BOOK IV

How swiftly life passes here below! The first quarter of it is gone

before we know how to use it; the last quarter finds us incapable

of enjoying life. At first we do not know how to live; and when

we know how to live it is too late. In the interval between these

two useless extremes we waste three-fourths of our time sleeping,

working, sorrowing, enduring restraint and every kind of suffering.

Life is short, not so much because of the short time it lasts, but

because we are allowed scarcely any time to enjoy it. In vain is

there a long interval between the hour of death and that of birth;

life is still too short, if this interval is not well spent.

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born

into life; born a human being, and born a man. Those who regard woman

as an imperfect man are no doubt mistaken, but they have external

resemblance on their side. Up to the age of puberty children of

both sexes have little to distinguish them to the eye, the same

face and form, the same complexion and voice, everything is the

same; girls are children and boys are children; one name is enough

for creatures so closely resembling one another. Males whose development

is arrested preserve this resemblance all their lives; they are

always big children; and women who never lose this resemblance seem

in many respects never to be more than children.

But, speaking generally, man is not meant to remain a child. He

leaves childhood behind him at the time ordained by nature; and this

critical moment, short enough in itself, has far-reaching consequences.

As the roaring of the waves precedes the tempest, so the murmur

of rising passions announces this tumultuous change; a suppressed

excitement warns us of the approaching danger. A change of temper,

frequent outbreaks of anger, a perpetual stirring of the mind,

make the child almost ungovernable. He becomes deaf to the voice

he used to obey; he is a lion in a fever; he distrusts his keeper

and refuses to be controlled.

With the moral symptoms of a changing temper there are perceptible

changes in appearance. His countenance develops and takes the stamp

of his character; the soft and sparse down upon his cheeks becomes

darker and stiffer. His voice grows hoarse or rather he loses it

altogether. He is neither a child nor a man and cannot speak like

either of them. His eyes, those organs of the soul which till

now were dumb, find speech and meaning; a kindling fire illumines

them, there is still a sacred innocence in their ever brightening

glance, but they have lost their first meaningless expression; he

is already aware that they can say too much; he is beginning to

learn to lower his eyes and blush, he is becoming sensitive, though

he does not know what it is that he feels; he is uneasy without

knowing why. All this may happen gradually and give you time enough;

but if his keenness becomes impatience, his eagerness madness, if

he is angry and sorry all in a moment, if he weeps without cause,

if in the presence of objects which are beginning to be a source

of danger his pulse quickens and his eyes sparkle, if he trembles

when a woman's hand touches his, if he is troubled or timid in her

presence, O Ulysses, wise Ulysses! have a care! The passages you

closed with so much pains are open; the winds are unloosed; keep

your hand upon the helm or all is lost.

This is the second birth I spoke of; then it is that man really

enters upon life; henceforth no human passion is a stranger to him.

Our efforts so far have been child's play, now they are of the

greatest importance. This period when education is usually finished

is just the time to begin; but to explain this new plan properly,

let us take up our story where we left it.

Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to

destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would

be to overcome nature, to reshape God's handiwork. If God bade

man annihilate the passions he has given him, God would bid him be

and not be; He would contradict himself. He has never given such a

foolish commandment, there is nothing like it written on the heart

of man, and what God will have a man do, He does not leave to the

words of another man. He speaks Himself; His words are written in

the secret heart.

Now I consider those who would prevent the birth of the passions

almost as foolish as those who would destroy them, and those who

think this has been my object hitherto are greatly mistaken.

But should we reason rightly, if from the fact that passions

are natural to man, we inferred that all the passions we feel in

ourselves and behold in others are natural? Their source, indeed,

is natural; but they have been swollen by a thousand other streams;

they are a great river which is constantly growing, one in which

we can scarcely find a single drop of the original stream. Our

natural passions are few in number; they are the means to freedom,

they tend to self-preservation. All those which enslave and destroy

us have another source; nature does not bestow them on us; we seize

on them in her despite.

The origin of our passions, the root and spring of all the rest,

the only one which is born with man, which never leaves him as long

as he lives, is self-love; this passion is primitive, instinctive,

it precedes all the rest, which are in a sense only modifications

of it. In this sense, if you like, they are all natural. But most

of these modifications are the result of external influences,

without which they would never occur, and such modifications, far

from being advantageous to us, are harmful. They change the original

purpose and work against its end; then it is that man finds himself

outside nature and at strife with himself.

Self-love is always good, always in accordance with the order of

nature. The preservation of our own life is specially entrusted to

each one of us, and our first care is, and must be, to watch over

our own life; and how can we continually watch over it, if we do

not take the greatest interest in it?

Self-preservation requires, therefore, that we shall love ourselves;

we must love ourselves above everything, and it follows directly

from this that we love what contributes to our preservation. Every

child becomes fond of its nurse; Romulus must have loved the she-wolf

who suckled him. At first this attachment is quite unconscious; the

individual is attracted to that which contributes to his welfare and

repelled by that which is harmful; this is merely blind instinct.

What transforms this instinct into feeling, the liking into love,

the aversion into hatred, is the evident intention of helping

or hurting us. We do not become passionately attached to objects

without feeling, which only follow the direction given them; but

those from which we expect benefit or injury from their internal

disposition, from their will, those we see acting freely for or

against us, inspire us with like feelings to those they exhibit

towards us. Something does us good, we seek after it; but we love

the person who does us good; something harms us and we shrink from

it, but we hate the person who tries to hurt us.

The child's first sentiment is self-love, his second, which is

derived from it, is love of those about him; for in his present

state of weakness he is only aware of people through the help and

attention received from them. At first his affection for his nurse

and his governess is mere habit. He seeks them because he needs

them and because he is happy when they are there; it is rather

perception than kindly feeling. It takes a long time to discover

not merely that they are useful to him, but that they desire to be

useful to him, and then it is that he begins to love them.

So a child is naturally disposed to kindly feeling because he

sees that every one about him is inclined to help him, and from

this experience he gets the habit of a kindly feeling towards his

species; but with the expansion of his relations, his needs, his

dependence, active or passive, the consciousness of his relations

to others is awakened, and leads to the sense of duties and

preferences. Then the child becomes masterful, jealous, deceitful,

and vindictive. If he is not compelled to obedience, when he does

not see the usefulness of what he is told to do, he attributes it

to caprice, to an intention of tormenting him, and he rebels. If

people give in to him, as soon as anything opposes him he regards

it as rebellion, as a determination to resist him; he beats the chair

or table for disobeying him. Self-love, which concerns itself only

with ourselves, is content to satisfy our own needs; but selfishness,

which is always comparing self with others, is never satisfied and

never can be; for this feeling, which prefers ourselves to others,

requires that they should prefer us to themselves, which is impossible.

Thus the tender and gentle passions spring from self-love, while

the hateful and angry passions spring from selfishness. So it is

the fewness of his needs, the narrow limits within which he can

compare himself with others, that makes a man really good; what

makes him really bad is a multiplicity of needs and dependence on

the opinions of others. It is easy to see how we can apply this

principle and guide every passion of children and men towards

good or evil. True, man cannot always live alone, and it will be

hard therefore to remain good; and this difficulty will increase

of necessity as his relations with others are extended. For this

reason, above all, the dangers of social life demand that the

necessary skill and care shall be devoted to guarding the human

heart against the depravity which springs from fresh needs.

Man's proper study is that of his relation to his environment. So

long as he only knows that environment through his physical nature,

he should study himself in relation to things; this is the business

of his childhood; when he begins to be aware of his moral nature,

he should study himself in relation to his fellow-men; this is the

business of his whole life, and we have now reached the time when

that study should be begun.

As soon as a man needs a companion he is no longer an isolated

creature, his heart is no longer alone. All his relations with his

species, all the affections of his heart, come into being along

with this. His first passion soon arouses the rest.

The direction of the instinct is uncertain. One sex is attracted

by the other; that is the impulse of nature. Choice, preferences,

individual likings, are the work of reason, prejudice, and habit;

time and knowledge are required to make us capable of love; we do

not love without reasoning or prefer without comparison. These judgments

are none the less real, although they are formed unconsciously.

True love, whatever you may say, will always be held in honour

by mankind; for although its impulses lead us astray, although it

does not bar the door of the heart to certain detestable qualities,

although it even gives rise to these, yet it always presupposes

certain worthy characteristics, without which we should be incapable

of love. This choice, which is supposed to be contrary to reason,

really springs from reason. We say Love is blind because his eyes

are better than ours, and he perceives relations which we cannot

discern. All women would be alike to a man who had no idea of virtue

or beauty, and the first comer would always be the most charming.

Love does not spring from nature, far from it; it is the curb and

law of her desires; it is love that makes one sex indifferent to

the other, the loved one alone excepted.

We wish to inspire the preference we feel; love must be mutual.

To be loved we must be worthy of love; to be preferred we must be

more worthy than the rest, at least in the eyes of our beloved.

Hence we begin to look around among our fellows; we begin to compare

ourselves with them, there is emulation, rivalry, and jealousy.

A heart full to overflowing loves to make itself known; from the

need of a mistress there soon springs the need of a friend. He who

feels how sweet it is to be loved, desires to be loved by everybody;

and there could be no preferences if there were not many that

fail to find satisfaction. With love and friendship there begin

dissensions, enmity, and hatred. I behold deference to other

people's opinions enthroned among all these divers passions, and

foolish mortals, enslaved by her power, base their very existence

merely on what other people think.

Expand these ideas and you will see where we get that form of

selfishness which we call natural selfishness, and how selfishness

ceases to be a simple feeling and becomes pride in great minds, vanity

in little ones, and in both feeds continually at our neighbour's

cost. Passions of this kind, not having any germ in the child's

heart, cannot spring up in it of themselves; it is we who sow the

seeds, and they never take root unless by our fault. Not so with

the young man; they will find an entrance in spite of us. It is

therefore time to change our methods.

Let us begin with some considerations of importance with regard to

the critical stage under discussion. The change from childhood to

puberty is not so clearly determined by nature but that it varies

according to individual temperament and racial conditions. Everybody

knows the differences which have been observed with regard to this

between hot and cold countries, and every one sees that ardent

temperaments mature earlier than others; but we may be mistaken as

to the causes, and we may often attribute to physical causes what

is really due to moral: this is one of the commonest errors in

the philosophy of our times. The teaching of nature comes slowly;

man's lessons are mostly premature. In the former case, the senses

kindle the imagination, in the latter the imagination kindles the

senses; it gives them a precocious activity which cannot fail to

enervate the individual and, in the long run, the race. It is a more

general and more trustworthy fact than that of climatic influences,

that puberty and sexual power is always more precocious among

educated and civilised races, than among the ignorant and barbarous.

[Footnote: "In towns," says M. Buffon, "and among the well-to-do

classes, children accustomed to plentiful and nourishing food sooner

reach this state; in the country and among the poor, children are

more backward, because of their poor and scanty food." I admit the

fact but not the explanation, for in the districts where the food

of the villagers is plentiful and good, as in the Valais and even

in some of the mountain districts of Italy, such as Friuli, the

age of puberty for both sexes is quite as much later than in the

heart of the towns, where, in order to gratify their vanity, people

are often extremely parsimonious in the matter of food, and where

most people, in the words of the proverb, have a velvet coat and

an empty belly. It is astonishing to find in these mountainous

regions big lads as strong as a man with shrill voices and smooth

chins, and tall girls, well developed in other respects, without

any trace of the periodic functions of their sex. This difference

is, in my opinion, solely due to the fact that in the simplicity of

their manners the imagination remains calm and peaceful, and does

not stir the blood till much later, and thus their temperament

is much less precocious.] Children are preternaturally quick to

discern immoral habits under the cloak of decency with which they

are concealed. The prim speech imposed upon them, the lessons

in good behaviour, the veil of mystery you profess to hang before

their eyes, serve but to stimulate their curiosity. It is plain,

from the way you set about it, that they are meant to learn what

you profess to conceal; and of all you teach them this is most

quickly assimilated.

Consult experience and you will find how far this foolish method

hastens the work of nature and ruins the character. This is one of

the chief causes of physical degeneration in our towns. The young

people, prematurely exhausted, remain small, puny, and misshapen,

they grow old instead of growing up, like a vine forced to bear

fruit in spring, which fades and dies before autumn.

To know how far a happy ignorance may prolong the innocence of

children, you must live among rude and simple people. It is a sight

both touching and amusing to see both sexes, left to the protection

of their own hearts, continuing the sports of childhood in the

flower of youth and beauty, showing by their very familiarity the

purity of their pleasures. When at length those delightful young

people marry, they bestow on each other the first fruits of their

person, and are all the dearer therefore. Swarms of strong and healthy

children are the pledges of a union which nothing can change, and

the fruit of the virtue of their early years.

If the age at which a man becomes conscious of his sex is deferred

as much by the effects of education as by the action of nature,

it follows that this age may be hastened or retarded according to

the way in which the child is brought up; and if the body gains

or loses strength in proportion as its development is accelerated

or retarded, it also follows that the more we try to retard it

the stronger and more vigorous will the young man be. I am still

speaking of purely physical consequences; you will soon see that

this is not all.

From these considerations I arrive at the solution of the question

so often discussed--Should we enlighten children at an early period

as to the objects of their curiosity, or is it better to put them

off with decent shams? I think we need do neither. In the first

place, this curiosity will not arise unless we give it a chance.

We must therefore take care not to give it an opportunity. In the

next place, questions one is not obliged to answer do not compel us

to deceive those who ask them; it is better to bid the child hold

his tongue than to tell him a lie. He will not be greatly surprised

at this treatment if you have already accustomed him to it in matters

of no importance. Lastly, if you decide to answer his questions,

let it be with the greatest plainness, without mystery or confusion,

without a smile. It is much less dangerous to satisfy a child's

curiosity than to stimulate it.

Let your answers be always grave, brief, decided, and without trace

of hesitation. I need not add that they should be true. We cannot

teach children the danger of telling lies to men without realising,

on the man's part, the danger of telling lies to children. A single

untruth on the part of the master will destroy the results of his

education.

Complete ignorance with regard to certain matters is perhaps the

best thing for children; but let them learn very early what it is

impossible to conceal from them permanently. Either their curiosity

must never be aroused, or it must be satisfied before the age when

it becomes a source of danger. Your conduct towards your pupil

in this respect depends greatly on his individual circumstances,

the society in which he moves, the position in which he may find

himself, etc. Nothing must be left to chance; and if you are not

sure of keeping him in ignorance of the difference between the

sexes till he is sixteen, take care you teach him before he is ten.

I do not like people to be too fastidious in speaking with children,

nor should they go out of their way to avoid calling a spade a

spade; they are always found out if they do. Good manners in this

respect are always perfectly simple; but an imagination soiled by

vice makes the ear over-sensitive and compels us to be constantly

refining our expressions. Plain words do not matter; it is lascivious

ideas which must be avoided.

Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children.

Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil; and how should

children without this knowledge of evil have the feeling which

results from it? To give them lessons in modesty and good conduct

is to teach them that there are things shameful and wicked, and to

give them a secret wish to know what these things are. Sooner or

later they will find out, and the first spark which touches the

imagination will certainly hasten the awakening of the senses.

Blushes are the sign of guilt; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

Children have not the same desires as men; but they are subject

like them to the same disagreeable needs which offend the senses,

and by this means they may receive the same lessons in propriety.

Follow the mind of nature which has located in the same place

the organs of secret pleasures and those of disgusting needs; she

teaches us the same precautions at different ages, sometimes by means

of one idea and sometimes by another; to the man through modesty,

to the child through cleanliness.

I can only find one satisfactory way of preserving the child's

innocence, to surround him by those who respect and love him.

Without this all our efforts to keep him in ignorance fail sooner

or later; a smile, a wink, a careless gesture tells him all we

sought to hide; it is enough to teach him to perceive that there

is something we want to hide from him. The delicate phrases and

expressions employed by persons of politeness assume a knowledge

which children ought not to possess, and they are quite out of

place with them, but when we truly respect the child's innocence we

easily find in talking to him the simple phrases which befit him.

There is a certain directness of speech which is suitable and

pleasing to innocence; this is the right tone to adopt in order

to turn the child from dangerous curiosity. By speaking simply to

him about everything you do not let him suspect there is anything

left unsaid. By connecting coarse words with the unpleasant ideas

which belong to them, you quench the first spark of imagination;

you do not forbid the child to say these words or to form these

ideas; but without his knowing it you make him unwilling to recall

them. And how much confusion is spared to those who speaking from

the heart always say the right thing, and say it as they themselves

have felt it!

"Where do little children come from?" This is an embarrassing question,

which occurs very naturally to children, one which foolishly or

wisely answered may decide their health and their morals for life.

The quickest way for a mother to escape from it without deceiving

her son is to tell him to hold his tongue. That will serve its turn

if he has always been accustomed to it in matters of no importance,

and if he does not suspect some mystery from this new way of

speaking. But the mother rarely stops there. "It is the married

people's secret," she will say, "little boys should not be so

curious." That is all very well so far as the mother is concerned,

but she may be sure that the little boy, piqued by her scornful

manner, will not rest till he has found out the married people's

secret, which will very soon be the case.

Let me tell you a very different answer which I heard given to

the same question, one which made all the more impression on me,

coming, as it did, from a woman, modest in speech and behaviour,

but one who was able on occasion, for the welfare of her child

and for the cause of virtue, to cast aside the false fear of blame

and the silly jests of the foolish. Not long before the child had

passed a small stone which had torn the passage, but the trouble

was over and forgotten. "Mamma," said the eager child, "where do

little children come from?" "My child," replied his mother without

hesitation, "women pass them with pains that sometimes cost their

life." Let fools laugh and silly people be shocked; but let the

wise inquire if it is possible to find a wiser answer and one which

would better serve its purpose.

In the first place the thought of a need of nature with which

the child is well acquainted turns his thoughts from the idea

of a mysterious process. The accompanying ideas of pain and death

cover it with a veil of sadness which deadens the imagination and

suppresses curiosity; everything leads the mind to the results, not

the causes, of child-birth. This is the information to which this

answer leads. If the repugnance inspired by this answer should

permit the child to inquire further, his thoughts are turned to the

infirmities of human nature, disgusting things, images of pain.

What chance is there for any stimulation of desire in such a

conversation? And yet you see there is no departure from truth, no

need to deceive the scholar in order to teach him.

Your children read; in the course of their reading they meet

with things they would never have known without reading. Are they

students, their imagination is stimulated and quickened in the

silence of the study. Do they move in the world of society, they hear

a strange jargon, they see conduct which makes a great impression

on them; they have been told so continually that they are men that

in everything men do in their presence they at once try to find

how that will suit themselves; the conduct of others must indeed

serve as their pattern when the opinions of others are their law.

Servants, dependent on them, and therefore anxious to please them,

flatter them at the expense of their morals; giggling governesses

say things to the four-year-old child which the most shameless

woman would not dare to say to them at fifteen. They soon forget

what they said, but the child has not forgotten what he heard.

Loose conversation prepares the way for licentious conduct; the

child is debauched by the cunning lacquey, and the secret of the

one guarantees the secret of the other.

The child brought up in accordance with his age is alone. He knows

no attachment but that of habit, he loves his sister like his watch,

and his friend like his dog. He is unconscious of his sex and his

species; men and women are alike unknown; he does not connect their

sayings and doings with himself, he neither sees nor hears, or he

pays no heed to them; he is no more concerned with their talk than

their actions; he has nothing to do with it. This is no artificial

error induced by our method, it is the ignorance of nature. The

time is at hand when that same nature will take care to enlighten

her pupil, and then only does she make him capable of profiting

by the lessons without danger. This is our principle; the details

of its rules are outside my subject; and the means I suggest with

regard to other matters will still serve to illustrate this.

Do you wish to establish law and order among the rising passions,

prolong the period of their development, so that they may have time

to find their proper place as they arise. Then they are controlled

by nature herself, not by man; your task is merely to leave it

in her hands. If your pupil were alone, you would have nothing to

do; but everything about him enflames his imagination. He is swept

along on the torrent of conventional ideas; to rescue him you must

urge him in the opposite direction. Imagination must be curbed

by feeling and reason must silence the voice of conventionality.

Sensibility is the source of all the passions, imagination determines

their course. Every creature who is aware of his relations must

be disturbed by changes in these relations and when he imagines

or fancies he imagines others better adapted to his nature. It is

the errors of the imagination which transmute into vices the passions

of finite beings, of angels even, if indeed they have passions; for

they must needs know the nature of every creature to realise what

relations are best adapted to themselves.

This is the sum of human wisdom with regard to the use of

the passions. First, to be conscious of the true relations of man

both in the species and the individual; second, to control all the

affections in accordance with these relations.

But is man in a position to control his affections according to

such and such relations? No doubt he is, if he is able to fix his

imagination on this or that object, or to form this or that habit.

Moreover, we are not so much concerned with what a man can do for

himself, as with what we can do for our pupil through our choice

of the circumstances in which he shall be placed. To show the means

by which he may be kept in the path of nature is to show plainly

enough how he might stray from that path.

So long as his consciousness is confined to himself there is no

morality in his actions; it is only when it begins to extend beyond

himself that he forms first the sentiments and then the ideas of

good and ill, which make him indeed a man, and an integral part of

his species. To begin with we must therefore confine our observations

to this point.

These observations are difficult to make, for we must reject the

examples before our eyes, and seek out those in which the successive

developments follow the order of nature.

A child sophisticated, polished, and civilised, who is only awaiting

the power to put into practice the precocious instruction he has

received, is never mistaken with regard to the time when this power

is acquired. Far from awaiting it, he accelerates it; he stirs his

blood to a premature ferment; he knows what should be the object

of his desires long before those desires are experienced. It is

not nature which stimulates him; it is he who forces the hand of

nature; she has nothing to teach him when he becomes a man; he was

a man in thought long before he was a man in reality.

The true course of nature is slower and more gradual. Little by

little the blood grows warmer, the faculties expand, the character

is formed. The wise workman who directs the process is careful

to perfect every tool before he puts it to use; the first desires

are preceded by a long period of unrest, they are deceived by a

prolonged ignorance, they know not what they want. The blood ferments

and bubbles; overflowing vitality seeks to extend its sphere. The

eye grows brighter and surveys others, we begin to be interested

in those about us, we begin to feel that we are not meant to live

alone; thus the heart is thrown open to human affection, and becomes

capable of attachment.

The first sentiment of which the well-trained youth is capable is

not love but friendship. The first work of his rising imagination

is to make known to him his fellows; the species affects him before

the sex. Here is another advantage to be gained from prolonged

innocence; you may take advantage of his dawning sensibility to sow

the first seeds of humanity in the heart of the young adolescent.

This advantage is all the greater because this is the only time in

his life when such efforts may be really successful.

I have always observed that young men, corrupted in early youth

and addicted to women and debauchery, are inhuman and cruel; their

passionate temperament makes them impatient, vindictive, and angry;

their imagination fixed on one object only, refuses all others;

mercy and pity are alike unknown to them; they would have sacrificed

father, mother, the whole world, to the least of their pleasures.

A young man, on the other hand, brought up in happy innocence, is

drawn by the first stirrings of nature to the tender and affectionate

passions; his warm heart is touched by the sufferings of his

fellow-creatures; he trembles with delight when he meets his comrade,

his arms can embrace tenderly, his eyes can shed tears of pity; he

learns to be sorry for offending others through his shame at causing

annoyance. If the eager warmth of his blood makes him quick, hasty,

and passionate, a moment later you see all his natural kindness of

heart in the eagerness of his repentance; he weeps, he groans over

the wound he has given; he would atone for the blood he has shed

with his own; his anger dies away, his pride abases itself before

the consciousness of his wrong-doing. Is he the injured party, in

the height of his fury an excuse, a word, disarms him; he forgives

the wrongs of others as whole-heartedly as he repairs his own.

Adolescence is not the age of hatred or vengeance; it is the age of

pity, mercy, and generosity. Yes, I maintain, and I am not afraid

of the testimony of experience, a youth of good birth, one who has

preserved his innocence up to the age of twenty, is at that age

the best, the most generous, the most loving, and the most lovable

of men. You never heard such a thing; I can well believe that

philosophers such as you, brought up among the corruption of the

public schools, are unaware of it.

Man's weakness makes him sociable. Our common sufferings draw our

hearts to our fellow-creatures; we should have no duties to mankind

if we were not men. Every affection is a sign of insufficiency;

if each of us had no need of others, we should hardly think of

associating with them. So our frail happiness has its roots in our

weakness. A really happy man is a hermit; God only enjoys absolute

happiness; but which of us has any idea what that means? If

any imperfect creature were self-sufficing, what would he have to

enjoy? To our thinking he would be wretched and alone. I do not

understand how one who has need of nothing could love anything,

nor do I understand how he who loves nothing can be happy.

Hence it follows that we are drawn towards our fellow-creatures

less by our feeling for their joys than for their sorrows; for in

them we discern more plainly a nature like our own, and a pledge

of their affection for us. If our common needs create a bond

of interest our common sufferings create a bond of affection. The

sight of a happy man arouses in others envy rather than love, we

are ready to accuse him of usurping a right which is not his, of

seeking happiness for himself alone, and our selfishness suffers

an additional pang in the thought that this man has no need of us.

But who does not pity the wretch when he beholds his sufferings?

who would not deliver him from his woes if a wish could do it?

Imagination puts us more readily in the place of the miserable man

than of the happy man; we feel that the one condition touches us

more nearly than the other. Pity is sweet, because, when we put

ourselves in the place of one who suffers, we are aware, nevertheless,

of the pleasure of not suffering like him. Envy is bitter, because

the sight of a happy man, far from putting the envious in his place,

inspires him with regret that he is not there. The one seems to

exempt us from the pains he suffers, the other seems to deprive us

of the good things he enjoys.

Do you desire to stimulate and nourish the first stirrings of

awakening sensibility in the heart of a young man, do you desire

to incline his disposition towards kindly deed and thought, do

not cause the seeds of pride, vanity, and envy to spring up in him

through the misleading picture of the happiness of mankind; do not

show him to begin with the pomp of courts, the pride of palaces,

the delights of pageants; do not take him into society and into

brilliant assemblies; do not show him the outside of society till

you have made him capable of estimating it at its true worth.

To show him the world before he is acquainted with men, is not to

train him, but to corrupt him; not to teach, but to mislead.

By nature men are neither kings, nobles, courtiers, nor millionaires.

All men are born poor and naked, all are liable to the sorrows of

life, its disappointments, its ills, its needs, its suffering of

every kind; and all are condemned at length to die. This is what

it really means to be a man, this is what no mortal can escape.

Begin then with the study of the essentials of humanity, that which

really constitutes mankind.

At sixteen the adolescent knows what it is to suffer, for he himself

has suffered; but he scarcely realises that others suffer too; to

see without feeling is not knowledge, and as I have said again and

again the child who does not picture the feelings of others knows

no ills but his own; but when his imagination is kindled by the

first beginnings of growing sensibility, he begins to perceive

himself in his fellow-creatures, to be touched by their cries, to

suffer in their sufferings. It is at this time that the sorrowful

picture of suffering humanity should stir his heart with the first

touch of pity he has ever known.

If it is not easy to discover this opportunity in your scholars,

whose fault is it? You taught them so soon to play at feeling, you

taught them so early its language, that speaking continually in

the same strain they turn your lessons against yourself, and give

you no chance of discovering when they cease to lie, and begin to

feel what they say. But look at Emile; I have led him up to this

age, and he has neither felt nor pretended to feel. He has never

said, "I love you dearly," till he knew what it was to love; he has

never been taught what expression to assume when he enters the room

of his father, his mother, or his sick tutor; he has not learnt the

art of affecting a sorrow he does not feel. He has never pretended

to weep for the death of any one, for he does not know what it is

to die. There is the same insensibility in his heart as in his

manners. Indifferent, like every child, to every one but himself,

he takes no interest in any one; his only peculiarity is that he

will not pretend to take such an interest; he is less deceitful

than others.

Emile having thought little about creatures of feeling will be a

long time before he knows what is meant by pain and death. Groans

and cries will begin to stir his compassion, he will turn away his

eyes at the sight of blood; the convulsions of a dying animal will

cause him I know not what anguish before he knows the source of

these impulses. If he were still stupid and barbarous he would not

feel them; if he were more learned he would recognise their source;

he has compared ideas too frequently already to be insensible, but

not enough to know what he feels.

So pity is born, the first relative sentiment which touches the

human heart according to the order of nature. To become sensitive

and pitiful the child must know that he has fellow-creatures who

suffer as he has suffered, who feel the pains he has felt, and

others which he can form some idea of, being capable of feeling

them himself. Indeed, how can we let ourselves be stirred by pity

unless we go beyond ourselves, and identify ourselves with the

suffering animal, by leaving, so to speak, our own nature and taking

his. We only suffer so far as we suppose he suffers; the suffering

is not ours but his. So no one becomes sensitive till his imagination

is aroused and begins to carry him outside himself.

What should we do to stimulate and nourish this growing sensibility,

to direct it, and to follow its natural bent? Should we not present

to the young man objects on which the expansive force of his heart

may take effect, objects which dilate it, which extend it to other

creatures, which take him outside himself? should we not carefully

remove everything that narrows, concentrates, and strengthens the

power of the human self? that is to say, in other words, we should

arouse in him kindness, goodness, pity, and beneficence, all the

gentle and attractive passions which are naturally pleasing to man;

those passions prevent the growth of envy, covetousness, hatred,

all the repulsive and cruel passions which make our sensibility

not merely a cipher but a minus quantity, passions which are the

curse of those who feel them.

I think I can sum up the whole of the preceding reflections in two

or three maxims, definite, straightforward, and easy to understand.

FIRST MAXIM.--It is not in human nature to put ourselves in the place

of those who are happier than ourselves, but only in the place of

those who can claim our pity.

If you find exceptions to this rule, they are more apparent than

real. Thus we do not put ourselves in the place of the rich or great

when we become fond of them; even when our affection is real, we

only appropriate to ourselves a part of their welfare. Sometimes

we love the rich man in the midst of misfortunes; but so long as he

prospers he has no real friend, except the man who is not deceived

by appearances, who pities rather than envies him in spite of his

prosperity.

The happiness belonging to certain states of life appeals to us;

take, for instance, the life of a shepherd in the country. The charm

of seeing these good people so happy is not poisoned by envy; we

are genuinely interested in them. Why is this? Because we feel we

can descend into this state of peace and innocence and enjoy the

same happiness; it is an alternative which only calls up pleasant

thoughts, so long as the wish is as good as the deed. It is always

pleasant to examine our stores, to contemplate our own wealth, even

when we do not mean to spend it.

From this we see that to incline a young man to humanity you must

not make him admire the brilliant lot of others; you must show

him life in its sorrowful aspects and arouse his fears. Thus it

becomes clear that he must force his own way to happiness, without

interfering with the happiness of others.

SECOND MAXIM.--We never pity another's woes unless we know we may

suffer in like manner ourselves.

"Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco."--Virgil.

I know nothing go fine, so full of meaning, so touching, so true

as these words.

Why have kings no pity on their people? Because they never expect

to be ordinary men. Why are the rich so hard on the poor? Because

they have no fear of becoming poor. Why do the nobles look down

upon the people? Because a nobleman will never be one of the lower

classes. Why are the Turks generally kinder and more hospitable

than ourselves? Because, under their wholly arbitrary system of

government, the rank and wealth of individuals are always uncertain

and precarious, so that they do not regard poverty and degradation

as conditions with which they have no concern; to-morrow, any one

may himself be in the same position as those on whom he bestows

alms to-day. This thought, which occurs again and again in eastern

romances, lends them a certain tenderness which is not to be found

in our pretentious and harsh morality.

So do not train your pupil to look down from the height of his glory

upon the sufferings of the unfortunate, the labours of the wretched,

and do not hope to teach him to pity them while he considers them

as far removed from himself. Make him thoroughly aware of the fact

that the fate of these unhappy persons may one day be his own, that

his feet are standing on the edge of the abyss, into which he may

be plunged at any moment by a thousand unexpected irresistible

misfortunes. Teach him to put no trust in birth, health, or riches;

show him all the changes of fortune; find him examples--there are

only too many of them--in which men of higher rank than himself

have sunk below the condition of these wretched ones. Whether by

their own fault or another's is for the present no concern of ours;

does he indeed know the meaning of the word fault? Never interfere

with the order in which he acquires knowledge, and teach him only

through the means within his reach; it needs no great learning

to perceive that all the prudence of mankind cannot make certain

whether he will be alive or dead in an hour's time, whether

before nightfall he will not be grinding his teeth in the pangs of

nephritis, whether a month hence he will be rich or poor, whether

in a year's time he may not be rowing an Algerian galley under the

lash of the slave-driver. Above all do not teach him this, like

his catechism, in cold blood; let him see and feel the calamities

which overtake men; surprise and startle his imagination with the

perils which lurk continually about a man's path; let him see the

pitfalls all about him, and when he hears you speak of them, let

him cling more closely to you for fear lest he should fall. "You

will make him timid and cowardly," do you say? We shall see; let

us make him kindly to begin with, that is what matters most.

THIRD MAXIM.--The pity we feel for others is proportionate, not

to the amount of the evil, but to the feelings we attribute to the

sufferers.

We only pity the wretched so far as we think they feel the need of

pity. The bodily effect of our sufferings is less than one would

suppose; it is memory that prolongs the pain, imagination which

projects it into the future, and makes us really to be pitied.

This is, I think, one of the reasons why we are more callous to

the sufferings of animals than of men, although a fellow-feeling

ought to make us identify ourselves equally with either. We scarcely

pity the cart-horse in his shed, for we do not suppose that while

he is eating his hay he is thinking of the blows he has received

and the labours in store for him. Neither do we pity the sheep

grazing in the field, though we know it is about to be slaughtered,

for we believe it knows nothing of the fate in store for it. In

this way we also become callous to the fate of our fellow-men, and

the rich console themselves for the harm done by them to the poor,

by the assumption that the poor are too stupid to feel. I usually

judge of the value any one puts on the welfare of his fellow-creatures

by what he seems to think of them. We naturally think lightly of

the happiness of those we despise. It need not surprise you that

politicians speak so scornfully of the people, and philosophers

profess to think mankind so wicked.

The people are mankind; those who do not belong to the people are

so few in number that they are not worth counting. Man is the same

in every station of life; if that be so, those ranks to which most

men belong deserve most honour. All distinctions of rank fade away

before the eyes of a thoughtful person; he sees the same passions,

the same feelings in the noble and the guttersnipe; there is merely

a slight difference in speech, and more or less artificiality

of tone; and if there is indeed any essential difference between

them, the disadvantage is all on the side of those who are more

sophisticated. The people show themselves as they are, and they are

not attractive; but the fashionable world is compelled to adopt a

disguise; we should be horrified if we saw it as it really is.

There is, so our wiseacres tell us, the same amount of happiness

and sorrow in every station. This saying is as deadly in its effects

as it is incapable of proof; if all are equally happy why should

I trouble myself about any one? Let every one stay where he is;

leave the slave to be ill-treated, the sick man to suffer, and

the wretched to perish; they have nothing to gain by any change in

their condition. You enumerate the sorrows of the rich, and show the

vanity of his empty pleasures; what barefaced sophistry! The rich

man's sufferings do not come from his position, but from himself

alone when he abuses it. He is not to be pitied were he indeed

more miserable than the poor, for his ills are of his own making,

and he could be happy if he chose. But the sufferings of the poor

man come from external things, from the hardships fate has imposed

upon him. No amount of habit can accustom him to the bodily ills

of fatigue, exhaustion, and hunger. Neither head nor heart can serve

to free him from the sufferings of his condition. How is Epictetus

the better for knowing beforehand that his master will break his

leg for him; does he do it any the less? He has to endure not only

the pain itself but the pains of anticipation. If the people were

as wise as we assume them to be stupid, how could they be other

than they are? Observe persons of this class; you will see that,

with a different way of speaking, they have as much intelligence

and more common-sense than yourself. Have respect then for your

species; remember that it consists essentially of the people, that

if all the kings and all the philosophers were removed they would

scarcely be missed, and things would go on none the worse. In a word,

teach your pupil to love all men, even those who fail to appreciate

him; act in such way that he is not a member of any class, but

takes his place in all alike: speak in his hearing of the human

race with tenderness, and even with pity, but never with scorn.

You are a man; do not dishonour mankind.

It is by these ways and others like them--how different from the

beaten paths--that we must reach the heart of the young adolescent,

and stimulate in him the first impulses of nature; we must develop

that heart and open its doors to his fellow-creatures, and there

must be as little self-interest as possible mixed up with these

impulses; above all, no vanity, no emulation, no boasting, none of

those sentiments which force us to compare ourselves with others;

for such comparisons are never made without arousing some measure

of hatred against those who dispute our claim to the first place,

were it only in our own estimation. Then we must be either blind

or angry, a bad man or a fool; let us try to avoid this dilemma.

Sooner or later these dangerous passions will appear, so you tell

me, in spite of us. I do not deny it. There is a time and place

for everything; I am only saying that we should not help to arouse

these passions.

This is the spirit of the method to be laid down. In this case examples

and illustrations are useless, for here we find the beginning of

the countless differences of character, and every example I gave

would possibly apply to only one case in a hundred thousand. It is

at this age that the clever teacher begins his real business, as

a student and a philosopher who knows how to probe the heart and

strives to guide it aright. While the young man has not learnt to

pretend, while he does not even know the meaning of pretence, you

see by his look, his manner, his gestures, the impression he has

received from any object presented to him; you read in his countenance

every impulse of his heart; by watching his expression you learn

to protect his impulses and actually to control them.

It has been commonly observed that blood, wounds, cries and groans,

the preparations for painful operations, and everything which directs

the senses towards things connected with suffering, are usually the

first to make an impression on all men. The idea of destruction, a

more complex matter, does not have so great an effect; the thought

of death affects us later and less forcibly, for no one knows from

his own experience what it is to die; you must have seen corpses

to feel the agonies of the dying. But when once this idea is

established in the mind, there is no spectacle more dreadful in our

eyes, whether because of the idea of complete destruction which it

arouses through our senses, or because we know that this moment must

come for each one of us and we feel ourselves all the more keenly

affected by a situation from which we know there is no escape.

These various impressions differ in manner and in degree, according to

the individual character of each one of us and his former habits,

but they are universal and no one is altogether free from them.

There are other impressions less universal and of a later growth,

impressions most suited to sensitive souls, such impressions as we

receive from moral suffering, inward grief, the sufferings of the

mind, depression, and sadness. There are men who can be touched by

nothing but groans and tears; the suppressed sobs of a heart labouring

under sorrow would never win a sigh; the sight of a downcast visage, a

pale and gloomy countenance, eyes which can weep no longer, would

never draw a tear from them. The sufferings of the mind are as

nothing to them; they weigh them, their own mind feels nothing;

expect nothing from such persons but inflexible severity, harshness,

cruelty. They may be just and upright, but not merciful, generous,

or pitiful. They may, I say, be just, if a man can indeed be just

without being merciful.

But do not be in a hurry to judge young people by this standard,

more especially those who have been educated rightly, who have no

idea of the moral sufferings they have never had to endure; for

once again they can only pity the ills they know, and this apparent

insensibility is soon transformed into pity when they begin to feel

that there are in human life a thousand ills of which they know

nothing. As for Emile, if in childhood he was distinguished by

simplicity and good sense, in his youth he will show a warm and

tender heart; for the reality of the feelings depends to a great

extent on the accuracy of the ideas.

But why call him hither? More than one reader will reproach me

no doubt for departing from my first intention and forgetting the

lasting happiness I promised my pupil. The sorrowful, the dying,

such sights of pain and woe, what happiness, what delight is this

for a young heart on the threshold of life? His gloomy tutor, who

proposed to give him such a pleasant education, only introduces him

to life that he may suffer. This is what they will say, but what

care I? I promised to make him happy, not to make him seem happy.

Am I to blame if, deceived as usual by the outward appearances,

you take them for the reality?

Let us take two young men at the close of their early education,

and let them enter the world by opposite doors. The one mounts at

once to Olympus, and moves in the smartest society; he is taken

to court, he is presented in the houses of the great, of the rich,

of the pretty women. I assume that he is everywhere made much of,

and I do not regard too closely the effect of this reception on his

reason; I assume it can stand it. Pleasures fly before him, every

day provides him with fresh amusements; he flings himself into

everything with an eagerness which carries you away. You find him

busy, eager, and curious; his first wonder makes a great impression

on you; you think him happy; but behold the state of his heart;

you think he is rejoicing, I think he suffers.

What does he see when first he opens his eyes? all sorts of so-called

pleasures, hitherto unknown. Most of these pleasures are only for

a moment within his reach, and seem to show themselves only to

inspire regret for their loss. Does he wander through a palace;

you see by his uneasy curiosity that he is asking why his father's

house is not like it. Every question shows you that he is comparing

himself all the time with the owner of this grand place. And all

the mortification arising from this comparison at once revolts and

stimulates his vanity. If he meets a young man better dressed than

himself, I find him secretly complaining of his parents' meanness.

If he is better dressed than another, he suffers because the latter

is his superior in birth or in intellect, and all his gold lace is

put to shame by a plain cloth coat. Does he shine unrivalled in

some assembly, does he stand on tiptoe that they may see him better,

who is there who does not secretly desire to humble the pride and

vanity of the young fop? Everybody is in league against him; the

disquieting glances of a solemn man, the biting phrases of some

satirical person, do not fail to reach him, and if it were only

one man who despised him, the scorn of that one would poison in a

moment the applause of the rest.

Let us grant him everything, let us not grudge him charm and worth;

let him be well-made, witty, and attractive; the women will run

after him; but by pursuing him before he is in love with them,

they will inspire rage rather than love; he will have successes,

but neither rapture nor passion to enjoy them. As his desires are

always anticipated; they never have time to spring up among his

pleasures, so he only feels the tedium of restraint. Even before

he knows it he is disgusted and satiated with the sex formed to

be the delight of his own; if he continues its pursuit it is only

through vanity, and even should he really be devoted to women, he

will not be the only brilliant, the only attractive young man, nor

will he always find his mistresses prodigies of fidelity.

I say nothing of the vexation, the deceit, the crimes, and the

remorse of all kinds, inseparable from such a life. We know that

experience of the world disgusts us with it; I am speaking only of

the drawbacks belonging to youthful illusions.

Hitherto the young man has lived in the bosom of his family and his

friends, and has been the sole object of their care; what a change

to enter all at once into a region where he counts for so little; to

find himself plunged into another sphere, he who has been so long

the centre of his own. What insults, what humiliation, must he endure,

before he loses among strangers the ideas of his own importance

which have been formed and nourished among his own people! As

a child everything gave way to him, everybody flocked to him; as

a young man he must give place to every one, or if he preserves

ever so little of his former airs, what harsh lessons will bring

him to himself! Accustomed to get everything he wants without any

difficulty, his wants are many, and he feels continual privations.

He is tempted by everything that flatters him; what others have,

he must have too; he covets everything, he envies every one, he

would always be master. He is devoured by vanity, his young heart

is enflamed by unbridled passions, jealousy and hatred among the

rest; all these violent passions burst out at once; their sting

rankles in him in the busy world, they return with him at night, he

comes back dissatisfied with himself, with others; he falls asleep

among a thousand foolish schemes disturbed by a thousand fancies,

and his pride shows him even in his dreams those fancied pleasures;

he is tormented by a desire which will never be satisfied. So much

for your pupil; let us turn to mine.

If the first thing to make an impression on him is something

sorrowful his first return to himself is a feeling of pleasure.

When he sees how many ills he has escaped he thinks he is happier

than he fancied. He shares the suffering of his fellow-creatures,

but he shares it of his own free will and finds pleasure in it.

He enjoys at once the pity he feels for their woes and the joy of

being exempt from them; he feels in himself that state of vigour

which projects us beyond ourselves, and bids us carry elsewhere

the superfluous activity of our well-being. To pity another's woes

we must indeed know them, but we need not feel them. When we have

suffered, when we are in fear of suffering, we pity those who

suffer; but when we suffer ourselves, we pity none but ourselves.

But if all of us, being subject ourselves to the ills of life, only

bestow upon others the sensibility we do not actually require for

ourselves, it follows that pity must be a very pleasant feeling,

since it speaks on our behalf; and, on the other hand, a hard-hearted

man is always unhappy, since the state of his heart leaves him no

superfluous sensibility to bestow on the sufferings of others.

We are too apt to judge of happiness by appearances; we suppose it

is to be found in the most unlikely places, we seek for it where

it cannot possibly be; mirth is a very doubtful indication of its

presence. A merry man is often a wretch who is trying to deceive

others and distract himself. The men who are jovial, friendly,

and contented at their club are almost always gloomy grumblers at

home, and their servants have to pay for the amusement they give

among their friends. True contentment is neither merry nor noisy;

we are jealous of so sweet a sentiment, when we enjoy it we think

about it, we delight in it for fear it should escape us. A really

happy man says little and laughs little; he hugs his happiness, so

to speak, to his heart. Noisy games, violent delight, conceal the

disappointment of satiety. But melancholy is the friend of pleasure;

tears and pity attend our sweetest enjoyment, and great joys call

for tears rather than laughter.

If at first the number and variety of our amusements seem to

contribute to our happiness, if at first the even tenor of a quiet

life seems tedious, when we look at it more closely we discover

that the pleasantest habit of mind consists in a moderate enjoyment

which leaves little scope for desire and aversion. The unrest of

passion causes curiosity and fickleness; the emptiness of noisy

pleasures causes weariness. We never weary of our state when we

know none more delightful. Savages suffer less than other men from

curiosity and from tedium; everything is the same to them--themselves,

not their possessions--and they are never weary.

The man of the world almost always wears a mask. He is scarcely

ever himself and is almost a stranger to himself; he is ill at ease

when he is forced into his own company. Not what he is, but what

he seems, is all he cares for.

I cannot help picturing in the countenance of the young man

I have just spoken of an indefinable but unpleasant impertinence,

smoothness, and affectation, which is repulsive to a plain man,

and in the countenance of my own pupil a simple and interesting

expression which indicates the real contentment and the calm

of his mind; an expression which inspires respect and confidence,

and seems only to await the establishment of friendly relations

to bestow his own confidence in return. It is thought that the

expression is merely the development of certain features designed

by nature. For my own part I think that over and above this

development a man's face is shaped, all unconsciously, by the

frequent and habitual influence of certain affections of the heart.

These affections are shown on the face, there is nothing more

certain; and when they become habitual, they must surely leave lasting

traces. This is why I think the expression shows the character, and

that we can sometimes read one another without seeking mysterious

explanations in powers we do not possess.

A child has only two distinct feelings, joy and sorrow; he laughs

or he cries; he knows no middle course, and he is constantly passing

from one extreme to the other. On account of these perpetual changes

there is no lasting impression on the face, and no expression; but

when the child is older and more sensitive, his feelings are keener

or more permanent, and these deeper impressions leave traces more

difficult to erase; and the habitual state of the feelings has an

effect on the features which in course of time becomes ineffaceable.

Still it is not uncommon to meet with men whose expression varies

with their age. I have met with several, and I have always found

that those whom I could observe and follow had also changed their

habitual temper. This one observation thoroughly confirmed would

seem to me decisive, and it is not out of place in a treatise on

education, where it is a matter of importance, that we should learn

to judge the feelings of the heart by external signs.

I do not know whether my young man will be any the less amiable

for not having learnt to copy conventional manners and to feign

sentiments which are not his own; that does not concern me at

present, I only know he will be more affectionate; and I find it

difficult to believe that he, who cares for nobody but himself,

can so far disguise his true feelings as to please as readily as he

who finds fresh happiness for himself in his affection for others.

But with regard to this feeling of happiness, I think I have said

enough already for the guidance of any sensible reader, and to show

that I have not contradicted myself.

I return to my system, and I say, when the critical age approaches,

present to young people spectacles which restrain rather than

excite them; put off their dawning imagination with objects which,

far from inflaming their senses, put a check to their activity.

Remove them from great cities, where the flaunting attire and the

boldness of the women hasten and anticipate the teaching of nature,

where everything presents to their view pleasures of which they

should know nothing till they are of an age to choose for themselves.

Bring them back to their early home, where rural simplicity allows

the passions of their age to develop more slowly; or if their taste

for the arts keeps them in town, guard them by means of this very

taste from a dangerous idleness. Choose carefully their company,

their occupations, and their pleasures; show them nothing but

modest and pathetic pictures which are touching but not seductive,

and nourish their sensibility without stimulating their senses.

Remember also, that the danger of excess is not confined to any one

place, and that immoderate passions always do irreparable damage.

You need not make your pupil a sick-nurse or a Brother of Pity; you

need not distress him by the perpetual sight of pain and suffering;

you need not take him from one hospital to another, from the gallows

to the prison. He must be softened, not hardened, by the sight of

human misery. When we have seen a sight it ceases to impress us,

use is second nature, what is always before our eyes no longer

appeals to the imagination, and it is only through the imagination

that we can feel the sorrows of others; this is why priests and

doctors who are always beholding death and suffering become so

hardened. Let your pupil therefore know something of the lot of

man and the woes of his fellow-creatures, but let him not see them

too often. A single thing, carefully selected and shown at the right

time, will fill him with pity and set him thinking for a month. His

opinion about anything depends not so much on what he sees, but on

how it reacts on himself; and his lasting impression of any object

depends less on the object itself than on the point of view from

which he regards it. Thus by a sparing use of examples, lessons,

and pictures, you may blunt the sting of sense and delay nature

while following her own lead.

As he acquires knowledge, choose what ideas he shall attach to it;

as his passions awake, select scenes calculated to repress them.

A veteran, as distinguished for his character as for his courage,

once told me that in early youth his father, a sensible man but

extremely pious, observed that through his growing sensibility he

was attracted by women, and spared no pains to restrain him; but at

last when, in spite of all his care, his son was about to escape

from his control, he decided to take him to a hospital, and,

without telling him what to expect, he introduced him into a room

where a number of wretched creatures were expiating, under a terrible

treatment, the vices which had brought them into this plight. This

hideous and revolting spectacle sickened the young man. "Miserable

libertine," said his father vehemently, "begone; follow your vile

tastes; you will soon be only too glad to be admitted to this ward,

and a victim to the most shameful sufferings, you will compel your

father to thank God when you are dead."

These few words, together with the striking spectacle he beheld,

made an impression on the young man which could never be effaced.

Compelled by his profession to pass his youth in garrison,

he preferred to face all the jests of his comrades rather than to

share their evil ways. "I have been a man," he said to me, "I have

had my weaknesses, but even to the present day the sight of a harlot

inspires me with horror." Say little to your pupil, but choose

time, place, and people; then rely on concrete examples for your

teaching, and be sure it will take effect.

The way childhood is spent is no great matter; the evil which may

find its way is not irremediable, and the good which may spring

up might come later. But it is not so in those early years when

a youth really begins to live. This time is never long enough for

what there is to be done, and its importance demands unceasing

attention; this is why I lay so much stress on the art of prolonging

it. One of the best rules of good farming is to keep things back as

much as possible. Let your progress also be slow and sure; prevent

the youth from becoming a man all at once. While the body is growing

the spirits destined to give vigour to the blood and strength to

the muscles are in process of formation and elaboration. If you turn

them into another channel, and permit that strength which should

have gone to the perfecting of one person to go to the making of

another, both remain in a state of weakness and the work of nature

is unfinished. The workings of the mind, in their turn, are affected

by this change, and the mind, as sickly as the body, functions

languidly and feebly. Length and strength of limb are not the same

thing as courage or genius, and I grant that strength of mind does

not always accompany strength of body, when the means of connection

between the two are otherwise faulty. But however well planned

they may be, they will always work feebly if for motive power they

depend upon an exhausted, impoverished supply of blood, deprived

of the substance which gives strength and elasticity to all the

springs of the machinery. There is generally more vigour of mind

to be found among men whose early years have been preserved from

precocious vice, than among those whose evil living has begun at the

earliest opportunity; and this is no doubt the reason why nations

whose morals are pure are generally superior in sense and courage

to those whose morals are bad. The latter shine only through I

know not what small and trifling qualities, which they call wit,

sagacity, cunning; but those great and noble features of goodness

and reason, by which a man is distinguished and honoured through

good deeds, virtues, really useful efforts, are scarcely to be

found except among the nations whose morals are pure.

Teachers complain that the energy of this age makes their pupils

unruly; I see that it is so, but are not they themselves to blame?

When once they have let this energy flow through the channel of the

senses, do they not know that they cannot change its course? Will

the long and dreary sermons of the pedant efface from the mind of

his scholar the thoughts of pleasure when once they have found an

entrance; will they banish from his heart the desires by which it

is tormented; will they chill the heat of a passion whose meaning

the scholar realises? Will not the pupil be roused to anger by the

obstacles opposed to the only kind of happiness of which he has

any notion? And in the harsh law imposed upon him before he can

understand it, what will he see but the caprice and hatred of a

man who is trying to torment him? Is it strange that he rebels and

hates you too?

I know very well that if one is easy-going one may be tolerated,

and one may keep up a show of authority. But I fail to see the use

of an authority over the pupil which is only maintained by fomenting

the vices it ought to repress; it is like attempting to soothe a

fiery steed by making it leap over a precipice.

Far from being a hindrance to education, this enthusiasm of

adolescence is its crown and coping-stone; this it is that gives

you a hold on the youth's heart when he is no longer weaker than

you. His first affections are the reins by which you control his

movements; he was free, and now I behold him in your power. So long

as he loved nothing, he was independent of everything but himself

and his own necessities; as soon as he loves, he is dependent on

his affections. Thus the first ties which unite him to his species

are already formed. When you direct his increasing sensibility in

this direction, do not expect that it will at once include all men,

and that the word "mankind" will have any meaning for him. Not so;

this sensibility will at first confine itself to those like himself,

and these will not be strangers to him, but those he knows, those

whom habit has made dear to him or necessary to him, those who are

evidently thinking and feeling as he does, those whom he perceives

to be exposed to the pains he has endured, those who enjoy the

pleasures he has enjoyed; in a word, those who are so like himself

that he is the more disposed to self-love. It is only after long

training, after much consideration as to his own feelings and the

feelings he observes in others, that he will be able to generalise

his individual notions under the abstract idea of humanity, and

add to his individual affections those which may identify him with

the race.

When he becomes capable of affection, he becomes aware of the

affection of others, [Footnote: Affection may be unrequited; not

so friendship. Friendship is a bargain, a contract like any other;

though a bargain more sacred than the rest. The word "friend" has

no other correlation. Any man who is not the friend of his friend

is undoubtedly a rascal; for one can only obtain friendship by

giving it, or pretending to give it.] and he is on the lookout for

the signs of that affection. Do you not see how you will acquire a

fresh hold on him? What bands have you bound about his heart while

he was yet unaware of them! What will he feel, when he beholds

himself and sees what you have done for him; when he can compare

himself with other youths, and other tutors with you! I say, "When

he sees it," but beware lest you tell him of it; if you tell him

he will not perceive it. If you claim his obedience in return for

the care bestowed upon him, he will think you have over-reached him;

he will see that while you profess to have cared for him without

reward, you meant to saddle him with a debt and to bind him to

a bargain which he never made. In vain you will add that what you

demand is for his own good; you demand it, and you demand it in

virtue of what you have done without his consent. When a man down

on his luck accepts the shilling which the sergeant professes to

give him, and finds he has enlisted without knowing what he was

about, you protest against the injustice; is it not still more unjust

to demand from your pupil the price of care which he has not even

accepted!

Ingratitude would be rarer if kindness were less often the investment

of a usurer. We love those who have done us a kindness; what a

natural feeling! Ingratitude is not to be found in the heart of man,

but self-interest is there; those who are ungrateful for benefits

received are fewer than those who do a kindness for their own ends.

If you sell me your gifts, I will haggle over the price; but if

you pretend to give, in order to sell later on at your own price,

you are guilty of fraud; it is the free gift which is beyond price.

The heart is a law to itself; if you try to bind it, you lose it;

give it its liberty, and you make it your own.

When the fisherman baits his line, the fish come round him without

suspicion; but when they are caught on the hook concealed in the

bait, they feel the line tighten and they try to escape. Is the

fisherman a benefactor? Is the fish ungrateful? Do we find a man

forgotten by his benefactor, unmindful of that benefactor? On the

contrary, he delights to speak of him, he cannot think of him without

emotion; if he gets a chance of showing him, by some unexpected

service, that he remembers what he did for him, how delighted

he is to satisfy his gratitude; what a pleasure it is to earn the

gratitude of his benefactor. How delightful to say, "It is my turn

now." This is indeed the teaching of nature; a good deed never

caused ingratitude.

If therefore gratitude is a natural feeling, and you do not destroy

its effects by your blunders, be sure your pupil, as he begins to

understand the value of your care for him, will be grateful for

it, provided you have not put a price upon it; and this will give

you an authority over his heart which nothing can overthrow. But

beware of losing this advantage before it is really yours, beware

of insisting on your own importance. Boast of your services and

they become intolerable; forget them and they will not be forgotten.

Until the time comes to treat him as a man let there be no question

of his duty to you, but his duty to himself. Let him have his

freedom if you would make him docile; hide yourself so that he may

seek you; raise his heart to the noble sentiment of gratitude by

only speaking of his own interest. Until he was able to understand

I would not have him told that what was done was for his good; he

would only have understood such words to mean that you were dependent

on him and he would merely have made you his servant. But now that

he is beginning to feel what love is, he also knows what a tender

affection may bind a man to what he loves; and in the zeal which

keeps you busy on his account, he now sees not the bonds of a slave,

but the affection of a friend. Now there is nothing which carries

so much weight with the human heart as the voice of friendship

recognised as such, for we know that it never speaks but for our

good. We may think our friend is mistaken, but we never believe

he is deceiving us. We may reject his advice now and then, but we

never scorn it.

We have reached the moral order at last; we have just taken the

second step towards manhood. If this were the place for it, I would

try to show how the first impulses of the heart give rise to the

first stirrings of conscience, and how from the feelings of love

and hatred spring the first notions of good and evil. I would show

that justice and kindness are no mere abstract terms, no mere moral

conceptions framed by the understanding, but true affections of the

heart enlightened by reason, the natural outcome of our primitive

affections; that by reason alone, unaided by conscience, we cannot

establish any natural law, and that all natural right is a vain

dream if it does not rest upon some instinctive need of the human

heart. [Footnote: The precept "Do unto others as you would have

them do unto you" has no true foundation but that of conscience

and feeling; for what valid reason is there why I, being myself,

should do what I would do if I were some one else, especially when

I am morally certain I never shall find myself in exactly the same

case; and who will answer for it that if I faithfully follow out

this maxim, I shall get others to follow it with regard to me? The

wicked takes advantage both of the uprightness of the just and of

his own injustice; he will gladly have everybody just but himself.

This bargain, whatever you may say, is not greatly to the advantage

of the just. But if the enthusiasm of an overflowing heart identifies

me with my fellow-creature, if I feel, so to speak, that I will not

let him suffer lest I should suffer too, I care for him because I

care for myself, and the reason of the precept is found in nature

herself, which inspires me with the desire for my own welfare

wherever I may be. From this I conclude that it is false to say that

the precepts of natural law are based on reason only; they have a

firmer and more solid foundation. The love of others springing from

self-love, is the source of human justice. The whole of morality is

summed up in the gospel in this summary of the law.] But I do not

think it is my business at present to prepare treatises on metaphysics

and morals, nor courses of study of any kind whatsoever; it is

enough if I indicate the order and development of our feelings and

our knowledge in relation to our growth. Others will perhaps work

out what I have here merely indicated.

Hitherto my Emile has thought only of himself, so his first glance

at his equals leads him to compare himself with them; and the first

feeling excited by this comparison is the desire to be first. It

is here that self-love is transformed into selfishness, and this is

the starting point of all the passions which spring from selfishness.

But to determine whether the passions by which his life will be

governed shall be humane and gentle or harsh and cruel, whether

they shall be the passions of benevolence and pity or those of envy

and covetousness, we must know what he believes his place among men

to be, and what sort of obstacles he expects to have to overcome

in order to attain to the position he seeks.

To guide him in this inquiry, after we have shown him men by means

of the accidents common to the species, we must now show him them

by means of their differences. This is the time for estimating

inequality natural and civil, and for the scheme of the whole social

order.

Society must be studied in the individual and the individual in

society; those who desire to treat politics and morals apart from

one another will never understand either. By confining ourselves

at first to the primitive relations, we see how men should be

influenced by them and what passions should spring from them; we

see that it is in proportion to the development of these passions

that a man's relations with others expand or contract. It is not so

much strength of arm as moderation of spirit which makes men free

and independent. The man whose wants are few is dependent on but

few people, but those who constantly confound our vain desires

with our bodily needs, those who have made these needs the basis

of human society, are continually mistaking effects for causes,

and they have only confused themselves by their own reasoning.

Since it is impossible in the state of nature that the difference

between man and man should be great enough to make one dependent

on another, there is in fact in this state of nature an actual and

indestructible equality. In the civil state there is a vain and

chimerical equality of right; the means intended for its maintenance,

themselves serve to destroy it; and the power of the community,

added to the power of the strongest for the oppression of the

weak, disturbs the sort of equilibrium which nature has established

between them. [Footnote: The universal spirit of the laws of every

country is always to take the part of the strong against the weak,

and the part of him who has against him who has not; this defect

is inevitable, and there is no exception to it.] From this first

contradiction spring all the other contradictions between the real

and the apparent, which are to be found in the civil order. The many

will always be sacrificed to the few, the common weal to private

interest; those specious words--justice and subordination--will

always serve as the tools of violence and the weapons of injustice;

hence it follows that the higher classes which claim to be useful

to the rest are really only seeking their own welfare at the expense

of others; from this we may judge how much consideration is due to

them according to right and justice. It remains to be seen if the

rank to which they have attained is more favourable to their own

happiness to know what opinion each one of us should form with regard

to his own lot. This is the study with which we are now concerned;

but to do it thoroughly we must begin with a knowledge of the human

heart.

If it were only a question of showing young people man in his mask,

there would be no need to point him out, and he would always be

before their eyes; but since the mask is not the man, and since

they must not be led away by its specious appearance, when you paint

men for your scholar, paint them as they are, not that he may hate

them, but that he may pity them and have no wish to be like them.

In my opinion that is the most reasonable view a man can hold with

regard to his fellow-men.

With this object in view we must take the opposite way from that

hitherto followed, and instruct the youth rather through the experience

of others than through his own. If men deceive him he will hate

them; but, if, while they treat him with respect, he sees them

deceiving each other, he will pity them. "The spectacle of the

world," said Pythagoras, "is like the Olympic games; some are buying

and selling and think only of their gains; others take an active

part and strive for glory; others, and these not the worst, are

content to be lookers-on."

I would have you so choose the company of a youth that he should

think well of those among whom he lives, and I would have you so

teach him to know the world that he should think ill of all that

takes place in it. Let him know that man is by nature good, let

him feel it, let him judge his neighbour by himself; but let him

see how men are depraved and perverted by society; let him find the

source of all their vices in their preconceived opinions; let him

be disposed to respect the individual, but to despise the multitude;

let him see that all men wear almost the same mask, but let him

also know that some faces are fairer than the mask that conceals

them.

It must be admitted that this method has its drawbacks, and it is

not easy to carry it out; for if he becomes too soon engrossed in

watching other people, if you train him to mark too closely the

actions of others, you will make him spiteful and satirical, quick

and decided in his judgments of others; he will find a hateful

pleasure in seeking bad motives, and will fail to see the good even

in that which is really good. He will, at least, get used to the

sight of vice, he will behold the wicked without horror, just as we

get used to seeing the wretched without pity. Soon the perversity

of mankind will be not so much a warning as an excuse; he will say,

"Man is made so," and he will have no wish to be different from

the rest.

But if you wish to teach him theoretically to make him acquainted,

not only with the heart of man, but also with the application of

the external causes which turn our inclinations into vices; when

you thus transport him all at once from the objects of sense to the

objects of reason, you employ a system of metaphysics which he is

not in a position to understand; you fall back into the error, so

carefully avoided hitherto, of giving him lessons which are like

lessons, of substituting in his mind the experience and the authority

of the master for his own experience and the development of his

own reason.

To remove these two obstacles at once, and to bring the human heart

within his reach without risk of spoiling his own, I would show

him men from afar, in other times or in other places, so that he

may behold the scene but cannot take part in it. This is the time

for history; with its help he will read the hearts of men without

any lessons in philosophy; with its help he will view them as a

mere spectator, dispassionate and without prejudice; he will view

them as their judge, not as their accomplice or their accuser.

To know men you must behold their actions. In society we hear them

talk; they show their words and hide their deeds; but in history

the veil is drawn aside, and they are judged by their deeds. Their

sayings even help us to understand them; for comparing what they

say and what they do, we see not only what they are but what they

would appear; the more they disguise themselves the more thoroughly

they stand revealed.

Unluckily this study has its dangers, its drawbacks of several

kinds. It is difficult to adopt a point of view which will enable

one to judge one's fellow-creatures fairly. It is one of the chief

defects of history to paint men's evil deeds rather than their

good ones; it is revolutions and catastrophes that make history

interesting; so long as a nation grows and prospers quietly in

the tranquillity of a peaceful government, history says nothing;

she only begins to speak of nations when, no longer able to be

self-sufficing, they interfere with their neighbours' business, or

allow their neighbours to interfere with their own; history only

makes them famous when they are on the downward path; all our

histories begin where they ought to end. We have very accurate

accounts of declining nations; what we lack is the history of those

nations which are multiplying; they are so happy and so good that

history has nothing to tell us of them; and we see indeed in our

own times that the most successful governments are least talked

of. We only hear what is bad; the good is scarcely mentioned. Only

the wicked become famous, the good are forgotten or laughed to

scorn, and thus history, like philosophy, is for ever slandering

mankind.

Moreover, it is inevitable that the facts described in history

should not give an exact picture of what really happened; they are

transformed in the brain of the historian, they are moulded by his

interests and coloured by his prejudices. Who can place the reader

precisely in a position to see the event as it really happened?

Ignorance or partiality disguises everything. What a different

impression may be given merely by expanding or contracting the

circumstances of the case without altering a single historical

incident. The same object may be seen from several points of view,

and it will hardly seem the same thing, yet there has been no

change except in the eye that beholds it. Do you indeed do honour

to truth when what you tell me is a genuine fact, but you make it

appear something quite different? A tree more or less, a rock to

the right or to the left, a cloud of dust raised by the wind, how

often have these decided the result of a battle without any one

knowing it? Does that prevent history from telling you the cause

of defeat or victory with as much assurance as if she had been

on the spot? But what are the facts to me, while I am ignorant of

their causes, and what lessons can I draw from an event, whose true

cause is unknown to me? The historian indeed gives me a reason, but

he invents it; and criticism itself, of which we hear so much, is

only the art of guessing, the art of choosing from among several

lies, the lie that is most like truth.

Have you ever read Cleopatra or Cassandra or any books of the kind?

The author selects some well-known event, he then adapts it to his

purpose, adorns it with details of his own invention, with people

who never existed, with imaginary portraits; thus he piles fiction

on fiction to lend a charm to his story. I see little difference

between such romances and your histories, unless it is that the

novelist draws more on his own imagination, while the historian

slavishly copies what another has imagined; I will also admit, if

you please, that the novelist has some moral purpose good or bad,

about which the historian scarcely concerns himself.

You will tell me that accuracy in history is of less interest than

a true picture of men and manners; provided the human heart is

truly portrayed, it matters little that events should be accurately

recorded; for after all you say, what does it matter to us what

happened two thousand years ago? You are right if the portraits are

indeed truly given according to nature; but if the model is to be

found for the most part in the historian's imagination, are you not

falling into the very error you intended to avoid, and surrendering

to the authority of the historian what you would not yield to

the authority of the teacher? If my pupil is merely to see fancy

pictures, I would rather draw them myself; they will, at least, be

better suited to him.

The worst historians for a youth are those who give their opinions.

Facts! Facts! and let him decide for himself; this is how he will

learn to know mankind. If he is always directed by the opinion of

the author, he is only seeing through the eyes of another person,

and when those ayes are no longer at his disposal he can see nothing.

I leave modern history on one side, not only because it has no

character and all our people are alike, but because our historians,

wholly taken up with effect, think of nothing but highly coloured

portraits, which often represent nothing. [Footnote: Take, for

instance, Guicciardini, Streda, Solis, Machiavelli, and sometimes

even De Thou himself. Vertot is almost the only one who knows

how to describe without giving fancy portraits.] The old historians

generally give fewer portraits and bring more intelligence

and common-sense to their judgments; but even among them there is

plenty of scope for choice, and you must not begin with the wisest

but with the simplest. I would not put Polybius or Sallust into

the hands of a youth; Tacitus is the author of the old, young men

cannot understand him; you must learn to see in human actions the

simplest features of the heart of man before you try to sound its

depths. You must be able to read facts clearly before you begin

to study maxims. Philosophy in the form of maxims is only fit for

the experienced. Youth should never deal with the general, all

its teaching should deal with individual instances.

To my mind Thucydides is the true model of historians. He relates

facts without giving his opinion; but he omits no circumstance

adapted to make us judge for ourselves. He puts everything that he

relates before his reader; far from interposing between the facts

and the readers, he conceals himself; we seem not to read but to

see. Unfortunately he speaks of nothing but war, and in his stories

we only see the least instructive part of the world, that is to

say the battles. The virtues and defects of the Retreat of the Ten

Thousand and the Commentaries of Caesar are almost the same. The

kindly Herodotus, without portraits, without maxims, yet flowing,

simple, full of details calculated to delight and interest in the

highest degree, would be perhaps the best historian if these very

details did not often degenerate into childish folly, better adapted

to spoil the taste of youth than to form it; we need discretion

before we can read him. I say nothing of Livy, his turn will come;

but he is a statesman, a rhetorician, he is everything which is

unsuitable for a youth.

History in general is lacking because it only takes note of striking

and clearly marked facts which may be fixed by names, places,

and dates; but the slow evolution of these facts, which cannot be

definitely noted in this way, still remains unknown. We often find

in some battle, lost or won, the ostensible cause of a revolution

which was inevitable before this battle took place. War only makes

manifest events already determined by moral causes, which few

historians can perceive.

The philosophic spirit has turned the thoughts of many of the

historians of our times in this direction; but I doubt whether

truth has profited by their labours. The rage for systems has got

possession of all alike, no one seeks to see things as they are,

but only as they agree with his system.

Add to all these considerations the fact that history shows us

actions rather than men, because she only seizes men at certain

chosen times in full dress; she only portrays the statesman when

he is prepared to be seen; she does not follow him to his home, to

his study, among his family and his friends; she only shows him in

state; it is his clothes rather than himself that she describes.

I would prefer to begin the study of the human heart with reading

the lives of individuals; for then the man hides himself in vain,

the historian follows him everywhere; he never gives him a moment's

grace nor any corner where he can escape the piercing eye of the

spectator; and when he thinks he is concealing himself, then it is

that the writer shows him up most plainly.

"Those who write lives," says Montaigne, "in so far as they delight

more in ideas than in events, more in that which comes from within

than in that which comes from without, these are the writers I

prefer; for this reason Plutarch is in every way the man for me."

It is true that the genius of men in groups or nations is very

different from the character of the individual man, and that we

have a very imperfect knowledge of the human heart if we do not

also examine it in crowds; but it is none the less true that to

judge of men we must study the individual man, and that he who had

a perfect knowledge of the inclinations of each individual might

foresee all their combined effects in the body of the nation.

We must go back again to the ancients, for the reasons already

stated, and also because all the details common and familiar, but

true and characteristic, are banished by modern stylists, so that

men are as much tricked out by our modern authors in their private

life as in public. Propriety, no less strict in literature than

in life, no longer permits us to say anything in public which we

might not do in public; and as we may only show the man dressed up

for his part, we never see a man in our books any more than we do

on the stage. The lives of kings may be written a hundred times,

but to no purpose; we shall never have another Suetonius.

The excellence of Plutarch consists in these very details which

we are no longer permitted to describe. With inimitable grace he

paints the great man in little things; and he is so happy in the

choice of his instances that a word, a smile, a gesture, will often

suffice to indicate the nature of his hero. With a jest Hannibal

cheers his frightened soldiers, and leads them laughing to the

battle which will lay Italy at his feet; Agesilaus riding on a

stick makes me love the conqueror of the great king; Caesar passing

through a poor village and chatting with his friends unconsciously

betrays the traitor who professed that he only wished to be Pompey's

equal. Alexander swallows a draught without a word--it is the

finest moment in his life; Aristides writes his own name on the

shell and so justifies his title; Philopoemen, his mantle laid aside,

chops firewood in the kitchen of his host. This is the true art of

portraiture. Our disposition does not show itself in our features,

nor our character in our great deeds; it is trifles that show what

we really are. What is done in public is either too commonplace

or too artificial, and our modern authors are almost too grand to

tell us anything else.

M. de Turenne was undoubtedly one of the greatest men of the last

century. They have had the courage to make his life interesting by

the little details which make us know and love him; but how many

details have they felt obliged to omit which might have made us

know and love him better still? I will only quote one which I have

on good authority, one which Plutarch would never have omitted, and

one which Ramsai would never have inserted had he been acquainted

with it.

On a hot summer's day Viscount Turenne in a little white vest and

nightcap was standing at the window of his antechamber; one of

his men came up and, misled by the dress, took him for one of the

kitchen lads whom he knew. He crept up behind him and smacked him

with no light hand. The man he struck turned round hastily. The valet

saw it was his master and trembled at the sight of his face. He

fell on his knees in desperation. "Sir, I thought it was George."

"Well, even if it was George," exclaimed Turenne rubbing the injured

part, "you need not have struck so hard." You do not dare to say

this, you miserable writers! Remain for ever without humanity and

without feeling; steel your hard hearts in your vile propriety, make

yourselves contemptible through your high-mightiness. But as for

you, dear youth, when you read this anecdote, when you are touched

by all the kindliness displayed even on the impulse of the moment,

read also the littleness of this great man when it was a question

of his name and birth. Remember it was this very Turenne who always

professed to yield precedence to his nephew, so that all men might

see that this child was the head of a royal house. Look on this

picture and on that, love nature, despise popular prejudice, and

know the man as he was.

There are few people able to realise what an effect such reading,

carefully directed, will have upon the unspoilt mind of a youth.

Weighed down by books from our earliest childhood, accustomed to

read without thinking, what we read strikes us even less, because

we already bear in ourselves the passions and prejudices with which

history and the lives of men are filled; all that they do strikes

us as only natural, for we ourselves are unnatural and we judge

others by ourselves. But imagine my Emile, who has been carefully

guarded for eighteen years with the sole object of preserving a

right judgment and a healthy heart, imagine him when the curtain

goes up casting his eyes for the first time upon the world's stage;

or rather picture him behind the scenes watching the actors don

their costumes, and counting the cords and pulleys which deceive

with their feigned shows the eyes of the spectators. His first

surprise will soon give place to feelings of shame and scorn of his

fellow-man; he will be indignant at the sight of the whole human

race deceiving itself and stooping to this childish folly; he will

grieve to see his brothers tearing each other limb from limb for

a mere dream, and transforming themselves into wild beasts because

they could not be content to be men.

Given the natural disposition of the pupil, there is no doubt that

if the master exercises any sort of prudence or discretion in

his choice of reading, however little he may put him in the way

of reflecting on the subject-matter, this exercise will serve as

a course in practical philosophy, a philosophy better understood

and more thoroughly mastered than all the empty speculations with

which the brains of lads are muddled in our schools. After following

the romantic schemes of Pyrrhus, Cineas asks him what real good he

would gain by the conquest of the world, which he can never enjoy

without such great sufferings; this only arouses in us a passing

interest as a smart saying; but Emile will think it a very wise

thought, one which had already occurred to himself, and one which

he will never forget, because there is no hostile prejudice in

his mind to prevent it sinking in. When he reads more of the life

of this madman, he will find that all his great plans resulted in

his death at the hands of a woman, and instead of admiring this

pinchbeck heroism, what will he see in the exploits of this great

captain and the schemes of this great statesman but so many steps

towards that unlucky tile which was to bring life and schemes alike

to a shameful death?

All conquerors have not been killed; all usurpers have not failed

in their plans; to minds imbued with vulgar prejudices many of them

will seem happy, but he who looks below the surface and reckons

men's happiness by the condition of their hearts will perceive

their wretchedness even in the midst of their successes; he will

see them panting after advancement and never attaining their prize,

he will find them like those inexperienced travellers among the

Alps, who think that every height they see is the last, who reach

its summit only to find to their disappointment there are loftier

peaks beyond.

Augustus, when he had subdued his fellow-citizens and destroyed

his rivals, reigned for forty years over the greatest empire that

ever existed; but all this vast power could not hinder him from

beating his head against the walls, and filling his palace with his

groans as he cried to Varus to restore his slaughtered legions. If

he had conquered all his foes what good would his empty triumphs

have done him, when troubles of every kind beset his path, when

his life was threatened by his dearest friends, and when he had to

mourn the disgrace or death of all near and dear to him? The wretched

man desired to rule the world and failed to rule his own household.

What was the result of this neglect? He beheld his nephew, his

adopted child, his son-in-law, perish in the flower of youth, his

grandson reduced to eat the stuffing of his mattress to prolong

his wretched existence for a few hours; his daughter and his

granddaughter, after they had covered him with infamy, died, the

one of hunger and want on a desert island, the other in prison by

the hand of a common archer. He himself, the last survivor of his

unhappy house, found himself compelled by his own wife to acknowledge

a monster as his heir. Such was the fate of the master of the world,

so famous for his glory and his good fortune. I cannot believe that

any one of those who admire his glory and fortune would accept them

at the same price.

I have taken ambition as my example, but the play of every human

passion offers similar lessons to any one who will study history

to make himself wise and good at the expense of those who went

before. The time is drawing near when the teaching of the life

of Anthony will appeal more forcibly to the youth than the life

of Augustus. Emile will scarcely know where he is among the many

strange sights in his new studies; but he will know beforehand how

to avoid the illusion of passions before they arise, and seeing how

in all ages they have blinded men's eyes, he will be forewarned of

the way in which they may one day blind his own should he abandon

himself to them. [Footnote: It is always prejudice which stirs

up passion in our heart. He who only sees what really exists and

only values what he knows, rarely becomes angry. The errors of

our judgment produce the warmth of our desires.] These lessons, I

know, are unsuited to him, perhaps at need they may prove scanty

and ill-timed; but remember they are not the lessons I wished to

draw from this study. To begin with, I had quite another end in

view; and indeed, if this purpose is unfulfilled, the teacher will

be to blame.

Remember that, as soon as selfishness has developed, the self

in its relations to others is always with us, and the youth never

observes others without coming back to himself and comparing himself

with them. From the way young men are taught to study history I

see that they are transformed, so to speak, into the people they

behold, that you strive to make a Cicero, a Trajan, or an Alexander

of them, to discourage them when they are themselves again, to

make every one regret that he is merely himself. There are certain

advantages in this plan which I do not deny; but, so far as Emile

is concerned, should it happen at any time when he is making these

comparisons that he wishes to be any one but himself--were it

Socrates or Cato--I have failed entirely; he who begins to regard

himself as a stranger will soon forget himself altogether.

It is not philosophers who know most about men; they only view them

through the preconceived ideas of philosophy, and I know no one so

prejudiced as philosophers. A savage would judge us more sanely.

The philosopher is aware of his own vices, he is indignant at ours,

and he says to himself, "We are all bad alike;" the savage beholds

us unmoved and says, "You are mad." He is right, for no one does

evil for evil's sake. My pupil is that savage, with this difference:

Emile has thought more, he has compared ideas, seen our errors at

close quarters, he is more on his guard against himself, and only

judges of what he knows.

It is our own passions that excite us against the passions of

others; it is our self-interest which makes us hate the wicked;

if they did us no harm we should pity rather than hate them. We

should readily forgive their vices if we could perceive how their

own heart punishes those vices. We are aware of the offence, but we

do not see the punishment; the advantages are plain, the penalty is

hidden. The man who thinks he is enjoying the fruits of his vices

is no less tormented by them than if they had not been successful; the

object is different, the anxiety is the same; in vain he displays

his good fortune and hides his heart; in spite of himself his

conduct betrays him; but to discern this, our own heart must be

utterly unlike his.

We are led astray by those passions which we share; we are disgusted

by those that militate against our own interests; and with a want

of logic due to these very passions, we blame in others what we fain

would imitate. Aversion and self-deception are inevitable when we

are forced to endure at another's hands what we ourselves would do

in his place.

What then is required for the proper study of men? A great wish

to know men, great impartiality of judgment, a heart sufficiently

sensitive to understand every human passion, and calm enough to

be free from passion. If there is any time in our life when this

study is likely to be appreciated, it is this that I have chosen

for Emile; before this time men would have been strangers to him;

later on he would have been like them. Convention, the effects of

which he already perceives, has not yet made him its slave, the

passions, whose consequences he realises, have not yet stirred his

heart. He is a man; he takes an interest in his brethren; he is

a just man and he judges his peers. Now it is certain that if he

judges them rightly he will not want to change places with any one

of them, for the goal of all their anxious efforts is the result

of prejudices which he does not share, and that goal seems to him

a mere dream. For his own part, he has all he wants within his

reach. How should he be dependent on any one when he is self-sufficing

and free from prejudice? Strong arms, good health, [Footnote: I

think I may fairly reckon health and strength among the advantages

he has obtained by his education, or rather among the gifts of

nature which his education has preserved for him.] moderation, few

needs, together with the means to satisfy those needs, are his.

He has been brought up in complete liberty and servitude is the

greatest ill he understands. He pities these miserable kings, the

slaves of all who obey them; he pities these false prophets fettered

by their empty fame; he pities these rich fools, martyrs to their

own pomp; he pities these ostentatious voluptuaries, who spend their

life in deadly dullness that they may seem to enjoy its pleasures.

He would pity the very foe who harmed him, for he would discern his

wretchedness beneath his cloak of spite. He would say to himself,

"This man has yielded to his desire to hurt me, and this need of

his places him at my mercy."

One step more and our goal is attained. Selfishness is a dangerous

tool though a useful one; it often wounds the hand that uses it,

and it rarely does good unmixed with evil. When Emile considers his

place among men, when he finds himself so fortunately situated, he

will be tempted to give credit to his own reason for the work of

yours, and to attribute to his own deserts what is really the result

of his good fortune. He will say to himself, "I am wise and other

men are fools." He will pity and despise them and will congratulate

himself all the more heartily; and as he knows he is happier than

they, he will think his deserts are greater. This is the fault we

have most to fear, for it is the most difficult to eradicate. If

he remained in this state of mind, he would have profited little

by all our care; and if I had to choose, I hardly know whether I

would not rather choose the illusions of prejudice than those of

pride.

Great men are under no illusion with respect to their superiority;

they see it and know it, but they are none the less modest. The

more they have, the better they know what they lack. They are less

vain of their superiority over us than ashamed by the consciousness

of their weakness, and among the good things they really possess,

they are too wise to pride themselves on a gift which is none of

their getting. The good man may be proud of his virtue for it is

his own, but what cause for pride has the man of intellect? What

has Racine done that he is not Pradon, and Boileau that he is not

Cotin?

The circumstances with which we are concerned are quite different.

Let us keep to the common level. I assumed that my pupil had neither

surpassing genius nor a defective understanding. I chose him of an

ordinary mind to show what education could do for man. Exceptions

defy all rules. If, therefore, as a result of my care, Emile

prefers his way of living, seeing, and feeling to that of others,

he is right; but if he thinks because of this that he is nobler

and better born than they, he is wrong; he is deceiving himself;

he must be undeceived, or rather let us prevent the mistake, lest

it be too late to correct it.

Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of any folly but vanity;

there is no cure for this but experience, if indeed there is any

cure for it at all; when it first appears we can at least prevent

its further growth. But do not on this account waste your breath

on empty arguments to prove to the youth that he is like other men

and subject to the same weaknesses. Make him feel it or he will

never know it. This is another instance of an exception to my own

rules; I must voluntarily expose my pupil to every accident which

may convince him that he is no wiser than we. The adventure with

the conjurer will be repeated again and again in different ways; I

shall let flatterers take advantage of him; if rash comrades draw

him into some perilous adventure, I will let him run the risk;

if he falls into the hands of sharpers at the card-table, I will

abandon him to them as their dupe.[Footnote: Moreover our pupil

will be little tempted by this snare; he has so many amusements

about him, he has never been bored in his life, and he scarcely knows

the use of money. As children have been led by these two motives,

self-interest and vanity, rogues and courtesans use the same means

to get hold of them later. When you see their greediness encouraged

by prizes and rewards, when you find their public performances

at ten years old applauded at school or college, you see too how

at twenty they will be induced to leave their purse in a gambling

hell and their health in a worse place. You may safely wager that

the sharpest boy in the class will become the greatest gambler and

debauchee. Now the means which have not been employed in childhood

have not the same effect in youth. But we must bear in mind

my constant plan and take the thing at its worst. First I try to

prevent the vice; then I assume its existence in order to correct

it.] I will let them flatter him, pluck him, and rob him; and when

having sucked him dry they turn and mock him, I will even thank

them to his face for the lessons they have been good enough to give

him. The only snares from which I will guard him with my utmost

care are the wiles of wanton women. The only precaution I shall take

will be to share all the dangers I let him run, and all the insults

I let him receive. I will bear everything in silence, without a

murmur or reproach, without a word to him, and be sure that if this

wise conduct is faithfully adhered to, what he sees me endure on

his account will make more impression on his heart than what he

himself suffers.

I cannot refrain at this point from drawing attention to the sham

dignity of tutors, who foolishly pretend to be wise, who discourage

their pupils by always professing to treat them as children, and

by emphasising the difference between themselves and their scholars

in everything they do. Far from damping their youthful spirits in

this fashion, spare no effort to stimulate their courage; that they

may become your equals, treat them as such already, and if they

cannot rise to your level, do not scruple to come down to theirs

without being ashamed of it. Remember that your honour is no longer

in your own keeping but in your pupil's. Share his faults that

you may correct them, bear his disgrace that you may wipe it out;

follow the example of that brave Roman who, unable to rally his

fleeing soldiers, placed himself at their head, exclaiming, "They

do not flee, they follow their captain!" Did this dishonour him?

Not so; by sacrificing his glory he increased it. The power of

duty, the beauty of virtue, compel our respect in spite of all our

foolish prejudices. If I received a blow in the course of my duties

to Emile, far from avenging it I would boast of it; and I doubt

whether there is in the whole world a man so vile as to respect me

any the less on this account.