Sens ma
tete prise par un etourdissement
Semblable a
L'ivresse .... Si j'avois
jamais pu ecrire Le quart
de ce que j'ai vu et Senti Sous cet arbre, avec
quelle clarte j'aurois
fait voir toutes .Les contradictions
du systeme Social, avec quelle force
1.
See the Correspondance
2.
Confessions,
O.C.l,
complete,
p. 351.
381
II,
appendice
67, pp. 293-294.
�j'aurois
expose tousles
abus de Nos institutions,
avec qucllc Simplicite
j'aurois
demontre que
L'homme est bon naturellem[en)t
et que c'est par
ces institutions
Seules que les hommes deviennent
mechans. 3
Yet whereas the Discours
constitutes
notable
les sciences
SU!'
the most immediate expression
fact
about this
work that
fait
115
career
he admitted
had neither
order,
though it was full
The text
nor logic,
undoubtedly
it is a
it as perhaps
which truly
launched
in 1751 4 might have been "mal
when it appeared
in the following
vision,
Rousseau came to regard
the worst of all his major writings.
his literary
of that
et les arts
year to one of its
nor structure,
critics.
he lamented later,
of warmth and vigour he maintained
It
and
that
de tous [les ouvrages] qui sont sortis de ma pl.ume
c 1 est le plus foible de raisonnement et le plus
pauvre de nombre et d'harmonie. 6
3.
Rousseau to Malesherbes, 12 January 1762, Correspondance complete, X,
p. 26.
See also p. 399 below.
There have been many, not always illuminating, accounts of Rousseau's psychological
state at this crucial moment
of his life.
Among the best known are those of Gerhard Gran (see 'La
crise de Vincennes',
Annales, VII (1911), pp. 1-17) and Guehenno (see
Jean-Jacques,
I, pp. 271-283).
4.
In the light of some new evidence, together with a reinterpretation
of familiar sources, Leigh concludes (see the Correspondance complete, II,
pp. 135-136 and 140) that Rousseau's first Discours must have been published in 1751, probably around 8 January.
Most scholars have previously
supposed that the text appeared at the end of November 1750.
As to its
dates of composition we know very little
apart from that it must have been
drafted between October 1749 and March 1750 (since the closing date for
the competition was 1 April 1750), though Rousseau did make a number of
minor changes and additions
later.
In his Confessions (see O.C.I, p. 352)
Rousseau reflected
that he had worked on the essay at a feverish pace and
had confided the fact that he was engaged in writing it only to his two
best friends at the time, that is, Diderot and Grimm. For an account of
the reception of the Discours by the members of the Academie de Dijon see
especially
the documents reproduced in the Correspondance complete, II,
appendices 68-75, pp. 294-303.
a Lecat',
5.
'Lettre
6.
Confessions,
O.C.I,
O.C.III,
p. 98.
p. 352.
382
�In 1763 he added a foreword which made much the same point,
is even some evidence
to suggest
already
to warn his readers
have intended
ously lacking
in literary
that
talent,
in his original
that
I find it
ment of this
the prize
elegant,
it stirred
work.
difficult
Its
preface
and there
he may
the work was conspicu-
commenting that
on reconnoitra
facilement
dans [cet ecrit]
fort peu exercee dans le genre oratoire. 8
For my part
7
to disagree
rhetorical
une plume
with Rousseau's
flourishes
own assess-
may well have merited
for which it was composed, but in my view it is much the least
least
consistent,
- least
original
least
profound,
of all
and - despite
his celebrated
the fuss which
writings.
7.
This foreword appears in Geneve (Societe Jean-Jacques
Rousseau)
Ms R 89, a manuscript which comprises a collection
of Rousseau's early
published works with corrections
and additions
that he meant to incorporate in the Duchesne edition of his writings.
The passage which refers
to the mediocrity of the Discours sur les sciences et les arts reads as
follows (O.C.III,
p. 1237):
"Qu'est-ce que la celebrite?
Voici le malheureux ouvrage a qui je dois la mienne.
Il est certain que cette piece
qui m'a valu un prix et qui m'a fait un nom, est tout au plus mediocre,
et j'ose ajouter qu'elle
est une des moindres de tout ce recueil."
Cf.
Havens, p. 92.
In the light of the evidence noted by Havens (see
pp. 168-169) it seems clear that the foreword was drafted in 1763, though
Bavens was mistaken to suppose that it was actually
incorporated
in the
Duchesne edition of the Discours printed in 1764.
In fact it was first
published in Moultou-Du Peyrou.
8.
Pichois-Pintard,
p. 30.
My reason for stating
that the evidence
only suggests this conclusion is attributable
simply to the fact that I
am not yet entirely
convinced - even though it seems to me most likely that the fragment which incorporates
this passage constitutes
an original
draft of the preface of the Premier Discours.
Though there is no reason
to doubt that it is in Rousseau's own hand, I believe that it might just
conceivably be a rough version of another of his early writings,
possibly
of the foreword to his Discours sur la vertu du heros, composed in 1751.
An intermediate
draft of the preface to the Discours sur les sciences et
les arts has certainly
survived, however, and this fragment (BN Ms n.a.
fr. 5215, p. 531), also in Rousseau's hand, was first
transcribed
by
Leigh in his 'Manuscrits
disparus'
(see pp. 58-62).
Apart from that
solitary
remnant all the original
manuscripts of the work, including the
final copy sent to the Academie de Dijon, have been lost.
Rousseau's
revisions
to the published text, nevertheless,
are still
available.
Most of these changes figure in Geneve (Societe Jean-Jacques
Rousseau)
Ms R 89, and they now appear, too, in the notes of O.C.III.
A few
further,
and minor, alterations
have recently been transcribed
by Leigh
in 'D'Alernbert's
copy of Rousseau's first Discours',
The Library, XXII
(1967), pp. 243-244.
383
�The central
Civilisation
morals,
theme of the Premier
Discours
has been the bane of humanity,
Rousseau reflected,
perfection
of our arts
has
followed
seems plain
enough.
and the corruption
the same cource
of our
a~ the
and sciences.
Nos ames se sont corrompues a mesure que nos Sciences
et nos Arts se sont avances a la perfection. 9
Before we acquired
before
the skills
our behaviour
moeurs etoient
and attributes
mais naturelles
dissemination
of enlightenment,
progressively
debased by the exigencies
by "notre
fas~,
fausse
until
men, and
came to be moulded by art and artifice,
rustiques,
tom, by "ce voile
of cultured
unifonne
our pristine
with the same unremitting
•
10
With the birth
however, our original
et perfide
delicatesse",
11
of sophistical
de politesse",
and by "tous ces vils
virtue
force
has been displaced
that
governs
"nos
and
purity
has been
taste
and cus-
by "la bienseance",
omemens"
11
of
from our lives
the ebb and flow of tides.
L'elevation
et l'abbaissement
journalier
des eaux
de l'Ocean n'ont pas ete plus regulierement
assujetis au cours de l'Astre
qui nous eclaire
durant
la nuit, que le sort des moeurs et de la probite
au progres des Sciences et des Arts.
On a vu la
vertu s'enfuir
a mesure que leur lumiere s'elevoit
sur notre horizon.12
We can only regret
of those earliest
9.
Discours
10,
Ibid.,
times,
our loss
of the simplicity
Rousseau continued,
sur les sciences
et les arts,
and happy innocence
when the members of our
O.C.III,
p. 9.
p. 8.
11.
Ibid., pp. 8 and 21.
James Hamilton, in 'A Theory of art in
Rousseau's first discourse',
SVEC, XCIV (1972), pp. 77-80, makes the
interesting
suggestion that the principles
of 'politesse',
'bienseance',
and 'gout' constitute
the three main principles
of art which Rousseau saw
as having undermined our moral virtues.
12.
Discours
sur les sciences
et les arts,
384
O.C.III,
p. 10.
�race lived
together
deeds and actions
beginning
in huts and wished for little
should be under the gaze of their
the sole
the contours
adornments
of a shoreline
But when men later
cent temples
more than that
of
the world
- sculpted
became vicious
in order that
In the
would have been - like
exclusively
they banished
the deities
gods.
their
by Nature herself.
their
should be less
gods to magnifiable to spy on
them,
On ne peut reflechir
sur les rnoeurs, qu'on ne se
plaise a se rappeller
l'image de la simplicite
des premiers terns.
C'est un beau rivage, pare
des seules mains de la nature .... Quand les honunes
innocens et vertueux airnoient a avoir les Dieux
pour temoins de leurs actions,
ils habitoient
ensemble sous les memes cabanes;
mais bien-tot
devenus mechans, ils se lasserent
de ces incommodes
spectateurs
et les releguerent
dans des Temples
rnagnifiques. 13
So, too,
by artistic
those• civilisations
and scientific
by the trappings
vigorous
viduals
of culture
and robust.
which have been the least
progress,
which have been the least
and learning,
For the arts
preserve
it from invasion.
for instance,
ignorant
failed
Tartars.
knowledge possessed
the Persians
easily
devotion
The marvellous
by their
able to conquer Asia,
erudite
virtue
nations was founded solidly
14
et les vertus"
of their inhabitants.
p. 22.
14.
Ibid.,
p. 11.
subjection
and expert
385
upon
II
strength
to
of the Chinese,
to the coarse
then,
sages?
as we are taught
while the greatness
Scythian
Ibid.,
inventions
indi-
on the contrary
and their
Of what use to the Chinese people,
- who were taught
13.
do not inspire
of patriotism;
to the state
to ward off their
burdened
have proved to be the most
and sciences
with courage or with the spirit
they sap men of both their
tainted
and
was the
For their
science
part,
- were
of the Geman and
la simplici te,
l' innocence
�Above all,
Athens,
the history
demonstrates
to the vices
of tyranny,
person
dangerous
are those
in Athens,
of ignorance
of
communities of men whose minds have
cautioned
of their
with that
how much more resistant
by the vain monuments of culture.
consequences
the praises
when contrasted
how much more durable,
not been contaminated
the wisest
of Sparta,
15
Socrates,
his fellow-citizens
arrogance
of the
and presumption
and even sang
to them.
Voila ... le plus Sage des hommes... et le plus savant
des Atheniens au sentiment de la Grece entiere,
16
Socrate faisant l'Eloge de l'ignorance.
At Rome Cato followed
seductive
delights
vitality
of art and ostentation
and resolution
unheeded as well,
prevail
tural
his example and inveighed
of his compatriots.
and an entirely
specious
once again - to the detriment
production,
and political
against
the venomously
which were undermining
the
Yet his warnings went
form of learning
of military
came to
discipline,
agricul-
vigilance.
Socrate avoit commence dans Athenes, le vieux Caton
continua dans Rome de se dechainer contre ces Grecs
artificieux
et subtils qui seduisoient
la vertu et
amolissoient
le courage de ses concitoyens.
Mais
les Sciences, les Arts et la dialectique
prevalurent
r':ncore:
Rome se remplit de Philosophes et
Ja'Orateurs;
on negligea la discipline
militaire,
on
-i~eprisa
l'agriculture,
on embrassa des Sectes et
l!'on oublia la Patrie.17
Tbe Roman Republic,
decadent
ineluctably
15.
theatre
formerly
of crime,
the temple of virtue,
and the capital
soon became tbe
of the world slowly but
succumbed ,mder the yoke with which it had earlier
See ibid.,
harnessed
pp. 12-13.
16.
Ibid., p. 13.
This passage follows a rather free translation
several paragraphs,
probably from a Latin text, of Plato's Apology.
of
17.
Ibid., p. 14.
In the early 1750s Rousseau was to expound upon this
distinction
between Socrates and Cato on several occasions,
and he may even
have intended to devote a whole work to the subject (see Pichois-Pintard,
pp. 78-112).
Of the fragments assembled in Pichois-Pintard
(see pp. 48-64)
one was to figure in his Discours sur la vertu du heros and another was
incorporated
in his 'Economie politique'.
386
�18
the barbarians.
collapse
Much the same pattern
of the ancient
and, indeed,
of decline
empires of Egypt, Greece,
it is a general
under the weight of their
rule
that
all
own scientific
these developments
clear
Discours
account of why the arts
responsible
infer
tion of virtue.
The sciences,
stems from the vices
from superstition,
The arts,
Luxury, in fact,
the arts
terns
and sciences,
explain
how
nor did he offer
any
All that his readers
that
could
he supposed the
with the deteriora-
Rousseau suggested,
have al\7ays been
and each of the particular
and indolence
moreover,
- astronomy
and physics
are everywhere nourished
et de la vanite
seems to be a crucial
that
sciences
give rise
geometry from avarice,
"n€... de l'oisivete
ment, since Rousseau maintained
without
progress.
conjoined
to which sloth
which is itself
24
ho1111nes".
,
for example,
• 1.. ty. 22
i'dl e curios
23
11
21
decay
should have been generally
of man.
to be universally
engendered "dans l'oisivete
luxury,
and sciences
from the text was the fact
advancement of culture
civilisations
dans tousles
have occurred,
for the moral decadence
legitimately
great
Rousseau did not really
might actually
19
and Constantinople,
and artistic
Le meme phenomene s 1 est observe
et dans tousles
lieux.20
In the Premier
also marked the
it can hardly
from
by
des
term in the arguever be found
while they never exist
at all
without
it.
18.
See ibid.,
p. 10.
19.
See ibid.,
pp. 10-11.
20.
Ibid.,
p. 10.
21.
Ibid.,
p. 18.
22.
See ibid.,
p. 17.
23.
See ibid.
On the subject of "la grande question du luxe" in the
Discours sur les sciences et les arts see especially
Havens, p. 191, note
110.
24.
Discours
sur les sciences
et les arts,
387
O.C.III,
p. 19.
�Le luxe va rarement sans les sciences
et jamais ils ne vont sans lui. 2 5
The dissolution
of luxury
which,
("la
dissolution
in turn,
ruption
tures
of morals,
of the history
beyond that
a product
of men that
of all
we have received
state
is apparently
des moeurs, suite
is essentially
and enslavement
punishment
then,
et les arts,
a necessary
necessaire
du luxe 1126),
of idleness.
And the cor-
have been such characteristic
civilisations
are thus proofs
for our haughty endeavours
of happy ignorance
and would have been our blessing
consequence
fea-
of the
to advance
in which it was our proper destiny
-
- to remain for ever.
Voila comment le luxe, la dissolution
et l'esclavage
ont ete de tout terns le chatiment des efforts
orgueilleux
que nous avons faits pour sortir
de
l'heureuse
ignorance ou la sagesse eternelle
nous
avoit places.27
Now there
sur les
later
sciences
et les
arts
some important
which anticipate
to advance in both the second Discours
des langues.
ties
are undoubtedly
For one thing,
between specific
passages.
there
elements
ideas
of the Discours
that
Rousseau was
and the Essai
are a few quite
Hence, for instance,
sur l'origine
striking
continui-
Rousseau's
remark
in the Premier Discours that our politicians
"ne parlent que de conunerce
28
et d'argent"
- whereas those of the ancient world spoke of morals and
25.
Ibid.
For a discussion
of the significance
of these lines in
Rousseau's argument, and for a general outline of the distinction
in the
work between the sciences and sloth, on the one hand, and the arts and
luxury, on the other, see Goldschmidt, Anthropologie et politigue,
pp. 38 and 76-77.
26.
Discours
27.
Ibid.,
p. 15.
28.
Ibid.,
p. 19.
sur les sciences
et les arts,
388
O.C.III,
p. 21.
�virtue
- seems to be recapitulated
Essai that
our orators
.
weary l isteners.
that
29
now only shout "donnez de l'argent"
Similarly,
today "un gout ... fin
appears
his general
[a) reduit
to apply specifically
especially
in his charge in eh. xx of the
in the passage
l 1 Art de plaire
to the art
there
over,
to the connection
we find that
men portrayed
the "fers"
liberte
arts
11
•
33
contains
the first
l'inegalite
Most importantly,
of the central
that
statement
later
originelle
•
31
With
text
as
leur
sur les sciences
et les
writings
in the Discours
ils
more-
the civilised
assurer
have become slaves
in the Premier Discours
postulate
11
anywhere in Rousseau's
pour laquelle
1130
music has
in the later
the Discours
- which was to be elaborated
of
sur
and have forsaken
sembloient
etre
we can already
nes".
34
find a sketch,
of the work to which he was only to turn a
- the idea,
tion may be attributed
that
ultimately
not by Nature but by man.
29.
work are depicted
- that men in society
liberte
few years
too,
that
de fer 1132which shackle
the "chaines
We find,
en principes
and second Discours,
into which "tous coururent ... croyant
his contention
"cette
le Dictionnaire
between the first
in the earlier
in the Discours
of music in the Essai,
in which he contends
become "une langue dont il faut avoir
regard
statement
to their
is,
that
all
the abuses of civilisa-
to the social
For "d'ou naissent
I
inequality
ordained
1
tous ces abus",
See eh. IV, pp. 376-377.
30.
Discours sur les sciences
Havens~ p. 185, note 79.
31.
See eh. IV, pp. 341-342.
32.
Discours
sur les sciences
33.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
An even more familiar reprise,
Contrat social,
I.i (O.C.III,
les fers".
et les arts,
O.C.III,
p. 8.
et les arts,
O.C.III,
p. 7.
See also
O.C.III, p. 177 (see eh. III, p. 192).
of course, is Rousseau's statement in the
p. 351) that man is now everywhere "dans
34.
Discours sur les sciences et les arts, O.C.III, p. 7. It should
also be borne in mind that note i of the Discours sur l'inegalite,
especially
in its focus upon the idea of luxury, is in large measure
a refrain of the Premier Discours.
389
�Rousseau exclaimed
in his prize
essay,
si ce n'est de l'inegalite
funeste introduhe
entre
les hommes par la distinction
des talens et par
l'avilissement
des vertus?3 5
Most significantly,
arts
that Rousseau first
effect
that
our real
it
i" in the Discours sur les sciences
advanced the general
our apparent
cultural
moral degradation
and social
skill,
and the tssai
des langues.
shown an interest
long before
early
thesis
progress
in the Discours
in sharper
sur l'inegalite
To be sure,
in problems about the general
- to the
has led only to
- which was to be developed,
focus and with much greater
sur l'origine
historical
et les
Rousseau had
of mankind
36
he bad begun to work on bis Premier Discours,
and as
as 1737 be bad in fact
which he reflected
l'histoire
de l'etude
drafted
history
a 'Chronologie
universelle'
in
that
doit faire une des principales
parties
d'un honnete homme.... L'univers est
35.
Ibid., p. 25.
It is possible,
however, that these last two passages did not figure in the manuscript which Rousseau submitted to the
Academie de Dijon.
ror in the preface to the published text Rousseau
observed (ibid.,
p. 3) that he had made "deux additions faciles a reconnoitre",
and while we have no evidence to show exactly which elements of
the work were added later,
and while several distinct
possibilities
have
been suggested by scholars,
we might be inclined to agree with rran~ois
Bouchardy (see ibid.,
p. 1240) that these remarks - ostensibly
a shade
more radical in tone than the rest - were introduced by Rousseau after he
bad won the prize.
In the first Discours there are, moreover, some
faint anticipations
of a few ideas developed in his other writings in
social theory, most notably, perhaps, the remarks about the ''Precepteurs
du Genre-humain" (see ibid.,
p. 29) which foreshadow the chapter on the
legislator
(II.vii)
in the Contrat social.
>
36.
From his earliest
childhood he had been especially
fascinated
by
Greek and Roman history,
he reflected
in his Confessions (O.C.I, p. 9):
"Sans cesse occupe de Rome et d'Athenes;
vivant, pour ainsi dire, avec
leurs grands hommes, ne moi-meme Citoyen d'une Republique ... je me
croyois Gree ou Romain; je devenois le personnage dont je lisois la vie."
l
390
�une grande famille dont nous sommes tous membres;
nous sommes done obligez d'en connoitre aussi la
situation
et les interets. 37
In his
a 1'i°.Bordes'
'Epitre
of 1741 he had also offered
of a moral world that was more attractive
inhabitants
later
the Essai
than our own because its
lived more simply and naturally
to portray
on broader
sur l'origine
a glimpse
- a spectacle
that he was
canvases in both the second Discours
and
des langues.
0 vous qui dans le sein d'une humble obscurite
Nourrissez les vertus avec la pauvrete,
Dont les desirs bornes dans la sage indigence
Meprisent sans orgueil une vaine abondance,
Restes trop precieux de ces antiques terns
Oil des moindres apprets nos ancetres contens,
Recherches dans leurs moeurs, simples dans leur parure,
Ne sentoient de besoin que ceux de la nature.3B
These cursory
anticipations
of some ideas which Rousseau came to expound
in his mature works, however, can hardly be taken to constitute
coherent
sketch of his later
speculations
only because they are so rudimentary
the period before his composition
accompanied by equally
short
ated and defended later.
Monsieur Parisot
1
and isolated,
and morals,
not
but also because in!·
of the Premier Discours
statements
that were almost diamen-ically
about history
a
they are
in which he put forward claims
opposed to the propositions
Hence, for instance,
of 1742 we find two lines
in his
he enunci-
'Epin-e
on the subject
which do not accord at all with the ideas of both the first
t
1
a
)
t
of inequality/
and second
Discours.
1 Chronologie
37.
universelle,
ou Histoire generale des temps, depuis la
creation du monde jusques a present',
in 'Pages inedites de Jean-Jacques
Rousseau', ed. Dufour, Annales, I (1905), pp. 214-215.
At the time of
its transcription
by Dufour this manuscript belonged to Ferdinand de
Saussure.
With regard to its probable date of composition see ibid.,
p. 213, note. l.
3B.
'Epitre
a M. Bordes',
O.C.II,
p.
391
1131.•
�Il ne seroit pas bon dans la societe
Qu'il fut entre les rangs moins d'inegalite.
But it would be as foolish
would be to emphasise
rather
to lay any stress
the importance
to foreshadow Rousseau's
1750 merit
our attention
duced literary
sciences
importance,
later
partly
because
and obscurities
upon this
remark as it
snippets
which appear
His writings
author
masterpieces.
on the other
Rousseau a celebrity,
views.
only because their
and philosophical
et les arts,
of those
39
subsequently
constitutes
widespread
his first
about the li~k between our historical
attention
was to form the principal
its
treatment
progress
sur les
a work of some
but even more because - despite
- it
pro-
The Discours
hand, is clearly
it attracted
before
and made
many faults
of the thesis
and moral decay which
theme of his major works in the period
from
L1150 to 1156.
This is not to say,
advanced during
Discours
points
those years
sur les sciences
which he raised
subsequent
f
in the first
offer
severe
sharply
'Epitre
less
ideas
he
form in the
that
wer.e elaborated
all
the main
more fully
in his
many of the most crucial
have no place
for concurring
fea-
at all
I shall
In fact,
with Rousseau's
return
instead
rather
of the essay.
the central
a Monsieur
or even abandoned.
but for the moment I should like
of the quality
vague and obscure.
39.
text
still
he propounded later
a few of my own reasons
For one thing,
the leading
while a number of the judgments he made there
presently,
appraisal
all
in an incipient
et les arts,
theory
Discours,
matter
that
On the contrary,
were soon to be modified
to this
figure
in that
writings.
ures of the social
~
of course,
thesis
as
Parisot',
of the work is certainly
I have
O.C.II,
392
suggested
p. 1140.
already,
the
to
�argument seems to be compriced of at
about the course and circumstances
the suggestion
innocence
that
primitive
nations
which are artistically
morally
superior
to their
that
great
weight of their
easily
of life
his praise
civilisations
problem made all
of our history
centuries
thinkers,
It is difficult
to see how this
ages" - this
can be reconciled
that,
that
and superstition
il falloit
une revolution
au sens commun.40
40.
Discours
41.
description
-
Ibid.
42.
Ibid.,
a great
course
under several
which
and from which
of "la Barbarie
pire
how these
393
1141-
des premiers
He did not explain
discontinuities
in the path
nor how men - apparently
et les arts,
p. 22 (see pp. 384-385 above).
des
que l'ignorance
of "la simplicite
might have occurred,
sur les sciences
like
- a
the general
tems 1142which Rousseau also drew in the Discours.
of our moral history
part
- to a state
ignorance
account of an "etat
moreover,
to the mode
pour ramener les hommes
with the portrait
anywhere in the text,
a clear
in the first
by a reversion
of our original
under the
of his work and, on the
he also maintained
of medieval barbarism
the
claims do not
tribute
by the fact
has been interrupted
are
and third,
in particular,
civilisations
the more intractable
was even worse than that
premiers
But these
man in the second part
many Enlightenment
the claim that
have become decadent
There is,
first,
from the
counterparts;
progress.
of untainted
theses
undeveloped
on the one hand, between Rousseau's
of primitive
other,
second,
and scientifically
accord with one another.
discrepancy,
distinct
progressively
state;
sophisticated
own cultural
three
of our moral degradation:
mankind has declined
of his earliest
contention
least
O.C.III,
p. 6.
�(already
in a state
of decay
- might
nonetheless
have formed great
'civilisations.
\
At the end of his argument Rousseau even launched
entirely
new thesis
to the effect
sciences
as such but rather
the true
source of our misfortunes,
with the observation
artists
to build
that
that
their
it is not really
abuse by ordinary
and, indeed,
the arts
and
men which has been
he concluded
it was the task of great
the glorious
upon an
scientists
his work
and
monuments of the human spirit.
S'il faut permettre a quelques hommes de se livrer
a l'etude des Sciences et des Arts, ce n'est qu'a
ceux qui se sentiront
la force de marcher seuls sur
leurs traces,
et de les devancer:
C'est ace petit
.nombre qu'il appartient
d'elever des monumens a la
gloire de l'esprit
humain. 4 3
The rest
of us lesser
than the obscurity
mortals,
he exclaimed,
and mediocrity
should aspire
to no more
to which we have been destined.
Pour nous, hommes vulgaires,
a qui le Ciel n'a
point departi de si gra~ds talens et qu'il ne
destine pas a tant de gloire,
restons dans n~tre
obscurite. 44
For my part,
thought
I find it difficult
these
lines
appropriate
and a defence of the v.irtues
to see why Rousseau should have
in a critique
of ignorance,
of the arts
innocence,
and sciences
and common
humanity.
He is not at all
tion
he believed
decline.
clear,
either,
about precisely
the growth of culture
His thesis
appears
to be that
had actually
what contribumade to our
thJLP!:Qgr_ess
9f
the arts
and
43.
Discours sur les sciences et les arts, O.C.III, p. 29.
I am fully
in agreement with Havens when he notes (p. 248, note 298) that the conclusion of the argument is "inattendue",
though ''parfai tement agreable a
ses amis, les Encyclopedistes".
44.
Discours
sur les sciences
et les arts,
394
O.C.tII,
p. 30.
�sciences
has been responsible
have already
shown that
were engendered
for the debasement of morals,
he also supposed that the arts and sciences
1 1
1
by 1 oisivete
,
'la vanite',
and 'le luxe' of man.
-
Has the advancement of culture
or only its
but I
effect?
Rousseau,
been the cause of our corruption,
then,
whose main concern in the work was
to portray the evils which invariably
"suivent les Lettres et les
45
Arts",
but who equally proclaimed that 11les Sciences et les Arts
.
l
.
d oivent
.•. eur naissance
,
.
a nos vices
11
,
46
seemed quite
unable to make
up his mind.
Perhaps the principal
reason
argument is the fact
that
the work o:f earlier
thinkers.
central
theme was inspired
other
figures,
Discours
though that
incorporates
for the indecisi~eness
most of its
components were borrowed from
By this
by ideas
I do not mean only that
which were first
is unquestionably
true.
The Premier
the views of a host of modern and ancient
- such as Montesquieu,
for instance,
Seneca,
Plato,
Plutarch 47 - whose writings
and, above all,
and whose commentaries
45.
Ibid.,
p. 19.
46.
Ibid.,
p. 17.
its
propounded by
authors
read at length,
of Rousseau's
and Fenelon,
upon the superiority
Montaigne,
Rousseau
of nature
47.
From his earliest
childhood, Rousseau reflected
in his Confessions
(0.C.I, p. 9), "Plutarque ... devint ma lecture favorite".
The references
to Plutarch's
Lives throughout his writings are legion - far more numerous
than the sixty-eight
counted by Marguerite Richebourg [Reichenburg] (see
her Essai sur les lectures
de Rousseau (Philadelphia
1932], p. 175) who
only tabulates
the bulk of the passages in which Plutarch is mentioned by
name.
I suspect, indeed, that there is no other single text which
Rousseau consulted more often in the preparation
of his own works, and no
other author he more frequently
cited or invoked by allusion
- notwithstanding the fact that he discussed the ideas of Rameau at greater length.
According to Havens (p. 63) almost the whole of the argument of the
Premier Discours - with one exception - can be found in Plutarch:
"Amour
de la patrie,
courage, vertu, austerite,
simplicite,
haine du luxe et de
l'inegalite,
gout des rudes travaux des champs, admiration pour les
'qualites
guerrieres'
des heros de Sparte et des premiers siecles du vieux
Rome, l'exemple meme de ce Fabricius qui eblouissait
tant l'esprit
de
Jean-Jacques
des l'instant
de son inspiration
sur la route de Vincennes,
395
X
I
�over artifice,
or upon the merits
of inequality,
or the decadence
recapitulated
fait
in his text.
cent fois
avant
48
[Rousseau)
of simplicity,
of
Diderot
des sciences
et des arts",
certainly
correct.
But the first
not just
because
other works in a similar
Neither
are its
.Rousseau's
Persians
remarked that
and on this
Discours
point
for example,
from several
writers,
.
so
most important.
that
- his
from Horace,
his sketch
between Sparta
and Rollin
to the derivative
of many
second-hand
drawn essentially
among whom Bos suet
By pointing
lacking
for guidance.
due mainly to the fact
and his contrast
les
he was
is conspicuously
of the Germans taken from Tacitus,
from Montaigne,
contre
it is marked by the influence
qualities
or
"on avoit
de l'ignorance
in the essay is so clearly
account of the Scythians,
his description
49
were endorsed
vein to which Rousseau turned
derivative
scholarship
later
l'apologie
progres
in originality
civilisation,
or the oppressiveness
of the
and Athens
are probably
character
the
of
1
voila ce qui sortait
de ce vieux livre,
camarade cheri de son enfance.
Presque tout le Discours de Dijon est la."
The exceptionJ however also indicated by Havens (see pp. 63-64) - is significant~
for Plutarch
, praised the arts and sciences and the world of learning generally.
ror
an account of Plutarch's
influence upon the Premier Discours, see Abraham
feller,
'Plutarch and Rousseau's First Discours',
PMLA, LIV (1939),
~P- 212-222.
For an interpretation
of his wider influence upon Rousseau's
bought, see especially
Georges Pire, 'Dubon Plutarque au Citoyen d~
eneve', Revue de litterature
comparee, XXXII (1958), pp. 510-547, and
~ enise Leduc-Fayette,
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau et· le mythe de l'antiquite
~(Paris 1974), passim ..
48.
The best gene.ral accounts of the sources of Rousseau's Discours sur
les sciences et les arts are still
those of Louis Delaruelle
(see 'Les
sources principales
de J.-J.
Rousseau dans le premier discours a
l'Academie de Dijon', RHLF, XIX (1912), pp. 245-271) and especially
Havens
(see pp. 61-82).
49.
Essai
sur les regnes
de Claude et de Neron, Assezat-Tourneux,
III,
p. 95.
50.
With regard to the portrait
of the Scythians by Horace, from whom
Rousseau also drew his epigraph 'Decipimur specie recti',
see Havens,
p. 197, note 128 (though Bouchardy [see O.C.III, p. 1245) views this particular
connection as only problematic);
with regard to Tacitus on the
Germans, see Havens, p. 197, note 129; with regard to Montaigne on the
Persians,
see Havens, p. 195, note 126, and O.C.III, p. 1244; with regard
to Bossuet and Rollin on Sparta and Athens, see Havens, pp. 200-201, and
O.C.III, pp. 1245-1246.
396
�Rousseau's
text
I mean rather
not only his principal
expressed
but often
to the fact
and references
clear,
there
of which the sources
is at least
that
the very words in which he
them were borrowed from his authorities.
quotations
patently
ideas
to draw attention
one passage
which is drawn, without acknowledgment,
51
loix
and one unattributed
transcription
Apart from the
would have been
in the Premier
from Montesquieu's
from Bossuet's
Discours
Esprit
des
Discours
sur
52
l'histoire
universelle;
there are several snatches from Plutarch's
53
54
fr om t h e Essais• o f Montaigne,
•
L•
~
an d upwards of f'fi teen extracts
only a very few of which are accompanied by any mention of their
parentage;
ed from
the very last
both Plutarch
Les plagiats
de J.-J.
line
of Rousseau's
and Montaigne together.
Rousseau of 1766
56
text,
SS
moreover,
is adapt-
Dom Joseph Cajot
1
s
may have been excessively
51.
Cf. the passages from the Discours sur les sciences et les arts,
O.C.III, pp. 19-20, and the Esprit des loi,:,XXIII.xvii,
Oeuvres completes,
I.ii,
p. 57, compared by Launay in his 'Discours sur les sciences et les
arts:
Jean-Jacques
entre MmeDupin et Montesquieu',
in Jean-Jacques
Rousseau et son temps, pp. 99-100.
Launay's observations
(see ibid.,
pp. 100-101) as to why Rousseau should have refrained
from mentioning his
source are partly based upon some intriguing
but unconvincing speculations
about Rousseau's connections with Claude and Louise-Marie-Madeleine
Dupin,
to whom (that is, MmeDupin) Rousseau was engaged as a secretary
at the
same time that he composed the Premier Discours and after both husband and
wife had undertaken to refute the Esprit des loix.
52.
This passage
pp. 10 and 1243).
pertains
to Rousseau's remarks about Egypt (see O.C.III,
$ee also Havens, pp. 189-190.
53.
See especially
ijavens, pp. 199, note 135; 201, note 140; 207, note
160; and 209, note 167; and O.C.III,
pp. 12, 14, 15, 17, and 1246-1247.
The prosopopoeia of-Fabricius
(see O.C.III,
pp. 14-15)~ which Rousseau
later claimed to have drafted first,
was also largely inspired by Plutarch
- in this case his 'Life of Pyrrhus'.
54.
See especially
note 133; 200, note
229, note 232; 230,
0.C.III,
pp. 9, 11,
55.
Havens, pp. 65; 187,
136; 202, note 145;
note 235; 235, note
12-14, 18-19, 22, 24,
note 88;
211, note
250; and
1243-1246,
See Havens, pp. 66 and 251, note 309;
1
195, note 126; 199,
175; 216, note 189;
236, note 255; and
1248, and 1251-1253.
and O.C.III,
pp. 30 and 1256.
56.
This work incorporates
Cajot s 'Observations
touchant le [premier]
Discours de Rousseau', first published in 1765.
With regard to that text
see especially
Havens, pp. 72-73;
185, note 80; 200, note 137; 202,
note 145; 210, note 170; 229, note 232; 231, note 241; 245, note 290;
and 249, note 303.
397
�severe
- and in most instances
the Discours
other
text
sur les sciences
Nevertheless,
books.
Despite
ment it is directed
Rousseau appears
against
more weight to his own ideas
second Discours
striking.
sur l'inegalite
of nearly
all
the figures
that
it does little
views already
not so much to give
It may seem a little
should have stirred
Rousseau's
attacked,
friends
point
could hardly
the other,
more than reflect
not rea ll y express
the publication
and
be more
of the
text,
the ideas
it is equally
sur les sciences
et les
the sometimes disparate
many precursors.
strange,
perhaps,
so great
that
a fuss,
a work of such poor
particularly
among the men of the Enlightenment
to endorse
the essay as 'un discours
• aut h entic• an d sincere
•
h is
of the Premier
Discours
since
that
both
it
among the enemies of the
who might have been expected
regarded
in that
of the Discours
on the one hand, and his critics
Enlightenment
the claims
Rousseau set out to refute
advanced by its
such
between his first
whom he mentioned
a measure of the mediocrity
this
and
as to find ways of repeating
that
from
of the argu-
work in particular,
to his sources
to this
that
to warrant
For while it is a measure of the brilliance
Discours
quality
that
tone and character
The dissimilarity
with regard
fact
major writings
no other
to have turned
imputations
had been plagiarized
it is a disconcerting
the polemical
which he found in them.
- in its
et les arts
is the only one of Rousseau's
suspicions.
arts
incorrect
his views, on
de parade'
which did
b e 1·ie f s. 57
Yet with
- the first
text
that
he
57.
This point is made admirably by Havens in his 'Diderot and the
Composition of Rousseau's First Discourse',
Romanic Review, XXX(1939),
pp .• 379-380.
398
�signed
'citoyen
de Geneve;
of the major celebrities
reflected
that
the same flash
that
58
- Rousseau almost immediately
of his day.
his second Discours
of illumination
became one
More than a decade later
he
and Emile were also inspired
by
which had ignited
the main theme of
work in his mind.
Tout ce que j'ai pu retenir
de ces foules de grandes
Verites qui dans un quart d'heure m'illuminerent
Sous cet arbre, a ete bien foiblement epars dans Les
trois principaux de mes ecrits,
Savoir ce premier
discours,
celui Sur L'inegalite,
et Le traite
de
L'education,
Lesquels trois ouvrages sont inseparables et ferment ensemble un meme tout. 59
And while I think
makes rather
this
passage
masterpiece,
it~
closely
of his major works.
as well as by design,
sur les sciences
thesis
that
to his boldest
Emile - it does offer
into the way he and his public
sition
- because
together
For there
Rousseau's
et les arts
he had propounded
advancement of both culture
insight
the plan of compo-
is no doubt but that,
principal
comprise
and most
an important
envisaged
writings
an elaboration
in 1750 - the thesis,
and society
it
decried 60
too much of an essay which Rousseau elsewhere
and at the same time ties
original
is somewhat misleading
after
by repute
the Discours
of the central
that
is,
that
the
has produced the moral
58.
This was no doubt partly to preserve his anonymity during the competition
and even afterwards
- since the first published edition appeared
with the same signature but not his name.
On the other hand, and perhaps
paradoxically,
Rousseau also employed the terms 'citoyen de Geneve', in my
view, to establish
his republican identity.
Already in bis 'Epitre a
M. Bordes' (O.C.II, p. 1130) he had exclaimed, "Moi, fier republicain
que
blesse l'arrogance,
Du riche impertinent
je dedaigne l'appui",
and in his
letter
to Voltaire of 30 January 1750 - also signed 'Citoyen de Geneve' he had referred
to himself again (Correspondance complete, II, p. 124) as
"un Republicain
[qui) adore la liberte".
Leigh makes the interesting
point, however (see ibid.,
p. 126), that Rousseau, who was a conver~ to
Catholicism in 1750, knew that he had thereby lost his Genevan citizenship.
59.
Rousseau to Malesherbes,
X, p. 26.
60.
12 January
See pp. 382-383 above.
399
1762, Correspondance
complete,
�degradation
of mankind.
elaboration
of a thesis
whose interconnected
I fear that
1
I do not mean to suggest
is the same as the construction
parts
I may have to stress
just
that
here in several
places,
the proposition
which I should like
came to develop and refine
\
they~
/influence
on reading
was sparked
the notice
rather
of the Discours
by Diderot.
precision
a coherent
are two favourable
to Diderot
- albeit
head when he was struck
of the Academie de Dijon,
in the text,and
which Rousseau freely
Diderot's
61.
Seep.
No fully
by the thunder-
and his true
jolts
fired
by the critics
about the Premier Discours
us long.
and, in one case,
from Plato's
dialogue.
indirect
devised
that
But these
there
- references
the passage
Apology took as its
62
has been
It is true that
it has even been established
of that
genius
et les arts.
need not detain
adapted
own translation
and
of whether its main theme was actually
brief
and
what he termed his
from 1750 to 1756,
of smaller
Rousseau
of detail,
of the genesis
which encapsulated
But
it was in
and more sharpness
theory
in the period
sur les sciences
This dispute
study.
text,
by the accumulation
upon the question
I end this
and
made
the views he had propounded in that
One of the major controversies
focused
which I have already
that
armed Athena sprang from Rousseau's
bolt
doctrine
the Premier Discours
and society
[ "grand systeme 1161 of ideas
of a single
to advance next is that
surrounding
to constitute
of culture
point,
one more time before
to put them forward with greater
/until
this
are spread over the corpus of his writings,
!the course of the controversy
I
for a moment that
devices
source
scarcely
431 below.
62. See O.C.III,
p. 24 for a citation
of a passage from Diderot's
Pensees
philosophiques
(Assezat-Tourneux,
I, p. 129). The implicit reference appears
in connection with a quotation from Montaigne (see O.C.III,
pp. 9, note, and
1243). For a commentary upon the passage most likely drawn from Diderot's
translation
of the Apology (now in the Fends Vandeul in Paris) see Raymond
Trousson, Socrate devant Voltaire,
Diderot et Rousseau (Paris 1967), appendix.
See also Havens, 'Rousseau's First Discourse and the Pensees philosophiques
400
�betoken
an actual
of the Premier
63
Voltaire,
Discours,
that
there
influence
in particular
that
epurer
at all
about it until
his friends
is in fact
conversation
at that
figure
is no reason
correct.
For one thing,
of generally
were produced several
They are,
third-hand,
decades
in short,
restatements
after
highly
derogatory
partisan
that
the testimony
all
their
accounts
was first
of the
broached
in October
1749 -
break with
and unreliable,
second-
For another,
Diderot
to have given Rousseau the idea
of responding
in the
nothing
of a discussion
posed by the Academie de Dijon,
more than the possibility
Romanic Review, XXXIII (1942),
and 0.C.III,
p. 1253.
See Havens, pp. 225-226,
and O.C.III,
-
of Roussea~ which
notorious
and those
but
of Diderot' s
him.
we have from both his writings
Diderot
produced,
come to infuriate
evidence
63.
Now
recollections
to the question
of Diderot',
and 235-236;
64
evidence
portraits
Rousseau's
commentators
Rousseau actually
of Vincennes
negative
to absolutely
a
of Diderot's
man who had long since
never claimed
and Meister,
suggested
ff. irmative.
•
to suppose that
meeting at the prison
in the context
Diderot.
' tea
h
in
between the two men in which the subject
dramatic
of
he should answer the
had been the case it does not constitute
in any event there
supporters
Morellet,
According to these
for the work that
to
The
& des Arts a contribue
des Sciences
in the negative.
was in some way responsible
tribute
- Mmede Vandeul - have all
• • 11 y inten
•
d e d to reply
Rousseau h a d origina
even if this
express
about the extent
- Marmontel,
who proposed to Rousseau that
'Si le retablissement
or composition
it was finished.
has been so much discussion
- and his daughter
les moeurs'
in the conception
any more than does the work's
is that
it was Diderot
question
played by Diderot
who knew nothing
only reason
Diderot's
role
and all
and
with a
himself
the
of Rousseau amounts
that
when Rousseau
pp. 356-359;
Havens, pp. 187-188
pp. 21 and 1250-1251.
The relevant documents have been considered at length by several scholars
on many occasions.
See especially
F. Vezinet, 'Rousseau ou Diderot?',
RHLF, XXXI (1924), pp. 306-314; Krakeur [Crocker],
'Diderot's
Influence on
Rousseau's First Discours',
PMLA,LII (1937), pp. 398-404; Havens, 'Diderot
and the Composition of Rousseau's First Discourse';
Trousson, Socrate devant
Voltaire,
Diderot et Rousseau, appendix; and O.C.III,
pp. xxvii-xxx.
64.
401
�had expressed
prendrez
replied,
his enthusiasm
about the subject
"Vous
le parti
que personne ne prendra", with Rousseau having
65
''Vous avez raison".
Why these remarks should have been
taken to mean that
very difficult
Rousseau had not thought of the idea himself
to understand.
of the work itself,
claiming
Didero1: admitted
Thirdly,
that
if he had wri1:ten it instead,
Fourthly,
he had said
Diderot
it was full
"J'aurais
fait
is
held a low opinion
of "sophismes"
tout autre
and that
chose 11•
- in terms which are remarkably
66
similar
to
those
employed by Rousseau at rou.ghly the same time - that it was
67
"l' etincelle
qui parti t de Dijon ..• qui l' enflamma",
and it is hard
to imagine how Rousseau could have been enflamed by an idea which only
a few minutes
.
68
opposite.
incompatible
la~er he was persuaded
to abandon for the sake of its
Finally,
of Rousseau's
the substance
with Diderot's
argument is actually
own views for much the same reasons,
which
65.
Refutation
de 'L'Homme', Assezat-Tourneux,
II, p. 285.
This text,
which first appeared in Assezat-Tourneux (thou.gh some pages had already
been printed in a suppressed volume of the Corresoondance litteraire
in
1783), was drafted by Diderot several times between 1773 and 1778.
Almost exactly the same lines figure, too, in his Essai sur les regnes de
Claude et de Neron (see Assezat-Tourneux,
III, p. 98) of 1782, a work
which forms the second edition of his Essai sur la vie de Seneoue of
1778.
In the first edition Diderot had drawn a savage portrait
of
Rousseau, thou.gh without mentioning him by name; in the second edition,
which appeared after Diderot had had an opportunity to read the first
part of Rousseau's Confessions - whose impending publication
he had
dreaded for some years - the reference is explicit.
Rousseau himself
recounted the circumstunces of their meeting at Vincennes just very
briefly
in his Confessions (see O.C.I, p. 351).
Both in his letter
to
Malesherbes of l2 January 1762 (see the Correspondance complete, X, p. 26')
and in Rousseau juge de Jean Jaoues (see O.C.I, pp. 828-829) he reflected
only upon the vision of a new world which he had had on reading the
notice of the Academie de Dijon.
66.
Refutation de 'L'Homme', Assezat-Tourneux,
II, p. 285.
On the
unlikely testimony of Grimm, however (see his letter to Gottsched of
25 November 1752, in the CoITesoondance complete, II, pp. 202-203),
Diderot had earlier
been converted to Rousseau's thesis.
67, Refutation de 'L'Homme', p. 286. Cf. the following passage in Rousseau
juge de Jean Jaques, O.C. I, p. 829: "De la vive effervescence qui se fit alors
dans son ame sortirent
ces etincelles
de genie qu'on a vu briller
dans ses
ecrits durant dix ans de delire et de fieV!'e .... Enflamme par la contemplation de ces grands objets, il les avoit toujours presens a sa pensee."
68.
First
On this point see also Krakeur,
Discours',
pp. 402-403.
402
'Diderot's
Influence
on Rousseau's
�69
I have considered
already,
that
a major influence
on his part
undermine any attempt
in the composition
to establish
of the Discours
sur
1 1 inegalite.
While this
Premier
protracted
Discours
a few short
is of small
years
was concentrated
come to full
fruition.
both his ideas
and which
thesis,
that
requires
Rousseau raised
and more clearly
they w~re meant
of his confrontations
and his literary
"Je n 'ai pas toujours
of the Discours
social
sur les sciences
theory
with
powers began to
eu le bonheur de
in the writings
which he conceived
• t h eir•
in
Rousseau made no effort
and there
very shortly
altogether.
6'9.
See eh. III,
70.
'Preface
the text
72
to all
to elaborate
f ormu1 ation.
•
3nd
7l
the rejoinders
to his
- even among those published
had appeared
Others
and the elements
in a coherent
in order
f"irst
to reply
were some critiques
after
et les arts,
came to be expressed
•
h"is views
•
h
re f ine
rat h er tan
notice
which raged for
• f ais• ,, , 7 o he proclaime
• d in
• t h e b est o f t h e vin
• d.icacomme Je
of his early
essay,
central
of borrowed propositions
and it was only in the course
that
fashion
of its
of the
publication,
of his work were more perceptive
his detractors
tions
its
For a number of the points
argued than the collection
penser
the dispute
following
upon the validity
the critics
to defend,
about the genesis
consequence
immediately
more attention.
against
controversy
- which probably
he acknowledged more or less
escaped
his
without
pp. 110-113.
de Narcisse',
O.C.II,
p. 962.
71.
This fact has not been stressed
often enough by Rousseau scholars,
though it has been noticed before by some commentators, for instance by
Ira Wade in his review of the Havens edition of the Discours sur les
sciences et les arts (see French Review, XXI (1948), p. 510).
According
to Wade, however, it is not Rousseau's replies
to his critics
so much as
their remarks against him which "bore fruit in [his] later works".
That
seems to me a misconceived construction
of an essentially
correct idea.
Rousseau probably overlooked a number of the great many reviews which
appeared in 1751 and 1752, not only in France but throughout enlightened
Europe generally.
Lessing's
review of April 1751 in Das Neueste aus de~
72.
403
�comment, and he greeted
Encyclopedie
d 1Alembert 1 s Discours
- the most celebrated
ideas were challenged,
Enlightenment
among the
and a kind of manifesto
movement which Rousseau's
text
preliminaire
writings
to the
in which his
of the whole
had seemingly
condemned
- with the words,
Jene puis m'empecher de penser avec plaisir
que la
posterite
verra dans un tel monument que vous avez
bien pense de moi.73
Six of the attacks
levelled
against
the Premier Discours
from all
however,
insofar
as they were met by direct
of these
attacks
- an anonymous work (possibly
1
tals
the rest,
stand apart
rebut-
from him.
In the first
74
Raynal ) entitled
the 'Observations
Reiche des Witzes of April 1751, for
his attention
at all - this despite
hostile
interest
whi~h his work had
de Narcisse',
O.C.II, pp. 960, note,
sur le Discours
by
qui a ete
instance,
seems not to have caught
the fact that he was aware of the
aroused in Germany (see the 'Preface
and 1865-1866, and Havens, p. 34).
73.
Rousseau to d'Alemhert, 26 June 1751, Correspondance complete, II,
p. 160.
To be fair, d 1 Alembert had described Rousseau (Encyclop~die,
I, p. xxxiii) as "un Ecrivain eloquent & philosophe",
but while his
remarks were certainly
polite and respectful
in tone they were much more
critical
than commendatory in substance.
Rousseau was rather selective
when contending with his critics,
and he hardly deigned to reply at all
to some of the attacks against the Premier Discours - for instance those
of the ahbe Le Roy and Rene de Bonneval - which he had undoubtedly re.ad.
He did, however, continue to defend most of the views he had propounded
in his work even after the main controversy about it was concluded, and
his letters
to Voltaire of 7 September 1755 (see the Corresoondance
complete, III, pp. 164-,168) and to Franz Christof Scheyb of 15 July 1756
(see ibid.,
IV, pp. 26-29) comprise only the most important among the
subsequent justifications
he produced.
To my knowledge just two (both
incomplete) collections
of the writings addressed to the Discours sur
les sciences et les arts have ever been published,
the first
(the Recueil
de toutes les pieces gui ont ete publiees a l'occasion
du Discours de
M. J.J. Rousseau sur [les sciences et les arts) Gotha, 2 vols.) in 1753,
the second (in vol. II of the Launay edition of Rousseau's Oeuvres
completes) in 1971.
There is also a very useful discussion of the main
contributions
in Havens {see pp. 34-61).
74.
Raynal had sent Rousseau an advance copy of this short essay in
his capacity as editor of the Mercure de France, and Rousseau's reply,
addressed to Raynal, was in fact printed in the same issue of the journal.
404
�couronne a Dijon'
there
take
appeared
into
and printed
three
account.
in the Mercure de France
main points
Firstly,
been sufficiently
explicit
the author
for he appeared
1 1 Europe avant
le renouvellement
worse than that
the jargon
that
and false
with regard
pas tout
cursory
of ignorance
learning
because
of luxury
la-dessus
Thirdly
ou etait
fro~ his thesis
which was
it had been dominated
Secondly,
"
76
to offer
by
he noted
Rousseau "[qui)
n'ignore
had been too vague and
- and perhaps
Rousseau had failed
for the condition
which marked our
la situation
of scholasticism.
in his discussion.
which followed
point
Rousseau had not
des sciences 1175 - a state
to the question
that
complained,
to "preferer
ce qu' il y aurai t a dire
he regretted
which Rousseau was to
about the precise
moral decline,
truly
of criticism
in June 1751 -
most importantly
any practical
and had neglected
-
conclusions
to propose
a remedy
he described.
Quelle conclusion pratique peut-on tirer de la these
que l'auteur
soutient?
Quand on lui accorderait
tout ce qu 1 il avance sur le prejudice
du trop grand
nombre de savants ... comme au contraire
sur le trop
petit nombre de laboureurs;
c 1 est, dis-je,
ce qu'on
lui accordera sans peine:
mais quel usage en
retirera-t-on?
Comment remedier ace desordre,
tant
du cote des princes que de celui des particuliers?77
The second attack
was the
'Reponse'
of Poland - no doubt with the assistance
de Menoux - published
This work contained
Rousseau offered
75.
Launay, II,
76.
Ibid.
77.
Ibid.
drafted
of his confessor
in the Mercure de France
three
a reply.
further
charges
The first
p. 69.
405
by King Stanislas
v1as
Father
in September
of some substance
that
ignorance
Joseph
1751.
to which
of vice
is
�78
not the same as virtue
and that the men who inhabited
before the advent of our arts
but rather
Rousseau had drawn an entirely
was that
hommes sans defaut:s,
more t:h an
ruption
were not at all
innocent
ferocious,
cruel, and ''transportes
par des passions
79
The second, which followed directly from the first,
violentes".
the arts
and sciences
the world
sans desirs,
,,.d,
•
i ee pour se f aire
an
and sciences
imaginary portrait:
sans passions"
i·11 usion.
II
•
80
have not been responsible
as has in fact
occurred
of "des
which was nothing
The third
was that
for such moral cor-
in human history,
for that
ment has been brought about by an excess of wealth rather
developthan
learning.
Non, ce n'est pas des sciences, c'est du sein des
richesses
que sont nes de tout temps la mollesse
et le· luxe;
et dans aucun temps les richesses
n'ont ete l'apanage ordinaire des savants. 81
Sane of these
for instance
arts
appeared
the first
moreover,
81,
Discours sur les avantages des sciences
in the same journal
who was a historian
observations
whose
in the MercUI-e de France in October 1751, and
1740s and to whom he had addressed
- which was printed
attacks,
Joseph Gautier,
of Charles Borde - with whomRousseau had become friendly
the early
78.
79.
80.
again in the later
by the mathematician
in the third,
own 'Refutation'
in the fourth,
ideas were to feature
which challenged
his 'Epitre
Rousseau's
in Lyon in
a M. Bordes'
in December 1751. 82
as well,'introduced
et des
Gautier,
a number of critical
scholarship
- contending,
See ibid., p. 73.
Ibid., p. 75.
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
p. 73.
p. 74.
82.
The essay had already
Lyon in June 1751.
been read at a meeting of the Academie de
406
�among other things,
that
he really
ought not to have praised
the
Scythians
who wel"e in fact a fierce and savage people which displayed
.
,
83
that "font horreur a la nature",
adding, too, that some of
traits
the ancient
figures,
had maintained
thesis
quite
them.
that
particularly
"les belles-lettres
the opposite
Gautier
culture,
also made at least
of ignorance
built
a la
vertu 1184- a
one remark which greatly
the author
to
rankled with
of the Premier Discours was
who appeared to favour the destruction
the burning of libraries,
form of barbarism
preparent
from that which Rousseau had ascribed
Rousseau, for he charged that
the apologist
Seneca, to whom he paid his tribute
and a general
upon the ruins
return
of
to a rustic
of civilisation.
L'auteur que je combats est l'apologiste
de
l'ignorance:
il parait souhaiter qu'on brille
les bibliotheques;
il avoue qu'il heurte de
front tout ce qui fait aujourd 1 hui l'admiration des hommes, et qu'il ne peut s'attendre
qu'a un blame universel;
mais il compte sur
les suffrages des siecles a venir.
Il
pourra les remporter, n'en doutons point,
quand l'Europe retomber~ dans la barbarie;
quand sur les ruines des beaux arts eplores,
triompheront insolemment l'ignorance
et la
rusticite.
85
Borde, for his part,
that Rousseau's
portrait
reiterated
the point
of an uncorrupted
state
first
made by Stanislas
was simply an illusion,
remarking that
on est desabuse depuis longtemps de la chimera de
l'age d'or;
partout la barbarie a precede
l 1etablissement
des societes;
c'est une verite
prouvee par les annales de tousles
peuples.86
83.
Launay, II,
p. 95.
84.
Ibid., p. 99.
In the"Discours sur les sciences et les arts (see
O.C.III, pp. 14 and 1246) Rousseau had quoted a passage from Seneca which
he actually transcribed
from Montaigne.
See also Havens, p. 203, note 151.
85.
Launay, II, p. 94.
86.
Ibid., p. 134.
407
�He also repeated
richesses,
that
the charge that
et non des sciences
the advancement of culture
the same path and that
to the decline
"nait
irnmediatement des
87
et des arts 11,
and he contended,
too,
and the growth of empires follow much
the arts
of our political
luxury
and sciences,
so far from contributing
institutions,
perissent
infailliblement,
[frappes] des memes
coups;
en sorte que l'on peut observer que les
progres des lettres
et leur declin sont ordinairement dans une juste proportion avec la
fortune et l'abaissement
des empires. 88
In addition
to these
her of further
he observed
progress
agency,
claims,
objections
that
since
of culture
moreover,
Borde also put forward a num-
which seemed to follow from them.
the fall
of nations
it must be explained
and in his view that
ultimate
Firstly,
was not attributable
as the effect
to the
of some other
cause could only be political
in
character.
Ces sanglantes revolutions
ont-elles
done quelque
chose de commun avec les progres des lettres?
partout je vois des causes purement politiques,89
Secondly,
military
he maintained
prowess of uncivilised
barbarian
to their
that
nations
Rousseau had been unwise to praise
whatever
conquests
the
might have made were due not to their
innocence
but
moral injustice.
87.
Ibid.,
88.
Ibid. , p. 136.
89.
Ibid.
90.
See ibid.,
91.
Discours
90
peoples,
since
the
The "qualites
guerrieres
1191
which Rousseau
p. 137.
p. 140.
sur les sciences
et les arts,
408
0.C.III,
p. 24.
�had cherished
were nothing
more than "les moeurs grossieres"
judgment of Borde, "des vertus
de notre
etre".
92
animales
a la
peu confonnes
It was only "une barbarie
passee
in the
dignite
de mode", he
concluded,
de supposer
detruire.93
que les hommes ne sont nes que pour se
In his Second Discours
finally
- a text
of the attacks
published
society
that
in 1753
94
of primitive
were remnants of our earlier
arisen
declared,
that
from a surfeit
can only yield
- Borde made this
barbarism
last
by suggesting
of individuals
of culture.
defective
et des arts,
was to comprise the sixth
men more general
which now mark the behaviour
had
des scienees
to which Rousseau replied
about the savagery
the vices
sur les avantages
point
that
in civilised
rather
than attributes
Imperfect
knowledge,
he
virtue.
Que des connoissances
imparfaites
produisent
des
Vertus qui le sont aussi;
il n'y a rien la que
de conforme a mes principes:
nos Sciences sont
au berceau, nous tenons a la barbarie par mille
cotes:
n'avons-nous pas encore des haines de
Nations, des Guerres, des Combats singuliers?
tant d'ignorance
qui nous reste ne peut etre sans
beaucoup de vices. 95
The filth
a professor
attack
was the 'Refutation'
of anatomy and surgery
92.
Launay, II,
93.
Ibid.,
of Claude-Nicolas
and permanent
secretary
Le Cat of the
p. 134.
p. 140.
1
94.
Borde s Second Discours actually dates from 1752, for in August of
that year it was read at two meetings of the Academie de Lyon.
It was
printed in Avignon in the spring of the following year, by which time
Borde had had an opportunity
to read the 'Preface de Narcisse'
and to
incorporate
a note about it in the published
version of his text.
95.
Havens, p. 55.
409
�Academie de Rouen - which appeared in the spring
work, one of the longest
and certainly
of the refutations
the most deceitful
96
of 1752.
In this
of the Premier Discours
- since Le cat pretended
to be a
member of the Academie de Dijon who had voted against Rousseau's
97
prize essay
- nearly every point raised earlier by the other critics
was recapitulated.
joli
Indeed,
Le Cat's
conte de fee ... ce siecle
Rousseau to distinguish
and upon the idea that
les sciences
special
et des arts.
first
indicate
Discours
Though Rousseau
him.
between 'courage'
all
work there were no new points
or inspired
and upon the failure
produced
a rejoinder
of substance
Nevertheless,
reply to the 'Reponse'
philosopher
For just
as the unknown author
lenged Rousseau to be specific
des sciences
Le cat I s
troubled
prepared
case a rebuttal
by
of
- he provided
the
for the development of his ideas.
of the first
'Observations'
about the temporal point
had chalof our moral
Le Cat, in his endorsement of the essay by King Stanislas,
decline,
challenged
subject
to
'Refutation'
of Stanislas
with a whole new front
que corrigent
in it which either
in another
99
he owed a rather
sur les avantages
Le Cat at roughly the same time - in this
Rousseau's
that
of
and 'ferocite•,
"le luxe est un abus des richesses
et la raison",lOO
debt to Borde's
98
d'or",
properly
focus upon what he tenned "un
him to designate
to his imputations.
precisely
which areas of culture
Surely Rousseau did not propose to
include music among the arts
and sciences
96.
complete,
See the Correspondance
were
II,
which had brought
about
p. 194, and Havens, p. 48.
97.
For the Academy's repudiation
of this fraud, see the Correspondance
complete, II, append.ice 73, pp. 298-300.
98.
Launay, II, p. 168.
See also ibid. , p. 163.
99.
See ibid. 1 p. 162.
100.
Ibid.,
p. 167.
410
�the debasement of morals,
the articles
he exclaimed,
on music for the Encyclopedie
anyone else how us·eful and advantageous
humanity and how, at the very least,
to his general
and the main contributor
this
must know better
subject
it must constitute
of
than
has been for
an exception
thesis.
Nous lui demanderons le denombrement precis de ces
sciences, de ces arts, objet de ces imputations.
Nous esperons qu'il ne mettra point dans la liste
la musique, que les censeurs des arts regardent
comme une science des'plus futiles .... H. Rousseau
connait mieux qu'un autre ses utilites,
ses avantages, puisqu'il
en fait son etude, puisqu'il
s'est charge de remplir cette brillante
partie des
travaux encyclopediques.101
Rousseau produced his replies
to these attacks
in various
ways
His 'Lettre a Raynal' was printed in the
102
Mercure de France in June 1751,
bis 'Reponse au roi de Pologne'
103
appeared as a brochure in October 1751,
his 'Lettre a Grimm'
between 1751 and 1753.
['Reponse a M. Gautier']
104
month,
his 'Derniere
101.
102.
was published
reponse'
in the same format in the same
came out together
with the first
Ibid., p. 93.
See note 74 above.
103.
See the Corresoondance complete, II, p. 173.
The 'Reponse' of
King Stanislas had been published anonymously, though there can be no·
doubt but that Rousseau knew the identity
of its author (see O.C.III,
pp. 1257-1.258).
In his reply (ibid.,
p. 56) Rousseau even managed to
incorporate the following oblique reference
to his adversary: "Il
y a en Europe un grand Prince, et ce qui est bien plus~ un vertueux
Citoyen, qui dans la patrie qu'il a adoptee et qu'il rend heureuse, vient
de former plusieurs institutions
en faveur des Lettres.
Ila fait en
cela un.e chose tres-digne
de sa sagesse et de sa vertu. "
104.
See the Correspondance comolete, II, p. 175.
Rousseau's work was
addressed to Grimm on the pretence that
Gautier did not really merit a
reply.
Thus, Rousseau remarked in his text (O.C.III, p. 68), "Jene
repliquerai.
•• pas a M. Gautier, c'est un point resolu".
A decade later,
after Rousseau had become estranged from Grimm, he instructed
Duchesne to
remove Grimm's name from the title-page
of the text which would appear in
the collected edition of his writings.
An early draft of Rousseau's
'Reponse a M. Gautier' survives in Neuchatel Ms R 50 (ancienne cote
7872b).
411
�Discours of Borde in April 1752,
separately
his
a Lecat'
'Lettre
in or about May 1752, and his 'Preface
a Bordes'
lettre
105
was probably
drafted
though it remained impublished until
was printed
d'une seconde
in the late
autumn of 1753,
the nineteenth
century. 106
Around the end of 1752, moreover, Rousseau also composed a general
defence of his ideas in the Premier Discours - which he prefixed
his theatrical
comedy, Narcisse
seven principal
altogether
rejoinders
is nearly
which
three
cri ties
by treating
managed to address
both his respect
best advantage.
bo!"I'Owedsome of their
these
Rousseau
and tones of discourse
to display
and his contempt for Gautier to their
replied
that
count
period,
of his work, moreover,
styles
cr--der, for instance,
Rousseau's
during this
of writings
In these vindications
in
we can in fact
of the text whose arguments they were designed to
adopted a number of different
sion,
- so that
to his critics
comprise a collection
times the length
reinforce.
107
to
and expresfor Stanislas
But just
as
ideas from one another
he
ideas as roughly interchangeable,
a few of his rebuttals
and he even
to works in which the rele-
vant charges bad not been made.
With regard to the historical
Gautier,
his depth.
Rousseau seemed rather
He
took no notice
points
that
uncomfortable
at all
had been raised
and perhaps
of Gautier's
by
even out of
o.bjections
to bis
105.
A rough draft of part of the 'Derniere reponse' survives in
.
Neuchatel Ms R ~5 (ancienne cote 7869 - see the Correspondance complete,
II, appendice 84, pp. 321-322).
106.
~he 'Preface
Geneve Ms fr. 228.
Houltou.
d'une seconde lettre a Bordes' constitutes
part of
It was printed for the first time in Streckeisen-
107.
For an account of the composition and substance of this play, to
which the preface was only added at the last moment, see 0.C.II,
pp. 1858-1865.
Rousseau may have had some conception of writing it even
before 1730 and undoubtedly drafted it several times during the 1730s and
aft~rwards.
It was first staged at the Comedie Franc;:aise in December
1752.
412
�views about Seneca and the Scythians,
briefly
history
on a few issues
108
dealing
he proclaimed
scholarship
that
and erudition
were meant to solve,
and though he did confront
with the interpretation
he would not pursue
on the grounds that
and the questions
him
of ancient
such matters
of
the problems which they
they were meant to clarify,
would thus become only more complex and obscure.
Les Brochures se transforment
en Volumes, les
Livres se multiplient,
et la question s 1 oublie:
c'est le sort des di~putes de Litterature,
qu'apres des in-Folio d'eclaircissemens,
on
finit toujours par ne s~avoir plus ou l'on en
est:
ce n'est pas la peine de co1lDTlencer.l09
When Gautier,
he concluded
in turn,
that
produced his own reply
the whole of Rousseau's
to Rousseau's
'Reponse'
case was nothing
more than
tme declamation vague, appuyee sur une metaphysique
fausse, et sur des applications
de faits historiques,
110
qui se detruisent
par mille faits contraires.
Rousseau,
however, took no notice
second attack
neglect
remained unanswered.
of detailed
announced in his
1
0bservations
1
historical
'Lettre
a Raynal'.
had challenged
retorted
his real
charge,
for Rousseau's
For when the author
of
and Gautier's
had in any case already
him to specify
marked the beginning
about the connection
further
The main reason
narrative
circumstances
that
of this
precisely
of the
which historical
our moral decline
Rousseau
aim had been to put forward a general
between the progress
of the arts
been
thesis
and sciences
and
108.
See, for instance (in Launay, II, p. 96, and O.C.III,
p. 65), the
dispute between Gautier and Rousseau with regard to the role played by
Carneades in fomenting Cato's suspicions
about the merits of Greek philosophy.
109.
1
Reponse
a M. Gautier',
O.C.III,
110.
'Observations
du meme M. Gautier
M. Grimm', Launay, II, p. 110.
413
p. 61.
sur la lettre
de M. Rousseau
a
�He had not been essentially
the decadence of morals.
trace
the course
of any particular
concerned
to
set of events.
111
Il auroit du, disent-ils
... , marquer le ?oint
d'ou il part, pour designer l'eooque de la decadence.
J'ai fait plus;
j'ai rendu ma proposition
~ale:
j'ai assigne ce premier degre de la
decadence des moeurs au premier moment de la
culture des Lettres dans tousles
pays du monde, et
j'ai trouve le progres de ces deux choses toujours
en proportion.112
Rousseau was to pursue
in his Discours
this
sur l'inegalite
theme of generality
where he later
not upon the untainted
civilisations
the nature
man and upon a condition
of primeval
so remote that
113
features.
no historical
After the publication
became progressively
tures,
with its
adopted that
while he gradually
past his evidence
of human history
antiquity.
In these
years,
of our
in different
cul-
upon our most distant
is,
than by the heroes
his fidelity
came to be counterbalanced,
for the Histoire
Rousseau
contemporary
by savages who had thus far escaped
rather
that
true
of the approach Tihicb he
set his sights
was populated
the miseries
enthusiasm
manifestations
sources
came to be drawn from an increasingly
world - a world that
Lives of Plutarch
uncover its
with the ultimate
quality
upon
of humanity which was
could possibly
particular
and it was a paradoxical
times but rather
of the Premier Discours
more concerned
decadence and less
focused his attention
of ancient
research
much further
generale
and sages of
to the venerable
we might say, by his
des voyages of Prevost.
114
As
111.
Since the anonymous author of the 'Observations'
incorporated
a few
reflections
of "des personnes bien intentionnees"
(probably Raynal himself
again) who were equally unidentified,
Rousseau also included some remarks
addressed to these persons in his 'Lettre a Raynal'.
112.
fourth
'Lettre a Raynal', O.C.III,
pp. 31-32.
Cf. the passage in the
paragraph of the 'Observations'
which appears in Launay, II, p. 69.
113.
See eh. III,
pp. 225-226.
114.
On Rousseau's admiration for Plutarch,
see especially
note 47 above.
With regard to his debt to Prevost, see eh. III, notes 29, 94, 104, and 110.
414
�the divisions
perceived
between man's nature
grew sharper
to characterize
and his culture
and bolder
these
the argwnents
differences
the profundity
me important
state
scholarship
of his speculative
This point
joined
about the generality
of Rousseau's
of the ideas
and second Discours.
a chimera,
in charging
that
illusion.
by
thesis
seems to
between the compositions
his conception
had
abstraction
the view of our primitive
in substance
of
of a golden age was
confused a philosophical
Indeed,
no more chimerical
the short-
about the natural
tion which Rousseau had advanced was, he protested
reponse',
theory
Borde and Le Cat, for instance,
but they had thereby
for an historical
social
and
insights.
for our understanding
Stanislas
he put forward
were soon to be supplanted
of man which he formed in the period
his first
that
also came to be more general,
in the course of the development of his early
comings of his historical
which Rousseau
in his
condi-
'Derniere
than the concept
of virtue
itself.
On m1 assure qu'on
de la chimere de
encore qu'il y a
la chirnere de la
In his
'Lettre
a Lecat'
est depuis long-terns desabuse
l'Age d'or.
Que n'ajoutoit-on
long-terns qu'on est desabuse de
vertu? 115
Rousseau replied
been put to him by the author
that
he did not in fact
superior
wards;
"pire
115.
on the contrary,
que l' ignorance
'Derniere
11
of the 'Observations'
regard
to the renaissance
the centuries
of arts
116
reponse',
yet again,
But his critics
O.C.III,
which had first
by reiterating
of medieval
and sciences
he maintained
•
to a question
barbarism
as
which had come aftersuch a state
had misconceived
was
his aim
p. 80.
116.
'Lettre a Lecat',
ibid., p. 101.
Cf. the passage from the
Discours sur les sciences et les arts, ibid.,
p. 6 cited on p. 393 above.
415
�when they imagined that
order to identify
he had juxtaposed
the features
or resuscitated.
past and present
of a be~ter
world which might be copied
His arguments had been designed
to establish
causes of our corruption
hut not to plead for the rescue
innocence.
'Reponse au roi de Pologne'
'Preface
Both in his
de Narcisse'
Rousseau observed
that
ne revient
a thesis
jamais
Rousseau took great
he was the apologist
"Un peuple
and this
to adhere throughout
his life.
offence
accusation
at Gautier's
was
118
that
who appeared to believe that our
119
should be crushed and our libraries
burnt.
"Quand un
peuple est une fois
'Preface
of our lost
a people which had once
to a virtuous state.
117
la vertu 11 ,
he exclaimed,
to which he continued
Above all,
culture
a
the
and in his
been degraded could never return
vicieux
epochs in
of ignorance
corrompu
a uncertain
point",
he asked in the
de Narcisse',
soit que les sciences y aient contribue·ou
non,
faut-il
les bannir ou l'en preserver pour le
rendre meilleur ou pour l'empecher de devenir
pire?
C'est une ... question dans laquelle je
me suis positivement
declare pour la negative.l20
We must not plunge Europe back into a state
in his
'Reponse au roi de Pologne',
well as in the 'Derniere
ing
the
indeed,
obliteration
the destruction
reponse',
and in each of these
he insisted
of our libraries,
of society
of barbarism,
that
academies,
he contended
two works, as
he was not advocator universities,
itself.
117.
'Preface de Narcisse',
O.C.II, pp. 971-972.
The passage
'Reponse au roi de Pologne' is cited in eh. III, p. 229.
118.
119.
See eh. III, pp. 229-231.
Seep. 407 above.
120.
'Preface
da Narcisse',
or,
O.C.II,
416
p. 971.
from the
�Jene proposois point de bouleverser
la societe
act"1Jell.e, de bruler les Bibliotheques
et tous
les livres,
de detruire
les Colleges et les
Academies:
et je dois ajouter ici que je ne
propose point non plus de reduire les hommes a
se contenter du simple necessaire.121
Rousseau was impressed
which his critics
had raised,
ciently
of their
persuaded
features
of his theory.
connection
between virtue
uncultured
men of antiquity
brutal
and fierce
agreed that
there
in their
by the force
of some of the objections
and in at least
two cases he was suffi-
cogency to modify and even abandon certain
Stanislas
had challenged
and ignorance
and had maintained
whom he had praised
behaviour
than innocent
was a good deal of truth
in this
Ste.nislas
modest,
and pure.
bad outlined
- whereas the other
the
more
and benign.
contention,
Rousseau
and he
between two forms
of which only one was odious and terrible
reasons
of the
that
were really
proposed to accommodate it by drawing a distinction
of ignorance,
his account
- for the
was reasonable,
L 1Auteur attaque ... les louanges que j 1 ai donnees a
l'ignorance .... Jene nie point qu'il ait raison,
mais je ne crois pas avoir tort.
Il ne faut qu'une
distinction
tres-juste
et tres-vraie
pour nous concilier.
Il y a une ignorance feroce et brutale,
qui nait d'un mauvais coeur et d'un esprit faux;
une ignorance criminelle ... qui multiplie
les vices
••. cette ignorance est celle que l'Auteur attaque
••.• Il y a une autre sorte d'ignorance
raisonnable ...
\llle ignorance modeste, qui nait d 1 un vif amour pour
la vertu ... une douce et precieuse ignorance, tresor
d'une ame pure .... Voila l'ignorance
que j'ai
louee.122
Yet since
Rousseau did not attempt
to explain
how the difference
between
121.
'Derniere reponse',
O.C.III, p. 95.
The comparable passage in the
'Reponse au roi de Pologne' appears in ibid., pp. 55-56 (see eh. III,
p. 229).
In the 'Preface de Narcisse'
it appears in O.C.II, p. 972.
122.
'Reponse au roi de Pologne',
417
O.C.III,
pp. 53-54.
�these
all
two kinds of ignorance
convincing,
ascribing
.
l earning.
and in his later
the moral innocence
writings
his reply
was not at
he was rnore hesitant
of primitive
rnen to their
about
mere lack of
123
He regarded
tary
might have arisen
Borde's
comments about his emphasis upon the mili-
•
prowess of b arbarians
he attempted
distinction
to meet this
- this
conquest,
e.3
• .f. icant, 124 an d t h ough
even .more signi
point
by drawing another
on the other
- he allowed that
so worthy of our admiration
he proposed
that
lame
time between a commitment to war for the sake of
on the one hand, and a willingness
of liberty,
rather
as hunters,
they should be stricken
whose contributions
than the achievements
to fight
soldiers
labourers,
were not generally
and shepherds,
from the list
to humanity were essentially
of artists
for the defence
and
of persons
more commendable
and rnen of letters.
Quel snectecle nous presenteroit
le GenPe humain
compose un-i crnement de laboureurs,
de soldats.
de
chasseurs.
et de bergers?I~S
Un spectacle
infiniment plus beau que celui du Genre humain
compose de Cuisiniers,
de Poetes, d'Imprimeurs,
d'Orphevres,
de Peintres et de Musiciens.
Il
n'y a que le mot soldat qu'il faut rayer du
premier Tableau.
La Guerre est quelquefois un
devoir, et n 1 est point faite pour etre un metier.
123.
That had not even been his intention
in the Premier Discours, he
protested
in a note of the 'Reponse au roi de Pologne' (ibid.,
p. 54):
"Si j'avois
dit qu'il suffit
d'etre ignorant pour etre vertueux; ce ne
seroit pas la peine de me repondre;
et par la meme raison, je me croirai
tres-dispense
de repondre moi-meme a ceux qui perdront leur terns a me
soutenir le con'traire. 11
124.
ln his 'Fragment biographique'
(O.C.I, p. 1114)
reflected
that Borde alone among all the critics
of his
"savoit penser et ecrivoit
bien ... il publia non centre
autres, mais centre mon sentiment deux discours pleins
vues et tres agreables a lire".
125.
~•
Cf. Borde's first
Discours
Launay, II, p. 134.
sur les avantages
418
Rousseau later
Premier Discours
moi comme les
d'esprit
et de
des sciences
et des
�Tout homme doit etre soldat
liberte;
nul ne doit l'etre
d 'autrui.126
pour la defense de sa
pour envahir celle
Following
Borde 1 s criticism,
however, Rousseau never again portrayed
the ideal
of military
in the shining
valour
in the Premier Discours.
"reputation
guerriere"
and "vertu
themselves
11127of the ancient
militaire
sur l'inegalite
all wars as criminal,
combatants
he had employed
There he had remarked upon the glorious
Romans, but in the Discours
portray
colours
murderous,
and afterwards
execrable,
he was to
and - for the
- pointless.
Les Guerres Nationales,
les Batailles,les
meurtres,
les represailles
... font fremir la Nature et
choquent la raison .... Les plus honnetes gens apprirent a compter parmi leu~s devoirs celui d'egorger
leurs semblables;
on vit enfin les hommes se
massacrer par milliers
sans savoir pour·quoi.128
While Rousseau thus made a few concessions
attacks
he turned
other major charges
development of his theory.
to the claims of Stanislas
man was attributable
it also applies
Borde -
that
causes.
d'Alembert,
- factors
and Borde that
of an "objection
that
factors
such as the customs of different
'Derniere
127.
Discours
reponse',
0.C.III,
sur les sciences
and
- again made by
to political
Rousseau acknowledged
considerable"
several
of
than learning,
was due ultimately
'Reponse au roi de Pologne'
to the effect
126.
the moral degradation
to the statement
of nations
use in the
true of his replies
to an excess of wealth rather
the decline
the significance
to more productive
This is particularly
to his response
In his
in the face of these
which he ascribed
apart
peoples,
to
from the sciences
their
climate,
p. 82.
et les arts,
0.C.III,
p. 23.
128.
Discours sur l'inegalite,
ibid., pp. 178-179.
See also the
passages from the second Discours disc_ussed in eh. III, pp. 189-191, and
Havens, pp. 44 and 205-206.
419
�laws, economies,
tion of their
and governments - must all
particular
moral traits,
problems which d'Alembert
have figured
in the fonna-
and he remarked that
had raised
in this
the
manner required
much con-
sideration.
Jene dois point passer ici sous silence une
objection considerable
qui. m'a deja ete faite par
un Philosophe:
N'est-ce point, me dit-on ... , ~
climat 1 au temperament ... a l'oeconomie du gouvernement 1 aux Coutumes 1 aux Loix 2 a toute autre
cause gu'aux Sciences gu'on doit attribuer
cette
difference qu'on remargue quelquefois dans les
moeurs en diff4rens
pays et en diff4rens terns?
Cette question renferme de grandes vues et
demanderoit des eclaircissemens
trop etendus pour
convenir a cet ecrit.129
It is true that he also observed
that
a full
but there
critics
discussion
of such matters
could lead him "trop loin
can be no doubt of the fact that
he began to address
which these points,
to his notice.
himself
substantial
,
130
to his
to the "eclaircissemens
- was itself
and social
upon the nature
'Derniere
which he had earlier
131
11
... etendus"
and Borde as well,
brought
For far more than ever before he came to set his sights
effect
In his
in his replies
and those of Stanislas
upon the economic, political,
dence
in his 'Reponse au roi de Pologne'
reponse',
agents which must have had a
and history
of our corruption.
for instance,
he noted that
condemned as the principal
due largely
to the decline
luxury -
cause of our decaof agriculture
in
the modern world.
129.
'Reponse au roi de Pologne', O.C.III, pp. 42-43.
It is interesting to note that in this passage Rousseau credits d'Alembert with a rather
more ample and detailed objection than he had actually made.
For in his
Discours preliminaire
to the Encyclopedie (I, p. xxxiii) d'Alembert had
only asked Rousseau to consider whether "la plupart des mawc qu'il attribue aux Sciences & aux Arts ne soot point dusa des causes toutes di.:rf'erentes,
dont 1 1 enumeration seroi t aussi lo~e
que delicate".
130.
'Reponse au roi de Pologne',
O.C.III,
p. 43.
See also p. 428 below.
131.
See pp. 387-388 above. See also the following passage from the
'Reponse au roi de Pologne', O.C.III, p. 51: "Le luxe corrompt tout;
et le riche qui en joUit, et le miserable qui le convoite."
420
�Le luxe peut etre necessaire
pour donner du pain
aux pauvres:
mais, s'il n'y avoit point de luxe,
il n'y auroit point de pauvres.
Il occupe les
Citoyens oisifs.
Et pourquoi y a-t'il
des
Citoyens oisifs?
Quand l'agriculture
etoit en
honneur, il n'y avoit ni misere ni oisivete,
et
il y avoit beaucoup moins de vices. 132
Again in the 'Derniere
Narcisse',
moreover,
property
as a principal
history
of mankind.
reponse'
he drew attention
source
cept entailed,
their
and slaves
largely
most primitive
of these
must already
of private
two works he dealt
which the practical
de
which have marked the
and with the brutal
in order to challenge
state
in the 'Preface
to the significance
of the miseries
In the first
with the concept of ownership
between masters
and soon afterwards
division
of the earth
of that
application
Borde's
thesis
have been fierce
mainly
that
conmen in
and aggressive.
Avant que ces mots affreux de tien et de mien
fussent inventes;
avant qu'ilyeut
de cette
espece d'hommes cruels et brutaux qu'on appelle
maitres,
et de cette autre espece d'hommes
fripons et menteurs qu'on appelle esclaves;
avant qu'il y eut des hommes assez abominables
pour oser avoir du superflu pendant que d'autres
hommes meurent de faim;
avant qu'une dependance
mutuelle les eut tous forces a devenir fourbes,
jaloux et traitres;
je voudrois bien qu'on
m'expliquat
en quoi pouvoient consister
ces
vices, ces crimes qu'on leur reproche avec tant
d'emphase. 133
In the 'Preface
upon the fact
superior
de Narcisse',
that
on the other
the moral attributes
hand, he concentrated
rather
of the savage were markedly
to those of the European because
savages were unscathed
by the
132.
'Derniere reponse',
O.C.III, p. 79.
Rousseau had been rather less
forthright
in his views about agriculture
in the Discours sur les sciences
et les arts (see ibid.,
pp. 26-27).
In the Discours sur l'inegalite,
on
the other hand (see the passages discussed in eh. III, pp. 215-216), he
later maintained that the rise of agriculture
had contributed
to our corruption.
133.
'Derniere
reponse',
O.C.III,
421
p. 80.
�habitual
vices of greed,
envy, and deception
world caused men of property
which in the civilised
to scorn and to milke enemies of one another.
Un Sauvage est un homme, et un Europeen est un
homme. Le demi philosophe conclut aussitot que
l'un ne vaut pas mieux que l'autre;
mais ....
P.armi les Sauvages ... l'amour de la societe et le
soin de leur communedefense soot les seuls
liens qui les unissent:
ce mot de propriete,
qui coute tant de crimes a nos honnetes gens,
n'a presque aucun sens parmi eux: ils n'ont
entre eux nulle discussion d' interet qui les
divise;
rien ne les porte a se tromper l'un
l'autre ...• Je le dis a regret;
l'homme de bien
est celui qui n'a besoin de tramper personne, et
le Sauvage est cet hanme-la.134
In these two passages
les sciences
directed
et les arts,
anywhere in Rousseau's
against
the critics
then, we find the first
writings
of the thesis
expound in the :form o:t a challenge
which he was later
factors
been described
Narcisse',
as well.
The evils
befor-e by many figures,
all
causes,
and the essential
our vices stem ultimately
at the role played by
of contemporary society
be reflected
but while others bad perceived
1.mcovered its
the problem be had in fact
truth
he had learnt
O.C.II,
422
by 1753
not from our nature but rather
Je sais que les declamateurs ont dit cent fois tout
cela;
mais ils le disoient en declamant, et moi je
l.e dis sur des raisons;
ils ont ape~u le mal, et
moi j'en decouvre les causes, et je fais voir surtout une chose tres-consolante
et 'O'es-utile en
montrant que tous ces vices n'appartiennent
Ras
tant a l 1homme, qu'a l'homme mal gouverne.13
'Preface de Narcisse',
Ibid., p. 969.
had
in the 'Preface
from the ways in which we have been badly governed.
134.
135.
to
- on that occasion to Locke' e theory
Rousseau now began to look more closely
was that
major statements
,,
- in the Diecours sur l ' inegali
te.,,
o:r property
political
of his Discours sur
pp. 969-970,.note.
de
�He was to make the sarne point
'Economie pol._itique
I
again about two years later
where he remarked that
longue ce que le gouvernement les fait
once more in the following
etre". 136
decade in the Lettre
Beaumont where he proclaimed
lised
"les peuples
that
the counterfeit
in the
sent
a la
He was to stress
a Christophe
behaviour
it
de
of civi-
men was caused by
notre ordre social,
qui, de tout point contraire
a
la nature que rien ne detruit,
la tirannise
sans
cesse, et lui fait sans cesse reclamer ses droits.137
And around 1770 he was to reflect
of this
principle
had already
had been stationed
witnessed
defects
plan to treat
been apparent
in Venice nearly
the dire consequences
of that
in his Confessions
city's
thirty
for its
that
the truth
to him at the time that
years
earlier,
when he had
people which followed
from the
government and when he had also conceived
the subject
•
•
to ea 11 t he I nst1tut1ons
at length
he
the
in a work which for awhile he was
.
138
po 1·1t1ques.
A Venise j'avois
eu quelqu'occasion
de remarquer
les defauts de ce Gouvernement si vante.
Depuis
lors, mes vues s 1etoient beaucoup etendues par
l 1 etude historique
de la morale.
J'avois vu que
tout tenoit radicalement
a la politique, et que,
de quelque fa9on qu'on s'y prit, aucun peuple ne
seroit jamais que ce que la nature de son Gouvernement le feroit etre.139
136.
O.C.III,
p. 251.
137.
o.c.Iv,
138.
See eh. II,
p. 966.
p. 81.
139.
O.C.I, p. 404. In Emile, Livre IV (O.C.IV, p. 646, note) Rousseau portrayed the government of Venice as "tirannique",
and in the Contrat social,
where he commented upon the nature and character of its political
institutions in some detail,
he described the republic as "depuis longtems un Etat
dissout" (III.v,
O.C.III, p. 407, note) whose ruling council was "un
Tribunal de sang, horrible egalement aux Patriciens
et au Peuple ... qui,
loin de proteger hautement les loix, ne sert plus, apres leur avilissement,
423
�In the 'Preface
de Narcisse',
then,
we find the first
idea whose elaboration
in several
to occupy a major part
of Rousseau's
between the compositions
he addressed
himself
our political
of the central
life
of the first
and in different
and works.
on several
themes of the Discours
forms was
moreover,
to the moral effects
other occasions,
fragment about liberty
of an
In the years
and second Discours,
to problems pertaining
relations
example in this
contexts
statement
too,
which clearly
of
as for
anticipates
one
sur 1 1 inegalite.
Ce n'est que dans la vie solitaire
qu'on peut
trouver la liberte
et l'innocence.
et l'on
doit tenir pour certain que l'epoque du premier
etablissement
des societes a ete celle de la
naissance du crime et de 1 1 esclavage.
Depuis
que le monde a des maitres la corruption est
devenue generale ainsi que la servitude.
et
c 1 est celle-ci
qui a amene a l'autre. 140
With regard
history
least
to the contribution
of our moral decline
partly
made by wealth
Rousseau soon showed himself
in accord with the ideas of Stanislas
some 1.mlcnowndate in the mid-1750s he was later
directly
to this
and riches
problem in a short
'Discours
to be at
and Borde.
to address
in the
At
himself
sur les richesses'
in
which he denounced those
pretendus sages, vils adulateurs
de l'opulence,
plus vils detracteurs
de la pauvrete ... qui
savent prudemment accommoder la philosophie
au
gout de ceux qui la paient.141
qu'a porter dans les tenebres des coups qu'on n 1 ose appercevoir"
(IV.v,
ibid., pp. 454-455).
See also Rousseau's illustrations
from Venetian history in the chapter (III.x,
ibid., p. 421, note) of the Contrat social
entitled
'De l 1 abus du gouvernement, et de sa pente a degenerer'.
For the
contrast which he drew between the republics of Venice, on the one hand,
and Geneva, on the other, see the Contrat social,
IV.iii,
ibid.,
pp. 442-443.
The most notable of the dispatches pertaining
to this subject which he drafted when he was secretary
to the French ambassador in
Venice appears in O.C.III, pp. 1075-1077 (see also·ibid.,
p. ccliii).
140.
Pichois-Pintard,
p. 42.
141.
Launay, II, p. 331.
The 'Discours sur les richesses 1 comprises
the bulk of Neuchatel Ms R 31 (ancienne cote 7855).
It was first published
in an edition by Felix Bovet in the Revue suisse in 1853.
424
�But already
dates
in a fragr.ient
from around 1753 he asserted
a manifestation
that
on 'Le luxe,
of his desire
the introduction
that
the cupidity
to set himself
the vice of poverty
of its
arts'
which
of man was largely
above his neighbours,
of gold in human affairs
accompanied by the inequality
issued
le commerce et les
had been unavoidably
distribution
and the predatory
so
from which there
humiliation
then
of the poor
by the rich.
Des !'instant
que l'usage de 1 1 or a ete connu des
h(ommes) ils se sont tous efforces d'en amasser
beaucoup et les succes ont du naturellement
repondre aux divers degres d'industrie
et d'avidi~e
des concurrens,
c 1 est a dire etre fort inegaux.
Cette premiere inegalite
jointe a !'avarice
et aux
talens qui l'avoient
produite a du encore augmenter
par sa propre force;
car un des vices des societes
etablies
c'est que la difticulte
d'acquerir
croit
toujours en raison des besoins et que c'est le
superflu meme des riches qui les met en etat de
depouiller
le pauvre de son necessaire. 142
Yet if we are to recognise
lation
that
of riches
this
trary,
in the moral corruption
has been the principal
Rousseau declared
and poverty
are relative
of inequality
actually
in his
cause of our decline.
'Reponse au roi
so that
the crucial
the degree of the inequality
Rousseau set
that
to inequality,
possible
is available.
in the Premier
de Pologne',
and extent
cases
which prevails
rather
than the
It was in this
fashion
the genealogy
by wealth,
of luxury and indolence,
is
that
of vices
and he now proposed
of our corruption
which was then followed
wealth
in all
Discours,
in the dismal order
the rise
On the con-
factor
about the task of rearranging
he had portrayed
of place
of mankind we must not suppose
terms which depend upon the nature
in society,
amount of wealth
pride
the part that has been played by the accumu-
which
that
should be granted
which in turn made
which then gave rise
to the
142.
O.C.III,
p. 522.
This fragment, which forms a part of Neuchatel
Ms R 30 (ancienne cote 7854) was first published in Streckeisen-Moultou.
425
�arts,
on the one hand, and sciences,
on the other.
dit ... que le luxe fut ne des Sciences",
"Je n'avois
pas
he protested,
mais qu'ils etoient nes ensemble et que l'un
n'alloit
gueres sans l'autre.
Voici comment
j'arrangerois
cette genealogie.
La premiere
source du mal est 1 1 inegalite;
de l'inegalite
sont venues les richesses;
car ces mots de
pauvre et de riche sont relatifs,
et par tout
ou les hommes seront egaux, il n'y aura ni
riches ni pauvres.
Des richesses
sont nes le
luxe et l'oisivete;
du luxe sont venus les
beaux Arts, et de l'oisivete
les .Sciences.143
Here, then,
was a new version
which placed
the arts
of the argument of the Premier Discours
and sciences
last
- and not first,
as his critics
supposed.
At least
part
views is apparent
that
mentally
learned
of the arts
of vices
our desire
of culture
to distinguish
the respect
of others
has been responsible
in human history
rather
else
society.
of public
unless
and compatriots.
so that
shares
to establish
de Pologne',
426
O.C.III,
sense
an
cannot t:ruly
of talent
equal.
'Reponse au roi
the arti-
in this
Moral virtue
individual
of our
as our wish to command
of our attempts
esteem.
of
For
an expression
has prompted us to manufacture
of advanced societies,
Rousseau contended,
it is funda-
than the achievements
to excellence
is only a fulfilment
unequal distribution
143.
that
and instruments
civilisation
roughly
and sciences
from our neighbours
It is not so much our devotion
exist,
where he suggested
has been above all
ourselves
of Rousseau's
de Narcisse'
and evils
for learning
modification
men which undermine our morals in civilised
our pursuit
facts
for this
from the 'Preface
while the progress
for a whole train
will
of the reason
pp. 49-50.
are
�Le gout des lettres
annonce toujours chez l.ll'lpeuple
un commencement de corruption qu'il accelere trespromptement.
Car ce gout ne peut naitre ainsi dans
toute une nation que de deux mauvaises sources que
l 1 etude entretient
et grossit a son tour, savoir
l'oisivete
et le desir de se distinguer .... Dans l.ll'l
Etat bien constitue tousles
citoyens sont si bien
egaux, que nul ne peut etre prefere aux autres comme
le plus savant ni meme comme le plus habile. 144
The only
sa:feguard
which
we had
ever
had
against
he remarked in the 'Reponse au roi de Pologne',
egalite"
- now irredeemably
source de toute
arts
vertu".
and sciences
feeling
145
critics
of his Discours
therefore,
'Observations'
had criticised
Rousseau had there
neglected
morals of men in their
prevalent
in the
upon which Rousseau
sur l'inegalite.
replies
et les arts
Discours
to draw a proper
state
to the
led him toward
of argument that
and beyond.
the first
most primitive
et
for distinction
and economic lines
was to pursue in the second Discours
de l'innocence
Rousseau's
sur les sciences
social,
premiere
of much the same factitious
in the Discours
these respects,
the more political,
Hence our craving
to dominate in politics
was to focus his attention
was "cette
- "conservatrice
was a manifestation
as the desire
In all
lost
corruption,
The author
partly
he
of the
because
comparison between the
and the morality
which was
today.
Il aurait du ... en remonant a cette premiere
epoque faire comparaison des moeurs de ce tempsla avec les notres.146
144.
'Preface de Narcisse',
O.C.II, p. 965.
145.
'Reponse au roi de Pologne', O.C.III, p. 56.
In the Discours sur
l'inegalite,
of course, Rousseau was later to argue that the physical
inequality
of men in the natural state was col.ll'lterbalanced not by their
moral equality but by the absence of morals.
146.
II,
'Observations
sur le Discours
p. 69.
427
qui a ete couronne
a Dijon',
Launay,
�To this
objection
Rousseau replied
in his 'Lettre!
C'est ce que j'aurois
fait
un volume in-quart:o.147
In his 'Reponse au roi de Pologne',
Rayna.J.',
encore plus au long dans
moreover, in connection with his
C0111111ents
about the importance of the obscure but profound relations
which join together
the nature of government and the customs and man-
ners of citizens,
research
Rousseau intimated
on that subject
that he was already
and would consider
it further
undertaking
on another
occasion.
Il s'agiroit
d'examiner les relations tres-cachees,
mais tres-reelles
qui se trouvent entre la nature
du gouvernement, et le genie, les moeurs et les
connoissances des citoyens;
et ceci me jetteroit
clans des discussions delicates .... De plus ... ce soot
des recherches bonnes a fa.ire a Geneve, et clans
d'autres circonstances.1 4 8
!!he first
major occasion
the publication
Rousseau's
troversy
was to arise
just
over
of the 'Reponse au roi de Pologne',
"recbel'Ches bonnes
a faire",
about the Premier Discours,
atter
two years
when the seeds of
sown largely
during the con-
were to become the harvest
of
the Discours sur l'inegalite.
Yet though Rousseau was to embark upon a treatment
moral degradation
critics
along a wider social
path, in his replies
the contrary
he continued
and he consistently
to uphold his initial
and culture,
views
as causal agents.
thesis
On
throughout
the
reaffi.rmed the claims which he had made
in his prize essay about the interconnections
luxury,
to the
of the Premier Discours be did not abandon his earlier
about the importance of the arts and sciences
dispute,
of man's
between vanity,
sloth,
even while extending his argument to accommodate
147.
O.C.III,
p. 32.
148.
'Reponse au roi de Pologne',
428
ibid.,
p. 43.
See also ibid. • p. 1261.
�other
Thus, for instance,
factors.
put forward his ideas
his original
text,
in his 'Derniere
reponse',
he
in much the same terms that he had employed in
focusing
chain of h1.1111an
corruption
particularly
upon the set of links
in the
which encompasses science and letters.
La vanite
et l'oisivete
qui ont engendre nos sciences,
ont aussi engendre le luxe.
Le gout du luxe accompagne toujours celui des Lettres,
et le gout des
Lettres accompagne souvent celcl du luxe: toutes ces
choses se tiennent assez fidelle compagnie~ parce
qu'elles
sont l'ouvrage des memes vices. 14
In the course of the next several
of his philosophy
spectacles
much further,
years he was to develop this
above all
and of art
conceived
Le Cat could imagine in his
as spectacle,
'Refutation'
music was to be exempted from Rousseau's
disillusioned
after
the publication
of the following
year.
more dismayed to read the chapters
langues about the relation
moral decline
But if
of 1752 that the field
charges,
in
of
he was to be sadly
sur la musigue
No doubt be would have been even
in the £ssai sur l'origine
des
between our musical advancement and our
drafted
For in Rousseau's
as a section
early social
of the
theory the
harmonic music by which men have come to be enthralled
the mode.rn world has its
political
tain
in general.
of the Lettre
which Rousseau initially
Discours sur l'inegalite.
senseless
sur l~s
of 1758, in which he condemned the role of the theatre,
particular,
franxoise
in his Lettre
aspect
institutions
a like
morales•~ just
as the debased
by which they have come to be captivated
con-
"cal.cul des intervalles".
By the beginning
de Narcisse',
own "relations
in
of 1753, with the completion of his 'Preface
Rousseau had produced a work in which the principles
of
149.
'Derniere reponse',
ibid., p. 74.
Cf. especially
the passages
from the Discours sur les sciences et les arts cited on pp. 387-388 above.
�his early
social
with greater
les arts.
theory were drawn together
clarity
and coherence
Rousseau himself
than ever before
than in the Discours
was to make this
he appeared to have a much higher
text
better
opinion
which it was meant to buttress
- certainly
sur les sciences
claim in his Confessions,
of the 'Preface'
et
and
than of the
and defend.
Dans la Preface qui est un de mes bons ecrits,
je commen~ai
de mettre a decouvert mes principes
un peu plus que je
n'avois fait jusqu'alors.150
By the autumn of 1753, when he drafted
a Bordes'
l'inegalite
central
- itself
151
probably
this
very soon supplanted
- Rousseau reflected
that
theme of the Premier Discours
to which he would thereafter
the 'Preface
all
d'une second lettre
by the Discours
his writings
comprised a distinct
sur
around the
system of ideas
adhere so long as he remained convinced that
system was founded upon truth
and virtue.
Ce triste
et grand Systeme, fruit d'un examen sincere
de la nature de l'homme, de ses facultes et de sa
destination,
m'est cher, quoiqu'il
m'humilie;
car je sens combien il nous importe qui l'orgueil
ne nous fasse pas prendre le change sur ce qui
doit faire notre veritable
grandeur, et combien
il est a craindre qu'a force de vouloir nous
elever au dessus de notre nature nous ne retombions
au-dessous d'elle .... Mais quant au Systeme que j'ai
soutenu, je le defendrai de toutte ma force aussi
longtemps qui je demeurerai convaincu qu'il est
celui de la verite et de la vertu.152
150. Confessions,
O.C.I, p. 388. Grimm, however (Correspondance litteraire,
IC2), pp. 321-322), thought the 'Preface'
"outree" and "pas trop
1:i'oime
... si vous en exceptez quelques pages dignes de ... Montesquieu".
151. See eh. III, note 1, and the Correspondance complete, II, pp. 232-233.
In connection with some remarks of Borde in his Second Discours sur les
avantages des sciences et des arts to the effect that natural inequality
provides a foundation for political
and civil inequality,
Leigh makes the
interesting
suggestion that ''Rousseau devait prendre le contre-pied
dans son
second Discours, qui sera la vraie reponse a celui de Borde".
152. 'Preface d'une second lettre
a Bordes', O.C.III,
p. 105. On the
following page Rousseau refers twice again to his "Systeme" and even his
"Systeme vrai mais affligeant".
I disagree sharply,
however, with Roger
Masters (see his Political
Philosophy of Rousseau, pp. 206-207 and 248),
who interprets
these passages as support for the claim, which I take to be
misleading anyway, that "there is no reason to assume that Rousseau's
fundamental philosophic
position changed radically
between the publication
of the First Discourse ... and the appearance of the Emile and Social Contract".
In the light of Jean-Jacque:ts
replies to his critic~have
tried to show
here that after 1750 his position did change in a number of important
�In his
'Fragment biographique'
he even suggested
that
his own but rather
which dates
from the mid-1750s,
moreover, 153
the system which he had uncovered was not in fact
that
of human nature
itself.
J'etudiois
l'homme en lui meme et je vis
voirenfin
dans sa constitution
le vrai
la nature qu'on n'a pas manque d'appeller
quoique pour l'etablir
je ne fisse qu•o
ce que je montrois qu I il s'atoi t donne. 1
ou je crus
Systeme de
le mien
er de l'homme
4
5
It was ''mon grand systeme",
pertaining
to the period
he noted in a passage
of the dispute
of his Confessions
about his Premier Discours
-
"[unJgrand systeme" whose elements he was then engaged in assembling
bit
by bit.
J'en jettois
quelque chose sur le papier a l'aide
d'un livret blanc et d'un crayon que j'avois
toujours dans ma poche. 155
Near the end of his life
philosophy
as based upon just
Rousseau came to regard
one great
principle
- in effect,
Nature has made man happy and good while society
and depraved.
of "cette
156
doctrine",
In his early
primitive
All of his works culminating
writings
condition
he observed
tutions
bind us to a life
that
writings
made less
has made him miserable
in Emile were an illustration
to show that
must have been in a far better
society,
he had tried
oppressive
that
in Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques.
he had attempted
contemporary
the whole of his
mankind in its
state
than that
of
in which we now pay our homage to the very instiof pennanent
to explain
despair;
how the evils
if our understanding
in his later
of our world might be
of them was improved; and
ways and develop in some unheralded directions,
so that, as Borde himself
put it in his Second Discours (p. 3), Rousseau's original
"paradoxe ingenieux"
came to be superseded by the unveiling of "un systeme decide".
153.
See eh. IV, note 28, and O.C.I,
154.
O.C.I,
155.
Confessions,
156.
Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques,
p. 1836.
p. 1115.
ibid.,
p. 368.
ibid.,
431
p. 935.
�throughout
that
his works he had been dedicated
deception
and illusion
to the task
of overcoming
which made us look upon our plight
it were also the only goal worthy of our respect
as if
and admiration.
Suivant demon mieux le fil de ses meditations,
j'y
vis par tout le developement de son grand principe
que la nature a fait l'homme heureux et bon mais que
la societe le deprave et le rend miserable.
L'Emile
en particulier
... n'est qu'un traite
de la bonte __ _
originelle
de l'homme, destine a montrer comment le
vice et l'erreur,
etrangers a sa constitution,
s'y
introduisent
du dehors et l'alterent
insensiblement.
Dans ses premiers ecrits il s'attache
davantage a
detruire
ce prestige
d'illusion
qui nous donne une
admiration stupide pour les instrumens de nos miseres
et a corriger cette estimation
trompeuse qui nous fait
honorer des talens pernicieux et mepriser des vertus
utiles.
Par tout il nous fait voir 1 1 espece h\Mlaine
meilleure,
plus sage et plus heureuse dans sa constitution primitive,
aveugle, miserable et mechante a
mesure qu'elle
s'en eloigne.
Son but est de redresser l'erreur
de nos jugemens pour retarder
le progres
de nos vices, et de nous montrer que la ou nous
cherchons la gloire et l'eclat~
nous ne trouvons en
effet qu'erreurs
et miseres.1 51
There is much in this
in Rousseau's
writings
- that
passage
illuminates
his major works to be elaborations
passage
nevertheless
his early
parts
and later
points
were they all
designed
"le developement
and transformed
of a single
- either
to social
in the very texts
principle.
at the same time,
whose substance
be later
regarded
about the Premier Discours
nor
- to follow
was extended
as illustrations
Rousseau did not really
- with the question
between
For the various
moments of conception
In particular,
1750s generally
difference
thought.
assembled
de son grand principe",
in the dispute
of the early
- at their
it elsewhere
theme, and yet the
to a significant
were not all
like
the way in which he conceived
of a central
equally
contributions
of his "doctrine"
- and in others
contend
or in his writings
posed by the anonymous
157.
Ibid., pp. 934-935. In his first Discours and Emile, inseparable
works which form "ensemble un meme tout ... j 'aurois expose tous les
abus de Nos institutions",
Rousseau had already remarked in his letter
to Malesherbes of 12 January 1762 (Correspondance complete, X, p. 26).
432
�author
of the
'Observations'.
from the thesis
In his
evil
What practical
about the corruption
'Derniere
reponse'
and had tried
a remedy he left
its
could one draw
of morals which Rousseau had advanced?
Rousseau replied
to locate
conclusion
only that
sources.
The task
he had seen the
of searching
for
to others.
J'ai vu le mal et tache d'en trouver les causes:
D'autres plus hardis ou plus insenses pourront
chercher le remede.158
In fact,
in his
however,
later
praises
works.
that
very task
In the Lettre
of a form of art
of debased;
principles
for their
as festival
right
social
according
mutual advantage
by Rousseau himself
he was to sing
rather
of the participants
in the Contrat
of political
together
sur les spectacles
- conceived
in which the moral sentiments
instead
was to be undertaken
than spectacle
his later
elected
years,
to leave
with freedom.
then,
he was to devise
rather
than their
important
period
place
in the
question
'grand
systeme'
configurations
raised
of development,
not with its
remedy.
In these
'oisivete'
loom larger,
mainspring
of the evolution
the formation
with its
of culture.
years
perhaps,
early
above all
Discours,
and implications
the other
In the
with the
with its
the principles
What I have tried
he had
writings.
genesis
- but
of 'inegalite'
than any of the rest
of society,
of
did not occupy a crucially
of his
nature
writings
about the Premier
of our moral corruption,
and patterns
might still
to the question
from 1750 to 1756 Rousseau was concerned
particular
of
common despair;
In the major theoretical
in the controversy
for the problems which that
a set
to which men might be brought
Rousseau was to turn
unanswered
- the one as the
as the central
to establish
and
here
factor
is that
158.
'Derniere reponse',
O.C.III,
p. 95. Cf. Rousseau's
'Mon Portrait',
O.C.I. p. 1120: "Je suis observateur
et non moraliste:
Je suis le
Botaniste
qui decrit la Plante.
C'est au medecin qu'il appartient
d'en regler l'usage."
See also the passage from the 'Reponse au roi
de Pologne' cited in eh. III, p. 229.
433
-
might be uplifted
and in Emile he was to show how a plan of moral education
be made compatible
the
in
it was
�in the course of the controversy
et les arts
that
Rousseau came to formulate
much more coherent
original
text,
during
and sophisticated
so that
study of culture
background,
therefore,
account of the degeneration
My principal
plot
by focusing
elements
established
early
problems.
To establish
For that
theory
truth
that
were designed
to solve.
contexts
to the host of
in which they figured.
theory
as particular
the nature
in which his argu-
If these arguments
they do so only insofar
and his endorsement
formulations
as
of the views
of a coherent
set of
of these problems and the sense of
'pour savoir
is just
les choses,
as indispensable
is to our historical
il
faut savoir
to our philosophical
tation
of ideas as it
either
case it is not merely our best guide but the only reliable
that
I
about them we must always bear in mind the often
that
proposition
of
problems which the
above all,
of the ideas of one writer
join together
painstaking
the institutions
study has been to unravel
of a systematic
statements
in which an
-
plot.
with reference,
of another
Rousseau's
of history
of specific
social
on
on the other
of the particular
controversies
his critique
in this
sur l'inegalite,
an account of his meaning must always be
ments were formulated,
comprise the elements
With that
des langues,
philosophy
upon the variety
in the light
Enlightenment
sur 1 1 origine
of morals through
objective
to show that
new way.
of his most mature deliberations
forms the central
of Rousseau's
have tried
in a
than he had done in his
again in an entirely
an intricate
and culture
principles
came to be the Discours
the one hand, and the Essai
society
fashion
the products
years
providing
these
sur les sciences
by the end of 1753 he was ready to turn to the
and society
the following
each text
about the Discours
we have.
434
understanding
le detail'.
interpre-
of them, and in
guide
�
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<strong>Title: </strong>Rousseau on Society, Politics, Music and Language - An Interpretation of His Early Writings<br /><strong><br /></strong>
Creator
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Robert Wokler
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1987
Description
An account of the resource
<strong>Abstract:</strong> This study is focused upon a variety of specific problems which I believe the early writings of Rousseau were designed to solve. Most of the works that are discussed here were drafted by Rousseau between 1750 and 1756, and I shall argue that a proper grasp of this fact about their temporal proximity is important to an understanding of the conceptual relations which underlie them. I hope to show that any accurate account of Rousseau's meaning must incorporate a careful examination of the context in which his ideas were developed, and I shall therefore be concerned very largely with the manner in which his writings were conceived as replies to arguments that were produced by other thinkers. The first chapter is devoted to an account of some mistaken interpretations of Rousseau's meaning. We often confuse our own beliefs about the contemporary significance of certain ideas with the sense which their authors originally intended they should have, and in this chapter I consider a number of misconceptions of that kind, as well as some mistaken correctives to them, which have appeared in Rousseau studies. The views of C.E. Vaughan and Robert Derathe, in particular, are discussed with reference to these problems. The second chapter is concerned with the influence of Diderot upon Rousseau and especially with the intellectual debt which Rousseau owed to Diderot's article 'Droit naturel'. The 'Economie politique' and the Manuscrit de Geneve are shown to exhibit the influence of Diderot in two quite different ways, and the conceptions of the 'volonté generale' of the two figures are compared in the light of the differences between their accounts of the natural society of mankind. In the third chapter the arguments of the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> are examined in connection with the ideas of several other figures from whom Rousseau drew some inspiration or against whom he raised some objections in that work. The chapter opens with a challenge to the thesis that the second Discours bears the stamp of Diderot's influence, and it continues with several sections, which are concerned with the historical, anthropological, linguistic, and political views of Buffon, Condillac, and Hobbes and Locke, respectively, while two final sections describe Rousseau's account of the transformation of natural into social man. The fourth chapter compares a number of ideas about the nature and origin of music which were put forward by Rameau and Rousseau. It traces the course of their controversy about this subject through the writings of both thinkers, and in the case of Rousseau it is addressed especially to his articles on music in the <em>Encyclopedie</em>, his <em>Lettre sur la musique françoise</em>, his <em>Examen de deux principes</em>, and his <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. It also attempts to establish that the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> at first contained a section about the genesis of music which Rousseau eventually incorporated in the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. The chapter, moreover, offers an interpretation of the place of music and language in the general context of Rousseau's social theory, and it provides a critique of several accounts of tbe historical relation between the <em>Essai</em> and the second <em>Discours</em> which have neglected that common feature of their meaning. The final chapter is concerned with the <em>Discours sur les sciences et les arts</em> and with the writings which Rousseau produced between 1751 and 1753 in defence of that text against its critics. I argue there that while the first <em>Discours</em> is the most shallow and least original of all of Rousseau's major works, the controversy which followed its publication helped him to focus his ideas about culture and society much more sharply than he had done before. I try to show that Rousseau's replies to the detractors of the <em>Premier Discours</em> constitute a refinement of his views along the paths which he was then to pursue further in the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> and the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>, and I conclude with some reflections about the systematic nature of his early social theory as it was developed in the period between his composition of the first and second <em>Discours</em>. The appendix consists of an annotated transcription of the manuscript on the origins of music and language discussed at length in chapter IV.
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<a href="http://s127526803.onlinehome.us/wokler/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Robert Wokler</a>
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Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London
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520 + vii pages.
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Chapter 5: The Critique of Culture and Society in Rousseau's Early Writing
Creator
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Robert Wokler
Date
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1987
Description
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pp. 379-434
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Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London
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IHA/Wokler/632
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Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews
Rousseau
-
https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/intellectualhistory/files/original/9bc5cf319c709e43d0744de0be2236bc.pdf
a39b048e945f6dca264abc94307c9425
PDF Text
Text
APPENDIX
�Y?~ ~ .
Fa-,-1~
ruu
,..,...,
l.tft
fa-._
r
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I
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j
I
~-.\
-~'
:--t'
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·'.••• 1- Jan-,
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www<'
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436
~
-.--c»>~-+t;-~~
6
~~,-/
;
�l 2
•
• En renon~ant aw. querelles
qui peuvent troubler ma tranquillite,
je ne veux point m'interdire
celles de pur atl\Jsement telles
que les
discussions
que je puis avoir avec M. Rameau sur son art.
Tant qu'il
ne sera question que de Musique et de chansons, je crois pouvoir asses
compter sur moi meme pour ne pas me refuser a des disputes ou je ne serai
pas plus $ier d'avoir raison qu'humilie d'avoir tort.
Je dois
l'honneur
d'une reponse a la reputation4
de ce Musicien
Du Principe
de la Melodie
OU
Reponse aux erreurs
5 2 1
s.ur la Musique • •
TEXTUAL
NOTES
The manuscript contains twenty-four pages in 4to (of which the last
is blank) followed by two pages in Svo. From pp. 2r to 17r the text
appears on recto sides only with intercal.ations
to a few passages added
on the facing verso sides,
Thereafter the text proceeds from p. 16v to
p. 22r on both recto and verso sides, though in a less legible state and
in an irregular
order (see note 431 below).
P. 25r comprises a rough
draft of a passage on pp. 8r-9r, while on p. lv there is a long intercalation top.
16v (see notes 188 and 446 below).
Seven passages (on
pp. lv, 3v, 6v-9v, 22v, 23v, and 26v-25v) appear to be unconnected to the
main body of the text and are included here as fragments at the end. The
text from pp. 2r to 7r, which forms a continuous section that Rousseau
incorporated
in the Examen de deux principes,
is crossed out.
The text
of pp. 16v, 18v, and 22r, as well as the intercalation
on p. iv, are
similarly
crossed out, though the remaining draft of the Exarnen on
pp. 17v-21v is not .. The central. section from pp. Sr to 17r comprises
the digression
that includes a draft of chs. xvili and xviiii
of the Essai
sur l'origine
des langues.
Two passages in this section (see notes 2~
and 265 below) also figure in the Exarnen, and these passages too are
crossed out.
In the footnotes to that section I have incorporated
rough
draft variants to three passages as they appear in the Ms R 60, p. 25r,
Ms R 72, p. 25r, and Ms R 72, p. 20v (see notes 188, 295, and 369 below).
Each of these drafts is crossed out.
All other crossed out passages are
so specified.
The end of each page is marked by a footnote;
unless otherwise indicated the text proceeds in all cases to the following recto side.
All manuscript references
pertain to the Rousseau papers in the Bibliotheque
de la Ville de Neuchatel.
The central. section of the text has been previously transcribed
twice, first by me in my 'Rameau, Rousseau, and the Essai sur
l'origine
des langues',
SVEC, CXVII (1974), pp. 202-220, and SVEC, CXXXII
(1975), p. 112, and then by Duchez in her 'Principe de la melodie et Origine
des langues',
Revue de musicologie,
LX (1974), pp. 61-77.
Both of these
transcriptions
contain e. number of errors.
Two other passages, one from the
main body of the text, the other a fragment, have also appeared earlier
in
Jansen (see notes 2 and 954 below).
437
�C'est toujours avec plaisir 6 que je vois paroitre
de nouveaux
Ecrits de M. Rameau; de quelque rnaniere q~'ils soient accueillis
du
Public, ils 7n•en sont pas rnoins 7 precieux aux amateurs de l'art
et
je me fais honneur d'etre de ceux qui tachent d'en profiter.
Quand
8ce n'est pour moi qu'une
cet illustre
ntusicien releve mes fautes,
raison [nouvelle] 9 de le remercier 82; et cornme en renoncant aux
querelles
qui peuvent troubler ma tranquilite
je ne rn'interdis
point
11a•autant plus] 10
celles de pur amusement, je lO[discuterai
12 [les questions decidees par M. Rameau] 12 qu'il 11 en
volontiers
1et par
[peut] resulter
de sa part de nouveaux eclaircissements,
consequent de nouvelles lumieres, pour le public et pour moi 1 . C'est
meme entrer en cela dans les vues de 13cet illustre
[artisteJ 14 ,13
15
qui dit qu'on ne peut
contester
les propositions
qu'il avance que
pour lui fournir les moyens de les mettre dans UD plus grand jour,
d'ou je concluds 16 qu'elles
ont besoin 17 d'etre contestees 16 , 15 .
Je suis 18 fort eloigne de vouloir defendre mes articles
de
l'Encyclopedie,
personne a la verite n'.en devroit etre plus content
que M. Rameau qui les attaqueb., mais personne au monde n'en est plus
mecontent que moi-meme19 : Cependant quand on sera instruit
de terns
ou ils ont ete faits,
de celui que j'eus pour les faire et de
20 , ou j'ai toujours ete de reprendre un travail
l'imp[uissanceJ
fini 21 ;
quand on saura de plus, que je n'eus point la presomption de me
1.
Missing from the Exarnen de deux principes.
2.
See Jansen, p. 466. Apart from the title,
<au moins> 1 1 honneur
<gra>
3.
4.
s.
6.
7.
8.
9.
this
passage
is crossed
End of p. lr.
<un nouveau> plaisir
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 266: sont.
Ibid.:
il m'instruit,
il m'honore, je lui dois des remercirnens.
<de plus>
<me rneller(?)
preterai
d'autant plus>
11.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 267: par occasion quelques
points qu'il d€cide, bien sfu> d'avoir toujours fait une chose utile,
s'il.
10.
12.
<aux discussions
n'aurai pas [en cela)
13.
14.
qu'exigent
des matieres
perdu mon terns>
Exarnen de deux principes,
<Musicien>
15.
Added top.
lv.
16.
Examen de deux principes,
conteste.
17.
<tres grand> besoin
18.
Ibid.:
suis, au reste.
19.
Ibid.:
rnoi.
20.
l'imp<ossibilite>
21.
Examen de deux principes,
qu'il
traite
<qu'il>
CTWR,V, p. 267:
ce grand Musicien.
CTWR,V, p. 267:
qu'il
CTWR,V, p. 267:
une fois
438
et je
est bon qu'on les
fini.
out.
�proposer22 pour celui-ci
mais qu[eJ 23 ce fut, pour ainsi dire [une
tache] imposee par l'amit:i_eg, On lira peut etre avec quelque
indulgence des articles
que j'eus a peine le terns d'ecrire
dans
l'espace qui m'etoit laisse 244 pour les rnediter, et que je
n'aurois point entrepris
si je n'avois consulte que le terns et
mes forces.
Mais ceci est une justification
envers le Public et
25 [pour un autre lieul 25 .
Revenons a M. Rameau que j'ai
beaucoup loue et qui 26 [me fait un crime deJ 26 ne l 1 avoir pas
loiie beaucoup 1 davantage.
Siles
Lecteurs veulent bien jetter
les yeux sur les articles
qu'il attaque, tels que 27 Chi~§rer,
Accord, Accom~agnement &c. s'ils distinquent les sobres
eloges
que l'equite 2 rend aux vrais talens de l'encen~ indiscret
qu'une vile adulation29 prodigue a tout le monde, enfin s'ils
30de ce que les procedes de M. Rameau vis-a-vis
sont instruits
de rnoi ajoutent de poids et d'honnetete 30 a la justice ~ue
j'aime a lui rendre, j'espere
qu'en blamant les erreurs 1 que
j'ai pu commettre 32 ils seront contens au moins des honvnages que
j'ai ~ 3su rendre a 34 [ses talensJ34,33.
Je [ne] feindrai
[pas]3S d'avouer que l'ecrit36
Intitule
Erreurs sur la Musigue &c. me paroit en ef$7t fourmiller
d'erreurs
et que je n'y vois rien de juste
que le titre.
Mais 38 ces erreurs ne sont point dans les lumieres de M. Rameau,
elles n'ont leur source 39 que dans son coeur, et quand la passion
22.
<croire>
23.
qu<'il
24.
Exarnen de deux principes,
25.
<qui doit trouver
26.
<rn'injurie
27.
End of p. 2r.
28.
Examen de deux principes,
29.
Ibid.:
ne(?)>
CTWR,V, p. 267:
donne.
sa place>
pour>
CTWR,V, p. 267:
rnesure aux talens,
du vil
30.
Ibid.:
moi, ajoute.
du p9ids que les precedes
31,,
Ibid.:
fautes.
32.
Ibid.:
faire
33,
Ibid.:
rendus a l'Auteur.
34.
<la verite>
35.
<point>
36.
l'ecrit
37.
38.
Ex.amen de deux principes,
<et>
39.
source<s>
dans l'exposition
vrais.
encens que !'adulation.
de M. Rameau, vis-a-vis
de ses principes.
<[son merite]>
<de>
CTWR, V, p. 267:
439
plus
juste.
de
�ne l 1 aveuglera pas il jugera 40 mieux que personne des 41 [bonnes
regles] 41 de son art.
Jene m•attacherai
done point a relever
42une multitude 42 de petites fautes qui disparoitront
avec 43
44
44
sa haine; _ [encore moins]
deffendrai-je
celles dont il
45sont en effet tres bien relevees 45
m'accuse et dont plusieurs
Laissons toutes ces chicanes 46 personnelles
qui 47 ne font rien
au progres de l'art ni a l'instruction
du Public. 48 [Il faut
abandonner ces bagatelles 49 aux cornmengans qui veulent se faire
2] et qui pour une
connoit~e 50 , 48 51 [aux depends d'~utrui
[faute] 3 , 54 qu'ils
rcorrigent) 5 ne craignent pas d'en
[commettreJ 56 cent) 51 . [Mais] Ce on'on ne oauroit examiner nvec
trop de soin ce sont les principes 57 de l'art meme, gins lesquels
la moindre erreur est une source d'egaremens et [ou)
l'artiste
ne peut se tromper en rien que tous les 59 efforts qu'il fait pour
60se perfectionner
ne l'eloignent
de 60 la perfection.
40.
<doit>
41.
<vrais principes>
42.
43.
Examen de deux principes,
<a>
44.
<et sans [meme]>
CTWR,V, p. 268:
un nombre.
45.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 268:
en effet, ne
sauroient ~tre ni€es.
Il me fait un crime, par exemple, d'ecrire
pour etre entendu;
c'est un defaut qu'il impute a mon ignorance, &
dont je suis peu tente de la justifier.
J'avoue avec plaisir,
que,
faute de choses savantes, je suis reduit a n'en dire que de raisonnables, & je n•envie a personne le profond savoi.r qui n'engendre que
des ecrits inintelligibles.
Encore un coup, ce n'est point pour ma
justification
que j 1 ecris, c'est pour le bien de la chose.
46.
Ibid.:
disputes.
47.
<dont>
48.
<J'admire comment un aussi grand Artiste que M. Rameau daigne
s'abbaisser
aces petites discussions
qu'on pardonneroit
a peine>
49.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 268: petites
chicanes.
SO.
51.
Ibid.: un nom.
Added top.
2v.
52.
53.
Examen de deux principes,
54.
SS.
Examen de deux principes,
<rel:event>
56.
<c011DDettre><faire>
57.
58.
59.
<vrais> principes
<sans lesquels>
<ses>
<erreur>
<[faute]>
CTWR,V, p. 268:
des noms deja connus.
<[erreur]>
60.
Examen de deux principes,
n'en eloignent.
CTWR,V, p. 268:
erreur.
CTWR,V, p. 268: perfectionner
440
l'Art
�Je remarque dans 511e[s erreurs sur la Musique)61 deux ue ces
Principes6?. irnportans.
Le premier qui a63 guide [M. Rameau] da.~s
tous ses ecrits et qui pis est dans toute sa Musique~, est que
l'harmonie6 4 est l'unique fondement !de l'art],
que la melodie
65n' est qu·•un accessoire 65 et que 66 8tou[ s] les grands effets de la
Musique naissent directement69 de l'harmonie6 8 .
L'autre principe,
nouvellement avance par M. Rameau, et qu'il
me reproche de n'avoir pas ajoute a ma definition
de l'accompagnement,
70commen~ons
est que cet accompagnement represente
le corps sonore.
par le premier et le plus important 71 dont la verite ou la faussete
demontree doit 72en quelque maniere servir72 de base a tout l'art
Musi[cal) 73 .
Il faut d'abord remarquer que M. Rameau fait deriver toute
l'harmonie de la resonance du corps sonore.
Et il est certain que
tout son 74 est accompagne de trois [autres] sons harmoniques 75ou
concomitans 75 qui forment avec lui un accord parfait
tierce majeure.
Ence sens l'harmonie est naturelle
et 76 inseparable
de la melodie
puisque tout son porte avec lui son accord parfait.
Mais77 outre78
ces trois sons concomitans chaque79 son principal
en donne beaucoup
d'autres
qui ne sont point harmoniques et n'entrent
point dans 80
l'accord parfait
telles
sont toutes les aliquotes
non reductibles
par
leurs octaves a quelcune de ces trois premieres.
Or il y a une
infinite
de ces aliquotes qui peuvent echaper a nos sens mais dont la
61..
62.
le <dessein ecri t de M. Rameau>
Principes <dont le premier> <dont>
63.
<l'>a
64.
l'harmonie
65.
Examen de deux principes,
66.
que <c'est
67.
End of p. 3r.
68.
tou<tes>
barmonie>
<ou>
de l'harmonie
les <impressions>
69.
Examen de deux principes,
70.
Ibid.:
71.
important <l'autre
q>
Examen de deux principes,
72.
CTWR,V, p. 268:
que naissent 67 >
J'exaininerai
en derive.
de la Musique <sont dus
CTWR,V, p. 268:
separement
a la
seule
de la seule.
ces deux principes.
CTWR,V, p. 269:
servir
en quelque
CTWR,V, p. 269:
concomitans
maniere.
73.
Musi<q>[cal]
74.
son <porte avec lui>
75.
Examen de deux principes,
accessoires.
76.
et <la melodie en est>
774
Mais <cette
78.
outre
79.
chaque <pri>
80.
dans <son>
raison>
<(cela]
<son>
441
ne suffit
pas pour rendre>
ou
�resonance est demontree par induction et n'est pas impossible a
demontrer 81 par experience,
L'art les a rejetees
de l'harmonie et
voila ou il a commence de substituer
ses regles a celles de la nature,
Veut on donner aux trois sons qui [constituentJ 82 l'accord parfait une prerogative
particuliere
parce qu'ils ferment entre eux une
s~rte de proportion qu'il a plu aux Anciens d'apoeller
harmonique
8 [quoiqu'elle
n'ait qu'une propriete
de calcu1JB 3,
Je dis que 84
85ces trois sons [representes
par les chiffres
1 t t) n'ont point
cette pro~~iete exclusivement a d'~utres sons nullement harmoniques
tels que
{les troisJ 86 qui sont 8 representes
par ces 87 autres
1
88
chiffres
~ t ~ lesquels
sent [egalementJ
en pro~ortion harmonique
1 [vous pouvez
et 89forment 90 pourtant un 89 accord discordant.
diviser harmoni~uement] une ti~rce Majeure une tierce mineure 92un
ton majeur &c. 9 et iamais les trois 1 son~ donnes par [ces]93,94divisions
ne feront
entre eux 1 d'accords 5 consonans,
Ce n'est
done ni par ce que lessons
qui composent l'accord parfait
resonent
avec le son principal
ni par ce qu'ils repondent aux aliquotes
de la
corde entiere,
ni par ce qu'ils sont en proportion9 6 harmonique
qu'ils ont ete choisi[sJ97
exclusivement pour composer l 1 accord parfait:
Mais seulement par ce que dans l'ordre
des intervalles
ils offrent les
rapports les plus simples,
Or cette sirnplicite
des rapports est9 8
Bl,
82.
Examen de deux principes,
<ferment>
83,
<quoiqu'elle
84.
<qu'ils>
n'ait
CTWR,v;p.
que des proprietes
269:
confirmer.
[proprietes)
de calcul>
85.
Exarnen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 269: cette propriete
se
trouve dans des rapports de sons qui ne sent nullement harmoniques.
Si
les trois sons representes
par les chiffres
l t t. lesquels sent en proportion harmonique, ferment un accord consonnant, les trois sons.
86.
<ces trois>
87,
ces <trois>
<ceux> <[les
88.
89.
Examen de deux principes,
Ibid,:
ne formeRt qu'un.
90.
<ne> ferment
91.
<Divisez>
92.
Examen de deux principes,
mineur, &c.
93.
<cette>
94.
End of p. 4-r..
95.
Examen de deux principes,
96.
proportion
97.
choisi<es>
trois]
[ceux}>
CTWR,V, p. 269:
de meme.
CTWR,V, p. 269:
un ton majeur,
CTWR,V, p. 269:
des accords.
<harmonique>
4-42
un ton
�une regle commune a l'harmonie et a la melodie, regle dont 99 [celle-ci
s'ecarte
lOOmemeen certains
caslOO jusqu'a rendre toutel0l
harmonie
99 ce qui prouve l0 2 [que la melodie) 102 l0 3n•a [point] 10 3
impraticabl~
receu [la loi) d'elle
et qu'ellel
ne lui est point 104 [naturellemeDt]
suhordonnee.
lOSJe n'ai parle que de l'accord
parfait majeur.
Que sera-ce
quand il faudra montrer la generation du mode mineur de la dissonance
106A l'instant
et les regles de la modulation.
je perds la nature de
107
vue, l'arbitraire
perce de
tout cote 107 , le plaisir
meme de l'organe 108
est l'ouvrage
de l'habitude,
et [de quel droit) l'harmonie
qui ne peut
se donner a elle merne un fondement naturel voudroit 109 [etreJ 110 celui
de 1111a melodie 111 qui fit des prodiges trois mille ans avant qu'il
fut question d'harmonie et d'accords.
Qu'une marche consonante et reguliere
de Basse-fondamentale
engendre des harmoniques qui procedent diatoniquement
et forment
112entre elles 112 une sorte de chant cela se con9oit 113 et 114 doit etre
admis 114 •
On pourroit meme renverser cette generation et comme selon
M, Rameau chaque son n'a pas seulement la puissance d'ebranler
ses
aliquotes
en dessus mais ses multiples
en dessous, le simple chant
pourroit engendrer une sorte de Basse comme la Basse engendre une sorte
de chant et cette generation
seroit aussi naturelle
qUe celle du mode
mineur.
Mais je voudrois demander a M. Rameau deux choses.
L'une si
ces sons ainsi engendres sont ce gu!il appelle del la melodie, et
98.
est
<commune>
99.
<la melodie
harmonie]>
s'ecarte
meme {souvent)
100.
Examen de deux principes,
101.
toute
102.
<qu'elle>
103.
<ne l'a
104.
<pas>
105.
106.
<J'aurai>
<Aussi>
107.
Examen de deux principes,
puisque
l'harmonie
CTWR,V, p. 270: pourtant.
<l'autre>
pas>
<A l'instant
que laiss<ant>[ons]
l'accord>
CTWR,V, p. 270:
toutes
CTWR,V, p. 270:
entr
parts.
1
1 oreille.
108.
Ibid.:
109.
<pretendra>
110.
<elle>
111.
<l'harm>
112.
Examen de deux principes,
113.
Ibid.:
connoit.
114.
Ibid.:
peut s'admettre.
443
1
eux.
[toute
�l 1 autre
si c•est ainsi qu'il trouve la sienne, ou llSmeme s 1 il
pense 1 1~ que Jamais pcrconne en ait trouve de cette rnaniere.
7 la jarnaisl preserver vos 118 oreilles
l16,117puissi[ons]-[n)ousll
de toute Musique dont l'Auteur commencera par etablir
une belle
Basse-fondamentale 119 et pour vous 12 0 rnener savamrnent de dissonance
en dissonanc~ 12 :lpassera sans cesse d'un mode a un autre 121 ,
entassera sans relache 122 accords sur accords 123et negligera la
voix de la nature plus simple et plus puissante que tout cet appareil dans les accens d'une melodie ardent et passionnee 123
Non, ce n'est point la sans doute ce que 124fait M. Rameau ni
meme ce qu'il veut qu'on fasse 124
il entend seulement que
l'harmonie guide l'artiste
sans qu'il y songe dans l'invention
de sa
melodie, et que toutes les fois qu'il fait un beau chant il suit
1en meme tems 1 une harmonie reguliere;
ce-qui doit etre vrai par la
liaison que l'art
a mise entre ces deux parties dans tousles
pais ou
l'harmonie a dirige la marche des sons, les regles du chant et
l'accent
musical:
Car ce qu'on appelu chant prend alors une beaute
127a ce
de conv;ntion qui 125 n'est point a9so[lueJ 126 mais relative
qu'on 12 estime plus que le chant -½neme. Un tel chant a bien
l'espece de beaute que l'art
lui donne mais faute d'avoir celle de la
nature, il n'est point la veritable
melodie, il est toujours sans
chaleur et sans expression,
et la froide approbation qu'il excite ne
vient que de l'habitude
d'en entendre a peu pres de pareils 1 .
[~ais]128; si la longue routine de [nos) successions harmoniques
guide l'homme exerce et le compositeur de profession
quel fut le guide
de ces ignorans qui n'avoient
jamais entendu 129de Musique129, dans130
115.
Ibid.:
s'il
pense meme.
116.
<O mes Lecteurs>
117.
Puissi<ez>-<v>ous
118.
Exarnen de deux principes,
119.
End of p. Sr.
120.
Examen de deux principes,
121.
Ibid.:
changera
122.
Ibid.:
cesse.
CTWR,V, p. 270: nos.
CTWR,V, p. 270:
de ton ou de mode
a chaque
nous.
note.
123.
Ibid.:
sans songer aux accens d'une melodie simple, naturelle
& passionnee, qui ne tire pas son expression des progressions
de la
Basse, mais des inflexions
que le sentiment donne a la voix!
124.
Ibid.:
lui-meme.
M. Rameau veut qu'on fasse,
125.
Ibid.:
laquelle.
126.
abso<ute>
127.
& ace
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 271:
que, dans ce syst~me, on.
128.
<De plus>
129.
Exarnen de deux principes,
130.
dans <l'invention
encore moins ce qu'il
CTWR,V, p. 271:
de>
444
fait
au systeme harmonique,
d 1 harmonie.
�ces chants que la nature a dictes longtems avant l'invention
de l'art?
131Quel etoit le sentiment d'harmonie qui pouvoit le leur suggerer 131
et si quelcun leur eut fait entendre la Basse-fondamentale
de l'air
qu'ils 132venoient d'inventer1 32 , pense-t-on qu'aucun d'eux1 33 eut
apperceu 134 le moindre rapport entre 1351 1 un et l'autre? 135 , 136
137 11Quoique l'auteur
d 1 un chant", [dit M. Rameau), "ne connoisse
pas les138 sons fondamentaux dont cel39 chant derive, il ne puise pas moins
dans cette source unique de toutes nos productions en ::ru.sique11L Cf'i:te
doctrine est [sans doute] fort savante 140 , 141 [mais 142 je suis si peu
141 143 je tache
savant moi meme que j'ai toujours besoin d'entendre:)
donc 140 de m'expliquer
ceci.
La pluspart des hommes qui ne savent
pas la Musique et qui n'ont pas appris combien il est beau de crier 144 ,
prennent tous leurs chants dans le mediwn 1451e plus commode a leur
voix 145 , et son diapason ne s 1 etend pas communement jusqu'a pouvoir
131.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 271:
sentiment d'harmonie antfrieur
a l'experience.
132.
Ibid.:
avoient
133.
d' <entre:> eux
Ibid.:
cette
done un
reconnu-la
son guide,
compose.
134.
Examen de deux principes,
& qu'il eut trouve.
135.
Avoient-ils
CTWR,V, p. 271:
Basse & cet air?
136.
In the Examen de deux principes this paragraph is followed by two
others, of which the first is taken from the intermediary
version of
Rousseau's text (Ms_R 58, p. 6r) while the second is a transposition
from
p. llr of the Ms R 60 (see note 238 below).
The first of these two
paragraphs (CTWR, V, p. 271) reads as follows:
Je dirai plus.
A juger
de la melodie des Grecs par les trois ou quatre airs qui nous en
restent,
comme il est impossible d'ajuster
sous ces airs unc bonne
Basse-fondamentale,
il est impossible aussi que le sentiment de cette
Basse, d'autant
plus reguliere
qu'elle est plus naturelle,
leur ait
suggere ces memes airs.
Cependant cette melodie qui les transportoit,
etoit excellente
a leurs oreilles, & l'on ne peut douter que la notre
ne leur eut paru d'une barbarie insupportable.
Done ils en jugeoient
sur W'l autre principe que nous.
137.
"<Mais, dit M. Rameau>
138.
les
139,
<se>
<form>
140.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 272: car il m'est
impossible de l'entendre.
Tachons, s'il se peut.
141.
<sans doute,
142.
mais <heureusement>
mais les ignorans
143.
144.
<Tachons done de nous expliquer
Examen de deux principes,
145.
Ibid.:
de leur
veulent
ceci.
[ont besoin)
La pluspart>
CTWR,V, p. 272:
voix.
445
entendre>
faire
grand bruit.
�meme1 en entonner la Basse-fondamentale
quand meme ils le 146
sauroicnt;
Ainsi non seulemer.t cet ignorant qui compose un air n'a
nulle notion de la Basse-fondamentale
de cet air, il est meme
egalement hers d'etat 147 et d'executer
cette basse lui-meme et de
la reconnoitre
lorsqu'un autre l'execute:
Mais cette Bassefondamentale qui lui a suggere son chant et qui n'est ni 148 dans
dans son 149 entendement, ni dans 150sa memoire, ni dans son 151
organe 150, ou est-elle
done?
M. Rameau pretend qu'un ignorant entonnera naturellernent
les
sons fondamentaux les plus sensibles
cornme, par exem~le, 152un sol
sgus un ~ et un Ill sous un mi 1dans le ton d'Y!;, et puisqy'~l
1 3en a 1 3 fait l'experience,
je ne prelends 154 pas en cela 5
rejeter
son autorite.
Mais ~uel homme 56 a-t-il
pris pour cette
e~reuve?
Des 157 [iuelcun] 15 qui sans savoir la musique avoi[t] 1 59
1 O[surementl mille 60 fois entendu de l'harroonie 161 de sorte que
l'impression1 62 du progres mutue1 163 des parties dans les
occasions 164 les plus frequentes etoit restee dans son 165 oreille
et se transmettoit
a sa 1 65 voix lpar un acte de memoire 1 sans meme
166qu 1 il en sut rienl66.
Le jeu des racleurs des Guinguettes
suffit
seul pour exercer le Peuple des environs de Paris a
146,
Ibid.:
la,
147.
End of p. 6r.
148.
ni <s>
149.
son <imagination>
150.
Examen de deux principes,
dans sa m~moire.
151.
son <ord>
CTWR,V, p. 272:
son organe,
152.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 272:
dans le ton d'ut.
153.
Ibid.:
dit
154.
Ibid.:
veux.
155.
Ibid.:
ceci.
156.
Ibid.,
p. 273:
157.
Des <gens>
158.
quelcun
159.
avoi<ent>t
160.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 273:
cent.
en avoir.
sujets.
<sans doute>
& des accords.
161.
Ibid.:
l'harmonie
162.
Ibid.:
l'impression
163.
Ibid.:
correspondant.
164.
Ibid.:
passages.
165.
Ibid.:
166.
Ibid.:
leur.
qu'ils
s'en
des intervalles
doutassent.
446
harmoniques,
&.
ni
�l'intonation
des tierces
et des quintes.
J'ai fait ces memes
experiences sur des hommes plus rustiqu s mais dont l'ore:.lle
etoit juste;
elles ne m'ont jamais rien donne de semblable16 7 ;
ils n'ont entonnel68 la Basse qu'autant
que je la [leur]
souffloisl69,
ils n'appercevoient
jamais le moindre rapport entre
deux sons170 entendus a la fois:
Cet ensemble meme leur deplaisoit
toujours quelque juste que fut l'intervalle,
[leur oreille
etoit
choquee d' une tierce comme la notre l' est d 'une dissonance] , et je
puis assurer enfin 1 qu'il n'y en avoit pas un seul 1 pour qui la
cadence rompue n'eut pu terminer un air tout aussi bi.en que la
cadence parfaite
si l'unisson
s'y fut trouve de meme~.
0
Quoigue le principe de l'harmonie
soit naturel,
comme [i]1 171
ne s'offre
172jamais a nous172 que sous l'apparence
de l'unisson,
le sentiment qui le developpe est acquis et factice comme173tout
le reste 173 , et c'est surtout en cette partie de la musique qu'il
y a, comme dit tres bien M. d'Alembert un art d'entendre
comme174
un [art] d'executer.
J'avoue que ces observations
quoique juste
rendent a Paris les experiences
diffi°ciles,
car les oreilles
ne s'y
previennent gueres moins vite175 que les esprits;
mais c'est
un inconvenient
inseparable
des grandes villes qu'il y faut toujours
chercher la nature au loinl76_
17711 me semhle done que la Melodie ou le chant, pur ouvrage
de la nature ne doit ni chez les savans ni chez les ignorans son
origine a l'harmonie,
ouvragel78 [etl79 production)
de l'art,
qui
sert de preuve et non de source au bon chant et dont la plus noble
fonction est celle de le faire180 valoirl81,
167.
semblable<s>
168.
Examen de deux principes,
169.
Ibid.:
soufflois;
170.
Ibid.:
sons differens.
171.
<e>l <le>
172.
Examen de deux principes,
173.
Ibid.:
174.
comrne < il y
la plupart
175.
vite<s>
eti
CTWR,V, p. 273:
encore souvent
entendu.
ne pouvoient-ils
CTWR,V, p. 273:
de ceux qu'on attribue
la saisir.
au sens.
a la
nature.
a>
176.
At this point, marked off by a cross sign which may indicate the
end of a section,
the texts of the Ms R 60 and the Examen de deux
principes
diverge, first
in the order of exposition
and then in substance.
In the Examen there follows a paragraph that appears, in the Ms R 60, to
be connected to another passage, in fact to the first paragraph after
Rousseau's long digression
which resumes the commentary of the Examen (see
notes 431 and 446 below).
17'1.
The section transcribed
by Duchez (see pp. 61-77) begins here.
178.
<qui n'est
179.
et <un>
qu'un> ouvrage
180.
End of p. 7r.
181.
There follows another cross
from the Examen de deux princiEes.
447
sign which introduces
the digression
�182
1✓.ais recherchons,
s 1 il y a moien, la veritable
origine de
la melodie~ et voyons si l'idee que M. TI."illle~u
en o conQue ~•accordc 8
cclle que nous fournit 1 1 exacte observation des [faits) 183 .
Comme
il faut pour cela remonter aux sources;
apres avoir averti les
lecteurs
gui voudront me suivre de s 1 armer de patience,
je vais
etre sans scrupule aussi prolixe gu'il me plaira.
Nous ignorons si parfaittement
l'etat
naturel de l'homme gue
nous ne savons pas meme s'il a une sorte de cri gui lui soit propre;
mais en revanche nous le connoissons pour un animal imitateur gui ne
tarde pas a s'appropricr
toutes les facultes qu'il peut tirer de
l'exemple des autres animaux.
Il pourra done imiter d 1 abord les
cris de ceux qui l'environnent
et selon les diverses especes qui
habitent chaque contree, les h:N 184 avant d'avoir des langues ont pu
avoir des crls differcns
d'un pais a l'autre.
Outre cela, les
organes etoient plus ou moins delies et flexibles
selon la temperature des Climats et voila deja l'origine
de l 1 accent national meme
avant la [formation)les
du 186 langageh.
Je n'examinerai
point avec Lucrece si l'invention
du chant est
due a l'imitat.i.on de celui des Oiseaux, ou selon Diodore a l'inspiration du vent dans les roseaux du nil, ni si l'echo meme apres avoir
longtems effraye les hommes put enfin contribuer
a ~es amuser et (a)
les instruire.
Ces conj[e)ctures 187 incertaines
ne sauroient
contribuer
a la perfection de l'art et je n'aime des recherches de l'Antiquite
que celles dent les rnodernes peuvent tirer quelque fruit.
Il est
d'ailleurs
fort inutile
de recourrir
a des causes etrangeres dans les
effets qu'on peut deduire de la nature des choses rnemes, et telle est
cette modification·de
la voix qu'on appelle chant, midification
qui
dut naturellement
naitre et se former avec la langue : Car il est
tres clair que chaque langue a sa naissance dut suppleer a des
articulations
moins nombreuses par des sons plus modifies mettre
d'abord les inflexions
et les accens a la place des mots et des
188Eclairsillabes
et chanter d'autant plus qu'elle parloit moins.
cissons ceci avec plus de soin.
C'i~t une observation tres judicieuse
de M. Rameau que le son
differe 1 du bruit, en ce que le premier est appreciable
et que le
second ne l'est pas~:
ce qui n'empeche point que le bruit ne soit que
du ~on modifie comme 190on peut s 1 en convaincre avec un peu de
182.
The section
transcribed
183.
<choses>
18~.
Abbrevlation
185.
<naissance>
186.
du <la>
187.
conj<on>[e)ctures
by Wokler (see pp. 202-220) begins
here.
for 'hommes'.
188.
An earlier
fragmentary draft of this passage up to note 215 below
also appears on en Svo leaf which has been appended to the Ms R 60 and
which constitutes
its last but one page (25r) of text.
189,
P. 2Sr:
differe<nt>
190.
Ibid.:
(on) peut [le) montrer
occasion de> le montrer <ailleurs>
448
(aisement)
<j'aurai>
peut <etre
�reflexion1 90.
Il me suffit
de remarqucr ici que le son de la voix
chantante 191 est le meme son de la voix pa~lantc 192 , ~aiz permanent
et soutenu, au lieu quel93 dans la parole il est dans un etatl9 4
de 195 fluxion continuelle
et ne se soutient jamais.
En effet, on
ne voit rien dans la conformation de la glotte gui puisse donner
196sitot que 196 celui qui parle
l'idce de deux sortes de voix.
197
s'arrete
sur une sillabe
soutient et prolonge l98[le son de) 198
sa voix au199 meme degre, a l'instant
la voix parlante se change en
voix chantante et le son devient appreciable;
de plus, la voix
parlante fait 200 comme le son musical resonner 201 et fremir les
202corps203 sonores202 et s'il resonne20 4 a la fois 20 5plusieurs
cordes 205 c'est que les inflexions
de la voix parlante la font passer
[presque) 206au meme instant206 par un grand nombre de sons 207continus
dont les harmoniques divers [repondent) 208 a la fois 207 .
Enfin,
qu'on 209fasse glisser209
le doigt par [deJ 2 10,198 petits
intervalles
sur 2111es cordes d'un Instrument211 l'archet
en tirera
des2l2 sons
auxquels 213 il ne manque pour ressembler2 14 ,2lS a la parole que
l'articulation
des mots et le Tymbre de la voix humaine; De sorte
qu'a l'aide de certains
pistons semblables a ceux de ces flutes avec
lesquelles
les enfans imitent les oiseaux, je ne regarderois
pas comme
une entreprise
impossible de faire parler un jeu d'anches,
si je voyois
191.
192.
193.
194.
195.
196.
197.
198.
199.
200.
201.
202.
203.
204.
205.
206.
207.
sais,
<parlan>
Ibid.:
Ibid.:
<chanta>
qu<'il est>
Ibid.:
Ibid.:
etat <continue!>
End of p. Sr.
P. 25r: <chaque instant ou la voix par>
Ibid.:
s'arrete
<le mouvement de sa voix la>
Missing from p. 25r.
P. 25r: <sur le>
Ibid.:
<rend>
Ibid.:
<rai> [re] sonner
Ibid.:
<cordes d'un clavecin>
cor<des>ps
P. 25r:
<en fremit>
Ibid.:
<un grand nombre et>
Ibid.:
a chaque sillabe
Ibid.:
[continus).
<Le simple bruit en fait
par>
208.
<resonnent>
209.
P. 25r:
<promene>
210.
211.
<de>
P. 25r:
<un instrument
212.
Ibid.:
<un>
213.
Ibid.:
<a qui>
214.
Ibid.:
etre
215.
End of p. 25r.
a> cordes
449
autant
je le
�les moyens de lui donner les articulations.
l'origine
de la melodie.
216 [Mais revenons
a]
21
G
Si la voix parlante et la voix chantante2 17 sont absolument de
meme nature le passage de l'une a l'autre
meme en parlant devient la
chose du monde la plus concevable et la communication sera d'autant
plus facile que la langue sera plus accentuee:
De sorte que de toutes
les langues connues la Grecque [etant]21S sans difficulte
celle qui
a 2 19 le plus de resonnance et d'accent;
il s'ensuit
que c'est aussi
celle de toutes ou le discours doit etre le plus semblable au chantk.
Des cet instant nous voici hors du pais des conje~tures
et nfus
pouvons marcher d'un pas plus ferme dans la recberche de la verite-.
La melodie naissante avec la langue, s'enrichit
pour ainsi dire
de la pauvrete de celle-ci.
Quand on n'avoit que peu de mots pour
rendre beaucoup d'idees,
il faloit necessairement
donner divers sens
aces mots, les composer de diverses manieres220, leur donner des
acceptions diverses que le ton seul distinguoit,
elllployer des tours
figures,
et comme la difficulte
de se faire entendre ne permettoit
de
dire que des choses interessantes,
on les disoit avec feu [par cela
meme qu'on les disoit avec peine];
la chaleur, l'accent,
le geste,
tout animoit des discours qu'il falloit
plustot faire sentir
qu'entendre.
C'est ainsi que l'eloquence
preceda le raisonnement,
et que les hommes furent Orateurs et Poetes longte~s avant d'etre
Philosophes221.
Il fut un terns et tousles
monumens de l'antiquite
nous
l'attestent
OU les ames echauffees
par l'adrniration
des premieres
connoissances
et des hommes qui les repandirent
fermentoient,
pour
ainsi dire avec le levain de la verite.
Les premiers instans ou le
genre humain ouvri t les yeux sur lui memefurent des momens de transport et d'enthousiasme
que toutes les decouvertes de la philosophie
n'ont plus fait qu'user et amortir dans la suite.
Sitot que les
grands hommes commencerent a prendre cet ascendant que le vrai genie
acquiert toujours sur le vulgaire dans les Siecles de Barbarie;
leurs instructions
passant de bouche en bouche prirent naturellement
le tour le plus favorable au feu qui les inspiroit222
a la memoire
qui les faisoit
retenir
et eurent bientot du nombre et de la cadence.
2231e sentiment naturel qui dictoit
le nombre ne tarda pas a le
metamorphoser en rhytme par les retours egaux du terns et de la mesure;
le gout de l'onomatopee et de l'imitation
joint a la force inegale que
les voyeles plus ou moins sourdes et les articulations
diverses
donnoient aux sons des mots soumirent a des regles constantes
l'accent
a>
216.
217.
<je reviens
218.
<ayant ete>
219.
a<voit>
220.
221.
manieres,
222.
223.
inspiroit
chantante
<et la>
<emplo>
End of p. 9r.
<et>
<V>
450
�grammatical;
l 1 accent pathetiquefil anima tout, parce qu'en ne disant
que des choses importantes et necessaires,
on ne disoit ricn qu'avec
interest
et chaleur, et enfin de l'effort
de retenir
avec les vers
le ton dont ils etoient prononces sortit
alors le eremier germe de
la veritable
Musique qui n'est ~as tant l'accent 22 [simple de la
225
parole) que
(ce mem~] accent 25 imite.
226
226
[A peineJ
les premieres etincelles
de ce genie celeste
~eurent-elles)
embrase 227 les coeurs (que] Les 228 [peuples assembles
29 [se mirent a] chanter [d 1 un ton [simple et) sublime] 229 les
Dieux] 228 qu'engendroit
leur 23 0 imagination echauffee,
les heros dent
ils deploroient
la perte, et les vertus que leurs vices naissans
rendoient necessaires;
tous leurs sentimens etoient des Transports 231 ,
les rustiques
sons d'une flute a trois trous suffisoient
pour les
mettre hors d'eux memes; cette bouillante
[ardeur) se transmetant
a
toute la personne anima les premiers pas, le geste des assistans
repondoit aux discours du Coryphee et marquoit [l'applaudissement]232
233 (jamais le vain bruit de l'harmonieJ2 3 3n ne troubla
universel.
ces divins concerts.
Tout etoit heroique et grand dans ces antiques
fetes,
Les· Loix et les chansons portoient
les memes noms dans ces
terns heureux;
elles retentissoient
a l'unisson dans toutes les voix,
passoient avec le meme plaisir
dans tousles
coeurs, tout adoroit les
premieres images de la vertu, et l'innocence
meme donnoit un accent
plus doux a la voix du plaisir.
Lecteurs pardonnez-moi cet ecart;
qui pourroit songer de sang froid au [terns de l'innocence
et du]
bonheur des hommes?
234[C'est ainsi queJ 234 tout ce que l'art
de colllllluniquer ses
pensees peut avoir de plus pathetique
et de plus touchant se developpa
des la naissance de ce grand art, anima ses premiers accens et donna
de la force et de la grace au discours [meme] avant qu'il eut de la
justesse et de la clarte 23 5
C1 est ainsi qu 1 en meme terns la langue devint melodieuse et
chantante,
que la musique au lieu'd'etre
un art particulier
fut une
des parties
de la grammaireQ et qu'enfin quiconque n'en savoit pas les
regles passoit pour ne pas savoir sa langue.E. A la verite Pithagore
et Philolaus calculerent
les raports des consonances et de tousles
224.
l'accent
<meme>
225.
<l'imitation
de 1 1 >accent
226.
<C'est ainsi que>
227.
embrase<rent>
228.
<grands objets auxquels on commen~oit a s'elever
portoient
dans l'ame>
229.
chanter<ent avec transport>
230.
<[le feu de]> leur
231.
Transports,
<et>
232.
<le consentement>
233.
<O harmonie> [vain) <amusement de l'oreille,
jamais ton insipide
bruit>
234.
<Voila comment> <[Ne soyons done pas surpris siJ>
235.
End of p. lOr.
451
�intervalles;
23 6et ces connoissances 237 etoient necessaires
pour la
constructior.
et la pratique des instrumens gu'on ne peut accorder
justes que par [des) consonances 230.
mais la constitution
des
diverses sistemes des Grecs prouve evidemment gue leurs auteurs
n'etoient
guides par aucun vrai sentiment d'harmonie et quiconque
oseroit soutenir le contraire
seroit bientot accable de preuves et
reduit au silence ou au desaveu'l,
Si l 1on a dispute si longtems
sur la science harmonigue des Grecs, c'est gue ces disputes se
passoient entre des Litterateurs
peu verses dans l'art
qui s 1 imaginoient que de legeres notions de notre musique devoient suffire
pour juger de celle des Grecs au lieu qu'avec un peu plus de connoissance ils auroient vu gue ces deux arts n'ont et ne peuvent
avoir aucunes parties
communes par lesquelles
ils puissent etre
exactement compares.
238 • 23 \es Grecs 239 n 1 ont reconnu pour consonances 240 [que
celles] 240 que nous appellons consonances parfaites,
ils ont rejette
de ce nombre les tierces
et les sixtes:
Pourquoi cela?
c'est que
l'intervalle
du ton mineur etant ignore d'eux ou du moins proscrit
de la pratique et leurs consonances n'etant point temperees toutes
leurs tierces majeures etoient trop fortes [d'un comma] et 241 leurs
tierces mineures trop foibles d'autant
et par consequent leurs
sixtes mate~res et mineures reciproquementl
alterees
de meme: Qu'on
s'imagine 4 maintenant quelles notions d'harmonie on peut avoir et
quels modes harmoniques on peut etablir
en bannissant les tierces
et
les sixtes du nombre des consonances.
Siles
consonances memes
qu'ils adme~t1ient leur eussent ete connues par un vrai sentiment
d'harmonie
ils i~s eussent du se~tY ailleurs
que dans la melodie 241;
2
ils les auroient
pour ainsi dire
sousentendues au dessous de
leur~ 4~ha?ts;
la con~i~ance tacite des marches fondamentales leur2 4 1
eut
fait donner ce
nom aux marches diatoniques
qu'elles
236.
237.
Added top.
<calcul>
10v.
238.
This paragraph is crossed out, indicating
that Rousseau later
incorporated
it in the Examen de deux principes.
In the intermediary
version (Ms R 58, p. 5v) it figures as an addition to the passage
cited in note 136 above,
In the final manuscript and published
versions (Ms R 59, p. 7, and CTWR,V, pp. 271-272) it is placed at the
same point as an integral
part of the text.
In a slightly
modified
form it also appears in eh. xviii (pp. 183-185) of the Essai sur
l'origine
des langues.
239.
Essai sur 1 1 origine
21l.O.
<parfaites>
des langues,
241.
Missing from the Essai
242.
Examen de deux principes,
243.
Essai
244.
Ibid.,
sur 1 1 o~igine
p. 185:
prete
eh. xviii,
sur l'origine
son.
452
Ils.
des langues.
CTWR,V, p. 272:
des langues,
p. 183:
eh. xviii,
pense.
p. 183:
au moins.
�•
] 245 ;
[ engen droient
ils en auroicnt eu
basse2 48 ut sol tns
249l'intervallef
l oin
• 246[d' avoir• 247 moins
.
de consonance que nous
246
davantage)
et preoccupp6s par exemple de la
eussent donne le nom de consonance a
cPfil a249 ~238_
Je prie les lecteurs
de ne pas s'impatienter
si Je prends un si
long detour ce n'est pas que je perde le terme de vue, mais je ne
vois nul chemin plus court pour y arriver.
La melodie qui resulta
des progres dent je viens de parler etoit
composee des terns et des tons, c'est a dire de 1 1accent proprement <lit
et du rhythme;
l'accent
etoit la regle de l'elevation
et de
l'abaissement
de la voix, le rhythme etoit celle de la mesure et des
pieds.
Le tout avoir pour principe et la facilite
de l'intonation
et
la propriete
de la langue_et le ~laisir
de l'oreille,
mais surtout cet
autre plaisir
plus [vif) 201 qui 2 2 va jusqu'au coeur et auquel celui
de l'oreille
ne sert que de vehicule.
Commeles pieds et les vers
prirent
naturellement
une certaine mesµre, les tons et les intervalles
en prirent
une de meme, cette mesure acheva d'etre fixee par les calculs
de Pithagore et de l'ordre
le plus commun de ses intervalles
resulta
le genre qu'on appella diatonique.
Ce genre se subdivisa en diverses
especes dent aucune ne pouvoit avoir de fondement harrnonique, et s'il
s'est trouve que les tons qui en resultoient
avoient des rapports 253
approchans de ceux des notres, C'est un effet de la nature de la
prosodie Grecque et de la facilite
qu'on devoit trouver a entonner ces
intervalles
plustot
que d'autres.
254car entre 255 1a modification 255
trop forte2 5o qu'il faut donner a la glotte pour entonner continuellement les grands inte!valles
des consonances, et la difficulte
57 l'intonation
d'aprecie?
dans des2 58 rapports tres composes 25 9
245.
<leur suggeroient>
This deleted
the Essai sur l'origine
des langues.
246.
247.
248,
249.
250.
<d'en diminuer
le nombre ils
Examen de deux principes,
Ibid.:
Basse tacite.
Essai
sur l'origine
l'eussent
Examen de deux principes,
<doux>
252.
End of p. llr.
253.
rapports.<d>
eh. xviii,
CTWR,V, p. 272:
254,
This passage forms the concluding
the Essai sur l'origine
des langues.
255,
256.
Essai
Ibid.:
sur l'origine
fortes.
des langues,
257,
Ibid.:
de regler.
258.
Ibid.:
les.
259.
Ibid.:
composes des moindres
453
part
d'avoir
in
eu.
p. 185:
la seconde ut.
l'intervalle
of eh. xviii
eh. xviii,
intervalles.
is reinstated
augmente><es>
CTWR,V, p. 272:
des langues,
251,
formulation
p. 185:
melodieux.
(p.
185) of
les modifications.
�l'organe prit un milieu et tomba naturellement
sur 260une marche diatonique qui fatigue moins la glotte que l'intonation
des consonances
et s'apprecie
plus ais.ement que des intervalles
plus petits260,
ce
qui n'empecha pas que ces2 61 moindres intervalles
n'eussent
aussi
leur emploi dans des genres plus pathetiques2 54.
Que le rhythme ou la mesure fut une des parties
constitutives
de la melodie, c'est ce qui se deduit de la seule notion de cette
melodie qui n'etoit
que l'expression
forte, soutenue, et appreciee de
l'accent
grammatical et oratoire:
Car cet accent ne consistoit
pas
moins dans la [duree relative] 262 des sons que dans leurs degres et
le nombre n'y etoit pas moins essentiel
que l'intonation.
Que si les
anciens auteurs distinguent
[quelquefois]
dans leurs ecrits~ la melodie
du rhythme [ce qui est rare];
c'est [dans] une dhstinction
purement
26 sujet et non comme
[metaphysique] 263, comme de deux qualites du
de deux parties reellement differentes;
aussi Aristote declare-t-il
expressement entendre a la fois le melos et l'harmonie,
c'est a dire,
l'intonation
et le nombre sous le nom de melodie.
ee
265
A quoi pense donc 1 M. Rameau de nous donner pour des accessoires de la melodie ~l~ rnesure] la difference
du haut et 266 du bas,
du doux et 266 du fort 6 , tandis que toutes ces choses ne sont que la
melodie elle meme et que si on les en separoit elle 26 8ne seroit plus
rien 268
Les sons aigus ou graves representent
les accens semblables
dans le discours,
les breves et les longues, le~ ~uantites
semblables
7 le rhythme et les
de 269 la prosodie,
la mesure egale et constante
pieds des vers, les doux et les forts la voix remisse ou vehemente de
l 'orateur.
Y a-t:-il
un h: 271 au monde272 asses depourvu de sentimens
273
pour dire
des choses passionnees sans jamai~ adoucir ni renforcer
260.
Ibid.:
des intervalles
simples que les comma.
261.
Ibid.:
de.
262.
<quantite>
263.
<technique>
264.
Abbreviation
for
plus petits
et plus
'meme'.
265.
Most of these two paragraphs
They figure,
in a m~dified version,
CTWR,V, pp. 274-275.
266.
Exarnen de deux principes,
267.
Ibid.:
fort,
que les consonances
du vite
is crossed out in the manuscript.
in the Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 275:
ou.
& du lent.
268,
Ibid.:
n'existeroit
plus.
La melodie est un langage comme la
parole;
tout chant qui ne dit rien n'est rien, & celui-la
seul peut
dependre de l'harmonie.
269.
Ibid.:
dans.
270.
constante
271.
Abbreviation
272.
273.
Examen de deux principes,
Ibid.:
dire ou lire.
<les pieds>
for
'homme'.
CTWR,V, p. 275:
454-
monde assez froid.
�l1e son del la voix? 274 ,275n semble que
de transmett~e
les idees, la melodie soit
sentimens 275, et cependant M. Rameau veut
qui leur sert de langage et qu'il ne peut
coe276 la parole est l'art
celui de transmettre
les
la depouiller
de tout ce
donner a l'harmonie274.
1Revenons un instant a la mesure 1 . Qu1 est ce qu'une suite de
277notes indeterminees 277 quanta la duree?
des sons isoles et
depourvus de tout effet cormnun, qu'on entend 278 separement les uns
des autres,
et qui, bien qu'engendres 27 9 par une succession harmonique
n'offrent
aucun 280 ensemble a l'oreille
et attendent pour former une
phrase et dire quelque chose la liaison que la mesure leur donne.
Qu'on presente au Musicien une suite de notes de valeur indeterminee
il en va faire cinquante melodies entierement differentes,
seulement
parles diverses manieres de les scander, d'en combiner et varier les
mouvemens; preuve invincible
que c'est a la mesure qu'il appartient
de determiner 281 toute melodie~.
Que si la diversite
d'harmonie
qu'on leur 1 peut donner 282 varie aussi leurs effets,
c'est qu'elle
en
fait reellement encore autant de melodies differentes
en donnant aux
memes intervalles
divers empla~mens dans l'e~helle
du mode - ce
851e rapport 28 des sons et le sens des
qui 283 •284 change entierement
1Mais revenons a l'historique
1 , 265.
Phrases.
28 6c~endant 287 la langue se perfectionnoit;
la melodie 241en
1
l'imposant
en s'imposant de nouvelles regles perdoit insensiblement
de son ancienne energie, et le calcul des intervalles
fut enfin 241
274.
Ibid.:
M. Rameau, pour comparer la melodie a l'harmonie,
commence
par depouiller
la premiere de tout ce qui lui etant propre, ne peut
convenir a l'autre:
il ne considere pas la melodie comme un chant, mais
comme un remplissage;
il dit que ce remplissage nait de l'harmonie,
& il
a raison.
275.
This passage
is not crossed
276.
Abbreviation
for
277.
Examen de deux principes,
278.
Ibid.:
279.
End of p. 12r.
280.
aucun<e>
281.
Examen de deux principes,
282.
Ibid.:
283.
qui <leur>
entend,
out.
'comme'.
CTWR,V, p. 275:
qu'on saisit.
donner aces
285.
le<s> rapport<s>
deux principes.
CTWR,V, p. 275:
fixer.
CTWR,V, p. 275:
qui,
suites.
284.
Examen de deux principes,
deja dit.
The plural
is reinstated
286.
The section which forms a draft
l'origine
des langues begins here.
287.
que.
Essai
sons indetermines.
sur l'origine
des langues,
455
of eh. xviiii
eh. xviiii,
comme je l'ai
in the El.amen de
of the Essai sur
p. 187:
A mesure
�substitue
a la finesse des intonations 288 . C'est ainsi, par exemple,
que la pratique du genre enharmoniquc! s'abolit
pcu ~ peu; Qua~d lcs
Theatres eurent pris une forme regulierc
on n'y chantoit plus que sur
289 les regles de
des modes prescrits
et a mesure qu'on perfectionnoit
l'imitation,
la langue imitative
s'affoiblissoit.
241Mais ce progres fut lent dans ses commencemens et plusieurs
causes particulieres
l'accelerant
dan~ la suite detruisirent
enfin
tout l'enchantement
de la melodie;
Car rien n'a tant d'accent que la
langue naturelle
qui n'est que le cri animal.
Les developemens de
la raison rendirent
la 19 ngue artificielle
plus froide et moins
accentuee:
la logique succeda par degres a l'cloquence,
le tranquille
raisonnement au feu de l'entousiasme
et a force d'apprendre
a penser
on apprit a ne plus sentir290,241.
L'~tude de la philosophie
et 291 1.es progres de la raison qui
donnerent plus de perfection
et un autre tour a la langue lui oterent
ainsi291 ce ton vif et passionne qui l'avoit
d'abord rendue si chan292 , 241 et 295 c•est 296 alors que 241 la melodie commen~ant a297
tante;
n'etre plus si adherente 298 , 299 , 300a[u langageJ 300, 299 dans~Ol 3021a
declamation 302 , 298 prit insensiblement
une existence a part et que 241
la musique 303aevint [plus]30 4 independante303 des paroles.
C'est2 4 1
alors aussi que 241 cesserent peu a peu ces prodiges·qu'elle
avoit produits
288.
Ibid.:
inflexions.
289.
Ibid.:
multiplioit.
290.
<rien> sentir
291.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xv1111, p. 187: le progres
du raisonement ayant perfectione
la grammaire oterent a la langue.
292.
Ibid., pp. 187-189:
Des le terns de Menalippide et de Philoxene
les symphonistes qui d'abord etoient aux gages des Poetes et n'executoient
que sous eux, et pour ainsi dire a leur dictee en devinrent independans.
Et c'est de cette licence que se plaint si amerement la Musique dans une
comedie de Pherecrate dont Plutarque nous a conserve un 293 passage. 294
This passage figures as a note appended to the final manuscript version
(Ms R 11, p. 105) of the Essai sur l'origine
des langues.
293.
Ms R 11, p. 105:
le.
294.
Ibid.:
<Alors> Ainsi.
295.
An earlier
crossed out draft
appears in the Ms R 72, p. 25r.
of this
passage
up to note 307 below
296.
Ms R 72, p. 25r:
297.
Ibid.:
298.
Essai
299.
300.
301.
302.
303.
Ms R 72, p. 25r: a la langue.
a <la parole>
Ms R 72, p. 25r: meme dans.
Ibid.:
l<e>a <discours soutenu>.
Ibid.:
commen~a a devenir quelque chose independamment.
304.
<presque>
[en outre
(?)] C'est.
a a.
sur l'origine
des langues,
456
eh. xviiii,
p. 189:
au discours.
�305vi "f et passione
• - 305 d l a poesic.
l orsqu ' e 11 en ,.etoit• que l' ace
et qu'elle
lui donnoit 306cet~8; empire sur· les passions~() 6 que 30 81e
discours humain 308 n'exer~a
pl~s dans la suite que sur la raison.
Aussi des que la Grece fut pleine de Sectes 309 et de Philosophes n'y
vit-on plus ni poetes ni musiciens celebres.
En cultivant
l'art
de
convaincre on ~crdit celui d'emouvoir.
Platen lui meme 241au sein
2 1
de la sagesse
jaloux d'Homere et d'Euripide
decria l'un et ne put
imiter l'autre 310
Bientot la servitude
ajouta son influence a celle de la philosophie.
La Grece aux fers perdit ce feu celeste 241 gyfn'echauffe
que les ames libres et ne trouva plus pour lolier des
Tyrans ee 312
ton sublime 241 dont elle313 avoit jadis 241 chante ses [HerosJ 314 .
Le melange des Romains affoiblit
encore ce qui restoit
au lall,f,age
d 1 harmonie et d'accent.
Le Latin, langue plus sourde et moins
rnusieale fit tort a la musique 315 en l'adoptant.
Le chant employe
316corrompit insensiblement 316 celui des provinces;
dans la capitale
les Theatres de Rome nuisirent
a ceux d'Athenes; quand Neren
remportoit
des prix la grece avoit cesse d'en meriter,
et la merne
melodie partagee a deux langues 317ne eonvint plus ni a l'une ni a
l'autre 31.7 .
E f"
•
l a f ata l e 241 catastrop he qui• 318d evoit. aneantir .
316n in arriva
tous
les progres de l'esprit
humain319
L'~urope inondee de
Barbares et asservie par des ignorans perdit a la fois ses sciences,
ses arts et l'instrument
universel
des unset des autres savoir la
langue harmonieuse perfectionnee.
Ces hommes grossiers
que le nerd
avoit engendres accouturnerent insensiblemen]
1outes les oreilles
a
2 de Julien]
la rudesse de leur organe;
320[Au [raport]
Ils croas-
305.
Essai
306.
Ibid.:
307.
above.
End of t.'-'le Ms R 72., p. 25r, and o:f' the fragment
308.
Essai sur l 'origine
309.
Ibid.:
310.
End of p. 13r.
311.
312.
Essai sur 1 1 origine
Ibid.:
le.
313.
elle
314.
<bienfaiteurs>
315.
musique <Grecque>
316.
peu
317.
Essai
a peu.
sur l'origine
des langues,
sur les passions
eh. xviiii,
p. 189:
cet empire.
des langues,
eh. xvi iii,
starting
p. 189:
.from note 295
la parole.
Sophistes.
des langues,
eh. xviiii,
p. 189:
ses.
des langues,
eh. xviiii,
p. 189:
altera
<aj(?)>
sur l'origine
a l'une
318.
Ibid.:
Ibid.:
convint moins
detruisit.
319.
Ibid.:
humain sans oter
et
les vices
a l'autre.
qui en etoient
320.
Ibid., p. 191: leur voix dure et denuee d'aecent
sans etre sonore.
L'Empereur Julien comparoit le parler
au croassernent des grenouilles.
321.
et l'harmonie.
<sentiment>
457
l'ouvrage.
etoit bruyante
des Gaulois
�soient pour ainsi dire au lieu de parler et [leur] 322 voix dure et
denuee d'accent etoit bru~~nte sans etre harmonieuse 320 .
Toutes
3d 1 ailleurs
leurs articulation
etant
rudes et sourdes et leurs
voyelles peu sonores 323 ils ne pouvoient donner qu'une sorte 324de
douceur 32~ a leur chant qui etoit de renforcer le son des voyelles
pour couvrir l'abondance et la durete des consones.
Ce chant hruyant joint a l'inflexihilite
de l'organe obligea ces
nouveaux venus et les peuples suhjugues qui les imiterent
de ralentir
tousles
sons pour 325 1eur donner plus d'eclat 325 ; l'articulation
penible et lessons
renforces concoururent egalement a chasser de la
melodie tout sentiment de mesure et de rhytme; comme ce qu'il y avoit
de dur 326 etoit toujours le passage d'un son a l'autre
on n'avoit rien
de mieux a faire que de s'arreter
sur chacun le plus qu'il etoit
possible 327 ; le chant ne fut donc32 8 plus qu'une suite ennuyeuse et
lente de sons traines 329 [et cries) 24la pleine tete 241 sans douceur,
sans mesure et sans graces 330 ; et si quelgues savans 331ohservoient
de
terns en tems 331 qu'il faloit faire 332 des 333 longues et des 333 breves
dans le chant latin,
il est sur au moins 334 qu'il ne fut [presque] 241
335
plus question
[de pieds] 335 de rhythme 336 , [ni d'aucune espece] de
chant mesure.
Le Chant ainsi depouille de toute melodie et consistant
uniquement dans la force et la duree des 337 sons, dut 338 suggerer enfin les
moyens de le rendre plus sonore encore a l'aide des consonances.
Car 241
plusieurs
voix trainant
sans cesse a l'unisson
des sons d'une duree
339
indefinie,
le hazard leur fit naturellement
trouver quelques accords
dont les vibrations
diversifiees
renfor9oient
le bruit, tandis ~ue les
memes vibrations
reunies le rendoient339 agreable, et c 1 est 340 , 41 ainsi
que 241 commen9a la premiere 241 pratique du Discant et du ContrepointU.
322.
<le son de leur>
323.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xviiii,
p. 191: aussi apres
que leurs voix etoient nazales et sourdes.
324.
Ibid.:
d'eclat.
325.
Ibid.:
les faire entendre.
326.
Ibid.:
plus dur a prononcer.
327.
Ibid.:
possible,
de le renfler de le faire eclater
le plus qu'on
pouvoit.
328.
Ibid. : bientot.
329.
Ibid.:
trainans.
330.
Ibid.:
grace.
331.
Ibid.:
disoient.
332.
Ibid.:
observer.
333.
Ibid.:
les.
334.
Ibid.:
moins qu'on chanta les vers comme de la prose, et.
335.
<de pieds>
336.
rhythme, <et>
337.
<f(?)>
338.
dut<s(?)>
339.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xviiii,
p. 193: illimitee
trouverent
par hazard quelques accords qui renfor~ant le bruit le leur
firent paroitre.
340.
End of p. 14r.
458
�34J.on ne sauroit dire 341 cornbien de siecles les Musiciens
tournercnt
autou~ 342des questions frivole~ 342 que l'effet
connu
41si longtems2 4 1.
343d 1 une cause ignoree 343 leur fit agiter
Le
plus infatigable
Lecteur ne 344peut supporter 344 dans Jean de Muris
le verbiage de huit ou dix grands chapitres
pour savoir dans
l'intervalle
de l'octave
coupe par 345 deux consonances si c'est la
quinte ou la quarte qui doit etre au grave et quatre cens ans apres
on trouve e~c~re dans Bon\tllfi des [enurnerations] 346 non rnoins
4 [de toutes)
ennuyeuses
les basses qui doivent ~orter la sixte
au lieu de la quinte.
Cependant l'harrnonie prenoi\ 48 insens~~ e3501a natw:-e 50 tusqu' a
rnent 3491es routes 349 que lui prescrit
352
!'invention
du mode mineur
des dissonances 353 241 , 35 ben u~ ~ot 355
356[dont elle est pleine) 35 et 5 [que
de tout) 354, 241 l'arbitraire
3581a seule 358 prejuge) 357 nous ernpeche d'appercevoir359,350.
1
341.
Essai
sur l'origine
des langues,
342.
Ibid.:
de vaines
343.
Ibid.:
d'un principe
344.
Ibid.:
supporteroit
en.
p. 193:
J'ignore.
eh. xviiii,
p. 193:
prit.
questions.
345.
Ibid.:
346.
<combinaisons>
347.
<sur>
348,
349.
Essai
Ibid.:
sur l'origine
la route.
350.
Ibid.:
l'analyse.
351.
Ibid.:
jusqu'a
ignore.
pas.
des langues,
ce qu'enfin.
352.
rnineur <et> The deleted
l'origine
des langues.
353.
Essai sur l'origine
y eut introduit.
word is reinstated
des langues,
354.
<qui y introduisirent>
355.
mot <et>
356.
<qu'on y pourroit
357.
<dont l'habitude
358.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues,
d<e nous> appercevoir
359.
eh. xviiii,
trouver
in the .Essai sur
eh. xviiii,
p. 193:
dissonances
eh. xviiii,
p. 193:
le seul.
encore>
seule>
360,
In the Essai sur l'origine
des langues, pp. 193-195, the following note has been appended to this paragraph:
Rapportant toute l'harrnonie
ace principe tres simple de la resonance des cordes dans leurs aliquotes,
M. Rameau fonde le mode rnineur et la dissonance sur sa pretendiie
experience qu'une corde sonore en rnouvernent fait vibrer d'autres
cordes
plus longues a sa douzierne et a sa dixseptierne rnajeure au grave.
Les 361
cordes selon lui, vibrent et frernissent dans toute leur longueur, rnais
elles ne resonent pas.
Voila, ce me semble, une singuliere
physique:
c'est comme si l'on disoit que le soleil luit et qu'on ne voit rien.
Ces
cordes plus longues ne rendant que le son de la plus aigiie parce qu'elles
459
�241c, est ainsi
. • que 241 l a mel od"ie etant
,
nu ll e 365 et 1 , attention•
du l1usicien ~ ttant tournee entierernent vers l 'harrnonie, tout ~e
dirigea vers
ce nouvel objet;
les Genres, les modes, l 1 echelle367,
tout '368 -pri t insensiblernent
une face nouvelle 368 ; ce furent les
~~ccessions harmoniques qui reglerent
la marche 369des parties
0cette marche ayant pris 371 le nom de rnelodie on 37 2 ne peut 373
374
meconnoitre en effet dans cette pretendue 375 , 374 rnelodie 376 les
traits
de 1a 377 mere 24 1qui 1 1 a 37 8 fait naitre2 4 1, 379[etJ380 notre
sisteme musical etant [ainsiJ 381 devenu 382 purement harrnonique,
6
se divisent vibrent resonent a son unisson, confondent 362 leur son avec
le sien et paroissent
n'en rendre aucun.
L'erreur est d'avoir cru les
voir vibrer dans toute leur t~ngueur, et d'avoir mal observe les noeuds.
3
Deux cordes sonores formant
quelque intervalle
harmonique peuvent
faire ente::1dre leur son fondarnental au grave, rneme sans une troisieme
corde, c 1 est l 1 experience conniie et confirmee de M. Tartini;
mais une
~orde seule n'a point d'autre
son fondamental que le sien, elle ne fait
64 (point resoner ni] 364 vibrer ses multiples,
mais seulement son unisson
et ses aliquotes.
Commele son n'a d 1 autre cause que les vibrations
du
corps sonore, et qu 1 ou la cause agit librement 1 1 effet suit toujours,
separer les vibrations
de la resonance, c'est dire une absurdite.
361.
Ms R 11, p. 1.10:
362.
Ibid.:
<confond>.
363.
Ibid.:
form<e>[a]nt.
364.
Ibid. :
365.
Essai
366.
Ibid.:
peu
367.
Ibid.:
la gamme.
368.
Ibid.:
regut
<vibI'er
Ces.
que son unisson
sur l'origine
a peu
des langues,
371.
Essai
372.
Ms R 72, p. 20v:
The deleted
sur 1 1 origine
of this
passage
word is not crossed
des langues,
oubliee.
up to n·ote 417 below
out in the Ms R 72.
eh. xviiii,
p. 195:
usurpe.
eh. xviiii,
p. 195:
put.
l'on.
1
373.
Essai
374.
Ms R 72, p. 20v:
375.
376.
Essai
sur l origine
des langues,
377.
Essai sur l origine
378.
Ms R 72, p. 20v:
379.
Missing from the Ms R 72, p. 20v.
380.
<Il est certain
381.
<enfin>
<disconvenir
sur l origine
que cette
des langues,
1
Ms R 72, p. 20v:
melodie
l'a
espece de>.
eh. xviiii,
p. 195:
nouvelle.
eh. xviiii,
p. 195:
sa.
eh. xviiii,
p. 195:
devenu par
<ne soit>.
des langues,
1
382.
Essai
degres.
p. 195:
nouvelles.
369,
An earlier
crossed out dra'ft
appears in the Ms R 72, p. 20v.
<et> cette
eh. xviiii,
sur.
des faces
370,
et ses aliquot es ni re son>.
<engendr>.
que>
sur l'origine
des langues,
460
�383ce n'est pas une merveille que 384 [la melogie 3A3 en ait souff~rt
et que) la musique 385ait 386 perdu pour nous 387une [grande] partie
de l'energie
qu'elle
avoit autrefois 3S7 , 38 5,3?9.
.
h
388 devint
.
·'
Voila
comment 388~~ cJ~it
pa~ degres, un art entierement
91
389
9
separe de la langue
,
dont il tir[e]
son origine,
comment
3921e sentiment du son et de ses harmoniques y fit perdre celui de l'accent
oral, 393de la ~~antite numerique et par consequent de la mesure et du
rhythme 392 , 390 , 9, et comment enfin, bornee394 a l'effet
purement
3791a musique 379 se trouva
physique 395du concours des 39S vibrations,
396,397tout a fait depourvue 397, 396 des effets moraux qu'elle
avoit
produits quand elle etoit doublement la voix de la nature 398 .
399 la Musique sur nos theatres
Mais quand introduisant
on 1 1 a 400
voulu retablir 401 dans ses anciens droits et en faire un langage imitatif
et passionne;
c'est alors qu'il a fallu la rapprocher de la langue
grammaticale dont elle tire 402son premier etre 402 , et 40 3 que, reglant 404
38~.
Ibid.:
384.
qu<'il
385.
386.
Added to p. 14v.
ait <[ainsi]>
Essai
387.
son energie.
il n'est
pas etonant
que l'accent
oral.
ait>
sur 1 1 origine
388.
Ms R 72, p. 20v:
389.
Essai
sur l'origine
des langues,
eh. xviiii,
des langues,
eh. xviiii,
naitre
395.
Ibid.:
396.
397.
Essai
la musique <se bornant>
<du> d<e>u <l'accord
sur l'origine
Ms R 72, p. 20v:
p. 195:
parole.
toute
<[comment on y perdit
392.
Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xviiii,
des sons firent oublier les infl~xions
de la voix.
<meme> de
393.
Ms R 72, p. 20v:
presque
<la musique> [<melodi>].
390.
Ms R 72, p. 20v: qui la fit
tout sentiment de quantite]>.
391.
tir<oit>
394.
p. 195:
bruyant
des langues,
p. 195:
les harmoniques
[bornee].
de quelques>
eh. xviiii,
[concours
des].
p. 195: privee.
<depourvue> <privee>.
398.
The section which forms a draft
l'origine
des langues ends here.
399.
Ms R 72, p. 20v:
portant.
400.
Ibid.:
<en>.
40L
Ibid.:
<fa>.
402.
Ibid.:
sa premiere
403.
Ibid.:
et <conformant>.
4~.
Ibid.:
<[en]> [reglant].
origine.
461
of eh. xviiii
of the Essai
sur
�les modulations de la voix chantante 405 sur les inflexions diverses
que les passions donnent a la voix parlante,
la melodie a trouve 40~
pour ainsi dire une nouvelle existence et de nouvelles forces dans
40 7ses conf9rmites 407 avec l'accent
oratoire et passionne.
Alors,
deja soumis 408 aux marches harrnoniques qu'on n'en a 409du ni 409
voulu 410 separer, le chant 411 rigoureusement ~ssujeti par la
langue 412 et gene doublement _par le sisteme 41 harmonique 414 et par
la declamation,
a 415 pris 379'en chaque pais3 79 4161e caractere 4 16, 4 1 7
de la langue dont il tiroit
sa forme, il est devenu d'autant plus
melodieux et varie que cette langue avoit plus de rhythme et d 1 accent,
et dans celles qui ayant peu de l'un et de l'autre
ne sont polJI' ainsi
dire que l'organe de la raison ce meme chant est reste languissant
et
froid, comrne (est] le ton 418 des personnes qui ne font que raisonner.
Dans ces regions faites poU?' la sagesse ou le jugement a plus d'empire
que les passions vives, la melodie ayant acquis peu d'ascendant,
l 1 harmonie a conserve tout le sien, et c'est la que le plaisir
physique
suppleant au plaisir
moral on prefere les accords au chant et lessons
bruyans d'une [voix) forte 419 [ou d'un [grand) choeur] aux sons touchans
d'une voix tendre et passionnee.
Tout cet historique
est appuye sur des faits et fournit comrne on
voit des conclusions directement contraires
au Sisteme de M. Rameau.
Tachons maintenant de remonter a l'essence
des choses, et pour eviter
tout sophisme sur leurs qualites considerons les par leur nature autant
qu'il est possible.
Donnons a un son quelconque et au concours de ses
harmoniques l'Effet
le plus agreable;
imaginons une succession d'accords
la plus simple et la plus harmonieuse, ou la plus dure et la moins
naturelle
qu'il soit possible.
Que peut-il resulter
de tout cela qu'une
sensation purement physique, et l'impression
flateuse ou deplaisante
que
fera sur l'organe le concours ou la discordance des vibrations
du corps
sonore? quelle liaison la raison peut elle appercevoir entre ces vibrations plus ou moins concordantes et ces emotions de l'ame qui tour a
405.
406.
Ibid.:
Ibid.:
chantante
<tire>.
407409.
Ibid.:
Ibid.:
Ibid.:
sa conformite.
<assujeti>.
<point>.
4 10.
Ibid. :
voulu <ni du>.
~11.
Ibid.:
chant
412.
413.
Ibid.:
<sy>
langue <a pris
414.
415.
Ms R 72, p. 20v: musical.
Ibid. : a <plus>.
408.
<aux>.
<assujeti
par>.
un caractere>.
416.
Ibid. : <un> < [le] > <caractere>.
417.
End of the Ms R 72, p. 20v, and of the fragment
above.
418.
End of p.
419.
forte
lSr.
<voix>
462
starting
from note 369
�tour la jettent
au gre du Compositeur dans les transports
des passions
les plus opposees?
Hors les cas qui touchent irnmediatement a notre
conservation,
ce ne sont jamais des causes purement physiques qui
peuvent nous emouvoir ace pointY.
Vous aurez beau nuancer·et
combiner
des couleurs.
Jamais le plus savant peintre ne les disposera de
420s'il veut eveiller
maniere a exciter ni pitie ni colere;
nos passions,
qu'il se serve de ces memes couleurs a nous representer
[par le dessein]
des effets moraux~.
Qu'il nous peigne le cauteleux Ulisse emportant le
prix de la bravoure sur l'intrepide
Ajax 421 : Qu'il prosterne
l'infortune
Priam aux pieds du meurtrier de son fils;
qu'il nous expose les Adieux
d'Andromaque et d'Hector, et les tendres carresses de ce Heros au petit
Astianax, et l'effroi
de l'enfant
en voyant sur la tete d'Hector floter
le panache terrible,
et le souris mele de larmes que l'objet
present et
le pressentiment
de l'avenir
arrache a la plus chaste des femmes et a
la plus malheureuse des Meres.
Voila les objets touchans a l'aide
desquels les couleurs du Peintre exciteront
en nous l'interest,
la
pitie,
la terreur et tousles
rnouvemens dont l'aroe est susceptible.
Sans
cela le plus savant Physicien aura beau faire de savantes dissertations
sur la puissance des couleurs, sur les modifications
de la retine et les
ebranlernens du nerf optique;
il aura beau porter,
a force d'angles et
de refractions,
ses rayons visuels au cerveau, jamais il n'en saura
porter l'impression
jusqu'au coeur;
voila le point ou s'arrete
le
physicien,
c 1 est au peintre a faire le reste, et au pbilosophe a
l'expliquer.
On se trompe de rneme en Musique sitot qu'on prend pour premiere
cause l'harmonie et lessons,
qui ne sont en effet que les instrurnens de
la 422 melodie.
Non que la melodie a son cour 423 ai t cette cause en
elle meme; mais elle la tire des effets moraux dont elle est l'irnage;
savoir, le cri de la nature~, l'accent,
le nornbre, la rnesure, et le ton
pathetique
et passionne [que 1 1agitation
de l'arne] donne a la voix hurnaine.
424(Cette ana l ogie
• sic• l aire
•
• l e montre evi
, ·aernrnent] 424 que
et si• simp
le principe de l'imitation
et du sentiment est tout dans la rnelodie,
l 1 harmonie [n')y peut concourir qu'en rendant les sensations
plus
flateuses
et par consequent plus interessantes,
ou par le plus ou rnoins
de bruit,
ou en renfor~ant
l'expression
du chant, et c'est surtout en
ceci que consiste 1 1utilite
de l'harmonie dans la musique imitative;
-car
ce seroit une grande erreur de penser que, quoiqu'elle
n'en soit pas la
source elle y soit pourtant deplacee.
[Tant] 425 s'en faut:
elle sert a
soutenir la rnelodie, ·a.determiner la modulation avec la precision
la plus
exacte;
a en rendre le sentiment toujours present; a renforcer ou
derober lessons
par des intervalles
plus ou moins s5ensibles;
a bil+~?
marquer la rnesure et le rhytme; enfin a [rendref 2 plus [sensible]'
420.
<mais> s'il
421.
Aja<s>
422.
423.
End of p. 16r.
424.
<C'est
425.
<Ta(a)nt>
426.
<donner>
427.
<d 1 energie>
Presumably
'tour'.
done une verite
incontestable>
463
�ace piano-forte
qui est l'ame de la melodie ainsi que du discours
qu'elle
imite;
et c'est de cette maniere que 1•~~rmonie rend en partie
a la musique ce qu'elle ote de son energie
par 4 [l'exclusion
d'uneJ 428
429
multitude d'intervalles
irreguliers
.
Mais si le Musicien ne songe
qu'a son harmonie, s'il neglige la partie essentielle
qui est le chant
pour courrir apres le remplissage
et les accords, il fera beaucoup de
bruit et peu d'effet,
et sa Musique etourdissante
donnera bien plus de
mal a la tete que d'emotion au coeur.
Ne pensons done pas qu'avec des proportions
et des chiffres
on nous
explique jamais l'empire que la Musique a sur- les passions.
Toutes ces
explications
ne sent que du galimathias
et ne feront jamais que des
incredules,
parce que l'experience
les dement sans cesse, et qu'on ne
peut leur decouvrir aucune [espece de] liaison
avec la nature de l'homrne.
Le Principe et les regles ne sont que le materiel
de l'art,
il faut une
metaphysique plus fine pour en expliquer les grands effets 430.
431
1:Je 432 Jl:.':suivra.i point 43 ~ M. Rameau 43 4[dans les exemP.les
438 son
qu 'il tire ie 4~,:'[saJ436 propres [musiqueJIJ.37 b435 pour illustrer
principe) 43 . 439j•avoue qu'il ne lui [est] 41J. pas difficile
de montrer
[par cette voye] l'inferiorite
de la melodie;
mais 441 [j'ai parle] 4~ 1
de la musique et non de sa musique 442 .
sans [vouloir) dementir les
eloges qu'il 443 se donne je puis n'etre pas de son avis sur tel ou tel
428.
<la>
429.
irreguliers
<qu'exclud
le Systeme>
430.
The digression
from the Examen de deux principes
transcribed
by Duchez and Wokler end here.
and the sections
431.
From this point to the end of p. 22r (see note 790 below) the text
of the Examen de deux principes
is resumed on both recto and verso sides,
though in a disjointed
fashion which sometimes differs
from the order of the
final version.
So far as is possible
in view of the signs directing
the
reader to other pages, I have here followed Rousseau's original
order of
exposition,
which I take to be pp. 17r, 16v, 18r, 17v, 18v, 19v, 20v, 21v,
and 22r, with the other pages blank.
Some, but not all, of the remaining
passages which were incorporated
in the Examen are crossed out in the
Ms R 60; those which have not been cited already (seep.
437 above) will be
indicated below.
The rest of p. 17r, which includes a draft of a paragraph
in CTWR, V, p. 278, is crossed out.
432.
433.
Je <n'ai
<pas>
434.
4 35.
<illustrant
pas dessein>
son principe
436.
Examen de deux principes,
<ses>
~37.
<ouvrages>
438.
439.
440.
441.
442.
443.
<con>
Added top.
16v.
<seroit>
<c' est>
musique <que j'ai
<de>
parle
d'exemples
tires
CTWR,V, p. 278:
et>
464
de sa musique nous dit>
ses Ouvrages.
�morceau et tous ces jugemens particuliers
d'un444 grand avantage au progres de l'art
pour ou contre
4 39,445,
ne sont pas
44 6i-!ais1 un autre exemple dont M. Rameau attend tout et 447dont
je ne puis me dispenser de parler 447 c'est l'intervalle
des deux notes
ut fa diese, sous lequel appliquant differentes448
transitions
harmoniques
il [pretend] montrer par les diverses affections
qui en naissent que la
t~~ce de ces att~ctions
depend de l'harmonie et non du chant.
~omment
[M. Rameau]
a-t-il
pu se laisser
abuser parses
[yeux et 45 ses]
prejuges au point de prendre tous ces divers passages pour un fgeme chant
parce que c'est le meme intervalle
apparent sans songer qu'un 4 1 intervalle ne peut 452 etre sense le meme et surtout en melodie qu'autant
qu'il
a le meme rapport au mode, ce qui n'a lieu dans aucun des [passages] 453
qu'il cite.
Ce sont bien 4 54 les memes touches, 1il est vrai 1 , et voila
ce qui trompe M. Rameau; mais ce sont reeflement autant de melodies
differentes;
car non seulement elles se presentent
toutes a l'oreille
sous des idees diverses;
mais meme leurs intervalles
exacts455
different 4 56 les uns des autres.
Quel est le Musicien qui dira qu' un
tri ton et une fausse quinte une 4 57 septieme diminuee et une sixte majeure,
une tierce mineure et une seconde superflue
[formentJ 458 la meme melodie
parce que les intervalles
qui les donnent sont les memes sur le Clavier;
coIDIDesi 1 1 oreille
n'apprecioit
pas toujours les intervalles
selon leur
justesse~59,460
et ne redressoit461
pas les erreurs du temperamment sur
444,
d'un<e>
445.
reader
There follows a mark and the words 'pre page' which refer
to a crossed out passage on p. lv of the Ms R 60.
the
446.
This passage on p. lv appears at a different
point in the Examen
de deux principes
(see CTWR,V, pp. 273-274 and note I76 above).
447.
Examen de deux principes,
ne prouver rien.
qui me sernble
a moi
~48.
449.
Ibid.:
450.
Examen de deux J2rincipes,
qu'un <mem>
CTWR,v, p. 274:
par.
Examen de deux principes,
<exemples>
CTWR,V • p. 274:
doit.
Examen de deux princii2es,
exacts <sont>
CTWR,V, P• 274:
bien sur le clavier.
456.
457.
458.
Examen de deux J2rincipes,
une <sixte superflue>
CTWR,V, p. 274:
different
459.
juste
460.
Examen de deux principes,
Ibid.:
corrigeoit.
451,
452.
453.
454.
455.
461.
differentes
CTWR,V, p. 273:
Basses qui marquent differentes.
<M.>
presque
to.us.
<sont>
<va>
CTWR,V, p. 274: • justesse
465
dans le mode.
�les raports de la modulation.
[Quoique] 462 la basse determine 463 avec
plus de promptitude et d'energie
les changemens de ton'~6'-I, 465ces
changemens ne laisseroient
pourt~nt pas de se faire sentir 1 sa~~ elle,
et je n'ai iarnais pretendu que l'accompagnement fut inutile
a 06 1a
467devoit lui467 etre subordonne.
[melodie] 46 , mais seulement qu'il
Quand tous ces passages de l'ut au fa diese seroient 4 68 le meme intervalle [employes dans leurs differentes~laces]
ils n'en seroient pas
moins autant de chants differens 469 47 etant pris ou supposes sur
differentes
cordes du Mode470, 471 leur variete ne vien[t] 47 2 done pas de
l'harmonie mais seulement de la modulation qui appartient
incontestablement a la melodie 446.
1 473
,
[assurement]
474 je 475 [n'ai nulle envie de dernentir les] 47 5
eloges qu'il se donne: je serois bien plus dispose a y ajouter les
miens comrne [j'ai]
fait tant de fois dans 1 1 encyclopedie et ailleurs.
Mais j'avoiie qu'il [dit] 476 quelquefois des [choses] 477 si incroyables
que j'ai peine a m'en fier a mes yeux en les [lisant] 4 78 dans son
propre ouvrage473,l,479,
l,
4
BOSi je ne voyois qu'a quelque point
462.
<Il est certain
463.
464.
Examen de deux principes,
<mode>
465.
<mais> ces
466.
l'[a]
467.
Examen de deux principes,
468.
Ibid.:
469.
470.
differens
<pour la rendre <la tenir>
Added on another part of p. lv.
que je les porte
que>
CTWR,V, p. 274:
determine
CTWR,V, p. 274:
lui
quelqu~fois.
<harmonie>
seroient
devoit.
exactement.
Examen de deux principes,
471..
plus ou moins de degres.
vien<dr.(?)>
472.
(?)
<[employes a leur place]>
CTWR,V, p. 274:
& composes de
473.
This passage on p. 17r, which does not figure in the Examen de
deux principes,
complexes the paragraph whose opening sentence is
demarcated by notes 431 and 434 above.
474.
<assurement>
475.
<n'ai
pas nulle
476.
<avance>
477,
<propositions>
478.
<copiant>
479.
End of p. 17r.
envie de dementir
les>
480.
This passage at the bottom of p. 16v does not figure
Examen de deux principes.
466
in the
�<il m'est impossible d'en dire> 481<fasses pour le contenter
qu'il en exige encore davantage482,480,1,483,
et]> 481
484Tout choeur de Musique485 qui est lent, et dont la succession
harmonique est bonne plait toujours sans le secours d 1 aucun dessein,
ni d'une melodie oui puisse affecter
d'elle meme; et ce plaisir
est
tout autre que ceiui qu'on eprouve ordinairemt.
d 1 un chant agreable,
ou simplement vif et gai.
( 486cette opposition 486 d'un choeur lent,
et d'un air vif et gai 487 [me paroit assesJ 4 87 plaisante488.)
l'un se
rapporte directement a l'ame, (notez 489 que c'est le choeur 490 .)
l'autre
ne passe pas le canal de l'oreille.
(C'est le chant selon
M. Rameau.)
J'en appelle encore a l'amour triomphe, deja cite plus
d'une fois;
(cela e~i vrai) que l'on compare le plaisir
qu'on ep ~~v
a celui que causera 4 un air, soit vocal,
soit instrumental.
Ah
•
j'y consens!
Qu'on me laisse choisir 493 la voix [et l'air
sans 494
[me) 495 , 496 [restraindre
au [seul] mouvement]4 96 vif et gai, puis 4 97] 4 95
et que M. Rameau vienne de son cote avec son choeur l'amour triomphe et
tout ce 498 [terrible!
apparei1 499 d'instrwnens
et de voix.
SOO[il aura
beau 50 1me) donner 50 [des] juges 502 , 503qu'on ne toucbe qua [force de) 503
4 1
481.
<asses> <autant
482.
davantage
483.
End of p. 16v.
qu'il
en exige>
<que la verite>
48~.
This passage at the top of p. 16v appears
principes,
CTWR,V, p. 276.
485.
486.
Examen de deux .principes,
Ibid.:
Ce parallele.
487.
<n'est
488.
Examen de deux principes,
elle
in the Examen de deux
CTWR,V, p. 276:
Musique, dit-il.
CTWR,V, p. 276:
plaisant.
pas bien>
489.
notez <[bien]>
The deleted word is reinstated
in the Examen de
deux principes.
490.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,v, p. 276: grand choeur a quatre parties.
491.
Ibid.:
cause.
492.
Ah <si>
493.
choisir
<1 1 air.et>
494.
sans <donner l'exclusion
au pathetique et ensuite>
495.
Added on another part of p. 16v.
496.
<forcer a ~e choisir seulement>
497.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 276: car cela n'est pas juste.
498.
ce<s>
499.
appareil
<de voix>
500.
<Pourvu qu'on ne vous> <[Pourvu <des> qu'il <ne choisisse> me] pas de>
<[s'il vien)>
501.
Examen de deux principes,
502.
Ibid.:
qu'on n'affecte
d'un tambour que du rossignol,
503.
qu<i> ne <soient
CTWR,V, p. 275:
qu'a force
ils seront
sensibles
se cboisir.
de bruit & qui sont plus touches
hommes enfin.
qu'> <plus> touche<s> qu<e> <du plus grand>
467
�bruit et qu'un tambour affecte plus que le rossignol.
du moins ils
seront hommes et 502 je n 1 en veux pas davantage pour leur prouver que
lessons
vraiment 504 capables d'affecter
l 1 ame ne sont point ceux
d'un choeur de musique484,
50 5Apres avoir etabli 5o5 ce 5o7 fai t tres 1 vrai par raport a nous,
tres 508 faux generalemt:. _.tbarlant que l •harmonie SO~eut faire engendre 509
la melodie.
M. Rameau ::, conclut [en) 511 • 510 ces termes.
Ainsi toute
musioue etant comprise dans l'harmonie,
on en doit conclure que ce n•est
gu•~ c~tte seule harmonie ou'on doit comoarer quelque science que ce
soit [p.64)l.
512Je ne sais si tousles
lecteurs seront aussi convaincus
que M. Rameau de512 cette merveilleuse
conclusion 505.
513 , 514[les plus] beaux accords [ainsi que de 515 belles couleursl
51 !:te peuvent jamais produire qu 'un plaisir
de sensation 51 6; 51 ~ais 518
les accens de la voix passent a s,19 l 'ame S2~1s sont l' expression et le
vehicule des passions 5 20, c'est par eux que la Musique devient [oratoire
eloquente,]
imitative 521 ils en forment le 522 [langage 523], c' est par eux
504.
Examen de deux principes,
505.
This passage
CTWR,V, p. 278.
CTWR,V, p. 276:
on p. 16v appears
506.
Examen de deux principes,
507.
Ibid.:
le.
508.
Ibid. :
mais tres-.
509.
Ibid.:
engendre.
510.
Ibid.:
finit
511.
<par>
512.
rien
a r,pondre
Examen de deux principes,
~-
Examen de deux principes,
516.
Ibid.:
517.
<il> mais
518.
mais <de>
519,
Examen de deux principes,
peuvent porter
CTWR,V, p. 278:
le <dessein>
523.
langage
comme on a vu.
J 1 avoue que je ne vois
in the Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 277:
les plus.
aux sens une impression
CTWR,V, p. 277:
520.
Ibid.:
car ils sont l'expression
naturelle
peignant,
ils les excitent.
521.
imitative
<qu'elle peint les objets>
522.
etabli
dans.
513.
This passage on p. 16v appears
CTWR,V, p. 277.
514.
<Ne> <de(?)>
515.
in the Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 278:
sa dissertation
les plus.
<et le>
468
agreable,
& rien de plus.
jusqu'a.
des passions,
& en les
�qu'elle peint [a l 1 imagination 524] tousl les objets qu'elle porte au
coeur tous 1 les stntimens.
La melodie est dans la Musique ce qu'est
le dessein dans la peinture525~,
c'est par [ellel 526 , 527 que lessons
ont de l'expression
_et528 de la vie, c'est elle 5':29 qui leur donne les
530r.e seul
effets moraux qui font toute l'energie
de la musique.
physique de l'art
se reduit a bien peu de chose et l'harmonie ne pusse
pas au dela. 513.
531
Le second Prin%f8e avance par M. Rameau et d~~t; 32 •1 il me
reste a parler est que .:> l' accompagnement du clavecin 3 represente 534
le corps sonore il me reproche de ~•~voir pas a!~~te cette idee dans
3 [il est a]
la de~\iition
de l'accompagnement
ctoire que si je l'y
avois
ajoutee il me l'eut reproche ~beaucoup) 537,~ davanta~e, ou
du moins avec bienl ~\~s de raison.
38[ce n 'est pas sans l 5 8 1une sorte
de 1 repugnance que
je m'engage a 540[cet examen] 54o, 53 9' car quoique
le principe que je viens 54 1tle combattre 541 ne 54~e paroisse pas 542 plus
54 3:ie crois devoir 543 l 'en distinguer
vrai que celui-ci,
en ce que si c I est
une erreur c'est au moins celle~ 44 d'un grand musicien qui s'egare a
force de science:
Mais ici je ne vois plus 1 que des mots vuides de sens
524.
1 1 <esprit>
525.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 277:
n'y fait que l'effet
des couleurs.
526.
<elle>
Peinture,
l'harmonie
le chant,
non par
<[la melodie]>
527.
Examen de deux principes,
les accords.
528.
Ibid.:
du feu.
529.
Ibid.:
le chant seul.
530.
Ibid.:
En un mot.
531.
This passage
CTWR,V, p. 278.
532.
<duquel>
:erinci:ees.
CTWR,V, p. 277:
on p. 18r appears
The deleted
in the Examen de deux principes,
word is reinstated
in the El::a.mende deux
533.
534.
Examen de deux principes,
<doit> represente<r>
535.
536.
537.
<et je ne puis m'empecher de>
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, ·P· 278:
<bien>
538.
<C'est
CTWR,V, p. 278:
l'harmonie.
eusse.
avec>
539.
Examen de deux principes,
de cette addition qu'il exige.
CTWR,V, p. 278:
540.
<la combattre>
541.
542.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 278:
Ibid.:
soit pas en lui-meme.
543.
Ibid.:
544.
Ibid.:
j'entre
dans l'examen
<l'examiner>
l'on
doit beaucoup.
l'erreur.
469
d'examiner.
�et 5' 15j 'ai le chagrin de ne pouvo.ir 545 pas meme supposer de la bonne
foi dans l'auteur
qui let ose <lonner au public cornme un principe de
l'art
qu'il professe 531 • 46 .
547il faut qu'il y ait une d.ifference inconcevable entre la
maniere de raisonner de M. 548 et la mienne car voici les prernieres
idees 549 que son principe 55o me suggere.
551
Si l'accompagnement represente le corps so~ore il ne doit
rendre
2
5
que lessons
rendus par le corps sonore.
[or) ~ ces sons ne forment
553 [pourquoi) 1 [il ne faut) 1 done [pas] 1 ,553
que des accords parfaits,
herisser
l'accompagnement de dissonances.
[Selon M. Rameau) Les sons [concomitans] rendus par le corps
sonore se bornent a deux savoir la 3ce_554 majeure et la quinte.
Si
l'accompagnement represente
le corps sonore555 il faut done le simplifier.
.
5561' instrument
55 7[ dont on] 55 7 accompagne est un corps sonore
lui meme dont cha~ue son est toujours accompagne de ses harmoniques
concomitans 558 , 55 .
Si done l'accompagnement represente
le corps
56 1[J'ai peine
sonore 560[on] ne [doit] 560 frapper que des unissons.
a concevoir comment pour justifier la confusion de son accompagnement
centre la simplicite
de celui des Italiens
M. Rameau ose appeller le
sien celui de la nature] 561 .
545.
Ibid.:
je ne puis.
546.
End of p. 18r.
54 7.
From this point at the top of p. 17v to tb·e concluding passage on
p. 22r (see note 790 below) the manuscript more closely approximates the
order of the Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, pp. 279-285.
548.
Examen de deux principes,
549.
Ibid.:
consequences.
550.
Ibid.:
principe,
551.
552.
doit <done>
<et>
553.
<est ce> done <une raison
554.
Abbreviation
555.
sonore
556.
<Si l'accompagnement
557.
<qui>
558.
concomitan<tes>s
559.
560.
Examen de deux principes,
<il> ne <faut>
cet Auteur.
admis par supposition.
for
<est-ce
CTWR,V, p. 279:
pour>
'tierce'.
une raison>
represente
561.
Examen de deux principes,
harmoniques ne se trouvent point
le corps sonore>
CTWR,V, p. 280:
naturels.
CTWR,V, p. 280: car les harmoniques
dans le corps sonore.
470
des
�562[En veri te si) ce principe
562tiu corps sonore 554 represente
[par l 1 ac_compagnement]S63 m'etoit venu foul565 que565 je l'eusse
trouve 567 solide je m'en serois prevalu!> 6 6"centre [le]:i 69 sisteme [de
M. Rameau] et je l'aurois
cru renverse 570
1 • 57 \:onsultes
toutes les nations du monde, tousles
hommes572
non prevenus par l'habitude,
tous ceux que l'interest
ou i~~mour
propre ne feront point parler,
vous aurez un avis unanime
et
574[cet avis sera] 5 74 la voix de la nature.
J'avoue que je suis
etrangement surpris de voir ce root sortir de la plume de M. Rameau.
il me semble qu'il devoit fegalement) se garder d'y faire songer ses
lecteurs
et ses Auditeurs 571,1, 575,
Mais donnons 5 76 s 'il se peut
ses idees 578 let aux miennesl.
577un peu plus de 577 precision
a
pour [ concevoir J 579 580J.e principe de M. Rameau 580 il 5 81faut
[entendr-e] 581 que 582 le corps sonore est represente
par la Basse f. 583,l
562.
<Je me trouve d'une si grande maladresse en matiere> <Je [ne sais
comment tout ceci se fait mais je crois]> >[Il faut que M. Rameau fasse
une etrange bevue ou]> <[Il faut que je sois d'une grande maladresse en
matiere de raisonnement]>
563.
564.
Examen de de=
565.
<et> The deleted
566.
que <le>
567.
trouve<r>
568.
Examen de deux principes,
569.
<son>
570.
<terrass€>
sonore
principes,
CTWR,V, p. 280:
que je combats.
<m'etoit>
word is reinstated
in the Examen de deux principes.
CTWR,V, p. 280:
servi.
571.
This paragraph, which Rousseau did not incorporate
deux principes,
is nonetheless
crossed out.
572.
hol!lllles<n'o>
573.
unanime <sur la>
574.
<c'est
575.
End of p. 17v.
576.
<tachons>
577.
Examen de deux principes,
578.
Ibid.:
579.
<entendre>
580.
Examen de deux principes,
581.
<ne> faut
582.
que <l'accompagnement>
583.
Abbreviation
ainsi
in the Examen de
qu'on reconnoit>
nous pourrions
CTWR,V, p. 280:
mieux en sentir
for
la justesse
CTWR,V, p. 280:
<pas dire>
'fondamentale'.
471
de la.
ou la faussete.
son principe.
�et son accompugnement, de maniere584 que la S85a.f. 585 represente
le
S~%
generate4r 7et 1•i~compag~t~ent
ses_productions
ha"?on~iues.
Or comme ~s [ces 5 sons)
harmoniques sont produits~ 9 par la
590,585B.f.58~,590
la o. fondamentale a son tour est produite par le
concours des sons harmoniques, 59.l.on engendre mutuellement592 l'un
par l'autrel
et pa[r tout) ou se trouve 593 [un de ces deuxJ 593
Phenomenes J9 4 1 1 [ensembleJ 594 peut en effet etre pris pour la resonance
du cor?.s sonore:
C'est ce gue prouvent Clairement les experiences
[dont]~ 95 M. Tartini
[nous] a donne le detai1596 et qui sent depuis
591 .
1 [Je parle ici de la B.f. et
longtems connues de toutes l'Italie
non de la Basse continue parce qu'[a]59 7 cause des frequens renversemens d'harmonie celle cine
[represente]5 98 et n'est en effet que la
v. 599 production du son generateur) 1 .
Il ne s 1 agit done plus que de voir quelles conditions
sont requises
dans 1 1accompagnement pour representer
exactement les productions
harmoniques du corps sonore600.
60l de ces
Il est evident que la ~remiere et la plus essentielle
conditions
est de produire 602 un son fondamental unique car si vous
produisez deux sons fondamentaux vous representez
deux corps 603
584.
Examen de deux principes,
585.
Abbreviation
~6.
<Les> <Or le livre
587.
588.
<les productions>
for
CTWR,V, p. 280:
fa~on.
'Basse-fondamentaie•.
de>
589.
Exarnen de deux principes,
produit<es>s
590.
<son principal>
CTWR,V, p. 280:
les.
591.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 280: ceci n'est pas un
principe de systeme, c'est un fait d'experience,
connu dans l'Italie
depuis long-terns.
592.
<mu>
593.
<l'une
peuvent>
ou l'autre
594.
l'<ef':fet
total>
595.
<connues de toute
596.
detail
597.
qu<e celle-ci>a
598.
<represente>
599.
Abbreviation,
de ces effets
<[le tout)>
l'Italie
603.
causes qui les produisent
ensemble
dont> <que>
<dans son livre>
<donne> <guere le son generateur
probably
600.
Examen de deux principes,
concours, la Basse-fondamentale
601.
essentielle
<de ces>
602.
les
Examen de deux principes,
<so>
for 'vraie',
perhaps
ou(?)>
for
•veritable'.
CTWR,V, p. 280:
qui leur convient.
& fournir
CTWR,V, p. 280:
a chaque
'+72
par leur
accord.
�604 c 1 est ce
sonores au lieu d'un et vous avez duplicite
d'harmonie,
qui a SOS[deja ete demontree] 60S par 6 06 mon compatriote 60 7 , 604
M. Serre 6 ◊ 8fil!..
Or l'accord
parfait
tierce majeure est le seul qui
ne donne qu'un son fondamental tout autre les609 multiplie.
{ceci610
n'a besoin de demonstration
pour aucun Theoricien et) je me contenterai
611 de donner un 611 exemple si simple 61 2qu•i1 613 [que sans 614 notes
ni 615 figu:ces 612 il] puisse ,etre entendu des lecteurs
les moins verses
en Musique.
pourvu 616 qu'elle
ne leur soit pas tout-a-fait
etrangere616,617
Dans 618 1es experiences 618 dent je viens de parler on trouve que
la tit~ e majeure [produit] 619 pour son 62 0 fondamental l'octave
du son
grave
, et que la tierce mineure produit la dixieme majeure.
C'est
a dire que 622 cette tierce majeure ut mi; vaus 623 donnera l'octave
de l'ut pour 624 [son fondamenta1J 624 , et cette625,626
tierce mineure
627 ainsi
mi sol vous donnera encore le meme ut pour son fondamental.
1
604.
Examen de deux principes,
observe par.
CTWR,V, p. 280:
605.
<tres
606.
par <M(?)>
607.
<comba>
608.
Serre
609.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR, V, p. 280:
<C' est de quoi> <C'est [ ceci <qui>]
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR, v, p. 280:.
Ibid.:
que sans figure ni note.
610.
611.
612.
bien ete vu>
<dent le livre<s>
a de la profondeur
613.
Without the intercalation
the text
neglected to delete
'qu'il'.
614.
[sans] qu'il <[n'ait
besoin de)>
615.
ni <de>
616.
soient
Examen de deux principes,
connus.
617.
End of p. lBv.
618.
619.
Examen de deux principes,
<engendre>
620.
<basse>
621.
<le plus> grave
622.
que <si vous avez>
623.
<vous> <elle>
624.
<basse naturelle>
625.
ce<ll>e-<ci
626.
Examen de deux principes,
627.
<ainsi
le meme>
comme il a deja ete
reads
et des vues>
accord
le.
d'un.
'qu'il
puisse'.
CTWR,V, p. 281:
que les
termes
CTWR,V, p. 281:
l'experience.
CTWR,V, p. 281:
que cette.
Rousseau
leur
m>
l'acco>
<de plus
la quinte
473
[ut) mi sol vous fournit
encore
en
�[tout]628 cnt accord enti~r ut mi sol ne629 vous donne qu'un son fondamcntul uni~uc 1 car la ouinte ut sol qui donne l'unisson
de sa note
1qu'on n'en distingue
grave doit 30 , 631 etre ~ensee en donner l'octave
pas 1 [ou bien en descendant ce sol a son octave l'accord
est un a la
derniere rigueurJ 632 .
Alors 633 l'harmonie est bien ordonnee et 634
represente
exactement ce635 corps sonore636 mais au lieu de diviser
harmoniquement la quinte en mettant la tierce majeure au grave et la
637faisons tout le contraire6 37 en la divisant
mineure a l'aigu,
[arithmetiquement]638,639.
nous aurons cet accord parfait
tierce
mineure ut mi bemol, sol, ou 640 , 641 prenant d'autres
notes pour plus
de comodite cet accord semblable la, ut, mi.
Alers 642 [on trouve]6 42
la dixieme fa pour son fondamental de la tierce mineure la ut, !et)
l'octave
ut pour son fondamental de la tierce majeure ut mi. 6 3 [on
ne sauroitJ 643 done fraper cet accord cornplet6 44 sans produire a la fois
deux sons fondamentaux.
Il y a ~is encore, c'est qu'aucun6 45 de ces
deux sons fondamentaux n'etant
le 46 vrai fondement de l'accord
et du
mode il nous faut une troisieme basse la qui donne ce fondement alors
48
647[il est rnanifeste que]647 l'accompagnement ne 648[peut representer]6
628.
<pour>
629.
<vo>
630.
<ne> doit
631.
Exarnen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 281:
peut.
632.
Ibid.:
car le son fondamental de la sixte-majeure
sol mi est a
la quinte du grave, & le son fondamental de la quarte sol ut est encore
a la quinte du grave.
633.
Ibid.:
De cette
maniere.
634.
et <ja(?)>
635.
Examen de deux principes,
636.
sonore <et ses productions>
637.
Examen de deux principes,
638.
arithmetique[ment]
639,
<harmoniquement>
640.
641.
ou <pour plus de ce>
642.
<nous avons>
643.
<Nous ne saurians>
644.
<parfait>
645.
qu<e> aucun
646.
647.
<d>
<en> <[l'harmonie]
648,
<sauroit
·cTWR, V, p. 281:
le.
CTWR,V, p. 281:
transposons
CTWR,V, p. 281:
et.
Examen de deux principes,
ne saur>
jamais>
474
cet ordre.
�le corps sonore qu'en prenant 649 1es notes seulement 649 deux ii deux,
650au moyen de qt:oi l'on650 aura la pour :,asse enijend1-ec [sousJ 65 1
la quinte la mi, fa 652[sous la tierce mineureJ 65~ la ut, et ut
655si to~ 6 S~ que vous
sous6 53 latierce
majeurefJS 4 [ut n.i).
ajouterez656
un troisieme
son, ou vou$ ferez un accord parfait
majeur
ou vous aurez 657 deux sons fondamPntaux et par consequent la
658 du corps sonore di~paroitra.
1 [voila ce que 659
representation
donne l'exacte
observation
des phenomenes de la nature] 1.
Ce que je dis ici de l'accord p~rfait mineur 660 se doit
entendre660 a plus forte raison de tout accord dissonant complet ou
651a proportion
lessons
fondamentaux se multiplient
de la quantite
des Parties 66 2 [et l' on doi t bien se r•essouvenir661 que66 3J 662 tout
cela n'est deduit que du Principe
[mem&]de M. Rameau adopte par
664 si [donc]l l'accompagnement doit 665 representer
supposition.
le corps sonore, 666 [je dis qu'] on n•y 667 sauroit etre trap circonspect 66B[dans la pluralite
des]668 sons et 669[dans l'employ666
des]669 dissonances quoi670 que regulieres671
et bien sauvees.
Voila
649.
Examen de deux principes,
650.
Ibid.:
651.
<de>
652.
<pour celle
de>
653.
<pour celle
de ce>
654.
<mineure>
655.
Examen de deux principes,
656.
End of p. 19v.
657.
<[a la fois)>
658.
<p>
659.
qu<i se>
660.
Examen de deux principes,
661.
Ibid.:
CTl·/R, V, p. 281:
seulement
CTWR,V, p. 281:
Si-tot
CT\IR, V, p. 282:
doit
les notes.
auquel cas on.
de l'accord,
par la composition
662.
<Tout ceci
de m. Rameau>
n'est
que les consequences
663.
que <je ne raisonne
664.
<Que> <Qu'est>
665.
Examen de deux principes,
669.
670.
<a employer les>
<quoi>
671.
<praticaples>
& l'on ne doit pas oublier.
naturelles
du du principe
done>
CTWR,V, p. 282:
666.
Ibid.:
combien done n'y devroit-on
choix des sons&.
n<e>
667.
<a multiplier
s'entendre.
ici>
<Que devoit-il
668.
done.
les>
475
pas etre
devoit.
circonspect
dans le
�la 672 consequence naturelle
et necessaire
9~'i1 673 [faloit]67 4 ,672
676 i1a raison, 017 L'experience]676,
tirer de ce principe 675 .
les
regles la pratique unanime des 77 peuples gui ont le plus de justesse
67B, tout 6791a demandoit 679 a
et de sensibilite
dans l'oreille
M. Rameau; j'en680,681 tire [pourtant) une toute contraire;
682il
fait plus encore 682 , il reclame les droits de la nature 683,684[mot
qu'il ne devroit jamais prononcer, au moins en qualite
d'artiste]684,683,685,
672.
qu'il
Examen de deux principes,
faudroit.
CTWR,V, p. 282:
673.
<d>
674.
<devoit>
675.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 282:
<Celle qu'il en tire de la raison>
676.
677.
Examen de <leU>: principes,
la pratique de tousles.
678.
CTWR,V, p. 282:
Ibid.:
l'organe.
679.
Ibid.:
suggeroit
680.
j<e>[')
en
681.
Examen de deux principes,
682.
Ibid.:
&, pour l'etablir.
683.
Ibid.:
mots qu'en qualite
cette
premiere
consequence
suppose vrai.
l'oreille,
l'experience,
consequence.
CTWR,V, p. 282:
d'Artiste
Il en.
il ne devroit
jamais prononcer.
684.
<assurement si elle s'est refugiee dans la musique et si> ~(mot
dont[qu']
il <ne> ne <devroit jamais s'efforcer
de faire oublier a
tout le monde> <pas> rappeller
<a> [ni] a ses lecteurs ni a ses ~uditeurs)>
685.
In the Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 282, there follows a
paragraph which is missing from both the Ms R 60 and Ms R 58: Il me fait
un grand crime d'avoir dit qu'il falloit
retrancher
quelquefois
des sons
dans l'accompagnement,
& un bien plus grand encore d'avoir compte la quinte
parmi ces sons qu'il falloit
retrancher
dans l'occasion.
La quinte,
dit-il,
ui est l'arc-boutant
de l'harmonie,
& u'on doit ar cons~ uent
preferer par-tout
ou elle doit etre em~loyee .
A la bonne heure, qu'on
la prefere quand elle doit etre employee: mais cela ne prouve pas qu 1 elle
doive toujours l'etre:
au contraire;
c'est justement parce qu'elle
est
trop harmonieuse & sonore qu'il la faut souvent retrancher,
sur-tout
dans
les accords trop eloignes des cordes principales,
de peur que l'idee du ton
ne s'eloigne
& ne s 1 eteigne,
de peur que l'oreille
incertaine
ne partage
son attention
entre les deux sons qui ferment la quinte, ou ne la donne
precisement a celui qui est etranger a la melodie, & qu'on doit le moins
ecouter.
L'ellipse
n'a pas moins d'usage dans l'harmonie que dans la
grammaire;
il ne s'agit
pas toujours de tout dire, mais de se faire
entendre suffisarranent.
Celui qui, dans un accompagnement ecrit voudroit
sonner la quinte dans chaque accord ou elle entre, feroit une harmonie
insupportable,
& M. Rameau lui-meme s'est Lien garde d'en user ainsi.
47 6
�686J'interpelle68?
tout homme dont une habitude inveteree n'a
pas cor~ompu les orgnnes, qu'il ecoutc 688 s'il peut l'etra~gc
et
barbare accompagnemcnt prescrit
par I✓•• Rameau, qu'il le comEare avec
l'accornpagnement simple et harmonique des Italiensg,£;
[et] 89 s'il
refuse de juger Ear raison690 qu'il juge au moins par sentiment691
693 jamais
entre eux et lui 92 .
Comment un homme de gout a-t-il
pu693 imaginer 694gu 1 [il fallut
[rernplir tousles
accords pour
representer
~e corps sonore] 695employer des] 694 dissonances par tout
696cornment a-t-il
ou l'on en6 95 peut employer?
pu faire un Crime a
Correlli
de n'avoir
[pas] chiffre
[toutes] celles 697qu[i] Eouvoient6 97
98 est-elle
entrer dans Gon accompagnement~.
Comment la plume ne lui
pas tombee698 des mains a chaque faute qu'il reprochoit
ace grand
harmoniste de n'avoir pas faite.
Comment n'a t-il pas senti que la
confusionb99 n'a jamais rien produit d'agreable,
qu'une harmonie trop
chargee est la700 rnort de toute expressionr
[et] que [c'est par cette
raison que] toute la Musique sortie de son ccole n'est que du bruit sans
effet?
Comment701 ne se reproche-t-il
pas [a lui merne] d'avoir fait
herisser
les basses fran~oise de ces forets de chiffres
qui font mal
702a[ux~ oreille[s]702
seulernent ales
voir.
703etl comment la
[force] 04 des beaux chants qu'on appercoit705 quelques fois dans sa
musique, n'a t-elle
pas desarme [sa main paternelle]
quand il les gatoit
sur son clavecin.
686.
Ibid.,
p.
283:
Pour revenir
687.
J'interpelle
688.
<compare>
689.
<et>
690.
Examen de deux principes,
691.
Ibid.:
692.
lui,
693.
Examen de deux principes,
694.
qu<e par tout
695.
toutes
Examen de deux principes,
les dissonances qu'on.
696.
<Comment>
697.
qu<'il
698.
699.
Examen de deux principes,
<fo(?)>
700.
End of p. 20v.
701.
702.
Comment <a-t-il
a <l'>oreille
703.
<Com>
au Clavecin.
<do>
CTWR,V, p. 283:
la raison.
le sentiment.
<et choisisse
des> <entre
lessons
ou <[et]>
le bruit>
CTWR,V, p. 283:
pu jamais.
CTWR,V, p. 283:
qu'il
ou une>
ne vouloit>
<{pouvoit]>
<semence>
705.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,v, p. 283:
tomboit-elle
CTWR,V, p. 283:
trouve.
477
employer
<pas>
pu>
704.
fallut
pas.
�706,707[Par le peu deJ70 7 solidite
qu'il donne aux principes
fmemesl qui doiven~ servir de fondement a son art, on peut juger
[du] 70~ detail de ses [deductions]709
Aussi tout son sisteme
n'a-t-il
de vrai quanta
la theorie que ce qui avoit ete decouvert
avant lui 706 .
Toute sa generation
harmonique se borne a 710une
71 l[on n'y comprend 712
progression 71 0 d 1 accords parfaits
majews·
plus rien) 711 sitot qu'il 713 est question7 13 du mode mineur et de
la dissonance
[et) les vertus714 des nombres715 de pithagore
716 [ne sont) 7 i 6 pas plus tenebreuses
que les proprietes
physiques
qu'il pretend donner a de simples raports717
718 [M. Rameau dit que la resonance dJ 718 'une corde sonore
719
met
en mouvement une autre corde sonore triple
ou quintuple
de la premiere et la 720[fait
[fremir) sensiblementJ 720 dans sa
totalite
quoi qu'elle
ne resonne (point] 721~.
voila le fait sur
l~quel il etablit
les calculs ·qui lui servent a la production722,723
724 , 725 [et ce fait me paroit
de la dissonance et du mode mineur.
724 ,7 26 .
a) rejetter 725 comme faux et contradictoire
706.
Ibid.:
Son systeme ne me paroit gueres mieux fonde dans les
principes
de theorie,
que dans ceux de pratique,
707.
<Par le peu de> <[En donnant si peu de]>
708.
<des paralogismes
709.
710.
<raisonnemens>
qui> <que le>
<n'est
pas sans paTalogismes>
711.
Examen de deux principes,
<il n'y est plus>
712.
<voit>
713.
714.
Examen de deux principes,
<tenebreuses>
715.
nombres <n'e>
716.
<n'etoient>
717.
fausse
raports.
<La nouvelle experience
et contradictoire.>
<{et L'ex]>
718.
719.
<M. Rameau pretend> <[Il avance)>
<mise> <qu'on fait resonner>
720.
721.
[fait]
<pas>
722.
<genera>
723.
724.
production
725.
<Or pour(?)>
<vibrer>
CTWR,V, p. 283:
des progressions.
CTWR,V, p. 283:
s'agit.
sur laquelle
<par cette
il se fonde est
experience
qu>
[sensiblement]
<du mode mineur et>
Examen de deux principes,
rejetter
CTWR,V, p. 284:
Examinons.
<ce fait>
726.
There follows a cross sign, presumably referring
to a passage
which Rousseau meant to intercalate
in the text at this point, though
that passage does not figure in the Ms R 60.
In the Ms R 58,
pp. 13r-14r, two paragraphs appear as an integral
part of the text at
the same point.
These paragraphs also figure in the Examen de deux
principes,
CTWR,V, p. 284: Qu'une corde vibrante,
se divisant en ses
478
�727Je n'accuse point 72Ben cela728 M. Rameau de mauvaise foi,
lau contrairel
je conjecture 729 , 730 comment il a pu se tromper.
P.nt731 dans une experience fine et delicate
732[un h:271 a
sistemes 733 J732 voit souvent ce qu'[il] 734 a envie de voir.
de
plus 735 la grande corde se divisant
en parties
egales [entr'elles
et] a la petite,
on a vu fremir fa la fois) toutes (ces] 736 parties
et
l'on a pris 737ce[s] vibrations738
partielles
pour les vibrations
(totalesJ 73 9, 737 de la corde entiere.
On n'a point entendu de son,
cela est encore fort naturel.
740[au lieu]740 du741 son de la corde
aliquotes,
l€s fassevibrer
& resonner chacune en particulier,
de sorte
que les vibrations
plus fortes de la corde en produisent
de plus foibles
dans ses parties,
ce phenomene se congoit & n'a rien de contradictoire.
Mais qu'une aliquote puisse emouvoir son tout, en lui donnant des
vibrations
plus lentes,
& consequemment plus fortes;
(*) qu'une force
quelconque en produise une autre triple
& une autre quintuple d'ellememe, c'est ce que l'observation
dement, & que la raison ne peut admettre.
Si l'experience
de M. Rameau est vraie il faut necessairement
que celle
de M. SauveurU soit fausse.
Car, si une corde resonnante fait vibrer
son triple
& son quintuple,
il s 1 ensuit que les noeuds de M. Sauveur ne
pouvoient exister,
que sur la resonnance d'une partie,
la corde entiere
ne pouvoit fremir, que les papiers blancs & rouges devoient egalement
tomber, & qu'il faut rejetter
sur ce fait,
le temoignage de toute
l'Academie.
Que M. Rameau prenne la peine de nous expliquer ce que c'est
qu'une corde sonore qui vibre & ne resonne pas.
Voici certainement
une
nouvelle physique.
Ce ne sont done plus les vibrations
du corps sonore
qui produisent
le son, & nous n'avons qu'a chercher une autre cause.
(*).
Ce qui rend les vibrations
plus lentes,
c'est,
ou plus de matiere
dans la corde, ou son plus grand ecart de la ligne de repos.
727.
728.
Examen de deux principes,
Ibid.:
ici.
729.
<crois>
730.
Examen de deux principes,
731.
732.
Abbreviation
<on>
733.
734.
Examen de deux_principes,
qu'<on>
735.
plus <on a vu fremir>
736.
737.
<ses>
a mouvoir
for
The deleted
Au reste.
CTWR,V, p. 284:
conjecture
meme.
'Premierement'.
CTWR,V, p. 284:
word is reinstated
738.
Examen de deux principes,
<fremisseme> <commun(?)>
739.
<totales>
740.
<On attendoit>
<le>
741.
CTWR,V, p. 284:
in the Examen de deux principes.
CTWR,V, p. 284:
479
systeme.
cela pour le fremissement.
�entiere 742[qu'on attendoit)
on [n'Ja743,742 eu que l'unisson
de la
petite744
745[et} on [ne l'a]7LJ5 pas distingue.
Le fait important
dont il falloit
s'assurer
et dont depondoit tout le reste, c'etoit 74 6
qu'il n'existoit
point de noeuds immobiles 74 7.
Quand cette experience seroit vraye les origines qu'en deduit
M. Rameau n'en748 seroient pas 74 9mieux fondes7 49 .
Car l'harmonie
ne consiste pas dans des750 raports de vibrations
mais dans le
concours des sons qui en resultent.
Et si ces sons751 sont nuls,
753 [du monde] 753 leur
752 [comment toutes les] 75 2 proportions
754
754
donneroient
[elles une]
existence qu'ils n'ont pas 755 .
lM. Tartini a trouve une origine
bien n'etre pas plus solide que celle
paroisse au moins apperceue avec plus
~ais ce qu'il a plus reellcment trouve
de la dissonance aussi 758 naturelle
et
que la consonance la plus parfaite 1
du mode mineur,&g qui pourroit
de M. Rameau quoiqu'elle
[de lumiere et} de sagacite:
c'est la 756 [productionJ 757
aussi precisement determinee
l[J'aurois
beaucoup a dire encore, rnaisJl 759[11 est terns
75 9.
de rn')arrete[r]
Voila jusqu'ou ll'exarnenl 760 des erreurs
761 [de) M. Rameau 1ou des miennes 1 , 76 peut 76~[importer a la science
harmonique]762.
Le reste n'interesse
ni 7631e[s lecteursJ 763 ni moi
742.
<et> <[rnais}> <l'>on a
743.
a<(voit)>
744.
Examen de deux principes,
745,
<qu'>on <n'en a>
746.
Examen de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 284:
plus petite
CTWR,V, p. 285:
etoit.
partie.
747.
Ibid.:
& que, tandis qu'on n'entendoit
que le son d'une partie,
on voyoit frernir la corde dans la totalite;
ce qui est faux.
748.
Ibid.:
ne.
749.
Ibid.:
plus reelles.
750.
Ibid.:
les.
751,
<no>
752.
<des>
753.
<ne>
754.
<pas>
755.
End of p. 21v.
756.
<l'origine
757.
<generation>
758.
759.
760.
<non moi> aussi
<Je m1 >arrete <ici>
<la discussion>
<[la rech)>
761.
<que> M. Rameau <me reproche
762.
<etre utile
763.
le <public>
de la>
au progres
et de celles
de l'art>
480
qu'il
commet>
�meme.
764,765[Arme par le droit d'une juste deffense]765
J'avois
a
combattre deux ~rincipcs
de 766[cet auteur] 766 dont l'un 767 [a]
produit
[toute] 68 la [mauvaise) musique dont 769 son ecole inonde le
public depuis nombre d'annees;
l'autre
le mauvais accompagne[ment]
qu'on apprend par sa methode.
J'avois a montrer que son sisteme
harmonique, est insuffisant770,
mal prouve et fonde sur [une]771
fausse experience.
~•ai cru ces recherches
interessantes;
j'ai 77 2
7 3M. Rameau a 773 dit ou dira les siennes,
dit mes raisons
le public
nous jugera.
?7 4 si je finis 77 S sitot cet ecrit ce n'est pas que la
matiere me manque lpour le prolongerl.
Mais j'en ai 776asses dit776
pour 777[l'utilite
de777 l'art
et pour] l'honneur
de 778[la veriteJ778,
je ne [croisJ779,780
avoir 781besoin de781 deffendre le mien contre
les outrages de M. Rameau764 ,7 82
Tant qu[ 1 il] 783 m'atta~ue,
en
Artiste;
je me fais un devoir de lui repondre et discute 84
785volontiers
avec lui785 les points contestes
lentre nousl.
764.
Added on another part of p. 22r.
The passage
intercalation
appears above it on the same page.
765.
<Jene finirois
de detail> <Je me>
point
si je voulois
766.
<M. Rameau>
767.
l'un
768.
<toute>
769.
770.
<son>
771.
<de>
772.
<mais j'ai>
773.
<il a>
774.
choses
a dire
775.
finis
776.
Examen de deux principes,
777.
<[le bien]>
[l'utilite
<[l'art]>
<est la sources
entrer
following
the
dans les erreurs
de>
<[sa]>
<defectueux>
<Tout> <Pour moi, je> <Il me resteroit
mais je finis> [ce n'est]
sans doute beaucoup de
<cet ecrit>
778.
<la verite>
779.
<pense>
780.
781.
Examen de deux principes,
Ibid.:
a
782.
End of p. 22r.
783.
qu<e M. Rameau>
784.
discute
CTWR,V, p. 285:
<publique
dit
assez.
et> de)
CTWR,V, p. 285:
crois
CTWR,V, p. 285:
avec lui
pas.
<avec>
785.
Examen de deux principes,
volontiers.
481
�786sitot787 que l'homme se montre [et m'attaque personnellement),
n'ai plus rien a lui dire et ne 78S[connois789 en lui]788 que le
musicien790,
786.
<Mais>
787.
Sitot
788.
<connois> <[vois)>
789.
Exarnen de deux principes,
<qu'il
m'attaque
790.
End of the main part
principes.
personnellement
je
et>
<en lui>
CTWR,V, p. 285:
vois.
of the Ms R 60 and of the Examen de deux
482
�FRAGMENTS
A.
P. lv.
Je rne fais joie de demontrer791 qu'il n'y a pas deux de
qui soient rigoureusement 793 le merne incervalle;
ils le
par le temperament fonde sur notre systeme harmonique.
identifies
par l'harmonie,
mais la Melodie en appelle et
juge en sa faveur.
B.
ces ut fa792
sont devenus
Ils sont
l'oreille
P. 3v.
Ou la mesure commune sera si vague qu'en l'accelerant
ou la
retardant
au gre du chanteur la ee264 quantite qui sera breve en un
lieu se trouvera longue en un 794 autre de sorte que le mouvement ne
sera point un, n'aura point de caractere
determine et ne portera
jamais a l'oreille
un temoignage assure de lui-meme.
C.
Pp. 6v-9v, verso sides
only.
Nul son appreciable
n'est unique, mais quoiqu'au 79S premier jugement
796[du sens]796 on croye n'en entendre qu'un seul, une797 oreille
exercee 798 et attentive
aidee de quelques precaution
distingue
outre
le son principal
qui domine, plusieurs
autres sons plus aigus qui
l'accompagnent
toujours.
Ces sons concomitans sont dans une corde
sonore ceux que rendroient
les diverses aliquotes
de cette corde, avec
cette difference
que 799[les sonsJ799 des premieres [et plus grandes]
791.
<pre>
792.
fa<s>
793.
<ex>
794.
un<e>
795.
<outre
796.
<de l'oreille
797.
<auss>
798.
<plus> exercee
799.
<ceux>
le <[ce]> son principal
ce son>
483
il>
�aliquotes
sont plus sensibles,
et qu'en devenant plus aigus ils
deviennent aussi plus difficile5
a [disti,1gutr) AOO. C' est au801
physiciens
!d]80 2 expliquer s'ils
peu[t]80S ce phenomene, c'est au
Musicien 80 d'fy chercherJ 804 le principe de l'harmonie et [ae
s' [ef)forcerJ 805 d'en deduire S06[comme d'une cause naturelle
toutes
les regles de son artJ806,
Toutes les ali~uotes
possibles
se trouvent dans la80 7 serie
809Ainsi, l'unite
naturelle
des nombre 08 mise en fractions.
representant
la corde entiere,
tousles
sons qui accompagnent810
naturellement
le sien et qu'on appelle ses harmoniques sont8ll
exprimes par cette progression.
1
1
2
1
1
4.
3
5
1
6
l
7
Ces raports8l2
representent
les longueurs des cordes que rendent
813 [plus 814 ces cordes sont longues
les hamoniques
[du son principal:)
plus1813 leurs vibrations
sont lentes de sorte que 815[le nombre
desJ~l5 vibrations
etant toujours en raison inverse de la longueur des
cordes 816 il ne faut que renverser la [progression) 817 precedente pour
avoir818 au lieu des longueurs des cordes les nombres des vibrations.
800.
<appercevoir>
801.
au<x>
802.
<a>
803.
peu<vent>
804.
805.
d'<en tirer>
s'<ap(?)>
<former> <[trouverJ>
806.
<(autant qu'il peutJ>
soit fonde dans la nature>
807.
<sa>
808.
<so>
809.
<Ainsi>
810.
<l'>accompagnement
811.
<dont>
812.
<nombres>
813.
814.
<Il y a d'autres
<et> plus
815.
<les>
816.
cordes
817.
<serie>
818.
avoir
<les regles
raports
qui representent
<on n'a>
<celle
de son art
des>
484
afin
que cet art
les vibrations>
�819 [or pour faire ce renversementJ 819 il suffit d'oter les numerateurs [des fractions]
et de mettre en nombre entiers les
denomiteurs 820 joignant done ces deux series de la maniere suivante.
on aura 82l[tout a la fois pour chaque harmonique]821 les raports des
longueurs et ceux des vibrations.
822pour la comodite 823[j'aiouterai
autant de] Lettre(s
dont 824J <chacune> 823 designera dans la suite son
harmonique correspondan
longueurs 825 des aliquotes
l·-
nombre des vibrations
<l
1·2
Gammepar Lettres
1
1
3
2
1
l
1
l
&
4
5
6
7
3
4
5
6
7•
G
C
e
g
b>•826
2>
<C
827 r1 est necessaire
de 828 [bien distinguer]
a ces 828 deux series
pour eclaircir
le langage equivoque des Musiciens car [si] l'un vous
dit 83 0 que 831 la quinte ut sol est en raison de 832[3) a [2•]832 il
entend la longueur des cordes et si l'autre
vous dit que la meme quinte
est en raison de 2· a 3 il ~arle 833 des vibrations.
834sitot qu'on
835
35
836
sait que
[le nombre des)
vibrations
augment[e]
, et [que) les
819.
<Ce renversement
est>
820.
821.
Presumably 'denominateurs'.
<tout a la fois>
822.
<a quoi j'ajouterai>
823.
824.
<une> Lettre
<qui>
825.
<raports
826.
Endo~
82 7.
<comme J> <E>
828.
<faire
829.
830.
Presumably
dit<es>
831.
que <[de)>
832.
<trois>
833.
<en> parle
834.
<Qua> <Si(?)>
835.
<les>
836.
<fo> <vont.en
<qui a chaque harmonique>
d>es longueurs
p. 6v.
829qua me (?)829 attention
awe>
'quand rneme'.
a <deux>
multipliant>
augment<ant>
4-85
�longueurs des cordes diminu[e) 837 [en grandeur)
l'equivoque n'est plus a craindre.
d[uJ 838 grave
a l'aigu
8390n a~pelle intervalle
la 840[quantite
dontJ 840 deux sons
84
(different]
entre eux du grave a l'aigu ainsi 842 la corde entiere
et toutes ses aliquotes
donnant autant de sons differens,
les rapports
de chaque aliquote avec la corde entiere,
et de deux aliquotes
entre
843Le premier et plus simple 844de
elles ferment autant d'intervalles
[cesJ8 44 rapports apres celui d'egalite
est le raport double OU d'un a
deux et [dans] l'intervalle
qu'il donne 845 [les extremes sent tellement
confondus] 845 que l'oreille
les prend aisement l'un pour l'autre,
et
cela est si vrai que8 46 847 [dans le melange desJ 847 voix d'hommes et
[de] 848 femmes849 ce rapport double [appelle [octave] diaoason) est pris
absolument pour [l'unisson
qui est) le raport d'egalite 85 0 et les
femment 851 chantent a l'octave
des hommes croyant chanter a
l'unisson. 852
853 [ 854 [jointe a] la] 853 propriete
Cette similitude,
d'etre 855
(et le plus simfle de tousles
raports et) le premier intervalle
engendre fait85
prendre indifferemment l'un pour l'autre
les deux
sons qui ferment l'octave.857,843
837.
<en> diminu<ant>
838.
d<e> <l'aigu au>
839.
<Le plus simple de tousles
rapports apres celui d'egalite
est <fla
rapport rai)>
[le rapport) double ou d'un a deux> This deleted passage,
which forms the beginning of a paragraph, is reinstated
in the text after
the next sentence.
840.
<difference
que> <de que>
841.
<forment>
842.
ainsi
843.
This passage
844.
845,
de<s>
<l'oreille
846.
qu<a(?)><['en)>
847.
<les>
848.
<celles
849.
femmes <se vi(?)>
850.
d'egalite
851.
Presumably
852.
853.
<Des(?)>
<cette simplicite
854.
<de son>
855.
856.
d'etre <la>
fait <prendre
<il> <toutes
les a>
is encircled
in the text.
confond tellement
les deux extremes>
les
des>
<appelle>
'femmes'.
857.
<Cette erreur
une erreur ou nous>
de raport
indifferemment
de l'oreille
et la>
l'un
pour l'autre>
servant
de principe
486
a tout
systeme C'est
�858ce sont des proprietes
de la quantite abstraitte
et non de
la quantite
physique858,859
combines 86 0 la serie des nombres qui representent
861 ou la retardation
l'acceleration
des corps [tombansJ 862 du haut
863
en bas ou [jettesJ
du bas en haut vous trouverez des progressions
arithmetiques
geometriques,
harmoniques, des progressions864
de
puissances
qui sont autant de proprietes
des nombres qui e~riment8 65
86 [ces
ces effets de la ~glure:
Mais qui s'av~~?ra d'attribuer
proprietes
rnemes]
a la pesantel}r'.
[elles appartiennent
a!867
808
la quantite
abstraite
et non [aJ
la quantite physique, elles 8 9
n'ont rien de cornmun avec la rnatiere et sont inseparable
des nombres. 870
871
87
[essentielles
seulement a la quantite discutee]
l elles se
trouvent par acciden[tJ 872 dans les effets de la pesanteur elles se
874 [mais elles
trouvent par accident dans l[esJ 873 causg~ de l'hamonie
5
4
sont d'une nature entierernent
differente
et de]
1, force qui fait
tomber les corps 876 [et deJ 876 celle qui fait [sonnerJ 8 7 les cordes.
858.
This passage, which is encircled
following page (see the passage covered
859.
End of p. 7v.
860.
combines <differenunent>
861.
862.
l'acceleration
<jettes>
863.
864.
<pousses>
<gr>
865.
expriment
866.
<ces propri>
867.
868.
<Ce sont des proprietes
<de>
869.
elles
870.
nombres.
in the text, is reinstated
on the
by notes 867 and 868 below).
<des corps tombans>
<les propri>
de>
<sont inseparable>
<[elles]>
871.
<ou si vous n 1attribuez
<[proprietes]>
de la quantite>
872.
acciden<s>
873.
l<a>
874.
<et n'ont
875.
differente
876.
<ni avec>
877.
<vibrer>
pas
a la
rien de conunun ni avec>
<de>
487
pe<sante(?)>santeur
les mesures
�appliques done le calcul a la recherche des Loix de nature mais n'alles
point chercher ces loix dans des analogies 878 purement [ideales)8 79 qui
n'ont et ne peuvent avoir gu'une 880 verite88l
abstraitte
et
metaphysique. 882
Il est clair gue si nous voulons suivre les directions
de la
nature 883 [la serie des] 883 Intervales
precedens [ou 884 ceux gu'on en
peut composer] seront les [seuls] elemens de tout le systeme
harmonique8 85 et meme de la melodie et du chant car s'il peut y avoir
guelque analogie naturelle
entre un son quelconque et ceux qui lui
succedent elle doit etre tiree de l'analyse
de ce premier son de sorte
que lessons
dent il est 886 accompagne le lient a ceux dent il est
suivi.
Etudions done les rappo~ts precedens et tachons d'en tirer un 887
888 [systeme harmonieux8 89JEE8 qui oe soit pas seulement un ouvrage de
l'habitude 89 0 expligue 891 (par le prejuge] mais une regle imnuable et
physique qui ait sa base dans la nature.
Tousles
sons concomitans 892 qui [accompagnentJ 893 le son
principal,
consonent [tellement]
avec lui [meme] et entre eux qu 1 ils 894
878.
<ala>
879.
<abstraittes
et numeriques <[numerotees<[iques]>
telles
que des
p~oportions harmoniques <[des proportions
combinees]> ou arithmetique,
directe<ment>[s)
ou renversees>
880.
qu'une
<re>
881.
verite
<abstraitte
882.
A horizontal
883.
<les>
884.
OU
et metaphysique
line divides
et>
the page at this
point.
<[d(?))>
885.
harmonique <et qu'aussitot
que nous tenterons d'en ajouter <e> [o)u
substituer
d'autres
chacun pourra chercher a son gre des analogies
<arbitraire>
<[abstraites]>
[metaphysiques] <que> celui qui aura le plus
d'imagination
en pourra trouver davantage et batira dans sa tete un art
qui n'aura d'autre
fondement que des raports <ar> purement arbitraires
<qu'un autre> [raports qu']avec plus d'esprit
[encore un autre) pourra
changer a sa fantaisie.>
886.
End of p. 8v.
887.
un<e>
888.
<[les
gamme[s) ha:nnonieuse<ques> et vocale>
889.
[harmonieux <de la>] <nature afin d'y conformer le notre
nos chants et nos accords ne soient pas>
890.
l'habitude
<que la raison
891.
<d'>explique<r>
892.
<q>
893.
<renforcent
tache <[veut)>
et que
ensuite>
et embelissent>
894.
qu'ils
<sont inseparables.
Ence sens,
rendus par les aliquotes
d'une corde sonore>
488
tou<tes>[s]
lessons
�ne forment [tous ensemble] qu'une sensation unique et sont
inseparable3;
en ce sens les intervalles
[produits) 895 par les
aliquotes
a l[']infini
sont autant de consonances.
Mais [coe 276 je
1
l ai deja di t J de ces consonances les unes sont sensibles
1e·s autres
896 [et quoiqu'avecJ 896 un peu d'attention
ne le sont pas.
les
premieres s'appercoivent
aisement mais plus elles s'eloignent
moins
898 , 899
897 [il faut employer] 897 [l]'artifice
l'oreille
peut les saisir
il faut monter des cordes a l'unisson
de ces900 moindres aliquotes
pour s'assurer
de leur ressonance 901 et prolongeant toujours les
902 nous refuse enfin tout a fait son temoignage
divisions
l'oreille
tandis que les vibrations
nous laissent 903 celui du <tact> et des
yeux, et 904 quand 905 [1es vibrations] 90 5 echapent a notre vue le tnct
nous assure encore de leur existence.
De sorte que nous ftrouvonsJ 906
nos sens successivement en defaut [et]90? la loi [Physique~08
toujoursJ
constante.
909~n~ remarque importante qui [peut]910 servir 91l[a
expliquer 1 ~unite913 [possible91 4 ) de fchaque]915 accords] 91 1 c'est
que si les harmoniques deviennent plus 9 6 [distincts
du generateur] 916
895.
<formes>
896.
<Avec>
897.
<et avec un peu>
898.
<d>'artifice
899.
[l)'artifice
900.
ces <a>
<les yeux s'assurent
901.
ressonance
cordes meme>
<et l'on
902.
l'oreille
<tou>
903.
laissent
<encore>
904.
et <celui
905.
<elles>
906.
<surprenons
907.
<tandis
908.
<de na> <demeure>
909.
<Une rema>
910.
<devroit>
911.
<de fondement
du tact
ainsi
voit
reste
de leur existence>
encore <[encore]>
vibrer
le dernier>
tous>
que>
<(pourroit]>
a toute
la doctrine
1
912.
<l >expliquer
913.
l'unite
914.
possible
915.
<tousles>
916.
<foibles>
<harmonique>
<ou possible(?)>
489
harmonique>
<[celles]>
ces
�a mesure
oue leurs raports se composent ils deviennent aussi plus
918au contraire
[foihles]g 17 .
[si) les premieres aliquotes
donnent
des harmoniques ~lus919 forts920 elles les donnent aussi plus confus
de sorte <fque)> 21 plus le son concomitant 922 [est sensible1 922 et
moins on le distingue
du 923 son principal 924 [ou~ [mieux on le
distingue
et Elus il est foible.]
C'est cette 9 5 926[proportion
92
927
reciproqueJ
entre
l[aJ
force des sons 928 donnes par les raports
simples et la sensibilite
des sons donnes par les raports composes qui
compense tellement
l'effet
total que tousles
harmoniques se
confondent egalement a l'oreille
dans le son generateu~ et qu'on croit
29
n'entendre
qu'un son quand il s'en forme une infinite.
D.
P. 22v.
a Dieu ne plaise que je refuse a M. Rameau les hommages dus a
ses talens je sais qu'il a employe beaucoup de genie a creer un fort
mauvais genre.
E.
Proprement il n'y auroit
donneroient 930 des dissonances
917.
<distincts
918.
<en>
919.
<beaucoup> plus
920.
forts
P. 22v.
que les incommensurables qui
[p]ar 931 ce que n'ayant aucune mesure
du generateur.>
<en reco> <compensation>
921.
<qu'on a peine
part(?))>
a distinguer>
922.
<a> [a) <de force>
923.
<ai(?)>
924.
principal
<avec lequel>
925.
<a l'aide
de> <[par]>
926.
<raison
927.
l<es>
928.
<harmoniques>
929.
930.
End of p. 9v.
<n'au>
931.
<c>ar
cette
inverse>
490
<[que l'harmonique
plus quoique
�commune ils ne peuvent se rapporter
a un seul toin 932 ni ~ar
consequent avoir aucun son fondamental [commun], mais il 9 3 faut 934
remarquer que plus les intervalles
se composent et plus leur son
fondamenal
s'eloigne
a cause qu'a chaque nombre double935 comme
2· 4· 8· 16 & on gagne une octave de sorte que quand les nombres qui
expriment les raports sont tres grands l'unite
en est tres eloignee.
C'est ainsi que quoique ies deux sons qui ferment le triton a[y)ent 936
une mesure commune et par consequent un 937 son fondamental,
le triton
doit pourtant passer pour dissonant parce que le son fondamental qui
[l']engendre
ne le donne qu'a la 5e octave et par consequent hors du
systeme harmonique.938
F.
P. 23v.
grace aux [leconsJ 939 que j'ai prises dans les ecrits
de M. Rameau
940 [d'ajouter
Il ne m'est pas impossible
quelques sons a] 940 la musique
fran9oise941
942
[mais je ne suis plus rien] par tout ou la Musique Italienne
43
porte9
ses accens et ses charmes, 944Alors j'ecoute
et me tais et [si]
45
946 [etouffe celle de l'amour propre] 946 il
~ [la voix du] 945 plaisir
n'en est pas moins V!'ai qu'en plai[d)ant 947 la cause de 94 8 cet art divin
je sacrifie
[mon] interest 949 a la verite 9SO[n'exigeon9Sl
point de]950
M. Rameau qu'il en [fasseJ 95 2 autant.953
932.
Presumably 'ton'.
933.
<les>
934.
<re>
935.
double <on gagne une o>
936.
a<i>ent
937.
un<e>
938.
End of p. 22v.
939.
<lecons>
940.
<Parmi>
941.
fran9oise
<la mienne peut se faire entendre>
942.
<Je <s>[f]erois
peut etre> <dans>
943.
porte<ra>
944.
<s> <[L]a mienne ne sera rien>
945.
<le>
946.
<dedommage simplement la vanite>
947.
plai<g>
948.
de <l'art>
949.
<1 1 >interest
950.
<on sera peu surpris
que> <[sans <blamer> etre offense ni surpris
que]> <M. Rameau fasse tout le contraire.
On auroit tort <[ne doit
point(?)]>
exiger de>
951.
Presumably 1n 1 exigeant 1 •
952.
<fit>
953.
End of p. 23v.
491
�Pp. 26v-25v. 954
G.
Mais a qui tient-il
que H. Rameau ne termine une fois cette dispute
aux yeux de tout paris, qu'il monte dans une trib~ne,
qu'il pose
ses [savantes] mains sur un Clavier, qu'il epuise 955 [dans un plein
jeu) tousles
secrets de son art qu'il fasse triompher la plus
95 7 [ 958mais qu'il en retranche la mesure] 957
[divine) 956 harmonie.
et voyons quels transports
il va exciter parmi ses spectateurs
de
quelle ardeur [martiale)
il vales
animer, quel[sJ 959 attendrissement
vont causer ces admirables transitions
enharmoniques et ces modulations
savantesauxquels
il attri.bue 960 tant de pouvGir?
Jene doute point
qu'il ne se fasse admirer par les gens de l'art
et 961 mes
applatdissemens 962 , si vils a ses yeux pour etre comEtes 963 [ne lui) 963
seront pas 964 donnes de moins bon coeur.
Mais 965 9 6 [ce que je lui
966
demande ce ne sont]
pas des prodiges d'harmonie, je les attends de
lui, je lui demande d'emouvoir son auditoire,
et lui permets de le
968L'orgue est [certainement)
choisir96 7
un Instrument
[ad.mirable] 969 , il le fera accorder a sa fantaisie,
il sera le maitre
d[')en 970 assortir
les jeux, 971 [ses musiciens seront ses doits 972 et]
il n'aura 973 point a se plaindre de l'execution 974 .
[que lui
manquera-t-il
done pour la rendre parfaite)
Peut etre le defaut de
954.
See Jansen,
955.
<epu> <fasse
pp. 468-469.
956.
<savante>
957.
<M>
958.
<mais qu'il
959.
quel<les>
960.
<lui plait>
961.
et <si>
962.
applatdissemens
963.
<n'en>
964.
pas <moins un juste
965.
Mais <quoi>
966.
<Cette admiration>
967.
choisir
tri>
en re>
<n'etoient>
tri.but
[trop)
<pas>
que ceux qui lui
<je ne lui
seront>
demande>
<pourvu>
968.
<Que faut-il
de plus pour demontrer>
aura fait> <Il aura>
969.
<sonore et majestueux>
970.
de
971.
972.
End of p. 26v.
Presumably 'doigts'.
973.
il <ne se>
974.
l'execution
<Que[lle
<[bri]>
<des Musiciens
attendu
492
qu'il>
condition
lui]>
<Il
�mesure le genera-t-il?
hebien je la lui accorde encore mais point de
melodie et toujours le plein jeu [c'est a dire au moins les 4•
parties.]
Voila je crois toutes les conditions que M. Rameau peut
demander pour prou~er [autentiquement)
la puissance de l'harmonie,
977 J je
et 975 malgre toutes les raisons 976 [qui me favoris[senti
97 8[ne balancerai
point apresJ 978 cette experience
[de) 79
reconnoitre 98 0 mon t[o)rt 981 publiquement.982
975.
et <je n'attens>
976.
raisons
977.
<font> favoris<er>
978.
979.
<n'attends
<pour la>
980.
reconnoitre
981.
t<r>ort
982.
End of p. 25v,
<continues>
<que je crois
que>
<que de>
493
avoir>
�EXPLANATORY
NOTES
a. Rousseau already had had occasion to thank Rameau in 1742 (see
the passage from the Confessions,
O.C.I, pp. 285-286 cited in eh. IV,
note 4) for drawing his attention
to some technically
awkward features
of his Projet concernant de nouveaux signes pour la musique.
b. The same point was to be made in 1756 by Diderot and d'Alemhert
(see CTWR,V, pp. 289-290) in their foreword to volwne VI of the
Encyclopedie.
In a number of his articles
on music for that work
(see, for instance,
the passages from 'Accompagnement' and 'Dissonance'
cited in eh. IV, p. 246) which Rameau had already seen by the time
he drafted his Erreurs sur la musigue, Rousseau in fact acknowledged
his great debt to Rameau1 s theory.
c.
See eh. IV, p. 244 and note 23.
d. In his Confessions (see O.C.I, p. 348) Rousseau claims that he
had been allowed only three months to complete his articles
and had
managed to do so in that period.
As he makes clear, both in this
passage and in a letter
to Madame de Warens of 27 January 1749 (see
the Correspondance complete, II, pp. ll2-113),
he worked full time
and under great strain in order to fulfil
this commitment.
e. In 1752, in his Lettre a M. Grimm sur 'Omphale' (see La Querelle
des Bouffons, I, pp. 112-114, and eh. IV, note 26), Rousseau had already
made much the same charge about the excess of harmonic accompaniment
in Rameau's music.
f. This putative quotation does not figure in Rameau's Erreurs sur
la musique, but it closely approximates the sense of the following
passage (CTWR, V, pp. 227-228) which appears in that work: "Tel qui
cherche 1 1 harmonie dont il peut accompagner un chant qu'il a imagine,
cherche justernent le principe qui le lui a suggere, principe dont le
germe est en lui, & dont toutes les dependances s'y developpent a
mesure que 1 1experience le favorise."
_g_, So far
as I know Rousseau had never previously referred to such
an experiment, nor did be mention it again in any of his later
writings.
From time to time, however, in order better to distinguish
between natural and artificial
forms of musical expression,
he
pointed to what he regarded as the unadulterated
taste of persons who
lacked any training
in music.
Thus, for instance,
in his Lettre sur
la musique frangoise
(see La Querelle des Bouffons, I, pp. 699-701),
he remarked upon the fact that an Armenian "qui n'avoit
jamais entendu
de Musique" had at once been enchanted by an Italian melody though he
had only been surprised by a French song which he heard at the same
time.
�h.
Cf. the following passages in the Discours sur l'inegalite:
"C'est cette ignorance de la nature de l'homme qui jette tant
d'incertitude
et d'obscurite
sur la veritable
definition
du droit
naturel .... Mais tant que nous ne connoitrons point l'homme naturel,
c'est en vain que nous voudrons determiner la Loi qu'il a re~ue ou
celle qui convient le mieux a sa constitution"
(O.C.III,
pp. 124-125);
"L'Homme Sauvage ... commencera ... par les fonctions
purement animales:
appercevoir et sentir sera son premier etat,
qui lui sera commun avec tousles
animaux.
Vouloir et ne pas
vouloir,
desirer et craindre,
seront les premieres, et presque les
seules operations de son ame, jusqu'a ce que de nouvelles circonstances y causent de nouveaux developpemens" (ibid.,
pp. 142-143);
"Le premier langage de l'homme ... est le cri de la Nature" (ibid.,
p. 148).
Rousseau's brief remark, in this paragraph of the
Ms R 60, about the influence of climate in the formation of languages
is developed at much greater length in chs. viii-xi
(pp. 87-137) of
the Essai sur l'origine
des langues.
Amongthe many sources from
which his ideas on this subject were drawn, see especially
Lamy,
La Rhetorique ou l'art de oarler,
I.xv, pp. 81-82; Dubos,
Reflexions critiques
sur la poesie et sur la peinture,
II.xv,
pp. 251-276; and Condillac, Essai sur l'origine
des connoissances
humaines, II.i.5,
§56, OPC, I, pp. 76-77.
i.
Cf. the Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh. xii, pp. 139-141:
"Les premiers discours furent les pr~mi~res chansons .... Dire et
chanter .... eurent la meme source et ne furent d'abord que la meme
chose."
In his Essai sur l'origine
des connoissances hurnaines (see
II.i. 5, §43, OPC, p. 73) Condillac ha:d earlier commented upon the
natural connection between speech and song, though in his view our
earliest
vocal inflexions
must have given rise, not so much to melody,
as Rousseau supposed, hut rather to harmony.
For his part, Rameau
who had always maintained that music is natural to man, also aliowed,
in his Code de musique pratique of 1760 (CTWR,IV, p. 189), that "la
Musique, sirnplement consid~ree dans les differentes
inflexions
de la
voix ... a du etre notre premier langage".
In a section of that work
(eh. xiv) which includes a renewed attack upon the ideas of Rousseau,
Rameau still
insisted
(ibid.),
however, that "notre instinct ... s'etend
jusque sur l'harnonie,
comme je l'ai deja prouve".
j.
See Rameau's Generation harmonique, CTWR,III, p. 29, and
especially
his Demonstration du principe de 1 1 harmonie, ibid.,
pp. 172-174.
By the time he prepared his article
'Bruit'
for the
Dictionnaire
de musique Rousseau was still
more doubtful about his
agreement with Eameau on this point, remarking (p. 60) that we might
conjecture
that "le Bruit n'est point d'une autre nature que le Son;
qu'il n'est lui-meme que la sornme d'une multitude confuse de Sons
divers, qui se font entendre a la fois & contrarient,
en quelque sorte,
mutuellement leurs ondulations".
k.
Cf. the following passage in the Essai sur 1 1 origine des langues,
eh. xii, p. 143: "Nous sommes toujours dans l'etonement
sur les
effets prodigieux de l'eloquence
de la poesie et de la musique parmi
les Grecs, ces effets ne s'arrangent
point dans nos tetes,
parce que
nous n'en eprouvons plus de pareils."
Rousseau's thesis that the
ancient Greek language was the most musical of all is expounded at
much greater length in his later writings,
particularly
in the
495
�Dictionna.ire de rnusi1ue ( see especially
the articles
'Mesure 1 ,
'Rfcitatif',
und 'Rhythme').
s~e also the ObRervations sur
l''Al~este'
de Gluck, Moultou-Du Peyrou, VIII, p. 559.
The musical
qualities
of ancient languages were extolled by many writers in the
Enlightenment,
and Rousseau's ideas were certainly
inspired by some
other works, in particular
by Dubos's Reflexions critiques
sur la
poesie et sur la peinture
(see III.vi,
pp. 102-111).
But in most
of these works Greek and Latin were treated together,
whereas
Rousseau's praise was generaJ.ly lavished upon Greek alone.
l.
Rousseau's claim here is in sharp contrast ~ith his remarks
about historical
truth in the Discours sur l'inegalite.
See
especially
the following passages:
"Commen9ons.. ,par ecarter tous
les faits,
car ils ne touchent point a la question,
Il ne faut pas
prendre les Recherches, dans_lesquelles
on peut entrer sur ce Sujet,
pour des verites
historiques,
mais seulement pour des raisonnemens
hypothetiques
et conditionnels"
(O.C.III,
pp. 132-133);
"J'avoue
que les evenemens que j 1 ai a decrire ayant pu arriver
de plusieurs
manieres, je ne puis me determiner sur le choix que par des
conjectures"
(ibid,,
p. 162).
m.
Cf. 'Accent',
Dictionnaire
de musioue, p. 2: "Il y a autant
d'Accens differens
qu'il y a de manieres de modifier ainsi la
voix ...• l'Accent grammatical ... l'Accent logique ... enfin l'Accent
pathetiquec,uoratoire,
qui, par diverses inflexions
de voix, par un
ton plus ou moins eleve, par un parler plus vif ou plus lent, exprime
les sentimens dont celui qui parle est agite,
& les communique a ceux
qui 1 1ecoutent."
~In his article
'Accompagnement' for the Ericyclopedie (I, p. 77)
Rousseau had already described harmony as "du bruit .... qui puisse
distraire
l 'oreille
du sujet principal"
of a music.::.l work, and
Rameau later took objection
to this remark, claiming, in his Erreurs
sur la musique (CTWR, V, pp. 207-208), that "le mot de bruit trop
familier
~ l'Auteur,
en fait d'harmonie,
ne peut gueres etre prononce
que contre une mauvaise harmonie 11,
In nearly all of his writings on
music after the Encyclopedie,
however, Rousseau developed the thesis
that song, conceived in terms of a melodic line, must always occupy_ a
central place in music, whereas harmony was, at best, an embellishment
of song and, at worst, a distracting
noise,
See, for instance,
the
passages from the Lettre sur la musique fran9oise,
La Querelle des
Bouffons, I, p. 707; the Examen de deux principes,
CTWR, V, p. 277; and
the Observations
sur l''Alceste'
de Gluck, Moultou-Du Peyrou, VIII,
pp. 565-566;.
cited, respectively,
in eh. IV, pp. 251 and 292, and
note 142.
~•
Cf, the Essai sur l'origine
des langues, eh, xii, p. 141:
"Etoit-il
etonant que les premiers Grammairiens soumissent leur
lamusique et fussent a la fois professeurs
de l'un et de l'autre?"
As evidence for this claim in the Essai Rousseau notes a passage
Quintilian's
Institutio
oratoria
to which he was probably drawn
reading of Dubos (see the R~flexions critiques
sur la poesie et
peinture,
III.i,
p. 16) .
.P.·
art
a
from
by his
sur la
Cf. the Essai sur l' ori§ine des langues, eh. Xl.l.l.l.,
p. 155:
"Les
plus beaux chants~
n5tre gre toucheront toujours mediocrement une
oreille
qui n'y sera point accoutumee;
c'est une langue dont il faut
avoir le Dictionnaire,"
496
�.9..
This passage may have been intended by Rousseau to rebut Rameau's
contention,
in his Observations sur notrP instinct
pour la musique
(CTWR, III, p. 277), that "noo Modernes ont ... eu tort de conclure,
sur
la faussete
du systeme de Pytagore, que les Anciens ne pratiquoient
pas l'harmonie".
Rameau had maintained (see for instance,
ibid.,
pp. 286-287) that the ancient Greek tetrachord
was constructed
upon the
same principle
of the resonating
'corps sonore' that provided the
harmonic pattern of the octave scale.
Rousseau never shared this
view, and he later argued (see the article
'Tetracorde'
in his
Dictionnaire
de musique, p. 512) that the tetrachord
had not been based
upon a principle
of harmony at all but was instead a pattern of both
speech and song which the Greeks had adopted in order to express the
sonorous in£lexions of their language,
r.
Rousseau is probably referring
here to the Elementa harmonica of
Aristoxenus and the De musica of Aristides
Quintilian.
While there
is some manuscript evidence that Rousseau was familiar with these
works through the seventeenth-century
jnterpretation
of them provided
in Marcus Meibom's Antiquae musicae, this comment in the Ms R 60 was
probably inspired by Dubos's R~flexions critiques
sur la poesie et
sur la peinture,
III.ii,
p. 24.
s.
Cf. the article
'Melodie' which Rousseau later prepared for the
Dictionnaire
de musique, p. 274: "Un Chant n'est un Chant qu'autant
qu'il est mesure .... la Melodie n'est rien par elle-meme;
c'est la
Mesure qui la determine, & il n'y a point de Chant sans le terns.
On
ne doit ... pas comparer la Melodie avec l'Harmonie, abstraction
faite
de la Mesure dans toutes les deux: car.elle
est essentielle
a l'une
& non pas a l'autre."
t.
In his article
'Enharmonique' for the Encyclopedie (see V,
pp. 688-689) Rousseau had already described the enharmonic genre of
the ancient Greeks in some detail,
maintaining that there were in fact
two classical
forms (of which only, one pertained to a true quarter
tone division .of the tetrachord
scale),
and insisting
that the
enharmonic genre as applied to the modern tempered scale was quite
unlike both ancient forms insofar as it stipulated
a purely notational
but in no way audible distinction
between quarter tones.
In the
Dictionnaire
de musique Rousseau developed his ideas on this subject
at still
greater length, and especially
in connection with the views
of Rameau he charged (see pp. 196-197) that the place for enharmonic
transitions
in modern music was not at all in arias but rather in
recitative.
Rousseau clearly regarded this article
as one of the
most important in the Dictionnaire,
and in March 1768, in a letter
to
Joseph-Jerome Le Fran~aisde
Lalande, he exclaimed (Correspondance
generaJ:e, XVIII, p. 157) that the subject is there "mieux explique
que dans aucun autre livre".
See also Rousseau juge de Jean Jaques,
O.C.I, p. 680, and Burney, A General History of Music, I, pp. 43-52.
I Centre-point'
u.
Cf. Rot•sseau' s articles
and 'Discant ou Dechant'
in the Dictionnaire
de musique, pp. 122-123 and 153-154.
v.
Cf. the following passage in the Examen·de deux principes,
CTWR,V, p. 277: "L'harmonie est une cause purement physique;
l'impression
qu'elle produit reste dans le meme ordre;
des accords
497
�ne peuvent qu'imprimer
ils donncroient plutot
aux nerfs un ebranlement passager
des vapeurs que de.: pcssions."
& sterile;
w.
The connection, in general, between music and painting as
artistic
forms of expression,
and the possibility,
in particular,
of
translating
notes of the scale into the medium of prismatic colours,
had captured the interest
of many thinkers in the eighteenth century
after the publication,
in the Mercure de France of November 1725
(see pp. 2552-2577), of Castel's
'Clavecin pour les yeux, avec l'art
de Peindre lessons'.
In his Erreurs sur la musique (see CTWR,V,
pp. 220-222) Rameau had commented upon the analogy in one of his many
demonstrations that harmony in music exercised a more profound effect
upon the soul than did melody, which, without a harmonic structure,
was in this context only like a confused succession of colours that
passed before the eyes of viewers too quickly to be understood.
Rousseau, for his part, was also familiar with Castel's ocular harpsichord (see, for instance,
the Essai sur l'origine
des langues,
eh. xvi, p. 169), and in a passage which figures in both the Ms R 60
and the Examen de deux orincioes
(see note 513 above and CTWR,V,
p. 277) he argued that the analogy between harmony in music and colour
in painting actually showed that neither could stir the soul in any
significant
way, whereas melody, on the one hand, and design, on the
other, gave artistic
expression its true force.
In the Essai sur
l'origine
des langues (see especially
chs. xiii and xvi) Rousseau
developed his ideas on this subject much further,
contending that
while painting was more like nature and ·music closer to art it was one
of the great advantages of the musician (p. 175) "de pouvoir peindre
les choses qu'on ne sauroit entendre, tandis qu'il est impossible au
Peintre de representer
celles qu'on ne sauroit voir".
This passage
was later incorporated
by Rousseau in his article
'Opera• for the
Dictionnaire
de musique (seep.
349).
Among earlier
eighteenthcentury commentaries on this subject with which Rousseau was certainly
familiar,
see especially
Dulles, Reflexions critiques
sur la poesie et
sur la oeintu.re, I.xlv, pp. 460-46~, and Serre, Essais sur les
principes de l'harmonie,
pp. 25-27.
x.
Rousseau refers to the 1 cri de la nature' which must have formed
men's original
language in many passages throughout his writings.
In
the Discours sur l'inegalite,
for instance,
see especially
the passage
from O.C.III, p. 148 cited in note h above.
In Emile, Livre I,
O.C.IV, pp. 285-286, moreover, he observes, "Toutesnos
langues sont
des ouvrages de l'art .... Commele premier etat de l'homme est la misere
et la foiblesse,
ses premieres voix sont la plainte et les pleurs.
L'enfant ... implore le secou.rs d 1 autrui par des cris".
And in the
Ms R 72, p. 46 he remarks that the "accent ... pathetique
et vehement 11
in music "n'est ... que l'amplifaction
du cri de la nature modifie dans
chaque langue par les inflexions
qui lui sont propres".
Rousseau's
account of the 'cri de la nature' was much inspired by Condillac's
rem.arks on the same subject in his Essai sur l'origine
des connoissances
humaines, I.ii.4,
OPC, pp. 19-21 (but see, too, eh. III, pp. 165-178
above).
y_. This passage of the Erreurs
p. 229.
Rousseau's transcription
sur la musique appears in CTWR,V,
of the text is inexact.
498
�z.
Cf. the following passage from the Essai sur l'origine
des
Tangues, eh. xiii,
p. 149: "La melodie fait precisement dans la
musique ce que fait le dessein dans la peinture."
See also the
other passages in Rousseau's writings on this subject cited in note
w above.
aa.
Serre, who, like Rousseau, was of Genevnn origin, could generally
I s musical
be counted ru::on,.,.
the principal
admirers of Ra."!leau
theory.
Already in his Essais sur les principes
de l'harmonie of 1753,
however, he had begun to criticise
Rameau's conception of the 'basse
fondamentale'
on the grounds (see pp. 81-84) that only a perfect major
chord could be characterized
by a unique 'basse fondamentale'
whereas
other chords required two or even three foundations.
Thus, he
remarked (pp. 81-82), "Tout Accord dissonnant porte necessairement
surplus
d'un Son fondamental ... des-lors
la Suite des Sons
fondamentaux n'est plus une simple suite de Sons uniques, mais une
suite de Sons, tantot uniques, & tantot doubles, & quelquefois
meme
triples.
Il me semble qu'on peut en consequence donner le nom de
Contrepoint fondamental a cette suite".
Later, in his Observations
sur les principes
de l'harmonie
(Geneve 1763), Serre elaborated this
objection,
maintaining
(see pp. 16-17) that Rameau's principles
did
not always meet the two conditions
which any 'basse fondamentale'
must fulfil, i.e., that every chord should find its natural foundation
in the resonating
tone that is supposed to underlie it, and that the
progression
of such tones should indicate the ha~monic relations
which
mark any succession of chords:
"11 ... est ... facile de remarquer que
la Basse fondamentale de M. Rameau manque souvent aces deux conditions,
que lessons
qu'il donne pour fondamentaux ne representent
pas toujours
les corps sonores dont lessons
des accords soient les harmoniques, &
que les rapports entre lessons
supposes fondamentaux ne sont pas
toujours aussi simples qu'ils devroient l' etre."
bb.
This passage appears in Rameau's Erreurs sur la musique, CTWR,
v"-; pp. 203-204.
The thesis that the fifth is the most fundamental
of all harmonic intervals
had always figured in Rameau's musical theory.
Thus, in his Traite de l'harmonie of 1722, for instance,
he had
exclaimed (CTWR, I, p. 84), "La Quinte est le premier objet de tous
les accords".
Nearly every one of his later works repeats this
assertion,
and yet at the same time most of them also include the
incompatible postulate
that the third is the true primary interval.
This suggestion even appears in the Traite de l 1 harmonie itself,
as,
for instance,
in the following passage (ibid.,
p. 85):
"Si nous avons
regarde la Quinte comme le premier objet de tousles
accords, no s
ne devons pas moins attribuer
cette qualite aux Tierces, dont elle
est composee."
cc.
Rousseau had already elaborated
this point about the simplicity
of the Italian
style of accompaniment in a passage of his article
'Accompagnement' for the Encyclopedie,
I, p. 77 to which Rameau had
taken great exception (see the Erreurs sur la musique, CTWR,V,
pp. 204-205).
Before the publication
of Rameau's attack he had,
moreover, repeated the contention
in his Lettre sur la musique
fran9oise
(see La Querelle des Bouffons, I, p. 718, and Rameau's
Erreurs sur la musique, CTWR,V, pp. 205-212).
See also eh. IV,
pp. 248-249, 263-267, and 272-274.
499
�dd.
See the chapter of Rameau's Nouveau systeme de musique theoriQue
of 1726 entitled
'Exemples des erreurs qui se trouvent dans les
Chiffres du cinquieme Oeuvre de Corelly' in CTWR,II, pp. 104-116.
Rameau there decries Corelli's
account of the figured bass
('basse-continue')
which he regarded as too simple, inexact, and
artificial
by comparison with his own fundamental bass.
In an unpublished manuscript entitled
the 'Reponse a la Critique des chiffres
de
Corelly'
(Ms R 76: ancienne cote 78811) Rousseau put forward a detailed
defence of Corelli's
notational
system against the objections
of Rameau,
without, however, mentioning Rameau by name.
His conclusion is that
it would be damaging to the richness of our music if we were to substitute the more limited scheme of Rameau for that of Corelli.
Both have
their distinctive
virtues,
and (p. 6) we must try "par une Etude
detachee de tout prejuge des deux Systemes, d'en faire un seul qui ait
Le fond et Le solide du dernier et Cette Libre variete du premier fonde
sur des principes
incontestables".
(The Ms R 76 is not in Rousseau's
own hand, and it appears to be a copy of another manuscript which has
been lost.)
See also the article
'Chif£re'
in the Dictionnaire
de
musique, especially
pp. 94-96.
ee.
The account of Rameau's theory of sympathetic vibrations
which
Rousseau provides here does not refer specifically
to any passage in
the Erreurs sur la musique, but it quite closely approximates the sense
of some ideas expressed in his Nouveau systeme de musique theorique
(see CTWR,II, p. 28) and especially
his D~monstration du principe de
l'harmonie
(see CTWR,III, pp. 198-199).
The fact that these texts
are separated by a period of twenty-four years in Rameau's life did not
attract
the attention
of Rousseau, perhaps because his first source for
most matters of technical
detail would at this time have been
d'Alembert's
Elemens de musique suivant les principes
de M. Rameau
(Paris 1752), a work which ascribes a systematic but often artificial
coherence to the various formulations
of Rameau's theory.
An excellent
interpretation
of the many subtleties,
developments, and inconsistencies
in the philosophy of Rameau which both d'Alembert and Rousseau overlooked is provided by Shirlaw in his Theory of Harmony, pp. 63-285.
ff.
Joseph Sauveur's essays on mathematics and acoustical
theory,
which appeared in the proceedings of the Academie des sciences in the
first few years of the eighteenth
centu.ry, were apparently unknown to
Rameau at the time that he composed his Traite de l'harrnonie;
they
were first mentioned by him, and then only in passing, in his Nouveau
systeme de musique theorique.
The most important of Sauveur's works
is his S steme eneral des Intervalles
des Sons (see the Histoire de
l'Academie Royale des Sciences.
Annee 1701 Paris 1704], pp. 297-364
and 383-384), and it is probably to this text that Rousseau's passage
applies.
Sauveur had argued (see especially
pp. 352-353) that the
nodes which marked the weaker oscillations
of a vibrating
string would
be obscured by the more intense oscillations
of other strings placed
along side it:
"Le Son harmonique forme par la Sympathie d'une corde
voisine,
ou par un obstacle leger, est d'autant plus sensible,
qu'il a
de plus grandes ondulations .... Il arrivera
meme que si le noeud d'un
petit Son harrnonique se trouve voisin de deux noeuds de Sons plus
grands, le plus petit sera efface par les deux plus grands, ensorte que
l'on n'entendera
distinctement
les petits
que quand ils seront d'ordre,
comme ils sont vers les noeuds des premiers Sons harmoniques,
c'est-a-dire
des l.2.3.4e.~c.
Sons."
In 1748 Diderot had discussed
500
�the acoustical
theory of Sauveur in some detail in his Memoires sur
differens
s1Jjets de mathematioues (see Assezat-Tourneux,
IX,
pp. 119-128).
~·
In his Trattato di musica Tartini had argued that the arithmetical
proportions
of the octave scale give rise to the minor harmony, just as
the harmonic proportions
yield the major tones.
This conjunction of
arithmetic
and harmonic intervals
was a necessary feature of the natural
'sistema armonico' itself,
and in his view it there=ore entailed that
the minor and major harmonies were in~eparably derived from the same
principles.
Thus, he wrote (p. 68), "L'harmonia di terza r:linore si e
presa in prestito
dalla scienza Aritmetica,
e sia quasi straniera,
e
accidentale
alla musica, cio nego assolutamente;
e per lo contrario
dico, che il sistema dell'armonia
di terza minore non solo e inseparabile
dal sistema dell'armonia
di terza maggiore, ma anzi e lo stesso identico
sistema".
Rousseau regarded Tartini's
views on this point as an
alternative
to Rameau's theory, since Rameau had imagined that the
generation of the minor mode conformed to a pattern roughly identical
in
fact - and not just in principle
- to.that
of the major scale, which
made the construction
of one mode rather than the other appear to be
merely a matter of choice.
In his Demonstration du principe de
l'harmonie he had attempted to escape from this dilemma by maintaining
(CTWR, III, p. 199) that the minor mode was only generated as a possibility
in virtue of the "premieres loix de la nature",
whereas the major mode
was produced in accordance with Nature's "premiere intention".
The
proof of this distinction
lay in his claim that while the sympathetic
vibrations
which formed the major harmonics resonated throughout the
whole length of strings placed alongside a 'corps sonore',
the oscillations which constituted
the minor mode vibrated only in segments of these
strings.
According to Rameau, that is (see especially
ibid.,
pp. 177
and 199), the minor harmonics of the twelfth and seventeenth tones below
a 'basse fondamentale'
vibrate but do not resonate,
a proposition
which
Rousseau treated as absurd, "comme si l'on disoit que le soleil luit et
qu'on ne voit rien", in a note to eh. xviiii
of the Essai sur l'origine
des langues (see note 360 above).
Rousseau believed that Rameau's
fundamental error had been to overlook the nodes which mark the oscillations of both major and minor harmonic tones, since a single 'corps
sonore' never excites either the vibration
or the resonance of its full
multiples,
though each oscillating
segment of that 'corps' always produces both effects in the corresponding aliquot part.
Tartini had
helped to demonstrate.the
point through an experiment which yielded the
minor harmonics of a 'son fondamental'
from the sympathetic vibrations
of two 'corps sonores' alone, though his own account of the origin of
the minor mode "pourroit bien n'etre pas plus solide que celle de
M. Rameau" - as Rousseau remarks in the passage above - presumably
because his arithmetical
series which gave rise to the minor harmony
required a succession of different
fundamental tones (see the Trattato
di musica, especially
p. 70).
See also the article
'Systeme' in
Rousseau's Dictionnaire
de musique, pp. 482 and 488, and eh. IV, note
121.
501
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�
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<strong>Title: </strong>Rousseau on Society, Politics, Music and Language - An Interpretation of His Early Writings<br /><strong><br /></strong>
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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<strong>Abstract:</strong> This study is focused upon a variety of specific problems which I believe the early writings of Rousseau were designed to solve. Most of the works that are discussed here were drafted by Rousseau between 1750 and 1756, and I shall argue that a proper grasp of this fact about their temporal proximity is important to an understanding of the conceptual relations which underlie them. I hope to show that any accurate account of Rousseau's meaning must incorporate a careful examination of the context in which his ideas were developed, and I shall therefore be concerned very largely with the manner in which his writings were conceived as replies to arguments that were produced by other thinkers. The first chapter is devoted to an account of some mistaken interpretations of Rousseau's meaning. We often confuse our own beliefs about the contemporary significance of certain ideas with the sense which their authors originally intended they should have, and in this chapter I consider a number of misconceptions of that kind, as well as some mistaken correctives to them, which have appeared in Rousseau studies. The views of C.E. Vaughan and Robert Derathe, in particular, are discussed with reference to these problems. The second chapter is concerned with the influence of Diderot upon Rousseau and especially with the intellectual debt which Rousseau owed to Diderot's article 'Droit naturel'. The 'Economie politique' and the Manuscrit de Geneve are shown to exhibit the influence of Diderot in two quite different ways, and the conceptions of the 'volonté generale' of the two figures are compared in the light of the differences between their accounts of the natural society of mankind. In the third chapter the arguments of the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> are examined in connection with the ideas of several other figures from whom Rousseau drew some inspiration or against whom he raised some objections in that work. The chapter opens with a challenge to the thesis that the second Discours bears the stamp of Diderot's influence, and it continues with several sections, which are concerned with the historical, anthropological, linguistic, and political views of Buffon, Condillac, and Hobbes and Locke, respectively, while two final sections describe Rousseau's account of the transformation of natural into social man. The fourth chapter compares a number of ideas about the nature and origin of music which were put forward by Rameau and Rousseau. It traces the course of their controversy about this subject through the writings of both thinkers, and in the case of Rousseau it is addressed especially to his articles on music in the <em>Encyclopedie</em>, his <em>Lettre sur la musique françoise</em>, his <em>Examen de deux principes</em>, and his <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. It also attempts to establish that the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> at first contained a section about the genesis of music which Rousseau eventually incorporated in the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>. The chapter, moreover, offers an interpretation of the place of music and language in the general context of Rousseau's social theory, and it provides a critique of several accounts of tbe historical relation between the <em>Essai</em> and the second <em>Discours</em> which have neglected that common feature of their meaning. The final chapter is concerned with the <em>Discours sur les sciences et les arts</em> and with the writings which Rousseau produced between 1751 and 1753 in defence of that text against its critics. I argue there that while the first <em>Discours</em> is the most shallow and least original of all of Rousseau's major works, the controversy which followed its publication helped him to focus his ideas about culture and society much more sharply than he had done before. I try to show that Rousseau's replies to the detractors of the <em>Premier Discours</em> constitute a refinement of his views along the paths which he was then to pursue further in the <em>Discours sur l'inegalité</em> and the <em>Essai sur l'origine des langues</em>, and I conclude with some reflections about the systematic nature of his early social theory as it was developed in the period between his composition of the first and second <em>Discours</em>. The appendix consists of an annotated transcription of the manuscript on the origins of music and language discussed at length in chapter IV.
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<a href="http://s127526803.onlinehome.us/wokler/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Robert Wokler</a>
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Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London
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520 + vii pages.
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Appendix, Fragments, Bibliography
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Robert Wokler
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1987
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IHA/Wokler/631
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pp. 435-520.
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Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London
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Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews
Rousseau
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Robert Wokler
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c. 1970.
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IHA/Wokler/629
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Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews
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