Discourse on the Sciences and Arts

Rousseau's Discourse is short, and is told here in one episode, nearly whole, with its Preface and its two Parts; some examples and Rousseau's footnotes are shortened. The English is my own, made from the French.

Which won the prize of the Academy of Dijon in the year 1750, on this question proposed by the Academy: Whether the restoration of the sciences and arts has contributed to the purification of morals. By a Citizen of Geneva.

Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor illis. Here I am the barbarian, because they do not understand me. — Ovid

Preface

Here is one of the grandest and finest questions ever raised. It is not a matter, in this Discourse, of those metaphysical subtleties that have gained ground in every branch of letters, and from which the programmes of academies are not always free; it is a matter of one of those truths that concern the happiness of the human race.

I foresee that I shall not easily be forgiven for the side I have dared to take. Openly attacking everything that men admire today, I can expect only universal blame; and it is not for having been honoured with the approval of a few wise men that I should count on that of the public. So my side is taken: I do not care to please the wits or the fashionable. There will always be men born to be subjugated by the opinions of their age, their country, their society. Such a man plays the free-thinker and the philosopher today who, for the same reason, would have been only a fanatic in the time of the League. One must not write for such readers, when one wishes to live beyond one's own century.

One word more, and I am done. Little expecting the honour I received, I had, since sending in this Discourse, recast and enlarged it, to the point of making in some sense another work; I have thought myself obliged today to restore it to the state in which it was crowned. I have only added some notes, and left two additions easily recognised, of which the Academy might perhaps not have approved.

Introduction

Has the restoration of the sciences and arts contributed to the purification of morals, or to their corruption? That is what is to be examined. Which side should I take in this question? The one, gentlemen, that befits an honest man who knows nothing, and who does not on that account think less of himself.

It will be hard, I feel, to adapt what I have to say to the tribunal before which I appear. How can one dare to blame the sciences before one of the most learned companies of Europe, praise ignorance in a famous Academy, and reconcile contempt for study with respect for the truly learned? I have seen these contradictions, and they have not daunted me. It is not science that I attack, I said to myself; it is virtue that I defend before virtuous men. Probity is dearer to good men than learning to the learned. What, then, have I to fear? The enlightenment of the assembly that listens to me? I admit it; but that is for the construction of the discourse, not for the feeling of the speaker. Equitable sovereigns have never hesitated to pass judgement against themselves in doubtful disputes; and the most favourable position for a just cause is to have to defend itself against an upright and enlightened party who is judge in his own case.

To this motive, which encourages me, is joined another which decides me: that, having maintained, according to my natural light, the side of truth, whatever my success, there is a prize which cannot fail me; I shall find it in the bottom of my heart.

First Part

It is a great and beautiful spectacle to see man emerge, as it were, out of nothing by his own efforts; dissipate by the light of his reason the darkness in which nature had wrapped him; rise above himself; soar by the mind into the celestial regions; traverse with giant steps, like the sun, the vast extent of the universe; and, what is still greater and more difficult, return into himself to study man and know his nature, his duties and his end. All these marvels have been renewed in the last few generations.

Europe had fallen back into the barbarism of the first ages. The peoples of that part of the world, which today is so enlightened, lived some centuries ago in a state worse than ignorance. A scientific jargon, still more contemptible than ignorance, had usurped the name of knowledge, and opposed an almost invincible obstacle to its return. A revolution was needed to bring men back to common sense; and it came at last from the least expected quarter. It was the stupid Muslim, the eternal scourge of letters, who caused them to be reborn among us. The fall of the throne of Constantine brought into Italy the debris of ancient Greece. France, in turn, was enriched by these precious spoils. Soon the sciences followed letters; to the art of writing was joined the art of thinking — a sequence that may seem strange, but is perhaps only too natural; and men began to feel the chief advantage of commerce with the Muses, that of making men more sociable by inspiring in them the desire to please one another with works worthy of their mutual approval.

The mind has its needs, as has the body. The needs of the body are the foundations of society; those of the mind are its ornaments. While government and laws provide for the security and well-being of men assembled, the sciences, letters and arts — less despotic and perhaps more powerful — spread garlands of flowers over the iron chains with which they are laden, stifle in them the feeling of that original liberty for which they seemed to be born, make them love their slavery, and form what are called civilised peoples. Need raised up thrones; the sciences and arts have made them firm. Powers of the earth, love talents and protect those who cultivate them! Civilised peoples, cultivate them! Happy slaves, you owe them that delicate and refined taste on which you pride yourselves; that sweetness of character and that urbanity of manners which make intercourse among you so easy; in a word, the appearances of all the virtues, without having any.

Before art had fashioned our manners, and taught our passions to speak an affected language, our customs were rustic, but natural; and differences of conduct announced at first glance those of character. Human nature, at bottom, was no better; but men found their security in the ease with which they saw through one another; and that advantage, whose value we no longer feel, spared them many vices.

Today, when more subtle researches and a more refined taste have reduced the art of pleasing to principles, there reigns in our manners a vile and deceitful uniformity, and all minds seem to have been cast in the same mould. Politeness unceasingly requires, propriety commands; unceasingly one follows custom, never one's own genius. One no longer dares to appear as one is; and in this perpetual constraint, the men who form the herd we call society, placed in the same circumstances, will all do the same things, unless stronger motives draw them away. One will never know, then, with whom one has to deal: it will be necessary, to know one's friend, to wait for great occasions — that is, to wait until it is too late, since it is for those very occasions that it would have been essential to know him.

What a train of vices must accompany this uncertainty! No more sincere friendships; no more real esteem; no more well-founded confidence. Suspicions, offences, fears, coldness, reserve, hatred, betrayal will hide constantly under that uniform and perfidious veil of politeness, under that much-vaunted urbanity which we owe to the enlightenment of our century. No one will profane any longer with oaths the name of the Master of the Universe, but it will be insulted with blasphemies without our scrupulous ears being offended. No one will boast of his own merit, but will disparage that of others. No one will grossly insult his enemy, but will slander him with skill. National hatreds will die out, but so will love of country. For scorned ignorance will be substituted a dangerous Pyrrhonism. Such is the purity our morals have acquired. Thus have we become good men.

It is for letters, the sciences and the arts to claim what belongs to them in so salutary a work. I will add only one reflection: an inhabitant of some distant land, who wished to form an idea of European morals from the state of the sciences among us, the perfection of our arts, the decency of our theatres, the polished character of our manners, the affability of our speech, our perpetual demonstrations of goodwill, and that tumultuous competition of men of every age and condition who seem, from morning to night, eager to oblige one another — that foreigner, I say, would guess our morals to be exactly the opposite of what they are.

Where there is no effect, there is no cause to seek. But here the effect is certain, the depravation real; and our souls have been corrupted in proportion as our sciences and arts have advanced towards perfection. Will it be said that this is a misfortune peculiar to our age? No, gentlemen: the evils caused by our vain curiosity are as old as the world. The daily rise and fall of the ocean's waters are not more regularly subject to the course of the star that lights us by night, than the fate of morals and probity to the progress of the sciences and arts. Virtue has been seen to flee in proportion as their light rose over our horizon; and the same phenomenon has been observed in all times and all places.

See Egypt, that first school of the universe, that fertile climate under a brazen sky, that famous land from which Sesostris once set out to conquer the world. She became the mother of philosophy and the fine arts — and soon after, the conquest of Cambyses, then of the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, and finally the Turks.