Jean Jacques Rousseau was born at Geneva, June 28, 1712, the
son of a watchmaker of French origin. His education was irregular,
and though he tried many professions—including engraving, music,
and teaching—he found it difficult to support himself in any of
them. The discovery of his talent as a writer came with the winning
of a prize offered by the Academy of Dijon for a discourse on the
question, "Whether the progress of the sciences and of letters has
tended to corrupt or to elevate morals." He argued so brilliantly
that the tendency of civilization was degrading that he became at
once famous. The discourse here printed on the causes of inequality
among men was written in a similar competition.
He now concentrated his powers upon literature, producing two
novels, "La Nouvelle Heloise," the forerunner and parent of endless
sentimental and picturesque fictions; and "Emile, ou l'Education,"
a work which has had enormous influence on the theory and practise
of pedagogy down to our own time and in which the Savoyard Vicar
appears, who is used as the mouthpiece for Rousseau's own religious
ideas. "Le Contrat Social" (1762) elaborated the doctrine of the
discourse on inequality. Both historically and philosophically it
is unsound; but it was the chief literary source of the enthusiasm
for liberty, fraternity, and equality, which inspired the leaders
of the French Revolution, and its effects passed far beyond
France.
His most famous work, the "Confessions," was published after
his death. This book is a mine of information as to his life, but
it is far from trustworthy; and the picture it gives of the
author's personality and conduct, though painted in such a way as
to make it absorbingly interesting, is often unpleasing in the
highest degree. But it is one of the great autobiographies of the
world.
During Rousseau's later years he was the victim of the
delusion of persecution; and although he was protected by a
succession of good friends, he came to distrust and quarrel with
each in turn. He died at Ermenonville, near Paris, July 2, 1778,
the most widely influential French writer of his age.
The Savoyard Vicar and his "Profession of Faith" are
introduced into "Emile" not, according to the author, because he
wishes to exhibit his principles as those which should be taught,
but to give an example of the way in which religious matters should
be discussed with the young. Nevertheless, it is universally
recognized that these opinions are Rousseau's own, and represent in
short form his characteristic attitude toward religious belief. The
Vicar himself is believed to combine the traits of two Savoyard
priests whom Rousseau knew in his youth. The more important was the
Abbe Gaime, whom he had known at Turin; the other, the Abbe Gatier,
who had taught him at Annecy.
QUESTION PROPOSED BY THE ACADEMY OF
DIJON
What is the Origin of the Inequality among Mankind; and
whether such
Inequality is authorized by the Law of Nature?
A DISCOURSE UPON THE ORIGIN AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE
INEQUALITY AMONG MANKIND
'Tis of man I am to speak; and the very question, in answer
to which I am to speak of him, sufficiently informs me that I am
going to speak to men; for to those alone, who are not afraid of
honouring truth, it belongs to propose discussions of this kind. I
shall therefore maintain with confidence the cause of mankind
before the sages, who invite me to stand up in its defence; and I
shall think myself happy, if I can but behave in a manner not
unworthy of my subject and of my judges.
I conceive two species of inequality among men; one which I
call natural, or physical inequality, because it is established by
nature, and consists in the difference of age, health, bodily
strength, and the qualities of the mind, or of the soul; the other
which may be termed moral, or political inequality, because it
depends on a kind of convention, and is established, or at least
authorized, by the common consent of mankind. This species of
inequality consists in the different privileges, which some men
enjoy, to the prejudice of others, such as that of being richer,
more honoured, more powerful, and even that of exacting obedience
from them.
It were absurd to ask, what is the cause of natural
inequality, seeing the bare definition of natural inequality
answers the question: it would be more absurd still to enquire, if
there might not be some essential connection between the two
species of inequality, as it would be asking, in other words, if
those who command are necessarily better men than those who obey;
and if strength of body or of mind, wisdom or virtue are always to
be found in individuals, in the same proportion with power, or
riches: a question, fit perhaps to be discussed by slaves in the
hearing of their masters, but unbecoming free and reasonable beings
in quest of truth.
What therefore is precisely the subject of this discourse? It
is to point out, in the progress of things, that moment, when,
right taking place of violence, nature became subject to law; to
display that chain of surprising events, in consequence of which
the strong submitted to serve the weak, and the people to purchase
imaginary ease, at the expense of real happiness.
The philosophers, who have examined the foundations of
society, have, every one of them, perceived the necessity of
tracing it back to a state of nature, but not one of them has ever
arrived there. Some of them have not scrupled to attribute to man
in that state the ideas of justice and injustice, without troubling
their heads to prove, that he really must have had such ideas, or
even that such ideas were useful to him: others have spoken of the
natural right of every man to keep what belongs to him, without
letting us know what they meant by the word belong; others, without
further ceremony ascribing to the strongest an authority over the
weakest, have immediately struck out government, without thinking
of the time requisite for men to form any notion of the things
signified by the words authority and government. All of them, in
fine, constantly harping on wants, avidity, oppression, desires and
pride, have transferred to the state of nature ideas picked up in
the bosom of society. In speaking of savages they described
citizens. Nay, few of our own writers seem to have so much as
doubted, that a state of nature did once actually exit; though it
plainly appears by Sacred History, that even the first man,
immediately furnished as he was by God himself with both
instructions and precepts, never lived in that state, and that, if
we give to the books of Moses that credit which every Christian
philosopher ought to give to them, we must deny that, even before
the deluge, such a state ever existed among men, unless they fell
into it by some extraordinary event: a paradox very difficult to
maintain, and altogether impossible to prove.
Let us begin therefore, by laying aside facts, for they do
not affect the question. The researches, in which we may engage on
this occasion, are not to be taken for historical truths, but
merely as hypothetical and conditional reasonings, fitter to
illustrate the nature of things, than to show their true origin,
like those systems, which our naturalists daily make of the
formation of the world. Religion commands us to believe, that men,
having been drawn by God himself out of a state of nature, are
unequal, because it is his pleasure they should be so; but religion
does not forbid us to draw conjectures solely from the nature of
man, considered in itself, and from that of the beings which
surround him, concerning the fate of mankind, had they been left to
themselves. This is then the question I am to answer, the question
I propose to examine in the present discourse. As mankind in
general have an interest in my subject, I shall endeavour to use a
language suitable to all nations; or rather, forgetting the
circumstances of time and place in order to think of nothing but
the men I speak to, I shall suppose myself in the Lyceum of Athens,
repeating the lessons of my masters before the Platos and the
Xenocrates of that famous seat of philosophy as my judges, and in
presence of the whole human species as my audience.
O man, whatever country you may belong to, whatever your
opinions may be, attend to my words; you shall hear your history
such as I think I have read it, not in books composed by those like
you, for they are liars, but in the book of nature which never
lies. All that I shall repeat after her, must be true, without any
intermixture of falsehood, but where I may happen, without
intending it, to introduce my own conceits. The times I am going to
speak of are very remote. How much you are changed from what you
once were! 'Tis in a manner the life of your species that I am
going to write, from the qualities which you have received, and
which your education and your habits could deprave, but could not
destroy. There is, I am sensible, an age at which every individual
of you would choose to stop; and you will look out for the age at
which, had you your wish, your species had stopped. Uneasy at your
present condition for reasons which threaten your unhappy posterity
with still greater uneasiness, you will perhaps wish it were in
your power to go back; and this sentiment ought to be considered,
as the panegyric of your first parents, the condemnation of your
contemporaries, and a source of terror to all those who may have
the misfortune of succeeding you.
