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
........Continua
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