Emile
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Translated by Barbara Foxley
Author's Preface
BOOK I
BOOK II
BOOK III
BOOK IV
BOOK V
Author's Preface
This collection of scattered thoughts and observations has little
order or continuity; it was begun to give pleasure to a good mother
who thinks for herself. My first idea was to write a tract a few
pages long, but I was carried away by my subject, and before I knew
what I was doing my tract had become a kind of book, too large indeed
for the matter contained in it, but too small for the subject of
which it treats. For a long time I hesitated whether to publish it or
not, and I have often felt, when at work upon it, that it is one thing
to publish a few pamphlets and another to write a book. After vain
attempts to improve it, I have decided that it is my duty to publish
it as it stands. I consider that public attention requires to be
directed to this subject, and even if my own ideas are mistaken, my
time will not have been wasted if I stir up others to form right
ideas. A solitary who casts his writings before the public without any
one to advertise them, without any party ready to defend them, one who
does not even know what is thought and said about those writings, is
at least free from one anxiety—if he is mistaken, no one will take
his errors for gospel.
I shall say very little about the value of a good education, nor
shall I stop to prove that the customary method of education is bad;
this has been done again and again, and I do not wish to fill my book
with things which everyone knows. I will merely state that, go as far
back as you will, you will find a continual outcry against the
established method, but no attempt to suggest a better. The literature
and science of our day tend rather to destroy than to build up. We
find fault after the manner of a master; to suggest, we must adopt
another style, a style less in accordance with the pride of the
philosopher. In spite of all those books, whose only aim, so they say,
is public utility, the most useful of all arts, the art of training
men, is still neglected. Even after Locke's book was written the
subject remained almost untouched, and I fear that my book will leave
it pretty much as it found it.
We know nothing of childhood; and with our mistaken notions the
further we advance the further we go astray. The wisest writers
devote themselves to what a man ought to know, without asking what a
child is capable of learning. They are always looking for the man in
the child, without considering what he is before he becomes a man. It
is to this study that I have chiefly devoted myself, so that if my
method is fanciful and unsound, my observations may still be of
service. I may be greatly mistaken as to what ought to be done, but I
think I have clearly perceived the material which is to be worked
upon. Begin thus by making a more careful study of your scholars, for
it is clear that yon know nothing about them; yet if you read this
book with that end in view, I think you will find that it is not
entirely useless.
With regard to what will be called the systematic portion of the
book, which is nothing more than the course of nature, it is here
that the reader will probably go wrong, and no doubt I shall be
attacked on this side, and perhaps my critics may be right. You will
tell me, "This is not so much a treatise on education as the visions
of a dreamer with regard to education." What can I do? I have not
written about other people's ideas of education, but about my own. My
thoughts are not those of others; this reproach has been brought
against me again and again. But is it within my power to furnish
myself with other eyes, or to adopt other ideas? It is within my power
to refuse to be wedded to my own opinions and to refuse to think
myself wiser than others. I cannot change my mind; I can distrust
myself. This is all I can do, and this I have done. If I sometimes
adopt a confident tone, it is not to impress the reader, it is to make
my meaning plain to him. Why should I profess to suggest as doubtful
that which is not a matter of doubt to myself? I say just what I
think.
When I freely express my opinion, I have so little idea of claiming
authority that I always give my reasons, so that you may weigh and
judge them for yourselves; but though I would not obstinately defend
my ideas, I think it my duty to put them forward; for the principles
with regard to which I differ from other writers are not matters of
indifference; we must know whether they are true or false, for on them
depends the happiness or the misery of mankind. People are always
telling me to make PRACTICABLE suggestions. You might as well tell me
to suggest what people are doing already, or at least to suggest
improvements which may be incorporated with the wrong methods at
present in use. There are matters with regard to which such a
suggestion is far more chimerical than my own, for in such a
connection the good is corrupted and the bad is none the better for
it. I would rather follow exactly the established method than adopt a
better method by halves. There would be fewer contradictions in the
man; he cannot aim at one and the same time at two different objects.
Fathers and mothers, what you desire that you can do. May I count on
your goodwill?
There are two things to be considered with regard to any scheme.
In the first place, "Is it good in itself" In the second, "Can it be
easily put into practice?"
With regard to the first of these it is enough that the scheme
should be intelligible and feasible in itself, that what is good in
it should be adapted to the nature of things, in this case, for
example, that the proposed method of education should be suitable to
man and adapted to the human heart.
The second consideration depends upon certain given conditions in
particular cases; these conditions are accidental and therefore
variable; they may vary indefinitely. Thus one kind of education
would be possible in Switzerland and not in France; another would be
adapted to the middle classes but not to the nobility. The scheme can
be carried out, with more or less success, according to a multitude of
circumstances, and its results can only be determined by its special
application to one country or another, to this class or that. Now all
these particular applications are not essential to my subject, and
they form no part of my scheme. It is enough for me that, wherever men
are born into the world, my suggestions with regard to them may be
carried out, and when you have made them what I would have them be,
you have done what is best for them and best for other people. If I
fail to fulfil this promise, no doubt I am to blame; but if I fulfil
my promise, it is your own fault if you ask anything more of me, for I
have promised you nothing more.
BOOK I
God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become
evil. He forces one soil to yield the products of another, one tree
to bear another's fruit. He confuses and confounds time, place, and
natural conditions. He mutilates his dog, his horse, and his slave.
He destroys and defaces all things; he loves all that is deformed and
monstrous; he will have nothing as nature made it, not even man
himself, who must learn his paces like a saddle-horse, and be shaped
to his master's taste like the trees in his garden. Yet things would
be worse without this education, and mankind cannot be made by halves.
Under existing conditions a man left to himself from birth would be
more of a monster than the rest. Prejudice, authority, necessity,
example, all the social conditions into which we are plunged, would
stifle nature in him and put nothing in her place. She would be like
a sapling chance sown in the midst of the highway, bent hither and
thither and soon crushed by the passers-by.
Tender, anxious mother, [Footnote: The earliest education is most
important and it undoubtedly is woman's work. If the author of nature
had meant to assign it to men he would have given them milk to feed
the child. Address your treatises on education to the women, for not
only are they able to watch over it more closely than men, not only is
their influence always predominant in education, its success concerns
them more nearly, for most widows are at the mercy of their children,
who show them very plainly whether their education was good or bad.
The laws, always more concerned about property than about people,
since their object is not virtue but peace, the laws give too little
authority to the mother. Yet her position is more certain than that of
the father, her duties are more trying; the right ordering of the
family depends more upon her, and she is usually fonder of her
children. There are occasions when a son may be excused for lack of
respect for his father, but if a child could be so unnatural as to
fail in respect for the mother who bore him and nursed him at her
breast, who for so many years devoted herself to his care, such a
monstrous wretch should be smothered at once as unworthy to live. You
say mothers spoil their children, and no doubt that is wrong, but it
is worse to deprave them as you do. The mother wants her child to be
happy now. She is right, and if her method is wrong, she must be
taught a better. Ambition, avarice, tyranny, the mistaken foresight of
fathers, their neglect, their harshness, are a hundredfold more
harmful to the child than the blind affection of the mother. Moreover,
I must explain what I mean by a mother and that explanation follows.]
I appeal to you. You can remove this young tree from the highway and
shield it from the crushing force of social conventions. Tend and
water it ere it dies. One day its fruit will reward your care. From
the outset raise a wall round your child's soul; another may sketch
the plan, you alone should carry it into execution.
Plants are fashioned by cultivation, man by education. If a man
were born tall and strong, his size and strength would be of no good
to him till he had learnt to use them; they would even harm him by
preventing others from coming to his aid; [Footnote: Like them in
externals, but without speech and without the ideas which are
expressed by speech, he would be unable to make his wants known, while
there would be nothing in his appearance to suggest that he needed
their help.] left to himself he would die of want before he knew his
needs. We lament the helplessness of infancy; we fail to perceive that
the race would have perished had not man begun by being a child.
We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish,
we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we
come to man's estate, is the gift of education.
This education comes to us from nature, from men, or from things.
The inner growth of our organs and faculties is the education of
nature, the use we learn to make of this growth is the education of
men, what we gain by our experience of our surroundings is the
education of things.
Thus we are each taught by three masters. If their teaching
conflicts, the scholar is ill-educated and will never be at peace
with himself; if their teaching agrees, he goes straight to his goal,
he lives at peace with himself, he is well-educated.
Now of these three factors in education nature is wholly beyond
our control, things are only partly in our power; the education of
men is the only one controlled by us; and even here our power is
largely illusory, for who can hope to direct every word and deed of
all with whom the child has to do.
Viewed as an art, the success of education is almost impossible,
since the essential conditions of success are beyond our control. Our
efforts may bring us within sight of the goal, but fortune must favour
us if we are to reach it.
What is this goal? As we have just shown, it is the goal of nature.
Since all three modes of education must work together, the two that
we can control must follow the lead of that which is beyond our
control. Perhaps this word Nature has too vague a meaning. Let us try
to define it.
Nature, we are told, is merely habit. What does that mean? Are
there not habits formed under compulsion, habits which never stifle
nature? Such, for example, are the habits of plants trained
horizontally. The plant keeps its artificial shape, but the sap has
not changed its course, and any new growth the plant may make will be
vertical. It is the same with a man's disposition; while the
conditions remain the same, habits, even the least natural of them,
hold good; but change the conditions, habits vanish, nature reasserts
herself. Education itself is but habit, for are there not people who
forget or lose their education and others who keep it? Whence comes
this difference? If the term nature is to be restricted to habits
conformable to nature we need say no more.
We are born sensitive and from our birth onwards we are affected
in various ways by our environment. As soon as we become conscious of
our sensations we tend to seek or shun the things that cause them, at
first because they are pleasant or unpleasant, then because they suit
us or not, and at last because of judgments formed by means of the
ideas of happiness and goodness which reason gives us. These
tendencies gain strength and permanence with the growth of reason, but
hindered by our habits they are more or less warped by our prejudices.
Before this change they are what I call Nature within us.
Everything should therefore be brought into harmony with these
natural tendencies, and that might well be if our three modes of
education merely differed from one another; but what can be done when
they conflict, when instead of training man for himself you try to
train him for others? Harmony becomes impossible. Forced to combat
either nature or society, you must make your choice between the man
and the citizen, you cannot train both.
The smaller social group, firmly united in itself and dwelling
apart from others, tends to withdraw itself from the larger society.
Every patriot hates foreigners; they are only men, and nothing to
him.[Footnote: Thus the wars of republics are more cruel than those
of monarchies. But if the wars of kings are less cruel, their peace
is terrible; better be their foe than their subject.] This defect is
inevitable, but of little importance. The great thing is to be kind to
our neighbours. Among strangers the Spartan was selfish, grasping, and
unjust, but unselfishness, justice, and harmony ruled his home life.
Distrust those cosmopolitans who search out remote duties in their
books and neglect those that lie nearest. Such philosophers will love
the Tartars to avoid loving their neighbour.
The natural man lives for himself; he is the unit, the whole,
dependent only on himself and on his like. The citizen is but the
numerator of a fraction, whose value depends on its denominator; his
value depends upon the whole, that is, on the community. Good social
institutions are those best fitted to make a man unnatural, to
exchange his independence for dependence, to merge the unit in the
group, so that he no longer regards himself as one, but as a part of
the whole, and is only conscious of the common life. A citizen of Rome
was neither Caius nor Lucius, he was a Roman; he ever loved his
country better than his life. The captive Regulus professed himself a
Carthaginian; as a foreigner he refused to take his seat in the Senate
except at his master's bidding. He scorned the attempt to save his
life. He had his will, and returned in triumph to a cruel death. There
is no great likeness between Regulus and the men of our own day.
The Spartan Pedaretes presented himself for admission to the
council of the Three Hundred and was rejected; he went away rejoicing
that there were three hundred Spartans better than himself. I suppose
he was in earnest; there is no reason to doubt it. That was a citizen.
A Spartan mother had five sons with the army. A Helot arrived;
trembling she asked his news. "Your five sons are slain." "Vile
slave, was that what I asked thee?" "We have won the victory." She
hastened to the temple to render thanks to the gods. That was a
citizen.
He who would preserve the supremacy of natural feelings in social
life knows not what he asks. Ever at war with himself, hesitating
between his wishes and his duties, he will be neither a man nor a
citizen. He will be of no use to himself nor to others. He will be a
man of our day, a Frenchman, an Englishman, one of the great middle
class.
To be something, to be himself, and always at one with himself, a
man must act as he speaks, must know what course he ought to take,
and must follow that course with vigour and persistence. When I meet
this miracle it will be time enough to decide whether he is a man or a
citizen, or how he contrives to be both.
Two conflicting types of educational systems spring from these
conflicting aims. One is public and common to many, the other private
and domestic.
If you wish to know what is meant by public education, read Plato's
Republic. Those who merely judge books by their titles take this for
a treatise on politics, but it is the finest treatise on education
ever written.
In popular estimation the Platonic Institute stands for all that
is fanciful and unreal. For my own part I should have thought the
system of Lycurgus far more impracticable had he merely committed it
to writing. Plato only sought to purge man's heart; Lycurgus turned it
from its natural course.
The public institute does not and cannot exist, for there is
neither country nor patriot. The very words should be struck out of
our language. The reason does not concern us at present, so that
though I know it I refrain from stating it.
I do not consider our ridiculous colleges [Footnote: There are
teachers dear to me in many schools and especially in the University
of Paris, men for whom I have a great respect, men whom I believe to
be quite capable of instructing young people, if they were not
compelled to follow the established custom. I exhort one of them to
publish the scheme of reform which he has thought out. Perhaps people
would at length seek to cure the evil if they realised that there was
a remedy.] as public institutes, nor do I include under this head a
fashionable education, for this education facing two ways at once
achieves nothing. It is only fit to turn out hypocrites, always
professing to live for others, while thinking of themselves alone.
These professions, however, deceive no one, for every one has his
share in them; they are so much labour wasted.
Our inner conflicts are caused by these contradictions. Drawn this
way by nature and that way by man, compelled to yield to both forces,
we make a compromise and reach neither goal. We go through life,
struggling and hesitating, and die before we have found peace, useless
alike to ourselves and to others.
There remains the education of the home or of nature; but how will
a man live with others if he is educated for himself alone? If the
twofold aims could be resolved into one by removing the man's
self-contradictions, one great obstacle to his happiness would be
gone. To judge of this you must see the man full-grown; you must
have noted his inclinations, watched his progress, followed his
steps; in a word you must really know a natural man. When you have
read this work, I think you will have made some progress in this
inquiry.
What must be done to train this exceptional man! We can do much,
but the chief thing is to prevent anything being done. To sail
against the wind we merely follow one tack and another; to keep our
position in a stormy sea we must cast anchor. Beware, young pilot,
lest your boat slip its cable or drag its anchor before you know it.
In the social order where each has his own place a man must be
educated for it. If such a one leave his own station he is fit for
nothing else. His education is only useful when fate agrees with his
parents' choice; if not, education harms the scholar, if only by the
prejudices it has created. In Egypt, where the son was compelled to
adopt his father's calling, education had at least a settled aim;
where social grades remain fixed, but the men who form them are
constantly changing, no one knows whether he is not harming his son by
educating him for his own class.
In the natural order men are all equal and their common calling is
that of manhood, so that a well-educated man cannot fail to do well in
that calling and those related to it. It matters little to me whether
my pupil is intended for the army, the church, or the law. Before his
parents chose a calling for him nature called him to be a man. Life is
the trade I would teach him. When he leaves me, I grant you, he will
be neither a magistrate, a soldier, nor a priest; he will be a man.
All that becomes a man he will learn as quickly as another. In vain
will fate change his station, he will always be in his right place.
"Occupavi te, fortuna, atque cepi; omnes-que aditus tuos interclusi,
ut ad me aspirare non posses." The real object of our study is man and
his environment. To my mind those of us who can best endure the good
and evil of life are the best educated; hence it follows that true
education consists less in precept than in practice. We begin to learn
when we begin to live; our education begins with ourselves, our first
teacher is our nurse. The ancients used the word "Education" in a
different sense, it meant "Nurture." "Educit obstetrix," says Varro.
"Educat nutrix, instituit paedagogus, docet magister." Thus,
education, discipline, and instruction are three things as different
in their purpose as the dame, the usher, and the teacher. But these
distinctions are undesirable and the child should only follow one
guide.
We must therefore look at the general rather than the particular,
and consider our scholar as man in the abstract, man exposed to all
the changes and chances of mortal life. If men were born attached to
the soil of our country, if one season lasted all the year round, if
every man's fortune were so firmly grasped that he could never lose
it, then the established method of education would have certain
advantages; the child brought up to his own calling would never leave
it, he could never have to face the difficulties of any other
condition. But when we consider the fleeting nature of human affairs,
the restless and uneasy spirit of our times, when every generation
overturns the work of its predecessor, can we conceive a more
senseless plan than to educate a child as if he would never leave his
room, as if he would always have his servants about him? If the
wretched creature takes a single step up or down he is lost. This is
not teaching him to bear pain; it is training him to feel it.
People think only of preserving their child's life; this is not
enough, he must be taught to preserve his own life when he is a man,
to bear the buffets of fortune, to brave wealth and poverty, to live
at need among the snows of Iceland or on the scorching rocks of Malta.
In vain you guard against death; he must needs die; and even if you do
not kill him with your precautions, they are mistaken. Teach him to
live rather than to avoid death: life is not breath, but action, the
use of our senses, our mind, our faculties, every part of ourselves
which makes us conscious of our being. Life consists less in length of
days than in the keen sense of living. A man maybe buried at a hundred
and may never have lived at all. He would have fared better had he
died young.
Our wisdom is slavish prejudice, our customs consist in control,
constraint, compulsion. Civilised man is born and dies a slave. The
infant is bound up in swaddling clothes, the corpse is nailed down in
his coffin. All his life long man is imprisoned by our institutions.
I am told that many midwives profess to improve the shape of the
infant's head by rubbing, and they are allowed to do it. Our heads
are not good enough as God made them, they must be moulded outside by
the nurse and inside by the philosopher. The Caribs are better off
than we are. The child has hardly left the mother's womb, it has
hardly begun to move and stretch its limbs, when it is deprived of its
freedom. It is wrapped in swaddling bands, laid down with its head
fixed, its legs stretched out, and its arms by its sides; it is wound
round with linen and bandages of all sorts so that it cannot move. It
is fortunate if it has room to breathe, and it is laid on its side so
that water which should flow from its mouth can escape, for it is not
free to turn its head on one side for this purpose.
The new-born child requires to stir and stretch his limbs to free
them from the stiffness resulting from being curled up so long. His
limbs are stretched indeed, but he is not allowed to move them. Even
the head is confined by a cap. One would think they were afraid the
child should look as if it were alive.
Thus the internal impulses which should lead to growth find an
insurmountable obstacle in the way of the necessary movements. The
child exhausts his strength in vain struggles, or he gains strength
very slowly. He was freer and less constrained in the womb; he has
gained nothing by birth.
The inaction, the constraint to which the child's limbs are
subjected can only check the circulation of the blood and humours; it
can only hinder the child's growth in size and strength, and injure
its constitution. Where these absurd precautions are absent, all the
men are tall, strong, and well-made. Where children are swaddled, the
country swarms with the hump-backed, the lame, the bow-legged, the
rickety, and every kind of deformity. In our fear lest the body should
become deformed by free movement, we hasten to deform it by putting it
in a press. We make our children helpless lest they should hurt
themselves.
Is not such a cruel bondage certain to affect both health and
temper? Their first feeling is one of pain and suffering; they find
every necessary movement hampered; more miserable than a galley slave,
in vain they struggle, they become angry, they cry. Their first words
you say are tears. That is so. From birth you are always checking
them, your first gifts are fetters, your first treatment, torture.
Their voice alone is free; why should they not raise it in complaint?
They cry because you are hurting them; if you were swaddled you would
cry louder still.
What is the origin of this senseless and unnatural custom? Since
mothers have despised their first duty and refused to nurse their own
children, they have had to be entrusted to hired nurses. Finding
themselves the mothers of a stranger's children, without the ties of
nature, they have merely tried to save themselves trouble. A child
unswaddled would need constant watching; well swaddled it is cast into
a corner and its cries are unheeded. So long as the nurse's negligence
escapes notice, so long as the nursling does not break its arms or
legs, what matter if it dies or becomes a weakling for life. Its limbs
are kept safe at the expense of its body, and if anything goes wrong
it is not the nurse's fault.
These gentle mothers, having got rid of their babies, devote
themselves gaily to the pleasures of the town. Do they know how their
children are being treated in the villages? If the nurse is at all
busy, the child is hung up on a nail like a bundle of clothes and is
left crucified while the nurse goes leisurely about her business.
Children have been found in this position purple in the face, their
tightly bandaged chest forbade the circulation of the blood, and it
went to the head; so the sufferer was considered very quiet because he
had not strength to cry. How long a child might survive under such
conditions I do not know, but it could not be long. That, I fancy, is
one of the chief advantages of swaddling clothes.
It is maintained that unswaddled infants would assume faulty
positions and make movements which might injure the proper development
of their limbs. That is one of the empty arguments of our false wisdom
which has never been confirmed by experience. Out of all the crowds
of children who grow up with the full use of their limbs among
nations wiser than ourselves, you never find one who hurts himself or
maims himself; their movements are too feeble to be dangerous, and
when they assume an injurious position, pain warns them to change it.
We have not yet decided to swaddle our kittens and puppies; are
they any the worse for this neglect? Children are heavier, I admit,
but they are also weaker. They can scarcely move, how could they hurt
themselves! If you lay them on their backs, they will lie there till
they die, like the turtle, unable to turn itself over. Not content
with having ceased to suckle their children, women no longer wish to
do it; with the natural result motherhood becomes a burden; means are
found to avoid it. They will destroy their work to begin it over
again, and they thus turn to the injury of the race the charm which
was given them for its increase. This practice, with other causes of
depopulation, forbodes the coming fate of Europe. Her arts and
sciences, her philosophy and morals, will shortly reduce her to a
desert. She will be the home of wild beasts, and her inhabitants will
hardly have changed for the worse.
I have sometimes watched the tricks of young wives who pretend
that they wish to nurse their own children. They take care to be
dissuaded from this whim. They contrive that husbands, doctors, and
especially mothers should intervene. If a husband should let his wife
nurse her own baby it would be the ruin of him; they would make him
out a murderer who wanted to be rid of her. A prudent husband must
sacrifice paternal affection to domestic peace. Fortunately for you
there are women in the country districts more continent than your
wives. You are still more fortunate if the time thus gained is not
intended for another than yourself.
There can be no doubt about a wife's duty, but, considering the
contempt in which it is held, it is doubtful whether it is not just
as good for the child to be suckled by a stranger. This is a question
for the doctors to settle, and in my opinion they have settled it
according to the women's wishes, [Footnote: The league between the
women and the doctors has always struck me as one of the oddest things
in Paris. The doctors' reputation depends on the women, and by means
of the doctors the women get their own way. It is easy to see what
qualifications a doctor requires in Paris if he is to become
celebrated.] and for my own part I think it is better that the child
should suck the breast of a healthy nurse rather than of a petted
mother, if he has any further evil to fear from her who has given him
birth.
Ought the question, however, to be considered only from the
physiological point of view? Does not the child need a mother's care
as much as her milk? Other women, or even other animals, may give him
the milk she denies him, but there is no substitute for a mother's
love.
The woman who nurses another's child in place of her own is a bad
mother; how can she be a good nurse? She may become one in time; use
will overcome nature, but the child may perish a hundred times before
his nurse has developed a mother's affection for him.
And this affection when developed has its drawbacks, which should
make any feeling woman afraid to put her child out to nurse. Is she
prepared to divide her mother's rights, or rather to abdicate them in
favour of a stranger; to see her child loving another more than
herself; to feel that the affection he retains for his own mother is a
favour, while his love for his foster-mother is a duty; for is not
some affection due where there has been a mother's care?
To remove this difficulty, children are taught to look down on
their nurses, to treat them as mere servants. When their task is
completed the child is withdrawn or the nurse is dismissed. Her
visits to her foster-child are discouraged by a cold reception. After
a few years the child never sees her again. The mother expects to
take her place, and to repair by her cruelty the results of her own
neglect. But she is greatly mistaken; she is making an ungrateful
foster-child, not an affectionate son; she is teaching him
ingratitude, and she is preparing him to despise at a later day the
mother who bore him, as he now despises his nurse.
How emphatically would I speak if it were not so hopeless to keep
struggling in vain on behalf of a real reform. More depends on this
than you realise. Would you restore all men to their primal duties,
begin with the mothers; the results will surprise you. Every evil
follows in the train of this first sin; the whole moral order is
disturbed, nature is quenched in every breast, the home becomes
gloomy, the spectacle of a young family no longer stirs the husband's
love and the stranger's reverence. The mother whose children are out
of sight wins scanty esteem; there is no home life, the ties of nature
are not strengthened by those of habit; fathers, mothers, children,
brothers, and sisters cease to exist. They are almost strangers; how
should they love one another? Each thinks of himself first. When the
home is a gloomy solitude pleasure will be sought elsewhere.
But when mothers deign to nurse their own children, then will be a
reform in morals; natural feeling will revive in every heart; there
will be no lack of citizens for the state; this first step by itself
will restore mutual affection. The charms of home are the best
antidote to vice. The noisy play of children, which we thought so
trying, becomes a delight; mother and father rely more on each other
and grow dearer to one another; the marriage tie is strengthened. In
the cheerful home life the mother finds her sweetest duties and the
father his pleasantest recreation. Thus the cure of this one evil
would work a wide-spread reformation; nature would regain her rights.
When women become good mothers, men will be good husbands and fathers.
My words are vain! When we are sick of worldly pleasures we do not
return to the pleasures of the home. Women have ceased to be mothers,
they do not and will not return to their duty. Could they do it if
they would? The contrary custom is firmly established; each would have
to overcome the opposition of her neighbours, leagued together against
the example which some have never given and others do not desire to
follow.
Yet there are still a few young women of good natural disposition
who refuse to be the slaves of fashion and rebel against the clamour
of other women, who fulfil the sweet task imposed on them by nature.
Would that the reward in store for them might draw others to follow
their example. My conclusion is based upon plain reason, and upon
facts I have never seen disputed; and I venture to promise these
worthy mothers the firm and steadfast affection of their husbands and
the truly filial love of their children and the respect of all the
world. Child-birth will be easy and will leave no ill-results, their
health will be strong and vigorous, and they will see their daughters
follow their example, and find that example quoted as a pattern to
others.
No mother, no child; their duties are reciprocal, and when ill done
by the one they will be neglected by the other. The child should love
his mother before he knows what he owes her. If the voice of instinct
is not strengthened by habit it soon dies, the heart is still-born.
From the outset we have strayed from the path of nature.
There is another by-way which may tempt our feet from the path of
nature. The mother may lavish excessive care on her child instead of
neglecting him; she may make an idol of him; she may develop and
increase his weakness to prevent him feeling it; she wards off every
painful experience in the hope of withdrawing him from the power of
nature, and fails to realise that for every trifling ill from which
she preserves him the future holds in store many accidents and
dangers, and that it is a cruel kindness to prolong the child's
weakness when the grown man must bear fatigue.
Thetis, so the story goes, plunged her son in the waters of Styx to
make him invulnerable. The truth of this allegory is apparent. The
cruel mothers I speak of do otherwise; they plunge their children
into softness, and they are preparing suffering for them, they open
the way to every kind of ill, which their children will not fail to
experience after they grow up.
Fix your eyes on nature, follow the path traced by her. She keeps
children at work, she hardens them by all kinds of difficulties, she
soon teaches them the meaning of pain and grief. They cut their teeth
and are feverish, sharp colics bring on convulsions, they are choked
by fits of coughing and tormented by worms, evil humours corrupt the
blood, germs of various kinds ferment in it, causing dangerous
eruptions. Sickness and danger play the chief part in infancy. One
half of the children who are born die before their eighth year. The
child who has overcome hardships has gained strength, and as soon as
he can use his life he holds it more securely.
This is nature's law; why contradict it? Do you not see that in
your efforts to improve upon her handiwork you are destroying it; her
cares are wasted? To do from without what she does within is according
to you to increase the danger twofold. On the contrary, it is the way
to avert it; experience shows that children delicately nurtured are
more likely to die. Provided we do not overdo it, there is less risk
in using their strength than in sparing it. Accustom them therefore to
the hardships they will have to face; train them to endure extremes of
temperature, climate, and condition, hunger, thirst, and weariness.
Dip them in the waters of Styx. Before bodily habits become fixed you
may teach what habits you will without any risk, but once habits are
established any change is fraught with peril. A child will bear
changes which a man cannot bear, the muscles of the one are soft and
flexible, they take whatever direction you give them without any
effort; the muscles of the grown man are harder and they only change
their accustomed mode of action when subjected to violence. So we can
make a child strong without risking his life or health, and even if
there were some risk, it should not be taken into consideration. Since
human life is full of dangers, can we do better than face them at a
time when they can do the least harm?
A child's worth increases with his years. To his personal value
must be added the cost of the care bestowed upon him. For himself
there is not only loss of life, but the consciousness of death. We
must therefore think most of his future in our efforts for his
preservation. He must be protected against the ills of youth before
he reaches them: for if the value of life increases until the child
reaches an age when he can be useful, what madness to spare some
suffering in infancy only to multiply his pain when he reaches the
age of reason. Is that what our master teaches us!
Man is born to suffer; pain is the means of his preservation. His
childhood is happy, knowing only pain of body. These bodily sufferings
are much less cruel, much less painful, than other forms of suffering,
and they rarely lead to self-destruction. It is not the twinges of
gout which make a man kill himself, it is mental suffering that leads
to despair. We pity the sufferings of childhood; we should pity
ourselves; our worst sorrows are of our own making.
The new-born infant cries, his early days are spent in crying. He
is alternately petted and shaken by way of soothing him; sometimes he
is threatened, sometimes beaten, to keep him quiet. We do what he
wants or we make him do what we want, we submit to his whims or
subject him to our own. There is no middle course; he must rule or
obey. Thus big earliest ideas are those of the tyrant or the slave.
He commands before he can speak, he obeys before he can act, and
sometimes he is punished for faults before he is aware of them, or
rather before they are committed. Thus early are the seeds of evil
passions sown in his young heart. At a later day these are attributed
to nature, and when we have taken pains to make him bad we lament his
badness.
In this way the child passes six or seven years in the hands of
women, the victim of his own caprices or theirs, and after they have
taught him all sorts of things, when they have burdened his memory
with words he cannot understand, or things which are of no use to him,
when nature has been stifled by the passions they have implanted in
him, this sham article is sent to a tutor. The tutor completes the
development of the germs of artificiality which he finds already well
grown, he teaches him everything except self-knowledge and
self-control, the arts of life and happiness. When at length this
infant slave and tyrant, crammed with knowledge but empty of sense,
feeble alike in mind and body, is flung upon the world, and his
helplessness, his pride, and his other vices are displayed, we begin
to lament the wretchedness and perversity of mankind. We are wrong;
this is the creature of our fantasy; the natural man is cast in
another mould.
Would you keep him as nature made him? Watch over him from his
birth. Take possession of him as soon as he comes into the world and
keep him till he is a man; you will never succeed otherwise. The real
nurse is the mother and the real teacher is the father. Let them agree
in the ordering of their duties as well as in their method, let the
child pass from one to the other. He will be better educated by a
sensible though ignorant father than by the cleverest master in the
world. For zeal will atone for lack of knowledge, rather than
knowledge for lack of zeal. But the duties of public and private
business! Duty indeed! Does a father's duty come last. [Footnote: When
we read in Plutarch that Cato the Censor, who ruled Rome with such
glory, brought up his own sons from the cradle, and so carefully that
he left everything to be present when their nurse, that is to say
their mother, bathed them; when we read in Suetonius that Augustus,
the master of the world which he had conquered and which he himself
governed, himself taught his grandsons to write, to swim, to
understand the beginnings of science, and that he always had them with
him, we cannot help smiling at the little people of those days who
amused themselves with such follies, and who were too ignorant, no
doubt, to attend to the great affairs of the great people of our own
time.] It is not surprising that the man whose wife despises the duty
of suckling her child should despise its education. There is no more
charming picture than that of family life; but when one feature is
wanting the whole is marred. If the mother is too delicate to nurse
her child, the father will be too busy to teach him. Their children,
scattered about in schools, convents, and colleges, will find the home
of their affections elsewhere, or rather they will form the habit of
oaring for nothing. Brothers and sisters will scarcely know each
other; when they are together in company they will behave as
strangers. When there is no confidence between relations, when the
family society ceases to give savour to life, its place is soon
usurped by vice. Is there any man so stupid that he cannot see how all
this hangs together?
A father has done but a third of his task when he begets children
and provides a living for them. He owes men to humanity, citizens to
the state. A man who can pay this threefold debt and neglect to do so
is guilty, more guilty, perhaps, if he pays it in part than when he
neglects it entirely. He has no right to be a father if he cannot
fulfil a father's duties. Poverty, pressure of business, mistaken
social prejudices, none of these can excuse a man from his duty, which
is to support and educate his own children. If a man of any natural
feeling neglects these sacred duties he will repent it with bitter
tears and will never be comforted.
But what does this rich man do, this father of a family, compelled,
so he says, to neglect his children? He pays another man to perform
those duties which are his alone. Mercenary man! do you expect to
purchase a second father for your child? Do not deceive yourself; it
is not even a master you have hired for him, it is a flunkey, who will
soon train such another as himself.
There is much discussion as to the characteristics of a good
tutor. My first requirement, and it implies a good many more, is
that he should not take up his task for reward. There are callings so
great that they cannot be undertaken for money without showing our
unfitness for them; such callings are those of the soldier and the
teacher.
"But who must train my child?" "I have just told you, you should
do it yourself." "I cannot." "You cannot! Then find a friend. I see
no other course."
A tutor! What a noble soul! Indeed for the training of a man one
must either be a father or more than man. It is this duty you would
calmly hand over to a hireling!
The more you think of it the harder you will find it. The tutor
must have been trained for his pupil, his servants must have been
trained for their master, so that all who come near him may have
received the impression which is to be transmitted to him. We must
pass from education to education, I know not how far. How can a child
be well educated by one who has not been well educated himself!
Can such a one be found? I know not. In this age of degradation who
knows the height of virtue to which man's soul may attain? But let us
assume that this prodigy has been discovered. We shall learn what he
should be from the consideration of his duties. I fancy the father who
realises the value of a good tutor will contrive to do without one,
for it will be harder to find one than to become such a tutor himself;
he need search no further, nature herself having done half the work.
Some one whose rank alone is known to me suggested that I should
educate his son. He did me a great honour, no doubt, but far from
regretting my refusal, he ought to congratulate himself on my
prudence. Had the offer been accepted, and had I been mistaken in my
method, there would have been an education ruined; had I succeeded,
things would have been worse—his son would have renounced his title
and refused to be a prince.
I feel too deeply the importance of a tutor's duties and my own
unfitness, ever to accept such a post, whoever offered it, and even
the claims of friendship would be only an additional motive for my
refusal. Few, I think, will be tempted to make me such an offer when
they have read this book, and I beg any one who would do so to spare
his pains. I have had enough experience of the task to convince myself
of my own unfitness, and my circumstances would make it impossible,
even if my talents were such as to fit me for it. I have thought it my
duty to make this public declaration to those who apparently refuse to
do me the honour of believing in the sincerity of my determination. If
I am unable to undertake the more useful task, I will at least venture
to attempt the easier one; I will follow the example of my
predecessors and take up, not the task, but my pen; and instead of
doing the right thing I will try to say it.
I know that in such an undertaking the author, who ranges at will
among theoretical systems, utters many fine precepts impossible to
practise, and even when he says what is practicable it remains undone
for want of details and examples as to its application.
I have therefore decided to take an imaginary pupil, to assume on
my own part the age, health, knowledge, and talents required for the
work of his education, to guide him from birth to manhood, when he
needs no guide but himself. This method seems to me useful for an
author who fears lest he may stray from the practical to the
visionary; for as soon as he departs from common practice he has only
to try his method on his pupil; he will soon know, or the reader will
know for him, whether he is following the development of the child and
the natural growth of the human heart.
This is what I have tried to do. Lest my book should be unduly
bulky, I have been content to state those principles the truth of
which is self-evident. But as to the rules which call for proof, I
have applied them to Emile or to others, and I have shown, in very
great detail, how my theories may be put into practice. Such at least
is my plan; the reader must decide whether I have succeeded. At first
I have said little about Emile, for my earliest maxims of education,
though very different from those generally accepted, are so plain that
it is hard for a man of sense to refuse to accept them, but as I
advance, my scholar, educated after another fashion than yours, is no
longer an ordinary child, he needs a special system. Then he appears
upon the scene more frequently, and towards the end I never lose sight
of him for a moment, until, whatever he may say, he needs me no
longer.
I pass over the qualities required in a good tutor; I take them for
granted, and assume that I am endowed with them. As you read this
book you will see how generous I have been to myself.
I will only remark that, contrary to the received opinion, a
child's tutor should be young, as young indeed as a man may well be
who is also wise. Were it possible, he should become a child himself,
that he may be the companion of his pupil and win his confidence by
sharing his games. Childhood and age have too little in common for the
formation of a really firm affection. Children sometimes flatter old
men; they never love them.
People seek a tutor who has already educated one pupil. This is
too much; one man can only educate one pupil; if two were essential
to success, what right would he have to undertake the first? With
more experience you may know better what to do, but you are less
capable of doing it; once this task has been well done, you will know
too much of its difficulties to attempt it a second time—if ill done,
the first attempt augurs badly for the second.
It is one thing to follow a young man about for four years, another
to be his guide for five-and-twenty. You find a tutor for your son
when he is already formed; I want one for him before he is born. Your
man may change his pupil every five years; mine will never have but
one pupil. You distinguish between the teacher and the tutor. Another
piece of folly! Do you make any distinction between the pupil and the
scholar? There is only one science for children to learn—the duties
of man. This science is one, and, whatever Xenophon may say of the
education of the Persians, it is indivisible. Besides, I prefer to
call the man who has this knowledge master rather than teacher, since
it is a question of guidance rather than instruction. He must not give
precepts, he must let the scholar find them out for himself.
If the master is to be so carefully chosen, he may well choose his
pupil, above all when he proposes to set a pattern for others. This
choice cannot depend on the child's genius or character, as I adopt
him before he is born, and they are only known when my task is
finished. If I had my choice I would take a child of ordinary mind,
such as I assume in my pupil. It is ordinary people who have to be
educated, and their education alone can serve as a pattern for the
education of their fellows. The others find their way alone.
The birthplace is not a matter of indifference in the education of
man; it is only in temperate climes that he comes to his full growth.
The disadvantages of extremes are easily seen. A man is not planted in
one place like a tree, to stay there the rest of his life, and to pass
from one extreme to another you must travel twice as far as he who
starts half-way.
If the inhabitant of a temperate climate passes in turn through
both extremes his advantage is plain, for although he may be changed
as much as he who goes from one extreme to the other, he only removes
half-way from his natural condition. A Frenchman can live in New
Guinea or in Lapland, but a negro cannot live in Tornea nor a Samoyed
in Benin. It seems also as if the brain were less perfectly organised
in the two extremes. Neither the negroes nor the Laps are as wise as
Europeans. So if I want my pupil to be a citizen of the world I will
choose him in the temperate zone, in France for example, rather than
elsewhere.
In the north with its barren soil men devour much food, in the
fertile south they eat little. This produces another difference: the
one is industrious, the other contemplative. Society shows us, in one
and the same spot, a similar difference between rich and poor. The one
dwells in a fertile land, the other in a barren land.
The poor man has no need of education. The education of his own
station in life is forced upon him, he can have no other; the
education received by the rich man from his own station is least
fitted for himself and for society. Moreover, a natural education
should fit a man for any position. Now it is more unreasonable to
train a poor man for wealth than a rich man for poverty, for in
proportion to their numbers more rich men are ruined and fewer poor
men become rich. Let us choose our scholar among the rich; we shall at
least have made another man; the poor may come to manhood without our
help.
For the same reason I should not be sorry if Emile came of a good
family. He will be another victim snatched from prejudice.
Emile is an orphan. No matter whether he has father or mother,
having undertaken their duties I am invested with their rights. He
must honour his parents, but he must obey me. That is my first and
only condition.
I must add that there is just one other point arising out of this;
we must never be separated except by mutual consent. This clause is
essential, and I would have tutor and scholar so inseparable that
they should regard their fate as one. If once they perceive the time
of their separation drawing near, the time which must make them
strangers to one another, they become strangers then and there; each
makes his own little world, and both of them being busy in thought
with the time when they will no longer be together, they remain
together against their will. The disciple regards his master as the
badge and scourge of childhood, the master regards his scholar as a
heavy burden which he longs to be rid of. Both are looking forward to
the time when they will part, and as there is never any real affection
between them, there will be scant vigilance on the one hand, and on
the other scant obedience.
But when they consider they must always live together, they must
needs love one another, and in this way they really learn to love one
another. The pupil is not ashamed to follow as a child the friend who
will be with him in manhood; the tutor takes an interest in the
efforts whose fruits he will enjoy, and the virtues he is cultivating
in his pupil form a store laid up for his old age.
This agreement made beforehand assumes a normal birth, a strong,
well-made, healthy child. A father has no choice, and should have no
preference within the limits of the family God has given him; all his
children are his alike, the same care and affection is due to all.
Crippled or well-made, weak or strong, each of them is a trust for
which he is responsible to the Giver, and nature is a party to the
marriage contract along with husband and wife.
But if you undertake a duty not imposed upon you by nature, you
must secure beforehand the means for its fulfilment, unless you would
undertake duties you cannot fulfil. If you take the care of a sickly,
unhealthy child, you are a sick nurse, not a tutor. To preserve a
useless life you are wasting the time which should be spent in
increasing its value, you risk the sight of a despairing mother
reproaching you for the death of her child, who ought to have died
long ago.
I would not undertake the care of a feeble, sickly child, should
he live to four score years. I want no pupil who is useless alike to
himself and others, one whose sole business is to keep himself alive,
one whose body is always a hindrance to the training of his mind. If I
vainly lavish my care upon him, what can I do but double the loss to
society by robbing it of two men, instead of one? Let another tend
this weakling for me; I am quite willing, I approve his charity, but I
myself have no gift for such a task; I could never teach the art of
living to one who needs all his strength to keep himself alive.
The body must be strong enough to obey the mind; a good servant
must be strong. I know that intemperance stimulates the passions; in
course of time it also destroys the body; fasting and penance often
produce the same results in an opposite way. The weaker the body, the
more imperious its demands; the stronger it is, the better it obeys.
All sensual passions find their home in effeminate bodies; the less
satisfaction they can get the keener their sting.
A feeble body makes a feeble mind. Hence the influence of physic,
an art which does more harm to man than all the evils it professes to
cure. I do not know what the doctors cure us of, but I know this: they
infect us with very deadly diseases, cowardice, timidity, credulity,
the fear of death. What matter if they make the dead walk, we have no
need of corpses; they fail to give us men, and it is men we need.
Medicine is all the fashion in these days, and very naturally. It
is the amusement of the idle and unemployed, who do not know what to
do with their time, and so spend it in taking care of themselves. If
by ill-luck they had happened to be born immortal, they would have
been the most miserable of men; a life they could not lose would be of
no value to them. Such men must have doctors to threaten and flatter
them, to give them the only pleasure they can enjoy, the pleasure of
not being dead.
I will say no more at present as to the uselessness of medicine. My
aim is to consider its bearings on morals. Still I cannot refrain
from saying that men employ the same sophism about medicine as they
do about the search for truth. They assume that the patient is cured
and that the seeker after truth finds it. They fail to see that
against one life saved by the doctors you must set a hundred slain,
and against the value of one truth discovered the errors which creep
in with it. The science which instructs and the medicine which heals
are no doubt excellent, but the science which misleads us and the
medicine which kills us are evil. Teach us to know them apart. That is
the real difficulty. If we were content to be ignorant of truth we
should not be the dupes of falsehood; if we did not want to be cured
in spite of nature, we should not be killed by the doctors. We should
do well to steer clear of both, and we should evidently be the
gainers. I do not deny that medicine is useful to some men; I assert
that it is fatal to mankind.
You will tell me, as usual, that the doctors are to blame, that
medicine herself is infallible. Well and good, then give us the
medicine without the doctor, for when we have both, the blunders of
the artist are a hundredfold greater than our hopes from the art.
This lying art, invented rather for the ills of the mind than of the
body, is useless to both alike; it does less to cure us of our
diseases than to fill us with alarm. It does less to ward off death
than to make us dread its approach. It exhausts life rather than
prolongs it; should it even prolong life it would only be to the
prejudice of the race, since it makes us set its precautions before
society and our fears before our duties. It is the knowledge of danger
that makes us afraid. If we thought ourselves invulnerable we should
know no fear. The poet armed Achilles against danger and so robbed him
of the merit of courage; on such terms any man would be an Achilles.
Would you find a really brave man? Seek him where there are no
doctors, where the results of disease are unknown, and where death is
little thought of. By nature a man bears pain bravely and dies in
peace. It is the doctors with their rules, the philosophers with their
precepts, the priests with their exhortations, who debase the heart
and make us afraid to die.
Give me a pupil who has no need of these, or I will have nothing
to do with him. No one else shall spoil my work, I will educate him
myself or not at all. That wise man, Locke, who had devoted part of
his life to the study of medicine, advises us to give no drugs to the
child, whether as a precaution, or on account of slight ailments. I
will go farther, and will declare that, as I never call in a doctor
for myself, I will never send for one for Emile, unless his life is
clearly in danger, when the doctor can but kill him.
I know the doctor will make capital out of my delay. If the child
dies, he was called in too late; if he recovers, it is his doing. So
be it; let the doctor boast, but do not call him in except in
extremity.
As the child does not know how to be cured, he knows how to be
ill. The one art takes the place of the other and is often more
successful; it is the art of nature. When a beast is ill, it keeps
quiet and suffers in silence; but we see fewer sickly animals than
sick men. How many men have been slain by impatience, fear, anxiety,
and above all by medicine, men whom disease would have spared, and
time alone have cured. I shall be told that animals, who live
according to nature, are less liable to disease than ourselves. Well,
that way of living is just what I mean to teach my pupil; he should
profit by it in the same way.
Hygiene is the only useful part of medicine, and hygiene is rather
a virtue than a science. Temperance and industry are man's true
remedies; work sharpens his appetite and temperance teaches him to
control it.
To learn what system is most beneficial you have only to study
those races remarkable for health, strength, and length of days. If
common observation shows us that medicine neither increases health
nor prolongs life, it follows that this useless art is worse than
useless, since it wastes time, men, and things on what is pure loss.
Not only must we deduct the time spent, not in using life, but
preserving it, but if this time is spent in tormenting ourselves it is
worse than wasted, it is so much to the bad, and to reckon fairly a
corresponding share must be deducted from what remains to us. A man
who lives ten years for himself and others without the help of doctors
lives more for himself and others than one who spends thirty years as
their victim. I have tried both, so I think I have a better right than
most to draw my own conclusions.
For these reasons I decline to take any but a strong and healthy
pupil, and these are my principles for keeping him in health. I will
not stop to prove at length the value of manual labour and bodily
exercise for strengthening the health and constitution; no one denies
it. Nearly all the instances of long life are to be found among the
men who have taken most exercise, who have endured fatigue and labour.
[Footnote: I cannot help quoting the following passage from an English
newspaper, as it throws much light on my opinions: "A certain Patrick
O'Neil, born in 1647, has just married his seventh wife in 1760. In
the seventeenth year of Charles II. he served in the dragoons and in
other regiments up to 1740, when he took his discharge. He served in
all the campaigns of William III. and Marlborough. This man has never
drunk anything but small beer; he has always lived on vegetables, and
has never eaten meat except on few occasions when he made a feast for
his relations. He has always been accustomed to rise with the sun and
go to bed at sunset unless prevented by his military duties. He is now
in his 130th year; he is healthy, his hearing is good, and he walks
with the help of a stick. In spite of his great age he is never idle,
and every Sunday he goes to his parish church accompanied by his
children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren."] Neither will I
enter into details as to the care I shall take for this alone. It will
be clear that it forms such an essential part of my practice that it
is enough to get hold of the idea without further explanation.
When our life begins our needs begin too. The new-born infant must
have a nurse. If his mother will do her duty, so much the better; her
instructions will be given her in writing, but this advantage has its
drawbacks, it removes the tutor from his charge. But it is to be hoped
that the child's own interests, and her respect for the person to whom
she is about to confide so precious a treasure, will induce the mother
to follow the master's wishes, and whatever she does you may be sure
she will do better than another. If we must have a strange nurse, make
a good choice to begin with.
It is one of the misfortunes of the rich to be cheated on all
sides; what wonder they think ill of mankind! It is riches that
corrupt men, and the rich are rightly the first to feel the defects of
the only tool they know. Everything is ill-done for them, except what
they do themselves, and they do next to nothing. When a nurse must be
selected the choice is left to the doctor. What happens? The best
nurse is the one who offers the highest bribe. I shall not consult the
doctor about Emile's nurse, I shall take care to choose her myself. I
may not argue about it so elegantly as the surgeon, but I shall be
more reliable, I shall be less deceived by my zeal than the doctor by
his greed.
There is no mystery about this choice; its rules are well known,
but I think we ought probably to pay more attention to the age of the
milk as well as its quality. The first milk is watery, it must be
almost an aperient, to purge the remains of the meconium curdled in
the bowels of the new-born child. Little by little the milk thickens
and supplies more solid food as the child is able to digest it. It is
surely not without cause that nature changes the milk in the female of
every species according to the age of the offspring.
Thus a new-born child requires a nurse who has recently become
mother. There is, I know, a difficulty here, but as soon as we leave
the path of nature there are difficulties in the way of all
well-doing. The wrong course is the only right one under the
circumstances, so we take it.
The nurse must be healthy alike in disposition and in body. The
violence of the passions as well as the humours may spoil her milk.
Moreover, to consider the body only is to keep only half our aim in
view. The milk may be good and the nurse bad; a good character is as
necessary as a good constitution. If you choose a vicious person, I do
not say her foster-child will acquire her vices, but he will suffer
for them. Ought she not to bestow on him day by day, along with her
milk, a care which calls for zeal, patience, gentleness, and
cleanliness. If she is intemperate and greedy her milk will soon be
spoilt; if she is careless and hasty what will become of a poor little
wretch left to her mercy, and unable either to protect himself or to
complain. The wicked are never good for anything.
The choice is all the more important because her foster-child
should have no other guardian, just as he should have no teacher but
his tutor. This was the custom of the ancients, who talked less but
acted more wisely than we. The nurse never left her foster-daughter;
this is why the nurse is the confidante in most of their plays. A
child who passes through many hands in turn, can never be well brought
up.
At every change he makes a secret comparison, which continually
tends to lessen his respect for those who control him, and with it
their authority over him. If once he thinks there are grown-up people
with no more sense than children the authority of age is destroyed and
his education is ruined. A child should know no betters but its father
and mother, or failing them its foster-mother and its tutor, and even
this is one too many, but this division is inevitable, and the best
that can be done in the way of remedy is that the man and woman who
control him shall be so well agreed with regard to him that they seem
like one.
The nurse must live rather more comfortably, she must have rather
more substantial food, but her whole way of living must not be
altered, for a sudden change, even a change for the better, is
dangerous to health, and since her usual way of life has made her
healthy and strong, why change it?
Country women eat less meat and more vegetables than towns-women,
and this vegetarian diet seems favourable rather than otherwise to
themselves and their children. When they take nurslings from the
upper classes they eat meat and broth with the idea that they will
form better chyle and supply more milk. I do not hold with this at
all, and experience is on my side, for we do not find children fed in
this way less liable to colic and worms.
That need not surprise us, for decaying animal matter swarms with
worms, but this is not the case with vegetable matter. [Footnote:
Women eat bread, vegetables, and dairy produce; female dogs and cats
do the same; the she-wolves eat grass. This supplies vegetable juices
to their milk. There are still those species which are unable to eat
anything but flesh, if such there are, which I very much doubt.] Milk,
although manufactured in the body of an animal, is a vegetable
substance; this is shown by analysis; it readily turns acid, and far
from showing traces of any volatile alkali like animal matter, it
gives a neutral salt like plants.
The milk of herbivorous creatures is sweeter and more wholesome
than the milk of the carnivorous; formed of a substance similar to its
own, it keeps its goodness and becomes less liable to putrifaction.
If quantity is considered, it is well known that farinaceous foods
produce more blood than meat, so they ought to yield more milk. If a
child were not weaned too soon, and if it were fed on vegetarian food,
and its foster-mother were a vegetarian, I do not think it would be
troubled with worms.
Milk derived from vegetable foods may perhaps be more liable to go
sour, but I am far from considering sour milk an unwholesome food;
whole nations have no other food and are none the worse, and all the
array of absorbents seems to me mere humbug. There are constitutions
which do not thrive on milk, others can take it without absorbents.
People are afraid of the milk separating or curdling; that is absurd,
for we know that milk always curdles in the stomach. This is how it
becomes sufficiently solid to nourish children and young animals; if
it did not curdle it would merely pass away without feeding them.
[Footnote: Although the juices which nourish us are liquid, they must
be extracted from solids. A hard-working man who ate nothing but soup
would soon waste away. He would be far better fed on milk, just
because it curdles.] In vain you dilute milk and use absorbents;
whoever swallows milk digests cheese, this rule is without exception;
rennet is made from a calf's stomach.
Instead of changing the nurse's usual diet, I think it would be
enough to give food in larger quantities and better of its kind. It
is not the nature of the food that makes a vegetable diet
indigestible, but the flavouring that makes it unwholesome. Reform
your cookery, use neither butter nor oil for frying. Butter, salt,
and milk should never be cooked. Let your vegetables be cooked in
water and only seasoned when they come to table. The vegetable diet,
far from disturbing the nurse, will give her a plentiful supply of
milk. [Footnote: Those who wish to study a full account of the
advantages and disadvantages of the Pythagorean regime, may consult
the works of Dr. Cocchi and his opponent Dr. Bianchi on this important
subject.] If a vegetable diet is best for the child, how can meat food
be best for his nurse? The things are contradictory.
Fresh air affects children's constitutions, particularly in early
years. It enters every pore of a soft and tender skin, it has a
powerful effect on their young bodies. Its effects can never be
destroyed. So I should not agree with those who take a country woman
from her village and shut her up in one room in a town and her
nursling with her. I would rather send him to breathe the fresh air of
the country than the foul air of the town. He will take his new
mother's position, will live in her cottage, where his tutor will
follow him. The reader will bear in mind that this tutor is not a paid
servant, but the father's friend. But if this friend cannot be found,
if this transfer is not easy, if none of my advice can be followed,
you will say to me, "What shall I do instead?" I have told you
already—"Do what you are doing;" no advice is needed there.
Men are not made to be crowded together in ant-hills, but scattered
over the earth to till it. The more they are massed together, the
more corrupt they become. Disease and vice are the sure results of
over-crowded cities. Of all creatures man is least fitted to live in
herds. Huddled together like sheep, men would very soon die. Man's
breath is fatal to his fellows. This is literally as well as
figuratively true.
Men are devoured by our towns. In a few generations the race dies
out or becomes degenerate; it needs renewal, and it is always renewed
from the country. Send your children to renew themselves, so to speak,
send them to regain in the open fields the strength lost in the foul
air of our crowded cities. Women hurry home that their children may be
born in the town; they ought to do just the opposite, especially those
who mean to nurse their own children. They would lose less than they
think, and in more natural surroundings the pleasures associated by
nature with maternal duties would soon destroy the taste for other
delights.
The new-born infant is first bathed in warm water to which a little
wine is usually added. I think the wine might be dispensed with. As
nature does not produce fermented liquors, it is not likely that they
are of much value to her creatures.
In the same way it is unnecessary to take the precaution of heating
the water; in fact among many races the new-born infants are bathed
with no more ado in rivers or in the sea. Our children, made tender
before birth by the softness of their parents, come into the world
with a constitution already enfeebled, which cannot be at once
exposed to all the trials required to restore it to health. Little by
little they must be restored to their natural vigour. Begin then by
following this custom, and leave it off gradually. Wash your children
often, their dirty ways show the need of this. If they are only wiped
their skin is injured; but as they grow stronger gradually reduce the
heat of the water, till at last you bathe them winter and summer in
cold, even in ice-cold water. To avoid risk this change must be slow,
gradual, and imperceptible, so you may use the thermometer for exact
measurements.
This habit of the bath, once established, should never be broken
off, it must be kept up all through life. I value it not only on
grounds of cleanliness and present health, but also as a wholesome
means of making the muscles supple, and accustoming them to bear
without risk or effort extremes of heat and cold. As he gets older I
would have the child trained to bathe occasionally in hot water of
every bearable degree, and often in every degree of cold water. Now
water being a denser fluid touches us at more points than air, so
that, having learnt to bear all the variations of temperature in
water, we shall scarcely feel this of the air. [Footnote: Children in
towns are stifled by being kept indoors and too much wrapped up.
Those who control them have still to learn that fresh air, far from
doing them harm, will make them strong, while hot air will make them
weak, will give rise to fevers, and will eventually kill them.]
When the child draws its first breath do not confine it in tight
wrappings. No cap, no bandages, nor swaddling clothes. Loose and
flowing flannel wrappers, which leave its limbs free and are not too
heavy to check his movements, not too warm to prevent his feeling the
air. [Footnote: I say "cradle" using the common word for want of a
better, though I am convinced that it is never necessary and often
harmful to rock children in the cradle.] Put him in a big cradle, well
padded, where he can move easily and safely. As he begins to grow
stronger, let him crawl about the room; let him develop and stretch
his tiny limbs; you will see him gain strength from day to day.
Compare him with a well swaddled child of the same age and you will be
surprised at their different rates of progress. [Footnote: The ancient
Peruvians wrapped their children in loose swaddling bands, leaving the
arms quite free. Later they placed them unswaddled in a hole in the
ground, lined with cloths, so that the lower part of the body was in
the hole, and their arms were free and they could move the head and
bend the body at will without falling or hurting themselves. When they
began to walk they were enticed to come to the breast. The little
negroes are often in a position much more difficult for sucking. They
cling to the mother's hip, and cling so tightly that the mother's arm
is often not needed to support them. They clasp the breast with their
hand and continue sucking while their mother goes on with her ordinary
work. These children begin to walk at two months, or rather to crawl.
Later on they can run on all fours almost as well as on their
feet.—Buffon. M. Buffon might also have quoted the example of
England, where the senseless and barbarous swaddling clothes have
become almost obsolete. Cf. La Longue Voyage de Siam, Le Beau Voyage
de Canada, etc.]
You must expect great opposition from the nurses, who find a half
strangled baby needs much less watching. Besides his dirtyness is
more perceptible in an open garment; he must be attended to more
frequently. Indeed, custom is an unanswerable argument in some lands
and among all classes of people.
Do not argue with the nurses; give your orders, see them carried
out, and spare no pains to make the attention you prescribe easy in
practice. Why not take your share in it? With ordinary nurslings,
where the body alone is thought of, nothing matters so long as the
child lives and does not actually die, but with us, when education
begins with life, the new-born child is already a disciple, not of
his tutor, but of nature. The tutor merely studies under this master,
and sees that his orders are not evaded. He watches over the infant,
he observes it, he looks for the first feeble glimmering of
intelligence, as the Moslem looks for the moment of the moon's rising
in her first quarter.
We are born capable of learning, but knowing nothing, perceiving
nothing. The mind, bound up within imperfect and half grown organs,
is not even aware of its own existence. The movements and cries of
the new-born child are purely reflex, without knowledge or will.
Suppose a child born with the size and strength of manhood,
entering upon life full grown like Pallas from the brain of Jupiter;
such a child-man would be a perfect idiot, an automaton, a statue
without motion and almost without feeling; he would see and hear
nothing, he would recognise no one, he could not turn his eyes towards
what he wanted to see; not only would he perceive no external object,
he would not even be aware of sensation through the several
sense-organs. His eye would not perceive colour, his ear sounds, his
body would be unaware of contact with neighbouring bodies, he would
not even know he had a body, what his hands handled would be in his
brain alone; all his sensations would be united in one place, they
would exist only in the common "sensorium," he would have only one
idea, that of self, to which he would refer all his sensations; and
this idea, or rather this feeling, would be the only thing in which he
excelled an ordinary child.
This man, full grown at birth, would also be unable to stand on his
feet, he would need a long time to learn how to keep his balance;
perhaps he would not even be able to try to do it, and you would see
the big strong body left in one place like a stone, or creeping and
crawling like a young puppy.
He would feel the discomfort of bodily needs without knowing what
was the matter and without knowing how to provide for these needs.
There is no immediate connection between the muscles of the stomach
and those of the arms and legs to make him take a step towards food,
or stretch a hand to seize it, even were he surrounded with it; and as
his body would be full grown and his limbs well developed he would be
without the perpetual restlessness and movement of childhood, so that
he might die of hunger without stirring to seek food. However little
you may have thought about the order and development of our knowledge,
you cannot deny that such a one would be in the state of almost
primitive ignorance and stupidity natural to man before he has learnt
anything from experience or from his fellows.
We know then, or we may know, the point of departure from which we
each start towards the usual level of understanding; but who knows the
other extreme? Each progresses more or less according to his genius,
his taste, his needs, his talents, his zeal, and his opportunities for
using them. No philosopher, so far as I know, has dared to say to man,
"Thus far shalt thou go and no further." We know not what nature
allows us to be, none of us has measured the possible difference
between man and man. Is there a mind so dead that this thought has
never kindled it, that has never said in his pride, "How much have I
already done, how much more may I achieve? Why should I lag behind my
fellows?"
As I said before, man's education begins at birth; before he can
speak or understand he is learning. Experience precedes instruction;
when he recognises his nurse he has learnt much. The knowledge of the
most ignorant man would surprise us if we had followed his course from
birth to the present time. If all human knowledge were divided into
two parts, one common to all, the other peculiar to the learned, the
latter would seem very small compared with the former. But we
scarcely heed this general experience, because it is acquired before
the age of reason. Moreover, knowledge only attracts attention by its
rarity, as in algebraic equations common factors count for nothing.
Even animals learn much. They have senses and must learn to use them;
they have needs, they must learn to satisfy them; they must learn to
eat, walk, or fly. Quadrupeds which can stand on their feet from the
first cannot walk for all that; from their first attempts it is clear
that they lack confidence. Canaries who escape from their cage are
unable to fly, having never used their wings. Living and feeling
creatures are always learning. If plants could walk they would need
senses and knowledge, else their species would die out. The child's
first mental experiences are purely affective, he is only aware of
pleasure and pain; it takes him a long time to acquire the definite
sensations which show him things outside himself, but before these
things present and withdraw themselves, so to speak, from his sight,
taking size and shape for him, the recurrence of emotional experiences
is beginning to subject the child to the rule of habit. You see his
eyes constantly follow the light, and if the light comes from the side
the eyes turn towards it, so that one must be careful to turn his head
towards the light lest he should squint. He must also be accustomed
from the first to the dark, or he will cry if he misses the light.
Food and sleep, too, exactly measured, become necessary at regular
intervals, and soon desire is no longer the effect of need, but of
habit, or rather habit adds a fresh need to those of nature. You must
be on your guard against this.
The only habit the child should be allowed to contract is that of
having no habits; let him be carried on either arm, let him be
accustomed to offer either hand, to use one or other indifferently;
let him not want to eat, sleep, or do anything at fixed hours, nor be
unable to be left alone by day or night. Prepare the way for his
control of his liberty and the use of his strength by leaving his body
its natural habit, by making him capable of lasting self-control, of
doing all that he wills when his will is formed.
As soon as the child begins to take notice, what is shown him must
be carefully chosen. The natural man is interested in all new things.
He feels so feeble that he fears the unknown: the habit of seeing
fresh things without ill effects destroys this fear. Children brought
up in clean houses where there are no spiders are afraid of spiders,
and this fear often lasts through life. I never saw peasants, man,
woman, or child, afraid of spiders.
Since the mere choice of things shown him may make the child timid
or brave, why should not his education begin before he can speak or
understand? I would have him accustomed to see fresh things, ugly,
repulsive, and strange beasts, but little by little, and far off till
he is used to them, and till having seen others handle them he handles
them himself. If in childhood he sees toads, snakes, and crayfish, he
will not be afraid of any animal when he is grown up. Those who are
continually seeing terrible things think nothing of them.
All children are afraid of masks. I begin by showing Emile a mask
with a pleasant face, then some one puts this mask before his face; I
begin to laugh, they all laugh too, and the child with them. By
degrees I accustom him to less pleasing masks, and at last hideous
ones. If I have arranged my stages skilfully, far from being afraid
of the last mask, he will laugh at it as he did at the first. After
that I am not afraid of people frightening him with masks.
When Hector bids farewell to Andromache, the young Astyanax,
startled by the nodding plumes on the helmet, does not know his
father; he flings himself weeping upon his nurse's bosom and wins from
his mother a smile mingled with tears. What must be done to stay this
terror? Just what Hector did; put the helmet on the ground and caress
the child. In a calmer moment one would do more; one would go up to
the helmet, play with the plumes, let the child feel them; at last the
nurse would take the helmet and place it laughingly on her own head,
if indeed a woman's hand dare touch the armour of Hector.
If Emile must get used to the sound of a gun, I first fire a pistol
with a small charge. He is delighted with this sudden flash, this
sort of lightning; I repeat the process with more powder; gradually I
add a small charge without a wad, then a larger; in the end I accustom
him to the sound of a gun, to fireworks, cannon, and the most terrible
explosions.
I have observed that children are rarely afraid of thunder unless
the peals are really terrible and actually hurt the ear, otherwise
this fear only comes to them when they know that thunder sometimes
hurts or kills. When reason begins to cause fear, let use reassure
them. By slow and careful stages man and child learn to fear nothing.
In the dawn of life, when memory and imagination have not begun to
function, the child only attends to what affects its senses. His
sense experiences are the raw material of thought; they should,
therefore, be presented to him in fitting order, so that memory may
at a future time present them in the same order to his understanding;
but as he only attends to his sensations it is enough, at first, to
show him clearly the connection between these sensations and the
things which cause them. He wants to touch and handle everything; do
not check these movements which teach him invaluable lessons. Thus he
learns to perceive the heat, cold, hardness, softness, weight, or
lightness of bodies, to judge their size and shape and all their
physical properties, by looking, feeling, [Footnote: Of all the senses
that of smell is the latest to develop in children up to two or three
years of age they appear to be insensible of pleasant or unpleasant
odours; in this respect they are as indifferent or rather as
insensible as many animals.] listening, and, above all, by comparing
sight and touch, by judging with the eye what sensation they would
cause to his hand.
It is only by movement that we learn the difference between self
and not self; it is only by our own movements that we gain the idea
of space. The child has not this idea, so he stretches out his hand
to seize the object within his reach or that which is a hundred paces
from him. You take this as a sign of tyranny, an attempt to bid the
thing draw near, or to bid you bring it. Nothing of the kind, it is
merely that the object first seen in his brain, then before his eyes,
now seems close to his arms, and he has no idea of space beyond his
reach. Be careful, therefore, to take him about, to move him from
place to place, and to let him perceive the change in his
surroundings, so as to teach him to judge of distances.
When he begins to perceive distances then you must change your
plan, and only carry him when you please, not when he pleases; for as
soon as he is no longer deceived by his senses, there is another
motive for his effort. This change is remarkable and calls for
explanation.
The discomfort caused by real needs is shown by signs, when the
help of others is required. Hence the cries of children; they often
cry; it must be so. Since they are only conscious of feelings, when
those feelings are pleasant they enjoy them in silence; when they are
painful they say so in their own way and demand relief. Now when they
are awake they can scarcely be in a state of indifference, either they
are asleep or else they are feeling something.
All our languages are the result of art. It has long been a subject
of inquiry whether there ever was a natural language common to all;
no doubt there is, and it is the language of children before they
begin to speak. This language is inarticulate, but it has tone,
stress, and meaning. The use of our own language has led us to
neglect it so far as to forget it altogether. Let us study children
and we shall soon learn it afresh from them. Nurses can teach us this
language; they understand all their nurslings say to them, they answer
them, and keep up long conversations with them; and though they use
words, these words are quite useless. It is not the hearing of the
word, but its accompanying intonation that is understood.
To the language of intonation is added the no less forcible
language of gesture. The child uses, not its weak hands, but its face.
The amount of expression in these undeveloped faces is extraordinary;
their features change from one moment to another with incredible
speed. You see smiles, desires, terror, come and go like lightning;
every time the face seems different. The muscles of the face are
undoubtedly more mobile than our own. On the other hand the eyes are
almost expressionless. Such must be the sort of signs they use at an
age when their only needs are those of the body. Grimaces are the sign
of sensation, the glance expresses sentiment.
As man's first state is one of want and weakness, his first sounds
are cries and tears. The child feels his needs and cannot satisfy
them, he begs for help by his cries. Is he hungry or thirsty? there
are tears; is he too cold or too hot? more tears; he needs movement
and is kept quiet, more tears; he wants to sleep and is disturbed, he
weeps. The less comfortable he is, the more he demands change. He has
only one language because he has, so to say, only one kind of
discomfort. In the imperfect state of his sense organs he does not
distinguish their several impressions; all ills produce one feeling of
sorrow.
These tears, which you think so little worthy of your attention,
give rise to the first relation between man and his environment; here
is forged the first link in the long chain of social order.
When the child cries he is uneasy, he feels some need which he
cannot satisfy; you watch him, seek this need, find it, and satisfy
it. If you can neither find it nor satisfy it, the tears continue and
become tiresome. The child is petted to quiet him, he is rocked or
sung to sleep; if he is obstinate, the nurse becomes impatient and
threatens him; cruel nurses sometimes strike him. What strange lessons
for him at his first entrance into life!
I shall never forget seeing one of these troublesome crying
children thus beaten by his nurse. He was silent at once. I thought he
was frightened, and said to myself, "This will be a servile being from
whom nothing can be got but by harshness." I was wrong, the poor
wretch was choking with rage, he could not breathe, he was black in
the face. A moment later there were bitter cries, every sign of the
anger, rage, and despair of this age was in his tones. I thought he
would die. Had I doubted the innate sense of justice and injustice in
man's heart, this one instance would have convinced me. I am sure that
a drop of boiling liquid falling by chance on that child's hand would
have hurt him less than that blow, slight in itself, but clearly given
with the intention of hurting him.
This tendency to anger, vexation, and rage needs great care.
Boerhaave thinks that most of the diseases of children are of the
nature of convulsions, because the head being larger in proportion
and the nervous system more extensive than in adults, they are more
liable to nervous irritation. Take the greatest care to remove from
them any servants who tease, annoy, or vex them. They are a
hundredfold more dangerous and more fatal than fresh air and changing
seasons. When children only experience resistance in things and never
in the will of man, they do not become rebellious or passionate, and
their health is better. This is one reason why the children of the
poor, who are freer and more independent, are generally less frail and
weakly, more vigorous than those who are supposed to be better brought
up by being constantly thwarted; but you must always remember that it
is one thing to refrain from thwarting them, but quite another to obey
them. The child's first tears are prayers, beware lest they become
commands; he begins by asking for aid, he ends by demanding service.
Thus from his own weakness, the source of his first consciousness of
dependence, springs the later idea of rule and tyranny; but as this
idea is aroused rather by his needs than by our services, we begin to
see moral results whose causes are not in nature; thus we see how
important it is, even at the earliest age, to discern the secret
meaning of the gesture or cry.
When the child tries to seize something without speaking, he
thinks he can reach the object, for he does not rightly judge its
distance; when he cries and stretches out his hands he no longer
misjudges the distance, he bids the object approach, or orders you to
bring it to him. In the first case bring it to him slowly; in the
second do not even seem to hear his cries. The more he cries the less
you should heed him. He must learn in good time not to give commands
to men, for he is not their master, nor to things, for they cannot
hear him. Thus when the child wants something you mean to give him,
it is better to carry him to it rather than to bring the thing to him.
From this he will draw a conclusion suited to his age, and there is
no other way of suggesting it to him.
The Abbe Saint-Pierre calls men big children; one might also call
children little men. These statements are true, but they require
explanation. But when Hobbes calls the wicked a strong child, his
statement is contradicted by facts. All wickedness comes from
weakness. The child is only naughty because he is weak; make him
strong and he will be good; if we could do everything we should never
do wrong. Of all the attributes of the Almighty, goodness is that
which it would be hardest to dissociate from our conception of Him.
All nations who have acknowledged a good and an evil power, have
always regarded the evil as inferior to the good; otherwise their
opinion would have been absurd. Compare this with the creed of the
Savoyard clergyman later on in this book.
Reason alone teaches us to know good and evil. Therefore
conscience, which makes us love the one and hate the other, though it
is independent of reason, cannot develop without it. Before the age
of reason we do good or ill without knowing it, and there is no
morality in our actions, although there is sometimes in our feeling
with regard to other people's actions in relation to ourselves. A
child wants to overturn everything he sees. He breaks and smashes
everything he can reach; he seizes a bird as he seizes a stone, and
strangles it without knowing what he is about.
Why so? In the first place philosophy will account for this by
inbred sin, man's pride, love of power, selfishness, spite; perhaps
it will say in addition to this that the child's consciousness of his
own weakness makes him eager to use his strength, to convince himself
of it. But watch that broken down old man reduced in the downward
course of life to the weakness of a child; not only is he quiet and
peaceful, he would have all about him quiet and peaceful too; the
least change disturbs and troubles him, he would like to see universal
calm. How is it possible that similar feebleness and similar passions
should produce such different effects in age and in infancy, if the
original cause were not different? And where can we find this
difference in cause except in the bodily condition of the two. The
active principle, common to both, is growing in one case and declining
in the other; it is being formed in the one and destroyed in the
other; one is moving towards life, the other towards death. The
failing activity of the old man is centred in his heart, the child's
overflowing activity spreads abroad. He feels, if we may say so,
strong enough to give life to all about him. To make or to destroy, it
is all one to him; change is what he seeks, and all change involves
action. If he seems to enjoy destructive activity it is only that it
takes time to make things and very little time to break them, so that
the work of destruction accords better with his eagerness.
While the Author of nature has given children this activity, He
takes care that it shall do little harm by giving them small power to
use it. But as soon as they can think of people as tools to be used,
they use them to carry out their wishes and to supplement their own
weakness. This is how they become tiresome, masterful, imperious,
naughty, and unmanageable; a development which does not spring from a
natural love of power, but one which has been taught them, for it does
not need much experience to realise how pleasant it is to set others
to work and to move the world by a word.
As the child grows it gains strength and becomes less restless and
unquiet and more independent. Soul and body become better balanced
and nature no longer asks for more movement than is required for
self-preservation. But the love of power does not die with the need
that aroused it; power arouses and flatters self-love, and habit
strengthens it; thus caprice follows upon need, and the first seeds
of prejudice and obstinacy are sown.
FIRST MAXIM.—Far from being too strong, children are not strong
enough for all the claims of nature. Give them full use of such
strength as they have; they will not abuse it.
SECOND MAXIM.—Help them and supply the experience and strength
they lack whenever the need is of the body.
THIRD MAXIM.—In the help you give them confine yourself to what is
really needful, without granting anything to caprice or unreason; for
they will not be tormented by caprice if you do not call it into
existence, seeing it is no part of nature.
FOURTH MAXIM—Study carefully their speech and gestures, so that
at an age when they are incapable of deceit you may discriminate
between those desires which come from nature and those which spring
from perversity.
The spirit of these rules is to give children more real liberty and
less power, to let them do more for themselves and demand less of
others; so that by teaching them from the first to confine their
wishes within the limits of their powers they will scarcely feel the
want of whatever is not in their power.
This is another very important reason for leaving children's limbs
and bodies perfectly free, only taking care that they do not fall,
and keeping anything that might hurt them out of their way.
The child whose body and arms are free will certainly cry much
less than a child tied up in swaddling clothes. He who knows only
bodily needs, only cries when in pain; and this is a great advantage,
for then we know exactly when he needs help, and if possible we
should not delay our help for an instant. But if you cannot relieve
his pain, stay where you are and do not flatter him by way of
soothing him; your caresses will not cure his colic, but he will
remember what he must do to win them; and if he once finds out how to
gain your attention at will, he is your master; the whole education is
spoilt.
Their movements being less constrained, children will cry less;
less wearied with their tears, people will not take so much trouble
to check them. With fewer threats and promises, they will be less
timid and less obstinate, and will remain more nearly in their
natural state. Ruptures are produced less by letting children cry
than by the means taken to stop them, and my evidence for this is the
fact that the most neglected children are less liable to them than
others. I am very far from wishing that they should be neglected; on
the contrary, it is of the utmost importance that their wants should
be anticipated, so that they need not proclaim their wants by crying.
But neither would I have unwise care bestowed on them. Why should they
think it wrong to cry when they find they can get so much by it? When
they have learned the value of their silence they take good care not
to waste it. In the end they will so exaggerate its importance that no
one will be able to pay its price; then worn out with crying they
become exhausted, and are at length silent.
Prolonged crying on the part of a child neither swaddled nor out
of health, a child who lacks nothing, is merely the result of habit
or obstinacy. Such tears are no longer the work of nature, but the
work of the child's nurse, who could not resist its importunity and
so has increased it, without considering that while she quiets the
child to-day she is teaching him to cry louder to-morrow.
Moreover, when caprice or obstinacy is the cause of their tears,
there is a sure way of stopping them by distracting their attention
by some pleasant or conspicuous object which makes them forget that
they want to cry. Most nurses excel in this art, and rightly used it
is very useful; but it is of the utmost importance that the child
should not perceive that you mean to distract his attention, and that
he should be amused without suspecting you are thinking about him; now
this is what most nurses cannot do.
Most children are weaned too soon. The time to wean them is when
they cut their teeth. This generally causes pain and suffering. At
this time the child instinctively carries everything he gets hold of
to his mouth to chew it. To help forward this process he is given as a
plaything some hard object such as ivory or a wolf's tooth. I think
this is a mistake. Hard bodies applied to the gums do not soften them;
far from it, they make the process of cutting the teeth more difficult
and painful. Let us always take instinct as our guide; we never see
puppies practising their budding teeth on pebbles, iron, or bones, but
on wood, leather, rags, soft materials which yield to their jaws, and
on which the tooth leaves its mark.
We can do nothing simply, not even for our children. Toys of
silver, gold, coral, cut crystal, rattles of every price and kind;
what vain and useless appliances. Away with them all! Let us have no
corals or rattles; a small branch of a tree with its leaves and fruit,
a stick of liquorice which he may suck and chew, will amuse him as
well as these splendid trifles, and they will have this advantage at
least, he will not be brought up to luxury from his birth.
It is admitted that pap is not a very wholesome food. Boiled milk
and uncooked flour cause gravel and do not suit the stomach. In pap
the flour is less thoroughly cooked than in bread and it has not
fermented. I think bread and milk or rice-cream are better. If you
will have pap, the flour should be lightly cooked beforehand. In my
own country they make a very pleasant and wholesome soup from flour
thus heated. Meat-broth or soup is not a very suitable food and should
be used as little as possible. The child must first get used to
chewing his food; this is the right way to bring the teeth through,
and when the child begins to swallow, the saliva mixed with the food
helps digestion.
I would have them first chew dried fruit or crusts. I should give
them as playthings little bits of dry bread or biscuits, like the
Piedmont bread, known in the country as "grisses." By dint of
softening this bread in the mouth some of it is eventually swalloed
the teeth come through of themselves, and the child is weaned almost
imperceptibly. Peasants have usually very good digestions, and they
are weaned with no more ado.
From the very first children hear spoken language; we speak to
them before they can understand or even imitate spoken sounds. The
vocal organs are still stiff, and only gradually lend themselves to
the reproduction of the sounds heard; it is even doubtful whether
these sounds are heard distinctly as we hear them. The nurse may
amuse the child with songs and with very merry and varied intonation,
but I object to her bewildering the child with a multitude of vain
words of which it understands nothing but her tone of voice. I would
have the first words he hears few in number, distinctly and often
repeated, while the words themselves should be related to things which
can first be shown to the child. That fatal facility in the use of
words we do not understand begins earlier than we think. In the
schoolroom the scholar listens to the verbiage of his master as he
listened in the cradle to the babble of his nurse. I think it would be
a very useful education to leave him in ignorance of both.
All sorts of ideas crowd in upon us when we try to consider the
development of speech and the child's first words. Whatever we do
they all learn to talk in the same way, and all philosophical
speculations are utterly useless.
To begin with, they have, so to say, a grammar of their own, whose
rules and syntax are more general than our own; if you attend
carefully you will be surprised to find how exactly they follow
certain analogies, very much mistaken if you like, but very regular;
these forms are only objectionable because of their harshness or
because they are not recognised by custom. I have just heard a child
severely scolded by his father for saying, "Mon pere, irai-je-t-y?"
Now we see that this child was following the analogy more closely
than our grammarians, for as they say to him, "Vas-y," why should he
not say, "Irai-je-t-y?" Notice too the skilful way in which he avoids
the hiatus in irai-je-y or y-irai-je? Is it the poor child's fault
that we have so unskilfully deprived the phrase of this determinative
adverb "y," because we did not know what to do with it? It is an
intolerable piece of pedantry and most superfluous attention to detail
to make a point of correcting all children's little sins against the
customary expression, for they always cure themselves with time.
Always speak correctly before them, let them never be so happy with
any one as with you, and be sure that their speech will be
imperceptibly modelled upon yours without any correction on your part.
But a much greater evil, and one far less easy to guard against,
is that they are urged to speak too much, as if people were afraid
they would not learn to talk of themselves. This indiscreet zeal
produces an effect directly opposite to what is meant. They speak
later and more confusedly; the extreme attention paid to everything
they say makes it unnecessary for them to speak distinctly, and as
they will scarcely open their mouths, many of them contract a vicious
pronunciation and a confused speech, which last all their life and
make them almost unintelligible.
I have lived much among peasants, and I never knew one of them
lisp, man or woman, boy or girl. Why is this? Are their speech organs
differently made from our own? No, but they are differently used.
There is a hillock facing my window on which the children of the
place assemble for their games. Although they are far enough away, I
can distinguish perfectly what they say, and often get good notes for
this book. Every day my ear deceives me as to their age. I hear the
voices of children of ten; I look and see the height and features of
children of three or four. This experience is not confined to me; the
townspeople who come to see me, and whom I consult on this point, all
fall into the same mistake.
This results from the fact that, up to five or six, children in
town, brought up in a room and under the care of a nursery governess,
do not need to speak above a whisper to make themselves heard. As
soon as their lips move people take pains to make out what they mean;
they are taught words which they repeat inaccurately, and by paying
great attention to them the people who are always with them rather
guess what they meant to say than what they said.
It is quite a different matter in the country. A peasant woman is
not always with her child; he is obliged to learn to say very clearly
and loudly what he wants, if he is to make himself understood.
Children scattered about the fields at a distance from their fathers,
mothers and other children, gain practice in making themselves heard
at a distance, and in adapting the loudness of the voice to the
distance which separates them from those to whom they want to speak.
This is the real way to learn pronunciation, not by stammering out a
few vowels into the ear of an attentive governess. So when you
question a peasant child, he may be too shy to answer, but what he
says he says distinctly, while the nurse must serve as interpreter for
the town child; without her one can understand nothing of what he is
muttering between his teeth. [Footnote: There are exceptions to this;
and often those children who at first are most difficult to hear,
become the noisiest when they begin to raise their voices. But if I
were to enter into all these details I should never make an end; every
sensible reader ought to see that defect and excess, caused by the
same abuse, are both corrected by my method. I regard the two maxims
as inseperable—always enough—never too much. When the first ii well
established, the latter necessarily follows on it.]
As they grow older, the boys are supposed to be cured of this fault
at college, the girls in the convent schools; and indeed both usually
speak more clearly than children brought up entirely at home. But
they are prevented from acquiring as clear a pronunciation as the
peasants in this way—they are required to learn all sorts of things
by heart, and to repeat aloud what they have learnt; for when they
are studying they get into the way of gabbling and pronouncing
carelessly and ill; it is still worse when they repeat their lessons;
they cannot find the right words, they drag out their syllables. This
is only possible when the memory hesitates, the tongue does not
stammer of itself. Thus they acquire or continue habits of bad
pronunciation. Later on you will see that Emile does not acquire such
habits or at least not from this cause.
I grant you uneducated people and villagers often fall into the
opposite extreme. They almost always speak too loud; their
pronunciation is too exact, and leads to rough and coarse
articulation; their accent is too pronounced, they choose their
expressions badly, etc.
But, to begin with, this extreme strikes me as much less dangerous
than the other, for the first law of speech is to make oneself
understood, and the chief fault is to fail to be understood. To pride
ourselves on having no accent is to pride ourselves on ridding our
phrases of strength and elegance. Emphasis is the soul of speech, it
gives it its feeling and truth. Emphasis deceives less than words;
perhaps that is why well-educated people are so afraid of it. From the
custom of saying everything in the same tone has arisen that of poking
fun at people without their knowing it. When emphasis is proscribed,
its place is taken by all sorts of ridiculous, affected, and ephemeral
pronunciations, such as one observes especially among the young people
about court. It is this affectation of speech and manner which makes
Frenchmen disagreeable and repulsive to other nations on first
acquaintance. Emphasis is found, not in their speech, but in their
bearing. That is not the way to make themselves attractive.
All these little faults of speech, which you are so afraid the
children will acquire, are mere trifles; they may be prevented or
corrected with the greatest ease, but the faults which are taught
them when you make them speak in a low, indistinct, and timid voice,
when you are always criticising their tone and finding fault with
their words, are never cured. A man who has only learnt to speak in
society of fine ladies could not make himself heard at the head of his
troops, and would make little impression on the rabble in a riot.
First teach the child to speak to men; he will be able to speak to the
women when required.
Brought up in all the rustic simplicity of the country, your
children will gain a more sonorous voice; they will not acquire the
hesitating stammer of town children, neither will they acquire the
expressions nor the tone of the villagers, or if they do they will
easily lose them; their master being with them from their earliest
years, and more and more in their society the older they grow, will be
able to prevent or efface by speaking correctly himself the impression
of the peasants' talk. Emile will speak the purest French I know, but
he will speak it more distinctly and with a better articulation than
myself.
The child who is trying to speak should hear nothing but words he
can understand, nor should he say words he cannot articulate; his
efforts lead him to repeat the same syllable as if he were practising
its clear pronunciation. When he begins to stammer, do not try to
understand him. To expect to be always listened to is a form of
tyranny which is not good for the child. See carefully to his real
needs, and let him try to make you understand the rest. Still less
should you hurry him into speech; he will learn to talk when he feels
the want of it.
It has indeed been remarked that those who begin to speak very late
never speak so distinctly as others; but it is not because they
talked late that they are hesitating; on the contrary, they began to
talk late because they hesitate; if not, why did they begin to talk so
late? Have they less need of speech, have they been less urged to it?
On the contrary, the anxiety aroused with the first suspicion of this
backwardness leads people to tease them much more to begin to talk
than those who articulated earlier; and this mistaken zeal may do much
to make their speech confused, when with less haste they might have
had time to bring it to greater perfection.
Children who are forced to speak too soon have no time to learn
either to pronounce correctly or to understand what they are made to
say; while left to themselves they first practise the easiest
syllables, and then, adding to them little by little some meaning
which their gestures explain, they teach you their own words before
they learn yours. By this means they do not acquire your words till
they have understood them. Being in no hurry to use them, they begin
by carefully observing the sense in which you use them, and when they
are sure of them they adopt them.
The worst evil resulting from the precocious use of speech by young
children is that we not only fail to understand the first words they
use, we misunderstand them without knowing it; so that while they seem
to answer us correctly, they fail to understand us and we them. This
is the most frequent cause of our surprise at children's sayings; we
attribute to them ideas which they did not attach to their words. This
lack of attention on our part to the real meaning which words have for
children seems to me the cause of their earliest misconceptions; and
these misconceptions, even when corrected, colour their whole course
of thought for the rest of their life. I shall have several
opportunities of illustrating these by examples later on.
Let the child's vocabulary, therefore, be limited; it is very
undesirable that he should have more words than ideas, that he should
be able to say more than he thinks. One of the reasons why peasants
are generally shrewder than townsfolk is, I think, that their
vocabulary is smaller. They have few ideas, but those few are
thoroughly grasped.
The infant is progressing in several ways at once; he is learning
to talk, eat, and walk about the same time. This is really the first
phase of his life. Up till now, he was little more than he was before
birth; he had neither feeling nor thought, he was barely capable of
sensation; he was unconscious of his own existence.
"Vivit, et est vitae nescius ipse suae."—Ovid.
BOOK II
We have now reached the second phase of life; infancy, strictly
so-called, is over; for the words infans and puer are not synonymous.
The latter includes the former, which means literally "one who cannot
speak;" thus Valerius speaks of puerum infantem. But I shall continue
to use the word child (French enfant) according to the custom of our
language till an age for which there is another term.
When children begin to talk they cry less. This progress is quite
natural; one language supplants another. As soon as they can say "It
hurts me," why should they cry, unless the pain is too sharp for
words? If they still cry, those about them are to blame. When once
Emile has said, "It hurts me," it will take a very sharp pain to make
him cry.
If the child is delicate and sensitive, if by nature he begins to
cry for nothing, I let him cry in vain and soon check his tears at
their source. So long as he cries I will not go near him; I come at
once when he leaves off crying. He will soon be quiet when he wants to
call me, or rather he will utter a single cry. Children learn the
meaning of signs by their effects; they have no other meaning for
them. However much a child hurts himself when he is alone, he rarely
cries, unless he expects to be heard.
Should he fall or bump his head, or make his nose bleed, or cut
his fingers, I shall show no alarm, nor shall I make any fuss over
him; I shall take no notice, at any rate at first. The harm is done;
he must bear it; all my zeal could only frighten him more and make
him more nervous. Indeed it is not the blow but the fear of it which
distresses us when we are hurt. I shall spare him this suffering at
least, for he will certainly regard the injury as he sees me regard
it; if he finds that I hasten anxiously to him, if I pity him or
comfort him, he will think he is badly hurt. If he finds I take no
notice, he will soon recover himself, and will think the wound is
healed when it ceases to hurt. This is the time for his first lesson
in courage, and by bearing slight ills without fear we gradually learn
to bear greater.
I shall not take pains to prevent Emile hurting himself; far from
it, I should be vexed if he never hurt himself, if he grew up
unacquainted with pain. To bear pain is his first and most useful
lesson. It seems as if children were small and weak on purpose to
teach them these valuable lessons without danger. The child has such
a little way to fall he will not break his leg; if he knocks himself
with a stick he will not break his arm; if he seizes a sharp knife he
will not grasp it tight enough to make a deep wound. So far as I know,
no child, left to himself, has ever been known to kill or maim itself,
or even to do itself any serious harm, unless it has been foolishly
left on a high place, or alone near the fire, or within reach of
dangerous weapons. What is there to be said for all the paraphernalia
with which the child is surrounded to shield him on every side so that
he grows up at the mercy of pain, with neither courage nor experience,
so that he thinks he is killed by a pin-prick and faints at the sight
of blood?
With our foolish and pedantic methods we are always preventing
children from learning what they could learn much better by
themselves, while we neglect what we alone can teach them. Can
anything be sillier than the pains taken to teach them to walk, as if
there were any one who was unable to walk when he grows up through his
nurse's neglect? How many we see walking badly all their life because
they were ill taught?
Emile shall have no head-pads, no go-carts, no leading-strings; or
at least as soon as he can put one foot before another he shall only
be supported along pavements, and he shall be taken quickly across
them. [Footnote: There is nothing so absurd and hesitating as the gait
of those who have been kept too long in leading-strings when they were
little. This is one of the observations which are considered trivial
because they are true.] Instead of keeping him mewed up in a stuffy
room, take him out into a meadow every day; let him run about, let him
struggle and fall again and again, the oftener the better; he will
learn all the sooner to pick himself up. The delights of liberty will
make up for many bruises. My pupil will hurt himself oftener than
yours, but he will always be merry; your pupils may receive fewer
injuries, but they are always thwarted, constrained, and sad. I doubt
whether they are any better off.
As their strength increases, children have also less need for
tears. They can do more for themselves, they need the help of others
less frequently. With strength comes the sense to use it. It is with
this second phase that the real personal life has its beginning; it
is then that the child becomes conscious of himself. During every
moment of his life memory calls up the feeling of self; he becomes
really one person, always the same, and therefore capable of joy or
sorrow. Hence we must begin to consider him as a moral being.
Although we know approximately the limits of human life and our
chances of attaining those limits, nothing is more uncertain than the
length of the life of any one of us. Very few reach old age. The chief
risks occur at the beginning of life; the shorter our past life, the
less we must hope to live. Of all the children who are born scarcely
one half reach adolescence, and it is very likely your pupil will not
live to be a man.
What is to be thought, therefore, of that cruel education which
sacrifices the present to an uncertain future, that burdens a child
with all sorts of restrictions and begins by making him miserable, in
order to prepare him for some far-off happiness which he may never
enjoy? Even if I considered that education wise in its aims, how could
I view without indignation those poor wretches subjected to an
intolerable slavery and condemned like galley-slaves to endless toil,
with no certainty that they will gain anything by it? The age of
harmless mirth is spent in tears, punishments, threats, and slavery.
You torment the poor thing for his good; you fail to see that you are
calling Death to snatch him from these gloomy surroundings. Who can
say how many children fall victims to the excessive care of their
fathers and mothers? They are happy to escape from this cruelty; this
is all that they gain from the ills they are forced to endure: they
die without regretting, having known nothing of life but its sorrows.
Men, be kind to your fellow-men; this is your first duty, kind to
every age and station, kind to all that is not foreign to humanity.
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness? Love
childhood, indulge its sports, its pleasures, its delightful
instincts. Who has not sometimes regretted that age when laughter was
ever on the lips, and when the heart was ever at peace? Why rob these
innocents of the joys which pass so quickly, of that precious gift
which they cannot abuse? Why fill with bitterness the fleeting days of
early childhood, days which will no more return for them than for you?
Fathers, can you tell when death will call your children to him? Do
not lay up sorrow for yourselves by robbing them of the short span
which nature has allotted to them. As soon as they are aware of the
joy of life, let them rejoice in it, go that whenever God calls them
they may not die without having tasted the joy of life.
How people will cry out against me! I hear from afar the shouts of
that false wisdom which is ever dragging us onwards, counting the
present as nothing, and pursuing without a pause a future which flies
as we pursue, that false wisdom which removes us from our place and
never brings us to any other.
Now is the time, you say, to correct his evil tendencies; we must
increase suffering in childhood, when it is less keenly felt, to
lessen it in manhood. But how do you know that you can carry out all
these fine schemes; how do you know that all this fine teaching with
which you overwhelm the feeble mind of the child will not do him more
harm than good in the future? How do you know that you can spare him
anything by the vexations you heap upon him now? Why inflict on him
more ills than befit his present condition unless you are quite sure
that these present ills will save him future ill? And what proof can
you give me that those evil tendencies you profess to cure are not the
result of your foolish precautions rather than of nature? What a poor
sort of foresight, to make a child wretched in the present with the
more or less doubtful hope of making him happy at some future day. If
such blundering thinkers fail to distinguish between liberty and
licence, between a merry child and a spoilt darling, let them learn to
discriminate.
Let us not forget what befits our present state in the pursuit of
vain fancies. Mankind has its place in the sequence of things;
childhood has its place in the sequence of human life; the man must
be treated as a man and the child as a child. Give each his place,
and keep him there. Control human passions according to man's nature;
that is all we can do for his welfare. The rest depends on external
forces, which are beyond our control.
Absolute good and evil are unknown to us. In this life they are
blended together; we never enjoy any perfectly pure feeling, nor do
we remain for more than a moment in the same state. The feelings of
our minds, like the changes in our bodies, are in a continual flux.
Good and ill are common to all, but in varying proportions. The
happiest is he who suffers least; the most miserable is he who enjoys
least. Ever more sorrow than joy—this is the lot of all of us. Man's
happiness in this world is but a negative state; it must be reckoned
by the fewness of his ills.
Every feeling of hardship is inseparable from the desire to escape
from it; every idea of pleasure from the desire to enjoy it. All
desire implies a want, and all wants are painful; hence our
wretchedness consists in the disproportion between our desires and our
powers. A conscious being whose powers were equal to his desires would
be perfectly happy.
What then is human wisdom? Where is the path of true happiness?
The mere limitation of our desires is not enough, for if they were
less than our powers, part of our faculties would be idle, and we
should not enjoy our whole being; neither is the mere extension of
our powers enough, for if our desires were also increased we should
only be the more miserable. True happiness consists in decreasing the
difference between our desires and our powers, in establishing a
perfect equilibrium between the power and the will. Then only, when
all its forces are employed, will the soul be at rest and man will
find himself in his true position.
In this condition, nature, who does everything for the best, has
placed him from the first. To begin with, she gives him only such
desires as are necessary for self-preservation and such powers as are
sufficient for their satisfaction. All the rest she has stored in his
mind as a sort of reserve, to be drawn upon at need. It is only in
this primitive condition that we find the equilibrium between desire
and power, and then alone man is not unhappy. As soon as his potential
powers of mind begin to function, imagination, more powerful than all
the rest, awakes, and precedes all the rest. It is imagination which
enlarges the bounds of possibility for us, whether for good or ill,
and therefore stimulates and feeds desires by the hope of satisfying
them. But the object which seemed within our grasp flies quicker than
we can follow; when we think we have grasped it, it transforms itself
and is again far ahead of us. We no longer perceive the country we
have traversed, and we think nothing of it; that which lies before us
becomes vaster and stretches still before us. Thus we exhaust our
strength, yet never reach our goal, and the nearer we are to pleasure,
the further we are from happiness.
On the other hand, the more nearly a man's condition approximates
to this state of nature the less difference is there between his
desires and his powers, and happiness is therefore less remote.
Lacking everything, he is never less miserable; for misery consists,
not in the lack of things, but in the needs which they inspire.
The world of reality has its bounds, the world of imagination is
boundless; as we cannot enlarge the one, let us restrict the other;
for all the sufferings which really make us miserable arise from the
difference between the real and the imaginary. Health, strength, and a
good conscience excepted, all the good things of life are a matter of
opinion; except bodily suffering and remorse, all our woes are
imaginary. You will tell me this is a commonplace; I admit it, but its
practical application is no commonplace, and it is with practice only
that we are now concerned.
What do you mean when you say, "Man is weak"? The term weak implies
a relation, a relation of the creature to whom it is applied. An
insect or a worm whose strength exceeds its needs is strong; an
elephant, a lion, a conqueror, a hero, a god himself, whose needs
exceed his strength is weak. The rebellious angel who fought against
his own nature was weaker than the happy mortal who is living at
peace according to nature. When man is content to be himself he is
strong indeed; when he strives to be more than man he is weak indeed.
But do not imagine that you can increase your strength by increasing
your powers. Not so; if your pride increases more rapidly your
strength is diminished. Let us measure the extent of our sphere and
remain in its centre like the spider in its web; we shall have
strength sufficient for our needs, we shall have no cause to lament
our weakness, for we shall never be aware of it.
The other animals possess only such powers as are required for
self-preservation; man alone has more. Is it not very strange that
this superfluity should make him miserable? In every land a man's
labour yields more than a bare living. If he were wise enough to
disregard this surplus he would always have enough, for he would
never have too much. "Great needs," said Favorin, "spring from great
wealth; and often the best way of getting what we want is to get rid
of what we have." By striving to increase our happiness we change it
into wretchedness. If a man were content to live, he would live happy;
and he would therefore be good, for what would he have to gain by
vice?
If we were immortal we should all be miserable; no doubt it is hard
to die, but it is sweet to think that we shall not live for ever, and
that a better life will put an end to the sorrows of this world. If
we had the offer of immortality here below, who would accept the
sorrowful gift? [Footnote: You understand I am speaking of those who
think, and not of the crowd.] What resources, what hopes, what
consolation would be left against the cruelties of fate and man's
injustice? The ignorant man never looks before; he knows little of the
value of life and does not fear to lose it; the wise man sees things
of greater worth and prefers them to it. Half knowledge and sham
wisdom set us thinking about death and what lies beyond it; and they
thus create the worst of our ills. The wise man bears life's ills all
the better because he knows he must die. Life would be too dearly
bought did we not know that sooner or later death will end it.
Our moral ills are the result of prejudice, crime alone excepted,
and that depends on ourselves; our bodily ills either put an end to
themselves or to us. Time or death will cure them, but the less we
know how to bear it, the greater is our pain, and we suffer more in
our efforts to cure our diseases than if we endured them. Live
according to nature; be patient, get rid of the doctors; you will not
escape death, but you will only die once, while the doctors make you
die daily through your diseased imagination; their lying art, instead
of prolonging your days, robs you of all delight in them. I am always
asking what real good this art has done to mankind. True, the doctors
cure some who would have died, but they kill millions who would have
lived. If you are wise you will decline to take part in this lottery
when the odds are so great against you. Suffer, die, or get better;
but whatever you do, live while you are alive.
Human institutions are one mass of folly and contradiction. As our
life loses its value we set a higher price upon it. The old regret
life more than the young; they do not want to lose all they have
spent in preparing for its enjoyment. At sixty it is cruel to die
when one has not begun to live. Man is credited with a strong desire
for self-preservation, and this desire exists; but we fail to perceive
that this desire, as felt by us, is largely the work of man. In a
natural state man is only eager to preserve his life while he has the
means for its preservation; when self-preservation is no longer
possible, he resigns himself to his fate and dies without vain
torments. Nature teaches us the first law of resignation. Savages,
like wild beasts, make very little struggle against death, and meet it
almost without a murmur. When this natural law is overthrown reason
establishes another, but few discern it, and man's resignation is
never so complete as nature's.
Prudence! Prudence which is ever bidding us look forward into the
future, a future which in many cases we shall never reach; here is
the real source of all our troubles! How mad it is for so short-lived
a creature as man to look forward into a future to which he rarely
attains, while he neglects the present which is his? This madness is
all the more fatal since it increases with years, and the old, always
timid, prudent, and miserly, prefer to do without necessaries to-day
that they may have luxuries at a hundred. Thus we grasp everything, we
cling to everything; we are anxious about time, place, people, things,
all that is and will be; we ourselves are but the least part of
ourselves. We spread ourselves, so to speak, over the whole world, and
all this vast expanse becomes sensitive. No wonder our woes increase
when we may be wounded on every side. How many princes make themselves
miserable for the loss of lands they never saw, and how many merchants
lament in Paris over some misfortune in the Indies!
Is it nature that carries men so far from their real selves? Is it
her will that each should learn his fate from others and even be the
last to learn it; so that a man dies happy or miserable before he
knows what he is about. There is a healthy, cheerful, strong, and
vigorous man; it does me good to see him; his eyes tell of content and
well-being; he is the picture of happiness. A letter comes by post;
the happy man glances at it, it is addressed to him, he opens it and
reads it. In a moment he is changed, he turns pale and falls into a
swoon. When he comes to himself he weeps, laments, and groans, he
tears his hair, and his shrieks re-echo through the air. You would
say he was in convulsions. Fool, what harm has this bit of paper done
you? What limb has it torn away? What crime has it made you commit?
What change has it wrought in you to reduce you to this state of
misery?
Had the letter miscarried, had some kindly hand thrown it into the
fire, it strikes me that the fate of this mortal, at once happy and
unhappy, would have offered us a strange problem. His misfortunes,
you say, were real enough. Granted; but he did not feel them. What of
that? His happiness was imaginary. I admit it; health, wealth, a
contented spirit, are mere dreams. We no longer live in our own place,
we live outside it. What does it profit us to live in such fear of
death, when all that makes life worth living is our own?
Oh, man! live your own life and you will no longer be wretched.
Keep to your appointed place in the order of nature and nothing can
tear you from it. Do not kick against the stern law of necessity, nor
waste in vain resistance the strength bestowed on you by heaven, not
to prolong or extend your existence, but to preserve it so far and so
long as heaven pleases. Your freedom and your power extend as far and
no further than your natural strength; anything more is but slavery,
deceit, and trickery. Power itself is servile when it depends upon
public opinion; for you are dependent on the prejudices of others when
you rule them by means of those prejudices. To lead them as you will,
they must be led as they will. They have only to change their way of
thinking and you are forced to change your course of action. Those who
approach you need only contrive to sway the opinions of those you
rule, or of the favourite by whom you are ruled, or those of your own
family or theirs. Had you the genius of Themistocles, [Footnote: "You
see that little boy," said Themistocles to his friends, "the fate of
Greece is in his hands, for he rules his mother and his mother rules
me, I rule the Athenians and the Athenians rule the Greeks." What
petty creatures we should often find controlling great empires if we
traced the course of power from the prince to those who secretly put
that power in motion.] viziers, courtiers, priests, soldiers,
servants, babblers, the very children themselves, would lead you like
a child in the midst of your legions. Whatever you do, your actual
authority can never extend beyond your own powers. As soon as you are
obliged to see with another's eyes you must will what he wills. You
say with pride, "My people are my subjects." Granted, but what are
you? The subject of your ministers. And your ministers, what are they?
The subjects of their clerks, their mistresses, the servants of their
servants. Grasp all, usurp all, and then pour out your silver with
both hands; set up your batteries, raise the gallows and the wheel;
make laws, issue proclamations, multiply your spies, your soldiers,
your hangmen, your prisons, and your chains. Poor little men, what
good does it do you? You will be no better served, you will be none
the less robbed and deceived, you will be no nearer absolute power.
You will say continually, "It is our will," and you will continually
do the will of others.
There is only one man who gets his own way—he who can get it
single-handed; therefore freedom, not power, is the greatest good.
That man is truly free who desires what he is able to perform, and
does what he desires. This is my fundamental maxim. Apply it to
childhood, and all the rules of education spring from it.
Society has enfeebled man, not merely by robbing him of the right
to his own strength, but still more by making his strength
insufficient for his needs. This is why his desires increase in
proportion to his weakness; and this is why the child is weaker than
the man. If a man is strong and a child is weak it is not because the
strength of the one is absolutely greater than the strength of the
other, but because the one can naturally provide for himself and the
other cannot. Thus the man will have more desires and the child more
caprices, a word which means, I take it, desires which are not true
needs, desires which can only be satisfied with the help of others.
I have already given the reason for this state of weakness.
Parental affection is nature's provision against it; but parental
affection may be carried to excess, it may be wanting, or it may be
ill applied. Parents who live under our ordinary social conditions
bring their child into these conditions too soon. By increasing his
needs they do not relieve his weakness; they rather increase it. They
further increase it by demanding of him what nature does not demand,
by subjecting to their will what little strength he has to further
his own wishes, by making slaves of themselves or of him instead of
recognising that mutual dependence which should result from his
weakness or their affection.
The wise man can keep his own place; but the child who does not
know what his place is, is unable to keep it. There are a thousand
ways out of it, and it is the business of those who have charge of
the child to keep him in his place, and this is no easy task. He
should be neither beast nor man, but a child. He must feel his
weakness, but not suffer through it; he must be dependent, but he
must not obey; he must ask, not command. He is only subject to others
because of his needs, and because they see better than he what he
really needs, what may help or hinder his existence. No one, not even
his father, has the right to bid the child do what is of no use to
him.
When our natural tendencies have not been interfered with by human
prejudice and human institutions, the happiness alike of children and
of men consists in the enjoyment of their liberty. But the child's
liberty is restricted by his lack of strength. He who does as he likes
is happy provided he is self-sufficing; it is so with the man who is
living in a state of nature. He who does what he likes is not happy if
his desires exceed his strength; it is so with a child in like
conditions. Even in a state of nature children only enjoy an imperfect
liberty, like that enjoyed by men in social life. Each of us, unable
to dispense with the help of others, becomes so far weak and wretched.
We were meant to be men, laws and customs thrust us back into infancy.
The rich and great, the very kings themselves are but children; they
see that we are ready to relieve their misery; this makes them
childishly vain, and they are quite proud of the care bestowed on
them, a care which they would never get if they were grown men.
These are weighty considerations, and they provide a solution for
all the conflicting problems of our social system. There are two kinds
of dependence: dependence on things, which is the work of nature; and
dependence on men, which is the work of society. Dependence on things,
being non-moral, does no injury to liberty and begets no vices;
dependence on men, being out of order, [Footnote: In my PRINCIPLES OF
POLITICAL LAW it is proved that no private will can be ordered in the
social system.] gives rise to every kind of vice, and through this
master and slave become mutually depraved. If there is any cure for
this social evil, it is to be found in the substitution of law for the
individual; in arming the general will with a real strength beyond the
power of any individual will. If the laws of nations, like the laws of
nature, could never be broken by any human power, dependence on men
would become dependence on things; all the advantages of a state of
nature would be combined with all the advantages of social life in the
commonwealth. The liberty which preserves a man from vice would be
united with the morality which raises him to virtue.
Keep the child dependent on things only. By this course of
education you will have followed the order of nature. Let his
unreasonable wishes meet with physical obstacles only, or the
punishment which results from his own actions, lessons which will be
recalled when the same circumstances occur again. It is enough to
prevent him from wrong doing without forbidding him to do wrong.
Experience or lack of power should take the place of law. Give him,
not what he wants, but what he needs. Let there be no question of
obedience for him or tyranny for you. Supply the strength he lacks
just so far as is required for freedom, not for power, so that he may
receive your services with a sort of shame, and look forward to the
time when he may dispense with them and may achieve the honour of
self-help.
Nature provides for the child's growth in her own fashion, and this
should never be thwarted. Do not make him sit still when he wants to
run about, nor run when he wants to be quiet. If we did not spoil our
children's wills by our blunders their desires would be free from
caprice. Let them run, jump, and shout to their heart's content. All
their own activities are instincts of the body for its growth in
strength; but you should regard with suspicion those wishes which they
cannot carry out for themselves, those which others must carry out for
them. Then you must distinguish carefully between natural and
artificial needs, between the needs of budding caprice and the needs
which spring from the overflowing life just described.
I have already told you what you ought to do when a child cries for
this thing or that. I will only add that as soon as he has words to
ask for what he wants and accompanies his demands with tears, either
to get his own way quicker or to over-ride a refusal, he should never
have his way. If his words were prompted by a real need you should
recognise it and satisfy it at once; but to yield to his tears is to
encourage him to cry, to teach him to doubt your kindness, and to
think that you are influenced more by his importunity than your own
good-will. If he does not think you kind he will soon think you
unkind; if he thinks you weak he will soon become obstinate; what you
mean to give must be given at once. Be chary of refusing, but, having
refused, do not change your mind.
Above all, beware of teaching the child empty phrases of
politeness, which serve as spells to subdue those around him to his
will, and to get him what he wants at once. The artificial education
of the rich never fails to make them politely imperious, by teaching
them the words to use so that no one will dare to resist them. Their
children have neither the tone nor the manner of suppliants; they are
as haughty or even more haughty in their entreaties than in their
commands, as though they were more certain to be obeyed. You see at
once that "If you please" means "It pleases me," and "I beg" means "I
command." What a fine sort of politeness which only succeeds in
changing the meaning of words so that every word is a command! For my
own part, I would rather Emile were rude than haughty, that he should
say "Do this" as a request, rather than "Please" as a command. What
concerns me is his meaning, not his words.
There is such a thing as excessive severity as well as excessive
indulgence, and both alike should be avoided. If you let children
suffer you risk their health and life; you make them miserable now;
if you take too much pains to spare them every kind of uneasiness you
are laying up much misery for them in the future; you are making them
delicate and over-sensitive; you are taking them out of their place
among men, a place to which they must sooner or later return, in spite
of all your pains. You will say I am falling into the same mistake as
those bad fathers whom I blamed for sacrificing the present happiness
of their children to a future which may never be theirs.
Not so; for the liberty I give my pupil makes up for the slight
hardships to which he is exposed. I see little fellows playing in the
snow, stiff and blue with cold, scarcely able to stir a finger. They
could go and warm themselves if they chose, but they do not choose; if
you forced them to come in they would feel the harshness of constraint
a hundredfold more than the sharpness of the cold. Then what becomes
of your grievance? Shall I make your child miserable by exposing him
to hardships which he is perfectly ready to endure? I secure his
present good by leaving him his freedom, and his future good by arming
him against the evils he will have to bear. If he had his choice,
would he hesitate for a moment between you and me?
Do you think any man can find true happiness elsewhere than in his
natural state; and when you try to spare him all suffering, are you
not taking him out of his natural state? Indeed I maintain that to
enjoy great happiness he must experience slight ills; such is his
nature. Too much bodily prosperity corrupts the morals. A man who
knew nothing of suffering would be incapable of tenderness towards
his fellow-creatures and ignorant of the joys of pity; he would be
hard-hearted, unsocial, a very monster among men.
Do you know the surest way to make your child miserable? Let him
have everything he wants; for as his wants increase in proportion to
the ease with which they are satisfied, you will be compelled, sooner
or later, to refuse his demands, and this unlooked-for refusal will
hurt him more than the lack of what he wants. He will want your stick
first, then your watch, the bird that flies, or the star that shines
above him. He will want all he sets eyes on, and unless you were God
himself, how could you satisfy him?
Man naturally considers all that he can get as his own. In this
sense Hobbes' theory is true to a certain extent: Multiply both our
wishes and the means of satisfying them, and each will be master of
all. Thus the child, who has only to ask and have, thinks himself the
master of the universe; he considers all men as his slaves; and when
you are at last compelled to refuse, he takes your refusal as an act
of rebellion, for he thinks he has only to command. All the reasons
you give him, while he is still too young to reason, are so many
pretences in his eyes; they seem to him only unkindness; the sense of
injustice embitters his disposition; he hates every one. Though he
has never felt grateful for kindness, he resents all opposition.
How should I suppose that such a child can ever be happy? He is
the slave of anger, a prey to the fiercest passions. Happy! He is a
tyrant, at once the basest of slaves and the most wretched of
creatures. I have known children brought up like this who expected
you to knock the house down, to give them the weather-cock on the
steeple, to stop a regiment on the march so that they might listen to
the band; when they could not get their way they screamed and cried
and would pay no attention to any one. In vain everybody strove to
please them; as their desires were stimulated by the ease with which
they got their own way, they set their hearts on impossibilities, and
found themselves face to face with opposition and difficulty, pain and
grief. Scolding, sulking, or in a rage, they wept and cried all day.
Were they really so greatly favoured? Weakness, combined with love of
power, produces nothing but folly and suffering. One spoilt child
beats the table; another whips the sea. They may beat and whip long
enough before they find contentment.
If their childhood is made wretched by these notions of power and
tyranny, what of their manhood, when their relations with their
fellow-men begin to grow and multiply? They are used to find
everything give way to them; what a painful surprise to enter society
and meet with opposition on every side, to be crushed beneath the
weight of a universe which they expected to move at will. Their
insolent manners, their childish vanity, only draw down upon them
mortification, scorn, and mockery; they swallow insults like water;
sharp experience soon teaches them that they have realised neither
their position nor their strength. As they cannot do everything, they
think they can do nothing. They are daunted by unexpected obstacles,
degraded by the scorn of men; they become base, cowardly, and
deceitful, and fall as far below their true level as they formerly
soared above it.
Let us come back to the primitive law. Nature has made children
helpless and in need of affection; did she make them to be obeyed and
feared? Has she given them an imposing manner, a stern eye, a loud and
threatening voice with which to make themselves feared? I understand
how the roaring of the lion strikes terror into the other beasts, so
that they tremble when they behold his terrible mane, but of all
unseemly, hateful, and ridiculous sights, was there ever anything like
a body of statesmen in their robes of office with their chief at their
head bowing down before a swaddled babe, addressing him in pompous
phrases, while he cries and slavers in reply?
If we consider childhood itself, is there anything so weak and
wretched as a child, anything so utterly at the mercy of those about
it, so dependent on their pity, their care, and their affection? Does
it not seem as if his gentle face and touching appearance were
intended to interest every one on behalf of his weakness and to make
them eager to help him? And what is there more offensive, more
unsuitable, than the sight of a sulky or imperious child, who commands
those about him, and impudently assumes the tones of a master towards
those without whom he would perish?
On the other hand, do you not see how children are fettered by the
weakness of infancy? Do you not see how cruel it is to increase this
servitude by obedience to our caprices, by depriving them of such
liberty as they have? a liberty which they can scarcely abuse, a
liberty the loss of which will do so little good to them or us. If
there is nothing more ridiculous than a haughty child, there is
nothing that claims our pity like a timid child. With the age of
reason the child becomes the slave of the community; then why
forestall this by slavery in the home? Let this brief hour of life be
free from a yoke which nature has not laid upon it; leave the child
the use of his natural liberty, which, for a time at least, secures
him from the vices of the slave. Bring me those harsh masters, and
those fathers who are the slaves of their children, bring them both
with their frivolous objections, and before they boast of their own
methods let them for once learn the method of nature.
I return to practical matters. I have already said your child must
not get what he asks, but what he needs; [Footnote: We must recognise
that pain is often necessary, pleasure is sometimes needed. So there
is only one of the child's desires which should never be complied
with, the desire for power. Hence, whenever they ask for anything we
must pay special attention to their motive in asking. As far as
possible give them everything they ask for, provided it can really
give them pleasure; refuse everything they demand from mere caprice or
love of power.] he must never act from obedience, but from necessity.
The very words OBEY and COMMAND will be excluded from his
vocabulary, still more those of DUTY and OBLIGATION; but the words
strength, necessity, weakness, and constraint must have a large place
in it. Before the age of reason it is impossible to form any idea of
moral beings or social relations; so avoid, as far as may be, the use
of words which express these ideas, lest the child at an early age
should attach wrong ideas to them, ideas which you cannot or will not
destroy when he is older. The first mistaken idea he gets into his
head is the germ of error and vice; it is the first step that needs
watching. Act in such a way that while he only notices external
objects his ideas are confined to sensations; let him only see the
physical world around him. If not, you may be sure that either he will
pay no heed to you at all, or he will form fantastic ideas of the
moral world of which you prate, ideas which you will never efface as
long as he lives.
"Reason with children" was Locke's chief maxim; it is in the height
of fashion at present, and I hardly think it is justified by its
results; those children who have been constantly reasoned with strike
me as exceedingly silly. Of all man's faculties, reason, which is, so
to speak, compounded of all the rest, is the last and choicest growth,
and it is this you would use for the child's early training. To make a
man reasonable is the coping stone of a good education, and yet you
profess to train a child through his reason! You begin at the wrong
end, you make the end the means. If children understood reason they
would not need education, but by talking to them from their earliest
age in a language they do not understand you accustom them to be
satisfied with words, to question all that is said to them, to think
themselves as wise as their teachers; you train them to be
argumentative and rebellious; and whatever you think you gain from
motives of reason, you really gain from greediness, fear, or vanity
with which you are obliged to reinforce your reasoning.
Most of the moral lessons which are and can be given to children
may be reduced to this formula; Master. You must not do that.
Child. Why not?
Master. Because it is wrong.
Child. Wrong! What is wrong?
Master. What is forbidden you.
Child. Why is it wrong to do what is forbidden?
Master. You will be punished for disobedience.
Child. I will do it when no one is looking.
Master. We shall watch you.
Child. I will hide.
Master. We shall ask you what you were doing.
Child. I shall tell a lie.
Master. You must not tell lies.
Child. Why must not I tell lies?
Master. Because it is wrong, etc.
That is the inevitable circle. Go beyond it, and the child will
not understand you. What sort of use is there in such teaching? I
should greatly like to know what you would substitute for this
dialogue. It would have puzzled Locke himself. It is no part of a
child's business to know right and wrong, to perceive the reason for
a man's duties.
Nature would have them children before they are men. If we try to
invert this order we shall produce a forced fruit immature and
flavourless, fruit which will be rotten before it is ripe; we shall
have young doctors and old children. Childhood has its own ways of
seeing, thinking, and feeling; nothing is more foolish than to try and
substitute our ways; and I should no more expect judgment in a
ten-year-old child than I should expect him to be five feet high.
Indeed, what use would reason be to him at that age? It is the curb
of strength, and the child does not need the curb.
When you try to persuade your scholars of the duty of obedience,
you add to this so-called persuasion compulsion and threats, or still
worse, flattery and bribes. Attracted by selfishness or constrained
by force, they pretend to be convinced by reason. They see as soon as
you do that obedience is to their advantage and disobedience to their
disadvantage. But as you only demand disagreeable things of them, and
as it is always disagreeable to do another's will, they hide
themselves so that they may do as they please, persuaded that they are
doing no wrong so long as they are not found out, but ready, if found
out, to own themselves in the wrong for fear of worse evils. The
reason for duty is beyond their age, and there is not a man in the
world who could make them really aware of it; but the fear of
punishment, the hope of forgiveness, importunity, the difficulty of
answering, wrings from them as many confessions as you want; and you
think you have convinced them when you have only wearied or frightened
them.
What does it all come to? In the first place, by imposing on them
a duty which they fail to recognise, you make them disinclined to
submit to your tyranny, and you turn away their love; you teach them
deceit, falsehood, and lying as a way to gain rewards or escape
punishment; then by accustoming them to conceal a secret motive under
the cloak of an apparent one, you yourself put into their hands the
means of deceiving you, of depriving you of a knowledge of their real
character, of answering you and others with empty words whenever they
have the chance. Laws, you say, though binding on conscience, exercise
the same constraint over grown-up men. That is so, but what are these
men but children spoilt by education? This is just what you should
avoid. Use force with children and reasoning with men; this is the
natural order; the wise man needs no laws.
Treat your scholar according to his age. Put him in his place from
the first, and keep him in it, so that he no longer tries to leave
it. Then before he knows what goodness is, he will be practising its
chief lesson. Give him no orders at all, absolutely none. Do not even
let him think that you claim any authority over him. Let him only know
that he is weak and you are strong, that his condition and yours puts
him at your mercy; let this be perceived, learned, and felt. Let him
early find upon his proud neck, the heavy yoke which nature has
imposed upon us, the heavy yoke of necessity, under which every finite
being must bow. Let him find this necessity in things, not in the
caprices [Footnote: You may be sure the child will regard as caprice
any will which opposes his own or any will which he does not
understand. Now the child does not understand anything which
interferes with his own fancies.] of man; let the curb be force, not
authority. If there is something he should not do, do not forbid him,
but prevent him without explanation or reasoning; what you give him,
give it at his first word without prayers or entreaties, above all
without conditions. Give willingly, refuse unwillingly, but let your
refusal be irrevocable; let no entreaties move you; let your "No,"
once uttered, be a wall of brass, against which the child may exhaust
his strength some five or six times, but in the end he will try no
more to overthrow it.
Thus you will make him patient, equable, calm, and resigned, even
when he does not get all he wants; for it is in man's nature to bear
patiently with the nature of things, but not with the ill-will of
another. A child never rebels against, "There is none left," unless
he thinks the reply is false. Moreover, there is no middle course;
you must either make no demands on him at all, or else you must
fashion him to perfect obedience. The worst education of all is to
leave him hesitating between his own will and yours, constantly
disputing whether you or he is master; I would rather a hundred times
that he were master.
It is very strange that ever since people began to think about
education they should have hit upon no other way of guiding children
than emulation, jealousy, envy, vanity, greediness, base cowardice,
all the most dangerous passions, passions ever ready to ferment, ever
prepared to corrupt the soul even before the body is full-grown. With
every piece of precocious instruction which you try to force into
their minds you plant a vice in the depths of their hearts; foolish
teachers think they are doing wonders when they are making their
scholars wicked in order to teach them what goodness is, and then they
tell us seriously, "Such is man." Yes, such is man, as you have made
him. Every means has been tried except one, the very one which might
succeed—well-regulated liberty. Do not undertake to bring up a child
if you cannot guide him merely by the laws of what can or cannot be.
The limits of the possible and the impossible are alike unknown to
him, so they can be extended or contracted around him at your will.
Without a murmur he is restrained, urged on, held back, by the hands
of necessity alone; he is made adaptable and teachable by the mere
force of things, without any chance for vice to spring up in him; for
passions do not arise so long as they have accomplished nothing.
Give your scholar no verbal lessons; he should be taught by
experience alone; never punish him, for he does not know what it is
to do wrong; never make him say, "Forgive me," for he does not know
how to do you wrong. Wholly unmoral in his actions, he can do nothing
morally wrong, and he deserves neither punishment nor reproof.
Already I see the frightened reader comparing this child with those
of our time; he is mistaken. The perpetual restraint imposed upon
your scholars stimulates their activity; the more subdued they are in
your presence, the more boisterous they are as soon as they are out of
your sight. They must make amends to themselves in some way or other
for the harsh constraint to which you subject them. Two schoolboys
from the town will do more damage in the country than all the children
of the village. Shut up a young gentleman and a young peasant in a
room; the former will have upset and smashed everything before the
latter has stirred from his place. Why is that, unless that the one
hastens to misuse a moment's licence, while the other, always sure of
freedom, does not use it rashly. And yet the village children, often
flattered or constrained, are still very far from the state in which I
would have them kept.
Let us lay it down as an incontrovertible rule that the first
impulses of nature are always right; there is no original sin in the
human heart, the how and why of the entrance of every vice can be
traced. The only natural passion is self-love or selfishness taken in
a wider sense. This selfishness is good in itself and in relation to
ourselves; and as the child has no necessary relations to other people
he is naturally indifferent to them; his self-love only becomes good
or bad by the use made of it and the relations established by its
means. Until the time is ripe for the appearance of reason, that guide
of selfishness, the main thing is that the child shall do nothing
because you are watching him or listening to him; in a word, nothing
because of other people, but only what nature asks of him; then he
will never do wrong.
I do not mean to say that he will never do any mischief, never hurt
himself, never break a costly ornament if you leave it within his
reach. He might do much damage without doing wrong, since wrong-doing
depends on the harmful intention which will never be his. If once he
meant to do harm, his whole education would be ruined; he would be
almost hopelessly bad.
Greed considers some things wrong which are not wrong in the eyes
of reason. When you leave free scope to a child's heedlessness, you
must put anything he could spoil out of his way, and leave nothing
fragile or costly within his reach. Let the room be furnished with
plain and solid furniture; no mirrors, china, or useless ornaments.
My pupil Emile, who is brought up in the country, shall have a room
just like a peasant's. Why take such pains to adorn it when he will be
so little in it? I am mistaken, however; he will ornament it for
himself, and we shall soon see how.
But if, in spite of your precautions, the child contrives to do
some damage, if he breaks some useful article, do not punish him for
your carelessness, do not even scold him; let him hear no word of
reproval, do not even let him see that he has vexed you; behave just
as if the thing had come to pieces of itself; you may consider you
have done great things if you have managed to hold your tongue.
May I venture at this point to state the greatest, the most
important, the most useful rule of education? It is: Do not save
time, but lose it. I hope that every-day readers will excuse my
paradoxes; you cannot avoid paradox if you think for yourself, and
whatever you may say I would rather fall into paradox than into
prejudice. The most dangerous period in human life lies between birth
and the age of twelve. It is the time when errors and vices spring up,
while as yet there is no means to destroy them; when the means of
destruction are ready, the roots have gone too deep to be pulled up.
If the infant sprang at one bound from its mother's breast to the age
of reason, the present type of education would be quite suitable, but
its natural growth calls for quite a different training. The mind
should be left undisturbed till its faculties have developed; for
while it is blind it cannot see the torch you offer it, nor can it
follow through the vast expanse of ideas a path so faintly traced by
reason that the best eyes can scarcely follow it.
Therefore the education of the earliest years should be merely
negative. It consists, not in teaching virtue or truth, but in
preserving the heart from vice and from the spirit of error. If only
you could let well alone, and get others to follow your example; if
you could bring your scholar to the age of twelve strong and healthy,
but unable to tell his right hand from his left, the eyes of his
understanding would be open to reason as soon as you began to teach
him. Free from prejudices and free from habits, there would be nothing
in him to counteract the effects of your labours. In your hands he
would soon become the wisest of men; by doing nothing to begin with,
you would end with a prodigy of education.
Reverse the usual practice and you will almost always do right.
Fathers and teachers who want to make the child, not a child but a
man of learning, think it never too soon to scold, correct, reprove,
threaten, bribe, teach, and reason. Do better than they; be
reasonable, and do not reason with your pupil, more especially do not
try to make him approve what he dislikes; for if reason is always
connected with disagreeable matters, you make it distasteful to him,
you discredit it at an early age in a mind not yet ready to understand
it. Exercise his body, his limbs, his senses, his strength, but keep
his mind idle as long as you can. Distrust all opinions which appear
before the judgment to discriminate between them. Restrain and ward
off strange impressions; and to prevent the birth of evil do not
hasten to do well, for goodness is only possible when enlightened by
reason. Regard all delays as so much time gained; you have achieved
much, you approach the boundary without loss. Leave childhood to ripen
in your children. In a word, beware of giving anything they need
to-day if it can be deferred without danger to to-morrow.
There is another point to be considered which confirms the
suitability of this method: it is the child's individual bent, which
must be thoroughly known before we can choose the fittest moral
training. Every mind has its own form, in accordance with which it
must be controlled; and the success of the pains taken depends largely
on the fact that he is controlled in this way and no other. Oh, wise
man, take time to observe nature; watch your scholar well before you
say a word to him; first leave the germ of his character free to show
itself, do not constrain him in anything, the better to see him as he
really is. Do you think this time of liberty is wasted? On the
contrary, your scholar will be the better employed, for this is the
way you yourself will learn not to lose a single moment when time is
of more value. If, however, you begin to act before you know what to
do, you act at random; you may make mistakes, and must retrace your
steps; your haste to reach your goal will only take you further from
it. Do not imitate the miser who loses much lest he should lose a
little. Sacrifice a little time in early childhood, and it will be
repaid you with usury when your scholar is older. The wise physician
does not hastily give prescriptions at first sight, but he studies the
constitution of the sick man before he prescribes anything; the
treatment is begun later, but the patient is cured, while the hasty
doctor kills him.
But where shall we find a place for our child so as to bring him
up as a senseless being, an automaton? Shall we keep him in the moon,
or on a desert island? Shall we remove him from human society? Will he
not always have around him the sight and the pattern of the passions
of other people? Will he never see children of his own age? Will he
not see his parents, his neighbours, his nurse, his governess, his
man-servant, his tutor himself, who after all will not be an angel?
Here we have a real and serious objection. But did I tell you that an
education according to nature would be an easy task? Oh, men! is it my
fault that you have made all good things difficult? I admit that I am
aware of these difficulties; perhaps they are insuperable; but
nevertheless it is certain that we do to some extent avoid them by
trying to do so. I am showing what we should try to attain, I do not
say we can attain it, but I do say that whoever comes nearest to it is
nearest to success.
Remember you must be a man yourself before you try to train a man;
you yourself must set the pattern he shall copy. While the child is
still unconscious there is time to prepare his surroundings, so that
nothing shall strike his eye but what is fit for his sight. Gain the
respect of every one, begin to win their hearts, so that they may try
to please you. You will not be master of the child if you cannot
control every one about him; and this authority will never suffice
unless it rests upon respect for your goodness. There is no question
of squandering one's means and giving money right and left; I never
knew money win love. You must neither be harsh nor niggardly, nor must
you merely pity misery when you can relieve it; but in vain will you
open your purse if you do not open your heart along with it, the
hearts of others will always be closed to you. You must give your own
time, attention, affection, your very self; for whatever you do,
people always perceive that your money is not you. There are proofs of
kindly interest which produce more results and are really more useful
than any gift; how many of the sick and wretched have more need of
comfort than of charity; how many of the oppressed need protection
rather than money? Reconcile those who are at strife, prevent
lawsuits; incline children to duty, fathers to kindness; promote happy
marriages; prevent annoyances; freely use the credit of your pupil's
parents on behalf of the weak who cannot obtain justice, the weak who
are oppressed by the strong. Be just, human, kindly. Do not give alms
alone, give charity; works of mercy do more than money for the relief
of suffering; love others and they will love you; serve them and they
will serve you; be their brother and they will be your children.
This is one reason why I want to bring up Emile in the country,
far from those miserable lacqueys, the most degraded of men except
their masters; far from the vile morals of the town, whose gilded
surface makes them seductive and contagious to children; while the
vices of peasants, unadorned and in their naked grossness, are more
fitted to repel than to seduce, when there is no motive for imitating
them.
In the village a tutor will have much more control over the things
he wishes to show the child; his reputation, his words, his example,
will have a weight they would never have in the town; he is of use to
every one, so every one is eager to oblige him, to win his esteem, to
appeal before the disciple what the master would have him be; if vice
is not corrected, public scandal is at least avoided, which is all
that our present purpose requires.
Cease to blame others for your own faults; children are corrupted
less by what they see than by your own teaching. With your endless
preaching, moralising, and pedantry, for one idea you give your
scholars, believing it to be good, you give them twenty more which
are good for nothing; you are full of what is going on in your own
minds, and you fail to see the effect you produce on theirs. In the
continual flow of words with which you overwhelm them, do you think
there is none which they get hold of in a wrong sense? Do you suppose
they do not make their own comments on your long-winded explanations,
that they do not find material for the construction of a system they
can understand—one which they will use against you when they get the
chance?
Listen to a little fellow who has just been under instruction; let
him chatter freely, ask questions, and talk at his ease, and you will
be surprised to find the strange forms your arguments have assumed in
his mind; he confuses everything, and turns everything topsy-turvy;
you are vexed and grieved by his unforeseen objections; he reduces you
to be silent yourself or to silence him: and what can he think of
silence in one who is so fond of talking? If ever he gains this
advantage and is aware of it, farewell education; from that moment all
is lost; he is no longer trying to learn, he is trying to refute you.
Zealous teachers, be simple, sensible, and reticent; be in no hurry
to act unless to prevent the actions of others. Again and again I
say, reject, if it may be, a good lesson for fear of giving a bad
one. Beware of playing the tempter in this world, which nature
intended as an earthly paradise for men, and do not attempt to give
the innocent child the knowledge of good and evil; since you cannot
prevent the child learning by what he sees outside himself, restrict
your own efforts to impressing those examples on his mind in the form
best suited for him.
The explosive passions produce a great effect upon the child when
he sees them; their outward expression is very marked; he is struck by
this and his attention is arrested. Anger especially is so noisy in
its rage that it is impossible not to perceive it if you are within
reach. You need not ask yourself whether this is an opportunity for a
pedagogue to frame a fine disquisition. What! no fine disquisition,
nothing, not a word! Let the child come to you; impressed by what he
has seen, he will not fail to ask you questions. The answer is easy;
it is drawn from the very things which have appealed to his senses. He
sees a flushed face, flashing eyes, a threatening gesture, he hears
cries; everything shows that the body is ill at ease. Tell him
plainly, without affectation or mystery, "This poor man is ill, he is
in a fever." You may take the opportunity of giving him in a few words
some idea of disease and its effects; for that too belongs to nature,
and is one of the bonds of necessity which he must recognise. By means
of this idea, which is not false in itself, may he not early acquire a
certain aversion to giving way to excessive passions, which he regards
as diseases; and do you not think that such a notion, given at the
right moment, will produce a more wholesome effect than the most
tedious sermon? But consider the after effects of this idea; you have
authority, if ever you find it necessary, to treat the rebellious
child as a sick child; to keep him in his room, in bed if need be, to
diet him, to make him afraid of his growing vices, to make him hate
and dread them without ever regarding as a punishment the strict
measures you will perhaps have to use for his recovery. If it happens
that you yourself in a moment's heat depart from the calm and
self-control which you should aim at, do not try to conceal your
fault, but tell him frankly, with a gentle reproach, "My dear, you
have hurt me."
Moreover, it is a matter of great importance that no notice should
be taken in his presence of the quaint sayings which result from the
simplicity of the ideas in which he is brought up, nor should they be
quoted in a way he can understand. A foolish laugh may destroy six
months' work and do irreparable damage for life. I cannot repeat too
often that to control the child one must often control oneself.
I picture my little Emile at the height of a dispute between two
neighbours going up to the fiercest of them and saying in a tone of
pity, "You are ill, I am very sorry for you." This speech will no
doubt have its effect on the spectators and perhaps on the disputants.
Without laughter, scolding, or praise I should take him away, willing
or no, before he could see this result, or at least before he could
think about it; and I should make haste to turn his thoughts to other
things, so that he would soon forget all about it.
I do not propose to enter into every detail, but only to explain
general rules and to give illustrations in cases of difficulty. I
think it is impossible to train a child up to the age of twelve in
the midst of society, without giving him some idea of the relations
between one man and another, and of the morality of human actions. It
is enough to delay the development of these ideas as long as possible,
and when they can no longer be avoided to limit them to present needs,
so that he may neither think himself master of everything nor do harm
to others without knowing or caring. There are calm and gentle
characters which can be led a long way in their first innocence
without any danger; but there are also stormy dispositions whose
passions develop early; you must hasten to make men of them lest you
should have to keep them in chains.
Our first duties are to ourselves; our first feelings are centred
on self; all our instincts are at first directed to our own
preservation and our own welfare. Thus the first notion of justice
springs not from what we owe to others, but from what is due to us.
Here is another error in popular methods of education. If you talk to
children of their duties, and not of their rights, you are beginning
at the wrong end, and telling them what they cannot understand, what
cannot be of any interest to them.
If I had to train a child such as I have just described, I should
say to myself, "A child never attacks people, [Footnote: A child
should never be allowed to play with grown-up people as if they were
his inferiors, nor even as if they were only his equals. If he
ventured to strike any one in earnest, were it only the footman, were
it the hangman himself, let the sufferer return his blows with
interest, so that he will not want to do it again. I have seen silly
women inciting children to rebellion, encouraging them to hit people,
allowing themselves to be beaten, and laughing at the harmless blows,
never thinking that those blows were in intention the blows of a
murderer, and that the child who desires to beat people now will
desire to kill them when he is grown up.] only things; and he soon
learns by experience to respect those older and stronger than himself.
Things, however, do not defend themselves. Therefore the first idea he
needs is not that of liberty but of property, and that he may get this
idea he must have something of his own." It is useless to enumerate
his clothes, furniture, and playthings; although he uses these he
knows not how or why he has come by them. To tell him they were given
him is little better, for giving implies having; so here is property
before his own, and it is the principle of property that you want to
teach him; moreover, giving is a convention, and the child as yet has
no idea of conventions. I hope my reader will note, in this and many
other cases, how people think they have taught children thoroughly,
when they have only thrust on them words which have no intelligible
meaning to them. [Footnote: This is why most children want to take
back what they have given, and cry if they cannot get it. They do not
do this when once they know what a gift is; only they are more careful
about giving things away.]
We must therefore go back to the origin of property, for that is
where the first idea of it must begin. The child, living in the
country, will have got some idea of field work; eyes and leisure
suffice for that, and he will have both. In every age, and especially
in childhood, we want to create, to copy, to produce, to give all the
signs of power and activity. He will hardly have seen the gardener at
work twice, sowing, planting, and growing vegetables, before he will
want to garden himself.
According to the principles I have already laid down, I shall not
thwart him; on the contrary, I shall approve of his plan, share his
hobby, and work with him, not for his pleasure but my own; at least,
so he thinks; I shall be his under-gardener, and dig the ground for
him till his arms are strong enough to do it; he will take possession
of it by planting a bean, and this is surely a more sacred possession,
and one more worthy of respect, than that of Nunes Balboa, who took
possession of South America in the name of the King of Spain, by
planting his banner on the coast of the Southern Sea.
We water the beans every day, we watch them coming up with the
greatest delight. Day by day I increase this delight by saying,
"Those belong to you." To explain what that word "belong" means, I
show him how he has given his time, his labour, and his trouble, his
very self to it; that in this ground there is a part of himself which
he can claim against all the world, as he could withdraw his arm from
the hand of another man who wanted to keep it against his will.
One fine day he hurries up with his watering-can in his hand. What
a scene of woe! Alas! all the beans are pulled up, the soil is dug
over, you can scarcely find the place. Oh! what has become of my
labour, my work, the beloved fruits of my care and effort? Who has
stolen my property! Who has taken my beans? The young heart revolts;
the first feeling of injustice brings its sorrow and bitterness;
tears come in torrents, the unhappy child fills the air with cries
and groans, I share his sorrow and anger; we look around us, we make
inquiries. At last we discover that the gardener did it. We send for
him.
But we are greatly mistaken. The gardener, hearing our complaint,
begins to complain louder than we:
What, gentlemen, was it you who spoilt my work! I had sown some
Maltese melons; the seed was given me as something quite out of the
common, and I meant to give you a treat when they were ripe; but you
have planted your miserable beans and destroyed my melons, which were
coming up so nicely, and I can never get any more. You have behaved
very badly to me and you have deprived yourselves of the pleasure of
eating most delicious melons.
JEAN JACQUES. My poor Robert, you must forgive us. You had given
your labour and your pains to it. I see we were wrong to spoil your
work, but we will send to Malta for some more seed for you, and we
will never dig the ground again without finding out if some one else
has been beforehand with us.
ROBERT. Well, gentlemen, you need not trouble yourselves, for
there is no more waste ground. I dig what my father tilled; every one
does the same, and all the land you see has been occupied time out of
mind.
EMILE. Mr. Robert, do people often lose the seed of Maltese melons?
ROBERT. No indeed, sir; we do not often find such silly little
gentlemen as you. No one meddles with his neighbour's garden; every
one respects other people's work so that his own may be safe.
EMILE. But I have not got a garden.
ROBERT. I don't care; if you spoil mine I won't let you walk in
it, for you see I do not mean to lose my labour.
JEAN JACQUES. Could not we suggest an arrangement with this kind
Robert? Let him give my young friend and myself a corner of his
garden to cultivate, on condition that he has half the crop.
ROBERT. You may have it free. But remember I shall dig up your
beans if you touch my melons.
In this attempt to show how a child may be taught certain primitive
ideas we see how the notion of property goes back naturally to the
right of the first occupier to the results of his work. That is plain
and simple, and quite within the child's grasp. From that to the
rights of property and exchange there is but a step, after which you
must stop short.
You also see that an explanation which I can give in writing in a
couple of pages may take a year in practice, for in the course of
moral ideas we cannot advance too slowly, nor plant each step too
firmly. Young teacher, pray consider this example, and remember that
your lessons should always be in deeds rather than words, for children
soon forget what they say or what is said to them, but not what they
have done nor what has been done to them.
Such teaching should be given, as I have said, sooner or later, as
the scholar's disposition, gentle or turbulent, requires it. The way
of using it is unmistakable; but to omit no matter of importance in a
difficult business let us take another example.
Your ill-tempered child destroys everything he touches. Do not vex
yourself; put anything he can spoil out of his reach. He breaks the
things he is using; do not be in a hurry to give him more; let him
feel the want of them. He breaks the windows of his room; let the wind
blow upon him night and day, and do not be afraid of his catching
cold; it is better to catch cold than to be reckless. Never complain
of the inconvenience he causes you, but let him feel it first. At last
you will have the windows mended without saying anything. He breaks
them again; then change your plan; tell him dryly and without anger,
"The windows are mine, I took pains to have them put in, and I mean to
keep them safe." Then you will shut him up in a dark place without a
window. At this unexpected proceeding he cries and howls; no one
heeds. Soon he gets tired and changes his tone; he laments and sighs;
a servant appears, the rebel begs to be let out. Without seeking any
excuse for refusing, the servant merely says, "I, too, have windows to
keep," and goes away. At last, when the child has been there several
hours, long enough to get very tired of it, long enough to make an
impression on his memory, some one suggests to him that he should
offer to make terms with you, so that you may set him free and he will
never break windows again. That is just what he wants. He will send
and ask you to come and see him; you will come, he will suggest his
plan, and you will agree to it at once, saying, "That is a very good
idea; it will suit us both; why didn't you think of it sooner?" Then
without asking for any affirmation or confirmation of his promise, you
will embrace him joyfully and take him back at once to his own room,
considering this agreement as sacred as if he had confirmed it by a
formal oath. What idea do you think he will form from these
proceedings, as to the fulfilment of a promise and its usefulness? If
I am not greatly mistaken, there is not a child upon earth, unless he
is utterly spoilt already, who could resist this treatment, or one who
would ever dream of breaking windows again on purpose. Follow out the
whole train of thought. The naughty little fellow hardly thought when
he was making a hole for his beans that he was hewing out a cell in
which his own knowledge would soon imprison him. [Footnote: Moreover
if the duty of keeping his word were not established in the child's
mind by its own utility, the child's growing consciousness would soon
impress it on him as a law of conscience, as an innate principle, only
requiring suitable experiences for its development. This first
outline is not sketched by man, it is engraved on the heart by the
author of all justice. Take away the primitive law of contract and the
obligation imposed by contract and there is nothing left of human
society but vanity and empty show. He who only keeps his word because
it is to his own profit is hardly more pledged than if he had given no
promise at all. This principle is of the utmost importance, and
deserves to be thoroughly studied, for man is now beginning to be at
war with himself.]
We are now in the world of morals, the door to vice is open. Deceit
and falsehood are born along with conventions and duties. As soon as
we can do what we ought not to do, we try to hide what we ought not to
have done. As soon as self-interest makes us give a promise, a greater
interest may make us break it; it is merely a question of doing it
with impunity; we naturally take refuge in concealment and falsehood.
As we have not been able to prevent vice, we must punish it. The
sorrows of life begin with its mistakes.
I have already said enough to show that children should never
receive punishment merely as such; it should always come as the
natural consequence of their fault. Thus you will not exclaim against
their falsehood, you will not exactly punish them for lying, but you
will arrange that all the ill effects of lying, such as not being
believed when we speak the truth, or being accused of what we have not
done in spite of our protests, shall fall on their heads when they
have told a lie. But let us explain what lying means to the child.
There are two kinds of lies; one concerns an accomplished fact,
the other concerns a future duty. The first occurs when we falsely
deny or assert that we did or did not do something, or, to put it in
general terms, when we knowingly say what is contrary to facts. The
other occurs when we promise what we do not mean to perform, or, in
general terms, when we profess an intention which we do not really
mean to carry out. These two kinds of lie are sometimes found in
combination, [Footnote: Thus the guilty person, accused of some evil
deed, defends himself by asserting that he is a good man. His
statement is false in itself and false in its application to the
matter in hand.] but their differences are my present business.
He who feels the need of help from others, he who is constantly
experiencing their kindness, has nothing to gain by deceiving them;
it is plainly to his advantage that they should see things as they
are, lest they should mistake his interests. It is therefore plain
that lying with regard to actual facts is not natural to children,
but lying is made necessary by the law of obedience; since obedience
is disagreeable, children disobey as far as they can in secret, and
the present good of avoiding punishment or reproof outweighs the
remoter good of speaking the truth. Under a free and natural education
why should your child lie? What has he to conceal from you? You do not
thwart him, you do not punish him, you demand nothing from him. Why
should he not tell everything to you as simply as to his little
playmate? He cannot see anything more risky in the one course than in
the other.
The lie concerning duty is even less natural, since promises to do
or refrain from doing are conventional agreements which are outside
the state of nature and detract from our liberty. Moreover, all
promises made by children are in themselves void; when they pledge
themselves they do not know what they are doing, for their narrow
vision cannot look beyond the present. A child can hardly lie when he
makes a promise; for he is only thinking how he can get out of the
present difficulty, any means which has not an immediate result is the
same to him; when he promises for the future he promises nothing, and
his imagination is as yet incapable of projecting him into the future
while he lives in the present. If he could escape a whipping or get a
packet of sweets by promising to throw himself out of the window
to-morrow, he would promise on the spot. This is why the law
disregards all promises made by minors, and when fathers and teachers
are stricter and demand that promises shall be kept, it is only when
the promise refers to something the child ought to do even if he had
made no promise.
The child cannot lie when he makes a promise, for he does not know
what he is doing when he makes his promise. The case is different
when he breaks his promise, which is a sort of retrospective
falsehood; for he clearly remembers making the promise, but he fails
to see the importance of keeping it. Unable to look into the future,
he cannot foresee the results of things, and when he breaks his
promises he does nothing contrary to his stage of reasoning.
Children's lies are therefore entirely the work of their teachers,
and to teach them to speak the truth is nothing less than to teach
them the art of lying. In your zeal to rule, control, and teach them,
you never find sufficient means at your disposal. You wish to gain
fresh influence over their minds by baseless maxims, by unreasonable
precepts; and you would rather they knew their lessons and told lies,
than leave them ignorant and truthful.
We, who only give our scholars lessons in practice, who prefer to
have them good rather than clever, never demand the truth lest they
should conceal it, and never claim any promise lest they should be
tempted to break it. If some mischief has been done in my absence and
I do not know who did it, I shall take care not to accuse Emile, nor
to say, "Did you do it?" [Footnote: Nothing could be more indiscreet
than such a question, especially if the child is guilty. Then if he
thinks you know what he has done, he will think you are setting a trap
for him, and this idea can only set him against you. If he thinks you
do not know, he will say to himself, "Why should I make my fault
known?" And here we have the first temptation to falsehood as the
direct result of your foolish question.] For in so doing what should I
do but teach him to deny it? If his difficult temperament compels me
to make some agreement with him, I will take good care that the
suggestion always comes from him, never from me; that when he
undertakes anything he has always a present and effective interest in
fulfilling his promise, and if he ever fails this lie will bring down
on him all the unpleasant consequences which he sees arising from the
natural order of things, and not from his tutor's vengeance. But far
from having recourse to such cruel measures, I feel almost certain
that Emile will not know for many years what it is to lie, and that
when he does find out, he will be astonished and unable to understand
what can be the use of it. It is quite clear that the less I make his
welfare dependent on the will or the opinions of others, the less is
it to his interest to lie.
When we are in no hurry to teach there is no hurry to demand, and
we can take our time, so as to demand nothing except under fitting
conditions. Then the child is training himself, in so far as he is
not being spoilt. But when a fool of a tutor, who does not know how to
set about his business, is always making his pupil promise first this
and then that, without discrimination, choice, or proportion, the
child is puzzled and overburdened with all these promises, and
neglects, forgets or even scorns them, and considering them as so many
empty phrases he makes a game of making and breaking promises. Would
you have him keep his promise faithfully, be moderate in your claims
upon him.
The detailed treatment I have just given to lying may be applied
in many respects to all the other duties imposed upon children,
whereby these duties are made not only hateful but impracticable. For
the sake of a show of preaching virtue you make them love every vice;
you instil these vices by forbidding them. Would you have them pious,
you take them to church till they are sick of it; you teach them to
gabble prayers until they long for the happy time when they will not
have to pray to God. To teach them charity you make them give alms as
if you scorned to give yourself. It is not the child, but the master,
who should give; however much he loves his pupil he should vie with
him for this honour; he should make him think that he is too young to
deserve it. Alms-giving is the deed of a man who can measure the worth
of his gift and the needs of his fellow-men. The child, who knows
nothing of these, can have no merit in giving; he gives without
charity, without kindness; he is almost ashamed to give, for, to judge
by your practice and his own, he thinks it is only children who give,
and that there is no need for charity when we are grown up.
Observe that the only things children are set to give are things
of which they do not know the value, bits of metal carried in their
pockets for which they have no further use. A child would rather give
a hundred coins than one cake. But get this prodigal giver to
distribute what is dear to him, his toys, his sweets, his own lunch.
and we shall soon see if you have made him really generous.
People try yet another way; they soon restore what he gave to the
child, so that he gets used to giving everything which he knows will
come back to him. I have scarcely seen generosity in children except
of these two types, giving what is of no use to them, or what they
expect to get back again. "Arrange things," says Locke. "so that
experience may convince them that the most generous giver gets the
biggest share." That is to make the child superficially generous but
really greedy. He adds that "children will thus form the habit of
liberality." Yes, a usurer's liberality, which expects cent. per cent.
But when it is a question of real giving, good-bye to the habit; when
they do not get things back, they will not give. It is the habit of
the mind, not of the hands, that needs watching. All the other virtues
taught to children are like this, and to preach these baseless virtues
you waste their youth in sorrow. What a sensible sort of education!
Teachers, have done with these shams; be good and kind; let your
example sink into your scholars' memories till they are old enough to
take it to heart. Rather than hasten to demand deeds of charity from
my pupil I prefer to perform such deeds in his presence, even
depriving him of the means of imitating me, as an honour beyond his
years; for it is of the utmost importance that he should not regard a
man's duties as merely those of a child. If when he sees me help the
poor he asks me about it, and it is time to reply to his questions,
[Footnote: It must be understood that I do not answer his questions
when he wants; that would be to subject myself to his will and to
place myself in the most dangerous state of dependence that ever a
tutor was in.] I shall say, "My dear boy, the rich only exist, through
the good-will of the poor, so they have promised to feed those who
have not enough to live on, either in goods or labour." "Then you
promised to do this?" "Certainly; I am only master of the wealth that
passes through my hands on the condition attached to its ownership."
After this talk (and we have seen how a child may be brought to
understand it) another than Emile would be tempted to imitate me and
behave like a rich man; in such a case I should at least take care
that it was done without ostentation; I would rather he robbed me of
my privilege and hid himself to give. It is a fraud suitable to his
age, and the only one I could forgive in him.
I know that all these imitative virtues are only the virtues of a
monkey, and that a good action is only morally good when it is done
as such and not because of others. But at an age when the heart does
not yet feel anything, you must make children copy the deeds you wish
to grow into habits, until they can do them with understanding and for
the love of what is good. Man imitates, as do the beasts. The love of
imitating is well regulated by nature; in society it becomes a vice.
The monkey imitates man, whom he fears, and not the other beasts,
which he scorns; he thinks what is done by his betters must be good.
Among ourselves, our harlequins imitate all that is good to degrade it
and bring it into ridicule; knowing their owners' baseness they try to
equal what is better than they are, or they strive to imitate what
they admire, and their bad taste appears in their choice of models,
they would rather deceive others or win applause for their own talents
than become wiser or better. Imitation has its roots in our desire to
escape from ourselves. If I succeed in my undertaking, Emile will
certainly have no such wish. So we must dispense with any seeming
good that might arise from it.
Examine your rules of education; you will find them all
topsy-turvy, especially in all that concerns virtue and morals. The
only moral lesson which is suited for a child—the most important
lesson for every time of life—is this: "Never hurt anybody." The very
rule of well-doing, if not subordinated to this rule, is dangerous,
false, and contradictory. Who is there who does no good? Every one
does some good, the wicked as well as the righteous; he makes one
happy at the cost of the misery of a hundred, and hence spring all our
misfortunes. The noblest virtues are negative, they are also the most
difficult, for they make little show, and do not even make room for
that pleasure so dear to the heart of man, the thought that some one
is pleased with us. If there be a man who does no harm to his
neighbours, what good must he have accomplished! What a bold heart,
what a strong character it needs! It is not in talking about this
maxim, but in trying to practise it, that we discover both its
greatness and its difficulty. [Footnote: The precept "Never hurt
anybody," implies the greatest possible independence of human society;
for in the social state one man's good is another man's evil. This
relation is part of the nature of things; it is inevitable. You may
apply this test to man in society and to the hermit to discover which
is best. A distinguished author says, "None but the wicked can live
alone." I say, "None but the good can live alone." This proposition,
if less sententious, is truer and more logical than the other. If the
wicked were alone, what evil would he do? It is among his fellows that
he lays his snares for others. If they wish to apply this argument to
the man of property, my answer is to be found in the passage to which
this note is appended.]
This will give you some slight idea of the precautions I would
have you take in giving children instruction which cannot always be
refused without risk to themselves or others, or the far greater risk
of the formation of bad habits, which would be difficult to correct
later on; but be sure this necessity will not often arise with
children who are properly brought up, for they cannot possibly become
rebellious, spiteful, untruthful, or greedy, unless the seeds of these
vices are sown in their hearts. What I have just said applies
therefore rather to the exception than the rule. But the oftener
children have the opportunity of quitting their proper condition, and
contracting the vices of men, the oftener will these exceptions arise.
Those who are brought up in the world must receive more precocious
instruction than those who are brought up in retirement. So this
solitary education would be preferable, even if it did nothing more
than leave childhood time to ripen.
There is quite another class of exceptions: those so gifted by
nature that they rise above the level of their age. As there are men
who never get beyond infancy, so there are others who are never, so
to speak, children, they are men almost from birth. The difficulty is
that these cases are very rare, very difficult to distinguish; while
every mother, who knows that a child may be a prodigy, is convinced
that her child is that one. They go further; they mistake the common
signs of growth for marks of exceptional talent. Liveliness, sharp
sayings, romping, amusing simplicity, these are the characteristic
marks of this age, and show that the child is a child indeed. Is it
strange that a child who is encouraged to chatter and allowed to say
anything, who is restrained neither by consideration nor convention,
should chance to say something clever? Were he never to hit the mark,
his case would be stranger than that of the astrologer who, among a
thousand errors, occasionally predicts the truth. "They lie so often,"
said Henry IV., "that at last they say what is true." If you want to
say something clever, you have only to talk long enough. May
Providence watch over those fine folk who have no other claim to
social distinction.
The finest thoughts may spring from a child's brain, or rather the
best words may drop from his lips, just as diamonds of great worth
may fall into his hands, while neither the thoughts nor the diamonds
are his own; at that age neither can be really his. The child's
sayings do not mean to him what they mean to us, the ideas he
attaches to them are different. His ideas, if indeed he has any ideas
at all, have neither order nor connection; there is nothing sure,
nothing certain, in his thoughts. Examine your so-called prodigy. Now
and again you will discover in him extreme activity of mind and
extraordinary clearness of thought. More often this same mind will
seem slack and spiritless, as if wrapped in mist. Sometimes he goes
before you, sometimes he will not stir. One moment you would call him
a genius, another a fool. You would be mistaken in both; he is a
child, an eaglet who soars aloft for a moment, only to drop back into
the nest.
Treat him, therefore, according to his age, in spite of
appearances, and beware of exhausting his strength by over-much
exercise. If the young brain grows warm and begins to bubble, let it
work freely, but do not heat it any further, lest it lose its
goodness, and when the first gases have been given off, collect and
compress the rest so that in after years they may turn to life-giving
heat and real energy. If not, your time and your pains will be wasted,
you will destroy your own work, and after foolishly intoxicating
yourself with these heady fumes, you will have nothing left but an
insipid and worthless wine.
Silly children grow into ordinary men. I know no generalisation
more certain than this. It is the most difficult thing in the world
to distinguish between genuine stupidity, and that apparent and
deceitful stupidity which is the sign of a strong character. At first
sight it seems strange that the two extremes should have the same
outward signs; and yet it may well be so, for at an age when man has
as yet no true ideas, the whole difference between the genius and the
rest consists in this: the latter only take in false ideas, while the
former, finding nothing but false ideas, receives no ideas at all. In
this he resembles the fool; the one is fit for nothing, the other
finds nothing fit for him. The only way of distinguishing between them
depends upon chance, which may offer the genius some idea which he can
understand, while the fool is always the same. As a child, the young
Cato was taken for an idiot by his parents; he was obstinate and
silent, and that was all they perceived in him; it was only in Sulla's
ante-chamber that his uncle discovered what was in him. Had he never
found his way there, he might have passed for a fool till he reached
the age of reason. Had Caesar never lived, perhaps this same Cato, who
discerned his fatal genius, and foretold his great schemes, would
have passed for a dreamer all his days. Those who judge children
hastily are apt to be mistaken; they are often more childish than the
child himself. I knew a middle-aged man, [Footnote: The Abbe de
Condillac] whose friendship I esteemed an honour, who was reckoned a
fool by his family. All at once he made his name as a philosopher, and
I have no doubt posterity will give him a high place among the
greatest thinkers and the profoundest metaphysicians of his day.
Hold childhood in reverence, and do not be in any hurry to judge
it for good or ill. Leave exceptional cases to show themselves, let
their qualities be tested and confirmed, before special methods are
adopted. Give nature time to work before you take over her business,
lest you interfere with her dealings. You assert that you know the
value of time and are afraid to waste it. You fail to perceive that it
is a greater waste of time to use it ill than to do nothing, and that
a child ill taught is further from virtue than a child who has learnt
nothing at all. You are afraid to see him spending his early years
doing nothing. What! is it nothing to be happy, nothing to run and
jump all day? He will never be so busy again all his life long.
Plato, in his Republic, which is considered so stern, teaches the
children only through festivals, games, songs, and amusements. It
seems as if he had accomplished his purpose when he had taught them to
be happy; and Seneca, speaking of the Roman lads in olden days, says,
"They were always on their feet, they were never taught anything which
kept them sitting." Were they any the worse for it in manhood? Do not
be afraid, therefore, of this so-called idleness. What would you
think of a man who refused to sleep lest he should waste part of his
life? You would say, "He is mad; he is not enjoying his life, he is
robbing himself of part of it; to avoid sleep he is hastening his
death." Remember that these two cases are alike, and that childhood is
the sleep of reason.
The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin. You fail
to see that this very facility proves that they are not learning.
Their shining, polished brain reflects, as in a mirror, the things
you show them, but nothing sinks in. The child remembers the words
and the ideas are reflected back; his hearers understand them, but to
him they are meaningless.
Although memory and reason are wholly different faculties, the one
does not really develop apart from the other. Before the age of reason
the child receives images, not ideas; and there is this difference
between them: images are merely the pictures of external objects,
while ideas are notions about those objects determined by their
relations. An image when it is recalled may exist by itself in the
mind, but every idea implies other ideas. When we image we merely
perceive, when we reason we compare. Our sensations are merely
passive, our notions or ideas spring from an active principle which
judges. The proof of this will be given later.
I maintain, therefore, that as children are incapable of judging,
they have no true memory. They retain sounds, form, sensation, but
rarely ideas, and still more rarely relations. You tell me they
acquire some rudiments of geometry, and you think you prove your
case; not so, it is mine you prove; you show that far from being able
to reason themselves, children are unable to retain the reasoning of
others; for if you follow the method of these little geometricians you
will see they only retain the exact impression of the figure and the
terms of the demonstration. They cannot meet the slightest new
objection; if the figure is reversed they can do nothing. All their
knowledge is on the sensation-level, nothing has penetrated to their
understanding. Their memory is little better than their other powers,
for they always have to learn over again, when they are grown up, what
they learnt as children.
I am far from thinking, however, that children have no sort of
reason. [Footnote: I have noticed again and again that it is
impossible in writing a lengthy work to use the same words always in
the same sense. There is no language rich enough to supply terms and
expressions sufficient for the modifications of our ideas. The method
of defining every term and constantly substituting the definition for
the term defined looks well, but it is impracticable. For how can we
escape from our vicious circle? Definitions would be all very well if
we did not use words in the making of them. In spite of this I am
convinced that even in our poor language we can make our meaning
clear, not by always using words in the same sense, but by taking care
hat every time we use a word the sense in which we use it is
sufficiently indicated by the sense of the context, so that each
sentence in which the word occurs acts as a sort of definition.
Sometimes I say children are incapable of reasoning. Sometimes I say
they reason cleverly. I must admit that my words are often
contradictory, but I do not think there is any contradiction in my
ideas.] On the contrary, I think they reason very well with regard to
things that affect their actual and sensible well-being. But people
are mistaken as to the extent of their information, and they attribute
to them knowledge they do not possess, and make them reason about
things they cannot understand. Another mistake is to try to turn their
attention to matters which do not concern them in the least, such as
their future interest, their happiness when they are grown up, the
opinion people will have of them when they are men—terms which are
absolutely meaningless when addressed to creatures who are entirely
without foresight. But all the forced studies of these poor little
wretches are directed towards matters utterly remote from their minds.
You may judge how much attention they can give to them.
The pedagogues, who make a great display of the teaching they give
their pupils, are paid to say just the opposite; yet their actions
show that they think just as I do. For what do they teach? Words!
words! words! Among the various sciences they boast of teaching their
scholars, they take good care never to choose those which might be
really useful to them, for then they would be compelled to deal with
things and would fail utterly; the sciences they choose are those we
seem to know when we know their technical terms—heraldry, geography,
chronology, languages, etc., studies so remote from man, and even more
remote from the child, that it is a wonder if he can ever make any use
of any part of them.
You will be surprised to find that I reckon the study of languages
among the useless lumber of education; but you must remember that I
am speaking of the studies of the earliest years, and whatever you may
say, I do not believe any child under twelve or fifteen ever really
acquired two languages.
If the study of languages were merely the study of words, that is,
of the symbols by which language expresses itself, then this might be
a suitable study for children; but languages, as they change the
symbols, also modify the ideas which the symbols express. Minds are
formed by language, thoughts take their colour from its ideas. Reason
alone is common to all. Every language has its own form, a difference
which may be partly cause and partly effect of differences in national
character; this conjecture appears to be confirmed by the fact that in
every nation under the sun speech follows the changes of manners, and
is preserved or altered along with them.
By use the child acquires one of these different forms, and it is
the only language he retains till the age of reason. To acquire two
languages he must be able to compare their ideas, and how can he
compare ideas he can barely understand? Everything may have a thousand
meanings to him, but each idea can only have one form, so he can only
learn one language. You assure me he learns several languages; I deny
it. I have seen those little prodigies who are supposed to speak half
a dozen languages. I have heard them speak first in German, then in
Latin, French, or Italian; true, they used half a dozen different
vocabularies, but they always spoke German. In a word, you may give
children as many synonyms as you like; it is not their language but
their words that you change; they will never have but one language.
To conceal their deficiencies teachers choose the dead languages,
in which we have no longer any judges whose authority is beyond
dispute. The familiar use of these tongues disappeared long ago, so
they are content to imitate what they find in books, and they call
that talking. If the master's Greek and Latin is such poor stuff, what
about the children? They have scarcely learnt their primer by heart,
without understanding a word of it, when they are set to translate a
French speech into Latin words; then when they are more advanced they
piece together a few phrases of Cicero for prose or a few lines of
Vergil for verse. Then they think they can speak Latin, and who will
contradict them?
In any study whatsoever the symbols are of no value without the
idea of the things symbolised. Yet the education of the child in
confined to those symbols, while no one ever succeeds in making him
understand the thing signified. You think you are teaching him what
the world is like; he is only learning the map; he is taught the names
of towns, countries, rivers, which have no existence for him except on
the paper before him. I remember seeing a geography somewhere which
began with: "What is the world?"—"A sphere of cardboard." That is the
child's geography. I maintain that after two years' work with the
globe and cosmography, there is not a single ten-year-old child who
could find his way from Paris to Saint Denis by the help of the rules
he has learnt. I maintain that not one of these children could find
his way by the map about the paths on his father's estate without
getting lost. These are the young doctors who can tell us the position
of Pekin, Ispahan, Mexico, and every country in the world.
You tell me the child must be employed on studies which only need
eyes. That may be; but if there are any such studies, they are
unknown to me.
It is a still more ridiculous error to set them to study history,
which is considered within their grasp because it is merely a
collection of facts. But what is meant by this word "fact"? Do you
think the relations which determine the facts of history are so easy
to grasp that the corresponding ideas are easily developed in the
child's mind! Do you think that a real knowledge of events can exist
apart from the knowledge of their causes and effects, and that history
has so little relation to words that the one can be learnt without the
other? If you perceive nothing in a man's actions beyond merely
physical and external movements, what do you learn from history?
Absolutely nothing; while this study, robbed of all that makes it
interesting, gives you neither pleasure nor information. If you want
to judge actions by their moral bearings, try to make these moral
bearings intelligible to your scholars. You will soon find out if they
are old enough to learn history.
Remember, reader, that he who speaks to you is neither a scholar
nor a philosopher, but a plain man and a lover of truth; a man who is
pledged to no one party or system, a hermit, who mixes little with
other men, and has less opportunity of imbibing their prejudices, and
more time to reflect on the things that strike him in his intercourse
with them. My arguments are based less on theories than on facts, and
I think I can find no better way to bring the facts home to you than
by quoting continually some example from the observations which
suggested my arguments.
I had gone to spend a few days in the country with a worthy mother
of a family who took great pains with her children and their
education. One morning I was present while the eldest boy had his
lessons. His tutor, who had taken great pains to teach him ancient
history, began upon the story of Alexander and lighted on the
well-known anecdote of Philip the Doctor. There is a picture of it,
and the story is well worth study. The tutor, worthy man, made several
reflections which I did not like with regard to Alexander's courage,
but I did not argue with him lest I should lower him in the eyes of
his pupil. At dinner they did not fail to get the little fellow
talking, French fashion. The eager spirit of a child of his age, and
the confident expectation of applause, made him say a number of silly
things, and among them from time to time there were things to the
point, and these made people forget the rest. At last came the story
of Philip the Doctor. He told it very distinctly and prettily. After
the usual meed of praise, demanded by his mother and expected by the
child himself, they discussed what he had said. Most of them blamed
Alexander's rashness, some of them, following the tutor's example,
praised his resolution, which showed me that none of those present
really saw the beauty of the story. "For my own part," I said, "if
there was any courage or any steadfastness at all in Alexander's
conduct I think it was only a piece of bravado." Then every one agreed
that it was a piece of bravado. I was getting angry, and would have
replied, when a lady sitting beside me, who had not hitherto spoken,
bent towards me and whispered in my ear. "Jean Jacques," said she,
"say no more, they will never understand you." I looked at her, I
recognised the wisdom of her advice, and I held my tongue.
Several things made me suspect that our young professor had not in
the least understood the story he told so prettily. After dinner I
took his hand in mine and we went for a walk in the park. When I had
questioned him quietly, I discovered that he admired the vaunted
courage of Alexander more than any one. But in what do you suppose he
thought this courage consisted? Merely in swallowing a disagreeable
drink at a single draught without hesitation and without any signs of
dislike. Not a fortnight before the poor child had been made to take
some medicine which he could hardly swallow, and the taste of it was
still in his mouth. Death, and death by poisoning, were for him only
disagreeable sensations, and senna was his only idea of poison. I must
admit, however, that Alexander's resolution had made a great
impression on his young mind, and he was determined that next time he
had to take medicine he would be an Alexander. Without entering upon
explanations which were clearly beyond his grasp, I confirmed him in
his praiseworthy intention, and returned home smiling to myself over
the great wisdom of parents and teachers who expect to teach history
to children.
Such words as king, emperor, war, conquest, law, and revolution are
easily put into their mouths; but when it is a question of attaching
clear ideas to these words the explanations are very different from
our talk with Robert the gardener.
I feel sure some readers dissatisfied with that "Say no more, Jean
Jacques," will ask what I really saw to admire in the conduct of
Alexander. Poor things! if you need telling, how can you comprehend
it? Alexander believed in virtue, he staked his head, he staked his
own life on that faith, his great soul was fitted to hold such a
faith. To swallow that draught was to make a noble profession of the
faith that was in him. Never did mortal man recite a finer creed. If
there is an Alexander in our own days, show me such deeds.
If children have no knowledge of words, there is no study that is
suitable for them. If they have no real ideas they have no real
memory, for I do not call that a memory which only recalls sensations.
What is the use of inscribing on their brains a list of symbols which
mean nothing to them? They will learn the symbols when they learn the
things signified; why give them the useless trouble of learning them
twice over? And yet what dangerous prejudices are you implanting when
you teach them to accept as knowledge words which have no meaning for
them. The first meaningless phrase, the first thing taken for granted
on the word of another person without seeing its use for himself, this
is the beginning of the ruin of the child's judgment. He may dazzle
the eyes of fools long enough before he recovers from such a loss.
[Footnote: The learning of most philosophers is like the learning of
children. Vast erudition results less in the multitude of ideas than
in a multitude of images. Dates, names, places, all objects isolated
or unconnected with ideas are merely retained in the memory for
symbols, and we rarely recall any of these without seeing the right or
left page of the book in which we read it, or the form in which we
first saw it. Most science was of this kind till recently. The
science of our times is another matter; study and observation are
things of the past; we dream and the dreams of a bad night are given
to us as philosophy. You will say I too am a dreamer; I admit it, but
I do what the others fail to do, I give my dreams as dreams, and leave
the reader to discover whether there is anything in them which may
prove useful to those who are awake.]
No, if nature has given the child this plasticity of brain which
fits him to receive every kind of impression, it was not that you
should imprint on it the names and dates of kings, the jargon of
heraldry, the globe and geography, all those words without present
meaning or future use for the child, which flood of words overwhelms
his sad and barren childhood. But by means of this plasticity all the
ideas he can understand and use, all that concern his happiness and
will some day throw light upon his duties, should be traced at an
early age in indelible characters upon his brain, to guide him to live
in such a way as befits his nature and his powers.
Without the study of books, such a memory as the child may possess
is not left idle; everything he sees and hears makes an impression on
him, he keeps a record of men's sayings and doings, and his whole
environment is the book from which he unconsciously enriches his
memory, till his judgment is able to profit by it.
To select these objects, to take care to present him constantly
with those he may know, to conceal from him those he ought not to
know, this is the real way of training his early memory; and in this
way you must try to provide him with a storehouse of knowledge which
will serve for his education in youth and his conduct throughout life.
True, this method does not produce infant prodigies, nor will it
reflect glory upon their tutors and governesses, but it produces men,
strong, right-thinking men, vigorous both in mind and body, men who do
not win admiration as children, but honour as men.
Emile will not learn anything by heart, not even fables, not even
the fables of La Fontaine, simple and delightful as they are, for the
words are no more the fable than the words of history are history. How
can people be so blind as to call fables the child's system of morals,
without considering that the child is not only amused by the apologue
but misled by it? He is attracted by what is false and he misses the
truth, and the means adopted to make the teaching pleasant prevent him
profiting by it. Men may be taught by fables; children require the
naked truth.
All children learn La Fontaine's fables, but not one of them
understands them. It is just as well that they do not understand, for
the morality of the fables is so mixed and so unsuitable for their age
that it would be more likely to incline them to vice than to virtue.
"More paradoxes!" you exclaim. Paradoxes they may be; but let us see
if there is not some truth in them.
I maintain that the child does not understand the fables he is
taught, for however you try to explain them, the teaching you wish to
extract from them demands ideas which he cannot grasp, while the
poetical form which makes it easier to remember makes it harder to
understand, so that clearness is sacrificed to facility. Without
quoting the host of wholly unintelligible and useless fables which
are taught to children because they happen to be in the same book as
the others, let us keep to those which the author seems to have
written specially for children.
In the whole of La Fontaine's works I only know five or six fables
conspicuous for child-like simplicity; I will take the first of these
as an example, for it is one whose moral is most suitable for all
ages, one which children get hold of with the least difficulty, which
they have most pleasure in learning, one which for this very reason
the author has placed at the beginning of his book. If his object were
really to delight and instruct children, this fable is his
masterpiece. Let us go through it and examine it briefly.
THE FOX AND THE CROW
A FABLE
"Maitre corbeau, sur un arbre perche" (Mr. Crow perched on a
tree).—"Mr.!" what does that word really mean? What does it mean
before a proper noun? What is its meaning here? What is a crow? What
is "un arbre perche"? We do not say "on a tree perched," but perched
on a tree. So we must speak of poetical inversions, we must
distinguish between prose and verse.
"Tenait dans son bec un fromage" (Held a cheese in his beak)—What
sort of a cheese? Swiss, Brie, or Dutch? If the child has never seen
crows, what is the good of talking about them? If he has seen crows
will he believe that they can hold a cheese in their beak? Your
illustrations should always be taken from nature.
"Maitre renard, par l'odeur alleche" (Mr. Fox, attracted by the
smell).—Another Master! But the title suits the fox,—who is master
of all the tricks of his trade. You must explain what a fox is, and
distinguish between the real fox and the conventional fox of the
fables.
"Alleche." The word is obsolete; you will have to explain it. You
will say it is only used in verse. Perhaps the child will ask why
people talk differently in verse. How will you answer that question?
"Alleche, par l'odeur d'un fromage." The cheese was held in his
beak by a crow perched on a tree; it must indeed have smelt strong if
the fox, in his thicket or his earth, could smell it. This is the way
you train your pupil in that spirit of right judgment, which rejects
all but reasonable arguments, and is able to distinguish between truth
and falsehood in other tales.
"Lui tient a peu pres ce langage" (Spoke to him after this
fashion).—"Ce langage." So foxes talk, do they! They talk like crows!
Mind what you are about, oh, wise tutor; weigh your answer before you
give it, it is more important than you suspect.
"Eh! Bonjour, Monsieur le Corbeau!" ("Good-day, Mr. Crow!")—Mr.!
The child sees this title laughed to scorn before he knows it is a
title of honour. Those who say "Monsieur du Corbeau" will find their
work cut out for them to explain that "du."
"Que vous etes joli! Que vous me semblez beau!" ("How handsome you
are, how beautiful in my eyes!")—Mere padding. The child, finding
the same thing repeated twice over in different words, is learning to
speak carelessly. If you say this redundance is a device of the
author, a part of the fox's scheme to make his praise seem all the
greater by his flow of words, that is a valid excuse for me, but not
for my pupil.
"Sans mentir, si votre ramage" ("Without lying, if your
song").—"Without lying." So people do tell lies sometimes. What will
the child think of you if you tell him the fox only says "Sans mentir"
because he is lying?
a votre plumage" ("Answered to your fine feathers").—"Answered!"
What does that mean? Try to make the child compare qualities so
different as those of song and plumage; you will see how much he
understands.
"Vous seriez le phenix des hotes de ces bois!" ("You would be the
phoenix of all the inhabitants of this wood!")—The phoenix! What is
a phoenix? All of a sudden we are floundering in the lies of
antiquity—we are on the edge of mythology.
"The inhabitants of this wood." What figurative language! The
flatterer adopts the grand style to add dignity to his speech, to
make it more attractive. Will the child understand this cunning? Does
he know, how could he possibly know, what is meant by grand style and
simple style?
"A ces mots le corbeau ne se sent pas de joie" (At these words, the
crow is beside himself with delight).—To realise the full force of
this proverbial expression we must have experienced very strong
feeling.
"Et, pour montrer sa belle voix" (And, to show his fine
voice).—Remember that the child, to understand this line and the
whole fable, must know what is meant by the crow's fine voice.
"Il ouvre un large bee, laisse tomber sa proie" (He opens his wide
beak and drops his prey).—This is a splendid line; its very sound
suggests a picture. I see the great big ugly gaping beak, I hear the
cheese crashing through the branches; but this kind of beauty is
thrown away upon children.
"Le renard s'en saisit, et dit, 'Mon bon monsieur'" (The fox
catches it, and says, "My dear sir").—So kindness is already folly.
You certainly waste no time in teaching your children.
"Apprenez que tout flatteur" ("You must learn that every
flatterer").—A general maxim. The child can make neither head nor
tail of it.
"Vit au depens de celui qui l'ecoute" ("Lives at the expense of
the person who listens to his flattery").—No child of ten ever
understood that.
"Ce lecon vaut bien un fromage, sans doute" ("No doubt this lesson
is well worth a cheese").—This is intelligible and its meaning is
very good. Yet there are few children who could compare a cheese and
a lesson, few who would not prefer the cheese. You will therefore
have to make them understand that this is said in mockery. What
subtlety for a child!
"Le corbeau, honteux et confus" (The crow, ashamed and
confused).—Anothing pleonasm, and there is no excuse for it this
time.
"Jura, mais un peu tard, qu'on ne l'y prendrait plus" (Swore, but
rather too late, that he would not be caught in that way
again).—"Swore." What master will be such a fool as to try to
explain to a child the meaning of an oath?
What a host of details! but much more would be needed for the
analysis of all the ideas in this fable and their reduction to the
simple and elementary ideas of which each is composed. But who thinks
this analysis necessary to make himself intelligible to children? Who
of us is philosopher enough to be able to put himself in the child's
place? Let us now proceed to the moral.
Should we teach a six-year-old child that there are people who
flatter and lie for the sake of gain? One might perhaps teach them
that there are people who make fools of little boys and laugh at
their foolish vanity behind their backs. But the whole thing is
spoilt by the cheese. You are teaching them how to make another drop
his cheese rather than how to keep their own. This is my second
paradox, and it is not less weighty than the former one.
Watch children learning their fables and you will see that when
they have a chance of applying them they almost always use them
exactly contrary to the author's meaning; instead of being on their
guard against the fault which you would prevent or cure, they are
disposed to like the vice by which one takes advantage of another's
defects. In the above fable children laugh at the crow, but they all
love the fox. In the next fable you expect them to follow the example
of the grasshopper. Not so, they will choose the ant. They do not care
to abase themselves, they will always choose the principal part—this
is the choice of self-love, a very natural choice. But what a dreadful
lesson for children! There could be no monster more detestable than a
harsh and avaricious child, who realised what he was asked to give and
what he refused. The ant does more; she teaches him not merely to
refuse but to revile.
In all the fables where the lion plays a part, usually the chief
part, the child pretends to be the lion, and when he has to preside
over some distribution of good things, he takes care to keep
everything for himself; but when the lion is overthrown by the gnat,
the child is the gnat. He learns how to sting to death those whom he
dare not attack openly.
From the fable of the sleek dog and the starving wolf he learns a
lesson of licence rather than the lesson of moderation which you
profess to teach him. I shall never forget seeing a little girl
weeping bitterly over this tale, which had been told her as a lesson
in obedience. The poor child hated to be chained up; she felt the
chain chafing her neck; she was crying because she was not a wolf.
So from the first of these fables the child learns the basest
flattery; from the second, cruelty; from the third, injustice; from
the fourth, satire; from the fifth, insubordination. The last of
these lessons is no more suitable for your pupils than for mine,
though he has no use for it. What results do you expect to get from
your teaching when it contradicts itself! But perhaps the same system
of morals which furnishes me with objections against the fables
supplies you with as many reasons for keeping to them. Society
requires a rule of morality in our words; it also requires a rule of
morality in our deeds; and these two rules are quite different. The
former is contained in the Catechism and it is left there; the other
is contained in La Fontaine's fables for children and his tales for
mothers. The same author does for both.
Let us make a bargain, M. de la Fontaine. For my own part, I
undertake to make your books my favourite study; I undertake to love
you, and to learn from your fables, for I hope I shall not mistake
their meaning. As to my pupil, permit me to prevent him studying any
one of them till you have convinced me that it is good for him to
learn things three-fourths of which are unintelligible to him, and
until you can convince me that in those fables he can understand he
will never reverse the order and imitate the villain instead of taking
warning from his dupe.
When I thus get rid of children's lessons, I get rid of the chief
cause of their sorrows, namely their books. Reading is the curse of
childhood, yet it is almost the only occupation you can find for
children. Emile, at twelve years old, will hardly know what a book is.
"But," you say, "he must. at least, know how to read."
When reading is of use to him, I admit he must learn to read, but
till then he will only find it a nuisance.
If children are not to be required to do anything as a matter of
obedience, it follows that they will only learn what they perceive to
be of real and present value, either for use or enjoyment; what other
motive could they have for learning? The art of speaking to our absent
friends, of hearing their words; the art of letting them know at first
hand our feelings, our desires, and our longings, is an art whose
usefulness can be made plain at any age. How is it that this art, so
useful and pleasant in itself, has become a terror to children?
Because the child is compelled to acquire it against his will, and to
use it for purposes beyond his comprehension. A child has no great
wish to perfect himself in the use of an instrument of torture, but
make it a means to his pleasure, and soon you will not be able to keep
him from it.
People make a great fuss about discovering the beat way to teach
children to read. They invent "bureaux" [Footnote: Translator's
note.—The "bureau" was a sort of case containing letters to be put
together to form words. It was a favourite device for the teaching of
reading and gave its name to a special method, called the
bureau-method, of learning to read.] and cards, they turn the nursery
into a printer's shop. Locke would have them taught to read by means
of dice. What a fine idea! And the pity of it! There is a better way
than any of those, and one which is generally overlooked—it consists
in the desire to learn. Arouse this desire in your scholar and have
done with your "bureaux" and your dice—any method will serve.
Present interest, that is the motive power, the only motive power
that takes us far and safely. Sometimes Emile receives notes of
invitation from his father or mother, his relations or friends; he is
invited to a dinner, a walk, a boating expedition, to see some public
entertainment. These notes are short, clear, plain, and well written.
Some one must read them to him, and he cannot always find anybody when
wanted; no more consideration is shown to him than he himself showed
to you yesterday. Time passes, the chance is lost. The note is read to
him at last, but it is too late. Oh! if only he had known how to read!
He receives other notes, so short, so interesting, he would like to
try to read them. Sometimes he gets help, sometimes none. He does his
best, and at last he makes out half the note; it is something about
going to-morrow to drink cream—Where? With whom? He cannot tell—how
hard he tries to make out the rest! I do not think Emile will need a
"bureau." Shall I proceed to the teaching of writing? No, I am ashamed
to toy with these trifles in a treatise on education.
I will just add a few words which contain a principle of great
importance. It is this—What we are in no hurry to get is usually
obtained with speed and certainty. I am pretty sure Emile will learn
to read and write before he is ten, just because I care very little
whether he can do so before he is fifteen; but I would rather he
never learnt to read at all, than that this art should be acquired at
the price of all that makes reading useful. What is the use of reading
to him if he always hates it? "Id imprimis cavere oportebit, ne
studia, qui amare nondum potest, oderit, et amaritudinem semel
perceptam etiam ultra rudes annos reformidet."—Quintil.
The more I urge my method of letting well alone, the more
objections I perceive against it. If your pupil learns nothing from
you, he will learn from others. If you do not instil truth he will
learn falsehoods; the prejudices you fear to teach him he will acquire
from those about him, they will find their way through every one of
his senses; they will either corrupt his reason before it is fully
developed or his mind will become torpid through inaction, and will
become engrossed in material things. If we do not form the habit of
thinking as children, we shall lose the power of thinking for the rest
of our life.
I fancy I could easily answer that objection, but why should I
answer every objection? If my method itself answers your objections,
it is good; if not, it is good for nothing. I continue my explanation.
If, in accordance with the plan I have sketched, you follow rules
which are just the opposite of the established practice, if instead
of taking your scholar far afield, instead of wandering with him in
distant places, in far-off lands, in remote centuries, in the ends of
the earth, and in the very heavens themselves, you try to keep him to
himself, to his own concerns, you will then find him able to perceive,
to remember, and even to reason; this is nature's order. As the
sentient being becomes active his discernment develops along with his
strength. Not till his strength is in excess of what is needed for
self-preservation, is the speculative faculty developed, the faculty
adapted for using this superfluous strength for other purposes. Would
you cultivate your pupil's intelligence, cultivate the strength it is
meant to control. Give his body constant exercise, make it strong and
healthy, in order to make him good and wise; let him work, let him do
things, let him run and shout, let him be always on the go; make a man
of him in strength, and he will soon be a man in reason.
Of course by this method you will make him stupid if you are always
giving him directions, always saying come here, go there, stop, do
this, don't do that. If your head always guides his hands, his own
mind will become useless. But remember the conditions we laid down; if
you are a mere pedant it is not worth your while to read my book.
It is a lamentable mistake to imagine that bodily activity hinders
the working of the mind, as if these two kinds of activity ought not
to advance hand in hand, and as if the one were not intended to act as
guide to the other.
There are two classes of men who are constantly engaged in bodily
activity, peasants and savages, and certainly neither of these pays
the least attention to the cultivation of the mind. Peasants are
rough, coarse, and clumsy; savages are noted, not only for their keen
senses, but for great subtility of mind. Speaking generally, there is
nothing duller than a peasant or sharper than a savage. What is the
cause of this difference? The peasant has always done as he was told,
what his father did before him, what he himself has always done; he is
the creature of habit, he spends his life almost like an automaton on
the same tasks; habit and obedience have taken the place of reason.
The case of the savage is very different; he is tied to no one
place, he has no prescribed task, no superior to obey, he knows no
law but his own will; he is therefore forced to reason at every step
he takes. He can neither move nor walk without considering the
consequences. Thus the more his body is exercised, the more alert is
his mind; his strength and his reason increase together, and each
helps to develop the other.
Oh, learned tutor, let us see which of our two scholars is most
like the savage and which is most like the peasant. Your scholar is
subject to a power which is continually giving him instruction; he
acts only at the word of command; he dare not eat when he is hungry,
nor laugh when he is merry, nor weep when he is sad, nor offer one
hand rather than the other, nor stir a foot unless he is told to do
it; before long he will not venture to breathe without orders. What
would you have him think about, when you do all the thinking for him?
He rests securely on your foresight, why should he think for himself?
He knows you have undertaken to take care of him, to secure his
welfare, and he feels himself freed from this responsibility. His
judgment relies on yours; what you have not forbidden that he does,
knowing that he runs no risk. Why should he learn the signs of rain?
He knows you watch the clouds for him. Why should he time his walk? He
knows there is no fear of your letting him miss his dinner hour. He
eats till you tell him to stop, he stops when you tell him to do so;
he does not attend to the teaching of his own stomach, but yours. In
vain do you make his body soft by inaction; his understanding does not
become subtle. Far from it, you complete your task of discrediting
reason in his eyes, by making him use such reasoning power as he has
on the things which seem of least importance to him. As he never finds
his reason any use to him, he decides at last that it is useless. If
he reasons badly he will be found fault with; nothing worse will
happen to him; and he has been found fault with so often that he pays
no attention to it, such a common danger no longer alarms him.
Yet you will find he has a mind. He is quick enough to chatter
with the women in the way I spoke of further back; but if he is in
danger, if he must come to a decision in difficult circumstances, you
will find him a hundredfold more stupid and silly than the son of the
roughest labourer.
As for my pupil, or rather Nature's pupil, he has been trained from
the outset to be as self-reliant as possible, he has not formed the
habit of constantly seeking help from others, still less of displaying
his stores of learning. On the other hand, he exercises discrimination
and forethought, he reasons about everything that concerns himself. He
does not chatter, he acts. Not a word does he know of what is going on
in the world at large, but he knows very thoroughly what affects
himself. As he is always stirring he is compelled to notice many
things, to recognise many effects; he soon acquires a good deal of
experience. Nature, not man, is his schoolmaster, and he learns all
the quicker because he is not aware that he has any lesson to learn.
So mind and body work together. He is always carrying out his own
ideas, not those of other people, and thus he unites thought and
action; as he grows in health and strength he grows in wisdom and
discernment. This is the way to attain later on to what is generally
considered incompatible, though most great men have achieved it,
strength of body and strength of mind, the reason of the philosopher
and the vigour of the athlete.
Young teacher, I am setting before you a difficult task, the art
of controlling without precepts, and doing everything without doing
anything at all. This art is, I confess, beyond your years, it is not
calculated to display your talents nor to make your value known to
your scholar's parents; but it is the only road to success. You will
never succeed in making wise men if you do not first make little imps
of mischief. This was the education of the Spartans; they were not
taught to stick to their books, they were set to steal their dinners.
Were they any the worse for it in after life? Ever ready for victory,
they crushed their foes in every kind of warfare, and the prating
Athenians were as much afraid of their words as of their blows.
When education is most carefully attended to, the teacher issues
his orders and thinks himself master, but it is the child who is
really master. He uses the tasks you set him to obtain what he wants
from you, and he can always make you pay for an hour's industry by a
week's complaisance. You must always be making bargains with him.
These bargains, suggested in your fashion, but carried out in his,
always follow the direction of his own fancies, especially when you
are foolish enough to make the condition some advantage he is almost
sure to obtain, whether he fulfils his part of the bargain or not.
The child is usually much quicker to read the master's thoughts than
the master to read the child's feelings. And that is as it should be,
for all the sagacity which the child would have devoted to
self-preservation, had he been left to himself, is now devoted to the
rescue of his native freedom from the chains of his tyrant; while the
latter, who has no such pressing need to understand the child,
sometimes finds that it pays him better to leave him in idleness or
vanity.
Take the opposite course with your pupil; let him always think he
is master while you are really master. There is no subjection so
complete as that which preserves the forms of freedom; it is thus
that the will itself is taken captive. Is not this poor child,
without knowledge, strength, or wisdom, entirely at your mercy? Are
you not master of his whole environment so far as it affects him?
Cannot you make of him what you please? His work and play, his
pleasure and pain, are they not, unknown to him, under your control?
No doubt he ought only to do what he wants, but he ought to want to
do nothing but what you want him to do. He should never take a step
you have not foreseen, nor utter a word you could not foretell.
Then he can devote himself to the bodily exercises adapted to his
age without brutalising his mind; instead of developing his cunning
to evade an unwelcome control, you will then find him entirely
occupied in getting the best he can out of his environment with a
view to his present welfare, and you will be surprised by the subtlety
of the means he devises to get for himself such things as he can
obtain, and to really enjoy things without the aid of other people's
ideas. You leave him master of his own wishes, but you do not multiply
his caprices. When he only does what he wants, he will soon only do
what he ought, and although his body is constantly in motion, so far
as his sensible and present interests are concerned, you will find him
developing all the reason of which he is capable, far better and in a
manner much better fitted for him than in purely theoretical studies.
Thus when he does not find you continually thwarting him, when he
no longer distrusts you, no longer has anything to conceal from you,
he will neither tell you lies nor deceive you; he will show himself
fearlessly as he really is, and you can study him at your ease, and
surround him with all the lessons you would have him learn, without
awaking his suspicions.
Neither will he keep a curious and jealous eye on your own conduct,
nor take a secret delight in catching you at fault. It is a great
thing to avoid this. One of the child's first objects is, as I have
said, to find the weak spots in its rulers. Though this leads to
spitefulness, it does not arise from it, but from the desire to evade
a disagreeable control. Overburdened by the yoke laid upon him, he
tries to shake it off, and the faults he finds in his master give him
a good opportunity for this. Still the habit of spying out faults and
delighting in them grows upon people. Clearly we have stopped another
of the springs of vice in Emile's heart. Having nothing to gain from
my faults, he will not be on the watch for them, nor will he be
tempted to look out for the faults of others.
All these methods seem difficult because they are new to us, but
they ought not to be really difficult. I have a right to assume that
you have the knowledge required for the business you have chosen;
that you know the usual course of development of the human thought,
that you can study mankind and man, that you know beforehand the
effect on your pupil's will of the various objects suited to his age
which you put before him. You have the tools and the art to use them;
are you not master of your trade?
You speak of childish caprice; you are mistaken. Children's
caprices are never the work of nature, but of bad discipline; they
have either obeyed or given orders, and I have said again and again,
they must do neither. Your pupil will have the caprices you have
taught him; it is fair you should bear the punishment of your own
faults. "But how can I cure them?" do you say? That may still be
done by better conduct on your own part and great patience. I once
undertook the charge of a child for a few weeks; he was accustomed
not only to have his own way, but to make every one else do as he
pleased; he was therefore capricious. The very first day he wanted to
get up at midnight, to try how far he could go with me. When I was
sound asleep he jumped out of bed, got his dressing-gown, and waked me
up. I got up and lighted the candle, which was all he wanted. After a
quarter of an hour he became sleepy and went back to bed quite
satisfied with his experiment. Two days later he repeated it, with the
same success and with no sign of impatience on my part. When he kissed
me as he lay down, I said to him very quietly, "My little dear, this
is all very well, but do not try it again." His curiosity was aroused
by this, and the very next day he did not fail to get up at the same
time and woke me to see whether I should dare to disobey him. I asked
what he wanted, and he told me he could not sleep. "So much the worse
for you," I replied, and I lay quiet. He seemed perplexed by this way
of speaking. He felt his way to the flint and steel and tried to
strike a light. I could not help laughing when I heard him strike his
fingers. Convinced at last that he could not manage it, he brought the
steel to my bed; I told him I did not want it, and I turned my back to
him. Then he began to rush wildly about the room, shouting, singing,
making a great noise, knocking against chairs and tables, but taking,
however, good care not to hurt himself seriously, but screaming
loudly in the hope of alarming me. All this had no effect, but I
perceived that though he was prepared for scolding or anger, he was
quite unprepared for indifference.
However, he was determined to overcome my patience with his own
obstinacy, and he continued his racket so successfully that at last I
lost my temper. I foresaw that I should spoil the whole business by an
unseemly outburst of passion. I determined on another course. I got up
quietly, went to the tinder box, but could not find it; I asked him
for it, and he gave it me, delighted to have won the victory over me.
I struck a light, lighted the candle, took my young gentleman by the
hand and led him quietly into an adjoining dressing-room with the
shutters firmly fastened, and nothing he could break.
I left him there without a light; then locking him in I went back
to my bed without a word. What a noise there was! That was what I
expected, and took no notice. At last the noise ceased; I listened,
heard him settling down, and I was quite easy about him. Next morning
I entered the room at daybreak, and my little rebel was lying on a
sofa enjoying a sound and much needed sleep after his exertions.
The matter did not end there. His mother heard that the child had
spent a great part of the night out of bed. That spoilt the whole
thing; her child was as good as dead. Finding a good chance for
revenge, he pretended to be ill, not seeing that he would gain
nothing by it. They sent for the doctor. Unluckily for the mother,
the doctor was a practical joker, and to amuse himself with her
terrors he did his best to increase them. However, he whispered to
me, "Leave it to me, I promise to cure the child of wanting to be ill
for some time to come." As a matter of fact he prescribed bed and
dieting, and the child was handed over to the apothecary. I sighed to
see the mother cheated on every hand except by me, whom she hated
because I did not deceive her.
After pretty severe reproaches, she told me her son was delicate,
that he was the sole heir of the family, his life must be preserved
at all costs, and she would not have him contradicted. In that I
thoroughly agreed with her, but what she meant by contradicting was
not obeying him in everything. I saw I should have to treat the mother
as I had treated the son. "Madam," I said coldly, "I do not know how
to educate the heir to a fortune, and what is more, I do not mean to
study that art. You can take that as settled." I was wanted for some
days longer, and the father smoothed things over. The mother wrote to
the tutor to hasten his return, and the child, finding he got nothing
by disturbing my rest, nor yet by being ill, decided at last to get
better and to go to sleep.
You can form no idea of the number of similar caprices to which the
little tyrant had subjected his unlucky tutor; for his education was
carried on under his mother's eye, and she would not allow her son and
heir to be disobeyed in anything. Whenever he wanted to go out, you
must be ready to take him, or rather to follow him, and he always took
good care to choose the time when he knew his tutor was very busy. He
wished to exercise the same power over me and to avenge himself by day
for having to leave me in peace at night. I gladly agreed and began by
showing plainly how pleased I was to give him pleasure; after that
when it was a matter of curing him of his fancies I set about it
differently.
In the first place, he must be shown that he was in the wrong. This
was not difficult; knowing that children think only of the present, I
took the easy advantage which foresight gives; I took care to provide
him with some indoor amusement of which he was very fond. Just when he
was most occupied with it, I went and suggested a short walk, and he
sent me away. I insisted, but he paid no attention. I had to give in,
and he took note of this sign of submission.
The next day it was my turn. As I expected, he got tired of his
occupation; I, however, pretended to be very busy. That was enough to
decide him. He came to drag me from my work, to take him at once for a
walk. I refused; he persisted. "No," I said, "when I did what you
wanted, you taught me how to get my own way; I shall not go out."
"Very well," he replied eagerly, "I shall go out by myself." "As you
please," and I returned to my work.
He put on his things rather uneasily when he saw I did not follow
his example. When he was ready he came and made his bow; I bowed too;
he tried to frighten me with stories of the expeditions he was going
to make; to hear him talk you would think he was going to the world's
end. Quite unmoved, I wished him a pleasant journey. He became more
and more perplexed. However, he put a good face on it, and when he was
ready to go out he told his foot man to follow him. The footman, who
had his instructions, replied that he had no time, and that he was
busy carrying out my orders, and he must obey me first. For the moment
the child was taken aback. How could he think they would really let
him go out alone, him, who, in his own eyes, was the most important
person in the world, who thought that everything in heaven and earth
was wrapped up in his welfare? However, he was beginning to feel his
weakness, he perceived that he should find himself alone among people
who knew nothing of him. He saw beforehand the risks he would run;
obstinacy alone sustained him; very slowly and unwillingly he went
downstairs. At last he went out into the street, consoling himself a
little for the harm that might happen to himself, in the hope that I
should be held responsible for it.
This was just what I expected. All was arranged beforehand, and as
it meant some sort of public scene I had got his father's consent. He
had scarcely gone a few steps, when he heard, first on this side then
on that, all sorts of remarks about himself. "What a pretty little
gentleman, neighbour? Where is he going all alone? He will get lost! I
will ask him into our house." "Take care you don't. Don't you see he
is a naughty little boy, who has been turned out of his own house
because he is good for nothing? You must not stop naughty boys; let
him go where he likes." "Well, well; the good God take care of him. I
should be sorry if anything happened to him." A little further on he
met some young urchins of about his own age who teased him and made
fun of him. The further he got the more difficulties he found. Alone
and unprotected he was at the mercy of everybody, and he found to his
great surprise that his shoulder knot and his gold lace commanded no
respect.
However, I had got a friend of mine, who was a stranger to him, to
keep an eye on him. Unnoticed by him, this friend followed him step by
step, and in due time he spoke to him. The role, like that of Sbrigani
in Pourceaugnac, required an intelligent actor, and it was played to
perfection. Without making the child fearful and timid by inspiring
excessive terror, he made him realise so thoroughly the folly of his
exploit that in half an hour's time he brought him home to me, ashamed
and humble, and afraid to look me in the face.
To put the finishing touch to his discomfiture, just as he was
coming in his father came down on his way out and met him on the
stairs. He had to explain where he had been, and why I was not with
him. [Footnote: In a case like this there is no danger in asking a
child to tell the truth, for he knows very well that it cannot be
hid, and that if he ventured to tell a lie he would be found out at
once.] The poor child would gladly have sunk into the earth. His
father did not take the trouble to scold him at length, but said with
more severity than I should have expected, "When you want to go out by
yourself, you can do so, but I will not have a rebel in my house, so
when you go, take good care that you never come back."
As for me, I received him somewhat gravely, but without blame and
without mockery, and for fear he should find out we had been playing
with him, I declined to take him out walking that day. Next day I was
well pleased to find that he passed in triumph with me through the
very same people who had mocked him the previous day, when they met
him out by himself. You may be sure he never threatened to go out
without me again.
By these means and other like them I succeeded during the short
time I was with him in getting him to do everything I wanted without
bidding him or forbidding him to do anything, without preaching or
exhortation, without wearying him with unnecessary lessons. So he was
pleased when I spoke to him, but when I was silent he was frightened,
for he knew there was something amiss, and he always got his lesson
from the thing itself. But let us return to our subject.
The body is strengthened by this constant exercise under the
guidance of nature herself, and far from brutalising the mind, this
exercise develops in it the only kind of reason of which young
children are capable, the kind of reason most necessary at every age.
It teaches us how to use our strength, to perceive the relations
between our own and neighbouring bodies, to use the natural tools,
which are within our reach and adapted to our senses. Is there
anything sillier than a child brought up indoors under his mother's
eye, who, in his ignorance of weight and resistance, tries to uproot a
tall tree or pick up a rock. The first time I found myself outside
Geneva I tried to catch a galloping horse, and I threw stones at Mont
Saleve, two leagues away; I was the laughing stock of the whole
village, and was supposed to be a regular idiot. At eighteen we are
taught in our natural philosophy the use of the lever; every village
boy of twelve knows how to use a lever better than the cleverest
mechanician in the academy. The lessons the scholars learn from one
another in the playground are worth a hundredfold more than what they
learn in the class-room.
Watch a cat when she comes into a room for the first time; she goes
from place to place, she sniffs about and examines everything, she is
never still for a moment; she is suspicious of everything till she has
examined it and found out what it is. It is the same with the child
when he begins to walk, and enters, so to speak, the room of the world
around him. The only difference is that, while both use sight, the
child uses his hands and the cat that subtle sense of smell which
nature has bestowed upon it. It is this instinct, rightly or wrongly
educated, which makes children skilful or clumsy, quick or slow, wise
or foolish.
Man's primary natural goals are, therefore, to measure himself
against his environment, to discover in every object he sees those
sensible qualities which may concern himself, so his first study is a
kind of experimental physics for his own preservation. He is turned
away from this and sent to speculative studies before he has found his
proper place in the world. While his delicate and flexible limbs can
adjust themselves to the bodies upon which they are intended to act,
while his senses are keen and as yet free from illusions, then is the
time to exercise both limbs and senses in their proper business. It
is the time to learn to perceive the physical relations between
ourselves and things. Since everything that comes into the human mind
enters through the gates of sense, man's first reason is a reason of
sense-experience. It is this that serves as a foundation for the
reason of the intelligence; our first teachers in natural philosophy
are our feet, hands, and eyes. To substitute books for them does not
teach us to reason, it teaches us to use the reason of others rather
than our own; it teaches us to believe much and know little.
Before you can practise an art you must first get your tools; and
if you are to make good use of those tools, they must be fashioned
sufficiently strong to stand use. To learn to think we must therefore
exercise our limbs, our senses, and our bodily organs, which are the
tools of the intellect; and to get the best use out of these tools,
the body which supplies us with them must be strong and healthy. Not
only is it quite a mistake that true reason is developed apart from
the body, but it is a good bodily constitution which makes the
workings of the mind easy and correct.
While I am showing how the child's long period of leisure should be
spent, I am entering into details which may seem absurd. You will
say, "This is a strange sort of education, and it is subject to your
own criticism, for it only teaches what no one needs to learn. Why
spend your time in teaching what will come of itself without care or
trouble? Is there any child of twelve who is ignorant of all you wish
to teach your pupil, while he also knows what his master has taught
him."
Gentlemen, you are mistaken. I am teaching my pupil an art, the
acquirement of which demands much time and trouble, an art which your
scholars certainly do not possess; it is the art of being ignorant;
for the knowledge of any one who only thinks he knows, what he really
does know is a very small matter. You teach science; well and good; I
am busy fashioning the necessary tools for its acquisition. Once upon
a time, they say the Venetians were displaying the treasures of the
Cathedral of Saint Mark to the Spanish ambassador; the only comment he
made was, "Qui non c'e la radice." When I see a tutor showing off his
pupil's learning, I am always tempted to say the same to him.
Every one who has considered the manner of life among the
ancients, attributes the strength of body and mind by which they are
distinguished from the men of our own day to their gymnastic
exercises. The stress laid by Montaigne upon this opinion, shows that
it had made a great impression on him; he returns to it again and
again. Speaking of a child's education he says, "To strengthen the
mind you must harden the muscles; by training the child to labour you
train him to suffering; he must be broken in to the hardships of
gymnastic exercises to prepare him for the hardships of dislocations,
colics, and other bodily ills." The philosopher Locke, the worthy
Rollin, the learned Fleury, the pedant De Crouzas, differing as they
do so widely from one another, are agreed in this one matter of
sufficient bodily exercise for children. This is the wisest of their
precepts, and the one which is certain to be neglected. I have already
dwelt sufficiently on its importance, and as better reasons and more
sensible rules cannot be found than those in Locke's book, I will
content myself with referring to it, after taking the liberty of
adding a few remarks of my own.
The limbs of a growing child should be free to move easily in his
clothing; nothing should cramp their growth or movement; there should
be nothing tight, nothing fitting closely to the body, no belts of any
kind. The French style of dress, uncomfortable and unhealthy for a
man, is especially bad for children. The stagnant humours, whose
circulation is interrupted, putrify in a state of inaction, and this
process proceeds more rapidly in an inactive and sedentary life; they
become corrupt and give rise to scurvy; this disease, which is
continually on the increase among us, was almost unknown to the
ancients, whose way of dressing and living protected them from it. The
hussar's dress, far from correcting this fault, increases it, and
compresses the whole of the child's body, by way of dispensing with a
few bands. The best plan is to keep children in frocks as long as
possible and then to provide them with loose clothing, without trying
to define the shape which is only another way of deforming it. Their
defects of body and mind may all be traced to the same source, the
desire to make men of them before their time.
There are bright colours and dull; children like the bright colours
best, and they suit them better too. I see no reason why such natural
suitability should not be taken into consideration; but as soon as
they prefer a material because it is rich, their hearts are already
given over to luxury, to every caprice of fashion, and this taste is
certainly not their own. It is impossible to say how much education is
influenced by this choice of clothes, and the motives for this choice.
Not only do short-sighted mothers offer ornaments as rewards to their
children, but there are foolish tutors who threaten to make their
pupils wear the plainest and coarsest clothes as a punishment. "If you
do not do your lessons better, if you do not take more care of your
clothes, you shall be dressed like that little peasant boy." This is
like saying to them, "Understand that clothes make the man." Is it to
be wondered at that our young people profit by such wise teaching,
that they care for nothing but dress, and that they only judge of
merit by its outside.
If I had to bring such a spoilt child to his senses, I would take
care that his smartest clothes were the most uncomfortable, that he
was always cramped, constrained, and embarrassed in every way; freedom
and mirth should flee before his splendour. If he wanted to take part
in the games of children more simply dressed, they should cease their
play and run away. Before long I should make him so tired and sick of
his magnificence, such a slave to his gold-laced coat, that it would
become the plague of his life, and he would be less afraid to behold
the darkest dungeon than to see the preparations for his adornment.
Before the child is enslaved by our prejudices his first wish is
always to be free and comfortable. The plainest and most comfortable
clothes, those which leave him most liberty, are what he always likes
best.
There are habits of body suited for an active life and others for
a sedentary life. The latter leaves the humours an equable and
uniform course, and the body should be protected from changes in
temperature; the former is constantly passing from action to rest,
from heat to cold, and the body should be inured to these changes.
Hence people, engaged in sedentary pursuits indoors, should always be
warmly dressed, to keep their bodies as nearly as possible at the same
temperature at all times and seasons. Those, however, who come and go
in sun, wind, and rain, who take much exercise, and spend most of
their time out of doors, should always be lightly clad, so as to get
used to the changes in the air and to every degree of temperature
without suffering inconvenience. I would advise both never to change
their clothes with the changing seasons, and that would be the
invariable habit of my pupil Emile. By this I do not mean that he
should wear his winter clothes in summer like many people of sedentary
habits, but that he should wear his summer clothes in winter like
hard-working folk. Sir Isaac Newton always did this, and he lived to
be eighty.
Emile should wear little or nothing on his head all the year round.
The ancient Egyptians always went bareheaded; the Persians used to
wear heavy tiaras and still wear large turbans, which according to
Chardin are required by their climate. I have remarked elsewhere on
the difference observed by Herodotus on a battle-field between the
skulls of the Persians and those of the Egyptians. Since it is
desirable that the bones of the skull should grow harder and more
substantial, less fragile and porous, not only to protect the brain
against injuries but against colds, fever, and every influence of the
air, you should therefore accustom your children to go bare-headed
winter and summer, day and night. If you make them wear a night-cap
to keep their hair clean and tidy, let it be thin and transparent
like the nets with which the Basques cover their hair. I am aware
that most mothers will be more impressed by Chardin's observations
than my arguments, and will think that all climates are the climate
of Persia, but I did not choose a European pupil to turn him into an
Asiatic.
Children are generally too much wrapped up, particularly in
infancy. They should be accustomed to cold rather than heat; great
cold never does them any harm, if they are exposed to it soon enough;
but their skin is still too soft and tender and leaves too free a
course for perspiration, so that they are inevitably exhausted by
excessive heat. It has been observed that infant mortality is greatest
in August. Moreover, it seems certain from a comparison of northern
and southern races that we become stronger by bearing extreme cold
rather than excessive heat. But as the child's body grows bigger and
his muscles get stronger, train him gradually to bear the rays of the
sun. Little by little you will harden him till he can face the burning
heat of the tropics without danger.
Locke, in the midst of the manly and sensible advice he gives us,
falls into inconsistencies one would hardly expect in such a careful
thinker. The same man who would have children take an ice-cold bath
summer and winter, will not let them drink cold water when they are
hot, or lie on damp grass. But he would never have their shoes
water-tight; and why should they let in more water when the child is
hot than when he is cold, and may we not draw the same inference with
regard to the feet and body that he draws with regard to the hands and
feet and the body and face? If he would have a man all face, why blame
me if I would have him all feet?
To prevent children drinking when they are hot, he says they should
be trained to eat a piece of bread first. It is a strange thing to
make a child eat because he is thirsty; I would as soon give him a
drink when he is hungry. You will never convince me that our first
instincts are so ill-regulated that we cannot satisfy them without
endangering our lives. Were that so, the man would have perished over
and over again before he had learned how to keep himself alive.
Whenever Emile is thirsty let him have a drink, and let him drink
fresh water just as it is, not even taking the chill off it in the
depths of winter and when he is bathed in perspiration. The only
precaution I advise is to take care what sort of water you give him.
If the water comes from a river, give it him just as it is; if it is
spring-water let it stand a little exposed to the air before he drinks
it. In warm weather rivers are warm; it is not so with springs, whose
water has not been in contact with the air. You must wait till the
temperature of the water is the same as that of the air. In winter, on
the other hand, spring water is safer than river water. It is,
however, unusual and unnatural to perspire greatly in winter,
especially in the open air, for the cold air constantly strikes the
skin and drives the perspiration inwards, and prevents the pores
opening enough to give it passage. Now I do not intend Emile to take
his exercise by the fireside in winter, but in the open air and among
the ice. If he only gets warm with making and throwing snowballs, let
him drink when he is thirsty, and go on with his game after drinking,
and you need not be afraid of any ill effects. And if any other
exercise makes him perspire let him drink cold water even in winter
provided he is thirsty. Only take care to take him to get the water
some little distance away. In such cold as I am supposing, he would
have cooled down sufficiently when he got there to be able to drink
without danger. Above all, take care to conceal these precautions from
him. I would rather he were ill now and then, than always thinking
about his health.
Since children take such violent exercise they need a great deal
of sleep. The one makes up for the other, and this shows that both
are necessary. Night is the time set apart by nature for rest. It is
an established fact that sleep is quieter and calmer when the sun is
below the horizon, and that our senses are less calm when the air is
warmed by the rays of the sun. So it is certainly the healthiest plan
to rise with the sun and go to bed with the sun. Hence in our country
man and all the other animals with him want more sleep in winter than
in summer. But town life is so complex, so unnatural, so subject to
chances and changes, that it is not wise to accustom a man to such
uniformity that he cannot do without it. No doubt he must submit to
rules; but the chief rule is this—be able to break the rule if
necessary. So do not be so foolish as to soften your pupil by letting
him always sleep his sleep out. Leave him at first to the law of
nature without any hindrance, but never forget that under our
conditions he must rise above this law; he must be able to go to bed
late and rise early, be awakened suddenly, or sit up all night without
ill effects. Begin early and proceed gently, a step at a time, and the
constitution adapts itself to the very conditions which would destroy
it if they were imposed for the first time on the grown man.
In the next place he must be accustomed to sleep in an
uncomfortable bed, which is the best way to find no bed uncomfortable.
Speaking generally, a hard life, when once we have become used to it,
increases our pleasant experiences; an easy life prepares the way for
innumerable unpleasant experiences. Those who are too tenderly
nurtured can only sleep on down; those who are used to sleep on bare
boards can find them anywhere. There is no such thing as a hard bed
for the man who falls asleep at once.
The body is, so to speak, melted and dissolved in a soft bed where
one sinks into feathers and eider-down. The reins when too warmly
covered become inflamed. Stone and other diseases are often due to
this, and it invariably produces a delicate constitution, which is
the seed-ground of every ailment.
The best bed is that in which we get the best sleep. Emile and I
will prepare such a bed for ourselves during the daytime. We do not
need Persian slaves to make our beds; when we are digging the soil we
are turning our mattresses. I know that a healthy child may be made to
sleep or wake almost at will. When the child is put to bed and his
nurse grows weary of his chatter, she says to him, "Go to sleep." That
is much like saying, "Get well," when he is ill. The right way is to
let him get tired of himself. Talk so much that he is compelled to
hold his tongue, and he will soon be asleep. Here is at least one use
for sermons, and you may as well preach to him as rock his cradle; but
if you use this narcotic at night, do not use it by day.
I shall sometimes rouse Emile, not so much to prevent his sleeping
too much, as to accustom him to anything—even to waking with a
start. Moreover, I should be unfit for my business if I could not
make him wake himself, and get up, so to speak, at my will, without
being called.
If he wakes too soon, I shall let him look forward to a tedious
morning, so that he will count as gain any time he can give to sleep.
If he sleeps too late I shall show him some favourite toy when he
wakes. If I want him to wake at a given hour I shall say, "To-morrow
at six I am going fishing," or "I shall take a walk to such and such a
place. Would you like to come too?" He assents, and begs me to wake
him. I promise, or do not promise, as the case requires. If he wakes
too late, he finds me gone. There is something amiss if he does not
soon learn to wake himself.
Moreover, should it happen, though it rarely does, that a sluggish
child desires to stagnate in idleness, you must not give way to this
tendency, which might stupefy him entirely, but you must apply some
stimulus to wake him. You must understand that is no question of
applying force, but of arousing some appetite which leads to action,
and such an appetite, carefully selected on the lines laid down by
nature, kills two birds with one stone.
If one has any sort of skill, I can think of nothing for which a
taste, a very passion, cannot be aroused in children, and that without
vanity, emulation, or jealousy. Their keenness, their spirit of
imitation, is enough of itself; above all, there is their natural
liveliness, of which no teacher so far has contrived to take
advantage. In every game, when they are quite sure it is only play,
they endure without complaint, or even with laughter, hardships which
they would not submit to otherwise without floods of tears. The sports
of the young savage involve long fasting, blows, burns, and fatigue of
every kind, a proof that even pain has a charm of its own, which may
remove its bitterness. It is not every master, however, who knows how
to season this dish, nor can every scholar eat it without making
faces. However, I must take care or I shall be wandering off again
after exceptions.
It is not to be endured that man should become the slave of pain,
disease, accident, the perils of life, or even death itself; the more
familiar he becomes with these ideas the sooner he will be cured of
that over-sensitiveness which adds to the pain by impatience in
bearing it; the sooner he becomes used to the sufferings which may
overtake him, the sooner he shall, as Montaigne has put it, rob those
pains of the sting of unfamiliarity, and so make his soul strong and
invulnerable; his body will be the coat of mail which stops all the
darts which might otherwise find a vital part. Even the approach of
death, which is not death itself, will scarcely be felt as such; he
will not die, he will be, so to speak, alive or dead and nothing more.
Montaigne might say of him as he did of a certain king of Morocco, "No
man ever prolonged his life so far into death." A child serves his
apprenticeship in courage and endurance as well as in other virtues;
but you cannot teach children these virtues by name alone; they must
learn them unconsciously through experience.
But speaking of death, what steps shall I take with regard to my
pupil and the smallpox? Shall he be inoculated in infancy, or shall I
wait till he takes it in the natural course of things? The former plan
is more in accordance with our practice, for it preserves his life at
a time when it is of greater value, at the cost of some danger when
his life is of less worth; if indeed we can use the word danger with
regard to inoculation when properly performed.
But the other plan is more in accordance with our general
principles—to leave nature to take the precautions she delights in,
precautions she abandons whenever man interferes. The natural man is
always ready; let nature inoculate him herself, she will choose the
fitting occasion better than we.
Do not think I am finding fault with inoculation, for my reasons
for exempting my pupil from it do not in the least apply to yours.
Your training does not prepare them to escape catching smallpox as
soon as they are exposed to infection. If you let them take it anyhow,
they will probably die. I perceive that in different lands the
resistance to inoculation is in proportion to the need for it; and the
reason is plain. So I scarcely condescend to discuss this question
with regard to Emile. He will be inoculated or not according to time,
place, and circumstances; it is almost a matter of indifference, as
far as he is concerned. If it gives him smallpox, there will be the
advantage of knowing what to expect, knowing what the disease is; that
is a good thing, but if he catches it naturally it will have kept him
out of the doctor's hands, which is better.
An exclusive education, which merely tends to keep those who have
received it apart from the mass of mankind, always selects such
teaching as is costly rather than cheap, even when the latter is of
more use. Thus all carefully educated young men learn to ride, because
it is costly, but scarcely any of them learn to swim, as it costs
nothing, and an artisan can swim as well as any one. Yet without
passing through the riding school, the traveller learns to mount his
horse, to stick on it, and to ride well enough for practical purposes;
but in the water if you cannot swim you will drown, and we cannot swim
unless we are taught. Again, you are not forced to ride on pain of
death, while no one is sure of escaping such a common danger as
drowning. Emile shall be as much at home in the water as on land. Why
should he not be able to live in every element? If he could learn to
fly, he should be an eagle; I would make him a salamander, if he could
bear the heat.
People are afraid lest the child should be drowned while he is
learning to swim; if he dies while he is learning, or if he dies
because he has not learnt, it will be your own fault. Foolhardiness
is the result of vanity; we are not rash when no one is looking.
Emile will not be foolhardy, though all the world were watching him.
As the exercise does not depend on its danger, he will learn to swim
the Hellespont by swimming, without any danger, a stream in his
father's park; but he must get used to danger too, so as not to be
flustered by it. This is an essential part of the apprenticeship I
spoke of just now. Moreover, I shall take care to proportion the
danger to his strength, and I shall always share it myself, so that I
need scarcely fear any imprudence if I take as much care for his life
as for my own.
A child is smaller than a man; he has not the man's strength or
reason, but he sees and hears as well or nearly as well; his sense of
taste is very good, though he is less fastidious, and he distinguishes
scents as clearly though less sensuously. The senses are the first of
our faculties to mature; they are those most frequently overlooked or
neglected.
To train the senses it is not enough merely to use them; we must
learn to judge by their means, to learn to feel, so to speak; for we
cannot touch, see, or hear, except as we have been taught.
There is a mere natural and mechanical use of the senses which
strengthens the body without improving the judgment. It is all very
well to swim, run, jump, whip a top, throw stones; but have we nothing
but arms and legs? Have we not eyes and ears as well; and are not
these organs necessary for the use of the rest? Do not merely exercise
the strength, exercise all the senses by which it is guided; make the
best use of every one of them, and check the results of one by the
other. Measure, count, weigh, compare. Do not use force till you have
estimated the resistance; let the estimation of the effect always
precede the application of the means. Get the child interested in
avoiding insufficient or superfluous efforts. If in this way you train
him to calculate the effects of all his movements, and to correct his
mistakes by experience, is it not clear that the more he does the
wiser he will become?
Take the case of moving a heavy mass; if he takes too long a lever,
he will waste his strength; if it is too short, he will not have
strength enough; experience will teach him to use the very stick he
needs. This knowledge is not beyond his years. Take, for example, a
load to be carried; if he wants to carry as much as he can, and not to
take up more than he can carry, must he not calculate the weight by
the appearance? Does he know how to compare masses of like substance
and different size, or to choose between masses of the same size and
different substances? He must set to work to compare their specific
weights. I have seen a young man, very highly educated, who could not
be convinced, till he had tried it, that a bucket full of blocks of
oak weighed less than the same bucket full of water.
All our senses are not equally under our control. One of them,
touch, is always busy during our waking hours; it is spread over the
whole surface of the body, like a sentinel ever on the watch to warn
us of anything which may do us harm. Whether we will or not, we learn
to use it first of all by experience, by constant practice, and
therefore we have less need for special training for it. Yet we know
that the blind have a surer and more delicate sense of touch than we,
for not being guided by the one sense, they are forced to get from the
touch what we get from sight. Why, then, are not we trained to walk as
they do in the dark, to recognise what we touch, to distinguish things
about us; in a word, to do at night and in the dark what they do in
the daytime without sight? We are better off than they while the sun
shines; in the dark it is their turn to be our guide. We are blind
half our time, with this difference: the really blind always know what
to do, while we are afraid to stir in the dark. We have lights, you
say. What always artificial aids. Who can insure that they will always
be at hand when required. I had rather Emil's eyes were in his finger
tips, than in the chandler's shop.
If you are shut up in a building at night, clap your hands, you
will know from the sound whether the space is large or small, if you
are in the middle or in one corner. Half a foot from a wall the air,
which is refracted and does not circulate freely, produces a different
effect on your face. Stand still in one place and turn this way and
that; a slight draught will tell you if there is a door open. If you
are on a boat you will perceive from the way the air strikes your face
not merely the direction in which you are going, but whether the
current is bearing you slow or fast. These observations and many
others like them can only be properly made at night; however much
attention we give to them by daylight, we are always helped or
hindered by sight, so that the results escape us. Yet here we use
neither hand nor stick. How much may be learnt by touch, without ever
touching anything!
I would have plenty of games in the dark! This suggestion is more
valuable than it seems at first sight. Men are naturally afraid of
the dark; so are some animals. [Footnote: This terror is very
noticeable during great eclipses of the sun.] Only a few men are
freed from this burden by knowledge, determination, and courage. I
have seen thinkers, unbelievers, philosophers, exceedingly brave by
daylight, tremble like women at the rustling of a leaf in the dark.
This terror is put down to nurses' tales; this is a mistake; it has a
natural cause. What is this cause? What makes the deaf suspicious and
the lower classes superstitious? Ignorance of the things about us, and
of what is taking place around us. [Footnote: Another cause has been
well explained by a philosopher, often quoted in this work, a
philosopher to whose wide views I am very greatly indebted.]
When under special conditions we cannot form a fair idea of
distance, when we can only judge things by the size of the angle or
rather of the image formed in our eyes, we cannot avoid being deceived
as to the size of these objects. Every one knows by experience how
when we are travelling at night we take a bush near at hand for a
great tree at a distance, and vice versa. In the same way, if the
objects were of a shape unknown to us, so that we could not tell
their size in that way, we should be equally mistaken with regard to
it. If a fly flew quickly past a few inches from our eyes, we should
think it was a distant bird; a horse standing still at a distance from
us in the midst of open country, in a position somewhat like that of a
sheep, would be taken for a large sheep, so long as we did not
perceive that it was a horse; but as soon as we recognise what it is,
it seems as large as a horse, and we at once correct our former
judgment.
Whenever one finds oneself in unknown places at night where we
cannot judge of distance, and where we cannot recognise objects by
their shape on account of the darkness, we are in constant danger of
forming mistaken judgments as to the objects which present themselves
to our notice. Hence that terror, that kind of inward fear experienced
by most people on dark nights. This is foundation for the supposed
appearances of spectres, or gigantic and terrible forms which so many
people profess to have seen. They are generally told that they
imagined these things, yet they may really have seen them, and it is
quite possible they really saw what they say they did see; for it will
always be the case that when we can only estimate the size of an
object by the angle it forms in the eye, that object will swell and
grow as we approach it; and if the spectator thought it several feet
high when it was thirty or forty feet away, it will seem very large
indeed when it is a few feet off; this must indeed astonish and alarm
the spectator until he touches it and perceives what it is, for as
soon as he perceives what it is, the object which seemed so gigantic
will suddenly shrink and assume its real size, but if we run away or
are afraid to approach, we shall certainly form no other idea of the
thing than the image formed in the eye, and we shall have really seen
a gigantic figure of alarming size and shape. There is, therefore, a
natural ground for the tendency to see ghosts, and these appearances
are not merely the creation of the imagination, as the men of science
would have us think.—Buffon, Nat. Hist.
In the text I have tried to show that they are always partly the
creation of the imagination, and with regard to the cause explained
in this quotation, it is clear that the habit of walking by night
should teach us to distinguish those appearances which similarity of
form and diversity of distance lend to the objects seen in the dark.
For if the air is light enough for us to see the outlines there must
be more air between us and them when they are further off, so that we
ought to see them less distinctly when further off, which should be
enough, when we are used to it, to prevent the error described by M.
Buffon. [Whichever explanation you prefer, my mode of procedure is
still efficacious, and experience entirely confirms it.] Accustomed to
perceive things from a distance and to calculate their effects, how
can I help supposing, when I cannot see, that there are hosts of
creatures and all sorts of movements all about me which may do me
harm, and against which I cannot protect myself? In vain do I know I
am safe where I am; I am never so sure of it as when I can actually
see it, so that I have always a cause for fear which did not exist in
broad daylight. I know, indeed, that a foreign body can scarcely act
upon me without some slight sound, and how intently I listen! At the
least sound which I cannot explain, the desire of self-preservation
makes me picture everything that would put me on my guard, and
therefore everything most calculated to alarm me.
I am just as uneasy if I hear no sound, for I might be taken
unawares without a sound. I must picture things as they were before,
as they ought to be; I must see what I do not see. Thus driven to
exercise my imagination, it soon becomes my master, and what I did to
reassure myself only alarms me more. I hear a noise, it is a robber; I
hear nothing, it is a ghost. The watchfulness inspired by the instinct
of self-preservation only makes me more afraid. Everything that
ought to reassure me exists only for my reason, and the voice of
instinct is louder than that of reason. What is the good of thinking
there is nothing to be afraid of, since in that case there is nothing
we can do?
The cause indicates the cure. In everything habit overpowers
imagination; it is only aroused by what is new. It is no longer
imagination, but memory which is concerned with what we see every
day, and that is the reason of the maxim, "Ab assuetis non fit
passio," for it is only at the flame of imagination that the passions
are kindled. Therefore do not argue with any one whom you want to
cure of the fear of darkness; take him often into dark places and be
assured this practice will be of more avail than all the arguments of
philosophy. The tiler on the roof does not know what it is to be
dizzy, and those who are used to the dark will not be afraid.
There is another advantage to be gained from our games in the dark.
But if these games are to be a success I cannot speak too strongly of
the need for gaiety. Nothing is so gloomy as the dark: do not shut
your child up in a dungeon, let him laugh when he goes, into a dark
place, let him laugh when he comes out, so that the thought of the
game he is leaving and the games he will play next may protect him
from the fantastic imagination which might lay hold on him.
There comes a stage in life beyond which we progress backwards. I
feel I have reached this stage. I am, so to speak, returning to a
past career. The approach of age makes us recall the happy days of
our childhood. As I grow old I become a child again, and I recall
more readily what I did at ten than at thirty. Reader, forgive me if
I sometimes draw my examples from my own experience. If this book is
to be well written, I must enjoy writing it.
I was living in the country with a pastor called M. Lambercier. My
companion was a cousin richer than myself, who was regarded as the
heir to some property, while I, far from my father, was but a poor
orphan. My big cousin Bernard was unusually timid, especially at
night. I laughed at his fears, till M. Lambercier was tired of my
boasting, and determined to put my courage to the proof. One autumn
evening, when it was very dark, he gave me the church key, and told me
to go and fetch a Bible he had left in the pulpit. To put me on my
mettle he said something which made it impossible for me to refuse.
I set out without a light; if I had had one, it would perhaps have
been even worse. I had to pass through the graveyard; I crossed it
bravely, for as long as I was in the open air I was never afraid of
the dark.
As I opened the door I heard a sort of echo in the roof; it sounded
like voices and it began to shake my Roman courage. Having opened the
door I tried to enter, but when I had gone a few steps I stopped. At
the sight of the profound darkness in which the vast building lay I
was seized with terror and my hair stood on end. I turned, I went out
through the door, and took to my heels. In the yard I found a little
dog, called Sultan, whose caresses reassured me. Ashamed of my fears,
I retraced my steps, trying to take Sultan with me, but he refused to
follow. Hurriedly I opened the door and entered the church. I was
hardly inside when terror again got hold of me and so firmly that I
lost my head, and though the pulpit was on the right, as I very well
knew, I sought it on the left, and entangling myself among the benches
I was completely lost. Unable to find either pulpit or door, I fell
into an indescribable state of mind. At last I found the door and
managed to get out of the church and run away as I had done before,
quite determined never to enter the church again except in broad
daylight.
I returned to the house; on the doorstep I heard M. Lambercier
laughing, laughing, as I supposed, at me. Ashamed to face his
laughter, I was hesitating to open the door, when I heard Miss
Lambercier, who was anxious about me, tell the maid to get the
lantern, and M. Lambercier got ready to come and look for me, escorted
by my gallant cousin, who would have got all the credit for the
expedition. All at once my fears departed, and left me merely
surprised at my terror. I ran, I fairly flew, to the church; without
losing my way, without groping about, I reached the pulpit, took the
Bible, and ran down the steps. In three strides I was out of the
church, leaving the door open. Breathless, I entered the room and
threw the Bible on the table, frightened indeed, but throbbing with
pride that I had done it without the proposed assistance.
You will ask if I am giving this anecdote as an example, and as an
illustration, of the mirth which I say should accompany these games.
Not so, but I give it as a proof that there is nothing so well
calculated to reassure any one who is afraid in the dark as to hear
sounds of laughter and talking in an adjoining room. Instead of
playing alone with your pupil in the evening, I would have you get
together a number of merry children; do not send them alone to begin
with, but several together, and do not venture to send any one quite
alone, until you are quite certain beforehand that he will not be too
frightened.
I can picture nothing more amusing and more profitable than such
games, considering how little skill is required to organise them. In
a large room I should arrange a sort of labyrinth of tables,
armchairs, chairs, and screens. In the inextricable windings of this
labyrinth I should place some eight or ten sham boxes, and one real
box almost exactly like them, but well filled with sweets. I should
describe clearly and briefly the place where the right box would be
found. I should give instructions sufficient to enable people more
attentive and less excitable than children to find it. [Footnote: To
practise them in attention, only tell them things which it is clearly
to their present interest that they should understand thoroughly;
above all be brief, never say a word more than necessary. But neither
let your speech be obscure nor of doubtful meaning.] Then having made
the little competitors draw lots, I should send first one and then
another till the right box was found. I should increase the
difficulty of the task in proportion to their skill.
Picture to yourself a youthful Hercules returning, box in hand,
quite proud of his expedition. The box is placed on the table and
opened with great ceremony. I can hear the bursts of laughter and the
shouts of the merry party when, instead of the looked-for sweets, he
finds, neatly arranged on moss or cotton-wool, a beetle, a snail, a
bit of coal, a few acorns, a turnip, or some such thing. Another time
in a newly whitewashed room, a toy or some small article of furniture
would be hung on the wall and the children would have to fetch it
without touching the wall. When the child who fetches it comes back,
if he has failed ever so little to fulfil the conditions, a dab of
white on the brim of his cap, the tip of his shoe, the flap of his
coat or his sleeve, will betray his lack of skill.
This is enough, or more than enough, to show the spirit of these
games. Do not read my book if you expect me to tell you everything.
What great advantages would be possessed by a man so educated,
when compared with others. His feet are accustomed to tread firmly in
the dark, and his hands to touch lightly; they will guide him safely
in the thickest darkness. His imagination is busy with the evening
games of his childhood, and will find it difficult to turn towards
objects of alarm. If he thinks he hears laughter, it will be the
laughter of his former playfellows, not of frenzied spirits; if he
thinks there is a host of people, it will not be the witches' sabbath,
but the party in his tutor's study. Night only recalls these cheerful
memories, and it will never alarm him; it will inspire delight rather
than fear. He will be ready for a military expedition at any hour,
with or without his troop. He will enter the camp of Saul, he will
find his way, he will reach the king's tent without waking any one,
and he will return unobserved. Are the steeds of Rhesus to be stolen,
you may trust him. You will scarcely find a Ulysses among men educated
in any other fashion.
I have known people who tried to train the children not to fear
the dark by startling them. This is a very bad plan; its effects are
just the opposite of those desired, and it only makes children more
timid. Neither reason nor habit can secure us from the fear of a
present danger whose degree and kind are unknown, nor from the fear of
surprises which we have often experienced. Yet how will you make sure
that you can preserve your pupil from such accidents? I consider this
the best advice to give him beforehand. I should say to Emile, "This
is a matter of self-defence, for the aggressor does not let you know
whether he means to hurt or frighten you, and as the advantage is on
his side you cannot even take refuge in flight. Therefore seize
boldly anything, whether man or beast, which takes you unawares in the
dark. Grasp it, squeeze it with all your might; if it struggles,
strike, and do not spare your blows; and whatever he may say or do, do
not let him go till you know just who he is. The event will probably
prove that you had little to be afraid of, but this way of treating
practical jokers would naturally prevent their trying it again."
Although touch is the sense oftenest used, its discrimination
remains, as I have already pointed out, coarser and more imperfect
than that of any other sense, because we always use sight along with
it; the eye perceives the thing first, and the mind almost always
judges without the hand. On the other hand, discrimination by touch
is the surest just because of its limitations; for extending only as
far as our hands can reach, it corrects the hasty judgments of the
other senses, which pounce upon objects scarcely perceived, while what
we learn by touch is learnt thoroughly. Moreover, touch, when
required, unites the force of our muscles to the action of the nerves;
we associate by simultaneous sensations our ideas of temperature,
size, and shape, to those of weight and density. Thus touch is the
sense which best teaches us the action of foreign bodies upon
ourselves, the sense which most directly supplies us with the
knowledge required for self-preservation.
As the trained touch takes the place of sight, why should it not,
to some extent, take the place of hearing, since sounds set up, in
sonorous bodies, vibrations perceptible by touch? By placing the hand
on the body of a 'cello one can distinguish without the use of eye or
ear, merely by the way in which the wood vibrates and trembles,
whether the sound given out is sharp or flat, whether it is drawn from
the treble string or the bass. If our touch were trained to note these
differences, no doubt we might in time become so sensitive as to hear
a whole tune by means of our fingers. But if we admit this, it is
clear that one could easily speak to the deaf by means of music; for
tone and measure are no less capable of regular combination than voice
and articulation, so that they might be used as the elements of
speech.
There are exercises by which the sense of touch is blunted and
deadened, and others which sharpen it and make it delicate and
discriminating. The former, which employ much movement and force for
the continued impression of hard bodies, make the skin hard and thick,
and deprive it of its natural sensitiveness. The latter are those
which give variety to this feeling, by slight and repeated contact, so
that the mind is attentive to constantly recurring impressions, and
readily learns to discern their variations. This difference is clear
in the use of musical instruments. The harsh and painful touch of the
'cello, bass-viol, and even of the violin, hardens the finger-tips,
although it gives flexibility to the fingers. The soft and smooth
touch of the harpsichord makes the fingers both flexible and
sensitive. In this respect the harpsichord is to be preferred.
The skin protects the rest of the body, so it is very important to
harden it to the effects of the air that it may be able to bear its
changes. With regard to this I may say I would not have the hand
roughened by too servile application to the same kind of work, nor
should the skin of the hand become hardened so as to lose its delicate
sense of touch which keeps the body informed of what is going on, and
by the kind of contact sometimes makes us shudder in different ways
even in the dark.
Why should my pupil be always compelled to wear the skin of an ox
under his foot? What harm would come of it if his own skin could
serve him at need as a sole. It is clear that a delicate skin could
never be of any use in this way, and may often do harm. The Genevese,
aroused at midnight by their enemies in the depth of winter, seized
their guns rather than their shoes. Who can tell whether the town
would have escaped capture if its citizens had not been able to go
barefoot?
Let a man be always fore-armed against the unforeseen. Let Emile
run about barefoot all the year round, upstairs, downstairs, and in
the garden. Far from scolding him, I shall follow his example; only I
shall be careful to remove any broken glass. I shall soon proceed to
speak of work and manual occupations. Meanwhile, let him learn to
perform every exercise which encourages agility of body; let him learn
to hold himself easily and steadily in any position, let him practise
jumping and leaping, climbing trees and walls. Let him always find his
balance, and let his every movement and gesture be regulated by the
laws of weight, long before he learns to explain them by the science
of statics. By the way his foot is planted on the ground, and his body
supported on his leg, he ought to know if he is holding himself well
or ill. An easy carriage is always graceful, and the steadiest
positions are the most elegant. If I were a dancing master I would
refuse to play the monkey tricks of Marcel, which are only fit for the
stage where they are performed; but instead of keeping my pupil busy
with fancy steps, I would take him to the foot of a cliff. There I
would show him how to hold himself, how to carry his body and head,
how to place first a foot then a hand, to follow lightly the steep,
toilsome, and rugged paths, to leap from point to point, either up or
down. He should emulate the mountain-goat, not the ballet dancer.
As touch confines its operations to the man's immediate
surroundings, so sight extends its range beyond them; it is this which
makes it misleading; man sees half his horizon at a glance. In the
midst of this host of simultaneous impressions and the thoughts
excited by them, how can he fail now and then to make mistakes? Thus
sight is the least reliable of our senses, just because it has the
widest range; it functions long before our other senses, and its work
is too hasty and on too large a scale to be corrected by the rest.
Moreover, the very illusions of perspective are necessary if we are
to arrive at a knowledge of space and compare one part of space with
another. Without false appearances we should never see anything at a
distance; without the gradations of size and tone we could not judge
of distance, or rather distance would have no existence for us. If two
trees, one of which was a hundred paces from us and the other ten,
looked equally large and distinct, we should think they were side by
side. If we perceived the real dimensions of things, we should know
nothing of space; everything would seem close to our eyes.
The angle formed between any objects and our eye is the only means
by which our sight estimates their size and distance, and as this
angle is the simple effect of complex causes, the judgment we form
does not distinguish between the several causes; we are compelled to
be inaccurate. For how can I tell, by sight alone, whether the angle
at which an object appears to me smaller than another, indicates that
it is really smaller or that it is further off.
Here we must just reverse our former plan. Instead of simplifying
the sensation, always reinforce it and verify it by means of another
sense. Subject the eye to the hand, and, so to speak, restrain the
precipitation of the former sense by the slower and more reasoned
pace of the latter. For want of this sort of practice our sight
measurements are very imperfect. We cannot correctly, and at a
glance, estimate height, length, breadth, and distance; and the fact
that engineers, surveyors, architects, masons, and painters are
generally quicker to see and better able to estimate distances
correctly, proves that the fault is not in our eyes, but in our use
of them. Their occupations give them the training we lack, and they
check the equivocal results of the angle of vision by its accompanying
experiences, which determine the relations of the two causes of this
angle for their eyes.
Children will always do anything that keeps them moving freely.
There are countless ways of rousing their interest in measuring,
perceiving, and estimating distance. There is a very tall cherry
tree; how shall we gather the cherries? Will the ladder in the barn
be big enough? There is a wide stream; how shall we get to the other
side? Would one of the wooden planks in the yard reach from bank to
bank? From our windows we want to fish in the moat; how many yards of
line are required? I want to make a swing between two trees; will two
fathoms of cord be enough? They tell me our room in the new house will
be twenty-five feet square; do you think it will be big enough for us?
Will it be larger than this? We are very hungry; here are two
villages, which can we get to first for our dinner?
An idle, lazy child was to be taught to run. He had no liking for
this or any other exercise, though he was intended for the army.
Somehow or other he had got it into his head that a man of his rank
need know nothing and do nothing—that his birth would serve as a
substitute for arms and legs, as well as for every kind of virtue.
The skill of Chiron himself would have failed to make a fleet-footed
Achilles of this young gentleman. The difficulty was increased by my
determination to give him no kind of orders. I had renounced all right
to direct him by preaching, promises, threats, emulation, or the
desire to show off. How should I make him want to run without saying
anything? I might run myself, but he might not follow my example, and
this plan had other drawbacks. Moreover, I must find some means of
teaching him through this exercise, so as to train mind and body to
work together. This is how I, or rather how the teacher who supplied
me with this illustration, set about it.
When I took him a walk of an afternoon I sometimes put in my pocket
a couple of cakes, of a kind he was very fond of; we each ate one
while we were out, and we came back well pleased with our outing. One
day he noticed I had three cakes; he could have easily eaten six, so
he ate his cake quickly and asked for the other. "No," said I, "I
could eat it myself, or we might divide it, but I would rather see
those two little boys run a race for it." I called them to us, showed
them the cake, and suggested that they should race for it. They were
delighted. The cake was placed on a large stone which was to be the
goal; the course was marked out, we sat down, and at a given signal
off flew the children! The victor seized the cake and ate it without
pity in the sight of the spectators and of his defeated rival.
The sport was better than the cake; but the lesson did not take
effect all at once, and produced no result. I was not discouraged,
nor did I hurry; teaching is a trade at which one must be able to
lose time and save it. Our walks were continued, sometimes we took
three cakes, sometimes four, and from time to time there were one or
two cakes for the racers. If the prize was not great, neither was the
ambition of the competitors. The winner was praised and petted, and
everything was done with much ceremony. To give room to run and to add
interest to the race I marked out a longer course and admitted several
fresh competitors. Scarcely had they entered the lists than all the
passers-by stopped to watch. They were encouraged by shouting,
cheering, and clapping. I sometimes saw my little man trembling with
excitement, jumping up and shouting when one was about to reach or
overtake another—to him these were the Olympian games.
However, the competitors did not always play fair, they got in
each other's way, or knocked one another down, or put stones on the
track. That led us to separate them and make them start from different
places at equal distances from the goal. You will soon see the reason
for this, for I must describe this important affair at length.
Tired of seeing his favourite cakes devoured before his eyes, the
young lord began to suspect that there was some use in being a quick
runner, and seeing that he had two legs of his own, he began to
practise running on the quiet. I took care to see nothing, but I knew
my stratagem had taken effect. When he thought he was good enough (and
I thought so too), he pretended to tease me to give him the other
cake. I refused; he persisted, and at last he said angrily, "Well, put
it on the stone and mark out the course, and we shall see." "Very
good," said I, laughing, "You will get a good appetite, but you will
not get the cake." Stung by my mockery, he took heart, won the prize,
all the more easily because I had marked out a very short course and
taken care that the best runner was out of the way. It will be evident
that, after the first step, I had no difficulty in keeping him in
training. Soon he took such a fancy for this form of exercise that
without any favour he was almost certain to beat the little peasant
boys at running, however long the course.
The advantage thus obtained led unexpectedly to another. So long
as he seldom won the prize, he ate it himself like his rivals, but as
he got used to victory he grew generous, and often shared it with the
defeated. That taught me a lesson in morals and I saw what was the
real root of generosity.
While I continued to mark out a different starting place for each
competitor, he did not notice that I had made the distances unequal,
so that one of them, having farther to run to reach the goal, was
clearly at a disadvantage. But though I left the choice to my pupil
he did not know how to take advantage of it. Without thinking of the
distance, he always chose the smoothest path, so that I could easily
predict his choice, and could almost make him win or lose the cake at
my pleasure. I had more than one end in view in this stratagem; but as
my plan was to get him to notice the difference himself, I tried to
make him aware of it. Though he was generally lazy and easy going, he
was so eager in his sports and trusted me so completely that I had
great difficulty in making him see that I was cheating him. When at
last I managed to make him see it in spite of his excitement, he was
angry with me. "What have you to complain of?" said I. "In a gift
which I propose to give of my own free will am not I master of the
conditions? Who makes you run? Did I promise to make the courses
equal? Is not the choice yours? Do not you see that I am favouring
you, and that the inequality you complain of is all to your advantage,
if you knew how to use it?" That was plain to him; and to choose he
must observe more carefully. At first he wanted to count the paces,
but a child measures paces slowly and inaccurately; moreover, I
decided to have several races on one day; and the game having become a
sort of passion with the child, he was sorry to waste in measuring the
portion of time intended for running. Such delays are not in
accordance with a child's impatience; he tried therefore to see better
and to reckon the distance more accurately at sight. It was now quite
easy to extend and develop this power. At length, after some months'
practice, and the correction of his errors, I so trained his power of
judging at sight that I had only to place an imaginary cake on any
distant object and his glance was nearly as accurate as the surveyor's
chain.
Of all the senses, sight is that which we can least distinguish
from the judgments of the mind; as it takes a long time to learn to
see. It takes a long time to compare sight and touch, and to train
the former sense to give a true report of shape and distance. Without
touch, without progressive motion, the sharpest eyes in the world
could give us no idea of space. To the oyster the whole world must
seem a point, and it would seem nothing more to it even if it had a
human mind. It is only by walking, feeling, counting, measuring the
dimensions of things, that we learn to judge them rightly; but, on the
other hand, if we were always measuring, our senses would trust to the
instrument and would never gain confidence. Nor must the child pass
abruptly from measurement to judgment; he must continue to compare the
parts when he could not compare the whole; he must substitute his
estimated aliquot parts for exact aliquot parts, and instead of always
applying the measure by hand he must get used to applying it by eye
alone. I would, however, have his first estimates tested by
measurement, so that he may correct his errors, and if there is a
false impression left upon the senses he may correct it by a better
judgment. The same natural standards of measurement are in use almost
everywhere, the man's foot, the extent of his outstretched arms, his
height. When the child wants to measure the height of a room, his
tutor may serve as a measuring rod; if he is estimating the height of
a steeple let him measure it by the house; if he wants to know how
many leagues of road there are, let him count the hours spent in
walking along it. Above all, do not do this for him; let him do it
himself.
One cannot learn to estimate the extent and size of bodies without
at the same time learning to know and even to copy their shape; for
at bottom this copying depends entirely on the laws of perspective,
and one cannot estimate distance without some feeling for these laws.
All children in the course of their endless imitation try to draw; and
I would have Emile cultivate this art; not so much for art's sake, as
to give him exactness of eye and flexibility of hand. Generally
speaking, it matters little whether he is acquainted with this or that
occupation, provided he gains clearness of sense—perception and the
good bodily habits which belong to the exercise in question. So I
shall take good care not to provide him with a drawing master, who
would only set him to copy copies and draw from drawings. Nature
should be his only teacher, and things his only models. He should have
the real thing before his eyes, not its copy on paper. Let him draw a
house from a house, a tree from a tree, a man from a man; so that he
may train himself to observe objects and their appearance accurately
and not to take false and conventional copies for truth. I would even
train him to draw only from objects actually before him and not from
memory, so that, by repeated observation, their exact form may be
impressed on his imagination, for fear lest he should substitute
absurd and fantastic forms for the real truth of things, and lose his
sense of proportion and his taste for the beauties of nature.
Of course I know that in this way he will make any number of daubs
before he produces anything recognisable, that it will be long before
he attains to the graceful outline and light touch of the draughtsman;
perhaps he will never have an eye for picturesque effect or a good
taste in drawing. On the other hand, he will certainly get a truer
eye, a surer hand, a knowledge of the real relations of form and size
between animals, plants, and natural objects, together with a quicker
sense of the effects of perspective. That is just what I wanted, and
my purpose is rather that he should know things than copy them. I
would rather he showed me a plant of acanthus even if he drew a
capital with less accuracy.
Moreover, in this occupation as in others, I do not intend my pupil
to play by himself; I mean to make it pleasanter for him by always
sharing it with him. He shall have no other rival; but mine will be a
continual rivalry, and there will be no risk attaching to it; it will
give interest to his pursuits without awaking jealousy between us. I
shall follow his example and take up a pencil; at first I shall use it
as unskilfully as he. I should be an Apelles if I did not set myself
daubing. To begin with, I shall draw a man such as lads draw on walls,
a line for each arm, another for each leg, with the fingers longer
than the arm. Long after, one or other of us will notice this lack of
proportion; we shall observe that the leg is thick, that this
thickness varies, that the length of the arm is proportionate to the
body. In this improvement I shall either go side by side with my
pupil, or so little in advance that he will always overtake me easily
and sometimes get ahead of me. We shall get brushes and paints, we
shall try to copy the colours of things and their whole appearance,
not merely their shape. We shall colour prints, we shall paint, we
shall daub; but in all our daubing we shall be searching out the
secrets of nature, and whatever we do shall be done under the eye of
that master.
We badly needed ornaments for our room, and now we have them ready
to our hand. I will have our drawings framed and covered with good
glass, so that no one will touch them, and thus seeing them where we
put them, each of us has a motive for taking care of his own. I
arrange them in order round the room, each drawing repeated some
twenty or thirty times, thus showing the author's progress in each
specimen, from the time when the house is merely a rude square, till
its front view, its side view, its proportions, its light and shade
are all exactly portrayed. These graduations will certainly furnish us
with pictures, a source of interest to ourselves and of curiosity to
others, which will spur us on to further emulation. The first and
roughest drawings I put in very smart gilt frames to show them off;
but as the copy becomes more accurate and the drawing really good, I
only give it a very plain dark frame; it needs no other ornament than
itself, and it would be a pity if the frame distracted the attention
which the picture itself deserves. Thus we each aspire to a plain
frame, and when we desire to pour scorn on each other's drawings, we
condemn them to a gilded frame. Some day perhaps "the gilt frame" will
become a proverb among us, and we shall be surprised to find how many
people show what they are really made of by demanding a gilt frame.
I have said already that geometry is beyond the child's reach; but
that is our own fault. We fail to perceive that their method is not
ours, that what is for us the art of reasoning, should be for them
the art of seeing. Instead of teaching them our way, we should do
better to adopt theirs, for our way of learning geometry is quite as
much a matter of imagination as of reasoning. When a proposition is
enunciated you must imagine the proof; that is, you must discover on
what proposition already learnt it depends, and of all the possible
deductions from that proposition you must choose just the one
required.
In this way the closest reasoner, if he is not inventive, may find
himself at a loss. What is the result? Instead of making us discover
proofs, they are dictated to us; instead of teaching us to reason,
our memory only is employed.
Draw accurate figures, combine them together, put them one upon
another, examine their relations, and you will discover the whole of
elementary geometry in passing from one observation to another,
without a word of definitions, problems, or any other form of
demonstration but super-position. I do not profess to teach Emile
geometry; he will teach me; I shall seek for relations, he will find
them, for I shall seek in such a fashion as to make him find. For
instance, instead of using a pair of compasses to draw a circle, I
shall draw it with a pencil at the end of bit of string attached to a
pivot. After that, when I want to compare the radii one with another,
Emile will laugh at me and show me that the same thread at full
stretch cannot have given distances of unequal length. If I wish to
measure an angle of 60 degrees I describe from the apex of the angle,
not an arc, but a complete circle, for with children nothing must be
taken for granted. I find that the part of the circle contained
between the two lines of the angle is the sixth part of a circle. Then
I describe another and larger circle from the same centre, and I find
the second arc is again the sixth part of its circle. I describe a
third concentric circle with a similar result, and I continue with
more and more circles till Emile, shocked at my stupidity, shows me
that every arc, large or small, contained by the same angle will
always be the sixth part of its circle. Now we are ready to use the
protractor.
To prove that two adjacent angles are equal to two right angles
people describe a circle. On the contrary I would have Emile observe
the fact in a circle, and then I should say, "If we took away the
circle and left the straight lines, would the angles have changed
their size, etc.?"
Exactness in the construction of figures is neglected; it is taken
for granted and stress is laid on the proof. With us, on the other
hand, there will be no question of proof. Our chief business will be
to draw very straight, accurate, and even lines, a perfect square, a
really round circle. To verify the exactness of a figure we will test
it by each of its sensible properties, and that will give us a chance
to discover fresh properties day by day. We will fold the two
semi-circles along the diameter, the two halves of the square by the
diagonal; he will compare our two figures to see who has got the edges
to fit moat exactly, i.e., who has done it best; we should argue
whether this equal division would always be possible in
parallelograms, trapezes, etc. We shall sometimes try to forecast the
result of an experiment, to find reasons, etc.
Geometry means to my scholar the successful use of the rule and
compass; he must not confuse it with drawing, in which these
instruments are not used. The rule and compass will be locked up, so
that he will not get into the way of messing about with them, but we
may sometimes take our figures with us when we go for a walk, and talk
over what we have done, or what we mean to do.
I shall never forget seeing a young man at Turin, who had learnt as
a child the relations of contours and surfaces by having to choose
every day isoperimetric cakes among cakes of every geometrical
figure. The greedy little fellow had exhausted the art of Archimedes
to find which were the biggest.
When the child flies a kite he is training eye and hand to
accuracy; when he whips a top, he is increasing his strength by using
it, but without learning anything. I have sometimes asked why children
are not given the same games of skill as men; tennis, mall, billiards,
archery, football, and musical instruments. I was told that some of
these are beyond their strength, that the child's senses are not
sufficiently developed for others. These do not strike me as valid
reasons; a child is not as tall as a man, but he wears the same sort
of coat; I do not want him to play with our cues at a billiard-table
three feet high; I do not want him knocking about among our games, nor
carrying one of our racquets in his little hand; but let him play in a
room whose windows have been protected; at first let him only use soft
balls, let his first racquets be of wood, then of parchment, and
lastly of gut, according to his progress. You prefer the kite because
it is less tiring and there is no danger. You are doubly wrong.
Kite-flying is a sport for women, but every woman will run away from a
swift ball. Their white skins were not meant to be hardened by blows
and their faces were not made for bruises. But we men are made for
strength; do you think we can attain it without hardship, and what
defence shall we be able to make if we are attacked? People always
play carelessly in games where there is no danger. A falling kite
hurts nobody, but nothing makes the arm so supple as protecting the
head, nothing makes the sight so accurate as having to guard the eye.
To dash from one end of the room to another, to judge the rebound of a
ball before it touches the ground, to return it with strength and
accuracy, such games are not so much sports fit for a man, as sports
fit to make a man of him.
The child's limbs, you say, are too tender. They are not so strong
as those of a man, but they are more supple. His arm is weak, still
it is an arm, and it should be used with due consideration as we use
other tools. Children have no skill in the use of their hands. That is
just why I want them to acquire skill; a man with as little practice
would be just as clumsy. We can only learn the use of our limbs by
using them. It is only by long experience that we learn to make the
best of ourselves, and this experience is the real object of study to
which we cannot apply ourselves too early.
What is done can be done. Now there is nothing commoner than to
find nimble and skilful children whose limbs are as active as those of
a man. They may be seen at any fair, swinging, walking on their
hands, jumping, dancing on the tight rope. For many years past,
troops of children have attracted spectators to the ballets at the
Italian Comedy House. Who is there in Germany and Italy who has not
heard of the famous pantomime company of Nicolini? Has it ever
occurred to any one that the movements of these children were less
finished, their postures less graceful, their ears less true, their
dancing more clumsy than those of grown-up dancers? If at first the
fingers are thick, short, and awkward, the dimpled hands unable to
grasp anything, does this prevent many children from learning to read
and write at an age when others cannot even hold a pen or pencil? All
Paris still recalls the little English girl of ten who did wonders on
the harpsichord. I once saw a little fellow of eight, the son of a
magistrate, who was set like a statuette on the table among the
dishes, to play on a fiddle almost a big as himself, and even artists
were surprised at his execution.
To my mind, these and many more examples prove that the supposed
incapacity of children for our games is imaginary, and that if they
are unsuccessful in some of them, it is for want of practice.
You will tell me that with regard to the body I am falling into
the same mistake of precocious development which I found fault with
for the mind. The cases are very different: in the one, progress is
apparent only; in the other it is real. I have shown that children
have not the mental development they appear to have, while they
really do what they seem to do. Besides, we must never forget that
all this should be play, the easy and voluntary control of the
movements which nature demands of them, the art of varying their
games to make them pleasanter, without the least bit of constraint to
transform them into work; for what games do they play in which I
cannot find material for instruction for them? And even if I could not
do so, so long as they are amusing themselves harmlessly and passing
the time pleasantly, their progress in learning is not yet of such
great importance. But if one must be teaching them this or that at
every opportunity, it cannot be done without constraint, vexation, or
tedium.
What I have said about the use of the two senses whose use is most
constant and most important, may serve as an example of how to train
the rest. Sight and touch are applied to bodies at rest and bodies in
motion, but as hearing is only affected by vibrations of the air, only
a body in motion can make a noise or sound; if everything were at rest
we should never hear. At night, when we ourselves only move as we
choose, we have nothing to fear but moving bodies; hence we need a
quick ear, and power to judge from the sensations experienced whether
the body which causes them is large or small, far off or near, whether
its movements are gentle or violent. When once the air is set in
motion, it is subject to repercussions which produce echoes, these
renew the sensations and make us hear a loud or penetrating sound in
another quarter. If you put your ear to the ground you may hear the
sound of men's voices or horses' feet in a plain or valley much
further off than when you stand upright.
As we have made a comparison between sight and touch, it will be
as well to do the same for hearing, and to find out which of the two
impressions starting simultaneously from a given body first reaches
the sense-organ. When you see the flash of a cannon, you have still
time to take cover; but when you hear the sound it is too late, the
ball is close to you. One can reckon the distance of a thunderstorm by
the interval between the lightning and the thunder. Let the child
learn all these facts, let him learn those that are within his reach
by experiment, and discover the rest by induction; but I would far
rather he knew nothing at all about them, than that you should tell
him.
In the voice we have an organ answering to hearing; we have no
such organ answering to sight, and we do not repeat colours as we
repeat sounds. This supplies an additional means of cultivating the
ear by practising the active and passive organs one with the other.
Man has three kinds of voice, the speaking or articulate voice, the
singing or melodious voice, and the pathetic or expressive voice,
which serves as the language of the passions, and gives life to song
and speech. The child has these three voices, just as the man has
them, but he does not know how to use them in combination. Like us, he
laughs, cries, laments, shrieks, and groans, but he does not know how
to combine these inflexions with speech or song. These three voices
find their best expression in perfect music. Children are incapable of
such music, and their singing lacks feeling. In the same way their
spoken language lacks expression; they shout, but they do not speak
with emphasis, and there is as little power in their voice as there is
emphasis in their speech. Our pupil's speech will be plainer and
simpler still, for his passions are still asleep, and will not blend
their tones with his. Do not, therefore, set him to recite tragedy or
comedy, nor try to teach declamation so-called. He will have too much
sense to give voice to things he cannot understand, or expression to
feelings he has never known.
Teach him to speak plainly and distinctly, to articulate clearly,
to pronounce correctly and without affectation, to perceive and
imitate the right accent in prose and verse, and always to speak loud
enough to be heard, but without speaking too loud—a common fault with
school-children. Let there be no waste in anything.
The same method applies to singing; make his voice smooth and true,
flexible and full, his ear alive to time and tune, but nothing more.
Descriptive and theatrical music is not suitable at his age——I
would rather he sang no words; if he must have words, I would try to
compose songs on purpose for him, songs interesting to a child, and as
simple as his own thoughts.
You may perhaps suppose that as I am in no hurry to teach Emile to
read and write, I shall not want to teach him to read music. Let us
spare his brain the strain of excessive attention, and let us be in no
hurry to turn his mind towards conventional signs. I grant you there
seems to be a difficulty here, for if at first sight the knowledge of
notes seems no more necessary for singing than the knowledge of
letters for speaking, there is really this difference between them:
When we speak, we are expressing our own thoughts; when we sing we are
expressing the thoughts of others. Now in order to express them we
must read them.
But at first we can listen to them instead of reading them, and a
song is better learnt by ear than by eye. Moreover, to learn music
thoroughly we must make songs as well as sing them, and the two
processes must be studied together, or we shall never have any real
knowledge of music. First give your young musician practice in very
regular, well-cadenced phrases; then let him connect these phrases
with the very simplest modulations; then show him their relation one
to another by correct accent, which can be done by a fit choice of
cadences and rests. On no account give him anything unusual, or
anything that requires pathos or expression. A simple, tuneful air,
always based on the common chords of the key, with its bass so clearly
indicated that it is easily felt and accompanied, for to train his
voice and ear he should always sing with the harpsichord.
We articulate the notes we sing the better to distinguish them;
hence the custom of sol-faing with certain syllables. To tell the
keys one from another they must have names and fixed intervals; hence
the names of the intervals, and also the letters of the alphabet
attached to the keys of the clavier and the notes of the scale. C and
A indicate fixed sounds, invariable and always rendered by the same
keys; Ut and La are different. Ut is always the dominant of a major
scale, or the leading-note of a minor scale. La is always the dominant
of a minor scale or the sixth of a major scale. Thus the letters
indicate fixed terms in our system of music, and the syllables
indicate terms homologous to the similar relations in different keys.
The letters show the keys on the piano, and the syllables the degrees
in the scale. French musicians have made a strange muddle of this.
They have confused the meaning of the syllables with that of the
letters, and while they have unnecessarily given us two sets of
symbols for the keys of the piano, they have left none for the chords
of the scales; so that Ut and C are always the same for them; this is
not and ought not to be; if so, what is the use of C? Their method of
sol-faing is, therefore, extremely and needlessly difficult, neither
does it give any clear idea to the mind; since, by this method, Ut and
Me, for example, may mean either a major third, a minor third, an
augmented third, or a diminished third. What a strange thing that the
country which produces the finest books about music should be the very
country where it is hardest to learn music!
Let us adopt a simpler and clearer plan with our pupil; let him
have only two scales whose relations remain unchanged, and indicated
by the same symbols. Whether he sings or plays, let him learn to fix
his scale on one of the twelve tones which may serve as a base, and
whether he modulates in D, C, or G, let the close be always Ut or La,
according to the scale. In this way he will understand what you mean,
and the essential relations for correct singing and playing will
always be present in his mind; his execution will be better and his
progress quicker. There is nothing funnier than what the French call
"natural sol-faing;" it consists in removing the real meaning of
things and putting in their place other meanings which only distract
us. There is nothing more natural than sol-faing by transposition,
when the scale is transposed. But I have said enough, and more than
enough, about music; teach it as you please, so long as it is nothing
but play.
We are now thoroughly acquainted with the condition of foreign
bodies in relation to our own, their weight, form, colour, density,
size, distance, temperature, stability, or motion. We have learnt
which of them to approach or avoid, how to set about overcoming their
resistance or to resist them so as to prevent ourselves from injury;
but this is not enough. Our own body is constantly wasting and as
constantly requires to be renewed. Although we have the power of
changing other substances into our own, our choice is not a matter of
indifference. Everything is not food for man, and what may be food for
him is not all equally suitable; it depends on his racial
constitution, the country he lives in, his individual temperament, and
the way of living which his condition demands.
If we had to wait till experience taught us to know and choose fit
food for ourselves, we should die of hunger or poison; but a kindly
providence which has made pleasure the means of self-preservation to
sentient beings teaches us through our palate what is suitable for our
stomach. In a state of nature there is no better doctor than a man's
own appetite, and no doubt in a state of nature man could find the
most palateable food the most wholesome.
Nor is this all. Our Maker provides, not only for those needs he
has created, but for those we create for ourselves; and it is to keep
the balance between our wants and our needs that he has caused our
tastes to change and vary with our way of living. The further we are
from a state of nature, the more we lose our natural tastes; or
rather, habit becomes a second nature, and so completely replaces our
real nature, that we have lost all knowledge of it.
From this it follows that the most natural tastes should be the
simplest, for those are more easily changed; but when they are
sharpened and stimulated by our fancies they assume a form which is
incapable of modification. The man who so far has not adapted himself
to one country can learn the ways of any country whatsoever; but the
man who has adopted the habits of one particular country can never
shake them off.
This seems to be true of all our senses, especially of taste. Our
first food is milk; we only become accustomed by degrees to strong
flavours; at first we dislike them. Fruit, vegetables, herbs, and
then fried meat without salt or seasoning, formed the feasts of
primitive man. When the savage tastes wine for the first time, he
makes a grimace and spits it out; and even among ourselves a man who
has not tasted fermented liquors before twenty cannot get used to
them; we should all be sober if we did not have wine when we were
children. Indeed, the simpler our tastes are, the more general they
are; made dishes are those most frequently disliked. Did you ever
meet with any one who disliked bread or water? Here is the finger of
nature, this then is our rule. Preserve the child's primitive tastes
as long as possible; let his food be plain and simple, let strong
flavours be unknown to his palate, and do not let his diet be too
uniform.
I am not asking, for the present, whether this way of living is
healthier or no; that is not what I have in view. It is enough for me
to know that my choice is more in accordance with nature, and that it
can be more readily adapted to other conditions. In my opinion, those
who say children should be accustomed to the food they will have when
they are grown up are mistaken. Why should their food be the same when
their way of living is so different? A man worn out by labour,
anxiety, and pain needs tasty foods to give fresh vigour to his brain;
a child fresh from his games, a child whose body is growing, needs
plentiful food which will supply more chyle. Moreover the grown man
has already a settled profession, occupation, and home, but who can
tell what Fate holds in store for the child? Let us not give him so
fixed a bent in any direction that he cannot change it if required
without hardship. Do not bring him up so that he would die of hunger
in a foreign land if he does not take a French cook about with him; do
not let him say at some future time that France is the only country
where the food is fit to eat. By the way, that is a strange way of
praising one's country. On the other hand, I myself should say that
the French are the only people who do not know what good food is,
since they require such a special art to make their dishes eatable.
Of all our different senses, we are usually most affected by taste.
Thus it concerns us more nearly to judge aright of what will actually
become part of ourselves, than of that which will merely form part of
our environment. Many things are matters of indifference to touch,
hearing, and sight; but taste is affected by almost everything.
Moreover the activity of this sense is wholly physical and material;
of all the senses, it alone makes no appeal to the imagination, or at
least, imagination plays a smaller part in its sensations; while
imitation and imagination often bring morality into the impressions of
the other senses. Thus, speaking generally, soft and pleasure-loving
minds, passionate and truly sensitive dispositions, which are easily
stirred by the other senses, are usually indifferent to this. From
this very fact, which apparently places taste below our other senses
and makes our inclination towards it the more despicable, I draw just
the opposite conclusion—that the best way to lead children is by the
mouth. Greediness is a better motive than vanity; for the former is a
natural appetite directly dependent on the senses, while the latter is
the outcome of convention, it is the slave of human caprice and liable
to every kind of abuse. Believe me the child will cease to care about
his food only too soon, and when his heart is too busy, his palate
will be idle. When he is grown up greediness will be expelled by a
host of stronger passions, while vanity will only be stimulated by
them; for this latter passion feeds upon the rest till at length they
are all swallowed up in it. I have sometimes studied those men who
pay great attention to good eating, men whose first waking thought
is—What shall we have to eat to-day? men who describe their dinner
with as much detail as Polybius describes a combat. I have found
these so-called men were only children of forty, without strength or
vigour—fruges consumere nati. Gluttony is the vice of feeble minds.
The gourmand has his brains in his palate, he can do nothing but eat;
he is so stupid and incapable that the table is the only place for
him, and dishes are the only things he knows anything about. Let us
leave him to this business without regret; it is better for him and
for us.
It is a small mind that fears lest greediness should take root in
the child who is fit for something better. The child thinks of nothing
but his food, the youth pays no heed to it at all; every kind of food
is good, and we have other things to attend to. Yet I would not have
you use the low motive unwisely. I would not have you trust to
dainties rather than to the honour which is the reward of a good deed.
But childhood is, or ought to be, a time of play and merry sports, and
I do not see why the rewards of purely bodily exercises should not be
material and sensible rewards. If a little lad in Majorca sees a
basket on the tree-top and brings it down with his sling, is it not
fair that he should get something by this, and a good breakfast should
repair the strength spent in getting it. If a young Spartan, facing
the risk of a hundred stripes, slips skilfully into the kitchen, and
steals a live fox cub, carries it off in his garment, and is
scratched, bitten till the blood comes, and for shame lest he should
be caught the child allows his bowels to be torn out without a
movement or a cry, is it not fair that he should keep his spoils, that
he should eat his prey after it has eaten him? A good meal should
never be a reward; but why should it not be sometimes the result of
efforts made to get it. Emile does not consider the cake I put on the
stone as a reward for good running; he knows that the only way to get
the cake is to get there first.
This does not contradict my previous rules about simple food; for
to tempt a child's appetite you need not stimulate it, you need only
satisfy it; and the commonest things will do this if you do not
attempt to refine children's taste. Their perpetual hunger, the result
of their need for growth, will be the best sauce. Fruit, milk, a piece
of cake just a little better than ordinary bread, and above all the
art of dispensing these things prudently, by these means you may lead
a host of children to the world's end, without on the one hand giving
them a taste for strong flavours, nor on the other hand letting them
get tired of their food.
The indifference of children towards meat is one proof that the
taste for meat is unnatural; their preference is for vegetable foods,
such as milk, pastry, fruit, etc. Beware of changing this natural
taste and making children flesh-eaters, if not for their health's
sake, for the sake of their character; for how can one explain away
the fact that great meat-eaters are usually fiercer and more cruel
than other men; this has been recognised at all times and in all
places. The English are noted for their cruelty [Footnote: I am aware
that the English make a boast of their humanity and of the kindly
disposition of their race, which they call "good-natured people;" but
in vain do they proclaim this fact; no one else says it of them.]
while the Gaures are the gentlest of men. [Footnote: The Banians, who
abstain from flesh even more completely than the Gaures, are almost as
gentle as the Gaures themselves, but as their morality is less pure
and their form of worship less reasonable they are not such good men.]
All savages are cruel, and it is not their customs that tend in this
direction; their cruelty is the result of their food. They go to war
as to the chase, and treat men as they would treat bears. Indeed in
England butchers are not allowed to give evidence in a court of law,
no more can surgeons. [Footnote: One of the English translators of my
book has pointed out my mistake, and both of them have corrected it.
Butchers and surgeons are allowed to give evidence in the law courts,
but butchers may not serve on juries in criminal cases, though
surgeons are allowed to do so.] Great criminals prepare themselves for
murder by drinking blood. Homer makes his flesh-eating Cyclops a
terrible man, while his Lotus-eaters are so delightful that those who
went to trade with them forgot even their own country to dwell among
them.
"You ask me," said Plutarch, "why Pythagoras abstained from eating
the flesh of beasts, but I ask you, what courage must have been
needed by the first man who raised to his lips the flesh of the
slain, who broke with his teeth the bones of a dying beast, who had
dead bodies, corpses, placed before him and swallowed down limbs
which a few moments ago were bleating, bellowing, walking, and seeing?
How could big hand plunge the knife into the heart of a sentient
creature, how could his eyes look on murder, how could he behold a
poor helpless animal bled to death, scorched, and dismembered? how can
he bear the sight of this quivering flesh? does not the very smell of
it turn his stomach? is he not repelled, disgusted, horror-struck,
when he has to handle the blood from these wounds, and to cleanse his
fingers from the dark and viscous bloodstains?
"The scorched skins wriggled upon the ground,
The shrinking flesh bellowed upon the spit.
Man cannot eat them without a shudder;
He seems to hear their cries within his breast.
"Thus must he have felt the first time he did despite to nature and
made this horrible meal; the first time he hungered for the living
creature, and desired to feed upon the beast which was still grazing;
when he bade them slay, dismember, and cut up the sheep which licked
his hands. It is those who began these cruel feasts, not those who
abandon them, who should cause surprise, and there were excuses for
those primitive men, excuses which we have not, and the absence of
such excuses multiplies our barbarity a hundredfold.
"'Mortals, beloved of the gods,' says this primitive man, 'compare
our times with yours; see how happy you are, and how wretched were
we. The earth, newly formed, the air heavy with moisture, were not
yet subjected to the rule of the seasons. Three-fourths of the surface
of the globe was flooded by the ever-shifting channels of rivers
uncertain of their course, and covered with pools, lakes, and
bottomless morasses. The remaining quarter was covered with woods and
barren forests. The earth yielded no good fruit, we had no instruments
of tillage, we did not even know the use of them, and the time of
harvest never came for those who had sown nothing. Thus hunger was
always in our midst. In winter, mosses and the bark of trees were our
common food. A few green roots of dogs-bit or heather were a feast,
and when men found beech-mast, nuts, or acorns, they danced for joy
round the beech or oak, to the sound of some rude song, while they
called the earth their mother and their nurse. This was their only
festival, their only sport; all the rest of man's life was spent in
sorrow, pain, and hunger.
"'At length, when the bare and naked earth no longer offered us any
food, we were compelled in self-defence to outrage nature, and to
feed upon our companions in distress, rather than perish with them.
But you, oh, cruel men! who forces you to shed blood? Behold the
wealth of good things about you, the fruits yielded by the earth, the
wealth of field and vineyard; the animals give their milk for your
drink and their fleece for your clothing. What more do you ask? What
madness compels you to commit such murders, when you have already more
than you can eat or drink? Why do you slander our mother earth, and
accuse her of denying you food? Why do you sin against Ceres, the
inventor of the sacred laws, and against the gracious Bacchus, the
comforter of man, as if their lavish gifts were not enough to preserve
mankind? Have you the heart to mingle their sweet fruits with the
bones upon your table, to eat with the milk the blood of the beasts
which gave it? The lions and panthers, wild beasts as you call them,
are driven to follow their natural instinct, and they kill other
beasts that they may live. But, a hundredfold fiercer than they, you
fight against your instincts without cause, and abandon yourselves to
the most cruel pleasures. The animals you eat are not those who devour
others; you do not eat the carnivorous beasts, you take them as your
pattern. You only hunger for the sweet and gentle creatures which harm
no one, which follow you, serve you, and are devoured by you as the
reward of their service.
"'O unnatural murderer! if you persist in the assertion that nature
has made you to devour your fellow-creatures, beings of flesh and
blood, living and feeling like yourself, stifle if you can that
horror with which nature makes you regard these horrible feasts; slay
the animals yourself, slay them, I say, with your own hands, without
knife or mallet; tear them with your nails like the lion and the bear,
take this ox and rend him in pieces, plunge your claws into his hide;
eat this lamb while it is yet alive, devour its warm flesh, drink its
soul with its blood. You shudder! you dare not feel the living
throbbing flesh between your teeth? Ruthless man; you begin by slaying
the animal and then you devour it, as if to slay it twice. It is not
enough. You turn against the dead flesh, it revolts you, it must be
transformed by fire, boiled and roasted, seasoned and disguised with
drugs; you must have butchers, cooks, turnspits, men who will rid the
murder of its horrors, who will dress the dead bodies so that the
taste deceived by these disguises will not reject what is strange to
it, and will feast on corpses, the very sight of which would sicken
you.'"
Although this quotation is irrelevant, I cannot resist the
temptation to transcribe it, and I think few of my readers will resent
it.
In conclusion, whatever food you give your children, provided you
accustom them to nothing but plain and simple dishes, let them eat
and run and play as much as they want; you may be sure they will
never eat too much and will never have indigestion; but if you keep
them hungry half their time, when they do contrive to evade your
vigilance, they will take advantage of it as far as they can; they
will eat till they are sick, they will gorge themselves till they can
eat no more. Our appetite is only excessive because we try to impose
on it rules other than those of nature, opposing, controlling,
prescribing, adding, or substracting; the scales are always in our
hands, but the scales are the measure of our caprices not of our
stomachs. I return to my usual illustration; among peasants the
cupboard and the apple-loft are always left open, and indigestion is
unknown alike to children and grown-up people.
If, however, it happened that a child were too great an eater,
though, under my system, I think it is impossible, he is so easily
distracted by his favourite games that one might easily starve him
without his knowing it. How is it that teachers have failed to use
such a safe and easy weapon. Herodotus records that the Lydians,
[Footnote: The ancient historians are full of opinions which may be
useful, even if the facts which they present are false. But we do not
know how to make any real use of history. Criticism and erudition are
our only care; as if it mattered more that a statement were true or
false than that we should be able to get a useful lesson from it. A
wise man should consider history a tissue of fables whose morals are
well adapted to the human heart.] under the pressure of great
scarcity, decided to invent sports and other amusements with which to
cheat their hunger, and they passed whole days without thought of
food. Your learned teachers may have read this passage time after time
without seeing how it might be applied to children. One of these
teachers will probably tell me that a child does not like to leave his
dinner for his lessons. You are right, sir—I was not thinking of that
sort of sport.
The sense of smell is to taste what sight is to touch; it goes
before it and gives it warning that it will be affected by this or
that substance; and it inclines it to seek or shun this experience
according to the impressions received beforehand. I have been told
that savages receive impressions quite different from ours, and that
they have quite different ideas with regard to pleasant or unpleasant
odours. I can well believe it. Odours alone are slight sensations;
they affect the imagination rather than the senses, and they work
mainly through the anticipations they arouse. This being so, and the
tastes of savages being so unlike the taste of civilised men, they
should lead them to form very different ideas with regard to flavours
and therefore with regard to the odours which announce them. A Tartar
must enjoy the smell of a haunch of putrid horseflesh, much as a
sportsman enjoys a very high partridge. Our idle sensations, such as
the scents wafted from the flower beds, must pass unnoticed among men
who walk too much to care for strolling in a garden, and do not work
enough to find pleasure in repose. Hungry men would find little
pleasure in scents which did not proclaim the approach of food.
Smell is the sense of the imagination; as it gives tone to the
nerves it must have a great effect on the brain; that is why it
revives us for the time, but eventually causes exhaustion. Its effects
on love are pretty generally recognised. The sweet perfumes of a
dressing-room are not so slight a snare as you may fancy them, and I
hardly know whether to congratulate or condole with that wise and
somewhat insensible person whose senses are never stirred by the scent
of the flowers his mistress wears in her bosom.
Hence the sense of smell should not be over-active in early
childhood; the imagination, as yet unstirred by changing passions, is
scarcely susceptible of emotion, and we have not enough experience to
discern beforehand from one sense the promise of another. This view is
confirmed by observation, and it is certain that the sense of smell is
dull and almost blunted in most children. Not that their sensations
are less acute than those of grown-up people, but that there is no
idea associated with them; they do not easily experience pleasure or
pain, and are not flattered or hurt as we are. Without going beyond my
system, and without recourse to comparative anatomy, I think we can
easily see why women are generally fonder of perfumes than men.
It is said that from early childhood the Redskins of Canada, train
their sense of smell to such a degree of subtlety that, although they
have dogs, they do not condescend to use them in hunting—they are
their own dogs. Indeed I believe that if children were trained to
scent their dinner as a dog scents game, their sense of smell might be
nearly as perfect; but I see no very real advantage to be derived from
this sense, except by teaching the child to observe the relation
between smell and taste. Nature has taken care to. compel us to learn
these relations. She has made the exercise of the latter sense
practically inseparable from that of the former, by placing their
organs close together, and by providing, in the mouth, a direct
pathway between them, so that we taste nothing without smelling it
too. Only I would not have these natural relations disturbed in order
to deceive the child, e.g.; to conceal the taste of medicine with an
aromatic odour, for the discord between the senses is too great for
deception, the more active sense overpowers. the other, the medicine
is just as distasteful, and this disagreeable association extends to
every sensation experienced at the time; so the slightest of these
sensations recalls the rest to his imagination and a very pleasant
perfume is for him only a nasty smell; thus our foolish precautions
increase the sum total of his unpleasant sensations at the cost of his
pleasant sensations.
In the following books I have still to speak of the training of a
sort of sixth sense, called common-sense, not so much because it is
common to all men, but because it results from the well-regulated use
of the other five, and teaches the nature of things by the sum-total
of their external aspects. So this sixth sense has no special organ,
it has its seat in the brain, and its sensations which are purely
internal are called percepts or ideas. The number of these ideas is
the measure of our knowledge; exactness of thought depends on their
clearness and precision; the art of comparing them one with another is
called human reason. Thus what I call the reasoning of the senses, or
the reasoning of the child, consists in the formation of simple ideas
through the associated experience of several sensations; what I call
the reasoning of the intellect, consists in the formation, of complex
ideas through the association of several simple ideas.
If my method is indeed that of nature, and if I am not mistaken in
the application of that method, we have led our pupil through the
region of sensation to the bounds of the child's reasoning; the first
step we take beyond these bounds must be the step of a man. But before
we make this fresh advance, let us glance back for a moment at the
path we have hitherto followed. Every age, every station in life, has
a perfection, a ripeness, of its own. We have often heard the phrase
"a grown man;" but we will consider "a grown child." This will be a
new experience and none the less pleasing.
The life of finite creatures is so poor and narrow that the mere
sight of what is arouses no emotion. It is fancy which decks reality,
and if imagination does not lend its charm to that which touches our
senses, our barren pleasure is confined to the senses alone, while the
heart remains cold. The earth adorned with the treasures of autumn
displays a wealth of colour which the eye admires; but this admiration
fails to move us, it springs rather from thought than from feeling. In
spring the country is almost bare and leafless, the trees give no
shade, the grass has hardly begun to grow, yet the heart is touched by
the sight. In this new birth of nature, we feel the revival of our own
life; the memories of past pleasures surround us; tears of delight,
those companions of pleasure ever ready to accompany a pleasing
sentiment, tremble on our eyelids. Animated, lively, and delightful
though the vintage may be, we behold it without a tear.
And why is this? Because imagination adds to the sight of spring
the image of the seasons which are yet to come; the eye sees the
tender shoot, the mind's eye beholds its flowers, fruit, and foliage,
and even the mysteries they may conceal. It blends successive stages
into one moment's experience; we see things, not so much as they will
be, but as we would have them be, for imagination has only to take her
choice. In autumn, on the other hand, we only behold the present; if
we wish to look forward to spring, winter bars the way, and our
shivering imagination dies away among its frost and snow.
This is the source of the charm we find in beholding the beauties
of childhood, rather than the perfection of manhood. When do we
really delight in beholding a man? When the memory of his deeds leads
us to look back over his life and his youth is renewed in our eyes. If
we are reduced to viewing him as he is, or to picturing him as he will
be in old age, the thought of declining years destroys all our
pleasure. There is no pleasure in seeing a man hastening to his grave;
the image of death makes all hideous.
But when I think of a child of ten or twelve, strong, healthy,
well-grown for his age, only pleasant thoughts are called up, whether
of the present or the future. I see him keen, eager, and full of
life, free from gnawing cares and painful forebodings, absorbed in
this present state, and delighting in a fullness of life which seems
to extend beyond himself. I look forward to a time when he will use
his daily increasing sense, intelligence and vigour, those growing
powers of which he continually gives fresh proof. I watch the child
with delight, I picture to myself the man with even greater pleasure.
His eager life seems to stir my own pulses, I seem to live his life
and in his vigour I renew my own.
The hour strikes, the scene is changed. All of a sudden his eye
grows dim, his mirth has fled. Farewell mirth, farewell untrammelled
sports in which he delighted. A stern, angry man takes him by the
hand, saying gravely, "Come with me, sir," and he is led away. As
they are entering the room, I catch a glimpse of books. Books, what
dull food for a child of his age! The poor child allows himself to be
dragged away; he casts a sorrowful look on all about him, and departs
in silence, his eyes swollen with the tears he dare not shed, and his
heart bursting with the sighs he dare not utter.
You who have no such cause for fear, you for whom no period of life
is a time of weariness and tedium, you who welcome days without care
and nights without impatience, you who only reckon time by your
pleasures, come, my happy kindly pupil, and console us for the
departure of that miserable creature. Come! Here he is and at his
approach I feel a thrill of delight which I see he shares. It is his
friend, his comrade, who meets him; when he sees me he knows very well
that he will not be long without amusement; we are never dependent on
each other, but we are always on good terms, and we are never so happy
as when together.
His face, his bearing, his expression, speak of confidence and
contentment; health shines in his countenance, his firm step speaks
of strength; his colour, delicate but not sickly, has nothing of
softness or effeminacy. Sun and wind have already set the honourable
stamp of manhood on his countenance; his rounded muscles already
begin to show some signs of growing individuality; his eyes, as yet
unlighted by the flame of feeling, have at least all their native
calm; They have not been darkened by prolonged sorrow, nor are his
cheeks furrowed by ceaseless tears. Behold in his quick and certain
movements the natural vigour of his age and the confidence of
independence. His manner is free and open, but without a trace of
insolence or vanity; his head which has not been bent over books does
not fall upon his breast; there is no need to say, "Hold your head
up," he will neither hang his head for shame or fear.
Make room for him, gentlemen, in your midst; question him boldly;
have no fear of importunity, chatter, or impertinent questions. You
need not be afraid that he will take possession of you and expect you
to devote yourself entirely to him, so that you cannot get rid of him.
Neither need you look for compliments from him; nor will he tell
you what I have taught him to say; expect nothing from him but the
plain, simple truth, without addition or ornament and without vanity.
He will tell you the wrong things he has done and thought as readily
as the right, without troubling himself in the least as to the effect
of his words upon you; he will use speech with all the simplicity of
its first beginnings.
We love to augur well of our children, and we are continually
regretting the flood of folly which overwhelms the hopes we would
fain have rested on some chance phrase. If my scholar rarely gives me
cause for such prophecies, neither will he give me cause for such
regrets, for he never says a useless word, and does not exhaust
himself by chattering when he knows there is no one to listen to him.
His ideas are few but precise, he knows nothing by rote but much by
experience. If he reads our books worse than other children, he reads
far better in the book of nature; his thoughts are not in his tongue
but in his brain; he has less memory and more judgment; he can only
speak one language, but he understands what he is saying, and if his
speech is not so good as that of other children his deeds are better.
He does not know the meaning of habit, routine, and custom; what
he did yesterday has no control over what he is doing to-day; he
follows no rule, submits to no authority, copies no pattern, and only
acts or speaks as he pleases. So do not expect set speeches or studied
manners from him, but just the faithful expression of his thoughts and
the conduct that springs from his inclinations. [Footnote: Habit owes
its charm to man's natural idleness, and this idleness grows upon us
if indulged; it is easier to do what we have already done, there is a
beaten path which is easily followed. Thus we may observe that habit
is very strong in the aged and in the indolent, and very weak in the
young and active. The rule of habit is only good for feeble hearts,
and it makes them more and more feeble day by day. The only useful
habit for children is to be accustomed to submit without difficulty to
necessity, and the only useful habit for man is to submit without
difficulty to the rule of reason. Every other habit is a vice.]
You will find he has a few moral ideas concerning his present state
and none concerning manhood; what use could he make of them, for the
child is not, as yet, an active member of society. Speak to him of
freedom, of property, or even of what is usually done; he may
understand you so far; he knows why his things are his own, and why
other things are not his, and nothing more. Speak to him of duty or
obedience; he will not know what you are talking about; bid him do
something and he will pay no attention; but say to him, "If you will
give me this pleasure, I will repay it when required," and he will
hasten to give you satisfaction, for he asks nothing better than to
extend his domain, to acquire rights over you, which will, he knows,
be respected. Maybe he is not sorry to have a place of his own, to be
reckoned of some account; but if he has formed this latter idea, he
has already left the realms of nature, and you have failed to bar the
gates of vanity.
For his own part, should he need help, he will ask it readily of
the first person he meets. He will ask it of a king as readily as of
his servant; all men are equals in his eyes. From his way of asking
you will see he knows you owe him nothing, that he is asking a favour.
He knows too that humanity moves you to grant this favour; his words
are few and simple. His voice, his look, his gesture are those of a
being equally familiar with compliance and refusal. It is neither the
crawling, servile submission of the slave, nor the imperious tone of
the master, it is a modest confidence in mankind; it is the noble and
touching gentleness of a creature, free, yet sensitive and feeble, who
asks aid of a being, free, but strong and kindly. If you grant his
request he will not thank you, but he will feel he has incurred a
debt. If you refuse he will neither complain nor insist; he knows it
is useless; he will not say, "They refused to help me," but "It was
impossible," and as I have already said, we do not rebel against
necessity when once we have perceived it.
Leave him to himself and watch his actions without speaking,
consider what he is doing and how he sets about it. He does not
require to convince himself that he is free, so he never acts
thoughtlessly and merely to show that he can do what he likes; does he
not know that he is always his own master? He is quick, alert, and
ready; his movements are eager as befits his age, but you will not
find one which has no end in view. Whatever he wants, he will never
attempt what is beyond his powers, for he has learnt by experience
what those powers are; his means will always be adapted to the end in
view, and he will rarely attempt anything without the certainty of
success; his eye is keen and true; he will not be so stupid as to go
and ask other people about what he sees; he will examine it on his own
account, and before he asks he will try every means at his disposal to
discover what he wants to know for himself. If he lights upon some
unexpected difficulty, he will be less upset than others; if there is
danger he will be less afraid. His imagination is still asleep and
nothing has been done to arouse it; he only sees what is really there,
and rates the danger at its true worth; so he never loses his head. He
does not rebel against necessity, her hand is too heavy upon him; he
has borne her yoke all his life long, he is well used to it; he is
always ready for anything.
Work or play are all one to him, his games are his work; he knows
no difference. He brings to everything the cheerfulness of interest,
the charm of freedom, and he snows the bent of his own mind and the
extent of his knowledge. Is there anything better worth seeing,
anything more touching or more delightful, than a pretty child, with
merry, cheerful glance, easy contented manner, open smiling
countenance, playing at the most important things, or working at the
lightest amusements?
Would you now judge him by comparison? Set him among other children
and leave him to himself. You will soon see which has made most
progress, which comes nearer to the perfection of childhood. Among
all the children in the town there is none more skilful and none so
strong. Among young peasants he is their equal in strength and their
superior in skill. In everything within a child's grasp he judges,
reasons, and shows a forethought beyond the rest. Is it a matter of
action, running, jumping, or shifting things, raising weights or
estimating distance, inventing games, carrying off prizes; you might
say, "Nature obeys his word," so easily does he bend all things to his
will. He is made to lead, to rule his fellows; talent and experience
take the place of right and authority. In any garb, under any name, he
will still be first; everywhere he will rule the rest, they will
always feel his superiority, he will be master without knowing it, and
they will serve him unawares.
He has reached the perfection of childhood; he has lived the life
of a child; his progress has not been bought at the price of his
happiness, he has gained both. While he has acquired all the wisdom
of a child, he has been as free and happy as his health permits. If
the Reaper Death should cut him off and rob us of our hopes, we need
not bewail alike his life and death, we shall not have the added grief
of knowing that we caused him pain; we will say, "His childhood, at
least, was happy; we have robbed him of nothing that nature gave him."
The chief drawback to this early education is that it is only
appreciated by the wise; to vulgar eyes the child so carefully
educated is nothing but a rough little boy. A tutor thinks rather of
the advantage to himself than to his pupil; he makes a point of
showing that there has been no time wasted; he provides his pupil
with goods which can be readily displayed in the shop window,
accomplishments which can be shown off at will; no matter whether
they are useful, provided they are easily seen. Without choice or
discrimination he loads his memory with a pack of rubbish. If the
child is to be examined he is set to display his wares; he spreads
them out, satisfies those who behold them, packs up his bundle and
goes his way. My pupil is poorer, he has no bundle to display, he has
only himself to show. Now neither child nor man can be read at a
glance. Where are the observers who can at once discern the
characteristics of this child? There are such people, but they are
few and far between; among a thousand fathers you will scarcely find
one.
Too many questions are tedious and revolting to most of us and
especially to children. After a few minutes their attention flags,
they cease to listen to your everlasting questions and reply at
random. This way of testing them is pedantic and useless; a chance
word will often show their sense and intelligence better than much
talking, but take care that the answer is neither a matter of chance
nor yet learnt by heart. A man must needs have a good judgment if he
is to estimate the judgment of a child.
I heard the late Lord Hyde tell the following story about one of
his friends. He had returned from Italy after a three years' absence,
and was anxious to test the progress of his son, a child of nine or
ten. One evening he took a walk with the child and his tutor across a
level space where the schoolboys were flying their kites. As they
went, the father said to his son, "Where is the kite that casts this
shadow?" Without hesitating and without glancing upwards the child
replied, "Over the high road." "And indeed," said Lord Hyde, "the high
road was between us and the sun." At these words, the father kissed
his child, and having finished his examination he departed. The next
day he sent the tutor the papers settling an annuity on him in
addition to his salary.
What a father! and what a promising child! The question is exactly
adapted to the child's age, the answer is perfectly simple; but see
what precision it implies in the child's judgment. Thus did the pupil
of Aristotle master the famous steed which no squire had ever been
able to tame.
BOOK III
The whole course of man's life up to adolescence is a period of
weakness; yet there comes a time during these early years when the
child's strength overtakes the demands upon it, when the growing
creature, though absolutely weak, is relatively strong. His needs are
not fully developed and his present strength is more than enough for
them. He would be a very feeble man, but he is a strong child.
What is the cause of man's weakness? It is to be found in the
disproportion between his strength and his desires. It is our passions
that make us weak, for our natural strength is not enough for their
satisfaction. To limit our desires comes to the same thing, therefore,
as to increase our strength. When we can do more than we want, we have
strength enough and to spare, we are really strong. This is the third
stage of childhood, the stage with which I am about to deal. I still
speak of childhood for want of a better word; for our scholar is
approaching adolescence, though he has not yet reached the age of
puberty.
About twelve or thirteen the child's strength increases far more
rapidly than his needs. The strongest and fiercest of the passions is
still unknown, his physical development is still imperfect and seems
to await the call of the will. He is scarcely aware of extremes of
heat and cold and braves them with impunity. He needs no coat, his
blood is warm; no spices, hunger is his sauce, no food comes amiss at
this age; if he is sleepy he stretches himself on the ground and goes
to sleep; he finds all he needs within his reach; he is not tormented
by any imaginary wants; he cares nothing what others think; his
desires are not beyond his grasp; not only is he self-sufficing, but
for the first and last time in his life he has more strength than he
needs.
I know beforehand what you will say. You will not assert that the
child has more needs than I attribute to him, but you will deny his
strength. You forget that I am speaking of my own pupil, not of those
puppets who walk with difficulty from one room to another, who toil
indoors and carry bundles of paper. Manly strength, you say, appears
only with manhood; the vital spirits, distilled in their proper
vessels and spreading through the whole body, can alone make the
muscles firm, sensitive, tense, and springy, can alone cause real
strength. This is the philosophy of the study; I appeal to that of
experience. In the country districts, I see big lads hoeing, digging,
guiding the plough, filling the wine-cask, driving the cart, like
their fathers; you would take them for grown men if their voices did
not betray them. Even in our towns, iron-workers', tool makers', and
blacksmiths' lads are almost as strong as their masters and would be
scarcely less skilful had their training begun earlier. If there is a
difference, and I do not deny that there is, it is, I repeat, much
less than the difference between the stormy passions of the man and
the few wants of the child. Moreover, it is not merely a question of
bodily strength, but more especially of strength of mind, which
reinforces and directs the bodily strength.
This interval in which the strength of the individual is in excess
of his wants is, as I have said, relatively though not absolutely the
time of greatest strength. It is the most precious time in his life;
it comes but once; it is very short, all too short, as you will see
when you consider the importance of using it aright.
He has, therefore, a surplus of strength and capacity which he will
never have again. What use shall he make of it? He will strive to use
it in tasks which will help at need. He will, so to speak, cast his
present surplus into the storehouse of the future; the vigorous child
will make provision for the feeble man; but he will not store his
goods where thieves may break in, nor in barns which are not his own.
To store them aright, they must be in the hands and the head, they
must be stored within himself. This is the time for work, instruction,
and inquiry. And note that this is no arbitrary choice of mine, it is
the way of nature herself.
Human intelligence is finite, and not only can no man know
everything, he cannot even acquire all the scanty knowledge of others.
Since the contrary of every false proposition is a truth, there are as
many truths as falsehoods. We must, therefore, choose what to teach
as well as when to teach it. Some of the information within our reach
is false, some is useless, some merely serves to puff up its
possessor. The small store which really contributes to our welfare
alone deserves the study of a wise man, and therefore of a child whom
one would have wise. He must know not merely what is, but what is
useful.
From this small stock we must also deduct those truths which
require a full grown mind for their understanding, those which suppose
a knowledge of man's relations to his fellow-men—a knowledge which
no child can acquire; these things, although in themselves true, lead
an inexperienced mind into mistakes with regard to other matters.
We are now confined to a circle, small indeed compared with the
whole of human thought, but this circle is still a vast sphere when
measured by the child's mind. Dark places of the human understanding,
what rash hand shall dare to raise your veil? What pitfalls does our
so-called science prepare for the miserable child. Would you guide him
along this dangerous path and draw the veil from the face of nature?
Stay your hand. First make sure that neither he nor you will become
dizzy. Beware of the specious charms of error and the intoxicating
fumes of pride. Keep this truth ever before you—Ignorance never did
any one any harm, error alone is fatal, and we do not lose our way
through ignorance but through self-confidence.
His progress in geometry may serve as a test and a true measure of
the growth of his intelligence, but as soon as he can distinguish
between what is useful and what is useless, much skill and discretion
are required to lead him towards theoretical studies. For example,
would you have him find a mean proportional between two lines,
contrive that he should require to find a square equal to a given
rectangle; if two mean proportionals are required, you must first
contrive to interest him in the doubling of the cube. See how we are
gradually approaching the moral ideas which distinguish between good
and evil. Hitherto we have known no law but necessity, now we are
considering what is useful; we shall soon come to what is fitting and
right.
Man's diverse powers are stirred by the same instinct. The bodily
activity, which seeks an outlet for its energies, is succeeded by the
mental activity which seeks for knowledge. Children are first
restless, then curious; and this curiosity, rightly directed, is the
means of development for the age with which we are dealing. Always
distinguish between natural and acquired tendencies. There is a zeal
for learning which has no other foundation than a wish to appear
learned, and there is another which springs from man's natural
curiosity about all things far or near which may affect himself. The
innate desire for comfort and the impossibility of its complete
satisfaction impel him to the endless search for fresh means of
contributing to its satisfaction. This is the first principle of
curiosity; a principle natural to the human heart, though its growth
is proportional to the development of our feeling and knowledge. If a
man of science were left on a desert island with his books and
instruments and knowing that he must spend the rest of his life there,
he would scarcely trouble himself about the solar system, the laws of
attraction, or the differential calculus. He might never even open a
book again; but he would never rest till he had explored the furthest
corner of his island, however large it might be. Let us therefore omit
from our early studies such knowledge as has no natural attraction for
us, and confine ourselves to such things as instinct impels us to
study.
Our island is this earth; and the most striking object we behold
is the sun. As soon as we pass beyond our immediate surroundings, one
or both of these must meet our eye. Thus the philosophy of most savage
races is mainly directed to imaginary divisions of the earth or to the
divinity of the sun.
What a sudden change you will say. Just now we were concerned with
what touches ourselves, with our immediate environment, and all at
once we are exploring the round world and leaping to the bounds of the
universe. This change is the result of our growing strength and of the
natural bent of the mind. While we were weak and feeble,
self-preservation concentrated our attention on ourselves; now that
we are strong and powerful, the desire for a wider sphere carries us
beyond ourselves as far as our eyes can reach. But as the intellectual
world is still unknown to us, our thoughts are bounded by the visible
horizon, and our understanding only develops within the limits of our
vision.
Let us transform our sensations into ideas, but do not let us jump
all at once from the objects of sense to objects of thought. The
latter are attained by means of the former. Let the senses be the
only guide for the first workings of reason. No book but the world,
no teaching but that of fact. The child who reads ceases to think, he
only reads. He is acquiring words not knowledge.
Teach your scholar to observe the phenomena of nature; you will
soon rouse his curiosity, but if you would have it grow, do not be in
too great a hurry to satisfy this curiosity. Put the problems before
him and let him solve them himself. Let him know nothing because you
have told him, but because he has learnt it for himself. Let him not
be taught science, let him discover it. If ever you substitute
authority for reason he will cease to reason; he will be a mere
plaything of other people's thoughts.
You wish to teach this child geography and you provide him with
globes, spheres, and maps. What elaborate preparations! What is the
use of all these symbols; why not begin by showing him the real thing
so that he may at least know what you are talking about?
One fine evening we are walking in a suitable place where the wide
horizon gives us a full view of the setting sun, and we note the
objects which mark the place where it sets. Next morning we return to
the same place for a breath of fresh air before sun-rise. We see the
rays of light which announce the sun's approach; the glow increases,
the east seems afire, and long before the sun appears the light leads
us to expect its return. Every moment you expect to see it. There it
is at last! A shining point appears like a flash of lightning and soon
fills the whole space; the veil of darkness rolls away, man perceives
his dwelling place in fresh beauty. During the night the grass has
assumed a fresher green; in the light of early dawn, and gilded by the
first rays of the sun, it seems covered with a shining network of dew
reflecting the light and colour. The birds raise their chorus of
praise to greet the Father of life, not one of them is mute; their
gentle warbling is softer than by day, it expresses the langour of a
peaceful waking. All these produce an impression of freshness which
seems to reach the very soul. It is a brief hour of enchantment which
no man can resist; a sight so grand, so fair, so delicious, that none
can behold it unmoved.
Fired with this enthusiasm, the master wishes to impart it to the
child. He expects to rouse his emotion by drawing attention to his
own. Mere folly! The splendour of nature lives in man's heart; to be
seen, it must be felt. The child sees the objects themselves, but does
not perceive their relations, and cannot hear their harmony. It needs
knowledge he has not yet acquired, feelings he has not yet
experienced, to receive the complex impression which results from all
these separate sensations. If he has not wandered over arid plains, if
his feet have not been scorched by the burning sands of the desert, if
he has not breathed the hot and oppressive air reflected from the
glowing rocks, how shall he delight in the fresh air of a fine
morning. The scent of flowers, the beauty of foliage, the moistness of
the dew, the soft turf beneath his feet, how shall all these delight
his senses. How shall the song of the birds arouse voluptuous emotion
if love and pleasure are still unknown to him? How shall he behold
with rapture the birth of this fair day, if his imagination cannot
paint the joys it may bring in its track? How can he feel the beauty
of nature, while the hand that formed it is unknown?
Never tell the child what he cannot understand: no descriptions, no
eloquence, no figures of speech, no poetry. The time has not come for
feeling or taste. Continue to be clear and cold; the time will come
only too soon when you must adopt another tone.
Brought up in the spirit of our maxims, accustomed to make his own
tools and not to appeal to others until he has tried and failed, he
will examine everything he sees carefully and in silence. He thinks
rather than questions. Be content, therefore, to show him things at a
fit season; then, when you see that his curiosity is thoroughly
aroused, put some brief question which will set him trying to
discover the answer.
On the present occasion when you and he have carefully observed
the rising sun, when you have called his attention to the mountains
and other objects visible from the same spot, after he has chattered
freely about them, keep quiet for a few minutes as if lost in thought
and then say, "I think the sun set over there last night; it rose here
this morning. How can that be?" Say no more; if he asks questions, do
not answer them; talk of something else. Let him alone, and be sure he
will think about it.
To train a child to be really attentive so that he may be really
impressed by any truth of experience, he must spend anxious days
before he discovers that truth. If he does not learn enough in this
way, there is another way of drawing his attention to the matter.
Turn the question about. If he does not know how the sun gets from
the place where it sets to where it rises, he knows at least how it
travels from sunrise to sunset, his eyes teach him that. Use the
second question to throw light on the first; either your pupil is a
regular dunce or the analogy is too clear to be missed. This is his
first lesson in cosmography.
As we always advance slowly from one sensible idea to another, and
as we give time enough to each for him to become really familiar with
it before we go on to another, and lastly as we never force our
scholar's attention, we are still a long way from a knowledge of the
course of the sun or the shape of the earth; but as all the apparent
movements of the celestial bodies depend on the same principle, and
the first observation leads on to all the rest, less effort is needed,
though more time, to proceed from the diurnal revolution to the
calculation of eclipses, than to get a thorough understanding of day
and night.
Since the sun revolves round the earth it describes a circle, and
every circle must have a centre; that we know already. This centre is
invisible, it is in the middle of the earth, but we can mark out two
opposite points on the earth's surface which correspond to it. A
skewer passed through the three points and prolonged to the sky at
either end would represent the earth's axis and the sun's daily
course. A round teetotum revolving on its point represents the sky
turning on its axis, the two points of the teetotum are the two poles;
the child will be delighted to find one of them, and I show him the
tail of the Little bear. Here is a another game for the dark. Little
by little we get to know the stars, and from this comes a wish to know
the planets and observe the constellations.
We saw the sun rise at midsummer, we shall see it rise at Christmas
or some other fine winter's day; for you know we are no lie-a-beds
and we enjoy the cold. I take care to make this second observation in
the same place as the first, and if skilfully lead up to, one or other
will certainly exclaim, "What a funny thing! The sun is not rising in
the same place; here are our landmarks, but it is rising over there.
So there is the summer east and the winter east, etc." Young teacher,
you are on the right track. These examples should show you how to
teach the sphere without any difficulty, taking the earth for the
earth and the sun for the sun.
As a general rule—never substitute the symbol for the thing
signified, unless it is impossible to show the thing itself; for the
child's attention is so taken up with the symbol that he will forget
what it signifies.
I consider the armillary sphere a clumsy disproportioned bit of
apparatus. The confused circles and the strange figures described on
it suggest witchcraft and frighten the child. The earth is too small,
the circles too large and too numerous, some of them, the colures, for
instance, are quite useless, and the thickness of the pasteboard gives
them an appearance of solidity so that they are taken for circular
masses having a real existence, and when you tell the child that these
are imaginary circles, he does not know what he is looking at and is
none the wiser.
We are unable to put ourselves in the child's place, we fail to
enter into his thoughts, we invest him with our own ideas, and while
we are following our own chain of reasoning, we merely fill his head
with errors and absurdities.
Should the method of studying science be analytic or synthetic?
People dispute over this question, but it is not always necessary to
choose between them. Sometimes the same experiments allow one to use
both analysis and synthesis, and thus to guide the child by the method
of instruction when he fancies he is only analysing. Then, by using
both at once, each method confirms the results of the other. Starting
from opposite ends, without thinking of following the same road, he
will unexpectedly reach their meeting place and this will be a
delightful surprise. For example, I would begin geography at both ends
and add to the study of the earth's revolution the measurement of its
divisions, beginning at home. While the child is studying the sphere
and is thus transported to the heavens, bring him back to the
divisions of the globe and show him his own home.
His geography will begin with the town he lives in and his father's
country house, then the places between them, the rivers near them,
and then the sun's aspect and how to find one's way by its aid. This
is the meeting place. Let him make his own map, a very simple map, at
first containing only two places; others may be added from time to
time, as he is able to estimate their distance and position. You see
at once what a good start we have given him by making his eye his
compass.
No doubt he will require some guidance in spite of this, but very
little, and that little without his knowing it. If he goes wrong let
him alone, do not correct his mistakes; hold your tongue till he finds
them out for himself and corrects them, or at most arrange something,
as opportunity offers, which may show him his mistakes. If he never
makes mistakes he will never learn anything thoroughly. Moreover, what
he needs is not an exact knowledge of local topography, but how to
find out for himself. No matter whether he carries maps in his head
provided he understands what they mean, and has a clear idea of the
art of making them. See what a difference there is already between the
knowledge of your scholars and the ignorance of mine. They learn maps,
he makes them. Here are fresh ornaments for his room.
Remember that this is the essential point in my method—Do not
teach the child many things, but never to let him form inaccurate or
confused ideas. I care not if he knows nothing provided he is not
mistaken, and I only acquaint him with truths to guard him against
the errors he might put in their place. Reason and judgment come
slowly, prejudices flock to us in crowds, and from these he must be
protected. But if you make science itself your object, you embark on
an unfathomable and shoreless ocean, an ocean strewn with reefs from
which you will never return. When I see a man in love with knowledge,
yielding to its charms and flitting from one branch to another unable
to stay his steps, he seems to me like a child gathering shells on the
sea-shore, now picking them up, then throwing them aside for others
which he sees beyond them, then taking them again, till overwhelmed by
their number and unable to choose between them, he flings them all
away and returns empty handed.
Time was long during early childhood; we only tried to pass our
time for fear of using it ill; now it is the other way; we have not
time enough for all that would be of use. The passions, remember, are
drawing near, and when they knock at the door your scholar will have
no ear for anything else. The peaceful age of intelligence is so
short, it flies so swiftly, there is so much to be done, that it is
madness to try to make your child learned. It is not your business to
teach him the various sciences, but to give him a taste for them and
methods of learning them when this taste is more mature. That is
assuredly a fundamental principle of all good education.
This is also the time to train him gradually to prolonged attention
to a given object; but this attention should never be the result of
constraint, but of interest or desire; you must be very careful that
it is not too much for his strength, and that it is not carried to the
point of tedium. Watch him, therefore, and whatever happens, stop
before he is tired, for it matters little what he learns; it does
matter that he should do nothing against his will.
If he asks questions let your answers be enough to whet his
curiosity but not enough to satisfy it; above all, when you find him
talking at random and overwhelming you with silly questions instead of
asking for information, at once refuse to answer; for it is clear
that he no longer cares about the matter in hand, but wants to make
you a slave to his questions. Consider his motives rather than his
words. This warning, which was scarcely needed before, becomes of
supreme importance when the child begins to reason.
There is a series of abstract truths by means of which all the
sciences are related to common principles and are developed each in
its turn. This relationship is the method of the philosophers. We are
not concerned with it at present. There is quite another method by
which every concrete example suggests another and always points to the
next in the series. This succession, which stimulates the curiosity
and so arouses the attention required by every object in turn, is the
order followed by most men, and it is the right order for all
children. To take our bearings so as to make our maps we must find
meridians. Two points of intersection between the equal shadows
morning and evening supply an excellent meridian for a
thirteen-year-old astronomer. But these meridians disappear, it takes
time to trace them, and you are obliged to work in one place. So much
trouble and attention will at last become irksome. We foresaw this and
are ready for it.
Again I must enter into minute and detailed explanations. I hear
my readers murmur, but I am prepared to meet their disapproval; I
will not sacrifice the most important part of this book to your
impatience. You may think me as long-winded as you please; I have my
own opinion as to your complaints.
Long ago my pupil and I remarked that some substances such as
amber, glass, and wax, when well rubbed, attracted straws, while
others did not. We accidentally discover a substance which has a more
unusual property, that of attracting filings or other small particles
of iron from a distance and without rubbing. How much time do we
devote to this game to the exclusion of everything else! At last we
discover that this property is communicated to the iron itself, which
is, so to speak, endowed with life. We go to the fair one day
[Footnote: I could not help laughing when I read an elaborate
criticism of this little tale by M. de Formy. "This conjuror," says
he, "who is afraid of a child's competition and preaches to his tutor
is the sort of person we meet with in the world in which Emile and
such as he are living." This witty M. de Formy could not guess that
this little scene was arranged beforehand, and that the juggler was
taught his part in it; indeed I did not state this fact. But I have
said again and again that I was not writing for people who expected to
be told everything.] and a conjuror has a wax duck floating in a basin
of water, and he makes it follow a bit of bread. We are greatly
surprised, but we do not call him a wizard, never having heard of such
persons. As we are continually observing effects whose causes are
unknown to us, we are in no hurry to make up our minds, and we remain
in ignorance till we find an opportunity of learning.
When we get home we discuss the duck till we try to imitate it. We
take a needle thoroughly magnetised, we imbed it in white wax, shaped
as far as possible like a duck, with the needle running through the
body, so that its eye forms the beak. We put the duck in water and put
the end of a key near its beak, and you will readily understand our
delight when we find that our duck follows the key just as the duck at
the fair followed the bit of bread. Another time we may note the
direction assumed by the duck when left in the basin; for the present
we are wholly occupied with our work and we want nothing more.
The same evening we return to the fair with some bread specially
prepared in our pockets, and as soon as the conjuror has performed
his trick, my little doctor, who can scarcely sit still, exclaims,
"The trick is quite easy; I can do it myself." "Do it then." He at
once takes the bread with a bit of iron hidden in it from his pocket;
his heart throbs as he approaches the table and holds out the bread,
his hand trembles with excitement. The duck approaches and follows his
hand. The child cries out and jumps for joy. The applause, the shouts
of the crowd, are too much for him, he is beside himself. The
conjuror, though disappointed, embraces him, congratulates him, begs
the honour of his company on the following day, and promises to
collect a still greater crowd to applaud his skill. My young scientist
is very proud of himself and is beginning to chatter, but I check him
at once and take him home overwhelmed with praise.
The child counts the minutes till to-morrow with absurd anxiety.
He invites every one he meets, he wants all mankind to behold his
glory; he can scarcely wait till the appointed hour. He hurries to
the place; the hall is full already; as he enters his young heart
swells with pride. Other tricks are to come first. The conjuror
surpasses himself and does the most surprising things. The child sees
none of these; he wriggles, perspires, and hardly breathes; the time
is spent in fingering with a trembling hand the bit of bread in his
pocket. His turn comes at last; the master announces it to the
audience with all ceremony; he goes up looking somewhat shamefaced and
takes out his bit of bread. Oh fleeting joys of human life! the duck,
so tame yesterday, is quite wild to-day; instead of offering its beak
it turns tail and swims away; it avoids the bread and the hand that
holds it as carefully as it followed them yesterday. After many vain
attempts accompanied by derisive shouts from the audience the child
complains that he is being cheated, that is not the same duck, and he
defies the conjuror to attract it.
The conjuror, without further words, takes a bit of bread and
offers it to the duck, which at once follows it and comes to the hand
which holds it. The child takes the same bit of bread with no better
success; the duck mocks his efforts and swims round the basin.
Overwhelmed with confusion he abandons the attempt, ashamed to face
the crowd any longer. Then the conjuror takes the bit of bread the
child brought with him and uses it as successfully as his own. He
takes out the bit of iron before the audience—another laugh at our
expense—then with this same bread he attracts the duck as before. He
repeats the experiment with a piece of bread cut by a third person in
full view of the audience. He does it with his glove, with his
finger-tip. Finally he goes into the middle of the room and in the
emphatic tones used by such persons he declares that his duck will
obey his voice as readily as his hand; he speaks and the duck obeys;
he bids him go to the right and he goes, to come back again and he
comes. The movement is as ready as the command. The growing applause
completes our discomfiture. We slip away unnoticed and shut ourselves
up in our room, without relating our successes to everybody as we had
expected.
Next day there is a knock at the door. When I open it there is the
conjuror, who makes a modest complaint with regard to our conduct.
What had he done that we should try to discredit his tricks and
deprive him of his livelihood? What is there so wonderful in
attracting a duck that we should purchase this honour at the price of
an honest man's living? "My word, gentlemen! had I any other trade by
which I could earn a living I would not pride myself on this. You may
well believe that a man who has spent his life at this miserable
trade knows more about it than you who only give your spare time to
it. If I did not show you my best tricks at first, it was because one
must not be so foolish as to display all one knows at once. I always
take care to keep my best tricks for emergencies; and I have plenty
more to prevent young folks from meddling. However, I have come,
gentlemen, in all kindness, to show you the trick that gave you so
much trouble; I only beg you not to use it to my hurt, and to be more
discreet in future." He then shows us his apparatus, and to our great
surprise we find it is merely a strong magnet in the hand of a boy
concealed under the table. The man puts up his things, and after we
have offered our thanks and apologies, we try to give him something.
He refuses it. "No, gentlemen," says he, "I owe you no gratitude and I
will not accept your gift. I leave you in my debt in spite of all, and
that is my only revenge. Generosity may be found among all sorts of
people, and I earn my pay by doing my tricks not by teaching them."
As he is going he blames me out-right. "I can make excuses for the
child," he says, "he sinned in ignorance. But you, sir, should know
better. Why did you let him do it? As you are living together and you
are older than he, you should look after him and give him good advice.
Your experience should be his guide. When he is grown up he will
reproach, not only himself, but you, for the faults of his youth."
When he is gone we are greatly downcast. I blame myself for my
easy-going ways. I promise the child that another time I will put his
interests first and warn him against faults before he falls into them,
for the time is coming when our relations will be changed, when the
severity of the master must give way to the friendliness of the
comrade; this change must come gradually, you must look ahead, and
very far ahead.
We go to the fair again the next day to see the trick whose secret
we know. We approach our Socrates, the conjuror, with profound
respect, we scarcely dare to look him in the face. He overwhelms us
with politeness, gives us the best places, and heaps coals of fire on
our heads. He goes through his performance as usual, but he lingers
affectionately over the duck, and often glances proudly in our
direction. We are in the secret, but we do not tell. If my pupil did
but open his mouth he would be worthy of death.
There is more meaning than you suspect in this detailed
illustration. How many lessons in one! How mortifying are the results
of a first impulse towards vanity! Young tutor, watch this first
impulse carefully. If you can use it to bring about shame and
disgrace, you may be sure it will not recur for many a day. What a
fuss you will say. Just so; and all to provide a compass which will
enable us to dispense with a meridian!
Having learnt that a magnet acts through other bodies, our next
business is to construct a bit of apparatus similar to that shown us.
A bare table, a shallow bowl placed on it and filled with water, a
duck rather better finished than the first, and so on. We often watch
the thing and at last we notice that the duck, when at rest. always
turns the same way. We follow up this observation; we examine the
direction, we find that it is from south to north. Enough! we have
found our compass or its equivalent; the study of physics is begun.
There are various regions of the earth, and these regions differ
in temperature. The variation is more evident as we approach the
poles; all bodies expand with heat and contract with cold; this is
best measured in liquids and best of all in spirits; hence the
thermometer. The wind strikes the face, then the air is a body, a
fluid; we feel it though we cannot see it. I invert a glass in water;
the water will not fill it unless you leave a passage for the escape
of the air; so air is capable of resistance. Plunge the glass further
in the water; the water will encroach on the air-space without filling
it entirely; so air yields somewhat to pressure. A ball filled with
compressed air bounces better than one filled with anything else; so
air is elastic. Raise your arm horizontally from the water when you
are lying in your bath; you will feel a terrible weight on it; so air
is a heavy body. By establishing an equilibrium between air and other
fluids its weight can be measured, hence the barometer, the siphon,
the air-gun, and the air-pump. All the laws of statics and
hydrostatics are discovered by such rough experiments. For none of
these would I take the child into a physical cabinet; I dislike that
array of instruments and apparatus. The scientific atmosphere
destroys science. Either the child is frightened by these instruments
or his attention, which should be fixed on their effects, is
distracted by their appearance.
We shall make all our apparatus ourselves, and I would not make it
beforehand, but having caught a glimpse of the experiment by chance
we mean to invent step by step an instrument for its verification. I
would rather our apparatus was somewhat clumsy and imperfect, but our
ideas clear as to what the apparatus ought to be, and the results to
be obtained by means of it. For my first lesson in statics, instead of
fetching a balance, I lay a stick across the back of a chair, I
measure the two parts when it is balanced; add equal or unequal
weights to either end; by pulling or pushing it as required, I find at
last that equilibrium is the result of a reciprocal proportion between
the amount of the weights and the length of the levers. Thus my little
physicist is ready to rectify a balance before ever he sees one.
Undoubtedly the notions of things thus acquired for oneself are
clearer and much more convincing than those acquired from the teaching
of others; and not only is our reason not accustomed to a slavish
submission to authority, but we develop greater ingenuity in
discovering relations, connecting ideas and inventing apparatus, than
when we merely accept what is given us and allow our minds to be
enfeebled by indifference, like the body of a man whose servants
always wait on him, dress him and put on his shoes, whose horse
carries him, till he loses the use of his limbs. Boileau used to
boast that he had taught Racine the art of rhyming with difficulty.
Among the many short cuts to science, we badly need some one to teach
us the art of learning with difficulty.
The most obvious advantage of these slow and laborious inquiries
is this: the scholar, while engaged in speculative studies, is
actively using his body, gaining suppleness of limb, and training his
hands to labour so that he will be able to make them useful when he is
a man. Too much apparatus, designed to guide us in our experiments and
to supplement the exactness of our senses, makes us neglect to use
those senses. The theodolite makes it unnecessary to estimate the size
of angles; the eye which used to judge distances with much precision,
trusts to the chain for its measurements; the steel yard dispenses
with the need of judging weight by the hand as I used to do. The more
ingenious our apparatus, the coarser and more unskilful are our
senses. We surround ourselves with tools and fail to use those with
which nature has provided every one of us.
But when we devote to the making of these instruments the skill
which did instead of them, when for their construction we use the
intelligence which enabled us to dispense with them, this is gain not
loss, we add art to nature, we gain ingenuity without loss of skill.
If instead of making a child stick to his books I employ him in a
workshop, his hands work for the development of his mind. While he
fancies himself a workman he is becoming a philosopher. Moreover, this
exercise has other advantages of which I shall speak later; and you
will see how, through philosophy in sport, one may rise to the real
duties of man.
I have said already that purely theoretical science is hardly
suitable for children, even for children approaching adolescence; but
without going far into theoretical physics, take care that all their
experiments are connected together by some chain of reasoning, so that
they may follow an orderly sequence in the mind, and may be recalled
at need; for it is very difficult to remember isolated facts or
arguments, when there is no cue for their recall.
In your inquiry into the laws of nature always begin with the
commonest and most conspicuous phenomena, and train your scholar not
to accept these phenomena as causes but as facts. I take a stone and
pretend to place it in the air; I open my hand, the stone falls. I see
Emile watching my action and I say, "Why does this stone fall?"
What child will hesitate over this question? None, not even Emile,
unless I have taken great pains to teach him not to answer. Every one
will say, "The stone falls because it is heavy." "And what do you mean
by heavy?" "That which falls." "So the stone falls because it falls?"
Here is a poser for my little philosopher. This is his first lesson in
systematic physics, and whether he learns physics or no it is a good
lesson in common-sense.
As the child develops in intelligence other important
considerations require us to be still more careful in our choice of
his occupations. As soon as he has sufficient self-knowledge to
understand what constitutes his well-being, as soon as he can grasp
such far-reaching relations as to judge what is good for him and what
is not, then he is able to discern the difference between work and
play, and to consider the latter merely as relaxation. The objects of
real utility may be introduced into his studies and may lead him to
more prolonged attention than he gave to his games. The ever-recurring
law of necessity soon teaches a man to do what he does not like, so
as to avert evils which he would dislike still more. Such is the use
of foresight, and this foresight, well or ill used, is the source of
all the wisdom or the wretchedness of mankind.
Every one desires happiness, but to secure it he must know what
happiness is. For the natural man happiness is as simple as his life;
it consists in the absence of pain; health, freedom, the necessaries
of life are its elements. The happiness of the moral man is another
matter, but it does not concern us at present. I cannot repeat too
often that it is only objects which can be perceived by the senses
which can have any interest for children, especially children whose
vanity has not been stimulated nor their minds corrupted by social
conventions.
As soon as they foresee their needs before they feel them, their
intelligence has made a great step forward, they are beginning to
know the value of time. They must then be trained to devote this time
to useful purposes, but this usefulness should be such as they can
readily perceive and should be within the reach of their age and
experience. What concerns the moral order and the customs of society
should not yet be given them, for they are not in a condition to
understand it. It is folly to expect them to attend to things vaguely
described as good for them, when they do not know what this good is,
things which they are assured will be to their advantage when they are
grown up, though for the present they take no interest in this
so-called advantage, which they are unable to understand.
Let the child do nothing because he is told; nothing is good for
him but what he recognises as good. When you are always urging him
beyond his present understanding, you think you are exercising a
foresight which you really lack. To provide him with useless tools
which he may never require, you deprive him of man's most useful
tool—common-sense. You would have him docile as a child; he will be
a credulous dupe when he grows up. You are always saying, "What I ask
is for your good, though you cannot understand it. What does it matter
to me whether you do it or not; my efforts are entirely on your
account." All these fine speeches with which you hope to make him
good, are preparing the way, so that the visionary, the tempter, the
charlatan, the rascal, and every kind of fool may catch him in his
snare or draw him into his folly.
A man must know many things which seem useless to a child, but
need the child learn, or can he indeed learn, all that the man must
know? Try to teach the child what is of use to a child and you will
find that it takes all his time. Why urge him to the studies of an age
he may never reach, to the neglect of those studies which meet his
present needs? "But," you ask, "will it not be too late to learn what
he ought to know when the time comes to use it?" I cannot tell; but
this I do know, it is impossible to teach it sooner, for our real
teachers are experience and emotion, and man will never learn what
befits a man except under its own conditions. A child knows he must
become a man; all the ideas he may have as to man's estate are so many
opportunities for his instruction, but he should remain in complete
ignorance of those ideas which are beyond his grasp. My whole book is
one continued argument in support of this fundamental principle of
education.
As soon as we have contrived to give our pupil an idea of the word
"Useful," we have got an additional means of controlling him, for this
word makes a great impression on him, provided that its meaning for
him is a meaning relative to his own age, and provided he clearly sees
its relation to his own well-being. This word makes no impression on
your scholars because you have taken no pains to give it a meaning
they can understand, and because other people always undertake to
supply their needs so that they never require to think for themselves,
and do not know what utility is.
"What is the use of that?" In future this is the sacred formula,
the formula by which he and I test every action of our lives. This is
the question with which I invariably answer all his questions; it
serves to check the stream of foolish and tiresome questions with
which children weary those about them. These incessant questions
produce no result, and their object is rather to get a hold over you
than to gain any real advantage. A pupil, who has been really taught
only to want to know what is useful, questions like Socrates; he never
asks a question without a reason for it, for he knows he will be
required to give his reason before he gets an answer.
See what a powerful instrument I have put into your hands for use
with your pupil. As he does not know the reason for anything you can
reduce him to silence almost at will; and what advantages do your
knowledge and experience give you to show him the usefulness of what
you suggest. For, make no mistake about it, when you put this question
to him, you are teaching him to put it to you, and you must expect
that whatever you suggest to him in the future he will follow your own
example and ask, "What is the use of this?"
Perhaps this is the greatest of the tutor's difficulties. If you
merely try to put the child off when he asks a question, and if you
give him a single reason he is not able to understand, if he finds
that you reason according to your own ideas, not his, he will think
what you tell him is good for you but not for him; you will lose his
confidence and all your labour is thrown away. But what master will
stop short and confess his faults to his pupil? We all make it a rule
never to own to the faults we really have. Now I would make it a rule
to admit even the faults I have not, if I could not make my reasons
clear to him; as my conduct will always be intelligible to him, he
will never doubt me and I shall gain more credit by confessing my
imaginary faults than those who conceal their real defects.
In the first place do not forget that it is rarely your business
to suggest what he ought to learn; it is for him to want to learn, to
seek and to find it. You should put it within his reach, you should
skilfully awaken the desire and supply him with means for its
satisfaction. So your questions should be few and well-chosen, and as
he will always have more questions to put to you than you to him, you
will always have the advantage and will be able to ask all the
oftener, "What is the use of that question?" Moreover, as it matters
little what he learns provided he understands it and knows how to use
it, as soon as you cannot give him a suitable explanation give him
none at all. Do not hesitate to say, "I have no good answer to give
you; I was wrong, let us drop the subject." If your teaching was
really ill-chosen there is no harm in dropping it altogether; if it
was not, with a little care you will soon find an opportunity of
making its use apparent to him.
I do not like verbal explanations. Young people pay little heed to
them, nor do they remember them. Things! Things! I cannot repeat it
too often. We lay too much stress upon words; we teachers babble, and
our scholars follow our example.
Suppose we are studying the course of the sun and the way to find
our bearings, when all at once Emile interrupts me with the question,
"What is the use of that?" what a fine lecture I might give, how many
things I might take occasion to teach him in reply to his question,
especially if there is any one there. I might speak of the advantages
of travel, the value of commerce, the special products of different
lands and the peculiar customs of different nations, the use of the
calendar, the way to reckon the seasons for agriculture, the art of
navigation, how to steer our course at sea, how to find our way
without knowing exactly where we are. Politics, natural history,
astronomy, even morals and international law are involved in my
explanation, so as to give my pupil some idea of all these sciences
and a great wish to learn them. When I have finished I shall have
shown myself a regular pedant, I shall have made a great display of
learning, and not one single idea has he understood. He is longing to
ask me again, "What is the use of taking one's bearings?" but he dare
not for fear of vexing me. He finds it pays best to pretend to listen
to what he is forced to hear. This is the practical result of our fine
systems of education.
But Emile is educated in a simpler fashion. We take so much pains
to teach him a difficult idea that he will have heard nothing of all
this. At the first word he does not understand, he will run away, he
will prance about the room, and leave me to speechify by myself. Let
us seek a more commonplace explanation; my scientific learning is of
no use to him.
We were observing the position of the forest to the north of
Montmorency when he interrupted me with the usual question, "What is
the use of that?" "You are right," I said. "Let us take time to think
it over, and if we find it is no use we will drop it, for we only want
useful games." We find something else to do and geography is put aside
for the day.
Next morning I suggest a walk before breakfast; there is nothing
he would like better; children are always ready to run about, and he
is a good walker. We climb up to the forest, we wander through its
clearings and lose ourselves; we have no idea where we are, and when
we want to retrace our steps we cannot find the way. Time passes, we
are hot and hungry; hurrying vainly this way and that we find nothing
but woods, quarries, plains, not a landmark to guide us. Very hot,
very tired, very hungry, we only get further astray. At last we sit
down to rest and to consider our position. I assume that Emile has
been educated like an ordinary child. He does not think, he begins to
cry; he has no idea we are close to Montmorency, which is hidden from
our view by a mere thicket; but this thicket is a forest to him, a man
of his size is buried among bushes. After a few minutes' silence I
begin anxiously——
JEAN JACQUES. My dear Emile, what shall we do get out?
EMILE. I am sure I do not know. I am tired, I am hungry, I am
thirsty. I cannot go any further.
JEAN JACQUES. Do you suppose I am any better off? I would cry too
if I could make my breakfast off tears. Crying is no use, we must
look about us. Let us see your watch; what time is it?
EMILE. It is noon and I am so hungry!
JEAN JACQUES. Just so; it is noon and I am so hungry too.
EMILE. You must be very hungry indeed.
JEAN JACQUES. Unluckily my dinner won't come to find me. It is
twelve o'clock. This time yesterday we were observing the position of
the forest from Montmorency. If only we could see the position of
Montmorency from the forest.
EMILE. But yesterday we could see the forest, and here we cannot
see the town.
JEAN JACQUES. That is just it. If we could only find it without
seeing it.
EMILE. Oh! my dear friend!
JEAN JACQUES. Did not we say the forest was...
EMILE. North of Montmorency.
JEAN JACQUES. Then Montmorency must lie...
EMILE. South of the forest.
JEAN JACQUES. We know how to find the north at midday.
EMILE. Yes, by the direction of the shadows.
JEAN JACQUES. But the south?
EMILE. What shall we do?
JEAN JACQUES. The south is opposite the north.
EMILE. That is true; we need only find the opposite of the shadows.
That is the south! That is the south! Montmorency must be over there!
Let us look for it there!
JEAN JACQUES. Perhaps you are right; let us follow this path
through the wood.
EMILE. (Clapping his hands.) Oh, I can see Montmorency! there it
is, quite plain, just in front of us! Come to luncheon, come to
dinner, make haste! Astronomy is some use after all.
Be sure that he thinks this if he does not say it; no matter which,
provided I do not say it myself. He will certainly never forget this
day's lesson as long as he lives, while if I had only led him to think
of all this at home, my lecture would have been forgotten the next
day. Teach by doing whenever you can, and only fall back upon words
when doing is out of the question.
The reader will not expect me to have such a poor opinion of him
as to supply him with an example of every kind of study; but, whatever
is taught, I cannot too strongly urge the tutor to adapt his instances
to the capacity of his scholar; for once more I repeat the risk is not
in what he does not know, but in what he thinks he knows.
I remember how I once tried to give a child a taste for chemistry.
After showing him several metallic precipitates, I explained how ink
was made. I told him how its blackness was merely the result of fine
particles of iron separated from the vitriol and precipitated by an
alkaline solution. In the midst of my learned explanation the little
rascal pulled me up short with the question I myself had taught him.
I was greatly puzzled. After a few moments' thought I decided what to
do. I sent for some wine from the cellar of our landlord, and some
very cheap wine from a wine-merchant. I took a small [Footnote: Before
giving any explanation to a child a little bit of apparatus serves to
fix his attention.] flask of an alkaline solution, and placing two
glasses before me filled with the two sorts of wine, I said.
Food and drink are adulterated to make them seem better than they
really are. These adulterations deceive both the eye and the palate,
but they are unwholesome and make the adulterated article even worse
than before in spite of its fine appearance.
All sorts of drinks are adulterated, and wine more than others;
for the fraud is more difficult to detect, and more profitable to the
fraudulent person.
Sour wine is adulterated with litharge; litharge is a preparation
of lead. Lead in combination with acids forms a sweet salt which
corrects the harsh taste of the sour wine, but it is poisonous. So
before we drink wine of doubtful quality we should be able to tell if
there is lead in it. This is how I should do it.
Wine contains not merely an inflammable spirit as you have seen
from the brandy made from it; it also contains an acid as you know
from the vinegar made from it.
This acid has an affinity for metals, it combines with them and
forms salts, such as iron-rust, which is only iron dissolved by the
acid in air or water, or such as verdegris, which is only copper
dissolved in vinegar.
But this acid has a still greater affinity for alkalis than for
metals, so that when we add alkalis to the above-mentioned salts, the
acid sets free the metal with which it had combined, and combines with
the alkali.
Then the metal, set free by the acid which held it in solution, is
precipitated and the liquid becomes opaque.
If then there is litharge in either of these glasses of wine, the
acid holds the litharge in solution. When I pour into it an alkaline
solution, the acid will be forced to set the lead free in order to
combine with the alkali. The lead, no longer held in solution, will
reappear, the liquor will become thick, and after a time the lead will
be deposited at the bottom of the glass.
If there is no lead [Footnote: The wine sold by retail dealers in
Paris is rarely free from lead, though some of it does not contain
litharge, for the counters are covered with lead and when the wine is
poured into the measures and some of it spilt upon the counter and the
measures left standing on the counter, some of the lead is always
dissolved. It is strange that so obvious and dangerous an abuse should
be tolerated by the police. But indeed well-to-do people, who rarely
drink these wines, are not likely to be poisoned by them.] nor other
metal in the wine the alkali will slowly [Footnote: The vegetable acid
is very gentle in its action. If it were a mineral acid and less
diluted, the combination would not take place without effervescence.]
combine with the acid, all will remain clear and there will be no
precipitate.
Then I poured my alkaline solution first into one glass and then
into the other. The wine from our own house remained clear and
unclouded, the other at once became turbid, and an hour later the
lead might be plainly seen, precipitated at the bottom of the glass.
"This," said I, "is a pure natural wine and fit to drink; the
other is adulterated and poisonous. You wanted to know the use of
knowing how to make ink. If you can make ink you can find out what
wines are adulterated."
I was very well pleased with my illustration, but I found it made
little impression on my pupil. When I had time to think about it I
saw I had been a fool, for not only was it impossible for a child of
twelve to follow my explanations, but the usefulness of the experiment
did not appeal to him; he had tasted both glasses of wine and found
them both good, so he attached no meaning to the word "adulterated"
which I thought I had explained so nicely. Indeed, the other words,
"unwholesome" and "poison," had no meaning whatever for him; he was in
the same condition as the boy who told the story of Philip and his
doctor. It is the condition of all children.
The relation of causes and effects whose connection is unknown to
us, good and ill of which we have no idea, the needs we have never
felt, have no existence for us. It is impossible to interest ourselves
in them sufficiently to make us do anything connected with them. At
fifteen we become aware of the happiness of a good man, as at thirty
we become aware of the glory of Paradise. If we had no clear idea of
either we should make no effort for their attainment; and even if we
had a clear idea of them, we should make little or no effort unless we
desired them and unless we felt we were made for them. It is easy to
convince a child that what you wish to teach him is useful, but it is
useless to convince if you cannot also persuade. Pure reason may lead
us to approve or censure, but it is feeling which leads to action, and
how shall we care about that which does not concern us?
Never show a child what he cannot see. Since mankind is almost
unknown to him, and since you cannot make a man of him, bring the man
down to the level of the child. While you are thinking what will be
useful to him when he is older, talk to him of what he knows he can
use now. Moreover, as soon as he begins to reason let there be no
comparison with other children, no rivalry, no competition, not even
in running races. I would far rather he did not learn anything than
have him learn it through jealousy or self-conceit. Year by year I
shall just note the progress he had made, I shall compare the results
with those of the following year, I shall say, "You have grown so
much; that is the ditch you jumped, the weight you carried, the
distance you flung a pebble, the race you ran without stopping to take
breath, etc.; let us see what you can do now."
In this way he is stimulated to further effort without jealousy.
He wants to excel himself as he ought to do; I see no reason why he
should not emulate his own performances.
I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know
nothing about. Hermes, they say, engraved the elements of science on
pillars lest a deluge should destroy them. Had he imprinted them on
men's hearts they would have been preserved by tradition. Well-trained
minds are the pillars on which human knowledge is most deeply
engraved.
Is there no way of correlating so many lessons scattered through
so many books, no way of focussing them on some common object, easy
to see, interesting to follow, and stimulating even to a child? Could
we but discover a state in which all man's needs appear in such a way
as to appeal to the child's mind, a state in which the ways of
providing for these needs are as easily developed, the simple and
stirring portrayal of this state should form the earliest training of
the child's imagination.
Eager philosopher, I see your own imagination at work. Spare
yourself the trouble; this state is already known, it is described,
with due respect to you, far better than you could describe it, at
least with greater truth and simplicity. Since we must have books.
there is one book which, to my thinking, supplies the best treatise
on an education according to nature. This is the first book Emile will
read; for a long time it will form his whole library, and it will
always retain an honoured place. It will be the text to which all our
talks about natural science are but the commentary. It will serve to
test our progress towards a right judgment, and it will always be read
with delight, so long as our taste is unspoilt. What is this wonderful
book? Is it Aristotle? Pliny? Buffon? No; it is Robinson Crusoe.
Robinson Crusoe on his island, deprived of the help of his
fellow-men, without the means of carrying on the various arts, yet
finding food, preserving his life, and procuring a certain amount of
comfort; this is the thing to interest people of all ages, and it can
be made attractive to children in all sorts of ways. We shall thus
make a reality of that desert island which formerly served as an
illustration. The condition, I confess, is not that of a social being,
nor is it in all probability Emile's own condition, but he should use
it as a standard of comparison for all other conditions. The surest
way to raise him above prejudice and to base his judgments on the true
relations of things, is to put him in the place of a solitary man, and
to judge all things as they would be judged by such a man in relation
to their own utility.
This novel, stripped of irrelevant matter, begins with Robinson's
shipwreck on his island, and ends with the coming of the ship which
bears him from it, and it will furnish Emile with material, both for
work and play, during the whole period we are considering. His head
should be full of it, he should always be busy with his castle, his
goats, his plantations. Let him learn in detail, not from books but
from things, all that is necessary in such a case. Let him think he is
Robinson himself; let him see himself clad in skins, wearing a tall
cap, a great cutlass, all the grotesque get-up of Robinson Crusoe,
even to the umbrella which he will scarcely need. He should anxiously
consider what steps to take; will this or that be wanting. He should
examine his hero's conduct; has he omitted nothing; is there nothing
he could have done better? He should carefully note his mistakes, so
as not to fall into them himself in similar circumstances, for you may
be sure he will plan out just such a settlement for himself. This is
the genuine castle in the air of this happy age, when the child knows
no other happiness but food and freedom.
What a motive will this infatuation supply in the hands of a
skilful teacher who has aroused it for the purpose of using it. The
child who wants to build a storehouse on his desert island will be
more eager to learn than the master to teach. He will want to know all
sorts of useful things and nothing else; you will need the curb as
well as the spur. Make haste, therefore, to establish him on his
island while this is all he needs to make him happy; for the day is
at hand, when, if he must still live on his island, he will not be
content to live alone, when even the companionship of Man Friday, who
is almost disregarded now, will not long suffice.
The exercise of the natural arts, which may be carried on by one
man alone, leads on to the industrial arts which call for the
cooperation of many hands. The former may be carried on by hermits,
by savages, but the others can only arise in a society, and they make
society necessary. So long as only bodily needs are recognised man is
self-sufficing; with superfluity comes the need for division and
distribution of labour, for though one man working alone can earn a
man's living, one hundred men working together can earn the living of
two hundred. As soon as some men are idle, others must work to make up
for their idleness.
Your main object should be to keep out of your scholar's way all
idea of such social relations as he cannot understand, but when the
development of knowledge compels you to show him the mutual dependence
of mankind, instead of showing him its moral side, turn all his
attention at first towards industry and the mechanical arts which make
men useful to one another. While you take him from one workshop to
another, let him try his hand at every trade you show him, and do not
let him leave it till he has thoroughly learnt why everything is done,
or at least everything that has attracted his attention. With this aim
you should take a share in his work and set him an example. Be
yourself the apprentice that he may become a master; you may expect
him to learn more in one hour's work than he would retain after a
whole day's explanation.
The value set by the general public on the various arts is in
inverse ratio to their real utility. They are even valued directly
according to their uselessness. This might be expected. The most
useful arts are the worst paid, for the number of workmen is regulated
by the demand, and the work which everybody requires must necessarily
be paid at a rate which puts it within the reach of the poor. On the
other hand, those great people who are called artists, not artisans,
who labour only for the rich and idle, put a fancy price on their
trifles; and as the real value of this vain labour is purely
imaginary, the price itself adds to their market value, and they are
valued according to their costliness. The rich think so much of these
things, not because they are useful, but because they are beyond the
reach of the poor. Nolo habere bona, nisi quibus populus inviderit.
What will become of your pupils if you let them acquire this
foolish prejudice, if you share it yourself? If, for instance, they
see you show more politeness in a jeweller's shop than in a
locksmith's. What idea will they form of the true worth of the arts
and the real value of things when they see, on the one hand, a fancy
price and, on the other, the price of real utility, and that the more
a thing costs the less it is worth? As soon as you let them get hold
of these ideas, you may give up all attempt at further education; in
spite of you they will be like all the other scholars—you have
wasted fourteen years.
Emile, bent on furnishing his island, will look at things from
another point of view. Robinson would have thought more of a
toolmaker's shop than all Saide's trifles put together. He would have
reckoned the toolmaker a very worthy man, and Saide little more than a
charlatan.
"My son will have to take the world as he finds it, he will not
live among the wise but among fools; he must therefore be acquainted
with their follies, since they must be led by this means. A real
knowledge of things may be a good thing in itself, but the knowledge
of men and their opinions is better, for in human society man is the
chief tool of man, and the wisest man is he who best knows the use of
this tool. What is the good of teaching children an imaginary system,
just the opposite of the established order of things, among which they
will have to live? First teach them wisdom, then show them the follies
of mankind."
These are the specious maxims by which fathers, who mistake them
for prudence, strive to make their children the slaves of the
prejudices in which they are educated, and the puppets of the
senseless crowd, which they hope to make subservient to their
passions. How much must be known before we attain to a knowledge of
man. This is the final study of the philosopher, and you expect to
make it the first lesson of the child! Before teaching him our
sentiments, first teach him to judge of their worth. Do you perceive
folly when you mistake it for wisdom? To be wise we must discern
between good and evil. How can your child know men, when he can
neither judge of their judgments nor unravel their mistakes? It is a
misfortune to know what they think, without knowing whether their
thoughts are true or false. First teach him things as they really
are, afterwards you will teach him how they appear to us. He will then
be able to make a comparison between popular ideas and truth, and be
able to rise above the vulgar crowd; for you are unaware of the
prejudices you adopt, and you do not lead a nation when you are like
it. But if you begin to teach the opinions of other people before you
teach how to judge of their worth, of one thing you may be sure, your
pupil will adopt those opinions whatever you may do, and you will not
succeed in uprooting them. I am therefore convinced that to make a
young man judge rightly, you must form his judgment rather than teach
him your own.
So far you see I have not spoken to my pupil about men; he would
have too much sense to listen to me. His relations to other people
are as yet not sufficiently apparent to him to enable him to judge
others by himself. The only person he knows is himself, and his
knowledge of himself is very imperfect. But if he forms few opinions
about others, those opinions are correct. He knows nothing of
another's place, but he knows his own and keeps to it. I have bound
him with the strong cord of necessity, instead of social laws, which
are beyond his knowledge. He is still little more than a body; let us
treat him as such.
Every substance in nature and every work of man must be judged in
relation to his own use, his own safety, his own preservation, his own
comfort. Thus he should value iron far more than gold, and glass than
diamonds; in the same way he has far more respect for a shoemaker or a
mason than for a Lempereur, a Le Blanc, or all the jewellers in
Europe. In his eyes a confectioner is a really great man, and he would
give the whole academy of sciences for the smallest pastrycook in
Lombard Street. Goldsmiths, engravers, gilders, and embroiderers, he
considers lazy people, who play at quite useless games. He does not
even think much of a clockmaker. The happy child enjoys Time without
being a slave to it; he uses it, but he does not know its value. The
freedom from passion which makes every day alike to him, makes any
means of measuring time unnecessary. When I assumed that Emile had a
watch, [Footnote: When our hearts are abandoned to the sway of
passion, then it is that we need a measure of time. The wise man's
watch is his equable temper and his peaceful heart. He is always
punctual, and he always knows the time.] just as I assumed that he
cried, it was a commonplace Emile that I chose to serve my purpose and
make myself understood. The real Emile, a child so different from the
rest, would not serve as an illustration for anything.
There is an order no less natural and even more accurate, by which
the arts are valued according to bonds of necessity which connect
them; the highest class consists of the most independent, the lowest
of those most dependent on others. This classification, which suggests
important considerations on the order of society in general, is like
the preceding one in that it is subject to the same inversion in
popular estimation, so that the use of raw material is the work of the
lowest and worst paid trades, while the oftener the material changes
hands, the more the work rises in price and in honour. I do not ask
whether industry is really greater and more deserving of reward when
engaged in the delicate arts which give the final shape to these
materials, than in the labour which first gave them to man's use; but
this I say, that in everything the art which is most generally useful
and necessary, is undoubtedly that which most deserves esteem, and
that art which requires the least help from others, is more worthy of
honour than those which are dependent on other arts, since it is freer
and more nearly independent. These are the true laws of value in the
arts; all others are arbitrary and dependent on popular prejudice.
Agriculture is the earliest and most honourable of arts; metal work
I put next, then carpentry, and so on. This is the order in which the
child will put them, if he has not been spoilt by vulgar prejudices.
What valuable considerations Emile will derive from his Robinson in
such matters. What will he think when he sees the arts only brought to
perfection by sub-division, by the infinite multiplication of tools.
He will say, "All those people are as silly as they are ingenious; one
would think they were afraid to use their eyes and their hands, they
invent so many tools instead. To carry on one trade they become the
slaves of many others; every single workman needs a whole town. My
friend and I try to gain skill; we only make tools we can take about
with us; these people, who are so proud of their talents in Paris,
would be no use at all on our island; they would have to become
apprentices."
Reader, do not stay to watch the bodily exercises and manual skill
of our pupil, but consider the bent we are giving to his childish
curiosity; consider his common-sense, his inventive spirit, his
foresight; consider what a head he will have on his shoulders. He
will want to know all about everything he sees or does, to learn the
why and the wherefore of it; from tool to tool he will go back to the
first beginning, taking nothing for granted; he will decline to learn
anything that requires previous knowledge which he has not acquired.
If he sees a spring made he will want to know how they got the steel
from the mine; if he sees the pieces of a chest put together, he will
want to know how the tree was out down; when at work he will say of
each tool, "If I had not got this, how could I make one like it, or
how could I get along without it?"
It is, however, difficult to avoid another error. When the master
is very fond of certain occupations, he is apt to assume that the
child shares his tastes; beware lest you are carried away by the
interest of your work, while the child is bored by it, but is afraid
to show it. The child must come first, and you must devote yourself
entirely to him. Watch him, study him constantly, without his knowing
it; consider his feelings beforehand, and provide against those which
are undesirable, keep him occupied in such a way that he not only
feels the usefulness of the thing, but takes a pleasure in
understanding the purpose which his work will serve.
The solidarity of the arts consists in the exchange of industry,
that of commerce in the exchange of commodities, that of banks in the
exchange of money or securities. All these ideas hang together, and
their foundation has already been laid in early childhood with the
help of Robert the gardener. All we have now to do is to substitute
general ideas for particular, and to enlarge these ideas by means of
numerous examples, so as to make the child understand the game of
business itself, brought home to him by means of particular instances
of natural history with regard to the special products of each
country, by particular instances of the arts and sciences which
concern navigation and the difficulties of transport, greater or less
in proportion to the distance between places, the position of land,
seas, rivers, etc.
There can be no society without exchange, no exchange without a
common standard of measurement, no common standard of measurement
without equality. Hence the first law of every society is some
conventional equality either in men or things.
Conventional equality between men, a very different thing from
natural equality, leads to the necessity for positive law, i.e.,
government and kings. A child's political knowledge should be clear
and restricted; he should know nothing of government in general,
beyond what concerns the rights of property, of which he has already
some idea.
Conventional equality between things has led to the invention of
money, for money is only one term in a comparison between the values
of different sorts of things; and in this sense money is the real
bond of society; but anything may be money; in former days it was
cattle; shells are used among many tribes at the present day; Sparta
used iron; Sweden, leather; while we use gold and silver.
Metals, being easier to carry, have generally been chosen as the
middle term of every exchange, and these metals have been made into
coin to save the trouble of continual weighing and measuring, for the
stamp on the coin is merely evidence that the coin is of given weight;
and the sole right of coining money is vested in the ruler because he
alone has the right to demand the recognition of his authority by the
whole nation.
The stupidest person can perceive the use of money when it is
explained in this way. It is difficult to make a direct comparison
between various things, for instance, between cloth and corn; but
when we find a common measure, in money, it is easy for the
manufacturer and the farmer to estimate the value of the goods they
wish to exchange in terms of this common measure. If a given quantity
of cloth is worth a given some of money, and a given quantity of corn
is worth the same sum of money, then the seller, receiving the corn in
exchange for his cloth, makes a fair bargain. Thus by means of money
it becomes possible to compare the values of goods of various kinds.
Be content with this, and do not touch upon the moral effects of
this institution. In everything you must show clearly the use before
the abuse. If you attempt to teach children how the sign has led to
the neglect of the thing signified, how money is the source of all the
false ideas of society, how countries rich in silver must be poor in
everything else, you will be treating these children as philosophers,
and not only as philosophers but as wise men, for you are professing
to teach them what very few philosophers have grasped.
What a wealth of interesting objects, towards which the curiosity
of our pupil may be directed without ever quitting the real and
material relations he can understand, and without permitting the
formation of a single idea beyond his grasp! The teacher's art
consists in this: To turn the child's attention from trivial details
and to guide his thoughts continually towards relations of importance
which he will one day need to know, that he may judge rightly of good
and evil in human society. The teacher must be able to adapt the
conversation with which he amuses his pupil to the turn already given
to his mind. A problem which another child would never heed will
torment Emile half a year.
We are going to dine with wealthy people; when we get there
everything is ready for a feast, many guests, many servants, many
dishes, dainty and elegant china. There is something intoxicating in
all these preparations for pleasure and festivity when you are not
used to them. I see how they will affect my young pupil. While dinner
is going on, while course follows course, and conversation is loud
around us, I whisper in his ear, "How many hands do you suppose the
things on this table passed through before they got here?" What a
crowd of ideas is called up by these few words. In a moment the mists
of excitement have rolled away. He is thinking, considering,
calculating, and anxious. The child is philosophising, while
philosophers, excited by wine or perhaps by female society, are
babbling like children. If he asks questions I decline to answer and
put him off to another day. He becomes impatient, he forgets to eat
and drink, he longs to get away from table and talk as he pleases.
What an object of curiosity, what a text for instruction. Nothing has
so far succeeded in corrupting his healthy reason; what will he think
of luxury when he finds that every quarter of the globe has been
ransacked, that some 2,000,000 men have laboured for years, that many
lives have perhaps been sacrificed, and all to furnish him with fine
clothes to be worn at midday and laid by in the wardrobe at night.
Be sure you observe what private conclusions he draws from all his
observations. If you have watched him less carefully than I suppose,
his thoughts may be tempted in another direction; he may consider
himself a person of great importance in the world, when he sees so
much labour concentrated on the preparation of his dinner. If you
suspect his thoughts will take this direction you can easily prevent
it, or at any rate promptly efface the false impression. As yet he
can only appropriate things by personal enjoyment, he can only judge
of their fitness or unfitness by their outward effects. Compare a
plain rustic meal, preceded by exercise, seasoned by hunger, freedom,
and delight, with this magnificent but tedious repast. This will
suffice to make him realise that he has got no real advantage from the
splendour of the feast, that his stomach was as well satisfied when he
left the table of the peasant, as when he left the table of the
banker; from neither had he gained anything he could really call his
own.
Just fancy what a tutor might say to him on such an occasion.
Consider the two dinners and decide for yourself which gave you most
pleasure, which seemed the merriest, at which did you eat and drink
most heartily, which was the least tedious and required least change
of courses? Yet note the difference—this black bread you so enjoy is
made from the peasant's own harvest; his wine is dark in colour and of
a common kind, but wholesome and refreshing; it was made in his own
vineyard; the cloth is made of his own hemp, spun and woven in the
winter by his wife and daughters and the maid; no hands but theirs
have touched the food. His world is bounded by the nearest mill and
the next market. How far did you enjoy all that the produce of distant
lands and the service of many people had prepared for you at the other
dinner? If you did not get a better meal, what good did this wealth do
you? how much of it was made for you? Had you been the master of the
house, the tutor might say, it would have been of still less use to
you; for the anxiety of displaying your enjoyment before the eyes of
others would have robbed you of it; the pains would be yours, the
pleasure theirs.
This may be a very fine speech, but it would be thrown away upon
Emile, as he cannot understand it, and he does not accept second-hand
opinions. Speak more simply to him. After these two experiences, say
to him some day, "Where shall we have our dinner to-day? Where that
mountain of silver covered three quarters of the table and those beds
of artificial flowers on looking glass were served with the dessert,
where those smart ladies treated you as a toy and pretended you said
what you did not mean; or in that village two leagues away, with those
good people who were so pleased to see us and gave us such delicious
cream?" Emile will not hesitate; he is not vain and he is no
chatterbox; he cannot endure constraint, and he does not care for fine
dishes; but he is always ready for a run in the country and is very
fond of good fruit and vegetables, sweet cream and kindly people.
[Footnote: This taste, which I assume my pupil to have acquired, is a
natural result of his education. Moreover, he has nothing foppish or
affected about him, so that the ladies take little notice of him and
he is less petted than other children; therefore he does not care for
them, and is less spoilt by their company; he is not yet of an age to
feel its charm. I have taken care not to teach him to kiss their
hands, to pay them compliments, or even to be more polite to them than
to men. It is my constant rule to ask nothing from him but what he can
understand, and there is no good reason why a child should treat one
sex differently from the other.] On our way, the thought will occur
to him, "All those people who laboured to prepare that grand feast
were either wasting their time or they have no idea how to enjoy
themselves."
My example may be right for one child and wrong for the rest. If
you enter into their way of looking at things you will know how to
vary your instances as required; the choice depends on the study of
the individual temperament, and this study in turn depends on the
opportunities which occur to show this temperament. You will not
suppose that, in the three or four years at our disposal, even the
most gifted child can get an idea of all the arts and sciences,
sufficient to enable him to study them for himself when he is older;
but by bringing before him what he needs to know, we enable him to
develop his own tastes, his own talents, to take the first step
towards the object which appeals to his individuality and to show us
the road we must open up to aid the work of nature.
There is another advantage of these trains of limited but exact
bits of knowledge; he learns by their connection and interdependence
how to rank them in his own estimation and to be on his guard against
those prejudices, common to most men, which draw them towards the
gifts they themselves cultivate and away from those they have
neglected. The man who clearly sees the whole, sees where each part
should be; the man who sees one part clearly and knows it thoroughly
may be a learned man, but the former is a wise man, and you remember
it is wisdom rather than knowledge that we hope to acquire.
However that may be, my method does not depend on my examples; it
depends on the amount of a man's powers at different ages, and the
choice of occupations adapted to those powers. I think it would be
easy to find a method which appeared to give better results, but if
it were less suited to the type, sex, and age of the scholar, I doubt
whether the results would really be as good.
At the beginning of this second period we took advantage of the
fact that our strength was more than enough for our needs, to enable
us to get outside ourselves. We have ranged the heavens and measured
the earth; we have sought out the laws of nature; we have explored
the whole of our island. Now let us return to ourselves, let us
unconsciously approach our own dwelling. We are happy indeed if we do
not find it already occupied by the dreaded foe, who is preparing to
seize it.
What remains to be done when we have observed all that lies around
us? We must turn to our own use all that we can get, we must increase
our comfort by means of our curiosity. Hitherto we have provided
ourselves with tools of all kinds, not knowing which we require.
Perhaps those we do not want will be useful to others, and perhaps we
may need theirs. Thus we discover the use of exchange; but for this we
must know each other's needs, what tools other people use, what they
can offer in exchange. Given ten men, each of them has ten different
requirements. To get what he needs for himself each must work at ten
different trades; but considering our different talents, one will do
better at this trade, another at that. Each of them, fitted for one
thing, will work at all, and will be badly served. Let us form these
ten men into a society, and let each devote himself to the trade for
which he is best adapted, and let him work at it for himself and for
the rest. Each will reap the advantage of the others' talents, just as
if they were his own; by practice each will perfect his own talent,
and thus all the ten, well provided for, will still have something to
spare for others. This is the plain foundation of all our
institutions. It is not my aim to examine its results here; I have
done so in another book (Discours sur l'inegalite).
According to this principle, any one who wanted to consider himself
as an isolated individual, self-sufficing and independent of others,
could only be utterly wretched. He could not even continue to exist,
for finding the whole earth appropriated by others while he had only
himself, how could he get the means of subsistence? When we leave the
state of nature we compel others to do the same; no one can remain in
a state of nature in spite of his fellow-creatures, and to try to
remain in it when it is no longer practicable, would really be to
leave it, for self-preservation is nature's first law.
Thus the idea of social relations is gradually developed in the
child's mind, before he can really be an active member of human
society. Emile sees that to get tools for his own use, other people
must have theirs, and that he can get in exchange what he needs and
they possess. I easily bring him to feel the need of such exchange
and to take advantage of it.
"Sir, I must live," said a miserable writer of lampoons to the
minister who reproved him for his infamous trade. "I do not see the
necessity," replied the great man coldly. This answer, excellent from
the minister, would have been barbarous and untrue in any other mouth.
Every man must live; this argument, which appeals to every one with
more or less force in proportion to his humanity, strikes me as
unanswerable when applied to oneself. Since our dislike of death is
the strongest of those aversions nature has implanted in us, it
follows that everything is permissible to the man who has no other
means of living. The principles, which teach the good man to count his
life a little thing and to sacrifice it at duty's call, are far
removed from this primitive simplicity. Happy are those nations where
one can be good without effort, and just without conscious virtue. If
in this world there is any condition so miserable that one cannot live
without wrong-doing, where the citizen is driven into evil, you should
hang, not the criminal, but those who drove him into crime.
As soon as Emile knows what life is, my first care will be to
teach him to preserve his life. Hitherto I have made no distinction
of condition, rank, station, or fortune; nor shall I distinguish
between them in the future, since man is the same in every station;
the rich man's stomach is no bigger than the poor man's, nor is his
digestion any better; the master's arm is neither longer nor stronger
than the slave's; a great man is no taller than one of the people, and
indeed the natural needs are the same to all, and the means of
satisfying them should be equally within the reach of all. Fit a
man's education to his real self, not to what is no part of him. Do
you not see that in striving to fit him merely for one station, you
are unfitting him for anything else, so that some caprice of Fortune
may make your work really harmful to him? What could be more absurd
than a nobleman in rags, who carries with him into his poverty the
prejudices of his birth? What is more despicable than a rich man
fallen into poverty, who recalls the scorn with which he himself
regarded the poor, and feels that he has sunk to the lowest depth of
degradation? The one may become a professional thief, the other a
cringing servant, with this fine saying, "I must live."
You reckon on the present order of society, without considering
that this order is itself subject to inscrutable changes, and that
you can neither foresee nor provide against the revolution which may
affect your children. The great become small, the rich poor, the king
a commoner. Does fate strike so seldom that you can count on immunity
from her blows? The crisis is approaching, and we are on the edge of a
revolution. [Footnote: In my opinion it is impossible that the great
kingdoms of Europe should last much longer. Each of them has had its
period of splendour, after which it must inevitably decline. I have my
own opinions as to the special applications of this general statement,
but this is not the place to enter into details, and they are only too
evident to everybody.] Who can answer for your fate? What man has
made, man may destroy. Nature's characters alone are ineffaceable, and
nature makes neither the prince, the rich man, nor the nobleman. This
satrap whom you have educated for greatness, what will become of him
in his degradation? This farmer of the taxes who can only live on
gold, what will he do in poverty? This haughty fool who cannot use his
own hands, who prides himself on what is not really his, what will he
do when he is stripped of all? In that day, happy will he be who can
give up the rank which is no longer his, and be still a man in Fate's
despite. Let men praise as they will that conquered monarch who like
a madman would be buried beneath the fragments of his throne; I behold
him with scorn; to me he is merely a crown, and when that is gone he
is nothing. But he who loses his crown and lives without it, is more
than a king; from the rank of a king, which may be held by a coward, a
villain, or madman, he rises to the rank of a man, a position few can
fill. Thus he triumphs over Fortune, he dares to look her in the face;
he depends on himself alone, and when he has nothing left to show but
himself he is not a nonentity, he is somebody. Better a thousandfold
the king of Corinth a schoolmaster at Syracuse, than a wretched
Tarquin, unable to be anything but a king, or the heir of the ruler of
three kingdoms, the sport of all who would scorn his poverty,
wandering from court to court in search of help, and finding nothing
but insults, for want of knowing any trade but one which he can no
longer practise.
The man and the citizen, whoever he may be, has no property to
invest in society but himself, all his other goods belong to society
in spite of himself, and when a man is rich, either he does not enjoy
his wealth, or the public enjoys it too; in the first case he robs
others as well as himself; in the second he gives them nothing. Thus
his debt to society is still unpaid, while he only pays with his
property. "But my father was serving society while he was acquiring
his wealth." Just so; he paid his own debt, not yours. You owe more to
others than if you had been born with nothing, since you were born
under favourable conditions. It is not fair that what one man has done
for society should pay another's debt, for since every man owes all
that he is, he can only pay his own debt, and no father can transmit
to his son any right to be of no use to mankind. "But," you say, "this
is just what he does when he leaves me his wealth, the reward of his
labour." The man who eats in idleness what he has not himself earned,
is a thief, and in my eyes, the man who lives on an income paid him by
the state for doing nothing, differs little from a highwayman who
lives on those who travel his way. Outside the pale of society, the
solitary, owing nothing to any man, may live as he pleases, but in
society either he lives at the cost of others, or he owes them in
labour the cost of his keep; there is no exception to this rule. Man
in society is bound to work; rich or poor, weak or strong, every idler
is a thief.
Now of all the pursuits by which a man may earn his living, the
nearest to a state of nature is manual labour; of all stations that
of the artisan is least dependent on Fortune. The artisan depends on
his labour alone, he is a free man while the ploughman is a slave; for
the latter depends on his field where the crops may be destroyed by
others. An enemy, a prince, a powerful neighbour, or a law-suit may
deprive him of his field; through this field he may be harassed in all
sorts of ways. But if the artisan is ill-treated his goods are soon
packed and he takes himself off. Yet agriculture is the earliest, the
most honest of trades, and more useful than all the rest, and
therefore more honourable for those who practise it. I do not say to
Emile, "Study agriculture," he is already familiar with it. He is
acquainted with every kind of rural labour, it was his first
occupation, and he returns to it continually. So I say to him,
"Cultivate your father's lands, but if you lose this inheritance, or
if you have none to lose, what will you do? Learn a trade."
"A trade for my son! My son a working man! What are you thinking
of, sir?" Madam, my thoughts are wiser than yours; you want to make
him fit for nothing but a lord, a marquis, or a prince; and some day
he may be less than nothing. I want to give him a rank which he cannot
lose, a rank which will always do him honour; I want to raise him to
the status of a man, and, whatever you may say, he will have fewer
equals in that rank than in your own.
The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life. Learning a trade
matters less than overcoming the prejudices he despises. You will
never be reduced to earning your livelihood; so much the worse for
you. No matter; work for honour, not for need: stoop to the position
of a working man, to rise above your own. To conquer Fortune and
everything else, begin by independence. To rule through public
opinion, begin by ruling over it.
Remember I demand no talent, only a trade, a genuine trade, a mere
mechanical art, in which the hands work harder than the head, a trade
which does not lead to fortune but makes you independent of her. In
households far removed from all danger of want I have known fathers
carry prudence to such a point as to provide their children not only
with ordinary teaching but with knowledge by means of which they could
get a living if anything happened. These far-sighted parents thought
they were doing a great thing. It is nothing, for the resources they
fancy they have secured depend on that very fortune of which they
would make their children independent; so that unless they found
themselves in circumstances fitted for the display of their talents,
they would die of hunger as if they had none.
As soon as it is a question of influence and intrigue you may as
well use these means to keep yourself in plenty, as to acquire, in
the depths of poverty, the means of returning to your former position.
If you cultivate the arts which depend on the artist's reputation, if
you fit yourself for posts which are only obtained by favour, how will
that help you when, rightly disgusted with the world, you scorn the
steps by which you must climb. You have studied politics and
state-craft, so far so good; but how will you use this knowledge, if
you cannot gain the ear of the ministers, the favourites, or the
officials? if you have not the secret of winning their favour, if they
fail to find you a rogue to their taste? You are an architect or a
painter; well and good; but your talents must be displayed. Do you
suppose you can exhibit in the salon without further ado? That is not
the way to set about it. Lay aside the rule and the pencil, take a cab
and drive from door to door; there is the road to fame. Now you must
know that the doors of the great are guarded by porters and flunkeys,
who only understand one language, and their ears are in their palms.
If you wish to teach what you have learned, geography, mathematics,
languages, music, drawing, even to find pupils, you must have friends
who will sing your praises. Learning, remember, gains more credit
than skill, and with no trade but your own none will believe in your
skill. See how little you can depend on these fine "Resources," and
how many other resources are required before you can use what you have
got. And what will become of you in your degradation? Misfortune will
make you worse rather than better. More than ever the sport of public
opinion, how will you rise above the prejudices on which your fate
depends? How will you despise the vices and the baseness from which
you get your living? You were dependent on wealth, now you are
dependent on the wealthy; you are still a slave and a poor man into
the bargain. Poverty without freedom, can a man sink lower than this!
But if instead of this recondite learning adapted to feed the mind,
not the body, you have recourse, at need, to your hands and your
handiwork, there is no call for deceit, your trade is ready when
required. Honour and honesty will not stand in the way of your
living. You need no longer cringe and lie to the great, nor creep and
crawl before rogues, a despicable flatterer of both, a borrower or a
thief, for there is little to choose between them when you are
penniless. Other people's opinions are no concern of yours, you need
not pay court to any one, there is no fool to flatter, no flunkey to
bribe, no woman to win over. Let rogues conduct the affairs of state;
in your lowly rank you can still be an honest man and yet get a
living. You walk into the first workshop of your trade. "Master, I
want work." "Comrade, take your place and work." Before dinner-time
you have earned your dinner. If you are sober and industrious, before
the week is out you will have earned your keep for another week; you
will have lived in freedom, health, truth, industry, and
righteousness. Time is not wasted when it brings these returns.
Emile shall learn a trade. "An honest trade, at least," you say.
What do you mean by honest? Is not every useful trade honest? I would
not make an embroiderer, a gilder, a polisher of him, like Locke's
young gentleman. Neither would I make him a musician, an actor, or an
author.[Footnote: You are an author yourself, you will reply. Yes, for
my sins; and my ill deeds, which I think I have fully expiated, are no
reason why others should be like me. I do not write to excuse my
faults, but to prevent my readers from copying them.] With the
exception of these and others like them, let him choose his own trade,
I do not mean to interfere with his choice. I would rather have him a
shoemaker than a poet, I would rather he paved streets than painted
flowers on china. "But," you will say, "policemen, spies, and hangmen
are useful people." There would be no use for them if it were not for
the government. But let that pass. I was wrong. It is not enough to
choose an honest trade, it must be a trade which does not develop
detestable qualities in the mind, qualities incompatible with
humanity. To return to our original expression, "Let us choose an
honest trade," but let us remember there can be no honesty without
usefulness.
A famous writer of this century, whose books are full of great
schemes and narrow views, was under a vow, like the other priests of
his communion, not to take a wife. Finding himself more scrupulous
than others with regard to his neighbour's wife, he decided, so they
say, to employ pretty servants, and so did his best to repair the
wrong done to the race by his rash promise. He thought it the duty of
a citizen to breed children for the state, and he made his children
artisans. As soon as they were old enough they were taught whatever
trade they chose; only idle or useless trades were excluded, such as
that of the wigmaker who is never necessary, and may any day cease to
be required, so long as nature does not get tired of providing us with
hair.
This spirit shall guide our choice of trade for Emile, or rather,
not our choice but his; for the maxims he has imbibed make him
despise useless things, and he will never be content to waste his
time on vain labours; his trade must be of use to Robinson on his
island.
When we review with the child the productions of art and nature,
when we stimulate his curiosity and follow its lead, we have great
opportunities of studying his tastes and inclinations, and perceiving
the first spark of genius, if he has any decided talent in any
direction. You must, however, be on your guard against the common
error which mistakes the effects of environment for the ardour of
genius, or imagines there is a decided bent towards any one of the
arts, when there is nothing more than that spirit of emulation,
common to men and monkeys, which impels them instinctively to do what
they see others doing, without knowing why. The world is full of
artisans, and still fuller of artists, who have no native gift for
their calling, into which they were driven in early childhood, either
through the conventional ideas of other people, or because those about
them were deceived by an appearance of zeal, which would have led them
to take to any other art they saw practised. One hears a drum and
fancies he is a general; another sees a building and wants to be an
architect. Every one is drawn towards the trade he sees before him if
he thinks it is held in honour.
I once knew a footman who watched his master drawing and painting
and took it into his head to become a designer and artist. He seized
a pencil which he only abandoned for a paint-brush, to which he stuck
for the rest of his days. Without teaching or rules of art he began to
draw everything he saw. Three whole years were devoted to these daubs,
from which nothing but his duties could stir him, nor was he
discouraged by the small progress resulting from his very mediocre
talents. I have seen him spend the whole of a broiling summer in a
little ante-room towards the south, a room where one was suffocated
merely passing through it; there he was, seated or rather nailed all
day to his chair, before a globe, drawing it again and again and yet
again, with invincible obstinacy till he had reproduced the rounded
surface to his own satisfaction. At last with his master's help and
under the guidance of an artist he got so far as to abandon his livery
and live by his brush. Perseverance does instead of talent up to a
certain point; he got so far, but no further. This honest lad's
perseverance and ambition are praiseworthy; he will always be
respected for his industry and steadfastness of purpose, but his
paintings will always be third-rate. Who would not have been deceived
by his zeal and taken it for real talent! There is all the difference
in the world between a liking and an aptitude. To make sure of real
genius or real taste in a child calls for more accurate observations
than is generally suspected, for the child displays his wishes not his
capacity, and we judge by the former instead of considering the
latter. I wish some trustworthy person would give us a treatise on the
art of child-study. This art is well worth studying, but neither
parents nor teachers have mastered its elements.
Perhaps we are laying too much stress on the choice of a trade; as
it is a manual occupation, Emile's choice is no great matter, and his
apprenticeship is more than half accomplished already, through the
exercises which have hitherto occupied him. What would you have him
do? He is ready for anything. He can handle the spade and hoe, he can
use the lathe, hammer, plane, or file; he is already familiar with
these tools which are common to many trades. He only needs to acquire
sufficient skill in the use of any one of them to rival the speed, the
familiarity, and the diligence of good workmen, and he will have a
great advantage over them in suppleness of body and limb, so that he
can easily take any position and can continue any kind of movements
without effort. Moreover his senses are acute and well-practised, he
knows the principles of the various trades; to work like a master of
his craft he only needs experience, and experience comes with
practice. To which of these trades which are open to us will he give
sufficient time to make himself master of it? That is the whole
question.
Give a man a trade befitting his sex, to a young man a trade
befitting his age. Sedentary indoor employments, which make the body
tender and effeminate, are neither pleasing nor suitable. No lad ever
wanted to be a tailor. It takes some art to attract a man to this
woman's work.[Footnote: There were no tailors among the ancients;
men's clothes were made at home by the women.] The same hand cannot
hold the needle and the sword. If I were king I would only allow
needlework and dressmaking to be done by women and cripples who are
obliged to work at such trades. If eunuchs were required I think the
Easterns were very foolish to make them on purpose. Why not take those
provided by nature, that crowd of base persons without natural
feeling? There would be enough and to spare. The weak, feeble, timid
man is condemned by nature to a sedentary life, he is fit to live
among women or in their fashion. Let him adopt one of their trades if
he likes; and if there must be eunuchs let them take those men who
dishonour their sex by adopting trades unworthy of it. Their choice
proclaims a blunder on the part of nature; correct it one way or
other, you will do no harm.
An unhealthy trade I forbid to my pupil, but not a difficult or
dangerous one. He will exercise himself in strength and courage; such
trades are for men not women, who claim no share in them, Are not men
ashamed to poach upon the women's trades?
"Luctantur paucae, comedunt coliphia paucae.
Vos lanam trahitis, calathisque peracta refertis
Vellera."—Juven. Sat. II. V. 55.
Women are not seen in shops in Italy, and to persons accustomed to
the streets of England and France nothing could look gloomier. When I
saw drapers selling ladies ribbons, pompons, net, and chenille, I
thought these delicate ornaments very absurd in the coarse hands fit
to blow the bellows and strike the anvil. I said to myself, "In this
country women should set up as steel-polishers and armourers." Let
each make and sell the weapons of his or her own sex; knowledge is
acquired through use.
I know I have said too much for my agreeable contemporaries, but I
sometimes let myself be carried away by my argument. If any one is
ashamed to be seen wearing a leathern apron or handling a plane, I
think him a mere slave of public opinion, ready to blush for what is
right when people poke fun at it. But let us yield to parents'
prejudices so long as they do not hurt the children. To honour trades
we are not obliged to practise every one of them, so long as we do not
think them beneath us. When the choice is ours and we are under no
compulsion, why not choose the pleasanter, more attractive and more
suitable trade. Metal work is useful, more useful, perhaps, than the
rest, but unless for some special reason Emile shall not be a
blacksmith, a locksmith nor an iron-worker. I do not want to see him a
Cyclops at the forge. Neither would I have him a mason, still less a
shoemaker. All trades must be carried on, but when the choice is ours,
cleanliness should be taken into account; this is not a matter of
class prejudice, our senses are our guides. In conclusion, I do not
like those stupid trades in which the workmen mechanically perform the
same action without pause and almost without mental effort. Weaving,
stocking-knitting, stone-cutting; why employ intelligent men on such
work? it is merely one machine employed on another.
All things considered, the trade I should choose for my pupil,
among the trades he likes, is that of a carpenter. It is clean and
useful; it may be carried on at home; it gives enough exercise; it
calls for skill and industry, and while fashioning articles for
everyday use, there is scope for elegance and taste. If your pupil's
talents happened to take a scientific turn, I should not blame you if
you gave him a trade in accordance with his tastes, for instance, he
might learn to make mathematical instruments, glasses, telescopes,
etc.
When Emile learns his trade I shall learn it too. I am convinced he
will never learn anything thoroughly unless we learn it together. So
we shall both serve our apprenticeship, and we do not mean to be
treated as gentlemen, but as real apprentices who are not there for
fun; why should not we actually be apprenticed? Peter the Great was a
ship's carpenter and drummer to his own troops; was not that prince at
least your equal in birth and merit? You understand this is addressed
not to Emile but to you—to you, whoever you may be.
Unluckily we cannot spend the whole of our time at the workshop.
We are not only 'prentice-carpenters but 'prentice-men—a trade whose
apprenticeship is longer and more exacting than the rest. What shall
we do? Shall we take a master to teach us the use of the plane and
engage him by the hour like the dancing-master? In that case we should
be not apprentices but students, and our ambition is not merely to
learn carpentry but to be carpenters. Once or twice a week I think we
should spend the whole day at our master's; we should get up when he
does, we should be at our work before him, we should take our meals
with him, work under his orders, and after having had the honour of
supping at his table we may if we please return to sleep upon our own
hard beds. This is the way to learn several trades at once, to learn
to do manual work without neglecting our apprenticeship to life.
Let us do what is right without ostentation; let us not fall into
vanity through our efforts to resist it. To pride ourselves on our
victory over prejudice is to succumb to prejudice. It is said that in
accordance with an old custom of the Ottomans, the sultan is obliged
to work with his hands, and, as every one knows, the handiwork of a
king is a masterpiece. So he royally distributes his masterpieces
among the great lords of the Porte and the price paid is in accordance
with the rank of the workman. It is not this so-called abuse to which
I object; on the contrary, it is an advantage, and by compelling the
lords to share with him the spoils of the people it is so much the
less necessary for the prince to plunder the people himself. Despotism
needs some such relaxation, and without it that hateful rule could not
last.
The real evil in such a custom is the idea it gives that poor man
of his own worth. Like King Midas he sees all things turn to gold at
his touch, but he does not see the ass' ears growing. Let us keep
Emile's hands from money lest he should become an ass, let him take
the work but not the wages. Never let his work be judged by any
standard but that of the work of a master. Let it be judged as work,
not because it is his. If anything is well done, I say, "That is a
good piece of work," but do not ask who did it. If he is pleased and
proud and says, "I did it," answer indifferently, "No matter who did
it, it is well done."
Good mother, be on your guard against the deceptions prepared for
you. If your son knows many things, distrust his knowledge; if he is
unlucky enough to be rich and educated in Paris he is ruined. As long
as there are clever artists he will have every talent, but apart from
his masters he will have none. In Paris a rich man knows everything,
it is the poor who are ignorant. Our capital is full of amateurs,
especially women, who do their work as M. Gillaume invents his
colours. Among the men I know three striking exceptions, among the
women I know no exceptions, and I doubt if there are any. In a general
way a man becomes an artist and a judge of art as he becomes a Doctor
of Laws and a magistrate.
If then it is once admitted that it is a fine thing to have a
trade, your children would soon have one without learning it. They
would become postmasters like the councillors of Zurich. Let us have
no such ceremonies for Emile; let it be the real thing not the sham.
Do not say what he knows, let him learn in silence. Let him make his
masterpiece, but not be hailed as master; let him be a workman not in
name but in deed.
If I have made my meaning clear you ought to realise how bodily
exercise and manual work unconsciously arouse thought and reflexion
in my pupil, and counteract the idleness which might result from his
indifference to men's judgments, and his freedom from passion. He must
work like a peasant and think like a philosopher, if he is not to be
as idle as a savage. The great secret of education is to use exercise
of mind and body as relaxation one to the other.
But beware of anticipating teaching which demands more maturity of
mind. Emile will not long be a workman before he discovers those
social inequalities he had not previously observed. He will want to
question me in turn on the maxims I have given him, maxims he is able
to understand. When he derives everything from me, when he is so
nearly in the position of the poor, he will want to know why I am so
far removed from it. All of a sudden he may put scathing questions to
me. "You are rich, you tell me, and I see you are. A rich man owes his
work to the community like the rest because he is a man. What are you
doing for the community?" What would a fine tutor say to that? I do
not know. He would perhaps be foolish enough to talk to the child of
the care he bestows upon him. The workshop will get me out of the
difficulty. "My dear Emile that is a very good question; I will
undertake to answer for myself, when you can answer for yourself to
your own satisfaction. Meanwhile I will take care to give what I can
spare to you and to the poor, and to make a table or a bench every
week, so as not to be quite useless."
We have come back to ourselves. Having entered into possession of
himself, our child is now ready to cease to be a child. He is more
than ever conscious of the necessity which makes him dependent on
things. After exercising his body and his senses you have exercised
his mind and his judgment. Finally we have joined together the use of
his limbs and his faculties. We have made him a worker and a thinker;
we have now to make him loving and tender-hearted, to perfect reason
through feeling. But before we enter on this new order of things, let
us cast an eye over the stage we are leaving behind us, and perceive
as clearly as we can how far we have got.
At first our pupil had merely sensations, now he has ideas; he
could only feel, now he reasons. For from the comparison of many
successive or simultaneous sensations and the judgment arrived at
with regard to them, there springs a sort of mixed or complex
sensation which I call an idea.
The way in which ideas are formed gives a character to the human
mind. The mind which derives its ideas from real relations is
thorough; the mind which relies on apparent relations is superficial.
He who sees relations as they are has an exact mind; he who fails to
estimate them aright has an inaccurate mind; he who concocts imaginary
relations, which have no real existence, is a madman; he who does not
perceive any relation at all is an imbecile. Clever men are
distinguished from others by their greater or less aptitude for the
comparison of ideas and the discovery of relations between them.
Simple ideas consist merely of sensations compared one with
another. Simple sensations involve judgments, as do the complex
sensations which I call simple ideas. In the sensation the judgment is
purely passive; it affirms that I feel what I feel. In the percept or
idea the judgment is active; it connects, compares, it discriminates
between relations not perceived by the senses. That is the whole
difference; but it is a great difference. Nature never deceives us;
we deceive ourselves.
I see some one giving an ice-cream to an eight-year-old child; he
does not know what it is and puts the spoon in his mouth. Struck by
the cold he cries out, "Oh, it burns!" He feels a very keen sensation,
and the heat of the fire is the keenest sensation he knows, so he
thinks that is what he feels. Yet he is mistaken; cold hurts, but it
does not burn; and these two sensations are different, for persons
with more experience do not confuse them. So it is not the sensation
that is wrong, but the judgment formed with regard to it.
It is just the same with those who see a mirror or some optical
instrument for the first time, or enter a deep cellar in the depths
of winter or at midsummer, or dip a very hot or cold hand into tepid
water, or roll a little ball between two crossed fingers. If they are
content to say what they really feel, their judgment, being purely
passive, cannot go wrong; but when they judge according to
appearances, their judgment is active; it compares and establishes by
induction relations which are not really perceived. Then these
inductions may or may not be mistaken. Experience is required to
correct or prevent error.
Show your pupil the clouds at night passing between himself and the
moon; he will think the moon is moving in the opposite direction and
that the clouds are stationary. He will think this through a hasty
induction, because he generally sees small objects moving and larger
ones at rest, and the clouds seems larger than the moon, whose
distance is beyond his reckoning. When he watches the shore from a
moving boat he falls into the opposite mistake and thinks the earth is
moving because he does not feel the motion of the boat and considers
it along with the sea or river as one motionless whole, of which the
shore, which appears to move, forms no part.
The first time a child sees a stick half immersed in water he
thinks he sees a broken stick; the sensation is true and would not
cease to be true even if he knew the reason of this appearance. So if
you ask him what he sees, he replies, "A broken stick," for he is
quite sure he is experiencing this sensation. But when deceived by
his judgment he goes further and, after saying he sees a broken stick,
he affirms that it really is broken he says what is not true. Why?
Because he becomes active and judges no longer by observation but by
induction, he affirms what he does not perceive, i.e., that the
judgment he receives through one of his senses would be confirmed by
another.
Since all our errors arise in our judgment, it is clear, that had
we no need for judgment, we should not need to learn; we should never
be liable to mistakes, we should be happier in our ignorance than we
can be in our knowledge. Who can deny that a vast number of things are
known to the learned, which the unlearned will never know? Are the
learned any nearer truth? Not so, the further they go the further they
get from truth, for their pride in their judgment increases faster
than their progress in knowledge, so that for every truth they acquire
they draw a hundred mistaken conclusions. Every one knows that the
learned societies of Europe are mere schools of falsehood, and there
are assuredly more mistaken notions in the Academy of Sciences than in
a whole tribe of American Indians.
The more we know, the more mistakes we make; therefore ignorance
is the only way to escape error. Form no judgments and you will never
be mistaken. This is the teaching both of nature and reason. We come
into direct contact with very few things, and these are very readily
perceived; the rest we regard with profound indifference. A savage
will not turn his head to watch the working of the finest machinery or
all the wonders of electricity. "What does that matter to me?" is the
common saying of the ignorant; it is the fittest phrase for the wise.
Unluckily this phrase will no longer serve our turn. Everything
matters to us, as we are dependent on everything, and our curiosity
naturally increases with our needs. This is why I attribute much
curiosity to the man of science and none to the savage. The latter
needs no help from anybody; the former requires every one, and
admirers most of all.
You will tell me I am going beyond nature. I think not. She
chooses her instruments and orders them, not according to fancy, but
necessity. Now a man's needs vary with his circumstances. There is all
the difference in the world between a natural man living in a state of
nature, and a natural man living in society. Emile is no savage to be
banished to the desert, he is a savage who has to live in the town. He
must know how to get his living in a town, how to use its inhabitants,
and how to live among them, if not of them.
In the midst of so many new relations and dependent on them, he
must reason whether he wants to or no. Let us therefore teach him to
reason correctly.
The best way of learning to reason aright is that which tends to
simplify our experiences, or to enable us to dispense with them
altogether without falling into error. Hence it follows that we must
learn to confirm the experiences of each sense by itself, without
recourse to any other, though we have been in the habit of verifying
the experience of one sense by that of another. Then each of our
sensations will become an idea, and this idea will always correspond
to the truth. This is the sort of knowledge I have tried to accumulate
during this third phase of man's life.
This method of procedure demands a patience and circumspection
which few teachers possess; without them the scholar will never learn
to reason. For example, if you hasten to take the stick out of the
water when the child is deceived by its appearance, you may perhaps
undeceive him, but what have you taught him? Nothing more than he
would soon have learnt for himself. That is not the right thing to do.
You have not got to teach him truths so much as to show him how to set
about discovering them for himself. To teach him better you must not
be in such a hurry to correct his mistakes. Let us take Emile and
myself as an illustration.
To begin with, any child educated in the usual way could not fail
to answer the second of my imaginary questions in the affirmative. He
will say, "That is certainly a broken stick." I very much doubt
whether Emile will give the same reply. He sees no reason for knowing
everything or pretending to know it; he is never in a hurry to draw
conclusions. He only reasons from evidence and on this occasion he has
not got the evidence. He knows how appearances deceive us, if only
through perspective.
Moreover, he knows by experience that there is always a reason for
my slightest questions, though he may not see it at once; so he has
not got into the habit of giving silly answers; on the contrary, he
is on his guard, he considers things carefully and attentively before
answering. He never gives me an answer unless he is satisfied with it
himself, and he is hard to please. Lastly we neither of us take any
pride in merely knowing a thing, but only in avoiding mistakes. We
should be more ashamed to deceive ourselves with bad reasoning, than
to find no explanation at all. There is no phrase so appropriate to
us, or so often on our lips, as, "I do not know;" neither of us are
ashamed to use it. But whether he gives the silly answer or whether he
avoids it by our convenient phrase "I do not know," my answer is the
same. "Let us examine it."
This stick immersed half way in the water is fixed in an upright
position. To know if it is broken, how many things must be done
before we take it out of the water or even touch it.
1. First we walk round it, and we see that the broken part follows
us. So it is only our eye that changes it; looks do not make things
move.
2. We look straight down on that end of the stick which is above
the water, the stick is no longer bent, [Footnote: I have since found
by more exact experiment that this is not the case. Refraction acts in
a circle, and the stick appears larger at the end which is in the
water, but this makes no difference to the strength of the argument,
and the conclusion is correct.] the end near our eye exactly hides the
other end. Has our eye set the stick straight?
3. We stir the surface of the water; we see the stick break into
several pieces, it moves in zigzags and follows the ripples of the
water. Can the motion we gave the water suffice to break, soften, or
melt the stick like this?
4. We draw the water off, and little by little we see the stick
straightening itself as the water sinks. Is not this more than enough
to clear up the business and to discover refraction? So it is not true
that our eyes deceive us, for nothing more has been required to
correct the mistakes attributed to it.
Suppose the child were stupid enough not to perceive the result of
these experiments, then you must call touch to the help of sight.
Instead of taking the stick out of the water, leave it where it is
and let the child pass his hand along it from end to end; he will
feel no angle, therefore the stick is not broken.
You will tell me this is not mere judgment but formal reasoning.
Just so; but do not you see that as soon as the mind has got any
ideas at all, every judgment is a process of reasoning? So that as
soon as we compare one sensation with another, we are beginning to
reason. The art of judging and the art of reasoning are one and the
same.
Emile will never learn dioptrics unless he learns with this stick.
He will not have dissected insects nor counted the spots on the sun;
he will not know what you mean by a microscope or a telescope. Your
learned pupils will laugh at his ignorance and rightly, I intend him
to invent these instruments before he uses them, and you will expect
that to take some time.
This is the spirit of my whole method at this stage. If the child
rolls a little ball between two crossed fingers and thinks he feels
two balls, I shall not let him look until he is convinced there is
only one.
This explanation will suffice, I hope, to show plainly the progress
made by my pupil hitherto and the route followed by him. But perhaps
the number of things I have brought to his notice alarms you. I shall
crush his mind beneath this weight of knowledge. Not so, I am rather
teaching him to be ignorant of things than to know them. I am showing
him the path of science, easy indeed, but long, far-reaching and slow
to follow. I am taking him a few steps along this path, but I do not
allow him to go far.
Compelled to learn for himself, he uses his own reason not that of
others, for there must be no submission to authority if you would
have no submission to convention. Most of our errors are due to
others more than ourselves. This continual exercise should develop a
vigour of mind like that acquired by the body through labour and
weariness. Another advantage is that his progress is in proportion to
his strength, neither mind nor body carries more than it can bear.
When the understanding lays hold of things before they are stored in
the memory, what is drawn from that store is his own; while we are in
danger of never finding anything of our own in a memory over-burdened
with undigested knowledge.
Emile knows little, but what he knows is really his own; he has no
half-knowledge. Among the few things he knows and knows thoroughly
this is the most valuable, that there are many things he does not
know now but may know some day, many more that other men know but he
will never know, and an infinite number which nobody will ever know.
He is large-minded, not through knowledge, but through the power of
acquiring it; he is open-minded, intelligent, ready for anything, and,
as Montaigne says, capable of learning if not learned. I am content if
he knows the "Wherefore" of his actions and the "Why" of his beliefs.
For once more my object is not to supply him with exact knowledge, but
the means of getting it when required, to teach him to value it at its
true worth, and to love truth above all things. By this method
progress is slow but sure, and we never need to retrace our steps.
Emile's knowledge is confined to nature and things. The very name
of history is unknown to him, along with metaphysics and morals. He
knows the essential relations between men and things, but nothing of
the moral relations between man and man. He has little power of
generalisation, he has no skill in abstraction. He perceives that
certain qualities are common to certain things, without reasoning
about these qualities themselves. He is acquainted with the abstract
idea of space by the help of his geometrical figures; he is acquainted
with the abstract idea of quantity by the help of his algebraical
symbols. These figures and signs are the supports on which these ideas
may be said to rest, the supports on which his senses repose. He does
not attempt to know the nature of things, but only to know things in
so far as they affect himself. He only judges what is outside himself
in relation to himself, and his judgment is exact and certain. Caprice
and prejudice have no part in it. He values most the things which are
of use to himself, and as he never departs from this standard of
values, he owes nothing to prejudice.
Emile is industrious, temperate, patient, stedfast, and full of
courage. His imagination is still asleep, so he has no exaggerated
ideas of danger; the few ills he feels he knows how to endure in
patience, because he has not learnt to rebel against fate. As to
death, he knows not what it means; but accustomed as he is to submit
without resistance to the law of necessity, he will die, if die he
must, without a groan and without a struggle; that is as much as we
can demand of nature, in that hour which we all abhor. To live in
freedom, and to be independent of human affairs, is the best way to
learn how to die.
In a word Emile is possessed of all that portion of virtue which
concerns himself. To acquire the social virtues he only needs a
knowledge of the relations which make those virtues necessary; he
only lacks knowledge which he is quite ready to receive.
He thinks not of others but of himself, and prefers that others
should do the same. He makes no claim upon them, and acknowledges no
debt to them. He is alone in the midst of human society, he depends on
himself alone, for he is all that a boy can be at his age. He has no
errors, or at least only such as are inevitable; he has no vices, or
only those from which no man can escape. His body is healthy, his
limbs are supple, his mind is accurate and unprejudiced, his heart is
free and untroubled by passion. Pride, the earliest and the most
natural of passions, has scarcely shown itself. Without disturbing the
peace of others, he has passed his life contented, happy, and free, so
far as nature allows. Do you think that the earlier years of a child,
who has reached his fifteenth year in this condition, have been
wasted?
BOOK IV
How swiftly life passes here below! The first quarter of it is gone
before we know how to use it; the last quarter finds us incapable of
enjoying life. At first we do not know how to live; and when we know
how to live it is too late. In the interval between these two useless
extremes we waste three-fourths of our time sleeping, working,
sorrowing, enduring restraint and every kind of suffering. Life is
short, not so much because of the short time it lasts, but because we
are allowed scarcely any time to enjoy it. In vain is there a long
interval between the hour of death and that of birth; life is still
too short, if this interval is not well spent.
We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born
into life; born a human being, and born a man. Those who regard woman
as an imperfect man are no doubt mistaken, but they have external
resemblance on their side. Up to the age of puberty children of both
sexes have little to distinguish them to the eye, the same face and
form, the same complexion and voice, everything is the same; girls are
children and boys are children; one name is enough for creatures so
closely resembling one another. Males whose development is arrested
preserve this resemblance all their lives; they are always big
children; and women who never lose this resemblance seem in many
respects never to be more than children.
But, speaking generally, man is not meant to remain a child. He
leaves childhood behind him at the time ordained by nature; and this
critical moment, short enough in itself, has far-reaching
consequences.
As the roaring of the waves precedes the tempest, so the murmur of
rising passions announces this tumultuous change; a suppressed
excitement warns us of the approaching danger. A change of temper,
frequent outbreaks of anger, a perpetual stirring of the mind, make
the child almost ungovernable. He becomes deaf to the voice he used to
obey; he is a lion in a fever; he distrusts his keeper and refuses to
be controlled.
With the moral symptoms of a changing temper there are perceptible
changes in appearance. His countenance develops and takes the stamp
of his character; the soft and sparse down upon his cheeks becomes
darker and stiffer. His voice grows hoarse or rather he loses it
altogether. He is neither a child nor a man and cannot speak like
either of them. His eyes, those organs of the soul which till now
were dumb, find speech and meaning; a kindling fire illumines them,
there is still a sacred innocence in their ever brightening glance,
but they have lost their first meaningless expression; he is already
aware that they can say too much; he is beginning to learn to lower
his eyes and blush, he is becoming sensitive, though he does not know
what it is that he feels; he is uneasy without knowing why. All this
may happen gradually and give you time enough; but if his keenness
becomes impatience, his eagerness madness, if he is angry and sorry
all in a moment, if he weeps without cause, if in the presence of
objects which are beginning to be a source of danger his pulse
quickens and his eyes sparkle, if he trembles when a woman's hand
touches his, if he is troubled or timid in her presence, O Ulysses,
wise Ulysses! have a care! The passages you closed with so much pains
are open; the winds are unloosed; keep your hand upon the helm or all
is lost.
This is the second birth I spoke of; then it is that man really
enters upon life; henceforth no human passion is a stranger to him.
Our efforts so far have been child's play, now they are of the
greatest importance. This period when education is usually finished
is just the time to begin; but to explain this new plan properly, let
us take up our story where we left it.
Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to
destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would be
to overcome nature, to reshape God's handiwork. If God bade man
annihilate the passions he has given him, God would bid him be and not
be; He would contradict himself. He has never given such a foolish
commandment, there is nothing like it written on the heart of man, and
what God will have a man do, He does not leave to the words of another
man. He speaks Himself; His words are written in the secret heart.
Now I consider those who would prevent the birth of the passions
almost as foolish as those who would destroy them, and those who
think this has been my object hitherto are greatly mistaken.
But should we reason rightly, if from the fact that passions are
natural to man, we inferred that all the passions we feel in ourselves
and behold in others are natural? Their source, indeed, is natural;
but they have been swollen by a thousand other streams; they are a
great river which is constantly growing, one in which we can scarcely
find a single drop of the original stream. Our natural passions are
few in number; they are the means to freedom, they tend to
self-preservation. All those which enslave and destroy us have another
source; nature does not bestow them on us; we seize on them in her
despite.
The origin of our passions, the root and spring of all the rest,
the only one which is born with man, which never leaves him as long
as he lives, is self-love; this passion is primitive, instinctive, it
precedes all the rest, which are in a sense only modifications of it.
In this sense, if you like, they are all natural. But most of these
modifications are the result of external influences, without which
they would never occur, and such modifications, far from being
advantageous to us, are harmful. They change the original purpose and
work against its end; then it is that man finds himself outside nature
and at strife with himself.
Self-love is always good, always in accordance with the order of
nature. The preservation of our own life is specially entrusted to
each one of us, and our first care is, and must be, to watch over our
own life; and how can we continually watch over it, if we do not take
the greatest interest in it?
Self-preservation requires, therefore, that we shall love
ourselves; we must love ourselves above everything, and it follows
directly from this that we love what contributes to our preservation.
Every child becomes fond of its nurse; Romulus must have loved the
she-wolf who suckled him. At first this attachment is quite
unconscious; the individual is attracted to that which contributes to
his welfare and repelled by that which is harmful; this is merely
blind instinct. What transforms this instinct into feeling, the liking
into love, the aversion into hatred, is the evident intention of
helping or hurting us. We do not become passionately attached to
objects without feeling, which only follow the direction given them;
but those from which we expect benefit or injury from their internal
disposition, from their will, those we see acting freely for or
against us, inspire us with like feelings to those they exhibit
towards us. Something does us good, we seek after it; but we love the
person who does us good; something harms us and we shrink from it, but
we hate the person who tries to hurt us.
The child's first sentiment is self-love, his second, which is
derived from it, is love of those about him; for in his present state
of weakness he is only aware of people through the help and attention
received from them. At first his affection for his nurse and his
governess is mere habit. He seeks them because he needs them and
because he is happy when they are there; it is rather perception than
kindly feeling. It takes a long time to discover not merely that they
are useful to him, but that they desire to be useful to him, and then
it is that he begins to love them.
So a child is naturally disposed to kindly feeling because he sees
that every one about him is inclined to help him, and from this
experience he gets the habit of a kindly feeling towards his species;
but with the expansion of his relations, his needs, his dependence,
active or passive, the consciousness of his relations to others is
awakened, and leads to the sense of duties and preferences. Then the
child becomes masterful, jealous, deceitful, and vindictive. If he is
not compelled to obedience, when he does not see the usefulness of
what he is told to do, he attributes it to caprice, to an intention of
tormenting him, and he rebels. If people give in to him, as soon as
anything opposes him he regards it as rebellion, as a determination to
resist him; he beats the chair or table for disobeying him. Self-love,
which concerns itself only with ourselves, is content to satisfy our
own needs; but selfishness, which is always comparing self with
others, is never satisfied and never can be; for this feeling, which
prefers ourselves to others, requires that they should prefer us to
themselves, which is impossible. Thus the tender and gentle passions
spring from self-love, while the hateful and angry passions spring
from selfishness. So it is the fewness of his needs, the narrow
limits within which he can compare himself with others, that makes a
man really good; what makes him really bad is a multiplicity of needs
and dependence on the opinions of others. It is easy to see how we can
apply this principle and guide every passion of children and men
towards good or evil. True, man cannot always live alone, and it will
be hard therefore to remain good; and this difficulty will increase
of necessity as his relations with others are extended. For this
reason, above all, the dangers of social life demand that the
necessary skill and care shall be devoted to guarding the human heart
against the depravity which springs from fresh needs.
Man's proper study is that of his relation to his environment. So
long as he only knows that environment through his physical nature,
he should study himself in relation to things; this is the business
of his childhood; when he begins to be aware of his moral nature, he
should study himself in relation to his fellow-men; this is the
business of his whole life, and we have now reached the time when
that study should be begun.
As soon as a man needs a companion he is no longer an isolated
creature, his heart is no longer alone. All his relations with his
species, all the affections of his heart, come into being along with
this. His first passion soon arouses the rest.
The direction of the instinct is uncertain. One sex is attracted
by the other; that is the impulse of nature. Choice, preferences,
individual likings, are the work of reason, prejudice, and habit;
time and knowledge are required to make us capable of love; we do not
love without reasoning or prefer without comparison. These judgments
are none the less real, although they are formed unconsciously. True
love, whatever you may say, will always be held in honour by mankind;
for although its impulses lead us astray, although it does not bar the
door of the heart to certain detestable qualities, although it even
gives rise to these, yet it always presupposes certain worthy
characteristics, without which we should be incapable of love. This
choice, which is supposed to be contrary to reason, really springs
from reason. We say Love is blind because his eyes are better than
ours, and he perceives relations which we cannot discern. All women
would be alike to a man who had no idea of virtue or beauty, and the
first comer would always be the most charming. Love does not spring
from nature, far from it; it is the curb and law of her desires; it is
love that makes one sex indifferent to the other, the loved one alone
excepted.
We wish to inspire the preference we feel; love must be mutual. To
be loved we must be worthy of love; to be preferred we must be more
worthy than the rest, at least in the eyes of our beloved. Hence we
begin to look around among our fellows; we begin to compare ourselves
with them, there is emulation, rivalry, and jealousy. A heart full to
overflowing loves to make itself known; from the need of a mistress
there soon springs the need of a friend He who feels how sweet it is
to be loved, desires to be loved by everybody; and there could be no
preferences if there were not many that fail to find satisfaction.
With love and friendship there begin dissensions, enmity, and hatred.
I behold deference to other people's opinions enthroned among all
these divers passions, and foolish mortals, enslaved by her power,
base their very existence merely on what other people think.
Expand these ideas and you will see where we get that form of
selfishness which we call natural selfishness, and how selfishness
ceases to be a simple feeling and becomes pride in great minds, vanity
in little ones, and in both feeds continually at our neighbour's
cost. Passions of this kind, not having any germ in the child's
heart, cannot spring up in it of themselves; it is we who sow the
seeds, and they never take root unless by our fault. Not so with the
young man; they will find an entrance in spite of us. It is therefore
time to change our methods.
Let us begin with some considerations of importance with regard to
the critical stage under discussion. The change from childhood to
puberty is not so clearly determined by nature but that it varies
according to individual temperament and racial conditions. Everybody
knows the differences which have been observed with regard to this
between hot and cold countries, and every one sees that ardent
temperaments mature earlier than others; but we may be mistaken as to
the causes, and we may often attribute to physical causes what is
really due to moral: this is one of the commonest errors in the
philosophy of our times. The teaching of nature comes slowly; man's
lessons are mostly premature. In the former case, the senses kindle
the imagination, in the latter the imagination kindles the senses; it
gives them a precocious activity which cannot fail to enervate the
individual and, in the long run, the race. It is a more general and
more trustworthy fact than that of climatic influences, that puberty
and sexual power is always more precocious among educated and
civilised races, than among the ignorant and barbarous. [Footnote: "In
towns," says M. Buffon, "and among the well-to-do classes, children
accustomed to plentiful and nourishing food sooner reach this state;
in the country and among the poor, children are more backward, because
of their poor and scanty food." I admit the fact but not the
explanation, for in the districts where the food of the villagers is
plentiful and good, as in the Valais and even in some of the mountain
districts of Italy, such as Friuli, the age of puberty for both sexes
is quite as much later than in the heart of the towns, where, in order
to gratify their vanity, people are often extremely parsimonious in
the matter of food, and where most people, in the words of the
proverb, have a velvet coat and an empty belly. It is astonishing to
find in these mountainous regions big lads as strong as a man with
shrill voices and smooth chins, and tall girls, well developed in
other respects, without any trace of the periodic functions of their
sex. This difference is, in my opinion, solely due to the fact that in
the simplicity of their manners the imagination remains calm and
peaceful, and does not stir the blood till much later, and thus their
temperament is much less precocious.] Children are preternaturally
quick to discern immoral habits under the cloak of decency with which
they are concealed. The prim speech imposed upon them, the lessons in
good behaviour, the veil of mystery you profess to hang before their
eyes, serve but to stimulate their curiosity. It is plain, from the
way you set about it, that they are meant to learn what you profess to
conceal; and of all you teach them this is most quickly assimilated.
Consult experience and you will find how far this foolish method
hastens the work of nature and ruins the character. This is one of
the chief causes of physical degeneration in our towns. The young
people, prematurely exhausted, remain small, puny, and misshapen,
they grow old instead of growing up, like a vine forced to bear fruit
in spring, which fades and dies before autumn.
To know how far a happy ignorance may prolong the innocence of
children, you must live among rude and simple people. It is a sight
both touching and amusing to see both sexes, left to the protection
of their own hearts, continuing the sports of childhood in the flower
of youth and beauty, showing by their very familiarity the purity of
their pleasures. When at length those delightful young people marry,
they bestow on each other the first fruits of their person, and are
all the dearer therefore. Swarms of strong and healthy children are
the pledges of a union which nothing can change, and the fruit of the
virtue of their early years.
If the age at which a man becomes conscious of his sex is deferred
as much by the effects of education as by the action of nature, it
follows that this age may be hastened or retarded according to the way
in which the child is brought up; and if the body gains or loses
strength in proportion as its development is accelerated or retarded,
it also follows that the more we try to retard it the stronger and
more vigorous will the young man be. I am still speaking of purely
physical consequences; you will soon see that this is not all.
From these considerations I arrive at the solution of the question
so often discussed—Should we enlighten children at an early period
as to the objects of their curiosity, or is it better to put them off
with decent shams? I think we need do neither. In the first place,
this curiosity will not arise unless we give it a chance. We must
therefore take care not to give it an opportunity. In the next place,
questions one is not obliged to answer do not compel us to deceive
those who ask them; it is better to bid the child hold his tongue than
to tell him a lie. He will not be greatly surprised at this treatment
if you have already accustomed him to it in matters of no importance.
Lastly, if you decide to answer his questions, let it be with the
greatest plainness, without mystery or confusion, without a smile. It
is much less dangerous to satisfy a child's curiosity than to
stimulate it.
Let your answers be always grave, brief, decided, and without trace
of hesitation. I need not add that they should be true. We cannot
teach children the danger of telling lies to men without realising,
on the man's part, the danger of telling lies to children. A single
untruth on the part of the master will destroy the results of his
education.
Complete ignorance with regard to certain matters is perhaps the
best thing for children; but let them learn very early what it is
impossible to conceal from them permanently. Either their curiosity
must never be aroused, or it must be satisfied before the age when it
becomes a source of danger. Your conduct towards your pupil in this
respect depends greatly on his individual circumstances, the society
in which he moves, the position in which he may find himself, etc.
Nothing must be left to chance; and if you are not sure of keeping him
in ignorance of the difference between the sexes till he is sixteen,
take care you teach him before he is ten.
I do not like people to be too fastidious in speaking with
children, nor should they go out of their way to avoid calling a spade
a spade; they are always found out if they do. Good manners in this
respect are always perfectly simple; but an imagination soiled by
vice makes the ear over-sensitive and compels us to be constantly
refining our expressions. Plain words do not matter; it is lascivious
ideas which must be avoided.
Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children.
Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil; and how should
children without this knowledge of evil have the feeling which
results from it? To give them lessons in modesty and good conduct is
to teach them that there are things shameful and wicked, and to give
them a secret wish to know what these things are. Sooner or later they
will find out, and the first spark which touches the imagination will
certainly hasten the awakening of the senses. Blushes are the sign of
guilt; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.
Children have not the same desires as men; but they are subject
like them to the same disagreeable needs which offend the senses, and
by this means they may receive the same lessons in propriety. Follow
the mind of nature which has located in the same place the organs of
secret pleasures and those of disgusting needs; she teaches us the
same precautions at different ages, sometimes by means of one idea and
sometimes by another; to the man through modesty, to the child through
cleanliness.
I can only find one satisfactory way of preserving the child's
innocence, to surround him by those who respect and love him. Without
this all our efforts to keep him in ignorance fail sooner or later; a
smile, a wink, a careless gesture tells him all we sought to hide; it
is enough to teach him to perceive that there is something we want to
hide from him. The delicate phrases and expressions employed by
persons of politeness assume a knowledge which children ought not to
possess, and they are quite out of place with them, but when we truly
respect the child's innocence we easily find in talking to him the
simple phrases which befit him. There is a certain directness of
speech which is suitable and pleasing to innocence; this is the right
tone to adopt in order to turn the child from dangerous curiosity. By
speaking simply to him about everything you do not let him suspect
there is anything left unsaid. By connecting coarse words with the
unpleasant ideas which belong to them, you quench the first spark of
imagination; you do not forbid the child to say these words or to form
these ideas; but without his knowing it you make him unwilling to
recall them. And how much confusion is spared to those who speaking
from the heart always say the right thing, and say it as they
themselves have felt it!
"Where do little children come from?" This is an embarrassing
question, which occurs very naturally to children, one which foolishly
or wisely answered may decide their health and their morals for life.
The quickest way for a mother to escape from it without deceiving her
son is to tell him to hold his tongue. That will serve its turn if he
has always been accustomed to it in matters of no importance, and if
he does not suspect some mystery from this new way of speaking. But
the mother rarely stops there. "It is the married people's secret,"
she will say, "little boys should not be so curious." That is all very
well so far as the mother is concerned, but she may be sure that the
little boy, piqued by her scornful manner, will not rest till he has
found out the married people's secret, which will very soon be the
case.
Let me tell you a very different answer which I heard given to the
same question, one which made all the more impression on me, coming,
as it did, from a woman, modest in speech and behaviour, but one who
was able on occasion, for the welfare of her child and for the cause
of virtue, to cast aside the false fear of blame and the silly jests
of the foolish. Not long before the child had passed a small stone
which had torn the passage, but the trouble was over and forgotten.
"Mamma," said the eager child, "where do little children come from?"
"My child," replied his mother without hesitation, "women pass them
with pains that sometimes cost their life." Let fools laugh and silly
people be shocked; but let the wise inquire if it is possible to find
a wiser answer and one which would better serve its purpose.
In the first place the thought of a need of nature with which the
child is well acquainted turns his thoughts from the idea of a
mysterious process. The accompanying ideas of pain and death cover it
with a veil of sadness which deadens the imagination and suppresses
curiosity; everything leads the mind to the results, not the causes,
of child-birth. This is the information to which this answer leads. If
the repugnance inspired by this answer should permit the child to
inquire further, his thoughts are turned to the infirmities of human
nature, disgusting things, images of pain. What chance is there for
any stimulation of desire in such a conversation? And yet you see
there is no departure from truth, no need to deceive the scholar in
order to teach him.
Your children read; in the course of their reading they meet with
things they would never have known without reading. Are they students,
their imagination is stimulated and quickened in the silence of the
study. Do they move in the world of society, they hear a strange
jargon, they see conduct which makes a great impression on them; they
have been told so continually that they are men that in everything men
do in their presence they at once try to find how that will suit
themselves; the conduct of others must indeed serve as their pattern
when the opinions of others are their law. Servants, dependent on
them, and therefore anxious to please them, flatter them at the
expense of their morals; giggling governesses say things to the
four-year-old child which the most shameless woman would not dare to
say to them at fifteen. They soon forget what they said, but the child
has not forgotten what he heard. Loose conversation prepares the way
for licentious conduct; the child is debauched by the cunning lacquey,
and the secret of the one guarantees the secret of the other.
The child brought up in accordance with his age is alone. He knows
no attachment but that of habit, he loves his sister like his watch,
and his friend like his dog. He is unconscious of his sex and his
species; men and women are alike unknown; he does not connect their
sayings and doings with himself, he neither sees nor hears, or he
pays no heed to them; he is no more concerned with their talk than
their actions; he has nothing to do with it. This is no artificial
error induced by our method, it is the ignorance of nature. The time
is at hand when that same nature will take care to enlighten her
pupil, and then only does she make him capable of profiting by the
lessons without danger. This is our principle; the details of its
rules are outside my subject; and the means I suggest with regard to
other matters will still serve to illustrate this.
Do you wish to establish law and order among the rising passions,
prolong the period of their development, so that they may have time
to find their proper place as they arise. Then they are controlled by
nature herself, not by man; your task is merely to leave it in her
hands. If your pupil were alone, you would have nothing to do; but
everything about him enflames his imagination. He is swept along on
the torrent of conventional ideas; to rescue him you must urge him in
the opposite direction. Imagination must be curbed by feeling and
reason must silence the voice of conventionality. Sensibility is the
source of all the passions, imagination determines their course.
Every creature who is aware of his relations must be disturbed by
changes in these relations and when he imagines or fancies he imagines
others better adapted to his nature. It is the errors of the
imagination which transmute into vices the passions of finite beings,
of angels even, if indeed they have passions; for they must needs know
the nature of every creature to realise what relations are best
adapted to themselves.
This is the sum of human wisdom with regard to the use of the
passions. First, to be conscious of the true relations of man both in
the species and the individual; second, to control all the affections
in accordance with these relations.
But is man in a position to control his affections according to
such and such relations? No doubt he is, if he is able to fix his
imagination on this or that object, or to form this or that habit.
Moreover, we are not so much concerned with what a man can do for
himself, as with what we can do for our pupil through our choice of
the circumstances in which he shall be placed. To show the means by
which he may be kept in the path of nature is to show plainly enough
how he might stray from that path.
So long as his consciousness is confined to himself there is no
morality in his actions; it is only when it begins to extend beyond
himself that he forms first the sentiments and then the ideas of good
and ill, which make him indeed a man, and an integral part of his
species. To begin with we must therefore confine our observations to
this point.
These observations are difficult to make, for we must reject the
examples before our eyes, and seek out those in which the successive
developments follow the order of nature.
A child sophisticated, polished, and civilised, who is only
awaiting the power to put into practice the precocious instruction he
has received, is never mistaken with regard to the time when this
power is acquired. Far from awaiting it, he accelerates it; he stirs
his blood to a premature ferment; he knows what should be the object
of his desires long before those desires are experienced. It is not
nature which stimulates him; it is he who forces the hand of nature;
she has nothing to teach him when he becomes a man; he was a man in
thought long before he was a man in reality.
The true course of nature is slower and more gradual. Little by
little the blood grows warmer, the faculties expand, the character is
formed. The wise workman who directs the process is careful to perfect
every tool before he puts it to use; the first desires are preceded by
a long period of unrest, they are deceived by a prolonged ignorance,
they know not what they want. The blood ferments and bubbles;
overflowing vitality seeks to extend its sphere. The eye grows
brighter and surveys others, we begin to be interested in those about
us, we begin to feel that we are not meant to live alone; thus the
heart is thrown open to human affection, and becomes capable of
attachment.
The first sentiment of which the well-trained youth is capable is
not love but friendship. The first work of his rising imagination is
to make known to him his fellows; the species affects him before the
sex. Here is another advantage to be gained from prolonged innocence;
you may take advantage of his dawning sensibility to sow the first
seeds of humanity in the heart of the young adolescent. This advantage
is all the greater because this is the only time in his life when such
efforts may be really successful.
I have always observed that young men, corrupted in early youth
and addicted to women and debauchery, are inhuman and cruel; their
passionate temperament makes them impatient, vindictive, and angry;
their imagination fixed on one object only, refuses all others; mercy
and pity are alike unknown to them; they would have sacrificed father,
mother, the whole world, to the least of their pleasures. A young man,
on the other hand, brought up in happy innocence, is drawn by the
first stirrings of nature to the tender and affectionate passions; his
warm heart is touched by the sufferings of his fellow-creatures; he
trembles with delight when he meets his comrade, his arms can embrace
tenderly, his eyes can shed tears of pity; he learns to be sorry for
offending others through his shame at causing annoyance. If the eager
warmth of his blood makes him quick, hasty, and passionate, a moment
later you see all his natural kindness of heart in the eagerness of
his repentance; he weeps, he groans over the wound he has given; he
would atone for the blood he has shed with his own; his anger dies
away, his pride abases itself before the consciousness of his
wrong-doing. Is he the injured party, in the height of his fury an
excuse, a word, disarms him; he forgives the wrongs of others as
whole-heartedly as he repairs his own. Adolescence is not the age of
hatred or vengeance; it is the age of pity, mercy, and generosity.
Yes, I maintain, and I am not afraid of the testimony of experience, a
youth of good birth, one who has preserved his innocence up to the age
of twenty, is at that age the best, the most generous, the most
loving, and the most lovable of men. You never heard such a thing; I
can well believe that philosophers such as you, brought up among the
corruption of the public schools, are unaware of it.
Man's weakness makes him sociable. Our common sufferings draw our
hearts to our fellow-creatures; we should have no duties to mankind
if we were not men. Every affection is a sign of insufficiency; if
each of us had no need of others, we should hardly think of
associating with them. So our frail happiness has its roots in our
weakness. A really happy man is a hermit; God only enjoys absolute
happiness; but which of us has any idea what that means? If any
imperfect creature were self-sufficing, what would he have to enjoy?
To our thinking he would be wretched and alone. I do not understand
how one who has need of nothing could love anything, nor do I
understand how he who loves nothing can be happy.
Hence it follows that we are drawn towards our fellow-creatures
less by our feeling for their joys than for their sorrows; for in
them we discern more plainly a nature like our own, and a pledge of
their affection for us. If our common needs create a bond of interest
our common sufferings create a bond of affection. The sight of a happy
man arouses in others envy rather than love, we are ready to accuse
him of usurping a right which is not his, of seeking happiness for
himself alone, and our selfishness suffers an additional pang in the
thought that this man has no need of us. But who does not pity the
wretch when he beholds his sufferings? who would not deliver him from
his woes if a wish could do it? Imagination puts us more readily in
the place of the miserable man than of the happy man; we feel that the
one condition touches us more nearly than the other. Pity is sweet,
because, when we put ourselves in the place of one who suffers, we are
aware, nevertheless, of the pleasure of not suffering like him. Envy
is bitter, because the sight of a happy man, far from putting the
envious in his place, inspires him with regret that he is not there.
The one seems to exempt us from the pains he suffers, the other seems
to deprive us of the good things he enjoys.
Do you desire to stimulate and nourish the first stirrings of
awakening sensibility in the heart of a young man, do you desire to
incline his disposition towards kindly deed and thought, do not cause
the seeds of pride, vanity, and envy to spring up in him through the
misleading picture of the happiness of mankind; do not show him to
begin with the pomp of courts, the pride of palaces, the delights of
pageants; do not take him into society and into brilliant assemblies;
do not show him the outside of society till you have made him capable
of estimating it at its true worth. To show him the world before he is
acquainted with men, is not to train him, but to corrupt him; not to
teach, but to mislead.
By nature men are neither kings, nobles, courtiers, nor
millionaires. All men are born poor and naked, all are liable to the
sorrows of life, its disappointments, its ills, its needs, its
suffering of every kind; and all are condemned at length to die. This
is what it really means to be a man, this is what no mortal can
escape. Begin then with the study of the essentials of humanity, that
which really constitutes mankind.
At sixteen the adolescent knows what it is to suffer, for he
himself has suffered; but he scarcely realises that others suffer too;
to see without feeling is not knowledge, and as I have said again and
again the child who does not picture the feelings of others knows no
ills but his own; but when his imagination is kindled by the first
beginnings of growing sensibility, he begins to perceive himself in
his fellow-creatures, to be touched by their cries, to suffer in their
sufferings. It is at this time that the sorrowful picture of suffering
humanity should stir his heart with the first touch of pity he has
ever known.
If it is not easy to discover this opportunity in your scholars,
whose fault is it? You taught them so soon to play at feeling, you
taught them so early its language, that speaking continually in the
same strain they turn your lessons against yourself, and give you no
chance of discovering when they cease to lie, and begin to feel what
they say. But look at Emile; I have led him up to this age, and he has
neither felt nor pretended to feel. He has never said, "I love you
dearly," till he knew what it was to love; he has never been taught
what expression to assume when he enters the room of his father, his
mother, or his sick tutor; he has not learnt the art of affecting a
sorrow he does not feel. He has never pretended to weep for the death
of any one, for he does not know what it is to die. There is the same
insensibility in his heart as in his manners. Indifferent, like every
child, to every one but himself, he takes no interest in any one; his
only peculiarity is that he will not pretend to take such an interest;
he is less deceitful than others.
Emile having thought little about creatures of feeling will be a
long time before he knows what is meant by pain and death. Groans and
cries will begin to stir his compassion, he will turn away his eyes at
the sight of blood; the convulsions of a dying animal will cause him I
know not what anguish before he knows the source of these impulses. If
he were still stupid and barbarous he would not feel them; if he were
more learned he would recognise their source; he has compared ideas
too frequently already to be insensible, but not enough to know what
he feels.
So pity is born, the first relative sentiment which touches the
human heart according to the order of nature. To become sensitive and
pitiful the child must know that he has fellow-creatures who suffer as
he has suffered, who feel the pains he has felt, and others which he
can form some idea of, being capable of feeling them himself. Indeed,
how can we let ourselves be stirred by pity unless we go beyond
ourselves, and identify ourselves with the suffering animal, by
leaving, so to speak, our own nature and taking his. We only suffer so
far as we suppose he suffers; the suffering is not ours but his. So no
one becomes sensitive till his imagination is aroused and begins to
carry him outside himself.
What should we do to stimulate and nourish this growing
sensibility, to direct it, and to follow its natural bent? Should we
not present to the young man objects on which the expansive force of
his heart may take effect, objects which dilate it, which extend it to
other creatures, which take him outside himself? should we not
carefully remove everything that narrows, concentrates, and
strengthens the power of the human self? that is to say, in other
words, we should arouse in him kindness, goodness, pity, and
beneficence, all the gentle and attractive passions which are
naturally pleasing to man; those passions prevent the growth of envy,
covetousness, hatred, all the repulsive and cruel passions which make
our sensibility not merely a cipher but a minus quantity, passions
which are the curse of those who feel them.
I think I can sum up the whole of the preceding reflections in two
or three maxims, definite, straightforward, and easy to understand.
FIRST MAXIM.—It is not in human nature to put ourselves in the
place of those who are happier than ourselves, but only in the place
of those who can claim our pity.
If you find exceptions to this rule, they are more apparent than
real. Thus we do not put ourselves in the place of the rich or great
when we become fond of them; even when our affection is real, we only
appropriate to ourselves a part of their welfare. Sometimes we love
the rich man in the midst of misfortunes; but so long as he prospers
he has no real friend, except the man who is not deceived by
appearances, who pities rather than envies him in spite of his
prosperity.
The happiness belonging to certain states of life appeals to us;
take, for instance, the life of a shepherd in the country. The charm
of seeing these good people so happy is not poisoned by envy; we are
genuinely interested in them. Why is this? Because we feel we can
descend into this state of peace and innocence and enjoy the same
happiness; it is an alternative which only calls up pleasant thoughts,
so long as the wish is as good as the deed. It is always pleasant to
examine our stores, to contemplate our own wealth, even when we do not
mean to spend it.
From this we see that to incline a young man to humanity you must
not make him admire the brilliant lot of others; you must show him
life in its sorrowful aspects and arouse his fears. Thus it becomes
clear that he must force his own way to happiness, without interfering
with the happiness of others.
SECOND MAXIM.—We never pity another's woes unless we know we may
suffer in like manner ourselves.
"Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco."—Virgil.
I know nothing go fine, so full of meaning, so touching, so true
as these words.
Why have kings no pity on their people? Because they never expect
to be ordinary men. Why are the rich so hard on the poor? Because
they have no fear of becoming poor. Why do the nobles look down upon
the people? Because a nobleman will never be one of the lower classes.
Why are the Turks generally kinder and more hospitable than
ourselves? Because, under their wholly arbitrary system of government,
the rank and wealth of individuals are always uncertain and
precarious, so that they do not regard poverty and degradation as
conditions with which they have no concern; to-morrow, any one may
himself be in the same position as those on whom he bestows alms
to-day. This thought, which occurs again and again in eastern
romances, lends them a certain tenderness which is not to be found in
our pretentious and harsh morality.
So do not train your pupil to look down from the height of his
glory upon the sufferings of the unfortunate, the labours of the
wretched, and do not hope to teach him to pity them while he considers
them as far removed from himself. Make him thoroughly aware of the
fact that the fate of these unhappy persons may one day be his own,
that his feet are standing on the edge of the abyss, into which he may
be plunged at any moment by a thousand unexpected irresistible
misfortunes. Teach him to put no trust in birth, health, or riches;
show him all the changes of fortune; find him examples—there are
only too many of them—in which men of higher rank than himself have
sunk below the condition of these wretched ones. Whether by their own
fault or another's is for the present no concern of ours; does he
indeed know the meaning of the word fault? Never interfere with the
order in which he acquires knowledge, and teach him only through the
means within his reach; it needs no great learning to perceive that
all the prudence of mankind cannot make certain whether he will be
alive or dead in an hour's time, whether before nightfall he will not
be grinding his teeth in the pangs of nephritis, whether a month hence
he will be rich or poor, whether in a year's time he may not be rowing
an Algerian galley under the lash of the slave-driver. Above all do
not teach him this, like his catechism, in cold blood; let him see and
feel the calamities which overtake men; surprise and startle his
imagination with the perils which lurk continually about a man's path;
let him see the pitfalls all about him, and when he hears you speak of
them, let him cling more closely to you for fear lest he should fall.
"You will make him timid and cowardly," do you say? We shall see; let
us make him kindly to begin with, that is what matters most.
THIRD MAXIM.—The pity we feel for others is proportionate, not to
the amount of the evil, but to the feelings we attribute to the
sufferers.
We only pity the wretched so far as we think they feel the need of
pity. The bodily effect of our sufferings is less than one would
suppose; it is memory that prolongs the pain, imagination which
projects it into the future, and makes us really to be pitied. This
is, I think, one of the reasons why we are more callous to the
sufferings of animals than of men, although a fellow-feeling ought to
make us identify ourselves equally with either. We scarcely pity the
cart-horse in his shed, for we do not suppose that while he is eating
his hay he is thinking of the blows he has received and the labours in
store for him. Neither do we pity the sheep grazing in the field,
though we know it is about to be slaughtered, for we believe it knows
nothing of the fate in store for it. In this way we also become
callous to the fate of our fellow-men, and the rich console themselves
for the harm done by them to the poor, by the assumption that the poor
are too stupid to feel. I usually judge of the value any one puts on
the welfare of his fellow-creatures by what he seems to think of them.
We naturally think lightly of the happiness of those we despise. It
need not surprise you that politicians speak so scornfully of the
people, and philosophers profess to think mankind so wicked.
The people are mankind; those who do not belong to the people are
so few in number that they are not worth counting. Man is the same in
every station of life; if that be so, those ranks to which most men
belong deserve most honour. All distinctions of rank fade away before
the eyes of a thoughtful person; he sees the same passions, the same
feelings in the noble and the guttersnipe; there is merely a slight
difference in speech, and more or less artificiality of tone; and if
there is indeed any essential difference between them, the
disadvantage is all on the side of those who are more sophisticated.
The people show themselves as they are, and they are not attractive;
but the fashionable world is compelled to adopt a disguise; we should
be horrified if we saw it as it really is.
There is, so our wiseacres tell us, the same amount of happiness
and sorrow in every station. This saying is as deadly in its effects
as it is incapable of proof; if all are equally happy why should I
trouble myself about any one? Let every one stay where he is; leave
the slave to be ill-treated, the sick man to suffer, and the wretched
to perish; they have nothing to gain by any change in their condition.
You enumerate the sorrows of the rich, and show the vanity of his
empty pleasures; what barefaced sophistry! The rich man's sufferings
do not come from his position, but from himself alone when he abuses
it. He is not to be pitied were he indeed more miserable than the
poor, for his ills are of his own making, and he could be happy if he
chose. But the sufferings of the poor man come from external things,
from the hardships fate has imposed upon him. No amount of habit can
accustom him to the bodily ills of fatigue, exhaustion, and hunger.
Neither head nor heart can serve to free him from the sufferings of
his condition. How is Epictetus the better for knowing beforehand that
his master will break his leg for him; does he do it any the less? He
has to endure not only the pain itself but the pains of anticipation.
If the people were as wise as we assume them to be stupid, how could
they be other than they are? Observe persons of this class; you will
see that, with a different way of speaking, they have as much
intelligence and more common-sense than yourself. Have respect then
for your species; remember that it consists essentially of the people,
that if all the kings and all the philosophers were removed they would
scarcely be missed, and things would go on none the worse. In a word,
teach your pupil to love all men, even those who fail to appreciate
him; act in such way that he is not a member of any class, but takes
his place in all alike: speak in his hearing of the human race with
tenderness, and even with pity, but never with scorn. You are a man;
do not dishonour mankind.
It is by these ways and others like them—how different from the
beaten paths—that we must reach the heart of the young adolescent
And stimulate in him the first impulses of nature; we must develop
that heart and open its doors to his fellow-creatures, and there must
be as little self-interest as possible mixed up with these impulses;
above all, no vanity, no emulation, no boasting, none of those
sentiments which force us to compare ourselves with others; for such
comparisons are never made without arousing some measure of hatred
against those who dispute our claim to the first place, were it only
in our own estimation. Then we must be either blind or angry, a bad
man or a fool; let us try to avoid this dilemma. Sooner or later these
dangerous passions will appear, so you tell me, in spite of us. I do
not deny it. There is a time and place for everything; I am only
saying that we should not help to arouse these passions.
This is the spirit of the method to be laid down. In this case
examples and illustrations are useless, for here we find the beginning
of the countless differences of character, and every example I gave
would possibly apply to only one case in a hundred thousand. It is at
this age that the clever teacher begins his real business, as a
student and a philosopher who knows how to probe the heart and strives
to guide it aright. While the young man has not learnt to pretend,
while he does not even know the meaning of pretence, you see by his
look, his manner, his gestures, the impression he has received from
any object presented to him; you read in his countenance every impulse
of his heart; by watching his expression you learn to protect his
impulses and actually to control them.
It has been commonly observed that blood, wounds, cries and groans,
the preparations for painful operations, and everything which directs
the senses towards things connected with suffering, are usually the
first to make an impression on all men. The idea of destruction, a
more complex matter, does not have so great an effect; the thought of
death affects us later and less forcibly, for no one knows from his
own experience what it is to die; you must have seen corpses to feel
the agonies of the dying. But when once this idea is established in
the mind, there is no spectacle more dreadful in our eyes, whether
because of the idea of complete destruction which it arouses through
our senses, or because we know that this moment must come for each one
of us and we feel ourselves all the more keenly affected by a
situation from which we know there is no escape.
These various impressions differ in manner and in degree, according
to the individual character of each one of us and his former habits,
but they are universal and no one is altogether free from them. There
are other impressions less universal and of a later growth,
impressions most suited to sensitive souls, such impressions as we
receive from moral suffering, inward grief, the sufferings of the
mind, depression, and sadness. There are men who can be touched by
nothing but groans and tears; the suppressed sobs of a heart labouring
under sorrow would never win a sigh; the sight of a downcast visage, a
pale and gloomy countenance, eyes which can weep no longer, would
never draw a tear from them. The sufferings of the mind are as
nothing to them; they weigh them, their own mind feels nothing;
expect nothing from such persons but inflexible severity, harshness,
cruelty. They may be just and upright, but not merciful, generous, or
pitiful. They may, I say, be just, if a man can indeed be just without
being merciful.
But do not be in a hurry to judge young people by this standard,
more especially those who have been educated rightly, who have no
idea of the moral sufferings they have never had to endure; for once
again they can only pity the ills they know, and this apparent
insensibility is soon transformed into pity when they begin to feel
that there are in human life a thousand ills of which they know
nothing. As for Emile, if in childhood he was distinguished by
simplicity and good sense, in his youth he will show a warm and
tender heart; for the reality of the feelings depends to a great
extent on the accuracy of the ideas.
But why call him hither? More than one reader will reproach me no
doubt for departing from my first intention and forgetting the lasting
happiness I promised my pupil. The sorrowful, the dying, such sights
of pain and woe, what happiness, what delight is this for a young
heart on the threshold of life? His gloomy tutor, who proposed to give
him such a pleasant education, only introduces him to life that he may
suffer. This is what they will say, but what care I? I promised to
make him happy, not to make him seem happy. Am I to blame if, deceived
as usual by the outward appearances, you take them for the reality?
Let us take two young men at the close of their early education,
and let them enter the world by opposite doors. The one mounts at
once to Olympus, and moves in the smartest society; he is taken to
court, he is presented in the houses of the great, of the rich, of the
pretty women. I assume that he is everywhere made much of, and I do
not regard too closely the effect of this reception on his reason; I
assume it can stand it. Pleasures fly before him, every day provides
him with fresh amusements; he flings himself into everything with an
eagerness which carries you away. You find him busy, eager, and
curious; his first wonder makes a great impression on you; you think
him happy; but behold the state of his heart; you think he is
rejoicing, I think he suffers.
What does he see when first he opens his eyes? all sorts of
so-called pleasures, hitherto unknown. Most of these pleasures are
only for a moment within his reach, and seem to show themselves only
to inspire regret for their loss. Does he wander through a palace;
you see by his uneasy curiosity that he is asking why his father's
house is not like it. Every question shows you that he is comparing
himself all the time with the owner of this grand place. And all the
mortification arising from this comparison at once revolts and
stimulates his vanity. If he meets a young man better dressed than
himself, I find him secretly complaining of his parents' meanness. If
he is better dressed than another, he suffers because the latter is
his superior in birth or in intellect, and all his gold lace is put to
shame by a plain cloth coat. Does he shine unrivalled in some
assembly, does he stand on tiptoe that they may see him better, who is
there who does not secretly desire to humble the pride and vanity of
the young fop? Everybody is in league against him; the disquieting
glances of a solemn man, the biting phrases of some satirical person,
do not fail to reach him, and if it were only one man who despised
him, the scorn of that one would poison in a moment the applause of
the rest.
Let us grant him everything, let us not grudge him charm and worth;
let him be well-made, witty, and attractive; the women will run after
him; but by pursuing him before he is in love with them, they will
inspire rage rather than love; he will have successes, but neither
rapture nor passion to enjoy them. As his desires are always
anticipated; they never have time to spring up among his pleasures, so
he only feels the tedium of restraint. Even before he knows it he is
disgusted and satiated with the sex formed to be the delight of his
own; if he continues its pursuit it is only through vanity, and even
should he really be devoted to women, he will not be the only
brilliant, the only attractive young man, nor will he always find his
mistresses prodigies of fidelity.
I say nothing of the vexation, the deceit, the crimes, and the
remorse of all kinds, inseparable from such a life. We know that
experience of the world disgusts us with it; I am speaking only of
the drawbacks belonging to youthful illusions.
Hitherto the young man has lived in the bosom of his family and his
friends, and has been the sole object of their care; what a change to
enter all at once into a region where he counts for so little; to find
himself plunged into another sphere, he who has been so long the
centre of his own. What insults, what humiliation, must he endure,
before he loses among strangers the ideas of his own importance which
have been formed and nourished among his own people! As a child
everything gave way to him, everybody flocked to him; as a young man
he must give place to every one, or if he preserves ever so little of
his former airs, what harsh lessons will bring him to himself!
Accustomed to get everything he wants without any difficulty, his
wants are many, and he feels continual privations. He is tempted by
everything that flatters him; what others have, he must have too; he
covets everything, he envies every one, he would always be master. He
is devoured by vanity, his young heart is enflamed by unbridled
passions, jealousy and hatred among the rest; all these violent
passions burst out at once; their sting rankles in him in the busy
world, they return with him at night, he comes back dissatisfied with
himself, with others; he falls asleep among a thousand foolish schemes
disturbed by a thousand fancies, and his pride shows him even in his
dreams those fancied pleasures; he is tormented by a desire which will
never be satisfied. So much for your pupil; let us turn to mine.
If the first thing to make an impression on him is something
sorrowful his first return to himself is a feeling of pleasure. When
he sees how many ills he has escaped he thinks he is happier than he
fancied. He shares the suffering of his fellow-creatures, but he
shares it of his own free will and finds pleasure in it. He enjoys at
once the pity he feels for their woes and the joy of being exempt from
them; he feels in himself that state of vigour which projects us
beyond ourselves, and bids us carry elsewhere the superfluous activity
of our well-being. To pity another's woes we must indeed know them,
but we need not feel them. When we have suffered, when we are in fear
of suffering, we pity those who suffer; but when we suffer ourselves,
we pity none but ourselves. But if all of us, being subject ourselves
to the ills of life, only bestow upon others the sensibility we do not
actually require for ourselves, it follows that pity must be a very
pleasant feeling, since it speaks on our behalf; and, on the other
hand, a hard-hearted man is always unhappy, since the state of his
heart leaves him no superfluous sensibility to bestow on the
sufferings of others.
We are too apt to judge of happiness by appearances; we suppose it
is to be found in the most unlikely places, we seek for it where it
cannot possibly be; mirth is a very doubtful indication of its
presence. A merry man is often a wretch who is trying to deceive
others and distract himself. The men who are jovial, friendly, and
contented at their club are almost always gloomy grumblers at home,
and their servants have to pay for the amusement they give among their
friends. True contentment is neither merry nor noisy; we are jealous
of so sweet a sentiment, when we enjoy it we think about it, we
delight in it for fear it should escape us. A really happy man says
little and laughs little; he hugs his happiness, so to speak, to his
heart. Noisy games, violent delight, conceal the disappointment of
satiety. But melancholy is the friend of pleasure; tears and pity
attend our sweetest enjoyment, and great joys call for tears rather
than laughter.
If at first the number and variety of our amusements seem to
contribute to our happiness, if at first the even tenor of a quiet
life seems tedious, when we look at it more closely we discover that
the pleasantest habit of mind consists in a moderate enjoyment which
leaves little scope for desire and aversion. The unrest of passion
causes curiosity and fickleness; the emptiness of noisy pleasures
causes weariness. We never weary of our state when we know none more
delightful. Savages suffer less than other men from curiosity and from
tedium; everything is the same to them—themselves, not their
possessions—and they are never weary.
The man of the world almost always wears a mask. He is scarcely
ever himself and is almost a stranger to himself; he is ill at ease
when he is forced into his own company. Not what he is, but what he
seems, is all he cares for.
I cannot help picturing in the countenance of the young man I have
just spoken of an indefinable but unpleasant impertinence, smoothness,
and affectation, which is repulsive to a plain man, and in the
countenance of my own pupil a simple and interesting expression which
indicates the real contentment and the calm of his mind; an expression
which inspires respect and confidence, and seems only to await the
establishment of friendly relations to bestow his own confidence in
return. It is thought that the expression is merely the development of
certain features designed by nature. For my own part I think that over
and above this development a man's face is shaped, all unconsciously,
by the frequent and habitual influence of certain affections of the
heart. These affections are shown on the face, there is nothing more
certain; and when they become habitual, they must surely leave lasting
traces. This is why I think the expression shows the character, and
that we can sometimes read one another without seeking mysterious
explanations in powers we do not possess.
A child has only two distinct feelings, joy and sorrow; he laughs
or he cries; he knows no middle course, and he is constantly passing
from one extreme to the other. On account of these perpetual changes
there is no lasting impression on the face, and no expression; but
when the child is older and more sensitive, his feelings are keener
or more permanent, and these deeper impressions leave traces more
difficult to erase; and the habitual state of the feelings has an
effect on the features which in course of time becomes ineffaceable.
Still it is not uncommon to meet with men whose expression varies
with their age. I have met with several, and I have always found that
those whom I could observe and follow had also changed their habitual
temper. This one observation thoroughly confirmed would seem to me
decisive, and it is not out of place in a treatise on education, where
it is a matter of importance, that we should learn to judge the
feelings of the heart by external signs.
I do not know whether my young man will be any the less amiable
for not having learnt to copy conventional manners and to feign
sentiments which are not his own; that does not concern me at
present, I only know he will be more affectionate; and I find it
difficult to believe that he, who cares for nobody but himself, can
so far disguise his true feelings as to please as readily as he who
finds fresh happiness for himself in his affection for others. But
with regard to this feeling of happiness, I think I have said enough
already for the guidance of any sensible reader, and to show that I
have not contradicted myself.
I return to my system, and I say, when the critical age approaches,
present to young people spectacles which restrain rather than excite
them; put off their dawning imagination with objects which, far from
inflaming their senses, put a check to their activity. Remove them
from great cities, where the flaunting attire and the boldness of the
women hasten and anticipate the teaching of nature, where everything
presents to their view pleasures of which they should know nothing
till they are of an age to choose for themselves. Bring them back to
their early home, where rural simplicity allows the passions of their
age to develop more slowly; or if their taste for the arts keeps them
in town, guard them by means of this very taste from a dangerous
idleness. Choose carefully their company, their occupations, and their
pleasures; show them nothing but modest and pathetic pictures which
are touching but not seductive, and nourish their sensibility without
stimulating their senses. Remember also, that the danger of excess is
not confined to any one place, and that immoderate passions always do
irreparable damage. You need not make your pupil a sick-nurse or a
Brother of Pity; you need not distress him by the perpetual sight of
pain and suffering; you need not take him from one hospital to
another, from the gallows to the prison. He must be softened, not
hardened, by the sight of human misery. When we have seen a sight it
ceases to impress us, use is second nature, what is always before our
eyes no longer appeals to the imagination, and it is only through the
imagination that we can feel the sorrows of others; this is why
priests and doctors who are always beholding death and suffering
become so hardened. Let your pupil therefore know something of the lot
of man and the woes of his fellow-creatures, but let him not see them
too often. A single thing, carefully selected and shown at the right
time, will fill him with pity and set him thinking for a month. His
opinion about anything depends not so much on what he sees, but on
how it reacts on himself; and his lasting impression of any object
depends less on the object itself than on the point of view from
which he regards it. Thus by a sparing use of examples, lessons, and
pictures, you may blunt the sting of sense and delay nature while
following her own lead.
As he acquires knowledge, choose what ideas he shall attach to it;
as his passions awake, select scenes calculated to repress them. A
veteran, as distinguished for his character as for his courage, once
told me that in early youth his father, a sensible man but extremely
pious, observed that through his growing sensibility he was attracted
by women, and spared no pains to restrain him; but at last when, in
spite of all his care, his son was about to escape from his control,
he decided to take him to a hospital, and, without telling him what to
expect, he introduced him into a room where a number of wretched
creatures were expiating, under a terrible treatment, the vices which
had brought them into this plight. This hideous and revolting
spectacle sickened the young man. "Miserable libertine," said his
father vehemently, "begone; follow your vile tastes; you will soon be
only too glad to be admitted to this ward, and a victim to the most
shameful sufferings, you will compel your father to thank God when you
are dead."
These few words, together with the striking spectacle he beheld,
made an impression on the young man which could never be effaced.
Compelled by his profession to pass his youth in garrison, he
preferred to face all the jests of his comrades rather than to share
their evil ways. "I have been a man," he said to me, "I have had my
weaknesses, but even to the present day the sight of a harlot inspires
me with horror." Say little to your pupil, but choose time, place, and
people; then rely on concrete examples for your teaching, and be sure
it will take effect.
The way childhood is spent is no great matter; the evil which may
find its way is not irremediable, and the good which may spring up
might come later. But it is not so in those early years when a youth
really begins to live. This time is never long enough for what there
is to be done, and its importance demands unceasing attention; this is
why I lay so much stress on the art of prolonging it. One of the best
rules of good farming is to keep things back as much as possible. Let
your progress also be slow and sure; prevent the youth from becoming a
man all at once. While the body is growing the spirits destined to
give vigour to the blood and strength to the muscles are in process of
formation and elaboration. If you turn them into another channel, and
permit that strength which should have gone to the perfecting of one
person to go to the making of another, both remain in a state of
weakness and the work of nature is unfinished. The workings of the
mind, in their turn, are affected by this change, and the mind, as
sickly as the body, functions languidly and feebly. Length and
strength of limb are not the same thing as courage or genius, and I
grant that strength of mind does not always accompany strength of
body, when the means of connection between the two are otherwise
faulty. But however well planned they may be, they will always work
feebly if for motive power they depend upon an exhausted, impoverished
supply of blood, deprived of the substance which gives strength and
elasticity to all the springs of the machinery. There is generally
more vigour of mind to be found among men whose early years have been
preserved from precocious vice, than among those whose evil living has
begun at the earliest opportunity; and this is no doubt the reason why
nations whose morals are pure are generally superior in sense and
courage to those whose morals are bad. The latter shine only through I
know not what small and trifling qualities, which they call wit,
sagacity, cunning; but those great and noble features of goodness and
reason, by which a man is distinguished and honoured through good
deeds, virtues, really useful efforts, are scarcely to be found except
among the nations whose morals are pure.
Teachers complain that the energy of this age makes their pupils
unruly; I see that it is so, but are not they themselves to blame?
When once they have let this energy flow through the channel of the
senses, do they not know that they cannot change its course? Will the
long and dreary sermons of the pedant efface from the mind of his
scholar the thoughts of pleasure when once they have found an
entrance; will they banish from his heart the desires by which it is
tormented; will they chill the heat of a passion whose meaning the
scholar realises? Will not the pupil be roused to anger by the
obstacles opposed to the only kind of happiness of which he has any
notion? And in the harsh law imposed upon him before he can understand
it, what will he see but the caprice and hatred of a man who is trying
to torment him? Is it strange that he rebels and hates you too?
I know very well that if one is easy-going one may be tolerated,
and one may keep up a show of authority. But I fail to see the use of
an authority over the pupil which is only maintained by fomenting the
vices it ought to repress; it is like attempting to soothe a fiery
steed by making it leap over a precipice.
Far from being a hindrance to education, this enthusiasm of
adolescence is its crown and coping-stone; this it is that gives you
a hold on the youth's heart when he is no longer weaker than you. His
first affections are the reins by which you control his movements; he
was free, and now I behold him in your power. So long as he loved
nothing, he was independent of everything but himself and his own
necessities; as soon as he loves, he is dependent on his affections.
Thus the first ties which unite him to his species are already formed.
When you direct his increasing sensibility in this direction, do not
expect that it will at once include all men, and that the word
"mankind" will have any meaning for him. Not so; this sensibility will
at first confine itself to those like himself, and these will not be
strangers to him, but those he knows, those whom habit has made dear
to him or necessary to him, those who are evidently thinking and
feeling as he does, those whom he perceives to be exposed to the pains
he has endured, those who enjoy the pleasures he has enjoyed; in a
word, those who are so like himself that he is the more disposed to
self-love. It is only after long training, after much consideration as
to his own feelings and the feelings he observes in others, that he
will be able to generalise his individual notions under the abstract
idea of humanity, and add to his individual affections those which may
identify him with the race.
When he becomes capable of affection, he becomes aware of the
affection of others, [Footnote: Affection may be unrequited; not so
friendship. Friendship is a bargain, a contract like any other; though
a bargain more sacred than the rest. The word "friend" has no other
correlation. Any man who is not the friend of his friend is
undoubtedly a rascal; for one can only obtain friendship by giving it,
or pretending to give it.] and he is on the lookout for the signs of
that affection. Do you not see how you will acquire a fresh hold on
him? What bands have you bound about his heart while he was yet
unaware of them! What will he feel, when he beholds himself and sees
what you have done for him; when he can compare himself with other
youths, and other tutors with you! I say, "When he sees it," but
beware lest you tell him of it; if you tell him he will not perceive
it. If you claim his obedience in return for the care bestowed upon
him, he will think you have over-reached him; he will see that while
you profess to have cared for him without reward, you meant to saddle
him with a debt and to bind him to a bargain which he never made. In
vain you will add that what you demand is for his own good; you demand
it, and you demand it in virtue of what you have done without his
consent. When a man down on his luck accepts the shilling which the
sergeant professes to give him, and finds he has enlisted without
knowing what he was about, you protest against the injustice; is it
not still more unjust to demand from your pupil the price of care
which he has not even accepted!
Ingratitude would be rarer if kindness were less often the
investment of a usurer. We love those who have done us a kindness;
what a natural feeling! Ingratitude is not to be found in the heart of
man, but self-interest is there; those who are ungrateful for benefits
received are fewer than those who do a kindness for their own ends.
If you sell me your gifts, I will haggle over the price; but if you
pretend to give, in order to sell later on at your own price, you are
guilty of fraud; it is the free gift which is beyond price. The heart
is a law to itself; if you try to bind it, you lose it; give it its
liberty, and you make it your own.
When the fisherman baits his line, the fish come round him without
suspicion; but when they are caught on the hook concealed in the
bait, they feel the line tighten and they try to escape. Is the
fisherman a benefactor? Is the fish ungrateful? Do we find a man
forgotten by his benefactor, unmindful of that benefactor? On the
contrary, he delights to speak of him, he cannot think of him without
emotion; if he gets a chance of showing him, by some unexpected
service, that he remembers what he did for him, how delighted he is
to satisfy his gratitude; what a pleasure it is to earn the gratitude
of his benefactor. How delightful to say, "It is my turn now." This is
indeed the teaching of nature; a good deed never caused ingratitude.
If therefore gratitude is a natural feeling, and you do not destroy
its effects by your blunders, be sure your pupil, as he begins to
understand the value of your care for him, will be grateful for it,
provided you have not put a price upon it; and this will give you an
authority over his heart which nothing can overthrow. But beware of
losing this advantage before it is really yours, beware of insisting
on your own importance. Boast of your services and they become
intolerable; forget them and they will not be forgotten. Until the
time comes to treat him as a man let there be no question of his duty
to you, but his duty to himself. Let him have his freedom if you would
make him docile; hide yourself so that he may seek you; raise his
heart to the noble sentiment of gratitude by only speaking of his own
interest. Until he was able to understand I would not have him told
that what was done was for his good; he would only have understood
such words to mean that you were dependent on him and he would merely
have made you his servant. But now that he is beginning to feel what
love is, he also knows what a tender affection may bind a man to what
he loves; and in the zeal which keeps you busy on his account, he now
sees not the bonds of a slave, but the affection of a friend. Now
there is nothing which carries so much weight with the human heart as
the voice of friendship recognised as such, for we know that it never
speaks but for our good. We may think our friend is mistaken, but we
never believe he is deceiving us. We may reject his advice now and
then, but we never scorn it.
We have reached the moral order at last; we have just taken the
second step towards manhood. If this were the place for it, I would
try to show how the first impulses of the heart give rise to the
first stirrings of conscience, and how from the feelings of love and
hatred spring the first notions of good and evil. I would show that
justice and kindness are no mere abstract terms, no mere moral
conceptions framed by the understanding, but true affections of the
heart enlightened by reason, the natural outcome of our primitive
affections; that by reason alone, unaided by conscience, we cannot
establish any natural law, and that all natural right is a vain dream
if it does not rest upon some instinctive need of the human heart.
[Footnote: The precept "Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you" has no true foundation but that of conscience and feeling; for
what valid reason is there why I, being myself, should do what I would
do if I were some one else, especially when I am morally certain I
never shall find myself in exactly the same case; and who will answer
for it that if I faithfully follow out this maxim, I shall get others
to follow it with regard to me? The wicked takes advantage both of the
uprightness of the just and of his own injustice; he will gladly have
everybody just but himself. This bargain, whatever you may say, is not
greatly to the advantage of the just. But if the enthusiasm of an
overflowing heart identifies me with my fellow-creature, if I feel, so
to speak, that I will not let him suffer lest I should suffer too, I
care for him because I care for myself, and the reason of the precept
is found in nature herself, which inspires me with the desire for my
own welfare wherever I may be. From this I conclude that it is false
to say that the precepts of natural law are based on reason only; they
have a firmer and more solid foundation. The love of others springing
from self-love, is the source of human justice. The whole of morality
is summed up in the gospel in this summary of the law.] But I do not
think it is my business at present to prepare treatises on metaphysics
and morals, nor courses of study of any kind whatsoever; it is enough
if I indicate the order and development of our feelings and our
knowledge in relation to our growth. Others will perhaps work out what
I have here merely indicated.
Hitherto my Emile has thought only of himself, so his first glance
at his equals leads him to compare himself with them; and the first
feeling excited by this comparison is the desire to be first. It is
here that self-love is transformed into selfishness, and this is the
starting point of all the passions which spring from selfishness. But
to determine whether the passions by which his life will be governed
shall be humane and gentle or harsh and cruel, whether they shall be
the passions of benevolence and pity or those of envy and
covetousness, we must know what he believes his place among men to be,
and what sort of obstacles he expects to have to overcome in order to
attain to the position he seeks.
To guide him in this inquiry, after we have shown him men by means
of the accidents common to the species, we must now show him them by
means of their differences. This is the time for estimating inequality
natural and civil, and for the scheme of the whole social order.
Society must be studied in the individual and the individual in
society; those who desire to treat politics and morals apart from one
another will never understand either. By confining ourselves at first
to the primitive relations, we see how men should be influenced by
them and what passions should spring from them; we see that it is in
proportion to the development of these passions that a man's relations
with others expand or contract. It is not so much strength of arm as
moderation of spirit which makes men free and independent. The man
whose wants are few is dependent on but few people, but those who
constantly confound our vain desires with our bodily needs, those who
have made these needs the basis of human society, are continually
mistaking effects for causes, and they have only confused themselves
by their own reasoning.
Since it is impossible in the state of nature that the difference
between man and man should be great enough to make one dependent on
another, there is in fact in this state of nature an actual and
indestructible equality. In the civil state there is a vain and
chimerical equality of right; the means intended for its maintenance,
themselves serve to destroy it; and the power of the community, added
to the power of the strongest for the oppression of the weak, disturbs
the sort of equilibrium which nature has established between them.
[Footnote: The universal spirit of the laws of every country is always
to take the part of the strong against the weak, and the part of him
who has against him who has not; this defect is inevitable, and there
is no exception to it.] From this first contradiction spring all the
other contradictions between the real and the apparent, which are to
be found in the civil order. The many will always be sacrificed to the
few, the common weal to private interest; those specious
words—justice and subordination—will always serve as the tools of
violence and the weapons of injustice; hence it follows that the
higher classes which claim to be useful to the rest are really only
seeking their own welfare at the expense of others; from this we may
judge how much consideration is due to them according to right and
justice. It remains to be seen if the rank to which they have attained
is more favourable to their own happiness to know what opinion each
one of us should form with regard to his own lot. This is the study
with which we are now concerned; but to do it thoroughly we must begin
with a knowledge of the human heart.
If it were only a question of showing young people man in his mask,
there would be no need to point him out, and he would always be
before their eyes; but since the mask is not the man, and since they
must not be led away by its specious appearance, when you paint men
for your scholar, paint them as they are, not that he may hate them,
but that he may pity them and have no wish to be like them. In my
opinion that is the most reasonable view a man can hold with regard to
his fellow-men.
With this object in view we must take the opposite way from that
hitherto followed, and instruct the youth rather through the
experience of others than through his own. If men deceive him he will
hate them; but, if, while they treat him with respect, he sees them
deceiving each other, he will pity them. "The spectacle of the
world," said Pythagoras, "is like the Olympic games; some are buying
and selling and think only of their gains; others take an active part
and strive for glory; others, and these not the worst, are content to
be lookers-on."
I would have you so choose the company of a youth that he should
think well of those among whom he lives, and I would have you so
teach him to know the world that he should think ill of all that
takes place in it. Let him know that man is by nature good, let him
feel it, let him judge his neighbour by himself; but let him see how
men are depraved and perverted by society; let him find the source of
all their vices in their preconceived opinions; let him be disposed to
respect the individual, but to despise the multitude; let him see that
all men wear almost the same mask, but let him also know that some
faces are fairer than the mask that conceals them.
It must be admitted that this method has its drawbacks, and it is
not easy to carry it out; for if he becomes too soon engrossed in
watching other people, if you train him to mark too closely the
actions of others, you will make him spiteful and satirical, quick
and decided in his judgments of others; he will find a hateful
pleasure in seeking bad motives, and will fail to gee the good even
in that which is really good. He will, at least, get used to the
sight of vice, he will behold the wicked without horror, just as we
get used to seeing the wretched without pity. Soon the perversity of
mankind will be not so much a warning as an excuse; he will say, "Man
is made so," and he will have no wish to be different from the rest.
But if you wish to teach him theoretically to make him acquainted,
not only with the heart of man, but also with the application of the
external causes which turn our inclinations into vices; when you thus
transport him all at once from the objects of sense to the objects of
reason, you employ a system of metaphysics which he is not in a
position to understand; you fall back into the error, so carefully
avoided hitherto, of giving him lessons which are like lessons, of
substituting in his mind the experience and the authority of the
master for his own experience and the development of his own reason.
To remove these two obstacles at once, and to bring the human heart
within his reach without risk of spoiling his own, I would show him
men from afar, in other times or in other places, so that he may
behold the scene but cannot take part in it. This is the time for
history; with its help he will read the hearts of men without any
lessons in philosophy; with its help he will view them as a mere
spectator, dispassionate and without prejudice; he will view them as
their judge, not as their accomplice or their accuser.
To know men you must behold their actions. In society we hear them
talk; they show their words and hide their deeds; but in history the
veil is drawn aside, and they are judged by their deeds. Their sayings
even help us to understand them; for comparing what they say and what
they do, we see not only what they are but what they would appear; the
more they disguise themselves the more thoroughly they stand revealed.
Unluckily this study has its dangers, its drawbacks of several
kinds. It is difficult to adopt a point of view which will enable one
to judge one's fellow-creatures fairly. It is one of the chief defects
of history to paint men's evil deeds rather than their good ones; it
is revolutions and catastrophes that make history interesting; so long
as a nation grows and prospers quietly in the tranquillity of a
peaceful government, history says nothing; she only begins to speak of
nations when, no longer able to be self-sufficing, they interfere with
their neighbours' business, or allow their neighbours to interfere
with their own; history only makes them famous when they are on the
downward path; all our histories begin where they ought to end. We
have very accurate accounts of declining nations; what we lack is the
history of those nations which are multiplying; they are so happy and
so good that history has nothing to tell us of them; and we see indeed
in our own times that the most successful governments are least talked
of. We only hear what is bad; the good is scarcely mentioned. Only
the wicked become famous, the good are forgotten or laughed to scorn,
and thus history, like philosophy, is for ever slandering mankind.
Moreover, it is inevitable that the facts described in history
should not give an exact picture of what really happened; they are
transformed in the brain of the historian, they are moulded by his
interests and coloured by his prejudices. Who can place the reader
precisely in a position to see the event as it really happened?
Ignorance or partiality disguises everything. What a different
impression may be given merely by expanding or contracting the
circumstances of the case without altering a single historical
incident. The same object may be seen from several points of view,
and it will hardly seem the same thing, yet there has been no change
except in the eye that beholds it. Do you indeed do honour to truth
when what you tell me is a genuine fact, but you make it appear
something quite different? A tree more or less, a rock to the right or
to the left, a cloud of dust raised by the wind, how often have these
decided the result of a battle without any one knowing it? Does that
prevent history from telling you the cause of defeat or victory with
as much assurance as if she had been on the spot? But what are the
facts to me, while I am ignorant of their causes, and what lessons can
I draw from an event, whose true cause is unknown to me? The historian
indeed gives me a reason, but he invents it; and criticism itself, of
which we hear so much, is only the art of guessing, the art of
choosing from among several lies, the lie that is most like truth.
Have you ever read Cleopatra or Cassandra or any books of the kind?
The author selects some well-known event, he then adapts it to his
purpose, adorns it with details of his own invention, with people who
never existed, with imaginary portraits; thus he piles fiction on
fiction to lend a charm to his story. I see little difference between
such romances and your histories, unless it is that the novelist draws
more on his own imagination, while the historian slavishly copies what
another has imagined; I will also admit, if you please, that the
novelist has some moral purpose good or bad, about which the historian
scarcely concerns himself.
You will tell me that accuracy in history is of less interest than
a true picture of men and manners; provided the human heart is truly
portrayed, it matters little that events should be accurately
recorded; for after all you say, what does it matter to us what
happened two thousand years ago? You are right if the portraits are
indeed truly given according to nature; but if the model is to be
found for the most part in the historian's imagination, are you not
falling into the very error you intended to avoid, and surrendering
to the authority of the historian what you would not yield to the
authority of the teacher? If my pupil is merely to see fancy pictures,
I would rather draw them myself; they will, at least, be better suited
to him.
The worst historians for a youth are those who give their opinions.
Facts! Facts! and let him decide for himself; this is how he will
learn to know mankind. If he is always directed by the opinion of the
author, he is only seeing through the eyes of another person, and when
those ayes are no longer at his disposal he can see nothing.
I leave modern history on one side, not only because it has no
character and all our people are alike, but because our historians,
wholly taken up with effect, think of nothing but highly coloured
portraits, which often represent nothing. [Footnote: Take, for
instance, Guicciardini, Streda, Solis, Machiavelli, and sometimes
even De Thou himself. Vertot is almost the only one who knows how to
describe without giving fancy portraits.] The old historians generally
give fewer portraits and bring more intelligence and common-sense to
their judgments; but even among them there is plenty of scope for
choice, and you must not begin with the wisest but with the simplest.
I would not put Polybius or Sallust into the hands of a youth; Tacitus
is the author of the old, young men cannot understand him; you must
learn to see in human actions the simplest features of the heart of
man before you try to sound its depths. You must be able to read facts
clearly before you begin to study maxims. Philosophy in the form of
maxims is only fit for the experienced. Youth should never deal with
the general, all its teaching should deal with individual instances.
To my mind Thucydides is the true model of historians. He relates
facts without giving his opinion; but he omits no circumstance
adapted to make us judge for ourselves. He puts everything that he
relates before his reader; far from interposing between the facts and
the readers, he conceals himself; we seem not to read but to see.
Unfortunately he speaks of nothing but war, and in his stories we only
see the least instructive part of the world, that is to say the
battles. The virtues and defects of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand
and the Commentaries of Caesar are almost the same. The kindly
Herodotus, without portraits, without maxims, yet flowing, simple,
full of details calculated to delight and interest in the highest
degree, would be perhaps the best historian if these very details did
not often degenerate into childish folly, better adapted to spoil the
taste of youth than to form it; we need discretion before we can read
him. I say nothing of Livy, his turn will come; but he is a statesman,
a rhetorician, he is everything which is unsuitable for a youth.
History in general is lacking because it only takes note of
striking and clearly marked facts which may be fixed by names, places,
and dates; but the slow evolution of these facts, which cannot be
definitely noted in this way, still remains unknown. We often find in
some battle, lost or won, the ostensible cause of a revolution which
was inevitable before this battle took place. War only makes manifest
events already determined by moral causes, which few historians can
perceive.
The philosophic spirit has turned the thoughts of many of the
historians of our times in this direction; but I doubt whether truth
has profited by their labours. The rage for systems has got possession
of all alike, no one seeks to see things as they are, but only as they
agree with his system.
Add to all these considerations the fact that history shows us
actions rather than men, because she only seizes men at certain
chosen times in full dress; she only portrays the statesman when he
is prepared to be seen; she does not follow him to his home, to his
study, among his family and his friends; she only shows him in state;
it is his clothes rather than himself that she describes.
I would prefer to begin the study of the human heart with reading
the lives of individuals; for then the man hides himself in vain, the
historian follows him everywhere; he never gives him a moment's grace
nor any comer where he can escape the piercing eye of the spectator;
and when he thinks he is concealing himself, then it is that the
writer shows him up most plainly.
"Those who write lives," says Montaigne, "in so far as they delight
more in ideas than in events, more in that which comes from within
than in that which comes from without, these are the writers I
prefer; for this reason Plutarch is in every way the man for me."
It is true that the genius of men in groups or nations is very
different from the character of the individual man, and that we have
a very imperfect knowledge of the human heart if we do not also
examine it in crowds; but it is none the less true that to judge of
men we must study the individual man, and that he who had a perfect
knowledge of the inclinations of each individual might foresee all
their combined effects in the body of the nation.
We must go back again to the ancients, for the reasons already
stated, and also because all the details common and familiar, but
true and characteristic, are banished by modern stylists, so that men
are as much tricked out by our modern authors in their private life as
in public. Propriety, no less strict in literature than in life, no
longer permits us to say anything in public which we might not do in
public; and as we may only show the man dressed up for his part, we
never see a man in our books any more than we do on the stage. The
lives of kings may be written a hundred times, but to no purpose; we
shall never have another Suetonius.
The excellence of Plutarch consists in these very details which we
are no longer permitted to describe. With inimitable grace he paints
the great man in little things; and he is so happy in the choice of
his instances that a word, a smile, a gesture, will often suffice to
indicate the nature of his hero. With a jest Hannibal cheers his
frightened soldiers, and leads them laughing to the battle which will
lay Italy at his feet; Agesilaus riding on a stick makes me love the
conqueror of the great king; Caesar passing through a poor village and
chatting with his friends unconsciously betrays the traitor who
professed that he only wished to be Pompey's equal. Alexander
swallows a draught without a word—it is the finest moment in his
life; Aristides writes his own name on the shell and so justifies his
title; Philopoemen, his mantle laid aside, chops firewood in the
kitchen of his host. This is the true art of portraiture. Our
disposition does not show itself in our features, nor our character in
our great deeds; it is trifles that show what we really are. What is
done in public is either too commonplace or too artificial, and our
modern authors are almost too grand to tell us anything else.
M. de Turenne was undoubtedly one of the greatest men of the last
century. They have had the courage to make his life interesting by
the little details which make us know and love him; but how many
details have they felt obliged to omit which might have made us know
and love him better still? I will only quote one which I have on good
authority, one which Plutarch would never have omitted, and one which
Ramsai would never have inserted had he been acquainted with it.
On a hot summer's day Viscount Turenne in a little white vest and
nightcap was standing at the window of his antechamber; one of his
men came up and, misled by the dress, took him for one of the kitchen
lads whom he knew. He crept up behind him and smacked him with no
light hand. The man he struck turned round hastily. The valet saw it
was his master and trembled at the sight of his face. He fell on his
knees in desperation. "Sir, I thought it was George." "Well, even if
it was George," exclaimed Turenne rubbing the injured part, "you need
not have struck so hard." You do not dare to say this, you miserable
writers! Remain for ever without humanity and without feeling; steel
your hard hearts in your vile propriety, make yourselves contemptible
through your high-mightiness. But as for you, dear youth, when you
read this anecdote, when you are touched by all the kindliness
displayed even on the impulse of the moment, read also the littleness
of this great man when it was a question of his name and birth.
Remember it was this very Turenne who always professed to yield
precedence to his nephew, so that all men might see that this child
was the head of a royal house. Look on this picture and on that, love
nature, despise popular prejudice, and know the man as he was.
There are few people able to realise what an effect such reading,
carefully directed, will have upon the unspoilt mind of a youth.
Weighed down by books from our earliest childhood, accustomed to read
without thinking, what we read strikes us even less, because we
already bear in ourselves the passions and prejudices with which
history and the lives of men are filled; all that they do strikes us
as only natural, for we ourselves are unnatural and we judge others by
ourselves. But imagine my Emile, who has been carefully guarded for
eighteen years with the sole object of preserving a right judgment and
a healthy heart, imagine him when the curtain goes up casting his eyes
for the first time upon the world's stage; or rather picture him
behind the scenes watching the actors don their costumes, and counting
the cords and pulleys which deceive with their feigned shows the eyes
of the spectators. His first surprise will soon give place to feelings
of shame and scorn of his fellow-man; he will be indignant at the
sight of the whole human race deceiving itself and stooping to this
childish folly; he will grieve to see his brothers tearing each other
limb from limb for a mere dream, and transforming themselves into wild
beasts because they could not be content to be men.
Given the natural disposition of the pupil, there is no doubt that
if the master exercises any sort of prudence or discretion in his
choice of reading, however little he may put him in the way of
reflecting on the subject-matter, this exercise will serve as a course
in practical philosophy, a philosophy better understood and more
thoroughly mastered than all the empty speculations with which the
brains of lads are muddled in our schools. After following the
romantic schemes of Pyrrhus, Cineas asks him what real good he would
gain by the conquest of the world, which he can never enjoy without
such great sufferings; this only arouses in us a passing interest as a
smart saying; but Emile will think it a very wise thought, one which
had already occurred to himself, and one which he will never forget,
because there is no hostile prejudice in his mind to prevent it
sinking in. When he reads more of the life of this madman, he will
find that all his great plans resulted in his death at the hands of a
woman, and instead of admiring this pinchbeck heroism, what will he
see in the exploits of this great captain and the schemes of this
great statesman but so many steps towards that unlucky tile which was
to bring life and schemes alike to a shameful death?
All conquerors have not been killed; all usurpers have not failed
in their plans; to minds imbued with vulgar prejudices many of them
will seem happy, but he who looks below the surface and reckons men's
happiness by the condition of their hearts will perceive their
wretchedness even in the midst of their successes; he will see them
panting after advancement and never attaining their prize, he will
find them like those inexperienced travellers among the Alps, who
think that every height they see is the last, who reach its summit
only to find to their disappointment there are loftier peaks beyond.
Augustus, when he had subdued his fellow-citizens and destroyed
his rivals, reigned for forty years over the greatest empire that
ever existed; but all this vast power could not hinder him from
beating his head against the walls, and filling his palace with his
groans as he cried to Varus to restore his slaughtered legions. If he
had conquered all his foes what good would his empty triumphs have
done him, when troubles of every kind beset his path, when his life
was threatened by his dearest friends, and when he had to mourn the
disgrace or death of all near and dear to him? The wretched man
desired to rule the world and failed to rule his own household. What
was the result of this neglect? He beheld his nephew, his adopted
child, his son-in-law, perish in the flower of youth, his grandson
reduced to eat the stuffing of his mattress to prolong his wretched
existence for a few hours; his daughter and his granddaughter, after
they had covered him with infamy, died, the one of hunger and want on
a desert island, the other in prison by the hand of a common archer.
He himself, the last survivor of his unhappy house, found himself
compelled by his own wife to acknowledge a monster as his heir. Such
was the fate of the master of the world, so famous for his glory and
his good fortune. I cannot believe that any one of those who admire
his glory and fortune would accept them at the same price.
I have taken ambition as my example, but the play of every human
passion offers similar lessons to any one who will study history to
make himself wise and good at the expense of those who went before.
The time is drawing near when the teaching of the life of Anthony
will appeal more forcibly to the youth than the life of Augustus.
Emile will scarcely know where he is among the many strange sights in
his new studies; but he will know beforehand how to avoid the illusion
of passions before they arise, and seeing how in all ages they have
blinded men's eyes, he will be forewarned of the way in which they may
one day blind his own should he abandon himself to them. [Footnote: It
is always prejudice which stirs up passion in our heart. He who only
sees what really exists and only values what he knows, rarely becomes
angry. The errors of our judgment produce the warmth of our desires.]
These lessons, I know, are unsuited to him, perhaps at need they may
prove scanty and ill-timed; but remember they are not the lessons I
wished to draw from this study. To begin with, I had quite another
end in view; and indeed, if this purpose is unfulfilled, the teacher
will be to blame.
Remember that, as soon as selfishness has developed, the self in
its relations to others is always with us, and the youth never
observes others without coming back to himself and comparing himself
with them. From the way young men are taught to study history I see
that they are transformed, so to speak, into the people they behold,
that you strive to make a Cicero, a Trajan, or an Alexander of them,
to discourage them when they are themselves again, to make every one
regret that he is merely himself. There are certain advantages in this
plan which I do not deny; but, so far as Emile is concerned, should it
happen at any time when he is making these comparisons that he wishes
to be any one but himself—were it Socrates or Cato—I have failed
entirely; he who begins to regard himself as a stranger will soon
forget himself altogether.
It is not philosophers who know most about men; they only view them
through the preconceived ideas of philosophy, and I know no one so
prejudiced as philosophers. A savage would judge us more sanely. The
philosopher is aware of his own vices, he is indignant at ours, and he
says to himself, "We are all bad alike;" the savage beholds us unmoved
and says, "You are mad." He is right, for no one does evil for evil's
sake. My pupil is that savage, with this difference: Emile has thought
more, he has compared ideas, seen our errors at close quarters, he is
more on his guard against himself, and only judges of what he knows.
It is our own passions that excite us against the passions of
others; it is our self-interest which makes us hate the wicked; if
they did us no harm we should pity rather than hate them. We should
readily forgive their vices if we could perceive how their own heart
punishes those vices. We are aware of the offence, but we do not see
the punishment; the advantages are plain, the penalty is hidden. The
man who thinks he is enjoying the fruits of his vices is no less
tormented by them than if they had not been successful; the object is
different, the anxiety is the same; in vain he displays his good
fortune and hides his heart; in spite of himself his conduct betrays
him; but to discern this, our own heart must be utterly unlike his.
We are led astray by those passions which we share; we are
disgusted by those that militate against our own interests; and with a
want of logic due to these very passions, we blame in others what we
fain would imitate. Aversion and self-deception are inevitable when we
are forced to endure at another's hands what we ourselves would do in
his place.
What then is required for the proper study of men? A great wish to
know men, great impartiality of judgment, a heart sufficiently
sensitive to understand every human passion, and calm enough to be
free from passion. If there is any time in our life when this study is
likely to be appreciated, it is this that I have chosen for Emile;
before this time men would have been strangers to him; later on he
would have been like them. Convention, the effects of which he already
perceives, has not yet made him its slave, the passions, whose
consequences he realises, have not yet stirred his heart. He is a man;
he takes an interest in his brethren; he is a just man and he judges
his peers. Now it is certain that if he judges them rightly he will
not want to change places with any one of them, for the goal of all
their anxious efforts is the result of prejudices which he does not
share, and that goal seems to him a mere dream. For his own part, he
has all he wants within his reach. How should he be dependent on any
one when he is self-sufficing and free from prejudice? Strong arms,
good health, [Footnote: I think I may fairly reckon health and
strength among the advantages he has obtained by his education, or
rather among the gifts of nature which his education has preserved for
him.] moderation, few needs, together with the means to satisfy those
needs, are his. He has been brought up in complete liberty and
servitude is the greatest ill he understands. He pities these
miserable kings, the slaves of all who obey them; he pities these
false prophets fettered by their empty fame; he pities these rich
fools, martyrs to their own pomp; he pities these ostentatious
voluptuaries, who spend their life in deadly dullness that they may
seem to enjoy its pleasures. He would pity the very foe who harmed
him, for he would discern his wretchedness beneath his cloak of spite.
He would say to himself, "This man has yielded to his desire to hurt
me, and this need of his places him at my mercy."
One step more and our goal is attained. Selfishness is a dangerous
tool though a useful one; it often wounds the hand that uses it, and
it rarely does good unmixed with evil. When Emile considers his place
among men, when he finds himself so fortunately situated, he will be
tempted to give credit to his own reason for the work of yours, and to
attribute to his own deserts what is really the result of his good
fortune. He will say to himself, "I am wise and other men are fools."
He will pity and despise them and will congratulate himself all the
more heartily; and as he knows he is happier than they, he will think
his deserts are greater. This is the fault we have most to fear, for
it is the most difficult to eradicate. If he remained in this state of
mind, he would have profited little by all our care; and if I had to
choose, I hardly know whether I would not rather choose the illusions
of prejudice than those of pride.
Great men are under no illusion with respect to their superiority;
they see it and know it, but they are none the less modest. The more
they have, the better they know what they lack. They are less vain of
their superiority over us than ashamed by the consciousness of their
weakness, and among the good things they really possess, they are too
wise to pride themselves on a gift which is none of their getting. The
good man may be proud of his virtue for it is his own, but what cause
for pride has the man of intellect? What has Racine done that he is
not Pradon, and Boileau that he is not Cotin?
The circumstances with which we are concerned are quite different.
Let us keep to the common level. I assumed that my pupil had neither
surpassing genius nor a defective understanding. I chose him of an
ordinary mind to show what education could do for man. Exceptions
defy all rules. If, therefore, as a result of my care, Emile prefers
his way of living, seeing, and feeling to that of others, he is right;
but if he thinks because of this that he is nobler and better born
than they, he is wrong; he is deceiving himself; he must be
undeceived, or rather let us prevent the mistake, lest it be too late
to correct it.
Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of any folly but vanity;
there is no cure for this but experience, if indeed there is any cure
for it at all; when it first appears we can at least prevent its
further growth. But do not on this account waste your breath on empty
arguments to prove to the youth that he is like other men and subject
to the same weaknesses. Make him feel it or he will never know it.
This is another instance of an exception to my own rules; I must
voluntarily expose my pupil to every accident which may convince him
that he is no wiser than we. The adventure with the conjurer will be
repeated again and again in different ways; I shall let flatterers
take advantage of him; if rash comrades draw him into some perilous
adventure, I will let him run the risk; if he falls into the hands of
sharpers at the card-table, I will abandon him to them as their
dupe.[Footnote: Moreover our pupil will be little tempted by this
snare; he has so many amusements about him, he has never been bored in
his life, and he scarcely knows the use of money. As children have
been led by these two motives, self-interest and vanity, rogues and
courtesans use the same means to get hold of them later. When you see
their greediness encouraged by prizes and rewards, when you find their
public performances at ten years old applauded at school or college,
you see too how at twenty they will be induced to leave their purse in
a gambling hell and their health in a worse place. You may safely
wager that the sharpest boy in the class will become the greatest
gambler and debauchee. Now the means which have not been employed in
childhood have not the same effect in youth. But we must bear in mind
my constant plan and take the thing at its worst. First I try to
prevent the vice; then I assume its existence in order to correct
it.] I will let them flatter him, pluck him, and rob him; and when
having sucked him dry they turn and mock him, I will even thank them
to his face for the lessons they have been good enough to give him.
The only snares from which I will guard him with my utmost care are
the wiles of wanton women. The only precaution I shall take will be to
share all the dangers I let him run, and all the insults I let him
receive. I will bear everything in silence, without a murmur or
reproach, without a word to him, and be sure that if this wise conduct
is faithfully adhered to, what he sees me endure on his account will
make more impression on his heart than what he himself suffers.
I cannot refrain at this point from drawing attention to the sham
dignity of tutors, who foolishly pretend to be wise, who discourage
their pupils by always professing to treat them as children, and by
emphasising the difference between themselves and their scholars in
everything they do. Far from damping their youthful spirits in this
fashion, spare no effort to stimulate their courage; that they may
become your equals, treat them as such already, and if they cannot
rise to your level, do not scruple to come down to theirs without
being ashamed of it. Remember that your honour is no longer in your
own keeping but in your pupil's. Share his faults that you may correct
them, bear his disgrace that you may wipe it out; follow the example
of that brave Roman who, unable to rally his fleeing soldiers, placed
himself at their head, exclaiming, "They do not flee, they follow
their captain!" Did this dishonour him? Not so; by sacrificing his
glory he increased it. The power of duty, the beauty of virtue, compel
our respect in spite of all our foolish prejudices. If I received a
blow in the course of my duties to Emile, far from avenging it I would
boast of it; and I doubt whether there is in the whole world a man so
vile as to respect me any the less on this account.
I do not intend the pupil to suppose his master to be as ignorant,
or as liable to be led astray, as he is himself. This idea is all
very well for a child who can neither see nor compare things, who
thinks everything is within his reach, and only bestows his confidence
on those who know how to come down to his level. But a youth of
Emile's age and sense is no longer so foolish as to make this mistake,
and it would not be desirable that he should. The confidence he ought
to have in his tutor is of another kind; it should rest on the
authority of reason, and on superior knowledge, advantages which the
young man is capable of appreciating while he perceives how useful
they are to himself. Long experience has convinced him that his tutor
loves him, that he is a wise and good man who desires his happiness
and knows how to procure it. He ought to know that it is to his own
advantage to listen to his advice. But if the master lets himself be
taken in like the disciple, he will lose his right to expect deference
from him, and to give him instruction. Still less should the pupil
suppose that his master is purposely letting him fall into snares or
preparing pitfalls for his inexperience. How can we avoid these two
difficulties? Choose the best and most natural means; be frank and
straightforward like himself; warn him of the dangers to which he is
exposed, point them out plainly and sensibly, without exaggeration,
without temper, without pedantic display, and above all without giving
your opinions in the form of orders, until they have become such, and
until this imperious tone is absolutely necessary. Should he still be
obstinate as he often will be, leave him free to follow his own
choice, follow him, copy his example, and that cheerfully and frankly;
if possible fling yourself into things, amuse yourself as much as he
does. If the consequences become too serious, you are at hand to
prevent them; and yet when this young man has beheld your foresight
and your kindliness, will he not be at once struck by the one and
touched by the other? All his faults are but so many hands with which
he himself provides you to restrain him at need. Now under these
circumstances the great art of the master consists in controlling
events and directing his exhortations so that he may know beforehand
when the youth will give in, and when he will refuse to do so, so
that all around him he may encompass him with the lessons of
experience, and yet never let him run too great a risk.
Warn him of his faults before he commits them; do not blame him
when once they are committed; you would only stir his self-love to
mutiny. We learn nothing from a lesson we detest. I know nothing more
foolish than the phrase, "I told you so." The best way to make him
remember what you told him is to seem to have forgotten it. Go further
than this, and when you find him ashamed of having refused to believe
you, gently smooth away the shame with kindly words. He will indeed
hold you dear when he sees how you forget yourself on his account, and
how you console him instead of reproaching him. But if you increase
his annoyance by your reproaches he will hate you, and will make it a
rule never to heed you, as if to show you that he does not agree with
you as to the value of your opinion.
The turn you give to your consolation may itself be a lesson to
him, and all the more because he does not suspect it. When you tell
him, for example, that many other people have made the same mistakes,
this is not what he was expecting; you are administering correction
under the guise of pity; for when one thinks oneself better than other
people it is a very mortifying excuse to console oneself by their
example; it means that we must realise that the most we can say is
that they are no better than we.
The time of faults is the time for fables. When we blame the guilty
under the cover of a story we instruct without offending him; and he
then understands that the story is not untrue by means of the truth he
finds in its application to himself. The child who has never been
deceived by flattery understands nothing of the fable I recently
examined; but the rash youth who has just become the dupe of a
flatterer perceives only too readily that the crow was a fool. Thus he
acquires a maxim from the fact, and the experience he would soon have
forgotten is engraved on his mind by means of the fable. There is no
knowledge of morals which cannot be acquired through our own
experience or that of others. When there is danger, instead of letting
him try the experiment himself, we have recourse to history. When the
risk is comparatively slight, it is just as well that the youth should
be exposed to it; then by means of the apologue the special cases with
which the young man is now acquainted are transformed into maxims.
It is not, however, my intention that these maxims should be
explained, nor even formulated. Nothing is so foolish and unwise as
the moral at the end of most of the fables; as if the moral was not,
or ought not to be so clear in the fable itself that the reader cannot
fail to perceive it. Why then add the moral at the end, and go deprive
him of the pleasure of discovering it for himself. The art of teaching
consists in making the pupil wish to learn. But if the pupil is to
wish to learn, his mind must not remain in such a passive state with
regard to what you tell him that there is really nothing for him to do
but listen to you. The master's vanity must always give way to the
scholars; he must be able to say, I understand, I see it, I am getting
at it, I am learning something. One of the things which makes the
Pantaloon in the Italian comedies so wearisome is the pains taken by
him to explain to the audience the platitudes they understand only too
well already. We must always be intelligible, but we need not say all
there is to be said. If you talk much you will say little, for at last
no one will listen to you. What is the sense of the four lines at the
end of La Fontaine's fable of the frog who puffed herself up. Is he
afraid we should not understand it? Does this great painter need to
write the names beneath the things he has painted? His morals, far
from generalising, restrict the lesson to some extent to the examples
given, and prevent our applying them to others. Before I put the
fables of this inimitable author into the hands of a youth, I should
like to cut out all the conclusions with which he strives to explain
what he has just said so clearly and pleasantly. If your pupil does
not understand the fable without the explanation, he will not
understand it with it.
Moreover, the fables would require to be arranged in a more
didactic order, one more in agreement with the feelings and knowledge
of the young adolescent. Can you imagine anything so foolish as to
follow the mere numerical order of the book without regard to our
requirements or our opportunities. First the grasshopper, then the
crow, then the frog, then the two mules, etc. I am sick of these two
mules; I remember seeing a child who was being educated for finance;
they never let him alone, but were always insisting on the profession
he was to follow; they made him read this fable, learn it, say it,
repeat it again and again without finding in it the slightest argument
against his future calling. Not only have I never found children make
any real use of the fables they learn, but I have never found anybody
who took the trouble to see that they made such a use of them. The
study claims to be instruction in morals; but the real aim of mother
and child is nothing but to set a whole party watching the child while
he recites his fables; when he is too old to recite them and old
enough to make use of them, they are altogether forgotten. Only men, I
repeat, can learn from fables, and Emile is now old enough to begin.
I do not mean to tell you everything, so I only indicate the paths
which diverge from the right way, so that you may know how to avoid
them. If you follow the road I have marked out for you, I think your
pupil will buy his knowledge of mankind and his knowledge of himself
in the cheapest market; you will enable him to behold the tricks of
fortune without envying the lot of her favourites, and to be content
with himself without thinking himself better than others. You have
begun by making him an actor that he may learn to be one of the
audience; you must continue your task, for from the theatre things are
what they seem, from the stage they seem what they are. For the
general effect we must get a distant view, for the details we must
observe more closely. But how can a young man take part in the
business of life? What right has he to be initiated into its dark
secrets? His interests are confined within the limits of his own
pleasures, he has no power over others, it is much the same as if he
had no power at all. Man is the cheapest commodity on the market, and
among all our important rights of property, the rights of the
individual are always considered last of all.
When I see the studies of young men at the period of their greatest
activity confined to purely speculative matters, while later on they
are suddenly plunged, without any sort of experience, into the world
of men and affairs, it strikes me as contrary alike to reason and to
nature, and I cease to be surprised that so few men know what to do.
How strange a choice to teach us so many useless things, while the
art of doing is never touched upon! They profess to fit us for
society, and we are taught as if each of us were to live a life of
contemplation in a solitary cell, or to discuss theories with persons
whom they did not concern. You think you are teaching your scholars
how to live, and you teach them certain bodily contortions and certain
forms of words without meaning. I, too, have taught Emile how to live;
for I have taught him to enjoy his own society and, more than that, to
earn his own bread. But this is not enough. To live in the world he
must know how to get on with other people, he must know what forces
move them, he must calculate the action and re-action of self-interest
in civil society, he must estimate the results so accurately that he
will rarely fail in his undertakings, or he will at least have tried
in the best possible way. The law does not allow young people to
manage their own affairs nor to dispose of their own property; but
what would be the use of these precautions if they never gained any
experience until they were of age. They would have gained nothing by
the delay, and would have no more experience at five-and-twenty than
at fifteen. No doubt we must take precautions, so that a youth,
blinded by ignorance or misled by passion, may not hurt himself; but
at any age there are opportunities when deeds of kindness and of care
for the weak may be performed under the direction of a wise man, on
behalf of the unfortunate who need help.
Mothers and nurses grow fond of children because of the care they
lavish on them; the practice of social virtues touches the very heart
with the love of humanity; by doing good we become good; and I know no
surer way to this end. Keep your pupil busy with the good deeds that
are within his power, let the cause of the poor be his own, let him
help them not merely with his money, but with his service; let him
work for them, protect them, let his person and his time be at their
disposal; let him be their agent; he will never all his life long have
a more honourable office. How many of the oppressed, who have never
got a hearing, will obtain justice when he demands it for them with
that courage and firmness which the practice of virtue inspires; when
he makes his way into the presence of the rich and great, when he
goes, if need be, to the footstool of the king himself, to plead the
cause of the wretched, the cause of those who find all doors closed to
them by their poverty, those who are so afraid of being punished for
their misfortunes that they do not dare to complain?
But shall we make of Emile a knight-errant, a redresser of wrongs,
a paladin? Shall he thrust himself into public life, play the sage
and the defender of the laws before the great, before the magistrates,
before the king? Shall he lay petitions before the judges and plead
in the law courts? That I cannot say. The nature of things is not
changed by terms of mockery and scorn. He will do all that he knows
to be useful and good. He will do nothing more, and he knows that
nothing is useful and good for him which is unbefitting his age. He
knows that his first duty is to himself; that young men should
distrust themselves; that they should act circumspectly; that they
should show respect to those older than themselves, reticence and
discretion in talking without cause, modesty in things indifferent,
but courage in well doing, and boldness to speak the truth. Such were
those illustrious Romans who, having been admitted into public life,
spent their days in bringing criminals to justice and in protecting
the innocent, without any motives beyond those of learning, and of
the furtherance of justice and of the protection of right conduct.
Emile is not fond of noise or quarrelling, not only among men, but
among animals. [Footnote: "But what will he do if any one seeks a
quarrel with him?" My answer is that no one will ever quarrel with
him, he will never lend himself to such a thing. But, indeed, you
continue, who can be safe from a blow, or an insult from a bully, a
drunkard, a bravo, who for the joy of killing his man begins by
dishonouring him? That is another matter. The life and honour of the
citizens should not be at the mercy of a bully, a drunkard, or a
bravo, and one can no more insure oneself against such an accident
than against a falling tile. A blow given, or a lie in the teeth, if
he submit to them, have social consequences which no wisdom can
prevent and no tribunal can avenge. The weakness of the laws,
therefore, so far restores a man's independence; he is the sole
magistrate and judge between the offender and himself, the sole
interpreter and administrator of natural law. Justice is his due, and
he alone can obtain it, and in such a case there is no government on
earth so foolish as to punish him for so doing. I do not say he must
fight; that is absurd; I say justice is his due, and he alone can
dispense it. If I were king, I promise you that in my kingdom no one
would ever strike a man or call him a liar, and yet I would do without
all those useless laws against duels; the means are simple and require
no law courts. However that may be, Emile knows what is due to himself
in such a case, and the example due from him to the safety of men of
honour. The strongest of men cannot prevent insult, but he can take
good care that his adversary has no opportunity to boast of that
insult.] He will never set two dogs to fight, he will never set a dog
to chase a cat. This peaceful spirit is one of the results of his
education, which has never stimulated self-love or a high opinion of
himself, and so has not encouraged him to seek his pleasure in
domination and in the sufferings of others. The sight of suffering
makes him suffer too; this is a natural feeling. It is one of the
after effects of vanity that hardens a young man and makes him take a
delight in seeing the torments of a living and feeling creature; it
makes him consider himself beyond the reach of similar sufferings
through his superior wisdom or virtue. He who is beyond the reach of
vanity cannot fall into the vice which results from vanity. So Emile
loves peace. He is delighted at the sight of happiness, and if he can
help to bring it about, this is an additional reason for sharing it. I
do not assume that when he sees the unhappy he will merely feel for
them that barren and cruel pity which is content to pity the ills it
can heal. His kindness is active and teaches him much he would have
learnt far more slowly, or he would never have learnt at all, if his
heart had been harder. If he finds his comrades at strife, he tries to
reconcile them; if he sees the afflicted, he inquires as to the cause
of their sufferings; if he meets two men who hate each other, he wants
to know the reason of their enmity; if he finds one who is
down-trodden groaning under the oppression of the rich and powerful,
he tries to discover by what means he can counteract this oppression,
and in the interest he takes with regard to all these unhappy persons,
the means of removing their sufferings are never out of his sight.
What use shall we make of this disposition so that it may re-act in a
way suited to his age? Let us direct his efforts and his knowledge,
and use his zeal to increase them.
I am never weary of repeating: let all the lessons of young people
take the form of doing rather than talking; let them learn nothing
from books which they can learn from experience. How absurd to
attempt to give them practice in speaking when they have nothing to
say, to expect to make them feel, at their school desks, the vigour of
the language of passion and all the force of the arts of persuasion
when they have nothing and nobody to persuade! All the rules of
rhetoric are mere waste of words to those who do not know how to use
them for their own purposes. How does it concern a schoolboy to know
how Hannibal encouraged his soldiers to cross the Alps? If instead of
these grand speeches you showed him how to induce his prefect to give
him a holiday, you may be sure he would pay more attention to your
rules.
If I wanted to teach rhetoric to a youth whose passions were as
yet undeveloped, I would draw his attention continually to things
that would stir his passions, and I would discuss with him how he
should talk to people so as to get them to regard his wishes
favourably. But Emile is not in a condition so favourable to the art
of oratory. Concerned mainly with his physical well-being, he has
less need of others than they of him; and having nothing to ask of
others on his own account, what he wants to persuade them to do does
not affect him sufficiently to awake any very strong feeling. From
this it follows that his language will be on the whole simple and
literal. He usually speaks to the point and only to make himself
understood. He is not sententious, for he has not learnt to
generalise; he does not speak in figures, for he is rarely
impassioned.
Yet this is not because he is altogether cold and phlegmatic,
neither his age, his character, nor his tastes permit of this. In the
fire of adolescence the life-giving spirits, retained in the blood and
distilled again and again, inspire his young heart with a warmth which
glows in his eye, a warmth which is felt in his words and perceived in
his actions. The lofty feeling with which he is inspired gives him
strength and nobility; imbued with tender love for mankind his words
betray the thoughts of his heart; I know not how it is, but there is
more charm in his open-hearted generosity than in the artificial
eloquence of others; or rather this eloquence of his is the only true
eloquence, for he has only to show what he feels to make others share
his feelings.
The more I think of it the more convinced I am that by thus
translating our kindly impulses into action, by drawing from our good
or ill success conclusions as to their cause, we shall find that there
is little useful knowledge that cannot be imparted to a youth; and
that together with such true learning as may be got at college he will
learn a science of more importance than all the rest together, the
application of what he has learned to the purposes of life. Taking
such an interest in his fellow-creatures, it is impossible that he
should fail to learn very quickly how to note and weigh their actions,
their tastes, their pleasures, and to estimate generally at their true
value what may increase or diminish the happiness of men; he should do
this better than those who care for nobody and never do anything for
any one. The feelings of those who are always occupied with their own
concerns are too keenly affected for them to judge wisely of things.
They consider everything as it affects themselves, they form their
ideas of good and ill solely on their own experience, their minds are
filled with all sorts of absurd prejudices, and anything which affects
their own advantage ever so little, seems an upheaval of the universe.
Extend self-love to others and it is transformed into virtue, a
virtue which has its root in the heart of every one of us. The less
the object of our care is directly dependent on ourselves, the less we
have to fear from the illusion of self-interest; the more general this
interest becomes, the juster it is; and the love of the human race is
nothing but the love of justice within us. If therefore we desire
Emile to be a lover of truth, if we desire that he should indeed
perceive it, let us keep him far from self-interest in all his
business. The more care he bestows upon the happiness of others the
wiser and better he is, and the fewer mistakes he will make between
good and evil; but never allow him any blind preference founded merely
on personal predilection or unfair prejudice. Why should he harm one
person to serve another? What does it matter to him who has the
greater share of happiness, providing he promotes the happiness of
all? Apart from self-interest this care for the general well-being is
the first concern of the wise man, for each of us forms part of the
human race and not part of any individual member of that race.
To prevent pity degenerating into weakness we must generalise it
and extend it to mankind. Then we only yield to it when it is in
accordance with justice, since justice is of all the virtues that
which contributes most to the common good. Reason and self-love
compel us to love mankind even more than our neighbour, and to pity
the wicked is to be very cruel to other men.
Moreover, you must bear in mind that all these means employed to
project my pupil beyond himself have also a distinct relation to
himself; since they not only cause him inward delight, but I am also
endeavouring to instruct him, while I am making him kindly disposed
towards others.
First I showed the means employed, now I will show the result. What
wide prospects do I perceive unfolding themselves before his mind!
What noble feelings stifle the lesser passions in his heart! What
clearness of judgment, what accuracy in reasoning, do I see developing
from the inclinations we have cultivated, from the experience which
concentrates the desires of a great heart within the narrow bounds of
possibility, so that a man superior to others can come down to their
level if he cannot raise them to his own! True principles of justice,
true types of beauty, all moral relations between man and man, all
ideas of order, these are engraved on his understanding; he sees the
right place for everything and the causes which drive it from that
place; he sees what may do good, and what hinders it. Without having
felt the passions of mankind, he knows the illusions they produce and
their mode of action.
I proceed along the path which the force of circumstances compels
me to tread, but I do not insist that my readers shall follow me.
Long ago they have made up their minds that I am wandering in the
land of chimeras, while for my part I think they are dwelling in the
country of prejudice. When I wander so far from popular beliefs I do
not cease to bear them in mind; I examine them, I consider them, not
that I may follow them or shun them, but that I may weigh them in the
balance of reason. Whenever reason compels me to abandon these popular
beliefs, I know by experience that my readers will not follow my
example; I know that they will persist in refusing to go beyond what
they can see, and that they will take the youth I am describing for
the creation of my fanciful imagination, merely because he is unlike
the youths with whom they compare him; they forget that he must needs
be different, because he has been brought up in a totally different
fashion; he has been influenced by wholly different feelings,
instructed in a wholly different manner, so that it would be far
stranger if he were like your pupils than if he were what I have
supposed. He is a man of nature's making, not man's. No wonder men
find him strange.
When I began this work I took for granted nothing but what could be
observed as readily by others as by myself; for our starting-point,
the birth of man, is the same for all; but the further we go, while I
am seeking to cultivate nature and you are seeking to deprave it, the
further apart we find ourselves. At six years old my pupil was not so
very unlike yours, whom you had not yet had time to disfigure; now
there is nothing in common between them; and when they reach the age
of manhood, which is now approaching, they will show themselves
utterly different from each other, unless all my pains have been
thrown away. There may not be so very great a difference in the amount
of knowledge they possess, but there is all the difference in the
world in the kind of knowledge. You are amazed to find that the one
has noble sentiments of which the others have not the smallest germ,
but remember that the latter are already philosophers and theologians
while Emile does not even know what is meant by a philosopher and has
scarcely heard the name of God.
But if you come and tell me, "There are no such young men, young
people are not made that way; they have this passion or that, they do
this or that," it is as if you denied that a pear tree could ever be a
tall tree because the pear trees in our gardens are all dwarfs.
I beg these critics who are so ready with their blame to consider
that I am as well acquainted as they are with everything they say,
that I have probably given more thought to it, and that, as I have no
private end to serve in getting them to agree with me, I have a right
to demand that they should at least take time to find out where I am
mistaken. Let them thoroughly examine the nature of man, let them
follow the earliest growth of the heart in any given circumstances, so
as to see what a difference education may make in the individual; then
let them compare my method of education with the results I ascribe to
it; and let them tell me where my reasoning is unsound, and I shall
have no answer to give them.
It is this that makes me speak so strongly, and as I think with
good excuse: I have not pledged myself to any system, I depend as
little as possible on arguments, and I trust to what I myself have
observed. I do not base my ideas on what I have imagined, but on what
I have seen. It is true that I have not confined my observations
within the walls of any one town, nor to a single class of people;
but having compared men of every class and every nation which I have
been able to observe in the course of a life spent in this pursuit, I
have discarded as artificial what belonged to one nation and not to
another, to one rank and not to another; and I have regarded as proper
to mankind what was common to all, at any age, in any station, and in
any nation whatsoever.
Now if in accordance with this method you follow from infancy the
course of a youth who has not been shaped to any special mould, one
who depends as little as possible on authority and the opinions of
others, which will he most resemble, my pupil or yours? It seems to
me that this is the question you must answer if you would know if I am
mistaken.
It is not easy for a man to begin to think; but when once he has
begun he will never leave off. Once a thinker, always a thinker, and
the understanding once practised in reflection will never rest. You
may therefore think that I do too much or too little; that the human
mind is not by nature so quick to unfold; and that after having given
it opportunities it has not got, I keep it too long confined within a
circle of ideas which it ought to have outgrown.
But remember, in the first place, that when I want to train a
natural man, I do not want to make him a savage and to send him back
to the woods, but that living in the whirl of social life it is enough
that he should not let himself be carried away by the passions and
prejudices of men; let him see with his eyes and feel with his heart,
let him own no sway but that of reason. Under these conditions it is
plain that many things will strike him; the oft-recurring feelings
which affect him, the different ways of satisfying his real needs,
must give him many ideas he would not otherwise have acquired or would
only have acquired much later. The natural progress of the mind is
quickened but not reversed. The same man who would remain stupid in
the forests should become wise and reasonable in towns, if he were
merely a spectator in them. Nothing is better fitted to make one wise
than the sight of follies we do not share, and even if we share them,
we still learn, provided we are not the dupe of our follies and
provided we do not bring to them the same mistakes as the others.
Consider also that while our faculties are confined to the things
of sense, we offer scarcely any hold to the abstractions of philosophy
or to purely intellectual ideas. To attain to these we require either
to free ourselves from the body to which we are so strongly bound, or
to proceed step by step in a slow and gradual course, or else to leap
across the intervening space with a gigantic bound of which no child
is capable, one for which grown men even require many steps hewn on
purpose for them; but I find it very difficult to see how you propose
to construct such steps.
The Incomprehensible embraces all, he gives its motion to the
earth, and shapes the system of all creatures, but our eyes cannot
see him nor can our hands search him out, he evades the efforts of
our senses; we behold the work, but the workman is hidden from our
eyes. It is no small matter to know that he exists, and when we have
got so far, and when we ask. What is he? Where is he? our mind is
overwhelmed, we lose ourselves, we know not what to think.
Locke would have us begin with the study of spirits and go on to
that of bodies. This is the method of superstition, prejudice, and
error; it is not the method of nature, nor even that of well-ordered
reason; it is to learn to see by shutting our eyes. We must have
studied bodies long enough before we can form any true idea of
spirits, or even suspect that there are such beings. The contrary
practice merely puts materialism on a firmer footing.
Since our senses are the first instruments to our learning,
corporeal and sensible bodies are the only bodies we directly
apprehend. The word "spirit" has no meaning for any one who has not
philosophised. To the unlearned and to the child a spirit is merely a
body. Do they not fancy that spirits groan, speak, fight, and make
noises? Now you must own that spirits with arms and voices are very
like bodies. This is why every nation on the face of the earth, not
even excepting the Jews, have made to themselves idols. We, ourselves,
with our words, Spirit, Trinity, Persons, are for the most part quite
anthropomorphic. I admit that we are taught that God is everywhere;
but we also believe that there is air everywhere, at least in our
atmosphere; and the word Spirit meant originally nothing more than
breath and wind. Once you teach people to say what they do not
understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like.
The perception of our action upon other bodies must have first
induced us to suppose that their action upon us was effected in like
manner. Thus man began by thinking that all things whose action
affected him were alive. He did not recognise the limits of their
powers, and he therefore supposed that they were boundless; as soon
as he had supplied them with bodies they became his gods. In the
earliest times men went in terror of everything and everything in
nature seemed alive. The idea of matter was developed as slowly as
that of spirit, for the former is itself an abstraction.
Thus the universe was peopled with gods like themselves. The stars,
the winds and the mountains, rivers, trees, and towns, their very
dwellings, each had its soul, its god, its life. The teraphim of
Laban, the manitos of savages, the fetishes of the negroes, every
work of nature and of man, were the first gods of mortals; polytheism
was their first religion and idolatry their earliest form of worship.
The idea of one God was beyond their grasp, till little by little
they formed general ideas, and they rose to the idea of a first cause
and gave meaning to the word "substance," which is at bottom the
greatest of abstractions. So every child who believes in God is of
necessity an idolater or at least he regards the Deity as a man, and
when once the imagination has perceived God, it is very seldom that
the understanding conceives him. Locke's order leads us into this same
mistake.
Having arrived, I know not how, at the idea of substance, it is
clear that to allow of a single substance it must be assumed that
this substance is endowed with incompatible and mutually exclusive
properties, such as thought and size, one of which is by its nature
divisible and the other wholly incapable of division. Moreover it is
assumed that thought or, if you prefer it, feeling is a primitive
quality inseparable from the substance to which it belongs, that its
relation to the substance is like the relation between substance and
size. Hence it is inferred that beings who lose one of these
attributes lose the substance to which it belongs, and that death is,
therefore, but a separation of substances, and that those beings in
whom the two attributes are found are composed of the two substances
to which those two qualities belong.
But consider what a gulf there still is between the idea of two
substances and that of the divine nature, between the incomprehensible
idea of the influence of our soul upon our body and the idea of the
influence of God upon every living creature. The ideas of creation,
destruction, ubiquity, eternity, almighty power, those of the divine
attributes—these are all ideas so confused and obscure that few men
succeed in grasping them; yet there is nothing obscure about them to
the common people, because they do not understand them in the least;
how then should they present themselves in full force, that is to say
in all their obscurity, to the young mind which is still occupied with
the first working of the senses, and fails to realise anything but
what it handles? In vain do the abysses of the Infinite open around
us, a child does not know the meaning of fear; his weak eyes cannot
gauge their depths. To children everything is infinite, they cannot
assign limits to anything; not that their measure is so large, but
because their understanding is so small. I have even noticed that they
place the infinite rather below than above the dimensions known to
them. They judge a distance to be immense rather by their feet than by
their eyes; infinity is bounded for them, not so much by what they can
see, but how far they can go. If you talk to them of the power of God,
they will think he is nearly as strong as their father. As their own
knowledge is in everything the standard by which they judge of what is
possible, they always picture what is described to them as rather
smaller than what they know. Such are the natural reasonings of an
ignorant and feeble mind. Ajax was afraid to measure his strength
against Achilles, yet he challenged Jupiter to combat, for he knew
Achilles and did not know Jupiter. A Swiss peasant thought himself the
richest man alive; when they tried to explain to him what a king was,
he asked with pride, "Has the king got a hundred cows on the high
pastures?"
I am aware that many of my readers will be surprised to find me
tracing the course of my scholar through his early years without
speaking to him of religion. At fifteen he will not even know that he
has a soul, at eighteen even he may not be ready to learn about it.
For if he learns about it too soon, there is the risk of his never
really knowing anything about it.
If I had to depict the most heart-breaking stupidity, I would paint
a pedant teaching children the catechism; if I wanted to drive a
child crazy I would set him to explain what he learned in his
catechism. You will reply that as most of the Christian doctrines are
mysteries, you must wait, not merely till the child is a man, but till
the man is dead, before the human mind will understand those
doctrines. To that I reply, that there are mysteries which the heart
of man can neither conceive nor believe, and I see no use in teaching
them to children, unless you want to make liars of them. Moreover, I
assert that to admit that there are mysteries, you must at least
realise that they are incomprehensible, and children are not even
capable of this conception! At an age when everything is mysterious,
there are no mysteries properly so-called.
"We must believe in God if we would be saved." This doctrine
wrongly understood is the root of bloodthirsty intolerance and the
cause of all the futile teaching which strikes a deadly blow at human
reason by training it to cheat itself with mere words. No doubt there
is not a moment to be lost if we would deserve eternal salvation; but
if the repetition of certain words suffices to obtain it, I do not
see why we should not people heaven with starlings and magpies as
well as with children.
The obligation of faith assumes the possibility of belief. The
philosopher who does not believe is wrong, for he misuses the reason
he has cultivated, and he is able to understand the truths he rejects.
But the child who professes the Christian faith—what does he believe?
Just what he understands; and he understands so little of what he is
made to repeat that if you tell him to say just the opposite he will
be quite ready to do it. The faith of children and the faith of many
men is a matter of geography. Will they be rewarded for having been
born in Rome rather than in Mecca? One is told that Mahomet is the
prophet of God and he says, "Mahomet is the prophet of God." The other
is told that Mahomet is a rogue and he says, "Mahomet is a rogue."
Either of them would have said just the opposite had he stood in the
other's shoes. When they are so much alike to begin with, can the one
be consigned to Paradise and the other to Hell? When a child says he
believes in God, it is not God he believes in, but Peter or James who
told him that there is something called God, and he believes it after
the fashion of Euripides—
"O Jupiter, of whom I know nothing but thy name."
[Footnote: Plutarch. It is thus that the tragedy of Menalippus
originally began, but the clamour of the Athenians compelled
Euripides to change these opening lines.]
We hold that no child who dies before the age of reason will be
deprived of everlasting happiness; the Catholics believe the same of
all children who have been baptised, even though they have never heard
of God. There are, therefore, circumstances in which one can be saved
without belief in God, and these circumstances occur in the case of
children or madmen when the human mind is incapable of the operations
necessary to perceive the Godhead. The only difference I see between
you and me is that you profess that children of seven years old are
able to do this and I do not think them ready for it at fifteen.
Whether I am right or wrong depends, not on an article of the creed,
but on a simple observation in natural history.
From the same principle it is plain that any man having reached
old age without faith in God will not, therefore, be deprived of
God's presence in another life if his blindness was not wilful; and I
maintain that it is not always wilful. You admit that it is so in the
case of lunatics deprived by disease of their spiritual faculties, but
not of their manhood, and therefore still entitled to the goodness of
their Creator. Why then should we not admit it in the case of those
brought up from infancy in seclusion, those who have led the life of a
savage and are without the knowledge that comes from intercourse with
other men. [Footnote: For the natural condition of the human mind and
its slow development, cf. the first part of the Discours sur
Inegalite.] For it is clearly impossible that such a savage could ever
raise his thoughts to the knowledge of the true God. Reason tells that
man should only be punished for his wilful faults, and that invincible
ignorance can never be imputed to him as a crime. Hence it follows
that in the sight of the Eternal Justice every man who would believe
if he had the necessary knowledge is counted a believer, and that
there will be no unbelievers to be punished except those who have
closed their hearts against the truth.
Let us beware of proclaiming the truth to those who cannot as yet
comprehend it, for to do so is to try to inculcate error. It would be
better to have no idea at all of the Divinity than to have mean,
grotesque, harmful, and unworthy ideas; to fail to perceive the Divine
is a lesser evil than to insult it. The worthy Plutarch says, "I would
rather men said, 'There is no such person as Plutarch,' than that they
should say, 'Plutarch is unjust, envious, jealous, and such a tyrant
that he demands more than can be performed.'"
The chief harm which results from the monstrous ideas of God which
are instilled into the minds of children is that they last all their
life long, and as men they understand no more of God than they did as
children. In Switzerland I once saw a good and pious mother who was so
convinced of the truth of this maxim that she refused to teach her son
religion when he was a little child for fear lest he should be
satisfied with this crude teaching and neglect a better teaching when
he reached the age of reason. This child never heard the name of God
pronounced except with reverence and devotion, and as soon as he
attempted to say the word he was told to hold his tongue, as if the
subject were too sublime and great for him. This reticence aroused his
curiosity and his self-love; he looked forward to the time when he
would know this mystery so carefully hidden from him. The less they
spoke of God to him, the less he was himself permitted to speak of
God, the more he thought about Him; this child beheld God everywhere.
What I should most dread as the result of this unwise affectation of
mystery is this: by over-stimulating the youth's imagination you may
turn his head, and make him at the best a fanatic rather than a
believer.
But we need fear nothing of the sort for Emile, who always declines
to pay attention to what is beyond his reach, and listens with
profound indifference to things he does not understand. There are so
many things of which he is accustomed to say, "That is no concern of
mine," that one more or less makes little difference to him; and when
he does begin to perplex himself with these great matters, it is
because the natural growth of his knowledge is turning his thoughts
that way.
We have seen the road by which the cultivated human mind approaches
these mysteries, and I am ready to admit that it would not attain to
them naturally, even in the bosom of society, till a much later age.
But as there are in this same society inevitable causes which hasten
the development of the passions, if we did not also hasten the
development of the knowledge which controls these passions we should
indeed depart from the path of nature and disturb her equilibrium.
When we can no longer restrain a precocious development in one
direction we must promote a corresponding development in another
direction, so that the order of nature may not be inverted, and so
that things should progress together, not separately, so that the man,
complete at every moment of his life, may never find himself at one
stage in one of his faculties and at another stage in another faculty.
What a difficulty do I see before me! A difficulty all the greater
because it depends less on actual facts than on the cowardice of
those who dare not look the difficulty in the face. Let us at least
venture to state our problem. A child should always be brought up in
his father's religion; he is always given plain proofs that this
religion, whatever it may be, is the only true religion, that all
others are ridiculous and absurd. The force of the argument depends
entirely on the country in which it is put forward. Let a Turk, who
thinks Christianity so absurd at Constantinople, come to Paris and see
what they think of Mahomet. It is in matters of religion more than in
anything else that prejudice is triumphant. But when we who profess to
shake off its yoke entirely, we who refuse to yield any homage to
authority, decline to teach Emile anything which he could not learn
for himself in any country, what religion shall we give him, to what
sect shall this child of nature belong? The answer strikes me as quite
easy. We will not attach him to any sect, but we will give him the
means to choose for himself according to the right use of his own
reason.
Incedo per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso.—Horace, lib. ii. ode I.
No matter! Thus far zeal and prudence have taken the place of
caution. I hope that these guardians will not fail me now. Reader, do
not fear lest I should take precautions unworthy of a lover of truth;
I shall never forget my motto, but I distrust my own judgment all too
easily. Instead of telling you what I think myself, I will tell you
the thoughts of one whose opinions carry more weight than mine. I
guarantee the truth of the facts I am about to relate; they actually
happened to the author whose writings I am about to transcribe; it is
for you to judge whether we can draw from them any considerations
bearing on the matter in hand. I do not offer you my own idea or
another's as your rule; I merely present them for your examination.
Thirty years ago there was a young man in an Italian town; he was
an exile from his native land and found himself reduced to the depths
of poverty. He had been born a Calvinist, but the consequences of his
own folly had made him a fugitive in a strange land; he had no money
and he changed his religion for a morsel of bread. There was a hostel
for proselytes in that town to which he gained admission. The study of
controversy inspired doubts he had never felt before, and he made
acquaintance with evil hitherto unsuspected by him; he heard strange
doctrines and he met with morals still stranger to him; he beheld this
evil conduct and nearly fell a victim to it. He longed to escape, but
he was locked up; he complained, but his complaints were unheeded; at
the mercy of his tyrants, he found himself treated as a criminal
because he would not share their crimes. The anger kindled in a young
and untried heart by the first experience of violence and injustice
may be realised by those who have themselves experienced it. Tears of
anger flowed from his eyes, he was wild with rage; he prayed to heaven
and to man, and his prayers were unheard; he spoke to every one and no
one listened to him. He saw no one but the vilest servants under the
control of the wretch who insulted him, or accomplices in the same
crime who laughed at his resistance and encouraged him to follow their
example. He would have been ruined had not a worthy priest visited
the hostel on some matter of business. He found an opportunity of
consulting him secretly. The priest was poor and in need of help
himself, but the victim had more need of his assistance, and he did
not hesitate to help him to escape at the risk of making a dangerous
enemy.
Having escaped from vice to return to poverty, the young man
struggled vainly against fate: for a moment he thought he had gained
the victory. At the first gleam of good fortune his woes and his
protector were alike forgotten. He was soon punished for this
ingratitude; all his hopes vanished; youth indeed was on his side,
but his romantic ideas spoiled everything. He had neither talent nor
skill to make his way easily, he could neither be commonplace nor
wicked, he expected so much that he got nothing. When he had sunk to
his former poverty, when he was without food or shelter and ready to
die of hunger, he remembered his benefactor.
He went back to him, found him, and was kindly welcomed; the sight
of him reminded the priest of a good deed he had done; such a memory
always rejoices the heart. This man was by nature humane and pitiful;
he felt the sufferings of others through his own, and his heart had
not been hardened by prosperity; in a word, the lessons of wisdom and
an enlightened virtue had reinforced his natural kindness of heart. He
welcomed the young man, found him a lodging, and recommended him; he
shared with him his living which was barely enough for two. He did
more, he instructed him, consoled him, and taught him the difficult
art of bearing adversity in patience. You prejudiced people, would you
have expected to find all this in a priest and in Italy?
This worthy priest was a poor Savoyard clergyman who had offended
his bishop by some youthful fault; he had crossed the Alps to find a
position which he could not obtain in his own country. He lacked
neither wit nor learning, and with his interesting countenance he had
met with patrons who found him a place in the household of one of the
ministers, as tutor to his son. He preferred poverty to dependence,
and he did not know how to get on with the great. He did not stay long
with this minister, and when he departed he took with him his good
opinion; and as he lived a good life and gained the hearts of
everybody, he was glad to be forgiven by his bishop and to obtain from
him a small parish among the mountains, where he might pass the rest
of his life. This was the limit of his ambition.
He was attracted by the young fugitive and he questioned him
closely. He saw that ill-fortune had already seared his heart, that
scorn and disgrace had overthrown his courage, and that his pride,
transformed into bitterness and spite, led him to see nothing in the
harshness and injustice of men but their evil disposition and the
vanity of all virtue. He had seen that religion was but a mask for
selfishness, and its holy services but a screen for hypocrisy; he had
found in the subtleties of empty disputations heaven and hell awarded
as prizes for mere words; he had seen the sublime and primitive idea
of Divinity disfigured by the vain fancies of men; and when, as he
thought, faith in God required him to renounce the reason God himself
had given him, he held in equal scorn our foolish imaginings and the
object with which they are concerned. With no knowledge of things as
they are, without any idea of their origins, he was immersed in his
stubborn ignorance and utterly despised those who thought they knew
more than himself.
The neglect of all religion soon leads to the neglect of a man's
duties. The heart of this young libertine was already far on this
road. Yet his was not a bad nature, though incredulity and misery
were gradually stifling his natural disposition and dragging him down
to ruin; they were leading him into the conduct of a rascal and the
morals of an atheist.
The almost inevitable evil was not actually consummated. The young
man was not ignorant, his education had not been neglected. He was at
that happy age when the pulse beats strongly and the heart is warm,
but is not yet enslaved by the madness of the senses. His heart had
not lost its elasticity. A native modesty, a timid disposition
restrained him, and prolonged for him that period during which you
watch your pupil so carefully. The hateful example of brutal
depravity, of vice without any charm, had not merely failed to
quicken his imagination, it had deadened it. For a long time disgust
rather than virtue preserved his innocence, which would only succumb
to more seductive charms.
The priest saw the danger and the way of escape. He was not
discouraged by difficulties, he took a pleasure in his task; he
determined to complete it and to restore to virtue the victim he had
snatched from vice. He set about it cautiously; the beauty of the
motive gave him courage and inspired him with means worthy of his
zeal. Whatever might be the result, his pains would not be wasted. We
are always successful when our sole aim is to do good.
He began to win the confidence of the proselyte by not asking any
price for his kindness, by not intruding himself upon him, by not
preaching at him, by always coming down to his level, and treating
him as an equal. It was, so I think, a touching sight to see a
serious person becoming the comrade of a young scamp, and virtue
putting up with the speech of licence in order to triumph over it
more completely. When the young fool came to him with his silly
confidences and opened his heart to him, the priest listened and set
him at his ease; without giving his approval to what was bad, he took
an interest in everything; no tactless reproof checked his chatter or
closed his heart; the pleasure which he thought was given by his
conversation increased his pleasure in telling everything; thus he
made his general confession without knowing he was confessing
anything.
After he had made a thorough study of his feelings and disposition,
the priest saw plainly that, although he was not ignorant for his
age, he had forgotten everything that he most needed to know, and
that the disgrace which fortune had brought upon him had stifled in
him all real sense of good and evil. There is a stage of degradation
which robs the soul of its life; and the inner voice cannot be heard
by one whose whole mind is bent on getting food. To protect the
unlucky youth from the moral death which threatened him, he began to
revive his self-love and his good opinion of himself. He showed him a
happier future in the right use of his talents; he revived the
generous warmth of his heart by stories of the noble deeds of others;
by rousing his admiration for the doers of these deeds he revived his
desire to do like deeds himself. To draw him gradually from his idle
and wandering life, he made him copy out extracts from well-chosen
books; he pretended to want these extracts, and so nourished in him
the noble feeling of gratitude. He taught him indirectly through these
books, and thus he made him sufficiently regain his good opinion of
himself so that he would no longer think himself good for nothing, and
would not make himself despicable in his own eyes.
A trifling incident will show how this kindly man tried, unknown
to him, to raise the heart of his disciple out of its degradation,
without seeming to think of teaching. The priest was so well known
for his uprightness and his discretion, that many people preferred to
entrust their alms to him, rather than to the wealthy clergy of the
town. One day some one had given him some money to distribute among
the poor, and the young man was mean enough to ask for some of it on
the score of poverty. "No," said he, "we are brothers, you belong to
me and I must not touch the money entrusted to me." Then he gave him
the sum he had asked for out of his own pocket. Lessons of this sort
seldom fail to make an impression on the heart of young people who are
not wholly corrupt.
I am weary of speaking in the third person, and the precaution is
unnecessary; for you are well aware, my dear friend, that I myself
was this unhappy fugitive; I think I am so far removed from the
disorders of my youth that I may venture to confess them, and the
hand which rescued me well deserves that I should at least do honour
to its goodness at the cost of some slight shame.
What struck me most was to see in the private life of my worthy
master, virtue without hypocrisy, humanity without weakness, speech
always plain and straightforward, and conduct in accordance with this
speech. I never saw him trouble himself whether those whom he assisted
went to vespers or confession, whether they fasted at the appointed
seasons and went without meat; nor did he impose upon them any other
like conditions, without which you might die of hunger before you
could hope for any help from the devout.
Far from displaying before him the zeal of a new convert, I was
encouraged by these observations and I made no secret of my way of
thinking, nor did he seem to be shocked by it. Sometimes I would say
to myself, he overlooks my indifference to the religion I have adopted
because he sees I am equally indifferent to the religion in which I
was brought up; he knows that my scorn for religion is not confined to
one sect. But what could I think when I sometimes heard him give his
approval to doctrines contrary to those of the Roman Catholic Church,
and apparently having but a poor opinion of its ceremonies. I should
have thought him a Protestant in disguise if I had not beheld him so
faithful to those very customs which he seemed to value so lightly;
but I knew he fulfilled his priestly duties as carefully in private as
in public, and I knew not what to think of these apparent
contradictions. Except for the fault which had formerly brought about
his disgrace, a fault which he had only partially overcome, his life
was exemplary, his conduct beyond reproach, his conversation honest
and discreet. While I lived on very friendly terms with him, I learnt
day by day to respect him more; and when he had completely won my
heart by such great kindness, I awaited with eager curiosity the time
when I should learn what was the principle on which the uniformity of
this strange life was based.
This opportunity was a long time coming. Before taking his disciple
into his confidence, he tried to get the seeds of reason and kindness
which he had sown in my heart to germinate. The most difficult fault
to overcome in me was a certain haughty misanthropy, a certain
bitterness against the rich and successful, as if their wealth and
happiness had been gained at my own expense, and as if their supposed
happiness had been unjustly taken from my own. The foolish vanity of
youth, which kicks against the pricks of humiliation, made me only too
much inclined to this angry temper; and the self-respect, which my
mentor strove to revive, led to pride, which made men still more vile
in my eyes, and only added scorn to my hatred.
Without directly attacking this pride, he prevented it from
developing into hardness of heart; and without depriving me of my
self-esteem, he made me less scornful of my neighbours. By continually
drawing my attention from the empty show, and directing it to the
genuine sufferings concealed by it, he taught me to deplore the
faults of my fellows and feel for their sufferings, to pity rather
than envy them. Touched with compassion towards human weaknesses
through the profound conviction of his own failings, he viewed all
men as the victims of their own vices and those of others; he beheld
the poor groaning under the tyranny of the rich, and the rich under
the tyranny of their own prejudices. "Believe me," said he, "our
illusions, far from concealing our woes, only increase them by giving
value to what is in itself valueless, in making us aware of all sorts
of fancied privations which we should not otherwise feel. Peace of
heart consists in despising everything that might disturb that peace;
the man who clings most closely to life is the man who can least enjoy
it; and the man who most eagerly desires happiness is always most
miserable."
"What gloomy ideas!" I exclaimed bitterly. "If we must deny
ourselves everything, we might as well never have been born; and if we
must despise even happiness itself who can be happy?" "I am," replied
the priest one day, in a tone which made a great impression on me.
"You happy! So little favoured by fortune, so poor, an exile and
persecuted, you are happy! How have you contrived to be happy?" "My
child," he answered, "I will gladly tell you."
Thereupon he explained that, having heard my confessions, he would
confess to me. "I will open my whole heart to yours," he said,
embracing me. "You will see me, if not as I am, at least as I seem to
myself. When you have heard my whole confession of faith, when you
really know the condition of my heart, you will know why I think
myself happy, and if you think as I do, you will know how to be happy
too. But these explanations are not the affair of a moment, it will
take time to show you all my ideas about the lot of man and the true
value of life; let us choose a fitting time and a place where we may
continue this conversation without interruption."
I showed him how eager I was to hear him. The meeting was fixed
for the very next morning. It was summer time; we rose at daybreak.
He took me out of the town on to a high hill above the river Po,
whose course we beheld as it flowed between its fertile banks; in the
distance the landscape was crowned by the vast chain of the Alps; the
beams of the rising sun already touched the plains and cast across the
fields long shadows of trees, hillocks, and houses, and enriched with
a thousand gleams of light the fairest picture which the human eye can
see. You would have thought that nature was displaying all her
splendour before our eyes to furnish a text for our conversation.
After contemplating this scene for a space in silence, the man of
peace spoke to me.
THE CREED OF A SAVOYARD PRIEST
My child, do not look to me for learned speeches or profound
arguments. I am no great philosopher, nor do I desire to be one. I
have, however, a certain amount of common-sense and a constant
devotion to truth. I have no wish to argue with you nor even to
convince you; it is enough for me to show you, in all simplicity of
heart, what I really think. Consult your own heart while I speak;
that is all I ask. If I am mistaken, I am honestly mistaken, and
therefore my error will not be counted to me as a crime; if you, too,
are honestly mistaken, there is no great harm done. If I am right, we
are both endowed with reason, we have both the same motive for
listening to the voice of reason. Why should not you think as I do?
By birth I was a peasant and poor; to till the ground was my
portion; but my parents thought it a finer thing that I should learn
to get my living as a priest and they found means to send me to
college. I am quite sure that neither my parents nor I had any idea of
seeking after what was good, useful, or true; we only sought what was
wanted to get me ordained. I learned what was taught me, I said what I
was told to say, I promised all that was required, and I became a
priest. But I soon discovered that when I promised not to be a man, I
had promised more than I could perform.
Conscience, they tell us, is the creature of prejudice, but I know
from experience that conscience persists in following the order of
nature in spite of all the laws of man. In vain is this or that
forbidden; remorse makes her voice heard but feebly when what we do
is permitted by well-ordered nature, and still more when we are doing
her bidding. My good youth, nature has not yet appealed to your
senses; may you long remain in this happy state when her voice is the
voice of innocence. Remember that to anticipate her teaching is to
offend more deeply against her than to resist her teaching; you must
first learn to resist, that you may know when to yield without
wrong-doing.
From my youth up I had reverenced the married state as the first
and most sacred institution of nature. Having renounced the right to
marry, I was resolved not to profane the sanctity of marriage; for in
spite of my education and reading I had always led a simple and
regular life, and my mind had preserved the innocence of its natural
instincts; these instincts had not been obscured by worldly wisdom,
while my poverty kept me remote from the temptations dictated by the
sophistry of vice.
This very resolution proved my ruin. My respect for marriage led
to the discovery of my misconduct. The scandal must be expiated; I
was arrested, suspended, and dismissed; I was the victim of my
scruples rather than of my incontinence, and I had reason to believe,
from the reproaches which accompanied my disgrace, that one can often
escape punishment by being guilty of a worse fault.
A thoughtful mind soon learns from such experiences. I found my
former ideas of justice, honesty, and every duty of man overturned by
these painful events, and day by day I was losing my hold on one or
another of the opinions I had accepted. What was left was not enough
to form a body of ideas which could stand alone, and I felt that the
evidence on which my principles rested was being weakened; at last I
knew not what to think, and I came to the same conclusion as yourself,
but with this difference: My lack of faith was the slow growth of
manhood, attained with great difficulty, and all the harder to uproot.
I was in that state of doubt and uncertainty which Descartes
considers essential to the search for truth. It is a state which
cannot continue, it is disquieting and painful; only vicious
tendencies and an idle heart can keep us in that state. My heart was
not so corrupt as to delight in it, and there is nothing which so
maintains the habit of thinking as being better pleased with oneself
than with one's lot.
I pondered, therefore, on the sad fate of mortals, adrift upon this
sea of human opinions, without compass or rudder, and abandoned to
their stormy passions with no guide but an inexperienced pilot who
does not know whence he comes or whither he is going. I said to
myself, "I love truth, I seek her, and cannot find her. Show me truth
and I will hold her fast; why does she hide her face from the eager
heart that would fain worship her?"
Although I have often experienced worse sufferings, I have never
led a life so uniformly distressing as this period of unrest and
anxiety, when I wandered incessantly from one doubt to another,
gaining nothing from my prolonged meditations but uncertainty,
darkness, and contradiction with regard to the source of my being and
the rule of my duties.
I cannot understand how any one can be a sceptic sincerely and on
principle. Either such philosophers do not exist or they are the most
miserable of men. Doubt with regard to what we ought to know is a
condition too violent for the human mind; it cannot long be endured;
in spite of itself the mind decides one way or another, and it prefers
to be deceived rather than to believe nothing.
My perplexity was increased by the fact that I had been brought up
in a church which decides everything and permits no doubts, so that
having rejected one article of faith I was forced to reject the rest;
as I could not accept absurd decisions, I was deprived of those which
were not absurd. When I was told to believe everything, I could
believe nothing, and I knew not where to stop.
I consulted the philosophers, I searched their books and examined
their various theories; I found them all alike proud, assertive,
dogmatic, professing, even in their so-called scepticism, to know
everything, proving nothing, scoffing at each other. This last trait,
which was common to all of them, struck me as the only point in which
they were right. Braggarts in attack, they are weaklings in defence.
Weigh their arguments, they are all destructive; count their voices,
every one speaks for himself; they are only agreed in arguing with
each other. I could find no way out of my uncertainty by listening to
them.
I suppose this prodigious diversity of opinion is caused, in the
first place, by the weakness of the human intellect; and, in the
second, by pride. We have no means of measuring this vast machine, we
are unable to calculate its workings; we know neither its guiding
principles nor its final purpose; we do not know ourselves, we know
neither our nature nor the spirit that moves us; we scarcely know
whether man is one or many; we are surrounded by impenetrable
mysteries. These mysteries are beyond the region of sense, we think
we can penetrate them by the light of reason, but we fall back on our
imagination. Through this imagined world each forces a way for himself
which he holds to be right; none can tell whether his path will lead
him to the goal. Yet we long to know and understand it all. The one
thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable. We prefer to trust
to chance and to believe what is not true, rather than to own that not
one of us can see what really is. A fragment of some vast whole whose
bounds are beyond our gaze, a fragment abandoned by its Creator to our
foolish quarrels, we are vain enough to want to determine the nature
of that whole and our own relations with regard to it.
If the philosophers were in a position to declare the truth, which
of them would care to do so? Every one of them knows that his own
system rests on no surer foundations than the rest, but he maintains
it because it is his own. There is not one of them who, if he chanced
to discover the difference between truth and falsehood, would not
prefer his own lie to the truth which another had discovered. Where
is the philosopher who would not deceive the whole world for his own
glory? If he can rise above the crowd, if he can excel his rivals,
what more does he want? Among believers he is an atheist; among
atheists he would be a believer.
The first thing I learned from these considerations was to restrict
my inquiries to what directly concerned myself, to rest in profound
ignorance of everything else, and not even to trouble myself to doubt
anything beyond what I required to know.
I also realised that the philosophers, far from ridding me of my
vain doubts, only multiplied the doubts that tormented me and failed
to remove any one of them. So I chose another guide and said, "Let me
follow the Inner Light; it will not lead me so far astray as others
have done, or if it does it will be my own fault, and I shall not go
so far wrong if I follow my own illusions as if I trusted to their
deceits."
I then went over in my mind the various opinions which I had held
in the course of my life, and I saw that although no one of them was
plain enough to gain immediate belief, some were more probable than
others, and my inward consent was given or withheld in proportion to
this improbability. Having discovered this, I made an unprejudiced
comparison of all these different ideas, and I perceived that the
first and most general of them was also the simplest and the most
reasonable, and that it would have been accepted by every one if only
it had been last instead of first. Imagine all your philosophers,
ancient and modern, having exhausted their strange systems of force,
chance, fate, necessity, atoms, a living world, animated matter, and
every variety of materialism. Then comes the illustrious Clarke who
gives light to the world and proclaims the Being of beings and the
Giver of things. What universal admiration, what unanimous applause
would have greeted this new system—a system so great, so
illuminating, and so simple. Other systems are full of absurdities;
this system seems to me to contain fewer things which are beyond the
understanding of the human mind. I said to myself, "Every system has
its insoluble problems, for the finite mind of man is too small to
deal with them; these difficulties are therefore no final arguments,
against any system. But what a difference there is between the direct
evidence on which these systems are based! Should we not prefer that
theory which alone explains all the facts, when it is no more
difficult than the rest?"
Bearing thus within my heart the love of truth as my only
philosophy, and as my only method a clear and simple rule which
dispensed with the need for vain and subtle arguments, I returned with
the help of this rule to the examination of such knowledge as
concerned myself; I was resolved to admit as self-evident all that I
could not honestly refuse to believe, and to admit as true all that
seemed to follow directly from this; all the rest I determined to
leave undecided, neither accepting nor rejecting it, nor yet troubling
myself to clear up difficulties which did not lead to any practical
ends.
But who am I? What right have I to decide? What is it that
determines my judgments? If they are inevitable, if they are the
results of the impressions I receive, I am wasting my strength in such
inquiries; they would be made or not without any interference of mine.
I must therefore first turn my eyes upon myself to acquaint myself
with the instrument I desire to use, and to discover how far it is
reliable.
I exist, and I have senses through which I receive impressions.
This is the first truth that strikes me and I am forced to accept it.
Have I any independent knowledge of my existence, or am I only aware
of it through my sensations? This is my first difficulty, and so far I
cannot solve it. For I continually experience sensations, either
directly or indirectly through memory, so how can I know if the
feeling of self is something beyond these sensations or if it can
exist independently of them?
My sensations take place in myself, for they make me aware of my
own existence; but their cause is outside me, for they affect me
whether I have any reason for them or not, and they are produced or
destroyed independently of me. So I clearly perceive that my
sensation, which is within me, and its cause or its object, which is
outside me, are different things.
Thus, not only do I exist, but other entities exist also, that is
to say, the objects of my sensations; and even if these objects are
merely ideas, still these ideas are not me.
But everything outside myself, everything which acts upon my
senses, I call matter, and all the particles of matter which I suppose
to be united into separate entities I call bodies. Thus all the
disputes of the idealists and the realists have no meaning for me;
their distinctions between the appearance and the reality of bodies
are wholly fanciful.
I am now as convinced of the existence of the universe as of my
own. I next consider the objects of my sensations, and I find that I
have the power of comparing them, so I perceive that I am endowed with
an active force of which I was not previously aware.
To perceive is to feel; to compare is to judge; to judge and to
feel are not the same. Through sensation objects present themselves to
me separately and singly as they are in nature; by comparing them I
rearrange them, I shift them so to speak, I place one upon another to
decide whether they are alike or different, or more generally to find
out their relations. To my mind, the distinctive faculty of an active
or intelligent being is the power of understanding this word "is." I
seek in vain in the merely sensitive entity that intelligent force
which compares and judges; I can find no trace of it in its nature.
This passive entity will be aware of each object separately, it will
even be aware of the whole formed by the two together, but having no
power to place them side by side it can never compare them, it can
never form a judgment with regard to them.
To see two things at once is not to see their relations nor to
judge of their differences; to perceive several objects, one beyond
the other, is not to relate them. I may have at the same moment an
idea of a big stick and a little stick without comparing them, without
judging that one is less than the other, just as I can see my whole
hand without counting my fingers. [Footnote: M. de le Cordamines'
narratives tell of a people who only know how to count up to three.
Yet the men of this nation, having hands, have often seen their
fingers without learning to count up to five.] These comparative
ideas, 'greater', 'smaller', together with number ideas of 'one',
'two', etc. are certainly not sensations, although my mind only
produces them when my sensations occur.
We are told that a sensitive being distinguishes sensations from
each other by the inherent differences in the sensations; this
requires explanation. When the sensations are different, the sensitive
being distinguishes them by their differences; when they are alike,
he distinguishes them because he is aware of them one beyond the
other. Otherwise, how could he distinguish between two equal objects
simultaneously experienced? He would necessarily confound the two
objects and take them for one object, especially under a system which
professed that the representative sensations of space have no
extension.
When we become aware of the two sensations to be compared, their
impression is made, each object is perceived, both are perceived, but
for all that their relation is not perceived. If the judgment of this
relation were merely a sensation, and came to me solely from the
object itself, my judgments would never be mistaken, for it is never
untrue that I feel what I feel.
Why then am I mistaken as to the relation between these two sticks,
especially when they are not parallel? Why, for example, do I say the
small stick is a third of the large, when it is only a quarter? Why is
the picture, which is the sensation, unlike its model which is the
object? It is because I am active when I judge, because the operation
of comparison is at fault; because my understanding, which judges of
relations, mingles its errors with the truth of sensations, which only
reveal to me things.
Add to this a consideration which will, I feel sure, appeal to you
when you have thought about it: it is this—If we were purely passive
in the use of our senses, there would be no communication between
them; it would be impossible to know that the body we are touching and
the thing we are looking at is the same. Either we should never
perceive anything outside ourselves, or there would be for us five
substances perceptible by the senses, whose identity we should have no
means of perceiving.
This power of my mind which brings my sensations together and
compares them may be called by any name; let it be called attention,
meditation, reflection, or what you will; it is still true that it is
in me and not in things, that it is I alone who produce it, though I
only produce it when I receive an impression from things. Though I am
compelled to feel or not to feel, I am free to examine more or less
what I feel.
Being now, so to speak, sure of myself, I begin to look at things
outside myself, and I behold myself with a sort of shudder flung at
random into this vast universe, plunged as it were into the vast
number of entities, knowing nothing of what they are in themselves or
in relation to me. I study them, I observe them; and the first object
which suggests itself for comparison with them is myself.
All that I perceive through the senses is matter, and I deduce all
the essential properties of matter from the sensible qualities which
make me perceive it, qualities which are inseparable from it. I see it
sometimes in motion, sometimes at rest, [Footnote: This repose is, if
you prefer it, merely relative; but as we perceive more or less of
motion, we may plainly conceive one of two extremes, which is rest;
and we conceive it so clearly that we are even disposed to take for
absolute rest what is only relative. But it is not true that motion is
of the essence of matter, if matter may be conceived of as at rest.]
hence I infer that neither motion nor rest is essential to it, but
motion, being an action, is the result of a cause of which rest is
only the absence. When, therefore, there is nothing acting upon matter
it does not move, and for the very reason that rest and motion are
indifferent to it, its natural state is a state of rest.
I perceive two sorts of motions of bodies, acquired motion and
spontaneous or voluntary motion. In the first the cause is external
to the body moved, in the second it is within. I shall not conclude
from that that the motion, say of a watch, is spontaneous, for if no
external cause operated upon the spring it would run down and the
watch would cease to go. For the same reason I should not admit that
the movements of fluids are spontaneous, neither should I attribute
spontaneous motion to fire which causes their fluidity. [Footnote:
Chemists regard phlogiston or the element of fire as diffused,
motionless, and stagnant in the compounds of which it forms part,
until external forces set it free, collect it and set in in motion,
and change it into fire.]
You ask me if the movements of animals are spontaneous; my answer
is, "I cannot tell," but analogy points that way. You ask me again,
how do I know that there are spontaneous movements? I tell you, "I
know it because I feel them." I want to move my arm and I move it
without any other immediate cause of the movement but my own will. In
vain would any one try to argue me out of this feeling, it is stronger
than any proofs; you might as well try to convince me that I do not
exist.
If there were no spontaneity in men's actions, nor in anything
that happens on this earth, it would be all the more difficult to
imagine a first cause for all motion. For my own part, I feel myself
so thoroughly convinced that the natural state of matter is a state
of rest, and that it has no power of action in itself, that when I
see a body in motion I at once assume that it is either a living body
or that this motion has been imparted to it. My mind declines to
accept in any way the idea of inorganic matter moving of its own
accord, or giving rise to any action.
Yet this visible universe consists of matter, matter diffused and
dead, [Footnote: I have tried hard to grasp the idea of a living
molecule, but in vain. The idea of matter feeling without any senses
seems to me unintelligible and self-contradictory. To accept or
reject this idea one must first understand it, and I confess that so
far I have not succeeded.] matter which has none of the cohesion, the
organisation, the common feeling of the parts of a living body, for it
is certain that we who are parts have no consciousness of the whole.
This same universe is in motion, and in its movements, ordered,
uniform, and subject to fixed laws, it has none of that freedom which
appears in the spontaneous movements of men and animals. So the world
is not some huge animal which moves of its own accord; its movements
are therefore due to some external cause, a cause which I cannot
perceive, but the inner voice makes this cause so apparent to me that
I cannot watch the course of the sun without imagining a force which
drives it, and when the earth revolves I think I see the hand that
sets it in motion.
If I must accept general laws whose essential relation to matter
is unperceived by me, how much further have I got? These laws, not
being real things, not being substances, have therefore some other
basis unknown to me. Experiment and observation have acquainted us
with the laws of motion; these laws determine the results without
showing their causes; they are quite inadequate to explain the system
of the world and the course of the universe. With the help of dice
Descartes made heaven and earth; but he could not set his dice in
motion, nor start the action of his centrifugal force without the help
of rotation. Newton discovered the law of gravitation; but gravitation
alone would soon reduce the universe to a motionless mass; he was
compelled to add a projectile force to account for the elliptical
course of the celestial bodies; let Newton show us the hand that
launched the planets in the tangent of their orbits.
The first causes of motion are not to be found in matter; matter
receives and transmits motion, but does not produce it. The more I
observe the action and reaction of the forces of nature playing on one
another, the more I see that we must always go back from one effect to
another, till we arrive at a first cause in some will; for to assume
an infinite succession of causes is to assume that there is no first
cause. In a word, no motion which is not caused by another motion can
take place, except by a spontaneous, voluntary action; inanimate
bodies have no action but motion, and there is no real action without
will. This is my first principle. I believe, therefore, that there is
a will which sets the universe in motion and gives life to nature.
This is my first dogma, or the first article of my creed.
How does a will produce a physical and corporeal action? I cannot
tell, but I perceive that it does so in myself; I will to do
something and I do it; I will to move my body and it moves, but if an
inanimate body, when at rest, should begin to move itself, the thing
is incomprehensible and without precedent. The will is known to me in
its action, not in its nature. I know this will as a cause of motion,
but to conceive of matter as producing motion is clearly to conceive
of an effect without a cause, which is not to conceive at all.
It is no more possible for me to conceive how my will moves my body
than to conceive how my sensations affect my mind. I do not even know
why one of these mysteries has seemed less inexplicable than the
other. For my own part, whether I am active or passive, the means of
union of the two substances seem to me absolutely incomprehensible. It
is very strange that people make this very incomprehensibility a step
towards the compounding of the two substances, as if operations so
different in kind were more easily explained in one case than in two.
The doctrine I have just laid down is indeed obscure; but at least
it suggests a meaning and there is nothing in it repugnant to reason
or experience; can we say as much of materialism? Is it not plain
that if motion is essential to matter it would be inseparable from
it, it would always be present in it in the same degree, always
present in every particle of matter, always the same in each particle
of matter, it would not be capable of transmission, it could neither
increase nor diminish, nor could we ever conceive of matter at rest.
When you tell me that motion is not essential to matter but necessary
to it, you try to cheat me with words which would be easier to refute
if there was a little more sense in them. For either the motion of
matter arises from the matter itself and is therefore essential to it;
or it arises from an external cause and is not necessary to the
matter, because the motive cause acts upon it; we have got back to our
original difficulty.
The chief source of human error is to be found in general and
abstract ideas; the jargon of metaphysics has never led to the
discovery of any single truth, and it has filled philosophy with
absurdities of which we are ashamed as soon as we strip them of their
long words. Tell me, my friend, when they talk to you of a blind force
diffused throughout nature, do they present any real idea to your
mind? They think they are saying something by these vague
expressions—universal force, essential motion—but they are saying
nothing at all. The idea of motion is nothing more than the idea of
transference from place to place; there is no motion without
direction; for no individual can move all ways at once. In what
direction then does matter move of necessity? Has the whole body of
matter a uniform motion, or has each atom its own motion? According to
the first idea the whole universe must form a solid and indivisible
mass; according to the second it can only form a diffused and
incoherent fluid, which would make the union of any two atoms
impossible. What direction shall be taken by this motion common to all
matter? Shall it be in a straight line, in a circle, or from above
downwards, to the right or to the left? If each molecule has its own
direction, what are the causes of all these directions and all these
differences? If every molecule or atom only revolved on its own axis,
nothing would ever leave its place and there would be no transmitted
motion, and even then this circular movement would require to follow
some direction. To set matter in motion by an abstraction is to utter
words without meaning, and to attribute to matter a given direction
is to assume a determining cause. The more examples I take, the more
causes I have to explain, without ever finding a common agent which
controls them. Far from being able to picture to myself an entire
absence of order in the fortuitous concurrence of elements, I cannot
even imagine such a strife, and the chaos of the universe is less
conceivable to me than its harmony. I can understand that the
mechanism of the universe may not be intelligible to the human mind,
but when a man sets to work to explain it, he must say what men can
understand.
If matter in motion points me to a will, matter in motion according
to fixed laws points me to an intelligence; that is the second article
of my creed. To act, to compare, to choose, are the operations of an
active, thinking being; so this being exists. Where do you find him
existing, you will say? Not merely in the revolving heavens, nor in
the sun which gives us light, not in myself alone, but in the sheep
that grazes, the bird that flies, the stone that falls, and the leaf
blown by the wind.
I judge of the order of the world, although I know nothing of its
purpose, for to judge of this order it is enough for me to compare
the parts one with another, to study their co-operation, their
relations, and to observe their united action. I know not why the
universe exists, but I see continually how it is changed; I never
fail to perceive the close connection by which the entities of which
it consists lend their aid one to another. I am like a man who sees
the works of a watch for the first time; he is never weary of admiring
the mechanism, though he does not know the use of the instrument and
has never seen its face. I do not know what this is for, says he, but
I see that each part of it is fitted to the rest, I admire the workman
in the details of his work, and I am quite certain that all these
wheels only work together in this fashion for some common end which I
cannot perceive.
Let us compare the special ends, the means, the ordered relations
of every kind, then let us listen to the inner voice of feeling; what
healthy mind can reject its evidence? Unless the eyes are blinded by
prejudices, can they fail to see that the visible order of the
universe proclaims a supreme intelligence? What sophisms must be
brought together before we fail to understand the harmony of existence
and the wonderful co-operation of every part for the maintenance of
the rest? Say what you will of combinations and probabilities; what do
you gain by reducing me to silence if you cannot gain my consent? And
how can you rob me of the spontaneous feeling which, in spite of
myself, continually gives you the lie? If organised bodies had come
together fortuitously in all sorts of ways before assuming settled
forms, if stomachs are made without mouths, feet without heads, hands
without arms, imperfect organs of every kind which died because they
could not preserve their life, why do none of these imperfect attempts
now meet our eyes; why has nature at length prescribed laws to herself
which she did not at first recognise? I must not be surprised if that
which is possible should happen, and if the improbability of the event
is compensated for by the number of the attempts. I grant this; yet if
any one told me that printed characters scattered broadcast had
produced the Aeneid all complete, I would not condescend to take a
single step to verify this falsehood. You will tell me I am forgetting
the multitude of attempts. But how many such attempts must I assume to
bring the combination within the bounds of probability? For my own
part the only possible assumption is that the chances are infinity to
one that the product is not the work of chance. In addition to this,
chance combinations yield nothing but products of the same nature as
the elements combined, so that life and organisation will not be
produced by a flow of atoms, and a chemist when making his compounds
will never give them thought and feeling in his crucible. [Footnote:
Could one believe, if one had not seen it, that human absurdity could
go so far? Amatus Lusitanus asserts that he saw a little man an inch
long enclosed in a glass, which Julius Camillus, like a second
Prometheus, had made by alchemy. Paracelsis (De natura rerum) teaches
the method of making these tiny men, and he maintains that the
pygmies, fauns, satyrs, and nymphs have been made by chemistry.
Indeed I cannot see that there is anything more to be done, to
establish the possibility of these facts, unless it is to assert that
organic matter resists the heat of fire and that its molecules can
preserve their life in the hottest furnace.]
I was surprised and almost shocked when I read Neuwentit. How
could this man desire to make a book out of the wonders of nature,
wonders which show the wisdom of the author of nature? His book would
have been as large as the world itself before he had exhausted his
subject, and as soon as we attempt to give details, that greatest
wonder of all, the concord and harmony of the whole, escapes us. The
mere generation of living organic bodies is the despair of the human
mind; the insurmountable barrier raised by nature between the various
species, so that they should not mix with one another, is the clearest
proof of her intention. She is not content to have established order,
she has taken adequate measures to prevent the disturbance of that
order.
There is not a being in the universe which may not be regarded as
in some respects the common centre of all, around which they are
grouped, so that they are all reciprocally end and means in relation
to each other. The mind is confused and lost amid these innumerable
relations, not one of which is itself confused or lost in the crowd.
What absurd assumptions are required to deduce all this harmony from
the blind mechanism of matter set in motion by chance! In vain do
those who deny the unity of intention manifested in the relations of
all the parts of this great whole, in vain do they conceal their
nonsense under abstractions, co-ordinations, general principles,
symbolic expressions; whatever they do I find it impossible to
conceive of a system of entities so firmly ordered unless I believe in
an intelligence that orders them. It is not in my power to believe
that passive and dead matter can have brought forth living and feeling
beings, that blind chance has brought forth intelligent beings, that
that which does not think has brought forth thinking beings.
I believe, therefore, that the world is governed by a wise and
powerful will; I see it or rather I feel it, and it is a great thing
to know this. But has this same world always existed, or has it been
created? Is there one source of all things? Are there two or many?
What is their nature? I know not; and what concern is it of mine?
When these things become of importance to me I will try to learn
them; till then I abjure these idle speculations, which may trouble my
peace, but cannot affect my conduct nor be comprehended by my reason.
Recollect that I am not preaching my own opinion but explaining
it. Whether matter is eternal or created, whether its origin is
passive or not, it is still certain that the whole is one, and that
it proclaims a single intelligence; for I see nothing that is not
part of the same ordered system, nothing which does not co-operate to
the same end, namely, the conservation of all within the established
order. This being who wills and can perform his will, this being
active through his own power, this being, whoever he may be, who moves
the universe and orders all things, is what I call God. To this name I
add the ideas of intelligence, power, will, which I have brought
together, and that of kindness which is their necessary consequence;
but for all this I know no more of the being to which I ascribe them.
He hides himself alike from my senses and my understanding; the more I
think of him, the more perplexed I am; I know full well that he
exists, and that he exists of himself alone; I know that my existence
depends on his, and that everything I know depends upon him also. I
see God everywhere in his works; I feel him within myself; I behold
him all around me; but if I try to ponder him himself, if I try to
find out where he is, what he is, what is his substance, he escapes me
and my troubled spirit finds nothing.
Convinced of my unfitness, I shall never argue about the nature of
God unless I am driven to it by the feeling of his relations with
myself. Such reasonings are always rash; a wise man should venture on
them with trembling, he should be certain that he can never sound
their abysses; for the most insolent attitude towards God is not to
abstain from thinking of him, but to think evil of him.
After the discovery of such of his attributes as enable me to
conceive of his existence, I return to myself, and I try to discover
what is my place in the order of things which he governs, and I can
myself examine. At once, and beyond possibility of doubt, I discover
my species; for by my own will and the instruments I can control to
carry out my will, I have more power to act upon all bodies about me,
either to make use of or to avoid their action at my pleasure, than
any of them has power to act upon me against my will by mere physical
impulsion; and through my intelligence I am the only one who can
examine all the rest. What being here below, except man, can observe
others, measure, calculate, forecast their motions, their effects, and
unite, so to speak, the feeling of a common existence with that of his
individual existence? What is there so absurd in the thought that all
things are made for me, when I alone can relate all things to myself?
It is true, therefore, that man is lord of the earth on which he
dwells; for not only does he tame all the beasts, not only does he
control its elements through his industry; but he alone knows how to
control it; by contemplation he takes possession of the stars which he
cannot approach. Show me any other creature on earth who can make a
fire and who can behold with admiration the sun. What! can I observe
and know all creatures and their relations; can I feel what is meant
by order, beauty, and virtue; can I consider the universe and raise
myself towards the hand that guides it; can I love good and perform
it; and should I then liken myself to the beasts? Wretched soul, it
is your gloomy philosophy which makes you like the beasts; or rather
in vain do you seek to degrade yourself; your genius belies your
principles, your kindly heart belies your doctrines, and even the
abuse of your powers proves their excellence in your own despite.
For myself, I am not pledged to the support of any system. I am a
plain and honest man, one who is not carried away by party spirit,
one who has no ambition to be head of a sect; I am content with the
place where God has set me; I see nothing, next to God himself, which
is better than my species; and if I had to choose my place in the
order of creation, what more could I choose than to be a man!
I am not puffed up by this thought, I am deeply moved by it; for
this state was no choice of mine, it was not due to the deserts of a
creature who as yet did not exist. Can I behold myself thus
distinguished without congratulating myself on this post of honour,
without blessing the hand which bestowed it? The first return to self
has given birth to a feeling of gratitude and thankfulness to the
author of my species, and this feeling calls forth my first homage to
the beneficent Godhead. I worship his Almighty power and my heart
acknowledges his mercies. Is it not a natural consequence of our
self-love to honour our protector and to love our benefactor?
But when, in my desire to discover my own place within my species,
I consider its different ranks and the men who fill them, where am I
now? What a sight meets my eyes! Where is now the order I perceived?
Nature showed me a scene of harmony and proportion; the human race
shows me nothing but confusion and disorder. The elements agree
together; men are in a state of chaos. The beasts are happy; their
king alone is wretched. O Wisdom, where are thy laws? O Providence,
is this thy rule over the world? Merciful God, where is thy Power? I
behold the earth, and there is evil upon it.
Would you believe it, dear friend, from these gloomy thoughts and
apparent contradictions, there was shaped in my mind the sublime idea
of the soul, which all my seeking had hitherto failed to discover?
While I meditated upon man's nature, I seemed to discover two distinct
principles in it; one of them raised him to the study of the eternal
truths, to the love of justice, and of true morality, to the regions
of the world of thought, which the wise delight to contemplate; the
other led him downwards to himself, made him the slave of his senses,
of the passions which are their instruments, and thus opposed
everything suggested to him by the former principle. When I felt
myself carried away, distracted by these conflicting motives, I said,
No; man is not one; I will and I will not; I feel myself at once a
slave and a free man; I perceive what is right, I love it, and I do
what is wrong; I am active when I listen to the voice of reason; I am
passive when I am carried away by my passions; and when I yield, my
worst suffering is the knowledge that I might have resisted.
Young man, hear me with confidence. I will always be honest with
you. If conscience is the creature of prejudice, I am certainly
wrong, and there is no such thing as a proof of morality; but if to
put oneself first is an inclination natural to man, and if the first
sentiment of justice is moreover inborn in the human heart, let those
who say man is a simple creature remove these contradictions and I
will grant that there is but one substance.
You will note that by this term 'substance' I understand generally
the being endowed with some primitive quality, apart from all special
and secondary modifications. If then all the primitive qualities
which are known to us can be united in one and the same being, we
should only acknowledge one substance; but if there are qualities
which are mutually exclusive, there are as many different substances
as there are such exclusions. You will think this over; for my own
part, whatever Locke may say, it is enough for me to recognise matter
as having merely extension and divisibility to convince myself that it
cannot think, and if a philosopher tells me that trees feel and rocks
think [Footnote: It seems to me that modern philosophy, far from
saying that rocks think, has discovered that men do not think. It
perceives nothing more in nature than sensitive beings; and the only
difference it finds between a man and a stone is that a man is a
sensitive being which experiences sensations, and a stone is a
sensitive being which does not experience sensations. But if it is
true that all matter feels, where shall I find the sensitive unit, the
individual ego? Shall it be in each molecule of matter or in bodies as
aggregates of molecules? Shall I place this unity in fluids and solids
alike, in compounds and in elements? You tell me nature consists of
individuals. But what are these individuals? Is that stone an
individual or an aggregate of individuals? Is it a single sensitive
being, or are there as many beings in it as there are grains of sand?
If every elementary atom is a sensitive being, how shall I conceive of
that intimate communication by which one feels within the other, so
that their two egos are blended in one? Attraction may be a law of
nature whose mystery is unknown to us; but at least we conceive that
there is nothing in attraction acting in proportion to mass which is
contrary to extension and divisibility. Can you conceive of sensation
in the same way? The sensitive parts have extension, but the sensitive
being is one and indivisible; he cannot be cut in two, he is a whole
or he is nothing; therefore the sensitive being is not a material
body. I know not how our materialists understand it, but it seems to
me that the same difficulties which have led them to reject thought,
should have made them also reject feeling; and I see no reason why,
when the first step has been taken, they should not take the second
too; what more would it cost them? Since they are certain they do not
think, why do they dare to affirm that they feel?] in vain will he
perplex me with his cunning arguments; I merely regard him as a
dishonest sophist, who prefers to say that stones have feeling rather
than that men have souls.
Suppose a deaf man denies the existence of sounds because he has
never heard them. I put before his eyes a stringed instrument and
cause it to sound in unison by means of another instrument concealed
from him; the deaf man sees the chord vibrate. I tell him, "The sound
makes it do that." "Not at all," says he, "the string itself is the
cause of the vibration; to vibrate in that way is a quality common to
all bodies." "Then show me this vibration in other bodies," I answer,
"or at least show me its cause in this string." "I cannot," replies
the deaf man; "but because I do not understand how that string
vibrates why should I try to explain it by means of your sounds, of
which I have not the least idea? It is explaining one obscure fact by
means of a cause still more obscure. Make me perceive your sounds; or
I say there are no such things."
The more I consider thought and the nature of the human mind, the
more likeness I find between the arguments of the materialists and
those of the deaf man. Indeed, they are deaf to the inner voice which
cries aloud to them, in a tone which can hardly be mistaken. A machine
does not think, there is neither movement nor form which can produce
reflection; something within thee tries to break the bands which
confine it; space is not thy measure, the whole universe does not
suffice to contain thee; thy sentiments, thy desires, thy anxiety, thy
pride itself, have another origin than this small body in which thou
art imprisoned.
No material creature is in itself active, and I am active. In vain
do you argue this point with me; I feel it, and it is this feeling
which speaks to me more forcibly than the reason which disputes it. I
have a body which is acted upon by other bodies, and it acts in turn
upon them; there is no doubt about this reciprocal action; but my will
is independent of my senses; I consent or I resist; I yield or I win
the victory, and I know very well in myself when I have done what I
wanted and when I have merely given way to my passions. I have always
the power to will, but not always the strength to do what I will. When
I yield to temptation I surrender myself to the action of external
objects. When I blame myself for this weakness, I listen to my own
will alone; I am a slave in my vices, a free man in my remorse; the
feeling of freedom is never effaced in me but when I myself do wrong,
and when I at length prevent the voice of the soul from protesting
against the authority of the body.
I am only aware of will through the consciousness of my own will,
and intelligence is no better known to me. When you ask me what is
the cause which determines my will, it is my turn to ask what cause
determines my judgment; for it is plain that these two causes are but
one; and if you understand clearly that man is active in his
judgments, that his intelligence is only the power to compare and
judge, you will see that his freedom is only a similar power or one
derived from this; he chooses between good and evil as he judges
between truth and falsehood; if his judgment is at fault, he chooses
amiss. What then is the cause that determines his will? It is his
judgment. And what is the cause that determines his judgment? It is
his intelligence, his power of judging; the determining cause is in
himself. Beyond that, I understand nothing.
No doubt I am not free not to desire my own welfare, I am not free
to desire my own hurt; but my freedom consists in this very thing,
that I can will what is for my own good, or what I esteem as such,
without any external compulsion. Does it follow that I am not my own
master because I cannot be other than myself?
The motive power of all action is in the will of a free creature;
we can go no farther. It is not the word freedom that is meaningless,
but the word necessity. To suppose some action which is not the effect
of an active motive power is indeed to suppose effects without cause,
to reason in a vicious circle. Either there is no original impulse, or
every original impulse has no antecedent cause, and there is no will
properly so-called without freedom. Man is therefore free to act, and
as such he is animated by an immaterial substance; that is the third
article of my creed. From these three you will easily deduce the rest,
so that I need not enumerate them.
If man is at once active and free, he acts of his own accord; what
he does freely is no part of the system marked out by Providence and
it cannot be imputed to Providence. Providence does not will the evil
that man does when he misuses the freedom given to him; neither does
Providence prevent him doing it, either because the wrong done by so
feeble a creature is as nothing in its eyes, or because it could not
prevent it without doing a greater wrong and degrading his nature.
Providence has made him free that he may choose the good and refuse
the evil. It has made him capable of this choice if he uses rightly
the faculties bestowed upon him, but it has so strictly limited his
powers that the misuse of his freedom cannot disturb the general
order. The evil that man does reacts upon himself without affecting
the system of the world, without preventing the preservation of the
human species in spite of itself. To complain that God does not
prevent us from doing wrong is to complain because he has made man of
so excellent a nature, that he has endowed his actions with that
morality by which they are ennobled, that he has made virtue man's
birthright. Supreme happiness consists in self-content; that we may
gain this self-content we are placed upon this earth and endowed with
freedom, we are tempted by our passions and restrained by conscience.
What more could divine power itself have done on our behalf? Could it
have made our nature a contradiction, and have given the prize of
well-doing to one who was incapable of evil? To prevent a man from
wickedness, should Providence have restricted him to instinct and made
him a fool? Not so, O God of my soul, I will never reproach thee that
thou hast created me in thine own image, that I may be free and good
and happy like my Maker!
It is the abuse of our powers that makes us unhappy and wicked.
Our cares, our sorrows, our sufferings are of our own making. Moral
ills are undoubtedly the work of man, and physical ills would be
nothing but for our vices which have made us liable to them. Has not
nature made us feel our needs as a means to our preservation! Is not
bodily suffering a sign that the machine is out of order and needs
attention? Death.... Do not the wicked poison their own life and ours?
Who would wish to live for ever? Death is the cure for the evils you
bring upon yourself; nature would not have you suffer perpetually. How
few sufferings are felt by man living in a state of primitive
simplicity! His life is almost entirely free from suffering and from
passion; he neither fears nor feels death; if he feels it, his
sufferings make him desire it; henceforth it is no evil in his eyes.
If we were but content to be ourselves we should have no cause to
complain of our lot; but in the search for an imaginary good we find a
thousand real ills. He who cannot bear a little pain must expect to
suffer greatly. If a man injures his constitution by dissipation, you
try to cure him with medicine; the ill he fears is added to the ill he
feels; the thought of death makes it horrible and hastens its
approach; the more we seek to escape from it, the more we are aware of
it; and we go through life in the fear of death, blaming nature for
the evils we have inflicted on ourselves by our neglect of her laws.
O Man! seek no further for the author of evil; thou art he. There
is no evil but the evil you do or the evil you suffer, and both come
from yourself. Evil in general can only spring from disorder, and in
the order of the world I find a never failing system. Evil in
particular cases exists only in the mind of those who experience it;
and this feeling is not the gift of nature, but the work of man
himself. Pain has little power over those who, having thought little,
look neither before nor after. Take away our fatal progress, take away
our faults and our vices, take away man's handiwork, and all is well.
Where all is well, there is no such thing as injustice. Justice and
goodness are inseparable; now goodness is the necessary result of
boundless power and of that self-love which is innate in all sentient
beings. The omnipotent projects himself, so to speak, into the being
of his creatures. Creation and preservation are the everlasting work
of power; it does not act on that which has no existence; God is not
the God of the dead; he could not harm and destroy without injury to
himself. The omnipotent can only will what is good. [Footnote: The
ancients were right when they called the supreme God Optimus Maximus,
but it would have been better to say Maximus Optimus, for his goodness
springs from his power, he is good because he is great.] Therefore he
who is supremely good, because he is supremely powerful, must also be
supremely just, otherwise he would contradict himself; for that love
of order which creates order we call goodness and that love of order
which preserves order we call justice.
Men say God owes nothing to his creatures. I think he owes them
all he promised when he gave them their being. Now to give them the
idea of something good and to make them feel the need of it, is to
promise it to them. The more closely I study myself, the more
carefully I consider, the more plainly do I read these words, "Be
just and you will be happy." It is not so, however, in the present
condition of things, the wicked prospers and the oppression of the
righteous continues. Observe how angry we are when this expectation
is disappointed. Conscience revolts and murmurs against her Creator;
she exclaims with cries and groans, "Thou hast deceived me."
"I have deceived thee, rash soul! Who told thee this? Is thy soul
destroyed? Hast thou ceased to exist? O Brutus! O my son! let there
be no stain upon the close of thy noble life; do not abandon thy hope
and thy glory with thy corpse upon the plains of Philippi. Why dost
thou say, 'Virtue is naught,' when thou art about to enjoy the reward
of virtue? Thou art about to die! Nay, thou shalt live, and thus my
promise is fulfilled."
One might judge from the complaints of impatient men that God owes
them the reward before they have deserved it, that he is bound to pay
for virtue in advance. Oh! let us first be good and then we shall be
happy. Let us not claim the prize before we have won it, nor demand
our wages before we have finished our work. "It is not in the lists
that we crown the victors in the sacred games," says Plutarch, "it is
when they have finished their course."
If the soul is immaterial, it may survive the body; and if it so
survives, Providence is justified. Had I no other proof of the
immaterial nature of the soul, the triumph of the wicked and the
oppression of the righteous in this world would be enough to convince
me. I should seek to resolve so appalling a discord in the universal
harmony. I should say to myself, "All is not over with life,
everything finds its place at death." I should still have to answer
the question, "What becomes of man when all we know of him through our
senses has vanished?" This question no longer presents any difficulty
to me when I admit the two substances. It is easy to understand that
what is imperceptible to those senses escapes me, during my bodily
life, when I perceive through my senses only. When the union of soul
and body is destroyed, I think one may be dissolved and the other may
be preserved. Why should the destruction of the one imply the
destruction of the other? On the contrary, so unlike in their nature,
they were during their union in a highly unstable condition, and when
this union comes to an end they both return to their natural state;
the active vital substance regains all the force which it expended to
set in motion the passive dead substance. Alas! my vices make me only
too well aware that man is but half alive during this life; the life
of the soul only begins with the death of the body.
But what is that life? Is the soul of man in its nature immortal?
I know not. My finite understanding cannot hold the infinite; what is
called eternity eludes my grasp. What can I assert or deny, how can I
reason with regard to what I cannot conceive? I believe that the soul
survives the body for the maintenance of order; who knows if this is
enough to make it eternal? However, I know that the body is worn out
and destroyed by the division of its parts, but I cannot conceive a
similar destruction of the conscious nature, and as I cannot imagine
how it can die, I presume that it does not die. As this assumption is
consoling and in itself not unreasonable, why should I fear to accept
it?
I am aware of my soul; it is known to me in feeling and in thought;
I know what it is without knowing its essence; I cannot reason about
ideas which are unknown to me. What I do know is this, that my
personal identity depends upon memory, and that to be indeed the same
self I must remember that I have existed. Now after death I could not
recall what I was when alive unless I also remembered what I felt and
therefore what I did; and I have no doubt that this remembrance will
one day form the happiness of the good and the torment of the bad. In
this world our inner consciousness is absorbed by the crowd of eager
passions which cheat remorse. The humiliation and disgrace involved in
the practice of virtue do not permit us to realise its charm. But
when, freed from the illusions of the bodily senses, we behold with
joy the supreme Being and the eternal truths which flow from him; when
all the powers of our soul are alive to the beauty of order and we are
wholly occupied in comparing what we have done with what we ought to
have done, then it is that the voice of conscience will regain its
strength and sway; then it is that the pure delight which springs from
self-content, and the sharp regret for our own degradation of that
self, will decide by means of overpowering feeling what shall be the
fate which each has prepared for himself. My good friend, do not ask
me whether there are other sources of happiness or suffering; I cannot
tell; that which my fancy pictures is enough to console me in this
life and to bid me look for a life to come. I do not say the good
will be rewarded, for what greater good can a truly good being expect
than to exist in accordance with his nature? But I do assert that the
good will be happy, because their maker, the author of all justice,
who has made them capable of feeling, has not made them that they may
suffer; moreover, they have not abused their freedom upon earth and
they have not changed their fate through any fault of their own; yet
they have suffered in this life and it will be made up to them in the
life to come. This feeling relies not so much on man's deserts as on
the idea of good which seems to me inseparable from the divine
essence. I only assume that the laws of order are constant and that
God is true to himself.
Do not ask me whether the torments of the wicked will endure for
ever, whether the goodness of their creator can condemn them to the
eternal suffering; again, I cannot tell, and I have no empty curiosity
for the investigation of useless problems. How does the fate of the
wicked concern me? I take little interest in it. All the same I find
it hard to believe that they will be condemned to everlasting
torments. If the supreme justice calls for vengeance, it claims it in
this life. The nations of the world with their errors are its
ministers. Justice uses self-inflicted ills to punish the crimes which
have deserved them. It is in your own insatiable souls, devoured by
envy, greed, and ambition, it is in the midst of your false
prosperity, that the avenging passions find the due reward of your
crimes. What need to seek a hell in the future life? It is here in the
breast of the wicked.
When our fleeting needs are over, and our mad desires are at rest,
there should also be an end of our passions and our crimes. Can pure
spirits be capable of any perversity? Having need of nothing, why
should they be wicked? If they are free from our gross senses, if
their happiness consists in the contemplation of other beings, they
can only desire what is good; and he who ceases to be bad can never be
miserable. This is what I am inclined to think though I have not been
at the pains to come to any decision. O God, merciful and good,
whatever thy decrees may be I adore them; if thou shouldst commit the
wicked to everlasting punishment, I abandon my feeble reason to thy
justice; but if the remorse of these wretched beings should in the
course of time be extinguished, if their sufferings should come to an
end, and if the same peace shall one day be the lot of all mankind, I
give thanks to thee for this. Is not the wicked my brother? How often
have I been tempted to be like him? Let him be delivered from his
misery and freed from the spirit of hatred that accompanied it; let
him be as happy as I myself; his happiness, far from arousing my
jealousy, will only increase my own.
Thus it is that, in the contemplation of God in his works, and in
the study of such of his attributes as it concerned me to know, I
have slowly grasped and developed the idea, at first partial and
imperfect, which I have formed of this Infinite Being. But if this
idea has become nobler and greater it is also more suited to the human
reason. As I approach in spirit the eternal light, I am confused and
dazzled by its glory, and compelled to abandon all the earthly notions
which helped me to picture it to myself. God is no longer corporeal
and sensible; the supreme mind which rules the world is no longer the
world itself; in vain do I strive to grasp his inconceivable essence.
When I think that it is he that gives life and movement to the living
and moving substance which controls all living bodies; when I hear it
said that my soul is spiritual and that God is a spirit, I revolt
against this abasement of the divine essence; as if God and my soul
were of one and the same nature! As if God were not the one and only
absolute being, the only really active, feeling, thinking, willing
being, from whom we derive our thought, feeling, motion, will, our
freedom and our very existence! We are free because he wills our
freedom, and his inexplicable substance is to our souls what our souls
are to our bodies. I know not whether he has created matter, body,
soul, the world itself. The idea of creation confounds me and eludes
my grasp; so far as I can conceive of it I believe it; but I know that
he has formed the universe and all that is, that he has made and
ordered all things. No doubt God is eternal; but can my mind grasp
the idea of eternity? Why should I cheat myself with meaningless
words? This is what I do understand; before things were—God was; he
will be when they are no more, and if all things come to an end he
will still endure. That a being beyond my comprehension should give
life to other beings, this is merely difficult and beyond my
understanding; but that Being and Nothing should be convertible terms,
this is indeed a palpable contradiction, an evident absurdity.
God is intelligent, but how? Man is intelligent when he reasons,
but the Supreme Intelligence does not need to reason; there is neither
premise nor conclusion for him, there is not even a proposition. The
Supreme Intelligence is wholly intuitive, it sees what is and what
shall be; all truths are one for it, as all places are but one point
and all time but one moment. Man's power makes use of means, the
divine power is self-active. God can because he wills; his will is his
power. God is good; this is certain; but man finds his happiness in
the welfare of his kind. God's happiness consists in the love of
order; for it is through order that he maintains what is, and unites
each part in the whole. God is just; of this I am sure, it is a
consequence of his goodness; man's injustice is not God's work, but
his own; that moral justice which seems to the philosophers a
presumption against Providence, is to me a proof of its existence.
But man's justice consists in giving to each his due; God's justice
consists in demanding from each of us an account of that which he has
given us.
If I have succeeded in discerning these attributes of which I have
no absolute idea, it is in the form of unavoidable deductions, and by
the right use of my reason; but I affirm them without understanding
them, and at bottom that is no affirmation at all. In vain do I say,
God is thus, I feel it, I experience it, none the more do I understand
how God can be thus.
In a word: the more I strive to envisage his infinite essence the
less do I comprehend it; but it is, and that is enough for me; the
less I understand, the more I adore. I abase myself, saying, "Being
of beings, I am because thou art; to fix my thoughts on thee is to
ascend to the source of my being. The best use I can make of my reason
is to resign it before thee; my mind delights, my weakness rejoices,
to feel myself overwhelmed by thy greatness."
Having thus deduced from the perception of objects of sense and
from my inner consciousness, which leads me to judge of causes by my
native reason, the principal truths which I require to know, I must
now seek such principles of conduct as I can draw from them, and such
rules as I must lay down for my guidance in the fulfilment of my
destiny in this world, according to the purpose of my Maker. Still
following the same method, I do not derive these rules from the
principles of the higher philosophy, I find them in the depths of my
heart, traced by nature in characters which nothing can efface. I need
only consult myself with regard to what I wish to do; what I feel to
be right is right, what I feel to be wrong is wrong; conscience is the
best casuist; and it is only when we haggle with conscience that we
have recourse to the subtleties of argument. Our first duty is towards
ourself; yet how often does the voice of others tell us that in
seeking our good at the expense of others we are doing ill? We think
we are following the guidance of nature, and we are resisting it; we
listen to what she says to our senses, and we neglect what she says to
our heart; the active being obeys, the passive commands. Conscience is
the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. It is
strange that these voices often contradict each other? And then to
which should we give heed? Too often does reason deceive us; we have
only too good a right to doubt her; but conscience never deceives us;
she is the true guide of man; it is to the soul what instinct is to
the body, [Footnote: Modern philosophy, which only admits what it can
understand, is careful not to admit this obscure power called instinct
which seems to guide the animals to some end without any acquired
experience. Instinct, according to some of our wise philosophers, is
only a secret habit of reflection, acquired by reflection; and from
the way in which they explain this development one ought to suppose
that children reflect more than grown-up people: a paradox strange
enough to be worth examining. Without entering upon this discussion I
must ask what name I shall give to the eagerness with which my dog
makes war on the moles he does not eat, or to the patience with which
he sometimes watches them for hours and the skill with which he seizes
them, throws them to a distance from their earth as soon as they
emerge, and then kills them and leaves them. Yet no one has trained
him to this sport, nor even told him there were such things as moles.
Again, I ask, and this is a more important question, why, when I
threatened this same dog for the first time, why did he throw himself
on the ground with his paws folded, in such a suppliant attitude
.....calculated to touch me, a position which he would have maintained
if, without being touched by it, I had continued to beat him in that
position? What! Had my dog, little more than a puppy, acquired moral
ideas? Did he know the meaning of mercy and generosity? By what
acquired knowledge did he seek to appease my wrath by yielding to my
discretion? Every dog in the world does almost the same thing in
similar circumstances, and I am asserting nothing but what any one can
verify for himself. Will the philosophers, who so scornfully reject
instinct, kindly explain this fact by the mere play of sensations and
experience which they assume we have acquired? Let them give an
account of it which will satisfy any sensible man; in that case I have
nothing further to urge, and I will say no more of instinct.] he who
obeys his conscience is following nature and he need not fear that he
will go astray. This is a matter of great importance, continued my
benefactor, seeing that I was about to interrupt him; let me stop
awhile to explain it more fully.
The morality of our actions consists entirely in the judgments we
ourselves form with regard to them. If good is good, it must be good
in the depth of our heart as well as in our actions; and the first
reward of justice is the consciousness that we are acting justly. If
moral goodness is in accordance with our nature, man can only be
healthy in mind and body when he is good. If it is not so, and if man
is by nature evil, he cannot cease to be evil without corrupting his
nature, and goodness in him is a crime against nature. If he is made
to do harm to his fellow-creatures, as the wolf is made to devour his
prey, a humane man would be as depraved a creature as a pitiful wolf;
and virtue alone would cause remorse.
My young friend, let us look within, let us set aside all personal
prejudices and see whither our inclinations lead us. Do we take more
pleasure in the sight of the sufferings of others or their joys? Is it
pleasanter to do a kind action or an unkind action, and which leaves
the more delightful memory behind it? Why do you enjoy the theatre? Do
you delight in the crimes you behold? Do you weep over the punishment
which overtakes the criminal? They say we are indifferent to
everything but self-interest; yet we find our consolation in our
sufferings in the charms of friendship and humanity, and even in our
pleasures we should be too lonely and miserable if we had no one to
share them with us. If there is no such thing as morality in man's
heart, what is the source of his rapturous admiration of noble deeds,
his passionate devotion to great men? What connection is there between
self-interest and this enthusiasm for virtue? Why should I choose to
be Cato dying by his own hand, rather than Caesar in his triumphs?
Take from our hearts this love of what is noble and you rob us of the
joy of life. The mean-spirited man in whom these delicious feelings
have been stifled among vile passions, who by thinking of no one but
himself comes at last to love no one but himself, this man feels no
raptures, his cold heart no longer throbs with joy, and his eyes no
longer fill with the sweet tears of sympathy, he delights in nothing;
the wretch has neither life nor feeling, he is already dead.
There are many bad men in this world, but there are few of these
dead souls, alive only to self-interest, and insensible to all that
is right and good. We only delight in injustice so long as it is to
our own advantage; in every other case we wish the innocent to be
protected. If we see some act of violence or injustice in town or
country, our hearts are at once stirred to their depths by an
instinctive anger and wrath, which bids us go to the help of the
oppressed; but we are restrained by a stronger duty, and the law
deprives us of our right to protect the innocent. On the other hand,
if some deed of mercy or generosity meets our eye, what reverence and
love does it inspire! Do we not say to ourselves, "I should like to
have done that myself"? What does it matter to us that two thousand
years ago a man was just or unjust? and yet we take the same interest
in ancient history as if it happened yesterday. What are the crimes of
Cataline to me? I shall not be his victim. Why then have I the same
horror of his crimes as if he were living now? We do not hate the
wicked merely because of the harm they do to ourselves, but because
they are wicked. Not only do we wish to be happy ourselves, we wish
others to be happy too, and if this happiness does not interfere with
our own happiness, it increases it. In conclusion, whether we will or
not, we pity the unfortunate; when we see their suffering we suffer
too. Even the most depraved are not wholly without this instinct, and
it often leads them to self-contradiction. The highwayman who robs the
traveller, clothes the nakedness of the poor; the fiercest murderer
supports a fainting man.
Men speak of the voice of remorse, the secret punishment of hidden
crimes, by which such are often brought to light. Alas! who does not
know its unwelcome voice? We speak from experience, and we would
gladly stifle this imperious feeling which causes us such agony. Let
us obey the call of nature; we shall see that her yoke is easy and
that when we give heed to her voice we find a joy in the answer of a
good conscience. The wicked fears and flees from her; he delights to
escape from himself; his anxious eyes look around him for some object
of diversion; without bitter satire and rude mockery he would always
be sorrowful; the scornful laugh is his one pleasure. Not so the just
man, who finds his peace within himself; there is joy not malice in
his laughter, a joy which springs from his own heart; he is as
cheerful alone as in company, his satisfaction does not depend on
those who approach him; it includes them.
Cast your eyes over every nation of the world; peruse every volume
of its history; in the midst of all these strange and cruel forms of
worship, among this amazing variety of manners and customs, you will
everywhere find the same ideas of right and justice; everywhere the
same principles of morality, the same ideas of good and evil. The old
paganism gave birth to abominable gods who would have been punished as
scoundrels here below, gods who merely offered, as a picture of
supreme happiness, crimes to be committed and lust to be gratified.
But in vain did vice descend from the abode of the gods armed with
their sacred authority; the moral instinct refused to admit it into
the heart of man. While the debaucheries of Jupiter were celebrated,
the continence of Xenocrates was revered; the chaste Lucrece adored
the shameless Venus; the bold Roman offered sacrifices to Fear; he
invoked the god who mutilated his father, and he died without a murmur
at the hand of his own father. The most unworthy gods were worshipped
by the noblest men. The sacred voice of nature was stronger than the
voice of the gods, and won reverence upon earth; it seemed to relegate
guilt and the guilty alike to heaven.
There is therefore at the bottom of our hearts an innate principle
of justice and virtue, by which, in spite of our maxims, we judge our
own actions or those of others to be good or evil; and it is this
principle that I call conscience.
But at this word I hear the murmurs of all the wise men so-called.
Childish errors, prejudices of our upbringing, they exclaim in
concert! There is nothing in the human mind but what it has gained by
experience; and we judge everything solely by means of the ideas we
have acquired. They go further; they even venture to reject the clear
and universal agreement of all peoples, and to set against this
striking unanimity in the judgment of mankind, they seek out some
obscure exception known to themselves alone; as if the whole trend of
nature were rendered null by the depravity of a single nation, and as
if the existence of monstrosities made an end of species. But to what
purpose does the sceptic Montaigne strive himself to unearth in some
obscure corner of the world a custom which is contrary to the ideas of
justice? To what purpose does he credit the most untrustworthy
travellers, while he refuses to believe the greatest writers? A few
strange and doubtful customs, based on local causes, unknown to us;
shall these destroy a general inference based on the agreement of all
the nations of the earth, differing from each other in all else, but
agreed in this? O Montaigne, you pride yourself on your truth and
honesty; be sincere and truthful, if a philosopher can be so, and tell
me if there is any country upon earth where it is a crime to keep
one's plighted word, to be merciful, helpful, and generous, where the
good man is scorned, and the traitor is held in honour.
Self-interest, so they say, induces each of us to agree for the
common good. But bow is it that the good man consents to this to his
own hurt? Does a man go to death from self-interest? No doubt each man
acts for his own good, but if there is no such thing as moral good to
be taken into consideration, self-interest will only enable you to
account for the deeds of the wicked; possibly you will not attempt to
do more. A philosophy which could find no place for good deeds would
be too detestable; you would find yourself compelled either to find
some mean purpose, some wicked motive, or to abuse Socrates and
slander Regulus. If such doctrines ever took root among us, the voice
of nature, together with the voice of reason, would constantly protest
against them, till no adherent of such teaching could plead an honest
excuse for his partisanship.
It is no part of my scheme to enter at present into metaphysical
discussions which neither you nor I can understand, discussions which
really lead nowhere. I have told you already that I do not wish to
philosophise with you, but to help you to consult your own heart. If
all the philosophers in the world should prove that I am wrong, and
you feel that I am right, that is all I ask.
For this purpose it is enough to lead you to distinguish between
our acquired ideas and our natural feelings; for feeling precedes
knowledge; and since we do not learn to seek what is good for us and
avoid what is bad for us, but get this desire from nature, in the same
way the love of good and the hatred of evil are as natural to us as
our self-love. The decrees of conscience are not judgments but
feelings. Although all our ideas come from without, the feelings by
which they are weighed are within us, and it is by these feelings
alone that we perceive fitness or unfitness of things in relation to
ourselves, which leads us to seek or shun these things.
To exist is to feel; our feeling is undoubtedly earlier than our
intelligence, and we had feelings before we had ideas.[Footnote: In
some respects ideas are feelings and feelings are ideas. Both terms
are appropriate to any perception with which we are concerned,
appropriate both to the object of that perception and to ourselves
who are affected by it; it is merely the order in which we are
affected which decides the appropriate term. When we are chiefly
concerned with the object and only think of ourselves as it were by
reflection, that is an idea; when, on the other hand, the impression
received excites our chief attention and we only think in the second
place of the object which caused it, it is a feeling.] Whatever may
be the cause of our being, it has provided for our preservation by
giving us feelings suited to our nature; and no one can deny that
these at least are innate. These feelings, so far as the individual
is concerned, are self-love, fear, pain, the dread of death, the
desire for comfort. Again, if, as it is impossible to doubt, man is
by nature sociable, or at least fitted to become sociable, he can only
be so by means of other innate feelings, relative to his kind; for if
only physical well-being were considered, men would certainly be
scattered rather than brought together. But the motive power of
conscience is derived from the moral system formed through this
twofold relation to himself and to his fellow-men. To know good is not
to love it; this knowledge is not innate in man; but as soon as his
reason leads him to perceive it, his conscience impels him to love it;
it is this feeling which is innate.
So I do not think, my young friend, that it is impossible to
explain the immediate force of conscience as a result of our own
nature, independent of reason itself. And even should it be
impossible, it is unnecessary; for those who deny this principle,
admitted and received by everybody else in the world, do not prove
that there is no such thing; they are content to affirm, and when we
affirm its existence we have quite as good grounds as they, while we
have moreover the witness within us, the voice of conscience, which
speaks on its own behalf. If the first beams of judgment dazzle us
and confuse the objects we behold, let us wait till our feeble sight
grows clear and strong, and in the light of reason we shall soon
behold these very objects as nature has already showed them to us. Or
rather let us be simpler and less pretentious; let us be content with
the first feelings we experience in ourselves, since science always
brings us back to these, unless it has led us astray.
Conscience! Conscience! Divine instinct, immortal voice from
heaven; sure guide for a creature ignorant and finite indeed, yet
intelligent and free; infallible judge of good and evil, making man
like to God! In thee consists the excellence of man's nature and the
morality of his actions; apart from thee, I find nothing in myself to
raise me above the beasts—nothing but the sad privilege of wandering
from one error to another, by the help of an unbridled understanding
and a reason which knows no principle.
Thank heaven we have now got rid of all that alarming show of
philosophy; we may be men without being scholars; now that we need
not spend our life in the study of morality, we have found a less
costly and surer guide through this vast labyrinth of human thought.
But it is not enough to be aware that there is such a guide; we must
know her and follow her. If she speaks to all hearts, how is it that
so few give heed to her voice? She speaks to us in the language of
nature, and everything leads us to forget that tongue. Conscience is
timid, she loves peace and retirement; she is startled by noise and
numbers; the prejudices from which she is said to arise are her worst
enemies. She flees before them or she is silent; their noisy voices
drown her words, so that she cannot get a hearing; fanaticism dares to
counterfeit her voice and to inspire crimes in her name. She is
discouraged by ill-treatment; she no longer speaks to us, no longer
answers to our call; when she has been scorned so long, it is as hard
to recall her as it was to banish her.
How often in the course of my inquiries have I grown weary of my
own coldness of heart! How often have grief and weariness poured
their poison into my first meditations and made them hateful to me!
My barren heart yielded nothing but a feeble zeal and a lukewarm love
of truth. I said to myself: Why should I strive to find what does not
exist? Moral good is a dream, the pleasures of sense are the only real
good. When once we have lost the taste for the pleasures of the soul,
how hard it is to recover it! How much more difficult to acquire it if
we have never possessed it! If there were any man so wretched as never
to have done anything all his life long which he could remember with
pleasure, and which would make him glad to have lived, that man would
be incapable of self-knowledge, and for want of knowledge of goodness,
of which his nature is capable, he would be constrained to remain in
his wickedness and would be for ever miserable. But do you think there
is any one man upon earth so depraved that he has never yielded to the
temptation of well-doing? This temptation is so natural, so pleasant,
that it is impossible always to resist it; and the thought of the
pleasure it has once afforded is enough to recall it constantly to our
memory. Unluckily it is hard at first to find satisfaction for it; we
have any number of reasons for refusing to follow the inclinations of
our heart; prudence, so called, restricts the heart within the limits
of the self; a thousand efforts are needed to break these bonds. The
joy of well-doing is the prize of having done well, and we must
deserve the prize before we win it. There is nothing sweeter than
virtue; but we do not know this till we have tried it. Like Proteus in
the fable, she first assumes a thousand terrible shapes when we would
embrace her, and only shows her true self to those who refuse to let
her go.
Ever at strife between my natural feelings, which spoke of the
common weal, and my reason, which spoke of self, I should have
drifted through life in perpetual uncertainty, hating evil, loving
good, and always at war with myself, if my heart had not received
further light, if that truth which determined my opinions had not
also settled my conduct, and set me at peace with myself. Reason
alone is not a sufficient foundation for virtue; what solid ground
can be found? Virtue we are told is love of order. But can this love
prevail over my love for my own well-being, and ought it so to
prevail? Let them give me clear and sufficient reason for this
preference. Their so-called principle is in truth a mere playing with
words; for I also say that vice is love of order, differently
understood. Wherever there is feeling and intelligence, there is some
sort of moral order. The difference is this: the good man orders his
life with regard to all men; the wicked orders it for self alone. The
latter centres all things round himself; the other measures his radius
and remains on the circumference. Thus his place depends on the common
centre, which is God, and on all the concentric circles which are His
creatures. If there is no God, the wicked is right and the good man is
nothing but a fool.
My child! May you one day feel what a burden is removed when,
having fathomed the vanity of human thoughts and tasted the bitterness
of passion, you find at length near at hand the path of wisdom, the
prize of this life's labours, the source of that happiness which you
despaired of. Every duty of natural law, which man's injustice had
almost effaced from my heart, is engraven there, for the second time
in the name of that eternal justice which lays these duties upon me
and beholds my fulfilment of them. I feel myself merely the instrument
of the Omnipotent, who wills what is good, who performs it, who will
bring about my own good through the co-operation of my will with his
own, and by the right use of my liberty. I acquiesce in the order he
establishes, certain that one day I shall enjoy that order and find my
happiness in it; for what sweeter joy is there than this, to feel
oneself a part of a system where all is good? A prey to pain, I bear
it in patience, remembering that it will soon be over, and that it
results from a body which is not mine. If I do a good deed in secret,
I know that it is seen, and my conduct in this life is a pledge of the
life to come. When I suffer injustice, I say to myself, the Almighty
who does all things well will reward me: my bodily needs, my poverty,
make the idea of death less intolerable. There will be all the fewer
bonds to be broken when my hour comes.
Why is my soul subjected to my senses, and imprisoned in this body
by which it is enslaved and thwarted? I know not; have I entered into
the counsels of the Almighty? But I may, without rashness, venture on
a modest conjecture. I say to myself: If man's soul had remained in a
state of freedom and innocence, what merit would there have been in
loving and obeying the order he found established, an order which it
would not have been to his advantage to disturb? He would be happy, no
doubt, but his happiness would not attain to the highest point, the
pride of virtue, and the witness of a good conscience within him; he
would be but as the angels are, and no doubt the good man will be more
than they. Bound to a mortal body, by bonds as strange as they are
powerful, his care for the preservation of this body tempts the soul
to think only of self, and gives it an interest opposed to the general
order of things, which it is still capable of knowing and loving; then
it is that the right use of his freedom becomes at once the merit and
the reward; then it is that it prepares for itself unending happiness,
by resisting its earthly passions and following its original
direction.
If even in the lowly position in which we are placed during our
present life our first impulses are always good, if all our vices are
of our own making, why should we complain that they are our masters?
Why should we blame the Creator for the ills we have ourselves
created, and the enemies we ourselves have armed against us? Oh, let
us leave man unspoilt; he will always find it easy to be good and he
will always be happy without remorse. The guilty, who assert that they
are driven to crime, are liars as well as evil-doers; how is it that
they fail to perceive that the weakness they bewail is of their own
making; that their earliest depravity was the result of their own
will; that by dint of wishing to yield to temptations, they at length
yield to them whether they will or no and make them irresistible? No
doubt they can no longer avoid being weak and wicked, but they need
not have become weak and wicked. Oh, how easy would it be to preserve
control of ourselves and of our passions, even in this life, if with
habits still unformed, with a mind beginning to expand, we were able
to keep to such things as we ought to know, in order to value rightly
what is unknown; if we really wished to learn, not that we might shine
before the eyes of others, but that we might be wise and good in
accordance with our nature, that we might be happy in the performance
of our duty. This study seems tedious and painful to us, for we do not
attempt it till we are already corrupted by vice and enslaved by our
passions. Our judgments and our standards of worth are determined
before we have the knowledge of good and evil; and then we measure all
things by this false standard, and give nothing its true worth.
There is an age when the heart is still free, but eager, unquiet,
greedy of a happiness which is still unknown, a happiness which it
seeks in curiosity and doubt; deceived by the senses it settles at
length upon the empty show of happiness and thinks it has found it
where it is not. In my own case these illusions endured for a long
time. Alas! too late did I become aware of them, and I have not
succeeded in overcoming them altogether; they will last as long as
this mortal body from which they arise. If they lead me astray, I am
at least no longer deceived by them; I know them for what they are,
and even when I give way to them, I despise myself; far from regarding
them as the goal of my happiness, I behold in them an obstacle to it.
I long for the time when, freed from the fetters of the body, I shall
be myself, at one with myself, no longer torn in two, when I myself
shall suffice for my own happiness. Meanwhile I am happy even in this
life, for I make small account of all its evils, in which I regard
myself as having little or no part, while all the real good that I can
get out of this life depends on myself alone.
To raise myself so far as may be even now to this state of
happiness, strength, and freedom, I exercise myself in lofty
contemplation. I consider the order of the universe, not to explain it
by any futile system, but to revere it without ceasing, to adore the
wise Author who reveals himself in it. I hold intercourse with him; I
immerse all my powers in his divine essence; I am overwhelmed by his
kindness, I bless him and his gifts, but I do not pray to him. What
should I ask of him—to change the order of nature, to work miracles
on my behalf? Should I, who am bound to love above all things the
order which he has established in his wisdom and maintained by his
providence, should I desire the disturbance of that order on my own
account? No, that rash prayer would deserve to be punished rather
than to be granted. Neither do I ask of him the power to do right;
why should I ask what he has given me already? Has he not given me
conscience that I may love the right, reason that I may perceive it,
and freedom that I may choose it? If I do evil, I have no excuse; I do
it of my own free will; to ask him to change my will is to ask him to
do what he asks of me; it is to want him to do the work while I get
the wages; to be dissatisfied with my lot is to wish to be no longer a
man, to wish to be other than what I am, to wish for disorder and
evil. Thou source of justice and truth, merciful and gracious God, in
thee do I trust, and the desire of my heart is—Thy will be done. When
I unite my will with thine, I do what thou doest; I have a share in
thy goodness; I believe that I enjoy beforehand the supreme happiness
which is the reward of goodness.
In my well-founded self-distrust the only thing that I ask of God,
or rather expect from his justice, is to correct my error if I go
astray, if that error is dangerous to me. To be honest I need not
think myself infallible; my opinions, which seem to me true, may be
so many lies; for what man is there who does not cling to his own
beliefs; and how many men are agreed in everything? The illusion which
deceives me may indeed have its source in myself, but it is God alone
who can remove it. I have done all I can to attain to truth; but its
source is beyond my reach; is it my fault if my strength fails me and
I can go no further; it is for Truth to draw near to me.
The good priest had spoken with passion; he and I were overcome
with emotion. It seemed to me as if I were listening to the divine
Orpheus when he sang the earliest hymns and taught men the worship of
the gods. I saw any number of objections which might be raised; yet I
raised none, for I perceived that they were more perplexing than
serious, and that my inclination took his part. When he spoke to me
according to his conscience, my own seemed to confirm what he said.
"The novelty of the sentiments you have made known to me," said I,
"strikes me all the more because of what you confess you do not know,
than because of what you say you believe. They seem to be very like
that theism or natural religion, which Christians profess to confound
with atheism or irreligion which is their exact opposite. But in the
present state of my faith I should have to ascend rather than descend
to accept your views, and I find it difficult to remain just where you
are unless I were as wise as you. That I may be at least as honest, I
want time to take counsel with myself. By your own showing, the inner
voice must be my guide, and you have yourself told me that when it has
long been silenced it cannot be recalled in a moment. I take what you
have said to heart, and I must consider it. If after I have thought
things out, I am as convinced as you are, you will be my final
teacher, and I will be your disciple till death. Continue your
teaching however; you have only told me half what I must know. Speak
to me of revelation, of the Scriptures, of those difficult doctrines
among which I have strayed ever since I was a child, incapable either
of understanding or believing them, unable to adopt or reject them."
"Yes, my child," said he, embracing me, "I will tell you all I
think; I will not open my heart to you by halves; but the desire you
express was necessary before I could cast aside all reserve. So far I
have told you nothing but what I thought would be of service to you,
nothing but what I was quite convinced of. The inquiry which remains
to be made is very difficult. It seems to me full of perplexity,
mystery, and darkness; I bring to it only doubt and distrust. I make
up my mind with trembling, and I tell you my doubts rather than my
convictions. If your own opinions were more settled I should hesitate
to show you mine; but in your present condition, to think like me
would be gain. [Footnote: I think the worthy clergyman might say this
at the present time to the general public.] Moreover, give to my words
only the authority of reason; I know not whether I am mistaken. It is
difficult in discussion to avoid assuming sometimes a dogmatic tone;
but remember in this respect that all my assertions are but reasons to
doubt me. Seek truth for yourself, for my own part I only promise you
sincerity.
"In my exposition you find nothing but natural religion; strange
that we should need more! How shall I become aware of this need? What
guilt can be mine so long as I serve God according to the knowledge he
has given to my mind, and the feelings he has put into my heart? What
purity of morals, what dogma useful to man and worthy of its author,
can I derive from a positive doctrine which cannot be derived without
the aid of this doctrine by the right use of my faculties? Show me
what you can add to the duties of the natural law, for the glory of
God, for the good of mankind, and for my own welfare; and what virtue
you will get from the new form of religion which does not result from
mine. The grandest ideas of the Divine nature come to us from reason
only. Behold the spectacle of nature; listen to the inner voice. Has
not God spoken it all to our eyes, to our conscience, to our reason?
What more can man tell us? Their revelations do but degrade God, by
investing him with passions like our own. Far from throwing light upon
the ideas of the Supreme Being, special doctrines seem to me to
confuse these ideas; far from ennobling them, they degrade them; to
the inconceivable mysteries which surround the Almighty, they add
absurd contradictions, they make man proud, intolerant, and cruel;
instead of bringing peace upon earth, they bring fire and sword. I ask
myself what is the use of it all, and I find no answer. I see nothing
but the crimes of men and the misery of mankind.
"They tell me a revelation was required to teach men how God would
be served; as a proof of this they point to the many strange rites
which men have instituted, and they do not perceive that this very
diversity springs from the fanciful nature of the revelations. As
soon as the nations took to making God speak, every one made him
speak in his own fashion, and made him say what he himself wanted.
Had they listened only to what God says in the heart of man, there
would have been but one religion upon earth.
"One form of worship was required; just so, but was this a matter
of such importance as to require all the power of the Godhead to
establish it? Do not let us confuse the outward forms of religion
with religion itself. The service God requires is of the heart; and
when the heart is sincere that is ever the same. It is a strange sort
of conceit which fancies that God takes such an interest in the shape
of the priest's vestments, the form of words he utters, the gestures
he makes before the altar and all his genuflections. Oh, my friend,
stand upright, you will still be too near the earth. God desires to be
worshipped in spirit and in truth; this duty belongs to every
religion, every country, every individual. As to the form of worship,
if order demands uniformity, that is only a matter of discipline and
needs no revelation.
"These thoughts did not come to me to begin with. Carried away by
the prejudices of my education, and by that dangerous vanity which
always strives to lift man out of his proper sphere, when I could not
raise my feeble thoughts up to the great Being, I tried to bring him
down to my own level. I tried to reduce the distance he has placed
between his nature and mine. I desired more immediate relations, more
individual instruction; not content to make God in the image of man
that I might be favoured above my fellows, I desired supernatural
knowledge; I required a special form of worship; I wanted God to tell
me what he had not told others, or what others had not understood like
myself.
"Considering the point I had now reached as the common centre from
which all believers set out on the quest for a more enlightened form
of religion, I merely found in natural religion the elements of all
religion. I beheld the multitude of diverse sects which hold sway upon
earth, each of which accuses the other of falsehood and error; which
of these, I asked, is the right? Every one replied, 'My own;' every
one said, 'I alone and those who agree with me think rightly, all the
others are mistaken.' And how do you know that your sect is in the
right? Because God said so. And how do you know God said so?
[Footnote: "All men," said a wise and good priest, "maintain that
they hold and believe their religion (and all use the same jargon),
not of man, nor of any creature, but of God. But to speak truly,
without pretence or flattery, none of them do so; whatever they may
say, religions are taught by human hands and means; take, for example,
the way in which religions have been received by the world, the way in
which they are still received every day by individuals; the nation,
the country, the locality gives the religion; we belong to the
religion of the place where we are born and brought up; we are
baptised or circumcised, we are Christians, Jews, Mohametans before we
know that we are men; we do not pick and choose our religion for see
how ill the life and conduct agree with the religion, see for what
slight and human causes men go against the teaching of their
religion."—Charron, De la Sagesse.—It seems clear that the honest
creed of the holy theologian of Condom would not have differed greatly
from that of the Savoyard priest.] And who told you that God said it?
My pastor, who knows all about it. My pastor tells me what to believe
and I believe it; he assures me that any one who says anything else is
mistaken, and I give not heed to them.
"What! thought I, is not truth one; can that which is true for me
be false for you? If those who follow the right path and those who go
astray have the same method, what merit or what blame can be assigned
to one more than to the other? Their choice is the result of chance;
it is unjust to hold them responsible for it, to reward or punish them
for being born in one country or another. To dare to say that God
judges us in this manner is an outrage on his justice.
"Either all religions are good and pleasing to God, or if there is
one which he prescribes for men, if they will be punished for
despising it, he will have distinguished it by plain and certain
signs by which it can be known as the only true religion; these signs
are alike in every time and place, equally plain to all men, great or
small, learned or unlearned, Europeans, Indians, Africans, savages. If
there were but one religion upon earth, and if all beyond its pale
were condemned to eternal punishment, and if there were in any corner
of the world one single honest man who was not convinced by this
evidence, the God of that religion would be the most unjust and cruel
of tyrants.
"Let us therefore seek honestly after truth; let us yield nothing
to the claims of birth, to the authority of parents and pastors, but
let us summon to the bar of conscience and of reason all that they
have taught us from our childhood. In vain do they exclaim, 'Submit
your reason;' a deceiver might say as much; I must have reasons for
submitting my reason.
"All the theology I can get for myself by observation of the
universe and by the use of my faculties is contained in what I have
already told you. To know more one must have recourse to strange
means. These means cannot be the authority of men, for every man is of
the same species as myself, and all that a man knows by nature I am
capable of knowing, and another may be deceived as much as I; when I
believe what he says, it is not because he says it but because he
proves its truth. The witness of man is therefore nothing more than
the witness of my own reason, and it adds nothing to the natural means
which God has given me for the knowledge of truth.
"Apostle of truth, what have you to tell me of which I am not the
sole judge? God himself has spoken; give heed to his revelation. That
is another matter. God has spoken, these are indeed words which demand
attention. To whom has he spoken? He has spoken to men. Why then have
I heard nothing? He has instructed others to make known his words to
you. I understand; it is men who come and tell me what God has said. I
would rather have heard the words of God himself; it would have been
as easy for him and I should have been secure from fraud. He protects
you from fraud by showing that his envoys come from him. How does he
show this? By miracles. Where are these miracles? In the books. And
who wrote the books? Men. And who saw the miracles? The men who bear
witness to them. What! Nothing but human testimony! Nothing but men
who tell me what others told them! How many men between God and me!
Let us see, however, let us examine, compare, and verify. Oh! if God
had but deigned to free me from all this labour, I would have served
him with all my heart.
"Consider, my friend, the terrible controversy in which I am now
engaged; what vast learning is required to go back to the remotest
antiquity, to examine, weigh, confront prophecies, revelations,
facts, all the monuments of faith set forth throughout the world, to
assign their date, place, authorship, and occasion. What exactness of
critical judgment is needed to distinguish genuine documents from
forgeries, to compare objections with their answers, translations
with their originals; to decide as to the impartiality of witnesses,
their common-sense, their knowledge; to make sure that nothing has
been omitted, nothing added, nothing transposed, altered, or
falsified; to point out any remaining contradictions, to determine
what weight should be given to the silence of our adversaries with
regard to the charges brought against them; how far were they aware of
those charges; did they think them sufficiently serious to require an
answer; were books sufficiently well known for our books to reach
them; have we been honest enough to allow their books to circulate
among ourselves and to leave their strongest objections unaltered?
"When the authenticity of all these documents is accepted, we must
now pass to the evidence of their authors' mission; we must know the
laws of chance, and probability, to decide which prophecy cannot be
fulfilled without a miracle; we must know the spirit of the original
languages, to distinguish between prophecy and figures of speech; we
must know what facts are in accordance with nature and what facts are
not, so that we may say how far a clever man may deceive the eyes of
the simple and may even astonish the learned; we must discover what
are the characteristics of a prodigy and how its authenticity may be
established, not only so far as to gain credence, but so that doubt
may be deserving of punishment; we must compare the evidence for true
and false miracles, and find sure tests to distinguish between them;
lastly we must say why God chose as a witness to his words means which
themselves require so much evidence on their behalf, as if he were
playing with human credulity, and avoiding of set purpose the true
means of persuasion.
"Assuming that the divine majesty condescends so far as to make a
man the channel of his sacred will, is it reasonable, is it fair, to
demand that the whole of mankind should obey the voice of this
minister without making him known as such? Is it just to give him as
his sole credentials certain private signs, performed in the presence
of a few obscure persons, signs which everybody else can only know by
hearsay? If one were to believe all the miracles that the uneducated
and credulous profess to have seen in every country upon earth, every
sect would be in the right; there would be more miracles than ordinary
events; and it would be the greatest miracle if there were no miracles
wherever there were persecuted fanatics. The unchangeable order of
nature is the chief witness to the wise hand that guides it; if there
were many exceptions, I should hardly know what to think; for my own
part I have too great a faith in God to believe in so many miracles
which are so little worthy of him.
"Let a man come and say to us: Mortals, I proclaim to you the will
of the Most Highest; accept my words as those of him who has sent me;
I bid the sun to change his course, the stars to range themselves in a
fresh order, the high places to become smooth, the floods to rise up,
the earth to change her face. By these miracles who will not recognise
the master of nature? She does not obey impostors, their miracles are
wrought in holes and corners, in deserts, within closed doors, where
they find easy dupes among a small company of spectators already
disposed to believe them. Who will venture to tell me how many
eye-witnesses are required to make a miracle credible! What use are
your miracles, performed if proof of your doctrine, if they themselves
require so much proof! You might as well have let them alone.
"There still remains the most important inquiry of all with regard
to the doctrine proclaimed; for since those who tell us God works
miracles in this world, profess that the devil sometimes imitates
them, when we have found the best attested miracles we have got very
little further; and since the magicians of Pharaoh dared in the
presence of Moses to counterfeit the very signs he wrought at God's
command, why should they not, behind his back, claim a like authority?
So when we have proved our doctrine by means of miracles, we must
prove our miracles by means of doctrine, [Footnote: This is expressly
stated in many passages of Scripture, among others in Deuteronomy
xiii., where it is said that when a prophet preaching strange gods
confirms his words by means of miracles and what he foretells comes to
pass, far from giving heed to him, this prophet must be put to death.
If then the heathen put the apostles to death when they preached a
strange god and confirmed their words by miracles which came to pass I
cannot see what grounds we have for complaint which they could not at
once turn against us. Now, what should be done in such a case? There
is only one course; to return to argument and let the miracles alone.
It would have been better not to have had recourse to them at all.
That is plain common-sense which can only be obscured by great
subtlety of distinction. Subtleties in Christianity! So Jesus Christ
was mistaken when he promised the kingdom of heaven to the simple, he
was mistaken when he began his finest discourse with the praise of the
poor in spirit, if so much wit is needed to understand his teaching
and to get others to believe in him. When you have convinced me that
submission is my duty, all will be well; but to convince me of this,
come down to my level; adapt your arguments to a lowly mind, or I
shall not recognise you as a true disciple of your master, and it is
not his doctrine that you are teaching me.] for fear lest we should
take the devil's doings for the handiwork of God. What think you of
this dilemma?
"This doctrine, if it comes from God, should bear the sacred stamp
of the godhead; not only should it illumine the troubled thoughts
which reason imprints on our minds, but it should also offer us a
form of worship, a morality, and rules of conduct in accordance with
the attributes by means of which we alone conceive of God's essence.
If then it teaches us what is absurd and unreasonable, if it inspires
us with feelings of aversion for our fellows and terror for ourselves,
if it paints us a God, angry, jealous, revengeful, partial, hating
men, a God of war and battles, ever ready to strike and to destroy,
ever speaking of punishment and torment, boasting even of the
punishment of the innocent, my heart would not be drawn towards this
terrible God, I would take good care not to quit the realm of natural
religion to embrace such a religion as that; for you see plainly I
must choose between them. Your God is not ours. He who begins by
selecting a chosen people, and proscribing the rest of mankind, is not
our common father; he who consigns to eternal punishment the greater
part of his creatures, is not the merciful and gracious God revealed
to me by my reason.
"Reason tells me that dogmas should be plain, clear, and striking
in their simplicity. If there is something lacking in natural
religion, it is with respect to the obscurity in which it leaves the
great truths it teaches; revelation should teach us these truths in a
way which the mind of man can understand; it should bring them within
his reach, make him comprehend them, so that he may believe them.
Faith is confirmed and strengthened by understanding; the best
religion is of necessity the simplest. He who hides beneath mysteries
and contradictions the religion that he preaches to me, teaches me at
the same time to distrust that religion. The God whom I adore is not
the God of darkness, he has not given me understanding in order to
forbid me to use it; to tell me to submit my reason is to insult the
giver of reason. The minister of truth does not tyrannise over my
reason, he enlightens it.
"We have set aside all human authority, and without it I do not see
how any man can convince another by preaching a doctrine contrary to
reason. Let them fight it out, and let us see what they have to say
with that harshness of speech which is common to both.
"INSPIRATION: Reason tells you that the whole is greater than the
part; but I tell you, in God's name, that the part is greater than
the whole.
"REASON: And who are you to dare to tell me that God contradicts
himself? And which shall I choose to believe. God who teaches me,
through my reason, the eternal truth, or you who, in his name,
proclaim an absurdity?
"INSPIRATION: Believe me, for my teaching is more positive; and I
will prove to you beyond all manner of doubt that he has sent me.
"REASON: What! you will convince me that God has sent you to bear
witness against himself? What sort of proofs will you adduce to
convince me that God speaks more surely by your mouth than through
the understanding he has given me?
"INSPIRATION: The understanding he has given you! Petty, conceited
creature! As if you were the first impious person who had been led
astray through his reason corrupted by sin.
"REASON: Man of God, you would not be the first scoundrel who
asserts his arrogance as a proof of his mission.
"INSPIRATION: What! do even philosophers call names?
"REASON: Sometimes, when the saints set them the example.
"INSPIRATION: Oh, but I have a right to do it, for I am speaking
on God's behalf.
"REASON: You would do well to show your credentials before you make
use of your privileges.
"INSPIRATION: My credentials are authentic, earth and heaven will
bear witness on my behalf. Follow my arguments carefully, if you
please.
"REASON: Your arguments! You forget what you are saying. When you
teach me that my reason misleads me, do you not refute what it might
have said on your behalf? He who denies the right of reason, must
convince me without recourse to her aid. For suppose you have
convinced me by reason, how am I to know that it is not my reason,
corrupted by sin, which makes me accept what you say? besides, what
proof, what demonstration, can you advance, more self-evident than the
axiom it is to destroy? It is more credible that a good syllogism is a
lie, than that the part is greater than the whole.
"INSPIRATION: What a difference! There is no answer to my evidence;
it is of a supernatural kind.
"REASON: Supernatural! What do you mean by the word? I do not
understand it.
"INSPIRATION: I mean changes in the order of nature, prophecies,
signs, and wonders of every kind.
"REASON: Signs and wonders! I have never seen anything of the kind.
"INSPIRATION: Others have seen them for you. Clouds of
witnesses—the witness of whole nations....
"REASON: Is the witness of nations supernatural?
"INSPIRATION: No; but when it is unanimous, it is incontestable.
"REASON: There is nothing so incontestable as the principles of
reason, and one cannot accept an absurdity on human evidence. Once
more, let us see your supernatural evidence, for the consent of
mankind is not supernatural.
"INSPIRATION: Oh, hardened heart, grace does not speak to you.
"REASON: That is not my fault; for by your own showing, one must
have already received grace before one is able to ask for it. Begin
by speaking to me in its stead.
"INSPIRATION: But that is just what I am doing, and you will not
listen. But what do you say to prophecy?
"REASON: In the first place, I say I have no more heard a prophet
than I have seen a miracle. In the next, I say that no prophet could
claim authority over me.
"INSPIRATION: Follower of the devil! Why should not the words of
the prophets have authority over you?
"REASON: Because three things are required, three things which will
never happen: firstly, I must have heard the prophecy; secondly, I
must have seen its fulfilment; and thirdly, it must be clearly proved
that the fulfilment of the prophecy could not by any possibility have
been a mere coincidence; for even if it was as precise, as plain, and
clear as an axiom of geometry, since the clearness of a chance
prediction does not make its fulfilment impossible, this fulfilment
when it does take place does not, strictly speaking, prove what was
foretold.
"See what your so-called supernatural proofs, your miracles, your
prophecies come to: believe all this upon the word of another, Submit
to the authority of men the authority of God which speaks to my
reason. If the eternal truths which my mind conceives of could suffer
any shock, there would be no sort of certainty for me; and far from
being sure that you speak to me on God's behalf, I should not even be
sure that there is a God.
"My child, here are difficulties enough, but these are not all.
Among so many religions, mutually excluding and proscribing each
other, one only is true, if indeed any one of them is true. To
recognise the true religion we must inquire into, not one, but all;
and in any question whatsoever we have no right to condemn unheard.
[Footnote: On the other hand, Plutarch relates that the Stoics
maintained, among other strange paradoxes, that it was no use hearing
both sides; for, said they, the first either proves his point or he
does not prove it; if he has proved it, there is an end of it, and the
other should be condemned: if he has not proved it, he himself is in
the wrong and judgment should be given against him. I consider the
method of those who accept an exclusive revelation very much like that
of these Stoics. When each of them claims to be the sole guardian of
truth, we must hear them all before we can choose between them without
injustice.] The objections must be compared with the evidence; we must
know what accusation each brings against the other, and what answers
they receive. The plainer any feeling appears to us, the more we must
try to discover why so many other people refuse to accept it. We
should be simple, indeed, if we thought it enough to hear the doctors
on our own side, in order to acquaint ourselves with the arguments of
the other. Where can you find theologians who pride themselves on
their honesty? Where are those who, to refute the arguments of their
opponents, do not begin by making out that they are of little
importance? A man may make a good show among his own friends, and be
very proud of his arguments, who would cut a very poor figure with
those same arguments among those who are on the other side. Would you
find out for yourself from books? What learning you will need! What
languages you must learn; what libraries you must ransack; what an
amount of reading must be got through! Who will guide me in such a
choice? It will be hard to find the best books on the opposite side in
any one country, and all the harder to find those on all sides; when
found they would be easily answered. The absent are always in the
wrong, and bad arguments boldly asserted easily efface good arguments
put forward with scorn. Besides books are often very misleading, and
scarcely express the opinions of their authors. If you think you can
judge the Catholic faith from the writings of Bossuet, you will find
yourself greatly mistaken when you have lived among us. You will see
that the doctrines with which Protestants are answered are quite
different from those of the pulpit. To judge a religion rightly, you
must not study it in the books of its partisans, you must learn it in
their lives; this is quite another matter. Each religion has its own
traditions, meaning, customs, prejudices, which form the spirit of its
creed, and must be taken in connection with it.
"How many great nations neither print books of their own nor read
ours! How shall they judge of our opinions, or we of theirs? We laugh
at them, they despise us; and if our travellers turn them into
ridicule, they need only travel among us to pay us back in our own
coin. Are there not, in every country, men of common-sense, honesty,
and good faith, lovers of truth, who only seek to know what truth is
that they may profess it? Yet every one finds truth in his own
religion, and thinks the religion of other nations absurd; so all
these foreign religions are not so absurd as they seem to us, or else
the reason we find for our own proves nothing.
"We have three principal forms of religion in Europe. One accepts
one revelation, another two, and another three. Each hates the
others, showers curses on them, accuses them of blindness, obstinacy,
hardness of heart, and falsehood. What fair-minded man will dare to
decide between them without first carefully weighing their evidence,
without listening attentively to their arguments? That which accepts
only one revelation is the oldest and seems the best established; that
which accepts three is the newest and seems the most consistent; that
which accepts two revelations and rejects the third may perhaps be the
best, but prejudice is certainly against it; its inconsistency is
glaring.
"In all three revelations the sacred books are written in languages
unknown to the people who believe in them. The Jews no longer
understand Hebrew, the Christians understand neither Hebrew nor
Greek; the Turks and Persians do not understand Arabic, and the Arabs
of our time do not speak the language of Mahomet. Is not it a very
foolish way of teaching, to teach people in an unknown tongue? These
books are translated, you say. What an answer! How am I to know that
the translations are correct, or how am I to make sure that such a
thing as a correct translation is possible? If God has gone so far as
to speak to men, why should he require an interpreter?
"I can never believe that every man is obliged to know what is
contained in books, and that he who is out of reach of these books,
and of those who understand them, will be punished for an ignorance
which is no fault of his. Books upon books! What madness! As all
Europe is full of books, Europeans regard them as necessary,
forgetting that they are unknown throughout three-quarters of the
globe. Were not all these books written by men? Why then should a man
need them to teach him his duty, and how did he learn his duty before
these books were in existence? Either he must have learnt his duties
for himself, or his ignorance must have been excused.
"Our Catholics talk loudly of the authority of the Church; but what
is the use of it all, if they also need just as great an array of
proofs to establish that authority as the other seeks to establish
their doctrine? The Church decides that the Church has a right to
decide. What a well-founded authority! Go beyond it, and you are back
again in our discussions.
"Do you know many Christians who have taken the trouble to inquire
what the Jews allege against them? If any one knows anything at all
about it, it is from the writings of Christians. What a way of
ascertaining the arguments of our adversaries! But what is to be
done? If any one dared to publish in our day books which were openly
in favour of the Jewish religion, we should punish the author,
publisher, and bookseller. This regulation is a sure and certain plan
for always being in the right. It is easy to refute those who dare not
venture to speak.
"Those among us who have the opportunity of talking with Jews are
little better off. These unhappy people feel that they are in our
power; the tyranny they have suffered makes them timid; they know
that Christian charity thinks nothing of injustice and cruelty; will
they dare to run the risk of an outcry against blasphemy? Our greed
inspires us with zeal, and they are so rich that they must be in the
wrong. The more learned, the more enlightened they are, the more
cautious. You may convert some poor wretch whom you have paid to
slander his religion; you get some wretched old-clothes-man to speak,
and he says what you want; you may triumph over their ignorance and
cowardice, while all the time their men of learning are laughing at
your stupidity. But do you think you would get off so easily in any
place where they knew they were safe! At the Sorbonne it is plain that
the Messianic prophecies refer to Jesus Christ. Among the rabbis of
Amsterdam it is just as clear that they have nothing to do with him. I
do not think I have ever heard the arguments of the Jews as to why
they should not have a free state, schools and universities, where
they can speak and argue without danger. Then alone can we know what
they have to say.
"At Constantinople the Turks state their arguments, but we dare not
give ours; then it is our turn to cringe. Can we blame the Turks if
they require us to show the same respect for Mahomet, in whom we do
not believe, as we demand from the Jews with regard to Jesus Christ in
whom they do not believe? Are we right? On what grounds of justice can
we answer this question?
"Two-thirds of mankind are neither Jews, Mahometans, nor
Christians; and how many millions of men have never heard the name of
Moses, Jesus Christ, or Mahomet? They deny it; they maintain that our
missionaries go everywhere. That is easily said. But do they go into
the heart of Africa, still undiscovered, where as yet no European has
ever ventured? Do they go to Eastern Tartary to follow on horseback
the wandering tribes, whom no stranger approaches, who not only know
nothing of the pope, but have scarcely heard tell of the Grand Lama!
Do they penetrate into the vast continents of America, where there are
still whole nations unaware that the people of another world have set
foot on their shores? Do they go to Japan, where their intrigues have
led to their perpetual banishment, where their predecessors are only
known to the rising generation as skilful plotters who came with
feigned zeal to take possession in secret of the empire? Do they reach
the harems of the Asiatic princes to preach the gospel to those
thousands of poor slaves? What have the women of those countries done
that no missionary may preach the faith to them? Will they all go to
hell because of their seclusion?
"If it were true that the gospel is preached throughout the world,
what advantage would there be? The day before the first missionary
set foot in any country, no doubt somebody died who could not hear
him. Now tell me what we shall do with him? If there were a single
soul in the whole world, to whom Jesus Christ had never been
preached, this objection would be as strong for that man as for a
quarter of the human race.
"If the ministers of the gospel have made themselves heard among
far-off nations, what have they told them which might reasonably be
accepted on their word, without further and more exact verification?
You preach to me God, born and dying, two thousand years ago, at the
other end of the world, in some small town I know not where; and you
tell me that all who have not believed this mystery are damned. These
are strange things to be believed so quickly on the authority of an
unknown person. Why did your God make these things happen so far off,
if he would compel me to know about them? Is it a crime to be unaware
of what is happening half a world away? Could I guess that in another
hemisphere there was a Hebrew nation and a town called Jerusalem? You
might as well expect me to know what was happening in the moon. You
say you have come to teach me; but why did you not come and teach my
father, or why do you consign that good old man to damnation because
he knew nothing of all this? Must he be punished everlastingly for
your laziness, he who was so kind and helpful, he who sought only for
truth? Be honest; put yourself in my place; see if I ought to believe,
on your word alone, all these incredible things which you have told
me, and reconcile all this injustice with the just God you proclaim to
me. At least allow me to go and see this distant land where such
wonders, unheard of in my own country, took place; let me go and see
why the inhabitants of Jerusalem put their God to death as a robber.
You tell me they did not know he was God, What then shall I do, I who
have only heard of him from you? You say they have been punished,
dispersed, oppressed, enslaved; that none of them dare approach that
town. Indeed they richly deserved it; but what do its present
inhabitants say of their crime in slaying their God! They deny him;
they too refuse to recognise God as God. They are no better than the
children of the original inhabitants.
"What! In the very town where God was put to death, neither the
former nor the latter inhabitants knew him, and you expect that I
should know him, I who was born two thousand years after his time,
and two thousand leagues away? Do you not see that before I can
believe this book which you call sacred, but which I do not in the
least understand, I must know from others than yourself when and by
whom it was written, how it has been preserved, how it came into your
possession, what they say about it in those lands where it is
rejected, and what are their reasons for rejecting it, though they
know as well as you what you are telling me? You perceive I must go
to Europe, Asia, Palestine, to examine these things for myself; it
would be madness to listen to you before that.
"Not only does this seem reasonable to me, but I maintain that it
is what every wise man ought to say in similar circumstances; that he
ought to banish to a great distance the missionary who wants to
instruct and baptise him all of a sudden before the evidence is
verified. Now I maintain that there is no revelation against which
these or similar objections cannot be made, and with more force than
against Christianity. Hence it follows that if there is but one true
religion and if every man is bound to follow it under pain of
damnation, he must spend his whole life in studying, testing,
comparing all these religions, in travelling through the countries in
which they are established. No man is free from a man's first duty; no
one has a right to depend on another's judgment. The artisan who earns
his bread by his daily toil, the ploughboy who cannot read, the
delicate and timid maiden, the invalid who can scarcely leave his bed,
all without exception must study, consider, argue, travel over the
whole world; there will be no more fixed and settled nations; the
whole earth will swarm with pilgrims on their way, at great cost of
time and trouble, to verify, compare, and examine for themselves the
various religions to be found. Then farewell to the trades, the arts,
the sciences of mankind, farewell to all peaceful occupations; there
can be no study but that of religion, even the strongest, the most
industrious, the most intelligent, the oldest, will hardly be able in
his last years to know where he is; and it will be a wonder if he
manages to find out what religion he ought to live by, before the hour
of his death.
"Hard pressed by these arguments, some prefer to make God unjust
and to punish the innocent for the sins of their fathers, rather than
to renounce their barbarous dogmas. Others get out of the difficulty
by kindly sending an angel to instruct all those who in invincible
ignorance have lived a righteous life. A good idea, that angel! Not
content to be the slaves of their own inventions they expect God to
make use of them also!
"Behold, my son, the absurdities to which pride and intolerance
bring us, when everybody wants others to think as he does, and
everybody fancies that he has an exclusive claim upon the rest of
mankind. I call to witness the God of Peace whom I adore, and whom I
proclaim to you, that my inquiries were honestly made; but when I
discovered that they were and always would be unsuccessful, and that I
was embarked upon a boundless ocean, I turned back, and restricted my
faith within the limits of my primitive ideas. I could never convince
myself that God would require such learning of me under pain of hell.
So I closed all my books. There is one book which is open to every
one—the book of nature. In this good and great volume I learn to
serve and adore its Author. There is no excuse for not reading this
book, for it speaks to all in a language they can understand. Suppose
I had been born in a desert island, suppose I had never seen any man
but myself, suppose I had never heard what took place in olden days in
a remote corner of the world; yet if I use my reason, if I cultivate
it, if I employ rightly the innate faculties which God bestows upon
me, I shall learn by myself to know and love him, to love his works,
to will what he wills, and to fulfil all my duties upon earth, that I
may do his pleasure. What more can all human learning teach me?
"With regard to revelation, if I were a more accomplished
disputant, or a more learned person, perhaps I should feel its truth,
its usefulness for those who are happy enough to perceive it; but if I
find evidence for it which I cannot combat, I also find objections
against it which I cannot overcome. There are so many weighty reasons
for and against that I do not know what to decide, so that I neither
accept nor reject it. I only reject all obligation to be convinced of
its truth; for this so-called obligation is incompatible with God's
justice, and far from removing objections in this way it would
multiply them, and would make them insurmountable for the greater part
of mankind. In this respect I maintain an attitude of reverent doubt.
I do not presume to think myself infallible; other men may have been
able to make up their minds though the matter seems doubtful to
myself; I am speaking for myself, not for them; I neither blame them
nor follow in their steps; their judgment may be superior to mine, but
it is no fault of mine that my judgment does not agree with it.
"I own also that the holiness of the gospel speaks to my heart,
and that this is an argument which I should be sorry to refute.
Consider the books of the philosophers with all their outward show;
how petty they are in comparison! Can a book at once so grand and so
simple be the work of men? Is it possible that he whose history is
contained in this book is no more than man? Is the tone of this book,
the tone of the enthusiast or the ambitious sectary? What gentleness
and purity in his actions, what a touching grace in his teaching, how
lofty are his sayings, how profoundly wise are his sermons, how ready,
how discriminating, and how just are his answers! What man, what sage,
can live, suffer, and die without weakness or ostentation? When Plato
describes his imaginary good man, overwhelmed with the disgrace of
crime, and deserving of all the rewards of virtue, every feature of
the portrait is that of Christ; the resemblance is so striking that it
has been noticed by all the Fathers, and there can be no doubt about
it. What prejudices and blindness must there be before we dare to
compare the son of Sophronisca with the son of Mary. How far apart
they are! Socrates dies a painless death, he is not put to open shame,
and he plays his part easily to the last; and if this easy death had
not done honour to his life, we might have doubted whether Socrates,
with all his intellect, was more than a mere sophist. He invented
morality, so they say; others before him had practised it; he only
said what they had done, and made use of their example in his
teaching. Aristides was just before Socrates defined justice; Leonidas
died for his country before Socrates declared that patriotism was a
virtue; Sparta was sober before Socrates extolled sobriety; there
were plenty of virtuous men in Greece before he defined virtue. But
among the men of his own time where did Jesus find that pure and lofty
morality of which he is both the teacher and pattern? [Footnote: Cf.
in the Sermon on the Mount the parallel he himself draws between the
teaching of Moses and his own.—Matt. v.] The voice of loftiest wisdom
arose among the fiercest fanaticism, the simplicity of the most heroic
virtues did honour to the most degraded of nations One could wish no
easier death than that of Socrates, calmly discussing philosophy with
his friends; one could fear nothing worse than that of Jesus, dying in
torment, among the insults, the mockery, the curses of the whole
nation. In the midst of these terrible sufferings, Jesus prays for his
cruel murderers. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a
philosopher, the life and death of Christ are those of a God. Shall we
say that the gospel story is the work of the imagination? My friend,
such things are not imagined; and the doings of Socrates, which no one
doubts, are less well attested than those of Jesus Christ. At best,
you only put the difficulty from you; it would be still more
incredible that several persons should have agreed together to invent
such a book, than that there was one man who supplied its subject
matter. The tone and morality of this story are not those of any
Jewish authors, and the gospel indeed contains characters so great, so
striking, so entirely inimitable, that their invention would be more
astonishing than their hero. With all this the same gospel is full of
incredible things, things repugnant to reason, things which no natural
man can understand or accept. What can you do among so many
contradictions? You can be modest and wary, my child; respect in
silence what you can neither reject nor understand, and humble
yourself in the sight of the Divine Being who alone knows the truth.
"This is the unwilling scepticism in which I rest; but this
scepticism is in no way painful to me, for it does not extend to
matters of practice, and I am well assured as to the principles
underlying all my duties. I serve God in the simplicity of my heart; I
only seek to know what affects my conduct. As to those dogmas which
have no effect upon action or morality, dogmas about which so many men
torment themselves, I give no heed to them. I regard all individual
religions as so many wholesome institutions which prescribe a uniform
method by which each country may do honour to God in public worship;
institutions which may each have its reason in the country, the
government, the genius of the people, or in other local causes which
make one preferable to another in a given time or place. I think them
all good alike, when God is served in a fitting manner. True worship
is of the heart. God rejects no homage, however offered, provided it
is sincere. Called to the service of the Church in my own religion, I
fulfil as scrupulously as I can all the duties prescribed to me, and
my conscience would reproach me if I were knowingly wanting with
regard to any point. You are aware that after being suspended for a
long time, I have, through the influence of M. Mellarede, obtained
permission to resume my priestly duties, as a means of livelihood. I
used to say Mass with the levity that comes from long experience even
of the most serious matters when they are too familiar to us; with my
new principles I now celebrate it with more reverence; I dwell upon
the majesty of the Supreme Being, his presence, the insufficiency of
the human mind, which so little realises what concerns its Creator.
When I consider how I present before him the prayers of all the people
in a form laid down for me, I carry out the whole ritual exactly; I
give heed to what I say, I am careful not to omit the least word, the
least ceremony; when the moment of the consecration approaches, I
collect my powers, that I may do all things as required by the Church
and by the greatness of this sacrament; I strive to annihilate my own
reason before the Supreme Mind; I say to myself, Who art thou to
measure infinite power? I reverently pronounce the sacramental words,
and I give to their effect all the faith I can bestow. Whatever may
be this mystery which passes understanding, I am not afraid that at
the day of judgment I shall be punished for having profaned it in my
heart."
Honoured with the sacred ministry, though in its lowest ranks, I
will never do or say anything which may make me unworthy to fulfil
these sublime duties. I will always preach virtue and exhort men to
well-doing; and so far as I can I will set them a good example. It
will be my business to make religion attractive; it will be my
business to strengthen their faith in those doctrines which are
really useful, those which every man must believe; but, please God, I
shall never teach them to hate their neighbour, to say to other men,
You will be damned; to say, No salvation outside the Church.
[Footnote: The duty of following and loving the religion of our
country does not go so far as to require us to accept doctrines
contrary to good morals, such as intolerance. This horrible doctrine
sets men in arms against their fellow-men, and makes them all enemies
of mankind. The distinction between civil toleration and theological
toleration is vain and childish. These two kinds of toleration are
inseparable, and we cannot accept one without the other. Even the
angels could not live at peace with men whom they regarded as the
enemies of God.] If I were in a more conspicuous position, this
reticence might get me into trouble; but I am too obscure to have much
to fear, and I could hardly sink lower than I am. Come what may, I
will never blaspheme the justice of God, nor lie against the Holy
Ghost.
"I have long desired to have a parish of my own; it is still my
ambition, but I no longer hope to attain it. My dear friend, I think
there is nothing so delightful as to be a parish priest. A good
clergyman is a minister of mercy, as a good magistrate is a minister
of justice. A clergyman is never called upon to do evil; if he cannot
always do good himself, it is never out of place for him to beg for
others, and he often gets what he asks if he knows how to gain
respect. Oh! if I should ever have some poor mountain parish where I
might minister to kindly folk, I should be happy indeed; for it seems
to me that I should make my parishioners happy. I should not bring
them riches, but I should share their poverty; I should remove from
them the scorn and opprobrium which are harder to bear than poverty. I
should make them love peace and equality, which often remove poverty,
and always make it tolerable. When they saw that I was in no way
better off than themselves, and that yet I was content with my lot,
they would learn to put up with their fate and to be content like me.
In my sermons I would lay more stress on the spirit of the gospel than
on the spirit of the church; its teaching is simple, its morality
sublime; there is little in it about the practices of religion, but
much about works of charity. Before I teach them what they ought to
do, I would try to practise it myself, that they might see that at
least I think what I say. If there were Protestants in the
neighbourhood or in my parish, I would make no difference between them
and my own congregation so far as concerns Christian charity; I would
get them to love one another, to consider themselves brethren, to
respect all religions, and each to live peaceably in his own religion.
To ask any one to abandon the religion in which he was born is, I
consider, to ask him to do wrong, and therefore to do wrong oneself.
While we await further knowledge, let us respect public order; in
every country let us respect the laws, let us not disturb the form of
worship prescribed by law; let us not lead its citizens into
disobedience; for we have no certain knowledge that it is good for
them to abandon their own opinions for others, and on the other hand
we are quite certain that it is a bad thing to disobey the law.
"My young friend, I have now repeated to you my creed as God reads
it in my heart; you are the first to whom I have told it; perhaps you
will be the last. As long as there is any true faith left among men,
we must not trouble quiet souls, nor scare the faith of the ignorant
with problems they cannot solve, with difficulties which cause them
uneasiness, but do not give them any guidance. But when once
everything is shaken, the trunk must be preserved at the cost of the
branches. Consciences, restless, uncertain, and almost quenched like
yours, require to be strengthened and aroused; to set the feet again
upon the foundation of eternal truth, we must remove the trembling
supports on which they think they rest.
"You are at that critical age when the mind is open to conviction,
when the heart receives its form and character, when we decide our
own fate for life, either for good or evil. At a later date, the
material has hardened and fresh impressions leave no trace. Young
man, take the stamp of truth upon your heart which is not yet
hardened, if I were more certain of myself, I should have adopted a
more decided and dogmatic tone; but I am a man ignorant and. liable to
error; what could I do? I have opened my heart fully to you; and I
have told what I myself hold for certain and sure; I have told you my
doubts as doubts, my opinions as opinions; I have given you my reasons
both for faith and doubt. It is now your turn to judge; you have asked
for time; that is a wise precaution and it makes me think well of you.
Begin by bringing your conscience into that state in which it desires
to see clearly; be honest with yourself. Take to yourself such of my
opinions as convince you, reject the rest. You are not yet so depraved
by vice as to run the risk of choosing amiss. I would offer to argue
with you, but as soon as men dispute they lose their temper; pride and
obstinacy come in, and there is an end of honesty. My friend, never
argue; for by arguing we gain no light for ourselves or for others. So
far as I myself am concerned, I have only made up my mind after many
years of meditation; here I rest, my conscience is at peace, my heart
is satisfied. If I wanted to begin afresh the examination of my
feelings, I should not bring to the task a purer love of truth; and my
mind, which is already less active, would be less able to perceive the
truth. Here I shall rest, lest the love of contemplation, developing
step by step into an idle passion, should make me lukewarm in the
performance of my duties, lest I should fall into my former scepticism
without strength to struggle out of it. More than half my life is
spent; I have barely time to make good use of what is left, to blot
out my faults by my virtues. If I am mistaken, it is against my will.
He who reads my inmost heart knows that I have no love for my
blindness. As my own knowledge is powerless to free me from this
blindness, my only way out of it is by a good life; and if God from
the very stones can raise up children to Abraham, every man has a
right to hope that he may be taught the truth, if he makes himself
worthy of it.
"If my reflections lead you to think as I do, if you share my
feelings, if we have the same creed, I give you this advice: Do not
continue to expose your life to the temptations of poverty and
despair, nor waste it in degradation and at the mercy of strangers;
no longer eat the shameful bread of charity. Return to your own
country, go back to the religion of your fathers, and follow it in
sincerity of heart, and never forsake it; it is very simple and very
holy; I think there is no other religion upon earth whose morality is
purer, no other more satisfying to the reason. Do not trouble about
the cost of the journey, that will be provided for you. Neither do you
fear the false shame of a humiliating return; we should blush to
commit a fault, not to repair it. You are still at an age when all is
forgiven, but when we cannot go on sinning with impunity. If you
desire to listen to your conscience, a thousand empty objections will
disappear at her voice. You will feel that, in our present state of
uncertainty, it is an inexcusable presumption to profess any faith but
that we were born into, while it is treachery not to practise honestly
the faith we profess. If we go astray, we deprive ourselves of a great
excuse before the tribunal of the sovereign judge. Will he not pardon
the errors in which we were brought up, rather than those of our own
choosing?
"My son, keep your soul in such a state that you always desire
that there should be a God and you will never doubt it. Moreover,
whatever decision you come to, remember that the real duties of
religion are independent of human institutions; that a righteous
heart is the true temple of the Godhead; that in every land, in every
sect, to love God above all things and to love our neighbour as
ourself is the whole law; remember there is no religion which absolves
us from our moral duties; that these alone are really essential, that
the service of the heart is the first of these duties, and that
without faith there is no such thing as true virtue.
"Shun those who, under the pretence of explaining nature, sow
destructive doctrines in the heart of men, those whose apparent
scepticism is a hundredfold more self-assertive and dogmatic than the
firm tone of their opponents. Under the arrogant claim, that they
alone are enlightened, true, honest, they subject us imperiously to
their far-reaching decisions, and profess to give us, as the true
principles of all things, the unintelligible systems framed by their
imagination. Moreover, they overthrow, destroy, and trample under foot
all that men reverence; they rob the afflicted of their last
consolation in their misery; they deprive the rich and powerful of the
sole bridle of their passions; they tear from the very depths of man's
heart all remorse for crime, and all hope of virtue; and they boast,
moreover, that they are the benefactors of the human race. Truth, they
say, can never do a man harm. I think so too, and to my mind that is
strong evidence that what they teach is not true. [Footnote: The rival
parties attack each other with so many sophistries that it would be a
rash and overwhelming enterprise to attempt to deal with all of them;
it is difficult enough to note some of them as they occur. One of the
commonest errors among the partisans of philosophy is to contrast a
nation of good philosophers with a nation of bad Christians; as if it
were easier to make a nation of good philosophers than a nation of
good Christians. I know not whether in individual cases it is easier
to discover one rather than the other; but I am quite certain that,
as far as nations are concerned, we must assume that there will be
those who misuse their philosophy without religion, just as our people
misuse their religion without philosophy, and that seems to put quite
a different face upon the matter.]—Bayle has proved very
satisfactorily that fanaticism is more harmful than atheism, and that
cannot be denied; but what he has not taken the trouble to say, though
it is none the less true, is this: Fanaticism, though cruel and
bloodthirsty, is still a great and powerful passion, which stirs the
heart of man, teaching him to despise death, and giving him an
enormous motive power, which only needs to be guided rightly to
produce the noblest virtues; while irreligion, and the argumentative
philosophic spirit generally, on the other hand, assaults the life and
enfeebles it, degrades the soul, concentrates all the passions in the
basest self-interest, in the meanness of the human self; thus it saps
unnoticed the very foundations of all society, for what is common to
all these private interests is so small that it will never outweigh
their opposing interests.—If atheism does not lead to bloodshed, it
is less from love of peace than from indifference to what is good; as
if it mattered little what happened to others, provided the sage
remained undisturbed in his study. His principles do not kill men, but
they prevent their birth, by destroying the morals by which they were
multiplied, by detaching them from their fellows, by reducing all
their affections to a secret selfishness, as fatal to population as to
virtue. The indifference of the philosopher is like the peace in a
despotic state; it is the repose of death; war itself is not more
destructive.—Thus fanaticism though its immediate results are more
fatal than those of what is now called the philosophic mind, is much
less fatal in its after effects. Moreover, it is an easy matter to
exhibit fine maxims in books; but the real question is—Are they
really in accordance with your teaching, are they the necessary
consequences of it? and this has not been clearly proved so far. It
remains to be seen whether philosophy, safely enthroned, could control
successfully man's petty vanity, his self-interest, his ambition, all
the lesser passions of mankind, and whether it would practise that
sweet humanity which it boasts of, pen in hand.—In theory, there is
no good which philosophy can bring about which is not equally secured
by religion, while religion secures much that philosophy cannot
secure.—In practice, it is another matter; but still we must put it
to the proof. No man follows his religion in all things, even if his
religion is true; most people have hardly any religion, and they do
not in the least follow what they have; that is still more true; but
still there are some people who have a religion and follow it, at
least to some extent; and beyond doubt religious motives do prevent
them from wrong-doing, and win from them virtues, praiseworthy
actions, which would not have existed but for these motives.—A monk
denies that money was entrusted to him; what of that? It only proves
that the man who entrusted the money to him was a fool. If Pascal had
done the same, that would have proved that Pascal was a hypocrite. But
a monk! Are those who make a trade of religion religious people? All
the crimes committed by the clergy, as by other men, do not prove that
religion is useless, but that very few people are religious.—Most
certainly our modern governments owe to Christianity their more stable
authority, their less frequent revolutions; it has made those
governments less bloodthirsty; this can be shown by comparing them
with the governments of former times. Apart from fanaticism, the best
known religion has given greater gentleness to Christian conduct. This
change is not the result of learning; for wherever learning has been
most illustrious humanity has been no more respected on that account;
the cruelties of the Athenians, the Egyptians, the Roman emperors, the
Chinese bear witness to this. What works of mercy spring from the
gospel! How many acts of restitution, reparation, confession does the
gospel lead to among Catholics! Among ourselves, as the times of
communion draw near, do they not lead us to reconciliation and to
alms-giving? Did not the Hebrew Jubilee make the grasping less greedy,
did it not prevent much poverty? The brotherhood of the Law made the
nation one; no beggar was found among them. Neither are there beggars
among the Turks, where there are countless pious institutions; from
motives of religion they even show hospitality to the foes of their
religion.—"The Mahometans say, according to Chardin, that after the
interrogation which will follow the general resurrection, all bodies
will traverse a bridge called Poul-Serrho, which is thrown across the
eternal fires, a bridge which may be called the third and last test of
the great Judgment, because it is there that the good and bad will be
separated, etc.—"The Persians, continues Chardin, make a great point
of this bridge; and when any one suffers a wrong which he can never
hope to wipe out by any means or at any time, he finds his last
consolation in these words: 'By the living God, you will pay me double
at the last day; you will never get across the Poul-Serrho if you do
not first do me justice; I will hold the hem of your garment, I will
cling about your knees.' I have seen many eminent men, of every
profession, who for fear lest this hue and cry should be raised
against them as they cross that fearful bridge, beg pardon of those
who complained against them; it has happened to me myself on many
occasions. Men of rank, who had compelled me by their importunity to
do what I did not wish to do, have come to me when they thought my
anger had had time to cool, and have said to me; I pray you "Halal
becon antchisra," that is, "Make this matter lawful and right." Some
of them have even sent gifts and done me service, so that I might
forgive them and say I did it willingly; the cause of this is nothing
else but this belief that they will not be able to get across the
bridge of hell until they have paid the uttermost farthing to the
oppressed."—Must I think that the idea of this bridge where so many
iniquities are made good is of no avail? If the Persians were deprived
of this idea, if they were persuaded that there was no Poul-Serrho,
nor anything of the kind, where the oppressed were avenged of their
tyrants after death, is it not clear that they would be very much at
their ease, and they would be freed from the care of appeasing the
wretched? But it is false to say that this doctrine is hurtful; yet it
would not be true.—O Philosopher, your moral laws are all very fine;
but kindly show me their sanction. Cease to shirk the question, and
tell me plainly what you would put in the place of Poul-Serrho.
"My good youth, be honest and humble; learn how to be ignorant,
then you will never deceive yourself or others. If ever your talents
are so far cultivated as to enable you to speak to other men, always
speak according to your conscience, without oaring for their
applause. The abuse of knowledge causes incredulity. The learned
always despise the opinions of the crowd; each of them must have his
own opinion. A haughty philosophy leads to atheism just as blind
devotion leads to fanaticism. Avoid these extremes; keep steadfastly
to the path of truth, or what seems to you truth, in simplicity of
heart, and never let yourself be turned aside by pride or weakness.
Dare to confess God before the philosophers; dare to preach humanity
to the intolerant. It may be you will stand alone, but you will bear
within you a witness which will make the witness of men of no account
with you. Let them love or hate, let them read your writings or
despise them; no matter. Speak the truth and do the right; the one
thing that really matters is to do one's duty in this world; and when
we forget ourselves we are really working for ourselves. My child,
self-interest misleads us; the hope of the just is the only sure
guide."
I have transcribed this document not as a rule for the sentiments
we should adopt in matters of religion, but as an example of the way
in which we may reason with our pupil without forsaking the method I
have tried to establish. So long as we yield nothing to human
authority, nor to the prejudices of our native land, the light of
reason alone, in a state of nature, can lead us no further than to
natural religion; and this is as far as I should go with Emile. If he
must have any other religion, I have no right to be his guide; he must
choose for himself.
We are working in agreement with nature, and while she is shaping
the physical man, we are striving to shape his moral being, but we do
not make the same progress. The body is already strong and vigorous,
the soul is still frail and delicate, and whatever can be done by
human art, the body is always ahead of the mind. Hitherto all our care
has been devoted to restrain the one and stimulate the other, so that
the man might be as far as possible at one with himself. By developing
his individuality, we have kept his growing susceptibilities in check;
we have controlled it by cultivating his reason. Objects of thought
moderate the influence of objects of sense. By going back to the
causes of things, we have withdrawn him from the sway of the senses;
it is an easy thing to raise him from the study of nature to the
search for the author of nature.
When we have reached this point, what a fresh hold we have got over
our pupil; what fresh ways of speaking to his heart! Then alone does
he find a real motive for being good, for doing right when he is far
from every human eye, and when he is not driven to it by law. To be
just in his own eyes and in the sight of God, to do his duty, even at
the cost of life itself, and to bear in his heart virtue, not only for
the love of order which we all subordinate to the love of self, but
for the love of the Author of his being, a love which mingles with
that self-love, so that he may at length enjoy the lasting happiness
which the peace of a good conscience and the contemplation of that
supreme being promise him in another life, after he has used this life
aright. Go beyond this, and I see nothing but injustice, hypocrisy,
and falsehood among men; private interest, which in competition
necessarily prevails over everything else, teaches all things to adorn
vice with the outward show of virtue. Let all men do what is good for
me at the cost of what is good for themselves; let everything depend
on me alone; let the whole human race perish, if needs be, in
suffering and want, to spare me a moment's pain or hunger. Yes, I
shall always maintain that whoso says in his heart, "There is no God,"
while he takes the name of God upon his lips, is either a liar or a
madman.
Reader, it is all in vain; I perceive that you and I shall never
see Emile with the same eyes; you will always fancy him like your own
young people, hasty, impetuous, flighty, wandering from fete to fete,
from amusement to amusement, never able to settle to anything. You
smile when I expect to make a thinker, a philosopher, a young
theologian, of an ardent, lively, eager, and fiery young man, at the
most impulsive period of youth. This dreamer, you say, is always in
pursuit of his fancy; when he gives us a pupil of his own making, he
does not merely form him, he creates him, he makes him up out of his
own head; and while he thinks he is treading in the steps of nature,
he is getting further and further from her. As for me, when I compare
my pupil with yours, I can scarcely find anything in common between
them. So differently brought up, it is almost a miracle if they are
alike in any respect. As his childhood was passed in the freedom they
assume in youth, in his youth he begins to bear the yoke they bore as
children; this yoke becomes hateful to them, they are sick of it, and
they see in it nothing but their masters' tyranny; when they escape
from childhood, they think they must shake off all control, they make
up for the prolonged restraint imposed upon them, as a prisoner, freed
from his fetters, moves and stretches and shakes his limbs. [Footnote:
There is no one who looks down upon childhood with such lofty scorn as
those who are barely grown-up; just as there is no country where rank
is more strictly regarded than that where there is little real
inequality; everybody is afraid of being confounded with his
inferiors.] Emile, however, is proud to be a man, and to submit to the
yoke of his growing reason; his body, already well grown, no longer
needs so much action, and begins to control itself, while his
half-fledged mind tries its wings on every occasion. Thus the age of
reason becomes for the one the age of licence; for the other, the age
of reasoning.
Would you know which of the two is nearer to the order of nature!
Consider the differences between those who are more or less removed
from a state of nature. Observe young villagers and see if they are
as undisciplined as your scholars. The Sieur de Beau says that savages
in childhood are always active, and ever busy with sports that keep
the body in motion; but scarcely do they reach adolescence than they
become quiet and dreamy; they no longer devote themselves to games of
skill or chance. Emile, who has been brought up in full freedom like
young peasants and savages, should behave like them and change as he
grows up. The whole difference is in this, that instead of merely
being active in sport or for food, he has, in the course of his
sports, learned to think. Having reached this stage, and by this road,
he is quite ready to enter upon the next stage to which I introduce
him; the subjects I suggest for his consideration rouse his curiosity,
because they are fine in themselves, because they are quite new to
him, and because he is able to understand them. Your young people, on
the other hand, are weary and overdone with your stupid lessons, your
long sermons, and your tedious catechisms; why should they not refuse
to devote their minds to what has made them sad, to the burdensome
precepts which have been continually piled upon them, to the thought
of the Author of their being, who has been represented as the enemy of
their pleasures? All this has only inspired in them aversion, disgust,
and weariness; constraint has set them against it; why then should
they devote themselves to it when they are beginning to choose for
themselves? They require novelty, you must not repeat what they
learned as children. Just so with my own pupil, when he is a man I
speak to him as a man, and only tell him what is new to him; it is
just because they are tedious to your pupils that he will find them to
his taste.
This is how I doubly gain time for him by retarding nature to the
advantage of reason. But have I indeed retarded the progress of
nature? No, I have only prevented the imagination from hastening it;
I have employed another sort of teaching to counterbalance the
precocious instruction which the young man receives from other
sources. When he is carried away by the flood of existing customs and
I draw him in the opposite direction by means of other customs, this
is not to remove him from his place, but to keep him in it.
Nature's due time comes at length, as come it must. Since man must
die, he must reproduce himself, so that the species may endure and
the order of the world continue. When by the signs I have spoken of
you perceive that the critical moment is at hand, at once abandon for
ever your former tone. He is still your disciple, but not your
scholar. He is a man and your friend; henceforth you must treat him
as such.
What! Must I abdicate my authority when most I need it? Must I
abandon the adult to himself just when he least knows how to control
himself, when he may fall into the gravest errors! Must I renounce my
rights when it matters most that I should use them on his behalf? Who
bids you renounce them; he is only just becoming conscious of them.
Hitherto all you have gained has been won by force or guile;
authority, the law of duty, were unknown to him, you had to constrain
or deceive him to gain his obedience. But see what fresh chains you
have bound about his heart. Reason, friendship, affection, gratitude,
a thousand bonds of affection, speak to him in a voice he cannot fail
to hear. His ears are not yet dulled by vice, he is still sensitive
only to the passions of nature. Self-love, the first of these,
delivers him into your hands; habit confirms this. If a passing
transport tears him from you, regret restores him to you without
delay; the sentiment which attaches him to you is the only lasting
sentiment, all the rest are fleeting and self-effacing. Do not let him
become corrupt, and he will always be docile; he will not begin to
rebel till he is already perverted.
I grant you, indeed, that if you directly oppose his growing
desires and foolishly treat as crimes the fresh needs which are
beginning to make themselves felt in him, he will not listen to you
for long; but as soon as you abandon my method I cannot be answerable
for the consequences. Remember that you are nature's minister; you
will never be her foe.
But what shall we decide to do? You see no alternative but either
to favour his inclinations or to resist them; to tyrannise or to wink
at his misconduct; and both of these may lead to such dangerous
results that one must indeed hesitate between them.
The first way out of the difficulty is a very early marriage; this
is undoubtedly the safest and most natural plan. I doubt, however,
whether it is the best or the most useful. I will give my reasons
later; meanwhile I admit that young men should marry when they reach
a marriageable age. But this age comes too soon; we have made them
precocious; marriage should be postponed to maturity.
If it were merely a case of listening to their wishes and following
their lead it would be an easy matter; but there are so many
contradictions between the rights of nature and the laws of society
that to conciliate them we must continually contradict ourselves.
Much art is required to prevent man in society from being altogether
artificial.
For the reasons just stated, I consider that by the means I have
indicated and others like them the young man's desires may be kept in
ignorance and his senses pure up to the age of twenty. This is so true
that among the Germans a young man who lost his virginity before that
age was considered dishonoured; and the writers justly attribute the
vigour of constitution and the number of children among the Germans to
the continence of these nations during youth.
This period may be prolonged still further, and a few centuries
ago nothing was more common even in France. Among other well-known
examples, Montaigne's father, a man no less scrupulously truthful
than strong and healthy, swore that his was a virgin marriage at
three and thirty, and he had served for a long time in the Italian
wars. We may see in the writings of his son what strength and spirit
were shown by the father when he was over sixty. Certainly the
contrary opinion depends rather on our own morals and our own
prejudices than on the experience of the race as a whole.
I may, therefore, leave on one side the experience of our young
people; it proves nothing for those who have been educated in another
fashion. Considering that nature has fixed no exact limits which
cannot be advanced or postponed, I think I may, without going beyond
the law of nature, assume that under my care Emil has so far remained
in his first innocence, but I see that this happy period is drawing to
a close. Surrounded by ever-increasing perils, he will escape me at
the first opportunity in spite of all my efforts, and this opportunity
will not long be delayed; he will follow the blind instinct of his
senses; the chances are a thousand to one on his ruin. I have
considered the morals of mankind too profoundly not to be aware of the
irrevocable influence of this first moment on all the rest of his
life. If I dissimulate and pretend to see nothing, he will take
advantage of my weakness; if he thinks he can deceive me, he will
despise me, and I become an accomplice in his destruction. If I try to
recall him, the time is past, he no longer heeds me, he finds me
tiresome, hateful, intolerable; it will not be long before he is rid
of me. There is therefore only one reasonable course open to me; I
must make him accountable for his own actions, I must at least
preserve him from being taken unawares, and I must show him plainly
the dangers which beset his path. I have restrained him so far through
his ignorance; henceforward his restraint must be his own knowledge.
This new teaching is of great importance, and we will take up our
story where we left it. This is the time to present my accounts, to
show him how his time and mine have been spent, to make known to him
what he is and what I am; what I have done, and what he has done; what
we owe to each other; all his moral relations, all the undertakings to
which he is pledged, all those to which others have pledged themselves
in respect to him; the stage he has reached in the development of his
faculties, the road that remains to be travelled, the difficulties he
will meet, and the way to overcome them; how I can still help him and
how he must henceforward help himself; in a word, the critical time
which he has reached, the new dangers round about him, and all the
valid reasons which should induce him to keep a close watch upon
himself before giving heed to his growing desires.
Remember that to guide a grown man you must reverse all that you
did to guide the child. Do not hesitate to speak to him of those
dangerous mysteries which you have so carefully concealed from him
hitherto. Since he must become aware of them, let him not learn them
from another, nor from himself, but from you alone; since he must
henceforth fight against them, let him know his enemy, that he may not
be taken unawares.
Young people who are found to be aware of these matters, without
our knowing how they obtained their knowledge, have not obtained it
with impunity. This unwise teaching, which can have no honourable
object, stains the imagination of those who receive it if it does
nothing worse, and it inclines them to the vices of their instructors.
This is not all; servants, by this means, ingratiate themselves with
a child, gain his confidence, make him regard his tutor as a gloomy
and tiresome person; and one of the favourite subjects of their secret
colloquies is to slander him. When the pupil has got so far, the
master may abandon his task; he can do no good.
But why does the child choose special confidants? Because of the
tyranny of those who control him. Why should he hide himself from
them if he were not driven to it? Why should he complain if he had
nothing to complain of? Naturally those who control him are his first
confidants; you can see from his eagerness to tell them what he thinks
that he feels he has only half thought till he has told his thoughts
to them. You may be sure that when the child knows you will neither
preach nor scold, he will always tell you everything, and that no one
will dare to tell him anything he must conceal from you, for they will
know very well that he will tell you everything.
What makes me most confident in my method is this: when I follow
it out as closely as possible, I find no situation in the life of my
scholar which does not leave me some pleasing memory of him. Even when
he is carried away by his ardent temperament or when he revolts
against the hand that guides him, when he struggles and is on the
point of escaping from me, I still find his first simplicity in his
agitation and his anger; his heart as pure as his body, he has no more
knowledge of pretence than of vice; reproach and scorn have not made a
coward of him; base fears have never taught him the art of
concealment. He has all the indiscretion of innocence; he is
absolutely out-spoken; he does not even know the use of deceit. Every
impulse of his heart is betrayed either by word or look, and I often
know what he is feeling before he is aware of it himself.
So long as his heart is thus freely opened to me, so long as he
delights to tell me what he feels, I have nothing to fear; the danger
is not yet at hand; but if he becomes more timid, more reserved, if I
perceive in his conversation the first signs of confusion and shame,
his instincts are beginning to develop, he is beginning to connect the
idea of evil with these instincts, there is not a moment to lose, and
if I do not hasten to instruct him, he will learn in spite of me.
Some of my readers, even of those who agree with me, will think
that it is only a question of a conversation with the young man at
any time. Oh, this is not the way to control the human heart. What we
say has no meaning unless the opportunity has been carefully chosen.
Before we sow we must till the ground; the seed of virtue is hard to
grow; and a long period of preparation is required before it will take
root. One reason why sermons have so little effect is that they are
offered to everybody alike, without discrimination or choice. How can
any one imagine that the same sermon could be suitable for so many
hearers, with their different dispositions, so unlike in mind, temper,
age, sex, station, and opinion. Perhaps there are not two among those
to whom what is addressed to all is really suitable; and all our
affections are so transitory that perhaps there are not even two
occasions in the life of any man when the same speech would have the
same effect on him. Judge for yourself whether the time when the eager
senses disturb the understanding and tyrannise over the will, is the
time to listen to the solemn lessons of wisdom. Therefore never
reason with young men, even when they have reached the age of reason,
unless you have first prepared the way. Most lectures miss their mark
more through the master's fault than the disciple's. The pedant and
the teacher say much the same; but the former says it at random, and
the latter only when he is sure of its effect.
As a somnambulist, wandering in his sleep, walks along the edge of
a precipice, over which he would fall if he were awake, so my Emile,
in the sleep of ignorance, escapes the perils which he does not see;
were I to wake him with a start, he might fall. Let us first try to
withdraw him from the edge of the precipice, and then we will awake
him to show him it from a distance.
Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse
with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young
man, and these lead him constantly into danger. I divert his senses
by other objects of sense; I trace another course for his spirits by
which I distract them from the course they would have taken; it is by
bodily exercise and hard work that I check the activity of the
imagination, which was leading him astray. When the arms are hard at
work, the imagination is quiet; when the body is very weary, the
passions are not easily inflamed. The quickest and easiest precaution
is to remove him from immediate danger. At once I take him away from
towns, away from things which might lead him into temptation. But that
is not enough; in what desert, in what wilds, shall he escape from the
thoughts which pursue him? It is not enough to remove dangerous
objects; if I fail to remove the memory of them, if I fail to find a
way to detach him from everything, if I fail to distract him from
himself, I might as well have left him where he was.
Emile has learned a trade, but we do not have recourse to it; he
is fond of farming and understands it, but farming is not enough; the
occupations he is acquainted with degenerate into routine; when he is
engaged in them he is not really occupied; he is thinking of other
things; head and hand are at work on different subjects. He must have
some fresh occupation which has the interest of novelty—an occupation
which keeps him busy, diligent, and hard at work, an occupation which
he may become passionately fond of, one to which he will devote
himself entirely. Now the only one which seems to possess all these
characteristics is the chase. If hunting is ever an innocent pleasure,
if it is ever worthy of a man, now is the time to betake ourselves to
it. Emile is well-fitted to succeed in it. He is strong, skilful,
patient, unwearied. He is sure to take a fancy to this sport; he will
bring to it all the ardour of youth; in it he will lose, at least for
a time, the dangerous inclinations which spring from softness. The
chase hardens the heart a well as the body; we get used to the sight
of blood and cruelty. Diana is represented as the enemy of love; and
the allegory is true to life; the languors of love are born of soft
repose, and tender feelings are stifled by violent exercise. In the
woods and fields, the lover and the sportsman are so diversely
affected that they receive very different impressions. The fresh
shade, the arbours, the pleasant resting-places of the one, to the
other are but feeding grounds, or places where the quarry will hide or
turn to bay. Where the lover hears the flute and the nightingale, the
hunter hears the horn and the hounds; one pictures to himself the
nymphs and dryads, the other sees the horses, the huntsman, and the
pack. Take a country walk with one or other of these men; their
different conversation will soon show you that they behold the earth
with other eyes, and that the direction of their thoughts is as
different as their favourite pursuit.
I understand how these tastes may be combined, and that at last men
find time for both. But the passions of youth cannot be divided in
this way. Give the youth a single occupation which he loves, and the
rest will soon be forgotten. Varied desires come with varied
knowledge, and the first pleasures we know are the only ones we
desire for long enough. I would not have the whole of Emile's youth
spent in killing creatures, and I do not even profess to justify this
cruel passion; it is enough for me that it serves to delay a more
dangerous passion, so that he may listen to me calmly when I speak of
it, and give me time to describe it without stimulating it.
There are moments in human life which can never be forgotten. Such
is the time when Emile receives the instruction of which I have
spoken; its influence should endure all his life through. Let us try
to engrave it on his memory so that it may never fade away. It is one
of the faults of our age to rely too much on cold reason, as if men
were all mind. By neglecting the language of expression we have lost
the most forcible mode of speech. The spoken word is always weak, and
we speak to the heart rather through the eyes than the ears. In our
attempt to appeal to reason only, we have reduced our precepts to
words, we have not embodied them in deed. Mere reason is not active;
occasionally she restrains, more rarely she stimulates, but she never
does any great thing. Small minds have a mania for reasoning. Strong
souls speak a very different language, and it is by this language that
men are persuaded and driven to action.
I observe that in modern times men only get a hold over others by
force or self-interest, while the ancients did more by persuasion, by
the affections of the heart; because they did not neglect the
language; of symbolic expression. All agreements were drawn up
solemnly, so that they might be more inviolable; before the reign of
force, the gods were the judges of mankind; in their presence,
individuals made their treaties and alliances, and pledged themselves
to perform their promises; the face of the earth was the book in
which the archives were preserved. The leaves of this book were
rocks, trees, piles of stones, made sacred by these transactions, and
regarded with reverence by barbarous men; and these pages were always
open before their eyes. The well of the oath, the well of the living
and seeing one; the ancient oak of Mamre, the stones of witness, such
were the simple but stately monuments of the sanctity of contracts;
none dared to lay a sacrilegious hand on these monuments, and man's
faith was more secure under the warrant of these dumb witnesses than
it is to-day upon all the rigour of the law.
In government the people were over-awed by the pomp and splendour
of royal power. The symbols of greatness, a throne, a sceptre, a
purple robe, a crown, a fillet, these were sacred in their sight.
These symbols, and the respect which they inspired, led them to
reverence the venerable man whom they beheld adorned with them;
without soldiers and without threats, he spoke and was obeyed.
[Footnote: The Roman Catholic clergy have very wisely retained these
symbols, and certain republics, such as Venice, have followed their
example. Thus the Venetian government, despite the fallen condition
of the state, still enjoys, under the trappings of its former
greatness, all the affection, all the reverence of the people; and
next to the pope in his triple crown, there is perhaps no king, no
potentate, no person in the world so much respected as the Doge of
Venice; he has no power, no authority, but he is rendered sacred by
his pomp, and he wears beneath his ducal coronet a woman's flowing
locks. That ceremony of the Bucentaurius, which stirs the laughter of
fools, stirs the Venetian populace to shed its life-blood for the
maintenance of this tyrannical government.] In our own day men profess
to do away with these symbols. What are the consequences of this
contempt? The kingly majesty makes no impression on all hearts, kings
can only gain obedience by the help of troops, and the respect of
their subjects is based only on the fear of punishment. Kings are
spared the trouble of wearing their crowns, and our nobles escape from
the outward signs of their station, but they must have a hundred
thousand men at their command if their orders are to be obeyed. Though
this may seem a finer thing, it is easy to see that in the long run
they will gain nothing.
It is amazing what the ancients accomplished with the aid of
eloquence; but this eloquence did not merely consist in fine speeches
carefully prepared; and it was most effective when the orator said
least. The most startling speeches were expressed not in words but in
signs; they were not uttered but shown. A thing beheld by the eyes
kindles the imagination, stirs the curiosity, and keeps the mind on
the alert for what we are about to say, and often enough the thing
tells the whole story. Thrasybulus and Tarquin cutting off the heads
of the poppies, Alexander placing his seal on the lips of his
favourite, Diogenes marching before Zeno, do not these speak more
plainly than if they had uttered long orations? What flow of words
could have expressed the ideas as clearly? Darius, in the course of
the Scythian war, received from the king of the Scythians a bird, a
frog, a mouse, and five arrows. The ambassador deposited this gift and
retired without a word. In our days he would have been taken for a
madman. This terrible speech was understood, and Darius withdrew to
his own country with what speed he could. Substitute a letter for
these symbols and the more threatening it was the less terror it would
inspire; it would have been merely a piece of bluff, to which Darius
would have paid no attention.
What heed the Romans gave to the language of signs! Different ages
and different ranks had their appropriate garments, toga, tunic,
patrician robes, fringes and borders, seats of honour, lictors, rods
and axes, crowns of gold, crowns of leaves, crowns of flowers,
ovations, triumphs, everything had its pomp, its observances, its
ceremonial, and all these spoke to the heart of the citizens. The
state regarded it as a matter of importance that the populace should
assemble in one place rather than another, that they should or should
not behold the Capitol, that they should or should not turn towards
the Senate, that this day or that should be chosen for their
deliberations. The accused wore a special dress, so did the candidates
for election; warriors did not boast of their exploits, they showed
their scars. I can fancy one of our orators at the death of Caesar
exhausting all the commonplaces of rhetoric to give a pathetic
description of his wounds, his blood, his dead body; Anthony was an
orator, but he said none of this; he showed the murdered Caesar. What
rhetoric was this!
But this digression, like many others, is drawing me unawares away
from my subject; and my digressions are too frequent to be borne with
patience. I therefore return to the point.
Do not reason coldly with youth. Clothe your reason with a body,
if you would make it felt. Let the mind speak the language of the
heart, that it may be understood. I say again our opinions, not our
actions, may be influenced by cold argument; they set us thinking,
not doing; they show us what we ought to think, not what we ought to
do. If this is true of men, it is all the truer of young people who
are still enwrapped in their senses and cannot think otherwise than
they imagine.
Even after the preparations of which I have spoken, I shall take
good care not to go all of a sudden to Emile's room and preach a long
and heavy sermon on the subject in which he is to be instructed. I
shall begin by rousing his imagination; I shall choose the time,
place, and surroundings most favourable to the impression I wish to
make; I shall, so to speak, summon all nature as witness to our
conversations; I shall call upon the eternal God, the Creator of
nature, to bear witness to the truth of what I say. He shall judge
between Emile and myself; I will make the rocks, the woods, the
mountains round about us, the monuments of his promises and mine;
eyes, voice, and gesture shall show the enthusiasm I desire to
inspire. Then I will speak and he will listen, and his emotion will
be stirred by my own. The more impressed I am by the sanctity of my
duties, the more sacred he will regard his own. I will enforce the
voice of reason with images and figures, I will not give him
long-winded speeches or cold precepts, but my overflowing feelings
will break their bounds; my reason shall be grave and serious, but my
heart cannot speak too warmly. Then when I have shown him all that I
have done for him, I will show him how he is made for me; he will see
in my tender affection the cause of all my care. How greatly shall I
surprise and disturb him when I change my tone. Instead of shrivelling
up his soul by always talking of his own interests, I shall henceforth
speak of my own; he will be more deeply touched by this. I will kindle
in his young heart all the sentiments of affection, generosity, and
gratitude which I have already called into being, and it will indeed
be sweet to watch their growth. I will press him to my bosom, and weep
over him in my emotion; I will say to him: "You are my wealth, my
child, my handiwork; my happiness is bound up in yours; if you
frustrate my hopes. you rob me of twenty years of my life, and you
bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave." This is the way to gain
a hearing and to impress what is said upon the heart and memory of the
young man.
Hitherto I have tried to give examples of the way in which a tutor
should instruct his pupil in cases of difficulty. I have tried to do
so in this instance; but after many attempts I have abandoned the
task, convinced that the French language is too artificial to permit
in print the plainness of speech required for the first lessons in
certain subjects.
They say French is more chaste than other languages; for my own
part I think it more obscene; for it seems to me that the purity of a
language does not consist in avoiding coarse expressions but in having
none. Indeed, if we are to avoid them, they must be in our thoughts,
and there is no language in which it is so difficult to speak with
purity on every subject than French. The reader is always quicker to
detect than the author to avoid a gross meaning, and he is shocked and
startled by everything. How can what is heard by impure ears avoid
coarseness? On the other hand, a nation whose morals are pure has fit
terms for everything, and these terms are always right because they
are rightly used. One could not imagine more modest language than that
of the Bible, just because of its plainness of speech. The same things
translated into French would become immodest. What I ought to say to
Emile will sound pure and honourable to him; but to make the same
impression in print would demand a like purity of heart in the reader.
I should even think that reflections on true purity of speech and
the sham delicacy of vice might find a useful place in the
conversations as to morality to which this subject brings us; for
when he learns the language of plain-spoken goodness, he must also
learn the language of decency, and he must know why the two are so
different. However this may be, I maintain that if instead of the
empty precepts which are prematurely dinned into the ears of children,
only to be scoffed at when the time comes when they might prove
useful, if instead of this we bide our time, if we prepare the way for
a hearing, if we then show him the laws of nature in all their truth,
if we show him the sanction of these laws in the physical and moral
evils which overtake those who neglect them, if while we speak to him
of this great mystery of generation, we join to the idea of the
pleasure which the Author of nature has given to this act the idea of
the exclusive affection which makes it delightful, the idea of the
duties of faithfulness and modesty which surround it, and redouble its
charm while fulfilling its purpose; if we paint to him marriage, not
only as the sweetest form of society, but also as the most sacred and
inviolable of contracts, if we tell him plainly all the reasons which
lead men to respect this sacred bond, and to pour hatred and curses
upon him who dares to dishonour it; if we give him a true and terrible
picture of the horrors of debauch, of its stupid brutality, of the
downward road by which a first act of misconduct leads from bad to
worse, and at last drags the sinner to his ruin; if, I say, we give
him proofs that on a desire for chastity depends health, strength,
courage, virtue, love itself, and all that is truly good for man—I
maintain that this chastity will be so dear and so desirable in his
eyes, that his mind will be ready to receive our teaching as to the
way to preserve it; for so long as we are chaste we respect chastity;
it is only when we have lost this virtue that we scorn it.
It is not true that the inclination to evil is beyond our control,
and that we cannot overcome it until we have acquired the habit of
yielding to it. Aurelius Victor says that many men were mad enough to
purchase a night with Cleopatra at the price of their life, and this
is not incredible in the madness of passion. But let us suppose the
maddest of men, the man who has his senses least under control; let
him see the preparations for his death, let him realise that he will
certainly die in torment a quarter of an hour later; not only would
that man, from that time forward, become able to resist temptation, he
would even find it easy to do so; the terrible picture with which they
are associated will soon distract his attention from these
temptations, and when they are continually put aside they will cease
to recur. The sole cause of our weakness is the feebleness of our
will, and we have always strength to perform what we strongly desire.
"Volenti nihil difficile!" Oh! if only we hated vice as much as we
love life, we should abstain as easily from a pleasant sin as from a
deadly poison in a delicious dish.
How is it that you fail to perceive that if all the lessons given
to a young man on this subject have no effect, it is because they are
not adapted to his age, and that at every age reason must be presented
in a shape which will win his affection? Speak seriously to him if
required, but let what you say to him always have a charm which will
compel him to listen. Do not coldly oppose his wishes; do not stifle
his imagination, but direct it lest it should bring forth monsters.
Speak to him of love, of women, of pleasure; let him find in your
conversation a charm which delights his youthful heart; spare no pains
to make yourself his confidant; under this name alone will you really
be his master. Then you need not fear he will find your conversation
tedious; he will make you talk more than you desire.
If I have managed to take all the requisite precautions in
accordance with these maxims, and have said the right things to Emile
at the age he has now reached, I am quite convinced that he will come
of his own accord to the point to which I would lead him, and will
eagerly confide himself to my care. When he sees the dangers by which
he is surrounded, he will say to me with all the warmth of youth, "Oh,
my friend, my protector, my master! resume the authority you desire to
lay aside at the very time when I most need it; hitherto my weakness
has given you this power. I now place it in your hands of my own
free-will, and it will be all the more sacred in my eyes. Protect me
from all the foes which are attacking me, and above all from the
traitors within the citadel; watch over your work, that it may still
be worthy of you. I mean to obey your laws, I shall ever do so, that
is my steadfast purpose; if I ever disobey you, it will be against my
will; make me free by guarding me against the passions which do me
violence; do not let me become their slave; compel me to be my own
master and to obey, not my senses, but my reason."
When you have led your pupil so far (and it will be your own fault
if you fail to do so), beware of taking him too readily at his word,
lest your rule should seem too strict to him, and lest he should
think he has a right to escape from it, by accusing you of taking him
by surprise. This is the time for reserve and seriousness; and this
attitude will have all the more effect upon him seeing that it is the
first time you have adopted it towards him.
You will say to him therefore: "Young man, you readily make
promises which are hard to keep; you must understand what they mean
before you have a right to make them; you do not know how your fellows
are drawn by their passions into the whirlpool of vice masquerading
as pleasure. You are honourable, I know; you will never break your
word, but how often will you repent of having given it? How often
will you curse your friend, when, in order to guard you from the ills
which threaten you, he finds himself compelled to do violence to your
heart. Like Ulysses who, hearing the song of the Sirens, cried aloud
to his rowers to unbind him, you will break your chains at the call of
pleasure; you will importune me with your lamentations, you will
reproach me as a tyrant when I have your welfare most at heart; when I
am trying to make you happy, I shall incur your hatred. Oh, Emile, I
can never bear to be hateful in your eyes; this is too heavy a price
to pay even for your happiness. My dear young man, do you not see that
when you undertake to obey me, you compel me to promise to be your
guide, to forget myself in my devotion to you, to refuse to listen to
your murmurs and complaints, to wage unceasing war against your wishes
and my own. Before we either of us undertake such a task, let us count
our resources; take your time, give me time to consider, and be sure
that the slower we are to promise, the more faithfully will our
promises be kept."
You may be sure that the more difficulty he finds in getting your
promise, the easier you will find it to carry it out. The young man
must learn that he is promising a great deal, and that you are
promising still more. When the time is come, when he has, so to say,
signed the contract, then change your tone, and make your rule as
gentle as you said it would be severe. Say to him, "My young friend,
it is experience that you lack; but I have taken care that you do not
lack reason. You are ready to see the motives of my conduct in every
respect; to do this you need only wait till you are free from
excitement. Always obey me first, and then ask the reasons for my
commands; I am always ready to give my reasons so soon as you are
ready to listen to them, and I shall never be afraid to make you the
judge between us. You promise to follow my teaching, and I promise
only to use your obedience to make you the happiest of men. For proof
of this I have the life you have lived hitherto. Show me any one of
your age who has led as happy a life as yours, and I promise you
nothing more."
When my authority is firmly established, my first care will be to
avoid the necessity of using it. I shall spare no pains to become
more and more firmly established in his confidence, to make myself
the confidant of his heart and the arbiter of his pleasures. Far from
combating his youthful tastes, I shall consult them that I may be
their master; I will look at things from his point of view that I may
be his guide; I will not seek a remote distant good at the cost of his
present happiness. I would always have him happy always if that may
be.
Those who desire to guide young people rightly and to preserve them
from the snares of sense give them a disgust for love, and would
willingly make the very thought of it a crime, as if love were for
the old. All these mistaken lessons have no effect; the heart gives
the lie to them. The young man, guided by a surer instinct, laughs to
himself over the gloomy maxims which he pretends to accept, and only
awaits the chance of disregarding them. All that is contrary to
nature. By following the opposite course I reach the same end more
safely. I am not afraid to encourage in him the tender feeling for
which he is so eager, I shall paint it as the supreme joy of life, as
indeed it is; when I picture it to him, I desire that he shall give
himself up to it; by making him feel the charm which the union of
hearts adds to the delights of sense, I shall inspire him with a
disgust for debauchery; I shall make him a lover and a good man.
How narrow-minded to see nothing in the rising desires of a young
heart but obstacles to the teaching of reason. In my eyes, these are
the right means to make him obedient to that very teaching. Only
through passion can we gain the mastery over passions; their tyranny
must be controlled by their legitimate power, and nature herself must
furnish us with the means to control her.
Emile is not made to live alone, he is a member of society, and
must fulfil his duties as such. He is made to live among his
fellow-men and he must get to know them. He knows mankind in general;
he has still to learn to know individual men. He knows what goes on in
the world; he has now to learn how men live in the world. It is time
to show him the front of that vast stage, of which he already knows
the hidden workings. It will not arouse in him the foolish admiration
of a giddy youth, but the discrimination of an exact and upright
spirit. He may no doubt be deceived by his passions; who is there who
yields to his passions without being led astray by them? At least he
will not be deceived by the passions of other people. If he sees them,
he will regard them with the eye of the wise, and will neither be led
away by their example nor seduced by their prejudices.
As there is a fitting age for the study of the sciences, so there
is a fitting age for the study of the ways of the world. Those who
learn these too soon, follow them throughout life, without choice or
consideration, and although they follow them fairly well they never
really know what they are about. But he who studies the ways of the
world and sees the reason for them, follows them with more insight,
and therefore more exactly and gracefully. Give me a child of twelve
who knows nothing at all; at fifteen I will restore him to you knowing
as much as those who have been under instruction from infancy; with
this difference, that your scholars only know things by heart, while
mine knows how to use his knowledge. In the same way plunge a young
man of twenty into society; under good guidance, in a year's time, he
will be more charming and more truly polite than one brought up in
society from childhood. For the former is able to perceive the reasons
for all the proceedings relating to age, position, and sex, on which
the customs of society depend, and can reduce them to general
principles, and apply them to unforeseen emergencies; while the
latter, who is guided solely by habit, is at a loss when habit fails
him.
Young French ladies are all brought up in convents till they are
married. Do they seem to find any difficulty in acquiring the ways
which are so new to them, and is it possible to accuse the ladies of
Paris of awkward and embarrassed manners or of ignorance of the ways
of society, because they have not acquired them in infancy! This is
the prejudice of men of the world, who know nothing of more importance
than this trifling science, and wrongly imagine that you cannot begin
to acquire it too soon.
On the other hand, it is quite true that we must not wait too long.
Any one who has spent the whole of his youth far from the great world
is all his life long awkward, constrained, out of place; his manners
will be heavy and clumsy, no amount of practice will get rid of this,
and he will only make himself more ridiculous by trying to do so.
There is a time for every kind of teaching and we ought to recognise
it, and each has its own dangers to be avoided. At this age there are
more dangers than at any other; but I do not expose my pupil to them
without safeguards.
When my method succeeds completely in attaining one object, and
when in avoiding one difficulty it also provides against another, I
then consider that it is a good method, and that I am on the right
track. This seems to be the case with regard to the expedient
suggested by me in the present case. If I desire to be stern and cold
towards my pupil, I shall lose his confidence, and he will soon
conceal himself from me. If I wish to be easy and complaisant, to
shut my eyes, what good does it do him to be under my care? I only
give my authority to his excesses, and relieve his conscience at the
expense of my own. If I introduce him into society with no object but
to teach him, he will learn more than I want. If I keep him apart from
society, what will he have learnt from me? Everything perhaps, except
the one art absolutely necessary to a civilised man, the art of living
among his fellow-men. If I try to attend to this at a distance, it
will be of no avail; he is only concerned with the present. If I am
content to supply him with amusement, he will acquire habits of luxury
and will learn nothing.
We will have none of this. My plan provides for everything. Your
heart, I say to the young man, requires a companion; let us go in
search of a fitting one; perhaps we shall not easily find such a one,
true worth is always rare, but we will be in no hurry, nor will we be
easily discouraged. No doubt there is such a one, and we shall find
her at last, or at least we shall find some one like her. With an end
so attractive to himself, I introduce him into society. What more need
I say? Have I not achieved my purpose?
By describing to him his future mistress, you may imagine whether
I shall gain a hearing, whether I shall succeed in making the
qualities he ought to love pleasing and dear to him, whether I shall
sway his feelings to seek or shun what is good or bad for him. I
shall be the stupidest of men if I fail to make him in love with he
knows not whom. No matter that the person I describe is imaginary, it
is enough to disgust him with those who might have attracted him; it
is enough if it is continually suggesting comparisons which make him
prefer his fancy to the real people he sees; and is not love itself a
fancy, a falsehood, an illusion? We are far more in love with our own
fancy than with the object of it. If we saw the object of our
affections as it is, there would be no such thing as love. When we
cease to love, the person we used to love remains unchanged, but we no
longer see with the same eyes; the magic veil is drawn aside, and love
disappears. But when I supply the object of imagination, I have
control over comparisons, and I am able easily to prevent illusion
with regard to realities.
For all that I would not mislead a young man by describing a model
of perfection which could never exist; but I would so choose the
faults of his mistress that they will suit him, that he will be
pleased by them, and they may serve to correct his own. Neither would
I lie to him and affirm that there really is such a person; let him
delight in the portrait, he will soon desire to find the original.
From desire to belief the transition is easy; it is a matter of a
little skilful description, which under more perceptible features will
give to this imaginary object an air of greater reality. I would go so
far as to give her a name; I would say, smiling. Let us call your
future mistress Sophy; Sophy is a name of good omen; if it is not the
name of the lady of your choice at least she will be worthy of the
name; we may honour her with it meanwhile. If after all these
details, without affirming or denying, we excuse ourselves from giving
an answer, his suspicions will become certainty; he will think that
his destined bride is purposely concealed from him, and that he will
see her in good time. If once he has arrived at this conclusion and if
the characteristics to be shown to him have been well chosen, the rest
is easy; there will be little risk in exposing him to the world;
protect him from his senses, and his heart is safe.
But whether or no he personifies the model I have contrived to
make so attractive to him, this model, if well done, will attach him
none the less to everything that resembles itself, and will give him
as great a distaste for all that is unlike it as if Sophy really
existed. What a means to preserve his heart from the dangers to which
his appearance would expose him, to repress his senses by means of his
imagination, to rescue him from the hands of those women who profess
to educate young men, and make them pay so dear for their teaching,
and only teach a young man manners by making him utterly shameless.
Sophy is so modest? What would she think of their advances! Sophy is
so simple! How would she like their airs? They are too far from his
thoughts and his observations to be dangerous.
Every one who deals with the control of children follows the same
prejudices and the same maxima, for their observation is at fault,
and their reflection still more so. A young man is led astray in the
first place neither by temperament nor by the senses, but by popular
opinion. If we were concerned with boys brought up in boarding schools
or girls in convents, I would show that this applies even to them; for
the first lessons they learn from each other, the only lessons that
bear fruit, are those of vice; and it is not nature that corrupts them
but example. But let us leave the boarders in schools and convents to
their bad morals; there is no cure for them. I am dealing only with
home training. Take a young man carefully educated in his father's
country house, and examine him when he reaches Paris and makes his
entrance into society; you will find him thinking clearly about honest
matters, and you will find his will as wholesome as his reason. You
will find scorn of vice and disgust for debauchery; his face will
betray his innocent horror at the very mention of a prostitute. I
maintain that no young man could make up his mind to enter the gloomy
abodes of these unfortunates by himself, if indeed he were aware of
their purpose and felt their necessity.
See the same young man six months later, you will not know him;
from his bold conversation, his fashionable maxims, his easy air, you
would take him for another man, if his jests over his former
simplicity and his shame when any one recalls it did not show that it
is he indeed and that he is ashamed of himself. How greatly has he
changed in so short a time! What has brought about so sudden and
complete a change? His physical development? Would not that have
taken place in his father's house, and certainly he would not have
acquired these maxims and this tone at home? The first charms of
sense? On the contrary; those who are beginning to abandon themselves
to these pleasures are timid and anxious, they shun the light and
noise. The first pleasures are always mysterious, modesty gives them
their savour, and modesty conceals them; the first mistress does not
make a man bold but timid. Wholly absorbed in a situation so novel to
him, the young man retires into himself to enjoy it, and trembles for
fear it should escape him. If he is noisy he knows neither passion nor
love; however he may boast, he has not enjoyed.
These changes are merely the result of changed ideas. His heart is
the same, but his opinions have altered. His feelings, which change
more slowly, will at length yield to his opinions and it is then that
he is indeed corrupted. He has scarcely made his entrance into society
before he receives a second education quite unlike the first, which
teaches him to despise what he esteemed, and esteem what he despised;
he learns to consider the teaching of his parents and masters as the
jargon of pedants, and the duties they have instilled into him as a
childish morality, to be scorned now that he is grown up. He thinks he
is bound in honour to change his conduct; he becomes forward without
desire, and he talks foolishly from false shame. He rails against
morality before he has any taste for vice, and prides himself on
debauchery without knowing how to set about it. I shall never forget
the confession of a young officer in the Swiss Guards, who was utterly
sick of the noisy pleasures of his comrades, but dared not refuse to
take part in them lest he should be laughed at. "I am getting used to
it," he said, "as I am getting used to taking snuff; the taste will
come with practice; it will not do to be a child for ever."
So a young man when he enters society must be preserved from vanity
rather than from sensibility; he succumbs rather to the tastes of
others than to his own, and self-love is responsible for more
libertines than love.
This being granted, I ask you. Is there any one on earth better
armed than my pupil against all that may attack his morals, his
sentiments, his principles; is there any one more able to resist the
flood? What seduction is there against which he is not forearmed? If
his desires attract him towards women, he fails to find what he seeks,
and his heart, already occupied, holds him back. If he is disturbed
and urged onward by his senses, where will he find satisfaction? His
horror of adultery and debauch keeps him at a distance from
prostitutes and married women, and the disorders of youth may always
be traced to one or other of these. A maiden may be a coquette, but
she will not be shameless, she will not fling herself at the head of a
young man who may marry her if he believes in her virtue; besides she
is always under supervision. Emile, too, will not be left entirely to
himself; both of them will be under the guardianship of fear and
shame, the constant companions of a first passion; they will not
proceed at once to misconduct, and they will not have time to come to
it gradually without hindrance. If he behaves otherwise, he must have
taken lessons from his comrades, he must have learned from them to
despise his self-control, and to imitate their boldness. But there is
no one in the whole world so little given to imitation as Emile. What
man is there who is so little influenced by mockery as one who has no
prejudices himself and yields nothing to the prejudices of others. I
have laboured twenty years to arm him against mockery; they will not
make him their dupe in a day; for in his eyes ridicule is the argument
of fools, and nothing makes one less susceptible to raillery than to
be beyond the influence of prejudice. Instead of jests he must have
arguments, and while he is in this frame of mind, I am not afraid
that he will be carried away by young fools; conscience and truth are
on my side. If prejudice is to enter into the matter at all, an
affection of twenty years' standing counts for something; no one will
ever convince him that I have wearied him with vain lessons; and in a
heart so upright and so sensitive the voice of a tried and trusted
friend will soon efface the shouts of twenty libertines. As it is
therefore merely a question of showing him that he is deceived, that
while they pretend to treat him as a man they are really treating him
as a child, I shall choose to be always simple but serious and plain
in my arguments, so that he may feel that I do indeed treat him as a
man. I will say to him, You will see that your welfare, in which my
own is bound up, compels me to speak; I can do nothing else. But why
do these young men want to persuade you? Because they desire to
seduce you; they do not care for you, they take no real interest in
you; their only motive is a secret spite because they see you are
better than they; they want to drag you down to their own level, and
they only reproach you with submitting to control that they may
themselves control you. Do you think you have anything to gain by
this? Are they so much wiser than I, is the affection of a day
stronger than mine? To give any weight to their jests they must give
weight to their authority; and by what experience do they support
their maxima above ours? They have only followed the example of other
giddy youths, as they would have you follow theirs. To escape from the
so-called prejudices of their fathers, they yield to those of their
comrades. I cannot see that they are any the better off; but I see
that they lose two things of value—the affection of their parents,
whose advice is that of tenderness and truth, and the wisdom of
experience which teaches us to judge by what we know; for their
fathers have once been young, but the young men have never been
fathers.
But you think they are at least sincere in their foolish precepts.
Not so, dear Emile; they deceive themselves in order to deceive you;
they are not in agreement with themselves; their heart continually
revolts, and their very words often contradict themselves. This man
who mocks at everything good would be in despair if his wife held the
same views. Another extends his indifference to good morals even to
his future wife, or he sinks to such depths of infamy as to be
indifferent to his wife's conduct; but go a step further; speak to
him of his mother; is he willing to be treated as the child of an
adulteress and the son of a woman of bad character, is he ready to
assume the name of a family, to steal the patrimony of the true heir,
in a word will he bear being treated as a bastard? Which of them will
permit his daughter to be dishonoured as he dishonours the daughter of
another? There is not one of them who would not kill you if you
adopted in your conduct towards him all the principles he tries to
teach you. Thus they prove their inconsistency, and we know they do
not believe what they say. Here are reasons, dear Emile; weigh their
arguments if they have any, and compare them with mine. If I wished
to have recourse like them to scorn and mockery, you would see that
they lend themselves to ridicule as much or more than myself. But I am
not afraid of serious inquiry. The triumph of mockers is soon over;
truth endures, and their foolish laughter dies away.
You do not think that Emile, at twenty, can possibly be docile. How
differently we think! I cannot understand how he could be docile at
ten, for what hold have I on him at that age? It took me fifteen years
of careful preparation to secure that hold. I was not educating him,
but preparing him for education. He is now sufficiently educated to be
docile; he recognises the voice of friendship and he knows how to obey
reason. It is true I allow him a show of freedom, but he was never
more completely under control, because he obeys of his own free will.
So long as I could not get the mastery over his will, I retained my
control over his person; I never left him for a moment. Now I
sometimes leave him to himself because I control him continually. When
I leave him I embrace him and I say with confidence: Emile, I trust
you to my friend, I leave you to his honour; he will answer for you.
To corrupt healthy affections which have not been previously
depraved, to efface principles which are directly derived from our
own reasoning, is not the work of a moment. If any change takes place
during my absence, that absence will not be long, he will never be
able to conceal himself from me, so that I shall perceive the danger
before any harm comes of it, and I shall be in time to provide a
remedy. As we do not become depraved all at once, neither do we learn
to deceive all at once; and if ever there was a man unskilled in the
art of deception it is Emile, who has never had any occasion for
deceit.
By means of these precautions and others like them, I expect to
guard him so completely against strange sights and vulgar precepts
that I would rather see him in the worst company in Paris than alone
in his room or in a park left to all the restlessness of his age.
Whatever we may do, a young man's worst enemy is himself, and this is
an enemy we cannot avoid. Yet this is an enemy of our own making, for,
as I have said again and again, it is the imagination which stirs the
senses. Desire is not a physical need; it is not true that it is a
need at all. If no lascivious object had met our eye, if no unclean
thought had entered our mind, this so-called need might never have
made itself felt, and we should have remained chaste, without
temptation, effort, or merit. We do not know how the blood of youth is
stirred by certain situations and certain sights, while the youth
himself does not understand the cause of his uneasiness-an uneasiness
difficult to subdue and certain to recur. For my own part, the more I
consider this serious crisis and its causes, immediate and remote, the
more convinced I am that a solitary brought up in some desert, apart
from books, teaching, and women, would die a virgin, however long he
lived.
But we are not concerned with a savage of this sort. When we
educate a man among his fellow-men and for social life, we cannot,
and indeed we ought not to, bring him up in this wholesome ignorance,
and half knowledge is worse than none. The memory of things we have
observed, the ideas we have acquired, follow us into retirement and
people it, against our will, with images more seductive than the
things themselves, and these make solitude as fatal to those who bring
such ideas with them as it is wholesome for those who have never left
it.
Therefore, watch carefully over the young man; he can protect
himself from all other foes, but it is for you to protect him against
himself. Never leave him night or day, or at least share his room;
never let him go to bed till he is sleepy, and let him rise as soon as
he wakes. Distrust instinct as soon as you cease to rely altogether
upon it. Instinct was good while he acted under its guidance only; now
that he is in the midst of human institutions, instinct is not to be
trusted; it must not be destroyed, it must be controlled, which is
perhaps a more difficult matter. It would be a dangerous matter if
instinct taught your pupil to abuse his senses; if once he acquires
this dangerous habit he is ruined. From that time forward, body and
soul will be enervated; he will carry to the grave the sad effects of
this habit, the most fatal habit which a young man can acquire. If you
cannot attain to the mastery of your passions, dear Emile, I pity you;
but I shall not hesitate for a moment, I will not permit the purposes
of nature to be evaded. If you must be a slave, I prefer to surrender
you to a tyrant from whom I may deliver you; whatever happens, I can
free you more easily from the slavery of women than from yourself.
Up to the age of twenty, the body is still growing and requires
all its strength; till that age continence is the law of nature, and
this law is rarely violated without injury to the constitution. After
twenty, continence is a moral duty; it is an important duty, for it
teaches us to control ourselves, to be masters of our own appetites.
But moral duties have their modifications, their exceptions, their
rules. When human weakness makes an alternative inevitable, of two
evils choose the least; in any case it is better to commit a misdeed
than to contract a vicious habit.
Remember, I am not talking of my pupil now, but of yours. His
passions, to which you have given way, are your master; yield to them
openly and without concealing his victory. If you are able to show him
it in its true light, he will be ashamed rather than proud of it, and
you will secure the right to guide him in his wanderings, at least so
as to avoid precipices. The disciple must do nothing, not even evil,
without the knowledge and consent of his master; it is a hundredfold
better that the tutor should approve of a misdeed than that he should
deceive himself or be deceived by his pupil, and the wrong should be
done without his knowledge. He who thinks he must shut his eyes to one
thing, must soon shut them altogether; the first abuse which is
permitted leads to others, and this chain of consequences only ends in
the complete overthrow of all order and contempt for every law.
There is another mistake which I have already dealt with, a mistake
continually made by narrow-minded persons; they constantly affect the
dignity of a master, and wish to be regarded by their disciples as
perfect. This method is just the contrary of what should be done. How
is it that they fail to perceive that when they try to strengthen
their authority they are really destroying it; that to gain a hearing
one must put oneself in the place of our hearers, and that to speak to
the human heart, one must be a man. All these perfect people neither
touch nor persuade; people always say, "It is easy for them to fight
against passions they do not feel." Show your pupil your own
weaknesses if you want to cure his; let him see in you struggles like
his own; let him learn by your example to master himself and let him
not say like other young men, "These old people, who are vexed because
they are no longer young, want to treat all young people as if they
were old; and they make a crime of our passions because their own
passions are dead."
Montaigne tells us that he once asked Seigneur de Langey how often,
in his negotiations with Germany, he had got drunk in his king's
service. I would willingly ask the tutor of a certain young man how
often he has entered a house of ill-fame for his pupil's sake. How
often? I am wrong. If the first time has not cured the young libertine
of all desire to go there again, if he does not return penitent and
ashamed, if he does not shed torrents of tears upon your bosom, leave
him on the spot; either he is a monster or you are a fool; you will
never do him any good. But let us have done with these last
expedients, which are as distressing as they are dangerous; our kind
of education has no need of them.
What precautions we must take with a young man of good birth before
exposing him to the scandalous manners of our age! These precautions
are painful but necessary; negligence in this matter is the ruin of
all our young men; degeneracy is the result of youthful excesses, and
it is these excesses which make men what they are. Old and base in
their vices, their hearts are shrivelled, because their worn-out
bodies were corrupted at an early age; they have scarcely strength to
stir. The subtlety of their thoughts betrays a mind lacking in
substance; they are incapable of any great or noble feeling, they
have neither simplicity nor vigour; altogether abject and meanly
wicked, they are merely frivolous, deceitful, and false; they have
not even courage enough to be distinguished criminals. Such are the
despicable men produced by early debauchery; if there were but one
among them who knew how to be sober and temperate, to guard his heart,
his body, his morals from the contagion of bad example, at the age of
thirty he would crush all these insects, and would become their master
with far less trouble than it cost him to become master of himself.
However little Emile owes to birth and fortune, he might be this
man if he chose; but he despises such people too much to condescend
to make them his slaves. Let us now watch him in their midst, as he
enters into society, not to claim the first place, but to acquaint
himself with it and to seek a helpmeet worthy of himself.
Whatever his rank or birth, whatever the society into which he is
introduced, his entrance into that society will be simple and
unaffected; God grant he may not be unlucky enough to shine in
society; the qualities which make a good impression at the first
glance are not his, he neither possesses them, nor desires to possess
them. He cares too little for the opinions of other people to value
their prejudices, and he is indifferent whether people esteem him or
not until they know him. His address is neither shy nor conceited, but
natural and sincere, he knows nothing of constraint or concealment,
and he is just the same among a group of people as he is when he is
alone. Will this make him rude, scornful, and careless of others? On
the contrary; if he were not heedless of others when he lived alone,
why should he be heedless of them now that he is living among them? He
does not prefer them to himself in his manners, because he does not
prefer them to himself in his heart, but neither does he show them an
indifference which he is far from feeling; if he is unacquainted with
the forms of politeness, he is not unacquainted with the attentions
dictated by humanity. He cannot bear to see any one suffer; he will
not give up his place to another from mere external politeness, but he
will willingly yield it to him out of kindness if he sees that he is
being neglected and that this neglect hurts him; for it will be less
disagreeable to Emile to remain standing of his own accord than to see
another compelled to stand.
Although Emile has no very high opinion of people in general, he
does not show any scorn of them, because he pities them and is sorry
for them. As he cannot give them a taste for what is truly good, he
leaves them the imaginary good with which they are satisfied, lest by
robbing them of this he should leave them worse off than before. So he
neither argues nor contradicts; neither does he flatter nor agree; he
states his opinion without arguing with others, because he loves
liberty above all things, and freedom is one of the fairest gifts of
liberty.
He says little, for he is not anxious to attract attention; for the
same reason he only says what is to the point; who could induce him
to speak otherwise? Emile is too well informed to be a chatter-box. A
great flow of words comes either from a pretentious spirit, of which I
shall speak presently, or from the value laid upon trifles which we
foolishly think to be as important in the eyes of others as in our
own. He who knows enough of things to value them at their true worth
never says too much; for he can also judge of the attention bestowed
on him and the interest aroused by what he says. People who know
little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.
It is plain that an ignorant person thinks everything he does know
important, and he tells it to everybody. But a well-educated man is
not so ready to display his learning; he would have too much to say,
and he sees that there is much more to be said, so he holds his peace.
Far from disregarding the ways of other people, Emile conforms to
them readily enough; not that he may appear to know all about them,
nor yet to affect the airs of a man of fashion, but on the contrary
for fear lest he should attract attention, and in order to pass
unnoticed; he is most at his ease when no one pays any attention to
him.
Although when he makes his entrance into society he knows nothing
of its customs, this does not make him shy or timid; if he keeps in
the background, it is not because he is embarrassed, but because, if
you want to see, you must not be seen; for he scarcely troubles
himself at all about what people think of him, and he is not the
least afraid of ridicule. Hence he is always quiet and self-possessed
and is not troubled with shyness. All he has to do is done as well as
he knows how to do it, whether people are looking at him or not; and
as he is always on the alert to observe other people, he acquires
their ways with an ease impossible to the slaves of other people's
opinions. We might say that he acquires the ways of society just
because he cares so little about them.
But do not make any mistake as to his bearing; it is not to be
compared with that of your young dandies. It is self-possessed, not
conceited; his manners are easy, not haughty; an insolent look is the
mark of a slave, there is nothing affected in independence. I never
saw a man of lofty soul who showed it in his bearing; this affectation
is more suited to vile and frivolous souls, who have no other means of
asserting themselves. I read somewhere that a foreigner appeared one
day in the presence of the famous Marcel, who asked him what country
he came from. "I am an Englishman," replied the stranger. "You are an
Englishman!" replied the dancer, "You come from that island where the
citizens have a share in the government, and form part of the
sovereign power? [Footnote: As if there were citizens who were not
part of the city and had not, as such, a share in sovereign power! But
the French, who have thought fit to usurp the honourable name of
citizen which was formerly the right of the members of the Gallic
cities, have degraded the idea till it has no longer any sort of
meaning. A man who recently wrote a number of silly criticisms on the
"Nouvelle Heloise" added to his signature the title "Citizen of
Paimboeuf," and he thought it a capital joke.] No, sir, that modest
bearing, that timid glance, that hesitating manner, proclaim only a
slave adorned with the title of an elector."
I cannot say whether this saying shows much knowledge of the true
relation between a man's character and his appearance. I have not the
honour of being a dancing master, and I should have thought just the
opposite. I should have said, "This Englishman is no courtier; I never
heard that courtiers have a timid bearing and a hesitating manner. A
man whose appearance is timid in the presence of a dancer might not be
timid in the House of Commons." Surely this M. Marcel must take his
fellow-countrymen for so many Romans.
He who loves desires to be loved, Emile loves his fellows and
desires to please them. Even more does he wish to please the women;
his age, his character, the object he has in view, all increase this
desire. I say his character, for this has a great effect; men of good
character are those who really adore women. They have not the mocking
jargon of gallantry like the rest, but their eagerness is more
genuinely tender, because it comes from the heart. In the presence of
a young woman, I could pick out a young man of character and
self-control from among a hundred thousand libertines. Consider what
Emile must be, with all the eagerness of early youth and so many
reasons for resistance! For in the presence of women
I think he will sometimes be shy and timid; but this shyness will
certainly not be displeasing, and the least foolish of them will only
too often find a way to enjoy it and augment it. Moreover, his
eagerness will take a different shape according to those he has to do
with. He will be more modest and respectful to married women, more
eager and tender towards young girls. He never loses sight of his
purpose, and it is always those who most recall it to him who receive
the greater share of his attentions.
No one could be more attentive to every consideration based upon
the laws of nature, and even on the laws of good society; but the
former are always preferred before the latter, and Emile will show
more respect to an elderly person in private life than to a young
magistrate of his own age. As he is generally one of the youngest in
the company, he will always be one of the most modest, not from the
vanity which apes humility, but from a natural feeling founded upon
reason. He will not have the effrontery of the young fop, who speaks
louder than the wise and interrupts the old in order to amuse the
company. He will never give any cause for the reply given to Louis XV
by an old gentleman who was asked whether he preferred this century or
the last: "Sire, I spent my youth in reverence towards the old; I find
myself compelled to spend my old age in reverence towards the young."
His heart is tender and sensitive, but he cares nothing for the
weight of popular opinion, though he loves to give pleasure to
others; so he will care little to be thought a person of importance.
Hence he will be affectionate rather than polite, he will never be
pompous or affected, and he will be always more touched by a caress
than by much praise. For the same reasons he will never be careless
of his manners or his clothes; perhaps he will be rather particular
about his dress, not that he may show himself a man of taste, but to
make his appearance more pleasing; he will never require a gilt frame,
and he will never spoil his style by a display of wealth.
All this demands, as you see, no stock of precepts from me; it is
all the result of his early education. People make a great mystery of
the ways of society, as if, at the age when these ways are acquired,
we did not take to them quite naturally, and as if the first laws of
politeness were not to be found in a kindly heart. True politeness
consists in showing our goodwill towards men; it shows its presence
without any difficulty; those only who lack this goodwill are
compelled to reduce the outward signs of it to an art.
"The worst effect of artificial politeness is that it teaches us
how to dispense with the virtues it imitates. If our education teaches
us kindness and humanity, we shall be polite, or we shall have no need
of politeness.
"If we have not those qualities which display themselves gracefully
we shall have those which proclaim the honest man and the citizen; we
shall have no need for falsehood.
"Instead of seeking to please by artificiality, it will suffice
that we are kindly; instead of flattering the weaknesses of others by
falsehood, it will suffice to tolerate them.
"Those with whom we have to do will neither be puffed up nor
corrupted by such intercourse; they will only be grateful and will be
informed by it." [Footnote: Considerations sur les moeurs de ce
siecle, par M. Duclos.]
It seems to me that if any education is calculated to produce the
sort of politeness required by M. Duclos in this passage, it is the
education I have already described.
Yet I admit that with such different teaching Emile will not be
just like everybody else, and heaven preserve him from such a fate!
But where he is unlike other people, he will neither cause annoyance
nor will he be absurd; the difference will be perceptible but not
unpleasant. Emile will be, if you like, an agreeable foreigner. At
first his peculiarities will be excused with the phrase, "He will
learn." After a time people will get used to his ways, and seeing
that he does not change they will still make excuses for him and say,
"He is made that way."
He will not be feted as a charming man, but every one will like him
without knowing why; no one will praise his intellect, but every one
will be ready to make him the judge between men of intellect; his own
intelligence will be clear and limited, his mind will be accurate, and
his judgment sane. As he never runs after new ideas, he cannot pride
himself on his wit. I have convinced him that all wholesome ideas,
ideas which are really useful to mankind, were among the earliest
known, that in all times they have formed the true bonds of society,
and that there is nothing left for ambitious minds but to seek
distinction for themselves by means of ideas which are injurious and
fatal to mankind. This way of winning admiration scarcely appeals to
him; he knows how he ought to seek his own happiness in life, and how
he can contribute to the happiness of others. The sphere of his
knowledge is restricted to what is profitable. His path is narrow and
clearly defined; as he has no temptation to leave it, he is lost in
the crowd; he will neither distinguish himself nor will he lose his
way. Emile is a man of common sense and he has no desire to be
anything more; you may try in vain to insult him by applying this
phrase to him; he will always consider it a title of honour.
Although from his wish to please he is no longer wholly indifferent
to the opinion of others, he only considers that opinion so far as he
himself is directly concerned, without troubling himself about
arbitrary values, which are subject to no law but that of fashion or
conventionality. He will have pride enough to wish to do well in
everything that he undertakes, and even to wish to do it better than
others; he will want to be the swiftest runner, the strongest
wrestler, the cleverest workman, the readiest in games of skill; but
he will not seek advantages which are not in themselves clear gain,
but need to be supported by the opinion of others, such as to be
thought wittier than another, a better speaker, more learned, etc.;
still less will he trouble himself with those which have nothing to do
with the man himself, such as higher birth, a greater reputation for
wealth, credit, or public estimation, or the impression created by a
showy exterior.
As he loves his fellows because they are like himself, he will
prefer him who is most like himself, because he will feel that he is
good; and as he will judge of this resemblance by similarity of taste
in morals, in all that belongs to a good character, he will be
delighted to win approval. He will not say to himself in so many
words, "I am delighted to gain approval," but "I am delighted because
they say I have done right; I am delighted because the men who honour
me are worthy of honour; while they judge so wisely, it is a fine
thing to win their respect."
As he studies men in their conduct in society, just as he formerly
studied them through their passions in history, he will often have
occasion to consider what it is that pleases or offends the human
heart. He is now busy with the philosophy of the principles of taste,
and this is the most suitable subject for his present study.
The further we seek our definitions of taste, the further we go
astray; taste is merely the power of judging what is pleasing or
displeasing to most people. Go beyond this, and you cannot say what
taste is. It does not follow that the men of taste are in the
majority; for though the majority judges wisely with regard to each
individual thing, there are few men who follow the judgment of the
majority in everything; and though the most general agreement in
taste constitutes good taste, there are few men of good taste just as
there are few beautiful people, although beauty consists in the sum of
the most usual features.
It must be observed that we are not here concerned with what we
like because it is serviceable, or hate because it is harmful to us.
Taste deals only with things that are indifferent to us, or which
affect at most our amusements, not those which relate to our needs;
taste is not required to judge of these, appetite only is sufficient.
It is this which makes mere decisions of taste so difficult and as it
seems so arbitrary; for beyond the instinct they follow there appears
to be no reason whatever for them. We must also make a distinction
between the laws of good taste in morals and its laws in physical
matters. In the latter the laws of taste appear to be absolutely
inexplicable. But it must be observed that there is a moral element in
everything which involves imitation.[Footnote: This is demonstrated in
an "Essay on the Origin of Languages" which will be found in my
collected works.] This is the explanation of beauties which seem to be
physical, but are not so in reality. I may add that taste has local
rules which make it dependent in many respects on the country we are
in, its manners, government, institutions; it has other rules which
depend upon age, sex, and character, and it is in this sense that we
must not dispute over matters of taste.
Taste is natural to men; but all do not possess it in the same
degree, it is not developed to the same extent in every one; and in
every one it is liable to be modified by a variety of causes. Such
taste as we may possess depends on our native sensibility; its
cultivation and its form depend upon the society in which we have
lived. In the first place we must live in societies of many different
kinds, so as to compare much. In the next place, there must be
societies for amusement and idleness, for in business relations,
interest, not pleasure, is our rule. Lastly, there must be societies
in which people are fairly equal, where the tyranny of public opinion
may be moderate, where pleasure rather than vanity is queen; where
this is not so, fashion stifles taste, and we seek what gives
distinction rather than delight.
In the latter case it is no longer true that good taste is the
taste of the majority. Why is this? Because the purpose is different.
Then the crowd has no longer any opinion of its own, it only follows
the judgment of those who are supposed to know more about it; its
approval is bestowed not on what is good, but on what they have
already approved. At any time let every man have his own opinion, and
what is most pleasing in itself will always secure most votes.
Every beauty that is to be found in the works of man is imitated.
All the true models of taste are to be found in nature. The further
we get from the master, the worse are our pictures. Then it is that
we find our models in what we ourselves like, and the beauty of fancy,
subject to caprice and to authority, is nothing but what is pleasing
to our leaders.
Those leaders are the artists, the wealthy, and the great, and
they themselves follow the lead of self-interest or pride. Some to
display their wealth, others to profit by it, they seek eagerly for
new ways of spending it. This is how luxury acquires its power and
makes us love what is rare and costly; this so-called beauty consists,
not in following nature, but in disobeying her. Hence luxury and bad
taste are inseparable. Wherever taste is lavish, it is bad.
Taste, good or bad, takes its shape especially in the intercourse
between the two sexes; the cultivation of taste is a necessary
consequence of this form of society. But when enjoyment is easily
obtained, and the desire to please becomes lukewarm, taste must
degenerate; and this is, in my opinion, one of the best reasons why
good taste implies good morals.
Consult the women's opinions in bodily matters, in all that
concerns the senses; consult the men in matters of morality and all
that concerns the understanding. When women are what they ought to be,
they will keep to what they can understand, and their judgment will
be right; but since they have set themselves up as judges of
literature, since they have begun to criticise books and to make them
with might and main, they are altogether astray. Authors who take the
advice of blue-stockings will always be ill-advised; gallants who
consult them about their clothes will always be absurdly dressed. I
shall presently have an opportunity of speaking of the real talents of
the female sex, the way to cultivate these talents, and the matters in
regard to which their decisions should receive attention.
These are the elementary considerations which I shall lay down as
principles when I discuss with Emile this matter which is by no means
indifferent to him in his present inquiries. And to whom should it be
a matter of indifference? To know what people may find pleasant or
unpleasant is not only necessary to any one who requires their help,
it is still more necessary to any one who would help them; you must
please them if you would do them service; and the art of writing is no
idle pursuit if it is used to make men hear the truth.
If in order to cultivate my pupil's taste, I were compelled to
choose between a country where this form of culture has not yet arisen
and those in which it has already degenerated, I would progress
backwards; I would begin his survey with the latter and end with the
former. My reason for this choice is, that taste becomes corrupted
through excessive delicacy, which makes it sensitive to things which
most men do not perceive; this delicacy leads to a spirit of
discussion, for the more subtle is our discrimination of things the
more things there are for us. This subtlety increases the delicacy and
decreases the uniformity of our touch. So there are as many tastes as
there are people. In disputes as to our preferences, philosophy and
knowledge are enlarged, and thus we learn to think. It is only men
accustomed to plenty of society who are capable of very delicate
observations, for these observations do not occur to us till the last,
and people who are unused to all sorts of society exhaust their
attention in the consideration of the more conspicuous features. There
is perhaps no civilised place upon earth where the common taste is so
bad as in Paris. Yet it is in this capital that good taste is
cultivated, and it seems that few books make any impression in Europe
whose authors have not studied in Paris. Those who think it is enough
to read our books are mistaken; there is more to be learnt from the
conversation of authors than from their books; and it is not from the
authors that we learn most. It is the spirit of social life which
develops a thinking mind, and carries the eye as far as it can reach.
If you have a spark of genius, go and spend a year in Paris; you will
soon be all that you are capable of becoming, or you will never be
good for anything at all.
One may learn to think in places where bad taste rules supreme;
but we must not think like those whose taste is bad, and it is very
difficult to avoid this if we spend much time among them. We must use
their efforts to perfect the machinery of judgment, but we must be
careful not to make the same use of it. I shall take care not to
polish Emile's judgment so far as to transform it, and when he has
acquired discernment enough to feel and compare the varied tastes of
men, I shall lead him to fix his own taste upon simpler matters.
I will go still further in order to keep his taste pure and
wholesome. In the tumult of dissipation I shall find opportunities for
useful conversation with him; and while these conversations are always
about things in which he takes a delight, I shall take care to make
them as amusing as they are instructive. Now is the time to read
pleasant books; now is the time to teach him to analyse speech and to
appreciate all the beauties of eloquence and diction. It is a small
matter to learn languages, they are less useful than people think; but
the study of languages leads us on to that of grammar in general. We
must learn Latin if we would have a thorough knowledge of French;
these two languages must be studied and compared if we would
understand the rules of the art of speaking.
There is, moreover, a certain simplicity of taste which goes
straight to the heart; and this is only to be found in the classics.
In oratory, poetry, and every kind of literature, Emile will find the
classical authors as he found them in history, full of matter and
sober in their judgment. The authors of our own time, on the contrary,
say little and talk much. To take their judgment as our constant law
is not the way to form our own judgment. These differences of taste
make themselves felt in all that is left of classical times and even
on their tombs. Our monuments are covered with praises, theirs
recorded facts.
"Sta, viator; heroem calcas."
If I had found this epitaph on an ancient monument, I should at
once have guessed it was modern; for there is nothing so common among
us as heroes, but among the ancients they were rare. Instead of saying
a man was a hero, they would have said what he had done to gain that
name. With the epitaph of this hero compare that of the effeminate
Sardanapalus—
"Tarsus and Anchiales I built in a day, and now I am dead."
Which do you think says most? Our inflated monumental style is only
fit to trumpet forth the praises of pygmies. The ancients showed men
as they were, and it was plain that they were men indeed. Xenophon
did honour to the memory of some warriors who were slain by treason
during the retreat of the Ten Thousand. "They died," said he, "without
stain in war and in love." That is all, but think how full was the
heart of the author of this short and simple elegy. Woe to him who
fails to perceive its charm. The following words were engraved on a
tomb at Thermopylae—
"Go, Traveller, tell Sparta that here we fell in obedience to her
laws."
It is pretty clear that this was not the work of the Academy of
Inscriptions.
If I am not mistaken, the attention of my pupil, who sets so small
value upon words, will be directed in the first place to these
differences, and they will affect his choice in his reading. He will
be carried away by the manly eloquence of Demosthenes, and will say,
"This is an orator;" but when he reads Cicero, he will say, "This is a
lawyer."
Speaking generally Emile will have more taste for the books of the
ancients than for our own, just because they were the first, and
therefore the ancients are nearer to nature and their genius is more
distinct. Whatever La Motte and the Abbe Terrasson may say, there is
no real advance in human reason, for what we gain in one direction we
lose in another; for all minds start from the same point, and as the
time spent in learning what others have thought is so much time lost
in learning to think for ourselves, we have more acquired knowledge
and less vigour of mind. Our minds like our arms are accustomed to use
tools for everything, and to do nothing for themselves. Fontenelle
used to say that all these disputes as to the ancients and the moderns
came to this—Were the trees in former times taller than they are now.
If agriculture had changed, it would be worth our while to ask this
question.
After I have led Emile to the sources of pure literature, I will
also show him the channels into the reservoirs of modern compilers;
journals, translations, dictionaries, he shall cast a glance at them
all, and then leave them for ever. To amuse him he shall hear the
chatter of the academies; I will draw his attention to the fast that
every member of them is worth more by himself than he is as a member
of the society; he will then draw his own conclusions as to the
utility of these fine institutions.
I take him to the theatre to study taste, not morals; for in the
theatre above all taste is revealed to those who can think. Lay aside
precepts and morality, I should say; this is not the place to study
them. The stage is not made for truth; its object is to flatter and
amuse: there is no place where one can learn so completely the art of
pleasing and of interesting the human heart. The study of plays leads
to the study of poetry; both have the same end in view. If he has the
least glimmering of taste for poetry, how eagerly will he study the
languages of the poets, Greek, Latin, and Italian! These studies will
afford him unlimited amusement and will be none the less valuable;
they will be a delight to him at an age and in circumstances when the
heart finds so great a charm in every kind of beauty which affects it.
Picture to yourself on the one hand Emile, on the other some young
rascal from college, reading the fourth book of the Aeneid, or
Tibollus, or the Banquet of Plato: what a difference between them!
What stirs the heart of Emile to its depths, makes not the least
impression on the other! Oh, good youth, stay, make a pause in your
reading, you are too deeply moved; I would have you find pleasure in
the language of love, but I would not have you carried away by it; be
a wise man, but be a good man too. If you are only one of these, you
are nothing. After this let him win fame or not in dead languages, in
literature, in poetry, I care little. He will be none the worse if he
knows nothing of them, and his education is not concerned with these
mere words.
My main object in teaching him to feel and love beauty of every
kind is to fix his affections and his taste on these, to prevent the
corruption of his natural appetites, lest he should have to seek some
day in the midst of his wealth for the means of happiness which should
be found close at hand. I have said elsewhere that taste is only the
art of being a connoisseur in matters of little importance, and this
is quite true; but since the charm of life depends on a tissue of
these matters of little importance, such efforts are no small thing;
through their means we learn how to fill our life with the good things
within our reach, with as much truth as they may hold for us. I do not
refer to the morally good which depends on a good disposition of the
heart, but only to that which depends on the body, on real delight,
apart from the prejudices of public opinion.
The better to unfold my idea, allow me for a moment to leave Emile,
whose pure and wholesome heart cannot be taken as a rule for others,
and to seek in my own memory for an illustration better suited to the
reader and more in accordance with his own manners.
There are professions which seem to change a man's nature, to
recast, either for better or worse, the men who adopt them. A coward
becomes a brave man in the regiment of Navarre. It is not only in the
army that esprit de corps is acquired, and its effects are not always
for good. I have thought again and again with terror that if I had the
misfortune to fill a certain post I am thinking of in a certain
country, before to-morrow I should certainly be a tyrant, an
extortioner, a destroyer of the people, harmful to my king, and a
professed enemy of mankind, a foe to justice and every kind of virtue.
In the same way, if I were rich, I should have done all that is
required to gain riches; I should therefore be insolent and degraded,
sensitive and feeling only on my own behalf, harsh and pitiless to
all besides, a scornful spectator of the sufferings of the lower
classes; for that is what I should call the poor, to make people
forget that I was once poor myself. Lastly I should make my fortune a
means to my own pleasures with which I should be wholly occupied; and
so far I should be just like other people.
But in one respect I should be very unlike them; I should be
sensual and voluptuous rather than proud and vain, and I should give
myself up to the luxury of comfort rather than to that of ostentation.
I should even be somewhat ashamed to make too great a show of my
wealth, and if I overwhelmed the envious with my pomp I should always
fancy I heard him saying, "Here is a rascal who is greatly afraid lest
we should take him for anything but what he is."
In the vast profusion of good things upon this earth I should seek
what I like best, and what I can best appropriate to myself.
To this end, the first use I should make of my wealth would be to
purchase leisure and freedom, to which I would add health, if it were
to be purchased; but health can only be bought by temperance, and as
there is no real pleasure without health, I should be temperate from
sensual motives.
I should also keep as close as possible to nature, to gratify the
senses given me by nature, being quite convinced that, the greater
her share in my pleasures, the more real I shall find them. In the
choice of models for imitation I shall always choose nature as my
pattern; in my appetites I will give her the preference; in my tastes
she shall always be consulted; in my food I will always choose what
most owes its charm to her, and what has passed through the fewest
possible hands on its way to table. I will be on my guard against
fraudulent shams; I will go out to meet pleasure. No cook shall grow
rich on my gross and foolish greediness; he shall not poison me with
fish which cost its weight in gold, my table shall not be decked with
fetid splendour or putrid flesh from far-off lands. I will take any
amount of trouble to gratify my sensibility, since this trouble has a
pleasure of its own, a pleasure more than we expect. If I wished to
taste a food from the ends of the earth, I would go, like Apicius, in
search of it, rather than send for it; for the daintiest dishes always
lack a charm which cannot be brought along with them, a flavour which
no cook can give them—the air of the country where they are produced.
For the same reason I would not follow the example of those who are
never well off where they are, but are always setting the seasons at
nought, and confusing countries and their seasons; those who seek
winter in summer and summer in winter, and go to Italy to be cold and
to the north to be warm, do not consider that when they think they are
escaping from the severity of the seasons, they are going to meet that
severity in places where people are not prepared for it. I shall stay
in one place, or I shall adopt just the opposite course; I should like
to get all possible enjoyment out of one season to discover what is
peculiar to any given country. I would have a variety of pleasures,
and habits quite unlike one another, but each according to nature; I
would spend the summer at Naples and the winter in St. Petersburg;
sometimes I would breathe the soft zephyr lying in the cool grottoes
of Tarentum, and again I would enjoy the illuminations of an ice
palace, breathless and wearied with the pleasures of the dance.
In the service of my table and the adornment of my dwelling I would
imitate in the simplest ornaments the variety of the seasons, and
draw from each its charm without anticipating its successor. There is
no taste but only difficulty to be found in thus disturbing the order
of nature; to snatch from her unwilling gifts, which she yields
regretfully, with her curse upon them; gifts which have neither
strength nor flavour, which can neither nourish the body nor tickle
the palate. Nothing is more insipid than forced fruits. A wealthy man
in Paris, with all his stoves and hot-houses, only succeeds in getting
all the year round poor fruit and poor vegetables for his table at a
very high price. If I had cherries in frost, and golden melons in the
depths of winter, what pleasure should I find in them when my palate
did not need moisture or refreshment. Would the heavy chestnut be very
pleasant in the heat of the dog-days; should I prefer to have it hot
from the stove, rather than the gooseberry, the strawberry, the
refreshing fruits which the earth takes care to provide for me. A
mantelpiece covered in January with forced vegetation, with pale and
scentless flowers, is not winter adorned, but spring robbed of its
beauty; we deprive ourselves of the pleasure of seeking the first
violet in the woods, of noting the earliest buds, and exclaiming in a
rapture of delight, "Mortals, you are not forsaken, nature is living
still."
To be well served I would have few servants; this has been said
before, but it is worth saying again. A tradesman gets more real
service from his one man than a duke from the ten gentlemen round
about him. It has often struck me when I am sitting at table with my
glass beside me that I can drink whenever I please; whereas, if I were
dining in state, twenty men would have to call for "Wine" before I
could quench my thirst. You may be sure that whatever is done for you
by other people is ill done. I would not send to the shops, I would go
myself; I would go so that my servants should not make their own terms
with the shopkeepers, and to get a better choice and cheaper prices; I
would go for the sake of pleasant exercise and to get a glimpse of
what was going on out of doors; this is amusing and sometimes
instructive; lastly I would go for the sake of the walk; there is
always something in that. A sedentary life is the source of tedium;
when we walk a good deal we are never dull. A porter and footmen are
poor interpreters, I should never wish to have such people between the
world and myself, nor would I travel with all the fuss of a coach, as
if I were afraid people would speak to me. Shanks' mare is always
ready; if she is tired or ill, her owner is the first to know it; he
need not be afraid of being kept at home while his coachman is on the
spree; on the road he will not have to submit to all sorts of delays,
nor will he be consumed with impatience, nor compelled to stay in one
place a moment longer than he chooses. Lastly, since no one serves us
so well as we serve ourselves, had we the power of Alexander and the
wealth of Croesus we should accept no services from others, except
those we cannot perform for ourselves.
I would not live in a palace; for even in a palace I should only
occupy one room; every room which is common property belongs to
nobody, and the rooms of each of my servants would be as strange to
me as my neighbour's. The Orientals, although very voluptuous, are
lodged in plain and simply furnished dwellings. They consider life as
a journey, and their house as an inn. This reason scarcely appeals to
us rich people who propose to live for ever; but I should find another
reason which would have the same effect. It would seem to me that if I
settled myself in one place in the midst of such splendour, I should
banish myself from every other place, and imprison myself, so to
speak, in my palace. The world is a palace fair enough for any one;
and is not everything at the disposal of the rich man when he seeks
enjoyment? "Ubi bene, ibi patria," that is his motto; his home is
anywhere where money will carry him, his country is anywhere where
there is room for his strong-box, as Philip considered as his own any
place where a mule laden with silver could enter. [Footnote: A
stranger, splendidly clad, was asked in Athens what country he
belonged to. "I am one of the rich," was his answer; and a very good
answer in my opinion.] Why then should we shut ourselves up within
walls and gates as if we never meant to leave them? If pestilence,
war, or rebellion drive me from one place, I go to another, and I find
my hotel there before me. Why should I build a mansion for myself when
the world is already at my disposal? Why should I be in such a hurry
to live, to bring from afar delights which I can find on the spot? It
is impossible to make a pleasant life for oneself when one is always
at war with oneself. Thus Empedocles reproached the men of Agrigentum
with heaping up pleasures as if they had but one day to live, and
building as if they would live for ever.
And what use have I for so large a dwelling, as I have so few
people to live in it, and still fewer goods to fill it? My furniture
would be as simple as my tastes; I would have neither picture-gallery
nor library, especially if I was fond of reading and knew something
about pictures. I should then know that such collections are never
complete, and that the lack of that which is wanting causes more
annoyance than if one had nothing at all. In this respect abundance
is the cause of want, as every collector knows to his cost. If you
are an expert, do not make a collection; if you know how to use your
cabinets, you will not have any to show.
Gambling is no sport for the rich, it is the resource of those who
have nothing to do; I shall be so busy with my pleasures that I shall
have no time to waste. I am poor and lonely and I never play, unless
it is a game of chess now and then, and that is more than enough. If I
were rich I would play even less, and for very low stakes, so that I
should not be disappointed myself, nor see the disappointment of
others. The wealthy man has no motive for play, and the love of play
will not degenerate into the passion for gambling unless the
disposition is evil. The rich man is always more keenly aware of his
losses than his gains, and as in games where the stakes are not high
the winnings are generally exhausted in the long run, he will usually
lose more than he gains, so that if we reason rightly we shall
scarcely take a great fancy to games where the odds are against us. He
who flatters his vanity so far as to believe that Fortune favours him
can seek her favour in more exciting ways; and her favours are just as
clearly shown when the stakes are low as when they are high. The taste
for play, the result of greed and dullness, only lays hold of empty
hearts and heads; and I think I should have enough feeling and
knowledge to dispense with its help. Thinkers are seldom gamblers;
gambling interrupts the habit of thought and turns it towards barren
combinations; thus one good result, perhaps the only good result of
the taste for science, is that it deadens to some extent this vulgar
passion; people will prefer to try to discover the uses of play rather
than to devote themselves to it. I should argue with the gamblers
against gambling, and I should find more delight in scoffing at their
losses than in winning their money.
I should be the same in private life as in my social intercourse.
I should wish my fortune to bring comfort in its train, and never to
make people conscious of inequalities of wealth. Showy dress is
inconvenient in many ways. To preserve as much freedom as possible
among other men, I should like to be dressed in such a way that I
should not seem out of place among all classes, and should not attract
attention in any; so that without affectation or change I might mingle
with the crowd at the inn or with the nobility at the Palais Royal. In
this way I should be more than ever my own master, and should be free
to enjoy the pleasures of all sorts and conditions of men. There are
women, so they say, whose doors are closed to embroidered cuffs, women
who will only receive guests who wear lace ruffles; I should spend my
days elsewhere; though if these women were young and pretty I might
sometimes put on lace ruffles to spend an evening or so in their
company.
Mutual affection, similarity of tastes, suitability of character;
these are the only bonds between my companions and myself; among them
I would be a man, not a person of wealth; the charm of their society
should never be embittered by self-seeking. If my wealth had not
robbed me of all humanity, I would scatter my benefits and my services
broadcast, but I should want companions about me, not courtiers,
friends, not proteges; I should wish my friends to regard me as their
host, not their patron. Independence and equality would leave to my
relations with my friends the sincerity of goodwill; while duty and
self-seeking would have no place among us, and we should know no law
but that of pleasure and friendship.
Neither a friend nor a mistress can be bought. Women may be got
for money, but that road will never lead to love. Love is not only
not for sale; money strikes it dead. If a man pays, were he indeed
the most lovable of men, the mere fact of payment would prevent any
lasting affection. He will soon be paying for some one else, or rather
some one else will get his money; and in this double connection based
on self-seeking and debauchery, without love, honour, or true
pleasure, the woman is grasping, faithless, and unhappy, and she is
treated by the wretch to whom she gives her money as she treats the
fool who gives his money to her; she has no love for either. It would
be sweet to lie generous towards one we love, if that did not make a
bargain of love. I know only one way of gratifying this desire with
the woman one loves without embittering love; it is to bestow our all
upon her and to live at her expense. It remains to be seen whether
there is any woman with regard to whom such conduct would not be
unwise.
He who said, "Lais is mine, but I am not hers," was talking
nonsense. Possession which is not mutual is nothing at all; at most it
is the possession of the sex not of the individual. But where there
is no morality in love, why make such ado about the rest? Nothing is
so easy to find. A muleteer is in this respect as near to happiness as
a millionaire.
Oh, if we could thus trace out the unreasonableness of vice, how
often should we find that, when it has attained its object, it
discovers it is not what it seemed! Why is there this cruel haste to
corrupt innocence, to make, a victim of a young creature whom we ought
to protect, one who is dragged by this first false step into a gulf of
misery from which only death can release her? Brutality, vanity,
folly, error, and nothing more. This pleasure itself is unnatural; it
rests on popular opinion, and popular opinion at its worst, since it
depends on scorn of self. He who knows he is the basest of men fears
comparison with others, and would be the first that he may be less
hateful. See if those who are most greedy in pursuit of such fancied
pleasures are ever attractive young men—men worthy of pleasing, men
who might have some excuse if they were hard to please. Not so; any
one with good looks, merit, and feeling has little fear of his
mistress' experience; with well-placed confidence he says to her, "You
know what pleasure is, what is that to me? my heart assures me that
this is not so."
But an aged satyr, worn out with debauchery, with no charm, no
consideration, no thought for any but himself, with no shred of
honour, incapable and unworthy of finding favour in the eyes of any
woman who knows anything of men deserving of love, expects to make up
for all this with an innocent girl by trading on her inexperience and
stirring her emotions for the first time. His last hope is to find
favour as a novelty; no doubt this is the secret motive of this
desire; but he is mistaken, the horror he excites is just as natural
as the desires he wishes to arouse. He is also mistaken in his foolish
attempt; that very nature takes care to assert her rights; every girl
who sells herself is no longer a maid; she has given herself to the
man of her choice, and she is making the very comparison he dreads.
The pleasure purchased is imaginary, but none the less hateful.
For my own part, however riches may change me, there is one matter
in which I shall never change. If I have neither morals nor virtue, I
shall not be wholly without taste, without sense, without delicacy;
and this will prevent me from spending my fortune in the pursuit of
empty dreams, from wasting my money and my strength in teaching
children to betray me and mock at me. If I were young, I would seek
the pleasures of youth; and as I would have them at their best I would
not seek them in the guise of a rich man. If I were at my present age,
it would be another matter; I would wisely confine myself to the
pleasures of my age; I would form tastes which I could enjoy, and I
would stifle those which could only cause suffering. I would not go
and offer my grey beard to the scornful jests of young girls; I could
never bear to sicken them with my disgusting caresses, to furnish them
at my expense with the most absurd stories, to imagine them describing
the vile pleasures of the old ape, so as to avenge themselves for what
they had endured. But if habits unresisted had changed my former
desires into needs, I would perhaps satisfy those needs, but with
shame and blushes. I would distinguish between passion and necessity,
I would find a suitable mistress and would keep to her. I would not
make a business of my weakness, and above all I would only have one
person aware of it. Life has other pleasures when these fail us; by
hastening in vain after those that fly us, we deprive ourselves of
those that remain. Let our tastes change with our years, let us no
more meddle with age than with the seasons. We should be ourselves at
all times, instead of struggling against nature; such vain attempts
exhaust our strength and prevent the right use of life.
The lower classes are seldom dull, their life is full of activity;
if there is little variety in their amusements they do not recur
frequently; many days of labour teach them to enjoy their rare
holidays. Short intervals of leisure between long periods of labour
give a spice to the pleasures of their station. The chief curse of
the rich is dullness; in the midst of costly amusements, among so
many men striving to give them pleasure, they are devoured and slain
by dullness; their life is spent in fleeing from it and in being
overtaken by it; they are overwhelmed by the intolerable burden;
women more especially, who do not know how to work or play, are a
prey to tedium under the name of the vapours; with them it takes the
shape of a dreadful disease, which robs them of their reason and even
of their life. For my own part I know no more terrible fate than that
of a pretty woman in Paris, unless it is that of the pretty manikin
who devotes himself to her, who becomes idle and effeminate like her,
and so deprives himself twice over of his manhood, while he prides
himself on his successes and for their sake endures the longest and
dullest days which human being ever put up with.
Proprieties, fashions, customs which depend on luxury and breeding,
confine the course of life within the limits of the most miserable
uniformity. The pleasure we desire to display to others is a pleasure
lost; we neither enjoy it ourselves, nor do others enjoy it.
[Footnote: Two ladies of fashion, who wished to seem to be enjoying
themselves greatly, decided never to go to bed before five o'clock in
the morning. In the depths of winter their servants spent the night in
the street waiting for them, and with great difficulty kept themselves
from freezing. One night, or rather one morning, some one entered the
room where these merry people spent their hours without knowing how
time passed. He found them quite alone; each of them was asleep in her
arm-chair.] Ridicule, which public opinion dreads more than anything,
is ever at hand to tyrannise, and punish. It is only ceremony that
makes us ridiculous; if we can vary our place and our pleasures,
to-day's impressions can efface those of yesterday; in the mind of men
they are as if they had never been; but we enjoy ourselves for we
throw ourselves into every hour and everything. My only set rule would
be this: wherever I was I would pay no heed to anything else. I would
take each day as it came, as if there were neither yesterday nor
to-morrow. As I should be a man of the people, with the populace, I
should be a countryman in the fields; and if I spoke of farming, the
peasant should not laugh at my expense. I would not go and build a
town in the country nor erect the Tuileries at the door of my
lodgings. On some pleasant shady hill-side I would have a little
cottage, a white house with green shutters, and though a thatched roof
is the best all the year round, I would be grand enough to have, not
those gloomy slates, but tiles, because they look brighter and more
cheerful than thatch, and the houses in my own country are always
roofed with them, and so they would recall to me something of the
happy days of my youth. For my courtyard I would have a poultry-yard,
and for my stables a cowshed for the sake of the milk which I love.
My garden should be a kitchen-garden, and my park an orchard, like
the one described further on. The fruit would be free to those who
walked in the orchard, my gardener should neither count it nor gather
it; I would not, with greedy show, display before your eyes superb
espaliers which one scarcely dare touch. But this small extravagance
would not be costly, for I would choose my abode in some remote
province where silver is scarce and food plentiful, where plenty and
poverty have their seat.
There I would gather round me a company, select rather than
numerous, a band of friends who know what pleasure is, and how to
enjoy it, women who can leave their arm-chairs and betake themselves
to outdoor sports, women who can exchange the shuttle or the cards for
the fishing line or the bird-trap, the gleaner's rake or
grape-gatherer's basket. There all the pretensions of the town will be
forgotten, and we shall be villagers in a village; we shall find all
sorts of different sports and we shall hardly know how to choose the
morrow's occupation. Exercise and an active life will improve our
digestion and modify our tastes. Every meal will be a feast, where
plenty will be more pleasing than any delicacies. There are no such
cooks in the world as mirth, rural pursuits, and merry games; and the
finest made dishes are quite ridiculous in the eyes of people who have
been on foot since early dawn. Our meals will be served without
regard to order or elegance; we shall make our dining-room anywhere,
in the garden, on a boat, beneath a tree; sometimes at a distance
from the house on the banks of a running stream, on the fresh green
grass, among the clumps of willow and hazel; a long procession of
guests will carry the material for the feast with laughter and
singing; the turf will be our chairs and table, the banks of the
stream our side-board, and our dessert is hanging on the trees; the
dishes will be served in any order, appetite needs no ceremony; each
one of us, openly putting himself first, would gladly see every one
else do the same; from this warm-hearted and temperate familiarity
there would arise, without coarseness, pretence, or constraint, a
laughing conflict a hundredfold more delightful than politeness, and
more likely to cement our friendship. No tedious flunkeys to listen to
our words, to whisper criticisms on our behaviour, to count every
mouthful with greedy eyes, to amuse themselves by keeping us waiting
for our wine, to complain of the length of our dinner. We will be our
own servants, in order to be our own masters. Time will fly unheeded,
our meal will be an interval of rest during the heat of the day. If
some peasant comes our way, returning from his work with his tools
over his shoulder, I will cheer his heart with kindly words, and a
glass or two of good wine, which will help him to bear his poverty
more cheerfully; and I too shall have the joy of feeling my heart
stirred within me, and I should say to myself—I too am a man.
If the inhabitants of the district assembled for some rustic feast,
I and my friends would be there among the first; if there were
marriages, more blessed than those of towns, celebrated near my home,
every one would know how I love to see people happy, and I should be
invited. I would take these good folks some gift as simple as
themselves, a gift which would be my share of the feast; and in
exchange I should obtain gifts beyond price, gifts so little known
among my equals, the gifts of freedom and true pleasure. I should sup
gaily at the head of their long table; I should join in the chorus of
some rustic song and I should dance in the barn more merrily than at a
ball in the Opera House.
"This is all very well so far," you will say, "but what about the
shooting! One must have some sport in the country." Just so; I only
wanted a farm, but I was wrong. I assume I am rich, I must keep my
pleasures to myself, I must be free to kill something; this is quite
another matter. I must have estates, woods, keepers, rents, seignorial
rights, particularly incense and holy water.
Well and good. But I shall have neighbours about my estate who are
jealous of their rights and anxious to encroach on those of others;
our keepers will quarrel, and possibly their masters will quarrel
too; this means altercations, disputes, ill-will, or law-suits at the
least; this in itself is not very pleasant. My tenants will not enjoy
finding my hares at work upon their corn, or my wild boars among their
beans. As they dare not kill the enemy, every one of them will try to
drive him from their fields; when the day has been spent in
cultivating the ground, they will be compelled to sit up at night to
watch it; they will have watch-dogs, drums, horns, and bells; my sleep
will be disturbed by their racket. Do what I will, I cannot help
thinking of the misery of these poor people, and I cannot help blaming
myself for it. If I had the honour of being a prince, this would make
little impression on me; but as I am a self-made man who has only just
come into his property, I am still rather vulgar at heart.
That is not all; abundance of game attracts trespassers; I shall
soon have poachers to punish; I shall require prisons, gaolers,
guards, and galleys; all this strikes me as cruel. The wives of those
miserable creatures will besiege my door and disturb me with their
crying; they must either be driven away or roughly handled. The poor
people who are not poachers, whose harvest has been destroyed by my
game, will come next with their complaints. Some people will be put to
death for killing the game, the rest will be punished for having
spared it; what a choice of evils! On every side I shall find nothing
but misery and hear nothing but groans. So far as I can see this must
greatly disturb the pleasure of slaying at one's ease heaps of
partridges and hares which are tame enough to run about one's feet.
If you would have pleasure without pain let there be no monopoly;
the more you leave it free to everybody, the purer will be your own
enjoyment. Therefore I should not do what I have just described, but
without change of tastes I would follow those which seem likely to
cause me least pain. I would fix my rustic abode in a district where
game is not preserved, and where I can have my sport without
hindrance. Game will be less plentiful, but there will be more skill
in finding it, and more pleasure in securing it. I remember the start
of delight with which my father watched the rise of his first
partridge and the rapture with which he found the hare he had sought
all day long. Yes, I declare, that alone with his dog, carrying his
own gun, cartridges, and game bag together with his hare, he came home
at nightfall, worn out with fatigue and torn to pieces by brambles,
but better pleased with his day's sport than all your ordinary
sportsmen, who on a good horse, with twenty guns ready for them,
merely take one gun after another, and shoot and kill everything that
comes their way, without skill, without glory, and almost without
exercise. The pleasure is none the less, and the difficulties are
removed; there is no estate to be preserved, no poacher to be
punished, and no wretches to be tormented; here are solid grounds for
preference. Whatever you do, you cannot torment men for ever without
experiencing some amount of discomfort; and sooner or later the
muttered curses of the people will spoil the flavour of your game.
Again, monopoly destroys pleasure. Real pleasures are those which
we share with the crowd; we lose what we try to keep to ourselves
alone. If the walls I build round my park transform it into a gloomy
prison, I have only deprived myself, at great expense, of the pleasure
of a walk; I must now seek that pleasure at a distance. The demon of
property spoils everything he lays hands upon. A rich man wants to be
master everywhere, and he is never happy where he is; he is
continually driven to flee from himself. I shall therefore continue to
do in my prosperity what I did in my poverty. Henceforward, richer in
the wealth of others than I ever shall be in my own wealth, I will
take possession of everything in my neighbourhood that takes my fancy;
no conqueror is so determined as I; I even usurp the rights of
princes; I take possession of every open place that pleases me, I give
them names; this is my park, chat is my terrace, and I am their owner;
henceforward I wander among them at will; I often return to maintain
my proprietary rights; I make what use I choose of the ground to walk
upon, and you will never convince me that the nominal owner of the
property which I have appropriated gets better value out of the money
it yields him than I do out of his land. No matter if I am interrupted
by hedges and ditches, I take my park on my back, and I carry it
elsewhere; there will be space enough for it near at hand, and I may
plunder my neighbours long enough before I outstay my welcome.
This is an attempt to show what is meant by good taste in the
choice of pleasant occupations for our leisure hours; this is the
spirit of enjoyment; all else is illusion, fancy, and foolish pride.
He who disobeys these rules, however rich he may be, will devour his
gold on a dung-hill, and will never know what it is to live.
You will say, no doubt, that such amusements lie within the reach
of all, that we need not be rich to enjoy them. That is the very
point I was coming to. Pleasure is ours when we want it; it is only
social prejudice which makes everything hard to obtain, and drives
pleasure before us. To be happy is a hundredfold easier than it
seems. If he really desires to enjoy himself the man of taste has no
need of riches; all he wants is to be free and to be his own master.
With health and daily bread we are rich enough, if we will but get rid
of our prejudices; this is the "Golden Mean" of Horace. You folks with
your strong-boxes may find some other use for your wealth, for it
cannot buy you pleasure. Emile knows this as well as I, but his heart
is purer and more healthy, so he will feel it more strongly, and all
that he has beheld in society will only serve to confirm him in this
opinion.
While our time is thus employed, we are ever on the look-out for
Sophy, and we have not yet found her. It was not desirable that she
should be found too easily, and I have taken care to look for her
where I knew we should not find her.
The time is come; we must now seek her in earnest, lest Emile
should mistake some one else for Sophy, and only discover his error
when it is too late. Then farewell Paris, far-famed Paris, with all
your noise and smoke and dirt, where the women have ceased to believe
in honour and the men in virtue. We are in search of love, happiness,
innocence; the further we go from Paris the better.
BOOK V
We have reached the last act of youth's drams; we are approaching
its closing scene.
It is not good that man should be alone. Emile is now a man, and
we must give him his promised helpmeet. That helpmeet is Sophy. Where
is her dwelling-place, where shall she be found? We must know
beforehand what she is, and then we can decide where to look for her.
And when she is found, our task is not ended. "Since our young
gentleman," says Locke, "is about to marry, it is time to leave him
with his mistress." And with these words he ends his book. As I have
not the honour of educating "A young gentleman," I shall take care not
to follow his example.
SOPHY, OR WOMAN
Sophy should be as truly a woman as Emile is a man, i.e., she must
possess all those characters of her sex which are required to enable
her to play her part in the physical and moral order. Let us inquire
to begin with in what respects her sex differs from our own.
But for her sex, a woman is a man; she has the same organs, the
same needs, the same faculties. The machine is the same in its
construction; its parts, its working, and its appearance are similar.
Regard it as you will the difference is only in degree.
Yet where sex is concerned man and woman are unlike; each is the
complement of the other; the difficulty in comparing them lies in our
inability to decide, in either case, what is a matter of sex, and what
is not. General differences present themselves to the comparative
anatomist and even to the superficial observer; they seem not to be a
matter of sex; yet they are really sex differences, though the
connection eludes our observation. How far such differences may extend
we cannot tell; all we know for certain is that where man and woman
are alike we have to do with the characteristics of the species; where
they are unlike, we have to do with the characteristics of sex.
Considered from these two standpoints, we find so many instances of
likeness and unlikeness that it is perhaps one of the greatest of
marvels how nature has contrived to make two beings so like and yet so
different.
These resemblances and differences must have an influence on the
moral nature; this inference is obvious, and it is confirmed by
experience; it shows the vanity of the disputes as to the superiority
or the equality of the sexes; as if each sex, pursuing the path
marked out for it by nature, were not more perfect in that very
divergence than if it more closely resembled the other. A perfect man
and a perfect woman should no more be alike in mind than in face, and
perfection admits of neither less nor more.
In the union of the sexes each alike contributes to the common
end, but in different ways. From this diversity springs the first
difference which may be observed between man and woman in their moral
relations. The man should be strong and active; the woman should be
weak and passive; the one must have both the power and the will; it is
enough that the other should offer little resistance.
When this principle is admitted, it follows that woman is specially
made for man's delight. If man in his turn ought to be pleasing in
her eyes, the necessity is less urgent, his virtue is in his strength,
he pleases because he is strong. I grant you this is not the law of
love, but it is the law of nature, which is older than love itself.
If woman is made to please and to be in subjection to man, she
ought to make herself pleasing in his eyes and not provoke him to
anger; her strength is in her charms, by their means she should
compel him to discover and use his strength. The surest way of
arousing this strength is to make it necessary by resistance. Thus
pride comes to the help of desire and each exults in the other's
victory. This is the origin of attack and defence, of the boldness of
one sex and the timidity of the other, and even of the shame and
modesty with which nature has armed the weak for the conquest of the
strong.
Who can possibly suppose that nature has prescribed the same
advances to the one sex as to the other, or that the first to feel
desire should be the first to show it? What strange depravity of
judgment! The consequences of the act being so different for the two
sexes, is it natural that they should enter upon it with equal
boldness? How can any one fail to see that when the share of each is
so unequal, if the one were not controlled by modesty as the other is
controlled by nature, the result would be the destruction of both,
and the human race would perish through the very means ordained for
its continuance?
Women so easily stir a man's senses and fan the ashes of a dying
passion, that if philosophy ever succeeded in introducing this custom
into any unlucky country, especially if it were a warm country where
more women are born than men, the men, tyrannised over by the women,
would at last become their victims, and would be dragged to their
death without the least chance of escape.
Female animals are without this sense of shame, but what of that?
Are their desires as boundless as those of women, which are curbed by
this shame? The desires of the animals are the result of necessity,
and when the need is satisfied, the desire ceases; they no longer
make a feint of repulsing the male, they do it in earnest. Their
seasons of complaisance are short and soon over. Impulse and
restraint are alike the work of nature. But what would take the place
of this negative instinct in women if you rob them of their modesty?
The Most High has deigned to do honour to mankind; he has endowed
man with boundless passions, together with a law to guide them, so
that man may be alike free and self-controlled; though swayed by
these passions man is endowed with reason by which to control them.
Woman is also endowed with boundless passions; God has given her
modesty to restrain them. Moreover, he has given to both a present
reward for the right use of their powers, In the delight which
springs from that right use of them, i.e., the taste for right
conduct established as the law of our behaviour. To my mind this is
far higher than the instinct of the beasts.
Whether the woman shares the man's passion or not, whether she is
willing or unwilling to satisfy it, she always repulses him and
defends herself, though not always with the same vigour, and therefore
not always with the same success. If the siege is to be successful,
the besieged must permit or direct the attack. How skilfully can she
stimulate the efforts of the aggressor. The freest and most delightful
of activities does not permit of any real violence; reason and nature
are alike against it; nature, in that she has given the weaker party
strength enough to resist if she chooses; reason, in that actual
violence is not only most brutal in itself, but it defeats its own
ends, not only because the man thus declares war against his companion
and thus gives her a right to defend her person and her liberty even
at the cost of the enemy's life, but also because the woman alone is
the judge of her condition, and a child would have no father if any
man might usurp a father's rights.
Thus the different constitution of the two sexes leads us to a
third conclusion, that the stronger party seems to be master, but is
as a matter of fact dependent on the weaker, and that, not by any
foolish custom of gallantry, nor yet by the magnanimity of the
protector, but by an inexorable law of nature. For nature has endowed
woman with a power of stimulating man's passions in excess of man's
power of satisfying those passions, and has thus made him dependent on
her goodwill, and compelled him in his turn to endeavour to please
her, so that she may be willing to yield to his superior strength. Is
it weakness which yields to force, or is it voluntary self-surrender?
This uncertainty constitutes the chief charm of the man's victory,
and the woman is usually cunning enough to leave him in doubt. In
this respect the woman's mind exactly resembles her body; far from
being ashamed of her weakness, she is proud of it; her soft muscles
offer no resistance, she professes that she cannot lift the lightest
weight; she would be ashamed to be strong. And why? Not only to gain
an appearance of refinement; she is too clever for that; she is
providing herself beforehand with excuses, with the right to be weak
if she chooses.
The experience we have gained through our vices has considerably
modified the views held in older times; we rarely hear of violence
for which there is so little occasion that it would hardly be
credited, Yet such stories are common enough among the Jews and
ancient Greeks; for such views belong to the simplicity of nature,
and have only been uprooted by our profligacy. If fewer deeds of
violence are quoted in our days, it is not that men are more
temperate, but because they are less credulous, and a complaint which
would have been believed among a simple people would only excite
laughter among ourselves; therefore silence is the better course.
There is a law in Deuteronomy, under which the outraged maiden was
punished, along with her assailant, if the crime were committed in a
town; but if in the country or in a lonely place, the latter alone was
punished. "For," says the law, "the maiden cried for help, and there
was none to hear." From this merciful interpretation of the law, girls
learnt not to let themselves be surprised in lonely places.
This change in public opinion has had a perceptible effect on our
morals. It has produced our modern gallantry. Men have found that
their pleasures depend, more than they expected, on the goodwill of
the fair sex, and have secured this goodwill by attentions which have
had their reward.
See how we find ourselves led unconsciously from the physical to
the moral constitution, how from the grosser union of the sexes
spring the sweet laws of love. Woman reigns, not by the will of man,
but by the decrees of nature herself; she had the power long before
she showed it. That same Hercules who proposed to violate all the
fifty daughters of Thespis was compelled to spin at the feet of
Omphale, and Samson, the strong man, was less strong than Delilah.
This power cannot be taken from woman; it is hers by right; she would
have lost it long ago, were it possible.
The consequences of sex are wholly unlike for man and woman. The
male is only a male now and again, the female is always a female, or
at least all her youth; everything reminds her of her sex; the
performance of her functions requires a special constitution. She
needs care during pregnancy and freedom from work when her child is
born; she must have a quiet, easy life while she nurses her children;
their education calls for patience and gentleness, for a zeal and love
which nothing can dismay; she forms a bond between father and child,
she alone can win the father's love for his children and convince him
that they are indeed his own. What loving care is required to preserve
a united family! And there should be no question of virtue in all
this, it must be a labour of love, without which the human race would
be doomed to extinction.
The mutual duties of the two sexes are not, and cannot be, equally
binding on both. Women do wrong to complain of the inequality of
man-made laws; this inequality is not of man's making, or at any rate
it is not the result of mere prejudice, but of reason. She to whom
nature has entrusted the care of the children must hold herself
responsible for them to their father. No doubt every breach of faith
is wrong, and every faithless husband, who robs his wife of the sole
reward of the stern duties of her sex, is cruel and unjust; but the
faithless wife is worse; she destroys the family and breaks the bonds
of nature; when she gives her husband children who are not his own,
she is false both to him and them, her crime is not infidelity but
treason. To my mind, it is the source of dissension and of crime of
every kind. Can any position be more wretched than that of the unhappy
father who, when he clasps his child to his breast, is haunted by the
suspicion that this is the child of another, the badge of his own
dishonour, a thief who is robbing his own children of their
inheritance. Under such circumstances the family is little more than a
group of secret enemies, armed against each other by a guilty woman,
who compels them to pretend to love one another.
Thus it is not enough that a wife should be faithful; her husband,
along with his friends and neighbours, must believe in her fidelity;
she must be modest, devoted, retiring; she should have the witness
not only of a good conscience, but of a good reputation. In a word,
if a father must love his children, he must be able to respect their
mother. For these reasons it is not enough that the woman should be
chaste, she must preserve her reputation and her good name. From these
principles there arises not only a moral difference between the sexes,
but also a fresh motive for duty and propriety, which prescribes to
women in particular the most scrupulous attention to their conduct,
their manners, their behaviour. Vague assertions as to the equality of
the sexes and the similarity of their duties are only empty words;
they are no answer to my argument.
It is a poor sort of logic to quote isolated exceptions against
laws so firmly established. Women, you say, are not always bearing
children. Granted; yet that is their proper business. Because there
are a hundred or so of large towns in the world where women live
licentiously and have few children, will you maintain that it is
their business to have few children? And what would become of your
towns if the remote country districts, with their simpler and purer
women, did not make up for the barrenness of your fine ladies? There
are plenty of country places where women with only four or five
children are reckoned unfruitful. In conclusion, although here and
there a woman may have few children, what difference does it make?
[Footnote: Without this the race would necessarily diminish; all
things considered, for its preservation each woman ought to have about
four children, for about half the children born die before they can
become parents, and two must survive to replace the father and mother.
See whether the towns will supply them?] Is it any the less a woman's |