prejudice, if you share it yourself? If, for instance, they see you
show more politeness in a jeweller's shop than in a locksmith's.
What idea will they form of the true worth of the arts and the real
value of things when they see, on the one hand, a fancy price and,
on the other, the price of real utility, and that the more a thing
costs the less it is worth? As soon as you let them get hold of
these ideas, you may give up all attempt at further education; in
spite of you they will be like all the other scholars--you have
wasted fourteen years.
Emile, bent on furnishing his island, will look at things from another
point of view. Robinson would have thought more of a toolmaker's
shop than all Saide's trifles put together. He would have reckoned
the toolmaker a very worthy man, and Saide little more than a
charlatan.
"My son will have to take the world as he finds it, he will not
live among the wise but among fools; he must therefore be acquainted
with their follies, since they must be led by this means. A real
knowledge of things may be a good thing in itself, but the knowledge
of men and their opinions is better, for in human society man is
the chief tool of man, and the wisest man is he who best knows the
use of this tool. What is the good of teaching children an imaginary
system, just the opposite of the established order of things, among
which they will have to live? First teach them wisdom, then show
them the follies of mankind."
These are the specious maxims by which fathers, who mistake them for
prudence, strive to make their children the slaves of the prejudices
in which they are educated, and the puppets of the senseless crowd,
which they hope to make subservient to their passions. How much
must be known before we attain to a knowledge of man. This is the
final study of the philosopher, and you expect to make it the first
lesson of the child! Before teaching him our sentiments, first
teach him to judge of their worth. Do you perceive folly when you
mistake it for wisdom? To be wise we must discern between good and
evil. How can your child know men, when he can neither judge of
their judgments nor unravel their mistakes? It is a misfortune to
know what they think, without knowing whether their thoughts are
true or false. First teach him things as they really are, afterwards
you will teach him how they appear to us. He will then be able to
make a comparison between popular ideas and truth, and be able to
rise above the vulgar crowd; for you are unaware of the prejudices
you adopt, and you do not lead a nation when you are like it. But
if you begin to teach the opinions of other people before you teach
how to judge of their worth, of one thing you may be sure, your
pupil will adopt those opinions whatever you may do, and you will
not succeed in uprooting them. I am therefore convinced that to
make a young man judge rightly, you must form his judgment rather
than teach him your own.
So far you see I have not spoken to my pupil about men; he would
have too much sense to listen to me. His relations to other people
are as yet not sufficiently apparent to him to enable him to judge
others by himself. The only person he knows is himself, and his
knowledge of himself is very imperfect. But if he forms few opinions
about others, those opinions are correct. He knows nothing of
another's place, but he knows his own and keeps to it. I have bound
him with the strong cord of necessity, instead of social laws, which
are beyond his knowledge. He is still little more than a body; let
us treat him as such.
Every substance in nature and every work of man must be judged
in relation to his own use, his own safety, his own preservation,
his own comfort. Thus he should value iron far more than gold, and
glass than diamonds; in the same way he has far more respect for a
shoemaker or a mason than for a Lempereur, a Le Blanc, or all the
jewellers in Europe. In his eyes a confectioner is a really great
man, and he would give the whole academy of sciences for the smallest
pastrycook in Lombard Street. Goldsmiths, engravers, gilders, and
embroiderers, he considers lazy people, who play at quite useless
games. He does not even think much of a clockmaker. The happy
child enjoys Time without being a slave to it; he uses it, but he
does not know its value. The freedom from passion which makes every
day alike to him, makes any means of measuring time unnecessary.
When I assumed that Emile had a watch, [Footnote: When our hearts
are abandoned to the sway of passion, then it is that we need
a measure of time. The wise man's watch is his equable temper and
his peaceful heart. He is always punctual, and he always knows the
time.] just as I assumed that he cried, it was a commonplace Emile
that I chose to serve my purpose and make myself understood. The
real Emile, a child so different from the rest, would not serve as
an illustration for anything.
There is an order no less natural and even more accurate, by which
the arts are valued according to bonds of necessity which connect
them; the highest class consists of the most independent, the
lowest of those most dependent on others. This classification,
which suggests important considerations on the order of society in
general, is like the preceding one in that it is subject to the same
inversion in popular estimation, so that the use of raw material
is the work of the lowest and worst paid trades, while the oftener
the material changes hands, the more the work rises in price and
in honour. I do not ask whether industry is really greater and more
deserving of reward when engaged in the delicate arts which give
the final shape to these materials, than in the labour which first
gave them to man's use; but this I say, that in everything the
art which is most generally useful and necessary, is undoubtedly
that which most deserves esteem, and that art which requires the
least help from others, is more worthy of honour than those which
are dependent on other arts, since it is freer and more nearly
independent. These are the true laws of value in the arts; all
others are arbitrary and dependent on popular prejudice.
Agriculture is the earliest and most honourable of arts; metal work
I put next, then carpentry, and so on. This is the order in which
the child will put them, if he has not been spoilt by vulgar
prejudices. What valuable considerations Emile will derive from
his Robinson in such matters. What will he think when he sees the
arts only brought to perfection by sub-division, by the infinite
multiplication of tools. He will say, "All those people are as
silly as they are ingenious; one would think they were afraid to
use their eyes and their hands, they invent so many tools instead.
To carry on one trade they become the slaves of many others; every
single workman needs a whole town. My friend and I try to gain
skill; we only make tools we can take about with us; these people,
who are so proud of their talents in Paris, would be no use at all
on our island; they would have to become apprentices."
Reader, do not stay to watch the bodily exercises and manual skill
of our pupil, but consider the bent we are giving to his childish
curiosity; consider his common-sense, his inventive spirit, his
foresight; consider what a head he will have on his shoulders. He
will want to know all about everything he sees or does, to learn
the why and the wherefore of it; from tool to tool he will go back
to the first beginning, taking nothing for granted; he will decline
to learn anything that requires previous knowledge which he has not
acquired. If he sees a spring made he will want to know how they
got the steel from the mine; if he sees the pieces of a chest put
together, he will want to know how the tree was out down; when at
work he will say of each tool, "If I had not got this, how could
I make one like it, or how could I get along without it?"
It is, however, difficult to avoid another error. When the master
is very fond of certain occupations, he is apt to assume that
the child shares his tastes; beware lest you are carried away by
the interest of your work, while the child is bored by it, but is
afraid to show it. The child must come first, and you must devote
yourself entirely to him. Watch him, study him constantly, without
his knowing it; consider his feelings beforehand, and provide against
those which are undesirable, keep him occupied in such a way that
he not only feels the usefulness of the thing, but takes a pleasure
in understanding the purpose which his work will serve.
The solidarity of the arts consists in the exchange of industry,
that of commerce in the exchange of commodities, that of banks in
the exchange of money or securities. All these ideas hang together,
and their foundation has already been laid in early childhood
with the help of Robert the gardener. All we have now to do is to
substitute general ideas for particular, and to enlarge these ideas
by means of numerous examples, so as to make the child understand
the game of business itself, brought home to him by means of
particular instances of natural history with regard to the special
products of each country, by particular instances of the arts and
sciences which concern navigation and the difficulties of transport,
greater or less in proportion to the distance between places, the
position of land, seas, rivers, etc.
There can be no society without exchange, no exchange without a
common standard of measurement, no common standard of measurement
without equality. Hence the first law of every society is some
conventional equality either in men or things.
Conventional equality between men, a very different thing from
natural equality, leads to the necessity for positive law, i.e.,
government and kings. A child's political knowledge should be clear
and restricted; he should know nothing of government in general,
beyond what concerns the rights of property, of which he has already
some idea.
Conventional equality between things has led to the invention of
money, for money is only one term in a comparison between the values
of different sorts of things; and in this sense money is the real
bond of society; but anything may be money; in former days it was
cattle; shells are used among many tribes at the present day; Sparta
used iron; Sweden, leather; while we use gold and silver.
Metals, being easier to carry, have generally been chosen as the
middle term of every exchange, and these metals have been made into
coin to save the trouble of continual weighing and measuring, for
the stamp on the coin is merely evidence that the coin is of given
weight; and the sole right of coining money is vested in the ruler
because he alone has the right to demand the recognition of his
authority by the whole nation.
The stupidest person can perceive the use of money when it is
explained in this way. It is difficult to make a direct comparison
between various things, for instance, between cloth and corn;
but when we find a common measure, in money, it is easy for the
manufacturer and the farmer to estimate the value of the goods
they wish to exchange in terms of this common measure. If a given
quantity of cloth is worth a given some of money, and a given
quantity of corn is worth the same sum of money, then the seller,
receiving the corn in exchange for his cloth, makes a fair bargain.
Thus by means of money it becomes possible to compare the values
of goods of various kinds.
Be content with this, and do not touch upon the moral effects of
this institution. In everything you must show clearly the use before
the abuse. If you attempt to teach children how the sign has led
to the neglect of the thing signified, how money is the source of
all the false ideas of society, how countries rich in silver must
be poor in everything else, you will be treating these children
as philosophers, and not only as philosophers but as wise men, for
you are professing to teach them what very few philosophers have
grasped.
What a wealth of interesting objects, towards which the curiosity
of our pupil may be directed without ever quitting the real
and material relations he can understand, and without permitting
the formation of a single idea beyond his grasp! The teacher's
art consists in this: To turn the child's attention from trivial
details and to guide his thoughts continually towards relations of
importance which he will one day need to know, that he may judge
rightly of good and evil in human society. The teacher must be
able to adapt the conversation with which he amuses his pupil to
the turn already given to his mind. A problem which another child
would never heed will torment Emile half a year.
We are going to dine with wealthy people; when we get there
everything is ready for a feast, many guests, many servants, many
dishes, dainty and elegant china. There is something intoxicating
in all these preparations for pleasure and festivity when you are
not used to them. I see how they will affect my young pupil. While
dinner is going on, while course follows course, and conversation
is loud around us, I whisper in his ear, "How many hands do you
suppose the things on this table passed through before they got
here?" What a crowd of ideas is called up by these few words. In
a moment the mists of excitement have rolled away. He is thinking,
considering, calculating, and anxious. The child is philosophising,
while philosophers, excited by wine or perhaps by female society,
are babbling like children. If he asks questions I decline to answer
and put him off to another day. He becomes impatient, he forgets
to eat and drink, he longs to get away from table and talk as he
pleases. What an object of curiosity, what a text for instruction.
Nothing has so far succeeded in corrupting his healthy reason;
what will he think of luxury when he finds that every quarter of
the globe has been ransacked, that some 2,000,000 men have laboured
for years, that many lives have perhaps been sacrificed, and all
to furnish him with fine clothes to be worn at midday and laid by
in the wardrobe at night.
Be sure you observe what private conclusions he draws from all his
observations. If you have watched him less carefully than I suppose,
his thoughts may be tempted in another direction; he may consider
himself a person of great importance in the world, when he sees so
much labour concentrated on the preparation of his dinner. If you
suspect his thoughts will take this direction you can easily prevent
it, or at any rate promptly efface the false impression. As yet
he can only appropriate things by personal enjoyment, he can only
judge of their fitness or unfitness by their outward effects.
Compare a plain rustic meal, preceded by exercise, seasoned by
hunger, freedom, and delight, with this magnificent but tedious
repast. This will suffice to make him realise that he has got no
real advantage from the splendour of the feast, that his stomach
was as well satisfied when he left the table of the peasant, as
when he left the table of the banker; from neither had he gained
anything he could really call his own.
Just fancy what a tutor might say to him on such an occasion.
Consider the two dinners and decide for yourself which gave you
most pleasure, which seemed the merriest, at which did you eat
and drink most heartily, which was the least tedious and required
least change of courses? Yet note the difference--this black bread
you so enjoy is made from the peasant's own harvest; his wine is
dark in colour and of a common kind, but wholesome and refreshing;
it was made in his own vineyard; the cloth is made of his own
hemp, spun and woven in the winter by his wife and daughters and
the maid; no hands but theirs have touched the food. His world is
bounded by the nearest mill and the next market. How far did you
enjoy all that the produce of distant lands and the service of
many people had prepared for you at the other dinner? If you did
not get a better meal, what good did this wealth do you? how much
of it was made for you? Had you been the master of the house, the
tutor might say, it would have been of still less use to you; for
the anxiety of displaying your enjoyment before the eyes of others
would have robbed you of it; the pains would be yours, the pleasure
theirs.
This may be a very fine speech, but it would be thrown away upon
Emile, as he cannot understand it, and he does not accept second-hand
opinions. Speak more simply to him. After these two experiences,
say to him some day, "Where shall we have our dinner to-day? Where
that mountain of silver covered three quarters of the table and
those beds of artificial flowers on looking glass were served with
the dessert, where those smart ladies treated you as a toy and
pretended you said what you did not mean; or in that village two
leagues away, with those good people who were so pleased to see
us and gave us such delicious cream?" Emile will not hesitate; he
is not vain and he is no chatterbox; he cannot endure constraint,
and he does not care for fine dishes; but he is always ready for a
run in the country and is very fond of good fruit and vegetables,
sweet cream and kindly people. [Footnote: This taste, which I assume
my pupil to have acquired, is a natural result of his education.
Moreover, he has nothing foppish or affected about him, so that the
ladies take little notice of him and he is less petted than other
children; therefore he does not care for them, and is less spoilt
by their company; he is not yet of an age to feel its charm. I
have taken care not to teach him to kiss their hands, to pay them
compliments, or even to be more polite to them than to men. It is
my constant rule to ask nothing from him but what he can understand,
and there is no good reason why a child should treat one sex
differently from the other.] On our way, the thought will occur
to him, "All those people who laboured to prepare that grand feast
were either wasting their time or they have no idea how to enjoy
themselves."
My example may be right for one child and wrong for the rest. If
you enter into their way of looking at things you will know how to
vary your instances as required; the choice depends on the study
of the individual temperament, and this study in turn depends on
the opportunities which occur to show this temperament. You will
not suppose that, in the three or four years at our disposal, even
the most gifted child can get an idea of all the arts and sciences,
sufficient to enable him to study them for himself when he is
older; but by bringing before him what he needs to know, we enable
him to develop his own tastes, his own talents, to take the first
step towards the object which appeals to his individuality and to
show us the road we must open up to aid the work of nature.
There is another advantage of these trains of limited but exact
bits of knowledge; he learns by their connection and interdependence
how to rank them in his own estimation and to be on his guard
against those prejudices, common to most men, which draw them towards
the gifts they themselves cultivate and away from those they have
neglected. The man who clearly sees the whole, sees where each part
should be; the man who sees one part clearly and knows it thoroughly
may be a learned man, but the former is a wise man, and you remember
it is wisdom rather than knowledge that we hope to acquire.
However that may be, my method does not depend on my examples; it
depends on the amount of a man's powers at different ages, and the
choice of occupations adapted to those powers. I think it would be
easy to find a method which appeared to give better results, but
if it were less suited to the type, sex, and age of the scholar,
I doubt whether the results would really be as good.
At the beginning of this second period we took advantage of the fact
that our strength was more than enough for our needs, to enable us
to get outside ourselves. We have ranged the heavens and measured
the earth; we have sought out the laws of nature; we have explored
the whole of our island. Now let us return to ourselves, let us
unconsciously approach our own dwelling. We are happy indeed if we
do not find it already occupied by the dreaded foe, who is preparing
to seize it.
What remains to be done when we have observed all that lies around
us? We must turn to our own use all that we can get, we must increase
our comfort by means of our curiosity. Hitherto we have provided
ourselves with tools of all kinds, not knowing which we require.
Perhaps those we do not want will be useful to others, and perhaps
we may need theirs. Thus we discover the use of exchange; but for
this we must know each other's needs, what tools other people use,
what they can offer in exchange. Given ten men, each of them has
ten different requirements. To get what he needs for himself each
must work at ten different trades; but considering our different
talents, one will do better at this trade, another at that. Each
of them, fitted for one thing, will work at all, and will be badly
served. Let us form these ten men into a society, and let each
devote himself to the trade for which he is best adapted, and let
him work at it for himself and for the rest. Each will reap the
advantage of the others' talents, just as if they were his own; by
practice each will perfect his own talent, and thus all the ten,
well provided for, will still have something to spare for others.
This is the plain foundation of all our institutions. It is not
my aim to examine its results here; I have done so in another book
(Discours sur l'inegalite).
According to this principle, any one who wanted to consider himself as
an isolated individual, self-sufficing and independent of others,
could only be utterly wretched. He could not even continue to
exist, for finding the whole earth appropriated by others while he
had only himself, how could he get the means of subsistence? When
we leave the state of nature we compel others to do the same; no one
can remain in a state of nature in spite of his fellow-creatures,
and to try to remain in it when it is no longer practicable, would
really be to leave it, for self-preservation is nature's first law.
Thus the idea of social relations is gradually developed in the
child's mind, before he can really be an active member of human
society. Emile sees that to get tools for his own use, other people
must have theirs, and that he can get in exchange what he needs and
they possess. I easily bring him to feel the need of such exchange
and to take advantage of it.
"Sir, I must live," said a miserable writer of lampoons to the
minister who reproved him for his infamous trade. "I do not see the
necessity," replied the great man coldly. This answer, excellent
from the minister, would have been barbarous and untrue in any
other mouth. Every man must live; this argument, which appeals to
every one with more or less force in proportion to his humanity,
strikes me as unanswerable when applied to oneself. Since our dislike
of death is the strongest of those aversions nature has implanted
in us, it follows that everything is permissible to the man who has
no other means of living. The principles, which teach the good man
to count his life a little thing and to sacrifice it at duty's
call, are far removed from this primitive simplicity. Happy
are those nations where one can be good without effort, and just
without conscious virtue. If in this world there is any condition
so miserable that one cannot live without wrong-doing, where the
citizen is driven into evil, you should hang, not the criminal,
but those who drove him into crime.
As soon as Emile knows what life is, my first care will be to
teach him to preserve his life. Hitherto I have made no distinction
of condition, rank, station, or fortune; nor shall I distinguish
between them in the future, since man is the same in every station;
the rich man's stomach is no bigger than the poor man's, nor is
his digestion any better; the master's arm is neither longer nor
stronger than the slave's; a great man is no taller than one of
the people, and indeed the natural needs are the same to all, and
the means of satisfying them should be equally within the reach of
all. Fit a man's education to his real self, not to what is no
part of him. Do you not see that in striving to fit him merely for
one station, you are unfitting him for anything else, so that some
caprice of Fortune may make your work really harmful to him? What
could be more absurd than a nobleman in rags, who carries with him
into his poverty the prejudices of his birth? What is more despicable
than a rich man fallen into poverty, who recalls the scorn with
which he himself regarded the poor, and feels that he has sunk to
the lowest depth of degradation? The one may become a professional
thief, the other a cringing servant, with this fine saying, "I must
live."
You reckon on the present order of society, without considering
that this order is itself subject to inscrutable changes, and that
you can neither foresee nor provide against the revolution which
may affect your children. The great become small, the rich poor,
the king a commoner. Does fate strike so seldom that you can count
on immunity from her blows? The crisis is approaching, and we are
on the edge of a revolution. [Footnote: In my opinion it is impossible
that the great kingdoms of Europe should last much longer. Each of
them has had its period of splendour, after which it must inevitably
decline. I have my own opinions as to the special applications of
this general statement, but this is not the place to enter into
details, and they are only too evident to everybody.] Who can
answer for your fate? What man has made, man may destroy. Nature's
characters alone are ineffaceable, and nature makes neither the
prince, the rich man, nor the nobleman. This satrap whom you have
educated for greatness, what will become of him in his degradation?
This farmer of the taxes who can only live on gold, what will
he do in poverty? This haughty fool who cannot use his own hands,
who prides himself on what is not really his, what will he do when
he is stripped of all? In that day, happy will he be who can give
up the rank which is no longer his, and be still a man in Fate's
despite. Let men praise as they will that conquered monarch who
like a madman would be buried beneath the fragments of his throne;
I behold him with scorn; to me he is merely a crown, and when that
is gone he is nothing. But he who loses his crown and lives without
it, is more than a king; from the rank of a king, which may be held
by a coward, a villain, or madman, he rises to the rank of a man,
a position few can fill. Thus he triumphs over Fortune, he dares
to look her in the face; he depends on himself alone, and when he
has nothing left to show but himself he is not a nonentity, he is
somebody. Better a thousandfold the king of Corinth a schoolmaster
at Syracuse, than a wretched Tarquin, unable to be anything but
a king, or the heir of the ruler of three kingdoms, the sport of
all who would scorn his poverty, wandering from court to court in
search of help, and finding nothing but insults, for want of knowing
any trade but one which he can no longer practise.
The man and the citizen, whoever he may be, has no property to invest
in society but himself, all his other goods belong to society in
spite of himself, and when a man is rich, either he does not enjoy
his wealth, or the public enjoys it too; in the first case he robs
others as well as himself; in the second he gives them nothing.
Thus his debt to society is still unpaid, while he only pays with
his property. "But my father was serving society while he was
acquiring his wealth." Just so; he paid his own debt, not yours.
You owe more to others than if you had been born with nothing,
since you were born under favourable conditions. It is not fair
that what one man has done for society should pay another's debt,
for since every man owes all that he is, he can only pay his own
debt, and no father can transmit to his son any right to be of no
use to mankind. "But," you say, "this is just what he does when he
leaves me his wealth, the reward of his labour." The man who eats
in idleness what he has not himself earned, is a thief, and in
my eyes, the man who lives on an income paid him by the state for
doing nothing, differs little from a highwayman who lives on those
who travel his way. Outside the pale of society, the solitary, owing
nothing to any man, may live as he pleases, but in society either
he lives at the cost of others, or he owes them in labour the cost
of his keep; there is no exception to this rule. Man in society is
bound to work; rich or poor, weak or strong, every idler is a thief.
Now of all the pursuits by which a man may earn his living, the
nearest to a state of nature is manual labour; of all stations that
of the artisan is least dependent on Fortune. The artisan depends
on his labour alone, he is a free man while the ploughman is a
slave; for the latter depends on his field where the crops may be
destroyed by others. An enemy, a prince, a powerful neighbour, or
a law-suit may deprive him of his field; through this field he may
be harassed in all sorts of ways. But if the artisan is ill-treated
his goods are soon packed and he takes himself off. Yet agriculture
is the earliest, the most honest of trades, and more useful than
all the rest, and therefore more honourable for those who practise
it. I do not say to Emile, "Study agriculture," he is already
familiar with it. He is acquainted with every kind of rural labour,
it was his first occupation, and he returns to it continually. So
I say to him, "Cultivate your father's lands, but if you lose this
inheritance, or if you have none to lose, what will you do? Learn
a trade."
"A trade for my son! My son a working man! What are you thinking
of, sir?" Madam, my thoughts are wiser than yours; you want to make
him fit for nothing but a lord, a marquis, or a prince; and some
day he may be less than nothing. I want to give him a rank which
he cannot lose, a rank which will always do him honour; I want to
raise him to the status of a man, and, whatever you may say, he
will have fewer equals in that rank than in your own.
The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life. Learning a trade matters
less than overcoming the prejudices he despises. You will never be
reduced to earning your livelihood; so much the worse for you. No
matter; work for honour, not for need: stoop to the position of a
working man, to rise above your own. To conquer Fortune and everything
else, begin by independence. To rule through public opinion, begin
by ruling over it.
Remember I demand no talent, only a trade, a genuine trade, a mere
mechanical art, in which the hands work harder than the head, a
trade which does not lead to fortune but makes you independent of
her. In households far removed from all danger of want I have known
fathers carry prudence to such a point as to provide their children
not only with ordinary teaching but with knowledge by means of which
they could get a living if anything happened. These far-sighted
parents thought they were doing a great thing. It is nothing, for
the resources they fancy they have secured depend on that very
fortune of which they would make their children independent; so
that unless they found themselves in circumstances fitted for the
display of their talents, they would die of hunger as if they had
none.
As soon as it is a question of influence and intrigue you may as
well use these means to keep yourself in plenty, as to acquire,
in the depths of poverty, the means of returning to your former
position. If you cultivate the arts which depend on the artist's
reputation, if you fit yourself for posts which are only obtained
by favour, how will that help you when, rightly disgusted with
the world, you scorn the steps by which you must climb. You have
studied politics and state-craft, so far so good; but how will you
use this knowledge, if you cannot gain the ear of the ministers,
the favourites, or the officials? if you have not the secret of
winning their favour, if they fail to find you a rogue to their
taste? You are an architect or a painter; well and good; but your
talents must be displayed. Do you suppose you can exhibit in the
salon without further ado? That is not the way to set about it.
Lay aside the rule and the pencil, take a cab and drive from door
to door; there is the road to fame. Now you must know that the
doors of the great are guarded by porters and flunkeys, who only
understand one language, and their ears are in their palms. If
you wish to teach what you have learned, geography, mathematics,
languages, music, drawing, even to find pupils, you must have friends
who will sing your praises. Learning, remember, gains more credit
than skill, and with no trade but your own none will believe in
your skill. See how little you can depend on these fine "Resources,"
and how many other resources are required before you can use what
you have got. And what will become of you in your degradation?
Misfortune will make you worse rather than better. More than ever
the sport of public opinion, how will you rise above the prejudices
on which your fate depends? How will you despise the vices and
the baseness from which you get your living? You were dependent on
wealth, now you are dependent on the wealthy; you are still a slave
and a poor man into the bargain. Poverty without freedom, can a
man sink lower than this!
But if instead of this recondite learning adapted to feed the mind,
not the body, you have recourse, at need, to your hands and your
handiwork, there is no call for deceit, your trade is ready when
required. Honour and honesty will not stand in the way of your
living. You need no longer cringe and lie to the great, nor creep
and crawl before rogues, a despicable flatterer of both, a borrower
or a thief, for there is little to choose between them when you
are penniless. Other people's opinions are no concern of yours,
you need not pay court to any one, there is no fool to flatter,
no flunkey to bribe, no woman to win over. Let rogues conduct the
affairs of state; in your lowly rank you can still be an honest
man and yet get a living. You walk into the first workshop of your
trade. "Master, I want work." "Comrade, take your place and work."
Before dinner-time you have earned your dinner. If you are sober
and industrious, before the week is out you will have earned your
keep for another week; you will have lived in freedom, health,
truth, industry, and righteousness. Time is not wasted when it
brings these returns.
Emile shall learn a trade. "An honest trade, at least," you say.
What do you mean by honest? Is not every useful trade honest? I
would not make an embroiderer, a gilder, a polisher of him, like
Locke's young gentleman. Neither would I make him a musician, an
actor, or an author.[Footnote: You are an author yourself, you will
reply. Yes, for my sins; and my ill deeds, which I think I have
fully expiated, are no reason why others should be like me. I do not
write to excuse my faults, but to prevent my readers from copying
them.] With the exception of these and others like them, let him
choose his own trade, I do not mean to interfere with his choice.
I would rather have him a shoemaker than a poet, I would rather he
paved streets than painted flowers on china. "But," you will say,
"policemen, spies, and hangmen are useful people." There would be
no use for them if it were not for the government. But let that
pass. I was wrong. It is not enough to choose an honest trade,
it must be a trade which does not develop detestable qualities in
the mind, qualities incompatible with humanity. To return to our
original expression, "Let us choose an honest trade," but let us
remember there can be no honesty without usefulness.
A famous writer of this century, whose books are full of great
schemes and narrow views, was under a vow, like the other priests
of his communion, not to take a wife. Finding himself more scrupulous
than others with regard to his neighbour's wife, he decided, so
they say, to employ pretty servants, and so did his best to repair
the wrong done to the race by his rash promise. He thought it the
duty of a citizen to breed children for the state, and he made
his children artisans. As soon as they were old enough they were
taught whatever trade they chose; only idle or useless trades were
excluded, such as that of the wigmaker who is never necessary, and
may any day cease to be required, so long as nature does not get
tired of providing us with hair.
This spirit shall guide our choice of trade for Emile, or rather,
not our choice but his; for the maxims he has imbibed make him
despise useless things, and he will never be content to waste his
time on vain labours; his trade must be of use to Robinson on his
island.
When we review with the child the productions of art and nature,
when we stimulate his curiosity and follow its lead, we have great
opportunities of studying his tastes and inclinations, and perceiving
the first spark of genius, if he has any decided talent in any
direction. You must, however, be on your guard against the common
error which mistakes the effects of environment for the ardour of
genius, or imagines there is a decided bent towards any one of the
arts, when there is nothing more than that spirit of emulation,
common to men and monkeys, which impels them instinctively to do
what they see others doing, without knowing why. The world is full
of artisans, and still fuller of artists, who have no native gift
for their calling, into which they were driven in early childhood,
either through the conventional ideas of other people, or because
those about them were deceived by an appearance of zeal, which
would have led them to take to any other art they saw practised. One
hears a drum and fancies he is a general; another sees a building
and wants to be an architect. Every one is drawn towards the trade
he sees before him if he thinks it is held in honour.
I once knew a footman who watched his master drawing and painting
and took it into his head to become a designer and artist. He seized
a pencil which he only abandoned for a paint-brush, to which he
stuck for the rest of his days. Without teaching or rules of art
he began to draw everything he saw. Three whole years were devoted
to these daubs, from which nothing but his duties could stir him,
nor was he discouraged by the small progress resulting from his
very mediocre talents. I have seen him spend the whole of a broiling
summer in a little ante-room towards the south, a room where one
was suffocated merely passing through it; there he was, seated
or rather nailed all day to his chair, before a globe, drawing it
again and again and yet again, with invincible obstinacy till he
had reproduced the rounded surface to his own satisfaction. At last
with his master's help and under the guidance of an artist he got
so far as to abandon his livery and live by his brush. Perseverance
does instead of talent up to a certain point; he got so far,
but no further. This honest lad's perseverance and ambition are
praiseworthy; he will always be respected for his industry and
steadfastness of purpose, but his paintings will always be third-rate.
Who would not have been deceived by his zeal and taken it for real
talent! There is all the difference in the world between a liking
and an aptitude. To make sure of real genius or real taste in a child
calls for more accurate observations than is generally suspected,
for the child displays his wishes not his capacity, and we judge by
the former instead of considering the latter. I wish some trustworthy
person would give us a treatise on the art of child-study. This
art is well worth studying, but neither parents nor teachers have
mastered its elements.
Perhaps we are laying too much stress on the choice of a trade; as
it is a manual occupation, Emile's choice is no great matter, and
his apprenticeship is more than half accomplished already, through
the exercises which have hitherto occupied him. What would you have
him do? He is ready for anything. He can handle the spade and hoe,
he can use the lathe, hammer, plane, or file; he is already familiar
with these tools which are common to many trades. He only needs
to acquire sufficient skill in the use of any one of them to rival
the speed, the familiarity, and the diligence of good workmen, and
he will have a great advantage over them in suppleness of body and
limb, so that he can easily take any position and can continue any
kind of movements without effort. Moreover his senses are acute
and well-practised, he knows the principles of the various trades;
to work like a master of his craft he only needs experience, and
experience comes with practice. To which of these trades which are
open to us will he give sufficient time to make himself master of
it? That is the whole question.
Give a man a trade befitting his sex, to a young man a trade befitting
his age. Sedentary indoor employments, which make the body tender
and effeminate, are neither pleasing nor suitable. No lad ever
wanted to be a tailor. It takes some art to attract a man to this
woman's work.[Footnote: There were no tailors among the ancients;
men's clothes were made at home by the women.] The same hand cannot
hold the needle and the sword. If I were king I would only allow
needlework and dressmaking to be done by women and cripples who are
obliged to work at such trades. If eunuchs were required I think
the Easterns were very foolish to make them on purpose. Why not
take those provided by nature, that crowd of base persons without
natural feeling? There would be enough and to spare. The weak,
feeble, timid man is condemned by nature to a sedentary life, he
is fit to live among women or in their fashion. Let him adopt one
of their trades if he likes; and if there must be eunuchs let them
take those men who dishonour their sex by adopting trades unworthy
of it. Their choice proclaims a blunder on the part of nature;
correct it one way or other, you will do no harm.
An unhealthy trade I forbid to my pupil, but not a difficult or
dangerous one. He will exercise himself in strength and courage;
such trades are for men not women, who claim no share in them. Are
not men ashamed to poach upon the women's trades?
"Luctantur paucae, comedunt coliphia paucae.
Vos lanam trahitis, calathisque peracta refertis
Vellera."--Juven. Sat. II. V. 55.
Women are not seen in shops in Italy, and to persons accustomed
to the streets of England and France nothing could look gloomier.
When I saw drapers selling ladies ribbons, pompons, net, and chenille,
I thought these delicate ornaments very absurd in the coarse hands
fit to blow the bellows and strike the anvil. I said to myself, "In
this country women should set up as steel-polishers and armourers."
Let each make and sell the weapons of his or her own sex; knowledge
is acquired through use.
I know I have said too much for my agreeable contemporaries, but
I sometimes let myself be carried away by my argument. If any one
is ashamed to be seen wearing a leathern apron or handling a plane,
I think him a mere slave of public opinion, ready to blush for what
is right when people poke fun at it. But let us yield to parents'
prejudices so long as they do not hurt the children. To honour
trades we are not obliged to practise every one of them, so long
as we do not think them beneath us. When the choice is ours and
we are under no compulsion, why not choose the pleasanter, more
attractive and more suitable trade. Metal work is useful, more
useful, perhaps, than the rest, but unless for some special reason
Emile shall not be a blacksmith, a locksmith nor an iron-worker.
I do not want to see him a Cyclops at the forge. Neither would I
have him a mason, still less a shoemaker. All trades must be carried
on, but when the choice is ours, cleanliness should be taken into
account; this is not a matter of class prejudice, our senses are our
guides. In conclusion, I do not like those stupid trades in which
the workmen mechanically perform the same action without pause
and almost without mental effort. Weaving, stocking-knitting,
stone-cutting; why employ intelligent men on such work? it is merely
one machine employed on another.
All things considered, the trade I should choose for my pupil,
among the trades he likes, is that of a carpenter. It is clean and
useful; it may be carried on at home; it gives enough exercise; it
calls for skill and industry, and while fashioning articles for
everyday use, there is scope for elegance and taste. If your pupil's
talents happened to take a scientific turn, I should not blame you
if you gave him a trade in accordance with his tastes, for instance,
he might learn to make mathematical instruments, glasses, telescopes,
etc.
When Emile learns his trade I shall learn it too. I am convinced he
will never learn anything thoroughly unless we learn it together.
So we shall both serve our apprenticeship, and we do not mean to
be treated as gentlemen, but as real apprentices who are not there
for fun; why should not we actually be apprenticed? Peter the Great
was a ship's carpenter and drummer to his own troops; was not that
prince at least your equal in birth and merit? You understand this
is addressed not to Emile but to you--to you, whoever you may be.
Unluckily we cannot spend the whole of our time at the workshop.
We are not only 'prentice-carpenters but 'prentice-men--a trade
whose apprenticeship is longer and more exacting than the rest.
What shall we do? Shall we take a master to teach us the use of the
plane and engage him by the hour like the dancing-master? In that
case we should be not apprentices but students, and our ambition is
not merely to learn carpentry but to be carpenters. Once or twice
a week I think we should spend the whole day at our master's; we
should get up when he does, we should be at our work before him,
we should take our meals with him, work under his orders, and after
having had the honour of supping at his table we may if we please
return to sleep upon our own hard beds. This is the way to learn
several trades at once, to learn to do manual work without neglecting
our apprenticeship to life.
Let us do what is right without ostentation; let us not fall into
vanity through our efforts to resist it. To pride ourselves on
our victory over prejudice is to succumb to prejudice. It is said
that in accordance with an old custom of the Ottomans, the sultan
is obliged to work with his hands, and, as every one knows, the
handiwork of a king is a masterpiece. So he royally distributes
his masterpieces among the great lords of the Porte and the price
paid is in accordance with the rank of the workman. It is not
this so-called abuse to which I object; on the contrary, it is an
advantage, and by compelling the lords to share with him the spoils
of the people it is so much the less necessary for the prince to
plunder the people himself. Despotism needs some such relaxation,
and without it that hateful rule could not last.
The real evil in such a custom is the idea it gives that poor man
of his own worth. Like King Midas he sees all things turn to gold
at his touch, but he does not see the ass' ears growing. Let us
keep Emile's hands from money lest he should become an ass, let
him take the work but not the wages. Never let his work be judged
by any standard but that of the work of a master. Let it be judged
as work, not because it is his. If anything is well done, I say,
"That is a good piece of work," but do not ask who did it. If he
is pleased and proud and says, "I did it," answer indifferently,
"No matter who did it, it is well done."
Good mother, be on your guard against the deceptions prepared for
you. If your son knows many things, distrust his knowledge; if he
is unlucky enough to be rich and educated in Paris he is ruined.
As long as there are clever artists he will have every talent,
but apart from his masters he will have none. In Paris a rich man
knows everything, it is the poor who are ignorant. Our capital
is full of amateurs, especially women, who do their work as M.
Gillaume invents his colours. Among the men I know three striking
exceptions, among the women I know no exceptions, and I doubt if
there are any. In a general way a man becomes an artist and a judge
of art as he becomes a Doctor of Laws and a magistrate.
If then it is once admitted that it is a fine thing to have a trade,
your children would soon have one without learning it. They would
become postmasters like the councillors of Zurich. Let us have no
such ceremonies for Emile; let it be the real thing not the sham.
Do not say what he knows, let him learn in silence. Let him make
his masterpiece, but not be hailed as master; let him be a workman
not in name but in deed.
If I have made my meaning clear you ought to realise how bodily
exercise and manual work unconsciously arouse thought and reflexion
in my pupil, and counteract the idleness which might result from
his indifference to men's judgments, and his freedom from passion.
He must work like a peasant and think like a philosopher, if he is
not to be as idle as a savage. The great secret of education is to
use exercise of mind and body as relaxation one to the other.
But beware of anticipating teaching which demands more maturity of
mind. Emile will not long be a workman before he discovers those
social inequalities he had not previously observed. He will want
to question me in turn on the maxims I have given him, maxims he
is able to understand. When he derives everything from me, when
he is so nearly in the position of the poor, he will want to know
why I am so far removed from it. All of a sudden he may put scathing
questions to me. "You are rich, you tell me, and I see you are. A
rich man owes his work to the community like the rest because he
is a man. What are you doing for the community?" What would a fine
tutor say to that? I do not know. He would perhaps be foolish enough
to talk to the child of the care he bestows upon him. The workshop
will get me out of the difficulty. "My dear Emile that is a very
good question; I will undertake to answer for myself, when you can
answer for yourself to your own satisfaction. Meanwhile I will take
care to give what I can spare to you and to the poor, and to make
a table or a bench every week, so as not to be quite useless."
We have come back to ourselves. Having entered into possession of
himself, our child is now ready to cease to be a child. He is more
than ever conscious of the necessity which makes him dependent on
things. After exercising his body and his senses you have exercised
his mind and his judgment. Finally we have joined together the
use of his limbs and his faculties. We have made him a worker and
a thinker; we have now to make him loving and tender-hearted, to
perfect reason through feeling. But before we enter on this new
order of things, let us cast an eye over the stage we are leaving
behind us, and perceive as clearly as we can how far we have got.
At first our pupil had merely sensations, now he has ideas; he
could only feel, now he reasons. For from the comparison of many
successive or simultaneous sensations and the judgment arrived
at with regard to them, there springs a sort of mixed or complex
sensation which I call an idea.
The way in which ideas are formed gives a character to the human
mind. The mind which derives its ideas from real relations is
thorough; the mind which relies on apparent relations is superficial.
He who sees relations as they are has an exact mind; he who fails
to estimate them aright has an inaccurate mind; he who concocts
imaginary relations, which have no real existence, is a madman; he
who does not perceive any relation at all is an imbecile. Clever
men are distinguished from others by their greater or less aptitude
for the comparison of ideas and the discovery of relations between
them.
Simple ideas consist merely of sensations compared one with another.
Simple sensations involve judgments, as do the complex sensations
which I call simple ideas. In the sensation the judgment is purely
passive; it affirms that I feel what I feel. In the percept or idea
the judgment is active; it connects, compares, it discriminates
between relations not perceived by the senses. That is the whole
difference; but it is a great difference. Nature never deceives
us; we deceive ourselves.
I see some one giving an ice-cream to an eight-year-old child; he
does not know what it is and puts the spoon in his mouth. Struck
by the cold he cries out, "Oh, it burns!" He feels a very keen
sensation, and the heat of the fire is the keenest sensation he
knows, so he thinks that is what he feels. Yet he is mistaken; cold
hurts, but it does not burn; and these two sensations are different,
for persons with more experience do not confuse them. So it is not
the sensation that is wrong, but the judgment formed with regard
to it.
It is just the same with those who see a mirror or some optical
instrument for the first time, or enter a deep cellar in the depths
of winter or at midsummer, or dip a very hot or cold hand into tepid
water, or roll a little ball between two crossed fingers. If they
are content to say what they really feel, their judgment, being
purely passive, cannot go wrong; but when they judge according to
appearances, their judgment is active; it compares and establishes
by induction relations which are not really perceived. Then these
inductions may or may not be mistaken. Experience is required to
correct or prevent error.
Show your pupil the clouds at night passing between himself and the
moon; he will think the moon is moving in the opposite direction
and that the clouds are stationary. He will think this through
a hasty induction, because he generally sees small objects moving
and larger ones at rest, and the clouds seems larger than the moon,
whose distance is beyond his reckoning. When he watches the shore
from a moving boat he falls into the opposite mistake and thinks
the earth is moving because he does not feel the motion of the
boat and considers it along with the sea or river as one motionless
whole, of which the shore, which appears to move, forms no part.
The first time a child sees a stick half immersed in water he thinks
he sees a broken stick; the sensation is true and would not cease
to be true even if he knew the reason of this appearance. So if
you ask him what he sees, he replies, "A broken stick," for he is
quite sure he is experiencing this sensation. But when deceived
by his judgment he goes further and, after saying he sees a broken
stick, he affirms that it really is broken he says what is not true.
Why? Because he becomes active and judges no longer by observation
but by induction, he affirms what he does not perceive, i.e.,
that the judgment he receives through one of his senses would be
confirmed by another.
Since all our errors arise in our judgment, it is clear, that had
we no need for judgment, we should not need to learn; we should
never be liable to mistakes, we should be happier in our ignorance
than we can be in our knowledge. Who can deny that a vast number
of things are known to the learned, which the unlearned will never
know? Are the learned any nearer truth? Not so, the further they go
the further they get from truth, for their pride in their judgment
increases faster than their progress in knowledge, so that for
every truth they acquire they draw a hundred mistaken conclusions.
Every one knows that the learned societies of Europe are mere schools
of falsehood, and there are assuredly more mistaken notions in the
Academy of Sciences than in a whole tribe of American Indians.
The more we know, the more mistakes we make; therefore ignorance
is the only way to escape error. Form no judgments and you will
never be mistaken. This is the teaching both of nature and reason.
We come into direct contact with very few things, and these are very
readily perceived; the rest we regard with profound indifference.
A savage will not turn his head to watch the working of the finest
machinery or all the wonders of electricity. "What does that matter
to me?" is the common saying of the ignorant; it is the fittest
phrase for the wise.
Unluckily this phrase will no longer serve our turn. Everything
matters to us, as we are dependent on everything, and our curiosity
naturally increases with our needs. This is why I attribute much
curiosity to the man of science and none to the savage. The latter
needs no help from anybody; the former requires every one, and
admirers most of all.
You will tell me I am going beyond nature. I think not. She
chooses her instruments and orders them, not according to fancy,
but necessity. Now a man's needs vary with his circumstances. There
is all the difference in the world between a natural man living in
a state of nature, and a natural man living in society. Emile is
no savage to be banished to the desert, he is a savage who has to
live in the town. He must know how to get his living in a town,
how to use its inhabitants, and how to live among them, if not of
them.
In the midst of so many new relations and dependent on them, he
must reason whether he wants to or no. Let us therefore teach him
to reason correctly.
The best way of learning to reason aright is that which tends to
simplify our experiences, or to enable us to dispense with them
altogether without falling into error. Hence it follows that we must
learn to confirm the experiences of each sense by itself, without
recourse to any other, though we have been in the habit of verifying
the experience of one sense by that of another. Then each of our
sensations will become an idea, and this idea will always correspond
to the truth. This is the sort of knowledge I have tried to accumulate
during this third phase of man's life.
This method of procedure demands a patience and circumspection
which few teachers possess; without them the scholar will never
learn to reason. For example, if you hasten to take the stick out
of the water when the child is deceived by its appearance, you may
perhaps undeceive him, but what have you taught him? Nothing more
than he would soon have learnt for himself. That is not the right
thing to do. You have not got to teach him truths so much as to
show him how to set about discovering them for himself. To teach
him better you must not be in such a hurry to correct his mistakes.
Let us take Emile and myself as an illustration.
To begin with, any child educated in the usual way could not fail
to answer the second of my imaginary questions in the affirmative.
He will say, "That is certainly a broken stick." I very much doubt
whether Emile will give the same reply. He sees no reason for
knowing everything or pretending to know it; he is never in a hurry
to draw conclusions. He only reasons from evidence and on this
occasion he has not got the evidence. He knows how appearances
deceive us, if only through perspective.
Moreover, he knows by experience that there is always a reason for
my slightest questions, though he may not see it at once; so he has
not got into the habit of giving silly answers; on the contrary,
he is on his guard, he considers things carefully and attentively
before answering. He never gives me an answer unless he is satisfied
with it himself, and he is hard to please. Lastly we neither of
us take any pride in merely knowing a thing, but only in avoiding
mistakes. We should be more ashamed to deceive ourselves with bad
reasoning, than to find no explanation at all. There is no phrase
so appropriate to us, or so often on our lips, as, "I do not know;"
neither of us are ashamed to use it. But whether he gives the silly
answer or whether he avoids it by our convenient phrase "I do not
know," my answer is the same. "Let us examine it."
This stick immersed half way in the water is fixed in an upright
position. To know if it is broken, how many things must be done
before we take it out of the water or even touch it.
1. First we walk round it, and we see that the broken part follows
us. So it is only our eye that changes it; looks do not make things
move.
2. We look straight down on that end of the stick which is above
the water, the stick is no longer bent, [Footnote: I have since
found by more exact experiment that this is not the case. Refraction
acts in a circle, and the stick appears larger at the end which is
in the water, but this makes no difference to the strength of the
argument, and the conclusion is correct.] the end near our eye
exactly hides the other end. Has our eye set the stick straight?
3. We stir the surface of the water; we see the stick break into
several pieces, it moves in zigzags and follows the ripples of the
water. Can the motion we gave the water suffice to break, soften,
or melt the stick like this?
4. We draw the water off, and little by little we see the stick
straightening itself as the water sinks. Is not this more than
enough to clear up the business and to discover refraction? So it
is not true that our eyes deceive us, for nothing more has been
required to correct the mistakes attributed to it.
Suppose the child were stupid enough not to perceive the result of
these experiments, then you must call touch to the help of sight.
Instead of taking the stick out of the water, leave it where it is
and let the child pass his hand along it from end to end; he will
feel no angle, therefore the stick is not broken.
You will tell me this is not mere judgment but formal reasoning.
Just so; but do not you see that as soon as the mind has got any
ideas at all, every judgment is a process of reasoning? So that
as soon as we compare one sensation with another, we are beginning
to reason. The art of judging and the art of reasoning are one and
the same.
Emile will never learn dioptrics unless he learns with this stick.
He will not have dissected insects nor counted the spots on the
sun; he will not know what you mean by a microscope or a telescope.
Your learned pupils will laugh at his ignorance and rightly, I intend
him to invent these instruments before he uses them, and you will
expect that to take some time.
This is the spirit of my whole method at this stage. If the child
rolls a little ball between two crossed fingers and thinks he feels
two balls, I shall not let him look until he is convinced there is
only one.
This explanation will suffice, I hope, to show plainly the progress
made by my pupil hitherto and the route followed by him. But perhaps
the number of things I have brought to his notice alarms you. I
shall crush his mind beneath this weight of knowledge. Not so, I am
rather teaching him to be ignorant of things than to know them. I
am showing him the path of science, easy indeed, but long, far-reaching
and slow to follow. I am taking him a few steps along this path,
but I do not allow him to go far.
Compelled to learn for himself, he uses his own reason not that of
others, for there must be no submission to authority if you would
have no submission to convention. Most of our errors are due to
others more than ourselves. This continual exercise should develop
a vigour of mind like that acquired by the body through labour and
weariness. Another advantage is that his progress is in proportion
to his strength, neither mind nor body carries more than it can
bear. When the understanding lays hold of things before they are
stored in the memory, what is drawn from that store is his own;
while we are in danger of never finding anything of our own in a
memory over-burdened with undigested knowledge.
Emile knows little, but what he knows is really his own; he has no
half-knowledge. Among the few things he knows and knows thoroughly
this is the most valuable, that there are many things he does not
know now but may know some day, many more that other men know but
he will never know, and an infinite number which nobody will ever
know. He is large-minded, not through knowledge, but through
the power of acquiring it; he is open-minded, intelligent, ready
for anything, and, as Montaigne says, capable of learning if not
learned. I am content if he knows the "Wherefore" of his actions
and the "Why" of his beliefs. For once more my object is not to
supply him with exact knowledge, but the means of getting it when
required, to teach him to value it at its true worth, and to love
truth above all things. By this method progress is slow but sure,
and we never need to retrace our steps.
Emile's knowledge is confined to nature and things. The very name
of history is unknown to him, along with metaphysics and morals. He
knows the essential relations between men and things, but nothing
of the moral relations between man and man. He has little power of
generalisation, he has no skill in abstraction. He perceives that
certain qualities are common to certain things, without reasoning
about these qualities themselves. He is acquainted with the
abstract idea of space by the help of his geometrical figures; he
is acquainted with the abstract idea of quantity by the help of
his algebraical symbols. These figures and signs are the supports
on which these ideas may be said to rest, the supports on which his
senses repose. He does not attempt to know the nature of things,
but only to know things in so far as they affect himself. He only
judges what is outside himself in relation to himself, and his
judgment is exact and certain. Caprice and prejudice have no part
in it. He values most the things which are of use to himself, and
as he never departs from this standard of values, he owes nothing
to prejudice.
Emile is industrious, temperate, patient, stedfast, and full of
courage. His imagination is still asleep, so he has no exaggerated
ideas of danger; the few ills he feels he knows how to endure in
patience, because he has not learnt to rebel against fate. As to
death, he knows not what it means; but accustomed as he is to submit
without resistance to the law of necessity, he will die, if die he
must, without a groan and without a struggle; that is as much as
we can demand of nature, in that hour which we all abhor. To live
in freedom, and to be independent of human affairs, is the best
way to learn how to die.
In a word Emile is possessed of all that portion of virtue which
concerns himself. To acquire the social virtues he only needs a
knowledge of the relations which make those virtues necessary; he
only lacks knowledge which he is quite ready to receive.
He thinks not of others but of himself, and prefers that others
should do the same. He makes no claim upon them, and acknowledges
no debt to them. He is alone in the midst of human society, he
depends on himself alone, for he is all that a boy can be at his
age. He has no errors, or at least only such as are inevitable;
he has no vices, or only those from which no man can escape. His
body is healthy, his limbs are supple, his mind is accurate and
unprejudiced, his heart is free and untroubled by passion. Pride,
the earliest and the most natural of passions, has scarcely shown
itself. Without disturbing the peace of others, he has passed
his life contented, happy, and free, so far as nature allows. Do
you think that the earlier years of a child, who has reached his
fifteenth year in this condition, have been wasted?